#AND YOUR BRAIN IS IMMENSELY GALAXY

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

where you lead me, i’ll follow ; suguru geto

synopsis; opening up is hard, even under the comfort of a starry sky, seated next to your childhood friend. fortunately, suguru knows you like the back of his hand.

word count; 10k (dont even look at me i got carried away ok….)

contents; suguru geto/reader, gn!reader, mutual pining, childhood friends to lovers (eventually. probably.), hurt/comfort (mostly comfort tbh), fluffy overall!!, reader is silly and suguru is down horrendous, written with a no curses au in mind, i’m madly in love with suguru geto and it shows

a/n; nothing goes harder than sugu w/ the childhood friends trope i fear. the angst potential, the fluff potential….. the slow burn of it all……….. anyways can u tell i miss him :’3

time goes by so very quickly.

as you look up at the starry sky, the thought envelops you like a fuzzy tidal wave; heavy, suffocating, entirely unavoidable. these days, sinking beneath its weight is all you seem to do.

a sigh flows from your parted lips. soft and quiet, somewhat resigned. the midnight air tastes cold and crispy on your tongue, turning into a flurry of vapour as you breathe it out again, watching it dissipate into the summer night. beyond the boundary of your vision, stars burn in tandem. all you can see is the darkness of the cosmos, pupils dilating as you take in the immensity of the world, the little flickers of starlight that glimmer in that all-encompassing veil of black — blooming out across the galaxy. 

the moon is beautiful, tonight. 

a big blob of reflected sunlight, smiling down at you so very tenderly, so gorgeous that it makes your heart ache. shining with a hazy kind of brightness, soothing like the lilt of a mother’s voice. 

and there’s a comfort, in the familiarity of the sight. because the moon is always, always there. always shining down on you, always when you need it most, even when it’s carved into a crescent or hidden by a blur of clouds. a view that never ever seems to change, no matter how many years go by. 

what a lovely thing to be.

another second lost, as you gaze into the nothingness of space. time keeps passing you by, never stopping — seconds turning into minutes, minutes turning into months. that incessant moving of the hands of the clock; tick, tock, tick, tock. over and over again. 

and, really, it’s a little bit scary. you think you might be terrified of time. you’re so afraid, afraid of being left behind, afraid that the world will turn its back on you and then walk away. afraid that everyone and everything will change shape before you know it.

but even in this always-changing, turbulent mess of a life — 

one thing remains the same.

”ah. there you are.”

(that voice.)

honeyed and smooth, but still rough around the edges. just a little husky. deep and familiar, etched into your brain; even if you were to forget everything else, you’re sure you’d still remember it. that familiar, familiar voice. it sounds like moonlit nights, and sunkissed kitchens.

it sounds like coming home.

a turn of your head. it’s a subconscious reaction, as natural as the beating of your own heart, memorized down to the very marrow of your bones — muscle memory, to seek him out after hearing the low timbre of his voice. you do it as if it’s the only thing worth hearing.

and suguru is smiling, when your eyes meet his. that gentle upward tug of his lips, small yet sincere. the one that always puts your mind at ease.

a warmth settles in your chest, at the sight of him. hair down, cascading over his shoulders and back, a little messy; as black as the night sky. a stark contrast to the white of his shirt, old, oversized, with some indie band on the front.

his eyes glimmer like little pockets of stardust in the darkness of the night. cutting through the haze, into your very soul.

”… damn,” you click your tongue, faux pout playing at your lips. ”how’d you know i’d be up here?”

suguru shrugs. ”lucky guess,” he lies.

of course i knew, he thinks. finding you is his specialty. always has been. like that one time he found you hiding under a table at your twelfth birthday party, or the time he found you crying in the woods when you got lost on your school field trip.

finding you comes easy, to suguru. almost like he’s always seeking you out, subconsciously or otherwise, always paying attention to your movements. you go south, and he follows. you go north, and he’s already waiting up ahead.

he’s worried. just a bit, is what he tells himself, but truthfully it’s more than that. because tonight was supposed to be for you. for the both of you, a celebration of your shared graduation — but before he knew it, you had slipped away. seizing the opportunity as soon as people grew too sleepy to notice. 

(sadly for you, no amount of fatigue could ever distract him from the lack of your presence.)

you look small, suguru thinks, curled up with your knees to your chest. sitting all alone up on the roof of his home, a place you’d always go to on nights when you couldn’t sleep. together, sharing whispered secrets and hushed laughter until the sun began to rise again.

back then, it felt like the two of you were the only ones awake in the whole world.

(the safest world he’s ever known.)

the distance between you grows narrower, as suguru makes his way over to you — and it always does, at the end of the day. no matter how much time you spend apart, that uncomfortable distance always, always ends up broached. one of you always moves closer. as if it’s unavoidable, two planets spinning around each other’s orbit.

suguru plops down right next to you, crossing his legs and leaning back. his knee bumps against the side of your shoe, and his shoulder grazes yours. it’s natural, as natural as the glow of the moon, this closeness between you. it reminds you of the gentle lapping of ocean waves at your bare ankles; on mellow summer days, comforting and familiar. a warmth that never goes away.

a brief inhale, and your heartbeat settles into a tender rhythm again. the scent that always lingers on suguru’s skin drifts throughout the air, mingling with your own — it can be hard to distinguish between the two, with how often you end up wearing each other’s clothes, but you could never mistake it for anything else. cedarwood and earl gray, with a hint of coconut-scented shampoo. enveloping every single one of your senses, grounding you in a way nothing else can.

leaning just a little closer to him, subconsciously, you let a fond exhale slip from your lips. barely audible. and suguru mimics it.

”of course i knew,” he whispers, voice gone soft. ”i know you.”

(your chest tightens. it doesn’t go away.)

another tiny breath flows into the air, as you gaze up at the stars in wonder. ”… yeah.”

the silence between you is a comfortable one. always has been. a little fickle, always shattered by one of you before long — usually you, though suguru isn’t much better. 

but this time, he stays silent.

he’s waiting. you know he is, because he always does. he’s waiting, waiting for you to break the silence first. waiting for you to say something, tell him what’s wrong, explain why you’re up here instead of celebrating with the others. waiting for you to explain why your eyes have looked so tired, this past week.

(you’d like to ask him the same thing. he’s an idiot if he thinks a little makeup is enough to hide those dark circles from you.)

suguru is nothing if not patient. so he waits, unbothered by the silence. admiring the stars, and the flicker of their light. a vague worry simmers in his chest, however, and he can’t stop himself from glancing down at you every now and then.

an insatiable yearning to soothe you gnaws at his heart — but he can’t, not unless you let him.

a sigh drops from your lips, suddenly. deep and heavy, like a rock thrown into the depths of a lake. the silence breaks. 

”hey, suguru.”

the man in question doesn’t speak, only emitting an inquisitive hum. he doesn’t look at you, either; a form of respect. knowing you’ll find it easier to get whatever’s bugging you off your chest without him scrutinizing you. 

the pads of your fingers tap at the tiles of the roof. an absentminded habit, as you inhale a bit of the midnight air. it tastes like summer. ”do you remember how we first met?”

suguru glances at you, a surprised glint in his eyes. he can’t help himself — unable to resist the temptation of seeing your face, drinking in your expression.

then he chuckles.

”haha.. are you feeling sentimental?” he teases, a lighthearted sense of amusement in his voice. bubbling up like seafoam. ”did you come out here just to brood?”

the corners of his lips quirk up when he hears you huff, hugging your legs closer to your chest with a furrow of your brow. cheek squished against your kneecap as you meet his gaze.

”c’mon,” you whine, pouting childishly in a way you know will make him give in. ”just indulge me a little…”

suguru smiles. it’s soft around the edges, smoothed over with an unmistakable fondness — and he does indulge you. he always does. ”of course i do,” he assures you.

the silence that settles between your words is tender. a mutual understanding, of sorts.

of course i remember. how could i not?

”you broke into my backyard.”

a sigh. heavy and sharp, as it tumbles from your lips, and suguru has to bite back a grin. his eyes shine with something teasing, in the dark, when you shoot a glare his way.

”okay, first of all —” you begin, ”i didn’t break into anything. i climbed over the fence. peacefully.”

suguru raises a brow. ”that literally doesn’t matter? it’s still trespassing.”

”i was seven years old!”

”some criminals start young.”

another harmless little huff, as you halfheartedly try to sound annoyed. it doesn’t work. in an attempt to hide your growing smile, you tuck your face into your knees. ”whatever.”

then your gaze shifts. towards that expanding starry sky, the vibrant flicker of the moon, like a moth to a flame. helpless to its charms. it looks like a giant sponge cake, the kind you and suguru used to make when that was the only recipe you knew — you’d eat from the batter, and he’d scold you. then he’d do it too, when your back was turned.

a smile settles on your lips. in every star, you find a new memory; and the fuzzy nostalgia that engulfs you makes your heart feel bare. ”i just wanted to pet your cat,” you recall, softly.

suguru nods. gazing down at you, basking in the expression on your face — peaceful and relaxed, a little more yourself. so effortlessly pretty, bathed in moonlight. ”yeah. i remember.”

he allows the memory to sweep him away, for a second or two. recalling the sight of you, all those years ago, an unfamiliar child in his backyard. it was like you had just fallen out of the sky. quiet and meek, but looking at his cat with an excited glimmer in your eyes.

”you just pointed to her and expected me to understand,” he continues. a grin blooms on his face, hopelessly endeared. ”you were shy back then.”

a raise of your eyebrow. ”um? i’m still shy?”

suguru gives you a look. he doesn’t have to say anything — it’s written all over his face. the classic suguru look, the kind where you can tell he’s itching to say oh, really now? the kind where he tries to look judgemental, but never quite manages to hide the amusement in his eyes.

a small giggle leaves your lips, and suguru smiles, once more. so helpless in the face of your joy.

”then we watched movies at my place.”

you hum. ”it was fun.”

”yeah.”

another bout of silence. soft, terribly precious. the air is chilly, but not enough to make you shiver; a mild summer night, pleasant on your skin and light on your heart. a gentle breeze tousles your hair. in the distance, you hear cicadas buzzing — a familiar sound. unchanging.

(if only everything else could stay the same, too.)

”do you remember what movie it was?”

a lazy smile plays at suguru’s lips, when he angles his face to look at you. one eyebrow raised. ”is there a point to this, or —?”

”i just wanna reminisce.”

suguru pauses. your eyes trail across the view that stretches out before you, from the moon to the distant city lights, as you fidget absentmindedly with the strings of your hoodie. he thinks to himself that you look a little lost. gaze forgotten, within the depths of that endless night sky.

no more teasing, he decides, tactfully. instead, he opts to answer your question; softly, as if he could hurt you if he raised even a single octave of his voice. ”whisper of the heart,” is all he says.

a hum, as you nod. decisively. ”the best one.”

suguru turns his head away, and mutters something under his breath. but you can still hear him — and you know he wants you to.

”spirited away is the best one…”

out of the corner of your eye, you shoot him a thoroughly unimpressed look. he bites back a soft bout of laughter, teeth sinking into his lip gently, not enough to sting.

”you’re so basic,” you grin.

”you just want to feel quirky,” suguru shoots back, instantaneous. ”and you only like it because of seiji.”

”you only like spirited away because of haku!”

suguru closes his eyes, and leans back a little, crossing his arms in a childish fashion — and you know he only does it to make you laugh. ”i don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies.

”oh please,” you scoff. ”you really think i don’t remember your queer awakening?”

”hm? what was that?” feigning confusion, he puts a hand to his ear. but there’s a mirth in his eyes, impossible to miss. ”you’re gonna have to come closer, i can’t hear you from here.”

another unimpressed look. you exhale, something in between a huff and a chuckle. ”if i get any closer i’ll be in your lap, dumbass.”

suguru bites his cheek, softly. gulping down the words that almost slip off his tongue.

(i wouldn’t mind.)

”sorry, say that again?”

a little push meets his shoulder, as you roll your eyes. ”yeah, yeah. whatever.”

the banter dies down, as fast as it appeared. then a smile breaks out across your faces, in tandem, the atmosphere shifting into something more sincere — and doesn’t it always, when you’re watching the starry sky with the one you love most?

when suguru continues, his voice has taken on that softer tone, again. the one he only ever really uses around you. ”i liked thinking of us as them,” he admits. ”me as haku, and you as chihiro.”

a soft blink. then your smile grows, sweet like syrup. ”.. hehe. that’s funny,” you cross your legs. palms flat against the roof, knee leaning comfortably against suguru’s. ”i always thought of us as seiji and shizuku.”

there’s something faraway, in your eyes. something suguru can’t look away from.

tentatively, his fingers dig into the skin of his palms, and he speaks. absentminded, a little uncertain.

”… they get married at the end, don’t they?”

a pause. then your gaze snaps over to suguru’s, suddenly mischievous — and he regrets opening his mouth.

”oh?” you purr, almost beaming. inching closer, like a predator sizing up their prey. ”oh shit? are you about to propose, mister geto?”

”i’m just stating facts,” he quips, hands raised in defense. desperately hoping you won’t notice the red tint crawling up his neck, obscured by the darkness of the night.

”incorrect facts,” you grin. if you notice the blush on his face, you don’t say anything. ”they get engaged. not married. big difference.”

suguru huffs. it’s small, as he tries to keep himself from smiling. the beating of his heart is faint, a tender rhythm, stirred by every move you make. he pushes the words he yearns to say back down his throat.

(i wouldn’t mind that, either.)

again, silence blooms. curling around the space between you. it feels nice, just to be like this; just you, and your very best friend, under the soft lighting of the moon. as if you’re the only ones who exist, in an otherwise empty universe — devoid of space and time. like the night could just stop, and stretch on forever. 

there’s an unspoken question in the air, though. one suguru is still waiting for you to answer. one you refuse to answer properly, until he does the same.

you’ve both noticed, of course. even if no one else has, neither of you could ever miss it. suguru has noticed the turmoil in your eyes, and you’ve noticed the fatigue under his. those little signs of stress, as everything around you keeps spinning on; as the future grows closer, with every passing day.

(it’s overwhelming, you both muse.)

— and finally, you’ve had enough.

”suguru,” you call out, and his gaze finds yours instantly. ”have they been stressing you out, lately?”

suguru blinks, eyelashes fluttering softly. a little sleepy. they.

then he smiles. maybe a bit weak, but still as sincere as always — resigned to the fact that he really can’t hide anything from you, after all.

(of course you’d notice it. he was stupid to think you wouldn’t.)

a hum, as he breathes in the air and then exhales it all. trying to formulate the words inside his head, turn the feelings into syllables. and you’re patient. silent, as you admire the way moonlight caresses his skin.

”i’ll manage.” is what he finally says, and your lips curl down into a frown. ”they’ve just been getting on my case, again. you know how they are.”

suguru closes his eyes, and you inch closer to him. barely, by a hair, just to let him know you’re still listening. that you’re waiting for him to continue.

it’s tough, for him. opening up, being vulnerable.

but he knows you won’t do it unless he does, too. so he takes that leap, despite the insistent voice in his head urging him to just keep it to himself.

”it’s just… all these expectations, you know?” he meets your eyes, a little sheepish. downplaying his troubles so smoothly, as if you wouldn’t notice. ”i’m used to it by now, but sometimes i guess it still gets to me.”

you hum, and he continues.

”i feel like i have to be… solid,” he decides on. ”put-together. responsible, and mature.” a sigh, as he wrings his hands together. ”and that’s fine — but it’s like they have everything planned out. like everyone does. how i should act, where i should go…”

suguru gnaws at the flesh of his bottom lip, so focused on verbalizing his thoughts that he barely notices your fingers curling around his. but he still squeezes them, lightly. as naturally as breathing.

”it’s like my future’s already set in stone. and i’m just expected to follow it,” he looks up at the moon. ”which is also fine. i already know what i want to do. but somehow, all of it just feels so…”

he pauses. unsure of how to put it.

”… suffocating?” you finish for him. 

there’s a second in which suguru can do nothing but breathe. as if frozen, stuck in motion, caught off guard by how deeply your minds are intertwined.

— what a wonderful thing, to have someone pluck the words you’re afraid to say from the back of your throat.

a smile blooms on his face, and a gratitude shines in his eyes. almost overflowing. 

(you’ve always been the only one who ever seems to understand.)

”yeah,” he sighs, relieved. and suddenly his chest feels a lot lighter. odd, how just the tilt of your voice when you say a certain word can chase that discomforting sensation away. 

”don’t listen to them,” you say, assuredly, so softly it’s like you’re coaxing him into believing you. it works. ”they don’t matter.”

suguru chuckles, rueful. ”they’re my parents.”

”so? they aren’t you.” you nudge his side with your elbow. ”they have no say in how you live your life. you don’t need to live up to all those expectations, you know.” 

a soft little breath leaves your lips, and suguru wonders how you seem to always soothe his heart so easily. ”you just need to be suguru,” you mumble, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. ”that’s all.”

a moment passes. suguru parts his lips, closing them again when no sound comes out. and then finally, he speaks.

”… yeah,” he muses. ”maybe.”

”definitely,” you huff. ”trust your best friend. i know best.”

”careful,” he teases, tilting his head lazily to meet your gaze. ”you’re starting to sound like them.” the smile on his face only grows when you gape at him, wholly offended, as if you can’t believe what he just said.

”wha — suguru…” you whine, sleepy, clinging to the sleeve of his shirt. digging your nails into the fabric and tugging on it childishly. ”don’t say that. i’m nothing like them!”

a giggle pushes past his lips. ”sorry, sorry,” he soothes, ruffling your hair with his palm. rough hands, big and warm, that always seem to find their way to your skin. ”i’m just kidding. thank you. really.”

the smile that he gives you glows brighter than the moon. he squeezes your hand, softly — a silent i love you. eyes closed, formed into little crescents, and when he speaks he sounds so painfully sincere. 

”i think i’ll be fine as long as i have you,” he says. it comes out sounding something like a prayer. 

the words make your eyes soften. melting into a mellow hue, so full of affection that you can almost taste it on your tongue. 

”everything will turn out fine,” you murmur, consoling him. still not letting go of his hand. ”you have your whole life ahead of you, you know.”

he chuckles. the sound would be sweet if it didn’t have that teasing tilt to it, the one that tells you his amusement is at your expense. ”now you’re starting to sound like my grandma,” he quips, as if itching for something to bicker about.

but you only pout, and let your fingers slip from his. the warmth that leaves you is so jarring that you’re almost tempted to take his hand into yours again — but you just frown at him. ”i can never win with you, huh?”

suguru shrugs. ”need to keep you humble,” he chirps, pulling at your cheek gently. a lazy grin on his lips. ”we don’t want that ego of yours to grow as big as satoru’s.”

trying to keep yourself from grinning with him, you slap his hand away, playfully. ”that would never happen.”

”uh-huh.”

you give him a look.

”my bad.”

a moment passes. gradually, you feel your heart beginning to melt — just a little, but enough to get your voice hopelessly soft on your tongue. the glimmer of the moon embraces every cell in your body, painting over your features with a certain kind of bleeding tenderness. it’s hard to stop it from seeping out.

”you know that i love you. right?” tumbles from your lips, breathed out into the sky, words too heavy to be held back. ”even if your parents give you trouble, and everyone else, too — i’m still on your side.”

”always,” you promise, devotedly earnest. meeting his gaze. and suguru can’t look away.

something flickers, in the depths of his eyes, like a shooting star. something delightful.

he doesn’t quite know what to say. but he nods; almost meek, in a way, and it makes your chest ache. suguru’s always been the type to keep his troubles to himself, content with never letting anyone see into his heart — even if he’d like them to deep down.

if you can be there for him, even just for a night, then that’s more than enough.

he lets the silence linger for a while longer, soft breathing and the rustling of grass filling the space where your words would be. then he looks at you with newfound determination, suddenly, eyes shining in a way you don’t recognize. 

”— and you know that i love you, too.” 

a moment passes. 

an affirmative hum buzzes in your throat, and you give him the ghost of a nod, shying away from his deep gaze. hoping to escape the intimacy of the question. but he doesn’t let you, stare so heavy that you have no choice but to meet his eyes again, after he nudges your hand with his.

the words that fall from his lips surprise you. something akin to a pout plays on his lips, but it’s more serious than that — he looks dejected.

”… do you, though?” he pushes, a troubled frown on his lips. ”do you know that i love you? just as much as you love me?” 

at your stunned silence, suguru sighs, bringing a hand up to smooth over the crease between his brows. ”sometimes i worry that you don’t,” he admits. ”you always think too much. but i don’t want you to ever have to worry about that.”

his voice is firm, when he continues. ”i don’t want you to ever second-guess my love for you,” he declares, and you cower a little under the intensity of his gaze. playing with your fingers instead of looking at him. ”— so i want your answer.”

when his hand finds its way to your face, you stiffen, just barely. but it’s soft, the way he cups your jaw; the warmth of his palm smoothing over your skin. gentle, as he forces you to meet his eyes, tilting your chin up slightly. a bold move, even though physical contact is no stranger in your dynamic. you feel your heart pick up in speed. 

”do you know that i love you?” he asks, and it sounds almost pleading. you can only find it in you to stare. 

suguru’s eyes are filled with something, something you’d like to call love. and they’re looking deep into yours, almost as if coaxing you into drowning in their hue. mesmerizing. ridiculously pretty. if you stare into them for too long, you fear that you might never be able to look away.

but they’re sweet, and warm. painted over with worried hue, something very kind. familiar. the same eyes that have soothed you for as long as you can remember. 

in your flustered state, you can do nothing but blink dumbly — gaze darting from his eyes, to his forehead, to the sky, to his lips. 

he can tell the eye contact makes you nervous, but some part of him won’t allow you to squirm away. this is important. he needs to know that you know. he doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep at night, otherwise.

finally, you squeak out an affirmative yes. and that’s all it takes for him to relax; in one smooth motion, his hand leaves your skin, a relief having bloomed in his eyes. 

”okay. that’s good,” he exhales. 

swallowing down a gulp, your gaze drifts away from the boy to your left. suguru is terrifying, really — doing stuff like that out of nowhere. you check your pulsepoint, discreetly, just to make sure your heart is still beating. 

”alright, then,” he suddenly proclaims, breaking the fleeting silence. ”your turn.”

a blink. your eyelashes flutter in confusion, as you gaze up at him, a question painted on your features. suguru glances at you out of the corner of his eye.

”you’ve been stressed, lately,” he remarks. stating the obvious so you don’t have to. with a soft gaze, eyes that shimmer with understanding. ”i can tell, you know?”

(yeah. he always can, can’t he?)

”… uh,” you croak. clearing your throat and attempting to gather your thoughts, hoping the words will find their way to your lips. ”well. i dunno, really...”

suguru emits a low, affirmative noise, not looking at you. opening up like this makes you feel so uncomfortable. but it’s suguru. you trust him. and you know he won’t let you get away from this, either; he’ll stay up all night if he has to. just waiting for you to put your faith in him.

a sigh leaves your lips, finally, and it comes out sounding just a tad exhausted. ”i… guess i’ve just been thinking, lately.”

and, really, it’s an understatement. thinking is all you’ve been doing, for these past few weeks. thinking of this, and of that. the past and the future. him and you.

suguru hums. an unspoken encouragement.

”everything is just so…” you move your hands, haphazardly, hoping they’ll make the words easier to say. but nothing comes to you. everything is all jumbled up, inside your mind, and it’s just — 

”overwhelming,” you finish. the word falls off your tongue like a tidal wave. ”everything passes by so quickly, and…” you bite your lip. ”i feel like i can’t catch up. i can’t visualize the future at all, and that’s…”

(it’s scary.)

”— it just makes me feel confused.”

suguru waits. patient, attentive, making sure you get all the words out before he speaks. as grounding as the moon, as warm as the sun. 

when you don’t elaborate further, avoiding his gaze, he opts to finally soothe you.

”that’s understandable,” he chimes, voice buzzing with care. ”you don’t have to think about the future right now. living in the present is enough,” a breeze drifts by, tousling his black hair. ”.. it’s for the best, really.”

a smile. it’s a little sad, as you wring your hands together. ”i know,” is all you can say. because you do. it just doesn’t change anything.

the sensation of your nails scraping against the tiles of the roof is discomforting, but you don’t stop. when you part your lips, your voice comes out tiny. barely above a whisper.

”i’m so afraid of change.”

suguru looks at you. his gaze softens, impeccably.

”everything keeps changing. all the time,” you bite into the flesh of your cheek, harshly. ”i hate it.”

”that’s understandable, too,” suguru soothes. tentative, as his hand goes to rest on your head, smoothing down your hair gently. ”change is unavoidable. but you get better at dealing with it.”

”mm, i know.”

”and some things stay the same, too.” 

you glance up at him, and his eyes crinkle. there’s something unspeakable in them, something that’s always been there. light and heavy, all at once. something a little bit too wonderful for words.

suguru smiles. almost a little shy, as he looks into your eyes. ”like you and me.”

…

a deep love unfurls in your chest, warming you up from the inside out. fuzzy and tingly. but with it comes a deep sadness, bittersweet, that you can’t chase away no matter how hard you try; like a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, no matter how many times you try to scrape it off against the concrete.

like you and me.

(he doesn’t know that’s what scares you the most. the thought of that one thing changing, while you just stand there, helpless to stop it.)

”yeah,” you breathe. a wounded little breath.

suguru notices it, despite your vague attempts to act like nothing’s wrong. he notices the fear in your voice, the uncertainty. and once again, he gets the impression that you look a little lost. like you aren’t sure where to plant your feet.

it bothers him. an itch he wants to scratch away. but before he can get to the bottom of it, you begin to speak, once more.

”with you, it’s like…” a breath flows from your lips, as you try to find the words. but this time, they come to you with relative ease. ”if i could do my life over again, and make everything turn out different… then i’d still always keep you.”

silence. you continue, suddenly a little embarrassed at the honesty in your tone. but it’s too late to back out now. 

”and even if everything else changes, if i could pick just one single thing to keep — then it’d be you, too.” the smile on your face is small, a little sheepish. “that’s how it is, so…” 

you trail off. not sure what else to say. suguru isn’t, either; he feels just a little bit stunned, in the face of your sincerity. yet he parts his lips, softly, words making themselves manifest before his mind can even begin to catch up.

”i don’t think i’ve ever told you this,” he begins, not entirely sure where the words will take him. blinking up at the sky, entranced, whilst you look at him quizzically. ”you always call me your guardian angel, right?”

the question makes your lips curl up. it’s a habit of yours, one that’s become almost muscle memory. you don’t remember how it started, but it’s in everything suguru does; from the way he can always tell when you’re feeling overwhelmed, to the way he never fails to bring you a coffee right before your exam starts. 

suguru is always looking out for you, even when you’re apart. like a guardian angel. yours.

you nod. ”because you are.”

suguru smiles, breathing out a fond chuckle, and then shakes his head. ”it’s the opposite.”

you turn to the man beside you, and he’s already looking at you. with his pretty, soothing brown eyes, and the barely visible dark circles beneath them. his gaze is warm and fond, grateful in a way that makes your chest squeeze tight. you melt a little, under its weight.

”you’re my guardian angel,” he says, sickeningly sweet. ”always have been. even back then.”

inhaling the mild air, suguru lets his eyes flutter shut. the taste reminds him of the summer vacations you used to have as kids, when you would ride your bikes to the nearest river and play all day. stopping by any ice cream stand you found on the way there; you always took a bite out of his without asking, and he always tried to get angry at you. but he never could. 

on your way back home, the sky was always dark. a soothing blue hue, stars glittering in the distance, while the moon looked close enough to touch. a night just like this one. you’d walk, together, talking about everything and nothing — sometimes he’d carry you on his back. not once did he drop you. 

a breath, deep and drawn out as he exhales, basking in memories you aren’t privy to. a saccharine smile painted on his lips.

”without you…” he muses, voice a little breathless. fond, and somewhat helpless. but he’s smiling. ”i don’t really know what i’d do, to be honest.”

a moment passes.

”it’s the same for me,” you echo, words escaping your throat before you even get the chance to realize their weight. gaze stuck to the stars, as always. ”i can’t imagine life without you.”

suguru doesn’t speak, afraid that his heart may crawl out his throat if he does. the honeyed smile on his face says more than words ever could, anyway. 

a small bout of laughter leaves your lips. sudden, sad, dripping with longing. it surprises you, catches you off guard — like something within you just overflowed. 

“you know what my biggest fantasy was?” you grin, ruefully. maybe just a little manic. ”i used to think about it all the time, when we were kids.”

suguru looks at you in silence, but there’s a confusion in the way he tilts his head.

there seems to be a knot of some kind, stuck in the very bottom of your chest. something that makes it hard to speak. ”i’d get on a train, and just kinda… leave,” you breathe, hoping it’ll unclog your throat. it doesn’t. ”you know? to somewhere far, far away.” 

and suddenly, the world grows just a little blurred. suguru can see it, in your eyes — you’re someplace else now. gaze trained on something he can’t see. there’s an amused touch to your voice, but also something rather pitiful. a childish wish that never came to fruition.

there’s regret, there, suguru thinks; something close to pain.

”maybe, like… a small port town,” you continue, closing your eyes. “with a cute little café close by, or whatever… somewhere you can see the sea.” 

another breath. you pretend it tastes like salt, like an ocean breeze. then you swallow the lump in your throat, and whisper. ”with you.”

when you finally muster up the courage to meet suguru’s eyes, they shine with nothing but pure understanding. he doesn’t say anything, but he understands. he’s always been like that. not a single word is needed for him to ground you, the way a rock always meets the bottom when it’s thrown into the depths of a lake. 

suguru’s comfort is as natural to you as the gravity that keeps the stars up in the sky.

the voice you’ve grown so used to hearing reaches your ears again, and it’s a low sound, a little raspy. but soft. achingly so, enough that you could almost miss it if you weren’t always so aware of every word that falls from his lips.

suguru looks up at the moon, in tandem with you, and lets the ghost of a smile show. ”… you know what my biggest fantasy was?”

his gaze is sincere, a little forlorn; hopelessly softened, as you meet his eyes. they’re painted over with something sweet, and something that looks just a little bit like regret.

a tilt of your head beckons him to continue, and the corners of his lips curl up further. 

”running away with you,” he breathes. ”anywhere at all. wherever you wanted to go, i’d follow.”

for a moment or two, all you can do is stare. 

you feel your lips part, but no sound comes out, nothing at all. suguru’s hair sways with the breeze, softly, and the light of the moon makes him look somewhat ethereal. like he could disappear if you blinked. 

the silence that blooms in the space between your words is fragile. precious, if a little overwhelming, as it stretches out before you — growing heavier with every passing second. so tender that it makes you feel sick to your stomach, as if the sound of the wind whistling could shatter it into pieces. 

(your heart aches, aches, aches.)

a weak laugh bubbles up from within your throat, something raw and tender hidden behind a veil of faux amusement. something vulnerable you're trying to cover up, like the glassiness of your eyes.

like a memory that never got to happen.

”what, so you’re saying we could’ve been by the seaside by now…?” you groan, forehead slumping against your knees with a bonk. ”what the hell, dude…” 

suguru lets out a chuckle, resting his jaw on the heel of his palm and looking down at you with a smile on his face. one that reaches his eyes, glimmering with something akin to starlight.

”we can still go there,” he consoles you, reaching over to tousle your hair with a palpable softness. ”to the seaside, i mean. i’ll take you.”

for a while, you don’t say anything. a pout plays at your lips, as you attempt to get your emotions under control. 

then you lean back, to lie down flat on the roof. the movement is so sudden that it stings a little when the back of your head meets the tiles, and you wince — a soft but exasperated murmur of careful comes from the boy on your left.

your elbows go to cushion your head, as you take in the immenseness of the sky. ”alright, then,” you hum. ”take me there sometime soon.”

suguru blinks. then his lips curl up. ”got it,” he chirps. mentally mapping out a nice spot, trying to remember the timetables at your local train station.

(next week, maybe. a picnic by the sea. he’ll make those sandwiches that you like.)

then he follows your lead, and goes to lie down on his back. right by your side, so close he can smell the fading scent of your shampoo, curled up right next to you. breathing out a sigh as he takes in the night sky in all its glory. 

there’s something tender, in the air. something that doesn’t need words. a kind of comfortable silence that you’ve learned to treasure, whenever suguru is with you.

so you simply stare at the dark veil over the city, in tandem with him — a pitch-black blanket sewn with stardust.

everything expands, before your very eyes; an infinite cosmos, with all the light you could ever want. the stars blink down at you, as if saying hello, mapping out the galaxy. you try to find the constellations you’re familiar with, the ones suguru have taught you about in the past, but nothing really comes to you.

it’s nice, though. just staring at the stars in wonder.

an exhale, as you breathe in, and then out. you part your lips to whisper, breaking the sleepy silence.

”the stars are so pretty….” 

suguru hums, the sound buzzing right by your ear. a soothing summer lullaby, that only you get to hear. ”yeah,” he whispers back.

a moment passes.

then you both part your lips to speak; smoothly, in a fashion that would be embarrassing if you didn’t feel so terribly safe in each other’s company. simultaneous, as the sentence tumbles from your throats.

”and so are you.”

silence. the seconds stretch on, and on. everything goes quiet.

you’re the first one to burst into laughter — deep, the kind that comes from the very bottom of your stomach. almost wheezing, as you try to catch your breath, arms snug around your shaking body. suguru follows close behind, trying to contain his laughter, but you can hear his little chuckles clear as day.

”eww, what the fuck?” you grin, shifting to lie on your side so you can get a good look at his face. ”you’re so corny!”

suguru snorts. ”i heard you say it too, dumbass.”

a little giggle flows from your lips, and you slump against his shoulder, still trying to control your breathing. suguru curls an arms around your midriff, bringing you closer. muscle memory, to make it more comfortable for you.

”haah…..”

the smile on your face shines brighter than the stars, suguru thinks, looking at you with a bleeding kind of fondness. as if you’re the only thing worth looking at.

”i hope things stay like this forever.”

the light of the moon shines down on the roof, bouncing off the white of your teeth. your canines shine in the dark as you grin, youthful — but there’s a sadness in your eyes, now. one that suguru will never fail to notice.

(one he’ll always yearn to smooth away, the same way his thumb always goes to wipe at any stray eyelashes on your skin, or crumbs at the corner of your mouth. muscle memory.)

”they will,” he assures you, reaching over to find your hand. enveloping it in his bigger one, cradling it, linking your fingers together and squeezing them softly. ”i’ll make sure that they do.”

a chuckle leaves your lips, but suguru thinks it sounds a little meek. like you still don’t believe him.

”i mean it,” he reiterates. more serious this time.

”i know,” you grin. ”but, i mean —”

a moment passes, and then your grin falters. ”you can’t promise that, though.” the expression on your face seems sort of pained, now, troubled by something. ”maybe we’ll move away from each other, or just drift apart, or —”

”that would never happen to us —”

”maybe you’ll meet someone.”

…

”a nice guy, or girl…” a sigh, as you run a hand through your hair. ”and then you’ll… i dunno. get married, i guess. and then eventually you’ll have kids, and buy a house, and —” 

a pause. in a smaller voice, you continue. almost childlike. ”you’ll leave me behind.”

suguru bites back a scoff. it takes concentrated effort. he turns to look at you, but you won’t meet his gaze, and a frown finds its way to his lips. ”… do you honestly think that’s what i want?”

another moment passes you by. more seconds lost, never to return. ”… isn’t it?”

suguru sighs, a little exasperated. maybe just a little hurt, too. ”marriage and kids aside…” he mutters, burning holes into your skin with his steadfast gaze. determined, self-assured. the tilt of his voice leaves no room for doubt. ”there’s only one person i love.”

resisting the temptation to keep your eyes away from him becomes nearly impossible — so you let your gaze trail over, and take him in. in all his glory, silky black hair framing his face, a soft look painted over his features. looking at you as if you matter, as if nothing matters except for you.

and again, something breaks out across the scope of his iris, a shooting star you don’t know what to do with. he looks so hopelessly sincere. 

for a second, all you can do is stare.

then you nod, solemnly. ”satoru, right?” you hum. ”you’re gonna break my heart if you keep bringing him up when we’re together, sugu.”

you don’t need to see his face to know that he’s giving you that unimpressed look, again. the suguru look. he rolls his eyes, and you bite your cheek to stop yourself from smiling.

”i love him too, but that’s different,” he huffs.

”how so?” you prod, eyes crinkling. but there’s something a little meek about the question. he notices it, of course, because what doesn’t suguru notice?

something soft curls around his features, and a hum buzzes in his throat. a heavy tenderness bleeds into his voice. ”i wouldn’t die for satoru,” he says, simply.

a moment passes.

”… you totally would.”

”huh?” suguru blinks. ”no, of course not. are you insane?”

”suguru,” you sigh. ”you are literally the most self-sacrificial bitch i’ve ever met —”

”well, obviously i’d take a bullet or two, but —”

”what do you mean obviously —”

”— you’re the only person i’d die for.”

suguru is smiling, now. amused, sincere. almost on the verge of laughter, the sweet and soft kind that always turns your heart into a puddle. his eyes almost seem to glimmer, in the night, and it’s all you can see for a while. as you try to gather your thoughts, get the right words out.

”… always so dramatic,” you murmur, at last, a little gruff. his smile grows. you shift a little more, lying on your side to face him with a serious expression. ”don’t tell satoru that, okay? he already has it out for me. at this rate he’ll kill me and steal you away.”

a chuckle rumbles through his chest, deep and fond. you continue, a frown tugging at your lips. ”… and i wouldn’t want you to die for me, anyway.”

suguru lets a giggle slip, a bit too sleepy to hold it back. ”mm, i know. but if it ever came down to it, then i still would.” he shifts, too, lying on his side to face you properly.

”to me,” he exhales, and he’s so close you can smell the mint off his breath — ”as long as you’re by my side, i can make it through absolutely anything.”

the smile on his face is boyish. all teeth and crow’s feet, blooming in the light of the moon, a flower just for you. it’s perfect, you think. you don’t want a single day to pass without you seeing it. 

”me too,” you mumble, linking your pinkies together. a silent promise. ”so don’t die. ever.”

suguru’s eyes soften. 

then he hums, absentmindedly. ”… well. i mean,” he clicks his tongue. ”eventually i will. that’s not really something i have a say in.”

a roll of your eyes. ”alright, smartass,” you scoff, and suguru’s eyes crinkle with humour. ”just don’t die before i do, then.”

a hand comes to touch your skin. and it’s sudden, warm, but you don’t flinch away. suguru smooths over your cheek with the back of his hand, seemingly unable to stop himself. soothing, as he exhales a soft breath.

”… i think i’d prefer that to the alternative, honestly,” he admits.

you furrow your brows, softly. a part of you wants to protest, to call him a selfish prick — for even thinking the thought of leaving you behind without a best friend.

but something in you knows he won’t budge, on this one.

(it’s childish, in a way. stubborn, for him to take a joking conversation so seriously. but suguru doesn’t think he could even jokingly suggest that he’d survive without you.)

”seriously, though,” his voice takes on a firmer tone. ”i wouldn’t leave you behind like that. it’s us we’re talking about. you and me.” 

he says the words like they’re undeniable — because they are. there is no him without you. that’s always been the case, hasn’t it? 

suguru stops to think. do you not feel the same? there’s still a crease between your brows, a sign of worry that’s impossible to dismiss. he can’t help but wonder just how long you’ve been thinking about this; how many nights have you spent sleepless, thinking of the future? of the possibility that it entails your parting?

(the thought makes him feel a little bit nauseous.)

”are you afraid that we’ll grow apart?” he asks, into the haze of the summer night. it resounds in the air around you, softly spoken, gentle but coaxing. almost pleading you to open up to him.

and it’s a stupid question, really. 

of course you are. it’s the only thought that really scares you.

time moves so, so fast — always leaving you behind. who’s to say that suguru won’t do the same? that he won’t be taken away from you, swept away by that flow? into the future, while you stay glued to the past — stuck on the roof of your childhood, while he moves on to better things?

the night sky is infinite. sometimes, on nights that are a little too long, when your mind has grown a little too muddled, you think of suguru as a star in that sky. blinking down at you, while you can do nothing but watch. hopelessly out of reach.

gaze trailing down to rest on suguru’s collarbone, you swallow the lump in your throat. a little too vulnerable to feel comfortable with looking into his eyes, afraid of what you’ll see in them.

but he’s patient. waiting, always waiting, for you to catch up. for as long as it takes.

”… of course i am,” you mutter, at last. a weak little thing. farther down the street, a car swooshes by, drowning the sound — but suguru still hears it clear as day. ”i mean, it’s just…”

a meek intake of breath. you blink, desperate to chase away the glassiness forming in your eyes. trying to grasp control over your wavering voice. ”even if you say that we won’t… it’s not like there’s any guarantee. you can’t know for sure.”

suguru wants to stop you, right there. wants to ensure you that he does know, that it’s the only thing he’ll ever know for sure. just that one fact; you and him. never one without the other.

wherever you’d go, he’d follow — that’s how it’s always been. that’s all he’ll ever need.

but he knows you. knows you better than he knows himself. and he knows that he needs to let you speak freely, without interruption, until you’ve gotten every last worry off your chest.

so he settles for simply looking at you, curled up and biting his lip to stop himself from speaking. wishing he could smooth away the moisture in your eyes, already — but the tears need to fall first. he knows it’ll make you feel better.

”i love you,” you whisper, and suguru’s heart claws its way up his throat. ”i love you, and i want to be with you forever — but…” a shaky inhale. ”but i can’t get rid of that fear. the idea of losing you… i just can’t deal with it.”

”don’t you think i feel exactly the same?” he cuts in, softly. 

a beat. you glance up at his face, for a split second, and then back down to his collarbone. a little fragile, curling into yourself as if hiding. ”i don’t know,” you sigh.

(suguru’s heart breaks.)

”i know that you love me too, and all. and i trust you. but…” you trail off, swallowing thickly. ”you already have your future planned out, and everything. maybe i just… don’t have a place in it.”

suguru scoffs, unable to bite back the sound any longer. it’s soft, but frustrated. ”there’ll always be a place for you in my future,” he vows. ”i wouldn’t accept anything less.”

you cower a little, under the warmth of his gaze. sweet, but stern. so distinctly suguru that it makes you falter.

”besides,” he clicks his tongue. ”i don’t need to follow the future that’s been planned out for me. i just need to be suguru.” a warm smile. ”right?”

at the sound of your own words, a light flush blooms on your skin. but for once, suguru isn’t teasing you.

”and you just need to be you,” he continues, arm still wrapped around your midriff. trailing up slowly, so that his hand can smooth over the back of your head. ”that’s all.”

”as long as both of us do that — we’ll always be together.” he looks into your eyes, and you think you spot a constellation inside his iris. ”won’t we?”

another moment of silence, the familiar comfort that settles between you. there’s no pressure to continue — but you do so, anyway. muddled mind still spinning, worried about this and that, despite suguru’s soothing words. 

a part of you can’t put your faith in that kind of future. one where the two of you are together, that you could envision so clearly when you were younger — when him and you was all that you knew for certain. it’s not as simple as it was back then.

(but another part of you desperately yearns for him to prove you wrong.)

”… but,” you mumble, shaky. ”what if it’s not that easy?” a chuckle pushes past your lips, humourless. ”i mean, you can’t possibly… always stay by my side, you know?”

there’s something childish, in the way you say it. like you’re still kids, and you’re whining for him not to leave you behind. selfish, in a way.

what right do you have to chain him to you?

suguru emits a hum. his eyelids flutter shut, for a few seconds — and then he opens them again. 

”… alright,” he drawls. ”let’s make a promise, then.”

confused, you glance up at him. he just smiles — responsible, dependable. your very best friend.

”have i ever broken a promise i made to you?” he asks, and you pause.

”… no,” you answer, hesitant. voice still a tad meek, a little helpless.

(and it’s true. not once has he broken one. when suguru makes a promise, he keeps it. you’ve always, always admired that about him.)

”right?” he grins, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. admiring your moon-lit features. ”so let’s do it.”

a frown tugs at your lips. furrowing your brows at him, your voice flows out, uncertain. ”promise… what, exactly?”

the moon glows, big and bright. hanging in the sky, a beacon of light, the same as it’s always been. suguru thinks you look radiant, under its illumination — even though you’re nervous, and a little teary eyed. just a single glance at your expression is enough to make his heartbeat soften.

you look like what home feels like. 

he could never bear to let that go, to let you go. his very best friend; the one thing in his past he has no qualms about. the one thing in his future worth hanging onto, cherishing fully. no matter what.

suguru parts his lips, smiling. he links your hands together. ”keep being you,” he implores, steadfast. ”and stay by my side.”

a moment passes. 

something crumbles, inside your chest. unable to break away from his gaze, all you can do is fall deeper into the hue of his eyes, crinkling softly — in the same way they always have. he squeezes your palm in his, tightly. a silent promise not to let you go.

— and then you realize something. the same realization that always comes to you, at the end of the day.

the man in front of you is just the same as the boy you met, all those years ago. the same boy who saw you climb over his fence, and let you pet his cat, and watched whisper of the heart with you even though he wanted to start with ponyo instead.

the same boy, always the same boy, no matter how much time passes. even though he’s all grown up now, features more defined. voice deeper and huskier. hands larger, with rougher skin.

he’s changed, just like you have — but he’s still just suguru. just that cool, sweet boy. a dorky guy who never, ever lets you fall too far behind.

a tremendous softness seeps through your veins. a kind of love, old and matured, carefully nurtured. the blinks you indulge in are slow, and your eyes shine with tears. it’s overwhelming, seeing him so up close, but you still can’t look away. he’s so beautiful it hurts.

”suguru…” is all you can sniffle, meekly.

your best friend is still smiling, fondly. wrapped up in you, as close as he can be. a familiar warmth, like a big fuzzy blanket draped over your shoulders; smelling of cedarwood and earl gray, and just a hint of coconut-scented shampoo. tailor-made just for you.

suguru never breaks his promises.

”but… you can’t,” you croak out, gasping as if searching for air. ”you don’t know if —”

”i do,” he cuts you off, gently. ”i do know.”

a breathless inhale of air, as you grasp tighter onto his nimble fingers. you feel meek, lost. not sure where to put your hands, or what to believe. ”how?” you ask, terribly fragile.

suguru takes a deep breath. oxygen enters his lungs, exiting as he breathes out. a soft flicker of life. his thumb goes to wipe away the stray tear that trickles down your cheek, his touch delicate. and then comes his response.

”— because i need you the way i need air.”

and, really, it’s a sappy thing to say. a little pretentious. he’d feel embarrassed if it wasn’t for the soft flicker of the moon, the intimacy of the moment. he simply couldn’t bear not to tell you the truth — even if you end up bringing it up tomorrow, just to tease him. he can deal with a little embarrassment, every once in a while. just for you.

fortunately for him, no thoughts of teasing run through your mind. maybe if you were in a better headspace, a little less of a wreck, you could muster the will to make fun of him a little. who do you think you are, shakespeare? i knew i shouldn’t have lent you that copy of romeo and juliet. — something light and amused, just to distract him from the rapid beating of your heart. 

but right now…

all you can do is take a deep breath. and you think you understand what he means, when that breath of life courses through your lungs.

”i’ll never leave you behind,” he continues, words so very self-assured that it leaves you reeling. rubbing comforting circles into the skin of your palm, without thinking. muscle memory. ”can you trust me on that?”

connected to his gaze, you stumble for something to say. anything. 

but then he smiles, again. that familiar, familiar smile. as soothing as a mother’s caress. and only one single word makes it past your lips.

”… okay.”

you do trust him. more than anyone else in the world. so you take that leap, no matter how frightening it is —

and the world narrows down to just the two of you.

just you, and him, in this one single moment. illuminated by the light of the moon, lying side by side and looking into each other’s eyes, on a roof you always find yourselves at one way or another. laughing and sharing secrets until the sun begins to rise; a silent promise that needs no words. 

(the promise of tomorrow. a summer that never quite seems to end.)

suguru cups your cheek. his touch buzzes with warmth, trickling down his wrist and through his veins — and you melt into his palm, eyes fluttering shut instinctively. the sight makes the corners of his lips curl up, hopelessly.

leaning close, he plants a kiss on your cheek. delicate, tender; his lips against your skin, a silent whisper of i love you. fervent, full of devotion. of a love that’s as steady as the sea.

”i’ll always, always be by your side,” suguru repeats, like a mantra. hoping you’ll feel his conviction through the whisper. ”you’ll always have me to fall back on. i promise.”

a little smile breaks out across your lips, meek and teary. as fragile as a sheet of glass, but still persisting in the dead of night. your voice wavers, as you raise your pinkie, right in front of his stupidly pretty face.

”pinkie promise?”

it’s a childish gesture. something to lighten the mood a little, make it all easier to chew. you expect him to roll his eyes, or raise an eyebrow, or tease you a bit. but he doesn’t.

instead, suguru raises his own pinkie, and curls it around yours. then he smiles. sweet and boyish, painted over with a rosy, tender nostalgia.

”— pinkie promise.”

and you believe him.

you believe him, because suguru has a way of making you do so, even when he has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. with that confident tilt of his voice, that makes it sound like he has all the answers in the universe — that flicker of genuine faith, in every word that falls from his lips, that tells you he truly does believe in them.

you believe him, because suguru is the only person in the world who’s never once broken a promise he made to you. not a single time. and some part of you suspects that if he ever did, he really would be okay with you cutting his pinkie off. a little frightening, the depths of his devotion. the pure loyalty that courses through his veins.

so you believe him.

you believe him because he’s suguru. and, just like you can't exist without him, he can't exist without you. never one without the other.

on instinct, you inch a little closer, wrapping your arms around his waist and squeezing him extra tight. face hidden away in the crook of his neck, just like you used to do when you were kids. he’s bigger now, harder to properly embrace — but still so very, very warm. 

and he squeezes you back, just as tight. comforting and grounding, and so, so secure. tugging you closer, like he needs to have you near to properly breathe. like he needs to feel that you’re there to relax, melting into the hug with a soft sigh. relieved, that you’re still with him. relieved at the promise that you always will be. 

wherever you go, he’ll follow. to the roof of his home, to the seaside, to the ends of the earth. the same way every star in the sky orbits around the center of the galaxy, endlessly, before burning out into the night.

the smell of cedarwood and earl gray floods your senses, filling your lungs as you nuzzle into his neck. he’s warm, and soft, and your very best friend. 

you close your eyes. indulging in his body heat, every familiar sensation that’s been etched into your bones for as long as you can remember. and you can tell he’s doing the same — breathing you in, arms resting securely around your back, pressing his cheek against the top of your head.

and maybe it’s true, after all. maybe suguru really does need you, just as much as you need him.

and maybe that’s all you really need to know.

the moon rests in the sky. smiling down at you, unchanging. a living proof that some things really do stay the same. 

— you hug suguru tighter, and decide that his presence is proof enough. 

#suguru geto my bicoded princess… #he could fix me. #sugu is suchhh a ghibli boy u cant convince me otherwise. his fave movies are spirited away and porco rosso #(and ponyo but hes a lil embarrassed to say it LOL… he was obsessed w sea animals as a kid. <3 now im just making stuff up but im right) #physically incapable of writing for suguru without giving him a silly reader…. unbeatable dynamic #i have other sugu childhood friends fics planned but some r. Angstier than others #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #geto fluff #jjk fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff #geto suguru x you #geto hurt/comfort #geto angst #geto x reader #geto x you

[ruggiethethuggie]

MY SUNFLOWER || Ruggie Bucchi

romance isn't dead.

wc: 613 cw: ruggie bucchi, drabble, gn!reader, it's very short, established relationship (you've been together for awhile), mushy gushy romance a/n: this has been in my google doc drafts since August and i wrote it at like 11pm apparently ?? i must've been using my love goggles while i wrote this

“Ruggie…,” you whispered with a long pause afterwards. The sight before your eyes was one you never really anticipated on a day like today, but Ruggie was never short of surprises. You and Ruggie had taken the weekend to go back home to Sunset Savanna. Every time you two would go, it was always a given that you would visit a small field that grew wildflowers and sunflowers. It always had the prettiest view for the sunset, and since you were with Ruggie, he would always bring a blanket and some snacks for you both. It was something you always enjoyed doing when you came to visit with him, but this wasn’t ever what you thought would happen. Not here, not right now.

Ruggie was staring up at you with a beaming grin across his face, the sleeves on his white button up were rolled up to his elbows in his typical playful fashion. But this was no mere “playful” interaction between you two. This was something important, something far more serious. The way Ruggie knelt down on one knee, his hand holding out a small box with a dainty, yet breathtaking ring, was almost too much for you to take in all at once.

He took your hand; you could feel his own trembling as he spoke. “You know I love you; you mean the absolute world to me. All the money I could make, all the finer things I always wanted to have, hell, even the selling price for all those goodies in Kalim’s little treasure room- all of it's nothing compared to you. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to call you mine forever, my partner in life as we try to figure it out together. You are my sunshine every day, the reason I wake up every day and do my best to be a better person, the best that I can be so you’re proud to have me next to you.”

You were trying your hardest to hold in the immense amount of emotions you were feeling in this moment. After all these years- all the long days and nights when he was away and working hard to make sure you both were fed and taken care of; all the petty arguments you had over something that was never as serious as either of you made it out to be in the end; all the blissful, shared memories you two had accumulated together that would make you smile when your mind replayed them randomly throughout the day. Everything had brought you both to this point, to this moment in time- one that, truthfully, you wished would last a lifetime.

You let out a short exhale, trying to catch your breath and find the words you so desperately wanted to say to him, but he continued on with his affirmations towards you.

“I want to wake up to you every day; I want to make you breakfast, lunch, dinner- whatever, whenever. I want to be the reason you smile every day. I’ve grown up with so many hardships, I think I know pretty well when something is worth it, and dammit,” he chuckled a bit, “I think you’re worth it. We are worth it. I want to be the person you can rely on when you need me; I want to be at your side always. I need you to know that I love you more than anything, more than myself or my friends and family, more than anything or anyone on this planet, the galaxy. You are the one I want, the one I want to be with… please, my sunflower, will you marry me?”

© Pastel Orange Heart Divider | please do not copy and or repost my work as your own, my brain is massive and these are my thoughts.

#~.writing #twisted wonderland #ruggie bucchi #disney twst #twst #ruggie x reader #ruggie bucchi x reader #twst x reader #ruggie twst #ruggie twst x reader #gn!reader #ruggie x gn!reader #romance isn't dead

[scarletttries]

Dad! Roman Roy x Reader Headcanons:

Pairing: Dad! Roman Roy (Succession) x Pregnant! / Parent Reader

Word Count: 1.4k

Author's Note: We're back to sweet and sad Roman Roy over here 💕 I've written a couple of headcanons and fics about the moment Roman finds out his partner is pregnant, so for everyone that requested a follow up to that, here are some Roman as a dad headcanons 😊🌸

During the Pregnancy:

- This is life changing news for any couple, but when you grew up as sheltered and neglected as sweet, broken Roman Roy, this cracks open your universe all the way to its foundations. He will be in a constant state of panic and sarcasm as he tries to rebuild his world view by your side, but he'll make sure you know that he never has any doubts about you and your future together, his fears land squarely on his shoulders and his abilities to love this new tiny human. But he used to think he'd never love someone the way he loves you, so that fills him with hope that he can surpass his own expectations again.

- He's never had to take responsibility for his actions before in any meaningful way, so don't be surprised if he's a little bit useless when it comes to making plans and getting organised. He'll need help making it to every appointment on time, but by god will he be there, holding your hand and staring at the little screen with an uneasy look in his eye, like he can't quite fathom that there's a life starting inside you.

- Kendall is so excited that his brother is becoming a father that he tries to give him all his best advice, even though most of it is borderline insane. In the end Kendall recommends some 'galaxy brain parenting podcasts' to Roman, and you come home to find them echoing through the penthouse's sound system, Roman scribbling notes like he's trying to cram for an exam at the last minute.

- Prepare to have the absolute highest end luxuries that money can buy for your nursery, a room bigger than your first apartment and that looks like something straight out a catalogue. Sometimes when you're up at night because the wriggling baby inside you won't let you sleep, you'll find Roman sat up in the corner rocking chair, just doing his best to feel at home in this new space, trying to see himself as the kind of father he wants to be.

- Every word he utters for the full nine months is soft, gentle, calm, even when he doesn't feel any of those things. It's like he's trying to make sure this new life doesn't hear the sound of anger or ridicule at any point in its existence, starting as soon as possible in his desperate efforts to be less and less like his father by the day.

- When the time comes for the delivery, Roman has to keep running in and out of the delivery room, struggling to keep still or take a full breath. Finally when it's the moment of truth, he'll be there. Clutching your hand, wailing into your shoulder in a mixture of fear and being completely incapable of seeing you in pain without it eating him alive, and in a flash you two are cradling a little life in your arms, and your time to get ready is up.

Fatherhood:

- From the moment your child is laid in Roman's arms for the first time, fighting every instinct to keep himself physically detached and just let you handle the touchy-feely stuff, he knows this is going to break him, then piece him back together stronger than ever. He knows he's never going to want to put this little one down, the sheer innocence painted across their face and wonder in their eyes as they stare up at him, it's the only way he ever wants to be looked at again. It reminds him of the first time you smiled his way and suddenly he felt like he could be forgiven all his sins.

- Roman is immensely protective, leaving it weeks until any of the family are allowed to visit, not wanting to put either of you at risk, and not wanting anything to burst the bubble of those perfect weeks at home. Yes, it's exhausting and draining and everything feels like you're doing it wrong, but it's easily the happiest Roman's ever felt in his life.

- Conner and Willa appear first thing when visitors are finally allowed, bringing a generally appropriate gift for a newborn and genuine excitement to be a part of your little one's life. Next up is Ken, who brings the latest in baby technology, claiming it will practically raise the child for you, a sentiment that leaves Roman reluctant to even let his brother hold the newborn. Finally Shiv arrives, her gift of a vintage Mercedes parked downstairs for the minute your little one is old enough to drive, a time Roman claims will never come because they're definitely staying a tiny perfect baby forever.

- His family can tell that something has shifted in Roman as he smiles and plays affectionately with little baby Roy, like a warm, loving part of him that had been beaten into a corner and stifled by his father had finally been allowed to break free again and thrive in the light. When Caroline turns up two weeks later, her gift to you a full time nanny that neither of you asked for, Roman sends her away, wanting to take on this role, using his immense privilege to be there for his child in every moment rather than letting a stranger provide help and reduce that responsibility.

- The fact that you brought this light into his world, only makes Roman look at you with even more reverence, truly the greatest gift he could ever hope for. He's not shy in telling you how amazing what you did was, how incredible you already are as a mother, how lucky he and your child are to have you in his life. While he kept himself pretty PG during your pregnancy, prepare to constantly be called a Milf, and to have him slide up behind you when the baby is sleeping, unable to keep his hands off you and asking when you think you should expand your family to include a few siblings.

- As your little one starts toddling, Roman wouldn't want to keep them as locked in an ivory tower as his childhood felt, taking walks through the local park and meeting the other local parents, trying to just be a regular person and normal father for his baby's sake. Watching how easily they can make a new friend and connect him with others feels completely unbelievable when only a few years ago he wasn't sure he'd ever even have a friend of his own, let alone a family full of love.

- When he has to go into Waystar, you best believe 'the world's smallest executive' is coming in too, toddling hand in hand with their father all across the top floor. By the time they're finished for the day, Gerri's bought them an ice cream, Franks brought a balloon and Carolina is looking up how to get a carousel installed in the lobby. And every one of them is so proud of Roman, the picture of growth and stability (or at least trying so hard to be), far from the man they used to worry about on a daily basis.

- It's challenging for any new parents, but Roman still tries to prioritise having the occasional night as just the two of you, spending some time in an adult establishment with adult beverages, even if half your conversations circle back to how incredible your child is, and how hilarious it is that Roman's taught them to call cousin Greg a monster and run away every time he walks in a room, and how you never needed to worry about taking this step together, because you make a perfect team. As long as you work together, you two can really make it through anything, and your growing family is the best thing yet.

- A couple of years later, when you start to realise the feeling inside you is familiar, you aren't even a little bit scared. You'll come running out the bathroom at the little blue tick on a plastic strip and Roman will erupt into cheers like the two of you just single handedly won the superbowl, tackling you to the ground and covering your face in tears and kisses as he realises this is exactly where, and who, he was meant to be.

#writing #fanfiction #one shot #requests #succession #succession imagine #succession hbo #roman roy angst #roman roy fluff #roman roy imagine #roman roy x reader #roman roy

[wmarximoff]

follow you (drag me through hell) | w. maximoff

|spooktober collection|

summary: your wife, Wanda, died in a battle to save humanity and since then you've never been the same. surely the voices and figures around the house are just the fruit of your own widowed mind.

warnings (18+): main character death, angst, mentions of suicidal thoughts, depression, smut, praise kink, oral sex (R receiving), heavy angst, horror elements.

pairing: Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 8k

A/N: this is sad. just sad. oh well.

|main masterlist| |spooktober masterlist|

༺ᱬ༻

A whisper crackled deep inside your ear. Just a word. A single, warm, foreign word that you hadn't heard in so long in that voice that even felt like a faded memory fogged within your brain. Детка. Detka. A humid, hot sensation seeped up the ridged outline of the skin of your neck, down the hairline of your scalp, as if a ghostly warm tongue deferred a long, open lick across your fearful epidermis. Saliva buffed your balmy flesh.

And it stunned you right away, for the haunting feeling sent a jolt through your bones, like the touch of an icy hand from another world. And you, in a state of alarm, whirled around in a quick break of motion with your chin tucked behind your right shoulder exposed by the thin tank top that wrapped your torso, only to find nothingness standing behind your body placed in front of the stove in your kitchen, with the flame lit, frying a sweet-smelling, appetizing pancake batter.

Nothingness pressed its intangible body against your lower hip, something unable to see even with your astonished, worried eyes.

The palm of your startled right hand immediately screwed itself against the beam of skin where the sensation was still exposed and throbbing like a recent memory, pressing the sensation against your heightened senses, the hispid artery inside still throbbing with hot blood pumped quickly through your restless heart, still beating in an anxious rhythm against your ribcage. But there was nothing there. Nothing. The Nothing.

You gasped for a while, and your upper teeth soon locked your lower lip between them in a painful pinch on the soft flesh of your mouth, as if to stifle your sudden and imminent urge to scream to something that was no longer there. So you sighed, lifting and lowering your heavy, slumped shoulders.

“Guess I'm finally losing my mind then...”

Something in your widowed core wanted to believe that this was just a taste of your newfound neediness flanked by a depressed delirium, coming to haunt you in moments beyond the gloom of your bedroom walls. An already familiar feeling starting to shyly bud out of its lonely and melancholy nights all held on the mainstays of sheets a cold and empty bed, missing a second figure that should rock you to sleep around her warm and affectionate arms, loving you until the sunrise of the next day. But nothing was there for you. The Nothing was your friend.

A little more than two years had passed since your late wife had passed away, still so young and so soon, in a battle fought for the guarantee of the future of humanity and of all the other diverse races beyond that made up the vast immensity of the universe that encompassed your insignificant little planet on the corner of the galaxy, leaving you behind in the process; back with nothing. As a mortal married to a goddess, you might expect that someday the terrible would finally happen – but that had never even crossed your mind at some point in the remote past. After all, gods weren't supposed to die. But Wanda did. Wanda died.

You, who were still as young as the age when she was kept underground, kept nothing but a broken heart to pick up the pieces and two small children to look after and raise all by yourself – the only remnants of her that still lived and breathed in you.

Wanda had never called herself a hero in the face of the incalculable qualifications imbued with the meaning the word carried before. But that's what she had been – that's how newspapers around the world labeled her in flashy, gaudy, invasive headlines, who have served you as nothing but a source of annoyance, when you only knew that your wife would not appreciate that circus played in her good name. Until her final sacrifice, the news was not usually very pleasant in the face of what they sardonically dubbed the Witch.

Fighting alongside the Avengers (those great heroes of Earth), utilizing her mystical gifts to ravage from the galaxy-reading any sign that would point to the Mind Stone's magical distinctions, Wanda's last breath was thought of you and your children (twins still as small as they were), in the growing tomorrow of the horizon that she defended until the last second for you to live, even without having her around.

And her absence could still well be felt in the open, bloody tear in the confines of your chest, eclipsing any and all forms of will to live inside you. Your life was geared towards motherhood, and nothing else – because there was no point in living for yourself anymore. Without the twins you would have nothing, and therefore, you would have no reason to keep getting out of bed where you were increasingly tempted to lie down and waste away.

You'd just be the young widow worthy of the sorrowful stares who came to soothe your spirits with rehearsed speeches about how noble your wife had been, or how you should be content or proud of her for doing so – but no, you were broken and miserable and alone. Utterly alone.

It was as if your soul, your spirit and your essence were all buried next to Wanda's coffin that you made sure was the most magnificent of them all, to watch over the one who lay beside her brother back in Sokovia – yet across the ocean, as far away as she was already, it only seemed right that this was the place of your beloved wife's eternal rest. She deserved to have her family around, after all.

Your house no longer felt like a home when there was no Wanda to add to the reality encapsulated in time when you found yourself living with your two children, in an eternal grieving environment; it was, that structure of brick, concrete and flagstone, just a crypt, a suburban tomb, a mausoleum for the soul of your late wife. A shrine and museum for a dead woman and one other melancholic person.

There was no way you could get rid of the small things that were provided with the essence, the memory of her wandering smiling through those halls now as shadowy as missing from the glow of her snuggled on the couch, against your chest, in front of the flickering television.

Her favorite porcelain teacup still sat unused on top of a shelf, and her red plastic toothbrush, remaining untouched as a century-old artifact, still joined yours in the bathroom cabinet—as if to complement what she had left back, as if you were still clinging to the meager hope that someday, somehow, she would come home to your welcoming arms.

But lately, the lack of Wanda was giving you the shivers, as if a wily poltergeist cohabited the house with you and the kids, focusing its entire immaterial existence on tormenting your senses.

A head always seemed to creep into the dark corners of the house, disappearing into thin air before you could look with greater precision and certainty. Icy touches felt like fingertips running like pins down the length of your spine beneath your nightclothes, waking you in your sleep to find only the empty room submerged in darkness around you. Clever palms of non-existent hands firmly groped the hollow of your inner thighs as you fell asleep on the couch.

The week before you dropped a carton of milk on the market linoleum floor when your peripheral vision saw a strand of auburn hair pass behind you in a chilly breath, vanishing before you could gauge more accurately in a studious second glance. Her scent still hung in the air, like an inebriating scarlet fog around your jumpy senses.

But you knew that your mental health wasn't doing very well, and the tendency seemed to be for your disorders to get worse as the days went by. Little by little, it was as if the inner voices echoing within the corners of your cranium were doing their best to coerce you into insane slips that bordered on madness. As if on a tightrope, it was as if any single misstep could bring you to the edge of a dark precipice that would swallow you to the bone.

But you stood firm in the face of such wild daydreams, always squeezing your nails into the thin skin of your palms just to keep you awake and functional. After all, it wouldn't make sense to develop a disturbing stalking mania within the walls of your own home.

“Mom?” Little Billy's voice caught your attention, as immersed in your own daydreams as you were, you hadn't even realized that the boy was there in the kitchen, next to you.

You blinked once at him, who reminded you so much of Wanda – the Maximoff genes were prominent in the boy's facial structure, who, although still with a plump face worthy of a child's cut, bore the same sharp and striking features that refined the stunning face of his other mother.

“Yes, baby?”

“I,” the little boy frowned, “I called you a couple of times and you didn't answer...”

“I'm sorry Billy,” you mumbled back to him, “Mom's just been a little... off track lately, that's all. I didn't sleep very well last night.”

“Are you okay? You look… weird.”

Something about him oozed a sincere concern for your well-being, as if the little boy's spirit was much older than the cognitive limitations imbued in his measly ten-year-old physical body. Wanda used to say that she felt the magic sparkling inside him, like a promise of something yet to come. He used to feel something that others didn't.

“I…” you opened your mouth but then closed it, only to open it again soon after, “Yeah, I am, Bill. Don't worry about me okay? Mom’s fine. I'll try to sleep better tonight.”

There was a spark of uncertainty in his eyes, which was promptly extinguished by the most sincere smile you could manage to trace in the outline of your lips; not that you were doing it as often as you used to, and not as honestly as you'd like. But it seemed to be enough to calm the little boy's moods, with the short cropped light brown hair, the tiniest fringe brushing his eyebrows.

“Mooom, are the pancakes ready yet? I’m hungry!” Tommy then came from the living room to stand beside his brother, albeit a little more oblivious than his twin.

You, in turn, just released a good-natured breath of warm air through your nostrils. Those little boys, yours and hers, they were the only thing that still keep your shred of sanity alive.

“Almost done, zippy,” and then you moved your elbow to reach for your phone in your pants back pocket, with a single tap deferred on the side button to unlock the screen before your eyes, “Damn, it's late already... go upstairs pack your stuff, okay boys? It's almost time for school and I don't want you to be late.”

“But what about the pancakes—”

“Tommy,” was a more assertive tone, though not at all sharp or even harsh, “Go pack your stuff, okay bud? You can eat your pancakes after you've done what I asked you to, honey. They're not going anywhere, I can promise you that.”

“Okay mom, okay,” Tommy sighed grudgingly, turning on his greenish converse sneakers to head upstairs.

“Thank you,” you kind of hummed to the kid's back.

Billy gave you one more curious look before leaving the room, chasing the other boy of his age outside the kitchen. And you could barely notice the watchful specter propped up in your peripheral vision, which faded to crimson as a sensation of burning eyes blistered against the bone on the right side of your jaw, causing you to turn your chin in a snap to stare at that long-ago vanishing presence. The skin on the back of your neck prickled into a frosty tingle.

“Shit…” you swore under your breath. Maybe it was just the seasonal chills. Wanda would say it was just a case of the Mondays.

But it was that very night, just after the boys fell asleep in the room they shared just down the hall, and you stared, for longer than it would be healthy to do (the orange plastic pressed against the palm of your right hand, the cheek of your thumb smoothing the side of the white cap), the little bottle of sleeping pills partially filled with manipulated capsules that your psychiatrist had prescribed for you some time ago, that something surged up inside you like a caged bird crying out for freedom. You wanted to free yourself from your own head.

You missed your wife, of course, she left a hole within your chest – but you just weren't able to notice when the photograph that framed her picture that was placed on the shelf beside your bed (Wanda smiling, her head half thrown back, popping the cork of a bottle of champagne on her birthday) turned with her emerald eyes to your hunched figure sitting pathetically at the foot of the bed.

The warm water from the shower only served to numb your senses for a few miserable minutes of fleeting relaxation, all spent with your empty gaze, lacking a spark to illuminate those abyssal pools of your irises so vague and hollow, gazing disjointedly into the darkness of the drain and the spills of water that poured into it. How the gulfs of hot water poured down that hole and went away – and how you were kind of tempted to go with them. Your hands still looked thinner and paler than you remembered them having been before.

The record closed on a dry squeak between the outstretched fingers of your right hand. As in the days before this, you hardly dared to sweep your gaze over the humble golden wedding band set at the base of your ring finger's span; touching it was like being on fire, and that's why you hadn't even pulled it out of your skin – taking it off would make things real. It would mean accepting that Wanda was gone and saying goodbye to her memory. Something that you, even after two long years, weren't ready to do at all.

Stepping out from under the turned off shower, your hair still wet and heavy from your locks soaked in lukewarm dripping water, you wrapped a brown cloth towel around your torso, over your breasts, feeling the coolness of the tiled floor against your bare feet.

As you passed the cloudy mirror mounted on the nearby wall, however, your heart dropped into your ribcage and your lungs seemed to be impregnated with thick ice cubes that congested your airways, as if a terrifying traffic jam had impeded your organs from functioning properly, made into an acute and piercing fear-induced coma; there was a dark figure with horns behind your shoulders reflected in the fogged glass. You blanched like chalk dust.

But your terrified gaze only clashed with a damp wall as you turned back. And back in the mirror, all that was there was your own terrified face, pale as a dead body – your eyes popping and your bosom rising and falling heavily. And then the wrinkled palms of both your hands pressed against the length of your face, and a bored growl trickled out of your throat in a lame whimper.

“Those fuckin' pills, I swear…”

Your room felt darker and more eerie than usual as you opened the bathroom door with a slow high-pitched creak, and with the thick curtains on the corner window drawn together in a tight squeeze, blocking any sliver of light from entering the room, only the pale ghostly light was what illuminated, in an opalescent white beam that opened the black sea of shadows, the double bed placed right in the center of the room. Your bed. Your and Wanda's bed.

Your wet body was poured into a stream of chills that tingled down your skin even though the windows were closed, still as you remembered leaving them. Something didn't feel right in your insides – in your goosebumps and in your heart that seemed to want to burst out of your mouth. Something seemed to be lurking inside the pipes running in the claustrophobic walls of the room that seemed to grow and tighten around you.

You noticed, out of the corner of your eye, the bedroom door ajar, leading into the hallway devoid of life and light, and it was as if a single infernal eye slithered you through that beam of blackness, staring back at you in a predatory way, eating your soul from the inside. A stream of cold wind slithered across the ceiling and floor. The room was empty, but it felt like it was full of eyes on the walls and floor, all facing you, who was the star of a Mephistophelian show.

And then, behind your shoulders into the bathroom, a tiny noise that only effort would hear, that if your senses weren't as sharp in a state of alert as they were, wouldn't even be heard by your attentive ear. A shy sound, but no less terrifying; it was the prelude to an apocalypse, a siren warning of what was to come. Your muscles stiffened beneath the soft material of the towel.

It was a strained screech, like the ends of an aluminum fork scraping the china on a plate. Just scratching, as if someone were dragging the aluminum utensil against the porcelain; a long, drawn-out squeeeak. And its origin was traced by your fear to a nearby wall; it was like a pair of fingernails darting into the mirror. Just cutting, digging their way out of another reality, breaking down the barriers of a world that wasn't yours.

You took a hesitant step back as your eyes grew larger, because a hand cracked and ripped through the glass to bring out a bloody forearm from inside the wall, in a deep gaping gash that seemed to have damaged tissue, tendon, bone, muscle and meat; in a loud crash as if the glass were hit by a stone. It was a hand as bony and pale as a corpse's, yet a shadowy darkness spilled from the fingertips to the tops of the knuckles, as if in an advanced state of putrefying decomposition of dead flesh.

You wanted to scream, but just from breathing so ragged, you didn't know how to do it at all anymore – your muscles were in a staggering state of shock that turned them off like the flip of a switch inside your head, and it was as if your tongue was just bigger than your mouth. Like a drooling child, you just didn't know how to string together the words that would assemble the composition of a complete sentence.

A shoulder dressed in dark crimson like a rotten apple dragged along with it, out of the glass frame, a grotesque contort thing resembling a female human head, which contained on its top something like pointed horns that vaguely reminded you of a silly costume your wife wore on some past Halloween night (a Sokovian fortune teller, as she had said). But that evil spirit crawling out of the mirror was of hellish horror witnessed by your gaze that couldn't deviate from that vision. It was like the magnitude of a disturbed draw.

The sound was like bones stretching, breaking, crushing and writhing amid spilled blood and shattered glass. Your stomach twisted in disgusting bile as the walls of the staggering organ in your abdomen compressed to the size of a ripe olive. Strands of a thick, dark reddish liquid, almost purple like coagulated blood, poured vertically from the cracked mirror's frame, pooling on the floor in stains that only grew on the smooth tile.

That body pulled itself out of the mirror and fell to the tiled floor like a misshapen mass of bloody flesh and torn skin. And then it stood up as well as it could in its proper condition, before your astonished eyes in wither snaps of broken bones that sounded watery in your ears.

In a crimson haze that slipped over the extension of those bent things that seemed to simulate limbs, cuts closed, bleeding was stopped and between hard jerks, bones returned to their rightful places between muscles and veins. A broken neck got itself back into alignment along with the spine. Fingers unbent like broken twigs.

It was only then that you became aware of long, shiny hair, scattered here and there with shards of glass that looked like sprinkles in its silky extensions, spilling out in waves down the middle of the back of a woman clad in a kind of scarlet armor that seemed to come out of her pores, as if it were really a second layer of organic and functional skin.

A pair of eyes as dark as the moss that blooms far from the sun and life looked at you as if they could – as if they wanted to – rip your soul out of your mouth. Opaque irises, deep into the skull that seemed to want to pierce through soap-pale skin, as if that hideously beautiful face were carved from wax or bone. You wanted to cry and vomit at the same time, when did the airs of recognition rise through your nostrils.

The palm of your right hand pressed a terrified sob into your parted lips, sending it back down your throat. A hot tear trickled down the crook of your index finger that was bent down your nostrils that breathed a heavy, mouthy thin air.

"W... Wanda...?"

It should be her, as the creature's appearance indicated, but no, it couldn't be her. Though the facial structure was the same, high and strong, the macabre gaze directed at you was just unsettling in the extreme, in a dark shadow that would never again have crossed the lull of your wife's sweet gaze. It was like some otherworldly creature studying ways to break you, to make you cry out; cry-dark eyes embedded in your memory like two jade stones.

“Y/n,” you couldn't help but shudder in front of that low voice, dashed by an emotion not contained, “Y/n, I've finally found you. I... I found you the way I wanted you to be. It’s you, baby. It’s… it’s you. The perfect version of you.”

“W… what the–”

When a heavy dark boot stomped a slow step toward you, with her back to the bathroom light and into the darkness of the bedroom, a long cloak swinging behind her thanks to the practiced movements of her hips, snaking like a devil, you stomped another one backwards even like a shivering and frightened rabbit. When she took another step forward you took another one back, and she took it again and you did the same until the insides of your knees suddenly collided with the bed behind you.

“N-no, no, don't come near me!” it was an act of bravery poorly unmotivated by a shaky, unsteady voice of yours, “S-stay away! Get away! Get the fuck away from me!”

“Y/n,” Wanda's voice sounded so smooth, so intriguing to someone who hadn't heard it in so long, “Y/n, please baby, please calm down. Calm down. Listen to me–”

“Get away from me!”

You, as if in a trick, found yourself trapped between that Wanda and your mattress, and with your naked, wet body from a bath still merely covered in a towel, spikes of anxiety flickered inside you as you realized you were exposed to a natural predator, a hunter with a gun pointed halfway between your eyes; and you were her innocent prey.

“Get away!”

You didn't know why the scorching tears started to pool in your eyes, or why your voice started to crack on nasal tones; you were just befuddled and scared, and you were a widow left behind by the one who, somehow, was there before you again, living and breathing. And something about her was still Wanda. Maybe her scent, or her touch, or even that loving little smile. She was Wanda as much as she could be, and it was confusing and just heartbroken.

“Please, get away from me… get away… get away from me…”

There was nowhere to go when cadaverous hands gripped the sides of your waist to contain your shivering in a touch well accepted by your needy body, and so you just curled up inside yourself, constricting your shoulders when your eyelids twitched and a flash of skin creased between your brows. Tears streamed freely down the length of your cheeks while you were still babbling in a primitive way.

“No, get away… get away, please, please, get away…”

“It’s okay, honey,” Wanda mussed, almost as in the tone of one who soothes a nervous child, “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here now. I’m here, Детка.”

The body nestled against your felt warm against your epidermis, even though the maroon armor was solid and unnerving against the modesty of your bare chest. But “detka”, you remembered that word.

“Open your eyes, baby,” the soft voice melted into red velvet softly against your listening ears, a pair of darkened thumbs caressing the smooth skin of your cheekbones as if you were the most fragile of china. You shook your head from side to side, but she just wiped your tears away with her icy touch.

“Please look at me Y/n. Look at me. I need you to look at me,” and she smiled small in satisfaction when you did, “There you go, honey. That’s it, look at me Y/n. It’s me.”

“W… Wanda…?”

“Yes,” she whispered, “In a way. But, god,” the emerald green shimmered in a streak of warm scarlet that ran the rim of her irises, “You're always so beautiful that I could die. I just… I can’t– fuck, baby, come here.”

It wasn't like there was a forced coercion for you to do it – you just did it because you wanted to, because you wanted to make sure that that person standing before you really could be the woman who was once your wife, the love of your life. And she looked like Wanda in front of you. And she tasted like Wanda, an electric red that tasted like exultant happiness, when her mouth covered the flesh of your lips softly subtly, in a contrast that was so at odds with her appearance that it gave off airs of violence.

The touch on her jaw felt so good you wanted to cry even more, reaching for more of her palm against the heat of your face. You felt as if you belonged there, with her and in that moment, as if the last two years of your life had only been lived to culminate in Wanda's arms once again. When your lips finally parted, you blinked in front of her face with your wet eyelashes. She was pale as if her body had been dug up back in Novi Grad, and something in you couldn't miss how uncanny it all seemed to be.

“I– I… Wanda, but...” her dimmed thumb caressed the flesh of your left cheek, her palm curled beneath the soaked strands of your lank hair, “B-but… how… how did you… how are you here…?”

Her dark brows curled down from that scarlet, cracked crown that grew in two demonic horns pointed up from a beam of her ghostly skin. A lump of flesh formed a solid gulp inside the walls of your throat.

“Am I not supposed to be here?” your wife enquired, her chin tilting to the left at a broken angle in line with her collarbone, to which you cringed in your bones, “With you? With our boys?”

Something didn't feel right with you when she did it, even so memorable to you as that act was. Maybe her diabolical horns or her devilish cape, but really it was her glance; it was abnormal and hollow, a bottomless hole that seemed to have been ripped open in the verdant expanses that were once your wife's tender irises (those which, in turn, were dewyed by a haze of red stripes). Odd, even. And nothing about Wanda was supposed to feel as odd as that glare did—not when you knew her like the back of your hand.

 “I mean…” you muted in an uncertain, small tone (after all how could she, she herself, not be able to know why her very presence in front of you in that room should even border on the incapable of occurring?).

“You’re d–” but the damn word hardened and died inside your mouth, and you swallowed it before you searched for a less agonizing way to say aloud what had been nagging at your core for longer than you wanted it to, “When… Thanos, when… when he attacked, you… Wanda, you die–”

“Don’t.”

A pair of scorched digits pressed unexpectedly against the pulp of your lips, reining in your sentence so that the words pressed against the surface of your teeth, a dry sliver of weightiness gnawing crimson at the jade color of Wanda's irises that they flashed in green flares like a predator's eye sockets in the dark. You batted your glistening eyelashes in plump drops of cold tears in a confused way, and one hand caressed your cheek with zeal, Wanda smiling warmly as her pale lips twisted up in front of you.

“Don't think about it now, baby. You don't have to think about any more of this, okay? These last two years have been really hard on you, I know they have been, but I need you to just pay attention to me now Y/n. Look at me. You won't suffer anymore, not as long as I'm here with you. I'll hold you until the end this time, Y/n, I promise you that. This time I’ll be here with you.”

“But,” you tried unsuccessfully, the words sparking doubts that pierced the inside of your brain as you processed them with your lethargic cognition, your expression of regret melting into a flex of facial muscles as it surfaced in your eyes a bewildered countenance, bathed in latent confusion.

“What–? Wanda, what do you mean—”

“Y/n, honey,” she whispered back in a high-pitched condescending tone, shaking her long copper-haired head slightly, “Just shut your pretty mouth and make it easy for me, or I'll do it for you.”

You relatively choked on your own words, a heartbeat sound rumbling inside your ears, “But—”

“Детка,” Wandahissed in a vague tone of reprimand with her lips so close to yours, “Please just shut the fuck up.”

And then an avid scarlet glow darted between your lips, pressing a velvety tongue against the gap between your teeth, discharging into your mouth a ghostly, ethereal taste, harsher than usual as Wanda sipped from you a needy kiss when she bent to capture your lips between hers. It was as if she seeped into your bloodstream, trickling into your bones and muscle tissue, and pathetic wetness damp the insides of your thighs. It has been a while since the last time you tasted her inside your mouth.

In Wanda's action, only necessity could be unequivocally pointed out, and she only held the notion that it was necessary for you to have someone drive away your pain – and that she alone was imbued with the necessary powers to do so.

“I'm doing my best for you,” your wife snorted against your parted lips, “I hope you understand this, Детка. I’m doing this for the best. Everything I do is for your own good. I would never want to hurt you, Y/n.”

In a flash the red-haired woman managed to drag her upper teeth along the lower lip of your swollen mouth, and you moaned deeply with a tingle in your throat, a tiny fraction of the time passing until, like a buzz, your lips met Wanda's quick, and rough strokes took her voracious tongue into your mouth. You felt a firm, icy hand grip your breast primitively over that towel crisscrossed over your ruffled chest.

“Wan–” Blackenedfingers traveled to your damp scalp, placing a sharply painful grip there, and a light mouth stroked your line, “W-Wanda, please listen to me–” Another fiery kiss was pressed to your aching lip.

“Hush now, sweetheart. I don't want you to suffer any more than you already have, Y/n. Just let me take care of you, baby.”

The kisses traced in spots smeared across the burning skin of your right cheek, down to the contour of your jawbone and then wandering to the inner curve of your neck, replacing her lips with her teeth, mistreating your skin and soothing the tiny pain points with warm, wet kisses that seemed to burn the churning epidermis of your nervous breast. It was like fire spreading in a jagged line of spilled gasoline across the floor, scorching your flesh with the infernal touch of that mockery of what had once been your wife (yourWanda).

Rotting fingertips came loose from your damp locks, then pressed against the skin of your bare shoulders, sliding their palms in a caress gliding down the length of the inside of your arms, making their way to your waist through the thick material of the soft towel, and finally there was a deferred grip right on your tailbone bone, dangerously close to your ass, which guided your hips to lie on the soft sheets of the king-size bed located just behind you.

“Wanda,” you mussed apprehensively, snorting against the cadaverous face so close to yours as she covered your body with her scarlet figure, the bed sinking at specific points from the weight concentrated on the face of the mattress, “Wanda please, you've been away so long, we– we need to talk about–”

Again, a pair of steady fingers scorched in scorched putrefaction pressed her digits against your parted mouth, “I know honey, I know I've been away a long, long time… it must have been awful for you. You didn't deserve that. Not having someone to hold you,” the tip of a crimson lock brushed a tiniest touch against your right bicep, “Or touch you,” her index and middle fingers crept along the ridge of your lips, softening them without fear that she might hurt you, “Open up for me baby. Just like that.”

And you did so without hesitation, when Wanda sank her fingers into the cavity of your mouth, thus initiating a gentle massage adhering to the length of the face of your tongue. She smiled adoringly as a trickle of spittle pooled at the corner of your lips and dripped down the shaft of skin from the line of your chin.

In a tender loving gesture – possessing more speciousness than any other lewd caress that could have come from your wife's pallid diligent hands – the woman in red then pressed her white left wrist against the warmth of the flesh of your right cheek, to then loop your wet hair behind the outline of the shell of your ear. A ghostly wind hummed in a corner between the amorphous walls of the dark room.

“Look at you,” Wanda whispered, you drowning in the tracing of your wife's fingers down the entire length of your throat, moaning in the process, never breaking the bridge created between both pairs of black eyes, dark with pleasure.

“How perfect you are. You're everything to me, Y/n. I hope you know that there isn't a thing in this entire universe that I wouldn't do for you.” 

The fingers were gone, but the saliva kept running off you like a drooling child. In an affable ecstasy that wielded through your rib cage like a needy creature at its core, churning your insides with the need to swallow the cinnamon scent that only Wanda could have, she fitted the outline of her whipped hand to the base of your skull bone, through the hairline situated in the gap between your ear and your neck, to creep towards your like a needy figure and fit her own lips against yours – so roguish, so treacherous, so seductive.

Your stupor at the caresses had been stunned by an unconsciously made nasal fuss – your wet hair tangled with Wanda's orange locks, as the bodies were close to the center of the bed, legs intertwined and chins touching with the same intimacy that two twins would have taken in the hospitable warmth of their mother's womb. In a clenched fist tug, Wanda unrolled you from the towel's length, your nipples sticking up to the ceiling, hardened in the icy breeze that ran along the bedroom walls.

“You're the love of my life,” she whispered, still dressed, and for a heartbeat there was a pale mist to cloud the emerald green of Wanda's eyes, a sneaky wail slinking to collect tears behind her long lashes, “Never forget that you will always be the love of my life, no matter what happens or where I am. You are my sadness and my hope. But mostly, you are my love. It will always be you, Y/n. Only you.”

You wanted to cry as you wrapped your arms around the back of the woman's head above you, pulling her close without saying anything, dragging her into a long, affectionate kiss that almost made her burst into tears with your mouth against hers.

“I've missed you so much, Wanda,” you whimpered, thumbing back a lock of red hair that ended up crisscrossing the eccentric pointed crown she wore like a goddess of beauty, “I've missed you all these years, I... I’ll never be the same person without having you by my side, my little witch. I can’t live without you. I don’t know how.”

A convergence of eyes culminated in a single episode when silence passed between the two of you, the tips of your noses almost touching in midair – Wanda stared at you in irresolute emerald orbs, waiting for your tender face, even though your gaze was tied to her magnetic chain, who instigated you like a caged animal.

Smart hands then ran along the contour of your naked body, and Wanda didn't take long to cover the skin of your neck with her own lips, brushing a series of lethargic kisses and licks over your sensitive epidermis. It didn't take long to reach her objective, your firm breast, which she snatched in a skillful way, inferring, on your part, an inordinate groan.

“Wanda–!” you snorted, flattening your left hand against the hair on the back of her head, pressing it against your upward-jumping chest.

A moment later, Wanda nuzzled the tip of her nose into the crook of your neck, just below your jawline, through a few strands of dampened hair artificially emanating the fragrance of freshly rinsed shampoo, breathing in the scent of freshly rinsed coconut soap that your skin exhaled, which impelled her to nibble at the skin above the protruding bone of your clavicle. Your beloved wife yelped in pleasure against your flushed skin and continued.

You were completely surrendered to Wanda as you missed doing so much, with her feline ivory cheekbones pale as candle wax, your own lids closed in wet lash lines as if you wanted to hold back tears of excitement that threatened to slip out of your eyes and spill all the way down your flushed face like a juicy peach.

Your veins throbbed in a deep arousal, when did Wanda's fingers and yours skim the wet insides that had nothing to shield you from exposure, and your bare crotch captured and snuggled Wanda's bony wrist as you came to feel a set of warm lips gliding in a fiery, bracing line down the length of your abdomen, when did your wife head with her flaming mouth to the south of your body – a shy kiss was placed over the last bone of your rib, a teasing kiss over the pit of your abdomen, a kiss popping down to your navel and a last, lingering, ambitious, wet kiss on your pelvic bone, followed by a hard bite that alerted your senses.

“Wanda, please–!” you cried out for what you needed so badly, twisting your fingers around your wife's auburn hair, so close to the roots.

“Don't worry my dear,” she grinned mischievously, as close to between your thighs as she was, “I'll take good care of you, Y/n. Of all your needs. I'll give,” her blackened thumbs massaged the skin of the insides of your thighs spread before her, “What your pretty little pussy needs right now.”

With her tongue, Wanda then brushed the nerve point that was your clit. You groaned in return, for as long as you were not loved as you had to be; you hadn't been touched for so long, as no one but Wanda would be able to.

“Oh honey, you have no idea how much I missed you out there,” Wanda breathed in a trembling voice at her ear, kissing the skin of your left thigh, “How much I wanted to touch you and hear your moan again. You're different. You’re as I remember you to be.”

“Wanda...” A yelp and a snapped lip. You felt your belly throb.

The growl that blossomed through a crack in your lips had been a hoarse murmur. Without circumlocution to do so, Wanda's icy right hand (this hand was joking in imprecise, ambiguous strokes, with ghostly touches placed on the skin just above the cervix of your uterus), guided down, so that it touched your nerve throbbing between your legs—so needy, a growing urgency in your bones and flesh, yearning for the ardor of the ethereal figure that unfolded to you with such aim and mastery, the inhuman touch burning over your skin.

Her charred fingertips brushed against your damp pubic hair, and Wanda took a deep breath, her chest rising heavy and falling lightly, snorting a gust of warm air against the moisture pooled in your glistening folds—the scorching skin of your torso, you hugging yourself against the bed sheets, your two swollen nipples pointing at the ceiling.

 “Fuck–!” Your tongue clicked against the roof of your mouth, followed by a flawed grunt, “Wanda–!”

“You're really wet, Y/n...” the enchantress asserted in affirmation, no doubt, on a lame half whimper, her chin buffed with your viscous liquid, “You still taste so fucking good, baby.”

The tip of Wanda's nose skimmed the tenuous pubic hair found there, and you melted completely at the length of the experienced tongue of the one who had her face buried between your hips, your salty liquid spreading over the other woman's chin in red and dripping onto the sheets below you in a puddle of pleasure.

Your mouth was throbbing as Wanda sucked greedily for your taste, as voracious on her lips as she was passionate and gentle with subtle touches – after all, as much as you were needy and demanding, Wanda also wanted to go for more, for so much more than that.

A vigorous pair of strong hands were squeezing the inner face of your pale groin to keep them at a distance from each other, and Wanda, huddled there as if she'd always belonged there, had her eyes narrowed as she traced your impetuous clit with the tip of her smart tongue; this tongue that traveled through your lips and then opened inside your rosy slit, receiving, in response, a loud grunt of pleasure. The muscles in your abdomen tightened—you were spiraling in a lascivious whirl, unwrapping yourself at Wanda's movements.

“I love you,” you breathed, groping for the pointed horn on her crown, “I fucking love you Wanda, I love you so much–!”

What you said, although so needy for the height of pleasure, was so softly cut that Wanda was almost unable to hear it (however, she ended up doing it and, therefore, it was that her eyes rolled over of size). The moment was stagnant; time has slowed down. Looking down with your eyes still half-closed, you could see the gray dashed lines in Wanda's green irises expand and contract in blazing conviction, while her pupils widened like buttons—abyssal darkness curled like thorns curved in some kind of strange dune, swaying in the polished emerald desert.

You could feel the other woman's pulse beating against your fragile puffy folds as the cadence of Wanda's breathing altered, puffs of warm air slithering your growing wetness, seeing Wanda's pulse at the pale neck where an aristocratic blue vein pumped frantically with warm arterial blood. You waited with bated breath, blinking your gaze in one stunned countenance. And then Wanda smiled. This time as the sweet Wanda you were so fond of.

“I love you too, Детка.”

It didn't take long for you to reach your apex, as Wanda had dived back in to intricate her tongue into your pulsing hole; it's true, your body had grown unaccustomed to intimate and accurate touches, and the whirlwind of pleasure had been euphoric on your ruffled skin, melting into a wave of pleasure at your wife's lips. And then, there was silence. Thin silence broken only by tight gasps that weighed your chest in the broken regularity of your thick breathing.

“You did very well, dear,” Wanda's face rose to meet yours; something grim had returned to her expressions and you couldn't quite tell what that could turn out to be, “You… you're always going to be my good girl, right? Because you love me. And you understand that everything I do is for your own good. It's always for your own good, Y/n.”

Your wife's tone was different from that employed by her in the close past, when she was very busy between your legs. This time it had been clear and eerie, translucent as crystal, the clear sadness running in silver tears from her pale face.

One of your brows furrowed in a notorious confusion, and even soaked in weariness as you were, your face didn't take long to turn to Wanda who was then lying half on her side on top of your body in the middle of the bed – she snuggled in with her hips to one side, her auburn head placed just as far as your left collarbone bone (the warm aura of her body enveloping your icy limbs), a hand straddling your waist and a streak of auriginous scarlet fever crossing her left forearm and elbow.

“Wanda, I really don't understand—” But your rib cage froze as your heart thudded and slammed into your chest. Your body went into shock as your vision began to blur at the sight of her crown crisscrossed by airy strands of red magic, “Wanda, what... Wanda...”

“Shh, baby, don't fight it,” the tips of her blackened left fingers pressed against the skin of your sternum, just above where your locked heart was flanked by crimson-colored chains, “Your heart is stopping right now, Y/n. Just let it happen. I'm very sorry. Just… just let it happen, baby.”

The world around you was nothing but a reddish smudge, when did Wanda carefully push the sheets aside and take your naked body under the protection of her arms, squeezing your still warm body to herself, given the virtue of the love that had done little to soothe you; you, in turn, squeaked in a rather frightened way, but your muscles were weak, inoperative, and your brain lacked oxygen to reason correctly. You could just watch the eternal expanse of her green eyes filled with streaks of red as tears poured from the corners of her eyes in weight.

“I'm sorry, baby,” Wanda whispered, her forehead close to your, tears also crossing her pale face, “I'm sorry, моя любов. I'm very sorry. I love you. I'm very sorry.”

Wanda took your face by the sides with both hands and merged your lips in a timed kiss in harmonic cadence, which quickly had you whimpering in a dizzying lethargy spiked through your veins. Your heart froze within your chest. The kiss deepened, but only her tongue managed to tangle with yours until she herself was panting softly, your smoky foreheads touching each other. She sobbed against the commission of your swollen lips.

“I… love you,” you whispered terminally in a breath of voice, faint and barely audible, as Wanda gently stroked her dark fingers through your wet hair, her harsh pranks muffled by your temple.

“Wanda… I... I… love...”

Your breath caught when a tear slipped from the shell of your ear and fell onto the sheet beneath you. Your lungs stopped. Wanda watched closely as life left your unkempt body in that wet bed. And then she turned away, kneeling on the bed, in front of your empty corpse. Her right hand pressed against the middle of her chest beneath that scarlet armor, and Wanda could feel a dizzying pain inside her chest at what she had just done – the heart that stopped was yours, but what felt broke was hers.

And she was still weeping, when did hands with fingertips as blackened as those putrefying marks that melted her flesh encircle her waist, bringing her close to a body draped in dark robes of what would once have been robes of the supreme masters of Kamar-Taj. And you (not the slumped and chilling you in bed, but a version of you that breathed warm against the shell of your wife's ear) stuck the tip of your nose into Wanda's string of long copper-colored hair.

“I'm sorry,” she whimpered, pressing her right hand against your left forearm just below her ribs, “I'm sorry, Y/n, I… I can't lose you again. Not again. I can't go through this again.”

“It's okay, Wanda. You did a great job,” and to soothe her, you placed a warm little kiss on the top of her head, “She's been living a miserable life since she lost her Wanda, anyway. You just gave her the chance to be happy one last time before the inevitable. You did the right thing, honey, it was for the best. Say it was better this way, say it after me.”

“It was,” she sobbed, “It was better– better this way…”

“It was better this way,” you reassured her against her ear, “She left peacefully, and now we have our boys. See, Wanda? We did the right thing. That's why we meet even across the multiverse, honey; no matter what, we are always meant to be together. And this variant is now with her Wanda. This is the best for all of us.”

Wanda turned on her knees to face you, hiding her face in the hollow of skin where your neck and collarbone came together.

“I can't lose you again, Y/n,” she whimpered in warm tears against your shoulder, "I can't... I can't go through this again...”

“And you won't, honey. Never again,” you stroked her long hair with your darkened fingers, “We're going to live the life we deserve now with our boys, with our family,” and then, over Wanda’s shoulder, your gaze dropped to your dead variant, lying inert and naked in the middle of the bed. Wanda was always kind to them right up until the end.

“You gave her mercy, Wanda. You freed her from the pain she could never get over on her own, do you hear me? You did the right thing. It was better this way.”

Wanda snuggled against your body, and then you placed a tiny kiss against her temple, just below the curve of her dark crown.

“But I think we'd better keep the body somewhere around,” you thought aloud, “We never know when we're going to need to dream walk into another reality again. Let's hope that Strange doesn't come to ruin this one like he did last time.”

#wanda x you #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x y/n #wanda maximoff x you #wanda reader #wanda x y/n #wanda maximoff imagine #scarlet witch x you #scarlet witch x reader #scarlet witch #scarlet witch x y/n #elizabeth olsen #elizabeth olsen x reader #elizabeth olsen x you #elizabeth olsen x female reader #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #fanfic #spooktober #tommy maximoff #billy maximoff

[regular-gnome]

Hi! I just wanna say your art is soooo good and the headcanons you have for the archivists are so galaxy-brained like damn, I have no good words to describe how good it all is but thank you from the bottom of my heart for making those portrayals ♥ they are immensely enjoyable

#every now and then I remember this ask and just go: #:> #Im super glad you like them #you have no idea how happy I am others enjoy this vision of them as much as I do:D #ask

[truetogaia]

Hi just wondering if you would be open to writing a headcanon with some of the male avatar characters where their female mate is insecure about her chest?

featuring: Tsu’tey, Jake, Quaritch, Tonowari.

genre: headcanons

warnings: mentions of body dysmorphia, insecurities, like strong language??, quaritch is a dick because he doesn't understand but he eventually realizes!!

notes: HI OF COURSE I WILL!!! Also, If this is a request based on you, I'm so sorry you have to feel that way. You are a creation of earth herself, one of many beautiful beings wandering this planet of life. I know it might not be of much help, but you are quite literally stardust, created in a supernova explosion billions of years ago. Your skin was formed out of the cosmos, your soul is a domain of the universe and your body is the divine fortress of the galaxies and the heavenly bodies littering the sky, molded specifically for your spirit. Humanity has completely turned away from their mother and have created the concept of unbelievable beauty standards, which, by the way, do not even align with the laws of nature?? Don’t listen to social media. Think of yourself as a star, a celestial being, because that's what we all are, that is what you are. 

okay, now for the actual request!! SORRY

JAKE

Jake is absolutely obsessed with every single part of you. And sure, he is a very sexual man, always goofing around intimately, but regarding matters like these, he can be extremely serious. He loves every inch of blue skin covering your body, and adores every curve that gives shape to it. There is not one thing that he would change about you, he wouldn't dream to design you any differently if he got the chance to. So when you finally opened up about your insecurities regarding your chest, he was baffled. Never in a million years did he think you could carry these insecurities about something so indescribably perfect. 

He spent every following day trying his utmost best to make you forget those absurdities, drowning you in reassuring and loving words, making sure you knew exactly how jaw dropping you truly are. 

“y/n, listen to me.” Your gaze shifted uncomfortably around the room, not daring to meet your mates eyes. “Hey,” he gently grabbed your hands, placing them against his chest, “this heart,” you felt it thump wildly beneath your palms, “its purpose is to love you, and It serves its purpose every day, without fail. You are undoubtedly the most beautiful being this world has created, there is not a single error on your beautiful body.” 

You had him wrapped around your finger, he would do whatever was needed for you to feel as loved and beautiful as you are, and he was gonna make damn sure you knew of it.

TONOWARI

Wari could not believe his pointy ears. His main priority had always been to make sure you were completely aware of the immense love he held for you in his heart. The words that left your mouth were nonsense, and his brain was trying to puzzle it together. There was absolutely no reason for such an astonishing, ravaging person as yourself to feel that way. His heart ached as your eyes darted to the floor at his expression. His eyes told of the utter confusion he experienced, and you felt stupid. 

“I’m sorry, I know It’s stupid and all but.. I can’t help but feel this way sometimes.” You finally managed to meet his gaze, and when you locked eyes, his features immediately softened. 

“My beautiful girl, you are as ravaging as the ocean, and as heavenly as the cosmos. Your mere presence is enough to send a million men to their knees, enough to make me never want to forget a single thing regarding you. Even after death, I want every trivial, petty detail to stay with me until the end of time itself.”

Your smile makes his heart tingle slightly, a warm sensation spreading in your face. He gently cupped your jaw, lifting your face to look up at him. “Oel ngati kameie, y/n.” Your foreheads pressed together as you closed your eyes, reveling in the gentle affirmations before repeating his words back to him.

QUARITCH

Quaritch is a man who doesn’t enjoy being emotional. He isn’t emotionally available at all, physically and mentally recoiling at the mention or thought of being openly affectionate on an emotional level with someone. But when you came into his life, something switched in him. He tried his best to be at least.. somewhat open and supportive. He tries his best, I promise. 

But, when you opened up to him about your insecurities, his brain malfunctioned. He couldn't connect the dots you so desperately gave to him. The two of you were in bed when you told him, your head was propped up on his bicep as he laid on his back. His tail nervously flicked around, he was trying to come up with a solution, like the strategist that he is, but he turned up empty handed.

“Sorry, sweetie, but what the hell are you talking about?” He turned his face to you, eyes slightly narrowed as he tried to make sense of your words. You twisted and squirmed uncomfortably.

“I don’t know.. S’ just that sometimes I feel like.. You know.. It's not as beautiful as you think it is.” He almost laughed at that, snorting as he tried suppressing the itching laughter. When his little fit of chuckles ended, he looked down at you again. You were frowning, lip slightly quivering as your face was turned away. He realized his mistakes, a slight panic settling over him as he shifted his body towards you and softly placed his hand on the side of your face, turning you to him again.

“I’m so sorry, bunny. I didn’t mean to make you upset, you know that.” You looked up at him, sensing a genuine apologetic aura from him. “You’re my finest, most amazing prize, pumpkin. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with you.” A smile spread on your face as your dear mate tried his best to comfort you. You knew he didn’t have a way with words, but him trying meant so much.

TSU’TEY

Tsu’tey is such a sweetheart when it comes to his mate. He showers them in praises and compliments, love and adoration. His heart swells with pride each time the two of you go out, reveling in the jealous looks from the other males. He knew something was off the minute you started doubting yourself. He didn’t even give you a moment to think about it.

“Yawne, is something wrong?” The two of you were sat in your shared home, nuzzled together in front of the head of the fire. You shook your head, locking your gaze on the flames eagerly licking the wood. 

“I know when you're lying.” He was right. He always knew, right from the start. Even before the lies had formed on your tongue. “I’ve noticed the way you look at yourself in your reflection.” Your head shot up at that, turning to him. “Whatever it is, stop. Yawne, you are so mesmerizing, truly. There is no better mate, I mean it.” 

You placed your head on his hard shoulder, sighing while fiddling with your hands. Tsu’tey grabbed them with his unoccupied hand, and brought them to his lap. “Tell me, ma tsawksyul, what is eating you?” 

A tiny tear almost went unnoticed by you, until tsu’tey calmly wiped it away with his thumb. You finally opened up, spilling your heart out to him. His heart twinged with the knowledge that you had felt this way all this time, and he hadn’t known. 

“My sweet girl, you are the omaticaya’s most beautiful woman. I did not mate with you just because of your amazing personality, the clan's most fierce warrior has his standard high, you know.” A giggle left your lips and it soon turned into a fit of laughter. He smiled, heart warming with each wheeze that left your lungs.

#jake sully x reader #young jake sully #jake sully fanfiction #jake sully #james cameron avatar #avatar 2009 #avatar pandora #avatar twow #avatar fanfiction #avatar smut #jake sully imagine #avatar way of water #jake sully fluff #avatar x reader #jake sully headcanon #jake sully headcanons #avatar jake sully #jake sully x afab #jake sully x fem!reader #jake sully avatar #jake sully x you #tonowari x reader #tonowari fluff #tonowari #tonowari imagine #tonowari x you #tonowari avatar #avatar fluff #avatar x you #avatar x female reader

[helloabominacion]

QUERENCIA. (N) a place from which one's strength is drawn, where one feels at home, the place where you are your most authentic self.

Paring ⇀ kukulkan, Namor x Alien!reader Summary ⇀ Something told you that this primitive planet could be the new start after your unfortunate past. But after living three years among humans who were distrustful and aggressive toward you, hopes were crushed like stepping on a snail. But after meeting a dangerous mythological legend and a girl obsessed with jewelry and marine animals, you thought this couldn't get worse.

A/N ⇀ i'm excited for this one cause it's gonna be multiple chapters instead of one shots fics. also i don't use the ' y/n 'e. my native language is not english so there might be some grammar errors! feel free to let me know if you see any! :)

«… 🌟 … »

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Everyone has a childhood memory that will come back to them. It doesn't matter if it was happy, sad, uncomfortable, or traumatic. You will never forget it, and your memory that, despite not being joyful, your conscious will remind you of it in difficult moments. You don't know if it's a cruel way of your brain to make you recall bitter memories, and it always does it out of the blue. You wish you could restart your brain sometimes, but that would require going to a hospital full of locals who are not very friendly with you.

You can't blame them, and you cannot hold ill feelings toward the local's villagers, with infinite beliefs that this world could offer you. You learned them when you discovered this planet. Similar to your home, with different structures and weather but an identical society. Although a bit primitive, how can planet Earth's habitants assume they are the only ones in space? With so many galaxies in space and massive planets, that cannot be compared to the sun. Oh, that splendid sun that your skin loved on the first day you arrived. Bathing in its warm rays, you were fascinated by its captivating sunsets and sunrises. You never got tired of those.

Your planet was not like this, covered by immense clouds that did not allow the sky to show, immense oceans but not as deep as the earth, and mountains. Your planet was known for using the minerals of the mountains and active volcanoes, using their energy to create life, and cultivating a beautiful culture that, from generation to generation, has passed through several decades.

Only to be eradicated by a madman.

A gloomy shadow fell on your gaze, a heavy exhalation flew from your nose, slumping against the hammock. A nightmare woke you up before your alarm went off, and you couldn't catch up on sleep afterward. So now you were gazing at the ocean, waiting for the sun to rise. Your hut was constructed out of the materials of your fallen ship and natural resources. Of course, you were inspired by the designs of the local Yucatecans.  

Three years have passed since you crashed on this planet, keeping a safe distance from civilization, although humans have their mutants, superheroes, and 'gods.' But with you, it was different. You still kept receiving indifferent looks, with fear or disgust. You weren't going to hide your body, it was impossible to conceal your pointy ears, and the idea of hiding your precious tail with some pants was ridiculous.

Your people do not hide.

With the first rays of the sun, you stood up from the hammock, ready to go to the town and work. Wearing an old red tank top, green cargo shorts up to the knee, and a pair of sandals. You don't need them, but they were a gift from a mother who saw you all barefooted in the streets, insisting and almost scolding you for not wearing footwear.

Your people don’t need to wear ‘shoes’, their feet were stronger and made to run in the forest and climb mountains. With your backpack prepared with your supplies and lunch, you headed to Progreso, starting another mundane cycle again with the humans.

With a glance over your shoulder, the soft breeze swayed the palms surrounding the hut, your home, which you glared at it. How can it be home to you if it's always empty? You prayed that would change soon.

.

🌟

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The streets of Progreso were boasted with locals and tourists, excited to begin a new day to either work or explore. You marched the same road to avoid stares and strangers who dared to ask why you have a tail. You can handle children with sticky hands who are overcurious about your tail, but grown adults trying to touch your ears? That's a big no-no.

You work in a popular restaurant name El Pargo, but you were not a cook, a waitress, or a barista. None of that, you work in the back, receiving heavy cargo that no human could get off the delivery trucks. Sometimes the manager would send you to the dock to ensure their deliveries were safe, which confounded you. Did someone wanted to steal their shrimp and lobster?

Crime was common here, too common because people didn't seem bothered if someone was killed in the streets or kidnapped. Your people had their rules too, if you steal they cut off your hand, but those were radical times. You were wondering if that could help them. You took another bite of your guava, the juices dripping onto your handkerchief. It was your first break of the day, and you were observing the people go by the restaurant, families enjoying the sun and their sweets, and couples holding hands as they looked at each other in love. Some of your coworkers have pointed out and teased why you were observing like a hawk. Perhaps you like to analyze and imagine what if it was you walking in those shoes.

“Xola!”

You beamed at the nickname and turned around to lock eyes with the owner, Maritza, with a vulgar mouth but a nurturing woman who likes to smoke those cigarettes twice a day. Throwing the rest of the fruit in a trash can and wiping your hands on the handkerchief, you asked what you can do for her.

“I need you to go the dock, el Peter y Chucho no vinieron andas crudos,” Maritza huffs as she texted her smartphone.  “Can you go there and give them a hand, Mija?   Shows those lazy bums some muscles, si?” Peter and Chucho have a hangover.

You nodded as you followed her to the back room to get your phone. “What are we receiving today?”

“Octopus, lobster y una cajota de huachinangos como te gustan!” Maritza winked in your direction as you tried to prevent those purple-manicured nails from poking your ribs, but you did beam at the idea of those delicious red fishes. They tasted so great with lemon, white rice, and boiled vegetables. It was the perfect meal.

“Andale, take the bike so you can get there faster, vamonos Shu!”

You caught the keys in midair, tail wagging as you grinned at her, nodded gratefully, and exited the half-full establishment. Maritza was in a good mood, allowing you to drive her motorcycle only happens once a year.  Your first time driving a bike, you almost drowned in the ocean along with it.  The engine's purr vibrated between your legs when you ignited the vehicle, and you started to drive on the poorly fixed street.  Trusting in your driving skills, it took about twenty minutes to get to where the local boats unload and where sometimes people liked to fish and release.

“What’re you doing here, fenomeno?” freak

“Can I at least remove the helmet?” You deadpan as you get off the bike muttering in your native language, ‘annoying little shit’

“What did you say?” Jose question with a glare.

Finally you paid attention to Maritza's son, the proclaimed future owner of the restaurant, scowled at you with disdain. He is a pubescent boy who hardly knows about the world, that's what Maritza told you, but you knew the boy had a hatred towards you, perhaps due to the lack of a father figure in his young life.

“I said, hi Jose, how are you today?” You smirked at him as you left the helmet on one of the handles. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“Because I’m already handling it, so I don’t need your help.”

“That’s not what your mother told me.” But before you could approach the dock steps, Jose stepped in the way.

“Como te lo dije fenomeno, I don’t need your help. So go the fuck away.” like I said freak.

Your pointy ears fold back, feeling the anger in your throat with the urge to smack him on the head. Insults never dishearten you. You've heard worse, but the resentment towards you. What did you do to deserve such treatment? When you took a threatening step and invaded his space, delight passed when you saw Jose shrink and your vibrant eyes scowled him down.

“If you don’t move, you’re going to force me to move you, boy.” You snarled quietly as your cat eyes like glared at him. Jose gulped and smirked nervously.

“If- if you touch me, I’ll call on you the police.”

 The weak threat made you huffed amusedly as you side-step him.  “As if anyone wants to touch your disgusting human body. I do not respond to threats, Jose. I make them. So, I suggest you change your attitude before something happens.”

And right away you went up the stairs, ignoring the angry words of Jose, who followed you, trying to have the last word. The waters of the pier were deep, and where no one dared to swim since there was no sand to step on. Your eyes found the boat with the restaurant logo, and you greeted some workers, some greeted you, and others gave a look that you didn't even care about and began to help them disembark. Quickly picking the heaviest box and putting it on the hand truck.

But how were you going to work with someone yapping down your neck?

“I could tell my mom that you said that to me! ¡Te despedirá si se lo digo!”

“Go for it.”

You hoped the impassive glare you sent over your shoulder could make him walk away, but he continued to complain. And you felt second-hand embarrassment since other bystanders were glancing at the young adult as if he was a nutcase, and he is, but Jose couldn’t care less. He wanted to speak his piece of mind.

“I will! And then you can get the fuck away from my home.”

“I didn’t know you own the whole state.”

“You know what I mean, pinche fenomeno!” fucking freak

Workers who watched the interaction shook their heads in disbelief, used to these childish tantrums from the young boy you believed. Finally, with the last heavy package set, a guy took away the hand truck to load on the car waiting at the end of the pier. The other male workers took this as a sign to breathe and sit on the boat while waiting for another hand truck.

“Ya dejala en paz Jose, estamos trabajando aquí.” Leave it alone Jose, we are working here

“Ya chamaco vete a perder a otra parte.” Alright kid, get lost somwehre else

Jose scowled at the workers in disbelief.  “Why are you letting this alien work with us? She doesn’t belong here!”

“Am I a freak or an alien? Pick up your damn mind.”  Your remark got a few chuckles from behind you as you faced Jose, tail wagging left and right, frustration bubbling to a fit of anger you might not be able to contain.

“You know what you are,” Jose sneered. “A fucking – “

“DEMONIO!”  Demon

Everyone jerked at the loud shout from the other side of the pier, and they saw an older man struggling with his fishing rod, as if something was trying to pull him down.

“¿Señor, está bien?”  Someone asks him from the boat.  Sir, are you alright?

“Hay un demonio en el agua! Un demonio.”  There is a demon in the water! A demon"

Two men quickly approached, helping the man try to pull the catch, and you also drew near to the edge of the pier. Why would he scream demon? Could it be one of those monster fish you sometimes see in the magazine? A frown pulls your brows as you scrutinize the turbid water trashed around where the line was disappearing.  But when you crouched down to get a better look at what it could be, your eyes widened in bemused, briefly between the men’s pulling back and forward. You briefly caught two small hands pulling the thread of the fishing rod. It wasn't a demon, that was a child!

“Stop, stop! That is not a demon, that is a kid!”

But none of them listened to you as they were on the verge of collapsing, whatever it was down there, it was strong and didn't seem to budge. Someone lost their grip with the water thrashing and splashing on the slippery wooden pier, and the older man was yanked down.  And you dive in, ignoring the scared protest from your coworkers.

Your eyes adjusted to the murky ocean water as you swam down, trying to locate the man with the white shirt, but the salt water was stinging your eyes, but you kept kicking your legs. Sinking even further, relief flooded you as you located the man a few feet away from you, floating unconscious. You swam over to him, and before you could even grabbed him by the bicep, something from down below floated to you, and you almost lost all the air as you gasped dumbfounded.

A child, there was a child glaring at you. But your keen eye catches the big gash on her forearm, blood flowing as the kid cradles her arm near her, and with a last mad glare she sent you, she swam down and disappeared into the dark water.

Who are you? What are you? Where do you come from? So many questions but limited time for your lungs. Remember you’re not like your other distant relative who are design to breathe underwater. Desperately you grasped the man's arm and swam up with all your might, lungs starting to burn inside your chest. Sweet relief filled your lungs the instant you broke out from the surface. A long stick appears in your line of vision, and you grip it, letting the man pulling you to the pier. A pair of hands hold you from your biceps and pull you up, clothes clinging to your soaking wet body.

The paramedics immediately took the unconscious man to the hospital, one of them gave you a thick blanket to cover yourself with, and you accepted it. They applauded you for your brave action, patting your back as you smiled at them, but your mind was elsewhere. Who was that child in the ocean? It wasn't your imagination, perhaps a mutant you sometimes saw on the news.

“Oye Xola, que vio esa viejo en el agua? Was it a demon? Did you saw it too?” One of the fishermen asked you, all of them gazing at you with morbid curiosity.   Should you tell the truth?  Lying was against the law on your planet, but then again, this is not your planet, so you shrugged. Hey Xola, what did that old man see in the water?

“No, it wasn’t a demon. I think it was a small shark or something else, but I couldn’t see it clearly.”

Humans speculate among themselves. A shark, a sea monster, or an older man should search for another age-appropriate hobby. And before you reached the stairs from the pier, you gave one last look where you jumped into the water. The soft waves moved the water in a rhythm that prevented you from observing its depths.

It's settled. You are going to explore more about the depth of the ocean.

Everyone went about their day, prepared to share what had happened on the pier with their friends, family, and others. Maritza lent you one of her clothes, and she was excited to see you in them. Your closet includes shirts that expose your shoulders, shorts, or long skirts to comfort your bottom.  The white crop top with no sleeves was a beautiful local white stitching, and the long flowy green skirt was perfect for your tail, with free mobility.

You said goodbye to Maritza with a wave and a smile, promising you would bring her clothes back tomorrow. All day you were thinking about how you're going to investigate your little encounter. The public library was 1 hour from the city, and you needed more energy to use public transportation. The internet could help, with its infinite knowledge of the world, surely there will be something about children capable of breathing in water and stronger than an adult. Your feet wandered through the streets while you savored a large bowl of fruit full of hot sauce and other sweets that the vendor prepared for you. But someone drew your attention, and a happy grin pulled your cheeks.

“Abuela Aurora!” You called out to the elderly woman ahead of you and trotted towards her. Her wrinkled brows rose in surprise, then fondness at the sight of you, and open her arms to embrace you in a gentle hug.  The smell of marzipan and roses filled your nose, enjoying the warm contact from her purple and pink shawl.

“Mi dulce Xola, como te fue hoy? Cuéntame.” My sweet Xola, how was your day today? Tell me.

You related your day, every detail you did, every thought, and every word you had with someone new. And you pause, unsure if it would be a good idea if you tell your encounter with the child to the grandmother. Would it scare her? Alarm her? Then again, she always gave you good advice. She always did when you wanted to create a life in Progreso.

“Hubo un accidente en el muelle, un pescador cayo al agua y estaba ahí para rescatarlo.”

“Ay que peligroso, pero mi dulce niña estaba ahí para salvar el día. ¿Qué fue lo que atrapo ese pescador?”

“No era un qué sino un quién…”  The older woman halted and looked at you curiously, waiting for your answer.

“Vi a una niña, vestida en harapos y con collares de dientes en su cuello.”

That innocent curiosity in the brown eyes of the older woman changed to one of affliction, and with a speed that surprised you, Aurora grabbed your hands and stared into your eyes.

“Olvídate de lo que viste.  Tu no viste una niña en el agua, fue tu imaginación.”

“Pero abuela yo –"

“No! ¡Olvídate de eso, es un mito y nada más! ¡Él es un mito!”

You slipped out of the older woman's grip, and uncertainty invaded you as you took a step back and looked at her suspiciously. And without explaining her outburst, the grandma spun around to continue her stroll as if nothing had happened.

🌟

What the fuck just happened? After thirty minutes of wandering all alone with your rambling and perturbed thoughts. You met grandma in a public park, she offered you a taste of one of her empanadas when you admitted that you had never tried them. It was a fact, she knew something about that underwater child. Tomorrow morning you will have to be persistent and get answers. But what if she's protecting you from something? Is he a myth? Who is a myth?

Your pensive gaze rose to see your cabin illuminated, with its decorative lights on the railing, the warm and gentle breeze swaying the palms leaves, making your skin nippy due to the sweat. So peaceful. Nothing disturbed you.

Your tote bag slipped from your shoulder, falling on the sand with a quiet thud. You didn’t left the backyards lights on.  It’s like a ritual to you, turning all the lights before going outside.   Instinct invades you, slits black pupils narrowed, attempting to search for any sign of threat.

There were three classifications among your people who had unique gifts. For example, a group was for the community, healers, and builders. Another group was for working minds to voice the complaints and wishes of the communities to avoid conflict between tribes.

You knelt without breaking contact with your home and grasped a fist of sand, a familiar warmth spread in your right hand, turning the little sand into a glass-looking lance.

Then there's your group, fiercely protecting the community with their lives. Who attack first and asks questions later.  But you gotta be cautious cause this is not your planet; this environment is not filled with humongous beast or neighborhood tribes who wished to raid your hom.

Earth doesn’t have that.

“Come out before I’ll drag you by the throat.”  Your threat was loud, making sure whatever was inside your home could hear it. A rustle from your left was heard, loud and approaching you, bending your knees into a defense position, raising your spear to your shoulder.

“Much ma' in meentik loob…”  Please, don’t hurt me.

Your gaze immediately softened, and you lowered the spear. Your heartbeat delayed its frantic pace, realizing you were not going to fight your life. A huge relief for you because you were wondering how you would hide the body. There was the cause of your inner turmoil.  Giving you the biggest puppy eyes you have ever seen, wet hair still dripping, which indicates she must have been hiding in the water not too long ago, but a whiff of copper made you blink. The little girl was still holding her arm to her chest, there was no bleeding, but the gash on her forearm looked red and angry, needing treatment.

You took a step forward but halted when she quickly took two steps back. Her widened eyes were staring at something, and you looked down, ah right how could you forget the dangerous weapon in your hand. Slowly you kneeled down, keeping eye contact with the girl, dropping the glass weapon, and the second it made contact with the white sand, it returned to its original form.

The little girl gasped with wonder as she walked towards you with new courage, speaking in her mother language you could not understand.

“Teech juntúul k'uj?  K'a'abéet a beel juntúul bey le intia'al, Kukulkán!”  Are you a god?  You must be one like mine, Kukulkan!

 You crouched correctly to her eye level as you raised your hands. “Woah, woah, I – I cannot understand you,”

The girl paused as she heard you speak, frowning.  

“Ah, you don’t understand me, okay….” You muttered to yourself, feeling conflicted about how to communicate with her.  “That nasty wound will get infected if it isn’t treated.”

The girl tilted your head as she blinked at your word. You pointed at her wound. “What happened to you?”

 She glanced at it briefly and shrugged. “  Yaan u ts'akik chúunk'in, le xiibo' estúpido lúub yóok'ol tin yéetel in la'achik.”  It will heal later, that stupid man fell on me and scratched me.

You understood the word stupid, but you could not decipher the rest. However, inside your home, you could use your native technology to help her and be able to translate what she said. You straightened to your height and offered your hand. The little girl stared at it, then at you. Curiosity but caution gleamed in her brown eyes, clearly not trusting you fully.

Using the same hand, you offered you pointed where your heart was. “Xola,” You offered your hand again, hoping the little girl would understand your intentions. You just wanted to help her and perhaps know more about her origins.

It took her seconds to understand you, and a smile pulled her chubby brown cheeks. “Yalit,” Your hands gently grasped the small hands from Yalit and pulled her towards your home, and for the first time, you had a  guest in your lonely home.

#Namor x reader #Black panther WakandaForever #Kukulkan x reader #namor x female reader #hope you like it #reblogging and leaving comments much appreciated #and likes #ofc #tenoch huerta #namor x y/n #mcu #namorxreader series #fanfiction

[jpitha]

The Dreams of Hyacinth 4

First / Previous / Next

Jameson smiled. "I know. An AI with a daughter? Who ever heard of such a thing, right?" Nick nodded silently.

"Well, very occasionally, when two AIs enter a relationship, we decide we'd like progeny of our own. We were built and designed by humans after all, it makes sense for our thought processes to be similar right? Anyway, we can combine a bit of our own code and... have a kid. They're not exactly a baby, and they don't learn like humans, and it's not a lot like raising a human, but she's still my daughter and I still love her."

Nick nodded. "Of course Jameson. We'll find her and bring her home. Is her... other parent in the picture?"

At mention of the other parent, Jameson's face crumples. "No, Nick. They died."

Nick didn't know a lot about AIs, but he knew it was rare for one to die. He had heard that some AIs were more than a thousand years old. "I'm sorry Jameson," was all he could manage.

"Thanks for your condolences Nick. They were one of the Starjumpers that attacked Empress Melody a decade ago, were you around for that?" Nick shook his head. "It's better you weren't. It was a nasty time for everyone." Jameson looks into the middle distance, remembering. "They were destroyed in orbit around Venus during the push to catch Melody before she escaped." Jameson looked at Nick in the eye. "They took out two of their damned Super Dreadnoughts when they blew their reactor though. They left with a positive count." His face softened and he looked down at his pad. "Not a day goes by that I don't miss them. Yon is my only link to them left, so you get why I want her back."

Nick looked Jameson in the eye. "We'll get her back. I personally guarantee it." Eastern was looking at them, wide eyed. "Nick, what the fuck are you-"

Jameson raised a hand for silence and smiled. He snapped his fingers towards the guards in the shadows. They wheeled over two beds, also with straps. When they beds came by, Eastern started to struggle against the straps.

"Now now Eastern, don't be like that. We're not going to hurt you." Jameson stopped. "No, I apologize. We're not going to hurt you on purpose." He stopped again. "No, that's still not right. The goal of the exercise is not pain." He thought a moment, "Yes, that's more accurate. I'm giving both of you a gift. A very special, rare gift. Something that will help you immensely when trying to find an AI."

As Jameson was speaking, the guards lifted up Nick like he weighed nothing and moved him to the bed, strapping him down. They did the same to Eastern. Nick was too confused to be more than curiously worried, but tears freely flowed from Eastern as she was strapped down. She whimpered quietly.

Nick turned his head and his eyes met Eastern's. She was incredibly frightened. He has never seen her this scared. "Uh Jameson? What is going to happen to us? Eastern is really worried."

Jameson waved his hand dismissively. "She's scared because she knows me better than you do, that's all son. I'm not going to torture you though, even though that's what it looks like. We're going to perform a little procedure on you, and you'll be better able to help me."

"Procedure?"

"That's right." Jameson nodded. "We're going to give you both cybernetic enhancements."

Eastern screamed.

Nick felt the icy pinch of a needle injecting something into his body, and before he could react, he was out.

Soon after the AIs were created and their personhood confirmed, biological people noticed that their bodies didn't break down and fail like human bodies did. A group of humans came to the AIs and asked "Can we get bodies like that? Could you put us into a body that doesn't get decrepit and die?"

The AIs, game to try anything with their new partners in the galaxy, agreed to try.

They dragged out ancient research into brain/computer interfaces and started the research again. Decades of people-hours went into improving the theory, developing new techniques and technology, all to give their new friends what they wanted.

A small subset of the AI faction was worried that this was too much change to their biological brains too quickly, but the humans assured them that it would be tested only on volunteers, and everyone knew the risks.

In hindsight, the AIs probably should have known better. After all, the people that most wanted to live forever were the people that probably should not have had access to the technology.

Eventually, the first generation of human cybernetic enhancements were developed, and the systems were ready for testing. Humans by the hundreds showed up and volunteered to be cut open and have this technology inserted.

All kinds of enhancements were developed. Artificial limbs, artificial organs, additional computational power for our brains and improved memory.

The losses were horrific.

If the subject didn't die from shock or rampant infection, then often they were reduced to a state of cationic stillness from over stimulation. Some reports made public state that of the one thousand official test subjects, less than twenty survived.

Some less official reports state that the number of "volunteers" was nearly three times the official number, and the losses were even higher.

In the end, there were "officially" twenty cybernetically enhanced humans, a lot of corpses, and the horrified AIs closed the program forbidding any further research. The cybernetically enhanced humans were given jobs that would benefit from such a person - mostly out in space, away from everyone else.

One of the most famous uses for a cybernetically enhanced human was as the co-captain of the massive colony ships that were launched soon after the program completed. This is not their story, however.

The thing about cybernetics is that the lure of it was just too enticing for some. The ability to be more than what they were, to be faster, smarter, stronger was too intriguing to just... stop the research.

So it went underground.

There was no shortage of "volunteers" either. People who had owed money to the wrong people, people who had signed up for the chance to get their family off planet to one of the nicer orbitals, people who just wanted a chance at a more exciting life. More meat for the grinder.

Because of the stigma against cybernetic enhancement, work was also done to hide the work done. There would be no chrome people with beautiful biomechanical arms, no lines of silver on their skin denoting their special status, no large ports on the back of their necks to show where they can interface more directly with a computer. Just as much work was done to hide the mods as was done on the mods themselves.

Nick didn't know any of this. He was a kid from Parvati who used the proceeds from the death of his parents to book passage as far away from Parvati as he could. He wasn't interested in AI history or cybernetics any more than he was interested in Empress Melody.

While he was under, Nick had odd dreams.

He was young again, sitting on the uncomfortable bench at his parent's funeral. His suit was rented, and scratchy. The two urns that contained their remains sat on a table surrounded by flowers as people walked by. Some had misty eyes, one or two, actual tears, but most everyone was expressionless.

Every now and then, someone - he never remembered who - would come up to him and offer hollow condolences. "You're strong." and "I'm so sorry" and "How lucky you made it." and so on and so on.

Nick was numb to the words.

While he was sitting, Eastern walked up to him. The same adult Eastern Nick knows now, not some kind of child, like he was. "Hey Nick, what are you doing, wallowing in your memories?" She looks around. "This is where you came from?" She scoffs. "No wonder you're so boring."

Nick looked up at Eastern. She was as beautiful as ever, dressed in a black, low cut cocktail dress. Entire inappropriate for a funeral, but at least it was black. "Come on now, what are you going to dream about next? Purchasing cattle class to Hyacinth because that's the furthest you can get with your meager inheritance? I know that part already." She bends down low, and Nick's eyes are drawn to her cleavage. She notices his eyes and grins wickedly. "Hah, I knew you were in there somewhere, you perv." She laughs. "Come on, let's get out of this dream, find somewhere nicer." She grabs his hand and squeezes it. Nick's head snaps back and he gasps.

The sky is turquoise and the sun is much more orange than Sol. Eastern looks around. "Is this Parvati? I've never even been planet-side and you're taking me to a fucking colony world?" She playfully nudges his upper arm. "Why couldn't you have done shit like this when we were dating?" She's wearing a black bikini with a blue and gold sari skirt, and Nick is in a black speedo.

Nick looks around. "We're at Touchdown Beach, on Parvati. It's where the first colonists landed." He gets his bearings. "Behind us is Naya Chennai, the First City, which means..." He stepped onto the dune, with Eastern following. As they reached the top, the flash of the sun on the water caught her attention and she gasped.

Eastern had never been on a planet. She spent her childhood on Luna, and then bounced around stations, starbases and orbitals her whole life. Dream or not, this is the first time she's ever seen an ocean. "Holy shit Nick. This is so much water! I can't even see the other side!" She takes a deep breath. "What's that smell? It's salty and funky and..."

"It's the smell of the sea. The salt and the sea creatures and the rotting seaweed." Nick took a deep breath as well. "It smells like home."

Eastern stood with the sun in front of her, highlighting her skin and the black bikini she was wearing. She put her arms on her hips and stared at Nick. "Nicholas North, you never told me Parvati was a paradise!"

Nick smiled and chuckled sadly. "Only if you're vacationing here, Eastern. Things aren't as... exciting when you grew up here."

"Ahh, there's the sad lump Nick I know and love. Welcome back." She looked around. "What are we doing though? Doesn't this feel odd for a dream?"

Nick mused. "Maybe it's related to the cybernetics work they're doing on us." He looked at Eastern. She really did look amazing in her outfit. He'll have to see if he can buy what she needs to recreate it when they're awake. "You try remembering something Eastern, maybe it goes both ways."

"Hmm okay."

They were in a crowd. So many people all at once. Nick felt light on his feet too. When the crowd moved, he had to shuffle along so he didn't bounce too high. Bounding when you walked was seen as something only tourists and newbies did. Why did he know that?

Everything was grey. Grey walls, grey ceiling, the dome above showed a black and grey sky. Everything smelled faintly of people and cordite.

"Luna." He said, "We're on Luna."

"That's right." Nick looked down. Eastern was next to him, but she couldn't be much older than 12 or 13. Her raven black hair was much longer now and floated lazily in the low gravity of Earth's moon. She caught him staring. "It was a sign of affluence to have long hair on Luna. It takes work to keep it from becoming one huge snarl."

"Why are we here?" Nick asked, looking around.

Eastern looked too. She jumped up until she was a good two heads taller than everyone and lazily floated back down. "I know why we're here! It's one of my best memories!" She grabbed his hand. "Come on, you're gonna get to meet her, you'll love her!"

Eastern dragged Nick through the crowd, ducking and weaving around the masses of people, trying to make it to the front of the crowd and the stage ahead. In the distance, he saw figures standing on the stage, their blue outfits a splash of color in this monochrome world. They seemed even more highly contrast than should be possible. This must have been a very formative memory for Eastern.

At the front of the crowd, two women sit. They're both wearing the vivid blue uniform. One has long dark hair pulled back sensibly in the low gravity, and the other has blond hair cropped short and spiky. The black haired woman seems to have a hologram of... wings and a crown on her? They're faint. Barely the suggestion of them, but Nick knows they're there.

It's their turn. Eastern bound up to the table. "And who is this young lady?" The Empress Melody says kindly. Eastern is practically bursting with excitement. "My name is Meghan Pelham, your highness." and she does a short curtsy.

"Such manners Miss Pelham, It is our pleasure to meet you." Empress Melody inclines her head gently and the woman behind her smiles.

"Are you really going to help all of us?" Eastern looks at them wide-eyed.

"That's our goal, yes. No matter who you are, or where you came from, we're here to help. There's so much we can do, and I hope that I can make everyone's lives better." She touches Eastern's right arm in a familial way and she practically floats off the floor. "Now, run along Meghan, and I hope we'll see you soon." A K'axi behind the empress hands Eastern a signed photo of her and the woman with the short blond hair.

Suddenly, Melody looks up at Nick and stares at him. "You don't belong here."

Sputtering, Nick has no reply. "I-I-I-I mean..."

Nick wakes up.

First / Previous / Next

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #sci fi writing #writing #humans and aliens #jpitha #the k’laxiverse #The Dreams of Hyacinth

[hiraya-rawr]

ngl one of my (very few) gripes about the sumeru archon quest is how sorta unfulfilling the rescue mission was? As in how one sided it is?

like I still love it overall but I genuinely cant believe that there wasn't one character that couldve existed where they're on the grand sages' side and they could've given the team a lot more trouble, instead the plan just went THAT smoothly. not one competent guy on the sages' side 💀

Sooo dark alhaitham concept where someone with immense knowledge, basically just someone with such a galaxy brain, is being put to use, and he can see through some little group's little plan and he knows how to counter anyone trying to stop him? Oohhh that would've been so good *chefs kiss* imagine the rescue mission being more of a chess game? Then the rescue mission somehow evolves into a revolution bc ngl the only counter i could think of is to somehow get all of sumeru involved lmao as in the will of the people?

The sumeru quest did go a little smoothly but ngl, the scenes were amazing! I think it was portrayed that way to prove how effective they are when working together, like all the meetings they had? the strategy talks?? the networking?!!! they made sure the plan was solid and while -in a story- it would be a little anticlimactic, playing it as a game seemed well-done! Sure there were a few setbacks, but I guess it would be bad if the quest went too long bc they highlighted every obstacle // aaah i rambled

AND ANON SO GLAD YOU NOTICED THE DARK ALHAITHAM AU— yes yes! i totally believe that the only way to win against dark alhaitham would be to get everyone in sumeru on your side 😭 or come to an agreement with him after negotiating with his interests

genshin should have a reverse genshin au just for funsies 👀 maybe ill write about it

#alhaitham #genshin alhaitham #hira brainrot #genshin #genshin impact #alhaitham x reader

[pentacass]

Please tell me all about Aelirra and Ves, how do they get along at first, how does Ves feel about finally meeting the woman that Lana <strike>left her for</strike> left her to go hunting across the galaxy for for years, how badly does Aelirra's goodness get on her nerves, how does Aelirra react to Ves/Darth Avriss's dramatics, please tell me this and more I must KNOW

our inky boi rolled up locked and loaded 🔫🔫 thenk <3

I'll touch on all these in fic hopefully but as always, nothing stops brain from going BRRRR

How do they get along at first - It's strictly professional. Ves recognises that, though she'd been key to the Alliance's creation, Ael is its Commander. The face of the Alliance that attracts most recruits. She treats Ael...politely (if very frigidly). Ael returns it with geniune warmth, patience, and an openness that makes Ves want to chew on rusted nails.

After some time, due to clashes in methods and beliefs, they'll butt heads more often. Ves argues, and argues, and argues - until one day (which kinda terrified everyone else), Ael snaps back at Ves in her first display of temper. Unfortunately, Ael's temper only delights Ves (i think she kinda fell in love tbh), and she keeps pushing Ael, whose restraint with Ves gets thinner and thinner, until they're barking in each other's faces.

That said, every storm comes to an end. They'll find common ground, learn from each other, and work in a way that accommodates them both. Even though they don't stop bickering and trying to shove each other into the dumpster. Yes, it's all Vestra's fault, and yes, Ael plays along cos she comes to enjoy it.

By the time they become friends, Lana's already floating face-down in the sea from watching her two besties fight all the time.

How does Ves feel about finally meeting the woman that Lana left her for left her to go hunting across the galaxy for for years - 'This is it? A golden retriever?? Lana, what the fuck??? What are you gonna do, ask her to fetch the sanity you obviously lost when you chose to LEAVE ME TO LOOK FOR HER?????'

She felt underwhelmed. She'd heard much of the Jedi Battlemaster who brought down the Emperor's Voice, then Revan on Yavin. She'd expected some equivalent of the Wrath, who radiated malicious potency in the Force from every pore.

Ael is the exact opposite of the Wrath, and much more subtle. Though her strength with the Force can't be denied, it is comparable to Vestra's own. All she saw was a Jedi, too calm, too detached from a galaxy that had suffered in the five years she'd spent locked away in carbonite. [We'll touch on this in fic soon! In um. The next...third chapter. ahahahha bye]

Then Ves sees Ael in battle, the unstoppable force that shatters Zakuulan shields, bright blue blades flashing as a beacon of hope in battle, and she understands Lana's judgement. If only part of it.

How badly does Aelirra's goodness get on her nerves - Let's just say it's a miracle that Ves' hands never find their way to Ael's neck.

Ves is immensely annoyed by Ael's determination to go out of her way to help everyone, to minimise collateral damage. She's even more annoyed when Ael manages to make it work, without compromising mission objectives.

We can psychoanalyse the hell out of Ves and her annoyance here, but tl;dr, she hates how Ael keeps proving her wrong and, on a deeper level, shows how Ves could achieve the same, without the brutality she'd internalised as Sith.

How does Aelirra react to Ves/Darth Avriss's dramatics

At first: calm, reasonable, accommodating. 'Let me understand you, Avriss, so that I can help you.'

Later, when they're friends: shut up shut up i'm so tired of your bullshit and your entire face

Although Ael does get angry and argue with Ves on occasion, she never cuts off all possibility of communication. After their clashes, Ves is always free to talk to Ael in private (which she never does). If she has the time, Ael will look for Ves and try to hash it out.

It's really because of Ael that they even have that first bit of understanding for each other. She manages to wear Ves down to the point where even Darth Avriss goes 'ok FINE we'll talk, if it gets you OFF MY DAMN BACK'.

#golden retriever vs feral cat #swtor #aelirra #vestra lenshe #yzstuff #yzswtor #ask #intheinkpot

[kyber-kisses]

Children of Wrath (Pt.1)

Din Djarin x Jedi!reader

Warnings: slight clone wars spoilers, slight canon divergence, Star Wars level violence. . . AnGsT?

Summary: at the end of the clone wars and the fall of the Jedi Order, one Jedi goes into hiding in the most unusual of ways until a Mandalorian stumbles across her. . . Two decades later.

A/N: I legit haven’t written anything in over two years so please be nice. Also a wrote this on my phone because I’m dumb and it’s easy.

Cold.

That’s the only word you could come up with in the dark and empty expanse in which you stayed.

Cold.

You didn’t know how long you had been here, or how long you would be here. . . But it was anything but peaceful. You couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk. Echos of voices shot through the empty expanse, slamming into you with immense force.

“Ahsoka, run!”

“Rex, please- this isn’t you!”

“The Grand Army of the republic has been ordered to hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights-“

Shrieks and yells pierced your brain like bolts of lighting, each painful word and yell making you want to cry out and scream.

But you were silent.

You were always silent.

And that’s how you would stay.

*. *. *. *. *. *.

Din didn’t know how long he had been on this damn moon. All he knew was that the sooner he could get off of it the better. It was rocky and cold and everything about it gave him a sick feeling in his stomach.

Silently cursing Karga, Din slid deeper into the cavity of the ship. He was a bounty hunter, he wasn’t a scrapper. Karga had told him that a contact needed something from inside this crashed ship and that if he got it he would be paid well. He had taken the offer with a tired sigh and a nod of his head.

As the natural light behind him began to dwindle as he sunk further into the massive belly of the crashed ship, he clicked on his torch light, letting it break through the darkness and illuminate the empty hangar before him. It was massive, stretching for yards before him before being swallowed but the dark where his light couldn’t reach.

The Mandalorian made his way past vacant ships, some still locked in place, some completely on their sides. A heavy layer of dust hung in the air, coating everything in a thick gray film.

“What could anyone possibly want in this thing?” He muttered, nudging a cracked clone helmet that sat before his feet.

This place was a graveyard from a time long past. What could anyone possibly want with a graveyard? Casting his eyes around the ruined ship he swallowed thickly. He was only a child when the clone wars happened and when the Republic fell. He was quite literally walking through the past. Maybe not his past. . . But somebody’s.

*. *. *. *. *. *.

Your palms were slick with sweat as you gripped your lightsaber tightly, your feet skidding across the smooth floors of the Venator as you bolted down the seemingly endless hallways with Rex and Ahsoka at your sides.

“We need to get to the hangar! The gravity field on this moon is pulling us in!” Rexs voice boomed, still somewhat being muffled by the loud sounds of the ship literally falling apart around you.

“Rex-“

Ahsoka s voice cutting off as she stumbled to a halt, suddenly releasing you had stopped a few yards back.

“Y/N! What in galaxies name are you doing?!”

Taking a breath you brought your eyes up from looking at your clenched hands, you shut down your doublesided saber.

“Get to the hangar. Find a ship and get off this thing. I’m going after Maul.” If you actually let Maul escape more and more clones could die before you could save them from whatever was happening inside their brains. . . And you couldn’t let Maul loose again.

“General!”

Snapping your eyes to the clone in front of you, you gave him a stern look. “That’s an order Commander! Don’t fight me on this! I will find my own way off this thing, now go!” Already backing up you cast Ahsoka and Rex one last look, “I’ll see you soon!”

*. *. *. *. *. *.

When Din had first entered the ship the air had been somewhat fresh, the draft from the broken hull giving a little life to the old ship, but after scrambling through and squeezing through blocked hallways and broken doors, that fresh clean air had all but disappeared.

Now it was stale. Heavy. Lifeless.

For decades the corpse of this ship had been sitting in silence without ventilation or circulation therefore giving the deep confines a thick musty smell.

Every once and awhile the ship would let out a wheeze or groan, still settling even after being so long at rest on the rocky terrain of the vacant moon. If anyone else had been in Dins place they would have said it was haunted.

Dins didn’t believe in ghosts. All he believed in was grabbing what he came for and getting the kriff out of there.

It felt like he had been wandering the ship for hours— then again it was massive and he would be lucky to find what he was looking for quickly. Rats squeaked and scurried away from the beam of his light as he moved his way along, the hairless creatures squeezing through breaks in the walls and floors. He passed thick metal doors folded in half, abandon blasters, and what felt like and endless array of scorch marks on the walls.

If he was anyone else he would have let his mind wander, imagining what it was like to be someone on this ship as it was going down. How terrified they must have been, how hard they must have fought.

But Din wasn’t that person.

He was a man with a job. . . That was it.

*. *. *. *. *. *. *.

Everything was moving so quickly.

Too quickly.

As the Venator continued its almost vertical fall to the surface of the nearest moon, you clung to the closest thing in reach to keep from sliding back down the hallway. You had knocked out six troopers on your way to find Maul but you were quickly realizing that your plan was falling apart.

All you had to do was survive.

And then you would go from there.

It felt like your mind was moving a million parsecs an hour as you tried to make a new plan, dodging a stray gonk droid sliding at light speed down the hallway as you did.

There was no way you would make it back to the hangar in time to get a ship and get a safe distance away before this thing crashed.

“Think Y/N, think-“ you breathed, looking back down the hallway, more objects sliding past you in the direction you were looking as you did.

It took a moment but the thought slammed into you so quickly that you let out a sharp breath as you did.

You let go of your anchor, practically using the hallway as a slide to the open door directly ahead of you. At the last second you reached out, latching onto he door frame to keep yourself from free falling into the room. Bracing your feet as best you could, you scanned the room, eyes eventually settling on the massive grey metal chamber to your left. Grappling across the room, you made your way to the control panel.

“This better kriffing work.” You breathed, praying that the thing still worked as your hands moved across the flickering control panel. A moment later the chambers doors parted. If you were in any other situation you would of let out a shout of joy, but all that came from your lips was a relieved sigh.

You remembered Master Plo teaching you about how these chambers were used for different things across the galaxy, yet you hadn’t heard him say anything about using it as a way to keep ones body safe during a crash.

But no time like the present to figure it out.

Punching the last button you needed, you lowered yourself into the chamber, the ship still rattling and booming around you as you did.

Anakin.

Obi-wan.

Ahsoka.

Rex.

Master Plo.

Their names flashed across your thoughts as the doors closed around you, and the world around you went dark and cold as the carbonite did it’s work.

Now all you could do was hope and pray one of them got you out of here, and that they were all safe.

*. *. *. *. *. *.

Junk.

That’s what Din was surrounded by.

Or at least that’s what it felt like with all the stray panels of loose metal and collection of broken droid and random items that had piled up in the room due to the ships vertical decent.

He was practically wading knee deep in all the stuff around him, flashlight continuing to break through the dusty and dark atmosphere.

That’s when his foot hit something underneath the piles of ship rubble, starting up a series of beeps, several lights blinking through the mess around him.

Not knowing if he had accidentally stumbled upon what he was looking for or not, he began frantically throwing rubble back, clearing away the mess to figure out what was beneath him.

He had barely thrown the last panel back when there was a sudden blast of cold air and not a second later a figure was propelling upright in front of him, making him stumble back in surprise, flashlight falling from his gloved palm. As the flashlight rolled to a stop, the beam fell across the figures face, showing wild eyes staring back, hair plastered against her face as her chest rose and fell rapidly.

“Who the hell are you?”

#din djarin #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #pedro pascal #chevys writing again

[chezzywezzy]

Yandere Kylo Ren pt. 2 (1/4)

Word count ; 4.2k

*Dedicated to @leandragemstone.

*Edited

Snoke’s laughter echoed in the large red room as Kylo Ren entered. The lights were dim, solely fixated on the wrinkled, mutant man on the throne. Red knights armed with Sith lightsabers stood as guards. Metal chandeliers dangled from the ceiling and the black floor shimmered and reflected. The blinding white elevator behind him closed, encapsulating him with Snoke.

“Tied on a string indeed, General Hux. Well done. The Resistance will soon be in our grasp.”

“Thank you, Supreme Leader,” Hux replied, his voice echoing off the walls. He turned tail and passed Kylo as he walked, heading toward the elevator.

Once Kylo was but a few yards away and Hux was out of earshot, Snoke turned his attention to the man and snidely remarked,” You wonder why I keep a rabid cur in such a place of power?” Kylo kneeled and bowed his head obediently. “A cur’s weakness, when properly manipulated, can be a sharp tool… How’s your wound?”

“It’s nothing,” Kylo quickly answered, the filter distorting his voice. His helmet was in the process of being repaired due to the damage received a few weeks back.

Snoke hummed in reply, his chin locking into place with a satisfying snap. "The mighty Kylo Ren,” he taunted, rising from his metallic throne. “When I found you, I saw what all masters live to see. Raw, untamed power. And beyond that, something truly special. The potential of your bloodline. A new Vader.”

“Was it with her?”

He fell silent for but a moment. “Now, I fear, I was mistaken. For you are focused more on the wooing of an alien.”

Kylo Ren looked up. “I’ve given everything I have to you,” he insisted, balling his fists up. “To the dark side.”

“Take that ridiculous thing off,” Snoke hissed, his temper bound to overflow.

Kylo was obedient as he pulled off the helmet, the helmet hissing in its wake. It revealed a long, thin scar that started at his jaw and crossed over his right eye. There was also a defined patch of black tar on his cheek. Even now, it was prominent. His gaze was adamantly cast toward the ground, his shame concerning the event immense.

“Yes, there it is. You have too much of your father’s heart in you, young Solo —“

“I killed Han Solo,” Kylo seethed. “When the moment came, I didn’t hesitate.”

“And look at you. The deed split your spirit to the bone,” he roared, his flesh stretching as he spoke. “You were unbalanced, bested by a girl who knows nothing of this galaxy and a girl who had never held a lightsaber before! You failed!”

Kylo, losing his temper, rose to his feet. He aimed to use the force, however, Snoke beat him to it. He struck Kylo with lightning and sent him flying across the room. The knights in red were on guard for further disobedience, however, Snoke waved them off. 

“Skywalker lives. The seed of the Jedi Order lives. And as long as it does, hope lives in the galaxy. I thought you would be the one to snuff it out. Alas, you're no Vadar. You’re just a child in a mask,” he sneered, having returned to his throne.

Snoke’s glare followed Kylo Ren as he snatched up his mask and stormed out. His emotions were in a tremulous tsunami as he stood in the elevator, his gaze fixated on nothing. He shut his eyes tightly, thinking of her. Thinking of the women who so very much defied him at any opportunity, and yet, he had stolen his heart and soul. She had wrapped him around his finger further with every passing night.

And then, he saw it. A vision. His brain swirled with colors, and he thought it was but a dream; he realized it was not as he beheld the Millennium Falcon landing on an unknown island. The island was surrounded by a murky blue as far as the eye can see and it landed on a large, grassy field.

He concentrated further, his head humming. His hand extended naturally as he used the Force to zoom in on the Millennium Falcon.

The staircase lowered to the grass. First, a giant Wookiee, groaning in excitement. The steps trembled under his weight. Then, that damned BB-8 droid that had surely led them straight to Skywalker. He waited there, but he could see nothing. So, he focused even more energy on entering the vessel. He immediately saw the girl that had the Force within her. She was leaning over a metal bed, which had someone in it.

Finally, the girl stepped out of the way as the person kicked their legs off the side. It was her. And she looked so very cute, with her messy hair and loud yawns. For a moment, he was entranced as she awoke herself. But then, she opened her eyes, appearing startled for a second. This was enough to shake him out of his stupor.

He opened his eyes, suddenly being wrought with jealousy. His soulmate was involved with an undeserving woman. She was his from the moment she first fell in front of him. He slammed his helmet-covered into the wall’s light fixtures, letting out grunts of fury. He slammed his fist into it over and over and over again, until the wall had a permanent dent.

When the door opened, he aggressively spoke to the generals outside,” Prepare my ship.”

Now that he knew his lover was nowhere near the Resistance’s ships, he knew he could arrange the attack with mercy. Kylo wanted nothing more than to make sure she had nothing to return to but him.

~~~

I could have sworn I saw him for a second, standing right in front of me. But as soon as he was there, he had vanished. It must have been my tied brain playing tricks on me.

“You go ahead and get something to eat,” Rey instructed. “Chewy’s waiting for you outside. I’ll make sure and come back for you, alright?”

I sent her a smile of confirmation. “Sure thing, babe.” Finally on my feet, I pulled my girlfriend into me and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. She kissed back, but only for a moment. I let out an exhausted groan of disappointment.

Rey chuckled and pet the side of my head. “I’ll be back. I have… something to return to Luke Skywalker.” In her grasp, she held his Jedi lightsaber.”

With that, she was off exiting the ship. Chewbacca came back in and groaned out of eagerness and slight annoyance. I sighed, pulling on my shoes. “I know, Chewy, but she should do it alone. We’ll meet him soon,” I replied.

After splashing some water on my face and brushing my teeth in the brig, I emerged. Chewy had pulled out some space bread - it went by some other name, but I didn’t care enough to remember - and handed it to me. 

“Thanks, buddy.” 

Over the course of the weeks we had spent traveling at light-speed, I had learned a lot more about this universe. Rey had taught me. Aside from various mainstream planet cultures, she taught me useful things like self-defense and how to take care of space craft. I’d even learned, at some point, that Chewbacca was a Wookiee - but, to me, he’d always be a giant space bear, and a giant space bear he’d remain. I didn’t want to completely let go of my former self.

Also, don’t ask how, but I had learned to understand the big fella. Even Rey found it impossible to communicate with him. And yet, when he groaned, it was like my mind translated it into whispers. So, it was safe to say, I was best friends with a giant space bear.

Chewy hoisted me onto his back and took me with him as we left the ship. I ate, occasionally spilling crumbs in his fur, but I always swept them off. One arm was loosely hanging around his neck and the other held my menial but tasty meal.

I don’t know how, but space bread was better than Earth bread by a lot.

Chewbacca began walking around and surveying the area, but not too far from the ship. We were by a cliff and the view was to die for. We stayed close to the ship, though, so as to not abandon Rey’s plans.

“So, Chewy,” I curiously initiated,” How long’s your lifespan?”

He released an animalistic groan as per usual, but my brain connected the dots.

“Damn, that long? So, you’re telling me you’ll still be starting life by the time I’m old and gray?” I exclaimed.

He was about to continue, but Rey suddenly jogged up to us. Her staff was in her hands and she looked rather irritated and desperate. “Chewy, I need your help. Skywalker’s locked himself away in his home and refuses to talk to me.”

I noticed that in her pocket, tucked away neatly, was the damned lightsaber. Chewy replied and began stomping behind her. 

We advanced over a grassy hill and entered a small village of aliens. Rey stopped in front of one of the stone houses and knocked politely on the door via her staff.

“Go away,” a muffled voice answered.

Rey sighed, stepping out of the way. Chewy groaned and, with me still on his back, effortlessly kicked down the door. I cheered excitedly, accidentally hitting my hand on the door. My excitement immediately died down.

The inside of the house homed but an old man in a cloak. If Rey hadn’t previously informed me of the legends, I would have thought of him as nothing but an old man. Rey followed us in. Chewy groaned at the man.

“Chewy, what are you doing here?”

“He said you’re coming back with us!” I translated.

“How did you find me?”

“Long story, we’ll tell you on the Falcon,” Rey answered.

Luke Skywalker seemed to be struck with a realization. “Falcon…?”

Chewy groaned softly, and having finished my food, I ran my fingers through his mane comfortingly.

“Wait. Where’s Han?”

Chewy shook his head and buried it in one of his hands now that I was comfortably situated on his back. I sighed, realizing I had to translate and deliver the bad news. “Well, Mr. Skywalker… He was killed by Kylo Ren. His son. A bastard, he was —“

Rey shut me up by hitting my leg. “But what’s important is that you come with us. The Resistance needs you.”

Luke Skywalker took but a moment to digest his death. He did nothing but sigh. He packed his things and shoved past us. I hopped off Chewy’s back and began flowing Rey, who was following Luke.

Safe to say, although it was an adventure, it was an unnecessary one. First, he harvested milk from a… space lizard cow. After, he did some parkour and went fishing. Then he went home, as a sudden storm began raging. Rey and I shared the cloak, since I was seemingly unprepared. He locked us out once more, but when he exited, the weather was grand. Luke Skywalker continued his day and climbed up a mountain. However, as we walked, I suddenly heard a voice whispering my name. Hearing the same whispers, Rey and I peered over our shoulders.

We exchanged glances of agreement as we stared down at the mist below. Something was beckoning us. With our fingers tightly intertwined, we descended in the direction of the mist.

We found ourselves in a desolate, dead environment. We could not see the sun nor hear the ocean. A permanent fog remained as we walked over rocks. There were three stone pillars ahead, although they took no such meaningful shape. As we advanced further, I realized that it wasn’t stone, but a tree. At the base of the tree, was an entrance. 

I walked in front of her. When we made it into the room, we came face to face with a shelve of books. They whispered to me. To us. Rey, disconnecting our hands, raised to touch where the sunlight peaked through and hit them. The whispers grew ever so loud. I was entranced by the supposedly mundane objects.

And that’s when it hit me; I’ve been here before. Not in person, but… in my dreams, long before I ever arrived in this galaxy.

“Who are you?”

I jumped, but Rey had somewhat expected it. Standing in the hallway was Luke Skywalker, his expression laced in suspicion.

“I know this place,” I finally spoke up.

“Built a thousand generations ago to keep these.” He weaved around me and took a red book off the shelf. “The original Jedi texts. Just like me, they’re the last of the Jedi religion.” He stroked a random page, which held symbols of some sort and was written in an ineligible language. He suddenly turned to us. “You’ve seen this place. You’ve seen this island. You both have.”

“Only in dreams,” Rey whispered. I clutched her hand and she squeezed anxiously.

“I second that,” I agreed, although I could tell that my personality did not match the tone of the conversation.

“Who are you two?”

“The Resistance sent us,” Rey answered again.

“They sent you? What’s special about you? Where are you from?”

“Nowhere —“

“A different galaxy. I’m a ghost.”

Luke quirked a brow at me. “That… I’ll get to that. But no one’s from nowhere.”

“Jakku.”

He pursed his lips. “All right, that is pretty much nowhere. Why are you here, Rey from nowhere, and ghost from a different galaxy?”

“The Resistance sent us. We need your help. The First Order’s become unstoppable.”

“No, you’re not listening. Why are you here?”

Rey suddenly froze, digesting the question. She looked thoughtful. I kind of felt bad for not being able to grasp the serious air of the conversation. I felt kind of awkward, since this conversation didn’t seem relevant to me in the slightest.

“Something inside me has always been there. But now it's awake. And I’m afraid. I don’t know what it is or what to do with it and I need help,” she admitted.

“You need a teacher,” Luke nodded. “And I can’t teach you. Either of you.”

“Wait - why would I need a teacher?” I finally spoke up.

Luke frowned at me. “You mean you can’t feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“If you’ve dreamt of this place before, it is a sign. That you have the same abilities as her. For a ghost, you seem fully present. You wound up here for a reason, ghost from a different galaxy.”

I gulped down a sudden sense of responsibility. Was he… implying what I think he was? That I had the Force? Me, a normal person from Earth that had no magical ability whatsoever in a world with no magic? Impossible… Right?

“And why can’t you teach me - us? I’ve seen your daily routine. You are not busy.”

“I will never train another generation of Jedi,” he hissed in response, unable to meet our glowers of disparity. “I came to this island to die. It’s time for the Jedi to end.”

He went around us and went toward the entrance. He stopped only when Rey continued to pester him. “Why? Leia sent me here with hope. If she was wrong, she deserves to know why. We all do.”

But, instead of answering, he walked off, leaving Rey and me with more questions than answers.

~~~

Chewy tossed another stick into the fire. I was sitting next to him on a large, salvaged log, waiting for the space chicken to finish cooking. While Chewy replenished the fire, I held the skewered space chicken over it. On the other side, curled up on a grassy plot of land, was Rey. She was sound asleep, absolutely exhausted from today. I was, too, but no way in hell as missing out on dinner. Chewy and I were keeping quiet.

Chewy whisper-groaned, indicating that the chicken was done. I removed it from the fire. Indeed, it was nicely red and roasted for eating.

Chewy took the stick in his furry hands. He sliced a larger portion off and removed it from the stick. I was left with the upper chest and the wings, which was fine. He was a big boi (trademarked) and needed to eat a lot. I blew on my portion to cool it down.

We were both about to take a bite, when suddenly, a quiet cacophony of chirps sounded from beside us. I immediately melted, as to my right was the tiniest hoard of birds that slightly resembled Puffins. They stared at us with pleading eyes and I was giving in. 

However, Chewy slapped me and groaned. I pouted. “But they’re so-o-o cute, Chewy. I can’t help it. Can’t we give them a little?”

He shook his head and aggressively swatted at them. Some of the hopped away, and he accepted that, returning his attention to the chicken. I did as well, however, when I glanced to my right once more, there he was; a beautiful, hungry, adorable little space Puffin. And oh, how badly I wanted to feed it.

Chewy noticed it and was about to swat it. However, I blocked his arm. “No,” I resolved sternly. “I can’t help it. I’m going to feed him just a little bit of mine. It’s none of your bees-wax, Chewy, what I do with my food.”

He argued immediately, but I shushed him. I didn’t want to wake Rey. I tore off a piece of the space chicken and gave it to him. The bird chirped happily and munched on it. Realizing that the hostility was gone, he hopped on my lap and fell asleep.

“Oh my god. It’s so-o-o cute, look at it. Can we keep it, Chewy? Can we?” I begged.

Chewy replied with a stern no. I knew the fluffy space bear was stubborn but so was I. So, I jutted my front lip out and gave him the best puppy-dog expression I could. “Ple-e-ease? I promise I’ll take care of it. All by myself! I’ve already named it. Its name is Puffin now! Because in my world, that’s the animal it looks similar to. Please, Chewy?”

His shoulder slumped and he gave his answer.

I fist-pumped the air. “Yes! Thank you, Chewy, you won’t regret this!” He continued. “Oh. They’re Porgs, huh? Sounds adorable.” I pet my new pet and it chirped, opening its wide, beady eyes at me. I smiled down at it and gave it just one more piece before I finally began to dig into my meal.

I finished eating and bid Chewy a good night. I yawned and stretched my new Porg, Mr. Puffin, followed suit. I sat next to Rey on the large sleeping bag. She was still sound asleep, and yet there was something restless about her expression. While the Porg waited for me to curl up beside her, I noticed someone exiting the ship.

“Mr. Skywalker!” I exclaimed as he approached. He seemed much more somber than before. Rey’s eyes shot open and she was panting, recognizing that he was next to us.

“Tomorrow at dawn,” he conceded. “Three lessons. I will teach you both the ways of the Jedi and why they need to end.” Rey sat up beside me, gaze glued to him as he walked away.

I let out a gasp of joy, Mr. Puffin reciprocating that excitement. Rey turned to me, a new determination in her gaze. “You have the Force. I have the Force,” she stated.

“I can’t believe it! I actually have magic powers. I’m not some useless bum,” I squealed.

Rey laughed and wrapped her arms around my waist. She pressed her forehead against mine. “You’ve never been a useless bum. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive at all. I wouldn’t be here. I’d be on Jakku, rotting the rest of my life away.”

I smiled, pressing a quick kiss to her soft, lovely lips. “Thanks, babe. I’m tired and I can’t wait to learn how to use these cool-ass super powers. Let’s sleep! Oh, and I have a pet now, deal with it.”

~~~

I was overcome with a certain feeling as I arose. The first thing I noticed was that Rey was still asleep beside me, and Chewy was nowhere in sight. I was concerned. Something had stirred my soul to wake up, when usually Rey was the one drawing me out of slumber. I sloppily rose to my feet. Something beckoned me to cross over the small hill.

I was still tired. But my body felt like it was entranced. It felt… like the whispers I had been drawn to the other day. Was something calling me with the Force?

My hand was permanently on the space gun that Rey had entrusted to me. It was strapped to my waist, as I didn’t fail to grab it as I arose. I yawned again, shutting my eyes in the process while my nose scrunched obnoxiously.

And when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t prepared for the sight.

I saw him. Right in front of me. He was sitting in some invisible chair, and he looked just as bewildered. I let out a squeal of fear and shot right at him. My space gun backfired in that moment, escaping my grasp. I slipped on the ground while in the process of scrambling back over the hill. Instead, I fell on my behind, stunned by the sight in front of me.

Kylo Ren was there. And yet, he was not penetrated by the space bullet.

Panting, we continued to stare at one another. He lifted his hand to reach me, despite being seemingly far away. He was just as entranced as I was. Somehow, my panic dissolved as I realized; he wasn’t really there. Somehow, some way… we were being connected by the Force.

And then, he got up and began chasing after my figure. I let out another scream and scrambled over the hill. I grabbed my gun in the process, shooting him, but he was no longer in front of me. Instead, I noticed that the blaster had shot a hole in some innocent alien’s home.

I turned around when I heard Mr. Puffin’s chirping. He hopped into my arms, but I came face to face with Kylo Ren once more. We stared each other down. He was so very close to me, and I had no idea what to do about it. Were we… being connected by the Force?

I didn’t get the chance to think further. He raised his hand. “You’ll bring yourself and Luke Skywalker to me.”

I felt something pushing against my mind. I yelped in surprise, trying to focus on avoiding it - as Rey told me she did whenever he tried to invade her mind previously. I meagerly met his gaze and clutched Mr. Puffin closer to me. 

He stared at me intensely, flickering between the bird and me. He seemingly sensed my resistance, reaching his hand out further. But he finally withdrew. I let out a gasp of pain as the feeling numbed and faded. I let out labor pants, and Mr. Puffin squawked in concern.

“…You’re not the one engaging in this. As far as I can tell, you have no ability to use the Force,” he hummed. 

I bit my lip. “I thought… you were the one doing this,” I voiced, barely above a whisper.

He peered over his shoulder. “Can you see my surroundings?”

“N - no, you bastard,” I hissed. I pet my Porg out of stress.

“I can’t see yours. Just you,” he noted. “Where did you get the Porg? Where are you?”

“I’m never-r-r going to tell you.” A sense of pride and confidence struck me, though, at the mention of my bird. “And his name is Mr. Puffin and he's all mine now. So don’t you dare come looking for me. If you try to attack me in my sleep and if you hurt him, I’ll come for you —“

The door to Luke Skywalker’s home began opening behind me. Besides that, Rey was calling my name from over the hill. Distractions were coming at me all at once, and I was caught in the middle with my mortal enemy right in front of me.

“Luke… and that girl,” he hissed, clenching his fists together. In one last attempt to control me, he raised his hand. “You will bring yourself and Luke Skywalker to me.”

I finally forced myself to break contact when Rey wrapped her arms around my waist. And I felt but a numb pain to my head, realizing his meager attempt at using the Force had once again failed. Meanwhile, Luke called,” What’s that about?”

“Is everything alright?” Rey parroted.

I gulped, turning back to where Kylo Ren was. But he was gone. Instead, I noticed that the house that I blasted had alien nuns swarming outside shouting at me about what happened to their house.

“Uh, y - yeah, sorry. There was a… space gun malfunction.”

“It’s called a blaster.”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“Let’s get started,” Luke instructed. “Both of you, get ready.”

#yandere #x reader #x y/n #self insert #yandere kylo ren #kylo ren #ben solo #the last jedi #rey #rey x reader #kylo ren x reader #yandere kylo ren x reader #star wars #yandere star wars #star wars x reader #kylo ren x y/n #kylo ren x you #kylo ren x reader x rey #yandere kylo

[sqpphos]

𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐌𝐘

pairing — mike wheeler x reader

synopsis — stargazing with mike. that’s it.

w/c — 0.4k

“c’mon y/n, i brought you out here cause i thought you’d actually know the constellations!” your boyfriend complained, feigning annoyance as your giggles ringed through his ears.

the blanket underneath the both of you provided comfort as you both laid on the grass, basking in the pale moonlight and heat that radiated off each other’s body.

you were perfectly close enough for mike to sneak quick kisses to your cheek that made you feel all warm and fuzzy even under the cool night breeze that had goosebumps jumping on your skin.

really, every little thing mike did that got you all worked up and flustered, and boy did he use that to his advantage. even him looking you directly in the eyes was enough to make you a stuttering mess.

“i told you! the big and little dipper are like all i know.”

mike laughed. “babe, you’re always talking about going stargazing and how nice it’ll be. i’d expect you to know more than that.”

“the stars are just pretty.” you sighed.

you should’ve taken mike’s silence as a sign of his scheming. god, you knew him far too well at that point!

“you’re prettier.” mike whispered.

still, his quiet compliment that he’d said a million times before sent your brain and heart in a frenzy, a flaring heat growing and rising onto the skin of your cheeks down to your neck. your sweet boy just could not give you a break.

“shut up!” you hid your face in mike’s shoulder, smiling at the breathy chuckle that emitted from his pink lips.

you finally looked up at him when his laughs died down, bambi eyes already looking down at you. his normally dark and piercing gaze was soft and warm, holding a myriad of stars so bright they could outshine every other galaxy in the universe.

mike was the prettiest human you had ever laid eyes upon. you genuinely thought he was crafted by the gods. every tiny feature on his face seemed to be placed so intricately, it almost felt illegal.

each freckle that adorned the expanse of his cheeks and nose mimicked the constellations, and, really, sitting on his lap and taking the time to count each one would be just the same as your current activity. maybe even better.

your distraction of the immense beauty your boyfriend emanated gave him enough time to lean closer to you, placing his lips onto yours like a missing puzzle piece.

now he was the flustered one, giggling like an idiot as you stared back at him with the same pretty, doe eyes that sucked him in when you first met. he knew it then that he was in love.

“you’re gonna be the death of me.”

#⋆ ࣪. ᓚᘏᗢ rey writes. #mike wheeler #mike wheeler x reader #mike wheeler x y/n #mike wheeler imagine #stranger things #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #crying real tears #this took me so long and sat in my drafts for so long oh my god

[saltwaterbells]

Synopsis:

Chandra Dayal and Mariel Blackwater return for the ninth season of Dayal Legacy, revisiting old missions and hauntings, joined by Ille Raefa and newcomer Elaine Richards.

All across the galaxy, television screens beam their faces. Mariel Blackwater: bloody, breathing, living weapon and vessel to the searing light of stars. Chandra Dayal: the glittering heir, muse and musician, a face that could launch an thousand ships, and burn them all too. Barely a hair apart from being two sides of the same coin, and the two that have managed to survive this long.

With magic like theirs, the frothing gunfire fades to the public’s ears, their crimes made glossy through editing and military backing. But when old memories come calling, the blood on their hands not quite scrubbed off yet, a question emerges: how far have they gone to survive? What will the breaking point be?

Aesthetic: the cold void of space, freckles as constellations, fingers clenching in sheets, the sound of hundreds of boots marching in unison, sleek metal revolvers, silhouettes backlit by stars, blinding spotlights, the prickle in the back of your neck that you’re being watched, cigarettes on an empty stomach, copious amounts of black eyeliner and blood red lipstick, white-knuckled clenching of rosaries, the scent of oranges and clove, the scent of ozone and woodsmoke, foam-capped waves, the thick cloth of a uniform being rolled up to the elbow, dog tags burning around your neck, iron-tipped boots, a target with the bullseye blown out, the gleam of too sharp teeth

Themes: how do you define your humanity, what is the cost of a human life, how does the spotlight shape you, religion, humanity versus monstrosity, how can you understand gentleness when all you have known is war, healing, the cyclical nature of violence, (there are probably more but like, these are the vibes)

Jude Rambles: so this is the wip that has gripped me and is shaking me around like a dog with a chew toy. this project showed up in my head around december ish, even though the idea sort of had been floating around for a good while, and then i decided to expand it and now i am being eaten alive. it’s so easy to write?? i am attempting a new drafting technique, which is certainly helping and i need to try more often, but after working on bathtub gods for so long, this project is startlingly easy. and it’s so much fun too, i am having the time of my life! anyways, this is one of the more genre projects that has shown up in my brain and maybe i do need to write more science fiction and fantasy, or science fantasy like in this case.

Characters: Mariel Blackwater: 18 | It/Its | Space Irish Catholic, autistic, immensely religious, chronically guilty and hyper repressed, mildly an alcoholic, more weapon than human, avatar for the space catholic church. It’s a constellation witch, which means it can bring constellations to life and also, draw from their energy and create space storms and star lightening

Chandra Dayal: 19 | They/Them | Space Indian, bisexual & nonbinary the child of a legendary tragic love story between the heir to a media conglomerate and a general, who died when they were a baby, deeply burdened by their legacy (both the show and their actual legacy). Their magic is the harnessing of sound waves, to manipulate people’s emotion and also shatter things with sound waves.

Ille Raefa: 18 | Ve/Vim | Prophet, burdened by seeing all that will happen but in no particular order and without any particular logic, eldest sibling trauma, by far the most genre-aware and apathetic from the start, Ve is just waiting to die. Vis magic is visions, in vis dreams and sprinkled throughout vis day. Ve also is the most genre-aware character: ve knows the tropes, ve is just not entirely aware what type of book ve is in.

Elaine Richards: 18 | He/Him | Ultimate simp, from space kansas middle of nowhere who is so excited to be here and among his idols, desperately trying to fit in and make sure he doesn’t die or get kicked off of the show. Also eldest sibling trauma, except he’s not going to think about his siblings ever < 3. His magic is essentially magic metal bending

Taglist: (ask to be added/removed) @cordy-muses @cream-and-tea

#wip: hunger like smoke #wip introduction #jude.writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #my writing #writing #writer

[aronarchy]

https://twitter.com/rechelon/status/1625934785142001679

Who is responsible for convincing a crop of younger libs that there’s some “well known” epidemic of mastermind abusers immaculately DARVOing such that all knowledge or evaluation of abuse is impossible and we must never judge anything ever?

Folks really be out here thinking that abusers are like masterminds in some lengthy murder mystery who systematically create fractal galaxies of perfectly fabricated evidence.

Abusers are fucking dipshits who usually don’t even understand what constitutes abuse or evidence.

The phenomenon of DARVOing is absolutely real, but what it primarily refers to is the way abusers will attempt to muddy the waters with lazy counter-narratives that mobilize support *because most people don’t care about the truth and want excuses to keep their social capital*

Yeah, you will absolutely get fabricated claims and wild accusations without base. But these almost always aren’t fucking elaborate Moriarty conspiracies, for a variety of reasons strongly related to them being abusers in the first place. They dissolve under any examination.

There’s two horns to abusers basically: either they’re so low-time-preference that their abuse is visible through them having left other survivors or failed to perfectly clean, or their manipulative exploitation has accumulated them power such that the power asymmetry is obvious.

The thing about DARVOing is that it’s the most lazy low-level shit that misunderstands everything like “she abused me actually by violating my boundaries around her talking to anyone else”—the point is to provide an excuse, however halfbaked, for bystanders to avoid acting.

Yes, there are messy situations where potential resistance to abuse is offered as evidence of abuse. “She knocked out all the windows in my house and destroyed my car” is a particularly recurring one. That act alone in isolation doesn’t prove much one way or the other.

But as individual moral evaluators we have access to context and statistical dynamics that are mostly inadmissible in liberal legal systems like relative power dynamics and one's history. “Ohhhh so she set fire to your car but you have four prior exes claiming you’re an abuser?”

Now however unlikely and unheard of, it is theoretically possible for someone with the galaxy brain patience to only abuse a single person ever in an elaborate one-time deception while having no visible power but have systematically accumulated immense amounts of *secret power*

let it never be said that I don’t entertain extreme but unlikely thought experiments at the margins of plausibility, and that would indeed suck, in such case my personal response would be to feel morally obligated to eliminate that person from existence ASAP at any personal cost.

#repost of someone else’s content #twitter repost #gillis #abuse #darvo

[dupliciti]

@forbelobog : “ how do you take your coffee? ” morning after starters // not accepting

     Making this Underworld hideout of his more suitable to live in has rewarded him in unexpected ways, going beyond just stopping by for a bout of fun. Admittedly, his guard is immensely lowered in the environment. The mask slipping away as he embraces Gepard, true wants  &&  needs taking the stage. Captain trusting Sampo to take care of him through the night  &&  Sampo feels the same. While terrors might not come as frequently for the blond, the merc thinks that things have remained stagnant in his own brain. That same push  &&  pull that's existed even before Gepard entered his life. It's still something he's not sure how to express, as talking about it will likely earn him some pain in return. Not from his lover, of course, but from his own Aeon that he still believes is the truest thing out of everything else in the galaxy. 

     Fool could whine over the lack of warmth in the small bed, but it's nice watching Gepard move about in the kitchenette of the housing.  ❝ Just a bit of cream will do... I don't like it as sweet as you do, ❞  the huskiness of morning voice overtaking tease. Rolls himself out of the bed, feels a hint of soreness in his legs  &&  lower back, a testament to how active they'd been the night before.  ❝ I'm surprised you're still here, or... Is it that early ?  ❞

#it would be a shame if something tragic happened to them #forbelobog #( ◇ ᵃᵈᵈⁱᶜᵗᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵃᵗ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵐᵒᵘˢᵉ ᵍᵃᵐᵉ┊ sampard; ) #( ◇ ⁿᵒ ᶜᵃˢʰ┊ ask; ) #( ◇ ˢʰᵃᵈᵒʷʸ ᶜᵒᵐⁱᶜ ʳᵉˡⁱᵉᶠ┊ canon; )