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malicious-compliance-esq · 1 year

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Also, I meant to say this in response to your headcanons but got carried away by other things. I absolutely agree that Tavington is looking forward to the horny swordfight. I got started on a meta about the perverse courtship between Tavington and Martin that that scene illustrates particularly well, but as I drew closer to the end it got quite depressing, and I think I've abandoned it. But, yes!

I've only seen the first season of Outlander, but I did watch the final fight between Jamie Fraser and JBR, and it made me feel kind of . . . jealous . . . on Tavington's behalf!

Why didn't he get to die on top of Martin, who was also half dead? It was what he deserved, and it's homophobic of the filmmakers to not give it to him.

We’re back with a new Ask from @lyledebeast who has been busy having Correct Opinions about the Battle of Culloden sequence in Outlander S3E1 and its connections to the Colonel Tavington / Benjamin Martin final confrontation in The Patriot...

I couldn’t agree more with this assessment, honestly! From what I understand, the showrunners gave Tobias Menzies and Sam Heughan loose guidance to draw on the final sequence from The Patriot and the sex scene from Cold Mountain in equal measure. They definitely delivered on that and then some. We don’t initially see as much of the fight sequence itself in the books, so I loved the artistic direction the show went in with developing the stuff that later shows up in all of Jamie Fraser’s wild horny dreams about Black Jack Randall. Which he’s still having 20+ years after killing the guy in canon, much to his spouse Claire’s bewilderment. He even goes so far as to ramble about the weird BJR sex dreams to his sister Jenny, who seems to understand a bit better why this is still happening.

Unfortunately Black Jack making absolutely garbage choices at the end of Season 1 (after a promising grand gesture of saving Jamie from the gallows after he got arrested for treason charges that Randall had nothing to do with) sealed his fate when things could have easily gone another way. Most of my fics change the specific events of S1E15-16 and the corresponding content from the Outlander novel enough to make other trajectories possible for the two of them. This is plausibly canonical if one considers the potential consequences of Roger MacKenzie Wakefield’s visit to Fort William in 1739 in Written in My Own Heart’s Blood but I won’t get into the weeds about that here.

TL;DR: Black Jack deserved everything he got at Culloden in canon, but between him and Jamie BJR was the only one who found any peace from the outcome of that confrontation. Jamie wound up imprisoned for years on end and tortured all the more by his memories of Black Jack. Awful—and thus an exquisitely poignant commentary on how violence is a cycle that brings everyone to ruin.

BJR and Jamie could’ve had it so much better, so I’ve been going HAM exploring other timelines for the two of them. This includes reading between the lines of the show and books a lot to explore the clear implications that Randall himself has been abused by the Duke of Sandringham for years. Another depressing meta topic that I’ve written about before, and certainly a valuable context for why he winds up so broken and so unable to disentangle violence and affection with other men.

This is an interesting angle to explore re: Tavington and Martin. I often see the relationship between Black Jack and Jamie as a sort of photo negative of the Will/Ben dynamic. Indeed, one can look at Randall and Tavington as negative images of one another in a more general sense:

The worst things Randall does are focused entirely on one guy; he has zero interest in expanding these beyond Jamie and in fact actively eschews opportunities to attack other Highlanders beyond the punch-clock minimum of doing his job, which he also hates. This is fairly clear in the books, but even more so in the show. That Culloden sequence literally shows him shooing people away from his horse with the flat of his cavalry saber in the middle of an all-out bloodbath. He’s only there to go willingly to his death by fighting Jamie because he thinks he truly is irredeemable and can’t bear to face the even scarier prospect of dealing with his feelings for the other person he’s now entangled with.

On a broader scale Randall makes no secret of his distaste for killing and anything to do with it, is visibly shaken by violence against other people in his regiment, and goes on a lengthy ramble in a deleted scene from S1E8—I’m totally with you on deleted scenes “counting” by the way—about how he doesn’t give a damn about the war or the Crown. He basically says he just wants to stop being miserable and lonely in a freezing cold place and go back home to Sussex and take a proper hot bath. We find out later exactly why Randall has been serving all this time and like Tavy’s backstory, it’s a heartbreaker. But when it comes to that one guy who is the focus of all the worst parts of Black Jack’s twisted psyche…boy does he ever go deep, literally and figuratively. Even then, it's complicated—nothing is ever quick or simple with Randall.

Then we’ve got Tavington, who gleefully burns a church full of townspeople who did nothing except let someone exist and breathe. But he makes it eminently clear that this isn’t remotely personal, simply the cost of doing business for a cause he truly believes in. Not so much the Crown itself, but honor and the fight against hypocrisy. His eye-rolling takedown of chattel enslavement of Black people is one of many reasons I love Tavy. I also wonder if he burned that church not so much because it had people inside it but specifically because it was a church. We certainly spend enough time discussing religious trauma in the BJR fandom—check his “what kind of world” soliloquy in S2E12—that it’s easy to see why Tavington would have a grudge against organized Christianity and especially the Puritanical American version.

There's also Tavington's horny fixation with Martin and how he leans into every opportunity to form a trauma bond with him. But rather than pushing the envelope too far and raping him when dude is still way to repressed to admit he’s bi and that Dougal MacKenzie’s assessment of what was actually happening in Jamie’s head during that savage flogging at Fort William was entirely correct, Will kills two of Ben’s kids right in front of him. Brutal and yet weirdly humane in sort of an inverse way. The “butcher” moniker really tracks here—quick, surgical, painless and purely physical rather than a whole mix of things physically that are almost secondary to the psychological angle. Tavington kills plenty of people, but seems to have no interest in making any of them suffer. He actually cares about the broader purpose behind his job even if he only started doing it initially because of his own family’s misfortunes.

I see overlap between Tavy and BJR here in the area of wanting to become the primary source of comfort for a person they’ve hurt. Very different pathways to causing that pain, but similar desires underneath—right down to the horny death wish. “Kill me before the war is over” is Tavington’s equivalent with Martin of Randall saying “kill me, my heart’s desire” to Jamie.

I absolutely think they deserved a more explicitly randy final fight with Will landing on top of Ben to protect him from being wounded in any further fighting the way Black Jack does with Jamie in the Outlander show and books. The TV show version of that sequence made this quite explicit. If you watched all of S3E1 then you saw BJR reach out for Jamie as he collapsed, at once a final expression of his own feelings and an intentional transfer of protection.

The theme of a person giving someone the protection of their body shows up constantly in Outlander and has been the subject of many keysmashing blorbo breakdowns I’ve had on Discord these past few months. Note that in Outlander Jamie even leaves a highly symbolic object on the battlefield with Black Jack—the meaning of this will become clear once you watch the later episodes in Season 2, but it really drives the message home that the deeper feelings between BJR and Jamie were anything but one-sided.

And then of course there’s the poignant symbolism of dying in the arms of the person who understood someone best, and who connected with them the most emotionally even if that connection was terribly fraught. Tavington and Martin exemplify this every bit as much as Randall and Fraser do, in my opinion. The chemistry between them is palpable from the very first, and even with the homoeroticism of their dynamic set at a lower volume visually in the specific choices the production crew made for the final sequence in The Patriot that energy is definitely there.

I love your turn of phrase here also in describing the relationship between Will and Ben as a “perverse courtship”—very accurate, and certainly convergent with the dynamics we see between Black Jack and Jamie in the Outlander canon. There’s little ambiguity that for Randall this was one of only a couple of times he’d ever been in love, and the same for Fraser. And in both universes as in so many great tragedies throughout the ages, we see the terrible consequences of war through the lens of doomed love.

As Claire Beauchamp points out in Outlander “there’s always another fucking war” waiting to destroy lives the same way all over again. So I love the possibilities transformative work offers for envisioning a world where moderately to severely traumatized Evil Redcoats can find some healing of their own. You can’t avoid Martin and Fraser being completely shattered after killing their adversaries unless you rework the canon with Tavington and Randall making just enough different choices to invite other futures. And goodness, is that ever a real pleasure for us writers!

#ask dr. compliance #lyledebeast #small fandoms #the patriot #william tavington #jason isaacs #outlander starz #black jack randall #tobias menzies #fanfic #ao3 #character analysis #villain discourse #evil redcoat pipeline #delightful #yes good

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blackfilmreviewsmsu · 1 year

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Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (2006)

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes was directed and produced by Byron Hurt.

In class we watched Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes and I found this documentary to be equally as refreshing as I felt with Wattstax though more relatable for my time and what I am currently invested in. The documentary takes you through interviews with different groups of avid hip hop fans and talks to them about hard-hitting topics such as homophobia, toxic masculinity, sexism and violence portrayed in rap and hip hop. When watching this film, it gave me even more perspective and confirmed my beliefs of what media has done to influence people, specifically [Black] men and how culture sees them and expects them to act. When role models are put on the questioning stand to answer for their words and actions they are watched as they deflect, walk away and ignore the valid inquiries that are had by many people, groups outside the population of men, who also consume this media. When asked about the sexism displayed in their music and music videos, it is laughed off or taken defensively by the artists. This could be seen as an individual thing that should not matter in hindsight however this ignores the fact that artist and celebrities have undeniable influence in society and whether they like it or not, influence how their audience acts and reacts to things.

This is not to say that the artists and celebrities should have to completely censor themselves all the time. I am saying that, knowing the impact you have on society, there should be a greater effort into what is being produced and what messages are being sent out to knowing fans of their work. Depictions of hate and violence are prominent in the rap and hip hop genre and because songs are often taken as gospel to a lot of people, these images are then displayed in real life en masse. Homo/transphobia is encouraged, violence and objectification against women is normalized, the need to be hypermasculine just to fit an image of what the media says is what "a real man" should look, act and be. Because of these harmful depictions in art everyone, including men, get hurt.

This documentary challenged these ideas, or at least brought them to the table for the ideas to be contemplated seriously and without judgement. "Why is it so easy to freestyle with topics about sexism, violence and homophobia?" "Because that is what people want to hear and see. That is what makes money, Nobody wants to hear anything else but that." These are roughly the sentiments the community seemed to voice when asked the hard-hitting questions. This shows me that there is a general ack of awareness of how much people that we, the consumer, hold in the world. It is only believed that that is all that is desirable because we continue to consume and buy the product which encourages these messages. It is a cycle that can be broken it just takes awareness and action. I appreciated the raw honestly of this film and the interviews that came about. It felt relevant now even though it is more that a decade old. It shows how these conversations are still very important and I believe we are slowly taking matters into our own hands. I also appreciate new and upcoming artists challenging these ideas as well. Having more women rappers, having queer rappers that are more socially accepted (I still stand on the fact that Lil Nas X is considered a rapper, I find him to be multifaceted and his music can reach across different genres). I find women reclaiming the imagery led by men for so long and using it as their own way of empowerment. I see music changing as the world changes. I am interesting in having a film as a retrospective or follow up to this one and seeing how views may or may not have changed over the years and their opinion of popular music today.

#black film #black films matter #blackfilmreviewsmsu #Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

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jasontodding · 3 years

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i really have never seen anything quite like the power of fandom continuing to show up and make excuses for absolute pos male characters because they’re objectively ~~attractive.

ohhhhh poor nick goode !! so pressured by his family’s expectations !!! if you read between the lines deep down he obviously still loved ziggy !!!

like…. my god. i shipped them too in 1978, but that was before we found out that he and his entire family knowingly lived off a deal their ancestor made that continuously sacrificed people year after year from the “wrong side of town”, all in the name of keeping sunnyvale the quintessential seat of wealth and prosperity.

that abundance was built off the literal blood sacrifice of people who unwillingly lost their lives all because the greed of one bloodline. because solomon goode wanted more.

nick was 110% content to let things continue on as they were- dooming hundreds of ordinary citizens to lifetimes of bad luck and misery and tragedy, all so his own family could selfishly continue to prosper like they had for years. ziggy probably lived for years with what had happened at camp nightwing weighing on her. the paranoia, the drinking, the obsessiveness- all signs of major PTSD. you don’t let someone you love live like that. ziggy saw her sister die in front of her, sacrificing herself because cindy thought she could stop the curse and give her sister a good life- a life of freedom from the “curse” they all believed sara fier put on shadyside. he brought her back to life, he wanted her. wanted her with a kind of selfishness that let her live in a nightmare long after the ambulance drove her out of camp nightwing. because she told him it was the curse, and was probably so hurt when nothing came of it. when everyone just assumed tommy went crazy, killed his girlfriend and a bunch of others. she probably felt broken and betrayed and a thousand other things, on top of living with the memory of the flashes of knowledge she received when her blood dripped onto sarah’s hand bone- stuff she didn’t even fully understand. nick could’ve validated her. nick could’ve supported her, backed her up. but nick said absolutely nothing. nick did nothing. NICK CHOSE TO SAY AND DO NOTHING, because in reality, he knew it was all realer than real- knew that his own ancestor was the originator of the curse, that the goode family kept it going from solomon up until then and even beyond that afterwards.

in 1978, ziggy said to him, “do you believe me?”. and he looked her right in the eye, while fellow campers, innocent people were being murdered and said “yes”, knowing FULL WELL HIS FAMILY WAS THE REASON THOSE CHILDREN WERE BEING SLAUGHTERED. just because they were deemed a necessary sacrifice to continue the unceasing prosperity of sunnyvale, and had the bad luck of being from the shadyside. while she was covered in blood and begging him to believe her, he already knew what was happening and why.

maybe some part of nick faltered at the sheer violence and carnage his family wreaked over time. maybe he had times where he doubted everything that was happening- but the fact is, people died because of him and his family. cindy died. but ziggy made it. becuause ziggy was pretty, because he liked her, because he thought she was different than the other people from shadyside, the ones he and his family deemed as expendable for their own gain.

but it’s like the widow said- making a deal with the devil is a CHOICE.

nick lived in the wealth his bloodline provided him. nothing that was earned, just built off the literal blood sacrifice of others. nick CHOSE to continue that. he wasn’t asking probing questions to deena, sam, simon, kate, and josh because he wanted to get down to the truth of what really happened- BECAUSE HE ALREADY KNEW. he just wanted to know how close they were to the truth. the truth of how much blood was on his and his family’s hands.

he called deena a d*ke, would’ve ended ziggy no matter how much of a crush he had on her, just to continue the whole frickin’ thing. to keep it going. he was just as selfish and greedy as solomon was.

nick goode was evil, but he had a pretty face, right? so viewers will keep searching for a reason for even a modicum of good in him. young nick and ziggy were adorable, so people can’t accept that he CHOSE to hurt her. like ziggy would ever fucking be okay with this man getting away with it all- she may have liked nick, but she LOVED her sister.

stop doing ziggy a disservice by trying to find some sort of overly multidimensional spin on nick. i’ll admit, i had a moment after i finished all 3 movies where i was like, damn, it sucks ziggy and nick didn’t make it, they had chemistry. and then i wanted to slap my hand on my forehead, because i was completely missing the point. fear street has an unexpected beauty to it because of the love characters have for each other- deena and josh, cindy and ziggy, sara and hannah, etc. it’s unselfish and pure and stubborn and all encompassing, it drives them and those characters would do so much for the ones they love.

nick’s “love” for ziggy, if you can even call it that, was not that type of life. it was selfish, and it was based on lies. even though she had a prickly exterior, ziggy obviously cared for others- hell, sheila strung her up and burned her and she still went back and risked her life to help her. nick presented as if he was also that way, as well as an outsider in his own life, someone who didn’t fit in. and maybe nick didn’t. maybe nick really struggled deep down with the curse. but in the end, nick made choices. just like solomon made the choice to deal with the devil, nick chose to let ziggy live in self-doubt and fear. nick chose to be selfish, to protect his family’s own interests.

you can still have chemistry with people who suck, that’s the catch of life. monsters can have attractive faces too. but to try to dive deep into nick’s character like he was eternally stuck as the conflicted teenage boy who wasn’t sure if he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, even when he held a gun to ziggy’s head… ugh.

stop making excuses for the fucked up shit male characters do. they may look good, they may have been possible love interests, but why on god’s earth would you blatantly ignore the fact that someone like nick CHOOSE to continue the cycle solomon started so many years ago??

why is it so important to find reasons to explain away nick’s abhorrent behaviour? because teen nick and ziggy were cute? you can acknowledge that but still be able to point out nick’s deceit, his selfishness.

idk man this phenomenon is… troubling to say the least.

#fear street #fear street spoilers #ziggy berman #nick goode

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boytouya · 3 years

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𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘖𝘧 𝘈 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦

words:2.3k

WARNING: graphic depictions of violence, blood, angst, open ended/ambiguous ending, descriptions of death.

request: “Can i request sukuna x male reader. Where reader keeps reincarnating with each lifetime for a curse and every time he remembers sukuna, he dies after gaining memories back. You can choose if theres a good ending or angst. Thank you king! I fell in love with him especially after reading that one shot i had to watch jjk and hes hot! Thank you for turning me into a sukuna simp! Much love”

a/n: i went,,,overboard with this request 🗿 BUT IT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITESSIJEHSHE i’m honored to have introduced you to such a foine man

When you were five, only then had you understood the curse deemed ‘Ryoumen Sukuna.’ A rather tall man with two heads, one of which had splattered blood onto your sneakers. You understood the concept of death, of course, but could never truly comprehend the feeling of nothingness after watching your life flash before your eyes until nineteen. But there you stood, clutching the loop of your shorts when you witnessed the murder of your entire village. You didn’t know evil could have a moral compass, but the tall curse seemed to exclude half of the women and children. After the widening of youthful eyes and curdling screams you learned the monster took likings to things too. Women, with shaking forms and broken spirits. He’d stop before them, stare at them with eyes that could- in fact- kill, if they truly wanted to. But then he stopped in front of you.

“Close your eyes, Brat.” Death's hands were just as large as your family painted them out to be, if not larger. Calloused and riddled with blood as they are placed over your ears. You do as he- it says, squeezing your eyes shut and enclosing your eyes behind the meat of your palms just to be extra careful. You can see stars behind your eyelids, just as you can feel the sickening twang of death lingering in the air. You were aware it would happen at some point, Death would find its place for you over and over and over again, you’d been told since the day you were born.

There’s another sound, only muted under large palms. You don’t need your sense of sight or hearing to know what it was, the warm chunks splattering onto your skin was enough. Immediately, you flinched. When you opened your eyes, there were piercing eyes staring straight into your own. It looked so human, but something was off. Uncanny, as if it took years to manipulate its flesh and bone to emulate humans to a T. But there was nothing human behind those eyes, instead a void of nothingness. Death itself. If Death could express interest, you’d have thought that was the expression it was imitating. It offers a hand, one of four. Larger than your face, with sharp claws that could almost be described as talons. Darkened by dirt and remains of your loved ones, if it truly wanted to kill you, it could. It could tear you limb from limb with the wave of a finger. And it knew that.

So you took the hand, and he became your second home.

When you were ten, you learned about the red string of fate. It could never be broken, and those connected by it would always reunite, no matter the circumstances. You often had nightmares, those of which filled with blurred faces and sharp pain that reached you in your lucid state. Dreams of talons, piercing eyes, and double headed monsters. You dreamt under the stars, tasted metal on your tongue, and choked on smoke that wasn’t actually there. You dreamt of facial markings, details that you couldn’t exactly place, a name that you couldn’t quite remember. It left your tongue feeling thick in your mouth, racked tremors through your body, and caused premature dark circles to accumulate under your eyes.

When you were nineteen, you experienced your last breath. The air was stolen from your lungs, crushed under years of heartbreak and terror, and snatched from you in the dead of night. Your eyes glazed over, and nothingness overtook you. It left you for someone else to find, cold and lifeless. A void, similar to the eyes you had finally placed. But that didn’t matter much then, you had already drifted away from your body.

And that was that.

Thus, the cycle repeated. Under different names, different ages, different genders. There was always something gnawing away at your conscience, you felt as though you were forgetting something. But when you finally remembered, it was too late. And there was nothing you could do about it.

It was almost like deja vu, stepping outside your home to find blood splattered on the concrete floor. It made your blood run cold, sent a tremor through your body and made you feel like you were five again. Small and defenseless. You take it as your best interest to go back inside before you pass out, but the second you whip your body around you meet something- someone?- large and sturdy.

“Sukuna.” That was it, the sour taste at the tip of your tongue, the lingering sensation at the back of your brain. Him. He didn’t look the same, no, much smaller with tufts of pink hair. There’s something behind his eyes this time, something almost irrevocably human. For some reason that’s much scarier than what you remember. What you think you remember. He’s much more human, but the way he looks at you is everything but humane. He looks frustrated, angry at something, as if he’ll implode any second and go on a rampage. Dread bubbles up in your stomach, nearly erupting through your mouth as bile. It felt as though something should be happening, like something usually happened when the itch went away. He chuckles, low in his throat as he cranes his neck to put his face uncomfortably close to your own. His hands, still large, find their way to your wrist, gripping your right hand uncomfortably tight. For a moment, you consider how long a trip to the hospital would be if he shattered the bone beneath his fingers. But instead there’s a jolt of electricity that would’ve had you yanking your hand back if he weren’t holding it.

“What? You look different.” He all but purrs, inspecting your palm with long nails. Not long enough to be talons, but longer than those of a claw. It was true, you did look different. He wondered if you spent your lifetimes looking exactly the same. That couldn’t have been possible, he would’ve found you much easier, then. Still quite boyish, as if the body you were in didn’t originally belong to you. Clearly grown out of cargo shorts and polos, much taller than you were before. There was no way he could have forgotten you, the way you jumped when the remains of your loved one splattered across your legs. The way you stared back at him with a look of acceptance, the way you grabbed his hand and allowed him to lead you out of the village. It explained the body memories perfectly, the feeling of large palms on your head and remnants of a brain splattering onto your knees.

“Last time I saw you,” He let’s go of your wrist with a bored expression, then replaces its spot with the top of your head. He shoves you down, and you make an effort to ignore the crack your knees make when they smack against the concrete. Then, he crouches down to stare you directly in the eye, just like he had the first time you met. His eyes were no longer dark, instead a deep shade of red that caught light from the moon. They reminded you of vials of blood. “You were this tall. Much cuter in this century.”

“And you were bigger.” Sukuna laughs as if hearing that was the funniest thing in the world. He leans his weight into you and uses you as a support beam, laughing until his ribs burn and beg for a break. But how could he laugh at a time like this? He didn’t think it was weird? He’s existed for centuries, murdered for millennias and only now has he seen you. That wasn’t how it worked, when you died, you died. But Sukuna was a walking oxymoron to that statement. When he died, if he died, he would return. He’d return through you, the last fragments of his soul would stay bound to yours until the end of time. Perhaps that’s how he knew, how he remembered. Perhaps that’s why he still took the time to find you, even after countless years of failure. It was peculiar, but not as much as being bound to Death himself. It was a sick game of turning the phrase ‘Til’ death do you part,’ because in your case it was literal.

“You’re still a brat.” His voice is closest to something fond, as if he’s reminiscing sweet memories. It was much different on your account, and part of you wondered if Sukuna understood that. He makes no effort to help you up (he explains that you’re “a big boy now”) as he invites himself into your apartment. Nothing special, he doesn’t care much for family photos or if you have them, but the stacks of letters and books on your table peak his interest. He tears apart envelopes as if he owns them, reads through the contents and discards them to the floor if he deems them useless. The way he sits nearly breaks your chair, and, honestly, you weren’t sure what to do with yourself.

So you sit beside him.

“You were so scared,” He says, almost as if he were bragging. But he was known to be arrogant and cocky, that was just his nature. He didn’t truly mean it like that, in fact, he looked quite reverent after letting the thought drift into the air. It was kind of funny, such a powerful thing fawning over past memories. But that wasn’t how this should go, you had your memory back, so why hasn’t anything happened? “When you grabbed my hand you stopped shaking.”

“...”

“It’s a shame I couldn’t keep you long,” He visibly frowns, the skin around his lips worry, but you can't tell if it’s genuine or not. He looks at you with something knowing the second the thought enters your head. “I looked for you, at first. You died young, for a human.”

Ninteen. ‘I should have been there,” he wants to add.

“Why aren’t I dying now?” You interrupt and let the panic sink in, the thought of impending doom sits on your shoulders because, really, it could happen at any moment. But this time, you don’t want it to. You remember accepting death when it came to your door at the young age of five, nineteen, countless times over and over. You had only ever gotten this far, you weren’t ready yet. You couldn’t start over, not now. “Sukuna?”

The question sours his mood in the blink of an eye, and instead of looking through your things, he raises himself from his seat to rest his palms on the table. It seemed he had a thing for staring down at people, making them cower under his stone cold gaze. You note the way his jaw clenches. You open your mouth to speak again, but he seems to have other plans. He squeezes your cheeks, making your lips purse together under the pressure of his large fingers. The movement feels familiar, like he’s done it before. The five years you spent with him were still a bit of a blur, but you remembered holding his hand quite often. He’d tell you to close your eyes if there was something he didn’t want you to see, he’d ruffle your hair a bit too hard, let you sleep on his back if he was out in the town. But that was all you remembered. He remembered it all.

“Respect your elders,” He lets go and sits back down as if he hadn’t just thrown a tantrum over you interrupting him. Sukuna was centuries old, but even then, he’d exhibit immature behavior sometimes. Living for so long had to get boring (and lonely) at some point, perhaps that was why he looked for you. He did consider you something close to family, after all. In truth, there were some lifetimes where you met. Some when you were friends, something more than that, and something inseparable. And that’s why you hadn’t died yet, you didn’t remember it all. “It’s rude to interrupt someone when they’re talking.”

“You’re much more handsome in this life.” His smile is much more intimidating than sweet, the sinister curl to his lips would only ever be associated with bloodshed in your eyes. But it was much more than that. Nights of sleeping together, days of laughter and flirtatious comments, soft moments that only you had seen. And it was bittersweet, because he knew the second he’d jog your memory you’d be gone. It wasn’t just a curse for you, but for him. Maybe it was his punishment for hurting so many people, dragging an innocent soul down with him and hanging them by the red string of fate. The comment makes your skin prickle with heat. Sukuna was quite the charmer when he wanted to be, easily picking at your weak spots with whatever you wanted to hear. But the comment was much more for the sake of his own, instead of yours.

Sukuna stands, hot on his heels as he holds out his hand one last time. If something were to happen to you tonight he’d make the most out of it, just as he did countless times over and over. So many years of starting over, getting to know you in various different bodies, realizing that being trapped away was the only way you’d get to live a full life, it was always on his mind. You were always on his mind.

So you take his hand. And for the millionth time, he’d become your second home.

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teawaffles · 3 years

Text

Louis and the Aquaria: Chapter 2

Two days after that. The normally-unused hall had undergone a complete transformation — and Fred was stunned.

“Wow……”

Sitting before him were three large water tanks, roughly five metres wide. Within each one were some aquatic plants, as well as 20 to 30 fish in a range of vibrant colours and distinctive appearances. They swam through the water, sometimes gracefully, sometimes powerfully — the beauty of the aquaria was simply overwhelming.

“What do you think, Fred?” asked Louis, as he walked up to him.

Without taking his gaze off the tanks, Fred shared his thoughts.

“I’ve never seen such beautiful fish. Are they all from other countries?”

“Indeed. Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America — I heard that they were collected from these three regions and brought here via special channels. There was a concern that the quality of our local water would not be suitable, hence even the water has been directly imported from their native rivers and lakes.”

“The scale here sure is different……”

Even the water that filled these tanks had been procured from the fishes’ native habitats: once again, the thoroughness of this endeavour left Fred in awe.

“I’m planning to bring in more of Herder’s equipment at a later date; but for now, all I can do is to watch over them like this…… Oh?”

Noticing something strange, Louis peered into one of the tanks.

Before his eyes, a small pufferfish was biting the fins of its tank mates. Looking at the other aquaria, it was clear that other tiny skirmishes had broken out.

Seeing the colourful fish engaged in unbecoming violence, Fred looked puzzled.

“It seems even fish need to be compatible with one another.”

“Indeed. It looks like it isn’t enough to simply divide them by their native regions.”

Hesitating a little, Louis slowly put his hand into the tank, and broke up the fishes’ fight as gently as possible. [1] Confirming that the conflict had been resolved for now, he breathed a sigh.

However, Fred spoke up in concern.

“If it’s already like this from the start, Mr Louis, then it looks like it’s going to be quite difficult for you.”

“Still, it must be done. ——For the sake of William’s plan.”

Hearing those words filled with conviction, once again, Fred could feel the strength of Louis’s emotions toward his brother.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

Two days after the fish had moved into the mansion, the hall underwent another transformation.

The curtains had been drawn, and the entire room was dim. The large water tanks had been removed, and around twenty small aquaria were now lined up in their stead. Each tank was outfitted with the latest cutting-edge machinery to assist in the fishes’ upkeep.

In charge of their care, Louis quietly strolled among the tanks, scrutinising the fishes’ appearances one by one.

“Yo, Louis. How are they?”

Just as he’d completed his round of checks, Moran and Fred entered the hall.

Looking at his notes on the conditions of his charges, Louis answered in a businesslike manner.

“There are no problems at present. I’ve finally managed to understand their individual dispositions, hence their care should proceed more smoothly from here.”

“That’s great — though, it has gotten a little crowded in here.”

Moran looked around the room. Beside him, Fred was staring curiously at a device attached to the top of the tank.

“Is this machine necessary for taking care of them?”

“Yeah, it’s called a filter: it serves to improve the water quality,” Louis explained briefly.

In order to ensure he'd covered all bases, Louis spared no effort in his research, making detailed reports to Herder as he employed a variety of equipment in the fishes’ care.

Certainly, for the aquaria to be mechanised to such an extent, the level of technology required was several steps ahead of its time. To use such revolutionary technology for the sole purpose of rearing tropical fish: one could even call it extravagant.

As Moran watched the machines in operation, a dubious look crossed his face.

“These guys have been living in the wild up to this point, so it does feel a bit pitiful for them to be shut indoors all day. Why don’t you let them swim in the big pond outside once in a while?”

But Louis gently dismissed his proposal.

“I understand where you’re coming from; but we have to consider issues like how they would adapt to the water, and so I have refrained from doing that.”

“Then, at least bring the tanks outside so they can enjoy the sun.” 

“That can’t be done either. If the aquaria were to be placed under direct sunlight, there would be other problems such as algal growth and spikes in water temperature. Hence, the day-night cycle has been replicated using artificial light.”

“An artificial sun, huh. All thanks to the development of industry,” Moran muttered.

Louis turned his gaze toward the lights installed above the tanks.

“These incandescent bulbs and other electrical technologies are still yet to be widespread — one can really feel the portent of Mr Herder’s work.” [2] [3]

As the two men made small talk, Fred watched the fish in the aquaria, his face aglow.

Then, the door to the hall opened.

Rhythmic footsteps echoed, and in came William.

“Nii-san.”

Louis broke off his conversation with Moran, and turned to face his brother.

“How has your work been?”

“It’s going well. Once we convey to Stapleton that we’re keeping tropical fish, I’m sure his interest will be piqued.”

“That’s good to hear. I hope your contact with him will be a success.”

“Thank you. And I’m glad to see that the fish are doing well. As I thought, it was the right decision to entrust their care to you, Louis.”

“I owe that to both your and Mr Herder’s help.”

Even as his reply was modest, Louis puffed out his chest.

Watching how close the two brothers were, the elder Moran smiled. But as he looked at the aquaria again, a tiny doubt suddenly struck him.

“By the way, we’re keeping these fish so we can meet with this Stapleton guy, right? Then when that’s done, what’ll happen to them?”

Louis tilted his head slightly as he pondered.

“Well…… As far as I understood his nature, in all likelihood, he’ll want to take the fish. In that case, we’ll probably hand them all over to him.”

He’d said that with a straight face, and Moran was stunned.

“Really? Don’t you think we should keep at least one of these tanks in the mansion?”

“No, not at all. These fish were collected for the sole purpose of my brother’s plan — they are simply a means to an end, and I hold no greater affection for them beyond that.”

“I-I see……”

For Moran and Louis, even as they shared William’s ambitions as his comrades, they knew full well they were but one of his chess pieces: if he were to order them to die, they were prepared to lay down their lives at any moment.

These fish were also no more than tools — everyone in the room understood that. But upon hearing how bluntly Louis put it, the older man could not hide his astonishment.

Next to them, William glanced over the fish.

“Still, they do look rather healthy, swimming around like that. For one, the colours of these Puntius rhomboocellatus are rather vibrant.”

“Ah, so that’s their name? It’s quite a mouthful.”

What William had just mentioned was the scientific name of the fish. In the event that Louis was unable to care for the fish, Moran and Fred had also familiarised themselves with their names just in case; but since they felt rather formal, Moran didn’t use them very much.

At his brother’s satisfied expression, Louis beamed with joy.

“You have a wonderful eye for aesthetics, nii-san. Besides those, I would also recommend the Mikrogeophagus ramirezi.”

“Hm, they’re a beautiful shade of blue. Though I personally like the Neolamprologus brichardi over here as well.”

“I see. Then what do you think about the Julidochromis transcriptus and Pelvicachromis taeniatus? Both are from Africa too.”

“……You know, it’s great that you guys get along so well — but can we leave it at that?”

Moran’s eye twitched. But they ignored his puzzlement, and continued their jargon-filled exchange.

“Still, taking the practical view, I quite like these Corydoras paleatus for cleaning up remnants of food from the tank. On the other hand, these Laubuka dadiburjori will jump out of the aquaria if they’re left uncovered, and I had a hard time finding tank mates for the Boraras urophthalmoides.”

“Speaking of utility, Louis: I suppose you would fancy the algae-eating Siamese flying fox as well?”

“Fufu, you see through everything, nii-san. Oh, please look over here: the Nannostomus beckfordi are spreading their fins.” [4]

“——Stop! Stop! No more of that talk!”

Reaching the limit of his patience, Moran stepped between the two brothers, yanking them out of their own world.

Their conversation interrupted, Louis looked puzzled. “What’s the matter, Mr Moran? I was just about to show him the Triple Red Apistogramma cacatuoides.”

“You guys are getting completely carried away, and leaving the rest of us behind! And what’s with those bloody names? This isn’t some university lecture!”

Beside him, Fred was pointing at the fish one by one, murmuring the names that had come up in the brothers’ exchange. Clearly, he was making sure he remembered their names properly.

Quizzical, Louis responded. “They might be troublesome for you…… But my brothers and I memorised them in one shot.”

“Y-You’re kidding, right?” Moran paled.

“They really are on another level……”

Astonished, Fred also stopped what he was doing.

Hailing from a noble family, Moran himself was an Oxford graduate; in addition, Fred also possessed an above-average intellect. But when confronted with the intellectual abilities of the three Moriarty brothers, who were able to memorise such complex names in just one go, the two men were unable to hide their amazement.

“I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to give them nicknames instead?”

At Moran’s suggestion, Louis put a hand under his chin.

“Nicknames, hmm…… I haven’t had any problems so far, but giving them simpler names might be a good idea.”

“Right? It’s insufferable to have to listen to those curse-like words every time I come here.”

“Let’s try it then. But I will be rejecting any distasteful ones,” Louis quipped.

Moran looked around the room, his gaze landing on a tank with a school of guppies swimming within.

“Alright….. Then how about we call these ‘Fred’?”

Behind his glasses, Louis’s eyes widened.

“We’re giving them our own names?”

“It’s fine, innit? It’s a lot better than calling them ‘Mr Guppies’ or something.”

“It’s certainly easy to say—— But even so, why call the guppies Fred?”

“Because they’re small and agile, aren’t they?” Moran grinned.

Fred shot him a dubious look. “Is your reasoning that simple……?”

That logic did seem a little problematic; William, who’d been watching from the side, made a troubled face.

“Since you’re adept at disguising yourself, Fred: if we were to name a fish after you, it should something like a leaffish that uses mimicry. Moreover, guppies already have a rather simple name, so I don’t think it’s necessary to give them another one.”

“It’ll be fine — it’s best to go with your gut for such things. Anyway, it’s decided then: the guppies will be called ‘Fred’.”

It seemed that for once, Moran was unwilling to listen to William’s words.

Then, another aquarium caught his eye. Fascinated, he gazed at the sole inhabitant within.

“Ooh, this guy has the tank all to himself, eh? I like that feeling of aloofness — this one’s gonna be called ‘Moran’.”

The fish Moran had just given his own name to, was in fact the tiny pufferfish that had to be isolated on the very first day, after attacking the other fish.

“Ah, about that one……”

Louis did want to explain why the pufferfish was all alone; but seeing how excited Moran was, he hesitated.

However, Moran seemed to have taken that pause in a different light.

“Oi oi, did you like this one too? Sorry, but it’s first come first served — so I get to name him.”

“R-Right. If you’re fine with that one, then……”

Moran looked like he was really enjoying himself, and so Louis decided to keep his silence on the truth about Moran’s new namesake.

Along with Louis, Fred had also witnessed what the pufferfish did on the day it arrived. It pained him a little to see Moran blissfully unaware of that, and he looked away.

Then, a certain tank caught his eye.

“These are quite like Mr William and his brothers.”

“Eh?”

Intrigued, William and Louis followed his gaze.

Dancing before their eyes was a group of beautiful fish with an almost divine air around them — ones that could even be called kings of the aquarium.

“——Angelfish?”

Within the tank, three angelfish were swimming in close formation. They had glittering silver scales, with black stripes running vertically down their sides. That closeness truly reminded one of the Moriarty brothers, bound to one another with firm ties.

Their name brought to mind angels, and William could not help but chuckle in self-mockery.

“I think that’s the last thing we should ever be called.”

“Not at all. In a way, you three are angels — but more of the ones who sound the trumpets in the Book of Revelation.” [5]

At that ironic turn of phrase, William let out another meaningful laugh.

Beside them, with a somewhat absent-minded look, Louis admired the fish he’d grown so familiar with.

“Though, just as Fred said, their elegant appearance certainly befits both William and Albert nii-sama.”

“No need to be modest, Louis: you are just as noble as they are.”

“T-Thank you very much, nii-san.”

Louis turned a little pink at that. Looking at the three fish swimming together, Moran nodded enthusiastically.

“Then starting from the front of the group, their names will be ‘William’, ‘Albert’ and ‘Louis’.”

“It’s a bit embarrassing……” William smiled bashfully.

Moran walked away from the tank. “Both Louis and Fred agree with it, so it’ll be fine. Anyway, I’ll be off.”

“Eh? What about the rest?”

Fred called out to him just as he was about to leave the room, and Moran ruffled his hair as he replied.

“Now that I think about it, there’re just way too many of them. We’ve already named five of them after ourselves — that should be fine for now.”

“I guess……”

Faced with Moran’s overly freewheeling attitude, Fred was lost for words.

“…………”

Under normal circumstances, Louis would saddle Moran with some chores at this point. But his attention was still drawn to the tank with the angelfish.

He had yet to notice it himself; but their three names, now conferred onto those fish, had set off tiny ripples in his heart.

Footnotes:

T/N: Yuumori is set in the early 1880s — you can read more about that here.

[1] Yes, Louis did just put his hand into a tank with a pufferfish 😥

[2] Edison’s first light bulb had been invented less than ten years prior, and this used a carbon filament — tungsten filaments would not be developed until the early 1900s. (Wikipedia)

[3] At this time in history, electricity really was the preserve of the rich and few — even in 1919, only 6% of UK households had electricity (Science Museum UK). Interestingly, AC (alternating current) power systems were starting to be adopted in the UK around this period. (Wikipedia)

Aside: The ‘artificial sun’ gave me flashbacks to the manga Letter Bee… (Wikipedia)

[4] This is a form of threatening behaviour between fish.

[5] Moran is referring to the seven angels that blow trumpets to bring about seven cataclysmic events, as described in the New Testament (Wikipedia). Seraph of the End fans would be familiar with this one :3

Translator’s notes

Louis’s honorifics

I know I used “Louis-san” in the manga scanlation, but I’m just going to go with my gut and use “Mr Louis” here :x

#moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #yuumori #english translation #a study in scarlet

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illuminatedquill · 3 years

Text

Extracurricular, An Analysis

Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as it’s accomplice.” - Tom Robbins

You know the story. You’ve heard it before, right?

Boy meets girl.

Girl finds out that boy is running a side protection business for prostitutes.

Girl decides to blackmail boy into letting her join his business.

Classic high school criminal shenanigans ensue leading them into more dangerous situations where they are forced to make desperate decisions to stay alive.

Oh, and they fall in love along the way.

Oh? You haven’t heard this one before? Then let me introduce you to this delightful kdrama called Extracurricular.

I watched this one while waiting for the newest Hometown Cha Cha Cha episodes to drop and ended up binging the whole series in two days. There are many remarkable parts of this series: it’s a crime drama, first and foremost, that showcases high school teenagers caught in a cycle of violence and crime, abandoned by the society and adults that are supposed to be protecting them. There are no clear good guys and bad guys in this drama; everyone is cast in shades of grey. Our main leads, Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri, run the prostitution business, and are both from broken family backgrounds. Their actions are morally questionable at best, but the top tier performances from Kim Dong Hee (you might remember him from Itaewon Class) and Park Ju Hyun make you cheer for them anyway. You want them to have a happy ending, despite the horrible things they do. The audience is always reminded that despite how clever they are in staying ahead, their actions have consequences, and they’re just high school kids. The drama never pulls it punches.

But, weirdly enough, it’s also a love story. And that’s the part the really sticks with me until now. (The chemistry between the main leads is absolute dynamite and I could watch ten episodes of them just verbally sparring with each other. They don’t even kiss. They’re that fantastic when together on screen.)

I’m writing this because this is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite kdramas and I have a lot of feelings about our main pairing, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri. I can’t call them a couple (wait, didn’t I just say they fall in love) because their relationship can’t be labelled simply as that. Think of it as something similar to the main leads in My Ahjussi. Two people who should have become soulmates, yet met at the wrong time.

This kdrama is not particularly happy, and while I do encourage people to watch this, I am warning that the subject matter is extremely dark. If you’re sensitive to scenes depicting sexual assault, graphic violence, or anything in that zip code you’ll want to steer clear.

Also, I’ll be diving into spoiler territory in this analysis. So if you want to go in clean, then stop reading here.

Still here? Awesome. Let’s dive deep into the messy, amazing pairing that is Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri. First, let’s do a brief character background on our two main leads, starting with Ji-soo.

Oh Ji-soo is one half of our main pairing and this story starts with him. He lives by himself and has been essentially abandoned by his only parents; his father is a failed businessman who gambles whatever money he acquires on scams and his mother ran away. His apartment is small, sparse, but functional. He owns only a few outfits aside from his school uniform. The only unique item he owns is a pet hermit crab that he takes care of. His life outside of school is non-existent; he has no friends, no one to hang out with and do typical high school teenager activities with. He takes care of himself and lives only for himself and his “dream”: to graduate, attend college, get married, and have kids like a normal person.

But to do that, he needs a large amount of money. He has no other financial means to do so (his father is largely absent, as is his mother), so he decides, at some point, to start up this protection business for prostitutes. The drama doesn’t go into detail about the how and why he came to this conclusion that this was the best way to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, so you’ll have to suspend your disbelief from the get go. Considering the themes of the story (how youths abandoned by society tend to act out in extreme ways to make it in this world), it’s not hard to believe his desperation would drive him to make such a decision.

Ji-soo, despite his shady business, is actually a decent person. There’s a streak of humanity that exists inside him that refuses to go out, despite the increasingly dark and bleak events that start to overtake his life. He’s attached to his hermit crab, cares for his “employees” outside of them being tools to make him money, and doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt. He goes above and beyond what’s required to help out people at the risk of his own life (in particular, Gyu-ri, and we’ll get into that shortly).

What we learn from the first few episodes is that Oh Ji-soo is extremely smart and methodical in how he approaches his life. At school, he is known as a model student - quiet, top of the class in terms of grades, doesn’t draw any attention to himself, always follows along with what the teachers ask of him. Only his homeroom teacher, Mr. Cho, seems to consider his quiet style of existence to be concerning and tries to make him less socially awkward by pairing him up with another student in a new extracurricular club. This leads to the introduction of Bae Gyu-ri, Ji-soo’s longtime crush and future partner-in-crime.

Meet Bae Gyu-ri, the other half of our dynamic duo. Her introduction into the story kickstarts the entire plot, as one of her earliest actions leads to a domino effect that spells increasing doom and tragedy for our main leads. She messes with Ji-soo’s operation at a critical moment and she spends the rest of the drama doing her best to make up for the consequences that follow.

In my personal opinion, she is probably the best main female lead I’ve ever seen in a kdrama. Hands down, no other character exists (currently) that rivals her sheer cunning, wit, and badassery. Gyu-ri is Crazy, capital C, and is the chaos to Ji-soo’s control; the fire to his ice. Despite being the direct cause of half the events that happen to Ji-soo in the drama, he can’t help but need her because of what she offers. They make an incredible team. Her competitiveness, her need to win no matter the odds, helps them survive time and time again.

Gyu-ri is from the opposite end of the spectrum of Ji-soo; he’s dirt poor and she’s insanely rich (always nice to see a reversal of typical kdrama tropes). Her mother and father run a successful entertainment company. Gyu-ri is popular at school, friends with seemingly everybody, pretty, cheerful and gets along well with her teachers. Ji-soo, and the audience, believe from the beginning that she has the perfect life. It’s not hard to believe that she’s just involving herself in Ji-soo’s business because she’s bored and needs an outlet, at first.

We soon learn otherwise. Gyu-ri has more in common with Ji-soo than he initially realizes, in that they’re both trapped in circumstances beyond their control - it’s just that Gyu-ri’s cage is gilded, whereas his is not. Her parents are strict and have her life planned out for her, all without her consent or input, leaving her feeling frustrated and powerless despite her rich lifestyle. A suicide attempt hasn’t done much to change her parents attitude towards her, only serving to further their control over her life.

So, when she learns of Ji-soo’s operation she immediately seeks to angle her way into it. First, she tries to rip him off, believing that he’s an evil “pimp” and thus deserves it. But after spending some time with him, she changes her mind last second and decides to help him out instead.

And, now, let’s get into their relationship, which is one of the best (if not the best) aspect in the entire series.

I need to be upfront about something: the relationship between Ji-soo and Gyu-ri is not exactly healthy. I wouldn’t describe it as toxic - the circumstances surrounding them aren’t exactly the best environment to encourage open and honest communication - but it’s definitely not what should be considered ideal, especially for young adults, and especially for young adults who are dabbling in crime instead of studying.

So, why do I love them so much? If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know that I loathe toxic relationships in kdramas, so I understand if you think I’m coming off as hypocritical here. Why do I like Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri when I didn’t like, for example from recent history, (oh boy, here I go again on my Nevertheless BS) Park Jae-eon and Yu Na-bi?

First, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are way cooler than Jae-eon and Na-bi ever could be. They run a criminal enterprise that involves having a high amount of intelligence, cunning, and daring to do so. Do Jae-eon and Na-bi run a criminal enterprise as a side business? No, they don’t, because they’re boring art students.

Secondly, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri actually progress in their relationship and change their views as they learn from each other. Now, granted, that progress isn’t towards becoming better versions of each other - quite the opposite. But at least they have progress. Jae-eon and Na-bi stayed in the same stupid cycle for the whole series and then decided that it was better staying that way as opposed to trying for something else.

Last, but certainly not least, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are actually interesting to watch for me. The chemistry between Park Ju Hyun and Kim Dong Hee is explosive and they way they spar, exchange looks, and just generally exist around each other on screen is something I can watch forever. I’ve said this before but Han So Hee and Song Kang’s on screen chemistry, outside of their intimate scenes, really didn’t impress me.

Okay, back to Extracurricular. This relationship, man. It’s all I can think about (other than HomeCha’s Du-sik and Hye-jin, but that’s another post). Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are so good together.

I’ve noted before that Ji-soo is methodical in how he approaches his life; he plans out everything ahead, and rigs any situation as much as he can in his favor. It’s brilliant, but when a crisis happens, he doesn’t know how to deal with it effectively. He panics and flounders; becomes indecisive at a time when clear, decisive action is required.

Enter Gyu-ri. She quickly becomes the partner he never knew he needed. When there’s a situation, she becomes invaluable in her quick thinking and wit, coming up with solutions on the fly. It’s not perfect, but it keeps them just one small step ahead of whatever is coming their way.

The only thing preventing them from becoming unstoppable is the lack of communication and trust they have with each other. A lot of that has to do with how Gyu-ri entered Ji-soo’s business - she blackmailed him first, and, when that failed, she strong armed her way into getting him to accept her help. It’s implied in the drama that Ji-soo has had a crush on Gyu-ri for a while (since ninth grade, I believe) and in the first episode he actually gets the chance to spend time with her outside of school on a sort of quasi-date.

It goes sideways pretty quickly because of some shenanigans from his business, but not before she gets to know him and says some pretty touching words regarding his situation. Poor guy is head over heels - even after finding out that she’s the one blackmailing him, his feelings are only dampened, not extinguished. When he catches a glimpse of her family’s situation, he gains a deeper understanding of her and why she acts the way she does. Even more importantly, Ji-soo treats her the same after finding out this information which, to someone like Gyu-ri, means more than if he comforted her about it.

If you want to see a physical representation of how he feels, other than paying attention to his actions, you can see it in him keeping mementos from Gyu-ri. She has an interesting habit of folding bags into origami shapes and giving it to him. Even after the blackmail reveal, you can see that he continues to keep these in a container on his desk. It’s really cute that he keeps these, when it probably doesn’t even matter that much to Gyu-ri.

Towards the end of the drama, Ji-soo prepares to turn himself in to prevent Gyu-ri from being implicated in the crimes they committed. And it costs him almost everything to protect her. Ji-soo, the quiet, nerdy kid, puts himself on the line time and time again to protect Gyu-ri, knowing that it puts his life and his dream at risk to do so. And all for what? For some girl that he thinks doesn’t even like him in return?

Well, let’s talk about that. Because I’ve seen some comments that Gyu-ri was only using Ji-soo for her own selfish gain. And I can agree that was how it was at the beginning for her; she definitely was only interested in acquiring money, like Ji-soo was, in order to achieve her own goal of being free from her parents.

But, oh man, that is not what is motivating her at the end.

It’s actually pointed out relatively early by some of her friends that it’s obvious that she likes Ji-soo more than he likes her. Understandably Ji-soo is keeping her at arms length from him given the whole recent blackmailing, so it would make sense that it looks that way.

Further questioning reveals what she likes the most about him:

“It’s not like I’m crazy about him. He’s fun. And amusing. He’s smart. And there’s a certain charm he has. He also has a wolfish side to him. But he thinks he’s a puppy.”

- Bae Gyu-ri

But, as she gets to know Ji-soo better, you can certainly see that she starts to fall hard for him. As a cover story for why they hang out so much together during and after school, Gyu-ri states to everyone that they’re dating. The reactions across the school definitely imply that this is a shocking development, which means that Gyu-ri hasn’t dated anyone before. So why Ji-soo other than the reasons she herself states?

He challenges her, just as she challenges him. Gyu-ri may be the more dynamic, quick thinking of the pair but Ji-soo is every inch her intellectual equal - just in different ways. She doesn’t seem to be the type to be easily impressed, but you can tell that she’s definitely impressed by Ji-soo’s operation and how thoroughly set up it is. When Ji-soo is frustrated at the beginning by his setbacks, he blows up at another student (knocks him out in a crazy punch) and immediately walks over to Gyu-ri afterwards (who saw the whole thing) to inform her that she is now his partner in crime.

The look in her eyes, and the small smirk she has speaks volumes about her attraction to him in that scene. Smoldering.

And, oh yes, she’s prone to jealousy. Another classmate, Min-hee, gives Ji-soo a present out of the blue (it was supposed to be for her boyfriend, Ki-tae, but that’s another sub-plot) - all within view of Gyu-ri. It’s hilarious how she tries to brush it off. Later, for plot reasons, Ji-soo has to spend more time with Min-hee which only furthers Gyu-ri’s annoyance.

And her motivations stop being entirely about the money and more towards helping preserve the dream that she and Ji-soo share about being free. There’s a scene in episode 8 where it’s revealed that, due to a business partnership with a local gang (set up by none other than Gyu-ri herself in a desperate move), Ji-soo would have to drop out of school permanently to work on their behalf. Gyu-ri overhears this and, despite badly needing the gang’s help in sustaining their own business, immediately terminates the partnership.

All because it would interfere with Ji-soo’s dream.

Man, if that isn’t love.

In the following episode, Gyu-ri, and later on Ji-soo, is kidnapped by the same gang in retaliation for terminating their partnership. Ji-soo comes to her rescue but Gyu-ri is already almost free (again, she’s really, really badass) and is demanding that they bring Ji-soo to her instead of running for her life.

Surviving this latest attempt puts the two in a reflective, vulnerable mood and Gyu-ri asks Ji-soo why he keeps saving her. Ji-soo asks later on why she keeps risking her life to be with him. They don’t say the answer in words but in an almost kiss (yeah, you read that right - almost).

And then, if you aren’t already convinced, Ji-soo crosses his one last remaining line in an effort to keep Gyu-ri safe; he accidentally pushes a fellow classmate down some steps and, instead of helping her, leaves her to die after grabbing the evidence she has on him and Gyu-ri.

Extracurricular pulls off quite the magic trick here, hiding this well done love story in the middle of a serious crime drama.

The real tragedy is that Ji-soo thinks that Gyu-ri views this whole business, and by extension his life, as one big game. It’s something that she takes offense at, visibly becoming upset when he says that.

But even if that were true, he should be assured since Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose.

As they hurtle towards the end and face up to the consequences of their actions, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri undoubtedly lose sight of their original goals and dreams. They do some fairly horrible things to stay alive and ahead of the police who are close on their trail. You can’t really blame them for doing what they did; in the face of a society that has abandoned them, what they’re doing is a logical outcome to gain what they want so desperately and deserve so much: the chance to be free to live like normal, care-free people.

I can’t say for certain that they achieve that. The drama is serious in consequences and, at the end, the net around them is drawing tighter and tighter. I won’t spoil the ending scene for you, because I highly encourage you watch this drama yourself but I will say this: Ji-soo and Gyu-ri seem stuck in an impossible situation with nowhere to go, and no one to help them, with a clock ticking down towards either death or discovery by the police.

But, all the same, I’m always the optimist. They’ve gotten through situations like this before and they can certainly do so again. Maybe not as bad as this one, but not too far out of their league. And, like I mentioned before, Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose. Especially when it comes to Ji-soo.

Their relationship is truly dangerous, as Ji-soo himself notes. Them being together is the source of their problems; they’re too much alike now, as opposed to the beginning of the drama where he stated that they’re too different. Their love is the kind of love where both of them are willing to burn the whole world down if it means keeping each other safe.

I’m a real sucker for those kind of love stories. No one’s a hero here. They’re just kids in high school, doing the best with what they know.

Who are we to judge what is right and wrong? Especially when the one committing the acts are high school kids who don’t know any better and just want to save each other?

Do we have that right?

Do they really deserve that punishment? Shouldn’t we be pointing fingers at the society that forced them to act this way?

Extracurricular really makes you think about that. Is it really so outlandish and terrible what Ji-soo and Gyu-ri do to survive when the adults who are supposed to be protecting them, teaching them better, have failed in their duty?

Maybe they really did win at the end. Not so much in succeeding in their goals but in gaining something that not even regular people are likely to find - a partner, a soulmate, someone who will stand by you no matter what.

If you do watch the ending, and are not an optimist like I am, then all I can say is this: whatever happened, they were together at the end.

They were together.

#extracurricular netflix #human class #netflix #kdrama #oh jisoo #bae gyuri #park joo hyun #park ju hyun #kim dong hee

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hallowed-be-thy-username · 3 years

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Ooo...can i please request Fem reader who have just been heartbroken by a one sided crush and then one day she met The Joker and he makes her forgot about her crush? Can be nsfw if u want 👀

Hello, anon! Ok so this is longer than I'd originally planned but I was having fun 😆 it’s a little story in the realm of a crackfic that I had a lot of fun with! I hope you like it!!

Self-insert, Ledger Joker x fem reader, crackfic

Word count: 2,121

Warnings: light nsfw, mentions of mild violence

Summary: Sometimes people surprise you with what they'll do when their back is up against a wall, even the Joker.

Who?

It had to happen today, of all days. You went to grab a coffee this afternoon and what did you see? The man she knew you were obsessed with had his lips on hers. Right across the street from the café, your so-called friend was making out with the guy you’ve had a crush on for years.

He was back in Gotham on a business trip. His stay would have been shorter if it wasn’t for state of things in the city for the past couple of weeks. It seemed your friend decided it was an opportunity to swoop in before you’d gained the confidence to do it yourself. But the kicker is that he’d already agreed to meet you for dinner tomorrow night on top of it. Looks like he gets around. You all had gone to the same high school years ago and things apparently haven’t changed much. Aren’t you too old for games like this? You tried not to dwell on it, you had a job to do, but it’d been burning in your stomach like caustic acid for hours now.

You resisted the temptation to text her, tell her you saw them. No, if they want to play games, you could play your own. So far you hadn’t come up with anything but the old stand-by, the silent treatment. But this needed something bigger.

Your revenge plotting would have to wait, though. A minor injury out on patrol last month landed you a position in booking at MCU just in time for shit to hit the fan. Being a Gotham police officer was nothing like you’d expected it to be. You had your sights set on helping the disadvantaged, the people who couldn’t catch a break in this god forsaken city, who fell victim to loan sharks and got stuck in an endless cycle of debt to the inexplicably powerful Mob presence here. But the amount of red tape and corruption making that hopelessly impossible was enough to make you resent your decision in the first place. By now, you were one drug possession arrest away from never coming back.

Today, however, had taken an interesting turn. Your eyes were glued to the tv screen in the front office where live coverage of the SWAT team’s descent on the Pruitt building captured everyone’s attention. Some were optimistic about it, but most of the talk around MCU was skeptical. “If he’s gotten out of it before, he can do it again.”

But they got him. Back up teams raced out of the precinct and everyone scrambled with nervous excitement to carry out preparations for his arrival.

You weren’t here the last time the Joker had been brought in. You were off duty and you’d found yourself feeling a little jealous that you weren’t. He was all Gotham talked about, particularly around here. You weren’t sure how many times you’d seen his face by now. That face. There was something about the way he looked into the camera, it sent a tingle down your spine. It was a strange mixture of fear and fascination. It left you feeling conflicted, uneasy from the butterflies it stirred in your stomach, like you shouldn’t get this kind of excitement from it, a little spark of thrill you’d managed to keep suppressed.

But that spark was growing dangerously hotter now that you knew he’d be coming here, so soon, nonetheless. You had to keep your composure. The excitement was enough that you’d almost forgotten the betrayal you witnessed this afternoon… almost.

Your heart pounded as you approached the booking office, the sound of shouts and cheering echoing through the halls. What was he going to be like? Would he be angry? Was he going to take an officer hostage like last time? What if it ended up being you? You tried to take a deep breath, fighting the shaking of your hand as you reached for the door handle before carefully opening it.

You froze just past the doorway, letting it shut behind you. He was so… tall. He stood behind the intake desk, at least several inches taller than the SWAT officer removing the cuffs from his wrists behind his back. His expression was blank, casually watching the officers try to do their job while looking like their nerves were about to snap, avoiding touching him as much as they could.

“One move and I won’t hesitate to shoot you,” one officer said, doing his best to keep his voice from cracking.

The Joker didn’t say a word. He just flicked his tongue over his lip and lazily rolled his eyes. Butterflies fluttered into your throat and you fought to swallow them down. You had to try to relax, you can’t let him get to you. Of course, that’s easier said than done, his presence alone was enough to ignite an oddly alluring anxiety within you.

The awkward silence was broken when the on duty detective voiced his intolerance for that kind of behavior before noticing your arrival.

“Nice of you to join us, officer.”

All eyes landed on you, including his. You couldn’t breathe for a moment. That feeling that you got when you saw his picture was nothing compared to the intense wave of adrenaline that struck you like lightning, leaving you in a cold sweat as his eyes connected with yours.

You tried to maintain a professional demeanor, but you couldn’t hide the way color drained from your face as you slowly approached him. Just breathing took an immense amount of concentration. So much that you didn’t hear the detective giving you the case number to record before beginning the booking process.

“Officer! I’m speaking to you!”

You jumped and broke your gaze away from Joker’s dark rimmed eyes to quickly grab the form as the detective mumbled under his breath. Your hand was shaking again as you tried to breathe normally and recorded the number then in the next line, “Name, Unknown. Alias, The Joker.”

A shiver trickled its way down your back as you could feel eyes on you again and you looked up from the form to see him carefully watching you. Your breath hitched and you quickly tore your eyes away to stare at the form as heat bloomed in your cheeks. This couldn’t be happening. You’d been avoiding talking with anyone about him for weeks and no matter how much you denied it, now you knew why.

The other officers took his long purple coat and suit jacket off of his shoulders, removing a variety of knives from his clothing before turning him around to face you. You kept your eyes down, taking the cuffs from your belt to hold them in your hands, ready to place them on his wrists. A knot has tied itself around your insides and grew tighter the longer you stood there and stared at his hands, stained with traces of white, black, and red paint. Your face burned hotter, and your heart pounded relentlessly in your throat, but you had to try to remain calm. If you kept showing them how nervous you were, you’d be booted off of the case and another officer would take your place. This was pure torture, but you still didn’t want that to happen.

You were surprised by a need for more. He already had you trapped in this confusing push and pull to give in to the unusual attraction you had to him even though you knew it was wrong. It had taken you this long to realize that was it. A deep seated attraction had been sitting in the back of your mind and now it was rapidly taking over your body.

Goosebumps prickled your skin when your fingertips grazed his bare wrists, clicking the latch on the cuffs in place. This was like nothing you’d ever felt before, the rush in your veins, the heat in your stomach. You managed to keep the exhilaration spreading through your body from boiling over as you lead him to the line up wall for his intake photo.

He stood in front of the digital camera, holding the placard displaying his alias with the date and case number, his green hair swept hastily out of his face and infamous greasepaint smeared wildly. When you looked at the screen to capture the image, the knot in your belly unraveled. His gaze focused directly up into the camera lens and straight at yours, the corner of his scarred mouth tugging into a smirk. Your heart pounded in your ears and you could feel yourself shudder as rational thought slipped away, drowned out by a pervasive impulse. You knew he was dangerous, of course, and you couldn’t explain it but, you didn’t care. The fire he’d ignited within you was in control now.

A nervous buzz spread from your hands and down your arms before you looked up from the screen to meet his gaze, returning a subtle smile. Joker lifted his eyebrow and his grin stretched across his face until the other officers approached and he let it fall with a swipe of his tongue across his lip. That was all it took. You let those tempestuous flames engulf you and now you weren’t going to do anything to stop them.

Everything felt slowed down, like you were dreaming, feverish with this sudden and powerful desire when you kicked the door to the private search room open, pulling him inside with you and locking the door. You had precious few minutes before they’d find you. You quickly unlocked his handcuffs and spun around to put your back against the door, gripping the lapels of his vest when you stopped and stared up at his face as your stomach dropped. Why did you just do that?

But the feeling of regret didn’t last long. A low chuckle rumbled in Joker’s chest before he leaned on his hands, placed against the door on either side of you and brought his face inches from yours. Your breath huffed over his lips and the familiar feeling of arousal swelled between your legs as you felt his heat wash over you.

“Needed somewhere, uh, private to perform your search, officer?”

His lips hovered over yours as you smiled and answered softly, “I figured we’d start with the oral cavity search.”

His giggles were muffled when you crashed your lips into his, surrendering to the spontaneous and intense lust you found yourself swimming in. Your heart soared when he kissed you back, raising the intensity and allowing your tongue into his mouth as his hands moved to grip the sides of your face and your eyes fluttered closed.

He hummed when you wrapped your hands around his neck to lace your fingers in his hair and pressed your body against his. You could feel his size beneath the fabric of his pants and your breath hitched. This was one of those moments that didn’t feel like it was really happening, but it was. His hands slid down your sides to grip your waist and your mouths separated to catch your breath.

His eyes traveled up and down your body before another devious smile sent a shiver down your back.

“You. How about you come with me, hm?” he said, his eyes flickering to the gun in your belt.

Your stomach fluttered and you stared back at him, flinching when fists started pounding on the other side of the door and voices shouted. You shouldn’t trust him, you knew you shouldn’t. But trust hasn’t gotten you much in the past, has it? Besides, you didn’t have to trust him. Whatever happens is going to happen at this point so you might as well enjoy the ride. You’d already let it go this far. You swallowed your nerves and nodded, holding on tight to his shoulders.

Another chuckle made you bite your lip before he leaned in and purred in your ear, “Follow my lead, doll.”

You straddled his lap in the back of an unmarked van speeding down the street only moments later, his tongue in your mouth as your hands slid down his torso to the button on his pants. Was he always this lucky? Or did he know this would happen all along? Of course, this was a crazy thought but nothing that had happened today was sane. He held your own gun to your head and made his escape like it was planned that way. Either way, you’d easily forgotten all about the betrayal that felt so insignificant now.

In fact, tomorrow you’d receive a text from the traitor herself bragging to you about hooking up with your now former crush and your response, short and sweet, was “who?”

Taglist! @youmaycallmebrian @heavymetalnarwhal @neverputsaltinyoureyes @jokersqueenofchaos @into-crazy @killingjokee @astheworlddturns @jslittlebirdie @drreidsconverse @vipervixxen

#anon request #heath ledger joker #tdk joker #ledger!joker #ledger joker x reader #ledger joker fic #joker crackfic

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cablestwisted · 2 years

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Do you think that the marmalised could eventually regain their memories that were erased? I feel if it did happen, I doubt it would last long considering the ministry’s omnipresence, but I feel like that would be a interesting concept.

Also, do you think that marmalisation can be reversed? (Def not asking bc I have a oc that may or may not follow said concept *dabs in shame*)

Thank you so much for this question!! This is super interesting and something I've thought about a fair bit over the years.

See here's the thing; we know that memories can be returned after being erased by the Smiler, under the right circumstances - the 2013 fireworks detailed that the memories of the resort could be returned, as they were protected within the guests of the park.

I've no idea if somehow you could harness the magic of the resort to do that for someone due to the connection between magic and memories, but it's a possibility under the right circumstances. Or even if you could do the same thing, tell people the memories they'd lost if you were aware of them and in fact restore them in that way. The intersection between magic and science is.. interesting, when it comes to the Smiler, Alton Towers, and memories!

There's a strong possibility that memories could in fact return on their own, in time, too. I can't think of anything canon that supports this as tbh we don't have much in the way of actual info on the nature of Marmalisation, but it is definitely a possibility!

I do reckon that the Smiler leaves Corrected people with enough memories & mind intact to like, survive their daily lives, so even with the memory loss - if they could be de-programmed, which may take a lot of time [I'm talking, years, and a lot of contact with deprogrammers, here's a little bit of information about deprogramming via Wikipedia] they could theoretically at least lose the loyalty portion of Correction if not all of it and live a largely "normal" life provided the Ministry didn't intervene.

As Correction via the Smiler does actually manipulate the mind quite a lot and it's implied that certain processes actually cause a physical change to the structure of the brain, it would be difficult to lose every part of Correction and in many cases would leave the subject with a lot of issues to work through in regards to emotional wellbeing, ability to introspect, and a possible trauma component too.

In my specific canon, people can in fact fall out of Correction due to traumatic events or their memories returning that force them to re-examine things - badly Corrected people or people who've lost certain parts of their programming due to deprogramming techniques or falling out of Correction are also susceptible to what's essentially the Advocate version of a panic attack.

The mind can still panic, quite often because of trauma surrounding Correction or other events, but it doesn't know how to interpret that, so you'll just see someone start laughing, eventually working themselves up into essentially a programming feedback loop where their programming punishes them for being sad - making them more sad in the process - which just makes their programming punish them for being sad more - and it creates this cycle of sheer panic which is Very difficult to break. Oftentimes this is broken by getting the subject into trance using a quick distraction based method utilising common hypnosis triggers which they're more likely to be susceptible to, or simply by just sedating the subject to break that loop.

You saw issues like this in the Sanctuary a lot in patients who had "crossed wires" in their programming, and you still see it happen a fair bit with Halfway Corrected and especially Manually Corrected [not Corrected by the Smiler] subjects.

WARNING FOR CANON-TYPICAL MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, VIOLENCE, TORTURE, AND MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS FOR THIS NEXT BIT

One of my OCs, Jurian, has faulty Correction - he was Corrected using highly experimental techniques and most of his memories were erased.

He proved himself a pretty big threat to the Ministry circa 2014 by leading an effort to infiltrate their database, which he knew was risky but he was ready to take that risk. He was a fairly prominent rebel leader in real life and online, who managed to keep his location hidden for upwards of 3 years by never staying in the same place for too long and employing a Lot of decoy techniques as well as essentially faking his own death multiple times, but was eventually found and Collected.

Jurian endured a lot of traumatic events during his Correction, as Correction via the Smiler didn't work plus the Ministry wanted to make an example of him. He was eventually actually set aside as a host candidate but they decided to release him and just, see how someone with that bad of a Correction would fare within the Ministry. The answer is; not well!

See, Jurian has the loyalty part of Correction pretty much completely intact. Anything else, however, at this point is basically gone, especially after he got attacked by an escaped Host candidate down in the labs and ended up almost dying and being essentially pieced back together by Ainsley, which was.. an ordeal, because Ainsley is not the nicest of people and did essentially torture him.

So he's only got the loyalty portion and a bunch of completely unhelpful residual "I'm not allowed to be sad" programming which commonly sends him into a panicked state when he realises he's not happy. And his memories do actually come back, sometimes, triggered by events that remind his subconscious mind of things from his past. He's trying to piece things back together, especially now the Ministry are actually helping him with therapy and the like. He's doing a lot better than he was initially!

Another of my OCs, Avery, is essentially completely immune to Correction! They're! Not doing well! Because again they have the loyalty section, they fully believe that the Ministry are doing a good thing and that society should be controlled by them for their own good, just because they've been in contact with the Ministry for so long. But the second someone tries to Correct them they somehow lose that Correction within the first few months. Part of the reason why is because they actually manage to de-program themselves out of the happiness thing by accident. Nothing is working on them long term

Because of their immunity they were given the opportunity to work on the Marmaliser as, the Correctional elements on the ride can't do much to them, and since then have become one of its main maintinence guys.

Then you've got Cydonia - who was de-programmed after partial Correction in the second half of the Advocate Trials in the Sanctuary... Who has part of the happiness side of things, but no loyalty. She's a rebel now, trying to prevent the Ministry from hurting more people, but she physically can't stop smiling and is almost always happy to some extent, to the point where her feelings never align with the situation she's in. So she experiences her fair share of mental health problems from that, no matter how repressed they are due to her unsuccessful Correction.

Either way - with Correction, deprogramming and the like will have severe consequences for the subject from both a mental health standpoint and the standpoint of the Ministry of Joy having surveillance literally everywhere and being able to find them and bring them back in for Re-Correction.

#the smiler #ministry of joy #the ministry of joy #alton towers #asks

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remsmoonlight · 3 years

Text

— title : calming the waters

— word count : 2.3 k words

— pairing : rick grimes x reader

— summary : the switch from surviving on the road to living in a cookie cut neighbourhood hasn’t been easy on anyone, especially the leader of your group, you leave it to yourself to remind him it’s not all on his shoulders

— warnings : only brief descriptions of blood and violence .. usual stuff for twd

note: only at the end did i realise i left the opportunity for smut but im too tired to continue damn

Life in Alexandria has so far been strange to adjust to, you continue to find yourself waking up regularly through the night. Your body has relied so long on a broken sleep cycle it simply cannot switch off the switch as easily as you wish for it, and wish for it you do every night before bed. However, life refuses to heed to your desires, preferring to disregard them completely. Your family finds it amusing to tease you about the dark circles under your eyes, that is after you have had anything with caffeine in to rattle your system into a state of alertness.

How the residents have made it this far agitates you to no end, while you and your family have suffered tragedy and loss at the hands of people like the Governor, to the people at Terminus while they sat sheltered and safe from the horrors of this new world crawls under your skin. The thought scratching inside of you, they’ve never known pain as you have, the realisation comes as one of the sons of the Monroe family accosted you the moment you set out of the door.

“ ⏤ she keeps going on about this pasta maker. I’m telling you, she never stops. “

“ she never stops, huh? “ you ask, placing yourself on the porch step with your head lazily resting in your hands. You felt as soon as he began speaking to you it was going to be a conversation you would not be interested in.

The you from twenty five minutes ago happens to be correct.

This all began because Rick thought it appropriate to let you sleep a while longer, and while you do feel more rested than you have in the longest time you can remember, you can feel irritation tickling the back of your neck intensely. Oh, I’m going to kill him when I see him. A silent thought interrupts you rudely, you almost shake your head to be rid of it and focus back on Spencer.

“ yeah, she’s not someone you wanna be caught right now by. She can talk your ears off for days. “ he informs with a chuckle, completely unaware of your blasé attitude or uncaring for it.

“ you know, I can really imagine that. “

Every inch of you is buzzing with an uncomfortable energy, you don’t want to integrate with their community just yet, preferring to feel around and understand the dynamics of how everything works. When society fell into the flames from humanity’s last fight with the walkers, you were lucky enough to have been able to seek safety with your group back in Atlanta at the quarry, and these have been the same people you have spent time with, shared your meals with, everything done has been with them. Quiet town life has been a memory of a past life that has faded into nothing more than a grey blur, shrouded in fog. To live here? It’s like learning how to ride a bicycle after many years of letting it gather dust. Your ways are not perfect, but they’re perfect for you. For your own pace and peace of mind.

“ has my mom given you a job yet? “

“ uh, yeah actually she has. I used to be a preschool teacher before everything went to hell. “ you explain to him, your memories of the children you used to teach had been painful until Judith. The little girl had been what you needed to confront your past that you had been so quick to push away in order to survive. You can’t count how many times you’d come close to thinking about their little faces, and if they’d survived the initial chaos, refusing to even put a face to a possible death. You’d spent many days and many hours getting to know their audacious and bold personalities, it cut you deep to even imagine the days they were supposed to have, the lives they should have been promised extinguished so prematurely as if they had been no more than a flame of a candle burning in the night.

“ well, those classes are really small. You won’t have your hands full. I suppose you’ll probably be helping with the afternoon classes, we’ve got more teenagers here. “

“ mhm, I thought as much. “ your words are a small acknowledgement, though it deterred him little.

Spencer keeps talking and talking, every once in a while you mutter an ‘ yeah ‘ or an ‘ mhm ‘ and even at points humming in response. It’s obvious he means well and is trying to get to know you all but it’s just a simple clash of cultures, it’s why you’re unable to cut the conversation short so rudely. Even during the apocalypse being respectful hasn’t been wiped away.

Yet.

“ hi, Spencer! “ the sugary sweet tone of Carol interrupted the interaction as she greets Spencer and yourself, the broad smile ignites her features.

Although, you know her better to know this is not one born of genuine emotion to see the man.

“ I was hoping to borrow my friend here. Rick’s looking for them. “

Recognition lights his features up, his eyes widen in understanding her words. Never have you been more thankful for the older woman than currently, if there’s one thing Carol can be, is a miracle maker. Spencer backs away with little to say, bidding a goodbye to both of you.

“ Carol, thank you. “ you breathe, your hands move up to scratch your scalp as tension eased away into the open air. “ I thought he was never going to leave. “

“ yeah, I thought you were in trouble. I thought you were ready to kill him. “

“ believe me, if he spoke for two more minutes I was coming close to getting very creative with one of those blunt dinner knives in there. “ you speak, a short giggle plummeting from your lips at the thought.

“ he’s at the gate ⏤ Rick, that is. If you want him. “

A few more words of light hearted humour are exchanged between you, just little things. You have known Carol for a long time, one of the few people to continue to see her as a human after losing Sophia, yes she was in mourning, but she was still human. You never tiptoed around her, you offered her support as best you could and for that she continues to be grateful. Even in the prison, you became closer, as time passed on she took up something of a parental role in your life. Though you were old enough at the time to not need one, you accepted it. A slice of normality granted to you for what reason you have never found out, but one you wouldn’t seek out either, for some things happen without cause or reason, a mystery of life.

Turning around a corner, you’d realised you took a wrong turn around one of the houses, your sense of direction would have been your downfall had you not found the people you now call your family. Admittedly, you’d not spent much time exploring the vast environment that is home to these large homes, you still dedicated some time to mapping all the twists and turns. However, not even that has aided you. Despite this, you find a silver lining to getting lost.. you have been able to shake off whatever blades of irritation that sorely wished to cling to your being for longer, you wanted nothing more than to approach Rick without anything that could set him off.

Though few words have been shared between you both about how you all feel about being in Alexandria, it doesn’t mean you haven’t noticed a tension building its blocks within Rick. Knowing all he has been through, you’re worried that he will reduce himself to being no more than a caged animal, biding his time to break free. It’s why you’re searching him out, a discussion is sorely needed before anything should happen, chaos has a way of trailing your family like a puppy following its master.

“ there you are. “

Rick lays his sights on you in the distance, waiting for you to move closer before saying a word. You would go so far as to say it has been one of the few instances of genuine contentment as his features relax from the lines of strain it held not even a few moments previously. Your hands move straight to your hips, standing a few metres away from him.

“ oh, you were actually looking for me? “ eyebrows raise ever so slightly, you thought Carol had been simply nudging you in his direction.

“ just to check the perimeter. “

“ and you need me for that ? “ you question him as your hands move to rest on your hips, a knowing smile lifting your expression as you observe him.

“ ‘course I do. “ Rick’s tone matches yours, it’s been a while since you’ve heard even the faintest hint of amusement associated with the intense male. It’s alien in a sense, though you’re welcoming of it.

Few words are exchanged with the Alexandrian who has been tasked with guarding the gate, exchanging the barest of information you realise as you watch Rick. You hope that even an hour outside the walls of the town is enough to soothe even the slightest of the negative energy that surrounds his being. Your situation is not perfect, and it’s inverted to what you had been experiencing previously, but you believe in your heart that this has to work. The thought of your family not being able to survive yet another bout of the outside world terrifies you to your core, the ice that is your fear erupting from your centre at the idea.

“ is there a real reason why you wanted me out here? “

“ it’s been a while since it was just us, gettin’ hard to breathe in there. “

“ Rick, you know I’m always here if you need it. I hate to see you carry everything on your shoulders the way you do. “

The hardness that had embedded itself into his face slowly eases at your words and thanks you for your support, he reaches out in between the distance that separates you to slip his fingers between yours. A comfort warms you in a way that no heat could at the action, you’re unable to stop the laugh that bursts free with a splutter. Even back on the road, and he was at his wits end, he was never this affectionate. It’s not something you hold against him though, there were many more things on his mind that required more attention.

“ somethin’ funny? “ he questions you immediately.

“ seeing this side of you, it’s just a bit weird. A good kind of weird, though. “ you assure, continuing to walk over the overgrown branches. “ you’re doing okay? Like, really? “

“ just hard to get used to. These people have just been lucky. “

You nod in understanding, it’s been your first thought every morning since walking through that gate with months of dirt and grime that had accumulated, clinging to every inch of your skin. While blood from the dead dried into your skin, becoming part of you, they lathered themselves in floral perfumes and sprays. As much as you want to allow the venom to pool within you, to form a monster born of hate ⏤ you can’t.

In this world you can’t be driven by such emotions, to aim them at innocent people. Had you been in their position, would it be such an easy position to leave this protected bubble? A piece of the previous world left untouched by the cold, ghostly grip of the dead.

“ we can’t hold it against them. “

“ they’re weak, they could get one of ours killed. “ he quietly grumbles in response, his head shaking at the thought. They’d lost too much already, and he would be damned if he lost any more members of his family, especially now they’d reached an element of safety.

“ or they might not? “ you counter his statement, your eyes pleading as you stop where you stand, your hands still connected.

“ we can’t deal in maybes, we deal in certainties. “

“ what are you suggesting, Rick? That we take over? “ you ask, your brows dropping lower. You’d seen enough death and violence to last you a lifetime, you’d had enough for now. You can’t confirm if you have enough energy for another fight. Too much has been lost.

“ if it comes to it. “

“ this is their home now, our home. They’re not bad people. “ you argue lightly, not wishing for a heated disagreement out there. Any walker around would be attracted by the noise and then the smell of the living, you’ve begun to get used to not having to slaughter walkers every day.

“ no, but they’re unprepared. “

“ so were we at some point! “ inch by inch, you close the distance. You rest your grip on his forearms, trying to calm him no matter how useless it may or may not be. “ Rick, you’re trying to create a problem. I get this is an adjustment and if anything does happen, we’ll have you back. We will fight, but for the sake of safety.. we have somewhere to actually live. “

Against his better judgement he nods, just to put a stop to the conversation. He’d wanted to spend some time alone with you that held no prying eyes from Alexandrians, nor the entertained gazes of your group.

“ let’s just see how things go, and try not to keep things bottled up. It never works out. “

“ I’m not sure you want me to share my deep, dark secrets. “ he asserts with a playful inkling hidden poorly within his words.

A smirk lines itself into your features, you’re feeling the energy from Rick and you can’t deny that it feels good. You lift your chin higher, inching your lips closer to his, the warm glow beginning to burn brighter ⏤ a silent dare in the form of a quiet whisper on your tongue. “ try me. “

#twd imagine #rick grimes x reader #rick grimes imagine #rick grimes oneshot #twd oneshot #twd fic

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honkster · 3 years

Text

Why the Dream SMP’s way of storytelling is IMPOSSIBLE to recreate in any other medium.

This has been in the back of my mind for the longest time. I think I finally got it.

People have talked about this before, and they’ve put forward some good points, and good for them – most of them are correct. It’s the way the ccs interact with each other, it’s how plot is mixed in with banter, that’s all good! I wanna put more out there.

So you know how you open a book to read, you start a new show, you sit down to watch a movie – that’s all produced by some sort of company, someone who made it specifically for you to enjoy. You expect a certain dramatic flair to it, certain cinematic choices, certain ways of writing, certain camera angles, certain reactions to things. That’s just ingrained expectations of things now.

The DSMP? Doesn’t have that.

The low expectations work very much in its favor. It’s a Minecraft role-playing server with a bunch of famous youtubers/streamers, who are all good friends and have great dynamics with each other. So when you expect “just another Minecraft video” but in stream form, or you watch the videos because there are certain people in them, you don’t expect to be dropped into extreme lore and sensitive topics, realistic situations proposed in game form, a combination of serious stuff and just fun times with friends goofing around – and you’re pleasantly surprised.

We, the fandom, are used to it a bit more now. How excellently they manage to make a serious story in such a “ridiculous” medium, how much it affects us all and gets our creative juices flowing. But even the ccs can’t predict some of the things that happen. And that’s fun.

The whole election ending the way it has? That was on us. And it made some of the most angsty content there has been in the DSMP. People still theorize about the arc and make connections to now – that’s pog!

Fundy being adopted by Eret – that sparked the whole “Fundy just wants a dad – let’s get him some love” thing that made FundyWasTaken and other Fundy+someone ships happen. I see a different person paired with Fundy every week, and somehow, I agree with all of them. I really got into Fundy because of that stream where Eret “slept through the adoption” and Fundy confronted his real dad and spent time with his granddad. That little stream gave us more insight into Fundy’s whole character (Nevermind Fundy showing off his acting skills – you go you funky little fox), but also justifies some of his actions now. DryWaters? Wanting to kill Technoblade? Fucked up reasons, but we still love him.

Phil being broken out of house arrest ahead of time – still made a great stream and Phil agreeing with Techno’s want for revenge – that made us all very happy. The SBI!!! The AE! And that’s also a thing!

That even if we do know or have predicted what’s going to happen, begged it out of the ccs basically, it is still incredibly fun to watch. Where some books/shows/movies fall short and reveal too much and end up being “too predictable”, they’re not fun anymore. I read this somewhere before, that sometimes holding back EVERYTHING from the reader, and relying on shock value to make a good story is just bad. Whereas if you progress the story naturally and let the reader make some predictions of their own and then they end up being right – that’s a lot of serotonin right there. It’s the re-readability that makes it slightly better the second time.

The DSMP takes this concept and fucking yeets with it. Letting fans engage in the story, letting them theorize and then be right, even acknowledging the fanart that was made, just engaging with the community that their roleplay created – that makes it so much more fun. I bet that even if the whole script was revealed to the fandom we would still watch every plot stream. Even if we knew vaguely what happens in the stream, we would tune in and enjoy every second of it. Because the ccs are just that good, we love them that much, we love this plot that much.

Oh and the unpredictability helps too. Tommy in exile was the vague concept of a lot of the streams – it’s taken that and ran with it in a lot of different directions. All quite enjoyable.

Having said all of that… The fact that this type of telling a story is impossible to recreate in any other medium is… kinda saddening? It is incredibly unique, and I’d say has things that not a lot of the people that produce mainstream media would even consider. “Just friends hanging out” – how would that make the script progress? “Engagement with the fandom, even considering their wishes for the characters” – but we’re telling a story here!

The only thing I can think of that would come close to the vibe, would be just a bunch of writer friends coming together, thinking up a universe and general plot, and then each deciding to write a few of their own characters in that universe. When one author focuses on their main characters, the side ones can feel left in the dust, or not fleshed out. The DSMP is just “every character can write their own story”, which takes a lot of the strain from the “main writers”. But the general thing of “just friends hanging out” would be taken away from it. We’re being serious here, why would we change the tone so quick?

With all of that in mind… I kinda wanna make some predictions? And I don’t know if they’re correct, but it’s fun to theorize. See?

1. L’manburg will die.

And not just because Techno has 54 withers. The country is cursed – it definitely is. There is little sentimental value that can be felt for a few flimsy stilts built on top of a crater. It might go out in a blaze of glory, with the withers (Is history repeating itself an interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?), but it might just be forgotten. Yeah there have been some angsty headcanons about how “no one cares about L’manburg anymore, save for two people” and it just gets abandoned, but how about it just becoming irrelevant?

This all comes back to Dream, it always does! His want, need for the server to be “one happy family again”, it just means one thing. He wants the server to return to the peaceful anarchy that it was before L’manburg. No rulers, no factions, no nothing.

That’s never going to happen.

Try as he might, Dream cannot affect that change that L’manburg did to the server. The introduction of a faction, one that can exist without the interference of a higher power – why do you think so many factions have sprouted up since? And it’s not even serious factions a lot of the time, it’s just a few friends deciding to build their bases on a plot of land that they claim is a nation now. L’manburg has changed the mindset of these people, now an alliance with somebody is a political move. An alliance doesn’t exist if it doesn’t have a faction, and that faction can remain neutral for only so long.

Basically, L’manburg introduced the factions mod into the server.

And the fact that every faction now has enough relevance to hold weight in a war also means that every nation on the server is doomed to follow the downfall of L’manburg. Eventually, they will get into a fight they can’t win, go up against the wrong people, anger someone they shouldn’t have. All factions will either be destroyed, or lose relevance, until their creators, residents and such just… move on.

(And really you can go into meta and talk about real governments and compare them, but it’s far more simple than that. The server isn’t built for peace, it isn’t meant to be a relaxing place where you can just vibe, it may have been made for a few friends to play Minecraft together, but it has turned into An Author’s Curse. The curse that follows any kind of story being told – the fact that peace is boring. People watched the first streams of the DSMP because they liked the ccs, and that’s valid. But how many more people tuned in to watch the war streams because there was PLOT and there was CHAOS and there WASN’T CALM PEACE ANYMORE – that’s the curse of every writer. That you can write about someone just living their life drama-free, you can make interesting peace with characters or circumstances, but it’s always leading to one inevitable conclusion – war, drama, because people read that. And at this point, it’s just a predictable outcome. No matter how much you say that you are retired, that you’re done with violence (Technoblade), something will happen that will prove to you that you believed in people too much. No matter how “neutral” you may be in the matter, no matter how much you claim that you have no allegiance (Philza), you will be forced to pick one, because out of all the bad things, you pick the least worst one, the most appealing to you, the one that can benefit your want of revenge.

And I can go on, but this is far too deep for one simple reason – The Author’s Curse is so prevalent here because THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO STAKES. It’s a video game – you die? You respawn. Something gets destroyed? You can just rebuild. Sure, you’ll want to kill the person who did wrong to you, but whatever they did wrong can just be replaced, remade, recreated. So why not have wars? Why not cause massive amounts of destruction “for the plot”?

It’s literally a playground. How all authors have their little playground with their characters that they meticulously plan out, the DSMP is that playground for all of these people.

And it’s fun! Sure! I like it! I’m just really skeptical whenever someone in character says that they “just want peace”, “are retired”, “swear off violence”, “are building just a little city for themselves”. Because you can do that, nothing wrong. But eventually, no matter how much you distance yourself from all of the chaos happening, all of the wars, you will return.

Because it is just much more fun.

It’s the curse. A cursed cycle.

And everyone is in it.)

2. The prison.

I don’t have anything on the prison because I don’t have anything on the book. Yeah I’ve done a whole post where I overanalyze what it could be, but it doesn’t make it any clearer. Whatever it is, it’s made out to be a huge plot point, something that can only be revealed when the prison is finished.

Cursed. The prison’s reason for being constructed is the book, but the book is only relevant when the prison is finished. We can only wait, and theorize, as we do.

(My only theory is that the book is information about another op on the server. Or at least something related to op or creative mode. Dream only fears one thing on this server, and that’s Technoblade, so if his one fear is the most skilled player on the server, what else could give him existential fear?)

3. The SBI.

Again, I don’t have anything! Yeah the reunion seems to be going smoothly, one member at a time, but there is already conflict in their beliefs among each other. And all that’s happened is a vague “maybe one day we’ll strike”.

Is history repeating itself an interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?

Is L’manburg’s destruction AGAIN really necessary to hammer home the idea that no one likes that place anymore?

I don’t know. Whatever happens, no one’s in the right. No one’s in the wrong either. They’re all not good people and that’s that on that.

4. The Clingy Duo.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

That’s all.

(Okay seriously? All of these arcs are connected. You know what happens when everything seems to be connected to one another?

A giant, dramatic final showdown between the two opposing sides.

Cause it’s just Chaos vs L’manburg. Those are the sides. People that want L’manburg to exist and people that want it gone. There are no other sides, there isn’t someone who’s like “Well maybe it can exist if we do this and this” cause no one wants to put in anymore effort into this cursed country. The only people were the clingy duo and now they’re separated and everyone is just leaving and Tommy is on the Chaos side like at this point he doesn’t care about L’manburg he just cares about Tubbo but he has to convince Tubbo to leave L’manburg but will Tubbo be convinced but will Tommy even consider leaving L’manburg and breaking free from its curse AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Goddamit.)

5. The Egg?

Dunno shit about it. Like the prison – it seems important, but we’re just not being given enough information. Is it a coincidence that the moment Dream commissioned the prison the Egg popped up? Or are the two directly related?

I don’t know. But as long as someone is finding ways to fight the Egg, that’s fantastic. Bad juju indeed.

6. Oh the Butcher Army want to kill Dream!

Hah.

Okay I’ve seen people make the case that the Army is just a bunch of people with trauma repeating the cycle of ab*se that they went through and yes.

Just yes.

And the fact that no one is actually looking at it that way and no one is there to like.. help them or even help them understand that what they are doing is just irrational, even though their reason for doing it and the result they hope to achieve is YES and the only thing that a lot of the people of the server who want peace should try to go for as well, they cannot stand up to Dream on their own. They just can’t, they will get punted into exile. They need allies, and they need powerful ones, people that have also been wronged by Dream and want him gone.

But the cycle continues, and no one knows where it ends.

(Okay but from a writing perspective? Getting rid of Dream is the end goal. It is the be all end all of all conflict, well… most of it, at least most that’s related to the supposed “good side”, or “the side that’s been most victimized”. But from the same perspective, that side is just… no longer. It has proven that is just as bad, if not worse than the final boss. I have to agree that Techno has to pay for his crimes, even though I like him a lot, but Techno did in fact cause insane damage. Yeah L’manburg rebuilt, yeah Wilbur probably caused more – still he isn’t completely free.

But that’s a discussion on morality more than laws.

L’manburg is doomed to die. Dream is doomed to be fought, and probably won against (simply because he has won far too many times already, you know how everyone seems to hate OP characters…). But the Butcher Army is doomed to fail against Dream. So how does that work?

Welp.

Is history repeating itself and interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?

The answer is no.

I’ve repeated that question three times now, and the answer to it is no. No it is not. L’manburg can be destroyed again, and it can be rebuilt again, but the sentimentality that people feel for it will not remain. The cycle of history ends somewhere, and it’s not too far a fetch that it ends here.

So what happens when Technoblade, Philza and Tommy roll up to L’manburg with withers and a destruction wish, only to be met with a bunch of traumatized children with axes and a death wish?

Well, I’ll spare the details, but from a purely writing standpoint…

The two sides team up.

Think about it – The Butcher Army doesn’t care about Technoblade anymore. They’ve seen that Dream is the one pulling the strings, they know that even if they do care about trying to eliminate Technoblade again, they have to get rid of his strongest ally – Dream. But through their anger, they’ve lost their fear. You should fear Dream, he’s a fuckin op. Techno is correct in not wanting to go against him.

But after Tommy? After seeing the Butcher Army at their lowest, screeching about Dream being the villain?

Will Techno finally go past his thinking of “government is evil, always government is source of problem” and realize that Dream has the most evil government in mind for his rule?

I’m still kinda sad that Techno isn’t making the conclusions he should about Dream. But he’s starting to – and really, the SBI-Butcher Army team up is the most logical thing that could happen.

Watch me be completely wrong or miss something and I’ve got ALL of it wrong. I would love that.)

(Also it’s very funny to me that Dream is literally simping for Techno while he’s just here like “Listen bud I would stab you on sight if you didn’t have creative mode”. Dream KNOWS that Techno can and will kill him given the opportunity. Techno knows that that opportunity may never arise.

It’s a weird type of stalemate, to be sure. But goddamn is it interesting.)

Anyway... if you read through all of this... I could bake you a cookie? Thank you! I like to ramble.

#dream smp #gooood its just a block game #ITS JUST A BLOCK GAME #...dammit #anyway #debate me #on everything please

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yoditorian · 3 years

Text

lacuna- part 3

din/reader

she’s dropping early because i have no patience and i’m extremely proud of the last 2/3rds of this. thanks as always to my darling @brothersdrxke for being encouraging and yelling with me 💛

MASTERLIST

word count: 3.5k

warnings: swears, overuse of italics, discussion of violence including graphic injury, mentions of scars (causes not discussed), one use of ‘their’ as a pronoun for reader, usual poetic smut, 18+ no babies thanks

You didn’t think you’d be back here.

Maybe ever, but definitely not after only a couple of years, and your smile is tight as you flick the lever to lower the small freighter’s boarding ramp. You’re sure it won’t come back if you drop it.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Qin’s teeth are sharp in his own smile.

“You’re not.”

His snarled response is cut off by Ran’s booming laugh before it starts. Your old boss claps him on the shoulder, saying something in lieu of a real greeting about how he’s missed your jokes. It’s a little tense, the way the men take you in for a moment. You didn’t wear your uniform, there’s not a thing on the ship that points any fingers towards the Rebellion, but it’s clear you’ve done well for yourself since leaving. Something they clearly have not, judging by the holes in the jacket tied around Qin’s hips.

“Thanks for letting me stay, system hopping takes a lot longer when your hyperdrive’s busted.” You relax a little, let your shoulders drop, let them think you’re more than comfortable under their scrutinizing gazes.

“We’ve probably got something laying around here you could use. For a price, of course.” Ran grins, in that predatory way that he always has. He seems so unassuming, but you know different. You know better.

“Your prices always land me on the wrong end of a blaster. I’ll take my chances in open space, thanks.”

He laughs heartily again, and you can breathe. At least they seem to believe you.

Ran had offered you your old room, something you’d graciously thanked him for, and left you to it. The station seems to run the same, more or less. He hasn’t hired anyone in your place, or in Din’s for that matter, but it’s difficult to find somebody without loyalties to any one side of the war. Leaving the spots open for now is probably safer for him. You’d raised a hand in greeting to Xi’an when you passed her in the hall, she’d hissed in return but any time she didn’t threaten to cut you is always a win. So at least you’re still in somebody’s good graces here.

Still, good graces don’t last long. And neither does your patience. It’s only a few hours into the night cycle on the station when you creep out of your room and towards the main hangar. Your old workspace looks exactly the same, a few bits and pieces missing, but mostly untouched by time and sticky fingers. Good. It takes less than an hour to completely gut the bench. Every single old motivator, circuit board, gear, and valve packed up neatly in the cargo hold of the ship. There’s still larger engine pieces that the base mechanics are in desperate need of, but Shara’s working on that lead. You find a black marker lying on a nearby workbench and draw a big smiley face on the dulled metal. For good measure.

It’s with a deep breath, and a prayer you never have to return, that you maneuver your ship up and out of the station. You ease it into lightspeed, the definitely-not-busted hyperdrive humming, and disappear.

“Did you think I don’t keep tabs on people, Mando?”

Din would rather go swimming on Mustafar, or get swallowed by a Krayt dragon, or be literally anywhere else in the galaxy than the hangar on Ran’s station. How he’d even known he’d joined the Bounty Hunters’ Guild is a mystery to him, but the call came through nonetheless. The new representative on Nevarro, a very theatrical man if their short contact was anything to go by, had popped up in the holo-com display talking about a special assignment and given him coordinates he knew all too well. Whatever it is, it isn’t good.

“You know, Xi’an’s still broken up about you leaving. Convinced herself that you and the pilot organised it, that you’re holed up somewhere together. But we both know that’s not true.”

Din says nothing. He doesn’t need to, Ran’s tone leaves nothing to be discussed. Whether he knows for sure that you went straight to the rebels or not, he has his suspicions. Xi’an can think whatever she likes, he’s just grateful he doesn’t have to deal with her trailing after him like a lost puppy anymore.

“They said you have a job for me.”

Ran gestures out for him to follow, leading him to a desk he knows all too well. Your workstation was always cluttered, always a tangled heap of wires and unidentifiable spare parts. Organised chaos, you said, it was about the piles. Except it’s been completely cleared out. There’s shelves underneath that he didn’t even know existed, and a big smiley face drawn carefully on the worktop. Din turns his head towards Ran, a wordless question.

“We had a visit from our old friend, a favour done out of the kindness of my heart. So imagine my surprise when we all woke up to find their room empty, and my hangar pillaged.” Ran’s laying it on thick, thicker than usual. Pillaged is a strong word, it’s clear you only touched your own bench, those parts belong to you as far as Din’s concerned. But it’s not his concern that’s the problem.

“So, what’s the job?” He doesn’t feel like playing games anymore. He doesn’t see what any of this has to do with him anyway.

“I’m putting a bounty on that little thief, it can be yours or it can go to the Guild. Or,” Ran hesitates, watching the way Din’s shoulders tense, “You can help me out. Help me with this one thing and I’ll drop it.”

Din doesn’t even ask what he needs to do, he only nods and finds himself trying his best to tolerate Qin’s chatter from the Crest’s passenger seat while he flies.

It should worry him, that he didn’t even consider his own safety. But something about it feels right, he’s sure he’d put anything on the line if it meant you were safe.

It’s almost boring, standing guard at the door as Qin ransacks some official’s office on a planet he’s already forgotten the name of. Ran mentioned something about a trade agreement, although given the largely illegal nature of his dealings it doesn’t take a genius to work out exactly why something like that would have been refused by any law abiding citizen. Although law in the Outer Rim is generally subjective to everyone’s personal code.

“One more office and we’re done.” Qin assures him as he exits the upturned office, pressing a drive into Din’s gloved palm. He pockets it without question, experience has taught him that wasting time asking will only get them in trouble.

Trouble seems to find them anyway. It always does.

He races through the beige hallways, following the blinking dot on the display of his vambrace with Qin hot on his heels. The security guards aren’t fast, they aren’t even armed, there’s no point in shooting when the two of them so clearly have the upper hand. Until a burly Trandoshan leaps out of a doorway and tackles Qin to the ground. But Din doesn’t look back, he just presses forward to the Crest.

Din hightails it out of there, jumping to lightspeed still in atmosphere. Just in case. And breathes his first sigh of relief since he stepped onto the station. He’s not sure what’s on the drive, honestly he doesn’t want to know, and he just hopes it’s important enough to Ran that he might overlook the tiny detail of leaving Qin to the guards.

Ran only seems mildly annoyed that Din comes back alone, more interested in the drive dropped into his waiting hand, and agrees to forget about setting a bounty. So long as you don’t turn up on his doorstep, lie, and steal from him again. Din promises to pass on the message.

You’re on Tatooine, arguing with a scrapper in Mos Espa over the price of a rusted laser cannon, when he finds you. The scrapper quiets when he appears over your shoulder, and nods reluctantly at your suggested fifty percent of the asking price. It’s hot and you’re tired, you don’t have the patience to pretend to be surprised when you turn to see him standing behind you.

“Help me with this?” You ask. Din watches a bead of sweat drip down your temple, tries not to wish it was his tongue instead, and nods wordlessly.

Between the two of you, you manage to haul the cannon to your docking bay and roll it up the loading ramp. Only once it’s secure in the hold do you take a moment to survey his armour, the way you did last time.

There’s no obvious new scratches, although the dust on this rock of a planet will dirty anything in a matter of seconds, but you find yourself relieved by the familiarity of his dark red armour. Nothing has been replaced since the last time you saw him, it seems. You’ve come a long way since then.

“You’re stealing from our old boss now?” Din’s voice breaks your careful study of his armour, and your brow furrows. You thought he might understand, out of everyone in the galaxy, but you don’t even know how he found out.

“We’re in a war.”

“You’re in a war.”

Your eyes snap up to his visor, and he has to physically plant himself so he isn’t rocked back by the intensity of your stare. You find his eyes every time, you always have. But yours have never held such a cold fury for him than they do now. It’s kind of terrifying, it’s kind of beautiful.

“This is not about me. This is so much bigger than just me. You may have grown up underground learning how to kill people with your thumbs but I grew up under imperial rule. I grew up building parts for star destroyers and running messages for rebels. All I know is this fucking war.” You’re rambling but you don’t care. He has to know, he has to understand that this is what you do now. The last couple of years have been the best of your life, you’ve found a purpose. Something that makes you want to get out of bed in the mornings and reluctant to go back to it at night, you’ve thrown yourself into the brewing fight and it feels like you were born for it. The names of all the friends you’ve lost to the Empire sit heavy on your tongue for every TIE you take down, every supply you steal, every bit of intel you scrape together. It’s for them, it’s for everyone who came before, it’s for everyone who will come after.

Din says your name softly, but the tears are falling and you can’t stop.

“I’ve been fighting my whole life so kids in the future don’t have to live the way I have. I think a few spare parts are worth that.”

You tell him your whole story, standing there awkwardly in the belly of the freighter. You tell him about the messages you ran between workers who resisted, who rebelled, who heard whispers of uprising and felt the roar of hope in their chests. You’d started young, too young really to understand the danger of what you were doing. But what about being young on Corellia was not dangerous? You tell him how the group started to grow, branching out from your factory line to the docks and the mechanics and further. The way they started to include you more as you got older, planning and whispering in darkened corners and safehouses away from the ears of the Empire.

Not that it did anyone any good in the end. You tell him how they stormed the house one night. No warning, no whispers. Blew the door out of the wall and started shooting. So you’d started running. Nothing but the blanket from your bed, the one you’d had since you were a child, around your shoulders and a younger girl’s hand in yours. You’d almost gotten her to the loading docks. To safety. Almost. You can still taste the blood in your mouth when the blaster bolt split her head open, but you’d left her where she fell and kept running. You tell him how you dove into the first open cargo bay you saw and hid. For days. How you’d cried when you felt it finally lift from the bay. How it had been Ran’s ship, one of his first trades. You hadn’t had the courage to leave the station until somebody had shown you it was possible.

Din doesn’t interrupt once. He only watches. Watches as the tears stop streaming, as you pull yourself back together again. He’s sure you didn’t want him, anyone, to see you so vulnerable. You’ve always had that mask of quick jokes and bright smiles, it’s only now that he realises it's a mask, and it’s oddly fascinating to watch you piece it together. You wipe at your cheeks with the sleeve of your jacket until there’s no trace of your tears and take a deep breath. In the blink of an eye, it’s as though you never cried at all.

Even so, the bags under your eyes don’t lie. He’s sure he’s got a pair to match.

“When’s the last time you slept?” He asks quietly, and if you didn’t know better you’d swear he was concerned about you. But you do know better.

You shoot a glance over to the freighter’s sorry excuse of a bunk. It’s even worse than the last one he took you in, although you’re not sure he’s suggesting a good fuck will get you off to sleep. It’s very pointedly not been touched, starched sheets still stretched military-tight over the mattress. Not that it’s much of a mattress.

“Let’s find a room somewhere. I think a real bed might do us both some good.” He makes it sound like an offer, but you know it’s non-negotiable. And deep down, you really could use a good hour or two before you have to fly back to base. The pilot’s seat is definitely more comfortable than the bunk, just about. You dip into the cockpit at the last second to snag your old blanket. For comfort’s sake.

There’s not a lot in the room that an older Twi’lek woman hands you the keycard to. Only a desk with a chair, an attached refresher, and a small bed. But it’s big enough for the two of you. The suns start to dip below the horizon, and Din finally reaches out to touch you. Just barely, just a light stroke of his fingers along your shoulder. But it’s enough to convince you to take a shower, you’re sandy and sweaty and tired and it’ll take more energy to argue than it would to just take the shower.

You’re in there for longer than you intended, zoning out as your eyes lose focus of the little square tiles on the wall, and it’s dark outside by the time you’re dried and dressed in the spare clothes you keep in your go-bag. Din’s pulled blinds shut, locked the door, and piled his armour carefully on the desk. The ancient wood creaks under the weight of the metal. The man himself is lying spreadeagled on the bed, in only his underclothes and his helmet, the dull light from the single bulb in the refresher reflects off of his visor when he turns to look at you. It might make you laugh if you weren’t so tired.

“Better?”

You nod. Of course you feel better, anyone would after scrubbing what felt like an inch thick layer of sweat and sand off of their skin. You smell of the pleasantly neutral soap from the dispenser and, for the first time in days, you think you can breathe again. Although the weight of exhaustion threatens to drag your bones through the floor.

Din pulls himself to stand with a low groan, shoulders protesting when he rolls them, and tucks the sheet back far enough that you can get in comfortably. It doesn’t escape your notice that he’s laid your blanket out beneath them, a thought that sits jagged in your throat. He approaches you slowly, carefully, as though he’s afraid you’ll bolt if he moves too fast. But you take his hand the moment he offers it and leans around you to switch the fresher’s light off, let him lead you back to the bed, and follow him down onto it.

There’s the barest sound of metal brushing against his hair as he pulls the helmet off and sits up for a moment to set it down on the floor.

“Din?” Your voice is quiet, careful not to disturb the peace that’s settled in the room, but it makes him shudder all the same. He returns to you, tucks the blankets up around you both, and tugs you into him. The Armourer’s words, the ones that swirl in his head every time he thinks of you like this, are silent. Din finds he’s not even a little bit guilty.

Warm fingers trace your body, soft over your exposed skin, light as they dip under your shirt. He says nothing, only traces the scars on your back, on your sides, along your ribs. He doesn’t ask how they got there, running his touch along the raised marks you’ve collected through your life and leaving goosebumps in his wake. For the first time in a long time, you don’t feel quite so empty.

You shift further into the warmth underneath you, a vain attempt to keep a hold of the last few dregs of sleep. But you feel rested, at least. That’s not something particularly familiar, and you bask in the feeling. A hum rumbles beneath you. Oh, that’s where you are. You’re not embarrassed, or shocked, like you thought you might be if this ever happened. If you ever thought it possible he wouldn’t leave you to wake up alone. But Din is solid under your head, under your arm, the soft fabric of his shirt clutched in your fist. He’s speaking softly, coaxing you from dreams. It’s still dark as anything when you finally open your eyes, so it can’t have been more than a few hours you spent snoozing.

It’s his story, you realise when your brain finally kicks into gear. He’s whispering about the memories he has from before, his parents. You’d always assumed he was born and raised Mandalorian, how he carries his Way so heavily on his shoulders, but the shake in his ribs as he recounts them tells you all you need to know. Your fist tightens in his shirt when you shuffle a little closer, press your face into his shoulder, a little more over the top of him. A human blanket.

Din likes it, the weight of you on him, your body helps him to keep focus. He never thought he’d tell anyone what happened to him. A dirty secret to be kept hidden away. But something about you pulls it out of him, something about the peace he’s created here with you in this little room makes the truth ease its way out of his throat. You’re not the only one who felt the wrath of the Empire as a child, you’re not the only one who wants it gone, he needs you to know that.

It breaks something inside you, to hear him so clearly struggle through the details of the attack and his rescue, and you can’t help but push yourself up further. Unwrap your hand from his shirt to find his cheek, press your lips to his softly, slowly. He’s suffered enough. You need him to know that you’re here, you have him. You’ll always have him. You let him lose himself in your body, and maybe your heart. He’s already made a home there anyways.

It’s careful, tentative, more so than the other times. The way you hold each other as though you’re made of glass. There’s no rush, no pressure of a goodbye, no adrenaline of a hunt. You have time. And, god, does it show. The way Din touches you is reverent, like you’re holy. You put everything you are, everything you have, behind every kiss, every touch, every whisper. It belongs to him, you’re happy to give yourself over. Just as he belongs to you, you’re sure of it. The fear that he touches someone else in the way he does you is soothed by the roughness of his voice in your ear, the way his teeth scrape against your throat, the way you hear the words without them needing to be said. Because he does, as you do.

You’re the first one to leave this time, blindly finding your clothes in the dark. You leave him a neutral comm, one you already have the pin saved for. He’ll know what it is. It connects to your personal pin without leaving a trace, and you can buzz him at any point. So long as he keeps it, you think he will. You take a moment to listen to him breathing, steadily in the dark, and raise your blanket to your nose. Din.

There won’t be a day goes by where you don’t think of him, of that you’re certain.

TAGLIST (lmk if u want on or off the list):

@brothersdrxke @remmysbounty @aq-vetina @1800-fight-me @mandos-co @kesskirata @sarahjkl82-blog @firstofficerwiggles @keeper0fthestars

#lacuna #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #star war #fic #liz does words #obligatory prayer to the tag gods that they work #smut

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tickles-tea · 3 years

Text

The Cycle of Temptation

If me busting out a fic in time for Izaya’s birthday doesn’t show how much I love him, nothing else will.

Izaya’s impeccable aim was not limited to knives, it seemed, as the ball of fabric hit its target straight on. The target being Shizuo Heiwajima’s face, of course.

Izaya cackled at the dull smack his coat made. “Hahaha! Where are those monster instincts of yours, Shizu-chan?” He taunted with a grin from where he was perched on the roof of a small bakery. Standing above the crowd and backlit by the sun, he almost appeared like an angel descending from the heavens. A kind hand granting humans salvation from their sins as if he hadn’t been the snake tempting them into depravity in the first place.

And poor Shizuo couldn’t help but chase the forbidden fruit.

From below, he skidded to a stop and ripped the jacket away with a snarl. His cheeks were tinged red with rage and what Izaya could bet was embarrassment. “Izaya, you bastard!” His gripped the jacket in a trembling fist before his face lit up with inspiration. What kind of thing the protozoan thought up, Izaya couldn’t say, but it was sure to be undoubtedly stupid. “Get down here so I can strangle you with this shitty coat!”

There was a beat of silence.

Ah, I was right, Izaya thought to himself. That is stupid.

“Eh? Are you five?” He drawled patronisingly, lips quirked on a pitying smile. “You have to work hard for what you want~” And with that, he was off again, running and jumping around like the flea Shizuo claimed he was.

The chase went on for another few minutes-leaving an impressive level of property damage in its wake-before it came to a standstill once again. At Izaya’s unspoken command, of course. They were in an alley now, shadowed from the sun and out of the way of any one who might intervene. Not that anyone was stupid enough to try. Their squabbles were frequent enough for most people to continue on their way without a second glance. They’d catch their trains and go to work and return to their everyday lives.

Just as Izaya was living his.

“It seems you’ve caught me, Shizu-chan! Whatever shall I do~” Izaya purred, turning around to face his pursuer with open arms. Shizuo was just as-if not more-pissed off as he’d been a few minutes prior, and surprisingly, still had Izaya’s jacket clutched in his left hand.

Izaya blinked. He hadn’t expected Shizuo to actually hang onto it.

“Oh? You still have that? Don’t tell me Shizu-chan is one of those people who gets off on sniffing clothes,” Izaya laughed, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back on his heels.

“Shut up! I’ll kill you!” Shizuo shot back, but there was no denying the blush coloring the tips of his ears. He stomped forward, fists clenched at his sides, until he came face to face with the most infuriating man on the planet. “I’ll kill you,” he repeated, voice softer. Perhaps now that he was actually faced with the decision, his brain took a turn, because instead of wrapping the coat around Izaya’s neck as a makeshift noose and killing him once and for all, he turned Izaya around and pushed him up against the wall.

He breathed harshly against the back of Izaya’s neck, all the while Izaya grinned like the cat who got the cream. “Oh? Like this, it almost seems like you’re more interested in a little death than a murder,” Izaya purred, voice as smooth and silky as the prize. His palms pressed against the rough surface of the wall, bracing himself for what was to come. Teeth digging into flesh, strong hands pressing bruises into his hips. The thought had his lashes dipping with want.

Shizuo grunted behind him, still for a moment. Izaya could feel his warm breath fanning across his nape, and his skin prickled in anticipation. It was strange for Shizuo to hesitate like this. He was a man who ran purely on instinct-acting first and facing the repercussions later. And they were far past the point of caring about repercussions.

He grabbed Izaya’s wrists suddenly, pulling them together behind Izaya’s back and tying the sleeve of the jacket around them. Izaya blinked, obviously surprised, but he hardly seemed to mind even as his cheek pressed into the wall. “Ha, who knew Shizu-chan was into this kind of thing?” He purred with a snicker. It was a tight bind, but he knew by now that if Shizuo really wanted to hurt him, he’d be dead.

“You’re a piece of shit, you know that?” Shizuo grumbled into his ear, leaning in oh so close. His voice was impossibly deep, more of a growl than anything, and it shook Izaya to the core.

Izaya smirked. Even as vulnerable as he was, he still teased and taunted, hoping to push Shizuo into action. To make him bite the apple. “What are you gonna do about it?”

This time, it was Shizuo’s turn to grin. Animalistic and wild in the way Izaya loved. “This.” Strong hands latched onto Izaya’s sides and squeezed with just enough pressure to make him want to crawl out of his skin. Izaya’s eyes widened in realization, and he started struggling to get away. However, he was literally caught between a rock and a hard place. There was no way to squirm free, pressed against the wall as he was.

“Uwahaha! Y-you monster! Nahahahaha!” Giggles burst past his lips as Shizuo pinched up and down his sides, tweaking at his ribs every so often to make him jump. His hands flexed uselessly behind his back as he tried to stop the attack, but every time he twisted to one side, the other would be targeted. “No! This isn’t what I wahahanted, you protozoan!”

In all honesty, Izaya had expected less humiliation and more making out. And Shizuo, the bastard, probably knew it too.

“Yeah? Well, I didn’t want to have to chase you out of my city today, so I guess we’re both out of luck,” he countered with a cruel grin, hooking his chin over Izaya’s shoulder and pulling him close against his chest.

Venturing fingers explored further and found their way under the hem of Izaya’s shirt, teasing and tickling the soft skin of his belly. “Ah! No, no, nahahaha!” Izaya squirmed frantically, throwing his head back with the force of his laughter. His muscles jumped with each brush of calloused fingers, but with his arms bound and his body held steady in the grip of the beast, there was no reprieve.

Shizuo chuckled at the way Izaya bounced and jerked and danced around, jumping from one foot to the other in his futile attempts to wiggle free. He seemed to take particular joy in the squeal Izaya let out when he scritched at his belly button; it was loud and embarrassing and promptly followed up by a stream of high pitched giggles that were far too innocent to be coming from a man like Izaya.

“Fahahaha! I’ll-! I’ll kihihihill you! Stahahahap!” Izaya gasped out a curse when Shizuo pressed into an especially sensitive patch of nerves on the side of his stomach. He was practically folding in on himself, knees jerking up to protect his midsection before he lost his balance and had to steady himself again.

His legs were growing weak-from the struggling or from the tickling itself, Izaya didn’t know. Nor did he want to. It was mortifying enough that he had let himself be caught in this situation in the first place. Being tickled like this in public, by Shizuo no less… it would take awhile for his pride to recover.

For how often Izaya was seen as the sadist, Shizuo showed little mercy as he skillfully honed in on the spots that prompted the strongest reactions. He massaged his fingers into the soft give of Izaya’s lower belly and was rewarded with loud frantic laughter and desperate squirming. Tracing along the sensitive rim of his navel earned him squeaks and giggles and lips stretched in a helpless grin.

It was only when Izaya’s laughter became wheezy and his lashes wet with tears that Shizuo finally relented.

Izaya sagged in his arms, residual giggles falling from his lips and shaking his sore shoulders as he tried to catch his breath. His legs felt like jelly, and he was sure he’d crumble to the ground if not for Shizuo’s steady hands holding him up. Those deceptively brutish hands...

Shizuo could be surprisingly gentle at times despite his inhuman strength. While Izaya loved the way Shizuo could lift him and hold him up against a wall for hours on end during their late night trysts, there were times when his touch was so light Izaya could barely feel it at all. A comforting brush up his thigh, a careful touch on his cheek. Nothing like the violence and destruction that came from his clenched fists.

Shizuo could be gentle.

But Izaya would prefer broken bones over this torture any day.

With his breathing now somewhat even, Izaya looked over his shoulder to level Shizuo with the most aggrieved glare he could muster. “Shizu-chan…,” He murmured, voice low on irritation as he tugged on his still bound arms.

Shizuo-who had been sporting an oddly soft smile-chuckled and set about untying the knot he’d created with the coat’s sleeve. “I take it we’re not heading back to my place this time?”

Incredulous and more than a little outraged, Izaya reeled back, mouth already forming around a barrage of insults before he paused. His expression evened out then, any trace of annoyance leaving his face in an instant. But what replaced it was not kind or understanding. It was wicked, mischievous, a red light flashing danger. And the words that he spoke as he rolled his shoulders and held up the wrinkled coat sent an uneasiness down Shizuo’s spine that almost seemed to seep into his bones.

However, with the uneasiness came a certain excitement, a thrill.

“We should go. Since Shizu-chan seems to like this so much, it’s only fair he gets to experience it as well, right~?”

#Durarara #shizuo heiwajima #izaya orihara #shizaya #tickling #Ticklish!izaya #my writing #In time for Izaya’s birthday~#Barely lol

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senju-sekhmet · 3 years

Text

The Leash (Part 10)

Summary: Your rescue was supposed to be as smooth as these missions can be. However very quickly, Tobirama faces off against an enemy that has no form, color or smell - and time is running short, very fast. Unless he figures out what truly holds you hostage, your life will be lost. Warnings (for the finished work): Blood, illness, descriptions of heavy injuries and graphic violence, torture (both depicted and implied), needles, morally grey territory, human experimentation, panic attacks, character death, angst with a happy ending ~8100 words (this chapter, finished work: 80.000) Previous: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9 Read on AO3! Disclaimer below the cut! again, used for updates too. sue me

DISCLAIMER! PART ONE of the finale! READ THE WARNINGS... especially the last one... Other than that: enjoy my very self indulgent work, filled with my own headcanons and angst galore. Let me know what you think and thank you so much for reading!!!! ________ The next few days became a blur. Tobirama cycled between the laboratory, your room, and the interrogation and information headquarters - just like he had been the last few days. Sleep was scarce, if he allowed himself any at all.

The pace was dictated by your condition pretty much, which did not fare any better. Quite the opposite.

Every passing turn, the interval by which they could stretch the administration of what remained of the leash diminished. You, on the other hand were paying a price that was nothing less than your sheer life force, it seemed. The amount of support they had to provide via the seals increased constantly. As time passed, they couldn’t lessen it anymore during your lucid phases, even - rather, only increase it further, step by step. A couple of seals were added when your chakra overload allowed it - as they had not been tending to your injuries from the torture anymore, they gained a little manuverability in that regard. It was not much, but you dearly needed any edge you could get. Both of your legs, arms, your abdomen, your chest were painted with medical seals that each supported your cardiovascular system, retained organs' functions, everything. There was little of your skin left unused.

It was painful to see.

“I surmise this is why the Stone did not use the withdrawal as an accessory means to put a victim under more duress,” Tobirama stated utterly caustic tone once. You’d been sedated after they had administered they leash again and both he and his brother were monitoring you while the war inside your body came to a well-known break. “Putting someone under the physical and mental strain of torture while also dealing with the effects of the withdrawal could easily kill a prisoner.” His bluntness hurt him - thinking about how you might be the one dying - but what was the point in sugar-coating anything?

Tobirama's mood was dismal, though his resolve still zealous.

“Indeed,” Hashirama agreed, slightly strained by the focus he’d been keeping up. “Frankly I’m wondering how they managed to not overload the amount of what foreign chakra Y/n could take with how they… injured her and the poor quality at which they kept healing her.” In the end, there was sorrow in his voice.

Tobirama instead felt anger overshadowing his ache. “I don’t think that ever was a concern of theirs, anjia.” In fact, Tobirama could hazard a guess as to what fate would've awaited you had they finished torturing you - had he not found you in time.

They shouldn't call it the Leash - the Noose seemed to be a better fit.

Still, chakra overload was unpleasant - uncomfortable, and to a point medically concerning, too, but lethal? Hardly. That is, if a patient was not in such a grievous state you found yourself in.

Yet the worst was your loss of vitality overall. It manifested in more agonising ways - it wasn’t as though you were becoming more haggard than you had been since the rescue - it was the way your hair lost its shine, the paleness of your skin, the tired gaze of sunken in eyes, the rasp of your voice as wheezing coughs wrecked you.

Numerous of your organs had begun to show signs of failure more and more rapidly as soon as the withdrawal settled in. Soon, they barely had enough time to recover during the times you weren’t under the effects of the withdrawal - a vicious circle Hashirama monitored closely and one Tobirama dreaded like little else in life. If the balance tilted - if your body couldn’t recuperate enough any more - then your life was all the more on the line.

Those hours - they felt the longest. He’d pace anxiously in your room, demand updates until Hashirama allowed him to join in his efforts. Or until he did politely tell him to wait. Politely.

Tobirama couldn’t remember when last he had felt so miserable in his life. He was watching you wither away in his hands, in the safest place he could think of in the entire world, due to a decision he had ultimately agreed to. Whenever he was with you the pain in his heart froze his entire being, his breathing was felt as laboured as yours and all of the world was numb besides the plight you were suffering. And he - he had allowed it. And if he hadn’t - if he hadn't… he didn't want to finish the thought, ever.

Worse yet, your consciousness began to wither more and more during the precious phases of lucidity, when the leash spared you from the hellish withdrawal. You simply were too weak to stay awake for long. But you tried. How you tried - and he knew why. For him. Your fierce spirit would keep fighting.

“How… is it going, Tobi?” you’d ask him always, your voice no more but a broken whisper.

He nearly collapsed by your side, the guilt corroding him inside out for not having accomplished his task yet. Every time his hand was under your head to stabilise it some as you looked at him; wanted to look at him - while the other held yours to his chest, stroking it tenderly. “I’m getting there, Y/n. Rest, please,” he implored you brokenly, each time, “I’m here, Y/n. I’m here.”

His heart broke when you didn’t find the strength to quip back at him like you usually would.

You just smiled bravely.

For all the agony this put him in - all the torment you went through - it only fuelled his resolve to recreate the leash. The extra time you were giving at such great expense he put to good use - and there barely was a time there weren’t some shadow clones working on refining his copy of the leash. The price he paid for this was staggering. Each time he released them, the exhaustion almost floored him. Their experience and memories were invaluable for speeding up the process infinitely - to even give him a sliver of hope to make it in time - but a few days in and Tobirama was forced to sit down before he let go of the very jutsu he devised. Practical, it was. But the toll it took on one’s body was hellish - his vision would blacken, his knees shake and he was sure he fainted a couple of times, too, for the sheer amount of concentration each of his clones had poured into the task at hand.

Yet every time Tobirama felt he was teetering on the brink of a collapse, he simply reminded himself of what was at stake here.

Hellish became a relative term, then. He paid the small price, he figured.

And there were ways and means to keep going beyond any physical signs of exhaustion. Tobirama turned to them quickly when the usage of his shadow clone technique became too taxing - various medications starting with simple caffeine to more sinister substances if taken for too long a time. He didn’t care for that risk. Sleep simply was lost time. Needed, surely. He’d catch up, eventually. Because ultimately - ultimately, this whole game would be over very soon, way too soon. Cynically he did wonder sometimes when he’d start to see white mice running up the walls, hear voices whisper or other hallucinations - but his thoughts never strayed from either creating the leash or your current condition. There was no room for anything else. And he was nothing if not focused on his task.

Kimi’s blood samples had been valuable leads in the whole process of making this damned drug. They demonstrated how his alternative had affected her - which wasn’t far off the shot when it came to the muting component of the leash. The disruption only rudimentarily resembled the real leash. Nonetheless, he felt confident with enough shadow clones - he’d continue down this path and start to weave his chakra in better and better to get where it had to be. After all, the result had been promising. Lucky for him, because it did strongly suggest no jutsu was involved in creating the leash as such. It really boiled down to the weaving process and its complexity. He wondered how long it had taken Zenji to master creating the leash.

Weaving - as such it seemed to be a process that couldn’t just create a leash but any other kind of chakra infused drug.

Interesting.

His experiments on the prisoners supported his theory about the weaving further. Progress was exponentially accelerated due to his shadow clones, and as such the intricacy of his own weaving pattern made for better results. More and more, the immediate effects of the leash were becoming comparable to the actual leash - with no small amount of satisfaction, he observed how their chakra became just as muted and sluggish as yours, longer and longer. And with the same satisfaction he meticulously examined every second of their quite painful withdrawal to compare it to your symptoms and sufferings to ensure it’d be exactly the same - the fact the prisoners didn’t just harbor the same dislike for him they did for everyone at the headquarters but rather flat out hated him was entirely beyond him. He didn’t care. They were means to achieving a goal, nothing more.

Especially Zenji used every opportunity to count down the time to what he believed would be your demise. His perception of such must be entirely broken, as he missed the mark he prophesied would be your end - much to Tobirama’s smug glee. Though he knew better than to let anything on. Bickering with this man - with any of them - was just more waste of time. He simply went in with Ikuro, sometimes one of his subordinates, to brutally administer the leash and start to observe the prisoners and take blood samples. If any of them acted up in whatever ways they could - which wasn’t much, given their restraints - they were punished, harshly. He couldn’t risk spilling these experimental drugs, either. As Tobirama’s patience wore down alongside the remaining supply of the leash - and ultimately, your life force - more jaws were broken.

Naturally, his cold, almost brutal demeanour wasn’t noticed by the prisoners only. More than once Ikuro had to call him off for pushing the limit on what a subject could take - or disagree on continuing interrogation. Things Tobirama mentally rolled his eyes at but never spoke up against save for curt affirmations past his clenched teeth. Ikuro would be well within his rights to stop his proceedings altogether - or worse, report to Hashirama. It was a silent understanding that if the experiments became too dangerous, Tobirama had to stop and provide medical aid to the stone shinobi. As much as he hated it. He had to make better progress. You were paying the worst price.

Unfortunately the leash’s creation proved to be about the best guarded secret of Zenji’s mind - and with how he was biding his time, he was extremely determined to last longer than Tobirama, or rather, you. They gleaned all kinds of information not just from him, but also the other prisoners - the better Tobirama became at replicating the leash, the more effective the interrogation was. He surmised there may be even more complex machinations at work in how this drug worked in a person’s mind, but he had no proof of this, only theories. Not that he cared - it didn’t matter right now. Still, Zenji remained the toughest fortress; he’d die before cracking. Although Ikuro did appear to be more lax when it came to torturing and experimenting on him; Tobirama was not.

Just like Zenji, Kimi was refusing to surrender what little she knew of the leash, no matter how extreme the pressure. Two of their compatriots had cracked while under the effects of Tobirama’s leash-copy, a victory he did not celebrate at all. It was useless unless Zenji broke or he perfected the recreation of the leash. Anything else would result in your death. Still, it was one of the rare occasions he allowed himself a moment of smugness in front of Zenji.

No more than a sneer did Tobirama give him.

Zenji was fuming. “You think you’re so fucking clever-” he spat.

Tobirama raised an eyebrow and cut him off coolly. “I am. Despite your assertions, I am getting closer to recreating this precious leash of yours every day. And after that, you will be useless, given how your fellow shinobi keep cracking.” The last bit was spoken as darkly as he meant it to be.

Zenji bared his teeth - but not out of anger. He was grinning. “I’m sticking to my word, Senju - I will relish telling you the secret once Y/n died one of the most painful deaths imaginable while you sat by.”

Tobirama knew better than to let the ire that was flooding him show. Zenji’s jaw was barely healing.

Well, there were other bones to break, though.

“You might get closer to creating the leash, but you won’t succeed, and I’d give my damn life to see the helpless look on your face when Y/n takes her last, tormented breath, whispering your name in sheer agony as life-”

Tobirama’s arm shot forward before he could think. But he knew better than to punch the prisoner again. His vice grip had seized the broken jaw, nails digging into his cheeks to prevent so much as a scream coming out. Only a slow moan of pain. His scarlet gaze was murderous. “Actually, your pathetic life hangs on Y/n’s survival, Zenji. Do you realise that, you very, very clever man?”, Tobirama explained, frightfully calm.

Zenji stilled completely.

“I care not for something petty like revenge or your fate ultimately,” he continued icily, “but Konoha does not need to feed mouths that are useless to us nor send them back to the enemy to use them against us again. I think you can figure the rest out.” He released him as brutally as he could, turning on his heel. He had to leave before he did more to this man.

Zenji stopped shouting at Tobirama after this.

Even so, Zenji’s words had not rung hollow. As much progress he made when it came to the weaving process, permanence of the effects would not be attained. The more time - really, each passing hour - pressed him, the more desperate he became to solve this riddle - this seemingly last riddle stopping him from creating the perfect copy of the leash.

It was after yet another quite fruitful session of experimentation that he -

“Damn it!”, he shouted, smashing his balled fist on the lab bench after analysing the yield of the day thoroughly. The woven pattern was swirling brightly like it would in the leash, the complexity well fit the real drug and the experiments were showing promising results.

However… “It’s not a damn leash yet-” he breathed through his clenched teeth, swaying back, vision tunneling. He gripped the edge of the table just in time before he lost his foothold. The exhaustion from releasing his clones before had struck viciously again.

Hitting inanimate objects out of frustration was one thing. Talking to himself another. He dragged both palms over his face. By his current calculations, they had about sixty hours left.

Sixty hours, then they’d be out of leash and your time was cut very short.

Ice flooded his veins and his vision blackened completely briefly.

It couldn’t be helped. He needed a jutsu - or a seal - to perfect the leash. At this point - with this little time left - his previous evaluation of such a technique being an obstacle he'd scale easily compared to what he had done so far seemed quite daring. In fact, how could he have thought anything about this was going to be easy? Even when he had already guessed he’d need this, sooner or later.

Ultimately he started to divide his shadow clone force between perfecting the weaving process and starting to figure a seal out to make the effects last - rather, the disruption. Since the muting component did wear off at a comparable time in his own creations now, it was a fair assumption no technique sealed this effect in. And the way the disruption almost branded itself into a victim’s blood - that was all the more telltale. But how to create a seal that worked in a liquid? Back when he initially assumed such a seal to be of inferior quality due to a lack of external evidence, he automatically assumed it should be simple to create one himself. Now, it almost felt like starting over again - like when he was weaving the second component in. A seal that did not just ensure permanence of the effects but rather only concern a single effect - ridiculous. Somberly he realised actually back then, he simply had not grasped the complexity of all this fully to make such an assumption in the first place.

More guilt to burden him, ultimately.

Just as he feared, initial tests proved to be difficult in the way a seal damaged the delicate weave of his chakra in the base liquid. He quickly discarded the approach in favour of starting from scratch - if only the disruption stuck, then it was quite possible a seal was applied before the second component got woven in. That worked better - slightly, if just for the fact the substance was less intricate like this and a seal was simpler to apply like this. Even so, Tobirama could think of a handful of seals to preserve chakra in some capacity. He’d have to take a logical approach: given there had been no outward sign of a seal being used, it must be a simpler one. Furthermore, he knew from your blood samples the way the drug didn’t just cling but nearly branded itself to you; therefore there must be a way for the seal to interact with the victim’s organism as well. That seemed doable; seals followed the rules the user created. Like a string of orders. He felt confident in his skill to pull it off - if it wasn’t for the fact he was trying to place a seal in a liquid substance right now. A seal on a parchment, sure. Medical jutsu that required seals, absolutely. Seals in combat, too - but in a liquid?

He had no time to dwell on whether or how that was possible. Once more his shadow clones would aid him in trying out different approaches: applying seals to the vial first, weaving the disrupting component in and then trying to seal it off, or even trying to weave in a seal alongside the disruption. The last of the approaches appeared to be more fruitful than the others truth be told, but the more effort he gave it, the less the tender fabric of the drug tore apart for it in either one. The leash really was about patience, a knack for handling very fragile threads of chakra and a lot of concentration. None of which Tobirama could claim he had in great quantity right now. By the end of this session releasing his clones resulted in him losing consciousness for a solid thirty minutes. When he woke, he had a headache as though someone drilled a hole into his skull.

Naturally that didn’t stop him. All three of his experiments were tested right away and despite Ikuro’s concerns to not divide Tobirama’s attention between three prisoners, the man enforced his will by ultimately reminding everyone of the ticking clock. Each passing second made him more desperate and the life of a Stone shinobi less valuable. Even if he lost all three. He still had three more.

“They still hold information we have not yet cracked,” Ikuro warned sternly.

“Testing each of these one after the other is going to cost hours that Y/n doesn’t have,” Tobirama spat back, unfazed. “I’m here, I can use a shadow clone to divide my attention if need be,” he elaborately nonchalantly.

Ikuro crossed his arms. “That’s not the same.”

Tobirama growled exasperatedly. He wasn’t about to explain his own damn jutsu to Ikuro now. “I assure you, it is. Let’s use the broken prisoners, they’ve lost value, if that eases your concern.” The coldness of his tone made clear what he was implying.

Unsurprisingly, Ikuro wasn’t taken aback by his lack of regard for human life. His job demanded a certain detachment from just that, Tobirama figured. “Alright.” Even though Ikuro still didn’t seem quite sold on Tobirama’s plan. The life of a Konoha shinobi still bore greater weight than that of Stone prisoners.

At the end of that day, Tobirama realised his intuition had been right: the test subject with the third method showed a prolonged phase of withdrawal, serious symptoms - serious enough to warrant medical observation that Tobirama left to the unit with clear instructions. He didn’t have time now. Sadly the seal’s permanence was not on par with the leash’s yet - the withdrawal had been fading, too.

But this - all this, it was the right direction. He knew it. If he gave his all into his and worked with the time he had left, he felt he could reach this insane goal of recreating this drug.

Following the experiments, he sat by your side that evening while you were allowed a short moment of simple sleep. No withdrawal, no terrors under the effects of the leash. He dared to feel a sliver of hope. No more. Gently, his hand stroked your forearm as his heart ached from watching you. You’d open your eyes briefly and recognition flashed in your gaze - he simply let his chakra coat your network in a warm embrace. Stiffness eased out from his shoulders as his eyes prickled again.

“I’m getting there, Y/n,” he simply whispered, tenderly.

You gave no reply or notion of having gotten the message. His heart hurt more for it.

Of course he already had a handful of clones working on the approach before he left for your side to join them in the endeavour.

The final race began after that. Using as many clones as he possibly could, he started to create the leash - really create it, not just parts of it, practicing weaving or trying seals out. This was it - he would need to perfect this procedure until an immaculate result in a prisoner was achieved. Once he tethered one of them to the leash, he knew he had succeeded and could make more for you. The proverbial light at the end of this hellish tunnel kicked his system more into overdrive than any substance he could take to keep himself on track. It was a real high, almost.

Hashirama tried to get him to rest once he caught wind of the fervor with which he worked.

“You’re doing what?!”, his brother near shouted, horrified.

Tobirama rolled his eyes. He didn’t have time for this. “Get out of here and back to Y/n,” he ordered sternly, not even looking back at his brother, standing in the door of the makeshift laboratory.

Hashirama’s footsteps drew closer, a hand on Tobirama’s shoulder had him whip around with unconcealed fury. “What.” Tobirama’s voice was an infuriated growl through clenched teeth. A warning everyone heeded. Except his brother, of course.

Hashirama didn’t pull his figurative punches now. “You’re using way too many shadow clones, you’re not sleeping and is-” he pointed on the lab bench, eyes wide now as he recognized the substances Tobirama had been taking, “-is that-”

“You worry about your work, and leave me to mine, anija!” Tobirama shouted back with unbridled ire, seizing his brother by the shoulders to start shoving him out.

Sadly, he was determined to stand his ground, swatting the hands away. “Sure, destroy yourself so the first thing Y/n can do after recovering is mourn you!” His dark eyes were ablaze now. Even for a non-sensor shinobi, the magnificent aura of his riled up chakra was easy to pick up on. For Tobirama’s senses, it was suffocating, like staring into the sun. The overload just fueled his anger more.

“Get. Out.” The heat was gone from his voice. It was a threat now.

Hashirama held Tobirama’s scarlet gaze for far longer than anyone else did. Wordlessly, he summoned a wood clone. “I’ll watch you. You’re not going to kill yourself, brother.” Then, he turned on his heels to leave the laboratory.

Tobirama was floored for a moment. How dare he. Then, he proverbially exploded as the fury burned so bright inside of him, it was painful. “You will do no such thing!” He yelled after his brother, following with swift stomps. “Take your damn babysitter with you, I don’t need one!”

Hashirama all but ignored him and simply kept on walking down the corridor. Tobirama rushed back to the laboratory where his clones were still at work to eye his brother’s wood clone with sheer antipathy. Briefly, he contemplated destroying it - but ultimately decided against that just for the fact that might break anything precious in the laboratory.

That meant he just had to conceal his exhaustion better now. And no more help from additional medication.

The rush to the finish line of the gruelling race was just as Tobirama had expected it. He didn’t measure time in days anymore but hours you had left. Your condition kept on worsening and ultimately, Hashirama decided they no longer could risk you going into withdrawal at all. That cut back the time slightly, but not much. Enough for Tobirama to not even feel the slightest bit of exhaustion anymore. Frankly during his work he was nothing but sharply focused. It was when he was by your side the emotions boiled up - the ache that teared at his heart, the suffocating sensation of sorrow, guilt. Overburdening protection paired with crushing worry. Your sheer will had bought them necessary time, he’d just make it work now. It was all he could do.

But now, even in what should be your rest - the precious hours in which you may wake - you barely opened your eyes anymore. They were forced to amp the seals up to a maximum of support to deal with the backlash of all the times you had suffered from the withdrawal, and either Hashirama or Tobirama constantly found themselves at your side to ensure your condition didn’t worsen. Every bit of additional chakra your strained system could take went into stabilizing you further from the inside. It was an extremely fragile balance they upheld - but the truth was, in the Stone shinobi’s hands your body had suffered grievous, outward wounds and now your inside was just as impacted by everything it had gone through.

Your path to recovery would be an arduous one. One Tobirama did not doubt one second you’d walk strongly and gracefully, one on which he’d not leave your side, at all. He still felt tremendous guilt for everything they - he - had been forced to do to you, everything you went through under his watch. Even now, what little time he spent monitoring you, examining your condition, he never let the warm connection fade - hoping you might at least feel that.

That you weren't alone.

Progress on the leash was as exponential as expected. His shadow clones and his own vigour ensured as much. Over and over he perfected the results he produced. Time would not allow for lengthier tests anymore as the better his craft became, the longer a test subject suffered from the effects of his leash. He had to cycle through the prisoners who barely caught a break now, not that he cared, of course. But every experiment needed to start from a fresh slate, otherwise the result might be muddled. What he could do in the laboratory was to compare his own substance with the actual leash - which he did with unmatched diligence. Once a confusing swirl of chakra, intricate and impossible to pick apart easily, he now saw structure in it. With the experience of not just himself but many copies of himself, he now was sure: learning to create the leash might take months, if not years.

When your hours were down to a single digit, he was unable to find a difference between his version of the leash and the actual drug.

An eerie kind of excitement gripped him. His head spun dizzily from it. Had he done it? Was this it?

Only one way to find out. And no time to waste. They had just a single dose of the leash left to give to you.

Tobirama turned to what he sarcastically dubbed his babysitter. “Tell my brother with luck, I’m off to the interrogation headquarters for the last time.”

The last time he slept was forty-one hours ago. Involuntarily, at that. Overwhelmed by releasing the shadow clone jutsu, as it was.

The wood clone nodded and turned to leave.

Tobirama used his hiraishin seal to teleport to the interrogation headquarters after slipping the vial into his pocket - he had placed a branded piece of parchment there days ago. Another way to save time.

He headed straight for Ikuro’s office. By now the members of the interrogation unit knew when not to stand in his way - it was the kind of thoughtfulness he appreciated, even though he never uttered a word to that regard. Given the time of the day, early morning, Ikuro was behind the desk. Tobirama didn’t even knock but tore the door open.

“We need to start another test now.”

Ikuro glanced up from the document he was reading. By now he knew not to expect ‘good morning’ from him anymore or other pleasantries. Still, this was quite straightforward even for Tobirama’s standards. “You’ve been here last night,” he replied evenly, raising an eyebrow.

“And I’ve made progress since then. I have reason to believe I’ve done it.” Finally.

That elicited a whistle of surprise even from Ikuro, who seldom did more than smile slightly at whatever was tossed in his direction. But a frown followed. “I don’t need to tell you that-”

Tobirama slammed his palm on the table a huffed through clenched teeth. “I know and we don’t have any time left,” he hissed, borderline desperate now. The fact this would be his last shot before you - he refused to finish the thought.

Ikuro’s mien was stony, but he rose to his feet. “Kimi should be most recovered.”

He followed silently down into the holding block. Whatever gazes he might have felt upon him he either was accustomed to or forgotten. Except for Zenji’s stare. The damn, knowing stare. He never looked more than a spare second into his eyes.

Upon unlocking Kimi’s door, the woman’s head raised up slowly to muster her new company with contempt. The last days had left traces on all the prisoners. Like her compatriots, even the mental bulwark of seeming sheer insanity was showing cracks. Kimi had dark rings under her eyes and the proverbial paint was flaking off. “Is Y/n not fucking dead yet?”, she commented lazily, gaze settling on the vial in Tobirama’s grasp. They had long passed the stage of feigned pleasantries, inquiries about your wellbeing, or even Ikuro behaving like a friend towards her.

All of this had become a well practiced ritual the prisoners knew better than to resist. In a way, they had broken them all in that regard.

Ikuro seized the back of her head already and gave Tobirama a nod.

Kimi’s nostrils flared. “Can’t be much longer now. Y’still gonna keep trying to make the leash after she’s dead, by the way?”, she spat, fighting against the vice hold of the interrogation master.

Tobirama walked closer slowly, expression steely. As cold as he felt inside. He always did when he was down here - these people were barely human to him, anymore. Threats like Kimi’s were their favourite to make. He knew better than to react. His hand shot forward to grasp her jaw - her resistance was notably weaker than it had been a few days ago.

Good.

Easily, his hand could coax her jaw forward to open her mouth and pour only a small portion of the vial in. Ikuro shot him a questioning glance. “I’ll explain later.” Tobirama answered gruffly as he secured her throat to prevent her from spitting anything back at them. She gagged briefly, prompting Tobirama to up the pressure until she swallowed.

“Fuck you,” she spat, but her pupils dilated already.

Ikuro closed his eyes to get to work. Tobirama monitored the effect of his leash unfolding briefly and with no small amount of satisfaction. The muting component hammered Kimi’s chakra network just like yours had been. His heart beat faster. Swiftly he withdrew to take a first blood sample of the initial effect and continued to monitor Kimi, who had surrendered to the torture silently by now. Unusual. Most of the time, she found ways to spew colorful insults at either him or Ikuro.

Interesting.

The rest of the experiment proceeded just as perfectly. Tobirama felt near dizzy from the nervousness that gripped him and he was surprised to find he wasn’t shaking from excitement when the withdrawal began to hit the stone shinobi as the muting component wore off - sooner than usual, thanks to the smaller dosage, but it still took quite a while. Ikuro wasn’t finished with the mental interrogation yet, but a frown wrinkled his forehead.

“She’s becoming weaker,” he noted.

“I know. Keep on going.” Hell, they might even crack her now with the added pressure. After all, Tobirama was painfully well-versed in dealing with withdrawal effects, and Kimi’s body was not suffering from chakra overloading at all.

The shift in the dynamic hadn’t escaped Kimi, either. Restlessness was gripping her. “This doesn’t change anything,” she pressed out, breathing laboured. Her forehead was covered in a fine layer of sweat. It wouldn’t be long now until the withdrawal will become painful.

Tobirama ignored her and gripped her throat tighter as he examined more closely. If the disruption didn’t fade he -

“It doesn’t change-,” Kimi choked out again, against the vice grip he held her in. “-fucking anything!” Her voice had become a fine sneer in the end.

Tobirama opened his eyes to find the prisoner grinning, staring at the ceiling with a hollow glance. That didn’t sit well with him. Kimi knew more about the leash - knowledge they hadn’t yet gotten out of her.

They’d still proceed now. No turning back.

More time passed. She shouted out again a couple times, more slurred than the other before a tremor gripped her body and the words became gargled moans of pain. Inflammation began to kindle inside of her in an awfully familiar way. The disruption was starting to wreak havoc inside of her. Time for the next blood sample, which Tobirama took swiftly.

“Her mind is becoming fragmented, Tobirama,” Ikuro warned, pale eyes opening. That wasn’t good. He wouldn’t continue like this.

“I’ll stabilise her. I need to know if this fades or not,” he answered tersely, blood rushing in his ears. If it didn’t fade - then he’d -

One step after the other. Carefully he let his chakra strengthen each of Kimi’s organs somewhat, only enough to keep her going. The tormented groans subsided if just slightly, and Ikuro closed his eyes again as the haze that surrounded Kimi’s mind became thicker again. So close. They were so close.

Relief did not last long for her. Very soon, the prisoner was deteriorating again.

Tobirama almost shouted from the utter relief he felt. It could only mean one thing. His heart beat so frantically it might as well jump out of his chest at this point.

Ikuro gave him a stern reminder to watch for Kimi again, but Tobirama’s hand had seized the spasming jaw of the prisoner already. Silently, Ikuro watched as he poured the rest of the vial in only to directly continue monitoring her again.

The disruption subsided swiftly as her chakra network became near mute again. Kimi stilled completely, raising her head slowly to let out a drawn-out groan. Her gaze fixated Tobirama, pupils blown wide. There was recognition in it, but in a deranged, wild way - akin to an animal rather than a human person.

Tobirama's scarlet gaze was ablaze, his eyes widened. A low, utterly satisfied growl resounded through the cell - "Yes," he muttered, entirely absorbed in his examination.

Her reply hit like a kick to the gut.

“The leash is tied to a person… and the hand that holds it.”

Right after, her body went limp again as she surrendered to the psychotropic effects of the drug.

Tobirama took a step back, reeling. The blood still rushed in his ears and the elation had cracked like glass that had been put under too much strain. What the hell was that supposed to mean? What was it now? What else did he possibly have to think of? The experiment's result was perfect.

By all means, this woman was tied to the leash now, the leash Tobirama had created.

He just had to make more of it now - you’d be safe and he could work on a cure. But why was he feeling like his breath had been stolen from him? As though he had run the mile, won the race and yet still had to keep running, or else? His hands trembled slightly as he kept staring down the limp prisoner.

Ikuro cleared his throat. “That’s enough for today. Follow me, Tobirama.” His voice sounded urgent. Startled, Tobirama’s eyes widened slightly, he nodded only.

As they passed Zenji’s cell, the man stirred. “So,” he called out, chains clinking as he threw his body against them. “You made it? Tied Kimi to the leash?” His tone was about as icy as one might get.

Tobirama stopped in front of the cell to give him a lethal glare, all nervousness subsiding in favour of sheer fury. Ikuro stopped as well, giving Tobirama a warning glance.

“I won,” he sneered back, eyes narrow. “As I said, I recreated that little tool of yours.” His voice was dripping with caustic arrogance.

Zenji attempted a grin that looked crooked by how swollen his face still was. “I wonder about that.”

Icy dread was pooling inside of Tobirama faster than he could control it. His mien turned stony as he tried to just not rush in and break Zenji’s jaw again for his insolence. And yet the words were haunting him. Just like Kimi’s had. “You had better start thinking about another way to appear useful to us.”

Without allowing another word from the prisoner, he walked towards Ikuro, heading for the office. Surprisingly, Ikuro shut the door as soon as they were inside.

The burly man cut straight to the chase. “Kimi’s mental defenses were extremely low today,” he began. Tobirama’s heartbeat picked up again. Ikuro frowned. “I was able to glance at her knowledge about the leash. Perhaps she wanted me to, I don’t know.”

“What did you learn?”, Tobirama snapped back before he even realised what words his brain had chosen. His tone wasn’t just stern - it was commanding.

“The Stone’s interrogators use the leash frequently.” Nothing new there, Tobirama figured. With how much effort that went into this drug. He was ready to ask for more information, but Ikuro beat him to it. “However, it seems once the leash is administered to a prisoner, they always receive it from the same creator, or one of his students.” Ikuro’s frown deepened.

The realisation hit Tobirama before he could coherently process the words. The dread that had formed earlier spiralled out into every vein of his body, an ice cold shiver ran down his spine. No, he had not come this far to learn this - all this-

“What does that mean?”, Ikuro inquired when Tobirama gave no answer.

He turned around slowly to put his hands against the doorframe, taking deep breaths now. His head was swimming. This information - all he knew about the leash - it was already pooling into his mind to form a muddied mess that wouldn’t produce a coherent thought.

His breaths were raspy and short. Finally, he swallowed against the lump in his throat. He didn’t want to speak about this. He had to return to the lab. Now.

“It means Zenji might be the only one able to create the leash for Y/n,” he answered, voice dead.

_______

He had precious little time left until you needed the last dose of the leash. After that, your lifespan was down to a mere few hours. Tobirama’s heartbeat never slowed down as he arrived in the laboratory, his shaking hands placing Kimi’s recent blood samples in the rack containing a great variety of vials now. His vision was tunneling.

Only one shot.

Kimi’s statement - Zenji’s following it - and Ikuro’s information pointed towards one thing: the creation of the leash and the following interaction with the victim’s body was such a complex reaction that it didn’t allow for a different torturer’s leash to be administered to the same victim. Why was that? Tobirama could easily guess. With how much time he had spent weaving this damned drug all the little intricacies, the finicky process, it was easy to think there might be different ways to create it. Different patterns. The leash demanded repeated doses of the same drug for the disruption to be muted by the muting component - they were woven together like threads of fabric. A different pattern would not fit. That much his experiments had ascertained, too.

Lucky for him - for you - he had stuck closely to Zenji’s sample and while primarily trying to imitate the effects of the drug, he had unintentionally copied the weaving pattern of the man himself. That much he was sure of - he had analysed his version and Zenji’s, finding no difference.

Did that mean Kimi and Zenji just thought Tobirama had - somehow - found out how to weave the leash differently? It was a possibility.

He grabbed the blood sample that contained Kimi’s blood right after administration of Tobirama’s leash. Closing his eyes, he began to examine it in great detail. The drug had spread through it hazily, coating it thickly - clogging and fuzzy. Just like it had been in you. No, exactly like it had been in you.

A first wave of relief washed through him. There was no doubt about it - had someone placed a vial of your blood under the initial effect of the leash in front of him and that of a prisoner under his own, he could only tell the difference by the innate chakra signature every body part carried, available to his fine sensor skills only. Otherwise, this was the same.

His body vibrated with tense energy, teetering on the fine edge between nervousness and sheer panic. Things he’d never show to anyone. But in the privacy of this lab - his hand shook, his heart was jumping out of his chest.

Now to the second sample.

He clasped Kimi’s blood sample tightly and shut his eyes again. Examining closer and closer, the disruptive component became obvious - the sharp edges of the chakra that had coated the blood’s cells, scathing as they went, damaging, scratching. Just like in Zenji’s leash. That, also was to be expected - after all, he had tailored the effect as per the example he had been given.

Then why did he feel on edge? Why was time still running out? Something - something -

He took an even closer look.

And almost dropped the vial when it struck him.

“It’s the seal,” he muttered, shock and frustration fighting inside him as he felt as though he was bursting inside. The way his leash had near branded itself to Kimi’s blood - it was different, in such insignificant and tiny ways, Tobirama would’ve overlooked it. Were it not for the damned comment the lunatic witch had made, the information Ikuro had gleaned - there was no question about it. Zenji must use a slightly different sealing technique in his own version of the leash.

What would happen if he administered his own leash to you now?

Tobirama groaned painfully, rubbing a palm over his face.

This is a nightmare. It can’t be. You only had little time left until the next - the last dose of the leash. And he had no idea how to even figure out how Zenji sealed the disrupting component of his leash.

His breaths were coming faster now and the tightness in his chest became painful - so painful he clutched the black fabric of his shirt, wheezing. Closing his eyes, his other hand reached for the edge of the laboratory bench for support as his knees shook. Distantly, he realised what the panic attack for what it was, now. Logically, he recognized it. While all the same he figured he did not have time for this.

He had to work now. He had to try - to try and do - do something-

“Damn it,” he panted. His breaths were coming in abruptly, rashly.

His vision tunneled.

He had no time- He had to work- This wasn’t-

Darkness crept from his peripheral reception into the center and Tobirama closed his eyes to force his breaths to slow down. Weakness. This was nothing but temporary weakness he had to overcome swiftly.

By sheer willforce only quite possibly, he was riding the anguishing sensations out slowly before his body would obey him again.

Then, he grabbed the precious tiny sample of Zenji’s leash and did the only thing that came to mind: to try and dissect it for any clues. Anything at all that might tell him how Zenji sealed off his leash - anything for Tobirama to guess at the process to copy it. He began the procedure much like he’d perform an autopsy on a cadaver: from the outside to the inside. Peeling off layer after layer, removing bits and then cutting them apart into tinier pieces to examine them more closely. Systematically - thanks to his extended knowledge about the leash, there was some of that to his approach here. Of course the leash didn’t have organs like a body did, however since he knew how it was woven, he was able to trace it back this way, sort of.

Zenji’s seal was woven into the disruptive component like Tobirama’s was, intertwined in an intricate fashion he frantically sought to unravel.

But try as he might - it was impossible. Since there was no ink work - no physical trace of the seal left save for the chakra threads alongside the disruptive component - there just was no telling just how his sealing technique might be working. Tobirama knew this.

He knew - he knew it simply was not possible.

Yet he kept on looking, searching for any clue - until the last bit of the tiny sample was entirely dissected.

And he was left empty handed.

His heart stopped for a moment and ice-cold shock burst in his chest.

Was this it, now? Had he come this far to surrender to this damn detail? He closed his eyes slowly as breaths came in faster and faster again, more ragged each time. The world was frozen. Time stood still for a moment as his mind raced faster into nowhere, while his heart, his heart knew well enough there was nothing left.

Crushing sorrow followed the shock, his lip quivered. Wetness formed under his lids and quelled down his cheeks.

“Fuck!”, he shouted - no, roared as he smashed the vial containing the useless sample of the leash against the wall.

“Fuck, fuck, -” he kept yelling the profanity over and over as if that brought any relief, his hands in his white hair, pulling. He didn’t feel any physical pain - he felt nothing except for overwhelming despair that filled every crack of his mind and emotional pain too great to put into words yet his heart was being torn into two.

He’d lose you - you, the only person he’d ever entrust that silly organ to.

He had promised you -

After all he’d done -

Limply, he sunk down with his back against a wall of the laboratory, having no idea how he had gotten there. Tears were streaming down his face freely now, he didn’t even make any effort to wipe them off or reign in any feeling anymore. It was all too much. Wheezing and sobbing he sat there for who knows how long - letting desperation and grief crush him like metal between hammer and anvil. Jaw taut as he clenched his teeth, eyes hidden under his palm - he couldn’t move. He didn’t want to.

He had failed you.

And now you’d die. ______ the story isn’t over yet! but i reckon I should be hanged for this cliffhanger. STAY WITH ME THOUGH OKAY!!

#tobirama #tobirama senju #tobirama x reader #tobirama senju x reader #sekhmet writes

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farfromsugafanfic · 3 years

Text

Waiting For Superman

Genre: Superhero AU, Comic Book AU?, Journalist Namjoon, Journalist OC, best friends to lovers, Action, Angst if you squint, Fluff

Pairing: Namjoon/Reader

Warnings: cursing, violence, injury, hospitalization, bombings, hostage situations, kidnapping, uses chloroform to make someone unconscious, alcohol, physics lol

Synopsis: After your father, one of the top antimatter scientists is killed in his laboratory by villain Outlier, you and your best friend, Namjoon survive the only known antimatter bomb, you both go on to be two of the top journalists in Metropolis. Only, there’s something off about you that most people can’t put their finger on. Namjoon is the only one who notices, not even you know your biggest secret. Hoping to protect you from Outlier, Namjoon also guards a secret of his own.

Note: This is the beginning of a new AU series. This is also in the same universe as my Jin imagine, Heartbreak Weather. This story will continue in the background of future installments.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

"Damn," you said, looking through the article proposals for the week. "I have five proposals to do a story on the two weathermen that got together. Is nothing else interesting happening in Metropolis?" Reaching into your desk, you pulled out your lunch consisting only of a slightly too brown banana. You frowned. "I hate to say it, but it's really too bad that Outlier has been so quiet lately."

Namjoon chuckled. "You'd wish for a little peril in Metropolis if it made a good story." His lips curled upward and he adjusted his slightly too large glasses.

You smiled at your head writer's sarcasm. "Just a little peril. Not too much." Turning around to place the accepted and rejected proposals in their respective boxes, you returned to find a bright yellow banana sitting on your desk. It made you pause, but you shrugged as you peeled it open. "Besides, Antimatter Man always stops whatever his antics are."

"It's not always Antimatter Man."

You hummed in response, already marking up an article in red pen. "Most of the time though."

The conversation lulled, but it didn't feel awkward. You'd worked with Namjoon for nearly three years now, but known him much longer. You were his soundboard and he was your common sense.

"Maybe we do a piece on his recent quietness?"

You looked up. Namjoon already met your eyes. He sat with one leg on top of the other, forming a triangle and his arms crossed over his chest. You'd noticed the way his clothes began to fit tighter, stretching over new muscles. It surprised you. Namjoon never seemed like the athletic type. You were more likely to find him studying physics at the city library for his newest piece on Antimatter Man than in the gym building a physique rivaling a marble statue.

"That seems like a good idea." The pen pressed to your lips you didn't notice the way the ink blotted against your lips. "You wanna take it on?"

"Sure." He pushes one leg off the other and stands up. "I'll try to have it to you by morning."

You nod, trusting him fully to have his piece ready for the morning edition. He moved towards the door and you felt as he paused. Even though you weren't looking at him, you could tell the way he stood, with his hand gripping the door frame, his body half in, half out.

"Don't stay too late, Y/N. He might be quiet now, but you know that won't be forever."

You did know. Maybe more than anybody.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Outlier first started terrorizing the Greater Metropolis area when you were twelve. It started off typical. A few particularly successful bank robberies netted him more than enough money for a lifetime. If it were you, you would've taken the money and moved far away, lived out the rest of your days peacefully. But, Outlier didn't want just the money.

When you were fifteen, however, it all changed.

It was nearly 9 pm. Your father had not returned home from work. It wasn't all around unusual. He often pulled long hours at the lab. But you felt an itch at the back of your spine. Like a spider crawling up each vertebrae like a ladder.

You called Namjoon. He was the only person you knew with a car, and the only one you knew wouldn't ask too many questions. Twenty minutes later, his headlights showed through the curtains of your bedroom.

"Hey," he said. His voice greeted you, full of exhaustion and the buoy that had bounced back and forth in the water between you.

Namjoon was your longest friend. You met in Kindergarten when you'd come across Namjoon in the back corner of the playground. Pushed against the pavement, two second graders tore off his glasses and put them on, mimicking his front teeth that stuck out before he got braces in high school.

You'd chased them off, managing to pick up his glasses off the ground. They were still broken, but you helped Namjoon tape them to get through the rest of the day. Since that day, you'd become almost inseparable. That was until you got a boyfriend.

You, of course, accused Namjoon of being jealous when he didn't immediately take to the idea of you and Vincent. Though, despite the accusation, you knew it was far from the truth. It wasn't hard to see that Vincent was bad for you. He was the reason your grades began to drop, why you knew the familiar burn of whiskey down your throat, and why were spending that night--Valentine's Day--alone.

"You haven't heard anything from him?" Namjoon backed out of your driveway before you even managed to get the seatbelt hooked.

You shook your head. "He normally calls if he's running late."

It takes another twenty minutes to reach your dad's work. Located just outside the city, you could see Longevity Labs ten minutes before you reach it. Up on a hill, it was agonizing watching the building cycle in and out of view with every turn and switchback.

When you get there, you look up to the fourth floor where your father's lab was. The lights were still on and you felt the coil in your chest unravel a little. Though not completely.

The elevators in Longevity Labs had been broken for years now and you didn't pay them any mind as you walked to the staircase and climbed the four floors. Namjoon stayed close behind, though you didn't speak. It wasn't the first time the two of you had come to the labs together when you'd become worried. After losing your mom when you were young, a burr of worry attached itself to your heart and poked you when your father wasn't home by eight.

The metal of the doorknob felt warm. There were plenty of reasons for that, you rationalized. Your father was one of the top scientists in Metropolis, he worked with all sorts of dangerous things that could need a warm environment, or cause one.

You pushed the door open and met your father's eyes. They were wide open and empty. A silent scream falling from his wide open mouth. Your vision blurred and the thing you remember next is feeling Namjoon's hand on your shoulder as his voice elevated. It was only then you noticed that you weren't alone.

"What are you doing here?" Namjoon asked, his voice like the bark of a guard dog. It surprised you. For a boy of barely sixteen at the time, it felt like he suddenly was a man standing beside you. You were still just a tiny girl.

The man wore a mask. Of course he wore a mask. It was white with two diamond shapes for the eyes, only revealing a small bit of his pupil. The man didn't speak when he opened his hand, a metallic orb drifting upwards. He didn't throw it, but the orb moved quickly, like it was falling.

It was only later you learned that it was rigged to move upward like that. Real antimatter would act just like regular matter, nearly indecipherable. This--while true antimatter--was meant to hold your attention long enough.

The explosion pushed you towards the ceiling. You woke up to a firefighter reaching for your hand. It was only when you took it and tried to place your feet on the ground that you noticed that you and Namjoon ended up pushed through the wall and into the vent system near the ceiling. He wasn't fully awake, yet his arms still reached for you after you were peeled away from his body.

The two of you were the only known survivors of an antimatter bomb. Well, it was more like a grenade. Your father's lab, body, and work was largely destroyed in the explosion, but for some reason, you and Namjoon survived. It's wide believed that there was something wrong with the bomb. That it didn't attack your living cells.

You and Namjoon did not come out unscathed. Somehow, you got off fairly easy with a broken collarbone, a concussion, and a few deep cuts around your body. Namjoon, on the other hand, never fully awoke for a week. He'd broken three ribs, one of his lungs collapsed, his head injury much worse than yours, permanent damage to his spine. When he woke a week later, you wanted to envelope him in a hug and never let go.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Namjoon found you curled up in the newspaper archives at midnight. He was the only one who knew your Valentine's Day ritual. He moved the papers from your lap and took the glass of wine from your hand before it spilled. Just like every year, the paper was open to your dad's obituary and the news coverage of the explosion.

The edges of the paper were brown and crisped as if they were sixty years old instead of ten. His brow furrowed as he touched them. Between his fingers, the brown edges lightened as he brought them towards the light.

Ever since that night, your mission was to expose Outlier. You knew he wasn't some superhuman. Your dad worked with antimatter to harness its capabilities for good. For medical applications and using its destruction for renewable energy. Outlier wanted to use antimatter in the way everyone feared. To destroy.

As he moved the paper with your father's smiling face, he saw another, a jolt running down his spine. The headline took up almost half the page, "New Hero Emerges In Fight Against Outlier."

Outlier's antics became more calculated. Everyone knew he had the capability to use antimatter, but his subsequent movements involved raids of laboratories outside the city and taking a graduate student hostage. No one else died.

It was during the hostage situation that Antimatter first saved the day. It was around a year after your attack and Antimatter Man successfully infiltrated the laboratory and got the hostage to safety before the entire lab exploded. It was only in his next act of heroism that the city realized he was more than just someone who risked his life to save someone. He had powers.

Next time, Antimatter Man disabled a device strapped around a victim's neck with just a touch. It was determined to be a miniature explosive that would've destroyed the man had it gone off. The hero could manipulate antimatter. Destroy it--and was later determined--create it.

When Antimatter Man caused an explosion in an alleyway, he was lucky that only one bystander died. Like all the previous times he disabled one of Outlier's antimatter devices, he placed his hand on top of it. Instead of feeling the molecules burst like boba, he felt an energy build until it exploded.

Outlier purposely placed a more standard bomb that would explode in the presence of antimatter. It was a test. One Antimatter Man hadn't anticipated. In fact, it was rumored the hero had no idea the full scale of his abilities until that moment. The only reason he came out unscathed is because he was able to clock himself in antimatter to prevent the explosion from destroying him.

Namjoon knew that Outlier knew who Antimatter Man was. While the general public may not know that Antimatter Man was a victim of Outlier, or that he used chunky glasses and the Metropolis Daily to control the public's view of Kim Namjoon and Antimatter Man. Outlier was the only one who knew, not even you.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

The authorities always told you that Outlier may come back. Your father was the most prominent scientist working with antimatter technology and there were likely things Outlier had not figured out yet. He may come for your father's notes. Yet, he never did.

You weren't too worried about it anymore. It wasn't as if Outlier had a personal vendetta against you or your father. You hadn't seen his face. You'd practically passed out when you saw him, and probably would've had he not dropped the grenade when you locked eyes.

Still, you always watched your back when you walked from the Metropolis Daily office to your apartment. It was only a few blocks, but normally traversed after dark. Sometimes Namjoon came with you, though most of the time you persuaded him to just go back to his own place. Especially this night, you did not want Namjoon to know you didn't plan on going home.

Normally, when you hid your plans from Namjoon, it was because you were heading somewhere dangerous for research. Like the time you drove out into the forest on your own in search of Outlier's supposed hide out, or the time you decided to follow a man suspected to be Antimatter Man. Even as an editor, you still wrote, tending to keep the most hard hitting stories for yourself. Besides, few of your journalists were willing to possibly get close to Outlier. You'd survived once, you felt you could again.

However, this night, you were headed to the club. There was no reason or ulterior motive. You simply wanted to let loose. You knew Namjoon wouldn't like it. He wasn't smothering, he let you make your own decisions and do what you want, but his disapproving and worried looks always cut you deep.

You knew it all came from a place of concern. He always told you how thankful he was that he was with you that night. But, you always fit a pit of guilt in your stomach. Namjoon nearly died because of you. There was no way you were going to let that happen again.

You'd changed into something sexier before leaving the office, leaving your office clothes in your desk drawer. You always kept an extra set there any way in case you needed to pull an all nighter at the office. It was rare you got to go out and enjoy yourself on a Friday night and you already felt the contentment rising in you as you approached the club and heard the rhythmic thud of bass.

This particular club wasn't one with a line of people which was why you chose it. There was no wait. You could get in and out easily and without fuss. When you didn't get to do things like this often, you wanted to truly get to do them.

It wasn't long until you lost yourself. In the crowd. In the music. In your thoughts. Or rather, lack thereof. This is why people liked clubbing and loud music. It drowned out your worries. Everything became a constant hum in the back of your skull, where, for once, you could ignore it.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Namjoon had suspicions. It started when no fruit stayed ripe around you. The way that the microwave always sparked when you tried to make popcorn. And no matter what you did, it always ended up just a little too burnt. Nothing you did was ever quite right, but never quite wrong.

He always found his way to you whether he wanted to or not. It was as if the particles in his body were attracted to yours. Recognized them like their reflection. You got into a car accident two years ago and Namjoon had left work early that day, having felt an aching in his lower stomach. Fearing appendicitis, his supervisor sent him home.

He'd walked a block when he came upon it. You were sitting on the sidewalk, your hands pulling at the roots of your hair and your feet pointed towards each other. Something caused you to look up then. Namjoon wondered if you had the same uncanny sense he did, if you could put together when the other was in peril. When you saw him, your arms came around him and your shaking body burrowed into his for warmth.

When he was eighteen and you were seventeen, the two of you briefly shared an apartment. Namjoon had started taking classes at the university and you were in your senior year. While your dad had left everything to you--you were all he had--you sold the house a year after your dad died, unable to live there alone.

You'd come home one night after a basketball game. Namjoon always encouraged you to go, wanting you to feel like a normal high schooler. Though, while he was well intentioned, the efforts were ultimately fraught. You'd left at halftime because you think the concession stand hot dog made you sick.

Yet, when you came home. You found Joon spread out on the couch, bottles of alcohol spread around him like the crime scene markers around your dad's body. He'll never forget the light touches on his shoulder, then forehead, then bicep. The way it reminded him of feeling just a little too warm on a winter's night, pleasantly so.

His feet brought him to the entrance of the club and his heart sped up. You never came to places like this, but Namjoon knew you had the secret desire to. You'd always loved to dance even though you weren't particularly skilled at it. He walked inside, loitering at the edges of the dancefloor.

Namjoon had to keep himself from sneering at the sweaty bodies and couples dry humping each other. He never really understood the appeal of clubs. His eyes flit across the crowd, spotting your hair first. Even though you'd worked all day, you looked beautiful still. Your hair a little frizzier than usual and he recognized the tiredness in the way your moved your body to the bet. It wasn't lazy exactly, but it didn't have the same gusto as some of the others around you.

He wondered if his feeling had been off. Maybe he was just too on edge lately because Outlier had gone so silent. There was a parasite in the back of his mind that fed him anxieties. Was he planning something big? Had he finally figured out to build the bomb he wanted to? Was he committing lower level crimes Namjoon wasn't privy to? Did he know about you?

Watching you dance, he shook his head. You weren't in any danger. It was just in his head this time. Turning with his hands in his pockets, he took two steps towards the door of the club when he looked back and caught a glimpse of your smile. It was rare these days and not something he wanted to ruin with his worries.

With a small smile of his own, Namjoon left.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

You ended the night at around two a.m. You'd had two drinks, not enough to make you stumble out on the sidewalk, but enough to make you feel like you were. Taking off your heels, you gripped them in your fingers as you walked back towards your place. The walk should take fifteen minutes, but in your current state, you found yourself sauntering along as if the streets of Metropolis were perfectly safe in the wee hours of the morning.

If it were not for the alcohol in your system, maybe you would've sensed the presence behind you. Maybe you would've seen the dark shadow lingering behind you for the last two blocks. It wasn't until a hand clamped over your mouth, the other clamped around your jaw to prevent you from biting down on your abductor's fingers.

It was then you tasted it on your tongue. The rough, bleached taste of fabric. Something mildly sweet. Like laughing gas at the dentist.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Namjoon prided himself on his intuition. When you called him the night your father died, he almost ignored it. Nearly blinded by his teenage jealousy, it was a small pain in his stomach that made him answer his phone and rush to you that night.

He had the same pain now. Just below his ribs this time, he rubbed his fingers along the cotton of his button down as he glanced at your dark, empty office. You hadn't come in for work this morning. No one heard from you last night or this morning. And, despite this being unlike you, no one else seemed concerned.

You'd gained a reputation for your independence and ability to take care of yourself. You hardly ever asked for help--and while your own mind tended to think that an admirable trait--it only made Namjoon's mind race more. However, this made everyone else go about their day.

A half hour later Namjoon stood in his boss' office. "I'm not feeling well. Would it be all right if I took the rest of the day off?"

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

When you came to, you immediately noticed the lack of rough rope around your wrists or ankles. When you opened your eyes, however, you noticed the white cuffs floating half an inch from your skin. One cuff circled each wrist and another two around each ankle. You knew enough about how Outlier operated to know about these.

First seen in his second major hostage situation following your father's death, these cuffs did not touch the skin. But, if the hostage moves or tries to escape and their skin brushes the edge of the cuff, the invisible antimatter will attack the matter rich skin, flesh, and bone.

The first hostage to have worn these cuffs lost a hand before she understood how they worked. Now, Outlier gained easy compliance with even just the threat of his antimatter cuffs.

"Ah, so you've heard of them?"

Outlier sat across the room. HIs diamond slit mask shrouded in the shadows of the dimly lit room. It made your heartbeat easier knowing he still wore the mask. It meant he didn't plan on killing you. At least, not yet.

"You know--" Outlier paused, a soft lilt in his voice that annoyed you. Normally, the sort of singsong quality he had would make you flutter your lashes at him across the bar. Outlier's voice though, sounded like a children's song slowed down and played backward. "The technology for those cuffs I developed from some of your dad's research."

He stood up, moving closer. "The ability to suspend antimatter around a given object using the only gas in our world that antimatter cannot destroy. Quite brilliant, really."

As a teenager, you really did not know much about your father's research beyond its main goal: make the world better using the one thing that could destroy it. Your father had seen success in his lifetime. The use of antimatter in some medical technology aided the treatment of cancer and detecting major illnesses. It had saved lives.

You'd looked over a bit of your father's surviving research, of course. The things you had mainly consisted of experiment notes, a few crude sketches, and one report about a failed experiment. Nothing of value, really. It's why you always brushed off Namjoon's worries that Outlier would come back for it. What did you have that he would want?

"I imagine you know why you're here." Outlier was now only a few feet away and he leaned leisurely against the wall as if he were an old friend visiting your new apartment.

"No, I--"

"But, my assistant has something they want from you first."

Your head turned to the darkness in front of you from where Outlier had originally come. You made out the figure of another man. Smaller in stature, he shuffled slowly into the dim light. He didn't wear a mask, his hair falling into his eyes.

"My report," he said, his voice hesitant, almost scared. If you didn't know any better you'd believe he was the one being held hostage by Outlier. "Do you have it?"

"Your report?" Your brow furrowed as you thought about the one report you had. It detailed only the attempt to create an anti-oxygen particle. "I-I don't think so."

The air in the room became stuffy. Outlier seemed not to believe you, his arms crossed. You had no idea who Outlier's assistant was, but you were certain that whatever experiment he was a part of, your father would never have done something to make this man resent him. You almost wished you had the report.

"My assistant, you see," Outlier began in his singsong voice. "Suffers from a particular ailment brought on by one of your father's experiments. It tends to leave people, breathless. Isn't that right, Yoongi?"

The other man--Yoongi--glared at his supervillain boss. Something turned in your stomach. Yoongi didn't appear to be overly loyal to Outlier. Maybe he would be your key to getting out of this.

"Well, that was merely a favor. His report was never recovered and I thought there was a chance you may have it. But, now onto the real reason I've brought you here."Outlier crouched down, coming face to face with you. "Now, for an experiment of my own."

From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a short rod. Holding it above your bindings, the cuff fell limp and motionless against your wrist. You nearly flinched, worried it would begin cutting through the skin. But, it didn't.

Despite his mask, Outlier's form seemed to perk up at that. As if he had the first evidence that his hypothesis was true. With his thick, black gloves, that you were assumed were made of antimatterium--an element created by your father to make the handling of antimatter safer--Outlier slipped the ring off your wrist.

Reaching pack into his pocket, he pulled out a new ring and placed it around your wrist. It looked identical to the last, white, vaguely metallic with a visible field of matter--or possibly antimatter--surrounding it. Stretching it over your hand, he slipped it around your wrist.

"It should only take a few minutes."

Outlier stood back up.

"What's the point of this?" you asked, becoming more frustrated that nothing was happening. You knew you should be thankful you are still alive. It would be easy enough to kill you and rummage through your apartment for whatever he wants. Yet, for some reason, he refrained.

"I imagine you can figure that out on your own." Outlier watched the ring around your wrist carefully. "My biggest foe can only have a mind that rivals my own."

Biggest foe? Your mind turned over the possible meanings of his words until it clicked. "You think I'm Antimatter Man?"

Outlier didn't flinch. "Of course."

You laughed. You couldn't help yourself. While you'd never come to face to face with Antimatter Man himself, it was obvious that the superhero was easily many inches taller than you and his shoulders were easily the entire length of one of your arms.

"Me? Of all people?"

"It would make some sense, wouldn't it? Very few people survive the blast from an antimatter bomb. And those that do often acquire certain--capabilities."

You shook your head. "But, I'm not the only one who survived, Nam--"

You were interrupted by the sound of Outlier's surprise as well as the sound of banging from outside the room. Yoongi--who hadn't been paying attention--suddenly popped his head up and glanced towards the door to your left. With so many things happening at once, you chose to only focus on where Outlier's eyes went.

The ring around your wrist had begun to crumble like cheese. Bits falling off as they became too heavy or lost their support. Squinting your eyes you wondered how this was possible. You didn't get a chance to hop on your train of thought before the door burst open.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Antimatter Man burst into the room. He never wore a specific costume like superheroes were often penchant to do. Normally, he just wore an all black ensemble and a mask, obscuring most of his face. A hat usually then kept his hair hidden, beyond the tiny wisps of light brown you saw peeking out from underneath.

"Let her go," he said, his voice matter of fact and deep and familiar.

Outlier--to his credit--did seem genuinely surprised. Though, he bounced back quickly, ordering Yoongi to shut the door. The other man did so slowly and pathetically, letting it scrape against the splintered hardwood floor.

"Hmm, well, it would seem your presence here would confirm that my original hypothesis was wrong." A pause and he points down at you. "But I may have a new one."

For some reason, it took you this long to put together that you were destroyed the ring imprisoning your left wrist. Why hadn't the first one crumbled into nothingness like this?

"That ring is made of matter. Like most things in our universe. However, it is designed to crumble when it detects antimatter energy. She produces antimatter energy. Probably in small amounts which is why she and the world haven't destroyed each other yet." He looks back at Antimatter Man who's dark eyes are flitting between you and the villain. "Much like you, my nemesis. You destroy all antimatter you come into contact with through the latent production of pure matter. You really should correct the press on the name, you know?"

Your mind swirled. You created latent antimatter? Did this explain why everything in your life with a timespan seemed to die or wilt quicker than usual? Why people found you just slightly off?

"She has the potential to be my greatest weapon. If I can harness the antimatter inside of her. Determine whatever is producing it, I would no longer need to spend weeks producing such tiny amounts." You were certain that if his mask was off, his face would be lit up like a child's. His hand reached for yours and he pulled you up off the ground. The cuffs shifted with you since both you and the antimatter cuffs were under his control. Would they even work on you though?

Outlier held your back against his chest. It surprised you how much he felt like a normal man. Of course, that's all he was in the grand scheme of it all. Outlier was nothing more than a man desperate for something.

"No!" Antimatter Man sounded almost desperate. "Don't hurt her! She's been through enough. She didn't ask for it. She didn't even know about it. Please just let her go. I'll--" You can also hear the thoughts turning in his mind. "You can have me instead."

Your eyes went wide. Antimatter Man seldom placed himself directly into Outlier's hands. He was known for foiling the villain's plans remotely, sometimes even not showing up to the scene. And, even when they did come face to face, it was usually brief. What made this so different? What made you different?

Also, why did he talk like he knew you? Sure, your story had been in the papers a long time ago? You occasionally met a stranger who would recognize your name, but it was becoming less and less common with every passing year. How did Antimatter Man know you?

Outlier's grip on you tightened. One of his hands reached down for your wrist and held it up. Taking hold of the cuff, he brought it within millimeters of your skin.

"Now, let's be civilized about this. If you were truly worried about this girl because of her past, you wouldn't have let me take her in the first place."

Antimatter Man gulped. His body was stiff and his hands opened and closed. It reminded you of how Namjoon kept a stress ball in his desk drawer for whenever he had a stressful day. He'd squeeze and release it a few times in time with his breaths, getting out of his head.

"Yoongi," Antimatter Man said, his breath tickling the shell of your ear. "Open the back door for me would you?"

Yoongi didn't move. His gaze was hard, but not in a way that felt piercing or like he was looking through you. He was thinking.

"Yoongi," the villain said again.

Yoongi didn't move.

Antimatter Man took the opportunity and lunged. It was a risk. The cuffs still encircled one wrist and both your ankles. As you fell backward, it felt as if the world moved in slow motion, you watched your wrist fling back, hitting the ring of the cuff and bounce back, completely unharmed.

You land on Outlier's chest, but his grip on you loosened. You got up but immediately felt your legs give out. Someone caught you and you looked up to see Yoongi looking down at you. He didn't speak, or really show any expression beyond motioning to the back of the room where there was a door concealed within the wall. Likely, this was the back door Outlier wanted him to open earlier.

Even though Yoongi was working with Outlier, you felt like you were free. Something told you he was helping you. The man obviously did not swear much loyalty to the villain. You reached and pulled the cuffs off, causing Yoongi's eyes to widen and you felt his arms waver as you tossed them in Outlier's direction, hoping one would at least chink his antimatter protective armor.

Someone winced. And you recognized it. It was the same pain you heard that night when the bomb went off and you felt Namjoon's body wrap around yours. When he woke up in the hospital and you couldn't help but hug him, forgetting he had multiple broken ribs. Even in his pain, he didn't stop you.

"Oh my God."

You wrestled out of Yoongi's grasp. Outlier--seemingly not really wanting to fight--ran as soon as Antimatter Man fell to the ground. The cuff had sliced through his clothes and a gash opened on his leg. You crouched next to him and reached for the gash, applying as much pressure as possible

"It's not as bad as it looks. It'll heal by tomorrow."

You looked up at him and met his eyes. It was him. It had to be. You reached up for the edge of the mask. He didn't stop you, his dark eyes watching your hand as you reached up and revealed his identity.

Namjoon.

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