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boxboysandotherwhump · 3 years

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Teeth

Tags: @salamancialilypad @whumpfigure @albino-whumpee @comfy-whumpee @ashintheairlikesnow @haro-whumps @moose-teeth @vickytokio @yet-another-heathen @orchidscript

@finder-of-rings

Chapter 5

CW: detailed description of intense stab wound pain (to the arm), fighting for their lives against giant spider, it as a pronoun in a very brief flashback, blood, powering through pain,

Sahars blood thrummed in his ears like drums heralding disaster.

Adrenalin spiked blood rushed through his veins.

His muscles twitched.

Every fiber of his being buzzed electric.

With feet barely connecting to the soft forest ground, Sahar felt trapped in the worst kind of flight.

The kind that had driven him through dark alleyways, reduced to prey running from its predators in a cage the size of a city.

He’d sworn to never forget the lesson he’d learned, back then. When the little boy he’d saved had ratted him out and sicked a seething horde of citizens onto him.

It had been a warm night back then, too. Like and unlike today in so many ways.

Only that today, he knew how to fight. To defend himself. He was no longer a scrawny eight year old, trying to save a neighborhood kid from some angry teens, mouth running a mile a minute, words tumbling from his tongue, trying to sooth, to deascalet. But words hadn’t been enough, between them and their rage against a world that had banished them behind fences, trapped them in Berlin's slum. Words had done nothing against their butterfly knife. And it had sunk into his arm as they stabbed him, sliced through skin and muscle and planted a searing pain under his skin. His mutation had gone off, outside the safety of his mothers apartment and for all the world to see. What had followed, had been pure terror.

That night had never stopped breathing down his neck, lurking around dark street corners or whispering from beyond his locked bedroom door.

Get it! I saw it dive behind a dumpster! Up the street, the little pest ran into the carpentry. Fuck, fuck we lost it. No wait! There, there it is. It jumped into the river! Then let it drown. Or drift outside the city. It’ll die there anyway.

Haunted, wide eyes flitted over the trees, nearly expecting a hate and fire spewing crowd to break out from between them at any moment.

Bitter fire taste burned on his tongue.

Sahars foot caught on a branch and he slammed into a flower stem. Hard enough to jostle him out of his vicious memory storm.

A painful dull throb pulsed through his shoulder. Nothing compared to a knife buried in his right arm, but enough to let his consciousness snap back into the here and now. Back into his shuddering body. Back between giant leaves and flower petals that rustled in the warm evening breeze.

Sucking in a shaking breath, Sahar felt the axe’s weight in his hand. Heavy as the burden of his conscience. His panic subsided, morphed into something akin to stubborn righteousness.

No.

No matter what had happened back then, he’d done the right thing in saving that boy. And he would do the right thing now!

Even if it meant the whole village would find out. Even if Charlotte would hate him.

He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he turned his back on them. If he’d let them die while he hid like a coward.

Not if he could do anything about it.

“You you you can do this. You’re no no no damn child anymore.”

You have an axe now.

An axe to slay an insect. The idea was hysterical, really.

An axe to turn a monster into a hero, maybe?

He ignored that small hopeful whisper, shoved it back deep inside the hole it had crawled out of and ran.

Sahar nearly lost his balance as he dodged a branch, speeding down a mossy root right towards the clearings edge.

Children’s screams, shrill with terror, echoed from below, cutting through the forest’s silence like a rusty knife. They were so loud Sahar nearly missed it in between the first seconds of shock and his thunderous heartbeat.

This rattling, bone chilling hiss, biting and burying itself deep into one’s very core.

Every hair on Sahar’s body stood. Electrified with fear.

Could it be?

His chest crashed into a thick vine of ivy before he could react or bring his feet to a halt on his race down the slippery root.

Grabbing blindly for the vine, somersaulting thoughts scattering every which way, Sahar caught himself somehow, avoiding a fall down the rocky hillside and meeting certain death as a graceless heap of flailing limbs.

Chest rose and fell with every shuddering breath. He allowed himself to just hang there, hidden within the thick ivy leaves, fighting to get his shaking legs back under control.

The axe’s handle threatened to slip from his clammy fingers and Sahar gripped on tighter, forcing himself to peer through the thick foliage.

A few feet under him, it’s pulsing hairy abdomen turned his way, it stood.

A giant wolf spider.

Its jaws rubbed together in endless agitation, creating this god awful noise.

Sahar wished he could scrub it off his skin. His fingers twitched, rubbing frantically over the smooth wooden handle, as he stared and stared and stared.

Charlotte and the children had encircled the beast somehow, yelling and throwing whatever they could find on the clearing’s rocky ground at it in a desperate attempt to confuse it, keep it from attacking.

So far it seemed to work.

Whenever the beast's eyes looked onto someone, the kids from behind it would hurl stones and mushrooms at its back, forcing the spider’s attention onto themselves.

Its long thorny legs crashed into the ground, kicking dirt and gravel everywhere in its furios thrashing.

That’s when Sahar saw it. Its eyes. He hadn’t noticed at first, between all the movement and blue luminescent mushroom pulp dripping of its body. But one of the spider’s eyes was missing.

The head hunter’s spider!

The controlling device, still rammed deep into its ugly head, had stopped blinking.

The machines malfunctioning must hurt.

No wonder that thing is all over the place.

This was Sahars chance. Hurting, distracted and one eye short, the spider shouldn’t notice him. Not if he came down from above.

Clutching the Axe in both sweaty hands he raised it far above his head. And jumped.

Air rushed past his ears. A storm of raging blood roaring from inside, crashing through his head and drowning his every thought.

There was only gravity left.

Gravity pulling on his limbs, drawing him down faster and faster towards inevitable eight legged death.

But he fell too fast for all the thoughts and fears of disaster to possibly catch up to him. Utterly focused, for the first time in his life, every other thought, the fabric of reality itself ground to a halt.

The only thing still moving were the flexing muscles in his arms and the spider. Abdomen pulsing with its erratic heartbeat. If he could hit that, split the soft flesh there and spill all its blood and guts on the rocky earth, everyone else would live.

The muscles of Sahar’s stomach pulled tight, transforming his body into a bowstring ready to launch.

The children’s surprised shrieks faded to background noise. His biceps bulged, feet drawing closer, his whole body readying for impact.

When suddenly, a pebble, small like a penny, came free from the sole of his heavy work boots. And dropped. Hitting the spider mere seconds before he would. But for vicious instinct carved from hard moving flesh, seconds were more than enough.

The world narrowed to a flash of glistening lidless eyes and pain as a leg, heavy like a tree trunk, bashed him into the hillside. Sahar’s spine lit up in agony. Pain spread through his arm like wildfire. It took everything in him to keep it from exploding.

Just let it. Let it. Don’t waste your time holding back!

No! No no no no, I can’t.

I’m scared.

“Sahar!”

Charlotte’s shriek cut through the storm of his mind, a lighthouse siren guiding all his scattered thoughts in one direction. His eyes snapped open, met midnight black teeth, sharp like daggers and dripping poison. The creature towered over him. Its liquefied promise of pain dripped to the ground.

Sahar’s body felt heavy, a disconnected breathing stone, teetered to the hard earth.

“Sahar! For fucks sake move!”

His limbs had forgotten how to obey his commands. A silent scream existing solely behind clenched teeth. The neurons in his head all failed to fire.

My Axe? It’s gone!

His eyes dropped from the spiders clicking jaws, searching frantically between its thorny legs. As if that thing would do him any good now.

Not against this seething monstrosity.

Dirt danced under its body, swirling up with every shuddering gusts of hot air exhaled through the breathing holes along its abdomen, so hidden under its body Sahar would have missed them if he wasn’t practically cowering under that thing.

He could see children’s legs storming off to safety, scattering and disappearing in between bushes and behind mushrooms. Their bluish glow grew stronger with every second of fading daylight.

Good.

At least he had been able to save them, before-

“I said. Move!”

Charlotte charged at the spider, pale fingers wrapped around the Axe in a death grip. Debris crunched under her shoes, flying every which way.

The weapon swung back into a wide arc, twisting her whole body with the force of her attack.

There was a visceral sort of grace to her, in that moment, in the flexing of her muscles, in the way her soft pink lips twisted back into a snarl, revealing a row of perfectly white teeth.

She was fury incarnate.

Her conviction alone seemed enough to strike that beast down.

It jerked its abdomen high into the air, stubby spinnerets twitching, the only warning before it fired. A wave of white glistening silk erupted from its silk glands, hardening as it flew towards Charlotte. The force of the impact knocked her backwards and she crashed down, fighting for balance on one knee.

Only her head and right arm remained spared from the silvery, hardening restrains that bound her to the ground.

“Fuck. Fuck!”

The Axe’s blade barely left a dent in the silk as Charlotte struggled to cut herself free one handed.

Terror held Sahar’s heart captive, had it flutter and beat with all its might, trying to escape anxiety’s iron grip.

He watched in horror as the spider turned towards Charlotte, its remaining seven eyes flashing green in the mushroom’s glow.

Its mighty body tensed, a barely there tremble rippling through pulp splattered legs. The hiss of slowly opening jaws rung over the clearing, shrill like funeral bells.

“No!”

Finally, Sahars legs moved. Launching him forward with the force of a slingshot projectile.

A gust of breath brushed his left shoulder, warm and surreally alive, as he dived past the spider's abdomen and dashed towards its mouth.

Its hairs tickled the crown of Sahar’s head.

Poison slicked fangs flashed in the last rays of dying daylight as massive jaws moved. Opened. Struck down.

A tooth burrowed deep into Sahars right arm, slicing skin and muscle like a glowing knife would butter. He felt something hard crack and splinter inside him, felt the resistance and inevitable give of his bones as the fang pierced through.

Excruciating agony exploded in his arm, threatened to devour him whole.

His body’s torment broke free with a deafening crack.

The cells of his right arm crystalized. Growing muscles twisted and hardened into an impenetrable shield, crushing the fang still buried deeply in his flesh into a hundred pieces.

Venom welled from Sahars wound, dripped down solid skin, unable to pass the armor of mutated flesh.

He could feel the pressure of the spider’s tooth stump against the wound as it bared down.

New waves of pain welled up, crashed through him like a storm flood, drowning every other sensation, every thought.

Unrelenting jaws squeezed tighter still and tears trickled over Sahar’s cheeks, down his nose, falling to the dusty ground like raindrops.

The other fang graced his ribs. Threatened to break skin.

Oh god. Oh please no.

Conjuring every last remnant of strength hidden in his muscles, Sahars pushed back. The spider’s cool hairy flesh gave under the press of his elbow, the tiniest bit, and its fang pulled back.

He hadn’t thought it possible for this pain to climb higher still, but here it was, whisking him away to a dimension composed solely of suffering.

The scream tearing from his throat didn’t sound like his own. But he could feel it, as it clawed its way out, bursting past his lips in raw desperation.

“Sahar?” The whisper of a voice found its way through the pain filled fog his existence had been reduced to and he forced his eyes open. Whimpering.

When had he even closed them?

Charlotte’s pale freckled face hovered centimeters from his. Splatters of blood trickled down the birthmark of her left cheek and dried in the copper curls of her bangs.

A faint, shuddering part of Sahar realized that this blood was his own.

Her eyes were blown wide and the blue of her irises danced in the surrounding bloodshot white of them.

“What have you done? Oh god what have you done?” There were tears, imprisoned in the tremble of her voice.

I don’t know. My body just moved.

The words were nothing but a whisper in his head, unable to escape a body shuddering and hurting and trapped on the brink of collapse.

He knew how it felt to lose control, over his senses, his mutation, his emotions but nothing had ever felt like this. He’d never felt as disconnected, as betrayed from his own flesh as the moment his knees gave out and he crashed to the ground. The fangs tip tore through his linen shirt, soaking the fabric with poison.

Screwing his eyes shut in terror filled anticipation, Sahar didn’t see Charlotte’s face morph into a ferocious scowl. All bared teeth and fierce determination.

The Axe’s wooden handle splintered under short sharp nails and fury as she swung it, with the strength of 17 years’ worth of hard work living in her muscles.

The spider’s left jaw split with the sickening tearing of flesh.

Sahar’s red blood mixed with the spider’s blue in the dirt as it gushed from the wound and dripped down the Axe.

The spider’s nearly dismembered mandible flapped uselessly from side to side as it sprung back, unsure if to retreat or attack.

With the pressure of its jaws gone, Sahar collapsed onto the blood soiled earth. A few dirt grains danced in the gusts of his labored breaths and the tears Charlotte had so desperately tried to hold on to burst free without restraint The spider webs still held her to the ground as she began to frantically claw at the silken sticky mess, desperate to break free.

Sahars tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he rasped, “Hey. Hey hey hey ‘s fine….. fine now. Let… let me-”

Words failed him, all washed away by a new wave of hot boiling pain as he willed his mutilated, mutated arm to move, despite every fiber of his being wailing protest. Sharp pointy fingertips dug into the silk and tore it apart like a clawed animal clumsily disemboweling its prey. A howling hissing one at that.

He wanted nothing more than to get out of here and for this unbearable pain to finally, blessedly end.

Oh god please just make it stop.

Charlotte’s free hand found its way into Sahars brown unruly hair and scratched over his scalp in slow soothing circles. He leaned into the touch, this something-other-than-all-consuming-pain-feeling and whined softly.

“Shh shhh. Almost done. It’s almost over.”

He continued to rip the silk to shreds until Charlotte was finally freed. She shot up, dragging Sahar with her. He howled in agony.

Hunted blue eyes darted back to the spider, cowering low on the ground. Its seven eyes stared back, glowing in the mushrooms light.

“We have to move, Sahar. That thing‘s not done with us.”

He willed his shaking legs to stumble alongside Charlotte, when a shot rang over the clearing. Loud like a thunderclap announcing a storm.

Flinching hard enough to make him cry out Sahar witnessed the spider collapse. A thick metal stud pierced through its head, painting abstract patterns of dull blue blood and glowing mushroom pulp over its twitching body.

The ferocious predator transformed into a corpse bleeding starlight.

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uchihanyan · 3 years

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ItaIzu / ItaSaku One-Shot

Ok, I think it’s done! I took some days to finish it, but I’m very satisfied with the results! I hope you guys enjoy it! I’ll post it on AO3 once I decide a good title, and I’ll let you know when I post there.

WARNING: This one-shot has depression themes, although some cuteness and happiness moments. So if you’re not in a good mood, please, save it for later!

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Itachi had probably just had the worst day of his life. He was down, depressed, and nothing could cheer him up. It wouldn't be a surprise if he ended up falling into depression. His heart hurt too much, and he felt that pain would never go away. Therefore, the man decided to go out from his parents' house for a bit, to get some air, walk and try to distract himself. He needed to get that sadness out of his heart, but at the same time, he couldn't forget what had happened. He didn't want to. A few months ago he thought that the other day had been the worst of his life, he would never imagine that this recent incident could happen. This was the worst day of his life. It was practically impossible for another incident to be worse than this one.

The Uchiha walked around Konoha, aimlessly, just to try to distract himself. He needed to calm down. It was then that, walking slowly beside the Konoha's playground, he saw a small girl, dirty, with messy brown hair and torn clothes, also looking down and sad, sitting on a swing. Children were one of Itachi's biggest weaknesses and, slowly and gently, he tried to approach her, greeting her. The girl, who had not felt his presence until the moment he spoke, however, soon got scared, getting up from the swing and running away, hiding behind a fence nearby.

"C'mon, you don't need to be afraid."

Itachi tried to approach her again, carefully, but the girl, like a skittish kitty, ran away again, this time completely disappearing from Itachi's vision. He sighed and, too tired to go looking for her, thinking she probably had gone to her parents' house, sat down on the swing. All the bad thoughts occupied his mind, and he kept trying to calm himself, taking a deep breath and looking up, letting some tears flow from his eyes. Itachi didn't like to cry in front of people, so that was the best opportunity to do that, in the middle of the night, when no one was nearby. After calming down, he went back to his parents' house, and slept there.

Some days later, after being called to the Hokage's office, which was currently Kakashi, Itachi commented on the little child in the playground.

"That was probably Yuki."

"Yuki?" Itachi asked.

"Yes. She is an orphaned child who lost her parents some time ago. Unfortunately, no one can get close to her."

"I noticed that..."

"Well, she lives alone, and Yuki doesn't allow anyone to enter her home."

"What, alone?! How old is she?!"

"Her parents died when she was about 4 years old, so she is probably 5. Iruka and I managed to get in there a few times and try to help her, but it's been a while. She usually goes to restaurants and convenience stores to buy obento and eat at home, but in general, it seems that her diet is not good at all. And well, being such a little child, she doesn't really know how to take care of herself. As you can see, her appearance is not the best."

"That is terrible..."

"Yes, but no one dares to approach her and force her to do anything, neither to take her to an orphanage. Even if people want to try to help her, they are very sorry for her and afraid to hurt her and make her sad and scared. "

"But she's just a child, she's too little to live by herself."

"I know, I know. Well, do you want to try it?"

"What?"

"Get close to her. Maybe it is a good opportunity for you to try to distract yourself a little from what happened on your last mission. Take some time off."

"I..."

Itachi was reluctant for a moment but ended up accepting it. Perhaps it would be better for him to take distance from the shinobi's life for a while. He needed to take care of himself, especially his mind.

"Right, I will do it."

"Perfect. I permit you to enter her house, just don't be too invasive. Well, knowing you, I know you'll be careful. Especially since it's a child we're talking about." Kakashi smiled under his mask at him.

And so Itachi did. He left the Hokage's office and, after going to his parents' house and telling his mom about his new "mission", he went to the child's home, which Kakashi had taught the location to. He approached it slowly, on tenterhooks, and, after taking a deep breath, knocked on the door. It took a while, but a small figure slowly opened the door, trying to hide behind it. As soon as she saw who it was, she instantly closed the door. Predicting a reaction like that, Itachi crouched down and knocked on the door again. The little girl opened it, looking up and surprised, as there was no one in her sight until she looked down and saw the man near her height. She was startled and before she could close the door again, his hand gripped it, preventing it from closing. Itachi was much stronger than she was, so no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't move the door. Realizing that the little girl was getting more and more desperate, he tried to say something, to calm her down.

"I don't want to hurt you. On the contrary, I want to help you."

"No."

"Onii-chan is not going to do anything bad for you, trust me."

"Onii... chan?"

She knew that many people in Konoha used to try to help her, despite always hiding and trying to keep them away, so the girl already imagined the intentions of the Uchiha. So she ended up letting him into her house, feeling the gentleness in his voice.

"Excuse me."

He entered, removing his shoes at the entrance. He saw a slipper there, which was a little dusty but decided to put it on anyway. Getting inside the house, he saw the interior of it, getting shocked. It was dirty, dusty, messy, with cup noodle's cups and empty obento plastic trays around the room. He felt a tightness in his heart. How could anyone live in those conditions? Well, she was just a kid, so of course, she would not care about it, neither know how to clean and organize a house. Also, the girl was probably depressed for being alone and having lost her parents. Deep down, Itachi understood her. After the recent incident, if he had no one around, he would probably also go into depression and have a life similar to the girl's, failing to take care of himself, and living in a mess.

Looking closer at the girl, he realized that her condition was terrible. Her face was pale, her skin was dirty, and she had huge dark circles. Her hair probably hadn't been cut in months, neither brushed. He sighed, crouched again, and asked the girl.

"Have you had dinner today?"

She nodded and pointed to a cup of mini cup noodles, which was smaller than the normal size, empty and thrown on the floor. Itachi frowned, sighed again, and stood up.

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

The girl, confused, agreed and waited for him behind the door, inside the house. Approximately half an hour later, he was back, with bags full of groceries. Itachi entered the house, removing his shoes and putting on that dusty slipper again, and went straight to the kitchen. First of all, he picked some cloths and cleaning products, cleaning the kitchen, the furniture in that room and the dishes. So, soon Itachi started cooking. The girl just watched him preparing the food, quiet in a corner, not knowing how to react or what to say.

It took about an hour, but soon the food was ready. He served dishes with gohan, fish, salad, and vegetables. He also filled a glass with orange juice, which he had just prepared there.

"Come here." He said gently to her, in his calm voice, smiling at her and raising a hand towards her. The girl, shy, approached him slowly. Itachi picked her up and sat her in a chair that was slightly taller than the others. Itachi had already eaten, so there were portions for the little girl only.

"You can eat, don't be afraid. I'm sure you're gonna like it."

The girl picked up a pair of chopsticks and seemed to have a hard time with them. She didn't know how to use it properly, and after a few attempts to use it correctly, she stuck the two chopsticks into the fish, holding them with her whole hand. Before she could take it to her mouth, Itachi let out a sigh and took the chopsticks from her hand.

"Here, I'll help you."

So Itachi fed the little child. She looked hungry, and she probably hadn't eaten such good, healthy food in a long time, probably weeks, or even months. She chewed and swallowed quickly, and in no time she ate everything.

After washing the dishes, Itachi took the girl to the living room. The couch was all dirty and dusty, so he sat on it and put the girl on his lap, looking at her.

"What's your name?"

"Y-Yuki..."

"Yuki-chan, huh. My name is Itachi."

"Itachi onii-chan..."

"That's right." He smiled at her. The girl, ashamed, tried to contain her smile.

"How old are you?"

The girl took a while to answer him. She had probably forgotten, not thinking about it in a long time. "F-five... I think."

"You think?"

The girl nodded, and Itachi sighed.

"Okay... Your house is very dirty, it is not healthy to be in the middle of this much dust and dirt. Come to sleep at my house today. Tomorrow we will be back and I will clean up here."

"Why?"

"Because... Well, it's important. As I said-"

"Why are you helping me?"

Itachi was interrupted by the kid and looked at her as she asked it. "You're just a little child. It is not the right thing to do leaving you in this condition." He stood up with her in his arms. "Come on. I'll lend you a shirt for you to wear as pajamas. Tomorrow I'll wash your clothes too." He saw some holes and stains in the clothes she was wearing. "Well... Maybe buy you some new ones."

The girl still didn't quite know how to react. She had already been helped by a few people - well, forced to be helped - but it was the first time that anyone had done all of that for her by saying only a few words before acting. Without the courage to refuse, the girl just put her arms around Itachi's neck and was carried to a small apartment near the residential area of Konoha. The first thing Itachi did was shower the girl, asking her permission first. Being so young, and without her parents around for such a long time, she probably didn't know how to shower alone. He washed her hair with shampoo about 3 times before applying the conditioner and combing it. It was tangled and the man had a lot of difficulties, but in the end, he succeeded, being very careful not to hurt her. So, after the shower, instead of going to the ofuro, he decided to dry her and put on one of his shirts, which was big enough to cover her up to just below her knees. He dried her hair and put her to sleep in his bed. It didn't take long before she fell asleep. Itachi, lying on his side next to the little child, watched her. It was then that he remembered the incident of a few days ago. Kakashi was right. Itachi was so busy taking care of the girl that he had completely forgotten what happened. He didn't want to forget, he couldn't forget. But for a few hours, he seemed to be a little less depressed and sad. He put one of his arms over the little girl's body, hugging her, and also fell asleep, tired.

The next morning, Itachi woke up before Yuki. She seemed to be very tired, sleeping soundly, so he got up slowly from the bed, being careful not to wake her, and after his morning hygiene routine, he went to the kitchen, to do the breakfast. Itachi liked a simple, traditional meal, so he made some onigiris and miso. He covered her meal with wrapping paper and ate his. While eating, Itachi remained depressed, unable to stop thinking about that incident. How could he be so careless? One small flaw was enough to change his life completely. However, the man believed that nothing happens by chance. Perhaps if that had never happened, the child would never have been saved, and only God knows what kind of bad things could have happened to her. Still, depression took over Itachi. The pain was great, hard to overcome. He tried to forget about those terrible thoughts, but nothing seemed to be able to distract him, until, sometime later, he heard the door of his room opening, and saw the little girl running to the bathroom. Itachi figured that maybe she wanted badly to use it, so he didn't bother until he heard vomiting noises coming from the bathroom. Startled, he went to her and helped her, holding her long hair.

"Don't worry, you're probably like this for having such a bad diet all this time." After she finished, he helped her rinse her mouth and brush her teeth with a new toothbrush he had, which was still in the packaging. "Come on, I made miso, it will be good for your stomach."

Itachi sat her on one of the chairs and gave her the miso. She didn't need chopsticks this time, so she managed to drink it on her own, trembling a little bit as she was weak for just had vomiting.

"Before we go back to your home, we better go to the hospital. I know a great doctor who will take care of you." He told the girl, who didn't seem to like the idea. "You don't have to be afraid, everything will be fine." He assured her.

Before they went to the hospital, Itachi stopped by a small thrift store nearby, buying a new outfit for the girl to wear. He bought a T-shirt with a patterned kitten on it and pants that were a little loose but comfortable and that would fit her. Then, after dressing her in her new clothes, they arrived at the hospital, and the receptionist soon recognized the child.

"Isn't that... that orphan girl who's always alone?" She asked.

"Yes... She is."

"Good! Someone is finally taking care of her! Thank God." The woman looked very relieved and happy. "I imagine her health is terrible."

"Yes, that's why I brought her here. Is Sakura here today?"

"She is. I will call her, just a moment."

After going to Sakura's office, the receptionist returned to them, telling him that he could meet the kunoichi right away.

"Come in!" Said Sakura from her room.

Itachi then entered the place with Yuki in his arms.

"Finally..." She said. "I'm glad you're taking care of her."

"Well, let's say it's under Kakashi-san's orders."

"Still... You accepted it. Thank you." Sakura said with a smile on her face. "She must be in very bad health, isn't she? Put her on the bed, so I can examine her."

And so did Itachi. After asking permission for the child, he removed her shirt, allowing Sakura to examine her better. Running her hands over her small body, making the girl cringe a little, frightened, she used some of her chakra to examine the inside of her.

"Poor thing, so thin..." Said Sakura. "She is not in a critical condition, but she is very weak, and her stomach is injured."

"That's what I thought. She threw up this morning, and I imagine it wasn't the first time. She also had pain while peeing and had trouble defecating."

"It's just the obvious... I always felt a lot of frustration that no one was helping her. Of course, I can't say much, because I couldn't do it either... But even so... It's so cruel."

"I... didn't know about her, until a few days ago, when I first met her in the playground. It was then that, commenting on her, Kakashi explained to me about her. And then he decided that I should help her. "

"Great. At least finally someone is acting." Sakura took her stethoscope and touched the child's chest. "I know it's a little cold, but hold on. It's just for a little while. Now take a deep breath." Yuki obeyed Sakura. "Great. Again. And again. Again. Right..." Then she repeated it, with the stethoscope against the little girl's back.

"Well?"

"Her heart is a little weak, but nothing that worries me that much. But it surprises me that she is still alive, you know."

After the analysis, Sakura measured the girl's pressure, which was very low. Then, she put the back of her hands on the child's forehead, to feel her temperature. That feeling of the woman's hands on her forehead made Yuki feel something in her heart. Those hands...

"Mommy..."

"What?" Sakura asked.

"It... it feels like... mommy's hands..." Yuki's voice clearly expressed her pain. The girl held Sakura's hands, shaking.

"Oh, dear..." Sakura patted the child's head. "I'm sorry. But you'll be fine, I promise." She smiled.

Sakura examined Yuki for a while, concluding that the girl had stomach damage, urinary tract infection, constipation, anemia, malnutrition, dehydration, some breathing problems due to the dusty house, among other problems. Not to mention the mental problems she had probably developed, like depression. However, it was nothing that could not be healed. Hearing this, Itachi, despite being worried, felt a little more relieved.

"I'm going to order some more tests, like blood, urine, feces, and MRI scan. I'll also ask that you feed her well, please. And a lot of water. Her life is in your hands."

Upon hearing that last sentence, Itachi felt pressured. The last time someone's life was in his hands, Itachi had failed. Failed. He had failed. Sakura's words echoed on his mind. But he needed to work hard, take care of the child until he decided what to do with her. Take her up for adoption, give to a known couple, or take care of her himself. It was a difficult choice, but one he needed to make. In a way, that was his mission.

"You can leave it to me."

Sakura smiled at Itachi, and then at the girl. "You are in good hands." She patted her head once more. "Here, this is a small manual for you to help her do the tests I ordered. Bring them in three days, preferably in the morning. Also, she will need these medicines. This one and this ointment are to treat her urinary tract infection. Not treating it may cause a much more serious illness. Don't forget about giving her a lot of water."

"Right..." That was going to cost money. A lot of money. But it was a sacrifice that Itachi was willing to make. For the sake of an abandoned and frightened child. And also for his mind.

"B-besides... If you need to..." Sakura handed Itachi a paper with something written on it. "This is my personal number. You can call me if you need anything."

"Thank you. I will."

And so Itachi took care of the girl for a few more days. As required by Sakura, he bought the necessary medicines, gave them to the child, and helped the girl to do the exams. The day before he was supposed to go back to the hospital, Itachi decided that he would cut Yuki's hair, with his own abilities. He was used to cutting his own hair, so it wasn't a hard job to do. He cut a fringe that reached up to her eyebrows, and cut a few centimeters of her hair, removing the damaged ends. Her hair was considerably shorter, but it was still long. As promised, Itachi also cleaned Yuki's house and washed her clothes. It took him all day to clean up the place. He cleaned everything himself, without asking for any help for the poor child, who was weak and sick. At certain times he lost himself in his depressive thoughts, but soon the girl appeared near him, perhaps feeling his sadness, and made him smile at her, cheering her up. Forcing himself to cheer himself up for the girl took his sadness away momentarily. At one point, Itachi opened the door to her parents' room a little, but figured he shouldn't go in there without her permission, so he just left it for another day.

In the living room, there was a small memorial for her parents, with a photo of them and an incense. Itachi lit it, and said a prayer for them, praying that they would be in a better place, asking for permission so that he could take care of the girl, and saying that he would do his best to give her a good life.

On the third day, Itachi took the exams required by Sakura. Such samples needed to be the first samples of the day, so Itachi went to the hospital very early, next to Yuki. After handing them over, she took some blood samples from her. She had some hard work since Yuki wasn't used to it, but in the end, everything went well.

"It will take a few days for all the exams to be ready, but I'll let you know."

Yuki also did the MRI exam, so Sakura would be sure about how the inside of the girl's body was. They stayed in the next room, where the computers were so that she could see the exam in real-time. It was very quiet and a little uncomfortable. Itachi had known Sakura for a while, as she was a member of his brother's team. Although Sasuke didn't like her very much, they often met, together with Naruto, for missions, training, and get-togethers. Sometimes the three of them went to Sasuke's house, who lived with his parents, and sometimes Itachi was there, meeting Sakura. Both of them had never spoken much, so they weren't that close to each other. Still, they considered themselves friends.

"Is she going to be okay?"

"If you follow what I asked you to do, she sure will."

Another moment of silence.

"Where is she sleeping?"

"In the first few days, I took her to my apartment. Her house was all dirty and impossible to live in. But yesterday I cleaned it, and we slept there. I will spend a few days there until she is better, and I decide what to do with her.

"I see... I hope she goes to a good family."

"Me too..."

The exam was over, and Sakura concluded that, despite the damage to her organs due to the bad life the child was leading, she could still be healed, if he took good care of her. Sakura gave him more instructions than what to do, like what kind of food to give her and some medicine.

"This is her home address. And well, this is mine... If there's something urgent about her exams... just drop by."

"Right..." Sakura accepted the paper with the information that Itachi gave her.

A couple of days passed and Itachi was doing his best to take care of the child, distracting himself as much as possible. One day, at Yuki's house, while Itachi sat on the sofa in the living room with her, talking about good things, he heard someone knocking on the front door. Itachi noticed that soon the child got scared, but he stroked her hair, smiling at her.

"I'll be right back."

Itachi got up and carefully opened the door, facing his mother, who was carrying some bags.

"Mom..."

"I came to visit you. How are things going? How are you?"

"Fine, I think." He looked down, with a sad look. "She is doing better, much better than the first day I met her."

"I see, that's great." She stroked her son's head and entered, putting on slippers that Itachi offered her. "Did you clean up the house?" He nodded his head. "You did a great job, my son. And where is she?" Mikoto asked as she gave the bags to Itachi.

"She... should be in the living room."

"Well, but she isn't. Oops, no, wait a minute." The woman noticed the top of a small head behind the sofa, slowly approaching and appearing in surprise beside her. "Found her!"

Yuki squeaked, startled, and ran to the other side of the couch, hiding again. Mikoto once more went to her, appearing in surprise and scaring the child, who, after screaming again, ran to Itachi, hiding behind him, grabbing his legs.

"You don't have to be afraid." Itachi said, with some difficulty in walking, since his legs were being grabbed by the child, and, after putting the bags on the dinner table, he picked her up on his lap. "She is my mother. See? We are very much alike."

Yuki's gaze shifted from Itachi to Mikoto, and she looked at him again, repeating the act a few times. The woman approached them, smiling. "Exactly!"

Embarrassed, Yuki buried her face in Itachi's chest, making him giggle, stroking her hair.

"She looks very good for someone who has been alone all this time in this house."

"She still has some health problems, but we are taking care of it. And yes, she is much better."

"Thanks to you, Itachi-kun." Mikoto smiled at Itachi. "And you look pretty good, too."

"Yeah..." He looked down. "I think so."

"Don't worry, everything will be fine. Come on, I want to cook for you today."

"And what do you plan to cook?"

"Hm... Hot pot! I know you like it, and I hope it will cheer you both up a little more. Especially you, Itachi-kun."

"Thanks, Mom..."

She smiled at him and started cooking. Mikoto refused Itachi's help, saying that she just wanted to please them. So Itachi and Yuki waited patiently at the dinner table until she finished cutting all the vegetables and organizing them, next to the meats, bringing the pot with a hot broth to the table. "Watch out, it's sooooo hot!" She told the child.

"And what are Sasuke and Father going to eat today?"

"Sasuke is on a mission with Naruto, and your father is going to spend the night at the police station."

"I see..."

"Itachi-kun, your voice is very sad. I want you to cheer up!"

"I-I..."

"Come on, cheer up! Let's eat! Itadakimasu!"

"I-itadakimasu ..."

Itachi repeated his mother's words, and with his chopsticks, he put some vegetables and meat into the pot. When the food was cooked enough to eat, Itachi took some, blew it, and brought it into Yuki's mouth.

"Why, doesn't she know how to eat alone?"

"She has some difficulty using chopsticks. Not to mention it's too hot..."

"She needs to learn how to use it by herself, Itachi-kun. Put it on this little plate, so she can practice and eat alone."

"R-right ..." And so he did. "Let it cool before eating, it is very hot."

Yuki just nodded and, while the others ate, she waited impatiently for her food to cool down, until she decided to try to catch it with the chopsticks, the way Itachi had taught her all these days. She had a hard time and dropped it a few times, but finally managed to put it in her mouth.

"That's right! Congratulations, my dear!" Mikoto encouraged her to eat alone, praising her. Yuki smiled sheepishly at the woman and continued trying to eat alone, to be praised more and more.

With those two people at her home, eating together, Yuki felt happier and more excited. She felt loved and comfortable, even though she was still shy. Itachi, however, was still depressed. Despite being with his beloved mother, who did everything to cheer him up, and the orphaned child he was taking care of at the time, he was still not completely happy. Itachi could not say whether he had really gone into depression, but he would try his best to prevent this from happening. It was difficult to avoid thinking about what happened a few days ago. He still felt like punching his fists against the wall until they bled, easing his anger at himself, or lying in bed and not getting up there for hours, just doing nothing, or sleeping. This job that Kakashi gave Itachi was really doing him good. Taking care of an abandoned child prevented him from falling under any temptation.

After finishing dinner, Itachi helped Mikoto do the dishes, and he took her to the living room, where the three sat, Yuki sitting on Itachi's lap. The Uchiha's kindness soon made the child feel comfortable enough to trust and approach him. While they were talking, and Itachi was telling about how those days were going with Yuki, talking about her, there was again a knock at the front door. Itachi went to answer it, and he was surprised by who was there.

"Ah, did I come at a bad time?" Sakura asked when she noticed that there was a pair of shoes beside Itachi's and Yuki's.

"No, not at all. My mother came to visit us today. Please come in."

Sakura nodded and went into the house, putting on a pair of slippers that were there.

"Good night." She greeted Mikoto.

"Oh, Sakura-chan, good night! What a pleasure to see you. What are you doing here?"

"Is there something wrong with Yuki in any case?" Itachi, distressed, asked.

"No, not at all. I just... came to see how you two are. But it looks like everything is fine, that's great!"

Feeling a certain tension in the air coming from Sakura, Mikoto got up and went towards the door.

"Well, it was nice to spend some time here. See you, Yuki-chan!" She waved at Yuki, who waved back, shyly.

"A-already?" Itachi asked.

Mikoto approached Itachi's ear and whispered, resting a hand on his shoulder. "It could be a good opportunity for you, my son." She walked away and said goodbye to Sakura. "Until later!"

Without allowing Itachi to refuse, she soon put on her shoes and left the house, leaving Sakura and Itachi speechless. They looked at each other, and Sakura blushed. "T-this way..." Itachi, shyly, led Sakura to the sofa, where Yuki was, picking up the child and sitting with her on her lap.

"I-I see that she is fine, that's good! It looks like the treatment is working." Sakura stroked Yuki's hair.

"Y-yes, she is. Thank you for helping us."

"No need to thank me. It's just my job. Besides... What kind of person would I be if I didn't help a child with so many needs? In fact, I regret not taking any action before, but..."

"All that matters is that you are taking action now." Itachi interrupted, looking at her.

"Y-yes... You're right."

The silence prevailed for a few moments, until Itachi said something.

"Would you... like some tea? I can make it for us."

"I-if it's not too much trouble, I'll take it."

"Okay. I'm just going to put Yuki to bed then." He said to Sakura, realizing that the child was sleepy, yawning, and rubbing her eyes.

After taking Yuki to sleep, Itachi went to the kitchen, where Sakura had sat, in front of the dinner table, and started making hot tea for them. As soon as it was ready, he brought it to her and sat across from her.

"So..."

"Mm?"

"I-I'm glad Yuki is fine." Sakura tried to make conversation, blushed, while she drank her tea.

"Yes, she is." Itachi took a sip of his tea. "Do you... have any specific subject you want to talk about?

"W-what?" She was surprised.

"Well ... I think if you just wanted to see how she's doing, maybe you'd wait for me to take her to the hospital again, wouldn't you? To see the tests."

"Ah, that... Y-yes... That's true."

"So?" Itachi didn't want to be rude, but he was curious.

"I just... wanted to get closer. See how she's doing, I was worried. And... I wanted to get closer to you too."

"T-to me?"

"Y-yes. Y, you know! We have known each other for so many years, I often go to your parents' house, and... we barely speak to each other."

"Ah, I see."

"I-it's not like ... I wanted to try something with you"

"Try something?"

"I-I mean... I... Y-you know! It's not like... I wanted to approach you with ulterior motives. Even though maybe, just maybe, I feel something for you. I'm sorry! I know you're engaged, but... A-anyway- "

"You feel?"

"T-that's not what I want to talk about now! Besides... recently you've looked so... different."

"And why do you think that?" Itachi tried to avoid getting into the romantic subject that Sakura said.

"You... look so sad, you know. So down. I have no idea what happened, but if you need anything, I'm here for you." Sakura put her teacup on the table and looked into his eyes. "You were always so kind and cheerful... I got worried about you."

"Oh, I..."

"I understand if you don't want to talk about it! But if you need to... I'm here."

Itachi took a deep breath and, after gathering courage, said.

"Come here for a moment."

Itachi got up and took Sakura into the living room, sitting on the couch. After a few seconds, after Sakura sat down next to him, Itachi started to speak.

"Do you... remember Izumi?"

"Izumi? Yes, she is your fiancee, isn't she?"

"..." He looked down and just nodded. "Well, some incidents have happened recently."

"And do you want to talk about it?"

Itachi nodded. "Well... The first thing that happened was that... well, you know that I have an incurable disease, right?"

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry we didn't find out what it is, and its cure. But you're getting the treatment, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Thank you for helping me, by the way. But... A few months ago, I discovered that... because of this disease, I am infertile. It ended up making me very sad."

"Oh, Itachi, I'm so sorry!" She rested a hand on Itachi's shoulder for a few seconds. "And how did you find that out? I mean, I guess you did the tests, but... Why did you suspect that?"

"Well, even though we're engaged, not married, Izumi and I really wanted to have a child. Very much. So we... tried. Several times. Days and nights, for weeks."

"A, ah..." Sakura blushed when she heard Itachi talk about sexual matters.

"I don't even care that much about sex, you know? It doesn't matter to me whether I do it or not. Do you think I'm weird?"

"N, no, of course not! You... probably are what they call asexual, aren't you?"

"Maybe, I don't know. Anyway, even though I don't really care about it, I love Izumi, and we tried very hard. I think we spent most of the day trying, from all possible positions, to maybe help with fertilization. And... it didn't happen at all."

-----

After getting out of bed that morning, Itachi went to his kitchen, greeting his fiancé, kissing her on the cheek.

"Good morning."

"Good morning, Itachi-kun. Did you sleep well?"

"Yes... But I'm still a little tired."

Izumi laughed sheepishly.

"And... are you feeling anything?"

"No... But let's wait a few more days! It's not like I'll feel like I'm pregnant after a night of... you know what... Who knows...!"

"Izumi... Don't you think it's strange?" Itachi said, sitting on the chair next to her.

"I don't think so. Many couples take years to finally have children, it must be normal."

"But... we're trying so hard. And yet..."

"Don't worry, everything will be fine!" Gently, Izumi tried to cheer Itachi up, smiling at him.

"I hope so..." He put one of his hands over Izumi's hand, looking at his engagement rings and caressing her hand, smiling sadly.

"Don't be like that..."

"Don't you think I should do the test? You know, just to be sure."

"Maybe, I think it would be a good thing."

"Yes..." Itachi stopped for a few seconds and then blushed. "Uh, but to do that... I need to..." He looked away.

"If you need to, I'll help you." She smiled looking at Itachi, making him even more ashamed, and Izumi laughed.

A few days later, Itachi and Izumi met in the clinic room, waiting for the result to be announced by the doctor, who sat across from them.

"Itachi-san..." The doctor looked at the man. "Izumi-san..." He looked at the woman. Itachi was already preparing for the worst, feeling his heart pounding. "From my tone of voice, I imagine you already have a feeling about the results." Izumi held tightly the hand of her fiancé, who was apprehensive. "I'm very sorry."

"B-but why is that, sensei? What's the problem with us?" Izumi asked.

"Well... it's not you, Izumi-san." He looked at the Uchiha. "You know how serious your illness is, don't you?" Itachi nodded. "Well... It turns out that it affected your fertility too. The chances of you both having a child are... very low, almost nil, no matter how hard you try."

Although he already expected such a result, Itachi got shocked. His hands were shaking, and he squeezed Izumi's hand tightly, looking down, frowning.

"Well, but as you may know, there are always alternatives! You can adopt, contact a surrogate mother, or even try artificial insemination! You-"

Itachi got up from his chair, not sure how to react.

"Itachi-kun..." Izumi looked sad and concerned for him.

"Thanks for the help, sensei." Itachi bowed slightly, and opened the door of the room, leaving. Izumi quickly thanked the doctor, and went after him.

"Itachi-kun, wait!"

Itachi ignored Izumi's words and just walked towards his apartment, crestfallen. When he got there, he sat on his couch, and rested his head in his hands. "Why...?"

"Itachi-kun..." Izumi sat down next to him, hugging him by placing one of her arms behind Itachi's back. "You didn't even want to hear what the sensei had to say... Why don't we try the other alternatives?"

"No."

"No?"

"...Sorry, Izumi. I... need some time to think, okay?"

"Sure... As long as you need, my love."

After a few minutes of silence, Itachi got up from the couch.

"I'm going to take a bath." He said as he headed for the bathroom.

"Sure... Do you want me to make you some tea?" Izumi replied, while watching Itachi entering there and removing his shirt.

"No."

"Then-"

"Izumi."

"What?"

"I... I think you should go back to your own home now. I need some time."

"I see... Get better soon, Itachi-kun." Izumi walked away and left Itachi's apartment.

-----

"I'm sorry... it must have been terrible." Sakura said to Itachi after hearing what he had to say. "But... Why don't you try to adopt? Look at that perfect opportunity, Yuki-"

"I'm not done."

"?" Sakura was surprised.

-----

In Itachi's apartment, the Uchihas were preparing for a new mission. Itachi wore his green jacket and tied his forehead protector, while Izumi waited for him, sitting on the bed.

"Are you sure you want to go with me?"

"Of course! Why shouldn't I go?"

"It's too dangerous."

"Come on. I know I'm not a Jounin yet, like you." Izumi got up from the bed and flexed her arm, pretending to show her muscles on her thin and delicate arm for him. "But I'm as strong as you are!"

Itachi chuckled at her and, wrapping her in his arms, kissed her on the lips. "Yes, you are." He smiled. "I'm just... worried, you know."

"Don't worry! I know you're going protect me if anything happens!"

"Izumi..." He looked into her eyes. "Right."

"And when we get back, we're going to the orphanage! I'm looking forward to adopting a child with you."

"Are you sure you want to do this now?"

"Of course! Imagine how cute our child is going to be, watching us get married!"

"Hahah, that's true." Itachi kissed her again. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Itachi-kun."

After kissing her again, Itachi left his room and went to the entrance door, putting on his shoes. "I need to stop by my parents' house first. Are you coming?"

"Of course!"

So, Itachi and Izumi went to Itachi's parents' house, to talk about the mission that they were both about to go.

"Are you prepared?" Asked Fugaku.

"Yes, father."

"You know how important and dangerous it is, don't you?"

"Yes, I am aware of that." Itachi nodded.

"These spies you are going to deal with are very skilled, Itachi. Take care. You too, Izumi."

"Got it!"

"So... We're going now."

"Until later!" Izumi said, excited as always.

"Be careful." Said Mikoto, next to Fugaku.

After the couple arrived in the Konoha forest, they stealthily entered it. Until they both felt the presence of the spies.

"Stay behind me!"

"I know how to take care of myself!"

Itachi threw kunais towards one of the spies that had appeared, and Izumi used her Katon. More and more spies appeared. Dozens of them surrounded them, but they couldn't keep up with the couple. Skillfully, they defeated one by one, taking light damage, until one of the spies lured Itachi a few feet away from Izumi. Itachi, falling into the trap, saw in slow motion another spy, who hid their presence until then, approaching behind Izumi with a sword. Desperate, he turned to her, extending his hand towards her.

"Damn it! Get there on time!"

But it was too late. Before Izumi could defend herself, the sword went through her body through her back. Itachi, being overwhelmed by his anger and frustration, defeated, with his blood boiling with hatred, the spy who had attracted him, immediately defeating the one who had hurt his fiancé after it.

"Izumi!" She fell into his arms. "Hang in there! Let's go to the hospital, they'll take care of you-"

"Itachi-kun." Izumi's weak voice called him, as she placed her delicate hand on his face. "Thank you."

"Wait, Izumi! Hold on!" His wide eyes looked at her as she smiled gently with blood dripping from her mouth. Izumi closed her eyes, and Itachi, desperate, ran back to Konoha with his fiancé in his arms. He had soon arrived at the hospital, begging them to see her.

Izumi was immediately taken to the operating room by Tsunade, who coincidentally was there, despite being no longer Hokage, and her assistants, including Shizune. Itachi, with his hands on his face, shook his legs, restless and impatient, sitting on the bench next to the operating room. Hours later, Tsunade left, and went to Itachi, with a serious look, sitting next to him. Itachi didn't have the courage to say anything, and he waited for the doctor's words.

"Itachi..." She looked back at him. "I'm sorry, we did everything we could. But the wound was too deep. She probably couldn't be saved even a few seconds after being injured."

Itachi's eyes widened in disbelief. He didn't know how to react. He couldn't believe it.

"We should bury her tomorrow." Tsunade went straight with her words, and put her hand on his shoulder.

Itachi still couldn't say anything. He just nodded and left the hospital, going straight to his parents' house. As soon as he arrived, Mikoto answered the door, welcoming him.

"Hey! Where's Izumi-chan?"

Still speechless, Itachi hugged his mother, finally letting his tears of pain and frustration flow.

"I failed." His faltering voice came out of his throat. "I failed."

"Itachi-kun..." She returned the hug, and soon Fugaku went to them, without saying anything. "Come, let's put on some comfortable clothes.

Mikoto took Itachi to his old room, helping him to change clothes, removing that Jounin outfit, and putting on clothes he used to wear daily.

She sat with him on his futon, leaning their back against the wall, hugging him with one of her arms, caressing his shoulder.

"How was the mission?" Her father asked.

After a few seconds of silence, he finally answered. "The spies... were all successfully defeated. But there are probably more of them."

Fugaku approached Itachi, crouching in front of him and resting his hands on his son's shoulders. "So don't let Izumi's death be in vain." Fugaku's harsh words hit Itachi's heart, who finally realized what had happened. Fugaku left Itachi's room, hearing his son's loud and desperate cry. It wasn't like Fugaku didn't care about him, he just wasn't good at expressing his feelings. But deep down, he felt that pain for his beloved son.

Itachi cried himself to sleep. Mikoto gently covered his son on the futon, and left him there, alone, so she could cook the dinner.

"I'm back." A voice came from the entrance's door.

"Welcome back, son." Mikoto greeted Sasuke, who was entering the kitchen. "How was your mission?"

"It would've been successful if Naruto didn't overdo everything he does. At least Sakura was there to heal him."

Mikoto chuckled. "You guys get along so well."

"Not even a little." Sasuke sat at the dinner table. "Has my brother returned from the mission yet?"

"Yes... He's in his room. He... He's not doing very well. Izumi-chan passed away during the mission. Be kind to him."

"Nii-san..."

After Itachi woke up, feeling a little lighter, from crying, he got up and went to the kitchen, sitting at the dinner table, without saying a word. Nobody had the courage to say anything to the poor man. Dinner that night was silent.

After the meal, Itachi got up slowly, and when he was on his way to his room, he was called by his mother.

"Why don't you go for a walk? You need to calm down a little and get distracted."

"Sure... I will." With his faltering voice, Itachi answered Mikoto, obeying her and heading towards the entrance door.

-----

"And that's when... I found Yuki. Walking around to try to calm down and distract myself, I saw her at the playground. She was alone, and when she saw me, she was skittish. But then, some days later, when I commented on her with Kakashi, he told me to try to get close to her and take care of her. He said it would be good for me, that I should take a vacation from the missions, and that it would distract me a little."

"Itachi... I... I'm sorry." Sakura, with some tears streaming from her eyes, said. "I didn't know about that..."

"It's okay. I didn't say anything to anyone. Only Uchihas and people close to her were at her funeral. I imagine that few people know what happened."

After hearing Itachi's words, Sakura hugged him warmly. For long, silent seconds, they stood there, holding each other, until they finally got apart.

"Thanks."

"Can I... say something?"

"Of course."

"You... Don't you think it's the perfect opportunity to adopt Yuki?"

"What?"

"It may be a little sudden, but... Well, you two are alone. Yuki lost her parents and has no one but you. You... lost Izumi recently. Besides, you want to have children, but you're sterile. Perhaps it would be the realization not only of your dream, but also Yuki's, and even Izumi's." Sakura said, unable to meet Itachi's eyes. "I don't think Izumi would like to see you sad and depressed like that."

"I..." Itachi, looking down, thought about what Sakura had said. She was probably right, but it was a very sudden decision to make. At the same time, he felt that perhaps that was the right thing to do. "You're right... Just... give me some time to think."

"I know you are going to make the right decision."

Sakura stood up and when she was about to say goodbye to Itachi, he looked at her and said.

"Don't you want to sleep here tonight?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's already late, and... Well, I can sleep in the same bed as Yuki. There is a futon in her room that I washed recently. I can put it in the living room, if you prefer. Well, it's up to you." Itachi felt lonely, and needed another company.

"But of course. I just don't have any pajamas to sleep in."

"I'll lend it to you. I brought some of my clothes so I could spend a few days here."

"Right, thank you."

And so, Sakura spent the night at Yuki's house. She decided to sleep in the same room as them, giving all the support that Itachi needed. They talked a little more before getting asleep, in a low voice, so as not to wake Yuki up.

The next morning, Sakura had woken up before Itachi. She was used to getting up early due to her work. As it was Saturday, she didn't have to go to the hospital, but still, her biological clock made her wake up very early. She got up carefully, so as not to wake them both, and prepared breakfast for her.

A few minutes later, Itachi left the room and went to the kitchen, curious.

"Oh, good morning. Did I wake you up?"

"Yes... But that's no problem." He approached Sakura.

"I... I'm making breakfast for us. Have a seat, please."

Itachi obeyed her and sat down in front of the dinner table. As soon as it was done, Sakura put a cup of tea in front of Itachi, and toast with butter and jam.

"Thanks." He said in a low tone.

Sakura sat next to him, with her breakfast, and started eating. It was a long and quiet meal, until Itachi finished. He was going to get up to wash the dishes, but was stopped by Sakura.

"Let me wash it."

"Right, thank you." He went back to his seat.

Sometime later, it was Yuki's turn to wake up. She was still sleepy, but feeling the smell of the food, she went straight to the kitchen. Sakura prepared hot chocolate and a slice of toast with butter for the child, who ate slowly. After she finished her meal, Itachi called her to her room, to talk about something.

"What happened, onii-chan?"

"Yuki-chan, do you... want a family?"

"Family?"

"You shouldn't be living alone, you know. You shouldn't be alone. You need company."

"Do you mean... an orphanage?"

"?" Itachi looked at her with concern.

"I hear a lot of people talking about this. That I should go to an orphanage." Yuki, sadly, looked down. "But I don't want to!" She looked at Itachi.

The Uchiha put a hand on her head, stroking it. "I know that, dear. It would be very sad, wouldn't it?" He got up from the bed and crouched down to be closer to her, resting one hand on her leg and the other on her head. "But... I didn't mean it."

"?"

Itachi gathered courage, and finally managed to speak to her. "You got a little bit more used to me, didn't you? Well..." He paused briefly. "Onii-chan is very alone, you know? I... I lost a very important person to me recently." He paused again. "Don't you think we would be a great company for each other?" He asked the child, looking deep into her eyes.

"D, do you mean..."

"Well, only if you want to."

Yuki's eyes filled with tears, and her heart beat faster. Yuki was incredulous, but happy at the same time. She nodded, and Itachi smiled kindly at her. The child hugged him, and Itachi returned the hug, stroking the back of her head.

Sakura, listening to everything outside the room, in front of the door, was happy for them. She was happy that Itachi accepted her suggestion. That was definitely the right thing to do. Itachi would no longer be alone and could cure his depression by taking care of a needy child, and Yuki would finally have a family again, and would no longer be an orphaned and abandoned child. At the same time, her heart ached, as she had feelings for the Uchiha. But he had just lost his fiancé, it was not the right time to try to approach him with such intentions. She should wait a while, maybe weeks, or months. One day she would finally be able to tell clearly about her feelings, and who knows, they would finally be together.

-----

Months later, Itachi, Sakura and Yuki went together to visit Izumi at the cemetery, bringing her one of her favorite foods as an offering: Dango. Itachi was no longer suffering from depression, and Yuki, despite not being fully healed, was much better, looking better and happier. Itachi eventually moved into Yuki's house, and, with the child's permission, finally cleaned her parents' room, donating the clothes of the deceased and using it as his room. He often encouraged her to say prayers for her parents at the memorial in the living room. Sakura had confessed her feelings more clearly to Itachi, but the man, still hurt by the loss, told Sakura to wait a while longer. However, he did not reject her love, and said that in the future, they could go on a date. Mikoto, Fugaku and Sasuke often visited Itachi in his new home, and had meals together. Sakura also used to visit them, to see how Yuki was doing, and to get closer to Itachi. Despite having suffered so much in such a short time, Itachi and Yuki overcame their losses and pain together, helping each other.

#itasaku #itaizu #fanfic #mine #otp #uchiha itachi #uchiha izumi #haruno sakura #one-shot #non-mass AU

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pleasancies · 3 years

Text

Tragedy At Brineward

content : team whump, self-sacrifice, collapse, bleeding, vomiting

wordcount : 2.2k+

This one needs a lot of setup before getting into the meat of things, a lot of action scenes, I'm actually a bit worried if this counts as whump. Anyway, this is set in Heretics series. The events in this happens before First Shot. Tagging : @summer-of-whump

***

Brineward Research Facility loomed in the distance. The moon basked upon the roofs, creating a bright silhouette as Avis watched from afar. Its walls enshrined with greenery. Stone constructs overgrown with mold and moss. It spread several meters outside of the gate, a contrast with miles of dead plants around it. Hiding so far up from the institute, it doesn't took a binocular to make out the soldiers standing guard and the occasional Professors passing to and fro.

Someone tapped on her shoulder. Avis turned around, seeing a fully equipped James, with Sherman standing behind him. It wasn't a uniform by any measure, but it's something that can protect. He hold a gas mask for her. Nancy kneeled beside them, tying her shoes. Emmet sat behind Nancy, his expression deep in thought as he shuffled a deck of cards.

"Isn't it a little too early to wear your entire gear? They might spot us from here."

"Change of plans. Mary's group arrives half an hour from now."

Avis took the mask and wore it over her face. "Is it bad?" She asked.

James shrugged. "Nah. They didn't say much. How's the lab going?"

"Some of them have been working all night. I saw one going back and forth between buildings."

"They received another Wreckage?" Nancy asked.

"Not sure. Ask Sherman. He's on watch duty this afternoon."

Sherman, who sat back in front of Emmet between the stack of cards said, "If I saw a package coming I would have said it already."

"Ominous," Nancy noted.

Emmet perked up, "Anyone guessing they're reanimating the Pilots or is it just me?"

Avis chuckled, "They might as well reconstruct the entire spaceship. Flesh and all."

"Even the—"

Everyone raised their voice, voicing variations of horrified expressions to them. Nancy let out a nervous laugh. Emmet smiled and throw a card on the ground. Sherman groaned. James walked over them, lightly poking Emmet and Sherman's back with his foot.

"Come on, put your mask back on. We're going in a few minutes."

The youngest member of the team huffed a yes before shoving the cards into his pockets. The conversation goes on, plans, strategy, teasing. They traced their way back, retreating from a small corner at the top of a cliff. Along the homogenous forest and down until they arrived at a set of boulders in a hidden corner of the hill. Avis could only see the front side of Brineward now, but it's not the building they have to watch.

James leaned the radio to his ears. It buzzed. An uncomprehensible scramble.

"We're just waiting for Mary to enter the driveway now."

The Motorwagen arrives. It was a behemoth. A train of repurposed shipping containers with a chamber for the driver at the front. For something so big, it barely made a noise. It halted at the checkpoint. This is it. Everything hinges on whether Mary could sell the act. The security guard gets out of his booth. Everyone draw their breath in. A hand stretched out of the vehicle window. It gave him a paper. Avis gripped her gun. James brings out his binoculars, trying to gauge the man's expression. The fifteen seconds of him reading was unbearable. It was too long.

He let her in. Mary drives inside, but there's no collective sigh of relief to be heard. Only footsteps slowly marching to Brineward.

The plan was simple. Mary's group enter at the front. Cause a ruckus while they sneak in by crawling at the stony fence. Once they notice Mary's a distraction, they will be too busy fighting while James and his teammates navigated the path Mary had prepared for them

They were quiet, save from a few confirmations between Sherman and Nancy. A strong breeze passed through the forest, leaving a loud shrill in its wake. Minutes passed. Then a bright flash of white.

Glass shattered. Smoke billowed. Avis felt the ground shake before hearing anything. It was on left wing. Second floor, in seventh window from the right. Another bang followed, on the opposite side. Outside, close to the hybrid garden.

It's time.

James group approached the outer walls. They hold their breath as their clothes hugged the toxic mold. It crawled to their improvised plastic suits, blades of grass writhing like worms.

Nancy keep her head up, observing the windows. Her hands frantically scribbling at her notebook as the others take care of the two guards advancing at them. She was almost done when someone snatched her hand. Emmett muttered a curse and landed a kick. It wasn't enough to bring the guard to the ground, but the man was off-balance enough for Nancy to stab him in the leg. He fell, and James helped her strip him off of any communication device.

"Sector 5-6-B. All clear," James lied.

That done, they went inside the building. They've memorized the blueprints, and Mary provided them an easy entrance. They crossed path with a researcher, and he backs off as far away as possible when his eyes saw their green stained plastic apron.

"This way guys," Nancy pointed. Avis and Emmet go first, gun in hand. She hope it was unnecessary. Most people would run seeing the mold, outer guards excepted. They had their own military grade cloak to protect themself for long term exposure. The plastic cover does not compare. Their paths were cleared first so they don't run out of time.

It was a desperate plan. Research facilities had a reputation for being impossible to infiltrate. Their fences are poisonous, and their gates will always catch someone that doesn't belong.

They ventured down the hallway. It smelled of burnt cables and gunpowder. A scream erupts from the distance. Avis checked at the corners of the ceiling. Broken cameras riddled with holes. Mary's work. She shot the ones still functioning. At a hidden corner of the far end of the floor, they found a set of stairs. The bottom was relatively clean than the chaos upstairs. They're on their own for now.

Emmet went first, and he was greeted with an identical corridor of the above. Slightly darker, with thick metal doors. It was quiet sans the buzzing fluorescent lights and the drumming of their heartbeats.

"There's cameras. Should I shoot it?"

Sherman shook his head. "They'll know we're here."

"But they already watched the cameras. It's better to make them react instead of us fighting off a coordinated strike," Avis said.

"Alright, but don't waste your bullets."

A muffled shriek followed the loud bang of their pistols. Avis heard pounding from one of the doors.

"Don't do anything rash. We're covered head to toe with mold and we will not hesitate to smear it on your face," James walked around the hall, adressing the hiding researchers as if they are lined up in front of him. He couldn't mimic the slight hysterical tilt in Avis voice, but his threat are bold enough to keep the reputation of Heretics as a mad terrorist group.

Nancy chimed in, friendlier "This will be over soon if you cooperate."

Sherman reached a door on the far end of the complex. A solid block of metal work with a narrow hole to pass paperwork. His fist rapped at the door. He heard footsteps, someone rummaging.

"Open up, we know you're in here."

"No!" The person shouted. "You're all empty threats. As long as I'm here I'm safe and the soldiers are slowly making their way to you."

James mouthed a word. Hurry.

Sherman took off his cover. He crumpled it into a ball and slipped it to the door slot. It wasn't halfway in when the scientist flung his door open. He trembled in the corner of the lab. The man barely struggled as Sherman drag him by the arms.

It was worrying. Avis glanced at the other labs. That man must not be the only one. How many of them are sitting patiently with help on the way? The ceiling vibrated. A deep thunderous stampede of safeguards and panic.

"Hey, I think we should wrap this guy's head with your coat. Get it over with. He did said he called for help," Avis said, slightly louder than she should.

"Please, no! I lied, I didn't get the chance."

"Right, right. Well, you shouldn't lie to us this time. This next part is important. You're going to lead us into your special storage section, and we'll activate the traps if you try to screw us over."

Avis smiled. It was never pretty. A little too big, coupled with asymmetrical rows of teeth. The man nodded. Sherman held him as he shakily press the code for the final basement's door. They walked down a stairwell, past a lab, a warehouse, and an office. The room was small. Three set of cubicles and rows of metal racks and glass cases. They set to work. Nancy and James head to the cabinets. Emmet and Avis searched the cases. Sherman guarding their hostage.

They came here for data. Every file regarding Brineward's experiments with The Ship, barring the most sensitive. Blueprints of cutting edge technology on the shelves are a bonus.

Avis grinned. Her heart thudded with her whole body. She was jittery. They're almost done. And yet, a nagging sense of dread crept up to her senses. The room shook. Loud footsteps marching. A small buzz of the radio were barely heard. James understand either way. His face fell.

"Run! Forget about the blueprints, we got what we need!"

The Thing found them halfway near the stairs leading to the ground floor. It pounced behind them. Emmet barely escaped. His gun fell from his grasp. He practically skidded on the floor. His back hits the wall, hard.

They all turned to look. They only glimpsed at the creature, but its form burned into their minds. A man, kneeling. His thighs and arms swollen with muscle. Sharp, gigantic teeth forcing his mouth to a permanent scowl. He had a wolf-like snout. Mostly humanoid, except for the peculiar haunted look in his face. Driven by adrenaline, Sherman shot him. It wake Nancy out of her stupor to run for Emmet.

"Come on, run! Don't pass out on me."

His shoulders hissed in pain as he tried to stand. Emmet staggered, one good push away from collapsing. The Thing gets up again, chunks of flesh missing from his face.

No time to waste. Avis threw a grenade. Nancy and Sherman had to practically hauled Emmet to the top of the stairs. They covered their ears and eyes as they run. The blast rippled through the basement.

A rap of frantic footsteps closing in on them. The Thing lets out a primal scream. An angry, deep red husk of a person.

A rain of bullets hit him. Wasn't an accurate shot, but it slowed him down. The group went outside, climbing and walking in detours and unlikely places to distract it. The Thing found them nevertheless. Again and again. James threw his last hand bomb. They slipped in an alleyway between two buildings.

"What the fuck is that and how did it find us so quickly?" Nancy shrieked between gasps of breath.

"I think it's the smell. It had a dog's nose. We can't hide as long as it knows our scent," James said.

"B-but we burned him twice! It must be dead by now."

"I'm not sure. The thing barely looked like it was in pain," Emmett leaned against the wall. His dark hair slick with blood. It flowed throughout one side of his face. His eyes are wide, terror transfixed to his expression. Avis could see the slight tremor running through his body. It made him look small. A young boy realizing his mortality for the first time.

The exit is still a long way to go, possibly guarded. They wasted most of their bullets.

Avis spoke up, "We should split up. James, you took Emmet. Nancy you're with Sherman."

"No, never!" James raised his voice. "I'm not letting you run alone. This thing could kill you."

"This is our best chance. I could be bait, while you and Nancy grab your files and scram. It can't chase us all. The worst outcome would be two of us coming back with fifty-percent of the data."

"This isn't about the mission. It's about you! The mission doesn't matter if one of us bite it in the end."

"I'm not letting the four of you die for me! Face it, one of us had to go."

"Then it has to be me." James said. His voice thick with emotion, "I'm the leader. I brought you all into this."

Avis hitched her breath. Her thoughts ran into a thousand directions. Words spilled from her mouth. "No. You-you're useful. You had a wife and kids. Emmett's still young. Nancy is smart, she's valuable asset. Sherman have to take care of his mother alone."

"What?"

"I said what I said. You're all more valuable and important."

Nancy pushed Avis to the wall, hoisting her up by the collar, "Since when did you have the right to judge how valuable our life is?!"

She didn't wait for a reply. "You matter. Just as much as me. You have a mother just like Sherman. What about her, huh? I don't care about the mission anymore. Don't do this."

"My mother's fine. She had my siblings. Heretic will go on without me. I'm-I'm not needed." Avis voice were hollow. Nancy dropped her to the ground, too stunned to process.

James turned to look at Sherman. His brows furrowed. He saw a pale face, sweat beaded on Sherman's forehead.

"You've been quiet. Are you—"

Sherman collapsed. His eyes rolled back, knees buckling. James caught him in a hug. Vomit splattered on the pavement. A slurry of blood red, yellow bile, and mossy green. The rampaging monster's roar could be heard from a distance.

"Please, keep them safe." Avis said. None of them stopped her as she charged her way further and further from the exit.

Next Chapter

#summer of whump #team whump #self sacrifice #collapse #bleeding #emeto cw #guns cw #whump series #whump fic #summerofwhump13

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aprils-arcadia · 3 years

Text

Killjoy

Members: Kihyun, Changkyun Genre: Fluff Word Count: 1,5k Summary: Once again Kihyun finds himself at the mercy of one of Changkyun’s drunk plans.

A heavy sigh escaped Kihyun’s mouth as he slowly noticed where they were headed. Changkyun had always been very good at taking back roads and weird shortcuts to throw Kihyun's sense of direction off, making him realize too late where they were going, too late to turn around.

The night was stuffy and humid and if it would have been up to him he’d have spent it holed up in his air-conditioned apartment instead of walking around in the middle of the night. Unsure where he was going but already dreading their arrival. He could feel his shirt stick to his body and cursed himself for having agreed to go out tonight. It would turn out like usual anyway. They turned a last corner and Kihyun was equally proud and agitated of having guessed correctly.

Changkyun on the other hand was in a completely different mood. He’d been happily strolling down the narrow lanes and alleys for the past 20 minutes, seemingly devoid of worry or care. It was a nice change of pace and Kihyun liked seeing him that way, that’s why even when he wasn’t in the mood he’d almost always agree to come along. Because for once it didn’t feel like the young man in front of him was carrying the weight of the world on his steadily broadening shoulders. Unfortunately this kind of thinking always got him to the same point.

Another friday. Another fence.

Changkyun had stopped in his tracks and turned around towards Kihyun, wearing his brightest smile. He gestured towards the fence and nodded.

“Pretty good, huh?” He looked like a little kid wanting to be praised for finally having drawn the sun not in the corner but as a standalone wobbly circle - a truly magnificent feat.

“Nope, not gonna happen.” Kihyun crossed his arms before his chest and briefly saw the mischievous glint in Changkyun’s eyes flicker.

"Come on! Don't be such a chicken! It won't be dangerous."

"You also said that the last time and we ended up in jail! So no thanks!"

“That was one night. And it wasn't THAT bad.” Changkyun shrugged with his shoulders like the night had been equal to being downgraded from a 5-star hotel to a 4-star one. And not like they were forced to sleep sitting against a cold stonewall constantly questioning if closing their eyes would even be such a good idea.

“Not that bad? May I remind you of that one creepy bloke that sat in the corner staring at us the entire time. And how in his end-of-the-world rant he told me to ‘watch out for the fairies’ because they were coming to steal my crackers.”

“Dude that guy was hilarious. Come on you gotta admit it was completely worth it”

“Worth it? We broke into an aquarium at 3 am because and I am quoting here ‘the fishies might be lonely’.”

“You say that like it was a bad idea.” Changkyun said defensively.

“Because it was for God's sake and now? Now you want me to break into an amusement park. What is it with you and the desire for breaking and entering every time you get drunk.”

Over the last 4 years Kihyun had become pretty familiar with the two vastly different behaviours Changkyun exhibited while drunk. Either he’d turn deeply philosophical wanting to discuss the meaning of life and the existence of the universe for what always felt like a million years or he’d want to do something dangerous or in his words exciting. These déjà-vus had to stop but Kihyun wasn’t able to figure out how to break that circle yet.

“Because it's fun,” Changkyun simply said. “Isn’t it?”

Kihyun hated to admit this and the words would never leave his lips unless they’d be tortured out of him but it was fun. It was irresponsible and dangerous but the sight of the huge fish tanks illuminated only slightly was a sight he’d not forget so soon. The eerie sounds of the water lapping onto the glass that would never have been audible during the day. The opportunity to enjoy the place completely devoid of humans. He didn’t like how they got there and he surely disliked how they left but he greatly treasured those moments in between.

“So let's hear it, what's your plan?” Kihyun asked purely out of curiosity. Maybe this time around Changkyun would have come prepared and not rely completely on his highly questionable ability to improvise.

“Easy. You give me a boost over the fence and then I'll pull you up.”

“That's the plan?”

“Yep”

“The whole plan?”

“Indeed.” Changkyun nodded sharply.

“You’re kidding, right?” Unfortunately Changkyun’s face remained unchanged. “That is not a plan. Not in the slightest. Seriously how is that supposed to be a plan?”

“Oh come on. It's not like you have a better idea.”

“I don't and you know why? Because I don't wanna end up in JAIL again.”

“But it would be so cool, don't you think? All the lights and the music.”

Kihyun looked towards the pitch-black park behind the fence and back to Changkyun.

“You do notice that everything is turned off right?” He said, cocking up his eyebrows and eyeing Changkyun in his perfectly patronizing way of stating the obvious to an apparently oblivious person.

“But we can turn them on.” Changkyun stated matter-of-factly.

“No sh*t, Sherlock. Great idea. How do you intend to do that? Do you know where the control room is? How do you plan on getting in there? Please, do enlighten me.”

“You know, I don’t like it when you ruin a perfectly good idea with all that realism. Why do you always have to be such a killjoy.”

“Killjoy?” Kihyun scoffed. “Seriously? Well one of us has to be the responsible adult in these scenarios. Otherwise you'd probably be dead in a ditch right now.”

“Like hell I would.”

“Do you even remotely recall all the things I prevented you from doing? Like at all? Believe me you’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for me.” Kihyun said, holding his head high.

“Yeah as if. And also we’ll never know because you are such a boring killjoy and wouldn't let me try it.”

“For good reason.” By now Kihyun's voice was raised and he could feel the anger bubbling beneath the surface. Why wouldn’t he listen. Once. Just once.

Kihyun’s phone started to vibrate and snapped both of them out of their bickering before it would turn into a fight.

“It’s Shownu. I gotta take this.” Kihyun felt the tension leave his body as he picked up the phone and heard the calm voice of his roommate. Kihyun walked a few steps further down the road but immediately regretted leaving Changkyun’s side the second he heard the distant clatter of metal.

“Don’t you dare!” Kihyun turned around sharply, his eyes glaring at the young man that was now suspiciously close to the fence, tugging at the rusty chain links. Sometimes hanging out with Changkyun felt like babysitting a toddler that you couldn't leave alone for five seconds or they'd start chewing on the crayons.

Only their responses differed greatly from Changkyun, who dramatically gasped and placed his hand comically over his mouth and not to forget the middle finger flung in Kihyun’s direction. An especially rude toddler he might add.

“Yeah got it. Thanks for letting me know.” Kihyun hung up.

“What’s up with Shownu?” Changkyun yelled as Kihyun made his way back to him. “Did you ask him to come along?”

“No, I didn’t and there is still nothing for him to come along to because we are gonna head home now. Shownu just said that he will spend the night at work.”

“That’s perfect!” Changkyun exclaimed.

“And how is that?”

“Obvious. He can bail us out anytime.”

“Shownu did not become a police officer just to bail your sorry ass outta jail everytime you so please.” Kihyun responded exasperatedly.

“But he definitely would. It’s the perfect night for this. Come on.”

Kihyun rubbed his forehead. This was getting exhausting. He knew the look in Changkyun’s eyes all too well and knew that he would not be able to stop him tonight. He’d have to trank him and carry him home if he wanted to achieve that. So the only reasonable thing left to do - and he hated himself for doing it - was to give in.

“Arggh, to hell with this.” Kihyun grunted. “Let’s do this.” Because at least that way Changkyun would not get into trouble on his own and maybe he would be able to prevent at least some more severe incidents by not leaving Changkyun’s side.

“Awesome!” Changkyun was getting ready at the fence to give Kihyun a boost.

“Great, so we’re not even following the tiny bit of a plan you had,” Kihyun said while already swinging across to the other side. “Just great.”

#mx #fanfiction #monsta x #monstax fanfiction #changkyun #im #kihyun #shownu #kihyun fluff #changkyun fluff #comedy #aprils fanfiction #aprils arcadia

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strawberry-jules · 3 years

Photo

i think i’ve mentioned my project to start dating myself and learn to fall in love with myself. i’m going to start documenting it here.

i’m in such a better place, thank god. i was really scared for myself, in a constant state of dissociation so far removed from myself i truly didn’t care if i died. i’m learning how to recover from an experience like that. i have such a short time here, i’m tired of feeling like i was feeling. i know that accepting myself as a whole and no longer projecting my insecurities on to a “person” i created in my mind (the shadow man, i’ll get to that in a minute) isn’t an option for everyone. i’m lucky in that i have a lot of choice and will when it comes to my mental health. i forget that sometimes. i always have had that ability to just choose how i’ll feel, it’s very helpful. anyway, onto my constant projection.

when i was in 4th grade, i wrote a story about the Shadow Man, a fictional character i created specifically for this school assignment. he was probably about 8 ft tall, and he was almost entirely 2 dimensional, like a cartoon, except his eyes. his head held no facial features except the sockets where his eyes would have been. two deep, somehow blacker-than-the-rest-of-his-being holes sunken into his flattened skull. he was solid when you looked at him, you couldn’t see through him. in actuality, he was a whisper of a black smoke that you could only feel near you.

we wrote these stories for a halloween activity in class. after i turned mine in, i looked across the room to the whiteboard, my eyes passing over the window momentarily. there was a man standing at the window, his shoulders and head were the only things visible, and he had a hat with a wider brim than i had ever seen, blocking out a majority of the light trying to filter into the room. i quickly glanced back, realizing that no one could be standing outside the window looking into the classroom-- the side of the room with the window was on the edge of a sudden almost 3 foot drop, the edge of a very sharp little hill, blocked in with a fence. there was only about 6 inches of space between the wall and the drop, perhaps even less. to be looking inside the classroom, someone would have to be standing on that narrow grass ledge between the wall and the fence, or they would have to be so tall that they could stand behind the fence at the front of the school, looking inside the window. no one was that tall. by the time my eyes found the window again, he was gone.

he stayed with me for many years after that. i was 9 at the time. as a child, i would feel him with me in the dark, when i was in the bathroom and steam fogged the mirror and i couldn’t see anything in detail, when i would trek out into the woods alone and i would feel the faintest brush of his hand on the back of my neck. i was 16 when i realized that he was a manifestation of my insecurities and fears, and he wouldn’t go away until i accepted them. unfortunately, i was too young and emotionally immature to actually act on that realization. i continued to allow him to be where i projected my fears of failure; didn’t pass that test? that makes sense, i could feel him breathing down my neck, in retrospect. instances like that.

the most intense encounters i had with the shadow man were my freshman and sophomore years of college, when i was truly alone. i had no one else to protect me from myself, and in my eyes, he took advantage of that. he would follow me home from nights i was so high i couldn’t find my dorm, knowing that i had put myself in a situation so dangerous with men i didn’t know. he would walk close enough that he could push the small of my back, urging me forward. i could hear his laughter, feel his cool breath through my hair. it became a game of cat and mouse: i would behave in a way that put me in danger, or i just simply knew wasn’t correct, and he would chase me home when i was finally alone, making me pay my penance. if he caught me, i would finally atone for my sins with my life as the payment. if i let him finally catch me and make me whole again, mistakes and emotional projections and inability to deal with sadness and anger and fear and hurt put back into me, the place where it really belonged, i would surely die. i couldn’t handle being held accountable to myself. sometimes, i would try to be brave. i would turn to face him, and he would be gone. i didn’t understand why i could never actually see him again after that day as a child. i could only feel him near me, constantly hovering, constantly watching.

it wasn’t until i came out as lesbian that i had my final encounter with him. i finally admitted to myself that i had been lying and hurting myself and pushing down who i really was, that i had been projecting my insecurities about my attraction to women onto him rather than dealing with it myself. i realized that i would never be able to accept all the bad things about myself until i accepted some real, hard to swallow truths. i’m a lesbian. i have an eating disorder that stems from control issues, more than likely due to my inability to control my sexuality. i have a hard time understanding who i am, because i never allowed myself to become myself. i put myself into a box and hid in it and never let my mistakes or real feelings near me. and that’s okay. it was my coping mechanism.

that’s when the walls of that box fell away, and i was left with this feeling that none of it was real, and the only real thing about me was a part of my identity i had spent no time with. so i managed to push away all of the good things about myself that came from the time spent in that box, because i felt like i didn’t deserve them, that they weren’t found in an association with my sexual identity and therefore weren’t who i actually am. with that feeling came the need to deal with all the bad things about myself, too, because i deserved it. i deserved to feel that pain for how i treated myself for so long. i got so high that i felt like i went to a different dimension. i saw the shadow man. i cried and i apologized to myself for letting it go on so long, and to him for making him the pinnacle of everything i hated about myself for so long. he forgave me, and he took my hand. he gave me back all the feelings i had pushed away for so long, and i was hit by this tidal wave of love. i opened my eyes and found that i wasn’t looking at the shadow man, i was looking at myself as a child. at some point in my early childhood, i think i was about 4 or 5, i realized i liked girls, but i also realized i wasn’t supposed to. so i hid it, and found it easier to hide all the feelings i didn’t like in that little box, that eventually morphed into the shadow man. at 9 years old, i wrote a scary story that i took so much to heart, i made it a place for everything that scared me, and what scared me the most was myself and everything i thought i shouldn’t be feeling. i had protected myself from myself for so long, that by the time i made it back around to me, the damage was severe. in that moment, i finally understood self love.

it’s taken a couple days for me to realize that i’ve been projecting my anger at myself onto my dad’s family, and that’s the reason i want to stop talking to them. they’re the main reason i hid who i am for so long. i wanted to be perfect in their eyes, to gain their approval and love that i was never given. there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence, i’m not going to get into it, but just gather that my dad’s family can be very toxic and didn’t like me growing up. i finally got to a place where they would approve of me, when my life fell apart, and i was forced to come to terms with who i am. is it right of me to be so angry at them when i was really the one doing the damage? no. but do i think they should be held accountable for how they made an innocent child feel, do i think they should be held accountable for their racist tendencies and selfish world views and constant purposeful ignorance? absolutely. and do i want to be the person to educate them? not really. there are so many of them in such a deeply rooted group think, it would take more out of me than i have to offer, to try to affect actual, substantial change in them. i have so little time on this earth, i don’t want to waste it on them when i could be helping people who deserve my help. i would spend so much of my time on wealthy adults who have college degrees and are willfully ignorant and have obviously made their choices to be such, when i could be helping someone who can’t help themselves, when i could be helping the people who actually want to make a change in themselves, who are open and kind enough to put others first. i’ve wasted the last 16 years of my life trying to please them, i don’t want to waste another 16 trying to educate them. they’re big kids, they can do it themselves and join me when they’re ready, or they can stay where they are while i surround myself with people who are committed to making a change and being good people.

and i want to be tolerant of them, to be able to look at them and say, it’s okay that you’re like this. but i can’t reconcile believing black lives matter while simultaneously making an exception for my wealthy, politically influential family and saying, well, black lives matter but it’s okay that you guys don’t necessarily think that there’s any real importance behind that phrase and i’m okay with that. because i’m not! and i’m not saying that they don’t believe that black lives matter, because i truly think they’re generally pretty ambivalent toward people of color, i just know that they don’t see any validity in saying that people of color are marginalized and oppressed and disenfranchised and persecuted/prosecuted at a significantly higher rate than white people and that’s a really, really big issue. in itself, in my eyes, apathy toward racism is just as bad as being racist, because you’re being willfully and knowingly complacent in hate crimes and perpetuating a society in which shit like this has to be said. guilty by association. it’s bullshit, and i’m tired of being okay with people’s apathy because we’re related. however, i do find myself drawn back to just resigning myself to my fate with them.

and this ties back into me dating myself. i don’t want to love someone who is so intolerant, i don’t know why i’m being so intolerant because it’s making it hard to love myself. i’m behaving like such an asshole, but i truly am stuck in such an emotional crossroads and i feel like i have to pick between advocacy and complacency, and it makes me feel so resentful toward my family for making me make the choice. why am i projecting my anger on them? what am i struggling with that i can’t get over? am i really this upset with them over their racist tendencies, or am i upset about something else and using this issue as a scapegoat? is it for how they made me feel about being gay for so long, so i’m using something else about them to fuel my anger because i’m angry and i have to feel like i have to have a valid reason to be angry? why am i not angry for myself? i don’t feel that upset when i think about how they made me feel, i’m mostly upset at myself for letting it get to me the way it did. i didn’t deserve that. i’m upset at how they made me feel, not necessarily at them. but i feel like i should be, so i’m using something else about them that does genuinely bother me as a way to cover up the fact that i’m angry that i’m not more angry and hurt, because i really deserve to be and someone needs to stand up for me because i never seem to be able to. i’m projecting my anger at myself onto them so hard that it’s hurting me.

i don’t know where else to go from here with this realization. i’m fairly sure i just hit the nail on the head with this issue, i just don’t know how to resolve it. i guess i need to learn what family means to me first. i just wish they were better people so that i didn’t have to deal with this.

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todo-ho-ki · 4 years

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If It’s Convenient for You, pt.7

Helllooooooo! I finally fucking typed part 7 y’all! It’s a miracle! I may even get part 8 to you guys in a couple days cuz I haven’t worked on this in a while and I know a few of you actually are digging it. Idk if this is the best of my work but I hit a MENTAL BLOCK okay

Word Count: 2,391

Pairing: BakugoXReader

Warnings: Cursing

@aurorahoneybuns @velvet-kissesss @chims-kookies

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

You couldn't say you weren't enjoying yourself. Bakugo was incredibly fun to mess with, snarky enough to mess with you back, and rude as all hell.

246 Moon Street." He hopped up and pulled a pen out of his pocket.

He pressed lightly on your arm, scribbling out..numbers? "Against my better judgement, I'm going to give you my number. If you're in trouble, send me your location." He looked at you for some sort of confirmation but you were only smiling stupidly. "Pay attention to what I'm about to say. You'll text me when you're out of the hospital. After that, it's for emergencies only. Think you can handle one simple direction?"

Your face twisted into a frown. "I'm bratty, not stupid."

"We'll see. Try not to get stabbed again." He trudged out without another word. "You get stabbed one time..."

----------- Soon enough, the doctor came and discharged you, giving you a nice pair of standard issue crutches.

"Try to stay off your leg as much as possible." His impossibly professional smile made you a little uneasy, a sharp pain flaring in your stomach.

"Thanks. I can take it from here. I know how to get out." Your tone hinted a polite but curt end to the conversation. Something was off, but you chalked it up to all the morphine. The nurse offered to wheel you out.

"Do you have someone coming to pick you up?"

"Oh yeah, I do," you casually reached for your purse and phone when you realized where it was.

The only decision left to make was to go get it and then call Bakugo. You shifted uncomfortably in the chair. How the hell were you gonna reach them?

"I'll let you wait in the lobby," she smiled.

Soon after she left, you rolled out the doors only to be greeted with Bakugo's expectant sneer, a hand on his hip.

"You're already here?"

"I remembered you phone was in your car. And I figured your dumb ass would try to go get it instead of just calling me from the hospital. Looks like you're bratty and stupid."

Your shoulders hunched. He was..kind of right. You'd never even considered using the hospital phone.

"I'm guessing I'm right since you have nothing to say for once,"he boasted, leaning over the wheelchair handles. You had no retort.

"You know, Half and Half's first idea was to keep you at our hideout, but I said no."

"Ah, I'm too much fun to have around. I get it,” you smirked."

"No, idiot. Because you're annoying."

"You know,if I were just some unsuspecting citizen, you'd be in so much trouble." Your arms crossed once again. He was starting to rub off on you. You never crossed your arms. Ever.

"Yeah. Luckily, you're the just most unbearable woman I've ever met in my life."

"Wow. Consider my feelings hurt." He didn't reply as he lifted you gently into the back of the van. The ride home was silent. You fiddled with controls and displays in the backseat until you couldn't take it anymore.

"Can we play some music? It's too quiet."

"Music is too distracting. Do you even know how many things I have to pay attention to?" You scoffed. He really was like a 20 year old grandpa.

"Did you buy this van?" It was the first genuine inquiry you had for him.

"The fuck? Are you trying to make small talk?" His eyes darted swiftly to the mirror and back to the road.

"I guess? I'm fucking bored," you whined.

"Then go to sleep or something!" You were about to retaliate, but that actually didn't sound like a bad idea. You didn't get much sleep in the hospital anyway. ---- You woke up in that same dark alley from before, breath quickening rapidly.

Shit. Am I in trouble again?

You looked around, hoping something familiar would come into view, but it was silent and empty. No houses, no end to the alleyway in either direction. The night was dark and cloudless. This time your immediate response was to check your leg for another wound. Nothing.

So I'm not injured. But I sure am alone.

The only thing in sight was the dim streetlight flickering above you. "Hello?" You voice was so small it didn't even echo. "Is someone there?" You felt the hairs on the back of your neck standing up and eyes on you. Shifting your body revealed that something had definitely happened to you, the same searing pain that was in your leg a couple nights ago was now in your chest. A distressing scream ripped from your throat. Looking down revealed a hole in your chest, clothes torn and blood running down your arm and pooling on your legs.

"S-someone help me!" You groaned as the wound in your chest pulsed and forced you to lean back against the rickety fence. The metallic taste of blood filled your mouth and an ice cold chill swept over you even though you were sweating.

"Your heroes can't save you here." A voice boomed menacingly from all around, like it was in your head. It swirled through your thoughts and even though you were covering your ears, it poured through, vibrating against the ground with a rumble. Your heart was pounding fiercely now, body shaking out of fear and blood loss.

"You are not safe. No matter how many heroes you surround yourself with, no matter where you go, no matter what you do, you will be found. Your life ends soon. Do not forget that." The voice sounded like nails scraping on a chalkboard, forcing you to grit your teeth and shudder.

You screamed against the voice, but it seemed like the wound reached your lungs, stifling your voice and forcing a violent fit of coughs. Blood poured from your mouth now, heart skipping beats and breath coming short and fast.

What the fuck is happening!? Where are they? Where is Bakugo?

"He's not coming. No one is coming. You are as alone as you've ever been." Goosebumps raised on your skin and your breath quickened again, shallow and painful with every draw. There were no words escaping your pleading mouth, huddled up against the fence. Long, loud bouts of thunder clapped endlessly and flashes of lighting painted the moonless night sky.

"We are coming for you." Your desperate eyes shot open; the voice was right beside you but there was no body attached to it. "Remember this feeling well. The feeling of being left to die with no one to even comfort you."

Raspy, constricted breaths escaped against the bouts of coughing. Your lungs felt like they were being torn apart under your rib cage, aching and burning from the inside out. You struggled to stay conscious, clutching at your heart.

It's just a dream. It's just a dream, it has to be a dream.

"Tell yourself what you need to. There are no dreams where we're taking you." Your heavy eyes opened to a face in front of you. His face was sunken in, appearing as if he didn't have any eyes in his skull. Pale, thin-looking skin stretched across his frame.

"You," you choked, spitting out a mouthful of blood. His pallid face twisted as you spoke. "You did this to me?" His smile stretched across his face just a bit too wide to be human. You stomach turned and your head felt more like a bowling ball, mouth going dry at the sight.

"You did this to yourself, Kurahiko Shouna." He spat your name. How did he know your name? You shoved yourself up against the fence as close as physics would allow, tears falling down you cheeks and sobs wracking you chest. You were so cold.

Stop! Stop crying! It hurts it fucking-

You tried to scream again, but not even a gurgled sound came out of your throat.

"Hey! Hey!" Muffled yells pierced the thick air around you. "Wake up!" It was quiet, but the voice was getting louder, breaking through the dark clouds and the thunder.

"You brat! You better not fucking die on me!"

"Bakugo!" The name fell out of your mouth before you awoke with a jolt. Your breath was heavy, hands running up and down your chest looking for a wound. Bakugo's eyes were as wide with fear as yours.

"What the fuck were you dreaming about? He asked, his hand lingering on your shoulder. But suddenly, you didn't remember why you were so worked up. There was no memory of the dream in your mind.

"I can't remember anything."

"You were screaming for me at the top of your lungs and you don't remember?"

"No." Your voice faltered, a little embarrassed if anything. There was a long pause before either of you spoke again.

"I don't even remember if it was scary. I guess if I was screaming it was." You were jarred by how confused you felt, head a little fuzzy and vision blurred.

"Well we're here. I've been trying to wake you up for 20 minutes."

"20 minutes!?" You rubbed your temples. Your chest still ached but now you weren't even sure why.

"I'm changing the plan." He sounded angry as he unbuckled you and carried you through the door.

"I have crutches you know." He turned his head to give you a look.

"I'm trying to make it through the door before next century. You scoffed as he turned the handle with little effort. Suddenly remembering your keys, you reached for them, only to find the door unlocked.

"I didn't- I didn't leave the door unlocked," you frowned.

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Yes." His features sharpened and his grip on you got tighter, eyes scanning the living room quietly before setting you down on the couch. Before long, you could Kirishima's voice quietly on the other end of the phone.

"I need you guys over here. Now. And be quiet about it."

He left quietly to scan the apartment while you waited, leaving you braced for impact on the couch. Luckily, Todoroki appeared quite quickly, opening the door silently. Unluckily, he scared the absolute shit out of you when he put his hand on your should.

You left out a terrified scream, and within a second Bakugo was in the living room, jumping at Todoroki. “What the-shit!” His eyes widened as he realized it was just a colleague and his assault stopped mid-air, with him crashing to the ground.

“...Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He wouldn’t make eye contact with either of you, opting to stare at the plant on the floor.

“What the fuck, you two!? I thought you were dying!” He picked himself up off the ground. At least you knew now he would be fast if something happened.

“I didn’t hear him walk in! And then a hand was on my shoulder and-”

“Shut it,” he growled. “Seriously Half and Half? We’re clearly dealing with someone who’s on edge and you gonna sneak up on her? It’s like you went to the fucking school of stupid! This is our mission! She is our priority! This is not a goddamn drill! Where’s Kirishima? You’re a fucking mess!” Todoroki opened his mouht, but Bakugo was too far into his rampage. “Don’t say a word!” He stomped out muttering. “It’s clear, by the way. Your dumb ass just left the door unlocked.”

You looked at Todoroki apologetically. “Sorry. I unleashed his wrath.”

“He’ll be fine.” He smiled much the same way he did the first time you met him. Reassuring and relaxing. After a few minutes, Kirishima walked through the door with a fuming Bakugo in tow.

“All right assholes. There’s a new plan. Two of us will patrol the neighborhood, and one of us will be in here at all times.”

You squeaked in response, but Todoroki beat you to the punch.

“You really think that’s necessary?”

Bakugo took a glance at you before continuing. “Something fuckin’ shady is going on here. I want someone to be able to get to her in a moments notice.”

You could feel some sort of emotion bubbling up in your chest. Bakugo? In your apartment? You’d probably rather just die if it came down to it.

“That was not agreed upon!” You blurted. Your face felt hot as all their eyes turned to you.

“Look, whatever happened in the van, that wasn’t normal. Someone needs to be here,”he reiterated.

“What happened in the van?” Todoroki’s eyebrows rose in concern.

“It’s nothing! It was just a bad dream! And I don’t even remember it.”

Bakugo’s eyes rolled. “Can’t you ever just say okay? We’re trying to protect you.”

“From my own brain? It’s not a big deal!” Your volumes were both rising to match, Todoroki’s fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, Kirishima with a pained look on his face.

“It is a big deal! You seem to be under the impression that you’re getting a choice!”

“I don’t want you in my house!” You were yelling now, stunning everyone with your declaration. Everyone had an eyebrow raised. You hadn’t meant it like that..

“I’ll give you one chance to take it back.” His teeth were clenched together, and you were certain there were actually fumes were rising off his body.

“I just- you don’t even know my name!” You pleaded.

“And who’s fault is that?”

“When was I supposed to introduce myself!? In the store when I thought I’d never see you again? When you idiots were following me to my car? Maybe after I got stabbed? Or maybe when you threw me around at the hospital? Would that have been a good time?” You were sure you’d done it now, the look on his face leaving you feeling cold.

“What...is your name?” Kirishima asked cautiously.

“Kurahiko Shouna.” You rubbed at your temples. You weren’t sure these dudes were anything more that people pretending to be heroes.

“Tch. There. Feel better?”

“Of course not. I can still hear and see you,” you shot back.

“It never fucking stops with you, does it?”

“I don’t know man, maybe you should try being nice to her. She’s never said anything mean to me,” Kirishima beamed.

“Whatever. You two start your fucking work. I’m starving.” The other two took their leave promptly, the air stagnating as you both went silent.

#bakugoxreader #bakugouxreader #bnha fic #mha fic #update lol

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whinemcm · 4 years

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LITTLE CHARACTER THINGS

Just a fun little character game. Fill in the below categories with 3-5 things that your character can be identified by. Repost & tag away !

TAGGED BY: i stole this from @pristinette because this fucking SLAPS. so much. its so good. im not sorry about it. TAGGING: @walkrbait @peacefulapostle @herbounty @waterfrd @noblecide @quelled @fmly (for which ever muses!) and YOU. i stole this so can you. there are no rules here.

EMOTIONS / FEELINGS:

001. self-loathing; a deep hatred for the person you’ve become.

002. protectiveness; to keep those you love from feeling the pains of this world

003. anger; an underlying rage that won’t go away completely

004. sorrow; breaking down in tears at the drop of a hat

005. nostalgia, inability to let go of the past and finally move on.

GREETINGS:

001. a shitty pickup line

002. a drawn out, drunken hey; followed by a pet name.

003. a polite smile and handshake

004. butting in on conversations you weren’t apart of

005. a small nod from across the way

COLOURS:

001. hues of brown and beige

002. a rich black

003. deep wine red

SCENTS:

001. a sweet, aromatic wine scent

002. an expensive smelling perfume, never changed, floral in nature

003. occasional leather, whiskey, and cigarettes something normally associated with the neighbor

004. the salty smell of the ocean

CLOTHING:

001. a sensible sweater and skirt combination; modest everyday wear

002. high waisted jeans and a striped button up shirt; for playing at home with the kids

003. the little black dress: perfect for date night. hanging in the back of the closet, hasn’t been worn in years

004. silk robe over a pajamas: the outfit worn when you’re up worrying about how your husband still isn’t home by 2am.

OBJECTS:

001. a cross necklace, that weighs a little too heavy these days

002. an empty glass, waiting for the next drink to be poured

003. a wedding ring that has hardly been seen off your hand since it was first put on

VICES / BAD HABITS:

001. substance abuse. the only way you can think to cope nowadays. anything you can take to alter your mood. to keep you numb to the hardships of your life. to bring you up from a depression. going to the bar 3 times a week might seem excessive, but it’s what you think you need.

002. belittling others and defensive jokes. words hurt, and you know that much. still it makes you feel some sort of vindication watching him squirm uncomfortably. jeez, it was only just a joke in the first place. he was taking it too hard. that’s really all you have anyway, jokes to cover up the hole inside you.

003. hanging on to the past. through it all you still can’t let go. your mind constantly flickers back to the good times and the happy memories. the idea that it’s still possible to get back to how things used to be is a strong thought in your head.

004. constantly suspicious. despite the apologizes, you still won’t get over it. constantly sitting and listening. taking in every detail. hard to trust anything he says or does. second guessing each little thing he says. reading in to new friendships and overreacting to them.

005. holding others on a pedestal. those you like can do no bad. it’s easy to turn your head from each way they have wronged you and you forget every bad thing they ever did. the pedestal has cracks all throughout it. you pretend not to see them.

BODY LANGUAGE:

001. dismissive gestures; physically throwing aside comments you try not to think about.

002. crossed arms, closing yourself off to what you don’t want to hear, protecting you from the truth. sitting and stewing like a child in time out. a way to express disappointment

003. rolling eyes, expressive eyebrows; unable to hide your instant reactions of annoyance and disgust

004. proximity; often withdrawn and distant, yet at times unbearably close; infringing on others personal space.

AESTHETICS:

001. wine stained lips. the poison you drink trying to kill the thing inside you, you hate so much. the dark lighting of the bar makes it harder to see the bags under your eyes. the neon however, sparks an enthusiasm as you look through the crowd looking for your next victim. the helpless 22 year old has no idea what’s coming when he buys you another drink for the night.

002. mary mother of sorrows. the cross on the wall provides a sense of comfort and protection. hands press together in prayer as you turn to god for answers. tears streak down your cheeks. wallowing in depression. being all too familiar with the temptations of sin.

003. norman fucking rockwell. white picket fences. the perfect family at first glance. shouting behind closed doors as you try not to wake the kids. family portraits all along the walls of the house. going to church every sunday. crying yourself to sleep every night.

004. the ocean. waves crashing against a rocky shore line. freezing cold water that shocks the senses as soon as you step foot in it. the feeling of an oncoming storm. water so blue it reminds you of his eyes. faint sea shanties echoing in the distance. a much harsher version of the sea you once knew.

005. polaroids kept close. a youthful smile, free from the harsh truth of the world. a blue convertible driving down the highway, the beach boys playing at full volume. a drive in date where the movie was forgotten. your eldest child’s first steps. focusing on memories of the past. clinging on like they’re the last thing you have.

SONGS / PIECES:

001. american wife – rilo kiley

002. hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – lana del rey.

003. mrs robinson – simon & garfunkle.

004. under the table – fiona apple.

005. no children – the mountian goats.

#character study.#now why i wrote this all in 2nd person i cannot tell u other than it just felt right...#its about the aesthetics......#but seriously this questionnaire slaps and i went VERY hard on it so.....#but please everyone do this #long post/#« ✞ ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴇʀᴇ'ꜱ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍʀꜱ. ʀᴏʙɪɴꜱᴏɴ ✞ » « character study. »

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cutiecrates · 5 years

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Cutie Reviews: Yume Twins Oct 18

This month, the magazine features an article on Nyanpire, and this is the months Yume Prize:

Besides Pokemon, we also got some adorable Marumofubiyori items, fitting in with the prizes from the months contest.

Nyanpire Clear File

Besides Hello Kitty, Nyanpire is another asian kitty I’ve always been crazy over; and who better to celebrate Halloween with? Especially when you have 3 cute designs!

I never really have much to say about clear files (and now is no exception) but I love how decorative it is, and I like the idea of of having one that suits the holiday, so if you did use these you could swap out another one for it if you wanted.

Like the file I previously reviewed- this one is pretty bent from being shoved into a box. But as I’ve noticed the last one has straightened up nicely and I’m pretty sure this one will too. Although out of the 3 I think this one was the worst in terms of out of box shape.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I initially didn’t plan on rating this as I didn’t have very much to say about it. But as I mentioned above, I feel like the out of box plays an important factor on these files. Maybe I’m just being nitpicky but I don’t really like the idea of using it while it’s so bent. It can be fixed no problem so it’s not a big deal- but I kind of wish the boxes were more... suited for items like these?

Also, the plastic wrapping on it was a real pain to pull off, I had to tear it apart and it annoyed me because I wanted to keep it in one piece to re-use.

Spirited Away Origami Set

Our next item is this fun set of origami papers, with an included tutorial on how to make an origami ghost like the one I made here. In the set there are 4 different papers (and I only just now realized that instead of the 4th paper I put in the packs cover image... the 4th paper is the black one on the bottom left-hand corner).

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I was a little conflicted over how to rate this one, because I think origami is pretty fun and it’s a nice way to relax after a long day or in those stressful times. The paper feels really nice and I love how detailed each one is, it’s pretty rare for me to ever see any that isn’t just plain or textured paper.

But at the same time, my little issue is that I actually am not very crazy about this paper either. I really like the cute pastel block one, but I’m not a huge fan of this movie so I feel like I’m unable to fully appreciate it. Like, I don’t see myself using it very often unless I want plain paper or really wanted to make origami and didn’t have anything else... I also kind of feel bad using the paper because of the designs.

I’m an odd duck, I know.

Cute Cat Paw Gloves

These are purrrfect if you want to dress up as a kitty for Halloween~

They also make comfortable gloves if your hands feel a bit chilly to provide enough heat without entirely making them uncomfortable. They also just make a really cute fashion accessory.

They were available in black, white, and pink (and possibly more colors). There is also a yarn string you can loop through them to keep them connected.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As I already own a black pair I honestly would have loved to have gotten either white or pink, but I don’t hate these either. Out of all 3 pairs I have (the other color is grey btw, I got them from another box a year or two ago), I have to say that somehow these are the most comfortable pair I own. I really like wearing these whenever my fingers begin to freeze up, which happens kind of often.

Although they do tend to hinder things like using the laptop and typing...

If you would like to own a pair of these for yourself, I know there’s a handful of websites that sell these.

Kawaii Rabbit Plush

Our next item is this kawaii bunny rabbit; who I put like this this or the picture because from other angles it was kind of hard to get a good view of the details. The rabbit comes in several varieties, including this one, a pink one with a bow, a white lop-ear with a bow, white with black ears and paws, brown with white markings, and grey with white markings.

I kinda wish I got the pink one but I really like this one too. I’m not sure if she has a name so I’ll be calling her Marshmallow for now.

(also on a humorous note, they have “buttons” like pompompurrin)

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

The plush is one of those marshmallow squishy plush that you can squeeze and pull, the material is very soft. I love the little details like the pom-pom mouth and blushed cheeks.

I also really like the large variety offered with these; I like the idea of friends each being able to have their own variant, it would be perfect for role play as a magical girl or something :3 Each one has its own personality.

Ghibli Cup

This is our next item, an adorable plastic cup featuring 2 of Studio Ghibli’s really popular movies, an orange Totoro cup and a yellow Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery service cup.

If you’ve been a long-time sub subscriber you might recall a smaller Totoro cup I got like this several months/a year ago back. They’re probably by the same company or something because the drawing style of the Totoro one matches mine.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I know they’re just cups, but I really like these types. they’re so adorable and fun to use. I like using cutesy plastic cups like this when I’m not in the mood for something fancy like glass. My mood often changes.

I also like that you could use these for other things, like as a rinse cup, decoration, holding pencils/stationery or other small items, plus these would be suitable for children who might just be learning how to use a cup. You can do a lot with it without worry it’ll break.

Pokemon Hand Towel Set

Set items are pretty rare, and who doesn’t love adorable Pokemon home products~?

These sets of hand towels include 2 variations. Both feature one of pikachu an eevee (who each have 2 different designs), but the third could either be Gengar or Mimikyu! I love them both so I’d have been happy with either one x3

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

So as I said, it’s rare for us to get a set of anything so it’s already pretty nice because of that. I also think the designs are really nice, and because of it being a set you could share these if you wanted :D which is always nice.

If I had anything negative to say it’d be the fact that they have visible holes from where the little plastic bits held them together. But they’re not that bad.

♡ Cutie Ranking ♡

Content - 5 out of 5. I really liked what we got! I’m a little on the fence with the Origami paper, but I don’t hate it. We got a nice variety of items we don’t often get, minus the stuffed animal anyway.

Quality - 4 out of 5. Everything is fine, but the booklet mentions that there were bonus Nyanpire stickers for Halloween that I don’t remember getting. I don’t know if it was a last-second change in decision to not include it, or if I actually was skipped. I can’t remember if I wrote them an Email about it or not. So for possibly forgetting an item I’m marking them down for quality control.

Price - ???? out of 5. I’m not really sure how I feel about it this month. I kind of want to say no, I don’t think these are items all together worth 30-35 dollars, but because of the name brands I could see why they might be.

Theme: 5 out of 5. I feel like the items are sort of a play on the theme. Like Pokemon, which are Pocket Monsters, Nyanpire is a spooky-cute series, the rabbits are meant to resemble the magic aspect as familiars/pets owned by magical beings, cat paws for costumes, Jiji is a black cat... you see where I’m going with this?

Total Rank: 8 out of 10. I really liked the box, and I like how they kinda played with the theme rather than directly aim for it. But at the same time I kind of get tired of these mainstream brands showing up in these boxes; as much as I love Pokemon and Totoro, a break would be nice.

♡ Cutie Scale ♡

1. Rabbit Plush - With the variants possible to collect and it’s charming texture and appearance, I was definitely in love with my little Marshmallow~

2. Pokemon Hand Towel Set - I like how each one has a different design/Pokemon, although I kind of wish they had made a little more variety. There’s tons of Pokemon they could have used!

3. Nyanpire File - This is perfect for the Nyanpire lovers, Halloween, kitty lovers, and goths (or if you’re like me the loli-goths x3). It makes me happy to look at~

4. Ghibli Cup - I’m so happy I got the Jiji one x3 I love kitties, plus I wasn’t too crazy about the vibrant orange Totoro cup- but I like how they both fit the fall/summer season.

5. Cat Paw Gloves - I love how they look and feel, but as I already said I have multiple pairs of them so by now the same black paws are getting a little stale...

6. Spirited Away Origami - It’s not cute, like at all. But I do like the designs on them. Alrighty, that’ll be doing it for this review. I hope you enjoyed yourself, feel free to send me a message if you have any questions about the box or various box brands I order from ;3 next up I’ll be doing the Gacha Gacha crate I just got the other day, then I’ll be returning to our regular scheduled boxes. Until next time, stay cute!

#yumetwins #yume twins #Pokemon #studio ghibli

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blancheharrington · 6 years

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One Shot #19(ish)

Jo and Alex have their first ultrasound and find out some unexpected news.

On Friday morning, Jo unintentionally woke up an hour and a half earlier than she typically does on every other average day. However, she had a feeling that her body somehow must have known that today was not every other average day.

It was five o'clock in the morning and even the harmonies of the morning birds were still only tired, lonely, hums. She laid still for awhile in the darkness of the loft trying to will herself back to sleep, but found herself more alert with every imaginary sheep she counted jumping over their imaginary fence. When all of her sheep had been herded, and she found herself still wide awake, she continued to stare blankly at the ceiling. In an effort to entertain herself as well as pass the time, she began twiddling her thumbs. She tried breathing in deeply and she tried breathing out slowly. She tied and re-tied her hair, she switched positions, she tried flipping to the cool side of her pillow, she tried switching positions again. She tried everything she could possibly try in order to fall back asleep, aside from drugging herself, which she considered. She didn’t want to be awake any longer than required, because any moment longer than necessary was another moment of inextinguishable nervousness and if Jo hated anything, it was being nervous. It made her sick.

So, in acceptance of her fate Jo remained flat under the covers, wide awake. She could feel her stomach start to bubble and her heart start to beat faster than it should. She started picking at the skin around her thumbs knowing that by the end of the day they would be raw and sore and bloody. She told herself to stop. She knew it would sting later on when she had to rub in hand sanitizer for the thousandth time, but her fingers kept picking. Unraveling the skin on her fingers like a loose thread on a dress. Eventually the entire dress would come undone. Her nerves were spreading quickly and she knew that she could not stay in their bed for a single second longer. She felt as though she might actually suffocate. Still sitting in silence, Jo wondered if she would actually be the first person to suffocate while all of their airways were unblocked and intact. She gave up. Jo quickly rid her body of their duvet cover and rolled over to sit up on the side of the bed. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was 5:10 AM. This was going to be a very long day, she thought.

By 6:30 AM when Alex finally woke up, it had felt like an entire week had passed. Jo had already watched the sun shift it’s way into the loft, fought the urge to vomit, started a load of laundry that she would forget about until later that night, made a pot of coffee, dusted off their CD rack, wondered why they still had a CD rack, brought their CD rack to the side of the curb, made herself breakfast, ate her breakfast, made Alex breakfast, ate Alex’s breakfast, watched an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, squeezed in a quick shower and fought the urge to vomit again. By 6:55 AM, Jo was shoving a piece of toast into Alex’s mouth as he slipped on his shoes while simultaneously tried pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“I know it’s a big day, but what’s with the rush?” Alex had asked Jo as she was driving them to the hospital a few minutes later, a piece of dry toast still scratching at his throat.

“I just want to get there already.” She said. Alex glanced over to the speedometer which indicated Jo was going 67 miles per hour. He sat quietly in his seat and glanced out the window. The speed limit was 45. Or, at least he thought it was. They were going so fast that he couldn’t quite catch the sign in time.

When they reached the hospital, Jo parked in Alex’s spot even though they were in her car. It was closer to the entrance, it would be quicker, she told him. Parking ticket be damned. Alex attempted to keep up with Jo as she rushed inside the sliding doors, practically pushing an orderly out of her way. He barely caught up with her as she flew inside elevator, the doors almost closing before he slid his way inside.

“Jo, will you slow down?” Alex called out to her moments later when she exited the elevator and made a beeline towards the prenatal/maternity unit. He tried to follow in her footsteps as she swerved around medcarts and laboring women in wheelchairs and bassinets with sleeping babies.

“Will you speed up!” She turned and yelled back to him while continuing on her way. Hardly registering herself cutting directly between a pair of elderly cheerful grandparents carrying flowers and balloons.

When they finally made it to the waiting room, Jo had Alex fill out her paperwork. She told him that she forgot their insurance information, but when she had taken the forms from the receptionist she noticed her hands were uncontrollably shakey. She was unsure if she had attempted to write if her words would even turn out legible. Instead, she scanned through various maternity magazines, not making any attempt of absorbing the words on the pages. However, she couldn’t help herself from staring at the happy mothers with their happy babies and the occasional happy dads thrown into the mix. Once more she felt her heart rise and her stomach sink. She felt like she was simultaneously at the top of the rollercoaster while also plummeting towards the bottom. Jo noted the trash can in the corner of the room. That would be a good place to throw up, she thought. For a moment she considered letting it just happen, release it all like a rollercoaster going over it’s peak, until a nudge from Alex pulled her focus.

“We’re up.” He said, pointing towards the smiley nurse waiting in the doorway.

“Dr. Karev?” The nurse called out again while scanning the room. Jo stood quickly and followed her through a hallway.

Moments later, the nurse reached into a cabinet and pulled out a thin paper gown and handed it to Jo who couldn’t quit pacing in the examination room. “Alrighty, Dr. Karev. Just slip on the gown and saddle up onto the table. The drape’s right next to you when you’re all set. Just open the door when you’re ready and Dr. Tozer will be in in a moment.”

“Thank you.” Jo flashed a quick and nervous smile as the nurse quietly exited the room. Jo held the gown out in front of her, letting it unravel. “This is crazy.” She said to Alex who had been sitting relatively calmly in the corner of the room while Jo and the nurse had gone to check her weight. She glanced at her husband who had simply smiled back at her comment while she hastily rid herself of her shoes and clothes. Somehow the hours had passed, but time was still moving so slowly. It felt like it was taking an hour just to remove her own clothes. “Are you nervous?” She asked him while slipping her arms through the holes of the gown.

“A little. But, I think you’re nervous enough for the both of us.” He said as he watched her fumble to tie the back of the gown closed.

Jo gave up her fight with the plastic strings and moved onto removing her underwear and shoving her clothes into her bag. She shuffled her bare feet across the cold floor towards Alex who instinctively stood up as she turned around. Without words, she signaled for him to help her knot up the back. As she faced away from him, and without a minuscule task to complete, she realized she had nothing to do to fill the remaining time with but words. She gave in.

“I’m really nervous, Alex. Like, really nervous. I’m so nervous that I want to barf. I’ve needed to throw up all day. I need to. I do. It’ll make me feel better. I think I’m going to, okay?” Jo fiddled with her wedding ring on her finger, twirling it around, pulling it off and putting it back on. Trying to occupy herself with anything besides the thought of vomiting at Alex’s feet. But all she could come up with was how good it would feel just to do it and get it over with. Not because she particularly enjoyed the feeling of vomiting but because she wanted to think of nothing else besides the contents of her stomach for a whole thirty second. To not be nervous for thirty seconds. To not be worried. If her head was in a bucket she wouldn’t have time to focus on what may or may not be happening inside of her and what may or may not occur in nine months and how she may or may not have the ability to raise a decent human being.

Alex pulled tightly at his knot, signaling that he was done. He squeezed gently at Jo’s shoulders and spun her around to face him. His calm demeanor quickly turned to concern as he noticed Jo’s face begin to lose color and her eyes begin to glisten with tears. “Don’t barf. You’re going to be fine. Everyone’s going to be fine. We’re going to have a baby!” He caught her off guard with a kiss, followed by a tender peck to her forehead. When he pulled away, she appeared anyway but relaxed. As he went to lean in to hug her tightly, she spun away from him and walked towards the door of the exam room. He wondered for a split second if she was going to walk out of the room and never come back.

“You don’t know that.” She quipped back to him as she pulled open the door to let the doctor know that she was ready for her.

Alex put his hands on his hips in that certain way he always does when he starts to get anxious himself. “Know what?” He asked.

“That everything is going to be fine.” She said while climbing onto the exam table and swinging her legs into the stirrups.

“Jo.” Alex said with a sympathetic twinge. A tone that made Jo want to vomit even more. He stepped to her side and reached out his hand to grab a hold of hers, but she quickly moved it away from him and began busying herself with something else.

Jo pulled the drape over her legs and smoothed it along her bare thighs. She picked at the edges of the paper, tearing small pieces off and letting them fall into her lap. “You don’t, Alex! You don’t know! I could miscarry at any moment. I might not even be pregnant. Maybe the tests were wrong and I actually have some strange cancer instead. Maybe I am pregnant but the baby doesn’t even have a head. We could have a headless baby. Or maybe I could just die.” She tore another strip away from the paper and let it fall to the floor. She looked up to Alex just as a tear fell from her eyes. “I could die, Alex. This could kill me. I’ll die and I’ll just be another statistic for Arizona’s U.S maternal mortality rate study and you’ll be a widower and you’ll be married again in a few years because look at you of course you would and I know that cute nurse, Connie in Peds, has been into you for years because Janet in Ortho tells me every damn time I see her about how much Connie talks about you at their dumb Tupperware parties.”

Alex reached for her hand again, finally catching it. Her hand instantly relaxed in his grasp. “Will you stop it. You’re not going to die and I’m not going to be a widower and I’m not going to marry Connie.” He smirked as he ran circles along the topsof her hand with his thumb, “Besides, if I was going to remarry anyone, it would be Lisa in plastics.”

Jo ignored his attempt at lighting the mood. “I could, though! She showed me all of her graphs and charts yesterday. A lot of women die Alex! A lot!”

Alex made a mental note to yell at Arizona for her overbearing desire to share the statistics of her deeply depressing project to everyone she passes in the halls. “But you won’t be one of them!” He tried to assure her.

“But I could be. And then our baby will be motherless just like me.”

Alex went to speak again but was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Are you guys ready for me?” The doctor called out as she entered the room without pause.

“No.” Jo mumbled through a groan, pulling her hand from Alex’s grasp.

“Yes.” Alex blurted out after her in order to correct any confusion.

Dr. Tozer quickly washed and dried her hands and tossed the paper towel into the garbage, oblivious to the parental nerves in the room as they had become normal to her over her many years as an obstetrician. “I assume you guys know the drill? We’ll do a transvaginal ultrasound, make sure everything is peachy keen, take some measurements, grab a couple of picture, and then go from there. Sound good?”

“Yea.” Alex enthusiastically shook his head whereas Jo gave a nervous eyebrow raise as she laid her head back and shut her eyes. She heard her doctor slap on a pair of gloves and squeeze a bottle of lubricant. Can I throw up now? Jo thought to herself.

“Okay, Dr. Karev, some pressure.”

Jo flinched at the uncomfortable pain of the ultrasound. Somehow she wanted to vomit even more so than before. She started to feel lightheaded at the pressure until she suddenly realized that she had been holding her breath.

“Well, you’re definitely pregnant! About 6 weeks, I’d estimate.” Dr. Tozer assured the couple.

Jo, realizing again that she had been holding her breath, let out a huge sigh of relief.

“See, I told you you didn’t have cancer!” Alex cheered. He grabbed Jo’s hand once more and leaned down to kiss her cheek. The pair laughed in unison. In excitement. In disbelief.

“Oh, wow. Okay!” Dr. Tozer exclaimed, interrupting their moment as she began clicking more purposefully at the buttons. “It looks -” She began to speak before Jo quickly, awkwardly, and painfully leaned forward to the best of her abilities.

“Ectopic? No head?” Jo slapped Alex in the arm, “I told you something was wrong!” She looked back towards her doctor. “What’s wrong with it? Is it dead already? Does it have three arms? Is it -”

“Four, actually.” The doctor interrupted.

“Four arms!?” Jo gasped. She really, really needed to throw up. And she thought time was moving slowly before. Now it felt like time had completely come to a halt. “Alex, our baby has four arms and you won’t even be allowed to operate on it!”

Alex looked humorously between the doctor and Jo. He tried to reach out to sweetly glide his hand through Jo’s hair, but it seemed that any attempt at comfort to her was going unnoticed. He glanced at the doctor again and the pair shared a quick smile.

The doctor interrupted Jo’s tangent once more, “And four legs.”

“Oh god.” Jo threw her head back and began to sob. She blindingly reached out through her watery eyes for any part of her husband's body. “Alex. We have an octopus for a baby. A freakin’ baby octopus. I told you I felt off today. I knew something was wrong!”

Dr. Tozer smirked as she turned the monitor towards Jo, knowing it was time to end all of Jo’s worries. “Dr. Karev. Your babies are going to have the most entertaining life with you as their mother.”

Jo sniffled and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. She breathed in heavily and uncontrollably, gasping for air while trying to catch the snot from her nose. “I hope they do.”

Just then, everything seemed to click. Jo’s hand fell away from her face and into her lap. “They?” She turned to Alex who had been trying so hard to contain his laughter. “They! They as in two? Two as in twins?” She put up the number two with her hands. “Two...babies? In me? Right now?”

Alex beamed with enjoyment as Jo awkwardly reached out to kiss him, she wouldn’t realize until the drive home that in that moment, she actually witnessed a few tears fall from his eyes, too.

“Twins!” He reassured her. The couple gently braised their foreheads against each other, unable to hide their blatant love and joy.

After a moment, their doctor returned their attention to the screen and pointed at the two grey blobs. “Baby A is right here. And we’ve got Baby B right there. No octopuses.” She reassured Jo.

After noting to herself that she was indeed carrying two individual, completely separate, and two armed, two legged babies, Jo leaned her head backwards and stared at the ceiling. “Twins.” She said in disbelief. She would say it many more times throughout the next eight months just trying to get it through her head, to get used to the sound of it. Suddenly, after a day where time was moving so slowly, everything seemed to blast into overdrive. Now it seemed that there couldn’t ever possibly be enough time.

Her and Alex were having two babies. But they had only planned for one, she thought! And now they needed to plan for two! Two babies that would turn into two toddlers and two children and two teenagers and two adults. They would need two cribs and two college funds and two cars and twice the amount of diapers and twice the amount of attention. How was she going to feed two babies at once, she wondered. How was she going to make sure one doesn’t fall off of their bike while she’s steering the other one? Or make sure they’re not conspiring against her and Alex. Or switching places in their classrooms and taking the SAT’s for each other. How will she tell them apart? What if they accidentally switch them at birth and they lead totally different lives with the wrong names? When she thought she might be having one child, she wondered if she would forget it at the grocery store. Now she wondered, would she forget them both? How would she make sure to differentiate them? In the few minute span of knowing she was having twins, Jo already wanted to make sure that they were always their own persons. That one wasn’t always referred to as the smarter twin, or the more creative twin, the funnier twin, the twin that listens better than the other. Even if she didn’t feel it in that moment, she was already thinking like a mom and a mom of twins at that.

Her spell broke when she heard Alex’s voice whisper into her ear while the doctor finished up. “Can you believe we’re having twins?” He asked her.

And just then, without warning, Jo leaned to the side of the examination table and finally gave into her desire to throw up. No, she could not believe it, and it would take her until the day they were born to do so.

#Jolex #Fanfiction #Jo Wilson #Alex Karev

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oisugasuga · 5 years

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Trying something new here, let’s see how this goes ٩(*ゝڡ◕๑)۶♥

I don’t usually post these chapters with a description attached so I compiled a masterlist of all of parallel’s current chapters below with a little snippet from each one!

(And yes, I am working on Ch. 9 right now for all of you who are already caught up and who were left on a major cliffhanger 😈)

Ch. 1 throw away the key

Oikawa laughs and then there are soft, soft fingers in Suga’s hair. "You’ll get the paper done, Kou," Oikawa says, fingers moving slow and gentle, tucking strands of Suga’s hair back behind an ear. His touch sends those odd, shivery urges over Suga’s skin — those urges that Suga tries so desperately to forget about, that make his skin go hot and his stomach dip low, that he’s been having for the past three months. Suga barely stops himself from pulling away. "Relax," he tells himself, squeezing his eyes shut. Oikawa’s fingertips are warm whenever they brush the shell of Suga’s ear. He continues to push Suga’s hair back in long, languid strokes, waiting silently for Suga to say something. "Koushiii," Oikawa sing-songs when seconds tick by and Suga doesn’t speak. "Baby, look up."

Ch. 2 crazy love

The music is intoxicating and Suga isn’t completely drunk but he’s more than tipsy and Kuroo smells nice, like spice and vanilla. Suga steps closer, lets Kuroo rock them side to side for a few minutes, neither of them able to do much but smile at each other over the loud bass. Suga is okay with not talking right now. He just wants to keep riding this high, this buzz of vodka rushing through his head and Kuroo’s attention sending shivers of anticipation down his spine. When he glances down a cat tattoo flashes up at him from Kuroo’s right wrist, smaller than Alisa’s and different looking, a different breed. A tattoo that Suga’s never seen before. "Huh," Suga thinks dazedly. "That’s interesting."

Ch. 3 blood in the water

Seal Rocks looms up out of the dusky morning gloom all at once. The houses unfurl and disappear, the ground spreading out into sand and interspersed crags of white stone. The sea is a massive, still beast. It rumbles, gentle waves breaking the shore. Great cliffs of the same rock break the surface farther out, their shadowy shapes like ancient sea monsters popping towering heads above water. "Maybe we should’ve just gone home," Suga mutters, teeth chattering. It’s freezing here, closer to the ocean, the spring chill of March and April not having fully melted away yet despite it being almost June. Oikawa tilts his head to look over at him. The wind blows his dark bangs over his forehead.

Ch. 4 storm clouds on the horizon

Oikawa’s clothes have dried, stiff with ocean water. His hair curls in disorganized tangles and waves around his head. There’s dried sand sprinkled across one cheek, like beach freckles. "I think I’m -," Suga starts. His voice rasps like sandpaper. It hurts to talk. But Oikawa’s paused, their hands still clasped. He waits, watches Suga’s face with careful brown eyes. "I think I’m going crazy," Suga breathes, mouth trembling.

Ch. 5 down the rabbit hole

Silence descends once more as they walk, turning right as they reach the end of the current street, winding past chain-link fences overgrown with honeysuckle. Suga inhales the saccharine fragrance, sweet and heady. He almost wishes that he could curl up amongst the leaves and vines and petals, that he could fall asleep cradled in the soothing smell. But of course he can’t. He has to keep marching forward, weighed down by his own paranoia, dripping blood onto the concrete below. Taking a small, steeling breath, Suga speaks again. "About the other night," he starts, clenching the fingers of his uninjured hand into a fist, "I didn’t mean -" "It’s okay," Kuroo interrupts, chancing a glance sideways. The streetlights catch the edge of his jaw, the tips of his hair, turn them silver. "Suguru ruined the night anyway, and his boyfriend didn’t look too happy either when he went after you."

Ch. 6 dark eyes of mercy and the burn of hellfire

"I’ve always thought it would be interesting to flip it upside down though." Atsumu’s gaze is solely focused on Suga’s now, eerily unwavering, intimidating almost. "It’s all about perspective, isn’t it? To decide who’s avenging and who’s being brought to mercy?" Suga wants to respond but his tongue feels like it’s stuck to the roof of his mouth. His pulse races unnaturally fast at his wrists. He can’t help but flash back to that moment on the roadside, frozen in the headlights of that car, stuck in place and helpless. Hunted. For some reason this complete stranger holds him captivated. And he thinks of Atsumu’s words without really realizing it, imagines the painting turned the other way with the devils of hell crashing down from the clouds and the angels of heaven crawling up through blood-soaked earth. Atsumu takes Suga’s silence as permission to continue. "Don’t you think it’s odd that we, the human race, were placed more near to hell than heaven?" His piercings flash. His eyes are steadfast, his voice almost bored if it weren’t for the slight tinge of excitement that turns it into a low drawl. Suga’s fingernails dig into his palms. Atsumu leans forward — and his eyes burn. "The monsters below are a lot closer than the clouds above."

Ch. 7 the call of strange voices

"Can I stay?" Suga freezes — his thoughts screech to a frightening halt. Stay. Oikawa wants to stay. Slowly, Suga looks up at his friend. He’s hyperaware of everything in that moment — the tickle of the grass against his ankles, the heat of Oikawa’s skin against his, the pressure of his touch and the sweet breeze that flutters through the backyard. The beautiful darkness of Oikawa’s eyes, focused on his.

Ch. 8 the color of twilight

The silence is even more suffocating once Oikawa shuts the passenger side door, but at least here they can talk in private. Suga studies the other’s face in the fuzzy, yellow glow of the streetlights outside, digs his nails into the tattered upholstery of the seat beneath him, and then bites his lip and stares out the windshield, lost for words. Kumiko has hung a flower-shaped air freshener from the rearview mirror but the scent has long since faded. Now the car smells like an odd mix of strawberry pop-tarts and the ocean — two of Kumiko’s guilty pleasures. And for a second Suga wishes that he could sink into the faded seats and disappear with nothing but the nostalgic glow of the lampposts and the faded underlying smell of jasmine to comfort him for a short moment — just until he felt like himself again. Just until this — with Oikawa — felt normal again. Just until the ice melted into the hot, salty night air and left his heart the way it used to be.

#oisuga #parallel #oikawa tooru #sugawara koushi #haikyuu!!#haikyuu!! fanfiction #oisugasuga writes

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hiei1300 · 6 years

Text

An Avenger’s Secret

Chapter 6: Meeting Aero

Pairing: Loki x Female Reader

Summary: Being the epitome of professional, you have one rule that must be followed to the T; Never mix business and personal. But how will your integrity fair against meeting the Avengers, or better yet, a certain Avenger’s brother?

A/N: I hope the pace of the story is working for everyone. The pictures aren’t mine and belong to their respective owners.

Word Count: 3380

Warnings: None

Chapter 5

No…

Slowly pulling your hand out of the box, you didn’t dare reveal what was inside. The small sense of false security that if you didn’t physically see it, it wasn’t real. Stepping away calmly as possible, you ignored the look the god gave you. Pulling a bag from your closet, you started packing extra clothes for the week to come.

“(Y/n)?”

Ignore it.

“(Y/n), what happened?”

Don’t.

Looking at the opened box, he eyed you carefully, you were excellent at hiding your emotions. He figured that the first time he met you. But there was something wrong and you weren’t going to tell him, question was, what was it? He saw the hesitation at the door, noticed that you were being subtle about looking for something when you entered your apartment. And he wanted to know.

“(Y/n), could I trouble you for a glass of water?”

His question stopped you in your tracks, snapping you back to reality, like a switch was turned on that someone was in the room with you.

“Of course.” Setting the clothes on the bed, you exited your room and went to the kitchen.

The moment you turned your back, Loki checked what it was that made you freeze without warning. Pulling the contents of the package out, he revealed a small blue velvet box and a sealed envelope with your name on it. Opening the box, he looked down to see a silver ring with a fairly large pink colored diamond. A simple leaf like design and smaller white stones on either side.

An engagement ring, setting in back in the box he pocketed the note as he heard your footsteps approach.

“Thank you.” Taking a sip, he watched you pack up. Your expression making it hard to decipher what you were thinking.

“I’m going to do some grocery shopping before I meet up with E today.” you informed him, slinging the bag over your shoulder. “Nothing too exciting.”

“Preparing to feed all of us? How generous.”

His smirk was effortless as always. You didn’t bother to answer, just started walking out. Locking the door behind you, taking mental note that you did in fact lock it, you began your trek out the building. The walk wasn’t comfortable anymore, the thought of all that at your apartment was weighing heavy on your mind.

She won’t be back until Friday, that’s five days to figure out how to keep this from escalating. She can’t know…

Your composure was wavering, if just slightly, it was noticeable by the man walking beside you. He didn’t comment on it further, you wouldn’t talk anyway, he simply kept a close watch on you. It brought you some relief once you entered the supermarket, to busy yourself and your mind with the task at hand, temporarily forgetting your concern.

“Is there anything in particular that you won’t eat, Mr. Laufeyson?”

“Something tells me that I’ll be quite satisfied with whatever you make.”

Nodding, you started taking note on your phone of ingredients as you walked around. “What about your brother?”

-Tch- “He’s a black hole, my dear. He’ll swallow anything you put in front of him.” He commented in disdain.

“That’s good to hear, now I know nothing will go to waste.”

That new welcomed comfort started to form around you as you walked with this man. Even if you didn’t look at him, his presence was welcomed and it was nice to have the company. You shopped for nearly an hour and a half longer than you expected. The thing you liked about this store was that they delivered, sure you could have ordered online, but then you couldn’t ask about their products and see the quality first hand. Being here in person was easier and you liked the control you had over the situation. All the while, Loki followed in calm silence, inspecting in his own light.

“Is there anything here you would like, Mr. Laufeyson?”

“Mm, there is.” A sly smile pulling at his lips as he looked at you. “Tell me, my dear, what do you recommend for someone craving something sweet but not overbearing?”

Thinking for a moment, you wrote something down in your phone, shutting it quickly and continued on. After talking with the store manager, you had your order filled and he assured you it would be delivered to the address you wrote before 5 that day.

I know this pretty rave girl, always think about her, when she says hi to me butterflies right through me~

“Morning E.” you answered your phone with a smile, one that was becoming more appreciated and anticipated the more Loki was around you.

“(Y/n), lets grab breakfast! After, we can collect everything for Aero!”

“Alright, where do you want to go?”

“That little café down the road from the tower.”

“I’ll head over now, see you there.”

“You’re meeting up with her?”

“And you’re coming with.” You stated quickly. Simply smiling, he didn’t argue and continued to follow you back in the direction you came. People were starting to emerge from their holes, the sidewalk becoming busier as you walked. Every now and again you would catch women giggling in your direction, stealing glances your way and huddle with their friend as you walked passed. As strange as that is, you couldn’t figure out what it was that had them doing that.

“You seem perplexed.” He mused with a smirk.

“Just observing the people.”

“What about them?”

“Nothing.” You said flatly. “Human behavior is just fun to observe every now and again.”

“I will have to agree with you on that one.”

It wasn’t long until you came upon a quaint café, there was a fenced in outdoor dining area, large windows for viewing, and sitting on top of one of the tables, was the person you couldn’t be happier to see.

“Hey, E.” you laughed, seeing her perk up at the sight of you, even more so that you brought company. Launching herself off and onto the floor, she sprinted to you.

“(Y/n)!” she laughed when you managed to catch her this time. “Good morning!”

“Morning.” You smiled, setting her down. “Hope you don’t mind.” Gesturing to the man next to you, her smile widened.

“Not at all! I’m so happy to see you again!”

“The pleasure is all mine.” He smiled, ushering to follow her you all took a seat inside next to a window.

When the waitress came to give you menus, you noticed how color quickly painted her cheeks as she looked up. All at once realization hit you, all the women that you passed were merely fawning over this man. You caught how her voice raised in pitch, her eyes dilated and how her breath hitched ever so slightly. You couldn’t help the grin that came across your lips, glancing across the table at the god holding the poor girl’s eye as he spoke.

Guess I’m not the only one that finds him attractive. -!?- Wait…what?

Brushing the thought away, you took a sip from your coffee, enjoying how animated E was as she spoke to your guest. She was talking about her work and her newest client in Paris, she’s so excited to go. You were happy for her.

“You don’t catch me as the mother type.” Loki mused, sipping from his tea. “How many children do you have?”

Giving him a confused look, her smile never wavering, she looked over at you, seeing how you were avoiding eye contact and biting your lip to stifle your giggles.

“That’s very mean of you, (Y/n).” she nudged you, laughing when Loki looked lost. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Now why would I do that?” you teased, relaxing into your seat. “He’s going to find out regardless, besides, it’s fun to see their reactions.”

Raising a brow to your response, he didn’t comment more. Finishing up, as E got up to pay and Loki joining her to continue their conversation, another employee came over to your table.

“U-Um, excuse me?” noticing the new figure, you turned your attention to the staff member. A young man with chocolate brown eyes and short black hair, freckles, a slim strong build, adorably handsome. He looked nervous as he stood there. A light pinkish hue dusting his cheeks.

“Hello, do you need me to move?” you asked in a polite manner.

“O-Oh n-no, I actually, I uh I wanted to ask if- what I mean is- uh” it was a little awkward to say the least, “Hi, my name is Mark.” He greeted with a shy smile.

“Hello, Mark. Was there something you needed?”

“Yeah, uh, your…name and…number...?”

His request caught you off guard, widening your eyes a bit in surprise, you tried to process what was asked. Before either of you could stammer a response, Loki came up behind the male.

“Is everything alright, dear?” he asked innocently, peering down at the worker. “Elli asked me to fetch you so we may depart.”

Sneering a bit at the man’s flustered fear, he offered you his hand to help stand you up. Taking it without hesitation, you turned to Mark.

“I apologize, I must get going. I hope you have a good rest of your day.” Walking to meet with your friend at the door, Loki made himself comfortable by gingerly placing his arm over your shoulders, glancing back at the workers with a grin. The male and female that approached you and your group looked deflated to say the least.

“Ready to meet Aero?” E asked, a hop in her step as you walked along the road.

Pinching the god’s hand off, you smiled at her excitement.

“Wanna introduce him to the other while we’re at it?” you suggested.

“YES!” she jumped, picking up the pace a bit.

Hailing a cab, the three of you made your way north to E’s home. After a good half hour of driving, the car was pulling onto a large plot of land, a high stone wall surrounded the property. Entering the security gate, the curiosity was beginning to build with the man sitting next to you.

Her house was large and welcoming. Even with the size, it wasn’t intimidating in the least, a wide driveway and front yard where the house sat perfectly in the middle.

“Welcome to mi casa!” she shouted as she jumped from the back. After paying the cab, you joined Loki and E at her front door. Inviting you both in, the ebony haired god found himself stiffen, slightly panicking, clung to his face holding for dear life was a small fluffy critter.

Plucking the bundle of fur from his face, his hair slightly a strewn, Loki got a very good look at his attacker.

“Mr. Laufeyson,” you smiled sweetly, “we’d like you to meet Aero.”

In your hand sat a snow-white rodent of sorts with bright red eyes. Gripping onto your fingers with its little paws, Loki had a fairly blank expression on his face with wide eyes.

“It’s a rat.” He finally said flatly.

“She’s a sugar glider,” E laughed, “and she’s a marsupial, not a rodent.” Correcting his proclamation.

Leading him further into the building, he started noticing odd shelving and perches on the walls. There was an extremely large cage in the corner of the living room with branches, pouches, and ladders.

“She roams the house on her own when I’m not home.” She explained to his questioned gaze. “My house is modified to help her easily traverse in and out of the rooms without touching the ground.”

Seeing the little cotton ball scurry up your arm and nestle under your hair, Loki seemed to recall what you said.

“She’s the one you will be babysitting?”

“Sugar gliders need constant care and attention. They’re social creatures that if deprived of social interaction will not thrive. They will become depressed and lonely, which can cause them to die.” You explained, rubbing the little thing’s head affectionately.

“Wanna see something neat?” E pressed happily, walking over behind you. “Stretch your arm out with your palm up.”

Smiling at his hesitation, you walked a bit further from him with E clung to your side.

“What am I doing?” he asked with a raised brow.

“Just watch.” You laughed. “And don’t flinch.”

Taking Aero into your hand, being taller than your friend, you lifted the little fluff high in the air. Upon seeing what was being requested of her, Aero launched herself from your palm, gliding and effortlessly landing on Loki’s hand.

“Oh.” He was impressed surely, the little thing can fly, sort of.

“Go ahead and try to send her back.” E called.

Holding her up in his hand as you had, his perch was a lot higher than your own, it was easier for Aero glide back into your palm.

“How much do you know about earth animals?” E asked, walking over to the sliding glass door, beckoning him to follow.

“Other than horses and dogs, not much if these are the norm.” gesturing to Aero, watching the little creature climb up your hair and make herself comfortable on your head.

“If you like horses, then you’re going to love Ebony.” Walking out onto the large porch, a wide and open field of grass glittered under the morning dew.

With a soft and serene whistle, the young bluenette called over her next “child.”

Trotting up to the three was a grand solid black stallion, Loki’s eyes widened at the sight before him. He stood tall and proud next to his owner, taller still even to the god, a large breed, thick with muscle and his mane and tail cast down like a wave. His shiny black coat was well groomed and soft, turning to look at Loki square in the eye, a small white heart shaped patch rest in the middle of his forehead.

“This is Ebony,” you introduced, petting the horse lovingly on his muzzle, “he’s a Clydesdale.” Seeing the horse nuzzle into your touch, bringing his head down to nudge you softly when you stopped giving him attention, Loki couldn’t help the smile that formed on his face.

“Would you like to ride him?”

Looking at Elli, Loki did want to, it had been quite some time since he rode, and to ride a magnificent beast such as this?

“He prefers bareback.” She encouraged, ushering Loki to stand next to Ebony. The stallion looking over Loki carefully before turning his attention back to you. “That means he’ll let you ride him.” She laughed.

Running his hand over his coat, the muscles reacting to the touch, Loki eagerly leapt onto his back. Ebony didn’t move a bit at being mounted, he waited for his new rider to get settled before shifting away from you.

“Just a fair warning,” you spoke up, “he likes to jump. So, hold on tight.”

Before the god could respond, Ebony was already trotting away at a steady pace. You watched as Loki rode like it was second nature, fully entrusting himself to the animal. The further away he went, the faster Ebony got. Before either of you knew it, the two were at full sprint across the land.

“He’s cute.” E commented, bringing you back to her. “I approve.” She laughed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You said, turning away and walking back inside.

“I’ve never seen you act like this with someone.” She mused further, seeing you enter her bedroom to gather Aero’s stuff. “I almost thought I’d never see the day you would like someone.”

“I don’t like him, E.”

“And yet, he’s here.”

“That was his choice.” You countered.

“One you didn’t protest.” She pointed, her smile becoming sweet instead of teasing.

“He’ll be staying at the tower, I’m simply getting used to the idea of always seeing him.”

“You’ve never looked at anyone like that though, not even- “

“Say his name and you won’t be leaving for Paris.” You threatened, your eyes never leaving the task at hand.

“(Y/n), it’s been three years.” Feeling her hand gently on your back, you relaxed to her touch. A heavy sigh escaping through your nose. “I know it’s hard, but you need to learn how to trust people again.”

Her voice was low, careful, she knew your hurt all too well, at least, the hurt you shared with her.

“I trust you, E. I don’t need anyone else.”

“You need more than one person in your life.” Hugging you from behind, she rested her head against your back. “Tony is a good start, and Loki would be good for you.”

“I work for Mr. Stark, Mr. Laufeyson is his colleague.”

“But he trusts you.”

“Because he doesn’t know me.” Turning to face her, cupping her face in your hands to look her in the eye. “Our history doesn’t need to be known by others, he doesn’t need to know mine.”

“You can’t shut yourself away forever…” her eyes were somber, her expression loving, you hated that you relied solely on your friend. She had her own life; her career was taking her all around the world. A world you turned away from. “You can’t keep hiding.”

“I’m not hiding.” Turning to finish packing, tying Aero’s carrier pouch around your neck, you both heard the sliding door close. Walking in, Loki saw you heave a large carrier off the bed.

“Did you have fun?” E beamed, asking the god that came into view with a bounce to her step.

“He’s a remarkable creature.” He said with a smile.

“You looked good with him.” You commented, walking passed the two and into the living room. “His brother will be dropped off tomorrow from his check-up.”

“You have another horse?”

“Yup!” she exclaimed proudly. “I used to foster animals for a long time. Ebony and Ivory were the last two and when I heard they would be separated, I decided to keep them.”

“He’s the exact opposite of Ebony,” you stated, “Ivory is picky with his riders, he likes the attention but will openly seek it from people he likes.”

“I’d like to meet him.”

“Well, you’ll be helping (Y/n) watch the house for me, right?” glaring slightly at your friend, she simply bounced over and hooked her arm with the man. “This is a lot of work for just one person, after all.”

“I’d be happy to accompany her, if she wishes it.” The gaze he gave you had your chest tightening again, his smile was something else.

“Do what you want.” You said flatly. Picking Aero off your head and placing her in the little pouch sitting nicely on your chest. “We’re ready to go.”

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay Let It Rain Over Me!

“Good morning, Mr. Stark.”

“Hey, (Y/n). So, stupid question, but is Loki with you?”

“As a matter of fact, he is.”

“Oh…! Good, good. Um, why?”

“He came to help me collect Aero. We’ll be heading back here shortly, also I should inform you that I placed an order and it will be arriving sometime today before 5.”

“Sounds good, we’ll see you when you get here then.”

Hanging up you looked to your friend.

“Mind giving us a lift?”

“Not at all!” Sprinting to the kitchen, you calmly walked to the exit, Loki following close behind.

“Do you get motion sickness, Mr. Laufeyson?”

Raising a brow to you, he answered. “No, I don’t.”

“First time for everything.” You grinned, seeing E running to the garage.

Safe to say that Loki did not ever wish to ride with Elli ever again after that. What took the cab 40 minutes to get to the house, it took her 17 to get you back in front of Stark Tower.

“Call me when you land.” You instructed to your driver.

“I will, love you (Y/n)!” waving a goodbye, she sped off down the road.

“How you feelin’?” you mused with a smirk, rolling the carrier into the building.

“I may have lost my stomach somewhere along the way, but other than that, I’m fine.” He huffed, smoothing out his ruffled hair.

“Be glad she was taking it slow.” Not missing the fear that crossed his features, you couldn’t hold the laugh from escaping your mouth as you entered the elevator.

Chapter 7

@harrymewmew @themes87 @pieceofhamiltrash@trashyemonerd@haven-in-writing @jj-trickster @southside-serpent-princess @craftersdust @gravity-9-8 @blazefire2012 @alina-barnes

#loki #loki x reader #tony stark #avengers

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