#it was meant to be simply I think I can’t be bothered lmfao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

staycalmandhugaclone · 1 year

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If you're new, this all starts with Touch Starved - Echo! You can read this little chunk as a standalone, or head back to the beginning for the full experience!

Why do these keep getting longer?! I really need to try to tone it back a bit lmfao. References to Panic and Secrets Revealed.

Febuwhump Day 9

Found Footage (Alt) – OC&TBB – A pleasant moment at 79s is shattered when someone tries to blackmail doc with footage of the crash on Agamar.

Warnings: Huge PTSD warning here. Flashbacks, disassociating, past injury description, blackmail, grief, angst, some alcohol use (social, not abuse), cursing

WC: 6227

The lounges of 79’s weren’t meant to hold a group of six, particularly with a man of Wrecker’s stature, but squeezing into the circular booth was part of the fun, back reclining against the massive clone’s side with his arm absently draped over my chest while my legs sprawled over Echo’s lap to avoid the accidental stomp of the big man’s heel. Tech was squished on Wrecker’s other side as Crosshair had adamantly claimed the end seat.

“-so I ripped the whole ramp clean off and used it to barrel right through ‘em! Clanker’s never even knew what hit ‘em!” I’d heard the story before, but he was already halfway through his fourth mug of something that looked like a sunset and smelled like motor fuel, and the enthusiasm in his thunderous voice was infectious in its own right.

“Technically, the processing speed of B1-series battle droids would have made them fully capable of analyzing your assault well before their demise; however, inadequate maintenance of their internal tactical components has led to compounding decreases in-”

“Ugh! Come on, Tech! Those things can’t process the difference between a tauntaun and a tooka!” Wrecker interrupted, arm swinging so violently that Echo had to duck sharply against Hunter to avoid getting hit. I’d long since abandoned my drink for fear of the man’s expressive gestures knocking the glass from my hand or bumping me at just the wrong moment, but I found very little need for such things in moments like this. If I was drunk, I might not have noticed the knowing look Crosshair offered his annoyed brother, nor the fond exasperation in Echo’s weary gaze as Wrecker’s anticks surely reminded him of his late squad.

“Doc,” I quickly turned my gaze as Hunter’s voice just breached the chaotic rabble of the bar, “Think your comm’s going off.” He nodded to my waist. Wrecker barely noticed my struggle to push him back enough to reach down for the thin device. The quiet alert chimed at regular intervals to indicate a video message. Slipping it partially into a chest pocket, I shifted to begin the process of escaping from the mass of bodies around me.

“Probably some reminder to recertify something,” I guessed, “I’ll be right back.” The Sergeant was already standing to let me out, but I didn’t bother waiting for Echo to do the same, instead simply scooting over his lap much to his surprise, and I couldn’t help but snicker at how he froze in that half-second of movement. I didn’t hear Crosshair’s snide remark, but his laughter was almost as loud as Wrecker’s, and that alone was worth the chastising look Hunter gave me.

“You want one of us to go with you?” He asked, leaning close enough for me to feel the heat of his breath so he didn’t have to shout to be heard. Cocking an eyebrow, I shot him a teasing smirk.

“It’s 79’s, Hunter. I’ll be fine for five minutes.” His expression instantly darkened, as though the words actually had the power to jinx the scant bit of time I’d be out of sight. I bumped my shoulder against his chest with a quiet chuckle and started through the mass of identical faces masking vibrantly different personalities dancing and shouting and enjoying this moment of freedom to the fullest.

The sudden quiet that loomed just beyond the front doors was striking. I could still hear the booming music and raucous voices, but, with just a few steps into the cool night air, it faded enough to allow a displaced sense of stillness that felt almost wrong after so long in the roar of the bar. Dismissing the strange sensation, I slipped the half-concealed comm from my pocket and walked toward the ally for whatever privacy I could find before transferring the file to my datapad to watch the video.

I didn’t understand what I was watching at first; not consciously. I didn’t understand why the dance of blues and grays beneath the occasional flicker of red sent my heart racing, why the line of distant trees too grainy for anyone else to make out trapped the air in my lungs long after it staled. I tried not to recognize the insignia of that sleeping tooka shoddily painted in hot pink and baby blue below the red medic symbol on the stolen Separatist transport; tried not to feel the icy sweet seeping over my skin as my eyes automatically sought out the crumbled door that I’d nearly broken my arm to wrestle open.

I could hear the flames, saw the glow steadily spreading to illuminate every crack in the shattered durasteel hull as the engines flares from fuel leaking precariously through broken pipes; watched the trembling form tumble from the slim opening I’d only just been able to make through welded and ruined machinery. I heard my heart hammering against my chest, felt the chill of panic flood my veins.

“Emmy!” My body crumbled against the wall at the utter hopelessness in the electronic distortion of my own voice breaking through the speakers of my datapad; at the desolate wail that seemed to go on for eternity immediately after. I didn’t realize I’d screamed back then, but the video zoomed in to show my face, deathly pale from blood loss and shock, expression twisted into a grief that tore through me as violently now as it did then.

My mind absently categorized the injuries of the figure on the screen that I found myself almost convinced wasn’t me: burns marred her hands and forearms, the front of her flightsuit nearly covered in black despite the flame-retardant nature of the fabric, likely indicating severe damage to the flesh underneath it; blood covered the right side of her face, hair heavily matted and near black with it – a concussion at the very least; and the amount of crimson-stained fabric wadded around that ankle was enough to leave one wondering if there was enough flesh to be saved beneath it all.

“Emmy!” That figure crawled barely a meter from the wreckage before shrieking that name again. And again despite how her voice shattered and failed.

I didn’t notice the image blur; even if I had, I couldn’t tell if it was from the tears pooling atop my eyes or the violent trembling of my hand, knuckles gleaming white as my fingers gripped the device hard enough to make the metal casing creak.

She was clawing into the scared ground below her, spine arching as though there was some hope of guarding against the agony rending through her chest, body writhing as she cried, unsteady movements slowly dragging her further and further from the burning mass of twisted durasteel.

I didn’t notice the writing begin to creep over the top of the image, barely registered that the video had been sped up. It didn’t feel like it. It felt like I was trapped in that moment; suffocating beneath the overwhelming scent of fuel weighing down the air, body locked in a panic between shivering against the unbearable cold and the memory of that terrible heat; the sound my skin had made as I’d crawled atop blistering metal, and the sickening absence of touch where I should have felt dirt and pebbles and grass. I remembered the way my body convulsed in fits of agonizing coughes from that cool air sweeping down my raw throat; the heavy taste of copper each one brought with it.

Between the disconnect separating my mind from any reliable sense of time and the way the footage seemed to fluctuate between too fast and too slow, I couldn’t begin to guess how long I’d been left like that, weight held precariously atop my forearms as I screamed and screamed and begged for someone to help me; to save her…

When those figures finally appeared from the distant tree line, I immediately recognized Commander Wolffe, his rifle trained carefully on the visage of my ruin. Barely a few seconds passed before General Koon gave a subtle signaled for him to stand down. Wolffe hesitated a moment but didn’t object when the cloaked figure approached me. I don’t think I was screaming anymore, body absently rocking in time to the still rapid flutter of my heart.

“Miss?” I didn’t remember this either. “Miss, I am Jedi Master Plo Koon. Can you tell me your name?” I knew there’d been some kind of conversation between us, but the details had been lost to me. Wolffe stepped protectively nearer as Koon carefully touched his hand to my shoulder. My head jerked only slightly at first, movements disjointed, before managing to look up at the Jedi’s masked face, and the madness-fueled hope in my eyes shone clearly through the grainy recording, mangled hands desperately reaching up for him.

“Pl-please! Please!” I begged. Koon didn’t shy from my blood-stained limbs, even reaching out with his own for me to cling on to. “Help-he… help her! Please! Please!” The way my hoarse voice shattered through my raw throat made even the Commander flinch. Koon glanced passed me to where the flames were finally beginning to fade before turning his attention back to me.

“I am sorry… there’s no one still alive in that ship.” Even then, I’d felt no doubt for the depth of his remorse, and something about that sincerity robbed me of even the taste of denial, head shaking weakly, begging him for something I knew he couldn’t give. For a long while, he said nothing more, merely let me hold onto him as I broke, body shaking amidst fresh sobs as every hope of happiness I’d had was ripped apart.

“What’s your name?” Only after those hiccupped, shuttered gasps began to quell did he press, voice gentle, calm in a way that give some fleeting quiet to my frenzied thoughts, granting me enough clarity to answer him. Hearing him repeat it in that same calm tone a moment later was a balm, eyes slipping closed as I merely existed in the echo of his words. “Why did you come here?” My lips moved without thought, without trepidation of the consequences for the secrets I freely told him.

“We’re medics… we… we help after… heal the ones left behind… find them passage home.”

“You help clones?” He clarified, a note of surprise just touching his voice, and I watched my head nod listlessly in answer. “Why?” He asked, lowering himself more as though he knew how his very presence seemed the only thing allowing me the strength to speak.

“I… I believe in them – in what they’re fighting for.” He was quiet a moment.

“Then why not leave? Defect from the Separatists and join the Republic?”

“Emmy.” Her name ripped another sob from me, but the words kept coming, “She couldn’t leave her family… So this… this was the only way we could help.” His hand shifted slightly against my shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, and, in that instant, I’d known they were the ones who shot us down, and not for even a fleeting second did I blame them. This was war. We’d known the dangers. “I’d like to help you now, if you’ll let us.” He murmured.

I remembered thinking over that offer for a long while, remembered knowing I could deny him, demand they leave me there; that I would die on that field… or, I could join them; fight for the cause Emmy had died for. The faint nod barely registered on the small screen, but Wolffe stepped forward a moment later. My skin prickled at the cry that tore from my lips as he hoisted me over his shoulder, rifle still held ready before he and the General walked out of sight.

There was no pause of static or flash of black before the image of the freshly crashed transport returned to the screen, and my eyes remained trained on the blurry picture with the same obsessive attentiveness as though I was watching it for the first time, yet I somehow failed to notice those callused fingers slide over mine, carefully loosening my grip until he could slowly pull the datapad away. Didn’t matter. I continued staring at the space that screen had been, no longer needing the footage for my mind to replay it all over and over and over

“Doc?”

“Emmy!” That first, broken shriek seemed to ripple through me, stomach finally seizing. I barely noticed my body convulse against the violent heaves, mind consumed by the distant shrieks still crying from those speakers. Vaguely, I realized someone turned it off or silenced it or threw the damn thing into the seemingly endless cavern stretching out below 79’s platform. Still, I didn’t need that recording to hear them. They’d been seared onto my consciousness, and I would never unhear them.

Some distorted rumble of an almost familiar voice sounded near me. I knew that voice… I knew… no… Emmy! Was someone touching me? Help-he… help her! The terrible memory of that night replaying in my mind sounded more real than the speech of whoever stood before me.

“We need to get her off the street.” Please! Please!

“There is an inn two clicks from here.” Emmy!

“Why’s she breathin’ like that?” I’m sorry.

“She’s in shock – potentially disassociating.” The scent of burning flesh.

“Five soldiers try to get in a cab with her like that, someone’s going to ask the wrong kind of questions.” The feeling of razors in my throat as I screamed.

“Well, we can’t stay here, Crosshair, so go with Echo and find us transport.” What’s your name?

“Tech, who the kriff did that come from?” The roar of flames and taste of fuel.

“I’m already tracing the connection, but it may take a few minutes.”

“Doc? Come on, Doc, try to come back.” Some fractured corner of my mind recognized the face leaning over me, felt their hands gently grasping my cheeks, but I couldn’t see them beyond the wall of twisted durasteel that I somehow needed to break through before the flames burned me alive.

“She don’t look so good.” Pl-Please!

“When you find who sent it”

“I’ll overclock their processors and short out their coolant systems. If there happens to be security measures in place for the door to their server rooms, I think that may also experience a spontaneous failure.”

“Wha’s that mean?” The terror in that split second before forcing my ruined ankle into the brace.

“He’s going to set their computers on fire.”

“Courtesy of Rex – I’ll owe him a pretty big apology next time I see him, but I doubt he’ll notice until after we’re long gone.” Those voices.

“Alright, Doc, I want you to walk with me, okay?” That touch slipped from my cheeks to wrap around my shoulders, and my body shivered violently against their warmth, legs dragging listlessly beneath me as some driving force eased me forward, and, for a moment, it wasn’t fuel I smelled. Some struggling corner of my mind remembered them, trusted them.

“I… I s…” His gentle, guiding movements froze the instant those stuttered attempts at speech fluttered from my lips.

“Doc?” My eyes wondered blindly over a face I so nearly recognized but couldn’t manage to grasp those thoughts long enough to be sure.

“I-I screamed.” I heard the wisps of words tumble from numb lips but couldn’t understand the sorrow that washed over his face. “I… I didn’t realize I… I screamed her name.”

“That was a long time ago.” He murmured, hands tightening where they held me firmly against his side.

“Do you… do you think sh-she heard me?” I think I recognized the way my name sounded in that smoky voice, briefly noting heartbreak in umber eyes before falling back into those flames.

“Doc-”

“Hunter.” A crisp voice interrupted him, and a moment later I belatedly realized he’d begun moving again, felt the hard plane of a chest plate pressed to my cheek.

“Watch your step.” That whispered murmur offered a comfort in its very tone, but the words held no meaning as we came to a stop. The sensation of floating should have been disorientating, but it was barely a thought as he moved an arm beneath my knees and gently lifted me to his chest before handing me off to someone else. And then it was dark again, the world moving around us in time to the hum of an engine.

“I have located the source but will need something stronger to bypass their firewalls.” Numb, I merely existed in the sound of those voices as someone held me, the strong scent of alcohol sharp enough to keep the memory of burnt skin at bay. Someone else wrapped chilled fingers through mine, and still another touch settled over my shoulder

“Park around back, Crosshair. Tech, if I get you access to one of the command centers on base, can you make it untraceable?”

“With Echo’s help, yes.” That grip tightened gently.

“Fryin’ some hunk of metal’s a kriffin’ joke. Where are they? I think we should make sure they ge’ the picture to leave’er alone.” I felt that voice rumble against my cheek.

“Given they are well behind Separatist lines, that is not a viable option; however, I can prevent any future attempts at contact.”

“Tech, you have the best chance at passing for a civi. Put this on and get us a room.” The world seemed to shift slightly, and I vaguely heard the sound of footsteps, the hiss of a door opening and closing, body too disorientated to even flinch at the brief flood of light.

“Echo, send Rex a message. I’d rather we tell him than have him report it stolen.” Those cool fingers started to pull away and some part of me panicked, grip tightening possessively, breath hitching. I didn’t notice the moment of silence, but when another hand touched mine, gently guiding my hold from that cool hand to his, I didn’t question it, again only distantly noting the brief flare of light.

“Doc? Can you look at me?” Something swept slowly along my thumb. The mass of warmth surrounding me shifted until a face came into some fleeting semblance of focus before me. “Hey.” I watched his lips move but couldn’t quite associate them with the quiet whisper of that deep voice. “You don’t need to say anything, but I want you to try to listen to me.” My brows drew weakly together, unsure if his voice was the memory, or if the calm rumble of Koon’s earnest apology was. “You trust us, right?” There’s no one still alive on that ship. Trust. What did he say?

My shoulder felt too cold, and I vaguely realized it was because he’d moved his hand back up to cup my cheek. My eyes blinked, almost surprised to see that face still staring at me when they opened again. For a moment, I didn’t feel the numb agony of burns, the sharp fire tearing through my ankle. Trust… yes. It may have been the only thing I could be certain of, but I knew I trusted him. The unsure movement shifting my head in a nod felt strange, muscles reluctantly remembering their own existence. His hand tightened around mine, briefly drawing my gaze to that contact before hesitantly returning to his face.

“Good.” He breathed, and I think I should have withdrawn from the attentiveness with which those eyes studied me, but, in that moment, I needed to be seen; needed him to see me to keep from vanishing back to that scarred meadow lit only by the dancing flames. “We’re taking care of it, alright? We’re not going to let a damn thing happen to you, so I want you to just take a breath. Do you understand?” He spoke slowly, quietly, as though talking to a frightened animal. That realization struck me seconds before the realization that no, I didn’t understand… I couldn’t…

My jaw shifted listlessly in a poor mimicry of speech but couldn’t manage more than turning my head into his hand in a silent ‘no’, gaze belatedly lingering on the rich tan of the nicked skin covering hard lines of tendons and muscle. His thumb swept over my cheek, touch easing my eyes back to him.

“That’s okay.” He promised. “Do you remember my name?” His… I should… I should know that… I knew his name. Confused panic stole the breath from my lungs, body rocking slightly as my teeth ground together. Why couldn’t I… Where was I? I didn’t hear him call my name, wide eyes darting around the small, dark room, head twisting back at the sudden realization that I was being held by someone, blind to the worry twisting through those kind eyes as frantic awareness jolted through my body, limbs jerking to life.

“Wai-wait, Doc, I wouldn’-”

“For kriff’s sake, Wrecker, let her go.” A third voice chided from further ahead. The instant I realized I was upright, my body surged from them, hands throwing open the door without any conscious understanding of its existence before tumbling to my knees the instant I was free of that dim room, stomach churning anew amidst the rush of turmoil and dread and confusion.

“Whoa! Hey-hey, easy.” How could that voice sound so calm when my heart felt like it was trying to rip itself free of my chest? He whispered my name with such gentle concern, I couldn’t bring myself to pull away when his hand carefully swept along my back. “Shh, you’re going to be alright, Doc.” Something about the knowing sympathy in that murmur consumed me, body straining to still seizing muscles if only to better hear him. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but this will pass… I promise you; this will pass.”

He knew... of course he knew… because… I remembered… I remembered holding him through his own nightmares.

“Echo.” His name broke over my lips in a whimpered sob, and I felt the tension leave him in a slow sigh.

“I’m right here.” He whispered, shifting just a breadth closer to me. I didn’t realize I was crying until the sound of my own sobs seemed to drown out the distant hum of the city. That touch on my back offered only the faintest shift in a subtle invitation, and any hesitation fled me. In an instant, I turned into him, burying my face against his neck as I clung to him, and my heart shuttered at how quickly he locked his arms around me. “Alright… it’s alright, I’ve got you.” Those softly spoken words sent a chill down my spine as they fluttered through my hair.

“She was…” I gasped, hiding in his embrace as the wretched ruin my own voice shattered around me, “She was ri-right there! I le- I left her – how could I leave her?!”

“I know,” He murmured, and, in that moment, I loved him. I loved him for not telling me it wasn’t my fault. I loved him for not telling me there was nothing else I could have done. And I loved him for holding me regardless. “But, right now, you’re here. You’re with me and Hunter and Wrecker and Cross, and we’re damn glad for it.” Those words caught me off-guard, mind pausing to work over them for a long while before slowly pulling back to find those amber eyes, to see the truth in them.

“Tech got us a room. Think you can hold onto me for a minute?” He asked, voice only just loud enough for me to hear.

“I can… I can walk.” The feint of confidence wasn’t enough to fool either of us, but the drive to feel my feet beneath me, to move of my own volition balked at the thought of being carried again.

“Doc…” I didn’t give him the chance to argue, trembling legs already straining to remember how to stand. He quickly shifted to pull my arm over his shoulders and slowly eased us both upright. I had to cling to him more than I anticipated, body swaying violently for several seconds before regaining any semblance of stability. He waited patiently until I took that first step and carefully matched his strides with mine, guiding us toward an open doorway.

Those few steps helped shed that lingering sense of displacement, and the clarity that granted threatened me with a far more desperate fear. We’d barely stepped into the room when the very real threat of what I’d seen sent my heart racing.

“Wait…” I could taste the horror dripping from that single word, barely seeing Echo’s attention dart back to me. “W… where… who sent that video? H-How…” The frenzy of everything that footage implicated washed over me in a flood of panic.

“Easy, Doc; we’re already-” Hunter’s reassuring words fell on deaf ears.

“Wh-where’s my… my datapad-where-” Eyes darting around the room, I only vaguely noticed Tech before pushing forward to try to wrench it from his hands, but Echo held me back, quickly stepping between his brother and me.

“Doc, listen to me: there’s nothing on that datapad that you need to see.” He said, voice just hinting at that commanding power of an arc trooper.

“Get out of my way, Echo, and give me my kriffing datapad.” I growled sharply. Writing. There was writing at one point, right? Scrolling along the top of the screen? I tread quickly around Echo, eyes locked on Tech. He glanced uncertainly passed me, and I didn’t have to look to know he’d sought Hunter’s orders before allowing me to pull the device from his hands.

Painfully aware of the attentive stares of the five men crowded into the small room, I forced my attention to the screen; and then it was all I could see. The video was frozen in the moment after that first scream. Instantly, that tremble stole back through me, hand shaking violently mere inches from that nauseating image, muscles refusing to move even enough for the brief tap needed to play it.

“The sender included a ransom note.” I don’t think I’d ever heard Tech’s voice drop into such a gentle whisper, gaze darting to his with a silent, desperate plea. Tell me. Tell me everything so that I didn’t have to live through that nightmare all over again. “They’ve demanded an extravagant sum of credits in exchange for the original footage, and threatened to turn it in to the jedi counsel should you refuse.” My eyes went wide, face falling slack. Tech easily caught the datapad as it slipped from suddenly limp fingers.

“General…General Koon… I h-I have to warn… Wolffe…” I couldn’t hear the terror in my own voice, guilt tearing through my chest. “They’ll… Wolffe – they’ll decommission him for this!” It wasn’t until Hunter shouted my name, hands clasped tight around my shoulders that I even realized he’d been speaking.

“Breathe.” The word left his lips in a measured, firm order, but I could see the concern darkening those eyes. Blinking back the threat of tears, I vaguely realized my chest was fluttering with those shallow, rapid gasps that offered little more than a fleeting taste of air. His hold softened slightly, and his shoulders began to lift in a slow, deep inhale. Jaw tensing, I struggled to follow his lead despite the way my breath shook with each violent shiver, still, the attempt alone was enough to grant him some sliver of relief.

“Tech already traced it.” He explained in that practiced calm of a hardened soldier, and I found myself hanging onto his every word. “He and Echo are going to find every copy of that video, wipe them from the holonet, and fry every computer it’s ever touched, and we’re going to make sure whoever sent it to you is too afraid of us to ever touch a datapad again.” His thumbs shifted gently over my arms, eyes locked pointedly on mine. “No one is ever going to find out about this.” My diaphragm jerked against the tears clawing up my throat at the words still trying to find voice atop my tongue.

“If it doesn’t work,” I started, but his lips parted to interrupt me. “If it doesn’t work,” I said again, louder, leaving no room for him to object, “You have to promise me… all of you… promise me you won’t go down with me.” I demanded, looking to each of them in turn, loathing the way they balked at my words. “If anyone finds out where I’m from… I’ll-” I couldn’t bite back the sob the very threat of those words tore through me, tears finally slipping from my eyes, but I forced myself to continue, “I’ll be removed from the GAR, probably imprisoned…” I stole a quick breath in the vain hope that it might offer some measure of stillness, but my voice shattered over my next words, “but you… what they’d do to you if they found out…” Again, I let my gaze shift over each of their faces.

Hunter’s hands whispered gently over my cheeks, thumbs absently wiping at the lines of tears as his tall form curled around me. He didn’t say anything for a long while, eyes burring into mine as his jaw worked silently over words he couldn’t seem to settle on.

“If it doesn’t work,” he finally started, only just breathing the words, “I promise you, we’ll figure something out.” A broken scowl twisted over my mouth, but, before I could say anything, he gently touched a thumb to my lips. “You and me, and these di’kuts… we’ll figure something out… but don’t you dare ask us to give up on you… and don’t you dare give up on us.” The fierce determination in those eyes robbed me of any will to argue, strength abandoning me with a suddenness that left me staggering.

Without another word, he pulled me harshly against him, chest swelling with a carefully controlled breath. Instantly, I wilted into his touch, unable even to lift my arms to return that crushing embrace, face hiding against the crook of his neck as I wept, overwhelmed by the fear and guilt and exhaustion. His hand swept up my back, my neck, fingers tangling into my hair. I could feel the steady power of his heartbeat thrumming up his throat, let myself be mesmerized by the calm cadence of his breaths as I tried to believe him, tried to remember the depth of my trust for each of these amazing men.

“Rex is here.” Echo’s whisper held a visceral regret in the simple necessity of being spoken aloud, and Hunter let out a deep sigh.

“Alright. Cross, Wrecker, stay here – no one comes through that door but us. You two, with me.” He continued speaking with that gentleness as he turned his attention down to me. “Is it alright if Wrecker holds onto you for a while?” He asked quietly. I tried not to think about why he’d felt the need to ask, unwilling to even pretend I didn’t need this form of comfort in that moment as my head simply nodded. Still, he didn’t release me until Wrecker’s massive hands slipped around my still shaking form, and I turned into the towering man without hesitation as he enveloped me in those powerful arms.

“We’ll be back as soon as we can, but it might be a while.” I didn’t need to look at him to know he was talking to Crosshair, and, without another word, he, Echo and Tech were gone.

“Couldn’t give two kriffs where they are…” It wasn’t a full minute before the quietly growled words rumbled through his chest. “Wish Tech would just tell who they are… I’d make sure they’d never even think about threatening you again.” The anger storming through him was heartbreaking in itself. I treasured the brilliant glee that usually lit up his voice. Knowing I was the reason he was so filled with fury…

“Wrecker.” There was a quiet warning in Crosshair’s voice.

“I know you lot don’t think I can be stealthy, but this’d be worth it! In-an’-out quiet an’ fast; then we wouldn’t even have worry about”

“Wrecker!” The sniper hissed. Belatedly realizing the effect his words had on me, Wrecker’s shoulders sank, arms softening into something almost tentative.

“Sorry.” He whispered, and I broke anew, teeth burring into my lips to stifle the sobs at the guilt for his own remorse. A quick sigh sounded behind us. I didn’t hear his footsteps, but, when those elegant hands pulled me away from Wrecker’s hesitant embrace, I wasn’t surprised to see those harsh eyes studying me.

“They’ve got a shower here, Wrecker. Use it and sober up.” I wanted to say something, to promise Wrecker that he’d done nothing wrong; that I adored him and knew he only wanted to protect me, but, when Crosshair silently pulled me against his chest, I was too taken aback to speak. Wrecker paused for only a moment longer before reluctantly walking away.

“Come on.” It was an order, but there was a foreign softness to his voice that I couldn’t begin to fight, limbs automatically moving to follow him as he guided me across the room to a worn bed. Only then did I realize he’d already stripped his upper body of armor; felt the heat radiating from the broad muscles of his chest. He didn’t bother kicking off his boots though, holding me firmly against him with one arm while absently shifting the pillows with the other before turning to sit atop the edge of the mattress, easily pulling me with him and, mere seconds later, he was reclining leisurely against the wedge of padding, an almost bored expression staring blindly toward the ceiling as he held me casually against him, one leg cocked at my hip as I hid comfortably atop his chest.

“This alright?” I barely heard the whispered words. He didn’t move, eyes still locked on some invisible point beyond the stained paneling above us. I nodded, watching as my hand flared over the soft fabric beneath my cheek. “I think you insulted Tech.” He mumbled, but there was a subtle note of humor in his voice that eased a nearly silent laugh from me before the reasoning behind my doubt crept back in – not in the brilliant man’s capabilities but from the mere weight of the consequences should he fail.

“I ca-I can’t lose you,” I whispered on trembling breaths, fingers shifting to cling to that sleek material, “any of you.”

“We’re soldiers,” He hummed bluntly, but my head jerked so sharply in a silent ‘no’ that whatever else he was going to say was bit back in the absent churning of his jaw. Letting out another sigh, he merely relaxed beneath me, eyes sliding shut.

I couldn’t seem to draw my attention away from the slow dance of this powerful heartbeat against my cheek, from the gentle ebb and flow of his chest swelling beneath me. He was perfectly still at first, arms merely resting around my back, but, as the seconds ticked by, his hand began shifting absently against my shoulder, fingers slipped along the my ribs, his head tucked down to just brush his jaw against my hair; only brief, thoughtless movements, then falling still again for several seconds before allowing himself another stolen touch, and how could I feel anything but safe amidst the silent promises whispered in those fleeting moments?

The chorus of deep, leisurely breaths gave the air a comforting weight. The simple proximity and peace in those unhurried sighs and occasional listless shuffle of a limb spoke of absolute safety in the simple ease of their existence. My eyes parted just enough to see the soft light filling the small, derelict room, and my heart jumped at the sight before me.

Hunter lay tucked along the very edge of the bed, one arm folded beneath his head while the other had reached out to grasp my hand in his. Echo was beneath him, one knee hiked up at the very bottom corner of the bed while the other had fallen over the edge at some point, head pillowed atop one of my thighs. Tech was curled against my legs on my other side, arm draped over me for his hand to rest absently on my hip. I could only just see Wrecker’s legs stretching out behind him. And beneath me… Crosshair.

In perfect silence, he brought a finger to his lips, gaze shifting lazily over the sleeping forms of his brothers sprawled out around us. I followed his gaze for a moment before turning back to him with a small nod. He returned gesture, chest swelling beneath a deep breath, the movement gently rocking me against him, and he settled back into the nest of pillows as though it was the most natural thing in the world. I found myself hesitating barely a second longer before letting the tension slip away from me once more, melting into his warmth and that powerful, slow dance of his heartbeat against my cheek. When his hand shifted to sweep tentatively through my hair, I let out a deep sigh, nuzzling subtly into him with a love and gratitude I knew I’d never be able to speak aloud.

Fanart!! - by @mythical-illustrator

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realcube · 3 years

Text

haikyuu!! boys’ reactions to you speaking 💗 uwu💗

characters: tsukishima, ushijima, yaku, kenma & iwazumi

thank you anon for this cute request 💕 idk what i just wrote but i had fun 👍

IWAIZUMI & KENMA’S ARE AGED UP! MUTURE THEMES - MINORS DNI

tw// fluff, swearing, uwu language, cwinge

kenma’s hcs tw// sexual themes, implied switch!reader, phone sex(?), mentions of a blowjob, mentions of punishment

iwaizumi’s hcs tw// breeding kink, fem!reader, orgasm denial

Kei Tsukishima

you realised he didn’t like it so you did it just to annoy him LMFAO

he was scrolling through tiktok and a girl popped up on his fyp talking like that, so he snarled and immediately flicked it away, muttering something along the lines of ‘why do people speak like that? do they think it’s cute? ‘cause it’s really not; it’s just embarrassing.’

so you wasted no time in responding, ‘sowwy? what was that?’

HELL 👏 FIRE

his blood literally ran cold, he was aware that you liked taking the piss but he didn’t expect you to do it to this extent

‘what did you just say?’ he murmured, silently praying that he had just misheard you

you rolled your eyes before scoffing ‘nothing.’ you deepened your voice, just playing around at this point tbh

tsukishima hummed in agreement, deciding not to inquire further as he figured that he must’ve heard the echo of the girl’s voice in his head rather than yours

so he was just about go back to scrolling until he heard you coo in a high-pitched from behind him, ‘tsukishima is a lil’ bitch.’

‘(Y/N), FUCKING STOP!’ he let a throaty scream at you

‘you’re so boring, tsukki-’ you spoke, quickly cutting yourself off so you could switch to your uwu voice, ‘or should I say; bowing.’

you said, hopeful that your voice would make it clearing that you meant ‘boring’ rather than the act of playing an instrument with a bow

‘go to hell.’ he grumbled, trying his best to tune you out by pulling his headphones over his ears

‘babe~’ you purred, shuffling over to him and peppering kisses along the nape of his neck as you were feeling extra evil today, ‘wuv you~’

‘jail.’ tsukishima simply stated as he switched over to Spotify so he could blare some Mother Mother to drown out the sound of your voice

the worst part was that he couldn’t even tell if he liked it or not PFFT

like it was cute but the fact you weaponised it against him annoyed him

but you were also giving him kithes so he couldn’t exactly complain 💞

Morisuke Yaku

ok don’t even lie yaku does a variant of the uwu voice whenever he’s trying to insult kuroo IUGBEIGVA

it’s something like ‘aww, kuwoo, does your lil’ undewdeveloped bwain not undewstand algebwa?’ but in a mocking way yk?

so when a he watches a lil’ tabby cat approach you on the street, then you busted out the uwu voice that he had never heard before- he was taken aback

at first he was like ‘woah why are you making fun of that cat?’ bc he always associated that voice with ridicule LMFAO

but when he processed all the nice things you were saying he realised that you were being nice lol

so then he was like ‘awwww 🥺 (y/n) + cat = SO FKN CUTE!! 💕💗💖’ *click click* and he just starts taking photos

he probably puts them on his private story with the caption ‘their an angel 😍’

(then kuroo probably replies with ‘they’re*’) (don’t ask why yaku put him on his private story ✋)

anyway, he’s probably so fond of the voice too like ofc he thinks it’s cute

bc it’s a lil’ kitten and you’re talking to it in a high-pitched voice as if it can understand you SO FKN CUTE

he’s not too effected by it tho- it’s mostly how well you get on with the cat that he really admires

then he couched down beside you to talk to the cat too and y’all had a whole conversation with it in uwu

‘aww, look! are you hungwy, baby?’ you asked the cat as it licked the back of it’s paw

‘i think, it is!’ yaku continued, aware that if anybody from school caught him doing this, he’d pass away on the spot but what can he say? he’s soft for you (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

‘i have some blueberries in my bag, you can have some if you say please.’ he told the cat

you were both met by the cat’s blank - but adorable - stare, accompanied by silence until the kitten let out a faint, ‘mew’

‘AWWWWWW!!! 💞💕💖🥺👏 ’ you both squealed in unison, impressed by the kitten’s response

‘it understands us!’ you gasped while applauding the cat for it’s excellent communication skills

‘the voice must work!’ yaku concluded as he scrambled to throw his bag off his back and rummage through it in search of the tub of blueberries

you nodded, watching in awe as yaku pulled out the tub to carefully pick out the plumpest berries and feed them to the cat

yaku noticed your expression out of the corner of his eye and chuckled, ‘what?’

‘you’re so cute.’ you snickered, lighting bopping his nose with your index finger as he continued to allow the cat to feed out of the palm of his hand

a furious blush immediately covered his cheeks as he hastily turned his head away to hide it - in a typical anime fashion, ‘be quiet.’

Kenma Kuzome

it’s a sex thing-- it’s 100% a sex thing

a kink perhaps?

ngl he loves it when you do the voice in bed

like don’t ask why it turns him on so much

he’s weak for you whenever you do the voice tbh

BUT it’s only hot when you do it

when any other person does it - especially if it’s over text - he literally gags 🤢🤢🤢

when a streamer he watches does the voice, he’s just thinks ‘ew ✋ that isn’t cute. pls stop.’

but when you do it- boner alert pfft

especially when you moan in that voice yES HE LOVES THAT

you just execute it in a way these other bitches just can’t, okay? 💅 IUERBGFERIBG

he doesn’t mind putting the voice on sometimes if you like it when he does it but he’s really embarrassed by it 🙈

he’ll try to say something in the voice while you’re rearranging his guts for a change and you’re praising him like 👏👏👏 ‘awh, precious kenma bb.i love that voice on you, i might just let you cum early--’

and he’s fucking groaning from pain, pleasure and humiliation

‘never again.’ was the single coherent thought he could form

you’re only giving like 20% of the time but if you happen to giving on a day that you’re feeling especially evil, you might make him do the voice in exchange for orgasm privileges

but he gets you back for it though

you’d call him, whining and pleading for him to help you with the throbbing between your legs or at the very least, give you permission to touch yourself

but considering that the day prior, you had tortured his ass to the point were he was now struggling to sit down, ofc he was just like ‘no ❤’ when you ask for his assistance

even after your continuous begging, he didn’t budge

‘don’t you dare put your hands on yourself until i get home. i’m leaving right now so i should be back in half an hour but if you keep pestering me like a little bitch, then i’ll be sure to go extra slow on the highway.’

although, for kenma ‘extra slow’ is probably the speed limit lmao

(istg he drives like he’s in mario kart)

however, half an hour was just too long 😩 i mean, you had probably been on call with him for 5 minutes already and it took you 20 minutes to get him to pick up the phone so by now, you were clearly on the brink of madness

‘kitten~’ you whined, desperately trying to think of a way to convince kenma to aid you

then you remembered; his weak spot

‘pwease, baby?’ you softened and raised the pitch of your voice

kenma perked up as he realised what you were trying to do, the tips of his ears burning, ‘don’t bother to try that with me, (y/--’

‘i’ll suck you off when you come back.’ you promised, keeping the voice on, the aching getting worse and worse by the second

kenma was now partially able to relate to your circumstance as he began to feel a straining of his own, between his legs at your cutesy tone along with the image of the last time you blew him tormenting his mind

‘whatever. but only use your hands. i can tell when you use a toy so don’t even try; or else i’ll dick you down ‘til the sun rises- okay bye.’

atm the moment, that hardly sounded like a punishment but then you reflected back on how you’d be crying for a mercy after the fourth round with kenma so- yeah

anyway, moral of the story, if you perform the voice well enough, it’s basically kenma’s weakness so use it wisely

Hajime Iwaizumi

you first did the voice in front of him while you had a friend’s baby in your arms and you were trying to communicate with it

it kinda looked like

you: hewwo babyy~ who’s the most precious thing? you are!

the baby: 🤠

the parent: 🙂

iwa: 😶

iwa ON THE INSIDE: breeding kink go brrrr 😩 i want to put a baby in her so bad- she’ll scream my name in that fucking voice tonight

and he was right

cut to him pounding you while demanding that you say his name in ✨the voice✨ or else you won’t be allowed to cum

ofc you had too much pride for that so you just let him dick you down and cum whether he likes it or not but he could tell that was the plan you had in mind so he suddenly pulled out just as you were about to reach your high

he looked at you with a mean scowl, ‘fucking say it or i’ll stop right now.’

if he were to stop, it would kinda be a punishment for him too but he didn’t care- anything to see his lovely gf suffer tbh 😇

also he could get off to you fingering yourself, struggling to orgasm- he’s done it before and he’ll gladly do it again if you don’t say his damn name

‘iwa..’ you groaned, gripping at the sheets as you anticipated him sliding his cock back into you

‘in the voice.’ iwaizumi reiterated, delivering a hard smack to the side of your thigh out of annoyance

you hissed at the sharp impact , gulping to lubricate your dry throat before choking out in your best imitation of the voice he desired, ‘iwa~’

he was only half-satisfied with what you uttered but i mean, it got the job done

his dick was throbbing, practically begging for the comfort of your warm cunt once again so he hastily slipped back in, letting out a low groan as he did so

so he’d continue hammer you from behind, probably muttering incoherent things about your babies and your voice while doing so but you chose to pay little attention to it as you couldn’t help but focus on your own intense pleasure

once he finally climaxed, he did it inside you which you wasn’t surprising as y’all had already established that you love being being filled up and he loves filling you up 💕

but then he insisted that y’all go for another few rounds to increase the chance of pregnancy

like- sir-

you didn’t have the heart to tell him that you were on birth control

bc surely......he would’ve known

but he didn’t

you eventually told him that you had no interest in coming off birth control and he wasn’t mad LMAO he didn’t even want a baby tbh he was just caught up in the moment

yeah no but if you do the voice again, the cycle will continue

Wakatoshi Ushijima

you were both hanging out in your bedroom, doing your own things, and you were sending your friend a (video) snap so you ironically used the uwu voice

ofc this caught his attention so he shifted his gaze off of his revision sheets and onto you, shooting you a weird look

you couldn’t help but snicker, turning to him and continuing with your little impression, ‘can i hewp you?’ you tried to ask in all seriousness but you couldn’t suppress the smile that was tugging on the corners of your lip

were you a little high? yes

ushijima just blinked rapidly, wondering why you sound like a cuter version of mickey mouse all of a sudden

was it a trend?

or maybe it was for one of those ‘tiktoks’?

either way, ushijima couldn’t help what he said next

‘no. i’m fiwne.’

IUERSBGTOHAROHSGBGFRO

HE SAID IT LIKE ‘fi - whine’ THO

you passed away 💀⚰

‘TOSHI!!!’ you screamed, feeling your soul leave your body

ushijima gasped, thinking that you had just been possessed or sumn, ‘hm?’

once he realised that you were in fact sane, he figured that your reaction must have something to do with his response

‘did i say something wrong?’ his lips curling into the tiniest of smiles, simply because you looked so joyous so ofc he was he was happy seeing you happy

‘nope! please say it again, toshi! i’m beggin’ ya’

‘no.’

although he loved hearing you laugh more than anything, the man had his limits

ngl he doesn’t mind when you do it - it just doesn’t especially effect him, that’s all

you could just randomly start talking like that during a conversation and he’ll just go from 😐 to 😐

but he gets butterflies when you call him ‘baby’ which is something you usually pickup whenever you put on the voice lol <3

pls call him ‘baby’ or ‘babe’ more he just wants to feel cared for and loved for a change instead of always having to constantly put on a front of ‘big, stoic man with no feeling that you can push around to your hearts content’ around literally everyone. sometimes he just wants to come home and feel like he can actually express himself and be soft without getting ridiculed

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chosonore · 3 years

Text

part three | epiphany

epiphany [noun. a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand, or suddenly become conscious of, something that is very important to you ]

pairing: kamo noritoshi/f!reader

summary: your relationship with noritoshi was like a game of cat and mouse; no matter how hard you tried to escape from him, he would always find his way back to you.

wordcount: 9.1k

content/warnings: friends to enemies to lovers, language, angst, smut!!!!, dom!noritoshi, noritoshi is mean, oral sex, fingering, begging, edging, biting? (he gives u a bite like once), dry humping, riding, lowercase intended [UNEDITED]

a/n: i... will not comment on this. lmfao i can’t believe i wrote all of this filth. please have mercy on me, this is the first time i’ve every written smut and i’m not really good at it fhuewhiu (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄) i think this is the angstiest chapter by far but i promise, no more from the next chapter on! i hope you enjoy (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ will also add the series playlist to the masterpost so check it out if you wanna!

previous - masterlist - next

noritoshi watched as you angrily stormed out of the room, slamming the door forcefully. he leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. now you've gone and done it. the words came out harsh and hurtful, force of habit deeply engraved into his brain. never was it his intention to hurt you so deeply, to push you away. but it was the only way to protect you from his family. noritoshi was well aware that he was a mere pawn in the stupid game that the clans were playing. he was the golden child, only accepted into the family because of his cursed technique. the cruelty he experienced was something he would never forget. he seeked revenge, for his mother and himself. but this was his own problem to handle, not wanting to drag his mother or you into this mess.

for years, noritoshi had suffered quietly, his only motivation being the protection of his mother and you. rarely did he ever show any emotion, nor did he know many to begin with - but he knew he loved you. his suppressed adoration brought out ugly facettes of his personality: jealousy, frustration, anger. if his family ever caught wind of how much he loved and cherished you, it'd be the end for the both of you. he didn't doubt that they'd already arranged a partner for him to marry. noritoshi hated how they held onto traditions that had no place in this time any more. how they still engaged in these petty clan fights when now it was most crucial to stick together. he swore to himself, as soon as he would become clan head, everything was going to change. but until then, he had to get through this.

how much longer he could deal with this, he wasn't sure. it did bother him that you got so much attention from everyone else; it irked him even more to see that you flirted back sometimes, completely unaware of the effect you had on them. his heart yearned to be yours. as much as he didn't want to be selfish, he couldn't help but indulge. noritoshi still felt your lips on his, your smooth skin, how pliable you were in his arms and how you gave in, into him. was it unfair of him? he supposed so. if he ever got the chance to explain the entire issue to you, he would have to beg for your forgiveness, undoubtedly.

summer rolled around faster than you’d anticipated - it meant that you could finally get some room to breathe and just do nothing for a while. the third years had graduated a week prior, making you feel a little sad and wistful. you’d miss todo a lot now that he left the school but made him promise that he would drop by whenever possible. noritoshi however- you hadn’t spoken a word to him ever since that incident. it was frosty between the two of you, even the teachers had noticed and tried to not let you close to each other. while you hadn’t thought about him in a while, sometimes the thoughts were creeping up on you. some type of closure would have left you feel more at ease but having talked to your mum about the issue, it helped you move on. regardless of how he had made you feel, you would live your life for yourself now.

summer break was long and you didn’t have anything in particular planned - the two main events were your summer vacation with miwa as well as your training camp at tokyo tech. the spring tournament also had its good sides, you guessed, you were able to ask shoko and gojo to teach you over the summer. having witnessed shoko’s healing abilities first hand, you were hellbent to become as good as her. never again would you feel anxious and useless about your skills, you would become an excellent on field healer. you were looking forward to spending time with everyone there as well, especially since yuta was coming home for the summer break. you couldn’t shake the little crush you had on him, it creeped up on you whenever you talked on the phone or texted each other. subconsciously, you hoped that something would bloom out of it but hope was a fickle thing that could quickly turn into misery.

before you left for tokyo, you decided to visit your parents at the kamo estate, hoping that you wouldn’t run into noritoshi on your way there. as far as you knew, he was busy on missions, rarely ever coming home. you greeted the guard at the front entrance, making your way to your family’s little house near the outskirts of the estate. despite the uncomfortable atmosphere that was surrounding the entire estate, you still couldn’t help but fall in love with the gardens and sculptures over and over again. you couldn’t lie, growing up here was wonderful. deciding to make a little detour to the koi pond, you skipped towards the arch bridge. below you, the fish were happily swimming around, glimmering in all kinds of colours. you peered at them, leaning against the railing. as a child, you always liked to dip your feet into the water on hot summer days, promptly earning a disapproving glare from your mum. you always ignored her though, claiming that she couldn’t stop you from getting some kind of refreshment.

as you watched the koi and took in your surroundings, footsteps made you halt in your musings. one of the kamo elders must have gone on a stroll around the gardens; you whirled around to greet the person. your throat grew dry and constricted when you saw noritoshi walking towards you, looking so casual and carefree in his loosely tied yukata. should you greet him? after all, this place was his in some way. but your friendship (could you even call it friendship?) ended on a bad note, did you really owe it to him? neither of you made a sound until he stood next to you, leaning against the railing. you tried your best not to look at him and focused on the pond below you, staring so intensely that you thought you might have lasered some holes in the surface beneath you.

how much longer would you stand here? could you just leave? but then, wouldn’t it be even more awkward? not that you cared anyways. you hadn’t talked to each other in months. as you pushed away from the railing, noritoshi cleared his voice and turned his body towards you.

“y/n.”

you froze in your steps, looking at him like a deer in headlights. behind you, the wind was rustling up the leaves, adding to the tense and awkward atmosphere. you tried not to scream at him in frustration - it would only end up in yet another fight. yet, noritoshi looked strangely vulnerable in this state, seemingly not knowing what to say to you either. it appeared he simply spoke to you without considering how to further the conversation. he looked like he wanted to reach out to you but simply didn’t know how. you couldn’t fall for this - it had happened before.

“how have you been? i heard you’re going to tokyo tech for training,” he started after a moment of hesitation and gave you a wry smile. huh? you were confused. why was he asking you about this now? it was because of megumi and yuta, wasn’t it.

“it’s… it’s none of your business,” you said with a strained voice. even though you felt uncomfortable with his presence around you, you couldn’t take a step away from him. perhaps you were hoping for an explanation from his side. perhaps you were just relieved to see he was okay, after all the missions he’d already been sent on. “i don’t see how i owe you an answer after… everything that happened between us.”

noritoshi stayed silent, balling up his fists. “you’re right. i’m sorry,” he mumbled, hiding his hands in the sleeves of his yukata embarrassed. “i… i want to explain myself. at least as much as i can tell you and if you’re okay with it. can we move it somewhere more private? i don’t want any of the elders seeing us.”

you hesitated. on one hand, noritoshi sounded sincere but your history spoke for itself. and yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to deny him. like a moth to flames, you were always drawn to him. like the center of your universe, everything revolved around him. curiosity got the better of you, nodding before you could stop yourself. noritoshi let out a sigh in relief, stepping towards a more secluded area on the estate, one that you were very familiar with. as children, you used to spend time there a lot, hidden from your parents eyes and without any care in the world. the little corner was surrounded by tall cherry trees, adorned with smaller bushes and a little bench underneath the tree crowns. as noritoshi made his way there, he glanced behind him, making sure that you wouldn’t just leave him and vanish. true to your word, however, you trudged behind him and kept your distance. not once did you look him in the eyes, avoiding his gaze altogether. you were afraid it would make you weak in your resolve, walls crumbling and falling apart like paper mâché.

arriving at the bench, the two of you sat far apart, mirroring the distance between your hearts. you reminisced the old times, the memories making you queasy. whenever you spent time here as children, you would sit close to each other and read books together or just told each other stories. all that’s left was bitterness, heavy and suffocating on your tongue. “what is it that you wanted to tell me?” you questioned him, folding your hands on your lap. you were clenching your hands hard to keep them from trembling, not wanting to show him any weakness.

noritoshi was questioning his own resolve - he shouldn’t tell you anything, should’ve stayed away from you. the yearning was too strong; it was one of the few times he would ever get to see you again before being sent to yet another mission. noritoshi wanted to be selfish, to savour your presence until he was satisfied. maybe you would understand, at least a little bit. he didn’t expect you to forgive him, nor did he think you would let him crawl back into your space. but being close to you was enough.

“i know no amount of apologizing is going to make this better or even take the pain you’ve felt from my treatment but i want you to know that i’m really sorry. you didn’t deserve that whatsoever. i can’t tell you the exact reason why but- but i don’t want to leave you in the unknown any longer,” noritoshi recited his reasons so fast that you almost weren’t able to follow. with each word, your confusion visibly grew. but instead of feeling anger, as you should have, your heart grew heavier with disappointment. his confession was somewhat of closure but not quite. why couldn’t he tell you the reason? was it really so important? important enough to hurt you? you couldn’t understand and you didn’t want to.

“i don’t understand. why can’t you tell me? in case you didn’t realize yourself, this entire thing makes no sense. i don’t understand why you suddenly started hating me. we were close friends, we grew up together. are you telling me you never felt that way? that you weren’t and still aren’t able to trust me with this… reason? and why would you dump this onto me now? i would’ve been content not knowing anything at all,” you vented frustrated, sending him a glare. noritoshi was taken back by your outburst, gnawing at his bottom lip as he looked at you guiltily.

“i… fuck, i don’t know how to explain this without giving away too much, okay? i know it’s stupid but it’s complicated and i don’t want to drag you into this. i trust you, more than i trust anyone but this wasn’t… it wasn’t because i didn’t trust you,” noritoshi took a deep breath. “my entire goal was to protect you by keeping you away from me. and yeah, that was the only way.”

“but why-”

“now that i’ve left school, i’ll most likely be traveling a lot… i won’t be able to see you, let alone keep my eyes on you to make sure you’re okay. i just wanted to be fucking selfish for once, just needed to see you again. you don’t want to see me, i get it. i’ve been nothing but cruel to you and i don't expect you to ever forgive me. but i promise i'll make it up to you."

"noritoshi," you clenched your jaw, brows furrowed as you leaned over, jabbing your finger at his chest. "i don't want to play this game of cat and mouse with you. let's just stay away from each other, okay? nothing good comes out of it anyways. either you want me by your side or you don't, easy as that. you don't get to decide when to get back into my life just because you feel like it."

you just couldn't show him how hurt you were. whatever opening you would reveal, noritoshi would use it against you. he had always been and will always remain your weak point. you made peace with the fact that he was your first love but would probably not be your last. a dam broke inside you as you felt the warmth of his chest, memories flooding your senses. that day was long forgotten, exiled out of your memories until now. there was never a moment that allowed you to reflect on it. you couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to it and his confession had confirmed the suspicions. noritoshi wasn't the type to engage with people he strongly disliked, much less be intimate with them. there was more to it that he simply refused to disclose to you. you had to put an end to this endless circle - a clean cut until the two of you were ready to face each other again.

taking a deep breath, you withdrew your hand and clutched it to your chest. "this isn't going to work out the way it is. you keep pulling and pushing, without giving me an explanation and- and i'm tired of it. i'm tired of getting hurt. i used to like you a lot, i had a crush on you-"

"you what?" noritoshi visibly paled, unnoticeably inching closer to you. he never realized.

"-and i kept hoping that one day you would return the feelings. i'm a fool, for thinking we could ever get anywhere," you smiled bitterly, slowly getting up from the bench. "let's go back to being enemies, okay? pretend this never happened. it's obvious we need to grow as people, independently from each other. maybe it's good that we'll go separate ways… if fate wants it, we'll find back to each other. and hopefully by then, you'll have a good explanation."

conflicted, you didn’t take another step, staring down at him. he looked small and meek as he sat there with his usually broad frame hunched over and kept his eyes on the grass below him, fiddling with his fingers. as if sensing your gaze on him, noritoshi tilted his head to look at you. his mind was elsewhere, far far away. he didn't realize he was staring at you with blank eyes until you came closer and leaned down concerned. you were so close to him, he could almost feel your breath fanning across his skin. you liked him. noritoshi fucked up, majorly, and he felt like everything was slipping from his fingers. his carefully constructed walls, the mask he kept on at all times and the unwavering resolve to push through until he'd become the head of the clan, they all came crumbling down when you announced that you would leave for an indefinite amount of time.

"don't leave," the words came out like a whisper, barely audible in the chimes of the wind. your eyes widened ever so slightly at his words, heart clenching at the sight of such a vulerable noritoshi - a reflection of your 'toshi. he reached out to you, hesitantly glasping your hand in a weak grip. as if he was afraid, prepared even, that you would go anyways. "please," he pleaded a second later, intertwining your fingers with his. like the wings of a hummingbird, your heart was fastly beating at this display of intimacy. it made you feel warm and cold at the same time, filling you with dread and the looming fear of consequences.

but what would he do if his last source of hope would leave him? ever since his mum left, he sparsely had contact with her until the contact eventually ceased to be. never did she reach out to him or react to his attempts to rekindle the relationship. throughout his adolescent years he had lonely, the guilt gnawing at his conscience. if only he could be stronger, more resilient. stand up to the elders and stand tall and proud, being nobody else but him. you gave him hope, that he could someday return to you, even if it remained a simple friendship. a beacon of light would always be one as there was always light at the end of the tunnel. panic filled his head as he realized that you would abandon him and this time it would be final.

"i'm sorry, i'm sorry," noritoshi mumbled in a begging tone and slowly drew you closer, until you stood between his legs. his face was basked in the evening light, accentuating all the features you liked about him. his kind, steel blue eyes that harboured depths of emotion and mystery like a restless ocean. his long hair that flowed with the wind, not being wrapped up in the bindings for once. the wisps of hair that framed his slim face. it was an unusual sight, making your heart clench in melancholy. he looked so innocent like this, the gentleness in his facial expressions more visible now. as if feeling your resolve slipping away, he took the opportunity to wrap his arms around your waist and pressed his face in your chest, exhaling shakily and slowly. you let him, gently petting his hair.

underneath his breath, noritoshi murmured something. his voice was muffled in the fabric, making it difficult to understand what he was saying. you made a confused sound, leaning down slightly to better listen to him. not expecting him to move as well, you suddenly found yourself face to face with him and much closer than before. "i love you," he breathed out, pressing his lips against yours in a fluid motion. they felt scalding against yours, as if reminding you to stay away and yet soft, inviting you back in. finally gasping for air, you pulled away, fingers coming up to touch your tingling lips. noritoshi gave you a hopeful look, fingers dancing across the expanse of your back.

slowly, you backed away from him, avoiding his glance. you were in shock, not being able to process his confession. the entire confrontation had quickly escalated and you weren't able to follow. though the words made your heart clench, you couldn't help but feel like they were empty words. empty, simply thrown into the mix to elicit some kind of reaction from you. "i'm sorry, noritoshi. i- i can't return this, nor do i… i don't feel like i can believe you," you told him with a heavy heart. he opened his mouth, about to retort something when you cut him off. "please just let us move on from this, okay? i- i'll leave now." you sprinted away from him, tears stinging in your eyes. how could words that you've always wanted to hear hurt this much? how dare he play with your emotions like this, using your weakness to his advantage. he wasn't serious, and you were sure of it. there was no way in hell, after all those years that he'd spent being a menacing asshole.

love was a fickle thing but what was it between noritoshi and you? treading the line between love and hate, tilting more towards the other but not quite. never far apart and connected to each other like an invisible thread of fate was intertwined between you. it wasn't love and it wasn't hate but everything in between.

you stared at the piece of paper in your hands, mildly offended. how dare gojo? why would he do this to you? yeah right, because he liked to see you suffer. and he wasn't even here to get an earful from you. clenching your teeth, you tossed the note on your table and moved towards your closet to pack. it was no use complaining about it, in the end the mission had to be accomplished either way. years you'd gotten away with rarely ever meeting noritoshi. the sorcerer community wasn't big to begin with but with skill and determination, you were able to dodge every encounter. the handful of times you met, he always kept his distance though you always felt his watching eyes on you. megumi had told you that noritoshi was to become clan head soon - the elders had finally given in and the handover would be taking place soon.

apparently noritoshi had proven himself to them, both in strength and leadership skills. even you had taken notice of this. you'd only caught a brief glimpse at him at the last gathering but could tell that he had matured, exuding an authoritative and strong aura. but you had grown as well, no longer the meek girl you had been. you were more confident in your skills now thanks to your diligent training with shoko and yuta. moments of insecurity rarely entered your mind anymore. the relationship, or rather lack thereof, between you was rather frosty now, merely limited to an awkward greeting or a simple nod. the tension was palpable, no one wanted to come in the line of fire. for the most part, people had left you alone and not dared asking about the issue, not even your own mum. but of course, gojo then had to enter and send you on this stupid mission that apparently had to be done in pairs. you would’ve been fine with anyone but noritoshi.

it was a rather unpleasant curse that you had to deal with, gojo told you that it required two people to keep it in check. though you didn’t understand his reasoning, seeing as noritoshi was a grade one sorcerer now. gojo had simply left you a note on your door after he left for his own business (pure cowardice, in your opinion). the note let you know that you would be staying overnight, gojo had already booked a hotel room for you and gave you instructions for the report that you had to fill out later. you were to meet up with noritoshi at the hotel before then heading out to investigate, work out a strategy before attacking. you sighed, tossing the bag near the door before crawling in your bed. how would you face him again, for an extended period of time, after all those years of silence? it was best to just get it over and done with, efficiently and quickly. depending on how fast you were, you might even be able to catch the last train home. you couldn’t sleep, feeling restless and anxious about the entire situation. still, you closed your eyes, trying to get your mind to rest. but all that floated around in your brain was the sound of rustling leaves, accompanied with soft lips on yours.

coincidentally, noritoshi was already in the city the curse was situated at, deciding to then check into the hotel first before you’d meet up. he would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous - he didn’t know how to navigate the entire mission with minimal communication. he knew you didn’t want to talk to him, choosing to give him curt and snappy responses instead. cooperating was out of question, you disliked his presence and he could feel it. seeing that gojo had coordinated this (instead of doing the mission himself, like he was supposed to), noritoshi didn't expect anything to go well. weeks prior, gojo had pestered him about the title that was bestowed upon him. "so what's your first deed as the kamo clan head?" he had questioned noritoshi, grinning from ear to ear. noritoshi had shrugged and simply told him that he would go about his day. there were no plans, not yet at least. "so you're not gonna go and woo your lady?" this all knowing idiot. just thinking about it made his blood boil again.

noritoshi’s patience was already wearing thin upon seeing that gojo had booked one room for the two of you. with one bed only. he swore that gojo's secret skill was to give everyone headaches. complaining was useless, the hotel couldn't give him another room as everything was booked out due to it being the summer holidays. they'd deal with it somehow, even if he would have to sleep on the floor. noritoshi was placing his bag and outerwear in the closet when the door clicked, signaling that you'd arrived. for a brief moment, your eyes met but as soon as they did, your eyes had flitted somewhere else. you placed your bag on a nearby chair, rummaging in it until you found your sword and other supplies that you would be taking with you.

noritoshi remained silent, not wanting to upset you. he waited until you were ready to go, soundlessly following you. it was awkward but expected. at first, he was somewhat able to tell what you were looking for and gave you pointers in the right direction. it seemed to irritate you and you started venturing off on your own, simply leaving him behind. it frustrated him, after all you had a job to be done and needed to be as careful as possible. as a result of your uncooperativeness, it took longer than usual to map out a strategy. even longer because you refused to follow his suggestions and rather made up your own, knowing full well that they weren't as efficient.

the aftermath was… rather unpleasant. while there were no casualties, the two of you looked absolutely filthy and were in need of a good shower. noritoshi was angry, he didn't want to blame you but the entire situation got incredibly messy because of your stubborn head. hadn't you attacked him on your own, he would've been able to get rid of the curse swiftly. you'd snapped at him, asking him what his problem was. after all, the mission was finished and over with. involuntarily, noritoshi had to snort. you came back to the hotel late, far past midnight and still, you had the nerve to nag on him the entire way there. he'd let you use the shower first before hopping in himself. without a word you left the hotel room to grab yourself some snacks, stomach growling in protest.

noritoshi was seldom petty; as he put his robe on and entered the room, discovering that you hadn't come back yet, he promptly decided to give you a taste of your own medicine and stubbornly take the bed. what would you do about it now? he was peacefully reading a book in the dim lighting of the room when you came back. you almost dropped the snacks that you grabbed, narrowing your eyes at him. noritoshi ignored you, turning another page in the book unbothered. huffing in annoyance, you stomped over to the other side of the bed. noritoshi continued to ignore you.

"i'm not sharing a bed with you," you stated, crossing your arms in defiance. you didn't have any other solution but you were not going down without a fight.

noritoshi just narrowed his eyes at you and replied equally annoyed: "childish much, huh? just put some pillows between us if it bothers you that much. we're adults, for fuck's sake. and we've shared beds before, so i don't know what your problem is."

at this point you were fuming, you'd rather sleep on the floor than go anywhere near him. you wanted to wipe that stupid look off his face because you knew he was right and he knew it too. you were being childish and you couldn't deny it. there was no real reason to the quarrel, you wanted to be as insufferable as possible.

"it's different now!" you hissed indignantly. noritoshi looks at you incredulously, not getting your point. "you're a man now and- and it makes me uncomfortable!"

truthfully, it was more the fact that you were painfully aware of his presence now. noritoshi hadn't noticed but your feelings came crashing back in, filling the entirety of your being with yearning. each and every time he came too close, you dashed and didn't give him the opportunity to look at your face. the pained expression on your face was obvious, you weren't able to hide it. despite the hostility, you couldn't help but care. no matter how much you denied it, you would always habour feelings for him and were very much attracted to him.

"that's why i told you to put pillows between us??"

okay, that's it. "i can't stand being anywhere near you! you're a prick and i hate you," you snarled at him. to seal the deal, you hurled one of the pillows at him and watched triumphantly as it hit his chest. the angry look in noritoshi's eyes, however, told you that you fucked up. gritting his teeth, he tossed his book aside and lunged to grab you. you squeaked in surprise and wiggled out of his grasp, wrestling out of his arms until you stumbled and awkwardly landed on the bed, beside him. noritoshi keeps a tight grip on you, glaring down at you. now you've really crossed the line.

all confidence left your body when he hissed: "what. is. your. problem." you fucked up, royally. once noritoshi was mad, you were in for a ride. it was best to keep him in good spirits, appease him a little so he would ease up. you scrambled panicky and tried to apologize, pathetically wiggling in his arms.

"i'm sorry, i'm sorry! i didn't mean it, please let me go!"

noritoshi kept a steel grip on you, moving between your legs and pinning your hands to the mattress. his face inched closer, you could feel his breath fanning across your neck. you stayed still, breath hitched as you waited for his next move. noritoshi's voice was raspy, lilting with an emotion that you couldn't decipher. "you're being a brat, y/n. look at yourself, you've hurt me… tsk, how are you going to make it up to me?"

you couldn't tell whether he was joking or genuinely hurt - your intuition told you that he was simply playing with you as payback. no matter how far away you strayed, you always seemed to find yourself back in this position. he was hypnotizing, alluring even. not giving him a reply, you stared at the ceiling, frozen in thought. while you'd been intimate on more than one occasion, noritoshi had never acted this way. so… possessive and strict, the tone in his voice told you that he wasn't up for any more quarreling. you were at a loss for words.

noritoshi, not being happy with not receiving an answer, decided to take matters in his own hands. he nipped at your neck playfully, making you yelp in surprise before pressing kisses against your neck. your skin was tingling, shots of electricity moving up your spine. when there was no objection on your end, noritoshi took it was an okay to continue. hands squeezing yours, he resumes his work, giving you soft and almost unnoticeable kisses. other times, he was pressing harder, sucking your skin gently. you wondered whether he left some marks - delirious on pleasure, your mind focused back on him.desire overtook you, no longer was your rationality at the forefront. in the depths of your heart, an emotion that rarely made an appearance emerged. it was flooding your senses, your conscious and mind, begging you to give in.

by the time noritoshi reached your lips, you were writhing. you expected him to kiss you but then he stopped, making you involuntarily whimper. you wanted more, wanted to savour it. a small smile found its way onto his lips as he brushed your hair back and cupped your chin, making you look at him.

and you swore that he knew, he just had to know what a mess he's already made of you in such a short amount of time as he asked, "what's wrong hm? what do you need, baby?" you fell for it, hook line and sinker. you thought to yourself, fuck it, the opportunity was right there. he may be an insufferable dick and you might fight more than you get along but the opportunity was there and god, did you want to be selfish. for just one night, you wanted to be his. you leaned up to kiss him but noritoshi pulled back, clicking his tongue, repeating again and this time more firmly, "what do you need?"

you couldn't help but stare at him, how his slightly damp hair framed his face, his chest that was exposed by the loosely tied bathrobe and how it revealed parts of his thigh. you wanted to see more of him, touch him. there was a burning feeling inside your chest, it was clawing at your skin, trying to break free. you grew more restless as he stayed still and gave you a stern look until you grasped the hem of his sleeves and whimpered quietly, "please kiss me."

it felt like an eternity until he pressed his lips against yours, everything that was so unmistakably him flooded your senses. his scent wrapped around you until your brain couldn't make out any more coherent thoughts other than him. 'toshi, 'toshi, 'toshi, your 'toshi. he moved so languidly; his lips were warm and soft but bruising at the same time, kissing you with fervour. you began to ease into the kiss, letting go of all your inhibitions. you could worry about it later, you'd decided, this is a future you problem. you wiggled in his hold, hands coming up to push at his bathrobe. noritoshi didn't budge and continued to kiss you, sucking your bottom lip - your hands became more restless, desperate to touch him. he made an unenthused noise, biting your bottom lip as if warning you to not push him. still, he somehow obliged and sat back on his heels, taking his bathrobe off and throwing it haphazardly to the side.

he looked ethereal, somewhere in the distance you thought you can hear angels singing. you reached out to touch him again, earning you yet another warning glance from him. “where do you get the confidence to do whatever you want after that little stunt you pulled earlier?” he questioned you in a low voice. whatever snarky remark you had on your tongue was thrown out of the window when noritoshi leaned down to touch you, slowly pushing your oversized shirt up to reveal your shorts, then your bra.

your breath hitched in your throat, you couldn't tell what he was thinking because even in this state he kept his perfect poker face on. and when he undressed you, you almost felt embarrassed of how eager you were to rid yourself of your clothes. yet you felt exposed - noritoshi didn't make a sound as he just studied you as if you were a luxurious meal presented on a silver plate, the sound of his breathing alone making you squirmish. he didn't give you the satisfaction of a compliment nor did he let you know what he thought, instead leaning down to kiss you again.

before you could deepen the kiss, he’s already moved down to your neck. you mewled in disappointment, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your hands in his hair. this time, he let you touch him, too absorbed in his mission to paint the skin of your neck in hues of red and purple. noritoshi moved lower when he was finally satisfied with his work of art, you’re a great canvas, he thought to himself. the burning feeling in your chest was flaring up again, you felt uncomfortably hot and the only relief you got was him touching you. he must know, he was doing this on purpose. you were convinced. a surprised gasp left your lips when his tongue swiped across your nipple before wrapping his lips around it. his fingers flicked the other one and- oh god did it feel so electrifying, so delicious, so good. you moaned his name, gently tugging on his hair as he continued his ministrations. “noritoshi,” you whimpered, trying to grind against his thigh. “please- please touch me.” he moved faster than you could react, snapping the waistband of your panties against your skin.

“i am touching you,” noritoshi responded matter-of-factly, cupping your breasts. “is this not enough?” you shook your head, making him chuckle. he took his sweet time, lathering your chest with the utmost attention. at this point you were sure you’d soaked through your panties and onto the sheets and you were desperate. finally, his lips left your nipple, his breath grazing them, making you shiver. he seemed to enjoy it, enjoy the effect he has on you, how you were writhing for him and him only. with swift movements, he removed your panties and your legs were thrown over his shoulders - how are his shoulders so broad - and he pressed kisses to your inner thighs. “look at you,” he cooed, glancing up at you. “you’re so wet for me and i haven’t even touched you here yet. are you craving me?”

“yes,” you mewled truthfully, wiggling your hips slightly. you missed how his face lights up in delight, loving how you’re slowly but surely coming undone for him. he was placing kisses everywhere but where you wanted him, where you needed him. you were at his mercy, he alone decided the pace. the desperate little tugs at his hair left him unbothered, you couldn't even move properly because he was keeping a tight grip on your hips, holding them down onto the mattress. “do you want me?” you nodded quickly. “then beg.”

"i'm not- i'm not gonna fucking b-" you didn't get to finish your sentence as noritoshi gave your inner thigh a bite.

"language," he hissed in irritation. "we can do this all night, baby. i don't have any qualms about keeping you here, making you squirm until you know not to treat me like that." to emphasize his threat, his hands languidly stroked your inner thighs, inching closer to your heat. goosebumps raised across your skin. noritoshi paid no mind to your laboured breathing or how you stared at him in disbelief. you would not beg him more than this, this stupid asshole, who did he think he is to expect you to do as he says? as if sensing that your attention wasn't on him anymore, one of his hands reached up to pinch your nipple.

you felt his fingers grazing your pussy, flicking over your clit but not quite touching it. yet the pleasure, coupled with the sharp pain of his pinching, was enough to make you delirious. you moaned his name, hips rutting up slightly to meet his hand. noritoshi pulled away abruptly and made you whine in frustration. "noritoshi!" you whimpered again, closing your eyes in embarrassment. "please just- just touch m-"

you felt another, harder pinch, tingles shooting straight to your core. "look at me," noritoshi growled and you opened your eyes quickly, not wanting to disappoint him again.

"please touch me, please just… i need you, need your lips or fingers," you struggled to find the right words, huffing in frustration at your weak attempt to persuade him. "please make me cum, please. i'll be good for you, i promise, i promise. wanna be good for you."

a sardonic smile graced noritoshi's lips, your begging music to his ears. he almost wished you could see yourself like this - the yearning evident in your eyes, your glossy eyes. what would you say? how quickly your resolve had crumbled, even though you'd vowed to yourself to keep him at an arm's length away from you. what was more heavenly to his ears are your moans and he intended to draw every last bit out of you tonight.

when his tongue finally made contact with your cunt, a loud moan leaves your lips, you almost sob in relief. your thighs trembled slightly, threatening to close but noritoshi was quick to pry them open and delved deeper into your heat. he alternated between lapping at your folds, then dragging his tongue across your clit before giving it a suck. your hips rocked against his face, meeting his movements as if it was already second nature to them. you thought you were seeing stars when you inched closer to your climax. tugging at his hair you whimpered out his name, letting him know that you're close, so close. that's when he pulled away, smirking at you as your high slowly ebbed away. you made a noise in protest, brows pinching in frustration but noritoshi just cooed at you condescendingly.

"you seem to forget who's in control here," he tsked at you, dragging his thumb across your clit. your hips jerked. "but, baby, you look so pitiful, i might just feel sorry for you."

hope sparked in your eyes when he pressed a brief kiss to your lips before slipping his fingers past your folds, his thumb drawing circles on your clit. "ride my fingers," he commanded and you reacted immediately, eagerly rutting against his fingers. you missed the dark glint in his eyes, the look that tells you you were not easily let off the hook whatsoever. pleasure was clouding your judgement, heightening your sensitivity to his touch. a loud moan fell from your lips when noritoshi curled his fingers, hitting a spot that otherwise was difficult for you to reach. your hand came up to cover your mouth, too embarrassed about other guests possibly hearing you.

noritoshi withdrew his fingers, thumb pressing against your clit. you gasped desperately, pawing at his chest to plead him to continue. "i want to hear you. don't you dare hide your moans," he told you, only sliding his fingers back into you when you complied. noritoshi was still kneeling, watching as you moved your hips against his fingers with fascination. while you'd kept a steady rhythm at the beginning, it was getting more and more sporadic. you were close again, noritoshi could tell. and yet it wasn't enough, he had to get you closer to the edge to then break you after.

"o- oh fuck," you cursed, gripping the sheets tightly as noritoshi moved his fingers, repeatedly hitting the spot that made your toes curl. you were to close, you could cum, soon-

"noritoshi!" a frustrated sob resounded from you as he pulled away, looking down at you with a satisfied smirk. your hands came up to wipe the tears that were welling in your eyes. you bit your bottom lip to keep yourself from crying as you watched him pop his fingers in his mouth, licking your essence from them. the sight alone made you feel hot and bothered. in the dim light of the room, noritoshi looked downright sinful. the way his broad frame was casting a shadow over your form, his glistening eyes, the sheen of sweat on his body and how his hair was hanging in his face.

"please let me cum, please! i- i want you so bad, want you in me… noritoshi, please give me it," you begged quietly, crawling towards him. noritoshi felt his heart soften at your cute face - you were so easy to read, he enjoyed teasing you. small hands reached out for the bulge in his boxers, experimentally pressing and nudging at it. noritoshi hissed uncomfortably; he was painfully hard and ready to cum as well but he couldn't, not yet. wanted to play with you more, mapping out the entirety of your body until he memorized how you reacted to his touch.

swiftly flipping positions, he pulled you on top of him, placing you directly above his crotch. you sank down immediately, sighing shakily as you pressed your cunt against the bulge. the boxers had to come off, they were the last barrier. you had to feel his skin on yours, wanted to be closer. noritoshi's hands shot out to stop you, giving you a warning look. you understood, withdrawing your arms to rest on your sides. pressing his bulge against you, he guided your hips to move against it, folds dragging across the fabric of his boxers. the friction was delicious, especially when he rutted against you, pressing against your clit. it took you a few tries until you figured out a comfortable rhythm, placing your hands against his chest as you moved on your own.

noritoshi kept his eyes on you. brushing your hair out of your face so he could get a better look at you, he then rested them near your thighs. "are you close?" he inquired when your movements became quicker and you nodded in reply, giving him a pleading look. he raised his eyebrows at you, shaking his head ever so slightly. "you don't get to cum without my permission."

he could see the conflict and hesitation, dancing in your eyes, how you were contemplating to go against his commands. noritoshi's heart filled with pride when you slowed down, thighs trembling from the restraint you kept on yourself. "good girl," he rewarded you, leaning up to kiss you. you whimpered against his lips, wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him closer. you were a sight to behold, noritoshi mused. slick spread across the fabric of his boxers and your thighs, kiss-bruised lips and the love bites that were blooming across your chest. he was proud to be able to have this effect on you.

it didn't take long until you were close again, this time begging and pleading him to let you continue. noritoshi supposed he toyed around enough, ready to give you what you were so desperately craving. lifting you up slightly, he pushed his boxers down and reached to the side, fumbling with the drawers of the night table before being able to pull out a condom. you watched in curiosity, as he put it on then lined his member up against your pussy. he dragged the head of his cock against your clit a couple of times, making you jump in surprise before letting you sink down. a long, relieved moan left your lips as you felt him fill you up to the brim. you'd never felt this full and good. jerking your hips against his slightly, your legs trembled as he perfectly hit that spot inside you effortlessly. his name fell from your lips like a mantra, letting everyone know that he was the one pleasuring you.

noritoshi let you adjust to him before wrapping his arms around you to keep you in place, driving his hips up against yours in an almost punishing tempo. your lips parted in a silent scream, no sounds leaving them other than heavy breaths. "f- fuck, noritoshi! i'm so close, please let me have it, please-" you begged sobbing. you didn't think you could survive another edging, it would utterly crush you. knowing that you were at his mercy, you complied with his orders. never had you felt this much pleasure, with anyone. noritoshi accomplished what others could never - setting your nerves ablaze with a simple touch.

"cum for me." your orgasm washed over you like a tsunami, leaving you writhing in his arms until you rode it out. noritoshi continued to move against you in a languid tempo, lovingly pressing kisses across your face. you slumped against his body exhausted, aftershocks still wracking through your body. he stroke your back gently, giving you a short kiss. "can you take another one?" he asked, making you look at him. though your mind was hazy, you could tell that he was caring, wanting to make you feel as comfortable as possible despite his mean side. you nodded, your words slurred as you told him: "mhmm, still want you, all of you."

noritoshi was laying you on the mattress, freezing mid-way as he hovered above you. could it be? there was no way. he brushed the thought off quickly, leaning down to kiss you. you sloppily returned the kiss, blindly moving your hands around until you found his, intertwining them happily. swiftly, he entered you again - now taking his sweet time. the pace was slow but filled with force, making you see stars. you wrapped your legs around his waist, heels digging into his skin. you blinked in confusion as noritoshi whispered sweet nothings into your ear. tears welled up in your eyes as you looked at him - you wanted him, so so much that it hurt you. you imagined you weren't in this situation, that this was simply intimacy between lovers. that you were his and he was yours, with no care in the world.

driving his hips against yours faster now, you could tell that he was close. lifting your hips to meet his movement, you whimpered against his lips. you wanted to pleasure him as much as he did you. the sight of his screwed shut eyes, panting heavily as he came, it nearly knocked the wind out of your lungs. noritoshi buried his face in the crook of your neck, whimpering quietly as he thrusted a few more times before coming to a halt. for a few minutes, you remain in this position, basking in the afterglow. he removes himself from you, telling you to stay put as he left to get some wet towels from the bathroom. as you laid there, your cunt wasn't the only thing that felt empty.

your eyes were glossing over and you were once again reminded of the fact that you couldn't have him. that he’s not your ‘toshi. you sat up slowly, spotting the mirror across the room. you stared at your reflection in your mirror, horrified at all the marks noritoshi had left behind and suddenly it dawned on you that you don’t understand why. you didn't care about each other - why would he mark you like this? your heartbeat sped up at the thought of him possibly, maybe, returning your feelings. that he wasn't just toying with your feelings to get back at you.

noritoshi returned, giving you a small smile as he signaled you to lift your arms a little so he could wipe you down. the gentleness in his actions made you sniffle emotionally; he paid attention to every single detail, making sure not to miss a spot. once done, he placed the towel on the nearby chair then returning to wrap you in the blankets and cradling you against his chest like a baby. the sound of his breath nearly lulled you into sleep. you leaned against his chest, sinking into the blankets. "are you okay? was i too rough?" noritoshi asked after a moment of silence. you didn't reply. why was he acting like this? as if you were a couple, as if he really cared.

"y/n? you don't have to reply, but at least give me a hand sign, so i know you're okay," he repeated again, looking at you with furrowed eyebrows. you turned your head away from him, trying to hide your tears. it wasn't long before you started crying uncontrollably, hiding your face in your hands. noritoshi started panicking, fussing over you and tried to pry your hands away so you would look at him. repeatedly shaking your head, you pushed him away from you.

"w- why couldn't you always be this gentle to me?" the words finally left your mouth, accusatory. "i- i didn't deserve any of this treatment and i still struggle to understand why it happened. i should hate you, hate you so much and yet i don't? why can't you love me the way i love you?"

speechless, noritoshi pulled away from you, arms sinking to his sides. it made you sob even harder, thinking that he was going to leave you again, like he always did. he never stayed, only came to wreck havoc, leaving you to pick up the pieces. "y/n, i'm sorry, i-" he drew you in, pressing you against his chest. you were confused at your own outbreak of emotions, not sure how to calm down. "i'm not sure what you thought, but i meant it when i told you that i love you, all those years back," noritoshi mumbled, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

you shook your head vehemently. "i don't believe that, not for one second. you've hurt me for so long and suddenly you had a change of heart?"

"i know it's hard to believe, but i promise i'm not lying. i do love you. with all my heart," noritoshi lifted your chin slightly, wiping the tears from your eyes. gently, he kissed you. "back then, i wasn't able to tell you but… things have changed now and i'll tell you, okay? but not now, tomorrow-"

"no! you'll just leave again and act like nothing happened and i-" you panicked, clinging onto him as dread washed over you again. he was going to leave again, the mission was over after all and you'd go separate ways again.

"i'm staying." noritoshi said firmly, holding your hands so you couldn't flail around anymore. "i'm not leaving you, okay? go to sleep, i know you're exhausted… when you wake up, i'll be there. we'll discuss things in the morning."

"promise?"

"i promise."

you didn't know why but this time, you trusted him. at least a little bit more than before. nodding slightly, you pressed your small frame against his. noritoshi's calming scent wrapped around you, lulling you into sleep. he watched as you fell asleep in his arms, pressing a kiss to your forehead before he settled as well, closing his eyes.

"i love you, y/n."

p.s.: i hurt myself writing this too haha but i swear this was it with the angst

#jujutsu kaisen #noritoshi kamo #kamo noritoshi #noritoshi #noritoshi x reader #noritoshi kamo x reader #kamo noritoshi x reader #noritoshi kamo x you #noritoshi x you #kamo noritoshi x you #noritoshi kamo imagines #kamo noritoshi imagines #noritoshi imagines #jujutsu kaisen imagines #fic: sanguine #writing

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unproduciblesmackdown · 2 years

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i was kind of processing how the interaction between winston & rian is fascinating in 6x04 wherein that’s like, the one time we’re closest to something like rian trying to insult / shut down winston & ending up walking it back for any reason?

like in just the episode prior you have winston saying “your taunts don’t hurt me anymore” which seems to speak to a) they do & have hurt him & b) he thinks she thinks that’s the point such as that c) if he claims he’s not hurt, he thinks she might stop (where you know, the fact he’s maybe actively trying to stop it & the fact when she immediately gives him shit again anyways he is Put Out also means her taunts Do hurt him anymore) and while the scene ends with rian & winston seemingly totally amicable again / interacting constructively / validatingly enough, it doesn’t seem like rian’s been dissuaded from insulting winston on purpose for fun, much less when she just kind of does it more neutrally or out of annoyance

but here it’s that she clearly means the whole “oh, i guess that’d be you” bit as a Sarcastic Shutdown but then winston responds to it as if she’s in earnest & responds earnestly himself (like sidenote, do love how it’s a “we get it, you’re nonchalant” moment with him walking over like Clearly he has this all planned out how he’s gonna Coolly & Casually offer his algorithmic services to make himself useful to rian so they can hang out over interests maybe =] & then when he thinks rian’s responding positively / with enthusiasm he immediately gets more open/spontaneous/sincere himself with a breathlessness such that this feels similar to 5x07 for me lol)

and once she realizes he’s taken it as a positive response both in like, the affirmative & her mood in delivering it, sure seems like this is where she actually walks this [pwn him / hurt him on purpose] response back & becomes more earnest herself & like, even if this is given & taken as an extensive “haha but no really you can’t come with me to help pack” a) it’s still like, more of a genuine exchange ft. her Again giving him plenty of further info about a personal interest (again comparing it to 5x07) & b) it becomes more general like, rather than an individual rejection of him, she’s explaining why she doesn’t want Any help or company.

just the “oh bud. buddy” like when has anyone ever lmfao. & sure it might be yknow oh Figure Of Speech / itself slightly sarcastic or exaggerated for humorous effect but like. not entirely, & her bothering to Correct him does seem amicably meant enough, even if she’s still making sure to tell him like no, no help or company. she doesn’t make sure that it’s Personal Rejectiony enough or comes with any further insults or anything, & again just seems to shift to this more earnest & spontaneous & Conversational approach from her as well.

like Fascinating because if she tries to hurt him, and he Gets that immediately & is hurt, she’s completely neutral about this or else feels Rewarded b/c she’s maybe entertained by successfully needling him or punishing him for being himself the way other people do mostly out of mere annoyance, not b/c they find it That fun to treat him contemptuously for its own sake (although see: shared negative opinion fastest social bond, naturally) or like “on principle” like no cringe nerd can go unpunished b/c then how can we all justify adhering our entire identities to these Rules about how to behave to be superior to others or at least tolerated....but if winston Doesn’t get that, & instead gets his hopes up, Then she feels motivated to Fix the situation and issue disclaimers more straightforwardly / like this is a friend or simply person she’s amicable towards she’s talking to, who she Doesn’t want to hurt for fun?

and who knows, this Could be interpreted as like, points towards “when rian insults / discourages winston it’s always completely In The Moment impulse,” certainly have noted how she might not notice Consequences b/c a) winston is in fact visibly negatively affected but he’s also always having to roll with things, so she might assume it’s fine actually & b) other people give winston shit, including both her (then) bosses right in front of her, repeatedly, on her first day on the job & her first time meeting winston, & c) other people who see her giving winston shit do not react to this, & related to (a), d) winston hasn’t particularly had a bigger reaction than that “your taunts don’t hurt me anymore” one, or if not necessarily more noticeable, simply more of a permanent shift than being disheartened but potentially restored to neutrality / amicability by the end of the same scene based on nothing in particular but the passage of twenty seconds or so....so here’s just an instance where maybe rian having to recalibrate because her initial [pwn him] approach didn’t work as planned is enough of a disruption that that impulse to pwn him is now not relevant, and she’ll simply talk to him, and in fact possibly talk to him in such a way as shows him some more like, basic consideration for his being a person lol, certainly further consideration for his feelings than “oh i’m trying to hurt them,” b/c the “oh bud, buddy,” section of what she says is hardly hostile or particularly insulting like, at all

idk Again it’s just fascinating when it’s like jeez do none of the instances of winston outwardly expressing through face journey or dialogue that he’s hurt discourage rian from insulting him / make it less rewarding to keep giving him shit over nothing or anything, where the answer is Apparently No, So Far, but when he’s Not hurt b/c he misunderstood & he responds more positively for it, suddenly she starts acting like she’s actually trying to Avoid hurting him. which is certainly interesting. like, is it secretly that if he can defeat her Impulsive Response to try to get a negative response from him, that’s enough to break through to this more earnest version of the interaction where actually she cares enough to try to Walk It Back so that he’s not actually That hurt? idk. really Of Interest though when there’s no other moment quite like it.

#winston billions #intents & purposes:#riawin #not like interpreting w/e ppl say as if it was said in earnest & responding entirely matter of factly can't be this whole like defensive #strategy anyways; sure can apply to winston....here he seems to sure simply misunderstand her / immediately interpret it as earnest but #guess if he kept responding that way On Purpose maybe the pwns could be transformed into [rian remembers he's a person]#even a person she seems to nonzero like at all....she can be entirely like ''oh we're on a sympathetic wavelength'' as the approach sometime #so why not also Anytime....

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bcdrawsandwrites · 4 years

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Here’s my next entry for @badthingshappenbingo! Just one prompt left after this!

I AM NO LONGER ACCEPTING PROMPTS! The single-bone marks on the card indicate which prompts I have received and am going to write, and I finally have prompts that will earn me a bingo once they’ve been posted (but they’re not posted yet)!

This fic has also been posted to FFN and AO3, so you can check it out on my Assortment of Broken Bones collection on there if you like!

This prompt was suggested by @actingwithportals! I went with a slightly different interpretation, since I don’t really want to hurt Miguel. XD; Hope you enjoy!

Prompt: Outnumbered in a Fight Characters: Miguel, Abel, Abuelita (post-movie, pre-epilogue)

---~~~---

"Abel?"

Miguel's cousin looked up from his textbook—he was studying for a big test, and Miguel hated to bother him, but he was pretty sure this was going to drive him crazy if he didn't ask for help. "Um... could you... help me with a computer thing?"

Abel made a face, tossing his textbook across the table. "Sure. Can't be worse than studying for history, I guess."

Grinning, Miguel hurried off to the living room where an old computer sat in the corner, a pair of more modern headphones hooked up to it. The latter was a very recent addition, purchased shortly after the music ban was lifted. Before then, their computer had no sound at all—the speakers had immediately been tossed as soon as they'd acquired it. Now that it was equipped with headphones, many of the Riveras had been taking advantage of it... which was the problem.

"Look at this," Miguel said, waving a hand at the monitor as he scrolled through Youtube.

Abel squinted at the monitor. "Okay... What am I looking at?"

"Look, it's all history videos... I think those are from Papá, and... and a few music things I like, but there's also..." Miguel made a face. "Makeup tutorials." He scrolled past several recommendations with particularly atrocious thumbnails—clearly things recommended to their Tía Gloria.

"Huh. So...?"

"Could you... show me how to sign up? So it can recommend me the things I want? I think I'm gonna go crazy if I have to see another makeup tutorial."

"That's all?" Laughing, Abel gently shoved Miguel away from the computer and took a seat. "Sure, if that's what you want. But uh..." He glanced around the family room—no one else was there at the moment. "Don't let anyone know I did this for you, all right? You're kinda slightly too young to sign up."

"Pff, just by a month," Miguel argued.

With that settled, he watched as Abel guided him through making an email address (Miguel chose the name "GuitarraYZapatos05"), and, through there, set him up with an account. "And... there," Abel said, slipping off the stool. "You're all done. Just log off whenever you're done."

"¡Gracias!" Miguel slid back onto the stool, and Abel left him to browse the site.

Eagerly he put the headphones on and typed a song into the search bar—he'd known how to navigate the website for some time now, even before the ban had lifted, thanks to his friends showing him videos on occasion when he visited their houses. It was a lot nicer to be able to do it whenever he wanted—looking up songs he'd heard in the plaza and watching videos of people playing them. It was a great way to learn to play the songs, since he'd taught himself to do it by sight. Not to mention, he was discovering a lot of new songs this way (though he sheepishly had to skip over songs every so often—ones he was pretty sure if Abuelita ever heard the lyrics to, she would re-ban music... or at least computers, anyway).

For a good hour or so Miguel listened to different songs, at first paying attention to the videos, and then simply losing himself to the music, shutting his eyes and letting the next videos autoplay. This worked out fine for a while, but then...

"What color is the sky, ay mi amor, ay mi amor!"

Miguel jumped back, nearly tipping backwards off his stool, headphones going askew as his heart hammered in his chest. Even then, he could still hear the familiar voice, and the face on the screen was...

It was a friendly looking face, singing on a stage in front of many adoring fans. Occasionally the man would stoop down to sing a particular line to a girl in the audience, who would swoon over him as he winked. But the last time Miguel saw that face, saw that person, he hadn't looked nearly so friendly.

You're not going anywhere!

He could still feel himself held up by the front of his shirt, yanked closer as the eyes of the man—the one who had once been his hero—glared poison into him.

I am the one who is willing to do what it takes to seize my moment... whatever it takes.

"The loco that you make me, it is just un poco crazy!"

The fact that both the terrifying skeleton in his memory and the friendly-looking man in the video were the same person made Miguel feel sick, panicked, and very, very angry. Frantically he clicked several times on the screen to get the video to pause, and scrolled away so he didn't have to look at the man's face anymore. He wrapped his arms around his stomach, shuddering, wishing he could make the memory go away. If anyone deserved to be forgotten, it was Ernesto de la Cruz.

Once the panicked pounding of his heart finally calmed, he looked back at the screen. At first he'd thought that he should sign off for now—that was certainly enough videos for the day, and he felt like playing the real versions of his Papá Héctor's songs so he could get Ernesto's voice out of his head. But then something caught his eye, something he hadn't been paying attention to until now:

OMG, I love Ernesto! he's so flirty here lol

73 people got a bell dropped on their head

this is my favorite DLC song! he has so many good ones though, what a legend

I still have this one on a record. Ernesto himself signed the sleeve! It's my prized possession.

Comments—hundreds of comments, nearly all of them praising Ernesto for his looks, for what a great person he was, for "his" songwriting talent. Miguel felt his face flush in anger as he read more and more of them, all of these people who thought that Ernesto was the songwriting genius, and not his Papá Héctor...!

A part of him recalled that it had only been a month since Dia de Muertos, and the word hadn't gotten out to everyone yet, but it didn't make him feel any less angry. Seeing all of these people praise the man who had killed his great-great-grandfather and then tried to kill him not once, but twice was unbearable.

Unable to stand all the positive comments directed at this man, Miguel quickly found where he could leave a comment of his own, and began typing (a slow process with one finger—he hadn't learned to type properly yet):

Ernesto is the worst musician!! He stole all his songs! Theyre not his! Hes not a real musician!!!

Still fuming, he hit the reply button, and sat back on his stool. One comment probably wouldn't do a whole lot against the hundreds of people fawning over Ernesto here, but he'd thought it might make him feel better to say something.

A notification popped up at the bottom of his screen—someone had... replied to his comment?

Lol, what? Chill out. I'm sorry you don't like the greatest musician of all time.

What? No, that wasn't...! Frustrated, Miguel typed up another reply: Hes not!!! Hes a fraud!!! Hes not a real musician at all!

To his surprise, even more comments came in, this time from several people within moments of each other:

sure, Ernesto is a fraud, just like Elvis, right?

you!!! need to use more!!!! exclamation points!!!!!!

lmfao did you create this account just to troll a DLC video uploaded 7 years ago?

Great, now everyone was making fun of him... but it wasn't funny—Ernesto really did steal all of his songs, and... He shook his head—this wasn't fair. He typed up another reply to the thread (making sure to use fewer exclamation points, if they were going to make fun of him for it): Im telling the truth! He stole all his music from my greatgreat grandpa. He wrote all the songs Ernesto sang including this one.

OMG. OMGGGGG.

no actually dcl is my great great uncle and he told me hmself he wrote all these songs and that if I ever met youtube user ""guitarrayzapatos05" i should tell him that he screwed ur mom

Guys I think this is a kid......

Geez I always hear people say they're related to DLC (wouldn't be surprised, the man supposedly slept around like a rabbit) but this is the first I've heard someone say he stole from their relative. We've got a new nutjob conspiracy theory, fellas.

Adsfjsdflasjfsda;lfjlsajslfdjlds;adj

Miguel wasn't entirely sure what some of this stuff meant, but he did know all these people were mocking him, and with every new reply he felt the anger build in his chest, though his cheeks also felt hot with embarrassment—why was everyone ganging up on him like this? Your all making fun of me! But Im telling the truth!! Ernesto is a bad person and a bad musician! He really did steal from my greatgerat Grandpa!!

He stole from my greatgerat Grandpa too.

Lol how long do you plan to keep this up kid?

Listen, if DLC really did steal his music, we would have heard about it by now. He died almost a century ago. You don't think people haven't looked into this?

he ded 75 years ago moron

omg do u ever shut up

At least one person was being civil with him, but even then they were wrong. Still, Miguel had no idea what to say—his family was still fighting to get this case to the news, but with Mamá Coco having recently passed and his baby sister nearly here, they hadn't had a lot of time to work on it. But maybe he could bring something else up. He typed as fast as he could, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes:

I know he stole it! I found out when I went to the Land of the Dea—

The screen went dark.

Miguel sat there for a moment, stunned, before he heard a slobbery chomping noise coming from beneath the desk. Looking down, he spotted a familiar tail poking out near his stool. "Dante!" he cried, hopping down to yank the dog away.

As he suspected, the power cord was in the dog's mouth, and he was chewing on it lazily.

He was normally used to Dante getting in the way of things, but he felt angrier than normal at the dog. "No! No! Bad dog!" he cried, and swatted Dante on the nose.

The dog whined, immediately dropping the cord and squirming away from Miguel's grasp.

"S-stupid dog, wha'd you do that for? I was just trying to tell them about—!"

"What's going on in here?"

Both Miguel and Dante turned around to see Abuelita hurrying into the room. "I-it's nothing, Abuelita," Miguel said, and frantically wiped at his face.

Abuelita crossed her arms, looking from Miguel, to Dante, to the computer. "Nothing, huh! Is that computer box giving you trouble?"

"I—no, it's... it's not that..." He winced as Dante licked at his face and pushed him away.

"Don't give me that. It must be something, if it's got you so upset."

Abel's voice came from the hallway: "Ummm... did something happen?" Stepping into the room, he blinked at the monitor. "Huh, why's it—WOAH!" Quickly he got down on his hands and knees, grabbing the partially-chewed power cord and plugging it back in. Hitting the "on" button on the machine, he heaved a sigh of relief when the computer began to boot up again. "Geez, I thought you'd broken it."

"Oh, is that all?" Abuelita chuckled. "See, it's fine, mijo."

Dante looked up at the computer and barked at it, and Miguel frowned, using the stool to push himself back up to his feet. He rubbed the heel of his hand into his eyes. "Yeah, I... guess."

"Wait... what did you do on there?" Abel asked, suddenly worried. He quickly glanced from Abuelita and back to Miguel, biting his lip.

Sighing, Miguel, wrapped his arms around himself. "I just... saw some dumb people talking... about de la Cruz," he mumbled.

"Ugh, that man?" Abuelita said, shaking her head. Miguel wondered if she realized she said it in the exact same way she used to refer to Papá Héctor.

"People talking about... oooh, you read the comments, didn't you?" Abel asked, and laughed. "Never read the comments, Miguel!"

Feeling his chest constrict, Miguel balled his hands into fists and held them at his side, glaring at his primo. "It's not that! They were—they were talking about how great de la Cruz was, and—and when I told them he wasn't great, he was a thief, they... they just made fun of me!"

"¡¿Qué?!" Abuelita shouted, then shot an accusatory glare at the monitor. "I will not have people mocking my grandson! Where are they?"

"No, no, Abuelita, it's not like that." For a moment it looked like Abel would laugh again, but he saw how serious Miguel was about this, and frowned. "Well... they don't know yet, Miguel."

"But I tried to tell them!" Miguel swung out his hands, and Dante whimpered, butting his head against Miguel's leg. "I—I tried to tell them that they were wrong, but they just... kept making fun of me. And there were so many of them! I just..." Finally he brought his arms down, grasping his right wrist in his left hand and staring down at the floor. "I just felt like I was all alone."

Feeling his Abuelita's arm wrap around his shoulders, Miguel looked up to see her looking at him seriously. "You're not alone, mijo," she said. "Every single one of us here in this family are standing right behind you. We know the truth about Papá Héctor and that man now, and we won't stop fighting until the whole world knows."

"Y... you mean it?" he asked, hope creeping into his heart again.

"Absolutely. He is family, and we won't give up on him."

A huge smile spread across his face as he wrapped both arms around his abuelita, hugging her. "Gracias, Abuelita."

Laughing, Abuelita returned his hug with a bone-crushing one of her own, squeezing around his back until he was left gasping for air. "Now go have fun, mijo, and don't worry about what the people on that computer box say. They'll understand soon enough!" With that, she happily walked back toward the kitchen to start on dinner, leaving Miguel and his cousin alone.

Abel shifted on his feet, glancing from the computer to Miguel before giving an awkward laugh. "I, uh... know we went through the trouble of setting up a Youtube account for you, but uh... maybe you should stick to Spotify."

#miguel rivera #elena rivera #dante #coco #pixar coco #coco spoilers #rivera family #my writing #fanfic #bad things happen bingo #just ONE FIC LEFT after this #and then I will FINALLY BE DONE after like ... a year and a half of working on this challenge

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iniquity-fr · 5 years

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i said i would elaborate on my thoughts/lore i guess re: dragons n shapeshifted (humanoid) forms and like.. social rules and whatnot around all that.... and then i wrote a ridiculous amount of notes abt the whole thing, oops.

separated into key sections but still very rambly and stream-of-thought overall, bc, when do i not type..... weird. words are eternally difficult for me and thoughts are a struggle to articulate, but i hope any of this.. makes sense? obviously this is largely abt my own clan/dragons/headspace/etc and not like. headcanons about other ppl’s stuff in general or anything like that haha. this is a LOT to read thru so if u actually go thru the whole thing a) wow thank u so much wtf b) perhaps give it a like so i know how u feel. not required but very very appreciated. :^) also deep apology to anyone for whom the read more breaks or something, oh god.

a tl;dr/basic overview

everyone can shift to humanoid/gijinka/person-shaped forms, differing based on their actual look as a dragon

most day-to-day life within the clan is in shifted forms, partly bc of Convenience, partly bc there’s a lot of Social Rules abt being on relatively equal footing w/ one another and keeping things fair and whatnot

using your dragon form to hurt not-dragon form people or even using it to harm smaller dragons is considered a terrible crime, and harming others while they’re mid-transformation is considered the ultimate taboo.

shifting 101:

everybody can shift between dragon/humanoid (gijinka.. however u wanna word this.... yall know what i Mean) form w/ different results--some more dragon-looking and/or generally monstrous, some looking fairly normal/basically like People, But In Rainbow Colors And With Horns. some may keep tails and/or wings or other things like that, but that isn’t especially common

smaller breeds tend to be shorter, bigger breeds tend to be taller, but there are exceptions & outliers!

shifted forms tend to be pretty 'set' for most dragons, all obviously dependent on their looks as an actual dragon. their shifted form reflects their dragon form, and they can't make drastic changes to their form like changing entire facial structure/shape or body type or overall coloring. however, dragons with stronger magic abilities/connections/powers/etc usually tend to have more freedom of their own form and may be able to change certain features at will--not entire faces or body shapes, but things like hair, nails, sometimes even patterns from genes (esp. tert genes)

dragons that are like, deity level or otherwise some sort of not-entirely/not-actually-a-dragon all-powerful creature or w/e usually have MUCH more freedom to change their form completely, if they so choose.

transformation is at will (and cant be done or undone unconsciously... ie a sleeping-in-shifted-form person is Not gonna turn back into dragon form in their sleep) and happens fairly quick for most, usually no long&slow weird animorph-esque thing, though it isn't all in a flash either--usually! once again on the "dragons with More/Better Magic Skillz" concept, a very magic-powerful dragon can usually shift much quicker than others. a "finger snap puff of smoke boom you're done" level of speed is Very Rare, but not unheard of. dragons who are either very young or simply not very talented w/ magic may take longer than others. the largest & smallest breeds also take a bit longer due to having to shrink down/size up every time. all this said, it never takes more than like, 15-20 seconds at Most, and even that range is considered Very Slow. it’s a short window, generally!

things like injury or sickness can make shifting difficult, but typically only like........... basically if you're literally dying you're probably not gonna be able to do it. having a broken leg or the flu shouldn't impact ability much, but bleeding out in the boneyard? ain't gonna make it work, buddy.

idk how clothes work lmfao. they just shift with the dragon i guess? sure. let's go with that. all clothes are magic now. i don't think EVERYTHING through, ok?

ok cool but Why Shift:

shifted forms make for much easier living-together-in-a-big-clan, especially in situations (like my own clan itself) where everyone lives in, y'know, buildings. houses and castles and churches and whatnot. it takes a lot more effort and resources and whatnot to build a house big enough for imperials to comfortably live in in dragon form than it does to just build a regular-sized house that a spiral & a ridgeback both can settle into & live comfortably in in shifted form or smth, yknow. it’s easier to accommodate people than dragons!

communication & relationships can also be easier to deal with if you are all Relatively Close to the same size range. less leaning down or flying up to try and talk to your friend/coworker/partner/rival/whatever. part of this is also influenced by The Rules About Being On An Even Playing Field We Will Get To In A Moment

for many dragons its just easier to do things like art, music, crafting, writing, or working w/ small & delicate things, etc etc when you have proper hands and lot funky dragon claws. much of the more mundane reasons for these forms is just For Convenience's Sake!

that said, obvs. certain things are easier/preferred to stay in dragon form to do--traveling, for one, since, y'know, Dragons Can Fly, Usually. hunting & gathering is usually done in dragon form as well, though not 100% of the time. maybe u want to be a big and powerful dragon to go take down wild animals for food but just like, chill out w ur buds in person-shape to go have a relaxing fishing trip by the lake. it's up 2 u really.

sometimes dragon forms are preferred for fighting in general, esp against beasts, or if you are a lone dragon trying to protect yourself from threats, etc. in the case of smaller breeds especially, they can also be preferred for making a quick escape instead! (sometimes this is seen as Cowardly to do, but yknow, it’s an Option.)

aaaaaaand now we can get to The Rules which is where things become less abt convenience & common sense and more about my own........... we can call it lore? i guess? sure. it's lore. ok.

The Rules:

all the "for convenience" reasons aside, there are many largely unspoken but VERY important social rules regarding shifting and when you "should" or "should not" be in which form. within my clan/characters/headspace/etc etc it's all just sort of a known thing/smth ur raised knowing, there isn't like, an actual rulebook or smth anyone has to figure out.

much of these rules are about being on an equal playing field, both socially & in battle. the social rules are much more important & strict within clan living areas, ie. the walls of cities and whatnot. things can get more loose & informal if ur like, out travelling thru the wasteland or wilds or whatever.

it's considered VERY rude to enter/generally be inside buildings in dragon form, usually, unless you're just like... popping in real quick to deliver smth or say hi or whatever.. and you can fit inside said building... and know the ppl there and whatnot... etc...... if you dragon out while already inside somewhere that's usually seen as like, a threat of some sort. due to how much construction & architecture & living spaces are shaped and whatnot, it's deemed unnecessary to bother with dragon forms inside the clan's walls in general, but especially within buildings, bc jesus christ dude ur gonna hit the ceiling or break stuff with your wings or something. be polite.

social interaction in general, esp. when Formal or in work/work-like settings, is seen as something usually meant more for shifted forms... some dragons who are very close, ie family & mates, can be fine in dragon form around each other, bc of the mix of informality & Trust. typically, if you want to have a conversation with someone and Not be seen as impolite or even hostile, shifted form is key. this falls back very much to the fact that dragons come in such VASTLY different sizes, from imps down to faes, and it's seen as unfair and often threatening to present oneself as a giant monster to whom others have to talk to, or as a tiny little creature either down on the floor or flitting around the room. shifted forms have about as much height/size variance as we do as humans, which can be A Lot, and some individuals can be even smaller or bigger than regular people bc Hey Its Fantasy, but generally speaking no People-Shaped height difference is going to be as crazy as dragons' can be.

basically, if you walk into the throne room or the church or anywhere Important & Protected and you're not in shifted form, you WILL be seen as either physically threatening the leadership or as an extremely arrogant & disrespectful fool. walking into shops/businesses in general as a dragon makes you look like you're trying to like, rob the place or smth. even just moving about the streets of the town as a dragon is weird, rude, and will make people uneasy. not to mention it’s potentially destructive!

everything comes back to the idea of being relatively similar in size/shape, in being close enough to equal in ability, strength, weakness, etc, barring the obvious difference that yes some people are stronger/more trained than others, some better at magic, etc etc. it's all about fairness!

this is all MOST IMPORTANT when it comes to FIGHTING........ bc obviously a very large dragon can just squish the bones of a very tiny dragon like nothing...... things like formal duels etc everyone knows OF COURSE this meant for shifted form, it's just an inherently known thing. if u fight with honor u fight shifted.

this even extends to the point that outside city walls, if someone's going to pick a fight with you, you Should still be duking it out in shifted form. it's such an important & revered rule that it's even usual for bandits and such out on the roads to attack travelers while in their own shifted forms. only the worst of all criminals cross the line--from the average petty thief & pickpocket up to professional hitmen and honorable assassins, it's rare to see even career rulebreakers break these rules. it’s That Serious

using your dragon form to attack someone who's shifted is seen as like, a completely horrifying and heinous thing to do, a sign of true cruelty and mercilessness. using your dragon form to escape from people is often seen as a cowardly and weak thing to do, unless ofc ur just like, small and afraid and get fuckin jumped by some big tuff dudes, yknow. being in a real & honorable battle means fighting in your shifted form.

the Ultimate Taboo however is hurting--especially killing--someone while they're mid-transformation, due to the fact that the process--while, as stated previously, is Very Short--leaves someone completely vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. transformation takes focus and action, and you can't really attack or dodge or anything while changing from form to form. the strength and speed and complete lack of hesitation required to end someone's life in the small window of time that it takes to shift is a terrifying thing to behold. killing someone midshift while in your own shifted form is especially weird & scary and means everyone is going to be afraid of you forever, basically, because. dude. holy fuck. how & WHY did you do that.

obviously the Normal reaction that Nice & Good dragons feel knowing someone who has crossed that particular line is, yknow, fear and resentment and seeing them as someone who is heartless and completely evil and terrible. to be avoided at all costs, if not outright arrested and executed for such a thing, in other places where ppl are like. ultimately good & caring abt one another and whatnot. but that ain't my clan babey!

aaaaaand finally a wrap-up w a lil bit abt my clan full of shitty devil babies and how these rules impact their lives hehehe

though the clan is VERY strict abt the larger social rules regarding shifted forms vs. dragon forms, thats more for formality's sake & a part of the clan's entire thing of being like........... full of/ruled by morally bankrupt weirdos and villains and chaotic neutrals mostly And Yet all putting on the show & appearance of being honorable high-status nobles & academics and whatnot. among the court in particular it's all Very Important bc everyone has to behave like stuffy uptight formal folk very often. also their section of the clan home is like, a very compact city w/ narrow streets and stuff, so obviously no one Can just. walk around as a big giant dragon.

a few examples of dragons Breaking The Rules in more 'minor' ways include: -outlaw, who has absolutely 0 issue using the small size of his spiral form to break into houses & businesses and steal shit, or using it to slip away from authority figures and zip off and fly outta there. or to just be able to hide from authorities more easily. -fissure, one of the kings, a guardian, will occasionally use his dragon form as a threat display if anyone shows too much hostility towards his clan. threaten him and his people and he WILL threaten you back big time. -silhouette, royal guard captain, also a guardian, will do the same thing, though she reserves that for people found along the outskirts of the city walls. -sepulcher takes things the other way around--he enjoys the challenge of fighting&killing things 100x his size and if a dragon tries to harm him when he's in his shifted form he gets VERY excited!!!!!

the 2 worst culprits confirmed so far are the high priest, leader of the clan, scary rotten plague cult wyrmwound-worshipping bastard himself, fhtagn......... and the friendly, chatty, fashionable tailor, needle.

the skull mask fhtagn wears is fashioned from the skull of a half-transformed dragon. to have not only crossed the line of killing a dragon mid-shift but to wear a part of them as one's most striking attire that they're never seen without is a truly terrifying sight to behold for most... those of kinder hearts than this clan would see him for the disgusting & dishonorable bastard he is because of that alone, but the clan members--especially the church, of course--revere him for this. fear & horror go hand in hand with love & adoration among the congregation, so of course they love their mercilessly masked priest.

needle does not allow too many people to get a good look at his "trophy room" but it is... certainly something to behold. stitched & stuffed bodies of people killed mid-shift make up his favorite taxidermy collection, and he likes to think of this as.. some form of art. though very private about it, he's still fiercely proud of his collection. go out and bring him such a body yourself for him to work on and he'll love you forever!

anyway that’s it for now. this post is fucking long. i never write this much what fucking possessed me.

if u made it this far i wuv u. thank u :’)

#cool lore tag #i uhhhh dont rly................... want to put this in main tags i dont think haha its a Lot of Words #i never type words in ways that rly make sense to begin w but any excess of typos/grammar errors etc u can blame on #the fever ive had all morning hehehehe #also i typed all this out and then didnt really do any like. editing/correction LOL OOPS #ANYWAY HERE'S ALL THIS. I REALLY REALLY REALLY HOPE IT MAKES SENSE HAHAHAHA #long post

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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LOL, quick jaunt over to Marvel land, to engage in a rant about one of my very specific Bobby Drake pet peeves, but good God, this one has been around forever.

I don’t expect comic book writers to have a master’s degree in physics or whatever, but I mean, I’m a college drop out myself, and it doesn’t take a PhD to remember that cold is not an energy.

Its the absence of an energy. It results from thermal energy leaving an area. You don’t produce cold. You take away heat.

Ergo, mutant powers and high tech armor that absorb energy as a defense should not be in any way, shape or form protected against Bobby’s powers - if anything, he should be the ultimate defense and offense against them.

Because he doesn’t ‘shoot ice beams,’ he doesn’t project cold energy that they can then absorb and like, suck up the energy that his powers produce...his powers are moving energy in the opposite direction! He’s the ultimate absorption power/tech! Any time there are Sentinels that are adapted to absorb energy attacks, or there are villains with that powerset, or with energy-draining tech....none of that should in any way be able to stop him from simply using his powers to drain the heat energy from the area, plummeting the temperature until it’s all entombed in ice from whatever ambient moisture’s in the area he freezes. Or if there isn’t enough moisture, simply dropping temperatures until the machinery or armor is brittle enough to crack or shatter.

Like, this is basic stuff. What’s the point in making a big deal about the omega level powers of a guy that’s been around for sixty years, if in all that time barely anyone who writes him can bother to learn the most fundamental things about how hot and cold work?

No, fire should not be the Iceman’s ultimate weakness, lmao, because the Iceman doesn’t need actual water or ice to put out a fire, he can simply just move the thermokinetic energy around until the fire being fired at him goes bye-bye, because he took all the thermal energy away.

Also, he’s quite definitively done this before. Mike Carey at least tried doing some new things with his powers, and showed how Bobby could basically turn off the powers of mutants with fire powers or even just powers that relied on chemical reactions igniting...because his command of thermodynamic forces, or at least his outright neutralization of them, meant he could keep Sunfire from generating the plasma he bases his name on.

Like, Bobby was just like lol no, and kept the dude who projects thermal energy at the same temperatures as the sun from using his powers at all by simply going..."yeah but what if I just don’t let it get any hotter no matter how much plasma you try and generate? Whatcha gonna do then, Shiro?” And it turned out, what Shiro did then was nada, because all the literal firepower in the world doesn’t mean squat when a guy who violates the laws of thermodynamics for goofs sits on all the thermal energy in the vicinity and goes “nah, nobody’s getting up until I say so.”

Similarly, no, being in a desert or some location with very little ambient moisture in the air shouldn’t in any way be a hindrance to Bobby, limit his powers or make him weaker, because he doesn’t just make ice, and never has...its simply the most common and efficient usage and combination of his dual powerset....which is thermokinesis and hydrokinesis.

I know he’s hardly ever referenced as having the latter, and its not like he’s ever been shown moving water itself around like a waterbender or Hydro-Man, but its a necessary part of his powerset to do the things he does. He forms ice in highly specific shapes, and the only way he can do that is if he’s not only dropping the temperature and freezing things (thermokinesis). He has to be at the same time moving water molecules into the specific arrangements and patterns needed in order for his freezing of those water molecules to result in the specific ice configurations and shapes he makes all the time.

There’s absolutely no way his power could ever work the way its always shown to if he doesn’t have the ability to mentally manipulate the placement of water molecules, even if he’s not consciously directing them into the shapes he’s picturing in his mind when he makes ice shapes.

Point being, just because he usually uses his powers in the specific combination that results in him freezing water, specifically, and forming ice, specifically...doesn’t mean he’s ever been limited to that. His thermokinesis works perfectly well without him directing it at water molecules in specific, and this too has been long established.

Its not like water is the only thing that freezes. Everything freezes if you get things cold enough. Bobby’s the walking equivalent of liquid nitrogen, even though he’s hardly ever used that way (ironically, it was Claremont who first showed him using his powers this way, which is funny to me because Claremont famously hates his character and usually nerfs him every opportunity he gets, like, purely out of annoyance that he exists, lol).

But I mean, he quite literally can make even the strongest metals shatter without even touching them, by just flash-freezing his environs and letting everything go kabloo-ey under its own weight, once the rapid reduction of thermodynamic reactions makes even metal’s structural integrity go ruh-roh and then like....just collapse.

Even without taking things in that direction, the whole ‘put Bobby in a desert and he’s useless against the bad guys’ trope has always been dumb purely because of the fact that the human body is largely made up of water. As long as there’s anyone around him, it doesn’t matter how much or how little ambient moisture is in the air...he can just as easily focus his powers on just the moisture in peoples’ bodies. And it doesn’t have to be big or flashy or dramatic either, he doesn’t have to rip the moisture out of them and use it to make ice like he did in that one arc with the demons that we pretend didn’t happen because Chuck Austen was a mistake....like....all someone with Bobby’s powerset has to do when faced with living human beings and not a lot of surplus moisture in the air is just...drop the temperature of the bodies around him, nudge them towards hypothermic conditions.

*Shrugs* Things get cold enough, the blood flow in a human body starts to slow down, eventually they pass out. If you can control how quickly the temperature drops and how much that temperature change is focused most specifically on the parts of the body most dependent on moisture and biochemical reactions that require thermal energy to catalyze or function, you can make that happen very quickly.

Hell, they write Magneto using his powers to control the iron in peoples’ blood, slow the flow of blood to their brains and knock them out that way. Its really the same basic principle with Bobby’s powers, just asserting a little pressure on the moisture in peoples’ blood to produce the same effect. If anything, it should be easier for Bobby not because of different power levels, now that they’re both confirmed as omega level, but rather simply because there’s more water in the human body than there is iron. Everything Erik can do directly to human attackers, Bobby should be able to do even more easily, purely because he has more to work with directly.

LOL sorry, but this is where my critical-ness manifests most with Bobby’s writing. Scott, Dick, Kyle, I have actual Issues with how they’re written and received....Bobby, other than how various writers handle his sexuality or don’t, as the case may be....my ire is really ultimately just Nerd Ire. Because it makes me cranky that you give a guy one of the single most versatile powersets in superhero comics, make a point to establish that this dude’s powers are amped all the way up to the literal highest degree possible in comics, with virtually no limitations on the ways he can use them or the scope he can apply them to......

And then you do practically nothing with them, beyond the same handful of basic tricks that he’s been doing for decades, like that’s the sum total of his abilities or the only possible applications, when that’s really barely even the tip of the iceberg, yes pun intended. I admitted I was a Nerd, get with the program.

I honestly don’t give a shit about him being The Most Powerfulest Ever, especially since it results in him being sidelined more than he’s used, just because writers don’t want to deal with why Bobby can’t just....snap his fingers and start the next Ice Age and be like all done here, let’s go home. But it is Irksome when you tantalize me with the possibilities inherent in a superpower and then continue to use that power in the most dull way imaginable instead of just going nuts with it, because I am at the end of the day, above all other things a Superpower Nerd and like. Superpowers are so fucking cool, why must writers insist on not using them in cool and unique and interesting ways, and instead just being all....and then the one character shot a laser at the other and a third character punched everyone else super hard with their superstrength and that’s it, that’s the end. Until next time, intrepid adventurers!

Sigh. Its just so booooooring. And like, death by a thousand papercuts, lol, every time a writer clearly thinks they’re on to something when they come up with a ‘workaround’ to essentially neutralize Bobby in a fight or sideline him, so that his omega-ness or whatever doesn’t make everyone else’s present irrelevant before he solos the situation. And I get that, but this is not the solution they’re looking for, and hasn’t been the last hundred times they used it either, its just like. Please, please, please, even just wiki source how ice and cold work for a change. Its not rock, paper, scissors, where like, fire and heat automatically beat ice, lmfao. Its like nails on a chalkboard, seeing behind the page to like, how proud you can tell that writer is for their ‘solution’ to Bobby’s uber-poweredness, while meanwhile, I’m just like...dudes, that does not work the way you are trying to claim it works, and its making it really hard to suspend my disbelief.

Which you would think would not be that hard, given that I’m talking about a comic book with superpowers, but if you’re gonna do superpowers, at least do them in a way that makes some sense, which is not, in fact: “fire is the greatest weapon against the guy whose power is more accurately described as eats thermal energy and shits out ice cubes.”

Its literally the other way around, uggggggggh. Same with energy absorption being trotted out constantly to beat or neutralize the guy whose power is literally the opposite of energy projection. As Bobby is himself, actually, technically, ironically, the ultimate omega level energy absorption mutant, albeit primarily focused on thermal energy specifically.

(Though of course, at the base levels that Bobby’s powers have repeatedly been shown to operate at, all energy is fundamentally the same anyway, so even that qualifier isn’t quite applicable. Hey, don’t look at me, I’m not the one who decided to make the dude omega level and then define that as meaning the uttermost expression of a particular mutant powerset, with no apex ceiling or limit on their usage or scope. Maybe you guys should’ve put like, ten minutes of actual research into why water is cited as one of the basic primary building blocks of carbon based organic life, and how the kind of control over thermal energy Bobby’s powers require in order to even function at their most basic levels, once unrestricted in scope or degree, like....pretty much results in limitless applications across the board).

I mean shit, in a lot of ways, Bobby’s kinda the mutant embodiment of a physically realized Maxwell’s Demon. And if you put some thought into how that particular thought experiment could effect reality were anyone actually capable of creating a mechanism for violating the laws of thermodynamics in the specific ways postulated by good old JCM back in the 1800s, Bobby’s powers would really be less "hey check it out, I make ice and cool people off on a hot summer’s day" and more like "lol, Proteus who? Legion what? Wanda where? Phoenix, please!"

BUT I DIGRESS.

....oh shit, whoops, now I’m thinking about how Wanda’s powers when amped up to allow her to pull off the House of M reality warp, like, were basically defined as the ultimate expression of chaos magick/chaos energies, the psychic harnessing of entropy itself, using Wanda’s basic probability manipulations to hack quantum possibilities themselves and superimpose the pictured reality of her choice over her current reality at a quantum level.....and whereas if you look at Bobby’s powers in the vein of Maxwell’s Demon, and the theoretical applications for decreasing entropy, like...huh. Whoops, I think I just accidentally made my brain explode, hang on, I gotta think about this now.

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cloudbattrolls · 4 years

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@prince-liest

Omg, haha - okay, this is actually really neat to hear about, esp because like... idk, OCs aside, I always end up wondering what I would react like in situations like this, because that's a little bit of how I measure how applicable the morality people discuss is in my perspective.

And I feel like personally, I'd probably be grossed out by the worms at first, but in that way where I can generally apply 'out of sight, out of mind,' and/or get over it eventually. And MORALLY speaking, the parasite thing really just doesn't bother me at all. If it acts indiscernibly from a person, then it's a person, idgaf.

Like, I never got the whole 'I'm inherently a monster, woe betide me' thing, purely personally-speaking. So that's why I end up poking at this kind of stuff a lot!

(EVEN THO I WRITE IT PLENTY LMFAO)

See I mostly agree about the woe betide me thing for a lot of characters; be they cyborgs or just people with some aesthetic differences. I mean, I get it in the frame of - yeah some people will still be assholes about that, so angst is understandable from that direction, but just having them? Eh.

But Tuuya is dangerous simply by existing, because not only do they drink blood but their worms can mind control most other jades, unless those jades are resistant to the drinker parasite (which I headcanon some are).

also [radio show host voice] listeners, have you ever felt like a monster? It may be because of the following!

(Lots of grossness and worm stuff below the cut of Why Tuuya Feels They Are a Monster)

1. Have you ever woken up after the worms inside your body reflexively acted to protect you from your shitty ancestor and realized that they’d eaten him from the inside out, as well as infesting or eating (or both) every other member of the cavern?

Did this trigger the realization that you are probably a huge asshole for your abysmal life choices? Did it also make you traumatized from the mental connection to people’s pain and fear as they got eaten and infested and from mercy culling them for their sake and so you didn’t have to feel it anymore? This may contribute to those MONSTROUS feelings you have!

2. Before that, did you want power by any means necessary, even if it meant becoming an undead that fed off the blood of others, which brought a smile to your face because you thought you were better than everyone else and had the right to consume and control them while instilling the fear that if they ever showed mercy to a mutant they’d be interrogated and possibly killed? Darn - this might also be part of the problem, even before you became full of worms.

3. Even while currently doing your best to control yourself, are you aware that technically you see people as food and recently nearly ripped out someone’s throat and used your worms to drain the blood of someone else?

It’s true they’d tried to kill you, but you’re aware that Most People Don’t Fucking Eat Others and that you didn’t really feel bad about it - which you know isn’t good, and you know you were only stopped because your boss fire-spritzed you like a naughty puppy.

4. Did you mind control several other jades for hundreds of years to keep your own secrets and those of your adopted daughter? They may not have been harmed or forced to do things they hated, but you still held their minds in your grip and made them stay in your cavern, as well as making them forget things you found inconvenient.

5. While you don’t consider this a bad thing, your writer sure fucking does, which is trying to kill off any grub Vannyns you can find because you have an irrational hatred for your whole line and even though you condemn your ancestor for having used them for his experiments, you’ve decided no others should exist at all, because what if they became another drinker, and what if it was one like you? This MIGHT mean you are a colossal tool.

6. You are very aware you disgust and disturb people simply by existing, and while you try and put on a normal facade, you feel this is ultimately fake and that when all’s said and done you’re just something that requires at the very least the weakening, if not the outright suffering, of other people to keep existing. You feel that spending time around others is extremely selfish of you because of the danger you put them in and the risk of mental trauma. You do it anyway because you’re chatty and you don’t like to be bored.

7. You raised a girl who otherwise might have been culled for being lime and you love her, as much as you can dare to believe your love is real and honest, but now having told her the truth, you feel having taken her in when you are what you are is an unforgivable act that was far too harmful to her.

8. You know the worms in you occasionally have feelings of their own that don’t match yours, and it scares you to know they might have influenced you in other ways you don’t even realize, so you feel you can’t be trusted.

9. You know that you chose this, and therefore don’t exactly have a right to be sad about it, when all of this springs from your selfish desire for power and willingness to be a monster - and even though you’ve mellowed with time, you still enjoy being able to use your abilities to fight and subdue people you think deserve it, which you know is Not Great.

If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms you may be a horrible worm filled monster. Whoops. Guess you’re stuck that way. Tune in for more advice.

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n0-eyedtaissa · 6 years

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please do 8 & 9 with ruthie teaching sweet pea how to drive 😭

Hi Vannah i love you so much, I’m sorry this took so long for me to finish!

Oh my GOD this was a fun idea to think about! I don’t know how to drive either, so it was a learning experience for both Sweet Pea and myself lmfao. Hope ya enjoy!

8. “GO RIGHT! NO THE OTHER RIGHT! NO THE OTHER OTHER RIGHT!”

9. “We may have almost died but at least we have a story to tell.”

“Sweet Pea, you need to know how to do this...” Ruthie warned, sighing as her old car stalled out again.

It was Saturday morning and the two siblings were sitting in the parking lot of what was once Southside High School. Sweet Pea never really learned how to drive a vehicle that had more than two wheels, and his sister finally decided it was about damn time.

“I have my bike and Fangs has his car! Why do I need to learn how to drive stick?” Sweet Pea complained as he rides the clutch, releasing it only halfway into gear and jumping at the horrendous sound that rang out. Startled, Sweet Pea let go of the gear shift and the car lurched yet again.

“I know you think that you’re gonna wanna be a badass forever and all, but I’m pretty sure all in due time you’ll wanna know how to drive a car. What about when you go on dates?” Ruthie questioned.

“What about it?” Sweet Pea snapped.

“Well do you wanna take them on the back of your bike forever? What happens if you wanna take someone to a nice restaurant? Gonna show up with windburn and axel grease all over your nice pants?” Ruthie leveled with her younger brother. He was a tough nut to crack, never wanting to try a lot of things that were too out of his comfort zone.

Sweet Pea huffed in response, tightening his grip on the steering wheel and setting his jaw. He was listening, but he wasn’t happy about it.

Noticing how overwhelmed her brother was getting, Ruthie reached over and squeezed Sweet Pea’s knee reassuringly, “Hey you’re gonna be fine, okay? Driving a stick-shift is really hard, it is! But if you can master this, everything else will be easier in comparison. Just take a breath...”

He nodded, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. He looked at Ruthie, waiting for her directions:

“Okay,” Ruthie started, trying to sound more encouraging for her brother. “The car has three pedals: the clutch, the brake, and the gas. The clutch is on your left, break is in the middle, gas is on the right. Got it?”

“Clutch, break, gas…yup.” Sweet Pea gulped nervously as he nodded.

“So you’re gonna need to drive with both of your feet. Use your left foot on the clutch and your right on the brake and gas.”

Sweet Pea took a moment to get familiar with driving with both of his feet, the toes of his boots hitting each pedal lightly.

“Okay good…now once you’re comfortable with that, go ahead and put the car in neutral.” Ruthie instructed and Sweet Pea did as he was told. “If you don’t you’re gonna stall the car like you did before.” Ruthie added bitterly, glaring at her brother and grabbing at the handle mounted above the car door.

“Real fuckin’ encouraging, sis…” Sweet Pea muttered in frustration as he shifted the car into neutral and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roars with life and Sweet Pea smiles, clearly proud of himself.

“Then you got your gear shifts, all right?” Ruthie coached again slowly. “Now with the clutch held down, shift into first gear.”

Sweet Pea moves the gear stick left and up into its correct position with ease and peeks at his sister for her next direction. His shoulders were tense and his arms were out in front of him, hands clasping the wheel at 10 and 2. He was nervous and rightly so; it wasn’t the easiest being taught by Ruthie. She was one of the few people that Sweet Pea respected more than anything, but when it came down to it they were siblings and siblings bicker. It wasn’t unlike Ruthie to nitpick at the things that Sweet Pea did (or usually didn’t do), and the younger boy knew that a tense situation like this would be a likely source of his sister’s critiques.

“Good job…now release the parking break…” Sweet Pea goes ashen as he releases the break. “Rev the engine and you’re gonna feel the clutch engage. And when that happens, you life your leg and release the clutch, got it?”

The tip of Sweet Pea’s tongue was hangout out as he concentrated, trying to process what his sister was saying and follow through with her directions. He was taking this seriously, Ruthie noted as she realized that he hadn’t said anything in quite awhile. He was doing a great job with Ruthie’s directions so far, so she decided to keep going:

“First gear going steady, clutch in as you come off the gas quickly, then off the clutch slowly while pressing in the gas.” Ruthie said quickly, completely losing Sweet Pea’s understanding.

“Jesus fuck, Ruthie! You can’t just go from skipping from Point A to point —fucking G like that! You and I both know that I have zero clue what I’m doing!” Sweet Pea panicked, throwing his hands up and going rigid, which in turn made the car stall.

Ruthie lurched forward, almost knocking her forehead on the dashboard. Slapping her hand against the interior to steady herself, she scowled, face shriveling up in a way that meant she was going to start yelling soon.

“What the fuck, Sweet Pea? You can’t just do that!” Ruthie gestured broadly with her arm . “You’re gonna be in the middle of driving on the highway somewhere and something goes wrong so you just decide to give up?!” She asked incredulously, voice getting louder.

“How am I supposed to know what to do?! You threw a bunch of new directions at me and I panicked, Jesus!” Sweet Pea raised his voice to match his sister’s.

“Pea, you panicked because you weren’t fuckin’ listening! You were doing just fine until you got all up in your head. You just need to fucking listen for once, dude! Can ya fuckin do that for me please?” Ruthie lectured at him, her voice sharp.

“I AM listening!” Sweet Pea defended. He unbuckled his seatbelt angrily , wrenching open the driver’s side door and getting out abruptly.

It looked like driving lessons were done for the day.

Ruthie’s work schedule was chaotic for the next two weeks, with her going from morning shifts at Pop’s to night shift’s at the hospital. But on a Thursday afternoon, as the sun was going down, Ruthie bounds up the trailer steps and opens the door. Sweet Pea and Fangs were sprawled across the ratty green couch, white-knuckling PlayStation remotes as they swore under their breath playing some shooting game that Ruthie couldn’t be bothered to learn the name of.

Setting her back-pack on the kitchen chair with a thud, Ruthie steps in front of the small television, earning a shout from her younger brother and his friend:

“Ruthie what the hell! I was just about to kick Fangs’s ass!”

“You’re just mad that I’ve smoked you three times now!” Fangs threw the flattened couch cushion at Sweet Pea, whacking him in the chest. “Face it, you’re shit at this game!” He hollered with a laugh.

“Fogarty quit throwing shit around my house!” Ruthie ordered tiredly, reaching back behind her to push the power button on the tv. The screen went black and Sweet Pea’s face wrinkled in annoyance.

“The fuck?” He muttered, looking up at Ruthie from his spot on the couch and narrowing his eyes at his sister.

Ruthie tosses her car keys at Sweet Pea and heads back for the door, looking at him over her shoulder as she grabbed at the doorknob.

“You coming?”

“W-What?” Sweet Pea stuttered, toying with the heavy set of keys that fell into his lap.

“Driving lessons,” Ruthie states simply. “It’s now or never, dude. Lets go!” She clapped her hands, turning on her heels and starting down the driveway.

Feeling defiant as usual, Sweet Pea stayed firmly planted in his spot. Fangs looked at his friend unsurely. He knew better than to test Ruthie’a patience, so Fangs was curious to know what Sweet Pea was getting himself into this time.

“So are you going?” Fangs asked cautiously.

“Nope” Sweet Pea answers, a smug smile spreading across his face.

“Uh…why not?” Fangs coughed. He could hear Ruthie revving her car engine in the driveway. If Sweet Pea didn’t haul ass out of the trailer soon, there was definitely gonna be a problem.

And just like clockwork, Ruthie laid on the horn; a final warning for Sweet Pea.

“You gonna go now?” Fangs asked again, watching how the boy next to him grew more rigid with every blare of the car horn.

“Nope…” Sweet Pea responded again, faltering now.

“Dude, I don’t think you wanna push it with her right now.” Fangs cautioned, wincing as Ruthie honked her horn yet again.

A gust of wind blew through the open door, with Ruthie’s warning yell being carried on the breeze:

“Sweet Pea get your ass out here, I don’t have the time for this!”

Fangs looked back at Sweet Pea, sighing. “Dude if you’re not gonna get a driving lesson tonight, as least one of us should.” He grabbed his jacket from where it landed earlier that day and shucked it on, closing the front door behind him as he walked down the trailer steps. Ruthie wasn’t looking to see who was walking over to her car, just that someone was making their way over so she assumed it was her brother finally giving in.

Stepping towards the driver’s side door, Fangs flung open the rusty door and sat behind the wheel, greeting Ruthie with a toothy smile.

Sweet Pea trailed after him, trudging down the steps of the trailer and dragging his feet around to the backseat of the old car.

“Fogarty what are you doing?” She questioned, looking at him strangely.

“Learning how to drive stick shift, which is an important life skill to learn because I won’t wanna be a badass forever?” Fangs answered her question with a question, forming his response based off of the speech she had given Sweet Pea the first time they tried to do driving lessons.

She chuckled dryly, blowing a stray hair from her face; “You heard about that, huh?” She craned her neck to look at her little brother, who was blushing from the backseat.

“You bet your ass that I heard about that!” Fangs laughed, pounding against the steering wheel. “Heard that, and a bunch of other things I’m probably not supposed to tell you” He raised his eyebrow, grinning evilly.

Sweet Pea reached up from the back seat and slugged his friend in the shoulder, making the smaller boy groan loudly and rub at his harm.

“Fogarty do you wanna learn how to drive or not?” Ruthie sighed.

“Well, I mean I already know how to drive, so you just gotta teach me how to drive stick shift” Fangs explained as he fastened his seatbelt.

Ruthie laughed, shaking her head from side to side; “No sweetheart, I’ve been in the car with you. We’re teaching you how to drive today.”

Fangs sneered at her, knowing that she was right but not wanting to admit it. He wasn’t a bad driver per se, but he wasn’t really a good one either. Anytime Ruthie was in the car with him she would hang on nice and tight to the ‘oh-shit’ grip over the door and brace herself for impact because Fangs had a problem with being a little too break-heavy, or not touching his brakes at all.

Ruthie explained how the gear shift worked, as well as the differences between the clutch, the break, and the gas. He was actually understanding things a lot quicker than Sweet Pea was, and Fangs definitely made his best friend aware of that.

“You could barely even start the car, Pea! This shit’s easy!” He cackled, looking over his shoulder at Sweet Pea who sat pouting in the back seat.

When Fangs was finally comfortable enough, the car started and only stalled a few times before he was slowly rolling through the parking lot with ease. The closer Fangs got to the west end of the empty lot, the more his confidence faltered.

“All right so now you’re gonna start to turn right, okay? Ease up on it” Ruthie prompted.

Fangs gulped nervously, not sure exactly what Ruthie wanted him to “ease up” on. He starts to press down on the break in order to slow the car down before beginning the sharp right turn he would have to take in order to avoid the chain link fence of the parking lot and be able to circle back around and keep driving the perimeter.

“Clutch, break, gas. Clutch, break, gas” Fangs muttered under his breath in order to keep the functions of each pedal in order in his head.

He pressed the toe of his heavy boot on the pedal he thought was the break.

Key word: Thought

Fangs’ boot hit the gas instead, speeding up and causing the beat-up car to barrel down the alley in the middle of the parking lot , approaching the chain-link fence rather quickly. Fangs swore loudly, pulling at the wheel.

“GO RIGHT! NO THE OTHER RIGHT! NO THE OTHER OTHER RIGHT!” Ruthie shouted from the passenger’s seat as Fangs nearly missed driving Ruthie’s car through the rusted fence.

Fangs swung a left instead, not paying attention, and plowed the front end of Ruthie car into the dumpsters, which were filled to the brim. The jolt to the tall middle bins cause them to roll backwards, taping against the cement wall and topping forward slightly, causing garbage and food scraps to come raining onto Ruthie’s windshield.

“Fogarty…” Ruthie sighed through her gritted teeth, seething as she could feel the heat raising to her cheeks. A banana peel hit the glass with a dissatisfying splat, causing Fangs to quickly flick on the windshield-wipers.

Sweet Pea laughed loudly from the back seat, leaning up to smack Fangs in the back of the head.

Fangs faltered, sinking down in the drivers seat as chocolate milk sludge spread over the windshield under the wipers.

“We may have almost died but at least we have a story to tell.”

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