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#i dont call other people broken because i know that would be mean given how their brains interpret the word but i do feel comfortable
loversj0y · 10 months
Text
saving face
pairing: siren x gn!reader (villain wilbur soot from tommyinnits clinic for supervillains)
tws: okay so, im going to be REALLY thorough because there is some dark content throughout so kidnapping, chloroform use, drug use (power enhancers), reader gets called sweetheart at one point, violence, injuries, torture, major head injuries, alcohol, alcohol is poured on reader, mental manipulation (attempts at it), blood, broken nose, siren tells someone to claw their eye out, mentions of a fractured skull and concussion
notes: big major thank u to @medlarwrites for this idea!!!! ive been obsessing over siren since i read clinic and had to write something abt him. im not in love with the start of the fic bc i had a very different direction at first but!!! dont care i like how it ended up!! so :3
medlars original prompt: “anyways lemme leave you a siren!wilbur who finds our his bestfriend from college got kidnapped because they suspect she's associated with siren and so want to get information about his identity from them :)”
word count: 5.5k!
taglist: @l0veb0mb1ng / @core-queen / @zooone
When you were in college, you had a rather… peculiar best friend. Maybe you should’ve cared a bit more about the moral consequences of what he did, but honestly, it was college. Your best friend was one of the most well-known supervillains, Siren.
That wasn’t how you met him, though. You met him as Wilbur Soot, the guy who sat next to you in your Literature class, who often forgot his pens. You had a small crush on him, so you made a habit of always bringing an extra pen for him. You became quick friends after, bonding over mutual hatred for the professor’s teaching style, as well as sharing an onslaught of opinions.
You didn’t mean to find out about his identity, it was a complete accident. You and him had this mutual agreement that if something was going on (life troubles, finals stress, etc.), you have free permission to come over for some company. If the other person wasn’t there, you would just wait until they got home. It was a good system that kept both of you from getting too lonely, especially you. He lived at home, but you lived in a dodgy apartment by yourself. He would always make an effort to show up any time he had anything he wanted to talk about, mostly to keep you from feeling too alone. One night, the loneliness had gotten pretty rough, so you decided to go to Wilbur’s house. You two had given each other spare keys a long while back, and it wasn’t the first time you’d done this, so you were quick to unlock the door and head into his room to wait for him to come home. When the door did finally open, it wasn’t Wilbur who walked through.
You immediately jumped, backing up a bit as you saw Siren walk in. Once he’d processed that you were there, he cursed under his breath, trying to console you while quickly pulling off his blindfold. You watched as he went from Siren to Wilbur in a matter of seconds, your head swirling with confusion. You two had a very long conversation that night, while you helped him clean up a scratch along his arm.
After college, you didn’t see Wilbur as much anymore. You worked a lot, and he worked quite a bit too. You two still saw each other, just not as often.
You saw Siren much more often, though. Since Wilbur knew where your walk home from work was, he would always make an effort to be there and walk you home at night once a week if he could. Sometimes he would only watch you from the rooftops, other times when it was a bit darker and there were fewer people out, he would walk with you, chatting about anything he could think of. Over time, what once had been a small crush blossomed into genuine love for your best friend.
It was nice, a really good system. Kept you and him talking, even when your busy schedules tended to keep you from each other. However, for as good of a system as it is, it also had some apparent downsides.
Like your current situation.
You didn’t know exactly where you were.
The last thing you remembered was leaving work. You locked up the small bookstore you worked at and began your walk home when you felt a hand wrap around you, pressing a cloth against your mouth. Whoever it was ended up being too strong for you to fight against, and it was only a few minutes before the chloroform reached your brain, knocking you out quickly. In terms of kidnappings, it was fairly tame, at the very least.
It took a while to wake up, your consciousness floating in and out a few times, allowing you to get small glimpses of conversations.
“Try and get ‘em to talk. Just being friends with Siren doesn’t mean they’re strong. We can break them, even if it takes some… stepping in.”
A bit of a horrifying thing to hear post-kidnapping, but even if it wasn’t on purpose, it at least got your guard up a bit.
When you woke up, you spent a few minutes looking around and familiarising yourself with your surroundings. You were in some shitty warehouse. Which, honestly, cliche, and how many abandoned warehouses did this city have? Large, brown-stained windows lined the top of the walls, allowing for a bit of light to pour in. There were garage-type doors every few feet, but most of them had large padlocks, except for one the furthest away from you.
Your hands and feet were tied onto the chair, one hand behind handcuffed while the other hand and your legs were attached with zip ties.
Escape was not going to be easy, but you knew a bit of fighting, Wilbur having taught you how to protect yourself. You finally looked over to the middle of the room.
It took you a while to recognize the guy who’d kidnapped you. You did know him, though, only because of the things that Siren had told you. Schlatt, previously known as Gunmetal, an ex-hero. His power was the ability to strengthen his body to a metal-like level, making him incredibly hard to take down. The Syndicate considered approaching him for membership, but he was… unstable. He got discharged by the Hero Committee after his increased strength led to the destruction of an apartment building. There weren’t any villains around to pin it on, either, and there were too many witnesses. It had also been discovered that he’d been utilizing power enhancers, which were supposed to be outlawed, in order to extend his abilities and allow him to strengthen multiple parts of his body at once.
If what Wilbur had told you in his frustrated rants was true, Schlatt wanted to take over the Syndicate. He’d attacked them numerous times, always aiming to kill, and he’d taken a particular interest in finding out Siren’s identity.
You sat up a bit, preparing yourself for whatever bullshit he was about to spew at you.
Wilbur caught onto something being wrong a few hours after you’d been taken. He had gone on a minor heist with Techno, and things ran… suspiciously well. No hero intervention for the majority of the heist, until Flame showed up towards the end. Blade handled most of the fighting for him, while Siren took care of their escape. It was when they finally escaped that he noticed something odd. He and Techno passed by your apartment, and he knew your habits well enough to know that you would not be asleep this early. Despite that, the lights in your apartment were off. A bit of searching later, and he was quick to notice your disappearance. When he arrived back home, he was quick to enlist Tubbo to see if they could get a ping on your last known location. Your phone wasn’t anywhere to be found, so he hoped he could at least figure out where you had been. Normally, he would pace to try and distract himself, but when it came to you, there was no use. He immediately headed out, trying to find any sign of you and waiting for a response from Tubbo.
“Good mornin’ sweetheart,” Schlatt chuckled, standing in front of a table in front of your chair. He had two briefcases set out in front of him, “Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna hurt you.” There was an implied ‘yet’ at the end of that sentence. You got a good look at him. He wore a pressed suit, and an airsoft mask – equipped specially with two ram horns on the sides, his signature look. His knuckles were wrapped with red athletic tape, at least you’d hoped it was originally red.
“Then what the fuck do you want with me? It’s hard to believe you aren’t going to hurt me when you kidnapped me off the street.”
“I just need a bit of information, that’s all.”
You scoffed, “Really? So you just fucking kidnap me?”
“It’s effective, is it not?” He chuckled, leaning forward, “Do you have any powers?”
You rolled your eyes, “Cut the shitty small talk. Why am I here?”
“To answer my fucking questions.”
You looked down at your arm, noting a small cuff wrapped around it, “If I tell you, will you take the stupid power dampener off?”
He snorted, “Don’t act dumb.”
“Oh, good, then I’m not telling you.” You did have a power. It was part of why Wilbur felt comfortable being around you. You were also a mind manipulator, but you couldn’t get people to actually do things for you. You could just easily see through their words and arguments. Which meant that you could get them to believe you were telling the truth as well, which would be a bloody good thing to be able to utilize right about now.
“Fine, be like that.” He held up a photo, “So, if you won’t tell me your power, maybe you’ll tell me why Siren has had such a close eye on you?” You looked at the photo closer, being able to clearly make out Siren walking you home.
“He’s just a nice dude. Wants to walk me home sometimes,” you shrugged, trying to act nonchalantly, “I don’t know much about him if that’s what you’re wondering.”
He snorted, “Yeah, like I’d believe that.” He pulled out a folder, spreading out numerous photos of you and Siren, hanging out and eating together in your apartment.
“Have you been fucking stalking me, you absolute creep?”
“Not you, but Siren. You just happened to be there. And I wanna know why.”
“What? You’re mad that a citizen can show compassion to a villain?” You scoffed, “Boo-hoo, poor Schlatt, must be such a sad life you have.”
He growled, and you grinned at how easy it was to get under his skin, even without your power. “I couldn’t give less of a shit about that. I want to know why he’s trying to recruit new Syndicate members.”
You laughed, “God, you could not have worse of a grasp on the situation. He’s just a nice guy. Came to my bookstore once, offered to walk me home, and we became friends. Is it impossible for villains to have friends?”
“Supervillains don’t have friends. Not without an agenda.”
“What about their healer? He’s a friend, isn’t he?”
“He works for them. He doesn’t count.”
“Well, I clearly don’t work for them. So just leave me alone, why don’t you?”
“Okay, I will let you go. If you tell me one thing.”
Oh, here came the stupid request. “Oh? Let me guess? You want me to tell you Siren’s real name.”
“Obviously.”
“Do you really think he’s that stupid? To let a random civilian he met know his name?”
“No. But I know you’re not just a random civilian he met. Because these photos date back years.”
You tensed a bit, trying to hide any clear facial reaction, “And?”
“And, no one who doesn’t work with him would stick around that long, unless there was something keeping them there. So, you obviously know who he is.”
“Oh, obviously?” You tried to will down the blush on your cheeks. “Is it really that obvious? You don’t know anything about me, and you clearly don’t know anything about Siren.”
“So tell me what I don’t know.”
You rolled your eyes, “I’m not falling for that, dipshit. If you want information on Siren, you’ve got the wrong person.”
“Yeah, except that can’t be true. I know you have a power you’ve been hiding, and we know that Siren has spent a highly significant amount of time with you, longer than he ever did their healer. And, we have photos of you with him and other Syndicate members at your apartment. So we know you know his identity. But we can figure out other ways to make you talk.”
“Wow, so you’re adding misuse of power against a civilian to your list of crimes? That combined with the kidnapping, not to mention the murder and the numerous times you’ve hurt civilians and destroyed their homes, oh and getting discharged as a Hero?”
That got under his skin, “I have no problem adding torture onto that list.”
“So much for being a hero then.”
His fists curled up, and he slammed it down on the table, “ex-hero, for a reason.” He walked closer, crouching down to be eye-level with you. “So then, you’re really trying to tell me that the numerous dates you’ve gone on with Siren just don’t mean anything?”
“We- They weren’t dates!” Your face flushed dark red, “We’re just friends!” You blatantly tried to ignore the fact that you’d been in love with him for years.
“Your face is telling a different story,” he smirked, “Is he hot under the mask? Or maybe you just like a man with power?”
You moved back from his hand, jaw tensing, as he tried to cup your jaw, “Hm, well, if you aren’t saying anything willingly, I can make you talk.”
He stood again, walking over to the second briefcase, opening it to where you couldn’t see the contents. You didn’t know if you wanted to. “Plus, this is all just a distraction.” He lifted your phone, turning it on, “They’ll be here soon enough. I won’t need you then, I can take down the Syndicate myself.”
A shiver went down your spine, and you prayed that Wilbur hadn’t noticed your absence.
Tubbo was able to find you pretty quickly. Just when he’d thought your phone was too far for a proper ping, he got one with an exact location that he quickly relayed to Siren. Siren was on it almost immediately, but he wasn’t going in alone. He didn’t know who took you, so he was going to be prepared. By enlisting most of the Syndicate to join him. He made it to the location first, but he knew better than to jump in early, especially since he was one of the least physical fighters. He did some surveying, though, spotting a few guards in suits. Suits were the tell of Schlatt, and he mentally cursed the team members for not getting there as fast as he’d wished. He knew Schlatt could be violent, unpredictable, and hot-headed.
The rest of the Syndicate arrived, and Nemesis and Thanatos made quick work of taking down the guards. Which meant it was time to take down Schlatt.
You’d lost track of time. Schlatt had some interesting methods for getting you to talk. Most of them involve hitting you, his ability making it easy to hurt you, if the broken nose and cut lip were anything to go by. But a lot of it was mental. Using taunting words to try and get under your skin.
“It’s going to be so funny when you’re little boyfriend comes here,” he snickered, grabbing your jaw to make you look up at him, “It’ll be even better to make you watch him die.”
He almost seemed drunk the more and more he continued, “Or, maybe, I could hurt him more. Make him watch me kill you slowly. Or,” he chuckled, but the laughter quickly turned maniacal, “I’ll let him kill you. I’ll make him use that shitty fucking voice of his to kill you.”
You snorted, and he raised an eyebrow, “Something about that funny to you?”
You looked up at him, spitting blood out of your mouth, “His voice is real nice, actually. Much better than yours.” You were playing with fire, but you needed to buy time to get him hopefully exhausted enough to give you a chance to escape.
He smacked you, a loud crack reverberating and echoing throughout the warehouse.
“You piece of shit,” he rolled his eyes, moving away from you. He grabbed a water bottle, downing half of it easily. You watched cautiously, becoming all too aware of how thirsty you were.
“What? You want some or something?” He chuckled, walking back over to you, “Be my fucking guest,” he poured the water over your head. You tilted your head back and drank some of it down. Once you’d gotten some of it in your mouth, though, you quickly realized that it was not, in fact, water but instead vodka. You coughed once you realized, spitting out as much as you could.
He laughed as you hissed in pain, the alcohol stinging the wounds he’d left. He went to throw another retort at you, but before he could, the door slammed open.
Just as Schlatt predicted, the entire Syndicate was there. You sat up, watching as Schlatt moved back to his briefcase and pull out a syringe.
“Siren, run!” You yelled, thrashing and trying to draw attention to yourself, “All of you! Run! It’s a trap-”
You weren’t able to finish your sentence as Schlatt stormed over, grabbing you by the hair. “Oh, Jesus, just shut up with your whining,” he rolled his eyes, hitting your temple harshly, sending the chair to the ground and you with it. The ground rushed up to meet you, and the darkness of unconsciousness was quick to follow.
Siren was pissed. Blade quickly began to advance on Schlatt, but Wilbur was faster. It was stupid, he knew he was being stupid to rush in like this, but he was angry. He watched as Schlatt quickly injected himself with something, some odd shimmering yellow liquid, and in seconds, his body started glowing the same yellow. Power enhancers, Wilbur’s mind supplied. He cursed, hanging back to allow Blade to hit first. Zephyrus flew overhead, getting behind Schlatt to prevent him from running. As much as Wilbur wanted to fight, he needed to make sure you were okay.
He rushed over, grabbing a knife from the table that he prayed hadn’t been used on you. The first thing he did when he approached you was check your pulse, thanking anything that would listen that your pulse was still coming through. He cut the ties easily, then he moved onto the power dampener, trying to pry the thing off. He had no clue where the key for it was, but he didn’t have time to waste looking for it. He started breaking it off when he was tugged back, Schlatt having grabbed the back of his collar. He slammed Siren against the wall, grinning at him.
“For a world-class supervillain, you’d think you’d be smarter,” he chuckled, leaning his knee against Siren’s back and pinning him there. He pushed all of his power into his knee, strengthening and solidifying the metal against Wilbur’s back. “You know how easy it was for me to track them down? You made them an easy target, Siren. You’re the reason they’re here,” he pushed his knee further into his back.
“Let me go,” Siren ordered but to no avail.
Schlatt started laughing louder, “What, you think I’m an idiot? You thought I wouldn’t prepare my mask for you?”
Fuck.
Siren didn’t have to fret much longer, though. Blade came up behind Schlatt, driving a sword through his shoulder. He’d put too much power into his knee, leaving the rest of him vulnerable.
The rest of the takedown was easy. They were planning on taking Schlatt in, hopefully, to use as a bargaining chip against the Hero Committee since he was wanted by them. Once Zephyrus had him subdued, Nemesis and Thanatos grabbed his things and started heading back. Siren lingered with Zephyrus, Jester, Blade, and Ender (who’d only shown up to help take anyone who needed healing to Apollo). Siren walked over, ripping Schlatt’s mask off.
Schlatt was still spilling curses and threats against them, but he’d quieted for a moment as Wilbur pulled his mask off, eyes adjusting to the light. Wilbur threw the mask behind him, and a sinister grin spread over his face.
“We need him alive, Siren,” Blade reminded him.
He groaned, huffing softly, “Fine.” He hummed, tilting his head.
“Claw your left eye out, then knock yourself out.”
Wilbur didn’t stay to watch the aftermath, but he heard the groans and screams of pain from Schlatt as he walked back over to you. Ender was waiting next to you, double-checking for any serious wounds.
Wilbur got the rest of the power dampener off, throwing it to the side. He carefully lifted you, making sure to be mindful of your head.
Ender gave him a concerned look, "It looks bad, but they should be okay."
“No, not should be.” Siren snapped his head towards Ender, shaking his head, “I need them to be okay. Bring us to Apollo.”
Ender nodded, placing a hand on Siren’s shoulder. In seconds, they disappeared in a flurry of purple particles, appearing now in Apollo’s clinic in the Syndicate building.
Tommy was sitting by the desk, playing on his DS. He perked up quickly when he heard Ender teleport in, looking up and seeing Siren cradling you. Siren moved forward, placing you down on the doctor’s mat in the center of the room.
Tommy quickly walked over, “Jesus, man, what the fuck happened?” He placed his hands near your head, warmth emitting over them as he began healing you.
“Schlatt happened. But he won’t be a problem anymore,” Wilbur huffed, tearing off his blindfold and coat, draping them over a chair. He paced around the room as Tommy worked on healing.
“You’re going to burn a hole in the floor,” Tommy huffed.
“I couldn’t care less, Toms. They weren’t supposed to be involved with any of this, I’ve fucked it up again, I-I put them in danger,” Wilbur ran a hand through his hair.
Tommy straightened, pulling his hands away as he finished healing, “Don’t start with your self-deprecating shit, man. They know you’re Siren. They’ve stuck around, and they always knew this could happen. You’re not to blame.”
“But I-”
“You weren’t the one who kidnapped them. It’s not your fault,” Tommy sighed, grabbing a glass of water.
Wilbur nodded, walking up to you, still unconscious, “They- they’ll be fine, right? They’ll be okay?”
Tommy took a sip of his water, nodding, “Yeah. Head injury was the worst of it, but it should be all healed up now. They might be a bit foggy when they wake up, though.”
“When will they wake up?”
Tommy shrugged, “Should be soon. Probably an hour or two. Can’t give you an exact time. You should get them somewhere more comfortable before they’re up, though.”
Wilbur nodded, carefully picking you back up, “Thanks, Tommy.”
“You don’t have to thank me, man, it’s my job.”
Wilbur rolled his eyes, “I want to thank you, dickhead. Now, go to sleep, child.”
“I am n-” Wilbur cut off Tommy’s response by closing the door to Tommy’s clinic behind him. He called Techno, and within a few minutes, Wilbur was being driven home with you still resting in his arms.
“They’re going to be fine, you know that.”
“I know they will be, but they never should’ve been there in the first place. They never asked for this.” Wilbur sighed.
“Oh, please.” Techno snorted, “You tried to scare them away way back when. You even used your ability to try and convince them to not want to be around you.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the same. They turned down the offer to join the Syndicate, which meant they never should’ve been involved with this stuff.”
“Maybe you should ask again,” Techno shrugged. “Even if they don’t want to fight, we could use someone to help out with questioning people. Their ability would work pretty well for that.”
“Techno, I just said they shouldn’t have been involved with this stuff.” Wilbur sighed.
“All I’m saying is if they do become a member, it would be a lot easier to keep them safe. Less loose ends that we can’t keep our eyes on.”
Wilbur bit his lip, nodding with realization, “True. I- yeah. I’ll ask them.”
“Plus, with how in love with them you are, it won’t be long before something like this happens again.”
“I- What?” Wilbur spluttered, eyes widening, “How-?”
“How do I know that? Wilbur, it’s insanely obvious,” Techno laughed, “I have no clue how they don’t know.”
“They won’t know. And you won’t tell them.” Wilbur hissed out.
“Mmhm, okay, sure. Pretty big wimp move for a supervillain.”
Wilbur groaned but didn’t respond past that.
The rest of the car ride was quiet, Wilbur gently playing with your hair gently. He routinely moved a hand to check your pulse, just as a reminder that you were fine and alive and here with him.
He carried you out of the car once Techno pulled up, heading straight to his room. He laid you down gently, placing your head on his lap.
The world seemed fuzzy when you came to. You were too comfortable to open your eyes at first, shifting slightly and letting out a soft groan. Your joints felt sore and stiff, but your face felt even weirder. Your face felt warm but like all of your muscles were new and had never been used before. You scrunched your nose, slowly opening your eyes and letting them get used to the environment around you.
You recognized the room instantly and relaxed as the memories started flooding back to you. The kidnapping, Schlatt, getting knocked out. You heard humming, looking up to see Wilbur leaning against the wall, humming with his eyes closed. He was fidgeting with his fingers and biting at his lip.
You slowly shifted to look up at him fully, “Hey.” Your voice was groggier than you’d expected.
He looked down quickly, “You’re up,” he smiled, “Hi.”
“Did everything go well? With Schlatt?”
He laughed, shaking his head, “God, you just woke up from getting knocked out and tortured, and the first thing you ask is if the fight went well?” He moved a hand to your hair gently, “Are you okay?”
“Well, yeah,” you shrugged, “I feel fine, just a bit tired, I guess. I feel like I’m supposed to feel worse.”
“Tommy healed you,” he supplied.
You sat up slowly, and he carefully placed a hand on your back, keeping it there until you’d gotten in a better position. “He didn’t have to do that. I would’ve been fine.”
“You would’ve had a concussion and a fracture in your skull.”
“That’s not the worst thing in the world.” You joked and gave him a lopsided grin, and he shook his head, chuckling.
He pulled you into a tight hug, “I’m so fucking glad you’re okay.”
You hugged him back, burying your face against him gently, “I would’ve been fine.”
You were lying. You were not fine, actually. As strong as you acted, you couldn’t deny the slight shake that lay in your hands as you thought about that warehouse and the overwhelming fear the image of that mask in your head put in you.
You could’ve used your ability to make Wilbur believe you. You didn’t honestly have the energy to do so.
“You don’t have to be fine,” he whispered, rubbing your back gently, “I know how terrifying it must’ve been. But it’s okay, you’re safe now.”
Your fists balled up the fabric of his sweater, and the tears started falling soon after. He rubbed your back as you cried, the waves of fear and stress finally coming out. You could only hold it together for so long, and Wilbur would always be there when you finally broke.
By the time you calmed down, you were left with soft gasps of breath and holding Wilbur like a lifeboat. He leaned over to his nightstand, handing you a glass of water. After a moment’s hesitation, he placed a gentle kiss on your forehead.
You drank slowly, not wanting to overwhelm yourself. Wilbur’s kiss didn’t exactly help, but physical affection wasn’t something new to either of you.
As if he knew exactly what you were thinking, he wrapped his arms around you gently, leaning his face against your shoulder. You leaned into his touch, letting your eyes close for a moment.
“He was stalking me. Well, he was stalking you, but he had photos from years ago of us. Of Siren walking me home. Of Blade at my apartment. Of Zephyrus in my living room.”
Wilbur tensed, keeping you a bit closer. “I’m so sorry.” He whispered, “I-I never should’ve let you get involved with the Syndicate stuff, I was so stupid to think something like this wouldn’t happen.”
“Wilbur, you never let me get involved. In fact, you were the one pushing me from getting involved. I chose this. I knew something like this could happen, and I chose to stick by you.”
“You’re not a member of the Syndicate, though. I know you can protect yourself, but I don’t want to be the reas-”
“Wilbur.” You hissed out. “If you even for a moment insist again that this is your fault, I will use my ability to make you believe that the best way to sleep is by falling out the window.” He bit his tongue from responding, nodding. “I didn’t turn down the Syndicate offer because I thought it would keep me safe.” You reached for his hand, taking it and squeezing it tightly. You didn’t know if it was your foggy mental state that made the idea of confessing your feelings so appealing or if it was just the residual fear in your system, but you didn’t care regardless.
“Why did you turn it down, then?” Wilbur asked softly.
“I turned down the Syndicate offer because I was worried about working with you.” You sighed, “It’s hard to focus around you, Wilbur.”
“Me? I don’t understand, we’ve been best friends for years, why would..?”
“That’s the problem. It’s hard to focus around you because I am constantly wishing that you would love me back.”
You held your breath once the words left your mouth. Wilbur pulled away from you, and you felt your heart drop.
“Do you mean that?” He asked softly, moving to sit in front of you.
You nodded, unable to respond further in fear of the tears resurfacing.
Wilbur reached a hand out, pausing and hesitating for a moment. He continued though, gently cupping your cheek.
“Can I kiss you?”
Your eyes widened. “Only if you mean it.”
He smiled softly, leaning forward and kissing you hard. You wrapped your arms around his neck, holding him close as you kissed him back, putting all the passion behind it that you’d wanted to for years.
When he pulled away, you rested your forehead against his, catching your breath slowly. He smiled, fingers lightly tracing your arms.
“So… about joining the Syndicate then,” you started.
He laughed, pulling away to grin at you, “You don’t have to decide anything tonight. But it would be really nice. You probably wouldn’t be on the front lines, but we’d love to have you. Plus, we’d be able to see each other a lot more.” He grinned.
You smiled, “Well, I’ll give you a formal answer in the morning. But as for an informal one, I’d fucking love it.”
He grinned, holding you close once more. You ran your hands up and down his back gently, and he hissed in pain when you reached the midpoint of his back. You pulled away.
“Will? You alright?”
He gave a thumbs up, and you smirked, “Say it out loud.”
He groaned, “I am alright. I am perfectly fine.” You could feel the pressure of his words in your head, and they almost sounded distorted. A clear lie.
“Let me see your back.” You smiled, and he groaned.
“You know how much I hate that I can’t lie to you?” He huffed, turning and pulling his sweater up.
“I know, I know,” you took a good look at his back, frowning at the dark bruise on his back, “Wilbur, you have a huge bruise. Are your ribs okay? It looks like some might be cracked.”
“They feel fine,” he shrugged. The pressure returned to your head, and this time you could feel a sensation of burning below your hands. A big lie, then.
“...I’m texting Tommy.”
“No, do not!”
You already had your phone out, texting Tommy to ask for him to come as soon as possible, both for Wilbur and so you could thank him for healing you.
“Too late,” you smiled, and Wilbur huffed, pulling his sweater back down.
He wrapped an arm around you again, kissing the top of your head, “You’re lucky I love you, Aletheia.”
“I am,” you smiled softly. There was no pressure or warm sensation. He did love you. He meant it. “Alethia? God of… truth, right?”
He nodded, “It’s Techno’s codename for you. He chose it out months ago.”
You smiled fondly, “Cool. Has a nice ring to it.”
He nodded, “I agree. And for what it’s worth, I’m lucky too.” He smiled, and you gave him a gentle kiss.
“We’re both lucky. Maybe our duo name could be Tyche.”
“Oh, god, I’m going to have to deal with so many more Greek mythology references with you in the Syndicate, aren’t I?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
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hypogryffin · 7 months
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genuinely curious by what you mean by "jewish (factual)" in your tier list. i can assume for a couple what you mean (sophia as an example) but i dont see how the others could be like jewish-coded! interested in hearing your thoughts
link to the first post for claritys sake, but this is the tier in question:
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ok so for clarification: i made the tier list a little while ago and then scheduled it for later to keep uploads consistent, something i usually do all the time but am not for this discussion for now. this means that by the day the tier list posted, i was already a few weeks or so divorced from the actual creation of it, so some of my opinions have changed (as i said in the og post, i was unsure on a good portion of the characters even when i first queued the list), and some of my reasonings behind placements have been lost to time and my silly little goldfish memory.
bc of this, as of now as im trying to find a distinct line between "jewish (factual)" and "jewish (based on vibes)", the criteria for "factual" is sort of murky. some placements in the category were serious, but a lot of them were also entirely for joking reasons, and i had moved on as soon as i was done laughing to myself without coming back to it.
all this is to say, i have no idea how to summarise it, so im going to explain everything i can remember about my thought process at the time so you can see where i was coming from.
SOPHIA:
yup 👍.
ok so for the uninformed, sophia is the name of a gnostic figure and the specifics change depending on the context of which ur referring to her in, but in judaism specifically sophia was given as a translated name for chokmah which is like a being thats like really important in kabbalah and considered like. this sort of i guess personification of divine wisdom?
anyways this is a concept that i doubt im anywhere near the first person to bring up, so im not gonna spend a lot of time on it like i will the things i havent heard other people talk about. like the whole "good friend of humanity" thing! judaism puts a lot of emphasis on kindness and care for other people and i think its important that thats so big for her character and for how jewish she can be read as. she is also jewish because i like her :^).
TATSUYA:
suffers endlessly because g-d hates *him*, specifically, and he hates g-d right back. jewish.
that was a joke. ok so right out the gate i think the whole "fighting hitler" aspect of IS should count for something during the discussion of which characters are jewish. like just putting that out there. anyways tatsuya is jewish because of eternal punishment. specifically, you know how hes like super into "atonement" and repentance? bro would really have benefited from going to a high holidays service lemme tell you. and he does it in a specific way thats like. his atonement is actively trying to repair what hes fixed right like hes not doing what hes doing to be redeemed, hes doing it because its his responsibility to fix whats been broken. i just idk how to explain it properly but thats a thought process your rabbi talks you through in jew school yknow?
also theres this thing called tikkun olam, which literally translates as "repairing the world". so it means more like. doing ur best as a citizen to improve community and country, or general social work. but just considering it as taking the literal translation, then its just like... yep. that sure is what hes doing isnt it
also, killed hitler. hashtag work
KATSUYA:
placed here mostly because being tatsuyas brother, theyd probably be at a similar "level" of religiosity. however there are some unique things i want to point out here;
katsuya like embodies the idea of "tzedek tzedek tirdof" like. its unfortunate hes a cop but for a cop hes a pretty good person? hes pretty uncompromising on right and wrong, and in a way that totally lines up w tzedek tzedek tirdof as its described in the torah.
extra emphasis on his compassion, as in theres like that core facet of judaism, the tikkun olam, where people have a moral obligation to help others; not just do good as oneself, but also stop other people from doing bad. that last bit doesnt really matter, cuz im bringing it up so i can talk about katsuya as a police officer to clear his dads name and try and ensure a better future for his brother. he gave up his dreams for them.
i mean, when i say "giving up his dreams", im kinda laughing to myself bc theres no way he ran it past his parents bc if he looked his jewish mother in the eye and said "i want to be a pastry chef" he would not make it out of the room alive. hed go "my dream is to become a pâtissier" and his mom would immediately be like "no its not its to be an accountant" and that would be the end of the discussion
also, i think he would make some of the best fucking challah in the world. hed make matzo ball soup that could make you jizz your pants just looking at it. look me in the eyes and tell me that he doesnt actually go nuts at rosh hashana when he gets to make the round challah with the raisins in it and stuff or whatever else. there is such a crystal clear vision in my mind of him rocking this apron my dad used to have that says "real men make latkes". it was pink and ugly as sin and i think it would be katsuyas most prized possession.
LABRYS:
her name is fucking labrys obviously shes a jewish lesbian. next.
/j i will actually talk about this. like not mentioning the only survivor of her upbringing, which isnt a one to one considering the death match portion of her backstory but still close enough to feel um. relavant to jewish culture. she acts very...stereotypically jewish?
its not entirely the accent, but it is...part of it. so like i know its like a new jersey accent and that the stereotype is new york, i guess? but im not american and i dont rlly know the difference. they look close enough to each other on a map tho so i think it counts
but also shes like kinda confrontational in a way i specifically associate with jewish people or jewish characters? like not really bitchy but argumentative right, shes got this really sarcastic or mocking sense of humour. and girl kvetches with the best of them.
(also, side note: since i made the original list, i found out that the voice actress for aegis in p3 reload, dawn m bennett, is actually jewish! if i were to remake the tier list, aegis would be moved up from "vibes" to "factual" because of this. mentioning that here because of the sister thing :).)
JOKER:
kills g-d which is the jewish dream. this is a another joke.
someone in the replies of the tier list said something abt a possible reason being that he has an "abrahamic figure" as his ult. persona, which could be a good point if satanael was actually an abrahamic figure! but it is not. like ok im not a history guy but satanael is a name used in the 2nd book of enoch, which arguably could be part of jewish "canon" (i know this is actually the term for it but fandom has rotted my brain and it sounds terminally online to use it in terms of real life religiosity) but most rabbis agree it like is not, and theyre kind of who im listening to on this, and quick google search says even in christianity, enoch is debatable? idk
so like satanael isnt in the torah. and if anyone says "oh its just like another name for satan so technically--" shut up i know. satan isnt real in the torah either. ok like "satan" is used as a term, but not as like the specific dude that like rules hell. hes just like at most a specific dude who is not a devil/cast from heaven or whatever, but instead is a lawyer. more often its a concept, something representative of like the urge to go against g-ds will or a kosher life, this "evil inclination" which everyone is born possessing and grapples with when trying to be a good person. NOT THE SAME AS THE CHRISTIAN SATAN. WHICH IS WHAT P5 WAS GOING FOR. SATAN IN JUDAISM IS NOT A "super demon lord" or whatever they call it in the text of the game
satanael isnt an abrahamic figure and i dont think satan is either cuz its so different between religions and honestly i think calling things abrahamic religions, at least w the context i hear of it, is like kind of a misnomer or just kind of generally misleading cuz judaism christianity and islam are all so different and if were talking about this i think whoever invented the term judeochristian should eat a sheet of glass for it because whenever i hear those terms its very clear the person saying it means just christianity but theyre trying to be inclusive without actually putting the work in and thats not the point of this.
ok if im honest, as i think abt it joker isnt like. really... super jewish, in a way that you can point out? its just like... this overall vibe im having trouble explaining which is probably also like super influenced by how much i like him. i want to say that this strict sense of right and wrong that remains uninfluenced by the rest of society is something that clearly creates or maybe just intensifies this like. empathy for other people that reminds me of this concept in judaism which i cant remember the hebrew name of rn but i think its most commonly translated to english as "lovingkindness", one word? or that the whole idea of the phantom thieves can be contributed to tikkun olam. but, on the other hand, even if lovingkindness is what i personally consider one of jokers core character traits, the other one is pure, blinding rage.
im not going to go super into it, because im a few years rusty of torah study bc its only really consistently done in my community for kids preparing for bnai mitzvah cuz of how few people we have in our congregation. but from what i remember, my interpretation of the exact limit between righteous and sinful anger is a bit more... lax than the average jew's, or at least the average rabbi's, meaning mine, lol. either way anger is almost always seen as sinful because its an emotion that can like. turn you from g-d, its the same thing that invokes that "evil inclination" we just talked abt. so, joker textually feels this rage that arsene, his other self, literally refers to as "sacrilegious", something that very clearly states that he is willing to *knowingly* commit sins for this rage and is perfectly capable of causing undue harm to others for it, which is exactly the reason why judaism warns of anger. this means jokers anger is distinctly against jewish teachings.
again, im really lax, my familys reform (/lh) and i think there are some parts of this characterisation that make me feel this rage is overall constructive, especially considering that is what feeds his constant practice of lovingkindness and tikkun olam, but it being such a huge facet of his personality (made worse bc as a silent protagonist, you really have to search to get away from this trait) brings him down on the Jew Scale(tm).
in short, now that im really discussing this id probably move him to incredibly jewish based on vibes or even to just "jewish" no further classification. but even w the undying sinful anger thing i cant not think of him as jewish and i dont think its just bc hes one of my favourite characters of all time.
also that hair texture looking really familiar is all🤔🤔. all im saying that is in the tutorial, instead of "frizzy hair", morgana deffo should have been calling them blondie and jewfro /j /j /j
EDIT AND JOKERS KITCHEN!! JOKERS KITCHEN!! FOOD AS A LOVE LANGUAGE!! IN P5 YOU MAKE FOOD FOR YOUR FRIENDS AND YOU PUT LOVE INTO IT
MORGANA:
i know i put morgana before joker in the tier but i think in order to rlly discuss morgana we needed joker first bc part of my reason for putting them in the same tier is because they really are a pair, do not separate.
anyways, morgana does have a lot of the same problems as joker when it comes to being difficult to pin down. his inclination to tikkun olam is similar, sort of even greater than jokers depending on personal characterisation of joker, but instead of this discrepancy of his jewishness being anger, the ethical conundrum with morgana is sort of. arrogance? like, i have trouble figuring out how to really put into words how i feel abt morganas "lovingkindness", because it is so hard to understand where hes at in terms of empathy?? like. fucking. idk hes definitely a very caring person but its not exactly like
ok i cant figure out how to say it moving on. i used the word arrogance even though i dont really think thats right, because morgana has never seemed haughty. his "arrogance" is really just him making up for an inferiority complex caused by the amnesia thing, its not as if he genuinely totally believes himself to be above the others. but like no matter what it stems from, the way he behaves and his personal pride hurts people. ie the okumura arc, or his entire relationship w ryuuji. he speaks ill of others, belittles them to bring himself up, etc. arrogance and excess pride is as condemned as anger in judaism if not moreso, since its even less useful/constructive to be "arrogant" than it is to be angry. OH ok so what i meant with the hard to figure out his empathy thing is this actually!! hes very caring and has a really notable respect for human life but its always at war with his need to prove himself, so even if when you think about it its like Oh Morgana Is A Really Caring Person, which makes sense because he was created from human desire and as such is really in touch with what people need, the desperation he has to be seen as "worthy" comes off as wanting to be seen as "above", even if it means trying to get the people around him as being considered "below" him.
tldr so if it was just those two traits i think id have to move morgana lower on the list, alongside joker.
HOWEVER. speaking directly to the other jews in the crowd, but morgana is totally textually a golem, right? like not exactly, obviously, but think about it. morganas a being of the velvet room because he was created from "the dregs of human hope" (canonical line from yaldaboath that i think about more than what can be considered healthy tbh), whose job is was and always will be to protect and guide the trickster and his community, the phantom thieves. hes a golem right? am i insane? am i seeing things? i dont care, im not giving up on this interpretation, so morgana is factually and canonically jewish cuz of it.
ZEN:
i do not remember.
as of today id probably move him to either jewish no other classification or not jewish. my b guys. anyways
JUN:
life is indescribable torment, and then hes also got additional, mostly unrelated, mommy issues. judaism 101.
also his suspenders when he was a kid are the most young jewish lad shit in the history of ever like i have seen that exact outfit on a young boy every time i go to temple, and each time it is a different kid
ok more seriously, i really do think juns story-- specifically his relationship with memory-- can easily be extracted into a jewish narrative. like nyarlathotep messed with his memories and convinced him that the other members of the masked circle killed maya right. and so the way he fanatically reminded himself of the past was a mix of trauma and active manipulation. but if i think abt it a certain way i also can see it as like. ok so in judaism memory is really important and like a lot of the time during for example passover, youre meant to refer to yourself as being a jew in egypt, saying "we" instead of "them" and such. but im specifically meaning how important memory/remembrance is in grieving. jun in his grief for mayas perceived death "kept her alive" in a way. she was never forgotten, and so she never died. even though the entire masked circle forgot, from trauma or fear or guilt or whatever, jun held on, remembering her, and so she survived. joker took peoples dreams but his actions also caused them to be completely be forgotten. they were alive, but they were robbed of their ability to be remembered at all, and so they were as good as dead even still breathing and talking.
retroactively, this idea enforces tatsuyas jewishness, considering the entire story of eternal punishment. he refused to forget the masked circle, even though it hurts.
anyways back to jun, i also think the whole repentance thing is important too. he hurt people in his anger and sorrow and spends the rest of his life (until the world is reset at least lol) atoning for his wrongdoings.
also, i know i said kid him is super jewish looking, but he has not gotten better as hes grown up. 17y.o him is exactly the guy your bubbe will pull up on facebook and be like "this is the grandson of my friend or whoever! you should go on a date with him, hes your age! he looks a bit gay but hes a very successful doctor! ...and hes JEWISH YAKNOW...." and ur like "ok bubbe"
ERIKO:
i actually do not recall exactly why she is in this tier specifically. the only thing i for sure remember was that i at least partially placed her here bc of her fascination with the occult.
HIKARI:
ok this one was kinda me goofing. its the whole extended family thing like whats more jewish than being actively discouraged from a creative career for something "safe" and "normal?" bro the aunt might as well have dropped the "being a doctor is very respectable" line in the song.
but like even without that, wanting to be a director or associated with film? hitting her with the jew beam. mazel tov babygirl.
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dunmer-pussy · 9 months
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hey guys can i admit an insecurity slash issue that's actually sorta crushing me but i cant shake it no matter how hard i try. it's under a cut so you can scroll past it, idk if this would be considered vent-y or not but i gotta say something somewhere n it's also my blog and i post whatever i want on it. though i do talk abt my ex and the emotional/mental abuse i was put through. so be warned.
keep in mind it's 4am when im writing this
okay so my boyfriend-slash-prospective-husband is going to university soon. he doesn't want to.
now i am consumed with this overwhelming dread, overwhelming terror, that this is the end for our relationship. sounds pretty silly huh. why should i be so panicked about a simple fact of life that some of us might decide to tackle through our lifetimes. so why be so upset about it?
HOWEVER. my head is severely screwed up.
my ex happened to be extremely emotionally manipulative/abusive and the damage that they've caused rears its ugly head here more than anything else. i am terrified, and i mean deeply so, of my boyfriend becoming too busy for me and forgetting about me and dragging me through an absolutely vicious period of neglect (which is what my ex did, and punctuated it by confessing to me that they never loved me to begin with and that our entire bond was a lie among other things SUCH AS successfully manipulating an entire group of people against me in order to hurt me, and demanding i stay silent about how i was treated among other things but that's a story for much later when I'm more ready to tell it)
now i know, logically, that that isn't going to happen. my boyfriend genuinely loves me even if my trauma wants to grab me by the throat and spit in my face about otherwise in the voice of my ex. i know he loves me, i know he will keep up with me as i will with him. hell we have no reason not to. he's given me the strongest sense of stability and love i haven't had since my ex had me believing they actually wanted me.
and my perception of love and my relationship with love is very, very broken as a result of the life I've lived and the fucking shitstain that was my ex. so it's scary to put so much trust in someone and so much love in someone despite my raging terror that it will all explode back in my face.
heartache is part of life and pain is part of life but when you've experienced it so much you want to get out of it and when you're this fucked up the releases from this pain are just as scary as the reasons you're in so much agony.
I am eternally grateful that my love is so patient with me. he doesn't judge me, or wish to hurt me, and it's like we grow closer and closer every single day. i am so in love with him that sometimes it feels like a physical pain in my chest and like every wound i have is healed or at least numbed. when we met there was love in his eyes, and i felt that it was real and true. which i cant say about my ex when we met last year and they essentially treated me and my mom like fucking maids and had a bitchfit when we called them out LMAO
my sister would psychoanalyze me, say that my lack of personal stability is going to drive my boyfriend away. that I'm setting our relationship up to fail, etc etc etc, a self-fulfilling prophecy. i disagree but only on the grounds that i need to heal into love rather than separate from it and that my boyfriend is just the stability i need while he lays my aching heart to rest and helps me heal. i dont trust, because of how my ex manipulated me, so having things proven with time is just what I need and just what my boyfriend is providing. I'm a battered shelter dog and i don't need to be alone anymore. I've been alone enough.
because of how my ex practically rewired my head and exploited my fears and vulnerabilities and left me with damage that is worse than any other situation I've been in, its difficult to trust people closest to me. i try, i genuinely try, but it's an ugly defence mechanism. it's why I'm so reclusive.
it's why i'm so deeply terrified of my beloved going off to uni and forgetting about me.
"give him space, he has work to do, let him be," my sister would say. trying to paint me as clingy. I'm just scared. i know all i have to do is put faith in my boyfriend (i do) but it's so fucking hard when you're this screwed up and can't tell the future.
i just wish i could have some certainty of what's going to happen. I'm terrified my world is going to end again this September and i wont survive it. i am so fucking scared. it's like I'm grieving someone i haven't even lost (and wont loose) yet.
i hate this. i dont want to feel like this.
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seraphsfire · 2 years
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hey y’all i know i said i was going to report back on rings of power and i knew it obviously at this point wasn’t using any lore from the text so instead I was curious what their plan was and I didn’t expect this but they fucking ruined Hobbits. I’m. Legitimately angry, which is why i just want to kind of. warn people. I don’t anticipate really posting much more about it on this blog from now on.
I dont’ mean “ruined” as in “they look stupid”. This is beyond that. They made these brandyfoots cruel.
These hobbits live in groups of caravans and are nomadic. (and as those of you who have seen footage from the first two episodes know they are also extremely dirty and have super fake irish accents which is a conversation someone less tired can tackle)
Turns out with the brandyfoots if your caravan (or you) are too slow, they literally leave you behind to die. This is an issue because Nori’s dad has a broken ankle and her and her stepmom are legitimately afraid they’ll be left behind.
Before the hobbits begin each next migration they will sit there and read out the names of the people they left behind. This is called (and i’m being 100% truthful here) being “de-caravan-ed” 
they drink and look sad about most of the people that were de-caravaned and then a name of a hobbit who was left behind because bees chased him (???) is read and then they all start laughing and say “ha ha he was a bit of an eedjit.”
Anyway all I can describe the feeling of seeing a bunch of hobbits who live by a creed of strict social darwinism and leave people behind to die and then laughing about it as taking extreme psychic damage. 
hobbits are supposed to be good and wholesome and organized around community and family. That’s what hobbits are; i don’t have to tell any of you that because it’s common knowledge. The meanest hobbits get is stealing stuff. Maybe they’ll try to play it off as “oh those people didn’t die! they’re just alone forever!” but if they did that then it doesn’t make sense that they were crying about these people and repeatedly saying that Staying On The Trail Together is the “only way” brandyfoots survived. 
I suppose it could be some sort of obscure part of tolkien lore that i’ve forgotten about some bands of hobbits leaving people behind to die when they were traveling west. If so, please tell me what it says/where because im praying they did Not just go and do this for no reason. 
I was hanging on desperately by a thread hoping for at least internal consistency in this show. I wanted to see some cool scenery maybe, but i think atp ive given up. For instance, Galadriel is rescued by a ship full of numenoreans-- which she doesn’t recognize despite their extremely distinctive armor and ship and clothing and colors. I was like okay whatever. Then they come through the fog to numenor and she’s like OMG ive heard of this place! then later she’s explaining to this guy about how “our people were like kin for generations.” 
........but she doesn’t even know what the numenoreans look like???????she couldn’t even guess based on what they looked like and where in the ocean they were???
another instance of her (and the other elves who couldn’t figure it out) being incredibly stupid is that mark of sauron left on finrod is apparently literally just a map of mordor / the southlands, where the elves were having trouble with orc rumors and stuff already. their wisest elves didn’t even guess this for thousands of years. i could go on and on about that but since they’re obviously not following any of the text, pointing that out over and over again is kind of pointless. Anyway. I know i complained a lot about the first two episodes but episode three was somehow worse? at least the lack of internal consistency within the show itself seemed more blatant this time. And then of course the hobbits having this facade of cute dirtyness (??) but actually being cruel. I think i actually would have minded it less if they had a group of hobbits that were blatantly cruel because you could say they were affected by something. But this is somehow more disturbing. Idk. 
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A/N so this is a little different from my usual works but I just sorta thought of this one so yeah. Happy holidays everyone, enjoy a Christmas, fluffy, angsty I guess, familial fic.
Have fun <3
"here you go Cass." Dean said handing him a messily wrapped present covered in gold and red shiny wrapping paper with a big bow on the top.
"for Sam?" He asked moving his present filled hand toward Sam.
"no Cass, its for you hun." Dean smiled albeit confusedly. Cass sighed sadly looking at the floor
"I don't understand." He mumbled.
"hey, that's ok Cass, it's your first Christmas, what don't you understand?" Sam asked patiently.
"I thought gifts were given to loved ones." Dean looked at him almost offended.
"hold on." Sam said to dean. "Cass, did you get us gifts?"
"I'm sorry, I see now why you would not want them. I apologise."
"no no no Cass. Ok how do we do this?" Sam asked himself.
"Cass, why would you love us and us not love you? I tell you I love you all the time." Dean said.
"yeah but... Why would you mean it?" Cass asked. "you say it when I say it first. I thought that was just social protocol." He reasoned.
Sam looked at dean shocked and outraged.
"dean! You only say it when he says it first are you kidding me?!" Sam shouted angry.
"yeah well... That doesn't make it less true or constant." He said sheepishly to Sam before turning to Cass. "you know that right?"
"how could he when he only hears it as an echo?" Sam said. He was defending Cass with avengance.
"hold on." Dean mumbled eyebrows furrowed.
"no I'm not done yelling at you yet!" He said.
"no no seriously. Stop." Dean said.
"did you say why would that be true?"
"well... Yeah." Cass mumbled.
"why?" Dean said.
"well. I'm a broken angel dean. Why would you love me? What is there to love?" cass asked genuinely, that was what really shook dean, Cass truly believed what he was saying to him, he thought himself unlovable because he wasn't what he once was.
"shut up cass." dean said.
"i-im sorry." he said looking down.
sam watched the conversation develop quietly.
"you should be.-"
"Dean-" sam started.
"how dare you. how could you possibly see yourself that way?! i love you cass! i love you so much. i dont care about that. when you were a real angel or whatever the hell you wanna call it you were a dick! i didnt love you until you started caring, until you had and expressed the emotions you were previously punished for feeling. Cass we love you so much. i love you so much. how could you possibly think we wouldnt love you. how could you think that. i am so totally in love with you cass. everything i am is thanks to you. not because you saved me from hell but because you save us, you help us, you heal us, and you heal the people i love. i dont love you out of gratitude cass, i love you becuase even wehn it ends badly you try to help people no matter what and if it ends worse off you hate yourself, you feel the guilt even when it isnt your fault. when something bad happens that knowledge kills you. like, do you rmeber when i got sick and you were human and you stayed up for almost a week taking care of me and you hated yourself for not being able to heal me?" Cass nodded slightly, "do you remember when i jumped into a hunt the second i could and ended up having to catch you when you passed out from exhaustion, dehydration, starvation because you thought that you didnt matter if you couldnt help others?" cass nodded again. "do you remeber what i said to you when you woke up?"
cass nodded again before saying, "you said that it didint matter who else was in trouble, it didnt matter that i wasnt an angel because you needed me and that you loved me. you said that i couldnt help anyone if i didnt take care of myself because id end up dead and that if that happened you wouldnt know what to do with yourself." cass finished.
"and thats why i love you, because you would blow up the very ground you stand on to make something right, you would put the life of a caterpiller before your own. i love you because no matter what happens you prioritise others and no matter what happens you never stop lovong the little things."
"and its a good thing too other wise dean would never get any action." sam joked.
"Sam! get out, im busy!" he commanded, its a good thing sam was already leaving because he was too busy laughing at himself to hear him.
"ignoring sams untrue and incorrect comment cass, i love you. do you understand?" dean asked. scootching towards cass who nodded. "I love you too." he said before wrapping him in a tight hug, cass didnt really like kissing, hugs he loved and sex he didnt ming but kissing was too strange, he couldnt stand the feeling of someone slese toung in his mouth, said it felt like worms, so dean kissed him on the forehead or on the mouth without tounge, if it made cass happy he was more than happy to comply. but cass knew he was loved and that was what he needed to hear.
"so what did you get me anyway?" he asked.
"oh cass, youre gonna love it." dean said as he handed it over. cass unpeeled the gold and crimson paper his smile positively beamed. “Merry Christmas!”
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" cass screamed, dean smiled and sam came in running.
"What is it? What happened?" he asked. he looked at cass with the bee themed pj jumpsuit slippers, eyemask and photo frame unwrapped in his lap.
"So you like it?" dean asked.
cass rushed over to dean and hugged him so hard dean had to check his ribs. he chuckled at his verocity.
"my god i love you."
So yeah. Enjoy. Just thought it would be interesting and it kinda makes sense to me that cass would have a terrible family sense given that the angels were really aggressive and not exactly loving, so yeah. Any thoughts? Let me know :)
Send me prompts please. I have no inspiration :)
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ieemortis · 2 days
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I realized that I truly don't mean anything to anyone, and its debilitating. My mother, my father, anyone I've ever had the misfortune to call a 'friend'...I know whats wrong with me, and I try my best to fix it, but at the end of the day theres only so much I can do...I'm a broken human, I have anxiety, and depression, you think having the wherewithal to be able communicate that to people would be enough but it isn't...people still throw it in my face how broken I am. "Well maybe I just want someone who isn't so broken," those words haunt me, they destroy me and fill me with anger. They make me realize how empty my life truly is, how insignificant I truly am...I vow to never allow anyone close to me ever again, I hope I fucking die from all the stress I hold in, and I hope its alone and somewhere forgotten. I'm done with being perceived by induvial who don't deserve me. I've been abused my whole life, molested, beat, raped, starved by own father. You think after this life I would be given some iota of kindness...and despite all my hardships I remained kind. I remained gentle, and kind....I forgive those who don't deserve it, I tolerate negligence, and I offer understanding to everyone because I prayed that my resolve would mark me worthy one day to receive the same...but it doesn't do shit. I dont have the heart to become what the world requires to survive among others. Instead I will withdraw into myself, I will become a shell and become my only friend. I refuse to ever open up to anyone ever again, I refuse to be hurt like this again. I won't let others push me to this point again, I mutilate my own body, I starve and abuse myself to cope with the disappointing reality of being known. And why? I don't deserve this pain, they do....they deserve to rot for the things they've done and the things I've forgiven too much, and I'm done. It's time I fight back, not by being cruel, or vicious like them. But by simply not allowing them to affect me ever again...
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secret-hidden-feelings · 10 months
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I fell for you, I loved every single part of you good and bad and you were the person that I want to call when there's something new or bad going on in my life. You were my best friend, my whole world and you were my future. I could only see you and you hurt me. If you think I dont know what you've done to me, I do. I have had a whole month and a half to play back the last year and a half of my life over and over again. I have obsessed over the fact that you have moved on and I was so angry at you up until yesterday. Yesterday my friend made me realise you cannot control people and you cannot force people to be there all the time or push them to give you what you want when you want it. I can't keep hassling you to give you my stuff back because you're petty and you know how much it means to me. You will do what you can to keep hurting me and that is something that'll hurt me. they said what's happened has happened, it is what it is. You probably feel like I hurt you, by 'trying' to ruin your little new relationship little do you know I was trying to help her from being manipulated by you. I was a little too late though and I wish I knew more things before messaging her out of hurt and anger. You claim to have loved me, yet you don't cheat on people you love and lie about it. I came clean to you when I messaged my ex because I felt bad, I told you I messaged him saying I missed him. I loved you enough to tell you what I was doing wrong in our relationship. You don't go missing for hours and hours on end when you go out and think it's okay. You don't deceive the person you love because even when its wrong its better the truth is told before being found out later. Even when you got caught out, you called me a piece of shit because what.. you got caught and you didn't think you would. Honestly I was fuming when I found out from Vikki.. I was so angry because obviously everyone knew something I did not. I was being cheated by everyone around you and you were making me out to be some crazy ex girlfriend.
Although, you know what I've learnt that was overtime since our break up, you were the best liar I ever dated, you would project your insecurities on me because of what you were doing. I wasn't perfect, I am flawed but I really did give you my 100% more than I have given anyone else. there were others who deserved it more than you ever did. you thought you could conquer me and buy my love. love isn't to be bought. The fancy restaurants were nice, the living together was great we excelled there, but you were still able to lie and hide things from me. The expensive gifts and designer stuff was nice. Thats not why I loved you and if you thought thats what bought my love, you are so daft and a joke. I know so many more things than you think I know and I bet you thought I would never find out but thats okay. I will always love what we had. Once upon a time you were the person I truly loved and I loved you with everything I had. we hurt each other and you were just as narcissistic as the people you surrounded yourself with. One day I hope you look back and really see I wanted what was best for you, I wanted you to stop hanging around certain people because you had potential to be a really good person. However, maturing comes with growth and time.
Hopefully when we cross paths one day, I won't hate what you did to me, because you left me with more than just a broken heart. You put me back together and broke into a billion more pieces than what it originally was. You shattered it and you stepped on it to break it into tiny tiny pieces. The person putting it back together now, is me.
so thank you for allowing me to find this time to grow and be the better version of myself. I was broken then and im broken now, but I won't be broken for long.
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melancholyhime · 1 year
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things ive been recalling, if someone even cares (if not its ok, bc its for me to write out and look at)
a boy from my childhood who loved me very much, his was instant and mine was slow and full of teenage shyness/awkwardness/undiagnosed autism. our friend pretended he saw a squirtle in my pool and swam away leaving us alone. the boys hands shook as he cupped my face. i remember that even now. his hands started to shake whenever he would touch my waist. he never touched me without asking or me reaching out first. he was a dork and a nerd and such a good son. 2 dogs. but my god he lied. he lied about a piece of his life i guess bc he wanted to seem cooler to me. he never had to be, and i never said i wanted anything differently. but i could never fully agree to be with him bc when i called him out in the lie, he wouldnt come clean bc it had gone on for so long. his lie was more important than telling me the truth, and it was the single door that remained closed between us. ive never been as intimately close to anyone ever again.
i said yes to a boy in college when he asked me to marry him. he asked me because we were fighting again. we were better as friends but couldnt see that bc of how much we had poured in to one another. i genuinely loved him. but i loved a lot of ppl, bc to me (always) love is not a singular definition. i choose the ppl i love and i love them different amounts and ways and quantities and reasons. he couldnt accept that: "you dont know what love is" i will never forget those words. we on and offd again for years. we didnt marry. i kept a letter he had wrote me until my actual first fiancee found it and accused me of still loving him (of course i did but again, different ways amount etc) so i tore it up to prove that i "didnt love him any more". i regret it to this day.
i tried women and polyamory bc i didnt fit anywhere. i didnt fit. no one stayed because i didnt know how to make them. i even called myself fridgid bc thats what i was right? like a broken toy that had an essential inner gear twisted out and it still worked but now it didnt do one particular function. i was pansexual, but no that wasnt right either. a partner touched me and i felt disgusted.
my last boyfriend hand made me cherry pastries one morning at the beginning of the relationship. my roomate kept telling me he wasnt good but that one act kept me attached for so long because it was so kind. and simple. and full of care. it meant he really cared (and maybe he did). he always wanted sex. i did not. he never forced himself on me but i felt so guilty that i would give it to him and feel icky afterwards. when we finally broke up we still had a few months on our lease together so instead of trying to "work it out" like he begged and i agreed to, he brought a girl home and fucked her loudly so i could hear what i hadnt given him, what he could have always had if i was just a normal loving, giving girlfriend who wanted to please her man, and then ignored me for the rest of the lease until 2 weeks before we moved out, when he apologized and asked if we could be friends.
and finally. finally. i googled the demi/ace flag. of course id seen it in lgbtqa posts but just five articles in of frantic reading tears streamed down my face because i finally found the ppl that felt the same way i did. i wasnt broken i was just made another way and the relief that i felt when i saw the explaination for everything i had saw and felt within and outside of myself.. i can never express the warmth that crept back into me that i hadnt realized i had lost bc i had stopped loving myself a long time ago bc i had been so busy trying to love others the right way and ignored myself--the worst thing u can actually do. all the self loathing evaporated. all the evil mean down talking i did to myself on the daily trickled quickly to a stop. i stopped calling myself broken and frigid, i stopped feeling i was made incorrectly, i stopped believing those people (including the evil part of myself) were right.
i am 38. it took that long.
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hellomichelleli · 2 years
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Mum and I had lunch the other day. I dropped home to collect lindsy from puppy daycare. Somehow our conversation led us to reflect on the last 7 years of working together... and how it was such a kind of hell. But how we've emerged with better understanding and with both of us growing. Its funny because i still call out mum wwhenevr i dont agree with her words.... but these days without the same malice i had before.
and Mum? She never gets angry. You literally see the switch flip, and she stops herself from passing that line. and praise God.... her blood pressure has literally disappeared for the first time in more than two decades.
She's learning to enjoy life. Life first work second... and i think as she sees how God has been so so good and faithful to me in my work.... Kor too....less worry and concern. It had always been her as the main vessel or conduit blessing everyone around her. but things have changed and she is learning to appreciate everyone because we've all stepped up.
But i have to acknowledge that i have the most wonderful mother. my father is a consistent rock of love. provider and comforter... but my mother... she has been the rock of growth ... yet also a provider and comforter. I mean, only my mother would be the one to plan paying off my loan after i reduce it this time. She says that its stupid letting the bank charge such high interest and so i will return the money straight to her as slowly as i want. That way, she says, Ash and I can focus on a second property quickly. Dad signed off on it, but he would never have offered or even thought of it maybe. Independent and capable, he says... is what he wants of his children. haha mum says that too, but she constantly provides above and beyond.
Where will we move to? In the past i had very firm ideas of where i wanted to live... but these days... it has been more of adventure to see where we flow... and to appreciate where we end up. In my life so far, God has always given me more than i have expected --- in the areas where i do not expect anything. And i have learned, in the places where i demand and expect (especialy from exes) it was always broken, faulty and God was absent. No more. I just know that I've to be pretty good with my money because i do want to take care of my parents in their old age.
I think the best part.. is Ash gets along so well with my family.
Ash? Words cannot express how happy I am. it is not an effort to be happy or choice to be happy the way it was in the past -- coming up with my interpretations to make things more shiny than they were. Growing up. Its not sex, its not consideration alone.
It is really connection. the ability to communicate and understand each other deeply. that is what holds people together... and the true ability to love -- placing your loved one before you.. but in a healthy way. not in a toxic breeding ground.
I've found a true equal when it comes to the heart and the ability to understand one's self... and to communicate openly. To be genuine about your feelings. to express. to confront. to love.
Sometimes i flip back to my thought processes written here on this blog... and i cringe and shake my head at my immaturity, self concern and at the same time, naivety .... a desire to create my own reality adn live within it. But life... is for us to learn certain truths and laws that govern it, human nature is patterned. From that understanding then, can we slowly contribute to changing and bettering that reality.
but the process is linear. One cannot skip parts of the journey to get there.
Life has a rhythm that I want to continue always
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shanastoryteller · 2 years
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How do you come up with redemption arcs for characters that in canon are... Pretty unredeemable? I suppose it's a lot of subjective opinions but for example Lucius Malfoy in siat. In canon I would say not a good dude but I like what you've done with him. Same with Jiang Cheng I dont care much about him in canon but I love him in your fics. There are loads of examples really! It baffles me how you manage it😂 (I mean for this to come of as curious and not like rude/offensive btw, I think it's really creative and wondering about your process with it)
uuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh okay i'll do my best to explain. sorry in advance if i do a bad job T_T
i guess i don't really think of them as redemption arcs? honestly the idea of redemption doesn't really hold a lot of water with me because. it's just not real, you know? there's no cosmic checkbook where you can do something bad, go into the red, and work yourself into the black with enough good deeds or self actualization
it just doesn't matter
a bowl once broken cannot become unbroken. you can glue it together, but the cracks will remain, and it won't change the fact that you broke it. redemption to me is like deserving mercy - by it's very definition, impossible. because if you deserve mercy, it's not mercy. it's justice
instead, there is growth, and there is forgiveness, and neither of these things have to do with each other. it's just when you combine these things, people call that a redemption arc
you can grow into the type of person that doesn't break bowls and that is good for society and for yourself because that means there are less broken bowls. you can be forgiven for breaking the bowl, or not, but it has no bearing on the likelihood that that you'll break another bowl
paradoxically, when i have a disliked character that i want you to like, i don't tend to go for either growth or forgiveness
i also don't erase the thing people dislike them for. i think that's the laziest way to try and make a character palatable, even though i know it's a popular one. add. don't subtract
we dislike canon lucius malfoy because he's a death eater on the wrong side of the war who gives in to voldemort past the point he even believes in the cause anymore. siat lucius malfoy ... is a death eater on the wrong side of the war who gives in to voldemort past the point he even believes in the cause anymore.
but he loves his son, and his wife, and when his son's life is on the line, he chooses draco. when draco's good opinion of him is on the line, he chooses that. not once, or twice, but always. he still participated in the first war. he's still a bigot. he still let's voldemort take over his home. but when push comes to shove, he loves draco, and we love draco and - that's enough. the terrible things he's done are distant and theoretical and his love for his family is right there and so we can focus on one over the other. i don't try to make him a good person. one of the og siat tags is literally "lucius malfoy is a bad person but a good father" and that's it in a nutshell. we like him because he's a good father and it's fiction and in fiction being a good dad outweighs being a war criminal. he punches voldemort in the face and switches side but it's not because of personal growth - it's because his son is and always has been his line and voldemort has crossed it and has to deal with the consequences just like anyone else
jiang cheng is hard because i really don't think he did anything wrong. i couldn't get into the novel, so i pretty much only go off the show. he made the best choices he could given the information he had, since he didn't know that wei wuxian had beein in the burial mounds or gave up his golden core or any of that. i legitimately don't believe he meant to kill wei wuxian because that narratively makes absolutely zero sense. he was on wei wuxian's side up until he thought he was responsible for their sister's death. and before that he got frustrated with him for being a drunkard and not helping him when he said he would, and like - who wouldn't? wei wuxian could have told him the truth but didn't. wei wuxian lied to him constantly. i love them both but they're both responsible here. but besides that, people don't like him because he's angry and represses his emotions and is quick to blame wei wuxian when things go wrong. and that's true in my stories too.
i don't make him into a different person and i don't change what he did (again, i really truly think that he killed him on accident because since when does being thrown off a cliff kill a cultivator). and in my post canon stories, he has to deal with the consequences of his actions and decide how he's going to deal with them. i don't think jiang cheng is emotionally immature. i think he's emotionally very mature. i just think he has a temper and poor impulse control and a strong sense of guilt, and that is not the same thing as being immature. he understands how other people think and act and their perceptions a lot better than wei wuxian does, he knows how to play the game a lot better than he does. jiang cheng successfully rebuilt and led a clan in terrible political climate and that's not something he could do without understanding people. the problem is wei wuxian goes out of his way to be deliberately misunderstood and had his own guilt and self worth issues that run right up against jiang cheng's. but that doesn't make either of them bad people. it just makes them complicated
oh geez that was a whole lot. did that help at all?? maybe???
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cerastes · 2 years
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I know its gonna be the hip thing to clown on malenia bc everyone is complaining about her boss fight as an outlet for it but im JUST saying she DID get cursed by an outer god and all and if you remember one of the early trailers of her fight with radahn, he smashes her prosthetic.
Given that 1. The arm socket is where Millicent inserts Miquellas Needle and 2. The broken needle is found in the heart of Aeonia. Its highly likely radahn smashed the needle in half with that strike, the sudden outer influence and her worn out state causing an inevitable dam burst (rewatching the scene, its a neat detail that she draws her own blood as a means of direct infection, given that the blade itself was immune to the scarlet rots decay).
I dont think it's really fair to call that "throwing a tantrum", and at the same time the worship of radahn reminds me that just bc he was benevolent to his own men doesnt mean that he couldnt be just as power hungry as any other shardbearer (sans morgott), as ranni already demonstrates the mutual exclusivity of affection, nobility, and morality
I'm at a bit of a loss regarding which angle I should be interpreting this from. It's an ask, as opposed to a post or a DM, so I'm assuming you want my take on it all? And at first glance I'd assume it'd be as response to me making funnies about Malenia yesterday, thus I should address it from that angle, but it could just also be your thoughts on the matter? I'll go with my gut and assume you want my take.
Ok, so,
"I know its gonna be the hip thing to clown on malenia bc everyone is complaining about her boss fight as an outlet for it"
As I believe you know by now, I like to clown on characters in general because it's fun, and it's definitely not me huffing on a copium life support tank since I beat her third try on my second run and I've expressed several times that I do love her fight, and the one thing I had a big issue with -- Waterfowl Dance -- I've come to not mind as much.
There's definitely people that are going to dunk on her as an outlet for frustration, though, I agree, but I don't think that's a bad thing, it's Video Games, that's just how it's been all the time. What does concern me about the way you are framing that, however, is that it is akin to saying that there's no other reasons why anyone would be dunking on her except because they are huffing copium, which is outright incorrect, even, I dare say, from a design perspective.
Elden Ring's lore is sports. You pick the faction/leader you think its coolest to you and that's your favorite. You like Malenia a lot. That's great! Other people think Radahn is the coolest. That's great! Like you can find a lot of reasons to dunk on any demigod, there's plenty of stuff that can be said to dunk on Malenia. I think I've also been very explicit in my thoughts on Malenia, but I'll put it in unalloyed words for the record: I think she's got an extremely cool design and her boss fight is immensely cool, but I find her characterization to be very boring, barebones, and lackluster, especially when compared to the two groups of characters one would normally compare her to, the Demigods (practically all of which have more characterization or at least quirks and details to them than Malenia does) and the Cool Fromsoft Late Game Female Bosses (of which Lady Maria and Sister Friede, imo, have a LOT more going to them than Malenia does).
I'll be fair and say that there IS a factor of Malenia's that I think is very cool and that isn't her boss fight or design: The fact that she and Miquella are foils to each other. While Malenia is a tall, nigh-peerless warrior, Miquella was cursed with the body of a child and is famously a renowned inventor, his Unalloyed Gold series of inventions being absolutely crazy good and advanced, ranging from extremely effective prosthetics to needles that can outright halt the advance of an outer god alien super anthrax (Scarlet Rot). While Malenia's domain is the Scarlet Rot, Miquella's domain is the lush evergreen. There's a couple more ways in which they are foils to each other and I think that's pretty cool, but at the same time, it's something that necessitates her to be associated to another character, her brother, in order to even be present as a factor, and unfortunately, it keeps reminding me of something I don't like about Malenia: "My brother my brother my brother my brother my brother I am my brother's blade where is my brother Miquella."
So, in short, yes, there's definitely copium to be found, but also, there's a lot of reasons as to why anyone would dunk on her regardless, and we shouldn't pretend or frame it otherwise. Maybe you didn't mean it that way, but that's how it came across.
Its highly likely radahn smashed the needle in half with that strike, the sudden outer influence and her worn out state causing an inevitable dam burst
This is a good theory that I like, because it accounts for details and a solid possibility, but there's also, if mind serves, several instances and accounts that mention Malenia having deliberately gone hog wild with the Scarlet Rot as a desperation move because Radahn was giving her so much trouble. I think Millicent herself said something to that effect at one point, though I don't truly remember her dialogue to the detail. Yes, it could be that one is meant to look for details in the way your theory does... Or It Could Also Just Be Malenia Doing That. Both are perfectly fine guesses. "Throwing a tantrum", in my opinion, is still an apt interpretation, if one that can be contested with what you said, but apt nonetheless.
"I dont think it's really fair to call that "throwing a tantrum", and at the same time the worship of radahn reminds me that just bc he was benevolent to his own men doesnt mean that he couldnt be just as power hungry as any other shardbearer (sans morgott), as ranni already demonstrates the mutual exclusivity of affection, nobility, and morality"
Which leads me to this point. I am going to assume you do not mean me when you say this because the only thing I've said as praise towards Radahn is that he learned turbo gravity magic from a scary tall man in a diaper all so he could keep riding his shitty beloved horse, but it's in the ask and it allows me to go back to something I believe is very important to consider:
Elden Ring Lore Is Sports. Like sports fans, some people will dunk on the others that aren't their favorite. That's completely fine, literally all of these demigods are power hungry. My favorite Elden Ring meme is that one that's like "mfers will complain about Queen Marika and then put a new dictator on the throne" with Ranni on the background, which is like, completely a possibility, even though I'm Rannisquad. Literally none of these people are altruistic. That's fun, narratively. Radahn gets brownie points for being benevolent to his men and due to how he vowed to keep the rot at bay, fighting it for a VERY long time (which gives him, unsurprisingly , good PR in and out of universe), but he's still very much a power hungry participant of the war of succession. Morgott, my favorite alongside Ranni among the demigods, is someone I fully do not agree with ideologically speaking, because he may not be power hungry, but he's still protecting a status quo that very clearly is not in benefit of anyone except his Golden Order peers and believers. Rykard, my favorite after Ranni and Morgott among the Demigods, has the right idea, going against the Erdtree, but the way he's going at it is the most fucked up and even self-destructive way, presumably because he's gone full hedonist, and yet, he's the one that is outright the closest to the mark out all of Demigods, because producing a single, incredibly powerful champion IS the right idea, even though he's methods of producing this champion are beyond barbaric.
This is literally just pick your sports team because you like them more than the others. There's no real cut and dry morality here, because everyone's vile to some degree. Malenia clearly inspired immense loyalty among her warriors as a powerful and charismatic, but her flaw is being incredibly narrow sighted and, if you subscribe to the theory of her having deliberately unleashed the rot, which again, is a valid theory to have, unconcerned with the long term consequences of her actions in the moment. And if I don't like that, I don't like that, Cool Female Character or not.
I think Elden Ring and its factions are far better enjoyed when you look at it through the lens of It's Sports: The fans of the other teams have their reasons, you have your reasons, now let's make Funny Content or lore posts or anything, because every Demigod has good things and bad things that can be said about them, and ideologies you can agree and disagree with. I think the purest form of this is Ranni, in order to help you or anyone understand where I am coming from: Ranni 100% is not a good person, she's done fucked up things, confirmed or implied or otherwise, and she explicitly wants to have power over the Lands Between. She's also someone that can become your personal friend and lover, and very very much adores those she loves, like the Tarnished if they side with her, her brother Blaidd, her uncle Iji, and her often forgotten beloved teacher and mentor, the Ice Witch. She's not a good Demigod, but she's your Demigod. I think that's the way to go about Elden Ring, personally.
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absolutelyfizzing · 3 years
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he promised
poe dameron x reader
description - Poe always promised he would come back from missions. One time he doesn't. (Ends in fluff i promise i promise)
warnings - depression?, anxiety?, fem pronouns, talk of injury and death, grief, fluff at the end, use of petnames, reader gets carried for a while and sits on a lap, mentions of eating and eating avoidance (not ed)
word count - 3800
A/N - so this was an oops. I wrote this hella fast but i was in the zone and i am pretty happy with the emotionally devastating product. I promise it has a happy ending i just dont want to give too much away. I feel like for maximum emotional damage you need to be a little in the dark. anyway, forgive me
MASTERLIST
You were stood in the command center with your hands wringing together. No matter how many missions Poe went on, the waiting was always hell. How were you supposed to remain sane when the love of your life was out fighting a battle that he might not come back from. That you might never see him again. He always reassured you that he would always come back to you. That you never had anything to worry about. You tried to believe him, and for the most part you did, but that didn't prevent you from being worried when he was gone.
You listened through the coms, trying to keep track of what was happening during the battle. Leia let you stay in there because she had a soft spot for you, as well as the pilot you were worried about. You were thankful she let you listen in on every mission, it meant that you weren't alone worrying in the room you shared with Poe. The conversation over coms was rushed and loud, they were scared and that made your heart beat faster.
'I have to go through, they're gonna come after us if I don't.' You heard your fiance yell. Worry stuck in the pit of your stomach, he was going to take a risk, you could feel it.
'Poe, it's not worth it. We should get out of here while we still can'. You agreed, wanting him to get out of there as soon as possible. You prayed he would listen and just get out.
'I have to try, I can't go back knowing that they could be following us to base.'
'Poe wait-' You heard someone rush out before comotion ensued again. You could feel your heart in your throat. You could have cried. After a minute of listening to pure chaos, nobody in the control room dared to speak a word. Everyone was waiting for an indication of what to do from the squadron. You found yourself zoning out in your worry. You were only broken out of your trance when you heard your fiance's name.
'Poe is down.' You stopped breathing.
"Down? What do you mean down?" You heard Leia call over comms.
'I'm sorry commander, he got hit. His X-Wing engine got shot and he was heading to crash on the planet right below us, his coms died. There's no way to know if he made it through but I don't know many who could take that crash and live. We have to head out and hope he comes back to base but I wouldn't get my hopes up.'
"Get out of there while you still can. We will have to worry about Poe when we gather our strength." Leia responded and the squadron called their understanding before the process of bringing them home began. You hadn't moved. You weren't sure if you had breathed. Your body was fully numb. You could feel eyes on you as everyone waited for you to respond. To show some emotion of your boyfriend having just gone MIA. You couldn't feel yourself though, your fingertips were numb, and you refused to believe he was dead. He promised. He told you he would come home.
Your brain was split between trying to grieve for the loss of the love of your life and trusting that he would be back. That he had to come back because he promised he would and he never breaks a promise. You felt hands on you and you realized you had fallen to sit in your spot. Leia was above you and was ushering you to your feet. You mindlessly let her push you somewhere and you barely even looked to see where you were going.
Eventually you showed up at your apartment door. You couldn't tell whether it felt like it had been instantaneous or an eternity to get there. Leia unlocked your door and pushed you inside and to the small couch that was stood in the living room-like space. The apartments were all very small, Poe had one a little bigger because he was housing with another person and because of his rank. Still, the extra amenities included a small couch, a smaller kitchen, and a window along the bedroom wall. When Leia sat you on the couch she kneeled in front of you. Her hand went to your cheek and you looked at her for the first time since you'd heard Poe go down. She seemed to almost be in tears but your eyes were dry. You didn't feel anything.
"Y/N, what can I do?" She asked gently. "Do you need anything?" You felt yourself shake your head and open your mouth like you were going to talk but closed it again as you thought.
"He said... He said he was coming back." You stated as if it changed the situation. "He promised." You mumbled.
"I know, Y/N. I am so sorry." She tried to console and your head shook. "We don't know what happened after he went down. You heard the team. He might contact us in the next few days, he is a smart man and he knows how to get a message out. But I don't want it to hurt you more if he never does." She tries to reason and you shook your head.
"No, you don't understand. He promised, " your head was spinning, "he's coming back." You felt tears fall down your face. When had you started crying? "He promised me that he was coming back home." Your voice broke which surprised you. Before you knew it you were crying into Leia's arms and you couldn't stop yourself. That was how you stayed with her for a while after, you weren't sure how long. She shed some tears of her own but eventually you both ran dry. You lost feeling again and you couldn't tell if it was better or worse. You made a decision. You wouldn't grieve over him until you were sure he was not coming back. You wouldn't mourn until you were sure.
The alternative was not, however, to recover. Instead you just stopped doing anything at all. You stopped eating, taking care of yourself, caring. Soon, your friends came in to talk to you. Instead of it being conversation though, they just talked at you. You couldn't bring yourself to respond or really even listen. Or maybe you did but you just couldn't remember. They would periodically come through to help you into a shower in which you just let the water run over you while someone else, you thought maybe Rey but you couldn't even recall, washed your hair. You drank water when they asked and would take a bite of food if they begged but other than that you might as well have been dead to the world. You almost hadn't realized how much of a vital part to your existence Poe was. How little you could bring yourself to do without him. You had thought you were prepared to be separated, you were in the middle of a war after all. Instead it was impossible to do anything without him and you wondered how long you could keep doing it.
This went on for a week. That was how long it took for them to declare him 'killed in action'. They felt that, if he was alive, he would have found a way to contact the base with the help of BB8 and local lifeforms. That was when you allowed yourself to grieve. The numbness turned into pain and it was a million times worse. You would have given anything to go back to numb.
You finally listened to your friends when they talked to you but their consolations did nothing to put you at ease. You still struggled to do anything but you complied with their pleads. You had been convinced, 2 weeks after the KIA announcement, to go to the canteen. To see people and interact. Finn pulled you along with an attempt at a smile on his face. Your face was blank but you tried to soften your eyes. You knew he was trying to help and he was grieving the loss of his best friend as well. When you were pulled into the large cafeteria, all noise ceased. You knew that they were looking at you and you guessed that they pitied you. You had seen yourself in the mirror that morning and you would have pitied you too. You got pulled to a table and Finn went to go get you and himself food.
People periodically came by and said hello or asked how you were as you tried to eat something. You responded with one word answers usually and you hadn't met anyone's eyes. You could feel yourself getting overwhelmed and decided you would head back to your room. You quietly thanked Finn for trying and left to the hallway.
Suddenly, alarms sounded. You were startled into awareness and people began running past you.
'ALL EMERGENCY CREW TO FLIGHT DECK'
You were curious about the alarm but you weren't emergency crew and you knew they didn't need any more bodies there than would already be there. That was until you heard someone as they rushed by as they talked to the medic next to them.
"Yeah I heard it was him but he went missing weeks ago." They sounded confused and continued jogging toward the flight deck. You feet started moving before you could even process it and it was the fastest you'd moved since he had gone missing. Since he had died.
When you got to the flight deck there was already a crowd. You could see over the see a people a beat up X-Wing. You thought you might have heard a droid. You elbowed your way to the front of the crowd, not apologizing when people grumbled their frustrations at you. When you made it to the front you were stood no more than 50 feet from him. He was soot covered and beat up but he was standing as he tried to wiggle out of the grasp of the medics. BB8 beeped and turned, spotting you. He made a loud excited noise and rushed to roll over to you and Poe turned at the sound. When he met your gaze he smiled.
You felt your knees give out and tears start to fall from your eyes. Your arms crossed over your stomach and you started to curl into a ball over your knees. A sob left you and suddenly large warm hands were on your shoulders.
"Y/N? My love, are you okay?" He rushed out, checking over you for injury as the medics still grumbled about needing to see him. His hand came under your chin to move your face so he was making eye contact with you. You let out another sob before grabbing his vest and pulling him into you, he kneeled to the ground as you clung to him and cried into his chest. He moved himself so he was sitting on the ground and he pulled you into his lap. You felt his hands on your back trying to soothe you but you couldn't stop crying. "I'm back. I'm so sorry I was gone but I'm back." He mumbled out as he kissed your head a few times.
"I'm so angry at you." You whispered and he almost laughed, just happy to hear your voice. You finally pulled your head out of his chest and kissed him like your life depended on it, like it was the last time you would ever see him. You pulled away so you were looking into his eyes. "Please don't leave me," you begged almost silently. You weren't even sure if he could hear you. "Please don't leave again."
"I'm not leaving, baby, I promise." He tried to calm you. "I'm right here. I'm okay."
You nodded, trying to convince yourself that he was real and he was here. You kissed him again just to check. You pulled away again, still trying to convince yourself.
"You died." You struggled out and Poe felt tears in his eyes as well. "You were dead, you crashed and you didn't make it and then they said you were gone." You said like that was what happened.
"I didn't die, my love. I'm right here. I'm alive, I'm okay." Poe pleaded and he grabbed your hand, bringing it up to his face so you could feel him. Your hand moved along is jaw which was now covered in stubble and grime. Your head shook like you were disagreeing with him but you were simply in disbelief.
"I love you" You mumbled as your eyes traced the lines of his face and tears fell from your eyes. He let a few tears fall as well before pressing meaningful kisses to every part of your face that he could reach.
You spent the next 2 hours like that. You wouldn't leave his hold and he didn't try to move you. The medics worked around you and everyone greeted him without disturbing you. You stayed, on his lap, curled into his chest. Your breathing had slowed to a normal pace and you were holding onto his vest tightly. Eventually, he had to be debriefed. He petted your hair and cooed at you to catch your attention.
"Y/N, my love," he whispered, "we have to get up now." He felt you nod but you made no move to get up from him. He took a breath before moving you off of his lap as you whined, standing up, and then picking you up so you could wrap yourself around him. You hummed contentedly into his chest and he had a smile on his face as he walked through the base.
"I love you." You whispered again into his chest. You had been doing it periodically every so often in the last 2 hours and every time Poe would repeat it back to you, kiss your head, or say something else. This time he chose to kiss your head.
"Baby, I have to go to the debriefing now and you know you can't come with me." He tried to say gently but he knew this separation might be hard for both of you. "I'm gonna put you down." He warned before encouraging your legs to go to the floor. You listened but didn't release his neck which you were also clung to. His hands fell to your waist and you both stood for a moment with your heads in each others necks and breathing deeply. "I'm gonna hand you off to Rey, okay?" He asked as he flagged down Rey from the hallway.
"Okay." You whispered, still not releasing him.
"Hey, Rey, sorry to bother you but could you keep Y/N company for a few minutes while I talk to Leia and the squadron?"
"Oh of course!" Rey chirped and you took a deep breath before releasing Poe. You let him kiss your cheeks and your nose before he walked the other direction toward the command center. You stared at him until Rey put her hand in yours and clasped it. You turned to look at her and for the first time in weeks, she saw you smile. "I'm so happy for you, Y/N." She assured and you believed her.
"Thank you." You whispered and another tear fell from you, this time of joy and happiness. Not grief.
"What do you say to heading to your room and get cleaned up a bit, yeah?" She tried and you nodded, following where her hand lead with one last glance toward the direction that Poe went.
"-the converter didnt even work until a day ago because the main power source broke down." Poe finished explaining his time on the planet he had crashed on and the rest of the squadron nodded and asked a few more questions. Once he was done, Finn met him outside the command center.
"So-" he paused, "I'm not sure how to say this nicely but most of your stuff went into the redistribution center because you were presumed dead." He rushed out. Poe took a moment to process and nodded.
"Well that's sort of a bummer. Could I borrow some of your stuff?" Poe asked, knowing it would take at least a day for him to get reassigned sets of uniforms.
"Yeah of course, that's why I'm standing here waiting for you. You could get cleaned up in my room too if you want. I know Y/N kept a few of your jackets and shirts but most of it got taken." The boys began to walk toward Finn's living quarters and there was a moment of silence before Poe asked something he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to.
"What happened when I was gone?" His throat felt dry suddenly and his words came out hoarse. "To Y/N I mean. Was she okay?" Poe wasn't sure what answer he wanted. He knew from your recent reaction that you were devastated, as he would have been, but he also knew he had a dangerous job. He might not come back from some other mission in the future and he hoped you would survive without him.
"Do you really want to know?" Finn questioned.
Poe nodded.
"I mean, she was broken." He paused to think. "She didn't talk to anyone for a week. Wouldn't move. Wouldn't cry. Rey had to help her shower and we had to beg her to eat. We almost sent her to the med wing because we thought she was gonna pass out from dehydration, she would barely take a sip of water." Poe's heart was in his throat but he was sure there was more. "Then you were pronounced KIA."
"Oh god."
"Yeah it wasn't pretty. They pulled your stuff out of your guys' room, took your name off the ledger. Leia let her keep some stuff but it was hard to watch. She finally cried, she just wouldn't stop. She was more responsive but she wasn't even moving towards okay. You could tell she was only doing what we were asking because we were begging. That she was doing it out of guilt. Today was actually the first day that I talked her into coming out of her room. She had been to the canteen for about an hour when she felt she needed to leave and then alarms sounded that you were back." Finn finished with a glance to his friend and Poe looked like he might throw up.
"I want her to be okay if I don't make it back one day." Poe tried to explain to his friend.
"She probably would have been functioning in a few months. She wouldn't have recovered but she would function. She's a strong woman, but she also loves you a lot. I mean, how would you react if she was killed on mission?" Poe could tell it was a rhetorical question but he thought about it very carefully. You were an engineer so you weren't called out on mission often, not nearly as often as him. When you were, he was worried sick the whole time. He hadn't really thought about how him being gone affected you before. Now looking back on it he kicked himself for it.
Poe thought about what he would have done if you had died and he thought that your reaction was probably mild. That he would have been unresponsive for weeks or even become violent with anger and grief. He knew that you were the one for him, the most important thing in his life, and without you he didn't know if he would find purpose in his life anymore. He fought in the war as hard as he did for you. To make the galaxy safer for you.
When he went MIA it was because he tried to take out a couple more imperial ships than he could handle. He only did it because he knew they would have followed them back to base if they left. Back to you. So he took the risk and it backfired but he knew he would do it again to try and keep the First Order away from you.
He was knocked out of his train of thought by the arrival at Finn's quarters. Poe tried to get cleaned up and dressed quickly, getting the grime off of himself and shaving his face. He hurried back to your shared quarters and when he entered his room he was greeted with your smiling face as you laughed.
You were sat on the bed, Rey on the other end, as you were talking about something which caught you in a fit of giggles. At the sound of him stepping into the room you looked at him and got up quickly to rush up and hug him tightly.
"Missed you." You mumbled into his chest. As he held you Rey silently nodded at Poe and left the room.
"Was only gone for a minute, honey bun." He reassured and you pulled your face back.
"You know I hate that one."
"Boo bear?" he teased and you shook your head no. "Munchkin?" nope. "honey bear?" no thank you. "Baby love?" You tilted your head a bit.
"I don't loathe that one."
"Sweetheart?"
"I like that one."
"Princess?"
"That's my favorite" You giggled and kissed him quickly for a moment. He could have cried at the sight of you giggling. He had missed that, you, the sounds you made, so goddamn much. More than he would ever put into words.
"I know it is, pretty girl." He smiled before picking you up and you squealed. He walked you over to the bed before dropping you on it and laying next to you. You climbed close to him, practically laying on his chest. His arm was snug around your waist and he left no room for you to move, not that you would have anyway. "How would you feel about going to bed, princess?" He almost whispered, not wanting to disrupt the fragile quiet in the room.
"Yes please. I love you Poe." You whispered back and closed your eyes a bit, focussing on his breathing.
"I love you, Y/N" he responded.
You both got the first decent sleep you'd had in weeks that night.
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babyboibucky · 3 years
Text
Should’ve Known Better
Pairing: EB!Frank x Reader
Summary: You should have known better than to sleep with a friend.
Word Count: 3.3k
Warnings: Smut, FWB set-up, a little bit of toxic shit, angst
A/N: Frank got the most votes when I asked which other Seb character I should write for, so here it is! This is very personal to me lmfao it’s somewhat based on my own experience that really fucked me up a couple of years ago aksncajscna no but for real, stay away from the friends with benefits kind of relationship if you can’t keep shit purely sexual lmao also some guys are just fucking assholes even if they’re your friend lol
ALSO, I tagged those who are in my Everything Bucky Tag List. I’m not sure if I’ll write more Frank in the future too so I won’t be creating a separate tag list for him yet.
MAIN MASTERLIST
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"Do you love me?"
It was a simple question that was supposed to make you think. Given your experiences and your personality in general, you were supposed to cringe and ignore it. Maybe even make a joke out of it, especially that it was Frank who was asking you this question.
He wasn't supposed to ask it too. He wasn't one to ask such thing, not especially with the relationship that the both of you have. It was clear from the get go that this was nothing serious.
So why was he asking it now?
And why did you respond to it right away, as if you knew your answer even before he asked?
-
"Come on, it'll be fun."
You should've said no. You should have known better.
"I'll make you feel good, you won't regret this."
It did feel good, you were going to give Frank that. Possibly the best, even. But the latter part? You weren't so sure. Were you regretting it? Honestly, no.
Maybe not yet.
You'd rather not think about it for now.
"What's there to lose? We know each other too much to develop feelings anyway, you said so yourself."
Oh there's plenty to lose. Maybe a decade's worth of platonic (was it really platonic from the beginning though?) friendship. Your self-esteem was on the line too, but you didn't know it yet. You'll get there though, whether you like it or not.
"I'm free next Friday, come over. Spend the night with me. What do you say?"
You should've said no. You should have known better.
"Next Friday. I'll see you, okay?"
You should've said no. You should have known better.
"Ugh, fine."
But you said yes because you didn't know any better.
-
That first night with Frank was something else. It was fun and he kept his promise to make you feel good. So, so good. You never thought that sex could be that fucking good. At least, not with your previous partners. Not that you had many in the first place.
But god, Frank knew what he was doing and he loved doing things to you. He loved the entire process of knowing your body, what you liked and what you loved. How you liked to be kissed and touched and fucked.
He studied your body like his fucking life depended on it and you let him. You let him own your body because you needed someone to. You needed to feel something, wanted to have a purpose even for just a short while, even if it meant being someone's fuck buddy.
You felt lost for the longest time, but as you laid on Frank's bed with his tongue lapping up your cunt, you actually felt like you belonged somewhere.
-
You weren't a booty call, definitely not. And when things escalated between the both of you, Frank was already single and had broken off with his recent girlfriend, Daphne. You weren't a doormat nor a side chick. Frank had been your friend for the longest time, one of your closest actually. He knew you the best and not just physically. Frank knew the darkest parts of you the same way you knew him like the back of your hand. He was the most open to you, he said so himself.
"I don't know what I'd do without you." he told you one time.
Frank wasn't afraid to show you his true colors; how he wasn't the kind to settle for one or how he would often end up with someone immature or toxic. He himself was toxic and for the most part, you tolerated him.
That was the mistake on your part.
You let him be himself, that's why you held a special place in his heart. Not even his past girlfriends could get rid of you. You were untouchable.
"Are you sure she's fine with us going out?" you asked Frank one time, as the both of you headed to the movies.
He scoffed, "Yeah, don't worry. I already told her you're my best friend. You're off limits." he chuckled as he placed his hand on the small of your back, guiding you inside the cinema.
"You're fine." he reassured again, this time wrapping his arm around your shoulder and then cradling your head playfully.
-
Looking back, you sometimes ponder whether the friendship was really platonic. You were sure of it when the both of you first became friends; he was a couple of years older than you. You sort of looked up to him like an older brother for the first few years of your relationship. And he was very caring too, always looking out for you.
Your other friends were the first one to notice the closeness. They often told you that Frank seemed to have a thing for you. You brushed it off though, saying that it was impossible.
His girlfriend then was an acquaintance of yours. She was nice and wasn't bothered by how Frank was affectionate towards you.
Indeed, you were untouchable. You were the best friend after all.
-
"We fought again."
You rolled your eyes at Frank as he sat across from you at a local coffee shop near your place. It was your birthday and as always, you spent the most part of it with Frank.
It was like a tradition already, to celebrate your birthday with Frank first before you went out with your friends. Or even family. It was that kind of friendship.
"I'm sorry but who are we talking about again?" you joked.
Frank made a face, "Daphne." he responded. "I just told you about her like, two days ago."
You snickered, "I was kidding. But honestly though, you have to stop flirting with other girls. It's been really difficult for me to keep track of your record, Frank. And are you and Daphne even official?" you asked, taking a sip from your cold brew.
He rubbed his chin and shrugged, "Sorta. Well, we were official two weeks ago. Now though, I'm not so sure. Here's the thing, Daphne can be really..." he said, trying to search for the right words.
You hummed and shook your head, "Immature?" you said and mindlessly scrolled through your phone.
"You should really stop dating girls who are immature, Frank. I swear to god, this is like...I don't know, the fifth time you dated someone like her? Why don't you settle for someone who actually acts her age?" you blurted out.
Frank groaned and transferred to the seat next to you, his body facing yours and his hand landing on your thigh. You didn't mind, didn't think it was too touchy or intimate for someone who was in a relationship. It was pretty common for Frank to be this touchy with you anyway, you never paid much attention to it nor given it any malice.
"We fought because of you actually." Frank admitted with an apologetic smile.
Your head snapped towards him, a scowl etched on your face. "What did I do?!" you asked in defense.
"It was my fault. Daph saw your photo inside my wallet." he said.
"You should really throw away that photo. Jesus, why do you still have it anyway?" you complained.
Frank scoffed, "That's my favorite photo of you. I don't wanna get rid of it."
That was the last day that you considered your friendship with Frank platonic.
-
Come over
I miss u xoxo
Miss eating u out
Miss ur moans, wanna hear them again
You groaned at the continuous notifications that flooded your phone. While you were at work. After that first night with Frank, he had gotten extra clingy. No lies though, it felt nice to be wanted like this.
im free nxt Sat
Yay
Cant wait to see u, missed u a lot
dude, we were at the mall together just last wk
U really dont get attached do u?
Frowning at Frank's reply, you honestly didn't understand what he was implying.
what u mean?
Nothing
Work kept you busy for the entire week, with Frank bombarding you with sweet texts. You've avoided being sweet with him, it felt wrong. You weren't an affectionate person but Frank was, it was sort of one-sided. It wasn't a big deal anyway.
No one from the rest of your friends knew what had become of your friendship with Frank. You just thought it wasn't something that should be revealed. It was like your and Frank's little secret. You had to admit, the thrill only made the sex better.
Whenever the both of you went out with other people, the tension was there and it was fun. It was fun trying to brush off the way Frank's hand would steal touches from your waist, or how he'd subtly squeeze your thigh. The looks you exchanged from across the room; how Frank's "fuck me" eyes were meant for you and only you.
Things like that made you feel a certain type of way. But you never dwelled on it, or at least, you thought you didn't.
-
"Yeah, fuck...just like that, baby."
Frank's fingers dug deeply into the skin of your ass as he guided your hips. You gripped onto the back of the couch as you bounced on his cock, head thrown back from pleasure as Frank suckled one of your nipples. You could feel each of his fingers pressing down against your skin, it's probably going to leave bruises again.
"Frank, shit. I'm close." you panted against the skin of his neck, your arms wrapping around his shoulders and pulling him close.
Frank grunted and took your face in between his palms, forcing you to look at him as he began to thrust his hips upwards, eliciting a high-pitched whimper from you.
"Wanted to see you like this ever since." he breathed out, pressing his lips against your open mouth.
"Wanted you since we met, d'you know that?" he asked, grabbing a fistful of your hair and tugging your head back so he could nibble on your throat.
You shook your head and gripped his shoulders, nails scratching at his skin as you continued to ride his cock, "God, Frank...so close." you moaned.
You felt Frank's lips curl into a smirk against your neck, his fingers gripping your hair to keep you in place as his other hand slipped in between your bodies, finding your clit and rubbing it to help you reach your climax.
Every single time he touched you, you felt like your entire body was on fire. You felt the most alive, the most free whenever Frank fucked you. Maybe because he was truly gifted in bed or maybe he just knew your body and how to make it sing.
Or maybe it was because of the way he looked at you whenever you fall apart for him. Like he only had eyes for you, like it was only you that he could see.
Sweaty bodies and hoarse voices, the smell of smoke and sex lingering in the air. It was such a familiar ambiance by now. You liked how the aftermath of fucking Frank was never awkward, if any, it was a comfortable experience with the both of you just talking casually about how each other's day went.
"So I'm talking to this girl..." Frank said, turning you around so he could spoon you. Oh, the irony of the intimacy and conversation.
"Where'd you meet this girl?" you asked.
"Tinder." Frank snorted before pressing a kiss on your nape. "No, but she's different. I don't know, there's something about her."
You merely hummed in response.
"Think I might ask her out."
The first sting. The first realization. The first denial.
You should've said no. You should've known better.
-
The art exhibit wasn't a flop, but you wouldn't call it a success either. When you got a call from the organizer asking whether they can include your paintings in the exhibit, you said yes instantly. What can you say? You were a struggling artist who was seeking validation.
But now that you stood in front of your works with barely ten people attending the one-day exhibit, you thought that this wasn't a validation. It felt like a wake up call that maybe, art wasn't your calling and that you should probably give up on your dream.
"These are amazing."
You were on the verge of breaking down when you heard his voice. Turning around, you were surprised to see Frank. He was nodding his head as he approached you, his eyes scanning each of your painting.
"What are you doing here? I thought you had work." you asked.
Frank gave you a face, "Did you really think I'd miss out on your first exhibit?" he said and pulled you into a warm embrace.
"I'm proud of you." he whispered before kissing the crown of your head.
One validation from Frank was all it took for the walls to crumble down. He was the one who had been there for you all along and that was why you completely trusted him.
Frank will never hurt you, he'll never bring you down.
Or so you thought.
-
"Do you love me?"
It was a question that was supposed to make you think. But you didn't, because even before Frank decided to ask you that, you already had your answer.
You knew your answer for the longest time now, but decided to lock it into a box that you kept in the deepest part of your heart. It remained there unbothered and almost forgotten, up until this point.
That's why it was so easy for you to respond to it without even batting an eye.
"Yes."
It was too late when you realized that you had just admitted that you were in love with Frank. But you felt like it was the right time for you to bring out the key to that box, open it and just set your truth free.
They said that the truth will set you free, but why does it feel like it only imprisoned you?
"Shit, I was kidding." Frank said, his face panicked and body stiff from your unexpected admission.
Before you could even say something, Frank let out a nervous laugh as he ran his hand through his locks. "Wow, I didn't...are you serious?" he asked again.
It took you everything to brush off the pain, "Yeah, but it's no big deal. Come on." you shook your head and forced out a breathy chuckle.
Frank heaved out a deep sigh, "Fuck, I was messing with you. Are you sure it's fine? I mean, would this change anything?" he asked.
You deadpanned, "No, Frank. It wouldn't change anything. Like I said, get over it. It's not like I'm in love with you. I just love you...if that makes sense? You're my friend." you explained, more like lied.
"Look, it's not like I'm unattracted to you. I like you, I like spending time with you. It's just that I sort of don't see myself committing to you."
It didn't sink in to you immediately, Frank's statement. You didn't pay it any mind because again, you knew Frank. He wasn't one to commit so that was fine, you understand where he was coming from. It's not like you were going to force yourself on him too. But then you accidentally glanced at his phone and saw the messages he'd been exchanging with a certain someone.
When r u coming home?
In a little while, Daph
That night, Frank's statement hit you like a ton of bricks but again, you chose to deny what you actually felt. It's fine.
You're fine.
-
You should've said no. You should've known better.
Those words rang in your ears on the day that you found out. Your body turned cold, your vision blurred and your head spun. You'd never experienced hurt and anger like this, the kind that consumed you.
The kind that made you realized and admit that fuck, you'd truly fallen for Frank only for him to break your heart.
It didn't help that you were having such a terrible day at work. And Frank was so sweet to ask you whether you wanted to meet up with him. Not for sex, but to talk. The sex came rarely recently and was replaced with wholesome trips to the grocery, shit like that.
You knew there was something special going on. Even after he told you that he didn't see himself being with you, there was something.
Apparently, that something was just an assumption. Because when you asked Frank to meet you up that night, he said he couldn't and needed to be somewhere. That he'd meet with you the next day instead, a promise.
But then you saw him post a photo of him and Daphne. And it made your blood boil.
u back together?
No. Not really, been trying to fix it but u know how it is.
if ur trying to fix it with her then im out, frank
Wait what? Hey, are u mad?
r u fucking serious? u knew i love u and u come here parading ur ex, what the fuck is that all abt?
Shit, hey. Look, let's talk later, okay? Im out, will txt u when Im free.
Frank didn't text you back for the rest of the day.
-
You should've said no. You should've known better. But you said yes because you didn't know any better.
Were you regretting it? Yes. Sometimes.
You didn't know which hurt the most, the fact that Frank kept you in the dark while he was trying to patch things up with his ex, or that he considered you his best friend and still chose to break your heart.
He knew you the best, your relationship and trust issues and out of all the people, he really had to be the one to fuck you up the most. You trusted him so much, trusted him not to hurt you. Hell, if he doesn't want to commit then that's fine. But for him to treat you like a second option? Fuck that.
For him to confuse you with his actions, the intimacy...were all of those even real? All the times he came to your support when you had no one, when he was there for you on days you felt alone. What were those? He made you feel so fucking special, like it was possible to actually turn the friendship into something more than just fucking.
All this time you thought it was one-sided because you never actually showed Frank how much you meant to him the same way he did to you. Turned out that it was one-sided, but only because you were the only one who fell.
The following day, you received a voicemail from Frank. You pondered whether you were ready to listen to it but at the same time, you wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was pretty stupid, he fucked you up and there was no excuse for that. But the friendship you had with him had a strong hold on you.
"Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. That was my mistake." he started off. "I thought that this was really just sex and having fun, but I want you to know that I like you. I really do, you're special to me. Please give me a chance to make things right. Daph and I...I want to end things with her. Please stay, I don't know what I'd do without you."
“I just didn’t expect that you’d end up falling for me, I mean shit. You know the real me, how fucked up I am when it comes to relationships. Just please...please stay?”
Did you stay? Sort of. But you kept your distance, didn't meet up with Frank after that and only responded to his texts occasionally. Did he end things with Daph?
He didn't.
He said he would but instead, they got back together.
It was fucking selfish of Frank to ask for you to stay only for him to get back together with his ex. It'd be better for him to just slap you in the face then.
Being told that he couldn't see himself committing to you but then going back with his ex was the cherry on top. God, if that didn't mess up with your self-worth.
You totally stopped talking to Frank, ignored his texts and calls. You stayed away from him, tried to get over him and eventually, you did. But you'd be lying if you said that he never left an effect on you. Because he did, Frank did a number on you and it would take you a long fucking time to completely recover from the damage he inflicted on you.
You should've said no. You should've known better. But you said yes because you didn't know any better.
And that's okay, because there's nothing wrong with taking risks and ending up in heartbreak.
You live, you love and you learn.
-
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ashesandhackles · 3 years
Text
The Hogwarts Express scene in Prince's Tale: A Sirius and Snape analysis
I really, really enjoy Sirius and Snape as characters and their respective narrative functions in story. But what gets me most about them is how much Rowling hints about their backgrounds and so much of it makes sense with regard to who they are as adults. So I am going to be breaking down a very small scene from Prince Tale and getting into long winded hypothesis about their respective childhoods.
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So, let's start with Snape. The scene begins with Snape rushing to find Lily, already in his Hogwarts clothes. Harry notes he must have been eager to get out of his clothes - ones that look like he borrowed from his mother, as Petunia spitefully pointed out. This has always been a very interesting detail to me - first off, it indicates how poor Snape's family is. Second, this indicates his tiny rebellion from his father - he refuses to wear clothes of the abusive man, and prefers his mother's. I admit, I am partial to the reading that Snape refuses to associate with his father in tiny ways, rather than Tobias refusing to hand his son clothes.
(I have seen readings which say that it is also a sign of neglect - perhaps his parents bought clothes that simply don't fit him, but I am more inclined to think it's a hand me down, simply because Harry identifies so strongly with it. Because Harry knows what it is like to wear a hand me down that don't quite fit, that are too big for you, or the ones that make you look ridiculous.)
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Lily and Petunia's relationship is fraught with Petunia's jealousy. And young Lily is upset over it when Snape meets her. "I am not talking to you. Tuney hates me" she tells him. "Because we saw the letter from Dumbledore". Young Lily shows signs of being extremely emotionally reactive and this scene is one of them. It's easier for her to deal with Petunia's rejection of her by telling Snape she doesn't want to talk to him. It's a childish displacement of her hurt over her sister's rejection. (I am genuinely baffled by interpretations that Lily and Hermione are similar. Hermione is very cognitive person, Lily, as we have been shown repeatedly in memories, is not).
Snape, however, with his bad history with Petunia and his inability/ poor social skills to understand why this matters to her, goes: "So what?"
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Lily, who throws him a look of deep dislike, says "So she's my sister". This seed is important because this is what develops into "he doesn't get me" feeling she later displays in her teenage scenes with him. Interestingly, most of Lily's personal relationships have deeply interwined love and dislike - Petunia (whose rejection bothers her but she cheerfully informs Sirius that Harry nearly broke a vase her sister sent - which means there is resentment on her end too), James - who she was attracted to even before 7th year but also disliked at one point, and Snape - again, a contentious friendship filled with love and distance.
"She's only a -" we dont get to hear what Snape intended to say. And given his own acrimony with Petunia, it could be anything. However, I read it as "She's only a Muggle" because it ties into his feelings about his father. Snape, who is proud of being half a Prince, emphasizing his magical lineage from his mother's side, his refuge in a violent, neglectful home. (Barty Crouch Jr and Snape with their disappointing fathers - I imagine Voldemort is supremely attractive leader to people with broken homes like this)
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Snape, by all accounts, shows a disorganised attachment style. His caregiver, his mother - and perhaps the only parent he seems to have regard for, is too preoccupied by her own abuse to be there for her son - we see this in glimpses Harry sees in OOTP: " woman cowering" where a man shouts at her, and a young, neglected Snape cries in the corner. Children born in homes like this have trouble regulating their emotions, simultaneously displaying tendencies to aggressively lash out or show disassociative symptoms. Both of which Snape displays. Statistically, this is also seen more in low income households where economic instability and resulting domestic instability creates an unsafe environment for the kids to safely form ideas of their identity, or express emotions in healthy ways, modelling instead out of behaviour seen at home.
Then, Snape reminds her that they are going to Hogwarts. He is already in his Hogwarts clothes - now, Snape gets to be the impressive figure. The one who told her about magic, who theorised about how Muggles get letters from magical people, the one who told her about Dementors and Azkaban. He has already left behind the Spinner's End version of him, he wants to bigger than that, and is keen to be in place of magical learning and to join Slytherin. Essentially, he shows signs of unstable identity, insecurity - all prime for grooming into a cult.
And here comes along James Potter, who looks around at the mention of Slytherin. James's comment uses Snape's line and directs it to Sirius instead and it becomes a conversation between them, as a way to bond more with a fellow "rowdy boy" Sirius. Effectively ignoring the other two.
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Sirius as we see here, "does not smile" when James talks about Slytherin. He essentially says something that can be construed as a way to nip that conversation in bud: "My whole family has been in. Slytherin". This suggests to me that there is some loyalty to his family there and his disillusionment with them isn't entirely fixed yet. After all, Sirius's intense loyalty to his friends, more specifically James, did not come out of thin air. It is reasonable to suggest that he felt some loyalty to his family at some point and the intensity with which he regards his friends is a reaction to burned off and being a "displaced person without a family" as Rowling put it.
Interestingly, while his reaction to his mother and Bellatrix are obviously sore spots, his response to Regulus is comparatively quite soft. ("Stupid, idiot" - something he calls James later on in the same book, OOTP). I imagine Sirius has quite complicated feelings about his brother and he is capable of nuance (when the person isn't Snape, where his dislike seems to be borne of an intense projection): "The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". As someone who is grown up among them, Sirius would understand that.
His framing of Regulus's need to please his parents also further highlights what exactly is the source of disillusionment. He calls Regulus "soft enough to believe them" - which means he is crediting his own intelligence to see through his parents bigoted world view. Clearly, bigotry is not something the Blacks explained in a way that Sirius, eldest of their male line and their heir, bought it. It also probably didn't help the Blacks case that Grimmauld Place is in a Muggle neighborhood and that their eldest son is a bit of a wild boy with interest in pushing boundaries. His intellectual disconnect leads to the righteous rage he later feels but it began there. (Boy, it must suck to discover that everything you have been taught to value in the world and in yourself as the heir is essentially rubbish). Since his differences with his family began with seeds of intellectual disconnect rather than on intense empathy with downtrodden, it makes him, as a pureblooded privileged boy, unable to truly understand Lupin's fears regarding his lycanthropy. Hence, the Werewolf prank (I am not getting to the Snape bit, just the Lupin bit). To James' credit, he does understand what that means for Lupin and saves all three of them from different set of consequences.
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Anyway, back to the scene. James, who has made an ass of himself in front of his new friend, who he was getting along with fine until now, then goes "Blimey, I thought you seemed alright". (Btw, I find James wildly large ego kind of hilarious here, especially in light of Snape's comment about him to Sirius in OOTP: "You will know he is so arrogant that criticism simply bounces off him"). Sirius, who I believe has been raised like "royalty" as Blacks would, has good enough social skills to defuse a situation. He grins and says: "Maybe I will break the tradition".
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This line is an indication of Sirius's desire for independence, an identity seperate from his family. The use of the word "tradition" is interesting. It sounds like Sirius is expected to behave in a certain way, the heir of Black family whose parents thought being a Black "made you practically royal". Adult Sirius is contemptuous of this, or their "valuable contribution to Ministry" which means they just gave gold - it tells me that any and all conditions put on him by his family were to fulfill tradition that is either worthless or holds no meaning in his eyes. The root of the emotional abuse Sirius suffers from his family is this - realising his parents love for him is conditional on him being a certain way. (In fact, you can read Regulus desire to emphasise his connection to the family as a reaction to what he sees with Sirius - Sirius does not behave, Mum and Dad don't love him). As a child with unconscious knowledge of lack of love, Sirius then acts out, they react, rinse and repeat "until he has had enough". Sirius chafes against boundaries well into adulthood and doesn't react well to people enforcing it on him, even if it is out of love for him. Cue the fire scene with Harry where he behaves as if Harry is rejecting him instead of protecting him.
Sirius asks James about where he wants to go, and Snape, who is incensed about James being insulting about a House he put stock in, which he made part of new identity (so that he is no longer that Snape boy from Spinner's End) and was in general trying to be impressive about in front of Lily, "makes a disparaging noise" once James talks of Gryffindor. Snape's response to James' : "Got a problem with that?" is interesting. He says: "If you'd rather be brawny, rather than brainy-"
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This is an important value for Snape. He knows he is clever and values it. He spends his spare time inventing hexes, making great shortcuts to Potions. He has genuine thirst for learning and he hones it. In SWM, we see that he has written far more longer answers than anyone else, he is poring over his paper after exams. He even mocks Hermione's lack of inventive answers: "Answer copied word to word from the textbook, but correct in essentials". He values originality. It may be me stretching this, but I am partial to the reading: this is his way of rejecting his father once again, who is implied to be a violent man. (in other words, someone who is hypermasculine - "brawny". In fact, Snape's rejection of hypermasculinity is a huge post on it's own - Potions (brewing, cauldrons - coded as feminine arts), the doe Patronus, his proficiency in Occlumency and Legliemency (intuitive mind arts, again seen archetypically feminine) etc).
"Where are you hoping to go, seeing as you are neither?" - Sirius is quick with emotionally cutting insults. Snape hasn't even finished his sentence, but Sirius is already on his case. Which suggests growing up in a household with sharp tongues. It's a fair assumption, given Mrs Black's half mad portrait. It also tallies with Sirius's talking about his mother: "My mother didn't have a heart Kreacher, she kept herself alive out of pure spite" . The wounds are fresh enough on this. (Another interesting way Snape and Sirius act as inverse mirrors - Snape rejects his father, Sirius rejects his mother. Sirius acts as proxy for James for Harry while Snape takes on Lily's role of protecting him). However, you know who else is spiteful? Sirius.
While James is the physical bully (the tripping Snape, doing most of the bullying in SWM), Sirius attacks emotionally. ( Sample the one about Snape's appearance - "I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment, there will be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word" or even the carelessly vicious- "Put that away, before Wormtail wets himself in excitement"). Curiously, with all that talk of how his mother being spiteful, it's her room he spends time in when he is depressed. (Again, in inverse mirror way, we can talk of how Snape looks for a father figure in Dumbledore - craves his validation and is proud of Dumbledore's trust in him). We could argue it's also because Buckbeak is there, and perhaps it's the largest room in the house, but it's very telling that's where Sirius spends time when he is "in a fit of sullens". Sirius's sense of abandonment from his family, makes him look for family connections with friends - a trait he shares with Harry. Interestingly, the first time he glimpses Harry in Privet Drive, Harry is also running away from home - just like he did. Anyway, I could go on.
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h2bakugou · 3 years
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hi love! can i request an angst to fluff with bakugo? maybe where he cheats and reader catches him. we dont go back to cheaters so maybe kiri and reader end up together and bakugo just regrets. i dont have any specifics in mind so feel free to let this play out however you want! just hurt me.
if this is too much or you dont wanna write this feel free to just ignore it! love you, have a great day!
a/n: hii hun!! ooo this is something i don’t think i’ve done before. i feel like i don’t write really good angst but this is a good prompt so i hope i write it well!! thank you for the request hun!! 
summary: you thought things were going good with bakugou until you catch him cheating on you. distraught, you find comfort in the arms of your closest friend, and something blossoms much stronger than before.
key: (y/n) - your name / (f/n) - first name / (l/n) - last name / (e/c) - eye color / (h/c) - hair color / (y/q) - your quirk
warnings: swearing, fluff, angst, cheating/mentions of cheating, established relationship with bakugou, bakugou’s a dick, kirishima is a real bro of the people and straight up puts his ass on blast
word count: 3.1k (so- i got carried away...god i hope this is good if not im so sorry angst is not my strong suit please-)
;cut for length;
»»————- ★ ————-««
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»»————- ★ ————-««
It was the day after your three-month anniversary with Bakugou. You’d spent all day together yesterday, and for the most part, everything seemed normal.
Perhaps it was because Bakugou wasn’t texting the girl he’d been secretly hanging out with behind your back all day, or maybe it was because he’d planned to meet up with said girl after you finally left him alone.
Bakugou wasn’t interested in you anymore, but frankly stringing you along for his own benefit was a lot easier. Breaking it off would leave a bad image on his part, and the last thing he wanted was a smudged reputation.
Which was why he kept quiet about this other girl, and only met with her when he was certain he wouldn’t be caught. Sneaking off when everyone went to sleep because they assumed he was asleep.
It didn’t help that they lived fairly close to each other so taking time to leave school meant they could hang out with one another at their homes and suspicious eyes would be none the wiser.
Bakugou had lied to his mother about still being with you and claimed that you’d just moved on and left, making you look like the bad guy. So Mitsuki welcomed this newer girl, and showered her in affection much like she had done with you.
Except you were still with Bakugou. And he’d just told you he loved you again. Kissing the top of your head, seemingly unphased as you yawned, ready for bed.
“Goodnight.” You spoke quietly, wishing Bakugou a good night’s rest as you headed off down to Kirishima’s dorm, where you planned to watch him play a new game he’d recently gotten.
“Hey, Kiri!” You smiled, giving him a big warm hug. Kirishima’s heart ached at the little nickname you’d given him, squeezing and wrenching inside his chest as he smelled your sweet-smelling shampoo, your arms squeezing around him as you hugged him.
“Hey (Y/n), is that a new sweater?” Kirishima asked, smiling as he admired the crimson color.
“It is! I’m glad you noticed. It kinda reminds me of your hair now that I think about it.” You giggle, reaching up to ruffle his soft hair. He’d recently washed it and it currently laid down, unlike his normal hairstyle, his large pointy spikes were nowhere in sight.
Kirishima’s little heart only began to beat faster as you entered his room, sitting beside him as he loaded up the game. Resting your head on his shoulder, you would cheer him on as he played, currently whooping ass against Sero and Kaminari who he was playing with.
“Kaminari asked why you couldn’t come watch him play.” Kirishima chuckled, glancing over at you, noticing how tired you looked.
“Well, maybe I’d go watch him play if he didn’t suck.” You joked, hearing Sero ‘ooh’ over the burn you just slapped over Kaminari.
“Damn Kaminari, they got you good.” Kirishima teased, nudging your side as you giggled, sitting up. You stretched your arms and yawned. Kirishima quickly muted his mic and paused.
“You tired, let me walk you up to your dorm.” Kirishima was ready to tell the boys he’d be back in a few but you shook your head.
“I’ll be alright, keep playing. Kick some more ass for me.” You ruffled his hair once more and patted his head before heading out of his room, waving as he waved back.
You made it back to your room and got ready for bed, nearly falling asleep without realizing you didn’t have your phone.
It’d been maybe three hours, before you rolled over, curious about what time it was when you noticed the blank space on your nightstand, where your phone would usually charge.
Sitting up tiredly, you rubbed your eyes and glanced around. You’d completely lost it, you couldn’t find it anywhere, in your dorm at least. You were unsure if you’d had it when you visited Kirishima, but your only thoughts went to Bakugou.
Maybe you’d left it in his dorm when you visited to study with him. Now that you thought about it, you’d brought your books and stuff back down before he went to bed and you returned to tell him goodnight, but he never let you back inside.
It was dark outside, and completely silent in the dorms. Everyone was clearly asleep. Or so you thought.
Creeping up to Bakugou’s dorm, you were surprised to see a little light peeking under the door. You weren’t one to snoop, but you certainly knew for Bakugou to be up at this hour, something would have to be up, maybe he was sick, or couldn’t sleep?
You pressed your ear to the door and listened for a few seconds.
Those few seconds, time stood still.
“So when are we gonna make it official?” A girl’s voice wrecked through you, your eyes watering as you listened.
“I’m working on it. I just need (Y/n) to fucking leave me alone. All they do is follow me around like a lost fucking puppy, it’s annoying.”
This was not happening. He’d just said he loved me a few hours earlier. Why was he being so mean?
“Good, because I don’t how much longer I can keep this a secret. I need to see you, Katsu.” You wanted to throw up. You felt so sick. So hurt.
So betrayed.
You were overwhelmed with emotions, sadness, despair, hurt, anger.
Raising a fist, you pounded on that door like your life was in danger. You could hear a few whispers and footsteps as Bakugou quickly opened the door, surprised to see you. You barged in, shooting one glance at the girl sitting on his bed in one of his shirts, the same one you’d worn earlier that week.
You found your phone laying under a few papers on his dresser. You turned to see Bakugou just staring at you.
“Hey-”
“Don’t” You say quietly as you speed-walk past him and back down the hall. Bakugou doesn’t follow you, or try to stop you, or call out for you.
He slinks back into his dorm and resumes his time with his new girl, taking that as his sign that he was officially single.
Clenching your phone in one shaking hand, you can’t help but feel utterly worthless. And somehow your feet seemed to move on their own, right down to Kirishima’s dorm.
When you felt the door open, and heard a sleepy Kirishima ask if everything was okay, you finally realized you’d trekked down to his dorm without even realizing.
“N-no. It’s not okay, I’m not okay.” You whisper as he pulls you into him for a hug. He stands there, consoling you quietly, not even saying anything. Just rubbing your back as you sob into his shoulder.
He’s concerned, that’s evident by the way his expression is softened, and his eyebrows knit together, wondering just what had happened to have landed you here.
But as he finally pulls you back into his room, the only light coming from a pink and orange glowing Himalayan salt lamp. You’re shaking in his arms as you sink to the floor.
It’s the first time Kirishima’s ever seen you like this. 
So hurt.
“You don’t have to say anything, but I’m worried about you. You tell me when you’re ready okay? Do you need anything right now?” Kirishima’s spoke quietly, and softly, his large, rough hands for once being so gentle and delicate.
You sat and thought for a few minutes, just shaking in his arms as you tried to calm down. You were overwhelmed, too anxious about what had happened, if you weren’t enough for Bakugou.
But you finally spoke up, breaking the silence that had fallen over the two of you.
“I-I’m...” You breathed, finally looking up at Kirishima. You could feel the snot as it leaked from your nose and how wet your cheeks, chin, and neck were, but Kirishima didn’t look at you any differently. 
With red puffy eyes you glanced down and opened your mouth to speak.
“Bakugou, he was, I think...” You paused.
I saw what I saw. I heard her. That girl. He was cheating.
“Bakugou cheated on me.” You whimpered, more tears beginning to fall from your eyes. Your face fell back into Kirishima’s shoulder as your frame shook from pure despair.
Kirishima didn’t respond. He sat, his hands rubbing up and down your spine as you cried, anger boiling inside him.
Never, not even once, had he assumed, or even pondered that Bakugou would ever be unfaithful. His priorities of being on top seemed to overweigh everything else.
So when he’d started dating you, he was albeit a bit jealous, but he supported you and Bakugou’s relationship, despite wanting to be with you himself. But soon he realized you were taken by someone else, and he would respect that.
He changed his usual somewhat flirty comments, and kept things strictly friendly, but he couldn’t help but notice you still made his heart race.
But Bakugou, cheating? That was something he didn’t see coming. But regardless if it was shocking or not, it wasn’t right.
Kirishima didn’t agree with his actions at all, and seeing just how hurt you had been by his actions, it made him feel even angrier.
“Kirishima, I-I don’t know what to do. I thought he loved me. Why didn’t he love me?” You looked at him with tears pouring from your eyes. Broken sobs cracked from your wet lips, and Kirishima’s heart shattered.
Kirishima closed his eyes and placed a hand behind your head, nuzzling your face into his chest as he leaned into you, burying his own face into your shoulder.
“He’s an idiot. It’s gonna be alright. I promise.” Kirishima hushed you quietly, rocking you back and forth in his hold as you finally began to calm down, eventually falling asleep as he came to halt.
Reaching for a blanket, Kirishima wrapped it around you and held you tightly against him. His blood boiled inside him as he began to doze off himself.
“You are so amazing, please don’t let anyone tell you differently.” Kirishima whispered against your hair, resting his own eyes.
As time drained on during everyone’s slumber, a storm was brewing within Kirishima.
Waking in the morning, you awoke in Kirishima’s arms, just where you remembered falling asleep. You nudged him awake but that usual morning smile you wore whenever you’d see him in the common area for breakfast was no where in sight.
“Good morning.” You spoke quietly. It was awkward. But Kirishima quickly ruffled your hair.
“Bed head.” Kirishima pointed out, smiling at the disarray of your locks. You quickly turned away to try and fix what he was talking about.
“Hey relax, it’s okay.” Kirishima chuckled.
“I’m sorry for waking-”
“Don’t apologize. We’re gonna get through this together okay? I’m here to help however you need me too. Do you want me to walk with you to school?” Kirishima offered, helping you stand up as you both began to wake up.
“I think that would be nice. Thank you.” You can’t help but stare at the ground, feeling like a burden. You’d roped Kirishima in with your problems and now-
“I’m really sorry that Bakugou did that. It’s unmanly as hell. If he was unhappy he should’ve talked to you about it, going behind your back was straight up fucking idiotic.” Kirishima’s words sort of spilled out, immediately catching your attention.
“I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s okay. I agree with you. If he was upset or unhappy, I just wish he would’ve told me.” Your bottom lip quivers as you speak about it, the memories flashing through your mind of seeing that girl on his bed, him talking about you like you weren’t even together.
About how he despised you.
“Go get ready for class, I’ll meet you by the stairs in ten?” Kirishima was already pulling out his uniform and removing his shirt as you headed toward the door.
You nodded and left quickly, running to your room avoiding being seen. And just as he’d stated, you met up by the steps in ten minutes and headed downstairs.
And there he was, waiting, like nothing had happened. Kirishima’s hand shot to yours, holding it tightly as you walked in the opposite direction. He lead you through the back doors and outside where you took a deep breath of the crisp morning air.
“It’s gonna be difficult, but try not to think about him. Every time you find yourself drifting back to him, try and replace it with something that makes you happy, like uh braiding my hair! Or making paper airplanes with Kaminari and how you beat him every time.” Kirishima laughs, lifting your chin up with his thumb and forefinger.
“He did a really scummy thing, and it hurts, I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but I’m gonna help however I can, and however you need me too.” Kirishima’s support was flooding your system. Your heart felt warm, despite feeling broken and cold hours earlier.
You didn’t thank him verbally, instead you threw your arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly, smiling.
Kirishima hugged you back and smiled. He missed your smile. 
Days turned into weeks, and things had slowly gone back to normal. You smiled more often. You informed Kaminari and Sero about your split from Bakugou, and eventually told most your friends, but not in detail.
However, Kirishima stayed by your side the most. And as you healed, you realized how much Kirishima had been there for you through all of it. And how maybe you had possibly got tied into things too fast with Bakugou.
While a part of you did love Bakugou during your time together, now you were beginning to realize how you really felt for Kirishima, a flame that had begun to burn long before you and Bakugou had been together.
But it seemed as you healed, and began to move on, finding your own happiness outside of Bakugou and the way he had treated you, Bakugou began to miss you.
Missing the way you’d kiss him, or hug him before bed. Missing the way you left his shirts smelling like you. Or the way you would always write little love notes on his study sheets.
Seeing you spend more time with Kirishima, seeing you so genuinely happy, the kind of happy you seemed to be when you used to be with him, made him mad. It made him miss you.
And sooner or later, his anger bubbled over and he snapped.
“Aye what the fuck?!” Bakugou shouted, watching as you quickly cowered away from Kirishima as Bakugou approached the two of you.
“You got a problem? We can take this outside if we need to.” Kirishima spoke up, quickly earning most of the ears of your peers.
“Yeah why the fuck you up on them like that?” Bakugou stared at you. Your face contorted in anger as you stepped forward.
“I’m sorry?” You laughed, staring at the blonde who was now your ex-boyfriend.
“You better back the fuck up.” Kirishima commented. Kaminari and Sero quickly stood to aid, positioning themselves on either side of you, positive you could handle yourself against Bakugou, but albeit cautious.
“No. Why’re you all up on them, you fucking got a thing for them? Spit it out shitty-hair.”
“No. You don’t get a fucking say in this. You fucking cheater. Ruining something so fucking special. Do you have any fucking idea how badly you hurt them? You didn’t even care to apologize. You fucking asshole. You don’t get to be upset.” Kirishima snapped. A few gasps from students. Bakugou’s face dropped at Kirishima’s words.
“I-I was just bored! All we ever did was just hang out-but I-”
“You what, Katsuki?” You approached him. You stood right in front of him and shook your head.
“I loved you. I really did, I gave my all to you, I sacrificed time and effort to make you happy because I felt like I was nothing compared to you. I have never felt like I was so below someone while being with them until I was with you. Constantly compared to you, it was fucking awful. You’re a cheating piece of shit. And I’m so sorry that you miss me now because I certainly fucking don’t miss you.” You spoke, your chest heaving as you sighed, turning and pulling Kirishima outside, along with a few others who had sided with you. 
Bakugou stood silently, feeling the eyes of everyone on him, judging him as he headed up toward his dorm.
“That was awesome!” Kaminari cheered, patting your shoulder.
“I didn’t know I had that in me.” You smiled, hugging Kirishima. Kirishima stood silently beside you.
“Hey, you okay? Forget about him, it’s over, we won, did you see the look on his face?” You nudged his side. Kirishima groaned and pulled you into him, slamming his lips on yours.
Your eyes widened as he kissed you, but you didn’t fight it. You closed your eyes and melted into the kiss, eventually drawing your arms up over his shoulders, deepening the kiss as he leaned into you more.
Kirishima pulled away and quickly glanced to Kaminari and Sero who’s mouths were formed into small ‘o’s quickly looking away as Kirishima chuckled.
“Woah.” You breathed, smiling as you stared at Kirishima.
“Sorry I have been wanting to do that for a long time.” Kirishima apologized, rubbing the back of his neck. You couldn’t help but laugh.
You leaned up and kissed him again, smiling as he kissed back, your lips moving rhythmically against one another.
Shortly after, Kirishima made sure you were ready for a relationship before asking. Recovery from your previous relationship had gone well, and once you were ready, Kirishima didn’t hesitate to ask. He would’ve waited a lifetime for you.
And Kirishima showed you love, real love. He cherished you, brought you up when you were low, and allowed you to shine, just as you did for him. Supporting him through his highs and his lows, helping him when he needed, and loving him for who he was.
You felt whole, truly happy. The kind of happy you hadn’t felt for a while. And you didn’t think about Bakugou once during it. If you interacted, you were curt, and always handled the situations quickly. You didn’t need to focus on him.
And when you beat him during a test, it only proved you had grown stronger.
Bakugou had lost this battle. 
And you were winning by a long shot, with a happy, healthy, relationship with someone who loved you, someone who truly loved you.
And that flame inside you, burning for Kirishima, only grew.
»»————- ★ ————-««
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wcnderlnds · 3 years
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safety pin the pieces of our broken hearts / bucky barnes x reader.
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Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Description: After Steve went back to the past you’re left with the job of looking after his best friend but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Word Count: 1358 Warnings: None. i dont think so anyway. A/N: Okaaay here we go!! part one of a Bucky series. So, uhhhh, Tony Stark is alive in this because I refuse to live in a world without him and he’s the reader’s dad for... reasons that’ll come to light later on. i’m going to v loosely follow The Falcon & The Winter Soldier ok thank you pls be kind this is my first time writing Bucky.
It felt like you’d been sat in the boring old waiting room for hours when in reality it had barely been forty-five minutes. At least your wrist was getting exercise with the amount of times you were raising it to check the time on your watch. Only fifteen more minutes to go then you’d be able to leave that dreaded place. Time seemed to drag on, the people around you irritating you more and more. It was getting to the point where you were about to stand up and yell at the woman who was tapping her fingernails against the wooden arm of the chair. Luckily, Bucky came out of his therapy session with a scowl on his face — the usual look he wore after a session. He gestured his head towards the exit to which you quickly followed him out.
“How’d it go?” You asked as the two of you walked back to the apartment you had pretty much been forced to share.
When Steve had told you his plan he knew that someone needed to take care of Bucky when he was gone and he’d bestowed that duty on you. Unfortunately, you couldn’t refuse no matter how much you’d wanted to. It wasn’t that you didn’t like Bucky because you did — you were friends or at least friendly with each other. It was more so the fact that you knew taking up that responsibility would hurt your father who just so happened to be none other than Tony Stark himself. He still held a grudge against Bucky for killing his parents — your grandparents — and you didn’t blame him but you also didn’t share the same feelings as your father. While Bucky had done some terrible things, that hadn’t been him. That had been the Winter Soldier. In your mind, Bucky and the Winter Soldier were two different people. Poor Bucky had been brainwashed into doing all the awful things he’d done and now he was living with all the guilt and memories of things that he’d had no control over. It had taken some talking with your dad but he’d decided that maybe having someone close to Bucky could at least make sure he didn’t slip again. That also meant daily updates to Tony so he could make sure you were safe. So, you and Bucky had a small apartment in New York. It wasn’t ideal but you were making it work as best you could.
“Same as always,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Wants me to talk to more people or something.”
“You know you should. Sam keeps asking me about you since you won’t answer him.”
“Don’t want to talk to him. Don’t want to talk to you most days but I have no choice on that one.”
You rolled your eyes. “I’m going to ignore that because I know you don’t mean it and you’re just grumpy. Maybe consider at least texting Sam so I don’t have to be bombarded by him.”
“No,” he simply stated. “I’m taking a walk.”
Before you could protest, he was gone leaving you feeling grumpy now. You knew Bucky wasn’t in the best place right now. He was trying to make amends for all the things the Winter Soldier had done and he was processing the fact that Steve was gone. Not to mention the fact that Sam had given the shield away. That had been the one thing that had sent him into a deep pit of moodiness. At this point you were used to it.
With a sigh, you stepped into your apartment, throwing your jacket on the couch. Bucky was definitely going to give you crap for that later but you didn’t care. Letting out a heavy sigh, you threw yourself down onto the couch. Before you knew it, your eyes were closing and an unexpected nap took over you.
*****
“Seriously, (Y/N)?” Bucky’s voice woke you up. Sitting up, you rubbed your eyes with the palm of your hands to look over at your roommate who had your jacket in his hands. “We have a coat hanger right there.”
With a huff, he placed your jacket on one of the hooks and headed for the door. Your brows furrowed in confusion. Hadn’t he just got back? How long had you been asleep? “Didn’t you just get in?”
“No. I’ve been back three hours. You were just channelling your inner sleeping beauty over there,” his hand was on the door knob. “I’ve got a date so I’ll be back later, I guess.”
“A date?!” You asked sounding far more shocked than you wanted to.
“Don’t even make a comment. I’m leaving.”
And yet again before you could even say anything he was gone. Bucky was going on a date? That was new. Maybe he was taking his therapists advice after all. As happy as you were that he was trying to give himself some semblance of a normal life, it stung a little bit that he seemed to rather spend some time with anyone that wasn’t you. It was probably because of Tony. While Bucky was friendly with you he always seemed to keep his distance. He never really let you in — he never really let anyone in. Most nights you were both either sat in silence watching a movie with the odd comment here and there or in your own rooms. Conversations never went any deeper than small talk. It was something you badly wanted to change. You wanted to be to Bucky what Steve was but you knew nobody would ever fill his shoes. All you could do was try to be there for Bucky despite how he was adamant he didn’t need anyone.
It was with that thought that you stood up from the couch to make your way to your room with your phone in your hand. After sending a quick text to your dad to let him know the latest Bucky update, you changed into your PJs and got into bed.
*****
It was the loud sound of the TV that woke you the next morning. A tired yawn passed your lips as you made your way into the living room. After a stretch, you finally saw the scene in front of you. Bucky was sat on the floor, glaring at the TV with a clenched jaw. It was then that you finally saw what had him so upset. John Walker was Captain America. John Walker was claiming Steve Rogers was a brother to him. The anger bubbled up inside you, too. Without thinking, you made your way towards Bucky and the TV. After placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, you switched the TV off.
“Don’t torture yourself like that, Buck,” you said softly. It broke your heart when you noticed the hint of tears forming in his eyes but you knew he wouldn’t let them fall. It was angry tears — you didn’t blame him one bit.
“Don’t call me Buck. Only Steve can,” he shrugged your hand off his shoulder and got to his feet. “This is all Sam’s fault.”
“No, it’s not! He did what he thought was best.”
“How is giving the shield away what’s best? Steve trusted him with that and this is what he does with it? Give it to them so they could give it to... him? If he was here right now....” Bucky seethed making his way to his room with you following him.
“I don’t think you understand,” you started but was stopped when Bucky spun around to cut you off with a bag in his hand.
“I’m off to find Sam so pack a bag because I’m sure you’re going to have to follow me like the little lost puppy you are so you can send updates to that paranoid dad of yours,” a glare was shot your way before his attention was focused on stuffing clothes into his bag.
“Okay...” you said quietly. His words hurt you but you knew he was angry with Sam and the new Captain America, not you. There was no use in fighting him right now. So without a word, you made your way to your own room and followed suit.
Guess you were off to see Sam.
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