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floareadeaur · 2 months

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• Series: Owari no Seraph/Seraph of the End

• Pairing: Ferid Bàthory x female!reader

• Some feverish philosophy of 3.2 k words!

• Author's words:

I wrote this paper 2 years ago.

Now, knowing the true philosophy and creation of the OnS world, I feel I would write it differently.

I now believe that Ferid is not a "dead man" struggling to live because of vampirism, but that he is a living man struggling to live in a cursed and putrid world ― despite reincarnation, despite vampirism. I consider him psychologically unaffected by vampirism, and this interpretation would add a much more vivid and tense dimension to the writings about him.

In addition, I can dive much deeper into the deep exploration of his personality now, beyond the masks like red ruby earrings that adorn a wounded soul with no passion to live, a soul that was raised in the shadow of a leader ― this, when the rubies, ironically, symbolizes the passion and power of a leader.

I think I had write him much more organically now, and especially, I am already writing him in a full dynamic with my original character, with the focus being on his deep drama relative to the OnS universe.

It is fascinating to think about Ferid now, it was still fascinating when I wrote this.

I will post new writings about him. I feel that these new writings breathe better the life out of me and the life out of Ferid.

This old writing breathed too at the time I wrote it. Maybe it still does. What do you say?

Even though it is an old post, kind feedback is welcome. You know, a word in response feeds a writer's soul.

Some people have asked me to repost from the old writings, so enjoy!

And I wish a good day to whoever finds this post!

❝ Warm memories in cold palms ❞

Along his cold, pale palms, through every fiber and vein exposed through the thin, ghostly skin, vibrates a memory.

Ferid Bathory feels that tingle at the tip of his senses, as if something is being restrained and shackled inside the gloves that clothe his bony hands. Maybe that is why his arms twitch for a moment, as if uncontrollably in gesticulation.

As the great vampire lord strides along the dimly lit halls, his coat rustles ― a familiar sound, as does the cadenced rhythm of footsteps gnawing at the marble floor ― interrupting the image of the young dead-but-alive man, which is reflected on its glossy surface.

Ferid does not look at the reflection. His gait is uninterrupted, but not smooth, undisturbed. Something tumultuous is struggling in his posture, features. Even the way his ruby earrings sway and sparkle in the dim light bears a trace of this chaos ― the jewels move at the edge of his pointed ears just like the tiny eddies of a restless storm.

But there is silence. Ferid Bathory does not speak, does not smile, but his eyes are not empty.

On the contrary, on the face of the dead young man, under the gray eyebrows trapped in an expression without curved lines, something glimmers in Ferid's often empty eyes and caught in an unsatisfying, unanswered search. The red irises are still wandering, twitching uncontrollably, or staring too hard at a point that does not even dictate the next step the vampire needs to take.

But their search no longer seems unanswered, barren and dry.

Vampires can not cry. But in their own way, Lord Bathory's eyes, often sharp and full of acidity, seem moist in those moments, or just alive, as if there really is something still dripping from them ― thoughts, tears, or answers.

But those eyes seem fixed somewhere far away, and yet, not without a certain contentment. The research of Ferid's mind is done for the first time with joy.

It is precisely this happiness, ecstasy, that creates his tremor. His body would like to touch the thoughts that satisfy him, which give Ferid the answer and awaken his curiosity, that make the vampire look around and know, "There is a meaning."

Lord Bathory's steps flow along the hall with the same classic sting. The hand gestures are there, those strange pulses of long, gloved fingers that hang down his body. Ferid's hands seem to be gesticulating without a direction, as if in a sick tremor, or of happiness. His well-shaped wrists, caught between the frills of the shirt, make a sudden arch. As he walks, his long fingers bend. It seems that Ferid Bàthory's hands would like to grab something.

And all the movement of his hands in the end symbolizes Ferid's desire to be with the reality of the thought that makes him happy.

The man's gaze slowly drifted away. Beneath his gray lashes, Ferid's eyes are flooded with a certain warmth that does not necessarily have anything to do with the marble slabs he may be looking at.

Ferid Bàthory then looks inside himself and for the first time, he is not horrified by what he finds. The corners of his lips pull up slightly in a faint smile ― one of the few real ones for him.

The cadence of his steps has stopped and Ferid's right hand is clenching. His whole body seems to have tensed under the white robes embroidered in jewels and gold.

It seems that the great Ferid Bàthory is no longer there. The body exists, but he lives elsewhere, with what he wishes he could hold in his gloved palm.

His eyes are deep set and they are actually looking at you. Then they close ― one of the only times Ferid closes his eyes. The smile still exists, the warmth descends in the soul.

When he is near you, his eyes hardly ever close. It is Ferid Bathory's favorite activity ― observing his beloved woman. This requires open eyes connected to a soul. But when he is far away, then Ferid feels this desire to close them more often.

Inside him, Ferid seems to find you better.

The dead body no longer demands breaths, but vampire's lips part, still caught in the light, serene smile. His face resembles that of a man who is still searching and close to what he wants the most. Ferid's palm tightens, then opens. So are his eyes, which then look at the palm. It is bare then, exposed, with all its thin lines traced in the paper-like skin.

The vampire pulled off his gauntlet as if on instinct and now Ferid's red eyes looked at the outline of the visible skin.

His fingers move for a moment, long and sharply defined, with clear, rough nails. But Ferid's eyes do not just see his own dead, immobile hand.

His head bends more. Some of the gray strands slide down the pale cheek to the corner of the sharp lips, which are then lifted in a soft smile. Ferid Bathory sees the outline of your body imprinted in the lines of his palms. His eyes slide along the well-defined fingers from each other, meticulously penciled. The other hand's glove also disappears. Ferid pulled it in a light movement and the shaking of the two hands, that strange tremor, can be more clearly visible, explainable.

Along every line in his pale palms, he even now sees and feels the outline of your being.

From the wrist now freed from the frills he folded over the cuff, to the tips of the fingers with brittle nails, the same vibrations are sensed. Ferid smiles more, his eyes narrow ― but not out of bitter amusement, or despair.

A line of happiness outlines his features for a moment, for on the surface of Ferid's entire palms, only the memory of your being dances in his senses. The warmth, the edges, the curves and all your woman details, the smell, the texture, the little abrasions ― Ferid has memorized them all. And it is not just maddened curiosity that is at the center ― that often goes away first. Nor the interest in anything else that could break his boredom.

But for Ferid Bathory, these memories obtained from careful observations are like his food.

The blood has always fed Ferid only to torment him more ― like a curse, a condemnation. But when Ferid is far from you, he can feed on something that does not leave his tongue bitter and as if skinned with thirst, but actually nourishes his being. The soul also needs food, and your memory is the one for Ferid. The sensation is strange, but pleasant to him. Ferid would not want to leave it anymore.

Beyond the fact that the vampire finally knows something he believes in, a new set of feelings are playing with the dead him, creeping in and gradually ruling the man, ever since Ferid met you and took a new risk, a condition unknown to Bathory.

The first was the feeling of being in love, of loving, which translated strangely to someone like him ― unusual, but so needy for all that would mean, and yet so clearly, almost rationally, aware of the nature of his feelings. Their sheer existence was strongly internalized from the first moment.

And maybe then, that internalization started to externalize, beyond the clear assumption that Ferid loves you.

A sensation of this kind tried him recently, away from you and now on his way home ― right there, right in his then empty palm.

Along the corridor, his steps begin to echo again with the heel of the boots announcing his internal rhythm, of the thoughts that pinch his mind in the rhythm in which Ferid's boots pinches the floor. His eyes seem to be spinning around, but it is an illusion. For it is only their living light that shines as the vampire wanders again with a memory and realization, the first with an answer and the other sweet then.

His right hand clenches again, cold and lonely but warm. So is the left one, so is his whole body.

Ferid stopped again and lowered his sharp gaze, which then seemed for a moment lost, or more rediscovered than ever.

A candle burns in front of the door where the the man stopped; it is one placed in the candlestick.

Ferid always appreciates these genuine, tangible things ― just like he appreciates you.

Maybe appreciation is too little to define your case though for him.

The man's gaze is again fixed on the pale palms then illuminated by the candle flame and Ferid does not see his own palms, but in front of his eyes, always sharp, but then dreamy, under the light of the fire, your body dances.

It is warm, it is alive, he can feel your breaths through the soft skin, your ribs rise slowly with every breath and your heart beats under your left breast. You smile at him, knead, your hand touches his, velvety in the warmth of your life. You touch your lover gently.

But his hand clenches in reality and is empty. Ferid Bathory is alone in the dark hallway lit only by the candlestick.

And yet, the gaze of the rational merges with that of the dreamer ― as if for once thought and deed form a common body in the paradoxical Ferid Bathory.

A sigh escapes the thin lips. Ferid's gaze slowly rises and the last sweet realization appears as clearly as his own palm reflected in the light of the wax candle.

Since he met and loves you, since his palms met you, those same palms can no longer do what was specific to them before.

Maybe Ferid got too used to caressing you. Perhaps this is precisely what Ferid Bathory's hands were always made for ― to touch the woman he loves, to memorize and feel her.

Perhaps the blood and life taken by these hands, drained between these fingers, can no longer have their place. However, they always brought a false benefit, a hazard of boredom and that is it, another pit to despair.

Ferid's gaze rises again and his red eyes are reflected by the flame of the candle in the candlestick ― a glimmer dances there, ever searching, but in a circle where the light can shine ― the certainty of finding an answer, the faith.

Now Ferid Bathory believes and the memory can come to life. It is actually necessary. Memory itself has come to rule his reality differently, but more is needed.

In the darkness of the hall, the man's arm stretches out, his bare hand and his shirt cuff folded over his wrist. Before the long fingers touch the doorknob, Ferid feels the memory of your body, of your being again ― the reality of the beloved woman which Ferid Bathory memorized to perception, like a believer's creed.

But the mere memory is not enough and his hand trembles on the doorknob.

Once the door has opened, his eyes are fixed, injected with desire. Ferid is now looking in reality. Not the wide room is the answer, not some piece of furniture, a work of art inside.

His hands no longer shake with those restless twitches for a moment. The eddies seem to have moved into its surroundings.

But as if called, the man approaches. The same steps echo, but much more determined, or needy to reach the goal, the destination.

Then Ferid's palms rest on the embroidered edge of the couch. The fingers that have trembled sink in, searching for stability. His body slowly bends with his head. The man's eyes look a moment too fixed, frozen, but another emotion touches Ferid's sharp features.

A moment and his dead body seems to breathe again. His shoulders hunch more, trapped in their elegant uniform, they even seem humble. Ferid gives himself then, but he also received.

Serenity floats on his face those moments ― not a smile, but peace. His lips are parted, his eyes eternally sharp, wide and slowly melting ― wet, warm.

It seems that Ferid Bathory wants to say something, but he does not know what when he looks at your sleeping figure on the sofa.

He can only realize that, just as his hands that were given to you by touch, can no longer initiate a killing, your memory can no longer be severed from reality.

Still leaning over you, a few gray locks dangling near your sleeping face, Ferid's arm slowly reaches out. It seems that he is afraid, or it is just a touch of that, where you do not know how to caress more carefully what you value. But Ferid knows, or you teach him, by the very breath of life you give your lover again.

The vampire's cold palm rests on your left breast tight in the thin dress, but you do not wake up. Ferid's touch is too meticulous and he can feel your heartbeat so well, which is exactly the answer to the vibrations that tormented his empty hands when he lacked this touch. Now these vibrations flow into pleasant sensations down his spine. Ferid shuddered and a tremor vaguely gripped him.

The vampire continues to look at you and his eye is serene, just as your cheek shines innocently in the peace of your sleep. His other hand touches your cheek which he admired. Ferid's well-shaped fingers lightly brush the skin of your face as if they were touching the thin edge of a fresh clay pot that could break at any time.

His body leaned more over you. The tips of Ferid's gray locks have slipped and are now nibbling your sleeping body with small touches between your even breaths as the vampire's eyes fixate on you. Ferid's mouth still remained slightly ajar, as if waiting for a breath that never came. Or your lover does not know what to say, he just stares at you.

Beneath the gray lashes, his eyes glow warm, deep ― their madness gone and faith found its creed, symbol.

As his cold fingers touch you once more and your body writhes, Ferid leans into you with necessity.

It is not just the thrill that ran through his dead body, Ferid's desire to be between your tender thighs under your dress, to feel your warmth and heartbeat, what makes the vampire kiss you ― with just as light a touch as if he were touching the wings of a butterfly with the tip of a blade.

Ferid knows how easily he could hurt you. He himself is a blade, one made so by many others before ― but a blade can spread butter on a cake, polish a sculpture, not just cut and destroy.

For a moment, Ferid's cold lips hover over your warm mouth. Your living breaths seep into his dead being and Ferid notices your sleeping and living being again, so peaceful yet his cold hands keep touching you again.

His eyes close serenely. Another kiss comes from him. Strands of gray hair slide past his sharp cheek and gently caress the soft skin of your temples, sliding down to the warm shoulders revealed by your sheer dress.

Ferid sighs softly, but it is more like a vain attempt to breathe. His gray brows furrow above the closed eyes, the trembling of his palms that gripped your warm shoulders barely subsided. You are still asleep and Ferid is frozen like this, leaning over you at the edge of the couch. His cold palm caresses you slowly and in your sweet sleep you feel the familiar touch like the fine curtain of an old and fragile paper. The sensation tickles you with pleasure in your dream. In the silent of the room, your voice murmurs something indistinct, but for Ferid this is life.

And he, the one who always discharges acidity without meaning, can say nothing but accept that sweet realization. His cold hands can no longer touch anything without life once they have memorized yours in their fine lines. And Ferid can not think that it is possible for his hand to be only left with the memory and not be able to caress your real warmth as he touches it then.

The man moves away from your face with cold moist lips and looks at you again, confusion hanging from his tight gray lashes and those pale, parted lips.

A harsher breath of yours and you meet the red eyes, warmed with a light foreign to others, but well-known to you. That specific sensation tickles you more with pleasure at the moment of awakening. Then you realize through your sweet senses that Ferid is touching you and a smile vaguely appears on your lively face.

Just for a moment you are confused, or even the vampire is more than you, thus bent over your figure, staring and with the cold hands on the warmth of your body.

You say nothing, but your arms slowly stretch out, your dress rustling in a way that reminds Ferid of a living forest. You wrap them around his neck, feeling the locks of his hair, pull him so close, until the man almost slides over the edge of the sofa.

But Ferid is Ferid.

He rests on his knees, on the same cold palms with agility, but no joke about your so great desire for him comes up, no teasing. Ferid wants you more or it is just something mutual.

He is on top of you, his cape hanging, his hair undone, and when you pull him to kiss your man that you have not seen in a while, Ferid understands better the feeling that keeps overwhelming him.

Warmth, heartbeats, breaths, touches ― as your warm tongue moistens his fangs in a harmless kiss, he understands. With his eyes closed, Ferid Bathory finally understands this new meaning imprinting on his whole being ― from the nimble gaze, to the hearing and the palms that close around you to feel the woman he loves ― all are given to you.

And that is the point, Ferid thinks, once your warmth overwhelms him again, into another embrace where you pull him onto that small sofa, into that dark room, the surroundings of which are as confusing to the vampire as a vortex.

You are the only one of whom Ferid is truly aware ― and it is precisely the fact that he could not bear not to be able to meet all of this again. That is this new meaning.

His senses, after centuries devoted to bitterness, have discovered a warm, meaningful life that Ferid now gives anything to embrace ― to feel you.

This is the new meaning of things in Ferid Bathory's mind ― the search full of answers and happiness. And oh, how quickly it too could die out if Ferid could no longer touch your living being, if his beloved woman would remain only impregnated on the edges of the senses, in memory.

But then your warm mouth kisses him. No words are murmured, but the tide carries you both.

Ferid's palms squeeze you to his chest, he hugs you so needy.

The vampire can feel you one more time and you already receive him in a dreamlike reality.

#ferid bathory #owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #sote #ferid bathory x reader #owari no seraph x reader #seraph of the end x reader #ferid bathory headcanons

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luminous-letters · 2 years

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Hello again~!! I just wanted to ask, since I thought a little about it, and would you like to write something else related to Jack having crush on reader? It can be related to "baddass reader", but it doesn't have to. It's ok if you don't want it too! I was just gushing lately about the idea of Jack being in love, and still denied it, what a tsundere :D

I'm back 🛐

Today's the day I'll finally ask MC out�� is what Jack's been saying for the past week. Somehow, something would come up. That and he'd be tongue tied, which he cursed himself for.

"Eighth time's the charm...I guess." He sighed, staring at his reflection. He donned his usual school uniform getup, the same olive green shirt under the white button up. He combed his hair a bit, taming the out of place hairs. Once he was satisfied with the quick brush and touch up, he set out. Maybe another shot at asking you out.

"It wasn't my fault that there was no paint!"

"Shut up Ace, Cater even reminded you before we left."

"If you heard what Cater said then why didn't you buy some paint?" Came the Heartslabyul duo's regular late-afternoon bicker, with the regular shoves and light punches.

Maybe they know where to find you, he thought.

"Hey, you two." Jack called, "Have you two seen MC?" he asked, cool and composed.

"They're probably helping clean up the lab." Deuce responded, placing a finger on his chin, thinking.

"You've been snooping around for MC more often, Jack. Maybe you're...in love?" Ace teased, drawling out the 'o' in love.

"It's nothing like that." He replied without missing a beat. But it's exactly like that, he berated himself. "Defensive? Ow—" Ace continued, getting a quick shove from Deuce.

"You're reading too much into things." Jack raised a brow, still keeping his cool front intact. "See you guys." He left, heading towards the alchemy lab, commanding every cell in his tail to not wag.

"He's pining." Ace deadpanned.

"Come on, we have supplementary lessons." Deuce called, ushering his ginger-haired friend towards the next classroom.

"Alright, these roots go there next to the newt tails. Try not to work yourself too much, I'll send someone to help you if I can."

"Got it. Thank you professor."

Jack heard your voice, he wasn't swooning, definitely not. Your voice sounded like silver bells against his sensitive ears, so beautiful, so—

"Jack Howl, how long do you intend on standing outside my room?" Divus Crewel raised a brow, "Tsk tsk, loitering. I ought to whip you to shape!" the professor's whip cracked loudly. "I'm not up for idle chatter, either help us or leave, surely those muscles of yours have some use." Crewel offered.

"Um, yeah. I can help out."

"Very good. MC! Guide Jack on what to do, I'll be checking the garden. I trust you two can handle it?" Crewel hollered, taking his leave. But not before a warning, "If anything, and I mean anything breaks, spills, leaks. You know what I intend to do."

"Yes professor." You and Jack replied in unison.

"This goes to the acid cabinet." You instructed, handing an opaque aquamarine liquid to Jack, it was neatly sealed in a small vial.

You fluttered from shelf to shelf as quick as you can, steps light and calculated, careful not to knock over any of the alchemical concoctions splayed out on the desks.

"You seem to be in better shape than last time." Jack struck up a conversation, placing the vial on its designated rack. "The headmaster used some healing magic." You replied, "Take those beakers to the sink."

He followed the task. In a few seconds, most if not all of the used beakers were neatly sitting on the lab's aluminum sink. "The nurse told me to be careful still." You continued, running the tap. You handed Jack some soap and brushes. "Wash this for me."

"Yeah, shouldn't you still be resting?" He asked, the scent of soap and the sound of running eater filled the air. "I'd miss out on a lot of stuff if I did, and I can manage." Came your reply across the room, you were busy checking the shelves, presumably you were taking inventory.

"I know but...but you should really rest, you don't look healed." He reasoned, glancing at the bandages and scars that still littered your body. You noticed, covering up what you could with your uniform. "It's nothing."

"I'm done with the beakers, anything else you need help with?"

"We're almost done, let me do a final check on the materials." You said, cautiously climbing down the ladder. He noticed you wince, you still weren't in good condition to work. "Let me take care of you...this, I mean, let me run an inventory for you." Jack slipped on his speech, mentally facepalming.

"Okay? Sure." You handed him a notebook filled with your handwriting. He scribbled some of his own findings, jotting down about how the thorn powders were running out and that the lanternblossoms in stock were wilting.

"This should be all." He handed you the notebook. Almost skyrocketing when you gave him a smile of approval.

"Let me just run this by professor Crewel real quick." You were midway outside the room when you offered, "Actually, can you come with me?"

Yes, a million times yes. As long as you want.

"Sure, why not?" He coolly responded. "After this...uh...I know a good diner off campus." Jack offered.

"A date?"

"No...well, uh. It's not, I-i'm just asking? We can bring the others if you want." Jack stumbled again, almost positive that he blew up another chance at asking you out.

"Oh? Sure, I'll shoot them a text later." You waved off, the two of you setting off towards the botanical garden.

Was it successful? Was it a failure? Jack honestly didn't know.

But he was still thankful that he'd get to go out with you, even if the others would be tagging along.

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rejectclone · 7 months

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you have to do 💢🌹🙈 for jonn please I Must Know More About Him

💢 ANGER - what are some habits they have that will take some getting used to?

They LITERALLY cannot stop leaking ooze out of his eyes and mouth! It’s totally uncontrollable, due to John having such a tremendously low self esteem. Why does that matter? Well, Mark’s ego is absolutely gargantuan and thus this reflects on his body, which is honestly flawless and physically STABLE. John on the other hand his still grieving over his own existence, and thus his body is physically UNSTABLE. He looks malnourished and super soft at the same time, and his overall terrified and scared state just makes him constantly ‘weep’ out out his eyes and mouth. He really is a massive crybaby too, so dealing with him is not only a literal radioactive acid hazard, but you’ll have to deal with him genuinely crying to himself every few minutes, just because he made some random minor mistake or even dwelled on a bad memory from his past

🌹 ROSE - do they like valentines day? have they been confessed to before? have they confessed to anyone before?

They don’t even know what Valentine’s Day is….. considering that everything he knows about ‘the outside’ is via textbooks, research papers, and MAYBE the occasional tv show or movie that he found while scrubbing some old PCs, the concept of holidays feels so foreign to him. If one were to tell him what Valentine’s Day is though, he would absolutely be a huge fan of it!

As for confessing to anyone, the only person he feels any sort of slight romantic feelings towards to is Mark, who is essentially the only other person on Earth to share the similar VERY abnormal condition they both have. John knows he cannot confess his love to Mark though, as he knows that Mark already is very dismissive of him and confessing his to him, would only give him more fuel to tease and mock him for being so ‘weak’. Mark views ANY kind of love as a weakness and a waste of time, and thus John’s confession will not be reciprocated at all!

🙈 SEE-NO-EVIL - whats a side of your oc that they don't want to show other people?

Just like Mark, John too has this….. UNEXPLAINED deep psychological and compulsive need to keep continuing to absorb as much radiation as he can. Even if dropped in the middle of nowhere where there is NO natural source of nuclear radiation, he would literally go insane and will eat ACTUAL DIRT AND ROCKS to see if he can absorb any microscopic traces of natural radiation. When he’s feeling ‘low’ on absorbing new radiation, it’s really the only time where his extreme cowardice seems to shed away and is instead replaced with agitation and legitimate anger, but it’s but nowhere as near to Mark’s anger when he’s also experiencing this strange faux ‘withdrawal’.

No matter how many times John claims that he wants to be seen as a ‘normal’ human being and wants to live a simple life, he too internally believes that both him and Mark are the next stage in human evolution, and will outlive EVERYONE. John still at least has sympathy towards others and wants to be a good person, but the desire to become more PHYSICALLY toxic and acidic is just too great, so he truly is doomed to continue being a living nuclear warhead that just becomes more and more deadly as he consumes more and more (this, plus his genuine borderline fetish-like adoration for EVERY aspect of the human body is deeply concerning. He would literally spend hours just zoning out and staring at naked anatomical diagrams in biology textbooks, and fantasizing about actually having some weird hyper specific body parts like a appendix)

#this nuclear green goo man is NOT right in the head‼️#at least he doesn’t have a undiagnosed case of Intermittent Explosive Disorder unlike a certain nuclear red goo man #‘john’#my ocs #vinyl scratching

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popcultureoverdosed · 7 months

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Reflecting back on ATLUSxP5

How often do you listen to playlists?

Not official soundtracks but rather a selection of songs to fit a certain mood or theme. Maybe you wonder what kind of music the next game in your favorite game series will have and one day you stumble upon a playlist that answers that question.

That's the scenario many persona fans found themselves in when they discovered the persona 5 imagining project by atlusxp5. The playlist in question was made a while before Persona 5 was officially announced so some fans thought it was a genuine look into what Atlus had in store for the future. There were even cryptic hints of a story hidden in long-since deleted videos. What atlusxp5's intentions were are ambiguous since they have never confirmed nor denied the several theories surrounding the project. Some people have said the playlist has inspired them to make a persona fangame but nothing came out of it. That's one thing that Danganronpa fans have over persona fans: when someone says they're gonna make a fan game, they typically follow through with it.

My memories of how exactly I stumbled upon the project are a bit fuzzy but I'm pretty sure it happened from listening to a jet set radio fan playlist. Yeah, that's right. I discovered a playlist by listening to a completely unrelated playlist. Playlistception! I've been a huge fan of the Jet Set radio soundtrack since 9th grade despite never playing the game so it's no surprise I'd want to listen to music similar to it. I literally typed in " music similar to jet set radio" on YouTube one day and was met with an evergrowing YouTube list of eclectic songs.

I hardly knew anything about persona at the time but that didn't matter. The mesmerizing psychedelic pop music had my ears completely captivated. It was easy to see why considering it was a fusion of all my favorite genres. It even introduced me to an obscure genre called Shibuya kei that deserves a post of its own.

Some of my favorite tracks include Rockin' My Way and Rising Core by the band COPTER4016882. The lyrics are jabberwocky nonsense just like the band's name but both songs have this upbeat electronic sound fused with high-tempo guitar work. They certainly fit the tone of persona 4 rather than p5. Another valuable mention is Freak by MEG, an energetic pop song that invokes the vibe of a girls' night out in the big city.

Talalala by dj deckstream has all the hallmarks of being a glorious final boss theme. It begins with a somber piano tune before shifting to a triumphant melody about preserving and overcoming hard times. The lyrics also do a good job of reflecting the themes of the persona franchise as a whole.

" Don't close your eyes, don't wave good-bye, just take a chance

And take a look inside your heart

Then you will find that down beneath there's a dream you've always had, so

Don't close your eyes, don't wave good-bye, just take a chance

And take a look inside your heart

See that therе is more to life than what you've been through before"

That isn't Deckstream's only noteworthy contribution. His cover of Tom's Diner is a chill jazzy tune that invokes the vibe of exploring the city while his Whatever cover by Oasis has a calming atmosphere that's perfect for the end of a long journey.

The p5 imagining project is a prime example of how important music curation can be. Even if the songs aren't original pieces, they still do wonders to solidify the vision crafted by the project's creator. It's intriguing how a well crafted playlist can create such a vivid image of what Persona 5 theoretically could've been. I've always envisioned p5 as an experimental psychedelic acid trip type of game. Imagine an alternate universe where Studio Shaft was a videogame developer that made a JRPG with Kunihiko Ikuhara as the director and suda51 as co-writer that combined the aesthetics of the world ends with you, the Monogatari series, punk rock dadaism, and panty and stocking. That's the kind of atmosphere atlusxp5 laid out in my mind. It's the kind of game that's sadly far too ambitious to exist in real life. Maybe. One can only dream.

For additional info, I suggest going to the Imagining Project Tumblr page and watching Youtuber Blue's video on the matter.

Links:

youtube

#Atlus #Persona #Videogame #Soundtrack #Fanmix #Playlist #Music #Shibuyakei #Dj deckstream #Blog #Annecdote #Ramble #Persona 5 #Youtube

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worldismyne · 1 year

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I Do (Chapter 3)

Summary: Finn’s mother is fed up with Harv’s family being seemingly immune to her attempts to curse their family. So, if magic alone can’t make them miserable, maybe her son can stir up enough chaos to ruin their happily ever after?

Anything to stop that peasant’s stupid wedding.

(AU Fic: Finn is 18, Harv is 19)

Pairing: Harv x Finn

Rating: M (Suggestive)

Series: Warrior U

Ao3 Link

Harv stared out over the endless rolling hills under the midday sun. After a long morning of dodging his family's questions and making last minute plans for tomorrow; it was nice to sit alone in the fields watching the goats graze in silence. Or rather, rest his eyes a bit under the guise of working and try not to think of the acidic pain growing in his stomach. Within twenty-four hours, his vague anxieties toward the wedding were starting to take a tangible shape, and he didn't like it. It was harder to ignore something that wasn't hiding in the shadows.

He could hear footsteps, human ones, maybe one of his brothers was hoping to sneak up on him. Then he caught a whiff of lavender and- oh no. He opened an eye and realized Finn really had no concept of personal space; his face nearly an inch away. How was he able to sneak up on him that quick? No one in his warrior class had been able to catch him off guard like this, not even the teachers.

Finn leaned back with a wide smile showing off some ridiculous costume that was kind of hard to stare at. The goats seemed fascinated by it at least, the way what looked like tiny scales reflected the sun off his tunic. He was holding a basket behind him, his shoulders up in a meek attempt at shy vulnerability.

"Hello darling." This was bad, this was really bad. Finn shouldn't be calling him things like that.

"What are you doing here?" Harv gripped his crook to steady his resolve. It didn't matter how sweet Finn acted towards him, he needed to turn the blond away. Even if he had to be a tad mean to do it.

"Looking for you." Finn hummed and then presented the basket toward him with pride. "What do you think?"

"About what?" The question took the wind out of Finn's sails for a moment. He looked into the basket, and lifted a pink glass bottle slightly with a frown, before putting it back.

"About taking a break for a little while. It's a nice day and I figured, well..." Finn took a step closer. "Maybe I should return the favor before it's too late."

"I can't do that Finn." He was at work, and he wasn't quite sure what exactly Finn was referring to.

"I thought you would say that." Finn frowned and reached for something in the basket.

"Listen, Finn-"

"At least have a drink with me. One drink and I'll listen to whatever you have to say." One of the goats had climbed up the steep hill and dared to take a nibble at the edge of Finn's sparkly tunic. "Hey!" Finn turned and tried to wrench his clothes from the determined goat's maw. "Let go!" Really, heels were no place for the soft grass, all they did was sink deep into the earth.

"Finn, careful!" Harv watched as the fabric tore and Finn fumbled backwards. His arm swung wildly about, the basket went flying, but there was nothing to catch Finn in time. His head smacked against a rock at the base of the tree with a deafening crack. "FINN!" The blonde moaned weakly, still somewhat conscious. Harv dropped his crook in the grass and shooed the curious animals away. Literally anything he knew about first aid left his brain the moment a small trickle of blood seeped out from behind Finn's head. The meat pies he brought lay crushed in the grass next to a shattered pink bottle and a deep red one still intact. A label, loosely attached to the base of the bottle read 'Use in case of-' and Harv couldn't be bothered to sound out the rest. This was definitely an 'in case of' kind of situation. He popped open the bottle, and poured the cool liquid in the corner of Finn's mouth. Finn swallowed the drink weakly and turned his head to the side with a sputter.

Right, you're not supposed to give unconscious people food or drink. What was he thinking!? He threw the bottle into the grass. What was he supposed to do next? Check a pulse? Breathing?

Thankful Finn opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the discarded bottles.

"Harvey, what happened?" He tried to sit up too soon and swooned at a sudden wave of dizziness. Harv caught him before he could hit the rock a second time.

"You tripped. Are you okay? You didn't breathe in any of that stuff did you?"

"What stuff? What are you-" Finn's hand traced the source of the ache in his head. Just a scratch, maybe a bruise, but he would be fine as soon as he could shake the pain that radiated from it.

"I don't know what was in the bottles you brought." Finn's eyes widened at the destroyed lunch.

"You gave that to me!?" Finn looked back at him more fearful than Harv had ever seen.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do."

"Which one?" Finn pleaded. Harv looked at the bottles, both clearing as red liquid soaked into the grass. They both looked the same.

"I'm not sure. It said 'use' on it." Finn curled up, placing his forehead square against Harv's chest and tried to choke back some sort of cry. "Are you alright?" Finn pulled away, and blinked back a few tears with steely resolve. The next thing he knew there was a hand gripping the front of his shirt, another at the back of his head tangled around his dreads and a pair of determined lips smashed against his. It was a short, clumsy sort of kiss, Finn missed most of Harv's bottom lip. Finn pulled back, readjusted the angle of his face and dove back in. This time, he was able to meet his target. A light nibble at his bottom lip and soon Harv felt the tip of Finn's tongue lick at his own.

It must have been wine in the bottle, judging by the taste.

Finn seemed pretty eager to share what little wine he had, though his motions were slow, deliberate. Harv could feel Finn's temperature increase through his clothes, under the sparkles, the fabric was surprisingly thin. He was breathing shallower now, less needy. Harv followed him down into the grass as he tried to lay Finn down gently on a more comfortable surface. Though it was kind of hard to move with a whole person clinging to his front. Finn pulled away for a few breaths, his eyes darker, and he moved to place a few pliant kisses against Harv's neck. One of Finn's legs had come up to hook around Harv's hip to lift up his lower back as he nibbled as his ear and jawline.

"I..." Finn paused; his voice ghosted against the shell of Harv's ear. "I don't know what to do." He sounded so unsure, so vulnerable. It was enough to get Harv to pull away. Finn was looking up at him surrounded by wild grass, face and neck flushed, waiting for Harv to say something. "You have to tell me what to do, I-" Finn's hands unwound from Harv's hair and traced a slow firm path down his neck and shoulders. "I've never gotten this far."

What was he doing!?

"Finn, I'm so sorry." Guilt hit him like a bucket of ice water. Finn's lips were puffy from him reciprocating whatever this was. Which shouldn't have happened at all, let alone progressed to the point they were both breathless. Harv's heart was running a mile a minute and Finn was still looking to him for answers. The more anxious Harv felt, the more Finn looked like something was breaking in front of him. Harv sat up, checked his surroundings, they were still alone. "This is all my fault."

"No, it's not Harvey." Finn tried to urge Harv back down. "What do you really think of me?" He couldn't do much to move him, other than pull himself closer to Harv. That leg, those hips, they were dangerously close to pulling Finn toward something Harv couldn't excuse away. Something Harv himself, really didn't want to address at the moment. He broke away from Finn's hold. "Please, I have to know."

"Finn... I'm getting married tomorrow." The blond was sitting up, but Harv couldn't bear to look at him anymore. It was hard enough to push Finn away when he was acting like it was all some funny joke Harv just wasn't getting. He wouldn't be able to stomach watching someone's heart break by his own hand. "It doesn't matter what I think of you, this... this can't happen again."

"It does matter." Finn shouldn't be standing too quickly, but he was certainly trying to make an effort. "Can you at least tell me if the way you feel has changed? Even a little bit?"

"...no..." Harv left Finn alone atop the hill.

This wasn't going the way Finn had wanted at all and watching Harv walk away this time made him feel like a knife was twisting in his chest. It shouldn't feel this painful to be told no. There was still plenty of time to ruin the wedding, and other strategies he could try, but... He kinda liked having Harv close to him. He wouldn't be able to do that if he did something that hurt Harv on purpose. Something about the warrior was pulling at this desire to shelter and pamper something. It was powerful and terrifying all at the same time and all the more frustrating that Harv seemingly felt nothing in return.

Some love potion, all it did was make Harv hesitate a fraction of a second before abandoning Finn again. This wouldn't have happened if his mother hadn't snuck the potion in his bag without asking him. He wouldn't have been caught off guard and distracted then. Wouldn't have felt pressured to kiss Harv in hopes he'd get even an ounce of the potion in his system. Then he could have said the right things to make Harv like him instead of babbling about things Harv had no business knowing. Things Harv didn't care about apparently. He couldn't keep sitting in the grass feeling sorry for himself.

He had a job to do.

This hill was visible from the sheep farm across the road. It wasn't uncommon for the herds to graze at the same time. If Audrey was doing her job like she was supposed to, she should have seen everything. If he could muster up enough entitlement, he should be able to make her feel like their relationship was in danger. When confronted, Harv wouldn't be able to lie, and that should be that. He just need to shake off this funk he was in, no need to be misty eyed and morose about accepting that Harv wouldn't want to talk to him ever again.

Finn smacked both of his cheeks with his hands.

He collected the things that weren't soiled by the spilled food and made his way back down the hill toward the other farm. Audrey was there, as expected, but she was facing the other way. Her shoulders tensed as he approached. He coughed to get her attention, loudly, she didn't turn around.

"Excuse me!" Finn crossed his arms. Didn't she know who she was talking to? Or rather, not talking to.

"Private property." Audrey grumbled and pointed to a sign nailed to a tree. "Go away."

"Jealous, are we?" Finn fixed his hair. It was a good thing he hit the back of his head; he couldn't show weakness here. Audrey glanced over her shoulder unimpressed and then returned to watching her flock.

"No." How rude!

"Well, you should be." Finn bit his lip. "Harv kissed me."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Finn was simply beside himself. How could she be so disinterested in what her own fiancé was doing? She should be plucking daisy petals, and writing little love notes for his lunches and any other number of things Harv deserved. He was losing focus again. "Is that all you have to say?"

"Keep him entertained for me." Audrey shrugged.

"If you care so little about him, just break off the engagement already!" Really, did he have to do everything himself? They clearly didn't like each other before. Now it was just ridiculous.

"I proposed to Harv because I knew he wouldn't touch me." She said icily. "So, unless you know of another man in town looking for a Lavender Marriage, the engagement stands." That wasn't the story he'd heard. Who had originally spun the tale of a fairytale wedding? Harv constantly looked uncomfortable discussing the topic, Audrey couldn't be bothered to lie. It was plain as day to anyone that saw them, they were both settling.

"...does he know?"

"Does who know?"

"Does Harv know." Did he know that the woman he was marrying was just looking for a meal ticket? There was no amount of feigned fidelity would change that or make him fit the role he was trying to force himself into. They were both forcing themselves to do something that didn't make them happy.

"It was his idea." Then, did that mean, Harv started the rumors? This whole thing was giving him a headache. Then again, he had just hit his head pretty good.

"If you don't break off the engagement, something terrible will happen." His mother did not take failure well. Especially when it came to the goatherders. She shrugged again, and kept watching her sheep. It was like trying to intimidate a wall or gelatin. He couldn't let this happen. He absolutely couldn't allow these two passively doom themselves like this, it was ridiculous.

-v-

You have to tell me what to do...

It would be nice if Harv could go five minutes without that moment playing over again. He had things that needed to get done today. Granted, it didn't take his full concentration to muck out the goat's pens or smelt iron for the smithy. It was just, extremely uncomfortable to keep up a neutral mask while his mind kept wandering to... that.

"Hey." Harv startled, nearly spilling molten iron on himself instead of in the mold. He set the red hot implements aside and looked up at his brother standing in the doorway. "Hoping I was someone else?" Rhodri asked.

"No." Harv said. He shouldn't feel disappointed, he shouldn't keep expecting Finn to pop up again after telling him to go away so many times.

"God, you are so full of it." Rhodri looked behind him. "Ain't that right blondie?" Rhodri laughed when he saw Harv perk up to look over his shoulder. "You're so transparent! And a bad liar," Rhodri looked at his brother with reserved pity, "mom and dad are starting to worry." Well if it doesn't rain, it pours.

"Why are they worrying!?" The point of this whole thing was so they wouldn't worry. They had been so happy yesterday too.

"Because you look like you wanna throw yourself in the ocean." Rhodri said. "Especially the last few days." Rhodri was small, but he was definitely standing in the doorway on purpose. It would be difficult for Harv to casually brush off the topic and move to the next task without physically moving Rhodri. "You gonna tell me what's really going on with you and that blonde I saw talking to Audrey?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Harv looked behind him, the window was too small to climb through and evening was just around the corner. If he played his cards right, he could make a graceful exit for dinner.

"About this tall, was wearing your clothes this morning, that blonde." Rhodri held his hand up to his chin. "Absolutely dripping in money judging by the accent. You planning on telling me why someone like that is trying to follow you around like a lost puppy? Because they seem plenty eager to talk about it with anyone that is willing to listen."

"All I did was save them." He honestly didn't know why Finn was so insistent on following him around, even after Harv had explained to him that he definitely wasn't in love with Harv. It was just temporary. It would go away and- Well now that he thought about it, Finn never outwardly said anything about 'love' exactly. He just constantly craved Harv's company and physically contact. Which most people didn't ask of him, at least, not so directly. Was that the sort of thing that would fade with time, or... If it wasn't for the furnace in the room, he would have felt his face grow warm.

"No, you didn't. Something else happened!" Rhodri looked up to the sky for patience. "If you want me to be able to lie for you, because again you're bad at it, I have to know what I'm lying about." Of course his brother wouldn't be satisfied with nothing answers, it was just... This wasn't exactly something he'd been the most comfortable thinking about, let alone planning on talking to someone about directly. Especially his own family. But Rhodri was good at keeping secrets, this wasn't the kind of thing that he'd hold over someone's head. Besides, he needed someone else's take on this, because he was honestly starting to feel like he was going mad.

"Nothing happened, really, but..." Maybe God would be merciful and strike him down where he stood. Rhodri wasn't letting anything go beyond his notice right now, he might as well be on trial. "Finn wanted something to happen though, a lot, a... romantic kind of something. I've been trying to get him to come to his senses without, well, hurting him." He'd botched that up quite nicely. In the last twenty-four hours Finn had gained a concussion and a broken heart and here they were talking about it behind his back like busy bodies. It was Harv's worst nightmare inflicted on someone else. He felt awful.

"Was he not paying enough?"

"RHODRI!"

"What?" Rhodri shrugged. "Did you not think to ask for a reward? You could have had a sack of gold for saving his life." Harv knew for a fact that his brother was implying something else, he just had no proof of it. "Which reminds me, does the wedding have a price? I think we could make bank if we hold it for ransom; someone seems very upset by the prospect of sharing."

"Rhodri, don't joke about those kinds of things."

"Who said I'm joking?" Rhodri shook his head. "Blondie offered three thousand gold if I talked you into ditching your fiancé." That was the price of a castle!

"Rhodri, you didn't." His brother looked at him smugly.

"I didn't make any promises. After all; there's mom and dad to consider, the dowry, any presents people wanted to send." Rhodri counted on his fingers as he went. "Not to mention emotional damages, Audrey would be 'devastated'. I think we could at least get five kay if we drag our feet with the response, but I want to make sure you get a fair cut. " Harv stormed up to his brother. This was a new low, even for him.

"How could you lie to him like that?" They absolutely would not extort someone with a broken heart. False hope like that was more painful than any rejection. "Dad won't accept a single cent and if he figures out who it's coming from- He can't figure out Finn was ever here. Ever. For goodness sakes Rhodri the money probably isn't even real." He pushed around Rhodri, fueled more by anger than fear now.

"Where are you going?" Rhodri asked as he watched his brother storm off.

"To put an end to this."

#Warrior U #harvfinn #little finnharv things #WU Fanfic Archive

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after-witch · 3 years

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Act of Contrition [Yandere Chrollo x Reader]

Title: Act of Contrition [Yandere Chrollo x Reader]

Synopsis: A shimmering blue evening gown was not the last thing you expected to see draped over the sitting chair that was tucked into the corner. What you didn’t expect, however, was his suggestion for you to try it on

Word Count: 3646

notes: yandere, kidnapped reader

A shimmering blue evening gown was not the last thing you expected to see draped over the sitting chair that was tucked into the corner. It would certainly not be the first time that Chrollo had brought back something ostentatious, something glittering and expensive; something that you (if you were to psychoanalyze him, which you did, out of anxiety first and boredom second) would guess he wanted you to admire before it disappeared into the ether like so many other things he’d pilfered over the past few months.

What you didn’t expect, however, was his suggestion for you to try it on.

At first you thought you’d misheard, your brain still pulling itself out of a dull, listless sleep. You had argued with him the night before, and the space between you on the bed was thick and heavy with tension until you had finally slid headlong into sleep. Surely he wouldn’t try to give you a gift after you spend most of the evening reminding him that you’ll never love him, or even like him, much less feel one iota of happiness in his presence.

But then he repeated the suggestion.

“Why?” Your tone is borderline acidic, and you don’t feel the need to hide your suspicion of his intentions.

Your captor had no doubt become well-acquainted with your nastiness over the months, though he rarely reacted to it with more than a tight expression, if he even gave you that. Sometimes he simply ignored you, as if you were a child having a tantrum, not his kidnapped victim.

In some ways, it was a surprising relief. In some ways, you could consider yourself lucky. Considering his abilities, considering his past, considering what he did when he left you alone in the condo or hotel or wherever he had you situated--he might well be the type to slap the attitude off your face, gentlemanly facade be damned. He could do worse than a slap, too; far worse.

But the months had gone on with only pointed sighs and looks; and despite his rationally stated insistence that you would give in to his attentions in time, you held onto your bitterness as tightly as you could. You prized yourself on it, the way you figure that he prizes his most precious steals.

He sometimes comes back with glittering jewels worth calculable fortunes, laying them out to see the way they look when the moonlight filters in through the open curtains. He doesn’t keep them for long, doesn’t display them, just memorizes their magnificence and then whisks them off.

You can relate to the gloating. But you don’t give your greatest treasures away. You, on the other hand, wear your bitterness 24/7 like an old woman clinging to her last precious mink coat, a remnant of an era gone-by. Draped over your shoulder, haughty and visible, daring him to say something when you give him a sarcastic jab in response to perfectly-polite-inquiries about this and that. The worst (but best, you think, to you) is when you feign interest in a conversation, feign some sort of acceptance of your situation, willing your hands to get closer to his as you sit on the sofa and read; only to snap back at the last moment, baring your teeth.

You hope it hurts him, to think he’s getting an inch forward with you only to have it pulled away. He deserves it for keeping you here.

Sometimes, you almost hope he would say something, do something, only because it might be a sort of reprieve. If he gets mad or slaps you, even, maybe the solid, sticky bitterness surrounding your heart might abate just a bit.

Then again, you know this saying very well: be careful what you wish for.

“I need to see if it fits.” His expression and tone haven’t changed. Polite, cordial, matter-of-fact. You hate it.

You force yourself out of bed and give the gown a glance before heading into the bathroom. He follows, picking up his own morning routine as you wash and brush side-by-side. You think he does it to seem domestic, in his own fucked-up way. You pointed this out, once, and he’d merely given you a small smile and asked: “Do you want to this to be domestic?”

Chrollo had a habit of turning your impulsive snark around on you, so you tried to plan your barbs out more carefully in the future.

“Why do you need to see if it fits?” You finally ask, words a bit muffled by the toothbrush hanging out of your mouth. You force yourself to glance at him in the mirror. He’s finished, already drying off his face, pinning a wrap around his forehead.

He catches your gaze in the mirror, and you feel too caught to look away.

“For tonight. We’re going to the theater.”

The toothbrush drops from your mouth and lands next to the sink, splattering lathered toothpaste on the counter. You wipe your mouth with a washcloth, missing a bit and not caring, and physically turn away from the mirror so you’re face-to-face.

“Are you serious?”

For the moment, your bitterness slides off, forgotten on the floor. He’s never offered to do something like this before. Sure, he’s mentioned that you might go out--”it depends on your behavior”--but the thought of “being good” for Chrollo made you sick to your stomach every time you were tempted. So you hadn’t been outside for months, not really--the brief gaps when he’d whisk you into a car, always by his side, then pull you into a new hotel or luxury condo didn’t really count.

He nods.

“Yes. Please do hurry and try it on, I’ll need time to find another if it isn’t suitable.”

You glance out of the bathroom door and back into the bedroom, where the gown sits, draped, shimmering softly in the morning light. It’s something you never would have been able to afford before--and the thought of wearing it now makes your skin tingle. What is his plan? Why is he doing this?

“But I haven’t been good,” you say, almost spitting out the last word. Last night, in fact, you’d been almost beastly--you recall the words “go fuck yourself” and “I hate you” being thrown out before you twisted in the knife by bringing up an ex-fling.

He laughs, quick and harsh. It seems like a real laugh, for once, and something in your chest twists. It’s been a long time since you’ve heard anything truly authentic from him. Or yourself.

“Maybe it’s a reward for me, to have you by my side. You want to go, don’t you?”

The thought makes your stomach clench. But… you did want to go. Really. To get out of here, even for a night? To get sucked into some type of show, whatever it was? You didn’t entertain the idea of trying to escape or draw attention to yourself for help--you knew Chrollo would never suggest taking you if it was a viable option. He was just as likely to slaughter the entire theater if you whispered to an usher that you were being held captive.

No, no escape in the cards… at least not physically.

You shrug your shoulders and try to seem nonchalant about it, though you’re sure he can feel the way your skin is buzzing.

“Sure, whatever. Don’t expect me to hold your hand or anything.”

He laughs, again. It’s blatantly false this time.

***

It has been… a while since you’ve done your makeup. The pile of messy makeup wipes on the counter can attest to that--this is now your third try at a full face without messing something up. Thankfully, the third time has been the charm, and you’re satisfied with the reflection in the mirror. Chrollo had turned up your old makeup bag, and sliding on the eyeliner you used to wear to work, out with friends, in your old life felt surreal and comforting at the same time.

You’ve even done your hair, though it could be nicer. You haven’t bothered with anything but hasty brushing in the past few months, and sometimes you’re too lethargic and frustrated to even bother with that. But it’s styled, a bit elegant--if you do say so yourself.

You glance down at the trio of lipsticks he set on the counter earlier. They’re not a brand you ever wore--they’re expensive, something out of reach for anyone used to pulling cheap store lipsticks out of a bin. The center lipstick is a bold red, and your hand reaches for it. Brief memories of your mother gushing about red lipstick come to mind; she always associated red lipstick with elegance, the fanciest of events, and you’re inclined to agree. It feels smooth, impossibly so; praise be to expensive formulas.

After blotting it with toilet paper--old habits--you step back to stare at yourself in the mirror. The dress fits you beautifully. The fabric is soft, refined, showing you off in all the right places. You’ve taken your time with your hair, your makeup, and you really do look nice. You bring your wrist up to your nose and sniff--the perfume Chrollo had picked out for you was elegant, subtle. Rose petals and apples and white musk.

You feel a wave of nostalgia come over you that you push down. It’s too bad you’re going to the theater with your captor and not with your friends. Or your mom.

“Are you finished?” His voice calls from the bedroom.

The thought of Chrollo seeing you like this makes you feel uncomfortably anxious for reasons you can’t quite pinpoint. The gown is not exactly risque, but it’s designed to highlight your features--and while he has never crossed the hardest line in regards to your personal autonomy, he wasn’t beyond stealing kisses from your unwilling lips when the mood struck him. He said it was to help you adjust to the relationship, as if kissing you against your will would make you love him.

You don’t answer him and instead give your hair a final touch up before heading out the open bathroom door.

Chrollo is standing next to the vanity, wearing an elegant suit, primped and polished--and handsome. You can’t help but freeze in place when he gives you a once-over, slow and deliberate.

“You look beautiful,” he says, finally, a slight breathiness to his voice. There’s an authentic tone to his voice again, and it makes you feel queasy.

You try to ignore the way your skin feels heated and shrug, crossing your arms over your chest as you approach him.

“Are we going now?”

He gives a soft smile. “Almost. One more thing.”

You watch curiously as he pulls out a jewelry box from his pocket, then opens it to reveal two glittering sapphire earrings. You can’t hold back a little gasp, but when you reach for them, Chrollo holds the box out of reach.

“I’ll do the honors.”

You want to say no. But you’re so close to leaving, so you simply stare to the side as he steps behind you. He touches your ear--and you flinch. He chuckles quietly and you ignore the blossoming heat across your cheeks, both from his closeness and your reaction, while he fixes the earrings into your ears.

When he’s finished, you look up. The visage in the mirror seems like a familiar stranger. The feeling you get at seeing yourself so dressed up is familiar in some way. You think back to going to shows with your friends, or going to the ballet with your mom; your little ring-clad hand gripping hers as she hurried you past alleys on the way to the theater, your sparkling white party dress shedding glitter onto the streets. You can practically feel the way the theater always hums with anticipation, the unusual heaviness of feeling alone in a crowded room as your friends left you with the tickets while they grabbed a drink or two.

The sight of Chrollo behind you in the mirror, watching you with clear intent, breaks you away.

“We’re leaving now.”

***

“I… actually really like The Sleeping Beauty ballet.”

You feel awkward. It’s certainly not the first time you’ve been in a car with Chrollo, whether your forcibly pressed against him in the back seat or in the front, blasting the radio in an attempt to prevent him from striking up a conversation as he drives you to some new destination.

But it’s the first time you’ve been in the car for reasons other than transporting you to a new ‘home.’ The first time that you’ve both been dressed up; Chrollo’s cologne wafts gently over to you, and you can’t deny that he knows how to pick a good scent.

It’s also the first time you’ve felt conversation to be a necessity, if only to find out where you were going (the opera house) and what you were seeing (a ballet).

In fact, the news of the performance makes you sit up straighter in your seat. You feel a ping of excitement, and without thinking you share it out loud.

“That’s actually the first ballet I ever saw with my mom. Do you know what company it is?”

He tells you, and you bite your lip anxiously, squaring your shoulders against the back of the seat as you start to imagine the night ahead. Then you remember the smooth red lipstick and force your mouth to relax.

You talk, instead, to keep yourself from ruining your lipstick with your nervous habit. “I’ve heard about this company’s version. Well,” you continue, “I wanted to see them perform this a few years ago, but tickets sold out so fast. I couldn’t afford the scalper prices.”

“How nice that I have tickets for this performance, then.”

“Right!” Your pitch is higher and you internally cringe. You shouldn’t sound so excited. You glance at him from the corner of your eye, but he seems focused on the road.

As the drive continues, you keep talking. Without realizing it, your voice becomes lighter, easier, and even you don’t know why you’re speaking so freely. You talk more to him on this stretch of road than you have within months, sarcastic replies and bitter responses notwithstanding.

You talk about ballet. You talk about the history of the show. You talk about this company’s costumes--you saw them displayed in a store window and wow, were they gorgeous--and as the words come out, you feel lighter. Less bogged down by your protective anger, less heavy and hateful.

Happiness.

It’s something that you haven’t felt in a long time. It’s a feeling that your stomach rebels against, not welcoming the sudden intrusion of lightness and lift while you’re sitting in a car next to your captor. But you push your stomach’s rebellious nature down and force yourself to remember that tonight, you get to escape onto the stage; for a little while, you can be somewhere else.

Even being in the car tonight is doing wonders for you, you think. You must be getting close--the lights of the city are brighter and there’s throngs of nicely dressed people walking down the street towards what you realize is the theater. You see a little girl holding a woman’s hand and your stomach clenches in bitter nostalgia, but the thought is pushed aside quickly enough when Chrollo pulls into a valet circle.

You don’t have time to open the door before he opens it for you, extending his arm like a gentlemen.

“Ready?”

You’re buzzing on the way home. Not just from the champagne--three glasses, Chrollo having subtly waved away the usher approaching your opera box with your requested fourth. Not just from the show, which was magical and lush and everything you hoped it would be. Not just from the fact that you had a night out, away from the stuffiness of whatever luxury suite you were trapped in.

But from the thrill of feeling something, anything, other than your own deep despair and bitterness. You laughed in delight at the sillier moments, the bright-yellow Canary fairy and her trills; you cried at Aurora’s pleading vision to be set free, the first time you’ve cried at something other than your own situation in ages; you clapped and even, in the end, let yourself shout out a cheery “Brava!”

Even Chrollo seemed different during the evening. No forcible hand-holding or other niceties that had given you anxiety earlier in the evening. No unbearable condescension, only the hint of a smirk during the intermission when you--instinctively, you insisted to yourself, not because you liked his company--began an excited conversation about the events of the first Act. Did he like this part? What about the orchestra? And oh, this variation, didn’t he think it was a bit too overdone on the part of the dancer, but she more than recovered by the end?

When Chrollo helps you out of the car into the private parking garage, the air is cool and crackling; everything still feels electric, the way it always does when you come home from an event. Though as the doorman opens the private elevator leading to the condominium above, you dimly remind yourself you’re not coming home, exactly.

The swift ride up the elevator leaves you feeling dizzy. Your mind feels like it’s crashing, suddenly. From the champagne, maybe--but something else, too.

The elevator doors open into the condo suite you share with Chrollo and it hits you as you take the first step inside: you’re back to where you started the night. Trapped. The transporting, glittering events of the evening fall off your shoulders like a worn coat; you’re left once again only with yourself, with your present situation--and with Chrollo.

Your cheeks feel hot and you know the tears are coming before you feel them prickle at your eyes. The urge to wipe them away is masked only by the remembrance that you’re wearing makeup, but that doesn’t stop it from running as they begin to flow down your cheeks.

It burns, and you start for the bathroom, intent on scrubbing your face and ripping off the dress--but your entire body jerks back as Chrollo grabs your arm and prevents you from taking another step.

“Let go,” you say, voice empty of anything but the desperate need to be in the bathroom, to clean your face, to be alone with your returning misery.

He doesn’t. Instead, he pulls you back, forcing you to stand up straight as you fruitlessly fight against his grip.

“You’re crying.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that,” you murmur, voice edged not with bitterness this time, but sorrow. You don’t want to look at him. He’s seen you cry countless times, but you hate the way he looks at you when you do.

“Tell me why.”

You finally force yourself to look up at him, eyes blinking away the stinging tears, and you’re not surprised by his intensive gaze. He’s studying you. Analyzing. Like you’re some sort of book he can read and discover.

Maybe the champagne has loosened your tongue; maybe the night itself has loosened the tight-lipped hold your bitterness has on you. Whatever it is, you confess.

“I was happy,” you say, voice wobbling with tears. “I was--happy on the way there. I was happy at the theater. I was happy on the way home. I--I haven’t…” you rub at your eyes, smearing eyeshadow onto your fingertips. “I haven’t felt that way in months. And now we’re back and I don’t feel it anymore.” Your voice finally cracks with your last words, and you cover your eyes with one hand as crushing feelings of sadness sweep over you.

He pulls you closer to him, and you can’t fight away from his physical strength.

“Let go,” you plead. “I just want to be alone.”

You jerk your face away when he strokes your cheek with his free hand.

“Alone? Whatever for? My hypothesis for tonight was correct.”

His words make you stop pulling. Hypothesis? You sniffle and try to get your bearings, try to brace yourself. But you’re tired, and sad, and your head is swimming.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He places his free hand on the back of your head and leans in closer. The heat of his skin and the pressure of his grip makes a flushed warmth bloom across your skin.

“You see,” he whispers, his lips ghosting against the side of your ear. “You can be happy with me, after all.”

#yandere chrollo #yandere hunter x hunter #chrollo x reader #chrollo lucilfer #yandere #afterwitch writes

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blzzrdstryr · 3 years

Text

Midnight chatter

Yandere Diluc x gn!knight!reader

Wordcount: 2385

CW: Yandere, drugging, kidnapping

This was a third week after his return and fifth day of the tireless fight with winery work, when Diluc received an unexpected guest. During his travels across the world, the winery business fell into disrepair and almost collapsed, so once he learnt the state of the wine industry he decided to settle in his office and try to battle the endless reports about necessary expenses and small profits all on his own.

He started to work with the first rays of sunlight well into the night, squeezing every bit of energy his body had, not only because financial issues could affect him personally, but also because of the night vigilante of Mondstadt title he took upon himself.Due to the increased workload he couldn’t find time to patrol the dark streets and alleys of the city, while experience and conscience didn’t allow him to thrust the safety of ordinary citizens into the hands of bumbling, cowardly and lazy knights.

The day soon turned into the late evening, and dawn winery workers started to go home, when someone knocked on his door. It was Adelinde.

Her steps were faster than usual, her stoic face shadowed by the note of concern. Diluc wanted to say that no, he won’t go and have a rest, but she spoke first.

“Master Diluc”, she stopped before his desk: “we have a guest, a knight”.

He lifted his head shifting the eyes from the report to the head maid and pondered - despite his long absence, a lot of people in the city had a general idea how much he dislikes the Favonius Order and so a rare knight would actually dare to bother him, unless… Unless, they were acting out an order from someone high-ranking, like Jean or Varka for example.

Apprehension that his former colleague somehow learned of his nightly escapades sent an unexpected wave of shivers and vague feeling of unease, but he didn’t let it get to him.

“Ask why this knight is here and if it’s something unofficial tell them to leave”, he ordered, at which Adelinde blinked, slowly and tiredly, as if she was looking for the strength to tell something incredibly upsetting or scary.

“The thing is, master Diluc, that I already let them in”.

“Without my permission?”, his eyes widened at that, and the heart started to pick up the pace. What if this knight was really sent here by Varka or Jean? If it was true, Adelinde, unknowingly set him up to fail.

She was looking after him from his earliest childhood, so she was allowed to do and say more than any other of his staff, yet this perceived audacity was unheard of before.

“They were badly injured and said that they needed to stop for the night and once it’s over they will travel to the city with the first sun rays. We helped them to patch up their injuries and offered a room for guests, yet they declined and remained to sit on sofa”, the maid explained absolutely unfazed, after noticing Diluc’s dissatisfaction and then added : “If you are that displeased, master Diluc, I can tell this tired and battered knight to get out from here into the dark night”.

Her voice remained even and emotionless as usual, but even like that young Ragnvindr could hear a light mocking in her words. And to think about it - he got so freaked out over some silly coincidence - the knight stopped here because of the injuries, not some insidious scheme.

“Alright”, Diluc admitted defeat: “they can stay… and offer them some food and tea”, he added just as Adelinde’s hand touched the doorknob.

“Will be done”, she replied before exiting the office. The corners of her mouth slightly moved and crept upwards.

***

Despite his earlier goal of finishing as much work as he can, Diluc couldn’t do anything. Small digits and letters started to float and dance before his eyes while the long lines fused together, when he tried to analyze the state of wine business in naught. But the worst thing was the fact that his thoughts strayed to the topic of mystery knight again and again and Diluc lost count how many times he caught himself thinking who this person is.

He sat like that for a while, until the cinnabar of dying sky got replaced by the darkness and pleasant chill of the night.

Diluc scolded himself for his uncharacteristic indecisiveness, standing up from the desk and locking the office, when this thought, loud and persisting, knocked into his head again. Wouldn’t it be nice, he wondered, to learn who this night is, and finally decided. After all the thoughts about them pestered him for a long time.

Quietly and carefully walking through the unlit corridor of the winery, he confirmed that all servants and workers had already left for sleep, some into the rooms of the main building designated for them, some into the cabins around it. All in all, he was confident that there’s no one except him, the knight, Adelinde and a couple of other maids.

His steps were quiet and slow and not even a single board in the wooden floor creaked under his weight as he knew the winery like the back of his hand. With a bated breath he made his way downstairs, making out vague shapes of the familiar objects. Moonlight pouring out through the windows illuminated only the silhouettes, but even with that he quickly noticed the unknown frame.

The person was half-sitting half-lying on the sofa, and their sword and armor were placed nearby the furniture, reflecting the pale light of the moon. They weren’t moving, seemingly asleep. Diluc couldn’t make out their face even after making a coming closer, so he decided to take the risk and summoned a small wisp of flame.

The dancing light illuminated everything in a small radius and what he saw made him jolt and take a step back. You were the mystery knight.

Why are you still a knight? Where were you? Who injured you?

Still shocked by the previous revelation, Diluc accidentally knocked over the breastplate with his foot and it fell on it’s side with a loud thump.

You woke up.

“What… Who?”, you stirred and half sat on the elbow: “Ah, it’s you” and saw him :”What are you doing here?”.

Caught red handed, Diluc didn’t find any words - it was so sudden and unusual to be caught unaware, and because of that doubly unpleasant.

“This is my winery and I am free to do whatever I want”, he decided to hide the awkwardness behind the faux annoyance.

“Easy, easy” you half smiled, half yawned: “I just managed to fall asleep”. You yawned again and blinked at him with sleepy tired eyes.

“I have sleep medicine if you want some”

You got surprised and touched by his sudden responsiveness: “Thank you, but I think painkillers would be better. My body is aching and that’s the main problem”.

Maybe because of the trembling, dancing light or maybe because of the recent sleep you imagined worry and pity twisting his facial features.

“I have it too. Wait here”, he quickly replied and vanished into the dim darkness of the winery, not giving you any time to answer, as you were left to sit and wait for him. Diluc, to your own surprise, happened to be extremely stealthy, able to move without producing a single sound.

“Here”, you first heard and then saw him,as Diluc used pyro vision to light the nearby candlestick and then opened the medicine vial he brought and handed it to you: “Drink it all”.

“Thank you”, you whispered to him, taking the painkiller before making a big gulp. The taste was horrible, so horrible in fact that you almost immediately started to violently cough. Well, if it’s as effective as foul, then I will be good as new in no time, you thought to yourself, suppressing the urge to throw up.

Diluc stood nearby and observed your reaction, his hand extended on his own when the coughing started as he awkwardly tried to pat your back in the gesture of comfort. “I will be here with you until you fall asleep”, he stated once the fit stopped and then, seeing your highly raised brows explained further: “Painkiller takes time to work. Tell me if you won’t feel better”.

You nodded in response, and closed eyes, listening to the sensations of your body. Your injuries still burned and screamed and throbbed, yet a strange numb sensation started to slowly surround you. Just like Diluc said, medicine would need time to fully settle in.

“If you're here can you talk with me?”, you decided to shorten the time in conversation: “Ijust wanted to talk with you. For a really long time”.

“About what?”, he allowed himself a shadow of the smile, Diluc that you used to know peeking through the gloomy facade, like a long awaited sun or it’s reflection on the tranquil mirror of the water surface. Next words stuck in your throat, bitter and acidic and totally unfit, and you had to force them out through your own hesitance to destroy this calm.

“What happened that day? The day before you left. I asked Jean and Kaeya and other knights who were present with you, yet no one said anything”, the water surface bubbled and the visage of that old, sunny Ragnvindr shattered into thousand pieces. The person before you adopted the same cold facade of annoyance and indifference.

“Why do you need to know it?”, he answered the question with another question and you sensed barely buried hurt and grief.

“You leaving hurt. A lot”

“That’s why you are still a knight?”, you quickly nodded at that.

A minute passed by and he still stood, without saying a single word, thinking what to do. On one hand, he didn;t want to open up, the story of his eighteenth birthday was incredibly painful and personal experience to be shared so freely, on the other hand he yearned for your understanding.

"Alright", he broke the silence:"Let's make a deal, you answer my questions and I'll tell you the whole story after. Deal?"

"Deal".

Diluc looked at you again, looked at the bruises and cuts, still peeking through the bandages and for a second his mind lit up with one thought alone: what disgusting bastard did that to you. He suppressed the rapidly rising rage, deciding to start from the most important.

"Is my leave the only reason why you decided to stay?" his heart picks up the pace again, he needs to know the answer.

"Basically yes, you knownI didn’t do it for my parents… I just.. That tragedy, I know it's not my place, but… I always wanted what happened to you. I asked this question to myself everyday and night, and I missed you terribly".

His breath hitched and he lowered his gaze. For some reason you always managed to fluster him with the words alone, even if it wasn't your intention.

"Your parents must be happy", h e changed the topic, stifling the heat in his heart.

"Yeah, they're ecstatic that I stopped being difficult and made their aspirations real. Hm, do you have any other questions?"

"What happened to you? ",he pointed at the bandages covering most of your body.

"Ah, catching treasure hoarders does that to you, usual stuff", you dismissed his concerns and Diluc started seeing red from the way your voice remained so calm and unbothered. Usual stuff? Usual stuff?!

"Grandmaster could send anyone else", he snapped:"Favonius Order has more than plenty of vision holders, they should've sent one, instead of you! You could die!".

Diluc’s sudden explosion left you speechless, but soon your own weaved words of irritation:"Ordo Favonius doesn't consist of Jean and Kaeya only. We can't let them handle all the hard and dangerous business all the time. Ordinary people like me can still help, even if the gods didn’t favour us. Don't think of me as some helpless idiot just because I have no shiny vision to show off"

Your heated response seemed to work and Diluc turned red from embarrassment, realizing how annoyed you got, despite the worry for your health and still present anger at the other knights for letting you get hurt. He also didn’t like how you looked at him, reprimanding and disappointed.

"Alright, sorry", he cleared his throat:"where were you before? I haven't seen you anywhere"

"City gates aren't the only thing that needs guarding. I was sent to the Liyue border, to make sure that no treasure gang crosses it. I think I will get sent there again, once I fully recover".

Diluc got angry at that too, yet this time he suppressed unpleasant feelings, already knowing how you will rebuke and reprimand him again. There's no convincing to be done, as you won't change your opinion. You left him no choice for what he was going to do.

"Alright, you answered all my questions", he said before changing topic again:"Did painkillers start working? I have another".

Being so engrossed in the conversation you forgot about the ache, yet once he mentioned it your body started to hurt with a renewed strength.

"Yes, I would like one", you decided and Diluc vanished in the unlit hall yet again.

"Here", he handed the small bottle to you already opened. The new substance was different, sweet and viscous. You managed to take two sips before your eyelids started to feel up with lead, and soon even lifting a hand seemed like a highly arduous task. Whatever the thing that Diluc gave you wasn't a painkiller.

"What…", you uttered, before your body relaxed and you fell asleep once again. Diluc bent over, looming over your unconscious form, as his hands carefully took the bottle away. He didn’t want it to somehow fall and injure you

This is a necessary measure, Diluc assured himself, before making a plan of actions. He would need to fake your disappearance and forge enough leads to direct investigation into the completely opposite direction, but now he needed to wake Adelinde up and ask her to prepare the room in the basement. He didn't want you to be uncomfortable in your new home.

#yandere genshin impact #Yandere genshin impact x reader #Yandere diluc x reader #Yandere imagine #Yandere #male yandere #yandere x reader #my writing

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aggravatetheaxe · 3 years

Note

“maybe you should take long, good look in the mirror and realize that i was never the problem.''

for bo 😤😤 need me some angst with him

angst prompts

cw: straight angst/no comfort, mentions of cheating, arguing and name calling, Bo being a dick, allusions to noncon, shouting, just generally a very unhealthy relationship

gender neutral, Angery reader!

Masterlist

It had been an accident.

There'd been a fight - another fight about something trivial, as always. Bo had kicked you out of the house, and you'd gotten in the car and just chosen a direction. At first, it had been with the intention of never coming back, but as the miles wore you down, your anger was replaced with hopelessness.

You could never really leave Ambrose.

All you had felt when entering the bar was an empty hollow in your chest, a hollow you'd filled with drink after drink, hoping the alcohol could help you forget who you were. The guy sitting next to you had been friendly and patient. He'd listened as you opened up about your husband - listened in a way Bo rarely did. For some reason, in your state, it had seemed like the most romantic thing in the world...

You weren't proud of what you had done. It had been nearly noon by the time you slunk back into Ambrose with your tail between your legs. There was no hiding any of it from Bo. The bastard seemed to smell when something was wrong.

The fact that you were in the living room instead of six feet under was testament to how much he must care. But it sure didn't feel like it. He'd been berating you for what felt like hours. All he could talk about was how hurt he was and how stupid and useless you were for hurting him.

At first, you'd cried, begged for forgiveness. After a while, you'd gone numb. Now, you were nearly shaking with anger. As if you've never done anything regrettable in your life, Bo Sinclair. As if he wouldn't have done the same thing in your position.

"I'm a lotta things, sweetheart" - that crazy-making scoff of his - "but I ain't no cheater."

Those were the words that finally pushed you over the edge. To hear him compare the monstrous things he had done, all the horror and torture and murder, to a mistake you'd made in a moment of desperation ... the indignant rage was too much too quickly.

Against your better judgement, you stamped your foot, opening fire: "Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!"

Bo was stunned for a moment, eyes searching you. His lips pulled back to spit some new venom your way, but before he could, you were shouting.

"I get it, okay? I fucked up! You think I don't know that? You think I don't regret what I did?"

"S'cuse me, you fucked up? Fucked up?" Every condescending word burned like acid. "Ya just slipped and some other guy's dick was in your mouth, that it? What're you gonna tell me next, he took advantage of you? Huh? You were too loaded to know any better?"

You narrowed your eyes, trying to see anything but red. "How dare you. How fucking dare you!" The urge to punch that snarl right off his face was almost overwhelming as you took a step closer. "So, what, I'm supposed to have boundless forgiveness and empathy when you shout or hit or fucking murder people, but you can't extend the same to me when I make one mistake - "

"Mistake!"

" - you fucking hypocrite!"

"You cheated on me," he roared, unafraid to get right up in your face. "That's one hell of a mistake!"

"I didn't make it for no reason. At least he actually listened to what I had to say! At least he acted like - "

"You fuckin' whore."

" - he cared instead of brushing me off and ignoring me. I'm your spouse and you won't even give me the time of day anymore! You don't touch me, you barely even look at me - "

"Bullshit!"

"What was I supposed to do? I miss being treated like a fucking human, Bo. Who are you?!"

Bo loosed an indignant laugh, pure hatred reigniting in his eyes. "You leave and go out actin' like a tramp and that's somehow my fault?"

"Leave?" you shrieked. "You kicked me out!"

"You're lucky I don't kill you!" he returned in kind. "You're lucky I ain't blown your head off yet, way you're always needling - "

"You can't take Daddy's shotgun to every one of your problems, Bo." You spat at his feet and showed him both middle fingers. "Fuck you."

The way his gaze darkened, you weren't sure you'd come out of this argument alive. But a startling clarity gripped you: you didn't care. You didn't care if he murdered you like all the others. You were the best thing to have happened to him in a long time, and he'd burned it up and thrown it away.

If he couldn't treat you with grace after all you'd been through with him, if he couldn't accept that you'd been trying to nurse a wound he'd given you ... if he was gonna kill you now, after everything, he deserved to be alone, and you'd rest easy knowing he was fucking miserable.

"You can kill me," you spat, meeting his gaze squarely, "but maybe you should take a good, long look in the mirror and realize I was never the problem."

An unsettling silence filled the living room for a few moments. Bo's face was red, veins pulsing, and you were certain that was the last thing you'd see.

You couldn't help but jump in surprise when he turned and flipped the coffee table instead, his shouted curses mingling with the sound of exploding cups and splintering wood.

He was out the front door before you could say anything more. The Chevy's engine growled like an animal warning you not to approach, so you simply listened as his tires rolled over the gravel and away from the house.

You wondered if he'd look back at the house in that rear-view mirror - and if he'd catch his own reflection.

#bo sinclair #bo sinclair angst #bo sinclair x reader #bo sinclair x y/n #bo sinclair x you #bo sinclair imagine #slasher x you #slasher x reader #slasher x y/n #written

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franki-lew-yo · 3 years

Text

The Romantic (2009, R, Gothic Fantasy/Horror), aka the most forgotten animated film in the world

What if I told you there was a movie under serious threat of becoming lost media with no clear reason as to WHY it's been lost other than no one has apparently watched it besides me and a few people on Reddit? What if I told you that movie wasn't half bad and would no doubt have some interest peeked if anyone DID know about it?

The name of that movie is The Romantic.

It was released in 2009 and it's Rated R for nudity and sex scenes [insert Robbie Rotten meme here], though none of it too graphic. It was a pet project created by animator Michael P. Heneghan, originally starting as a flash project for his animation class before he expanded it into a feature film. The film was inspired by movies such as The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, but what I see every time I look at it is a touch of Jhonen Vasquez, Tim Burton, and Roman Dirge- the guy behind Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl. It's flash animation especially remind me of the puppet-rigged toons of the 2000s (again like Salad Fingers or Lenore). It's not bad, it's just not inherently 'feature film' quality flash, nor is it exceptionally artistic like Sita Sings the Blues in it's simplicity. Like, really, if you happen to find this thing it's not the worst animated project at all it's just amateur for a professional production. I've seen worse flash movies. Heck, if The Romantic were released in separate parts on youtube or Newgrounds as a series (ala Homestuck) I'm sure it would have been really successful and totally in it's element. But it wasn't.

Because next to no one has seen it and I'm lucky to have not only ever seen it when it was available for free but have also found it recently (hush hush, I ain't telling you how) I'm going to actually give you all a plot synopsis under the cut. There will be some details I leave out and I think I've spelled some characters names wrong. It's a bit of a surrealist film as well, so you might need some things explained.

Spoilers ahead:

The Romantic is set in an autumnal, surrealist world inhabited by humans and monsters and ruled by three gods; Po the goddess of love; Pik the god of Hate; and Pjorrc the god of time though Pjorrc was made to live inside a pumpkin moon as everything he touched rabidly aged and died.

((Tapestry art featuring the main three gods of the film.))

A young man (called “Romance” or “The Romantic” by the other characters) performs a bull sacrifice in order to summon Abbledepopa, the unseen creator of the other gods and ‘storyteller’ of the world. The sacrifice does not conjure Abbledepopa but, when Romance spares a monster that was ready to eat him, the monster tells him of a profit named Patience. Patience is a foul-mouthed dwarf living alone with an army of babies who points Romance in the direction of Po.

((Romance outside of Patience's house.))

Romance wants the god’s help because he has fallen out of love with his girlfriend. Po grants him his desire and restores his love only for Romance to return home and find his girlfriend with another man. Blinded by heartache and rage, Romance kills her. He then swears vengeance on the gods for ‘making’ him do it. In the midst of this vow, a corrupt prophet called Fat Daddy kills the queen of Vauxhaul (Romance's home) and her guards, and forges a new body for his newborn son with their bodies. Fat Daddy rallies the townsfolk behind him in supposedly finding the Queen’s murder into follow a new religion called "The Poetic End".

((Romance (right) besides the monster he spared at the beginning of the movie.))

Patience accompanies Romance on his quest and tells him to take Po’s mask, which hides her true face, once he kills her. Romance buys Po’s trust by weaving her a tapestry that tells her story: in the dawn of time Po and Pjorrc were in love. However, Pjorrc gradually became distant and Po became resentful when their daughter, Love, earned Po's original title as the god of romance and love.

In the present day, Romance sleeps with Po for over a year before finally killing her and taking her mask. He and Patience return to his home of Vauxhul only to be chased out by Fat Daddy’s personal army. They flee to Marshallton, the town nearest to the god Pik.

((Romance's hometown of Vauxhul. ))

The king of Marshallton, King Crookie, tells Romance of a prophecy he, Patience, Fat Daddy and all the gods are a part of and that the world is soon to change. Romance then fights and successfully kills Pik when he shows the god of hate his reflection in a mirror King Crookie gave him, but not before losing his hand to Pik.

When Romance comes down the mountain he learns from Patience that nine years have passed since his fight with Pik began. Patience reveals to Romance what Pik saw in the mirror that allowed Romance to take the killing blow; after Love had grown up and married, Po asked Pik to tell her where her husband was always running off to. Pik reluctantly revealed Pjorrc was disguising himself as a human and married a mortal woman. Po found Pjorrc and his pregnant second wife, forcing Pjorrc to leave his human family behind, but not before asking his wife to name their son “Patience”. In retaliation for his treachery, Po proceeded to sleep with fifty men and produce the fifty bastard children in Patience’s house.

((Fat Daddy, the main villain.))

Marshallton and the entire rest of the world has fallen to the rule of Fat Daddy, who captures Romance and Patience. Fat Daddy tortures Patience into telling him how to get to Pjorrc but is unable to convince Romance to take part in his ‘new world’ or give him Po’s mask. Romance and Patience escape and leave the village to be torn apart by the fifty babies Po had, now transformed into veracious monsters after Patience didn’t feed them for the past ten years. Romance confronts Patience when he realizes the latter is Pjorrc’s son. Patience calls Romance out on his mantra of vengeance and points out that all his decisions are his own, not the gods, and instructs him to seek Love herself in Po’s basement. Patience then attempts to confront Pjorrc but is cornered and killed by Fat Daddy before he can do so.

In Po’s basement, Romance finds Love nailed to a wall, her face torn off and half eaten by her deformed husband. Love tells Romance that Po ripped off her daughter’s face in rage over Pjorrc’s infidelity and Pjorrc did not intervene fast enough. Po then threw Love into her basement, turned Love’s husband into a monster, and wore her daughter’s face as a mask - which Romance had broken into pieces moments ago after Patience had shown him his face in King Crookie’s mirror. Romance then finds Pjorrc hanging himself. As he dies, Pjorrc tells Romance to take the hand Fat Daddy had cut off and sew it onto himself, which will in turn help Romance defeat Abbledepopa.

Romance traverses the wasteland and does not find Abbledepopa, but instead a golden loom. Having seen all the destruction he and others had caused, Romance sits upon the loom and accepts his fate as the new ‘storyteller’ of the world, as he begins weaving a new one...

---

I mentioned before the animation quality of the film and why maybe that caused people to overlook it. The only other thing I could complain about on a technical level with The Romantic is it's sound design. Some of the voices and music is a little too quiet and so all these key details I had to go through the film a few times to really piece together. But that leads me to the thing I like about this movie and I'm sure others would to: the lore.

It's very hard to create a new fantasy world w it's own customs, religions, history and rules out of the blue as any YA Harry Potter/Hunger Games ripoff book could tell you. The Romantic is so unique in how it handles the pantheon and culture of these three gods and their kin; really only four or five characters throughout the entire story aren't connected to the gods or prophecy in some way, as there's the main three gods, Abbeldepappa, and the prophets Patience, Love and Fat Daddy, who make up your main cast besides Romance. There's a lot that's intentionally left unexplained and other info that must be explained, like Pjorrc and Po's marriage and Romance's feelings towards the gods, if we want to understand the former. The movie is paced pretty well and knows when to follow up on what, it's just that again some of those animation and editting shortcomings might make it hard to understand...but I don't think THAT hard. Look, if someone can enjoy Starchaser: The Legend of Orin or even better surrealist world-building films ((Fantastic Planet comes to mind)), then I say there's no reason The Romantic wouldn't have a following. There's no other way I can articulate why and what doesn't work about the story except just to recommend you watch it yourselves, but before I get into that I want to talk themes...because I love the themes and tone of The Romantic.

I revisited The Romantic a week before I made myself watch Centaurworld and The Owl House for the first time...and what a week that was~! The Romantic has the vibe of those kinds of shows along with Adventure Time and Infinity Train ((so I hear, I haven't watched the latter)). It's surreal and you'll only marvel at 'woooah wut an acid trip' for so long before you get into the vibe of the universe. It also reminded me substantially of the Broadway musical Hadestown and not just because this movie is also a self-contained, somewhat self aware fable about the relationships between humans and gods - it's very raw in how the characters talk. It's very emotional and blunt in how kind and how cruel they can be, and it doesn't make excuses or really worships any one of them. Romance himself is the world's most likable Incel: he murders a woman he thought he needed to love and blames his emotions on the gods of those passions...except the gods AREN'T the manifestations of love, time, and hate - they simply dictate and oversee it in the lives of men. It's a dynamic I really like in religious works where Gods are powerful but not all knowing or puppet masters to everyone's design- they have morality too and there is only so much you can blame and get from them.

"You made your gods into excuses and your excuses into gods!"

-Patience. This here is a cool quote. I like this quote.

No matter what, The Romantic is not gonna be a film for everyone. We all have our tastes - I think I'm drawn to it and accepting because I've come to love these kind of worlds that used to keep me up at night - these trippy 70s inspired fantasy landscapes given a whole Avatar: The Last Airbender degree of worldbuilding and character worth. It also doesn't feel exploitive in it's violence, it's sexuality, it's grimmness - it doesn't feel like it's trying to hard or going over the top because it happens to be an adult animated film, something that I love in movies like 9 or Hair High but really turns me off in stuff like Sausage Party or Wizards. Whatever go watch The Romantic...

if you can.

-----

When I first saw this film in 2016 it was actually very accessible and was even uploaded to youtube by the creator himself. I don't know WHAT happened to Michael P. Heneghan, but simply put, the man's disappeared...like...REALLY disappeared.

Lookit his IMDB. He has The Romantic and a wapping two other projects to his name. His Twitter isn't very helpful either. He last updated in early 2020 and he says next to nothing about The Romantic. It's so odd that he would one day be happy with the film enough to host it on Vimeo and Youtube but then just cop out.

According to a Reddit user: "On Valentines Day 2011, Heneghan released the film for free online through all kinds of platforms including direct download, bittorrent, Vimeo, and even directly through Archive.org. He even joked about releasing a 300 gig uncompressed version.

I know I watched it on Vimeo probably as recently as 2016. Now I can't find it anywhere. The website is dead, the Vimeo video went private, even the archive.org version has been taken down. It really looks like he wanted to wipe it off the face of the internet. His newer website mentions it, but again, the Vimeo link is dead and even that website is closed for business."

It's weeeird. What happened Michael?

And yes, obviously, other people worked on the movie.

No - I can't find out anything about them either.

I'm betting on three theories at the moment: 1) this film is an SCP or some Candle Cove weirdness with only me and a handful of people ANYWHERE remembering it, 2) something weird is going on w Michael Heneghan and it involves too something about this film. It was a scam or a scheme or a hidden agenda weirdness, 3) Heneghan's doing okay he just doesn't like this film anymore and wants it hidden while he takes a break.

Look, I get it Michael! What was once our life's worth can become cringe as you improve as an artist - you're not the person making the stuff you were ten years ago...but you should still have the film kept alive somehow. Someway.

I'm seriously the only person to have ever made fan art of this movie on the internet. That just doesn't happen, and I don't think I like being in a fandom of one. The Romantic is a testament to the power of design and storytelling > animation quality itself. Too often I see people equate good animation with smooth animation, with a budget with squash and stretch. These animations are good but art is diverse and there's so many kinds of films out there, the value of the medium can't just be in one style/form. There's a lot of honestly wonderful pieces of art out there if you know where to look and you're willing to see where it leads you.

Don't let The Romantic be the most forgotten movie of all time. Reblog this post. Show it to your friends. PM the animation community reviewer people like Saberspark and someone who isn't Saberspark and smuggle them a copy.

Keep telling the story...

#Franki's Features #The Romantic #The Romantic Michael Heneghan #The Romantic 2009 #animation #animation community #underrated animation #lost media #horror animation

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bored-storyteller · 3 years

Text

Okay, I can't find where this request went anymore, but I'm sure it existed (or I wouldn't have written this). I'm going to try to look again in the mail. Anyway, our boys (Vil, Azul, Leona) a little sad and the reader comforting them with hugs.

54- Twisted Wonderland, Vil, Azul, Leona x Reader

His life isn't that easy. Back straight, head up, be elegant, be polite, never show the weight that falls on your shoulders. This is Vil's life, nothing more, nothing less.

As beautiful as a marble statue, a precious object that can only be admired, not touched. Sometimes he himself forgets that he is human.

It's hard to never break down, it's hard to keep up appearances, and you make it more difficult. You, the most precious thing he has.

He should feel free with you, right? Isn't that the cliché of every love story? But he can't really know, he's always the bad guy in stories.

So even with you it is the appearance that counts him, because you love him for that, right? It's not like there's much more to him than just his appearance - and apparently not even that is enough to give him any real value.

He is tired, that's why he has such negative thoughts. A restful sleep and the next day it will be a fragrant flower again, but it is still early to go to sleep.

"Vil?" Your angelic voice rouses him. You are there, stuck a few steps behind him, you look at him doubtfully and his heart trembles. Oh, did you notice too much wrinkle in his expression?

"Vil." You call his name again, and he is already preparing to tell you how tiring his day has been to clear the doubts that are likely creeping into you.

Vil is not someone used to being touched, he is a precious work of art after all, yet he is convinced that even a caress from you could at that moment bring him relief. But he has to keep up appearances.

"My dear?" His questioning smile tries not to be too guilty under your worried eyes that scrutinize him.

After a few seconds of silence, you are moving. You are slow, yet fast. Your arms slide gently under his, and your body tightens to his chest. Your warmth invades him as your face seeks refuge under his chin, lovingly rubbing your nose against his neck.

"It's cold ..." You murmur, and this is the justification you use, but he knows that you have only read inside him, and you have simply taken some of his weight for you.

"You smell good." You continue, while his arms hold you slowly, in a silent request for affection.

“Oh yeah… it's a new perfume you know? I thought…"

"Yes, that perfume is good too, but you also smell of something else."

He just walks away, so that his purple eyes can look for the answer in yours for that doubt you have posed to him. There is no need for him to ask, he knows that you will give him the answer.

"The scent of Vil." Your cheerful and affectionate smile erases all poison from his heart, and he smiles at you as he does not smile at anyone else as he silently welcomes you back against him.

Who knows, maybe with you appearances are completely useless.

A faint sigh comes from the dorm leader's lips to confide only in the air the pressure he is feeling inside him.

He is an excellent trader, a businessman, an excellent speaker and a perfect gentleman. Is not enough. He is never enough, and he probably never will be.

Sometimes the slander and contempt of many also burn him. Not everyone looks favorably on him, Azul knows, it's the price he himself chose to pay - at least he got something in return, right?

He isn't sure. Days like this, flat and heavy, occasionally bring back the most latent insecurities of him. Not that he shows it, only his eyes barely reflect the weight in his heart if you look at them carefully.

You are a relief, usually. Like every day he waits for you to come and greet him, but more than every day he would like to drop everything else, take you in his arms and hold you there. Yet despite his appearances he is still so shy. Sometimes even your gaze makes him blush, you know it, and you also know how much he cares about his figure and his representation in front of others, so you never take a step too far towards him, and he never has the courage to ask.

"Azul?"

Your voice finally reaches his ears, your bright eyes peeking through the crack of the half-open door before you allow yourself to enter.

"Oh, here you are ... give me a second, I'm almost done." His voice is as firm and calm as ever. He doesn't look at you, it's not strange, but the way he bows his head to avoid you sends you strange meanings.

He doesn't have the courage to look at you, the need he has for you makes him feel ashamed. A child who needs pampering, that's what he is at that moment. A nullity in front of you.

He feels you close, you are next to his chair, standing, looking at him. You don't move away, and he understands that you want his attention, he won't be able to ignore you for long.

"Do you need something?" He finally asks you, and his eyes force them to lift to your face, and he is surprised when he sees you smiling.

You just stare at him for a few moments, without giving him an answer, and then suddenly your arms are around his shoulders, his cheek gently resting on your shoulder.

"I missed you, Azul!" Your light but cheerful voice caresses his ear, while you hug him protectively, full of affection.

"We only met last night ..." he murmurs, in a tone that wanders between wonder and relief.

“I know, but I don't care. I missed you." You confirm again, as you make your way into his lap and let him hold you.

Your weight on him is reassuring, your touch and your presence welcoming.

"I can't hide anything from you, right?" He whispers in your ear, as if he is afraid of being heard by others, even if only the two of you exist in the room.

"No, I would say no." You mutter satisfied, snuggling up to him.

Usually he is so good at silencing that part of him, but when that black feeling arises it feels like a living being inside him struggling to get out and leave him weak, empty, mocked. He always swallows it, never allows it to peek out. Sometimes it curls up in the stomach, other times in the lungs, or gets stuck in his ribcage making his heart heavy, almost blocking his breath.

Leona is good at silencing those wounds to his pride, but sometimes it happens that a gesture, a laugh, a word at the wrong time weaken his defenses, taking him away from the already heavy looks of others.

In the greenhouse he is alone with himself. No, he's not there to sleep, he just needs to calm down. For some reason today it is difficult, more than usual. The weight in his chest causes him to hunch over, head bowed, ears down. His hands are left in his lap as he sits hidden among the plants, he almost seems to be meditating. Calm down, calm down, calm your anger. It is what he repeats to himself like a mantra as he listens to his own breath. Nobody can beat you, nobody can hurt you.

No, no one is going to hurt him - no one thinks he's worth hurting, do they? All that he is, all that he knows he is worth, is always trampled on, torn to pieces, thrown away by others, as if it were of no use.

"Caught!"

Your weight is never too violent against his sturdy back, but his surprise causes him to lean forward slightly.

You laugh as your hands gently tighten around his neck, and he growls.

"Idiot! Are you crazy ?! " His words are acidic, but by now you've got used to it. You are the only one who can ever afford to do such a thing with him, you are the only one he can forgive.

He doesn't realize it right away, but that little leap to his heart you gave him has suddenly lightened his mind. He only knows when your arms go away from him.

Wait, stay still.

That thought unexpectedly reaches his mind, but he is quickly kicked out. He won't beg for mercy, not even from you, especially with you.

Still, even if he doesn't speak, your weight doesn't stray too far. Your arms now slowly encircle his stomach as you drop relaxed on his back, like a lion cub on his father's back.

With your head resting behind his ribcage, Leona knows you're listening to his heartbeat. He knows this because he is listening to you too, he listens to your breath which naturally coordinates with the muscle moving slow and powerful in his chest. And then he understands that you understand his need that he pretends not to have.

"You are so strong, Leona."

And that's enough.

A light sigh caresses his lips: "Of course I'm strong, otherwise you-"

"I'd be fine!" You defend yourself, knowing full well where he wants to hit.

You don't see him, but a proud smile is painted on his face as he continues on his way: "Otherwise you would have already been eaten by now."

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #leona kingscholar #vil schoenheit #azul ashengrotto x reader #azul ashengrotto #twst leona #leona kingscholar x reader #vil x reader #azul x reader #vil schoenheit x reader #twst azul #leona x reader #request

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violenceenthusiast · 3 years

Text

ok i had a thought that makes me wanna dip my head in acid but in a soft way...

dean and claire having a father/daughter saturday of fun and low-grade mischief, going to an arcade and joke-fighting over what stuffed animal to get with their tickets and getting slushies and while they’re taking a break to grab burgers claire says “yknow i’ve been meaning to go get- wanna come with me while i get a new piercing??”

and dean pinches in the direction of her ear a little and says “what, you don’t have enough of those already?” as if he doesn’t think they’re the coolest thing.

she waves him off, eyes flicking between the burger in her hands and the table “i don’t know i just thought it’d be something else fun to do today.”

dean’s only half teasing when he asks “you want me there to hold your hand?”

claire rolls her eyes and looks to the side with half a smile, “oh shut up.” but it’s true, she does want him there to hold her hand– she may be a hardcore hunter who will take a knife cut or a monster bite in stride, but she always gets a little nervous before each piercing. maybe having dean there will make it just a little more manageable.

––

they get to the studio and claire signs the forms, picks out her jewelry, takes a seat to wait while they get ready for her. dean is pacing, looking carefully in each case, at each display. the nice person behind the counter sees him looking and asks “did you want to get something pierced today too?” claire cracks a smile at that and dean looks up at the counter clerk a little wide-eyed, eyebrows raised and mouth half open in surprise, huffs out a breath and looks down as half a nervous smile pulls at the left side of his mouth. he sticks one hand in his pocket and gives one wave with the other as he says “ha. nah, no- just here for her today” as he gestures at claire. he goes to sit with her until the piercer calls them back to the room that’s set up for them.

claire is getting a conch piercing and it’s going more easily than usual- partly because dean is there with her, partly because there are shockingly few nerve endings in the middle of the ear cartilage, and partly because the woman doing the piercing is insanely pretty and insanely good at what she does (she used to be a phlebotomist so she knows a little something about blood, needles, nervousness, and a given person’s propensity for fainting). while the piercer is busy marking the ear, claire looks over at dean in his chair and unable to contain the question any longer asks him, “you ever thought about getting a piercing?”

“me? nah.. it’s just not- i mean they would’ve gotten ripped out for sure by some- by accident.” he was about to say ‘by some monster’ but caught himself before he really weirded out the nice piercer woman. he hadn’t thought about him and piercings in a long time. he had slowly stopped wearing even rings and bracelets as much over the years in case they got caught on something during a hunt (though now he had a new ring on his left hand that he never took off). a piece of jewelry actually in the body was even more of a ridiculous idea for a hunter. but he wasn’t a hunter any more, not really. hadn’t been for about a year. after chuck and getting cas back safe and human.. with sam and eileen running their witchy little hunter hub from the bunker.. it had just seemed like his opportunity and his time to break out of it all. wow okay in that split second he trailed so far off from where he started.. where did he start? ...piercings! right. he remembers being young and not being able to take his eyes off the men in bars with the metal glinting in their ears, noses, lips.. now he knew the staring had been more about the men than the jewelry but it hadn’t not been about the jewelry either. was this one of those things he got to think about now, again, for the first time in a lifetime?

claire takes a moment to make sure she isn’t woozy any more and gets up to go look in the mirror at her new adornment. she smiles and dean snaps out of his own little world to say “you like it?”

she looks at him through the mirror “love it.” and then, mischievous, “your turn.”

“my turn??”

“oh absolutely.” a moment of raised eyebrows and incredulous silence then, “if you decide you hate it you can just take it out. c’mon i saw your face, you want one you can’t hide from me.”

she’s right. he protests weakly, but she knows him all too well at this point and she’s right and the goading from the piercer only encourages her.

“okay okay fine. but nothing too showy.”

they decide on a rook. it’s not too prominent but it’s definitely there, definitely unique, it will look okay on it’s own if he never gets another piercing, and if he has to jump in on an odd hunt it’s far enough into the ear that it would be hard for it to get caught on anything or ripped out. dean picks a simple, stainless steel piece with a lapis lazuli setting– blue for his husband (though if you asked him he would deny that’s why he chose it. but only at first).

he can’t believe how jittery he is about the whole thing, but this time claire holds his hand. it’s over before it’s begun and he thought it might be painful like the tattoo was, or like any of the number of painful little things that have happened to him over the years but it’s not, it mostly just feels strange. it’s nice to be surprised like that.

dean hops off the bench like claire did and goes to the mirror half expecting to hate what he sees. but he’s surprised for the second time in barely a minute. the glint of the metal in his ear doesn’t just look good, it looks right. like it was meant to be there and he had been awaiting it’s arrival but didn’t know it. something hard to name, something small, something he didn’t know was missing until he found it had just found its way to him, slotted into place and settled in his ribs. he feels quieter but also on fire– like he’d be satisfied to just sit and read a book, like he could face god and win (again).

from behind him claire asks, “like it?”

he smiles. “love it.”

––

they kick around for a little while longer, each of them forgetting about their new piercings until they catch sight of the other’s or until they catch their reflection in a shop window and take a second to admire the newness. eventually claire begrudgingly admits she has to get back to campus to get some work done. dean drops her off at her dorm with a hug and a “stay out of trouble”.

dean makes the drive home to cas, just lost enough in happy thoughts and memories from the day that he forgets to put on any music until he’s already half way home.

he gets to the house and finds cas watering the plants in the living room. he leans in the doorframe, watching his love gently tend to each plant in turn. dean doesn’t say anything, he knows cas knows he’s there and will greet him when he’s finished seeing to his darlings. in the meantime dean gets to delight in the sight of the curve of cas’ back as he bends this way and that to reach the plants, the delicate and reverent care he shows each leaf and vine.

cas finishes his routine, sets the water down and turns to greet dean. he freezes half way to saying hello because something is.. something.. something is... he can’t put a name to it, nothing is wrong but dean is.. shifted. not different.. but different. dean is holding his head oddly turned to the side and it doesn’t help either that dean is smiling around a secret and they both know it. cas narrows his eyes but brushes off the feeling long enough to cross the room and give dean a kiss, quick but whole and familiar. dean turns his head to look at a plant and ask a question about it and “accidentally” reveal his new addition. cas, who hasn’t taken a single step backwards since coming over to kiss dean, of course sees the jewelry immediately and exclaims before dean even has a chance to start his made-up question.

after some very amusing joke-yelling from both sides, it’s revealed that cas just absolutely loves it. and not that dean was worried cas would hate it but dean was a little worried cas would hate it. or worse, that he would judge it. but cas loves that dean tried something new, loves that he chose something blue, loves that dean seems just that little bit more at home in himself. and from the slight blush in his cheeks and ears, dean can tell cas thinks it’s a little bit sexy too.

––

dean keeps thinking about how much he liked getting a piercing. he gets it on a fundamental level now, gets claire and her array of silver and gold. he’s got the taste for it now, the itch. he’s thinking about going back for another one. or two. but what else, what next? he cheekily wonders about picking based on what would drive cas wild.

...dean goes back in secret a month and a half later to get his nips pierced. it doesn’t stay secret for long. not from cas, at least.

#dean winchester #claire novak #dad dean #bi dean #destiel fanfic #destiel #retired dean #supernatural #spn fic #spn fluff #finale fix it #saileen mention #dean can have a little gender euphoria as a treat #gay angel but make him more jewish #1.7k words #ok maybe i need to follow more spn blogs i only have like 5 rn #anyone wanna guess how many piercings i have based solely on reading this fic lmao #fern posting

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starryse · 3 years

Text

The Star Pitcher

Juyeon x Reader

The Boyz high school au!, 60’s au!, baseball team TBZ au!

6.8k Words

Summary: The perks of baseball season consisted of seeing your cute guy friends in their uniforms, soft pretzels, and the excuse to get out of your house and sit in the warm summer sun. The downside? One of your cute guy friends was also the team’s pitcher who you were madly in love with.

Masterlist

The neon lights cascaded across the line of skateboards and bikes outside of the diner, the shining glare reflecting onto the window next to your booth. The sky was darkening to a deep shade of purple, the street lights and passing by cars offering comfort in the oncoming night. Dusk was a beautiful time in the city, though the shadows that came from the groves of trees when you walked through the trails were disheartening to say the least. You weren’t as lucky as the rest of your bunch, not owning a motorcycle or your dads hand me down car- you weren’t even allowed a skateboard because it was “unfair” to your younger siblings. This made the long journey home after your daily hangouts quite dreadful; and as summer time grew closer, the nights became shorter, meaning the comforting blue sky disappeared twice as fast.

Your face scrunched in distaste as you focused on the increasingly dark outside, not registering the conversations going on around you. The boy next to you noticed your dazed state, his eyes glancing down to your hands as they twirled around the straw in your half empty milkshake.

“You okay?”

Blinking a few times, the dryness of your eyes slowly faded as you snapped your attention to your disformed straw in front of you. You hummed, “yeah why?” your finger gliding across the rim of the glass, strawberry cream coating your skin in result. Juyeon watched you wipe the residue on the bottom of the Jean jacket he let you borrow, his sharp eyes enlarging as he winced- his mom would surely kill him later. The slicked hair boy was brought back to his senses when you finally looked over at him, his mouth quickly stammering a response, “oh, I uh just thought you seemed a little out of it,” Juyeon awaited your reaction, continuing when you simply shrugged, “you know I can drive you home, y/n”

You groaned, pushing your back into the booths cushion while pushing your drink closer to the window sill, “Juyeon-“

“I know I know, you don’t have to tell me twice” the huffing man leaned against the table, resting his chin against his propped up arm. You rolled your eyes, poking your pouting friend in his side, causing him to jump and swat away your hand, “Don’t be a baby, baby. I can handle myself okay?”

“Yeah Yeon, don’t be a baby. Y/n has made it very clear she doesn’t want any of us to take her home because she’s embarrassed by our presence” Hyunjae’s mocking tone ceases your hands from Juyeon’s sides.

“Wha- not true asshat” you didn’t bother in defending yourself anymore when it came to Hyunjae’s smart remarks, it was a hidden show of affection between the two of you. Though it didn’t stop you from tossing the ball of straw paper into his open cup of coke. That particular action gave you a disgusted look from the brunette, his lips moving as you could only imagine the mimicking words that spilled out.

Daily hangouts with your group of angsty, sarcastic boys was your favorite thing to do when you needed a much needed break. At the end of a long day, seeing the familiar 11 faces waiting for you at the school entrance was just what you needed to relieve stress. Even if they were possibly the most annoying people you have ever had the pleasure of knowing, they were your favorite humans. Maybe except the current boy beside you who’s shoulders were shaking against yours as he laughed at Eric’s sly comment. He wasn’t as annoying as the others. Then again, the hearts that soared around your eyes as you snuck glances towards him were a dead give away you were a bit biased- the heart wants what it wants. And in this case, yours most definitely wanted the handsome baseball player, Lee Juyeon.

“Earth to Y/n. Hellooo? We’re leaving, dummy.”

“Huh?” Your head snapped up to meet the annoyed expression of Sunwoo, eyes following the boys that had been piling out of the booth as you sat confused.

Sunwoo looked to Eric for assistance, knowing fair well why you had been blatantly zoned out the last 15 minutes. Eric nodded at Sunwoo, ushering for him to head out the door with the others as he mouthed an I got this.

“Cmon’ pretty girl, I think me and you need a Juyeon free night. What do you say?” Eric grabbed the jacket you had shrugged off over the back of the booth, tossing it over his shoulder while he stood waiting for you at the exit. God you were really whipped, Eric was pretty damn sure of that as he watched the puppy dog look you sent his way in response to his question. Knowing the answer, Eric wrapped his arm around your shoulder, tugging you closer as the two of you made way back to the rowdy group.

Most of the boys had took off towards their houses, only Juyeon, Kevin, Sunwoo, and Hyunjae remaining. The boys were sat along the curb of the parking lot, shared glasses of coke being passed around while they waited for their two youngest to return.

Sunwoo broke the silence, his infamous evil smirk pointed at Juyeon and Hyunjae, “I wonder what Y/n and Eric are doing” Three heads turned to the sighing boy, eyes scrunched in curiosity as they awaited Sunwoo’s next words.

“I mean, it has been awhile right? And those two are quiteee close”

Antagonizing. That’s all he’s doing.

Did the two gullible idiots whom were currently gawking at one another realize this? No. No they didn’t. The muttering boys scrambled up from their spots on the ledge, untied shoes tripping against the pebbles that had loosened from the cement as they rose quickly to find the “quite close” pair. Sunwoo’s hand clasped tightly against his mouth, the urge to fight the oncoming cackles growing harder as he watched the gangly men run into the bike racks, their ego’s too high to even care while they bolted for the diner’s door. Kevin, not remotely amused, watched in disapproval, knowing fair well that the hyena sounding laugh near him was that of pure provoktion at the gullible dancers who, at their own expense, were a tad finicky over their youngest friend.

“You know why they’re like that, right?”

Sunwoo nodded his head, sucking in a breath as his laughter died down. Of course he knew why, whether or not he liked it, he knew everything about the diverse set of feelings in the group. He sighed, tucking a leg close to his chest while the other kicked against the pavement, “yeah of course I know. I think everyone does except Y/n herself.”

The coke was bitter in Kevin’s mouth, the acidic taste tingling against the cuts on his lips. Having enough, he set the coke by Sunwoo, using the drink as a sort of share of thoughts between the two. Uttering a thank you, Sunwoo was quick to down the rest of the fizzy soda, a grotesque burp following. Loud laughter once again surrounded the curb, though this time sounds of disgust and displeasure joined as Kevin shoved the guilty party farther away from him, his left hand fanning the air away from his nose.

“God Sunwoo-“

“What, it was a great drink!”

You and Eric finally rounded the corner of the parking lot, a fighting cat and dog duo following close behind as they beat themselves up for listening to Sunwoo, yet again. Hearing the noises behind them, Kevin and Sunwoo turned to the 4 of you, looks of relief washing over them. Sunwoo stood up, dusting the dirt off of his track pants in the process, “God finally you idiots show up, did you not notice the darkness surrounding us?? It is,” he checked the thick silver watch decorated on his wrist, a scoff leaving his lips, “8 pm”

Eric snorted, rolling his eyes in response, “okay grandpa, let’s go then”

You stood against the small tree near the end of the street, your arms crossed against your chest to shield yourself from the growing winds. The cars passing by offered some light against the darkening sky, the diner’s lights beginning to dim as closing time got closer. Summer time was supposed to be warm and bright, and yet here you stood waiting for your friends, shivers running down your body while you glanced around the city's streets. Interrupting your small bruising session, the feeling of a shoulder knocking against yours had you turning to look at the culprit, your nerves calming at the familiar face.

“Hi”

“Hey” you grinned back, eyes scanning the pretty man. The moonlight brought a look of innocence to his face, the blue fluorescents casting shadows across his skin leaving only the bundle of stars in his dark eyes to light up his appearance. Juyeon was a human of the finest features, and a stellar personality to match. The duality his eyes could perceive was always interesting to watch, you never knew to expect his sharp gaze or soft looks of adoration. Tonight, you found yourself hoping for the second option.

Juyeon reached for your hand, tugging it into his as he placed both of them into his jacket pocket. His thumb ran circles over your knuckles, the slightly rough padding of his fingers locking between yours. Your eyes peered down to his jacket, stomach knotting at the sight of your hand with his. This was okay, right?

“I figured you were cold”

You lifted your head, free hand pushing away the strands of hair that blocked your vision. Juyeons sight was casted on the other boys, watching as they fought over who got to ride with him instead of skating home in the dark, “I saw Eric with the jacket I gave you, so I kinda assumed you would be freezing your ass off by now”

Juyeon’s taunt was meant to joke around with you, and normally you’d scowl then proceed to pick at him right back. But maybe it was the way he looked under the stars, or the way your hand felt great in his as the feeling brought you warmth. Or it could be the proximity between you two, shoulders pressed against one another in comfort against the wind. Either way, the options had the same anxious thoughts of feeling the need to get over the stupid crush on your friend. Your heart tugged at the thought, it was hard to move on from someone who hid you snacks in your room every time he came over. But having a crush on your best friend who you just knew was too out of your league? That was even worse.

“Y/n, let’s bounce. I wanna start that new film series before my mom gets home from the pub!”

Oh thank God for Eric Sohn.

Mentally letting out a breath of relief, you loosened your grip from Juyeons hand, slipping away from his hold in the process. Bidding the boy goodbye, you waved over your shoulder before jogging to Eric as he began to skate back to his house. Juyeon, on the other hand, stood stone cold, watching the two of you exchange laughs and smacks on each other’s arms. He knew it was ridiculous to be pissed over two friends getting along, so why was he squeezing his jacket sleeves just a tad too hard? His jaw was slack, teeth nipping at cheeks as he yelled for the three idiots, who were still fussing over who got to ride with him home, to give him his keys.

Thankful that the trip to Eric’s was much shorter than what would have been your lonely walk home, you were pleased to already be walking up the steps of his farm porch. Knowing there was no formality needed to invite you in, Eric simply unlocked the door and waited for you to step inside before he relocked it.

Eric’s house, much like him, was always comforting. His house smelt of pine and vanilla, not surprising since he too smelt similar to that. Eric’s bedroom was on the 2nd floor, whereas his parents slept downstairs (which made for great sleepovers so you didn’t have to worry about waking his mom up who works 2nd shift).

Your shoes were tossed to the side of the wall next to Eric’s, knowing how strict his mom was when it came to keeping the house tidy, you had a designated spot for your shoes whenever you visited. Eric, who was now passing you one of the waters he grabbed from the fridge, motioned his head to the stairs, silently telling you to make way to his room.

For a teenage boy, Eric’s room wasn’t nearly as messy as one would think. His clothes were tucked away in his dresser drawers or hanging behind his closest doors, leaving the messiest thing to be his un-made bed. You plopped yourself onto the nearest side of the bed, making room for Eric on the other side. The radio that usually sat on his side table was tossed in between you two, Eric’s fingers nimbly flicking between the stations to find the baseball film he had been non-stop talking about. The TV downstairs was off limits until his parents were home, they were quite finicky as the cost for the larger box tv was a little too much to be accidentally broken by their energetic son.

Settling yourself into his pillows, you tugged the closest blanket over your torso, legs curled up to press against your chest. Eric’s sudden exclaim had you giggling at his victorious outburst, his arms fist pumping the air before turning the volume on the gadget up. Jumping beside you, the blonde shimmied to your side, wrapping one arm behind your back and the other behind his head.

“I cannot wait to watch this, Younghoon told me it was the best movie he’s ever seen!” Eric was going on and on, his eyes lighting up as if he were the same moon that glared down at Juyeon earlier. Juyeon. Right. Why did your brain have to bring him up? As if you couldn’t escape the mere presence of him, he was filling your thoughts just as often.

Noticing your lack of response, Eric craned his head down to see you pressed against his shoulder blade, eyes stuck on the bed sheets beneath you. He should have known it would be nearly impossible to have a night without the pitcher of their own baseball team being brought up.

“I can feel you staring at me”

Eric scoffed, flicking the side of your temple while looking back at the radio, “yeah well I bet my sheets could say the same thing.”

Left hanging, Eric took notice real quick at the feeling of something wet drip onto his jeans. His inner baseball player came out as he swiftly moved you up to eye height, hands pushing your shoulders back to rest against his bed frame.

“Hey, look at me”

Before you even had the time to react, Eric was already gently lifting your face up to meet his. Your eyes raised to meet Eric’s concerned brown ones, though your vision was much blurrier compared to his you could imagine. His thumb was soft against your cheeks, blue sleeves wiping the few tears that escaped past your waterline. You felt terrible. Not just because of the unreciprocated feelings you had on Juyeon. But seeing the way your usual happy-go-lucky friend was looking at you as if you were the most fragile thing on the planet- man, that stung.

“What can I do to help, Y/n?” Eric’s voice was gentle, barely audible even. His palms never left their spot against your cheeks, his fingers lightly tracing across your skin to bring you ease.

The truth was, you didn’t know how he could help. Deep down you knew there wasn’t anything anyone could do to relieve the ache you felt every time you saw Juyeon; everytime you remember that he wasn’t interested in you like that, how his heart wasn’t set on you like yours was for him. Not only did you feel utterly helpless, but you felt the gnawing feeling that you were only being annoying, making a big deal out of a stupid crush.

With a shaky breath, you placed your hands on Eric’s before pulling them down to your lap, “I want you to help me move on.”

“Are you sure you’re fine? Because I have no problem keeping you here until you are”

“Yes Eric, I promise I’m okay” you slipped your shoe over your heel, “besides, I’ll see you at school tomorrow so you’ll know if I’m not, right?”

The pout on his face raised enough that he could mumble a Pinky Promise, as he tightened his pinky around yours. You laughed at his childish antics, pulling him over for a hug, “pinky promise,” you patted the top of his head, his chest huffing after, “don’t forget to be at my house before 6! Juyeon gets there around 6:15 so I want you there before he is”

Eric nodded, pushing you towards the door, “okay leave now because I have no self control and will definitely not let you leave if you don’t go now”

Mumbling strands of okay with giggles spewn between, you finally made it out the door and began the ever boring walk home.

**As soon as you stepped inside your house house, the weight that you thought was lifted off your shoulders came hurling itself right back, and this time it brought shame along with it. Normally when you felt like shit, you’d make yourself a bowl of cereal, turn on your radio, and listen to whatever Elvis Presley interview was on. This time, thanks to Miss Shame, that wouldn’t be enough to cure your self-pity moment; no, it was time to call in the big gun.

** “I’m sorry, you did what?” Sangyeon sat across from you, his legs tucked under his butt as he shifted his position so he could properly look at you.

“I had sex with Eric” your voice trailed off at the end, eyes glued to your hands that currently were tugging off loose string on your jeans.

The sound of silence only made you more tense, terrified of what your eldest friend was thinking, or even feeling, at the moment. Growing frustrated with the lack of response, you begin to try and explain yourself- though the assertive tone that Sangyeon had when he called your name out had you quickly pursing your lips.

Sangyeon went on a tangent for what felt like forever, his hands doing the dramatics besides the substantial amount of sighs he produced, “I- I just don’t think I understand why, emphasis on the why by the way,” his hands finally went down from their long phase of being tossed around in the air, “you would go and do something so stupid like that?”

“I told you-“

“Stop, I understand what you told me,” the frustrated man interrupted you, “I’m just failing to see why you both thought it was the correct solution”

Quite frankly you were puzzled about it yourself. Fucking your other best friend, and the one you didn’t have feelings for, definitely wasn’t in the itenery when you joined the odd bunch of athletes. You were frustrated. Depressed. And just tired of being the last choice. And in the moment, sitting there being comforted by Eric, you finally felt like you were the most important person in the world and not just the star pitcher of your school’s baseball teams groupie.

“Eric only did it because he knew I was hurting, he just thought he was being a good friend- which he was. As for me, well I. God Sangyeon I just-“ A tissue suddenly sat in your open palm, sangyeon softly smiling as pointed at your eyes. What the hell? We’re you seriously crying right now? Wiping the stray tears that had fallen, you took a long chug of your water before continuing, “I just wanted to be something important for once. I didn’t want to be the pathetic little girl that had a crush on her best friend, Juyeon, the popular pitcher who could have the hearts of any girl on those stupid bleachers. I’m sorry, Sangyeon. I fucked up, huh?”

“Pft hell yeah you did”

At times, you forget just how blunt your friend was, this being one of those times as you sat with your eyebrows raised in slight shock at his confession. Sangyeon noticed your look, raising his hand at you to signal you to just listen.

“But we all make mistakes, right? Sure your mistake was Eric’s dick, but I guess that’s just what you needed to figure things out. Which, you need to definitely do as soon as possible because I have a hunch things are going to work out just fine” Sangyeon opened his arms, waiting for you to thank him with his favorite hug (news flash, he loved your hugs a lot.)

You squeezed your arms around him, slightly shaking you both back and forth. The sound of your thank you was muffled by the white and blue shirt he wore, causing you both to laugh at the disformed words. You leaned back, Sangyeons eyes still partially crinkled from laughing, “thank you for being the best dad a girl could have”

Sangyeon scoffed, his grin widening even more as he shoved you back, “whatever, weirdo”

Mondays. Also known as Satan’s asshole.

Eric kept his promise, showing up before Juyeon could arrive to take you to school like normal. That, you were eternally grateful for. You weren’t ignoring your best friend persay, just simply giving him space until you could realize what the hell you were going to do about your feelings. And that was starting today, as you and Eric skateboarded (or in your case walked) past Juyeon as he made his way down your street. You’d be lying if the look on his face didn’t make you want to run back to his car and apologize endlessly, but you were raised to be strong, and that’s what you were. Kind of.

The perks of baseball season consisted of seeing your cute guy friends in their uniforms, soft pretzels, and the excuse to get out of your house and sit in the warm summer sun. The downside? One of your cute guy friends was also the team’s pitcher who you were madly in love with.

Since you were the boyz’s (ha) best friend, you had attended every game since they formed the team 2 years ago. And even today, as you sit front row on the cold, metal bleachers, you were still cheering them on despite the fact you had sworn you were going to distance yourself from Juyeon. Maybe you would have succeeded in that promise, but the way Juyeon looked at you right now as he struck yet another player out, well, it had you wondering why you even thought of such a blasphemous idea in the first place.

With only one out remaining, the opposing team was bound to have to forfeit as the gap between the teams was only increasing. You could only imagine the pride running through your friends’ veins as they got even more amped up knowing they were soon to claim victory. The amount of talent they had could match their love for the game, the two qualities mixing to create one hell of a baseball team; you were sure even the opposing team could see that as their energy levels drained with each strike or out they received. And while you wanted to feel bad, you knew there was no use- because even the team who knew they were bound to lose, had smiles written on their faces while they half-fived their teammates when running past one another.

The sound of bats clinking against dugout cement floors, helmets being tossed to the side of the field and the overlapping good games being said to one another signified the end of the short-live scrimmage. Watching the boys finish their lineup and run to do their large group hug was heartwarming, the other fans in the audience snapping pictures with their disposable cameras could agree. Your moment of proudness was cut short as Haknyeon and Younghoon yelled for you to join them on the field, their hands waving frantically at you to get your attention. Not wanting to cause anymore attention to flood your way, you quickly gathered your bag and rushed to your boys, an embarrassed laugh bubbling in your throat as you were welcomed into the hug. Loud smacks were heard, the cheering players aiming to slap each other in utter happiness over their win- of course you ducked between their arms in an attempt to hide yourself from said slaps (unfortunately for you your ass was not covered and they gladly gave you a few victory whacks.)

“God pretty soon you guys are going to win the championships, then imma be the biggest groupie ever” your comment had the group in fits, heads shaking in amusement.

“Yeah well you’re the best groupie ever” sunwoo pushed your shoulder, a cheesy grin lighting up his face. Hollers and whoops were made in agreement, the two closest to you (Sunwoo and Jacob) tugging you closer into their sides so they could ruffle your hair (leaving you very displeased as you spent quite a while that morning carefully taking the hair rollers out to have stable curls). Trying to tame your now frizzy hair, you weren’t able to control the smile that grew to match the boys’ around you.

Seeing you smile wide in happiness and hearing the laughs that you fabricated, Juyeon couldn’t help himself from staring at you. Watching your nose crinkle from the side pokes the boys littered on you, or seeing the way your eyes were filled with light as you joked right along with the others, it only made the man wish you were standing next to only him and not his attractive friends. Normally, he wasn’t one to be possessive or even jealous. Though when it came to you, someone who’s supported him at every game, waken him up at the crack of dawn to adventure to the sea side of town, and have feverishly grown on him over the few years you've known him? He’s positive he’d go to the end of the world for you.

With the amount of time he spent with you, attached to one another's hips, it was utterly impossible for him to not have developed feelings for you. You were beyond sensational. In his eyes, you were a stellar person- someone with a heart of gold who would probably sell their soul to protect the ones they loved. You had always been the first person he’d call when he needed someone the most, there was never a second of doubt that you couldn’t help him through anything he went through. When he tore the ligament in his elbow and couldn’t participate in 2 weeks worth of games, he was devastated. He had spent forever just trying to wrap his head around the fact he couldn’t be there for his team when they needed him the most, beating himself up over an injury he couldn’t have prepared for. You were the only reason he kept going after that, why he continued to get out of bed everyday to watch his brothers practice even if he couldn’t do so himself. Truly, Juyeon knew you were his foundation. His beautiful, intoxicating, better-half best friend who he had finally realized, as he stood across from you now watching you look as perfect as ever in his extra jersey he gave you to wear at games, just how in love with you he was. And he has absolutely no idea what the hell he was going to do about it.

You weren’t dense, you could feel Juyeon’s non-trailing eyes on you. You didn’t think you made it obvious you were trying (and clearly failing so far) to distance yourself from him, unless he was that intelligent he knew something was off already, so why was he very blatantly staring at you? You couldn’t stop the questions from piling up, your thoughts keeping you distracted from the winners high the boys clearly still had. To meet his eyes and stand your ground was what you should have done, but alas, you squeezed your arms together and slipped away from the sweaty, compact group. With a mix of genuinely overheating due to being stuck to the sweating boys and the gaze Juyeon had locked on you, you were quite aware of how hot you felt at the moment. You tried to escape as quietly as possible, wanting nothing more than to get back to your house and sob until you the tears stopped flowing. Unfortunately for you, your group of friends all had overprotective spidey senses over you, practically able to sense your every move before you could even make it. The moment you turned your back from the group, you were instantly met with whines from the boys, a hand tugging you back to the middle of the circle.

“Eh eh eh, where do you think you’re going missy?” Chanhee poked your stomach, earning a light tap to his forehead from you in return.

You groaned in response, “I was trying to leaveee.” Noises of complaints erupted from the group, sounds of why’s and no’s sounding from each boy.

“Uh sorry but you can’t”

You turned around in Chanhee’s hold, head cocking in confusion. “Uh why not?” you mocked his tone. Chanhee opened his mouth to respond, his eyes rolling at your taunt. Though he was cut off before he could he even begin,

“Because. We can’t celebrate without you, you’re my- I mean- our good luck charm” Juyeon stuttered, just merely missing total embarrassment.

You, who was very much not expecting Juyeon to comment something like that, were quick to shut up. The internal struggle of what to say was hounding you, your eyes looking anywhere but Juyeon. So you hid closer to Chanhee instead, stealthily sneaking your hand behind him to pinch his elbow in an attempt to get him to help you out. Chanhee, getting the hint, smoothly answered for you, “Y/n would love to come, but unfortunately she has our psych project to working, right Y/n?” The white haired male looked at you, his eyes narrowing while he nudged your side.

“O-oh yeah. The projects worth a lot and I can’t take another bad grade in that class” you voiced, gaze finally meeting Juyeon’s. It didn’t take a genius to see the soft glaze of disappointment that lingered in his eyes, even after he masked it with a smile.

Taking that as your cue to exit, you waved at the group, their previous wide eyes and grins much more tamed as they stood glancing between you and their friend. They watched you walk away, waiting until they couldn’t see you or thought you couldn't overhear them to start murmuring amongst each other.

“So that was obviously a lie” Changmin stated as if it were a fact, his sight still locked to where you walked off at.

Jacob, who could either be considered too nice for his own good or just gullible, furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, not understanding what the brunette meant. Changmin, who was more than pleased to explain himself, responded to Jacob’s puzzled expression, “I’m in her psych class, and there’s no project due. At least that I’m aware of, anyhow”

Chanhee felt his heart jump out of his stomach, his stomach buzzing as he was caught in the lie. He had to cover for you, and yet he had absolutely no idea how. They already knew he was lying once, they would surely realize it a second time. He could feel the pairs of eyes make way to him, his fingers drumming against his thighs to ease his nerves.

“Well what I meant was-“

“He meant to say Y/n had thrown up earlier and wasn’t feeling up to the whole party scene” Sangyeon covered for his friend, locking eyes with Chanhee’s grateful ones as he mouthed a thank you in which Sangyeon nodded his head in approval.

The boys seemed to believe their captains' claim, most of them backing up and leaving it as is wanting to just celebrate their victory. Of course, Sunwoo hadn’t believed a word of what Sangyeon said. The round eyed boy snorted to himself, knowing very well as to why you left in such a rush. And then there was Juyeon, and even Hyunjae, who couldn’t help but feel there was a hidden truth to the line. Both boys chose to not speak up, deeming it as just a weird feeling instead.

“Anywho, can we go get food now? The other teams already leaving and we’re still standing here like weirdos” the youngests outburst had the group in fits, loud laughs filling their ears once again. Whining, Eric let out strings of protest as his friends shook his head and left him taps of affection on his butt. Leave it to Eric to lift the sour moods of his teammates, even if he himself was a bit tense.

The team was sure to have made an appearance at your group's famous hangout, meaning snagging a burger and fries on your way home had been out of the question. You opted to just scavenge your cupboards, hoping to find at least something dinner worthy; unfortunately, you were sure you’d end up eating ramen again, as per usual.

You were correct, ramen was indeed the main dish of the night, you had been remotely blessed with packs of spam to fry up along with some eggs and rice. Though you had been content with what you were able to eat, the rising feeling of guilt couldn’t stop itself from making an appearance as you sat alone at your small kitchen table. You couldn’t help but to imagine your friends right now, knowing fair well they were probably messing around and eating the familiar greasy food you all had grown to love. And yet here you were, eating dinner by yourself, just because you couldn’t grow a pair and accept that you had feelings for Juyeon. Instead, you went to the measures of ignoring not only him, but the 10 other people who had been nothing but great friends to you.

It wasn’t like you could just call them up, the diner only had one wall phone and it was for emergency use only, and your wall phone was currently broken as your dog had chewed the cord. And God forbid you walked all the way to the diner at this time of night, your anxiety would have you running right on back to the confines of your rural home as soon as you made it down your road. Regret was a thing you tried not to experience, you tended to just live doing what you liked and that was that. But this time, it was eating you up.

The food in front of you had gone cold, not that you cared considering your mind was obviously worrying about other things- or people. Your thoughts had drifted off to Juyeon, specifically to him earlier. Logic wanted you to believe that he was merely looking at you because of where you were standing, though your heart had other things in mind. No matter how many times you told yourself there was no way Juyeon could have reciprocated your feelings, something always told you to believe otherwise. Sure you knew he could have practically any girl he wanted, he was absolutely gorgeous and his personality was even better. But was it so hard to believe he could maybe, just maybe, like someone like you? His teams #1 fan who went to all of their matches. Someone who not only had his back, but your shared friends as well? You wanted to believe that, you really did. But why else would you be sitting here, alone, not with Juyeon?

Continuous knocking on your door startled you, your previously sulking shoulder now standing straight as you made way to the abrupt sound. You hadn’t expected your family home until rather late that night, considering they were an hour away at your aunts house. The boys were all at the diner, so you had presumed, and you didn’t exactly have other friends besides them. Maybe it was the tofu cart?

The halt your feet made as you opened the door was sudden, your eyes enlarging at the man in front of you. The wavy tuffs of black hair certainly did not belong to the tofu delivery man, unless he had a strikingly good looking son who looked way too similar to Juyeon you didn’t know about.

“Can I come in?” Juyeon looked down at you, hands twisting the ring on his fair in a habit of anxiety. He didn’t expect you to say no, which is why he sucked in a deep breath of anticipation as he entered your home.

You were fairly shocked yourself, following Juyeon’s figure as he went to his favorite spot in your house- the bar stool Island in your kitchen. It wasn’t surprising he went there, though it only spiked your nerves more knowing he chose to sit there instead of your bedroom; the two of you considered the counter in your kitchen your “deep discussion” area, it was a place you had always found yourselves in the early hours of the morning, talking about the little things that been bugging you lately. Which is why you couldn’t help the way your heartbeat sped up as you sat across from Juyeon, moving the scraps of your dinner to the side in order to have no distractions.

You weren’t sure what to say, deeming it as Juyeon must have had plenty in the way he tapped furiously st the countertop before jumping straight to the point. Oh how you wish you didn’t open the door.

“Are you in love with me?”

You understood what they felt in the movies now. When the camera pans in on the character during the aftermath of the climax, the environment around them seeming to slow down with a blur. “I-I’m sorry, what?” You choked back the saliva that had gotten stuck, not feeling like haphazardly dying in front of your crush.

Juyeon sighed, drawing his fingers back to his lap as he glanced up to you, “Eric told me what happened”

Now normally you weren’t one for violence, in fact, you were rather just passive aggressive in all that you did. But at the moment, you wanted nothing more than to strangle the blonde haired snitch. Placing your hands over your face, you let out a long drawn groan, “that little bitch, of course he did”

Juyeon couldn’t stop the short chuckle that escaped his lips, “you didn’t answer my question”

Apparently the opportunity to confess then be brutally rejected was a lot closer than you had hoped. It was now or never. You’d much rather choose never, but it seems that your friend couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life.

“Yes”

“Yes what?” Juyeon spoke, unable to focus on anything but the way your mouth moved in response to the question.

“I’m in love with you. Did you really have to ask? I thought it was pretty damn obvious, myself” sarcasm rolled easily off your tongue as if it were a form of defense getting ready to face rejection.

Juyeon huffed, leaning forward to flick your forehead at your retort, “I had to make sure it wasn’t a one-sided thing, dummy”

The remark you had saved next was useless now, your tongue ostensibly getting caught in your throat. If now wasn’t a better time to choke on spit, what was? Juyeon jumped up from his seat, grabbing a water from the fridge to pass to your choking frame. You, unable to speak clearly, stuck a thumbs up in appreciation, to which he found incredibly cute.

After recovering from the fit, you finally made eye contact with the softly smiling boy in front of you for the first time since you (unwillingly) confessed, “does that mean I didn’t just get rejected?” Your lips were in a mix of a pout and smirk, your face resemble that of a duck.

“I love you too” Juyeon was grinning wide at this point, his heart pounding in his chest at the affectionate exchange.

You were beyond giddy, body quickly leaning close to Juyeon’s to press a soft, quick kiss to his lips. As you pulled back, neither of you could say anything, the fond gazes you had on one another and the heating of your cheeks conveying the right words for you. Juyeon, for one, was ready to do nothing but return the kisses- and that’s exactly what he did.

Note: Hi y’all, I’m back (kind of). This is my first full fledge AU, and I’m so happy it was for Juyeon! I’m a sucker for baseball tbz au’s, so I just had to make one myself! Stay tuned for a special announcement regarding Star Pitcher ;)

Extra Note: pls don’t be afraid to leave feedback (reply, message, reblog), it would help me tremendously and I’d really appreciate it! I love seeing what y’all think! :)

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lovesupernova25 · 3 years

Text

Broken Glass

a Quackity Oneshot

warnings: torture (non-explicit), blood, insanity, brief alcohol

i sat down at my computer, blacked out, looked up at 3 am and this was here. please enjoy. (idea from this one comment on this one tiktok that suggested that quackity uses the shape shifting powers some people hc him to have to torment dream. i’ll see if i can find the tiktok!)

~~~ *** ~~~

Quackity knew what broken glass felt like. He knew how it felt slicing up his hands, his face, being kissed into his skin. But this was the first time he knew what it felt like in his soul. Yeah- that's what this feeling was.

Broken glass.

Quackity didn’t turn around when he heard footsteps getting closer. He knew who it was already. No one else would be in this wasteland he’d built, anyways. No one was ever here.

“Q?” The rumble of Sam’s voice was concerned, almost hesitant. Quackity grabbed a bottle from the rack. “Quackity- you said it was urgent. What’s going on?” He turned, and the liquor slammed onto the counter. He might’ve relished the way Sam startled, on a better day. Quackity’s hands found the shot glasses, twisted the cap of the bottle. The neon blue that sloshed from the cup reflected the thunder in his gaze.

“Quackity, it’s still early-” But he tipped his head, knocked back the burning liquor. This time, Sam didn’t jump when the glass crashed down next to his hand. Quackity splayed his palms on the cool granite and leaned across to level his gaze with Sam’s.

“I need to visit the prison, Sam.”

Sam had the good sense to nod.

Maybe this was the wrong way to deal with things. Maybe strapping on armor and sharpening his knives wasn’t a healthy way to process his ex-fiances showing up trying to- what? Apologize? Make things ‘how they used to be’? If that was the case, they really were just mocking him. Nothing would ever be the way it used to.

It ended in a fight, of course. It ended in his already cracking heart fully giving out, splintering into a thousand shards like shattered fvcking glass. It ended in him envying Schlatt, because at least when his heart broke down he got to leave.

Quackity’s stuck here, with this void in his chest that keeps him floating oddly outside his body as Pandora swallows him whole.

They don’t even bother signing the waivers anymore. It would be ridiculous, at this point, especially since Quackity’s fully decked out in armor and tools. He guesses Sam’s just realized Quackity won’t be the reason Dream gets out of the hell they’ve so carefully crafted for him.

Levers, keys. The threshold to the heart of the prison is as claustrophobic as ever, but Quackity embraces the suffocating heat. There’s not much for his mind to wander on, here. There is the wall of lava, and there is the rasp of his boots on obsidian, and there is the rough leather pommel of his sword. There is, on the other side of the fire, a sacrificial lamb. Quackity grins and it hurts as the lava simmers down.

Sam says nothing.

“Dream…” He leans on the butt of his axe, looming, and his ears are still ringing with screams. “Wouldn’t it be so much easier to give me what I want?” He kneels next to the ragged lump of man on the ground and grabs his chin, forces it up. “C’mon… I would leave you alone then, right? I wouldn’t come, wouldn’t have to hurt you- you would get so much peace and quiet… you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Quackity makes his voice honey, his hand gentle. Gods, he thinks he even sees Dream lean into the touch. It’s pitiful, what the admin has become. One of Dream’s acid-green eyes is bloodied and purple, swollen shut, and a cut on his face oozes crimson. His mouth is positively dripping with the stuff, courtesy of Quackity’s pliers and some molars that were just begging to be yanked. He can hear the ragged, wheezing breaths of the man in front of him and Quackity has never felt so sickeningly alive.

“Heh…” Dream flicks his working eye up to hold Quackity’s gaze. “No-” He coughs violently, wheezing and convulsing. The hacking subsides and he forces out; “No peace in death, Big Q. You’ll know that s-soon.”

Quackity’s lip curls. He stands abruptly, taking little satisfaction in the way Dream’s chin cracks against the obsidian.

“You’re pitiful.” This was supposed to help. He thought it did- when he funneled all the glass inside of him into the swing of his axe, the cut of his knife. When the voices in his head were drowned out by the screaming. But Dream was on the ground, bleeding and broken and still acting like he had the upper fvcking hand, and it turned out the glass had grown only sharper.

This isn’t working.

He paces to the back of the cell and yanks a tattered book off the lectern, flipping through it with a scowl. He’s about to chuck the thing in the lava--just to see if it’ll get a reaction out of its’ author--when a name catches his eye. Gingerly, he thumbs back to the page it was written on. Quackity feels so sick he grins when he finds it.

It’s not just one name. It’s hundreds. Some he doesn’t recognize, but most from this server. In fact- it looks like everyone who’s ever stepped foot in Dream’s land has been scrawled on the black-bleeding page. Quackity even thinks he sees his own name in there somewhere. They cover the page almost entirely in ink, written and rewritten and scribbled over each other.

George, Sapnap, Karl, Tommy. Tommy seems to be in there a lot.

Dream must have sat here for hours, scribbling the names of people he would never see again, alone in his personal hell. It’s sick. And something in the back of Quackity’s mind sparks.

“Dream,” He says, as the start of an idea appears. “How would you like to see your friends again?” He sees the confusion in the prisoner’s eyes and has to fight to keep from grinning. “Or… your old friends, I suppose. But I bet they still care about you, don’t you think?” He sets the book down, pacing towards the heap of blood-streaked orange jumpsuit with mock sincerity plastered over his face. His mouth twitches at the look in Dream’s eyes. There’s fear, suspicion, pain… but also, delightfully, hope. He can see Dream trying to crush it, but it’s there. Gods, Quackity could get drunk on that look. Maybe he already is.

“How do you think,” He leans over Dream, hands folded behind his back. “They would feel about you if they saw you now?”

Quackity really is grinning now. The axe wasn’t working, the knives weren’t working, the pliers only made Dream more determined. It was time for a new tactic. He feels that spark in the back of his mind and fans it, turning away from Dream as it grows. He hasn’t dipped into this ability for a long time--people don’t much like his kind--but the only person to see him now is barely human himself. Quackity closes his eyes as the fire washes over him.

When he turns around, he almost breaks character at the shock in Dream’s eyes.

“George?”

There’s so much raw hurt in his voice- gods, why didn’t he think of this sooner?

“Dream…” Quackity says in George’s voice. “Gods… what happened to you?”

“No… how- George-”

“I mean, everybody says you deserved it.” Quackity makes sure the revulsion is clear on his--George’s--face as he steps closer. “I guess you did… Still, though… this is a new low for you.” Dream is actually trying to push himself up now, trembling on wounded arms. “I mean, don’t you remember how things used to be? When we were all together? And now you’re… this. Not to be rude, Dream, but it’s kind of no wonder no one’s broken you out.”

“Stop, you’re… you’re not even real, I…” Dream screws his eyes shut, chest heaving. Aw. It looks like he’s starting to catch on.

“We were all happy, before.” He continues, letting the glass, the anger, slip back into his voice. “Like a family. And then you ruined it. All you’ve ever been is a parasite- it’s just amazing we didn’t notice sooner.” Quackity snarls with George’s face and he knows Dream can’t separate the illusion from reality. “You know what everyone says? They say good fvcking riddance.” Quackity--George--takes a step toward Dream with every word, until he’s sneering directly down at him. “I used to defend you. Down to the very end, I’d defend everything you did- all the wars, all the hurt, broken promises and broken hearts. I was loyal to you.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Not anymore. Now, I say good riddance with the rest of them.”

Quackity doesn’t know much about George and Dream’s history, but he knew they were close. And Dream, for all his boasting about cutting ties, has never truly let go. “I loved you, Dream. And look where it got us. You’re bleeding out in a cell, alone and powerless, and I…” Quackity turns. It’s a damn good thing he’s an amazing actor, or the look on Dream’s face might just make him lose it. It’s the same look he’s seen on just three people’s faces before; three people with worthless rings and broken promises to tie them together.

(“Didn’t you ever love us?”)

But Dream was right about one thing. Attachments are dangerous. And Quackity can wield them like a sword.

“I’m leaving. I don’t need you, Dream. And neither does anyone else.” His lip curls. “You’re worthless, Clay. I hope you rot.”

And the curtain falls.

Dream has pushed himself against a chest by now, heaving and trembling.

“Stop. Stop this, you’re not him, you’re not-” Another coughing fit seizes him and he hacks up blood.

“Wasn’t it a good performance, though? I think I was spot on, Clay.” Quackity leers, in his own voice now. Gods, that was exhilarating.

Dream rests his forehead against the chest, face contorted. “What do you want?” It sounds almost like a sob. Quackity’s smile drops.

“Oh, you know exactly what I want, Dream. You know exactly why I’m still here, and why you can barely stand.” He cocks his head, lip twitching up into a smile. There are a thousand names scrawled into that book, all of them knives sharpened to cut. Quackity’s just gotten started. “Let's see if someone else could encourage you more.”

Dream barely has time to look afraid before the fire has washed over Quackity again.

Lights, camera, action.

“...You always wanted to be remembered, huh.” Sapnap’s voice says. Dream closes his eyes, breath hitching. “You’d always play the hero, when we were kids. Make George and I be the villains every time.” His eyes have been on the ground, but he lifts them now, stares down the figure in the corner. “Look where that fvcking got us.” And this hurts both of them, Quackity knows- because he knows Sapnap’s voice, his mannerisms, the way he sounds when he’s devastated and the way he sounds when he wants to burn the world with rage. Slipping into his skin is as easy as breathing and feels like suffocating all at once.

“You promised me- you promised me this would be our world. That we’d stay together, that we’d finally be happy.” And it is too easy to let that heartbreak bleed into his voice, sprinkle it with the rage and hate of wasted memories.

(“You promised me we’d be happy together.”)

He paces towards Dream with a glare like wildfire. “Well guess what, Dream. I am happy now. This whole server is happier now.” Quackity yanks the man in the orange jumpsuit up by the collar and snarls at his whimper of pain. “Without you. Without your sick fvcking games, without your wars, without your broken promises!” He’s shouting now, and he can see the whites of Dream’s eyes, like a horse near a fire. Quackity drops him with Sapnap’s hands like a rat he’d been holding by the tail. “Do you remember the promises you’d make, Dream?”

And now Quackity feels himself shifting again, almost involuntarily. His voice pitches higher and demonic horns scrape the obsidian above them. “You promised me peace.” Quackity says in BBH’s voice. “You said we’d be safe, that we’d win the wars!” It’s almost sickening to take the form of someone whose mind he knows is long gone. Worth it, though, to watch Dream squirm. “Is this what peace looks like to you, Dream? I can’t even remember what your face looks like!” There’s desperation in his voice, though Quackity doesn’t even know if what he’s saying is true. For all he knows it could be. “I can’t remember,” He takes a step towards Dream, glowing eyes wide with horror “What my own face looks like.”

“Bad-” Dream’s voice is almost pleading. He doesn’t want to hear this.

Good.

"Every time I look in the mirror-” Quackity’s breath hitches, just for dramatic effect. “All I see is red. Crimson. I’m poisoned, Dream. Because that’s what this place does to people.” The fire is back, transforming him. Quackity doesn’t even try to control it this time.

“That’s what you do to people.” Ponk’s voice rings throughout the cell.

“You poison them.” Alyssa.

“You tear them down.” Fundy.

“You think you’re so powerful,” Punz.

“But in reality-” Skeppy.

“You’re. Just. A. Parasite.” Karl hisses at the god on the floor who bleeds red regret instead of ichor.

Quackity doesn’t know where the words are coming from, now.

(“This country- it’s like a parasite, Q!”)

His breaths come ragged. When the fire sweeps through him again, Quackity nearly burns away himself.

Sapnap’s voice is tired when he speaks with it.

“You were never the hero, Dream. Turns out, you were never even part of the story.”

And Dream is left a crumpled mess of grief and blood at his feet as the fire dies to ashes.

Quackity’s tired when he leaves the cell that evening. It’s the bone-deep exhaustion that comes from more than lack of sleep, and it drags at his limbs. Sam does not look at him, and Quackity wonders if he knows what horrors were used in that cell today. He somehow can’t bring himself to care.

It was cruel, he knows. He slipped into their skin and cut Dream to shreds with the broken glass at his fingertips, ripped open his soul instead of his flesh and took pleasure in just tearing something down. It was cruel, but so is (was) Dream, and so is the world he created. Everyone gets cut and everyone bleeds, and the only thing to do is hope that your weapon is sharper than theirs. He’s had that lesson seared into his mind and cut into his skin too many times. So today when Quackity leaves a trembling mess behind the wall of fire, he cannot see Sam’s eyes- but if he could, he thinks they would hold something like fear.

So he steps out into the night, and he smiles, sharp and painful as broken glass.

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honeypirate · 3 years

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In Madness lies Sanity

Ushijima Wakatoshi x Reader - College AU

Based off the bit by Allan Watts. I read the transcript and I thought— Ushijima in love with his best friend listening to this talk about love in one of his classes and realizing that he needs to tell them the truth. Allan watts bit is in blue, the fic is in white.

Ushijima wasn’t one to dwell too long on trivial matters. He works through them and then forgets them. He focuses on what is important and what will bring him closer to his desired future. He isn’t one who is sucked into madness and drama, he has a strong level head and it’s something he takes pride in. So he’s trying to apply his ideas to how he handles his feelings for you, is it trivial? Is it important to tell you? He was struggling before he walked into class Monday morning and had his eyes opened by the video played during lecture.

- I’m going to talk to you about a particularly virulent and dangerous form of divine madness which is called falling in love. Which is, from a practical point of view, one of the most insane things you can do, or that can happen to you. Because in the eyes of a given woman or a given man, an opposite who go to the eyes of everybody else a perfectly plain and ordinary person can appear to be God or Goddess incarnate .... And this is an extraordinary disruptive experience a subversive experience in the conduct of human affairs

You were never a plain and ordinary person to him and he believes that’s where it got confused. He always has and always will see you as an extraordinary individual, regardless of things that may be seen as flaws or imperfections, regardless of your mistakes. You didn’t transform from one thing to the next, you were the same angel he knew, so when his heart flipped from friendship to love, he wasn’t paying attention.

- Because you never know when it will strike off for what reason. It’s something like contracting a very chronic disease once you get into it

If anyone asked Ushijima who his best friend is his first thought is you. His first thought thought is always you. His constant. His true best friend who is there for him through anything. He’ll open his mouth and say “y/n is my best friend” and when people would point out just how close they are he just shrugged, weren’t friends supposed to be close?

When he thinks back now, now that his feelings are obvious, he realizes that it was just a matter of time until he fell in love with you. He can pinpoint every moment along his life where love was obvious, every joke and hug that at the time he thought was just nice, when he loaned you his sweatshirt and then didn’t wash it because it smelled like you. When he would spend all his valuable and limited free time with you just because he liked the way you would smile as he walked you home. He thinks back to all of his dates in high school and college, of the dating app conversations he’s had or blind dates his friends had set up, and they all failed because of one simple reason- none of them were you.

- I would like to make some reflections on this particular form of madness, and to raise again a very disturbing question. And this disturbing question is as follows: Is it only when you are in love with another person that you see them as they really are? And in the ordinary way, when you are not in love with people you see only a fragmented version of that being.

He’s spent hours turned to days to weeks as he keeps thinking about whether or not he loves you or if he just thinks he could because of how close you already are. He’s lost track of time connecting different dots and making different lists and theories, replaying you’re entire friendship back in his head. He’s thought about the times he saw you drunk in college and puking on his shoes as he helps you home, when you decided you wanted to try and longboard and turfed it so bad your arm was gashed from wrist to elbow and he had carried you to the urgent care. all your reckless and crazy ideas you dragged him along with, you were almost as bad as tendou but he just wanted to take care of you as best as he could. He can feel the desire in his bones to make sure you were always taken care of, a feeling he knows he’ll have until he dies.

He thinks about when you had dated Oikawa and for the entire three months he had an ulcer but didn’t know why. He thought it was because of his pain relievers and quit them the week you broke up with him, not realizing the connection. When he’d get acid in his throat when you talked about dating someone else, he thought he just needed some milk. How blind he had been.

-Because when you are in love with someone you do indeed see them as a divine being. And suppose that’s what they are truly. And your eyes have by your beloved been opened in which case your beloved is serving to you as a kind of guru. An initiator. And that is why there is a form of sexual yoga, based on the idea that man and woman are to each other as mutual guru and student. And through a tremendous outpouring of psychic energy in total devotion and worship to this other person who is respectively the goddess of the god.

Being someone’s best and closest friend consisted of seeing their entirety and choosing to stay and love them anyway. To care for them. He can’t say for certain where he crossed over into love, into wanting to hug you and kiss you, wanting to be the only one you think about, but there’s not much he can do about it now and he doesn’t want to.

Ushijima sees you. He sees your good and your bad and everything in between, he sees you for you. Your ordinary mundane ways of life that he can’t help but want to share with you. Grocery shopping, library trips, post office runs, he wants them all to be done with you. He truly cannot imagine anyone else taking that spot in his heart.

Wanting to show you what he sees. What he knows to be true about you. he wants to scream from the rooftops how amazing you are and he’s not a very loud person. He sees the way you care for your friends selflessly and give and give all you have just so that others can be happy and you never complain. You do what you can when you can and still have time to take care of yourself he never knew how you did it so effortlessly, even when you’d vent to him you never regretted helping others.

He sees the way you lift up those around you. How you leave everyone a little more positive than before you talked to them. He doesn’t know how you do it. He’s convinced you’re an angel and he’s dying to show you just how amazing he knows you are. But he doesn’t want to ruin your friendship. He sees your entirety, your full book instead of just the cover, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He wanted to give you this energy and receive it in turn and he’s never been so absolutely terrified.

-You realize by total fusion and contact with the other organism. You go down to the divine center in them and it bounces back and you discover your own or you could put it in this way which is another aspect of it that by falling in love and regarding falling in love not just as a sort of sexual infatuation, because it’s always more than that, isn’t it. I mean you can have a great sexual enjoyment with a pleasant friend, you know. But you may do so simply because he or she appeals to your aesthetic senses. But when you fall in love, it’s a much more serious involvement, you just cannot forget this person. You feel miserable when not in their presence, you’re always yearning, that’s get to see more of each other let’s get together that’s we’re completely entangled and then you see you’ve actually kind of out what I would call spiritual element has been introduced. And the Hindus were sensible enough to realize that this was a means of awakening, enlightenment, and therefore it was. Surrounded. With a sort of rigid religious ritual meditative art, with a form of sexual yoga that is designed to allow the feeling of mutual love to the extent of grand passion to have an extremely fitting fulfillment and expression.

Ushijima has always thought you were beautiful. Any human with eyes would think that. But your beauty and attraction went far deeper than that. Sure he’s had fleeting thoughts about how good you looked in a dress but he never let them linger. It felt wrong to think of you like that. But now that he’s an adult, a grown man and not a teenager anymore, he wants to kiss you, to hold your hand, maybe more but it wasn’t about that. It was about the intimacy, the closeness, the vulnerability.

Awakening. Enlightenment. Two words that before he didn’t really think about. But now he feels changed. Now that he’s realized how much he loves you has lifted his spirits, made him dream of the passion and happiness you could have together. He feels himself slipping into the joy of being in love with his best friend and imagining all the ways that love could grow. He feels only half of himself when he’s without you, always needing to see you or be around you, but you never made him feel clingy or bad. You met him in kind, telling him how much you wanted to be around him too.

At first he thought that this love was a trivial thing, something he could push from his mind, but after his weeks of thought he knows this is a lot more serious than he’s experienced before.

-Falling in love is a thing that strikes like lightning and is therefore extremely analogous to the mystical vision. We don’t know. No how really people attain the mystical vision. There is not as yet a very clear rationale as to how it happens because we do know that it is opened to many people who never did anything to look for it. And many people especially in adolescence have had the mystical vision all of a sudden without the slightest warning and with no previous interest in that kind of thing

He remembers what he was doing when it dawned on him that he was in love, when he felt the air leave his lungs and his eyes widen softly when he realized how nice it would be to kiss your temple and he couldn’t even finish the thought as the feeling ran from his head to his toes.

He was standing in your kitchen as you finished making your lunch for the following day and you made a joke that made yourself laugh, he didn’t think it was a very funny joke but you didn’t care. You giggled to yourself and he couldn’t help but wish he could witness that forever. It hit him like a brick that he would, in almost an instant, give his entirety to you. It terrified him when he imagines you and him ending like his parents. But behind the terror, the fear of divorce, was a softer and quieter emotion that he tried to focus on harder than the insanity of his anxiety. A softer, lovelier, hopeful feeling that he usually gets every time you smile at him. That was the feeling he was searching for, everything else was irrelevant for a few glorious moments.

-But as yet we are not clear as to why it comes about and if there is any method of attaining it the best one is probably to give up the whole idea of getting it…. you see it is completely unpredictable and so it is in that way like falling in love, capricious and therefore crazy. But if you should be so fortunate as to encounter either of these experiences. It seems to me to be a total denial of life to refuse it. And what we therefore have to. Admit in our society is so that we can contain this kind of madness.

He called Tendou that evening, telling him that he thinks he loves you, and Tendou about had a conniption. He was in Paris as his best friend fell in love for the first time. He talked him through it, told him how good it can be. That yes it was going to be work but the reward would be worth it. To not sell himself short out of his own fears. He deserves much more than that. Tendou’s last phrase is what sunk in deep “I know it was unpredictable, that it feels so fickle, but that’s what love is like buddy! You can’t deny it Ushi, you can’t run from it or hide from it, it will only hurt you in the long run”

- You see, in this way we can think about and structure the necessary stable social institution of family sometime without it being constantly threatened of foundering on the rocks of love. Now you see this then means that when when people marry they take any vows at all to each other instead of saying that they will always be true to each other in the sense of meaning I Will Always Love YoU, It means I will be true to you in the sense of I will always be truthful to. I will not pretend that my feelings towards you ARE other than what they are. Because I marry you, because I think that you are a reasonable person to live with and therefore I want you to be you I want you to be someone else I want to be a rubber stamp of me–how boring that would be?! an arrangement in which people set each other free and make an alliance to cooperate with each other in certain ways. Now if it should so occur that they are of immense sexual attraction to each other, so much the better? That this should not be a primary factor in entering into marriage. Admittedly, you must be to a certain extent attractive to each other otherwise there will be no progeny. But this is this is seems to me to be a sensible and reasonable view and just because it is sensible and reasonable it can accommodate what is not sensible and reasonable which is falling in love.

Ushijima is terrified. He’s terrified because the instant immediate joy he felt when he realized he loved you was almost overtaken by worries and stress. He loves you! Now what? He loves structure in his life and he values stability but he knows how rocky relationships can be and how they can ultimately end. He knows he won’t deny it, he won’t back away because of his fear but he needs a plan. A plan to take to you and talk about it, he knows you’ll have the right thing to say but he doesn’t even know what he’ll even say to you yet. He loves that you are so carefree and goofy, a breath of fresh air to his stoicism. You’ve even gently worked your way so deep into his soul that you feel like his other half, his complete other in every way, someone who wasn’t like him at all and how wonderful that is.

Once in his life he thought that arranged marriages were smarter, you did it out of logic and bloodline and family, nothing messy to deal with. But that structure, that boring empty rocky foundation that an arrangement might bring made his mouth taste bad, although at the time he convinced himself it was because it would be more like another job that takes up his time (away from you)

Sensible and reasonable was right up his alley, he thought how nice it would be to have a mini him but he couldn’t think about having that with anyone. He couldn’t think of another half of dna that baby would share that would make it worth it. Not until he saw a picture of you holding your nephew, now whenever he thinks of his babies they share your genes. He thinks of a chunky baby with your eyes and his hair color, a mix of your personality and he’d share volleyball with them. He’s never wanted kids as much as he does when he thinks about sharing them with you. And that’s the part that feels senseless, the love part, the part where you give your entirety to someone and trust that they will care and keep you, no matter what happens, save its not infidelity or other deal breakers of yours he already knows.

Ushijima’s theorizing and thoughts about you over the course of time went from being about understanding why he feels like this to imagining fake scenarios where he wants to take you abroad to travel together, to be together every day and share the hard times and good times, babies or not, marriage or not. He just wants to make you happy for the rest of his life no matter what and he can’t go on much longer without knowing he has a chance to do so

- Well now really when we go back then to falling in love. And say it’s crazy falling. You see we don’t say rising into love. There is in it the idea of the fall. And it is goes back as a matter of fact two extremely fundamental things that there is always a curious tie at some point between the fall and the creation. Taking this ghastly risk, is the condition of there being life. You see, for all life is an act of faith and an act of gamble

And so here he was. Sitting on a bench outside of your dorm, feet bouncing as he stared at the small patch of grass growing in between the sidewalk crack. It’s been a while since that class and he’s been thinking about this constantly.

He knows the risk, feels it in his heart every time he meets up separately with his parents since their divorce. He sees it every time he remembers his childhood and the messy separation. That mess he never wants to repeat. The fall that comes with this love is like that class video had told him, ghastly. He doesn’t know if this could ruin it all, if he takes the leap of faith and it all comes crumbling down years later he’ll be just another divorce. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to end up like his parents and have a child who feels the same. But when he imagines his life he doesn’t think he could be haply without you by his side.

- the moment you take a step, you do so on an act of faith, because you don’t really know that the floors not going to give in to your feet. The moment you take a journey what an act of faith. The moment you enter into any kind of human undertaking in relationship what an act of faith you see you’ve given yourself up. But this is the most powerful thing that can be done surrender see and love is an act of surrender to another person. Total abandonment. I give myself to you. Take me, do anything you like with me. So, that’s quite mad because you see it’s letting things get out of control all sensible people keep things in control.

You know something is up the moment you open the doors and see his back on the bench. You were going to his place since he wasn’t answering his phone, you freeze at the doors at watch him for a moment as your anxiety spikes in your stomach. His shoulders are tense as he leans forward, elbows on his thighs and hands clasped together as he looks down between his bouncing feet. Before you really think about it, you follow the urge to comfort him, to talk to him and make sure it’s all okay. Your feet carry you quickly to his side and you sit down, pulling him into a side hug and wrapping your arms around him.

He gasps when you sit and as you’re wrapping your arms around him he furrows his brows and hugs you back. His heart racing As his fears take the back burner. He didn’t expect you to find him but he also didn’t know how long he’s been sitting here. He buries his face into your neck as he you hold each other in the cool spring evening.

“What’s wrong?” You ask as you hold him and feels his walls break down, his arms tighten around you

“I’m scared” he says quietly and his voice cracks

“Of what Toshi? You can always talk to me” Your fingers run through his hair softly and it soothes his nerves.

He pulls back and cups your cheeks, his eyebrows were still furrowed and his stoic expression was broken by his eyes that were swimming with worry and insecurity.

You saw everything in his eyes and you met him with your determination and steady unwavering love he finds in your eyes. God he feels so mad. So incredibly and undeniably mad and insane and like he isn’t in control. He needs to tell you. Needs the words to come out of his throat so he can calm his heart and soothe his ulcer. The anxiety felt like it was immeasurable and his breathing was starting to get faster until you placed your hands on his cheeks, smothering the bad feelings completely “it’s okay Wakatoshi, I’m right here”

Ushijima feels the exact moment his heart relaxes into the faith, the surrender into love trusting that the floor isn’t going to collapse under his feet, the moment he gives his whole self, body and soul, to the fall, and that moment was when your lips touched his for the first time. Then he let go, the madness left his body and was replaced with a calm assurance that yes, yes this was it, what he’s been waiting for, what he’s been yearning for.

- for all the cost and wisdom what is really sensible is to let go that is to commit oneself to give oneself up and that’s quite mad,

-so we come to the strange conclusion that in madness lies sanity.

#ushijima wakatoshi x you #ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ushijima #ushijima x y/n #ushijima x reader #ushijima x you #haikyuu xreader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu ushiwaka #haikyuu ushijima #haikyuu wakatoshi #wakatoshi fluff #ushijima fluff #ushijima fanfic #haikyuu fanfiction

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plush-rabbit · 3 years

Text

Consumed by Flames

So for the request i was wondering maybe like dabi with really really beautiful and kind s.o, like people always start with her or text her and harass her but she loves him from the bottom of her heart and comforts him , he bascially gets really jealous and they fight in an alley way and a few villains who are after dabi see them fighting and decide to try to attack her infront of him, he toasts them but he is scared that now his s.o hates him and think hes cruel only for them to hold him and tell him nomatter what he does she will follow him to the depths of hell itself if it means she gets to be with him

Warnings: Descriptions of death

Word Count: 2.4K

A/N: I hope you like it and I’m sorry it took so long!! It’s been a week

Jealousy is an ugly thing. It sticks to him like syrup and sets itself firmly in place. The alleyway smells musty, like mold clinging to the drywall of a place he once lived and he can only give you a sharp humorless laugh that makes you give him a pointed stare. You are everything he is not. You are good, you are free from the lasting sin that settles deep within him, something that he is sure he was born with. You are desired and wanted, and yet you stick with someone who is broken and stapled together. He wants to leave you here alone, to have you go home alone and never contact him again. He wants to be free from the kindness that you give to him, the caring stares and holds that you reserve from him as if he were an injured animal, feral and ready to strike, untrusting and unwanted.

“Dabi,” you tell him with a stern voice, brows knitted together and he already has his back turned to you. “Dabi, come on.” Your hand touches his and he’s quick to yank it away. He can hear you gasp and he hates the sick feeling in his chest. “You promised you would walk me home.” Your voice sounds so small and he can feel heat pool in his hands.

He sucks in a deep breath through his nose and he turns his head, raising a brow. “We’re close enough-” he turns to fully face you, gravel crinkling under his boot- “you can make it the rest of the way.” He jerks his head and he rolls his eyes at your pointed look. “Trust me, you’ll be okay.” He continues to look at you, offering no hint of an apology or that he’s joking.

You scoff and shake your head. He can already hear the venom in your voice and you shuffle in your place, crossing your arms. “You’re being immature about all of this, you know.” His jaw itches, and he rubs the pad of his finger over the scarred tissue but it isn’t enough. “I don’t know what I did to piss you off but this is getting old, you know?” He can already hear the resentment in your voice and it’s starting to get tiring. His lids lower and he stares at you with an almost bored expression. “You can’t just shut down every other day. This-” you gesture between the two of you and all he can do is scratch the back of his head- “isn’t some game that you can just care whenever you want to.” You take a step closer to him and he takes one back.

He really doesn’t want to be here right now. He wants to go home and lay in bed. He wishes he never opened his mouth. You continue to talk and it’s just mumbled in his head. He hates everything about tonight. His skin aches and he feels gross and sweaty, he’s standing in the open and you’re in front of him scolding him like a parent. Bile rises in his throat and he’s so tempted to turn around and walk away, to leave you here and have you figure it out. He wants to hear you cry to him the next day so he can make it up with some half-assed apology and hug. He just needs to leave. Somewhere in the distance, gravel is crushed underneath and you stop talking. You both look at each other and turn around and Dabi hates the day more and more. He raises a brow at the four figures who approach from seemingly nowhere.

“Dabi, right?” The one who speaks is tall and lanky, limbs that seem to stretch longer than average and eyes that droop. He doesn’t respond and he can see the way your shoulders tense. “Come on, there’s no reason to be so cold.” His smile stretches and his fingers dance in the air as he waves a hand dismissively. “I’ll keep it short, hm?” He doesn’t wait for a response and instead continues to walk towards the both of you. You keep yourself in front of Dabi, still and cautious. “Oh? I didn’t know you had a special someone. It’s uh- it’s funny. I did too. Well, we all did.” The man gestures to the people behind him, one stocky with minerals that coat his skin, the other almost transparent with a mouth kept shut and black sclera, and one with almost reflective with sharp, jagged pieces that just out from their joints. “You see-”

“Leave.” Dabi’s voice cuts through the monologue of the man. He isn’t in the mood for it right now. He wants the group to leave. Whatever their issue is, is best left alone. You still haven’t moved from your spot.

“Come on, there’s no reason to be so disrespectful. You’re out with your partner so I understand that you want some time alone with them but you know. If you’re going to treat them so roughly-” the group takes steps forward, reflective material shining from the stray street lamps that light up the night- “then perhaps we should just take them home.”

Dabi’s upper lip curls in disgust and his body tenses. “You’ve talked for long enough.” His arm raises and heat pools deep in his arm. But just as blue starts to lick at his palms, long, stretchy arms wrap around you and you’re pulled away from him and into the group of strangers. His eyes widen ever so slightly, and he lowers his hand, an unsettling feeling settling in his chest. “What do you want?”

You wrapped tight with rubber arms around your body and he can see they way your legs tremble and he’s sure that if you weren’t being held, you would have fallen to your knees by now. You look back at him with a scared expression, eyes wide and bottom lip trembling, and he can see his name mouthed by you. He looks away from you and forces his attention towards the presumed leader of the small group.

The man who holds you now has a twisted smile decorating his face. “You see, a while back you burned a couple-”

“I’m not here for your life story.” Dabi holds his hand in the air again. “So hurry up and let them go.” He glowers at the individual who still holds you and his eyes meet yours. He calls your name, you furrow your brows and when he gives you a curt nod, you nod rapidly. Your mouth opens and you immediately bite on the arm that holds you, teeth piercing down and cutting down the rubber, and the arm uncoils and snaps back to its default length, a hand grasping at the wound, while curses fill the dark alleyway. “Get down.”

You run until you’re against the side of the building, and immediately crouch, hands covering the top of your head and face hidden. The men look at you and back to Dabi and there is a fear in their eyes, pleas that start and hands that raise in surrender. Immediately, blue and heat fills the small space, flames that burst out of his hand and encasing the four people. His arm starts to sting, a slight pinch that starts biting in different areas to spreading and consuming his arm in an unbearable pain that feels as if he is being set on fire from inside. Blood seeps between his staples and his hand lowers, steam rising from him and the smell of burnt flesh filling the alley way. He stares at a bundle of charred remains, limbs stretched and faces morphed into a horrific nature, eyes white and black, bloated and exposed, staring into the sky above where a plane drones overhead.

“Dabi?” Your voice is muffled, hidden between your legs and chest. “Are you okay?” He looks over at you, and he sighs. “Dabi, please answer.” Your voice comes out shaky and there’s a crack in it, your hands clench and your hand knits into your hair, muscles tense and you jerk randomly.

His steps are quiet, the bones creak from the deceased and he gives a mere glance towards the pile, watching you as you slowly twitch from your position. He stands in front of you and he wonders if you can smell the burnt flesh from him. You’re shaking, huffed breathing that escapes your lips and he frowns. His hand reaches out to grab at a wrist but he hesitates and lets his hand hover over you. Heat emanates from him and warms your skin and the smell of death is increasing, filling his lungs with something foul and smoke. He pulls his hand away from you and clenches it into a fist.

He calls your name in a soft whisper only to clear his throat and call it out louder. “They’re dead.” there’s no use beating around the bush. He just wants to go home now. “You can get up now.” The smell never grows old and a warm trickle of blood curves over open scars on his arm.

You rise shakily, spreading out and when you look back at him, tears have stained your face. You watch him and he can only stare at you with a blank expression. You knew who he was, what he’s done, the crimes that he’s committed but you have never witnessed it first hand until now. Your hands press into the filthy floor and he worries that you’ll get cut. You push yourself up and he stares at you, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows the acid and saliva that has pooled in his mouth. His mouth opens and he’s ready to call it off before you have a chance to.

“Are you okay?” His eyes widen. “Your- I know that you get hurt by your flames and I-” your eyes dart to his arm and your shoulders jump- “you’re bleeding,” you whine, hands reaching out towards him and grabbing his hand, your other hand grabs his under arm, pulling it close to you. “Does it hurt?” You lean forward and hesitate, only to look up at him and lower your head, your lips kissing at the scar that has reopened, and when you pull back, blood has smeared across your lips in a lipstick mark that makes his throat close.

You aren’t disgusted by him. You don’t run away and you stay close to him, holding his arm tenderly, his blood on your lips and his hands held tightly. Perhaps you just haven’t realized how monstrous he is, the disgrace of a person that he truly is must not have been realized as of yet. You hold him like an injured man rather than a murderer of people. People that he never knew of. People who held you and the underlying of a threat thick in their words all because of him. You hold him as if he is the victim, caressing him and your arms around him in a tight hug and he’s slow to return it, his head held high with a steely look as blood coats your shirt and he’s sorry.

“Can we go home now?” You ask in a small voice, hands clutching the jacket into fistfuls.

“You still want me to walk you home?” You still want him around you? You still trust him to step foot inside your home and lay beside you? It has to be a trick. Something so wicked that you would have picked up from him. His hands tighten around you and his muscle tense, blood leaking out and it’s warm.

“Please?” You ask in a soft beg, stepping closer to him. “I don’t- I don’t want to be alone.” And you trust him to be with you? You trust a man who murdered people in front of you to keep you safe?

“Why?” Second to everything, the afterthought to society and people. Only first in what a failure he is, in the body count that he holds, the shame embedded deep within him. But he is still a person, still yearning for the warm embrace of another, still desperate for the validation that he will never receive.

He feels you tense around him. The staples in his abdomen are pressed deeper into him and the pain, once sharp and agonizing, has now grown accustomed to a dull pain. “Because I want you to be with me.” Your voice is tight and he hates the sudden urge to press you closer, but he does so anyways. “Dabi, I- This was a scary situation but you protected me still. You waited until I was out of the way and I- Dabi you have to know that by now, I’d follow you wherever you go. I’d walk into the depths of hell, flames and all, if it meant that you would be with me.” Your voice cracks and he’s sure that his blood has now stained all of your back and the blood on your lips has dried.

The smell of the bodies lingers, thick in the air, blue that still crackles against charred flesh. It’s filthy here, his body burns and aches, you cling to him as if he might disappear, pulling him close to you and mumbling how you want him to come home with you, how you need him to be with you. You concealed your feelings with different words, told him you’d stick by him if that’s what he would wish for. You’d walk into hell and in the alleyway, you’ve already entered the domain, the screams that still echo against the walls, the sirens that sound far away and he smiles down at you, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head, smoke lingering against your hair and he pulls away, grasping your hand and leading you away from the fire that has begun to die down, fading into sparks and disappearing into the night. He wants to keep you close, to keep his body against yours, to make you follow through your promise and stick close to him, to never let you go and have your touch given to him freely, wanted and desired, hands that will trail his body and lips that will kiss his and remind him how he is yours till the pain in his wounds and flames make him combust.

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