#and i think they’d be able to get through rough patches

[boysborntodie]

I think that Johnnyboy’s potential to complicated and messy is criminally untapped in fanon. Ponyboy ‘fucking sucks at feelings, both his own and of others, and can be a bitch’ Curtis and Johnny ‘imperfect victim with shit self-esteem’ Cade would definitely have their ups and downs

#which is normal!!! #and i think they’d be able to get through rough patches #but they definitely do have their bad and difficult moments #ponyboy gets better at feelings as the book goes on but progress isn’t linear and we see that he reverts back #and johnny doesn’t really stand up for himself with pony #or most people in general #and while pony would definitely realise his mistake and apologize #it would be an issue #they’re both also not super good at comforting the other #the other appreciates the effort but they don’t often feel better #(johnny remarking he prefers when his father hits him when darry hurt pony #and pony teling johnny not to kill himself) #i can see them getting better at it and learning to understand each other more later on but it’s something they’d struggle with #also one of the biggest points of conflict would be the fact pony’s someone pure and gold and destined to leave behind tulsa #while johnny sees himself so lacking and without worth in comparison #also johnny genuinely does see pony as a kid #that’s his bestie and they’re equals but johnny knows pony is immature and doesn’t know much about the world outside his bubble #pony is very much 14 while johnny’s been forced to grow up from a young age #the outsiders #johnny cade #se hinton #ponyboy curtis #johnnyboy

[cipher-the-sidhe]

Based on @pure-plum’s prompt: First gifts between Sun, Moon, and the diver.

(I also want to do that other prompt, but haven’t gotten to it 👀)

What the Tide Keeps AU, Moon-centric

word count: 1,984

You have a shelf in your apartment dedicated to the growing collection of gifts Sun has given you. A few tiny, beautiful shells he’d managed to save when they washed into his enclosure with the tide. The long, pristine flight feathers of a seagull that had gotten a little too close to the surface of the water. Then, once he’d been able to get out into open water they’d evolved. Bits of sun-bleached coral, sparking sea glass, and even a single, gleaming pearl that he’d presented to you with a look of deepest adoration.

They all sit neatly arranged, along with an over-exposed polaroid selfie you’d taken with the golden mer. It makes you smile every time you see it.

Another shelf sits blank on the other side of your bed, save for a blurry photo of your other charge taken from above, swimming through a patch of fading sunlight. Moon hasn’t seemed interested in gift-giving the way Sun is, but you feel like it’d be favoritism not to have a place for him here, the way you do his counterpart.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been progress. Moon has come a long way from the snarling, snapping creature that you’d first met. He seems to trust you now, at least. Well, for the most part. He still has a tendancy to shy away from your touch, outside of medical care, which he holds himself ridigly still for in a way that makes your heart clench in mourning for the abuse he and Sun have had ot endure.

He doens’t seem to have a probem touching you, on the other hand. Quite the opposite. Which is why you’re currently pinned under the heavy length of a rough, shark-like tail drapped over your lap, with a blue-black and silver arm wrapped around your middle, trapping your arms down at your sides. Moon has your back pressed snug against his chest and his chin resting against the top of your head, a low, constant sound somewhere between a purr and a growl vibrating his chest. You strain your neck trying to catch a glimpse at his expression. His ruby eyes are narrowed into thin, sleepy slits but you can see that his pupils are angled away from you. Well, until he senses you staring at him. Then, he glares at you with a grumble and his maw opens in a wide yawn, showing off his dual rows of razor-sharp shark teeth. He presses his chin into your hair, forcing you to look down and away from his face. You give in with a good humored huff. Best not to push your luck with him.

It’s an hour past sunrise, long past his usual bedtime. Sun has made himself comfortable on his usual flat rock near the shore of the cove, warming himself in the first golden rays of morning. You fight the urge to stroke Moon’s tail where it rests over your lap (making your legs fall asleep more every minute, but you allow it), knowing that, unlike Sun’s smoothe scales, Moon’s rough skin would cut up your hands like sandpaper. Instead, you lean your head back against him and hum softly.

“ You’re up pretty late, Moonshine. Something on your mind?”

He gives no indication that he heard you. That’s okay. You know to be patient with him.

It’s another several minutes before he responds at all, and even then it’s not with words. He shifts with arm holding you up to your shoulder, flopping backwards and taking you down with him, rolling onto his side in the sand and curling around you with a deep sigh that he muffles in your hair. His other hand in pressed in a fist against the sand, stretched out in front of the two of you.

You chuckle and pat the arm holding you in a steel trap against the midnight mer.

“Moon, honey, as cozy as this is you really shouldn’t fall asleep out of the water like this. We don’t want you getting any more sunburns.”

You keep your voice playful, but there’s an underlying concern you don’t fully manage to mask. It’s hard not to think about the weeks of painful treatment he and Sun had had to endure for the blistering sunburns they’d suffered. Moon’s had been worse by far, being a creature not meant for hours of prolonged sun exposure like his counterpart. There are still scars healing on his shoulders and back, months later.

Moon grumbles and coils closer over you, his tail fin slapping the water where it rests in an agitation you don’t understand the cause for.

“Hush,” he rasps into your hair, claws plucking thoughtlessly at the collar of your shirt in a familiar, resltess fidget.

Your brow furrows. Something is clearly bothering him, but what? You’d thought the night had gone really well, actually. From the time you’d shown up at midnight to now Moon had seemed to be in a remarkably good mood, relaxed and playful (meaning you’d gotten yanked into the water more than a couple of times, but hearing his hissing laughter had been well worth it). It wasn’t until shortly before sunrise, when he’d usually be curling up in a shaded part of the cove over a bed of soft sea grass, that he’d started acting agitated. He wouldn’t look you in the eyes, even though he became especially clingy. And while his verbal responses were usually pretty short and clipped, certianly less verbose than Sun, even that had been reduced to only one or two word replies, when he deigned to reply with words at all. He didn’t seem to be mad at you, but his sudden withdrawl is making you nervous none the less. Had you done something wrong?

You debate with yourself which is better: to relent and indulge whatever mood this is for a while longer, or to gently encourage him to talk. You don’t want to push him too much, but if you don’t nudge him now and then you don’t know if he’ll progress.

You decide to push, just a little.

You stretch your hand out towards the fist he has extended from you two and press your fingertips featherlight against the underside of his wrist in gentle encouragement.

“Moon?”

In a blink, his hand captures yours, one finger and his thumb pressing the back of your hand into the sand while the other two fingers stay curled closed. You feel the sharp edge of soemthing in his hand pressing into your palm, just barely, but you can’t focus on it for long because Moon cranes his head down and nips at your ear, sharp teeth barely scraping your skin but the clipped snap of his teeth right by your ear making you yelp anyways.

“M-Moon!”

His gravelly chuckle cast moist, salt-scented breath over your ear and blood rushes to your cheeks in a furious burn. You grumble, indignant and embarassed but secretly relieved to hear his laughter.

“That was entirely unncessary.”

“Pushy. Nosy.” His voice is a teasing purr nuzzled against the side of your head, despite his words, and he unfurls the rest of his fingers to lace his with yours, his much larger webbed hand dwarfing yours and completely obscuring the small object he presses into your palm as he drags your joined hands through the sand closer to you both.

You bite your tongue to keep from sputtering at the onslaught of unexpected affection, but you can feel your face heating more. You squeeze his hand, feeling the edges of the thing in your palm. It’s sharp, and feels triangular.

“Only a little. I was woried about you, you giant fishstick,” you huff, but the smile is audible in your voice.

Moon’s answering laugh is a raspy wheeze and you yelp, flailing a bit, as he rolls over so he’s on his back again and you’re laying right on top of him, held fast by his unrelenting grip over your waist. He grins up at you with a bear-trap maw and mischief in his sleepy crimson eyes.

You rest your chin on his chest and squint at him in suspicion.

“Whatcha got here,” you ask, giving the hand he still has entwined with his own a little shake.

His smile strains a bit at the edges, but he presses the mystery object into your palm and slide his hand away from your’s, looping it around your waist to join his other arm. His eyes soften looking at you, pupils fading until they’re almost indistinguishable from the brighter red of the rest of his eye.

“For you,” he says, blinking slowly and a little out of synch. You feel the corner of your mouth twitch into a smile at how cute his sleepy expression is before you register what he actually said.

You wrap your fingers around the little object and pull it close to inspect it. “For me?”

In your palm is a sharp, pearly shark tooth, curved and perfect and familiar. You glance back up at Moon and he flashes you a grin full of two rows of the very same kind of teeth. You mouth pops open in a little ‘o’ of surprise, lookign back and forth between the tooth in your hand and his face.

“A gift,” he expalins, and the claws on your back fidget, betraying his quiet anxiety.

You run your thumb over the smoothe, shiny surface of the tooth, admiring it. “This is one of your’s?”

Claws gently tap against your spine, and he nods, watching your reaction. You don’t need to play it up at all. You beam up at him in pure, honest delight, clasping the tooth close to your chest.

“It’s beautiful! Thank you, Moonshine.”

He only grumbles, looking away from you, but you see the way the white frills that frame his face perk up and shiver in delight, and you can hear the water stirr at the twitch of his tail fin.

Without warning, Moon shifts his grip on you and slide you off of him and into the sand, flipping so that he’s looming over you, the nightcap-like appendage on the back of his head draping over his shoulder and swaying next to your cheek with a faint glow. He grins down at you and chuckles at your surprised expression before reaching a clawed finger up and bopping you on the tip of the nose with it.

“It’s time to sleep,” he hums,  tilting his head to-and-fro so that the bulb on his appendage taps you on the cheek with each movement. You playfully bat it away and he grins.

“Nighty night, Moon.” You smile up at him, clutching his gift close to your chest.

His expression upturns and he taps his forehead against your’s (a first, and it makes your mind blue screen for a solid minute) before leaning away and pulling himself back into the water. He lashes his tail fin as he turns to go, spraying you with a splash of salt water. You sptter and toss a handful of sand after him, but you can’t stiffle your laughter. The tooth feels warm in your hand.

That night when you’re crawling into bed you glance over at the shelves you have set aside for your mers. Sun’s little treasure trove of carefully, lovingly selected gifts almost crowd out his shelf, and you heart swells with warmth and appreciation as you realize you may need to put up another shelf for his gifts. On the other side is Moon’s shelf, and sitting right in the center, right in front of the photo of him, is one of his own teeth. He’s never been much for gift-giving, for finding just the right trinkets to show his affection. But this was something of his, only his, and he gave it to you.

You fall asleep with the stupidest smile on your face.

#what the tide keeps au #what the tide keeps #mer!moon #mermaid!moon #mer!sun #mermaid!sun #moon x reader #just shameless fluff while I work on the main fic #fnaf dca #dca fandom

[rafesgoldrings]

CONGRATS WITH 1K!! You deserve it sososo much❤️❤️

𝐋𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞: send me a song of your choice (cough bonus points if it’s a lana song cough) or something from these prompt lists (here and here) and i’ll write you a nsfw blurb

How about Pretty When You Cry by Lana with Rafe🤔🤔

Thank you so much baby! You’re so sweet🫶🏻🫶🏻This is a lot of angst😭 like Rafe is a straight up dick, there’s cheating, there’s drug usage, emotional abuse, no happy moments in sight, but there is smut. Rafe fucks you as a sick way of apologizing and you let him

All the good times in your relationship, all the times he told you that you were his girl, the times he made you feel like you were his whole world, they’d never compare to the drugs. He became a different person when high, one that would hurt you any way he could, but when he was sober? It would erase it all from your mind, you would wait for him.

He enjoyed when he hurt you, enjoyed the tears that streamed down your face. He loved being able to control you, loved knowing no matter what he did, you’d still be there waiting for him. Tonight was no different, he’d dragged you to a party with him and immediately left you alone to go get high. You found him an hour later with his tongue down some random girls throat, his eyes meeting yours and never leaving as his hand trailed up his skirt and she let out a small moan. You swallowed harshly, tears falling down your cheeks as you left the party and walked home.

The next day when he was sober, he of course showed up at your door. As soon as you opened it his lips were on yours, you swallowed your disgust knowing where his tongue had been just last night. You swore you were stronger, but not strong enough to leave him. All the good memories flash through your mind and you’re right back in the place where you’re his whole world again. His hands roam all over your body and pull your shirt off, lips going straight to your tits. He bites and marks them while his fingers work on pulling your panties down, rubbing your clit and getting you nice and wet. You feel yourself dripping down your inner thighs as he slides two fingers inside, you close your eyes and let out a small moan as his lips attach to yours once again. It’s rough and carnal, something to say ‘sorry’ for last night.

“I need you baby, need this tight pussy around my cock” don’t say that, don’t say that, don’t say that. You argue in your mind. How can he say he needs you when he leaves and leaves again? You could never do that to him, never.

“Then take me Rafe” and he does. He bends you over the couch and fucks you until all you remember is his name, how his cock feels inside you, how well you’re made for each other. But then you remember this is bullshit, he stared you in the fucking eyes while he fingered another girl, and the tears begin falling.

He hears you sniffle and pulls out to turn you around “You know, you’re so fucking pretty when you cry. It’s why I hurt you, why I do the shit I do. These tears streaming down your face make me so hard, all I pictured last night was your face when I fucked that girl. But you’re my girl, you know that don’t you?” shamefully, you nod your head and pull him in for a kiss. He slams back into you making you cry out as stars flood your vision and you come undone on his cock.

He does this because he thinks you’re pretty when you cry, the old him is still there somewhere, this will blow over soon. You’ll be his whole world again soon, this is one big rough patch.

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron blurb #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x female reader #outerbanks rafe #rafe cameron angst #asks <3 #1k celebration

[sequinsmile-x]

The Light in the Morning

Somewhere along the way, they became each other's safe space.

-x-

This is just...pure fluff. I needed to write it to cheer myself up (the anxiety is real this week haha) and maybe you need to read it to cheer yourself up. So here we are!

-x-

Words: 2.6k

Warnings: None. Just...so so fluffy.

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

Aaron smiles when the coffee pot in his hand is snatched out of it before he can put it down.

He looks up to see JJ standing in front of him, pouring coffee into the biggest mug she’d been able to find in the bullpen’s kitchen. 

“Rough night?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at her as she looks at him, her expression much more tern than usual.

“Henry decided he didn’t want to sleep, at all,” she complains, “So that meant I barely got to sleep. Will, of course, slept through it,” she mutters, putting the coffee pot down with a little more force than necessary, “I swear to God that man could sleep through a nuclear attack.” 

He chuckles and has a sip of his coffee, “Emily is like that,” he says, smiling fondly as he shares a personal detail he knows he wouldn’t in front of anybody else, “I think Jack could use every single one of his toys at the same time right next to her and she wouldn’t even twitch.” 

It had been five months since he and Emily got together. She’d given up on waiting for him to ask her out and kissed him one night after a casual dinner at his place, something that had become a regular thing between the two of them since she’d returned from Paris. She’d simply leant forward and stamped her lips against his, a half-drunk bottle of wine and empty containers of Chinese food on the coffee table next to them, her hand wrapped around his shirt collar to keep him in place. When she pulled back she laughed, and he joined in, their foreheads pressed together as they both came to terms with the fact everything had changed in an instant. 

Ever since then, they spent most of their time together. She’d become almost a permanent feature in the Hotchner apartment, something that delighted Aaron and his son in equal measure. He wanted her to move in, to take the next step towards what they both knew was forever, but he didn’t want to push her. 

She’d spent the previous night at her own place, purely because she’d run out of clean clothes at his, the laundry piled up because of the number of cases they’d been on lately. He’d missed her, the bed empty without her sleeping next to him and it made the urge to ask her to move in with him and Jack even stronger. 

JJ pauses as she lifts her coffee to her mouth, raising an eyebrow at him, “She’s a heavy sleeper?” She asks curiously, and he falters for a moment, clearing his throat before he carries on. 

“Yes,” he says carefully, “She always has been.” 

He can’t help but smile as he thinks of that very first night together. How he’d woken up the following day to find her still pressed up against him, her mouth hanging slightly open as she slept soundly. He remembered the embarrassed tinge to her cheeks when she woke up and realised she’d drooled on him, a small patch on the t-shirt he’d thrown on after their joint shower beneath where her head had been laying. He’d kissed her, stopped any apology before she could start it, and pulled her closer. He’d known then that he loved her. 

If he was honest with himself, he’d always known that. 

JJ hums, nodding as she takes a sip of her coffee, “Oh.” 

“Oh?” He asks, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“It's just…”JJ trails off as if she’s being careful about the words she’s choosing, not wanting to piss off her friend by exposing too much to her boyfriend, “Whenever I’ve shared a room with her, on a case when we’ve had to double up, or when we’ve crashed at Rossi’s drunk after a pasta night, she sleeps very lightly,” she chuckles, “One time she woke up because I rolled over in my bed on the other side of the room.” 

He frowns, his eyebrows knitting together as he tries to make sense of it, JJ’s explanation conflicting with his own experience of his girlfriend. The countless times he’d had to wake her up because she’d slept through both of their alarms. The way she clung to him even in sleep, her body pressed against him as she snored in a way she’d always deny when she was awake. 

“Oh,” he repeats and JJ places her hand on his arm, smiling knowingly at him, letting him know that she’s already figured out what he hasn’t yet. 

“I thought she looked more…well rested since you guys got together,” she says, squeezing his arm and winking at him before she lets go, “You’re good for each other.” 

JJ walks away, rolling her neck side to side as she makes her way to her desk and he watches as Emily arrives, smiling at her friend as she dumps her bag on her own desk. She turns and looks at him, and her smile gets wider. She walks over quickly and reaches out for his hand, squeezing it before she lets go, a small sign of affection that they allowed themselves in the office. 

“Morning,” she says, purposely standing closer to him than necessary as she pours herself a coffee. 

“Morning,” he replies, his hand on her lower back before she steps away, “I thought you were off coffee.” 

She smiles at him, and tries, and fails, to suppress a yawn, “I didn’t sleep well last night.” 

He frowns, concern flooding through him, “I’m sorry sweetheart, you should have called.” 

Her smile gets wider and she looks around to ensure they are still alone before she steps closer to him, reaching out and linking their fingers again, “What? So you’d lose out on sleep too?” She squeezes his hand, “I’m ok, I think I’m just spoiled by sleeping next to your big, warm body every night.” 

He nods and rubs his thumb over the heel of her hand, “You got more of your things to bring over?”

She has a sip of coffee and nods, “The trunk of my car is full of clothes,” she winks at him, “So you’re stuck with me for another few weeks before you get a night alone again.” He has to stop himself from asking her to stay forever right there and then, simply choosing to nod instead. She looks past him and let's go, and he turns to see the whole team looking at them, smirks on their faces, and he rolls his eyes before he looks back at her, “I wonder at what point they’ll stop treating us like a zoo exhibit.” 

“Probably at our wedding,” he murmurs without thinking, and his eyes go wide as she bites her lower lip to try and contain her smile. He clears his throat, “I should get to my office.” 

“Ok,” she replies, stepping back from him, “If I need a nap on your couch later I’ll let you know,” she winks at him once more before she walks towards her desk, leaving him alone in the kitchen.

He tries not to overthink the fact she only seemed to sleep well when he was around, but he fails. His chest filling with warmth at the knowledge that he made her feel as safe as she made him feel.

___

He jumps awake, startled as the credits of the movie they’d been watching come to an end and the DVD menu comes back up, the loud theme music filling the room. He blinks a few times and looks at the tv screen, grimacing as he comes face to face with Sully from Monsters Inc. 

“Dad?” 

Aaron turns to face his son, smiling as the young boy rubs his eyes as he lifts his head from Emily’s shoulder, who was fast asleep in between them, her face half-pressed into Aaron’s chest. 

“Hey buddy,” he says quietly, reaching over his girlfriend to ruffle his son's hair, “We all fell asleep.” 

Jack sighs, “But I love Monsters Inc.”

Aaron chuckles, “I know, we’ll watch it again soon,” he assures his son, who yawns as he stretches, “You go to bed, Jack. I’ll wake up Emily and then we’ll come tuck you in.” Jack nods and stands up, untangling himself from Emily’s side, who doesn’t move at all, and the stumble in his step lets Aaron know it’s likely he’ll already be fast asleep in his bed by the time he and Emily go in to check on him.

Aaron looks down at his girlfriend and smiles, taking the time to watch her. It had been several days since his conversation with JJ and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He struggled to sleep himself as he watched her next to him, relaxed in a way she never was when she was awake, none of the pressures or stresses of their day-to-day lives weighing down on her. 

He hadn’t said anything to her about it, hadn’t asked her to confirm what JJ had said, even though he knew it was true. He didn’t want to draw attention to it, to disturb the peace she had found with him. Instead, he allowed himself to feel pride that he was able to give that to her, that he made her feel safe enough to relax entirely.

It was something she was owed after everything she had gone through. He hated to think of those nights in the lead-up to her showdown with Ian. How exhausted she must have been, nights that she had since told him that had been spent clutching her gun as it was pointed at the door, as if she was being hunted by the grim reaper himself. 

There were times when he was overwhelmed by the stress she had clearly been drowning in that he hadn’t seen at the time. It haunted him now, his brain coming up with all the different ways he could have saved her that were different to having to bury her. 

She deserved peace, and he would do anything to protect it.

He wants to let her sleep, but he knows she won’t thank him for leaving her here overnight. So he gently shakes her shoulder, pressing his lips to the top of her head as he whispers nonsense against her hair as she slowly wakes up, and the first sign of life is the groan she lets out. 

“Were you watching me sleep?” She asks, her words slurring slightly, her voice rough with sleep. He smiles at her as she turns her head to look at him, and she scrunches up her nose, “Creep.” 

He chuckles and kisses her forehead, “It’s not my fault you’re so beautiful all of the time.” 

She hums, purposely ignoring him, and wraps both of her arms around one of his, sighing as she tilts her head to look up at him, “I can’t believe I used to go out on a Friday night, and now I fall asleep watching kids' movies.”

“It’s better though, right?” He asks, and she smiles, finally sitting all the way up so she can kiss him. 

“Infinitely better,” she replies, kissing him again before she pulls back to look at him, uncurling one of her arms from his so she can cup his cheek, “I’d do it every night if I could.” 

He isn’t sure what makes him say it. Whether it’s the sleepy look on her face or the unmistakable love for him that is shining in her eyes. He doesn’t know if it’s because he woke up to find her pressed between him and his son, the missing part of their family that he hadn’t known was missing. He doesn’t know if it’s just because he loves her and can’t imagine ever waking up without her next to him again.

He knows it is probably all of it mixed in with everything that has happened to them already, and the promise of what was to come. 

“You could,” he says, smiling softly at her, “If you moved in.” 

She furrows her brow and sits back, her eyes wide as they search his as if she’s checking to see if he’s serious. She presses her lips together, a sure sign she is trying to hide a smile, but her dimples give her away. 

“Is this you asking me to move in with you?” She asks, her thumb tracing over his cheekbone.

He clears his throat and blows out a steady breath that catches in his chest, kept in place by his rapidly beating heart.

“Yes,” he chokes out, and the silence that follows is the longest second of his life, broken by the way she smiles at him and leans in to kiss him, her smile impossibly wider as she pulls back.

“Finally.” 

He frowns, confusion colouring his joy. “Wait, what?” 

“I thought you’d never ask,” she says, kissing him again as she climbs into his lap. His hand automatically find her waist, holding her in place against him as she carries on kissing him, her arms linking around his neck.

“You want to move in?”

She rolls her eyes at him, “Of course, I do honey,” she says, running her fingers through his hair, “I hate it when I’m not here. This place feels more like home than my apartment does, and that has everything to do with the fact you’re here,” she bites at the inside of her cheek, “I sleep better next to you. I feel happier. Why wouldn’t I want that all the time?” 

He smiles and pulls her closer, swallowing the laugh that she lets out as he kisses her, his hand slipping under her t-shirt, making her shiver as his palm presses into her skin. 

“I love you,” he says as he pulls back, stamping another kiss to her lips, “So much.”

“I love you too,” she replies, saying it quietly even though no one was around to hear, something just for the two of them, “I’m glad you asked,” she says, pushing his hair from his forehead, “I was running out of ways to hint.” 

He tilts his head at her and narrows his eyes, “What do you mean?” 

“Aaron, love of my life, haven’t you noticed most of my clothes are here? And quite a lot of my stuff.” 

He looks around, and for the first time notices that some of her books are here. That movies he has never bought are in amongst his DVDs, and trinkets and framed photos of the two of them and the team that used to be in her living room are scattered amongst his things. 

“You…you’ve been sneakily moving in?” He asks, his voice dripping with amusement. She nods, her cheeks turning slightly pink.

“Yes,” she replies, “For a while actually,” she says, “For someone who’s very good at their job you aren’t always observant.” 

He stares at her for a moment and shakes his head before he shifts forward, his hands on her thighs as he stands, ignoring the pull in his back as he holds her in place. He laughs as she shrieks, a sound she’d later deny, and wraps her arms and legs tightly around him. 

“It’s a good thing we napped,” he says, purposely grabbing her ass, making her laugh again as he steps away from the couch, “Since we won’t be sleeping anytime soon.” 

She laughs and kisses him, pulling back when he hauls her even closer, her legs tightening around him, “Aaron, be careful of your back. Don’t hurt yourself, or drop me.” 

“It’s fine,” he replies, making sure he’s got a good hold on her before he starts to walk towards his, their, bedroom, “I’ve got you,” he assures her, knowing she understands he means it in every possible way, and that he always would. 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @dont-emily-me, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyycreation, @itsmytimetoodream, @hotchnissgroupie, @controversialpooh, @capsshinyshield, @canuck-eh

Join my tag list here!

#hotchniss #hotchniss fanfiction #hotchniss fanfic #aaron x emily #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #aaron hotchner fanfiction #emily prentiss fanfiction

[broken-clover]

23- Hopeful

Was fully not intending to post today because of burnout, but what can I say, Chipp Zanuff infected my brain. Weeb jokes aside, he really is such a cool character with such a cool personal philosophy and outlook on the world.

Content warning for some talking about drugs and addiction, it's all taken from canon but still.

-

Tent doors didn’t slam. You could try, but the best you could manage was an awkward slap of canvas-on-canvas that was embarrassing to witness. It was good that the sound couldn’t wake up anyone who may have been asleep, but when you were already annoyed, having that failure only made you even more so.

Chipp gave up after about three attempts, coming to the realization that it wasn’t going to go the way he wanted. Instead, he threw his hands into the air, let out an angry bark, and stormed over to his bed. It felt like throwing a temper tantrum, and he was pretty well aware of how undignified he looked at the moment, but that wasn’t enough to shake him out of his funk. The best thing he could think of was to shove his face into the pillow until it drowned out his inelegant screams.

Failure. Failure. Answer had said it would be different this time. The kingdom had doubled in size and population since the last application they’d sent in. It should have been a shoo-in, how did it end the same way?? How did they get rejected again?!

Answer had taken it with a lot more grace. Just shrugged and said something about proving themselves even more. Chipp hadn’t paid much attention to it. By the time he had gotten through the rejection letter, he was seeing red. He had just enough sense to go and vent his feelings where the general populace wouldn’t be able to watch him stamp his feet and try to pull out his hair.

His head hurt enough before he could even get to the hair-pulling. It was enough to dissuade him from that, at least. Goodness knew he didn’t need a bald patch.

“Stupid!” He shouted into his pillow, fists bunching the sheets. “Stupid UN, stupid delegation, stupid fuckin’ propositions…”

After a small eternity of waving his fists around, Chipp managed to sit up. He ignored the wet spots on the pillow. His lungs still felt too tight for deep breathing, but he tried to force it anyway.

He reached down.

From under the bed came a dented cardboard box, edges taped and retaped so as to retain some form of structural integrity. It was small, but managed to have a bit of heft to it still. Chipp half-blindly fished through it, nudging aside a few textbooks and language dictionaries until his fingers brushed against something spiral-bound. A thumb hooked one of the loops and hauled it out of the pile.

’Sobriety Journal,’ it read in faded black ink. A thin layer of dust had formed on the cover, easily brushed away with the back of a hand. Chipp attempted another deep breath, this one a little longer than the last, and flipped the book open.

The first few entries were written in childish chicken-scratch. To be fair, he had been around seventeen, and he’d been a high school dropout for some time. The spelling was crude and rough, too, but apparently good enough to be able to spell several different expletives.

Despite his mood, Chipp found himself laughing. The tone was pretty childish too, cursing aside. Whining about the strange man who had insisted on helping him, bemoaning the stranger’s plans for weaning him off of the pills and starting the journal. How he had no intention to take any of it seriously, and was only scribbling in the lines as a way to make himself look busy. How it wasn’t going to last.

Present-Chipp rapped his knuckles on the thick stack of paper that lay under the entry. “Not gonna last, huh, buddy?”

He flipped further and further into the depths of the journal. Cataloging his journey with Master Tsuyoshi, and all the ups and downs it entailed. Though he had to pause a moment at the inarticulate scribbles of anger and despair that he knew, without looking at the dates in the margins, were the first few days after his master’s death. Chipp tried to focus more on the blurbs closer to the bottom.

I’m gonna get off them! I’m finally gonna fucking get off them!!

God it’s so hard today

I want pills so bad, my wrist won’t stop itching. Maybe I can sneak out

Today’s the day! I’m done! I’m done for good! No more drugs for me!”

I broke my streak today…

FUCK! IT’S SO HARD I CAN’T DO IT FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK

Gonna take it slow. Maybe that’s the secret?

That’s what the book had been for initially. It said it right on the cover. Tsuyoshi had mentioned keeping a journal to try and chronicle his path through sobriety. Chipp had expected it to be a linear path from addiction to temperance, but he hadn’t been more wrong. His feelings and cravings could vary from day to day, and even when he felt so confident in his resolve, something could come along and send him spinning back into his old habits. Yet his master had never derided him for it, never insulted him for his weakness. It had taken him many years to understand it.

The last handful of entries were a few years old. As he got more distracted by the big project, his journaling had simply slipped his mind. He felt a pang of guilt over it, but he also knew beating himself up over it wouldn’t help matters.

Remembering what it was that he’d come for, Chipp flipped to another page near the book’s end.

’If I’m counting right, then I’ve been clean for a little over two years. No pills, no shots, nothing. Feels like it should have been longer, I’ve been at this for a lot of years, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be perfect right now. I just gotta work hard today and hope it’ll get better tomorrow.’

His journal shut with a satisfying thump. Hope. That was it. He’d overcome a lot through hard work and dedication, and a little bit of hope sprinkled on top. This wasn’t too different. If it wasn’t going the way that he wanted, it wasn’t the end of the world. He just had to dust himself off, take a different approach, put his all into it, and hope for a better turn next time.

#frog writes #comfortober #tw drugs #tw addiction #chipp zanuff #guilty gear

[viennakarma]

I know no one has mentioned him but I'm just imagining reader ending up with Jenson after. Like guy might have left F1 but he continues to race and do new things. And he's just so sweet and charming and he's so different to Charles, because even when you guys are going through a rough patch, he remembers your work dinners/galas (has them in his calendar and he makes sure he gets notifs for them a week before they happen and everyday following) and if he can't show up you better believe he's calling you while you get ready or after when your home, he's sending you flowers. Like honestly Jenson irl seems to be head over heels in love with his wife (she does interior design and just yesterday he shared one of the things she did on instagram, which like melted my heart). I could honestly talk about him and reader for days. (also tho Max and reader really truly have my heart because Charles watching her get together with Max? That's my kind of thing) - wishful anon

WISHFUL ANON you might me onto something!

I haven’t written about Jenson yet! But I do think he’s very sweet and seemingly very smart (also hot who am I kidding)! Also very romantic to his wife and dedicated to his family 🥹

I genuinely like the idea of someone who’s retired solely because they’d be able to dedicate their attention to reader!

Problem is, they (Jenson and reader) never really crossed paths in paddock right? Or maybe they did, because like Jenson is a presenter or something right? Ummmm let me think 🤔

#f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #fic talk #ask rae #wishful anon

[ciaossu-imagines]

Could I get the main trio of Iruma for prompt 7 (if you're taking multiple characters at once)? :)

Of course you can, my lovely anon! I definitely do take multiple characters and I hope you’ll enjoy the headcanons!

Send me a character and I’ll tell you…

IRUMA SUZUKI

2-4 songs that are probably on their iPod

Okay, so this one is a bit difficult because the demon world does have its own music scene, so I’m going to just go with general impressions of the music they’d listen to. I do think Iruma really likes happy, upbeat music. I could see him really enjoying quite a few Akudol songs and he probably develops his favourites and they’re mostly what he listens to.

The one place they sometimes end up falling asleep – where they’re not supposed to

Honestly, it’s at the dinner table. Iruma works really hard at things and after a busy day and a huge meal, he sometimes ends up just passing out at his seat, head on the table, full and content.

The game they’d destroy everyone else at

While dodgeball is honestly a contender, it’s too obvious a pick, so I’m going to go with tag! Iruma isn’t great at catching others, but it doesn’t really matter because he’s not normally ‘it’ and is pretty impossible to catch with his skills at evasion and dodging.

The emoticon they’d use most often

Iruma overuses emoticons, honestly. He’s still figuring out what all of them mean, but he uses a lot of them. I see him using the bowing emoticon or the smile with a sweat drop emoticon a lot.

What they act like when they haven’t had enough sleep

Iruma really does try hard when he’s really tired to be normal and helpful, but an over-tired Iruma is kind of slow mentally and physically, and spaces out pretty often. He might even end up accidentally falling asleep during class or while relaxing with his friends.

Their preferred hot beverage on really cold nights, or mornings, or whenever

Opera makes the best Hell Grey tea in Iruma’s opinion, and he’ll happily drink it at any hour, in any weather. It’s really one of his favourite things to drink and luckily Opera is always happy to brew some for him.

How they like to comfort/care for themselves when they’re in a slump

Iruma isn’t the best at self-comforting, despite years of having to do so. He really does rely on his friends and new family to comfort himself when he’s in a slump, spending time with them as much as possible and focusing his thoughts on them to keep himself motivated and as happy as he can be whenever he’s going through a rough patch.

What they wanted to be when they grew up

I don’t think Iruma ever really gave too much thought to what he wanted to be when he grew up or what job he wanted to have as an adult. Though he’s not materialistic, the only thing I think he really wanted when he grew up was money, simply to be able to take care of his parents and not to have to work so hard.

Their favourite kind of weather

Iruma honestly hasn’t given it much thought. He’s had to work through all kinds of terrible weather during his time in the Human World, so he’s gotten used to most types of weather and has become nonchalant about it. If he was to sit and think about it, I think he’d decide on days that were warm but not hot, with big fluffy clouds in the sky. Something along the lines of an nice spring day, honestly.

Thoughts on their singing voice (Decent? Terrible? Soprano? Alto?)

Iruma has quite a high-pitched singing voice, almost feminine in quality. It’s pleasant to listen to though and he has good rhythm and pitch naturally. Singing honestly isn’t his favourite thing in the world and it isn’t something he does a lot of, unless he’s put in a position where he has to.

How/what they like to draw or doodle

I don’t see Iruma as a huge doodler. I think he really does try hard to pay attention during classes and while studying and if his mind drifts, he doesn’t really need something to occupy his hands during that time.

ASMODEUS ALICE

2-4 songs that are probably on their iPod

While there’s one or two songs by Akudol’s that Alice likes, I see him being a huge fan of more classical style music or instrumentals. He does enjoy the sound of a piano and the music he listens to would be more along the lines of classical music during the Classical period.

The one place they sometimes end up falling asleep – where they’re not supposed to

I don’t think he really falls asleep outside of his bed too often unless the situation demands that he must. However, on the very rare occasions that he does, it’s normally at his desk while studying late into the nights because he mistakenly believes that he can get just a bit more studying in despite being exhausted.

The game they’d destroy everyone else at

Whatever the Demon World’s version of chess is, Alice is a master at it. Not quite Grandmaster level, but he’s quite a formidable opponent as a chess player. Really, I can see him being very good at any game with strict rules, where thought and strategy needs to be put into use.

The emoticon they’d use most often

Asmodeus really underuses emoticons. Like, he hardly ever uses them and when he does, it’s only in messages to maybe one or two people that he’s really close to. I could see him using smiling faces a lot, because he really doesn’t know all the different emoticons and sticks with just the basic ones.

What they act like when they haven’t had enough sleep

A bitch. A complete and utter bitch…well, a complete and utter bitch to everyone not named Iruma. An overtired Azz has a shorter fuse than normal and his temper flares up pretty easily, so he spends most of the day just constantly pissed off or annoyed over trivial things.

Their preferred hot beverage on really cold nights, or mornings, or whenever

While he does enjoy a good cup of Hell Grey tea, I think Alice honestly prefers a particular higher-end tea. It’s similar to a gunpowder tea, blended with vanilla and apricot teas and accented with ginger root. It’s smooth and spicy and it’s what he has one of the house servants brew him when he’s had a really bad day.

How they like to comfort/care for themselves when they’re in a slump

Azz is actually really ambitious and motivated, and he doesn’t often allow himself to get into a slump. However, when he is going through a rough patch, he does rely heavily on Iruma to motivate him, and he focuses on becoming better or making Iruma proud.

What they wanted to be when they grew up

Azz has had many ideas about what kind of job he wants as an adult. He did think about becoming the next Demon King, as most youngsters in the Demon World have, but I do think he fiddles around with the idea of becoming a teacher, or even the Head of Babyls, more than he’d like to admit.

Their favourite kind of weather

Alice actually loves a really good storm. He doesn’t mind being out in them, but he does prefer to watch them from inside. Lots of booming thunder, cracks of lightning, and the steady, relaxing sound of a downpour really makes him feel somewhat calmed and at peace.

Thoughts on their singing voice (Decent? Terrible? Soprano? Alto?)

Azz does have a pleasant voice. It’s not the greatest of all times, by any means, but it also isn’t bad. He can sing quite well but does get a little pitchy at times and has a tendency to mumble his words instead of enunciating and projecting properly.

How/what they like to draw or doodle

I don’t personally headcanon him as being someone who doodles or draws often. I think that, when his mind is wandering and he wants something to pass the time or keep his hands occupied, he normally scribbles lists or ideas or plans. Writing is always something he does more than drawing.

CLARA VALAC

2-4 songs that are probably on their iPod

Clara does enjoy bubblegum pop and probably does know the words to a few songs, but she doesn’t really listen to a lot of music because she enjoys making it more or having Mommy sing to her.

The one place they sometimes end up falling asleep – where they’re not supposed to

Outside, most definitely. She’ll be outside running around and playing and will lay down in the grass and end up taking a short nap. Honestly, she almost prefers sleeping outside on nice days to sleeping in her bed. It’s pretty darn close to equal levels of enjoyment and good sleep between the two.

The game they’d destroy everyone else at

Almost all of them. Clara loves playing games and she’s really good at most of them. However, I do think she’d kill at hide and go seek. I can’t really fully explain why, but I do see her as being one of those people who can find even the most stealthily hidden people.

The emoticon they’d use most often

Clara really likes silly, weird emoticons and sometimes her texts will be just a string of random emoticons, just because she enjoys how they look or they made her laugh.

What they act like when they haven’t had enough sleep

Clara gets really giggly and goofy when she’s overtired. She’ll legit laugh at nothing and will talk a mile a minute about absolute nonsense and be really affectionate. However, she crashes easy when she’s overtired and the first time she stops and stays still, she passes out hard.

Their preferred hot beverage on really cold nights, or mornings, or whenever

Clara prefers hot chocolate over tea, or whatever the Demon World’s version of hot chocolate is (and whatever it is that her family renames it). Her mother makes the best hot chocolate in Clara’s opinion, with lots and lots of marshmallows in a really thick, creamy liquid.

How they like to comfort/care for themselves when they’re in a slump

Even before her friends, though they mean a lot to her, Clara’s family are the most important thing to her and they’re really her safe, comfortable space. There’s no slump or rough patch that can’t be fixed by a day or two of quality time and fun with her mother and her brothers and sister for Clara.

What they wanted to be when they grew up

Clara has no plans on growing up, thank you very much. However, as a young child, when asked that question, I think she probably responded that she wanted to become a ‘Mommy’ because she really does look up to her mother.

Their favourite kind of weather

Clara loves sunny, bright, warm days – the kind of days where you can run around outside to your heart’s content and where the daylight seems to stretch on forever before fading into a star-filled, quiet twilight.

Thoughts on their singing voice (Decent? Terrible? Soprano? Alto?)

We’ve heard Clara sing a lot in the anime and she has a really pleasant voice. She sings loudly and proudly, not really giving too much thought to how she sounds but singing just for the love of singing. However, when it comes time for lullabies, her normally loud and proud voice becomes incredibly soothing and calming and it helps whoever is listening to her drift off into a pleasant sleep.

How/what they like to draw or doodle

I think Clara doodles a lot, just little cartoon animals and especially little cartoon figures of her friends and family.

#event asks #mairimashita! iruma kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #headcanons #iruma suzuki #clara valac #asmodeus alice

[awakenthemusic]

Suptober 2022 Day 31 - Costume

Short fic, 627 words, Claire Novak/Kaia Nieves, Dean Winchester

The whole family is in the bunker, ready to take Garth and Bess's kids out trick-or-treating. Will Dean, Claire, and Kaia stop sassing each other long enough to get in the damn car?

Under the cut or on Ao3

Costume

Dean walked down the bunker hallway, adjusting his proton pack as he went. He stopped in front of one of the doors, banged loudly on it, and said, “Come on, we’re gonna be late.”

He poked at the “Venkman” name tag that was peeling off his costume yet again. Stupid local costume shop with its stupid cheap costumes. Next year, he was making his own.

“I want it to go on record,” Claire growled through the door. “I only let you talk me into this because Holtzman is literally the coolest fictional character ever.”

Dean chuckled, then leaned closer to the door to tease, “And because your girlfriend makes a bangin’ Sigourney Weaver.”

The door whipped open and Claire rolled her eyes. “Try not to be a total creeper, Hasselhoff.”

Kaia chuckled from behind Claire, putting in a couple of last pins to hold Claire’s hair back.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause my jumpsuit’s cooler than yours,” Dean snarked, trying to ignore the awesome reflective stripes on Claire’s jumpsuit that reminded him of the ones on a firefighter’s uniform.

Claire rolled her eyes again, then said, with a twinkle in her eye, “I still think you should have gone as Kevin, you give off the perfect himbo vibes.”

“Hey,” Dean spluttered as his mind unhelpfully played him a video of Hemsworth dancing on the roof; the dude was hot. “You give off… himbo vibes… Whatever, shut up.”

Claire and Kaia burst out laughing. 

Dean tried to scowl but seeing the two of them so happy had him grinning in response.

“Garth and the kids are getting antsy, how much longer are you gonna need to primp, Miley?” Ha! Burn! Score one for Dean!

“Nice one, very original,” Claire said slowly, as though she were mollifying a child, and reached up to pat him condescendingly on the shoulder.

Almost on a reflex, Dean reached over to ruffle Claire’s hair in the way that drove her absolutely nuts.

Kaia’s hand shot out, knocking Dean’s off course and she growled, “Touch her hair and die.”

Dean froze, every muscle going tight on instinct as he assessed nearby threats. Kaia froze too, her eyes widened slightly.

Dean nodded and slowly backed up a step, holding his hands up non-threateningly as he tried to make his shoulders unclench. He and Kaia got along alright, for the most part. Between his various issues with Dark Kaia and the fact that he’d stupidly pulled a gun on this Kaia right after they’d met, they occasionally hit a rough patch where instinct took over and one of them needed a minute.

There was only so much you could do with that much trauma under the bridge.

Kaia took a deep breath, then nodded. Crisis averted.

She smirked, then asked, her voice only shaking a little bit, “No cowboy boots this time, Walker?”

Claire widened her eyes comically large and said, “Oh damn!”

Dean scowled back. Last Halloween, he and Cas had gone trick-or-treating with the kids as cowboys. Dean had been expecting references to Brokeback Mountain, or maybe some other classic western. Instead, all they’d heard had been references to Walker, Texas Ranger, and not even the Chuck Norris one, all people had been able to talk about was some stupid reboot Dean had never heard of.

It was a bit of a sore spot.

Still, it was a very good barb. Dean grinned at Kaia, held his hands out wide, and said, “No cowboy boots, I’m not so big a himbo that I can’t learn from my mistakes.”

Claire laughed so suddenly that she snorted, which set Kaia and Dean off laughing at her. Claire turned about three shades of red and spent the entire walk down the hallway threatening them both with bodily harm.

#suptober22 #fanfic #fanfiction #spn #supernatural #dean winchester #kaia nieves #claire novak

[taegularities]

! Brief trigger: this is not exactly a rant, it’s a story time but a very long one, pls bear with me 🥲 (also my first ask so there’s that)

Been following you for a while now Rid, I’ve mostly read your standalone fics like love me better, begin, silk & stones, stars behind waves & tale of broken hearts. I consider myself as the type who likes gut wrenching angst that ends in happy ending or at least a feeling of hope at the end. These ones like you had promised, were definitely angst heavy (esp the vmin fics). I prefer not to touch long series coz I fear I might lose interest midway thru & might end up thinking I wasted lots of time reading it since it often happens that authors end up adding bunch of filler scenes in between & im one who doesn’t like that.

So for the longest time I actually ignored cmi, until the amc thing came up & the some of the questions relating to the character arcs were def intriguing for me, & I thought ‘why not just give this one a go?’ The word count for cmi looked quite scary😶 so I took inspiration from seven & tried finishing from start till the recent update within seven days (…peak stupidity LoL) & GOD THE ANGST. I couldn’t help but take a blanket over my head to tear down through the rough patches that followed in midway through the fic…literally every scene was so detailed, it almost felt like I was looking at two people I closely knew & felt sorry for to suffer the miseries of being apart because of the conflicts they’d been facing.

Even if I actually succeeded in completing the 200k wc (the fastest & longest record for me) I was able to enjoy the fic. Maybe coz you actually understand the pacing of the slow burn and wrote their arcs so carefully which allowed the reader to slowly unveil their personalities, their flaws, their growth throughout the fic. I kinda skipped the drabbles in between (i did skim through but didn’t actually focus on them alot) coz the goal was to first read through the main storyline then take my time to unwind & re-read the drabbles after. Honestly this work might be my fav one from you, or any Jungkook fic I’ve read in the entirety of this website. Just wanted to say thanks for crafting such a wonderful piece of literature for us, im thrilled to read further what lays in store for jk & oc after they talked through their differences & patched up. And after reading so much pining that went behind in the past 9(?) parts, I’d actually love only fluff and warmth for this couple (me as angst enthusiast saying this✋🙂). And yes, I’m waiting for the cmi drabble (seven mv jk cross over with cmi jk is an unimaginable menace 🫠) and future parts to be posted sooner too! This couple has my heart💛

this was your first ask?! to lil ole me? 😭 omg hope you still see this one!! i wasn't around much when you sent it, then it got buried – but today i remembered it again and wanted to say hi 🥺

first of all, tysm for reading so many of my fics, and such long ones, too!! like, lmb is a huge ass piece, so im really happy you gave it a shot and enjoyed it, too 🥺 and like, same goes for cmi. it's also so lovely to know that people try out stuff on my page that they usually wouldn't – so it melts my heart that you gave cmi a chance and grew to love it as well!! angst, ikr? me too, i could live off of it :') LOL NOT THE SEVEN DAY CHALLENGE. that's actually so amusing and sweet 🤣 i know the word count is crazy and the chapters tend to get very long, but... i know i'm repeating myself, but i'm incredibly thankful that you tuned in. if you ever want, do read through the drabbles, too, since i think they give a deeper glimpse into the characters' flaws and personalities – no pressure tho!!

once again, thank you. it means the world to me to know you loved it so much. like, fav fic? please i'll sob :'') a lot of fluff incoming (but angst too, so fret not), and i truly hope you enjoy the rest as well. drop by anytime, seriously, i'd love to talk about cmi or anything with you whenever you like!! 🥺🤍

#whenever yall say you could actually picture the scene and feel it all and liked the pacing >>>>>> #once again.. so sorry for the late reply </3 #notes for rid 🌹 #gukievity #fic: colour me in

[peninkwrites]

Wake Up. - Ch 16 of ?

Everyone keeps trying. It ends with another crater in the ground.

[CW: violence, mild gore, referenced suicide, self harm. yknow the usual]

crossposted to ao3

Ch 1

Ch 15

Ch 17

~

Punz has to make his return to the Mainlands, and Dream decides to see him out.  Tommy watches the pair of them drink water breathing potions with blatant envy, but it’s not like there’s anything he can do as the pair leave him behind.  Besides, now Tommy has a goal.

Punz and Dream make it to the surface at the same time, Dream having slowed down to compensate for Punz’s not yet healed leg.  The nearest bit of land is a rough swim away, so they finish the last section in a boat together, quiet save for Dream’s efforts at rowing, and where they land isn’t the most hospitable.  Desert followed by dense jungle.  Eventually they’d get back to plains if they kept heading east, and the other nearest coast, an even longer boat ride, is cold, towering spruce and rough terrain.  None of it has been touched.  The nearest Nether portal is in a patch of wilderness as nondescript as the rest about 600 blocks away.  They are thousands of blocks away from anything anywhere, at least a thousand just through the Nether.  They are as close to nowhere as one could possibly get.

It’s a shit walk home for Punz.  He doesn’t trust anyone enough to activate a stasis pearl for him at the other end.  They would ask questions eventually.  So, he’ll walk.  He’ll use enderpearls and tridents when convenient– tridents must stay in their enderchests while in the bunker, for the same reason there are no brewing stands or Nether portals down there– and try and find his way to the nearest highway on the Nether roof.

“What’re you gonna do, then?” Punz trudges off the beach, armor heavy on his shoulders, shaking out his wet hair, still squinting in the sun even after a good while back on the surface.

Dream adjusts his mask, “oh, you know,” he shrugs.  Dream destroys the boat, not a trace would be left of them along this desolate coastline.  “Tommy’s got me feeling inspired.”

Punz buries the prickle on the back of his neck and continues.  “Right.  I’m thinking I’ll check in again today, but maybe dial it back after this.  They don’t really expect me to be this invested, mercenary and all.”

“Actually,” Dream tilts his head, rummaging through his inventory.  “I have something else for you to do.”  He offers Punz a stack of tnt.  “I’m assuming you can come by the redstone and invis pots by yourself?”

Punz accepts warily.  “And what exactly is it you want me to do?“

“Thought it’d be obvious,” Dream laughs, “I want you to set up traps.  To… discourage them from looking for me.  And I told Tommy back before his first little escape attempt, I couldn’t think of a good enough way to punish him, so I was gonna hurt everyone else.  Set up traps.  Let me know who gets caught in the crossfire.”

Punz stares at the tnt.  You don’t care about these people.  Why would you?  Eventually you’ll be able to outlive them all.

Punz sighs, “seems like a lot of work.  I don’t see a point, really.”

Dream takes a step closer, hands clasped behind his back, leaning forward inquisitively like there isn’t a hint of accusation behind his words.  “Would you prefer I set them up?  I mean, the reason I asked you is because you actually need to be around the Mainlands sometimes, and I’d imagine you’d want to know where all the traps are.  And if I set them up…” Dream tuts him softly.  “Well, I wouldn’t want to get you blown up.  And unless you’re lucky enough to have a ghost, if your body is destroyed…” he shrugs.  “The book has its limitations.  I haven’t worked out all the wrinkles yet, you know how it is.”

Of course Dream has an answer.  Logical enough to not be worth contesting, but also clearly a fucking threat.

“And I was thinking once everyone starts panicking about the explosives, you could have a couple more hero moments where you… catch one at the last second,” Dream dramatically pretends to swoon.  Punz is unamused.  “Save the day!  Stuff like that to really keep you in their good books.”

Punz nods curtly.  “Fine.  I’ll do it.”

“And hey, if anyone dies who was on their last life, maybe I’ll show up and barter for whoever’s soul it is.  Might be fun,” Dream says cockily.

“That’s dangerous.”

“Yeah, what can I say,” Dream shrugs.  “I’m… confident in my abilities.”

Punz can only think of Tommy’s words, whispered and offered like a sacred truth.  He thinks he’s a god.

“Okay.  Fine, you go do whatever it is you do, then.  It’ll take me a while to get back, so.  Don’t expect anything to be done today,” Punz frowns, still just staring at the tnt in his hands.  He puts it in his inventory.

“Hey, no rush.  We have… forever, remember?” Dream laughs, before sauntering away from the coast, toward the jungle just beyond an expanse of desert.

~

Tubbo sleeps for eleven hours and for a brief moment when he wakes, he forgets what he’s lost.  The feeling which comes crashing down on him is horribly close to grief.  Tubbo feels Ranboo’s absence on the other side of the bed.  They had decided to crash in Ranboo’s house in New L’Manberg, if only because it’s closer, even if it’s more cramped.  From over the edge of the loft, Tubbo can hear rustling, the sound of something sizzling in a pan.

Okay, Mr. President, what are we going to try today?  Sapnap set up patrols, they’ll be working out from the locations we at least know about.  They hopefully know to look out for anything underwater.  Wilbur said an underwater cave…

Okay, today we should set up a brewing station.  Anyone who can’t go look can help gather ingredients.  We’ll churn out water breathing and night vision potions, start searching the seas.

Tubbo closes his eyes against the gentle light filtering through the windows, feeling as though a great weight were crushing down on his chest.

Start searching the seas.  Right.  Searching whole oceans, using a starting point that is based on nothing.  Where we found Wilbur is meaningless.  A dead end tunnel in the Nether is fucking meaningless.

When do you stop?

Tubbo shuts down that train of thought then and there, shuts down any thought besides getting out of bed and climbing the ladder down to the main room of the little house.

“Morning,” Ranboo says, dishing out eggs.  “You sleep okay?”

Tubbo nods, sitting down at the tiny, rickety table shoved in the corner.  This house is almost functional for one person, and arguably difficult to navigate with just one more.  Ranboo gets together two plates.

“Coffee?” Ranboo asks.

Tubbo starts to shake his head before he reconsiders.  He cannot afford any exhaustion.  “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“No, no not at all,” Ranboo is too kind, too easy-going as he politely refuses to bring up the bitter ache still hanging in the air.

“Any word?” Tubbo asks.

“Uh, Sapnap went home to rest a little after we did, Phil said.  And only a few patrols are still out, I think.  I think Techno went home after he dropped me off.  No one…” Ranboo pauses with a frown, picking at his eggs mindlessly.  “No one has reported anything.  Good or bad.”

Tubbo nods.  He’d expected as much.

Ranboo is quiet.  This is the part where he’s supposed to read Tubbo’s silence for the dread it is and softly say, “we’re gonna find him.  We will.”  With enough certainty that maybe Tubbo can make it through the day a little easier, but this time Ranboo says nothing.  They eat.

Tubbo fills Ranboo in on his plans as they head out into the server, Ranboo quick to support it.

“I’m… I’m sorry I can’t search the ocean stuff, but I can help brew potions,” Ranboo offers.

“It’s alright, bossman.  I’d never expect that of you,” Tubbo puts a gentle hand on his arm.  He frowns, thinking it over.  “Oh.”

“What?”

“Well, I’d expect–“ Tubbo trails off, lost in thought, bitterness rising.  “I suppose it makes sense, doesn’t it?  Tommy got a message to you through endermen, so Dream takes him far underwater.”

“Oh,” Ranboo says more softly, dread a deep ache in his chest.  This is their second try.  Dream has only had time to learn.  And whatever efforts or progress they’d made to protect Tommy, either they only worked while he was still here, or Dream had already cut that thread.  Tommy cannot be guarded, there is no lodestone, no message sent through endermen… Ranboo won’t voice it aloud, but right now Wilbur’s plot to get a message through Ghostbur is the best one they have.

Well, Dream probably won’t ever let Tommy get ahold of coordinates again, so scratch that.  He probably drilled Tommy for every detail of his last escape to make sure it never happened again.

“Come on.  Let’s collect brewing stands–“ Tubbo’s attempt at shaking Ranboo out of his stupor hits him like a rocket to the chest.  He stops.  Let’s collect brewing stands.

Let’s sell drugs on the server.

Let’s start a nation together.

“Fuck–“ Tubbo stumbles forward.

“Tubbo?  What is it?”

Tubbo just shakes his head wordlessly, covering his face as it feels like something is laying on his chest.  He just needs to calm down.

It only gets worse, and Tubbo collapses against the post holding up the platforms of New L’Manberg.

“Tubbo?!”  Ranboo has no idea, how could he?  “Are you okay?!”  Ranboo kneels beside him, a hand on his shoulder, but Tubbo cannot catch his breath.

Tubbo doesn’t say a word.  He’s gasping for air, fighting back tears.  He feels like he’s dying.  He knows what that’s like.

Not as well as Tommy does.

The panic deepens, and Tubbo makes some horrible, choked imitation of a laugh, he feels numb, pins and needles cover his skin and there is only his lungs desperately gasping for air but it’s like there just isn’t enough for him anymore.  His vision blurs, for a horrifying moment he thinks he’s gone blind again, but no, he feels tears sting his cheek, he’s crying.  That is not enough relief to calm him, not when he can’t fucking breathe–

“Please, Tubbo.  You gotta– You gotta slow down–“ Ranboo is frantic, he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know what happened, one second Tubbo was relatively fine and the next he couldn’t stand.

“Tubbo?” A worried voice speaks up behind them.

Ranboo turns back sharply, Wilbur stands frozen just outside his father’s home.

“I don’t– I don’t know how to–“ Ranboo is pleading.

Wilbur looks between them and it’s like a haze lifts, a tumultuous storm insists on calm, and Wilbur is there.  He comes and joins them on the ground.  “Tubbo, you’re alright, man.  Deep breaths.  Just, inhale– one, two, three, four– good, good don’t exhale yet– one, two, three, four, five–“ Tubbo breaks with a sob, exhaling sharply, struggling to draw breath, and Wilbur remains utterly calm.  “Okay, that’s alright, just try and hold it a little longer next time, it’s okay, man.  You’re gasping, let’s try it again, inhale– Ranboo, can you copy too?– inhale, one, two, three, four– now we hold for seven, okay? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and exhale slow, man, really really slow, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.  Good, that’s– that’s loads better, let’s go again, yeah?  Inhale, one, two, three, four.  Hold, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.  Good– and exhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…”

They continue like that for a while, Ranboo holding Tubbo’s hand, Wilbur sat in front of him, just breathing, and Tubbo doesn’t know what to do with that face finally looking like the man he’d once trusted with his life.

Tubbo is breathing on his own, Wilbur sits back, with a relieved half sort of smile, like he’s unsure if he should stay now.  Tubbo scrunches up his face as he makes one last effort to bury a sob, but he can’t, not after Wilbur was Wilbur again, so instead he falls forward, wraps his arms around Wilbur’s frail shoulders, and finally stops fighting back tears.  Wilbur is startled for maybe a moment, but then he’s holding him, shushing him gently like nothing has changed.  In the woods mere days ago, they had held each other, swallowed by mutual terror, but now Wilbur has the fortitude to simply pretend to be calm, if only for a little while longer.

Fucking hell– Tubbo is eighteen years old.  He’s a fucking kid, and what the fuck is Wilbur supposed to do with that?  This time he is free and still just as helpless as when he’d been trying to save Tommy while still dead.

Tubbo mumbles something into Wilbur’s shirt.

“What?”

Tubbo pulls back, taking a deep breath, staring at the wooden slats beneath them.  “I want to make water breathing potions.  And probably night vision too.  A lot of them.”

“Oh,” Wilbur doesn’t know why he feels surprised.  He wants them to look for Tommy whatever it takes.  Somehow actually trying makes the desperation of it all sharper.  “Right.  I… I know where we can get some brewing stands, yeah?”

The brutal irony does not evade either of them.  They gather brewing stands and whatever ingredients had remained there from Ghostbur’s abandoned sewer home.  Phil helps.

And what place remains, one designed and suited for brewing, if not the perfect replica of the Camarvan.

Tubbo and Wilbur don’t voice it aloud, but as they set up shop, the weight of it is like a knife in both of their chests.

They start with their collection of awkward potions.  Tubbo and Wilbur let Phil and Ranboo grind up the blaze rods, because how can Wilbur not think of his bold, ignorant claim we’re on the right side of history as he showed off their haul all that time ago.  For Wilbur it, of course, feels like decades.  But for Tubbo it feels like decades as well.

Tubbo goes and gathers carrots from Tommy’s garden, refusing to let himself think about or even look at the house just beside him.  Phil offers to take up fishing to gather puffer fish.  Ranboo already has an obscene amount of gold for the carrots.

As those three go to gather their assigned ingredients, Wilbur is left staring at a row of three brewing stands, the sharp scent of blaze powder stinging his nose.  They hadn’t really made potions all that long in the grand scheme of L’Manberg’s history, but that had been what they’d done before there was war, so it matters.  It feels louder.

This replica is too good.  Wilbur can feel the memories crawling up the walls, he can hear Tommy’s brash, young, loyal little voice and Wilbur hates it.

Tubbo returns first.  He understands when Wilbur stops leaning against the counter and heads for the door.

“I can’t- I can’t, I just need some air-“ Wilbur starts walking and he doesn’t stop.

Wilbur takes the nearest exit out of L’Manberg and of course ends up right by Tommy’s house.  He doesn’t look at it.  He doesn’t pause.  He just walks a little faster, sticking only to the prime path.

That is, until he sees a glimpse of stone, of a hole in the ground just over the hillside.  There is no reason for him to know what it is at a glance, but he has a sinking feeling either way.  He stops and approaches the cliff side.  He looks down.  There is no coherent thought or logic which he follows, but he finds himself stumbling further down the prime path until he finds a less steep ledge to scramble down, scraping his palms on the rocks just enough to sting, but really he’s just lucky his newly alive clumsiness didn’t make him break his neck.

Wilbur approaches the grave.

Here lies Tommyinnit.

Brother, soldier, friend.

You can let go now.

Without much choice, Wilbur feels a bubbling, hysterical laugh fall from his lips.  Other than that strange, unnerving giggle, he doesn’t move, merely stares transfixed at the stone.  There is a poorly undug hole in front of him.  It’s about six feet deep.  It’s empty.  And Wilbur’s first fleeting coherent thought since he’d left the Camarvan is the inexplicable urge to hop down inside of it.  As far as Wilbur’s intrusive thoughts go, that one is almost silly.  For some fucking reason, all of this feels silly to him.  It’s all just ridiculous, nonsensical nonsense and Wilbur, the perfect cosmic joke, the misfired chekhov's gun, the man who failed to martyr himself thrice, escaped from hell on a fucking technicality alongside the whims of a mad man, and he cannot wait to crawl back into a grave.  

Well, not back into a grave.  That would imply he ever had one to begin with.

That’s the thought that breaks one more shred of sanity he’d still been clinging to, and Wilbur is at least lucky enough to fall backwards onto the earth still soft from being undug instead of forwards into the pit as he laughs hysterically on the ground, tears streaming from his eyes at the thought of what a fucking overachiever he is, after everything he’s ruined, he’s going to take one last thing from his little brother.  Why not.  He’s already lost Tommy his freedom, why doesn’t he just take his spot in the resting place Tommy had been loved enough to deserve.

Back at the Camarvan whe Ranboo and Phil return, Tubbo says Wilbur went for a smoke.  It’s a fair lie, one Tubbo almost believes himself.  Still, better to save Wilbur even more people fussing over him.  Tubbo understood how irritating that could be.

“He did?” Phil frowns.  “It feels like such a little thing now, but he needs to stop that shit.  He doesn’t need something to mess him up any more.”

“Ah, we’re talking about me, then?” Wilbur had returned from his apparent smoke break, and none of them, Tubbo included, know what to do with the sight of him bedraggled and covered in dirt before them.  His eyes are red and a bit puffy.

“You alright?” Ranboo says, voice just a bit higher in his concern.

Wilbur gives him a weird look, like his asking is the peculiar part of this situation.  “Fucking dandy,” he says dryly.  “Why’re you all standing around?  Aren’t there potions to be making?  Shoo,” he waves them away from the doorway before walking past to the row of brewing stands.  They all pretend not to notice Wilbur’s hands still shaking as he takes the bottles off the stand and checks their consistency.  “So, I think we prioritize water breathing, yeah?  Someone wanna get me a pufferfish?”

Phil is quick to oblige, and none of them say another word about Wilbur looking like he’d just crawled out of a gutter.

So the day goes.

Two hours and over a dozen potions later, there’s the distant sound of something familiar to all ears present save Ranboo’s, however faint, that sound the three of them could recognize anywhere.

Somewhere else, somewhere too close for comfort, TNT has just gone off.

~

Tommy sits on the little chest full of notebooks in the corner of his cell.  The door to the cell remains open.  It unnerves him, his ability to wander the corridors.  He almost wishes he were shut in.  It’s the same as he’d thought since Dream had first promised he’d have full run of the base; it’s just a bigger cell.  The few intersecting narrow corridors, the only open space being that stupid dome, it feels more claustrophobic somehow than if he had been sealed into one room.  Sealed in, he could’ve pretended any amount of open space existed just beyond his sight.  Maybe another dauntingly big hall inside a mountain.  Maybe, if he were daring, a way outside.

Dream knew what he was doing.  Tommy could see all of it.  That illusory freedom meant he could not give himself some naive hope that just around some hidden corner there was a way out.  No wonder Dream had agreed to Tommy’s game.  Tommy doesn’t even have anywhere to attempt to look for trouble.  There is nothing, nowhere to start, and thus the door stays open.

Not to say Tommy isn’t trying his best.

Right now Tommy sits on top of the chest instead of his bed because he’s currently trying to saw through the iron band around his wrist by wedging it against the corner of his metal sink.

“You’re both metal, so how come you can’t break this shit, then?” Tommy mutters crossly to the sink, kicking it between attempts.  “You’re thicker than this stupid fucking thing, shouldn’t that mean you’re stronger or whatever the fuck?!”

Tommy gives it another try.  He thinks the weakest point of the fucking thing would surely be where Dream had welded on that ring on to seal it.  It was an annoying shape, the little ring about the size of his finger still pressed into the burn, the curve of it disrupting the rest of the band which fit his wrist perfectly.  Tommy doesn’t know why he didn’t just fucking close the loop.  He could’ve just made the band a bit too big and used some tool to pinch it closed.  Dickhead.

Tommy, as he had been for the past hour, continues to ignore the blood dripping down his arm.  The feeble attempt at scabbing the burn had managed without a health pot had cracked just from him moving, so now, with the pointed corner of the sink digging in, instead of cutting into the iron band, it had made quick work of deepening the wound on his wrist until it was a nasty cut as well.

Tommy hisses as his arm slips and the cut widens, but through the blood Tommy can at least see he’s scratching the metal.  And hey, if the bleeding continues in earnest, Tommy will have finally pushed himself enough to slit his wrist, just like Dream wanted.

Tommy knows that, unlike from a neck wound, he’s still got a pretty decent amount of time before he bleeds out.  Tommy pauses, frowning at the flow of blood which has gone from a few rivulets down his arm to a steady stream, his arm feeling oddly tingly.  Okay.  Maybe not much time.

“Well, no point in pussyfootin’ around for safety’s sake or whatever the fuck,” Tommy says almost cheerfully, raising his left arm with his right so he can slam it down on the edge of the sink in order to crack it open.  “Fuck!”  Tommy screams, falling back on the ground and cradling his wrist to his chest, kicking his feet out furiously.  He’s earned a fucking tantrum.  The metal does have a small dent in it, but that just gives it one more fucking place to dig into his wrist, not to mention the jarring pain that had shuddered up his arm.  That’s definitely going to bruise, not even mentioning the blood slickening both of his arms now and soaking his shirt.

Tommy doesn’t want to get up anymore.  He’s tired.  His wrist is throbbing and he has a feeling any more efforts are just going to make it worse.  The stupid fucking band was measured out to his wrist perfectly and Tommy had of course found a way to instead make the stupid fucking thing just a little bendy so it would dig in.

Tommy stares with bleary rage at the band.  At the little cube half encased in metal on the top.

“Oh, I was fuckin… I was fuckin stupid, okay,” Tommy had wanted the fucking thing off of him, a reasonable request, but the thing was almost shaped like a big ring.  It was easy to break the gem off the top of a ring.  Much easier than trying to break the band outright.  Tommy had no intention of trying to shatter the thing made with Netherite, but if he could just crack the thinner bits of iron holding it in place…

“One m-more try,” Tommy staggers to his feet, almost falling over he felt so dizzy, yet again he uses his right arm to hold up his left like a hammer, his left feeling far more tingly alongside the sharper sting of the burn, and goes to bring the lodestone down right on the edge of the sink.

“What’re you doing?”

That cold voice is the last thing Tommy hears as his vision blurs and, startled, he misses the sink, his arm getting thrown to the floor pulling him down with it so instead of hitting the iron or even his wrist, Tommy slams his own forehead into the edge of the sink.

It’s almost impressive.  He was about to bleed out and Tommy found a way to make himself fall unconscious even faster.

~

Maybe they shouldn’t be so willing to run toward that sound, but Tubbo, Wilbur, and Phil take off running towards it immediately, Ranboo close behind.

There’s a small crater in Tommy’s front yard.

“Niki!” Wilbur does not fall into an empty grave, instead one perhaps already occupied.  “Oh fuck– no no no no– oh god, oh fuck–” There’s blood burst across the ground and Niki isn’t moving.

Tubbo feels horror twofold.  Tubbo had been meters away from this spot, gathering fucking carrots, mere hours ago.  And it had been Niki instead.  “Wilbur, her leg,” Tubbo says weakly.

“G-Get me a health pot!  Quickly, please!” Wilbur screams up at them.  He finds her pulse pushing on fiercely.  “A-And I need– Oh, fuck, I need a r-rope or-or something–”

Ranboo scrambles to take off his belt, throwing it down to him.  Wilbur takes it, pulling it taut just below Niki’s right knee.  The blood flow slows from the mangled remains of her leg.  Phil has already taken off running back toward New L’Manberg.

“H-Help me, I can’t– I can’t get her out–” Wilbur struggles to lift her.  He can’t see very well and it’s not just from the gunpowder stinging in his eyes.  Wilbur blinks away tears, refocusing on Tubbo hopping down to help him.  The two of them manage to get her out, Ranboo helping to lift her back onto solid ground.  Phil returns with health pots and a golden apple.  “P-Please, Niki, oh god–” Wilbur supports her head as Phil carefully pours the potion down her throat, Ranboo taking a splash potion to her damaged leg.

“Punz,” Tubbo looks up at the stunned figure coming down the prime path.  “C-Can you find Ponk?  We need a doctor.”

Punz is pale as a sheet, looking like he’s about to be sick, but he nods and turns around, running toward Lemon City.

He didn’t get close enough for them to see the redstone still staining his fingertips.

#my writing #tddd #wake up. #violence cw

[nagichi-boop]

My thoughts on “you can’t be loved by someone if you don’t love yourself”

I made this post a few days ago asking what people thought about the quote “you can’t be loved by someone if you don’t love yourself”. I’ve had a few days to think about it and read the responses to it, but I think I’m ready to add my two cents into the mix.

This post is quite long, but I felt that I wanted to share my opinions as thoroughly as possible. I talk about the negative connotations the quote has towards those who are neurodivergent/mentally ill, my own experience and some examples from an anime that I like that I think holds important lessons about self love. If you don’t want to read this post, that’s absolutely fine. You can also just read certain parts if you’d like. Or you can save this later and read it in chunks if it’s too much in one go.

(I’ve decided for simplicity to add some headings btw, just to make reading the post easier hopefully. And apologies in advanced for any spelling/grammar mistakes! I had a lot of thoughts I wanted to get out.)

“Defending” the quote

In my mind, I think the quote has a truth to it, but the way it is phrased isn’t correct. I think what the quote means is that if you don’t love yourself and are consumed by self loathing, you may not be able to accept love if it’s given to you by someone, either because you are too afraid to let them in or you don’t believe what they say to be true.

While I do agree that having a low self esteem makes it hard to accept love from others, I don’t think that the idea that you can’t be loved unless you love yourself unfortunately has a sinister undertone when it comes to those who are mentally ill or neurodivergent. I also think that sometimes it takes someone else loving you first to help show you what is lovable about yourself. (Skip to the ‘rice ball analogy’ subheading where I explain this idea in more detail.)

I’m now going to use a hypothetical that may be relatable to some to illustrate why this maybe isn’t the best quote.

Hypothetical to illustrate the danger of using this quote

So in this hypothetical, we will focus on someone who is autistic, diagnosed or undiagnosed. They grow up their whole lives being treated by their peers as an outcast, perhaps being called “weird” or “different”, or maybe they just don’t get invited out. They often say that repetition helps you to learn, right? Well, through repeated neglect and social isolation, this person begins to feel like they are a failure, that they are unlovable.

Whether people around them are hurting and neglecting them on purpose or by accident, the effect is still the same. The person is lonely and isolated, so of course after being rejected so many times they’d be led to believe that they are not worthy of love, that something is wrong. Why else would people refuse to be with them, to be their friend?

Now imagine this person finds the courage to open up to someone. They relate how they hate themselves, that no one seems to like them because they are weird. That because of how they are, they are unlovable. And if they know about their autism diagnosis, perhaps they blame their problems on that, suggesting that because of their autism, they were doomed to fail in relationships. Now imagine the other person tells them that no one will love them until they love themselves. How do you think the autistic person would feel? Happy? Relived? Motivated? Of course not! Because the other person just reestablished the faulty belief that because of how this person is, they cannot be loved.

Personal experience

I know for me personally I felt like that hypothetical person. I have grown up feeling like an outcast, treated as weird by those who I considered to be friends. It’s only after being alive for almost 21 years that I think I have found some irl friends who truly love me, who care about me. But that wasn’t because I suddenly learned self love. Actually, I’m arguably going through a rough patch with my mental health right now. And yet despite that, I have two wonderful friends who say that they are lucky to have me as a friend, who love me and are afraid to lose me as a friend. But those feelings of self hatred have not gone away. They are still very much here. I often question what could possibly make my friends care about me and value me so much. But regardless of how I feel about myself, they can see the good qualities in me and love me for it. Which leads me to…

Using an anime to explain my point

The anime I would like to talk about is called Fruits Basket. Maybe you have heard of it, maybe you have scene it or maybe you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, but please bear with me. I’ll be talking about a few scenes from the anime to illustrate my points. I’ll be referring to the newer (2019) version of the anime for this.

The first I’d like to highlight is one from the third episode. Tohru, the main character, uses an illustration of a onigiri/rice ball to explain a point she is making to her friend, Kyo. A rice ball for those who don’t know is this 🍙. I couldn’t find the whole clip on YouTube, but if you click here you can watch a portion of it. I’ll also be explaining it here, so you don’t have to watch the clip to get my point.

Rice balls analogy

In this scene, Tohru likens people to a rice ball with a plum on their back. She says that everyone has a plum on their back, or in other words, everyone has amazing qualities. But because the plum is on their back, they can’t see it, so they may assume that they don’t have said good qualities. But everyone else can see the plum, so it’s easy for them to see the good things about people that the person themselves cannot see.

I think this is especially true of people with trauma, mental illness and/or are neurodivergent. We often can’t really see the good things about ourselves and therefore assume they aren’t there, which can make it difficult to love ourselves. But other people can see our good qualities very easily. Sometimes it takes someone else loving you and telling you about your good qualities for you to begin to see yourself in a positive way.

“Learn to love yourself”

The next scene I’d like to discuss is a scene from episode 18. Unfortunately I couldn’t really find a clip of it on YouTube, so I will do my best to explain it here.

A girl named Kisa was bullied incessantly at school, resulting in her no longer attending and also losing her ability to speak. She then receives a letter from her teacher that Yuki, one of her relatives and a main character of the show, reads aloud. Bearing in mind Yuki also endured a great deal of trauma and so can relate to Kisa to a degree, Yuki expresses his confusion and frustration to the teachers wording, namely that it asks Kisa to “learn to love” herself. He rhetorically asks how it is that people can find things to love about themselves when the whole reason they hate themselves is because they can only see the things they hate, so finding good things about yourself “feels hollow, like we’re making things up.” He then says that it’s only when someone says and shows that they love you that you are able to start loving yourself, that it’s when someone accepts you that you are able to start forgiving and loving yourself.

I think this couples well with Tohru’s analogy of the rice ball. Both illustrate how difficult is it for someone who already has a negative view of themselves to find good qualities in themselves, either because they just cannot think of anything or anything they do think it feels like an exaggeration or a lie. But again, when someone else finds those good qualities and draws them out, as well as accepting the darker parts of you, that’s when such a person may start to accept themselves and love themselves more.

Kyo’s confession (spoilers)

The final clip I want to share goes back to my point about how it’s not a matter of whether or not you love yourself determining whether someone can love you, but rather whether your self hatred stops you from allowing others in. Once again, I couldn’t find a full clip, but here’s an Instagram post with the main part I wanted to share and I will provide context for the rest.

So to boil this scene down to the basics, Kyo discovers that Tohru has feelings for him. Despite reciprocating said feelings, Kyo decides to try pushing Tohru away, expressing how he blames himself for her mother’s death. To put it shortly, he saw that Tohru’s mother was going to be hit by a car, but for reasons that only make sense if you’re away of the anime’s plot, he hesitates and her mother ends up dying. He misinterprets her final words “I won’t forgive you” to mean that her mother blames him for her death (when in actuality her mother was trying to say “I won’t forgive you if you leave my daughter alone”), but he carries this guilt with him from then on.

After confessing this to Tohru, she expresses that she cannot believe her mother would say that, but if she did, she has to “rebel against her mother” so to speak because she loves Kyo anyway. Instead of being flattered and happy by this, Kyo expresses he is disappointed in Tohru.

This would be an example of someone who loathes themselves and shuts people off because of it. Kyo hated himself so much and carried such a heavy load of trauma with him that he could not accept another person’s love.

A further scene elaborates on what Kyo decides to do next however, which you can watch by clicking here. Yuki, mentioned earlier, gets upset with Kyo and tells him that he’s not a superhero that is supposed to be perfect. Kyo replies that he can’t protect Tohru, but Yuki says that he already has been doing that, once again showing that it’s easier to find the good in someone else than it is to see in yourself. He visits his abusive father and says that he wasn’t going to throw himself away anymore, that as long as he was alive he would keep trying to live.

He then comes to realise that he had been neglecting Tohru’s feelings and realises that this isn’t what he wanted, and so he apologises to Tohru and asks for a second chance. Ofc in romance anime style they get today, but in a scene in a further episode, Kyo talks about how he would do her best to make Tohru’s mother proud and protect Tohru.

Kyo recognised that his own self loathing was getting in the way of his and Tohru’s happiness. His trauma and hatred did not go away when he and Tohru got together, but his attitude did. Instead of trying to run away, he decided to confront his issues and work on getting better. And to begin with, it was only through Tohru that Kyo had become a better person throughout the series.

Conclusion

Hopefully I’ve been able to explain myself well enough in my post. I know it was a long one, but I feel like the notion of “you can’t be loved by someone if you don’t love yourself” is half true at best and toxic positivity at worse. Yes, self hatred can cause someone to reject someone’s feelings of love and it may even turn some people away from you. But people who truly love and care about you will love you despite your flaws, despite how you may feel about yourself. And they may even be the very people who draws that person out and helps them to begin to see the good in themselves. Maybe they won’t ever truly love themselves, but through someone else’s love they may come to accept themselves.

Thank you for reading. :)

#please feel free to give me other things to tag to this #self love #positivity #autism #autistic #adhd #ocd #bpd #eupd #borderline personality disorder #emotionally unstable personality disorder #mentally ill #neurodivergent #fruits basket #furuba #nagichi talks

[bloodfromthethorn]

Head Wounds

Ten hours out from exfil, with a partner so concussed he can't see straight. Oh yeah, this night's going to be a blast.

Part twenty-three of the July of Whump 2021 prompt challenge.

Also on AO3.

..

How was the flight?

Urghhh long. Just getting through security now, but I’m going to head to Jack’s for the night so don’t wait up.

Oh I see how it is. The message was immediately followed by a laughing emoji, bleeding any genuine annoyance right out of it. Even exhausted, Mac couldn’t help but grin; Boze knew him well.  

Hey, he said he was getting pizza.

You’re choosing pizza delivery over my cooking?

That was fair, actually. Damn, he really hadn’t thought that excuse through. I would never! It’s late and I didn’t want to disturb you when I finally get in. This queue is taking forever.

Mac was distracted from waiting for the answer to that by movement in the doorway of the room Jack had claimed, the man himself appearing a moment later having successfully ditched his sweaty, bloodstained tac gear for the last fresh t-shirt in his go-bag. He still looked wrecked to hell, with the bruises just starting to swell over his left eye, but the lukewarm shower had at least managed to rinse most of the blood out of his hair. It was… an improvement.

“Hey, big guy, how’re you feeling?”

Jack shot him an acidic look.

“Stupid question, huh?”

Evidently it was, because Jack disregarded it entirely to ask a question of his own. “You speak with Boze?”

Mac breathed out a silent sigh, but let the diversion pass without contest. “Yeah. If he asks, I spent the night at yours eating pizza.”

“God what I wouldn’t give for some pizza right now.”

“You and me both.” He cast a judgemental eye over the meagre kitchen, letting his lip curl in a rare show of genuine displeasure. The safe house gave them a roof over their heads for the night, sure, but it wasn’t exactly the lap of luxury. As run down as it had looked from the outside, they’d both been pleasantly surprised to discover that it had running water, albeit with an ancient boiler that had required an improvised patch to get the slightest amount of heating out of it.

They’d slept in worse places, no doubt, but Mac wasn’t thrilled that Jack was having to tolerate such conditions when he was already feeling like shit.

“I think we might be striking out on pizza, but there’s some cans of… something in here,” he said, pulling open one of the cupboards he’d searched earlier. The cans in question were dusty and looked highly questionable, but it wasn’t like they were going to get Uber Eats in the middle of the Montana wilds.

Jack wrinkled his nose. “Way to sell it.”

“You need to eat Jack.”

“I’m pretty sure one night without dinner isn’t going to kill me.”

He’d said it innocuously, but Mac couldn’t help flinching. It had barely been three hours since he’d had to watch Jack take a rifle butt hard to the face and hit the ground without moving; he didn’t need any more fuel to his imaginings of things that could kill his partner.

“I’d like to not tempt fate, if it’s all the same.” He tried to speak as lightly as Jack had, though it was obvious that his partner had missed neither the flinch nor the sudden downtick in his mood. “I’m pretty sure this can’s vegetable soup. It can’t be that bad, right?”

“We’ve both eaten enough MREs to know that’s bullshit,” Jack offered waspishly, then huffed. “Seriously dude, I’m not going to be able to keep anything down. Worry about yourself, but I’m good.”

Mac felt his expression twist in sympathy. “Nausea kicking in?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Have you managed to keep the painkillers down?”

“So far. Not that they seem to be doing all that much, but it’s the thought that counts, right?” Jack had folded himself down onto the ratty sofa to one side of the kitchen-diner, and the fact that he’d positioned himself in such a way that he didn’t have a clear line of sight on the door told Mac everything he needed to know about how rough his partner really was feeling. The only time he ever fully gave over situational awareness to Mac was when he knew he wouldn’t be able to do a good enough job himself.

“The exfil team will have something stronger,” he promised weakly. They were also a solid ten hours away from reaching them, so it was pretty cold comfort. Still, it was something to look forward to.

Despite his partner’s protests, Mac spent the next few minutes busying himself with heating up one of the soup cans. He wasn’t particularly hungry himself, but they’d missed lunch earlier in the day and Jack really shouldn’t be taking painkillers on an empty stomach, concussion or no. In hindsight, it was no wonder he was starting to feel sick. It was that logic he used to justify himself when he forced a steaming mug of soup into Jack’s hand before joining him on the sofa with a mug of his own.

“No bowls,” he supplied, purposefully misinterpreting the look Jack was shooting him. “Or at least, none that didn’t look as though they might have had rats nesting in them. Don’t know about you, but I’d really like to avoid having to tell Matty we contracted leptospirosis by eating dinner.”

“Lepto-what?”

“Weil’s disease. You can get it from bacteria in rat droppings. It’s rarely fatal, but it can severely impact kidney function and-”

“Okay, okay, I regret asking.” Mac had only elaborated because he knew it would rile Jack up, but his partner had started looking a little green around the gills and a thrill of guilt welled up in his gut.

“Sorry.”

The genuine apology must have shown in his expression, because Jack let it drop in favour of sipping tentatively at the soup. Mac mimicked him, finding it to be surprisingly tasty for its humble origins. It might not measure up to pizza or Boze’s cooking, but he’d take what he could get.

Whether or not Jack agreed with that assessment remained to be seen, as he was barely able to choke down more than three mouthfuls before he started conspicuously breathing through his mouth and swallowing repeatedly. Well aware of how little Jack liked attention when he was working through pain or illness, Mac didn’t call him out on it, just made sure that the wastebasket was within arm’s reach. Through sheer determination if nothing else, Jack managed to keep the soup down but when he dropped his still mostly-full mug down on the coffee table, Mac didn’t push him further.

“I can feel you watching me hoss.”

Mac hummed. “You gonna pretend you don’t do the same with me when I get bashed over the head?”

Jack scowled at him. “You’ve already looked me over. Quit with the worrying.”

“Who’s worrying? I’m just wondering when you’re going to admit that you need to go lie down.”

He wrinkled his nose at him. “We don’t know if those mercs were able to track us out here. We can’t let our guard down.”

Mac nodded agreeably. “Yep. That’s why I’m going to be keeping watch.”

“You need rest just as much as I do, hoss.”

“I’m not concussed and one sleepless night isn’t going to do me any harm. I can sleep on the flight back to LA tomorrow.” Mac was aware that they both knew the logic of his argument, but Jack would argue for carrying the bulk of responsibility on principle, no matter what situation they got themselves into. Even hurting, he was primed to make things as easy for Mac as he could. “Besides, it’s not like you’re going to be getting that much rest yourself. You’re on concussion watch, remember?”

There was a single owlish blink that let him know Jack hadn’t remembered, then the expression disappeared behind plaintive annoyance. “Hey, now, why? Last time you got laid up with a concussion the nurses let you sleep right through.”

“Yeah, because I was in Phoenix med, hooked up to a bunch of monitors with three different scans of my brain on the wall beside me. If anything did go wrong, the nurses were going to know about it. You are in the middle of nowhere, Montana, with exactly no medical assistance besides a few field first aid courses. You’re having cognition checks.”

Jack looked no more mollified by that pronouncement than Mac had expected, but this was a point he wouldn’t bend on. He wasn’t taking chances with Jack’s brain just so the man could get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. The sentiment must have shown on his face, because Jack huffed moodily, but settled back down into the sofa cushions without further argument. 

“Concussions suck,” he muttered. 

“They do.”

Without meaning to, Mac suddenly found himself remembering the moment Jack had taken the hit, his cry of pain and the sickening flash of blood that had instantly followed. The few moments after that got a little hazy – he thought he could remember shouting, then the dull pain of his own fists meeting someone else’s flesh – but he could still recall the moment he finally reached Jack’s side. The man had been clinging onto consciousness with a ferocity few could manage, but it was evidently a hard won battle and the blood blinding him in one eye was doing him no favours. For just a moment, Mac’s surging panic had stripped away everything else, leaving nothing but fear and ice behind; then his training had kicked in with a vengeance and he’d settled in to get to work. 

He blinked back to the rundown kitchen-diner to find Jack watching him with open concern. “What?”

“What do you mean, what? You think I’m not going to notice you spacing out on me?”

“I wasn’t spaced out.” He’d never been good at lying to Jack but he was rarely so egregious about it. 

His partner raised a pointed eyebrow, even though the action pulled at the swelling curving down over his face. “Oh yeah? What did I just say then?”

Even if Mac had any idea what Jack might have said, his immediate hesitation was a pretty obvious red flag. The only cover he could reach for was humour. “This is far from the first time I’ve tuned you out when you’ve been speaking.”

“Rude.”

“I’m just saying. Sometimes some of us have other things to think about.”

“Yeah, and so long as those things aren’t worrying about me, then I’m fine with that.” He shot Mac a no-nonsense look that cut right through the veneer of sarcasm he’d tried to pull over the conversation. “Really Mac. I’m alright. Took a hit, and I’ll have a headache for a few days, but that’s the worst of it. Promise.”

His eyes were wide and pleading and utterly unfair. There was nothing Mac could do in the face of it but huff. “Alright, fine. I believe you. Now will you please go and lie down? Watching you struggle to keep your eyes open is painful.”

Despite having argued against it barely a few minutes ago, Jack was evidently aware of his own exhaustion because he just nodded slowly and started to heave himself up from the sofa. “Yeah, yeah. You hear anyone trying to get close to the house, you call me, alright? No trying to be a hero on your own.”

“I’ll keep any heroics to a minimum, promise. Get some rest.”

“‘M going.”

“See you in two hours.”

“Fuck you.”

Mac snickered, keeping one eye on his retreating partner’s back just to make sure that he made it to his room without incident. “Good night, Jack.”

..

The next two hours passed in relative peace. Mac finally remembered to check his phone, seeing a handful more texts from Bozer inquiring about his supposed journey. He messaged back with simple assurances, doing some quick maths to work out if it was reasonable for him to be at Jack’s apartment yet. As it got later, the messages fizzled out and Mac was free to drop the charade. Far and away the worst part of his job was lying to his best friend. 

Throughout, Jack’s room stayed silent. It was a relief; injury often had a habit of bringing up bad memories for them both, and it was a simple enough leap for those memories to bleed into nightmares when they finally got to sleep. For once, it seemed like Jack was going to be spared that particular hardship. 

Or, at least, until Mac had to go and disturb him. As much as he knew it had to be done and how ardently he’d argued the point with Jack, he still felt bad as he climbed off the couch and padded across to Jack’s closed door. He knocked, more as a formality, but when no response was forthcoming, let himself in. 

It was strangely relieving to see Jack stretched out on the bed, peacefully sleeping. Mac wasn’t entirely sure that he’d been expecting anything different, but still. 

“Hey Jack,” he called softly as he approached, cautious. “Need you to wake up and talk to me for a minute buddy.”

No response. 

“Hey,” he said, louder this time. He tapped a light hand down on Jack’s wrist, there and gone so Jack’s sleep-addled mind wouldn’t read it as a restraint. 

That was enough to do the trick. The hand was jerked out of Mac’s reach, and dark eyes slid open in the dim light spilling in through the open door. For a few breaths Mac said nothing, letting Jack readjust to the situation at his own pace and making no attempt to move closer until he’d been given some indication he was welcome. 

“Hoss?”

“Yeah, just me. Concussion check, remember?”

A handful of colourful curses muffled themselves in the pillows. Mac snorted, and took that as his permission to perch on the edge of the bed, his hip bumping lightly against Jack’s. 

“Do you know where we are?”

“Bumfuck, nowhere.” Mac just stayed silent, and a few seconds later was rewarded with an aggrieved sigh. “Montana. Plains.”

Close enough. “Date?”

“I didn’t know that before I got whacked over the head,” he grumbled. “March sometime.”

It was only then that Mac realised he wasn’t entirely confident what day they were on either, so he hurried onto his next question. “What’s the effective firing range of a Barrett M107?”

Jack blinked at him. 

“What? You’d rather I asked you math questions?”

There was a long, pointed silence, then, “Two thousand yards. And if you try and give me algebra, so help me hoss, I will hurt you.”

Mac laughed, only just remembering to keep his voice down in deference to what was sure to be a hell of a headache. “Noted. Okay, let me think. How far can a M1114 humvee travel on half a tank of gas in rough terrain?”

Much to Jack’s obvious surprise, Mac had hit upon a tactic for cognition questions that Jack genuinely got a kick out of. He was still grouchy and exhausted, but it placated him enough to tolerate several more rounds of questions than Mac had thought he’d get away with. By the time he was doing the maths on what the minimum safe distance was for a cluster of three claymores, it was pretty apparent that his mental state was sound. 

“Okay big guy,” he said when Jack’s entirely correct answer was finally delivered. “That’ll do. You’re good.”

“Told you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just a worrier and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. That what you want to hear?”

“I’d rather hear the door closing behind you on your way out,” Jack muttered back, then pointedly rolled over to give his partner his back. The threadbare blanket was tugged up to his chin. 

Mac laughed again, loose with relief, and left him to it. One check down, several more to go. He’d got this. 

..

The second check went as smoothly as the first had, thankfully, though Jack was no happier about it. It was only after he’d gone back to sleep that things started to go downhill. For one, Mac became increasingly aware that he was starting to feel the effects of exhaustion himself, with a headache and itchy eyes. For another, it was around that time that the nightmares Jack had managed to avoid thus far decided it was time to crash the party. 

Listening to Jack toss and turn, mumbling and muttering to himself all the while, was a special kind of torture. Mac wished that he could go to him, offer some kind of comfort, but he knew that as soon as he got close, he’d wake Jack up. In the middle of a nightmare that might be no bad thing, but he really did need rest to recover from the head injury and he was already having a disturbed enough night as it was. The logic was enough for him to keep his distance, but it didn’t make it suck any less. 

So it was that it was almost a relief when his phone timer pinged, signalling it was time for another check in. 

“Jack, hey, it’s me,” he called as he made his way across the room. “It’s time to wake up again big guy.”

Later, he wouldn’t be sure if it was a result of his own fatigue making him sloppy, or overconfidence bolstered by the two previous checks going so smoothly. All he would really remember was that he only got as far as putting his hand to Jack’s shoulder before everything went wrong. 

His wrist was seized in a viciously tight grip, yanking him down so sharply his shoulder was nearly wrenched out of place. He staggered forward onto one knee, a shout of surprise escaping him as the joint made a crack of impact against the wooden floor. Before he had any chance to recover, another hand was on him, hauling him sideways and off-balance until he found himself half-collapsed against the bed with a muscular arm drawing tightly up against his throat. He snatched for it with both hands, then had his entire attention diverted when the hand on his wrist released him, only to come swinging up a moment later with something that glinted dully in the low light gripped in a tight fist. 

And, of course, it was only now that Mac remembered Jack always slept with Ka-Bar under his pillow. 

He abandoned any attempt at stopping the arm trying to throttle him and threw his entire panicked strength into gripping onto the hand desperately trying to put a knife through his throat. 

The knife inched closer. 

“Jack!” He shouted, straining against the pressure on his neck. “Jack, it’s me! It’s Mac!”

“C’mon man, wake up! You’re safe!” He dug his nails into the fragile skin of Jack’s hand, trying to give him a point of pain to draw him back to reality. Whatever it was he was seeing, it clearly wasn’t his partner popping in for a night-time cognition check. 

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The near-overwhelming strength in Jack’s knife hand vanished and Mac was free to shove it away even as the arm around his throat went limp, letting him slide awkwardly to the floor. As soon as it registered that his freedom was his own again, he scooted away from the bed sharply, spinning to put Jack in his eyeline. 

His partner was sitting up in the bed, the knife abandoned on the floor beside him, looking for all the world like he’d just seen a ghost. Even in the near-darkness, Mac could see how pale his face had become. 

“Mac?” He sounded small, lost. A thousand miles from the pillar of strength he usually was. 

“Yeah,” Mac croaked, then stopped to clear his throat. Damn, he was going to wind up with some difficult-to-explain bruises. “Yeah, it’s me. You’re okay, Jack. We’re at the safe house, remember? There’s no danger here.”

“Safe house,” he repeated slowly, testing the words. “Montana.”

“That’s right. You remember the mission?”

“I don’t– I think I hit my head,” he said. He reached up to check, a shaking hand hovering uncertainly over the swelling around his eye. 

“You did, bud. Pretty bad. I’ve been waking you up to check on you.”

“Concussion check. Fort Bragg.”

That one threw Mac for a minute, sudden concern rising that Jack was becoming delirious, before he remembered the last question he’d asked during the second check: the size of the installation that was home to Delta Force. “That’s the one. You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said faintly, then more firmly, “Yes. I’m here. I don’t– I was dreaming?”

“Sounded like a nightmare.”

It was only then that it seemed to register to Jack that Mac was sitting on the floor several feet away watching him like a hawk and why exactly that might be the case. His gaze flashed to the knife, then back up to his partner. “Oh, Jesus,” he said breathlessly, then in the next instant was scrambling off the bed to get to him. “Mac, did I hurt you? Are you alright?”

Mac briefly considered trying to wave him off, only to realise that his hands were shaking and he probably shouldn’t draw attention to that. Instead he offered a tremulous smile. “I’m not hurt. You scared the shit out of me,” he admitted with an unsteady laugh, “But you didn’t hurt me.”

“My god, kid, I’m so sorry.” He’d hesitated as soon as he landed on his knees beside Mac, but it was momentary; in barely any time at all he had one hand on Mac’s shoulder and the other cupping the back of his neck to try to get a good look at him. “Are you sure you’re alright? I didn’t– I thought I was somewhere else, I didn’t have any idea-”

“Jack, Jack, stop,” he cut in, bringing up his own hands to anchor himself to his partner. “I get it. It’s alright. I could see you were having a nightmare and I approached without warning anyway. My fault.”

“Me nearly taking your throat out is not on you,” he shot back sharply. 

“It’s not on you, either.” Now that the sudden adrenaline spike was fading, Mac found himself feeling somewhat foolish. He really should have known better than walking up to a traumatised, injured Jack with no regard for how he might react – the only excuse he had was that he’d been so tired he could scarcely see straight himself. “Honestly Jack, I’m okay. You startled me, but there’s no harm done.”

“I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t. And I know you would never willingly hurt me.” It was an unshakable truth; Jack might not trust himself in some of his shakiest moments, but Mac’s trust in him was absolute. “C’mon man, we’ve both been here before. It happens.”

Admittedly, the first time Jack had come up out of a nightmare swinging was an instance they’d both rather forget – they’d been early in their partnership then and still not quite sure of each other. Neither of them had taken well to seeing the vivid bruising on Mac’s face for the next two weeks. Now though, it was well-worn ground. It usually was just a hit or a grapple, rather than a surprisingly coordinated knife attack, but really it was just different shades of a shitty situation neither one of them could help. Years of battlefield trauma would do that to a person.

Jack didn’t seem to view it with the same placid acceptance if the strained frown painting his features was any indication. Mac squeezed down where he was holding Jack’s forearms. “Hey, it’s okay. Promise.” He offered up another smile, more genuine this time. “Here, let’s get you back in bed.”

He gingerly picked himself up, silently relieved to find that nothing in particular protested in pain, then helped haul Jack to his feet, pushing him insistently in the direction of the bed. With one foot, he subtly nudged the knife out of sight. 

His partner all but collapsed back onto the covers, the exertion of it all apparently too much for him. 

Mac grimaced in sympathy. “How’re you doing?”

Face down and unwilling to change that, Jack’s answer was muffled. “Feel like ass.”

“Yeah, getting bashed over the head will do that. Any new symptoms I need to know about?”

This time there was a heavy sigh, like it came from the depths of Jack’s soul, but he did at least roll over to look at him, conveniently freeing up enough space for Mac to sit on the edge of the mattress like before. “The usual, hoss. Brain feels like it’s gonna push my eyeballs out my skull. Stomach ain’t happy neither.”

A quick check revealed that the bucket Mac had put beside the bed was blessedly still clean, but it was looking increasingly likely that that wouldn’t be the case for long. “You’re due for some more painkillers if you want them.”

“How long ‘til exfil?”

He glanced at his watch, just barely visible in the gloom. “About four hours.”

Jack considered that for a moment. “I’ll wait. Don’t want to take anythin’ that’ll mess up their meds.”

It was a reasonable stance, but Mac still frowned at the knowledge there was nothing he could do to ease his partner’s pain. “Can I get you anything else? I shoved a damp towel in the fridge earlier if you think cold might help.”

He hummed softly, thoughtful. “Worth a shot.”

“Alright. Be right back. Don’t go to sleep on me yet.” The trip to the fridge took barely more than twenty seconds, but he was still somehow expecting to come back to find Jack passed out once more among the pillows. He certainly looked exhausted enough for it. 

Instead, he returned to Jack sitting up, his head cradled softly in both hands looking thoroughly miserable. 

“Okay, cold incoming,” he warned, folding up the small rectangle of chilled fabric and laying it carefully across the back of Jack’s neck. There was a shaky sigh in response. “Sorry I can’t do more.”

“Not your fault.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t make watching you suffer any easier.”

Jack cracked open one bloodshot eye to peer at him. “‘M fine hoss. Stop worryin’.”

“You are not fine.”

There was no point refuting that, so Jack didn’t try. “You really okay?”

“Honest. Little shaken up, but you didn’t hurt me.”

Jack just looked at him solidly for an uncomfortably long time, then pointedly reached down without breaking eye contact and retrieved his knife from where Mac had tried to hide it. He didn’t say a word as he shoved it back beneath the pillow. 

“You look knackered, bud,” he said at length. 

Mac snorted. “You haven’t looked in a mirror lately, have you?”

“I’ve actually been sleeping. You haven’t.”

“You’re concussed. You’re supposed to rest. We’re not having this argument again.” He felt his lips quirk. “It’s not fair trying to argue with me when you look all miserable. It makes me feel like an ass.”

Jack offered him a faux pout, playing up his own malaise enough to draw a stuttering laugh out of Mac. 

“Alright, enough. I’ll tell Matty that you’re bullying me.”

“I’m bullying you? You’re the one who keeps waking me up.”

“I’m trying to make sure your brain is still in working order. Excuse me for caring.”

Jack laughed softly. Even strained with pain, the sound was a balm on Mac’s frayed nerves. “You’re right. I should be grateful. Go on and ask your questions.”

“Nah,” he said, surprising even himself. “You seem pretty cognizant to me. You’re better off getting some more sleep than you are trying to placate me.”

“You sure? I know I’ve been giving you shit, but I don’t mind. I know you’re looking out for me.”

Mac smiled. “I know. But honestly, there’s no need. Get some more rest and I’ll see you again in two hours.” He made to stand, intent on retreating back to the kitchen as he had done each time, but he was stopped by a hand snapping out to grab his wrist. 

“Wait. Stay here.”

“C’mon man, we’ve just been over this. You need to sleep.”

Jack grumbled something Mac didn’t catch, but the hand didn’t release him. “Ain’t gettin’ no kind of decent sleep anyway,” he admitted more clearly after a moment. “I’d do better with you here. Head’s all messed up. You help.”

It was the kind of admission he would never make if he was running on all cylinders, but Mac tucked it in close to his heart all the same. It was always a relief to hear that he mattered to Jack just as much as he mattered to him. 

He considered the request. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’d be able to stay awake sitting in the dark,” he admitted. 

Jack huffed, unconcerned. “Then turn the light on. Doesn’t bother me.”

That was a lie – Jack was capable of getting to sleep in just about any uncomfortable situation imaginable, but he always griped if he was forced to nap somewhere bright. The hesitation must have shown on Mac’s face because Jack sighed again, pulled the cool towel from his neck, and dropped it neatly over his eyes. 

Well. Alright then. 

“Okay,” Mac said with a gentle smile. “Let me grab my phone. I’ll be right back.”

He snagged two glasses of water while he was gone too, as well as throwing another towel in the fridge for later. By the time he made it back to Jack’s room, the man was stretched out across the side of the bed closest to the door – putting himself between Mac and danger, as usual – with the towel across his eyes and his breathing deep and slow. Not asleep, not yet, but definitely settled. Maybe Mac should have thought of camping out in here earlier in the night. 

Still, there was no point fretting over that missed opportunity now. Instead he deposited Jack’s water on the nightstand beside him, shuffled the bucket a little closer from where it had been knocked aside in their earlier scuffle, then settled in beside his partner. 

There were a few beats of silence, then, quietly, “Thanks hoss.”

“Always. Sleep well.”

..

Being closer to Jack turned out to be a soothing experience for them both, even when the nausea finally decided to kick in with a vengeance around an hour later. With so little in his stomach, most of Jack’s sickness was confined to strained dry heaving that had Mac wincing in sympathy. 

“So this fucking sucks,” Jack muttered after yet another round of retching. He was sweaty and pale, his face tight with a thousand signs of pain but he still had enough strength to offer Mac a wan smile. 

He grimaced back. “Yeah, it really does. Can I get you anything?”

“Unless you’ve got a new skull going, I’m good.”

A faint huff of laughter. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, I’ve got some good news for you. Matty got tired of me pestering her, so she’s pulled some strings to bump up our exfil. Should be here in about an hour.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah man. We’re almost clear.”

“Thank fuck,” he breathed, heartfelt. The combination of pain and fatigue had worn him visibly thin; it was strange to see him so loose-limbed and out of it. Mac would give anything to help him feel better. As it was, the most he could do was rub soothing circles on his shoulder with his thumb. 

Whether the motion helped or not, the lull in both vomiting and conversation was enough for Jack to fall back into a light doze. His brow remained creased with pain, but it was still a relief to see his muscles slowly unbunching and relaxing into the mattress. Mac just listened to him breathing for several long minutes, letting the steady rhythm of it soften his own anxieties after so long spent tied up with worry. 

It wasn’t until the sound of voices woke him that he even realised he was falling asleep. Had fallen asleep, he corrected himself when he glanced at his watch and realised they were ten minutes overdue for exfil. 

Shit. So much for keeping watch. 

He rose from the bed as silently as he could, wincing a little when Jack shifted in his sleep and only relaxing when it became clear that his partner wasn’t waking up. Noiselessly, he padded to the door and strained his ears, listening intently. 

Definitely voices. At least two speakers, both approaching the front of the house. He didn’t recognise either voice he could hear, but they were quiet and distant enough that that was no guarantee he didn’t know them. All he could really catch was a low, rhythmic murmur. 

Exfil was due; there was a good chance the voices he could hear was the team Matty had sent. Still, there was no message on his phone warning of their approach, and there was every chance that the mercenaries they’d ran into earlier had finally picked up on their trail. It would be incredibly coincidental timing, but it wasn’t impossible. Caution could only be a boon. 

Decision made, he retreated to Jack’s side and laid a careful hand over his heart. He was braced for an attack this time, but he needn’t have bothered; Jack came awake at the touch, breath momentarily halting as he centred himself but nothing further. When he peeled the towel off his face, he looked alert despite the pain lining his eyes. 

“Mac?” His voice was low and gravelly. 

He put a finger to his lips, crouching to bring them closer together so he could whisper. “Got voices outside. Exfil’s due, but I haven’t had confirmation.”

It was almost a visible thing, watching Jack’s adrenaline kick in. The fatigue clinging to every limb was brushed aside in an instant as he rose, one hand retrieving his knife while the other went for the handgun he’d left holstered on the bedside table. They didn’t need to speak to know how to move in sync, Mac falling easily into step behind his partner as they crept back into the kitchen and stacked up on the front door. 

The voices were closer now, just loud enough that Mac started to pick out individual words, before they both cut off sharply. Jack glanced at him, expression grim. 

For a long minute there was nothing but silence. Then, the gentle cadence of steps approaching the door finally made itself known. Jack’s whole body went tense, bracing. Neither of them moved. 

Knock, knock.

Mac blinked. Jack froze in place. Someone was… knocking on the door? That definitely didn’t sound like bloodthirsty mercenaries. 

“Agent Macgyver?” A voice called. A voice he recognised. 

Phillips? He mouthed at Jack, mirroring the man’s frown. It certainly sounded like the man, though Mac would admit he didn’t know him too well. As tac team leader, Jack should have a better idea than he did of his own men. He nodded slowly, but he didn’t look wholly convinced. 

It was enough to take a risk. Raising his voice just enough to be heard through the thin door, Mac called, “Challenge, blackbird.”

There was a brief pause. “Response, Catherine.”

Relief, cool and refreshing, washed through Mac like a wave. He met Jack’s eyes and for the first time in hours, his smile felt entirely real. Jack’s expression was much the same as he collapsed back against the wall behind him with a breathless laugh, the strength seeming to flood out of him as the responsibility of keeping them both alive was lifted from his shoulders. 

“Uh, agents?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Mac called, shaking off his momentary distraction to get back to business. The sooner they got out of here, the sooner Jack could get some actual, honest-to-god medical attention. He unlocked the door and drew back the deadbolt, cracking it open just a little to confirm with his own eyes that it was indeed Ethan Phillips standing outside then letting it swing wide. “You gave us a bit of a scare for a moment.”

“Sorry about that,” the man said with a broad smile, not looking the least bit apologetic. “I hear you two are ready to get out of here?”

“You have no idea,” Mac agreed, his relief making him feel light. “You got a medic with you?” He glanced over Phillips’ shoulder, spying three more people in tac gear lingering twenty metres away. 

“Ready and waiting,” he confirmed, eyeing up Jack with a knowing glance. “You look like you could use a hand, Dalton. How’s it going?”

Jack scowled at him, but it was more for show than anything else. “I could still kick your ass Phillips, don’t think I won’t.”

Well-used to the various pissing contests within the tac teams, Mac left them to it and did a quick run around the house to gather up their scattered belongings. They didn’t have much between them – just two go-bags and Jack’s abandoned holster – so it didn’t take long. When he returned to the door, he found Jack sitting on the ground outside with his eyes closed, a medic he distantly recognised probing carefully at the wound on his head. 

Sensing he was being watched, Jack’s eyes came open and sought him out. He offered Mac a reassuring smile. “‘M fine kid. Getting checked out just like you wanted.”

Mac rolled his eyes at him. “I’ve been running concussion checks,” he told the medic without breaking eye contact with his partner. “No issues with cognition. Besides the usual, anyway.” Jack stuck his tongue out at him. He grinned, unrepentant, before sobering. “Nausea and vomiting in the last two hours. No pain meds for… about seven hours. Right?”

Jack, having been in and out of sleep and thus entirely disconnected from the regular flow of time, just shrugged. 

The medic nodded. “You’ve done well, both of you. I can’t do much without proper imaging, but I do have some pain meds that should make you more comfortable until we can get you to a hospital. Sound good?”

“Sounds awesome,” Jack shot back. 

Finally satisfied that his partner was getting the help he needed, Mac felt the last of his tension drifting away. They still had a journey to get home, but he’d let the exfil team worry about the logistics of that. He just needed to find a quiet corner of their transport he could pass out in for the next ten hours. 

“You look like you could use a nap,” Phillips commented from beside him. 

Mac huffed a laugh. “It’s been a long night.”

“Playing nursemaid to Dalton? I’ll bet. C’mon, let’s get you squared away so you can actually get some zees. Anything else inside we need to worry about?”

“No.” He patted the two bags slung over his shoulder. “This is all we’ve got.”

“You love to see it. Alright, let’s get out of here. Mark, is Dalton good to transport?”

“Dalton can speak for himself,” Jack sniped back, shooting a glare at Phillips. 

“Rule two,” Mac singsonged, then dodged when Jack threw what turned out to be the towel from earlier in his direction. He was too busy laughing at Jack’s offended expression to pay much attention to what the medic was saying, but the outcome was him sticking out a hand to help Jack back to his feet and the entire team falling in behind Phillips. 

Mac gravitated to stand at Jack’s shoulder like that was where he belonged. He shot him a smile out the corner of his eye. “Ready to go home?”

Jack looked pale and drained, but he dredged up a smile all the same and stuck his fist in Mac’s direction. The smirk bled into a laugh when Mac bumped it with his own. “Hell yeah brother. LA here we come.”

“I think you mean ‘hospital’.”

The response was a deeply offended look of betrayal. “C’mon man, why you gotta say things like that?”

“Just making sure you didn’t forget.”

“Fuck you.”

“Love you too, Jack.”

#my fanfic #fanfiction #jack dalton #angus macgyver #macgyver #whump of july 2021

[saratogaroadwrites]

Tron: Liberation (10/15)

Tron: Liberation | saratogaroad rating: T total wordcount: 106,965 characters: Tron, Beck, Mara, Zed, Paige, Pavel, Tesler, Clu 2, Dyson, Yori, Quorra, Original Siren Character relationships: Tron & Beck, Beck & Mara & Zed, Tron/Yori other tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Continuation, For Want of A Nail warnings: none

The Game has changed. The Revolution has begun. With Tron healed and once more in the fight for the Grid, the war has begun. But Clu will not give up so easily, and this is a war that will be fought in the streets. But it is a war that Beck and Tron intend to win, so long as they can do one thing first:

Survive.

[AU: Fanmade Season 2]

=

The Outlands were quiet, empty. For kilometers, the sharp mountains echoed with the wind, snowdrifts playing in the downcycle’s stillness. It was a stark contrast to just across the bay, where all that could be seen was the still smoking wreck of Argon’s now empty hills. Wind playing with his hair, Beck stared across the ocean. For his entire runtime, Argon had been all he’d known. It had been his home, stifling and small but home all the same.

Now, it was gone. The lurch in his core that left him with was an achy one, a lingering sort of ache he knew wouldn’t fade with energy or a sleep cycle. It was the same ache that lingered with his memories of Able, and of Bodhi. Something that could not be replaced was gone. Even if it was restored, it wouldn’t be the same. Taking a steadying breath, Beck frowned.

“Have you seen this happen before?” He asked Tron quietly. Standing beside him, the old program shook his head.

“Not to this scale, even on the old system.” He frowned. “Something big must have happened to set Clu off into doing this. I just don’t know what.”

Beck could guess. He watched as a plume of burning energy reached high into former Argon airspace from where a refueling tower had once been, thoughts whirling a kilometer per second. The order had come only after Pavel’s deresolution, only after Paige had gone back and likely spun some kind of story to explain that. The reformat had probably been Clu’s last ditch effort to drive them out of hiding, and it had worked.

It had just taken Argon and Grid only knew how many programs with it.

With a proverbial kick to his core, Beck turned back to the others. After their boat had been driven across the bay by the waves, they’d all managed to crawl out onto the rough Outlands stone to take stock. Zed was recovering from his near crash, sitting with his back to a boulder as Paige, her steady Medic Green circuitry covered by a large patch across her torso, coded a cap onto the stump of his leg. Mara, much like Beck and Tron, was more shaken than actually hurt. Scattered burns and gashes from their escape through the Harbor was all that remained on her frame, and she held Zed’s hand as Paige worked. Beck watched, core spinning up faster. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to even consider it, but maybe…maybe Paige had had something to do with the order. But that didn’t explain why, after saying that she could do nothing else for them, she’d come and joined them at the Harbor. There was something he was missing, and it was beginning to worry him.

Shoving the thought into his low priority queue he turned back to Tron, the old program’s eyes still on Argon, and shook his head.

“Does it matter?” He asked, clearing his throat a moment later, “It’s done. We should get moving.”

Tron glanced at him sideways. Beck swallowed hard but said nothing, and Tron sighed. Doubtlessly, Beck thought to himself, they were having similar thought processes. Sooner or later, Beck was going to have to deal with that.

He just wanted it to be a little later, that was all.

“You’re right,” Tron said after a moment had passed, turning his back on Argon’s remains to walk back to the others. “It’s a long way to Lithium from here.”

“Lithium…” Beck frowned. “You and Ruby mentioned that before. What’s so important all the way out there?”

“According to Ruby,” Tron said, “There’s a sizable resistance in the city’s underground. It’s our best chance right now.”

Their best chance of finding allies, their best chance of survival, their best chance of somehow making all of this work. With a deep breath, Beck followed in Tron’s footsteps. The Outlands stretched for kilometers all around them, and unless they found some sort of recycling dump on the way, they’d have to go the entire way on foot. Which was just great. Glancing upwards, Beck heaved a sigh.

Could things get any worse?

“Is he mobile?” Tron asked Paige, dragging Beck from his thoughts. Paige didn’t look up from her codework, turning several strings in on themselves to make sure the cap would hold. After a moment, she shrugged.

“Sure,” She replied, “But if we don’t get him to an actual medical facility soon, he will lose what’s left of that leg.”

“How soon is soon?” Mara asked quietly.

Paige frowned a moment, pensive, then shook her head. “Within the next triple. Preferably within the next milli, but there’s no chance of that now.”

Zed groaned, burying his face in his free hand. Mara and Beck exchanged a worried glance, while Tron nodded and looked off to the horizon as Paige tweaked a few final strings.

“Lithium is a hundred kilometers north from here.” Tron said, more to himself than to them even as all four young faces turned in his direction. “If we don’t stop, we can make it before the triple is over.” He looked down at Zed. “Are you ready?”

“If I say no,” Zed groaned through the palm of his hand, “Will you leave me here to sleep?”

“No, Zed,” Mara and Beck said in unison, rising to haul their injured friend to his foot between them. He yelped, nearly tumbling onto Beck before they could steady him, one arm slung around each of their shoulders. When his head lolled towards Mara, she thunked their temples together and tightened her grip around his wrist. Tron watched the trio for a moment, then turned away.

“Paige, you’re up front with me. Keep your disk out.”

Having stood in a smooth motion that belied the pain she must have been in, Paige set a hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side.

“What,” She started, “Don’t trust me behind you?”

“Not at all,” Tron replied, causing Beck to groan softly and Zed to give a pained snicker, “But we’ll all need your skills with that disk if we’re going to make it to Lithium without losing another limb.”

That got Zed to stop snickering, and Mara to raise her head. Beck frowned.

“Are you expecting trouble?” He asked

“Worse,” Tron said with a narrow eyed glare into the mountains around them. “I’m expecting Grid-bugs.”

Of course. Beck grimaced. Of course it would be Grid-bugs.

“Right, right,” Zed nodded as they began to walk, only to stop and stare at Tron’s back with wide, fearful eyes. “WHAT?!”

Beck and Mara flinched at his volume. Tron’s mouth twisted into something that was more grimace than smile.

“Just keep moving,” Paige said before he could speak, tone dry as the stone around them. “The sooner we get there, the better.”

There was nothing any of them could say to that. With a final look back over his shoulder at Argon’s smoldering wreckage, Beck turned his face forward and kept walking. Zed’s hopping step was hard to keep pace with at first, nearly toppling the three of them more than once before they were able to find a proper rhythm.

Which was good, since they had so much ground to get across!

The nanos walked into micros, the micros crawled into an eighth, and an eighth dragged itself out into the featureless stone of the Outlands all around them. No one bothered to speak even as they slowly plodded along, leaving snow capped peaks and abyssal canyons in their wake. Tron and Paige walked with military efficiency just ahead, disks in their hands and tapping at their hips as both kept a sharp eye, and sharp ear, out for any sign of a threat.

Neither looked back, and neither noticed Beck watching them as they all plodded along. Now that there was relative peace and quiet, he couldn’t get his processor to slow down. Paige had said she couldn’t—wouldn’t—come with him, wouldn’t side with him, and yet here she was. Injured, marked with a burn much like the one across his chest, and barely willing to meet his eyes. Her circuits blazed green all the way down her frame, without even a secondary designation color, and there was not a pixel of red to be seen on her. Green was a very good look for her, he decided; it suited her. Better than Occupation red had, at least.

And then there was Tron. Cyrus’ words were still caught in Beck’s processor: to have come from the same source code, to be offshoots of a single program…things like that hadn’t happened since the days of Flynn. Even Able hadn’t known much about that sort of thing, mentioning it only when Link had once asked why bike and tank code was so similar. Of course, Beck thought to himself, there was a pretty big difference between vehicles sharing code and Programs sharing code. And it would be a big deal for the two of them, if Cyrus had been telling the truth, to be offshoots of Tron’s code. It would explain a lot of things.

If, and this was the really big if chimed in Beck’s logic unit, Cyrus hadn’t been lying. Tron had flinched, startled or unsure or even alarmed, but he’d barely reacted otherwise. He almost hadn’t cared. Did it mean nothing to him? Tron was from the Old System. Maybe offshoots were just more common there? Beck sighed quietly, core lurching sideways a little. Why was this bothering him? It wasn’t like it really changed anything. And they still had more important things to deal with so--

“Hey—” Zed’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. Beck snapped his head to the side, blinking as Mara and Zed’s worried faces came into focus, both watching him with concerned eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah—” Beck shook his head, “Yeah. Just…thinking too hard.” He forced the thoughts down, deeper in his queue for another time, before looking at Zed again. “How’s the leg?”

“Oh, you know,” he sighed, “doing okay, considering it’s just the one now.”

“Zed….” Mara groaned. She drew a deep breath in and opened her mouth--

Then she clicked it shut as Tron held up a clenched fist, forcing everyone to a halt.

Zed grumbled, “What’s the big idea—” Only to be cut off as Beck slapped his free hand over his friend’s mouth when Paige went completely still. Even the wind had stopped, the area around them quiet as a city in a blackout. For a few nanos, no one dared to move for fear of attracting the attention of whatever had stalled their escort, but then Beck heard what had caught their attention.

Skittering, clicking, drawing ever closer. There was only one thing on the Grid that would ever make that sound.

Grid-bugs.

“Where are they coming from?” Beck swiveled his head back, looking over each shoulder in turn, but he could see nothing but stone, no sign of their encroachers. Zed’s eyes widened as the sound registered, and Mara looked around as well. Ahead of them, Tron shook his head.

“I don’t know,” He said quietly, a hissing whisper they could barely hear, “But keep watch. We can’t afford an ambush.”

Paige scoffed quietly, gesturing the trio of mechanics forward without a word, her eyes back on the stone before Beck could try to catch her gaze. Despite the clicking, things were quiet. Slowly, not daring to speak any more, the five of them marched forward. All of them kept their eyes on the stone and mountains around them, waiting, watching for any sign of the Grid-bugs. Circuits flared overload bright as every one of them poured every ounce of power they could spare into visuals or audio, trying to sight the threat before it came.

In the end, it barely mattered.

Mara caught sight of them first, letting loose a warning cry as, in the distance, pouring down the mountainside like rain were thousands of Grid-bugs, just itching to swarm over the five of them and devour them bit by excruciating bit. Zed shouted, shifting his weight as Mara and Beck both scrambled for their disks, kicking them on nearly in the same instant. Up ahead, Paige’s disk was a beacon of green-edged white while she slipped into a her old military stance beside Tron. For half a nano, Tron held his position, one arm spread wide as if to defend the three mechanics behind him and the other ahead to ward off the swarm with his disk alone.

Then the swarm was on them, throwing itself upon the two like a wave of red. Paige shouted, lashing out with wide, forceful movements. Dozens of Grid-bugs fell to her every slash, and dozens more to Tron’s as the pair of them began to fall back to the three behind, but the swarm just kept coming! Like a wave on the shore it rushed them, unstoppable and just as dangerous as the Viral code-water they’d left behind. Dozens of the little things launched themselves at Paige and Tron, but the rest parted, trying to reach the three Mechanics and their larger energy source. Mara scrambled to grab the last of her free code grenades, throwing it at a knot of Grid-bugs. They went up in a cloud of pink and blue smoke, the graphic spreading across the Outlands stone, but for the fifty or so that had been destroyed another eighty took their place!

Lashing out with his disk, Beck snarled. They’d sooner be devoured than escape this with their limbs intact. Beck shifted his stance, trying to pull Zed and Mara in closer as Tron nearly disappeared beneath the swarm. He reappeared before Beck’s core could do more than lurch, swatting a pair of Grid-bugs off his arm as the knot of programs closed in on themselves. Zed looked around wildly, eyes wide.

“We’re trapped!”

Surrounded on all sides by swarming Grid-bugs, just waiting for a chance to slip in past four revving disks and destroy them. One arm still supporting Zed, Beck glared at the bugs. There was no way out of this mess.

Suddenly, a sound echoed down the stone around them. There was the throaty roar of an engine, and then—

A four-wheeler burst over the rise of the nearest hill, cleared their heads as they all ducked, and landed on the heart of the swarm. A hundred Grid-bugs went up into shards of code, followed by hundreds more of their fellows as the driver spun their vehicle so fast it nearly went onto its side. The white-blue circuits blurred as they gunned the engine, driving tight circles around the five programs like they were driving a bike and not a four-wheeler big enough to carry them all to safety. Hundreds more Grid-bugs were crushed beneath the wheels, until the swarm broke ranks and retreated, too much of its code lost to keep working.

The four-wheeler jerked to a halt, and for a few nanos no one moved. Disks kept revving, circuits flickered between overload and normalcy as they all drew deep breaths and tried to calm overworking processors, but each of them looked up as the clear hatch above the seats popped open and a program stood up. White-blue circuits marked them as neutral, their asymmetrical tunic and long gloves marking them as female-designate, and not of Argon assignment. Beck tilted his head as both Tron and Paige went stiff, but his eyes went back to the driver as she retracted her helmet to reveal a pale face with icy blue eyes and dark hair in an asymmetric bob around her ears. She turned to them and smiled warmly.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” She asked lightly, jumping down from the driver’s seat to the ground. She hopped over a pile of Grid-bug remains and strode over to them, smile only widening as she stopped in front of Tron and put both hands on her hips. “Just like old times.”

Tron seemed to shake himself off. “Old times,” he said, “Didn’t involve you rescuing me, Quorra.”

Quorra beamed. She shifted her weight, peering over Tron’s shoulder to peer at the three mechanics. Her eyes lingered on Mara, took in Zed’s missing leg, looked at Beck, then looked back to Tron. She opened her mouth.

“Quorra?” Paige broke in suddenly. They all looked at her, and Beck’s core lurched. Her circuits were flickering, her disk dull in her hand. She stared, unmoving, at Quorra’s face. “You’re—how are you—?”

Quorra blinked, before her eyes went wide with something like recognition.

“Paige?” She asked quietly, “Is that…is that you?”

Paige didn’t answer. Her circuits went dark, and without a hint of fanfare she crumpled to the stone before anyone could catch her. Quorra lunged forward towards her as Beck’s eyes went wide.

“Paige!”

——

“How are they?” Quorra’s voice was soft, quiet in the darkness of an Outlands downcycle. Standing watch over the four sleeping Betas, Tron shook his head. Paige had crashed, hard, and not stirred even as Quorra had taken them back to her camp hidden deep in the mountains half a milli’s drive from Lithium. The young ISO had offered them shelter, and looking over his charges, Tron had been loathe to turn her down.

Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to rest. He trusted Quorra, had offered her some training in their younger cycles, but she was still just one program. Clu no doubt wanted her derezzed as much as he wanted Beck and Tron captured. If they were found, he wouldn’t leave her to fight the army alone just because he needed a sleep cycle. Taking in a deep breath, he looked sideways at her.

“Asleep, all of them.” When she smiled knowingly, he turned away. Mara had chosen a spot closest to the entrance, curled around Zed as he lay on his side and hid his face in the crook of her neck. The cap on his ruined leg glowed a soft green-blue, lighting up Beck’s sleeping face where he rested sitting against the cold stone wall. Paige had been laid on her side at the back of the small cave, and Beck held her hand as they waited for her to rise. Of course, he’d drifted off into sleep mode before that happened, but Tron wouldn’t begrudge him that small comfort.

Users knew he’d be doing the same, had it been him and Yori in their position.

Yori. He was so close he could taste it, feel her. He knew it was just his memory bank, but…he shook his head again to clear it of the thought and turned to Quorra. She didn’t take her eyes off the sleeping quartet, hands clasped around her crossed elbows.

“You know Paige?” He asked quietly. She nodded.

“A long time ago,” She began, “After the Purge, a friend of mine and I ended up in Gallium. Paige ran a Medical Center there, and our paths crossed.” She shrugged, looking down at the ground with a frown. “But someone called the army on us and we had to leave. I…haven’t seen her since then.”

Which meant she’d missed the fact that Paige had spent that same long time being Occupation. Tron huffed out a near silent sigh, looking back at dim green circuits. He’d never known a program to recover from repurposing like that before, but then, there weren’t many programs like Paige. Strong-willed, stubborn, desperate for something to believe in…he closed his eyes.

“How bad was it?” When Quorra made a confused noise, he continued, “The Purge. I was…in Clu’s custody for most of it.”

Quorra made a soft sound of sympathy, her hair whispering over her glove as she tucked an errant behind her ear.

“It was…bad,” She whispered, age old hurt deepening her voice, “There’s less than a dozen of us left now, and every single city that even harbored an ISO for a milli was quarantined or reformatted. Arjia was wiped off the map, Bostrum went viral, and whatever’s left of Helix is still under lock and key.” She sighed. “Clu was…very thorough.”

“Anon couldn’t stop him.”

Quorra barked out a laugh. He opened his eyes to see her grimace as the knot that was Mara-and-Zed shifted, before her voice lowered and her brow furrowed.

“Anon couldn’t even slow him down,” She said with a surprising amount of viral hatred in her hiss, “After Clu came at you and Flynn, he found me. We worked together and took out the virus, but Clu…” She shook her head, clenching her fists at her sides. “He got lucky. When the Regulator came down, Anon…he…” She took in a deep breath, circuits flickering for just a moment before she regained enough calm to continue, “He saved me, but…he…”

“It’s alright,” Tron said, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him with wavering eyes as he pinged [Calm] down her circuits. “You don’t have to finish.”

She didn’t really need to. Though his last order to Anon had been to keep an eye on the virus, the changing situation would have meant a change in directive. If the virus was gone and Quorra was here, but Anon was not…he sighed quietly to himself as Quorra took another deep breath to grab hold of her composure. One more good program, lost in the war against Clu.

How many more would it take to end it? He just couldn’t say.

Quorra dashed a hand across her eyes, then shook her head.

“After Anon derezzed, Flynn found me.” She looked up at him, oblivious to Tron’s core having ground to a screeching halt. “We hid out in the Outlands for a while, but…” She frowned. “We had different ideas about how to handle the situation.”

Her words became static. Circuits flickering, Tron had to force himself to take several deep breaths to keep himself functional. With a quick access to recent memory storage, he came to a stark, cold realization:

Flynn had never gotten off the Grid. He was still here.

“Flynn is,” He distantly heard himself gasp, cutting Quorra off mid-sentence, “Still here?”

Quorra blinked. “Of course he is. He couldn’t reach the Portal in time.” She reached towards him. “You didn’t know?”

Tron stumbled back, circuits flickering rapidly. The wall of stone was cold against his port as he landed against it and slid to the ground. His frame shook, his breath trembled. Flynn had never made it back to the Portal. He was still on the Grid.

He hadn’t done a thing to stop Clu.

“I told him to run,” Tron whispered as Quorra came to her knees in front of him, placing both hands on his knees and staring at his face with wide eyes. “Clu and his guard, they came for Flynn and I—I held them off, but it wasn’t—I wasn’t—”

He’d given everything to buy Flynn time to escape, and the User had squandered it. Wasted the only chance he had left to stop it, to save the Grid, every program on it, like it meant nothing. Tron’s core spun up, growing heated.

“I told him to go!” He almost shouted, slamming a fist hard against the stone beside him. Quorra jumped, though none of the betas in the other room stirred. Tron groaned, muffling the sound into the palm of his other hand as his fist dragged down the rough stone. Quorra’s face fell. She leaned forward, taking his wrist into both her hands. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Why didn’t he go?”

“…I don’t know,” She whispered, “You’d have to ask him that question, if you really want to know.”

Did he? Did he really want the answer to that question? No. It had been easier thinking that Flynn had abandoned them, easier nursing the old hurt of his User and Flynn both turning their backs on him. Now? To know that Flynn had simply never managed to escape? That was a fresh wound. He’d failed his directive, both self-given and programmed. If Alan-One could see him now, he would be so ashamed of his program. Tron’s core lurched at the thought, and he forced himself to breathe before he could shut down. Once again, he shook his head.

“No,” He said softly at first, then again with more firmness, “No. I don’t.” He opened his eyes, trying not to think about the understanding he could see in the furrow of Quorra’s brow. “I need to get us to Lithium. Can you help me?”

For a moment, Quorra was silent. Then, slowly, still holding his wrist between her gloved hands, she nodded.

“Sure. Just—” She cocked her head, “Do something for me first.” When he raised a brow at her she smiled. “The last any program had heard, you’d been derezzed. Then, all of a sudden, we start getting hints that Tron is active on the southern edge of the Grid? There’s a story there.”

Tron turned his head, looking at the four sleeping programs. One corner of his mouth quirked upwards.

“…It’s a very long story.”

—

It was raining again. Beck sat, port cooling against the stone of the cave they rested in, elbow on his knee, and turned his head towards the sound. It was outside, near where Tron and Quorra had gone to speak without waking any of them.

Any more of them, at least.

Beck scrubbed his hand over his face. It would be a long time before he could erase the sheer pain he’d heard in Tron’s voice from his memory storage, if he ever could at all. He’d kept silent, unsure what to do or even what to think. Flynn had always been a myth to his generation of programs, known but not. Now, not only was Flynn likely still functional, he was still on the Grid. And he’d had to have had a hand in Beck’s rezzing all those cycles ago if he really did share source code with Tron.

Unless Tron’s User was involved with that, at least. There was just no way to know, and thinking about it too hard was making his processor ache. Beside him, Zed and Mara slept on, undisturbed. On his other side, Paige slowly opened her eyes. He looked down as she stirred, hand slipping from his grasp as she began to try and rise off her side where they’d laid her down.

“Take it slow,” He whispered, startling her into looking up. “You crashed hard back there.”

She looked at him for a long moment, then sighed quietly. It said a lot that she let him help her to sit up, back against the wall, rather than fight to do it herself. Once she was upright, he pulled his knees up and rested his chin on them, watching as she tried to comb rain-damp tangles out of her hair. Her eyes were dark, her brow furrowed, her circuits dim.

He knew an overthinking program when he saw one.

“Tesler?” She looked at him again as he gestured at her sides, still marked with broad blue patches to hide red-green burns, much like the ones he still carried. She nodded, raking both hands through her wild hair.

“He’s not going to be a problem anymore,” She said quietly, then finished more firmly, “I derezzed him myself.”

Beck’s eyes widened. Paige, of all programs, had fought Tesler? Her own commanding officer? He raised his head, reaching out with one hand.

“What happened?” He asked, “I thought you were on his side.”

“So did I,” She sighed, giving up on the tangles in her hair and lowering her hands to her lap. “But it turns out he wasn’t who I thought he was, either. At all.” She shook her head. “You were right. I should have listened to you.”

“Paige…” He reached out, putting a hand on her knee. She looked up, peering at him through her hair. “You did what you thought was right. What matters is you got out intact. The rest…” He shrugged, offering her a tiny smile. “We can deal with the rest.”

For a long micro, she said nothing. She watched him, searched his face, searching for something he just couldn’t name. But she did seem to find it, because she returned his smile.

“How did you stay so optimistic with a program like him for a mentor?” She asked ruefully, “He’s not exactly energy bubbles and auroras.”

Beck couldn’t help it: he laughed. Energy bubbles and Auroras was definitely not the way to describe Tron with any degree of accuracy, and the milli it turned out to be true would be the milli he finally ran for the hills. Stretching out his legs, Beck grinned.

“Comes with the territory, I guess. Someone’s got to balance him out or we’d both have gone a little…”

“Off-directive?” She raised a brow at him, but her smile was still there. Rather than deny it he shrugged, then raised his head.

“Back there,” He gestured out to the mouth of the cave with one hand, the rain growing louder, “You recognized Quorra, didn’t you?”

“I did.” Paige nodded. She gazed down at her hands still in her lap, idly tracing the circuits on her arms as she spoke. “A long time ago, I…I was a Medic in Gallium. Quorra ended up there, somehow.” Her voice grew quiet, distant. “She’s the one who first taught me how to fight. Which was really stupid for a Medic program, but it saved me when Tesler came to…clean things up.”

That needed no further explanation. Beck grimaced, able to paint a picture of what she must have seen. Tesler’s crew hadn’t exactly been known for their light touch. Beside him, Paige sighed.

“And I couldn’t even keep my friends safe, or my patients functional. Couldn’t heal, couldn’t be a good soldier…Grid.” She leaned her head back, thunking it against the wall. “What good is a program who can’t keep either of her directives?”

Beck’s core lurched. Slowly, cautiously, he scooted over until they sat arm to arm, his shoulders just a little taller than hers.

“A good one,” He whispered, “One who means well and does her best to take care of others.” He reached for her hand, wrapping his fingers around hers to transmit [comfort] down the circuits on her arm. “Even if it doesn’t work out the way she planned.”

She looked at him with soft eyes for a long moment, then, slowly, leaned her cheek against his shoulder. In his grip, her hand turned to rub her thumb over his knuckles. She laughed quietly as one of the circuits on his wrist flickered violet in the dim light, but didn’t move.

“Careful,” She whispered, “That soft core’ll get you derezzed if you don’t watch out.”

Beck just smiled.

“Then it’s a good thing we’ve got a Medic around—ah—” He hissed as she reached over with her other hand, poking the edge of a patch. She quirked a brow at him as he pouted down at her.

“You’re held together by bits and strings, Beck,” She shook her head. “I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

“I don’t know,” He tilted his head away, “If you heal half as good as you fought me? We’re in really good hands.” When she didn’t seem too convinced, he squeezed her hand. “Seriously, though. I’m glad you’re with us.”

She snorted. “You’re just saying that because I can reset your patches.”

“Maybe. Well, okay, kind of,” He snickered, smiling as the corners of her mouth turned upwards. “But, honestly? I was kind of worried about you back there.”

“Only kind of?”

“You could knock anybody straight on their port, so yeah.” He closed his eyes, leaning his head against hers. When she didn’t move, he relaxed. “So yeah, only kind of.”

“Lucky me.” She snorted quietly, amusement coloring her tone. With nothing left to say, both went silent. Outside, the rain continued its hissing downpour as inside, Zed and Mara slept on. Beck himself fell into a light doze against Paige’s side, just listening to her breathing and the sound of the rain. Sooner or later, they’d have to get up and move on. Zed needed actual medical care, and none of them could do anything from in here. He didn’t think he or Tron could sit idly by in a cave for very long, either. But for right now, at that moment, he didn’t mind the quiet.

“So,” Paige said suddenly, bringing him back to wake mode, “Your mentor. Is he…” She paused for a couple of nanos, then rolled her head to meet his eyes. “What does Tron think about all this?”

Beck opened his mouth, then stopped as bootsteps echoed in the cave. He turned his head.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

Paige turned. There, at the mouth of the cave, was Tron. He didn’t look happy.

“It’s time to go.”

— Rain beat against the outer shell of the four-wheeler as Quorra drove the five of them across the Outlands. The four betas were squished together shoulder to shoulder in the backseat, Paige by one window and Zed smushed between Beck and Mara on either side to keep him upright. They all looked tired, worn, circuits dim by the lack of energy.

Not that, Tron knew, he looked much better. All that was keeping him upright was the need to keep the four of them safe, and the knowledge that soon, he’d see Yori again.

Yori. Leading the resistance in Lithium, barely a kilometer away as Quorra’s steady driving left Outlands stone far behind.

“You never explained who Yori is,” Beck said as he leaned forward, hands on the driver and passenger seats to hold steady as Quorra went over a hill, “Is she from the Old System?”

“She is,” Tron nodded, arms crossed over his chest. “She’s my partner program. Flynn brought us both over when he established the Grid.” He frowned. The last time he’d seen Yori had been before the Coup. All this time, he’d mourned her, though her derezzed when the Capitol had fallen to Clu’s forces, but now… “She kept the Portal in working order on this side so he could come and go. When it went dark, I thought she had too, but…”

“She’s definitely functional,” Quorra said with a glance at him. In the distance, Lithium’s glowing high-rises drew nearer and nearer with each passing micro. “She’s been running a pretty sizable resistance out of Lithium’s Dark Side for a while now. The Sirens are helping her, last I knew.”

“Sirens—” Mara leaned over, her head of cyan hair just visible in Tron’s peripheral vision, “Does that mean that Ruby was working with her?”

Yori lives, Ruby had said just a triple ago. Giving his processor a sharp internal shove, Tron nodded.

“It does,” He said, choosing to ignore the odd look that came over Beck’s face at that, “But they kept it quiet. Nothing like what we did.”

“That wouldn’t take much,” Paige chimed in dryly as Beck and Mara sat back, “Considering some of the soldiers bet energy rations on what bit of Argon you’d blow up next.”

Zed burst out laughing, and kept laughing even as Mara whacked his arm with the back of her hand and Beck groaned. Quorra grinned, eyes on the road ahead as they reached Lithium’s lower gate. Unlike Argon, there wasn’t much of an Occupation presence here, down in the Dark Side. Tron peered out the window as they drove, the sights unfamiliar. He’d been to Lithium once before, as Flynn had been getting it and the highway to it set up, but that had been a long time ago. It was a different city now, Quorra had explained, cut into two sides by it’s Occupation General, Ion. On the Light Side as Quorra had called it were the high-rises and programs that had backed Clu in any way possible and were rewarded with luxurious apartments and high energy rations to play around with. On the other, the Dark Side that was named for it’s dark streets and scant lights, lived working programs, programs that had not agreed with Clu but not sided against him, either. Tron watched as dimly lit faces flashed by on the side of the road, programs just trying to get through their run-times without trouble, paying little heed to the four-wheeler that Quorra drove into an unassuming building deep within the mazelike streets of the Dark Side.

Once they were inside, she killed the engine and popped the hatch. Tron hopped down first, taking in the building as Mara and Beck helped Zed to get down; the building was a warehouse of some kind, completely empty but for a small hatch in the corner. Quorra walked over to the hatch and pried it open, revealing a set of stairs that led below. She looked up as Tron and Paige walked closer.

“This leads down into the Undercity,” She said, “Where Lithium’s Resistance is based. We can find a Medic for Zed there.” She looked at the three Mechanics as she said that, all of them sighing in relief. She smiled at them, then looked to Tron. “And I’ll take you to Yori. Come on.”

She led them down the stairs, down into brightly lit corridors that turned at sharp angles. Programs in black suits with varying assignment markings greeted Quorra like an old friend but paid little heed to Tron and his faceless helmet, or to the three hobbling Mechanics and Paige just beside them. Sirens in gleaming white milled among themselves, and they all noticed as Tron walked past, staring with wide eyes and silent mouths. Zed yelped as he nearly ended up dragged when he spent too long looking after a Siren instead of keeping pace, Mara humphing quietly as they came to a door marked with the green lines of a Medic. Quorra knocked once, then stepped inside.

Like the rest of the Undercity, the large room here was well lit, medical equipment gleaming under the bright lights. A black suited male-designate looked up as they entered, but when he caught sight of Zed he stood up so quickly his chair almost clattered to the ground.

“What on the Grid happened to you?” The Medic shouted, coming around a medical table to help get Zed on-board. Paige spoke up to explain, Medic to Medic, but Tron turned away as Quorra touched his elbow.

“Yori’s probably in the command center. This way,” She walked off down the hall. Tron made to follow, only to stop as Beck came up beside him. The young program shook his head.

“If you want to do this alone, just tell me,” Beck said, “but I don’t like the idea of you going off without back-up.”

Back-up that Beck knew, he meant. Tron knew the feeling, and even though he was fully capable of taking care of himself and Quorra was there, had their positions been reversed he’d have done the same thing. Wordlessly, he nodded. Beck returned the gesture and the two of them were off down the hall after Quorra, following her back through the sharp turns and winding corridors of the Undercity. It lived up to its name: they walked so far it must have gone under the entire city of Lithium, storage units and connecting tunnels serving as the perfect place for a growing resistance so long as they kept quiet.

And, Tron thought, the perfect place to get trapped if they weren’t careful. There were so many turns it would take a User-given miracle not to get lost down here. The nano he could, he’d put the Mechanics and Paige through their paces to learn at least a half dozen escape routes, whether or not Yori was actually here. He tried not to think about that, tried not to rush ahead of Quorra as she guided them through rapidly thickening knots of programs, but each passing nano dragged on his processor like nails down his back.

He just wanted to see her. Know she was still functional. That would be enough.

He tried to convince himself of that as Quorra led them through a set of open double doors and into a massive room filled with programs. Tron caught sight of a table inside before the doorway was blocked, and Quorra huffed around a frown.

“Just wait a nano,” she grumbled, shouldering her way through two programs at the entrance. They parted for her to pass, and that was when Tron saw her.

"Yori." Tron whispered. He watched, barely feeling Beck’s hand on his arm. All around them, programs lined in blue-white were talking amongst themselves, some consulting data panels, others reading off of tablets around a large table in the center of the room. The holo-display beamed the schematic of some building, but Tron didn’t bother paying attention to it. His eyes were only on the program clear across from him.

There she was. Her hair was different now, cropped shorter around her ears instead of her long braid of the cycles before, the color of her suit darker than he remembered, but he would know her anywhere. It took everything he had not to rush over to her. Quorra slipped through the crowd around her like a shadow until she came to Yori’s side, bending to whisper in Yori’s ear. Half listening to Quorra and half listening to the male-designate reading off a tablet, Yori inclined her head before she snapped it up as Quorra’s words sunk in. She looked at Quorra first, eyes wide as Quorra smiled and nodded, gesturing back to the doorway. Slowly, as if she dared not hope, Yori looked to him.

Across the room, their eyes met. Like the first time they’d ever met, a connection took root. He took a step forward as she stood up so fast her chair clattered to the floor. Everyone besides Beck and Quorra jumped, staring with widening eyes as Yori took a step around the table, then another, and another after that until the pair of them met by the doorway. The programs around became a murmur as the entirety of the Grid shrunk to just the two of them. She stared, eyes searching his face for something, or perhaps just taking him in.

"Tron..." she breathed after a moment, reaching up to put a hand on his cheek. He sighed shakily and leaned into her touch, knowing that his healing meant he was just as she remembered him.

Well, no. They'd both changed. But not enough that she couldn't recognize him. Her eyes softened.

"Users....it is you."

She pulled him down, wrapping her arms around him. With another shaky sigh, Tron wrapped both arms around her and held on.

Finally, after so many cycles, he was home.

#tron #tron: uprising #tron fic #!fic #fic: tron liberation

[demonsandco]

hi!! i was wondering if you could do a headcannon of the brothers + dia, barb and simeon reacting to mc asking if they could do it in their demon/angel forms?

I sure hope that by “demon form” you meant my version of their forms, because only after I finished writing, did I remember that they have canonical demon forms, too, woops! But Simeon doesn’t have a non-human form in-game so hopefully I was right gjhfkfjh

Lucifer : It’s a rare occurrence to see Lucifer speechless, yet somehow they’ve managed to stun him into silence with a single request. Being intimate in his demon form isn’t something that’s even crossed his mind before, not seeing his true form as anything more than a tool for intimidation. With too many eyes, elongated limbs, and crisscrossing scars highlighted by patches of missing feathers, he truly doesn’t understand what they see in him to pick that over his much more palatable, human form. Yet, despite his initial shock and hesitance, he can’t find it in him to deny their request. If they really want to see his true form, especially in such an intimate setting, then he’ll humor them, but the entire time he’s preparing himself for some sort of rejection, expecting them to flinch away from his touch or to ask him to switch back. He’s astonishingly vulnerable in this form, and craves a positive reaction from them.

(cont under the cut)

Mammon : When he hears their request, Mammon’s relief is palpable. Having sex in his human from has always felt distant to him, as though he were wearing a costume or a skin tight suit. He’s desperate to feel their hands on his demon form, often fantasising about how their hands would feel running across his wings or buried in his feathers, but, while he may have not so subtly hinted at his desires in the past, he’s never had the courage to initiate such a thing himself. He’s immensely excited about their request, so excited in fact that he’s prepared to stop whatever he was doing and drag them off to somewhere private to have his way with them. It also encourages him to spend more time in his demon form around them, now that he knows that it won’t scare them away.

Leviathan : Levi’s knee-jerk reaction is to say no right off the bat. As much as he trusts his partner, he can’t help but think that there’s some sort of ulterior motive behind the request, refusing to believe that anyone would actually want to see his demon form, much less touch it in such an intimate way. While his true form grants him confidence and immeasurable power, in a relationship, it becomes his biggest insecurity. It takes a lot of patience and encouragement to convince him to go through with it, and even then he’s hesitant to even touch them, worried that they’ll think he’s creepy or gross and change their mind. It doesn’t help that he’s practically useless on land and that they’d need to join him in the water to comfortably have sex. He’s understandably nervous, but praise and affection go a long way in easing his worries, and once he gets a taste of how nice it feels, he finds himself asking them to be intimate in his demon form more often.

Satan : Satan isn’t all that surprised by their request. In fact, he’d been expecting it to come up sooner or later. After all, he wants to know every intimate detail about his partner, to see them in their most vulnerable state, so he assumes that they’d eventually want to get to know his true form intimately, as well. He feels some anxiety, of course, his demon form not exactly being human friendly, all rough skin and sharp edges, but he does a good job at keeping his fears at bay and enjoying the moment. It feels freeing, in a way, to have them accept him so readily, to allow something as monstrous as him so close in such a vulnerable moment. With every soft touch of their hands and kiss from their lips, he finds himself falling in love all over again. He craves their acceptance, and the fact that they can see him at his worst and still show him love speaks volumes.

Asmodeus : As much as he wants to tease his partner for having such a lewd suggestion, or to think of it as a chance to introduce them to something new and pleasurable, the only thing Asmo feels at their request is genuine fear. There is very little that he’s afraid of, but the idea of them rejecting him is terrifying, and he’s convinced himself that no one could possibly love him if they saw his true form. He’s very calculated in what parts of his demon form he lets people see, making sure he looks cute and unassuming at all times. He has no problems showing those parts of him to his partner, but the rest of his demon form isn’t anywhere near as cutesy, and he doesn’t want them to associate him with such an “ugly” appearance. Yet at the same time, he wants to be able to be himself around them, to have them see the parts of him that he’s kept hidden. It takes a lot of worry and hesitation, before he finally shows them his true form during sex, the shared lust giving him the push he needed. He’s so prepared for a negative response that their positive reaction is enough to make him melt against them.

Beelzebub : It’s not uncommon for Beel to be seen in a not quite human form around the house, his wings and horns unconsciously coming out while he eats or works out. Knowing this, he’s surprised that his partner has seen those parts of him and instead of being scared, they want to see more. He’s not the type of person to hide who he is to make himself more palatable. He trusts them to know what they want, and he takes their request at face value. At first, he didn’t think too much of it, but the moment he feels them touch his true form, watches them search for his most sensitive areas, he becomes addicted to the feeling. The fact that he’s even bigger than normal in this form excites him more than he thought it would, too, his massive frame making his partner seem tiny in comparison. Needless to say, he finds himself letting his demon form out during sex more often, both because he wants to feel their touch again and because he finds it more comfortable.

Belphegor : Belphie is genuinely surprised that they’d want anything to do with his demon form after how badly things went the first time they saw it. Hearing that they not only want to see it again, but that they want to see it in such a vulnerable moment is a relief to him. He’s always thought that actions speak louder than words, and he sees their request as a sign of trust, something he values greatly. He’s more than happy to show them his demon form, to let them explore his body and create new, much more enjoyable, memories. He also takes it as an invitation to show his demon form more often, taking every opportunity he can to let out his horns as he cuddles up to them or conveniently resting his tail within petting range. Now that he knows they’re not scared of his appearance, he wants them to associate his form with positive and intimate moments.

Diavolo : Diavolo is positively ecstatic to hear their request! He’s wanted to don his true form while being intimate with them since the start of their relationship, but he’s held back out of worry, not wanting to risk frightening them. Truthfully, he’s not too fond of maintaining a human appearance for so long, and he’s almost too excited to let out his demonic features. Hopefully, they had nothing else planned for the day, because he’s already got them wrapped up in his many wings, with his scaly face pressed against their neck. He plans to take his time with them, practically acting as though it was their first time together again, treating them like a priceless treasure in his clawed grasp, showing them everything he can do in his true form that a human could never hope to accomplish.

Barbatos : Barbatos has been waiting for them to ask this for quite a while, and he can’t keep the small smile off his face when they finally do. While he’s perfectly comfortable in his human form, he feels as though it greatly limits his abilities in the bedroom, and he hates to think that he’s not pleasing them to the best of his abilities. He knows that his true form isn’t something a human would be used to, though, so he waited until they were confident enough to bring it up themselves. He sees it as taking the next step in their relationship in a way, knowing that they not only are willing to accept him for what he is, but that they embrace it. With his extra limbs, slick tail and long, powerful tongue, he’s more than happy to show them how much more skilled he is at servicing them in this form, and he’s also surprised to realise just how sensitive his demonic appendages are.

Simeon : It’s rare for Simeon to feel the need to turn his partner down, but he finds himself initially denying their request when they first ask, coming up with some half baked excuses in an attempt to avoid hurting their feelings. Humans never seem to react well to an angel’s true form and he can’t bear to see them regard him with fear, especially not during such an intimate moment. While his angelic appearance may not be as monstrous as a demons, the extra limbs, many eyes and inhumanly tall frame are more than enough to make him look rather disconcerting. Yet at the same time, he doesn’t like the thought of hiding his true form from them, leaving him conflicted. With enough reassurance, he eventually feels comfortable enough showing them bits and pieces of his angel form at a time, and each night they spend together his human form slips away a bit more. At first it’s just his wings, letting his partner run their hands over his sensitive feathers and getting used to the extra limbs, before slowly showing them more of him. Soon enough, he reaches a point where letting out his angel form around them is like a habit, feeling like it makes their time spent together feel more intimate, especially now that he knows his looks alone won’t scare them away.

#obey me #obey me smut #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me simeon #rip sol he's just a regular ol human #angel form #demon form #obey me headcanons #lime time

[kimnjss]

[ part seven of a new series called: ‘clips with context’ - feel free to request your own! ]

>>

BACKSEAT BUSINESS

jungkook picked you from the crowd with one thing in mind. and he can’t wait to get started, no matter who’s around. // explicit. requested. 1.8k words

warnings: cursing, dirty talk, fingering, slight exhibitionism, taehyung knows exactly what he’s doing, mentions of oral (m. receiving), a smidge of angst at the end... jungkook is spoiled and entitled.

+ this is the first thing i’ve written in like a month, so if it’s trash go easy on me... i need to get used to writing again lmao

“kook's always gotta find a girl,” yoongi says with a roll of his eyes, words falling on deaf ears as the other six guys chat loudly about who's going in what car. plucked from the crowd toward the end of the show, you had no idea that the singer had spotted you. just assumed the extra time he was spending near your section was pure coincidence. imagine your shock when security was escorting you backstage.

he barely spoke when you were presented to him, just gave you a once over before waving off the man that had brought you. he's dropping his arm around your shoulders and leading you to the couch in the middle of the room. you're tucked into his side the entire time they stand around talking. he's not listening and you're too starstruck to chime in. although, you wouldn't have much to say on the topic.

they were deciding car sharing arrangements from the sound of it. the seven gorgeous men you had watched dance and sing their hearts out on stage, stood right in front of you, paying you no mind.

jungkook sits lazily spread out on the couch as if they're not discussing him not even ten feet away. the tips of his fingers have started drawing light patterns against your naked shoulder, causing goosebumps to lift. his words come as a whisper against your ear: “you look so good in your little dress...” middle finger tracing the hem of it for emphasis. “i can't wait to take you home with me,”

 he notices the flush that rises on your cheeks at the end of his words., a smirk playing on his lips as he leans down. his lips are soft, warm against the clammy skin of your neck. at first, he lands light kisses on your skin – testing the waters... then all of a sudden his tongue is pushing out, rolling over a very specific spot before he's sucking that bit of skin past his teeth. you're letting out a gasp in surprise, hand shooting down to clutch his thigh as your eyes widen.

the sound pulls taehyung's attention. it's the first time he's looked at you and yes, he's just as intimidating up close. not a hint of what he's thinking is behind his stare and it has a thump of anxiety growing in your chest. you're just about to start full-on squirming when the corners of his lips lift into a small smile. “i'll ride with them, then. i don't mind.” he says with a shrug and as if that had been the dilemma all along, they're packing up to leave.

all jungkook had done, up til now, was kiss your neck a bit... honestly, you've done a lot more than simple necking – but by the time you're settling the backseat of the tinted window car, you're basically panting. he makes a show of waving off his fans, shouting promises of returning for another show.

as a fan, you're giddy to know that sometime soon they'd be coming back to perform again. as the girl seated beside him, waiting to be felt up – you were quickly growing annoyed... and impatient with his drawn out goodbye. he must sense that the moment he's rolling his window back up because he doesn't waste any time with crowding you.

one large hand laid flat on the center of your stomach while the other pushes your hair on the way, making room for the wet kisses he drags across your skin. it's hard to keep quiet with the way his skilled mouth works. love bites placed so deliberately there's no way you're able to fight the soft hums that fall from your lips. even with the full knowledge that kim taehyung is sat right next to you. like right next to you, his thigh pressed against yours as he manspreads... you could smell his cologne for crying out loud!

taehyung's sole focus is his phone, paying no mind to the way his bandmate pulls your legs apart or the way he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck. as if it's far from the first time something like this has happened. and that's when it's clicking in your mind. this isn't the first time this has happened. it's routine, he didn't spot you in the crowd and have this unbearable need to be close to you.

he wasn't going to fall in love with you either. he simply wanted you and he was jeon jungkook, he got what he wanted. and as odd as it was, something about that turned you on even more. he wanted you. out of the ninety thousand people he could've chosen from, he chose you. for the night of course, but you were willing to take what you could get.

you're so lost in the fantasies and scenarios you're whipping up in your head, you don't even register the way he's pulled your legs apart. not until you're feeling the nudge of his fingers against your heat through the fabric of your panties. “make those pretty sounds for me,”

he's pushing your panties to the side, just enough for his fingers to reach through and brush against your exposed slit. the moan you let out isn't even all that loud, yet it catches the attention of the man seated beside you. tae tries to be subtle with the way he watches, holding his phone up as if that's where his focus is. it's obvious that's not the case and something about him watching you has a rush of excitement pooling between your legs.

jungkook chuckles fingers making their way to your now dripping hole. he doesn't say much else, eyes on you as he slowly pushes a finger through. and then another. he's moving at an agonizingly slow pace, enjoying the way you squirm beneath him desperate for more. “you're squeezing me so tight... can't wait to fuck you open.” lips pressed to your ear as he speaks, pulling a desperate whine from your lips.

“jungkook, please...” legs spreading wider for him as your hips grind down into his palm. he's grinning, eyes flickering to the man next to you before he's picking up the pace of his fingers. fucking into you at such a rapid pace, you're not even able to contain the squeal that falls from your lips.

his thumb lifts to meet your clit, circling roughly against it with each thrust of his fingers. he can tell you're close to falling apart, from the way you grip his shirt and the untimed twitch of your hips. “think you can handle one more, baby?” mouth lazily tugging on your earlobe as he speaks.

and you're nodding frantically, spreading your legs wider for him paying no mind to the way your knee knocks against taehyung's thigh. “such a good girl. can't wait to feel you cum all over my dick. you want that too, huh?” three fingers pushed into the knuckle while his thumb slowly rolls your clit underneath it.

he's making you feel so good, you'd agree to anything at this point. which is why you're agreeing to his words instantly, begging him not to wait that long, to make you cum now. and he takes you up on that, pulling his fingers back before quickly pushing forward. the snap of his wrist has enough force behind it to make your hips hit against the seats.

urging you to cum with each push of his fingers, reaching deep enough to just barely brush up against that rough patch of skin inside of you. he doesn't let up on the circle on your clit, adding more pleasure and it's only a few moments until you feel yourself unraveling completely.

your orgasm washes over you entirely, head lulling back while you let out a gasped scream. legs shaking and fingers wrinkling the fabric of his shirt. chanting jumbled syllables that are meant to be his name, judging from the laugh he lets out you're not even slightly close to making sense.

jungkook only pulls his fingers down once you've calmed down completely, lifting the wet digits to show off how your juices glisten in the dim light. and then he's pushing them into his mouth, sucking your taste from them while humming softly. you're watching him, not being able to pull your attention from the way his tongue moves.

you barely register the way he leans down to press his lips to yours, not until the taste of you fills your own mouth. but, just as you're about to kiss him back, he's pulling away. dark eyes drinking you in before he's leaning back against the seats, hands moving toward the buttons of his jeans.

“get down and suck me off,” you're shooting him with a wide gaze, eyes shifting over to where taehyung sits, fake watching the same tiktok on his phone for the tenth time. jungkook follows your gaze, laughs softly before he's dropping his stare back onto you, forehead resting on your temple. “he's not even looking,”

the boner straining against his jeans says otherwise. sensing your hesitance, jungkook tries a different approach, lower lip pushing out to form a pout. the same pout you have saved on your phone over a thousand times. “but, i worked so hard today... don't i deserve a reward?” he's looking up at you through his lashes. “i'll fuck you so perfect when we get to the hotel,” heat pools between your legs at his words.

you make a mental note to end the weeks-long debate with your friends on who's the most spoiled out of the group. it's jungkook, hands down. the youngest in the biggest group in the world, of course, it was him. he expected the entire world to get down on their knees with a simple pout of his lips... which is exactly why you're lowering yourself onto the surprisingly soft car carpet.

--

he does, in fact, as he put it 'fuck you so perfect when you get to the hotel'. from the moment you're closing the door to well after two in the morning, he's inside you. tossing you around, holding you down... fucking you open until your body shakes with overstimulation. and then some more after that. 

he calls you baby, but you're sure it doesn't mean anything. just that he never bothered to get your name. even in the early hours of the morning when you're being woken up by his security guard, ready to escort you out. he tosses his phone in your direction, half awake and telling you to put your number in. you know he won't call as you type out the digits, but you're still giddy that he asked.

eyes still closed as you leave, not even bothering to muster a proper goodbye. and while for you, this night will be a story you tell the grandkids... you know it'll end up being just another blur in his wild rockstar life.

taglist: @agustdef @silentlyimpractical @gldnrecs @jaiuneamesolitaiire @preciouschimine @joonies-babyy @dee-ehn @aqtkookie @itsrapmonstanotdancemonsta @seokjinslittledumpling @thecityrain @jeonsshadow @papichulo-knj @amour-quinn​ @bangtansbun @kooafraid @metaethically @miss-jupiter @tanumiki​ @yoongiofmine​ @princecalpal​ @iridescentstories​ @jikooksgirl19​ @mikrokosmicjoon​ @hqtetsurou​ @needingyou2​ @alterlovess​ @ladyarmanto​ @trinityxsope​ @myworldisgone11​ @yutaeminnie​ @yoooonie​ @peachy-tata​ @paolandotcom​ @strwberry-jam​ @certifiedcrazycatlady​ @hansolsrightnut​ @btsbangtanbois​ @rlynotme​ @morseszn​ @codeinebelle​ @rjsmochii​ @joontopia​ @knjkitten​ @tae165​ @chocobetterknot​ @ggukkieland​ @v3nti​ @kelitt​ @taejinminsu​

taglist: @weasleyswizarding-wheezes @hobiheavenly @pjmcth @morndas @letmebreathepls @stcrwhiz @bangtan-noona @hopeworldjimin @betysotelo18 @lilacdreams-00 @prdshobi @yeontanie21 @ayyyocee @beeeb05 @todorokiskitten @arya-di-angelo @illwritetomorrow @filmtae @daesstuff @sungieshines @wildly-lost-lantern @ephyra1230 @hellotherehoneybee @mochibabycakes @lowlifeoeuvre @kookoo-kachoo @marifujioka @bombardia @veronawrites @ambersaesthetics @hisunshiine @sw33tnight @agustdakasuga @strawberryforever25 @my-current-mood-is @tatajoonie @getmemyfries @bluewhale52 @bangtansonyeondayyyum @munkey888 @simplymemyself​ @butterflylion @hopiebabie @taefect94 @dionysusrage @heyitsbreeeeee​ @hobiismyhopeu​ 

taglist: @xinyourdreamsx​ @giveortake​ @moonlitmyg​ @redluvletmain​ @niieceyy​ @xiaokoo​ @rageyoudamnednerd​ @bbyjoonies​ @marvelous-capsicle​ @daydreambrliever​ @hoefortaeshands​ @agustneeds​ @acc3ssdenied​ @ruinsofangels​ @bloomtilweache​ @jiminshibaby​ @dxlbts​ @missmadwoman​ @somewhereofftheglobe​ @parkjammys��� @salty-for-suga​ @scriptedhabits​ @tatasvoid​ @cozyboy-nee​ @thesweetest-peas​ @kkklaudiaaa17​ @booya--18​ @jooniesbanoonies​ @lizzzaaaaaaaaaaa​ @narrylilomylove​ @iovemaze​ @tricethecharm​ @trynavibewhileicry​ @zxlummxxd​ @take-u-2-an0ther-w0r1d​ @kuggnuj​ @embrace-themagic​ @namjoonsillegaldimple​ @uhgoodthings​ @jinhitwhore​ @pastelbleuet​ @ephyraaaa​ @joonni​ @elephantdoors​ @gemad08​ @tom-hollands-wife​ @neverthefirstchoice​ @soulstaes​

taglist: @diminieshoe @jayhope88 @ssweetsunflower @eatjeanjin​ @bigimpression @imadeyouamixtape88 @vantxx95 @bigbootyjoonie​ @serendipitysev​ @grakei​ @taesinferno​ @janieooo​ @kianam​ @h0babie​ @knjhe​ @neversickofyoongi​ @miriamxsworld​ @bangtan-niff​ @bloopkook​ @jeon-joker​ @dreamcatcherjiah​ @taeminkook​ @awhnamjoon​ @mono-moonchilds​ @ireallylikeyourwriting​ @daydreamingvibes11​ @taeyongsplug​ @nana-kjdream​ @lunars​  @bananadonut-blog​ @fairysunooo​ @moonchild-w-wings​ @limiworld​ @liquidnovocaine​ @kookiesspacebuns​ @jinbestboy​ @fangurl-ontgeside​ @kxdrawhl​ @rosedale99​ @jungkookbabyyyy​ @pjmbbygirl​ @yoongiwithglasses​ @taegix94​ @yoobikook​ @banqtanbby​ @sunashawty​ @maknaechu​ @taestycake​ @imcompletelyok​ @cityh0wl​ @goldenkookietaebae​ @megagrl​

#jeon jungkook #jungkook #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook fic #jungkook x reader #jungkook imagines #idol!jungkook #idol au #bts #bts imagine #bts smut #bts x reader #bts scenarios #bts jungkook

[dourpeep]

The men of Genshin as romance types:

This just kind popped up in my head after thinking about Xiao's characterization! I might add to this in the future, but for now it's just a small list of headcanons + a short blurb :>

Contains: Lots of fluff, lightly suggestive

Features: Albedo, Venti, Kaeya, Xiao, Zhongli, Childe, and Diluc

Note: you can be soft and still top btw, this is only for how they'd be romantically

Sweet:

Albedo

Albedo is also shown canonically to do little gestures like give people the sketch he did of them to see them smile, this man might seem kinda standoffish at first, but he's not cold

From his voicelines and story, we also know that Albedo is the type of person to think pretty deeply about everything around him

His brain goes 100 miles an hour with all the possibilities and scenarios he can think of

So with his s/o, the best thing that could happen is that he'll take the time to really slow down and unwind

Being a busy, busy man in pursuit of knowledge beyond anyone's comprehension, Albedo rarely gets time off (his sketches are considered research, in a way, no?)

So once he's finally at home, there will be lots of little shows of affection

Passing behind you, perhaps a light touch on your back or shoulder to let you know he's there

On a particularly rough day, he'll sit facing you with his forehead resting on your chest and just--take your hands and put them in his hair

Not really the type to pamper, but there's no doubt of his love

Probably the type of guy to like sitting close in silence

Maybe on the nights you cook, he'll come and wrap his arms around your waist, head leaning on your shoulder as he watches you work

Quietly, you lay on the couch tangled up in his arms, the soft sound of breathing and the light warmth you feel lulling you to sleep. It seems that, even though Albedo is left half asleep from a long day of research, he still continues to trace mindless little patterns on the back of your hand with his thumb. You shift, and he hums, pulling you closer.

Venti

The man’s been through so much, honestly

He's lost his closest friend, helped a rebellion usurp a tyrant, been through a war that lasted centuries, watched as another friend he'd known since birth fall to corruption (but ultimately was saved)

Point being, he's tired and just wants to have his fun

True to his nature, he likes to tease and poke at his s/o, but nothing that can't be undone (after all, a prank isn't funny if it's permanent)

Hand holding, is a must! Venti is a very affectionate person who isn't afraid to express his feelings when it comes to his s/o

Lots of smooches too! (Please smooch him back)

Speaking of hands and smooches, he's the type to bring your hand to his lips and give each your fingertips a little kiss. They've done so much for you and allow him the joy of holding them, so it's the least he can do!

His type of love is free and sweeter than the scent of cecelias, soft as the wind that kisses your skin

Really, he wants to be able to treasure you as much as he can in the time you have together

Today was a picnic date kind of day. A basket filled with fresh, ripe sunsettias and a few dishes you both worked together to make (mostly you, after what happened with Venti's apple cake) sat on top of a sturdy blanket laid on the grass. Head laid in your lap, the wandering bard strummed idly on his lyre, adding a lovely backdrop to an already perfect day.

Romantic:

Kaeya

Of course, the suave Captain doesn't stop with honeyed words

Mysterious as he is, he takes what he does in stride

If he could spend all his life entwined with you, he'd die a happy man

Kaeya is the type of partner to romance with candlelight and nighttime strolls on the beach

A little cheesy, yes, but all the more to sweep you off your feet

Flirty, he likes to take his time with his love and while he similarly treasures his s/o, it's in the way the fairytales are written

Perhaps a little cliche at times

Nevertheless, he's the type of partner to sweep you into a dance despite there being no music and dip you low (whether you both lose balance and fall is up to gravity)

He'll show his affection physically, whether through a quick kiss when you stop by the Favonious Knight's HQ, or pulling you close when you walk through a crowd on a market day

Teasing is also a big thing, if he can make you blush, his mission is accomplished

In privacy, expect his treatment to be the same--it wouldn't do any good if he leaves his dear s/o confused about how he feels

Once again, you take his hand and he sweeps you into a lively waltz, sweeping across the living room floor. Not once do his eyes leave yours. All he ever needs is the feel of you close and the rush of his heart in his chest that bubbles into something fonder when your laugh reaches his ears.

Xiao

Not the best with words, Xiao shows his love through his actions

Little gifts, helping now and then with commissions and clearing the road, he'll do it all with no expectation of thanks (should you thank him, he'll be extremely grateful for the recognition but also perhaps unsure how to react)

He doesn't tend towards physically showing affection to his s/o, so when he does, expect them to show his utter devotion

Often, Xiao questions what it is that he did to deserve such a love, but as soon as you appear in his view, it no longer matters because as long as you believe him to be worthy, why wouldn't he be?

His love is based deeply in trust. The heart is a fragile thing and to someone who's suffered so much in his lifetime, he guards it fiercely to protect himself

When he finally does allow himself the comfort of a relationship, he'll soak it up entirely

Nights spent stargazing on the top of Wangshu Inn, pinkies intertwined, or bodies held together tightly with the sweet exchange of breath

Every touch that he offers is gentle, reverent, and serves to remind him that what he's experiencing is real

He tried, really, for the thing on the plate to turn out the way that you usually make it. It's a far cry from what he remembers, but you set it down and bring your hands to his face. The sight of your beaming smile warms him deeply and he pulls you in close for a kiss.

Zhongli

Be still, my beating heart-

Just as he's full of information from the flowers of Liyue to the deepest cracks in the soil, he loves fully and unapologetically

He's lived through many eras and seen so much that it's hard to not want to express how he feels as he feels it

Deeply appreciative of whatever his s/o does and does for him

He indulges in every word, touch, feeling, and look- He's not a greedy man, but when it comes to love? There's a deep desire to feel it all

There are many ways that Zhongli expresses that love, a few being through your daily strolls through Liyue Harbor and the daily and nightly rituals the two of you have settled down into

His favorite is probably the mornings

There's something about waking up wrapped up in your lover's arms, head resting on their chest as the sun's warm beams shine through the windows that's utterly satisfying

Zhongli indulges in these little moments, favoring them over all else

Once in a while, he'll take you back to where your first date was to reminisce, perhaps even (jokingly) mention little embarrassing things either of you did

Zhongli watches as you sip at your drink and admires the way the sun compliments your eyes. You're preoccupied by the falling leaves, it seems, mentioning how they're just as brilliant gold as his. Though the feeling he feels is far from the excitement of butterflies, it has settled into a comforting sort of warmth that hopes you feel as well.

Passionate:

Childe

This man's love is wild like his personality

Loud, fun, and never quite predictable, he loves like a whirlwind and with an enthusiasm to match no other

Lots of teasing going on here, to make you blush or to mess with you, you'll never know

But it's his unapologetic fire that drew you to him to begin with

When he's not occupied with work, he'll drag you to go sight seeing

Every experience is a new experience, no matter if it's something that seems so everyday or not

His affection is in the form of tightly held hands (he doesn't want to lose you with how quickly he weaves through the crowd), well-placed winks, and kisses to steal your breath away

He also loves in a way that's fiercely protective. His job is a dangerous one and, with the way he's open with your relationship, his affection serves to protect you

But don't forget that despite his passion, he's a man who deeply treasures those close to him and, as his s/o, you'll be showered with only the best he can give you

It was only a quick break in your day, he'd assured, but it quickly became another round of seeing Liyue through his eyes. In the span of only an hour, you've already spotted an untouched patch of glaze lilies, sampled rich Li-style cuisine and fresh Yue-style cuisine, helped a young girl fetch her kite from atop a tree, and now are working your way (or rather, Childe is working your way for you) to a little area behind the busy streets to show you a pack of dogs he'd befriended. Fondly, you smile and watch as he beckons them out of hiding.

Diluc

Diluc lives for the way that his s/o brings the best out of him and, in return, he does the same back

He exudes the air of a gentleman with the way he shows his affection, but, whether intentionally or not, in an utterly enticing way

Being busy during the day with running the tavern and the winery as well as at night as the Darknight Hero (he insists you stop calling him that as well, but you don't miss the light flush of pride each time), the time he dedicates to you is left in the early morning long before you leave for the day and the evening as he settles just before he sets off

During morning time, he's often fond of running his hands over you, feeling each dip and curve, memorizing the way your hair falls and the way your lips curve when you smile

It's a quiet sort of passion

His love is expressed in the fond murmurs against your shoulder and head, sharing those moments of deep intimacy both physical and not

In the evenings, you both settle in front of the fireplace, sharing a drink or two

There's sometimes a certain look in his eye that sets your heart aflame in the dimly lit room, and sometimes he sets off a little later that night in lieu of a few more stolen moments with you

Diluc slides into your shared bed in the early hours of the morning, a bit later than usual. The shift stirs you just enough to wake up to two arms pulling you to his chest and a deep breath with his nose buried in your hair. He's no doubt exhausted. Eyes bleary, you turn until you're facing him and loosely wrap an arm around his waist. In the moments you're still half-awake, you hear a low murmur of 'love you' and you smile against his skin.

#genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact #albedo #venti #kaeya #xiao #zhongli #childe #diluc #genshin impact albedo #genshin impact venti #genshin impact kaeya #genshin impact xiao #genshin impact zhongli #genshin impact childe #genshin impact diluc #tartaglia #genshin x reader #jesus christ this is a lot of tags #genshin impact x reader #aight i'm gonna sleep now #ALSO THAT DILUC IS FOR U HAZEL