#I’ll post this to tumblr on its own at some point

[yeehawbvby]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/39553785

Oops, I tripped and fell and very quickly/sloppily wrote a super corny Sebastian x reader one-shot based off of this comic:

#sebastian stardew valley #sebastian x farmer #sebastian x reader #oneshot #Stardew valley #sdv #no y/n #gender neutral reader #baby’s first PUBLIC fanfic #sdv fanfic #Stardew #stardew valley fanfic #Sebastian Stardew #fluff #tw cursing #I’ll post this to tumblr on its own at some point #screams

[xwingsandohs]

‘Haunted Beauty’ | Spencer Reid

prompt: ‘Person A likes to sketch, and B catches them sketching, and asks what they are drawing. Person A had been drawing B, so they stutter out an excuse while slamming their sketchbook closed.’

word count: 2.3k

content warnings?: none. fluff

a/n: this is the beginning of a renaissance where i come back to tumblr. bare with me while i reformat stuff and checkout my recent posts if ya can

When you reach eleven days without being called out to the field for a case, there’s a lull in the BAU that leaves everyone bored and irritable.

Morgan sits at his corner desk twiddling his pen, spinning on his chair and occasionally ripping up small pieces of paper to aim at someone’s (usually Reid’s) head. His aim is terrible, only because the small, rolled-up balls weigh so little, so you can watch with suppressed giggles until Reid finally notices his game. A hit to the head leads to an irritated “Hey!” - While you and Morgan laugh openly.

Morgan walks over to ruffle the messy hair of your colleague and picks up the small mess he’s left on the floor around him- Spencer shuts the small notebook he’d been working in at the disruption.

You spin around on your chair to see Emily not-so-subtly looking for cheap flights on her laptop- one of her favourite ways to guarantee her time-off is approved is by booking the trip before she even puts in the request. There’s no need for the efforts really, Hotch has never denied a PTO request since your jobs are so demanding, though it doesn’t hurt to be sure.

JJ comes up behind Emily waving an empty mug, asking if she wants another coffee too. She nods, groans into a “God, yes please.” - before JJ begins to ask about her vacation plans and where she hopes to go, pointing at her computer.

Coffee sounds like a fantastic idea, so you stand from your chair and do a lazy spin towards Morgan - “Yes please, mama.” - and taking the empty cup from Spencer’s extended hand too before he even gets the chance to ask. You smile at him warmly- and before you even get a chance to lean over and see what he’s been working on, he’s slammed his notebook shut again and said “Actually, I could do with a break too, I’ll join you.”

You nod and shrug acceptingly, and Spencer jogs across to JJ when she shouts to make enough for everyone, and grabs the two mugs from her hand as well. “Thanks, Spence.”

It takes you only a minute to prep the coffee, replacing the filter and dumping in some grounds and Spencer has swooped in to fill up the water jug before you get the chance. You thank him, and watch as he turns to the sink in the small kitchenette, flicks the tap on and watches as the water fills its container.

He’s wearing a comfortable-looking navy cardigan, it’s well-fitting and you’re acutely aware of how he’s allowed his own sense of style to come through in his working wardrobe over his years in the BAU. You allow yourself an indulgent look at your co-worker while his back is to you, grinning slightly as you enjoy the view.

“How’s the case files?” He asks as he finishes loading the machine and presses the button to let the coffee drip. His hands glide in their motions after so long of using the machine most days.

“I finished all my consults, now it’s just an endless pile of cold cases to keep me busy.” You drag out a few vowels as you speak, teetering close to yawning in exasperation but the easy nights at home have kept you well-rested.

“Me too.” He shrugs, gently pushing the tub of sugar closer to the mugs to use when the coffee has finished.

“What are you making notes on?” You ask, and lean your body comfortably against the countertop.

“Notes?” He scrunches his face.

“You’ve been scribbling in your notebook for the past half hour.” “Oh!”

Realisation washes over his face, and you wonder if there’s a reason for his unusually cloudy brain. You laugh just once and raise an eyebrow in confusion at him.

“Nothing in particular, just some musings to keep me busy.” He shrugs.

There’s an old metal tin sitting on the side, some cookies that an agent had made and brought in for everyone to take from. You reach across and open it, looking closely for the biggest one before taking it. You snap it in half and present the biggest piece to the man beside you.

“Thanks.” He utters, before taking an indulgent bite.

“What kind of musings are keeping Dr Reid busy on this fine Thursday afternoon?” You ask with a glint in your eye.

He shrugs, and begins to mumble through his cookie-filled mouth before pausing to actually swallow before he speaks. His action makes you giggle. “I was asked if I’d like to do a guest lecture on profiling for the FBI Academy and I’m not really sure if I want to do it.”

“Why not?” You ask sincerely.

“I think a lot of my stories about the job might change their mind about working here.” He smiles, you both laugh, and then he shakes his head. He’s not wrong. “No, I’m kidding. I’m just not sure if I’m ready for doing something like that alone, I think there’s a lot of pressure for lecturers to be engaging and informative, and I tend to go off on a tangent.”

“I love your tangents.” You reply honestly and with a smile, which he returns appreciatively, and a little rosy in the cheeks. “But I know what you mean, I’m a profiler for a living but I don’t think I could get on a stage and give a good lecture on it.”

“I, um,” He smiles wistfully and nods his head as he speaks, something he frequently does. “I’d love to run my own classes at the Academy or maybe Georgetown one day, but I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility yet.”

He’d be a fantastic professor, you know this. And you’re sure he’d have a lecture full of hopeful psychology fanatics just like you both once were. “Maybe a guest lecture is a good trial run, even if it’s a little out of your comfort zone.”

“Yeah.” He smiles, then begins to pour out the coffees. Each mug is almost identical- white or navy with some variation of the FBI logo on, but somehow he knows who’s is who’s, and leaves enough room for cream in cups that need it. “Which case would you choose?”

“For a guest lecture?” He nods. “Um…”

It’s difficult, while every case is important you know that a balance needs to be found in a case chosen for an Academy lecture- it can’t be too standard, it wouldn’t show off why your jobs are so important or might even struggle to keep the audience interested. But you can’t choose one of your worst cases either, some of them can be particularly heavy even for you all to think back on.

“Maybe the zodiac imitator?” You suggest with a shrug. “You can go through how you deduced it wasn’t the real zodiac, looking for messages in online articles, Garcia going through MENSA records, you could even talk about navigating all the reporters and public attention.”

“Y’know, I was thinking about that one.” He agrees and you tap his arm playfully. “The trainees always enjoy the imitator cases.”

“As much as you can enjoy this kinda thing, right?” You laugh humorlessly. Spencer knows everyone’s coffee preference off by heart, you know that, but it still makes you feel a little hot when he perfects your drink and holds it out to you.

“Maybe ‘interested in’ would be a better way to put it.” He corrects himself with a similar chuckle. You nod in agreement.

You both take a small moment to enjoy a sip of your drinks before taking the rest of the mugs to the members of your team- Morgan grins at Reid as he passes his mug, and JJ and Emily thank you when you bring their drinks too.

“What do you think,” JJ calls you by name. “Where would you go for a beach holiday?”

“Beach?” You say and laugh lightly. “Wherever Morgan’s not going.”

They both grin and laugh, and you hear Emily begin to say “Y’know I’ve seen those pictures of Morgan’s Jamaican resort…”

You head back to your own desk, you have Reid right in front of you and Morgan at a table across from you both, it makes for easy conversation and sharing of the sweet treats you bring in when you try to hide them from the rest of the team- more for you that way. Every so often you stop on your way to work and fill up a pick ‘n’ mix, you know by now that Spencer’s favourites are the chocolate jazzles and Morgan loves anything sour.

Emily shouts for Morgan to help her find a holiday destination, so he shakes his head playfully and taps you on the shoulder as he walks past you.

The coffee is perfect as you sip it, just slightly hot, not too sweet and not too strong. You cradle it between two hands as you step past your desk and stop in front of Spencer’s, leaning gently against the table. He looks up at you, mid sip, and raises his eyebrows to ask what you need from him.

“Can I see what you’ve been writing?” You ask innocently, pointing at the small brown book that sits central on his desk. A pen sticks out of the top of it to hold the page he was using, and he seems unusually shocked by your question.

You’re profilers, though Spencer is a surprisingly good liar, you have a feeling he wasn’t pondering a guest lecture for the Academy.

“There’s nothing important in there.” He shakes his head and instinctively goes to pull it out of reach.

“C’mon, Reid!” You giggle, putting your coffee cup down in a space on his desk. “I just wanna know what’s been keeping you occupied. You’ve been scribbling in it all afternoon, so secretively too.”

“I-I’m not-” He pauses, stuttering and puts his own mug down and out of reach before pulling the pen from between the pages of his notebook. He leaves the brown pad where it is. “being secretive, why do you want to see?”

“I’m just curious.” You say, bowing your head in apology. “I didn’t mean to pry, I’ll just leave you to it.”

“N-no, wait,” He stops you, seeing your small change in demeanour and immediately washing with guilt. Your body language changes just slightly, not quite closed off but a little less open and maybe a smidge of your own guilt for possibly upsetting him. He’s not upset, and he certainly does want you to be. “I’m sorry. I-I’m just, um,”

You turn back to him, offering another apologetic look. It’s not necessary, and he holds the notebook tightly in his hand, looking at it while he thinks. “Would you like to see?”

“Only if you want me to.”

“Why not?” He hums, gently passing the small brown book to you. You take it, just as gently, curling a finger into the gap created by the pen to hold the open page.

The brown book is worn on the edges, creased from opening so many times and his recent page is over half way through. You’ve seen him scribble in it frequently, and you’ve seen the way he slips it into his satchel at the end of the day- it’s important to him, you know that.

You open the page and it’s a drawing, a sketch in black biro. You’ve seen some of Reid’s drawings before- wavy lines, shrunken eyes and wiry hair, it’s his own unique style of illustration and you love his hidden passion for it. His drawings have been of imaginary characters, animals, even halloween decorations; they have a haunted aspect to them and you admire his talent for capturing the way he sees the world. This one is adorned with small wavy lines bouncing off the central figure.

“It’s-” This one you recognise, an unhidden smile and the shape of the hair. “-me. You drew me?”

“Um… yeah.” He smiles, but it doesn’t hide his nerves as he shifts in his chair while you look over the lines he’s made.

It’s today, you know the top you’re wearing today and one wiggly line for the chair you’ve been perched on. Your hair is styled as it is today, but you haven’t smiled so brightly today, you haven’t had the reason. That part, you realise, is from his memory. You like that he thinks of you as a happy person- the lines show that too, they add a bright, liveliness to the illustration of you.

There’s small flowers on the page adjacent- lavender, daisies, chrysanthemums, with what you assume is the scientific name underneath. They dot across the page like a printed pattern, but with the handwriting you know of Spencer all around. Underneath the drawing of you, though you’re not sure if it’s meant to describe both pages, it says “Beautiful”.

“Wow, Spence- I mean- Spencer,” You stutter over your words, grinning and feeling flushed at the thought of him spending his afternoon drawing you so dearly. “It’s amazing, you’re really good at art, y’know.”

“Thanks.” He replies sweetly, face unabashedly pink and smiling from ear to ear. “It’s um, really tempting to draw you when you’re sitting right across from me. I wanted to try and capture your smile but my drawings have given you more of a… haunting beauty.”

You don’t know what to say, still smiling and stuttering over nothing at all as you look over to him, to the drawing, then him again. His pride in his work makes his face light up in a way you rarely see on the job. “A-and Spence is fine, if you like.”

“Thanks for letting me see, Spence.” You say, dancing lightly around the last word, an affectionate nickname you know is only reserved for the special few. It feels good to be special to him. “I’ve never been very good at drawing.”

“I don’t think skill matters when you’re passionate about what you’re trying to recreate on the page.” He says with a simple smile, then bites down on his bottom lip to stop it from being too bright.

“You think so?” “Yeah.”

—

a/n: and just for funsies…

#writing #catching the other doing something cute prompts #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid prompts

[eetherealgoddess]

hey bestie. requesting a yandere rindou haitanj scenario where reader (cis fem) is currently dating Ran, but rindou is obsessed with her and wants her for himself. a noncon smut where ran leaves reader at home for some reason and rindou takes the opportunity to do the noncon smut and ran ends up catching them, but instead of getting mad, ran just joins them. 💜🖤

Of course!! Hope you like it ♡︎♡︎♡︎

ꨄBrothers Conflictꨄ

Oneshot - Yandere Haitani Brothers Au

Not fully proofread

MY TR FANDOM WORKS ARE ONLY ON TUMBLR, AO3, AND WATTPAD UNDER EETHEREALGODDESS! REPORT IF YOU SEE IT POSTED UNDER ANYONE ELSE BUT ME!!!

I apologize if I get any Japanese etiquette or culture wrong, I literally have to research the culture for some of my fandom stories so if anything is wrong, please excuse my ignorance.

Notice:

✩Y/n is 18+. I picture her as a black female but you can see her however.

✩Some parts of the story may not be realistic or factual. After all, this is a work of fiction.

✩Although it's a dark 'romance,' I do not condone any of the behavior displayed.

✩Dark content such as: gore, violence, triggering topics, graphic scenes, vulgar language, explicit sexual content, etc.

✩There may be scenes that involve non con and/ or dubcon so don’t read if that makes you uncomfortable

✩That being said, this story is for 18+ only.

Enjoy!

Brothers Conflict

Being a Haitani’s girlfriend comes with its perks. Not only is Ran an attentive boyfriend, he loves to spoil his girl with all the finer things. Jewelry, makeup, clothes, nails, you name it, it’s done. It was a done deal as soon as he set his eyes on you. It was interesting considering you were the pursuer at first, having a small crush that grew into something more. Finally, ignoring all of your anxiety you confessed, only to find out that he had the same feelings.

Considering it’s hard to read his emotions, you had no idea that he had been thinking about you as much as you thought about him. It was a wholesome moment when he accepted your confession and surprised you with his own gift the next day to properly ask you to be his official girlfriend. It almost felt too good to be true.

After the first hang out, you met his brother Rin. Unfortunately, the awkward meeting resulted in his subtle insults at the dinner table along with the scowl plastered on his face. Worried that you had crossed a boundary of some sort, Ran reassured you that he acted that way with all his girlfriends and explained that he was just being a protective younger brother.

Brushing it off, you let go of your anxious thoughts and continued on as a normal girlfriend. A few months pass and the tension flees, though you still catch Rin’s intense glare boring into you whenever you and Ran relax at their apartment. You refrained from bringing it up, not wanting to cause any problems between the two brothers.

One day, you had been watching tv as you stroked your boyfriend's hair, his head resting on your lap as he breathed steadily, indicating a deep slumber. After a while, he wakes up and slowly pushes himself off of your lap. You eye him in confusion.

“There’s something I forgot to do. I’ll be back later, babe.” He says before giving you a peck to your forehead and hopping off the sofa. He checks for his wallet in his pocket and opens the door to leave. Once the door shuts behind him, you grab your phone and pull up an app, bored out of your mind as you scroll mindlessly.

“Don’t you have your own home or something?” A voice speaks from the side of the couch. You almost jump out of your skin, you have forgotten that your boyfriend’s younger brother was home.

“Ran invited me over.” You shrug, already used to the subtle jabs to the point that they don’t really affect you as bad. He ignores you as he grabs a glass of water before walking into the living room and sitting next to you, crossing a leg. Your eyebrows furrow at his choice of seating.

“What do you see in my brother, Y/n?”

You pause for a moment, not really expecting a question like that out of nowhere. He takes a sip of the liquid as he readjusts his glasses.

“W-well, I don’t really know how to explain it other than the fact that I would take a bullet for him. I like that I can be myself around him.” You shrug. Honestly, your feelings couldn’t be explained though you know for a fact you’re smitten over the older Haitani. You had been for years prior. The excitement you felt when he accepted your confession was unlike any other happy moment you’ve had. You feel safe when you’re around him, whether to be yourself completely or physically, knowing he’s protective. Of course, this is hard to explain when you’re called out on the spot.

“What a lame answer. Are you sure you deserve my brother?” You make eye contact with him.

“Maybe not.” You sigh, “but I do love him if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not going to try and hurt him or anything.”

It’s a funny thing, really. You think he’s asking as a protective younger brother. Such a naive girl, though that’s something he noticed in you from the beginning. The little love letters and gifts he opened whenever he found them in his brother’s trash. The excitement he saw on your face from a distance when Ran accepted your confession, not willingly on his own but by his younger brother’s bargaining. The hue that formed on your face when you read the notes from ‘Ran,’ not realizing who they were actually written by.

The plan was easy, really. Ran asks you out so his younger brother can get closer to you. What wasn’t part of the plan was Ran falling for you mid relationship. It just wasn’t fair. He never noticed you until Rin noticed you. Of course, they argued about it. Argued over you. It was interesting how much conflict you were bringing to the brothers without even knowing it. Yes, such a naive thing.

You eye him curiously, wondering why he hadn’t answered you. After a moment of Rin lost in his thoughts, he sets the cup down and stands up. Turning towards you, he bends over and snatches you from the sofa, placing you over his shoulder as he walks to the hall of the apartment.

“Hey! What are you doing?” You exclaim as you hit his back repeatedly. Once he reached his bedroom, he shut the door before tossing you on the bed.

“Rin?”

He climbs on top of you, pinning you to the bed.

“Why? Why do you love him so fucking much?” Your eyebrows furrow as you gaze at him with confusion. You wince as his grip tightens.

“What about me? I’m the one who tried so hard to get you! I’m the one who did everything!”

“Rin, I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” You try to reason with him, anxious out of your mind.

“The notes, the letters, all of it! It was all me.” He hissed, nails digging into your skin. “It was all a plan!”

“What? N-no.” You say in denial. You were so happy when Ran finally decided to give you attention within your relationship considering the beginning of it was a little confusing. You take a moment to think back to those detailed notes that stated things only Ran should know. Was it really all a ploy?

The younger Haitani smirks. “Yes, your precious boyfriend lied to you. Multiple times. He didn’t even have feelings for you until recently.” Tears threaten to fall as a familiar lump forms in your throat.

“N-no. Please, stop saying those things.” You hold back from crying, no longer in denial though not wanting to continue to hear anymore of what was coming out of his mouth.

“I’m tired of waiting for you to wake up, Y/n. It’s time you give back to me.” He states, removing his glasses and setting them down. You take the opportunity to use your free hand to slap him.

“Get off of me!” You shout angrily, tears finally spilling. You just want to leave and sulk by yourself. Rotting in your bed as you send Ran a break up text.

Instead of pinning the arm down, he ignores your outburst by grabbing your neck and lowering his face.

“If you bite me, I will fuck you up.” He promised with a deranged glint in his eyes. You could only stare in horror as he brought his lips to yours. He moves his lips along you hungrily before piercing his tongue through, saliva sliding out of your mouth as you don’t respond.

Using your free hand, you attempt to shove him by the shoulder though it doesn’t work. When he pulls back, he stops for a moment to wipe his mouth and gaze at your eyes. Before you could stop him, his face nuzzled between your shoulder and neck, piling kisses slowly up your skin as you grip his shoulder.

“Rin, don’t do this.” You cry, ignored as he uses both of his hands to tear your shirt. You gasp as the cold air hits your skin, the shirt torn apart, revealing your bare breasts considering you didn’t wear a bra today. His hands grab your mounds, gently squeezing as he releases a quiet moan.

“I was angry the first time I saw you and my brother have sex.” He lowers his head as he sucks one of the nipples, flicking his tongue before closing his lips around the nub once more. A heartbeat forms from your clit as you slightly arch your back from the chill that runs up your spine.

“Rin, please stop.” Your voice cracked, still hurt from the words before though frustrated with the reaction your body is emitting. He makes eye contact with heavy lids.

“But then, I couldn’t help but watch. Your intoxicating moans drew me in, Y/n.” His husky voice vibrated against your nipple, his lips barely touching the nub as he speaks, breath causing your nipple to harden.

“Such a slutty girl. Legs wide open for my brother, begging for more.” He returns to sucking, along with one of his hands easing down to your pants, unhooking them before sliding into your panties.

“Rin.” You whisper. “Just wait, please. W-we can talk about this.” You bite your lip when you feel his finger push against your clit. He slowly rolls his finger against the nub, eyeing you as he continues to lick your nipple. His other hand fondles the other breast, pulling and rubbing circles on your nipple. Your hands held his shoulders, pushing him once more, to no avail.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about your face and how it looked when he was eating you out. The way you rubbed your pussy against his face. I came so hard thinking about you, baby.” He whispers the last sentence.

Your fingers tighten against his shirt as he accelerates his finger against your pussy. Your hips twitch as your head falls back. You felt the juice fall out of your pussy as he gave another lick to your nipple.

Suddenly, he pulls his hand out and sits up. He moves off of you and swiftly pulls your pants off. You try sitting up only to be pushed down before he tears your panties off.

“Rin! This is wrong!”

He ignores you as he opens your legs, fitting himself in between as he holds your thighs down. He doesn’t give you a chance before his lips circle around your clit. Your hips jolt up as you grab his head as an attempt to push him away. His grip only tightens around your thighs, squeezing his arms around painfully as well as using his nails to leave indents, eyeing you from below. You yelp in pain as you fall back, the pleasure of his tongue flicking your nub conflicting with your emotions.

“Well, brother. This was quicker than I thought.” A voice comes from the doorway. You look up surprised to see your boyfriend.

“Ran, i-it’s not what it looks like! I swear!” You cry out.

“It’s okay, baby. I know.” He sighs as he sits behind you, positioning himself to lean against the headboard as your back leans against him.

“I know I have some explaining to do. We can talk about it later, alright? Just relax.” He circles his arms around your waist, his hands moving to hold your breasts as he leaves a trail of kisses on your shoulder.

Rin uses his fingers to gather your slick before pressing two of them inside of you, angling it to hit your g-spot steadily as he continues sucking and licking your clit. You couldn’t help but thrust your hips to force his fingers deeper, releasing a moan before heavily breathing as the overwhelming sensation takes over your body. Your eyes fall into the back of your head as you lay against Ran.

“I just want you to know that I love you so much, even if our relationship didn’t start off as ideal.” Ran softly speaks against your ear while pinching and fondling your nipples.

“W-why did you, ah… lie to… fuck! Lie to me?”

“Oh God!” You exclaim as Rin continues to bring you closer to the edge, accelerating once more as the sounds of your wet pussy fills the room. You feel Ran’s hardened cock against your back.

“I said we’ll talk about it later.” He uses one hand to pull your chin back, landing a passionate kiss on your lips as your body moves against him, grinding your hips against Rin’s face as he adds another finger.

“I-I’m gonna…ah!” You moan as you finally release, Rin lapping up all your juices as your body convulses.

When Rin moves from your legs, he removes his pants as Ran gently shifts you on your knees. You breathe heavily as your legs tremble from your orgasm. Rin guides you on top of himself as you weakly rest your head on his shoulder.

“W-wait! What about a condom?” You say against his neck.

“It’ll be a Haitani either way.” Ran states as he removes his own pants.

Before you could respond, Rin pulls you down as he shoves his cock all the way in. Both of you groan as the feeling of your pussy is stretched and wrapped tightly around his girth. His arms wrap around your back as he holds it there. You feel Ran spread your cheeks before he uses your leaking cream and his own saliva to rub against his cock. He eased the head in, a pain shooting through your back as you whimpered against Rin’s neck.

“I’m gonna fuck this pussy so good.” Rin breathes out before pulling back and rocking his hips forward. Ran shoves himself all the way in as he grips your ass, pulling himself back before slamming in.

They both rock their hips, gradually accelerating as all of your moans and heavy breathing filled the air. The pain mixes in with the pleasure before it engulfs you fully, your mouth held open as your body rocks in between them. Your hands hold onto Rin’s shoulders tightly as you’re plowed from both holes.

“So good. Such a good fucking girl.” The blonde says as he picks up the pace. His head falls back as your sweat mixes with his. “I waited so long, Y/n. You have no idea… fuck! How many… ah! Times I’ve cum to you.”

In a twisted way, the words he spills out of his mouth causes another aching throb to hit your pussy, clenching around him as you both make eye contact.

Ran accelerates his speed, turned on by the display of you getting double penetrated by both of them. He smiles as the scenarios fly through his mind of you naked and waiting for them to come home. Another twitch of his cock forms from the ideas.

After a few minutes of his cock making contact with your g-spot and your boyfriend’s cock filling your ass, you squeeze your eyes shut as you subconsciously bite into Rin’s shoulder, orgasming. Your bite causes him to groan out before pressing himself deep inside you and releasing his load. Ran follows not long after, his cum leaking out of your ass as he pushes against you. Breathing heavily, Ran removes himself from you, pulling you into his arms as well as Rin hugging you from behind.

When you caught your breath, you attempted to sit up from your position, anger lingering from the truth spoken earlier.

“We need to talk.” You say to both of them who only ignore you as they hold you in place, dozing off into a deep slumber as you follow not long after.

#yandere #yandere x reader #haitani brothers #ran haitani #ran x reader #rin haitani #rin x reader #tokyo revengers #tokyo rev smut #tokyo rev x reader #tokyo rev x y/n #tokyo rev x you #ran x you #rin x you #yandere x you #yandere tokyo revengers

[noiryinn]

for you, i’ll make an exception

pairing(s): sick!nagi seishiro x germaphobic!male reader

summary: nagi gets a fever, even though you’re deathly afraid of the possibility of getting sick, you decide to suck it up and help nagi.

warnings: bit of internalized homophobia (not a lot, just hesitating to kiss nagi cause he’s a boy)

a/n: first tumblr post, hope it's good! i love the sickfic trope, so i decided to do it for my first post. also, i didn’t proof read this so sorry if it’s bad. enjoy :))

you started noticing that nagi has been sluggish lately, really sluggish, like more than usual. it's to the point where it has you worried. you were thinking of the possibilities of this newfound sluggishness, you didn't like to think it, but what if he was sick? the thought made you squeamish, what if you got sick too? it made your mind race.

when class ended, you decided to approach him. "hey, nagi?" you asked. "hmm?" nagi replied lazily. "are you, uh, good?"you waited for his response, but it looked like he could barely keep his eyes open. "...tired" he responded before yawning. "guess you always are..." you muttered. "are you sure there's nothing wrong?" you decided to take another shot. "yeah, i guess. think i might have a fever though..." you just stared at him. your worst fears just settled in. fever? that's even worse than a cold? you could get sick just by standing here! by even breathing near him! you were silently panicking before you took a look at nagi and realized that he was actually really unwell. something in your heart softened a bit, maybe youd make an exception for him…

the next day, nagi didn't show up. but why? was it the fever? or was he just too lazy to get out of bed? you decided to make a visit once school was over. the thought of helping him was a bit sickening…you washed your hands several times from the thought.

when the school day was over, you went over to his apartment. of course, prepared with hand sanitizer, a mask, and some gloves. you felt light headed from even touching the door. ‘i’m touching what a sick person touched…’ you thought several times over. you knocked, one, two, three times. no response…you thought of turning back and just forgetting about this. but the thought of nagi being sick changed your mind. you opened the door, then immediately put on hand sanitizer. it was cluttered, things were sprawled out on the floor, there was dust. all this was a nightmare, but you decided to keep on going, for nagi.

“nagi? hello? you in there?” it was only met with a dry cough. you started seriously regretting this…getting sick or helping nagi? what would it be? the thought made your head hurt. there were pros of helping out nagi than there were cons of getting sick…so that’s what you decided to do.

you walked in his room, holding the mask in your hand just in case. his room was just as messy as the outside. you’d definitely have a cleaning session with him. “l/n…?” nagi weakly called out. “yeah, it’s me. you good?” you said softly. “don’t feel well…can’t play games…” he sighed, he almost had a pouty look. it was adorable. you had a bit of sympathy for him. “cold…” nagi shivered a bit and he reached for your jacket. “hey! i might have to burn that now since you contaminated it!” you quickly wanted to take back what you said, it was kinda jerkish… “fine. you can have my jacket. just wash it, ‘kay?” you said reluctantly. “…’kay” then you lended him the jacket.

“smells like you…” he said before having a coughing fit. you wanted to jolt back, but something inside you just…didn’t. you felt a blush creep up your face. “huh? don’t say that sorta stuff, nagi! just rest up a bit and don’t talk…i’ll get you some soup.” you remarked. “fine by me…” nagi yawned again

you walked in with a bowl of soup and a cold compress. “cmon, sit up i got your soup” you sighed. “huh? but i don’t wanna get up…feed me…” he pouted. “seriously? you aren’t 5.” you rolled your eyes at this. but it was a bit adorable, in its own way. “help me sit up…” nagi looked at you. “uh…” you hesitated a bit…touching a sick person? and you just had to leave your gloves in the kitchen…but it was nagi…fine, you decided to settle on helping him. you took your hand out, before hesitating a bit, then held his hand to help him up.

“your hands are sweaty…” nagi bluntly stated. “oh shut up and let me help you” you snapped back softly. you held back the feeling to wash your hands. gross, gross, gross. your mouth felt dry and you felt yourself sweat a bit. you started feeding him the soup. “yum…you’re a good cook l/n” nagi ate the soup happily. “thanks, wasn’t anything special though…” you blushed a little.

there was a brief moment of silence, it was awkward and the only thing you could feel was your heart pounding. was it from the fear of getting sick? or was it him…? that was a stupid idea… you were stuck in your thoughts before nagi broke the silence. “i’m sorry i made you come here…i know you much you hate getting sick…” he said softly, you could tell he felt bad. “oh, uh, don’t worry ‘bout it. for you, i’ll make an exception.” you kept feeding him the soup.

after a bit you grabbed the cold compress, leaned forward and put it to his head. it was then you realized you two were pretty damn close. maybe if you leaned a bit more forward… no, it was wrong. he was sick, and you were both guys… but the urge was driving you crazy. you shook your head and went back to your senses.

nagi ate all the soup, which was surprising since he didn’t normally have the motivation to even eat at all. you were about to get up when you felt a hand tug at your shirt. “stay with me…” you blushed hard. ‘you can’t just keep playing with my feelings like this…’ you thought. “…fine” you said reluctantly before sitting down at his desk again. “in bed…” nagi muttered. “what?” you asked, what was he saying? “in bed, with me…” nagi muttered again. was he seriously saying what you thought he was saying? “you want me to lay in bed with you?” your face flushed all sorts of crimson. “mhm…” nagi nodded slowly. “first you want my jacket and now you want me to lay with you?” you put your hands on your hips. “yeah…will you not do it?” nagi looked up at you with a pouty expression. “I— uh— fine.” you gave in, you got in bed with him and pulled the covers over you two.

“warm…” you felt him cuddle up to you and lay on your chest. “hey—” you tried to protest, but then you realized he was already asleep. you chuckles and smiled softly. “good night, nagi. sweet dreams” you whispered before kissing his forehead.

#blue lock x male reader #blue lock #blue lock x reader #blue lock x you #blue lock x y/n #bllk #bllk x reader #bllk x you #bllk x y/n #bllk x male reader #nagi seishiro #nagi seishiro x reader #nagi seishiro x you #nagi seishiro x male reader #x reader #x male reader #x male y/n #sickfic #fluff #cute #bllk fluff #blue lock fluff

[poinsexter]

7 Minutes in Heaven {obx - jm}

Pairing: JJ Maybank x Fem Pogue!Reader (kinda some John B x reader if you squint)

Summary: pogue!reader gets selected for a game of 7 Minutes in Heaven with JJ—this should be no big deal, right?

Warnings: drinking, smoking, swearing, suggestive flirting, idk? Mild angst. Mostly fluff

Word count: 2,671

A/N: hiii this is my first time ever posting my own lil fanfic to tumblr. I’m sorry if there are any errors:(( I usually write original fiction but this was in my head and I couldn’t get it out. I hope someone gets some enjoyment from it <3 there is a John B alt ending written but idk if I’ll post. Let me know what you beauties thinnnnk:)

When a game of ‘Never Have I Ever’ didn’t sound juicy enough to the sexed up tourons, a blue-shirt wearing frat bro suggested everyone partake in a game of 7 Minutes In Heaven.  The pogues were never one to back down from a challenge—least of all you, who’d kissed all of your friends at some point or another.

You took a sip of beer from the paper cup in your hand, but not even drowning yourself in drinks could save you as John B and a touron girl exited the closet, heralding your turn next. He wore a lazy, drunken smile, dancing to the beachy music thumping from a nearby amp. 

“Tourons pick the lamest party games.” You hid your bundle of stress underneath a coy joke. “We could be playing flip cup instead.”

“You were laughing when it was Sarah and me.” Kie filed into the room next with a fresh beer in hand, brushing your cheek with the other hand as she passed. “Not so smug now, babes, huh?”

She plopped down on the arm of the chair Pope sat on with his feet kicked up, rolling a backwood.

“Of course it’s funny when it’s not me. That’s how it works,” you said. 

John B’s laugh rang out as he orbited around your back, to your side, appearing in your peripheral. You turned slightly, cup pressed against your bottom lip.

“How about you finish off that liquid courage,” John B used his index finger to tip the bottom of the cup up to goad you into chugging. You tried not to laugh into the drink as you complied, drinking the remainder of its contents. “Atta girl. Now lighten up, buzz kill, ‘cause it’s your turn.” 

You tossed the now-empty cup at his head with a laugh, watching as he swatted it away. “Like you need an excuse to makeout with someone in a closet.” 

“Seven minutes of swapping bacteria.” Pope chimed in from his spot on the recliner as he sparked the lighter. “In the best way possible.”

Kie crossed her arms. “You don’t have to kiss anyone.”

JJ burst around the corner into the room, beer spilling from the bottle in his hand as he caught the last half of the conversation. “Hey, don’t say that! We all have to follow the rules.”

“What rules, JJ?” You rolled your eyes. “The ones you pull out of your ass?” 

“Yeah, I can jot them down for you.” He feigned looking around the room, touching his chest for imaginary pencil pockets as the bottle sloshed in his hand. “Anyone got a pen? Maybe a marker? Crayon, perhaps?”

“Alright, alright, I get it!” You conceded with another laugh. “Pour me up a shot and let me make someone’s day!”

Kie hopped off the couch with a grin and began lining up shot glasses on the counter. JJ’s hand cradled the small of your back while John B approached your other side, watching as JJ poured a messy line of contents from the tap across all of the shot glasses. 

Every pogue picked one up, preparing to throw them back, when John B took the one from your hand and raised a mischievous brow. “Open up, little loverrr.”

You gave a wide grin before obeying the command, opening up your mouth and sticking out your tongue to prepare for the waterfall of liquor. 

John B tossed back his own shot in one fluid motion before pouring the second shot into your mouth. Once the contents were fully polished off you squeezed your eyes shut as an involuntary shiver ran through you, the warmth working  its way down your throat and through your chest. 

“You missed some.” John B grabbed your cheeks and yanked you closer, playfully slurping the backsplash from the skin around the corner of your mouth and cheek. 

“HEYYY NOW!” JJ gave an energetic clap of his hands before pointing at you and John B. “Save it for the closet!” 

You shoved John B away from you with laughter almost as if he were an over-zealous puppy before leaning over to smack JJ’s arm. “Oh please, I know you have your fingers crossed hoping it’s me and you.”

You didn’t interpret the playful action as John B making a move on you despite JJ’s joke. You were all particularly affectionate with each other—and for as affectionate as you were, you also gave each other just as much shit. 

“Alright, it’s TIME!” said Kie, grabbing you by the shoulders and steering you in Pope’s direction.  “Pull the name.”

Pope remained on the couch, but now had a ball cap flipped upside down in his hand with jumbled up scraps of paper inside. He grumbled. “I don’t know how I ended up relegated to this role.”

“Because you’re the most trustworthy,” said Kie. “And the least likely to fuck it up.”

“Can’t argue there.” Pope pulled a piece of paper from the cap. “You will be joined by…” he unfurled the paper. “JJ!”

As JJ looked over at you with that arrogant flirty ease, you couldn’t place why you suddenly felt a spike of nerves. Your feet almost felt as if they had forgotten how to work, with Sarah swooping in to usher you toward the closet, JJ not far behind.

Seven minutes in a closet should be nothing compared to all the drunken nights you’d cuddled up on the chateau’s pullout couch together. The party was in full swing, the perfect time to cut loose, and still, you couldn’t fight the soft apprehension prickling at your palms. 

The closet in question was unlike anything you’d grown up with, but that was to be expected anytime you partied at a kook house. It was more akin to a closet like Sarah’s, though it wasn’t overflowing with near as much color or fun crop tops as hers.

You looked around at the designer labels and scrunched your nose. “God, why do kooks need such big closets?”

“Yeah, I’m not digging all the space between us.” Without warning, JJ slipped an index finger into the belt loop of your jeans and pulled you closer until you were only inches apart. “Much better, thanks for the cooperation, princess.”

“You’re getting way too much enjoyment out of this, it’s worrying.”

“Afraid I’ll bite?” He clacked his teeth in your face playfully, smirking when he couldn’t make you flinch. 

“Biting doesn’t scare me.” You couldn’t help yourself as you pressed in closer to his face, daring him to retaliate. “You’ll have to try harder, Jay.”

He dropped his hold on the belt loop and pressed his hands into you stomach, shoving you against the wall until you back was flush with the surface, caught between the cold of the wall and the warmth of his body. 

“How about now, cupcake? Scared?” He paused and lifted a brow, smirk sweeping up his mouth. He leaned closer. “That toe-curling thing you’re feeling is called sexual tension, my friend.”

Said tension between you was palpable, even after he slacked to give you the space back, satisfied with the effect he’d visibly had on you. Words died in your throat. For the first time ever, you were speechless. JJ, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease, content to chatter away.

“We had our first kiss in a closet just like this one.” JJ looked delighted by the memory. "You remember?”

”Don’t call it ‘our first kiss’ like we were ever a thing.” Your composure faltered, but it was a fond memory nonetheless. “Shame on me for choosing ‘dare’ over ‘truth’—I thought I’d get to do something cool like scale a flag pole, but no. Got stuck sucking face with you.” 

"Okay, ouch,” he feigned offense, clutching his chest. “I've gotten a lot better at kissing since then.” 

You rolled your eyes, trying to hide the heat that was creeping up your neck. "Well, we were like thirteen, so I’d really hope so."

JJ leaned in a little closer again. "I've been thinking about that kiss a lot lately, you know.”

Your walls went up, afraid of being vulnerable. He’d played with your feelings one too many times over the years out of boredom. You used to think when he was flirting he meant it, and that had led to too much confusion. Rather than pine over him forever, you’d grown comfortable with your role of best friend.

Anything more—girlfriend, fuck buddy, situationship—would spell nothing but trouble.

You deflected by teasing him. “You’ve been thinking about a bad kiss from middle school? Find better hobbies.”

“That’s the thing—I need to redeem myself,” he said. “You never wonder what it would be like to try it again now that we’re older? More… seasoned?”

“Don’t be dumb.” Your heart skipped a beat, but you tried not to let it show. "This is just a fun party game, not an opportunity for you to get lucky.”

“What does that cute little tattoo on your ass say again?” He snapped his fingers and feigned as if recalling. “Lucky you.” 

You made a sputtering noise, floored by the comeback. You’d been in a bikini around the pogues enough times that they’d likely all seen the edge of said tattoo, but he would have had to pay attention to read it. 

“God, you are such a shameless flirt!” You picked up a sandal from the closet floor and began smacking him with it. “What is with you tonight? You’re gonna start humping the keg stand before the party is over—“

“I wouldn’t be the man you know and love unless I flirted without remorse.” JJ flinched away from the sandal, laughing at your reaction. "Come on, you have to admit there's chemistry between us."

You felt a jolt of electricity shoot through your body at his words. He was right, but you didn't know what to do about it—so again, you deflected. “You have chemistry with anything that has tits and legs.” 

“Nah, it’s different with us,” he insisted. “And I’ll prove it.”

Before you could respond, JJ took a daring step forward, his hand cupping your cheek as his lips met yours in a searing kiss. It was gentle initially, testing the waters to see what you were okay with. As the kiss lingered, JJ took it as a sign to deepen things, the pace growing hungrier between you.  

Your initial surprise gave way to something more passionate and explorative. Warmth pooled in your thighs as he tangled him hands in your hair, tongue making sensuous circles with your own. It was a moment suspended in time as your friendship burned away, scorching the earth until it became something uncharted. He awoke dormant feelings in you—emotions for him that you thought you’d long buried came rising to the surface at full force like a geyser.

“Seven minutes is up!” John B’s voice rang out.

You barely had time to fall apart from each other as the door pried open. A gasp tore through your mouth, accompanied by a jolt of surprise. For a brief moment it had only been you and JJ - the party on the other side of the door had completely disappeared to you. 

John B leaned against the doorframe, gazing down at the wild blush staining your cheeks. Something like understanding registered in his gaze at the look on your face, but he quickly recovered the cool-guy charm. 

“Either you crazy kids come out, or I’m gonna get serious FOMO and have to join.”

“Squeeze in, man, you’ll love it.” JJ leaned his head against your shoulder and smiled, looking completely unaffected by what had happened. “Plenty of room. Too much, honestly.”

You rolled your eyes, not understanding how he could be so jovial and collected as your heart threatened to pump out of your chest.

“No threesomes in this living room, alright, this ain’t a Hugh Hefner party.” said Pope. “Come smoke this blunt and stop being weird.”

As you exited the confines of the closet, which had felt like it’s own world, you couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if you had been in the closet for even a minute longer. Would hands have roamed further? Would JJ have had time to confess he was just fucking around with you, only he took it a bit farther than usual? You didn’t even know what you’d want him to say. 

There wasn’t enough time to process what was happening or the repercussions of it—only that in the moment it had felt really, really good being with JJ. Whatever the absolute fuck that was about. 

The unspoken tension had found its voice in that kiss, marking the beginning of the end. You didn’t know how you could look him in the eyes again after feeling his hands knotting through your hair. How could a moment change everything? 

You avoided JJ for the next several hours, wrapping your mind around what had happened. If the other pogues noticed, they didn’t call you out on it. Not openly, anyway. Kie and John B were not subtle as they gossiped in hushed whispers, glancing between you and JJ at your two different places across the party. 

Eventually, the drinks caught up to you. Coping with your alien feelings by attempting to numb them with alcohol hadn’t worked, of course, so now not only were you mentally spiraling but had also come down with a bad case of the spins.

To anchor yourself back to the moment, you slipped away from the party, which was just now starting to teeter off from its full swing, and exited out of the back door of the mansion onto a vacant area of porch.

Salty sea and crisp nighttime air instantly offered reprieve to your racing mind as you walked over to the wooden railing of the porch and leaned against it, reveling in the quiet. 

A few minutes later, your quiet was disturbed by the sound of the sliding glass door opening up behind you. You turned to look at who’d followed, heart nearly leaping from your chest at the sight of JJ.  

“Hey, you okay out here?” He stuck his head out of the door, quiet concern on his face. You nodded without verbal response. “Is it cool if we talk for a minute?”

You nodded again, feeling a nervous knot forming in your stomach. You didn’t want to imagine what he would say next. Still, you were both here now, and there was no use in prolonging the inevitable. “What's up?”

He closed the door behind himself. Here it comes, you thought. He’s going to confess that he was just teasing you—it meant nothing to him. All one big, meaningless flirt brought on by his name being pulled from a random lottery. If it’d been John B’s name called over JJ’s, JJ may have never looked at you twice otherwise. Not any differently than usual, anyway. Why did that possibility hurt so much? 

“About the game…” He approached your side at the porch railing, looking less sure of himself than normal. “I know you’ve been avoiding me.” 

Your reply was short. “Astute observation.”

“Don’t do that—don’t shut down.” His eyes cut right through you. “Look, I - I have something to admit.”

You steeled yourself for him to say something that would break you, but you wouldn’t show it. “Don’t leave me in suspense, Jay.”

“I’m sorry if I crossed a line by kissing you before…” There was a pause too long in the air as he contemplated whether or not to say the next words.  “I bribed Pope to make sure he called my name for your turn.”

“You… what?”

“Don’t be mad.” He squeezed his eyes shut as if an admission of guilt physically pained him. After all, his motto had always been ‘deny, deny, deny.’ “It may or may not have been John B’s name on the paper that Pope actually pulled, but I’d slid him a $20 beforehand to make sure no one else got you.” 

The uneasiness in your stomach slowly transformed into butterflies, tickling all the way up your throat until it evolved into belly-aching laughter. He wasn’t toying with you because he was bored or because it was convenient. He orchestrated this. 

The laughter confused him. “Is that – wait – why are you laughing?”

“Shut the fuck up and kiss me again.”

His features brightened, eyes glowing with a new, consuming adoration. He swept you in closer and brought his mouth down to yours, talking against your lips. “God, I’m so glad you said that. Playing it cool has been driving me crazy.”

#jj x reader #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank #john b routledge #john b x reader x jj #obx fanfiction #obx reader #obx #obx fic #pogue x reader #fluff #light angst #angst with a happy ending #outer banks #seven minutes in heaven #outerbanks #fanfic #mine

[kopilot-pop]

hi, about the yunjin starbucks controversy.

i’m gonna try to be as fair as possible talking about this controversy, but i’ll be honest i’m leaning more on yunjin’s side. i’ve been getting several requests on yunjin and i feel like i need to get this off my chest every time i see her name on my page.

let’s start off with the facts: yunjin was caught drinking starbucks in Korea (in front of the company building.)

I thought she drank it on a post or somethrong but no, it was just a few pixels of a low quality picture fans took. And that’s my first minor problem; she wasn’t on live, it wasn’t a post, it was a few milliseconds of pixels. But I get the ‘performative activism’ controversy, it DOES feel like she’s hiding it.

However, my take is that she just got out from her car, and wanna know a little fun fact? Most snacks and drinks that all idols are seen eating are most likely bought by their managers. And it’s a fact that Koreans aren’t currently boycotting Starbucks as actively as western foreigners are. So my thought the first time I saw the picture was that. The manager probably just bought coffee from whatever shop was closest, and handed it to her.

But I do understand how that can feel like reaching so I did some more research .

The biggest thing I have to so called ‘defend’ Yunjin is that Starbucks Korea is completely separate from International Starbucks (source: ChosunBiz).

In 2021, 67.5% of Starbucks was comepletely bought by E-Mart (a branch of Shinsegae), and the rest 32.5% was bought by a Singaporean investment comapny (GIC).

So oh, Starbucks Korea has no affiliations with the part of Starbucks that sues their worker’s union.

However, I can make the argument that Yunjin could influence others to ignore the boycott and buy Starbucks. Is it true that she has several international fans and alot of impressionable fans? Yes.

But then we have to go back to our first argument; it was a few milliseconds of a low quality video.

And after finding that out, I started to feel like all the people commenting about “starbucks queen💕” and “omg whats your starbucks order?” is the problem.

YOU guys are the one promoting Starbucks at this point. Do you understand?

I’m not saying don’t hold someone accountable, no, but I’m saying the comments aren’t fucking helping.

Don’t get me wrong, I do live in Korea, and I have been actively avoiding purchasing from them because I saw a few posts on twitter referencing it. I based an activity on a twitter post. And wanna know when I figured out WHY I was supposed to boycott exactly?

After I deleted Twitter because of the stress I got from the app.

That’s when I finally found out about the BDS list, found out oh, Puma is on the list, McDonalds is an even bigger problem than Starbucks (directly supplying food to soldiers), HP APPARENTLY SUPPLIES TECH FOR THE ISRAEL GOVERNMENT, and oh wow! Starbucks isn’t even on the list because theres not enough proof that they financially fund Israel.

In conclusion, the people preaching about how Yunjin is a performative activist is such hypocrites themselves

It’s clear that while some of the comments and criticisms are genuine, trying to hold a person accountable, but its also clear that the repeat of the same mocking comments of Yunjin is just performative and for attention and likes.

That’s what pisses me off. People who don’t give a shit about Palestine, and people even if they do support Palestine not even doinng the bare minimum amount of research just having fun mocking (not criticizing) a person when a tiny bit of wrong doing is shown.

Please, go look in the mirror, and i dont like saying this but go touch grass, do your own research, dont base off your whole ideology on a reddit post or a twitter, tumblr post, read different variety of news articles from several companies, and THEN make your decision on a situation. Not only Starbucks, not only on Yunjin, but on several other ones too.

Media literacy. Look it up.

#talk #huh yunjin #yunjin #starbucks #south korea #kpop #lesserafim #le sserafim #free palestine

[purple-plum-petals]

Hi! I love reading your works and I have a little request if you don't mind for a Jade x Reader.

I really just want a short where the reader is making their Halloween costume (a mushroom fairy) and surprises Jade with it. It'd be even cuter if the mushroom that the reader got inspiration from also happened to be a favorite of Jade's.

⊱ A Tailor-Made Coshroom ⊰ || Jade Leech X Reader

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮        Character(s): Jade Leech, Floyd Leech, Azul Ashengrotto, Grim (Twisted Wonderland)        Reader Type: Human, Ramshackle Prefect (Gender-Neutral Pronouns) – Reader is mentioned to be shorter than Floyd and Jade.        Warning(s): Brief Mentions of Blood, but Besides That, Nothing! I also always use the Japanese TWST Terms (Dorm Leader instead of Housewarden, Madols instead of Thaumarks, etc.) in my writing.        Genre: Drabble, Fluff, Attempt at Comedy, Romantic or Platonic Relationship (It Can Technically be Read as Either since Nothing is Stated Directly, but it Does Lean More on the Romantic Side of Things)        Word Count: ~1,900 words        Request: “Hi! I love reading your works and I have a little request if you don't mind for a Jade x Reader. I really just want a short where the reader is making their Halloween costume (a mushroom fairy) and surprises Jade with it. It'd be even cuter if the mushroom that the reader got inspiration from also happened to be a favorite of Jade's.”        Author’s Note: I’m overjoyed to hear you enjoy my works; thank you so much for reading! This ask has been sitting in my inbox for quite some time but, since spooky-season is right around the corner, I thought now would be the perfect time for me to post this. I’ve been lacking a lot of motivation when it comes to writing as of late, but I’m hoping I can pump out at least one request every week from now on until my inbox is cleared out. I actually started my Master’s program, so hopefully I’ll have time to be able to write for enjoyment rather than just for academics. 😅 I hope this is alright; I have to admit, I’m a bit rusty haha. (Also, just a PSA, the ending is supposed to be cute I swear – it’s just Jade acting a little more childish like Floyd and was not intended to be creepy! I didn’t want this to get too long since it was supposed to be a shorter piece, but I had no idea where to end it. 😔) Also, yes, the title is a pun on costume/mushroom – yes, I couldn’t think of another title.

→ If you enjoyed my work, please reblog it if you can! Exposure on Tumblr is based on reblogging content rather than liking it, so your support would be much appreciated!  ♡ ╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Halloween was inching closer and closer by the day and you didn’t have much more time to complete your costume. So, as soon as you were finished with class for the day, you immediately returned to Ramshackle, cooping yourself up in your room until it was time to make you and Grim dinner. You had been working non-stop on your costume for the past week or so, powering through the many times you’ve pricked your finger with your accursed sewing needle. You couldn’t even count the numerous occasions that Grim or the ghosts had to help bandage your hands up after all your slip-ups at this point.

You had come up with an idea nearly a month ago and wanted to make it a reality with your own two hands – this year for Halloween, you would be a mushroom fairy! You had thought the idea was pretty cute, plus it was a simple enough costume to make considering all the DIY videos you could find on the internet. While it most certainly wouldn’t be unique by any means, hopefully your classmates would be able to appreciate the work you had put into it.

Your costume was based on the Fly Agaric mushroom, also known as Amanita Muscaria, simply because it was an iconic mushroom with its recognizable red-and-white-dotted cap. It was also one of your upperclassmen’s favorite species of mushroom, but that wasn’t the reason why you chose it – it was just a coincidence, you swear.

Right now, you were currently finishing up your mushroom cap, sewing on a few final details into the red fabric considering Halloween was now only two days away at this point. You were certainly excited to be able to show off your costume to your friends, and you were hoping you’d get a genuine reaction out of the previously-mentioned upperclassman. After about another twenty minutes, you had completed adding all of the small white beads to your hat. With a wide smile, you held your costume out in front of you. It was finally ready, and you couldn’t wait to see what everyone thought of it at the party.

Before you knew it, it was finally Halloween and – after weeks of hard work and bloody fingertips – you were finally able to wear your costume! You already had gotten quite a few compliments from some of your friends, but you had a specific upperclassman in mind you knew would absolutely love what you were wearing. You were currently scanning the room to see if you could find him, trying to spot his signature teal hair among the large body of students. It shouldn’t be too hard to find him considering how tall he was, but you ended up finding his brother before you could him.

“Hey Floyd! Happy Halloween!” You said with a smile, making your way over to one of the school’s biggest menaces. Floyd’s face seemed to light up when he saw you, a bright yet somewhat intimidating grin spreading across his features.

His sharp teeth were at full display as he made his way over to you, waving as he said in a sing-song tone, “Shrimpy~, there you a–!” However, once he seemed to register your costume, his smile immediately faded as he questioned with a slight scowl, “…What are you wearing?”

“I’m a mushroom fairy! Pretty cute, right?” You told him in return, pride filling your chest as you gestured towards your outfit.

“Ew, no – mushrooms are gross.” Floyd said with a grimace, looking almost disappointed with you.

“What? No they’re not! They’re absolutely adorable!” You told him in return, placing your hands on your hips as you stood your ground.

“Ugh – you’ve been hangin’ out with Jade too much. He’s a bad influence on you.” Floyd said, coming over and placing his arm on your shoulder as he leaned into you with his taller form. He had the habit of using you like an armrest every now and again, a habit that he had picked up months ago at this point.

“Arguably, I think you’re a worse influence.” You said with a slight huff, trying to keep yourself balanced considering you had a giant leaning against you. You moved the hat on your head out of the way so you could glance up at Floyd, asking him, “Where is your brother, by the way? I’ve been looking all over for him.”

“Last time I saw him, he was with Azul by the food table.” Floyd said, glancing down at you in return. However, once your eyes met, a wide smirk began growing on his face. As he poked your cheek slightly with his index finger, he asked teasingly, “Why, you wanna show him your adorable costume? Ehehehe, you’re getting bold, Shrimpy.”

“You know what? I think I’m done with this conversation.” You bluntly stated, quickly removing yourself from under his weight as Floyd laughed out loud at your slightly flushed face; you didn’t get why he liked teasing you so much. He didn’t seem fazed by it at all by your sudden movement either, immediately returning to his usual posture as though he hadn’t been putting all of his weight on you just mere moments ago.

“Good luck~ – I’m rooting for you!” Floyd said with a shit-eating grin, waving to you as you left that conversation before he could embarrass you any further.

You weaved in and out of the sea of your classmates, looking for the food table since that was the only lead you had to go off of. You knew you probably had all night to show your costume to Jade who was arguably the person who would appreciate it the most, but a part of you just wanted to show him now. Thankfully, as the snack table came into view, you saw both Jade and Azul who seemed to be talking with one another. Azul was drinking what seemed to be fruit punch, a slight scowl on his face as he glared down at the cup in his hand, while Jade seemed absolutely delighted by his companion’s utter look of distaste.

“Note to self,” You thought, “Don’t try the punch.”

Now was the perfect opportunity for a scare, though, so you tried to make yourself as small as possible which was honestly quite difficult given the size of your hat. You slowly closed in on Azul and Jade, the former seeming to notice your presence but deciding not to say anything as you snuck up beside Jade, jumping up slightly as you exclaimed, “Boo!”

“Ah, Prefect, it’s nice to see y–…” Jade said with a smile as he turned slightly to look at you, his words tapering off as soon as you two made eye contact.

You grinned up at both of them, saying happily, “Happy Halloween you two!”

“Yes, happy Halloween to you as well.” Azul said, throwing his cup of punch into a nearby trash can as he asked you with a slight smirk, “Not going to say ‘trick or treat’ to me again this year, hmm?”

“Nope – I think I learned my lesson from last year… but, if you happen to have any treats you’d like to give out, I’ll happily take some!” You said with a smile, watching as Azul pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Jade was still looking at you, not having said anything besides his unfinished greeting.

One of Azul’s brows rose in question as he asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at you as if you had grown a second head, “Since when did I become someone who just gives out things?”

“Since we became friends, duh – friends do nice things for friends, no strings attached!” You told him honestly; after all, you considered the three most terrifying influential members of the Octavinelle dorm to be your friends. While you definitely did not have the best start with any of them, you really didn’t have a lot of good first impressions (or experiences) with any of your friends at NRC. Somehow throughout the past year, though, you had grown to be quite close with the octo-trio.

He seemed to think for a moment, glancing over at Jade before smiling and muttering slightly, “Hmm… I have an idea of something nice I could do for both of you, then.” He then suddenly began to walk away, waving slightly as he departed as he spoke, “I’ll talk to you later if we run into each other again – have fun, Prefect.”

“Oh, uh… you too?” You managed to say, waving to him as well despite how confused you were at the whole situation. Why did he just leave? How exactly was ditching in the middle of your conversation doing something nice?? You know, sometimes Azul was just as much an enigma as the twins were.

“Well, that was kind of weird…” You muttered to yourself before returning all of your attention to Jade, smiling up at him as you gestured towards your attire, “So, what do you think about my costume Jade? Believe it or not, I even managed to make it all by myself.”

He had been watching Azul’s retreating form with a slight frown on his face as he muttered under his breath, “…He’s going to make me repay him for this, isn’t he?”

“Hmm? What was that, Jade?” You asked, not having quite heard what he had said. Between the noisiness of the party and the height difference between the two of you, it was difficult to hear anyone if they weren’t speaking louder than usual.

Jade just looked down at you, his smile returning full-force as he said, “Oh, it’s nothing you have to worry about.”

Before you could even ask him what that meant by that, Jade reached forward to hold the ruffles that lined the bottom of your hat in between his fingers as he inspected it, telling you with a slight hint of interest in his voice, “Your costume is quite impressive; you did a very good job, you know.” He paused for a moment to ask you, looking down at your form with his mismatched eyes, “Say, what made you decide to pick the Fly Agaric mushroom, hmm?”

“I mean, probably it’s an iconic mushroom, you know? Like, I’m pretty sure everyone knows what this one looks like even if they don’t know its name.” You told him, taking a moment to think about whether you wanted to admit the second part out loud. Well, you might as well be completely honest with him – after all, he could very easily get the truth out of you if he wanted to, “Plus… isn’t it one of your favorite mushrooms? I just thought you’d appreciate it, is all.”

Jade’s face was unsettlingly blank for a long time before an arguably terrifying smirk grew across his face as he lightly pinched one of your cheeks in between his fingers, “My, you’re too cute, Prefect. I could just eat you up right now.”

“Really Jade? Now isn’t the time to joke around like that… I mean, you are joking, right?” You asked, glancing up at him; however, Jade said nothing in return, the grin on his face only widening. You could feel your blood run cold as you asked him, a nervous smile on your face as you said, “…Do I at least get a head-start?”

He seemed to think for a moment, standing up straight before telling you with a smile, “Go ahead – I’ll be a little more courteous to you than my brother usually is. Now, let’s have some fun, hm?”

#🌸 . Plum Writes #twisted wonderland #twst wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst yuu #octavinelle #octavinelle x reader #jade leech #jade leech x reader #twisted wonderland drabble #twisted wonderland imagines #twst drabble #twst imagines #jade leech drabble #jade leech imagines #twst jade #twst fluff #azul ashengrotto #floyd leech #grim

[kzpearce]

distracted. alhaitham x reader

gender neutral reader (no pronouns are used). reader has an anemo vision, and this shot is more focused at haitham's point of view.

author's note. first time posting in tumblr! i'm on my writing slump recently, so i'll be using this platform to post a one-shot that would help me bring back on my track. take note that this would be my story dump, so there wouldn't be a so much effort to proofread this :,) however! it doesn't mean that i won't make any effort writing one-shots here. so enjoy <3

everybody knew that alhaitham was not someone who will get distracted easily while he was reading his book. a person could be talking to him and annoying him (for better or worse), but he could still managed to maintain his focus on whatever book he was reading.

just what spell did you give him? how did you manage to make him stop from reading the book he was deeply interested in?

the chilling breeze touched his delicate skin, and it made his hair move gracefully from its place. his eyes hastily diverted from his book, looking for you. perhaps because of your anemo vision—there were some circumstances that whenever you're entering into the scene, you unconsciously make the wind whisper. since he was too familiar with your presence, whenever you accidentally controlled the wind, he already knew that you're nearby.

sometimes, you accidentally made the wind blow at the wrong timing for the other people. and because of this, when your presence was felt, a scholar with piles of files blew away. alhaitham watched your eyes expand, and you quickly used your vision to lift the files and hang them on the air—just to avoid these papers to make contact with the ground or the water.

“i’m deeply sorry,” you frowned. you gathered these papers and placed them on the top of the scholar’s book.

“it’s alright, you prevented them from getting wet,” she chuckled, shaking her head.

you smiled—oh archons, you had no idea how he loved seeing the sweet grin carved in your lips. he would do anything just to maintain your smile on your lips. had he ever mentioned that you looked utterly beautiful today? most likely no. this would be the first time he saw you today. and he had no guts to tell you this too.

“hi,” your smile lingered on your lips. in fact, they widened when alhaitham slightly grinned. he didn’t notice that you were already in front of him.

you sat beside him without a warning. he didn’t mind. “done with today’s work?” you asked, not breaking a contact.

“still have a pile, but i’m on my break,” he retorted. he placed his bookmark at the desired page and closed his book. alhaitham wanted his eyes and focus to be on you. you didn’t ask him to, it was his intention and his own doing.

“oh, okay,” you unhurriedly nodded, thinking about what to suggest so that you could spend more time with him. “do you… want to eat something before you continue working?”

“i’m not hungry,” he declined. your lips made a thin line, disappointed that he managed to say no so quick. he was somehow expecting you to overthink. alhaitham knew you for quite some time now, and you developed a friendship that no one (neither the two of you) were expecting.

“oh, okay then. i’ll leave you alone so that you can continue reading.” you were about to stand up, yet he grasped your wrist swiftly. your head jerked to his hand, wrapping your wrist.

he saw your breath hitched. alhaitham knew that this action caught you off guard—and to be honest, this caught him off guard too. alhaitham never expected himself to act so impulsively in front of you. on the other hand, he knew that your mind was thinking negative thoughts, thus he should and would do anything that would stop you from getting away from his presence.

he waited for a day just to see and spend time with you. and he would never let you go until he’s satisfied and ready to spend his time dealing with papers again.

“i didn’t ask you to leave,” he said. his eyes never left yours, and he managed to read something from them. it was hope. “stay.” it was more a demand and not a request.

alhaitham observed that you tried to stop your lips from smiling. your cheeks reddened as he pulled you back to your sit—not just to your sit, he pulled you close too.

his hands moved from your wrist to your hands. and he had an urge to intertwine them. you obliged, and your grin widened. “i see. perhaps with me in your presence would help you more to rest, huh?” you joked.

“yeah, it will.”

you plump cheeks were redder. and he couldn’t stop staring at them. alhaitham admired you (perhaps admired would be underwhelming for him), and he didn’t want to take his eyes away from you. he wanted to stare at you without being interrupted. perhaps some would call him a freak, yet he didn’t care. it was the least thing he care about the moment.

at this point, if someone would ask if he would rather pick the book he was deeply interested in or to spend time with you (not to mention, staring at you too), he would not hesitate to choose you.

#genshin impact #alhaitham x reader #genshin impact fluff #genshin fluff #al haitham x reader #gender neutral reader #genshin various men #genshin impact alhaitham #fluff #fanfiction #alhaitham x you #alhaitham x y/n #alhaitham #genshin impact x reader #kzpearce3

[spine-buster]

portofino ft. kenny omega

gif credit @/stukky

Length: 23k Summary: You and Tyson have history.  Lots of it.  When you met, you could have never envisioned he would be in your life the way he still is.  But things get complicated, and tricky, and complex.  Things hurt – lots of things hurt.  And things can only get worse before they can get better, right? A/N: my first wrestling fic since 2017. The formatting and spacing on this is super fucked up and not idea and I apologize for that, but Tumblr's new and "improved" text editor is literally the fucking worst and glitches SO much that the most I could do was this. This will also be posted on my AO3 (@/spinebuster) if you prefer there!

10th May 2023

it only hurts this much right now was what i was thinking the whole time

You were crying again.

At this point, you were basically just leaking.

You didn’t want Tyson to find out, so you tried with all your might to stop yourself, rubbing away your tears with the back of your hand and trying to steady your breathing.  You breathed in and out, in and out, in and out.  You hoped no-one else around noticed.  But it was hard when there were so many people, hard when you were friends with practically all of them, hard when any little hint of water or redness of your eye could cause someone like Austin or Hikaru or Dustin to speak up and ask you what was wrong.  You almost wanted to hide in a closet until you calmed down, but that was childish. 

You went into one of the washrooms backstage anyway, not bothering to go into a stall but checking them all quickly anyway to ensure nobody else was with you.  When you knew you were clear, you stood in front of the sink, looking at yourself in the mirror.  Your cheeks were red, your eyes were watery.  You sighed.

“Get it together, Hazel,” you mumbled to yourself.  You so desperately needed to get it the fuck together.  “Stop crying.  You’re such a baby.”

The pep talk didn’t help much.

***

“Have you seen Hazel anywhere?” Tyson asked Nick as he unraveled the tape around his wrists.

“Nah,” he answered, shaking his head.  “Probably went back to the hotel a bit early.”

“Why would she do that?” Tyson asked.  Matt, from behind his brother, gave one of his best friends a look.  “Oh.  Right,” Tyson realized.

“Don’t think she wants to hang out here anymore than she needs to,” Nick commented.

“Can you blame her?” Matt asked his brother.

“Not in the slightest.”

***

You had the TV on for background noise as you went about your routines and wandered aimlessly around the hotel room.  It was pitch black outside in Detroit; you couldn’t even see anything out the window besides the lights from the hotel parking lot.  What a view.  You tried to distract yourself with the TV, sitting down on the suite’s couch, but you couldn’t even do that.  Your legs pushed you back up to wander more.  You’d check your phone and texted your mom back.  You texted Hikaru that maybe brunch would be a better idea tomorrow instead of meeting her in the lobby for the continental breakfast, knowing what tomorrow morning would probably look like. 

At some point, you heard some noise and voices from outside your room.  Not long after, the sounds of a key card swiping, and finally the turn of the doorknob.  You were greeted with Tyson – or, more so, Tyson was greeted with you, since you were the one in his room.  It wasn’t a surprise that you were there, but it was still a welcome sight.  It was better than being alone.

“Hey,” you greeted him.  It had been about an hour since you stopped crying, so you hoped your eyes and face had stopped showing it.

“Hazel, hey,” he said, smiling at you, despite what he had just been through.  He wheeled his bag in behind him before the door shut on its own.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you lied.  “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live,” he shrugged.  He’d been saying that a lot lately.  You hated when he did.  “You left early.”

You nodded quickly, apologetically.  “I didn’t want to stick around.  Knowing that he’s lurking around, you know…I just didn’t want to have to deal with it.”

“I didn’t even see him, for what it’s worth.  If you stayed in our locker room you would’ve been good.”

The two of you didn’t even have to say his name for you to understand.  In some ways, you were glad he acted as a buffer, an excuse you could pull, that way you could hide why you really left early.  “I watched most of the match, I swear.  Until I couldn’t anymore.”

“When was that?”

“When you guys broke the cage,” you were finally honest, just slightly.

“So you didn’t see Don stab me with a screwdriver.”

You winced.  “No.  But you at least told me about that.  You didn’t tell me the cage was going to break.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice solemn.  “You know how these matches get put together.  Things get added.  Things get taken out.”

Did you ever.  But you still couldn’t get used to how…well, violent Tyson’s matches were getting.  Unnecessary violence.  Unnecessary risk.  There was no reason for Tyson to bleed, and now you felt he was bleeding every week.  You didn’t know how much longer you’d last.  “How’s your knee?” you asked, since you saw it get caught up in the cage when it broke, causing you to cry in the first place.  He’d just taken time off for double knee surgery; you were scared he was taking it too far.

“Knees are fine.  As good as they can be,” he assured you.  “Can you…can you help me with something else, though?”

“Of course.  What is it?”

“There’s, umm, there’s some scratches on my back.  I need someone to take off the big bandage, apply this cream the doctor gave me, and tape on a new bandage.”

“Okay,” you nodded slightly.  You’d done a version of this countless times before but it never got easier.  Just like watching him do these kinds of matches never got easier.  “Do you want to sit on the bed?”

He changed out of his gym shorts and into his pyjama shorts first so he could sleep right afterwards.  You watched as he sat on the bed, handing you the ointment.  When you unravelled the bandage, your stomach was in knots about how big it was.  “Ty…”

“It’s going to look worse than it feels,” he warned.  “It doesn’t feel that bad, Hazel.  I promise.”  He took off his shirt then, slowly, grunting slightly.  The bandage covered nearly half his back.  You held your breath, trying to keep your emotions in check.  “The tape that’s holding the bandage in place – it doesn’t hurt.  You can just peel it off,” he instructed.  “I have more for when you put the new one on.”

You started peeling away the tape, discarding it beside you as you.  When it was fully peeled, the bandage still stayed in place, which only meant to you it was sticking onto his skin because of the blood.  You held your breath again as you took the bandage off, but fully gasped loudly in horror, your breath taken away when you saw the state of his back.  “Oh Ty…” you cried.

“Hazel—”

“Tyson, what did you do?  What did you do?” you begged from him.  You brought your hand up, tracing the scratches and cuts delicately with your fingertips.  “Tyson…” he had to hear the pain in your voice.

“I’m sorry, Hazel.  I’m sorry,” he said.  “I’m so sorry.”

And that’s when it began again: the tears.  You grabbed the ointment and unscrewed the cap, taking in the full picture of his back.  You cried silently, tears falling down your face as you would apply small bits of ointment to your fingers before rubbing it along all the scratches.  You would do this for Tyson until the day you died, but you hated that it had to be like this.  The two of you had always looked out for one another – Tyson more so, for obvious reasons, but that was a whole other story – but seeing his body mutilated like this twisted something in you that you couldn’t kick.  It was one thing to see Kenny after a 60-minute match with Okada, body bruised and banged up but all in one piece; it was another thing to see barbed wire and nail scratches, cuts, and footprints on his face.

He winced in pain every so often and you’d keel, hating yourself for hurting him when you were supposed to be helping him.  You tried not to let him hear you cry, but you were sure the couple of sniffles gave it away.  When you finally asked for the tape for the bandage and your voice cracked, you were positive.

Tyson handed you the tape, but turned around slightly to see you.  “You’re crying.  Why are you crying?” he asked.

You shook your head to ignore him.  You unravelled the tape and began ripping strips to use.  “Turn around.”

“Hazel—”

“Sit still.”

Tyson stayed silent.  You positioned the bandage to cover all the scratches before taping it into place.  When you were done, you tossed the tape to the side, the rest of his back looking fairly normal besides the scars you already knew about.  Unable to control yourself, you leaned forward and pressed your cheek to his skin on his back between his shoulder blades, inhaling and exhaling deeply.  Tyson felt what you were doing, the skin-to-skin contact an instantaneous feeling, and breathed in and out along with you.  You savoured the feeling of the Tyson you knew on your skin.  Not mutilated Tyson.  Not banged up Tyson.  Just the Tyson you knew for twelve years, the Tyson who looked out for you, the Tyson who was your mentor.

“I’m sorry, Hazel,” he whispered, his words sincere.  He hated seeing, feeling you so upset.

“Can I stick around tonight?” you asked.

“You never have to ask.  You just can.”

When you crawled to step off the bed, Tyson grabbed your arm to prevent you from going anywhere momentarily.  You wanted to get the feeling of tears off your face, but he had other plans.  You were right at his side, so so close.  “I really am sorry,” he told you.  “I hate seeing you like this.”

Tears were coming again.  You didn’t try to stop them this time.  You still shook your head and tried to wipe them away.  “It’s just getting harder and harder for me to watch you put your body through these hardcore matches,” you admitted.  “Sometimes I just wish you’d stick to what you’re good at.  And that’s not to say you’re not good at the hardcore stuff, because you are – you’re good at everything.  I just wish I didn’t have to see your body be mutilated for the sake of spectacle.  I hate—I hate seeing what you have to do.  You, more than anyone, know how to put on a spectacle without having to do that shit.  I hate seeing you destroy your body, Ty.  I just hate it.  I’m sorry.”

He nodded his head in understanding.  “I know it’s hard.  I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry,” was all he could say.

Tyson waited for you to wash your face and put on one of his t-shirts before the both of you got into bed.  You wondered if you should get close at all, possibly even touch him, and you were about to decide against him until he winced again, trying to get into a comfortable position.  It was at that point that your body physically moved towards his before your mind knew what it was doing.  It was like a fight-or-flight response.  He found a comfortable position sleeping on his side, and you curled up right against his back like the big spoon, despite being two-thirds his size. 

In the quietness of the room, with the low hum of the air conditioner the only noise, you placed a kiss on his shoulder.  He didn’t say anything, but you knew he felt it.

***

The next morning, you woke up still snuggled into Tyson.  You both had inevitably shifted throughout the night: Tyson was lying on his back, apparently able to do so without pain, while you were sleeping right up against him.  When you opened your eyes, you saw that he was still sound asleep, one arm draped over his chest.

“Haze?” you heard him mumble in a groggy voice.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t fully asleep.  “Hmm?”

“Thank you for last night,” he said.

You didn’t answer right away.  “I’ll always be there to help you, Tyson.  You know that.”

He moved so that the arm that had been squished against you was now around you, pulling you into his body even more than you already were.  The usual smell of him filled your airways; it practically made you drunk.  Drunk enough to fall back asleep, his body bringing you peace as much as it did pain.

***

11th May 2023

time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it i'd like to be my old self again, but i'm still trying to find it

When you were back in Orlando, you settled into the solace of your apartment, unpacking immediately and throwing your clothes in the washing machine.  You were called a psychopath more than once by Stephen for being that type of person – especially after it became a meme on the internet – but you couldn’t help it.  You had even packed Tyson’s shirt that you’d slept in last night, seeing it mixed in with your other clothes before you threw in a Tide Pod and closed the door.

After unpacking, you set your suitcase in your closet and resolved to have a bowl of lime tortilla chips as you sat on the couch and scrolled through Instagram and cuddled with your ragdoll cat, Zadie.  You needed to disconnect from wrestling for a bit, from flashbacks of seeing Tyson’s scratched-up back whipping through your mind every other minute.  But as you sat down on your couch, bowl or tortilla chips in hand, you couldn’t help but notice your most prized belongings: your wrestling accolades you had organized neatly on the wall and in the media unit that surrounded your TV.  Your Match of the Year plaques from 2014 and 2015.  Your Woman of the Year awards.  A women’s belt.  Framed photographs of you wrestling.  Frame photographs of you with your friends.  With your family.  With Tyson.

Sometimes it felt like a lifetime ago and sometimes it felt like you had to retire yesterday.  You had enjoyed an amazing but short career.  You’d had a lot of ups, a lot of downs, a lot of heartbreaks, a lot of memorable moments.  There was the time you’d gone 20-minutes with Toni Storm in a match that ended up getting over a million views on YouTube.  You’d performed in infamous Reseda, in the PWG arena, to the most raucous crowd you’d ever performed in front of.  You had travelled to America, Japan, the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Mexico, and Ireland to wrestle.  You had hype.  You had respect.  People wrote about you.  People paid to see you.  People lined up for you at meet and greets.  People wanted your autograph and your t-shirts at shows, handing you wads of cash for two medium and two kids’ t-shirts so the whole family could match.  While you had made a name for yourself, you’d racked up the injuries too.  There was the broken wrist early on, which wasn’t that bad – from a show in Toronto where you just landed awkwardly.  You were able to finish the match, and thanks to the Canadian health care system you held so dear, it was in a cast just a few hours later.  There was a broken ankle that actually forced you to stay back from a tour of Ireland that many of your friends went on.

At one point in 2014, you were booked to wrestle against a women’s wrestler, fairly new to the scene, named Bea Priestley.  The both of you had gone over the match beforehand, but once in the ring, she did nothing you two spoke about.  That was fine – you were a professional – but Bea was wrestling stiff, and you were getting angrier every passing moment in the ring, even warning her to cool it.  When she actually did one of the sequences you’d called beforehand, she ended up breaking your sternum.  You had to be out for twelve weeks.  You never heard from Bea.  It was fine.  Whatever.

But the next time Bea Priestley wrestled you, she broke your neck.

You told her you didn’t want to take anything too risky.  “Why?  You don’t trust me?” she had the audacity to ask you.  During the match, when she picked you up and flipped you upside down, you knew what was coming, so you tried to get into a safe position.  But none of that mattered.  Nothing would have saved you.

You remembered dropping on you head, and you remember seeing a light, and you remember your whole body going limp.  It felt like you weight a million pounds; you were completely paralyzed from the neck down.  You couldn’t move, and it was the scariest seconds of your life.  Rick Knox immediately noticed.  You closed your eyes and willed your brain to wiggle your fingers, and after about five or six seconds, you felt them rubbing against each other, even just slightly.  You remembered seeing Bea try to kick you, but Rick Knox earnestly holding her back.  When he pushed her far enough away, he knelt down by your head.  “Haze, what happened?” he asked.  You knew your body.  You knew what this was.  You told Rick not to touch you, that you had broken your neck. 

You remember him throwing up one of the most emphatic X’s you’d ever seen and the whole crowd going silent.  Rick was screaming something, but you were focused on the worst pain you’d ever felt in your neck as you began feeling again in your extremities.  After that, so much was a blur.  You remember Austin somehow being beside your face too, telling you everything was going to be okay – you later learned he was watching from the back and ran out the second Rick threw up the X.  You remember Dustin being there too, doing much of what Austin was doing, giving Bea dirty looks – you later learned he was the one who called the ambulance.  Austin and Dustin were very likely the reasons things weren’t worse, the reason why you were still walking. 

At the hospital they ran x-rays and MRIs and other tests, as usual, and they put a neck brace on you.  Dustin had followed you to the hospital to explain everything to the emergency doctors, Austin and Kyle and Candice following close behind in a car.  When the results finally came back, it was even worse than you – than everybody – thought. 

“Your disc hit your spinal cord, which is why you saw the white light,” the doctor explained.  “That’s what caused the temporary paralysis.”

“So I broke it, like I thought,” you wanted the confirmation.  People had recovered from broken necks before.  So many had been able to get back into the ring.

The doctor sighed.  “Miss Fiore…” she began.  “Your disc hit your spinal cord.  You didn’t fracture your neck.  You didn’t break it.  What you suffered is what we refer to as a spinal cord concussion.  You don’t have to sever your spinal cord to be paralyzed for life, you could just touch it and be paralyzed for life.  This…what happened to you…is technically worse.”

You remember feeling as if the blood drained from your body.  “Paralyzed?”

She sighed again.  “Miss Fiore…you have a very, very similar injury to Christopher Reeve.  Your C2 is what controls your breathing.  The truth is, when it hit your spinal cord, you should have suffocated to death in the ring.  Out of the five percent of people that survive this injury, ninety-nine percent are paralyzed.  It’s quite literally a miracle that you are still able to walk.” 

You had emergency spinal fusion surgery less than 24 hours later.  Four screws, a rod, and sixteen staples created a gnarly, awful scar on your neck that was still visible whenever you had your hair up. 

Your wrestling career was over.

Your phone buzzed loudly from your coffee table, breaking your train of thought.  At least it kept you from crying.  When you picked it up, you noticed Tyson’s name flash across the screen.

Want to come up and watch some Netflix or something?  We can even keep watching that German duchess show you like.  Promise.

He lived in one of the penthouses on the 34th floor, while you lived in a two bedroom on the 18th.  How embarrassing was that?  Even your living situations were inextricably linked.  You swiped your phone open and texted him back quickly. 

It’s okay.  I need some time alone.  Let’s go for coffee tomorrow or something.

It was Dustin who had to make the call to Tyson when you were in the hospital.  He was in Japan on a tour, and word hadn’t gotten to him.  Dustin told you he had freaked out on the phone, like completely freaked out.  After your surgery and after all your visitors had left, your room surrounded by flowers and get well soon cards, you FaceTimed him.  He picked up on barely the second ring.  It was the first time you’d ever seen him tear up, though you later learned he didn’t completely break down until after he hung up.  You tried to cheer him up, telling him the first thing you were going to do when you were cleared was go to Japan to see him.  He made you promise not to fly unless a doctor said it was okay.  He had two weeks off in about a month’s time and resolved to stay with you for the duration to help you.  You told him it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted.

Those two weeks were when you realized Tyson would be in your life forever.

You’d still done well for yourself since then.  You ended up starting a variety of projects – a podcast, becoming a semi-influencer on Instagram.  But perhaps most successful, and what kept your memory alive in the hearts and minds of wrestling fans worldwide despite not fighting in the ring anymore, was your YouTube series.  Kick Out in the Kitchen.  A series you started, inspired by the memory of your dad who was a chef, where you invited wrestlers to help you cook increasingly complex dishes.  You’d interview them along the way, teach them how to properly cut an onion, and make sure they didn’t slice off a finger in the process.  It was hysterical, and it was a hit.

Your life was good.  It really was.  You had amazing friends, you had your career, you had your mom in Winnipeg, you had an apartment, you had Tyson.  But sometimes you ached for the past; sometimes you wanted to still be in the ring, winning championships and changing the wrestling landscape just like your close friends were doing.  That just wasn’t in the cards for you, and that’s okay.  But it still hurt sometimes.

Your phone buzzed again, the badge rolling down from the top of your screen. 

Are you sure?  Need to talk?

I’m good.  Thanks Ty <3 see you tomorrow.

***

It all began with Portofino. 

Well, it all really began with Tyson making a remark about how you always carried a book around in your gym bag.  You were in Winnipeg then, training to become a wrestler, and he’d visited the school on a trip home from Japan in 2011.  “I promised my mom I’d graduate university before pursuing wrestling full-time,” you had explained to him.  “She wants me to have a degree.  It’s a non-negotiable.”

The book in question that he saw that day was An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro.  He was intrigued by the Japanese name of the author more than anything, although when you told him the synopsis, he perked up quite considerably. 

He was 28 at the time.  You were 20.

You were so, so young, but you were the only one that had spoken to him at length about your vision of what pro wrestling is and what pro wrestling could be.  You listened to him more intently than anyone else in your class when he spoke of his time in Japan.  You’d seen the match he had at his cottage.  You saw his match against nine-year-old Haruka and against Yoshihiko the blow-up doll.  Some of your fellow trainees looked at you weird.  You were the only one who had expressed any interest in travelling somewhere other than the United States for pro wrestling – maybe go to the UK, or do a tour of Europe, or, if you were lucky enough, do a tour of Japan. 

By the end of the week, Tyson gave you his number and said if you were ever in Japan to contact him.

You did more than that.  You didn’t just wait the two years between meeting him and graduating to speak to him again.  You actively kept in touch with him.  You became friends as you learned more about each other.  So much so that after local shows on weekends, travelling to Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, and Pasadena in the summers to wrestle, and graduation, when you arrived in Japan for the first time he picked you up from the airport. 

He looked out for you.  He always did.

He always would.

***

PORTOFINO, 2014

i'd live and die for moments that we stole on begged and borrowed time

You found yourself squished in the backseat of a tiny Italian car between Matt Jackson and Kenny Omega, Tommaso Ciampa in the driver’s seat and Nick Jackson in the passenger’s seat.  That’s who they were last night, anyway, participating in matches and stealing the show in Genoa, Italy.  Today, you were just Matt, Tyson, Tommaso, Nick, and Hazel going to Portofino.

The promoter who had lured you all (and more) to Italy for a mini tour had mentioned the famous Italian Riviera town was only an hour away, so on the two days off you had between shows, you all decided to go.  Nick had found the hotel and booked the rooms.  Tommaso volunteered to drive.  A car with Austin, Kyle, Johnny, Candice, and Bobby were following close behind you.

“You’re not squished, are you?  D’you have enough room?” Tyson asked as he looked down at your frame, tiny in comparison to the bulk that surrounded you.

“I’ll live,” you assured him.  “Besides, you’re the one with your knees up to your chin.  Why didn’t you demand the front seat?”

“I couldn’t leave you in the middle between Matt and Nick,” he said, as if it was his moral obligation to protect you from two of the nicest guys on earth.  “Besides, Nick wants to learn more Italian.”

“Nick can barely speak English.”

“Whatja just say about me?” he hissed playfully from the backseat.  A smile spread across Tyson’s face.  “You’re gonna pay for that, Hazel.”

“I’m terrified.”

“You’re fearless, huh?” Tommaso joked from the front seat, looking at you through his rearview mirror.

“Not fearless.  I’m scared of a lot of things,” you clarified, being honest.  “But Matt and Nick aren’t one of ‘em.” 

When you all got into town, you checked into the hotel.  It was obvious that Matt and Nick would share a room together, just like it was obvious Johnny and Candice would, too.  After Austin paired up with Kyle (they were, technically, the other couple on the trip), and Tomasso paired up with Bobby, you and Tyson were inevitably the only pair left.  Was it normal for a young female wrestler to sleep in a room with her mentor during a trip to Italy?  Who knows.  You (and Candice) were used to being the only girls in the room a lot.  This was no different.  All you knew was that it didn’t matter to you: you knew Tyson, and everybody else, and it was the last thing on your mind because what really mattered was that you were in Italy.

Tyson unlocked the hotel room, the both of you pulling your bags in behind you.  There were two single beds placed together in the room, a window and a door out to the balcony providing the perfect cross breeze. 

“Okay, we’re not in a university dorm,” you commented, scoffing at the setup of the beds before pushing them together.  Tyson just watched.  You looked up at him.  “You need sunscreen?”

“Uh, yeah,” he nodded his head.

You found it in your bag and tossed it over to him.  You walked over to the small balcony and stepped out, taking in the view of the harbour from the room.  You guys got lucky, the way that this hotel was even available on such short notice – and five rooms at that.  The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  That alone told you that it was going to be a great day. 

You had been admiring the view of the harbour so much that you almost didn’t hear Tyson step out and join you on the balcony.  It was so small that between your bodies and the two chairs, it was full.  “Matt and Nick texted to meet in the lobby in fifteen,” he said.  “Are you good with that?”

Your bathing suit was already on underneath your sun dress, so you nodded your head.  “Just need the sunscreen,” you mentioned, and he handed it to you.  You perched your leg up on one of the chairs to slather the sunscreen on your leg, bringing it all the way up to the tops of your thighs.  Tyson couldn’t help but stare at your legs and not the view of the harbour.  You tried not to smile about it and looked away instead.  “Do we know where we’re going, by the way?  Portofino doesn’t exactly have a beach.”

Tyson furrowed his brows.  “How do you know?”

“My dad was from around here, remember?”

Tyson nodded at your reminder.  “That’s right.  Sorry, I forgot.”

You’d told Tyson a lot of stories about your dad since you met him, and every time you told a story, mentioned a characteristic, an odd quirk your dad used to do, he’d always listened intently.  You’d lost your dad to cancer at fifteen years old, and you missed him every day since.  It left a hole in you.  Understanding how close you and your dad were, Tyson always made sure to remember the details.  You mentioned to him once how you actually liked speaking about him because it meant you were keeping his memory alive, and Tyson told you he thought that was the most touching thing he’d ever heard.

“You don’t have to apologize,” you said, moving on to your other leg.  “I remember coming here as a kid.  The beaches are really rocky.  Either we get lucky and there’s nobody, or we have to find our own private place.”

He watched your hands travel up your thighs.  “You should take the reins on that, then,” he said.  You could see his Adam’s apple bob in his neck.  “Tommaso’s Italian is shit.”

You did.  Eventually, when you and the group made it down to the harbour, you asked in your broken Italian where the best place was – you probably sounded like a caveman – and some delightful locals pointed you in the right direction.  Like you remembered, it was rocky, but you found enough spots on huge flat rocks for towels and bags.  The best part was you were right beside a climbable cliff, so you knew all the guys would be doing crazy jumps.  The entire afternoon was spent between tanning on the rocks and cooling off in the water.  You had jumped off the cliff with Candice, with Tyson, and with Austin.  You swam in the water and got your hair wet and let the sunlight hit your face.  You’d caught Tyson’s eye so many times you lost count.  You felt pure happiness.

There was a moment after you jumped off the cliff for the second time with Tyson – a good photo op, according to Matt taking them – where you held hands as your ran and plummeted into the water.  Even underwater, despite the pressure, your hands stayed clasped.  It was only when you got back to the surface that your hands separated.  You could see Tyson’s smile.  “You alright?” he asked.

You only nodded.  You paddled the small distance over to him and attached your whole body to his.  You don’t know what came over you, but you wrapped your legs around his torso underwater, and as you did you could feel his hands go to your thighs.  Your arms wrapping around his shoulders, attaching yourself to him piggy-back style.  He looked behind his shoulder to see you.  “You sure you’re okay?”

You nodded again.  “I just feel like being close to you,” you admitted.  “Is that okay?”

There was a slight pause.  “Of course,” he said.  “You want to stay out here for a bit?”

“Yeah.  Just you and me for a little bit,” you said.  “Are you having fun?”

“I’m having the time of my life.”

“It sucks that we only get one day.  This area of Italy is so beautiful.  Have you ever been?”

“No.  This is my first time,” he revealed.  “I’m just happy I’m getting to spend it with you.”

You smiled, giving him as much of a hug as you could by squeezing your limbs around him tighter.  “You’re going to have to come back and spend a decent amount of time here.  I remember coming here when I was nine to visit my dad’s family, and, Ty—Portofino isn’t even the most beautiful town on the water.  And the food – the food!”

He smiled.  “We’re going to have to find a place tonight.  You’ll have to use your Italian again.  Find us the best restaurant in the town.”

There was silence between the two of you, the noise from the waves and from your friends and the other tourists filling the air instead.  You leaned your head forward so it was settled right into his shoulder.  “Hey Ty?” your voice was low this time.

“Hmm?”

“I’m happy I get to spend it with you, too.  Sometimes I feel like all I want to do is spend time with you.”

Tyson felt the same.  His breath caught in his throat.  All he could do was nod.  “Yeah…yeah.”

*

That night, after showering the salt water off and changing into another flowy dress, you all went out for dinner and had the best pasta and fish and wine you’d ever had in your life.  The waiter fell in love with your group and kept bringing you goodies: glasses of wine from the cellar, shots from the bar, extra plates of tiramisu or bombe.  Your stomach was full but your heart was fuller, and you didn’t want the day to end. 

Retiring back to the hotel meant you and Tyson would be alone again.  After the both of you packed away your things so you were already packed for tomorrow morning, you changed into pyjamas and got in to your pushed together beds.  Tyson browsed through his phone a bit before setting it on his beside and turning over to his side to sleep.

You, on the other hand, could not. 

You kept thinking of the feeling of his hands on your body.  It wasn’t like it was a new sensation – you trained with him constantly.  But there was something about the way he touched it when you were both in the water, the way nobody could see how his arms wrapped around you or how his hands went to your thighs to wrap your legs around his body as he gave you a piggy-back ride.  Even at dinner, sitting beside you at the table on the patio overlooking the water, his forearm rubbing up against yours underneath the table since your group was so squished together.

It was electric.  And now, all that electricity was in you with nowhere to go.

So much time had passed that you were 95% sure he was asleep.  If you were to say anything, you’d definitely be waking him up from his beauty sleep.  “Ty…” you mumbled out, still unsure if you even should as you stared up at the ceiling.

“Hazel?”

Well, at least you felt less bad about it now.  “Can you sleep?”

“Nah,” he said.  “Can you?”

“I think the sun today energized my body to the point where I can re-enact Shawn and Bret’s iron man match.”

You could hear Tyson giggle from his side of the bed.  “Are you Bret or Shawn in that scenario?”

“Both.”

He snorted.  You could feel him shift positions so that he could look at you now.  You turned over to your side as well.  “I’m dead serious.  I feel, like, buzzed.”

“I’m sure one of the guys has melatonin if you’re really worried,” he said.

You shook your head.  “I’ll be fine,” you assured him.  “Can I see all the pictures you took today?”

Tyson had learned a long time ago from his good friend Rami Sebei that he should be taking pictures of all the places he went and everything he saw and did (just as Rami did), so he made it a point since then to do just that.  He leaned over and unplugged his phone from the nightstand, and when he began to set back into his spot in bed, you didn’t let him until you had fit yourself into his side.  He didn’t even think twice as you did so, wrapping his arm around your body as you nestled your head against his chest.  You were so close he could smell the product you’d put into your hair.  You giggled through all the photos, at Austin’s terrified face the first time he jumped, versus Matt and Nick contemplating whether they could do a shooting star press into the water.  You saw the pictures he took of you and Candice hugging each other, and the pictures Bobby took of you and Tyson together on the rocks and posing in the shallow part of the water.  The more you laughed and smiled, the more he did too. 

When you’d seen all the photos, Tyson put his phone back on the nightstand but you stayed right where you were.  He laid back, savouring the feeling of your head on his chest, of your arm draped across him, how your fingertips had tip-toed and glided along his skin every time you laughed at a picture.

“Can I ask you a question?” you asked, moving to look at him.

“Of course.”

“How lame did you think I was the first time you met me?”

He giggled again.  So distinct in its sound; you’d be able to hear it from a mile away.  “I didn’t think you were lame at all,” he was smiling at you.  “I was actually shocked at how mature you were for your age, and how much you could talk about pro wrestling – more than anyone else in that class, that’s for sure.  You were a bit of a freak, but I liked you.  I don’t think you’re lame, or were lame.”

“I feel like you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not lying,” he assured you.  “I’d never lie to you.  Trust me on that one.”

“I’d never lie to you, either,” you said, butterflies in your stomach. 

You were looking right in Tyson’s blue eyes then, hyperaware of the feeling of his fingertips grazing over the skin on your arm.  His sunkissed skin, his eye crinkles, the scruff of his beard – it all added up in making you push yourself up so you could kiss him.  It was very soft at first, but not hesitant, and when you pulled away you looked into his eyes, only to kiss him again. 

He kissed back, moving his lips in perfect sync with yours as you continued, kiss after kiss after kiss.  You don’t know how long you’d been kissing for, but eventually, it was your tongue that grazed his lips first, and soon you were tasting each other.  After more time, he pushed back slightly so you were on your back, and gently, gently he got on top of you. 

“Is this okay?” was the only thing he mumbled between when you started kissing and that moment. 

“Please, Ty,” you nodded your head slightly and quickly.  “We’ve been waiting all day.”

You both took it slow, surprisingly, despite all the pent up energy from the day.  You wanted to make it last.  Tyson’s body loomed over yours for a while, kissing your lips and your neck with such expertise you hadn’t experienced from anywhere else.  You remembered cradling his face and running your fingers through his curly hair and thinking to yourself how lucky you were to be under him, to be with him like this so intimately.  It wasn’t just that he’d been kind to you from the beginning, or that he’d taken you under his wing and acted as your mentor, especially in Japan, or that he’d looked out for you anywhere you found yourselves.  It was that he was so considerate in his everyday life, so wise and so funny – God, did he ever make you laugh – and so passionate about his dreams and goals.  A translation of that was happening right now, on a twin bed in a hotel room in Portofino, Italy.

Tyson had already been shirtless in bed, so all you really had to do was push down his boxers.  You could feel the length and size of him against your body then, and your breath could only hitch in your throat in anticipation of what was to happen very soon.  Your breathing got heavier as he helped you pull off your pyjama top, and you didn’t feel an ounce of self-consciousness as he looked down at your nearly naked body.  He brought his kisses down your chest and along both your breasts before pulling down your bottoms. 

He kissed you as he entered you, but you broke it as you let out a soft “Oh Jesus” at the feeling.  His lips left yours and looked into your eyes then, making sure everything was okay without even saying anything.  He grabbed each of your hands in his, intertwining your fingers before pushing them above your head, looking deep in to your eyes without looking away.  You began moaning softly, involuntarily, at the pressure you felt of him holding you in that position as he moved in and out of you, your hips crashing together with every one of his thrusts.  His eyes were blue – so blue – but you knew they were filled with fire.  You were sure that your moans got slightly louder as the time passed, mixed in with your pants of his name every time he hit just the right spot.

At some point he let go of your hands and they immediately went to cup his face, pulling him down to kiss you so you could stick your tongue down his throat again.  You didn’t stop kissing after that, your hands making their way up and down his torso, gripping on to his sides before moving up and settling underneath his arms and scratching at his shoulders and back.  You were in heaven.  Everything felt like pure bliss.  The endless kisses, the moans from you and the moans from him.  You had never felt anything so incredible in your life.

You noticed when Tyson’s breathing became more laboured, and you knew he was close.  You were too.  You dug your nails into his shoulders and tried to arch your hips just right.  Hearing him grunt and let out a string of expletives under his breath was all you needed to do it again.  “I’m so close,” you whispered, looking right into his eyes.

“Hazel…fuck…” was all he could let out.

“I want you to come inside me, Tyson.”

He didn’t last much longer after that, but he made sure you got there first.  He looked into your eyes the whole time as he watched your orgasm overcome you, coursing through your body and making you moan out his name and dig your nails into his biceps.  Only then did he allow himself his release, coming inside you, a series of grunts and moans of your name leaving him as he had his head buried in the crook of your neck.

You stayed together for a while, relishing in every last bit of what had just happened between you before Tyson couldn’t hold himself up on his forearms anymore.  There was one last, long kiss before he pulled out of you.  He lay by your side, still so close to your body.  You couldn’t help the smile that overtook your face, and when you turned your head to look at him, he had an identical smile on his face, too.

Despite earlier complaints from the both of you of being unable to fall asleep, you had no trouble doing so now, your eyes feeling heavy and fluttering until you fell into a peaceful sleep.

*

The next morning was quiet except for the sound of birds chirping outside your window.  The light was shining through from the morning sun, and when you opened your eyes and finally came to at least semi-consciousness, you saw and felt Tyson’s body underneath yours.  He had an arm wrapped around you and were using him as a pillow.

Memories of what happened last night flooded your mind as you waited for him to wake up.  From looking at the photos of the day to kissing him and then being under him, you remembered everything in vivid detail.  You hadn’t been part of something so passionate in your life.  It could have only happened with Tyson, too – you couldn’t picture it being with anyone else. 

After a while, you felt him shift underneath you and groan, bringing his free hand up to rub his eyes.  You began to trace shapes on his chest so he knew you were awake too.  When he looked at you, a small, tired smile played on his lips.  “Mornin’,” he whispered.  “You good?”

“I’m good,” you nodded.  “You sleep okay?”

“It was perfect.”

You smiled.  “Even with me hogging the covers?”

“You actually didn’t this time.  I was surprised,” he said, pulling your body so you were anchored right on top of his.  He wiggled a bit to get comfortable, shifting the beds.  “You were right about what you said last night, by the way.  We’d been waiting for a while.”

You bit your bottom lip, nodding slightly.  “You felt it too then, huh?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.  “Of course I did.”

There was silence between you.  Suddenly, a feeling came over you like lightning, seizing your whole body.  You never used to be like this, but once you lost your dad, your emotions sometimes came in quick rushes – tsunamis, you sometimes referred to them – and you could never stop it from happening.  You just had to learn how to deal with it, how to verbalize the emotion to solve it so you could go back to normal.  This time, it wasn’t one of self-consciousness, or full-blown anxiety, or fear of the unknown, or anything major.  It wasn’t even hesitation.  It was just a nervousness; a nervousness of the soul.  “This isn’t gonna change anything between us, is it?” you asked, verbalizing the first thing you became nervous about.  Not having Tyson in your life wasn’t an option at this point. 

“No,” he shook his head.  “No it won’t.”

“And this won’t – I mean, you’re not gonna think differently about me, are you?” you continued.  “Because I don’t – I know what it’s like for women in this business.  I don’t want anybody thinking of me differently because of what we did—”

“Hey hey hey, shhhhh,” Tyson cooed.  “Nobody’s going to think differently about you.  Don’t think that.  Nobody’s gonna know.  It’ll stay between you and me, Hazel.  I mean it.”

“Are you sure?” you asked.  Not having the career you worked so hard to build also wasn’t an option at this point.  People not respecting you wasn’t an option in general.  You knew that respect would be gone if people knew you’d slept with your mentor.  You could already imagine the things that would be said.  You’d never earn anything on your own merit anymore; it would always be because you slept with Kenny Omega. 

“Hazel, I would never,” he shook his head.  “Like I said, we’d been waiting for a while.  It happened.  I don’t—I mean, I don’t think either of us regrets it—”

“—I don’t.”

“—Neither of us regrets it, but I don’t want anybody to know either.  Nobody has to know, anyway.  It’s nobody’s business but our own.”

That had calmed you down considerably.  You were thankful he was so level-headed, thankful that he was so private in his dealings and personal life that you honestly didn’t have to worry.  He wasn’t like so many others who would say one thing and do another; lead you on and then get with another girl.  You had no worries that any of your friends or fellow wrestlers would ever know.  You were able to keep your mouth shut.  So was Tyson.  “This is like Take This to Your Grave.  You know, like the Fall Out Boy album?” you couldn’t help but quip.

Tyson snorted, rolling his eyes.  “Hazel, were you even alive when that album came out?”

“HEY!” you jolted up, causing the beds to wiggle again.  “I’ll have you know that was a seminal album in my life.  “I was twelve and—”

“Oh my God, please stop talking right there,” he stressed.  “Do not say another word.”

You smirked.  “Did I just make you feel really o—”

“—Oh shit.”

You paused.  “What?”

“—ohshitohshitohshit—”

“—What?!—”

“—Hold on!”

Tyson wrapped both his arms around you protectively, and before you knew it, you both had fallen through the beds.  You yelped during the drop, but once you realized what had happened, you couldn’t stop laughing.  Tears were falling from your eyes, rolling off of Tyson as he groaned from the impact – he took the brunt of it after all. 

“Christ Almighty,” he grumbled through your hysterical laughs.  He couldn’t keep the smile off his face.  “That was worse than some bumps I’ve taken in the ring.”

“I can’t believe that just happened,” you managed to get out in a high-pitched voice between your hysterical laughter.  “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed this hard in my life.”

“Yeah, funny for you because I saved you!”

You propped yourself up on your forearm.  Your cheeks were red from laughing, wet from the tears.  “Let me kiss you one last time to make it better.”  Except you didn’t wait.  You just lowered your face and planted your lips on his.  You didn’t know what you meant the kiss to be, but it lasted longer than anticipated, only stopping when the alert from Tyson’s phone went off.  Only then did you pull away.  “That must be Nick or Matt texting about breakfast.  We should clean ourselves up and go.”

Tyson didn’t say anything as he watched you rise from the floor, not bothering to wrap the top sheet or comforter around your naked body.  He stayed on the floor in between the beds as he heard the shower turn on, closing his eyes. 

***

28th May 2023

criticize the way you fly when you're soaring through the sky shoot you down and then they sigh and say, "she looks like she's been through it"

You always found Las Vegas to be way too hot.  It was a decent enough city, and you’d had some fun there, but the heat was always something you could never get over.  Double or Nothing meant that there were so many people and personalities at T-Mobile Arena.  You hung out mostly in the women’s locker room.  At least there, you knew you were safe.

“You haven’t run into him, have you?” Hikaru asked discreetly, chomping down on a baby carrot. 

You shook your head.  “Nah.  But I’ve kinda just been laying low in here.  I hope I’m not overstaying my welcome.”

“That’s impossible,” Hikaru said.  “You can stay in here the whole night if you have to.  I mean, he’s gotta talk to Tyson about what’s happening in a few weeks, right?”

“Yeah.  Worst case scenario I walk in on them during that.”

“Well, if you do, you call me so I can whoop his ass for you.  It’s been a long time coming for that punk ass bitch.”

You couldn’t help but snort at her words.  She had obviously been informed well about the transgressions that had been committed and she was firmly Team Hazel.  Not that it was ever any doubt – you and Hikaru had been great friends ever since your days in Japan.  But the main different between you was that Hikaru would follow through – if she said she was going to whoop someone’s ass, she’d whoop someone’s ass.  You’d mostly just cry about it in an abandoned washroom and in a hotel room afterwards.  It was your specialty.

“You’ve always been my girl, Hikaru.  What would I do without you?” you quipped with a smile.

Hikaru smirked.  “Don’t even go there, girl.  It all comes from here, by the way,” she said, pounding lightly on her chest where her heart was.  “I got you, Hazel.  You want me to grab you something from catering?”

You shook your head, standing up from your chair.  “I shouldn’t be afraid to go get food,” you said.  “You want more carrots?”

Your walk to catering was eventful, having a chat with Christopher Daniels along the way.  Once you got there, you grabbed a plate of food, some Gatorade, and a Greek salad.  You didn’t see Tony Schiavone creep up behind you, but he was a welcome partner to chat with as he picked up some dinner too.  The two of you walked through the halls together, chatting like old friends as your food got cold.  You didn’t really care, because every chat with Tony was so lively, and he expressed serious interest in appearing on Kick Out in the Kitchen.  When you said goodbye as Tony disappeared into one of the guys’ locker rooms, Greg left the one across the way.  The door was slow to close.  You’d think for all the money Las Vegas had, doors would close properly in their arena.

“Right, and so many people shat on her even though it wasn’t her fault,” you heard an all-too-familiar voice from the locker room.  “She got heat for it for months.  She’d be crying every night because all the shitty girls didn’t want to wrestle her.  And when she got to Japan, she already had a reputation.  Took a lot of convincing to get her into promotions.  Bea knew what she was doing in the ring but she got such a bad rap.”

“But you guys broke up a while ago, no?” said another voice.

“Mistakes happen in the ring all the time,” you heard one more voice.

“All the time,” the familiar voice said.  Then a giggle.  “It’d be much harder now to pick her up and drop her on her head, if you know what I mean.”

Everyone in the room, whoever they were, were giggling.  Snickering, even, at his comment about your body.  You froze in place, and by the time their conversation started up again, the door had finally closed, their voices gone.

Your body had inevitably gone through a change after you were forced to stop wrestling.  You had been in such great shape – you had to be, for heaven’s sake – and had worked out often.  But once you broke your neck and had to get the fusion surgery, most of it had to stop.  It might put too much stress on your neck in ways you never thought possible, your doctor said.  And truth be told, you were too scared to do anything too tenuous, because like the doctor told you, you should have suffocated to death in the ring and it was a miracle you were even walking in the first place.  This meant that you had gained weight – about thirty pounds, when all was said and done.  But because of your physique beforehand, it was noticeable.  You didn’t look like a wrestler with muscles and abs anymore, but you still looked like, well, a normal woman with some meat on her bones.  You weren’t unrecognizable.  Nobody cared, nobody commented on it.

Except, apparently, Will Ospreay. 

You don’t know what came over you, but you dropped everything but the Gatorade into the next trashcan you saw.  You felt that if you ate anything, it would just come back up.  That’s how much your stomach was in knots at his comment.  And the laughs.  God, you wished you had just barged in to see who was laughing at the comment, at your body.  Nobody had any idea what you went through, and how bad you took the news that you could never wrestle again.  It ate away at you for months, years even, and now these men were laughing about how your body had changed because of that life-altering event?  Fuck them.  And fuck Will Ospreay.

The same Will Ospreay that had endeared you when you were younger.  The same Will Ospreay that you fancied, that kissed you and made out with you and strung you along for months, always saying no to firm commitment but always calling you late at night to hook up or have fun.  The same Will Ospreay who told you that you could be clingy and overbearing despite not being clingy or overbearing.  The same Will Ospreay that led you on, letting you believe you were the only one.  The same Will Ospreay that sent you a simple text when you had broken your neck and never paid you a visit.  The same Will Ospreay that began hooking up with Bea so soon afterwards that you were sure there was overlap.  The same Will Ospreay that began to date her only a few weeks after your surgery, her smug smile on every uploaded picture only a reminder to you of what had happened in your personal and professional life.  The same Will Ospreay that you fucking hated with everything in you.

You escaped into a washroom, again, and checked every stall to ensure it was empty, again.  God, you felt like you were going to do this every show now.  You didn’t cry this time.  Instead, you began rubbing at your tattoo on the inside of your right wrist: a chef’s knife that you got in memory of you dad.  You made sure to breathe in and out, in and out, in and out.  Closing your eyes, you thought back to the first few months after your neck surgery.  The first few weeks were hard.  You had cried a lot, and you hated your neck brace.  You remember finding out the news about Will and Bea and basically becoming a vegetable in your bed.  The two weeks that Tyson came to stay with you made everything better, but there was one moment that stuck out, that you remembered so vividly.

Tyson had made lunch one day, some chicken thighs and vegetables and he plated some old pasta salad in your fridge.  You were excited to eat, but when you tried gripping on to your fork and knife, you couldn’t.  A common side effect after neck surgery, especially neck surgery like yours, but it hadn’t happened to you yet.  You thought you were over that hurdle, that it would have happened right after your surgery.  You tried again.  You couldn’t.  You tried just the fork, in your right hand, and you managed to keep it in your hand instead of having it fall on the table.  But when you tried to fork a piece of pasta, you couldn’t at all, and your fork fell loudly into your plate.  You started sobbing like a baby.  Tyson rushed over to you – he had been preparing drinks – and asked what was wrong.  You explained through tears and he could barely understand you.  You had lost your appetite you were so distraught.  But then Tyson – bless him – got you to calm down enough that you weren’t a sobbing mess.  He picked up your fork, got a couple of vegetables on it, and held it up near your mouth to feed you.

“Tys…” you remember being on the verge of tears again.  You felt like a fucking baby having somebody feed you.

“Eat, Hazel.  I got you.”

You almost didn’t, because you were too proud.  But when you saw the look on his face, and how he was looking at you, you opened your mouth and ate the food.  You chewed it slowly, embarrassed that it had come to this.  “I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“You’re feeding me like I’m a baby.  This is embarrassing.”

Tyson shook his head.  “This is not embarrassing at all,” he said before forking some chicken.  “What would be embarrassing is if you made me do an airplane to get you to eat.”

He always knew how to get you to smile, even at your lowest point.  You opened your mouth again to eat the chicken.  “Hey Tyson?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.  I mean it.”

Tyson cut up and fed you your entire meal, even gripping your glass for you to drink, before eating himself.  And a few days later, when it happened again, he did it all again without hesitation.  That’s what Tyson had done for you.  That’s what made you realize he would be in your life forever.  And those men in that locker room were laughing.

***

Tyson always made decisions for the good of his company – the company that he helped create and build from the ground up.  Whatever was good for the company was good for him.  Whatever made his friends money and got fans in seats.  That meant that despite his personal feelings towards Will Ospreay, he was working him again at Forbidden Door in Toronto.  They had faced each other earlier in the year at Wrestle Kingdom, for the good of New Japan Pro Wrestling.  Now he’d be facing him for the good of All Elite Wrestling.  Tyson was able to keep his feelings quite personal, never letting anybody know what he really thought or felt. 

Everybody except the two guys who could read him like a book.

Matt and Nick looked on as he spoke with Will about their match in Toronto.  Tyson would be dropping the title – he knew that already – but they were going over spots, storyline, and emotion.  Will focused on spots, but Tyson was focusing on emotion.  What was the story?  What story did Tyson want to tell?

“What do you think about a big spot, like—”

“Another big spot?  Haven’t we got enough big spots?” Tyson quipped.

“Listen, I was thinking of a Tiger Driver—”

“—Oh fuck—” a female voice exclaimed.

Everybody’s heads turned to the doorway to see Hazel popping in her head.  Tyson, Will, Matt, Nick, Austin, Chris Daniels – everyone looked at her.  Tyson noticed her stare fixed on Will before looking at him.  He knew that this was the one thing she didn’t want to happen.  Running into Will.  “Um, I’m sorry to interrupt—”

“—It’s okay sweetcheeks—” Matt offered.

“—I’m gonna, um, bring Hikaru back to the hotel when everything is over, so don’t worry.  Bye.”

She shut the door abruptly.  The men in the room stayed silent for a few moments before stealing quick glances at each other.  Austin looked over at Tyson first, but wasn’t able to read the emotion on his face.  Nick and Matt looked at Tyson too, but he was as stoic as a rock.  Will had already shrugged his shoulders and discounted the experience.  “Anyone else see how her eyes were watery?” Chris Daniels commented.

“Probably emotional because she knows we’re losing tonight,” Nick tried to cover quickly.  He didn’t want to speculate in a room full of men why Hazel Fiore looked like she was tearing up.  It was nobody’s business.  Especially not with Will in the room.

“She’s always been emotional,” Will commented, as if he was an authority on the issue.  Like he had the right to speak about her in any capacity.  “It’s like, you kinda feel bad, but you also understand why, y’know?  She’s got major daddy issues.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Tyson’s response was literally automatic upon hearing the words come out of Will’s mouth, his tone scathing and unlike anything any of the other men had ever heard before.  Will looked at him, shocked, as if he hadn’t said anything wrong, even though Matt and Nick had also voiced their displeasure with words Tyson couldn’t hear through his anger and disgust.  “Seriously, what’s your fucking problem?” he followed up on a dumbfounded Will. 

“What?” he asked incredulously.

“Who the fuck says that about a girl who lost her dad at fifteen to cancer,” Tyson’s voice was still calm but full of disgust.  “It’s so fucking insensitive.  How could you even say that?”

“Ty, come on—”

“—Just fuck off, Will.  Seriously, fuck off,” he stood up from his seat and waved Will off, shaking his head.    “Get out of my fucking locker room.  I swear to God.  I know a lot of dumb fucks, Will, but you just might be the dumbest.”

“Ty—”

“You’re winning the belt in Toronto, so do however many spots you fuckin’ like.  Maybe now at least one of your five star matches will be memorable because I’m in it.  Now get out,” his tone was angrier and threatening.

Will left with a scowl on his face.  All the men in the room watched Tyson as he paced back and forth.  When he noticed Chris look at him, he stopped abruptly.  “What?”

“Nothing.  You did the right thing.”

***

“Please go away.  You’re going to think I’m a big baby.  That I’m still as lame as I was when you first met me,” you bemoaned, Tyson refusing to move from his heat on the edge of the bed.  “I’m serious.  Go to Wendy’s with the Bucks.  Get me a Frosty.  Be anywhere but here so you don’t have to see me like this.”

“Why?  Because I haven’t seen you like this before?” he countered, making you fall silent.  He had seen you like this many times before, but it was still unnerving, still a bit embarrassing to be a 31-year-old woman still emotional about something that happened seven years ago.  And to be like this over a guy you had actively – and successfully – avoided seeing for those seven years?  “C’mon, Haze.  Give me a little bit of credit.”

You sighed, taking a deep breath as you looked him in the eye.  “I don’t mean it like that,” your voice was small.  “I don’t mean to make you mad—”

“—You’re not making me mad—”

“—I just don’t want my problems becoming your problems.  You deal with enough shit already.  You got bit by an adult human male, Tyson.”

The both of you couldn’t help but snort.  The situation had to be lightened slightly.  “Come on.  Tell me.”

You sighed again.  “Something happened earlier in the night, before I walked in on you guys in the locker room.  I had gone to catering and was speaking with Tony and then when he went into his locker room, Greg was leaving the one across.  And while the door was open, I just…you know, heard some stuff.”

Tyson furrowed his brows.  “Stuff?  What stuff?”

“I kinda just overheard him talking.  I don’t know what his breakup with Bea was like, and I really don’t care, but uhhh, he was telling them some sob story about how much heat she got for what she did to me and how it affected their relationship, and he just made this comment, like, ‘It’d be much harder now to pick her up and drop her on her head, if you know what I mean’, and—”

Tyson didn’t even say anything, but you had to stop talking because he stood up at lightning speed and began making his way towards the door.  “Tyson—”

“—Do not stop me.”

Tyson was fast, but you were faster.  You slipped right by him and barricaded the door dramatically, like you were holding him hostage.  You kind of feel like you had to now, based on what you’d just told him.  “Nope.  You’re not leaving this hotel room—”

“—Yes I fucking am—”

“—No, you’re not, because that’s not even the worst part.”

He stepped back.  It was like he couldn’t comprehend what you’d just said.  “What do you mean that’s not even the worst part?” his voice got high pitched.

“Go back to the bed—”

“—Hazel—”

“Go back to the bed, now, or else,” you threatened.  You had nothing to threaten him with at all, but you were serious.  You didn’t want drama, or commotion, or anything of the sort.  Tyson had been through enough over the last year that you thought he should be done for the rest of his life.  There was no reason for him to take this on as his own, to defend whatever honour you had left – if you had any at all. 

You laid one of your hands on his forearm to calm him down.  “It got worse because once he said it, I heard people laughing,” you explained.  You felt him shift, his arm twitching in anger, but it was subtle.  “And I know you’re going to ask who it was, but I don’t know.  I didn’t go in there to see or to yell at them or whatever else.  I just took my dinner and chucked it into the closest garbage can and just…” you trailed off.  “You just…you can’t imagine how awful it feels to be a woman and have your colleagues, your supposed friends, whoever they were, laughing at a joke about your body.  It’s soul-crushing.  And I just…you know,” you shrugged, unable to find the words.  “After everything I’ve been through, I still let this bullshit get to me.”

Tyson pulled you into him to hug you, wrapping his giant arms around you just like he used to during your first visit to Japan, just like he used to after big matches after his shower, just like he always did, really.  Tyson gave the best hugs.  When he engulfed you, it was like all your problems just washed away and you were cleansed.  It was like you were back in the waters of Portofino holding on to him, not wanting to let go.  “D’you remember when I stayed with you those two weeks after your neck surgery and I had to feed you?”

“Of course, Ty.  I actually thought about it after I heard the laughing.  I’d never forget that.”

“Just remember that,” he encouraged.  “Just remember everything I’d do for you before you let anyone of those fuckers get in your head.”

You waited for Tyson to wash his face to put on your pyjamas before the both of you got into bed.  You wondered if he’d get close at all, possibly even touch you, but the second you were both laying down, your question was answered.  His body moved towards yours like a fight-or-flight response, one of his arm draping over your body.  He curled up right against your back, like the big spoon, your body nestling perfectly into his.  Memories flooded his mind.  Memories of the G1 Climax Tournament he won.

In the quietness of the room, with the low hum of the air conditioner the only noise, Tyson placed a kiss on your shoulder.  He didn’t say anything, but he knew you felt it. 

For him, it was getting harder and harder to control.

***

TOKYO 2016

i said remember this moment in the back of my mind the time we stood with our shaking hands, the crowds in stands went wild

You know you will remember the moment vividly as you watch it happen.  You will remember the finished move and how Tyson pinned his opponent.  You will remember the bell ringing after the referee’s hand hit the mat three times.  You will remember the roar of the crowd and the excitement in everybody’s eyes to see the first ever gaijin win the G1 Climax.  You will remember how gruelling of a month it was for Tyson, how emotionally draining it had been.  You will remember it all culminating in this moment.  Of him winning.  Of him making history.

You weren’t able to see him right away.  There were in-ring celebrations and post-match press conferences to be had, and various people from New Japan saw him first.  You had to be on standby, and you could have chewed your nails off waiting.  Even when the suits finished, the handler from New Japan made you wait an additional ten minutes just to see him.

You knocked lightly on his door before peeping your head in.  He was sitting on a giant production case, the tournament trophy beside him.  His legs were dangling off the edge, not touching the floor.  Not many things could make him look small.  He looked your way and when he saw you, the most tired of smiles appeared on his face.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course,” he nodded quickly, and you slipped in before shutting the door behind you.  “What did you think?”

“I think you’re incredible,” you said, approaching him and standing in front of him.  Your eyes scanned over the trophy briefly before you focused your attention back on him.  “Has it sunk in yet for you?  That you just made history?”

He took a few breaths, shaking his head slightly.  “No.  I guess I did, didn’t I?  First gaijin to win the G1.  I can say that now.”

“Doesn’t it feel amazing?” you asked.

“I’m so tired and drained that I don’t know what amazing feels like right now,” he said, causing you both to laugh slightly.  “I think tomorrow morning as I’m eating breakfast it’s gonna hit me like a ton of bricks.”

You couldn’t help but smile, stepping closer to him so you were standing between his spread legs.  You don’t know what came over you, but seeing him the way he was – in his gear, beside the giant G1 Climax trophy, still trying to catch his breath, the weight of what just happened and what it meant looming over the both of you…you really don’t know what came over you. 

You kissed him.  You held his big, sweaty head in your hands and you kissed him.  Only a couple of seconds after it began, you realized what you were doing and you pulled away.  “Shitsorry—sorry—” you began mumbling and apologizing quickly.

“—It’s okay—”

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry Tys—”

“—Hazel, it’s alright.  It’s okay.”

You put your fingers over your lips, as if that would stop it from happening again.  A physical barrier is what you needed, apparently.  Not a mental one.  You looked in each other’s eyes before one of his characteristic close-lipped smiles spread across his face.  “I’m very happy you’re here,” he whispered.  “I really—I really like you being here.”

“I think you’re just saying that because I act like an idiot and provide you entertainment,” you said, trying to make light of what just happened.

“I don’t think you’re an idiot at all,” he shook his head only slightly, not able to do much else with his body after what had just transpired in the ring.  “Please stop thinking that.”

“I bet you do secretly.”

“No,” he was firmer in his tone this time.  “I know a lot of dumb people, and you’re not one of them.”

Before you could say anything else, there was another knock at the door.  You stepped away from being so close to Tyson.  He looked extremely annoyed.  A man began speaking in Japanese from the other side of the door, and Tyson answered back while rolling his eyes.  The door closed before you even understood what was going on.  “Sorry.”

“What was that about?”

“Driver wanted to know how much longer.  I told him fifteen minutes so I could shower.”

“It’s okay,” you said, nodding your head once.  “Go shower.  We—I’ll meet you in the car.  I know you’re tired, so we’ll celebrate tomorrow.”

The driver drove you both to a local hotel near Ryogoku Kokugikan, the company deciding to put everybody up in the hotel since they wanted to film a press conference tomorrow afternoon.  You checked into your respective rooms, which were only down the hall from each other.  But as you were getting ready for bed, your phone buzzed on your bathroom vanity.

Neck hurts like a motherfucker.

Colour me shocked, Ty.  Are you okay?Do you want me to drop by?  I have some Rub A535.

What are you, my dad?

You rolled your eyes at his response.  He was the geriatric one.

Has neck pain, still acts like a pain in the ass.

You threw on a robe and made sure to grab your key card before making your way over to his room.  You knocked quietly and he opened not long after.  You let yourself in.  “Seriously, Rub A535?  You’re an old man.”

“I bet it’s like looking into a mirror then, eh?” you countered.

Tyson’s jaw dropped.  “You jezebel!”

You both broke out into laughter, making your way further into his room.  You threw your robe onto the extra bed.  He was wearing an old, stupid pair of shorts to sleep in.  “Sit,” you said as you got on his bed.  “Show me where it’s hurting.  I can try to massage it.”

“Are you licensed?  Can I claim you on my insurance?”

You gave him a look.  “Do you want my help or not!”

He giggled, sitting himself on the edge of the bed.  “Right up over here,” he showed you with his hand, “and over here.  Just be careful though, okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” both of your voices were calm at this point.  There was no room for joking around.  “You have to tell me if I’m hurting you,” you warned, with Tyson nodding his head.

You began massaging the first place he showed you, and almost the second you applied pressure, Tyson groaned.  He encouraged you to keep going, that it felt good.  “You know, this wouldn’t be happening to you if you didn’t keep landing on your neck all the time,” you whispered.

“What fun would that be?” he asked.  You shook your head.

Your continued massaging, being as careful as you could, moving on to the other areas that he pointed out to you.  You could hear his little satisfied exhales, the little groans he let out when you hit a spot well.  You switched back and forth between the spots for a while, Tyson appreciating every minute.  You didn’t know if he could feel how close you got once you really got into it, or if he could feel your breath on his neck.  But you were happy you were making him feel better, happy you were with him and his beautiful soul on the biggest night of his career thus far. 

“Ah shit,” you almost didn’t hear him swear under his breath.

You pulled your hands back towards your chest.  “Fuck, did I hurt you?”

“No no, it’s okay, keep going,” he urged.

“Tys—”

“It wasn’t you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

You stayed silent, exhaling slightly before continuing to massage over near his shoulder as you had been, being a little more careful.  You would never be able to forgive yourself if you had hurt him somehow.  He winced at some points and groaned in others, like he had been when you focused on his neck, but you could still tell something was up.  When you looked over his shoulder, you could see him trying discreetly to adjust his shorts, pulling some of the fabric forward as if he was trying to hide or cover something. 

And then it hit you like a ton of bricks.

You couldn’t help but smile to yourself as you kept massaging, garnering another groan from him.  You took your time getting closer and closer to him until you were positive he could feel your breath on his skin.  “Don’t worry about it, Ty,” you whispered in his ear in a knowing tone.  “It’s okay.”

He shook his head slightly.  You were positive the redness you saw in his cheeks wasn’t from the increased blood flow to his neck and shoulders.  “No it’s not.  It’s embarrassing.  This is, like, what happens with pervs.”

“It’s not embarrassing.  It happens.  Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize about,” you assured him.  By this point, you had stopped paying attention to your massaging and had no idea if what you were doing even helped.  You were too busy looking over his shoulder, trying to see through his shorts.  You inhaled quietly.  “D’you want me to take care of it?”

Tyson shook his head, still embarrassed.  “No no no.  Gosh Hazel, you don’t have to do that.”

“I’ll do it, Ty.  I don’t mi—”

“—Hazel…” there was a hesitation in his voice.

There was a pause as your back and forth hung in the air.  “Is it cause you don’t want me to?”

He shook his head.  “That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?” you asked, bringing your lips down to kiss his shoulder.

He stayed silent.  He was almost ashamed because he couldn’t say anything out loud.  How could he?  He knew what he wanted to say, he just couldn’t say it.  He couldn’t let you know; it had to stay inside him.  For his good.  For your good.  He felt you kiss his shoulder again and he inhaled.  “Hazel…”

“Remember Portofino?”

He couldn’t help the small smile that spread on his lips.  “Of course.”

You kissed your way from his shoulder to where it met his neck.  “Do you really not want to?  Cause I’ll stop,” you whispered in his ear.

Tyson shook his head.  He could do many things, but he couldn’t deny this right now.  “I just…I can barely move.”

“You don’t have to,” you assured him.  “I’ll take care of it.”

“Haze…”

“Shhhh…” you cooed, kissing his neck.  “Lie down.”

“Haze—you don’t—I don’t want you to think you have to do that.”

“I want to, Tyson.  I feel safest with you.”

He didn’t lie down just yet.  Instead, he pulled you on to his lap and began kissing you.  You straddled him as you kissed him back, feeling his hands go to your thighs and travel around to your ass, squeezing the flesh there.  You could barely let go of him as his tongue entered your mouth.  Your hands wandered between his toned body and his hair, gripping it at the nape of his neck.  He was so much bigger now, so much bigger than you remember him being.  You didn’t know how long you just sat there making out for, but your lips felt swollen when you stopped, even if it just was momentarily.  “Ty?” you breathed out, feeling his length between your legs.

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to be inside me or in my mouth?”

“Shit Hazel,” he swore underneath his breath.  The way you worded the question almost made him come right then and there.  “In—inside you.”

You gave him a quick kiss.  “Lie down.”

He listened this time, and you both moved to better positions on the bed, him lying down like you demanded.  You helped him out of his shorts, freeing his hard cock.  You took off your own pyjama bottoms, but Tyson raised his arms so he could slide your panties down your legs.  You kissed a trail down his chest before straddling him again.  You reached down between you and positioned his cock so he could enter you, and you lowered on to him slowly, having to adjust to his size.  “Fuck Ty,” you couldn’t help but breath out along the way.  When you bottomed out, a shiver ran up your spine.

“Jesus, Hazel,” he breathed out.  “Fuck, that feels so good.”

You knew he could barely move, and you knew you’d be the one putting in most of the work here, so you took a few more moments to adjust before you began rolling your hips back and forth slowly.  Tyson watched and his eyes rolled to the back of his head at the visual.

You took your time getting into a rhythm, wanting this to last as long as it could.  The last time, in Portofino, your body had been buzzed from being out in the sun all day.  This time around, the both of you were exhausted, but that didn’t mean there was any less energy between you two, or any less love.  You would do anything for Tyson, and Tyson would do anything for you.  So you were taking it gently, and you were taking it slowly, but you knew it would feel just as good as Portofino did two years ago, just as perfect as it did then too, despite nothing happening since.

Tyson’s hands were placed firmly on your thighs at first, before they moved to your hips and followed your movements loosely.  You placed your hands over his, intertwining your fingers slightly.  “Y’okay, Ty?”

“You feel fucking incredible,” he whispered.

“You want me to take my top off?”

“Yes please.”

You giggled at his request of please.  So polite.  You could take the boy out of Canada, but you couldn’t take Canada out of the boy.  You led his hands from your hips all the way up your body, dragging your shirt long with it, before he pulled it off entirely and tossed it to the side.  Your breasts were exposed then, and all it took was the sight of them to give Tyson a burst of energy, moving to sit up.  One arm wrapped around your waist to hold you down on his cock as he attacked your lips with his.  He cupped your breast, which overflowed even in his big hands.  You moaned into his kisses, gripping the hair at the nape of his neck again.  Your fingernails dug into the skin of his shoulder blades where you had been massaging earlier.  “Ty…” you whispered out as he moved from your lips to your neck.  “Ty, lie down.  I got you.  I told you I’d take care of you.”

“You’re so beautiful, Hazel.”

A shiver ran up your spine hearing those words.  You pushed him back down before placing your hands on his chest for leverage as you began to roll your hips again.  Your breathing got heavier; so did his.  You savoured every moment of being on top of him, having his amazing body underneath you as you worked to pleasure the both of you.  You were completely drunk on him, willing that this exact feeling could last forever. 

Tyson had gotten more vocal the longer you two went on.  Between the sight of you on top of him and the feeling of him inside you, he was close.  It didn’t help that he’d gotten a head start during the massage.  “You’re gonna make me come.”

You were desperate – you could admit that.  You didn’t want it to end.  He felt too good inside of you.  You felt too connected to him to have it be over, regardless of how long you’d been riding him.  You couldn’t even keep track or have any idea because you were so wrapped up in the feeling of him.  “No,” you shook your head, biting your bottom lip.  “No, not yet.”

Tyson couldn’t believe what he’d heard.  “What?”

“Not yet,” you repeated more emphatically.  “Want more.  Need more.”

A shiver ran up his spine hearing those words.  It took everything in him not to come then and there.  Instead, he began to move his hips along with yours, and you could automatically feel the difference.  Your moaning got louder.  Tyson almost couldn’t take it.  “You’re getting so deep, Ty.”

“Keep going, baby.”

You clenched when the words left his mouth.  Your hips kept rolling, your clit rubbing against his body as his cock was hitting you so deep and at the perfect angle.  After a while longer, you found yourself getting closer, as you were sure he was hitting your G-spot.  “Ty…oh fuck Ty—I—I—”

You couldn’t say anything else as the most intense orgasm you’d ever felt washed over your entire body.  Your entire body shook with pleasure – you could even feel it in your fucking toes.  You had never felt anything like it before and oh my God, was it glorious.  You swore you could see stars as you clenched around him, repeating his name over and over like a prayer.  At some point, it was all too much for you, and you felt yourself collapsing on to him.  Your breasts were between your bodies, pressing against him as he held you down with his arms.  As he pumped in and out of you, you could feel his release too, his groans and how you felt full from him. 

You felt empty when he slipped out of you, but you kissed him to make up for it, kiss after kiss after kiss.  Were you being sappy?  Both times this had ended up happening, it was truly spur of the moment.  But during both times, there had been so much pent up energy between you that it could only culminate in something like this.  And during both times, you didn’t want them to end.  You knew you’d remember every detail.

In between kisses, you couldn’t help yourself.  “Love you, Ty.”

“Love you too, Hazel,” he responded right after.  It was only then that you heard the true fatigue in his voice. 

He didn’t let go of you as you rolled off him and onto his side.  You were both on your sides now, and he pulled you up against his chest.  All of his muscles, tired and overused as they were, pressed into your back as he tucked his head against your shoulder.  Before the fatigue finally consumed him, he placed a kiss on your shoulder; you brought his hand up and kissed it too, finally drifting off to sleep.

*

The next morning, Tyson could barely move.  He’d need help getting out of bed.  But that was typical.  What really mattered wasn’t his pain or how stiff some of his joints were.  What really mattered was that he was still in bed, with you, looking into your eyes.  One of your hands was playing with his hair.  One of his hands was drawing circles along the skin on your arm.  You were both quiet.  You were both in the moment, since you didn’t have to be anywhere else for a while. 

“You’re career’s about to take off in ways we never would have thought,” you barely whispered.  You wondered if the weight of what he had accomplished last night had finally hit him.  “Are you gonna remember little ol’ me when you’re rich and famous?”

The smallest of smiles cracked on his lips.  “Duh.  You’re unforgettable.” 

“A lot of things are gonna change you, and I want you to know that I think you deserve all the good things coming to you.  Whatever they are,” you continued.  “You know that, right?”

“I do,” he said.  “But it’s not all about me.  You’re going to do some pretty big things too.  Stardom’s gonna shoot you to the moon because you deserve it.  And what’s happening in California when you go back?”

“I’ve got a match with Candice, and a match with Bea Priestley again.  Let’s hope I don’t walk out with another broken sternum.”

“You’re gonna knock both out of the park, because you always do.  Then everybody’s gonna be clamouring for you.  There’s going to be bidding wars over you,” he assured you.  “You’re just as good as I am.  If not better.”

“Oh stop,” you said, blushing and embarrassed at his words.  You buried your face into the pillow so you didn’t have to look at him.  You could feel him move, sticking his face into the crook of your neck as he kissed along it.

“I mean it, Haze,” he mumbled against your temple between kisses. 

When you raised your head back up, he peppered your face with light pecks before giving you quick kisses on your lips.  When you stopped kissing, you took in the silence between you.  “Hey Tys…”

“Hmm?”

Your hand moved to caress his face along his beard.  “I wasn’t—I didn’t just, like, blurt out the words last night and didn’t mean them,” you stuttered out.  “I do love you.  In my own way.”

“I know,” he said.  “I meant what I said last night too.  That I’m very happy you’re here.  That I like you being here with me.  And that I love you.”

“But you don’t…even after what happened in Portofino, we can’t do much more than this, can we?” you asked.  Secret little love affairs.  One-off passionate nights after emotionally charged moments that brought you closer together, closer than you ever thought you’d ever get with your mentor, your best friend, your person. 

His heart broke.  Again, he was ashamed because he couldn’t say anything out loud.  He couldn’t let you know; it had to stay inside him.  For his good and for your good.  “It’s not the right time,” he said instead.

Your heart didn’t break.  It had no reason to.  He was right, but you didn’t want to admit it.  “Not—not that anything would change but if—if—do you think it ever will be the right time in the future?”

He felt his stomach in knots.  He answered with the only answer he could give.

“I don’t know.”

*

A few weeks later, when Matt and Nick were back in Japan, they would watch intently as Tyson was glued to his phone.  They’d give each other a look that Tyson wouldn’t see, and then they’d go about their business, eating their ice cream or searching for directions to a coffee shop.  But one night, after they walked into Tyson’s hotel room at the tail end of an hour-long phone call, Nick made the executive decision.

“Sorry.  It was Hazel,” Tyson said once he hung up.

“Figured as much.  You don’t talk to anyone else on the phone that long but us and her,” Nick smirked.

Tyson shrugged.  “Yeah, well…”

“She doing okay?”

“She’s fine.”

“How was it when she was over here?” Matt piped in.

Tyson was avoiding eye contact.  “It was nice,” he kept his answers simple.  “Nice that I had someone here with me for winning the G1, you know.”  Despite being some of his best friends, they didn’t know what had happened in Italy, and they weren’t going to know about what happened after the G1.

“Mmmhhhmmm,” Nick nodded.  “Must’ve been.”

“Are you gonna tell her how you feel?” Matt asked, getting straight to the point.  “She’s gottta know, Ty.”

Tyson shook his head.  Those observant little fuckers.  “No.”

Nick grimaced.  “Why not?”

Tyson took a deep breath, sighing afterwards.  “It’s just easier if she doesn’t.  Even if it rips me apart.”

***

25th June 2023

you say, "i don't understand," and i say, "i know you don't" we thought a cure would come through in time, now, i fear it won't

You watched with tears in your eyes as the trainer attended to Tyson after his match with Will, going through concussion protocol and range of motion exercises to ensure everything was okay and that nothing was broken.  Tyson sat their quietly, complying with everything, moving his shoulders and legs, blinking once and then twice, maintaining focus then following a light, stretching his neck back and forth and side to side.  That was the most important exercise of all, after what had happened in the ring.  After he didn’t tell you one of the most important spots in the match.

“Everything looks completely fine, Mr. Smith,” the head trainer said, finally, much to everybody’s relief.  Everybody except you.

“God Ty, that Tiger Driver looked brutal,” Nick said.  “Helluva spot, but brutal nonetheless.”  Of course he would say that.

“I thought it looked incredible,” Matt pitched in.  “If anybody could have done it and taken it correctly, it was you.”  Of course he would say that.

“That’ll grab the headlines,” Christopher Daniels said.  Of course he would say that.

“Leave the really big spots for a Canada, huh?” Stephen joked.  Of course he would say that.

It was then that Tyson locked eyes with you – you, staying completely silent across the way of the room, though you knew by now your face was probably beet red with emotion.  You had so much emotion stored inside of you, from the beginning of the match until now, and you didn’t know when it was going to burst.  Forty minutes of your heart being in the pit of your stomach.

Tyson finally noticed.

“Can everyone just…” he began, sighing and trailing off before recollecting his thoughts.  “Just give me a couple of minutes – alone, please,” he ordered, albeit politely.  Everybody stood silent, awkwardly.  “Now guys.  Come on.  Everyone out.”

You didn’t move, but everyone else did.  When they were all out, and you were all alone with Tyson, that’s when all the emotion stored inside of you came out.  One of your tsunamis.  Now.  Of all times it could happen.

“What’s the matter?  What’s wrong?” he asked gently.

His tone meant that the first few tears escaped.  You shook your head vehemently.  “No—no—no—”

“—Hazel—”

“—No—”

“Hazel, c’mere…c’mere,” he cooed.  Even reluctantly, you went over to him, sitting across from him on the medical table.  He grabbed your hands in his.  You weren’t expecting that, but you were shaking, and he probably wanted to stop that.  “What’s the matter?”

“Your neck, your neck,” you kept repeating through your tears.

“My neck is fine—”

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop doing this fucking shit, Tyson?” you demanded, tears fully streaming down your face now.  “Do you think I like seeing your body torn up by a cage?  That I like seeing you be dropped on your fucking head?  And by him?”

“Haze, I’m sor—”

“Sorry’s not gonna cut it this time!” you exclaimed, pulling your hands away from his.  You wiped the tears from your eyes.  “You’re Kenny fucking Omega.  Your worst match is still ninety five percent better than everybody else’s best matches yet you still think you have to do this—this—this absolutely insane shit.  For what?  What’s it all for, Tyson?  You’re already the best in the world.  You’re already a legend.”

“I’m perfecting my craft, Hazel.  You know that.  We talk about it all the time.  This is everything to me.  I left my family, my friends – I moved to a foreign country and was fucking alone for years so I could be at the top.  Every sacrifice I’ve made has been in the name of pro-wrestling because there can’t be a question about whether or not I’m the best.  That’s it, Hazel.  That’s it.”

You absorbed his words, each one of them hitting you like a dagger.  You sat there silently, looking deep into his eyes.  “Is that really all that matters to you?  Is that it?”

You could see the look in his eyes.  You could see the change in his face.  He wanted to say something.  He was so close to saying something.  He was going to say something.  But you couldn’t hear how he would respond to your question – at least not right now.  The door handle being jerked loudly from the outside interrupted your conversation, and when you both looked the way of the door, you saw one person walking through it.

Will fucking Ospreay.

Okay, now you were livid.

“Don’t you know how to fucking knock?” you demanded, not caring how rude you sounded.  You stood up from where you were sitting across from Tyson.

Will’s face scrunched up.  “Who pissed in your cereal?”

“YOU!” you screamed.  “You, you fucking idiot!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?  I came in to see Tyson, not you—”

“Well you’re going to see me anyway!”

“Will you calm down—”

“—Do not tell me to calm down,” you warned.  “What is it?  Huh?  You want to do the same thing to his neck that your ex-girlfriend did to mine?”  Will’s brows furrowed with that rhetorical question.  You didn’t even bother to wait for him to retort.  You just kept going.  “You know what, actually?  This is a perfect opportunity.  Finally you can see it in the flesh,” you turned around, gathered your hair in your hand, and lifted it up.  Your scar was on full display for Will, who diverted his eyes the second he saw it.  “Four screws, one rod, and sixteen staples fixed your girlfriend’s mistake.  I should have suffocated and died in that ring and you didn’t even have the decency to check in on me.  And you want to know why I’m so upset?”

Will clenched his jaw.  “Listen, I’m sorry that happened, but—”

“You’re not sorry it happened,” you interrupted him.  “You want me to believe you’re sorry when you were joking with your friends in the locker room in Vegas about how it would be much harder now to pick me up and drop me on my head?”

It was the first time during your spat that you saw Will’s face drop – that he looked legitimately taken aback, almost even frightened, by what you said.  You had been stepping closer to him with every word, and had backed him up against the wall at this point.  “It must be so empowering to be a man…that you can just exist and be you whereas a woman has to apologize for her existence,” you said.  “If I ever hear that you’ve talked about me or my body again, I will kill you with my bare hands.  I fucking hate your guts.”

“I can feel it,” was all he could reply with. 

You took one final step closer, looking at him with all the venom in the world in your eyes.  “You can hurt me, Will, and you already have, but if you hurt any one of my friends, it’s over for you, and I mean that entirely.  I will fucking end you.  That’s a promise.”

He stayed silent then, looking down at you, because there was nothing for him to say.  You felt like kneeing him in the groin, but that would have been too much pleasure for one night after what you’d just said to him.  It would have been an indulgence.  As the words hung in the air, you backed up slightly before walking out of the room.  Only then had you noticed the door had been held open by Matt, who was watching you intently as you made your exit.

***

Just knocked on your room door and you didn’t answer.  Are you in the shower or something?

I went to the airport early Catching a red eye to Winnipeg

Hazel

Gonna spend some extra time with my mom

I need to talk to you

I know. I’m sorry I blew up at Will in your room. That wasn’t very nice of me and it put you in an awkward position of having to hear me yell seven years of pent up shit at him.

I couldn’t care less about that He deserved it

Am I still allowed to come to the cottage?

Obviously Hazel What makes you think you wouldn’t?

I don’t know The way I spoke to you

***

30th June 2023

all of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation my hands are shaking from holding back from you

You bought Timbits.  It was the quintessential Canadian road trip item, and you couldn’t show up empty-handed, even though the drive to the cottage was only just over an hour.  With your suitcase loaded in the trunk, you hauled the bag of groceries into the backseat.  Tyson always insisted he had food, but protein bars and chocolate milk didn’t count.  When you slipped into the front seat, you held them up near your face.

“You wanna make me fat?” he asked as he shut the door behind them.  “Seriously, woman.  I have a strict diet to maintain this body.”

You rolled your eyes.  “Oh, right.  I forgot about that.  Your diet of energy drinks and Dave’s Doubles and junior cheeseburger deluxes is sooooo healthy.”

“You know it,” he winked.  “What’s with all the food, by the way?”

“You never have food.”

“I have food!”

“I also may have watched The Bear with my mom.”

Tyson giggled.  He put the gear in drive and signalled.  “Yeah.  That’ll do it.  What’re you gonna make?”

“Scallopini al funghi,” you said, eyeing him.  He stayed silent.  “You know, like a chicken marsala.”

“Oh, you mean like from the Cheesecake Factory?”

You chopped him across the chest.  As always he was overdramatic in his response, though he knew exactly what he was doing when he brought up the Cheesecake Factory.  “You take that back right now, Tyson.”

“Man, you still got it,” he rubbed at his chest where you chopped him.  “You been practicing without me or something?”

“Apologize!”

The smirk hadn’t left his face.  “I’m sorry I brought up the Cheesecake Factory when you mentioned making a fancy shmancy Italian dish,” irony dripped with every word that came out of his mouth.

“Thank you,” you smiled just as ironically.  “How was the rest of the time in Toronto?”

He shrugged.  “Just the usual.  Lots of media.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  I was able to go to a few places and get some gaming stuff, which was nice.”

You almost didn’t want to ask, but there was something in your chest that was making you.  “How’s your neck?”

“Neck’s fine,” he said, looking over at you quickly.  “And I’m not just saying that, okay?”

You nodded in understanding.  “I’m excited for this, you know,” you tried to lighten the mood back to where it was.  You didn’t want to talk about what had happened just yet.  It was the first time seeing Tyson in almost five days and you wanted to see him smile.  “I can’t wait to do a 630 splash off the dock.  The water will be warm, right?”

“We’ll see,” he said.  “I’m excited, too.  I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

***

Groceries were put away.  Scallopini were made.  Dishes were put in the dishwasher.

And then…

“BAH GAWD ALMIGHTY!” you could hear Tyson scream in a bang-on Jim Ross impression before you hit the water.  The cold temperature hit your skin like icicles, but you knew it would be only momentary.  You swam a bit underwater before you emerged back up, hearing Tyson finishing his yelling.  “Somebody stop the damn match!  That man has a family!”

You watched as he got a running start and completed a flawless tope con hilo from the edge of his dock right into the water.  You began to backstroke so you could get further into the lake as you watched him come up for air.  “Show off!” you yelled at him, a smile on your face.

He smiled and shook his head.  He began swimming over to you.  “I do that all the time!” he called out after you.  When he caught up to you, easily, he could see the playful scowl on your face.

“Now you’re just bragging,” you said.  You turned away from him and looked out onto the lake.  Streaks covered the sky, the sunset starting showing its beauty over the lake.  Whenever you came here with Tyson – not that it was often, but whenever it did happen – you always managed to get a beautiful sunset.  You didn’t know if it was the time of year, or the weather, or some other force of nature you had no power over.  Regardless, you were very lucky.  You could feel him behind you.  “You get the best sunsets out here,” you commented, your voice no longer yelling.

“I know,” he said. 

You were both quiet for quite a while, just letting the sound of the waves take precedent.  The lake wasn’t particularly lively – at least not at this time of day – but there were some boats still driving around the lake, some families down the coast clearly having their own Canada Day weekend celebrations.  You treaded water easily to stay afloat, but the cold water wasn’t getting any warmer.  You plugged your nose and dunked your head into the water to see if it would help, but when you came back up, it hadn’t.  “Think the water will be warmer tomorrow?”

“Just dunk your head a few more times,” Tyson suggested playfully.  You chuckled, but what you weren’t expecting was to feel his giant hand atop your head.  “Tyson!” you screamed, because you knew exactly what he was going to do.

It didn’t stop him.  He pushed you down and dunked you into the water.  He let you come back up quickly, but by the time you caught your breath, he pushed you back down again.  It was like he was baptizing you, for heaven’s sake.  Under the water, you kicked and punched at him.  If you were being honest, you were aiming for his dick, but when you were above water once more catching your breath, he wasn’t grovelling in pain, so it meant you missed.

“You asshole!” you half-yelled, half-giggled.  “You are seriously the worst, Tyson Smith.”

“Wow, using my full name?”

“You deserve it.”

“Nobody ever deserves that.  You were the one trying to hit me.”

“I was trying to punch your dick.”

“You were what?!” his voice raised three octaves.  “Hazel Ila—”

“—do not say my middle name—”

“—Ilaaarrrrria,” Tyson put on an extremely strong and dramatic Italian accent.

Big mistake.  You splashed a ton of water into his face, discombobulating him.  You couldn’t help but laugh as you kept splashing him, getting closer to him with each one.  When you were close enough, and with whatever vision he had left with tons of lake water flooding his eyes, he reached out and grabbed your arm to stop you.  He pulled you into his body, holding you against him.  Your arms wrapped around his shoulders. 

“You really are a jezebel, eh?” he said, using one hand to wipe the water off his eyes. 

“I always knew you stealing my passport in Japan would come back to haunt me one day,” you said.

“You’re lucky I’ve never told anyone.  Do you have any idea how long and hard Austin has begged?”

You both giggled.  Then silence.  You were close.

Tyson kissed you.  He leaned his head forward and in one swift movement he kissed you.  You kissed him back for as long as you could.  It had been seven years.  Tyson kissed you for as long as he could before he realized what he was doing and pulled away, turning his head to the side.  “Fucksorry—sorry—” he began mumbling and apologizing quickly.

“—It’s okay—”

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry Haz—”

“—Tys, it’s alright.  It’s okay.”

Your hands were cradling his face by this point, and despite his tone and his apologies you continued to look deep into each other’s eyes.  You wondered what was next.  You always wondered what was next with Tyson.  You could feel lightning running through you, running deep in your damn bones.  And when you were sure Tyson would lean in again, a scream across the lake broke the moment.  You both whipped your heads to see a boat pass by, teenagers hanging on to a tube with every inch of their life responsible for the screaming.  The both of you watched as it sped across the lake, taking your moment with it. 

“You’re shivering,” Tyson finally said, filling the silence.

Considering your body was pressed up to his, you weren’t surprised he felt something.  But considering what had just happened, you hadn’t even noticed yourself.  “Guess I’m not used to the water just yet.”

“Let’s go inside.”

“No no, if you want to stay out we can stay out.”

“No way,” he shook his head.  “I’m not gonna make you stay out here shivering.  We’ll come back out tomorrow when the sun’s out.”

You made your way inside.  Tyson gave you space to change into comfortable clothes, and you went into the master bathroom to do something with your hair.  It would inevitably develop a curl, so you decided to brush through it and try to calm your bangs as much as possible before tying it back into a French braid.  The electricity that was in your body hadn’t left, and the moment between you and Tyson in the lake kept playing in your mind.  His blue eyes.  His stupid little giggle.  His voice raising three octaves.  You tried breathing in and out, tried thinking of something else, but nothing could get rid of the electricity or the thoughts.

When you made your way back out, Tyson was already in the kitchen putting a bag of popcorn into the microwave.  When he saw you, he couldn’t help but smile.

You noticed right away.  You thought you looked like a witch.  “What?” you asked him.  “Gosh, I bet my hair looks awful after the lake water,” you grimaced, playing with your bangs and pulling them down to frame your face at least somewhat.

“Nah,” Tyson said softly.  “You look beautiful.”

The electricity that never left had just been amped up to a higher voltage.  It was the electricity that made you act; the second you were close to him in the kitchen, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders and kissed him, a reciprocal from what happened in the lake.  He immediately kissed back, his arms wrapping around your waist.  His hands went to your ass and he lifted you in his arms and set you down on the countertop, getting in between your legs.  But when you tried slipping your tongue in his mouth, he pulled away.  As if he were ashamed.  “Shitshitshit…” he muttered.

“Ty—”

“—I can’t do this.”

Your heart dropped into the pit of your stomach.  “Why not?”

He was breathing heavily.  He shook his head.  “I can’t—I promised myself I couldn’t do anything until we talked about what happened in Toronto, and I’ve already broken that promise.”

Your sanity somewhat recovered.  “Can I ask you something first?”

“What’s that?”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s gonna happen in the ring anymore?”

Tyson paused.  He knew he’d have to answer for that one day, and it was apparently going to be now.  He knew they wouldn’t be able to have this conversation without his answer.  “I see how worked up you get, and how much it affects you and gets you worried.  I don’t want to put you in that position to, you know, worry about me.”

He was such an idiot.  Literally the dumbest boy alive.  You brought your hands up, your thumbs rubbing over the stubble of his beard.  “You’d think by now you’d realize it’s been having the opposite effect,” you said.  “When I told you that it’s getting harder and harder for me to watch your more hardcore stuff I meant it.  Leaving me in the dark is just doing more harm.  I’d rather know about it.  I’d rather be prepared.  It would make me less nervous for what’s coming.”

“But I can’t stand to see you cry,” he whispered.  “Every time I do I know it’s because of me and I can’t handle it.”

 “Please, Ty.  Just tell me,” you said, pausing afterwards.  “What are you gonna do at Blood and Guts?”

Fuck.  You could see Tyson visibly grimace, his eyes fluttering closed.  “There’s gonna be thumbtacks,” he began.  Your stomach was already in knots.  “And uh, there’s this thing…it’s a nail bed—”

“—a nail bed?!—”

“—and I’m going to take a body slam on to it.”

Your tears began almost instantaneously.  “Tyson—”

“—I know, I know—”

“Tyson,” you buried your head into the crook of his neck, resting it on his shoulder.  “Tyson, please,” you were desperate, desperate for him to listen to you. 

“Hazel, Hazel, don’t cry,” he cooed, rubbing your back.  “It’s gonna be okay.  Look at me, look at me,” he gently pulled away before placing a finger underneath your chin so you could look at him.  “You’re breaking my heart by making me see you cry.”

“I hope I am!” you said with more emphasis than normal.  “I get that you want to be the master of your craft but this isn’t it.  Say you’re injured.  Say you can’t do it.  Please.  I don’t want to see you ripped to shreds.”

“Hazel,” you could hear the heaviness in his voice, “you know as well as I do I can’t be the only guy not taking a spot during the match.”

You knew that, but your judgement was clouded right now.  If you had your way, none of the guys would be taking any spots on any damn nail bed, but it wasn’t like you could control these things.  You wished you could.  You knew you would have to suffer through it and there was nothing you could do about it.  You knew it would result in waiting for him to return to gorilla afterwards and having to see him aching.  You knew you’d be in the locker room with him as he got patched up, holding everything in (or, maybe this time, you’d let everything out, in front of everyone). 

You sighed, feeling Tyson wipe away the tears that had fallen from your eyes with the pads of his thumbs.  “You’re so adamant about this.  Why?” he asked.

“Because I’m selfish, Tyson.  I want you around for a very long time.  I’m selfish and I want you with me for a very long time.”

You finally verbalized, praying to God that it would finally get through to him as to why you were the way you were.  He looked into your eyes for any hint of uncertainty or ambiguity, but there wasn’t any.  “Hazel…”

“Don’t you want the same?”

You watched as he gulped, and you could feel his hands grab yours and hold them gently in his.  “You know before Will came in…and you asked me ‘Is that really all that matters to you?  Is that it?’ when we were alone in my room?” he asked.

“Yeah…”

“I didn’t get to…what I wanted to say was…” he trailed off.  “You matter to me, Hazel, a lot.  You’ve mattered to me for years.  I just—I should have—back in Portofino, and back in Japan, I should have said something, and I didn’t because I was too focused on wrestling, too focused on being the best.  And I thought I was old, and there you were, and you were so young and so good, and I just couldn’t do that to you.  But you do matter to me Hazel.  You do.  More than anyone.”

“Tell me what you want, Ty,” you were desperate to hear the words.

“I want it to be the right time.”

Memories of your time in bed together after the G1 Climax in Tokyo together flooded your mind like a tsunami.  You felt a shiver run up your spine, the electricity from deep within you igniting again.  You nodded slightly.  “It is the right time,” you assured him.

He kissed you again, just like he did in the lake earlier, and you responded right away to the feeling of his lips on yours.  Your hands escaped his hold so you could wrap your arms around his broad shoulders; his own arms wrapping around your waist.  You sat there on the counter with Tyson between your legs for what felt like hours, the taste of him so intoxicating you were running out of breath.  You didn’t know how to describe his kisses any other way except full – full of emotion, of passion, of love, of seven years of waiting and all the pent-up feelings that came with that.  So you took every moment and cherished it, burning it into the back of your mind.  Every feel of his curls as you ran your hands through them, every feel of the stubble of his beard rubbing against the bare skin of your face and your neck, every feel of his muscles tightening the more you squeezed your legs around his torso to bring his body even closer to yours.

You found your hands creeping underneath his shirt, his skin of his back so delicate underneath your fingertips.  He still had some scratches on his back from the cage match with Jon, and the scar from the gash he got at the G1 Climax tournament in 2016.

Tyson pulled away slightly, quickly.  “Do you still feel safest with me?” he asked.

You nodded quickly.  “Yes, God yes,” you rushed so your lips could be back on his.  “Always, Ty.”

His kisses travelled to your neck and clavicle.  His hands were squeezing at your thighs.  You were sure he was going to leave a mark somewhere, his kisses and bites becoming insatiable.  You were sure your breaths and moans were only fuelling him, but you knew you wanted more.  The slight impatience got the best of you.  You grabbed his hands before widening your legs.  “Touch me Ty,” you breathed out, placing his hand on your hot core over your leggings.  “I want you to touch me.”

That apparently flipped a switch in him, because he picked you up in one swoop and began carrying you through the cottage until he got to his bedroom, setting you down on the bed.  “Touch me, touch me,” you begged absent-mindedly, so desperate to feel him that you pulled off his shirt. 

His hand finally went where you wanted it to go.  Your hips immediately bucked at his touch, even though it was above fabric.  He moved his body to hover over yours as he did so, making sure he could keep eye contact you and watch all your reactions as he did what you wanted him to do.  “Does that feel good?”

“Yeah,” you nodded.

“You gonna let me taste you?”

Your breath got caught in your throat.  You wanted it, you wanted it so bad, but the possibility of it actually happening made you slip up.  He obviously hadn’t done it previously, with the two of you being the way you were getting in the way of it happening in Portofino and Tokyo.  “Y-Yeah,” you stuttered out, nodding.

Tyson gave you a few more kisses as his fingers drew circles and ran up and down the fabric over your core before he pushed himself back on his knees.  He hooked his fingers into the waistband of your tights before pulling them off in one full swoop.  Next, he hooked his fingers into the waistband of your underwear and pulled them off too, exposing your whole bottom half.  He could hear your intake of breath, could see how you were watching his every move.  “You okay?”

“Mhmm,” you mumbled out.  “Just nerves.”

He furrowed his brows.  “Why are you nervous?”

“I don’t know.  Just am,” you whispered.

“Hey,” he moved over your body to kiss you.  “I want to make you feel good, but if you’re nervous, I don’t have to.”

“No no, I really want you to.”

The two of you couldn’t help but giggle at your response, Tyson kissing you again – quick, little kisses on your lips – before pulling away.  “Just tell me if you want me to stop, okay?  I’ll stop the second you want me to.”

You nodded in agreement.  Not that you’d have to tell him to stop.  If he was going to go down on you, there was no way in hell you’d ask him to stop.  There wasn’t a force on God’s green earth that would make you ask him to stop.  You closed your eyes as Tyson began slowly kissing his way down your body, pulling up your shirt to just underneath your breasts so he could kiss your soft tummy, dragging his tongue and lips along your skin before he got below your belly button.  His hands went to your thighs, spreading your legs apart for him. 

“You’re so beautiful, Hazel.”

A warmth washed over your body at the words.  You watched as he got between your legs, bringing his finger up to feel you.  You flinched slightly, already so sensitive.  You could see a smirk on Tyson’s face as he brought an arm around to keep your keep your hips down.

There was no precursor for Tyson – no tentative licks or little flicks of the tongue first to ease you into it.  He just went right in.  He’d waited long enough.  It made your jaw drop, a mewl leaving your mouth almost instantly.  And he didn’t stop from there.  He lapped at you like you were his last meal on earth the entire time he was down there, making you bunch the bed sheets into your fists, your knuckles white.  As your moans got louder, you couldn’t help but start writhing in bed.  But his arm across your hips was limiting your ability to move, which just made it all the better.  You reached down to grab on to some of his curls.  He looked up at you with his blue eyes and you almost came right then and there.

“You alright?” he asked quickly.

You nodded.  “I’m almost embarrassed to tell you how long I’ve dreamt of you doing this to me.”

You watched as the corners of his eyes crinkled.  “Am I better or worse than your little fantasies?”

“Better,” you said automatically.  “So much better.”

The vibration from his proud little chuckle just made the experience even more pleasurable.  After a short while, you could feel a warmth take over your body, and you knew you were close.  You verbalized this to Tyson, who kept doing what he was doing and didn’t change his rhythm at all – thank God.  Eventually, you felt your orgasm overcome you, your body writhing at the feeling.  You tried to stop your legs from coming together and squeezing Tyson’s head between your thighs, but he didn’t seem to mind when you couldn’t control it anymore.  He moved in tune with each buck of the hips, each squirm, never taking his mouth off your pussy, even for a second. 

When your orgasm subsided, and you tried to catch your breath after all the moaning and calling out of his name, Tyson kissed the inside of your thighs before moving back up your body.  You were desperate to kiss him and crashed your lips onto his when he was close enough.  “So sweet,” he mumbled against your lips.

“Christ almighty, Ty.”

He continued kissing you, slow and steady and full just like before, moving to pull your top off.  You played with the waistband of his sweatpants for a bit, just to tease him, before pushing them and his underwear down all in one go.  You could feel how hard he was then, his cock resting between you.  “What other little fantasies have you had about me?” he asked.

You were not prepared for that question.  And you were not prepared for having to think about answering as he was kissing his way down your chest.  “How much time do we have?” you tried to joke.

“Tell me,” his voice was firm, right before he took a nipple into his mouth.

“I’ve dreamt of it all, Ty,” you admitted, closing your eyes to savour the feeling of what he was doing.  “I’ve been dreaming about you since I was, like, twenty-one.  That’s a lot of time.  What about you?”

He stopped what he was doing, coming back up and bringing one of his hands up to move some hair out of your face.  “D’you know how many times I’ve replayed Portofino and Tokyo in my head?” he asked.

So you weren’t the only one.  What a feeling it was to know.  “Yeah?”

“When we fell between the two beds…” he began, his thumb gliding over your lips.  “You don’t forget things like that.”

You nodded because you understood.  You had never forgotten that moment either, mostly because it was one of the few moments in your life when you felt pure, genuine happiness.  “I love you, Tyson.”

He kissed you.  “I love you too, Hazel.”

You kissed each other for a while again, your nails digging into the skin on his arms and back.  It was only when he was biting down at the skin near your collarbone that he spoke again.  “Will you let me make love to you?”

“No.”

Tyson stopped everything.  He looked up at you.  “No?”

“I know you can go harder than that,” you said.  “I haven’t felt you in seven years, Ty.  I need it.”

He was like a man possessed after you said those words, his hands and lips all over you with zero abandon.  In one swift movement, he grabbed onto your hips and flipped you over on to your stomach.  You got excited at the new position.  “Is this okay?” he asked.

“You bet,” the excited grin grew on your face as you got on our hand and knees.

You positioned yourself and purposely crashed your ass into his hips, causing a groan to escape him before you could feel his hand between your bodies, stroking himself several times before using his head to tease your pussy.  You gripped onto the sheets, arching your back and biting your lip.  When he finally pushed inside you, you let out a cry.  He felt just as good as you remembered,  if not better.  “Jesus fuck, Ty,” you couldn’t help but swear as you felt him fully in you.  He was giving you a few moments – you knew that – but you were so desperate to feel him pump in and out of you that you almost resented the fact he wasn’t moving yet.  “Fuck me, Tyson.  It’s been seven years.  Let me feel all of you.” 

With every thrust, you could feel every inch of your body igniting on fire.  His moans and grunts, the way his hands were gripping on to your hips, the movement of your bodies, the song of the sounds you were making – it all came together in the most pleasurable experience.  You got louder and louder as he pounded into you just as you wanted.  “God Ty, you feel so fucking good,” you said, flipping your hair over your shoulder to be able to look at him. 

“Was this one of your little fantasies too?” he asked.

You nodded.  “Yes.”

“Tell me.”

You sighed out, unable to form coherent thoughts.  You knew this was only the beginning of the night.  If you knew Tyson – and you did – he’d be asking you about all of them, and you wouldn’t be able to get out of it.  Not that you wanted to.  “We were doing exactly this, but…”

“But?”

“But you pulled me up by my hair,” you said.

To your surprise, you could feel him wrap some of your hair around his hand before tugging on it and pulling you up so your back was flush against his chest.  He was gentle but still purposeful with his movements, knowing what he was doing to you.  “Then what?”

You gulped.  He had slowed his pace moving in and out of you, but the way you were positioned already made it feel so good.  Your body shivered at what it would feel like when he lost all control.  “You…you had one hand here to hold me up,” you said, grabbing on to his left hand and putting it at the base of your neck.  “Just don’t squeeze,” you added quickly.

“I won’t,” he gave you a quick kiss on your shoulder.  “What else?”

“Your…your other hand was here,” you grabbed on to his right hand, placing it on your pussy so his fingers were directly on your clit.  “You were fucking me so good I was seeing stars, Ty.  I woke up and started touching myself.”

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.  “Was there anything else?”

You nodded.  You took another deep breath.  “You were…you were leaving marks,” you admitted.  “All here…and here…” your hand moved over your neck and shoulders on both sides before settling back on top of his hand that was on the base of your neck.  “When I woke up, after I touched myself, I went to the mirror to see if the marks were real.  I was so sad I didn’t have them.”

Tyson’s lips began kissing at your neck and shoulder.  “We’ll have to fix that, won’t we?”

“Yes please.”

Tyson’s lips went back to your neck and you could immediately feel him sucking at the skin there, no doubt leaving one of the marks you so wanted.  Without warning, he began pumping harder and quicker too, building up a rhythm that hit the most perfect spot in you and made you cry out in pleasure over and over again.  His fingers began massaging your clit, too, and it all truly felt like a dream, a dream you had dreamed for seven, eight, nine – maybe ten years now.

You could feel your throat dry up from how long Tyson had been fucking you.  You knew you were close to your second orgasm of the night – but it definitely wouldn’t be the last.  “Harder, Ty.  I’m so close.”

You cried out when you felt just how hard he started to go, and soon enough, you saw those stars you had once dreamed of.  The feeling was so intense, and just like the previous times with Tyson, you could feel the pleasure rush through your body from your head all the way to your toes, and down deep in your bones.  He was still holding you up, but you felt yourself collapsing, on account of your legs feeling like complete jelly.  But then you heard Tyson moan and felt him come inside you, and another rush coursed through your body – so intense that you had to put your hand over his and get him to stop teasing your clit or else you were sure you would explode and cease to exist.  Whatever you had ever dreamed previously wasn’t as good as this – it was impossible to compare.

Your heart was beating out of your chest.  You hung on to every last feeling of your orgasm until it passed, slowly.  “Shit,” you could hear Tyson curse behind you, his head still on your shoulder.  “Holy shit.  Holy shit.”

“God, Ty,” you breathed out.  His one hand left your neck, and the other hand left your pussy, and when they did, you felt yourself collapse onto the bed.  Apparently your legs were still non-functioning.  You began to giggle at just how fucked out you were, shifting yourself over to your back. 

Tyson smiled too, albeit nervously.  “I don’t know if giggling is the best reaction here.”

“It’s a good thing,” you let out as he sunk down beside you.  You turned your head to look at him, so he could see it in your eyes.  “Trust me.”

Tyson giggled too then.  “I’ll take it.”

“You’re gonna have to start getting used to it.  Especially tonight,” you said.  You rolled yourself on top of his chest, looking down on his face.  “I mean, I’ve had so many other little fantasies…”

“Baby, I’m just getting warmed up.”

***

19th July 2023

and if you never bleed, you're never gonna grow and it's alright now

The nail bed wasn’t supposed to fall down Tyson’s back and arms, but of course Tyson couldn’t take the spot lightly.  And because Tyson couldn’t ever take a spot lightly, his back was now all scratched, gashes and little holes down his entire left side – the same side you’d had to bandage and put ointment on just seven weeks ago.  At least there were no thumbtacks. 

Once he had finished pulling said thumbtacks out of Kota’s back, he hauled himself onto a training table and a trainer began assisting him.  Cotton swabs, disinfectant – there was even a stitching kit ready to go.  Matt was on the phone with Dana, Nick was Facetiming with Ellen, and Kota was in his own world.  It was a good a time as ever to stand next to Tyson.

You weren’t crying this time.  This was already a huge success.

The trainer had cleaned his hands first, bloody from the wreckage in the ring.  You watched as the trainer wiped away the blood on his face, disinfecting the area and making him wince.  When the trainer moved to his back, Tyson looked at you.

“You okay?” he whispered. 

“Yeah,” you nodded quickly.  “I’m not crying, so we’re leaps and bounds better than where we were several weeks ago.”

“Does it look bad?”

“It looks like you got into a fight with a bear at the cottage.  But somehow, you won the fight.”

Tyson’s laugh was interrupted by a wince.  It was obvious the trainer was disinfecting an area.  He grabbed onto your hands, squeezing them at the next sting.  You squeezed back.  “I love you,” he said quietly.

“I love you too.”

As quick as a lightning flash, he brought your hands up to his lips to kiss them.  Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Matt watching, his eyes bulging out of their sockets with his eyebrows raised in shock.  When he saw you looking at him, he smirked and mouthed only one word to you.  Finally. 

Everything was okay.  Everything was alright. 

#kenny omega #aew #kenny omega imagine #kenny omega fic #kenny omega fan fic #kenny omega x reader #aew imagine #aew fic #aew fan fic #kenny omega x oc #kenny omega x ofc #kenny omega x original character #kenny omega x original female character

[divine-knight-hand]

Worshiping the Masterpiece

Loki Masterlist || Full Masterlist || Read on AO3

Pairing: Loki x Female Reader

Summary: Loki’s lover finally gains the courage to ask him about his Jotun form. When he lets her see it, she takes the moment as an opportunity to help him do a little confidence building… by kissing… and touching… and praising…

Content Warnings: Sub!Loki (but hints of him being a switch), Soft Dom!Reader, themes of insecurity, [heavy appreciation of] Loki in his Jotun form, handjob in front of a mirror, lots of praise, no oral (but just a little taste of cum!), and explicit consent

Notes: (Prepare for lengthy notes with mushy sentiments! Hehehe!)

Happy birthday, @sarahscribbles!!! I’m still pretty new-ish to this whole tumblr-fanfic-writer thing, and I ended up gravitating to her as one of the blogs I look up to the most (specifically in terms of Loki content). So, happy, happy, happy birthday, Sarah! Remember that your community loves you very much. May you get lots of presents, cake, and Loki love~

This piece was written as a contribution to her Birthday Celebration. I originally started writing using some of the prompts from the original post, but I soon lost motivation, only to remember that I had this idea on repeat in my mind sooooo long ago, and it resurfaced just in time for me to finally put it to paper. So, I didn’t end up using any of the prompts, after all. Maybe someday I’ll finish what I originally started for this challenge and post it anyways. Maybe…

All in all, it was kind of refreshing to be able to write a fic about Loki. I don't really write about him as much as I would like to, so this writing event gave me the perfect motivation to just jump right in. So, without further ado, here we go!

Word Count: 3,547

Dividers by @cafekitsune

“Absolutely not.” Loki’s eyebrows furrowed at my daring request. “I refuse to burden you with that monstrous visage.”

Loki’s response to me asking to view his Jotun form again was that of pure terror. He sat next to me on our shared bed, eyes frantically avoiding mine. He seemed a lot more timid than his usual confident disposition allowed. His hands were folded over his lap, fidgeting out of obvious discomfort at the idea of me seeing him resemble a frost giant.

The first time I saw Loki in his Jotun form, it was an accident. He was taking me on a tour of the castle vault, and all was well until I was left to my own devices. I wandered around the vault, admiring the architecture, as well as the artifacts, when I found myself walking backwards into the stand that held the Casket of Ancient Winters atop it. Loki happened to be in perfect range to step in and catch it as I knocked it off its pedestal, at the cost of revealing his birth form.

Amidst the chaos his panic created, he didn’t notice me watching the way his skin changed, or admiring the raised marks that accompanied its cerulean hue. I knew Loki was born on Jotunheim–and I knew of all the trials and tribulations this fact created throughout his childhood–but I’d never even heard Loki so much as mention the possibility of having another form connected to his Jotun roots. This was new to me. He replaced the Casket and rushed out of the vault before I could even form the words to tell him how beautiful he looked. How odd…

Since that day, I was determined to see him change again. It was like an obsession to me, the way it was constantly on my mind. I had to see Loki’s Jotun form again. I just had to. Now that I’d seen it once, I knew there was a part of him that I wasn’t experiencing all this time. I felt that I was missing out on sharing something important with my lover, and that didn’t sit well with me.

There were times I tried to hint at it subtly, only to get confused and alarmed looks from him in return. I should have expected him to catch on. Nothing flies over the head of the God of Mischief. There wasn’t any point to beating around the bush anymore. I decided to finally outright ask him to change forms, and this was the exact reaction I feared.

“Don’t talk about yourself like that.” I asserted. “Nothing about you is monstrous. Nothing. Do you honestly think that I could love a monster?” Before he even had the chance to sarcastically respond to my rhetorical question, I beat him to it. “No, because I don’t.” I reached over and grabbed his hands in mine. “I love you, and I want to experience every part of you. Every single one. Because, I want to be able to love every single part of you.”

I could almost see the gears turning in his mind as he began to consider the idea. “I don’t believe you understand the true nature of my birth form.”

“Then show me.” I insisted. “Teach me everything I don’t know about you. Please… I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide from me.”

“You will regret this, love.” With a defeated sigh, Loki conceded.

He made sure to remove my hands from his before the familiar green flash of his seidr marked his transformation. My breath hitched at the sight of all the changes to his appearance.

His skin turned an icy blue, and his face sported markings in the form of raised lines. His eyes, formerly a similar blue, now watched me intently with a ruby red, awaiting my response.

“Loki,” I breathed, my heart swelling with the joy of finally being able to see him like this again. “You’re absolutely gorgeous.”

He quickly looked away, ashamed. “As sweet as your lies sing to me, please don’t.”

“I would never lie to you.” I leaned in and slowly reached out my hand.

He flinched at first, but allowed me to cup his face, the chill of his skin cooling my hand. “How do you not hate this?”

“I’ve said, already,” I smirked at him. “I love you, and if this is you—which I know it is—then I love this, too.”

“But, I’m a monster…” Loki’s eyes began to glass over with tears, but none dared to spill over his cheeks.

“No, you’re not.” I leaned in until I could feel the chill radiating off of his face against my own. “You were only told that for far too long.”

“It’s all I’ve ever known.” He sadly confessed.

My heart shattered for him. It wasn’t fair that he had to face horrible treatment just because of where he came from. Growing up, he was constantly dehumanized by his own father. Politics didn’t exactly allow Asgardians to empathize with Jotuns. Loki didn’t have a clue as to why he was treated so poorly his whole life until his adult years. No wonder he hid himself for so long. He didn’t deserve to live like that. Not at all. I was determined to make sure he would never experience that kind of pain again.

“That’s awful.” I frowned. “I promise you that I’ll make you feel loved, no matter what you look like.” I leaned in and pecked the tip of his nose. “I guarantee it.”

I brought my other hand up to cup the other side of his face before pulling him into a kiss. I felt him tense up for a moment, but a sudden chill on my back accompanied the motion of him wrapping his arms around me and pulling me closer to him.

When he deepened the kiss, it was colder than I expected it to be. Every point of contact I had with him sent a chill into my body, but I wasn’t cold. It was a comfortable chill. It was authentically Loki, and I wanted to explore this as far as I could go.

He pulled me onto him in a straddling position, our bodies crashing together as my hands wandered along the leather covering his back. I wanted to feel all of him. Since he swapped forms, it was like I fell in love all over again, and I was once again kissing him for the first time.

I was ravenous, wanting to touch as much of Loki as I could get my hands on, but I was also careful, fearing what could make him uncomfortable. My worries were put to rest when I felt a light twitch underneath me, and my own ache to have him began to build within me.

As we pulled apart, I left my hands cupped around his face, slowly tracing his markings with my thumbs. He’s just so beautiful~

“My desire for you could drive me to madness, darling.” He breathed, a smile ghosting his lips. “I do hope you’re aware.”

“I am.” I softly giggled.

“That being said, I have to have you, my dear.” His voice deepened to a growl. “Just give me a moment to return to my usual appearance.”

“Wait!” I interjected. “Why can’t I take you like this?”

“Are you off your rocker?!” Loki fired back, terror creeping back into his eyes.

“Maybe I am,” I retorted, “But I know that I want you like this, and you can’t change my mind on that.”

He just stared at me in utter shock, unmoving and unspeaking.

As the silence hung between us, an idea slowly crept into my mind. “There’s actually something I’d like to try, if you don’t mind.”

Loki let out a deep sigh, the shock in his expression lessening.“If you’re absolutely sure you want this, then I’ll be at your mercy. But, the moment something happens to you-”

“It won’t.” I cut in. “Because I know you won’t let anything happen to me.”

Loki frowned in disbelief, muttering, “Your optimism is dangerous.”

I stood up off of the bed, beckoning for him to follow me. “First, I want to see all of you. Would you mind stripping?”

“As you wish.” Loki lowered his head, his seidr removing his clothes with a flash.

I let out a soft gasp out of awe at the view. The icy hue continued from his head to his toes, as did the raised markings in his skin. They decorated his shoulders, chest, legs, and even his-

I felt arousal begin to pool between my thighs at the sight of his ornate length. “Loki…”

He looked back up at me, clearly anxious for my response. “Is this what you wanted?”

I quickly approached him and cupped his face in my hands, kissing him again. “It’s everything and more.” Loki’s cheeks blushed a light purple as I took him by the hand and led him across the bedroom to stand in front of a full-length mirror. “Do you trust me?”

“I trust you with everything I have, just as I’ve always done.” He responded, and I just knew he was being genuine. I could almost feel it emanating from his words.

“Kneel, my love.” I softly commanded.

Loki knelt in front me, exactly where I placed him. I smiled warmly down at him, stroking his cheek before moving to sit right behind him, looking over his shoulder at the mirror.

I looked over his reflection, my eyes lingering at how he instinctively spread his thighs as he sat on his heels, allowing his semi-erect cock to hang in the middle of the sinful display. He was almost ready, and fully accessible to me. I felt my ache for him thrumming between my thighs, but I quickly refocused on my mission when I noticed that he refused to meet his reflection’s gaze, instead looking away from me and the mirror entirely.

“Look, Loki.” I lightly coaxed his face back towards the mirror by his chin. “Look at how beautiful you really are.” I dropped my other hand near his inner thigh. “May I?”

“Please,” I could see eagerness flash in his eyes as he glanced at my reflection before looking back at his own.

I began to lightly rub along his thigh, my heart fluttering at his resulting shiver. “I want you to see how perfect you are as you’re overcome with pleasure.” His eyes fluttered closed as he shivered again, and I paused my motions. “Watch.” I reminded him.

His eyes flew open at my command. “Yes, of course.”

“Yes, what?” I felt a proud smirk tugging at the corners of my lips.

“Yes, mistress.” He corrected himself.

“There’s my sweet prince.” I sighed my praise as I resumed my motion on his thigh, noticing the twitch of his cock at my words. I began kissing him messily along his neck as my hand continued to tease him. When I brought my free hand up to trace the marks on his chest, I noticed the tension in his shoulders slowly melting away.

“M- Mistress, please…” He let out a low moan. “Please, I need more…” A bead of precum gathered at the tip of his fully grown erection, which now began to shine with a deep blush of purple, similar to that of his cheeks.

I moved from his neck to whisper in his ear, “If you want it, then you’ll have it.” I stroked his face with my free hand. “A work of art like you deserves to be worshiped and praised.” I lightly nipped his ear. “And I’ve been blessed with the privilege to make sure that you are. Now, sit tight, my prince.”

I rose to my feet and moved, swift as the wind, to our dresser for lubricant to cover my hand with before returning to my original place with Loki in front of the mirror. “Tonight, I plan on fucking you with my hand, leaving your whole body on display for the both of us. I want you to see that you are no monster. You’re a masterpiece, and deserve to be treated as such.” I gave his shoulder a light squeeze with my free hand. “If you wish to stop at any time, you can always use our safe word. You remember it, don’t you?”

“I do.” His words were just above a whisper.

“Very good.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Then let’s begin.” I started to slowly stroke his cock with my lubricated hand, earning another shudder, accompanied by a contented sigh, from him. “I just have one rule for you…” Loki turned his head to look at me with curiosity before I softly turned it back to the mirror with my free hand. “You have to watch the whole time.”

“Ah- Mmm…” He let out a clipped moan before responding. “Yes, mistress.”

“Very good.” I slowly stroked all the way from the base of his cock to the tip before swirling my thumb in small circles on the head and stroking back to the base. Each time I teased the head, a small growl emanated from the back of his throat, only to crescendo into another moan when I stroked back down to the base.

I felt each of his markings against my hand with every stroke, and I wondered for a moment how they would feel against my inner walls. I felt arousal thrumming between my thighs again. Focus, damnit!

But, focusing was difficult. No matter how I looked at Loki, my eyes always returned to his elaborately decorated cock. It was as if I walked into an opulent dining room, only to end up staring at the shiny centerpiece all throughout dinner. It was the center of attention in an already artistic scene. I struggled to find the perfect words to convey these thoughts, so I kept my praise simple.

“You have such a pretty cock~” My words were a sultry whisper against his skin, accompanied by the kisses that I peppered along his jaw. “I can’t wait to pleasure it in every way I know how. Would you like that, my prince?”

“Y- Mmm… Yes, mistress.” Loki struggled to respond between moans.

“I would like that, too.” I peeked up at the mirror to make sure that he was still looking. He was. How obedient~

Not only was I filled with the pride of seeing him willing to do as he was told, but I also noticed the way his chest moved with each heavy breath he took, which it typically did when I dominated him. His breathing would grow labored as I teased him before he finally found the words—or word fragments—to beg me for more.

His hair also didn’t change. It tumbled down his angular face in its usual raven locks, the smallest of curls lying slick against his forehead as a sheen of sweat glued them there.

And just under it were his eyes. Though they shone a bright red, his pupils were blown wide with lust, leaving a sliver of red around the edges. Save for their usual blue color, his eyes looked exactly the same as they usually did. It was comforting to see that even though he changed, there were familiar parts of him to remind me that he was still my Loki.

Although, change is nice~ I thought as I allowed my free hand to roam his chest again, tracing the markings until I approached his hips. I reached down and began to fondle his balls, still keeping pace on his cock with my lubricated hand. His eyes were lidded as he quickly neared an ecstasy-born stupor. He used one of his hands to steady himself on the ground as the other wound into his hair, ruffling it with each pass he made with his fingers.

“Yes, I would love to please you.” I continued my earlier thought. “To worship you like the god you are. You deserve that. You deserve to have someone willing to offer you their service. Even as your mistress, I wish to satisfy you.” I sped up the pace of my hand on his cock, and a whimper escaped his throat. “You look so regal, my love. Do you see it? Do you see how, even as you sit bare in front of me, you still look elegant enough to sit upon the Asgardian throne?”

“N- no, mistress…” Loki’s voice cracked as he let out another moan.

“Hm. That’s unfortunate.” I mused. “Maybe someday I should suck you off as you’re seated upon it. I’m sure that would help you see what I see.”

Loki bucked his hips into my hand. “M- mistress…” His voice curled into a light sound that almost resembled a whimper. “Feels good… Feels so- Mmm… good…”

“It’s about time you felt something other than pain while showing this part of who you are.” I trailed kissed back up his neck to his ear before whispering, “You’re still watching?” I glanced at the mirror to see him still looking, just as I’d asked him to. “That’s my sweet prince. I’m so glad you’re heeding my directions tonight. This is all for you, after all.”

“Yes, mistress.” Loki gritted his teeth, his eyes squeezing shut in pleasure before they shot back open as he remembered my command. “M- Mistress…?”

“Yes, my love?” I felt a small surge of concern rush through me. “Is something wrong?”

The soft whine he let out clued me in to what was happening before he even responded. “I- I’m close… Mmm- May I cum? …Please?” His last plea was no more than a breathy whisper. He needed this. Desperately. And who would I be to deprive him of it?

“Cum for me, my prince.” I purred. “You’ve been so good tonight. You deserve to. Come on, show me how your pretty cock looks when it’s dripping with cum.”

“Ohhh, mistress… Ah-” Loki practically screamed my name as his eyes rolled back, ropes of cum painting his thigh in a milky white.

I helped him ride out his high as his cock twitched in my hand, spilling his seed. Every time I thought he’d finished, he’d release what seemed to be another load with a roaring moan and a full-body shiver. I just kept stroking his cock while softly kissing along his neck and praising him until the last of it slowly dripped out over my fingers and he was left panting.

“That’s it, my prince.” I sighed against his neck. “You were so good for me. I’m so proud of you.” I finally let go of his cock and brought my hand to my mouth to slowly lick the cum off of my fingers. “Mmm, and you taste so good~”

“Mmm, darling,” Loki’s voice wavered as he took on a cautionary tone. “If you carry on like that, I just might grow hard again.”

“Then I’ll have no choice but to take care of you again.” I playfully walked my now clean fingers up his shoulder. “And again… and again… and again…”

“I like the sound of that.” He chuckled softly as our eyes moved back to the mirror in front of us.

I looked him over again, my eyes lingering over each part of him, almost as if my brain could take a snapshot his beauty. His hair was thoroughly ruffled, sweat shone on each curve of his skin, and his cock hung limply between his thighs once again, having spent its cum onto one of them. I watched as it began to slide down his thigh, following the raised markings before nearing the floor.

“You truly admire this, don’t you?” Loki’s question interrupted my thoughts.

“I do.” I answered without hesitation. “And I won’t be satisfied until you do, too.”

“You stubborn woman.” Loki lightly chuckled. “I will say, if this is the treatment my Jotun form entitles me to, then maybe it’s a sight I could get used to.”

I couldn’t keep back the cheesy grin my mouth curved into. “I’ll take it.” I crawled around him to sit between him and the mirror, holding my hands out to him.

He smirked and took my hands in his. “I feel compelled to thank you.”

I cocked my head in curiosity. “Hm? What for?”

He leaned closer to me, and I leaned in to meet him in the middle, electricity crackling in the air between us. “For loving the ugliest parts of me, and cherishing the things that I’ve only ever frowned upon.”

“Oh, Loki,” I squeezed his hand. “You take yourself too seriously. As soon as you stop criticizing yourself, I know you’ll lead a happier life.” I brought the same hand up to my lips to brush a soft kiss onto it. “Now, come on. You must be tired. Let me clean you up, and then we can cuddle for the rest of the night.”

“Of course.” Loki’s eyes conveyed a sweet sense of innocence… It was too sweet. He must have had other plans.

My suspicions were confirmed when he leaned in towards my ear and whispered. “Though, I believe I still have some dues to pay before we carry on with our night. Don’t you?”

I felt my ache for him quickly returning all at once. “Oh, you-”

Before I could finish my teasing remark, Loki had me trapped in another kiss.

#loki laufeyson #smut #marvel #marvel fanfic #loki fanfic #loki #loki x reader #loki x y/n #loki x female reader smut #marvel smut #loki mcu #mcu loki #mcu fanfiction #loki fic #loki smut #loki fanfiction #loki odinson #smut fanfiction #fem reader

[lindisworld]

Close || Matt Murdock x Reader

summary: Soulmate Au! In which [Name] has Daredevil as a soulmate and Matt unwillingly wants [Name] in his life. However Fate does its job and always brings them together.

Prologue

a/n: this is totally not proofread and this is my first time posting a fic on tumblr, don’t hate on me yall. still learning the ropes of using this app

The incredible phenomenon known as the soul connection, between two people intertwining their bodies and soul into a deeper profound connection. Whether it’s a scrape, a hit, or simply a paper cut etched into the person’s physical body, it’s mirrored by the soulmate. Fortunately, the injuries sustained isn’t felt by the other individual in any way. 

There’s [Name] who worked hard in her owned business, a coffee shop; a calm and serene place where people come for relaxation. The sweet aroma of coffee casted over the costumers, a soft melody of classical music playing in the background. 

It stood tiny compared to the other buildings, yet no matter how tiny it is. It’s popular amongst office workers, locals and tourists. 

The exterior was a caramel brown that glistened brighter in the sunlight. The sun reflected off the tinted windows, stopping unwanted heat from going through.

Costumers bustled in and out throughout the day, a warm cup of coffee in hand. A new order came in every five minutes, the soft sound of the espresso machine brewing overlaps the music.

“Is your soulmate that reckless?,” Marci Stahl, one of the many people who frequently come, pointed out towards the bruises, taking [Name]’s arm gently.

Marci is a lawyer from Landman and Zack, which is close by to [Name]’s cafe. Well, was a lawyer at Landman and Zack. She’s also known as [Name]'s childhood bestfriend who had a major dislike towards the soulmate despite not even knowing who it is. Cause who injures themselves that much? 

Though, she couldn’t feel the bruising of her flesh, she still wondered how can one person obtain so many contusions. [Name] brought her arm closer to her face, observing the reddish injuries.

Blotches of red and blue marks littered her arm; going from her forearm to her shoulder. The discoloration contrasting to her regular skin color. 

“Marci, they're probably really clumsy or something,” [Name] creased her brows together in distress - most of the time the bruises were on her torso. None of them were this noticeable. Yet, these were on display. For everyone to see, she tried her best with concealer but they still managed to seep through the makeup.

"All my long sleeve shirts were dirty, i couldn’t wear ‘em. You know these don't hurt," she assured the lawyer.

Marci rolled her eyes, “The probability of them being a criminal is high.  What would you do then? I’ll see you tomorrow.” She stated before turning her heel, walking out the shop leaving [Name] to ponder the question. 

Fate must have cursed her to have such an unfortunate soulmate who hurts themselves every other day, luckily fate also decided to spare them and not make them feel the pain. [Name]'s thoughts wandered off to what kind of person her soulmate was, if they were some sort of criminal or something. Perhaps a gangster getting into trouble.

To be fair, the amount of bruises she gets is unordinary to any citizen in America. She did think of countless scenarios if she were to have a criminal as a soulmate.  

Such as, joining them as their partner in crime or leave her life as a barista behind and make a new one without her soulmate. But, she doubted it would ever happen. Or maybe, it was one of the avengers. Though it was high unlikely, it still wasn’t out the window. 

Almost 30 minutes after Marci left, the barista heard the door bells ring, her head shooting up, her hand instinctively grabbing the notepad in her apron. [Name] headed towards the trio who sat themselves near a booth hidden away from most costumers. 

The warm air welcomed the group with the scent of coffee. Large arrays of sweets ranging from slices of cake to cookies. Soft chatters from individuals surrounding the place. Everyone else enjoying their treat and sipping on the coffee. 

“Good evening, how’s every one’s day been?” A smile plastered on her face, her fingers fiddling with the pen. The blonde lady with pretty blue eyes locked eyes with [Name] before traveling down to her arms which had the noticeable bruises. It was evident on her face that she was ready to question it. 

In result, [Name] hid her arms behind her back and awkwardly posed, hoping she’d get the hint and stop looking. One thing she always hated was when people stared and ask too many questions if she’s getting hurt or something else. Nevertheless, it was nice knowing people cared for her physical condition. 

“It’s going great now that we’re here celebrating our win with delicious desserts and coffee. Later on, we’re definitely looking forward to lots of drinking,” A male with medium length brown hair exclaims quite loudly. 

“Names Foggy, and you are…” Foggy said before glancing down at the name tag on [Name]’s shirt, “[Name].” He finished with a grin. 

“This is Matt Murdock and Karen Page.” He says and pointed at each person. “Give us your best recommendations for coffee and desserts, [Name]. I’ll put my faith in your hands.” He added. 

“Well, in that case. Is anyone allergic to anything?” [Name] questioned, look at each of them. Her eye lingered at the man with red glasses whose brows furrowed, almost seems like he was concentrating on something. [Name] then turned to Karen, who gently nudged Matt who broke his focus. 

“Huh?” Matt asked and looked over at her, he registered what she had asked and answered. “Oh, i’m not allergic to anything.” He said rather quickly and gave a quick smile. 

“Okay,” She brought the pen to her face, lightly tapping her cheek in a thinking manner. “People around here love the Cinnamon Roll Frappe and Vanilla Cappuccino, or a plain black coffee goes well with our chocolate croissant. We also have a variety of donuts. I’ll bring a box for you to try, on the house.” She explains.

Almost in an instant, Foggy’s face was overtaken by pure happiness by free donuts. Anything that was free and delicious is definitely welcomed in his life. 

“You are the best, [Name]! Amazing coffee and free desserts will definitely get you a discounted price at our law firm if you ever need our services!” Foggy rejoiced causing Karen and Matt to laugh. 

“Thank you for the donuts, I’ll definitely repay you somehow,” Karen kindly spoke and gave her a smile, “I’ll take the Cinnamon Roll Frappe.” She said. 

Foggy let out an enthusiastic sigh, “I’ll try your Vanilla Cappuccino, dear friend!” 

Matt laughs at Foggy’s antics and turned to [Name]. “Seems like I’ll do your plain black coffee with the chocolate croissant, please. ” Matt added. 

[Name] took note and walked towards the counter, preparing their drinks in an orderly manner. She’s heard about the trio before from Marci. However Foggy was mentioned more often than not in her conversations with her friend. 

“Hey, guys. I don’t mean to invade [Name]’s privacy, but I’ve noticed bruises on her arm.” Karen muttered quietly to the group, Foggy didn’t miss it either. 

“Looks like hell. Could be from her soulmate or God forbid, it’s something else you know,” Foggy responds and glances at the barista making their drinks. 

“I should ask her when we leave, woman to woman. So she’s comfortable instead of us asking her in front of everyone.” Karen suggests causing Foggy to agree. 

“Great idea, let her know we’re very good lawyers, Karen.” Foggy adds. Meanwhile Matt sat there, listening attentively. His senses were already attuned with the bruises on [Name]’s skin. With each passing moment, Matt’s heightened awareness became more apparent as he began to sense the blood pooling under her delicate skin. He knew she didn’t feel the pain, nonetheless he felt guilty she had tons littered around her skin just like him.

Within 10 minutes, she’s has all three drinks on top of a tray and a chocolate croissant on one hand and the other was the free box of donuts. She walks towards the group with a smile, already grown accustomed to having both hands full and navigating through crowds with ease. Especially after many years as a server when she was a teenager and now a barista with her own growing business. 

“Alright, lawyers. Here’s your order, I hope you all enjoy.” [Name] said and set the items on the table. “Let me know how it taste. Don’t burn your tongue.” She requested.

She held the tray to her side and waited patiently as they all brought their lips to their drink. [Name] nervously smiles and glances at each one of them. Foggy was the first one to talk.  

“[Name], I may have burnt my tongue but this is incredible! I won’t sue you for my injury.” Foggy saids and simply fell in love with the flavor. [Name] laughs nervously, not knowing if he’s joking or not. 

Matt must’ve caught on by her nervous laughter, “He was joking by the way. Although I do agree that this is very good coffee. Even if it’s plain black.” Matt complimented with honesty. These were organic coffee beans with no chemicals added so it didn’t taste nasty. Food wise, he kept everything organic so it wasn’t harsh on his senses. 

“I also agree, this is very good.” Karen said and drank her frappe. [Name] exhales and smiles. “I really do appreciate it. It’s always nice to hear feedback from customers.” [Name] responds.

”I have to get back to work if you don’t mind, enjoy the rest of your day and congratulations on your win.” [Name] turned around to walk away before she was stopped by Matt’s voice. 

“Wait- uh,” Matt hesitates before letting out a small sigh escape his mouth, “Sorry. I didn’t realize my chocolate croissant was here. A blind guy’s mistake.” He lied. He knew exactly where it was placed. Matt went back and forth with his thoughts, whether it was a good idea for [Name] to know that Matt was her soulmate. He didn’t deserve to have a soulmate, let alone friends who he constantly puts in danger. [Name] hums and walks away from Matt. 

#daredevil #daredevil x reader #matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #foggy nelson #karen page #marci stahl

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: TharnType and Gray Areas Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I’ll cover the very controversial TharnType, Asian stereotypes towards queerness, and the very difficult gray areas on how this show has been interpreted by various populations over the last few years.]

TW: homophobic and derogatory ideas and language against the queer community. Critical commentary on TharnType and MAME. This review is NOT for you if you are a TharnType or MAME Big Fan.

(I want to give very special thanks to @so-much-yet-to-learn and @lurkingshan for reviewing previous versions of this post and offering the most insightful feedback I could ask for. Thank you both so much.)

Alright. Deep breaths.

TharnType was a necessary addition to the Old GMMTV watchlist. It was. I had to watch it, for:

- the tremendous IMPACT this show has had on BL culture, along with MAME’s continued influence on the genre;  - how this show affected shipper culture, and the rippling effects it’s had since then vis à vis MewGulf; - how this show continued to define “high heat” and “chemistry” in BL, and -- at least for me, possibly the most interesting point to needle on -- - what fans, ESPECIALLY the majority cishet fandom, are willing to compromise and/or equivocate on in regards to our values towards the queer community regarding what we consume in media, and how safe or unsafe it is for our queer family that this content exists in the first place.

I gotta say some stuff first before I get into this review. This is the worst show I’ve ever watched, in my own opinion. I offer this flag for MAME and TharnType fans in advance, as I get quite critical down below.

I am angry at this show, at MAME, at the BL industry for allowing this show to exist, and I unfortunately hold anger against Tee Bundit, who I know has since made shows, like Lovely Writer, that deeply criticized the BL industry (and I am enjoying his work now in Step By Step, even while I don’t hesitate to criticize it). ANYONE INVOLVED in the making of TharnType needs to hold personal and professional accountability for this show even existing. And I also think that fans need to hold THEMSELVES accountable if they defend it WITHOUT thinking about the long-term social implications of the existence of this show.

I want to also say that I need to check myself, OFTEN, as I write this, because I don’t want to be some fucking loudmouth, self-righteous ally-savior. I don’t. [My AMAZING drama friends, @lurkingshan​ and @bengiyo​, have held me down during this watch. (Friends. Thank you. Good LORD.)]

I want this review to be as fair as possible to the nostalgia of the moment that this show aired; to note that this show gave high heat, which fans clearly demanded, and IS a worthy component of some dramas if it works with the rest of what the show has to offer by way of writing; and to note that many fans saw a chemistry in MewGulf that they hadn’t seen previously. I especially note that there may be survivors of sexual assault who related to certain pieces of this show, particularly through Type’s lens and his own anger.

With that very long introduction, I will note that I’m not going to talk too much about the show details itself. I don’t need to unwind on plot. For me -- FOR ME -- the show’s plot was problematic. 

2019: earlier that year, before TT aired, you had He’s Coming To Me, which was BURIED by GMMTV, and was a TOUR DE FORCE of intricate storytelling and queer revelation. According to this amazing reblog by @so-much-yet-to-learn​ (another longtime BL observer who UTTERLY held me down during my TT watch, friend, I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR THE HOURS you spent me with talking about TT and other issues), shipper fans angry at Ohm and Singto went so far as to SHOW UP TO THE GMMTV BUILDING IN BANGKOK and PROTEST against the split of the KristSingto ship. This is why, in this TT review, I talk about fans needing to take responsibility and accountability for the media we consume. I believe TT exists in part because fans have allowed it to continue to exist in the universe of BL, and many even celebrate TT’s existence -- all while, in my own opinion -- much more compelling art existed before TT (Make It Right, He’s Coming To Me) and certainly after its airing.

In discussion with @absolutebl (yet another drama expert who held me down during my TT watch, THANK YOU, SENSEI), ABL Sensei brings up that, besides a natural tendency to criticize and blame MAME for our needing to have conversations about safety towards queer family, that TT does deserve to be criticized as a standalone piece of content.

I honestly don’t know, Sensei, if I’m mature enough to make that separation, but I will try. MAME herself doesn’t exist in a vacuum: she has an industry, from producers, to showrunners, to actors, to editors, to networks -- that join her in the making of her work. I’ll do my best to separate everything, but.

I noted in my review of Love By Chance that MAME traffics in common Asian stereotypes against the queer community. At the same time, I know that often, we talk about the yaoi origins of BL in Thailand. I think, over time, the explanation of the yaoi origination has been used as a means of explaining WHY certain tropes exist, such as abuse of a partner, bullying, etc. I want to note that while I acknowledge those origins, I also strongly note (as I did in the comments of my LBC review) that yaoi origins are themselves problematic, as created by a majority cishet female artist base, and thus I question the accurate representation of queer themes both in yaoi and in early and/or questionable Thai BL that lean into common stereotypes held by Asian nations. (That being said, I do DEEPLY ACKNOWLEDGE @so-much-yet-to-learn‘s point to me that many in the queer community still consumed this media, as the West was producing next-to-nothing by way of queer love and/or queer perspectives.)

Much of what I saw in LBC and TT -- gang rape, cheating, revenge, derogatory language, hurtful stereotypes of top/bottom and husband/wife -- are repeat, word-for-word stereotypes that I heard from my Asian family growing up. Examples of what I saw by way of problematic stereotypes in TharnType include:

- Tharn repeatedly and casually calling Type “his bitch,” - The use of the F word, repeatedly, by Type, - Type attacking his out classmates, and indirectly attacking his friend, Tum, - The assumption that because Tharn and Tar are gay, that they are promiscuous (even Techno assumes this while leaving Type alone with Tharn early in the series), - Techno himself not calling out Type for his homophobia throughout the series, - The use of gang rape as a means of revenge by Lhong to Tar,

and many more. I will also note that I was incredibly uncomfortable by Lhong’s redemption at the end, as if the story demanded that Lhong’s own actions that drove him to order grievous sexual violence against another man needed to be forgiven. That was a paradigm that seemed apologetic to his actions and did not sit well with me.

As I noted to @bengiyo: us international fans may be lulled to think that Thailand is majority progressive and accepting of the queer community based off of the BLs that we watch. It IS a much more progressive culture in SE Asia in supporting the queer community, and I would assume that gay culture is able to flourish in city centers, as opposed to rural areas. 

But Thailand has NOT legalized same-sex marriage. And I posit that we in the West don’t actually realize that harmful stereotypes against the queer community absolutely still exist and flourish in Thailand, Taiwan, and elsewhere in Asia -- countries that certainly leverage BL as soft power, but nations in which familial or cultural expectations may STILL make ACTUAL coming out and public existence a dangerous or risky proposition. THIS SHIT IS GRAY. BL is fiction -- it is not reality. It is still dangerous -- YES, INCLUDING HERE IN THE STATES -- to be out in very many towns, cities, and communities around the world.

Now. When I went into TT, I understood, AS ASSUMED FACT, that MAME was a sexual assault survivor, who used this style of writing about queerness and queer love to process her own SA experiences. That equivocation gave me the serious jibbles, which I’ll talk about in a second, but I understood it to be the line that most BL observers have made about her work, and/or justification or explanation for her work existing.

I’ve since learned that this is not necessarily fact: that it is not known if MAME is an SA survivor, and that she is notoriously private and has not revealed much, if anything, about her own past.

So, from there, how do I process this? How do I process that it’s FANON -- NOT FACT -- that MAME may or may not write from a survivor’s perspective?

I also note here, thanks to the wonderful @so-much-yet-to-learn​, that many fans who are SA survivors have written in the past about how they related to Type’s anger and/or homophobia after his own assault experience. I also understand that SA survivors have, in the past, had difficulty with strong rejections of TharnType, like the one I have composed here, in reaction to the fear that they cannot tell their own stories of internal anger against their perpetrators and the communities from which their attackers come from.

Thus, I want to note a VERY DIFFICULT PROPOSITION TO WORK THROUGH. What we’re facing here is that there may be people, SA survivors in particular, who related to Type’s homophobia. This is Type’s fictional homophobia -- as written by a very real, assumed-to-be female author. At the same time, I myself very much acknowledge that I still see stereotypes against the queer community, in a very Asian voice that I am familiar with, in MAME’s shows.

Let me tell you why this gives me, personally, the jibbles. Let’s assume that MAME is an SA survivor. As someone trained in the social services, I am not sure that I would advise a potential client to create very public content that is potentially harmful towards a minority community, as a means of their own personal processing. MAME is FAMOUS. Her work is POPULAR. Can we justify the dangers that her work poses -- the stereotypes and assumptions she traffics in against our queer family -- for her own psychological processing?

If I am her therapist, I am guiding her to instead journey map, to meditate, to advise her of HUNDREDS of other therapeutic psychological modalities to process her pain -- all modalities that do not set up a minority community to be stereotyped through very publicly consumed content. 

I posit here -- MY OPINION, FAM -- that MAME has leveraged her own personal bigotry against the queer community in her shows for clout with Asian and international audiences that would not quibble about the harmfulness of the stereotypes that the show portrayed. And she’s gotten away with it for the utter control she has over her own content. AND SHE KNOWS THERE’S AN AUDIENCE FOR IT, so she keeps making what I call bigoted content.

I thought TT was a DANGEROUS show for perpetuating harmful stereotypes about queer family. And I am distraught at the BL industry for seeing dollar signs against that clout and investing in it. 

The equivocating in support of TharnType certainly exists. There are people who view this show with nostalgia, as there still wasn’t the volume of BL content, with heat, in 2019 as we have today. There are people out there who may very well openly relate to Type’s homophobia as a character, and MAME’s homophobia as an author and as a human. Hell, Foei Patara, who we see in everything these days, shared a very anti-LGBTQ+ video on his Instagram just recently.

I DO have to give a nod to nostalgia. I have to try to be fair here. This is the ENTIRE POINT of the OGMMTVC. BL fans in 2019 wanted a thing. High heat, high chemistry. I know that there are fans that are AWARE of these high-level issues of MAME’s work. And yet, there are many that still look back on TharnType with fondness, because it brought something new to the field. 

What I’m suffering from here is the equivocation of MAME’s work by way of analysis against a presumed opinion -- NOT fact -- that MAME is an SA survivor. That seems to open some sort of door to allow us to watch her work, despite the dangers of the stereotypes contained within her work.

The ethics of this. I’m not a strong enough person to go near that equivocation. Because I am not a survivor. I’m an Asian. In MAME’s voice, I hear the stereotypes against the queer community that I grew up with. And that’s where I’m writing this review. I’m hurt and appalled by her proliferating what I term to be dangerous viewpoints against my queer sisters and brothers -- assumptions that I heard growing up in my Indian community.

Fuck. Am I ever glad that I DIDN’T watch this show in 2019. I’m protected by a fortress of past and present works that I can rely on that proves that there are other arenas in which BL is being leveraged for good, for progressive art, for the introduction of ideas that support our queer family, AND that might also offer critical commentary on issues that affect other minority or vulnerable corners of society, à la Moonlight Chicken. 

I haven’t even gotten to the MewArt scandal and the problematic nature of the MewGulf ship. All of those are also very important issues, but I can’t bring myself to get deep about them, because just talking about the show itself is a lot. But Mew Suppasit’s past alleged behavior is certainly problematic, and is worth considering if folks were to think about watching this show.

In any case: I’m never watching another MAME show again, ever. And as a side note, MewGulf didn’t do it for me. At this point in 2019, I feel like we’d seen ships with much better chemistry and even heat, like PerthSaint (a MAME ship, actually), OhmToey, MaxTul, and even OhmSingto and their utterly brilliant acting. @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle noted in the comments of one of my TT late-night posts that they didn’t see the MewGulf chemistry, and frankly, I didn’t either -- I didn’t see that these guys, as the acted characters of Tharn and Type, bodily and ferally WANTED AND VISCERALLY LOVED each other in fiction, the way that actor pairs like EarthMix, OhmNanon, FirstKhao, and others have since perfected in their work as their respective characters.

This post is about the responsibility that so-called “artists” bear when taking up the mantle of created content about a minority community, as well as the responsibility that we bear, as fans, as the majority cishet female fanbase, to consume this content. MAME and the slices of the BL industry that support her MUST understand that perpetuating stereotypes about a minority community WILL HAVE VISCERAL SOCIAL IMPACTS in REINFORCING THOSE STEREOTYPES, among a majority cishet fanbase and across society, to the danger of the existence of our queer family. 

THIS IS WHY WE NEED MORE QUEER CONTENT BY QUEER FILMMAKERS.

That is the way in which this paradigm will be broken over time. And us in the cishet fanbase MUST STAND READY to support art -- in the words of dear friend @wen-kexing-apologist -- by queer family, for queer family, about queer family. We in the cishet majority bear a responsibility to break the paradigm of dangerous stereotypes, perpetrated by who create content through their own bigotry, either consciously or unconsciously -- or both.

[I finished TharnType in record time. I needed to get it out of my system. And now I’m fully invested in OffGun and having a DELIGHTFUL time with Theory of Love: I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS SUBVERSIVE, MINDBENDING SHOW. Ooooooooooooooooooh. Right up my alley! Hopefully I can muster my usual Monday review for ToL -- let’s see. I still feel somewhat broken by TT, but ToL and OffGun have been SUCH a salve.

Here’s the list as it stands currently. We have two changes! First, thanks to a suggestion by @wen-kexing-apologist and @lurkingshan, I’m adding a non-BL (!!!!) to the list in 3 Will Be Free. I have a number of separate Jojo Tichakorn priorities to achieve before Only Friends airs, and this is a big one; as this is a show from 2019, I want to see where GMMTV was willing to go in pushing queer content in non-BLs, and this is the perfect time to watch it. I’ll still include a review in this space! 

And, per @absolutebl Sensei’s suggestion, I’ve added YYY (2020) to this, to enjoy Cheewin unhinged in what seems to be a disaster of a show -- but an important one for real queer representation (THANK YOU, SENSEI!). I’m excited for chaos. I’m watching it out of chronology with ITSAY and planning it as a mental break. As always, I’ll take any feedback on the list as it stands!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019)  12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review)  13) Theory of Love (2019) (watching) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn including queer content in non-BLs) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (not an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but I want to watch this in chronological order with everything else) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) 17) 2gether (2020) 18) Still 2gether (2020) 19) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 20) YYY (2020, out of chronology) 21) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 23) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 24) Lovely Writer (2021) 25) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 26) Not Me (2021-2022) 27) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 29) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 30) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 31) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 32) GAP the Series (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 33) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 34) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 35) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

#turtles catches up with old gmmtv #turtles catches up with thai BLs #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #tharntype #tharn x type #type x tharn #mew suppasit #gulf kanawut #mewgulf #bigotry in asian media #discrimination in asian media #discrimination in BLs #allyship

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I’ve been reading your blog for the better part of the year and it’s helped me rethink many things. This year was weird for me and I’ve been reflecting, I finally got courage to write this confession and I only feel comfortable sending it here. It’s okay if you post it. I think there are other people like me.

My Confession:

I’m an Orbit-Blink shooter who used to fight with an Army shooter daily until she died during the earthquakes in Turkey this year. I didn’t realize how much of my life and fan experience was tied to her until she died BPP. The way I got into shooting was through my Blink friend who introduced me to Loona when they debuted. At first I thought I was defending Loona and then defending Blackpink, but at some point shooting on its own for any reason became addicting. I would jump in on a ratio, throw insults and post gore and graphic images to people’s DMs for any small reason.

There was one Army shooter I hated because she was always there with screenshots or videos to drag Blackpink. Whenever there was a fanwar I knew I would see her there. And times when she wasn’t in the fight, I would use another account pretending to be an Army to tell her what was happening so I could rile her up to join the fight. I didn’t know it at the time but I loved fighting with her. She made me feel alive. The way she was passionate about BTS made me want to get some of that passion directed at me in any form.

Now, after months of reflecting, that’s what I realized. Because when the earthquake happened, I didn’t know she was dead. I kept checking her account for days, sending DMs from my fake Army profile, wondering why she was not replying. I even created a new scandal for Taehyung in our shooter group but she didn’t tweet. Then 2 weeks later her cousin tweeted from her account to say she died in the earthquake. BPP, it was like my whole life stopped. I became extremely depressed and dealt with extreme self loathing. I couldn’t look at any fandom fight without thinking about all the things I did to her. I hated myself and wanted to die. I went through that Armys profile and saw how her love for BTS was genuine. After months of therapy now I understand more why I acted like that, but it’s something I’ll forever be ashamed about.

In the depths of my depression I deleted Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. After some weeks of missing what’s happening, I got Tumblr and found your blog talking about fandom behavior. In so many ways you’ve saved my life BPP. The way I was shooting was more for other shooters than Loona or Blackpink or even myself. I realize now there’s a whole subculture of kpop shooters and I think what they have is an addiction. I notice the same things with how solo stans behave. They think they’re doing it for the idols but it’s for them and other stans they’re fighting. It creates destruction. Life is short. Why spend it on something destructive?

I’ve changed everything about how I behave online. Through therapy and reading your blog, I realize people use fandom to express themselves, and if that expression is mostly negative, there’s deeper problems with that person that needs solving. Now I curate my space and avoid shooters and fanwars completely. I now focus on what I enjoy which is good lore and good music (I still enjoy a good fight but I now satisfy this need by getting engaged in Munk Debates in my city). Loona’s lore was the reason I was interested in them, so after weeks of stalking that dead Army’s profile, I learned that BTS has lore too. I fell down the BTS rabbit hole and officially became an Army on Jimin’s birthday (after reading your blog I’m now Yoonminkook biased hehe)

I’m a very new Army but an ‘old’ kpop fan and reformed shooter. I’ve committed to live a life that’s critical and compassionate. Because of how I’ve become Army, some things I’m seeing in how fans of diff fandoms act has a different meaning to me. I still struggle with shame and sometimes when I see fanwars or see solos trending hashtags and things, I remember me from what feels like long ago. I remember that Army shooter who feels like someone I owe my life to. I remember how so much is going on in the world and we could do with more kindness but people use fandom to be awful assholes. I was one such person, attimes I still have to bite my tongue. But what I do now is log off, go do something physical and positive that makes me tired, or scroll through your blog archives.

There might be people like me trying to get away from the shooter mindset and struggling because it’s hard. It’s like an addiction. I want those people to know it’s doable. Recognizing the problem is the hardest part for real so if they are at that point, it gets easier from there.

Thank you for having this blog BPP. I hope you stay here in 2024 as well.

***

Happy to hear you’re in a better head space than earlier this year.

Take care of yourself. Really.

#bts #kpop #kpop fandom #fandom behaviour #BTS army #BTS fandom #bts solo stans #fandom shooters

[cheshiresense]

Anon:

Fandom: Harry Potter (CLV kinda?)

Character or Ship: Hadrian from CLV, I love Hadrian/Orion but that might not work here so it's totally up to you!

AU/Trope: I'd love to see an AU where instead of the CLV dimension, Hadrian is sent to a universe still with BWL!Neville but more similar to canon. Maybe with Slytherin!Hadrian and Hadrian taking some of the other Slytherins under his wing? I just really like the idea of a world where the "good guys" win and instead of (or in addition to) Orion it's the Slytherins who need Hadrian in their corner. Doesn't have to be all of them, whoever you prefer writing is fine. I am also down for bashing if you need to work that in. Thank you!

Tags: CLV AU, Slytherin!Hadrian, Canonical Prejudices, Draco Malfoy Bashing, kind of?, tbh this is more or less how I see him in canon lol but I know he's a fan favourite so fair warning, he's not the CLV version here, at least not yet.

-0-

Author's Notes: Hello, it's been a while since I've worked on these. I think I mentioned before that my tumblr inbox got glitchy so I actually couldn't find the other 6 requests from the last batch of 10 you guys sent in for 5+ Headcanons. So I set up an airtable form instead and got someone to test it, and this was the one they sent. It works, so in the future, I'll toss out a new post with the form link for more requests, and maybe I'll get through them in a timely manner lol.

If you're not in the UraIchi server, then you might've noticed that I've sort of been MIA on the writing front for a while now, the last time I wrote and posted something was like back in May last year, and honestly I've been kind of tired and burnt out ever since, and real life is kicking my ass a bit, so when I do have spare time, all I feel like doing is reading fics or webnovels and sleeping. But the winter hols were a nice break for me, and I've started on a couple new fic ideas and added to some wips on and off over the past few months, so I'm slowly getting back into it, and this 5+ Headcanons prompt was one of the things I've been working on. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back into posting fics soon.

ANYWAY, on to the stuff you actually care about: Slytherin!Hadrian, so basically amp up the hardened war vet and dial down the friendship magic XD Way back when I first started CLV, I did consider Slytherin for his House but it felt like everybody did that, plus the politics I would have to get into gave me a headache and I felt like I couldn't do it justice anyway, so I went with Hufflepuff. Slytherin does give me more options to play with a powerful Hadrian who has less morals about flinging that around to get what he wants though since he would be viewed as a halfblood at best and he'd need that currency to make sure nobody messes with him, especially if this universe is more canon than CLV (lbr, almost everybody is at least 50% nicer in CLV lol). So okay, let's give this a spin.

(AO3 Link Here -- I’ll add this to the collection fic on my AO3 to make it a round 15 but this one will be the last for that. If I do more, I’ll start a new fic.)

-0-0-0-

1.

Hadrian ends up being a Hatstall. He sits on the stool for a full seven minutes as the Sorting Hat sifts through his bloodstained memories with a silence so grim Hadrian is tempted to comfort it. Then it proceeds to send back memories of its own, the major points of recent Hogwarts history that would best help Hadrian fit in - Neville, the Boy-Who-Lived; an image of Hadrian's counterpart and an entire family still alive; Quirrell vanquished in first year, a basilisk slain and a diary that bled itself to death in the second, Remus teaching in the third but no Pettigrew in sight; Neville at odds with Potter, Gryffindors at odds with Slytherins, and Death Eater children who hadn't managed to come out of the last war as financially and politically secure as families like the Malfoys, subtly shunned for their parents' sins, while children from the Light side, the winning side, with parents who'd openly defied Voldemort, can do almost no wrong. On the surface, everything looks bright and happy. Beneath it, malcontent and despair bubbles and brews with hardly anyone the wiser, and those who are, are glad to look away.

The Sorting Hat offers no opinions of its own after it is done, only continuing on to extol the virtues of all four Houses while making an argument for why Hadrian would be perfectly suited for each of them in equal measure, before finally leaving the decision in Hadrian's hands.

"Even I cannot be certain where you would do the most good," the Sorting Hat tells him. "Nor do I know which House would do you the most good. There are many children in this school who could use a helping hand such as yours, and likewise, you too would benefit from the same. Who am I to decide which is more important? Perhaps it is most accurate to say that no matter where you end up, who you will help, and who you will allow to help you, a new future will unfold, one made possible only by your existence. Yours is a fate that demands change, Mr. Evans, for better or for worse. But when peril looms on the distant horizon, when our society insists on blind stagnancy, and its people have long stood divided, change is exactly what this world needs. Thus, I leave the choice to you. Where do you wish to go?"

Hadrian says nothing - thinks nothing - for a long deafening minute. The mounting whispers in the Great Hall are easy enough to tune out, and within the confines of his mind, the Hat too remains patiently silent.

The truth of it is - Hadrian is tired. Even now, in this moment, in this place, one year and an entire dimension and seven years away, he still feels like he does on most days— as if he's just walked off a battlefield at the end of one of those kinds of days that can break a man even when you think there's nothing left to break, yet still hyper-alert for the next enemy, the next fight, the next death, because he doesn't know how to do anything else, how to be anything else. On all the rest, of course, it feels as if he never left the battlefield at all.

He is tired, and he honestly doesn't feel like he's capable of helping anyone, not children, not the reflections of his loved ones, and certainly not an entire world that's rapidly revealing itself to be as stuck on a one-way train to hell as his original world had been.

He doesn't want to be a hero, doesn't know how to be one even after all these years, even when other people had always so desperately wanted him to be. A hero, until he'd proven unable to meet their expectations, and then he'd been their villain, right up until they'd needed a hero to stand in front of them again, and round and round and round they'd gone.

The only thing he could never be was just Harry, just himself, and now even Harry Potter is no longer his to claim.

But maybe that's not so bad, not when Harry Potter has always been more story than reality, a patchwork fairytale portrait of a boy, a man, a weapon, a sacrifice, stitched together by every hand except his own.

Maybe Hadrian Evans could be something different.

Gryffindor feels too much like repeating history, and Hadrian would rather not be forced to stare at the majority of those long dead to him day in and day out. Hufflepuff is too prone to crowding together for his liking, persistently eager to be friends with their own members even if they're quick to turn on those who aren't, and Hadrian doesn't think he can bear the overenthusiastic socializing that would require.

 Ravenclaw might be best, a House where even the most introverted can find a home if they have a thirst for knowledge, but at the same time, for a lot of them, once they latch on to a question unanswered or an opinion that doesn't fit their worldview, they won't let go until the question is exhausted or the opinion has conformed to what they consider acceptable, and Hadrian has too many secrets and no more patience to be what others what him to be to fit in with those sorts of people anymore. Besides, he's never quite forgiven that House as a whole. Marietta Edgecombe had been Ravenclaw. Quirrell and Lockhart and Trelawney had been Ravenclaws. Every single one of Luna's bullies had been Ravenclaws. He'd worked with members of that House over the years, taught them back when the DA had been up and running, and even been friendly with some of them beyond just Luna, but generally speaking, he has no positive emotions regarding Ravenclaw. He knows that he isn't being entirely fair, because Voldemort had been from Slytherin, and Pettigrew had been from Gryffindor, and the worst of the lot who'd spearheaded the damaging gossip and baseless accusations incriminating him - first for the Heir of Slytherin debacle in second year, and then the Cup nonsense in fourth year - had all been from Hufflepuff, but still, Ravenclaw simply stands out as that one House that holds no appeal for him.

That really only leaves one place he can go though, and Hadrian finds that he minds that a lot less than he once would've. Slytherin will have its own problems, him being a halfblood at best with a very obvious muggle surname, but Slytherins also respect power, and most of them have the sense to back off if they realize they're picking a fight with an opponent they can't beat. And once that's dealt with, Hadrian will most likely be avoided and left to his own devices, with only the occasional curse to his back to worry about. From a bunch of schoolchildren, that's a negligible issue.

In his head, the Sorting Hat chuckles. "Very well then. If you're sure, better be-"

"SLYTHERIN!"

But Mr. Evans," the Sorting Hat says in the seconds before it's removed from Hadrian's head. It sounds thoroughly amused. "Do not be so quick to underestimate your own heart."

And with that last ominous statement imparted to haunt him, Hadrian stands to lacklustre applause and makes his way to his new House as his tie settles into green and silver stripes.

The briefest of glances over the stretch of the Slytherin table tells him that none of the students seated where most of the fourth-years are gathered have moved to make room for him. That's fine. Hadrian would rather not be boxed in anyway. He takes a seat at the end of the table, smiles at the suspicious first-years around him, and then waits for Dumbledore's opening speech to finish so they can start the feast.

Fifteen minutes later, one treacle tart and a glass of pumpkin juice is all he can manage. He sips at some water for the rest of dinner even as he wishes it was something a lot more alcoholic. He speaks to no one, and no one tries to speak to him, although plenty of prying eyes and sneers of disdain find their way to him throughout the meal.

It makes him feel, Hadrian thinks with some humour, almost nostalgic.

Near the end of the evening, he thinks about going over to the Gryffindor table to find Neville, Ron, and Hermione. But he's in Slytherin now, so he doesn't know how they'll react, and after another moment of contemplation, he decides against it. Not much can embarrass him anymore, but he'd still rather not be put on the spot if the Golden Trio rejects his overture of friendship. It won't help his reputation in Slytherin either if he ends up making a spectacle of himself like that. There's plenty of time tomorrow to see how they'll feel about maintaining ties with a Slytherin without too big of an audience watching, and if they're against it, then, well, it's not as if Hadrian hasn't been living as a recluse over the better part of the past year anyway. He sees no problem carrying on exactly as he has.

Fate sent him here against his explicit permission but she sure as shit can't make him dance.

-0-0-0-

2.

Hadrian ends up shuffled into a dorm room with five very familiar Slytherins - Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Blaise Zabini, and Theodore Nott. He gets the remaining bed that's presumably been empty since the others' first year, and a very pointed silence coalesces at his back as he starts unpacking his clothes into his wardrobe.

He ignores it. Instead, he absently begins a count of how long it will take for someone - he's betting Draco - to put their foot in their mouth first. He casts a glance at the floor-to-ceiling window next to his nightstand; like the Gryffindor dorms, the room is circular so everyone has a view to the outside, but here, instead of winds and open skies, it's lake water that shimmers against the glass, with the shadows of passing aquatic life flickering by. It's not bad, just different; the ambience of it is almost soothing.

Someone clears their throat behind him. Hadrian hangs up his winter cloak before moving on to his books. They each get a desk too, complete with a mini bookcase, which the Gryffindor dorms don't have. They have to do their homework on their beds or in the common room. How unfair. But at least Hadrian gets to benefit from it now.

Someone clears their throat again, louder this time. Hadrian smothers a twist of a smirk and bends over his trunk again to fish out his towels and toiletries. His more personal belongings can remain inside, although he'll have to ward everything to the nines anyway.

A displeased noise that comes out gilded with that distinctly familiar Dudley-esque whine of a child who's been spoiled since birth and has never known hardship reaches his ears, and then finally-

"Are you deaf, Evans?!" Draco demands, and oh, look at that, Hadrian wins the bet.

He straightens and turns, idly fiddling with a packet of quills as his gaze falls on the blond standing puffed up and bristling by the bed opposite Hadrian's on the other side of the dorm. He looks him over, looks at Crabbe and Goyle bracketing him with twin expressions of oafish scorn, looks at Zabini standing a ways away, watching the whole room with a smirk that doesn't reach his eyes, looks at Nott who doesn't look at anyone at all.

His attention returns to Draco, considering him for a moment longer before asking mildly, "Did you say something?"

Draco's cheeks flush pink even as he draws himself up and snaps, "You should at least have enough manners to introduce yourself!" His face narrows into a sneer, and Hadrian can almost predict his next words. "But I suppose even that might be too difficult for a mudblood to learn."

For a second, Hadrian wonders if he should tell him he's a halfblood. Then again, it doesn't really matter, and also some people consider halfbloods to be mudbloods too. And now that he thinks about it, the person he is in this world might actually be a muggleborn. But he was homeschooled so at least one of his fictional parents had to have known magic, right? Then again, they could've just been related to a witch or wizard but were muggles themselves. Who knows. Certainly not him since Fate couldn't be bothered to inform him.

"Evans, are you listening to me?!"

Hadrian blinks out of his thoughts. "Yes, I'm listening, what is it?"

Draco glares. His features are so… pointy at this age that the expression doesn't really carry the impact he's probably going for, but Hadrian figures it would be unnecessarily mean to mention it, so he doesn't. Instead, he quickly reviews everything Draco has said, and there wasn't actually a question anywhere in there, as far as Hadrian can tell, but maybe Draco really does want an introduction. Seems like a waste of breath though.

"Is there a point to introducing myself?" He asks. "Everybody heard my name at the Sorting. You even just used it so it's not like you don't know."

Draco splutters as if that wasn't what he expected Hadrian to say. He recovers after a moment and opts to glower harder instead, as if that would hide the way the pink in his cheeks is slowly turning red. Poor bastard. That's what you get when you have a pale complexion and fluster easily.

"Are you actually a mudblood then?" He demands contemptuously.

Hadrian honestly doesn't know, but he can't say that, so he volleys back, "Does Slytherin accept muggleborns?"

He knows they take halfbloods, but he can't remember any muggleborns in Slytherin, although if there are any, he doubts they would be willing to broadcast it, even if it means inventing a magical parent in their family tree.

"Of course not!" Draco refutes, sounding scandalized.

Hadrian can't tell if that's actually true, or if that's just Draco's own belief, but it does make things easier. "Then…" He shrugs. "If you already know, why are you asking?"

A beat of silence passes, then two. The red deepens in Draco's face as he hisses dramatically, "Are you mocking me?"

Hadrian suppresses a sigh. He probably is being too flippant for someone as high-strung as Draco, but it's still a far sight from mockery. He can definitely do better if he wants to taunt someone. Had his world's Draco been this easily riled up? They hadn't even really gotten into any exchange of insults yet. "I wouldn't say I'm-"

He stops.

Across the room, Draco has pulled out his wand, and when he realizes that Hadrian's broken off mid-sentence, the flush recedes from his face, and a triumphant smirk instantly takes its place instead.

"Since you've been sorted into Slytherin," Draco announces, raising his wand with a ridiculously showy flourish that makes Hadrian twitch with the desire to correct his posture. "You should know your place. Mouthing off to your betters is a good way to get cursed around here, especially when you're in the presence of someone like me." He sneers down his nose even as his chin tips up, all peacock proud. "My name is Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Even the likes of your kind should've heard of my family." He looks smug, as if a mere surname can protect him from anything when it comes down to it. "You'll be staying here for the next four years, Evans, and I guarantee you'll have a miserable time of it if you get on my bad side. But today's your first day at Hogwarts, so I can be generous. If you apologize, I'll let you go just this once."

An expectant hush falls as Draco finishes his little speech. Hadrian doesn't say anything right away, still turning over the packet of quills in his hands, still waiting. When nothing happens after a good five seconds tick by, and the silence gradually becomes strained, Hadrian finally nods at Draco's wand, "So are you going to use that or not?"

The stunned look of outrage on Draco's face is gold.

"Don't say I didn't warn you, Evans!" Draco snarls, jabbing out with his wand. "Oscausi!"

Hadrian has time to arch an eyebrow at the choice of a pseudo-silencing charm before he's flipping a quill into the fingers of his left hand. A swipe of his thumb leaves a chain of runes glittering along its shaft, and then he brings it up, catches the oncoming spell with the tip, and swats it aside with a flick of his wrist, all in one fluid motion. His right hand doesn't stay still either as his wand slides neatly into his palm, and a single wordless modified Expelliarmus darts out and attaches itself to Draco's wand.

The white light of the Mouth-Sealing Charm is sent soaring across the room, shattering against the door in a shower of harmless sparks, and in the heavy silence that follows, Hadrian smiles.

He thinks it's a very bland smile, if he does say so himself. At the very least, he's careful to not look too intimidating or too unhinged, the way he can sometimes get, if some of his dead friends were to be believed, back during the war. Nevertheless, it still makes Draco blanch white, makes Crabbe and Goyle shrink back, makes Zabini lean further back into a convenient shadow and Nott go utterly still from where he's sitting on his bed.

Hadrian glances down at the remains of his writing utensil, most of the barbs now burnt black. It was a regular quill after all, not exactly made to withstand so much magic. He looks back up, at Draco who has a white-knuckled grip on his wand, and with his own wand, he gives the other's a tug, just enough to make Draco's eyes go wide with something like panic, but not enough to actually disarm him and - considering the sheer amount of honed intent in the charm that even Draco can undoubtedly sense - most likely bend the wand's allegiance.

Hadrian holds it for a moment longer, and then lets go. Draco staggers back a step, jerking his wand down and reflexively pressing it into his chest as if he's trying to protect it, or maybe assure himself that it still belongs to him.

Hadrian tucks his wand back up his sleeve before stooping down to pick up the rest of the quills he'd dropped. The burnt one goes in the bin by his desk.

Nobody speaks. Nobody even moves. So Hadrian does.

"That took you almost five seconds," He begins almost conversationally as he opens a drawer to stash his remaining quills away. "From when you decided to fire that spell to actually firing it. And that's not even counting all the time you wasted saying the stuff before that, after you already took out your wand. It's stupid. When you draw with the intent to harm, you shouldn't give any warning at all. And the spell itself was slow. You should work on that."

He pauses, and there's still no response, which he supposes makes sense. He doubts anybody here wants to listen to him preach. He should just wrap things up since the plan is moving along so neatly.

"Anyway, this is pretty unfortunate," He switches gears and smiles again, as fit-for-public-polite as he knows how to be. It doesn't seem to make anyone feel better, but he also doesn't feel like he was that heavy-handed earlier, was he? Ah well, can't change anything now, and it's still in line with what he wants so it doesn't matter.

"I wasn't really expecting to make any friends since I know the average Slytherin's views on blood isn't exactly in my favour," He continues in light tones. "But I was hoping that we could at least remain on civil terms and get along as schoolmates, if only because we'll be living together for the rest of our time at Hogwarts. Since that doesn't seem to be possible anymore though, how about we just go with the simplest solution?"

Hadrian surveys the room and smiles some more. "You ignore me and I’ll ignore you. You attack me and I'll retaliate. An eye for an eye, so to speak. Everybody just needs to mind their own business, and there won't be any problems. That's fair enough, don't you think?"

His gaze settles once more on Draco. "Since you're the only one who's said anything so far, I'll assume you speak for everyone in this dorm. Draco Malfoy, right? So then, do we understand each other now?"

Across from him, Draco shivers imperceptibly like a rabbit caught at the wrong end of a predator's line of sight, but he also swallows and nods and gingerly puts his wand away. It looks like it costs him, but - at least for now - he seems both too shocked and too afraid to try anything else.

"Great!" Hadrian says cheerfully before cocking his head as a thought occurs to him. "Oh, right, one more thing."

He lets his smile fall away. Lets his expression smooth over into marble. And then he lets his magic flare, lets the pressure of it roll across the room like the black merciless depths of a storm-tossed ocean, lets it eclipse them all like death come to call, and then he brings it crashing down, not most of it, not even half, because he hasn't forgotten that these are children, that they're still young, and they can learn, they can be better, and Hadrian doesn't actually want to traumatize them permanently.

But he also remembers Draco - his world's Draco - telling him once, in a fit of aggravated exasperation during one of those times when they'd devolved into insulting each other's House traits yet again because they still hadn't understood what made the other tick, but they had also reached a point in their friendship where they'd started trying to, and kept trying.

"Slytherins respect power," Draco had said, not for the first time, but then he'd also added, for the first time, and haltingly as if he hadn't known why he'd had to explain it at all, "How else are you going to know they're worth your time? Or I guess worth befriending, in your Gryffindor terms."

"You don't decide whether or not to make friends based on how powerful someone is."

"Slytherins don't have friends. I only said friend because you're a Gryffindor and you don't understand anything else."

"Fine, you don't decide whether or not to associate with every single person you come across in your life based on how powerful they are either."

"Why not?"

"Why would you??"

"How else would you know they're strong enough to stand with you? Or competent enough to protect themselves? Power is a good starting line. If they're powerful enough, then they won't be afraid to face your enemies with you, and you can trust them to be capable of keeping themselves safe without having to keep an eye on them every minute of the day. Only brainless Gryffindors prefer doing things like throwing themselves in the line of fire and dying dramatically for each other and calling that a win. Let me tell you something, Potter - it's not a victory when you're forced to suffer a loss. You haven't won anything if you're not around to enjoy the aftermath. So the best allies must be ones who are powerful enough to not only achieve their goals but also survive them."

"…"

"Well, I will grudgingly admit that I didn't put quite that much thought into it when I was younger, but who did? …It's what I believe now though. Did I finally get it through your thick skull this time, Potter?"

After that particular conversation, Hadrian had understood a little better, even if he hadn't entirely agreed with it all. But he hadn't forgotten a single word, and Draco was right— as they are, these kids definitely aren't thinking that deeply, but Hadrian thinks that the core of it at least is the same. Slytherins respect power. And he has power in spades, so at the very least, he can make them respect him.

Of course, if that also happens to make them afraid of him, then, well, he was never aiming to be their friend or even ally anyway. So long as they leave him alone, it's fine.

He brings his magic to bear, allows the weight of it to fall and fall and fall, and he watches dispassionately as Draco goes grey, as Crabbe and Goyle's knees buckle, as Zabini flinches back like he wants to melt into the walls, as Nott curls into himself and may or may not have stopped breathing.

Hadrian catches Draco's eye, and doesn't let him look away. "I have no betters. Do I make myself clear?"

He'd spent half his life being beaten down by the Dursleys, told over and over that he was worth nothing, that he didn’t deserve food or clothes or kindness, that he was a waste of space and better off dead. He'd spent a good chunk of his Hogwarts career obliviously dancing to Dumbledore's tune, and then some more of it knowingly dancing to it because what else could he do with a target on his back. He'd spent over twenty years shackled to Voldemort, to his parents' legacy, to a war that had loved him a whole lot more than he'd ever loved it. And he'd been Fate's everything since before he'd ever even been born.

Some days, he wonders if he even knows what freedom is anymore. Or if he's ever known at all.

But one thing he is sure of is that he will never passively tolerate anyone controlling what he can or cannot do ever again.

Draco whimpers something like agreement, like deference, like surrender, and- that's enough. Hadrian reels it all back, all his magic hidden away again, and in the dizzying wake of its abrupt disappearance, Draco collapses, barely catching himself and his dignity with the edge of his bed. Crabbe and Goyle do crash to the ground, while Zabini has to steady himself against his nightstand, and Nott sways like he might faint.

Too much, Hadrian thinks distantly, and tries to feel bad about it because he really hadn't meant to go that far, but his lines in the sand have also long since blurred away beneath a tide of blood and corpses.

Mostly, he just feels tired, and it has nothing to do with his displays of magic tonight.

He breathes. Turns. Grabs a towel and his underwear and pyjamas and pretends everything's fine. It is fine, now. He's gotten what he wanted. "It's getting late. I'll shower first. Won't be long."

And then he's exiting stage right, straight into the bathroom, and it's a relief to close the door behind him.

Of course, that sentiment is one that's shared by probably every single person in the room.

-0-0-0-

3.

Theo is awake before anyone else the next morning. Or at least he thinks he is because he usually is. But everybody's curtains are drawn, and after last night, he doubts anyone was able to sleep right away, if at all, with the exception of their new roommate.

Hadrian Evans. Great Merlin, where had this person even come from? Even just the memory of his magic - vast and endless and utterly uncompromising - pressing down on them like the sky had fallen on their heads, makes his hands want to shake all over again. For a long, suspended, suffocating moment that could've lasted an eternity, Theo could've sworn he was going to die last night. And the most terrifying thing is that he is absolutely certain that Evans hadn't even been trying that hard.

Evans had radiated enough raw power to force all of them to their knees if he'd really wanted to. But he'd held back. He'd only given them a glimpse, just enough to warn them off. The rest of his magic had been out of reach, but present. It was there, reined in and waiting, but the shape of it and the depth of it had felt… unfathomable, as if it had no limits.

And that doesn't even account for the spellwork he had done. Theo had recognized the Disarming Charm, but last he checked, the average Expelliarmus only deprived a wizard of their wand. A more powerful one might send the target flying and even knock them out, but he's never heard of one that can… threaten to disarm your opponent at your leisure and - if Theo wasn't mistaken - force the wand to forsake its owner. Everybody knows that that's always a possibility in a real duel; if you win and take your opponent's wand, then that wand might not work for its owner anymore. But most of the time, you have to mean it, you have to set out with the intent to do it, the buildup of magic in the duel itself gives that intent a foundation, and there has to be an actual possibly life-threatening conflict of interest between the parties too, a real enmity that even last night - however excessive the exchange - shouldn't have qualified. Squabbles between students just don't count. If it did, with the Disarming Charm being taught in school, there would be a lot more students in need of new wands. The only way Theo can rationalize it happening anyway is that Evans must've been strong enough to compel the wand itself to leave its owner.

Pity he hadn't gone through with it in the end. Evans is powerful, but he's also… Theo is hesitant to call him soft, but if it had been Malfoy, if it had been Blaise or even himself or pretty much any other Slytherin, they would've done it. He's unsure of why Evans hadn't.

And then there had been the thing with the quill. Theo can't even explain that, and he'd mulled it over for half the night. He has the… incidental fortune of occupying the bed closest to Evans', so as soon as Evans had ducked into the bathroom last night, and the others had been distracted with pulling themselves together and possibly trying not to wet themselves, Theo had chanced a swift peek into Evans' wastebasket.

It really had looked just like any other regular quill, one that'd been burnt completely black and missing most of its barbs, but it had been a quill. He'd been tempted to open Evans' desk drawer to check the other quills, but - with Evans' ultimatum still ringing in his ears - he hadn't been that suicidal, so he'd refrained. But from what he could recall, the pack it had come from had looked just like the mass-produced writing utensils one could find in any stationery shop in Diagon Alley.

Whatever he'd done though, he had made it look like child's play. A quill and a Disarming Charm, so fast that Theo could've blinked and missed it. Could someone like that really have remained in obscurity all this time? Evans had apparently been homeschooled up until now, and they haven't even attended their first class yet, but by anyone's definition, after last night, he can't claim to be anything less than a prodigy.

It's… unbelievable. And not even because of any of the blood purity ideals that Malfoy likes to preach about. Theo doesn't think much of muggleborns or halfbloods, but he also doesn't think much of most purebloods, so he's fairly certain it's not high society prejudices that's driving his disbelief. It's just… He's never met anyone - not even his father, and Merlin knows Theo's been afraid of him for as long as he can remember - as effortlessly powerful as Evans had shown himself to be, and he doesn't understand how nobody has heard even a whisper of a rumour of this boy before he'd arrived at Hogwarts.

Someone like him shouldn't exist. Or perhaps there has been one, and that had been how the Dark Lord had made so many people bow at his feet or cower in their homes, but Theo had never met him in person, and so all he has is Evans' example to draw from. And not a single witch or wizard whom Theo's ever met could compare.

Has Evans just been hiding himself? Maybe his family hid him before they deemed him ready to face the rest of the world, and he's certainly proven that he can hide it when he wants to. But what kind of family can bring up this kind of wizard? Evans is only fourteen. None of them had thought him anything special before he'd revealed exactly how wrong they were. And he probably wouldn't have done even that much if Malfoy hadn't immediately taken a go at him, always so obsessed with making sure everyone knows he sits at the top of the food chain.

Well, he certainly doesn't anymore, and if Theo hadn't been caught up in the confrontation last night just like everyone else, he would've been tempted to applaud the spectacle of Malfoy being taken down a peg or ten. Before Evans' arrival, Theo was the one Malfoy liked to take jabs at every few days, and it was only partly because he'd had a halfblood mother. The Notts could've been said to be respectably rich once upon a time, but after the war had ended, with his father's political clout being almost nonexistent and most of their extended relatives either dead or in Azkaban, they'd been easy pickings for the Aurors. His father had escaped prison time with the Imperius excuse and some bribes, but that hadn't prevented multiple raids on their home and a hefty list of fines that had left their vaults near-depleted. And what little fortune they have left is reserved almost entirely for Theo's father's alchemy obsession that's more often focused on illegal research topics than not, as well as his black market dealings, although neither of those at least is widely known, or who knows if they would even have their ancestral manor left after the Aurors were done with them?

Malfoy loved reminding him of almost every one of those things as often as he could, and the most absurd thing is that - more than being born from a halfblood mother or poverty or loss of prestige - Theo's pretty sure Malfoy's biggest reason for disliking Theo is because Theo had refused to follow him around like Crabbe and Goyle back in first year.

So here they are now, and after three years, Theo had more or less become inured, not to mention it wasn't as if Malfoy only bullied him, or even bullied him the most - nobody could top that list while Potter and Weasley were around to fight for first place on it - but it had still been annoying and stressful because Theo was the only one who had to share a dorm with him. Considering the Malfoys' standing in society however, all he could ever do was stay silent and bear with it.

Admittedly, he'd been a little happy when Evans had been sorted into Slytherin, because between Theo and an unknown halfblood-at-best with no allies and no significant family background to speak of, the perfect prey in every way, Malfoy would definitely enjoy targeting the latter more, and even if the blond ponce still came after Theo, it would at least take some of the pressure off of him.

Now… well. That will still probably pick back up sooner or later, but Theo resents it less when he thinks about how it will take at least a few weeks before Malfoy will be able to strut around again after last night's humiliation. And also…

He thinks again of last night, of how Evans had basically smacked Malfoy down like he was nothing more than an unruly upstart getting above himself, and of that quiet oath too - I have no betters - and it hadn't even been pride or arrogance or superiority, only stone-cold certain fact.

He thinks of the fear he'd felt, but behind that, beneath that, more than that, there had also been nothing less than a breathless, heady, wondrous sense of reverence that had settled itself behind his ribcage, in his lungs, in the sudden hungry swell of curiosity that he'd just barely managed to lock behind his teeth, and it had only grown stronger after a night of fitful sleep.

He wants to see that magic again. He wants to know what else Evans can do.

And most importantly, he wants to know if he can do it too.

-0-

Ten minutes later, Theo hears Evans pull his bed curtains back. Very cautiously, he twitches his own curtains open half an inch to watch Evans get up, stretching languidly and scrubbing a hand through his messy black hair before gathering up his toiletries and a change of clothes. Like this, he looks completely normal, nothing at all like someone who could flatten all five of his roommates with a thoughtless flex of his magic. Even his eyes are just green now, no longer glowing like the light of a Killing Curse.

Of course, then Evans waves a hand at his window curtains, which obediently sweep open in response, and… yes, why not? Wandless magic seems par for the course for Evans, even if Theo has only ever heard of a handful of seventh-years capable of some very basic wandless spells if they concentrate hard enough.

Evans leaves for the bathroom as if casual uses of wandless magic is an everyday occurrence for him, and only after the door has closed does Theo let himself relax.

Evans had never even glanced over, but somehow, Theo thinks the other boy had known he was being watched anyway. But he'd said nothing, hadn't even given any indication that he'd noticed, let alone minded. Theo still isn't sure why he'd let Malfoy off so easily yesterday - because on hindsight, when it came down to it, all Evans had really done was scare them and scare Malfoy most of all; despite the verbal abuse and even the Dark charm Malfoy had shot at him, Evans hadn't actually hurt any of them in return - and Theo doesn't get it but maybe part of it is just because Evans doesn't take offence easily.

It seems unwise to Theo to not at least dole out some injuries as a reminder when that offence had been as insolent as Malfoy's, but perhaps Evans has his own measure of such things. Besides, Malfoy's known to say worse. Theo's looking forward to what happens if Malfoy forgets himself and says something even more loathsome. It's not impossible. Malfoy has been unchallenged since he came to Hogwarts. He's used to saying and doing whatever he wants, even to the upper years and those outside his own House. Most people ignore him when they can and indulge him when they can't, or otherwise manage or placate him with their own methods, but the one thing no one has ever done is tell him no, tell him to stop and make it stick. Potter and Weasley tend to give as good as they get, what with how short their tempers are, but they're louder and more obvious about it, so they get caught more often, which just makes them even angrier, so it never actually feels like they win, even when Malfoy doesn't either. Certainly, no amount of lectures or point loss has managed to deflate his ego.

But now there's Hadrian Evans. Theo doesn't need a second demonstration to know that Malfoy is outclassed in every way, but funnily enough, Malfoy himself might need it.

Theo eyes the bathroom door for a moment longer before finally getting up himself. He's barely set his feet on the rug before Blaise - in the bed on Theo's other side - also whips open his curtains, looking far more alert than he ever has this early in the morning.

For several seconds, they stare at each other in silence. And then - because he isn't sure if the other three boys in the room are awake yet - Theo pitches his voice even lower than usual and says, "He said Malfoy spoke for us."

Blaise blinks twice, and then something like distaste curves up at one corner of his mouth. "I heard."

Theo nods. They're on the same page then. Neither of them is particularly keen on this opinion that Evans has regrettably formed, Theo because of obvious reasons, and Blaise because he's Blaise.

Blaise has always been strange. He's the type who gets along with everyone and gets along with no one. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone - biased Gryffindors aside - who would say a bad word about him, but they'd probably have to think a while if you asked them to describe something of personal significance about him too. It's not that he's average - he's never failed a class, and he's especially good at Potions - but for all that he can carry a conversation in a way that makes everyone feel comfortable and included, and he could probably talk rings around a politician without making them feel stupid, he also never lets anyone close enough to actually get to know him. He's approachable, but only when he wants you to approach him. He's generous with his smiles, but sometimes, it feels a little like he's laughing at you. He might say something condescending or spiteful to you one day, but he has the kind of charisma that makes you forget that the very next. People might call him friend and invite him over for a chat or a game of chess, but most don't make any attempts to go beyond that. And if you know what to look for, as Theo has learned to do, you would realize - Blaise views the world like it's one big boring joke, and his estimation of most of the people in it is probably somewhere around the level of dancing clowns.

Theo doesn't mind. The two of them aren't friends either. They're also not enemies though, and occasionally, they can be allies, but only when Blaise feels like it. Sometimes, the other boy will distract Malfoy from messing up Theo's potion in class or launching yet another diatribe on all of Theo's deficiencies, but Theo will never ask him to because he has nothing to repay Blaise with.

It works for them. Blaise does what Blaise wants, and even Malfoy can't control him. Theo is secretly envious of that— with the Zabinis' seat of power in Italy, it means they don't have that much clout in Britain, and yet nobody messes with Blaise, not even the few who don't buy into Blaise's charm or simply hate him because he's a Slytherin. Not even Malfoy messes with him, and even Theo can't tell if it's Malfoy's self-preservation instincts kicking in to ensure that he isn't about to go insulting someone with a black widow mother like Blaise's, or if Malfoy genuinely hasn't noticed that Blaise doesn't respect him at all no matter how pleasant his words can be. Honestly, when it comes to Malfoy, there's a decent chance of either option being true.

With all that in mind though, it's not a surprise that Blaise isn't pleased with being slotted in as one of Malfoy's lackeys, especially by someone as impressive - or, as Blaise might put it, entertaining - as Hadrian Evans has swiftly proved himself to be.

"It's fine," Blaise says next, rolling out of bed to get ready for the day. He's already regained his typical lazy slouch, as if he hadn't been just as terrified as the rest of them last night. His eyes slide to the bathroom, then away, unreadable but more focused than Theo's ever seen them. "We live in the same dorm, and we'll attend at least most of the same classes. He'll see soon enough that we don't share the same opinions as Malfoy."

Theo watches him dig into his wardrobe. "And then?"

"Then?" Blaise tips a more familiar look of knowing amusement at him. "Then you do what you want, and I'll do what I want, and at the very least, we'll have the good sense to not throw ourselves straight onto a hippogriff's talons like dear Draco."

Theo smothers a snort and rises to his feet. Neither he nor Blaise take Care of Magical Creatures, but everybody had heard of Malfoy's idiocy last year. The phrase "my father will hear about this!" had reached a record high by winter's end. Not much had come of it, not when Hagrid had had the likes of James Potter and Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore championing him. Even Lucius Malfoy would - and had, more than once over the years - find it difficult to contend with the British wizarding world's vaunted war heroes when they join forces. In the end, Hagrid could continue teaching so long as he did it alongside a second professor hired by the school, and even the hippogriff got to live. Malfoy had not been happy, and he'd made sure everybody knew it too, but at least he'd also whined less about it once Slytherin House had learned to snigger about it where he wouldn't hear.

But 'throwing oneself onto a hippogriff's talons' had become rather popular vernacular ever since, subtle enough that even Malfoy couldn't call anyone out on using it without embarrassing himself, but funny to everyone who understood, and nobody could even say who'd started the phrase. Theo's money would be on Blaise though.

The bathroom is spelled so that nobody outside can hear anything when the door is shut, but they can hear the lock click open just fine, and almost in tandem, he and Blaise both immerse themselves in picking out their outfits for the day as if it's a task that requires every last bit of their attention.

Evans walks out. True to his word, he ignores them completely, neither greeting them nor sparing them a glance as he moves back to his section of the dorm. Theo watches him out of the corner of his eye as the boy folds his pyjamas away before proceeding to pack his bag. He catches a glimpse of an Ancient Runes textbook, and his mind abruptly flashes back to the quill. But… that can't be right.

Evans shuts his bag, pulls on his robes, and toes on his shoes. Like this, there's something vaguely familiar about him that Theo can't place right away, and the thought is gone again as Evans slings his bag over his shoulder and strides for the door.

He still doesn't look at any of them, and he's gone from the room a moment later. They might as well have been empty air.

Theo's fingers tighten around the shirt he's holding. Somehow, he-

-doesn't like it.

-0-

Malfoy gets up two minutes after Evans is gone, moving around with an exaggeratedly unaffected sort of poise that makes Theo want to roll his eyes. At least the blond doesn't try to make conversation until Crabbe and Goyle wake up as well.

Evans aside, Theo is the first out of the room, as per usual, although this time, Blaise accompanies him up to the common room and out of the Dungeon. It takes no time at all to arrive at the Great Hall, and this early, most of the four House tables are still empty of students, although more and more are gradually drifting in in groups of threes and fours.

Unlike the other Houses who like cramming into whatever space they see, Slytherins are more political about it. The end seats are left to the outcasts or first-years who don't know better yet, while the midway point of the table is typically reserved for the most influential students, such as those with the best grades or the largest range of social connections or the strongest family background, or some combination of the three. And everybody else arranges themselves between the two extremes accordingly. The only time that changes - from what Theo has heard - is when someone is so magically powerful that they can overwhelm everyone else. Then it doesn't matter what grades or connections or background they have because magic is respected most of all, although they would usually have some qualifications in those other areas. But either way, they would be given reigning place of pride in the middle with their chosen followers around them, and everybody else would sit where they're told to sit, regardless of their accomplishments.

Someone like that hasn't come along in fifty years though, not since the Dark Lord was still at Hogwarts.

So it's jarring to see Evans seated at the very end, furthest away from the High Table, with a book open in front of him and a steaming mug in one hand, but Theo supposes it shouldn't be. He's newly transferred in, and a halfblood besides, so he probably doesn't know about the traditional seating arrangement, and since it's still just the second day of school, it's not as if anybody else outside their dorm knows that Evans is anything but the unfortunate fourth-year with a muggle surname sorted into Slytherin, so he really can be considered an outcast.

Theo exchanges a look with Blaise before tentatively taking a seat at their usual spot a few feet away from the halfway point of the table. It doesn't feel right to… go over Evans' head like this, but it's not like they can really do anything about it at the moment. Theo in particular is technically sitting above his station, but his family is still one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, no matter how far it's fallen, and he gets decent grades in almost every class. He's also on friendly terms with Blaise, and the fact that he shares a dorm with Malfoy is a double-edged sword. Malfoy has the status to sit near the middle ever since he was a first-year, and it wouldn't look very good for him if he's seen completely spurning a Nott in his generation. So Theo is largely left alone so long as he looks like he's nominally part of Malfoy's group during mealtimes.

Theo spends the next five minutes sneaking sidelong glances down the table. Blaise does the same, and neither of them is obvious about it so nobody comes up to ask them any questions. Other Slytherins begin filing in, and more than one wrinkles their nose or sneers when they pass Evans, as if they've smelled something repulsive.

Theo has to make an effort not to wince every time it happens. Blaise watches with a shallow smirk hitched across his face and something cold and callous and thoroughly amused in his eyes.

By the time Malfoy - with Crabbe and Goyle on either side of him - sits down across from them, about half the table is full, plates of breakfast have started appearing, and Evans still hasn't looked up from his reading.

Malfoy - much less subtle - shoots something sulky and resentful with just a dash of fear down the table and mutters, "Doesn't even know how to sit properly."

Theo really does roll his eyes this time, although he makes sure to do it down at his scone. Before anyone can say anything else though, Evans unexpectedly straightens, his attention finally lifting from his book. Malfoy immediately stiffens as well like he thinks Evans had heard him from all the way down the table, which Theo wouldn't put past Evans's ability but also doesn't think that Evans thinks that Malfoy is worth that effort to eavesdrop on.

Evans looks around, but not at any of the Slytherins. He cranes his head over one shoulder, seems to catch sight of whatever he's looking for, and gets up, shutting his book and tossing it back in his bag. Then he's making his way across the Hall, past the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws, straight over to the Gryffindor table that's only partially filled at the moment but is also hosting the Golden Trio, who had just come down for breakfast.

 Evans stops a few feet away, and Longbottom, Weasley, and Granger turn to face him. What Theo can see of their expressions indicate that they're surprised and a little wary, but they also seem like they know each other. They converse about something, Weasley makes some exaggerated hand gestures, Granger smacks him, and then Evans says something else that makes the Gryffindors burst into laughter, startled but bright.

And then Evans moves forward and-

-sits down.

At the Gryffindor table.

Longbottom and Granger are smiling, and even Weasley - with his hatred for everything Slytherin - seems fine with it, going back to plating more food for himself while passing some sausages over to Evans.

In Theo's peripheral, Malfoy's face has lost so much colour that he could pass for a ghost. Theo can't tell if he's just that offended or if he's actually managed to comprehend the fact that he's already alienated possibly the most magically powerful student at Hogwarts from Slytherin House, to the point where that student doesn't even want to eat at the same table as them, and classes haven't even started yet.

Theo can't tell, nor does he care, but if he'd ever needed any more reasons to despise Draco Malfoy, this would be it.

He averts his gaze from Evans, even if the mere thought of him preferring a bunch of Gryffindors - and those Gryffindors at that; the only ones worse would be Potter's lot - over his own House is… grating. But staring isn't going to win Theo any favours and might just tick Evans off. Besides, there are plenty of others who have noticed a Slytherin sitting with Gryffindors, and they're staring enough for ten of him.

He starts on his breakfast. School has just begun. There's plenty more time in the future to observe Hadrian Evans.

-0-0-0-

4.

Within the space of a week, Theo is cautiously pleased to find that he shares all nine classes with Evans. The core subjects are mandatory of course, but in addition to Ancient Runes, Evans also takes Arithmancy, both of which Theo is also studying, and after three weeks, he gets a slightly more detailed picture of what Evans is capable of.

In class, Evans doesn't stand out, or at least not in a way most people would notice. He doesn't take the initiative to answer questions posed by the teachers, and his spells and potions aren't particularly dazzling when they're assigned practical classwork.

But every time a professor calls on him, Evans always answers correctly. Every time they have to practice a new spell, Evans doesn't clamour to be the first to show off, and he isn't the one who produces it with the most eye-catching burst of magic, but when he's asked to show his progress, he always does it exactly the way the teacher demonstrated it at the beginning of class. Even in Potions, all he does is work discreetly in the back corner on the Slytherin side of the room. He never finishes early, but he also never finishes late, never failing to turn in a textbook-perfect potion ten minutes before class ends, and a couple times, Theo catches Snape watching Evans with an inscrutable expression after the boy quietly hands in yet another flawless potion.

After three weeks, Theo can conclude that while Evans doesn't deliberately dumb himself down, and in fact is performing spectacularly across the board, he does it in such a reserved, inconspicuous manner that even most of the professors probably aren't going to notice until they've graded a good few months' worth of homework and tests.

He does it for every subject. Every single one, except Ancient Runes, and Theo is convinced that that's less because Evans didn't try, and more that… well, some brilliance just can't be hidden.

In the third week, when Babbling hands back their first assignment - Acceptables and Poors all around of course; some days, Theo isn't sure if he wants to strangle Babbling or himself, just to put himself out of the misery that is attempting to understand anything their Runes professor says - she holds Evans back at the end of class, and half the students snicker like they think he's in trouble or did so badly that even Babbling can't stand it, and it's the best joke they've ever seen. But two days later, some papers that Evans has left out on his desk while he's off doing something else, probably with his Gryffindor buddies, catch Theo's eye while he's on his way to his own desk. More specifically, the symbol of the Department of Magical Education stamped on them catches Theo's eye, and after some very hasty and very undignified neck-straining and squinting from a prudent five feet away, he more or less understands.

Babbling hadn't held Evans back because he was doing badly. Babbling had held him back because he was doing so good he would be sitting his Ancient Runes O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams on the twenty-third of October.

Three minutes after that revelation, Theo's still sitting somewhat dazed in his chair when Malfoy returns, Crabbe and Goyle in tow. The blond also spots the papers on Evans' desk and - after suffering day after day of, in Malfoy's increasingly belligerent opinion, being disgraced by Evans due to all the time he was spending with Gryffindors, and even three of the ones Malfoy hates most - practically lights up with a malicious sort of glee at the opportunity to get a little revenge.

He seems to have already forgotten that first night's lesson, and it hasn't even been a month yet. Sometimes, Theo is honestly baffled by Malfoy's Sorting into Slytherin. What ambition is there in a boy whose solution to everything in life is to fall back on his father and surname and family money? What cunning is there to speak of when he so often acts without even considering the option of leaving himself a way out, just in case his taunts and schemes backfire on him one day?

Or perhaps the real mystery is how he's managed to go this long without anyone telling him that the world won't always bend to his demands.

"O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams?" Malfoy says loudly as he wanders over to read the papers. He scoffs. "No matter how much magic he has, there's no way that's possible. He's just a fourth-year. And a halfblood! I bet he paid Babbling to sign him up for them. Everybody knows she's not all there so Evans wouldn't even have to pay her a lot to persuade her."

Theo flicks a glance at Blaise, who'd brought up the rear, a few seconds behind Malfoy, and had entered on near-inaudible footsteps in time to witness this latest snowballing disaster. The taller boy's lip curls, and his next words come out in such a nonchalant drawl that it takes a moment for Malfoy to register the bite of them, "Why would he do that though? He's not you."

Malfoy flushes an unflattering shade of red. "Zabini! That's not funny!"

Blaise's insults are always taken as jokes. Theo thinks that's the only way Malfoy can weather them, because he doesn't truly dare to cross Blaise, so even if he does know better, he still has to feign ignorance.

"It can't be possible," Malfoy repeats, turning back to the papers. "Otherwise, why hasn't he said anything about it? If it were me, I'd let everyone know! Obviously, he knows he'll fail, so he doesn't dare to spread it around."

Theo tries to wrap his mind around that logic, fails, and gives it up as a bad job.

"Then, why is he taking them?" Crabbe suddenly pipes up, blinking with a befuddled air in Malfoy's direction.

Malfoy rolls his eyes. "Obviously, Crabbe, it's to impress the Boy Who Lived. You've seen how Evans is constantly fawning over Longbottom." And there's the jealousy leaking into his voice even as it strengthens as if he's gaining confidence in his conjecture the longer he speaks. "He's still just a vulgar halfblood with subpar upbringing after all. He needs political connections if he wants to make anything of himself in our world. And Longbottom's a soft touch, and an idiot besides at everything that isn't digging in the dirt. Just trying to take the exams is probably enough to make him think Evans is a genius."

He takes another step forward, almost hovering over the desk now, childish spite tarnishing his features. "Let's see what the rest of Slytherin thinks of this. We are in the same House so Evans should look for support from real purebloods. I'll help him out."

Malfoy reaches out, and Theo goes still, staring, avid and unblinking.

(Greedy.)

Hadrian Evans does not disappoint him.

Malfoy's hand lands on the papers, and it's as if a miniature explosion takes place. There's no warning as the desk ignites with enough interlocked, interwoven, bloody intricate runes to send anyone reeling. It blankets the entire desk in layers of circles and lines and eye-watering spirals, before even those disappear in a blaze of brilliant silver light that pulses once before bursting outward and knocking Malfoy clean off his feet.

Malfoy screams as he's sent flying across the room in a tangle of flailing limbs and flapping robes. Coincidentally - or not? - he lands on his bed in a graceless upside-down heap, the bag he's still wearing smacks him in the face, and the momentum tumbles him straight over the far side of his bed and onto the floor with a final muffled thump that cuts Malfoy's shriek to a yelp.

The light disappears, along with the runes. The room goes eerily quiet, and for a long moment, nobody moves.

It's Blaise who reacts first.

He laughs.

It's enough to snap Malfoy out of his stupor. The blond scrambles to right himself, pushing to his feet, fury and humiliation writ large across his face as he opens his mouth to shout, "Shut up, Zabini! Wait until my father hears about this! Evans will regret-"

There's a clatter. The door opens.

Malfoy shuts up so fast Theo wouldn't be surprised if he bit his tongue.

Evans steps inside, and then stops. He looks around, looks at his desk, looks at a still dishevelled and increasingly pallid Malfoy, and then he shuts the door behind him and heaves a very deep sigh.

"Seriously?" He asks in rhetorical tones. "I just went to borrow a library book. I couldn't have been gone for more than thirty minutes."

Nobody says anything. Evans sighs again before striding over to his desk. He raises a hand and combs his fingers through the air— or perhaps something only he could see, and that's proven correct as a runic array shimmers into existence, swirling together before reshaping itself into-

-a memory.

Specifically, it's a replay of everything Malfoy had said and done as soon as he'd gotten within three feet of Evans' belongings, complete with sound and colour. It's basically a pensieve without the pensieve or the removal of memories to supply it.

Theo wants so badly that his teeth ache with the leashed desire to ask a million questions immediately.

Patience, he reminds himself.

"Hm," Evans says once the memory's run its course, and the runes wisp away once more. Theo is both surprised and not when the other boy proceeds to pull out his chair, sit down, and dig out his library book, clearly intent to continue his work.

Behind him, Malfoy seethes, and before he can think better of it, or he simply doesn't think, he barks out, "Do you think you can treat me this way, Evans? Do you know who my father is? When I tell him about this-"

"Tell him then," Evans interjects, leaning back to slant a cool look at Malfoy. "Tell him you tried to steal my things, and my wards tossed you onto your bed, and the only thing it really bruised was your ego. Or you can lie and make up something that would make you more of a victim, and big bad mudblood Hadrian Evans bullied you terribly. What's the worst that could happen? Expulsion?" He huffs a laugh, and as far as Theo can tell, the thread of mirth that laces the sound is astonishingly sincere. "Malfoy, I don't actually care. I don't need Hogwarts."

He really doesn't. Worse comes to worst, which other school would be daft enough to not scoop him up if they see what he can do with runes? And that's not even getting into everything else he can do. Any school would accept him in a heartbeat and then laugh themselves to tears if Lucius Malfoy actually managed to get him ejected from Britain's sphere of influence on some trumped up charges just because his son went crying to him. Besides, since Evans had been previously homeschooled, he could always just return to that as well.

Malfoy opens his mouth, then closes it, and he does that a couple times, eyes wide in his face like he's never met anyone who has stonewalled him this way, who has challenged his authority so directly, more than once, and yet remains utterly unintimidated and untouchable.

Evidently, he never has.

Evans regards him for a few seconds more before sighing once more. "I thought I was clear enough that first night, but apparently not. When I say 'attack', I don't just mean with a wand. All my things are off-limits unless I say otherwise, so if I were you, I would keep my hands to myself. You don't want to know what my wards will do to you if they sense intentions worse than just petty theft. I hope you won't forget again."

He holds Malfoy's faltering gaze for a moment longer before turning back to his books and papers. Malfoy stumbles back a step as if he's been physically released, and he looks like he wants to pitch a temper tantrum but also doesn't dare. In the end, he storms out of the room without even straightening his robes or smoothing back his hair, and nobody tries to stop him or go after him, not even Crabbe or Goyle, who've both retreated to their beds, shoulders hunched, almost bowed, angled almost in Evans' direction.

Evans is already poring over his library book though, quill in one hand, inkwell set out, fresh parchment beside it. It's clear he's done interacting with the lot of them.

Theo almost lets it go, as he has every other time he wants to speak to Evans, to ask him questions, to know. He's already biting his tongue and swallowing down the words and opening his bag to fish out his homework.

Except-

It's been three weeks. Theo can be patient when he has to be, but more and more, it's… starting to feel like he doesn't have to be. He's had an entire childhood's worth of practice at dissecting emotions, at looking at a person's face and words and actions and taking all of them into account to figure out how they really feel, if they're angry at him or upset with him, if they're about to lash out even when they're smiling, or if there's still time to appease them even if they look like they're about to go for their wand.

Evans is harder to read than most, but at the very least, Theo can tell that he doesn't get angry often. In fact, there's only ever been that one time, that first night, and even for most of that incident, Evans had only acted to secure his own safety in their dorm once it became clear that Malfoy wasn't going to leave him alone otherwise. None of it had been driven by rage, not even when he'd nearly drowned them in the undertow of his magic over that particular handful of words Malfoy had jeered at him. And ever since then, Evans hasn't done anything except go about his business while ignoring theirs. That went for the rest of Slytherin too, and even some students in other Houses who don't like the fact that he's a Slytherin. Sometimes, they make snide remarks, usually behind his back, sometimes within his hearing range, and to a man, every student in their House has openly shunned him since he went to sit with the Golden Trio that first breakfast, but Evans has never given them a second glance, or really even a first glance, not out of anger or embarrassment or distress, and certainly not out of any desire for them to accept him, which just seems to offend them even more. But Evans is simply… indifferent to it all.

 Most importantly, as much as Theo has been able to conclude, Evans isn't prone to violence. He always seems calm and easygoing when he's with the Golden Trio, and quiet the rest of the time. And from the very beginning, he's never done anything to harm any fellow Slytherins, not even Malfoy. Even his wards seem to have some kind of function worked into them that would rate the level of threat first and only respond with the same degree of damage.

Actually, not the same— if Malfoy had been caught taking another Slytherin's documents without permission, important or not, it wouldn't be too much even if they cursed his hands in return. They probably wouldn't, because it's Malfoy, and people are used to being more lenient with him, but normally, even Malfoy wouldn't do something that gauche anyway. No matter how much they've spoiled him, his parents have at least taught him pureblood etiquette. He's never even tried to rifle through Theo's belongings.

 Admittedly, Theo had committed a slight faux pas as well when his curiosity had prompted him to read those Ministry forms, even if they were laid out on Evans' desk - unintentionally seeing them in passing was fine but the polite thing to do would've been to keep walking - but at least he hadn't been stupid enough to get too close, let alone put a single finger on them. Malfoy really only has his own poor impulse control to blame for going too far yet again, and Theo has every right to judge him for it.

 Although since it was Evans, Malfoy had probably categorized him as someone who doesn't deserve a pureblood's courtesy.

Even then though, Evans hadn't retaliated with anything more than the ward equivalent of a watered down Knockback Jinx, which is basically a common prank amongst rowdier students. Malfoy's pride had - once again - been hurt, but nothing else, even when it would've been Evans' right. And he hadn't gotten angry this time either.

Of course, Theo isn't foolish enough to think Evans isn't capable of violence when he wants to be. If he's pushed far enough, Theo is certain that the other boy could and would inflict some significant damage that would at least end with a visit to the Hospital Wing. Perhaps it was his magic, the relentless weight of it that said it wouldn't hesitate to crush them if they proved themselves a real threat. Or perhaps it was Evans himself, who looks at Malfoy after each stunt like he's putting up with a recalcitrant child that he has to go easy on because said child is too young to know better, except the detachment in his gaze also says that he's weighing Malfoy's age on a scale and waiting for the day his youth will no longer be able to compensate for his actions.

Frankly, Theo hopes that day will come soon. But that's his pettiness talking, and Malfoy in general is none of his concern. What Theo really wants is to learn all those things for himself. Well, not all, he's more than self-aware enough to know he's nowhere near as powerful as Evans, but some of those things - the spellwork, the runes - surely those things can be taught to others even if they don't have incredible amounts of magic? Even if it's slow-going and difficult, Theo isn't afraid to work for it.

So long as he learns even just a little of what Evans knows - and he clearly knows so much, knows the things that can actually be useful in real life - then perhaps, one day, maybe even before he graduates Hogwarts… escaping his father won't be a fool's hope anymore. And if there's a chance that he can do that, then no matter how exorbitant the price Evans names, Theo would be willing to pay it, even if it takes him the rest of his life to honour the debt.

But nothing's going to happen if they're not even on speaking terms. It's been three weeks. Already three weeks. Only three weeks. Maybe it really is still too soon, but at the very least, Theo doesn't think Evans will do anything worse than say no.

 At his back, he can feel Blaise's eyes on him, but he doesn't turn around.

 "Is that-" His voice doesn't crack, thankfully, but it comes out croakier than normal, giving away his nervousness. He bites back the urge to hex himself and tries again. "Is that taught by the time we graduate?"

 Evans… doesn't react, doesn't even look up. For several tense and increasingly awkward seconds, Theo thinks maybe the other boy will just continue ignoring him, or maybe he even thinks Theo is speaking to one of the others, not him.

 But then he writes something down and flips a page of his book, and then he raises his head and shifts away from his desk to face Theo.

 It's a little daunting, to suddenly have that piercing bright green regard aimed straight at him, but there's also no hostility that Theo can see, and that settles some of his nerves.

 Evans looks at him, then frowns, then asks in return, blunt, but amazingly, willingly enough, "You mean the wards?"

 Theo nods carefully, making sure he doesn't look too eager or too demanding. Masters of their trades are always rightfully reticent about their knowledge and skills to anyone who isn't their own mentor or apprentice, unless they're a teacher. Evans may not be a master signed and sealed and authorized to practice, but nobody who can write the exams at fourteen can be considered an amateur.

 Evans shrugs. "I haven't exactly flipped through the Ancient Runes syllabus of every year so I can't really say. If it continues at the same pace as third-year and fourth-year though, then probably not. You'd maybe get to the point of basic wards, but not much more than that. Compound wards like these-" He raps his knuckles against his own desk. "-put crudely, requires the use of runic coils to weave together multiple basic arrays, on multiple levels, in varying sequential order depending on how multifaceted you want the wards to be. It's not that difficult once you start getting some practice in, but from what I hear, you guys don't even begin practical work until after your O.W.L., which… I don't really get, but maybe Hogwarts is big on theoretical learning. But yeah, at that rate, I don't see how you could be constructing something like this by graduation."

 Theo's head is spinning. He didn't understand… anything in that summary except perhaps a general idea of "basic arrays". It's rare for him to feel so stupid.

 Evans is still watching him, and he doesn't seem impatient for their exchange to be over, or irritated that it's taking place at all. He looks like he's waiting for Theo to reply, so Theo hurries on to keep the conversation afloat.

 "So you didn't learn Runes following the Hogwarts curriculum when you were homeschooled," He surmises. "Does that mean the standards here fall short of the international schools?"

 It wouldn't be the first time. Britain's educational requirements have been growing more and more lenient for years. Correspondingly, their elective options have also been reduced to four due to budget cuts and lack of interest in anything harder than petting animals and making up death predictions. Every year, more second-years choose to sign up for Care and Divination than they do Arithmancy or Runes. It's one reason why the number of incoming students has been gradually declining and consists of more muggleborns than purebloods. Foreign schools are strict about accepting any children outside of their designated countries, but those in Great Britain and Ireland who want better for their kids and can afford the higher prices tend to prefer sending them to one international school or another instead of Hogwarts.

 But Evans shakes his head. "I wouldn't know that either. I didn't really follow any official curriculum when I was learning." He pauses a beat, like he's thinking about how much to reveal, or even why he's revealing anything, but then he seems to decide it doesn't much matter. "The person who taught me was a bit… unconventional about it. He was a very good teacher, but he wasn't actually a teacher with the degree and whatever else you need to be a Ministry-approved professor, so he didn't really care about following some checklist of what a student attending a magical school was supposed to learn. Plus he was kind of a genius at runes. Ward-cracking and disassembly in particular since that's what he majored in - he was a Curse-Breaker - but he was pretty good at almost everything else too, which meant he found the basic stuff pretty boring. So when he taught me, and he realized I didn't have any trouble getting the foundations down, and I could mostly keep up even when he skipped ahead to more advanced stuff, he basically ended up just jumping between the subjects he liked most, filled in any gaps along the way, and gave me free rein to research whatever I found interesting. And whatever topic I picked was the one he lectured on, or helped me look up if it was one of the few areas he didn't know much about."

 His expression turns wry, if only for a moment. "Apparently though, according to Babbling, that means there's nothing left for Hogwarts to teach me. But I don't know how I would compare to students in other schools."

 He finishes and falls silent. It's the most he's said since that first night, and it's clear as day that whoever this Curse-Breaker tutor was, Evans respects him a great deal, great enough to ramble on about him to a roomful of near-strangers, and considering what he'd had a hand in molding Evans into, he deserves every bit of that respect too.

 Theo envies it. He is oft a creature of envy, and it hollows him out a little more every time it rears its head, but he's resigned to it. He wonders why Hogwarts can't have a teacher like Evans' instead of the whimsical mess that is Babbling, who can never get through a single class without her train of thought wandering away like an untrained dog off its leash.

 "Then," Theo continues, carefully neutral, carefully watching for any signs of displeasure on Evans' face. "Once you pass your exams, will you simply have an extra study period slot? Or will you be required to attend another elective?"

 Evans blinks at him. "The first, I think. I might see if it's possible to take an owl-distance university course or something, but spare time in my day isn't bad either."

 "Then," Theo forges on, watching as Evans's mouth twists a little, like he knows that this is what Theo has been aiming for from the beginning. Theo can't tell if he disapproves though - he doesn't think so - and it's too late to divert his course anyway. "What do you think about tutoring?"

 Evans cocks an eyebrow. He doesn't say anything for several anxiety-inducing seconds, just scrutinizing Theo with a face blank enough to rival Snape's when he bothers to stop sneering. The quill in Evans' hand taps-taps-taps against his desk before the boy swings around in his chair completely to face Theo.

 "Tutoring," He repeats. "You want me to tutor you in Ancient Runes?"

 And at least he doesn't sound derisive, nor does he put any particular emphasis on any part of that question. It does make it harder for Theo to gauge how he should respond though.

 "Yes," He confirms, because straightforward seems to be what Evans prefers. He thinks, briefly, of including Blaise, but he doesn't actually know if Blaise would like tutoring as well, and even if he does, Blaise can ask for himself. Theo isn't that charitable, and Blaise might even take offense if he tries to be.

 "I can compensate you for your time," He adds, because he's poor by pureblood standards, but not so poor that he can't afford decent education, especially with the nest egg he's been secretly building on the side since he turned eight and realized his inheritance was only going to get smaller at the rate his father was drawing from it for his… extracurriculars. His seven years at Hogwarts at least have already been paid for, robes and supplies and even some pocket money included, because even Silas Nott isn't going to let his son go into public at even more of a disadvantage than he already is. So as long as Evans doesn't ask for a huge sum of money, or even if he does, and he's willing to take part of that payment in favours, then Theo should have enough from his own funds to cover the cost.

 Evans leans back in his seat and doesn't say anything about payment. Instead, he looks almost puzzled as he asks, "Why do you need tutoring though? Even if you want to learn stuff like this," He motions at his desk. "I wouldn't be able to even start teaching you how until you got at least the basics down, and that's what Hogwarts teaches, so is there any point in getting more of the same lessons from me?"

 For a moment, even Theo can't come up with a way to say 'yes, because Babbling can't teach worth a damn, and I don't actually know how I passed last year but I definitely won't this year with the way her lectures keep getting lost somewhere between class and Atlantis every bloody week' but in more polite terms, if only because Evans might not appreciate anyone badmouthing her since she's obviously the one vouching for Evans' qualifications in order to let him take his exams so early.

 Fortunately, Blaise has no such compunctions.

 "Have you seen the way Babbling teaches?" The other boy enquires in his usual lackadaisical tone, just aggrieved enough to sound invested, but mild enough to leech the provocation out of it. It also gives Blaise a foot in through the door, drawing Evans' attention to him without making it seem as if he's interrupting.

 Theo glances behind him at where Blaise is now lounging in his own desk chair, emptying his bag of textbooks and papers even as he glances over to meet Evans' gaze, and his expression has eased into an invitation to commiserate over Babbling's questionable teaching methods. All of it is designed to look casual and cordial, to keep this fragile first exchange lighthearted, if also full of a resigned sort of exasperation, funnelled together in order to lower Evans' guard.

 And it seems to work too, like it does with everyone Blaise turns his charms on. At the very least, the way Evans' mouth quirks in response looks reflexive enough to be genuine.

 "That's fair," Evans concedes, a wry sort of humour suffusing his voice. "She's not the best at… staying on topic."

 Theo has to suppress a snort, but something of it must show on his face anyway because Evans' eyes snap back to him, and a moment later, a quicksilver grin flits across the other's face, bright in a way that lights up his whole face, and perhaps Blaise will have to try harder after all because Theo realizes that this is what genuine looks like on Evans.

 "Okay, I get why you might want a tutor," Evans acknowledges. "But isn't there anyone better for that?"

 Theo blinks at him. "Better than someone who's ready to take his exams in a month?"

 Evans' eyebrows go up briefly, and something in his eyes sharpens. "No. Better than someone who's a halfblood orphan in Slytherin, stuck in a one-sided grudge-match with a pureblood brat who has all the maturity of a toddler and isn't going to be very happy if his friend starts hanging around the guy he wants to curse into the Hospital Wing."

 Orphan? is Theo's first thought, followed by, I wish Malfoy was around to hear that. But all of it is superseded by a defiance that bursts out of him before he can curb it, "We're not friends."

 Evans waves a hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know, Slytherins don't have friends. What I mean is-"

 "No," Theo says, wincing internally at how he'd cut Evans off mid-sentence. "I mean, we aren't friends. Normally, we aren't even civil acquaintances most days."

 Evans eyes him for a long moment like he can hear all the things Theo isn't saying. Theo's pretty sure Evans doesn't know about his family's circumstances - How would he? Why would he even care to look it up? - but he seems to be able to glean at least the gist of it in a single glance because he seems to accept it easily enough, and the next thing he says is, "Alright, but that doesn't change the fact that he's still not going to be happy about it."

 "Good," Theo says, once again before he can stop himself, and with more relish than he should convey. Even if he's often thought that anything that made Malfoy unhappy was a good thing, he's certainly never expressed it out loud. He doesn't know what's come over him, only that there's something about the way Evans is watching him, patient and without judgement, that makes him… bolder than he normally would be.

 And since he's already opened his mouth, he might as well keep going.

 "So long as you're willing, I don't mind what other people might say," Theo says as firmly as he knows how to be. "I need to raise my grades for Ancient Runes before I take my OWLs next year or I'm never going to pass. I would appreciate any tutoring you can spare the time for." He hesitates, but only for a beat. "If you want, in addition to monetary compensation, I can also snub Malfoy at dinner somehow. And you would know it wouldn't just be some show we put on either. Malfoy doesn't have it in him to be humiliated in public, even as a stunt."

 It's far more outspoken and far more audacious than Theo is accustomed to being, and he can feel Blaise's eyes on him again. But he gets the impression that if he doesn't put his cards on the table - that he really does want to learn from Evans, that it's his main motivation, even if it isn't the only one - then Evans might think Theo is playing some kind of trick on him, possibly on Malfoy's orders, and that's the last thing Theo wants him to believe.

 Besides, this is also an opportunity. Theo had been resigned to living under Malfoy's temperamental rule for the duration of his Hogwarts career. It wasn't as if he wouldn't be doing more of the same as an adult, after all. Considering the difference in their social status, Theo would still have to bow his head, and jump when told to jump, and remain courteously - or at least forbearingly - deferential in front of Malfoy whenever they see each other. At least this more childish version at school is giving him plenty of practice for the future.

 But now, there is Hadrian Evans, whose existence no one had expected and no one thus far can control, who isn't afraid of Malfoy, whom Malfoy is afraid of instead, and Theo honestly can't see that changing. Of course, the real world is very different from some squabbles between teenagers, and Theo has only known Evans for less than a month. But… call it instinct. Even if one day the Malfoy family can really make it so that Evans can no longer live well in Britain, Theo gets the sense that the other boy would rather up and move to a different country than ever submit to anyone.

 People with inborn power like Evans won't bow. They don't know how to.

 And if Theo can get even a fraction of that protection that openly siding with Evans might earn him, then the choice is obvious. He's long known that he isn't powerful enough or ambitious enough or even brave enough to stand on his own. That in order to thrive, or even to simply live a satisfactory life, it would be best to choose someone's shadow to settle in. Preferably, that someone would be willing enough to leave Theo alone most of the time and wouldn't ask too much of him, but he already knows he wouldn't be able to get that from his father or Malfoy.

 Then, there's no point clinging to either of them. Before, there had been no other choices, and between his father and Malfoy, Malfoy was the better bet, though it wasn't as if the blond ponce could've gotten him out from under Silas Nott's thumb either. But at least being - loosely - affiliated with Malfoy would, in the future, offer Theo some protection from his father's obsessive tendencies. It wouldn't do for one of Malfoy's circle of acquaintances to disappear under mysterious circumstances after all.

 Now there's a new player on the field. Of course, Evans probably doesn't see himself as one, and wouldn't care even if he knew. But that doesn't change the fact that his shadow casts a long and looming line, and somehow, it feels more like a refuge than anyone else's Theo has ever come across. Evans might not be willing to protect him, if only because he would have to make himself known to do so, and if there's one thing Evans has shown over the past few weeks, it's that he much prefers staying in the background. But even if he isn't willing to protect Theo, at the very least, he can teach Theo how to protect himself. So, Theo might as well take his chances with Evans, and the first step in doing that is to make it very clear to all and sundry that he's throwing his lot in with the halfblood Slytherin transfer.

 He hadn't quite been prepared to go this far when he'd first decided to speak to Evans today, but doing things by half measures doesn't bode well for him either. Prevaricating or at least being vaguer about his intentions might leave him an extra hand to play, a way to retreat in case associating with Evans becomes too dangerous one day, but no one likes a fence-sitter.

 In Slytherin, every decision is a power play, whether it seems like it or not. An insignificant word or action might result in large consequences that aren't always obvious until the waves and ripples have settled. And Theo's never been much of a gambler, preferring safety over potential riches. But the things he can learn from Evans are too tempting to pass over. Put in plain terms, he's technically using Evans as a means to an end, which no one in Slytherin wouldn't approve of, but for a good chunk of this House, Evans' blood would definitely outweigh any usefulness he might have, especially since he hasn't publicly proven himself in any way at all. And the way he spends all his free time with Gryffindors hardly helps.

 Still, it's a risk Theo's willing to take. And now the Quaffle is in Evans' hands, and all that's left is to wait for his answer.

 Of course, if Evans says no, then Theo can only hope Blaise is feeling magnanimous today and won't go spreading this little story around. Then again, there's Crabbe and Goyle too, and they'll definitely tell Malfoy, so it will get out either way.

 Such is Slytherin, where the only shared secret you can trust to remain a secret is when all other parties are dead.

 In front of him, Evans only raises his eyebrows for a moment before amusement quirks one corner of his mouth. "Well you don't have to go that far."

 Theo can't tell if the other boy understands the implications of publicly cutting ties with Malfoy, but he's relieved to hear it anyway. He'd do it if it's a condition Evans sets, if only to alleviate any concerns Evans might have of being played, but it's not as if he wants to do it. He would happily see Malfoy humiliated any day of the week, but Theo is at heart an introverted person. Open confrontation of any kind will always make him uncomfortable.

 Evans studies him for a while longer as if weighing his sincerity. Eventually, he says, "I'm not opposed to tutoring. Actually, I'm already doing that for Hermione every Wednesday and Saturday. Adding one more doesn't make much of a difference. It's just that I don't love tutoring so much that I want to do it more than twice a week. So," He smiles, and this time, his expression is one of a sharp sort of curiosity. "If you want me to tutor you, then you'll have to be okay with Hermione. And I don't just mean tolerating her presence enough to sit at the same table as her. I mean if you say one bad word about her blood, I'll take that as an attack on me and react accordingly. Understand?"

 Theo blinks once, twice, digesting that ultimatum with something like disbelief because- "Is that all?" And then, because it couldn't possibly be that easy, he hastily tacks on, "How much would you like to be paid?"

 Evans blinks back at him, looking like he's re-evaluating Theo on the spot. Then he makes a dismissive gesture and says, "I'm not short on money. Also I don't make Hermione pay so it wouldn't be fair if I made you pay." He sits back with a finality that starts bringing an end to their conversation. "Wednesdays and Saturdays, 4-6pm in the library. I know we share all the same classes so that shouldn't be a problem for you. Showing up isn't mandatory, you can just come whenever you want, and I'll tutor you in whatever you need help with. My only condition is that you treat Hermione with basic respect. Of course," His mouth twists into a strange smile. "That goes for her too. And her friends if they happen to stop by."

 Theo has to suppress a grimace at that, but it's mostly out of reflexive distaste. Even if Weasley starts flinging insults, he's sure he's heard worse than anything a Gryffindor could come up with, and his tolerance is high, so it doesn't much matter whether Evans can prevent it or not. Actually, it's already pretty novel that he would try at all. This is by far the easiest and weirdest deal Theo has ever been offered, which only makes him that much more suspicious, but Evans also adds no other terms, so Theo is forced to conclude that this really is all Evans wants from him.

 The sheer unfairness of what each party is bringing to the table is jarring. Does Evans not understand what's happening here or is he seriously willing to offer up his time and knowledge on a silver platter at basically no cost?

 Part of Theo wants to ask again, to make sure Evans really doesn't want anything else, but since they've come to this point, even if Evans were to ask for something in the future, Theo would have no obligation to give it. It's admittedly somewhat uncomfortable, to receive so much in exchange for giving back so little when he wasn't even the one manipulating Evans towards this outcome, but at the same time, wouldn't he just be stupid if he keeps pushing the issue? Complaining about not having to spend any money or owe any favours seems rather counterproductive, and even though Theo is willing to pay for a chance like this, that doesn't mean he wants to if he doesn't have to. Of course, he supposes it isn't very honourable of him to not at least insist on some form of compensation, but that's why Theo isn't a Gryffindor.

 So then.

 "Very well, I agree to your terms," Theo says, letting himself relax a bit more when Evans' expression doesn't change. And because even a Slytherin should acknowledge genuine goodwill, he shoves past his own discomfort and manages, if a bit stiffly, "Thank you, Evans."

 Evans makes a face that's something left of embarrassed. "It's just tutoring, you don't have to be so formal. Besides, you're still the one who's going to have to put up with Malfoy pitching a fit once he finds out."

 Theo almost shrugs. That's not anything new. He might have to field some curses hurled his way once other Slytherins realize he's no longer under Malfoy's "protection" and is seen spending time with a halfblood, but it's not as if he has no way of protecting himself from most spells that a student can get away with using in public at Hogwarts. He already has a few family wards set up around his bed too, so Malfoy can't get to him while he's asleep, and the only time he spends in the Common Room is when he's crossing it to leave the Dungeon or return to his dorm, so his Housemates aren't likely to be able to corner him there either. So long as he's careful, he'll be fine.

 Blaise's voice cuts into his thoughts, speaking this time with the lightest touch of concern seeping out from behind a thin veil of indifference that would've fooled even Theo if Theo didn't know the way Blaise can change his approach like he's changing clothes depending on his assessment of the person he's talking to. "You sure you don't need to ask Granger first before letting a Slytherin join your tutoring sessions? She might not be too happy to have Theo there. And her friends definitely won't."

 Evans' attention shifts again, and as with Theo, his gaze is neither friendly nor hostile, but it's different all the same in a way Theo can't quite name. "Is that my problem?"

 The room is quiet for a beat.

 Evans smiles, careless, casual. "I'm the one doing the teaching. Who I teach should be up to me, shouldn't it?"

 Blaise stares, unblinking, hands finally gone still. "Aren't those Gryffindors your friends though?"

 "Sure," Evans agrees. "Still doesn't mean they get to tell me what to do just because they're biased against Slytherins." He shakes his head. "I doubt it'll be much of a problem though. Like you said, they're my friends, and aren't I a Slytherin too?"

 Nobody says what Theo is certain they're all thinking— that in many ways, Evans isn't anything like your average Slytherin.

 (And in others, Evans is the very epitome of one, but the Golden Trio probably doesn't know that, do they?)

 "Are you saying other Slytherins are welcome in your tutoring sessions then?" Blaise says next, and it's the most straightforward Theo has ever seen him, skipping at least three prevarications and five backhanded compliments that Theo could've sworn Blaise would normally include just because he doesn't know any other way to speak. Apparently not.

 Except Evans' response is to huff a breath that sounds like laughter, except not in any way they've heard before, not as amicable, and Theo sees Blaise's smile grow a little fixed.

 If they were in the business of distributing vices, then excessive hubris would undoubtedly go to Malfoy, but only because Blaise doesn't have the same reckless self-defeating habit of flaunting what he has everywhere and retaliating like a rabid lapdog the moment he feels slighted, the latter of which is helped along by the fact that he doesn't hold many people in high enough esteem for them to offend him. After all, you wouldn't get mad if a ghost or a goblin or even a house-elf - as unlikely as that is - is rude to you, would you? At most, you'd punish the latter and move along with your day. And for those who do register enough as people in Blaise's eyes, well, Blaise far prefers retaliating when the other party least expects it.

 It's the same now, in the way Blaise blinks twice rapidly but doesn't otherwise react. Of course, since this is Evans, he won't be able to retaliate later either, not with any kind of success, so it's doubly impressive that the other boy manages to keep his pride nailed down and tucked away.

 "You know," Evans says lazily, mirth or perhaps mockery gleaming in his eyes. "You could just ask. Take a leaf out of Theo's book; it wastes less time."

 Because even Blaise's straightforwardness needs to take a stroll or two around the block first, and apparently, Evans had caught onto that possibly since the first time Blaise had opened his mouth since this conversation began.

 Blaise's lips thin, but after a moment of no doubt weighing the pros and cons, he shrugs gracefully like it doesn't sting and asks, "Then, may I join your tutoring sessions, Evans? I would also appreciate some assistance with my Ancient Runes studies. Of course, I will abide by the terms you've set as well."

 Theo listens and wonders just how much self-control those three sentences took. Before today, he hadn't even known Blaise was capable of it, and the fact that he is, for this, actually says a lot more about his regard for Evans than Theo had realized even just a minute ago.

 At least Evans doesn't make it harder for Blaise than that.

 "Sure," The other boy acquiesces with the air of a predator sitting back on its haunches. "On your own head though."

 At this, a trace of a smirk - his real one, beatific in its cruelty, instead of his regular fit-for-public one - cuts across Blaise's face for the span of a heartbeat. "No problem."

 Evans levels another long look at him before shaking his head with another twist of a smile. "Okay then. We're all good now?" He looks from Blaise to Theo and even spares half a glance in Crabbe and Goyle's direction before nodding, satisfied. "Fantastic. Back to work for me."

 He spins back around to face his desk, reaching for his quill, and the rest of the day passes as usual, without another word traded between them, even when they all get up for dinner. Malfoy comes back shortly before that, stalking over to his section of the dorm with the mulish single-minded intensity of someone unwilling to even acknowledge Evans' existence, although that probably won't last once he finds out what Theo and Blaise have agreed to.

 Later, in private, Theo remarks to Blaise, "I didn't expect you to care so much about your Ancient Runes grades."

 Blaise slants an indecipherable look at him even as a shallow smile stretches the width of his mouth. "Who wouldn't care about their grades when someone's offering to help raise them for free?"

 It's a rhetorical question and answers approximately nothing, but Theo wasn't expecting anything of substance anyway.

 Besides, when it comes down to it, he supposes it's not so surprising that Blaise can also see which way the wind is blowing, hard enough to tell anyone with decent enough instincts that a major shift in power is imminent.

 And no one likes a fence-sitter.

 -0-0-0-

 5.

 Hadrian would like it to be known that he isn't quite sure how he's gotten to this point in his life.

 Well, that's a lie, he sort of knows, or at least he can pinpoint all the decisions that got him from Point A to Point B, but he supposes he just wasn't expecting a couple Slytherins whom he'd always assumed - even back in his original world - were just Malfoy's lackeys in school, to commit, and commit hard. They hadn't even participated in the war on either side, as far as he was aware— Nott had died relatively early on under mysterious circumstances, and Zabini had by all accounts returned to his home country. To Hadrian, they'd been little more than faces in the background that he'd never even exchanged five words with in total before coming to this world.

 But within the first week after they've asked to join his tutoring sessions, Nott and Zabini - Slytherin/Pureblood Rule Number Who-Knows-What: you can't use someone else's first name until you're invited to - make it really fucking obvious who they're… supporting? Have sided with? Because Slytherin is a nest of brewing factions and shifting alliances and political doublespeak and even a couple blood feuds, and this is precisely why Hadrian doesn't want anything to do with this House.

 Except apparently, agreeing to tutor Nott and Zabini means he's… joined the power struggle? Formed his own faction? Decided to vie for in-House supremacy and possible world domination? Who knows because Hadrian sure doesn't, and he's determined not to know, because surely if he just continues doing his own thing, it'll become clear sooner or later to all and sundry that he has no interest in fighting a bunch of schoolchildren over whatever they think he wants to fight for.

 It's just that he can't quite do that either, because not even three weeks after Nott and Zabini start joining him in the library every Wednesday and Saturday with a wary but accepting Hermione, something that translates to them moving their seats to sit with him in class and - when they can make it look natural, if still deliberate - walking with him in the hallways, the displeasure and animosity in Slytherin House reaches breaking point.

 It's not as if Hadrian hasn't already been the target of multiple hexes and curses from his own Housemates. He's a halfblood who hangs out with Gryffindors— it's to be expected. But so far, the spells have always been in the realm of reasonable, ones that might make him trip down the stairs or rip his bag or screw up his potion, and he's been able to block or avoid them all, so he'd figured it wasn't that big a deal. He'd put the fear of a Horntail in Malfoy early on because he has to live with the berk, and he doesn't much feel like returning after a long day of classes just to have to butt heads with him every single time. But he basically has no intersections with the rest of the House, so he just hasn't bothered paying attention to any of them.

 Then, perhaps rather suddenly, Nott and Zabini are there, not so much orbiting him as they do hover from afar. But they join his tutoring sessions, and they're serious about learning from him, listening earnestly and asking questions and even checking out the books he recommends they read if they have time. There are holes in even the most simple of their fundamental knowledge of Runes - Babbling, read a how-to book on teaching for Merlin's sake - so Hadrian has to more or less start from the ground up, as he had with Hermione, but both of them quickly prove themselves more than intelligent enough to keep up, and they're startling enthusiastic - by Slytherin standards - about everything he teaches them. Nott is more obvious - more ravenous - about it, but even Zabini - who likes to pretend he's only there for the novelty of it or something and therefore tends to play up a laidback sort of indifference - never fails to complete the optional exercises Hadrian writes up for them once a week.

 And outside of the tutoring sessions, it's like they've decided that being tutored by him means that he's now their new Malfoy or something. Not that Malfoy was their Malfoy before, if Hadrian had understood Nott correctly, but they'd at least acted like they were part of Malfoy's groupies. Now they've done a one-eighty, and it's not as if they follow him around all the time the way Crabbe and Goyle do with Malfoy, honestly if you don't count classroom and dorm room, they're not even around him half the time, especially Zabini, but when they are around, when they move their cauldrons next to his in Potions class despite working separately, when they go down to breakfast with him despite splitting off at the entrance, when they trail behind him back to the Slytherin Dungeon after a tutoring session, they're so damn conspicuous about it that they might as well be waving neon-bright signs above their heads.

 In contrast, they don't even sit next Malfoy during mealtimes anymore, much to the blond's increasing red-faced ire that vaguely resembles a Silenced teakettle on the brink of boiling over. But now they sit at the end of the Slytherin table, which Hadrian has gradually gathered that that's not a good thing, but he doesn't know how to fix it either, and neither Nott nor Zabini seems to mind.

 They also talk to him now, not often, not just in private, and not just about Runes, although that does still take up the majority of their conversation topics, if only because they don't know each other that well yet. But in their dorm or in class or in the library or in the halls, sometimes, Nott would say something completely normal, like whether or not he owns an owl or if he's noticed Snape's increasingly intent attention on him or if he's found the secret passageway connecting the Dungeons to the sixth floor yet because climbing six flights of moving stairs isn't what anyone would call a good time. Zabini on the other hand prefers sharing obscure gossip that even most of Slytherin isn't aware of, sordid little secrets like whose parent has a mistress (or three) on the side that will very likely cause an inheritance problem down the road, who killed a cousin over the summer due to jealousy but has done a decent enough job of covering it up as an accident because said cousin had been the heir apparent, and even who had to go to Pomfrey for an Abortion Charm just last week but will likely have to break her betrothal contract - and consequently have her magic bound, as per the terms of said contract - in the future anyway because there's no hiding the loss of her virginity from the olde family magicks no matter how frantically she searches for a way.

 To the former, Hadrian responds the way he would if Neville or Ron or Hermione were to ask him similar questions. To the latter, he says, "You have serious issues, Zabini."

 Nott never smiles, but his body language is a little less closed off and his eyes look a little less hunted with every random conversation they have. Zabini is almost always smiling, and in response to Hadrian's incredulity, he only laughs like it's the grandest joke he's ever heard.

 They grow on him, is the thing. One's probably abused at home, and the other is honestly half a psychopath already, and Hadrian shouldn't care but he's always had a bit of a soft spot for broken people, people who don't quite fit in no matter how well they fake it, people who remind him of himself. And the war he'd survived had only served to destroy what little compunctions he'd ever had about getting too close to dangerous things.

 So they grow on him, day by day, and half a month in, the other Slytherins apparently can't handle it anymore.

 Hadrian's just coming back from dinner. Nott and Zabini are with him, having joined him once he'd bid Neville, Ron, and Hermione goodnight. They're halfway across the common room when Hadrian catches movement in his peripheral, and he has half a second to decide what to do, to abort the reflex to go for his wand, to cancel the shield ward sparking at his fingertips, to pivot around on the spot and abruptly swing himself right into Nott's personal space, which means Nott immediately puts on the brakes, and - behind him - Zabini has to do the same.

 Hadrian senses more than feels the curse that grazes the back of his robes and splashes against the far wall between a pair of suspiciously empty armchairs in an area that's normally a popular hangout spot. There's no sound, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way it oozes a sickly viscous purple that puddles to the ground and eats straight through the carpet before finally evaporating into nothing.

 He doesn't turn his head, doesn't challenge anyone into a duel the way his hands are itching to do. Instead, even before the spell disappears, he's already asking, "Did you copy down the Potions assignment from today? I just remembered I forgot."

 In front of him, Nott's turned three shades whiter, and he's already pale-skinned to begin with, so he obviously recognizes the spell. Zabini clearly does as well if the way he's gone gargoyle-still is anything to go by.

 If they'd continued walking, that curse would've hit Nott right in the ribcage. His left ribcage.

 A beat of silence passes. Then Nott takes a breath and answers in a voice that doesn't waver but is even more inflectionless than usual. "Yes, I wrote it down. I can show you."

 "Cool, thanks, let's go."

 Nobody else speaks, nobody even moves, as Hadrian leads the way back to their dorm.

 Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle aren't back yet so they have the room to themselves. As soon as the door is shut, Nott almost slumps onto his bed, hands shaking. Zabini pulls out his chair to sit, a smile hooked at one corner of his mouth, but absolutely nothing about the rest of him says amusement.

 (Slytherins don't have friends, and Zabini doesn't seem to know how to have friends, but Nott's probably the closest to one that his disposition will ever allow.)

 Hadrian looks from Nott to Zabini and back, and then he asks, "Who was that boy? The one surrounded by that group by the fireplace."

 The one who'd fired the spell. Don't think just because a bunch of students were arranged in front of him that Hadrian had missed the way his arm had moved, the jab of a wand, the blossom of light at its tip before the curse had flown across the room. Did they think he was blind?

 Nott blinks up at him, features still pinched. It's Zabini who answers, soft as silk, "Malcolm Avery, seventh-year."

 Hadrian takes a moment to digest that, to press that face into his memory before filing it away for later. He focuses on his roommates again instead and presses on, "Has this sort of thing happened before?"

 Because even if they're spending time with him, Nott's an old pureblood name, isn't it? And Zabini is Zabini, and everybody's heard of his mother. Even if they're shunned a bit, jeered at a bit, even hexed a bit, any serious assaults should only be aimed at Hadrian, right?

 Well, apparently not. That curse earlier had been a much Darker cousin of the Bone-Vanishing Spell, a variation on the more public-friendly Bone-Breaking Curse. If Hadrian hadn't seen it coming, if he hadn't stopped Nott in time, that thing would've not only shattered the left half of Nott's ribcage but also stabbed the resulting fragments directly into the nearest organs before dissolving into the bloodstream as a lethal poison— in this case, it would've been the heart and a lung. Nott would've been dead in under a minute, drowning in his own blood in extreme pain, and it's a tossup if even Hadrian would've been able to save him.

 Zabini - unsurprisingly - shakes his head. For all that he doesn't have an old bloodline to rooted in Britain, he still has enough family clout to grant him a strong backing. And that's not counting his own means of protecting himself. Hadrian had actually gotten the feeling very early on, from the moment they'd had their first conversation, and he'd only been proven right as they'd gotten to know each other a little better— Zabini has all the best traits of a quintessential Slytherin. And thereby also all of the worst. Magic-wise, Hadrian can overpower him in a second, but that's why Zabini knows not to make an enemy of him, knows how to bend and stretch and profit while he's at it. He doesn't need anyone to protect him.

 Nott on the other hand doesn't reply right away, and when he does, it's an evasive, "Spells like that would be an instant expulsion from Hogwarts, especially coming from a Slytherin, and from a seventh-year, they'd go straight to Azkaban. There are portraits all over the school. I'm not stupid enough to wander into places where there aren't any."

 Hadrian aims a flat look at him. "That's not what I asked."

 Nott purses his lips and stares at his lap. Hadrian waits him out.

 "…They've tried cornering me," Nott finally admits, grudgingly, almost resentfully. "There's no avoiding a couple areas with no portraits. But they never used a curse this Dark before, and I've always been able to slip away."

 Hadrian swallows the first three things he wants to say, to shout, because at his core, he likes to think he has a long fuse, but when someone crosses his line in the sand, his temper has always been explosive and violent, which won't help here.

 Besides, hadn't he more or less told these two to handle the consequences of letting him tutor them on their own? Even if they weren't Slytherins and actually had the mind to reach out for help, they probably wouldn't have come to him after what he'd said, so he has no one to blame but himself and the fact that he'd underestimated just how deep some Slytherins' senseless hatred runs.

 So he breathes through his first instinct, his second, his third, and then he pushes off the desk he'd been leaning on in favour of pulling out parchment and ink and the appropriate books.

 "Alright, come here," He beckons, spreading everything out on his desk. "I'm gonna teach you a Fourfold Rebounder Ward so you can wear it on you from now on. The variation I'm thinking of has a chameleon element, so it'll be both strong enough to deflect a curse on the level of the one from earlier and also camouflage it when it's bounced back at whoever attacked you. It's based off of intent too, so it won't act up in a scuffle or a practice duel or something, the other person has to really want to harm you with deadly intent, so keep your guard up for other stuff, and honestly, this should just be for emergencies, you should still try to dodge it because it's not good to grow overly dependent on stuff like this. I'm confident the runes won't fail when I'm the one making it but your reflexes will get rusty if you get lazy. It's a bit- okay, a lot more difficult than anything you're learning right now, but I'll do most of the work, you just watch and provide the magic at the end, and once your foundation is a bit more stable and we can move ahead to more interesting things, I'll come back to this first so you'll be able to learn how to do this yourselves one day."

 A long silence follows. Hadrian looks up. Neither of his roommates has moved. "What's wrong?"

 Another few seconds tick by. It's Zabini who gets up first, an odd smile on his face, one that Hadrian's never seen before. But all he says is, "Nothing's wrong. I was just hoping if we waited a bit, Malfoy will get back in time to see what we're doing and finally keel over from high blood pressure."

 Hadrian snorts with laughter. "Get over here. If that really happened, we'd be the ones who'd have to waste time carrying him up to the Hospital Wing."

 Zabini's expression says that that wouldn't be his problem but he only smirks and saunters over to Hadrian's desk with his chair. When they both turn to look, Nott is already on his feet as well. He doesn't say anything, but he looks steadier, and he's watching Hadrian with a strange gleam in his eyes that makes them look almost feverish.

 They settle down around him, eager - by Slytherin standards - to learn in a way that reminds Hadrian exactly why he likes to teach.

 He gets to work, explaining each step even though he knows most of it is going over their heads. That's fine though; for now, these wards just need to protect them properly, and in the future, he'll teach them how to protect themselves.

 -0-

 Of course, things aren't over just like that, because Hadrian's temper is an explosive and violent beast, and the only things that's changed from when he was still a teenager is the fact that he's gotten a lot sneakier about it as an adult.

 They aren't friends. But Nott and Zabini are his roommates and his students and kids that he's starting to genuinely care about, and nobody gets to walk away scot-free after fucking with the people under Hadrian's care so long as he's still alive to do something about it.

 Malcolm Avery is seventeen anyway. That's an adult by any magical community's measure, which means Hadrian doesn't have to hold back.

 It takes a week. A week of slipping out after curfew and eavesdropping on conversations, of finding out what the seventh-year's next practical Potions class will be working on and scanning all of Avery's belongings to see what Dark spells he's been mucking about with, and finally of filching Avery's cauldron for an afternoon while he's in class and replacing it before he returns to his dorm.

 When it happens, Hadrian isn't even in school. Even if he were, it wouldn't matter because he'd made sure to time everything just right, and all the fourth-years - and most of the rest of the student body too - are already in the Great Hall waiting for lunch to be served. Seventh-year Potions is in the morning block, and Avery always goes overtime when there's a practical.

 Hadrian isn't even in school, sitting his Ancient Runes exams at the Ministry all day instead, but he certainly hears all about it when he gets back that evening.

 A few minutes before noon, a silver doe Patronus comes bounding up from the dungeons with an urgent summons for Pomfrey, Dumbledore, and McGonagall. Nobody hears what is said, but the three staff members rush off even as the food begins to appear, and nobody hears from them again until half an hour later when whispers start going around about Healers from St. Mungo's being called and one Malcolm Avery being carried out the front doors on a stretcher because his condition is too unstable to be transported through the Floo. The professors don't really tell them anything except that there was a Potions accident, but - as these things do because the rumour mill at Hogwarts is healthier than ever, and there'd still been a few other seventh-years in class with Avery at the time - everyone more or less knows what happened anyway by the time afternoon classes start. Potions is cancelled for the rest of the day, because no one else was injured but Snape was too busy furiously documenting what had happened after running multiple diagnostic spells over the remains of Avery's cauldron to teach. Also, he has to submit said documentation and a Pensieve memory to the Aurors investigating the accident, which doesn't exactly say great things about his mood, so nobody's unhappy about being able to give Potions a miss.

 Apparently, Avery had been using his cauldron to make other potions - banned potions - in his dorm room. His roommates had been willing enough to keep mum and even give him a hand, and the book he'd been learning from had been found in his trunk. Thankfully, he hadn't managed to make anything too terrible yet, and his failed attempts hadn't managed to kill anyone, but he also hadn't cleaned his cauldron properly, and so there'd been a mess of residue potion and Dark magic clinging to the metal. Coincidentally, it had ended up reacting quite badly to the potion that the seventh-years were to work on that day, and the end result was a magnificent explosion that Snape had barely managed to protect himself and the other students from in the nick of time. There'd been no helping Avery who'd been standing right next to the unholy concoction.

 In the aftermath, the explosion had caused bad enough burns to disfigure Avery, but time and Healers would fix most if not all of that. Far more serious had been the potion damage to his body— the liquid had seeped right through his skin and disintegrated the majority of his left ribcage, and then it had gone on to chew even further, straight into his heart and left lung, an insidious venom that had dissolved into his bloodstream and sent him into convulsions that had wrung scream after agonized scream out of him until Pomfrey had deemed it safe enough to knock him out, although even then, his body wouldn't stop seizing from the pain.

 He'd still been alive when he'd been rushed out of the castle. Word has it that he's still alive now in St. Mungo's, except the Healers have no idea how to even begin treating him. Mixing multiple failed attempts at Dark potions, most of which even Avery's own roommates couldn't list all the names of or in which order he'd made them, together with one N.E.W.T.-level potion but in an explosion that had caused the maximum amount of entropy in the magic imbued into it— Merlin himself wouldn't be able to fix it with just a wave of his wand.

 By dinnertime, everybody is talking about it, and the professors have given up trying to stop them.

 (In truth, the outcome probably wouldn't have been quite so serious if Hadrian hadn't added a spell to amplify the toxicity and volatility of the residue in the cauldron, as well as several looping single-use runes to hide the volcanic buildup and also bind the whole thing to Avery alone so that it wouldn't have hurt anyone else even if Snape hadn't reacted in time. Without Hadrian's interference, it would've still exploded sooner or later, but Snape might've seen the danger signs in time to evacuate everyone from the classroom, and even if he didn't, the effects of the potion on Avery probably wouldn't have been so terrible.

 But then, that wouldn't have been enough. After all, lessons like these should stick.

 Avery will live, but he sure won't enjoy it.)

 It's almost ten by the time Hadrian gets back to the Slytherin Dungeon. Snape drops him off at the entrance before sweeping off to his own office in a dramatic billow of irritably flapping robes. He'd been at the Ministry for half the day just to piece together what had happened for them, but as Hadrian had ensured, the Potions master had been cleared of any negligence in the matter. The potion had very obviously shown no signs of exploding - three other experts had verified - and students are expected to take care of their own cauldrons from third-year onwards without the professor having to do weekly checks. Snape had been released by dinnertime, but he'd apparently decided to simply eat in the Ministry cafeteria and return with his student and Babbling, so here they are.

 Except-

 Just before Snape makes to leave, he turns and pins Hadrian with a long appraising look, clinical and penetrating. Hadrian stares back serenely, and maybe the fact that his mind is a steel trap wrapped around a battlefield would be highly suspect to anyone looking in, but he also doesn't feel so much as a brush of Legilimency from Snape whatsoever. The professor really is just looking at him.

 It's a strange new world.

 In the end, Snape doesn't say anything before walking off, and Hadrian is left to blink after him before letting himself into the common room.

 Everything goes eerily silent the moment everyone realizes he's back. Even if he hadn't said anything, someone - let's be real, it's Malfoy - had spread the news of Hadrian taking his Ancient Runes exams early, so pretty much everyone had known where he'd gone today. It was never a secret though so Hadrian hadn't cared, except when he steps into the room, it's very obvious that everybody is focused on him, and just as obvious that nobody is willing to make eye-contact with him.

 The younger students should've already retired for the night. At least everybody still in the common room, studying or playing chess or chatting with each other like any standard evening, are fifth-years and up, so most of these students had probably known - or had been told after the fact - exactly what that curse would've done to Theo Nott that day, and exactly who had been the one to attack him.

 And everybody knows what had happened to Avery today. More specifically, they know that what had happened to him today had been an almost perfect mirror of what he'd wanted to do to Nott one week ago. Nobody here believes in coincidences, and there's only so many people who would've had the motivation to orchestrate the entire accident down to the smallest detail.

 Most of them have known Nott and Zabini for at least a few years. Perhaps they're not on speaking terms, but they'd still been Housemates for a while. Something like this isn't really Nott's style, and while it is Zabini's, neither of them has the ability.

 The only real unknown is Hadrian Evans, and if they still can't put the pieces together at this point, they might as well sell their brains.

 The area by the fireplace, normally always occupied by Avery's group at this time, is empty today. Avery's at St. Mungo's, his roommates are in overnight lockup at the Ministry, and any who aren't but were part of Avery's faction are probably hiding up in their rooms. Nobody else has taken their seats, not even the students who usually do when Avery hasn't claimed it for the day.

 Hadrian walks towards the doorway leading to the boys' dormitory, and no one stops him. It feels like the entire room is holding their breaths. Nobody speaks. Nobody even moves until Hadrian is out of earshot.

 The dorm is likewise very quiet when Hadrian enters. Malfoy's bed curtains are already drawn, as are Crabbe's and Goyle's, but Zabini's are open, and he's lazing against the headboard with a book in his hands while Nott is still at his desk doing homework.

 They both look up as soon as the door swings open. Zabini stays on his bed but Nott even stands up as Hadrian shuts the door behind him. His whole frame is tense with a restless sort of energy, and he's staring at Hadrian with shining eyes. They both are, although in different ways. Zabini looks equal parts ecstatic and hungry, while Nott just looks the kind of deeply confused and deeply grateful that makes Hadrian want to set fire to someone, preferably whoever stitched this very expression into Nott's range of emotions out of the pieces they'd torn from him.

 Nobody says anything right away. Hadrian squints at them as he makes his way to his own bed, feeling vaguely perturbed, because he hadn't truly expected them to not connect what happened to Avery back to him, but he hadn't thought they would be so fixated on it either. Maybe a roundabout tactful thank-you from Nott, an offer of a favour at most. But not… this, whatever this is.

 He laments the fact that these two aren't more stupid when it comes to this sort of thing. Ron would be oblivious. Hermione would be determinedly oblivious. Neville… would actually react a bit like Nott, Ginny would react a lot like Zabini, Luna wouldn't react at all but she'd be extra cuddly for a few days, and gods, Hadrian needs saner friends.

 Not that these two are friends of course.

 He manages to get through a shower, brush his teeth, and climb into a bed before Nott is suddenly at his side, eyes still shining with something Hadrian really doesn't want to put a name to. Thankfully, he doesn't burst into any heartfelt speeches that would probably embarrass everyone within hearing range. Not so thankfully, he honest-to-fucking-Merlin bows, all archaic and meaningful in every way Hadrian has never learned and so doesn't understand, but even he can sense the weight and deference behind every word as Nott murmurs, "All of mine is yours, until the end of days. I would be honoured if you would call me Theo."

 "Jesus fucking Christ," Hadrian mutters, because sometimes wizarding swears just don't have enough oomph to encompass the never-ending circus trainwreck that is his life. He scrubs a hand over his face, peeks at Nott - at Theo - who's still halfway bent over, and of course, it's just his luck that he has no idea how to respond in the proper pureblood way.

 He would've preferred the heartfelt speech.

 "I'm a halfblood, I don't know how to respond appropriately," He says bluntly because he doesn't know what else to do. But he also flicks a Silencing Ward at Malfoy's bed, then at Crabbe's and Goyle's as well because you can never be too careful, and then he leans over and hauls Theo upright and catches his gaze and holds it, "I'll call you Theo if you call me Hadrian. One day, you'll be strong enough to take care of your enemies on your own, and you won't need anyone else to do it for you if you don't want them to, but until then, if all of you is mine, then your enemies are too, so I'll deal with them if it turns out that they still haven't learned after today. That makes us allies from now on though, which means we're equals, and that means you never, ever bow to anyone again. Not me, and not anybody else either. Understand?"

 Theo stares again, wide-eyed and lost and so terribly young, and sometimes, Hadrian wonders what it says about just how messed up the world is when broken kids can be bought so easily.

 Finally, almost dazedly, Theo gives some semblance of a nod.

 "Hadrian," He says, and something about him straightens, grows steel, settles.

 "Hadrian," He repeats and dips his head, not a bow, but respectful all the same, and his eyes are still bright with that unnamed creature, but at least he looks at Hadrian head-on. "Thank you. Goodnight."

 Hadrian sighs and figures that this is about the best he's going to get tonight. Maybe it'll dial back to normal in a few days. "Goodnight, Theo."

 Theo smiles, tiny, crooked, a little awkward. It's the first one Hadrian has ever seen from him, and that at least he can't be upset about.

 They can finally go to sleep though. Theo returns to his own bed, Zabini is still watching them both from his bed like they're his new favourite show, and Hadrian resolutely pretends he doesn't see anything else as he takes down the Silencing Wards before drawing his curtains, rolling over, and promptly making a sincere attempt at smothering himself with a pillow.

 His life.

-0-0-0-

End Notes: Ok wow so this got hella long and I didn't really get to all the stuff anon wanted whoops. Theo just… wouldn't stop thinking lmao, and also this AU has the potential to get so big so I ended up cramming in worldbuilding wherever I could. So unfortunately all you get is sort of a starting snapshot of where this is going and how Hadrian is going to turn out and a shitload of Theo's character. I kind of wanted to do him and Blaise's POV but I could only fit Theo, and I feel like getting Blaise through Theo's POV actually added to his character just as much as a personal POV would've. Anyway, those two are basically blank slates in canon so ofc I would pick them to write lolol.

#headcanon meme: answered #HP series #c'est la vie #hadrian evans #theo nott #blaise zabini #draco malfoy #headcanon #slytherin hadrian au

[nonsensicalramblings79]

Dead Seagull: Do Not Eat – Albatrosses, Seagulls, and Guilt in Our Flag Means Death

(for future reference: written 10/6/2023, ~36-48 hours after the first 3 episodes of S2 were released)

Hi, all! I, like many of you scrolling the #ofmd meta tag, have a head filled with nothing but the Gay Pirates. This has been the case since 12am PST on 10/5/2023 and will remain the case for several months to come. On my 3rd watch-through of the first 3 episodes of season 2 of OFMD, I started paying closer attention to potential symbolism so that I could maybe predict how the rest of the series is going to play out and get a better idea of what’s going on in these little guys’ brains. This post is the introduction to a short series of long posts wherein I rant about symbolism that may or may not be in the show. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I haven’t written anything even close to a literary analysis since high school, and I generally don’t know wtf I’m talking about. I’m just having a lot of very normal thoughts about The Pirate Show and I need to put them somewhere; if anyone has more ideas relating to this please add to it!! And to the best of my knowledge, the thoughts I express here are my own – please let me know if there are other analyses that say similar things that I should link to.

TWs: animal death, blood, eating animals, starvation, emotional abuse, physical abuse, gunshot injuries, suicidal ideation, canon-typical mental health problems

MAJOR OFMD SPOILERS THROUGH S2E03!!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What originally prompted this whole rabbit-hole exploration was the conversation that Ed has with Frenchie at the end of s2e01.

…

You know there's a bird that never touches ground?

It's born in the air. Never once lands. Spends its entire existence in the sky. …

As Frenchie astutely notes, this seems…kind of impossible. How could a bird be born in the air? I could see potentially never landing, but surely every bird has to come down at some point to lay eggs (or to hatch from them), right? So I did a quick Google search for birds that spend their whole lives in the air, and the first result that came up was the common swift, which apparently spends up to 10 months out of the year in the air, never once landing (or only landing very occasionally) during that time. They catch food in the air, sleep while drifting on air currents, mate in the sky, and only land to nest and lay their eggs.

So that seemed…promising? I guess? But not exactly what Ed was talking about. After all, these birds aren’t “born in the air,” and they certainly don’t spend their entire life without landing. And this still could be what Ed was talking about; it matches fairly closely, and it’s possible that whatever Ed heard was either mis-told, misheard, or intentionally exaggerated. But I think there’s a more elegant answer to what bird Ed is referencing here, and it has much more potential for analysis than the common swift: the albatross.

This is the second thing that I found while searching, and this piqued my interest much more than the last result, since - as many of you probably know, spending time reading tumblr metas – the albatross is an extremely pervasive metaphor in literature. It usually represents a psychological burden that one has taken on, most often as a result of having made a mistake that resulted in others getting hurt. I’ll go into more detail about the source of this symbol in a little bit, but the basic gist is that a dead albatross gets hung around one’s neck until whatever guilt they have is resolved – albatrosses are huge birds, so this represents an enormous weight.

Before I go on, I’ll add that, at first glance, the albatross actually seems to fit Ed’s description less well than the common swift does – albatrosses are known for being able to glide for a long, long time, but they do land…on the water. One of the first things that comes up when you search for “birds that never land” is that albatrosses spend years and years never landing on shore. There’s a similar problem here to the common swift in that no bird actually hatches from an egg while in the air like Ed is implying here. But I would argue that the albatross is indeed what Ed is talking about. Whether he misheard, someone misspoke, or a tale got distorted from it being verbally passed down, Ed is referencing the image of an albatross that spends its entire life above (or on) the sea, never once going to land.

And this fits. In the context of the conversation that Ed is having with Frenchie, Ed is lamenting the fact that he can only exist in one place, fulfilling one role – on the sea, performing the role of Blackbeard. He imagines the life of this fictional albatross as quite lonely, I think, never once leaving the place it has spent its entire life (again, this isn’t exactly how the birds behave, but I believe Ed views them this way based on how he’s interpreted whatever he heard about albatrosses). He’s resigning himself to never leaving his habitat, and quite literally never going back to shore.

“…We’re gonna sail…rob…raise hell forever…and ever…without end.”

Right. So, if I am to be believed, we’ve established that Ed is actually diegetically referencing albatrosses. So what?

Well, as another disclaimer, I’m not 100% sold on these ideas myself. Especially only having the first 3 episodes of S2 to go off of, there’s plenty of time for these ideas to be proven wrong in as few as – checks watch – 6 days. There are lots of different, potentially overlapping, potentially conflicting ways to interpret this information. I’m probably going to split this up into parts, for ease of access and reading. Because all this so far has just been the introduction :))

In one part, I’m going to talk about what is probably the most intentional reference: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the original poem that the albatross metaphor is pulled from. Beyond just the link to the “Impossible Birds” conversation, there are some other elements in OFMD that seem like pretty clear references to this poem. Based on references to this poem in popular culture, I suspect that parallels here would be non-diegetic – meant to be apparent to the audience, not to the in-universe characters. Link Here!

Next, I’m going to talk about another poem, simply titled “The Albatross” (French: L’albatros). This particular poem is maybe less likely to have inspired references in OFMD, but if there is an intentional link, this poem reflects a lot of how Ed sees himself and his life thus far. I’ll admit that I’m a bit biased toward this poem since I had to memorize it in French class in high school and it’s stuck with me – but it was also one of the first things on Wikipedia that was linked on the page of the metaphor of the Albatross. Parallels in this poem are what I would suspect to be diegetic – despite it being an anachronism, I think Ed has at some point read this poem, and he relates to the albatross/poet. [Link Here!]

Lastly, there are some loose ends that I’d like to pick up that may not tie into anything, but I feel like they’re worth mentioning, especially as they relate to the albatross metaphors and parallels. This section is going to talk more generally about birds and bird imagery in OFMD, and how these instances can support or refute my albatross theories. [Link will go here: haven't written yet :)]

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd meta #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2 meta #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd season 2 #ofmd season 2 meta #ofmd blackbeard #stede bonnet #albatross #the rime of the ancient mariner #literary analysis #media analysis #frenchie ofmd #izzy hands #lucius spriggs

[castleficpromoter]

CastleFicPromoter’s Castle Ficathon 2024

Greetings!

This “contest” isn’t a competition against others, merely a fun way for the Castle fandom and its talented fanfiction writers to generation some awesome stories over the summer season.

Participating stories should be posted on Fanfiction.net (or Archive of Our Own). Stories posted on FFnet will be included in the “favorites” list on the CFPromoter FFnet account. Links will also be tweeted through CFPromoter’s twitter account and blogged/reblogged on tumblr.

Word Count Goals:

Mini-Ficathon – 25,000 words

Ficathon – 50,000 words

Maxi-Ficathon – 75,000 words

Ultra-Ficathon – 100,000 words

Submissions will be accepted starting Monday, May 6, 2024 and ending at midnight on Friday, September 6, 2024. You can start writing at any time, but only fanfics posted within the timeframe will be accepted as part of the Summer Ficathon challenge.

Anyone can join, experienced and new fanfiction writers alike. Everyone is welcomed. The main point is to have fun!

Stories are to be posted on your own FFnet account, but should have “Castle Ficathon 2024” somewhere in the summary, so that readers know the story is a participant. Stories posted on AO3 are also acceptable this year and, just as with stories posted on FFnet, should have “Castle Ficathon 2024” somewhere in the summary. (sidenote: If you are posting your ficathon story only on AO3, let me know, otherwise I might miss it - Thanks!)

If you post a link to the story on Twitter, feel free to tag @CFPromoter in your tweet, so I’m aware your story is posted. I’ll be using the hashtag “CastleFicathon2024” and “CF2024” on Twitter (and tumblr) when I do tweet promotions.

Every participant will receive an individualized digital badge of participation at the end of the challenge. Participants will receive an additional badge for the word count level achieved at the end of Ficathon. Those who break 75k will also receive a personalized wallpaper based off the Castle Ficathon 2024 key art.

Need help coming up with ideas? Feel free to check out the prompt list on our tumblr page, or the many prompts to be found on the Castle Fanfic Prompts tumblr.

Don’t stress if you have trouble with updating regularly, the main point is to have fun, so… no pressure.

Questions? Concerns? Contact me!

Message me on tumblr, PM us on FFN, or tweet me.

Have fun everyone, and happy writing!

- Travis (aka @lordofkavaka​)

#castle #castle fanfiction #castle ficathon #CFPromoter #castleficpromoter #castleficathon2024 #fanfiction challenege #summer ficathon #CF2024 #PSA