#because she doesn’t really like hospitals either

[goodneighborxfallout]

I just found your blog, it's really cool you're doing this!

Anyway, how do you think the companions would react to Sole being seriously injured/nearly dying?

Thanks for requesting! Sorry it took me so long to write this.

Cait: “Shit, shit, shit! You better not die on me, Sole!” she’ll curse while picking you up from the ground and hauling you over to the nearest doctor she can find. She will threaten and beat up anyone to get you the help you need as fast as possible. 

Codsworth: “Sir/Mum, please hold on!” Codsworth will frantically try any sort of first aid he can to stabilize you. He won’t admit it to himself, but he is not optimistic about your survival chances because his Mr. Handy body does not allow him to pick you up and get you help. He’ll have to find a way to get help to you and that will take double the amount of time. 

Curie: Curie will be the most calm and collected. Being a doctor, she has experience patching people up and she knows panicking will only make things worse. With Curie by your side, you are in good hands. She’ll do whatever she can with the current equipment she has and once you are stabilized she will bring you to either a hospital or a friendly settlement to nurse you back to health completely. 

Danse: Danse might freeze for a second. Instinctively, he recalls Brotherhood protocol but he hesitates because he also knows how harsh that protocol can be. You are not just any soldier, you’re you, and no part of him is willing to risk you dying just because the protocol doesn’t care for your survival as much as he does. So instead, he’ll forgo protocol, forgo the mission in general if necessary and bring you to safety. 

Deacon: “It’s just a flesh wound. Carrington will patch you right up,” is what he tells you to keep you calm, but he himself does not believe it. Your condition is a lot more severe than he is letting on and he has to try hard not to openly panic. Luckily, Deacon knows his way around the Commonwealth pretty well, so he’ll pick you up and take the fastest and safest way back to HQ, all the while cracking some lighthearted jokes to keep you smiling. 

Gage: Raiders are mostly not known for their medical skills. The lifestyle Gage chose is one where death is accepted. However, raiders often also stock up on drugs. He himself is not a fan of it, but he does know where others hide their caches around Nuka World. So he’ll give you some buffout and med-x, and then haul you over to the nearest doctor after which he goes off on his own for a bit. Gage normally doesn’t care when others die, but seeing you close to death made him panic, which made him realize that he’s grown attached to you. He is not sure how he feels about that and needs some time alone to reflect. 

Hancock: First and foremost, Hancock will get you to safety and bring you to a doctor for help. He’ll stay really calm during this. He won’t show you how he feels and he’ll just focus on reassuring you with comforting words. However, he also won’t stick around when the doctor is treating you because he will be hellbent on getting revenge on the people who dared to hurt you.  “You’re in good hands here, Sunshine. I have to go take care of something.” 

Longfellow: “Told you the island would eat you alive,” he mumbled while dragging you back to the doctor in Far Harbor. Longfellow hasn’t gotten attached to someone in a long time, and even though he likes your company, he always kept himself shielded. Of course, he hopes that you’ll pull through, but he’s not panicked or upset. Most people die in the fog, so why not you too? 

MacCready: Mac is a survivor. He’s been fighting since he was a little kid and he’s found himself in countless hazardous situations. Therefore, MacCready is wise enough to not go out without some healing supplies on hand. Still, he panics seeing someone he cares for so dangerously hurt, and will fumble around looking for a stimpak in his backpack, finally emptying all its contents out onto the ground to find it more easily.  

Nick: “I ain’t gonna lie kid, it’s not looking good. How are you feeling? You think you can walk?” Nick has lived a long life - even if doesn’t see all of his memories as his own -, he’s lost a lot of people and in his line of work a happy ending is mostly not the outcome. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care or that he won’t try everything he can to save you, it just means he’s good at staying calm and collected during these kinds of situations. 

Piper: “You’re not going to die out here, Sole! I promise!" Piper will quickly administer a stim, then put your arm over her shoulder and drag you to the nearest doctor. She’ll try to remain calm but small things give away that she’s panicking, like having trouble aiming her gun right at enemies along the way, and losing her temper at every obstacle you encounter. 

Preston: “Come on, general! You can pull through!” Preston will be terrified of losing you. While carrying you to the closest doctor around, he’ll still beg anyone he meets along the way for help. 

Strong: “Human fight well! Now die like warrior.”  

X6-88: “The Institute needs you, sir/ma’am.” He’ll administer a stimpak and will then ask you to teleport back to the institute for further treatment.

#fallout 4 #fallout 4 reactions #fallout reactions #fo4 reactions #fo4 companions react #fo4 companions #fo4 #fallout #cait #codsworth #curie #danse #deacon #porter gage #gage #john hancock #hancock #old longfellow #longfellow #maccready #nick valentine #nick #piper #piper wright #preston #preston garvey #strong #x6 88

[historia-vitae-magistras]

A lightee ask than usual but do you have any food or eating habit thoughts?

Ooohooohh, I did a whole ass seminar on the history of food. Failed it because I almost bled to death but I got to keep all the material! I've got.... a lot of thoughts and feelings about food culture. Too goddamn many, tbh. This got really long so I'll have to do a part two for other characters if wanted but lol enjoy.

Alfred:

 —Actually pretty gourmet little shit when he's got time and effort. He's made food Maria loves so often she has to give up on pretending she didn't enjoy it because fucking hell, he makes good chilaquiles after they've been drinking and fucking. There is, however, a non-zero chance he hasn't eaten a vegetable since the Nixon administration.

 —With that combustion engine metabolism, he's also perpetually hungry, so he eats whatever is around him. His guts do not like this, especially when it's a lot of dairy.

 —He has that kind of lactose intolerance that's tied to his health and stress, so if he's been particularly freaked out lately, he'll remind the world of his nuclear arsenal when he's got to use the toilet after that triple cheeseburger with a side of deep-fried cheese curds.

 —He's a stress eater too. He eats every negative emotion he's ever had especially when he's trying not to binge drink or do drugs.

 —He’s exceptionally food-motivated. They didn’t call one of his first major historical eras ‘the starving time’ without reason. He has preferences, but food is also food, and he’ll genuinely enjoy it in most forms as long as it's not rotten or otherwise godawful. Cowboy coffee and beans for ten days straight, and he will genuinely be the only man on that cow trail not sick of it by the end.

 —This also goes into why he’s so generous with food. He’s big on homemade food. He’ll make a whole big ass batch of like some sort of mac and cheese, and all the neighbours will get a big ol’ bowl of it with an ‘oh just return the Tupperware whenever,’ and it will genuinely be one of the best things they’ve ever eaten in their lives. Europeans recoil in horror, but our portion sizes are almost never single servings. It’s a generosity and hospitality practice except drinks. He really will down like a 2 liter of Slurpee in a single sitting.

 —He doesn’t mind eating alone. Actually prefers it sometimes. He loves eating in his car. American frontier culture, especially mountain men, had an often hyper-individualized, almost mythic culture of spending long periods alone in the woods and not being very sociable; thus a lot of situations where single servings were a thing, eating alone in quiet without something to do can be a real goddamn luxury.

 —He’s a really big protein guy with his metabolism. Sometimes exists on protein shakes but is more often a beef or barbeque or ham or alligator jerky. And a somewhat chunky Alfred is a healthy Alfred. A perfectly cut no flab Alfred is an Alfred who might be severely dehydrated and on several kinds of uppers.

 —He has better tastes than Arthur who didn't really realize food was supposed to taste good until like ten years ago but his combinations can be equally wild and unappetizing as they are batshit tasty.

—He loves spicy food. He's got so many opinions about hot sauces.

—He’s always hungry. If he isn’t hungry or turns down food, its genuinely a bad sign. If he turns down anything or just is just picking at it his food alarm bells should be sounding. He’s either about to declare war or puke all over the table or keel over dead. Peckish or food coma is his default state. Like if he was a smaller guy someone would say he’s got a binge disorder but he’s tall and beefy so he’s pretty okay.

 —Incredibly adventurous eater too. People will assume since there’s that old school culture of Anglo-American who eats the same 7 meals every week and might keel over dead if the meatloaf is slightly different he’ll be a bit hard to please but then he’s absolutely charmed by everything from Korean kimchi to Lithuanian Lašiniai.

 —He loves anyone who feeds him, just got to be a bit careful because he’s got surprisingly delicate stomach for the world superpower.

 —That American obsession with authencity means he’s surprisingly good at remembering people’s food culture or eating norms. He figured out chopsticks in ten seconds and quickly picked up the cues and manners of eating in any given culture. Still struggles with modulating his voice and personality, so he can often come across as rude, but he's so excited to do so. It's almost frustrating how happy he is to try and adapt to people around him and how happy he can be to fit in.

Matt:

 —He's a very good cook when he's putting in effort for other people, but he's not really like Alfred, who he'll make a whole ass meal for one just to relax on a Sunday.

 —He does tend to eat more vegetables than Alfred, but only because his northern vitamin deficiency has him binging them when he can afford them or they're available during the summer.

  —He can be weirdly picky on his own, but no one ever really needs to ask about his favourite food or how he likes anything because he always just goes with the flow around other people. “Just get me whatever you’re getting.” comes out of his mouth often.

 —There's a lot of sour cream/crema and yoghurt/coconut milk involved when he eats Mexican or Indian food for as much as he loves it.

 —Katya was singlehandedly responsible for his ability to maintain a normal weight during the 20th century by adding rye bread and perogies/vyrenki to his diet. He craves mushroom-umami flavours when he misses her, which is most of the time.

 —When he’s normal and eating the Anglo-North American diet, but he isn’t always eating it, he gets some strong sugar cravings, especially when he’s west of Manitoba. He’s as fond of birch syrup as a flavour as he is maple; there’s just less production. But the kind of deprivation he got and his own tendencies to not eat sometimes cause white sugar to just straight-up burns.

 —There's very much something of François to Matt's dietary habits, but less in his personal tastes and more in that he might be more sensitive to flavours. He has that kind of discerning and slightly oversensitive palate, but he’s a shitty perpetually broke frontier settler colony. He knows better/feels too guilty/is too embarrassed of himself to really indulge it.

 —He kept too much of his peasant communalism in his eating habits. Where Anglo-American communities did have a lot of cooperation, communal eating was a special occasion. The norm was based on the individual household. In contrast, French Canadian habitants still technically lived on medieval land plots and owed labour to a lord while also having a culture of seasonal male work, so Matt grew up used to communal ovens and eating most of his meals around others. Later, in Arthur’s jurisdiction, it was usually the same. He got a plate of whatever he was given, and it wasn’t something he had ever had to initiate himself.

 —Partially, he's sometimes exceptionally bad at eating when he has to choose to do it himself. Especially since the Americanization of the food culture took hold in the '80s and '90s. Whereas Alfred is food motivated from going without when he was little, Matt learned how to block out physical sensation until he collapsed because it was rare that someone, including himself, cared about what kind of state he was in. He just doesn’t eat at all when he’s stressed or anxious. And now it's his sole responsibility to do so as there aren’t the same community structures. He has a lot of Alfred’s abundance now, all the brunch and BBQ places anyone could ask for, but it hasn’t meshed with his eating habits. His people gave up so much of their communal eating in exchange for various choices and then wondered why they were so lonely. So he’ll just microwave a potato or a packet of Kraft dinner a day for a week straight and wonder why he feels dead because, technically, he did eat something. It’s seriously a miracle he got as tall as he did.

 —Feed him nothing but hardtack for three years, and he won't complain until he's dropped dead of scurvy. If Arthur puts some sort of godforsaken mixture of plum sauce or gin-infused spag bol in front of him, he’ll compliment it before he disassociates to get at least some of it down.

#the ask box || probis pateo #hws canada #hws america #meatsack mechanics || the sociology and biology of nations #matthew || my country is winter #alfred || o beautiful for spacious skies

[laniidae-passerine]

see I am very disjointed from a lot of nine/ten fandom discourse because I genuinely believe that in a different world where space boy was not to be seen, had an older Rose gone to the hospital and bumped into a certain Doctor Jones by a vending machine or as she was taking Rose’s vitals, she would have instantly hit it off with Martha. and probably flirted with her a little on accident and then on purpose when Martha flirted back

#I can see Martha raising an eyebrow as she catches Rose (who definitely snuck out despite being on bedrest) by the vending machine #Rose probably snuck out of bed because the girl in the bed next to her was crying and she wanted to make her feel better #because she doesn’t really like hospitals either #and when she tells Martha this she’s surprised when the Doctor (who seems quite strong and a little serious) suddenly smiles #and shows her a trick to get extra sweets and chocolate out of the machine #and then tells her to hurry because the check-in sweep of Rose’s ward is about to begin #you just KNOW Rose would be Martha’s most combative patient but in all the best ways #always asking what that machine does. what that incomprehensible doctor scrawl means. if there’s something she can do to help other patients #and Martha loves it. loves how much Rose cares just like her. they gossip and they chat about their daily lives. they get closer #everytime Martha has to scold Rose for sneaking out of bed or doing something she shouldn’t #(even though she secretly adores it. she’s never really mad she just wants Rose to take care of herself as well as other people) #she sighs and says (in her most firm but still fond tone) ‘Miss Tyler-’ #only to be struck in the heart again with a cheeky grin and a ‘yes Doctor Jones?’ #and also Rose loves that Martha is a doctor. that Martha cares. that she works overtime. that almost all Martha’s patients love her #and the ones that don’t just aren’t kind people anyway. that Martha doesn’t condescend. that Martha cares and cares and cares #that Martha likes all the things about Rose that other people think make her difficult and trouble and too much #she likes the things that other people don’t like in Martha either. thinks she’s magic. #Rose Tyler is always going to love her Doctor. and Martha Jones will always love somebody who thinks everybody matters #I’m like. obsessed with them?? move OVER space boy (actually nine can get involved in this. lmao ten stay away) #they’d have been so cuteeeee #rtd failed to see the lesbionic possibility but I am no such coward. no fighting over boys here #martha jones #rose tyler #dw #doctor who

[ennabear]

sleepy abby headcanons 🙊

*ೃ༄ she’s a teeth grinder, according to owen. poor baby is so stressed she can’t even escape it when she’s asleep. if she has a particularly bad dream, she’ll wake up with a sore jaw.

*ೃ༄ also, she’s a sleep talker. she doesn’t usually say full words or sentences, but she’ll mumble some half-coherent words in her sleep. it’s always either something to do with her dream, or her unconsciously mumbling “love you.”

*ೃ༄ frequent nightmares. it’s always about losing you, or losing her dad. she’s no stranger to the hospital corridor.

*ೃ༄ her nightmares don’t really scare her anymore. they just bolt her awake with a gasp, the feeling lasts until she’s too sleepy to forget about it. she’s often unable to go back to sleep after them, but she feels more comfortable if you wake up and soothe her. do not ask her to talk about it or she’ll bawl her eyes out.

*ೃ༄ on a more positive note, she’s a huuuge cuddlebug. she’s about 50/50 when it comes to big spoon vs little spoon. her most favorite position is to fall asleep with her arms around your waist and her head on your tits.

*ೃ༄ if you’re a chubby girl, you’re her favorite pillow <33 she’ll take any excuse to lay her head on your tummy, thighs, or boobs. she love love loves to gently use you as a stress ball, too.

*ೃ༄ she doesn’t usually take naps because she’s not tired during midday, but if you’re napping she’ll lay with you, promising herself not to fall asleep. and 10 minutes later she’s fast asleep with her head buried in your neck because she couldn’t help herself. you were so warm and comfy and suddenly she was tired.

*ೃ༄ she’s a very strict no noise, no lights person. she doesn’t believe in background noise or night lights because they’re too distracting and she can’t sleep with them on. although, if you’re into that, she could get used to it.

*ೃ༄ i don’t think she’s a big snorer, or a mouth breather in general. she may occasionally gently snore for a few hours, but for the most part she’s just a heavy breather. she loves it when you lay your head on her chest and match her breathing, especially if she’s had a bad dream.

*ೃ༄ there’s only like one blanket that she actually uses. she prefers blankets that are big enough to fully cover her, but that won’t overheat her. sometimes she gets too hot anyways and sleeps without it.

*ೃ༄ she doesn’t really like sleeping with her hair down. it always makes her hair too messy when she wakes up, and she doesn’t wanna re-do her hair care routine, so she just opts for the braid

*ೃ༄ her alarm goes off hella early for the gym. i’m talking like 4-5am. she has two alarms though. one to wake up. and another one ten minutes later. why??? so she can stay in bed for ten minutes cuddling her girl until she leaves.

#my sleeping beauty :))) #abby anderson #abby anderson x reader #abby the last of us #abby anderson x female reader #abby anderson fluff #abby anderson tlou2 #abby tlou #lesbian

[bluejutdae]

• best friend Stray Kids saving you (or being saved by you) from a bad date | Felix x you

Chan | Minho | Changbin | Jisung | Seungmin | Jeongin

genre: romance, best friend to lovers

warnings: none, except that i am not satisfied at all with this but I’ve read it so many times I’m starting to hate it. I might edit heavily later

The moment you park outside the restaurant Lixie is in, you press the call button. Faking an emergency is not too hard, you talk about a friend getting injured and at the hospital, exaggerating your tone and almost making Felix laugh.

He’s out in less than five minutes. Under his bright smile there’s something you can’t decipher. He gets in your car and just his presence makes you happy. Everyone loves Felix, and you’re not immune to his charm either. He’s always kind, generous, sweet and funny. You’re really lucky to have him in your life.

“Ice cream?”

“Yes, please.” It’s so funny to hear his deep voice in such a childish tone.

You don’t press for answers about his date during the drive to your favorite ice cream place, you put on some music and sing loudly with him. Save for that indecipherable look in his eyes, he seems pretty normal.

You take your ice creams and decide to take a walk on the riverside. The wind is pretty chill, but neither of you mind too much. It’s him who brings up the date he was on.

“The date… it was like a blind date. But I didn’t know it was a date until it was too late.”

“Uh- what?” It doesn’t make sense: how did he manage to go on a date without knowing?

“Hannie.” Yeah, maybe it makes sense. Jisung means well, but most of the time the execution is, at best, messy.

“How did he get you?”

“He begged me to go on a double date on the premise it was just because this girl he wanted to go out with was wary of going out alone with him so she’d bring a friend with, but we were supposed to be just wingmen. Or so he told me.”

He licks his ice cream and shakes his head.

“About 10 minutes before we were supposed to meet he called and told me it was a lie and it was a blind date…”

You’re not sure as to what to say. It is very on brand for Jisung, but you can also understand how frustrating it can be for Felix. He’s a sweetheart, he must have felt guilty for having unwillingly misled the girl.

“I couldn’t just leave and stand her up. She knew nothing about the lie, so it wasn't her fault.”

“Was she nice, at least?”

He nods, but he seems almost distracted. “She was nice. Pretty and funny, to be honest.”

“Why didn’t you stay, then?”

He slows down to a stop, and the moment you notice you turn around to look at him, a question on your face. He cleans his mouth with the small napkin and exhales with a small grimace.

“Lix?”

“Because I like you. And I’m not interested in other girls.”

He likes you. Felix likes you. And not in a friendly way. In a like like way. You weren’t expecting that.

“I-“ you start, but you don’t know how to continue that sentence. What do you say to your best friend who just said he likes you? Do you even like him? You’ve always been pretty good at keeping your feelings in check, so after knowing him, when it was clear you were headed towards just being friends, that’s what you set your mind -and your heart- to. He’s your friend, and you didn’t even ever consider more.

“I’m sorry. I’ve kept it from you for a while but I couldn’t anymore. That’s why Jisung insisted on this date. He was trying to distract me.” He turns slightly to watch at the river flowing fast but quietly. “Things don't have to change. If you don’t feel the same it’s okay, but I’d like to stay friends if you’re okay with that. I don’t wanna lose you.”

The idea of Felix losing you is ridiculous to you, nothing is ever gonna make you distance yourself from him. You try to tell him so by hugging him. “Lixie, we’ll always be friends, no matter what.”

You speak into his jacket, and maybe it’s easier this way.

“I thought we were only meant to be friends, so I didn’t even consider looking at you in a different way.” You can feel him tense under your hug. “Wait, wait, listen to me please.” Still hugging him you try to look at him, a smile on your lips. He’s your best friend, he’s the best person you’ve ever met. Being liked by him is an honor, and if you think about it, trying to be something more it’s not something that you hate.

“You’re my best friend, Lix. You know I love you, and I think you’re perfect. I never let myself think about you like that, but I know that if I give it a chance, it’d be so easy to fall in love with you romantically.”

“You don’t have to make yourself like me.”

“Don’t be silly. I’d be lucky to love you. Give me a chance?”

He’s smiling now, and he’s so so pretty like this. He’s always pretty, you tell him constantly, but when he smiles it’s his best look.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure Lixie. Let me take you out on a date? I promise to spoil you…”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you out?”

“It’s okay. You can ask next time.” You kiss him on his cheek and hold his hand, making him resume your stroll.

He really is easy to love, and not even a month later you ask yourself how you ever managed not to be head over heels in love with your best friend boyfriend.

#stray kids fanfic #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids x reader #bluejutdae #skz #felix x you #felix x reader #felix x female reader #felix fluff #felix fanfic #felix imagines #felix scenarios #Thiana writes Felix

[cozage]

Congratulations on hitting 2k🎉🎉

I really love your writing and I’d love to see how you think the op boys would react to their s/o getting jealous you could maybe do ace law and luffy?

Characters: gn reader x Ace, Law, Luffy Cw: Put your rose-colored glasses on, folks. Because we got some red flags (cough cough Law)  Total word count: 1.6k

Jealous Reader

Ace

Ace is just being fun. He’s just too oblivious to realize the other people are flirting. He doesn’t notice the soft touches across his torso, or how they lean in closer to him every time they laugh. But you do. 

“You don’t look like you’re having fun,” he said halfway through the night. “We can go, if you want.”

“Wouldn’t want to take you away from your fan club,” you spat back, venom in your words. But he either didn’t notice or he pretended not to.

“Yeah, they’re funny aren’t they?” He laughed. “They all buy me drinks whenever I tell a new story. Hospitality here is amazing!”

“Right.” You got up to leave. “Have fun with that.”

“What?” his brows furled together in confusion. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the ship.” And with that, you slammed the door closed. 

A few seconds later, he’s racing after you into the crowded street.

This man has no idea what he did wrong, but he’s trying to make it right. 

He abandons everyone in that bar without even a goodbye, and as his fingers lace through yours, you can’t help but feel a little better about that. 

He kisses your cheek and follows you closely, not wanting you to get away from him. He knows you all need to talk, but he also knows this crowded street isn’t the place to do it. 

When you all get back to your room, you try to break away from him, but he pulls you into an embrace, strong warm arms wrapping around you. 

“You’re the only one I have eyes for, you know that right?” he said, rubbing your back lightly. 

“Didn’t feel like it tonight,” you mumbled harshly. 

“Well you are.” He tilted your face up so he could cover it with kisses. “I just use those people to get free drinks.”

“I know,” you whispered, leaving your head against his chest to hear his heartbeat. “Doesn’t make it any easier to watch though.”

“Okay.” Ace kissed the top of your head. “Won’t do it anymore.”

You looked up at him, surprised. “Really?”

“Of course!” He kissed your lips now, gently reminding you that he was all yours. “Your feelings aren’t worth some free booze.”

Law

Of course this woman was some fancy doctor. Of course Law had read her book. All her books. And now he had been gone from your all’s table for almost thirty minutes to talk to her. 

She wasn’t just polite. She was friendly. Overly friendly. You had watched as she had scooted closer and closer to your boyfriend, minimizing the gap between their bodies. 

Finally, you couldn’t take it anymore. You got up from your seat and ignored the snickering of Shachi and Penguin from the table. 

“Law, dear.” You gave a strained smile to him and the woman. “I hate to rush you, but we’re kind of on a schedule.”

Law stood, still staring at the woman. “Wow! The time really flew by. Thanks for letting me pick your brain.”

“Oh doctor,” the woman cooed, a seductive smile on her face. “The pleasure was all mine. Feel free to find me any time you want to have a…chat”

“Thanks for being patient,” Law said as the two of you walked away. “It’s not often I-”

“Let’s go,” you said to the others as you walked past the table, not pausing for a moment. “The captain made us late.”

You don’t use “Captain” often. And based on your tone, Law had to guess he was in trouble. 

The snickers from Shachi and Penguin weren’t helping either. They had surely watched you become more and more irritated as time went on, so they had a pretty good idea of what was going on,  

“Can you give me some pointers? Any warnings?” Law mumbled to his crewmates, desperate to get a read on your emotions. 

“You don’t know what you did?” Penguin asked as Shachi burst into laughter, causing all three of them to receive a glaring look from you

When you got back to the Polar Tang, you made a beeline for your bedroom. Law didn’t follow. He assumed you needed a bit to cool off. Plus he wanted to check out another book from the woman he had just met. 

After a few hours, Law rubbed his drooping eyes, and finally decided to see you again. He still had no idea why you were so upset. 

You were asleep in the bed, but you had built a pillow divider between his side in yours. He rolled his eyes and quickly pulled the pillows away, curling into you. 

You tried to push him away, proving you weren’t asleep, but he wouldn’t let you. 

“Can you tell me why you have such an attitude?”He was irritated, and you laughed at the irony. You were the one who was supposed to be irritated, not him. 

“Why don’t you go ask that famous doctor since you care about her more than-”

He scoffed, cutting you off. “You can’t be serious.”

You stared at him for a long moment, and then turned away from him, pouting at his words. 

“I’ve read her books, that’s all. Can you stop acting like a child with this petty jealousy?”

His words tipped you over the edge. “I’ll stop acting like a child when you treat me like an equal!” you yelled. You rose to your feet and quickly strode out the door, slamming it behind you. 

Oh, he really fucked up now. His tongue was always getting him in trouble.

He scoured the Polar Tang, searching for you. He finally found you on the couch and curled up next to you. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “That was really insensitive of me to say. If the situation were reversed, I would be upset too. I’ll do better in the future, okay?”

You gave him a slight nod, and he quickly shambled you both back to the bed to get some much-needed sleep. 

Luffy

“Oh, Hancock is coming, right?!” Luffy asked. “I like her!”

“And we all know how she feels about you,” you mumbled under your breath. Your comment sparked laughter from Nami, causing Luffy’s attention to drift over to you. 

“What’s funny?” He asked. “I want to be in on the joke!”

“Nothing,” you grumbled. You could see Boa Hancock’s ship in the ocean, and your stomach churned with dread. “Sanji, do you need any help in the kitchen?”

Working with Sanji had been a bad idea. Boa Hancock was beautiful. And while you could hear her fawning over your boyfriend on the deck, Sanji fawned over her in the kitchen 

It was only thirty minutes before you gave up and retreated to your room. You were in a bad mood, but this was a celebration, and you didn’t want to ruin it. 

Luffy entered the kitchen looking for two things: Meat and you. “Sanji! Y/N-hey, where are they?”

Sanji shrugged. “Said they weren’t feeling well. Not sure.”

Luffy headed to your all’s room. Now that he thought about it, you had been off. You hadn’t been chatty or smiled most of the day, and he was starting to get worried you were really sick. 

As you heard the turn of the doorknob, you quickly wiped away your stray tears. But your eyes were still red and puffy. 

“Oh man!” Luffy sat down next to you on the bed, staring at your face. “Your allergies are terrible! You should’ve told me, we could’ve moved to another season ecosystem!”

His idiocy made you let out a garbled laugh, trying to hide your true feelings about the party. 

“It’s fine,” you said, shaking your head. But your bottom lip trembled, giving you away.

“You’ve been crying.” He stated it as a fact, not a question. He knew you too well for you to hide your tears for long. He smushed your cheeks together and held your face so you couldn’t avoid his gaze any longer. “Did Sanji make you cry?”

“No.” You tried to pull away from his grip, but he clamped down on your cheeks so you couldn’t escape. He wouldn’t let you leave his gaze until he figured out what was wrong. 

While you were here alone with him, all your worries felt so silly. Luffy didn’t even realize Hancock was in love with him. If you brought it up now, you’d be causing a big scene. 

“It’s stupid,” you whispered, but he only frowned at you. He opened his mouth to say something. 

“Luffy!” Hancock called from behind the door, interrupting his thoughts. “Are you in there? Should I come in?”

You rolled your eyes at her voice. Of course she came to find him. He had been gone for too long, and he was the only reason she was here. 

You tried to hide your disdain for the empress, but Luffy caught it, and his eyes widened. “You don’t like her!” he whispered. 

“Luffy, can we not do this right now?” you hissed, and the door opened. 

“Oh!” Hancock blushed seeing you and Luffy so close, but she glared daggers at you. “I didn’t realize you were with someone, Luffy.”

Luffy’s eyes slid between you and her, trying to figure it out. He was so close to the revelation, but he just couldn’t get there. 

The three of you rejoined the party reluctantly, but Luffy kept you close to him for the rest of the night. 

He’s always been a physical touch person, and tonight you were grateful for it. He was always holding your hand or had his arm wrapped around you. He stayed close, and even though you got death stares from Hancock, at least you had Luffy by your side to make it more manageable. 

#one piece #one piece imagine #one piece scenario #one piece x reader #one piece x you #portgas d ace x reader #ace x reader #portgas d ace #trafalgar law #law x reader #trafalgar law x reader #trafalgar d water law #luffy #monkey d luffy #monkey d. luffy #luffy x reader #luffy x y/n #luffy x you #cozage #✧˚ace✧˚ #✧˚ luffy✧˚ #✧˚law✧˚

[flowerfan2]

Steve falls hard, is the thing.  At least, he does this time.  He knows it’s crazy, that Eddie has only been out of the hospital for a few weeks, that Steve has only really known him for a few days more than that. But he knows more than most people that life is full of cliffs and dangers and if there’s happiness to be had, he’s ready to take it.

It happens so quickly that he speeds right past any potential sexuality crisis, doesn’t pass go, just realizes one evening while he’s tucking a blanket around Eddie’s feet when he dozes off on the couch that he’s in love.   He knows it’s real, because Eddie’s feet are frankly stinky since it’s still hard for him to get around, and yet Steve’s content to curl up with Eddie’s feet in his lap and make sure they stay toasty warm.

He tells Robin that night, and once she’s finished swatting him with a nearby magazine and then hugging him until his ribs squeak, she asks him what he’s going to do about it.  “Tell him,” Steve answers, and Robin stares at him as if he’s grown two heads (he hasn’t, he checked).  “Just like that?” she asks, eyes wide.

“Know any good reason to wait?” Steve asks, and when Robin shakes her head no, he smiles.

The next day Steve puts on a clean pair of khakis and his favorite striped polo.  He ever so briefly considers wearing something not so preppy, but he doesn’t think Eddie would appreciate anything less than the truth.  The real Steve, polo shirts and all.  Begin as you mean to continue, and all that.

When he arrives at the trailer the next day (yes, that same goddamned trailer, flimsy and broken but in somewhat better shape than it was a few weeks ago), Steve takes a deep breath and knocks on the door, then remembers he’s supposed to use his key so that Eddie doesn’t have to get up off the couch too often.  He juggles the grocery bag in his arms and finds the key, glad to see when he gets the door open that Eddie hasn’t been disturbed.  In fact, it looks like he’s fast asleep.

Steve puts the groceries away and settles at the end of the couch like he always does, pulling Eddie’s feet onto his lap, and paging through a comic book.  A little while later Eddie stirs, blinking his eyes open and smiling at Steve.

They decide to watch a movie, but after a few minutes Eddie complains that his neck hurts from lying in the same position all day.  Steve helps him switch around so that his head is at the other end of the couch, and Eddie continues to gripe, but he’s smiling the whole time.  Steve can tell he likes the attention, likes when Steve slides an arm around his back and gently rearranges his limbs.  Steve likes it too.

Steve fetches some snacks from the kitchen and returns to find Eddie shuffling himself around again, claiming that the new position isn’t working either.  Soon they’re sitting next to each other, legs stretched out on a pillow on the coffee table, the television directly in front of them.  Steve is getting a suspicious feeling about the whole thing, and it only intensifies when Eddie gives a little sigh and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder.  “Thanks,” Eddie says softly.  “This is perfect.”

Steve’s not sure how much time goes by – time is weird when you’re practically holding your breath – but when he tilts his head to look at Eddie, Eddie’s looking right at him.  

“Eds?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m falling for you, you know.”

Eddie bites his lip and smiles, his nose crinkling adorably.  “Yeah, I figured.”  He turns back to the television and snuggles in closer against Steve’s side.  “It’s good, ‘cause, you know.  Me too.”

______

You can read all of my Steddie ficlets in one place on A03 here.

#Stranger Things #Stranger things fic #Steve Harrington #Steddie #Eddie Munson #Steddie fic #Steddie ficlet

[suguann]

REDAMANCY—JOHN PRICE

✎. You tried not to grow feelings—you really did. Feelings make things complicated, but you can’t help it. | wc. 1k+

tags. fem!reader, getting together, strangers to fwb to lovers, mild smut [18+ only]

masterlist

“John, I…” You hesitate and allow your fear to get the best of you. “We’re friends, right?”

With his sweaty forehead pressed against your shoulder, a tangle of pointy knees and elbows, you can’t bring yourself to ask him to stay. It’s never been about staying or soft-spoken words between the sheets, but things feel different from the first time he picked you out from the crowd in a bar and fucked you up against a dingy bathroom door.

Maybe it’s just you. 

The fluttering in your chest when John stops by your office at the clinic as soon as he makes it back to base, how he wraps his hand in your hair and kisses you in the entryway for everyone to see—two thick fingers in your mouth to keep you quiet as he peels your uniform out of the way to wrap his mouth around a nipple and cup you between your legs.

Perhaps it’s the softer things: a kiss on your forehead before he leaves, another souvenir from one of his missions on your bookshelf, flowers for the vase on your counter.

You tried not to grow feelings—you really did. Feelings make things complicated, but you can’t help it.

John’s just…John.

He’s quiet for a moment, then two, and you wish you could see his face until he nods, whiskers sending goosebumps across your shoulder blades. “Yeah. We’re friends.”

Somehow, you feel like you hadn’t said the right thing as he gets up and slips his jeans over his thighs—the taste of whiskey and cigarettes still on your tongue long after he’s gone.

You hadn’t believed him—still don’t.

Not when he rushes into the emergency room a few days later—some of his tactical gear still in place—right after you get into an accident, panic written all over his face. He glances at your torn scrubs and the bandages across your shoulder, assessing the damage. And when he finds that everything on the outside looks fine (or as fine as a few scrapes and bruises can be), his shoulders visibly relax—if only by a minuscule. 

This is your answer.

"It’s not as bad as it looks. You should see the other guy."

His mouth tilts ever so slightly, worry still etched across his features. "Is that right?" 

The nurse looking over your chart arches a brow at you, and heat blooms across your face, forgetting that you’re not the only two in the room. 

John clears his throat. “Could you give us a minute?”

She smirks. “Of course. If you need anything, I’ll be at the nurse’s station.”

Once the nurse leaves the room, it goes quiet. He slowly approaches the hospital bed like he doesn’t know what to say, picking up the clipboard the nurse left on your bedside table. 

“I was chasing my neighbor’s dog—Gizmo, you remember him; he likes chasing the mailman—when a moped knocked me out,” you tell him, the painkillers turning your thoughts into a tricolor ball of playdough. "Did you know I almost bought a moped once? I can't imagine why. Those things are a deathtrap with tiny wheels."

He makes a grunting noise in lieu of an actual answer.

You watch his eyes shift over your chart, thinking it’s now or never—

"Do you want to go on a date? With me?"

He glances up and stares at you with wide eyes. "Do you want to go on a date?" 

"Well, I…” You lick your lips, glancing wildly around the room. “You don't?"

"I just didn't think you'd want to."

"And why wouldn't I?"

"A number of reasons, actually. One, I'm older than you," he ticks it off like a grievance on his finger.

"So? That's never bothered me.” Then you smile. “Fucking older men is all the hype now, didn’t you know?"

John ignores you and holds up another finger. "And…"

"And what?"

He drags a hand over his mouth. "I, uh, well… I’m not good with relationships."

"That doesn't bother me either."

"It should."

"Why?"

"Because you're young.”

You roll your eyes. "You say that as if you're old. "

"Love, I am old. You can find someone better."

Love. You ignore how that makes your stomach flip pleasantly.

"You know, you play a poor devil's advocate. I’m already looking at the man I want."

He sighs, sitting at the edge of the bed with you. "Okay, let's play a game of what if." When you nod, he asks: "What if I took you on a date? Where would you like to go?"

"Hm,” you hum. “How about I tell you what I like?"

This makes him crack a smile. "That wasn't the question."

"I like music,” you tell him anyway. “Sometimes I like to go to the art district, even though I know nothing about art. I enjoy corny walks on the beach, and I don't mind flowers."

"I already know you like flowers."

“Then it should be easy.” Your lips twitch, thinking of the tulips he brought you the other night still sitting in your kitchen window. "And what if I said yes?"

"I'd say…” he sighs, reaching for your hand to delicately trace around your scratched knuckles with his thumb. “I’d pick you up from your place once you feel better. It'll probably be too cold for the beach, but maybe I’ll take you to this nice place Gaz mentioned a few weeks ago. Then I'd bring you back home,” his eyes trace over your bare collarbones and down to the top of your pants, “and make up for lost time."

You bite your lip, your heart fluttering wildly. Hopeful. Knowing it’s no longer a game.

(Was it ever? Maybe it was two people who never really knew how to find each other—who had to grow together.)

"So, it’s a date?"

“Yeah.” He kisses the back of your hand. "It's a date."

You wonder if you should get used to the pain in your cheeks from smiling so much—not that smiling from being happy is a terrible problem to have.

“Took you long enough to ask.”

“Took you long enough to say yes.”

#captain john price #john price x reader #john price x you #john price smut #captain john price x reader #cod smut #cod imagine #cod x reader #cod fic #141 x reader #price x reader #price x you #captain price smut #.things i write

[cranberryjuice-posts]

Abby Anderson modern day head-cannons

Parings - Abby Anderson if the apocalypse never happened

Tw- some nsfw at the end

An- this is both In general headcannons and relationships

Abbys father is a neurosurgeon so mans is loaded bro 😭- abby def went to one of those hella expensive private schools.

She’s kinda old and new money

So Abby can go three ways ok

The typical basic blonde IT girl

Straight girl on the weight lifting team

Muscular masculine lesbian

I think we all know which one makes the most sense.

Abby wouldn’t come out to her father about being a lesbian until like high school

I’m pretty sure her mom died in the beginning of the apocalypse but it could be safe to assume that she’s also a doctor in modern day

Abby would of gone to a really good university and become a neurosurgeon like her father

While in medical school she met Nora and Mel - they knew Owen and manny and that’s how the group all met

She would of definitely done sports - so sports Abby did would be

Weightlifting

Basketball

Ice hockey

She’ll go online and see the thirst edits and comments about her and laugh because she’s not only flattered but she’ll find multiple women who are her type and like their comments.

HEAVVVYYY against college parties like girly is a student athlete and on a scholarship for her medical degree — she’s always studying and doesn’t want to do anything to ruin her scholarship

After she gets her degree she works in a well known and high paying hospital

Got a German Shepard and named her Alice

Graduated top of her class

A big football fan and if her school has a football team she would go to every home game.

You and Abby most likely met in college.

you two met after both taking a same extracurricular.

she had to actually prep talk herself into actually going up to you and talking to you

once she actually asked you out she was freaking out over wether or not you actually liked her (she had Nora help her pick out an outfit)

after a few dates she awkwardly asked if she could be your girlfriend. You said yes of-course

At first you thought the relationship would be hard since Abby’s always busy but much to your surprise she always made time for you

After like a week together she took you to meet her parents, you were anxious as her parents were well known medical professionals but they welcomed you with open arms

Once she introduced you to the friend group you knew you were stuck with her.

Is overly protective of you- a guy hits on you she’s passive aggressively getting into his face. Some girls are starting drama with you - she’ll tell them to fuck off . A teacher is refusing to take your paper late - Abby will go have a one on one possibly bribe the teacher to take your paper.

If you did well on exams she’ll take you out to a nice resturant however if you did poor she’ll reassure you take you to a comfort food restaurant and help you study next time.

Outside Abby’s the sweetest most gentle person you’ve ever seen however in the bedroom it’s completely different

Abby is the type of woman to take her time devouring you. She would spend hours between your thighs with her tongue on your clit and her thick fingers pumping in and out of you painfully slow

She can either be soft and loving whispering sweet nothings into your ear taking her time with you compaired to when she lost an important game or is stressed out about exams she’ll fuck you like no tomorrow, denying you your orgasm and degrading you, with her thick strap deep into you

#lesbian #wlw #abby anderson x reader #abby anderson #abby the last of us #abby tlou #abby x reader #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us #tlou fanfiction #abby headcanons

[ghostdrinkssoup]

something I find really interesting about hannibal’s character is how he uses people’s expectations and ingrained assumptions to hide himself. no one suspects he’s a serial killer because he doesn’t present as one. he’s elegant and refined and isn’t cruel to animals. he’s highly sophisticated, a polyglot and has a deep admiration for beauty and life. he appreciates saving lives just as much as he appreciates ending them. in fact, this particular aspect of his character is partly why it takes will the entirety of s1 to accept hannibal’s true nature. will saw hannibal save abigail and accompany her to the hospital in apéritif and he also saw hannibal save a man’s life by performing emergency surgery and taking over the operation at the end of sorbet.

this moment in particular is interesting because of how it’s framed to make hannibal look almost godly from will’s point of view:

1) hannibal is positioned immediately higher than will due to being in the ambulance, meaning will is looking up at hannibal, while hannibal is looking down on him

2) hannibal is standing under a bright light as he works to save this guy’s life, while will is standing in almost complete darkness

3) the usual orchestral, classical music is playing in the background, emphasising the apparent “holiness” of the act and framing hannibal as some sort of saviour

the impact of this scene is even more potent when considering the context of the rest of the episode, since will has already stated that the ripper is not the type to save people or enact mercy on anyone. his style of murders doesn’t suggest this characteristic whatsoever, and although will’s assessment is correct, hannibal’s personality and overall demeanour doesn’t match what we’d imagine a person like that might look like. I think will is confronted by this as well, because even if hannibal’s surgical skill means he matches the ripper’s profile (which makes him a valid suspect) his actions contradict will’s image of the ripper, while simultaneously affirming it:

it’s difficult to reconcile these facets of hannibal’s character. it’s inherently contradictory and defies our cultural expectations. nonetheless, hannibal’s inclination to save people is sometimes more insidious than his murders. he doesn’t save people out of altruism, he does it because he thinks he’s superior and enjoys deciding outcomes. he doesn’t view himself as insane, he views himself as god. this is most aptly explored in takiawase, through the acupuncturist/beekeeper killer. here we see a murderer who confesses that she killed a man to quiet his mind, and tells jack that it’s beautiful that she managed to protect him and her other patients. this is one side of hannibal’s character, the one who’s a doctor and therapist and sees death as a cure from disease, even if the ‘disease’ itself is literally just discourtesy. it’s ultimately an act of power.

and yet in this same episode he flips a coin and saves bella on a whim. this of course is framed to others as an act of mercy, however the reality is he took bella’s power away in an act disguised as kindness. once again, he hides in plain sight. this is the other side of his character, and it’s just as deadly.

it’s still about power.

but we don’t associate acts of mercy with monstrosity. when hannibal comforts abigail in trou normand we question whether he’s as bad as we think, because what negative connotations are tied to paternal tenderness? we miss that hannibal is fostering dependency, that he literally looks dead in the eyes as he holds her, and that he blatantly just told us that he’s using abigail to manipulate will:

hannibal often does this actually. he either directly says what he’s doing or suggests that he’s the culprit (often through cannibal puns, as we know) but no one ever interprets him correctly because doing so would contradict the image he’s carefully constructed for himself. it would cause too much dissonance.

and what’s fascinating is that on a subtextual level this is largely what the show is about. the story is an exploration of societal roles and the struggle to fit into stiff categorisation and expectations. will parallels hannibal in this regard because he’s desperately trying to repress his identity by taking on certain roles. and the audience is lured by this persona the same way the characters are lured by hannibal because will defies our understanding of certain tropes. on a genre level, will assumes the detective archetype, meaning we are primed to think he’s inherently good. when we see him say he wants to save people we believe him, even though he often only does so to prove to himself that he’s a good person. will is indeed righteous, a characteristic we often view positively, however he’s violent, wrathful and actively enjoys murder due to how powerful it makes him feel. he’s not dissimilar to hannibal, we just don’t see this straight away because doing so would disrupt our understanding of good and evil.

will hides the same way hannibal does, except will hides from us as well

#ghostie once again goes on a tangent #but it’s so !! I really love how the show fucks with everyone #and uses our expectations to do it #even on a narrative/genre level #the key to unveiling it is letting that conditioning and urge to categorise everything go #also wow I’m back to writing meta hello there #nbc hannibal #hannibal #will graham #hannigram #hannibal meta #ghost speaks

[clairewritesjjkxreader]

Sukuna’s Wife and Yuuji’s Onee-chan (Sukuna x Reincarnated!Y/N) Part 4

Part 3

Request from @gojodeluluwifeu

Yuuji Itadori slowly awoke. With only the flames of several candles to illuminate this prison-like room with paper seals, he almost felt like a doomed protagonist in a horror movie. For better or worse, he had a companion sitting across from him.

Satoru Gojo wore a nonchalant, expectant grin. “Yo.”

“You are… !” The memories of the monster attack hit him like a train and he fussed around in his seat, soon realizing that his arms were bound behind him. He whipped his head towards Gojo. “Where is my sister? What happened to my friends? Are they still alive–”

“Hm, you’re not really in a position to be worrying about other people. Actually, you know what, I guess we should talk about your sister. Though I already know she’s just a neighbor.”

“Huh?”

Gojo pulled out a tablet and opened a file for Yuuji to see. At first glance it appeared to be your resume, as it had a 2x2 ID photo of you in formal wear and your basic information written right next to the image, but the more Yuuji read, he realized that it was far more terrifying than a simple resume. 

Gojo used his finger to scroll down the document, which had to be around fifty pages at least. “Age, birth place, height and weight… even her three measurements are here.”

Yuuji stomped his feet. “Why do you–”

Gojo turned the tablet around and began to read, “No clubs or extracurriculars. All her grades are either slightly below or slightly above the school average. Only two instances of getting called to office, once in middle school, and again in high school, both times were because teachers suspected that she was being bullied, but both times she told the adults involved ‘not to worry’ and that she ‘just doesn’t like socializing.’ 

Other notes from previous teachers were similar: ‘That kid was always quiet, never caused trouble,’ ‘She doesn’t seem to be hated but no one ever approaches her… she doesn’t approach anyone either,’ ‘I don’t know if she’s shy or maybe she really likes her space, either way, she won’t go far in life if she keeps to herself like this,’ ‘She never skipped class, though whenever she called in to say that she couldn’t come it was due to a family emergency,’ hm…

Her classmates and former employers didn’t have much to say about her, too. They kept using the same words: ‘keeps to herself,’ ‘doesn’t cause trouble but doesn’t talk either,’ ‘I don’t remember much about her,’ uwah–there is even a detailed calendar here full of her class and work schedules. Let’s see… apparently she missed school whenever you or your grandfather were sick or hospitalized. Same thing with her part-time jobs.” 

Gojo read on, nodding his head.

“Ichiji is surprisingly talented at this. It’s almost creepy.”

“Wait! What’s going on? Why do you have records on Y/N-nee?!”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“???”

“According to the other people in your neighborhood, you’re not blood-related and she’s not even your step-sister or adoptive sister, she’s literally just the girl from next door. And you’ve heard the things other people have to say about her, there is nothing special about that person. If anything, she has to be one of the most boring people I know.”

“Don’t insult her! S-sure she’s quiet and doesn’t like interacting beyond the bare minimum, but towards me she’s kind and selfless and even a bit overprotective! She’s not perfect but she’s not boring or average or horrible!”

“... Do you know what happened to her parents?”

If he were thinking more clearly, Yuuji would’ve kept his mouth shut but he was furious and couldn’t help himself. “They’re abroad. They send money regularly but Nee-chan has always been alone in that house. That’s why grandpa and I let her sleep over sometimes. She’s always been…alone.” Wait. Yuuji scrunched his eyebrows. Alone? That can’t be right.

“‘They’re abroad,’ is what she said to you.”

“That’s right.”

“Itadori, there are no records of her parents ever leaving the country.”

“Well, you’re wrong. Grandpa said that she told us that the first day we met her.”

“Hm. Itadori-kun, do you recall the date that you moved in with your grandfather?”

Yuuji didn’t remember much about his childhood before his grandfather, the two of them have always been together for as long as he could remember. It was the same with you. Always together…

Gojo showed him a page from the tablet. It was an affidavit of ownership. “Before that, let me ask you, do you know whose house your ‘sister’ used to live in? The one next to your grandfather’s.” 

“What kind of question is that? Obviously it belonged to her–her parents, of course. That’s her last name.” 

“This house belongs to a family with the last name L/N. But look here.” Gojo scrolled down and showed a picture of a family of five. There was a father, a mother, two young boys in middle school, a boy no older than two, and a dog. “This photo was taken back in 2003, a year before your birthday. They’re the only family members who lived in that house.”

“So? She’s probably a distant relative.”

Gojo shook his head. “We actually asked the other neighbors. Everyone also believes that she’s some cousin from the province. But it’s strange that you all believed that she belonged to that family when no one should be living there in the first place.”

“You just said that that family owned it.”

“Yup, you’re right, they owned that house.”

Yuuji blinked. What?

“I hope you have a tough stomach.” Gojo scrolled down. 

Yuuji’s stomach stirred and he bent over as far as his bondage would allow him. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to cry. He refused to look up, the image of those poor parents hugging their children will forever be burned in his memory. “Why are you showing me this?”

“This L/N family was brutally murdered on the night of **** **, ****.”

“That… that’s…

“That’s the same date your grandfather took you in, isn’t it?”

Yuuji doesn’t remember it himself, but his grandfather told him once and you often mentioned that date when you brought up his toddler days. 

He reluctantly opened his mouth. “Did… did she…” He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t even think about it. Memories of you smiling, laughing, taking care of him and grandpa, and welcoming him home flooded Yuuji’s senses. 

“Ah,” Gojo interrupted, “she didn’t kill them if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Eh?”

“The doggie bit one of the burglars. Hard. And she bit him in the *ahem* boxers. He and his partner were caught almost immediately.” Gojo showed him the mug shots.

Yuuji: ??????

“She had nothing to do with this murder, but after the funeral, the house was bought immediately. After further investigation, we discovered that it was bought under a fake name. She was a child when the land was purchased, but it couldn’t have been her parents, and there are no signs of other people having lived there other than her. Not to mention, the whole neighborhood bought into her lie that she was a visiting cousin. Isn’t that odd?”

Odd? Major understatement. There were many holes. Number one thing was that no one seemed to remember the murders. Even if it was fifteen years ago, Yuuji would’ve heard of it, if not for his grandfather then from the other kids. Children love horror stories after all. And yet…

“You’re telling me that…Nee-chan has been sleeping, eating and bathing in a murder house?”

“Well, I assure you, there are no curses or ghosts in that area. Luckily, the family passed on without any grudges, perhaps because they were with each other when they died? Anyway, normal humans have no way of knowing that the house is clean. Usually, unless you’re dirt poor or an idiot, you would never even consider living in a potentially haunted house.”

“That’s…!” Yuuji stopped himself. “Wait. What did you mean earlier that her parents couldn’t have possibly bought the house?”

Gojo tilted his head. “Because they’re dead.”

He presented an old newspaper article. It was dated a few weeks before the family’s death. The headline read: COUPLE FOUND DEAD IN THEIR OWN HOME, ***-OLD DAUGHTER NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.

“The bodies were described as having been ‘torn apart from the inside,’ but there were no weapons that fit the wounds. There was only a large puddle of water soaking the corpses… ‘Based on testimonies from neighbors, the couple were suspected of abusing their daughter, whose current whereabouts remain unknown. It is likely that she has been kidnapped.’” Gojo glanced at him. “You get it, right? The couple mentioned here are Y/N’s birth parents. They lived in a rural area with a town population of less than 5000. They don’t even have a convenience store–or a mall. Ouch.”

Gojo looked at Yuuji. “The murder itself was brutal but it never reached national news. Still, a lot of things don’t add up.”

“...I-if they’re dead then…” then why did you act like they were still alive and well? How could you smile and walk around as if everything was fine?

“Well, anyway, those things are minor.”

“Hah?!” Minor?!

“The crux of the matter is this: you ate a finger of a cursed spirit known as Ryomen Sukuna, and he called Y/N his wife. Not to mention, just before passing out, she called you her child.”

“...!”

“From what I can tell, Sukuna seems to treasure her a lot, and yet there is nothing about her background that points to her being any more special than the average Jane. What are you? And what is your relationship with that woman?”

Yuuji gritted his teeth. ‘That woman’ was his precious older sister, who took care of him when Grandpa was at work, who cleaned up his wounds when he got hurt playing, who loved him so much she couldn’t stand by as a monster attacked him.

“She…”

***

Over a decade ago, in a tiny house by the foot of a mountain, you watched as gigantic icicles–bigger than yourself–tear through your mother. She was arguing with your father, who was now on the floor, gasping and clutching at his chest. He too had large pieces of jagged ice pierced all over him. 

When he caught you in the corner, a wry grin made its way to his face, that was the only time you ever saw a semblance of a smile from him. He reached out his arm towards you. “H-hurry up, c…call s-s-someone–ARGH!” 

The hand reaching out to you was cut by a blade of ice. 

He squirmed and screamed before another cold knife cut his face in half. The kitchen fell silent. 

At that time, did you feel afraid? Did you feel sad? You couldn’t remember.

“This servant deeply apologizes for being so late.” A handsome woman, or maybe they were a pretty man, stepped out of the shadows and walked towards you. 

The doll-like person with snow white skin and wearing traditional clothes knelt down. They offered you a small smile. “I offer my greetings to the madam.”

“...are you… going to kill me, too?”

He shook his head. “This servant would never.”

“Then…” 

“I came here to ensure that you were living peacefully until the lord’s return, but regretfully, even in this life you are treated like this. I tried to make them suffer before dying, but my temper has gotten the best of me. This servant apologizes.”

The person said things you didn’t understand, but you at least knew this much: they weren’t going to hurt you. 

“My lady, I’m afraid you can’t live here anymore.”

The beautiful, doll-like creature that introduced themselves as “Uraume” packed what few materials that belonged to you and led you away. Their skin was colder than the air of a fridge, yet you never felt more safe and warm than when they held your hand on the way to your new abode.

“Uraume-san–”

“Please just call me ‘Uraume,’ my lady, this servant doesn’t dare to be referred to in any other way.”

“R-right. Uraume, you said that I will be living in a different neighborhood.”

“Yes. I handled everything. Though humans have evolved into being more efficient, the paperwork was too much.”

“Will I be living alone?”

They gave you a sad smile. “It would be the highest honor to wait on the lady, but I still have much to prepare for Sukuna-sama’s arrival.”

“Sukuna…sama?”

“He has never tired of searching for you, I’m sure he will be very happy to know that you are now safe and well.”

“Does that mean… that he cares for me?”

Their eyes seemed to sparkle. “Such words are too light to describe the weight of his feelings. Sukuna-sama has devoted every part of himself to you. When you died, he never remarried, and when other sorcerers or village chiefs offered him brides, he would slaughter them all without hesitation. He was especially mad when the women looked like you in any way, be it height, skin color or hair color. This servant personally put their severed heads on poles to be displayed for all to see as a warning. One time, he…”

You didn’t really get it. This person spouted out a lot of information that you didn’t grasp, like a hardcore fan talking about their idol to a normie. 

They seemed to be having fun so you let them talk the entire trip to your new house. 

“Do you like it, madam?” Uraume asked as you examined the residence from outside. “It’s small, but putting you in an apartment complex was out of the question. It would’ve been nice if we got you a mansion but the people I spoke to claimed that only this house was available. Unbelievable, Sukuna-sama would never have tolerated this–”

“I like it.”

“Hm?”

You turned to Uraume and smiled. “I like it, Uraume. Thank you for your efforts.”

Uraume blinked. Then they slowly covered their mouth. “M-my lady, your smile is as radiant as I remember.”

“Are you crying?”

“This servant will go and organize everything so please relax as much as you like!” They then dashed inside.

What an odd person, you thought. But you didn’t want to go inside just yet, not because you were afraid of potential ghosts. Uraume explained the truth about the house before the drive here, and they didn’t seem bothered with it so why should you? 

However, the house was still full of movers carrying furniture and whatnot, and you’d rather avoid people. 

As you thought about where to pass time, something tugged the hem of your dress.

“Fwah…”

You glanced down and found a toddler pulling on your skirt. “Huh? Go away.”

“Mm?” The baby raised his head and met your eyes, and time stopped.

Your head felt heavy and everything around the toddler turned blurry. 

“Yuu…ji?” 

Huh? Did you say something just now? 

“There you are, Yuuji! You almost gave me a heart attack. I’m pretty sure I locked the door, how do you keep escaping?” An old man came over and picked up the child from the ground. “What on Earth am I going to do with you…hm?”

The old man finally noticed you. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

You kept your eyes on the child, who was clapping his hands. “I…I just moved in.”

“Moved in? Where? Oh.” He scratched his stubble when he realized it. “That’s unfortunate.”

You stared at the baby in his arms. Its cheeks were so chubby. You wanted to pinch them until he cried. 

“It’s not my place to say this but… maybe you and your family would be better off going someplace else…” The man whispered.

“What do you mean?” You finally looked away from the toddler.

He sighed. “It’s complicated, but since your parents bought the land they probably already know. It’s a pity. This little one and I will be moving out soon and you could’ve gotten our house instead.”

“Moving out?”

“It’s nothing a kid like you should concern yourself with. Let’s just say that after everything, it’d be bad luck to stay here, right, Yuuji?”

“Ehehe,” the baby garbled out a laugh, making a spit bubble. 

“You can’t leave…” 

“What’s that?” The man turned to you.

You gazed deep into his eyes and repeated, “You can’t leave.”

“We have to, little miss. It’s the best thing for us. I’m not sentimental but I don’t believe in tempting fate. I don’t know if you’re aware but living in this street feels wrong after the mur–ahem, after the incident.”

“What incident?”

“Like I said, you’re too young–”

“There wasn’t any incident.”

“What’re you talking about? Ah, I guess your parents didn’t tell you, after all.”

“There wasn’t any incident,” you said again, never breaking eye contact. “Nothing happened, everything is fine. You’re not going anywhere.”

Your mouth was moving but you couldn’t hear yourself. Your mind was muddied. 

The old man stared back at you, unblinking and silent for a whole minute, before his lips moved, “I haven’t seen you before.”

“No. I just moved in with the L/N’s.” You pointed at your new house. 

“Ah, I see. Are you a visiting cousin or something?”

“Yes. My parents are working abroad so my aunt and uncle decided to take me in.”

“Aha, I see. They’re good people, your aunt and uncle, though their sons are a bit rowdy.”

“Yes, they are.” You turned to the baby who was now looking at you with curious eyes.

The old man noticed and proceeded to introduce himself and the kid. “I’m your neighbor, Wasuke Itadori, and this one’s named Yuuji. His parents are… not here, so I’m in charge of him.”

The baby beamed before reaching out his fat sausage arm towards you.

You offered him a finger and he grabbed it tightly as he giggled.

“Nice to meet you. My name is…”

You opened your eyes, a bit groggy from a dream you could no longer remember. 

“Finally awake?” A woman asked. She had long brown hair and wore a lab coat. A doctor. “Hello, I’m Shoko Ieiri. Do you remember who you are?”

You rose to a sitting position, but didn’t answer. 

“Do you know today’s date?”

You stared at her. “Where is Yuuji?”

“Hm… how do you know that name?”

“Yuuji is my neighbor but we’re more like family. Where is he?”

“He was right…” Shoko murmured as she wrote something on her clipboard. When she noticed you glaring, she put it away and grinned. “Don’t worry, he’s indisposed but otherwise in good health. You’ll be able to meet up with him in a few minutes. We need to focus on your condition right now.”

“I’m perfectly healthy.” You raised your arms in an attempt to show how fine you were. “Nothing hurts and I remember my own name and the date today. Please let me see him.” 

Before she could reply, her phone buzzed and she excused herself.

As she stepped out to answer the call, you stared at your hands as they pulled on your blanket. 

“Yuuji…”

@shadowywizardarcade @hannya-exists @nineooooo @lilachaeyo @pumpkindudeishere @jessbeinme15 @fluffy-koalala @cringeycookies @frogzxch @isimpfordanielpark @marvelsgirl4ever @sanzusmom @sheccidoscar @alastorhazbin @satosuguswife @lumanii @leahlovesreading @blackstaw @boba–12 @certainduckanchor @langweile @amitiel-truth @qualityprincessrunaway @thatoneweirdgirl17 @lilith-snape

A/N: This took longer than expected. But anyway, happy human holidays, everyone! Comments are always appreciated.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #sukuna x y/n #yandere #sukuna x reader #sukuna #reincarnation au #husband #married #married au

[stealingyourbones]

Prompt Idea: Danny has plot armor.

To start off, Danny’s whole family knows he’s Phantom, and they had to run from Amity because of the GIW. They wind up in Gotham because that’s the one place that The Government doesn’t really mess with.

The reason behind Danny’s plot armor is that in this world, Danny became incredibly overprotective of his friends and family in order to make sure he doesn’t wind up as Dan, ironically making the chance of that happening much greater than before.

In order to prevent this, Clockwork gives Danny and his family a blessing. It works like this.

Imagine you rolled a dice. To Clockwork, there are now 6+ possible alternate timelines that can ensue. Clockwork’s blessing allows those possible timelines to be restricted to only one or two, all of them good for the Fenton family.

In effect, it was like plot armor. Scarecrow attacks a library with Jazz inside? Oh, looks like her parents need her to pick up Danny early, or she drank too much water and needs to go to the bathroom, which just so happens to have a window just in reach that she can escape from.

Maddy needs to get a job? Well, Jazz’s university needs a new chemistry professor (last one was kidnapped by a rogue) and they’re in a bit of a rush so they’ll skip looking for a teaching certificate. No one cares anyways, it’s Gotham.

Jack needs something to do? Well, besides hunting ghosts, he’d always wanted to open a food truck! With Jazzy making sure nothings contaminated and some (slightly modified) recipes from the Ghost Zone, he can finally chase his dream in a big city with his Phantom Food Vehicle! He wonders what some of those shady men came up to him for, or that odd stout fella in the tux.

(The Phantom Food Truck has become a recent cryptid in Gotham. Except it’s not a cryptid, because everyone’s seen the video of the truck hurtling down the street like it’s chasing down the devil, cop cars and vigilantes alike on its tail. And yet, no one could find it. Not even the Bats. That’s about when everyone gave up. When they learned that you don’t find it, the Phantom Food Truck finds you.)

As for Danny? He’s entirely unaware of this, to focused on keeping his head down. It works, for a while. Before fate came knocking in the form of a wicked smile, as if there solely to ruin his day.

The Joker wasn’t having a good day either. He started out having a jolly old time, joker toxin gassing a small high school, making sure to leave macabre presents for his dear Batsy, and then what happens? This random kid just starts running around, helping students, saving teachers, what’s he gonna do next huh? Save a cat from a tree?

What’s worse, his useless henchmen couldn’t even land a hit on the kid! He swears, Bill doesn’t even seem to be trying.

Whatever, they managed to corner the brat, looked like he was standing in front of some other children. So Joker lines the shot, and he fires.

The gun jams.

Alrighty, he takes one from a random mook, and he shoots again.

The gun jams.

No one’s moving at this point. Where there was once dread and tension in the air, there’s just confusion. So Joker points the gun at a goon, pulls the trigger, the shot goes off.

He turns back to the Robin-ish looking twink, and he pulls the trigger.

The gun jams.

And as he starts walking towards the kid to just kill it himself, he wakes up in the Arkham hospital wing with his last memory of the encounter being him slipping on the glowing green contents of some weird looking thermos that the kid had thrown earlier in the fight. What the FUCK was that.

Clockwork doesn’t even care how pissed the Observers are any more, this is hilarious.

it's to the point of ridiculousness that the Bats have an entire file on Danny and they think he's a meta with a luck ability and nothing else.

#dpxdc #bones replies

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

No Such Thing As Monsters

Summary: Dean is injured on a hunt and at first glance, appears to be fine. Quickly though, the reader and Sam learn something far more serious is going on...

Pairing: Dean x reader

Word Count: 1,200ish

Warnings: language, injury

“Dean,” you said, shaking on his shoulder, his eyes flashing open, fist tightening around his angel blade. “You’re okay. Sam took care of the ghoul. How’re you doing?”

“I feel like I just went through a wall,” he said, shakily getting to his feet, cocking his head at the damaged sheetrock in front of him. “Looks like I did.”

“You sure you okay?” you asked, his head nodding. “Sam’s driving us home, just in case.”

“No arguments from me,” he said, giving Sam a nod when he showed up, following his brother the few blocks over to where you’d parked Baby. Dean grabbed the passenger door, slamming his hand on the roof.

“Dean...” said Sam. Dean scrunched up his face, placing a hand on his head. “Dean.”

“Take me to a hospital,” gritted out Dean, your eyes wide. “Now.”

“What’s wrong?” you said, shoving him in the backseat instead, climbing in beside him as Sam started gunning it for the closest one.

“My head. Something’s wrong. I don’t...just hurry.”

Eight Hours Later

Your excuse of Dean taking a hard fall worked with the doctors but you and Sam were staring at one another after finally getting to see Dean again.

“Let’s talk outside,” said the neurologist, Dean giving you a smile as you followed her out.

“What is wrong with my brother, Sally?” asked Sam the second the door to Dean��s room was shut. 

“Retrograde amnesia as far as I can tell. He remembers certain things like his name, date of birth, address when he was a child. You’re lucky I was on call tonight to take his case. Neuro patients are hard enough, especially one’s that are hunters and have to lie about everything,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Sally, amnesia...isn’t that supposed to fade after a few hours at most?” asked Sam.

“Normally,” she said, taking a deep breath. “My best guess is a combination of lasting amnesia which will be hard to recover from but we can help him...and then he’s repressing all the hunting without realizing. You guys have seen some serious crap I’m sure he’d rather forget.”

“What do you mean repressing?” you asked. 

“I mean, Dean thinks monsters are made up, creatures from stories. He doesn’t know they’re real,” she said. You raised an eyebrow, Sam shaking his head. “He doesn’t remember the ghoul, he doesn’t remember the Vamp you guys took care of for me years ago. Monsters aren’t real to him,” said Sally.

“He’s known monsters were real his whole life,” said Sam.

“Technically, since he was four, almost five,” said Sally. “There was a time when he didn’t think any of this was real so it is possible.”

“You’re telling me Dean thinks he’s five?” you said. “He’s in his thirties.”

“He doesn’t think he’s five. He just doesn’t remember certain things. Like he understands basic long term memories, who his parents are, who Sam is...more recent things he’s blocked out,” she said. “Either by choice or because he really can’t remember.”

“Does he remember me? I only started running with the guys about five years ago,” you said.

“He knows your name and that he loves you but that’s about it. The details are all fuzzy for him. Now Dean’s not exactly what I’d call a normal patient. He’ll get thrown in an institute if he starts remembering here in a hospital and God knows what’ll happen to him in there,” she said.

“What do we do then?” asked Sam, Sally sighing and grabbing a chart from the nurses station.

“He has no bleeding in his head, just a few minor cuts and bruises from his tussle. Take him home, try to get him to remember. Any problems and you guys call me. I’ll get you some materials that help sometimes,” she said.

“What if he doesn’t remember?” said Sam.

“Then he doesn’t. Either way, you need to be there for him. You guys gotta get going. The other neurologist starts his shift in an hour and he’s going to want to look at Dean if he’s still here.”

Dean was quiet on the way home, sitting in the backseat, leaning against the backdoor as he stared out the window. Sam simply went through the motions, making him dinner, sending him to bed after checking his bandages, Dean wearing a confused but happy smile the whole time. 

“Y/N,” said Sam, catching you sipping on a drink the library, stealing the bottle to pour himself some.

“What are we going to do Sam?” you asked. “He’s...”

“Do you remember when I saved you from that fire? You promised you’d do anything I wanted. Anything. I told you maybe someday I’d take you up on it. We both know I was never going to but this...I’m cashing that favor in, Y/N,” he said, taking a long swig.

“Using a spell to get his memories back might be dangerous, Sam,” you said, earning a head shake.

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the fact that my big brother thinks the world is normal. The weight of it isn’t on his shoulders anymore. He’s so light and happy. You’re gonna pack up his stuff, pack up your stuff, and you’re going to take him to a little cabin that used to be Bobby’s. It’s not that far out in the boonies so you’ll have electricity and internet and then...you’re gonna help him get a job, get a job yourself and you two are going to get the hell out of this life,” he said.

“Sam that is not-”

“You’re doing this. If something comes after you, you can protect him. Try it for me. If he starts to remember on his own, come back but please, give it a try.”

Two Days Later

“I thought we lived at the bunker place?” asked Dean, sitting down at your new kitchen table, watching you whip up an easy dinner. 

“We live here now,” you said, stirring the pot, taking a deep breath. 

“What do we do now?” he asked with a smile. “Do I go to work?”

“We’ll find you a new job,” you said, Dean pursing his lips. “What is it Dean?”

“You’re not happy,” he said. “I want to fix it but I don’t remember how to do that.”

“We both have to get used to this new life,” you said, giving him a nod. “We will. I don’t want you to worry about me, Dean.”

“I love you though. Of course I worry about you,” he said with a smirk.

“You don’t even remember my birthday,” you said with a smile.

“I guess I get to learn everything I love about you all over again then,” he said. “I do know I love you. I definitely remember that.”

“I love you too Dean. Every version of you. We’ll get through this too.”

#spn #supernatural #dean x reader #one shot #dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #spn reader insert #supernatural reader insert

[bigskyandthecoldgun]

based on this

steve's pov | dragon's pov

Steve had found Dragon hiding in a bush when she’d been a teeny, tiny kitten with mangy black fur and green eyes that took up basically her whole face.

She’d been so sickly, in fact, that the vet had warned Steve she might not make it. Steve had refused to give up on the kitten, though, nursing her back to health as best as he possibly could. Now, she’s an enormous, regal-looking cat that has a meow closer to a roar, a purr that makes her sound like a motorcycle engine, and breath so terrible it should be legally qualified as a hazardous gas. That is, admittedly, where Dragon had gotten her name. Steve had found her just after the events of ’84, and when Dustin came over to bug him for a ride to the arcade, he’d been all but obsessed with the poor cat.

“D’you have a name for her yet?” Dustin had asked, eyes wide with wonder as the kitten had scrambled up Steve’s pant leg and climbed up to perch on his shoulder, shaking and terrified at the stranger in their home.

“Nah. Figured I’d just call her, like, Midnight or something,” Steve had said with a shrug, to which Dustin had taken great offense.

Upon smelling the stench that had come from the kitten’s hiss, Dustin had declared her a fearsome creature with a breath weapon, whatever that means—a Dragon. So Steve’s got a cat that is incredibly clingy and a little stinky, but only when she opens her mouth.

And his cat is ruining his dating life.

The thing about Dragon is that she doesn’t like most people. She tolerates Robin, even when she’s sitting next to Steve, but other than that, she hates it when people get close to Steve. Dragon’s the most territorial cat Steve has ever met, and Steve can hardly go anywhere in the house without Dragon at his feet or on his shoulders. And balancing a cat as large as Dragon on his shoulders is not an easy feat. Dragon screams if Steve closes her out of a room he’s in and sleeps directly atop Steve’s chest. That cat is the clingiest creature on the planet, and Steve would die for her.

But Dragon despises people. She hisses at the girls Steve brings home, yowls when the door to Steve’s bedroom is closed, and swats at anyone that tries to so much as touch him when he’s on the couch. It’s absolutely destroying Steve’s chances at bringing girls home, and while most of his dates are content to bring him back to theirs, Steve’s getting a little tired of being kicked out of bed. At least when he’s at home, he can mope right away when girls turn down his offer of staying the night and leave early, rather than moping in his car.

And it’s not like he’s getting a ton of action lately, anyway. Now that the whole Vecna debacle is over, with Eddie and Max out of the hospital, the Party spends most of its nights together, so Steve hasn’t been going on too many dates anymore. Instead, he spends his time either on someone else’s couch or his own, and if it’s the latter, he can count on Dragon sitting squarely on his lap and everyone but Robin sitting a few feet away for safety purposes.

It’s a late afternoon in November, when he’s hanging out alone with Eddie at his house for the first time, when Dragon does something truly surprising.

She lets Eddie pet her.

They’re hanging out in the kitchen, Steve almost done with his cup of coffee and Eddie nursing a cup of his own mixed with an absurd amount of hot chocolate powder. The coffee in late afternoon is a peculiar habit of Eddie’s; he says it’s because it’s when his uncle usually wakes up, and they have coffee together, so Steve thinks it’s kind of sweet. It’s a really nice afternoon, chilly but not too cold, only slightly overcast so that it’s not too sunny but not too cloudy, either. The cool light makes Eddie’s hair look shiny, and the gleam bounces off his skin like a halo might.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to tell you how cool your cat is,” Eddie says, nodding towards the Dragon in question. Dragon hops up on the counter, then hops up on Steve’s shoulders, purring as she nudges the side of her face against Steve’s cheek. Eddie grins. “Dragon. A fitting name for a majestic beast.”

“I don’t know why she’s so unfriendly,” Steve sighs, reaching up to scratch behind Dragon’s fluffy ears. Dragon purrs even harder. Eddie snorts and reaches up to join Steve in scritching behind Dragon’s ears, but Steve takes a step back. “Woah, careful, man, don’t want you to get clawed.”

Eddie’s grin turns into a small, fond smile. “Cats don’t really like me, anyway, I don’t mind a little scratch or two,” he says, stepping closer to offer his hand up for Dragon to sniff.

Instead of the hiss Steve’s predicting, Dragon pushes her face against Eddie’s knuckles and continues to purr. “Holy shit,” Steve breathes, eyes wide, “she doesn’t do that with anybody.”

“She probably does that with you,” Eddie points out, and Steve gives him a flat look. The answering shit-eating grin he gets is unfairly endearing. “Nah, I get what you mean. But seriously? There must be someone else she likes. One of the kids? Some girl you brought home that happened to have cat treats in her purse or some shit?”

Steve groans and shifts Dragon into his arms, feigning annoyance when Dragon nuzzles against his jaw. It’s actually pretty cute. “No, this little asshole is ruining my chances of getting laid,” he says. “She hates everybody I bring home. She doesn’t even like the kids! The most socializing she’s ever done with another person before this is her letting Robin be next to me. Dragon tolerating a relationship? No way.”

Dragon lets out a loud meow and licks Steve’s cheek. “Well, maybe you just have to find somebody she likes,” Eddie says, scratching under Dragon’s chin. Dragon meows again and squints, chin tilting up to give Eddie more room to scratch. Eddie clicks his tongue. “Aw, see? She’s a sweet girl. I’m sure she’ll have a soft spot for someone other than yourself soon enough.”

Steve decides to play along. “Draggy,” Steve coos, “will you please let Daddy get laid? Be all sweet and good instead of biting people’s ankles?”

“I’m sorry, did you just call yourself Daddy?” Eddie sputters, looking mortified.

Frowning, Steve shifts Dragon so that he’s holding her like one might hold an infant. “Yeah, I’m Dragon’s dad, and she’s my little baby,” he explains. “Duh.”

“No, okay, wh—nevermind,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “My point is, even if Dragon hates the ladies, I’m sure there’s one lady out there for you she won’t hate.”

As Eddie pets Dragon’s tummy—her tummy!—Steve realizes that, yeah, there is one person out there that Dragon doesn’t hate.

Steve resolves that, if Dragon really doesn’t mind Eddie’s company, he should have Eddie around more often. The way Steve sees it, if Dragon gets used to Eddie being in the house and being close to Steve, she might open up to other people who are around a lot, like the Party, and then she could even learn to tolerate girls coming over. As much as Steve hates to admit it, Eddie Munson might just be the reason his dating life gets revived.

At the next movie night, the movie night that Eddie finally shows up for, when Dragon hops into Steve’s lap and everyone scoots at least ten feet away, Steve pats the seat next to him. “Hey, Eddie, c’mere,” he says, and Dustin openly gawks when Eddie’s able to sit right next to Steve with no roaring protests from Dragon.

“What the hell?! I’ve been in your house so many times and I’ve never been able to sit near you when Dragon’s around!” Dustin huffs, scowling at the fluffy bastard. “And I’m the one who named her! I’m practically her godfather!”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Henderson,” Eddie says, a slow grin spreading across his face, which can’t be good. “If Steve’s pu—”

“Nope,” Steve cuts in, slapping a hand over Eddie’s mouth, cheeks burning, “not gonna let you finish that.”

Eddie nods. “Very wise,” he says, muffled. “It was gonna be incredibly inappropriate.”

Satisfied with having stopped that, Steve moves his hand away, and Eddie knocks their shoulders together. To Steve’s shock, Dragon doesn’t hiss or swat, just snuggles further into Steve’s lap and purrs harder than she’s ever purred before. The movie starts up, and Steve watches Eddie reach over in the dark, usually a bad move when it comes to Dragon. But Dragon just lets Eddie run a hand over the top of her head, and Steve leans into his side, the two of them sharing a small smile.

After the movie, when most everyone else has gone home, Eddie’s still around, scratching behind Dragon’s ears. “You know, you should hang out here more often,” Steve tells him, and Eddie raises a brow at him. Steve tilts his head. “I mean, Dragon doesn’t get a lot of socializing in, so…it’d probably be good for her.”

Clearly holding back a grin, Eddie nods. “Sure. I’d love to come around more so Dragon gets some socializing in,” he teases, and Steve rolls his eyes, holding back a smile of his own. Eddie leans closer, smoothing his thumb over Dragon’s fuzzy little cheek. “She’s really cute. Has good taste in who she lets pet her.”

Eddie casts his gaze down at Dragon. His lashes are long and dark. He has really nice hands, too, and it’s easy to notice them as they run over Dragon’s pitch-black fur. “Yeah,” Steve says quietly, giving Dragon a pat by her leg, “she does.”

Eddie comes over way more often from then on, and Dragon gets somewhat clingy to him, which is kind of unbelievable, because Dragon’s never rubbed up on anyone’s ankles but Steve’s, but it’s a marked improvement. The only downside is that Dragon still hasn’t improved with anyone else, but Steve figures that’ll change sooner or later.

For now, he’s content to hang out with Eddie in his room, laying on the bed with Dragon sitting on his chest and Eddie laying beside him. “Little lady,” Eddie coos, almost nose-to-nose with Dragon, who purrs. “Sweet baby girl.”

“She’s a smelly girl,” Steve tuts, scratching between Dragon’s ears. He looks at Eddie. “I still can’t believe you’re the only one out of everybody we know that she likes.”

Eddie looks up at him, big brown eyes shining with mirth. “I dunno, I think it’s pretty believable. I happen to be very likable,” he says. And, to Eddie’s credit, Steve’s found that he kind of is. “And besides, cats have good judgements of character. I’ve been chosen.”

Steve raises a brow. “I thought you said cats didn’t like you.”

Face scrunched up, Eddie tilts his head. “Yeah…I lied. Didn’t want to make you feel bad if I did get scratched,” he explains.

That’s fair, actually.

Dragon meows, raspy and roaring as always, and she smacks her paw out at Eddie’s arm, using her—trimmed, because Steve takes very good care of her—claws to drag him closer. “She wants you closer? That’s crazy,” Steve comments as Eddie scoots into his space, their sides pressed together. “She must really like you.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything, but he does smile, soft and private, and Steve thinks it’s nice. It’s a smile he hasn’t seen before.

It’s pretty.

Even with Eddie and Dragon getting buddy-buddy, it still doesn’t seem to be helping Steve’s case with bringing anyone home. Hell, Dragon still isn’t even close to being civil with most of the Party, barring Robin, who actually got in a single chin scratch the other day. But Eddie and Dragon are getting along swimmingly, to the point where Eddie can actually pick Dragon up! Granted, it’s not for very long, because Dragon starts screaming about ten seconds in until Steve takes her from Eddie, but still. It’s insane.

“You are killing me, you little menace,” Steve tells Dragon one night while Eddie’s using the bathroom. “Why do you like Eddie so much, huh? I mean, sure, he’s funny and he’s nice, but it’s not like you can understand what he says, you don’t speak English.”

Dragon meows indignantly at him from her place on Steve’s lap, slow-blinking at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I see your point. Eddie is pretty great,” Steve mutters.

Dragon yawns and starts making biscuits on his thighs, then purrs.

“Okay, so he’s handsome, too, but I don’t see how that’s appealing for you, you’re a cat,” Steve huffs. He blinks, face flushing. “Well, that’s—it doesn’t appeal to me, either, I guess.”

Dragon gives him an inquisitive little mrrowp? in response.

Steve blows out a long breath. “Look, Draggy, you gotta find someone else you like. Eddie can’t be the only other person you can tolerate, it’s just not realistic,” Steve tells her.

Dragon roars.

Shushing her, Steve pets her to sweeten the deal of shutting up. “Yeah, I know, and I like having him around, too—”

“Talking to your cat about me, Stevie?” Eddie asks, bouncing into the room and sitting down beside him with a flouncy sort of flip of his hair. “Well, Madam Dragon, I do hope he hasn’t been slandering my good name.”

He’s using that silly cat-voice he does when he’s talking to Dragon, and it’s almost as endearing as the way Dragon rolls over to let Eddie rub her tummy. “I would do no such thing,” Steve says, feigning offense, and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Miss Dragon, don’t listen to a word he says,” Eddie tells the cat. He glances over at the clock and frowns. “Ah, shit, it’s getting late.”

“You could stay here, if you want,” Steve offers. “Maybe Dragon’ll suffocate someone else in their sleep for a change.”

Eddie laughs, but he takes Steve up on the offer, heading into the guest bedroom in a change of clothes that definitely doesn’t make Steve feel a certain type of way about seeing Eddie in his one of his old swim team shirts. Though, the night is not peaceful, because a certain giant, annoying cat refuses to stop screeching at the top of her lungs. Eddie comes stumbling back into Steve’s bedroom, Dragon held in his outstretched arms, Eddie’s hands tucked under the cat’s armpits.

There’s a grumpy, slightly disgruntled look on Eddie’s face. “Please tell your daughter to stop screaming at me,” he says, placing Dragon on the bed, and Steve reaches for her to drag her into his lap. Eddie nods and turns to leave, only for Dragon to scream again, and he whirls right back around. “Oh my God, what?!”

Dragon gives a little chirp and trots to the edge of the bed, nosing at Eddie’s hand. “Draggy, let Eddie go to bed,” Steve says, his voice rough with what little sleep he’d managed to get between Dragon’s long and loud meows.

“Yes, Dragon, I need my beauty sleep,” Eddie says. When he turns to leave again, Dragon yowls and bites down—seemingly gently—on his hand, carefully stepping backwards towards Steve while she does so. Eddie looks just as bewildered as Steve feels. “Does she want me to stay here?”

“I have no idea. I’ve literally never seen her do this before,” Steve tells him. “But, like, you can, as long as it’ll stop her from screeching.”

Eddie blows out a long breath. “Honestly, I don’t even care at this point, I just want to sleep,” he groans, clambering under the covers until they’re laying face-to-face beside each other. Eddie smiles at him, then winces and scoots closer. “Sorry, ah—she’s pushing my back.”

Dragon gives a little mrrp of confirmation.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into her, I’m sorry,” Steve whispers, and Eddie just half-shrugs, eyes darting everywhere but Steve’s face. He looks uneasy. “Hey, man, if you’re uncomfortable staying here, you can sleep on the pullout in the den and I’ll just lock her in here, she’s got a litterbox and water in my bathroom, she’ll be fine. And you won’t hear anything down there, so…”

Eddie shakes his head. “Nah. Wouldn’t wanna put you through that torture.”

He gets slightly closer, and Steve’s face goes a little hot at the proximity. Their noses are almost touching. “She’s being a little douchebag,” Steve murmurs. “Ignore her.”

“She keeps pushing at my back,” Eddie tells him, sounding a little panicked. “Why is your cat so strong, dude?”

“I can take her out of the—”

Dragon lets out a meow so loud that it rings out for a few seconds after she’s done.

Eddie is clearly fighting a laugh. “Okay, so keeping her out of the room isn’t an option,” he says, and Steve chuckles. Eddie gives him a curious sort of look. “Hey…about earlier. What were you telling Dragon about me?”

Oh, just that you’re funny and sweet and, apparently, I think you’re really handsome, is what Steve probably shouldn’t say.

“Oh, just that you’re funny and sweet and, apparently, I think you’re really handsome,” is what Steve says, because he’s an idiot.

Eddie’s brows shoot up, behind his bangs. “I’m sorry, you think what?”

“That you’re really handsome,” Steve says, because, again, he’s an idiot.

Blinking, Eddie starts to frown. “Are you messing with me right now? Because if you are, that is not cool, Harrington—”

“I’m not,” Steve says. “I’m—I didn’t—I mean, Dragon really likes you, and cats are…a good judge of character, and you’re, uh—you’re pretty.”

The frown turns into a poorly-hidden smile. “I’m pretty?” Eddie echoes, lashes batting, and Steve can’t tell whether or not that’s intentional.

“You are,” he says softly. “You also make me laugh, and you get along really well with my cat, which—and I don’t know if you know this—is very hard to do.”

Eddie laughs, almost bashful. “I did say there’d be somebody Dragon had a soft spot for other than you, didn’t I?”

“The little menace is a matchmaker,” Steve mutters, and Eddie leans forward just slightly until their noses are touching. Steve reaches up to cup Eddie’s face. “Can I kiss you?”

“Absolutely,” Eddie says breathlessly.

Steve presses their lips together gently, moving slowly, and Eddie hums into the kiss, one hand on Steve’s waist and the other sliding up to his chest. It’s soft and it’s good, and Steve leans into it a little more, his fingers tangling in Eddie’s curls as he deepens the kiss. Unfortunately, Steve has to pull back for air, but Eddie’s smiling when he does. Dragon meows, much further away than Steve had thought she’d been, and the sound of her collar jingling grows quieter and quieter.

“Well,” Steve says, “I definitely found somebody she likes.”

“Safe to say, she won’t prevent you from getting laid anymore,” Eddie murmurs, his low voice sending a shiver down Steve’s spine. He gets this hesitant sort of look on his face, like he isn’t sure if he’s overstepped. “I mean, only if you want to—”

Steve interrupts him with a chaste kiss. “Oh, I want to,” he whispers.

The next morning, when they wake up tangled in each other’s arms, clothes littering the floor, Dragon is sitting on the edge of the bed with Eddie’s discarded shirt in her mouth, tail flicking back and forth, looking smug as ever.

#i'll drop dragon's pov tomorrow #but for now u get this :] #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steddie #steve x eddie #robin buckley #there is nothing more important than platonic stobin #dragon knows this and she respects it

[loveinhawkins]

After the almost end of the world, Steve tells Eddie that he can have a shower first.

It feels surreal that they’ve both made it here—that Eddie is standing in his hallway, leaving mud stains on the floor from his boots: remnants of The Upside Down mixed with normal dirt.

Steve almost wants to ask if he can walk around some more, create countless marks as proof of his existence; hell, even take his hand and run it down the beige walls.

Leave a trail, Steve thinks, through a fog of complete and utter exhaustion. So I know it’s real. So I can find my way back to you.

What he says instead is, “Try not to get your dressings wet.”

Eddie pauses on the stairs. Smiles. “Okay, nurse,” he says, and it’s a gentle tease if anything, his voice softened by tiredness.

He’s holding himself a little stiffly while turned to speak, his upper body almost at an angle.

Steve thinks about the jagged line down his side (“If the bats died, like, ten seconds later, you’d have—you asshole,” Dustin had rambled through tears, thumping Eddie on the arm); how Eddie had narrowly avoided a hospital stay. Thinks of the way Eddie tried to reassure Dustin, fiddling with the guitar pick hanging around his neck in a show of nonchalance—but Steve still saw how his hand shook.

“Guess I’m just a lucky son of a bitch, huh, Henderson?”

It shouldn’t have been luck; it should have been a guarantee. Steve should have ensured it.

Eddie makes his way upstairs with slow, heavy footsteps. Steve waits until he can hear the water running, then heads to the phone.

He’s used to this routine by now. Robin and Nancy first, as he knows they’ll pick up rather than their parents.

“Oh, thank god,” Robin had said when she answered the phone after Starcourt. “I thought it was a horrible dream.”

“Thank god?” Steve echoed, laughing.

“Yeah,” Robin said, quite seriously. “It was either I dreamed up everything alone, or we saw it all together.”

And Steve, touched beyond words, had called her a dingus instead.

Tonight, their phone call is much quieter.

“I’m home,” Robin says. “I love you.”

Steve’s hand clenches around the phone. “Love you too,” he whispers, and he ignores the warning sting in his eyes, because he doesn’t have time to—he still has so much left to…

“I’m home,” Nancy says. She adds, “Get some sleep, Steve,” in the fatigued tones of someone who will not be taking their own advice.

Eddie comes downstairs sometime during Steve’s phone call with Mr and Mrs Sinclair. He’s quiet; the only sign that alerts Steve to his presence is the faint smell of mint body wash.

When Steve hangs up, he has to take a breath, still clinging to the phone pointlessly.

“What are you doing?” Eddie asks quietly.

Steve breathes out. “Checking in,” he says.

He dials another number.

It began after Starcourt, the Sinclairs having bought the excuse that Steve had been trapped with Erica in a broken down elevator as the ‘fire’ began—technically true, Steve had thought, just in the wrong order.

Their conversation had been all anxious tones, all, You were there, Steve, what exactly…? Should we be worried that…?

And he gets good at it, at bridging the gap between worlds: keeping the full truth from parents, but giving them just enough information, little things that go beyond the surface level cover story, that somehow help put their mind at ease—cultivating the sense that Steve is the witness, the one being honest with them.

Christ, he’s tired.

The call with Max’s mom is hard. She’s still at the hospital, and technically there’s nothing to really worry about (Max’s arm had a clean break), but that doesn’t change how it all felt, how she shook with pained sobs as Steve tucked her into his side.

“She’s sleeping now. She said you were with her,” Susan tells him, voice low. “Steve, I’m—I’m so grateful.”

But I wasn’t, Steve thinks. Not when it mattered.

He doesn’t realise that he’s still holding the phone after the call has ended until Eddie takes it from him and puts it back in the cradle.

“Hey, can I, uh, use the phone? Wanna call my uncle,” Eddie says.

Steve doesn’t mention the fact that Eddie has already spoken with his uncle, that Steve had overheard him fighting tears in the hospital as he called the plant where his uncle was still working: because even the earthquake-like rumble felt all over town as Henry Creel died wasn’t enough of an excuse to warrant clocking out early.

“Pretend I’m s-someone else calling,” Eddie had whispered, his voice breaking. “Wayne, I-I’m okay. Got stitches, but I’m okay. Fuck. I love you.”

And Steve tried not to think about how it could’ve so easily been him making the call, telling Wayne Munson that his nephew will never come home again.

Eddie pauses, hand hovering over the phone. Then he twirls his index finger in a little circle: turn around.

Steve does. Can’t find the energy to smile.

“Shower,” Eddie says, then taps him very gently on the back, once, twice, like he’s saying off you go.

Steve manages to twist his body so his own fresh bandages don’t get wet, carefully tilting the shower head away from them. He methodically washes away the dirt; the heat of the water is welcome, but it also seems to weigh down his limbs with every drop.

When he goes back downstairs, Eddie is on the phone. He keeps repeating vague little mm-hmm sounds, and Steve somehow is sure that he isn’t on the phone to his uncle.

“Yeah,” Eddie says as Steve approaches. “Yeah, he’s here.”

There’s a little side table next to the phone; Eddie reaches for the notepad, scribbles, then turns it round so Steve can see.

Dustin’s mom

And Steve…

He knows he should talk to her. He knows Claudia will no doubt have questions, even if Dustin’s probably already given his own half-baked explanation about how he hurt his leg—“It’s just a sprain,” he’d insisted, even as Steve hoisted him up, took all of his weight.

The right thing to do, surely, is take the phone from Eddie.

But Steve suddenly can’t bring himself to even lift his hand for it. He feels drained, feels vulnerable and exposed after the shower—that along with the grime being lifted from his skin, it’s also left his stupidly fragile, exhausted heart on show.

Eddie’s eyes flicker over his face like he can see it, see everything, and without so much as an awkward pause, he murmurs into the receiver, “He’s tired. Yeah, he’s—he’s okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I will.”

He hesitates for a moment, a fleeting sheen to his eyes, and then he says, “Thank you. Goodnight, Mrs Henderson.” Another little pause. He smiles, adds, “Goodnight, Claudia,” and hangs up the phone.

“Is she… okay?” Steve asks. “What did she—is Dustin—”

“All good,” Eddie says. “She was just… checking in.”

The checking you were okay goes unsaid, but Steve can still hear it.

It weighs him down like the shower had done. He doesn’t register that he crosses through to the living room, just knows that he’s suddenly sinking down onto the arm of the couch, that Eddie is sitting next to him.

Steve doesn’t consciously decide to speak, the words tumbling out of him like it’s inevitable.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he mumbles.

He can practically hear Eddie frantically trying to make sense of what he’s said.

“Well, yeah, no plan’s gonna go perfectly, man, that’d be—but, hey, we fuckin’ made it, we—”

But Steve is shaking his head. “No, I… I thought I’d figured it out, I—”

He doesn’t know how to explain it; it’s too much to…

It’s something too big to put into words.

The fact that, as Nancy relayed each phase of the plan, he had listened closely, only agreed because at least he was in the group that would be closest to the ‘blast zone.’

That he’d hated leaving Lucas, Max and Erica alone, but had tried to reassure himself that at least they weren’t in The Upside Down.

That once Dustin knew where Steve was going, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, that he’d follow him to The Upside Down no matter what.

And, honestly, Steve would’ve preferred Eddie not getting dragged into this bullshit for any longer than he needed to be—that if it was feasible, Steve would’ve just told him to take the RV and run.

But Steve had seen how he was with Dustin, roughhousing in the grass. Knew that where Dustin went, Eddie would follow, too—a shield in his hand.

And Steve also knew something along those lines was true for him and Robin: that if he thought he could get away with it, he would’ve told her to watch over the kids at the Creel House, but knew she’d choose to be with him.

That all he could feel about going into Henry Creel’s lair himself was relief—not because he thought he was an essential part in all of this, but because he just…

He needed to be there. Just in case.

Because there was a look in Nancy’s eyes that terrified him. It said that if she had to, she’d die with Henry Creel, so long as it would all be over, so long as Barb would be avenged.

Out loud, all he can say is, “It… it was too close.”

“Steve,” Eddie says. “No-one got—”

“You’re not listening,” Steve says, and there’s a scream in his throat begging to be released; he doesn’t let it go. “It was too—I almost—almost had to—”

“Steve.”

“S-someone’s gotta call home,” Steve goes on. “And I—fuck, I was so scared I’d h-have to—to tell them that—”

“Steve,” Eddie whispers.

“But I-I would’ve,” Steve says. His voice cracks. “I couldn’t have just—they would’ve got a-answers, I would’ve—”

“I know,” Eddie says softly, and he’s got a hand in Steve’s hair suddenly, guiding him to his shoulder. “I know you’d—hey, I’ve got you. I know.”

The first sob, when it starts, hurts—feels like it comes straight from his stomach. Eddie holds him through it, almost like he’s afraid Steve might drift away to some unreachable place.

“I’ve got you,” he keeps saying. “Oh, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

When it’s over, when Steve gives a final, shuddering breath against Eddie’s shoulder, Eddie murmurs into his hair, “S’too late for any more phone calls, Steve. C’mon. Show me where to sleep?”

It’s not even all that big of a thing, when Steve leads Eddie to his bedroom, lies down on the farthest side of the bed. Leaves deliberate space.

“You don’t have to—there’s a guest room,” Steve says, tongue thick with exhaustion. “Don’t wanna—kinda worried I’ll hit your dressings in my sleep.”

Eddie looks at him from the doorway. “You’ve been patched up too, Steve,” he points out.

Steve shrugs.

Eddie steps into the room. “It’ll be fine,” he says, smiling. “We’ll both be gentle, huh?”

Steve nods through a yawn. When Eddie makes to shut the door, he says, “Don’t, leave it open. Just—just in case the phone… I’ll sleep right through it otherwise.”

Eddie’s still touching the door handle. “D’you trust me?”

Steve’s eyes keep closing against his will. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I trust you.”

Eddie shuts the door so quietly that it barely makes a sound. “Okay. ‘Cause I have, like, freakishly good hearing.” Through his lashes, Steve sees Eddie smirk wryly. “Like a bat.”

Steve thinks he makes a noise of acknowledgement—isn’t quite sure as his eyes have closed.

He feels Eddie lie down next to him, feels the covers being drawn up.

“I’ll hear the phone,” Eddie says. “I’ll answer it, ‘kay? I’ll come wake you up, if I need to.”

A gentle hand on Steve’s forearm.

“Promise,” Eddie says.

Steve breathes in. Out.

“Okay,” he replies, and he falls asleep completely: not needing to stay half-awake, not needing to pick up the phone—not needing to do anything at all.

#in which Steve can both be self sacrificial and still worry about anyone else being self sacrificial 💔 #steve harrington fic #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #steve and nancy #steve and robin #steve and the party #eddie and claudia #steve and claudia #steddie

[sixosix]

FOR YOU I WOULD FALL FROM GRACE | LYNEY

warnings blackmailing lol… AETHER PAIMON!!! 3.6k words!

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The bell chimes as the door of the flower shop swings open, and in comes strutting in Rosalie, all dazzling smiles and ostentatious jewelry. Even now, her brown locks are curled to perfection, framing her face beautifully. Even across her, you feel like you’re standing next to an Archon.

This time around, you don’t accidentally freeze the pot of flowers you’re holding from her bursting inside. But you might again tomorrow; Rosalie loves to test you.

Rosalie hums in approval. “Hm, very good, very good. Any customers today, ma chérie?”

“Just one. That guy really wanted to see you,” you reply, eyes fluttering shut as the woman ruffles your hair. You repress the urge to lean into it. “Was he the same guy you met in Café Lutece?”

Her face twists unpleasantly, haunted. “Oh, dear. Thank goodness I wasn’t here. Keep scaring him off.”

You bow your head. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Rosalie bent the law just to keep you, and you’re more than grateful for her generosity. In exchange, you pledged to work diligently for her. You knew that even your hardest efforts couldn't compare to the years of food and shelter she had provided, but this was the least you could do after she didn’t once hesitate to take you in when you confessed you were stranded and alone.

At first, you wanted to repay her by helping out in the kitchen, but you later find that your Vision isn’t the most perfect fit for it. Rosalie’s teeth could shatter from the amount of bread you’ve frozen at the slightest mistake. Your experience in battle doesn’t translate well in handling baking—the heat makes your actions rougher than intended. You get frustrated when you don’t get the results you want. You treat the kitchen like a battlefield. Your hands are too cold; they can’t handle the warm and hot temperatures well.

And the sight of fire… You don’t react to it nicely.

Rosalie suggested you help out in the flower shop. The thought of kneeling over for hours sounds like torture to the posture and grace you’ve perfected over the years, but you can’t quite be picky with under-the-table jobs and nice people who are willing to take care of an orphan who doesn’t know how to act like a normal child.

At least, with gardening, you’ve trained yourself to be more gentle with how you handle living beings. Your hands will always be calloused; they will always have the muscle memory of carrying weighty weapons and tossing them around like sticks—an immutable trait. But you’re trying.

Although Fontaine could never be the safest, it’s safer here. The Fatui don’t have reason to spy against a local flower shop; you’re away from prying eyes, and it isn’t too big of a change because this is still your home.

And you have been safe for years. Rosalie is nothing like The Knave. They have the same fierce protectiveness, but Rosalie is much warmer and open with her fondness, a stark difference from The Knave’s distance. You’re not quite sure how to act around either of them.

You try not to get yourself attached to Rosalie despite her endless hospitality. So long as you don’t reveal your past affiliations and the reason why your hands are rough and why your affections are clumsy, she wouldn’t throw you out. But if she ever does… those are what no attachments are for. You learned your lesson from last time.

“I’ll cook us dinner,” Rosalie sings, heading towards the back of the counter, where it’s connected to her house.

You return to your flower.

You were the one who planted it, and it pleases you to no end that it’s growing healthily. This is the first flower you managed to not— well, kill right off the bat. Or freeze right off the bat, really. The elemental power from your Vision is hard to control, and it certainly doesn’t help that you aren’t doing anything to do something about it, too afraid to even try.

The Lumidouce Bell. It means something about a desire to return. It speaks to you, but not because you long for it—gods no—but because you’ve seen it before. It was probably in a dream, or perhaps a vase back at home, maybe in the middle of the large dining table or in between the fingers of someone with lilac eyes.

The door lashes out once again, the familiar chime ringing in your ears. It had only been two hours since the last customer. Business is doing well today. In comes a floating pixie and a blond with a glow of gold. He’s furious.

“Paimon doesn’t know…” the pixie says, floating behind. “All she knows is that you don’t want to get involved with the Fatui but—” Your hands falter around the petals, “—they said their goals were different, right? What are we doing here again?”

“Paimon,” the blond sighs, and only then do you notice he’s holding a flower. It’s crushed and dried, but it’s supposed to resemble the pot of Lumidouce Bell by your side. “We can’t trust them just like that. We don’t know them.”

“Really…? You think so? Paimon doesn’t think they’re bad people.”

“They’re hiding a lot of things. I don’t want secrets—not anymore. Lyney and Lynette may seem harmless now, but once the time comes where our goals oppose each other’s—well.”

It’s been a while since you heard those names. A rush of nostalgia fills you. You hear about them in passing when your (rare) customers gush about their performances, or ladies passing by giggle about the charming young man in the center of the stage, but that’s about it. To think that these two know that they’re affiliated with the Fatui…

Who are they? They look so familiar, like you’ve seen them once and then never again. Were they sent here? What did they do to be involved with the Fatui? No ordinary person would casually indulge in a conversation about the Fatui like that. There is usually a lot more secretive whispers and cautious glances around the crowd.

“Paimon gets it now,” she says, but she doesn’t look too happy with it. It seems she’s really fond of the twins—which you know all too well.

“Besides,” Aether pats her head, then hands her the flower, wondering out loud, “We don’t even know what this flower means.”

As if following a poorly-written script, both pairs of eyes direct to yours. Like they were expecting you to listen in just for that. At your stunned silence, they wait patiently.

“Um—yes. Lumidouce Bells often mean separation or the wish for reunion,” you recite like a good florist, recalling the words straight from the textbook. “Would you like a copy of a book about Fontaine’s Floral Language, sir?”

He waves a dismissive hand. “No thanks. Was just curious.”

The pixie nods her head, studying the flower in her hand. “Yeah! For all we know, this could’ve been some secret code! Apparently not. But wish for reunion…? Paimon heard Lyney only uses that flower. Does he know about its meaning?”

That name again. It seems that their main topic this afternoon is the twins. You want to crawl out of your skin and bury yourself in the soil. You thought you had moved on, but just hearing about him feels as if listening to strangers talk about a friend you’ve lost—not too far off from the truth. The guilt has not left you since; who were you kidding?

“He probably doesn’t mean anything by it,” the boy murmurs. “I mean—I don’t know. I don’t know anything about them. Is Lyney truly a magician? Is Lyney even his name?”

“Snezhevich,” you murmur out of instinct. Son of snow. You’re surprised that you even remember; it’s been years since you tasted the word on your tongue.

The blond hair and the floating pixie are staring right at you, the man slamming an arm on the counter desk and the little one moving her hands to her hips. “How do you know that?” he asks.

You pale. “I—excuse me?”

“I heard it,” he says. “Those surnames… They’re for the orphans in the House. How do you know that?”

Your heart pounds. You want to ask him the same question, but then, upon closer inspection, you realize why they’re familiar. They’re the Traveler and his travel companion, posted all over magazines. You’ve used one of those papers as placemats for dirty work involving soil, catching glimpses of their faces. The Outlander, the hero, Aether, having come all the way from Mondstadt—of course he knows about the Fatui; he has probably gotten himself involved more than you have.

“Don’t think about lying,” Aether warns at your silence.

Weakly, you say, “Is—is it not… in their introductions?”

“No.” And, well, honestly, that was a stupid cover, so you should’ve expected that. They’re only for the orphans, and he’s right. Even when he’s not a local, he seems to know his facts. Locals are getting smarter, dammit.

“Lyney told me,” is what you decide on after a split-second of contemplation. Aether isn’t giving you enough time to come up with a lie here.

“Told you?” Aether narrows his eyes, studying your face. “Why would he tell you about that? He hasn’t even told me. Are you two close?”

Paimon gasps before you can comment about how Aether sounded like an insecure boyfriend. “Is it…like that?”

You blink at her, lost. “What? Like what?”

At Aether’s conspiratorial expression, your eyes dart between the two of them warily. “What are you two on about?”

“Are you and Lyney romantically involved?”

Romantically involved. You think back to all those sidelong glances and allusive remarks. Lyney was definitely and monumentally involved in your life, but romantically? Even the word feels forbidden. Not once have you thought about romance throughout your entire experience as a child under the protection of the House.

Your face feels like lava, and their crowded attention has you feeling even more embarrassed. “How could you even come up with that? Mortifying! You’re both wrong!”

“What else would it be? You seem to know him well.” Then, much to your embarrassment, Aether adds, “And you’re not bad-looking.”

Is the Outlander calling you pretty enough for Lyney to date you? Right now? Just thinking about the implications has your mind screeching to a halt. “No! I was an orphan there!”

“Ah,” Aether grins widely, “I knew it.”

“Gods,” you mutter, burning. Of course he already figured it out. But was that really necessary? “Is this how you interrogate everyone? Embarrassing them to death?”

Aether shrugs. “If it works, it works.” At whatever expression you must be making, he adds, “And I was just kidding about the romantically involved thing. I mean, unless you aren’t denying it. By the look on your face—”

“Enough. Just spit it out. What do you want?” You’ve gotten awfully rusty with dealing with people. Then again, you were rarely sent out on missions in the first place, so this blame is not for you to take. You curse out The Knave’s name and then feel terrible about it.

“What are you even doing here, huh? Undercover?” Paimon sneers. She fails to look even slightly intimidating. “Do you own this shop?”

“No. I work here.”

“Does your boss know about the whole Fatui thing?” Aether asks. You stare at him warily. If he dares to harm Rosalie, you won’t hesitate to fight dirty. “That seems like a no. If you cooperate with me, I won’t tell whoever is taking care of you.”

“You’re blackmailing me.” You laugh dryly. “I guess I can never run from my past for too long; I just didn’t think I’d be blackmailed by the Outlander himself to face it.”

Aether has at least the decency to look a bit guilty.

“Why do you want to know about the twins so bad?”

Aether’s shoulders hike up to his ears just a little. “Lyney and Lynette… they’re very dependent on each other, aren’t they? The Fatui are not good people—they’re powerful ones, too, and getting involved with power like that while you have your family,” Aether’s expression does something complicated, “It never ends well.”

“You’re blackmailing me into helping the twins out?”

“I’m not trying to— Listen, I just need to know if they’re hiding something else from me. Something that tells me that I shouldn’t be trusting them, then we’ll decide if I’m helping them out or not.”

…Something else? “They already told you a lot, haven’t they? You just have trust issues, hero.”

“It’s perfectly reasonable to have trust issues as a hero.”

Aether inches closer. Your hand twitches by your side, instincts screaming at you to pull out your weapon and flee; the man before you is danger, but you don’t.

Aether hums at your wariness. “And you talk like you know them well. Do you have something you want to say to me, retired Fatuus?”

“I told you, didn’t I? I used to be an orphan in the House of the Hearth,” you say, not wavering with how he holds your gaze. This is no lie; you have no reason to falter. “But that’s not my life anymore. For all I know, they’ve completely changed goals.”

Aether’s shoulder sags because he knows you’re right. There wouldn’t be a way for you to know if the House is still operating with the same objective. If he’d really believe the words of a former Fatuus is a completely different story, however.

Aether sighs. “…It’s not right to call me a hero in this situation.”

“Oh?”

“I’m doing this for selfish reasons.”

Aether hesitates. Does he think you know nothing about selfishness? You ran from the House that took care of you because of your cowardice. You’re plenty familiar with selfishness.

“Mhm,” Paimon nods, “the Traveler wants to know if they’re hiding something about his sister.”

“Paimon,” Aether admonishes, then wilts.

“Oh no!” The fairy’s face pales, her hands coming up to her mouth. “Was Paimon not supposed to say it right away?”

“It’s fine.” It’s not fine. You can see it in the lines between Aether’s brows, his tense shoulders, and his sharp glare to the floor. “You already blurted it anyway.”

“Your sister,” you repeat, conjuring an image of a girl with the same gold as Aether, the same hardheaded determination. What is it with you and getting into trouble with brothers? “I’ve never heard anything about your sister during my time there.”

Aether shrugs. “That doesn’t surprise me. I only arrived here not too long ago, and from what I’m getting, you were already out of the orphanage.”

“So you think Lyney knows something?”

“I know The Knave knows something.”

How strange. Aether’s certainty that their ‘Father’ would confide in them everything, imply that Lyney is privy to information that only the Harbingers would keep to themselves.

You had this same thought before: Lyney, someday Harbinger, someday who would take Arlecchino’s throne. Now, you feel empty thinking about it. It used to fill you with so much rage before.

You turn away from Aether so he won’t see your face. Your previous affiliation with the House shouldn’t matter anymore—you’ve long since abandoned that life. You shouldn’t care about what the upstanding hero would want with them.

You shouldn’t.

Yet you end up fearing what this Outlander will do if they find out the darker secrets of the House that the orphans have to task themselves with. It’s never the children’s fault. But as a hero in a storybook, they rarely have pity for the bad guys.

If Aether finds out anything remotely wrong, what would he do to them…?

You sigh heavily. “I’ll prove to you that you’re wrong about whatever you think of them.”

Aether smiles. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

Rosalie comes out of the counter’s back door a few moments later, holding two plates of dinner. She stares blankly at your frozen figure and Aether’s slack posture.

She hands you the plates. “I’ll get two more.”

Rosalie disappears back into the kitchen, a bright smile on her face as she leaves the scene. There was a skip in her step, too.

You settle the plates down in front of Aether and Paimon. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

Paimon gasps in delight.

When Rosalie comes back out, she’s fluttering all over the place, gushing over how adorable your new friends are. She then goes into a tangent about how she was right in telling you that you have a charming personality, and it was about time people realized that.

“Rosalie,” you murmur, steaming from the ears.

Rosalie laughs heartily. “Oh, you’re so cute. Do you kids have any plans tonight?”

Aether casts you a glance. “We’re going to watch Lyney the Magician’s show tonight if that’s alright.”

You breathe in deeply. Aether sure works fast. You haven’t even prepared yourself for the little chance you were going to be forced to face Lyney again. You expected it on much more personal, grudge-driven circumstances, with Lyney taking you in for The Knave to deal with.

Rosalie sips from her glass, turning to you. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to watch it, mon ange? I also would have taken you to watch Mr. Lyney.”

“They came over to give me their spare ticket,” you say before she can start thinking deeply about Lyney, but it doesn’t work.

“Ah, I see! Well, have fun.” She grins. “I’ve heard only good things about Mr. Lyney.”

You down the rest of your drink, wishing it was the strong taste of alcohol instead of the sugary sweet Fonta.

Rosalie gasps, hands on the table as she stands. “Oh! Let’s get you changed for tonight’s show! What if Mr. Lyney’s show picks you as a chosen participant? You have to make him and the audience fall in love with you, Y/N!”

“None of those are necessary,” you say, nearing a whine. It’s embarrassing to have her say that while Aether and Paimon are right in front.

“This is the first time you’re going out—let me please dress you up!” Sometimes, Rosalie acts more like a big sister than a mother.

Rosalie turns to Aether, already pushing you out of your chair. “Give us ten.”

Aether is smiling, looking as if holding in laughter. “Don’t worry. We aren’t going anywhere; we made a deal.”

After rummaging through closets and spilling dresses all over Rosalie’s bed, you're soon ushered out of the door. You witness Paimon's jaw dropping and Aether's eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.

“Whoa…!” Paimon gasps.

“Please spare me from any more comments,” you say, face hot.

Your dress, while nothing as grand as the rest of richer Fontaine women, is still grander than your loose blouse from before. It flows all the way down and drapes gracefully down your legs in a deep shade that blends in seamlessly with those who walk past the busy streets of Fontaine.

Thankfully, they oblige. You can’t handle any more—too much have you a puddle on the spot, and in the most humiliating way possible. Rosalie bids you all farewell, telling Aether to bring you back home before ten.

“I don’t think you can be home before ten,” Aether mutters as he leads you outside.

You hide behind his figure, uneasy from the curious stares of the passersby. It could be because you’re walking next to the renowned Traveler, but a part of you thinks that they know who you are. For all you know, there could be wanted posters of your face, and you wouldn’t know because you don’t go outside.

Aether turns to you. “Can you move comfortably?”

“This corset is a little too tight.”

Aether takes your hand and leads you somewhere off to the side, away from any onlookers. Then, he moves behind you and helps with loosening the corset. You look off to the side and swear that you saw a figure dash past, as nimble as a cat, but that was probably nothing.

“Should we rip off the length, too?” Paimon asks.

“No!” you exclaim, startling the two. “No, it’s fine. This is not my dress. Are you going to make me fight Lyney?”

Aether shrugs. “If worse comes to worse.”

“I’m in heels.”

“If worse comes to worse,” Aether repeats, tying the ends in a neat little ribbon.

“I wasn’t aware that you would start blackmailing me this early on.”

Aether smiles grimly. “There are no warnings when it comes to that.”

You perform a twirl in the new adjustments, twisting around, finding it much more breathable than compared to when Rosalie treated it like her usual fitting.

“Good?” Aether asks.

“Good.”

The conversation doesn’t die down, but it’s much more stiff than before. Paimon tells you that she liked your muddy apron better, and you wish you could agree. But this is who you really are. Nothing genuine like the soil staining your washed-out apron and your hands, or the Lumidouce Bell by the counter you’ve watched grow, but a dress that doesn’t belong to you for a mission that you have to fulfill to save other people who wouldn’t even recognize what you’ve done.

The Opera Epiclese, though you’d never been, looks the same as all the stories you’ve heard about it. Filled with a lively audience, the atmosphere dimmed, and your breath held in anticipation as Aether led you to vacant seats. You sit on Paimon’s supposed seat.

You face Aether. “What now? What do you want me to do? Strut back into their lives and demand all their Fatui secrets as if I never left?” you whisper hastily as all the lights flicker off.

A spotlight centers on the stage.

Aether nestles into his seat. “Prove to me that I can trust them just as much as you do. Who knows, you might get something out of this, too.”

BEFORE YOU STOP READING!! LOOK AT ONCE AGAIN ANOTHER AMAZING FANART BY OUR FAVORITE akagi0021

scene of paimon's "whoa...!" and aether demanding "how do you know that?" !!!!!! 😭😭😭❤️❤️

sorry if my inherent attraction to aether came out a bit for some scenes here. the heart can’t help but want what it wants… and that includes what my fingers end up typing whenever aether is on the same docs LOL

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