#WHICH RAISES A LOT OF FUCKING QUESTIONS. NONE OF WHICH WILL EVER BE ANSWERED.

[butchdykekondraki]

i dont CAREEEE that gabriel isnt really important to the tmc lore anymore. hy is TO ME

#[ren] #MOTHERFUCKER REALLY IMPLIED THAT NOT ONLY WAS THE BIBLE REAL BUT ALSO HE TRICKED GOD? AND ALSO JESUS?????? #WHICH. FUCKING IMPLIES ALTERNATE CHRIST? I THINK??????? #WHICH RAISES A LOT OF FUCKING QUESTIONS. NONE OF WHICH WILL EVER BE ANSWERED. #SCREAMS SO LOUD #anyways. im normal about Implications

[axelsagewrites]

Truth or Dare

Pairing: ivar x reader

Word count: 1101

Warnings: ivar being insecure, drinking, brief mentions of sex, kissing

Masterlist Here

Growing up with the Ragnarssons got you in a lot of well questionable situations but tonight was also one of them. Except at least no one wanted to kill anyone. Yet. The night is young after all. “I dare you to,” Ubbe began, drunkenly waving his cup at Sigurd, “to down that whole horn of mead in one,” he said as Sigurd rolled his eyes while Hvitserk, Ivar, and you cheered him on.

“Fine, fine,” he eventually gave in with a smile, drinking the alcohol he’d been avoiding all night in 10 seconds flat. “Now,” he said, eyes wandering the circle. You were all sat a few feet from the bustling hall where they were celebrating their return from the latest raid, but this was far more your style. Even as Sigurd pointed his finger at you, you smiled, “Truth or dare?”

“Hmm,” you wondered which would get you in worse bother considering the four drunk men you considered your closest friends. “Truth,” your response was met with groans and even Ivar leaned over to whisper ‘coward’ in your ear.

“True or false,” he started, his eyes dancing in a way that made you nervous, “You and Leif,” he said, eyebrows raised making Ubbe and Hvitserk ooo at you, but Ivar stayed silent.

You rolled your eyes at Sigurd, “That wasn’t a question,”

“Please you know what I’m going to ask,”

“Whatever do you mean dear Sigurd?” you smiled, batting your lashes at him.

“You’ve fucked?” Hvitserk jumped in and the boys’ cackles almost covered up the low growl from Ivar but none of them seemed to notice.

You shot him a quick look before answering, “No,” you said and Ivar’s shoulders finally untensed.

“But you’ve kissed?” Ubbe said, making things worse instantly.

You rolled your eyes once more before taking a drink out of your flask, “No you only get one question. Now Ivar truth or dare?”

As you turned to face the blue-eyed boy you did your best not to stare too obviously at his face. You weren’t sure why or when your crush started on Ivar, but it was getting harder to ignore the older you both got. However, after a few beats of silence he finally spoke, “I do not wish to play anymore, I am tired. goodnight,”

All four of you watched after him as he dragged himself away however he wasn’t heading home. “What’s wrong with him?” Sigurd asked as Ivar disappeared into the forest tree line.

“I’m gonna go- “a staggering Ubbe said as he tried to stand but you quickly pushed him back down and stood.

“I’ll go,” you said, not even turning back to chastise their whoops and Woo’s.

It didn’t take long to find Ivar with his eyes closed and back against a tree. As you walked you tried to be quiet, but you heard a twig snap and Ivar sigh. You grimaced as you moved to sit down next to him though he still would not open his eyes. “What is the matter Ivar?”

“It’s nothing,”

“Please Ivar,” you said, sighing before deciding to try make him laugh, “You’re never this calm when your upset,” you joked but he only sighed once more.

Finally, though he opened his eyes, but he looked straight forward. He took a deep breath, his tongue darting out to wet his lips before he spoke, “You never answered the question,”

“What question?”

“Ubbe’s question,” he said, his voice straining as you noticed him gripping his hand into a fist.

You paused for a moment before you realised, letting out a sigh of relief, “No Ivar. I haven’t kissed him. Is that what upset you?” he said nothing again, closing his eyes once more. “Ivar please what is wrong? Why does it bother you who I kiss?”

“It doesn't- I mean I- “he sighed, his breathing becoming heavier, “I just didn’t want to be the last one to have ever kissed someone. That’s it. okay?” he said, finally turning to look at you with a glare behind his eyes. Most would flinch under his gaze, but your face softened when you saw the hurt behind his eyes, “And I didn’t want to wait around for someone, even you, to ask me a stupid question like that,”

“Ivar- I wouldn’t have asked you that,” you said as his eyes fell to the floor, “I didn’t know you hadn’t kissed anyone either,”

“You- “Ivar paused, lifting his head, “You’re lying,”

“Am not!” you protested, “Why would I lie?”

“To make me look less stupid?”

You laughed at that, shoving his shoulder, “Where would the fun in that be? If anything, I’m more surprised you haven’t kissed someone,”

Ivar rolled his eyes, “Yeah right. Who would want to kiss me?” he said as he turned his gaze to you. his eyes knocked the wind out your lungs and for a moment you considered not saying anything.

“I would,” you finally said, your voice soft.

His eyes perked up at your words though, no longer able to take it back, “You would?” he asked, and you nodded gently. Another few moments of silence passed before he cleared his throat, “Perhaps it would be better for us to be each other’s first kiss. So, we can um learn what to do,” he said as his eyes fell once more to the floor.

“Perhaps,” you said, shuffling closer, “Ivar?” you said, your head instinctively leaning closer to his so that when he looked up his nose brushed yours, “Would you like to kiss me?” you asked, his breathing fanning your lips.

Ivar swallowed hard, his eyes darting to your lips, “Yes,” he eventually breathed out, “I would like that very much,”

He stayed frozen but slowly your lips dipped in till they brushed against his. Fuck it. you closed the gap, your eyes falling shut as you felt his lips against yours. the kiss was soft and gentle and lasted only a brief second before you pulled away, but you were still nose to nose.

“Ivar?” you tried to ask but his lips moved too quickly, capturing yours again but you were quick to catch up. Your hands moved to cover his, bringing them over to rest on your waist before yours moved to his shoulders which you could finally feel how muscular they’d become.

You kissed till you couldn’t breathe anymore and when you pulled away his lips tried to follow as you both gasped for air. “I think,” Ivar began to pant, “I like kissing you,”

“Good,” you grinned, your hand moving to cup his face, “Then lets never stop,”

#ivar the boneless #ivar the boneless x reader #ivar the boneless imagine #ivar x reader #ivar #ivar imagine #ivar ragnarsson #ivar ragnarsson smut #ivar ragnarsson imagine #ivar ragnarsson x reader #vikings tv #vikings tv imagine #vikings tv x reader #vikings imagine #vikings x reader #vikings #ivar fluff #ivar the boneless fluff #ivar ragnarsson fluff

[cosmichorrorsarestillnicerthanme]

Parenthood-Maki, Mai, Nobara, and Miwa X Male Himbo Reader Pt.2

@exolocke : Hey I saw ur Jujutsu Kaisen women with Himbo reader, and I was curious if that could get a part two for when the relationship is more developed and more life long topics are brought up in it, stuff like the topic of kids, or other things that come up in a long term relationship, I didn’t see ur stance on NSFW topics so I totally understand if that’s not something included if it’s out of ur comfort zone.

Anyway thanks for taking time to read this and have a nice day 😊

(thank you for the request! I’m perfectly fine with NSFW though I will admit I’m not all that good at it. Originally this was going to be mostly NSFW but then the writing goblin in my head kind of just… took the request idea and ran with it in a different direction.)

But enough of that, YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND!

Warnings: Light Angst, Suggestive Content, Mentions Of Violence

Words: 1,693

Maki

You and Maki have been together for years.

There were of course highs and lows as with any relationship.

But the both of you moved past them with a bit of hard headed determination and a lot of the two of you being the two of you.

And this of course led to the inevitable that everyone could see from a mile away except you two.

Marriage, the merging of the last of the Zenin clan and your own family.

It was something that neither of you ever expected to happen while everyone else had money on how long it would take before one of you popped the question.

Of course Gojo won that bet, even from beyond the grave, but he’s not important right now.

So now the two of you are married.

And the both of you were being very, very, very stiff around one another.

It was worse than when the both of you started dating.

All because the both of you had a question they wanted to ask the other.

A question that sat between the both of you like a loaded gun.

A question that you were the first to ask.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“Maki…” You began to say before trailing off while the both of you lazed about on a slaw day while the rain was beating against the building.

“Yeah?” Maki tentatively asked, already knowing the question about to be asked and still not knowing how she would answer it.

“What’s your thoughts on having kids?”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Maki’s world screeched to a halt as she turned the question over and over in her head.

“What did she think about having kids?”

It was never something she thought about.

Never something she ever considered to be possible.

And yet now that she had been asked the question she had to decide if she wanted to have one.

It was something she could answer easily.

Yes, she’d love to have kids with you, and raise them with you.

But there was more to it than that.

There was…

No, they weren’t here anymore, she was free of that place.

And if there was one thing she’s learned from you it's this.

Don’t just think, feel too.

So Maki did exactly that and answered your question in the only way she knew how.

With her whole being.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Inumaki was concerned about Maki.

Sure she could probably slap a curse and kill it but still… She was a friend.

A friend who hasn’t come to training in quite a while.

Which for anyone else would be perfectly fine.

But Maki wasn’t other people, she was Maki.

Training was what she did for fun.

And Inumaki wanted to know why she wasn’t coming to training and why she was always sleeping or eating weird foods.

Well, weirder foods than usual that is.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Inumaki slipped behind the corner as you and Maki talked.

“-you okay?” You asked the muscular woman.

“Yeah, just tired, and nauseous, why the fuck does growing a kid make you feel like you’ve just gotten off a damn roller coaster?” Maki asked with a groan while leaning on the wall.

Meanwhile, Inumaki was having his world flipped on its head at the sudden information he had been given.

Maki Zenin, the strongest woman he knows bar none, is pregnant with your kid.

And he just figured this out because he stuck his nose where it shouldn’t have been.

He needs to run, and fast.

Really, really, REALLY fucking fast.

So that's exactly what he did as soon as the two of you weren’t paying attention. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Inumaki’s current train of thought could be most accurately described as “Oh god, Oh fuck, Oh god, Oh fuck.”

And it was for good reason considering what he just learned.

He prayed to god Maki wouldn’t kill him if he accidentally let it slip.

Oh who was he kidding, she absolutely would.

Inumaki burst into the faculty room where his friends minus Maki sat.

“Whoa! What's wrong with you, Toge!?” the large ball of fluff known as Panda asked.

And without thinking, the white haired man exclaimed “SALMON ROE!”

He then slapped both his prosthetic and his real hand over his mouth as dread overtook him.

Meanwhile everyone in the room looked like Inumaki had just pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed it.

Mai

Mai Zenin sat on the couch, devouring her fifth bag of chips from a bowl that was placed on her swollen belly.

“You're a hungry little shit ain’t ya?” Mai affectionately asked the small human growing inside of her.

Mai was not expecting a response when she asked this but she got one in the form of the baby kicking.

For the very first time.

“…Oh.” Was all Mai was able to say as a flood of emotions overwhelmed her.

Mai was someone who never let out what she was feeling.

It was something she learned from when she was young.

A tool for survival.

But now she had no need to use it.

Her life was filled with friends, with family, true family.

She had a life filled with love, with everything she could want plus more.

She even had you, one of the most powerful living sorcerers as the one who loved her.

And now, even more was about to be added to this dreamlike life of hers.

A child, one she wouldn’t let go of even if she was dead.

A human that would receive as much love as Mai could offer.

A human that would receive as much love as you could offer as well.

A human that wouldn’t have to fear what she did, not only because the Zenin were gone, but because Mai would simply never allow that to happen.

That is the promise she made to the child growing inside of her in that exact moment.

That is the promise she made to her child, the one that she would raise and support, no matter what.

Nobara

Nobara held her daughter in her arms, looking into her sleeping face with her one good eye.

It was a surreal experience.

“Ya know you were a lotta trouble to bring out here right? How the heck are you so dang peaceful now?” Nobara whispered the question before turning her face to look at you a few feet away from her, sleeping in a chair, your arms crossed, but more than ready to turn any cursed spirit that tried to show its ugly mug into ground beef.

“Prolly cause of your dad, he always had a good poker face, though it was probably a good thing Yuji got to that Mahito guy before he did, If what I’ve heard bout’ that warpath he was on after I got taken out of commission and his domain expansion is to be believed he would’ve turned the entire area into one of those crazy things that M.C. Esher guy made.” Nobara muttered to herself before looking back at her child.

Her Child.

Nobara turned the phrase over and over in her head.

Didn’t quite make sense to her yet.

This small, tiny little thing in her arms came from you and her.

This little girl was the very manifestation of the love you and Nobara shared.

A physical manifestation of everything you and Nobara went through to reach this point.

It was something she needed to wrap her head around, though her heart was more than already there.

She could already tell that this little girl was going to be the greatest part of her life with you.

And she couldn’t wait to get that life truly started.

Miwa

You, Miwa, and a small, little boy dressed for school walked side by side on the street.

“I’m gonna make so many friends!” the small boy exclaimed, pumping his fist into the air, copying his fathers excitable nature.

“Oh I know you will, ain’t that right Kasumi?” You asked your wife and the love of your life.

Miwa turned her eyes down to her son and then raised her eyes to yours.

Eyes that were filled with sadness.

“Of course, our little boy will be the most popular boy in school.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

You and Miwa waved goodbye as the two of you walked away from the school.

“Heh, pretty sure that teacher thought we were Yakuza.” You said with a chuckle.

“If you started to wear your clothes right she might not get that impression.” Miwa said with a slightly teasing tone that held a sadness within.

“Sigh What’s up with you Kasumi? You’ve been acting weird since this morning.” You asked your wife in concern.

“It’s no-” Miwa began before being cut off by you saying “Don’t say “It’s nothing of concern” Kasumi, I can tell when something is wrong with you.”

Miwa was silent for a moment before trying to say something, but stumbling all over her words “It’s… I… schools and… and curses…”

“Don’t worry Kasumi, curses aren’t going to go after him, not with the both of us around.” You told your wife in an attempt to soothe her.

“B-but what if-” Miwa began before you wrapped your arm around her, pulling her close to you and saying.

“We can’t worry about what if’s, we won’t be able to protect him from everything, it's impossible to do that, but we can do everything we can while we are here for him to lean on. As long as we love him and as long as we do our utmost to protect him from everything we can while steering him right, that’s the best we can do. I know you want to keep him away from the things that took our friends but we can’t, all we can do is what we can do. I’m just as afraid as you are but being afraid won’t do anything, doing what we can will.”

“I-i know, you're right as usual, but can we just go over that place, one more time tonight?” Miwa asked, wanting to do everything she can to protect the little boy you and her made together.

“Of course, I was just about to suggest the same.”

#jjk x you #jjk x reader #jjk #jujutsu kaisen x reader #miwa kasumi x reader #mai zenin x reader #maki zenin x reader #nobara kugisaki x reader #nobara kugisaki #mai zenin #maki zenin #miwa kasumi

[chloe-skywalker]

Purpose - Billy Hargrove

Billy x Fem!reader

Warnings: none I don’t think

Word count: 545

Summary: Prompt: Cuddling, playing with Billy's clothes subconsciously

Authors Note: I really like this idea, it's something I know I have done myself. With my friends for my anxiety and just cause. I also thought it was really cute.

Masterlist

Stranger Things Masterlist

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“You okay?” Billy asked as they sat in class. He had noticed that the last couple of months Y/n whenever she got quite or even if they were near eachother. Y/n was always touching him, cuddling into him or even playing with his clothes. Billy had a theory that she might not know she’s doing it or why.

“Hmm? Yeah why?” Y/n hummed looking to him with questioning eyes.

Billy shok his head before leaning over a tiny bit to kiss her on the forehead. “Nothing.”

Billy believed he had his answer now, but he didn’t acre he was just happy having her close.

A few weeks later they were sitting on the hood of Billy’s car in the school parking lot. Carol and Tommy were there and Carol felt the need to put someone down. Y/n just happened to be the target of the day.

Carol tilted her head with an evil smirk on her lips, and eyed Y/n up and down before speaking. “A little clingy there Y/n.”

Y/n shifted feeling uncomfortable now in her own skin. Which irritated  Billy immensely.

“Fuck off Carol.” Billy spat out which slightly scared Carol but she covered it with a scoff and changed her focus. Billy gripped Y/n’s hand tighter in his and turned his head a bit to look at her. “You're fine, y/n/n. I promise.”

Y/n smiled up at him through her lashes, leaning her head on his shoulder gratefully. “Thanks.”

“No need to thank me.” Billy told her, shrugging his shoulders but not to much he didn’t want to disturb her.

^     ^     ^

“Am I clingy?” Y/n asked sitting on Billy’s bed. Neil and Susan had gone out and taken Max with them. So since the house was empty Billy felt okay enough to have her over. That she’d be safe since his father was gone.

Ever since Carol’s comment the other day she hadn’t been able to stop thinking bout how much she did touch Billy.

“What?” Billy turned his head to look at her lightening quick.

“What Carol said-” Y/n started as she looked down playing with her fingers nervously.

“Carols a fucking bitch that couldn’t tell a cow from a rat. Don’t listen to her.” Billy growled going back to his task.

“Okay.” Y/n mumbled out softly, which caused Billy to look back at her. Studying her for a second before appoarching her.

“Hey,listen to me.” Billy stated cupping her face in his hands, lifting her head enough to look him in the yes. “Your not clingy. Okay? Your not.”

“But I’m constantly touching you-”

“So!” Billy exclaimed raising his shoulder up before dropping them. Billy didn’t want to change their dynamic for the world. He felt special when she touched him like he had a bigger purpose than he thought in the world. “Y/n/n, I love that your constantly touching me, or playing with my clothes or- anything. I enjoy it. It makes me feel like I have a purpose. I’m your comfort.”

And that he was, even if Y/n didn’t want to admit it out loud Billy was like a security blanket to her. And Billy wouldn’t have it any other way.

~

Tag list:

@gruffle1 @padawancat97

#imagines #imagine #x reader #y/n #stranger things #stranger things imagine #stranger things imagines #billy hargrove #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove imagines #billy hargrove x reader #stranger things billy hargrove #billy hargrove x y/n #netflix #stranger #things #stranger things netflix #netflix stranger things #stranger things 2 #stranger things 3 #stranger things 4

[6lostgirl6]

Hey, can you do a fem!Reader x Poly Lost Boys where the way that they meet reader, is she is beating tf out of a guy (probably surf nazi) for not taking no as an answer. Like she has a lot of anger issues and if just laying into this guy. The boys see this and immediately are in love, especially our little ball of rage and chaos Marko. Wherever it goes after that is up to you though. Thank you!!!

Spitfire Pt. 1

Poly!Lost Boys x Fem!Reader

TW: Cursing, (Briefly) Sexual Assault Towards Reader, Fighting

Arriving in Santa Carla as its newest resident for the summer was supposed to be thrilling. There were new places to visit for various forms of entertainment, interesting individuals to meet, and possibly discovering a sweet summer romance. Well, as the newest resident, you definitely received that. If you don’t count getting almost fondled by one of the locals during one of your summer nights while checking out the boardwalk that held such entertainment, ruin your fun. 

You were leaning against the food stand while waiting on your order. Your arms crossed while your elbows rested on the counter. You took in the bright colors from the various lights illuminating the boardwalk. After a while, you suddenly felt fingers go along the length of your thigh exposed by your skirt. You shivered, not from excitement but rather disgust and a wave of anger from being touched. 

“Hey baby, what are you doing leaning over with a skirt like that?” A voice purred, thick and deep indicating it was a male. 

Just as quickly as the fingers appeared, it went away as you hastily straightened yourself. You turned towards the male in question, your clenched fist hidden from sight at your side. 

“None of your business and don’t fucking touch me again.” You said, glaring at him with your (e/c) eyes, a frown upon your face from how upset you were. 

“Hey, don’t be like that! I was only trying-” 

You didn’t let him finish his sentence, already walking away from the food stand, losing your appetite from the stupidity that this guy essentially possessed. While passing other individuals enjoying your night, you faintly heard the sound of footsteps rushing after you. Suddenly, you felt your wrist get snatched and pulled back the opposite direction from where you were heading. 

Already knowing that it was the harasser, you quickly pivoted towards him, punching him across the face. The force of the impact forced the guy to let go in order to stabilize himself and cradle the side of his face that you punched with a yell.

“What the fuck,” His eyes darkened and he straightened, getting ready to return the favor, “You fucking bit-” 

Without missing a beat, you avoided the assaulting arm that was hurtling straight for you, grabbing his arm in order to force his body towards you. Raising your knee, you knocked it into the guy’s stomach which made him fold over while simultaneously grabbing his hair and bringing his nose towards the same knee you used. During this, a crowd began to form wondering what the commotion was about and staying to watch how far you would have been able to beat up a man. With an angry yell, you punched him across the face making him fall to the ground, cradling his face and stomach with pained groans. 

You smirked at his displayed anguish and pain from the strikes he received across his face and the ultimate blow to his stomach. Mentally patting yourself on the back, you turned away and pushed yourself through the crowd to spend the rest of your night enjoying the boardwalk, thinking that this would be the last time you would have to deal with him. 

From a short distance away, you failed to notice a group of guys sitting on their bikes entirely enjoying the scene, especially the smallest one with curly long hair. Marko, ever the creature that enjoyed such violence, felt like he felt his undead heart skip a beat within his chest. Glancing towards his brothers, he noticed that they seemed to have the same awestruck look upon their faces. 

He smirked, leaning over his handlebars with his head tilted while his gaze lingered on you as you drifted further and further away towards the entrance of the boardwalk. Essentially, while watching you earlier, he was ready to jump in and defend your honor when the guy grabbed your wrist when you tried walking away. However, seeing you in action that was almost equivalent to his own burst of violent engagement with the same group of Surfer Nazis made him feel like he was falling in love at first sight. 

He sighed with a dopey smile on his face, “Guys, I think I’ve finally fallen in love.” He said, glancing at his brothers that were already staring at him with dark smirks of their own. 

Paul chuckled and leaned back on his bike, taking another drag of his joint that he was almost finished with. “Why don’t we meet the little spitfire?” He jested, making Marko chuckle along with him. 

Dwayne, silent the whole time could only watch you with a sense of softness. He thought you were gorgeous and seeing you defend yourself was extremely attractive. He glanced at David, giving him a nod and a small affirmative that he was on the same page. 

David threw his cigarette to the ground, stubbing it out with the heel with his black boot and pushing back the kickstand to his bike. He wouldn't admit it, but just the same as Marko, he felt the same twinge in his chest upon seeing you and monitoring the way you handled yourself. 

“Let's go then, boys.” He said, chuckling while revving his motorcycle while the others hollered in excitement. Quickly taking off, the others followed him towards the direction you went. Easily, you were on foot and it wouldn't be hard to catch you. 

While walking down the street, everything was quiet and peaceful in comparison to how the boardwalk went. You could finally relax and enjoy the rest of your night before you went home. However, that ended when you could hear the distance rumbling of four motorcycles closing in behind you.

#fem!reader #poly!lost boys x reader #the lost boys 1987 #tlb 1987 #david the lost boys #dwayne the lost boys #paul the lost boys #marko the lost boys

[awlumii]

be still, my heart.

# — pairing: kazuha x gn!reader

# — characters: gender neutral reader, kazuha, lumine, aether

# — summary: you're not really cut out for this whole "matchmaker" deal.

# — warnings: n/a

# — tags: long fic (~9k words), 3+1 format, fluff, angst, misunderstandings, hurt/comfort, (failed) matchmaking, aether & lumine are your best friends

# — notes: finally, finally, finally! i finished a commission! thank you so, so much again to the commissioner; your support means so, so much to me, especially at a time like this. i had a lot of fun writing this :D reblogs and reactions are greatly appreciated, and i really hope you all enjoy! 🥰

wanna join the tag list?

i.

"hey! do you mind if i sit here?"

in hindsight, you should've known right away that that was a stupid question to ask. the café is far from crowded at this time of day. there's a smattering of people sitting at tables and all of them are alone, and there's still an empty table here and there. if you were going to be subtle about wanting to sit near this guy, you should have chosen, say, the empty seat behind him. but thank your lucky stars; the man is kind enough to smile back at you and gesture to the seat across from him.

alright. one foot in the door.

the guy in question is none other than kaedehara kazuha, the english major who's famous for his insightful poetry and exceptional grades. everyone loves this guy, even professors outside of his department. he's not the most social, but he's open to anyone and everyone who happens across him, and it would appear that you are a part of that as well. it's a good thing, too — if he'd secretly been an asshole, you'd have turned tail immediately. of course, that'd only make you look more suspicious than you already do, but that's besides the point.

when you say that everyone loves kazuha, you mean everyone — and that includes your best friend lumine. it just so happens that kazuha is also the object of many people's affections — the perks of being popular, you figure. it came as a real shock to you that lumine was interested in him of all people; you could've sworn she was head over heels for ayaka, the endearing political science and dance double major that she spends a lot of time with. but instead, lumine came to you out of the blue one evening gushing about kazuha.

"wait, wait, wait. are you telling me that you have a crush on him?" you closed your book to gape at lumine, who was sitting across from you with her chin propped in her hand.

lumine nodded. "yeah. what, is that weird or something?"

you raised an eyebrow. "very." you stood up and circled the table to eye her closely. lumine watched you the entire time, her eyes curious. "did you get hurt anywhere? hit your head or something?"

"oh my god, you're ridiculous." lumine pushed you away lightly. "i just think he's... dreamy..?"

"you don't sound too sure about that."

"fuck off, you know i'm not good with this sort of thing." lumine flipped you off. "but you know who is? kazuha." when you scoffed and sat back in your seat, she sighed. "would you stop being an asshole and help me out?"

you opened your book and skimmed the words. "what now? are you gonna tell me to set you up with him or something?" when lumine didn't answer for a few seconds, you froze. you looked up at her with mild horror. "ohh no. fuck no, i am not playing matchmaker. do it yourself."

lumine didn't answer you at that. you knew very well why she didn't do these things herself. you're aware of her reputation on campus; she's not exactly the most popular, but those who do know her know that she can appear rather callous at times. lumine's rough exterior made it difficult for her to branch out, which was probably why she was asking you to begin with. once it occurred to you, you groaned. "fine." you conceded. "but you're doing all the hard work."

lumine's face brightened into a smile you don't think you've ever seen her wear before. "you're the best." she reached across the table and tapped your hand. "seriously."

meanwhile, you'd already started dreading the first interaction you were supposed to have with kazuha. "yeah, yeah," you muttered. "whatever."

because at the end of the day, who are you to question lumine? she's been by your side through thick and thin ever since middle school. she's got your back and you've got hers (and her brother's). you'd do just about anything for her if she asked, no matter how ridiculous it seems. although, you think as you settle in your new seat, this is pretty fucking ridiculous. playing matchmaker is stupid, especially for a guy like kazuha, who has probably had this kind of thing happen to him before. you can only hope that that's not the case.

you pull out a notebook and a pen to start idly writing when you notice that in front of you, kazuha's closed his book. when you look up, you see that he's actually staring at you. what for? "is something wrong?" you ask. "i can move if you want me to; i didn't mean to disturb you."

kazuha shakes his head, his platinum bangs brushing over his forehead. he has a streak of crimson in his hair, you notice. it's kind of cute. in fact, now that you're really looking at him, you can really see why people are so drawn to him. he's very attractive with his kind eyes and almost serene expression. you see his lips moving then and realize that he must have been saying something for a while. shit, were you checking him out just now? did he notice? it's not until his lips stop moving that you realize that you have no idea what he just said. "i'm sorry, i, uh... really should've got some coffee before i sat down. can you say that again?" you give him an apologetic smile in hopes that it'll make him forget that you obviously weren't listening just now.

kazuha actually smiles then. it seems like he's always doing that, really. your ears start to burn; he probably thinks you're ridiculous. "that's alright." he tilts his head to the side slightly and says your name. when you raise your brows, his smile grows. "i figured my guess was correct. you're friends with lumine, aren't you?"

oh, right! duh! how did you already forget your goal? stupid pretty boy and his stupid face. "ah, yeah," you reply. "she's my roommate too, actually."

"i see." kazuha pushes his book to the side and you follow the movement. is he trying to start conversation? this wasn't exactly how you saw this playing out, but hey, that saves you the trouble of coming up with a topic. "how long have you two known each other?"

perfect. you've got him hook, line, and sinker. with lumine as the topic of conversation, you'll have him smitten with her in no time. "since middle school," you say with a smile. "she and aether moved into the house beside mine and my mother tasked me with befriending them. the rest is history, i suppose."

kazuha looks endeared. "the two of them must have been a handful, no?"

you don't miss the playfulness in his tone. yeah, you can really see why people like him. you weren't exactly supposed to get caught in his little web, but here you were, charmed by the guy anyway. at kazuha's request, you divulge a few stories about your history with lumine. you cherry pick stories that are centered around her and leave out the more embarrassing parts (which is difficult since you guys were some embarrassing kids); when this is over, she better love you for talking her up like this.

at some point, kazuha excuses himself for a moment. while you wait, you pull out your phone and text the group chat that you have with lumine and aether.

[ me ]: you owe me your soul after this, bitch

[ lulu☆]: oh my god, did you actually find and talk to him

[ lulu☆]: i didn't think you'd actually do it, help

[ me ]: you asked, didn't you? and i said i would, so

[ lulu☆]: that's not

[ lulu☆]: well..

[ lulu☆]: okay look what did you tell him

[ me ]: don't worry, i didn't embarrass you

[ me ]: ...yet

[ aefer☆]: did you tell him about the time she nearly shit herself because a cat fell out a tree on her head

[ aefer☆]: cause that's funny

[ me ]: shit u're right, i should've mentioned that

[ me ]: but no.. i had to talk her up to impress him

[ aefer☆]: i would've told him. just sayin

[ lulu☆]: i know where you live, bitch

[ aefer☆]: what a coincidence, so do i

[ me ]: okay he's coming back, later losers ♡

[ aefer☆]: make sure to tell him the story!!

you chuckle at your phone before you put it away. when you look up, kazuha is seated in front of you with two cups on the table; one looks to be coffee, while the other seems to be tea — green tea from the smell of it. you blink in surprise and open your mouth, but before you can ask, kazuha explains: "you said you needed coffee and it just so happens that i needed a pick-me-up as well." he gestures to the coffee and gently eases it towards you. "so i took the liberty of getting some for you."

you shake your head quickly. you weren't supposed to be indebted to him! "y-you really shouldn't have!"

kazuha's expression falls a little and you swear you feel your heart tug. "was that too forward of me? my apologies, i..."

fuck, you can't have him looking so downcast. you try to cover up your flustered state with a grateful smile. "no, no, i mean-- thank you, really, but you're too kind. how much was it? at least let me pay you back."

"there's no need," he says. "i got it because i wanted to. and what better need to celebrate a new friend than over a drink they enjoy?"

you blink twice. once because you're surprised he considers you a friend already, and twice because if you're not mistaken, kazuha looks... sheepish. you stare at him just a moment longer and this time it's him who breaks eye contact as he moves to sip from his tea. confused, you drink from the coffee he got for you. the second the flavor hits your tongue, you make a noise of surprise. "this is.." you mutter.

"ah." kazuha sets down his own drink. "i'm sorry, i forgot to explain. i wasn't quite sure how you took your coffee, so i guessed. it's not bad, is it?" he actually looks worried. "should i take it back for you?"

"no, no, it's not bad, it's..." it's perfect, you think. this is exactly how you order your coffee every time. how did he guess this well? your order isn't exactly standard; it would take some serious thinking to get it down to a T. "it's great," you finish your sentence. "thank you so much."

relief settles on kazuha's face. "that's good." he sets his tea aside and keeps his attention on you. "would it be too forward of me to ask if you have any more stories to share? they're quite interesting."

right. shit. you're here to play matchmaker. this is the second time you've forgotten your goal. you put your coffee to the side and launch into another story that you'd thankfully lined up in case he wanted to keep the conversation going. kazuha listens attentively; his eyes are on you the entire time and his usual smile grows wider each time you giggle when you remember something funny.

he's very easy to talk to, you think. you wouldn't mind doing this over and over. this is a win-win situation for you and lumine; she'll get a boyfriend, and you'll have a new friend.

(you won't realize it just yet, but the skip in your pulse each time kazuha laughs is far from platonic.)

ii.

it's nice to have a new addition to the group — really, it is — but does he really need to be invited everywhere?

lately, whenever you, aether, and lumine go out as a trio, kazuha ends up receiving an invite as well. sometimes he gets the invite from you, but every other time, it seems to be coming from lumine. it's a little irritating, honestly. not because kazuha is annoying, no — he's the furthest thing from it. if anything, he's the most soothing person you've ever known (amongst other things). no, what's annoying is that lumine seems to be taking charge of this whole matchmaking thing herself, which leaves you without an objective. because really, if she's gonna make sure he's around all the time, then what did she have you get involved for?

take now, for example. the four of you are in an arcade celebrating the end of midterm season, and when you entered, you decided that you'd be split into pairs — you with aether, and lumine with kazuha. you and aether complained when lumine suggested bringing kazuha along on the grounds that the two of you would be third wheeling. so she suggested splitting into groups.

for some reason, the initial pairing put you with kazuha. not like you're one to complain — you love the time you spend with him. but seeing as how you spend a couple hours every day chatting him up in that café, you think you can do without him for a few hours today. you said as much when the first pairs were decided on.

"aw, you'll hurt his feelings!" aether said with a chuckle. "don't you wanna be around your new friend for a while?"

before you spoke, you stole a peek at kazuha who looked... a little hurt. you thought you were imagining it since he was smiling along with the joke, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. regret started to claw at your throat and you tried to take it back, but kazuha spoke before you could.

"i'm more than happy to spend time with lumine," he said. "we don't spend much time together as it is."

your fingers slow to a stop on the game you're playing. do kazuha and lumine really not spend time together? that was the whole reason you spent time with him — to get him more motivated to speak to her in the first place. was he still too shy to speak to her? no, you think as you pick up the game. he wouldn't have jumped at the opportunity to be with her tonight if he was really shy. besides, shy just isn't kazuha's character; he has moments where he's a little hesitant, but he's certainly not the shy type.

then why weren't they together more often? you feel confused for a moment, but then it hits you — you've been taking up kazuha's time, not her.

there's no reason why you should be in that café for so long with kazuha. your mission was simple: get him interested in lumine, get them to hang out, and then watch the rest unfold. but instead, you've been hogging all his time, talking about topics that had nothing to do with this whole matchmaking situation to begin with.

you swear lowly when your character dies on screen. if anyone is to blame for the lack of progress being made, it's kazuha. he's the one who's always asking off-topic questions when you meet up. specifically, he would coax you into talking about yourself somehow. how he does that, you're not sure, but you hate it. he's making this difficult!

oh, your mind just can't stop running. kazuha's making everything so complicated! why did he look so dejected when he said you wanted to hang with someone else? why does he want to know so much about you? why does he smile so brightly when he sees you in passing? why isn't he sticking to lumine's side? is he even going to make a move? is that why he jumped at the chance to do so today? why didn't he do so earlier, and why in the fuck does your chest hurt right now?!

"if you hold the controls any harder, i think they're gonna break."

aether's voice suddenly appears to your left, startling you. you let go of the controls in your shock and soon after, a fluorescent red 'game over' appears on the screen. you glare at him and punch his arm. "you asshole, you made me lose the game." you hiss.

aether's lips curve into a cheeky smile. "actually, you were already losing. you kinda suck at this game."

"i don't, i just..." you sigh and look at the screen. "i was just thinking about something else."

"now are you making an excuse, or were you really distracted this whole time?" aether asks. when you struggle to come up with a response, he rests a hand on your shoulder. you don't look at him, though. you're too busy trying to figure out why your throat feels like it's closing. aether calls your name once, then twice. you still don't answer. just when you think he's given up, he drapes an arm over your shoulder and pulls you to him. "how about we go get something to drink?" he finally suggests. "it's been a while."

you look at him and for a split second notice how blurry he is. you blink a few times and it goes away. weird. you still can't really form words, so you nod and allow aether to whisk you away from your game.

once you're seated with your drink, you let your mind go off the rails. why does the thought of kazuha asking lumine out bother you so much? that's literally why you became friends with him in the first place, no? you're supposed to be relieved — once they start dating, you can wash your hands of this whole ordeal and be on your merry way. at least, that's the plan... right?

"we came out here to stop thinking," aether speaks up. "but you look like you're still studying. what're you thinking so hard about?"

you open your mouth to explain yourself but quickly shut it. you can't just tell lumine's brother that you're having second thoughts about getting her a boyfriend! best friends or not, his first priority is his sister's happiness; if you back out, you'll definitely have to face aether's wrath later. yet still, you want nothing more than to unload these confusing emotions onto aether's shoulders — you need to explain yourself or else you feel like you're going to pop.

you feel crazy. are you crazy? you think you're going crazy. and dammit, why does your throat still feel so tight?

after a few seconds pass, you decide to bite the bullet. you hate to toss aether in the middle like this, but who else are you going to tell this to? kazuha? yeah, fuck that. "it's... about kazuha." you rasp. you take a sip of your drink.

for some reason, aether sits up a bit straighter. you don't recognize the look he's giving you. maybe intrigued is the right word? "yeah?" he leans his chin in his hand. "what about him?"

"i think... i think i fucked up somewhere." you feel a little lighter now that you've gotten that out. that's the heart of the problem... you think.

"how? he's spending time with lumine, isn't he?"

"yeah, now he is. didn't you hear him earlier? he said that they didn't spend much time together."

"aaaand..?"

"what do you mean and? they're supposed to be together all the time!" you scoff. "i tell him about her like, every day, and yet they're still so stiff around each other whenever we all meet up!" a thought occurs to you, then. the four of you hung out all the time, but each time, you were in a group. "wait, do they never actually hang out outside of our outings?"

aether's frowning a little at you. surely he understands what you're talking about, right? "you think that that's weird?" he asks.

you throw your hands up in frustration. "yes, that's weird! god, why am i even doing this if he's just gonna hang out with me instead of--" you shut your mouth.

intrusive thoughts are funny little things. soft as they may be, they leave ripples in your mind. and those ripples grow bigger and bigger as they spread, reaching the far corners of your brain until they become all you can think about. yours are pretty out there: what if i tripped and fell right now? or what if i'm reading the stop signal wrong and i walk into traffic by accident? they make you reconsider your every move, make you see reality in a different light. these particular thoughts, however, send you spiraling.

what if kazuha likes me? becomes: what if i like kazuha? which eventually turns into: i do like kazuha.

"oh." you mumble. "shit."

"i feel like you just had a revelation without me, and i'm feeling very out of the loop right now." aether gestures between the two of you. "are we on the same page right now?"

"god, i hope not." you groan and push your face into your hands. this is the fucking worst. it's supposed to be the worst, anyway — for some reason, you feel the urge to smile. feelings are strange like that, huh? you realize that you have a big crush on the guy you're supposed to be setting your best friend up with and yet you want to smile — you want to take a breath of fresh air, like this is a good thing. "aether, i'm a horrible fucking person." you laugh derisively. "the fucking worst."

aether, who'd been sitting across from you this whole time, moves to sit next to you. when you finally look at him, you see that he's frowning, his face marred by confusion and worry. "as much as we like to joke about it, i can't read your mind. you need to tell me what's up."

"...promise you won't hate me?"

"why would i ever?" aether looks at you like you slapped him. dork.

you smile, but it doesn't last very long. "i just, uh... realized something."

"would you quit being suspenseful and get to the point?"

fine. you decide to let it all out. "i like kazuha, aether. there. i like him a fucking lot. he's really pretty and he's kind, he spends time with me every day, even when he's busy; he holds my hand sometimes when we talk and i swear, i feel like i can fucking fly whenever he does, and i..." you take a deep breath. "i'm a fucking moron because i'm letting down lumine. she's supposed to be with him, not me. i have to let this go."

aether's silent. you feel your throat tighten up again and immediately recognize the feeling — you want to fucking cry, dammit. you're a terrible fucking friend, and that's exactly what aether's about to say--

"you need to tell her," he says seriously. "and you need to do it now before things get worse."

that's... not the reaction you were expecting. "aren't you mad at me? i-i'm supposed to be helping out your sister but i'm--"

"falling in love." aether finishes for you. you try to deny it, but he's not hearing it. "trust me, it'll get to that point soon enough. you can't wait until then -- you have to say something. please," he implores you, "for your own good."

you want to say that you shouldn't do anything to benefit yourself, not when you've fucked up so majorly, but you hold your tongue. you really don't know what to do now. how are you supposed to look kazuha in the face after this? you were always enjoying yourself when you were around him, but now you understand that you enjoyed yourself far too much. he's supposed to be with lumine and he's--

a sudden call of your name has you snapping your head up. in front of you is none other than kazuha and lumine.

speak of the fucking devil and he will appear.

the two of them are wearing matching smiles and carrying four plushies from the prize counter. they look so... happy. all at once, you cram your raging emotions into a box and shove them into the furthest corner of your mind. that can wait -- what's important now is these two lovebirds and the rest of the evening. you ease away from aether and sit up straighter, plastering a friendly smile on your face. "did you two kids have fun?" you ask.

(beside you, aether's frown deepens.)

"i learned quite a few things while playing with lumine tonight." kazuha is the first to speak. he adjusts the two plushies in his arms and looks over to lumine. "the most important thing being that she's amazing at video games."

lumine sniffs proudly. "he's the one who didn't believe me when i said i would kick his ass at anything we tried. aether and i used to play games like these all the time when we were kids. but," she nudges kazuha's shoulder affectionately, "you put up a good fight. i respect the effort, but better luck next time."

"i'll keep that in mind." kazuha chuckles.

next time, he said. there's going to be a next time. they're going to go on a date. you giggle softly despite yourself. now's not the time. not when they look so happy. you feel aether pinch your arm, but you swat him away subtly. "that's good to hear." you say. "is there something else you guys wanna do tonight?" you hold your breath, hoping they say no.

fortunately (or unfortunately), aether cuts in. "actually, lumine, wait." he doesn't say anything else after that, but judging by lumine's expression, you wonder if they're doing that twin communication thing. you've always wondered what that's like, having another half. aether and lumine are always sharing information over everyone's heads -- sometimes, you wish they'd include you.

lumine nods after a second. they must have finished their psychic conversation. "actually, aether and i have to head back." she shrugs one shoulder. "something came up."

kazuha's brows knit with concern. "is everything alright?"

"yeah, aether has to take a shit or something. i don't know." lumine is suddenly hit in the face with a wadded up napkin while you poorly stifle a laugh. she doesn't retaliate the same way she normally would, but she does shoot aether a glare that could probably melt steel beams. "anyway," she smooths her expression over and looks straight at you. "are you two gonna be okay alone? because this is kind of urgent."

wait. shit. fuck, no, no, no! she can't leave you with kazuha! why is she trying to leave you with kazuha?!

words fail you in this moment; you open and close your mouth a few times as you struggle to find the right words. there's so much going on in your head; you could say yes and have some alone time with kazuha, but lumine is supposed to be the one having alone time with kazuha, not you! if you say no, then kazuha might look like a kicked puppy again, and you don't want to see him looking so sad, dammit! but then again, if you say yes, you could interrogate him and find out why he and lumine haven't hung out often, right? but--

"we should be fine." kazuha speaks before you can, leaving you floored. "i'll see them home when we're finished here."

well, there goes your internal conflict. it's too late to back out now. you put on a brave face and hope that neither lumine nor aether can see through it. "i'll see if i can keep that winning streak for you, lumine." you say.

kazuha chuckles quietly. "is that a challenge i hear?"

god... damn him. "it sure is." you play along and give him a grin.

all your years of friendship must have meant nothing, because lumine doesn't pick up on your silent distress signals. she and aether say quick goodbyes before turning and heading home, leaving you with kazuha. once the twins are gone, you hop to your feet. since there's no one here to save you, you may as well dive in head first. "so," you say with a sigh, "which game do you want to play first?"

rather than suggest a game, kazuha shakes his head. "we don't have to play a game if you don't want to." like always, he tilts his head to the side just a little. he's so endearing. "you don't seem like you want to play anymore. am i correct?"

"i..." you deflate a little. "yeah, you're right. i'm sorry. i don't want to bore you or anything, but i just don't have it in me anymore."

thankfully, kazuha doesn't pry. he pushes one of the plushies in your direction. you'd actually forgotten he was holding it. it's a little penguin with a frog hat on — absolutely adorable. the other penguin that he's holding has a dinosaur hat. were they a matching set?

you don't take the plushy right away, which prompts kazuha to speak. he shifts his stance a little bit and... maybe it's just the trick of the light — it is quite dark in here — but you think you can see his cheeks turning color. "this is for you," he says. in an uncharacteristic moment of shyness, he suddenly backtracks. "only if you want it, of course. i won't push it on you, but... i figured that you might like it."

you blink a few times. you kick yourself and reach out to take the penguin — it's soft to the touch and the perfect size for hugging. you hold the thing gingerly in your arms and stare at it for a moment. did he really get this for you? or did he get this for lumine? maybe she didn't want it and that's why he's giving it to you; yeah, that has to be it. but just to be sure, you look up at kazuha, hoping you're not smiling as widely as you think you are. "you really didn't have to. why're you so nice to me, huh?"

you foolishly asked that as a joke, but this time, you're absolutely sure kazuha's face starts to redden. it's hidden by the lights of the games around you, but even in this dim lighting, you know what you saw. he doesn't look too fazed by it, though. "must there be a reason?" he asks in return.

you know what? no. some things are better left unexplained. you shake your head and hug the penguin close. "thank you, kazuha." you think you're going to explode. "really. i love it."

"i'm glad," kazuha says. and boy, does he look the part. the relief on his face is palpable. for someone with such an even expression, he sure is easy to read when he's nervous. what he's nervous about, you have no idea. but he's also really fucking cute. he shifts on his feet and breaks eye contact after a beat of silence. "why don't we get you home?" he suggests. "it's probably late at night."

ah. well, there goes your excitement. he just wants to get rid of you now, huh? for someone who's not supposed to like him, you sure do have pretty intense mood swings when he's involved. you agree and the two of you head outside and start towards your home.

the walk home is slow and silent, and kazuha's walking close by your side. you'd think of something to say, but it's a very comfortable silence — with you hugging the plushie that he got for you in one arm, you don't see any reason to speak. it's not like this is abnormal, anyway; he's seen you home many times before. you hazard a glance at kazuha after a moment to find scarlet eyes already focused on you. you look away in a hurry, as does he. weird.

even weirder still, you feel kazuha's fingers knock against yours. are you two really walking that close together? you flinch away from his touch like he'd burned you. "i'm sorry." he apologizes right away.

"no, it's okay." you reassure him. to make him believe you, you put your hand back where it was. it's not until you do that you realize that that wasn't the first time your hands have touched. you soon find that that wasn't the last, either; once more, kazuha's fingers knock against yours. you don't move away this time, instead opting to knock back. you swear you can hear him chuckle when you do, but maybe you're just imagining things.

a few more seconds pass and you feel kazuha's fingers intertwining with yours, and for a second, your mind completely stops. tonight was moving so fast — first you realize that you're a goner for kazuha, then he gifts you a plushie, and then he's holding your hand? what is happening right now? and why aren't you pulling away?

you should pull away, you have to, but... you can't bring yourself to. your fingers lock with kazuha's one by one until eventually, you're completely holding his hand. he's so warm, you think. he always is. the walk home remains silent, and you and kazuha exchange playful squeezes every so often.

(to make yourself feel better, you tell yourself that this is just you training him for when he starts dating lumine. maybe that will ease your conscience.)

iii.

so you're in love with kazuha. big fucking surprise there.

you quickly realized that you were doomed from the moment you met. not that it was love at first sight, but he charmed you right away. he was the one who had you hook, line, and sinker from the very start. it doesn't help that he became a permanent addition to your friend group; you're forced to face him and your feelings just about every single day. you're reminded every day of how much of a weakling you are when it comes to him. you hold his hand, you share food with him, you sleep with the plushie he gave you, you borrow his sweaters... you're a fucking mess.

it's agonizing. you were supposed to be helping lumine and kazuha get together, but you grew too greedy and inserted yourself into a position that wasn't meant for you. you try every day to rationalize with yourself and aay that the two of you are just really close friends, but friends don't think about each other the way you think about him. even worse was that you couldn't tell lumine about it — the only person who knew of your feelings was aether, and he gave you shit about it whenever he could.

come clean, he says. stop lying to yourself, he says. to that, you have to laugh. if it were that easy to rid yourself of this situation, you would've done it months ago.

there's only one solution to this problem, and that's to avoid kazuha like the plague.

it makes sense, right? just ignore it until it goes away? because there's no other way for you to get over this. you're starting to dream about kazuha; about kissing him, about holding him in your arms, about being with him. so maybe if you see him less, the thoughts will go away.

it starts with you not going to the café anymore. when kazuha texted you and asked why you hadn't been showing up, you brushed it off with a lie, saying that you found a place with better coffee. he asked what the place was called, but you left him on read. (a very adult move.)

then, you stopped making eye contact whenever you passed by him. it was hard for a few days since you missed seeing his eyes light up whenever he saw you, but you had to be strong. you're better than this, dammit. don't think about how dejected he might look when he realizes that you're avoiding him — don't you do it!

after that, you stopped going out with the twins if kazuha was going. every time they suggest something, your first question is if he is going to be there. if the answer is yes, you make up an excuse to stay home. lumine was really fucking upset with you for bailing because of some petty argument that she thought you two had, but when she pieced it together that you weren't going to budge, she gave up trying. (man, you wish it was just some argument — disputes can be solved. not feelings.)

lastly, you straight up walked away from him if he approached you. you wouldn't just ignore his presence, of course — you're an asshole, not a monster — but if he tried to make conversation, you would cut it short and hightail it out of there.

"it's been a few weeks since we've talked." kazuha sounded so pleased when he managed to stop you one day. you didn't know why you let him catch up to you, but once he got to you, you couldn't just up and leave. so you decided to hear him out. "have you been well?"

no, you wanted to say. not in the fucking slightest. but you're grown — fake it 'till you make it, baby. you nodded and gave him your best smile. "yeah. better than usual, actually."

you watched kazuha's face fall ever so slightly. he was quick to fix his mistake; his usual smile returned to his face in an instant. if you were anyone else, you wouldn't have noticed. but you noticed. you'll always notice. "i see." he said. "that's good to hear."

because you didn't want to be subject to his quickly declining mood, you excused yourself. "i gotta run, but i'll see you some other time, okay?" you said. (like a liar.)

anyone could have seen the glimmer of hope that appeared in kazuha's eyes. "of course. be safe, please." he gave you a little wave as you took off.

after about three weeks of not seeing kazuha, you think yourself to be cured. huzzah, it worked! sure, you're still daydreaming about him, but it's not as vivid if you can't see him every day! he hasn't texted you or approached you outside in a couple days which, admittedly, stung like hell, but it's for the better. kazuha can focus on lumine without you in the way, and you can move on with your life.

you spend most of your time in the library these days. lumine's been super pissed at you lately — probably because of the whole kazuha thing, but you're not sure why she wants you to spend time with him so badly. to avoid potential conflict, you hole yourself up in here. being surrounded by books (reminds you of kazuha) makes you feel at peace; it's so quiet in here, which makes it easy to focus on work (which in turn helps you stop thinking about kazuha).

the library is empty today, save for a few people seated at the tables on the other side of the building. you're standing in front of a bookshelf skimming through a book when you suddenly hear a soft whisper of your name. thinking it's aether, you prepare a shitty excuse for why you're not home, but when you see who it is, your blood goes cold.

it's kazuha. you haven't seen him in three whole weeks.

you swallow back your apprehension as best you can. "hey, what's up?" you try to remain as casual as possible. "do you need one of the books behind me?"

kazuha's brows draw in a little. "are you asking that so you can make your escape?" his comment is a little pointed — so pointed, in fact, that you visibly wince and give yourself away. he sighs when you do. "i was hoping that i wouldn't be correct. have i done something wrong?"

that's just like him — straight to the point. you flounder for an answer. "of course not." you shake your head.

"then is it alright if i ask why you've been avoiding me?"

"what? why would i do that?" your eyes slowly drift to the side. you're not too fond of all the attention you're getting right now.

"you can never make eye contact when you're hiding something." kazuha walks closer to you, but you keep your eyes on something else. "you won't even look at me. i must have done something to cause this."

no, no, no, he's blaming himself! stop him! you force yourself to make eye contact with him, but wither under his stare. you look away again and your face starts to grow hot. "you didn't do anything, kazuha," you say honestly. "i promise. "i've just been busy, that's all."

kazuha doesn't back down. "i've heard from lumine that you've been spending time here instead of at your home. she's worried about you. she-- i'm worried about you."

"don't do that," you blurt. you're starting to breathe a little faster, you notice. "stop worrying about me. you shouldn't." kazuha starts to retort, but you cut him off with a shake of your head. you turn around and put the book back in it's place. "look, i need to go. please move."

you never wanted to be so forceful with him — so cold. but what else can you do when cornered like this? he's desperate and you can tell, but so are you. you don't want to confront your feelings anymore. you just can't. you're tired of feeling like a shitty person for being in love. this is the only way you can make it stop.

kazuha doesn't make it easy for you, though. when you try to move away, he steps closer, invading your space. "if there's something wrong, you would tell me, right?" his voice is so soft, so mellow. it's like a hug, which you could really use right about now. normally, you'd get that from kazuha, but well... you don't answer him, nor do you look at him. kazuha then takes your chin in his fingers and gently makes you face him. "would you please look at me?"

your eyes land on him and it's like the world's faded away. there's so much rolling off of him at once; unease, comfort, and suspicion all hit you at the same time, and it overwhelms you. you don't like how tender this moment feels. he's so close — too close. you can smell maple and cedar, and not because you're wearing his sweater (which you didn't realize until just now). autumnal eyes threaten to take you under and you feel your eyes start to sting. "kazuha, let go." your voice wavers and your heart throbs. "please."

you wish you could read his mind. his eyes search your face, though you're not sure what for. the seconds of silence that tick by are excruciating, but when they finally come to an end, kazuha lets you go. his hand falls to his side and he steps away with a bitter smile. "i'm sorry. i fear i may have made the problem worse."

that's putting it lightly. you step around him wordlessly, but before you can get too far, kazuha catches your hand in his, stopping you. you don't turn around. you can't.

"i miss you." kazuha speaks at a whisper, a volume so low that you shouldn't have been able to hear it. but you heard it. whenever he speaks, you listen with your entire being.

he lets you go after a few more seconds and you take the opportunity to grab what stuff you have and make a beeline for the exit. you fumble for the doorknob on the way out; your vision is too blurred by tears for you to make it out properly. you manage, and you set off towards home, where you're going to ignore lumine yet again and mope in your room.

(and as you cry to yourself that evening, you can only think of the way you saw kazuha's eyes fall to your lips as he held you in place. you think of how badly you wanted to confess everything to him and clear the air for good, but you also remember what you were tasked with. this is for the better, you tell yourself. this is for the better.)

iv.

kazuha should have never agreed to this.

honestly, what was he thinking? why did he allow lumine to play matchmaker? he has two legs and a functioning mouth; he could have walked up to you and started a conversation himself, no problem. things would have been so much easier if he had just swallowed his pride and spoken to you like a normal adult. but no, he just had to go along with this idea.

in retrospect, it seemed like a good idea. but perhaps he's been reading too many novels. meeting through a mutual friend is a lovely concept, but it would appear that it only works in fictional worlds. he'd hoped to just spend time with you through lumine, but somehow, you got the wrong idea and started trying to push him onto her, which made no sense. and not only did it not make sense, but it completely backfired — you're absolutely miserable now and so is he.

kazuha's not an idiot. he knows that you have feelings for him. and the only reason he knows is because you seemingly reciprocated when he approached you romantically. he thought he was being obvious — giving you a plushie, holding your hand, lending you his sweaters, resting his head on your shoulder during movie nights... you accepted it all. he wasn't being subtle at all, right?

so then how? how on earth did things end up like this? he asks lumine as much when they meet up a few mornings later.

"they've been ignoring me too," lumine grumbles, "you aren't special."

right, because that helps. kazuha buries his hand in his hair. "every time i try to talk to them, they manage to slip through my fingers."

lumine frowns at him. "are they actually slipping away, or are you letting them get away?" he must take too long to answer, because she tuts at him. "if this is because you don't want to overwhelm them, then you're being stupid. they're overwhelming themself with this whole... thing, okay?"

but he's too much for you, he wants to say. every time he comes around you, you look about ready to explode. you look so torn, and he hates it. he just wants you to smile at him again. "at the very least, i want to repair our friendship." he sighs. it hurts to even think about keeping you at a distance, but if that's what it takes for you to come back, then... "they cried on their way out of the library the other day."

lumine's expression falls. he's never seen her look so saddened before. "yeah, i heard."

"you heard?"

"our walls may be thick, but our doors aren't." she grimaces. "the sniffing told me all i needed to know."

there's a tense silence. neither of them know what to say because in the end, this is their fault. this whole misunderstanding and your pain? that's on them. if they want to solve this--

"you have to confess." lumine voices kazuha's thoughts out loud. "that's literally the only way this is gonna stop."

while kazuha acknowledges that she's correct, there's two ways that this could go. you would either: a) accept his confession, start dating him, get married someday, and live happily ever after, or b) turn him down and hate him for causing this whole misunderstanding, leaving the two of you to be miserable forever. either way, life as he knows it now is going to end — how it ends is purely up to you.

kazuha agrees to do so and asks lumine for your whereabouts. despite not being on talking terms for a while, she still knows where you are. (it's how we care for each other, she explains.) as he walks, he lets his head fill with thoughts of you.

unsurprisingly, you're all he's been thinking about. you're all he ever thinks about, really. he thinks about the way you tried to hide your joy when he gave you that plushie in the arcade that day; the way you flustered every time he "jokingly" kissed your hand; the way you seemed to melt into his clothes whenever you wore them; the way you seemed to read his mind whenever you couldn't help but stare at him, the way you would smile when he felt warm at having been caught staring back.

he huffs a laugh to himself. it's hilarious how after all that, you still thought that he liked lumine instead of you. honestly; you two have nearly kissed several times, and yet you think he liked someone else? your mind will never cease to amaze him, beautiful and strange as it is.

kazuha comes to a halt under a canopy of trees with bright red leaves. the change in seasons has turned the campus into a beautiful landscape; all of the usual resting spots were less inhabited by others, which made them the perfect escape for people like him. you're seated on a bench underneath those trees with your nose buried in a book and, if he squints, he thinks you're wearing his scarf. you're exactly where lumine said you would be. perfect.

deciding not to wait until his nerves get the best of him, kazuha approaches you and sits a little ways away from you on the bench. right away, he notices the way you go completely still, your shoulders visibly stiffening. he sighs internally. how should he speak in order to not scare you away? it's a miracle you haven't just up and walked off, actually.

"...why are you here, kazuha?" you ask flatly. you sound like you're holding something back. "what do you want?"

"you're not going to leave?" he asks in return.

you shake your head. "i don't see the point in running from you anymore."

so you finally admit that you were running. it'd be humorous if it didn't sting so bad. "you're going to listen to what i have to say?" he asks again for good measure. when you nod again, kazuha takes a steadying breath. he just needs to get it out there. he needs to let you know. it shouldn't be hard — it's not hard. he may as well have told you already with the way he treats you. just say it.

and say it he does. "i'm in love with you."

immediately, you rise to your feet. kazuha balls one hand into a fist as he fights the urge to pull you back down. if you want to leave, then so be it. he told you, and that's all he can do; whether or not you believe him is purely up to you. you stay standing for a while, and he can see you clenching and unclenching your fists over and over, but eventually, you sit back down. you rest your book to the side and put a hand over your eyes.

"are you alright?" kazuha dares to ask.

you laugh humorlessly. "of course not. you're not supposed to like me, kazuha. please don't do this." you start to bounce your leg rapidly. "take it back, or... or something. just don't get my hopes up."

he scoots closer to you cautiously. when you don't back away, he keeps moving until your shoulders are touching. he calls your name softly and you shake your head sharply. "stop saying my name like that. would you stop being so... so nice to me? i'm gonna get the wrong idea."

"you're not getting the wrong idea," kazuha keeps his voice low. "i'm telling you the truth. and the truth is that i'm in love with you." he rests his hand over your free hand on the bench. "is that wrong of me?"

"yes! i mean-- no? ugh, fuck you." you sniff and swipe your hand over your face. kazuha tries to get a good look at you, but you turn your head away, keeping him from doing so.

"i'm in the wrong." you finally say after a while. "i was supposed to-- you and lumine were supposed to be a thing, not-- not us. but i... fuck," you pause for a second to sniff. "i fell in love with you anyways, and i just feel like a terrible person, okay? i ignored you because i wanted to just... stop feeling like shit, i guess. i wanted to forget about you and this stupid deal that i made with lumine and--"

kazuha taps the underside of your chin twice. you take a moment to collect yourself and slowly turn to look at him. "what do you want?" you ask. it's spoken harshly, but there's no bite to your words.

"did you forget?" he asks.

"wh-- no. god, no. i could never." you give him a wry smile. "unfortunately, you're all i think about, so no. you didn't let me forget. thanks for that, by the way."

one more time, kazuha thinks. just one more. "i love you." he says.

your lashes flutter and your face warms. "i love you too, kazuha. but-- mmh--"

that's all kazuha needed to hear. he leans in and kisses you, silencing your thoughts. he hears you sigh into the kiss and you start to kiss back, but he pulls away slightly before you can. "can you say it again?" he murmurs against your lips. "one more time."

your breathing is shaky, but you speak anyways. "i love you."

kazuha kisses you again. "once more, petal. please."

"you're so greedy," you chuckle shakily. "i lov-- mmf--" kazuha kisses you again but you pull back with a laugh. "at least let me finish my sentence--"

"no." kazuha drinks in your laugh when he kisses you this time, his skin singing at the contact. he's wanted to this for so long -- wanted to kiss you silly and hear you laugh. you're all he's wanted this whole time, and he's not going to pass up this opportunity to let you know. each time you try to speak, kazuha kisses you to shut you up. and each time, it makes you smile wider. you kiss until you can't anymore — you're both smiling much too wide.

"do you still think you're not supposed to be with me?" he asks cheekily.

your face doesn't fall at his question. that spark that your eyes held a few weeks prior is back and brighter than before. you look renewed — you're glowing. while basking in your glow, kazuha wonders if he is, too. you lean in and kiss him quick, resting your forehead on his when you pull away. "don't ask stupid questions." you chuckle. "i said i loved you, didn't i?"

kazuha hums. "and i said the same. so what now?"

"i dunno." you sigh and lean away. "we tell lumine, i guess?"

he squeezes your hand. "about us?"

you nod. "about us."

(when you get home and tell her later, she yells: "fucking finally!" and pulls you in for a hug.)

✦ *bows* and that's what i call a job well done.

✦ seriously, i hope you guys liked it 🥰

#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #kaedehara kazuha x reader #kazuha x reader #[ ✍️🏽 — scribbles! ]

[krikeymate]

Fictober 2023: Day 25: “Do I look like I knew that?” - Their mother comes around dropping bombshells. Fandom: Scream Rating: T Warnings: None.

➖

“Could this day get any worse?”

Sam should have known better.

It just slips out as she stares forlornly at the busted oven as it refuses to heat. The icing on top of the shitty cake of a day she’s had.

She only has a second to stare at their now never-to-be cooked dinner on the counter, before there’s a persistent knocking on their apartment door.

Sam tilts her head at her sister, a silent question. Tara replies with a shrug of her shoulders, and drops a screwdriver to the table, moving to answer it.

She doesn’t even have time for regrets as she hears a voice she’s never been able to forget, the sharp tone of their mother, every word laced with disappointment.

“Well, aren’t you going to say hello? When did you get so rude.”

Sam can’t say she’s ever missed it.

 She briefly considers throwing herself out the window before her sister calls out a wary “Sam.” Tara would never forgive her if she leaves her alone with that woman.

Again.

Oof.

Yeah, she’s still got a lot to make up for.

“What are you doing here?” she asks with the appropriate amount of hostility. Which is a lot.

Christina sneers.

“As pleasant as ever Samantha. What have you been teaching your sister?”

She tries not to grind her teeth. An impossible challenge.

“How do you know where we live?”

Tara sounds irritated, if not downright angry. Sam finds herself feeling guilty for the wave of relief that washes over her. Of course Tara didn’t tell her where they were. She knows her sister’s mad at their mother, that she left her behind and moved across the country to get away from her, but knowing and seeing are two different things.

Seeing Tara on her side never fails to make her heart stutter.

Their mother fails to answer that question too. That’s all she ever does, dance around and avoid, hide away.

She tries not to think about all the things they have in common.

“You weren’t answering any of my calls, so of course you made me drag myself down here. Wasting my time.”

Sam shares a look of disbelief with her sister. She tries not to smile as Tara rolls her eyes and mimes stabbing herself behind their mother’s back.

When Christina realises she’s not going to get a response from either of her daughters, she huffs and continues.

“Well, I’m just here to invite you to my wedding. I’m marrying your father, Tara, and he’s very interested in finally meeting you.”

Sam blinks at her, uncertain. She almost asks her to repeat herself, the words she heard were so insane they couldn’t possibly have been right.

Tara gets there first.

“What.”

Her sister is frowning and unamused and… oh, Sam knows that look.

She’s beginning to think she heard right in the first place.

“What the FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

She bites her lip. Tara’s still a little sensitive about her dad, though she tries to deny it. She can’t say she doesn’t understand, Sam’s still bitter too. Who raises a child for 13 years and decides they’re no longer their daughter in a single second?

“José got back with your crazy ass?” Sam exclaims in disbelief. No fucking way. This dude did not disappear for a goddamn decade and a half only to come crawling back. He can’t have.

“José?” Christina questions, thrown. “That deadbeat? Hardly. I’m talking about Tara’s father, Angel. He’s the proprietor of Castillo’s.”

Sam finds herself speechless. She begs herself to check on her sister, but she just can’t look away from the calm across her mother’s face.

How could she come back into their lives dropping bombshells like this?

Christina looks between her children, irked by their poor manners. The shock on their faces surprises her. “Oh, you didn’t know?”

“Do I look like I knew that?” Tara asks flatly, stepping away from them.

Watching her sister storm out the room, Sam wishes she could join her.

“I think it’s time for you to leave.”

She tries to sound forceful, but it comes out far too soft. She feels stuck in the clouds, watching everything happen from above.

“Honestly Samantha, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, Tara was hardly the brightest, but you...”

“Get out. Get OUT!”

#/mp #fictober23 #Scream #Sam Carpenter #Tara Carpenter #Christina Carpenter #my writing tag

[muertawrites]

I Fought the Law (Eddie Munson x Reader)

(continuation of if living is without you. i haven't watched any of v2 bc i'm just not in a mental state to do it yet, so if it seems a little disjointed from the narrative, that's why. third part coming as soon as i figure out what song to name it after i'm camp af)

"Three officers is a bit much for someone who isn't a suspect, don't you think?"

You quirk a brow defiantly at the men standing in the doorway of Eddie's hospital room, looming over you as if they could possibly inflict any kind of fear you haven't already felt to its fullest. They've been hovering for days, waiting for the right moment to squeeze information out of you. You haven't left Eddie's side for longer than it takes to shower and change your clothes, and everyone he's ever known has been in and out constantly; now, with him fast asleep and the room empty of anyone else, they have you cornered.

"We just need you to answer some questions," the middle officer tells you. "It's either here or at the station."

"Eddie didn't do it," you state.

"One of the victims died in his home and he fled from the scene," another officer quips. "Unless you're keeping information from us, we have no reason to believe he didn't."

"Other than the fact that he was also attacked," you counter.

The men exchange glances, shuffling a bit as the air in the room somehow grows even more tense. The youngest of the officers gestures for you to sit, which you do, perching in the chair that has been pushed against Eddie's bed since he was admitted.

"Why didn't you contact the police when you discovered where the suspect was?" questions the first officer.

"Because he was scared for his life," you explain. "He didn't want anyone to know where he was because he was afraid of dying, not the law. He thought that wha... whoever got Chrissy was coming for him, too."

"Did the suspect name a third person who was present that night?"

You shake your head.

"No. He was in shock and his memory got kind of scrambled. But he was convinced that he was in danger because he was a witness, and that's not... that's not Eddie. Eddie's fearless."

Or at least good at hiding it.

You reach for his hand, comforted by the twitch of his fingers when he feels yours curl around his palm. He shifts a little in his sleep; you can barely take your eyes off him.

"What's your relationship with the suspect?" asks the younger officer.

"We're friends."

The man raises his eyebrows at you, disbelieving.

"You sure?" he presses.

You glare back at him, squeezing Eddie's hand.

"Yes. I'm sure."

The other officer - the one with the stern mouth - laughs, shaking his head.

"If you're gonna lie about this, then chances are you've lied about everything else," he says. "And if you lie to us, you're a suspect, too."

"What are you really asking, then?" you snap. "Do you want the truth, or what you want to hear? Because I won't keep quiet if you end up twisting what I say to fit whatever biased narrative you've already come up with. Every newspaper in this godforsaken state will have my story."

"We just don't have a lot of information," the younger officer interjects. "Other than another boy, the suspect is our only witness to any of these murders."

"Is that the same boy whose only explanation for any of this shit is that Eddie is possessed by the devil?"

Your question is met with complete silence, in which none of the men can meet your eyes. You scoff.

"Yeah. I thought so. Incompetent fucks."

"You better show some respect," the rude officer threatens. "We could land your boyfriend's ass in prison for a long time if you're not careful."

"So you admit it?" you challenge. You're both standing now, almost chest to chest. "You're blaming Eddie because you don't have any other leads."

The officer sizes you up, almost as if he's considering whether or not to put you in cuffs. You set your jaw, gaze unwavering as you glare into his eyes. After an uneasy, drawn out moment, he backs down, returning to his seat.

"I stand by what I said," you state, crossing your arms. You tower over the men sitting before you. "Eddie didn't do this. He may look like a total creep but that's just to hide the fact that he's too sweet for his own good. He does it to keep away the people who want to hurt him."

"Well, that's all very heart warming," the middle officer responds, "but is there any hard evidence to back up your statement?"

"His clothes," you answer. "His clothes didn't have any blood on them - not enough for someone who could've murdered anyone. And he wore them for three days afterward so they haven't been washed. I know you have them as evidence, so do your fucking job and test them."

They all stare at you, seemingly perplexed that you can poke holes in their theory so easily; the youngest officer actually looks a little scared of you.

"You're very stupid for taking such a tone with us," the middle man says. "I'm almost tempted to cite you with disrespecting an officer."

You swallow, refusing to back down.

"... But you gave us more than we had. So thank you. We'll find you again if we have any further questions."

The men stand, stalking stiffly out of the room without looking back. Once the door is shut, you hear a soft chuckle from the bed behind you.

"You lied to the cops?" Eddie comments groggily. "That's pretty hot."

You turn to face him, rolling your eyes with an endeared smile as you make your way back to the chair at his side. Your fingers find his hair, tenderly brushing the fringe out of his eyes.

"I didn't lie," you correct him. "I just kept out the parts that would make me sound crazy."

"Still hot," Eddie drawls. "Kinda pissed you called me a creep, though."

"You are a creep. Leering at me like that," you tease.

His goofy smile only grows wider, creasing the corners of his mouth in a way that you find beyond beautiful. Even with his injuries, his face discolored and rutted with scratches starting to scab, he's radiant. He tucks your hand within his, raising the back of your palm to his lips in a soft, appreciative kiss.

"Thank you," he whispers.

"Always."

You're asleep on your cot by the window when something heavy crashes into you, bouncing and jostling you awake.

"Wake up!" Dustin shouts. "How can you sleep at a time like this? Holy shit!"

You smack haphazardly at him, your palm landing on his chest.

"Dude," you mumble, "language."

He shoves a newspaper in your face in response, cackling with glee.

"You're my hero," he cheers. "Both of you are my effing heroes."

You roll onto your back, squinting against the morning sun as you try to gain back a little bit more of your consciousness. Across from you, Eddie yawns, reaching a lanky arm to snatch the paper off your chest. His sleepy scowl spreads into an ecstatic grin as he reads the headline.

"Holy shit."

He flips the front page toward you, showing off the letters screaming in bold black ink:

FORENSIC EVIDENCE CLEARS MURDER SUSPECT; POLICE DROP CASE

🌹💀get your eddie fix💀🌹

#muerta's works #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x gn!reader #eddie munson fix-it fic

[lassieposting]

God though, reluctant single dad Vesemir. Vesemir who openly dislikes children, Vesemir who leaves a kid in the woods with the remains of his dead family even though he knows there's something else out there, Vesemir who refers to baby witchers as "abandoned little tragedies", Vesemir whose response to being told he's to teach them to fence is "Am I being punished?"

And suddenly he's the last wolf left. His whole pack is dead and he's got a litter of already-mutated pups to look after that won't get taken in anywhere else. He's completely responsible for the next generation, and children need so many things. He has to learn on the fly that it's not just feeding them and clothing them and teaching them to fight. It's getting up every night for Geralt's night terrors about the Trial and the Sacking, because he's five and he doesn't know how to self-soothe and nobody else is going to do it. It's watching Lambert hurt himself and the other boys in his rages, because he's so mad at the hand life dealt him and he doesn't know how to handle it, and having to figure out how to teach him to channel his anger some other way because that kind of blind fury will get him killed. It's answering a thousand and one "But why?" questions without putting a sword through Eskel because he wants to be good and that is a quality that needs nurturing even if it's annoying as fuck.

None of this is natural to him. He's not a kid person. He's grieving, too, for everyone he ever cared for and the trust he gave his father figure who betrayed him. He's sarcastic and impatient and he fucks up badly, so many times, with these lonely, traumatised little boys. He has to learn to apologise, and forgive, and love them even though he never wanted them to be his responsibility, even though they've basically taken his life from him - the adventuring, the monster-slaying, the coin and the women and the fame - because raising brats is a 24/7/365 job that keeps him tied to Kaer Morhen. He has to learn not to resent them for a life they didn't choose. He has to learn to make them feel like part of a family, because he can't afford to have them abandon Witchering at the first opportunity.

And somehow, it works. His pups grow up, and become Witchers themselves, and he sends them out into the world and breathes a sigh of relief every time one comes back safe. Grieves as best he can whenever one doesn't. Geralt makes him a grandfather, which is not something he ever thought he'd want even with a Witcher's long lifespan, but he loves the bones of that girl. He sees Geralt trying so hard to do better by Ciri than was ever done by him - he's not sure where the hell Geralt got that from, that soft streak that training never quite beat out of him - and the other boys rally round to help him raise his lion cub as a wolf so much faster than he thought they would, and he knows he did something right. And more than that, he's somehow managed to do away with some of the stigma the generations of Witchers before him passed down. Geralt isn't afraid to be gentle with Ciri. He's kind and understanding and supportive towards her, he has to be reminded not to prioritise her wellbeing over finding Leshen!Eskel, he's calm and patient and comforting when her trauma is playing up. It's such a far cry from the completely detached, "numbers game" attitude of the generations before Vesemir, and even from Vesemir's own attitude towards recruits as a young man. He's done exactly what his mentor asked him to do. He raised better, more scrupulous Witchers. He raised better men.

idk man I just have a lot of feelings about Vesemir after NOTW okay

#the witcher #netflix witcher #vesemir #nightmare of the wolf #breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma my beloved #the witcher headcanons #the witcher meta #kaer morons

[silkscream]

i have a req for arvy…him admitting his feelings to you and he’s so nervous but when you reciprocate he kisses you so hard and holds you so tight argh 🫶🫶

arvin russell has never been the best at being good, despite what the elders of the town had said when he was a teenager. he was perfectly polite, always cared for his sister and went to church even though he and his family were the oddballs. though, since his “disappearance”, he’s past it all now, knows full well that anyone who used to know him from that barren town thinks he’s some urban legend gone down to hell.

not you, though.

in this new southern town, you’re the only one who arvin talks to. he figures that your kindness had been there since you were born, that it had been embedded in your veins because of the soft cadence in which you speak. you figure that he’s a lot cuter than the other boys in your town, not to mention the amount of help he’d been right after he’d moved in next door to you. lately, he’s always volunteering to give you rides, always around to help you with your garden.

he’s surprised now to find you in the dingy bar in town sipping on a beer and rejecting the advances of other men, daggers in your eyes that soften immediately when he sits on the stool next to you.

“didn’t know you drank.”

“fuck else is there to do in this shitty town?” you scoff. he snorts, eyebrows raising. you hardly ever cuss in public.

“lots, probably, if you gave any of these poor boys a chance, huh?”

“ha. none of them are worth my time.”

“why’re you still talking to me then?” arvin tries carefully.

you swallow a lump in your throat, smiling sheepishly at him. “because you are.”

it doesn’t take very much for arvin’s cheeks to heat up, roseate flush decorating his features. it’s not as noticeable to you in the low light of the bar, thank god.

“wanna go on a drive?” he asks. you nod.

it doesn’t take much convincing for you to get in the passenger seat of his car. for half an hour, he lets you talk. it feels liberating for you, so liberating that you have to ask him if it’s okay, but he chuckles and asks you more questions. you don’t remember the last time someone had asked something about you.

“you tired?” arvin asks you when the conversation is at a lull. he notices you slumped in your seat.

“no. just lookin’ at the stars.”

he looks at you for a long time until you blink back at him. his brown eyes on the road flicker with some sort of wanting, something that conveys a message you can’t quite decipher. you fiddle with the knob of his radio until it lands on something folk-y, a woman’s voice crooning about her lost lover.

“pull over.”

he listens to you. he can’t imagine not doing so — he never has when he’d help you cook dinner or garden or study.

“what’s up?”

“didn’t wanna waste your gas,” you giggle. “and it’s pretty outside. c’mon.”

arvin follows you onto the front of his car, in which the two of you hoist your bodies onto the hood and look up at the velvety black sky, scattered with stars. he’s scrounging for conversation, looking for something to fill the air so he can full the neurons firing within his body just from his closeness. right when you put your palm over his hand, he stops breathing.

“what’re you thinking about, pretty boy?” you coo.

“you’re drunk, aren’t ya?”

“’m not. what makes you think that?” you furrow your brows.

“y’just called me pretty boy.”

“i’m an honest person, arvin russell.”

an awkward beat. the car’s still running. bobby vinton sings from the car radio like a faraway ghost.

“what are you thinking about?” you ask him.

silence settles uneasily, and arvin thinks that if he were to answer your question with pure honesty, he’d ruin everything. there’s not enough beer in his system for him to make up something on the spot, so he stays quiet. he busies himself with squeezing the joints of your fingers carefully, mindlessly. he can’t look at your face.

“not much,” he asks quietly.

“that’s a lie,” you retort. “you’re very expressive, arvin, even when you think you’re bein’ stoic. i know there’s a shit ton going on in that pretty little head of yours. so tell me.”

he huffs out a breath, leaning back onto the windshield as he faces the sky. his eyelashes flutter like a hummingbird’s wings knowing that your drunken gaze is fixed on him, searing into him, waiting.

“i haven’t been able to get you off my mind for a second, y/n l/n,” he mumbles. “not since you accidentally hit me with a baseball and blamed it on little tanner wick.”

he looks at you now, finally, pupils blown out like flying saucers. or maybe it was the lack of light in the secluded hiding place you two were.

“who said i did that?” you try to hide your smirk, playing with a loose thread from the linen of your dress.

“the kid is five years old.”

“he’s a prodigy.”

he chuckles, shaking his head. “well, i looked up, and i saw you, and it felt like my whole world changed.”

“must’ve hit you too hard.”

“probably.”

the softness of his voice cracks you open and has you raw, but you’d rather die that be splayed out and vulnerable in front of arvin russell like this. hot blood pumps through your ears in anticipation.

“i think about you all the time, arvin,” you whisper.

it’s then when the knot in arvin’s chest untangles. instead, he’s wrapped up in you, freely flowing, especially when you inch closer to him so he can smell your hair. fresh picked daisies surrounds his senses.

you don’t really know how this is supposed to go. sure, boys have courted you before in high school, but in the form of childish notes and rehearsed speeches for school dances. the feel of arvin’s breath against your neck has you wired — this is different. this is unprecedented territory.

your nose twitches slightly like a rabbit’s when he pulls back to look at your face clearly, and he realizes that his emotional reaction to that tiny gesture alone means that he’s in love with you. he could never tell you that, though. but he says it silently with a kiss, pink mouth chapped against yours. there is a string between the two of you that tightens and tightens and tightens and you’re sure that you’re about to mesh into one very soon. the euphoria of it all has you spellbound.

he sucks on your bottom lip experimentally, sweetly, and there’s a dewy ache inside of you that’s all too tantalizing. he pulls away before you can do anything about it, ragged breaths falling from his mouth as he grips your thigh under your dress.

“what?” you rasp, smiling, holding his jaw.

arvin returns a grin and twirls your hair in between his rough fingers.

“think i might have to keep you, now.”

#asks #sunflowermotel #arvin russell x reader #arvin russell x you #arvin russell x y/n #arvin russell smut #arvin russell drabble #arvin russell blurb #arvin russell fluff #tom holland fluff #tom holland smut #tom holland x you

[ladythornofrivia]

Endless Reds and Blues

(Here's the link for the synopsis and the chapter list--read chapter 1 first before reading current chapters I uploaded)

Pair: Kakucho x Reader

(Warning: Inappropriate jokes and dialogue that includes bullying, gossiping and other things that aren't appropriate--dark content--for people under 18 (if you're under 18, I'm sorry but you can't read this)(Yes, I have to say it twice XD)

Author’s Note: Sorry it took forever. Finally! Kakucho and (y/n) meet! Let me know if you want me to tag you whenever I write a new chapter (post a new chapter, I mean). (Note: Report if someone decides to steal the synopsis and my story. And notify me. Thank you) ❤️

Chapter Five: A Restless Dream

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Back on the way to the vacant road, it was almost dark out, the engine in a Porsche car vroomed, and the inside felt as if nothing rumbled beneath the seats. Everything is smooth, and quiet.

On a driver’s seat, Kakucho stirred the wheel. Inside the Porsche, brand new leather seats fill up in the air. You felt a little woozy. Trying to turn on the air condition, your hand stopped. You didn’t want to destroy anything. You don’t wish for Kakucho to sell you out to Bonten. You don’t wish to betray them. Even the slightest thing. So you let it go, retrieved it back on your lap.

A glimpse of moonlight shone in the car, revealing the smooth complexion on Kakucho’s face. Glowing burn of his red-brown eye watched the road. Compare to the other members, he still looks young yet, mature.

His black locks maintained perfect, not a single hair out of place. His one hand gripped the wheel and maneuvered it with ease. His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. The roaring engine grew louder into your ears, hearing the crunch on a concrete road beneath the custom wheels. You couldn’t submit yourself into put one’s mind on a lovely, your mind was heading straight towards the night before meeting Bonten. With him shirtless and a girl nearly buck naked, only in a thong and a white tank top, possibilities come forth into your mind, picturing how their argument started—you know how the argument ended—you divulged yourself.

In a most inappropriate timing. To just over yelling the ones who argue, you yelled in English—you forgot you’re in Japan at a small neighboring apartment. Which it humbled you to a moment where you shouldn’t raise your voice louder than the ones who were arguing. Embarrassed, you quickly wanted to correct your ways to stop the argument, but you got none.

Perhaps correcting next time would be best for you.

You wondered if Kakucho ever forgot about the incident. If he did, you’d be thankful.

You pursed your lips.

“Forget what you saw that other day,” he said, still eyes on the road.

“What?” you stuttered a bit.

“On that morning, it was nothing spectacular.”

Your eyes lingered onto him, eyelashes fluttered from blinking.

“She just wanted to get money from me, so I have to…do what I have to do. She liked the result. But I didn’t want anything to do with her anymore.”

“How come?”

“She bitches a lot,” he answering, glimpsing his eyes to yours at the stoplight. “She bitches a lot about how her boyfriend was always away and goes back from the bar, being drunk, doing stupid stuff.”

Two-colored eyes darted to yours with a soft look. It almost looked deceivable, but endearing like a restless dream.

“She wanted me for the money. And she had a lot of debt at the moment ever since they broke up, so she tries to invited me into her place. And that’s where we fucked.”

The stoplight went for a go signal, and he drove slightly faster. Gladly, the cops weren’t around. Not that it matters to him.

“I was sleeping on that morning because I have homework due, so I have to work on it at a late hour.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Sorry,” you questioned, flabbergasted. “I’m just doing this for my future.”

“I meant the ruckus.”

“I see. Sorry you had to look at my horror-style look in the morning.”

“Not with the wild, red hair of yours.”

“It’s not wild anymore,” you replied, smiling a bit. “I tamed it this morning.”

The car beside them vroomed.

“You don’t have to drive me home and school everyday,” you said, somewhat the guilt was eating you up.

“Contract, remember?”

“Still, I’m sorry they assigned you as the driver.”

“I don’t mind as long as those idiots aren’t around.”

“Are they always like that?”

“More so. Despite their crazy antics, the Haitani brothers are the most favorable ones among the girls.”

“Is there like a popularity poll?”

“According to the people at school, yes. Ran is the first, Rindou in second place. The third one is me.”

Laying your back against the chair frame, you quietly exhaled. “To what entails? Being the best friend? Ally? Boyfriend?”

“It didn’t matter which. As long as we entertain those girls, they would leave us.”

That’s a contradictory.

“It didn’t go so well?”

“But the Haitani brothers loved it. Well, Ran does.”

“Ran? The one who lead me onto his favorite chair.”

His tongue clicked. “His brother…not so much.”

You took lip balm in your bag and dab it against your lips.

For a second, Kakucho looked at your direction.

“My lips are dry,” you said, shoving the lip balm back. Before you could that, you handed it towards Kakucho. “You need this?”

He waved it off. “No thanks.”

Then he swerved onto the left route, then for five minutes, the sports vehicle stopped.

There at your apartment, the night has set in. You have to come up with an excuse to your parents.

Noticing the lights by your apartment, it meant your parents are waiting. But the neighbor’s lights are off. “Does the girl still lives there?” you asked.

“Not anymore.” He unbuckled his seat belt and went to the side the right car door and opened it. “She got evicted not long after our argument.”

Once you thanked him, you said, “Kokonoi said that you’re going to pick me up at school. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

Kakucho dipped his head as an answer.

“Have a good night,” you said, pivoting and walking back towards him and offer him a handshake. He took your hand in his and gave a deep kiss onto the back of your hand, languid and soft, while Ran’s kisses are light and quick, Kakucho took his time to get to know what your skin feel.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, (y/n). I’ll be here at sixty-thirty in the morning,” Kakucho laid another deep kiss. Unexpectedly, his hand reached the back of your head, but gingerly waned and drew it back. “Sweet dreams.” He bowed and left with his Porsche.

And that, you couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night, thinking of his eyes and a lingering touch he pressed against yours.

*~~*~~*

"Hey, what's your phone number?" Himiko asked, half-skipped walked, following you.

"Why?" you asked, looking back over your shoulder.

"Because you're always carrying a book," Himiko said. "And I never see you texted anyone."

You turned your head, meeting her eyes. “I’ll give it to you later.”

“Promise?”

You smiled. Then facing back at the board. “I can’t see my test results on the bulletin board.”

“Let’s go at the front,” Himiko said.

“Or we can wait,” you suggested. “We can wait for everyone to leave so that we find our results better.”

“Oh my god, it’s them!” one fan girl said, pointing while jumping into place. “Bonten!”

The girls flocked to them. Bonten greeted them as if your interactions with them didn’t happen. Good, you wanted to keep this way.

“Hey let’s go grab some lunch,” you suggested, distracting Himiko from looking at Bonten.

“But, lunch is this way,” Himiko protested, as you drag her down at the opposite hall.

*~~*~~*

“Ah, she didn’t see us today,” Ran said, tsking. Girls were still swarming them, but not too close, still following the rules.

“That’s because we’re talking to the girls,” Rindou reminded, bumping at Ran’s back.

“Someone should fetch her,” Kokonoi proposed. “She can’t let this go. We had the deal.”

“You should’ve gone for blood oath,” Sanzu replied, scowling.

Kokonoi shook his head. “Where’s Kakucho when you need him?”

“Gone off to Mariko,” Ran implied, walking ahead while his brother and the members are left speechless. “I’ll take care of this,” he whispered to himself as he went striding to the path you went on not too long ago.

“Hey, it’s either Shion or Mochi,” Sanzu said, somewhat raised his hand. Sanzu reached Ran's pace and grabbed him by the forearm. Sanzu leaned onto Ran's ear with gritted teeth. "You're the most popular member of Tenjiku, and you can't go alone, or else the girls will take the wrong idea."

The girls who swarmed around them were filled with boasts and praises.

“Yeah, yeah.” Ran said, yanking his arm back before he waved without a second thought. “Come on, boys,” his attention spiraled to his men with a glint on his right eye. “It’s time to pay a visit to our little mermaid.”

Taglist: @galactict3a and @f1yh1gh and @colored-tr-panels

#bonten #bonten x reader #bonten smut #tokrev #tokyo revengers #tokyo rev x reader #tokyo manji gang #fanfic #reader insert #fanfiction #tokyo revengers headcanons #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo rev #tokyo rev smut #fanfics #toman #bonten x y/n #tokrev x reader #tokyo rev headcanons #kakucho hitto #x reader #anime fanfic #tr smut #tr x reader #tokyo rev fluff #tokyo rev x you #anime #bonten angst #tokrev smut

[drabbles-mc]

Intruders

Jax Teller & Opie Winston & Sibling!OFC (Veronica Winston)

Whumptober 2022: No.27 Pushed To The Limit- Muffled Screams

Warnings: 18+, language, angst

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: The way I’ve missed writing for Veronica so much is criminal. I love her.

SOA Taglist: @mijop @chibsytelford @thanossexual @anditsmywholeheart @i-just-read-stuff @bport76 @withmyteeth @garbinge @buckybarneshairpullingkink @punkgoddess-98 @black-repunzel99 @jitterbugs927 @fanfic-n-tabulous @fuckyeahopie @mijagif @frattsparty @winchestershiresauce @i-love-scott-mccall @passionatewrites (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

When she rolled into the parking lot for her apartment building, she immediately noticed that there were already two bikes up front. She let out a deep sigh as she pulled her helmet off her head, propping it against her hip for a moment as she weighed the pros and cons of turning around and going for a ride, or walking right into whatever was undoubtedly taking place at her apartment.

Things had been tense all over. It had been a bit since she was even all that involved with everything that the club was doing, having been busy enough to stay on the outskirts of it all. But she knew that things were rough. She hadn’t seen Piney in weeks, and it had been a bit since she had seen Opie as well. While it wasn’t as though the men of the Winston family were the type to make a habit of weekly dinners together, she knew that if it went more than a couple days with no sightings and not hearing anything from them, calls or texts, that things were getting a little rough.

And, if that hadn’t been enough, Jax turned up on her doorstep the night before looking like an entire mess. His clothes were bloody but he was unscathed, which raised more questions than it answered. She’d had her comments for disturbing her sleep schedule locked and loaded, but she’d forgotten them all when she saw the look on his face after opening the door.

He didn’t want to talk about it. Typical. Just like her brother, just like her father. None of them ever wanted to talk about anything. She wasn’t all that much better, but she certainly wasn’t quite as bad. She didn’t try too hard to pry. She had gone enough years facing the disappointments that followed trying pull information out of any of them. Instead she gave him exactly what he had shown up for: a beer, a shower, and a spare bed to use for the night.

She didn’t know if Jax had told Opie where he was staying, or if Opie had shown up looking for her and found Jax instead.  The last that she had heard, the two of them really weren’t on the best of terms. While that might have changed, she knew was that there was a slight chance that she was going to walk into a trashed apartment because of the two of them. If that ended up being the case, she was going to make them clean it up, too.

She shouldered her bag, carrying her helmet in one hand and her keys in the other. As she padded her way up the stairs, she didn’t even make it completely to the second floor before she heard the muffled yelling undoubtedly coming from her apartment. She could identify Jax’s yells from a mile away. She groaned internally the closer that she got to the door.

Instead of heading right in, she waited on the other side of the door for a moment. She pressed her ear to it, not to hear Jax, but to hear whatever it was that Opie was going to have to say in response to it. Her goddamn neighbors knew Jax’s side of the argument by this point with the way that he was yelling.

“I don’t care!” Opie finally snapped, yelling back.

Veronica’s eyes widened, and she almost stepped back from the door. She couldn’t remember the last time that she ever heard her brother raise his voice like that. She almost put her key in the lock, afraid that Opie wasn’t going to stop at just yelling. But she was too desperate to know what the fuck was going on between the two of them that neither had taken the time to tell her about.

Opie’s voice was a little quieter when he spoke up again, but still loud. Veronica could make out the words just well enough from the other side of the walls. “You had no right to come here, to come to V of all fucking people.”

There was a long stretch of silence after that. It wasn’t often that Jax was left with nothing to say. She gave it another beat before finally slipping her key into the lock. When she pushed the door open, she was still half-expecting a mess, but surprisingly everything was perfectly in place except for the two men standing on the opposite sides of the small table in her kitchen.

She stepped in, pushing the door shut behind her but not bothering to lock it, feeling like one or both of them currently staring at her were going to leave soon. She dropped her bag to the floor, trying not to feel out of place with the way they were both staring at her so intently.

“It’s my apartment, you know.” She set her helmet down on the table between them. “If anything I should be the one looking at the two of you like that. Especially when I can hear your arguing all the way from the stairwell. So,” she tucked her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, “what’s going on?”

Neither of them said anything, each looking at the other trying to figure out who was going to say something first. Opie just wanted to hear Jax trying to explain the entire situation, no matter how slanted his pitch was going to be. He wanted to know what kinds of lies he was going to be telling everyone when they asked about it. He wanted to see Jax push Veronica, the only person in their world who was too forgiving for their own good, to her absolute limit.

She looked back and forth between them again. “Someone? Anyone?”

Jax finally broke the silence. “Opie shot Clay.”

Veronica’s eyes went wide, “What?”

Opie shook his head, clenching and unclenching his hands. “Tell her why, Jax.”

Fear shot through Jax’s body. “Ope—”

“Tell her!” he snapped.

Worry saturated Veronica’s entire facial expression as she looked at Jax. He shook his head, running his hands back through his short, messy hair. “Clay…Clay shot Piney.”

Tears sprung into her eyes, bottom lip trembling as she tried to process what she had just heard. “Wh-what?”

“Clay killed our old man,” Opie’s voice was frigid. He was speaking to his sister but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Jax.

She wiped at the teas on her face. “When, when did all of this happen?” She sucked in an unsteady breath, focusing more on her brother now than Jax. “Why the fuck am I just hearing about this now?”

Opie shook his head. “I just found out. Went to the cabin a couple nights ago.”

“You’ve known for a couple nights?!” she snapped. “Why didn’t…why didn’t you tell me?”

“Wanted to take care of Clay first.”

She let out a humorless laugh. “Jesus Christ. That’s, he’s my dad too, Ope. I should’ve been your first call after you found out.”

Jax tried to intervene on his behalf. “V, listen—”

“And you,” she cut him off, turning and walking over so that she was toe to toe with him, “you came here last night knowing all of this shit? And you didn’t tell me either?!”

Jax’s face softened a bit, knowing that he could scream in Opie’s face all he wanted, but he could never do the same to his little sister. She looked slightly up at him, tears in her eyes, and suddenly they were all kids again and they just found out that Mary took off.  It felt like she had been sad ever since then. But Jax couldn’t remember the last time he saw her like this. It had been a long time since he saw her anger almost outweigh her sadness.

He wanted to be able to rattle off the reasons why he didn’t say anything, but as he looked into her big, sad brown eyes, he knew that there was nothing he could say that would be good enough. He couldn’t not answer her, though.

“I didn’t…” he shrugged helplessly, “I don’t have all the facts. Neither of us do,” he said as he motioned back and forth between himself and Opie.

“The facts?!” V brought her hands up like she was going to grab Jax’s entire skull between her hands. She clenched her fists before interlocking her hands behind her head, trying to stave off the urge to completely combust. “The facts are that my dad is dead, Jax! And it’s Clay’s fucking fault! The facts?” She scoffed, but it came out like a choked, sad sound, “Are that you knew all of that and you showed up on my fucking doorstep,” she shoved his chest, “asking me for a place to stay!” Tears spilled out onto her cheeks, “And I let you in!” Her face dropped into her hands as she sobbed.

Jax’s voice was soft, “V,” he reached to put his hand on her shoulder, “I’m—”

She jerked away from him, shaking her head. Her voice was quieter now, shaky. “Don’t touch me.”

Jax pressed his lips into a thin line for a moment as he tried to figure out how to do any damage control that he could. “I didn’t—”

But Veronica wasn’t having any of it. “I don’t want to hear anything that you have to say right now.”

“Veronica…”

“Get out of my fucking apartment, Jax.” She paused, waiting for him to start moving. When he didn’t, she said, “You have ten seconds until whatever Opie did to Clay looks like an act of mercy compared to what will happen to you.”

Tears were still spilling over onto her cheeks, and while Jax knew that Veronica didn’t have a violent bone in her body, he knew that Opie absolutely did. He wished that they were still kids, that he could hug her and she could try to be mad about it for a second but then she’d let it go because it was what she needed. Those days were long gone, though. And judging by the look in her eyes, Jax seriously wondered if they would ever have anything close to that again.

With a deep sigh, Jax nodded and stepped towards the door. He looked back at both her and Opie. He was half-expecting Opie to have something else to say, even if it was just another comment to try and twist the knife deeper into the entire situation. He stayed quiet, though, his eyes locked on Jax like he was begging for him to do something stupid. For once, though, Jax didn’t. He pulled the door open and slipped out, shutting it quietly behind him.

When it was finally just the two of them in the apartment, Opie turned and looked at his sister. He really had shown up to tell her about their dad. He would tell her what she needed to know about Jax and Clay, too, but he knew that she needed to know about their father. He hated that it all played out the way that it did, but when he showed up to her place to find Jax grabbing a drink from the refrigerator like he lived there and had never done a damn thing wrong, he couldn’t stop himself.

He walked over to her, leaving just enough space between them so that if she wanted to hug him, she could, but if she wanted space, she could have that too. He couldn’t blame her for either reaction.

“I’m not,” she shook her head as she wiped more tears off her face, “thrilled with you either right now, Opie.”

He nodded. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

He sighed, shaking his head. “It all happened pretty quick. I went to the cabin to check on pops, found him dead, and before I could even do shit, Unser showed up.”

“Unser?”

“Yea. He’s the one who told me it was Clay.”

“Jesus. Did everyone know my dad was dead before me?”

Opie let out a quiet chuckle. It wasn’t funny, but he still couldn’t help but to laugh a little at the absurdity of it all. How did this become their lives? “Sorry, V.”

“You should be. I…I shouldn’t have had to hear that from Jax.”

He saw the way that her bottom lip was starting to tremble again and he made the executive decision to reach out and pull her into a hug. She was tense at first but she didn’t fight him on it. After a few seconds she broke, sobbing into the t-shirt that covered his chest. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, resting his chin on top of her head.

“Did you kill him, at least?” she mumbled into his chest.

Opie’s face scrunched in confusion as he tried to hear what she had just said. “What?”

She pulled away so she could look up at him. The sadness in her eyes was quickly turning back into anger. “Clay. Did you kill him?”

Opie shook his head. “No. Jax saved him.”

She scoffed, shaking her head. She couldn’t really be too surprised by it, though—the Teller-Morrow ties were tightly bound despite how messy they were. Stepping back a little more, she gestured to his arm that was wrapped in gauze. “That what this is all about?”

Opie nodded. “Yea. He said he was gonna kill me, but…”

“His aim that bad? Or did he take pity on you?”

“Whatever one makes you feel better.”

She let out a half-hearted laugh as she shook her head. Taking a deep, staggered breath, she met Opie’s eyes again. “What now, Opie?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Feels like it’s out of my fuckin’ hands now…yours too.”

“Apparently it was never in mine to begin with.”

“V—”

“If you weren’t all that I have left, Opie,” her voice was soft, sad in a thousand different ways, “I would tell you to get the fuck out of my apartment too.”

“Do you really want me to stay?”

“You’re my brother,” her voice cracked. She gave herself a moment to try and get herself together. “And I’m so, so unbelievably mad at you right now. But I want you to stay.”

He nodded, pulling her back into another hug. “Alright. I’ll stay.” He gave her a minute before he asked, “Any of your neighbors gonna call the cops because of all the yelling?”

She couldn’t help but to laugh. “I doubt it. But if they do, I’m giving the cops all of Jax’s info. Put a domestic dispute on his rap sheet along with everything else.”

Opie chuckled. “That’s fair.” He paused, his expression sobering. “I am sorry.”

She sniffled, nodding. “I know.” She raked her fingers back through her hair. “When you know what’s next, will you tell me?”

“I will. Promise.”

“Good.” She wiped the last of the tears off her face. “We’re not done talking about this. But I just, I need a minute to sit with it.”

“Okay.”

She sighed, nodding, “Okay.”

#sons of anarchy #soa #soa imagine #sons of anarchy imagine #sons of anarchy fanfiction #jax teller #opie winston #oc veronica #oc veronica winston #fanfiction #drabblesmc

[liviyiuu]

‘ love me again ’

↬ synopsis: you and kaeya broke up some time ago, but when you become 'friends with benefits' and he knows he’s still in love with you, how does he handle it?

↬ ft: kaeya

↬ genre: angst ; modern au

↬ warnings: angst ; implied sex ; friends with benefits ; suggestive ; gn!reader

↬ notes: based off one of my most fav songs ever 'heartbeat' - childish gambino ; IDK IF I LIKE THIS UGH

Kaeya isn’t stupid. He’s as painfully aware of the facts as one can possibly be - that fact being, he’s still in love with you.

Your breakup was brutal. Harsh words that neither of you meant were exchanged, voices raising higher and higher as the screaming match grew more heated. He knew his words cut deep, he could see it in your eyes, but he knows you know yours did too.

You ignore him; he ignores you. Though even with the distance, he’s unable to get you out of his head. The guilt of your last argument has a vice grip on his heart and he can’t help but ask those stupid questions: Had you been eating? Sleeping? Do you still think of him too?

It’s over. He’s sure of it when he over hears your friends talking about your new boyfriend.

So when he wakes up and you’re next to him, skin bare and blood red hickeys littering your form his eyes practically pop out of his head. He can barely even process the situation by the time you’ve woken up, a variety of emotions passing your expression: horror, fear, sadness, anger - and something else that he can’t quite pinpoint.

Before he has the chance to say anything, not that he knows what to say, you’ve shot up from the bed, a string of apologies leaving your mouth.

What are you apologizing for?

As you leave, he’s left dumbstruck under the sheets, wondering what the fuck just happened.

The next day, he hears you and your boyfriend have broken up.

Impulsively he sends a text, asking how you’re holding up. And then another that asks if you want to meet up and allow him to comfort you.

'Okay.' is the answer he receives. His heart is racing, and life suddenly seems to be a lot brighter.

Of course, it doesn’t end with talking and he wakes up again next to you in all your glory. This time, you don’t run. He thinks it’s progress.

He now holds the title of 'friend with benefit', kind of without the friend though, you just seem to text him whenever you want stress relief.

He now has a silver of hope, which he clings to desperately, so sure that the relationship will change and go back to the way it was.

Until you get another boyfriend.

All communication stops. And after he really thought the relationship was mending.

Months go by and still nothing. He tries so hard to move on, meeting new people and hooking up. Nothing works though.

He’s almost given up until he gets a message,

'It’s not fair.'

From the time he’s spent with you, he knows this is code for 'he’s not here'. And like a moth to flame, he stupidly shows up at your door. Tears are cascading down your cheeks and his heart breaks. For some reason he can’t fathom he leans in and whispers sweet nothing in your ears to soothe you.

He knows it's fucked up, but he can’t help but feel happy when you say your boyfriend dumped you through choked sobs. He strokes your hair and presses feather-light kisses to your forehead.

Without warning, you smash your lips on his and he understands he’s crossed a line. You aren’t together anymore, shows of affection were forbidden. He’s dragged off to your bedroom, hands roaming your body between heated kisses.

This time, you wake first. Your eyes are fixated on him, him who sleeps peacefully by your side as if none of what happened matters. Your fingers brush his face and he stirs slightly, only for the soft snores to resume.

Silently, you slip out of the bed and immediately miss the warmth of being in his arms. You find a pen and paper and begin to write a note. When finished, you kiss his palm and leave it there before leaving the house. You don’t want to be there when he reads it.

It’s an hour later when he finally awakens, and finds the note in his hand.

Kaeya isn’t stupid. He’s as painfully aware of the facts as one can possibly be - except this one of course, because why on earth does the note read,

‘Do you still love me as I do you?’

#keaya x reader #keaya alberich x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #kaeya x you #liviyiuu writes - ✫

[wonder-in-wings]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Seven Peaks PARTIES: Parker (@wonder-in-wings and Rhett (@ironcladrhett SUMMARY: Parker and Rhett, the two Wardens in town, run into each other as they happen to be after the same prey. CONTENT WARNINGS: Drug manipulation, surgery

Recently, Parker had run into a string of relative failures - he was accruing knowledge about different specimens for sure, but as far as increasing his fae collection, it had been stagnating and he didn’t like it. Well… there were a couple of things but he was still coming around to the idea that he’d actually gotten those things. He tried to keep himself engaged, keep pushing towards the next thing but ever since establishing his job at the museum, he realized how terribly boring it was and how that cut into his hobbies and preferences. He didn’t come from wealth, per se, but he had found a good position as a trophy hunter of sorts - people paid a lot of money for aesthetically-pleasing things to put in their house whether it be a centerpiece for a game room or just something on the wall for people to admire their alien beauty.

He wasn’t back to his full form yet but he was doing remarkably better, which worked to his benefit that evening. Parker was tracking what he believed to be an entomid but while the trail hadn’t run cold, he found himself at a little bit of a blockade. Having successfully found the fae’s lodgings, that’s where he was now, taking a small reprieve and massaging one of the bruises that still spotted his abdomen. None of them hurt anymore, not really and at least he had gotten over the bacterial infection. It was a camp deep in Seven Peaks, which wasn’t Parker’s usual stomping grounds but from what he could gather, it was going to be an easy target - the entomid was allegedly moth-like in its unglamoured appearance and while the Warden didn’t really have a need for moth wings, they were a way to get money and maybe he could get lucky in the type of moth it leaned towards. As of right now though, he paused at the abandoned campsite, his blue eyes scanning the ground for any indication of where it could’ve gone and unaware that he could’ve been ambushed as nothing was coming through one side of his head.

— Every night was spent hunting these days. Since Emilio had banned him from the apartment during specific hours, he made due, filling his time with the thing he should’ve been doing anyway—trying to find her. And the easiest way to get to her was to find and interrogate every fucking fae he could get his hands on. 

It was as easy as following his nose, if you were one for metaphors. He’d tramp around the woods until something alerted him to its presence, and he’d follow it. More often than not it was just some fae beast, nothing that could give him answers, but sometimes… sometimes he’d come upon a sentient one. Those were his luckiest days, and even if the interrogation didn’t net much in the way of information, it at least usually ended in a kill. Couldn’t complain about that. 

This one he’d been tracking for two miles, waiting to see where it would lead him. If it was to an aos sí, he wasn’t fully confident that he wouldn’t make an attempt to storm the place—it would be stupid, seeing as he was alone, but to be so close, so very, very close—

Fuck. It wasn’t leading him to an aos sí at all. Just a tiny, useless campsite. Annoyed but still determined, Rhett knelt and watched the nymph return to its campsite, only to see it stop with what appeared to be shock. 

“What are you doing here?!” he heard it exclaim, making his brows raise. 

— Then, an exclamation, a demand to know what Parker was doing there. It came from behind him but perhaps foolishly, it didn’t attack him first then get around to asking questions once he was in a compromised state. Instinctively placing a hand on the fine, strangely-shaped hilt of one of his needle-like daggers, he turned the appropriate direction so that his good ear was facing the nymph for a moment before the rest of him followed suit. And try as he might not to become enamored, it didn’t work. Parker’s eyes fell upon the entomid, already falling to admire the spectacle of the soft wings that fidgeted behind it as it stood tense before him on its digitigrade, segmented legs. “I’m here for you.” The Warden replied, his face betraying his voice as they were asynchronistic, not communicating effectively as one was emotionless and the other was rather gentle. “Specifically, I’m here for your wings.” He took a small step towards the nymph, the latter understandably hopping back and clenching its clawed hands. “I’d rather not fight.” Parker clarified, keeping his unblinking gaze on the fae’s wings as he took another step closer. His blood rippled beneath his skin uncomfortably, telling him that he was in danger and he allowed it in anticipation of being attacked. “Your wings, as I’m sure you know, are breathtaking.” The emotion was edging more into his voice now. “I need to immortalize them.” As he talked, his brain started mixing and matching the knowledge he knew on fae as well as what he knew about moths and how best to approach this. The nymph didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t want to fight you either!” It said, fluttering its wings anxiously. “I’m just hiding out, not bothering no one!” “We both know that’s not true.” Parker replied, narrowing his stare slightly. “But you didn’t hurt anybody, you’re right. I’m willing to compensate you for those wings. It’ll be quick and painless.” He assured the entomid honestly.

—

What in the hell? Confusion reigned as Rhett watched the stranger interact with the fae, sending it a few steps back toward him as it tried to avoid the clear threat in front of it, oblivious to the one behind it. 

Why’d this fucker want the wings? Who collected fae bits? That was fuckin’ weird—actually, it was weird across the board that this guy was out here at all, clearly waiting for the fae to return, unless… was he a warden? If yes, then why not just kill the thing and take the wings he wanted once it was dead? Seemed far easier than trying to convince it to give them up.

Unless he was one of those kinds of hunters. The kind that Rhett never got along with, much as he wanted to. Making friends was fuckin’ hard enough, didn’t help that so many hunters these days were goin’ soft and saw his methods as cruel and unnecessary. Weren’t shit about what he did that was needless, goddamnit. It was all earned. All of it. 

With a frown, the warden got to his feet. “I got a few questions fer this bug ‘afore you go rippin’ off its wings n’ makin’ it all faint, mate,” he said, announcing his presence. The entomid was effectively trapped between the two sources of malice, though one seemed a bit more malignant at this juncture, and spurred the creature to take one more step toward Parker as it whipped around to face Rhett. 

— Any progress Parker thought he made with the nymph during this brief discussion was effectively undone, or so he thought, as someone else rose from the brush opposite the two and despite his pull for another treasure to add to his hoard, he quickly and effortlessly pulled his eyes away from the enamoring set of wings to snap onto the newcomer. He looked distinctive, that was for sure, and Parker couldn’t keep his brow from twinging slightly. Whether it was out of curiosity, irritation or both, he couldn’t be sure but he straightened his own posture, as though readying himself to either run or start taking attacks. The entomid had since gone from facing him to facing the other stranger, giving the Warden a better look at the wings out of his peripheral vision and he inhaled deeply, subconsciously moving his arms to fold in front of his chest. “You make the process sound barbaric.” He called with an expression that conveyed his disapproval of such terminology when referring to a harvest. “It’s a delicate operation and if it complies then it’ll be perfectly capable of answering your questions afterwards.” Parker explained; he didn’t know the stranger or why he was there but he also knew that if he was a Warden, then Parker’s time was limited - he figured that the other man wasn’t one of those bleeding hearts that spared the innocent, which meant he was violent and, most egregiously, clumsy.

—

Glancing between the fae and the warden, Rhett looked unamused. He didn’t care if the other man took this thing’s wings or not, he just didn’t really feel like waiting around for that to be done. Still… cooperation would prevent two fights, one of which he wasn’t sure he could win, what with his bad eyes, and all. 

So he compromised, narrowing his gaze at the fae who was sucking in deep, panicked breaths. “What d’ya prefer, then, bug? Wings first, or interrogation? Don’t make no difference to me, really…” It let out a strained groan, seeming to feel Parker’s presence behind it again as it arched its back away from him, only moving a couple of inches, too stricken with fear to decide which was the better alternative. 

So, naturally, it tried to make a break for it. Those wings fluttered powerfully behind it and gave it some lift as it bounded away from them both in the direction left most open, and Rhett cursed under his breath before quickly engaging in pursuit. He didn’t have his net with him, unfortunately, which would have made this all a hell of a lot easier. 

—

One moment, his target was in front of him and then in a quick motion of flurrying wings and a leap to give itself speed, the entomid had made a quick departure, leaving nothing but shimmering moth dust in its wake. Parker reacted at almost the same exact speed the stranger did, even uttering his own curse under his breath as he broke into a run himself to catch and keep up. As he did so, he worked with the tools he had at his disposal - this time, Parker had brought the wrist-mounted crossbow he’d been experimenting with and he managed to run at the same pace as the other hunter, messing with the gadget and reaching onto his utility belt on occasion. “I had it under control,” He said loudly enough for the other man to hear. “Now unless you have a rope or something synonymous to disable it with, I have sedatives.” He held up the crossbow briefly before he stopped what he was doing for a second to run faster in a small burst. The rest of the questions Parker had, namely ‘who are you’ and ‘what do you want with this nymph’ were inappropriate for the time, as they pursued the fae who seemed to be gaining ground on them; he hoped the stranger would either let him sedate it or he had other plans that worked just as quickly.

—

Keeping track of this thing as it bounded through the forest was no easy task with his vision being what it was, so he was actually a bit glad that this other warden was present. He mentioned sedatives, and Rhett angled his head enough to see the crossbow that was being readied. “Aye, go fer it,” he said between breaths. There was some amount of motion that was outside his field of vision (though he could hear it), and then a thunk and the whistle of something whizzing through the air. The fae in front of them reacted to being hit with something, and Rhett smiled, allowing his pace to slow. He was breathing hard, but knew they’d catch up to the thing now. 

Whatever the other warden had for sedatives worked mighty fast, and Rhett could still see the fae when it went down, crashing into the foliage unceremoniously. He threw a grin in the man’s direction and gave an elated nod. “Nice shootin’, Tex,” he commented with a chuckle, slowing to a walk as they approached the body. God, it was ugly, wasn’t it? “So… what, you gonna just hack those wings off here, or…?”

—

It was fortunate that the other Warden - Parker assumed he was a Warden, anyway - gave him affirmation to sedate the nymph, as the latter was pulling ahead fast. He only had one shot as they ran through the pines and he slowed down in his sprint to aim as best as he could, holding his arm up and taking a split second to predict how the entomid was going to move. The trigger was pulled, the bolt was sent flying through the air and Parker fell to a trot even before he knew the bolt made contact; regardless, that was the one shot he had. Fortunately, it did seem to land and the other Warden also slowed, giving him nonverbal confirmation that it worked. The duo approached the incapacitated nymph and as Parker started to unequip the specialized weapon from his wrist, he caught the other hunter’s movements, the smile, the nod, and he looked over himself with a much more curt nod in acknowledgment. His gaze fell back to the wings on the entomid, how they glistened with moth scales in the sun, how soft they appeared, the shape, the color. Parker’s mind became a blossom of potential shapes and forms he could turn them into but he was shaken from the kaleidoscopic mindscape of his obsession as the other Warden asked what he was going to do. “I… would rather not.” He replied, licking his lip as he spoke between deep breaths, recovering it from their chase. “I have a bunker in the Pines that I usually take them to perform the operation.” He squinted slightly and looked into the middle distance with thought - the Pines were big enough as they were and they were in Seven Peaks, not to mention he wasn’t sure exactly where. “But…” He exhaled. “Yeah, here might be best.” Nodding his head, already falling into his pattern of getting to work, Parker started to remove the tools from his utility belt. “You said you had questions for it,” He mused. “What questions?” He cast a glance up at the pirate-looking hunter for a few moments.

—

“Oi, no shit? I got one’ah them, too,” Rhett responded with a breathy laugh, pressing his gloved hands to his hips and arching his back to allow his lungs to stretch and take in more air. The other agreed that here would have to do for his… operation, as he called it, and Rhett smiled. Good. The sooner it was done, the better. 

Pacing around the body of the fallen creature, watching the way its back rose and fell with each breath and those wings twitched in an almost dreamlike way, he didn’t quite realize at first that the man was speaking to him. His dark gaze darted up to meet the other’s piercing blue one, and he faltered. “Huh?” Questions. His thoughts caught up with him and he shook his head, letting his gaze fall back down to the entomid between them. “Oh, uh… m’lookin’ fer a hesperide. Particular one, y’see. Heard it’s been out this way.” He paused, his brow knitting in the middle. “... been tryna interrogate every one of ‘em that I can, find out what they know. Sh—it’s lookin’ for an aos sí to take it in. Know there’s a few ‘round here, just don’t know where.” He might be saying too much. He didn’t know this warden’s modus operandi, after all, other than he liked collecting… wings, it would seem. 

His gaze remained locked on the fae and he realized with some amount of surprise that he’d never taken the time to look at one like this. Not in a long time. Not since her. Since then it was kill, cover, and dump the body if needed. He sank into a squat, watching what the stranger was doing with a sort of morbid curiosity, which was befitting of him, of course. 

“I’m Rhett,” he announced, unprompted. It was only now that he lifted his eyes again, hoping to catch the other man’s while he learned his name. “What, uh… what’s got you interested in the wings, anyway?”

—

What were the odds that Parker had encountered another Warden who had a bunker? Was that… something that Wardens just did? The man hadn’t met too many other Wardens - they seemed to be the ‘rarest’ of hunters, he noticed - and as such, he wasn’t quite sure how to treat them or act around them. Rayne had said that none of them had people skills but he wasn’t sure; the pirate seemed affable, his unceremonious entrance to the two-individual conversation notwithstanding. And he was kind enough, at least at a first impression, to let the other Warden work. Their gazes were only exchanged for a moment before Parker glanced back down and started to do his job, or ‘work his magic’ as his brother called it. He moved efficiently, a machine on an assembly line, each movement precise, intimate, careful and quick as the other Warden began explaining his reasoning. Contrary to popular belief, Parker was incredibly efficient at this version of multitasking and though his hearing wasn’t the best and he found himself pausing in his work just long enough to make sure he could hear through the dialect of his temporary companion: he was after a hesperide. He also began to use pronouns but stopped himself, presumably to separate the fae from the person it could be. Looking for a nymph who was looking for an aos sí. Parker was cognizant of aos sí, pockets of fae communities that were closed off to any non-fae for protection and secrecy but he was also a practical man most of the time - aos sí meant a lot of fae and that prospect was both slightly inconvenient against one Warden and considerably more overwhelming for him as an individual. Parker wouldn’t have been able to go into a place like that, certainly not by himself; the Grit Pit was already overstimulating to someone with his mind and there weren’t nearly as many fae running around. ‘Stand up, boy. If you get overwhelmed, they won’t hesitate to strike.’ His father’s voice trailed through his head as his peripheral vision caught the other man crouching next to him, presumably either to watch him work or to study the specimen for himself. ‘Don’t go alone, if you can’t handle it. Other Wardens should be able to help.’ It worked out that that particular thought would’ve crossed Parker’s mind because it caused him to look at the other Warden just as the latter introduced himself as Rhett. He didn’t blink, unsurprisingly, but he did keep his steely blue gaze on the grizzled pirate as a snap was heard, ringing through the otherwise serene forest before immediately being smothered in a soft hissing as he placed the flat end of the dagger against the oozing wound, cauterizing it. “Parker.” He replied, carefully setting the newly-separated wing aside as he moved the entomid’s body to start working on the other one - at least entomid wings were easier to remove, as they tended to be segmented as actual insect wings were. “I’m a collector.” He went on to explain as he glanced down and continued his process. “When I was young I used to collect insects. I still do, but my interests have since expanded to the fae.” Parker gave a small half-shrug. “Legacies come with expectations and this is how I can best contribute to mine.” He licked his lower lip absently, his expression giving no indication of how this conversation made him feel. That was what he preferred. “I met a hesperide recently.” He mused. “But it was a male. Probably not who you’re looking for.”

—

Rhett was, despite what one might think, a good listener. He listened, quiet and attentive, as Parker spoke to answer his question. It made sense, he supposed—that a childhood interest would evolve with the man rather than be shut out. Rhett couldn’t remember what childhood interests he’d even had, now that he considered it. His youth was not something he often dwelled upon.

“Mm… would say not,” he mused at the mention of a hesperide male. His heartrate had increased but for a moment, before falling back down into the familiar, slow, disappointing beat of calm. “How long’s that stuff take t’wear off, anyway?” He meant the sedative, of course, gesturing at the unconscious entomid being stripped of its wings. He wanted to be done with this before the sun set. 

“Oh… uh. You gonna be upset if I kill it after? Y’got yer wings, after all. Don’t ever feel good lettin’ ‘em go. Only a matter’ah time ‘afore they get someone into trouble.”

—

The process, the process that Parker often relied on, took a small amount of pride in and performed with as much grace and dexterity as a surgeon didn’t often take as long as one would think. He was careful but he was also quick, especially when he wasn’t being actively fought against whether it was a particularly stubborn specimen or it was against the clock, his much less preferred adversary. “Typically it wears off after about seventy-five minutes.” He explained, the second wing now removed and he was finishing up the cauterization process. As the wound sizzled, the blood boiling finally acknowledged as it entered Parker’s nose, he reached down and pulled the bolt from its point of entry on the entomid’s side in a fluid motion. And he considered what Rhett had asked him, but not for too long as he glanced over and regarded the pair of thick, fluffy moth wings that glittered with scales in the fire-red sunset. “You allowed me to harvest.” He looked at Rhett, a couple of fingers popping open one of the pouches on his thick leather belt and retrieving a capsule. “This will wake it up sooner. You won’t have to wait.” With that, Parker collected his tools, using the familiar handkerchief from his back pocket to clean his hands absently as he glanced over the unconscious entomid. “I hope it can provide you with some answers,” He remarked rather mildly given his lack of emotion thus far. “Would you like for me to assist in your interrogation?” He asked after a pause. “If not, I can gather the wings and leave you to your questions.”

—

Seventy-five minutes sure was a weird fuckin’ way of sayin’ an hour fifteen… but that was neither here nor there, because the other warden was offering to speed it along. That earned Parker an appreciative grin, and Rhett accepted the capsule with a nod. 

Hm. Did he want the warden to stick around? It wasn’t like he couldn’t handle a little bug like this, especially now that it’d been clipped. And he still wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about the guy… or how much he wanted him to know. It was private business, after all. 

No… better let the first impression be an okay one. Rhett stood, offering a hand to the man to shake. “I can take it from here, Parker. You, uh… you live ‘round these parts? I’m huntin’ just ‘bout every night, could… use a hand here n’ there. Might be some… bits for you to collect, too.” It was almost like he was trying to make a friend. He couldn’t remember the last friend he’d had, not really. Emilio’s kin had been family, and before that, well… he just didn’t do it. Alan was… an enigma, but he wasn’t really sure he could call the realtor a friend, either. Sometimes it felt like they only spent time together because the younger man pitied him. 

Well, whatever. He didn’t need friends. This Parker guy could take it or leave it, didn’t make much difference to him.

— He was still in the process of fully gathering his gear when Rhett held his hand out for Parker to presumably shake. He titled his head slightly at the motion before his icy blue stare, having since softened as the two existed in proximity with each other, moved up to the pirate’s face. He processed the words that Rhett told him as he folded the handkerchief up and placed it back in his back pocket; asking if he lived in close proximity to the area, mentioning that he hunted often, implying that he could help and, most tellingly, suggesting that Parker himself could stand to possibly benefit from these hunting excursions…

Was Rhett suggesting they hunt together? And, by extension, did that imply that Rhett didn’t abhor his presence?

The sensation was strange to Parker, whose expression shifted into one of mild surprise, taken aback at the thought of being invited to go hunting with another Warden. He couldn’t remember the last time any other hunter had offered for him to accompany them for anything other than manpower… if it had happened at all. He didn’t associate with hunters as a whole and, as previously mentioned either earlier here or elsewhere in his mind, he was even isolated from other Wardens. Was this what they did? Rhett certainly wasn’t the most difficult person he’d interacted with; on the contrary, the two seemed rather similar in many regards. They got off to a strange start and were thrust into action together but once the moth dust settled– ‘oh wow that was pretty bad, bro’– he couldn’t say it was negative. He couldn’t even say it was bad. It was rather good; both of them got what they wanted, with patience and communication.

Obviously the offer threw him off-guard for a moment but he recovered quickly enough, blinking himself out of how foreign it sounded to him and he nodded, taking the pirate’s hand and giving it a firm shake. “Okay.” Parker nodded, one of the corners of his mouth finally curving upwards into a very small but surprisingly genuine half-smile. “I… appreciate the offer.” He added before carefully releasing Rhett’s calloused hand, collecting the wings and taking a step backwards. “I’ll… send correspondence. We can exchange information at your leisure and I’ll come with you.”

And with that and a final, perhaps slightly unsure nod, Parker turned and departed, his mind uncharacteristically buzzing with ideas that weren’t strictly tethered to the beautiful wings he carried with him.

#wickedswriting #writing // A Trail of Two Wardens #writing with // Rhett #drug manipulation tw #surgery tw

[lhs3020b]

Starfield, an accidental deconstruction?

Oh my, a Starfield post.

So, I just visited a certain facility on Earth, got to read a few terminals and listen to some Fallout-style apocalyptic logs ... and yikes! It feels like the endings to Mass Effect 3 again. (Except the preceding game was mostly a disappointment, so I don't have quite the same sense of chaotic baffled scathing despondent confusion that I did in ME3 - instead I'm more just "rolling my eyes" and "but... but... none of this makes any sense!")

Spoilers, and a rant, below the cut...

Starfield, arguably, is an accidental deconstruction of space-booster/high-frontier ideology. I say "accidental" as the writing/dev team clearly didn't intend it to be this, but consider the following points:

1. The consequences of developing the grav drive were WORSE than if it hadn't been developed. Sure, an asteroid might have hit the Earth eventually, but the ecosystem has survived them before. It didn't survive the sputtering.

(Question: "Who killed the world?"

Answer: "Dr Victor Aiza, arguably the worst human being who ever lived.")

2. There's fuck all wonder to be found in Starfield's galaxy; most planets aren't even that pretty, really, there are no other civilisations and beyond resource-grinds, there's little real point to exploring anywhere.

(That said, hunting alien critters on high-level planets is a good way to farm level ups. Just so you know.)

3. As for humanity's supposed "glorious future in the stars", Akila City has mud roads, the UC is fascist and it's apparently uncontroversial in-universe that the corporate board on Porrima wanted to enslave the ECS Constant colonists! (You can't even raise the events of Porrima with your contact at SSN, which implies that no-one in-universe thinks any of this is remotely noteworthy.)

4. Also, in light of things found on Earth at the NASA ruins, a lot of aspects of the UC's founding seem even darker than they did beforehand. They stopped building colony ships several years BEFORE the atmosphere fell off. How many people were simply abandoned? Millions? Billions? There's even a colony ship on the launchpad that apparently they didn't even bother themselves to finish building, let alone launch it!

5. No wonder the UC created a system where who gets to vote is tightly-vetted - the UC seems to be based on genocide, whether deliberate or negligent. (And absolutely-deliberate on Aiza's part - he KNEW what he was doing, and there was malice aforethought there. The monster.)

6a. As for technology in-universe, the NASA facility, the ECS Constant and any random pirate-infested facility in the "modern" galaxy all have the same hardware and machinery. Apparently technology has barely moved in literally centuries. It may even have declined. (There's no indication that they actually could build mechs again, even if they wanted to, for instance.)

6b. The grav drive technology is apparently basically cribbed from Aiza's artifact-induced visions, so strictly speaking, we didn't even develop it ourselves. We were spoon-fed it by Starborn and their agents.

6c. The supposed "greater good" this is all for, let's remember, consists of borderline-lawless and half-empty planets - even Jemision has pirate encampments within sight of the city walls of New Atlantis! -, a grand total of four cities and a population that presumably can't be more than few million. None of this is better than what humanity had previously on Earth.

7. This social equilibrium may not even be that secure. Entire colonies can collapse - c.f. Londinion or whatever it's called - and there's enough political instability for major and devastating wars to happen. There is no utopia amongst the stars, rather there is chaos!

8. The galactic economy is horribly exploitative - the Eleos Retreat questline actually directly-calls this out, interestingly - and I think you can make a case that the system itself is directly-abusive. (The behaviour of the Trackers Alliance is ... not great ... and that's putting it mildly.) All the downsides of free marketism with no sign of any benefits!

9. Meanwhile, the influence of these Starborn and these artifacts they're obsessed with appears to be entirely-corrosive. Arrogant, authoritarian, dishonest, sociopathic, murderous ... the behaviour of all Starborn I've encountered so far has been baleful.

10. TBH, I'm leaning toward the view that the best thing to do with these artifacts, really, would be round them all up and toss them into a star (hopefully that would get rid of them...)

So in summary, you can argue a case in Starfield's world that the grav drive was entirely-bad. There was no significant threat to escape from, whether asteroids or alien invasion. The grav drive and its developers directly-caused billions of deaths and the collapse of Earth's ecosystem. And the societies that have emerged are small, precarious and (depending on how you interpret some events in the game) may even be beginning to collapse. The grav drive brought no good consequences, and you can argue a case that it would be better if it had never happened. It also made it easier for people to find these awful, brain-warping relics, which I guess must be the Starborn's angle on all this. They toasted Earth so they could collect more shiny stones. (And the Starborn have shown no interest in fixing any of the messes they've made, either.)

It's a deeply dystopic situation.

I don't think the writing team planned to deconstruct high-frontier ideology, but that's effectively what they've done here.

#Starfield

[stereax]

15 People 15 Questions with Stereax - thanks @simmyfrobby for the direct tag and @jonassiegenthighler for the GC tag <3

1. are you named after anyone?

Nope! As far as I'm aware, I was named from one of those baby name books but my parents fucked up the spelling on purpose to be "special".

2. when was the last time you cried?

Probably just before Christmas when I was realizing just how fucked up my childhood and family dynamics are in a chat with a friend. Before that, in class while I was bombing a presentation. Before that, in class when the teacher told me to... raise my hand before I spoke... I don't really ever cry unless in public and it's always for a stupid reason.

3. do you have kids?

I have a lot of stuffed animals! And a bunch of kids I tutor. But none of my own, that's not in the plans.

4. what sports do you play/have you played?

My parents tried me in everything, but mostly tennis stuck. I'm not that good at it, I'm not really athletic in general and my forehand was busted to the point where I would only do lobs with it, but I was fairly okay, especially when it came to my backhand, so I got by. Haven't played in a few years though.

5. do you use sarcasm?

A lot more in real life than online.

6. what’s the first thing you notice about people?

One of the things I try to pay attention to is the hands. I also end up looking at teeth a lot. Both of those can kind of give you an idea of who a person is. I don't know if I'm good at eye contact or not, but I don't really think so?

7. what’s your eye color?

Hahahaha. It's kind of... everything? Not in a Mary Sue way but like, the outer ring is a greyish blue-green and the inner ring is like, a golden hazel-y green? And depending on the lighting or glasses, that changes? So... my ID says green.

8. scary movies or happy endings?

Scary movies mostly annoy me, so happy endings. I don't like sad endings that much; I tend to dwell on them too long.

9. any talents?

Um, I used to be a mathlete when I was a kid? So I can do a lot of math in my head, generally exceeding the capabilities of most people I know, and usually with speed too. But that's not really a "talent". I guess I speak several languages, but again, not really a "talent". I don't really know. I don't really consider myself good at anything, you know? I write? Sometimes? But not well either. So.

10. where were you born?

Ridgewood, New Jersey. Apparently because my parents thought it would be a "good city to be born in" and that it would "always be on my birth certificate". I don't know the logic either.

11. what are your hobbies?

I really like mobile games! I'm currently obsessed with Path to Nowhere, used to play a lot of King's Raid before they destroyed that game with awful updates, and also play Pokemon Go and Pikmin Bloom regularly to motivate myself to leave the house. Also puzzles, both solving and sometimes creating my own! And I'm also slowly getting into the NFL as well as the NHL (obviously). My thing is that when I get into something, I need to know everything about it and be the "best" at it, which screws me up a lot, but. Knowledge!

12. do you have any pets?

I used to have fish when I was a kid. I'm not in the right conditions to own a pet, both logistically and mentally.

13. how tall are you?

I don't know exactly but I think around 5'5" to 5'6", or 165 to 167 cm. I always wanted to end up around 5'9", so 175 cm, but I didn't get enough tall genes, I guess :( still have markings on the wall about ideal height :')

14. favorite subject in school?

When I was growing up, math; more currently, probably law classes.

15. dream job?

I've always envisioned myself ending up in law or business or especially politics, but like, not as a scumbag? If that makes sense. Like, a senator or even higher than that, but not a corrupt piece of shit. Which I know is impossible and an oxymoron. So I guess the answer is, most generally, a leader of some sort.

I'd tag the GC but Eliot did that already sooooo um, if you're following me and see this consider yourself tagged!

#stereax plays a tag game