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#we have yet to see him absolutely losing it when he stops being so repressed
idliketobeatree · 6 months
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NO WAIT ROB ARE YOU TELLING ME AZIRAPHALE HAD, ADMITTEDLY, THE WORST KISS IN RECORDED HISTORY AND HE WAS STILL LIKE "come back and do that again, please, right now"?????!?!??!
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leggerefiore · 3 months
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Random though but Sawsbuck Ingo and Emmet getting their antlers stuck during and antler fight
cw: sawsbuck submas,
pairing: Ingo/Reader,
▲▽▲▽▲▽▲▽▲▽▲
Ingo grunted as he tried to pull himself back from Emmet. This caused the younger twin to cry out and make him freeze in the middle of his step. A few more tentative tugs of his head proved fruitless, as did Emmet's own. The Sawsbuck hybrids had heard of situations like this before but really never expected to find themselves in it. It was a simple tussle. Emmet had mostly started it because he was bored.
Now they were stuck.
It really hurt to have their necks stuck in that position, but pulling away caused more pain for both of them. Emmet's smile had fallen as it seemed to shift into a more contemplative state. Ingo felt annoyed. He was the older brother. He should have told him no and stopped this from ever being a possibility. Yet, somewhere, he enjoyed messing around much like they used to during their Deerling days. A sigh left him. Reaching a hand proved not to work either.
“Are we going to die?” Emmet spoke unexpectedly, eyes looking at the ground. Now Ingo felt worse.
“No,” he reassured him, “We'll get out of this. It might… just take some time. Let's stay calm for now.” The words appeared to have soothed the younger twin, as Ingo thought about other ways to get out. Breaking an antler would not be preferred, but between that or dying. Ingo wanted to groan. He would be the one losing an antler, he knew. The idea of causing Emmet that much distress upset him greatly.
Just as he was about to propose that suggestion when a familiar voice called out their names. They both tried to turn their head in the direction it came from in sync, but the tugging led to more pain, so they both froze and nearly fell. You broke out of the tree line moments later, a bit stunned to see the deer men in their predicament.
Ingo felt embarrassment pang in his heart at your expression, while Emmet suddenly turned frustrated, upset by being seen in such a vulnerable state. A small laugh came from you as you stepped closer to them. They were certainly interlocked. A joke to call them conjoined crossed your mind, but you held back. Instead, you asked them what happened and listened to Ingo's bereft explanation. An urge to scold them also had to be repressed.
Reaching a careful hand into the mess of wooden antler, you carefully worked to undo the mess the two had themselves into. Many complaints were vocalised or whined as you tried to work in a manner that hurt them as little as possible. Eventually, they pulled back from one another, not having lost a bit of their extensive growth. Emmet almost instantly trotted off, clearly too embarrassed to face you, while Ingo laid down on the grass to regain himself.
Your kindness had truly saved them a lot more pain. He gazed at you gratefully. “Thank you, dearest,” Ingo spoke genuinely and lightly clapped his hands, “I was about to suggest that I break one of the antlers to free us, but you came just before I could.” Your expression shifted into a pout. A quick stride over to him had you cupping and squishing his cheeks.
“You and your self-sacrificing nature,” you shook your head, “Stop that. Emmet would have felt bad, and you know it.” Ingo's heart raced. Why his younger brother surely would have felt bad, it would have been for the greater good for both of them. “And besides, you two like to match. He'd probably end up breaking off some of his antlers to mimic you.” Ingo gasped. He surely would not! There was no need.
Though, upon considering it… Ingo sighed. He would. Emmet absolutely would.
“Yes, yes… I'm sorry,” he nodded, “Next time, I intend to prevent the situation of his becoming locked up from happening in the first place. No more battling.”
You truly wondered how long that would last.
~
“Are you feeling okay now, Emmy?” you asked the Sawsbuck hybrid after he returned to your cabin by the evening. He still seemed a bit upset, but mostly in a better mood. You offered him a doughnut and giggled when he eagerly snatched it away and ate it. His mood perked even more up as he suddenly whisked you into a hug.
“I'm verrrry sorry you had to see us like that!” he whined, “We made you upset. You looked so hurt.” You sighed and returned the affection to the poor guy. Was that really it? It appeared to be embarrassment, but…
“It's alright,” you reassured him, “I'm just glad you two were fine in the end.” Emmet nodded quietly yet refused to let you go. You decided to let him have this for a while.
Until Ingo popped out of cabin, wanting to cuddle up to you for the night.
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the-firebird69 · 2 years
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He stands out there for hours sometimes in his yard across the street or here he's going back and forth all day long he's threatening our son's mail and it's a federal post office and it's illegal to do what he's doing and he's sending code and they know what the code means he's a bum and he's a loser he's trying to steal our son's mail which is probably not even coming today and he's a fool but he's broadcasting it and saying it out for other people's mail to be taken so I'm posting this because this is the boob doing the ordering for all those idiots you see running around trying to do stupid things to people now he's touching himself and inappropriately in public and he's a winner okay this guy is a piece of dog s***
Repressing new charges against him and we're going to file them shortly with the local courthouse and he's going to be real surprised when they come and pick him up no cuz he gets picked up every day it sits there like some f****** ignorant slob that can dump faces like a kid getting people mad and they punch him out. He also loses all of his stuff in Florida like everyday by being a complete a******. Is also out to lunch and sitting there talking to him no he's having this translated from voice you saying it so he can hear it in the idiot can't figure it out. He's lost about 95% of his fortune by being here next door illegally and he's lost it to people around him and to the government and to Tommy F mostly the last one and he continues to be an a****** and that's why they're doing it to him and he refuses to change his attitude and his motif and motive modus and everybody's taking it out on him. And he's lost all his spaceships and he's lost probably 75 to 80% of his personnel in total including clones and the guy refuses to acknowledge that any of it happens he is a complete absolute jerk okay the guy is an animal he does not have the audits program he's a cheesy program and they kicked him out of Carnegie Mellon because he's not a real programmer all he does is place things together and he doesn't even modify it and he has been going around killing Max in punta Gorda and he just leave him here to annoy our son so wondering why well we went out and there's a whole bunch of idiots around and they cut them in half in the past hour is the same thing. And bja is going after him hard he's sending troops after him here in Florida on the constant basis he refused to shut up he refuses to go away won't stop bothering people is it his gigantic blaspheme we're done at court finally more charges we want to restraining order that is acted upon not one that's scoffed at and mocked
I'm ready I'm charges myself cuz I want them to stick I'm going to send them to buy toll and got his wife and I'm going to tell him how to present them because these are my charges and he's filing his own too against that he's that John remillard is harassing him. And we're going to make sure that they stick so what this a****** next door when he shouldn't be there. Sherry is not in a position to do anything the storm is on her and she's having a lot of fun now and she tried to move out and couldn't and she tried to reinforce the place and she just ended up boarding it up and she looked at the roof and it's firmly attached with clips she said and she boarded the windows up from the inside and he said it's better than nothing but if you can screw them on it's best and it's easier to screw them on than it is to hammer them on a few tack it up there with two nails and your pre-drill seven or eight holes or 10 you can screw it in minutes so she did the procedure and said that is much easier so she did it on another Windows they were done yet and she had a great time she said she precuts them all she goes around tacks it up and then drills it in place and it works really good you said she's not really cutting the wood that close and she tried it once and said if you cut it to the width of the trim outside you can put it right on the trim and pre-drill all the holes you can even put all the screws in parkway or was like almost all the way so it's not sticking out even what I like to do is stick the tip out on a couple she did it that way and said what is this guy do for a living it's construction so it's stuck on there a little and she went and screwed it on this weekend and much easier and safer she said screw them all in and minutes got down it was done before lunch the whole house and she concentrated on other stuff getting supplies. Now it's going to help her because the storm would rip the roof off but now it's not going to she's worried about it getting carried away in the wind and she says she doesn't have any cable and someone said it's not good cuz it might break the back of the roof that's true but sometimes you can cable it down but if you don't have any clips or metal you really have to tie it to the wall and it needs some kind of special clip to do that but you said it works she said but it is the most difficult tedious thing that you've ever done this is oh the the ceiling is part of the roof so it's kind of a waste of time but if you take a board and you if you had cables you said you don't have cable she said that she doesn't have cables no okay it's almost impossible without it cable so she's looking for a cable and you just screw a board for boys and like four rafters and then two on one side of the roof and two in the other and you bolt the cable to the top plate and you both the cable to the board and tight to and you you do it to the wall and the reason you do that is that you can drill into the top played in an angle but it's a lot of work and she said it is a lot of work we did see it it's a sturdy house and it's old but usually they are intact after the Storm so she might just go with what she's got and some people say not to do that because of you uneven force and our son says it will not be as uneven as you think because both sides of the roof will be held and if there's a weak spot the weak spot might move but it's not going to move the rest of the roof like it would have so Stan sees it and says you could do it if you can it's a lot of work and you'll be tired you have to have beef she has that so they're working together on it and someone says the design isn't right and you can do it at the Gable ends and you can do it there too it's probably a small thing you do but this guy's a butensky too we want to hear from him at all and when I'm out and go on and he just keeps on budding in like people want to hear from him he's ridiculous so stooge so going after him and we're going to lay him low and I'm fine with my charges now
Thor Freya
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likeshipsonthesea · 3 years
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mianmian gets to the lan sect lectures, discovers very quickly that every one of her peers has decided to use this time to figure out how quickly they can get into bed with someone of the opposite sex, and decides almost immediately that she has to pick a suitably unattainable guy to have a crush on.
the thing is, mianmian is lanling jin’s head disciple. she is capable, intelligent, and very very gay. the last of these things she isn’t exactly keen on telling people yet for a variety of reasons up to and including jin zixuan will be so awkward and stubbornly supportive about it and she doesn’t know how to deal with that yet
so when her friends giggle over the other young masters and finally turn to mianmian-- who’s trying to memorize at least some of the fifty-thousand rules before their quiz tomorrow--and they ask her, “who do you like, mianmian?” she says the name that she carefully picked out of a handful of options.
“lan-er-gongzi,” she says, without looking up from her textbook, and she assumes that will be the end of it. 
lan wangji is both incredibly attractive and unrelentingly resistant to all attempts to flirt with him. she, like half the other female cultivators, can moon over him (or pretend to moon over him) all they want and nothing will come of it. it’s perfect. she’s a genius. the worst she’ll have to do now is pretend to be infatuated with him when her friends start gossiping. it’s fool proof.
spoiler: it’s not
it’s not, no, because her friends are horrible and immediately start gossiping about it to everyone, and usually mianmian wouldn’t care but then jin zixuan finds out. jin zixuan, whose marriage complex is being brought to center stage with the forced proximity to his bride-to-be. jin zixuan, who for some reason decided he has to live his stolen crush-addled youth vicariously through his only real friend that isn’t related to him. jin zixuan, who for some godforsaken reason takes it upon himself to contrive situations for mianmian and lan wangji to be alone together incessantly.
it unfortunately takes mianmian longer than she would like to figure out what’s happening. she’d give herself a break for it-- she was being responsible and studying, thank you very much-- but she doesn’t have much sympathy for her own stupidity seeing as she’s currently locked in a section of the lan library with the second jade of lan
and suddenly, suddenly she’s just so fucking tired. of studying, yeah, the tests here are brutal and there’s no one to bribe to make sure she doesn’t lose points on stupid things, but also tired of lying to the people she loves and tired of training this hard and being an amazing cultivator only for people to care more about her eventual marriage-- to a man of all things!-- and also, let’s be real here, she’s been in lectures with beautiful capable intelligent women for like months and she’s losing her gay ass mind
and so maybe, possibly, as she’s locked in a library with a clearly confused and annoyed second jade of lan she kind of, momentarily, loses it and rants all of this at his steadily widening eyes
at the end of it, she realizes with no small amount of panic that she’s just confessed not only her attraction to women but the fact that she’s been letting wen qing’s ears of all things distract her from her studies. if anything, she’s sure lan wangji will fault her for inattention
but the second jade of lan, after a drawn-out moment filled only with mianmian’s labored breathing and rising panic, simply says, “i understand.”
mianmian stops. she squints. she tilts her head. she squints some more. lan wangji’s ears go pink and just like that she realizes -- “you’re a cut-sleeve.”
lan wangji’s ears go even pinker. he doesn’t nod, or agree, or outwardly react in any way, but mianmian is a capable, intelligent cultivator, and she’s sure of it.
mianmian sighs with a relief she didn’t know she could feel. “thank the gods.”
lan wangji doesn’t seem to know what to make of this response, or mianmian’s increasingly frequent trips to the library following their conversation, or mianmian’s staunch determination to befriend the guy, but that’s alright. mianmian is old hat at befriending awkward sect heirs by this point.
it’s not like lan wangji expressed any desire for her friendship, but the prospect of not being the only one with absolutely no interest in the straight shenanigans happening at gusu lan summer camp is enough to let mianmian ignore his obvious confusion. lan wangji is a great listener and only sometimes blushes when mianmian waxes poetic about the beautiful women she’s forced to surround herself with every day
“no but you don’t understand,” mianmian insists, alone in the library with lan wangji, “jiang-guniang asked me to help her with a sword form. i put my hands on her waist. i said something idiotic bc she was so pretty and right there and then she laughed. lan wangji. i’m in love.”
“yesterday you were in love with wen-guniang,” lan wangji says as he impassively turns a page in his book. “has this changed?”
“no, i’m in love with both of them. all of them. lan wangji. they’re all so pretty all the time. it’s horrible.”
lan wangji presses his lips into a firmer line, which mianmian’s come to understand means he’s repressing a smile. “i’m sorry to hear it brings luo-guniang such trouble.”
mianmian groans, fairly undignified, but that’s a lost cause with lan wangji at this point anyway. “i swear, if jin zixuan says one more bad thing about her i’m going to punch him and marry her myself.”
lan wangji says, “mn,” which mianmian takes to mean that he supports her in this line of thinking, which she finds both quite sweet and ridiculously funny.
grinning, she teases, “lan-er-gongzi, if i do end up marrying jiang-guniang, will you bear witness to our elopement?”
lan wangji’s lips press again, this time in the way that means he’s repressing a frown. “jiang-guniang’s brothers wouldn’t allow for an elopement,” he says.
mianmian huffs. “as if yunmeng or lanling will deign to host our wedding.”
lan wangji appears to ponder this for a moment before he says, “gusu will host it,” and it’s at that moment that mianmian realizes she’s actually gone and fucking befriended the second jade of lan.
what is her life.
of course, it’s not long after that that she goes to find jin zixuan and explain that she can’t make their weekly sparring match today because she has plans with lan wangji (jiang yanli tenderly brushed some of mianmian’s hair away from her forehead while they were working on sword forms and if mianmian doesn’t tell someone about it she’s literally going to explode) and she’s trying to be as polite as possible only for jin zixuan to scoff and pout (”i don’t pout”) and say, “i never took you for one of those women who throw themselves so wantonly at a man”
it’s only for having been friends with this absolutely horrible communicator for most of her life that she doesn’t immediately punch him in the face. “what did you just say to me,” she demands, but jin zixuan just sets his jaw and looks away, flushing down his neck in the way his mother describes as unbecoming and--
and mianmian suddenly realizes that her ridiculous best friend is jealous of lan wangji. 
(in a friend way, of course, he’s like her brother, the one time his mother implied that he ought not get too close to women in case it jeopardizes his betrothal to jiang yanli, he insisted he didn’t have any female friends repeatedly as his mother delicately danced around outright saying mianmian’s name until finally she broke and jin zixuan was basically like huh?? mianmian doesn’t count?? she made me eat dirt like six times when we were kids)
the sheer ridiculousness of jin zixuan, to set her up with a guy and then get jealous when she spends all her time with him
and fuck her, but she loves her stupid awkward ridiculous sect heir best friend and she doesn’t want him to think she’s gone and left him for someone else (gods know jin zixuan’s loyalty complex rivals his marriage one (on second thought the two might be connected)) and so, after making a few quick decisions, mianmian grabs her stupid best friend by the wrist and pulls him to the library
he protests all the way there, but he’s been letting her drag him wherever she wants since they were five and it isn’t as if he’s going to break the pattern now. she drags him to the library and sits him down across a startled lan wangji and then finally breaks and gushes about jiang-guniang’s fingertips brushing her forehead and doesn’t look at jin zixuan once the whole time
lan wangji, on the other hand, sends jin zixuan frequent glances, as if worried on mianmian’s behalf, which is super sweet and also how the fuck did mianmian get two awkward sect heirs to care about her platonically wtf. she spares a thought for her poor auntie, who would’ve loved to have a sect heir care about her niece in much less platonic ways.
at the end of mianmian’s rant, jin zixuan is blinking quite a lot. “you like women?” he asks. he’s always been a bit slow on the uptake. mianmian nods. “you like jiang-guniang?”
mianmian shrugs. “more or less. she’s just really pretty and i’m dying about it. it’s fine.”
lan wangji says, “mn,” sympathetically and jin zixuan continues to gape.
mianmian winces. “you’re not going to be weird about this, are you?”
jin zixuan shakes his head quickly. “no, no-- of course not, i--you know that i--you’re my best friend, i don’t care--what does it matter to me, who you want to--to touch your hair.”
it’s probably the most awkward sentence he’s said to her in years, but possibly more articulate than she’d been expecting. it makes her tear up regardless and she punches him in the shoulder to hide it, and that’s basically how the three of them start hanging out in the library nearly every day after lecture.
sometimes they go to the sparring ground, bc who’s better sparring practice than the second jade of lan? and sometimes (once or twice) mianmian manages to convince lan wangji to join her and jin zixuan for lunch in caiyi town when they don’t have lecture, but mostly they meet in a secluded part of the library where mianmian can rant about how pretty all the women at lectures are, jin zixuan can turn pink whenever she mentions jiang-guniang, and lan wangji can “mn” and nod sympathetically at all the right parts
and mianmian thinks that’s going to be the end of it, they’re just going to be friends now and everything else will move on as usual, bc by some ridiculous trick of fate lan wangji and jin zixuan seem to like each other. which makes sense in hindsight bc they’re both awkward sect heirs who care about cultivation and people a lot even if they’re not great at showing it 
(and he’d never say it but mianmian thinks jin zixuan’s easy acceptance of her liking women is probably the first time lan wangji’s ever seen someone accept that kind of thing before (maybe, possibly, other than his brother, lan xichen seems really cool, even if he does smile kind of intensely at mianmian whenever he happens upon her hanging out with his little brother.))
so they’re friends, they’re unexpected friends, and sometimes lan wangji even makes jokes in that dry deadpan way of his and sometimes jin zixuan doesn’t completely trip over his own words and manages to act like a normal human being and mianmian gets two idiots to care about and a perfect place to vent her womanly frustrations, and she thinks that’s the end of it and then wei wuxian accosts her after lectures one day
“do you like lan zhan?” he asks accusingly, eyes narrowed to slits. “what am i even asking, of course you like lan zhan, but do you like-like him?”
mianmian thinks sadly to herself that she’s much too into women to be dealing with all these men’s emotional problems. “lan wangji is my friend,” she says, carefully sidestepping wei wuxian, who continues to squint at her suspiciously. really, he’d been amusing when he flirted with her, but this? this is just ridiculous.
“does he know that?” wei wuxian asks. “because if he doesn’t, that’s just leading him on, and it’s really not nice to--”
“lan wangji knows we’re friends,” she says, trying to enunciate to get her point across clearly. “you can ask him, if you don’t believe me.”
wei wuxian squints a moment longer before he turns and flounces off. mianmian thinks this is the end of it until she’s accosted again after dinner with, “he said you were friends!”
for some reason, wei wuxian seems even more troubled by this than earlier. mianmian tries to suppress her eyeroll. “i told you he would?”
“but how,” wei wuxian says, suddenly whining. “i’ve been trying to be his friend for months and he refuses to acknowledge me.”
oh, mianmian realizes with a quickly dawning horror. she and lan wangji are not the only cut-sleeves at cloud recesses this summer. (she has suspicions, of course, but no confirmations on any of the others, but this. wow.)
she also realizes, decides really, that she has enough repressed sect heirs in her life and she cannot deal with wei wuxian’s cut-sleeve crisis or his evidently large attachment to lan wangji right now. she turns decisively and walks the fuck away. not her problem.
the lectures end eventually, of course, and mianmian and jin zixuan return to lanling with a horde of golden robed disciples, freshly deflowered and not all together more learned. it’s what, she thinks grimly, their sect leader would want.
the first few weeks go by and she realizes that she’s missed unloading about her frequent and fast falling-in-loves. jin zixuan just doesn’t sympathize right, bless him, and so mianmian takes to writing letters. she sends two without receiving a reply and just starts to write the third when a letter with the gusu symbol is delivered to her room.
she’s almost expecting to find a single mn written on the page-- she would’ve been delighted with just that, actually, the sheer hilarity of such a thing-- but instead she finds several pages filled with lan wangji’s perfect calligraphy.
it’s more than he’s ever spoken out loud, but it seems that propriety dictated that he return mianmian’s extensive letter with one of his own and he’s done so admirably. he responds to the events mianmian detailed in her letters-- most succinctly summarized as, woman are gorgeous and i’m dying-- and then writes about his own life in cloud recesses. apparently, he went on a little night hunt with wei wuxian and also nie huaisang and jiang cheng were involved? seriously, mianmian misses out on all the fun.
he’s also apparently taken in some rabbits, which mianmian immediately decides she needs to see. lan wangji, sitting prim and proper, with a bunch of rabbits in his lap? amazing. wei wuxian would die on sight, she’s sure of it.
he also ends his letter with a warning about qishan wen that has mianmian frowning. she takes it to jin zixuan who reads the paragraph and frowns. “i’ll talk to my father about it,” he says, which she can tell by his hunched shoulders he doesn’t expect to do much.
“talk to your father’s general too,” she suggests, because that man at least thinks with his head and not his dick.
jin zixuan nods but doesn’t hand back the letter. he skims it instead with a barely concealed surprise at lan wangji’s previously hidden expansive vocabulary. mianmian snorts and grabs the letter back. “you can write to him yourself, you know.”
jin zixuan flushes down his neck. “i know!” he insists and then turns and runs away because he’s a coward. mianmian shakes her head, smiling. what an idiot.
still, another week goes by and a letter arrives from gusu and, when mianmian takes it, assuming it’s for her, she finds it addressed to jin zixuan in lan wangji’s impeccable calligraphy and she grins to herself like an idiot. look at jin zixuan, making friends
(she suddenly understands why lan xichen gave her all those intense smiles during the lan lectures)
they go on in this way, writing letters to lan wangji from lanling. sometimes mianmian steals jin zixuan’s letters before he sends them so she can squeeze in some ranting in the post script without wasting a whole second thing of paper, and lan wangji replies dutifully, more verbose than he ever was in person, and it’s nice okay, like. she and jin zixuan have been best friends since they were kids but neither of them has ever been any good at listening and lan wangji is just so honest and earnest in everything, like they didn’t realize that people outside of lanling were actually not always plotting your downfall??? who woulda thunk
and then of course the wens go and ruin everything. they go to the wen lectures bc jin guangshan doesn’t want to “anger our trading partner” like the guy isn’t obviously going to burn carp tower to the ground the first chance he gets, and mostly mianmian and jin zixuan are just vaguely annoyed and put out about it
then lan wangji shows up with a broken leg and a burned sect and they are ready to murder some dudes
after years of breaking in and out of carp tower she and jin zixuan are old hats at this breaking and entering stuff and they manage to sneak into lan wangji’s guest quarters and tend to his wounds, ignoring all his silent glares and ranting furiously about how they’re going to murder wen chao by making him choke on his own dick (mianmian) and how they’re going to war with the wen sect even if he has to threaten his father with acknowledging all of his bastards as proper siblings in public to do it (jin zixuan)
lan wangji just says “mn” and makes various muted, distressed expressions, but mianmian thinks he’s touched.
“are your brother and uncle alright?” she asks, when she’s set his broken leg and forced pain medication down his throat.
“brother escaped with our sacred texts,” lan wangji says. “uncle is... unwell.”
mianmian knows lan wangji hates touch but the way he says it, with this horrible little frown, emoting more than she’s ever seen him, his barely suppressed anger and grief literally making his hands shake into fists, mianmian can’t help it, she hugs him. “we’ll make them pay,” she swears into his shoulder, ruining the lines of his robes with how she clutches at them. “i promise you.”
jin zixuan awkwardly pats lan wangji’s shoulder, which is a lot for him and mianmian spares a moment to be proud of his growth.
unfortunately, wen chao seems to delight in torturing lan wangji on his injured leg and lan wangji refuses to show weakness, which both impresses mianmian and pisses her the fuck off. she approaches wen qing (and her still gorgeous ears, sigh) and asks her to tend to lan wangji, since she’s like actually a doctor. wen qing does bc she’s beautiful, intelligent, and kind and mianmian spends most of that night sighing deeply as she relates this to a significantly drugged lan wangji
the cave of the xuanwu goes about the same as you’d expect. wei wuxian saving her from getting her face branded off is pretty rad of him, though he could’ve just like knocked the brand away instead of throwing himself in front of it but whatever, you do you boo. when lan wangji gets left behind the two of them don’t even have to wait for jiang cheng to grumble and ask for their help, they’re already on their way to carp tower for an army, thank you very much
when they rescue wei wuxian and lan wangji and lan wangji immediately turns to walk back to cloud recesses on a broken leg mianmian says, “fuck no, that’s not happening, you’re getting medical attention and then someone will fly you back home, okay, wtf wangji, sit down.”
and lan wangji is a stubborn bitch so obvs he’s like no but he’s also severely starved, dehydrated, and injured, so it’s not like he can just shake off mianmian holding him down and this goes on long enough for wei wuxian to wake up and see mianmian touching lan wangji, and something in his poor little brain just like breaks and he demands says, “lan zhan, come back to lotus pier with us.”
his argument, as he explains it, is that lotus pier is closer (it’s not; they’re just as close to carp tower as lotus pier) and that it’s closer to gusu for when lan wangji has to return home (it’s not; same deal) but then jiang cheng starts yelling, possibly in support possibly not mianmian’s not sure, and jin zixuan starts getting awkward, probably about the whole golden army behind him bc he’s a nerd and hates being overdressed at functions (this is basically the same thing), and mianmian looks at lan wangji and she sees--
something. she isn’t sure what exactly, but lan wangji looks at wei wuxian as he argues with his brother and he presses his lips into a thin line in the way that means he wants to smile and mianmian thinks, oh. maybe wei wuxian isn’t completely unrequited in his lan wangji obsession.
growing up in lanling, she knows how to use information to her advantage, so she immediately says, “young masters wei and jiang, what a great idea. lanling’s disciples would be pleased to accompany you and second young master lan to lotus pier to ensure everyone’s safe arrival.”
everyone splutters, indignant, confused, awkward (jiang cheng, wei wuxian, and jin zixuan, respectively) but lan wangji narrows his eyes at mianmian and doesn’t try to convince her to let him walk to gusu again, so she counts it as a win.
sect leader jiang and his wife seem surprised and annoyed, respectively, to be taking in so many guests, but sect leader jiang merely smiles pleasantly and directs them to some guest quarters and mianmian and wei wuxian ask, simultaneously, for doctors to tend to lan wangji and wei wuxian makes a face at her and mianmian sighs to herself that she really is too gay to be in the middle of his thing with lan wangji.
turns out, walking a lot and fighting a cannibalistic turtle on a broken leg doesn’t do wonders for healing. lan wangji is also the worst patient ever, he keeps trying to sneak out and get up even though word came from his brother that he’s safe and alright and that cloud recesses is starting to rebuild after qinghe nie and lanling jin came to its aid and pushed out the wen
but with the combined efforts of mianmian, jin zixuan, and wei wuxian (and even jiang yanli at one point, bc who could say no to her soup??) they manage to get lan wangji to just rest for a fucking second, really which results in the jin disciples and lan wangji staying in lotus pier for longer than anyone could’ve expected
mianmian spends most of her time (when she isn’t forcing lan wangji to just fucking stay in bed) working with the jiang disciples, practicing archery, sword forms, and mooning after all the beautiful women here.
(”lan wangji, i know she’s scary, but have you seen madam yu? she could whip me with zidian and i’d thank her” “luo-guniang, please don’t ask madam yu to whip you” OR “lan wangji, i’m almost positive madam yu’s maids are a thing, do you think they’d let me join them just like once” “luo-guniang, could you please pass me my sword?” “why” “i’d like to put myself out of this misery” OR “she made me soup. lan wangji. lan wangji, i know you’re not sleeping, wake up, you have to listen to me, this soup”)
they end up staying so long that when wang lingjiao shows up threatening a child about a kite while sect leader jiang is away, she has a lot more to deal with than madam yu. since none of this had been a “sanctioned visit” no one actually knew that there was nearly an entire troop of jin disciples staying at lotus pier, so when the wens attack they are sorely unprepared for what they’re going to face.
(and ofc lan wangji breaks out of bed heroically and keeps madam yu from whipping wei wuxian, which means they aren’t down one of their most powerful fighters and mianmian has to suffer through the moon eyes they’re making at one another in the middle of a battle no less, she knew wei wuxian had no shame but she’d been hoping lan wangji would have some)
after the wen attack (and defeat) on lotus pier and the jin’s inarguable part in it, the war starts in earnest. lan wangji, after his long rest, heals fine and goes back to gusu to help rebuild his sect and plan for war, and mianmian and jin zixuan return to carp tower to plan as well, ignoring jin guangshan and focusing instead on his general to ensure lanling supplies necessary aid in the war effort
and war is always shitty, of course, and mianmian hates watching her sect family die on the battlefield, hates waiting for updates after every battle to see who’s still alive, hates the politics and jin guangshan trying to wheedle his way out of fighting when there’s fucking lives on the line
(and she could never know, how much easier it is, with yunmeng jiang at its full strength, with one of the brightest minds of their generation there to plot and help, with two of the best fighters not out searching for someone and instead focused on the front)
they reach nightless city after months of fighting and mianmian is ready to just fucking stab wen ruohan herself when they’re suddenly trapped. blocked in on all sides by puppets, their fallen soldiers rising again to turn on them, and it--it looks like they’re gonna die.
“this sucks,” she says to lan wangji, stifling her fear and choking it down. “i never even got to kiss a girl.”
lan wangji just says “mn.”
jin zixuan, beside them, says, “i was an idiot about jiang-guniang.”
lan wangji just says, “mn.”
then wei wuxian pulls out a fucking flute and a-- floating piece of metal?  the army of puppets and corpses stops advancing, held in place by-- music, apparently? and wen ruohan emerges from his lair, black energy falling off him in waves, wei wuxian the idiot flies forward to meet him, gets wen ruohan’s hand around his throat for his trouble.
lan wangji yells, “wei ying!” and mianmian thinks, really not fair that lan wangji is gonna get a boyfriend before i get a girlfriend
and then wen ruohan gets stabbed by jin zixuan’s half brother of all people. wen ruohan, along with his puppets and wei wuxian, fall to the ground. lan wangji rushes forward to catch wei wuxian, mianmian runs after him, finds herself in company with jin zixuan and jiang cheng. when they get there, wei wuxian is barely conscious but he’s-- he’s fucking grinning up at lan wangji from the cradle of lan wangji’s arms
“lan zhan,” he says, “you caught me.”
lan wangji nods, says, “mn,” which is basically his equivalent of i’ll always catch you, wei ying.
“really,” mianmian says aloud, “it’s so unfair.”
the aftermath of the war is more annoying than the war itself, what with all the politics and in-fighting and jin guangshan trying to be the biggest dick there ever was. jin guangshan tries to name himself chief cultivator in wen ruohan’s stead but nie mingjue suggests jiang fengmian instead and the lan sect backs him. jin guangshan tries to demonize the wens but at wei wuxian’s loud rebuttal and sect leader jiang’s backing (which is then backed by both gusu lan and qinghe nie) he’s once again shouted down. and then jin guangshan tries to propose to jiang-guniang for his son and the poor woman just seems so awkward and her father doesn’t seem to know what to say and--
mianmian elbows jin zixuan whose eyes widen ridiculously but, after another, harder hit, he suddenly stands. all eyes go to him, which mianmian knows he hates, but he bows to his father, then jiang yanli, and says, “jiang-guniang, forgive my father’s impertinence. this is not the time or place to be making such an offer, but he--” jin zixuan winces visibly. “--he knows of my feelings and wishes to make his foolish son happy. please, do not feel the need to respond.”
then he promptly sits down, flushing down to his neck, and mianmian shares a disbelieving glance with lan wangji from across the horrible nightless city palace room.
she’d really only meant for him to suggest jiang yanli answer privately, at a later time, but wow, jin zixuan really went for it. also no way jin guangshan knows his son has fallen in love with jiang yanli, so nice save face there. maybe he has been paying attention in all of their etiquette and political espionage classes.
jiang yanli flushes way prettier than jin zixuan and nods politely, stands and bows and thanks the jin clan for being considerate in this time of turmoil, perhaps they can discuss this matter at a later date (jin zixuan looks like he nearly faints at this, and mianmian feels vindicated in all her forlorn ranting. overreacting her ass)
when everything has been settled, wen qing has been appointed the new sect leader of qishan wen with promises to return land to those who lost it and pay reparations to the hurt civilians, as well as have the yin iron destroyed for good. during the final ceremony where all the sects have tea and pledge to be loyal to one another (until the next great war, of course) mianmian leans close to lan wangji and sighs, “her ears look even lovelier with her hair tied back by her new sect leader hairpiece.”
lan wangji says “mn” because he’s a cut sleeve in love with wei wuxian and has nothing even closely resembling taste.
mianmian, on her own, decides to make them both happy. before the jin clan departs from nightless city, she goes up to wei wuxian and asks for a moment of his time. wei wuxian seems confused but follows and, once they’re alone, he says, “mianmian, are you about to get me into bed, because i must tell you that i am a respectable young cultivator and you’ll need to marry me before--”
mianmian gives him her best unimpressed look (she’s had much practice with it, thank you jin zixuan) and cuts him off with, “i like women.” 
wei wuxian’s eyes go wide. “but you and lan zhan--”
she cuts him off again before he can say something so stupid she has to stop talking to him to refrain from breaking all laws of propriety. “look,” she says, “you’re friends with wen qing. now that she’s sect leader, your brother can’t go after her. i, on the other hand, very much can. if you promise to figure out a way for me and her to get close, i’ll tell you a secret you’ll like very much.”
wei wuxian seems hesitant for all of half a second before he breaks. “tell me.”
“do you promise?”
wei wuxian raises three fingers. “promise.”
“on your sister’s life?”
begrudgingly, wei wuxian nods.
“on her soup?”
“just get on with it!”
mianmian smirks, pushes onto her tiptoes, and whispers the secret into wei wuxian’s ear. with that, she returns to the pavilion where all the sects mingle as they wait to depart, wei wuxian trailing behind her in a daze, his mouth hanging open.
lan wangji, who had been watching since mianmian asked wei wuxian for a moment to talk, frowns nearly imperceptibly. mianmian grins at him and his frown grows.
ah, whatever. she walks over to him, unbothered by the quickly growing alarm in his eyes. once next to him, she turns around to see wei wuxian staring unabashedly. her smile only widens.
“you’re going to thank me for this,” she says.
wei wuxian shakes himself, his eyes focusing, and immediately starts walking towards them.
lan wangji, voice flat but wavering, asks, “luo-guniang, what did you do?”
mianmian laughs, says, “i get to give a speech at your wedding,” and walks away just as wei wuxian reaches them.
(she does, actually, give a speech at their wedding. she may or may not be drunk during it, jin zixuan gets embarrassed for her, and she starts tearing up and has to hide it in the shoulder of her wife’s lovely well-tailored robes. it’s alright, though, wen qing doesn’t mind)
EDIT: now on AO3 with a real fic version from lwj’s pov!
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ditttiii · 3 years
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gold rush. || kth {m}
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⇢ summary: kim taehyung is a walking heartbreak waiting to happen. all narrow eyes and long nose and devilish smirks, he is everyone’s dream. after months of sharing an elevator with the man who makes your heart race until you can scarcely breathe when the chance finally comes; are you willing to risk it all for his touch? 
⇢ genre: porn with feelings, soft smut, angst, is unresolved tension and feelings a genre?
⇢ pairing: kim taehyung x reader
⇢ word count: 4.4k
⇢ rating: explicit / 18+
⇢ theme: strangers to lovers, s2l!au
⇢warning/s: public/elevator sex, exhibitionism, fingering, cunnilingus/oral (female receiving), lots of kissing, hickeys, unprotected sex? reader’s on the pill, swearing, tension and so much of it, unresolved-repressed feelings, taehyung is a certified dingus & reader is hopelessly smitten. 
⇢ a/n: betaed by @yeojaa​ who owns my heart and is the most precious bean ever. 
also have all my virtual, socially distanced cuddles @btsmosphere​ @papillonsgf​ @birbdae​ & @unoriginal-username15432​. if it weren’t for their support this wouldn’t be out today. my gratitude knows no bounds ♡ also big thanks to taylor for the fic title.
banner by @chillingkoo​ & moodboard by @today-we-will-survive​​ their art breathed life into this fic ♡ a belated birthday fic for one mr.kim taehyung & the beautiful @kerikaaria​.  this fic is also my submission for @thebtswritersclub​ january monthly project. 
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lastly, i had a lot of fun writing this so i hope you guys enjoy it x 2021 here v go ♡
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You wonder when the shame stopped making you hide behind a curtain of messy bed hair. When the smell of a man's cologne on you and a fruity fragrance on him started to feel normal; routine.
 The elevator closes with a 'ping', and your eyes track the numbers as they descend, the warmth of another human, the soft puffs of his breath, warming your shivering, scantily dressed body.
 "What happened to ‘she’s too old for me?’ " You grunt, slipping off your six inches of agony inducing footwear and pushing them to a corner.
 "What happened to you not being jealous?" You can feel his smirk, oozing of self-assured nonchalance and smugness that would seem ugly on anyone but fits like a well-tailored suit on him. From the corner of your eye, you watch as he leans back, hands resting on the metal railing while his tall, lean body slouches lazily, almost invitingly, and you have to force your eyes away from tracing the curves of his pecs. It's a tempting sight, but you aren't about to give him any more ammo to goad you with. As it is, he already knows too much, is far too keen. 
 "Of your sugar mama? I don't think so."
 Taehyung hums but doesn't refute the statement and the silence between you two stretches on. A burning ball of jealousy in your stomach continues to eat away at your peace, and with a clenched jaw, you allow your head to rest against the cool metal of the elevator and pretend that the proximity doesn't affect you. 
 It's always the same between you two, a constant game of tug and war, where one pulls too firmly, and then the other comes tumbling close until one of you comes back to your senses and then it's back to square one. Back to bickering and recounting the previous night’s escapades of half-truths and lies told from kiss-swollen lips and hooded gazes as you try your best to rile the other one up.
 It's stupid. You are in your twenties and this isn't like you. The lying, the pretence that you are still seeing your ex-boyfriend and biting and sucking your own lip until it swells; until you look properly ravished; none of this is you.
 You should have known the day he first stumbled into the elevator with a half-buttoned shirt and bite marks painted over the pale skin of his neck, a satisfied smirk curled on his dark pink lips, that he wasn't good for you. But no, like the absolute fool that you are, you fell for him. Fell knowing full well he wasn't yours to have, that back then you weren't his to have.
 The elevator comes to a stop with a shudder. Your eyes, closed sometime during the descent, snap open and your feet pause when the sight of the closed doors grace you.
 "You stopped the elevator." It's not a question, not when his hand is still hovering over the stop button, head tilted as his eyes stay trained on you.
 "I did." He admits to a question you never asked.
 Biting back a hiss at his insistence on being difficult, you twist on your heels, lips pulled into a smile whose edges sting like shards of a broken glass and parry, "And why did you do that, pray tell?"
 He doesn't answer, just looks at you with that half-lidded gaze and his silence only infuriates you more, makes the back of your neck feel heated as an angry flush rises from your chest all the way up to your cheeks and with a few angry stomps you’re in Taehyung's space, barely a few inches left between you two.
 "God!" You start, and the anger, the jealousy, the ugly ball of insecurity and lust and something you haven't quite found a name for yet all coagulate and rise up your throat, burning your heart in their wake until you are hurting and seething. “I don’t get you, nor do I want to anymore!" The words tumble out, one after another and half thought out but your chest still burns and the ugly ball still feels scorching hot in your throat and you can't bring yourself to stop, to shut up and think. "Stop doing this. Stop flirting with me and stop looking at me with those hooded eyes of yours and for the love of god, do you really need to lick your lip that often? Why don't you carry a lip balm if your lips are that dry, huh?"
 The cross of your eyes is almost painful, but you have started and fuelled by anger and unreciprocated feelings there’s no stopping your steam. "And now this! Stopping the elevator! What the hell is this supposed to mean?" His lips part as if to answer but without waiting for his response, you plow on, "What! Do you actually have an answer? Really? Let's face it; you think I’m some sort of challenge that needs to be conquered. Another notch on your bedpost. You and your stupid smirks and half-lidded eyes and that damn mole on your nose and god, can you just not—"
 The soft pad of his finger on your lips pauses your rant, leaves them parted and your heart hammering while unsaid words clutter the hollow spaces in your throat, tighten around your vocal cords like a noose until they become their own nemesis. 
 "I broke up with her last night," Taehyung says, and from where you are standing so close to him, his breath on your neck, cheeks, lips is too enchanting, too much like something you had hoped and begged and prayed for far too long now. Breathing out harshly you blink yourself back to reality because you must be hearing him wrong. 
  "Huh?"
 His hand slowly comes up to hold your chin, thumb running over your lower lip with a feather-like touch, "I broke up with her last night, went home and came back early because I didn't want to miss you." He says, and your chest feels tight, palms numb and it's only when his hand gently settles over the nape of your neck and you inhale painfully that you realise that you had stopped breathing.
 "Why?" You rasp out. 
  Don't hope. This means nothing. Do not hope. 
 Something twists in your belly, a thread tightens around your heart, and you know, despite it all, that you are hoping. 
 "Why do you think?" He asks instead, and you stifle the sudden desire to bash his head into a wall. 
 "Don't play games with me." 
 A sigh, his breath dancing on your lips and you barely suppress the tingles that burn down your spine, "I'm not. I don't want to, not anymore." The hand resting around your neck curls, fingers caressing the soft skin behind your ear.
 "What do you want then?" Your words are quiet, hope and longing laced into every syllable that you desperately hope to hide but fail. 
 Your heart hammers into your ribs with so much force you are half afraid it will leave them cracked; splintered just like your love for the man who is touching you, holding your entire heart in the palm of his hands while you wait for it to be crushed. Because it will, it's inevitable. Kim Taehyung is a walking heartbreak waiting to happen. All narrow eyes and long nose and devilish smirks, he is too good. Too good for the woman he was with and certainly too good for you. You would be happy if you looked half as good on your wedding day as he regularly does because he is that gorgeous. And unreal, and pretty and it hurts. 
 It hurts because you can never have him and any second now he will push you away and ridicule you for getting flustered so easily and he will never understand, and god it cuts. It tears at you because despite knowing better, you long for him, his touch, his warmth.
 Maybe even his love. But that is one hope you refuse to acknowledge out loud. 
 Your breaths mingle from where you two are standing so close, and part of you aches to reach out, to pull him closer and wrap yourself around him until you can sync the beat of your heart to his, to nestle your face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in, drown in the scent of that spicy cologne that you associate with him and nobody else. Because it's tempting, oh so inviting and he is so so close.
 You could touch his chest, caress the skin peeking from in between the dip of his low neck shirt and it would be easy, he would let you, you know that too but what about after? How do you come back from holding someone your soul is in love with and then pretend that being with them for one night was enough? How does your hope keep living on in the name of that fragment of love? His arms your shelter for one night and then you are back to being strangers, sharing elevators and bumping into each other at the grocery store, pretending all the while that you do not yearn to visit that one night you spent together whenever your head hits the pillow? 
 "I..." Taehyung struggles, chews the words before his lips form them because this is his last chance and if he loses you now, it's over; he knows that too. The pair of you are done playing cat and mouse. 
 "I know my words don't hold a whole lot of value. I could promise you things, but you won't believe me and that's fair. I get it." He admits, another hand coming up until your face is cradled in his open palms, fingers slipping behind the edges of your ears and you will yourself to not drop your gaze, to look into his eyes and search for...love? Honesty? You wish you could say you know what it is that you are hunting for, but held so close all you can think about is the chestnut brown of his eyes, the black that rims them, the high arched brows and the thin, smooth lips and that mole; that mole that you can only see when you are pressed close, a hair's breadth of space between you two. 
 "But...?" You ask, pray, and yet again, against your better judgement hope.
 "But I love you." He confesses, voice forever rich and deep and you feel the hum of his baritone from where your chest is still pulled tight to his. "My love for you is unlike any I have ever known, and it scared me; it still scares me because I don't know. I don't know what I will do if I ever lose you. I care too much, I—" His grip on you tightens and instinctively your hands snake around his waist, clenching the soft cotton of his shirt, nails biting into your skin as his words thread your hopelessly lovesick heart back together; piece by piece.
 "I love you too much." Taehyung whispers and the ice around your heart thaws, his raw confession lighting a fire in your nerves until you are left buzzing from the high of his admission. "Trust me. Just this once. Please." He is vulnerable in his plea, and for the first time you wonder if you had characterised him wrong. Boxed and stored him like a gift on a shelf without bothering to look underneath the paper wrapping.
 Taehyung doesn't have to beg, he doesn't have to try and persuade anyone, and for all the gibes you threw his way, all the daggered words about him dating only for money, you didn't truly believe any of them. Sure, the woman he had been with for the last few months was older (a voice in your head whispers wiser), but that wasn't because she was, as you would often insist, his 'sugar mama', but instead because their interests aligned. Kim Taehyung is a man of taste, whether it be his fondness for a violin's trill, fascination with modern art, or his love for jazz music. He is an enigma and with no small amount of embarrassment you think back to all the times you have bought a book after he made a passing comment on it, searched the pages and the characters to find some semblance of him.
 Maybe you are pathetic, perhaps you are far too infatuated with this man for it to be healthy. Just maybe...
 "No," Taehyung commands, his voice so determined you’re snapped back to the present, head thrown out of the haze your wandering thoughts had created.
 Seeing your obscure expression and strayed eyes (look away because you can't acknowledge how much he matters), he pushes, one hand sliding down to grip your chin and urge you to look him in the eye. "Don't." 
 Maybe he sees something in your eyes, spots your hidden insecurities, reads you like an open book and dog-ears the pages that hold your weakness. 
 "Don't what?" You deflect, gaze drifting away again as you pretend to not know what he means but secretly long for him to keep pushing, to keep trying—your denial’s a facade to hide all your pleas. 
 "Don't do this to me. To us."  
 "You'll hurt me." You protest, a half-hearted attempt at trying to protect your already doomed heart even as your fingers clench tighter, pull him closer.
 "No, I won't." He speaks with certainty that you don't wholly believe but fuelled by far too much love and longing, you don't protest any further and instead toe closer, rise higher, and breathe in the shaky exhale he lets out when your lips skim the sharp curve of his jaw. 
 "I've wanted this for so long." Unadulterated desire courses through your veins at his admission. Even if Taehyung is lying, even if he leaves you stranded after today, you'll live. You'll live on the high of this moment, the memory of his skin under your touch, the crisp of the cotton draped over his lean torso. 
 It's easier to let go and surrender yourself, easier to lay yourself bare because you have already come too far and there is no protecting yourself anymore—your heart is now his to do with.
 Your hands twine around his waist, slide over the vast expanse of his back like he is yours; as though if you try hard enough, you'll leave an imprint, a sign that he belongs to you. Mark him for the rest of eternity and brand him with your name on his heart. 
 Kissing him is easy, the slight ache of staying on your tippy-toes going by unregistered as you get lost in the sensation of his lips, his sighs on your chin, the tickle of his lashes against the high curve of your cheek. 
 The cradle of his palms around your face is gentle, almost careful, as though you are a porcelain doll and he is afraid one harsh move will leave you splintered. Chest tight, you push down the last remaining traces of hesitation clinging inside your throat and twist to catch his lips instead, licking a long strip from the soft cleft of his chin over to his parted lips, dip into the hollow of his mouth and slide over the soft flesh on the inside before you catch his upper lip in between yours and suck.
 His responding groan has you clenching your thighs and you break the kiss, breathing in to replenish the oxygen that doesn't seem as important when his lips are on yours. When your gaze catches his, for once you don't look away, don't force yourself to stop from swimming in the beautiful, clear pool of his eyes.
 "I love you too." Your admission is quiet, more a careful whisper than anything else, as though any louder and you'll break this spell and things will go back to the way they were. He will come to his senses and realise he doesn't love you after all and then you'll go back to being a pining, lovesick fool, only this time with a broken heart and no hope to cling to.
 His eyes grow soft—gentle in the curve of two crescent moons, and you smile your first real smile, the edges twitching and pulling into a gentle grin before you can bite it down and the answering smile that Taehyung rewards you with has your heart squeezing almost painfully inside your chest.
 "Yeah?" He asks as though he already knows the answer but just wants to hear you say it again, profess your love for him again and you do. You say it again and again, press your lips over every inch of his face and emboss the words onto the smooth, unblemished skin.
 Taking in a shuddering breath, you answer from around the suspended ball of disbelief and love in your throat. "Yeah." 
 When the clothes start coming off it’s a gentle, slow affair, the spaces in between filled with tender touches curious to explore the skin that they had desired for so long and open-mouthed kisses pressing promises of forever and happily ever after onto the naked expanse, leaving goosebumps in their wake.  
 Legs twined around his waist like ivy, you arch off the floor. A tug of your hand and his shirt slips low, and then your mouth is pressing warm, wet, kisses, tongue slipping out and desperately tasting his skin, his sweat— him. You lean back and then he's on you, low, low, low until his lips are close enough to skim the edges of your panties and you buckle, arch and push without meaning to as you ache for relief only he can provide. 
 "You are beautiful. So so beautiful. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen." 
 His words are rough, less speech and more growl as he pushes his head closer to your soaking heat and inhales. "Fuck." 
 Breathes turning to hitches, words into gasps, you can scarcely keep your eyes open when he runs a long, slim finger through your folds and circles your wet opening before your walls are pulsing around him, sucking and pulling the finger in as deep as it will go. One and two then three, your cunt can't have enough of his fingers, his heat and him and oh— 
 His lips are velvet against your clit, your body a molten mass of gold moulding itself around his fingers, your sanity and restraint slipping and dripping down onto the carpeted floor from in between the spaces. With the last left strength, you prop yourself onto your elbows and the sight of Taehyung's mouth on your sex is almost enough to send you slipping back down again. His tongue laves across your folds with the desperation of a man parched, caressing every fold, greedily licking away your dripping arousal and moaning out obscenities too vulgar for how early the day is. 
 When you come, it's with a cry that sounds too animalistic to be yours. One that comes from your chest and leaves your back arched like the ends of a boomerang. "Good?" He asks with glistening lips, and you wanna scream, hysterical in your pitch— good? Is there anything better that exists in this world than his lips on you making you come? Again and again, until you can no longer stand the sensitivity? 
 But instead of screaming, or shaking him by his shoulders until it gets through his head, you reply with a spent nod and let your elbows slip. This is what being eaten out by Kim Taehyung feels like. The pleasure coursing through your veins is something far more potent than any you have ever felt before. The blood in your veins thrumming, almost sizzling under the thin layer of your skin. 
 He presses his forehead to yours, rests to catch his breath and with every shuddery inhale you breathe your arousal in, a swipe of your tongue across his glistening lips, and then you can taste it too. It tastes of nothing and yet everything. Coming from his lips, it tastes of what your dreams are built from, like liquified recklessness and yearning and above all —Taehyung. 
 It tastes of him and his smirks and all the kisses you couldn't have and all the kisses you now hope for. 
 His fingers are gentle when they tuck your hair, eyes bright behind the curtain of messy, ink-black strands, "There's a law somewhere that says when you love someone with all your heart, you are unavoidably loved by them as well. Amor ch'a null'amato amar perdona." 
 Your eyes search his, frantically rove all over his face, search the lines under his eyes, pause at the small mole on his nose, and then stop at the sight of the one on his lower lip, the one that your eyes would always drift to every time he'd smirk or grin in the past. Now he's smiling, lips stretched into a soft boxy curve, the mole evident against the edge and you raise a trembling hand, run your thumb across it. Cup his face with both your hands until your vision blurs and then your lips are on his. Locking and licking and your mouth is a leaking faucet of I love you's, hands working to the back of his head and getting lost in those perfectly long, wavy strands. 
 You hope this is the real thing when you wildly take off your dress, rip off his shirt unmindful of the last few buttons that clatter to the floor and undress until the both of you are as bare as you were the day you were born.
 The steel railing is startlingly cold against your rear but before you can wince Taehyung's large hands are on your waist, pulling you closer until all that's on your mind is the feel of him, hard and hot against your dripping heat. His mouth is on your breast, lips sucking marks into the flesh and tying you to him, leaving traces of his presence behind until you can no longer differentiate the ache in your heart from the burn in your belly. 
 Somehow through the haze of want and compulsive need, you collect yourself enough to tell him you're on the pill when he remembers the lack of protection in his wallet, and then he's inside you. The thrust inside is fluid, and you are moaning, keening at your wetness, at how long he is, at how unbearably, entirely full you are. 
 Your name falls from his lips like a prayer, like the last words of a man dying an untimely death, desperate and hurried and like if he takes a second too long he might never get the chance again. The scratch of your nails against his back must hurt, the grip of your heels around his sides must be painful, and still you can't bring yourself to let up; to let go. 
 The air inside becomes humid, reeks of sex and sweat and everything that shouldn't seem so right, and yet does. 
 You come first, hit your peak and crash through it like a ship in a torrential sea, hot and volatile and like something vital that you'll retain even in the afterlife. Taehyung–sweet, sweet Taehyung – helps you ride it out, makes your body sing with the honed practice of a pianist who has spent more decades playing than he can recall. His tongue is on your neck, stroking that one sensitive spot in the hollow of your clavicle while his hand brushes your clit, builds the pleasure and lets it drift, unhurried and soft until you are crying from the overwhelming rightness of it. 
 With a shudder, you finally push his hand away from your quivering heat and bring it to your lips, kiss the bony knuckles and let it rest on your thigh from where he wraps it tight around your waist and drives to chase his own high. 
 Sated you watch Taehyung, catalogue all the features that you had never seen before but up close can. Just in case—just. File them all in a part of your heart where only he resides, a piece you will always come back to, regardless of if the man in your arms chooses to stay or not. You will be selfish with these memories, hoard and treasure them in secrecy until the day you can look back upon them with nothing more than nostalgic fondness. 
 The appearance of a deep furrow on his forehead, between those long arched brows and the breaking rhythm of his thrusts, alerts you to how close he is and you clench. Clench with all the love and devotion you nurture in your heart and hope that somehow it will be enough. If not forever, then at least until you can have your fill, until you can love him for a life's worth and live off on those memories. Live on them like a late mother's half-finished perfume bottle that you take out and sniff on your sorriest days, a push strong enough to keep you going. 
 One more day, then one more and then just one more until you can finally meet him in the afterlife, old and having done all that you had been sent to do. Except for love. You doubt you can ever love like this again. 
 Kissing him after feels like the best kind of heartbreak because you know, somewhere deep in your gut where you house your intuition and insecurities, you know this won't last. 
 Yet you wouldn't take back anything. Your lips form words on Taehyung's shoulder 'i love you so much. i always will', and you tighten your arms around his waist. Anchor him to the present and pray that the defence will be strong enough to keep him with you for a little while more. 
 Just a little.
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a/n: the end is up to your interpretation, you are free to imagine whatever end you’d have liked to see. If you enjoyed reading this please let me know through comments, reblogs, tags or asks. the feedback makes me insanely happy and i love hearing from you guys ♡
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bratz-kitten · 3 years
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attack on titan characters - birth chart analysis 🌙
Here is my take on the big 6 of Levi, Eren, Armin and Mikasa of attack on titan/shingeki no kyojin! I kept their sun signs since we know the day and month of their birthday and since I think they’re absolutely perfect. If you want me to do my take on the others (like Jean, Historia, Erwin, Hanji, Connie, Sasha, Reiner, etc) please let me know! (spoiler warning!)
Levi Ackerman
sun in capricorn - levi mf ackerman is fuelled by three things and three things only: LOYALTY, a strong moral code and power. he is seen by most people as a heartless, unemotional bastard but is canonically the most emotional character - he shows love through very indirect ways and he’s the peak of capricorn in the sense that he represses his emotions – he smiled literally ONE time in four seasons, and didn’t once shed a tear. he’s very hard to read. has a lot of respect for his superiors and follows the orders of only those he’s loyal to. he’s driven by his moral codes in the sense that the protection of humanity is his prime motive for fighting titans. like a true capricorn, is the master of his field of work and cares the most about being a survey corp member. please protect this tragic baby. 
virgo rising - two words: CLEAN FREAK. this man has a strong need to be presentable at all times and hates getting blood on his hands for the single fact that he needs himself and his environment to be clean. his obsession with being clean is very much due to his childhood trauma and how he lived in in poor conditions in the underground. he has many quirks that correlate with this: the way he holds his cup, the carvat he uses bc of his mother, and the way he always cuts his own hair because that’s the way his mother used to do it.  intimidating and demands respect. DRY HUMOUR. 
moon in scorpio - i think he has many similarities with mikasa, especially in the moon and venus. introverted and hates people but will go to the ends of the earth to protect the ones he loves and respects. represses emotions and internalizes his hatred until he has a mental breakdown - which happens in the form of extreme violence. VERY sensitive and emotional even if he doesn’t show it. he’s very intuitive and often acts based on gut; he’s secretive and vindictive. very wise and great at giving advice. doesn’t let himself get manipulated and uses shitty situations to his advantage (like with the reeves company). trust is the most important thing to him.
mercury in aquarius - levi is extremely logical, and hates when others involve their feelings in the making of decisions. his decisions are always backed up by strong arguments and others often see him as cold and detached. i saw someone  mention something extremely interesting about aquarius mercury’s/people with their mercuries in the 11th house: despite not being very sociable, others are drawn to them for friendships – and often they’re the introverts who get “adopted” by extroverts. this is 100% levi’s case, hanji and erwin practically adopted him. being very vulgar with his words and having a distinctive sense of humour, he’s very humanitarian and is actually really talkative but only when he’s very comfortable around someone. blunt, always tells it like it is – like when he tells eren he can’t know what the right choice really is and he needs to choose it himself. teases and insults his friends as a form of affection.
mars in scorpio - levi’s a fighter, a survivor. he knows what it’s like to come from nothing and have to build himself up. very confrontational. reclaims his power by exerting intimidation and mastering violence. others fear doing as much as make a joke at his expense. understands other’s motivations and characters very easily. he’s very intuitive. very serious due to his need for having an intense and demanding presence, for being respected and valued. he’s the one who everyone sighs of relief when things go to shit and he appears because you know he’s the strongest and most dependable person.
venus in capricorn - good luck getting this motherfucker to open up. his trust is very hard to gain but is necessary for working with him – he places his full trust in his comrades and demands the same from them. very work-oriented and takes relationships very serious; it’s really telling that he cares little for romance because capricorn venuses are the ones to date to marry, and will only devote themselves to someone once they believe they’ve met the one. they either want a more powerful and mature partner or they exude that energy (levi is the latter). slightly parental – we see this in the way that levi is pretty much the dad figure. it’s called squad levi for a reason, after all. very responsible. takes care of loved ones and often uses tough love as a form of discipline.
Eren Jaeger - im not even kidding with this one, he has extreme aries energy
sun in aries - eren feels the need to be very independent and he hates whenever he has to depend on mikasa and others, wanting to be strong enough to reverse the roles. he’s very self-confident, bold and direct. very impulsive, he’s quick to anger but is also very quick to forget - especially seen with his arguments with jean, fighting him is basically a love language at this point. aries suns are very fast thinkers and their strong energy may come off as intimidating. they have great intentions but that often becomes muddled with their impulsivity and the fact that they don’t think ideas through. eren is unabashedly himself and fights relentlessly for what he wants. his aries energy also makes him extremely motivated! he believes in the impossible and will make it happen no matter what.
aries rising – aries risings are the trailblazers. they ooze intensity. eren has very much a baby face and, due to his impulsivity and childish charm, people tend to baby him a lot – in the sense that he’s this kid surrounded by adults who needs supervision at all times or he’ll get into deep shit. aries risings are also marked by their extreme need for action, they’re the ones to do now and apologize later instead of asking for permission to do something in the first place. he is guided by his passion and is a natural leader who inspires everyone to fight alongside him. aries risings have a lot of energy which they need to express in a physical way, making them be prone to be very athletic and lead very active lives. he’s also extremely competitive and is driven by the force of becoming stronger than mikasa, and often feels angry when he realizes how stronger than him other people can be. at the same time, this pressure to be better is put solely on himself. he’s a dumbass with a good-heart and pure intentions.
moon in sagittarius – all this motherfucker talks about is freedom and seeing the world past the walls. he craves adventure and is extremely optimistic. but even if a sagittarius moon needs their freedom, they are still absolutely ride-or-dies and once they’ve commited to something, NOTHING or NO ONE can stop their determination. these are also the people to try their best to always appear cheerful and full of determination to hide their sad façade – like when he was nearly vomiting when talking about the titans to the other recruits when they began the training in the military but still forced himself to say that the titans aren’t scary at all and that they aren’t a big deal; he naturally inspires others and fills them with courage. but the way they put on this strong and brave façade leads to a strong emotional turmoil, violent urges and a sudden hostility to others. they are filled with surpressed anger that can lead them through very destructive paths – and the happy-go-lucky child might just lose her hope. we see this in eren in the most heartbreaking way.
mercury in aries – LOUD!!! eren speaks what’s on his mind with NO hesitation whatsover. he’s very quick to defend his friends and points of view, and speaks openly about his passions and dreams. he’s very assertive and tenacious. short attention span and not afraid to give a different opinion from someone else’s. very passionate about what he argues about. very expressive and when an aries mercury disagrees with you, you’ll know it immediately by their facial expression. confident and thrives on inspiring others. remember him being mad when it was discovered the possibility of all titans being humans because now he didn’t know who the enemy is and he NEEDS to hate someone and blame them in order to keep going? ARIES MERCURY ENERGY!!
mars in aries - people look to mars in aries to lead them. they’re full of energy and dynamic, and very athletic - eren exceeds at hand-to-hand combat and, in the other subjects where he’s not so good, his determination makes him push forward and become better. VERY hot-headed and confrontational, which is both the source of all their problems and their strength - they are not afraid of going after what they want and are willing to go through any obstacle to do so, and they’re also not afraid of upsetting other people in order to do so. eren is courageous, loves to take initiative and is very enthusiastic - something that is very contageous. competitive and hates compromise, he likes getting his own way. aries mars are also very individualistic and can have a huge ego.
venus in pisces - i know this is going to confuse a lot of people - like, how does he have so much aries energy, how is he so intense yet has one of the softest venus placements? i deeply believe he’s a pisces venus, and here’s why. his friends are EVERYTHING to him. pisces venus’ love very deeply and are very dependent on their loved ones, and eren is extremely protective of his loved ones and is willing to do anything to protect them. pisces venus’ are very vengeful, too, something that people seem to brush off about them - they might not do anything when you mess with them but as soon as you mess with their friends it’s game over. i also get a lot of “there was no other way, the word had to be fixed” vibes from this placement? like, this placement gives me the energy of someone willing to commit awful crimes under the excuse of it being for the greater good, which is something he dramatically experiences as he grows older and witnesses the cruelty of the world.
Armin Arlert
sun in scorpio - armin very resourceful!! he easily adapts to the circunstances he’s in and works his way around it. very intelligent and with great memory. extremely manipulative, cunning and perceptive. scorpios are known for their capability to be great investigators due to their natural curiosity, and armin has this deep need to see the world outside of the walls and he studies all there is to know about it with great passion. determined to succeed. 
cancer rising - armin just wants to achieve his dream and it’s so soft. cancer risings are very receptive of other’s emotions and incredibly sensitive, but it’s difficult for them to open up to others. his appearance is very soft and delicate. loves to help others and has a naturally warm presence that makes others feel comfortable in his presence. give off a very grounded and stable energy, but this is often because they try to hide their most intense emotions and don’t know how to deal with them/don’t want to bother others by opening up about it. 
moon in pisces - one word: EMPATHY!!! very compassionate. tendency to become a martyr and be very self-sacrificial. VERY imaginative, he is the strategist, after all. can feel others emotions and read them very easily. avoids confrontation but feels a strong need to take the weight off of others’ shoulders and to solve all their problems. very loving and giving, in tune with his emotions and emotionally intelligent. on the other side, this caring side of him can make him see other people through rose-colored glasses, and he is prone to believing in the best in people and giving them the benefit of the doubt. but when they’ve proven their true nature to him, he’ll see them for what they are and will no longer defend them, even if still feeling remorse. notice how he’s always like “this had to be done, we had no other choice” to justify his actions.
mercury in scorpio - bro armin’s eyes are so intense. when he gets on his manipulative bullshit it’s IMPOSSIBLE to look away from his gaze. he practically communicates through the eyes. armin is very sharp and his innocent appearance has everyone still thinking of him as a sweet angel as if he isn’t a whole war criminal. he easily psychoanalizes others to know what they want and uses it to his advantage, like how he used berthold’s love for annie to manipulate him to let eren go after him and reiner kidnapped him. scorpio mercuries be knowing shit, they be knowing everyone’s secrets and others usually confide in them as if they’re their therapists. 
mars in pisces - mars in pisces makes a person avoid physical confrontation at all costs. notice how armin’s first response to everyone wanting to kill reiner and bertold/the marleyans was “please let’s just talk about this first”? he hates violence and deems it not worthy most times. he is very physically weak and aware of his limitations, unlike eren and levi, whose first instinct is to use violence in order to get what they want. no, armin has developed a much more subtle and effective way to get what he wants without using violence: emotional manipulation. he is the KING of appearing innocent and naïve and having people feel bad for him and want to baby him and protect him, and due to his extremely intuitive nature, he knows EXACTLY what to say to someone to get under their skin. he twists his words and emotions to get what he needs out of people and it’s both incredible and dangerous. also, very self-sacrifical and his goals are based on his emotions.
venus in cancer - he loves so much and it’s so beautiful and heartbreaking. he gives everything to the ones he loves and thrives off of being helpful and keeping everyone safe. reads a lot into the behaviour of the people he loves. very emotionally intelligent, wants stability and to maintain peace and may bend over backwords to achieve that. needs to feel understood and has a soft spot for troubled people, those who are more demanding and assertive (eren and mikasa), people he can take care of and who can take care of him in return. very affectionate and communicative. warm presence, you can pretty much feel the love radiating out of him. 
Mikasa Ackerman 
sun in aquarius - if you get past the emotional walls of an aquarius that has them appearing detached and distant because they’d rather use intelligence than seem emotional, you’ll be met with an incredibly soft, loving and caring person. an aquarius strength is their ability to be very unique, individualistic and humanitarian individuals - they truly march to the beat of their own drum. mikasa possesses a great deal of determination and isn’t afraid of being rebellious, especially when her loved ones are in danger. 
capricorn rising - people with capricorn rising had to learn to be very independent from a very young age. mikasa is very intimidating but she has a very doll-like beauty, common to many capricorn risings. these people have had to deal with a lot ever since childhood, but they are fighters and their determination has them being able to survive even unsurmountable odds stacked up against them. capricorn risings tend to be serious and disciplined, and with a melancholic aura to them – which mikasa perfectly embodies. but the fact that these people have cancer in their descendant makes them strongly emotionally attached to their loved ones.
aquarius moon - even under the most stressful and dangerous situations, mikasa always remains in control of her emotions. she thrives in those situations, it’s the adrenaline of the moment that has her being so good at controlling her emotions until it’s safe to be anything but racional again. aquarius moons are feel very misunderstood and tend to racionalize their emotions a lot. however, it’s only due to their fear of vulnerability that they build this emotional walls, because they experience very intense emotions. i always think about that survey corp member saying “what did you have to go through for you to be like this?” when she was perfectly stable in a life-or-death situation. 
mercury in capricorn - mikasa is incredibly action-oriented and she speaks in a structured but confident way. although she’s on the quieter side and is reserved, she’s able to inspire everyone when all hope seems lost, and she’s taken up eren’s words of “if we don’t fight, we can’t win” and uses it constantly in order to keep going. she’s very hard to read due to her usually expressionless face, giving her a mysterious aura. she’s very ambitious, persuasive and determined. 
mars in capricorn - when people say that mars in capricorn people are the scariest when they’re angry, they’re not wrong. they act so calm and collected until suddenly they’re fixing you with a death glare and you’re rethinking all your life choices up until this point. mikasa might be extremely rational and calm, but as soon as someone threatens the ones she loves, she’ll stop at nothing to eliminate the threat. it’s like she fears nothing but ever being unable not to save them. she’s very responsible and reliable, with a lot of physical strength and stamina. very PROTECTIVE, grounded and GIVING 
venus in virgo - this is one of the things that makes mikasa so similar to levi, the way they love. this bitch is LOYAL to her very core. she knows very well where her loyalties are - eren and armin - and is ready to kill all her close friends and superiors in order to protect them. she threatened to kill historia if she got in the way of getting eren back home safely, jumped levi on sight when he wanted to save erwin instead of armin, and got pissed at connie for doubting eren’s intentions after the whole marleyan ordeal. acts of service are very much her love language - she constantly picks up eren’s and armin’s stuff and carries it herself or orders them to rest while she works. it’s very hard to gain her trust and loyalty but once you do it’s forever, she’s very selective about the people she cares for. she’s possessive, too - giving historia the coldest death glare in the world when she saw her with eren. i’ve also noticed that venus in virgo are very difficult to declare their emotions!! they’ll just wait for the person to notice their indirect acts of affection. very attentive to the needs and details of loved ones.  
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iliveiloveiwrite · 3 years
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Love Me Now, Love Me Always // F.W.
Summary: Five times Fred has been in love with you, and the one time he tells you.
A/N: This is my entry for @kalimagik‘s magical winter writing challenge. My prompts were friends to lovers and my other is in bold in the text. I hope you like!!
Pairing: Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader
Warnings: pining, light angst
Word count: 3k
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One:
It was in the height of summer when Fred Weasley came to the realisation that he was in love with you.
It was the height of summer; temperatures teetering on the edge of the twenties – no mean feat for a British summer. It had been dreadfully humid; to the point where Fred was pulling his shirt away from his torso in a futile effort to keep the sweat from soaking through the thin material.
Cold drinks and ice creams were on the menu the day that Fred realised he was in love with you. From fairytales and stories, Fred wondered whether he would feel this grand moment in which he knew he had found the one he wanted to love for the rest of his life. His own mother had regaled him stories when he was a young boy about witches and wizards like themselves who had found their one true love; of brave princes who fought magical beasts to save the princess and ask for her hand. He had heard them all from being a youngster.
However, for Fred, it had been a smile and a laugh.
You had spent the majority of the summer with Fred at the Burrow. Your family travelling abroad to see distant relatives in Europe, and you had chosen not to go with them; instead, asking Molly Weasley whether she would mind you staying with the Weasley family until school started in September. Molly had accepted; she would never leave one of her children’s friend out in the cold.
It had been weeks of laughter and mischief filled smiles. Fred felt certain that he had not felt this happy in a long time; the attention he so happily soaked from you bringing colour to his cheeks.
A smile and a laugh; that was all it took for Fred’s heart to skip a beat and his mind to come to terms with the knowledge that over the weeks you had been staying with his family, Fred had been falling deeply and irrevocably in love with you.
The realisation knocked him breathless as he continued to listen to your laughter; your reaction from a story told by Ron. The words faded to white noise as he focused his entire attention on you; your smile, your laugh, the way your eyes lit up under the summer evening sun. His eyes poured over every inch of you and he simply couldn’t help but question whether he had always been in love with you or whether this was a new development in your long friendship.
Tossing your hair over your shoulder, flashing a warm smile in Fred’s direction before returning your attention to Ron, Fred thinks that no, he’s always been in love with you.
Then and there, he’s more than certain that he always will.
Two:
“Are you trying to get yourself killed or expelled, is that it?” You demand, hands firmly on your hips as you glare at the redhead.
Fred has the decency to look somewhat ashamed of himself as he avoids your gaze, looking absolutely anywhere else in the room than at you and the disappointed look on your face.
“The prize money…” He trails off, making a dismissive gesture with his hand; wanting to explain it further but not able to find the right words.
Your eyes soften at his explanation, understanding dawning across your face. “Fred,” You whisper, “This isn’t the way to go about it.”
“Then what would you suggest?” He snaps, instantly hating the acid behind his words as he watches the hurt bloom in your eyes.
You throw out your hands in exasperation, “I don’t know! A bank loan or something. We can figure it out but entering into a competition that risks your life is not the way to go about it.”
Fred remains silent; feeling thoroughly put in his place. You cross your arms; trying not to let the hurt you feel so deep inside show across your face as you ask, “Why didn’t you tell me you were doing such a thing?”
He opens his mouth to reply, but quickly shuts it. He doesn’t know what to say; he doesn’t know how to tell you about his plans for the future, about how he sees you by his side through it all. He hasn’t the foggiest on how to explain his deepest desires, so he settles for silence for now.
You hold a hand to your stomach as your other reaches up to only juts contain the sob that bursts free. “I was so worried. If your name was pulled out of that cup, Fred Weasley, I don’t know what I would do.”
Something in Fred softens; his heart yearns to take you into his arms, to kiss you senseless as he reassures you he would never do something so utterly reckless again. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he reaches out for you, a hand beckoning for you to join him on the hospital bed.
You scramble to him, settling next to him on the bed, automatically resting your head on his shoulder and grabbing his hand. He squeezes your hand; silently comforting you as he dares to press a kiss to the top of your head.
A friendship this old, there were very few boundaries. A friendship this old, he was bound to have feelings for you. The realisation from the past summer becoming all too clear as he takes in the tension coiling your body tightly, as the kiss he presses to the top of your head does very little to relax to the tightly bound muscles.
Truthfully, he adores you. He would never utter the words to anyone else but you for the fear of having the mick taken out of him, but he does. He adores you entirely, and to see you almost broken at the idea of him possibly entering such a competition – it stirred something in him. A desire to never put you through something like this again.
He presses two more kisses to the top of your head, still worried about the tension tightening your body. “Love,” Fred starts; voice low so other students can’t listen in, “I need you to know, I have absolutely no plans on leaving you without telling you.”
You sniffle, nuzzling your face into his shoulder. “Good,” You whisper, “Because you definitely do not have my permission to go anywhere, Weasley.”
Fred chuckles, tugging you closer, ignoring the rapid beating of his heart as you cuddle closer to him. He drops one more kiss to your head before murmuring, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Three:
Eyes wide, you glance around the brightly coloured shop. For anyone else, the orange and purple design would be classed as gaudy, but for the Weasley twins, this was nothing short of an explosion of their personalities.
Fred follows you like a lost puppy; hands fidgeting at his sides as he clenches them into fists and then relaxes them once more. A nervous habit, you realise. He waits patiently for your thoughts as your eyes continue to dance around the shop. Repressing a grin, you turn your attention to Fred. His eyes are bright with questions already waiting, poised on his lips as he tries his best not to bombard you and beg for your opinion.
Spinning in your spot, you release a happy laugh, all the while exclaiming, “Fred, this is wonderful.”
“You think?” He asks, a note on insecurity in his tone.
You grin, nodding your head, “All of this, Fred, is wonderful. It’s going to be a hit, so many are going to love it.”
It almost overwhelms him then. His feelings for you. They rise from his gut; almost cutting off his air as the words he has wanted to say since that fateful summer threaten to choke him. He gathers you in his arms, spinning you in a circle, “Thank you, love.”
For Fred, opening the shop was his dream. However, watching you stand in the middle of the shop, a wide smile on your face as you take everything in, Fred is almost overcome with the intensity of his desire to take your friendship to the next level. Not yet, he tells himself, everything was still so new with the shop and something dark was brewing. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to put you in harm’s way.
Not yet, he tells himself, but soon.
Four:
Endless screaming; endless shouting; endless fighting. That was all it had been. For hours, the castle once thought of as a second home for many students had been the battleground for the opposing sides of war. Those siding with the Dark Lord making it their aim to destroy such a symbol of power and innate goodness; those against him doing their best to keep the castle standing whether it meant laying down their life in the process.
Fred’s mind had been one thing through the whole battle: you.
Even as the wall next to him began to crack; even as it shattered into a million pieces and he was blown out of the way by a spell from Percy, his only thought on his mind had been about you.
Desperately, Fred stalks the lines of injured and dead in the Great Hall. Frantically searching for a glimpse of your hair or a flash of your clothes; anything that would answer the one question circling his mind.
It’s the sound of your cry that has him whirling towards you; relief already being written across his handsome features as he spies you sprinting towards him. He spies blood on your face and on your clothes, but he doesn’t dare ask where it stems from, he doesn’t dare ruin the sweetness of this moment.
You come to a stop in front of him. No words dared uttered as eyes scan the other, worriedly checking for any sign of injury. “I can’t lose you,” You cry, “You have to promise me you won’t leave me.”
Fred hauls you into a hug; crushing your face to his chest as his arms wrap around you so tightly that it almost crushes the breath from your lungs. His hand runs down the length of your body, starting at your hair and ending at the small of your back, “Never. I never plan on leaving you.”
Both of you stand there; clinging onto each other for dear life, inhaling each other’s scent. He smells like brick dust, but underneath all the dirt and blood, you can still smell the citrus and cedarwood that you have come to associate with him.
Gently, Fred rocks you from side to side. To so many, Fred is known to have rough edges. To be loud and spontaneous, and to act before thinking. However, for you, he would be soft. He would be the comforting presence in your life; to be the one to whisper reassuring words and sweet nothings whenever you needed.
He wanted to be the one to love you for however long humanly possible. He just needed to work up the courage to confess.
Five:
The nightmares are the worst part of it all. The constant nightmares that make him question whether he’s awake or asleep.
You’ve taken to sleeping on the couch. It started a month after the end of the war; your flat too small for you to feel comfortable enough on a night. Fred would never tell you this, but he’s glad that the size of your flat drove you to his. Knowing you sleep mere feet away helps him return from the terror inflicted in the night.
He doesn’t like to think of how many times he has woken you in the night. His screams permeating the night air as his fear invades every room of the flat. He doesn’t like to think how often you calmed him down; your fingers carding through his hair until his heart slows to an acceptable pace.
It’s as you crawl into bed with him; a side of his bed already stained with the smell of your perfume, that Fred admits to himself, he is doing better. The healing process has started; the nightmares only being part of it.
Fred believes it’s down to you. You push him to work on himself; to fight through the terror that keeps him in its grip every night. To talk about what happened and his near death experience; you were the first he confessed everything to. He couldn’t face George; he couldn’t face explaining just what went through his head as he readied himself to meet the winged clutches of the reaper.
Fred knows it’s down to you, and he loves you more for it. In the early months after the war, he thought you would leave. He thought that after the first few nightmares, you would call it quits, distancing yourself from him in preservation of your own sanity. He didn’t like to admit to himself how often he kept himself awake with that very thought; how long would it be until you walked away and out of his life?
The time never came, however, and he loves you all the more.
One:
Fred tells you he loves on a sunny day in March. Over a year since the end of the war, and over a decade of friendship, Fred simply cannot remember a time when he didn’t keep you close to his heart.
The day had started off by following its usual routine; breakfast then opening the shop. From there, Fred would manage whatever customers would walk through the door, greeting each and every one with a smile and a pleasantry. He may be a famous prankster, but that didn’t mean his mother had raised him to be impolite.
You join him just before lunch; bell ringing above the joke shop door as you walked in. A smile already on your face at the mere sight of Fred working so devotedly. The smile that breaks across his face when he spies your presence has your heart racing and your palm sweating; you don’t think he even realises the effect he has on you.
“Fancy grabbing lunch with me?” You ask, hoping he says yes.
“When do I ever say no to you?” Fred jokes: mischief bright in his eyes as he grabs his coat, shouting to George that he would gone for a bit.
You never grab lunch. The weather being too nice to spend it inside a café. Outside the shop, you turn to the tall redhead to find him already watching you with a look you cannot decipher. Smiling, you ask, “Shall we just walk instead? The weather is too nice to eat inside.”
Fred chuckles, dramatically bowing at the waist before exclaiming, “After you, my lady.”
You snort, stepping past him to continue up Diagon Alley, heading towards The Leaky Cauldron. Fred asks few questions about the destination you had in mind; just that the hustle and bustle of muggle London becomes apparent as you turn right outside The Leaky Cauldron.
Fred grabs your hand part way through the walk; an almost absent minded action that has your heart fluttering in your chest. Briefly, you wonder if this is it, if Fred is finally going confess that he reciprocates the feelings you’ve long held for the redhead.
As you both continue to walk, each step if more tension-filled than the last. The electricity between you crackling almost audibly.
He pauses suddenly, his feet no longer moving forward as he’s overcome with the depth of his feelings for you. He tugs you to a stop; wanting to smile at the puzzled expression on your face. “Fred? What’s wrong?” You ask; nothing but concern lacing your voice.
“I need to tell you something,” He rushes out, “It can’t wait any longer.”
The crease between your eyebrows deepens; it takes everything within him not to reach out a finger and smooth it down. “You can tell me anything, Fred,” You state firmly; fingers squeezing his tightly before letting them drop.
“I’m in love with you.”
“What?”
“I’m in love with you. I want to love you today, tomorrow, and every day from now on, if you’ll let me,”Fred gasps; the emotions choking off his voice as the sentence ends in a whisper of a plea.
The tears fall down your face freely. “You do?” You sob, voice breaking from the emotions building inside of you.
“I do,” He states. His voice more confident as the feelings he has had for you since he was sixteen years old take root within his heart. The very muscle growing in size to accompany the scale of his feelings for you.
“I love you too,” You confess, your teeth worrying your lower lip as you wring your hands together.
Something within Fred snaps, and before you’re fully aware of it, he has you in his arms. He pulls you tight to him; the length of your body pressed entirely up against his as he buries his face in your neck, practically shuddering with relief.
It takes a moment for Fred to regain composure, to pull his head from the safety of the crook of your neck. He smiles down at you; a wide grin that only heightens your happiness. You reach out tentatively; gently running your thumb across his cheekbone and down the length of his face. He captures your hand in his, pressing a kiss to each fingertip, all the whole his gaze never leaves yours.
He searches your eyes for a silent answer to a silent question. Nodding, you stand on your tiptoes, desperate to reach his height. Timidly, you brush your lips against his. A barely there kiss that has Fred’s veins igniting to flame.
He drops your hand. Instead, he curls his fingers around your waist, tugging you even closer to him as the pressure against your mouth increases. Fred’s mouth insistent on yours as his desperation to memorise every inch of you reaches fever pitch.
You wind your arms around his neck, gasping against his mouth as his hands begin to travel, splaying against your lower back. Fred takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss; he tastes of the tea he drank with his lunch. You cling onto him tighter, wanting nothing more than to take this further until the need for air becomes too much and you reluctantly pull away.
Breaking the kiss, you murmur into the small space between you, “Love me now, Fred. Love me always.”
********
General (HP) taglist: @chaotic-fae-queen @theweasleysredhair @harrypotter289 @kalimagik @heloisedaphnebrightmore @nebulablakemurphy @figlia--della--luna @idont-knowrn @big-galaxy-chaos @black-lake-confessions @annasofiaearlobe @imboredandneedalife @levylovegood @mytreec @haphazardhufflepuff @teheharrypotter @chaoticgirl04 @accio-rogers @starlightweasley @dreaming-about-fanfictions @lestersglitterglue @msmimimerton @obx-beach @izzytheninja @slytherinprincess03 @bbeauttyybbx @breadqueen95​ @acciotwinz​ @slytherinsunrise​ @kylosleftbuttcheek​ @remmyswritings​ @xfirstfemale-marauderx​ @they-write-once-in-a-blue-moon​ @ria-rests-here​ @superbturtlemakerathlete​ @inglourious-imagines​ @ithilwen-lionheart​ @now-its-time-for-a-breakdown​ @ilovejjmaybank​
Fred Weasley taglist: @whiz-bangs78​ @susceptible-but-siriusexual​ @seppys-return-to-madness​ @hexmione​ @ickle-ronniekins​ @oh-for-merlins-sake​
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magicofthepen · 2 years
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series 3!!
send me a gallifrey series and I’ll rank the episodes from favorite to least favorite
first, a reminder/disclaimer that this is about favorites/least favorites, not which episodes I think are best or worst.
Warfare
the civil war episodes are getting the top two slots, just gotta say that up front. series 2 spent five episodes building up to Pandora’s return and the civil war, it was tragic that Pandora was defeated and the war ended in only two episodes. but I am still more emotionally invested in those two episodes than the rest of the series as a result.
and Warfare has the biggest emotions of the civil war episodes. Everything about Romana and Leela journeying into the Matrix to defeat Pandora is so good! Narvin reminding Romana that she might not come back in this strained voice that’s trying to mask that he cares. Leela murdering Pandora’s physical body (who is Romana I), while Romana watches. Romana admitting that she always planned for this to be a suicide mission and sending Leela away—and Leela’s “I need you” as a desperate confession. Narvin turning absolutely cold at the suggestion that he would let Romana die. this is the first time we’re really seeing the messy emotional entanglement between all three of them, and I am *heart eyes* at it.
and we have other excellent things like Narvin and Leela’s competencies in wartime playing off of each other nicely, the beginning of a mutual respect between them as they make good suggestions and fight alongside each other in their own ways. and then, Narvin’s moment of incompetence, when Darkel places a bomb in him, and Leela has to cut it out to save his life.
and I do love an episode that sinks it’s teeth into Romana’s terrible mental state, and Warfare is like “hello have a character who has two destructive entities with footholds in her mind and is barely holding her sense of self together and can’t sleep because she’s locked in this complicated mental struggle right now.” it’s intense, and I am invested.
2. Fractures
aaand it’s the other civil war episode at number two! Fractures is not The Big Confrontation, but it still has that good, good emotional messiness and trauma exploration.
the explosion! Narvin terribly injured and yet still asking after Romana’s safety whenever he regains consciousness. Leela losing her sight and it being both an aching personal loss and another way the Time Lords look down on her—and her being left to cope with that alone because Romana’s emotional awareness isn’t great and she’s focused on her own problems. Romana carrying the weight of this war’s carnage—she’s ordered hundred of guards to their deaths, she’s ordered the destruction of so many places, so much knowledge. all of our main characters are so lonely in different ways, each dealing with their own private emotional turmoils, and again, I am invested.
also I do like the narrative focus on wartime propaganda on both sides, how they’re each trying to twist the story to give themselves the moral high ground—and the people who are the collateral damage of that storytelling (particularly on Pandora’s end).
oh and Romana trying to stop herself from splintering into pieces as a creature who feeds on anomalies digs into her mind, while traveling in a TARDIS without a shield that’s trying to rip them all apart? intense, good, yes.
3. Panacea
Panacea is a decent episode! it is a terrible finale, but as an episode on it’s own, I do enjoy it. (well. I enjoy it less in these pandemic times, but I do still like the character interactions.)
Romana in exile, Heartshaven in disrepair and then in flames…..this aristocratic house and its aristocratic president crumbling. Leela’s grief as this terrible, repressed thing that rushes out in an absolutely devastating scene. Narvin suddenly being the most principled person in the room (re: Arkadian)—and asking for Leela’s help! Romana’s hurt at being abandoned again and again, the scene where Narvin, without emotion, offers Romana a deal to leave Gallifrey (but he cannot be emotionless underneath it all). there’s some good, intense emotions happening in this episode, as the characters have a moment to breathe post-Civil War and get really hit with the weight of everything they’ve endured—and how lonely they are now, in different ways.
also there’s some good shenanigans! Arkadian scheming and no one being quite sure what the scheme is until the end, with K9 and Brax as accomplices. the wild-goose-chase-via-cell-phone thing happening. Romana having Leela smuggle her in to see Elbon and being ridiculously imperious the entire time, and Elbon “accidentally” forgetting to tell her the catacombs are off limits. it’s a bunch of (mostly) Time Lords who are muddling through several crises at once and don’t really know what they’re doing, and it’s an excellent mess of a plot. with zombies.
tragically, it is also pretending to be a finale, when it’s really quite a decent transition episode—moving the characters from point A to point B in an entertaining way, following up on loose threads from the last plot arc while introducing a new plot. I can’t believe they used it as a finale though, that was a terrible idea, and the lack of planning there meant the next several seasons ended up fumbling to (and failing to) deal with the consequences of the Shiny New Plot that Panacea introduced.
so…..complicated feelings?
4. Appropriation
this episode is my pick for Most Boring of the series, and the only reason it is not last is because it has one of the best Narvin/Romana scenes in all of Gallifrey.
the first time I listened, I didn’t even realize Gallifrey was invaded because this episode utterly failed to keep my attention. there are. so many fighting scenes. and listening to a bunch of staser blasts on audio for an extended period is not my idea of riveting. plot-wise, it’s mainly setting up the election drama of mindbomb, which is also not a plot I find particularly compelling so, once again, snooze.
however. that scene where Romana is dragged into a meeting while physically unable to sit up and Narvin freaks out, that scene where he stays with her when she passes out and is there beside her when she wakes, where he fumbles to admit that he is on her side, even if she isn’t President anymore (and what a momentous thing that is for him), that scene where he says her name gently and she says thank you quietly, and they aren’t friends yet, but something is beginning—that scene is amazing. the reason I do still look forward to this episode. alas the low lows mean the episode as a whole can’t be higher on this list, but the high high does keep it from being at the bottom.
5. Mindbomb
I am very meh about election plotlines in this show. but especially this election plotline. because I don’t get a strong sense of what Romana wants to do with Presidency, the story is just about her trying to hang onto the Presidency? and I mean, clinging to a power she’s better off letting go is a story, but it feels wrong to not engage at all with what she wanted to achieve as President before the war, how she feels about those goals now that everything’s gone terribly wrong, what her plan is if she does succeed in winning back power (seize tight control and force her reforms through? back off on her plans for change and focus on rebuilding?).
I care much less about a story of “who will win X office” if it doesn’t have that heart, that character motivation driving it. and if it doesn’t speak to a bigger picture—the story is very tightly focused on the machinations of the political elites, which is strange after the series recently explored the impact of Romana’s policies and Darkel’s maneuvers on the actual students (Insurgency) and the ordinary people of the Citadel (the civil war). we had this story of political battles spilling over into warfare that affected ordinary citizens…..hard-line political positions that caught students in the crossfire. and now it’s back to the maneuvers of elites with very little reflection on the broader ramifications of the academy attacks and the civil war, very little discussion of the failure of Romana’s political goals (she won the war but the Academy is still destroyed). so it rings rather hollow.
also I’ve talked about my whole “never got deeply attached to Brax as a character” thing, so this being a Brax episode isn’t something that grabs me like it does other people.
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Hurt - Part 2
Was not expecting that many people wanting a part 2, but who am I to deny y'all?
Trick question, I myself am insatiable
Pairing: Hisoka x Fem!Reader
Smut and Angst
Word Count: 4′645 This was supposed to be short
Warnings: NSFW, Dubcon (bordering on Noncon), Unprotected Sex, Blood, Hisoka being a cheeky little shit. Semi-edited.
I’m gonna use this opportunity to say that, even if your partner doesn’t outright say “no”, that is NOT consent. Unfinished sentences, hesitation, and no response at all does not mean “yes”. Always check in for consent.
That being said, enjoy my fellow Hisoka fuckers. I loved writing this and I will actually cry if this flops.
Part 1, Part 3 
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The silence that filled the room was palpable, interrupted only by the rhythmic drips of water falling from the cloth into the bowl.
Hisoka had yet to release his hold on you, making you narrow your eyes in annoyance. He licked his lips as he stared down at you, enjoying the direct line of sight he had down your shirt.
“And what if that isn’t my cards, what would you say then~?”
“Then I’d say that if you have enough energy to be thinking about that, then you are capable of cleaning yourself up. Your wounds have stopped bleeding, anyways.” You wrenched your wrist from his hand, trying not to think about how easily he let you go as pushed yourself to your feet. “You know where the shower is, there’s clean towels under the sink as usual.”
He leaned back against the couch, tilting his head slightly as he regarded your aloof attitude with a chuckle, “What if I really do require your... assistance? I have lost a lot of blood, after all.”
You scoffed and folded your arms in front of your chest, “I think we both know it takes a more than a little blood loss to make you lose consciousness.”
He hummed and stood, walking towards you to bring a finger underneath your chin, “Will you be joining me, just to make sure?”
You swallowed thickly as your cheeks burned when his hot breath fanned across your face, and you wanted to kick yourself. His heavy-lidded gaze did nothing to help the feeling that stirred deep in your gut. You pulled yourself away from him, taking a step back to collect yourself and fixing another glare on him, only making his smirk widen. “Don’t be ridiculous, and don’t use up all the hot water.”
I’m gonna need one after cleaning up all your shit
You let out a sigh of relief as he relented, walking towards the bathroom. You hadn’t realized you had been holding your breath.
Running a hand down your face, you slung the bloody cloth over your shoulder and turned your head to examine the damage done to your couch since his arrival. You groaned at the sight. Deep red patches stained the cushions and armrest, there was no way that those were coming out no matter how deep you cleaned. There was only so much that online tips and laundry detergent could do, but that was a problem for later.
Your attention turned to the bloodied shirt that Hisoka had tossed unceremoniously on the floor, grimacing slightly at the way the clotted blood stuck to your fingers when you picked it up. Fuck, it was.... absolutely drenched! How the hell he was even able to stand was a miracle to you, but you didn’t want to think about it too much. That man was an enigma enough as it was.
The faint sound of the shower starting filled the silence in the house, making you relax slightly; the tension from earlier finally beginning to dissipate a little bit. You moved to the kitchen in order to attempt to restore the atrocity in your hands. It would need to soak in cold water for at least an hour before you could even begin to try scrubbing the blood out.
The sound of the sink filling with water aided in calming your nerves further as you held your fingers underneath the stream to test the temperature, tossing the bloody cloth onto the counter. It didn’t take long for the water to reach the halfway point before you turned it off.
The water immediately turned a deep red as soon as you placed the shirt in the sink. You repressed the urge to gag as gobs of clotted blood began to float off and onto your hands. No matter how many times you bandaged him up, you would never get used to the sight of the blood...
You paused briefly; your hands starting to get numb from the cold of the water as your mind wandered. How many times had you done this? How many times had he come into your house whenever he pleased, only for you to treat him without question? You let out a small laugh, shaking your head at yourself. ‘Without question’ wasn’t entirely accurate, but who could blame you for asking the Magician with a death wish what the hell he gets up to every once in a while. You frowned, looking over your shoulder towards the hallway that led to the bathroom. What were you going to do with him?
Guilt began to eat away at your heart as you thought about the gash going down his chest. You made him clean himself up, then again, he deserved it, but you wouldn’t leave him to patch himself up. You sighed, and picked the shirt up out of the water, ringing the material as much as you could before pulling the plug in the sink. You’d have to keep changing the water if you wanted any hope of getting the majority of the blood out.
While the sink filled again, you retrieved your kit from the living room and set it on the counter by the sink; pulling out what you believed you would need. Gauze for sure, it didn’t matter if the wound had stopped bleeding, you would need to pack it. From the state of his clothing though, you figured the worst of the bleeding had stopped before he arrived. Antibiotic ointment was mandatory... so was the compression bandage...
You groaned and massaged your temples in an attempt to relieve the oncoming headache. You couldn’t do stitches, which meant he would have to stay in your home so you could monitor his recovery. Which meant you’d have to get close to him to change his bandages. Multiple times.
The couch was out of commission as a place to sleep on now, given the state it was in...
You wanted to scream.
Hitting the handle on the tap a little harder than necessary, you placed the shirt back in, this time the water turning only a dark pink as it began to soak once again. You worried your bottom lip while wiping your hands with a dishtowel, trying to think of any possible sleeping arrangements that didn’t result in him sharing your bed; your anxiety rising the more you realized that it was looking like he might just have to share your bed...
God. Fucking. Damnit.
You shook your head, glancing over at the stove to read the bright red numbers that displayed the time.
11:06pm
With another sigh, you threw the towel on the counter and turned around to go deal with the couch. What you did not expect was to see Hisoka standing directly behind you, making you flinch in surprise and letting out a startled gasp.
“Holy mother of hell, Hisoka, warn a girl would ya?!” You panted, placing a hand over your now racing heart, sending yet another glare to the offending man in front of you. The glare, however, was short lived as soon as your realized his state of undress. The only thing keeping this man from being entirely stark naked in your kitchen was a grey towel that was slung a little too low on his hips for your comfort. You coughed and averted your eyes, despising the heat you could feel creeping up your neck and onto your cheeks.
“Would it kill you to put a pair of pants on?”
It was difficult to keep yourself from tripping over your words at the sight of him, and you glared at the wall when you heard him laugh in response.
“You’re so red, my dear, am I making you uncomfortable?”
You grit your teeth in frustration, seething at how his casual drawl wasn’t making anything better for you. You closed your eyes, inhaling deeply through your nose in an effort to calm yourself down before looking back over at your newly acquired house guest.
“You are beginning to overstep your bounds when it comes to my hospitality, either cover up or find someone else to treat your wounds.”
It was an empty threat and you both knew it. You both knew you were too kind to kick him out of your house, despite how uneasy he made you. It just wasn’t in your heart to do so. You ran your hand down your face again, your fingers pinching the bridge of your nose as you felt the headache begin to form once again.
“Just... grab the pair of sweatpants from the top left drawer of my dresser at least. I’ll wash your clothes tonight, since that’s the only guess I have for you being naked as a jaybird. I’ll meet you in the living room when you’re done.”
Grabbing your kit and a chair from the kitchen table, you brushed past him as quickly as possible and placed it in front of the one patch of the couch that wasn’t covered in blood and set your kit down on the floor. You peeked over your shoulder to see if he was still standing here.
He wasn’t. Thank god.
He reappeared moments later in the pair of grey sweats that looked way too good on him for how small they were. You felt heat creep back into your cheeks for what felt like the hundredth time that night.
“Take a seat in front of me, please.” You began to pull out what you would need, “it’ll make things easier if I don’t have to crouch in front of you.”
It would also make it harder for him to pull the same stunt he did before. A look you didn’t recognize flashed through his eyes before he complied. You leaned forward, resting your elbows on your knees, holding your hands under your chin as you began to reassess the damage.
The injury on his torso wasn’t as bad as you initially thought. It was deep and would still require stitches, but with the blood washed away it didn’t look as horrid as before. Clearing your throat, you began to work.
“I’m going to have to do this once or twice a day depending on how you heal,” you said, scooping some antibiotic ointment onto your fingers, “you won’t be able to do any more jobs until the large gash is fully healed, or anything too strenuous really.”
He simply hummed in response as you began to apply the ointment to his chest, trying to ignore how his muscles twitched with every swipe as you worked over his wounds. God, his skin was so hot against your hands...
“That being said, this isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” you began to pack the wound with gauze, being careful not to press to hard on the wound, “with the amount of blood on the couch and on your clothes, I was expecting a lot worse...” you trailed off, the realization hitting you way later than it should have.
The sly smile that graced his face was frightening.
“Most of it isn’t mine, darling”
Your stomach lurched when he confirmed your suspicions out loud, but you forced the bile rising in your throat down; only nodding as you reached for the compression bandage. Your discomfort was still noticed by the magician, however, who leaned forward towards you a little more than necessary as you began to wrap the bandage around his chest.
“Because of the state of your injury, I would suggest you stay here for the next little while so I can keep an eye on your progress.”
You didn’t like the smile that crept across his face at that, or the way he leaned in closer to you when you wrapped the bandage around his back, “How long are we playing house then, hmm~?”
You gulped. His voice was teasing as always, but the implication behind it combined by the fact it was spoken directly in your ear sent shivers down your spine.
“I’d say about week or two.” You didn’t trust yourself to say much more as you secured the bandage with tensor clips. You checked your work over one last time before beginning to gather your things up. A frown tugged at Hisoka’s lips from the less than pleased tone in your voice.
“Don’t you want to play with me~?”
You shot him an unimpressed look as you stood up, wanting to be away from this man sooner rather than later. “I’m not your toy, Hisoka. I’m doing this for the sake of your health, because believe it or not, you are mortal.”
He followed your movements, standing in front of you before you had the chance to create any more distance between the two of you; once again taking your chin in his hand, this time more gently than before. It was.... caring almost.
“And it’s for reasons like that, my dear, that you are my favourite toy, and the idea of... playing with you in such a way is too much to pass up.”
It was your turn to frown at his words, “I don’t know what you mean, and I’m quite sure I don’t want to know.” That was a lie. You got the message loud and clear, but by god you wanted it to be wrong.
A dramatic sigh left his lips before he clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“My my, do you need me to explain it to you more simply?”
He didn’t. Shit.
You stared up at him, his red locks tickling your face from how close he was to you.
“Why me?” Your voice was barely a whisper. He tilted his head almost mockingly so.
“What was that, my dear?”
You narrowed your eyes, a sudden resurgence of bravery. “You could have anyone you want, why me?”
You expected him to give you that insufferable smile of his, or to at least laugh at you for even daring to ask such a question. Instead his eyes bore into you with an intensity that you’d never felt before, “Because you’re the only one that I want. You healed me when you didn’t have to and did so without question. I don’t think you understand what that means, my dear.”
You let out a surprised squeak as his lips collided with you in a kiss that held pure unbridled lust, teeth clashing from the intensity. He left you panting when he pulled back, licking along the shell of your ear. “You’re mine”.
You couldn’t even get your bearings before he kissed you again, just as bruising as before. Your gasps granted him the access to your mouth that he so obviously desired. The feeling of his hands wandering up your sides to your breasts brought you back to your senses enough to pull away from him and send a hand flying towards his face.
The smack resonated around the room, leaving your hand stinging while your chest heaved. You felt dizzy. Too much was happening too fast.
“How fucking dare you,” your voice was barely audible as a whirlwind of emotions ran through you. Hate? Want? Fear? You didn’t know anymore, but all you knew was that it was too much for you to handle, “You mistake my kindness and hospitality for something more. I am not yours, Hisoka.”
His head was still knocked to the side from the force of your slap. He wouldn’t admit it, but you hit harder than he expected. His shock was quickly replaced with a look that could only be described as predatory as he looked back towards you, licking his lips, tasting the blood from the small split you had caused; a mixture of a moan and growl leaving his throat.
“Oh, but you are, Y/N. You have been mine for a long time.” 
The dread hit you like a bus. He had never said your name before, never in all the times he had come into your home. He was serious.
Oh fuck... what had you gotten yourself into...
In a last ditch effort, you bolted, but you didn’t get far.
You felt yourself getting yanked back, making you lose your balance and land on the floor; knocking the wind out of you. You wheezed, coughing from the force of the fall, stars littering your vision from your head smacking against the floor.
You regained clarity to the sound of your clothes being torn from your body, making you yelp, kicking and slapping the man on top of you in a vain attempt to get free. He chuckled and easily batted your hands away, gathering them into one hand and pinning them above your head. You whimpered, your clothes around you in ruined strips, leaving you bare beneath the man you had just treated moments ago; a small feeling of betrayal forming in your chest.
You were trapped.
The room was silent as Hisoka stilled above you for a moment, seemingly admiring the view. You were frozen in a state of shock and fear, tears beginning to form in your eyes while he ran his other hand down your body, stopping to cup your sex. You squirmed at the look he gave you when his fingers came away wet. How could you be wet from what he was doing to you?
He began to stroke your folds, letting his head fall into the crook of your neck and letting out a loud groan.
“Why you, you say?” He dipped one of his fingers into you, smirking into your neck as your breath hitched, placing open mouthed kisses along your throat as he began to thrust slowly.
“Because of this.” He punctuated the word by biting into the skin on your collar bone and sucking harshly, making you keen when he inserted another finger. “I’ve dreamt of this~”
You turned your head to the side, refusing to acknowledge the pleasure he was giving to your body when his lips wrapped around one of your nipples; his teeth lightly scraping making you shudder involuntarily. He groaned in response, shifting his heavy-lidded gaze towards your face and releasing your nipple with a pop.
“Oh, no, no, no, my darling~” He quickly withdrew his hand from your cunt hand and gripped your cheeks, forcing your head straight; his nails on his fingers, still wet from your arousal, digging into your skin harshly. You whimpered when your eyes met his, the intensity almost too much for you to bear, “I want you to watch every single thing I do to you.”
He slowly let go of your jaw, dragging his claws lightly down your throat to your breasts, giving them a light squeeze. You flinched, your hands clenched in fists at your side.
“I’ve dreamt of you under me...” He continued; the sentence broken up by wet kisses placed down your body. Your eyes widened, realizing his intentions immediately, but forcing yourself not to look away in fear of what he would do if you did.
“S-stop.” God, you hated how weak you sounded. Tears began to slip down your cheeks as he ventured lower down your body until you could feel his breath right on your cunt. “Please, Hisoka, I-”
A loud growl against your skin killed whatever pleads you had on your lips; the pupil of his eyes blown so wide they nearly swallowed the golden iris. He looked feral.
“I love the way you say my name, Y/N”
A squeal left your throat when you felt his tongue on your slit, your hips bucking on their own accord when the hot muscle dragged from your core up to your aching clit before he latched onto it and sucked harshly; making you toss your head to the side as you squeezed your eyes shut at the burst of pleasure that shot through you, more tears dripping onto the floor.
The breathy moans and growls from Hisoka only added to your reluctant growing arousal as he ate you out like a man starved. His hands gripped you from under your thighs so he could pull you close to his face while holding you down; the sounds coming from his mouth loud and downright lewd as he lapped at the new slick.
“I want you to say my name over, and over again; I want you to scream it so loudly your neighbours can hear exactly who you belong to.”
Your breathing hitched as you felt a familiar tightening beginning to form in your lower stomach. You bucked against him, the last of your resistance starting to die out as your orgasm continued to build. You felt him groan into your core more than you heard him, making you shudder.
“Moan for me darling, don’t hide any of those pretty noises from me.”
You cried out when you felt his fingers back at your entrance, dipping into you with less caution than the first time. You could feel his nails dragging along your walls as he fucked his fingers into you at a steady pace, scratching lightly on your g-spot in a way that should not have felt as good as it did.
“Hisoka!”
“Cum for me, darling, let me hear you~” He purred, suckling on your nub with vigor as he pumped his fingers into you faster.
You came with a chocked sob mixed with a moan, your pussy clamping down on his fingers like a vice, gushing around him. You felt sick as you came down from your high, watching as he released his assault on your clit with a lewd pop, a thin trail of drool connecting his lips to your swollen cunt. 
“You’re so good for me, darling.” He cooed. You could only muster up a withering look, your words failing you. This, of course, just made him chuckle as he pushed the grey sweats down his hips, his length springing free and slapping against his stomach. “However, I’d much rather feel you come undone on my cock.”
Your eyes widened... he couldn’t seriously go through with this... could he?
Could he?
“Hisoka wait!”
Your shout made him pause briefly before he kissed his way back up your body, coming to hover just above your lips; that insufferable smirk back on his mouth that shone with your slick. Your face flushed at the sight, and you rolled your head back to the side in shame.
“Please... please don’t...”
Another silence filled the room as he regarded your trembling form pinned beneath him. A spark of hope was reignited in you, his hesitation giving you the courage to bring your hands up, pressing lightly against the bandage on his chest in your attempt to push him away.
That spark was quickly snuffed out when he let out a guttural moan, his eyes rolling back slightly before focusing back on you.
You forgot he liked pain.
“Didn’t I already say, love?” He teased the head of his cock against your swollen clit making you squirm, new tears forming in your eyes from a combination of the stimulation and the hopelessness. Your back arched off the floor and your jaw fell open in a silent scream as he sank into you in a slow, agonizing thrust. He licked a stripe up your neck with a possessive growl, stopping just in front of your ear. “You belong to me.”
He didn’t give you time to adjust to his size before he pulled back and thrust his hips against you harshly, the sound of skin hitting skin echoing throughout the room along with your moans and hiccupping sobs.
“Oh fuck, Y/N...” He gasped, his head tilting back in ecstacy, your walls fluttering around him as he hammered your insides; stretching you out in a painfully blissful way.
You loved it, and you hated yourself for it.
“Oohhhh darling, you were mine the first time you treated me.” He grunted, shifting the angle of his hips to penetrate you deeper. You bit your lip, desperately trying to contain the whines leaving your throat with each brush of his cock on the bundle of nerves deep inside of you, his words only making you flush deeper... if that were even possible.
“I would’ve taken you then and there, had you begging and crying under me like you are now.” You felt his dick twitch inside you at his own words and your pussy clenched around him.
God, what was wrong with you?
He growled, and suddenly pulled away from you. Relief flooded your system for a split second before you felt yourself being flipped over, your hips being pulled back and his cock sheathing back inside you with a thrust that made the whines finally spill from you; your arms laying limply next to your head as he resumed to pound into you at a pace that could only be described as inhuman. His balls slapped against your clit each time he bottomed out, making your breath come out in quick, desperate gasps.
“Do you like that, my dear? Knowing that I could’ve done this to you sooner?”
You only groaned in response, the coil in your abdomen beginning to form again. The tears slipped from your eyes as you weakly shook your head. Why did this feel so good? Why did your body react to him like this?
Your teeth dug into your bottom lip when you felt his hand circle around to your clit, rubbing in rough circles that made your eyes roll back into your head.
You couldn’t take it.
You couldn’t help the wanton moan that passed through your lips as you came, your head hanging loosely as your body continued to bounce from the power of his thrusts; your pussy convulsing around his cock as he fucked you through your orgasm.
“Hmmm~ you didn’t want to cooperate a few minutes ago, look at you now,” He fisted the hair at the base of your skull and pulled you back to his chest, his thrusts never wavering as he spoke into your ear, “coming undone for me a second time.” His chuckle gave way to a breathy moan as his thrusts became more erratic, losing rhythm as he began to slam into you with fever.
“I’m going to fill you up, my dear.” He growled, biting down on the junction between your neck and shoulder, making you cry out when his teeth broke the skin. The sight of your blood making him thrust into you harder and faster. “Then you’ll truly know that you are mine.”
Your moans left you with no restraint, incoherent babbling falling from your lips at the overstimulation. You could no longer think, all your energy focused on the dick that was pistoning in and out of your squelching cunt.
Hisoka’s hips stuttered as he came inside of you, his cock spurting thick hot ropes of cum right against your cervix, coating your walls as he bit down on your neck once more, lazily fucking into you a few more times before he stilled.
Your breathing was ragged as everything slowly came to a stop, the weight of everything crashing over you as your lids dropped with exhaustion. You whined weakly as he pulled out of you, the sudden emptiness now foreign to you. You slumped to the floor, emotional and physical fatigue washing over you as you stared blankly up at the man who had just ruined your trust and your body. Your eyes flickered to the bandage on his chest, a thin line of red beginning to form from your exertions.
Even after all that... you still cared.
Damn him.
He ran a hand through his hair as he stared down at you, a pleased smile on his face as he took in your fucked out form, his dick twitching at the sight.
Oh yes.
He would enjoy playing house with you much more now.
----
Part 1, Part 3
Tag List: @prettycutebunny, @my-child-gaara, @shorkbrian, @luesi, @mynameseri, @yep-seeyalaterbranflakes, @trash-writings
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scripturiends · 3 years
Text
stole all the air from my atmosphere
Read on ao3
Summary: Han Joonhwi thinks maybe pulling all-nighters wasn’t so bad after all, even when you’ve practically finished studying ages ago.
Rating: T
Word count: 1,577
Notes: Inspired by a poem by Timothy Joshua. And totally optional, but I recommend listening to this song while reading.
~
Hey, all. Thanks for waiting patiently for an update. This fic is in response specifically to a request I received here. I know a lot of people have been requesting for a sequel to ‘gave me no compasses, gave me no signs’ as well; truthfully, I’m not sure if this fic is in the same ‘universe’ as that one — all I can definitively say is that this still follows the canon. So, I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it’s the same timeline or not. I have a lot of fic ideas lined up for an “official” sequel, anyway. ;) 
The Solhwi brain rot just gets more potent as we anticipate the new episodes — I absolutely love receiving plot ideas from all of you, and while it’s a challenge to interpret it in my own way, I still hope that it’s on par with your expectations. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments. You can send me a message anytime too! I know I say this often, but your continued support really really keeps me motivated to write. Would love to make new friends as well, if we can help it.
Okay, the note is getting too long now. As usual, the fic is under the cut, and all mistakes in this fic are mine. Enjoy! 
~
There was that moment, when you stole all the air from my atmosphere; when my heart pounded within the might of all the planets.
It’s the third time Han Joonhwi has bit his tongue in the past ten minutes, attempting to stifle his oncoming yawns, trying not to cause any disturbance. He fights his drowsiness as best as he can, hoping that his companion wouldn’t notice — and yet, as his luck would have it, the moment he couldn’t hold it in any longer just so happened to be the exact same moment the person next to him lifted her nose from the book it was buried in.
Without looking at him, she flips another page. Tone commanding but masked with concern, Kang Sol mumbles, “Just go to bed already.”
So much for being lowkey, he thought. Joonhwi stretches himself awake, thinking of the perfect response: casual enough to make it look like he doesn’t care, but caring enough that she wouldn’t push him away. “Not until you’re done,” he finalizes.
Sol scoffs, tossing her pen lightly on the table. “You don’t even take this class.” 
Well, of course he knew that. But Kang Sol A — truthfully, he prefers to omit the distinction: no matter how many Kang Sols there are in Korea, or hell, even in the entire world, he’s only got eyes for one — is not getting anything out of him. If getting Joonhwi to admit his true feelings was her goal, she’s far from reaching it.
“You know why I’m here,” he sidetracked. 
Unconvinced, she turns to him with a provoking look, and Joonhwi already knows she’s about to go on a long-winded rant. “Yeah, yeah, I do,” she started. “You want to hang out with me but instead of just asking like a normal person, you make up this lame excuse about how I need to study even though I was already planning on doing that anyway. You practically finished studying ages ago so you just sitting there doing nothing is really rubbing salt in my wounds.” 
He watches her with both his hands on his head, suppressing a smile. Finding an opening, Sol pushes his chest lightly. “I don’t need you here. Get out.” 
She said it so weakly that he knows there’s no way she could have meant it. Making sure she doesn’t lose her balance, Joonhwi quickly takes hold of her wrists and gently places them back on the table. “You talk too much,” he breathed. 
Sol purses her lips in annoyance and propped her chin up with her hand. “Yeah, well, that’s why you’re dating me,” she pouted.
If she keeps putting him in his place like this, he might actually have to walk out, but not for the reasons she’d expect him to, like his supposed exhaustion. Joonhwi knows Sol doesn’t do this on purpose, but she naturally has a way of making him flustered, and he’s trying really hard not to lose his cool right now. 
She stomps her feet lightly on the ground, groaning. “This is too difficult,” she complains, leaning her head on Joonhwi’s shoulder. 
Really, really hard.
It’s funny how Sol can say something one minute and then completely contradict it by the next. She says she doesn’t need him there, but clings onto him like her life depended on it. Not that Joonhwi was complaining — but he does want to have a little fun with her. He wanted to stir her a bit with something like, I thought you didn’t need me here? He knows she hates being called out for snappy remarks that she only ever means as a joke.
But a quick glance at Sol, in her favorite pajamas and one of Joonhwi’s sweaters, on the very rare occasions she has her hair down, bangs falling on her eyes, Joonhwi decided against it. Her vulnerability shouldn’t be treated with ridicule; it should be met with an equal amount of softness. After all, no one else but Joonhwi gets to see Sol like this — he finds that as a privilege which shouldn’t be taken for granted. 
“Okay.” He gives in. “Let me have a look.”
Joonhwi holds his palm out to ask for the reading material, which, as usual, Sol rejects. “Didn’t we already talk about this?”
He feigns innocence. “Talk about what?”
Her head feels heavy on his shoulder. “I need to be able to stand on my own if I’m going to survive law school hell,” she reminds him. “You can’t keep coming to my rescue for every little inconvenience.” 
“So this is just a minor setback?” Joonhwi teases. He couldn’t help it. 
“No,” Sol cries, “it’s a major obstacle.” 
She snuggles up against him, and Joonhwi could literally feel the heat rising to his face. Nonetheless, he lightly holds the side of her head for support and asks, “So what? Are you just going to give up?” 
“Of course not,” she mumbles, her breath hot on his neck. Joonhwi knows the law well, but he feels like this should be illegal. 
“But sometimes I wish I was just naturally smart like you.”
He lets out a soft sigh. Like many other things, the pair have talked about this before, and Joonhwi has never denied that he and many others have had a significant head start over Sol. But this is what he’d always tell her: 
“If everyone in this school had half as much of your wit, every crime in the world would have been solved by now.” 
To which she’d grimace and respond with, “Yeah, tell that to the F I got in Criminal Code.” 
But tonight was different. Sol wasn’t coming from a place of defeat, she was saying this out of frustration. She was probably thinking that maybe, had her life choices been different, she would have had it easier. That maybe, had she been as lucky in wealth and opportunities as everyone else, she wouldn’t need to work twice as hard as them. So that maybe, like Joonhwi, she could just comfortably sit in silence with him and enjoy his company. 
Right now, he’s treading murky waters and he’s afraid that one wrong move could give Sol the wrong idea. Joonhwi has never been the type to open up to people, but she never made it difficult for him to do so. With Sol, honesty was just the default. Telling her things he’d never entrust with anyone else came as easy as breathing. 
He takes her hand and gingerly intertwines it with his own. “I didn’t have it easy at the beginning either,” he admits. “Law school wasn’t even a part of my plan, and yet here I am.” 
This is at least one thing he knows Sol could empathize with. After being betrayed by the last person he’d ever expect to hurt him, Joonhwi’s life took a turn. To an extent, he was motivated by rage. But mostly, he was just trying to find a way to turn that pain into something useful, trying to make sure no one else has to go through what he did. And call him foolish for being too hopeful or optimistic, but he believes this is something he and Sol can do for each other. They’re two sides of the same coin: the law owes Sol an apology, and Joonhwi is coming to terms with the fact that he might never get one, ultimately being robbed of the opportunity after his uncle’s untimely death. 
Joonhwi knows his words bear significant weight to Sol. There’s a lot of things he wants to say to her but right now he just settles with, “I think you’re smart enough. If anything, you need to stop going overboard. What if you get sick again?”
She lifts her head and stares at him with doe eyes.
“That’s why I’m here.” He raises their interlocked fingers to show to her. “Why do you think I’m holding your hand? It’s so I can pull you out from under when you’re drowning in all of this.”
Sol slowly breaks out into an endearing smile, trying to repress her laughter but failing. “Heol. Han Joonhwi, since when were you so sentimental?”
Joonhwi doesn’t know where this newfound bravery came from, but he kisses Sol on the forehead lightly. “Since you needed it.” 
Sol blinks, her expression unreadable, and Joonhwi fears that he may have done the wrong thing. But much to his disbelief, she instead grabs him by the collar and closes the gap between her lips and his. They crash against one another in perfect rhythm, and Joonhwi mentally slaps himself for not doing this sooner. Never has he felt more at peace than at this very moment, which was ironic considering he was supposed to be the one doing the comforting. And yet, the lines blur when he realizes that even when their methods are vastly different, they’re at their best when they’re in tune with each other’s needs.
And right now, this is what he needs the most.
Much to Joonhwi’s dismay, Sol finally pulls away; they’re both out of breath. 
Still in a daze, he musters up the courage to ask such a stupid question. In fact, he’s surprised he could even speak at all. “What was that for?” 
“You’re not the only sentimental one here. If you’re going to kiss me, do it right.” 
That was when I knew, you were worlds more, than just a first kiss.
~
Send me your thoughts here!
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rhysismydaddy · 3 years
Text
Unholy Matrimony Pt. 5 (Nessian)
Damnation Series
Parts 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 
____________________________________________________________
~Cassian~
A week later, I’m exceptionally proud to say I haven’t given in yet. No matter how much I want to.
Tensions the past seven days have been... high, to say the least.
Both of us are doing our absolute best to drive the other insane.
She’s doing it so I either sign the deed and give in or turn to someone else, both which would give her Sera back.
I’m doing it because if I have to suffer, she can bet her pretty ass she does, too.
Ironically, tonight’s our engagement party. A celebration of our undying love and an announcement to the world the Russians and Italians of New York should no longer hate and murder each other.  
They’re allowed to be sexually frustrated as hell, but no, they can’t kill each other.
I’m waiting for the little minx who’s spent the week making me regret ever even asking for the club, drinking bourbon so I’m too drunk to even be tempted by her--which is likely enough to kill me--when she finally deigns to grace me with her presence.
I take one look at her, starting at the high blonde ponytail that would wrap around my fist at least twice and ending at the very high, very red shoes I immediately want by my shoulders.
“Fuck.”
Obviously the reaction she was looking for, she smiles.
Her dress is a cream color thing that clings to her curves and is short enough to showcase her long legs. It’s somehow classy, while low enough to draw my eyes to her breasts as she comes down the stairs towards me.
Nesta stops right before me, close enough I smell the jasmine and vanilla of her skin, and looks at me through her lashes.
I turn my gaze to the ceiling, vowing to keep it there until I trust myself to not do something stupid like tell her she’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.
“I’m so fucked,” I mutter hopelessly.
If possible, she comes closer, sliding all the interesting, female parts of her against me. “You would be if you just gave me back my shit.”
I glare down at her. “I don’t like to lose.”
“Would you really be losing?”
I keep my mouth shut, because the answer to that question is a big fat no. God, she’s good.
“Tell me again why you refuse to put us out of our misery?” I ask in return, trying to remind myself who the fuck I am.
Even though I wonder if it is our misery. I can’t read her, can’t tell if this is affecting her like it is me.
She gives me a cold look. “What do you see happening after we get married, exactly? You think you’ll work a few hours at the club I spent three years building from the ground up, come home and eat a home cooked meal, then fuck your complacent little wife however you want?”
I have no idea what to say, because when she puts it like that, I sound like the biggest douche in the world.
Nesta sees the hesitation in my eyes and rolls hers. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I allow you to disrespect me like that, stronzo.”
“I respect you,” I say immediately, meaning the words.
“Just not enough to value my career.”
“Nesta-”
“Deal with it. If you somehow keep the board from voting you out in the next two weeks and manage to not sleep with me--which is unlikely, considering the way you look at me--the club will be yours.” She takes a step back, steeling her spin. “But I will not.”
I’m conflicted as hell, torn between wondering if she’s just playing me or being sincere.
Apparently done with the verbal smackdown, Nesta spins towards the door.
Hand on the handle, she turns back around and cocks her head. And then she answers the questions I hadn’t realized I’d been too scared to ask.
“No and yes.”
My brows raise. “What?”
“No, it hasn’t all been just me trying to mess with you. Yes, I want you as much as you want me. But I respect myself too much to allow someone who blazes into my life and steals something from me without a care or even a real negotiation to have my body, too.”
She walks out the door, leaving me standing in the living room stunned.
I eventually follower her down to the garage and we leave for the party Rhys is hosting for us downtown. But even though I go through the motions once we arrive, my mind is on the woman next to me the entire night.
I hate admitting it, but she’s right.
I took something that belonged to her, didn’t even question talking to her first, then acted like she was in the wrong for doing whatever she could to get it back.
I’ve said I like how strong and independent she is, but I tried to take that independence and turn her into something else. I bulldozed my way into her life, then acted like I was the one inconvenienced by it.
And seriously, why am I even fighting for this place? Yeah, I like it and think it’s unique, but the place is above board. Which to me translates as boring.
The past two weeks, I’ve had to go to investment meetings, deal with sending out the nightly invitations for entrance, and plan events for upcoming holidays. Things I never do with my other properties.
I hate managing things--I hire people to do that kind of thing for me. But I know I can’t hire someone, because who the hell besides my fiancé would do the job right?
No one.
I realize that on the drive home, and it gets me thinking. By the time we’re inside the apartment, I’m already mentally finalizing the details.
I tell her I have to take care of something, go to my office, and close the door.
Then I pull up the marriage contract, along with the deed to Sera, and hit print.
~Nesta~
A week after our engagement party, I realized I’ve started to lose hope.
Cassian’s managed to wrangle or bribe or threaten the board into not voting him out, and the employees have stopped calling me to ask when I’m coming back. He hasn’t touched me or tried to seduce me in six days--probably a record for him--and I start to feel like I’ve lost.
My club will be his in a week, and after we’re married, only him signing the deed over will get it back. Something that will never happen, considering it’d be a serious hit to his pride to do something as weak as give me what’s rightfully mine.
My club will be his, but like I said, I won’t.
Which honestly is just as upsetting.
Even though he’s a stubborn, boneheaded stronzo with a big enough ego for us both, it’s hard for me to overlook the moments of the past three weeks that haven’t revolved around Sera.
Little moments that have made it harder for me to pull away from him.
He’s made me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever met, whether with his foul sense of humor or stories about his violent, wild childhood. He stopped leaving the toilet seat up when I pointed it out. He hasn’t said a word about me ordering take-out all the time or working in bed while he tries to sleep.
He even dealt with one of Alexei’s buyers for me when they tried to renegotiate the price originally agreed upon.
And he hasn’t really pressed the celibacy thing. Sure, he’s complained about it enough for me to want to smack him, but I don’t know any other Made Men, Russian or Italian, that would’ve respected my wish after how much I’ve teased him.
If he would just-
I cut that train of thought off and focus on the report in front of me, because at this point, it’s obvious he won’t.
I sip my wine, which is starting to grow on me, and look over shipment records from one of Alexei’s yards, flagging crates that need to be smuggled instead of brought in through the main channels. Repressing a groan at the thought, I realize I’ll have to go down one night this week and make sure they arrive without problem.
I take another long pull from my glass.
“Drinking to forget?” Cassian asks, leaning in the doorway of the bedroom and looking me over.
I shrug, not much in the mood for banter.
“I got you something.”
Sighing, I reply, “Yeah, me too. It’s on the nightstand.”
His brow furrows as he walks over and picks up the ring box, opening it to look at the titanium band inside.
Just another symbol of our lifelong, happy, sexless marriage.
He puts the ring back in the box and extends a hand. “It isn’t a ring.”
“What is it?”
“Get your ass out of bed and find out.”
I would, except I don’t want to. And I don’t really want whatever stupid, materialistic thing he’s bought me-
He closes my laptop and pulls the cover back, ducking when I swing a fist towards his head. “Violent little wolf,” he teases.
“Stop calling me that,” I demand, trying in vain to keep the blanket on me so he can’t tell I’m not wearing anything underneath the t-shirt I stole from him.
He pauses, sighs, and scoops me up, blanket and all. “I love watching you fight how much you love me calling you that.”
“I don’t have to fight anything except he overwhelming urge to smack you.”
Cassian just huffs, walking us out of the room, through the living room, and into his office. Then he puts me down, smacks my butt to get me moving, and grunts when I elbow him in the ribs.
“Maybe this will fix your bad mood,” he mutters, flipping the light switch on and bathing the office in golden light.
I take an involuntary step forward, eyebrows going high on my forehead.
I’ve only been in here once before, just long enough to notice the obnoxiously big desk and wall of windows behind it. I’d taken in the black leather couch and wing-backed chairs, determined it was a typical male office for a typical male, and vowed to work somewhere else.
But that was a while ago, and it’s obvious he’s done some home improvement.
There are decidedly now two desks in the corners near the windows, angled in to the middle of the room where two cream-colored leather chairs sit. The desks are identical, mahogany and classic without being ostentatious.
A rug covers the hardwood floors, a deep maroon color that matches small details throughout the room.
It’s beautiful.
Cassian leads me with his hands on my shoulders to one of the desks, and I let him guide me around to the chair and push me down in the soft leather.
I look up to ask him what this is about, but he jerks his chin to the desk where to two papers lie.
One is the deed to Sera.
A rush of surprise goes through me as I see he’s transferred the building back over to me, even going so far as to deem the process irreversible. It’s signed and dated a week ago, the night of our engagement party.
My eyes are shiny as I look at the other document and read through it.
“What is this?”
“A partnership, of sorts,” Cassian explains, leaning a hip on the- my desk like he did in his Capo’s office. “You’re now a partner at my businesses, and if you sign, I’ll be yours.”
My eyes find his, and I see that he’s serious but still choke out, “What?”
He smiles and shrugs, like signing over half of your life’s work is easy. “You had me pegged when you first saw me and figured out I’m a fighter. I hate everything about running a business except the in-person negotiating and knitty gritty shit. It’s boring to me, and while I can do it, I’m not nearly as good at it as you are.”
“Cassian-”
“So run them both. I’ll do the day to day shit I know you hate, and you’ll do the rest.”
I can’t hardly process what he’s saying.
“What if we disagree?” It’s a valid question, considering we’ve basically been fighting the entire time we’ve been engaged.
“We talk about it and try to figure it out. And if we can’t, the original owner has the final call and veto power in all situations.” His eyes say he knows how important it is to me as he says, “You’ll still be in control of your property, and I’ll still be in control of mine.”
I don’t know why I’m still asking questions, because it sounds great, but there’s one more thing I want to know.
“Why?”
He sighs, sitting on the desk fully and looking down at me with open, honest eyes. “Because I’m tired of doing this shit alone. I’m tired of going to work and dealing with every single thing and then coming home and having no one who understands.”
He looks out the window, shoulders tight. “I thought you’d be like my friends’ wives, which is why I was such an ass. I thought you’d be just another thing for me to take care of, and I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to realize you could be my partner, not just my wife.”
His eyes are back on mine, the heat in them making my heart pound. “I’m sorry, Nesta. I’m sorry I stole Sera in the first place, then refused to hear you out and give it back. I have a tendency to be a little stubborn.”
My lips twitch, and his eyes soften at the sight.
“But what you said about respecting yourself stuck. I don’t want you to feel like I don’t respect you, because I do. You’re smarter than me, cool when I’m rash, and have the mind for business I never have.” He smiles softly. “I know you’re just as alone as me, and just as tired of it. So say yes.”
I feel a smile on my face as I get to my feet, moving to stand between his thighs. “Are you just doing this so I’ll sleep with you?”
He sighs, dropping his head in shame to rest against my chest. “You caught me.”
My arms wrap around his shoulders, his going around my waist, and I use the opportunity to play in his hair. It’s so soft and curly, and he makes a content sound as I run my hands through it.
“Are you saying yes, little wolf?” he murmurs against my collarbone, dropping his head to rub his face across my breasts.
I roll and tug his hair to keep the randy bastard away. “Yes, pervert, I’m saying yes.”
Cassian smiles a big, goofy smile so ridiculously charming I lean in and kiss him.
His hands lock at my waist, resting on the curve of my back, and for a moment, he just lets me kiss him.
It isn’t our first kiss by any means, but it’s the first one where neither of us have ulterior motives, so I take my time.
I kiss his top lip, his bottom lip. Find I like them both equally.
My hands work across his shoulders, the thick muscles contracting under my hands, and I sigh his name.
Cassian’s hands fist in the fabric of my pajamas--which happen to still be his shirt--and draws me closer. He kisses my neck, inhaling deeply.
“You smell so fucking good,” he mutters, biting down softly and making me gasp. “It drives me crazy.”
His hands slip to the back of my thighs, then I’m on his lap, knees on the desk next to his hips. “You drive me crazy,” he clarifies.
He kisses me again, hands sliding up my thighs to my ass to grind me against him. Callouses scrape against my skin as he sweeps the shirt off and tosses it behind me.
“Shit,” he murmurs, eyes dropping to take me in.
The fact that he’s still fully dressed while I’m in nothing but my underwear makes me feel even more exposed, doing strange things to my mind. I start unbuttoning his shirt while he kisses down my chest.
He teases one with his hand while he takes the other in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the peak. I squirm, pressing my hips more fully against is, but he holds me still, kissing and teasing me until I can’t take it anymore.
“Cassian,” I murmur, tugging his hair to pull his gaze to mine. “Thank you for the desk. I love it.”
His brows furrow, and I can see him start to think about how much I’ve teased him, but before he can worry that’s what I’m doing, I whisper, “Now fuck me on it. Please.”
A muscle in his jaw flickers, and his fingers dig into the flesh of my hips.
Before I can say another word, he stands and spins us around, sliding me on the desk. He holds my thighs around his hips, and then an idea seems to dawn.
“Wait right here.”
“Seriously?” I ask, even though he’s already half-way out of the room.
“Don’t you dare fucking move!” is the shouted response.
I roll my eyes, but he’s back quickly, holding the red stilettos I wore to our engagement party. I howl with laughter, and a faint blush colors his cheeks, but he stays firm in his desire and puts them on the floor beside my feet.
Then he leans against the window and watches while I slip them on.
His golden eyes blaze as I lean back on my elbows and slowly spread my thighs, in nothing but lace panties and heels.
“I’ll buy you all the desks you want, if you sit on them like that.”
Laughter bubbles out of me, and he’s suddenly on me, leaning over me to kiss me in a frenzy.
I rip his shirt open, and he doesn’t even break the kiss as he throws it to the floor. I hear the telltale clink of a belt, and then he stands up to slide my panties down, grab my legs, and guide them up.
I feel him brush over the center of me, instinctively lifting my hips to give him a better angle.
But he doesn’t give me what I want.
Cassian just stands there, gaze gliding from the hells on his shoulders to the apex of my thighs.
“Hold that thought,” he mutters, dropping to his knees and putting his mouth on me before I can even blink.
My back leaves the desk, a gasp escaping me.
“Cassian.”
“I want you to come on my tongue, then you get to come on my cock.”
“Cassian.”
He hums, the sensation sending shivers down my spin. He kisses me like he’s doing it for him, not me, mouth on every part of me it can reach.
I can see the lines of his tattoos on his shoulders, the top of his curly hair. It’s too much to handle, so I just lay back down on the desk and throw my hands above my head to hold on to the edge of the desk.
The only time he stops is to tell me things that apparently can’t wait five minutes, but I don’t even care because every word out of that sinful mouth makes me burn hotter.
“Come for me,” he demands breathlessly a few minutes later.
“Don’t boss me around,” I groan, even as I do exactly what he wants.
He lets me ride it out, dropping kisses to my thighs and stomach and hips.
As soon as I catch my breath, he’s on his feet, putting me in the exact position I was in earlier.
And then he’s pushing inside me, and I honestly almost come again from the feel alone. “Thank God,” I groan, the past three reminding me of the misery teasing him put me through.
“Fucking hell, you’re perfect.”
Hands on my thighs, he holds me in place as he starts to move. But as he picks up speed, going harder with each thrust, his hands have to slip to my thighs to keep me still.
I say his name, sounding like I’m begging him for something, and he groans. His head’s thrown back, bare skin shining and making him look likesome sort of beautiful devil.
“Hurry up, little wolf,” he almost pleads.
The sound of that stupid fucking nickname does me in, and I come with a loud moan. I would’ve kicked him in the head if he hadn’t immediately dropped down on top of me to kiss me without abandon.
His hips still but he keeps kissing me until he has to break for air.
I’m boneless and limp beneath him, and he looks me over with male satisfaction.
Then his mouth drops open, betrayal in his eyes, and he says, “I just realized you didn’t speak even French! All these weeks of me fucking fantasizing about that... well, I guess we’ll just have to do it again.”
“Accorde moi un instant,” I pant in French, asking for a moment.
He grins down at me. “Take your time. We have a lifetime.”
My lips twitch, and I don’t stifle the urge to smile.
I’m about to say something, but then his expression turns serious. “You realize I have to fuck you on my desk now. Equality and whatnot.”
I laugh and pull his mouth to mine. “As long as you know I’m still not giving you my side of the bed.”
He tugs on my bottom lip with his teeth. “We can share.”
~
We get married seven days later, surrounded by a crowd of family, dirty politicians, thieves, drug and arms dealers, and friends.
In the past week, we’ve solidified our business model to a thing of perfection. I handle public relations, real estate and development, and negotiations for the shipping business. Cassian handles both the Bratva and Cosa Nostra soldiers in New York, training new recruits, drug distribution, and negotiations for the arms business.
Basically, I do what I’m good at, and he does what he’s good at.
I know it’s ridiculous to trust someone with half my business after only a month of knowing them, but like Cassian said, I was tired of doing this shit alone.
I’d been dreading the future, dreading taking over and doing everything myself. And now I don’t have to.
I have him to lean on, him to trust.
Looking up, I notice him watching me as we dance, not at all paying attention to the crowd. “What are you thinking about, little wolf?”
“I’m thinking how I thought of this marriage as nothing but an alliance at first. I guess it still is that, but... it’s also more.” He spins us around to the music, watching me with a knowing expression. “You’re more to me than that. And I’m... I’m happy. Working with you and the thought of our future makes me happy.”
He smiles. 
“You love me,” he states with quiet confidence. 
My heart starts pounding, because I’ve never told a living person that before. 
But it’s never been true before, and it is now, so I respond steadily, “I do.”
“I love you, too, Nesta Orlov. Have since the moment I saw you.” He sounds so relaxed about it, the words falling from his lips so easily.
“Doesn’t it scare you?” I ask, not understanding how he’s the calm one all of a sudden. 
“Anything you love something, there’s the risk you could lose it or it could hurt you.” Cassian brushes a thumb over my cheek. “But I could never be scared to love you.”
I shake my head and start to say something, but he cuts me off. 
“Every morning, when you wake up, there’s this little moment where you look around, confused. And then you look at me, and that hesitation in your eyes just... melts.” He dips me, wrapping his arms tight around me. “You look at me like you trust me, and love me, and want me.”
He presses a soft kiss to my lips. “That look is worth every risk and hardship and whatever else loving someone entails.”
I kiss him back as he brings us to standing. “Italians are such saps.”
He shows off the smile I’ve realized he only gives me, and I say the words I know he needs to hear just as badly as I did. “I love you, Cassian. You’re worth the risk, too.”
______________________________________________________
THANK U FOR READINGGG soft ending for the win
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crimeronan · 3 years
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Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??
it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so.  yes okay.
technical stuff
(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)
cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago
perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes 
rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again
and over and over and over some more
seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning
in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post
clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold
the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world.  follow your dreams
sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type
but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad
(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content.  in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)
also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony
enter julian blackthorn!
from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass.  which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective
(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype.  mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that.  yet another post)
julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere
so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right
immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags
except that he is A Mess
and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use
moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale.  both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc
i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts
so we’re flipping the narrative
instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
THAT IS FUN AS FUCK
then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)
julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work
his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him
which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change
i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck
probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis
characterization stuff
(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)
i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh
u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension
from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset
he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances
his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness??  rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon
his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family??  rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him
his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life??  rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society
the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry??  once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely
the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks??  all that repression baybey.  this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years.  every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection
julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal
as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility
he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god
the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far.  not this far”
and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc
(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)
it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme
i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough
and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc.  i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc.  but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me.  he’s so fucking good
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astriefer · 3 years
Note
“Please hold me.” for thomastair (ofc bc that's what you said) 🥺
Thank you for this! @littlx-songbxrd you asked for this as well. I'm sorry it's so bad.
~~~~~
Trust me with thy heart
Pairing: Thomastair
Words: 4,537
Contains mild angst, some self harm and hurt/comfort.
Note I am awful at writing angst or hurt/comfort. This whole poor writing is based on miscommunication, much or less, or the fear to let others close.
~~~~~
Thomas wasn't fond of fights.
Demons were one thing. Their destiny as Shadowhunters was to protect mankind from those filthy monsters who invade their world. They brought disorder and death. The people he cared about were a different tale. 
A light jest with his friends, why not? A banter with his father about taking the coat or not while going outside? Sure. But not a very tumultuous, tempestuous strife with them. He preferred them all to get along with each other. 
Thomas liked even less when it was him involved in the disagreement.
He spent the last day jogging between massive training seasons, hanging out with his friends, and losing himself in his thoughts. Now, he avoided everyone in favor of reading Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He made a special effort to tell no one where he was going, so non could bother him and ask him questions.
So Thomas was stunned when Ariadne Bridgestock, of all people, rushed through the entry in an unmatched combination of grace and ivory skirts, then flopped herself onto the armchair in front of Thomas.
While she had had a pleasant expression on her face, there was a dangerous gleam in her eyes. If Thomas hadn't known better, he would've sworn she came here to murder him.
"You and Alastair fought," she stated.
Thomas glanced between his book to her determined face twice, considering his options. Then, on behalf of good manners, he put a bookmark on the current page he pretended to be reading for half an hour. "Is it Alastair's way to tell me to speak to him? If so, please tell him not to embroil any other folks in our relationship."
"He hadn't sent me," Ariadne ignored the last part of his sentence. "But he did not arrive for our conclave."
A spark of concern lightened up in Thomas, yet he repressed it. He was angry with Alastair, Thomas reminded himself. "And what have you speculated I can do about it?"
She looked at him funny. "Talk to him, I presume."
"Ariadne," he tried, weariness falling heavy on him. "While I appreciate your concern, I doubt Alastair wants to see me. In fact, I doubt whether I want to see him right now. I know you confide in each other-" more than Alastair does with him, the bitter thought tore its way into his head. "And your intentions are well, but I will highly prefer to keep this between myself and Alastair."
He thought this would give her down and make her apologize. "Alastair wouldn't have sent someone else, and he didn't solicit help from myself," she said instead. "He would've given time to you both to collect your minds, and then come to you in clearer mind."
It was right. He knew it was. "So this parley is all you?"
"As I said, Yes. I worried for my friend, who happened to be your partner."
Thomas brushed his thumb on the spine of the book, musing over her words.  "Why would you be worried?"
"He stood me up. I came by your flat later, just for him to say nothing has happened. When I asked where you were, he conceded you two had a big bump in the road."
"That's a nice way to put it," Thomas murmured. "I frankly wished to be left alone. It's nothing-"
"Thomas," Her amber eyes met hazel ones. "You are good at many things. Fighting demons, and keeping the rest of the Thieves out of trouble, for example."
He quirked an eyebrow. "And?"
"Lying is not one of them."
Thomas swallowed, endeavoring to hide the feeling of hurt off his face. Recalling what happened a few days before made his whole body ache in pain. "So Alastair and I had a row. It always happens with lads." 
"It's not just a lad for you," she pressed. He was wide aware of the chastisement in her words. "It's Alastair. And never have I seen him the way he looked when I checked on him."
"What do you mean?" he asked after he perceived her words. "Alastair was absolutely fine when I left the flat." 
"You have to see for yourself." Ariadne said, "Go to him."
Despite the knots formed in the abdomen, he dithered. "Things ended up stormy when we last spoke. Maybe he's still mad. Maybe I'm still mad."
It wasn't just Alastair who was mad. He wondered how Alastair had been this past day, and how was he feeling, among many other thoughts. Yet the cloud of exhaustion and hurt surrounding him perturbated the nervousness. He was allowed to be upset about what happened. It sure wasn't nothing. Not on his part, at most. Why couldn't Alastair just-
"Excuses are not appreciated," Ariadne announced, "So you better confront him already, or I swear I shall chase you to the end of the Earth with my electrum whip." Ariadne threatened, and that what had taken to wake Thomas out of his hesitation.
"Of course," he sighed, "Because I don't have enough troubles already."
She brushed it off again with a smile, and Thomas felt mildly annoyed. He hadn't shown it. "Sort it out. It will benefit the two of you to tackle the problem."
She left no place for arguments. Utterly abandoning the book, Thomas rose to his feet and went to leave the room. 
He was glad to get out of the grip of this confusing confab, but he was even more unsure if to listen to her advice.
He was still angry with Alastair.
~~~~~
A veil of fog surrounded the city. It was a prevalent London day, cool and cloudy. The wind is blowing hard, welcoming passersby in a burst of freezing breeze. A thunderstorm on its way, they said.
But those were the last of things that perturbed Alastair's peace of mind. It matched his mood just fine. If someone was to describe him, curled up on his bed alone, he could imagine being portrayed as forlorn and tormented.
No, what bothered him was a particular someone that left and hasn't returned. Alastair hated he still hoped Thomas would return and make him less cold.
His breath was heavy, and his lungs burned like fire. He remembered words that haunted him for weeks in the past.  I believed you were more than what others said about you. I conceived myself beneath all the harsh words, was someone with a kind soul waiting to be seen. Was it all a lie I told myself?
Darkness flooded his senses. Trying to get any portion of self-control on his body he could, Alastair rose to his feet, glancing out of the window on unsteady legs without seeing anything at all. Gather yourself together.
But the words burned deep then, and they burned deep now. That was a battle against himself he meant to lose. The cold spread not only from the world beyond the window but from within him. It pulled out his ugly head, writhing and furious, desperately trying to break free and rise to the surface. People walked in the streets, oblivious to his troubles just as he was to theirs.
Thomas wasn't there.
Thomas wasn't there, and Cordelia wasn't there, and anyone he loved wasn't there. He locked himself in their flat for the past day, overthinking and speculating and wondering why did he have to be the way he is. If Thomas had finally realized he deserved someone so much better than Alastair, would he be surprised? Alastair was aware of this fact too well. The way he looked at him when they fought, the shaky hands when he opened the door, and the hours of waiting in case Thomas will return, just for nothing to happen. What does it mean if not that Alastair finally made Thomas give up and leave?
This inner part of him was crying, demanded to be heard, to be set free. A shrill cry came to his ears, and it took him a moment to perceive it belonged to him.
His vision became vague, his head ached, and everything spun around. He tried to lay a hand on the wall - only to find he miscalculated the distance and fell ungracefully on his knees. His heart pounded in his chest while the darkness tried to pull him in; He tried to take a breath and dozens of small knives tore his lungs up. He shrank, gasping for air that didn't come.  
Everything seemed blurry, all his mind could engross in was the words Thomas Lightwood told him, the cold truth dripping from them, freezing Alastair all over again. 
Alastair was accountable for all the hideous things he'd done and said, unquestionably. How weak is he that he hides behind shallow faces and vicious words? What a dolt he is, hurting a person, mainly the only person outside of his family that seemed to genuinely care for him. His words rang in his head, Thomas's voice haunting every corner.  
He sank lower, his breathing gurgling, reaching out in search of something stable, something that would serve as a pillar in the chaos that ensued around him. His hand extended out to the still air and then groped for something to hold on the floor. That came the way of a cold, sharp object that lay on the ground. He gripped it tightly, and he groaned in pain and relief at the physical ache that eased his mind.
"Alastair?" A voice called.
~~~~~
Thomas was about to lose his right mind. Alastair was trembling vigorously, barely able to stand on his feet that were shaking like a leaf swaying in the wind.
"Alastair," Thomas stuttered, with no response back. His indignation vanished to immediate panic. "Alastair?" he repeated more stubbornly.
His chest went up and down quickly; His eyes were wide like that of a deer caught in the automobile light. When Thomas tried to take a step toward him, the smaller man stiffened and stood bolt upright. Thomas stopped dead.
"I came at the behest of Ariadne," he said, just for the sake of talking. Alastair hadn't told him to quiet, so he kept going. "And because I was worried about you."
"Leave," Alastair hissed out frantically. Thomas couldn't stop the throbbing burn striking through his body.
Thomas took a few steps back, allowing Alastair his space. He had no temptation to leave as he requested - Thomas simply waited aside, for a chance Alastair would change his mind. He recalled the nights he woke up from a nightmare, dazed and overwhelmed with emotions, and how Alastair always reassured him in the dead of night.
This Alastair seemed lost in his own mind, unable to escape, and it terrified Thomas. Yet, he shoved the dread aside and put on the most relaxing facade he could. He was told to be quite good at it.
"I'm right here, Azizam." 
"Everyone leaves. You can do as well."
Somewhere in his mind, the pieces joined together, like a colossal puzzle. Was he afraid Thomas would leave him? That he would give up on him? he told him he could leave in their run-in, because he thought everyone will leave him in the end? 
"I don't know. I don't know how to do it." To cease making the wrong decision. To cease pushing people away. To cease hurting people. "man nemidânam."
"Alastair, can you hear me?"
As he found out, Alastair did not hear him. "I don't want to hurt you. I already hurt you so much." Alastair went on, choking on his own words. Thomas was in full panic mode, and he hurried further toward Alastair with barely contained alarm.
I find you worth any pain to come, Thomas thought. 
"It's fine," Thomas said. "I am fine. I want you to be fine as well. It's much more important to me than whether you may or may not harm me."
Something split in his face, and he took a deep breath down his throat. His eyes snapped to Thomas. The terror on his face made Thomas's heart sink.
"Alastair?" he asked, but it didn't manage to elicit a response from the other man.
Thomas drew closer to Alastair, not missing the flinch passing the half-Persian's body. Thomas could hear his breath, shallow and trembling. He could painfully see the tremor of his hands. The wide eyes that so clearly tried to hold back tears. He took one step closer, and Alastair took one back.
Thomas imminently came to a halt. Alastair squeezed hard against the wall. He looked like a captive animal on the verge of losing hope, a man pushed to the edge, an injured soul. 
Thomas took one step closer. With his enormous figure, it all needed to reach Alastair. He wrapped his arms around the shorter man, didn't let go even when Alastair squirmed, trying to shove him aside, fought to set free from Thomas's grip. His hold only tightened, and he used his strength to shove Alastair's head into his chest. He kept him close, kept even when Alastair protested, kept his hold when Alastair Surrendered abruptly, sinking into the soft material of Thomas's clothing, even when sobs began and his chest got wet from the tears of his love.
Thomas pressed his lips to the dark hair, held Alastair steadily while he cried. No words of reassurance passed between them. Truly, Thomas wasn't sure Alastair would have heard him if he tried. He knew the touch was what Alastair needed. Their embrace was clumsy and distorted, but it was enough. Enough to tell Alastair he wasn't alone; Thomas wouldn't have let him go through this alone.
With a soft sigh, Thomas finally let loose of his grip. He started to pull away and was surprised when he felt fists clasping on the fabric of the front of his sleeveshirt.
"Please," Alastair whispered desperately."Please hold me."
Thomas couldn't find it in himself to deny it to Alastair. They slipped to the floor. Alastair buried his face in Thomas's chest once again, shaking silently. Thomas felt his mouth forming words on his chest, although he could not tell which. All the while, his hands embraced the slim, shaking form of Alastair.
A few minutes had passed. Or an hour. Or a couple of days. Thomas didn't feel the time had passed while he tried to console his beloved one. He closed his eyes and concentrated on moving his hand on Alastair's small back, kept him close. The other hand came to caress the space between his ear and jawline, where he was creating circles on the tender skin.
Slowly, The dark-haired's breath became more even.
"Here you are," Thomas let a breath of both exhaustion and relief leave his body. "Can you hear me, Eshgham?"
"Y-Yes."
"Would you like me to get you a glass of water?"
"No."
Thomas sighed inertly as he held the other gentleman in his warm hands, promising reassurance and no judgment. Alastair, for the matter, clang to him as if he was drowning and Thomas was his only lifeline.
He never liked to fight with Alastair. It rarely happened, but when it did it left a bitter taste in his mouth and a pang at his heart. But he was not going to give up - not on this. He remembered his mother once told him couples fight, sometimes, because they still care about what the other does. It was their first argument with their new agreement. It didn't make him feel any better at the time. All his life he had been surrounded with unconditioned love, never exposed to the arguments and the imperfect details. It made him view love as just sweet and honey, while he learned that there's more with Alastair.
There's the giving. And the receiving. The trust in the other's intentions and the willingness to make them your priority foremost of all. The disagreements make you understand when your boundaries are and open a place for learning and acceptance. The balance you build with time, something he hoped he could shape with the man in front of him.
The trust part, to his belief, was something they still were working on. Alastair had leaned on him, and Thomas wondered it he thought now he calmed down, Thomas would leave him again. He did the last time.
"I'm not leaving," They locked eyes, and for some reason, he felt hope. "Alastair, I'm not leaving."
There are very few things he wanted more than Alastair. Verily, He was what he longed for above everything else. He wanted Alastair and everything he was.
Alastair didn't answer, but he averted his eyes.
"Are you ready to go now?"
Alastair seemed slightly lost, but he nodded and weakly stood on his legs. He followed Thomas while Thomas flung himself up and let Alastair sat on their bed beside him. The comfortable place always made both feel better - The mix of English and Persian and Spanish books on the bookshelves. The notebooks full of poems Thomas kept beside his side of the bed. Alastair's spears collection. The artworks they bought when they visited art galleries.Even the soft yellow light was a source of relief.
"You are mad," proclaimed Alastair in a hoarse voice.
"So are you," Thomas returned. Alastair shook his head, and Thomas's eyebrows rose. "So what then, if not mad?"
"Mostly nauseous," Alastair murmured, managing to startle a breathy chuckle out of Thomas. "But also bloody exhausted."
Thomas fumble after the right words, before deciding he should be candid. "I didn't like being apart from you in those few days. But I stick to what I told you before, Alastair." He saw it happening - the wall of defense Alastair was building up again after the last one had crushed. "Let me bring some fresh air into here."
Thomas tried to ventilate the room well while Alastair sank into the mattress and sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard. "If you call the London foggy, polluted air fresh, then sure."
A bit of relief passed because of Alastair's quip. He didn't lose it. "It seems you and my father share this opinion."
Thomas scanned Alastair, then noticed the cut on his right palm. Absentmindedly, he approached his side.
"Why did you do it?"
It took Alastair a moment to conceive what he was referring to. He hastily covered it with his other hand, but Thomas saw it. "I - didn't mean to."
Thomas watched the cut in awe as if it was imaginary.  However, when he grazed the skin, Alastair winced. 
Thomas wasn't sure how to counter this. Their fight. What just happened. Alastair didn't either. Or did he wish to pretend none of this happened? That he -both of them- weren't hurt?
This thought wasn't toleratable to Thomas.
And that's why, after he took his stele out of his dresser and was applying an iratze on Alastair's forearm, that he asked, "I want to talk about what happened the day before yesterday."
He could feel Alastair stiffening, his muscles tensing. "I was upset," Alastair said cautiously. "I shouldn't have snapped at you, Tom."
"You shouldn't have," Thomas agreed. He was done with the iratze and put the stele aside. "But that's not why I'm distraught."
Alastair shot him a tumultuous look. Thomas took a deep breath before looking Alastair dead in the eye. "You were upset, but you wouldn't tell me why. You grumble about things relentlessly, but when you're truly shaken you don't share at all. It's not - just this argument. It's not just one thing. Those small moments you hesitate whether to tell me the truth. The times you don't." He inhaled, letting the cold air fill his lungs. He resisted looking away from Alastair's face, didn't let his eyes flutter around the room like they were trying to do. "Love is also built on trust and communication. If we don't have those, what is left?" He didn't need to hear Alastair's reply. "We talk, and we share, yet I cannot understand why you're so grumpy at times. I need you to tell me."
"Can't one just be pissed off at the world?"
"Alastair."
"Many things can upset me," Alastair said. Thomas might have hallucinated it, but his voice was a bit shaky. "Do you want to hear them all?"
"Yes," Thomas answered immediately. His tone was sincere.
Alastair's hand reached to the other side of the bed, a nonverbal request.  They still couldn't stop staring at each other. But not playfully, or lovingly, but earnestly.
Alastair, naked of his facade and any snide remarks. Alastair, whom he grew to know and rarely showed up to many else.
I do trust you. I care for you. were the meaning behind Alastair's gaze. All Thomas wanted is to lean on and forget everything. But still - it was not his pride making him relucent. That was much deeper than that. 
He lingered there just for a moment too long, enough to make Alastair believe he declined the request, and his hand quirked in pain for a moment. His face became emotionless - and Thomas had feared he misleadingly deceived Alastair that he didn't want them after all. That he didn't want him.
In moments, he climbed on the bed. He coddled Alastair, silently and diligently. "Tell me. Tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing," Alastair retorted eventually. He rubbed his eyes and laid back on the bed board. Then after a moment. "Everything."
"I hate it when I see you suffer and I don't know why," Thomas whispered. "I want to help. More than anything. But you push me away and I am left to think it might be because of me, because-"
"No," Alastair said firmly, extending his hands to cup Thoams's. "You have never been anything but good to me. It's just-," he broke off.
Thomas searched his foggy eyes. "I don't blame you," he told him, "If it's hard for you. But trust me enough to tell me what bothers you, thus we could face it together." He collected his hands in his own, lifting them so he could kiss his knuckles. "I know I want to stand by your side whatever the cost." he was certain about that; No whirlwind to come could change it. "Will you let me?"
Instead of an answer, Alastair kissed him.
Thomas knew he was kind, forgiving, trusting. He knew Alastair was slow to trust, slow to reveal his true feelings, hiding behind sharp words to secure himself from being harmed by people close to him. He knew the world broke his heart - so viciously, and that he took the pieces that were left. It was undoubtedly hard. Alastair had changed so much, yet Thomas wanted to understand, to reassure Alastair they were in this together. 
"Hamsar-am," Alastair said when they pulled away. "I will try."
Thomas smiled at the endearment term. His heart was throbbing fast. "I was mad," he confessed, "because you refused to tell me what's wrong. You pretended. And I - I don't want facades, my love. I want the truth. I want you."
"I don't want to be weak around the people I love," Alastair whispered, and Thomas understood. To what extent did he fear that if he shows weakness, his friends and family would suffocate him again, shield him from the world as they did when he was younger? How much he feared at slightest of weakness shown, he would be smothered as Thomas had been when he was too small, too fragile?
But Alastair never did that. He supported him in his way, allowed him to be weak without acting as if Thomas was made of glass. "So not weak to everyone," He was astonished he found it in himself to laugh softly. "Each other will be enough. We can be vulnerable with one another."
Alastair stared at him for a long moment. Eventually, a faint smile appeared on his lips. "Okay."
"This is just another way of trust."
So Alastair told him. He told him about the rumors he heard from the London enclave about his family, the looks he had gotten. Of the words of people who were white while Alastair was brown. He didn't mind, much, but it drew attention to his family. And to Thomas. Respectable family and a kind heart seemingly weren't enough to make the rumors - and who spread them - silence. The opposite is correct - the fire burned even brighter, and its flame was like cutting knives. The people who matter didn't care about their agreement, and Alastair long stopped paying attention to rumors. But when it was about Thomas, he said, he had been furious. The stories unfolded, the truth shone through, and the more Alastair talked - not just about rumors, but on the way some of the people treated him, of the Cornwall's townhouse and its residents, the things his soul troubled about were finally out.
Thomas listened, understood, stroked Alastair's cheek when he seemed to start shaking again, but now out of relief instead of concealed agony. 
They sunk into a comfortable silence in the end. Up until Alastair inquired, "You were out for so long. Where were you?"
"At the institute," Thomas replied. The concept of coming back to his parents' townhouse, admitting the quarrel, rewinding it all in his head countless times while enduring Sophie and Gideon's worrying looks, was nothing he wished to do. "Or somewhere I could avoid anyone."
"And now?" he asked tentatively. "You come back?"
"I have no intentions to leave this bed even if Ariadne herself will come to pluck me off the sheets." He affirmed.
Alastair's smirk became genuine this time. "Ariadne was here today."
When Thomas said "I know" he got a quizzical look from Alastair so he supplied, "She found my whereabouts and made me go confront you. Not much subtly, may I add."
"Yes. This jinx made me open up the door and refused to leave until I told her what happened."
Thomas silently laughed. 
"I..suppose it was rather cathartic," Alastair said. It was evening now, Thomas noted, and none of them found it in themselves to get up and eat supper. They just kept their bodies close, relishing their air of comfort.
"Indeed. This, this was good. Splendidly better than reading the same page over and over again in the Devil's tavern or pretending to care what waistcoat Matthew is taking to the impending party at Anna's flat." 
"You thought the place you and your squad go to hide is the best place to hide from them?" Alastair asked.
"It seemed reasonable at the time," Thomas murmured. "Each of us has a kind of hideout, have we not?"
Where was Alastair's safe hideaway? At home, with a book in hand? At museums, drinking in art and beauty? Was it hiking in the streets of London by himself and enjoying the view and the whispers of nature?
"You," Alastair said. Thomas hadn't realized he voiced his question aloud. A tired, small smile played on Alastair's lips, yet his words were soft, plain and simple. Their eyes locked, and he could feel how genuine Alastair was. "You are my hideout."
~~~~~
Dictionary:
man nemidânam - I don't know
Eshgham - my love
Hamsar-am - my equal head, my better half
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lifeofroos · 3 years
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A/N: The prompt was ‘Percy, Annabeth and Clarisse have a fight and the Olympians interfere.’ I liked it :)
AO3 - KoFi
The Olympians
‘Athena. Poseidon. Ares. What an… absolute pleasure to find all of you huddled together like this.’
Athena peered at her brother. ‘Spare us the sarcasm, Dionysus. What do you want?’
The god took an exceedingly long amount of time to study his fingernails before turning back to his family. ‘Remember, during the Olympian meeting a little while back…’
‘Which one? Hurry up.’
‘I was giving you all examples of misbehaviour your kids conducted and quite a few of the gods, including the three of you, said I should just send in their parents next time, see what they can change.’ He took a deep breath, losing all of the smugness for a moment. ‘Your kids. All of them, led by Perseus Jackson, Annabeth Chase and Clarisse la Rue. They’ve got a quarrel, and I have to admit the three of you might be better equipped to stop it. I drive them apart and next week they are at it again - I hope, perhaps, when you three say something about it, they’ll learn their lesson for good.’
Ares and Poseidon began to grin. Athena repressed the urge. ‘Is that all you want, Dionysus?’
‘You never know, do you, sister?’ he answered, all the previous bravado back on show. 
Athena rolled her eyes. ‘We’ll deal with them.’
‘You should have asked us before,’ Poseidon said. ‘Too stubborn?’ 
Dionysus shrugged, unwilling to answer. Ares ruffled through his brothers’ hair. ‘I knew there’d be a point where you couldn’t handle them.’
Dionysus pushed the locks out of his face, so he could look while his family members strided off. Ah, the duality of men: Both wanting them to fail so they knew it wasn’t as easy as they made it out to be, and wanting them to succeed so that those kids would finally stop attacking each other over flags. 
-
Percy crouched next to Annabeth, the red flag clutched against his chest. ‘Where are they?’
‘Sh!’
‘Okay, okay…’ 
‘Sh, then!’
She peeked past her cabin, at the baricade she presumed the Ares kids were hiding behind. She felt the adrenaline course through her veins. ‘We’re getting that flag back.’
Clarisse, on the other side, did the same thing. ‘Punk thinks she won? Well, she can prove it.’ 
One of her brothers was running his hands over the smooth fabric of the blue flag. ‘I was there first,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘I caught the flag and brought it back first. We won.’
‘Shut it,’ Clarisse said through gritted teeth. ‘I know we won. We just need to prove it…’ 
Her voice ebbed away when a bright light appeared. Everyone shut their eyes, shielding themselves against the light. 
When the light dimmed, Annabeth gasped. ‘Mother?’
‘What?’ Percy forgot to temper his voice. He pushed Annabeth away, so he could look at the three gods that appeared on the field.
Athena put her hands on her hips. ‘Well? I don’t see anything.’
Ares sighed. ‘Perhaps Dionysus, our little drama queen, was being just that: A drama queen. Like always.’ 
Poseidon looked around for longer before pulling conclusions: ‘Percy?’
He slowly got up from behind the makeshift barricade. ‘Dad?’
Athena scoffed. ‘A little more respect.’
‘...Dad, my lady, my lord?’ Percy mumbeld, with his eyebrows raised in slight mockery. ‘With all due respect, may I ask why all of you are here?’
Athena raised her chin. ‘First, I’d like to see that my children are really involved in this conflict, or if you are stirring up trouble on your own.’
‘And mine,’ Ares demanded. 
In a daze, the Athena and Ares children stepped out into the open. One of the Athena kids pulled the red flag out of Percy’s hands. 
Annabeth took a deep breath. ‘Mother, lord Poseidon, lord Ares,’ she addressed them, with a little nod every time, ‘May I ask, why do you require our attention?’
For a few seconds, none of them really knew what to say, until Athena pulled herself together: ‘My daughter, it has come to our attention that there is a dispute going on.’
‘I assure you it is nothing the gods could ever want to be involved with,’ Percy muttered. 
‘It’s not really what one would call of great importance,’ Clarisse agreed from the other side. ‘If those little oohoo’s just agreed that we won, this would be easily resolved.’
‘Keep dreaming. We won.’
‘Won what? A battle? Is this about loot?’ Ares inquired.
The campers gave each other uncomfortable looks. ‘Well, it’s about… eh… capture the flag.’
There were no words for a couple of seconds. ‘You have been fighting each other over who won a stupid game? And that has been happening every single week?’ Poseidon asked. 
‘...perhaps… oh crud, the Apollo’s are coming over!’ One of the Ares kids yelled. 
Athena stamped her foot on the ground. ‘No longer. This… nonsense has to stop right now and I never want to hear another peep about it.’
‘Dionysus has been saying the same thing. It’ll probably happen again next week,’ Percy said to no-one in particular.
Athena had to remind herself that Poseidon was right there to stop herself from learning the kid a lesson. ‘Not anymore.’ She raised her arm. ‘One more dispute about this… this nonsense, and you are all getting classes on proper behaviour, you hear me?’
The kids nodded, suddenly all looking a little afraid. 
‘One more question: has Dionysus really been unable to stop all this?’
‘He has tried,’ Clarisse muttered. ‘Quite harshly.’ She shrugged. ‘Yet the little oohoo’s didn’t stop, so neither did we.’
‘Now…’
Athena took a sharp breath. ‘Annabeth, stop it. All of you are coming in, tomorrow, for a class. I’ll take care of it. Don’t ask what Dionysus thinks of that. I’ll... convince him.’ With a bang, Athena disappeared. Ares and Poseidon followed quickly after, leaving a group of astonished campers behind. 
-
As they entered Olympus, Ares spotted Dionysus. With a single swipe he smacked him against a wall. ‘Fix it yourself next time.’
‘I thought you were going to make sure there was no next time.’
‘And learn what consequences are.’
Athena coughed. ‘Ahem. Dionysus, they’ve got a class from me tomorrow. About decorum.’
The god gave her a little smile, before teleporting back to the camp. ‘And thanks,’ was the last thing they heard him say.
‘Children,’ Athena muttered, as she stalked off. ‘Am I glad I never was like that.’
A/N: An Oohoo is a type of owl, right? It’s ‘oehoe’ in Dutch, google translate says English is ‘oohoo.’
I've got two more prompts: One about Clarisse going to school after she's been claimed, and one about Clarisse comforting her brothers after a battle. They'll be out soon, I already got rough drafts.
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vostokovasmelina · 3 years
Text
— 𝐀𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝟑𝐂. (𝐬.𝐰.)
𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢  |  𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢 | 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
characters: fem!reader; sam wilson; archibald the tabby cat; sarah wilson
word count: 3.1k+
warning: mentions and descriptions of alcohol, death, grief, trauma, therapy, depression – i call this post-snap realism
series summary: after the blip, sam wilson gets home to an unpleasant surprise - his key doesn’t fit the lock anymore and his apartment is now inhabited by a stranger and a grumpy feline. however, the unusual encounter is only the beginning of their post-blip lives and the reader soon learns that what life takes away, it can give back in the most particular ways.
a/n: the ending is a dark unedited mess, so proceed with caution
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Taking a cautious sip of your hot beverage, you watched this absolute gatecrasher of a man trying to make up his mind about whatever he was so confused about – Sam kept looking all around your apartment as if searching for something he had left there, his slightly lost and disoriented expression sending a sudden wave of guilt rushing over you. Now that you thought about it, it really must have sucked absolute cheese for him to come home hoping he could finally have that huge cup of strong black coffee he had been anticipating ever since having defeated that enormous purple bastard from Outer Space, only to find that his coffee machine was long gone and now this random lady with a philodendron problem and a judgmental cat were inhabiting the place with absolutely no room left for him whatsoever. It did sound tragic when you put it that way.
However, it really wasn’t your fault that you had needed to find a brand new residence approximately five years before. He really should have checked in with someone to make sure he still had somewhere to go home to. You were quite clearly the real victim here. And Lord only knew how poor Archie was going to process all the excitement of the day.
For a few seconds, you contemplated whether or not to put your thoughts into words, and eventually decided against it for the time being. The man had just helped save the world a few days before, after all, and out of what? Good conscience? Personally not for you, but you could appreciate it in others. And it would have been a real shame to die right when your fan-favourite succulents and killer new posting schedule had been attracting more Instagram followers than ever before. Thanks to the savior complex flaming inside of the gentleman standing before you though, the regular civilian had luckily escaped such terrible��hardships. And special thanks to approximately a thousand and one other superheroes. Oh, and to an African country filled with similarly public-spirited people.
For a few awkwardly long seconds neither of you said a word. Sam kept looking around and you watched him look around, slowly lowering your mug onto the table and tilting your head slightly to the left. Weird how Sarah had never mentioned the brother believed to be dead for the last five years was this handsome. It is unfair, really. Some people are just naturally gorgeous no matter the shitty kitchen lighting, that tiny confused frown that had been sitting on their face for the last half hour, or those shiny black bugs for eyes tearing up ever so slightly to snitch on a long repressed yawn.
“Now that the drama is over and the Avengers as such are non-existent – have you considered a career in modeling yet?”
Sam snapped his head towards you with such force and speed that for a moment you were afraid you’d have to spend the rest of the afternoon sewing it back on his neck. You grabbed your mug still pretty much filled to the brim with tea and raised it back up to your mouth to hide your lingering half-smile behind a faded portrait of baby Archie on the ivory porcelain.
“Just saying, I would buy anything for this face on the package alone,” you continued with the confidence of a woman who hasn’t got a single drop of shame left in her body. But it was fine ‘cos you didn’t actually mean it, right? It was all just a joke, an attempt at lightening the mood and snapping him out of his puzzled melancholy. And that tiny flutter of your heart upon hearing Sam’s perfect little chuckle was but a momentary malfunction of the organ. The incident was purely physiological. No contribution from any emotional factors. It was simply an innocent coincidence that these two, completely unrelated things had co-occured.
So when your gazes met, you didn’t tear yours away in embarrassment – you stood your ground, completely unaffected and unbothered, ignoring the increasingly hot sensation in your cheeks when you saw Sam raise a cheeky eyebrow at you. Before even more damage could have been done, however, you decided to cut the party short.
“Oh, no. Don’t get your hopes up, Birdman. I simply couldn’t keep watching you in your deeply disturbed state.”
Very, very smooth. Cleared of all suspicion. Good job.
“Wow. Okay. That was cruel,” Sam scoffed and gave emphasis to his words by bringing up his right palm dramatically to his chest, right above his now most definitely broken heart. The overall effect got ruined by an annoyingly goofy grin in the end and before you even realised, you had already reached out for your massive mug again to drown your own erupting smile in the hot liquid.
In the silence that followed, however, you saw Sam’s smile fall ever so slightly, as if exhaustion or worry were holding onto the corners of his lips, physically tugging them down, and you shifted slightly uncomfortably in your seat. It was time you had stopped messing around with the poor guy.
“Look, I know this is weird but I’m sure we can find a solution. Just call Sarah so she can stop worrying now,” you suggested, finishing your tea and pushing the now empty mug to the middle of the table before leaning back in your seat.
“Ugh, yeah,” Sam started slowly, squatting down to get his mobile and the charger out of his massive sports bag. “Can I plug this in somewhere?”
You blinked at him a couple of times while he waited patiently for your answer. You could only imagine the number of missed calls and unread texts waiting for Sam on his phone, but you decided you didn’t know him enough to give him a lecture on behalf of his sister. So you just gave him a tired nod and gestured lazily towards your battered kitchen counter, Sam following your direction with his gaze.
“Above the microwave. Oh, and the socket farthest to the left–”
“–doesn’t work. I remember.” Sam flashed another exhausted but friendly smirk at you above his shoulder, and you allowed yourself to return the gesture to his back once he wasn’t watching.
“Right, sorry. Forgot I was the intruder here,” you joked, delighted to earn another one of those irritatingly lively chuckles of this man’s.
You seriously needed to get your shit together.
“Okay, while your phone is doing its thing, let’s call Sarah from mine, I guess” you continued, jumping up from your chair the moment Sam returned to the table and you headed towards your worn little couch where you scratched Archie gently behind his right ear. “Where have you put my phone, you dirty old man?” You cooed, smiling softly while sliding your hands under the cheap cushions and booping your irritated cat’s tiny nose when your fingers finally touched the cold metal you had been looking for.
Once seated again, you caught Sam staring at Archie, his eyes slightly narrowed in what appeared to be deep concentration. You furrowed your eyebrows and tilted your head, waiting for your uninvited guest to notice you.
“I don’t think your cat likes me too much,” he finally said, slowly tearing his gaze away from the pet feline’s and looking into your slightly more welcoming human eyes instead.
You chuckled dryly, turning around to see Archie in all his glory on the couch. He simply gave you an unbothered look before completely losing interest in the two of you, and he hopped of the couch, slowly making his way towards your bedroom where you knew he would bundle up under your bed on the cosy carpet. He had apparently decided it was time for his beauty sleep.
“Yeah, he’s like that with everyone. Nothing personal,” you assured Sam, who offered a tired half-smile in return. You cleared your throat gently, eyes fixed on your phone’s screen and fingers already searching for Sarah’s number. Once you had found it, you handed it to Sam whose only job left was to press the call button. You raised your eyebrows at him expectantly and he let out a sigh while reaching out for your mobile.
* * *
It wasn’t like he didn’t want to talk to Sarah. Quite the opposite, actually. But he was embarrassed. Sam knew full well how furious his sister was going to be. And honestly, rightfully so. He couldn’t argue with that. After all, she did say there had been something she wanted to talk to him about. And Sam did hang up on her without a passable excuse. And he did let his phone die on his way back home to Louisiana.
Yeah, he most probably wasn't going to be nominated for this year's Brother of the Year award.
Their last call had happened two days before. Two days is a long time without any news from a brother who had just returned after having been believed to be dead for the past five years. And if you had been to ask him, Sam wouldn’t have been able to tell you what had gotten into him either but ever since the Blip, something had not been exactly right. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was going on, so he hadn’t brought it up to anyone, but his brain felt slow and foggy as if it hadn't had time to catch up yet.
Sometimes, Sam worried that the molecules in his brain had been mixed up and hadn't been put back into their original places in the process of the whole turning-into-dust-and-back-into-human-form-again thing.
It was a silly thought, yes, but with everything going on in the world, would it really be that hard to believe?
"Hey hon! What's up?" Sam's thought process was cut off by the endearing voice of his sister, and though he was aware all this affection was not directed towards him – given that he had called Sarah on your phone – his heart did swell upon hearing her again.
And then he said hi and it all went south from there.
Sarah was obviously pissed.
She asked Sam if he had any idea how many texts and missed calls she had left him, and no, he had no clue but if he had to guess, the number would have been way high up in the double digits.
Then she started going off on Sam, using different kinds of actually very creative euphemisms – which was a problem because Sam got so distracted by his sister's choice of words that her short, well-thought out rant had very little effect on him, but at least he had enough self-respect left to get his sister off speaker at this point.
"Look, Sarah, I know I messed up but I'm fine! I swear," he started, cutting his sister short while subconsciously picking at the skin around the nail on his index finger with his thumb. "What if I stop by Andy's and tell him to give me their best apple pie?" Sam added, hoping this promise would serve as an ice-breaker. Sarah did love her desserts. A lot. And Andy always gave a discount to the Wilson family, too.
When he heard his sister's tired sigh, Sam's heart gave a hopeful flutter, but he was rudely dragged back onto the ground on his way to cloud nine the very next second.
"I'm doing the shopping at the moment. Just got here and it's gonna take long," Sarah replied, annoyance poking through all her words. Then, the tension that had been dominating the pair's call suddenly seemed to evaporate as Sam sensed a weak shadow of a smile in her following sentence. "But that apple pie does sound good."
Sam couldn't help the grin that creeped its way onto his face and he didn't even care about Sarah's semi-serious threat, saying how they were nowhere near finished yet. He muttered out a quick sorry again, promised Sarah to give her regards to you and finished the call with a charming 'I love you' to which his sister replied with a snarky 'I bet' before hanging up with a promise that she would call again when she got home.
Sam let out a relieved chuckle before handing you back your phone and taking the final sip of his slightly lukewarm coffee, watching your bright red-nailed fingers tap away on the device, and he swallowed harder and probably louder than he had meant to. You just happened to put your phone down the very next second, so he tried to cover up the gulp by clearing his throat and shifting his gaze from your nails to your eyes.
Beautiful eyes.
Well shit.
"So, I guess you're staying," you started hesitantly, raising your eyebrows at Sam in a slightly impatient manner, which snapped him out of his blissful thoughts and thrust him back into reality.
Was he staying? He certainly had nowhere to go now that he was practically homeless and his sister was unable to welcome him in her own home for the next two hours, at least. But then again, you were a complete stranger whose afternoon he had just disrupted, and it didn't matter how weird it felt seeing you be so at home in his apartment because it wasn't his anymore. It was yours and you had all the right to kick Sam out and he had absolutely zero right to argue.
But, thankfully, he didn't have to.
"Which is fine, by the way. I did promise you an explanation, after all." Sam couldn't quite ignore the hint of dread behind your words and he was ready to object, to leave you alone and spend the rest of his afternoon doing God-knows-what, but then you offered him another cup of coffee followed by a tiny but honest smile, and Sam just couldn't bring himself to say no.
* * *
Sam Wilson was ridiculously easy to open up to.
It made you want to commit a crime.
His gaze was so intensely warm that after a while, you were looking at everything in your apartment but him just to avoid accidentally trauma dumping on him, especially when you got to the part about group therapy.
Because you had met Sarah at a group therapy session approximately four and a half years before.
It had been clear from the very first minute that neither of you had actually wanted to be there and that both of you had been forced into this situation. Sarah had been dragged to group by an overly enthusiastic co-worker of hers whose crush on the counselor had been probably more intense than the trauma she had suffered – she had lost a dog and her neighbor to the right whom she had always talked shit about behind his back. She was a nice enough woman, but considering that people had lost actual family in the Snap, her presence had always been mostly aggravating, to say the least.
In your case, it had been your grandmother who had bullied you into going to one of the sessions because 'she had the same rotten mentality when Miss Taylor told her to go but then she found it life-changing'. At this point, you had become so indifferent to everything in the world that you hadn't needed much convincing to go. You had told yourself it would be one session anyway after which you would have told Grandma Ethel that 'therapy was simply not for you' and could have been back to your usual Thursday evening routine consisting of a cheap bottle of red wine and depressing reruns of trashy British reality shows from the late 2000s.
The actual sessions had never worked for you. They might have if you had actually spoken up at any of them but you had never become quite ready to talk about your loss in front of a dozen other people, most of whom you had already known. But then you had met Sarah and something about her had made you feel secure, secure enough to talk about them for the first time, so you had started hanging out at a café not too far from the community center and it had become the best thing in your life.
"And the rest is history," you finished, getting up from your chair to put both yours and Sam's mug in the sink and watered your nearby plants while at it.
"I'm really glad Sarah had someone by her side," Sam commented and you could hear a hint of guilt in his words but you decided to ignore it. You simply nodded and muttered out a weak 'yeah', saying you were just as happy to have found a friend like Sarah.
Then Sam said something that made all the muscles in your body tense up and you froze completely for the next couple of seconds.
"And have you seen your family yet? Now that they've come back?"
It was an innocent question. He doesn't know the whole story. So calm down.
You slowly put down the glass you had used earlier to water your plants and tried with every particle in your body to put on the best toothpaste commercial-worthy smile you could force out of yourself before turning back towards Sam and answering his absolutely understandable question.
"Yeah!" No. "They're doing well, actually!" They're fucking dead.
Sam's genuinely happy smile was way too much to handle and if it hadn't been for a call from Sarah, you would have broken down in tears right in front of him the very next moment.
So instead of all that, you decided to turn right back around, pour yourself a huge glass of cold tapwater and down it in one breath while Sam finished his brief conversation with his sister. The stinging pain in your chest that followed was enough to distract your thoughts until he was finally at the door, saying goodbye and thanking your for the coffee and saying sorry for intruding and taking absolutely way too fucking long to finally leave.
"Hey, um... I could give you my number? If you ever need anything or..."
He can't be serious.
"Sure! You can, ugh, put it in my phone," you replied, your hands shaking dangerously as you reached into your back pocket for your mobile and handed it to Sam, who knew better than to comment on it.
Once finished, he returned your phone with one of those irritatingly joyful smiles of his and with a final 'see you around' Sam Wilson was off and you proudly patted yourself on the back for successfully holding it together until you finally reached your couch.
* * *
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rhys-rambles · 3 years
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FIGHT CLUB | 1999
I was introduced to the movie Fight Club around 3 years ago. It wasn’t until recently I’ve become interested in it. So here’s my Fight Club breakdown :) WARNING FOR SPOILERS!!
For those who don’t know, Fight Club is a cult favorite novel that was later adapted into a film released in 1999, directed by David Fincher. Starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter.
The story of Fight Club revolves around three main characters. It’s told from a first-person perspective by a nameless character that’s commonly called ‘the narrator’, who has a dead-end white-collar job at a major car company and has fallen prey to what he calls the ‘Ikea-nesting instinct’. Dictated by social norms he walks perfectly in line like a docile sheep, which translates into an inauthentic, repetitive and empty life.
He suffers from a bad case of insomnia, which causes him to be neither fully awake, nor fully asleep. Sometimes, he entertains self-destructive thoughts: as he flies around from state to state for his job, he prays for a crash or mid-air collision every time the plane bankes too sharply on takeoff or landing.
During a flight, he meets an eccentric and hypermasculine character named Tyler Durden.
Tyler seems to be the direct opposite of the narrator. He’s a wolf rather than a sheep, disentangled from society, and impervious to social norms. He takes what he wants, without asking, and whenever he pleases. He’s self-sufficient, has no superiors, and doesn’t care about material possessions.
The movie later reveals that Tyler and the narrator are the same person, as Tyler is a product of the narrator’s imagination, that’s probably induced by severe insomnia combined with dissatisfaction with a dull, meaningless existence and a lifetime of repressed urges.
The narrator is addicted to going to support groups for specific illnesses because these give him the opportunity to cry, which seems to be a remedy for his insomnia. The downside of his behavior is that he isn’t genuine; he has no testicular cancer, or blood parasites, yet acts as if he does, so he can reap the benefits of these sessions.
But these benefits come to an end when another non-genuine visitor starts to join the sessions as well. This is a woman named Marla Singer, and her motive for joining these sessions is, and I quote: “It’s cheaper than a movie and there’s free coffee.”
Marla is a self-destructive, chain-smoking fatalist, who’s expecting to die at any moment, but finds it tragic that it never happens. She steals food and clothes for a living and attempts suicide by overdosing Xanax.
Even though the narrator, Tyler, and Marla are totally different personalities, they all live their lives accompanied by a nihilistic undercurrent.
Tyler seems to have figured out what causes this emptiness, and during the course of the story, his solution unfolds. Unfortunately, his character slides from a sage-like father figure to an anarchist terrorist, who’s out to destroy modern civilization. Nevertheless, he exposes a series of harsh realities about modern life that are worth contemplating.
Anti-consumerism
The anti-consumerist stance of Tyler Durden becomes obvious when he verbalizes his concern about the modern way of life. Shortly after the narrator meets Tyler, he discovers that his apartment went up in flames. After this unfortunate event, realizing that he has no friends to call, he calls Tyler. The two meet, and the narrator complains about losing his furniture, and his respectable and almost complete wardrobe. Tyler responds rather indifferently and slightly sarcastically before he begins to express his views on the matter. Quote:
“We’re consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don’t concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy’s name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra…”
It becomes clear that Tyler has quite an unconventional view of what’s good and bad. Murder, crime, and poverty are generally considered bad things, while consumer goods like televisions, clothing from a certain brand, products that help to hide aging, enhance bedroom performance, and help us with weight loss, are considered preferable.
Tyler has a contempt for the artificial, as opposed to elements that have been a natural part of the human condition, probably as long we exist. This way of thinking touches upon an ancient Cynic philosopher named Diogenes of Sinope, who believed that modern, civilized life hinders our natural state.
At the end of the movie, it appears that the narrator has destroyed his apartment himself when he was taken over by his alter ego, Tyler Durden. This deed was the first step onto the road of detachment from his property, into a more authentic way of life and to (how Tyler puts it): “reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.”
The narrator moves in with Tyler, who lives in a dilapidated house with ongoing leaks, power failures, and no Ikea furniture. Slowly but surely, the narrator indeed detaches from his previously destroyed property. “Things you own end up owning you,” Tyler tells him. And this simple piece of wisdom probably hits home, when the narrator realizes that he doesn’t need all these worldly goods, and is actually much happier without them.
Non-conformity
Tyler Durden is a non-conformist, and shows, again, similarities with Diogenes, who not only purposefully lived in poverty, but also rejected social norms. For him, social constructs are nothing more than a superficial layer of culture that represses our true nature.
Diogenes lived in a barrel, Tyler lives in an abandoned building. Diogenes urinated in public, Tyler urinates in the soup of a restaurant.
The narrator, on the other hand, seems to be the embodiment of conformity, as he adapts his lifestyle completely to societal expectations. The problem with this behavior is that we dedicate our existence walking the paths that people other than ourselves have laid out for us. This need to conform, the fear of falling by the wayside, this sickly preoccupation by what others think of us, this necessity to keep up with the Joneses: what an exhausting way of life, just to feel ‘accepted’.
So, what if we stop caring? What if we reject the generally accepted norms, and choose our own values, elect our own leaders, determine our own goals, regardless of the social expectations? This is a fundamental difference between the narrator and Tyler Durden, who puts it like this: “I am free in all the ways that you are not.”
Ironically, later on in the story, Project Mayhem, a terrorist organization led by Tyler that grows out of Fight Club, is a textbook example of conformity, as it’s members wear the same clothes, are absolutely equal, abolish their names, and are referred to as space monkeys that sacrifice their lives for a greater cause. We could say that by rejecting one doctrine in order to be ‘non-conformist’, we often imprison ourselves in another one.
Fighting and masculinity
Fighting and the experience of pain play a significant role in Fight Club. At the beginning of the story, Tyler asks the narrator to hit him as hard as he can. He explains his strange wish by saying: “How can you know yourself if you’ve never been in a fight? I don’t want to die without any scars.”
So, the narrator hits him. Tyler hits him back, and the two engage in a fistfight. Both seem to feel surprisingly pleasant afterward and decide to do it again. Their nightly activities on a parking lot attract the attention of other men, that are also interested in joining these non-hostile fistfights. And thus, Fight Club is born.
It’s widely known that voluntary exposure to certain forms of pain makes us stronger in the face of adversity, which could be a legit reason to partake in these fights. As the narrator states: “After fighting everything else in your life got the volume turned down.”
However, Fight Club is more than just a metaphor for dealing with hardship through exposure: a physical fight, and the violence and aggression that goes with it, resonates with the primal part of our being.
Not only the men in the story are attracted to the violence of fighting; Fight Club as a movie and novel was so impactful on its audience, that real-life Fight Clubs started to emerge.
The story shows an experiment in which the members of Fight Club pick fights with random strangers (and are supposed to lose), which isn’t as easy as it sounds; most people do everything to avoid physical conflict.
But Fight Club makes us wonder if it’s a good thing that we’ve lost touch with these primal tendencies. Should we repress this part of human nature? Or, perhaps, integrate it in healthy and constructive ways?
Self-destruction
When the story progresses, Tyler and the narrator begin to see the world through a different lens. Tyler criticizes the modern self-improvement hype by saying: “Self-improvement is masturbation. Now self-destruction… ”
This statement is slightly confusing, as the increasingly destructive nature of Fight Club, in which faces are permanently mutilated and teeth are knocked out of people’s heads, doesn’t seem to be a sustainable way to live.
But Tyler might be onto something when we look at self-destruction as the destruction of a false self.
‘Self-improvement’ often points to the accumulation of external goods: a better house, a better job, a better body, more money. But why should we endlessly want to improve ourselves? Why can’t we just be happy with how things are, and take life as it comes? Or as Tyler states:
“I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let’s evolve, let the chips fall where they may.”
We create an identity through material wealth, and social status. And as far as Tyler is concerned, this false sense of self must be destroyed, before we are free to do anything we want. Therefore, the ‘space monkeys’ of Project Mayhem live by a mantra which goes like this:
“You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.” - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
Tyler makes a so-called human sacrifice, namely a man called Raymond who works a dead-end job in a convenience store. Raymond wanted to be a veterinarian, but didn’t make it because it was “too much studying.” Tyler threatens Raymond, saying that if he doesn’t start studying within six weeks, he’ll kill him.
In this scene, Tyler points to another aspect of self-destruction: the act of letting go of fears, negative self-talk, and all distractions, so we can fully focus on our purpose. It’s the destruction of everything within ourselves that holds us back from living life on our own terms.
A near-life experience
Many people go great lengths when it comes to pain avoidance. The problem is that running from pain means running from an inevitable part of life.
The prospect of incurring pain makes us anxious, and often leads to self-indulgent decisions. That is: choosing the less painful path, even if a more painful path guarantees more success and pleasure in the future.
Tyler Durden deals with this by inflicting a chemical wound on the narrator’s hand using lye.
As expected, the narrator does everything to escape the pain: he uses visualization techniques he learned at a seminar, and retreating in his cave to find his ‘power animal’. But Tyler slaps him in the face, forcing him to stay with the pain, saying: “This is the greatest moment of your life, man. And you’re off somewhere missing it.”
For the narrator, Tyler has one central goal: he must reach bottom. After putting him through suffering, and destroying his false identity, there’s yet another aspect that must be crushed: hope. Losing all hope is freedom. And, therefore, he must reject what has rejected him: his father, and God. I quote:
“Consider the possibility that God does not like you. In all probability, he hates you.” - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
Tyler states that we don’t need God. That we shouldn’t care about redemption and damnation. And if we’re God’s unwanted children, so be it. Thereby, we lose all hope, but are also liberated from religious doctrine and fatherly authority.
Now we’re truly free. Now we can create our own meaning, and live how we want to live.
Tyler emphasizes the importance of knowing what we want in life. To achieve this, we must be willing to get out of our comfort zone and jump into the unknown without safety brackets.
The narrator, however, has difficulties letting go of security. He begs Tyler to not mess around when he lets go of the steering wheel in a driving car while hitting the gas. Tyler calls the narrator ‘pathetic’, and yells: “hitting bottom isn’t a weekend retreat. It’s not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go!”
After an inevitable car crash, Tyler states that they just had a ‘near-life experience’.
Wrap up
Fight Club is a story about rebellion against the status quo and a plea for the simple life. It criticizes the ways in which we are so hung up on security, and material possessions, and how people let social norms dictate their lives.
‘Stuff’ has become our religion. The idols we worship are Ikea and Starbucks. And the more we immerse ourselves in such an empty and unfulfilling existence, the more we start to resemble the things that we produce: manufactured products rather than authentic human beings.
Tyler shows us a way out. And even though his insights are profound, the execution is questionable. Fight Club, and its terrorist branch Project Mayhem, show us how easy it is to oppose one ideology, in order to fall into another, and how a cult-like echo chamber built on rigid beliefs could become very destructive.
Nevertheless, Tyler challenges us to be self-sufficient and disobedient to the authorities that let us down, to live authentically and in the moment, to confront our fears, to boldly step out of our comfort zones, and let the things that don’t matter truly slide.
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