#my brain plays that top line on loop sometimes

[ofstoriesandstardust]

for the love of a daughter (pete “maverick” mitchell)

a/n: ummmm... so yeah i pulled the trigger on a new hangman mini-series and then wrote this instead. mhmm. yeah i’m disappointed in me too. 

summary: Maverick overhears the conversation between Hangman and Rebel and realizes his daughter needs his support more than ever

part of the same mistakes-verse 

main masterlist | top gun: maverick masterlist

warnings: swearing, i plagiarized myself, self-doubt and insecurities, idk if this is good but my brain would not let me write anything else

word count: 3,016

Maverick sighed, leaning up against the bar as Penny made her way over to him. A cursory glance around the bar revealed the team splintered off, some at the pool table, others at the dartboard, some engaged in their own conversations. No (Y/N). He rubbed his face as the events of the day ran through his brain again. Your words playing on an endless loop, memories of your childhood resurfacing as he marked each and every time he had failed you. He was tired of failing his kids. 

“Rough day?” Penny asked him and he looked up at her.

“Yeah, you could say that.” She slid him a beer as she opened her mouth to say something when Hangman sidled up next to him. 

“Hey Pops, Penny. Two beers please.” Penny nodded, uncapping the beers for him and then the blonde was on his way out the door. Maverick wondered if he was off to go woo his conquest of the night. Penny turned back to Maverick. 

“What happened Pete?” She asked and he sighed, setting his beer down on the bar. He shook his head, trying to find the words. 

“(Y/N) and I got into it today during training. She said some things and um, you know, just can’t help but feel like somewhere along the line I failed my kid.” She sighed, a warm, sympathetic look settling over her face. 

“You didn’t fail her. She turned out amazing. The best kid you could ever hope for.” He shrugged his shoulders, looking over at the squadron, who were laughing together. They were a family, more cohesive than ever, while it felt like his was falling apart. 

“Doesn’t matter how great she turned out if she feels like she isn't loved, Pen.” The woman frowned. 

“Pete, I don’t-” He was nodding before he ever even realized it.

“She does, and I- I don’t know how to fix it. I just want to fix this.” The woman sighed at him softly, leaning on the bar.

“Pete, you can’t fix everything. Sometimes, you just- you have to let your kids make mistakes and fuck up and learn. Sometimes we have to let them figure it out on their own.” He slumped back, feeling defeated. A glance over to the pool table revealed Bradley smiling, laughing amongst his teammates like nothing had happened. Things were a lot better between the two of them, and while it would take time, he was happy to have his kid back. He just didn’t want to lose the other too. Penny sighed again and he looked up. “She’s outside, if you want to go talk to her.” Pete tilted his head in thought as Penny moved to serve other customers. He stood up, squeezing by patrons of the crowded bar, making his way outside. He moved down the beach, catching Hangman’s figure sitting next to you. He held back for a moment, thinking he should maybe go back inside, not intrude on whatever was happening, but then your words traveled back to him. 

“...that kind of insecurity, the fear that one day everyone would leave, that shit started young. Because I was two and the only thing I had to do was be cute, and she just- left.” Pete felt himself stumbling back. You never talked about your mother, never wanted to hear anything about her. To think that her leaving might’ve affected you in some way he’d never even realized- “And- I don’t know. My Dad tried so hard to be a father for Rooster that sometimes it felt like I was getting left out accidentally. My Dad tried so hard to make up for Goose not being there that somehow I got left in the dust. I think Ice saw it, a little bit. At least saw how I was feeling because he tried to get Dad to see it, but Dad being Dad, just doubled down and started dragging me to all the things he was doing with Rooster despite the fact that at 8 and 11 and 13 and 16, I still didn’t give two shits about a goddamn plane. And don’t get me wrong, now I love being here and flying, but that wasn’t always the case, and selfishly, the reason I did all of this wasn’t entirely because I wanted to.” 

He felt himself go cold at the words. Because he had done that, hadn’t he? 

“Why go all the way to TOPGUN then? Genuinely asking, because the shit they put us through, this isn’t just something you do for fun.” 

“The legacy.” The legacy?

“What do you mean?” Hangman's confusion mirrored his own then. You sighed and if he could see your face, he could almost picture the look you had when you were trying to be careful about the words that left your mouth. 

“From what I know about Goose, he was an amazing RIO. Just the best pilot and the best man.” He was, kid. “And with Ice, I mean, yeah he was my godfather and the man who kept me steering straight when I wanted to crash the metaphorical plane, but he was also a highly decorated Admiral who's earned so much respect from every part of the military that- how does one even start to compete?” He almost interrupted then, to shake his kid and say, no, no Ice never wanted you to think you had to live up to him but Hangman’s laughter stopped him. 

“Yeah, I could see how carrying on Admiral Kazansky’s legacy could be a tad bit intimidating.”

“A tad?” You asked sarcastically and he laughed harder. You let out a chuckle of your own in response. “Yeah, and then there’s Dad. Depending on who you talk to, they either want to be him or beat the shit out of him. Every military official either expected me to fuck up like him or fly like him, and when you don’t pull off the feats Dad’s known for, people began to get disappointed with the product in front of them.” Maverick swore, that in that moment, he felt his heart break. Because yeah, it’d been an open secret, but he’d been getting careless with who he told about his kid because she was such a good pilot- 

“And it’s not Dad’s fault, but I just- somewhere along the line I started to wonder if maybe I wasn’t good enough to live up to the pressure of the Ice-Goose-Maverick legacy.” No. “I started to wonder if everyone was one day going to see what my Mom must’ve all those years ago and leave, recognize that I’m worth less than what I pretend to be. And so, when I got re-assigned from the Green Vipers –– who were goddamn awful, by the way, and did not help this issue at all –– for this mission, I thought- maybe here’s my chance. Here’s my chance to prove that I’m good enough, that I can fulfill the legacy. And then Dad picked Rooster and it felt like all my worst fears and been confirmed in that moment, that I would always fail.” You sighed and Maverick felt his heart break, hearing the tears in your voice. All this time you had thought...

“Yeah, of course now I know that Rooster was the best choice and if my Dad would’ve picked me, he may not have come home because God knows I wouldn’t have been brave enough to turn around and- I don’t know. Rooster proved to everyone a long time ago he could fulfill the legacy, but man I always- I always fall just short. Guess I just realized that I was always doomed to fail, that no matter what I did, I would never be... enough.”

“(Y/N), that’s not- that’s not true.” The words left his mouth before he could stop them, not being able to take anymore. He had to end this right now. You whipped around to see him from where he stood a few feet away.

“Dad-”

“Hangman, will you give us a minute?” He nodded and stood up.

“Hangman, don’t you dare leave me here.” You called and he looked at you sheepishly.

“Sorry, Rebel, but I think you and your Dad got some things to talk about.” And with that, Hangman’s back was turned and headed back up towards the Hard Deck. Once Hangman was out of earshot, Maverick found himself stumbling forward, tugging your arm to pull you up into a standing position. He put his hands on your shoulders, looking you firmly in the eye. 

“How much of that did you hear?” You whispered softly. 

“Enough.” He said firmly and you sighed, fiddling with a ring on your finger. “I need you to listen to me and it’s very important that you listen to me carefully. I clearly don’t say this enough. (Y/N), I love you and I am endlessly proud of you. You could tell me tomorrow you’re taking a dishonorable discharge from the Navy and I’d still be proud of you. I know that being my kid could not have been easy. Lord knows you weren’t dealt a fair set of cards.” He takes a moment to really look at you, to make sure the words were registering in your brain. Your Mom leaving. The dark days after Goose died. Carole getting sick. Bradley leaving. Bosnia. Afghanistan. “And yet, you’ve always taken everything I’ve thrown at you in stride. The constant deployments, the hospital trips, moving, I- I know it couldn't have been easy. And I’m sorry.” He was. He was sorry. He was sorry his kid had been put through that, that she’d gone her whole life thinking she wasn’t loved for the way she was, thinking that she could do anything with her life and he still wouldn’t be proud of her. 

“Dad, you don’t have to-”

“No, clearly, I do.” She buckled underneath his grip but he kept it tight. He needed to finish this. His kid needed to know.

“No, Dad, really-”

“I’m not done.” He said, effectively cutting you off. “You’re right that Goose was an amazing pilot. You’re also right about Ice. But neither of them, nor I, would want you to feel like you had to live up to any sort of legacy.”

“Dad-”

“I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way. And I’m sorry that I didn’t select you for the mission. You’re an amazing pilot, but I needed to keep you safe. I needed you to be able to come home. And even if that choice cost me you, I would make it over and over again. Because you’re still here and that’s all I could ask for.” Because if he lost his kid- what would there be left for him?

“Dad-”

“I have one more thing to say and then I promise you can say whatever else you need to.” You raised your hands in surrender and he sighed, letting go of your shoulders and taking a step back. “You’re right that Bradley is my kid at this point. But never would he come before you. You have and always will be my number one priority. Your safety and happiness has always been at the top of my list, even if I don’t always show it. And I’m sorry I wasn’t a better father to you growing up. I mean, with Bradley it was easy, because he wanted to fly and be like me and Goose, and it was simple. I think it was difficult because I knew Bradley had Carole at the end of the day but with you, it was just me. It was all up to me. And that’s not an excuse for not being better as a parent. I’m sorry. I love you and I’m proud of you and I’ll say it every day from here on out if I have to for you to believe. If you don’t want to have a relationship with me moving forward that’s your choice kiddo, and I’ll respect it. But it won’t change how much I love you.” Because that’s the truth at the end of the day, wasn’t it? He’d done the best he could by himself. And maybe that hadn’t been enough, maybe he’d leaned on Ice and Carole too much, and maybe now he was facing the consequences of it. But he’d done what he could to keep you safe and that’s all he could ask for. Because you were here and you were happy and you were alive. 

“Dad, it wasn’t that you were a bad parent. Or that you failed me. It’s just- it’s got very little to do with you and everything to do with the pressure. I know Ice would strangle me if he heard half of what I said tonight, as would Rooster, but I just- it’s difficult to explain because it’s something that’s built over the years.”

“We’ve got time.” He sighed. They did have time. He’d take all the time to fix all the things that had gone wrong. 

“I know you’re proud of me. I know I’m a priority. I know why I didn’t get chosen for the mission and I know what kind of position that put you in. I know that Ice would kill me if he knew for one second that I felt like I had to live up to his legacy, but it’s just- this unspoken expectation from every officials part. They judge me before I ever get in the sky and when it’s not what they’re expecting, they aren’t afraid to tell me.” He sighed, because that was life in the Navy, wasn’t it? Legacy mattered and when people knew who your parents were, what they’d done, they assign it to you whether you liked it or not. Maverick knew that all too well. “And then people talk and suddenly, because you didn’t meet some pre-determined set of expectations, you’re a failure. And after a decade of Navy service, doing this same old song and dance with every squadron, it starts to wear on you. And I just- it boils over and I took it out on you and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean those awful things that I said, because I do love flying and I do love being here, having you as my instructor, I just- I’m sorry.” He sighed, pulling you into a hug as you began to cry.

“It’s okay, kiddo, it’s okay.” He whispered against the top of your head. As much as his heart was breaking on the inside, you needed him. Clearly, you needed him more than ever. 

“It’s not.”

“Yeah, it is.” He said, chuckling. “I’m your parent, you can take whatever you need out on me.” Because he’d always be there, take whatever words his kids threw at him, so long as they were both safe. “But don’t take it out on Coyote, don’t take it out on Rooster.” You sniffed, wiping away some of your tears as you pulled away. Coyote was your best friend, and he knew how fiercely Coyote cared for you. And while things with Rooster had been strained, it hadn’t always been like that. And it didn’t have to be like that moving forward. 

“Yeah, Coyote and I need to have a talk. But I’m really fucking mad at Rooster.”

“I’m gonna ask you a serious question: If he can get over what I did, why can you not get over what he did? I’m genuinely asking because I feel like maybe I’m missing something here.” Maverick had to admit that he was a little baffled by his daughter’s insistence to keep Bradley at arms length. There was a history and feelings had been hurt, but there was no denying how much the two of you used to care about each other. And really, if Bradley could forgive him, why couldn’t she forgive Bradley? 

You sighed. “Because he can never, never take full responsibility for icing me out. There’s always some reason or justification or cop-out-”

“Like that he’s in love with you?” The words were out his mouth before he could stop them. You paused, eyes narrowed.

“How do you know about that?”

“I heard about your little argument out here last night.” Oh yeah, he’d heard about it all right. All right before the explosive argument this morning. 

“Motherfucker.” You whispered.

“(Y/N), he is. It’s not a cop-out or an excuse. It’s the truth. I know you, and I know what’re you doing here. This goes beyond what happened when I pulled his papers.” You sighed, throwing your arms up in the air. Because there had to be something more than what had happened so long ago. 

“I can’t believe I’m being lectured right now.”

“I’m not lecturing you, I’m holding you accountable.” Because if that was one thing Maverick did right, it was hold her accountable when she messed up. “Bradley deserves an honest conversation from you.” You sighed again. “I think you have some things of your own that you need to figure out, some questions you need to answer.”

“Like what?”

“What are you running from?”

“The hell does that mean?” She asked hotly and Maverick had to hold his tongue, bite back from repeating the words Penny had said to him not all that long ago. 

“Pete, it’s so obvious how badly she craves love, and yet she’s never willing to accept it, to allow people to think that she might be worthy of their love.”

“It means that you need to figure out why you’re really angry with Rooster. At it’s core, why don’t you want to let him back in? Why does the idea that he might love you scare you so bad?” She opened her mouth, but no words came out and he shook his head. “Don’t tell me, tell him.”

You stood there for a little while longer and then moved back towards him, wrapping your arms around his chest. “Regardless, I’m still really sorry.” He returned your hug, holding you close. 

“I know kiddo, I know.” 

#pete maverick mitchell #pete maverick mitchell imagines #pete maverick mitchell imagine #pete maverick mitchell fics #pete maverick mitchell fic #top gun maverick #top gun maverick fic #same mistakes

[kurumeki]

When u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favourite followers✨️🎶

I was tagged by @phant0m-l0rd, thank you! ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)

I will list five songs that are stuck in my head lately, and that I simply cannot get enough of.

Black Sabbath / The Sign Of The Southern Cross From Sabbath's album Mob Rules (1981). This song is haunting me lately. Despite the title, it's not about religion really, it's not a reference to Christianity. Southern Cross, also known as Crux, is a constellation of the southern sky that is centred on four bright stars in a cross-shaped asterism. It's about realising how small we are compared to the night sky, and that life itself is much bigger than our what we experience here on Earth. Love Tony Iommi's heavy guitar riff and Geezer's complimentary bass. My favourite line from lyrics: Don't live for pleasure / Make life your treasure / Fade away.

Aerosmith / Draw The Line Title song from their 1977 album. I'm still not very familiar with their discography, but it should be no surprise one of their early releases got me with the groove. The bass line is permanently stuck in my brain, I'm afraid. Classic Aerosmith song that never fails to rail me up to get some very much needed kick of energy.

Judas Priest / Victim Of Changes From their 1976 album Sad Wings Of Destiny. Another album that got me in when I kind of accidentally listened to other two tracks from this album, Dreamer Deceiver and Deceiver (youtube is amazing sometimes with suggesting you stuff). I've been enjoying my journey to the roots of metal, so Judas Priest is a must. Love their heaviness and of course Rob Halford's vocals, my queer icon!

Rainbow / Stargazer Listen. Liiisten. When I first heard this song last year, I seriously wondered under which rock I've been living so far, not knowing this monumental masterpiece. I heard it at the movie premiere "Dio. Dreamers Never Die" (2022) in the cinema and my mind was literally blown. It wasn't even the full song played in the movie, and I was already hooked, obsessed, my brain rewired. I came back home very late, and instead of getting ready to sleep because of work on the next day, I put the song on and... yeah. It's love for life. Ronnie James Dio is a vocal genius there, his emotional performance will always give me chills. Cozy Powell's drum solo intro will never not be iconic. Ritchie Blackmore's guitar solo will never not be a work of art. The song is from their second album Rising from 1976. And in terms of favourite lyrics... hard to pick just one part. Stargazer will forever be in my top ten favourite songs of all time, and I know it will be the same at the day I die, no exaggeration.

MORRIE / あとは野となれ山となれ Speaking of songs that have forever rewired my brain - MORRIE's ultimate masterpiece and "healing song" from his 1992 solo album ロマンティックな、余りにロマンティックな (Romantic, All Too Romantic). It wasn't a love at first listen, but it sure has this unique quality that touches your heart and sends shivers down your spine. This song had to grow on me, but I was completely gone for it, when I was able to hear it live in 2019 at Solitude show in Yokohama O-SITE. He performed it alone on stage, with just the electric guitar, and the arrangement was just slightly different and he used a lot of loop, but it made so much sense to me that version will forever live in my heart. The song is about being eternal, about seasons passing and us being part of the nature's cycle, from the day we're born till we die, and then when we're born again, in human form or not, only to die again and one day just become cosmos nothingness and everything at the same time. I had the pleasure to try translating the lyrics of this song and this part always moves me almost to tears: You can become the star    You can become the sea You can become the wind   You can become the sand And still find the way           To that place Of infinite dream within your heart

If you made it there and read through all of this wall of text - congratulations! Now, my tagged beloved mutuals are:

@mystical-glider, @crash-to-create, @vinidra, @thedevilinbloodminor, @quartzfrost, @ranuunculus, @rayinpixels, @angels-holocaust, @hattoririma, @yridenergyridenergy.

#thingy

[pedrito-friskito]

Kay!! Congrats on 300, lovely 💕 for your celebration: 🦦 how about a meet cute with our fave grumpy DEA agent, Mr. Javier Peña? He deserves a lil something sweet, I think 😌💗

sadie!! thank you so much my sweet! 💕

hope you enjoy, you are 100000% right our favourite grumpy DEA agent does deserve something sweet, and this is definitely that 😋

a/n: full disclosure I have not finished narcos yet (still lmao) but this would be (I BELIEVE) sometime after the end of season 3. no warnings, just tooth-rotting fluff that I might build off eventually 😇 (separate from my other javi fics as well!)

beat the heat - javier peña x fem!reader

✨kay’s 300 follower celebration✨

It should be illegal for the weather to be this warm.

Javier’s had that thought more than once in his life. Colombia was a whole other beast compared to the summers in Laredo that he was used to. It was a different kind of heat, the humidity hanging in the air and clinging to him like a second skin. It was a lot, and it took some getting used to, sure, but now, the weather in Texas feels more foreign to him than anything else.

It’s a dry, blazing heat. The kind that just feels like staring into the sun, warming you from the inside out, sweat pouring out of every nook and cranny. In a way, it makes him long for the wet summers in Colombia, chased away with ice cold beers and fans that spun till they broke. And nights on the compound, before everything happened the way it had, the concrete floors murder on his back but the perfect way to cool off.

And on top of feeling so hot his shirt is clinging to every inch of his torso, Javier feels out of place.

A carnival — a fucking carnival of all places. Chucho had all but yanked him out of the house that morning, deciding that he wasn’t going to let his son sleep another day away when the community was coming together. And they had; despite the heat, the whole town must be here, crowds of people everywhere he turns, faces he recognizes, others he doesn’t.

He’s run into a few friends, since he’s been back. It’s awkward, some of them telling him how proud they are, others approaching him warily, like he’s an animal that might get spooked. Javi tries to brush it off, to take the bad with the good, but the feeling sits heavy in the back of his head, the reminder.

He’s not a hero.

He’s not, no matter how many times Chucho tries to tell him different.

What happened to you over there?

Too much. Far too fucking much.

Today, however, he decides to push the thoughts away completely, following his father through the crowds until they find the line of food stands tucked towards the back of the field housing the carnival. He fills his face with tacos and empanadas and barbecued corn dripping with butter. Chucho watches approvingly, and Javier can feel the quiet appreciation coming from his father, to see his son with an appetite for once. It’s always been a debate in his house, even before, when his mamà was still alive.

You don’t eat enough, Javier. You’re too skinny, Javier. You need to put some meat on your bones, Javier.

It plays on a loop in his brain some days, but today, he pushes it away. And lets his father push another beer into his hand. The chill down his throat chases away some of the heat sitting on his skin, and Javier finds himself wandering, quietly disappearing after some of Chucho’s friends join him at their picnic table.

The whole place is buzzing with activity, stalls with games manned by less-than-impressed looking teenagers, a ferris wheel tucked in one corner, one of those spinning rides that makes Javier’s stomach turns just looking at it. Even a fun house.

He’s not totally sure what possesses him to do it, but he finds himself doling out a few dollars for ride tickets, getting in line, and walking into the fun house. He waits until the kids ahead of him are out of sight, not wanting anyone to witness his careful walk through the spinning tunnel that makes up the entrance. It’s probably a weird thing, a grown man walking through a fun house alone, but he makes it through the tunnel in one piece, wiping the sweat from his brow. It’s surprisingly cool on the other side, and Javier is immediately met with a room full of mirrors and paned glass, a zig-zagged path that he assumes till take him to the other size. He scoffs quietly, rethinking his choices, but then—

“Can somebody help me, please?”

You don’t sound…scared, per se. It’s an almost-funny mix of fear and exasperation, definitely more frustrated than afraid, and your tone alone puts a smile on Javi’s lips. He lifts a brow. “Hello?”

“Oh my god,” comes your quieter exclamation. Then, called louder: “Is someone else in here?”

“I’m here,” he calls back. “Are you stuck?”

A long pause, and then you quietly admit it. “…yes.”

Javier stifles his chuckle, lifting a hand in front of him as he takes a step forward, careful that he doesn’t come face-first with a pane of glass. “You need help?”

“I need to get out of here!” you call. “My stupid friends ditched me and I can’t find my way out of this stupid thing.”

“It’s okay,” Javier replies. Something ticks in the back of his mind. He doesn’t recognize your voice, missing the Southern twang most of the women in Laredo carry. Besides, he prides himself on knowing as many people as he can, and you have a voice he would most definitely remember. “Just keep talking, okay? I’ll follow your voice and we’ll get you out of here, sound good?”

“O-okay,” you reply, the word stuttered slightly. “What should I say?”

He can’t stifle the chuckle this time, stopping in his tracks as his hand touches glass. “Whatever you want to, I guess. Could start with your name. I’m Javier.”

You’re quiet for a moment before you reply with your own name. “It’s nice to meet you, Javier.”

The sound comes from his left, so Javi moves in that direction, both hands held up in front of him now. He can only imagine how ridiculous he looks. “It’ll be better when we can look at each other and talk, eh?”

You let out a little giggle, and he follows the noise, swinging around a corner and letting his feet slide against the ground. His fingers meet glass again. Damn. “I guess so. I don’t know what else to say.” Another giggle, and he turns again, this time getting a good ten feet before he hits another pane.

“What’s your favourite movie?”

“My favourite movie?” you repeat. Another turn. “Top Gun.” Javi just starts to laugh, the noise echoing through the space. “What?”

“Top Gun? That’s your favourite movie?”

“Yes, that’s my favourite movie.”

“You’re not from Texas, are you?”

“No,” you reply, your voice sounding wary. “Wait a second, I can’t be from Texas and like Top Gun? Is that what you’re saying?”

He sputters another laugh. God, when was the last time he laughed like this? “No, no! Your accent. I’m just trying to keep you talking.”

Your giggle is nervous this time, sheepish. “Oh.” A pause, and then… “I’m from Colorado, just for the record.”

“Colorado?” Javier repeats. “I hope you didn’t come all this way just for the carnival.”

“No,” you reply, and he swears your voice is getting louder. He’s getting closer. “I’m staying with my aunt and uncle for a while.”

“They live in Laredo?” he asks.

“Yes,” you reply almost instantly, and then pause again. “Y’know, maybe I shouldn’t be telling you all this, you could be a—”

Javier rounds a final corner, hands still held in front of him, and there you are. Your back is pressed into the corner of two glass panes, arms crossed over your chest. You’re wearing the sweetest sundress he’s ever seen, thin straps over your shoulders, the skirt tiered at your hips, buttons up the front. There’s fluorescents in the maze, so he’s not sure what colour it is, not sure what colour your eyes or your hair is.

But he knows you’re beautiful.

“You’re Javier Peña,” you say, pointing a finger at him, your eyes sparkling. He can see the sheen of sweat on your skin, the way some of your hair has fallen from where it’s piled on top of your head and is curling against your neck. “You’re Chucho’s son.”

Javier balks. “You know my dad?”

You start to giggle again, and damn it all, if it’s not the sweetest thing Javier’s ever heard. It’s even better this close to you, the sound unimpeded by glass and space. “I do. My aunt and uncle own the land beside yours.” You nod once. “I’ve seen your picture before, and your dad talks about you a lot.” And then… “He’s proud of you.”

He waits for the second part. For what you did in Colombia. For being a hero. But it doesn’t come. You’re just watching him, hand lowering from where you’d pointed your finger, fingers curling in the fabric of your dress, a soft smile on your face. Javier just stands there awkwardly, rubbing the back of his sweaty neck, palms going more clammy than they already are.

“So,” he says finally, dragging his eyes up to meet yours, trying not to let them linger too long on your dress, “what do you say we get out of here?”

You nod enthusiastically, eyes going bright. “Yes, please.”

Javier steps in front of you and looks back at you. “Put your hands on my shoulders,” he tells you, and you obey, nodding once. He smiles and you smile back and then he goes to take a step and…

…his forehead hits glass. Hard.

He stumbles back a bit, directly into you, and you try to stifle your laugh, he can tell you really try to, but it doesn’t work. The little giggle is replaced with a much louder, unabashed laugh, and all Javier can think is your giggle barely compares to your laugh.

“Are you all right?” you ask, and it takes him a moment to realize that in the shuffle, your hands had moved from his shoulders and are currently resting on his hips.

He’s grateful for the fluorescents; hopefully you can’t see him blush. He rubs at his forehead. “Yep.”

It takes a while, to get out of the maze. He remembers to put his hands up this time, and pointedly focuses on the task on hand, if only to distract himself from the fact that your hands are still on his hips.

There’s more of the fun house to get through, you both realize: steps that slide back and forth on a track, some kind of twisting rope course, a ramp that bounces you both up and down the moment you step on it. You’re very quickly gripping Javier for support, both hands now wrapped around his bicep, and he can’t stop smiling.

Then you’re out of the fun house, back on solid ground, and Javier can see you for real. The blush in your cheeks, the colour of your eyes, the shade of your hair. Your dress is purple, lavender, dotted with little yellow flowers all over.

“Thank you,” you say as you fall into step beside him. He’s waiting for you to disappear, to go run off and find your friends, “for rescuing me.”

He lets out a little huff of a laugh, grinning at you. “You’re welcome, Maverick.”

Your eyes go wide, jaw dropping, and you shove his arm. “After you gave me all that sass!”

“I’ve seen the movie,” he tells you, chuckling as you start to shake your head. “I didn’t say I liked it.”

You purse your lips, squinting at him. “Whatever you say, Charlie.”

“Charlie?” he repeats, brow creasing. “That’s the girl’s name, isn’t it?”

You slip your arm through his, bumping your hip against his. “It is, but Maverick gets the girl in the end, doesn’t he?”

He just stares at you, mouth dropping open. You let out a sly laugh, curling your hand around his bicep like you had in the fun house. He can feel the heat radiating off of you, but despite the unforgiving Texas warmth, he’s glad for it. It stirs something in him, something he hasn’t felt in a long time.

“C’mon, hotshot,” you grin, tugging on his arm. “I’ll win you a teddy bear.”

You spend the rest of the afternoon together. He tells you more than once you should go find your friends, but you’re adamant to stay right by his side, telling him you’re having more fun with him than you’ve ever had with them, and that, “those jerks left me in the fun house to rot, and you saved me, so I’m sticking with you.”

You make good on your promise to win him a teddy bear, proving to be a better shot at him at the  game where you throw darts at the board full of balloons. Javier pays for three throws, and you nail every one. 

There’s conversation as you meander through the carnival. He learns a bit more about you, offers a bit more about himself. You’d graduated a few years back, couldn’t find anything you truly liked back in Colorado, so you decided to come down South, stay with your aunt and uncle until you could figure it out. You hadn’t yet, you told him, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear and looking down at the bag of cotton candy in your hand (Javier’s treat).

“I’m starting to like Laredo more and more,” you told him, and he could hear the meaning in your tone, see it in the blush that slowly crept into your cheeks, not from the heat, but from something more.

He nods. “Me, too.”

You end up back at the picnic benches, and Javier finds his father in exactly the same spot he left him, a collection of empty beer bottles on the table, surrounded by friends, all chatting away. Your aunt and uncle are apparently among them, both greeting you happily as the pair of you approach.

“There you are!” your aunt calls, smiling as you bend down to peck her cheek, squeezing your uncle’s shoulder. “We were wondering if you got lost somewhere; I was this close to sending out a search party.”

You roll your eyes. “Jenna and Harvey left me in the fun house. I got lost in the mirrors and couldn’t find my way out.” Your aunt looks concerned, patting your hand, and then you look over at Javi, stood by his father’s shoulder. “Javi rescued me.”

“Rescued?” Chucho repeats, craning his neck back to look at Javier. “Aren’t you a regular knight in shining armour.”

“My saviour,” you sing-song, and Javier feels that something stir in him again when you wink at him.

The sun has started to set, the temperature blissfully lowering, and the carnival comes to life further, every inch covered with lights in an instant. There’s a dance floor set up in the middle of the picnic tables, lights strung from stand to stand, and a band starts to play.

You hover by your aunt and uncle, talking animatedly with your aunt, glancing over at Javier every few seconds. He pretends not to notice, toying with the little teddy bear you’d pushed into his hands the moment you won it. “Something to remember me by.”

He already knows he’s not ever going to forget.

The band plays something slow, and couples start to fill the dance floor. Your uncle asks your aunt to join him with a flourish, and Javier hears you giggle as they take to the floor, arm in arm.

Chucho elbows him in the ribs, and when Javier looks at him, he’s jutting his chin towards you. “Ask her to dance.”

Javi starts to protest. “I don’t da—”

“Te pasaste todo el día con ella, Javier,” Chucho returns, lifting a brow. You spent the whole day with her, Javier. Javi sees you glance over, shoot him a smile before turning your gaze away. Chucho continues. “Es una buena chica, de corazón fuerte. Ella podría ser buena para ti. Baila con ella.”

She’s a good kid, strong heart. She could be good for you. Dance with her.

Javi sighs. Chucho is right, he suspects. You could be very good for him.

His dad starts to laugh. “Before I do.”

Rolling his eyes, Javier pushes himself to his feet, rounding the picnic table and coming to stand in front of you. You look up at him slowly, eyes bright and shining. Honestly, where did you even come from? “Dance with me?” he asks, the words stumbling out of his mouth as he holds his hand out to you.

You just grin, pressing your hand into his. “Okay.”

You’re both quiet as he walks you onto the dance floor, the slow song fading into one he actually recognizes. He bites the inside of his cheek as his hand settles at the small of your back, other hand holding yours. Your other rests on his shoulder, toying with the collar of his shirt, and Javi clears his throat. “I had a lot of fun with you today,” he tells you, and you smile back at him.

“I had a lot of fun with you, too.”

“I was wondering,” he starts, and drops his eyes, feeling his ears go bright red. God, why is this so hard? “Wondering if, uh, if you’d want to—”

“Second date?” you supply, raising a brow at him playfully.

Javier’s confused. “Second date?”

“We spent the whole day together,” you tell him, fingers still toying with his collar, “at a carnival. That’s a first date as in my book. So, second date. And just for the record,” you lean up on your toes, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek and whispering in his ear, “the answer is yes.”

—————

javier peña tags: @iamskyereads @ancientbeing10 @saintmurd0ck @woomen23 @plutoneu @pedropascalsx @allfoolsinluv @maddiewinchester @winchestershiresauce @minxsblog @bluestuesday @i-simp-much @trickstersp8 @kirsteng42 @lovesbiggerthanpride @beskarprincessjenny @loonymagizoologist @mashomasho @greeneyedblondie44 @tanzthompson @fiscinthirst @mswarriorbabe80

I have a taglist! if you’d like to be tagged in future works, please fill out this form! 💕

#javier peña #javier peña fic #javi peña #narcos #narcos fic #javier peña x you #javier peña x reader #my fics #javi p #beat the heat #javier peña fluff #pedro pascal

[morningstargirl666]

alicia, my beloved! would you do me a great favour and answer some of these?

🤡🛒🌌🎶🙋‍♀️💖🤗🧠 (tell me about our boy klaus)

(also i 100% rbed that post in hopes that it'll give me an excuse to pester all my writer friends with questions, mission accomplished! 😈)

🤡 - What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

Ella, bestie - there's so many. I mean not all of them are laugh-out-loud funny, but they always bring a little smile to my face. I think Caroline pushes Klaus into a pool in Into Eternity? That's a good one. But I think most the more funny exchanges happen in The Big Bad Wolf. Somehow that fic turned into crack along the way and honestly it ran away from me. My OCs are just really fun to write. Probably the scene that made me laugh the most in that, was the bacon scene. With the lunar cycles. And then later on Klaus throwing Kol's phone out the car window because he caught him texting Rebekah about the new information. Scenes with Titus, Klaus' horse, and Sam's raven Loki also hit the top spots. Sorry, I just can't choose one.

🛒 - What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Found family. Or a sense of family or brotherhood in general. I have no idea why. It's just too wholesome to leave out. Also probably an element of spookiness and horror, because I'm edgy like that, and I like my settings/characters a little dark, a little violent.

✨ - Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

Okay so there's no constellation emoji on the original ask list so I'm assuming you meant this one? I don't know, maybe I'm just blind but I can't find it.

So. A compliment.

Will you accept 'I write good'? Lmao I don't know.

🎶 - Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

I actually have a few playlists on youtube that I set aside for writing. My brain is really sense-minded, so like when I put that music on it knows it's time to write. I've got a klaroline playlist, which are basically klaroline music vids, and also playlists for my fics. And then sometimes I just freestyle, listen to anything that comes on. I need to share the songs I listen to for TBBW at some point cause they are amazing. Here Come the Wolves by Lola Blanc screams Chapter 1. And then I Know Your Secrets by Tommee Profitt (feat. Liv Ash) is definitely Chapter 12. I remember listening to Running With The Wolves by Aurora for Chapter 13 a lot.

🙋‍♀️ - Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

Yes. Sort of. A close friend knows. Though I have not shared my ao3 name nor my fics and do not intend to lol.

💖 - What made you start writing? 

I actually can't remember when I didn't write in some shape or form. I've been writing since I was a small kid, in like primary school. Probably Year 4? Maybe even Year 3? I would have been like 7 maybe. I basically remember watching the movie of Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, and little kid me thought, oh I want to write a book! And so I started writing a book called the Dragon and the Peach. I think the plot involved a dragon called Sapphira, who like goes on this quest and eats a magical peach that makes her strong and powerful so she can defeat the villain. That story eventually evolved into a different, more complex plot as I got older, with more characters and backstories. By Year 6 I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. And then in my teens I found fanfiction and well, here I am, ten years later, still writing fanfiction lol. Nothing really made me start writing. I guess Dahl's books inspired me originally, I really loved them as a kid, but nothing made me do it. No one pushed me to do it, or said I'd be good at it. For me writing has always been a calling. I really had no choice but answer.

🤗 - What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

Read. Write. That's it. Read as much as you can, because that's the finest teacher of how to write. Literally. You'll find whatever genres and tropes you prefer to read will start popping up in your writing without even realising it. And when you do write, keep writing, even when you get writer's block - even if its 200 words per day or 200 words after weeks of nothing, at least its no longer a blank page. Write while figuring out how to plot, how to characterise, how to build up tension. Don't be ashamed of stuff you wrote a year ago because it sucks - it doesn't suck, you've just improved since then and now you can write better. It's a victory, not a defeat. And don't write for anyone else but yourself. Like I said before, writing is a calling. It's bleeding words onto a page because you have to get it out or you'll go crazy. You are your first reader. So write for you.

🧠 - Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favourite headcanon for them.

So. Klausy. Neeklous. Our boy Klaus. What headcanons do I have for him, hmm? 🤔

[I'm trying to think of one I haven't told you, it's a challenge]

Okay I have one. Not sure if I've included this in a fic yet, but a headcanon I love is that Klaus steals artwork from galleries and museums for kicks and replaces them with copies he painted before the originals are noticed as missing. The galleries and museums around the world have yet to catch on. He thinks its funny. Compulsion gets boring after the first few centuries, after all.

#asks #✨ella✨ #morningstar writes #fanfiction #ps: klaus and kol once stole an art piece while drunk #and promptly got arrested #they were too drunk to compel the authorities to let them go so elijah had to bail them out #klaus and kol never live it down #tvdu #headcanons

[annihilate-this-week]

“My friends are girls wrapped in boys.”

I bought Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising on vinyl sometime in the mid 90s — I think in 1994 when I was working on the paint crew for Charlottesville City Schools between semesters. I got really obsessed with it, pretty much fell in love with every song. I wrote a whole piece about it a decade or so ago, which you can read HERE if you’re ok with the fact that it predates my transition and may reflect some poor understandings I had of myself and the world at the time.

Anyway.

One song from Bad Moon Rising that really stuck with me is “Society Is A Hole,” which is either the second or third song on side one depending on whether you really buy that “Intro” should be a separate track from “Brave Men Run” (I am a skeptic on this question). It starts with a tape loop of the locked groove that ends side four of Lou Reed’s experimental noise album Metal Machine Music. The loop runs throughout the song, rising and falling in volume depending on what else is going on. The whole thing has a particularly uncanny ambience that appealed to me. I remember walking down Richmond’s infamous Monument Avenue, decades before they took the statues down, in the middle of the night with “Society Is A Hole” blasting in my headphones, feeling like I was vibrating on its frequency.

Thurston Moore’s enigmatic lyrics might mean a lot of things, and I’m sure any interpretation I could give them would be different from his own. But there were lines in the song that leaped out at me, burned themselves into my brain forever, to the point where now I sort of hear them without really HEARING them, you know?

But so anyway. I’ve been reading Kim Gordon’s memoir, Girl In A Band, lately. It’s really good, and has led me to pull some of my old Sonic Youth records back out (by which I mean “find them on Apple Music and add them to my library,” what did you think I meant?). Since Bad Moon Rising is still my favorite Sonic Youth album ever, it’s gotten several plays this week.

And this morning, listening to it doing dishes, I suddenly heard that bolded line at the top of this post in a whole new way. It’s from “Society Is A Hole,” of course, and I always liked it, but my interpretation of it was vague. I don’t think I could have told you what it MEANT, really. Today, suddenly, it hit me like a thunderclap: this line is about closeted trans girls.

Well, OK, not to Thurston Moore, I’m sure. But I think that’s why it always stuck with me. On some level I identified with being a girl wrapped in boy, as if my birth-assigned gender was some restrictive foil wrapper enclosing me all my life, like one of those pieces of Easter chocolate with a picture of a bunny painted on the outside.

I don’t think I could really see how much this idea related to me, particularly at the time of my life when I first got Bad Moon Rising, until I pulled that wrapper off once and for all. Which is a very difficult thing to do, especially when society has everything invested in keeping you in there. But it is at least a nice thought, to think that on some subconscious level, I saw echoes of the truth of myself in the world long before I’d gotten to a place where I could admit it to myself.

#transgender #trans girl #living inside a trans body #sonic youth #bad moon rising #society is a hole

[izabellwit]

🤡😈🎢✨🎶🍦💖🎯👀✅💔

im sorry im sending so many of these feel free to ignore some if you already got em <3

these answers got kinda long so dhjfgj under the readmore it goes!!

🤡What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

Hunter manages to shove all the junk into one corner and make the start of a fairly presentable bed in the other corner by the time the human re-arrives in the Boiling Isles and throws open his door hard enough to smack it against the wall.

“You took my advice!” shouts the human, at the top of her lungs.

“Hiiiiii,” says Hunter, hands over his ears. The human takes a deep breath. Hunter closes the door in her face. “Byeeee.”

(From this fic!!)

There's a lot of lines I've written over the years that make me laugh, but Hunter and Luz as a funny sibling duo…. Every time I reread this fic I giggle at this scene. 

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

OH ABSOLUTELY there's a few lil ones… I think the one I do most often is namedrop other fandoms/charcters? This happens a lot in my KH fics. Like I'll have a TWEWY reference or character show up for like one second and then never again. Just for funsies and also flavor and also bc I love twewy. 

Sometimes I will also set up scenes specifically to make readers think the worse happened/some guy died or whatever and then it gets revealed its something funny instead. I do that a lot too djhsfgkj

🎢Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

LABYRINTHS OF THE HEART. I love all I've written but nothing will ever come close to Labyrinths. It was freshmen year of college and stuff was happening irl and that fic just. Went places. I had so much fun with it.

✨Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

AAAA. UM. Oh god. Uhhhh I think I do pretty well with characterization / character voice? Also a lot of my fics I write for me and im always very happy with them… they are exactly what I wanted to read. Does that count??

🎶Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

YEAH. For certain fics I'll make a whole playlist, even! As for a song on loop.... this one! Inkpot Gods by the Amazing Devil never leaves my brain haha

🍦What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

Ohhh gosh. Okay so its either Klee meeting the knights of Favonius or Hyakkimaru and Dororo comedy fic hjdfgkjgh

💖What made you start writing?

Oooo I gotta think about this one... hmmm, I think, I've always been a daydreamer and as a kid I used to be annoyed I couldn't "reread" my daydreams like I could my favorite books?? so I decided I just had to write them down eventually I think jhdfkgj

Of course in my mind before i could write down my ideas I had to actually get GOOD at writing (kid brain. My logic is silly, write whatever and whenever u want, u do not need "skill" to get started but ANYWAY) that's also how I started writing fic, for writing practice!! And now years later I'm still at it haha

🎯Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

Oooooh, a lot of readers in Labyrinths guessed the final plot point, which is that Varian will become the moondrop… most of my fics don't tend to have major twists though, I think…? There's one other fic I've written that has a HUGEE twist, but it hasn't been revealed yet and no one's guessed it yet, so ;)

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

i have a player and xehanort on the island fic in the works (exploring his possible childhood, character study and legacies kinda thing), and its still veeeeeery rough draft (like. basically still just notes) but I do have this exchange!!!

-do you think they’ll like me?

-who?

-the friends from my dreams. I’m not— do you think they’ll like me anyway?

-of course.

-but how do you know? What if they don’t? What if— what if I go out there and no one—

-he stops. He doesn’t know where he was going with that.

-silence. And then his teacher leans forward, and holds him close. I love you, they say. I love you very much.

-that isn’t what I asked.

-but it's my answer. They press a hand to his head. You’ll understand, one day. 

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

The above exhange: "i love you / that isn't what I asked / but it is my answer" has actually shown up in a few fics! It's a common theme I guess u could say... its a conversation that means something to me and I think it is changed slightly by the context of every story, so I keep bringing it in jhdfgkj

Other things that crop up a lot....Found family for sure! Uhhh the phrase "rolling the thought like candy on [their] tongue" shows up a lot without my meaning it too djhfgjkh

Oh!!! Honey!! Honey shows up a lot. I think honey is fantastic. Did u know it lasts forever? Also it has great medical properties--Anyway I think you get the idea haha

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27801085/chapters/68061658 hehe

Anyway. The woods whispering fic may be completed but I think about the fucked up found family relationships in that fic 24/7. The moment i posted the last chapter i had to stare at a wall for a bit haha

#ask game #THIS WAS SOOOO FUN THANK YOUUUUU #oh i havent done these in forever this was so fun dsfgh

[kaereth]

get you a friend who sees you for yourself uwu

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice broadway #lydia deetz #lydia #betelgeuse #anyways yeah im still hyperfocused on beetlejuice sorry jsjs #my brain plays that top line on loop sometimes #i love it so much

[writinginthedarkwood]

Werewolf! Kirishimia Eijiro: A New Meaning to Golden Retriever Boyfriend.

Thank you so dearly for this request, it was so much fun to write. Prompt #16 “Not this again.” For the fictober event. If you have a request, please send me an ask I would love to write it. 

No warnings, fluffy and cute.

"You've got to be kidding me, not this again." You looked down at your phone, a long paragraph typed up from your boyfriend Eijiro in the same format as last month. An excuse, an apology, canceling tonight's plans, and about two more apologies. Tonight he's claiming stomach issues, but you know the truth. You sigh and check your bank account. If he would just tell the truth you could tell him that it wouldn't be a problem for you to pay for the movie tickets tonight! He makes good money, he must really spend over his budget. He's so chivalrous and sweet, it might insult him to try and pay for things sometimes. You don't mind, if only he'd just open up.

You decide that enough is enough, you're going over there and you're going to put an end to the lying! He's going to let you pay for the date if you have to drag him out by his ears. You throw on the outfit you had planned for your date, cleaned up your hair and head down the street into the night air. Eijiro's house is just outside of city lines in the suburbs. He has a nice end lot with a large field behind it. You're so jealous of his view. You hop on the bus and ride with head phones on, listening to a playlist he made you. The bus can be a little scary at night, but nobody is on here except for you. It's kind of peaceful just listening to music and staring at the full moon. It's large and round face is staring down at you like a caring grandmother.

 Another text pops up.

"Are you okay? I'm sorry I disappointed you. I have to get some sleep, I love you baby." You rolled your eyes. It's just past 10pm! You're not letting him sit and sulk in the dark alone all night. You resisted the urge to throw your phone into your bag in frustration. He is such a wonderful boyfriend 99% of the time, but he always seems like he's hiding a part of himself. What is it? A bad childhood? A gambling addiction? Is he secretly apart of the mafia??? The bus halted to a stop and left you outside of his neighborhood, you stomped all the way down the sidewalk to the end of the line of houses and stared at your boyfriends place. The porch light is off, but the lights are on inside. You know where he keeps the hidden spare key and jam it into the lock. You almost kick the door down as you shout for your boyfriend.

 He was sitting on the couch, tying his shoe laces. He's putting on hiking boots this late? "Hey! You're awake!" You slam the door behind you and scold your red headed sweet heart. "Babe what are you doing here? It's almost midnight!" His voice is shaking. He nervously looks at the clock on the wall and stands up. "You have to go baby, I'm really embarrassed! My stomach is-" "Stop lying! Your stomach is fine!" You want to raise your voice and yell, but his giant puppy dog eyes are so cute. You jam a finger into his chest and scrunch up your mouth, doing your best to look irritated. "I knew I would get here and see you're not hunched over a puke bucket!" He put both hands on your shoulders and gently rubbed up and down on your arms. He's such a large man, he's practically a wall he's so solid. Yet he always has the sweetest touches, making sure to be so gentle with you. His callused finger tips brushed against your skin and gave you goosebumps.

 It took every ounce of restraint in you not to fall right into his arms. "I'm sorry honey, but you really can't stay here tonight. I need you to head back home." He said hardly above a whisper. He kissed your forehead and you shoved his chest with all of your might. He didn't budge, but understood you wanted him away from you so he stepped back. "Oh I'm sorry, is your booty call on the way over and I'm interrupting?" You felt like someone had stabbed you right in the heart. It couldn’t be true, he has never showed any signs of being disloyal. You’re just tired and confused.

 Eijiro looked panicked. "Oh god of course not! No, no its not like that I swear!"  He swallowed you in his arms pushing your cheek against his pecks and kissing all over the top of your head. "There is nobody other than you, I could never even think of betraying you, you're my soul mate." He said between kisses. You wrapped your arms around him and snuggled in. His warmth overwhelming. "Well then what is it...?" You whined a bit, it's getting later and you want to just fall asleep in his arms. "Are you going to turn into a wolf at midnight?" You chuckled. His hand stopped running through your hair and he stiffened completely. You look up at him puzzled, he's staring down at you with a look of panic. "That's crazy why would you even say that?" He says all too seriously. You nervously laugh. "What's wrong? I was just joking. It's not like I really believe you're about to start howling at the full moon." Eijiro stared off into space, like his brain was loading and he couldn't think of what to say. "Right...?" You cocked an eyebrow at him. "It might be a little bit like that." He scratched his head. 

You two sat in the quiet for a little bit. Every time he tried to elaborate he ended up getting caught up in his own words. You two sat awkwardly in his living room until its about 5 minutes til midnight. "I- I'm going to go to the bathroom." He quickly dismissed himself, running to his bedroom and shutting the door. You followed quickly after him. Is he insane? Does he really expect you to just sit out here while he hides pretending to shape shift to get out of movie night? He's obviously  having a difficult time, maybe his money troubles make him feel emasculated? You softly tap on his bedroom door and it slips open. The bathroom door is closed shut with the light peaking out under the crack. You walk past his bed and dressers and hear weird scuttling sounds the closer you get. You knock again. "Hey honey, why don't you come out so we can talk about this? It's okay if you didn't want to go out because of money..." You leaned against the door. "It doesn't make you less of a man to let me pay sometimes." He's so wonderful, you don't think there could be any other reason why he can be so flakey.

The sound of shampoo bottles and shaving cream canisters falling to the ground startle you. "Babe are you okay?" You turn the door nob. The door flings open, a large shape tackles you, knocking you to the ground. You let out a large wheeze, the wind escaping your lungs. "What the fu-" Your face was assaulted with a large flat tongue, licking all over you. Slobber flew across the room as a giant red dog panted and whimpered as it gave you kisses. "You're a dog! Oh my god you're a dog!" You pushed your monstrous boyfriend off of you and took a good look at him. He's huge, and even a little scary looking. His fur is bright crimson and his eyes are a daring shade of yellow. But he sat there, panting like a normal dog. You waved in front of his face. "Are you in there babe?" The dog playfully nipped at your finger, trying to pull your hand into his mouth. "Hey! No bites!" You retracted your hand and held it close to your chest. His fangs are giant. 

The wolf man got down low to the ground in the stance you've seen puppies do right before they-

 He takes off, zooming across the floor and into the living room at full speed. Pictures that lined the hallway crash to the ground. You rush to your feet and chase after him. "Wait!! Down boy! Down!!" You shout. He's already on the couch, gripping a throw pillow between his powerful jaws and shaking it. Cotton stuffing flies across the room, coating the floor. "No! Bad Eijiro! Bad doggy!" You try to wrestle the pillow away from him and fail. He topples over you, knocking you back down onto the floor and taking off across the room again, this time to the kitchen. You tenderly rub your arm, you landed on it weird and it's a little sore. Another crashing sound prompts you to get up onto your feet and run after him. The trash can is toppled over on its side, trash strewn across the floor. His snout was pushing around the garbage, looking for something to swallow. "Are you kidding me? What is with you?" You grab the wolf by the scruff of his neck, and pull him to the other side of the room away from the trash. "You sit!" Eijiro whines and sits down, looking up at you with the saddest eyes. "Oh don't look at me like that. This is not what I thought a werewolf would be like." Eijiro's large head pushed against you, rubbing his face all over your stomach as you pet his head. "You just need to burn some of this energy off." 

You can't help but love the silly thing. He is still your boyfriend, even if he is a little different than usual right now. He followed you down the hall,  staying right by your side. He takes up most of the space, his large frame almost tipping you off balance with small bumps into your hip. You dug through a pile in his hall closet until you found an old baseball and plastic toy bat. Wow, he really needs to clean up his closet, you think to yourself. "Okay babe, let's go-" He looked up at you with all of the love in the world, hanging on your every word. You crack into a smile. "Let's go outside and play you big goof.

"The two of you trampled through the tall grass behind Eijiro's house, he seemed to use little to no effort at all. His massive paws stomping down the weeds like it's nothing. You decided you were far enough away from the neighbors and took a strong stance. You haven't hit a ball in ages, but this plastic bat is wide and should make it a little easier on you. The baseball flew high into the air, you focused and swung the bat, smacking the ball across the field. Your wolf ran, faster than any animal you had ever seen after the small object, passing it and having to loop around with a terrifying pin point turn. He grabbed the ball off of the ground so quick you barely saw the motion, and in a flash he was back at your feet. You could do nothing but shake your head and laugh. "Are you kidding me? You're amazing!" Eijiro looked pleased, so you scratched his neck fluff.

 "Alright let's see if I can hit it a little farther." 

Again, and again, and again he chased the ball across the field and back happily dropping the ball at your feet. He only made you wrestle for it once, he could probably keep the ball away from you forever with those intense muscles, but that's not as fun for him. Seeing how pleased you looked when he brought it back was filling the beast with all the pride in the world.

Eventually your arm got tired, and he seemed to have about run out of energy too. He laid down in the field and looked up at the moon. You laid your head on his stomach, the rhythm of his breathing so comforting. You just talked to him, venting about life and how weird things are in the city now. You found yourself thinking about how a simple bus ride was starting to feel too far away from him at this point. "I know you don't really understand me right now, but I really love you. I know we've said it before, but I love you. I think you're my forever person." He was laying on his paws, looking up at the starry sky. "I know you felt like you had to hide this from me, but it doesn't scare me, or weird me out." You talk quietly and close your eyes, snuggling deeper into his fur. "If I have to come throw a ball for you once a month, I'll do it. I've got friends that deal with way worse with their boyfriends." You smirked, thinking you're pretty funny. That'll make Eijiro laugh in the morning, you'll save that for later. 

The rising sun burned your eyelids, scaring you awake. You hadn't meant to stay out here for the rest of the night, but it was so late and he was so comfortable. He's much more familiar to you now, he slept peacefully as you rested on his chest. He looks worn out, but the two of you can't stay out there forever. You gently tap his face. He popped one eye open and looked around. "Oh man!" He gasped and looked down at his hands and feet. "I'm so stupid! You could get sick staying outside all night!" He put a hand on your face and cupped your chin. "Are you alright my love?" He asked with the soft voice only you get to hear. "Yeah I'm fine. How are you feeling?" "I feel fine. I'll be a little more hungry today, but it's no big deal." He looked down at the ground with a sheepish smile. "Thanks for staying with me all night." "Aw come on, it's no big deal. You're... a good boy." You teased while ruffling his hair.

 "Hey!"

My Ko-Fi -> https://ko-fi.com/writinginthedarkwoods Please send spooky requests!

#fictober21 #my hero fanfic #werewolf kirishima #bnha fluff #Kirishima Eijirou #kirishima x reader #kirishima imagine

[90spumkin]

Bewitched

Summary:  Emily bumps into one of Spencer’s students, quite literally. Emily doesn’t know what it is about this girl, but she is undoubtedly bewitched by her.

A/N: I absolutely loved writing this. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Here to spread my love and appreciation for Emily Prentiss.

Pairings: Emily Prentiss x Fem! Reader

Warnings: swearing, mention of age gap

Word Count: 1.1K

Emily had decided she missed the curly haired genius and then continued to make plans with him for lunch. That is how she found herself weaving her way across campus towards Spencer Reid’s class. Seeing all the students with their hands full of books made her not miss college one bit. She was lost in her people watching so she didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind her rather quickly. What made her realize someone was rushing in her direction was the collision between her and someone else. 

 She caught her footing and reached out to catch the other person, she was muttering, “Oh my! I am so sorry! I am late and lost and just very late.” 

Emily regretted picking at Spencer and the way his IQ was slashed in half at the sight of a pretty girl because in that instant her brain was failing her. She was only able to let out a response long after the girl had continued in her frantic state. 

 The rest of her walk, Emily couldn’t get the image of the girl out of her mind. The way her beautiful eyes was filled with worry and stress as she apologized repeatedly and rushed away. Emily’s heart aches for the poor girl remembering what that had been like to be late for a lecture or exam. However, there was an underlying feeling there as well and Emily wasn’t sure if she wanted to address it. 

 When she had finally made it to Spencer’s class, he was wrapping it up and Emily filed away the fact that his class was full of mostly females for later teasing. She eased herself into a seat in the very back of the class only to look to her left and be met with the same beautiful eyes from earlier. 

 The girl gave Emily a small smile and her facial expression gave off the impression that she was slightly embarrassed. When the girl turned her focus back towards Spencer, Emily took the chance to really look at the young girl. Of course, she tried to do this as discretely as possible. 

 Emily noticed how she bounced her leg in anticipation or anxiety, how she wrote her notes furiously across her notebook, and her eyes- oh those captivating eyes drank in everything in her line of sight. 

 The rush of students standing and gathering their things brought Emily back to her senses. She stood and was about to make her way to Spencer when she felt a hand on her elbow. She turned to see the girl stare wide eyed at what she had just done. She started to talk frantically like how she had during their first encounter. 

 “Hi umm I’m sorry for bumping into you earlier. I was looking at the campus map and trying to walk. I really shouldn’t have been doing that, I’m really clumsy as it is- “ 

Emily had caused the poor girl to stop her rambling with a hand on her arm, “Would you like to get coffee sometime?” The girl took a dee breath and smiled, “I’d love that. I’m y/n by the way.” She stuck out her hand for a proper greeting handshake and Emily took it trying to not pay attention to how soft it was against her own.

 Y/n’s eyes went wide once more as she let out a “oh” and started writing quickly and tearing off a piece of paper. She smiled shyly at Emily as she handed it to her, “That’s my number you can text me whenever. I’m almost always free in the afternoon so whenever you want to get coffee or not I- “

Emily cut her off with a quick, “I’ll definitely text you.” This made y/n blush and turn her face away slightly. She started to make her way towards the door, “Okay great. I’m looking forward to it.” She almost tripped while she was waving, and she started muttering as she left the room causing Emily to chuckle. Emily knew she was completely bewitched by the clumsy beauty and she was okay with that. 

 She was still facing the way y/n had not so gracefully exited when Spencer had walked up beside her. He let out a low chuckle, “Emily, be careful.” Emily looked up at the tall slender man she called friend. “What do you mean? It’s just coffee!” Emily crossed her arms and gave the boy genius a look telling him he needed to explain himself. 

 Spencer chucked once more, “All I’m saying is there is at least a decade or so between the two of you. Just something you need to remember when you get coffee”. Emily narrowed her eyes and jokingly hit Spencer’s chest at his teasing comment. She started to walk towards the door, “Come on genius I’m starving.”

 Emily tried really hard the rest of the day to not think about y/n. Spencer’s words kept playing a loop in her mind anytime she thought about y/n’s beautiful eyes or her shy smile. She had started pacing her living room with her phone clutched in one hand and y/n’s number in the other. 

 Sergio meowed at the nervous energy Emily was creating. She stopped her pacing and looked at the feline perched on the sofa, “What should I do, Sergio.” As if answering her question, the cat pawed at the hand clutching the piece of paper that could lead to Emily’s heartbreak or her happiness. 

 Emily was buzzing with energy as she made her way to the little coffee shop y/n had suggested. She had texted y/n last night and got an immediate response. Well, responses, y/n had sent a few messages back-to-back that Emily thought mirrored the way she talked in person. Emily smiled at the thought of y/n and started to feel a little nervous the closer she got to the shop.

 She could see y/n standing near the entrance, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Once she caught sight of Emily a huge grin came across her face and she started waving frantically. Emily laughed at how adorable she was. Once they were face to face, they stood there and smiled at each other a moment before Emily broke the silence, “Hi.” Y/n giggled, “Hi.” 

 “Should we go in?” Emily gestures towards the door. “Oh my, yes, of course.” Y/n went to open the door for Emily. Once they had gotten their drinks and were seated y/n spoke first, “I’m really glad you texted me last night. I’m sorry for all the messages. I get excited really easily.” 

Emily smiled over the top of her coffee and before taking a sip casually said, “My cat told me I should.” Without missing a beat y/n responded with, “I should definitely thank your cat.” Emily knew then that this beautiful chaos in front of her would not be her heartbreak or her happiness but simply her everything. 

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Permanent Taglist: @criminalmindzjunkie @brooklynxnicole @the-queen-of-moons @theintimatewriter @imdefinitelyfloating​ @muffin-cup​

Just Because: @homoose @writing-in-april

#emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss x y/n #emily prentiss x female reader #emily prentiss x you #emily prentiss fanfic #emily prentiss fluff #criminal minds #fanfic #fanfiction

[fullmetal-the-last-alchemist]

Lupin for the character asks?

Why I like them: he’s so SILLY and devious and mischievous and watching him commit crimes for the thrill of it all is so FUN and I just love him a lot <3 plus he's got that spicy extra layer of Sadness to him that we catch a glimpse of every so often... it intrigues me... i wanna crack his psyche open like a walnut. he's just so intensely layered and complex and i fucking love that. he has lots of issues but he's funny about it. he's like a Looney Tunes character in a very-much-not-Looney-Tunes setting (most of the time, anyways), he can do whatever he wants and it's fantastic. love that for him <3

Why I don’t: HE'S SO FUCKING HORNY......... LIKE SIR.. PLEASE.... also he is just str8 up an asshole for no reason sometimes lol i'm not about that [smacks him with a broom] Stop.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): THE SCENE IN CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO… the one where he sneaks into Clarisse's room at night, introduces himself as a thief, returns her ring (or so we believe), tells her he cannot leave until his job is done even though, by her words, he's putting his life at risk… he tells her that she, herself, is the treasure he wishes to steal away… his little theatrics as he describes what being a thief is all about… Clarisse, unable to bring herself to hope, all too aware of the Baron's stranglehold on her life… Lupin lamenting her lack of faith in him in one of my favorite lines in the franchise… the way he hangs his head, and then shakes and grasps his hand as he summons a flower from seemingly nowhere, and kneels before Clarisse to present it to her, saying, “Right now, this is the best he can do,” with a smile, handing off the flower to her and trailing a string of tiny flags as it leaves his hand, one at a time… the clear joy on her face, and his goofy smile… the way they laugh together…. LIKE, he clearly knows that he can't do much to defeat her fear of the Baron, but for now, he can give her this one tiny joy… I am going to Lose my MIND. literally the only scene in anything, ever. OH ALSO second place goes to the scene in Eternal Mermaid when he and Jigen talk on the beach at night about why they’re thieves… that one rotates in my brain 24/7

Favorite season/movie: yeah i'm basic as fuck, Castle of Cagliostro has my favorite Loop ever. he’s so soft and so sad and yet still such a devious little bastard, but with that extra level of endearing Miyazaki charm to him… chef's kiss. perfection.

Favorite line: “When times change, I adapt to them. That’s how I’ve always lived. But Jigen Daisuke is the only man who never said a word and just accepted me no matter who I was. He’s the only stable thing in my life. And maybe that’s why I’ve been able to stay true to myself. So it’s simple. No matter what he decides to do, I return the favor by accepting it just the same.”

Favorite outfit: HMMM he has a lot of excellent outfits… I’m a big fan of part 5’s blue jacket and pink tie combo :] also his sick tech monocle... such a banger

OTP: JIGEN AND LUPIN BIG MARRIED!!!!!!!! they are in love and they are married and they kiss each other on the lips <3 additionally, Lupin's dating Goemon, and also he's married and divorced Fujiko like twelve times lol. ALSO I don’t ship it but I accept the truth of the fact that Lupin and Albert definitely dated. or at least fucked.

Brotp: LUPIN AND ZENI.... they care each other so much ;___;

Head Canon: just gonna list headcanons until i run outta steam because i have so many ANYWAYS he has ADHD, he's trans ftm but didn't have top surgery cause he's genderfluid/genderqueer and actually likes his titties, he was raised by his grandpa for a few years, he definitely needs glasses, he's the second youngest in the gang after Jigen and Fujiko, he's bowlegged, he can play both the piano and the violin, he falls in love easily and often but moves on and gets over heartbreak fairly quick, he forgets to eat and sleep sometimes to his own detriment when he gets wrapped up planning a heist, AND finally, i like the idea that he had a near-death experience once as a kid which is why he's Like That

Unpopular opinion: the way ppl draw lu/zeni makes me mad uncomfortable sometimes LOL ask again if u want a full breakdown on that, it's too long to put here. also just in general shipping those two makes me very :\ cause i feel like all the "hints" towards it in canon are just thinly veiled homophobic jokes and despite not having official ages or anything Zeni is clearly supposed to be at least 15+ years older than the Lupin gang... they literally call him Pops???? idk i'm just very much not a fan lol.

A wish: I wish he would have a full-on breakdown onscreen <3

An oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen: don’t ever make him like… assault someone………… the manga is fucked up yes I know but in the anime Lupin canon………… please do not :\

5 words to best describe them: horny, silly, driven, fun-loving, and... hmm..... monkey :]

My nickname for them: LOOP!!!!! <3 I call him Loop like approximately half the time lmao, I just think it’s cute :D

#THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!! i love talking abt this bastard man <3 #lupin iii #ask #ruth speaks #long post #sort of... long-ish post.... #i have to go eat some food but i will answer the other asks in a lil while!!!! #thank u so much for sending them in y'all.... i love my mutuals so much :'] <3

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

Blighted

For my precious Sunshine, @5-secondsofcolor's birthday!! Which is technically now, because it is 1 AM on the 20th of May and I am a mad woman. Love you and I hope you have an amazing day, when you see this of course.

Here is your fic, FBI/Behavior Analyst!Calum. Female OC.

Ivy says she's cursed after taking the same career path that took her father's life. Calum's new on the team, a liaison and media specialist, but he's looking to get his toes wet.

AKA your regular old jaded pessimist veteran and bright eyed rookie buddy cop story. Please enjoy!

CW: In depth descriptions of death/crime scenes. Depictions of violence, gore, and blood.

Enjoy my masterlist (on a haitus)

Search for more writing in the h writes tag

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The whiteboard never leaves. It glows behind her closed eyelids. When staring down at the neck of a bottle, she sees it floating just as the bottom of her drink. She’s cursed. But she knew that the moment she tried out for the academy. The second the thought floated across her mind, she would be doomed just like her father. Ivy tried her best to reroute herself--she got into the arts, was first chair flute in her highschool’s orchestra. She was president of the Homecoming committees her junior and senior year, and worked during the summers at her church's camp.

And yet when she went into school for her degree, she gravitated towards psychology and criminal justice. She saw her mother’s fear. The closer it came to graduation and the more the two of them talked about what she would do after graduating, the more the thought lingered, I want to get into the Bureau like Dad. But she couldn’t utter that. She couldn’t say those words without tears welling up in her mother’s eyes.

Ivy suspected her mother always knew about the desires. Ivy didn’t remember all the nights clearly, but sometimes she’d peek out her bedroom door and see the glow of the light downstairs. Ivy followed it, side stepping the creaky fourth step from the top and from between the banister’s she’d find her dad sitting at the dining room table. The kitchen light glowed from behind him and his tie would barely hang on around his neck.

“Boo,” he’d say quietly, knowing the slight shuffle of Ivy’s feet.

“How’d you know I was there, Daddy?” she’d ask, carrying herself the rest of the way down the stairs and make her way through the living room to climb into his lap.

“I can hear your feet above me,” he’d respond, pointing above them.

And they’d spend an hour, sitting at the dining room table. Ivy asked about her dad’s latest trip. He only ever told her when she was young that they were helping save people, putting bad people away. Ivy wonders if this is where it started. If this was where her father casted the spell, leaving Ivy somehow starry eyed about what it really was he did. Ivy would always look at this job with a little bit of that hope that her younger self had, and she’d always be fucked to never be able to walk away from this line of work.

It would kill her--much like it had killed her dad. But unlike him, she’d see the bullet spiral out of the barrel. Her dad had her and her mother to get back too. It wasn’t a weakness. Ivy admired her father for sticking with his dreams and also making the hard calls to make sure his family knew he cared too. But the need to decide would always be a slight hindrance, would always be the key to living or dying in this line of work.

All that’s left of her father, besides the memories and a few of his old t-shirts that got remade into pillows, is the whiteboard she keeps at her desk. There’s a whiteboard for the entire team to use of course. But this whiteboard is the one that her father used in his office. The one where he made his notes, scribbles. The one she’d write notes to him in the bottom left corner that never disappeared until she wanted to replace the note with something new.

“Thomas, look alive, and enjoy.” The manilla folder hits her desk with a quiet thwack. Ivy blinks from the whiteboard up to her senior officer. Kennedy carries on, dropping folders on every desk and each one of them stands without needing any further prompting.

Kennedy’s been in the field for years. It was all over his face with the deep frown lines. His brow seemed permanently furrowed, as if he questioned every waking second. Ivy liked to tease he worried even about sleep. But no one could sink a decade and a half into this line of work and not come out on the other side with a healthy amount of suspicion.

“And where’s this new guy?” Kennedy asks, glancing over the office.

Ivy looks up from her copy of the file. She heard rumors of someone else coming by the office, assisting them occasionally on cases. But those rumors floated around weeks ago, long enough that she chalked it up to just that--rumors. It doesn’t shock her though. Things start at rumors often, and sometimes they come to fruition and sometimes they don’t. Ivy follows Kennedy’s eyeline and doesn’t spy any new faces.

“Want me to keep an eye out for any lost souls?” Ivy offers, glancing back up to Kennedy.

“Nah, I need your eyes on this one. Head up to the conference room and I’ll be there once he shows up.”

With a nod, Ivy closes the file. She swipes the whiteboard from her desk with a couple markers and heads up to the conference room. The rest of the team sat flipping through their files too, Jenkins sitting right near the front but moved down one seat. They’re not new, having been around for a couple years. But Ivy can tell their type--getting in chummy with the boss, trying too hard. They’re a good addition, but Ivy’s waiting for the day they take a hunch and it doesn’t lead to the results they want. A loss will show their true colors, how well they can handle being wrong sometimes. No one on the team is perfect, they’re all hedging bets. Ivy’s taken her lumps of hunches being made too late, or the wrong bets placed. They’re not often. No one likes them. But they happen.

Diaz, Russell, and Burke and scattered throughout the rest of the table. The three of them have been there longer than Ivy. But they all accepted her with open arms. Diaz and Burke were more muscular. They had the brains to match, but they came up the pipeline from their local PD departments and aren’t afraid to get into a tussle. More often than not, Ivy winds up pulling Burke from fights than she’d care to admit. Diaz’s much too big for Ivy to attempt physically restraining, so she referee’s those fights that he gets into.

Russell’s their man behind the screen. He was good at getting through the internet loops, figuring out how to sort databases for the information they need without so much red tape and delay. He preferred to stay behind the lines, but could handle a tussle. Ivy doesn’t count herself as the brains. But her gut had some sort of true north needle that, more often than not, was right. She could see patterns faster than most, could sniff the air after someone and assess how much she could and wanted to trust. Kennedy consulted her often. Whenever she felt like she had something, he’d hush the crowd for her to formulate the full thought. Kennedy didn’t always agree with her assessment, but had to listen to it. He needed to listen to it.

“Nope,” Russell huffs, shutting the folder. “Fucking hell. Kennedy told me it was rough, but I didn’t--I didn’t think it was this rough.”

Ivy settles in next to him sliding him a marker. She draws roughly a tic-tac-toe board. “It not getting easier for you is a good sign.”

Russell makes his first move, the marker squeaking just a little. Ivy follows up with hers. She knows if she makes it too obvious, too easy, Russell will forfeit the game. So she tries to play along, like she’s vying to win.

Russell places his second X though his hands shake just a hair. “Yeah, but compared to you guys, I feel like if someone took a gnarly enough shit it would make me queasy.”

“A bad enough shit could do that to anyone,” Diaz pipes in, his own folder still open but his forearms pressed down over the photographs. Russell’s been around the block, definitely seem some rough things, but has always had a softer view of the world. Still wants it to be good despite all the bad he’s seen.

Ivy places down her second O, noticing the pretty obvious wide open spot she left Russell but looks up to Diaz. “I think I heard through the grapevine you were on the losing end of one of those shits yesterday,” she teases.

Diaz reclines into his seat, his chest bouncing with his laughter. “All because of your cooking Thomas.”

“My cooking is not that bad,” she defends, the cap of her black marker pointing him out.

Burke snickers too with a shake of her head and opens her mouth to speak but the room fills with the voice of Kennedy. “Aren’t y’all old enough to be left alone not to talk about shit for five minutes?”

“Never too old to talk shit, sir,” Diaz returns, his smile lifting only half his face up. He’s a charmer, whenever they go out to bars out manage to get a moment’s peace not hounded by work, he never seems to be at a lack of folks coming up to him. He’s already got a girl, but with the hair that cascades always neatly placed and the dazzling bright grin, anyone could fall for it.

Kennedy huffs his laughter quickly and then shuffles deeper into the room. “We’ve got a new friend, so let’s play nice.” As Kennedy makes head way, Ivy notices the man behind him. He’s tall. The black dress pants and black dress shirt don’t hide everything beneath them, but Ivy’s not too shocked to see people who work in the field like that with some sort of muscular physique. There’s something about his face though--something about the way his brown eyes dart around the room and his smile never shows any teeth that something familiar tugs at her.

Kennedy goes around the table introducing Ivy first, then going to Russell, coming down to Jenkins, Diaz, and then Burke. Each one of them lifts a hand or nods at their name. “This here is Hood, Calum Hood. Joining us as a new liaison.”

Ivy’s no good with faces sometimes. But names she hardly ever forgets. Hood, she met him once a few years back at a lecture. Not that she did them often, but Kennedy got more face time. But he made sure to spread the love between the team. He asked her to tag along. Calum must’ve been in the crowd, had to be, and had to have asked a question because Kennedy told her to remember that name. And she had.

Kennedy continues on with something. Ivy suspects he’s warning Diaz to keep any hazy tactics to a minimum considering how much of a mess they’re walking into. Ivy nods once more at him, and then faces back to the whiteboard, the tap on her arm prompting her too. I’m a scaredy cat sure, but not dumb, it reads in Russell’s handwriting. She spies his X in the bottom corner, opposite of where he would’ve won.

“Pull up a seat, Hood. We’ll have more time for pleasantries once we’re up in the air. But I want everyone to at least be familiar with this case.”

“Yes, sir.” His voice is smooth, Ivy notes. A soft volume and accented but smoother than she would’ve pegged.

The team breaks down the file, recapping mostly what they’ve already read but Kennedy’s old fashioned this way, needing to make sure people have done their homework. It’s an extra step than completely necessary, but having the quick meetings has always made this team feel more like a second family. There’s always a common goal in mind for them and they’re always reminded of it. No matter what happens out in the field, they all want the same thing.

“We soar in forty-five minutes. So let’s hope wheels can turn in the air. Hood, I need you to keep in mind the local PD’s been taking a lot of heat for the last couple of months. So we don’t want to take too much star power, we’re only here to assist and whatever we can do to put the local’s good grace back onto that PD we need to.”

Not quite what she expected, though with his demeanor and looks, he’s sure to work a crowd or newsroom well. She’s sure he’ll be on the ground with them too.

“Understood,” he replies and with that, all of them push away from the table. “Agent Thomas,” Hood says, reaching out almost as if to touch her elbow but never actually do it. He continues to speak once she looks over to him. “I-I don’t know if you remember. But we met at a lecture a couple years back that you held with Agent Kennedy. And I just wanted to say that I’m excited to be here, working with you all.”

“Thomas, here, does not respond well to flattery. Trust, we’ve all tried,” Diaz laughs, clamping down on Hood’s shoulders.

“I appreciate it,” Ivy responds. “Glad to have a fresh mind on the team.” There’s no smile, at least, not one she’d give Russell, Burke, Diaz, or even Jenkins. But Calum watches her give another curt nod with a quick quirk of her lips, and then leave, stacking her file on top of the whiteboard.

“Don’t sweat it. She’s in work mode,” Diaz assures. “We get off the clock and she’s a hoot. But on the clock, it’s strictly business. I will warn you, Thomas will burn you.”

Calum’s left, watching Diaz, Burke, and Russell leave. Jenkins turned tail the second Kennedy got done. It’s not that he wants to mix business with pleasure. He’s just been studying Thomas, attending as many lectures that she gives as he can. She didn’t always go directly by the book, there was something about her method that used the evidence, used science, but also had some sort of intuition. Thomas just knew things and when attempting to quantify it, she didn’t always have the words for it. Calum just wants to see that in action, understand what it is about knowing that isn’t always present in the facts.

The plane ride is comfortable. Plenty of seats even though they squeak just a little. Calum watches Thomas sit and everyone seems to sit spread out from there, keeping her at some sort of center. “Mobile. They don’t mind the hustle,” Ivy starts.

“Crossing state lines is risky, especially after the escalation,” Burke interjects.

“But wouldn’t that be a reason for it? If all the crimes look different, enough crossing state lines might make the unsub feel confident, like they’re getting away with something.” The entire plane turns to look at him. Calum freezes for a moment. He knows better. He knows so much better than that. Fuck.

“Valid. But we shouldn’t settle. Travel might be part of their job. We’ve got a good cluster to possibly estimate a home base. Get comfortable, perfect the craft here and then spread out. But why come back? Local PD's hadn't quite connected anything, until the return. More families, found exactly the same. Even when they cross state lines, all points wind back to a specific geographical location,” Burke returns.

“Hood, you got the inside of the media. What does it look like?”

Thirty minutes of his forty five was making sure that he could at least nail down this run through. And it’s easy, even with the squeak of Ivy’s dry erase marker, to run down the media reports, what information has been released and what hasn’t been released. He makes note of what the team doesn’t want to get out and what they do want to keep available to the public.

All the while, Calum watches the way Ivy writes over her board, the squeak over and over on specific strokes. He wonders for a moment what she’s writing, what it is that she needs to keep written track of. But he doesn’t get a chance to fully flesh out that thought before he finishes his spill and Diaz cuts in. They’re fast, not quite settling on any one theory. More like compiling the possibilities, not wanting to eliminate things but ranking how plausible they all could be until the pieces click.

The first thing after the flight lands, they head for the precinct. The lead investigator greets them, and there’s no pause. They’re pulled into the frenzy, looking at boards. Calum tries to keep his head in the game, but he is watching Ivy. The way she settles in her chair, her marker always moving. He’s not even sure it’s words anymore, just a constant circular movement. Sure he’s here to help regulate media outlets, and he can do that in his sleep if local PD and media follow his instructions to a T.

But he needs an in, to show he’s more than just the new meat on the chopping block. He’s worth something. “Is the last crime scene still available?” Calum asks.

The room turns to him, well most of the room does. Ivy keeps circling, but she speaks. “The plan’s to go in ten minutes. Whatever’s got you preoccupied, leave it in your go bag.”

Kennedy chuckles, tapping at her foot. “Give the kid a break. He was buried in news coverage the second we got into the door. But Hood, shake the cobwebs. This isn’t your small town’s rodeo anymore. If you need to be caught up, ask. But if you’re going to be in the room, keep those ears open.”

A task easier said than done, but he nods, resting his elbows on his knees. God, they’re going to think I’m an idiot. The room goes back to its normal buzz, but Calum keeps his head buried in his hands.

“Talk to me. What are your theories?”

Calum lifts his head. Ivy’s closer now. He can see the black marks on her hand from where she’s held it up against the swirls and lettering. “Clearly I’m barely treading water here.”

“First day nerves, but you can shake it. You wanted to see the crime scene. Why?”

“Why there? We have indications that the unsub spent a lot of time there, even with the interruptions they've seemed to caused. They're still meticulous. I want to follow their steps. What did they do first? And why? What do they need from a crime scene before it’s done?”

“Good. But what else?”

“What-what do you mean what else?”

She smiles, much different than the first one. It shows her teeth, a bit of a twinkle in her eyes. “What else?”

He goes quiet, reclines back into the seat and closes his eyes for a second. What else? There’s a lot else. “I mean, the next obvious thing is why these victims? But besides that, how comfortable is this person? Do they feel a need to be rushed, fast, get-in-get-out or can they blend in? I have a hunch they can blend in. Maybe people even trust them. They are perfectly ordinary and in essence, they have to be in order for the fantasy to work. Detection means they have to get sloppy. Being sloppy’s not an option, so blending in it is.”

“Bring that to the crime scene.” Something taps his knee and Calum cracks open his eyes to see her, standing. Her whiteboard still gently rests against his knee. She’s not looking at him though. Her gaze is locked onto the board next to him, displaying the crime scene photos.

“What’s your secret?” Calum asks. He’s almost positive she didn’t hear him due to Ivy’s lack of prompt response. But then she turns to him.

“Secret?”

“Thomas, Hood, you comin’ or what?” Kennedy calls. “I can deal without Diaz, but I need you, Thomas.”

“I’ll remember that,” Diaz laughs as they walk through the glass doors of the precinct.

It’s not Calum’s first time at a crime scene. But the second Calum steps through the door a chill runs through him. The carpet and walls are still bloodstained. Everything about it the scene just feels wrong, makes Calum want to immediately step back out of the house.

“You feel that?” Burke asks. She continues on deeper into the house, slipping into her gloves.

“This is when Thomas says she’s too Black for all this and gets the hell out of dodge,” Diaz barks. He squats down to the blood on the carpet. Ivy’s already deep into the house, seemingly guided by a force unwillingly to let her go. She doesn’t respond verbally, just lifts her hand, the middle finger extended out in the general direction of Diaz.

And Calum is standing near the threshold of the door, trying to pinpoint why it feels so cold in a house in Texas in the middle of the summer. His hands feel sticky even inside the latex gloves. His first step is shaky but he stops next to Diaz. “There are drag marks from the blood,” Calum notes. “This isn’t where they were killed, just staged.”

“The unsub staged all the victims here in the living room. We know that. Pictures show the parents at the ends of the sofa, children in the middle, dog on the floor.”

“But there’s blood on the walls. We know the Dad’s 6’1,” Calum returns.

“And we don’t have forced entry. So, whoever is wreaking havoc isn’t threatening enough for someone not to answer the door.”

Calum turns to the sofa where the family was found. “It’s picturesque, poetic even. You’ve got a whole family right here, at your will. They knock on the door. It’s dusk, sun’s just starting to set.”

“They have a ruse that gets them inside. We already know they have to blend in with the community. So what can you use to get into a house? Who gets into a house without a problem?”

Diaz goes into the kitchen where in the case file it mentions when the family was finally discovered food was still out on the table. “The window doesn’t have to last long. But it has to be just right. All three families were either eating dinner, or just done with dinner. So why dinner time?” Diaz turns from the stove to face Calum.

“It’s when everyone is together. They’re not just going after a family, but very specific family dynamics. Which means both parents need to present, two kids seems to be a minimum.”

“What’s the average dinner time you’d say? With this job, I eat whenever I fucking can. But before this, excluding people like us, when is the average person sitting down to eat?”

“6, 6:30 I’d guess. That’s assuming the average person is working a job that calls it at 5PM. A town like this is either on the verge of collapsing or being bought out. So I assume a lot of people are traveling outside to the city for work, so the commute might be even later. But I wouldn’t hazard any guesses that our unsub’s just haphazardly picking houses.”

“No, no, you’re right, Hood,” Diaz states, walking over to the table. “I guess what I’m saying is the timing. No one hears anything. But our unsub’s using a gun. That’s not quiet. And there’s not a lot of city noise this far out. They’re spending hours in the house and somehow getting out undetected. But striking at dinner time, with the setting sun, means this person’s around outside the house. But no one’s noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

“Hunting seasons,” Calum returns. “No one really flinches at the sound of a gun shot because people are hunting year ‘round here.”

“And it seems like humans are on the menu.”

“An appetizing thought.”

******

Ivy’s not sure when the chill finally left over the course of the day but it returns when she walks into the precinct and sees the entire room in a frenzy. Kennedy spies her and it’s just a look. Not much different than his resting face, but somehow she knows with that slight arch in his eyebrow. Another family--while they were proding over photos the killer was already moving on, already in the midst of their attack.

And it shouldn’t shock her. Well, to be more accurate, it doesn’t shock her and maybe that’s the thing that scares her. “I’ve been doing this too damned long,” she mutters to herself. “Hood, you’re with me. Get the address and let’s see what that gut of yours cooks up.”

“How’d--Is Kennedy going to be okay with that? The call just came in a few minutes ago.”

“Get the address and tell me how you like your coffee,” Ivy says. Kennedy’s going to come to the scene anyway, but she doesn’t tell Calum that.

There’s not another word before Calum passes in front of her. “Cream and two sugars,” he answers as he goes.

“So Black, got it.”

Paused at the desk of a detective, he looks over his shoulder. “Cream and two sugars,” he re-emphasizes with a tiny smile and holding up two fingers. Police station coffee’s never the best, but it’s better than nothing. When on a case, time is also imperative and they take what they can. Ivy fixes Calum’s cup first, slipping a lid on and keeping the stirrer through the hole. She pours her cup with no additions.

“Not even creamer? Not one?” Calum questions.

“Takes too much time,” she returns. “Burke, you staying?”

“Yeah, Russell got those files over just before the call came in. Besides that crime scene’s bound to be crowded as all hell and I swear if I walk into another house and catch a chill after seven years of doing this job, I just might quit.”

The two ladies laugh. Ivy recovering first to respond, “I need you to keep me sane even though you’re just as much trouble as Diaz.”

“Which is why I’m going to say here, work with Russell. We’re going to need Hood back before the 5’oclock news. Whatever you find at the scene will help solidify our profile and we need it soon. We need the hands on this clock, because it’s ticking ahead of us.”

Ivy nods. It’s no fun being behind. “Kennedy, we’re moving or we’re dying.”

“I trust you. There’s something off about that last one that I want to walk through again.”

“Let’s rock and roll,” she says to Calum, handing him his cup of coffee. “Mr. Cream-and-Two-Sugars.”

The drive is relatively short, all thanks to Ivy’s lead foot. But they need to get there fast, while things are still fresh.

“Did you always want to do this?” Calum asks in the silence of their drive. The radio doesn’t even play. Ivy knew he had questions. He wore them on his face, brows furrowing anytime he was the slightest bit hesitant about something.

“I don’t think I had a choice.”

“What do you mean you didn’t have a choice? We’ve all got choices.”

“My dad worked with the FBI until it killed him. And I think about how he used to tell me it was his job to help put bad people in jail. And I believed him.”

“The bug bit you before you even had a fighting chance.”

Ivy nods, taking a quick glance to Calum. “But if I had a prettier face, I’d stick with liaison too.”

Calum huffs out his laughter. “I went the journalism route first, sue me. Besides, that’s you admitting you think I have a pretty face.”

“I forget faces—so don’t think too highly of it. And I’m probably old enough to be your mother. You attended some lectures, I remembered your name. How’d you convert?”

It’s silent for a moment and Calum contemplates her statement, old enough to be his mother. “Given that my mother has shared her fountain of youth with my sister and I, you might be shocked to know I’m nearing 30. And I converted because of you and your work under Kennedy and his old superior Rogers.”

“All the greats,” Ivy teases, but she doesn't sound impressed. More like tired, used to it.

“But you’re different.”

“Yeah, because somehow the Bureau hasn’t realized their mistake.”

“Mistake?” Calum asks around his sip of coffee.

“Kennedy’s going to retire soon. He's done 15 with our unit. Another ten prior to that climbing through the ranks. Then they’re going to have to find a replacement.”

“You say that like it won’t be you.”

“Because it won’t.”

“You’ve been with Kennedy for so long. He’s obviously going to recommend you, Ivy.”

“He can recommend but people higher up get the final word.”

The truck stops just in front of the house, and Calum knows the most logical thing to do is just focus on the case, walk the scene. Do his job. But he reaches across the console and wraps his fingers around hers for a second with a squeeze. “You’ll get it. They’d be dumb not to bring you to the head of this team.”

“There’s an altar or a shrine. It’s small.”

Calum pauses with his hand on the door. Ivy continues beside him. “Go to the eldest child’s bedroom. In a corner you’ll see the small shrine. Our unsub left one at the last house. And the house before, I’d bet. And this house too. That’s what Kennedy missed. What other cops missed too. Make sure you get it photographed. Besides, I’ve been doing this job too long and don’t know if I’d even want the added responsibility if they promoted me.”

“How’d we miss that?”

“We didn’t miss shit. We saw it when we needed to see it. We see things when we need them.” It's the way she says it, like she has to believe that makes Calum believe too.

The sight rocks Calum--he knew it wouldn’t be easy. But he didn’t know it’d hit him like this. The room spins, just a little. And his heart racing. Mostly because he can’t stand the thought that this could be someone he knows. These people weren’t anticipating their would be like this. And what does that even mean for him? What does his end look like?

“Hey, whoa. Whoa.” An arm comes around his waist and he follows the lead of whomever’s grabbed him.

“I’m okay,” he breathes out. “I’m okay.”

“Yeah, I’m a fudge brownie. It’s okay to not be alright in there.”

Calum rests against the side of the house and squats down just a little. His elbows hit his knees. His breath is heavy, falls from his open mouth almost like he’s going to vomit. But his stomach’s not churning anymore. Not with the fresh morning air hitting his lungs. “Fuck,” he breathes out again, eyes blurring just a little.

“But you’re okay. Take a breather.” Ivy’s shoes turn up in the dirt. "Get him a water, will ya? Hood, take a minute. It's alright. I'll be inside when you're ready." Calum just watches her go. It takes a moment for him to lift his head. It has to get easier. Or least he hopes it does. It takes him a minute, inhaling deeply before he stands up straight.

The rest of them processing the scene goes by in relative silence. Occasionally, Calum pipes in with an addition to their theory. Ivy hums in agreement. And it’s not until they step out and slip out of their gloves that Ivy says anything. “This is why I drink my coffee black.”

“I’m sorry. I really--I don’t know why this one got me.”

“It’s the kids. Kids are the worst.”

Calum looks up to the sky. There’s a few clouds, but not many. “The photos are bad, but in person is way different.”

Ivy watches Calum, the way it takes him a second to come back to earth it seems. “Don’t ask yourself if it gets easier.” When his gaze lands hers, she can see the furrowed brow again. The question drips off his face. “You’ll only disappoint yourself. And this job’s not for the weak of heart. For the people that can’t take some losses with the wins.”

“You said it yourself. You wanted to put the bad people away.”

“Eight year old me wants to believe it’s as easy as putting the monsters away. Thirty-one year old me knows for a fact what the losses are, who gets caught in the cross-fire. It’s not easy, not in the slightest.”

“Innocent lives do add up.”

“Which is why I try not to do math on the job. They all slip up. They all reach a point where their methods don’t satiate the need. They all make a fatal flaw and counting the unfortunate lives on the way to that will have you walking from the Bureau faster than you can blink.”

“So what makes you stay? If it’s all so fucking bad, what keeps you going?”

Ivy nods to the car, pulling the keys from her pocket. “We need to solidify our profile and you need to run press ASAP. But to answer your question, the thing that keeps me going is that fact that they do get caught eventually.”

******

Eventually seems to come up faster than Calum anticipates. He was sure it would take weeks. After getting back to the precinct more information in Russell’s digging found a connection between all the families, a Venn diagram that overlapped to their X on the map. Another couple of days and it all unravelled. It’s a blur, when he tries to think back to it, on the plane. The only grounding thing is when one of the children, a little girl about 6, pointed out the tattoos on his hands. In all this time, he was sure the tattoos would be a barrier to entry--they’d somehow put him in a place that others would think he was nothing but trouble. But somehow, despite the terror she had done through, that little girl liked his tattoos, found some sort of comfort in them.

When he told her they were for his parents, she smiled at him. She said she wanted one for her parents too and then asked if he had anymore and how old he was when he got them. All of which Calum was more than happy to answer while the medic checked over her. Her older brother came soon after, asking a few questions, but overall he was much quieter than his sister. Understandable for what was endured. In the end, Calum’s just glad he didn’t see them staged on a couch, bleeding out onto the cushions.

There’s a small bit of turbulence and the shakes cause Calum to open his eyes for a moment. Ivy’s seated across from him, whiteboard on her lap, headphones in her ears. A tic-tac-toe grid drawn across it in the middle, but in the corners are some swirls, a crude drawing of the shrine from the case. Calum leans forward and tugs on the board just a little. She lets it go without a fight and hands over the marker.

Calum makes an ‘X’ in the top left. “You said this job doesn’t get easier.” He looks up to see if Ivy can hear him and is relieved when she pops out one her headphones. She raises her brows like she wants him to continue with the thought. And Calum’s not even sure he should. Instead, he hands over the board back to her. If seeing death doesn’t get easier, then maybe it just means he gets better at it. Maybe it means that not being okay with death is a good motivator to keep down this path.

“The job doesn’t get easier. You’re still human. You still want a spouse and a kid. You might want two dogs and a cat. You might want that white picket fence one day. You’ll want to close your eyes and not see death. You’ll want to walk down the street and see humans as humans again. You’ll have nightmares. Don’t hide from it. Nothing’s wrong with you for wanting that. But we’re in a world now where we see the horrors--what’s on the other side of everything you wanted. It’s a liminal space and it’s heavy to wade through.”

“I just want to not freak like I did the other day. It’s not easy. But sometimes I fear that maybe I bit off more than I could chew.”

Their game of tic-tac-toe has been forgotten, placed in the seat next to Ivy as she leans forward in her seat. “You said you were converted because of me. What exactly about me was it?”

“You just know things. When you walk onto a scene, you have an air of knowing. How can you just pick up on it in a snap?”

“Well,” Ivy laughs, “if that’s the only reason you want in, I warn you to get out.”

“I want to help. I want to save people,” Calum adds on. But then it hits him. Maybe this wasn’t the business of saving people as much as it was stopping people. Sure, they prevent future murders, but that didn’t always negate for all the lives lost. But they did save that family today. He saved that little girl that wants tattoos like his. “I want to save people and I want to stop people as well,” he finally adds on.

“There will always be monsters in this world,” Ivy warns.

“And there will always be heroes.”

“Make no mistake, Calum. We don’t have capes. We don’t swoop in all the time at just the right moment. Sometimes we are late. Sometimes we’re reacting more than we are being proactive. Sometimes we fuck up.”

His heart stops for just a moment at the mention of his first name. He’s always Hood, or at least has always been Hood. Just like she’s always Thomas to the team. But she said his first name. Unmistakably so. “Did-did you just use my first name?”

“You used my first name, first.”

When had he done that? He didn’t recall, but he couldn’t combat it either.

“Look,” Ivy continues, “the fact remains. We will fail. We will make the wrong call, or the right call just by the skin of our teeth. We will walk down the wrong direction only to figure out, we know it’s the wrong one. We get it right. A lot more often, we get it right and we minimize the death count. But we’re human--you don’t have to take it on if you don’t want. You don’t have to suffer.”

“If I don’t suffer and win, then that little girl suffers and loses. Then the next person loses. And the next. Their suffering or mine--the choice is clear.”

Ivy studies Calum for a moment. She sees the resolve on his face. Just how much sacrificing himself is a no brainer for him. It was a no brainer for her too. But admittedly, she was cursed. Maybe Calum wasn’t. Maybe she could save him, even if she couldn’t save herself. But she wasn’t in the business of saving people, only stopping them.

“I can’t stop you, can I?” she asks.

“Stop me from what?”

“Stop you from killing yourself with this job.”

“If it’s killing you, then why don’t you leave?” His head cocks to the side, now intrigued by her honesty.

“It’s like you said, I got bit before I could escape. I’m cursed. Are you?”

The little girl flashes through his vision again, and his chest tightens for a second before the relief kicks in. He could chase that feeling, the knowledge that he saved someone, one person. And that he helped put away one more person causing harm. “I am now. Ruined--because even though I can’t save them all. I can save some. I can help keep some people safe. I don’t think there’s a better reward than that.”

With a nod, Ivy looks back to their game on the whiteboard. They would’ve tied, she can see it after where she placed her ‘O’. But she hands it back over to Calum. “Kennedy’s going to shit himself when he realizes he’s got too hard heads on his team.”

“You’ll shit yourself when you realize you’re inheriting the second hard-head on the team after Kennedy leaves.”

Ivy scoffs. Of course, Calum still believes in the shiny idea that hard work yields rewards. “And this is where I can still tell you’re new to this--the dreams are still shiny and ideal.”

“All the work you’ve invested, they’d be--”

Ivy interrupts him. “I know, they’d be dumb not to.”

“Then why do you keep saying it won’t happen?”

“I’d call my pessimism a curse. But at this point, I think it’s a personality trait and the truth.”

“And let me guess, this is why you take your coffee black too.”

Ivy winks at him before her smile takes over her face. “You know it.”

#calum hood #calum hood fanfic #calum hood imagine #calum hood fic #calum hood 5sos #calum 5sos #5sos #5sos fanfic #5sos fic #5sos imaagine #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer fanfic #5 seconds of summer fic #fbi!calum #behavior analyst!calum #h writes #calum hood blurb #calum hood x oc

[ididntneedanewfandom]

BakuDeku Winter Week 1 - Reparations

"I'm home."

There's no reply to Katsuki's words. Granted, they were quiet enough that they might have gotten lost under the music playing softly in the living room. It's been a long day and he's too tired to even speak at his usual volume. The 'heroing' part of the day went fine; it's filling out forms afterward that completely fries his brain. He thought he was done with useless paperwork when he graduated from U.A.. No such luck. And to top it all, the unseasonable spring heat has been horrendous. It's helpful for his quirk, sure, but after a point it's just oppressive.

He's late enough that he'd have expected dinner to be waiting for him, or to have received a request from his nerd to pick up takeout on the way home. But there are no yummy smells to greet him--not even burnt ones as sometimes happen--and it looks like if he wants food he'll have to work on that himself. Any other night it'd be fine, but he's tired enough that the prospect isn't all that appealing.

Although...

That deep-seated tiredness seems to melt away when he walks into the living room to find Deku reclining on the couch with his back to the armrest and one of his notebooks propped up on his raised knees. He's wearing that too big, slightly misshapen wool sweater in All Might's costume colors, the one Katsuki always teases him about. How he can bear to wear that warm thing in this weather, Katsuki has no idea.

"Used to be, you'd be all over me when I walked in the door," Katsuki says with a mock-wounded look as he approaches the couch. "I guess the honeymoon phase is over, huh?"

Deku blinks those big eyes up at him a couple of times.

"Oh, hi Kacchan," he says with a small smile. "I didn't hear you come in."

Katsuki snorts. That much was obvious. Climbing over the end of the couch, he crawls up to Deku, pushing his knees apart to settle between them, unceremoniously dropping the notebook and pen he takes from Deku to the floor.

"Hey, wait, I was--"

Katsuki silences what was coming next by pressing his mouth to Deku's. He suddenly feels a lot better, but there's still room for improvement.

He lifts his mouth and body off Deku's just enough that he has room to tug at the sweater to get to the delicious, warm skin beneath.

"Kacchan, please be careful," Deku mumbles.

"Careful about what? You're not as breakable as you used to be."

Even with Deku helpfully lifting his hips to free the bit of sweater stuck under his ass, Katsuki has to work hard to get it off him. It's caught underneath him, but one last tug--

"What... What was that?”

Deku sits up properly now, dislodging Katsuki from his lap even as he reclaims the sweater from him with shaky hands, a steady stream of "No, no, please no" rising from his lips.

"What's gotten into you?" Katsuki asks, frowning.

"It felt like..."

He falls silent as his fingers find the large rip on the back, longer than Katsuki's hand, multiple strands of frayed wool hanging loose. His expression is one of pure grief; Katsuki's stomach twists unpleasantly.

"I asked you to be careful," Deku murmurs, and Katsuki knows that tone of voice. Years ago, it'd have been accompanied by tears. Deku doesn't cry so much anymore... But it doesn't make things any better when he's really upset. He just clams up, and fuck knows what Katsuki can do to fix it when it happens.

"It's just a cheesy old sweater, " he mutters. "I'll get you one from my merch line. Better quality and better colors."

His pointed look dares Deku to protest that--they once spent a very pleasant night arguing about costume colors in between rounds of fucking, and Katsuki wouldn't mind a repeat. But when he crawls back up Deku's body again, when he slides a hand over Deku's ridiculously tight abs, Deku slaps his hand away and shimmies out from under Katsuki until he can stand, still clutching the mangled sweater.

"It was Toshinori's," he says in a cold voice, glaring at Katsuki.

It's so rare to see Deku direct actual anger toward him that Katsuki's old defenses go back up instantly. Stinging words fall from his lips before he even knows he's speaking.

"Stealing from other people's closets? And here I thought you only stole my clothes. I guess I'm not that special, huh?"

Deku's gaze hardens just a little more, and Katsuki almost expects lightning to start coursing over his body. His voice is cold enough that it could put IcyHot's quirk to shame.

"He gave it to me. It was sample merch that never got mass produced because it was handmade and too complicated to bring to market. He kept it because he said it fit him in both his forms. He thought I'd get a kick out of having it in my collection, so when he was cleaning up his things before ... He gave it to me. And you just ruined it when I asked you to be careful. But it's not like you've ever cared about my stuff anyway, is it?"

It hurts.

It hurts because it's true--or was true. Watching Deku walk away, listening to his heavy feet and the banging of their bedroom door, Katsuki can't help but remember other instances when he broke or destroyed Deku's things just because he could. The fact that today it was an accident doesn't make it any less his fault.

Katsuki groans and runs a hand over his face. He really fucked up.

He'd like nothing more than to follow Deku and not let him walk away from him--how things have changed… But then what? 'Sorry' doesn't feel like it'd be nearly enough, and Katsuki doesn't know what else he's supposed to say.

Tired steps take him to the kitchen. He stands in front of the open fridge for a while before pulling out the ingredients for katsudon. He's really not in the mood to cook, but he doesn't know what else to do.

He's just about done frying the pork and already filling up two bowls when slow steps come up behind him. He glances back at Deku, who stands there in a t-shirt inscribed with the words 'boyfriend shirt', his hands in his pockets.

"I'm so--" he starts, but Katsuki doesn't let him finish.

"Swear to god, Deku, if you try to apologize I'm shoving my foot up your ass."

Deku frowns at him.

"That's what grow-ups do, Kacchan. When they say something ugly or something they don't mean, or when they do something they shouldn't, they apologize."

"And what good does that do?" Katsuki mutters as he tops the bowls of food with the pork cutlets and places both on their small kitchen table. "Words won't knit your sweater back together. Sit down."

Taking his own advice, he draws a chair and sits. He fiddles with his chopsticks until Deku sighs and sits across from him.

"Itadakimasu," he says quietly, his eyes on his food.

Katsuki grunts in reply and watches him take a couple of bites before he asks, his voice tight and low, "Can it be repaired?"

Deku shrugs a little, and briefly looks up.

"I doubt it. It's a big rip. It's my fault, I noticed a loose bit of wool before and I didn't do anything about it. I should have fixed it then."

And it's just so completely <i>Deku</i> to take the blame for something that wasn't his fault that Katsuki doesn't know whether he wants to kick him or kiss him. In the end, he lightly kicks his shin under the table, and when Deku glares up at him, he mumbles, not quite meeting Deku's eyes even as his cheeks heat up, "'M sorry. For ripping your sweater and for what I said."

Deku's foot finds his again for something that feels more like a caress than a kick.

"The food's delicious," he says softly. "Thank you."

And Katsuki knows he's forgiven--just as well as he knows he doesn't deserve to be. Not yet.

*

Seven months later

This year again, they set up a Christmas tree.

All right, so Izuku sets up a Christmas tree while Kacchan sits there and watches. At least this time he doesn't say it's a silly tradition, though he did insist that Izuku only set it up the night before Christmas. Seeing how busy they've both been lately, Izuku doesn't think he'd have found the time to set it up sooner regardless.

And besides, Kacchan never said when it's got to come down...

Izuku just likes the lights twinkling when the room is dark at night. And he likes finding hero-themed ornaments to hang from the branches. He has four All Might ones on there, each in a different costume. He doesn't despair of finding one for EraserHead someday. He has a Froppy one and a Uravity one--they're not licensed merch, just handmade figures created by a fan he found online. He's got an official Shouto ornament--well, really it's a collectible figure meant to sit on a shelf, Izuku just looped a bit of string around Shouto's outstretched hand... and he makes sure to hang it way in the back, so Kacchan won't roll his eyes and pout every time he looks at the tree.

There's also a licensed Dynamight ornament on there, and Izuku makes sure to put it front and center. Kacchan absolutely loathes it, because whoever sculpted it gave him a smile--a nice, soft smile, the kind of smile Izuku is the only one lucky enough to receive. Which is why Izuku loves it. And why he bought seven of them, the replacements stashed in a secure place just in case this one 'mysteriously' disappears.

After hanging up another handful of ornaments--they're minor heroes, but Izuku has had the chance to work with each of them--he stands back to admire his work. A little behind him, Kacchan grabs a fistful of his t-shirt and pulls until Izuku, laughing, stumbles back and into his lap. Kacchan's arms immediately wrap around him, holding him where he is--not that Izuku has any other place to be.

"What do you think?" he asks happily, watching the multicolor lights blink on and off randomly.

Kacchan grunts. "Don't think I didn't notice you hiding Candycane in the back. You should put a real candy cane on there, it'd look nicer."

Clucking his tongue, Izuku taps the thigh underneath his own.

"Be nice," he admonishes. "Or I'll put two of yours on there."

A huff against the base of his neck sends shivers down Izuku's spine.

"It doesn't need another one of me on there," Kacchan mutters. "But it could use one of you."

Izuku wouldn't mind, but his agency isn't like Kacchan's. They don't really do merch there--which Izuku is fine with, he agrees with his boss that the important part is to be a hero, not to sell stuff, and he's about to remind Kacchan of that when something small and green dangles in his peripheral vision. With some difficulty, he lifts his eyes from the tree and looks at...

Himself.

Or, well, a version of himself.

The figure dangling from Kacchan's fingers on a silver string is just three or four inches tall, but the details on it, from the costume to the pose to the expression on the face, are all exquisite. Whoever sculpted this--is it clay? It looks like glazed clay--did an awesome job.

And gave Izuku an absolutely feral expression.

Izuku doesn't know whether to laugh or squeal or just turn around and kiss Kacchan.

"It's a little Deku!" he exclaims, then laughs as he takes the figure in his hands. "A really angry little Deku!"

"Bet he's angry because Dynamight has been hanging in that tree with all these extras without him. You should put him up there."

Izuku is happy to do so, but not before turning In Kacchan's lap and stealing a kiss... or maybe even two.

Then he practically bounces to the tree and carefully hangs up his figure next to Kacchan's. They're the same size and fit perfectly together. It makes Izuku wish they'd get to fight side by side more often. Maybe some day, he thinks wistfully, they'll open an agency together. They've talked about it a few times, but they're still rookies, barely out of school, and while they technically <i>could</i>, they both agreed it was too soon.

"I love my present, Kacchan," Izuku says as he turns back to his boyfriend. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Kacchan says, "but it's not your present. This is."

His fingers drum on the top of the plain white box that definitely wasn't next to him on the couch just a second ago. Izuku tilts his head, wishing one of his quirk was X-ray vision or something. His fingers itch and he doesn't dare take a step forward.

"Do you want to put it under the tree with yours?" he says softly.

Kacchan shakes his head.

"Come here," he says. "Open it."

Izuku doesn't move.

"But Christmas is only tomorrow," he protests, his voice sounding weak even to his own ears.

Kacchan's lips stretch on a wicked grin. "Have it your way. I'll open it, then, and keep it for my--"

Before he can finish or slide his fingers under the edge of the box, Izuku plops himself back down on his lap and draws the box onto his knees. Laughing, Kacchan encircles his waist with his arms again and rests his chin on Izuku's shoulder, watching as he lifts the top of the box and reveals a familiar pattern and colors: All Might's costume.

It takes a good two or three seconds before Izuku recognizes the equally familiar ridges of knitted wool. His breath catches in his throat and he very slowly, very carefully lifts what he knows is a sweater out of the box.

It's his sweater. He knows it is, because there's a small, black spot of indelible ink near the collar; it was already there when Izuku got it.

It's the sweater he's kept in the bottom drawer of his dresser for the past few months, unable to wear it anymore without aggravating the rip but unwilling to put it away for good.

But when he turns it around, the rip is gone. And if Izuku didn't know exactly where to look, he probably wouldn't notice the repaired area. Everything matches, from the color of the wool to the pattern of the knitting. The only thing is that the wool seems a little newer in that area, less fuzzy than the rest, but that's only because Izuku knows what he's looking at.

"Kacchan," he breathes, but doesn't know what else to say.

"Is that all right?" Kacchan asks, his voice tight. "I mean, I know I should have asked first before touching your stuff, but then it'd have ruined the surprise."

"It's..." Izuku's throat feels too tight. He clutches the sweater to his chest. "It's perfect. Thank you."

After Kacchan kisses the back of his head, he manages to ask, "But... how? I looked for shops that repair knitted things but I didn't find anything."

Kacchan mumbles something; Izuku isn't quite sure he hears right. "You... what?"

"I learned to knit," Kacchan repeats a little louder, sounding embarrassed of all things. "My parents work with this old woman sometimes, she knits samples of their designs for them and then they have factories recreate the stuff. I asked her if it was fixable, and when she said yes I asked if she'd teach me how. I wanted to have it ready for your birthday but that shit took longer than I expected. I just finished last week."

Izuku understands all the words individually but he struggles to make sense of them all together. Shifting on Kacchan's lap, he turns to look at him, and is surprised to find him red-faced.

"You learned to knit?" he asks, unable to keep an edge of awe from his voice.

"I messed up your sweater," Kacchan mutters. "Wanted to fix the damn thing." Rather than looking at Izuku, he rests his forehead against Izuku's collarbone and talks against his t-shirt. "There's a lot of stuff I can't fix, but that, at least--"

Izuku has heard enough. Holding the sweater close with one hand, he cups Kacchan's face with the other and kisses him within an inch of his life. Soon, Izuku is wearing his sweater again. The lights of the tree keep twinkling, but Izuku only has eyes for Kacchan.

[doorbloggr]

Friday 1/10/21 - Media Recommendations #20

Contents: Deltarune

I'd been meaning to get to this one for ages, so once again, I think to make it easier on myself, and my readers, today I am only recommending the latest videogame creation of Toby Fox. This ended up being quite an extensive article, so I split it into sections:

MY CONTEXT

OVERVIEW/PREMISE

GAMEPLAY

PRESENTATION

CONCLUSION

Deltarune (Chapter 1+2)

Toby Fox

1. MY CONTEXT

So context for my own gaming experience going into Deltarune, I have never actually played Undertale. Back when Undertale was getting big, it was only a PC game I think, and I just don't play games on PC. I probably should but yeah nah. Soon after it got popular however, I watched a comprehensive Lets Play of Undertale by Rubber Ross and Barry Kramer, and their voices for Sans and Papyrus are still to this day how I imagine those characters. Through that Lets Play, I experienced both the Pacifist and Genocide runs, and got intimately well acquainted with the characters and world Toby Fox had created, and how the actions of the player can shape how we save or ruin that world.

As a general context, I have always been a person who likes the idea of turn-based, random encounter fantasy RPGs, but the deepest I really got was Pokémon. I've been trying to change that recently, and after beating Monster Hunter Stories 2 a while back, I wanted to try more of the genre. Turn based battles are a lot more my speed than pure skill, like fighting games I've become sick of, and RPGs seem to be big on story, so when I heard the Deltarune demo had an update, I thought this is finally the time to jump into that world.

Going forward in this review, I'm gonna try and stay broad and unspecific with my descriptions, so as to not spoil. I may discuss some gameplay themes and characters, but I'm avoiding giving specifics away. I really think you need to experience all parts of the game yourself first.

Minor Spoilers for Undertale and Deltarune Ahead

2. OVERVIEW/PREMISE

Deltarune is a project of love. Pure charm and personality ooze from every aspect of the game. Dialogue is clever and snarky, and that charm even leaks into item and location flavour text. The setting and themes are fun, but with a bloodstained silver lining that is best appreciated by mature audiences. I guess I should just explain the premise?

Deltarune puts you in the shoes of a human named Kris. For unexplained reasons you live in a world of monsters and you are the only human. And by monsters, I mean curious looking critters of a variety of shapes and sizes, since, there is really nothing monstrous about them. One day at school, Kris and classmate Susie end up being transported to a whole different world where dark fountains construct monstrous subworlds, and it is up to the chosen ones, the lightners Susie, Kris and darkner (dark world native) Prince Ralsei, to seal the evils of this dark alternate world.

Deltarune is still a work in progress, and as the subtitle of this article suggests, 2 Chapters of a possible 7(?) have been released, and it is unknown at the time of writing if the rest will come out when the game is done, or as more standalone chapters.

3. GAMEPLAY

Deltarune borrows a lot of theming and game loop premise from its parent game Undertale. The tag line of Undertale was: the RPG where noone has to die. This is because the encounter based battle system is built on two courses of action to take. You may FIGHT enemies and reduce their HP to zero, or you may ACT, and talk the enemy into leaving the battle. Deltarune is built on this same system, but with extra layers. Kris is the stand in for the Undertale MC, who has the options to FIGHT, ACT, ITEM, SPARE, or GUARD. Most of those options were in Undertale too, but Guarding is a new addition where you earn Tension Points, or TP, for not engaging the enemy at all.

This TP is used for extra powerful ACT actions, or for special moves of the other party members. This is the main big difference in gameplay loop. Since the player controls a party now rather than just one person, each party member can specialise in different action types. Kris's ACT can incorporate input from other party members; Susie for toughness and Ralsei for softness, in general. Susie is the powerhouse, and if you chose the violent route, she does more damage. Ralsei is the Mage, and can heal allies, as well as use magic to resolve fights peacefully. Those extra abilities use TP.

In most turn based RPGs, there is a back and forth, where the player chooses actions, and sometimes there is a timing aspect to how well those actions perform, and then there's the enemy's turn, where most of the time you just have to wait and let it happen. Undertale and Deltarune have this truly unique system where the soul of the party members, represented by a heart, is directly controlled on the enemy's turn. It's a mini game unique to every enemy type, where you must move the heart around to dodge their attacks, and how good you dodge will decide whether you take a lot of damage, or even none at all. Deltarune adds an extra layer onto this, where if you make the dodge closer, so that the enemy only JUST misses, you earn TP, and open up more options for your next turn. I found this extra detail really endearing, and I made a lot more riskier moves than if there was no incentive to.

I probably mentioned it above, but just to close out this section, the option to either ACT or FIGHT opens up two types of play. Chapter 1, being a sort of intro part, does not differentiate, but the distinction becomes important later. ACTing to SPARE an enemy earns you money, and in Chapter 2, will lead to befriending monsters. FIGHTing will also earn you EXP in Chapter 2, making your options to hurt enemies more powerful. In Undertale, this difference in playstyle actually changed the ending in real time, and from what we know of Deltarune, it is likely going to be the same case.

4. PRESENTATION

Undertale had this unique visual charm to it that may have been a limitation of its Independent Development, but it was probably also a stylistic choice. Deltarune builds on the same type of artstyle, adorable pixel sprite graphics that bring a lot more colour and depth than its predecessor.

Many, but not all characters have little character portraits in their textboxes, and they change expressions to match the situation, and its so cute.

Character and enemy design are so top-notch. A team of designers have been brought on this time, and every one of them have brought gold to the table. Every random battle encounter is dripping with personality, as you learn how best to sweet talk your way out of battle, or how to best destroy them. Most recurring NPCs are lovable, and those who you hate, you love to hate. Dialogue is witty and hilarious, and the writing is fun.

The chiptune style soundtrack is phenomenal. Although I think Undertale's common enemy battle them was more memorable, that may just be that I have become more familiar with it. All character and boss battle themes are so catchy and energetic. Toby Fox is a master of high energy... fun music. It gets stuck in your head, and your brain bounces around at high velocity.

5. CONCLUSION

Ok so this review is already like 3 times longer than a normal Media Recommendation Article, and like 5 times longer than I planned it to be for this one game, so I should probably wrap it up here. Deltarune is a game experience I put off playing for way too long, and now I can't hold my excitement for when the next part comes out. And important to keep in mind, it is essentially a demo, in that it is just a taste of what's to come, but it is a damn meaty demo that will keep you engaged for many hours.

Chapters 1 and 2 are packaged together as a free game on most game platforms at this point, so there's nothing really stopping you from giving it a try. I don't usually rate my recommendations, but since I wrote this more like a review, I might as well...

Deltarune Chapter 1+2: 9/10

Please play it!

#blog #blogpost #media recommendations #videogame recommendations #deltarune #undertale #tobyfox #deltarune spoilers #undertale spoilers

[nohoney]

Do It For Me -3.1

notes: Part 3 of the Us Series from my ao3

characters: Dabi/Touya Todoroki, Keigo Takami/Hawks, Tomura Shigaraki

warnings: 18+, drug use, toxic relationships, polyamory

summary:

As curious as you are, you’ve already been warned by Keigo to not even attempt to ask about it. If Keigo got mad at you for even asking in the first place, no doubt that Touya would be furious at you. And there was no way in hell you were even going to think about investigating this on your own; not only were you not equipped to even do so in the first place, you had a strong gut feeling about this situation.

Keigo had told you before you went to sleep in his bed last night, “I know it might be frustrating for you to not be in the know dove, but trust me when I say that if Touya doesn’t want you to know something, it’s for your own good.”

3.1 ✧ 3.2 ✧ 3.3

Touya tends to keep you out of the loop on certain things, wanting to be as vague as possible sometimes if you do happen to ask. Like when you asked why he bothered attending university, he simply said that it was because his mother wanted him to and that was all that you got out of it. When you tried to probe further, he had snapped at you and left to go have a smoke. At ten months in the relationship, you’ve learned that if he didn’t want to tell you something, there was no way that you could change his mind.

Only Touya tells you what you need to know or not know.

The only thing you’re really curious about is some of his background, mostly about his family and his upbringing. As far as you’ve seen and heard, he’s the oldest of his siblings—two brothers and one sister— and he doesn’t necessarily get along too well with them from what he’s passively mentioned. He seems close with his mom, you’ve heard him talk on the phone with her sometimes, but no mention of his dad. You think it’s safe to assume that his family probably doesn’t know that he deals but you won’t dare ask him, it seems like a sensitive subject.

Speaking of dealing, you slip cash into his pocket while he cooks on the stovetop and pat his backside. Touya just chuckles and nods his head towards his jacket that’s tossed onto the couch. You reach into the inner pocket and pull out a little baggy of half gram of coke, putting it into the inner pocket inside your purse. One of your friends had asked if you could drop off cash to Touya to buy off of him and you could drop it off when you go to class next time you see her. “Yumi says thanks in advance, she says that she got her other connect’s coke the other day but that it’s just not as good as yours.”

“Heh, of course it’s not. Tell her that if she cheats again then I’m going to cut her off.” Touya jokes as he stirs the pot before lowering the gas on the stove and putting the lid on top. He rolls his shoulders briefly and walks away from the kitchen to let the food in the pot simmer for a little bit. “Keep an eye out on the food, I’m going to shower really quick.”

“Sure thing.” You make yourself comfortable on the sofa and just scroll through your social media on your phone, replying to certain messages or sharing posts to friends. Keigo texts you to as if you’re going with Touya to the next house party and that if you’re not, he’s more than happy to keep you company if you want to stay in and wait for Touya to get back. You smile down at his message and just send back a simple ‘we’ll see’ with a smiling emoji. Enough time has passed where you think you should go check on the food, just stirring it to make sure the food doesn’t burn on the bottom of the pot. As you sample your boyfriend’s cooking and add just a little bit more salt to taste, someone knocks on the door.

Touya doesn’t really get visitors aside from you and Keigo so you wonder who could be at his front door.

When you peek your head out through crack as much as the chain will allow, you see a young man dressed in a hoodie with his hands in his pockets. He seems to be as surprised as you are when you answer the door, his lips thinning into a line briefly before asking, “Is Dabi here?”

“Who’s asking?” you’re cautious because you’ve never seen this guy before. He’s got a rather distinct appearance, he seems sickly with his pale skin, messy blue hair and these scary red eyes you’ve never seen on anyone else before.

“Shigaraki.” And he says nothing more.

You have half a mind to lie and say that Touya’s not here but you hear the door to the bathroom open just in time, he walks out in fresh clothes and a towel around his neck. “What are you doing there doll?”

“Uh there’s a guy here, says his name is Shigaraki. He’s looking for you.”

Touya’s eyes narrow at the name before he walks towards you, setting you to the side and undoing the chain on the door. He lets this mysterious man in and shuts the door, the atmosphere suddenly very tense. You shift your weight from one foot to the other and look to Touya expectantly. Whoever the guest is, he only gives you a brief once over before looking to your boyfriend and says, “We need to talk, just the two of us.”

“Well that works out because my girl here was just about to head to the store.” you meet his gaze as Touya turns to look at you. “I know it’s a bitch babe, but the ingredients we want are in that fancy market that’s fifteen minutes away. It shouldn’t take you longer than ten minutes to get everything though. Make sure to stop by and get gas on the way back for the car, put down a twenty and I’ll reimburse you later.”

You’ve been with Touya long enough to know when he’s talking in code. Fifteen and ten, be gone for at least twenty-five minutes, possibly an extra twenty making it forty-five in total. So you play along and collect your sweater and purse, making sure you have everything before skedaddling out the door, no goodbye kiss unfortunately. You’re pretty much kicked out for the time being and you don’t even know why. “I guess I might as well drop off the half…”

Forty-five minutes pass but Touya hasn’t given you the okay yet to return. You think that maybe you need to wait an extra while longer so you wait outside his complex just a bit longer with your phone in your hand and anticipating his text. When it gets close to an hour since you’ve left, you decide to ask first if it’s okay that you return. Your phone pings immediately with a response.

Go stay with Keigo.

And that’s all you get, no explanation or even a time when you can see him again.

So you stay with Keigo at his place, exactly like he told you to and provides a distraction for the time being. The two of you cook together, laughing over the dinner you made as he tells you about a funny joke he heard earlier, cleaning up after yourselves when the meal is all finished, and then washing up together in his bathroom. He’s such a tease as he massages body wash all over you, pressing into a sensitive spot in your back or his fingers ghosting over your clit. He works you up to the point that you beg to be fucked, whining when you’re only given a teasing smile and just a nibble to your ear. “Please Keigo, no more teasing!”

He could be such a cheeky bastard though, ignoring your pouting but still has the audacity to touch you all over. “You know the acoustics in the bathroom always sound better, don’t you think?”

“Keigo!” you whine, your arms coming up and looping just right behind his neck. His cock is getting hard, you can feel it against your leg, so you don’t know why he’s not bothering to just take you right then and there. “You’re being a dick!”

“You know why acoustics are better in the bathroom (Name)?” he asks as his hands skim over your back and ignores your whines. “I’m asking you a question.”

“How am I suppose to know?”

Keigo chuckles at you and pushes you to lean against the back wall of the shower. He takes your wrists and holds them together in one hand, pushing them above your head so that your entirely exposed to him. He grabs his cock in his free hand and teases the head of it against your click, relishing your yelp when he slaps it against your sensitive pearl. “Just a little fun fact for you, acoustics in the shower sound better because you’re surrounded by hard, smooth surfaces that bounce back to you. So while the sounds are bouncing around, your voice sounds more pronounced, it takes longer to reach your ears and sounds more enriched. Isn’t that so interesting?”

You whine petulantly at him, asking why he’s telling you this in the first place.

“I guess what I’m saying is songbird,” Keigo releases your hands and quickly turns you around to make you brace against the wall, jutting your ass out towards him with his hands set firmly on your hips. “sing me a pretty song, yeah?”

Your voice echoes as Keigo rails you on his cock and your wet skin slapping against each other sounding particularly lewd. The shower is still running with warm water and steam clouds the bathroom but you feel even warmer as you push back to meet Keigo’s thrusts. One of his hands slide up your spine, warm fingers reaching up to tangle in your hair and pull your head back. You’re choked up, voice strangling to come out with your head angled back and your fingers trying to find purchase on something to hold onto.

He’s merciless, he won’t let you catch a break. Keigo pulls you back against him, one arm around your waist to hold you close and the other at your throat. There are heavy breaths in your ear, low growls and a rough command of, “Touch yourself.” Your fingers messily rub your clit, not using any kind of technique because honestly Keigo is fucking your brains out so you are acting on instinct. Breathless whimpers fall out of your lips, barely registering when you feel soft kisses against your temple.

“Fucking cum with me songbird, hit that last note for me huh?” Keigo growls into your ear, just about ready to cum. It’s more than just your cunt that’s getting him off, he loves to hear your voice as he makes a mess of you. He just wants to listen to your voice, it appeals more to his senses during sex more than anything else. Touya gets nudes from you, Keigo gets audio recordings of you moaning. “Say you wanna cum with me, say it.”

“Wanna cum with Kei… pleas’ make me cum…” you slur, your brain fucked out and just letting yourself be used. “Kei, les’ cum together…”

Your bent over as Keigo fucks harshly into your body, lewd praises echoing inside the bathroom as you beautiful cries rip from your throat. You have one hand braced on the wall of the shower and the other on the floor, just holding on for dear life and only able to moan and cry out his name. You’re thankful for him, thankful for his kindness, his patience, and his cock. Your orgasm hits you hard to the point that you see stars in your vision, unable to hold yourself up and dropping your weight. Luckily Keigo’s got you, happy to hold you like the little fucked out rag doll you are as he finished inside you.

The shower still runs and steam still curls in the air as the two of you catch your breath. He’s still hard inside you, thrusting just a few more times to overstimulate himself a little before pulling out. Any cum that leaks out of your pussy is washed away, you want to clench to hold as much inside you as you can.

Keigo towels you off first before drying himself, lending you one of his shirts to wear and tells you to wait on his bed like a good girl.

So you wait like the good girl you are, staring at your phone and waiting to hear back from Touya.

I miss him. You think to yourself and wonder what Touya could possibly be doing. It’s late in the evening now and he hasn’t given you an update about where he is and what he’s doing. A part of you is tempted to just go back to his apartment and wait for him there but you have a feeling that he sent you to Keigo to make you stay put. He trusts Keigo more than anyone else to look after you, to keep you warm and loved when he’s away.

A movie plays on Keigo’s laptop as the two of you are curled on the bed, him being the big spoon and an arm loosely draped over your waist. You sink your cheek into the soft pillow and idly reach a hand up to touch Keigo, giggling a little when the tips of your fingers brush against his chin stubble. He kisses your hand and sets it back in place against your chest, snuggling behind you to continue watching the movie.

A question rings through your mind and you wonder if he can answer it.

“Baby bird?” Keigo looks to you when you reach out and pause the movie. “Did you need a pee break?”

You adjust your position so that you can look up at him. “Who’s Shigaraki?”

His face doesn’t betray anything, keeping it straight and just looking down at you. “How do you know that name?”

“He came by Touya’s place while I was there, he said he had something to talk about with him and then I got sent out.”

Touya must have let Keigo know something, seeing as when you arrived he already had things ready in his apartment for you by the time you arrived. Keigo brushes his thumb idly against your cheek, slowly running the pad of it back and forth on your cheekbone rather lovingly even though his face doesn’t reflect his action. “If Touya’s never mentioned Shigaraki to you after all this time then that means he doesn’t want you to know about him. He has his reasons, alright dove?”

“So you know about Shigaraki?” you ask with a curious tilt to your head. With a confirming nod you can’t help but ask still who exactly he is. “Touya never lets anyone in at his place but that Shigaraki guy was let in, but he called him Dabi so he’s not close to him like that. He looked kinda young, I’ve never seen a guy like him around campus.”

“I’m not telling you anything dove, just let it go.” There’s a hint of a warning behind his tone but you don’t heed it, talking more and asking why you can’t know. “(Name), I’m putting my foot down. Do not ask me or Touya about Shigaraki. Now drop it, do not bring this up again or you’re going to piss me off.”

Keigo’s never spoken to you in that manner so it catches you off guard. He usually speaks with such a casual lilt and is very easy going about anything and everything. It’s something of a shock to you that you almost can’t comprehend it, looking down like a scolded child and mumbling out a quiet ‘okay’. He feels bad instantly having to have to talk to you that way but he had to convey just how much you could not breach this subject. He leans down to kiss your forehead, muttering apologies and bringing you into his arms to hold you tight. “Don’t ask Touya okay, he’ll get upset if you do. C’mon, let’s keep watching the movie.”

Touya contacts you the next morning to ask if you’re still with Keigo, to which you answer yes and ask where he is. He doesn’t give a proper answer and simply tells you that he’ll return early tomorrow morning. “Touya, I didn’t even get to kiss you goodbye yesterday if I had known that you were just going to disappear on me.”

“I’ll kiss you tomorrow when I see you princess, alright? Be good for me.”

He hangs up and you just stare at the lockscreen of your phone for a few seconds before sighing and setting down your phone. Touya wasn’t one for lying, he always told the truth if not at least keep quiet about what he didn't want to talk about, but it was rare when you could get him to admit something he doesn’t want you to know. Sure it’s fine to not have to know everything about your partner but this felt… weird. Somehow it feels worse than the three other girls he still fucks every once in a while when he goes out. The whores he was honest and upfront about, whatever is going on with this Shigaraki is entirely different business.

As curious as you are, you’ve already been warned by Keigo to not even attempt to ask about it. If Keigo got mad at you for even asking in the first place, no doubt that Touya would be furious at you. And there was no way in hell you were even going to think about investigating this on your own; not only were you not equipped to even do so in the first place, you had a strong gut feeling about this situation.

Keigo had told you before you went to sleep in his bed last night, “I know it might be frustrating for you to not be in the know dove, but trust me when I say that if Touya doesn’t want you to know something, it’s for your own good.”

You believed Keigo but it didn’t really provide any comfort to you.

‘I miss you, come back soon’ You text him, it feels stupid seeing as you saw him yesterday but you hadn’t anticipated that you wouldn’t be returning to his apartment when he sent you out. Though to be fair, he probably didn’t expect it either. If there was one thing that had been made apparent while analyzing your boyfriend was his need to know about your whereabouts no matter what and ease his anxiety about who would be around you when you went out without him. Maybe that’s just how he loves you, just unrefined and not quite polished just yet.

Your phone pings a several hours later from Touya. ‘Miss you.’

━━━━✧

All you can do is just wait and sit pretty for him when he gets back.

Keigo drops you off at Touya’s the next day, parting with a lingering kiss before going on his merry way.

When you enter the apartment, you see Touya resting on the sofa along with a small rectangular sized bag on the coffee table. You're curious if it's Touya's, never seeing this kind of bag before and undo the clips and the zipper of the bag and curiously lift the top, an assortment of drugs siting inside. One of the few first you recognize is Adderall, ecstasy, cocaine, and shrooms. The pills are separated in those orange prescription bottles and the rest are in little plastic baggies. You’ve never been around whenever Touya gets a refresh of his inventory, always making you wait a day or two before he allows you back into his place. Wherever he hides it in his apartment, you’ve never once stumbled on it. Yet here it is, just out in the open and you just had to be curious and look inside. You close up the bag and fasten the clips on it before sitting on the edge of the sofa, careful to not disturb Touya.

You wonder if that Shigaraki guy is his supplier, if not at least connected to his supplier.

“If it isn’t my pretty doll…”

You jump at the sound of Touya’s voice, quickly looking behind you and catching his sleepy gaze and a lazy smile. He’s been sleepy around you plenty of times and you know what he’s like when he’s high, but there’s something different about his expression and movements this time that unsettles you. The only thing that comes to mind is that he might have tried something new and that scares you. “Baby? Are you on something?”

Touya gives you a slow nod in answer, his hand reaching out and weakly grabbing your bicep. He gives a light tug and makes you lean over towards him, soft coos of ‘my baby’, ‘pretty doll’ and ‘princess’ pass through his lips. When you ask what he’s on, he just slowly shakes his head and laughs lowly. “Can’t tell you baby, it’s not for you… Shit like this isn’t for my good girl.”

“Oh but it’s okay for you?” you ask with mild irritation. You take his hand and press your cheek into his palm, delicately holding his wrist and looking down at him with crinkled brows. “Well whatever you’re on, do I have to get the Narcan?”

“My smart doll looking out for me… you remember where it is?”

“Oh my god, Touya please don’t tell me that I actually have to be on the lookout for you in case you overdose. I don’t think that’s something I can handle.” You’re anxious now as you go into his bedroom and retrieve the Narcan from his bedside table, keeping it on hand when you go back to sit on the couch with him. Touya’s tolerance for narcotics is pretty high but on some level you still fear that something might happen. “Do I have to call Keigo?”

He answers with a lazy shake of his head, his hand idly rubbing your thigh as you look down worriedly at him. Glancing over to the case and then at you, he asks, “You look inside it?”

You’re not a bad liar by any means but Touya is a master of smelling bullshit, so there’s no point in trying to lie to lie to him in the first place even if he is high at the moment. “Yeah…”

“Anything in there you want to try?” His fingers drum against the denim jeans you wear before lifting to play with the belt loop. “If you want to try anything new, what’s the rule doll?”

“Never from someone else, only from you.”

As if you needed a reminder.

That rule was established shortly after deciding to sleep with Keigo. You were invited to a kickback with a small group of your friends who also brought some of their friends, you were all just sitting around the kitchen island and drinking, at least that’s what you thought that was all you were going to do. You got a little drunk that night and one of your girlfriends presented a sugar cube to you held carefully in between her thumb and forefinger. You didn’t think anything of it in your drunken state of mind, you were complaining earlier that night that you wanted something sweet so you thought she was just satisfying your sugar craving. After about half an hour, your vision began to distort, different colors suddenly washing over the crowd of people you were hanging out with and you asked what was happening.

It turned out that the sugar cube you ate was laced with LSD.

Your friends had tried to calm you down, telling you that you’ll ruin your come up but it was too late. “You gave me acid! I’m not ready to try acid, you should have told me!” The timeline of that night was fuzzy and you can’t remember if it was you or someone else who called Touya and Keigo, but needless to say they were angry upon arrival when they found you distraught in a corner inside the house. Even during your bad trip, you could taste Touya’s fury when he tried to find out who had given you LSD without telling you while Keigo was trying to soothe you. You were promptly taken away from the party and the boys watched over you for the remainder of your trip, staying up with you with the help of four grams of coke to help keep them alert for a little over twelve hours while keeping you quarantined inside Touya’s place.

Touya had declared not too long after that you were not allowed to take any kind of narcotic from anyone else but him from now on. When you asked the boys what had happened at the party when they showed up, both of them remained silent. The ones from the kickback who were trip sitting, they refused to answer your questions to fill in the blank of what happened that night. You suspect that Touya might have threatened them into silence but there was no definitive proof, you don’t want to recall the memory because all you remember was the anxiety, the strange distortions of shapes your mind could never produce while sober, and at one point telling Touya that you could ‘hear how hungry his couch was’.

Keigo tells you that they should have micro dosed you instead by dissolving the sugar cube into a glass of water and just had you take a sip because that’s how he had it his first time. Touya just straight up does not like it at all, he hated his first and only trip on acid. Either way you would not be ready to try it again at all anytime soon.

Never once have you had to watch over Touya while he’s high, he’s usually the one doing the watching seeing as he had a better handle on his tolerance versus you who’s experience was just a step up from novice. But you keep a careful eye on him as he drifts back to sleep, keeping a glass of water and the Narcan nearby, running your hand through his hair. The roots are growing out, white contrasting with the black hair dye you’re used to helping him do. Touya’s been talking recently about washing out the black for a while just to give himself a break. You’ve seen a few photos of Touya with his natural hair color, courtesy of Keigo, and he’s just as handsome no matter what.

You stare at him while he sleeps, a pillow propped up behind his head and his hands resting on his stomach. He still hasn’t kissed you like he promised he would yesterday on the phone, so you lean down to fulfill it for him. No response, like you expected, but at least you got to do it.

He’s sober a few hours later, though still just a bit sluggish from whatever it was he took and the bag is put away in the room but you don’t know where. Whatever food was made the day before yesterday, you see it in a container inside the fridge and the pot still sitting in the dish wrack. At least whatever dinner you were supposed to have together the other day wasn’t put to waste and Touya went through the trouble of making sure you could have it later on. So you warm up a portion of it in a small pot and just stir, barely moving as Touya comes up and hugs you from behind. His arms come around your waist and presses right up against you. “You’re not going to ask?”

“Ask about what?” you continue to stir the food in the little pot.

“About what happened the other day?” Touya brings his hands to cup just underneath your breasts and slightly sways in place, your body following along with his movements. “Not curious at all?”

You shrug your shoulders, thinking of what Keigo said the other day and his usual approach to things in life. You channel him inside you and just act cool, casual, and whatever about it. “I figured you would have explained yourself by now if you wanted me to know. You’re usually so straight forward about everything.”

Touya makes you tilt your head up to look at him with a slight nod of approval. “Good girl.”

God the way your heart flutters when he gives you praise over the simplest things… even over something suspicious like this.

You do feel the need to ask, “Is that person someone I’ll be seeing more of?”

“If things were one hundred percent in my control then you would have never caught a glimpse of him in the first place. But to answer your question, you shouldn’t be, he doesn’t ever drop in like that. He wasn’t interested in you when he came by thankfully.”

You should know better than to ask because you’ll know it’ll make Touya seethe but you do anyway, “Well what would you have done if he looked at me a certain way? Set him on fire?”

“To finish him off after a slow torture, yeah.” Touya spits through gritted teeth and reaches over you to turn off the gas to the stovetop. “The shit I’d do to some guys for fucking staring too long at you…”

You could relate, you’ve had some vivid fantasies sometimes about the side whores and just straight up eliminating them in the most violent way possible. Not just stupid hair pulling or petty name calling, you imagined inflicting blunt trauma in certain fatal areas or having them tied up in the middle of the road while you sat in the driver’s seat of Touya’s car, revving the engine and just speed down to get to them as soon as possible.

Touya probably had more imagination for what he’d do to anyone he thought was a threat but you’re not going to open that door. So you turn around in his arms and rest one hand at the nape of his neck, your fingers massaging gently and you assure him, “Hey relax, I’m yours Touya.”

“Yeah… you’re mine.” Touya sighs in what seems like relief as he leans down to hug you. “You’re my doll, no one else’s.”

You won’t bring up Keigo and the fact that you’re being shared with him, it feels like Touya needs the reassurance right now that it really is just the two of you. In these moments you realize that his insecurities are thinly unveiled, not quite put out there but just peeking out the corner and hoping to not be noticed. So you say it again and he tells you how much he likes when you say his name, that when it falls out of your pretty lips that he can’t help but want you to scream it until your voice is raw and hoarse. “Only you can call me that doll, it’s all yours.”

Not Dabi, haven’t used that name in months.

“Touya, Touya…” you whisper in between breathless kisses, gasping as you’re pulled away from the kitchen to the bedroom. Guess that food will go cold once again…

Touya’s body isn’t in top condition yet to have sex but he pulls off your bottoms when he pushes you to lie back on the bed. There have been night’s a plenty where either you serviced Touya strictly and vice versa for you, though most of the time you just loved to fuck. Fuck when you’re happy, upset, a little drunk, or bored and all that; there’s nothing like feeling close to Touya when he’s inside of you. He’s unlike any other partner you’ve had before, no one is as hypnotizing as him, you’ve never been drawn in to anyone else like Touya before.

And he’s as entranced by you, if not more.

Kisses pressed into the inside of your thighs along with playful nips and teasing licks on your sensitive skin. He knows exactly where to touch you where you’ll practically beg for him and the right words to use to make you desperate because Touya’s not afraid to hold out on you if he wants to. He likes to see you frustrated and worked up, if he wants to pull out to edge you for the rest of the night, he’ll do so and ignore your pretty cries and desperate pleas that you’ll do anything for him as long as you can cum on his cock. Most of the time he gives in because, well, he loves your pussy and he loves fucking you. But fuck when Touya decides to be sadistic, the role always suits him quite well.

Not tonight though, no delicious sadistic edging or degradation. Touya knows that he made you worry the day before so he wants to make it up to you in best way he knows how to. He wishes that he could use his dick properly right now to fuck you but his body is still trying to process the shit he took earlier so it’ll just have to be his mouth and hands for the moment to get you off.

It’s not hard to get you to cum, there have been instances where as soon as his dick sheathes into your pussy you gush on the spot. There are days like that where it’s just that easy and other days where you need it angled just the right way inside you or the right words to fire off your imagination. “Fucking love it when you squirm like this, so goddamn cute.” Touya growls as he drags the pads of his fingers against your G-spot before flicking his tongue on your clit.

Those words help but it’s not quite what will set you off.

“Say more.”

So he does, finding the right combination of words, adjectives, proper nouns, and verbs to stimulate your mind while stimulating your pussy. It’s vivid and a pretty picture, more than just a pretty picture because he describes actual memories of the steamiest and sordid encounters. The first time you fucked on the fourth floor of the library way in the very back, the day you skipped your afternoon lectures to day drink at a brewery and just made out in his car, skinny dipping at night at the local pool, and one time you sucked his cock while he was on the headset and playing games online with Keigo.

You’re just about there, heavy breaths and panting exiting from your body as your toes curl and your fingers twist the sheets in your hand.

Touya could say more about how much he loves to fuck you seven ways to Sunday, all the kinks he still hasn’t tried with you yet and is excited to try when you’re ready, that he wants you to cum all over his fucking face and lick your sensitive cunt until you can’t take it anymore. You’ve heard it before, some more than others, but it’s not those words that make you come undone before him tonight. It’s not the images of past passionate encounters and the anticipation of getting fucked by Touya that do make you cum all over his face like he wanted.

He spouts that shit frequently but tonight he says something different, something that in the back of your mind that you were probably aware of but he never voiced out loud. When the words leave his mouth and are spoken out to you, it’s a new type of intimacy and sentiment that elevates you and makes you realize how deep you’re in this with him, how deep he is in you… emotionally.

“I’d do fucking anything for you.”

Bullet one.

You choke up, it’s not that you want to cry because how moving those words were but because the revolver is loaded and he just fired the first bullet in the chamber that will undoubtedly lead you to an intense orgasm.

“Never had this with anyone else.”

Bullet two.

“I don’t want this with anyone else, believe me.”

Bullet three.

“I don’t fucking deserve you but I’ll do what it takes to keep you with me.”

Bullet four.

“It’s scares me doll but I…”

Bullet five… will he say it?

“I’d do it all for you.”

Bullet six.

The chamber is empty and the barrel of the gun wisps smoke, your back is arched as your whole body convulses with an earth shattering orgasm that you’re literally left shaking from how powerful it was. And Touya continues to speak those words from bullet one, “I’d do fucking anything for you.”

And he is, Keigo unveiled that, the whores are dwindling not by your request but by Touya’s conscious choice. He’s choosing you, slowly but surely, there will only be you if the cards are dealt right. No one has been in his bed the way you’re invited in, hasn’t held anyone else the way he does with you, and more than likely has not been this vulnerable with someone else either. He’s terrible at feelings, still gets his dick wet sometimes when he sells to his side whores, and he withholds certain secrets to keep you safe.

Should I say it?

You thought he’d say it, those deeper feelings that Keigo had accidentally unveiled, you thought he’d say ‘I love you’ tonight but this is a step closer to it. You won’t make him say it, you won’t beg for it, you’ll sit pretty and patient because Touya will come around. He may have his secrets but he releases the ones to you that are worth knowing, and you’ll get it so long as you’re good for him.

Don’t ask about the whores, it’s okay be jealous but don’t ask, don’t get into another argument. Don’t ask about where the drugs are from and if that Shigaraki guy is linked to it, he would have told you by now if he wanted you to know. Don’t ask to see another man because him and Keigo should be enough, they won’t treat you as good the way they are with you. Do whatever Touya wants of you and he’ll do it all for you in return.

#dabi x reader #todoroki touya x reader #takami keigo x reader #takami x reader #dabi #takami keigo #bnha x reader #bnha #tw drugs #tw toxic relationship #dabi smut #hawks smut #us series

[jebazzled]

it ain’t your muse! (shut up & write, ft. rihanna)

You nerds are always talking about your muse. My muse this, my muse that, I have no muse, my muse went the way of the dinosaurs, if my muse comes out of its burrow and sees its shadow I won’t be able to write for six weeks.

Shut up about your fucking muse!

It is true that you might go through periods where it is hard to find time and energy to write, or negative experiences in a writing community might leave you with anxiety surrounding writing. But by and large, writers block is something you can overcome! 

Please, for the love of god, let me help you. 

Writing is a muscle, and you’ve got to exercise it if you don’t want it to atrophy. 

This tutorial is a bit of tough love about y’all and y’all’s diddly-darn muses, and some advice for snapping yourself out of it!

So here’s the thing about writing, my loves. You have to actually do it. 

TERRIBLY inconvenient, I know.

I’m not here to tell you how to manage your work-life balance or how to manage your time. If you’re not writing much because you straight up don’t have time to write much, my advice is simple: pare down on your characters, focus on the plots that matter most to you, and spend some mental health juice on reminding yourself that there isn’t an RP Prom Queen, and even if there were, it’s better not to live or die by that bizarro crown. 

But if you’re having trouble writing because of Your Muse... I’m cracking my knuckles. 

We’ve all written with folks before - or been that folk before - who need a very specific set of circumstances if they’re going to write: they need time to Pinterest, need to listen to a specific playlist, need to get in the mindset, need the thread to scratch a very specific itch and need all of it to come together before the moon passes out of a waxing gibbous. As a fellow dev ho, I understand the appeal of writing to suit a mood, of vibing to a playlist, of prioritizing the stuff you’re going fucking feral for, of having the stars align while you do the thing. But if you’re like this when you’re writing for other people - 

well, you’re making things difficult for both you and your writing partners! We can’t control the external constraints on our time, e.g. work and school, and we can’t always control the nonsense our psychology spins to keep us from writing. But some things are within our control, and by god, if there is any control to be had in the year of Mother Sappho 2021, don’t you want it? 

At least some of your writers block is probably dumb as hell. So let’s beat the shit out of that part.

Anyway, if you’re yakking on and on about how your muse demands a bottle of red wine and a scented candle and fairy lights and soft socks and the blood of the servant, willfully given in order to spit out 200 words, or whatever... 

it’s not that fucking deep.

Writing is a muscle. It’s like any other muscle: you need to exercise it. 

If you’re training for a 5k, you don’t sit on your couch listening to “Eye of the Tiger” until race day. You get your ass off the cushion and pound the pavement. You probably start by alternating walks with short bursts of running. You probably don’t work your way up to actually running 5k at a time for a few weeks. And once you’ve run that first 5k, you don’t go sit on your couch to listen to “Eye of the Tiger” until the next race. You keep running to stay in shape for the next race.

Writing is like that. 

What you write does not have to be perfect. 

You can work on the post for six weeks and there will still be things you could change. You know what change your writing partner would have appreciated most? If you’d posted it for them three weeks ago. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. 

Cut yourself the same slack you cut for your writing partners. Do you yearn to keelhaul them if their reply isn’t worth a National Book Award? No, because you’re not an asshole. They’re also not an asshole. Everyone is reasonable here. Write something that responds to what they gave you and that gives them something to work with. Not every single post has to be capital-I Inspired. ✨

What you write does not have to be a vibe ready for the Goop newsletter. 

I was a creative writing major in college, and I was always having to turn stuff in for class that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to work on: a short story set in another country when I just wanted to write a play with puppets, an essay about food when I would rather write one about a weekend drive, etc. 

Sometimes, you write what you write when you write it not because it’s getting you hot and bothered but because you’ve owed a reply for A While and you feel bad about keeping someone waiting. It will still be fun, because you chose to do that thread with your character and someone else’s character for a reason, and that reason stands, even if your monkey brain is yearning to play with that slime that makes fart noises when you put it away. 

(Pro tip, here: don’t do threads you don’t actually have any interest in writing! It is less awkward to tell someone, “I am not interested in my character weed whacking your character’s lawn” than to waste their time with 10 posts of it before telling them, “I am not interested in my character weed whacking your character’s lawn.”) 

The more you write, the easier it is. 

Let’s talk about running again. A couple of years ago, I went on a bit of a kick with the running. I ran at least three times a week. I would bring my running shit with me to work so I could run in the park near my office. I would make running dates with friends. I would reward myself with a bagel from my favorite cafe if I did a run. And you know what? Once I got myself past the hurdle of pulling on my running clothes and lacing up my shoes, I enjoyed myself. When I ran 5k without slowing to a walk, I was proud of myself. When I told myself, “let’s do another loop at the park!” and stopped to take a photo of the sunset, I enjoyed myself. I would not have enjoyed myself if I hadn’t hit the goddamn pavement.

Put your ass in your fucking chair. I don’t care if you don’t have the right scented candle. Write 50 words. Right fucking now. I’ll wait.

Write another 50.

Now write another 100.

How long did that take you? Some days, it might take you 90 minutes to write 200 words. But that’s 200 more words than you would have written in 90 minutes of browsing Pinterest waiting for an angel to come down from heaven and write this post for you. 

All that bullshit you do to Feed Your Muse? It’s stalling, you idiot. 

The more you make yourself write instead of just thinking about writing, the easier it will be to actually fucking write. 

I used to sit and stare at posts for hours and hours and hours before submitting them, so worried about the post being good enough. When I moved to a neighborhood with an aboveground train line, I was able to write on my morning commute, and writing every morning - even if only the 200 words I could crank out on mobile in 30 minutes before work - got me out of my weird writers block crutches and security blankets. It didn’t take as much effort to write, anymore. I wrote over 200,000 words in 2019, and over 300,000 words in 2020, when I had barely any commute at all to use on writing. I didn’t magically have endless hours of free time. I just wasn’t wasting my free time pretending that being on Tumblr counted as writing. 

Tough love: doled out. And now:

TIPS & TRICKS FOR BEATING “””Writers Block”””

Stop acting like Writers Block is real. It’s not that it’s not real, but by telling yourself that you have Writers Block, you’re making it worse for yourself. You’re making excuses for yourself. I used Writers Block to stall writing my Topics in Creative Writing: Folktales portfolio for 3 months, and you know what happened? I still had to turn in the fucking portfolio, because the person I was writing for didn’t fucking care about my fucking Writers Block. And you know who had to sit her ass in a chair and write 30 pages of folktales in a 24 hour period? Me. It’s almost like my Writers Block was just PROCRASTINATION. 

Set a timer. If you’re looking at your list of replies owed and you’re feeling like it might be easier to “do character dev” and “build a playlist” than to write your posts, break the task into smaller pieces. If your server has a sprint bot, use it. If not, set your own timer.  Organize your list of threads with the ones you’ve owed replies on the longest at the top. Set your timer for 20 minutes and see how much you can write for the oldest post you owe. Not done? Set the timer for another 20 minutes. Keep setting that timer until that post is done and you can drop it in the tags channel. Now do the same for the second oldest.  CRANK! THEM! OUT! If you find that it’s depleting your creative energy, that’s not unusual! When I get to this point in my own posting habits, my oldest replies owed are usually for Albus Dumbledore, a character I write specifically because I hate him. It is often easier to knock out all his posts in one chunk rather than shift voice, so this ends up working out nicely. 

Don’t indulge your stupid stalling tactics. Do you typically get sidetracked by Pinterest? Put your phone away and close that tab. Do you get absorbed in lining up the perfect music for writing a post? Write in silence, asshole. Do you need to be in your favorite chair with the right lighting? Go sit on a park bench and write on mobile.  It’s nice to write in idealized environments. I rented a treehouse last summer to write 10k on a novel! I get it! But you absolutely can write in other environments, if you have to. And if you can get yourself to write on a dark skin on your iPad at an airport in the Midwest while waiting for a flight - well, shit, think of how much you’ll be able to write on a laptop when your diva ass demands are properly met!

Don’t take on shit you don’t want to write. I fully admit that these tactics feel a bit like homework/chores/a to-do list for what is of course a fun hobby. You know how they say “love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life?” If you don’t take on plots, characters, and threads that don’t have a lick of interest or excitement for you, this shit won’t feel like a hassle. 

Hope this whips all you little miscreants (myself included) into shape! Now quit your yapping and start writing. 

#rp guides #resources #writing resources #on writing #stop trying to make writers block happen. it's not going to happen.

[walkerwords]

“A Sense of Time” Daryl Dixon x F!Reader

GIF CREDIT: me with footage from AMC

Summary: Six years after Rick Grimes disappeared, Daryl is still out in the woods looking for him. One day he and Dog come across you and offer you some food. Sometimes all a person needs is a little human conversation to point them home. 

Word Count: 3507

Warning: None

Song I Wrote To: “Nobody Knows” by The Lumineers

Note: This is just a short little thing I had written in my book. I like to think that Daryl visited his niece and nephew a lot, but sometimes needed a bit of a reminder. I think he also just needs a little human interaction every once in a while. Not a ship post, just a little conversation. Thanks for reading! 

-----

Daryl Dixon had gotten used to the solitude the woods provided.

He had set out shortly after the bridge was blown out, determined to find his brother. He didn’t know if he would be able to find Rick Grimes alive, dead, or as a Walker. All he did know was that he needed to bring him home for all of them, but especially for Michonne, Judith, and RJ, the son Rick never knew.

Six years he searched and after a while, it was just easier to stay away. Daryl still made the occasional trip to Hilltop for supplies and to check-in with Tara and Jesus. He knew he should go to Alexandria more. He knew Judith asked about him, RJ too, but he couldn’t face Michonne. After what happened with Jocelyn, the same weight bore down on both of them and if he couldn’t bring Rick back to her, he didn’t want to see her. 

It was mostly guilt on his part, even though he knew Rick had made the decision to stop the herd and protect the communities. He tried to save what they had all built together. Daryl couldn’t imagine what Rick would say if he knew how distant they all were now.

Maggie was gone, Alexandria was closed, Tara and Jesus rarely spoke to others, the Kingdom was falling apart, and Daryl wasn’t even sure what was happening over at Oceanside. Everything that Carl and Rick had wanted was now tearing at the seams, but Daryl knew it was going to happen. Nothing had been the same without either Grimes and everybody knew it. Hell, he figured even Negan knew it and the man was under lock and key.

But regardless, the world had to keep going.

Daryl walked through the woods, Dog at his side. He was on his way back to his makeshift camp after checking the traps when he heard a commotion coming through the trees.

Unsheathing his knives, Daryl moved silently. Dog kept right behind him, ready to move on his master’s command. The two had been hunting together for a while now and if Daryl couldn’t detect something sneaking up on them, Dog definitely could. 

Daryl moved closer to the noise. He identified it as fighting immediately. He rushed ahead, hoping it wasn’t anyone he knew. The last thing he needed was one of his family members getting attacked or bit while looking for him in the dense forest.

Coming up to a clearing, Daryl paused just inside the tree line and watched the scene before him. About ten or so Walkers were converging on a small form in the center of the small field. Just as he was about to take his bow from his shoulder, the Dead began dropping and he finally caught sight of you. 

Armed with a machete, you swung it in perfect arcs, cutting through the Dead like they were nothing. At this point in the Apocalypse, unless they were fresh, the Roamers, as you called them, were pretty much as brittle as sand. It didn’t take much force to take them out. 

It was nearly second nature to kill them. You swung and swung, keeping light on your feet as you were taught. Heads toppled to the ground and eventually, all that remained was a single Roamer that limped on a bony stump. Twirling your blade around in your hand, you circled it. It lunged at you, but you easily stepped out of the way.

“Here, boy,” you taunted with a whistle. You could only imagine what your grandmother would say if she saw you playing with the Dead, but you had been alone for almost two years now and you needed a little bit of fun, even though it was a tad sadistic. 

The Roamer snapped its jaws at you and soon you got bored. With a sigh, you swung your blade and took off its head, stopping the brain with your boot. Looking around at all the corpses, you got to work. You never understood why your grandmother had taught you to pile them up, but you always did it.

You thought it might be because it reminded her of a funeral pyre, just without the actual flames. Only a few times did you actually light them and that was when they were people you knew. Now it was too much of a risk to do so. It could not only attract more of the Dead but the Living too and that was the last thing you wanted. 

As you dragged the Roamers into the center of the clearing, two pairs of eyes watched on from the trees. Daryl was wary of you, but something told him that you were just a nomad. It wasn’t uncommon for the lone traveler to come through the woods. Most people had the same idea: head to the Capital. Not that there was much left of Washington, D.C., but people still had hope.

Dog sat by his side, leaning slightly against him. Daryl reached down and scratched the dog’s head. He watched as you piled up the bodies and then started to go through the pockets of the Dead. He knew a few people, both living and dead that would disagree with looting a corpse, but he himself had done it more times than he could count. It was a basic survival skill these days and if you were alone, it could save your life. 

You moved through the pile, looking for anything you could use. You found a new knife, an old book of matches, a bottle opener on a set of keys, and even a few bandannas you could use while walking through the more less-desirable areas. You grabbed it all and placed it in your backpack. 

Pulling out your water bottle, you took a long pull and then poured some on your head, relishing in the cool feeling of the Virginia heat. You then climbed on top of the pile and sat, watching your surroundings as you took a break. This was something else your grandmother would slap you for, but you knew there was one thing that kept the Dead away and that was the smell of more Dead.

The horrific stench of the Roamers had become an odd comfort for you. It made you more at ease while sleeping and if you were being honest, you started to feel more comfortable around them than you did people. The new world was doing strange things to you and at this point, you were happy to let it. 

Soon enough, though, you had to move on. Sliding off the pile, you grabbed your bag, sheathed your machete, and began moving towards the trees. The sun was going to start going down soon and you would need to keep moving if you were going to make it through the thick forest.

You headed towards the river, thinking it would be the easiest landmark to follow. The last thing you needed was to get lost in the middle of Virginia. With everything so overgrown and signs weathered, it was hard to even know what state you were in, let alone the city. Then there was the matter of direction. Grandma may have been all about free spirits and honoring the dead, but never once did she teach you how to find your way without a map. 

“Thanks, grandma,” you grumbled as you jumped over a rotted tree. A rustling sound came from your right and your hand went to your machete, but you relaxed when you saw four legs, two tall ears, a tail, and a black nose. “This day just keeps getting more interesting,” you said to the dog that approached you. 

The dog growled at you, showing its sharp canines. You put your hands on your hips and scowled at the creature. “Alright, boy,” you said, “normally I would kill any animal I came across, but you…” you trailed off, tilting your head, “I never thought I’d see a domestic dog like you, let alone one that wasn’t all ribs and feral teeth.” You reached out your hand when the dog barked and you jumped back. 

“Okay, not too trusting,” you said, “I get that. How about this? I go my way and you go yours and I don’t have to kill you. How’s that sound?” You asked and the damn dog growled back. 

“Dog!” You startled at the voice, cursing. The dog looped back towards a tree where a man stepped out from behind. This time, you hung onto the hilt of the machete as you took in the stranger. He was taller than you with long hair and scruffy facial hair that was half-hidden by a hood. Along his back was a large crossbow and you knew a man like that had to have more weapons on him.

When he moved closer to you, took another step back, tripping slightly. He put his hands up. “Ain’t gonna hurt ya, girl,” he said slowly. You watched as he kept his distance, but got close enough to where you could see him a bit better. He pulled down his hood and shook out his hair a bit.

“What do you want?” You asked, keeping an eye on his hands. 

“Yer the one walkin’ into my camp,” he pointed out. He nodded behind him and just through the trees you could see a fire pit, tent, and what looked like some hand-carved spears. 

“Please tell me you’re not some psycho who strings people up in trees,” you said, grimacing. The man raised a brow and shook his head slowly.

“What kind of company you keep?” He asked, but you figured it was more of a rhetorical question. Your gaze gifted back to the dog at the stranger’s side. 

“He yours?” You asked. The man nodded. He then picked up a stick and held it aloft. 

“Dog, go!” He yelled, throwing the stick back towards camp. The canine took off at full speed, happily barking after his prize. 

“You named the dog, Dog?” You asked. The stranger shrugged. 

“Didn’t know his name,” he rationalized. You pursed your lips, rocking awkwardly on your heels. 

“So if you’re not gonna hang me from a tree or let your dog take a bite…” you trailed off, pointing over your shoulder. 

“Where ya headed?” He asked. 

“I’m lookin’ for someone. Figured I would head downriver. Guess I’ll find out one way or another.” 

“Yeah, I get that,” he said, chewing on the side of his thumb. “Ya hungry?” He asked. You hesitated. “Just fish, girl, ain’t gonna be anything special.” You thought about it for a moment before nodding. He jerked his head towards camp and you followed. 

“The name’s (Y/N), by the way, not ‘girl’,” you said, catching up to him.

“Daryl,” he responded. 

“Nice to meet ya, Daryl,” you acknowledged. He grunted in response causing you to chuckle. Daryl lead you back to his camp and as he got to work on cleaning the fish he had caught earlier, you took a turn about the area. 

Everything from the tent to the small weapons area screamed survivor. You could tell that he had been out there long, but he also knew how to live within the trees. These were the kind of people you liked. The ones that knew what they were doing and just lived rather than trying to hunt the weak or take advantage of other people. Daryl seemed like good one. He also didn’t seem scared of living out and around the Dead. “Get many Dead ones, ‘round here?” You asked. He looked at you. 

“Got traps set up,” he said, slicing open the fish next to a fire he began to stoke. “Dog keeps ‘em away.” 

“Bet he does,” you said, smiling fondly at the mutt as he chewed happily on the stick Daryl had given him. Sitting down by the fire, you let your joints feel proper heat for the first time in weeks. You watched Daryl work on your dinner for a while, watching as he used his knives. Just by the way he cooked, you knew he was a skilled fighter. 

“Where ya comin’ from?” Daryl asked suddenly. Leaning back against one of the stumps, you sighed. 

“Kind of everywhere,” you said, “I was using the highways, you know, trying to keep some sort of route. Then I kept running into trouble so I headed into the woods.” 

“What kind of trouble?” He asked, his brow furrowed.

“Just the occasional asshole who thinks I’m an easy target. A lot of people out there lookin’ to steal, kill, etc. Figured I’d be safer out here considering most people don’t risk entering the trees, fear of the Dead, and all that.”

“Smart people,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his lips.

“What does that make us?” You asked. 

“Used to it,” he said in a low voice. 

“Used to what?”

“The fucked up world,” he said simply. 

“That is the most accurate thing I have heard in weeks, Daryl,” you said, raising your imaginary glass. Daryl shook his head and went back to cooking the food. “Are there many people around? I’d rather not have to go deeper into the woods.”

“There are people,” he said, serving up a piece of fish to you in a metal dish. “A couple of communities. But they’re good people, won’t mess with ya if yer friendly.” You snorted at that. 

“If they’re anything like the last community I ran across, I’ll make sure to keep out of their line of sight before they try to make me a full course meal and offer me five-star stay,” you said, remembering the young boy you met not that long ago.

“Where was that?” Daryl asked.

“A couple of days walk from here,” you said, “that way.” You pointed over your shoulder. “There was this kid, he was out in the woods around the walls. I was looking for water and we ran into each other.” You laughed at the memory. “Kid nearly knocked me on my ass with that stick of his. Thought I was an intruder or something. Anyways, he invited me back to his ‘Kingdom’, but I had to move on. The whole walls and leader thing isn’t really for me.” You finished and went back to your dinner, but Daryl had paused. “What?” You asked as he stared at you. 

“Ya were at the Kingdom?” He asked. 

“Wait, that’s the actual name?” You laughed, “okay then I owe stick-boy an apology. I thought he was just screwin’ with me.” 

“Nah, it’s a real place. Run by two good people. The kid with the stick is their son.”

“You know them?” Daryl nodded. “Well, next time you see them, tell them a passing traveler thinks their kid is a total badass.” This got a small smile from Daryl. 

“Why don’t ya like walls?” 

“Why don’t you?” you asked, turning it back on him. 

“Never said I didn’t,” he said with a challenging look. You raised your hands in surrender. 

“I just prefer to not be locked down, I guess,” you finally answered. “Easier that way.” 

“Ya lost somebody?” he asked, guessing by the tone of your voice. 

“My whole group, actually,” you said. “I was on watch in a tree one night and I didn’t hear the Roamers enter the camp. I was so tired and I…” you sighed again, picking at the fish. “Anyways, they all died, including my grandmother, and I had to move on.”

“Sorry ‘bout yer people,” he said. 

“Thanks.” It was quiet after that. You didn’t know if bringing up your dead family was a good idea, but then again, Daryl was a complete stranger. Who cared what he knew. You weren’t going to see him again anyways. “You got family besides the mutt?” you asked. Daryl leaned back on his forearms, kicking rocks into the fire. He nodded.

“They’re around,” he said and then paused as if he was unsure about sharing more. You waited patiently. Finally, he turned his face towards the rickety boat that sat on the water’s edge. “Got a niece and nephew too. Good kids.” It was subtle, but when he mentioned them, you could see a light in his eyes even when they were slightly turned away from you. They clearly meant a lot to him. 

“Kids,” you said, “they grow up so fast. Don’t wait too long to see them again.” Daryl looked back at you and nodded. You hoped that was taking your words to heart. “Besides, maybe they can convince you to cut that thing on your head.” Daryl raised his eyebrows at you. 

“Ya know me for all of an hour and yer judgin’,” he said, messing with his long hair. 

“Once you share a dirty fish with someone, they instantly become your friend. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

“Who made that rule?” he asked. 

“I don’t know, probably Aristotle or George Bush. Who cares? It’s gospel now.” You popped another piece of fish into your mouth and licked your fingers. 

“What did you do before the Turn?” he asked after a moment.

“High school,” you said, finishing your food. “Imagine that. One day I was sitting in Calculus class and the next thing I know my teacher is stumbling through the room trying to eat the assistant principal.” Daryl whistled low at that. 

“Yer folks?”

“Both out of the country when the outbreak began. They were pilots. Dad was in China and Mom was in South Africa. Not sure what happened to them. Gran pretty much raised me so I stuck with her for as long as possible. Then, well, you know,” you said, referring back to the other story.

“Ya don’t seem to carry the weight of their deaths,” Daryl observed, handing you a cup of water. You placed the metal mug in your hands, watching the flames flicker in the dark. 

“Don’t really have the time, you know? Can’t think about it. The way I see it, the world killed them as it died. Nobody’s fault, just the way it is now.” 

“Doesn’t have to be,” he said, sitting all the way up. “Kingdom isn’t the only place ‘round here that has walls and people and a place to sleep. There’s a community not too far from here called Hilltop. If ya give the leader my name, he’ll let ya stay. Then just down near the ocean, there’s Oceanside, Cyndie is a good person.”

“Why are you trying to help me?” you asked as he finished. 

“Yer a survivor. At some point, ya gotta stop movin’. Let yourself feel safe,” Daryl explained. “What’s the hurt in that?”

“There isn’t any,” you said, “but like I said, I’m not one for walls. I do better on my own.”

“Nobody does,” he disagreed. 

“Aren’t you alone out here with your hunting, fishing, and your traps?” you asked with raised brows.

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “Just think about it, alright?”

“I gotta find who I’m lookin’ for, Daryl,” you said, smiling softly at him. 

“Who are you looking for?” he asked. 

“I don’t know yet,” you finally admitted, “but I guess I’ll know when I find them. I just know it’s not here. These aren’t my people, but they are yours. Your niece and nephew, they’re gonna need all the family they can get. Go see them, even if it’s just for a day. You never know when the last time will be.” You got up from the ground, dusting off your jeans. 

“If ya need somewhere to sleep-” he said, but you cut him off. 

“Thanks, but I gotta keep movin’. But before I go,” you slipped your hand into your pocket and pulled out a piece of leather cord. At the end of it was a 1788 Virginia quarter. The coin was weathered from all the hands it had passed through. It had been given to you by a guy about a year ago when you came across him hiding out in an old middle school. You reached over and pressed it into Daryl’s hand. He looked at it with confusion. “Just to remember, you know?” He closed his fingers around the small token and nodded. 

“Thanks,” he said. “I hope ya find what yer lookin’ for, (Y/N),” he said and you knew he meant it. You offered your hand again and he gripped it. Letting go, you reached down and stroked Dog behind his ears. 

“Till we meet again, Daryl,” you said and then picked up your backpack and disappeared into the dark woods, smiling for the first time in a long time. 

Daryl watched after you, his thumb running over the silver coin in his hand. Dog nudged his other hand and Daryl obliged his furry companion, petting him down his back. Looking back at the flames he decided that tomorrow he would take a ride to Alexandria to see Judith and RJ. It had been too long and he needed to see his family.

TAGS: @thanossexual​

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