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#maybe ill make this an actual fic/series
dearieshima · 2 years
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I wanna write a fic about how the reader has to learn to cope with the death of Dabi alone, because... Who would cry over an infamous villain? One that's portrayed in the media as a heartless murderer? His mother, maybe.
In comparison with the loss of a pro-hero, most people would mourn for years - if not decades. Family and community surround their funerals with thankful words and the graves are lavishly decorated with fresh flowers to replace the withered ones weekly. But when a villain dies, such as Dabi, everyone gathers around to hug each other with a Brut in hand and shed tears as they rejoice. A party occurs, maybe for two days, before they are forgotten. Graves and burials are neglected and abused, grass and vines cover their headstones, and eventually, the earth eats away at them with time.
It's impossible to confide in anyone because... His actions were horrible - he inflicted terrible punishment on people who weren't deserving of it.
And yes, he is horrible for those things... You don't mean to justify his actions, but they don't know what you know. About how careful he was to you, how he would put your phone on the charger and put a blanket on you when you fell asleep late, or play house with you, though he was bad at it... Mixing up the red shirts with the whites while doing the laundry, or burning toast attempting to make breakfast.
As a person, Dabi wasn't great, and he wasn't good either. So... Why does your heart aches, your eyes burn, and your nostrils leak when you look down at him when you should be looking up?
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theyellowhue · 1 year
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i truly believe that in another universe, Prapai and King are family. its how I sleep better at night
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nomazee · 1 year
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i need people who write midoriya x reader to write about him with the intensity and complexity of the people who write midoriya character study fics on ao3
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nouvxllev · 1 month
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Absolutely love your work! And was ecstatic when I found out you also did Emma myers! And you write so well!! 🥹 I don’t know if you’ll be up to this, so don’t feel the need I know your probably a busy bee. But I wanted to know since you do Emma myers, if you’d be willing to to do a cc Walker aged up fic, maybe where cc is in college, and she’s in a relationship with reader (I absolutely loved your jealous Tara fic) but I was wondering if you could do cc, but make it a little more soft, and possessive? Like Cc is more afraid that reader will leave her? And just soft smut? (Sapphic of course) if not then I understand. I also wanted to know if once A good girls guide to murder comes out, will you be doing pop x reader? Because Emma is so cute as pip! ❤️❤️
would it kill you to look at me instead?
Pairing: CC Walker x Fem!Reader
Summary: ^^ request!!
Words: 5k (i was not expecting that damn)
Warnings: soft smut, slight angst. actually idk if its cut out to be angst, possessive cc aaaaaaa, author forgot how to actually write good stories
a/n: thank you so so sooo much!!!! and i was absolutely in love with agggtm when i read the book (i even got the whole series on my bookshelf!) so ofc ill be doing a pip x reader soon. hope i got to your expectations, anon.
masterlist.
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"CC, what's up with you?"
Ava trailed after her, CC's shoes skittering along the hallway like some kind of menace, the slam of her door from her dorm was still echoing in Ava's ears.
Despite having just finished training five minutes ago, CC's steps were quick. Like they were avoiding any sort of conversation, she didn't even know why or where she was going.
"CC, please, you haven't even talked to me in a week!" Ava caught up to her, nearly tackling the girl to keep pace with her steps.
"Okay, what?" The blonde turned around abruptly, wind catching in her hair. She almost could roll her eyes if not for Ava being the sweetest being on this earth. "What, for fucks sake, what is so wrong with me?"
"That." She gestured using her pointer finger while the shorter girl pulled her lips into a thin line, "You keep snapping at everyone, and you've been staring daggers at the squad all week. It was mild at first, but now you look like you want to bury them in front of their families."
Ava leaned in further, squinting her eyes as she crosses her arms, "...Also you have these deep eyebags under your eyes."
CC's shoulder slumped, letting out an heavy sigh while her eyes closed. It burns, burns like fucking hell.
"I—"
Ava jumped forward, her eyes furrowing almost immediately, "Don't say because of exams since you're doing pretty good in terms of academics. You're even top in your classes."
"Well, fine. It's—"
"Don't say soccer too because I know your eyebags only come out of hiding when it's tournament or championship season."
"Okay, Wyatt—"
"Yale is like a million miles from us, CC. Also you don't even text Wyatt unless you need something."
"Well, I..." CC fidgeted under her, her head tilting left and right, "We've, my girlfriend have.... Have been fucking. Sex. Alot. Major, huge sex. Like, up and down, sideways, horizontally, transversally—"
"Alright, no," Ava pulled out her hand and stopped her, her other pinching the bridge of her nose, "Not in any universe would I want to hear about you and y/ns sex life."
CC chuckled, the only laugh she could ever muster. "Look, college's been kicking my ass lately and I'm just tired, really. Nothing to worry about." In all truth and oaths, she was.
She was tired.
For all the different reasons. Might even be petty ones.
So tired of hearing that one name—Clarissa Grey—coming out of your, admittedly so attractive, pretty mouth. She was a transferee yet she already caught your attention with a single 'hey, i'm new here, can you show me around?'
It had been five weekdays, not even counting weekends where Clarissa horribly clung onto you outside of school, of having your presence found nowhere but with that girl.
Normally, CC would spend every waking hour, if not for soccer, with you and you only. Clinging to your arms, holding your warm hands, tip-toeing to kiss your pretty lips she so adored, bringing you to the most expensive places you wanted, and most especially waking up with you in the early morning with your body sprawled atop hers.
It was bliss.
Was.
Now that CC was constantly being pulled to practice she couldn't spend as much time as she wanted with you. Meanwhile, Clarissa had you wrapped around her arms.
In short, Clarissa Grey is and will forever be a pain in the ass.
Clarissa—Insufferable, torturous, agonizing, intolerable, girlfriend-hogging—Grey.
She hated her.
Well, not hated. It's a strong word, a word she couldn't ever describe your, her forever beloved girlfriend, friends. Yet this girl got on her nerves more than ever.
And she's pretty sure this girl's been trying to get into your pants more than CC ever does after a rough game.
Clarissa was fine at first. CC wasn't those controlling partners who didn't allow their other to have friends; in fact, she was happy that you found a friend in the new transferee from across the world.
Now she felt like she was about to butcher the girl from mouth to anus if she ever so much as catching a wind of her presence of how she was constantly stealing you away from her.
CC took months just to muster a hi and introduce herself (through text mind you) and she didn't even check her phone for weeks after it. New girl did it in one damn day.
How could one even out-girlfriend a girlfriend of three years?
Now whenever it hits midnight and CC is finally in your arms all she could hear is:
"I'm so sorry baby, Clarissa made some plans for us."
"Sorry, CC. I have something to do with Clarissa on that date."
"Clarissa wanted to…"
"Baby, is it alright if Clarissa invited me to…"
"CC! Check it out, Clarissa just…
It's ridiculous and all CC could say was a simple yeah sure and a nod like she wasn't going to bash Clarissa's head in with a soccer ball.
She'd admit that even you get the end of the stick with her attention sometimes because of her first-class popularity that always seemed to stick around, but either way she felt really bad.
Jealousy was a stupid emotion which a stupid college girl, mind you, like her was stupidly experiencing. She was 19 experiencing her old 13 year old problems if she met you a bit more earlier. But who wouldn't get jealous?
She had the same interests as you, the same personality, likes the same movies as you, you both had an interest in whatever artist you were listening too.
She practically hung out with you everyday with how the both of you took the same classes and courses. The two of you were perfect on paper.
Clarissa wasn't some soccer-obssessed girl who doesn't spend her time in training for championships that you found yourself spending every second with her if CC wasn't around.
She has a great fashion sense without looking like whatever a 'teenybopper' is or someone dressed like Adam Sandlers.
She's probably great at cooking.
She kept her room impossibly clean as if it were brand new that you found impressive everytime she invited the both of you to her dorm.
She had this amazing ball of sunshine whenever she entered the room like it was a plague.
She probably followed what her mom told her to be when she gets into college.
She was pretty too. Her hair all shiny and she carried absolute grace and poise. Who wouldn't like her?
And that smile of hers? You found it nice. Charming, captivating. Even CC found it enchanting, it was all so surreal.
You liked her, most of all.
Shit.
Not that CC could ever doubt your loyalty to her; hell, she could invite every former crush and celebrity crush you had, and you wouldn't even bat a single eye towards them. You'd even try to desperately find the girl even if she wasn't in the room.
She doubted herself.
Who was she if not for you?
She just missed you. So much. It's killing her.
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"CC!" You yelled, a smile creeping up your lips as you watched her jog up the bleachers in her new shoes you bought for her as an anniversary gift, it was an understatement to say that she loved it.
You watched how her exhausted face broke into a slight smile that managed to never fail to make your heart grow a garden of flowers trying to mimic her beauty, her eyes lighting up by the mere sight of you.
When she finally reached you, she practically melted into your inviting embrace. You held her chose, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she caught her breath, her exhaustion from practice matches slowly going away from being in the comfort of our arms.
You feel how her breaths gradually steadied, her heartbeat turned into its normal pace, her hands snaking up to your back while she buried her head into you, subtly peppering gentle kisses along your neck.
"Y/n..." She murmured, pulling her head away slightly and turning to the side.
Your arms stayed lingered around her waist, "Yeah, baby?"
She shook her head, eyebrows slightly knitting themselves as her gaze drifted at the seats as she inched closer to your ear, "Why... why is she here?" She squeezed your hand that was wrapped around her.
You followed her line of sight to where Clarissa sat on the bleachers right next to you, watching the players off to the side at her own time.
"Well, she wanted to come along with me," you explained with a shrug, "so I brought her here." A soft smile gracing your lips as you glanced at CC who didn't match your sunny expression.
"You guys done yet?" She looked up at the both of you, her voice was oddly monotone and disinterested. Unlike a few moments ago where she was clinging onto your arm while laughing.
You lowered your arms from CC's body as you sat beside Clarissa, gesturing to your girlfriend to slightly introduce her even if they already met a couple of times.
You didn't miss the way CC's face twisted into a grimace one as she crossed her arms, mumbling a slightly less than thrilled exclaim, "Fantastic."
"It is fine for me to cheer you on, right?" Clarissa smiled. Way too innocently at CC as if she wasn't just staring her down, the change in her tone didn't go unnoticed.
"Yeah. Yeah sure, whatever." CC replied, albeit the response came through gritted teeth as she picked up a waterbottle that sat beside you.
Clarissa smiled, laughed even, before leaning her head against you. "We have something to go after anyways, right y/n?" She looked up at you, innocent eyes that definitely didn't mimic yours as you stuttered out a response.
"We do? I didn't—"
"Okay, no, that's—!" CC's reaction was swift, immediately pulling you closer to her side, her hand having a firm grip on your arm as her voice rose in frustration yet faltered.
CC paused, seemingly collecting herself. You turned to her, confusion etched in your face, while Clarissa had a slight tug in her lips.
"That's... perfect. Amazing," she finally managed to say, letting go of her tight grip on you before standing up. "Sorry, I really have to go, I think they're calling for me. Enjoy whatever plans the both of you have."
You hear Clarissa giggle as you watch CC walk down the steps, her waterbottle discarded onto a nearby trashcan. It wasn't even half done. "Guess she doesn't like me, huh?"
A soft sigh escape your lips, your mood officially worried and concerned about CC before turning to Clarissa, "Yeah... Yeah, sorry, we have plans?"
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Nothing could be more worrying than allowing your girlfriend CC-can't-really-monitor-her-liquor-properly-Walker attend a night party held by her teammates as some sort of 'pre-celebration' before a game.
You were already deprived out of her presence, being that you always stuck with that new girl you couldn't really find time to hang out with your girlfriend no longer than 30 minutes.
Not to mention what happened a few hours ago.
You miss her so much its tearing you apart. Unfortunately you're the book definition of a people pleaser so you took the courage to show Clarissa around for a few weeks until she got comfortable with the setting.
Most of the times CC would invite you to come along with to parties. Rejection often means she would be clinging onto your back like a koala and making out with you until the words associated with your academics disappeared from your mind.
Now she just entered the dorm, gave you a single kiss without explanation, and a simple text minutes later just stating 'ill be at a party. see you midnight xx.'
That in itself made you worried. No normal breathing CC Walker would ever use perfect grammar or would her be's or you's spelled correctly without any missing letters.
So imagine your surprise when she arrived two hours before twelve. Wasted and slightly teary-eyed, her pretty eyes avoiding looking at your direction. It was an understatement that the sight broke your heart.
"CC?" You rushed to her side almost immediately, ignoring the concerns of the amount of tasks you had on your desk.
You were met with silence. "CC, baby, are you alright? Did something happen?" you asked softly, "love, hey, look at me." You reach out to steady her as she swayed on her feet more and more in her intoxicated state until she reached her bed.
She shrugged off your touch, feeling a nagging sting in your heart that burned a void inside of you. You watched as she mutter something unintelligible under her breath, gritting her teeth as she stared at the ground.
"CC, talk to me." You carefully sat with her against your bed, fetching her the water that has been sitting on your desk, tilting your head to get her attention.
Her head turned to you, her eyes glassy and unfocused. Her pretty eyes that you adored were almost teary-eyed, "Would it kill you to look at me instead, y/n?"
"CC..." you tilted your head, your eyebrows furrowing, "CC... what? What are you talking about?"
"Why are you always with her? Clarissa?" Her name almost felt like poison in her mouth, awaiting to be spit out in venom, "Why is she always with you when I'm not around? Why are you always looking at her even if I'm mere inches away from you?"
She shook her head before you could respond, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "It's dumb. I know you're allowed to spend time with your friends. And even more to her since she's new and everything. You could spend time with anyone and I wouldn't care but I—" She took a deep breath, "Every time I see you with her, it's like… like she's much more of a good girlfriend than me you know? Because she likes you. It's kind of clear."
You couldn't feel anything but that gruesome feeling that's eating you apart. You could feel your heart tearing your own self apart as she spoke more.
"She looks at you as if you're hers, y/n. Not to mention she's always touching you, calling you names, always going out of her way to be alone with you... I mean, she asked you out as a joke. Multiple times."
"CC I never thought…" You feel a lump forming in your throat, her words heavy on your heart that were surely more heavier on hers. "I'm sorry, CC."
You reached out to cup her cheek, her body turning to face you, your thumb gently wiping a stray tear that fell on her face. "I'm so sorry, CC. You're not losing me. You will never lose me," you whispered, "I care about you more than anything. More than I breathe. I'm so sorry I made you feel like you were losing me. You have my whole heart, my body, my very soul."
Her gaze softened slightly, you could see that familiar glint you always loved to look at when you locked eyes with her. You missed it. "Is that a promise?"
Gently, you brushed your fingers against her cheek, pressing delicate kisses to her soft skin. "Far more important than a promise. I'll keep it like an oath on my life."
You let your arms wrap around her, feeling her slumping against you, curling against herself between your arms like she was trying to drown all of her burdens for you. "I'm just afraid that you'll leave me. I'm sorry for blowing up on you. I'm sure Clarissa is great."
CC felt warm, comforting, a presence that made you feel like everything to her, how she always kept you grounded. "It's alright, CC. I've been there before, don't worry. And for the record, I'm kind of getting tired of showing her around. Just a slight bit. I'll try introducing her to some people."
CC smiled against your neck, "You don't have to ignore her completely, baby. It's fine. I think my insecurities just got the best of me."
She's as comforting as the day you met her. The comforting sense of love, how you'd wake yourself up everyday just to see her face. Even if your heart gives out, you'd work through turmoil for it to beat for her. Even if you're tired, you'd manage enough energy for her to enjoy life with you.
"I'll never let you doubt my love for you again. No one could ever replace what I'm feeling with you, no one could ever replace you. You're simply everything baby, everything that life never gave me and everything life never offered."
You press a tender kiss to her forehead before making your way to her lap, pulling her collar and capturing her lips in a soft yet deep kiss.
CC responded eagerly to your kiss, closing her eyes while she let her hands wrap around your waist as she parted her lips to invite yours in as her tongue slipped between them.
With a low groan of ecstasy, you welcomed her intrusion, your own tongue fighting with hers yet you surrendered almost immediately, every touch of her in on your body sent shivers down your spine, leaving you craving for more of her.
You could feel her hands sliding under your shirt, the simple warmth of her touch, how her fingers glided smoothly against your skin and trailing to your chest was like reassurance that you were wanted and loved by her, how you were only hers.
"Baby…" you managed to murmur between her assaulting kisses that only seemed to spur her on as you went limp on her body, "have I ever told you I love the way you talk..."
You couldn't help but grin at the soft chuckle that escaped her pretty lips at your words, her kisses only growing more fervent as CC pressed herself against you all while she looked up at you with those eyes, waiting for you.
"The way you smile…" you trailed off, tugging at her shirt, tracing your fingers along her jawline, "the way you get jealous, the way you get so competitive sometimes, the way you look so lovely every waking moment, it's intoxicating."
You kissed her deeply, savoring the taste of her lips as you softly bit at her bottom lip, your voice turning husky and needy with desire, "Most importantly, I love the way you fuck me into your bed every night. You know no girl could drive me insane like what you're doing to me right now."
You didn't miss how CC's breath hitched at your words, how her eyes darkened with desire almost immediately as she pulled you by the collar of your shirt and flipped the both of you around. her hands roaming all over your body as she mumbled to her breath.
"I want you," she pleaded, "I need you, y/n, please." It wasn't a question, she needed this.
You wrapped your legs around her waist, pulling her close, feeling the heat of her body on top of yours as you mumbled a weak 'yes.'
CC took her time in showering you with the amount of kisses she wanted to give you, offering everything you needed with tenderness you never thought existed, the special attention that she always showed to you, worshipping every inch of your body.
She looked up at you, noticing the way your eyes closed, uncertain of whether it was out of pure bliss or discomfort. "Y/n, is this okay?", she asked softly, squeezing your hand that laid off to the side.
That was the thing about CC that you always adored, how she took the time to make sure you were comfortable in whatever she was doing. Whether she was rough or not, she was still so gentle with you, treating you as if you were porcelain about to break.
In the span of three years, her sweet and caring nature never faded no matter how much time you'll be spending time with her. She was the sweetest girl that only you knew.
You smiled at her, "Yes, CC, everything is okay. Just remind me of how much I'm yours to handle."
She nodded before returning to her usual, pulling up your shirt until it was completely off your body, "You're always so gorgeous…" She whispered against your skin, pressing her lips on your body, trailing down your chest. Each touch was gentle and tender, all just for you to feel cherished.
"I'm gonna take it off, okay, sweetheart?" CC murmured before she was lifting up your hips herself, her fingers sliding into your waistband and discarding your shorts and undergarments off to the side.
You gasped at the sudden cold air hitting your warmth as CC knelt below you to get the perfect view of your pretty pussy she so adored.
You suck a moan under her hot breath against your clit, her arms wrapping around your thighs to pull you in, "Baby, please…"
"I'll get there, pretty girl." CC whispered, taking soft licks of your juices, lapping them as she inched a little further into your warmth, groaning against you.
She looked up, watching how your body reacts with her each touch she had on you, whether she should follow your wants or what she needs to be satisfied.
She could see the flicker of pleasure in your eyes, the way your breath hitched, how you sound with every whine that elicited from your glossy lips, the way you try to cover your moans with your palm.
CC moved away, your needy whine didn't go unnoticed, her lips brushing against your wet clit before wrapping around the needy warmth and sucking gently, your body instinctively creating the perfect arch, your hips rolling into your face as you chased to get the most friction out of her mouth as she held you down by her arms.
But just as you felt nearing an orgasm, CC pulled away, only leaving you panting and wanting more.
She towered over you, spreading your legs as she leaned in closer, the sight of your juices on your lips turned you on even more.
"What do you want, baby? Tell me," she whispered, leaning in closer and planting soft kisses along your face as she waited for your answer.
"You… want you.. inside," you whispered, "want all of you, right now, please…" you moaned as the words spilled out of you in a desperate plea, discreetly rolling your hips against her thigh.
CC smiled down at you, her touch gentle and loving as her hands trailed down below to caress your soft skin before giving you what you wanted, while the other hand held up your head, showering you with praises after praises.
You kissed her back, feeling her fingers slowly inching towards your entrance that sent shivers down your spine. You tried to kiss her once again, trying to drown out your rather loud moans yet your efforts failed.
"Such a good girl, you're taking me so well..." CC praised you, smiling against your lips, "You're so pretty like this, baby. All just for me." She inserted all three fingers inside of you, stretching you out in the most delicious way possible.
"F-fuck! CC, please," you moaned, looking up at her as she looked right at you back, covering your mouth with only your palm. Getting caught having sex with your girlfriend at night in a literal college dorm wasn't in your applications at all.
CC, however, seemed unfazed as she panted, rolling and curling her fingers inside of your warm heat, always finding that one spot that had you seeing stars. "Are you close?" she asked, speeding up her pace.
You could only nod frantically in response, feeling a knot tightening in your stomach, "Yes, yeah, I'm close," you gasped, your body almost trembling in pleasure.
"You know, Clarissa is only a dorm away from us." She took hold of your wrists and held them high above your head, her grip still soft to touch, like she was still trying to take care of you. "You're going to scream my name. Not 'baby', not 'love', not Clarissa or whatever her name is. Not anyone."
Your eyes widened in surprise, your mouth opening to protest, but you were cut off before you could speak.
"I want everybody to hear that you're mine, especially her." She continued, her fingers pushing deep into you as you arched your back, "I want her to know how good I'm fucking you, how well you're taking every inch of me. Tell them what a good girl you are for me."
In your clouded haze, you desperately nodded with half-lidded eyes that stared back at her, your mouth half opened as she kept eliciting pathetic moans and whines from your lips.
"M' gonna cum, baby… CC, please," you whimpered, your voice strained and coming out in choked sobs, feeling the knot tightening deep inside of you. CC relentlessly pushed you closer to the edge, your back arching as she whispered praises after praises.
She released your arms from her grasp and you immediately wrap them around her neck, pulling her impossibly close to your body, her fingers thrusting deeper inside of your pussy while her thumb traced your clit in circles.
"Don't hold it, y/n. Cum for me, pretty girl, it's alright," she whispered as you brought her close to your neck, pressing one last kiss to your skin, satisfying everything inside of you with one last thrust.
You cum almost immediately after, "CC! F-fuck!" you moaned, making sure everyone can hear you. Your walls clenched around her fingers all while she still tried to pump them in and out of you, her hand slick with your cum that went nowhere but down her palm.
You wrap your legs around her waist, seeking support in her body as your own trembled in pleasure, your back arching as you gradually went down from your high, "M' all yours, CC! S-shit, you're fucking me so well!" you gasped, your words coming out in ragged breaths as you were brought to a back to back orgasm.
While you were coming down from your high, CC was already showering you with kisses all over your body, whispering sweet nothings, words of praises and adoration that automatically flowed on instinct from her lips, "I'm right here, y/n. God, you're so so so perfect."
When she felt your body begin to relax, going limp on CC, she gently withdrew from you, reaching out for a nearby stand to grab a pair of tissues. She wiped her fingers clean and gently cleaned the beads of sweat that formed on your forehead.
"You did so well, baby," she murmured, leaning in to press a soft kiss to your lips. "I'm so proud of you, pretty girl. I love you so much."
CC slid her arms under your body, lifting you up and placing you against the headboard, taking note of how your eyes were shut close and your breaths were slightly labored. "Y/n? Y/n, are you alright? Was I too much?"
You chuckled softly, opening your eyes to meet her gaze as she settled into your lap, her arms wrapping around you protectively. Like you'd run away and never return into her hold. Her eyes were too pretty, too full with love and care for you, almost as if you already died and went to heaven.
"You were too soft, actually." you laughed, leaning in to kiss her, tasting her natural lipgloss with the mix of your juices; an odd taste you'd say. "Is that what jealousy gets to CC Walker?"
"Definitely not," she replied almost immediately. "But seeing you with her makes me feel like I am. I needed to feel close to you, for you to feel close to me…" Her voice trailed off, her words faltering. She was always the one who talked alot about her feelings, yet it always seemed so distant and struggled.
"Well, you're not really mine mine since, of course, you don't really belong to anybody. Hell, even I don't own you and no one should think that! But you know I just—"
You reached up to cup her cheek as you cut her off, your thumb brushing lightly against her skin, a gentle smile playing on your lips.
"Oh, you know a girl batting her eyes at me won't change the way I feel about you. That's completely ridiculous," you reassured her. "You're always going to be my top 1. You have my birthday on your jersey for fuck sakes, who couldn't say no to that?"
Her lips curved into a smile, a relief expression is what you'd assume. "Guess you've brought up a solid argument," she laughed, leaning into your touch. "I'll run you a bath, okay?"
"I'll come with," you were already trying to stand up until CC pushed you back down.
"As... a trophy winner of an international soccer team, I suggest you lie back down. Maybe watch a couple of movies or two and let me do the taking care part." She leaned on your forehead and walked to the shower, already gathering your clothes and towel.
You sat up from the bed, a stupid smile across your face as you watched this girl do everything for you. Oh, the way she was so sweet for you was unbelievable. "Don't you need a degree for me to believe you?"
"Yeah!" She yelled across the room, "But I am your girlfriend and you believed me when I said I almost quit soccer because of a shoulder injury when in actuality it was my mom. So." She shrugged, already entering the shower and turning on the faucet before returning back to you.
"You're simply awful." You smiled as you watch her come back with a water and her laptop. "I love you." You say as you kiss her forehead.
"I love you too. So much." She smiled, "but one thing." She sat beside you, rising up a blanket to cover your naked body as she waited for the bathtub to fill. "You have to promise me that you'll keep your eyes on me. And me only."
"Still on Clarissa?"
"Unfortunately so."
You chuckle. "Then, I promise on my life that I'll keep my eyes only for CC Walker. And CC Walker only."
"Forever?"
"Forever and Always."
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a/n: this is longer than i anticipated it to be
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cecil-apologist · 9 days
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YOU DONT HAVE TO RESPOND BUT I GOT SO EXCITED SEEING A NIGHTVALE BIO AND USER?? I NEVER SEE THEM ANYMORE 😭 SO NOW ILL FOLLOW A COUPLE DOZEN WTNV BLOGS AND MAYBE CHECK OUT SOME FANFICS. ITS BEEN TOO LONG!! THANKS FOR REMINDING ME OF MY BELOVED BLORBOS <33
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there are still a lot of active night vale blogs. here are some of my mutuals you might want to follow: @bulkhummus @w2nv @kerink @fluctuating-fanby @asydicsydney @cowboyinternist @annabelle--cane @eclipse-song @esrah-rah-rasputin @catboycecil
i write night vale fic here but i'm currently on break because of uni/wrist injury.
some other fics that i enjoyed (no nsfw):
Cecil turns into a hamster?
Cecil rides a bike
Carlos is kidnapped by Strex and loses his memories, has to find his way back to Cecil and Night Vale
Short, cute and funny year 1 fic from Carlos' POV
Carlos tries to get dating advice from a hooded figure
If you think about it, pupils are actually super scary. Like, why is there a fucking hole in my eye?
Cockroaches!
Blood space war arc fic which is like my favourite arc
Carlos is a unit of measurement
This series where Cecil is the town
GAY MARRIAGE REAL?!
MORE GAY MARRIAGE
i know that man has a smoking problem i know it
cecil and carlos go for a nice walk in a normal forest and nothing bad happens
cecil is so normal
go to therapy
i mean his boyfriend is a scientist which makes him basically a scientist
existential
re-education fic
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Dear John | Part 2
Masters of the Air Fanfiction
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Part 1
Series Summary: Major John Egan wasn’t the pen-pal sort but a couple of hours into a dark night full of writing condolence letters he finds himself wondering why he never tried his hand at the nicer forms of correspondence. Who better to reanimate his numb inspiration than the glamorous Miss Lana Tierney? -the army’s girl next door, the pinup so prolific she was practically a wall paper print and Bucky’s long-standing cinematic crush. It’s not like she’ll read it anyways. Right? Right.
Warnings: suggestive language, crass vocabulary, the vintage form of sexting -honestly this is mostly fluffy in reply to his more overt letter
Author’s note: after episode four I’ve got feelings and fics for this universe that are far ahead of these establishing pieces. So I’ve gone ahead and tossed this preliminary one out but I may very well skip around and ahead to October next. At least now y’all know: she wrote him back. Hehe. If it’s of interest, I’ll probably end up writing John’s reaction to receiving this response as well as Gale’s response to realizing his friend actually went and sent that awful thing.
Date: Early August, 1943
Dear John, (I’m sorry Major Egan, I just had to)
Thank you for your kind letter of the 18th. It’s been many years since I received so delightful a correspondence or so candid an expression of admiration. And you should know I keep most of the letters the sweet people of this country send me. They’re stacked in quite an orderly fashion in my various garages, kept for the rainy days to peruse and keep the blues away and also so I might try very hard to reply. I don’t take such affection for granted. It’s humbling really, always has been, to be so loved by folks but it’s another level entirely to be singled out by someone as brave and impressive as yourself.
I found your letter to be heartfelt and wonderfully brave and in an effort to be equally transparent, you should know that when I finished it I clutched it to my breast and whispered half a dozen prayers for you. Or as you might say, I held it to my knockers.
That’s an awful word, you must know that Major.
As is “rack”, for that matter, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion that you would make it sound charming as even your blotted paper was electric. How could you dare to praise my film set flapjacks and mention making babies? I’m fizzing just glancing at it. You really must be quite the fella and I’m terribly sad now that our rendezvous, such as you say it was, got cut short. You must reprimand your friend -Buck, is it?- and tell him he did an bad deed that night. There’s nothing I like better than duets and hamburgers, we might’ve been one of the great loves by now if he hadn’t meddled. But don’t be too hard on him, if he’s the sort to take it well, kiss him for me, after you chide him.
But since we are being honest, I must admit, reading your letter, being privy to your thoughts, seeing myself through your eyes as it were - dear man, I feel rather riled. Quite riled, in fact. Why, I haven’t felt riled in a while, not like this. Not like an ordinary girl with an extraordinary boy. Do you know what I mean?
Maybe you don’t.
I mean regular, old fashioned flustered. That’s what you’ve made me. And thank you for that, John. Can I call you Johnny? I wonder if you’re the nickname sort, or if you’re real stern and serious, a real John-John. Not a Johnny at all. But either way, I think you deserve a treat, for being so nice, Major Egan. For reminding me I can feel my pulse somewhere besides my wrists before a show -and for all you’re doing in the war, besides. There seems to be no safer hands to trust this to, you do seem so very fond of them, I am led to believe you’d be protective of them, too.
Enclosed is something for the personal morale, I hope you’ll think of me nightly with it at hand, in fact, I’m so excited about it I’ve taken this ill advised measure to insure you do. I’d very much like a report, do they live up to your expectations? They’re homegrown, after all, I hadn’t much say in them but now I’ve got them, I don’t see why they shouldn’t do their bit to keep you alive. A small sacrifice.
One of those reasons you mentioned, John, you’ve so many of them, more than you know. A million souls over here rooting you on, insisting you make it out the other side.
I’m forefront among them, I’ll be scanning the crowd when I come to Europe -because I will, at your invitation. Perhaps if you send me a picture of your own mug I won’t be looking a fool asking every man in uniform if I remind them of an acorn. Are you going to tell me what on earth that means? I’ve tried to work it out but I always end up with some mathematical conundrum and I just know in my heart of hearts you wouldn’t let me down like that, would you Major? It’s something awfully salacious, isn’t it? Please let it be!
I’m a vain little thing and I can’t deny the way this poor heart of mine is all pitter pattering at the thought of you being so awful while also so nice. It’s a strange blend, and rather like my coke, I do prefer my men mixed.
Best wishes, may you have cloudless skies and fresh coffee to your heart's content. My sources -and I’ve excellent ones, an upside of working the war bond circuit- tell me you’re airforce. I think that’s remarkable and I hope you give that picture some thought. Mine, and yours.
Your vain little friend,
Julia Jean Turner
P.S.-I’m only ever ‘The Lana Tierney ‘ to strangers, and we aren’t strangers now, are we? not if you’re to take my picture to your bunk. i suspect you may have already taken that liberty. who’s to say I did not take similar liberties upon reading certain stirring passages of your letter? Xx 💋
__insert vintage titty pic__
Whew this week was a doozy wasn’t it? Here’s some fluff for those of y’all who needed it, and I can promise angst soon for those who want to stay in the soul shattering mood. Hope you enjoy. Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, let me hear your screams.
Drop a comment to let me know if you’d like to be tagged in any of my MOTA fics. Xo
Taglist:
@stylespresleyhearted
@ab4eva
@earth-to-lottie
@suraemoon
@blurredcolour
@steph-speaks
@crazymadpassionatelove
@rubyfruitjungle
@taestrwbrry
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fr-ogii · 4 months
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!! SPOILERS IF YOU HAVENT FINISHED THE PJO SERIES !! (it’s also pretty angsty)
i can’t make this into an actual fic or one shot bc i know ill start sobbing, but i can’t stop thinking about what it would be like dating luke castellan before he betrays camp.
if you remain loyal to camp and don’t join chronos, i can’t imagine you two would continue dating. you wouldn’t see each other for years. you’d try and forget about him. maybe date around to distract yourself. or maybe you’d swear off dating all together, scared it would turn out the same way as it did last time. maybe luke would do the same.
you’ve only seen him a couple times since then. only a few years after he left camp, you saw him during a quest you took. he’s changed. sharing a body with a titan has taken a massive toll on his body. his once tan skin had now become a pale hue. he was a shell of his formal self.
and then it was the last battle. he’d drastically changed yet again, doing a full 180. his skin glowed unnaturally and he looks almost too healthy, despite his internal sickness and turmoil.
right before he takes annabeth’s knife and stabs his achilles heel — ending his life and chronos’ — he sees you. and blah blah i don’t even wanna put it into words but i’m so very convinced that you share one final kiss as he leaves the mortal realm.
*cue last kiss by taylor swift playing in the background*
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echo-bleu · 6 months
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Disability pride request? Two characters of your choice hanging out, maybe one using two forearm crutches and one using two canes. They can be friends or partners - I just generally love seeing disabled characters interactng with one another!
How about three disabled characters?
Once upon a time @camille-lachenille sent me a prompt about Míriel having Ehler-Danlos Syndrome. I had already sketched a disabled Celegorm with EDS in mind and, thinking about how it's genetic, had an epiphany about Celebrimbor (and the meaning of his name) and I drew him as well. So I wrote a fic about all three of them dealing with chronic pain, but I still hadn't drawn Míriel. That oversight is now fixed!
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They have more in common than just chronic illness xD.
This is still titled "The EDS gang" in my files, I'm going to stick to it. Set sometime in Fourth Age Valinor, when most things are good again...
Disabled Tolkien characters series
(Feel free to send me more disability prompts! I love drawing them.)
More ramblings about disability aids that devolved into bullet-point headcanons under the cut. ID and transcription at the end, but they're also in alt text.
[CW: this is all fairly light but discussion of death and trauma and you know, everything that comes with these three.]
I do not know how to make comics. I'm sure that's very obvious but, you know, learning new things and all that. One thing I learned was that my usual style of rendering does not work with it as well so I rendered them entirely twice.
It was meant to be day 21 and 22 of my October challenge, because surely I can draw and colour a full page in a day (spoilers: no). In the end it was a combined 15 hours of work over 3 and a half days because I made it as complicated as I possibly could 😭 Still, I had fun and learned a lot.
Note: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a connective tissue disorder, affecting basically how your cells are glued together. There are a lot of different symptoms (and different types of EDS) but a frequent one is joint pain and hypermobility, and it's at least partly inherited.
Míriel:
Red was Míriel's colour first. She's not into gaudy things and rarely wears vivid colours, but almost always something red. She barely wears any jewellery since reembodiment, mostly for sensory reason (She is very autistic. That's something she gave Fëanor, Curufin, Caranthir, Ambarussa and Celebrimbor, at least.)
She died of post-partum (and general) depression and energy depletion from childbirth or something, but the chronic illness that was taking all of her energy and keeping her from her craft certainly didn't help.
Also pregnancy was horribly rough on her, partly because EDS can be affected by hormonal changes.
She's actually been better since reembodiment, because she has better accommodations (Finwë did his best but he was very lost) and also a Vala on hand who makes her very good painkilling tea.
She wears knitted compression gloves that she designed to help with hand pains.
Her wheelchair is of Noldor make, but I'm sure Celebrimbor will have suggestions for improving it.
The tapestry that she is weaving is actually this painting of Finrod that I did a while ago. I figure that she's representing calmer, nicer things now that she doesn't have to weave her grandchildren's downfall and deaths.
Celegorm:
He was in a relationship with Oromë before the Exile. After his reembodiment, it took them a while by they talked it out and forgave each other. Oromë doesn't quite get elves, but he's really supportive.
He has a pair of wolf-head canes carved by Nerdanel. He alternatively uses both, just one and sometimes none depending on activity/pain level.
He wears bandages as compression garments because this is a world without elastane. His leggings have reinforced knees for support.
He's always heard about Míriel having the same thing as he does from Finwë, and he knew that when he started showing symptoms, Fëanor was terrified that he'd fade too. So for a long time, Míriel's story was kind of hanging above his head.
That's why it takes him a while to go seek her out after he's reembodied. Celebrimbor understands why it's important to him and he pushed him to it a little bit, so Celegorm dragged him along.
They're going to get along great. Míriel is both the quintessential grandmother and also she has a twisted sense of humour that Celegorm will just love.
Celebrimbor:
Celegorm was always his favourite uncle, and they became very close when Celebrimbor started having symptoms in the early years in Exile, and Celegorm stayed with Curufin in Himlad for him.
It took Celebrimbor a while to forgive him after Returning (not as long as Curufin but still) but they've gone back to being really close.
He was really unlucky with reembodiment: while he wasn't reborn with the physical aspect of his torture, the memory of pain and the trauma made his chronic pain a lot worse than it was before, and he can no longer walk unaided.
He designed the silver ring and wrist splints back in Eregion with Narvi's help, and ended up literally living up to his name (which means "silver fist/grasping hand").
Paradoxically these were a great motivation for him to work through his trauma and go back to the forge, because he couldn't find a silversmith in Valinor who could make good enough ones for him, even with all of his sketches and specifications.
A lot of his work since reembodiment has been designing and making disability aids for people.
He uses platform crutches to spare his hands as much as possible. He invented and designed them, of course, as well as the KAFO brace that he wears here. He's also a part-time wheelchair user.
He is still wearing dwarven beads in his hair. He obviously didn't bring anything back from Middle-Earth but he asked Gimli to make them for him in remembrance of Narvi. His tunic is also dwarven-inspired.
He is pretty chill about Sauron here. I don't know if there was a redemption (I have feelings about @chthonion's The Harrowing and @mynameisjessejk's Otter Mayhem) or if he's just been through enough elf-therapy to be able to joke about it. Celegorm's sense of humour is just Like That.
Celegorm and Celebrimbor are about to try Vairë's special painkilling tea for the first time 👀
Between all of them they should really open a disability aids shop or something. They just might! Míriel doesn't really ever leave Vairë's house but I think Celegorm and Celebrimbor will keep visiting her a lot, and eventually all of the grandkids will as well.
Image description and transcriptions:
Two digital comic book pages.
Image 1: The first case takes the whole width, showing two pairs of feet with each two canes/crutches on a tiled floor, with a speech bubble saying "Do you think she'll want to see us?"
The second line has two cases in 2/3 and 1/3 format. The first shows two hands in red fingerless gloves working on a tapestry on a loom. The second shows part of a light-skinned face in profile, with curly white hair. Three speech bubbles say "My love?" "Um?" "There are people here asking for you."
The bottom part has one case off-center showing the same hand undoing the brake of a wheelchair, with a speech bubble saying "Your grandson and your great-grandson." above and one saying "I'll be right here." below. Then a full-length off-case portrait of Miríel, a light-skinned elf with shoulder-length curly white sitting in a wheelchair and pushing herself. She's wearing a pale pink embroidered dress with red accents, red fingerless gloves and elbow pad and brown boots and smiling.
Image 2: A single large case shows two elves standing in a room with a tiled floor, with a large door and two tables behind them. There are thread spools on one table and a tea set on the other. One elf, Celebrimbor, is brown-skinned and slightly chubby, with long black hair in a braided bun, wearing a red tunic and dark green pants. He is leaning on two decorated platform combo crutches made of wood and metal, with a KAFO brace on his leg. He wears finger and hand silver splints. The other elf, Celegorm, is pale and has long white hair in a high ponytail with small braids, he has tattoos on his neck and arms and he wears bandages on his shoulders, elbows and wrist. He wears a green tunic, leggings and wrap-around gaiters. He is leaning on a cane and holding up another cane, pointing at the first elf. Both canes have handles carved in the shape of wolf heads.
The speech bubbles are arranged around and below them, giving this dialogue, with the speakers distinguished by the shape of the bubble (the parts in parentheses are smaller text in the bubbles):
Celegorm: "My lady, my name is Tyelkormo, and this is my nephew Tyelpë." Miríel: "I know who you are, my wonderful children. Come sit." Celebrimbor: "That would be nice, thank you." Miríel: "Vairë, my love, would you make us some tea?" Celebrimbor: "My lady!" Celegorm: "A Vala who can make tea! (I could never get Oromë to do it.)" Miríel: "It was a long domestication process." Vairë (off screen): "Hey!" Celebrimbor: "Instant hot water! That’s nice. (I wonder if I could replicate that.)" Miríel: "She makes wonderful hot water bottles." Celegorm: "Oromë just uses his hands as hot pads." Celebrimbor: "Ew, I didn’t need to know that." Celegorm: "What? Just because your Maia burns everything he touches–" Celebrimbor: "Shut up." Miríel: "You must both tell me everything about yourself. And your partners!"
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cevansbrat0007 · 1 year
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The Lonely Hearts Club: Part One
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Summary: You decide to press pause on your relationship with Andrew Barber. Too bad your hotshot attorney of an ex-boyfriend doesn't understand the meaning of the word. Takes place directly after the events in Photo Shoot Faux Pas. Read Part Two!
Warnings: Angst, Break-ups, Cursing, Andy Being a Menace, Insecure Reader, Eventual Smut, Manhandling, Punishments, Minors DNI
A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! This multi-part fic will feature a combination of requests from the likes of @writer84, @lexivass, @moejdaw, as well as several other anonymous readers. Part of my ongoing Growing Pains Series. All mistakes are my own. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.
___
“Come on, girl. You can do this.”
“Yeah, but maybe…” You trail off as you approach Andy’s front door. Fishing the key out of your pocket, you insert it into the lock. Thanks to your shaking hands, it actually takes a few seconds longer than it probably should. “Maybe I oughta wait.”
“Babe.” Your friend blows out a breath, the noise coming across the other line like static. “We’ve been over this like a dozen times already. Today is just another day; it’s no different from any other.” 
Your friends had been quick to remind you that Valentine’s Day didn’t really matter. At its core, it was nothing more than a cheap gimmick big corporations used to upsell mediocre chocolate and subpar rom-coms. Right?
“I know, I know.” There really wasn’t much more you could say beyond that. Not after the two of you had painstakingly broken down every detail of this very scenario just last night. During which time you also managed to consume several bottles of wine. 
You’d been all up in your feelings from the moment you’d arrived at your best friend’s house. And Sara had spent a good hour sitting with you on her living room floor, gently rocking you back and forth while you quietly sobbed into her sweater. 
Andy hated it when you cried. But when you did, he was always so good at using his big body to comfort you – to calm you down. He’d been the one that you’d really wanted last night. You’d been so tempted to call him, even before the alcohol had started flowing. 
However, all your girls had said “no”. And when they couldn’t get you to listen to reason, they’d instructed Sara to remove the temptation by swiping your phone and hiding it away. At the time you’d been highly upset. But now you were grateful for their interference. Because this was something you had to do. 
Provided that you could make yourself stick with the fucking plan.
“Are you in yet?” Sara asks, her voice briefly snapping you back into the present.
“I am. I–I’m just gonna leave it on the table. Along with the muffins.” Squeezing your eyes shut, you brace for the sound you’re pretty sure is about to viciously assault your eardrums in three…two…one…
Here it comes.
“YOU BOUGHT HIM FUCKING MUFFINS?!” She screeches, her tone rife with stunned exasperation. “Are you being serious right now?!”
Yes, you did that. It didn’t seem right to just drop the note and run. At least not without leaving a little something else to go with it, apparently in the form of cinnamon spice crunch.
“Don’t judge me, bitch. This shit is hard enough as it is.” You growl into the receiver, setting the box of delicious smelling baked goods onto his kitchen counter. “I just wanna make sure he has something to tide him over until we – until we, um…” Gripping the edge of a chair, you force yourself to take a series of deep breaths.
“Shit, Y/N, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby.” Your friend immediately backpedals. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not like you can hear her anyway over the sound of the distant roaring in your ears. “I know this is hard, honey. But you’ve got to pull it together.” 
This whole thing was making you feel ill. 
Fuck! Like it or not, she was right. The last thing you wanted to do was start crying again. Because you knew if you allowed yourself to break down here, it would be impossible to stop. And that’s exactly where you could not afford to let Andrew Stephen Barber to find you right now.
Standing in the middle of his kitchen, openly crying. Desperately wanting to be held by the one man who had the power to shatter you into a million glittering pieces with nothing more than a simple touch.
And while that might seem a bit dramatic, it also didn’t make it any less true. Which meant that you needed to get out there, fast. You couldn’t allow yourself to forget that you really did have somewhere else to be. Standing up straight, you tuck Andy’s house key into the folded up piece of paper and then place it on top of the muffins.
Time to go. 
Turning on your heel, you make a beeline for the exit. Hopefully you’d feel better once you were on the road. As you leave, you make a mental note to worry about everything else later. Until then, you just had to focus on the now.    
“Fuck!” You hiss as the door slams closed behind you. 
“What? Is Andy home? Did he –” You cut her off, feeling frustrated even as the sickly-sweet taste of regret threatens to claw its way up your throat. 
“No. I just forgot to grab that stupid fucking album is all.” With a huff, you jog over to your car. “And it’s not like I can go back in for it or anything since I left him his key. Fuuuuck!” You close the driver’s side door before turning on your vehicle and putting it in gear.
“Girl, who gives a shit!” Sara snorts, clearly relieved that your activities weren’t interrupted. “Look at it this way, whether you like it or not, you just gave that ungrateful bastard something to remember you by.”
Good point, Sara. That’s exactly why she had been designated as your emotional support person for this entire emotionally draining escape. 
“True.” Time to focus on the road. If traffic cooperated, you had just enough time to get yourself to your next destination without risking getting a ticket.
Not that that mattered much anymore. The days of anyone giving a shit about your potentially reckless activities were most likely a thing of the past. Oh well. You looked forward to no longer having to stock up on aloe. Yeah, the price of that stock was about to go way down. 
A tiny giggle bubbles up, escaping before you can stop it. 
“Are you okay, Y/N? I know that was rough back there, but I really think you did the right thing. Plus, I’ve been updating everyone on the group chat, and they all agree.” You resolve to check the thread later so that you can provide everyone with an update.
See that Andy Bear? This whole damned thing had been workshopped from start to finish. You can’t possibly accuse me of being impulsive now. You let out another burst of laughter, this one sounding a touch more hysterical than the last.  
“Also, Rhea really wants to know where you got those friggin’ muffins…”
“Tell her I’ll message her with the name of the bakery later.” You merge onto the highway as you head towards downtown. “Thanks for all your help today, Sara. Couldn’t have done it without you girls.”
“Hey boo – you know we love Andy’s fine ass. We just happen to love your ass a hell of a lot more. Now drive safe and text us when you land.” You know she’s telling the truth. All of your girls were pretty darn fond of your man, but you were their girl first. And their loyalty was to you.
Something for which you were exceedingly grateful.
“You got it – talk soon.” 
You end the call before settling in for the remainder of the drive. Not wanting to be alone with your thoughts, you quickly decide to turn on the radio – only to be surprised when Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together” begins playing over the speakers.
“Wow.” You whisper with a shake of your head. “That is so not fair.”
Sometimes the gods possessed a real fucked up sense of humor.
Your bottom lip quivers as the lyrics hit home, hot tears blurring your vision. You let out an audible sniffle before dashing at them with your sleeve. But you don’t change the station. And you no longer try to stem the flow. Instead you finally give yourself over to the pain that was your heart breaking – piece by piece.
You’d talk to Andy in a couple of weeks. He’d give you space. He’d give you time. And if he didn’t want to work things out when it was all said and done…then you would have to find a way to live without him. And you would find a way.
But first, you had a plane to catch. And then you were gonna get yourself a margarita and – no – scratch that.
Make that a bottle of tequila.   
___
Five hours later…
Andy shoulders his way into his house from the garage, absentmindedly toeing off his shoes as he sorts through his mail. 
Bill. Bill. Junk. A Postcard from his Dentist. Another bill. And more junk.
With a grunt, he tosses the stack of unwanted papers onto the table. And then he spies the pink box resting on the counter. A smile curves its way across his handsome lips when he realizes that you must’ve stopped by at some point during the day. 
But he does find it rather odd that you wouldn’t have let him know. Sure, it was Valentine’s Day, but the two of you weren’t supposed to get together until this weekend. 
Still smiling, Andy makes his way over to the box of treats, humming a little tune as he goes. While he had a feeling something was going on with you lately, he’d simply chalked it up to stress. But he also knew that once he got you in his bed and settled himself between those gorgeous thighs, it was only a matter of time before he’d have you speaking in tongues…
Which would hopefully lead to you spilling your pretty little guts. So that he could finally try to fix whatever it was that kept making you seem so sad.  
He picks up the note, his head tilting to the side as he tries to make sense of the meaning behind your interesting dessert choice. Confused, he decides to read your message. With a sigh, he unfolds the piece of paper. Only to be caught off guard when a key falls out and onto the surface below, the sharp clatter making him jump.
“What the fuck?” He snarls as his eyes quickly scan the tear-stained piece of paper. “No. Oh no, baby girl…fuck no…” 
He could not fucking believe what he was reading. 
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Andrew grips the edge of the counter as his legs threaten to give out underneath him. However, it’s not until the fourth reread that it all finally clicks into place.
You'd just tried to break-up with him. On fucking Valentine’s Day of all fucking days. But if you thought that leaving him a “Dear John” letter and a box of muffins before running off to god-knows-where was going to be the end of it, then well…the joke was on you. Because there was no way in hell he was ready to let you go. At least not without one hell of fight. 
"Alright." A dark chuckle escapes as he crumples the note in fist. Part of him wished that he still carried a lighter so that he could go outside and burn your fucking letter. “But make no mistake, sweetness, we’re not done here.”
However, Andrew Barber could be patient until he saw you again. He’d give you a couple days to get your mind right. But when he found you – and he would – he wasn’t going to stop until he had you back in his life and in his bed, right where you fucking belonged. 
You could count on that shit.
END
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paperclipped-mongoose · 5 months
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Convincing Enough For You?
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Pairing: Angus Macgyver x F! Reader
Summary: An important mission came up, and during the briefing it became clear that Mac didn't think you were the right fit for the flirtatious role.
Word Count: 1.6k
Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, Use of Y/N (not excessive), First Person, Fight Flirting, Arguing, A malfunctioning MacGyver, A villain who likes to take advantage of women, Couple Arguments. Let me know if I missed anything!
A/N: Hey Guys! This my first MacGyver Fanfiction, I love writing the series and characters so let me know if you guys like it! Comments and messages mean the world to me! If you've got any ideas for future fic's my idea box is open! ENJOY!
“I’m not sure if this is the best idea, Matty. You know how they feel about each other.” Riley trailed after her boss as they made their way down the hall to the war room. She had been let in on the game plan for the next mission early because Matty needed her input.
“They’re adults. They can put their feelings, undefined they are, away in order to do their job professionally.” Matty could hope. Ever since you joined the Phoenix Foundation there had been a certain animosity between you and a certain human encyclopedia. You were never sure if it was flirting or trying to get on each other’s nerves. 
Matty could hear the sounds of shouting from the war room down the hall. “Oh, get your head out of the clouds! You know all too well that if it wasn’t for Bozer and Jack you would have blown yourself up, gotten shot, or made some kinda poisonous gas to kill yourself. You think you’re way more aware than you are. But newsflash: you’re not!” You paused to take a breath, you had made sure to choose your words carefully, they were nothing if not the truth. Mac could make a plane out of a recycling bin and some potatoes, but he routinely got his ass saved by Jack in the field, and Bozer in his own home. 
Mac stood in front of the coffee table, his arms crossed tight across his chest. “At least I actually do things to save our asses on missions. Or were you the one who made infrared glasses so we could see the cameras when Riley couldn’t access the system?”
Something about Mac’s defensiveness made you want to egg him on continually. Maybe it was because you liked to hear him talk, even when it wasn’t in a positive way. There were days where the two of you were civil and even friendly, but those days were boring. No conversations would be had, and the day inevitably turned into awkward silence and stares. 
Neither you nor Mac liked it that way. 
So you picked on each other. It was clear there were never any ill intentions, but sometimes it rode the line and, you were sure, made your coworkers wonder if you and Mac were actually mad. To be fair, it was a question that rarely had a simple answer. But that was just the way the two of you were. Complicated. And you wouldn’t have taken it any other way. 
“Can we go one meeting without you two saying something distasteful to each other? One meeting. That’s all I’m asking.” Matty pulled up her screen on the wall before shooting a pointed look at those who stood around the room. Jack observed the screens as they came up, and Riley sat on one of the chairs doing her best to ignore you and Mac, knowing how this would go, and something told her Matty wouldn’t get her wish for peace.
“This is Bryan Snyder.” A rather unpleasant-looking man was pulled up on the full screen along with his Phoenix records. “Hacker extraordinaire with a rap sheet a mile long of gambling offenses.” Matty flashed a couple photos across the screen of Bryan surrounded by presumable winnings and women. 
Riley finally took a cue from Matty and spoke up. "He's had incidents filed with multiple casinos, all stemming from his pension for picking up women who've just fought with their partners, while the partner is around."
Jack scoffed as he found his way to the empty seat next to Riley. “Sounds like he's made a game out of picking up girls on the rebound."
Jack’s comment earned a grin from Riley, who added: "At least he looks like he tips well."
Your leg bounced involuntarily as you fiddled with the few paperclips in your hand—not bending them, just linking them together one after the other to make a chain. It drove Mac mad, and you knew it. He was one who did things with purpose, so idly fiddling with some paperclips without reshaping or bending them clawed at him internally. “So what is our position in this?” you finally spoke up. “I didn’t know the Phoenix Foundation did personal vendetta work for ex-girlfriends.” 
Matty shook her head watching Mac who silently but unsubtly stared you down as you wrapped the paperclip chain around your wrist to make a bracelet. “Not a vendetta. A prevention service for the Parisian government. Snyder holds a virus on his laptop that, if released onto the broadband servers of France, would cause nationwide blackouts and hold millions of people’s information hostage.”
Jack’s face soured at the thought. “Oooh, okay, yeah, so not an angry ex-girlfriend. Got it.”
“We’ve had Riley coding a USB drive that, once plugged in, can give her access to the computer’s system. That way she can corrupt the virus so that when he tries to open it, none of the code will be salvageable. The only thing our team needs to worry about is getting that drive plugged into Snyder’s computer for 8 minutes without him noticing.” 
Another scoff came from Jack. “No offense, Matty, but this guy seems like the kinda nerd to be obsessed with his computer. He’s probably one of those weirdos who treats it like his baby or something.” He immediately turned to Riley who had her computer in her lap. He pressed his lips together and stood up, walking towards the other wall to get as far away from Riley as possible. “I’m just gonna shut up now.”
“Yeah, smart choice.”
“The plan, if you guys will ever let me get to it, is this: Is to send in (Y/N) with a partner to pose as our unhappy couple, Bryan has a stay booked with a casino in Monaco this weekend. It’s his last stop on the way into France. A messy breakup in the middle of the casino should be enough to pique Snyder’s interest, and from there all (Y/N) has to do is get him to take her to his hotel room so she can connect the USB to his laptop, which shouldn’t be so hard given his M.O. After 8 minutes, once Riley’s USB has done its job, (Y/N) will take it out and destroy it so it’s not traceable.” Matty pressed her lips together firmly when she noticed Mac shifting his stance and uncrossing his arms, which normally meant that he had something to say. “Can I help you Blondie?”
Mac took the opportunity and stepped forward. “Why don’t we just send in Riley? If the USB doesn’t work, she’ll be able to disable the virus manually. Plus,” a strong look of disdain settled on his face, “I don’t think (Y/N) can flirt convincingly enough to get him to take her back to his room. It’s dangerous to put the weight of a mission on it without a backup.” 
That got you mad. You stood and eyed Mac in his stupid power stance. His hands on his hips while he stared at the screen as if he was avoiding eye contact with you. You wondered where all of his confidence had suddenly gone.
“Oh? You don’t think I can handle it?” You took a confident couple steps towards Mac. A well-placed hand on his forearm brought his big blue eyes back to you, somewhat confused as to what you were doing but it didn’t seem as if he was going to stop you. 
You took his silence as permission to continue and slid your hand down his arm, bringing your free hand up to play with the suede lapel of his jacket near his chest. You lifted your eyes to meet his for a single, shy moment and couldn’t help the way your cheeks flushed. Who thought it was a good idea to give a man with such a perfect face those baby blues? Fuck.
Mac was malfunctioning, his jaw slack as he tried to focus on anything other than how close you were to him. Or the fact he could feel your breath on his neck, or the way your hands held him. Tantalizing and unobtainable. He was sure if either of you did anything in the oncoming moments he’d find himself too deep to back out. 
You slid the fingers fiddling with his jacket past his chest to his abdomen, felt the shiver run up his spine even though he tried his best to hide it. Your fingers reached his beltline with more confidence than you felt, and…there was a undeniable tension. One that left you wondering if perhaps you should excuse yourself and drag Mac into some unoccupied office down the hall. 
A quick smack below the belt and Mac was half-keeled over, gasping for air as you stepped aside with a prideful smirk. “That convincing enough for you?” 
The rest of the team broke into laughter, the sexual and uncalled for tension that was in the room had gone.
“The Macbook needed to reboot there for a moment huh,” Jack said patting your shoulder. “You’ll do just fine, and your mission partner will be there as your backup, you can trust them 
Matty just pulled on that subtle smirk she wore when she knew something was bound to be entertaining. “Well, glad you’re working on your chemistry, because Mac is your mission partner. Try not to cause a scene before the target gets there, though. Wheels up in 2 hours.”
Mac had finally been able to gather himself and recover from the unexpected tap. “Let’s just hope you’re ready for 2 to be playing that game.”
A/N: Thank You guys for reading! I am thinking about making another part about the actual mission or what the aftermath would look like for your and Mac's relationship.
A/N: Remember I'm always open to talk to people (18+) about MacGyver! I love the fandom and want to interact as much as possible. If your interested don't be afraid to shoot me a message!
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call-sign-shark · 2 months
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Following the heart-wrenching posts of @red-riding-wood, @kittenonpluto and @aurorag98 I feel like I have to write this. By no means I have experienced traumatizing interactions with @mrkdvidal1989 aka Killian Vidal but this whole situation and what he did to girls here make me enraged.
First of all, I want to reassure all the beloved mutuals who have been reaching out to me or who have been worried about my well-being because they saw me interacting a few times with Killian. I am perfectly fine and I'm not much here this week because I have been working a lot.
As for my relationship with Killian... Well, we were barely talking to each other actually. I know I am bad at replying to my DMs but this is not the reason why I ghosted him -- I purposefully did so because, like many of you, the guy gave me the biggest red flags. We talked a few times, and he called me hot when he saw the gym pics/selfies I posted. He quickly suggested we meet together to go to the gym and watch horror movies during my stay in the UK and to this I replied positively while knowing I would never ever do so. Right from the start I suspected him to be a liar and I felt he had built up everything about his life. Also, I come from a military family with many relatives working in special units of the French Navy, and let me tell you something: I screamed at the thought of a former soldier (from the SAS!! lmao) spending all of his time writing reader-insert fanfic for a female audience and discussing with Cillian fangirls. I don't say it's impossible, but it's VERY unlikely.
To me, Killian was just an attention-seeking catfish I'd never meet and who I found both boring and childish. In my opinion, I thought he just wanted to have a small court around him to strut around, nothing more. I tried to search for info about him to warn people, I mean I even doubted he was a man... However, I found nothing plus he seemed to be IRL friends with a few mutuals here who actually chatted with him via phone so I didn't want to take the risk of spreading hate about someone just because of a gut feeling. Never in a million years, I would have imagined he was toying with girls from the Peaky Blinders community, collecting nudes, gaslighting/harassing them, breaking them into pieces, promising marriage, and going as far as to promise a life-saving medical treatment to a dear friend of mine. I am devastated by what I have read this morning, and "devasted" is not even powerful enough. Learning from Red that he talked about fucking me when we meet while we never talk about sex, never flirted or anything (we just small-talked once in a while lmao) might be a bit creepy but it's nothing compared to what he has done to girls here.
I am deeply sorry to all the people who have been hurt by his horrible actions and are now facing long-term consequences because of him, some of them being my close mutuals. I send positive vibes, love, and healing to every one of you who had to deal with this psycho. I know a lot of people have already said that but my DMs are opened if you need a safe place. The Peaky Blinders / Cillian Murphy community is a nice place, maybe the most welcoming place I've ever seen on the Internet but we should all keep in mind that it is not safe from ill-intentioned users and predators. Please stay safe and, for the victims, don't blame yourself. You haven't been naive nor stupid or anything. The only one to blame is the person behind Killian Vidal's persona, and for the evil you've done, I hope you'll get fucked with a chainsaw. Or just fucking rot in hell.
Shark.
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tenpintsofsundrop · 11 months
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Dreaming Of You
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Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader
Part One: The Psychic and The Tiger
Summary:
You and Gar have been best friends for a long time. Nothing could disrupt the harmony of such a perfect friendship.
Nothing except maybe... your usually predictable powers going haywire and somehow showing you all of his heated daydreams about you. But he couldn't possibly have romantic feelings for you. He couldn't possibly want anything more than your close platonic friendship and the occasional steamy fantasy. Right?
Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Smut and (Slight) Angst. Set during Season 2.
Word Count: 13,100
Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist
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List of detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.
Warnings: some emotional angst (on the basis of mutual angst but they’re both deep in denial), accidental invasion of someone’s privacy (by accidentally reading their mind), some light canon violence (practice sparring/practice fighting), the reader character is disabled - the reader character is 100% mute, the reader character suffered with tumors that were partially cured by Doctor Caulder’s serum, the reader character suffers from migraines and seizures due to remaining brain tumors, the reader character has the ability to read minds, the reader character uses ASL because she is mute, mentions of the reader character having insomnia/difficulty sleeping, mentions of Rachel having a one-sided crush on Gar, the reader is described to exercise a lot and be physically fit but I don’t allot that to a certain body type (I am not excluding her from being fat when I write this), in a lot of passages - the reader is implied to be fat actually, mentions of the reader masturbating, a wholesome family game night that doesn’t really belong in a smut fic lmao, somewhat graphic descriptions of vomit (from illness) (it only occurs in one short section of the fic), passing mentions of disordered eating - but not due to poor body image or mental illness more in the form of restrictions on ‘junk food’ and not eating properly at meal times, dream sequences involving sex - hair-pulling, groping, biting, making out, (implied) shower sex, dirty talk, praise kink, penis in vagina sex (unprotected), mind fucking (but not in the way that you think - sharing sex with someone while having a sexual connection). All of the smut/sex in this chapter is of the day dream variety, but it is still described in graphic/detailed ways. I believe that is everything. 
A/N: The first repost on this new blog! I am so excited about it. If you have any comments or questions about the fic, please let me know, and if you have read it before, I hope you enjoy this new version, and if you're reading it for the first time, I hope that it's a really excellent experience for you.
...
Mind reading is most definitely not what people think it is. 
It’s not at all how movies portray it to be. And it’s definitely not how you imagine it to be when you think about having the ability to access someone’s private thoughts. 
To this day, you still remembered when Gar showed you the British television show Misfits, and you couldn’t help but laugh at the way the character’s mind reading power was portrayed. 
To most of Hollywood, it’s as if a person’s thoughts were a simple string of words laid out in their head, a simple script being read in their voice. As if you can accidentally overhear someone thinking about a certain topic, like one overhears a conversation. 
In reality, it was vastly different for you. 
There was no easy way to explain it, to describe the way it felt to enter the complex vastness of the human mind, but you often tried to put it into words. For one, you were thankful that it took you concentration and intent to use your powers. You never accidentally overheard someone’s thoughts the way a person can hear voices or loud music, or a television in the next room. It kept you from a lot of awkward situations. And most importantly to you, it kept you from barreling into a person’s most private space - the sacred stronghold of their mind - unless it was deemed completely necessary. 
From what you had realized, it required you making eye contact with the person in order for you to enter someone’s mind. 
“Ah yes. The eyes are the window to the soul, after all.” Doctor Caulder had remarked when he had discovered this about your powers. 
Ironic. Thematic, actually, considering that his serum had cured you of a physical blindness. One caused by a brain tumor that any doctor was too afraid to operate on in order to remove. Doctor Caulder liked to credit himself and his serum with giving you the gift of ‘a greater sight’, one that allowed you to peer deep inside others. A gift that he said allowed you to help people. 
To you, though, more often than not, it just felt like invading people’s privacy. And that was something you definitely didn’t enjoy - whether it was ‘helping’ people or not. 
Something you had learned during the minimal amount of time you had used your powers: people can be divided into two types of thinkers. That you found out very quickly. 
The first type are people whose thoughts come in the form of rich, visual landscapes. People who show off their thoughts almost purely with visuals, imagining things that might happen, remembering things that already have in vivid detail. Those people are typically the easiest to navigate, in your experience - but their memories can be the most painful and vivid if you go too deep. 
The second type are people whose thoughts come more in the form of narration - a voice inside their head speaking about their intentions or the information pumping through their mind. 
Although, unlike what most people would think, that voice is not usually their own. 
Most times it is the voice of a mentor or parent, someone who guided and built their thoughts from childhood, someone whose voice sounds firm and thoughtful in their mind. Or sometimes it could even be the voice of a TV character or a radio host, because listening to that piece of media so often caused that voice to clone in their mind and become stuck there accidentally. 
Entering the mind of someone like this can be tricky - their thoughts are difficult to navigate, because they are hard to grasp and become tangible. 
Occasionally you come across someone with a more unique mental landscape, someone in emotional turmoil or someone who simply never had a linear train of thought to begin with. Entering the mind of someone like this is more like a thousand screaming voices and flashing lights, all at once. Incredibly difficult to decipher, a sensory overload to take in.  
But those are only surface level thoughts. Your powers gave you the ability to dive deep into the cave of someone’s mind, to explore the winding halls of their memories, their subconscious. To feel their emotions, to help them work through their traumas, their pain. If they allowed you to delve that deep. Only if they invited you in. 
More often than not, you simply preferred to stay the hell out of other people’s minds. To simply give them the privacy they were owed. 
Which is why when it happened - when your powers started slipping out of your control on that stupid fucking day - you hated it more than you could be proud of it. Even if the information you discovered cemented a dream into reality that you’d been having since the day you met Garfield Logan. 
It had been a Saturday morning like any other. 
Well, one as routine as to be expected when living the Titans lifestyle. 
Moving into the Tower was actually nice to attempt to put down roots considering what you had been through over the past year or so. When you originally uprooted your life in Covington, Ohio to follow Gar, you certainly hadn’t expected the wild path he would lead you on. A path that would lead to you getting kidnapped by a doomsday cult and tortured, being lured to a house in the middle of nowhere and mentally tortured some more. All in all leaving that house with absolutely no sense of direction in your life, mentally scarred and broken. 
But you never blamed Gar for getting you into trouble. In fact, you were glad to be there to support him through everything that had happened. 
Gar was your best friend, your person, and you would have followed him anywhere. 
So naturally when he moved into the newly reopened Titans Tower, so did you. Dick didn’t fully understand the extent of your abilities, because in order to show people, you had to violate their privacy, and it wasn’t always something you were keen on doing. He simply trusted Gar at his word that you were more than capable of becoming a Titan. 
That blind faith Dick had put in you, backed by Gar’s word, that heavily motivated you to train hard in all other areas to ensure that Dick knew Gar could be trusted. To pull through on that promise and show your worth. 
That’s why you were up so early that morning. You liked to get a head start on things. You liked to be up before everyone else to prove that you were working hard on your training, working hard on studying the things that Dick wanted you to know. 
At least, those were the excuses you had prepared if anyone asked. Or the things you told yourself to escape the reality of it - to say that you were using your time wisely these days. 
Truthfully, you were never very good with sleeping. 
Between your chronic headaches, pain that left intense aches down your neck and spine, and the awful nausea that it plagued you with, and the strange dreams that your powers seemed to be paired with, you didn’t often get much sleep. 
You were still figuring out how your incredibly strange dreams coincided with your ability to breach other people’s private thoughts. But you guessed that it was simply part of that whole ‘greater sight’ thing. Especially considering that those dreams seemed to depict the future in some way. 
You often found your sleep disrupted by these dreams - visions of death or violence or even strange faces you had never seen before. And more often than not, you decided to pursue more productive activities than tossing and turning in your sheets until your alarm rang. 
Strangely enough, one of the very first dreams you’d had after being injected with the serum had been a strange setting where you were garbed in a giant, poofy white wedding dress, getting married to a large green tiger who wore a black bowtie among his bright green fur. At the time, you had genuinely convinced yourself that it was just a strange fever dream caused by the serum. Up until you’d met Gar, and something in the pit of your stomach told you that he was the green tiger in question. 
But you had never told anyone about that dream, and probably never would.
It’s something that was very far from your mind as you enjoyed breakfast early that morning. 
Dick usually let everyone ‘sleep in’ on Saturdays - as much as Jason complained that sleeping until eight was not a luxury, he and the others usually still took advantage of it. But you were up long before sunrise on that day. 
You were sitting at the kitchen island, absentmindedly snacking on some dry cereal with your journal open in front of you. You were sketching a picture of something you had seen in one of your dreams. A girl with waves of silver hair and eyepatch that you didn’t recognize, but had a gut feeling was important somehow. You glanced up at the sound of footsteps coming into the room, and found yourself surprised but happy to see that it was Gar. 
He was clearly still half asleep, his eyes barely open. He wore plaid pajama pants and a green pullover hoodie, hair still adorably messy and uncombed. He looked so utterly soft and cuddly, something that made those undeniable butterflies stir in the pit of your stomach. 
When you looked over at the clock attached to the stove, it was barely five-thirty in the morning. The sun was just kissing the sky orange to your right, casting a warm orange glow across the entire room through the many tall windows. You were almost shocked that anything other than Dick’s fist hammering on Gar’s door had gotten him out of bed this early. 
“Morning.” He grunted at you as he tiredly stumbled toward the fridge. He opened it with haste and grabbed the carton of orange juice. 
Of course. He wanted a snack. 
He uncapped it and gulped it with enthusiasm, not bothering to get a glass or even close the refrigerator door. The sharp light of the halogen bulbs and the cool air pouring from the appliance almost hurt you, your overly sensitive eyes and skin picking up on the sensations more potently in the soft morning light of the room. 
Gar turned around, the carton still poised to his lips. He took large swigs that made his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, and he kicked the fridge door shut behind him as he finally put the carton down on the counter, exhaling a large, nasty burp. He looked at you with a sleepy smile, almost making you mad with how cute he could be after doing something like that. 
You were about to comment on the disgusting nature of his habits when something strange happened - something that had never happened to you before. 
You locked eyes with him, and with absolutely no intention or purpose on your part, you were struck with a flood of his thoughts. A vision, a vivid painting brought to life by his imagination. 
It was a distinct, full picture of the two of you. 
He had you pressed against the kitchen island, his hands commanding and warm on your hips, like they belonged there. His body was firm against yours, tightly pressed against you as if trying to spite the clothes you wore - and his lips were on yours in a demanding kiss. It was entirely passionate, downright hungry. He left gentle nips on your bottom lip as you ran your hands through his sleep mussed hair, your gentle tug on it forcing a moan from his throat, his tongue pressing into- 
A gentle gasp coiled in the back of your throat as you were shocked back to reality, finally able to force yourself out of his mind. 
You had no idea how the accidental violation had even occurred in the first place, but to stay there and indulge in it would only be continuing to do him a great injustice. When you dared to let your eyes flicker back to his face, he was staring at you with a strange look - his brow slightly furrowed, worry dancing across his mouth. Clearly he wanted to ask you what was wrong. You hadn’t greeted him or said ‘good morning’ in any sort of fashion yet, and now you were just sitting there, frozen on your stool, every inch of your body tight as ice at what you had just seen. 
“Did you want some?” He asked, picking up the orange juice carton and holding it out to you. 
It was adorably ignorant of him - to think the strange look that had struck your face was over some dispute about orange juice. That you were annoyed because he wasn’t sharing well enough. You simply shook your head in the negative and began gathering your things as quickly as possible, trapping your pencil between the pages of your notebook as you scrambled to get out of his sight. 
You needed time to think. 
You had no idea what the hell had just happened, but you sure wanted to avoid him until you could figure it out. Until you could get it under control. You raised your hand and signed something about showering to him. But your movements were quick and sloppy and you didn’t look at him for confirmation that he understood before you barreled out of the room. You were too eager to hide in your bedroom until you were absolutely forced to see him again. 
… 
It’s not like you hadn’t thought about it before. 
You had thought about it a lot, actually. 
But he had been far too good a friend for you to ever risk losing that friendship over your stupid lust - over some stupid schoolgirl crush that you were sure would go away. And the whole uprooting your life and having a demon from another dimension invade your mind and show you the darkest parts of yourself thing definitely made you put your crush for Gar on the back burner. 
It’s not like you were blind to how entirely perfect Gar was. He was handsome, he was cute - so entirely adorable in his boyish looks and his sweet smile. So cute and excitable, with the way he could be bashful, yet confident at the same time when spurting out random facts about video games or going on and on about seemingly any subject that excited him. And you quickly realized that he had more than boyish charms the first time you had seen him shirtless - accidentally caught him changing when living together at Caulder House - and you saw his gorgeous physique on display. 
You had been smitten with Gar since the very first moment you had met him, actually.
Back then your crush was something that should have been glaringly obvious to him. You could barely maintain eye contact with him within the first few days of knowing him, you were always so flustered around him. That, on top of the playful teasing of your housemates, wondering when the two of you were finally going to admit that unspoken thing you had going on. 
But when the two of you left Caulder House and set out to explore the world - it had remained unspoken. 
If Gar had known about your crush on him, it had never affected the way he treated you. Your friendship grew so strong so quickly, and you never wanted to lose that. You never wanted to lose him. So you settled for platonic couch cuddles and late night multiplayer and him letting you sleep in his bed whenever you got a bad migraine. 
And then Rachel came along. And you saw the way he looked at her, the way she looked at him. And even though you thought you had probably lost any chance of ever being with him the way you had dreamed of - you still packed your bag and squeezed into the back of Dick’s Porsche with him when he begged for you to come. 
Naturally, you were spinning at the revelation that apparently, he had thought of you the same way you thought of him. You almost wanted to convince yourself that it had been a mistake. That it had just been a fantasy you had cooked up inside your own mind. It’s not like you didn’t have many, many fantasies about Gar running around in there. 
But no. You knew distinctly what it felt like to use your powers. Being inside the private cave of someone else’s mind - even touching the surface of its depths is a unique experience. And doing it by mistake feels no different than doing it on purpose. 
You had no clue what had caused your powers to go off by mistake, but you definitely knew the feeling of using them. 
Those were most definitely Gar’s thoughts that had invaded your mind. Gar’s thoughts about kissing you, handling you with such intense passion. Your skin startled to crawl with a unique heat as you remembered the vision so vividly. You heaved a great sigh as you flung yourself backward onto your bed. You gazed over at the clock. It was almost time for training. You wouldn’t be able to hide from Gar for much longer. 
…  
You were just glad that training that day consisted of blindfolded sparring. 
Dick seemed very surprised when you volunteered to go first after he introduced the unorthodox exercise. But to you, it was a simple logic that had you eagerly chopping at the bit to get a piece of cloth covering your eyes. If you were blindfolded, there was no chance of you catching Gar’s eye. Or anyone’s for that matter. 
You had no idea if your powers were simply spinning out of control, or if it was an unintentional emotional reaction triggered by Gar’s presence. You weren’t quite sure which was worse. If it was a case of your powers going rogue, growing stronger somehow, then perhaps you’d have to start wearing a blindfold all the time. 
If it was specifically something with Gar, then… maybe that was worse. It probably signaled something deeper with you. Your feelings for him clawing at your unconscious, begging to be spilled to the open air. Which you really weren’t eager to let happen anytime soon. 
You were almost relieved when Dick paired you off with Jason, saying that your skill set ‘complimented’ his. He explained that he wanted the two of you to try the blindfolding exercise together while he quizzed Gar and Rachel on logic puzzles in the other room. At least Gar would be required to be away from you for a while, and you’d have a very slim chance of catching Jason’s eyes. You didn’t want to know what kind of things he was thinking, what secrets he had. Definitely not. 
As the two of you sparred, you were entirely unfocused, your thoughts swimming. 
Jason caught you off guard, and easily swept you off your feet completely as he struck you hard in the ankle with the wooden practice sword he was wielding. You grunted gently as you hit the floor, and rolled over on your back, defeated. You reluctantly removed the blindfold as you caught your breath, and saw him standing above you, offering you a hand to help you up. As you blinked against the sharp light meeting your eyes, you accidentally caught his gaze, making direct, certain eye contact with him.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened. You breathed a small sigh of relief. 
“You okay, Fancy Hands?” He asked, leaning down so his helping hand was closer to you. 
It was a nickname he had affectionately given you the first time he’d seen you use ASL when you had met - back at the safe house in Chicago. Back when Jason had used Dick’s tracker to find him and you all met the surprise second Robin for the first time. 
At the time, you had been surprised to find out that Jason actually knew quite a few signs because one of the kids he’d been in foster care with had been deaf. You had explained to him that your hearing was perfectly fine - your mutism was because of a surgery during your childhood that had removed a tumor from your throat and had left your vocal cords damaged. It was something that had occurred long before your life had become about powers, a green tiger, and one too many Robins to count. 
In the present, you were simply thankful that your powers didn’t seem to act up with him. 
In response to his question, you nodded, taking his hand. 
He helped you to your feet quickly, and you found your own practice sword where it had fallen. You then replaced your blindfold once again. Though it was slightly troubling to know that this sudden shift in your powers only seemed to be triggered by Gar - that knowledge did help you focus a bit more on the lesson. 
As you focused, you blocked two of Jason’s hits with your sword and landed a swift, sharp hit somewhere on him. 
“Ow!” He whined. “Take it easy, Fancy Hands, this is only supposed to be practice.” 
You giggled, smiling to yourself. 
… 
It had been a few days since then. 
And you had been strategically avoiding Gar. 
At least, avoiding him as much as you could without arousing major suspicion. It was a pretty large living space, and with only four other people in it, it was next to impossible to come up with excuses to avoid him entirely. He was your best friend, after all. If you just quit spending time with him entirely, that would cause him to ask way too many questions. And you definitely couldn’t give him the answers to any of those questions. 
You had made a hard agreement shortly after you had met him - you promised that you would never use your powers on him without his explicit permission unless it was some kind of emergency. A life or death situation. You both easily agree that his brain was his brain, and like every other person on the planet, it was his private sanctuary. He was entitled to that privacy. He deserved that much. Everyone did. That’s why you always tried to avoid using your powers at all costs. 
You didn’t want to explain to him that you had accidentally broken your promise - that you had seen some of his most private thoughts. On top of that, it was like a giant tease toward your feelings for him. Feelings you shouldn’t even have for your best friend. 
So in the meantime, while you were trying to figure out how to reign in your powers and stop from having another freak accident like the one in the kitchen, you stuck to what you considered ‘safe’ activities with Gar. Things the two of you could do together that would absolutely minimize eye contact between the two of you. 
Things like: studying Dick’s allotted mandatory reading material, where your eyes would be safely glued to the pages of a book. Playing video games with him, where your eyes would have to be on the screen. And you always made sure you sat next to him at the dinner table, where your eyes would be parallel to his, or stayed safely on your dinner plate. 
You had been doing just fine until another accident happened. 
Of course, it happened because of factors you hadn’t taken into account. 
You had been up late in the training room, something you did often. Because of your hesitance to use your powers, you liked to exercise often to be in peak physical condition in case fighting was ever necessary on your behalf. 
On top of that, you and Jason had somewhat of a silent rivalry going. You had kicked his ass quite a few times during training sessions, and though he would never say it, he liked how you kept him on his toes. So now you were always trying to quietly outdo the other. Something you were caught up in thinking about as you floated down the hallway toward the bathroom on light feet, your toiletry bag in hand, hoping Jason hadn’t beaten you to the shower. 
What you were not at all expecting, was to collide heavily with a half-naked, still wet from the shower Gar. With neither of you paying attention to where you were going, you smacked into each other at a fair speed, him waltzing out of the bathroom and straight into you. Your toiletry bag went flying, and with the zipper undone, your products scattered out across the floor. 
“Shit, oh my god, I’m sorry.” Gar quickly apologized, being the entirely sweet person that he was. 
You both leaned down in unison and began picking up the mess of bottles and other products. You forced yourself to keep your eyes steadily on the floor, not daring to look toward his face, no matter how much you missed his sweet smile and those big brown eyes looking back at you. You couldn’t risk it, not if you would make that unintentional invasion of his privacy once again. 
Gar’s chest twinged with sour notes as you avoided his gaze. Usually, you were always so pleased to be around him. He thought that he had done something wrong. Something grander that he had somehow failed to perceive. 
“I guess I better watch where I’m going, huh?” He chuckled, trying to make conversation with you. 
Truthfully, he just wanted a reaction out of you - he needed to see your smile like wilting plants needed rain. He worried that he wasn’t going to get it anytime soon. 
You kept your eyes glued to the floor, making it an exercise in self-discipline. 
Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his dripping wet leg and the edge of the fluffy, white towel he was wearing. You knew he was shirtless and it was far too tempting to look. 
When your hand went for the bottle of conditioner at the same time as his - you accidentally brushed over each other. You felt a unique heat creeping up your spine. Like magnets, like a plant growing toward the sun - like any natural reaction that self discipline can’t be stopped - your eyes flickered up and met with his. 
And once again, you became trapped in the depths of his dangerous gaze. 
You were sucked into his mind before you could stop it. In a millisecond, all of your senses became consumed by another vision of his imagining. 
You were surprised to find that it was a scene of you, alone. 
It was a way you had never viewed yourself before; getting the chance to see yourself through someone else’s eyes, even if it was only imaginary, was quite a strange sensation. 
The scene was an outside perspective of yourself showering, as if someone was staring at you through the clear glass door. You had to admit that it was positively erotic. The way the bubbles cascaded down your skin, the way your hands rubbed your flesh as you washed yourself. The dream you stopped the smooth lathering partway to grab and grope at your thighs and breasts, moaning lightly under your breath as you did so. 
You had never thought you could be so… dreamy. 
You didn’t remain alone in the shower for long, though. 
As if out of nowhere, Gar appeared behind you, his naked body almost eclipsed by yours, save for his delightful broad shoulders and his head as it poked out around yours. You had never seen a more appealing sight in your life. His gorgeous face with wet hair stuck to his forehead, the grin that came across his cheeks as he looked at you. His arms came to wrap around your waist as he gently brushed a loofa across your stomach. He began kissing along your shoulder, licking his tongue across your neck and boldly moaning at the taste of your skin-
You forcefully pulled yourself from the vision. As you rocketed back to reality, it was like having ice water thrown down your back. 
The surrounding warmth of the imaginary shower was gone, and you were once again in the cool night air of the hallway. You gazed across Gar’s face, taking in the wide-eyed, clueless expression he wore. He almost looked worried for you, wondering why you had spaced out like that. He had absolutely no idea of what you had just seen. 
You snatched the bottle of conditioner out from underneath his palm and shoved it into your bag. Miraculously, you stood up on shaking legs, turning around and going to escape back to your room. 
“Didn’t you wanna use the shower?” Gar called after you quietly. 
Right. Your shower. 
You whipped back around, nodding at him in passing - but you kept your eyes locked on the floor as you sped by him. You practically ran into the bathroom before he could make any comments about your strange behavior. 
You shut and locked the bathroom door behind you, sealing yourself in the smothering heat and steam that he had left behind. When you glanced over at the mirror and saw that he had been drawing funny faces in the condensation - something that was so terribly Gar it almost hurt - you felt even worse about violating his privacy. Even if it was an accident. 
You tried to let the guilt go as you scrubbed away at your body. You told yourself that it wasn’t your fault. 
Eventually, you found yourself only reminded of his steamy fantasy as the bubbles ran across your skin. You had never felt sexier, never felt more attractive in your entire life than you did in his eyes, in his imagining of you completely naked. 
The biggest reason that it boosted your confidence? His mental image of you was so strangely honest. 
In his dream, you weren’t cartoonish or overdone by his lust. Even though he had never seen you naked before, your breasts weren’t ballooned out or perkier than they should have been. There wasn’t a great amount of fat trimmed from your body, as if he desired you to be thinner than you were. It was so gratefully you - but it was a hot, sexy, fantastic version of you. A version that he apparently wanted to have shower sex with. 
The very thought had you pulling down the extendable shower head and holding it between your legs, getting off to the way Gar thought of you. It was perfect - until Jason’s banging on the bathroom door, complaining that you had been taking too long, interrupted you. 
… 
Gar’s hands were all over you. 
It left you absolutely breathless, giving you no room to escape the pleasure he was delivering. He had turned you into a quivering, moaning mess. His mouth was between your legs, on your neck, on your breasts. His perfect lips were hot on your own, trying to trap the indescribable sounds you were making for him. You were completely pliant to him, to his needs, a melted puddle of want under his ever giving hands. 
“God, you’re so fucking perfect.” He moaned into your ear, finally lining his cock up to your throbbing entrance, finally ready to give you what you needed most. “I can’t wait to watch you cum on my cock.” 
His dirty words only fueled the every growing desire that was mounting inside you. You keened out pathetically as he finally pushed inside you. His cock ignited you with a sharp electricity, filling you up so perfectly. 
You were shocked out of your strangely wonderful dream by a pounding on your bedroom door - Dick coming to wake you up for training. 
“Morning jog in twenty minutes.” He called out through your door, making you groan into your pillow. 
There wouldn’t even be enough time to relieve the hard painful throbbing between your legs before you had to get out of bed. 
As much as you loved the man who had so graciously taken you in and now acted as such an amazing mentor to you - you really hated Dick Grasyon sometimes. 
…  
Gar had been plaguing your dreams since you had discovered the kind of thoughts he had been having about you. Of course, he had been the subject of plenty of your daydreams - but this was so much stronger. He had invaded your subconscious and made a home for himself there. 
More intense than any fantasy you had ever cooked up yourself, every single time you closed your eyes - he was there. You could feel his lips on your skin, could feel his hands on you. It had become more difficult than usual to sleep, and when you did, you woke up with a light sheen of sweat covering you, your pussy soaked and throbbing, absolutely needy for him. 
You knew it would be wrong. It would absolutely be wrong if you acted on your feelings for Gar now, well-informed that he was attracted to you too. That he might want the same things as you. It was so undoubtedly wrong to take information you had discovered with your powers and use it for personal gain like this. 
But, on the other hand, you knew the only reason he was plaguing your mind so much - you had some hope that he felt the same way. That he returned your big, scary feelings. 
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? 
You couldn’t know for certain if he felt exactly the same way that you did. 
Yes, you had seen him imagining kissing you, imagining doing sexual things with you. You knew that he thought of you in an erotic way. But that only meant he wanted to fuck you. 
It certainly didn’t mean that he wanted to be seriously romantic with you or that he wanted a serious relationship. He also could have sexual fantasies about Jason swimming around in his head - ones that you hadn’t seen. 
Nothing about what you had seen said he was in love with you. So if you told him about your feelings for him unprompted, not only would you make yourself look like an idiot, but you would eventually have to tell him about the things you had accidentally seen. He would never forgive you for violating his privacy, and you would be heartbroken. 
Sometimes you really wished you could just be normal. 
… 
“Well, this is fucking stupid.” Jason griped, throwing himself down onto the couch with a heavy sigh. 
“Yeah, we all know that, Jason.” Rachel quickly agreed. “But if Dick comes back and doesn’t see us having Happy Bonding Board Game Fun Times, then he’ll make us run laps or balance plates on our heads again.” 
She proposed an easy argument in favor of shutting up and co-operating as she unpacked the many pieces of the board game that Dick had gotten you guys - Trivial Pursuit. Something ‘fun and educational’, he had explained. 
You laughed under your breath at Rachel’s comment. 
Dick wanted the four of you to spend more time ‘bonding as a team’. He had explained that one of the reasons the Old Titans worked so well together out in the field was because they did casual, friendly activities together as well as training together. He wanted this new team to be as strong as the old one. 
You thought maybe this sporadic encouragement of bonding had been brought on by how you had been acting. With your dreams growing more intense each night, you had been increasingly turning down Gar’s invitations to play video games together, or study together. You had even started making up excuses to take dinner into your room or skipping dinner altogether in favor of eating bowls of cereal when no one else was around. And you knew Dick had noticed. 
But you also knew that you weren’t the only one to blame. 
The whole ‘team bonding’ thing could have easily been prompted by Jason’s increased agitation with the living situation, his eagerness to leave you all behind and get back to Gotham. And the fact that Rachel, like you, now rarely came out of her room. 
This always left Gar in a strange situation where he was desperate for friendship but everyone pulled away from him, everyone wanted to isolate themselves but him. You felt increasingly guilty about it. You felt so bad for abandoning your best friend. But every time you looked at him, even without making that dangerous eye contact, heat began to rise in your face as flashes of his fantasies or your wicked dreams began popping into your mind. 
But now you were all being forced to spend time together. You couldn’t avoid it so easily. You knew there was no excuse you could cook up to get out of it. And like Rachel had said, you didn’t want yourself and the others to be plagued with some dumb punishment like running laps if you could just be playing a board game instead. 
All four of you were sitting around the small coffee table in the living room area of the open concept space, the fire pit sending warm waves over you as the dark sky went on boundlessly through the tall windows. The lamp above your heads and the city lights cast a warm glow over everything, creating a beautifully pleasant atmosphere that made it easy to ignore your problems. 
Dick was gone out on some ‘errands’, and made you all promise to play the game and spend some time together while he was gone. 
“I like board games.” Gar smiled, picking up one of the pieces and inspecting it. “Of course, I do prefer multiplayer online. But some old fashioned tabletop is good to throw in there every once and a while.” 
You smiled at Gar’s comment. He was so wonderfully nerdy. Undeniably one of the reasons you had developed feelings for him in the first place. 
You were seated beside him on the plush rug, crossed legged, your knee just barely brushing against his. It felt strangely normal to be like this, pretending like nothing odd had happened between you in the weeks past. You were enjoying the feeling, indulging in actually getting to hang out with your best friend without worrying about romantic feelings or any of the other bullshit. 
“Could you not be a total dork for like… five seconds?” Rachel quipped, raising an eyebrow at Gar. 
Gar threw the game piece at her, and it bounced off her chest before it disappeared somewhere on the floor, making her look for it. You laughed. 
“Ugh, this is so fucking stupid.” Jason groaned into a small throw pillow from the couch that he had pulled into his face. “I don’t want to play this dumb fucking game.” 
‘Are you afraid you’ll lose?’ You signed. 
Seeing as Rachel didn’t know that much ASL, and Jason wasn’t even looking at you, his face still covered by the pillow in his little tantrum, Gar interpreted for you. 
“Are you afraid you’re gonna lose?” He announced to the room in a tone ripe with sass. 
Rachel smiled at the challenge, looking over her shoulder to see how Jason would react. 
“What? No.” Jason snapped, sitting up and tossing the pillow behind him. “It’s just a stupid game. I’m sure there are far better things I could be spending my time doing.” 
‘Then play.’ You signed, making steady eye contact with Jason, challenging him. 
“Then why don’t you just play?” Gar spoke, adding a few more words. Not that you minded. You thought it was generous and sweet that he had rushed to learn ASL in the first few months of knowing you just so he could communicate better with you. It was one of the things that had made you fall for him so hard, so fast. 
Jason’s face was struck with the realization that you were the one challenging him, not Gar. His eyes flickered between the three of you,  and then he settled into a seat on the carpet beside Rachel. 
“Okay fine, how do you even play this stupid game?” He grumbled quietly, snatching the instructions from Rachel. 
‘Why don’t we make things interesting?’ You said, knowing you could aggravate Jason’s competitive side even more. 
And in the back of your mind, you were thinking about the fact that if you were too focused on winning the game, you wouldn’t be too focused on Gar. You wouldn’t be thinking about the fact that he had shifted closer to you, and his thigh was pressing more into yours, spreading a deadly heat across your skin under your clothes.
“What, like a bet?” Gar responded to your words rather than translating them to everyone else, and you rolled your eyes at him. 
‘Yes, a bet.’ You quickly clarified. 
“Are you challengin’ me, Fancy Hands?” Jason posed. “You wanna lose even more disastrously to The One and Only Robin?” He added on, his words dripping with that usual air of cockiness. 
‘Second Robin.’ You reminded him.
Jason knew enough sign language to know these symbols. Especially the one you had specifically taught him for the bird with the same name as his caped alias. So even though Gar failed to translate these words for fear of starting a genuine fight, Jason responded to your feisty words.  
“The One and Only Robin, now that Dickhead Grayson is retired.” He proudly corrected you. 
‘Whatever.’ You shrugged it off. ‘We’ll see if any Robin can win the board game he calls so stupid.’
“Yeah, yeah.” Jason chided. “What kind of bet did you have in mind?” 
‘Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.’ You explained. 
“Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.” Gar explained it to him. 
“Loser between the three of you.” Rachel corrected with a smirk. 
“Loser between the two of them. I’m just the messenger.” Gar quickly told her. 
“The winner gets the last Twinkie from my stash.” Jason added, upping the ante of the bet. 
Gar and Rachel’s eyes practically began glowing (especially considering what their powers made them capable of) at the mere mention of junk food. 
Dick had pretty much banned any food that was considered unhealthy. He said it wasn’t good for training. ‘Why put garbage in the tank? It doesn’t make the engine run properly’ he always nagged. 
The few times you and Rachel had been ‘caught’ coming back from a 7/11 with a bag full of goodies, he had made you read the labels out loud to ‘justify what you were putting inside your bodies’, and blah, blah, blah. So you liked eating sugar? Big deal. 
Eventually all his nagging just made you guys give up, or eat your doses of junk food outside the house (during the rare times he actually let you guys out). But of course, it just made Jason more determined to sneak things in. And of course, with his delinquent mindset, he had come up with a perfect system that involved wearing an overly large coat and keeping food in a false bottom drawer he had created in his room. He had started making you guys do him favors in exchange for snacks, but a lot of the time, it was worth it. 
“Ante up!” Rachel ordered. “Twinkie on the table!” She smacked her palm flat on the table, glaring Jason down until he rose from his seat to go retrieve the desired item. 
… 
You were enjoying game night far more than you thought you would. 
Everyone was, actually. Rousing laughter and chatter filled the room as you all took your turns, argued over the rules, and raced to see who would win. Your mind was distracted far from any sexual thoughts of Gar. You weren’t focused on the things you had accidentally seen when mistakenly crossing the threshold of his mind, or the heated dreams it had caused you to have. For the first time in weeks, a great worry had been lifted from your shoulders. 
Which was probably why it happened. You were probably a fool to think you were safe - to think this new power you had discovered couldn’t act up just because you were sitting around with your friends, innocently playing a board game. 
Gar turned to you, picking up one of the trivia cards to ask you your question as your turn came around. 
“Alright, science.” He announced. “How many bones are in the human body? Is it A: 206, B: 104, C: 198, or D: 236?” 
When he had finished reading it, his eyes flickered up from the card in his hand and met with yours. You were damned by fate as you were once again drawn into the depths of a hot, wicked fantasy of his creation. 
It was another third-person perspective of him and yourself, a portrait of perfect intimacy. 
In the wicked fantasy, he had you pinned against a wall, both of you completely naked - his sweet, bare flesh pinning your heated body against the surface. His breath mingled with yours as pressed kisses into your mouth, clearly torn between claiming your lips over and over again or the simple act of breathing. He wasn’t sure which was more precious - the taste of your mouth under his or the bits of air he needed to survive. 
He had one of your legs hitched up around his hip, your knee up around his back, giving the perfect view as he shoved his cock inside of you. He was so large - hot and heavy, splitting you open with his monster cock without hesitation as your needy cunt dripped around him. He let out a grunt as the wet slide of your pussy enveloped him, loving the most tender touch of your warmth on his aching cock. 
The fat around your hip bloomed through his fingers as he held you steady, hammering his hips against yours. It created a wet smacking sound that sent electricity shooting through you, the fantasy so palpable that you could almost feel the thickness of his cock tearing you open - you could almost feel the heft of those mighty nine inches dragging against your deadly hot inner walls. 
You admired the glisten of sweat on his rippling back muscles, the hot grunts that poured from his swollen lips. You loved the sight of your nails digging into his skin as you gripped his shoulders, desperate to hold on. 
“You’re so good for me.” He murmured against your panting lips, his voice deep, absolutely thick with sex. “I love this pussy so fucking much.” 
“Y/N?” 
This time it took Gar’s voice echoing in your ears in the real world to pull you out of the vivid daydream. 
“You okay?” The pure sweetness of his tone, the quiet caring had you quaking almost as much as the heft of his daydream cock. 
Your pussy throbbed hard between your thighs and your face was burning hot. You could feel the beginnings of sweat glistening on your forehead, and you hoped that your physical reaction to what you had seen wasn’t too obvious in the dull lighting of the room. Perhaps you could blame it on sitting too close to the fireplace. 
You dared to let your eyes have a once-over of Gar’s face, hoping not to be pulled back into the stupor once again. He was looking at you with that familiar wide-eyed, positively clueless expression. He was sitting there thinking about fucking you up against a wall and he had absolutely no clue that you knew. 
“Don’t think too hard about it,” Rachel scoffed. “It’s a pretty softball question.” 
Fuck, right. You were supposed to be playing trivia. 
You had genuinely no idea what the question had been, and wouldn’t dare ask Gar to repeat it for fear of giving yourself away, so you simply picked an answer out of the blue. 
‘C.’ You gestured the sign for the single letter, hoping it was correct if it was supposed to be such a ‘softball’ of a question. 
“Wrong.” Gar sighed, placing the card in the used pile. 
“I thought it was 207?” Jason wondered out loud, sounding genuinely confused. “Oh wait, that’s the joke answer.” 
“Ew.” Rachel cringed. “Don’t be gross.” 
“Hey,” Gar placed a gentle hand on your forearm where it was resting on the table, capturing your attention. “Are you okay? You really zoned out for a minute there.” 
Oh god. He was being so sweet and caring. You almost hated it, because you knew you couldn’t tell him what you had truly seen. You couldn’t explain what was truly wrong with you. 
‘I’m fine.’ You assured him, pulling your hand naturally out of his warm grasp to communicate. You hoped he wouldn’t notice that you were pulling away from him to avoid the heat of his touch and refusing to look at his face. 
“I’m sure she’s fine, Gar.” Rachel smiled. 
You nodded. 
“Some people’s brains just get fried when they’re asked to be smart on the spot.” She added on - this being sass that was clearly directed at Jason. It made you laugh. 
It then moved on to someone else’s turn, and you were glad the focus had shifted away from you. 
…  
Just like everything you had touched lately, game night turned into a disaster. 
Jason realized he wasn’t going to win after he lost one too many pop culture questions. Ones based on movies and shows that he hadn’t even seen. And he claimed it ‘wasn’t even fair’ because he was being questioned based on material that he had no knowledge of. 
When Gar and Rachel told him that was just how the game worked, he proceeded to pull the ‘I was poor growing up, of course I didn’t watch those movies cause I didn’t have a TV’ card. When that got him no sympathy, he flipped the table. A screaming match broke out between the three of them, and everyone stormed off to their separate corners, leaving you to clean up the pieces. Quite literally. 
You managed to find and pick up all the game pieces in the shaggy area rug, and you put them back inside the game box. You figured they might be useful in the future in case everyone made up and did want to play the game again sometime. One of the last things left on the carpet was the crushed Twinkie, which had been smashed by the weight of the coffee table when Jason flipped it over. 
It was still nicely inside its plastic packaging, but it had become a crumbled mixture of cake pieces and artificial frosting, rather than the golden log it once was. You shoved it in your pocket - it was definitely something Gar would still enjoy. Though your relationship with him was strange and strained lately, you would still give it to him. 
You put everything back in the living area exactly as it had been, not wanting to tip off Dick to what had happened. He already had enough reasons to be on Jason’s case, you didn’t want to give him one more. Even though Jason was a bit of a parasite, you thought it was basic decency to have his back. 
Just as you were finished tidying, Dick returned through the elevator, heaving several bags of groceries in both his arms. 
“How was game night?” He smiled at you as you came over to take a few of the bags from him. 
You smiled back, giving him an exaggerated thumbs up with your free hand. 
You knew he had picked up some basic signs in the time of knowing you, but he was nowhere near as fluent as Gar, or even Jason. So you stuck to simple ASL with him, or gave him exaggerated facial expressions. Or just wrote things down on paper or texted like you did with most other people. 
“Good.” His voice held an edge of relief to it. “The four of you should be spending more time together. It’s good for team morale.” 
You felt slightly guilty for lying to him, but you didn’t want to get the others in trouble for something that really wasn’t their fault. He couldn’t force you guys to enjoy spending time together if it wasn’t going to come naturally. 
You put away the groceries in relative silence. Once you had finished folding the reusable bags and putting them away, you were going to escape to your room when Dick caught your attention once again. 
“Um, one more thing.” He said, stopping you in your tracks, making you turn around to face him. You looked at him with curious eyes, and he continued speaking. “It’s probably none of my business, but… is there something going on between you and Gar? You guys used to be like… best friends, and now you hardly ever spend time with him.” 
You felt a dizziness overtake you - that hard drop of your blood pressure from feeling so caught. 
It was like the days when you had first met Gar, when your feelings for him were so bold and unrestrained. And anytime someone mentioned his name around you, you practically melted into a puddle. 
In response to Dick, you simply shrugged. You knew that you looked entirely guilty as your eyes darted around the room - to the counter, the floor, the dull embers in the fire pit - anywhere but at him. 
“Listen, I know this life can be pretty isolating. Especially when you have unique powers. Which is not something I know personally. But I have seen you struggle with it - with using your powers, holding back that unique ability you have when you should be using it and living up to your potential. And I’ve seen Gar help you through it in ways that no one else could.” 
Dick’s words, coming from such a steady and authoritative voice did shock you. You were surprised that he considered your powers to be a ‘unique potential’ - rather than the dangerous, privacy invasion tool that you always saw it as. You were even more surprised to hear that he had observed the ways Gar had helped you when you struggled with the decision to hold back or not, the moral confliction of it all. 
“It’s good to have someone like that. Someone you can rely on. Someone who knows what it’s like. You just… you shouldn’t push him away. You probably need him now more than ever.” 
His words were solid concrete in the otherwise quiet room, weighing down your already heavy heart. 
Even though he had no idea why you had been pushing Gar away, strangely… he was right. You finally looked up to find your mentor’s cold steel gaze staring you down. 
‘Thank you.’ You mouthed the words along with the sign, just in case he didn’t know what it meant. 
He nodded at you, silently releasing you from the conversation. You mindlessly put your hands into the pockets of your sweater as you walked away, and you felt the gentle crinkle of the Twinkie’s wrapper. You decided that you should go visit Gar before you went to bed. 
When you approached his bedroom door, you were surprised to see that it was open. You peered inside, peeking your head around the corner, and you found Gar sprawled out on his bed. His laptop was on his stomach as he stared at the white-blue glow with a bored expression on his face. He was likely studying. Trying this best to. 
You knocked on the open door to make your presence known. He jumped slightly as you broke his concentration, but he quickly recovered from being startled. He sat up fully and put his laptop to the side, the screen still open and casting a glow into the dimly lit room. You didn’t wait for an invitation to come in, and his gaze was drawn to you as you walked into the room, not bothering to shut the door behind you. 
“Y/N. Hey,” He smiled at you, pleasantly surprised that you had come to see him. “Fancy seeing you here.” 
A small twinge of guilt flared in your stomach. 
You felt bad for avoiding him for reasons that weren’t truly his fault. You felt bad for putting a strain on your friendship with him because you couldn’t control your stupid powers. You felt bad that you couldn’t just tell him the truth. 
And a huge part of you felt even worse that you couldn’t control your own lust simply because you knew that he felt somewhat lustful toward you. 
As your eyes glanced at his wide thighs spread out on the bed, even covered by his jeans, your pussy ached. You couldn’t stop thinking about the way those thighs had worked as he thrust his cock in and out of you when he had you pinned to the wall in that fantasy. You hated how your mind was so hyper-focused on something that wasn’t even real. Maybe it was just hotter and more wicked because you knew it was a fantasy of his creation. It drove you more insane because it was something he apparently wanted just as badly as you did. 
Even if you could never tell him you wanted it as badly as he did because of the way you had found out. 
‘I thought you might want this.’ You signed to him. 
Past the hazy fog of your lust clouded thoughts, you remembered why you had come to see Gar in the first place. You took the smashed, pathetic Twinkie out of your pocket and presented it to him with a small grin. 
“Oh thanks!” He was eager to take it from you, ripping open the packaging and taking a bite of the crumbling cake. 
“Yeah, definitely still good.” He assured you with his mouthful, giving you a cheeky smile and a thumbs up. 
You were happy that you had finally done something right. You gave him a small thumbs up in return and went to leave again. But he was quick, abandoning his snack on the bed and jumping up to interrupt your path before you could escape. 
“Y/N, wait. I was hoping we could talk.” He said quietly, his voice full of a strained hope. “I miss you.” 
Even as he pleaded for your attention, your eyes were stuck at your feet. Rather than daring to look up at him, you stared hard at the space where his green socked toes stood in front of yours. You had no clue what exactly was triggering these ‘episodes’ with your powers, but you knew it had something to do with him. You couldn’t risk it, not again. 
You loved how almost all of his clothes were green - a choice he often made because he said it was easier to match his hair the way it now naturally grew from his head. The color would forever remind you of him whenever it came up in life. He had taken everything green in your life and possessed it as his own so that it made you smile whenever you saw it. So that anything green would make you mourn for him long after he had left your life in one way or another. You hated it and loved it at the same time. 
“If I did something wrong, please just tell me. I wanna fix it.” His voice flexed under the weight of his pain. 
It was intensely difficult for you to listen to. 
It sliced through you like a knife. 
Your selfish acts, your uncontrollable, stupid powers and the way you ran from the consequences had somehow convinced him that he had done something wrong. 
Tears pricked your eyes. 
You racked your gaze carefully up his body, and your eyes landed on a piece of vanilla cake crumb that had gotten stuck to his chin from the Twinkie. Just the look of it, something that was so foolish and unserious and so Gar in this very serious moment made you crack a smile. Instinctually, you reached over and brushed it away with your thumb. 
He sighed out a half-breath that could be perceived as a laugh when he realized what you were smiling at. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously at the thought of his own clumsiness. 
‘You have done nothing wrong.’ You assured him, keeping your eyes locked on the wall behind his ear. ‘You never do anything wrong. You’re so good.’ 
“Then what is it?” He pressed. “Will you please just look at me?” 
He used a gentle hand on your chin to force your eyes towards his, and before you could stop it, you were caught up in it again. You were once again sucked into the complicated swell of his beautiful mind. 
But this time it was distinctly different. This time it wasn’t some heated fantasy, wasn’t some painted imagining. 
This was a memory of something that had already happened. It was most definitely a memory you knew well. Although this time it was like you were watching it from the outside - or rather, you were watching it from Gar’s perspective. 
It was a vision of you knelt on the bathroom floor, puking into a toilet. The sounds of your own sickness easily made you cringe. Gar didn’t flinch or feel any disgust though. 
You could feel his emotions like the grooves of a record, carved into the memory and being replayed. All he felt was a great wave of sadness for you. Instinctually, not really knowing what else to do, he reached out and placed a comforting hand on your back as your muscles lurched with another wave of gags, forced by your body’s ill-made systems. 
It was a specific night that you remembered well. 
You had only been in Doctor Caulder’s care for a few weeks at the time, but it had become evident that even though the serum had cured your blindness, your intense migraines and even the occasional seizures caused by your brain tumor still persisted. 
You had crawled to the bathroom with the intention of dealing with your ailments in privacy. But Gar’s room was right next to yours, and he had heard you groaning in pain, had heard you throwing up and gasping for breath because of the pure force of the vomit. 
So he did the only thing he could think to do. He got a glass of water for you to rinse your mouth when you were done, and then he simply sat with you, trying to bring you some comfort in your time of need. He felt hollow and useless as you heaved into the toilet, nothing left in your stomach to give up but bright green stomach bile, your body forcing every last bit of it out as the migraine raged on. 
When the heaving stopped, he pulled you into his lap. He was ready with a warm, damp cloth to put on your forehead, and a towel to wipe your mouth. You relaxed into his calming touch. He bloomed with pride at being able to hold you in his arms, being able to keep you safe, even if he couldn’t heal you from what ailed you. 
‘You can leave.’ You signed to him. 
At the time, he understood it well, even with just a few weeks of studying under his belt. 
A small wave of offense went through him. He didn’t want to leave you. Why would he leave you in such a weak state? He wanted to help you. That’s why he’d gotten out of bed in the first place. 
“I’m not gonna leave.” He told you. “I won’t leave you. Ever.” 
At the time you had been far too sick to really take in the weight of his words. But now, lingering in the memory, you could feel the determination sitting deep in his chest. The affection for you as it swelled inside him, the way he held you just a bit closer. 
You were shocked back to the cold concrete of reality when he gripped your arm in the present, pulling you out of the sweetness of the memory by force. He spoke something that was muffled and full in your ears as you struggled to pull yourself out of the thickness of his clouded mind. The expression on your face must have told him you hadn’t heard him, because he repeated himself. 
“Will you please just tell me what’s wrong?” He demanded, his voice sharp with worry. 
‘Nothing’s wrong.’ You lied, shaking yourself from his grip. ‘I have to go study.’ 
You ran from the room before he could confront you any further. 
Your mind was positively drowning with thoughts about Gar. Did he feel the same way about you? Had he felt the same way about you since the two of you had met? 
Your mind was so clouded that you slammed into your closed bedroom door before you could remember to actually turn the doorknob and open it. It left you cursing internally as you rubbed the sore spot blooming in the middle of your forehead. 
This crush was going to ruin you. 
… 
Unfortunately, you couldn’t easily avoid Gar forever. 
The next day, when Dick was giving out assignments, he paired up you and Gar for sparring practice right before he pulled aside Jason and Rachel for a quiz on the assigned reading material. You tried to wave him down, wanting to protest about having Gar as a partner - but of course, he didn’t read ASL. And he didn’t give you any room to protest as he spouted off about what kind of drills the two of you should be practicing and told you that he would come by in two hours to ‘check-in’ on your progress. 
You wanted to scream. Sometimes, not having a voice truly, utterly sucked. 
You thought perhaps it was Dick’s way of forcing you to make good on the advice he had given you the night before - forcing you to spend time with Gar so that you would stop pushing him away. But it was so damn inconvenient when you still didn’t know what was causing your powers to act up. 
As you walked to the training room, you told yourself again and again that you could bear two hours alone with Gar. Especially because one of the drills that Dick wanted you to practice was blindfolded sparring. That was an easy way not to have your powers flare-up against your will. You told yourself that you needed to get back to normal. You couldn’t have Gar thinking that you hated him - thinking that he was the reason for your strange behavior when he was truly the best, kindest person in your life. 
Well, technically he was the reason for your strange behavior. But not at all in the way he blamed himself for. And you wouldn’t have him thinking that he had fucked up your friendship somehow or pissed you off unintentionally for some reason he couldn’t even name. 
You and Gar exchanged a few words - you agreed that you would wear the blindfold and try to defend against his attacks, and he joked that he would ‘go easy’ on you. It felt delightfully normal between the two of you for a few minutes. 
He gave you one of his perfectly dorky smiles and you felt butterflies in your stomach. Beyond his wildly attractive body, beyond that sexual heat - you remembered why you had fallen for him in the first place. Those boyish charms, that gentle nature that made him so irresistible as a friend and so easy to yearn for as a lover. 
When you put the blindfold on, it felt like a comforting shield against his wild daydreams, trying to buck free from his mind. You both picked up the wooden swords, and when he asked if you were ready, you nodded. 
Unfortunately, you were not exactly on your game. 
Usually, you were quite a skilled fighter. You could keep up with the likes of Jason Todd, who trained night and day just to prove how skilled he was. Your powers gave you slightly honed senses, giving you the ability to hear more acutely, giving you the advantage in a situation like this. 
But that was part of the problem. You were picking up on Gar’s breathing, the heavy panting coming from his lips as he swung the practice sword and started to work up a sweat. Your concentration was clouded by the small grunts he made as he worked his muscles, and the careful, skilled movement of his footfalls as he charged at you. 
He easily landed a few blows - gentle, purposefully light swats - on your arms and torso, and he distinctly noticed you not making any real effort to dodge or fight back. Your mind was too busy churning with the mental image of him sweaty from the effort, imagining those same grunts as he fucked you. 
This crush was going to ruin you. 
Gar stopped his movements, and you relaxed your body, pausing any half-efforts you were making to fight him off. 
“Are you okay?” He asked. “Do you have a migraine or something? Do you need to go lay down?” 
Of course. He was concerned for your well-being. It was something that only made him sweeter, and only made you twinge with guilt at what had been going through your mind. 
‘Fine.’ You responded, performing the sign with one hand, still clutching the practice sword with the other. ‘Keep going.’ 
You heard Gar sigh - clearly somewhat hesitant. 
But then he swung his sword down again, and when you heard it whipping through the air, you made a distinct effort to block it this time. You raised yours up, blocking the blow. He let out a quiet chuckle, pleased now that you were better focused this time around. 
You really tried harder. 
You found yourself blocking his blows, using your own swift footwork, and even then - your unconscious distraction was apparent. 
Usually you were better with your tactile awareness, but as the edge of the mats came under your foot, you didn’t notice. And Gar, ever concerned for your safety, used his non-sword hand to reach out and grab your arm. He quickly yanked you back from the edge in case you tripped and fell. He wouldn’t want you to hit your head on the concrete floor, even if it wouldn’t be a terribly grievous injury. 
But he was pumping with energy from the mock fight, and when he pulled you in, he used far more force than he had intended to. It wasn’t a simple correction of your footing like he intended. He accidentally sent your distracted legs tripping over each other and sent you barreling right into him. With the momentum, you knocked him completely off his legs. You ended up falling right on top of Gar as he landed splayed out on the mats, on his back. 
Gar broke into a gentle laughter, finding the entire thing to be quite amusing. 
His hands naturally found your hips and warmth spread out from there, something that quickly overwhelmed your senses. You dropped your practice sword with a numb hand as you became entirely heated by the feeling of his rock hard body beneath yours. Upon instinct, you reached up, and pulled the blindfold up to rest on your forehead - which turned out to be a terrible mistake. 
In that moment, you came face to face with Gar’s stunning, big brown eyes and you were once again sucked into one of his heated fantasies against your will. 
Unlike the others, this wasn’t a picture you were viewing. It wasn’t something in his mind that you were only seeing from the third perspective. 
No - you were in this. 
Somehow, he had drawn you so deeply into his fantasy this time that you were in it, participating in it, truly feeling it. 
In the daydream, you were sitting on top of him, easily paralleling your current reality.
But in this dreamy version, he was completely naked, and you felt the delightfully throbbing hum of his cock deep inside of you. Because it was just a dream, it wasn’t nearly as distinct as the real thing would have been. But the feeling quickly spread heat through your entire body. Especially when paired with the visuals his imagination had conjured up for you. 
The feeling of his hands on your hips in the real world easily turned into a searing burn that you were sure you could feel on your bare skin. You looked down at him below you, as though you were really straddling his naked body, proudly riding his impressively large cock. His taut muscles rippled under sweaty skin - his abs flexing with the effort, his biceps bulging as he held onto you. 
All of it so enticingly topped off by the sight of his face, his forehead glistening with sweat, stray green hairs stuck to it. The expression he held was almost beautifully pathetic as he struggled with such overwhelming pleasure - his lip snagged between his teeth, his brow heavily creased. Quiet, desperate whimpers escaping from his throat as he guided you to grind on his thickness. 
You let out a sharp moan of your own, desperately aching for breath, and that chugging in your throat was the thing that sucked out of the deep fog of this fantasy. 
When you looked into Gar’s eyes once more, you saw the look of dawning on his face. It was mingled with confusion, but you knew that this time, he had felt it too. He had felt you on a deeper level, and he knew, even if he couldn’t nearly explain it - the two of you had shared that experience on a deeper level. 
And what’s more - out here in the real world, not in some sense of fantasy, you could feel his hardness throbbing against your leg. And it felt just as large and impressive as it was in all those dreams. You knew that your cunt was likely boiling hot against him, giving you away. And though the temptation to lean down and ensnare his mouth was so intense, the temptation to beg him to fuck you right then and there - something inside of you kept chanting:
‘Don’t ruin your friendship. He’s your best friend. Don’t fuck it up.’ 
And somehow, miraculously, fighting against all of your overpowering lust - you listened to that voice. You rushed to get off of him, scrambling off the floor to a standing position on shaking legs. You tried your best to ignore the entirely painful throbbing between your legs as your pussy screamed out for him, for his touch. 
Naturally, Gar thought that he had freaked you out. He thought that the reason you had jumped away from him so fast was because he had a raging hard-on and you were intensely disgusted by it. In his mind, he couldn’t easily see it being the exact opposite reason. 
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He rushed to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. My body - my body just - reacted-” 
Gar also rose to his feet, awkwardly tugging at the crotch of his loose workout pants to try and disguise it. You made the mistake of glancing at the tent and visually confirmed that it was just as large as he made it out to be in all of his fantasies (and yours). 
‘It’s fine.’ You sighed to him. 
You were once again making steady eye contact with the floor - trying not to get drawn back into his mind. But it only made Gar feel more awkward, more like he had wronged you. 
Gar’s throat immediately numbed when you turned and left to charge out of the room. You were intensely surprised when you felt his hand on your arm once more - that firm, commanding touch pulling you back once again. 
Wrestling with the embarrassment inside of him was a storm of anger. 
The fact that even now, you were so unwilling to talk to him about any of the problems in your friendship. You just kept brushing him off. It caused a very uncharacteristic flare of annoyed rage inside of him that he just couldn’t swallow down. So with the hand that he wasn’t using to hide his boner, he kept that grip on your arm. He forced you to stay, forcing you to turn back and face him. 
Him asserting himself like that, the show of force over you - oddly enough, it only added to the arousal boiling inside of you. A small whimper escaped from your lips, and you resisted the urge to smack a hand over your mouth in some attempt to hide it. You knew that Gar had definitely heard it when his face shifted from that tense anger to a look of sheer guilt. He thought that the grip on your arm had somehow hurt you. 
“I’m sorry.” He repeated himself, quickly dropping the grip on your arm. He was glad when you stayed of your own volition this time. “But, can you just talk to me? Please?” 
You hated to ignore his pleas, your own guilt curling in your stomach. 
After a moment with no response from you, more anger splashed up inside of him. 
“I hate this.” 
He said quietly, his voice almost breaking under the weight of his pain. 
“I hate how we aren’t close anymore. We don’t talk, we don’t spend time together anymore. I feel like I barely even know you…” 
He quickly gained momentum in his ranting, his words picking up from a dull whisper. You crossed your arms, keeping your eyes on the floor. You knew that you were the perfect target for all of his upset - so you simply took it. 
“This place is changing everyone!” He barked, motioning around wildly to the walls. “I’m living with my best friends and I’ve never felt so damn alone!” 
As his words echoed in the open space, he looked at you with intensely sad eyes, obviously waiting for you to say something - waiting for an apology. 
But any explanation you could give would mean admitting that your powers had gone haywire. It would mean telling him that you had been invading his privacy without permission. It was bound to screw up your friendship and leave him feeling just as alone. You clasped your fists tight, staying entirely still while he waited for an answer. 
“Fine then.” He said quietly, absolutely defeated. 
He was the one to charge away this time, harshly smacking his shoulder against yours in anger. He kicked down a rack of weapons on his way out. 
You hear him let out a harsh, exasperated ‘fuck!’ when he got halfway down the hall. 
At that point, you couldn’t help the tears that escaped as the pain surged through your chest. 
Maybe you had fucked up the friendship in an entirely different way.
...
Keep Reading Here: Part Two - Our Past, Our Present, Our Future
Final note: yes, I used to be @/pinkchubbiebunnie. That is still my username on AO3, and this is my new blog. This is one of my old fics, so please don't accuse me of stealing it if you see this. I have added some new scenes and elements to it (hence, why I have split it up into two parts) so if you recognize me by this fic and if you've read it before, I hope you enjoy re-reading it in its newly improved form. Feel free to follow me if you’re interested in my fanfiction and thoughtful discussions of the media that I enjoy.
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eroticwound · 2 months
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I love your thoughts on The Bear. Particularly the Berzatto siblings. I was wondering if you could talk about Mikey. And possibly his relationship with Richie. Outside of the internet when I talk to peers about the show people are quick to demonize or dislike Mikey. They cite his behavior with Lee and his taking part in ganging up on Carmy with Donna as reasons why. Also, how Richie was so desperate to get away from the beef.
I would love to hear your opinion about how this could be someone’s impression of Mikey. And how you would describe Mikey to someone who maybe isn’t seeing the whole picture? Or just how you would describe Mikey as a person in general.
And do you think his relationship with Richie was very one sided? Do you think it was always Mikey in the lead? I’ve read some fic that truly makes Mikey terrible to Richie.
Hi anon. Thanks for this incredibly thought out ask. Cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoy getting questions like this :)
Michael Berzatto is a complicated guy and he’s a guy we don’t get a lot of screen time with. That’s by design. He’s the character haunting this narrative. Mikey is the Laura Palmer of The Bear (I have that disease where I see everything through the prism of Twin Peaks), and as such we get to know him mostly through people’s grief. Through their imperfect memories. We’re left missing him just as much as any other character. And while I would love a feature length movie showing Mikey’s last days a la Fire Walk with Me, I very much doubt we will get that. So we’re left to figure out this complicated character with scraps.
For these reasons, I do get why people don't understand Mikey. As you mention, they are literally not given anything close to a whole picture. In fact the screen time we have most with him is during Fishes, when he is quite literally at his worst. If people only saw scenes where Carmen was yelling at people in the kitchen or where Richie was being sexist to Syd, I'm sure they'd have a poor opinion of them as well (in fact, being in this fandom after the first season, I can confirm that most of tumblr disliked Richie).
The healthiest we see Michael is in the Ceres flashback in season 1. He’s exactly how everyone describes him: loud, brash, funny. Both Carmy and Richie are just having the best time, completely immersed in the story he's telling. Even Nat’s having a great time, though both brothers stop her from adding raisins, which is Donna’s recipe for the dish they're making (side note, I find it so interesting that Nat is the one trying to follow their mom’s recipe. She's still trying to please Donna, to garner favor, whereas the boys, who Donna relies on in the kitchen and emotionally, feel fine deviating from Donna’s recipe). Even beyond the Ceres flashback, we do get flashes of what makes Mikey great in Fishes: the opening is him checking in on Natalie, he's really sweet and engaging with Carmen in the pantry, and even though Carmy doesn't take Mikey and Richie trying to set him up with Claire well, it's still proof that Mikey cares.
The thing is Mikey is mentally ill, like Donna and like Carmen. He’s dealing with some sort of chemical imbalance (depression or bipolar) on top of the severe parentification he got from Donna. I talk about it at length in my unfinished series delving into the partentification of the Berzatto siblings. As I point out in those posts, Mikey is actually the sibling getting the worst of the parentification, which is a form of abuse where there is a role-reversal between parent and child. Nat can't morph herself easily to accommodate Donna's dysfunction (she un-normalizes it), so she gets Donna's ire instead. Carmen was also parentified, especially when Mikey was out of the house growing up (they have such an age gap), but Mikey was the oldest. He has high EQ and can morph himself to accommodate Donna's dysfunction. It has in fact shaped him into the person he is. Which is someone who is trying to avoid all of the bad: bad outbursts from Donna, bad feelings from his siblings, bad reactions from outsiders to their family dynamic. He's also trying very hard to avoid the bad emotions he's feeling. Michael is looking to avoid all of this through any means necessary, which includes using alcohol and drugs. As I mention in that parentification meta series, using substances is quite literally the only way he's managing his distress.
I want to talk about each point you mention people citing as to why they don't like Michael. But first, I want to preface it by pointing out that Michael has been forced to move back in with Donna. His failed business ventures and poor mental health have forced him back into this scenario that is NOT GOOD FOR HIM. That scene where Cousin Michelle says to Carm that it's not good for him to be in this environment? Well, it's not good for any of the Berzatto siblings. And throughout the episode, you can tell how exhausted Mikey is by it. By having to fulfill his role as Donna's pseudo-partner.
So let's start with Michael and Donna ganging up on Carmen in the kitchen. When Donna and Mikey do this they are functioning as a parental unit. This is the perfect example of Mikey's parentification at work, of Michael acting as Donna's partner. It's what he's been trained to do to maintain the delicate ecosystem of that house. Donna's emotional state is given top priority. Everyone else's emotions fall to the wayside in light of what she's feeling, otherwise you get fallout like her crashing her car into the house. Mikey talks to Nat about this at the start of the episode:
What do you think she's at right now? A 4? A 5? She's not at a 6.
The siblings literally have a rating system for Donna's moods. They're all trying to avoid escalation above all else. Michael in particular. So in that scene with Carm in the kitchen, Mikey is trying to keep things from escalating. This is something Carmen knows too—hell, it's the first thing Carmen asks Mikey to do in Fishes:
Hey Mikey can you come inside and be you for a little bit, I don't know how to deal with these people.
Carmy needs Michael to come fill his role of buffer between guests and their family. Carmy, notably, gets Donna duty—a role I'm sure Mikey filled before Carmen came along. I say this based on Donna calling Carmen "Michael" when he's trying to coax her to the dinner table at the end of the episode. She's implying talking to her like this is what Michael does. When the people you know irl cite this moment, unfortunately this is the rebuttal: this is Mikey's role. Donna needs his emotional support. Otherwise she'd be more abusive towards Nat and Carm. Michael is doing it for the greater good.
As for Lee, that's another great example of soooo much being implied. Lee, along with Cicero, were best friends with their father, and it is heavily implied that Lee and Donna had a fling or two after their dad fucks off (whether Mr. Berzatto is dead or a deadbeat, who’s to say?). When Lee is helping Donna clean shit off the floor, Mikey grabs a beer from the fridge and asks if they are "doing this again." Basically, Lee and Donna have been romantic before. This means Lee would have been around erratically growing up. And it's clear Michael and Lee have a historic antagonism because of this. Lee's first interaction with Michael in the episode has him threatening to "lay [Michael] out." This screams to me that Lee stepped into the man of the house role, and that Mikey and him had altercations that got physically violent. That's why Mikey says at the dinner table, "I can throw forks cuz this is my father's house." That feels very much like something a kid would say to a man who is trying to replace a missing father. And it's especially heated, because it is Michael who has had to consistently step into the man of the house role for Donna and for his siblings! Michael couldn't leave like Lee when Donna and him broke up. Living with Donna and keeping his siblings ok is daily life for Michael.
So all through the episode, Lee is poking a bear (Mikey Bear to be exact). Lee calls him out about telling the same old stories, embarrasses him in front of everyone by revealing he's borrowed money from Cicero and had to move back in with Donna. Lee has been explicitly disrespecting him. And maybe if Mikey was in a better place, he would have been able to roll with it, but as I mentioned before, Mikey is not in a good place. He's depressed, he's been drinking and taking something (pain pills?) to manage the stress he's under. Him throwing forks is not a lucid reaction. Frankly, if people don't also blame Lee for that outburst, then they really weren't paying attention during the episode.
Finally, onto the Richie portion of your question. Richie’s family is something I would *love* to get more canon info about. All we know is that he's not Italian but Polish, his home life wasn’t great, his dad sucked, and Donna allowed him over so often that he’s practically her fourth child.
Richie and Michael grew up together. They're best friends, practically family. It's why Richie is "cousin." Michael's relationship with Richie is his closest relationship. Everyone says Mikey was their best friend, but Mikey's actual best friend was Richie. Period. And there's some complicated jealousy between Carmen and Richie because of what each is to Michael: Carmy's jealous of Richie and Michael's genuine closeness, and Richie is jealous that Mikey has special regard for Carmen as his actual brother. You see this jealousy in the very first episode of the show during that first walk-in fight: Richie was there for Mikey, buried Mikey and took care of Donna, and yet Mikey left the restaurant to Carmen. Left the money in cans for Carmen, so he could fulfill their dream restaurant together. There's honestly some great fic out there that goes into this jealousy. I'll come back to link it if I can find it.
Bottom line is that Richie was the closest person in Mikey's life. They have the same humor, the same life experiences. They had each other's backs. So when you ask if Richie and Michael's relationship was one-sided, I'm going to answer with a resounding no. They're literally besties. It's just by Fishes, Michael has deteriorated. His depression and drug abuse and failures have shrunk his life. Just compare where they're both at: Michael's moved back in with his mom, is single, and is telling the same old stories from their youth. Richie, on the other hand, might have anxiety (the xanax from Dogs <3), but he's in a stable and loving relationship and has a child on the way. That's why Richie asks Cicero for a job—not to get away from Mikey, but to make more money for his expanding family. And yes, he wants to amount to something more than working at a sandwich shop, but hell, so does Mikey. Neither of them want that for the rest of their lives. It's why Michael tried other business ventures. They fail, so he's stuck at The Beef. But it's a weight around his neck bringing him down. He says as much to Carmen when they're in the pantry:
Yeah but the place is no good, Carmy. It's a fucking nightmare. Like trust me I'm doing you a favor.
He even tries to set it on fire for the insurance money! Only Carmen sees the potential.
As for whether it was always Mikey taking the lead, I do think there's some merit to that. Mikey is talked about as more charming than Richie. You see it in Ceres when the edit compares Mikey telling the Bill Murray story to Richie telling the Bill Murray story to his date. Mikey is loud and funny and can "dial a room." Richie can too, but I think Mikey has more finesse. Still, they rely on each other. They back each other up. Michael would hook people with the stories, and Richie would embellish and inject at the right points or reel Mikey in when needed. They supported each other and worked together. I think any fic you might be reading that's demonizing Michael isn't accurate to his character and is actually falling into a pretty common fic trope: if the focus is Character A, then a fic author will cast Character B as the villain in order to serve whatever they're writing, twisting and embellishing the traits of Character B until they’re barely recognizable. Could Mikey be dismissive and hard to contain? Sure, but I don't think that means he didn't love Richie, or was undemonstrative with his affections. Even when Michael was out of it on drugs, they still had a very close relationship—Richie says so. In fact, everything Richie says about Michael supports this. I see zero support in canon for their relationship being one-sided. I'll say it again, they loved each other.
So this is how I would describe Mikey: loud, funny, obnoxious. He could dial a room. He cared deeply for his family, friends, and employees. He suffered parentification and has some sort of chemical imbalance. In fact, because he was charming and loud and funny, people could ignore his deterioration. Even Richie says, "he was Mikey Bear! I thought he'd come out of it," because he was able to come out of it up to that point. But after decades of not treating the problem, the only solution Michael could see was killing himself. He's a complicated character. He's a tragic character. He's the Laura Palmer of The Bear.
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sundrop-writes · 5 months
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Dreaming Of You
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Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader
Part One: The Psychic and The Tiger
Summary:
You and Gar have been best friends for a long time. Nothing could disrupt the harmony of such a perfect friendship.
Nothing except maybe... your usually predictable powers going haywire and somehow showing you all of his heated daydreams about you. But he couldn't possibly have romantic feelings for you. He couldn't possibly want anything more than your close platonic friendship and the occasional steamy fantasy. Right?
Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Smut and (Slight) Angst. Set during Season 2.
Word Count: 13,100
DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist
THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.
Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.
Warnings: some emotional angst (on the basis of mutual angst but they’re both deep in denial), accidental invasion of someone’s privacy (by accidentally reading their mind), some light canon violence (practice sparring/practice fighting), the reader character is disabled - the reader character is 100% mute, the reader character suffered with tumors that were partially cured by Doctor Caulder’s serum, the reader character suffers from migraines and seizures due to remaining brain tumors, the reader character has the ability to read minds, the reader character uses ASL because she is mute, mentions of the reader character having insomnia/difficulty sleeping, mentions of Rachel having a one-sided crush on Gar, the reader is described to exercise a lot and be physically fit but I don’t allot that to a certain body type (I am not excluding her from being fat when I write this), in a lot of passages - the reader is implied to be fat actually, mentions of the reader masturbating, a wholesome family game night that doesn’t really belong in a smut fic lmao, somewhat graphic descriptions of vomit (from illness) (it only occurs in one short section of the fic), passing mentions of disordered eating - but not due to poor body image or mental illness more in the form of restrictions on ‘junk food’ and not eating properly at meal times, dream sequences involving sex - hair-pulling, groping, biting, making out, (implied) shower sex, dirty talk, praise kink, penis in vagina sex (unprotected), mind fucking (but not in the way that you think - sharing sex with someone while having a sexual connection). All of the smut/sex in this chapter is of the day dream variety, but it is still described in graphic/detailed ways. I believe that is everything. 
A/N: I find it so ironic that this was freshly reposted on my other blog when I got shadowbanned. So let's try this again, shall we? At least this is beautifully edited and updated for your eyes. I think this is literally the perfect version of this fic with the new additional scenes. So if this is your first time reading it, please enjoy, and if you have read it before, I hope you can enjoy it again. And because I am back in my Titans era again - definitely stick around for more of my Gar bullshit. I love him with my whole heart, and there will definitely be more Gar stuff from me.
...
Mind reading is most definitely not what people think it is. 
It’s not at all how movies portray it to be. And it’s definitely not how you imagine it to be when you think about having the ability to access someone’s private thoughts. 
To this day, you still remembered when Gar showed you the British television show Misfits, and you couldn’t help but laugh at the way the character’s mind reading power was portrayed. 
To most of Hollywood, it’s as if a person’s thoughts were a simple string of words laid out in their head, a simple script being read in their voice. As if you can accidentally overhear someone thinking about a certain topic, like one overhears a conversation. 
In reality, it was vastly different for you. 
There was no easy way to explain it, to describe the way it felt to enter the complex vastness of the human mind, but you often tried to put it into words. For one, you were thankful that it took you concentration and intent to use your powers. You never accidentally overheard someone’s thoughts the way a person can hear voices or loud music, or a television in the next room. It kept you from a lot of awkward situations. And most importantly to you, it kept you from barreling into a person’s most private space - the sacred stronghold of their mind - unless it was deemed completely necessary. 
From what you had realized, it required you making eye contact with the person in order for you to enter someone’s mind. 
“Ah yes. The eyes are the window to the soul, after all.” Doctor Caulder had remarked when he had discovered this about your powers. 
Ironic. Thematic, actually, considering that his serum had cured you of a physical blindness. One caused by a brain tumor that any doctor was too afraid to operate on in order to remove. Doctor Caulder liked to credit himself and his serum with giving you the gift of ‘a greater sight’, one that allowed you to peer deep inside others. A gift that he said allowed you to help people. 
To you, though, more often than not, it just felt like invading people’s privacy. And that was something you definitely didn’t enjoy - whether it was ‘helping’ people or not. 
Something you had learned during the minimal amount of time you had used your powers: people can be divided into two types of thinkers. That you found out very quickly. 
The first type are people whose thoughts come in the form of rich, visual landscapes. People who show off their thoughts almost purely with visuals, imagining things that might happen, remembering things that already have in vivid detail. Those people are typically the easiest to navigate, in your experience - but their memories can be the most painful and vivid if you go too deep. 
The second type are people whose thoughts come more in the form of narration - a voice inside their head speaking about their intentions or the information pumping through their mind. 
Although, unlike what most people would think, that voice is not usually their own. 
Most times it is the voice of a mentor or parent, someone who guided and built their thoughts from childhood, someone whose voice sounds firm and thoughtful in their mind. Or sometimes it could even be the voice of a TV character or a radio host, because listening to that piece of media so often caused that voice to clone in their mind and become stuck there accidentally. 
Entering the mind of someone like this can be tricky - their thoughts are difficult to navigate, because they are hard to grasp and become tangible. 
Occasionally you come across someone with a more unique mental landscape, someone in emotional turmoil or someone who simply never had a linear train of thought to begin with. Entering the mind of someone like this is more like a thousand screaming voices and flashing lights, all at once. Incredibly difficult to decipher, a sensory overload to take in.  
But those are only surface level thoughts. Your powers gave you the ability to dive deep into the cave of someone’s mind, to explore the winding halls of their memories, their subconscious. To feel their emotions, to help them work through their traumas, their pain. If they allowed you to delve that deep. Only if they invited you in. 
More often than not, you simply preferred to stay the hell out of other people’s minds. To simply give them the privacy they were owed. 
Which is why when it happened - when your powers started slipping out of your control on that stupid fucking day - you hated it more than you could be proud of it. Even if the information you discovered cemented a dream into reality that you’d been having since the day you met Garfield Logan. 
It had been a Saturday morning like any other. 
Well, one as routine as to be expected when living the Titans lifestyle. 
Moving into the Tower was actually nice to attempt to put down roots considering what you had been through over the past year or so. When you originally uprooted your life in Covington, Ohio to follow Gar, you certainly hadn’t expected the wild path he would lead you on. A path that would lead to you getting kidnapped by a doomsday cult and tortured, being lured to a house in the middle of nowhere and mentally tortured some more. All in all leaving that house with absolutely no sense of direction in your life, mentally scarred and broken. 
But you never blamed Gar for getting you into trouble. In fact, you were glad to be there to support him through everything that had happened. 
Gar was your best friend, your person, and you would have followed him anywhere. 
So naturally when he moved into the newly reopened Titans Tower, so did you. Dick didn’t fully understand the extent of your abilities, because in order to show people, you had to violate their privacy, and it wasn’t always something you were keen on doing. He simply trusted Gar at his word that you were more than capable of becoming a Titan. 
That blind faith Dick had put in you, backed by Gar’s word, that heavily motivated you to train hard in all other areas to ensure that Dick knew Gar could be trusted. To pull through on that promise and show your worth. 
That’s why you were up so early that morning. You liked to get a head start on things. You liked to be up before everyone else to prove that you were working hard on your training, working hard on studying the things that Dick wanted you to know. 
At least, those were the excuses you had prepared if anyone asked. Or the things you told yourself to escape the reality of it - to say that you were using your time wisely these days. 
Truthfully, you were never very good with sleeping. 
Between your chronic headaches, pain that left intense aches down your neck and spine, and the awful nausea that it plagued you with, and the strange dreams that your powers seemed to be paired with, you didn’t often get much sleep. 
You were still figuring out how your incredibly strange dreams coincided with your ability to breach other people’s private thoughts. But you guessed that it was simply part of that whole ‘greater sight’ thing. Especially considering that those dreams seemed to depict the future in some way. 
You often found your sleep disrupted by these dreams - visions of death or violence or even strange faces you had never seen before. And more often than not, you decided to pursue more productive activities than tossing and turning in your sheets until your alarm rang. 
Strangely enough, one of the very first dreams you’d had after being injected with the serum had been a strange setting where you were garbed in a giant, poofy white wedding dress, getting married to a large green tiger who wore a black bowtie among his bright green fur. At the time, you had genuinely convinced yourself that it was just a strange fever dream caused by the serum. Up until you’d met Gar, and something in the pit of your stomach told you that he was the green tiger in question. 
But you had never told anyone about that dream, and probably never would.
It’s something that was very far from your mind as you enjoyed breakfast early that morning. 
Dick usually let everyone ‘sleep in’ on Saturdays - as much as Jason complained that sleeping until eight was not a luxury, he and the others usually still took advantage of it. But you were up long before sunrise on that day. 
You were sitting at the kitchen island, absentmindedly snacking on some dry cereal with your journal open in front of you. You were sketching a picture of something you had seen in one of your dreams. A girl with waves of silver hair and eyepatch that you didn’t recognize, but had a gut feeling was important somehow. You glanced up at the sound of footsteps coming into the room, and found yourself surprised but happy to see that it was Gar. 
He was clearly still half asleep, his eyes barely open. He wore plaid pajama pants and a green pullover hoodie, hair still adorably messy and uncombed. He looked so utterly soft and cuddly, something that made those undeniable butterflies stir in the pit of your stomach. 
When you looked over at the clock attached to the stove, it was barely five-thirty in the morning. The sun was just kissing the sky orange to your right, casting a warm orange glow across the entire room through the many tall windows. You were almost shocked that anything other than Dick’s fist hammering on Gar’s door had gotten him out of bed this early. 
“Morning.” He grunted at you as he tiredly stumbled toward the fridge. He opened it with haste and grabbed the carton of orange juice. 
Of course. He wanted a snack. 
He uncapped it and gulped it with enthusiasm, not bothering to get a glass or even close the refrigerator door. The sharp light of the halogen bulbs and the cool air pouring from the appliance almost hurt you, your overly sensitive eyes and skin picking up on the sensations more potently in the soft morning light of the room. 
Gar turned around, the carton still poised to his lips. He took large swigs that made his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, and he kicked the fridge door shut behind him as he finally put the carton down on the counter, exhaling a large, nasty burp. He looked at you with a sleepy smile, almost making you mad with how cute he could be after doing something like that. 
You were about to comment on the disgusting nature of his habits when something strange happened - something that had never happened to you before. 
You locked eyes with him, and with absolutely no intention or purpose on your part, you were struck with a flood of his thoughts. A vision, a vivid painting brought to life by his imagination. 
It was a distinct, full picture of the two of you. 
He had you pressed against the kitchen island, his hands commanding and warm on your hips, like they belonged there. His body was firm against yours, tightly pressed against you as if trying to spite the clothes you wore - and his lips were on yours in a demanding kiss. It was entirely passionate, downright hungry. He left gentle nips on your bottom lip as you ran your hands through his sleep mussed hair, your gentle tug on it forcing a moan from his throat, his tongue pressing into- 
A gentle gasp coiled in the back of your throat as you were shocked back to reality, finally able to force yourself out of his mind. 
You had no idea how the accidental violation had even occurred in the first place, but to stay there and indulge in it would only be continuing to do him a great injustice. When you dared to let your eyes flicker back to his face, he was staring at you with a strange look - his brow slightly furrowed, worry dancing across his mouth. Clearly he wanted to ask you what was wrong. You hadn’t greeted him or said ‘good morning’ in any sort of fashion yet, and now you were just sitting there, frozen on your stool, every inch of your body tight as ice at what you had just seen. 
“Did you want some?” He asked, picking up the orange juice carton and holding it out to you. 
It was adorably ignorant of him - to think the strange look that had struck your face was over some dispute about orange juice. That you were annoyed because he wasn’t sharing well enough. You simply shook your head in the negative and began gathering your things as quickly as possible, trapping your pencil between the pages of your notebook as you scrambled to get out of his sight. 
You needed time to think. 
You had no idea what the hell had just happened, but you sure wanted to avoid him until you could figure it out. Until you could get it under control. You raised your hand and signed something about showering to him. But your movements were quick and sloppy and you didn’t look at him for confirmation that he understood before you barreled out of the room. You were too eager to hide in your bedroom until you were absolutely forced to see him again. 
… 
It’s not like you hadn’t thought about it before. 
You had thought about it a lot, actually. 
But he had been far too good a friend for you to ever risk losing that friendship over your stupid lust - over some stupid schoolgirl crush that you were sure would go away. And the whole uprooting your life and having a demon from another dimension invade your mind and show you the darkest parts of yourself thing definitely made you put your crush for Gar on the back burner. 
It’s not like you were blind to how entirely perfect Gar was. He was handsome, he was cute - so entirely adorable in his boyish looks and his sweet smile. So cute and excitable, with the way he could be bashful, yet confident at the same time when spurting out random facts about video games or going on and on about seemingly any subject that excited him. And you quickly realized that he had more than boyish charms the first time you had seen him shirtless - accidentally caught him changing when living together at Caulder House - and you saw his gorgeous physique on display. 
You had been smitten with Gar since the very first moment you had met him, actually.
Back then your crush was something that should have been glaringly obvious to him. You could barely maintain eye contact with him within the first few days of knowing him, you were always so flustered around him. That, on top of the playful teasing of your housemates, wondering when the two of you were finally going to admit that unspoken thing you had going on. 
But when the two of you left Caulder House and set out to explore the world - it had remained unspoken. 
If Gar had known about your crush on him, it had never affected the way he treated you. Your friendship grew so strong so quickly, and you never wanted to lose that. You never wanted to lose him. So you settled for platonic couch cuddles and late night multiplayer and him letting you sleep in his bed whenever you got a bad migraine. 
And then Rachel came along. And you saw the way he looked at her, the way she looked at him. And even though you thought you had probably lost any chance of ever being with him the way you had dreamed of - you still packed your bag and squeezed into the back of Dick’s Porsche with him when he begged for you to come. 
Naturally, you were spinning at the revelation that apparently, he had thought of you the same way you thought of him. You almost wanted to convince yourself that it had been a mistake. That it had just been a fantasy you had cooked up inside your own mind. It’s not like you didn’t have many, many fantasies about Gar running around in there. 
But no. You knew distinctly what it felt like to use your powers. Being inside the private cave of someone else’s mind - even touching the surface of its depths is a unique experience. And doing it by mistake feels no different than doing it on purpose. 
You had no clue what had caused your powers to go off by mistake, but you definitely knew the feeling of using them. 
Those were most definitely Gar’s thoughts that had invaded your mind. Gar’s thoughts about kissing you, handling you with such intense passion. Your skin startled to crawl with a unique heat as you remembered the vision so vividly. You heaved a great sigh as you flung yourself backward onto your bed. You gazed over at the clock. It was almost time for training. You wouldn’t be able to hide from Gar for much longer. 
…  
You were just glad that training that day consisted of blindfolded sparring. 
Dick seemed very surprised when you volunteered to go first after he introduced the unorthodox exercise. But to you, it was a simple logic that had you eagerly chopping at the bit to get a piece of cloth covering your eyes. If you were blindfolded, there was no chance of you catching Gar’s eye. Or anyone’s for that matter. 
You had no idea if your powers were simply spinning out of control, or if it was an unintentional emotional reaction triggered by Gar’s presence. You weren’t quite sure which was worse. If it was a case of your powers going rogue, growing stronger somehow, then perhaps you’d have to start wearing a blindfold all the time. 
If it was specifically something with Gar, then… maybe that was worse. It probably signaled something deeper with you. Your feelings for him clawing at your unconscious, begging to be spilled to the open air. Which you really weren’t eager to let happen anytime soon. 
You were almost relieved when Dick paired you off with Jason, saying that your skill set ‘complimented’ his. He explained that he wanted the two of you to try the blindfolding exercise together while he quizzed Gar and Rachel on logic puzzles in the other room. At least Gar would be required to be away from you for a while, and you’d have a very slim chance of catching Jason’s eyes. You didn’t want to know what kind of things he was thinking, what secrets he had. Definitely not. 
As the two of you sparred, you were entirely unfocused, your thoughts swimming. 
Jason caught you off guard, and easily swept you off your feet completely as he struck you hard in the ankle with the wooden practice sword he was wielding. You grunted gently as you hit the floor, and rolled over on your back, defeated. You reluctantly removed the blindfold as you caught your breath, and saw him standing above you, offering you a hand to help you up. As you blinked against the sharp light meeting your eyes, you accidentally caught his gaze, making direct, certain eye contact with him.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened. You breathed a small sigh of relief. 
“You okay, Fancy Hands?” He asked, leaning down so his helping hand was closer to you. 
It was a nickname he had affectionately given you the first time he’d seen you use ASL when you had met - back at the safe house in Chicago. Back when Jason had used Dick’s tracker to find him and you all met the surprise second Robin for the first time. 
At the time, you had been surprised to find out that Jason actually knew quite a few signs because one of the kids he’d been in foster care with had been deaf. You had explained to him that your hearing was perfectly fine - your mutism was because of a surgery during your childhood that had removed a tumor from your throat and had left your vocal cords damaged. It was something that had occurred long before your life had become about powers, a green tiger, and one too many Robins to count. 
In the present, you were simply thankful that your powers didn’t seem to act up with him. 
In response to his question, you nodded, taking his hand. 
He helped you to your feet quickly, and you found your own practice sword where it had fallen. You then replaced your blindfold once again. Though it was slightly troubling to know that this sudden shift in your powers only seemed to be triggered by Gar - that knowledge did help you focus a bit more on the lesson. 
As you focused, you blocked two of Jason’s hits with your sword and landed a swift, sharp hit somewhere on him. 
“Ow!” He whined. “Take it easy, Fancy Hands, this is only supposed to be practice.” 
You giggled, smiling to yourself. 
… 
It had been a few days since then. 
And you had been strategically avoiding Gar. 
At least, avoiding him as much as you could without arousing major suspicion. It was a pretty large living space, and with only four other people in it, it was next to impossible to come up with excuses to avoid him entirely. He was your best friend, after all. If you just quit spending time with him entirely, that would cause him to ask way too many questions. And you definitely couldn’t give him the answers to any of those questions. 
You had made a hard agreement shortly after you had met him - you promised that you would never use your powers on him without his explicit permission unless it was some kind of emergency. A life or death situation. You both easily agree that his brain was his brain, and like every other person on the planet, it was his private sanctuary. He was entitled to that privacy. He deserved that much. Everyone did. That’s why you always tried to avoid using your powers at all costs. 
You didn’t want to explain to him that you had accidentally broken your promise - that you had seen some of his most private thoughts. On top of that, it was like a giant tease toward your feelings for him. Feelings you shouldn’t even have for your best friend. 
So in the meantime, while you were trying to figure out how to reign in your powers and stop from having another freak accident like the one in the kitchen, you stuck to what you considered ‘safe’ activities with Gar. Things the two of you could do together that would absolutely minimize eye contact between the two of you. 
Things like: studying Dick’s allotted mandatory reading material, where your eyes would be safely glued to the pages of a book. Playing video games with him, where your eyes would have to be on the screen. And you always made sure you sat next to him at the dinner table, where your eyes would be parallel to his, or stayed safely on your dinner plate. 
You had been doing just fine until another accident happened. 
Of course, it happened because of factors you hadn’t taken into account. 
You had been up late in the training room, something you did often. Because of your hesitance to use your powers, you liked to exercise often to be in peak physical condition in case fighting was ever necessary on your behalf. 
On top of that, you and Jason had somewhat of a silent rivalry going. You had kicked his ass quite a few times during training sessions, and though he would never say it, he liked how you kept him on his toes. So now you were always trying to quietly outdo the other. Something you were caught up in thinking about as you floated down the hallway toward the bathroom on light feet, your toiletry bag in hand, hoping Jason hadn’t beaten you to the shower. 
What you were not at all expecting, was to collide heavily with a half-naked, still wet from the shower Gar. With neither of you paying attention to where you were going, you smacked into each other at a fair speed, him waltzing out of the bathroom and straight into you. Your toiletry bag went flying, and with the zipper undone, your products scattered out across the floor. 
“Shit, oh my god, I’m sorry.” Gar quickly apologized, being the entirely sweet person that he was. 
You both leaned down in unison and began picking up the mess of bottles and other products. You forced yourself to keep your eyes steadily on the floor, not daring to look toward his face, no matter how much you missed his sweet smile and those big brown eyes looking back at you. You couldn’t risk it, not if you would make that unintentional invasion of his privacy once again. 
Gar’s chest twinged with sour notes as you avoided his gaze. Usually, you were always so pleased to be around him. He thought that he had done something wrong. Something grander that he had somehow failed to perceive. 
“I guess I better watch where I’m going, huh?” He chuckled, trying to make conversation with you. 
Truthfully, he just wanted a reaction out of you - he needed to see your smile like wilting plants needed rain. He worried that he wasn’t going to get it anytime soon. 
You kept your eyes glued to the floor, making it an exercise in self-discipline. 
Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his dripping wet leg and the edge of the fluffy, white towel he was wearing. You knew he was shirtless and it was far too tempting to look. 
When your hand went for the bottle of conditioner at the same time as his - you accidentally brushed over each other. You felt a unique heat creeping up your spine. Like magnets, like a plant growing toward the sun - like any natural reaction that self discipline can’t be stopped - your eyes flickered up and met with his. 
And once again, you became trapped in the depths of his dangerous gaze. 
You were sucked into his mind before you could stop it. In a millisecond, all of your senses became consumed by another vision of his imagining. 
You were surprised to find that it was a scene of you, alone. 
It was a way you had never viewed yourself before; getting the chance to see yourself through someone else’s eyes, even if it was only imaginary, was quite a strange sensation. 
The scene was an outside perspective of yourself showering, as if someone was staring at you through the clear glass door. You had to admit that it was positively erotic. The way the bubbles cascaded down your skin, the way your hands rubbed your flesh as you washed yourself. The dream you stopped the smooth lathering partway to grab and grope at your thighs and breasts, moaning lightly under your breath as you did so. 
You had never thought you could be so… dreamy. 
You didn’t remain alone in the shower for long, though. 
As if out of nowhere, Gar appeared behind you, his naked body almost eclipsed by yours, save for his delightful broad shoulders and his head as it poked out around yours. You had never seen a more appealing sight in your life. His gorgeous face with wet hair stuck to his forehead, the grin that came across his cheeks as he looked at you. His arms came to wrap around your waist as he gently brushed a loofa across your stomach. He began kissing along your shoulder, licking his tongue across your neck and boldly moaning at the taste of your skin-
You forcefully pulled yourself from the vision. As you rocketed back to reality, it was like having ice water thrown down your back. 
The surrounding warmth of the imaginary shower was gone, and you were once again in the cool night air of the hallway. You gazed across Gar’s face, taking in the wide-eyed, clueless expression he wore. He almost looked worried for you, wondering why you had spaced out like that. He had absolutely no idea of what you had just seen. 
You snatched the bottle of conditioner out from underneath his palm and shoved it into your bag. Miraculously, you stood up on shaking legs, turning around and going to escape back to your room. 
“Didn’t you wanna use the shower?” Gar called after you quietly. 
Right. Your shower. 
You whipped back around, nodding at him in passing - but you kept your eyes locked on the floor as you sped by him. You practically ran into the bathroom before he could make any comments about your strange behavior. 
You shut and locked the bathroom door behind you, sealing yourself in the smothering heat and steam that he had left behind. When you glanced over at the mirror and saw that he had been drawing funny faces in the condensation - something that was so terribly Gar it almost hurt - you felt even worse about violating his privacy. Even if it was an accident. 
You tried to let the guilt go as you scrubbed away at your body. You told yourself that it wasn’t your fault. 
Eventually, you found yourself only reminded of his steamy fantasy as the bubbles ran across your skin. You had never felt sexier, never felt more attractive in your entire life than you did in his eyes, in his imagining of you completely naked. 
The biggest reason that it boosted your confidence? His mental image of you was so strangely honest. 
In his dream, you weren’t cartoonish or overdone by his lust. Even though he had never seen you naked before, your breasts weren’t ballooned out or perkier than they should have been. There wasn’t a great amount of fat trimmed from your body, as if he desired you to be thinner than you were. It was so gratefully you - but it was a hot, sexy, fantastic version of you. A version that he apparently wanted to have shower sex with. 
The very thought had you pulling down the extendable shower head and holding it between your legs, getting off to the way Gar thought of you. It was perfect - until Jason’s banging on the bathroom door, complaining that you had been taking too long, interrupted you. 
… 
Gar’s hands were all over you. 
It left you absolutely breathless, giving you no room to escape the pleasure he was delivering. He had turned you into a quivering, moaning mess. His mouth was between your legs, on your neck, on your breasts. His perfect lips were hot on your own, trying to trap the indescribable sounds you were making for him. You were completely pliant to him, to his needs, a melted puddle of want under his ever giving hands. 
“God, you’re so fucking perfect.” He moaned into your ear, finally lining his cock up to your throbbing entrance, finally ready to give you what you needed most. “I can’t wait to watch you cum on my cock.” 
His dirty words only fueled the every growing desire that was mounting inside you. You keened out pathetically as he finally pushed inside you. His cock ignited you with a sharp electricity, filling you up so perfectly. 
You were shocked out of your strangely wonderful dream by a pounding on your bedroom door - Dick coming to wake you up for training. 
“Morning jog in twenty minutes.” He called out through your door, making you groan into your pillow. 
There wouldn’t even be enough time to relieve the hard painful throbbing between your legs before you had to get out of bed. 
As much as you loved the man who had so graciously taken you in and now acted as such an amazing mentor to you - you really hated Dick Grasyon sometimes. 
…  
Gar had been plaguing your dreams since you had discovered the kind of thoughts he had been having about you. Of course, he had been the subject of plenty of your daydreams - but this was so much stronger. He had invaded your subconscious and made a home for himself there. 
More intense than any fantasy you had ever cooked up yourself, every single time you closed your eyes - he was there. You could feel his lips on your skin, could feel his hands on you. It had become more difficult than usual to sleep, and when you did, you woke up with a light sheen of sweat covering you, your pussy soaked and throbbing, absolutely needy for him. 
You knew it would be wrong. It would absolutely be wrong if you acted on your feelings for Gar now, well-informed that he was attracted to you too. That he might want the same things as you. It was so undoubtedly wrong to take information you had discovered with your powers and use it for personal gain like this. 
But, on the other hand, you knew the only reason he was plaguing your mind so much - you had some hope that he felt the same way. That he returned your big, scary feelings. 
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? 
You couldn’t know for certain if he felt exactly the same way that you did. 
Yes, you had seen him imagining kissing you, imagining doing sexual things with you. You knew that he thought of you in an erotic way. But that only meant he wanted to fuck you. 
It certainly didn’t mean that he wanted to be seriously romantic with you or that he wanted a serious relationship. He also could have sexual fantasies about Jason swimming around in his head - ones that you hadn’t seen. 
Nothing about what you had seen said he was in love with you. So if you told him about your feelings for him unprompted, not only would you make yourself look like an idiot, but you would eventually have to tell him about the things you had accidentally seen. He would never forgive you for violating his privacy, and you would be heartbroken. 
Sometimes you really wished you could just be normal. 
… 
“Well, this is fucking stupid.” Jason griped, throwing himself down onto the couch with a heavy sigh. 
“Yeah, we all know that, Jason.” Rachel quickly agreed. “But if Dick comes back and doesn’t see us having Happy Bonding Board Game Fun Times, then he’ll make us run laps or balance plates on our heads again.” 
She proposed an easy argument in favor of shutting up and co-operating as she unpacked the many pieces of the board game that Dick had gotten you guys - Trivial Pursuit. Something ‘fun and educational’, he had explained. 
You laughed under your breath at Rachel’s comment. 
Dick wanted the four of you to spend more time ‘bonding as a team’. He had explained that one of the reasons the Old Titans worked so well together out in the field was because they did casual, friendly activities together as well as training together. He wanted this new team to be as strong as the old one. 
You thought maybe this sporadic encouragement of bonding had been brought on by how you had been acting. With your dreams growing more intense each night, you had been increasingly turning down Gar’s invitations to play video games together, or study together. You had even started making up excuses to take dinner into your room or skipping dinner altogether in favor of eating bowls of cereal when no one else was around. And you knew Dick had noticed. 
But you also knew that you weren’t the only one to blame. 
The whole ‘team bonding’ thing could have easily been prompted by Jason’s increased agitation with the living situation, his eagerness to leave you all behind and get back to Gotham. And the fact that Rachel, like you, now rarely came out of her room. 
This always left Gar in a strange situation where he was desperate for friendship but everyone pulled away from him, everyone wanted to isolate themselves but him. You felt increasingly guilty about it. You felt so bad for abandoning your best friend. But every time you looked at him, even without making that dangerous eye contact, heat began to rise in your face as flashes of his fantasies or your wicked dreams began popping into your mind. 
But now you were all being forced to spend time together. You couldn’t avoid it so easily. You knew there was no excuse you could cook up to get out of it. And like Rachel had said, you didn’t want yourself and the others to be plagued with some dumb punishment like running laps if you could just be playing a board game instead. 
All four of you were sitting around the small coffee table in the living room area of the open concept space, the fire pit sending warm waves over you as the dark sky went on boundlessly through the tall windows. The lamp above your heads and the city lights cast a warm glow over everything, creating a beautifully pleasant atmosphere that made it easy to ignore your problems. 
Dick was gone out on some ‘errands’, and made you all promise to play the game and spend some time together while he was gone. 
“I like board games.” Gar smiled, picking up one of the pieces and inspecting it. “Of course, I do prefer multiplayer online. But some old fashioned tabletop is good to throw in there every once and a while.” 
You smiled at Gar’s comment. He was so wonderfully nerdy. Undeniably one of the reasons you had developed feelings for him in the first place. 
You were seated beside him on the plush rug, crossed legged, your knee just barely brushing against his. It felt strangely normal to be like this, pretending like nothing odd had happened between you in the weeks past. You were enjoying the feeling, indulging in actually getting to hang out with your best friend without worrying about romantic feelings or any of the other bullshit. 
“Could you not be a total dork for like… five seconds?” Rachel quipped, raising an eyebrow at Gar. 
Gar threw the game piece at her, and it bounced off her chest before it disappeared somewhere on the floor, making her look for it. You laughed. 
“Ugh, this is so fucking stupid.” Jason groaned into a small throw pillow from the couch that he had pulled into his face. “I don’t want to play this dumb fucking game.” 
‘Are you afraid you’ll lose?’ You signed. 
Seeing as Rachel didn’t know that much ASL, and Jason wasn’t even looking at you, his face still covered by the pillow in his little tantrum, Gar interpreted for you. 
“Are you afraid you’re gonna lose?” He announced to the room in a tone ripe with sass. 
Rachel smiled at the challenge, looking over her shoulder to see how Jason would react. 
“What? No.” Jason snapped, sitting up and tossing the pillow behind him. “It’s just a stupid game. I’m sure there are far better things I could be spending my time doing.” 
‘Then play.’ You signed, making steady eye contact with Jason, challenging him. 
“Then why don’t you just play?” Gar spoke, adding a few more words. Not that you minded. You thought it was generous and sweet that he had rushed to learn ASL in the first few months of knowing you just so he could communicate better with you. It was one of the things that had made you fall for him so hard, so fast. 
Jason’s face was struck with the realization that you were the one challenging him, not Gar. His eyes flickered between the three of you,  and then he settled into a seat on the carpet beside Rachel. 
“Okay fine, how do you even play this stupid game?” He grumbled quietly, snatching the instructions from Rachel. 
‘Why don’t we make things interesting?’ You said, knowing you could aggravate Jason’s competitive side even more. 
And in the back of your mind, you were thinking about the fact that if you were too focused on winning the game, you wouldn’t be too focused on Gar. You wouldn’t be thinking about the fact that he had shifted closer to you, and his thigh was pressing more into yours, spreading a deadly heat across your skin under your clothes.
“What, like a bet?” Gar responded to your words rather than translating them to everyone else, and you rolled your eyes at him. 
‘Yes, a bet.’ You quickly clarified. 
“Are you challengin’ me, Fancy Hands?” Jason posed. “You wanna lose even more disastrously to The One and Only Robin?” He added on, his words dripping with that usual air of cockiness. 
‘Second Robin.’ You reminded him.
Jason knew enough sign language to know these symbols. Especially the one you had specifically taught him for the bird with the same name as his caped alias. So even though Gar failed to translate these words for fear of starting a genuine fight, Jason responded to your feisty words.  
“The One and Only Robin, now that Dickhead Grayson is retired.” He proudly corrected you. 
‘Whatever.’ You shrugged it off. ‘We’ll see if any Robin can win the board game he calls so stupid.’
“Yeah, yeah.” Jason chided. “What kind of bet did you have in mind?” 
‘Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.’ You explained. 
“Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.” Gar explained it to him. 
“Loser between the three of you.” Rachel corrected with a smirk. 
“Loser between the two of them. I’m just the messenger.” Gar quickly told her. 
“The winner gets the last Twinkie from my stash.” Jason added, upping the ante of the bet. 
Gar and Rachel’s eyes practically began glowing (especially considering what their powers made them capable of) at the mere mention of junk food. 
Dick had pretty much banned any food that was considered unhealthy. He said it wasn’t good for training. ‘Why put garbage in the tank? It doesn’t make the engine run properly’ he always nagged. 
The few times you and Rachel had been ‘caught’ coming back from a 7/11 with a bag full of goodies, he had made you read the labels out loud to ‘justify what you were putting inside your bodies’, and blah, blah, blah. So you liked eating sugar? Big deal. 
Eventually all his nagging just made you guys give up, or eat your doses of junk food outside the house (during the rare times he actually let you guys out). But of course, it just made Jason more determined to sneak things in. And of course, with his delinquent mindset, he had come up with a perfect system that involved wearing an overly large coat and keeping food in a false bottom drawer he had created in his room. He had started making you guys do him favors in exchange for snacks, but a lot of the time, it was worth it. 
“Ante up!” Rachel ordered. “Twinkie on the table!” She smacked her palm flat on the table, glaring Jason down until he rose from his seat to go retrieve the desired item. 
… 
You were enjoying game night far more than you thought you would. 
Everyone was, actually. Rousing laughter and chatter filled the room as you all took your turns, argued over the rules, and raced to see who would win. Your mind was distracted far from any sexual thoughts of Gar. You weren’t focused on the things you had accidentally seen when mistakenly crossing the threshold of his mind, or the heated dreams it had caused you to have. For the first time in weeks, a great worry had been lifted from your shoulders. 
Which was probably why it happened. You were probably a fool to think you were safe - to think this new power you had discovered couldn’t act up just because you were sitting around with your friends, innocently playing a board game. 
Gar turned to you, picking up one of the trivia cards to ask you your question as your turn came around. 
“Alright, science.” He announced. “How many bones are in the human body? Is it A: 206, B: 104, C: 198, or D: 236?” 
When he had finished reading it, his eyes flickered up from the card in his hand and met with yours. You were damned by fate as you were once again drawn into the depths of a hot, wicked fantasy of his creation. 
It was another third-person perspective of him and yourself, a portrait of perfect intimacy. 
In the wicked fantasy, he had you pinned against a wall, both of you completely naked - his sweet, bare flesh pinning your heated body against the surface. His breath mingled with yours as pressed kisses into your mouth, clearly torn between claiming your lips over and over again or the simple act of breathing. He wasn’t sure which was more precious - the taste of your mouth under his or the bits of air he needed to survive. 
He had one of your legs hitched up around his hip, your knee up around his back, giving the perfect view as he shoved his cock inside of you. He was so large - hot and heavy, splitting you open with his monster cock without hesitation as your needy cunt dripped around him. He let out a grunt as the wet slide of your pussy enveloped him, loving the most tender touch of your warmth on his aching cock. 
The fat around your hip bloomed through his fingers as he held you steady, hammering his hips against yours. It created a wet smacking sound that sent electricity shooting through you, the fantasy so palpable that you could almost feel the thickness of his cock tearing you open - you could almost feel the heft of those mighty nine inches dragging against your deadly hot inner walls. 
You admired the glisten of sweat on his rippling back muscles, the hot grunts that poured from his swollen lips. You loved the sight of your nails digging into his skin as you gripped his shoulders, desperate to hold on. 
“You’re so good for me.” He murmured against your panting lips, his voice deep, absolutely thick with sex. “I love this pussy so fucking much.” 
“Y/N?” 
This time it took Gar’s voice echoing in your ears in the real world to pull you out of the vivid daydream. 
“You okay?” The pure sweetness of his tone, the quiet caring had you quaking almost as much as the heft of his daydream cock. 
Your pussy throbbed hard between your thighs and your face was burning hot. You could feel the beginnings of sweat glistening on your forehead, and you hoped that your physical reaction to what you had seen wasn’t too obvious in the dull lighting of the room. Perhaps you could blame it on sitting too close to the fireplace. 
You dared to let your eyes have a once-over of Gar’s face, hoping not to be pulled back into the stupor once again. He was looking at you with that familiar wide-eyed, positively clueless expression. He was sitting there thinking about fucking you up against a wall and he had absolutely no clue that you knew. 
“Don’t think too hard about it,” Rachel scoffed. “It’s a pretty softball question.” 
Fuck, right. You were supposed to be playing trivia. 
You had genuinely no idea what the question had been, and wouldn’t dare ask Gar to repeat it for fear of giving yourself away, so you simply picked an answer out of the blue. 
‘C.’ You gestured the sign for the single letter, hoping it was correct if it was supposed to be such a ‘softball’ of a question. 
“Wrong.” Gar sighed, placing the card in the used pile. 
“I thought it was 207?” Jason wondered out loud, sounding genuinely confused. “Oh wait, that’s the joke answer.” 
“Ew.” Rachel cringed. “Don’t be gross.” 
“Hey,” Gar placed a gentle hand on your forearm where it was resting on the table, capturing your attention. “Are you okay? You really zoned out for a minute there.” 
Oh god. He was being so sweet and caring. You almost hated it, because you knew you couldn’t tell him what you had truly seen. You couldn’t explain what was truly wrong with you. 
‘I’m fine.’ You assured him, pulling your hand naturally out of his warm grasp to communicate. You hoped he wouldn’t notice that you were pulling away from him to avoid the heat of his touch and refusing to look at his face. 
“I’m sure she’s fine, Gar.” Rachel smiled. 
You nodded. 
“Some people’s brains just get fried when they’re asked to be smart on the spot.” She added on - this being sass that was clearly directed at Jason. It made you laugh. 
It then moved on to someone else’s turn, and you were glad the focus had shifted away from you. 
…  
Just like everything you had touched lately, game night turned into a disaster. 
Jason realized he wasn’t going to win after he lost one too many pop culture questions. Ones based on movies and shows that he hadn’t even seen. And he claimed it ‘wasn’t even fair’ because he was being questioned based on material that he had no knowledge of. 
When Gar and Rachel told him that was just how the game worked, he proceeded to pull the ‘I was poor growing up, of course I didn’t watch those movies cause I didn’t have a TV’ card. When that got him no sympathy, he flipped the table. A screaming match broke out between the three of them, and everyone stormed off to their separate corners, leaving you to clean up the pieces. Quite literally. 
You managed to find and pick up all the game pieces in the shaggy area rug, and you put them back inside the game box. You figured they might be useful in the future in case everyone made up and did want to play the game again sometime. One of the last things left on the carpet was the crushed Twinkie, which had been smashed by the weight of the coffee table when Jason flipped it over. 
It was still nicely inside its plastic packaging, but it had become a crumbled mixture of cake pieces and artificial frosting, rather than the golden log it once was. You shoved it in your pocket - it was definitely something Gar would still enjoy. Though your relationship with him was strange and strained lately, you would still give it to him. 
You put everything back in the living area exactly as it had been, not wanting to tip off Dick to what had happened. He already had enough reasons to be on Jason’s case, you didn’t want to give him one more. Even though Jason was a bit of a parasite, you thought it was basic decency to have his back. 
Just as you were finished tidying, Dick returned through the elevator, heaving several bags of groceries in both his arms. 
“How was game night?” He smiled at you as you came over to take a few of the bags from him. 
You smiled back, giving him an exaggerated thumbs up with your free hand. 
You knew he had picked up some basic signs in the time of knowing you, but he was nowhere near as fluent as Gar, or even Jason. So you stuck to simple ASL with him, or gave him exaggerated facial expressions. Or just wrote things down on paper or texted like you did with most other people. 
“Good.” His voice held an edge of relief to it. “The four of you should be spending more time together. It’s good for team morale.” 
You felt slightly guilty for lying to him, but you didn’t want to get the others in trouble for something that really wasn’t their fault. He couldn’t force you guys to enjoy spending time together if it wasn’t going to come naturally. 
You put away the groceries in relative silence. Once you had finished folding the reusable bags and putting them away, you were going to escape to your room when Dick caught your attention once again. 
“Um, one more thing.” He said, stopping you in your tracks, making you turn around to face him. You looked at him with curious eyes, and he continued speaking. “It’s probably none of my business, but… is there something going on between you and Gar? You guys used to be like… best friends, and now you hardly ever spend time with him.” 
You felt a dizziness overtake you - that hard drop of your blood pressure from feeling so caught. 
It was like the days when you had first met Gar, when your feelings for him were so bold and unrestrained. And anytime someone mentioned his name around you, you practically melted into a puddle. 
In response to Dick, you simply shrugged. You knew that you looked entirely guilty as your eyes darted around the room - to the counter, the floor, the dull embers in the fire pit - anywhere but at him. 
“Listen, I know this life can be pretty isolating. Especially when you have unique powers. Which is not something I know personally. But I have seen you struggle with it - with using your powers, holding back that unique ability you have when you should be using it and living up to your potential. And I’ve seen Gar help you through it in ways that no one else could.” 
Dick’s words, coming from such a steady and authoritative voice did shock you. You were surprised that he considered your powers to be a ‘unique potential’ - rather than the dangerous, privacy invasion tool that you always saw it as. You were even more surprised to hear that he had observed the ways Gar had helped you when you struggled with the decision to hold back or not, the moral confliction of it all. 
“It’s good to have someone like that. Someone you can rely on. Someone who knows what it’s like. You just… you shouldn’t push him away. You probably need him now more than ever.” 
His words were solid concrete in the otherwise quiet room, weighing down your already heavy heart. 
Even though he had no idea why you had been pushing Gar away, strangely… he was right. You finally looked up to find your mentor’s cold steel gaze staring you down. 
‘Thank you.’ You mouthed the words along with the sign, just in case he didn’t know what it meant. 
He nodded at you, silently releasing you from the conversation. You mindlessly put your hands into the pockets of your sweater as you walked away, and you felt the gentle crinkle of the Twinkie’s wrapper. You decided that you should go visit Gar before you went to bed. 
When you approached his bedroom door, you were surprised to see that it was open. You peered inside, peeking your head around the corner, and you found Gar sprawled out on his bed. His laptop was on his stomach as he stared at the white-blue glow with a bored expression on his face. He was likely studying. Trying this best to. 
You knocked on the open door to make your presence known. He jumped slightly as you broke his concentration, but he quickly recovered from being startled. He sat up fully and put his laptop to the side, the screen still open and casting a glow into the dimly lit room. You didn’t wait for an invitation to come in, and his gaze was drawn to you as you walked into the room, not bothering to shut the door behind you. 
“Y/N. Hey,” He smiled at you, pleasantly surprised that you had come to see him. “Fancy seeing you here.” 
A small twinge of guilt flared in your stomach. 
You felt bad for avoiding him for reasons that weren’t truly his fault. You felt bad for putting a strain on your friendship with him because you couldn’t control your stupid powers. You felt bad that you couldn’t just tell him the truth. 
And a huge part of you felt even worse that you couldn’t control your own lust simply because you knew that he felt somewhat lustful toward you. 
As your eyes glanced at his wide thighs spread out on the bed, even covered by his jeans, your pussy ached. You couldn’t stop thinking about the way those thighs had worked as he thrust his cock in and out of you when he had you pinned to the wall in that fantasy. You hated how your mind was so hyper-focused on something that wasn’t even real. Maybe it was just hotter and more wicked because you knew it was a fantasy of his creation. It drove you more insane because it was something he apparently wanted just as badly as you did. 
Even if you could never tell him you wanted it as badly as he did because of the way you had found out. 
‘I thought you might want this.’ You signed to him. 
Past the hazy fog of your lust clouded thoughts, you remembered why you had come to see Gar in the first place. You took the smashed, pathetic Twinkie out of your pocket and presented it to him with a small grin. 
“Oh thanks!” He was eager to take it from you, ripping open the packaging and taking a bite of the crumbling cake. 
“Yeah, definitely still good.” He assured you with his mouthful, giving you a cheeky smile and a thumbs up. 
You were happy that you had finally done something right. You gave him a small thumbs up in return and went to leave again. But he was quick, abandoning his snack on the bed and jumping up to interrupt your path before you could escape. 
“Y/N, wait. I was hoping we could talk.” He said quietly, his voice full of a strained hope. “I miss you.” 
Even as he pleaded for your attention, your eyes were stuck at your feet. Rather than daring to look up at him, you stared hard at the space where his green socked toes stood in front of yours. You had no clue what exactly was triggering these ‘episodes’ with your powers, but you knew it had something to do with him. You couldn’t risk it, not again. 
You loved how almost all of his clothes were green - a choice he often made because he said it was easier to match his hair the way it now naturally grew from his head. The color would forever remind you of him whenever it came up in life. He had taken everything green in your life and possessed it as his own so that it made you smile whenever you saw it. So that anything green would make you mourn for him long after he had left your life in one way or another. You hated it and loved it at the same time. 
“If I did something wrong, please just tell me. I wanna fix it.” His voice flexed under the weight of his pain. 
It was intensely difficult for you to listen to. 
It sliced through you like a knife. 
Your selfish acts, your uncontrollable, stupid powers and the way you ran from the consequences had somehow convinced him that he had done something wrong. 
Tears pricked your eyes. 
You racked your gaze carefully up his body, and your eyes landed on a piece of vanilla cake crumb that had gotten stuck to his chin from the Twinkie. Just the look of it, something that was so foolish and unserious and so Gar in this very serious moment made you crack a smile. Instinctually, you reached over and brushed it away with your thumb. 
He sighed out a half-breath that could be perceived as a laugh when he realized what you were smiling at. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously at the thought of his own clumsiness. 
‘You have done nothing wrong.’ You assured him, keeping your eyes locked on the wall behind his ear. ‘You never do anything wrong. You’re so good.’ 
“Then what is it?” He pressed. “Will you please just look at me?” 
He used a gentle hand on your chin to force your eyes towards his, and before you could stop it, you were caught up in it again. You were once again sucked into the complicated swell of his beautiful mind. 
But this time it was distinctly different. This time it wasn’t some heated fantasy, wasn’t some painted imagining. 
This was a memory of something that had already happened. It was most definitely a memory you knew well. Although this time it was like you were watching it from the outside - or rather, you were watching it from Gar’s perspective. 
It was a vision of you knelt on the bathroom floor, puking into a toilet. The sounds of your own sickness easily made you cringe. Gar didn’t flinch or feel any disgust though. 
You could feel his emotions like the grooves of a record, carved into the memory and being replayed. All he felt was a great wave of sadness for you. Instinctually, not really knowing what else to do, he reached out and placed a comforting hand on your back as your muscles lurched with another wave of gags, forced by your body’s ill-made systems. 
It was a specific night that you remembered well. 
You had only been in Doctor Caulder’s care for a few weeks at the time, but it had become evident that even though the serum had cured your blindness, your intense migraines and even the occasional seizures caused by your brain tumor still persisted. 
You had crawled to the bathroom with the intention of dealing with your ailments in privacy. But Gar’s room was right next to yours, and he had heard you groaning in pain, had heard you throwing up and gasping for breath because of the pure force of the vomit. 
So he did the only thing he could think to do. He got a glass of water for you to rinse your mouth when you were done, and then he simply sat with you, trying to bring you some comfort in your time of need. He felt hollow and useless as you heaved into the toilet, nothing left in your stomach to give up but bright green stomach bile, your body forcing every last bit of it out as the migraine raged on. 
When the heaving stopped, he pulled you into his lap. He was ready with a warm, damp cloth to put on your forehead, and a towel to wipe your mouth. You relaxed into his calming touch. He bloomed with pride at being able to hold you in his arms, being able to keep you safe, even if he couldn’t heal you from what ailed you. 
‘You can leave.’ You signed to him. 
At the time, he understood it well, even with just a few weeks of studying under his belt. 
A small wave of offense went through him. He didn’t want to leave you. Why would he leave you in such a weak state? He wanted to help you. That’s why he’d gotten out of bed in the first place. 
“I’m not gonna leave.” He told you. “I won’t leave you. Ever.” 
At the time you had been far too sick to really take in the weight of his words. But now, lingering in the memory, you could feel the determination sitting deep in his chest. The affection for you as it swelled inside him, the way he held you just a bit closer. 
You were shocked back to the cold concrete of reality when he gripped your arm in the present, pulling you out of the sweetness of the memory by force. He spoke something that was muffled and full in your ears as you struggled to pull yourself out of the thickness of his clouded mind. The expression on your face must have told him you hadn’t heard him, because he repeated himself. 
“Will you please just tell me what’s wrong?” He demanded, his voice sharp with worry. 
‘Nothing’s wrong.’ You lied, shaking yourself from his grip. ‘I have to go study.’ 
You ran from the room before he could confront you any further. 
Your mind was positively drowning with thoughts about Gar. Did he feel the same way about you? Had he felt the same way about you since the two of you had met? 
Your mind was so clouded that you slammed into your closed bedroom door before you could remember to actually turn the doorknob and open it. It left you cursing internally as you rubbed the sore spot blooming in the middle of your forehead. 
This crush was going to ruin you. 
… 
Unfortunately, you couldn’t easily avoid Gar forever. 
The next day, when Dick was giving out assignments, he paired up you and Gar for sparring practice right before he pulled aside Jason and Rachel for a quiz on the assigned reading material. You tried to wave him down, wanting to protest about having Gar as a partner - but of course, he didn’t read ASL. And he didn’t give you any room to protest as he spouted off about what kind of drills the two of you should be practicing and told you that he would come by in two hours to ‘check-in’ on your progress. 
You wanted to scream. Sometimes, not having a voice truly, utterly sucked. 
You thought perhaps it was Dick’s way of forcing you to make good on the advice he had given you the night before - forcing you to spend time with Gar so that you would stop pushing him away. But it was so damn inconvenient when you still didn’t know what was causing your powers to act up. 
As you walked to the training room, you told yourself again and again that you could bear two hours alone with Gar. Especially because one of the drills that Dick wanted you to practice was blindfolded sparring. That was an easy way not to have your powers flare-up against your will. You told yourself that you needed to get back to normal. You couldn’t have Gar thinking that you hated him - thinking that he was the reason for your strange behavior when he was truly the best, kindest person in your life. 
Well, technically he was the reason for your strange behavior. But not at all in the way he blamed himself for. And you wouldn’t have him thinking that he had fucked up your friendship somehow or pissed you off unintentionally for some reason he couldn’t even name. 
You and Gar exchanged a few words - you agreed that you would wear the blindfold and try to defend against his attacks, and he joked that he would ‘go easy’ on you. It felt delightfully normal between the two of you for a few minutes. 
He gave you one of his perfectly dorky smiles and you felt butterflies in your stomach. Beyond his wildly attractive body, beyond that sexual heat - you remembered why you had fallen for him in the first place. Those boyish charms, that gentle nature that made him so irresistible as a friend and so easy to yearn for as a lover. 
When you put the blindfold on, it felt like a comforting shield against his wild daydreams, trying to buck free from his mind. You both picked up the wooden swords, and when he asked if you were ready, you nodded. 
Unfortunately, you were not exactly on your game. 
Usually, you were quite a skilled fighter. You could keep up with the likes of Jason Todd, who trained night and day just to prove how skilled he was. Your powers gave you slightly honed senses, giving you the ability to hear more acutely, giving you the advantage in a situation like this. 
But that was part of the problem. You were picking up on Gar’s breathing, the heavy panting coming from his lips as he swung the practice sword and started to work up a sweat. Your concentration was clouded by the small grunts he made as he worked his muscles, and the careful, skilled movement of his footfalls as he charged at you. 
He easily landed a few blows - gentle, purposefully light swats - on your arms and torso, and he distinctly noticed you not making any real effort to dodge or fight back. Your mind was too busy churning with the mental image of him sweaty from the effort, imagining those same grunts as he fucked you. 
This crush was going to ruin you. 
Gar stopped his movements, and you relaxed your body, pausing any half-efforts you were making to fight him off. 
“Are you okay?” He asked. “Do you have a migraine or something? Do you need to go lay down?” 
Of course. He was concerned for your well-being. It was something that only made him sweeter, and only made you twinge with guilt at what had been going through your mind. 
‘Fine.’ You responded, performing the sign with one hand, still clutching the practice sword with the other. ‘Keep going.’ 
You heard Gar sigh - clearly somewhat hesitant. 
But then he swung his sword down again, and when you heard it whipping through the air, you made a distinct effort to block it this time. You raised yours up, blocking the blow. He let out a quiet chuckle, pleased now that you were better focused this time around. 
You really tried harder. 
You found yourself blocking his blows, using your own swift footwork, and even then - your unconscious distraction was apparent. 
Usually you were better with your tactile awareness, but as the edge of the mats came under your foot, you didn’t notice. And Gar, ever concerned for your safety, used his non-sword hand to reach out and grab your arm. He quickly yanked you back from the edge in case you tripped and fell. He wouldn’t want you to hit your head on the concrete floor, even if it wouldn’t be a terribly grievous injury. 
But he was pumping with energy from the mock fight, and when he pulled you in, he used far more force than he had intended to. It wasn’t a simple correction of your footing like he intended. He accidentally sent your distracted legs tripping over each other and sent you barreling right into him. With the momentum, you knocked him completely off his legs. You ended up falling right on top of Gar as he landed splayed out on the mats, on his back. 
Gar broke into a gentle laughter, finding the entire thing to be quite amusing. 
His hands naturally found your hips and warmth spread out from there, something that quickly overwhelmed your senses. You dropped your practice sword with a numb hand as you became entirely heated by the feeling of his rock hard body beneath yours. Upon instinct, you reached up, and pulled the blindfold up to rest on your forehead - which turned out to be a terrible mistake. 
In that moment, you came face to face with Gar’s stunning, big brown eyes and you were once again sucked into one of his heated fantasies against your will. 
Unlike the others, this wasn’t a picture you were viewing. It wasn’t something in his mind that you were only seeing from the third perspective. 
No - you were in this. 
Somehow, he had drawn you so deeply into his fantasy this time that you were in it, participating in it, truly feeling it. 
In the daydream, you were sitting on top of him, easily paralleling your current reality.
But in this dreamy version, he was completely naked, and you felt the delightfully throbbing hum of his cock deep inside of you. Because it was just a dream, it wasn’t nearly as distinct as the real thing would have been. But the feeling quickly spread heat through your entire body. Especially when paired with the visuals his imagination had conjured up for you. 
The feeling of his hands on your hips in the real world easily turned into a searing burn that you were sure you could feel on your bare skin. You looked down at him below you, as though you were really straddling his naked body, proudly riding his impressively large cock. His taut muscles rippled under sweaty skin - his abs flexing with the effort, his biceps bulging as he held onto you. 
All of it so enticingly topped off by the sight of his face, his forehead glistening with sweat, stray green hairs stuck to it. The expression he held was almost beautifully pathetic as he struggled with such overwhelming pleasure - his lip snagged between his teeth, his brow heavily creased. Quiet, desperate whimpers escaping from his throat as he guided you to grind on his thickness. 
You let out a sharp moan of your own, desperately aching for breath, and that chugging in your throat was the thing that sucked out of the deep fog of this fantasy. 
When you looked into Gar’s eyes once more, you saw the look of dawning on his face. It was mingled with confusion, but you knew that this time, he had felt it too. He had felt you on a deeper level, and he knew, even if he couldn’t nearly explain it - the two of you had shared that experience on a deeper level. 
And what’s more - out here in the real world, not in some sense of fantasy, you could feel his hardness throbbing against your leg. And it felt just as large and impressive as it was in all those dreams. You knew that your cunt was likely boiling hot against him, giving you away. And though the temptation to lean down and ensnare his mouth was so intense, the temptation to beg him to fuck you right then and there - something inside of you kept chanting:
‘Don’t ruin your friendship. He’s your best friend. Don’t fuck it up.’ 
And somehow, miraculously, fighting against all of your overpowering lust - you listened to that voice. You rushed to get off of him, scrambling off the floor to a standing position on shaking legs. You tried your best to ignore the entirely painful throbbing between your legs as your pussy screamed out for him, for his touch. 
Naturally, Gar thought that he had freaked you out. He thought that the reason you had jumped away from him so fast was because he had a raging hard-on and you were intensely disgusted by it. In his mind, he couldn’t easily see it being the exact opposite reason. 
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He rushed to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. My body - my body just - reacted-” 
Gar also rose to his feet, awkwardly tugging at the crotch of his loose workout pants to try and disguise it. You made the mistake of glancing at the tent and visually confirmed that it was just as large as he made it out to be in all of his fantasies (and yours). 
‘It’s fine.’ You sighed to him. 
You were once again making steady eye contact with the floor - trying not to get drawn back into his mind. But it only made Gar feel more awkward, more like he had wronged you. 
Gar’s throat immediately numbed when you turned and left to charge out of the room. You were intensely surprised when you felt his hand on your arm once more - that firm, commanding touch pulling you back once again. 
Wrestling with the embarrassment inside of him was a storm of anger. 
The fact that even now, you were so unwilling to talk to him about any of the problems in your friendship. You just kept brushing him off. It caused a very uncharacteristic flare of annoyed rage inside of him that he just couldn’t swallow down. So with the hand that he wasn’t using to hide his boner, he kept that grip on your arm. He forced you to stay, forcing you to turn back and face him. 
Him asserting himself like that, the show of force over you - oddly enough, it only added to the arousal boiling inside of you. A small whimper escaped from your lips, and you resisted the urge to smack a hand over your mouth in some attempt to hide it. You knew that Gar had definitely heard it when his face shifted from that tense anger to a look of sheer guilt. He thought that the grip on your arm had somehow hurt you. 
“I’m sorry.” He repeated himself, quickly dropping the grip on your arm. He was glad when you stayed of your own volition this time. “But, can you just talk to me? Please?” 
You hated to ignore his pleas, your own guilt curling in your stomach. 
After a moment with no response from you, more anger splashed up inside of him. 
“I hate this.” 
He said quietly, his voice almost breaking under the weight of his pain. 
“I hate how we aren’t close anymore. We don’t talk, we don’t spend time together anymore. I feel like I barely even know you…” 
He quickly gained momentum in his ranting, his words picking up from a dull whisper. You crossed your arms, keeping your eyes on the floor. You knew that you were the perfect target for all of his upset - so you simply took it. 
“This place is changing everyone!” He barked, motioning around wildly to the walls. “I’m living with my best friends and I’ve never felt so damn alone!” 
As his words echoed in the open space, he looked at you with intensely sad eyes, obviously waiting for you to say something - waiting for an apology. 
But any explanation you could give would mean admitting that your powers had gone haywire. It would mean telling him that you had been invading his privacy without permission. It was bound to screw up your friendship and leave him feeling just as alone. You clasped your fists tight, staying entirely still while he waited for an answer. 
“Fine then.” He said quietly, absolutely defeated. 
He was the one to charge away this time, harshly smacking his shoulder against yours in anger. He kicked down a rack of weapons on his way out. 
You hear him let out a harsh, exasperated ‘fuck!’ when he got halfway down the hall. 
At that point, you couldn’t help the tears that escaped as the pain surged through your chest. 
Maybe you had fucked up the friendship in an entirely different way.
...
Keep Reading Here: Part Two - Our Past, Our Present, Our Future
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clockwayswrites · 6 months
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you keep saying you struggle just writing consistently on one of your w.i.p.s, so I was wondering, how many w.i.p.s do you actually have?
I like to be able to jump around! I do that often in a single wip. If I have an idea, I'll jump to that and write it, even if it's many scenes/chapters later. Some days or sessions that means jumping to a different wip.
Part of that is because some days it's just easier or smoother writing romance or banter or action or angst or etc. And why not make my life easier?
Another part of that is because, well, I'm always ill, you know? I've been ill every day for twenty years now. And it gets to be so damn draining (and I've had a worse time of it this year than most). So I try to let myself do what I want in my hobbies.
And then the last part is I like to let writing... ferment(?). It's nice to get to a point and be able to set a piece down and turn it around in the back of your brain until you're sure it's right or know the best next thing or look at it with fresh eyes. Rewrites make my work better and I like to give it that time. But, uh, for an actual list:
Active wips: (aka my primary focuses)
Like Betta Fish Do (long fic, 3-4 chapters left) A Broken Sort of Normal (1 chapter left) City Pigeons Bleed Green (Trauma Tuesday Fic) Series: One Stop Soup Shop (AH SEQUELS I suck at them)
Back burner wips: (aka the things I poke at and deff want to write)
The fic that I'm not writing (main fic I keep on the side) Not Exactly Cinderella (ugh, needs the hook up and an ending) Neon Adjuration (keeps chewing on my brain) Bury the Years (long fic doom) Both Ways at Once (also long fic doom) Catching Cold (need to outline this sucker to keep at it) Salt in the Bones Series (waiting on Moku (no pressure)) Specter of Starlight (pacing thoughts and plans stalled out) Black Smoke Custody (ngl... this maybe should move to hopeful)
Hopeful thoughts: (NOT wips- no real writing yet, but maybe someday)
Tired Dads with issues (Bruce/Dadentine) Gotham Knights talon Park Cosmas the Clone Finding Danny (one of my OG ideas for this fandom) The Bruises Death Leaves (hate this title now) Something Danny/Dick (a few options here)
So lucky 13?
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celenawrites · 9 months
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TW - just a vent about fandom stuff.
I feel kinda sad about how some creators in the CoD fandom have now abandoned creating content for the game series due to the demanding nature of other fans who used to consume their content. (fics, art, etc)
Like, these artists/writers in the fandom write fanfics/create art, FOR FREE OF COST and dedicate SO MUCH TIME AND ENERGY to their craft despite not getting much in return, only to deal with senseless hate, ignorance, stupidity and get treated as content generation machines; instead of actual human beings with jobs and studies and friends and families that need their time and attention as well.
A lot of us folks who write or draw do this as a hobby. As an outlet for our creativity, and we find this community for the media we are currently fixated on and we create things inspired by it cuz it brings us joy. IT MAKES US HAPPY SO WE CREATE CONTENT FOR IT!!! And then to see the same fandom/community and their horrendous behaviour driving away the creators from the fandom and the media itself is just....sad. Very disheartening.
Like I miss so many of the creators who have just given up on CoD cuz of this issue. Their works have inspired me to start writing again. They make me wish I start learning how to draw and paint again too. Their works have touch my soul, and made me happy - gave me something to look forward to every day.
But I'd much rather they leave the fandom and take care of themselves and their life, than to succumb to this weird pressure fans and fan-content consumers put on them, y'know?
Plus recently, I've seen a lot of racist and stereotypical prejudices from some CoD fans (and even some creators). I know a lot of them are new to the fandom, I was too. But I took an active effort to learn more about this game series. (and it's an ongoing effort cuz I cannot afford to play the games so I have to settle for wiki articles, gameplays, and comics) And I see so many fans not give a shit about it. They treat these characters as blank canvases to fulfill their hypersexual fantasies. (I like me a good smut fic or two, don't get me wrong) But that just makes it impossible for newer fans to get to know more about the lore and the characters. I had just finished watching the campaign for MW, and let me tell you, there are so many complex missions, characters and storylines to explore and depict through fanfics, and it's insane so many people disregard it for their whimsies so easily. That will just stunt your growth as an artist/writer! Read up on the lore, watch the game plays(the OGs and the remakes!) , maybe even read the comics!!! I promise you won't regret it ever!!!
Also, please! For all that is holy, stop putting these complex fictional characters into restricted boxes and label them. That just makes them so one-dimensional. Like -
Soap is not always cheery and bubbly and your fellow bestie. Simon is not an abuser/emotionally dead asshole just because he has a hard time expressing his emotions like everyone else. König, despite the lack of storyline/lore we have on him, isn't an uwu social anxiety babygirl, damn it. Stop excluding Gaz from your HCs and fics! He's a complex man with so many interesting things to explore about his overall story and psyche as a part of 141. He's not always begging for Price's approval either, he can and has objected to how questionable their methods have been regarding their field/work. Stop excluding Gaz from 141 stuff! It makes you look like a POS, and a lot of the people who exclude him are doing so for....pretty racist reasons. As a POC, this shit sucks balls. Also stop stereotyping POC characters in CoD - Alejandro, Rudy, Valeria, Gaz, Farah....just stop. Their ethnicity or race should not deter you from writing about them in a way that doesn't come across as prejudiced and ill-informed.
Also, not necessarily a rant, but please consider/remember the fact that the military has always been a bit of a morally dubious field of work irl, and just cuz CoD is military-centric and features characters who work in the army or PMC and take out bad guys - that doesn't take away from the violent history military has and how they have contributed to the deterioration of many countries (mainly in the Middle East). Heck, even these characters in the CoD games have done extremely unethical things and employed treacherous methods in order to get the job done. These characters may be good people in fiction, but that doesn't mean that they have done great things or have always stayed morally pure. Explore the dubious nature of it all - explore how dark and harrowing it can be for them and for the people that unwittingly or knowingly get involved in their work. It's dark and twisted but it's crucial since it's inspired from our world and it's necessary for us as humans and as artists to explore such themes and analyse them! It's crucial for the soul!!!
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