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samgirl98 · 11 months

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Mending a Family 11/?

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Jason and Jazz bond, and Dick has a sort-of revelation.

Jason sat by the table after saying goodbye to Roy, Raven, and Lian and putting Danny to bed. After the revelation of Mar’i, the adults had sobered a little, and it had gotten awkward. Thankfully, the kids kept playing though Danny would side-eye Jason every once in a while. His knowing look reminded Jason that Danny was a sixteen-year-old trapped in the body of a five-year-old.

Jazz sat across from him with two cups of tea. She gave one to Jason and asked, “How are you feeling?”

Jason frowned; how was he feeling? A part of him was disappointed, but he understood.

“Jazz, when I came back, I killed people. I hurt Tim. It makes sense that Dick never told me he had a daughter. I’m doing the same thing now with Danny! Besides, nobody in their right mind would let a murderer around their child.”

“Just because you understand and can rationalize it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

Jason smiled softly at her, “What are you, my psychiatrist, now?”

“I don’t have to be a psychiatrist to know this affected you more than you want to let on.”

Jason sighed, “I understand; really, I do. But what pisses me off is that Roy told me that Dick is obsessively looking for me. All of them are. How can they freeze me out of the family, not at least tell me, ‘Hey Jason, you’re an uncle,’ and then call me family and use that as an excuse to hunt me down like a rabid animal?”

Jazz sipped her tea, “I think they’re probably feeling guilty now because they managed to chase you away. From what I’ve heard, they like to be in control.”

Jason snorted, “Yeah, they’re all control freaks that have no issue invading others’ privacy. Starting with Daddy Bats.”

“Do you miss them,” she asked quietly.

“I do,” he answered in the same volume, “but I burned those bridges long ago.”

They stayed in silence for a while.

“I hope I’m not overstepping, but you have become my family. I see how you act around Danny, and I am grateful that you parent and love him the way a parent loves their child. Our parents weren’t the best, so I’m glad Danny will get a second chance at childhood, and it’s all thanks to you.”

Jason smiled, “Well, at least I’m doing right by Danny.”

“You think—you think you’ll ever talk to them again?”

“Not when there’s a chance they’ll take Danny away from me. They see me as unstable, but I won’t ever hurt Danny. I don’t know if I’m a bad parent, but Danny has helped me more than I’ve helped him, and he’s keeping me sane.”

Jazz shrugged, “I’m not precisely sane myself, and as long as you don’t verbally tell Danny he’s the only reason you feel your mental stability is better, then I see no harm in it. It’s bad when a parent puts that pressure on their child. However, I have a feeling you’re saner than you think you are.”

Jazz finished her tea.

“Besides, you can’t be judged by human standards.”

Jason rolled his eyes; he stopped explaining to Danny and Jazz that he was utterly, one hundred percent human.

“Do you really think I’m a good parent?”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

Jason sighed, “I miss my old family sometimes.”

“You want to talk about them?”

“I can’t talk much about the newer members, but Dick, he’s my oldest brother; he’s huggy, a huge jokester. There’s always a pun or quip coming out of his mouth. He didn’t; well, when I was younger, I thought he hated me. He was always yelling at Bruce, and most of the time, he ignored me, but eventually, he came around.”

“I remember one time he took me train surfing. It was so fun! I was hanging out with my older brother, my predecessor. He also stole Bruce’s car once and took me on a joyride after Bruce had grounded me.”

“There’s also Barbie. She helped me a lot with homework when I was younger. She’s—she’s also the only one that kept contact with me after all the shi—things I did. You remind me of her. She’s kind, same as you. And you both have red hair. She’s crazy smart like you are. The things she can do with computers,” Jason shook his head in disbelief.

“There’s Alfred. He’s like a grandfather to me. He taught me how to cook; he’s the one I miss the most, to be honest. I wouldn’t be surprised if he missed me, too, but he was giving me my space.”

Jason couldn’t bring himself to talk about Bruce. The man had been his father, but he had both disappointed Jason and been disappointed by Jason.

His biggest failure, Jason thought bitterly.

“Mom and dad,” Jazz started, took a deep breath, and continued, “Mom and dad, when they weren’t obsessed with their work, showed how much they cared for us in their way. Mom would make delicious fudge that got devoured quickly. Dad, he would call me his princess.”

“We’d go camping every summer until—until the portal opened. They had always been obsessed with ghosts, but they went into overdrive after the portal. They neglected us; Danny was being hurt. Eventually, it became too much, and Danny started detaching himself from everyone, including his friends, because he didn’t want anyone hurt.”

“I miss them sometimes, but I can never forgive them for what they did. They find out about Danny, and the first thing they do is attack! How could they?!”

Jazz was breathing hard, “How could they? They told us they loved us.”

Jazz started crying. Jason was stunned for a moment, and then he got up. He let Jazz cry on his shoulder.

Two broken people held on to each other. They may have lost an old family, but slowly, they would build a new one.

____

“Daddy!”

Dick opened his arms as his daughter flew into them. Kory floated right beside him and smiled softly at their three-year-old.

“Thanks for letting her stay with me for the week,” Dick said, “I needed this.”

“My pleasure. She wanted to see her daddy, anyway.”

Dick let Mar’i down and watched as she ran to her room.

“How’s the search going,” Kory asked.

Dick’s smile fell. They still hadn’t found any trace of Jason. Alfred was telling them to leave Jason alone and that he’ll contact them when he wants to. Roy stopped talking to Dick altogether, and Bruce was losing his mind.

“It’s not going well. Why, have you found anything?”

“No, sorry, but I haven’t been paying too much attention.”

“That’s okay. Wally and Superman are looking for him. We’ll find him, eventually.”

Mar’i decided to come out at that moment.

“Daddy, daddy, can we go see Grandpa Bruce,” she lisped, “and Uncles Timmy and Damian and aunties Cassie and Steph? Will Uncle Duke be there with the pretty lights?”

Dick felt a ping in his chest. His daughter hadn’t mentioned Jason. She had never met him, and Dick couldn’t help but feel guilty. Would Jason have stayed if the family had tried to integrate him more? Was it because of them that he left?

That bothered Dick, questions. He wanted, needed to know why Jason left instead of coming to them.

Because you shut the door, his mind supplied.

It was right.

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#mending a family #dc x dp #dp x dc

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vaspider · 2 years

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re: your (very informative) transmedicalism post.

would you say that the “cis people dont question their gender” concept is an offshoot of this concept? or is it perhaps something else i don’t have the name for

one of my cis friends has questioned about gender identity but ultimately decided that it was correct all along so it’s clearly not a foolproof concept that all questioning = trans.

i understand it to a degree (sort of) but it seems needlessly exclusive for cis people who want to understand gender (& their gender specifically) better - if youre told ‘no ur experience questioning makes you not cis’ then potentially you’d be apprehensive in even considering it (sometimes ignorance is bliss etc).

surely everyone examining their gender (cis or not!) is better for society’s norms, rather than grouping everyone, cis or trans, into trans just for wanting a better understanding of gender.

(thanks in advance! and sorry for my inability to be concise)

Yes, the practice of saying "if you ever even question then you must be that thing" is harmful on a lot of levels.

If cis people hear "you can't even question" then they'll never think about the complexity of gender or how they relate to gender and how even for cis people there are so many definitions of man and woman. That sucks!

And like... I think cis people really should think about and interrogate their gender, for their own sake. Like... what does man or woman, as an identity, actually mean to a person? What parts of it fit perfectly, what parts of it pinch a little like a new shoe? Figuring that stuff out can only make you feel more at home in your own skin. I mean, realizing that I really felt uncomfortable in dresses because I felt pressed to act out certain roles allowed me to change what I wore and become more comfortable in my own skin, why couldn't a cis woman do that and understand that she's interrogating her gender? My experience also came with a side of "oh, that's because I am not a woman and never was," but I don't think that's a necessary end point of interrogating gender.

Like, if even asking the question means the answer is yes... it's not a question. You have to be able to answer no.

I think that is part of why, honestly, when you ask cis people to think about how things like The Rock's top surgery was gender-affirming, or how breast augmentation (or reduction!) and tummy tucks and butt lifts for cis women can be gender-affirming, they react so defensively.

That's queerness in general, honestly. That idea that if you even think about it you must be it and the fear that people have of the consequences of being thought to be queer or trans? It's understandable that they'd react to the idea of even thinking about being queer with defensiveness. In some places, being thought by others to be queer or trans can ruin your fucking life, or end it.

One of the things that helps unwind that is contesting the idea that only queers ever consider that they might be queer, or so on. We can't expect the cishets to believe it if we treat our own that way, y'know?

So... yeah. If you think you might be trans... well. You might be trans. Then again, maybe you're just someone who is open to the possibility because there's nothing wrong with being trans, so there's nothing wrong with thinking you might be and then realizing you're not. That doesn't make you a liar, or infected with queer, or stupid, and it doesn't necessarily mean you're lying to yourself and just hiding in the closet bc you're scared, either. Might be the case. Might not be.

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fallen-in-dreams · 8 months

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CHAPTER THREE on AO3.

Chapters on Tumblr: One. Two.

Pairing: Gaara/Sakura.

Summary: Her descent into madness came after her friends were all dead and before she was sold off like livestock. To him. He knew a thing or two about madness. And there was peace to be found in the violence of that madness. Even if only for a time. Canon divergence AU.

Rated: Mature.

Chapter word count: 4,812.

Status: Ongoing.

Reminder: the tags/warnings are important.

Enjoy. :)

Warnings: dark themes. Arranged marriage (not what you think). Eventual smut (level and degree of that warning being necessary is subjective). Death. Suicide talk. Self-harm. PTSD – expect some well-known symptoms and some not well-known ones. Please don’t read if you’re triggered by psychological &/or emotional-related trauma and effects.

For reference: Menbā: a derogatory term for someone who is considered a criminal. Uragirimono: traitor, turncoat, etc.:

Tumblr version:

Oh God, I'm thrown. I am only happy on my own. My heart grows harder, it wants to perform. And I only ever feel it when I wanted to be torn. To be torn.

-- To Be Torn, by Kyla La Grange

.:.

I can’t do this.

This thought was immediate and harsh in her mind. But after a long shower in which she’d taken full advantage of the supplied body cleaning products as well as an experimental bout of relief from the removable shower head, Sakura was feeling a little better about her situation. A bit of touching here and a lot of extra water pressure there, and she was refreshed, tingly, relaxed, and something akin to happy. Her sensitive nerves drawn out and heightened, even if for a short while. Her building headache had simmered down, and she had a plan of sorts in mind. Well, more like mental images and a bullet-point list of things to do.

Acting like a normal human being had not been on that itinerary, but it should have been expected. She didn’t want any more suspicion to be cast on her. She scoffed at herself for her stupidity. Sakura needed a clean escape for when the time came.

If it comes at all.

She scoffed again. Her new housemates were clearly expecting her to be normal.

“Clean up,” Kankuro had told her (while she was panicking and ignoring him). “Join us for dinner later.”

Might as well get ready for that.

Standing in her room, holding a towel to her damp body, and rifling carelessly through the boring choices in the almost bare closet, Sakura sighed and grunted at each and every lame item of clothing inside. She didn’t have this in her. Not anymore. The old Sakura would’ve just politely followed direction and smiled in all the right places while she secretly basked in the selection of free clothes at her disposal. That Sakura would be tossing out all the simple items and scrounging around for the prettiest and most lavish looking clothes. Because she always had someone to impress, even after she stopped acting like a cliché fangirl and finally grew up. It used to be Sasuke then close friends…

Ugh.

Sakura shuddered, angry at her regressive thoughts.

No Sasuke. No friends. Not anymore.

She hadn’t had down time for twelve months and it was messing with her head. Now that she had time to dwell on everything and everyone that had happened and disappeared from her life, her intrusive thoughts didn’t know when to stop. In that moment, she missed the cold comfort of working too much. It had kept her alive, warm, and hot and cold all over. But now? Now, she couldn’t distract herself from the pain that came with having nothing else to do.

She shook slightly and pushed her emotions down as much as she could, her fist clenching a particularly top that reminded her of a bland looking version of her old qipao dress, just in shirt form. Just remembering the ghastly outfits that she used to wear made the clanging in her head echo louder. Sakura closed her eyes desperately.

Not out of the woods yet.

She was still in that tree stump, bleeding, broken, and surrounded by foreign ninja. Blood did not dry quickly in the warm, forest climates, so she was still sticky and wet. Her body shuddered with the phantom sensations. But she couldn’t let her guard down now. Not even here.

I can do this.

She had to. Sakura had no idea what was waiting her during this dinner with Gaara and Kankuro, but if she couldn’t do this one simple thing, then what hope did she have for the rest of her stay here? She nodded to herself as her body trembled; pins and needles preceding a rush of exhaustion.

But it was with renewed determination that Sakura sorted through the closet, putting aside anything that reminded her of the old days. There were no knickers or bras (she wasn’t well-built, so to speak, anyway), but she found a formal-looking top and a pair of trousers that matched. The pockets made her think they were men’s trousers, but she didn’t care. Black sandals at the bottom of the closet were an easy choice to go with the grey, black, and red colour palette of the clothes and she slipped into them, running a distracted hand over herself, like she was trying to smooth down wrinkles. She found a brush and quickly ran it through her hair, wincing at the slightly painful tugs. It had been too long since she’d taken care of herself.

Sakura surveyed the stranger in the full-length mirror behind the large closet door and sighed. It would have to do. She wouldn’t be winning any beauty pageants but that hardly mattered anyway. She checked the time. Kankuro said that dinner would be served at six. She sat on the edge of the bed and twiddled her thumbs, trying not to think of anything in particular and just keeping her eye on the slow-moving hand of the clock on her wall. Idleness was going to be the death of her.

When it was time, she narrowed her eyes at it for a moment before reluctantly standing.

Here goes.

Before leaving the room, Sakura took out the stick of charcoal she kept in her travel bag. She didn’t have the right type of sharp implements for this job, funnily enough, so this would have to do for now.

I’ll cut it open when I find one.

Taking a deep breath, she used the charcoal to draw the kanji for “one” on the back of her bedroom door, nice and clear and in the upper corner, so she’d have plenty of space to write more. She wasn’t going to be here long enough to cover the entire door, but the anal part of her wanted it to look neat and tidy anyway. Satisfied with her handiwork, Sakura tossed the charcoal back in her bag. Dark, obsidian eyes flashed in her mind, and she hesitated, staring at the compressed carbon residue masquerading as a drawing implement. She swallowed heavily. Memories pushed at the edge of her mind of the artist this had belonged to. Her friend.

Sakura closed the bag to shut out those thoughts and took another deep breath to steel herself.

Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. Happy place.

“No such place.”

Sakura swivelled at the sound of the voice but saw nothing.

I’m talking to myself again.

She hadn’t forgotten that mirage with her face. And it hadn’t forgotten her either, it seemed.

Sakura opened the door and quietly closed it behind herself. The smell of food hit her, making her stomach rumble painfully, and she could hear voices in the dining room downstairs. She froze up, hand against the wall to steady herself.

Not now, she told her anxiety. What the fuck? Calm down.

After a moment she was able to plaster something that looked like a smile to her face and make her way down the internal staircase. Her palms sweating, she stepped into the light of the dining room. Kankuro and Gaara ceased their conversation and Sakura swallowed her smile. Her face slackened as Kankuro pulled out a chair for her and the heavy eyes of the Kazekage watched her closely as she settled herself into it.

The smell of the food hit her nostrils once more, like a physical force and (once again) her stomach growled. Though far less painfully this time. She waited for the pleasantries to pass and gave the brothers a nod before digging into her rice and vegetables. She felt almost human. The food was so good that Sakura wondered who had cooked it. Neither of them struck her as the chef type. But then, appearances were often deceiving.

Kankuro explained that Temari was on a mission and Sakura nodded again. Gaara said a few things about some kind of renovations and his brother engaged him in conversation over idle topics. It was a casual setting, and nobody seemed interested in any of the heavier issues they were all thinking about. The elephant in the room, as it were. Well, maybe they were, but Sakura didn’t care one bit. If they wanted to take this engagement thing seriously, that was their problem.

But she did find herself curious how opinions in Suna had formed on the current ninja climate. What those in this room thought about everything. If they even knew the extent of Danzo’s reach. Or if they just saw him, and the rest of the ninja, as simply another leader and their hidden village.

Not that she had the courage to ask.

This engagement is mindboggling enough.

She wasn’t going to go along with it. She had a plan. It was simple, really: pretend to be normal, play at being the demure bride-to-be, scope out her options, and then think of how to evade her Root shadow long enough to get the fuck out of the village. They were very good points to consider, in her opinion. She’d done so much more crazy things on assassination missions. Of course, those were months ago, and she’d been running from one fight to the next ever since then.

All that blood does a good job of distracting me. Sticky, thick, ugly substance that is surprisingly easy to wash out.

From her clothes, at least.

Still, she was getting out of here, regardless of the methodology. And the idea that she might have to kill that shadowed, masked freak on her way out brought a small smirk to the corner of her mouth.

“Dessert?” Kankuro asked when they were all finished.

Sakura nodded and he left the room for a minute. A minute of Gaara’s curious, silent stares. Then she was feeding the hungry animal inside of her again. The one without the ability to snap back at her. She had no idea what this confectionary was called, but it tasted like a mix between ice-cream and salted caramel. She remembered suddenly that the Kazekage wasn’t a fan of sweets.

Where did I learn that from?

She wasn’t sure, but the redhead was eating his dessert, so it was clearly sugar-free. Sakura smiled slightly at that. Some things never changed. She swallowed the last mouthful and placed her spoon down, licking her lips greedily. Sakura hadn’t tasted anything this good in a long time. In between mission locations her food was either standard, dry ninja rations or involved caught meat that she either did or did not have time to cook first as well as whatever fruits and nuts she could scavenge. Sometimes she could steal food off her targets or sneak something out of a vendor, the ninja way, on her way wherever she was going. She always ate and ran.

A home cooked meal had been off the menu for almost two years.

Since Danzo took office.

She scowled lightly.

Stop fucking regressing.

She fiddled with the cutlery for a few moments before remembering she wasn’t alone in the room.

“I realise this is unorthodox and I apologise.” Gaara’s deep voice interrupted her errant thoughts.

Sakura blinked heavily and stared owlishly at him, her skin warming with the shame of embarrassment. What had he been talking about? He continued talking as though she had heard every word.

“Relations between our villages has been strained.”

No shit.

“But maybe this new agreement can help.”

Not likely.

Either Gaara was incredibly naïve, or he was just placating her. She didn’t know which was worse. She knew Danzo. This arrangement was nothing more than a distraction. That Root shadow was the one he should be more concerned with. The dark, ugly man whose only purpose here was likely to look for a way past the seals of the Kazekage mansion for no reason other than to fuck with everyone inside of it.

He can fuck himself for all I care.

Sakura leant back in her chair, returning Gaara’s intense stare. A bubble of confidence suddenly welled up inside her and she managed to keep her face straight as they held each other’s gaze. The pale green of his irises danced in the light of the candelabra in the middle of the table, and she was reminded of a green sapphire her mother had gifted her when she became chunin; a pale hue that she liked despite being lacklustre in any form of bright or ostentatious colours. It burned in her heart as a distant, longing memory. Gaara’s eyes suddenly reminded her of home.

And I kind of find it hot. Wacko.

Sakura swallowed heavily and splayed her hands over the tabletop, shifting her eyes away from Gaara.

You win that round.

“Please feel free to ask for anything you may want or need,” he continued, as though they hadn’t just been staring avidly into each other’s eyes.

Like star-crossed lovers too stupid to realise it.

She nodded her head, not sure her voice would come out as strong as she’d want it to. Gaara didn’t seem to mind but Kankuro was clearly becoming at least mildly curious regarding her silence. He cleared his throat, but she ignored him. She had no idea what to say to Gaara’s idea of hospitality, anyway.

Gaara cocked his head to the side in much the way that Sakura had seen former Hokage when they sensed nearby Anbu. She forced herself not to mirror his movement as she tried to detect the subtle chakra they would be giving off and sighed when she ultimately failed.

Suna Anbu must use a different subtle method to gain their Kage’s attention.

“Temari might not get back for a while,” Kankuro said to his brother.

Had Gaara said something? No. There seemed to be some kind of intensity in the way he was looking at his older brother. Sakura had heard that sometimes siblings were close enough to simply understand each other that well. Much like two people who’d spent way too much time together. And it could have something to do with the Anbu that Sakura just knew was there.

She clenched her fists to hide the trembling.

“Temari is not the only kunoichi absent from the village.”

“True.” Kankuro sat back in his chair and smiled genially at Gaara before turning to Sakura. “Gaara and I might be stuffy and useless–” Gaara huffed slightly. “–but we know when we’re out of our depth with women.” He chuckled.

“Speak for yourself.”

“I am,” Kankuro said. “And for you too.”

“Hm.”

“You should be glad I’m including you. Wouldn’t want to feel left out, right?” The older brother laughed as Gaara sighed and leant back in his chair.

Sakura relaxed her hands and splayed them over the table, staring down at her empty plate.

The brothers exchanged a few more words before Gaara cocked his head to the side again.

Anbu getting busy tonight.

At least someone was, she supposed.

“You’re not better with women than I am,” Kankuro said, almost as though he’d forgotten there was an actual woman in the room with them. He puffed out his chest. “They’re lining up to date me.”

Gaara scoffed softly, eliciting a soliloquy about the perks of being the Kazekage’s brother from Kankuro.

A heavy weight settled on Sakura’s chest, and she felt a slight sting, biting her lip to swallow a light gasp. She shifted in her chair.

“Well, I guess you don’t have to be good with women,” Kankuro mumbled once he cottoned onto the fact that no-one in the room was impressed.

They both glanced at Sakura as she fiddled with her thumbs, crossing, and uncrossing her feet self-consciously. She had nothing to add to their weird, sibling dynamic. She’d never had any brothers and sisters and these two were acting very strange. Sakura tuned them out as her vision blurred slightly and she closed her eyes. She was feeling light-headed and just wanted to head back to her room. When she opened her eyes again, the brothers were back to exchanging barbs with each other.

Do they always talk this long after dinner?

She had to leave the room. Sakura tried to think of an excuse to get away. In the meantime, she just needed to act normal.

“You’re not normal.”

Her head snapped up and she glared at the fourth person in the room, even as her heart raced, ignoring that conversation around her had suddenly gone quiet.

Not even a person.

It hit her with startling clarity, and she almost let out a rasp of laughter.

I can’t pretend to be normal.

.:.

Pity.

That was the dull light in their eyes. Even in Gaara’s.

She didn’t want it.

Sakura excused herself with a quick, mumbled apology and no explanation, but remembered to bow in respect at the last second before fleeing the room and half-running up the staircase. Silence followed her until she slammed the door behind herself, and she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

Sakura gasped and stretched her fingers outward as she trembled. What Gaara and Kankuro must’ve thought meant very little to her other than the inevitable embarrassment for their next encounter. At least, that was what she told herself. It seemed that even after two years of thinking she’d grown numb to it, the old Sakura who was easily embarrassed and cared what other people thought of her wasn’t long dead after all. But she wanted it to be. She wanted to take a kunai to the throat of her old self and be done with it.

She was an idiot.

And a loser. And weak. And pathetic. And all the other things Danzo told her she was now. He was an arsehole but very right about her. Why else was she still here and not half-way to the North Sea? She could be almost anywhere right now.

I am an idiot.

But she was better off now. In many ways. Who she’d been before, that silly girl hadn’t been able to save Lady Tsunade from the coup. From Danzo’s kunai. She hadn’t been able to follow Shizune out of the village. She’d been less than useless as fires and smoke and the cries of battle raged around her. She hadn’t been able to find any of her friends before it was finally over. Not even in the ashes. She’d been too weak to kill the Root following her as she tried. Broken earth and broken ribs; she fallen so hard.

Sakura let out another gasp that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

And now she couldn’t even pretend to be normal for a few hours to keep anyone from asking questions she didn’t want to answer. Maybe she was still that idiotic, weak child after all. Gaara and Kankuro probably thought so too. Were they laughing at her? Or only sighing in disappointment? She was a major disappointment.

“They think we’re insane.”

We?

Sakura chose to ignore that train of thought. She had made a fool of herself enough for one night. Her first night in Suna and she was barely holding it together. Gaara and Kankuro didn’t know her well enough to realise just how far off the rails she was, which was a point in her favour. But that wasn’t going to last forever. She needed to get a grip. She really didn’t want to hear their questions if they thought to ask them.

Sakura settled her nerves as she moved toward the bed, only now realising there was something on her dresser. A package. She stopped suddenly, narrowing her eyes at it from the middle of the room.

How did that get there?

Her brain flitted back and forth between weird genjutsu ideas and those times Gaara sensed Anbu nearby. Hm. She wondered if there were any animal summons in the village that were difficult to detect. The package looked like a normal one, with her name written across the small card on top. There was even a bow knot on it, like one would tie to a present.

Weird.

Sakura walked slowly over to it and performed the few detection jutsu she knew from her Root commander’s training. A series of quick, simple hand signs later and there was no chakra reaction from the wrapped package. Not a chakra bomb, or anything of the sort, at least. She wished she had an actual kunai as she tentatively tapped the parcel with her forefinger. She hadn’t sensed any chakra signatures in the mansion during the dinner, so she decided those Anbu had to have delivered it. Or someone else who deliberately suppressed their chakra inside their own, friendly village.

Even weirder.

She fingered the card gently, reading the short message silently. It was from two people called Matsuri & Yukata. Sakura vaguely remembered the names like a distant memory from a past life come back to haunt her. She had a visual a few minutes later as she rolled their names over her tongue. Right. Gaara’s very emphatic fangirls. She smiled at that.

What do they want?

Throwing caution to the wind, Sakura roughly undid the bow and opened the package, tossing the ribbon and now broken box aside carelessly. She held her gift up to the lightbulb on the ceiling. It was a cactus. She frowned, then reread the card. They didn’t mention what kind of cactus it was, and she’d never seen it’s like before.

“No doubt Lord Kazekage didn’t have much prepared for your arrival. We’ll fix that, don’t worry. We decided to get you a ‘Welcome to Suna, Lady Sakura!’ present, so WELCOME!”

The note ended in several smiley faces after their names, clearly added for dramatic effect. Emphatic seemed to be their default setting. This didn’t bode well. And what did they mean by fixing that? Were they going to buy her better clothes? Some feminine products? Or maybe some entertainment, like reading material. She smiled lightly at that. As long as they didn’t expect her to go to the store with them.

Nobody is ready to see my anxiety react to that.

Sakura put the cactus on her bedside table, pushing it to the edge furthest from her, then sat on the bed and sighed. She looked around the room. Really looked. Aside from the barest of furniture and no personal touches, which was to be expected, it did well as a temporary guest room. Nothing glamorous, just functional.

Almost like she was in a low-budget hotel.

She glanced at the cactus before turning away, kicking off her shoes and climbing under the bed covers, fully dressed. Sakura stared up at the ceiling.

Okay, I’m fine.

There was no threat here. She rolled over on her side, facing away from the bedside table, and closed her eyes. But the night was a cruel bitch and as she drifted off to sleep, that familiar pull into the dark, broken recesses of her mind was her only warning before everything went black.

.:.

She was back in the forest, stumbling as she tried to find a hiding spot to avoid her pursuers. The mission had gone wrong, on an epic scale, and now she was the only one still standing. The captain had died first, the other Anbu shortly after. Their screams followed her as Sakura moved between the trees, blundering along as she tried to rush her tired legs. She kept falling against the wide oaks and tripping over exposed roots. The cries in the distance were no longer her Anbu escorts. They were her hunters.

Sakura pushed herself off a thick tree trunk but instead of barrelling her way through the brush, she toppled forward, and face planted. She wasn’t cognizant enough to feel embarrassed, merely laying there, breathing in the musk of forest floor, then gasping when something started crawling over back and an insect decided to go for her mouth. With effort, she pushed herself onto her knees, spat the bug out, and then looked around anxiously.

What to do, where to go… she did her best to hide her tracks as she stood shakily, then gasped at the renewed pain in her side. She had no idea where to go and any minute now, they were going to zero in on her position.

“Where are you, little menbā? My little uragirimono”

No time to debate it. The hollowed-out tree trunk she’d fallen next to was large enough, she supposed. Dragging her pitiful arse along and gripping her travel bag like it was a lifeline, Sakura hauled herself into the relative safety of the trunk; the overgrown shrubbery hiding her from sight. Her vision blurred. Her feet were suddenly numb. Darkness crept in around her. And she was gone.

A dull thud. Her eyes snapped open. A distant soft light illuminated the ceiling above her as it blinked into existence. Her conscious mind was fuzzy as she blinked heavily, registering that she’d just been asleep. But something felt… wrong. Her body tingled as heavy breathing caught her attention and she stiffened. She turned her head to the side. Sakura let out an ear-piercing scream. Two beady eyes stared back at her as she tensed. When the breath from her short-lived scream finally left her, she gasped and then pushed away from the mirage. A maniacal grin on its face, it stood as she managed to back into the middle of the bed, just watching her. Nothing about it had changed: the same wounds that made no sense, the same torn and bloodied clothes.

My dream… no, my nightmare.

She was fully awake now.

Sakura grasped her chest, unable to break eye contact with it and unable to calm herself down.

“You’re going to die here,” it said, its mouth moving out of synch with the words. “And nobody will care.”

Sakura scrambled further away, gasping, and toppling over the edge of the bed. She stayed on the floor for a few minutes, shaking and trying to remember the breathing exercises she’d learned during her work at the Konoha hospital.

Breath in. Breathe out. In. Deeply. Out. Deeply. Rinse and repeat.

When it finally started to work, she turned around and continued the mantra in her head as she peered over the bed. The mirage was still there. Her race started racing but it didn’t give her time to resuscitate her courage. The mirage cocked its head then flickered and disappeared.

“Fuck.”

Sakura let out a loud groan. She slammed her hand down on the mattress, screaming silently at herself for letting this get her so worked up. She hated this moment of peace. She hated being idle and weak and forced to remember. Tears burned her skin and she sobbed. She wished she was back in the forest. Everything in there made sense. She was running for her life but at least she didn’t have the time to dwell on it. It was better. It was pure.

Sakura groaned again. She was self-aware enough to know how fucked up that thought was. She pulled herself up onto the bed and returned to her breathing exercises.

Breath in. Breathe out. In. Deeply. Out. Deeply. Rinse and repeat.

Her skin was moist as she hugged herself tightly. She’d gone to bed in the outfit she’d worn to dinner, and they were currently sticking to her like the sticky, sweaty sparring clothes did after a heavy workout. She laughed softly. Of all the things. But hopefully this incident was just the exhaust pipe of her emotions, and it wouldn’t be like this every night. She’d gone without sleep for large periods before, so if this happened again, she knew what to do.

Sakura pulled her legs up to her chin. Her first night in the Kazekage mansion and she was out of control. She listened for sounds of her housemates. If they weren’t heavy sleepers, they could’ve heard her initial scream. Her own eardrums hadn’t managed to absorb the sound, due to her distress, but she was pretty sure it had been loud.

Her heart hammered in her chest as the minutes ticked by, but nobody came. Relief flooded through her. Nobody was coming to check on her. That was both insulting and soothing. The last thing she needed was more pitying looks as she tried to explain away her scream.

Her body shuddered as she curled into a foetal position, on top of the bed covers and closed her eyes, hoping for a swift end to it all.

Please let the darkness take me.

She didn’t notice the eye made of sand watching her in the corner of the room as exhaustion finally took her. Nor the concerned frown from its owner.

.:.

#GaaSaku #my fanfiction #fanfiction #A Beautiful Lie

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m4ndysk4nkovich · 9 months

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There's this weird misconception that Debbie doesn't take responsibility for her mistakes. Which is not true. She did admit that having Franny so young made things hard. But she still tried her best and made it out the other side. Debbie is a young mother with her own business and a happy and healthy daughter. Debbie far exceeded what people expect from teen mothers. And she did it as a single mother without Derek as a coparent. Fiona's reaction was insensitive and based on her own panic, not on what would help Debbie. She was being judgy, not solution-oriented which is what Debbie needed.

i got this ask a few hours ago and i’ve been thinking so hard about my answer to this ever since because this is so true and anon i love you.

i don’t know where this misconception came from; possibly, as most things do, it came from teen debbie.

i always see people say little debbie > adult debbie, and then they proceed to show season 7 debbie so let’s get one thing straight: little debbie = season 1-2, teen debbie = 3-10 (counting nineteen, so technically in ten she was an adult) adult debbie = 10-11. people don’t hate adult debbie, they hate teen debbie. adult debbie barely did anything wrong honestly.

adult debbie is amazing. she takes a LOT of accountability and responsibility, creates her own business to support her daughter, navigates parenthood even further, and tries to better her life. does she succeed in bettering her life? sort of, not really, but it does improve and adult debbie was doing a lot to help her entire family and we have to remember shameless ends march 2021 and she was born december 2000.

debbie takes accountability in so many ways and people don’t even realize. (this isn’t at all in order but) she apologizes to fiona at the laundromat (i can’t find the clip cus it isn’t on youtube but it’s before 7x11), she calls lip out/defends fiona when he’s being a dick to fiona, she LITERALLY GOES TO JAIL, she takes the pill because she knows that having another kid would harm her and franny (even though she does want one! and y’all call her selfish…), she admits to lying to derek, and she admits to the events of 5x03 and admits that what she did was rape and wrong. she ends up becoming one of the most responsible shameless characters and one of the characters who can easily take accountability/be selfless, but everyone ignores this because of teen debbie’s mistakes. i don’t see y’all holding lip, ian, mickey, and carl accountable for anything they did as teens, so why does debbie get shit on for it?

whatever- i got carried away but yeah, that’s a misconception. actually almost everything debbie gets hated on for is a misconception (examples: she made fiona raise franny, she left franny in texas, she was proud of what she did to matty, she’s bisexual, etc. none of those are true!!)

but to actually focus on what anon said, fiona was being judgy and never actually tried to help debbie (like she should have because again, she’s debbie’s guardian!!) she only focused on how it would inconvenience her. i get fiona’s fears but also she was being very self centered. and yeah, i get a big part of the next season is fiona being selfish because she “deserves to be” and like ok sure whatever good for her but that doesn’t excuse child neglect?? she says she’s being selfish like everyone else is, except all of her siblings love each other and would go to great lengths to help them (DON’T EVEN BRING UP HER RAISING HER SIBLINGS, I GET THAT, I’M TALKING ABOUT SEASON 7 FIONA).

#shameless #debbie gallagher #meta #shameless meta #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #fiona gallagher #lip gallagher #carl gallagher #shameless us #franny gallagher #anon

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superfluouskeys · 6 months

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going thru my bookmarks trying to think what directors cut to ask for that i havent harassed you into speaking directly into the camera on stream or into replying to an unhinged comment i left with and what ive arrived at is All Falls Down.

OH WOW.

WHAT A FIC LOL.

oh man that was one of those fics that just made me actively insane and I couldn't do anything until I finished it LOL. but that was true of my whole joan ferguson era i was just chronically Unwell about her.

Going off of what I was talking about on a prev ask, I think the only part of that fic that I hate is the end of the last chapter LOL, I feel like I froze up at the culmination and didn’t do a great job with it, and I don’t feel like the tone is right? I think actually what it is is that the whole fic was so dark and depressing that I wanted to give it a happy ending even though I’m not sure that was what fit with the vibe. Like the rest of the fic is really dark! I think the ending is too soft, or soft in the wrong way, and that’s what bothers me about it.

I think I often get into this mindset of wanting my fics to be “worth it” for people who invested in them, especially since I’m such a slow updater, which isn’t a bad thing per se, but I feel that in a lot of things I wrote after, like, the middle-end of The Prisoner I tended to pull a lot of punches, where I personally might have liked to make my work a little darker or harsher, but I was just sort of nervous about the reaction I would get or if I was like “perpetuating harmful narratives” or something LOL. Stay off the internet kids, people’s terrible takes on fiction can and will rot your brain!

That said, I’m really proud of the rest of the fic—I actually reread it pretty recently! I think it was actually quite a challenge for me to write at the time, and as a result I really grew from it—as I’ve mentioned already, I think I was really insecure about the direction I wanted to take with the prompt, and especially because a friend had asked me to write it, I felt really nervous about pushing it too far? But I don’t think I had ever actually made homophobia a major theme/plot point in my work, at least not since I was like, really young, and I think I also imbued a lot of things I personally very deeply related to into parts of the story, which is always, like… It can be hard to write about things that are really directly personal to you, but it can also come off really well since you have the firsthand experience LOL, so it’s a delicate balance, but I think in this case it mostly came out really well!

You know what’s funny, I feel like now the childhood friend plotline would be like SO in my wheelhouse LOL, I made the choice to create a supporting character who has a limited role and serves a vital narrative function enough times that now I’m like OHOHO hell yeah I can think of a great idea for a little side character like that, easy! But at the time it was a big challenge for me, and once again I’m not sure how I feel about the culmination I added for that character—I think the intention was to humanize her a little more by giving her some doubt/regret about her choice, but I think I could have given her a lot more nuance generally.

One of my favorite threads in the fic is, like, Joan desperately wanting to be seen and loved and desired the way she is, and not because someone has just decided out of some misguided sense of charity to ignore the things about her that are hard to swallow. And I think I could have really pushed that a lot farther and gotten more traction out of it. At least as far as I can recall, Joan comes off fairly noble throughout most of the fic—I think she could have been meaner LOL!

what a fic!!! I still have a lot of fondness for this fic obviously!

Fanfic Writer Director's Cut Ask Game!

#thank you for indulging meeee!!!!!!#exciting tag for answered asks #exciting tag for writing things #personal #fic:all falls down #pcbh #joan ferguson #all joans are good joans #wow it's been awhile since i used that tag!!!

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toxicthotsyndrome68 · 2 years

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My villain origin story created by GH

literally my misgivings with the show that never happen so now I’m sad (also on my period so…..😛)

Coming from someone born in 2001 but binge watched old GH clips like crack

Georgie and Emily dying (could’ve hired new actors they did when amber stopped playing Emily and Natalia came in).

Making Sam out to be the villain for Liason. If they wanted Liason do it but to destroy another character and making her do things like harming a child. When all three of Sonny’s kids got kidnapped back in 05 Sam stated harming Kristina was more cruel then she could ever be.

Not making Georgie, Lulu and Maxie best friends that would’ve been an amazing storyline. I get why people didn’t like Lulu she’s fucking annoying most times but she has her moments of clarity if you ignore her blind yet understandable loyalty to lucky when she found out the truth about jakes praternity and other moments of hypocrisy.But I also believe that Dante was the best thing to ever happen to her and I love Lante more then her relationship with Johnny or Logan, even Dillon. The lante version of lulu and Georgie would’ve been amazing.

Never making Carly and Jax work. I’ve stated it before and I’ll state it again Carly should’ve left sonny in the fucking dust a long time ago.

I have a love hate relationship with Jason and Carly’s friendship. Their are moments where it’s clear Carly is being selfish. But in the latter years of the their friendship their were moments I loved. Specifically 2010-2012.

Making Jason’s comeback the worst thing since the epidemic of superhero movies . If you looked at the Jason scenes starting back in 2004 (when Sam coming into the picture). Jason not being close with sonny but maybe staying close with Carly was a long time coming. I think he would’ve stayed in the business but putting his family first was obvious. I wanted Jason to react to AJ being alive and then being killed by sonny. I wanted to see Michael and Jason bond again. Jason with his kids and having a sibling bond with drew that he never had with AJ in years. Maybe not getting back together with Sam until they got to know each other again.

Sam and lucky should’ve stayed together. I liked them especially after I saw that scene of them together after Emily’s funeral. I love Sam she’s my girl but to get back with Jason after everything I don’t understand and I don’t think I will.

I like Greg Vaughan’s lucky probably more then Jonathon Jackson’s. Before the drugs took over lucky he played him really well especially with what the actor was given. When lucky got hooked on pills and got into a relationship with Maxie it sort of was jarring.

Coop, Jesse and Nathan dying. I loved them with maxie. Yeh I loved spinelli and Maxie too. But like those three with her were at Maxie’s best.

Diego dying, Johnny (bring him back for willow she’s needs to be spiced up and they would be hot)(bring in another actor I know Brandon is on days or something), and Ethan and Kristina are my breaking point. If the writers didn’t want them to be together at least make them friends.

Stefan like where is he. I know the actor is on days but please.

Elizabeth and nikolas could’ve been together if done properly. But they gave a cheating storyline like really.

I love nelle, sorry not sorry. Her hatred for Carly gives me life and when she essentially called Michael a little cry baby bitch who hides behind his parents and Jason the cackle that left my body.

I legitimately forgot the biggest Franco and Elizabeth 🤢🤢🤢. The man that kidnapped her baby (Aidan) like really 🙃.

#general hospital #gh maxie #gh spinelli #sam mccall #carly corinthos #sonny corinthos #michael corinthos #jason morgan #elizabeth webber #nikolas cassadine

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luxdea · 1 year

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( breath of the wild sentence starters | @corferox )

❝ i’m sorry you had to see me like that. ❞

❝ it’s alright. ❞

THIS WAS NOT the ideal way to speak about the ordeal they had been through. she couldn’t look him in the eye without distracting from her current focus, & that most certainly would not do. she kept her touch as gentle as possible as she applied the salve to the cut on his cheek. the one on his arm had already been treated, as has the one on his shoulder–––– she was almost finished with the one on his cheek, & she would take her time with the one on his forehead.

❝ if you think you scared me, you are certainly mistaken. i don’t know what would have happened had you not leapt into action. ❞

IT HAD NOT been the first time they had run into yiga. they had seemed to appear in every region that they traveled since they had first appeared when they were leaving kakariko. until now, they had been more than a pest than any sort of threat–––– particularly when it came to herself, who was very clearly not their target. she never minded, because it meant that she could attack with her bow without distraction ( not that link had ever truly needed her help with them ) & whatever assassin was sent out to harm them was dispatched quickly.

BUT THIS TIME had been... different. for starters, they had come in a group of four: an archer, a blade master & two foot soldiers ( at most zelda had seen two a blade master & an archer, & that was still quite rare ). & secondly, they had turned their sights on her.

ZELDA WAS ASHAMED to say that they had scared her, reminding her far too much of the situation she had been in a century prior, & she had hesitated because of it. by the time she had snapped herself out of it, the foot soldiers were too close for arrows, the blade master had engaged in battle with link & the fact that the archer was out of sight was making her panic more than she wanted to admit. between her inexperience with the sword & the way they had caught her off guard, it took them no time at all to knock the weapon from her hand.

THE SIGHT OF their sickles swiping at her would be ingrained in her memory for a long time. But, she held her own, making use of the slate as a weapon & dodging what she could. & then, the archer had reappeared. their arrow met it’s mark.

SHE REMEMBERED THE pain, she remembered falling to the ground & crying out–––– & she remembered link.

THE WAY HE ended the fight with the blade master without so much as a blink. the way he rushed over, moving faster than she’d ever seen him ( except, maybe, once before, but she wasn’t supposed to know about this & didn’t know if he even remembered ). the way he’d rushed in to turn the foot soldiers’ attention to him instead of her, standing in front of her in a similar way he’d had once before, but not before she caught sight of his face.

A CENTURY AGO he’d handled the situation with the mask of the hero. the same careful neutrality that he handled almost everything. this time, he’d looked angry. focused & yet furious. she’d missed most of his fight, as while he took on the foot soldiers, she grabbed her bow, despite the pain in her arm, & kept the archer off of him until her own arrow struck true & they made the decision to vanish in a puff of smoke. but, when he’d turned to her, she could clearly see that he hadn’t made it out of the fight unscathed either.

HER OWN WOUND had been taken care of first, at his insistence, but it was his turn now.

ZELDA ROSE UP on her knees. one hand brushed his bangs from his face, while the other applied the salve. both touches were as gentle as she could make them. her own expression was focused, her eyes on the wound.

❝ had you not done what you had, i’m certain that i would not be here with you right now. ❞

PERHAPS IT WOULD have been him placing her in the shrine of resurrection. though her own thoughts intended for it to be something of a joke, the image made her shudder. she ignored link’s questioning gaze, because azalea certainly wouldn’t know enough about the shrine to say anything about it, & so she pretended she hadn’t noticed–––– that her only focus was treating his wounds.

❝ i have no healing abilities from the champions, & we have no more healing elixirs. just a brave, reckless, wonderful hero as a travel companion. ❞

THE OINTMENT HAD been applied, but she didn’t move. her hands pushed his hair back just a little further, & she pressed a kiss to his head, just to the side of his injury. her focused expression was gone, & a smile had spread across her face. she settled back, letting his hair fall back where it wanted.

❝ thank you, link. ❞

#⌜AU 8 –––– the world is vast and meant for wandering. there is always somewhere else to go.⌝#⌜corferox –––– do not go far from me⌝#corferox #⌜ASKS –––– we still have much more to learn.⌝#⌜ZELDA ANSWERS –––– playing at being a scholar.⌝

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thememphislee · 1 year

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“Just Because We Were Abused Does Not Mean That We Will Become Abusers”

I think many of us have experienced abuse in some form or another at some point in our lives. Often many kinds of abuse through many different periods in our lives and by multiple abusers. Statistics say that the abused will become abusers. That statement and that concept has intentionally as well as unintentionally ruined my life. Many of you, well most of you don’t know that I was once married long ago. She was my first kiss, my first touch and the first time I ever held a woman’s hand that meant something, it changed me. It’s difficult to identify abuse when you’re unaware that it’s happening. Everyone but me could see it, and I was blind to it, but now I can see.

After I was divorced, I swore that I would never again allow someone mistreat me or abuse me. A goal that was easier said then done. I found myself in relationship after relationship where it became inevitable every time. The abuse seemed to always come in different forms, whether it was physical, emotional or even financially. I had a relationship end because the persons parents decided that because I was abused, I would abuse their daughter and they ended it. It left me in shock, and I don’t think I ever really recovered from that.

I never wanted to have kids because I was programed to believe that I would be just as bad as I was treated. I would avoid relationships with anyone that had children. I went to great lengths to get to know someone before getting into a relationship just in case there was a child, I wanted to know that I could trust that person as a parent and feel comfortable knowing that any child would never be in harms way. I met someone once that had a child and I ignored all of my reservations because I knew that being in that childs life was better than not being there. I learned that I was a good father. I learned that everything that I had been led to believe was untrue. I got to decide that I could be better than I was ever given. Sadly, the relationship ended, but it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I discovered that I had continued an abusive relationship with someone that was violent and vindictive, and they used their child to hurt me.

As time passed, I eventually met someone new. We both had similar pasts with similar family dynamics, and it was just nice to never have to explain our hardships, we just both got it, there was never a need to have to make an excuse or explain anything. We both agreed that having children of our own wasn’t something that we wanted. As time went on, we had a great relationship and a wonderful romance. Nothing mattered when we were together, it was only when others got involved that it complicated things. I was fortunate in the sense that I no longer allowed anyone to influence me or make my decisions for me when it came to who I wanted to spend my life with. I wish that I could have said the same for her. The family and friends of others decided that happiness was not going to be in our cards. I can’t just blame her side, I had a demented and psychotic person interfering with our life as well. Our relationship was torn apart by others that never wanted to see us flourish. Their sick and twisted actions literally ruined our lives. It had become clear to me that as we both spent a lifetime of being abused, it continued without either of us being strong enough to stop it.

I’ve spent the last couple of years alone and avoiding any sort of intimacy or romance simply because I have needed time. They say that time heals all wounds, however I say some wounds never heal. I can say that I value my previous relationships because each one taught me something new. I have learned a lot, and I don’t believe in bad relationships, I just think that you have relationships that you can learn more from. You can decide who you’re going to be. You are not destined to become an abuser just because you were abused, you can become better because of it.

I look forward to my next relationship. I am anxious to experience all the wonders that lay ahead because I can be happy. I can have the relationship that I want, not the relationship that I can have. To settle is to give up. Temporary is not forever, it’s just a waste of time. I encourage others to take that leap of faith, walk away from anything that isn’t everything that you could ever want. Every moment that you spend wanting more is an opportunity to go get what you want. I am busy falling in love with myself all over again, but I’ll see you soon!

The Memphis Lee speaks, now ya’ heard!

That’s how I roll.!!!

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gamma-writes · 2 years

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Apotheosis

A oneshot about a human in the wrong place at the wrong time accidentally dying and becoming God(?)

CW for unreality, mentions of guns and shooting, mentions of a bomb

At 12:01 AM CST on January 1 of 2010, an entity of immense power came down from the cosmos and landed on the planet Earth. In the years of careful global trust-building exercises and education on human custom that followed, the being that came to be known as ECE pledged to help humanity solve its many, MANY issues and save the planet and all life on it.

I heard about her success all the time on the news. "Big Company Busted by Brazen Being!" flashing in fancy font in your face, ads begging to be clicked. Titles like "Oil Monopoly Toppled After Attempted Murder on ECE" were ladled atop respected news websites in stoic Arial or Times New Roman. I've even seen a few Alex Jones remixes on YouTube of the man vocoded while ranting about her being a spawn of the devil come to eat babies and destroy the world. He says that about pretty much everyone though, I think. ECE is a nice person. Nice lady? Alien? No one's really sure. Some call her the 'apotheosis of mankind'. Other people think she's God or Satan. A few even think she's a top-secret government super-soldier project, like Dr. Manhattan if he was a lot less buff and a lot more cosmic horror-y. Honestly, I never cared about what she was. She knocked out harmful companies contributing to climate change and corruption, and that's all a zoomer like me could ask for. Of course, it helped that the US government was pretty cooperative. They tried to destroy her a few times when she first showed up, but once it was clear that she was very much not killable and she also literally just wanted to help, they let her do her thing. Instead of sending in the military to launch missiles at her while she worked, they got the police to clear the area so no one gets hurt. Even if they didn't, ECE was always, and I mean ALWAYS, careful to keep her fights contained. One time Bezos and Musk teamed up to build a giant remote controlled robot to capture her and launched it right out of an Amazon warehouse with all the employees still inside. She kept her lasers and crazy energy powers in check and got all the workers out safely, then took down the two CEOs and their Transformers knockoff with barely any damage to the area. To this day, not a single person has died from one of her fights. The worst injuries are scraped knees and stubbed toes from people running away.

Ever heard of liminal spaces? Backrooms and all that. Spaces that are devoid of life, empty in a soul wrenching yet alluring way. I've always wanted to visit a liminal space. I don't really know why, probably something to do with the human psyche evolving to be weird or whatever. A few days ago I found a flyer for abandoned warehouse tours at the port downtown from where I lived. Obviously I was totally excited and I absolutely HAD to go. I was at my dad's house that week and he works all the time anyway so I planned to just hop on a bus by myself. I sort of hinted that I would be gone for a few hours doing something when he got home that night, he brushed it off and told me he was glad I was getting out of the house. I couldn't shake the fear he would say no if I told him the truth. I never can, actually. But he gave me all the approval I needed to plead innocent if I got caught, so I RSVPed online and pushed down my excitement so he wouldn't ask questions. It was scheduled for a Thursday afternoon right after school. Stuff had been getting weird over that last week, talk of an outbreak in China reaching the US had me washing my hands more than usual. All the students were either panicking or ignoring it. I figured it would be fine and put it out of my mind long enough to enjoy my trip. The bus ride was fine, I got lost looking for the tour guide but ended up finding them anyway. We visited a couple warehouses and I took a few pictures to remember the day. Of course I didn't know that I would have more than photos to remember that day by the end of it. I'm not clairvoyant, of course I wouldn't have known. The pictures weren't even that good probably. Not like anyone will ever see them now.

The thing is, no one really knows where ECE is until they make a public appearance. They could be literally anywhere in the world at any time. They've even been reported to hang out in the planet's orbit every so often. With all that ground to cover, the odds that a super-powered alien-lady-person-thing would be busting a ring of lead deforestation organizers operating out of an abandoned warehouse in the port of Los Angeles at the exact time an abandoned warehouse tour was passing through is pretty low. I'm not amazing at math, but it's at least a million to one. Maybe even a trillion to one! I guess I was pretty unlucky that day though. Probably because of that one time in third grade when Mackenzie Young pickle jinxed me for saying the word 'pencil' at the same time as her. Cursed for life, she told me. I didn't believe her. If I had, it probably wouldn't have made a difference anyway. The shiitake mushrooms hit the fan and before I knew it the tour group was scattering like cockroaches as bullets ricocheted off the rusting metal walls. A bolt of lightning shot out and vaporized a falling beam before it could crush anyone, and that was when I saw her.

God, demon, savior, destroyer, none of it could ever describe ECE. Hovering an inch off the floor with her palms spewing electricity, a pair of otherworldly purple irises darting systematically back and forth from innocent to attacker, body dark beyond light, a curtain of thin mass draped around her head like a straight-haired bob. She was perfection and chaos incarnate.

She was shooting literal ACTUAL lasers like ACTUAL LASERS from her fingers. Oh, and all the people were screaming and running away and stuff of course. Life or death situation and all that.

I got sort of mixed up in the crowd. There wasn't a lot of people and I wasn't very distinctive nor was I a good runner, so a minute or two after the fighting started I was just sorta left behind. There were some crates conveniently me-sized, so I sat down behind them and waited.

I knew I shouldn't have stayed, but I thought I could hide. I wanted to know what happened when all the humans left the scene, I wanted to see her in action. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, of COURSE I wasn't going to pass it up. If I'd known the people she was after had a bomb, I probably wouldn't have stuck around. Or maybe I would have. Who knows? She had to get rid of the thing though. Can't have half a nuke detonating in the middle of a populated area. So she did a cool powerful thing to make it disappear.

As the arcs of plasma began to crawl up the metal catwalk and strip apart the atoms of the crates I was hiding behind, I knew staying had been a mistake. I knew I was going to die. I didn't feel it when a volt blasted through my only cover and hit me in the leg. She did though, I think. She's connected to those energy bits she shoots out. She felt it as soon as her energy hit my nervous system. Everything sort of... slowed down. Maybe it was because I was dying, maybe it was the sudden influx of extra nerve-power to my brain, maybe it was all a hallucination. Who knows. But my body was disintegrating from the bottom up and all I could do was sit there as it went. I had a pretty clear view of her since everything in front of me had already been vaporized. There was all these arcs of plasma striking out everywhere, it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen up close. And there she was at the center of it all, charging up and floating a few feet off the ground. Like I said, everything was all slow-mo, so by the time the arc was up to my torso she had turned her head enough for me to clock her expression. She was totally shocked, I could tell. Definitely angry that some idiot human had decided to be dumb and stick around where a battle was happening. Probably concerned because she knew I was about to die. I don't blame her, like, at all. It was my own curiosity that got me into that situation. I'd chosen to hide instead of run. There was no way she would've known I was there in time. So in the split second I had as the bottom of my ribcage went up in smoke before I was totally gone, in an attempt to convey that I had no hard feelings towards her, I was okay with dying, I knew what I was getting myself into and that I had made a mistake, and really just trying to be cool about the whole situation, I managed to give her a single gesture.

A shrug and an awkward, mildly alarmed smirk. And then, poof. Gone. I didn't even get to see her face after that.

And now I'm just... Atoms With a bunch of energy pinging around between them in what could be a consciousness. Maybe even a sign of life. Maybe even a person. Or maybe just dust doing its best to prove Descartes was right. "Cogito ergo sum" I think therefore I am.

I am.

I am... here. Alive. Maybe. Probably. Inside something. Someone? A not-quite person. Bigger on the inside, smaller on the outside, it has... a face? Eyes? Something that transmits... information? Energy? Emotion? I can't really tell. I've been just sort of... drifting, I guess is the right word for it. Zapping around in this big empty space that could be space, like actual literal outer space, or maybe its something else. Something more. Less?

It's confusing.

This is confusing.

I'm confused.

But I'm thinking. I'm able to think like this. Words without words without sound without skull without mind. Without skin without bone without eyes. Maybe I'm atoms. Maybe I'm the pulses between the atoms. Maybe I'm nothing at all. Maybe I'm just dust.

Thinking dust. Dust that is. Really annoying electrified dust with a bunch of sounds recorded in it. Isn't that what humans are? Electrified dust with sounds? Is... is that just what life is? Is that all it ever was? Just dust? Does that mean I'm alive? I am, aren't I. I'm alive. I am. I am. I'm stuck in a place that could be space and I'm dust and I'm alive and I am. I a-

ripped from the womb i am bombarded with particles and light

"There you are. So you are the one that has been jumping around in my head."

it's cold

something is pinching me whatever i am it is holding me pulling me from where

cold

too cold

"You must be that teen from the warehouse. I do not know what made you stay there. I am sorry you are dead, but you have to leave now. You cannot stay."

not listening

not dead

alive alive cold too cold i must pull back there is a string of me back to where i will pull myself back to where

"What are you doing? Stop that, did you not hear me? You have to go. There is not room for you in my head."

pull pull pullpullpullpull

"Hey! Stop that! No! I said no! Do you hear me? No!!"

back inside

"NO!!!"

running around in the warm it is quiet and something is piercing me trying to get me out

"Get out get OUT GET OUT!!"

i am alive in here i am dust i am living thinking annoying dust i am alive in here you can't make me go

"I do not care!! There is no room, stop!! You are changing me, I cannot... I can't... I can't get... out... please..."

i am Expanding into space everywhere is full of Me

bigger on the inside space is full of Me

living, thinking, annoying Me who thought it was a good idea to stay where I could get hurt because life was not enough for me to simply stay where it was safe I had to have more I had to go where I should not go and now I am

Eyes

The world is the size of my eyes They are purple and black and white and they see

Hands Claws? Sharp bits, pointy, but fleshy. Skin is dark. Not melanin dark, dark that has no light, satin soft trailing through atoms like spider silk.

I am atoms Suddenly I am not atoms Suddenly I am not Me Suddenly I am not Suddenly I am And Then

"Oh. That's what you meant."

I feel pretty dumb now. Obviously being pure conscious energy bouncing around inside a being made of energy is going to result in a merging of the two. I mean, it makes sense to me now but like, a few minutes ago? Nah. I never took physics, too much math for my taste.

Woah. Woah woah woah woah. This thing knows a lot. A LOT a lot. Like, WAY too much. I'm transitioning still but it's going faster, it's like the last bit of sand pouring down through the funnel of an hourglass.

I made her scared. She was scared when she killed me, and then when I tried to get back into her mind she was scared 'cause she knew she would be lost in me. Now we're lost in each other. We're... the same? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Maybe.

Oh there's more

WOW there's more there's still more LOTS more

It's the universe the WHOOOOLE universe like everything beginning to end all over time and space and she's seen it And now I've seen it. I know the answer to every question anyone could ever ask about anything. I saw the first humans the last dinosaurs the first land creature the last ocean the first cell the last dying star ever to shine and

hey why am i bleeding I'm bleeding??? Oh my god????

"Hlep"

"bleh blrbrlsbrb"

That piece doesn't go there I think uh oh oh boy hang on hang on I can do this

There!

"There!"

I can talk.

"Yep, I can talk."

I can think and talk at the same time.

"I can think and talk at the same time. Why am I repeating myself?"

Because there's someone in the room with you.

hello

"Hello."

They scream.

As of 9:11 AM PST on November 13 of 2020, the body called ECE has been stolen and possessed by a seventeen-year-old highschool student with ADHD and a knack for getting into trouble. In the thirty seconds it took for her to completely overtake the body of ECE, a decade of careful humanitarian efforts to save the planet and all life on it collapsed like a poorly built sand castle in water.

#writing #writers #fiction #oneshot #short fiction #short story #original story #original writing #gun cw #bomb cw #unreality cw #i think therefore i am #wrong place wrong time #possible series #gamma writes #short

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blu-joons · 3 years

Text

He Overhears Fans Being Rude About You ~ Park Jinyoung

Your eyes looked to Jinyoung as soon as you heard your name be muttered by the group of girls behind you in the queue, searching to him to see if he had managed to pick up on it too.

“Y/N looks horrible when she stands next to Jinyoung,” you overheard one of them, “look at this photo of the two of them, poor Jinyoung looks mortified to be around her.”

Rather than speak up and let the group know that the two of you had heard, Jinyoung took a step closer towards you and slipped his hand in with yours, squeezing against your hand tightly. His heart was pounding as he listened to them speak, knowing that you were listening in to what they had to say completely tore him apart.

You weren’t sure if they knew that the two of you were in tune to their conversation or not, but that didn’t stop them from carrying on anyway, driving the knife further into your back as they continued to hurt you.

“Does she even wear makeup when she leaves the house?” One of them laughed, “has she ever even heard of a mirror?”

Yet again a squeeze of your hand came from Jinyoung, silently encouraging you to ignore what was being said. He didn’t want to create a scene, but as they continued to speak, his patience wore out more and more, biting down on his lip to try and keep himself composed.

“Do you think she’s being paid to date Jinyoung? Like a publicity stunt?” Another of them asked the rest of the group.

“He wouldn’t freely decide to date someone like Y/N, would he?”

A shiver ran down his spine as he heard them speak, glancing across at you as your eyes looked down to the floor, taking a couple of nervous steps forward as the queue moved ahead, unable to bring yourself to meet Jinyoung’s eye any longer.

You knew that as soon as you looked the floodgates would open, struggling to keep yourself together as you heard your name be bashed around in all directions from the girls behind you, dragged through the mud.

He wanted to ignore it, to keep you out of any harm, but as they spoke again, knocking your appearance, and then your career, Jinyoung had had enough.

The pride that he felt as a result of what you did was something that he couldn’t have questioned, puffing his cheeks out before turning around to face them all. Your eyes widened as you tried to pull Jinyoung back around, but he refused.

“He finally noticed us,” one of them squealed.

Jinyoung shot her a glare, quickly letting her know that he wasn’t keen to hear any of them talking. “I don’t know what sort of games you think you’re playing, or whether you think that you’re impressing me, but I suggest you quit it right now.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to look back at them, sensing that their shoulders had dropped as at last they went quiet, relieved to hear your name not mentioned too.

“Do you really think that Y/N is the right person for you?”

“Absolutely,” Jinyoung instantly replied, “if you think I’m going to listen to the opinion of four teenage girls who just want a bit of attention, then you’re very mistaken, sorry.”

“We’re being honest.”

“No, you’re not,” Jinyoung happily corrected, “it’s people like you that mean idols can’t date, the types of people who are spiteful and vicious without never appreciating the situation.”

Before they could reply, the queue moved forwards again, as you tugged at Jinyoung’s coat to move him towards the till as one of the cashiers waved you down, relieved to get him away from the fans before he did something stupid.

You were silent other than talking to the cashier as you paid for your basket, not quite knowing how to act around Jinyoung as he let go of several deep breaths. The walk back to the car was silent for you both too, you sensed that Jinyoung needed a moment, opting to keep quiet until you were back in a comfortable space together again.

As soon as you were both in the car, you looked across at Jinyoung, smiling weakly as his eyes looked across to meet yours whilst fumbling around in his pocket for his keys.

“You didn’t have to stand up for me like that,” you told him.

His head shook in response to you, there was only so far, he could be pushed before he had to defend himself, and you, and those fans had most definitely overstepped his mark.

He took a moment to calm himself down before speaking up in reply to you. “I didn’t want to kick off and cause too much trouble, but when I feel that your name needs to be protected, I won’t ever stand back and do nothing about it.”

“What if you get in trouble for it?”

“Then so be it,” Jinyoung shrugged, “I don’t care if I get in trouble for it, when things go to far it’s my job to defend you and make sure that people realise just how amazing you are.”

Although his heart was in the right place, you couldn’t help but worry about the repercussions. You were never not going to be thankful for everything that Jinyoung did for you, but you didn’t want to get in the way of his own career either.

The comments of fans were something you had mostly learnt to deal with during your time dating Jinyoung, but even that group seemed to take things too far for you, they were relentless in attempting to push both of your buttons.

“Clearly not everything thinks I’m amazing.”

“Then I’ll make it my mission to prove to everyone just how amazing you are,” Jinyoung argued, “I won’t stop protecting you and defending you until I can absolutely sure that everyone who says they’re a fan of mine know how special you are.”

Your smile continued to grow as you listened to the sincerity in Jinyoung’s voice, not doubting for a second that that wasn’t a mission that he would end up giving himself.

“Your true fans support you in everything that you do,” you tried to remind him, “those girls weren’t fans of yours Jinyoung.”

“You’re right, they just wanted a reaction out of me, but I wasn’t going to stand back and let them talk about you like that.”

“I really appreciate that you protected me, I can’t lie, it feels nice to know that you were so willing to protect me, you didn’t leap in too soon, you stepped in when you felt it was right too.”

Jinyoung’s head nodded back at you, establishing once again that protection was always going to be something that he would give to you, no matter how big of a hole he dug for himself.

“Sometimes all it takes is a bit of confrontation for someone to realise that their words hurt, and that they’re untrue too,” Jinyoung mused, “it’ll take time to protect you from the world, but I won’t ever stop protecting you.”

As he turned the key in the ignition, revving the car up, you sat back much more comfortably in the chair. At last, Jinyoung was calm beside you as he began to drive away, feeling much happier in himself for defending your honour.

“I think maybe we should just head home and forget that happened, we can’t let one stupid thing dampen a great afternoon,” you suggested.

“You’re right, that’s a great idea.”

---

Masterlist

#got7 #got7 imagine #jinyoung #jinyoung imagine #park jinyoung #park jinyoung imagine #got7 reaction #got7 scenario #got7 jinyoung #got7 drabble #got7 one shot #got7 fluff #jinyoung scenario #jinyoung reaction #jinyoung drabble #jinyoung one shot #jinyoung fluff #kpop #kpop imagine

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i-cant-sing · 3 years

Text

Yandere Rei Hurting Reader Pt2

Yes yes. Its out now. I won't delete this one. Enjoy!

Part 1 is here. Part 3 here.

Check out my MASTERLIST for more!

Yandere Todoroki Clan:

It had been so awful at first. So hard for everyone to adjust to the new change. Of course, it was especially difficult for you to adapt to the new circumstances.

When you had first woken up after the unfortunate incident, approximately 3 days later, you didn't expect to be home so soon. You expected- you hoped that you would wake up in the hospital and have them call the authorities. Then again, you also didn't expect never being able to use your eyes again.

Shotou was the first one to notice when you had woken up from your coma. He hadn't left your side since the accident. He jumped from his seat beside you and held the glass of water to your lips when you tried to speak. The family came rushing in when he called for them, announcing that you had woken up. You could hear Fuyumi and her crying tears of joy as Natsuo came to check your vitals. You knew your eyes were bandaged, which was expected because of the hot oil that was poured on them, but when you asked Natsuo when they were coming off, he went silent. Your heart sank when he told you what had happened, how your eyes were fucking fried to the point that the arteries supplying them were also destroyed, which meant they couldn't be replaced, ever.

You screamed a lot that day; you would've cried but you didn't have any tear ducts. You didn't let anyone touch you at first, especially Rei. You would scream, throw yourself away from her if you felt her come near you. Eventually, Natsuo put some sort of tranquilliser into your IV, finally calming you down.

Being blind was hard, you knew that. But you didn't know that it would also be this humiliating. After the accident, they had starting infantalizing you even more, doing the most miniscule things for you.

Shotou would be the first person who greeted you in the morning and usually the last person to put you to bed at night. He would carry you around everywhere you go, telling you its simply unsafe for you to walk on your own. Sure you bumped into the furniture a few times and it was a bit hard maintaining your balance, but that didn't mean you needed him to carry you around everywhere. You had asked him to get you a cane, but he only said "why do you need a stick when you have me? Just tell me where you want to go".

Each morning, Shotou would take you down the stairs to the toilet and more often than not, have Fuyumi come and help you, even for brushing your teeth. Then he would take you to the dining table where everyone is waiting for you. Fuyumi would give your breakfast to Shotou, who would cut it up and feed you. Once you're done eating, you would wait for Shotou to finish his food. During breakfast, everyone would make small talk while you remained quiet. After everyone's finished eating, Fuyumi and Rei would take dishes to sink. You would've helped, but everyone's pretty much forbidden you from entering the kitchen.

Shotou would then carry you either to his room or the living room, where he would turn on the TV and tell you what's happening. But since this always makes you remember how you don't have eyes, he would usually just read you some book. Somehow, they're always about princesses and fairytales. You were getting sick of hearing them.

Fuyumi would later come and fetch you, and take you to your bath. While you would be cleaning yourself, after politely declining help from Fuyumi each time, she would be out preparing your clothes for the day. She would explain to you what you're wearing and how you look, and how she's going to style your hair. As if any of these things mattered to you. But even if they did, its not like you'd have a say in anything.

You still remember the first time you were taking a bath, after finally convincing Fuyumi to let you have the "luxury" to clean yourself up. You finally had some time for yourself, alone and away from the rest of the house. You sank in the warm water in the tub, allowing yourself to relax. The privacy was comforting, but not long lasting, as you felt cold hands touch your shoulders. In an instant, you jumped away screaming. "GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY! GET AWAY!" Rei tried coming closer to you but you kept on screeching at the top of your lungs, alerting the whole house. "FUYUMI! SHOTOU! GET HER AWAY! SHOTOU GET HER AWAY!" At that point you didn't even care if they saw you nude, they just need to save you from her. The siblings rushed to the bathroom and upon seeing your huddled form in the corner and their mother sobbing, Fuyumi hastily covered you with a towel while Shotou took Rei out of there.

Shotou tried to make you understand that Rei was just trying to help you. That she just missed you and wanted to take care of you. He was basically telling you not to be afraid of her, and that your trauma is not valid. You stopped talking to him after that, only spoke when absolutely necessary.

Natsuo would pick you up after your bath while Fuyumi went to make lunch. He would check your eyes (or lack there of), put on some ointments and replace the bandages with fresh ones. Fuyumi would come with your lunch and after she'd fed you, Natsuo would give you your medicine. They always make you sleepy, so you'd be put down for a nap.

Dabi wasn't always around, but when he was, he was still the asshole he was before. He would move your things to different places, or place stuff in your way so that'd you'd trip (he always caught you before you face planted), all so that you would ask him for help he could get a rise out of you. But you would just sigh and move on.

Enji liked to take you to the garden and read you books and newspapers. It was alright you guess, but you wanted to do something yourself, especially since they still didn't take you out of the house. You had asked him for a Braille, but he only replied "You don't need to stress yourself with that. I'll always be there to read you whatever you want."

If Enji's running late, then Shotou would take you to the swings in the garden, pushing you as he tells what happened at school or with friends. After dinner, you’d be forced to spend some more time with your siblings, before you’d be tucked into bed.

That has been the routine for the past 6 months since your accident. And the family really felt like everything was returning to normal. It was, for them. This is how they always wanted things to happen: you, locked up in the house while they stripped you of all autonomy and infantalized you to the point where it was harming you, both physically and mentally. Your body was growing weak, your muscles got easily fatigued from their lack of use. And the pills Natsuo gave you didn't really help the case. They made you sleepy, and you think they even caused hallucinations since you felt like someone was in your room or someone was playing with your hair.

Even though you were stuck at home all day, you still never talked to Rei. Well she tried, but you would be the one to always flinch away. She wouldn't address herself when she entered your room, but you would still feel her lurking around the corners. And why should you acknowledge her? Especially after what she's done?

Enji wasnt ignorant of your condition. He could see how quiet you had gotten, and how scared you were of Rei. He was getting worried for you. What were you thinking about? Enji knew if he didn't talk to you, things will get worse.

You were sitting by the lounge window with Fuyumi who was telling you about her day. Fuyumi greeted him when he came in the room. "Hey, dad!" Enji nodded. "Fuyumi, would you leave us? I'd like to talk to Y/n." Fuyumi nodded, pressing a kiss to your forehead before she left the room, only Enji noticing how you stiffened at her affection. He sat beside you and cleared his throat. "How are you?" "Fine. You?"you softly asked. "I'm good, too. I wanted to talk to you about something. About...your mom." "My mom's dead." Enji cleared his throat. "I meant Rei." "Oh. What about her?" "Why haven't you been talking to her?" You remained silent. “What happened was an accident-” “It wasnt an accident. An accident is spilling milk. Not pouring hot oil in someone’s eyes.” Enji knew this was coming.“She didn’t do it on purpose-” You cut him off again. “She did! She knew exactly what she was doing.” “Why would she do that?” “I don’t know. She hates me or something.” Enji grabbed your hand gently. “You know that's not true. Rei loves you very much and she cares about you a lot.” You didn't say anything. “Do you remember the day you came to our house?” You nodded. “Yeah. It was a few days after my parents funeral.” “Yes. And do you remember what Rei said to you?” You stiffened before nodding again. “She said that she may not be my real mother, but she’ll love me more than anyone ever has and ever will. Always.” “Yes. And has she not? Has she not loved you more than anyone?” You nodded slowly as Enji continued. “Between you and me, she’s always favoured you among all of your siblings.” You smiled at that. “So, are you willing to give your mother a chance?” You paused for a few minutes. “I- I cant.” Enji sighed. “Look. I know you’re scared. I understand. I know you want to blame Rei for what happened, but believe me when I tell you it wasn't her fault. It was an accident.” You shook your head. “And what if another “accident” like that happens again? And what if I dont survive this time? And what if-” Your voice broke down. Enji pulled you into his lap. “It won't. I promise. And if something like that does occur, I’ll be there to stop it.” Enji pressed a kiss to your hair. “I’ll save you. I promise.”

With Enji's persuasion, you had started mending your relationship with Rei again. Sure, you still flinched when she touched you and you were still hesitant to initiate conversations with her, but none of that bothered Rei. You were trusting her again, and she was more than happy to do more on her part to make you comfortable.

And you won't lie, but life was better with Rei. She knew when Dabi or Shotou were becoming too overbearing, or when Natsuo was fussing over you for no reason. She was there to stop Fuyumi from chatting your ear away, and knew when to stop Enji from feeding you too many sweets.

And Enji could see that Rei was sorry for what she did. He saw how she would often massage ointments on your face, her fingers barely tracing the charred area around your eyes before pulling away quickly. And other times, like today, as he stood by your bedroom door, he saw how gentle she was with you as she tucked you into your bed. He kissed his wife once she had left your room. "How are my girls doing?" Enji asked Rei in a hushed voice, not wanting to wake you up. Rei smiled. "Good." They slowly started walking back to their room. "Shes an angel, Enji. So sweet." Enji hummed in agreement. "Can I tell you something?" Enji stopped and turned to face his wife. He raised an eyebrow. "I'm kind of glad what happened...to her." Rei was smiling. "She's so much better like this. So docile now. I...I don't regret what I did, you know?" Enji's blood ran cold. "Rei... dont tell me- you didn't do that on purpose, did you?" Rei nodded, a bit too eagerly. "I know, I know. It wasn't ethical. And if I could, I would've taken away her pain in a heartbeat. But you must agree that its much better now, right?" Enji couldn't believe what Rei was confessing. "I mean, look at her now. She doesn't even try running away. She knows- she feels safer with us, inside." Rei sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I thought that maybe it wouldn't come to this. I thought that after Touya took care of her parents, she'd be a bit more scared to be outside on her own. That's why we told her they died in a car crash." Rei rested her cheek on his chest. "It scares me what I'm willing to do for her, Enji." Enji knew Dabi had something to do with what happened to your parents, but knowing Rei had a hand in it too, or more precisely, she was the one who told Touya to get rid of them. Enji didn't know what to do with this new side of his wife. But he did know he had to keep her hidden from you, so he ushered his wife to their bedroom, not knowing you had already heard them.

You had realised a couple of things that night. One, Rei and Dabi had murdered your parents. Two, Rei pouring the hot oil in your eyes wasn't some sort of psychotic episode. Three, Enji and the others were going to take Rei's side, no matter what.

A few weeks later, your birthday came around. The siblings had left the house to get some things for your birthday party, leaving you in the care of their parents. Rei was in the kitchen cooking up a whole feast for you, while you sat beside Enji in the lounge as he read the newspaper. Enji had already given you your present. It was giant teddy bear with chocolates from Belgium. They were utterly delicious. When you stood up, he asked you where you were going. You pointed at the box of chocolates in your hand. "I'm going to share them with, mom. Unless, thats not okay?"you asked meekly. Enji still wasn't all that comfortable with letting you and Rei be alone, especially after her confession. But... if he doesn't let you go to her alone, you'll always be afraid of her. And its not like Rei will hurt you again, right? Besides, the kitchen is just down the hallway. He's sure nothing will happen. He nodded. "Okay. Should I walk you there?" "No. Its down the hall. I think I'll be fine on my own." Enji then allowed you to go, telling you to call for him if you need anything.

Rei was chopping up some vegetables when she heard your footsteps. She turned around to find you standing just outside the kitchen. "Hey, angel! What are you doing here?" You remained outside the kitchen as you spoke. "I wanted to share these chocolates dad got for me. W-would you like some?" Oh, you're so kind. Rei quickly wiped her hands on a kitchen towel before walking towards you and leading you to the dining room in front of the kitchen. She helped you sit down before taking a seat next to you. "You want me to have your chocolates? But didn't daddy gift them to you?" You bit your lip as you replied. "Well yes, but I- I wanted to share them with you so that I could- I wanted to thank you for taking care of me. And for loving me. I would've gotten you something else but I'm not allowed to go outside..."you mumbled the last sentence, but that didn't matter as Rei quickly hugged you. "Oh honey! You're so sweet!" Rei took a piece of chocolate from the box that you had extended towards her. "And these chocolates are so delicious! Daddy really loves to spoil you, doesnt he?" Rei pinched your cheek gently. You smiled. "I'm glad you liked them. Especially, after all you've done for me. You deserve them more than I do, honestly." Rei stopped at that. "Honey...what are you talking about?" You smiled. "What? Am I not saying the truth? You deserve these chocolates, and all the sweets and flowers and medals for being the best mother." You popped a chocolate into your mouth before continuing. "After all, the criteria is very high. You need to not only have the intent to kill for your child, but you also have to commit murder. Then kidnap your child and force her to bide to your rules. And if she misbehaves, you must punish her as well, right? Because good behaviour gets chocolate," You popped another chocolate into your mouth. "And bad behaviour gets your eyes fried."

Rei just stared at you in disbelief. H-how did you- you didn't hear them talking last night did you? Or did Dabi tell you? Rei stared at you as you ate another piece of chocolate. "I wonder after you've killed me, will you be given chocolates or flowers?" "D-darling, w-what are you saying? I would never hurt you!" You chuckled darkly. "No no. You've done it before and I know you'll do it again. After all, it scares you what you're willing to do for me." You caressed her cheeks, and when you felt her tears, you wiped them. "I'm not saying you have the intention to kill me. No, you'll just hurt me again, another little accident, but this time I won't survive. I just hope you'll bury me somewhere where there's a lot of fresh air, maybe on a hill with a view?" Rei finally broke down at that, falling to her knees as she clung to your legs. "Please! Y/n please forgive me! Please baby, I- I just wanted the best for you. I don't want you to die, I- I promise I'll never hurt you again! I'm sorry! I'm sorry. Please baby, I'll do anything. Just forgive me!" You sighed. "Anything? I don't think you mean that." Rei nodded her vigorously, tears falling everywhere. "I do! I do! Just tell me what to do!" You tapped your chin, pretending to think. "Bring a knife. A sharp one." Rei's eyes widened. "W-What?" "Well...its only right for you to be punished as well. To atone for your sins, right?" "O-okay." Rei went to the kitchen and brought a big knife with her. "Lock the door." She did as you told her. You extended your palm, waiting for her to place the knife. She did. You stood up, right in front of Rei. You told her to stand against a wall, and she followed. You played with the sharp end if the knife. "I want to hurt you. I want to hurt you so bad. I want you to feel the pain, the hell you've put me through." This is it, Rei thought, you're going to kill her. For some reason, she was okay with that. "I want you to know you failed. I want you to know you're a bad mother. A selfish, bad mother." Rei was full on sobbing now. "Look at me. I want you to remember this." And with that you raised the knife before stabbing yourself in the gut, two screams ripping through the manor. Rei shot towards you, her hands trying to pull the knife away. "What did you do?! What did you do?!" Rei was crying. Enji was banging on the locked door for a few seconds before he burned it down and the sight he was met with...was nothing short of a nightmare.

There you layed on the floor, blood sputtering from your mouth, your shirt stained with blood and Rei. Rei, who was hunched over your body, with a bloody knife in her hand, crying out "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!".

Enji rushed towards you, pushing Rei back roughly. You were coughing up blood, your head turned away from him until you felt him touch your face. "D-daddy..."you whimpered out before your breathing came to a stop.

"No. No." Enji quickly gathered your limp body in his arms, running out of the house towards a hospital. He kept on chanting "no", because he didn't want to believe that he failed to protect you.

That he failed to save his daughter, again.

I had 5 different endings in my mind and Idc if this isn't your preferred ending (the ending I had in my mind was something out of Quentin Tarantino's movie). I'm just glad to be done with it.

Anyways, exams are coming up and I'm not going to be posting a lot.

And ill be taking up your follow up questions/asks for this part! I'll also be answering godfather hawks asks now that this part is out.

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

Lao Nie and Nie Mingjue have a good day together and bond. What was their relationship like before the qi deviation?

Boys - ao3

“Two paths, hmm?” Lao Nie said, squinting at the road markers in front of him. “Well, I don’t see why we can’t go down this one to the right –”

“No.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because little uncle asked me not to let you meet any new dangerous women,” Nie Mingjue said, looking as serious as ever – only his little hands, swinging to the side, revealed that he was just a ten-year-old. Still a child, no matter how mature he tried to act. “And a place called the Springtime Ghost Valley sounds like it probably has dangerous women.”

“Hey,” Lao Nie protested mildly. “Who’s the father here, me or you?”

“If a-die wants a new wife, little uncle will find one that isn’t inclined to kill him.”

That sounded like a recitation.

“Then what’s even the point,” Lao Nie grumbled, and reached out to ruffle his son’s hair, enjoying how Nie Mingjue yelped when he did, glaring up at him with offended dignity.

In all honesty, Lao Nie had no idea how he’d ended up with a son as serious and sincere and earnest as Nie Mingjue – he himself hadn’t taken anything seriously in years. Probably it was his mother’s influence.

Now that was a woman.

Not that his foxy second wife hadn’t been woman enough to blow him away either…

Hmm.

Perhaps they had a point about his taste in women.

“How about men?” Lao Nie suggested. “If it really means so much to you, I could swear off of women entirely –”

“A-die.”

“Mm?”

“Leave Sect Leader Wen alone.”

Lao Nie cracked up.

Because Lao Nie was the father, however easy-going he might sometimes be, they ended up heading down the right-hand path regardless. They were supposed to be night-hunting, after all – it was the perfect bonding experience according to Jiwei, though Lao Nie suspected his saber of having selfish intentions there – and deliberately avoiding a place with ‘Ghost’ in the name was hardly appropriate for scions of a Great Sect like theirs.

Although the reference to springtime was admittedly a little worrisome.

If it turned out to be a brothel, with the ghost thing being just a clever if somewhat tonedeaf marketing ploy, Lao Nie was turning around and taking them both home at once. He wasn’t going to risk little Nie Mingjue turning out anything like that awful Jin Guangshan – or, nearly as bad, having to explain anything more about the joys of sex to those earnest little button eyes and dimpled cheeks with no time to prepare first. He still hadn’t recovered emotionally from the last few times Nie Mingjue had asked him a question like that.

When they finally reached the end of the path, turning a corner to behold a clearing that was probably completely ordinary during the daytime, Lao Nie found that he’d been both right and wrong.

“It’s a ghost brothel,” he marveled. He’d never seen anything like it in his life.

“Dangerous women,” Nie Mingjue reminded him.

“A-Jue! Let your father live a little!”

Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes.

Lao Nie virtuously ignored his slightly judgmental brat of a son. It wouldn’t do him that much harm to go visit for a while, with the risk of Jin Guangshan-ness being relatively minimal; they were ghosts, after all. It was the duty of every cultivator to fight against evil, wherever it lived, no matter its form –

“Fighting? Is that what it’s called?”

“Who taught you sarcasm?” Lao Nie asked, knowing perfectly well that the answer was himself. “I ought to smack them.”

Nie Mingjue crossed his arms over his chest and pouted at him. “Fine, it’s fighting, we’ll go fight them. Do you want me to start drawing ghost-repelling talismans?”

“Liberate first!” Lao Nie sang out. “Come on, let’s go see what they’re like – er, that is, I mean, see what grievances they have that are keeping them here, of course. There’s no harm in dangerous women. Just don’t let them eat your yang energy!”

“It’s not my yang energy that I’m worried about, a-die…”

The ghostly madame was an extraordinarily charming person and Lao Nie liked her at once.

Not liked her liked her – he’d fallen head over heels with both of his wives from the first word, and that hadn’t happened here – but still, conversing with her was an extraordinarily enjoyable way to spend time.

She was witty and clever, with a broad range of knowledge and a gift for keeping a conversation lively and exciting; she could meet every verbal riposte with ease, and looked utterly gorgeous and composed the entire time. Sure, she kept trying to lure Lao Nie into an orgy in which all of his yang energy would be slowly sucked out before his body was ripped to pieces and his bones cracked open so that the ghosts could consume the marrow within, but what a way to go, right?

Nie Mingjue spent his time making friends with the ghost prostitutes.

Lao Nie wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting.

Well, he supposed he’d been expected a range of things – anything from Nie Mingjue getting suckered in by one of the ghosts and needing to be rescued by his father to Nie Mingjue just pulling out his Baxia and trying to stab them because he felt offended by their existence. He wasn’texpecting his ghostly conversational partner to suddenly frown mid-sentence and say, “What is he talking to them about?”

Lao Nie turned his head slightly and started listening.

“– just because you’re a ghost doesn’t mean you have to work allthe time, surely,” Nie Mingjue was saying, completely serious and earnest in the way he so often was. Lao Nie’s son had in fact inherited his sense of humor, only it tended to be buried fairly deep down and make its way up to the surface in an understated way in the most unexpected times; the rest of the time, he was straightforward to a fault, treating everything sincerely. “The birds in the trees, the animals in the fields – even among prostitutes, even the street-walking ladies know they need to take time to rest! I can’t believe you really have to work every single night. How long has it been since you had a night off?”

The ghost prostitutes around him had contemplative looks on their faces.

“Isn’t the whole point of becoming a vengeful man-eating ghost that you have more power than regular humans? I don’t know, it kind of seems like a bad deal if you have even worse conditions after all that –”

“I’m sorry,” the ghostly madame said, looking irritated underneath all her carefully painted smiles. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment…”

Lao Nie had to bite his hand to keep from laughing out loud.

“I think we’ve all learned a valuable life lesson today,” Lao Nie announced.

Nie Mingjue was pouting again.

“I don’t think we did,” he said, sounding profoundly skeptical. A filial child like Nie Mingjue shouldn’t sound so skeptical of his beloved father’s words of wisdom, really; if Lao Nie wasn’t so heartless, he might be offended. Of course, the skepticism might have originated from the heartlessness, so it was all six of one, half a dozen of the other in the end. “Those poor ghost ladies! They were still fighting each other by the time we left!”

“I’ve never seen a ghost pull another ghost’s hair before,” Lao Nie conceded. It had been brilliant. “One day, someone’s going to figure out a more reliable way to use ghosts to fight ghosts, mark my words.”

“Isn’t that demonic cultivation?”

“Oh, sure,” Lao Nie said, still cheerful. “If whoever it is does too much of it, eventually it’ll build up into a backlash that’ll kill them in some grossly horrific manner. Probably ripped into pieces by the backlash. And that’s not even counting how they’d be ostracized and hunted by the cultivation world first! But still, imagine how exciting it’d be in the meantime!”

“A-die…”

Lao Nie patted Nie Mingjue on the head again, earning another glare. “Immortality is a lie, A-Jue. We’re all here for a short time, each and every one of us, and only the length determined by fate and man. All that matters is what we do with the time that we have, and whether we’ve used it well.”

“To fight against evil wherever it lives, no matter its form?”

“To leave the world a better place than when we entered it, and to let our memories linger in the hearts of those that love us,” Lao Nie said. “Fighting evil is the best way to accomplish the former, and living a good life the latter. And you might as well have a good time doing it, if you can! Everything else is just extra.”

Nie Mingjue thought about that for a moment. “And a-die likes to have second helpings of extras?”

That was true. Lao Nie was a man of prodigious appetites of all sorts.

Despite that, he protested, “That wasn’t the point I was trying to make. I was being serious for once.” Seeing Nie Mingjue’s skeptical look, he made a face. “I can be serious, sometimes!”

“Can you?”

“It’s been known to happen! A date written on a wall will be right once a year.”

“Not if the wall gets painted over.”

“Ouch,” Lao Nie said. “I don’t even understand the metaphor you’re making, and I’m still going ouch.”

“Uh-huh,” Nie Mingjue said, utterly unimpressed. “You know, if you wanted one of the ghost ladies to be Third Mother, you would’ve been better off with the one playing the qin, not the ghost madame. She was much more powerful.”

Lao Nie arched his eyebrows. “Was she?”

Nie Mingjue nodded. “She had claws like a lizard.”

Lao Nie tried to remember which one of them had been the ghost girl playing the qin. He couldn’t quite remember at first – the women there were all surpassingly lovely, almost to the point of over-saturation – and then suddenly an image came into view, a beauty with a veil and sharp sword-like eyebrows, leaning over the qin with the shining pearl hanging in the center of her forehead dipping down.

And, yes, claws like a lizard.

“Hmm,” Lao Nie said. “That might have been a dragon, actually. You should be careful of those, they’re tricky.”

They’ll rip you and three dozen other cultivators besides into more pieces than can be picked up without blinking an eye, he meant, and you won’t even know what hit you. Avoid at all costs.

“Oh,” Nie Mingjue said, blinking. “Oops.”

“…what do you mean, oops?”

“Nothing bad! If I’m not supposed to interact with her, does that mean I should go and give back the gift she gave me?”

“She gave you a – give me that,” Lao Nie said. “This instant.”

“But a-die, you said there’s no harm in dangerous women –”

“For me, you foolish child!”

“I suppose it’s fine,” Lao Nie finally concluded, having inspected the dragon pearl from all angles several times over. “I don’t know how you do this, A-Jue.”

“Do what?”

Lao Nie thought about how his foxy second wife had cooed over his eldest son with a (slightly disturbing) fervor that she otherwise reserved only for eating snacks, and how viciously she’d dealt with anyone who’d even thought of interfering with Nie Mingjue in any way. He was fairly sure he himself had only survived his second marriage on account of having such a charming son.

“Don’t worry about it,” he finally said, mostly because he wasn’t entirely sure how to explain – or if he even entirely understood. “Anyway, it’s nothing dangerous. Rather the contrary! Dragon pearls like this are given to baby dragons to protect them.”

Nie Mingjue frowned. “What feeds on baby dragons?”

“…I think it’s mostly to protect them from themselves,” Lao Nie said, feeling a little uncertain about it himself. “And if it’s not, I don’t think I want to know, to be perfectly honest. There’s fighting evil, which is only right, and then there’s suicide, which is a waste – a wise man should know how to judge the difference between them. Anyway, that wasn’t the point I was trying to make.”

“It wasn’t?”

“It wasn’t, and you aren’t allowed to start worrying about the fate of theoretical baby dragons – I forbid it.” Nie Mingjue scowled. He’d probably started worrying already. “My point was actually that a pearl like this is a remarkably powerful protective tool for cultivators – one of those things that can only be found by chance and not made. Keep this on you, and you’ll never have to fear your opponent in battle.”

Nie Mingjue looked thoughtful.

“What do you want to do with that pearl, anyway?” Lao Nie asked after they’d gotten home and split up just long enough to take a nice long relaxing bath and gobble down dinner. “Do you want to put it in the treasury?”

Nie Mingjue blinked twice, which for him was practically the same as looking terribly shifty-eyed.

“You already did something with it,” Lao Nie deduced. “Something that isn’t using it as intended.”

“Oh, no,” Nie Mingjue said, looking shocked at the mere suggestion. “I’m definitely using it as intended.”

Lao Nie looked him up and down. “You’re not wearing it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t use it. Protection from your opponents in proper battle – that seems like cheating!”

Lao Nie felt a slight headache coming on. People who said they wanted a good boy for a son had no idea what they were getting themselves into, he reflected. Why couldn’t he have birthed a complete rascal instead?

“All right,” he said, instead of saying any of that because at the end of the day, bewildering as he might be, Nie Mingjue was his son and he loved him more than anything. “So what did you do with it?”

“I gave it to Huaisang.”

Lao Nie blinked. He supposed that really was using it for its intended purpose – protecting babies from themselves – although he suspected the dragon lady had been thinking of Nie Mingjue as the baby.

“Although…”

Lao Nie raised his eyebrows.

“…I think he may have swallowed it.”

My boys, Lao Nie thought, and had to sit down and hold his ribs because he otherwise feared he might split his sides from laughing so hard. Only my boys.

#mdzs #sect leader nie #nie mingjue #my fic #my fics #boys

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seijorhi · 3 years

Text

No Strings Attached

A commission for the lovely @hearteyes-candyskies, hope you like it bby! 💕

Bokuto Koutarou x female reader

TW Age gap, power imbalance, manipulation, toxic behaviour, nsfw(ish)

Three months ago, you would have laughed at the very idea of having a sugar daddy.

Then again, three months ago you were still living with your boyfriend and had a steady paycheck coming in every week. You can blame losing the latter on bad luck and an asshole boss, but the former-

You knew your relationship with your ex was far from perfect, but coming home from losing said job to find him buried balls deep in your next door neighbour was a bit of a slap in the face.

Needless to say, in the space of a few days you were out a job, a boyfriend and an apartment. Which, somewhat inevitably, led to you being six wines deep, slumped over your best friend’s bed, sobbing over the wreckage of the life you’d built, suddenly ripped out from beneath you.

You can’t really remember whose idea it was, only giggling drunkenly between yourselves as Misuzu set up your ‘sugar baby’ profile. “Shh, no this is gonna be great,” she’d said, hitting at the hands that tried to grab back your phone. “Meet some hot rich old dude, ride a little dick, let him shower you in cash; all your problems? Poof, sorted!”

And even with the heady, rose tinted haze of your wine fuelled inebriation, you knew that it was just a joke, a bit of stupid fun born more out of an attempt to cheer you up than a viable plan to get the tattered remains of your life back on track. Calling some old creepy dude ‘daddy’ and pretending to love him (not to mention the whole letting him fuck you thing) just for a little money wasn’t exactly your idea of a good time.

Plus, you were fairly sure that you weren’t what most people had in mind when they thought ‘sugar baby’. It wasn’t ever meant to be anything serious, just dumb, drunken fun with your friend.

So when you woke the next day a little after mid morning with a head full of regrets and a pounding headache, the last thing you expected was to find a message from BigDaddyKou82 waiting for you, better sense told you to ignore it.

Honestly, you didn’t really want a sugar daddy, your love life was enough of a mess without throwing in a power imbalance like that.

You should have ignored the message, deleted it or shot him a quick reply politely explaining that you weren’t interested so you could put it out of your mind, and you would have-

If Misuzu hadn’t caught sight of the message first, snatching the phone out of your hand with a gleeful shriek.

—

If you’ve learned anything in these past months, it’s that Bokuto Koutarou doesn’t do anything by half measures. So when he tells you he’s booked dinner for the two of you at an upscale restaurant in the city, you should have expected the package that’s hand delivered right to the door of your shitty little apartment. The dress is beautiful, expensive - though you could tell that just from the elegant matte black box wrapped in golden ribbon it arrives in. It’s exactly his style; short, revealing and just dancing along the edge of impropriety, not that that’ll bother him in the slightest.

But it is gorgeous, and loathe as you are to admit it, it flatters you well.

It’s not the first time that he’s bought you clothes, your tiny closet’s almost overflowing with pieces he’s gifted you. He likes seeing you in the things he’s bought, sometimes a little too much, you think. But you’ve learned it’s better just to go along with it - he gets this wide eyed, beaming grin whenever he sees you dressed in the pretty things he’s bought you, and the sight of it never fails to make your cheeks heat, warmth curling in your stomach.

The dress was not unexpected. The soft, lacy lingerie that comes in the accompanying box, on the other hand - that was new.

And of course, you barely have time to unwrap your gift when your phone flashes to life, an incoming call from the man himself.

“D’ya like it?”

The giddy excitement in his voice is unmistakable, and if you close your eyes you can picture the look on his face - golden eyes all hooded and hungry, that glittering, eager grin he wears when the two of you are out in public but his mind’s occupied with all the filthy, wonderful things he wants to do to you the moment you’re alone.

Not that he’s ever that patient.

“Um, it’s…” Fingers tentatively reach into the tissue paper, pulling the sheer, lacy bra out, warmth blossoming in your cheeks. The matching panties - a tiny scrap of lace held together with bows and thin black straps - really aren’t much better. Like the dress, the lingerie is clearly well made, probably cost more than your weekly rent, and the delicate set is arguably gorgeous (you can’t even argue his taste), but–

“You’re gonna wear it for me tonight, right, baby?”

It’s not really a question; of course you will, because you always do. You would have thought by now that you’d be used to the gifts he showers you in.

“Yeah, but Kou, you really didn’t have to spend all this money on me. Dinner’s enough,” you tell him, setting the lingerie back down.

Dinner, and everything else for that matter.

A chuckle echoes down the line. “But I like spoiling my girl. Like buying you pretty things,” his voice dips, “like tearing ‘em off you afterwards, too.”

And despite all the apprehension curled up inside of you, a shiver of excitement runs down your spine.

—

“So…” Misuzu pushes, leaning across the countertop with her chin resting on her palm and looking entirely too pleased at your discomfort.

“He… asked me to meet him.”

Her eyes widen, sparkling in delight as she gasps, “For dinner?”

“For a drink - one drink,” you clarify. You elect not to tell her that he’d initially tried to sway you into dinner, and it was you who’d talked him down to a drink. Truthfully, you’d probably feel more comfortable getting coffee, but meeting at a bar was fine.

One drink, and if things got awkward or he turned out to be a creep you’d be out of there in a heartbeat.

“Oh my god!! My baby Y/N, all grown up and manipulating old, lonely men for money. I’m so proud,” she wipes a fake tear from her eye and bursts into a fit of giggles.

A crinkle appears between your brow as you frown at her, “He’s not even that old,” you grumble, “and it’s not like that. You know it’s not.”

“No?” she asks, her lips curling into a teasing smirk. “You know, for somebody who was so against me messaging your soon to be sugar daddy, you sure move quickly.”

She laughs at the glare you shoot her way. “You were the one who started this.”

“Mhm, and you were the one who didn’t stop it. Funny that, don’t you think?”

She looks like the cat that ate the canary; smug, glittering amusement written all across her face. And you hate, more than anything, that she’s right.

Because you’d meant to put a stop to it the moment you managed to wrestle your phone back from her. Afterwards, you’d blame the lingering hurt of having your heart broken, the insecurities and bitter humiliation that plagued you, the feeling that you weren’t good enough to stop your boyfriend from straying for making you so pathetically vulnerable and desperate for approval - but when you opened the chat instead of the sleazy come on’s you expected, his first message makes something inside of you flutter, warm and pleasant.

Holy crap, you’re beautiful.

Not exactly a sonnet from Shakespeare, but you can’t remember the last time any guy, much less your ex, called you beautiful.

It didn’t exactly hurt that instead of the aging, creepy looking letch you were half expecting, the profile picture showed a rather fit, attractive man in a crisp, black suit with silvery grey streaked hair and an easy grin. Of course, it was a fifty-fifty chance that the pic wasn’t even him, or if it was then it was outdated or heavily edited, but it was enough to make you pause.

Enough to make you… curious, if nothing else.

But ridiculously attractive or not, you weren’t going to lead him on. If he wanted some pretty, simpering thing to fuck and throw money at, to call him daddy and be his sweet, obedient little girl - that wasn’t you. You’d explained that you weren’t really sure if this was your thing, that you probably weren’t what he had in mind, but surprisingly he hadn’t been put off by that.

Well what’s the harm in finding out for yourself? Maybe you’ll like it more than you think ;)

—

There were rules, when you started - lines you both agreed wouldn’t be crossed.

First and foremost, while it wasn’t exactly a conventional relationship - at least, not the kind you were used to - it was still a relationship of sorts, and there was an expectation of honesty in lieu of absolute exclusivity. You’d tell him if you were seeing anybody else, and Bokuto would tell you the same. Considering sex was on the table, it made sense.

You swore right from the beginning that you wouldn’t allow yourself to become financially dependent on him - you knew all too well that relationships were fickle things to begin with. That kind of dependency was half the reason you were in this position in the first place, and you wouldn’t - couldn’t - let that happen again. That didn’t mean that the arrangement wasn’t transactional. After a few initial meetings that went better than you expected, the two of you came to an agreement; a nice little sum of money he’d deposit weekly in your account in exchange for you being there when he wanted you. Dinner dates, skype calls when he’s travelling, spur of the moment weekends away in expensive hotels - whatever he wanted... within reason.

The thing is, despite his flaws - the little funks he gets into, his immaturity despite the age gap between you, the way he clings to you, mopes if you don’t pay him the attention he wants - you genuinely like Bo, he’s oddly endearing. Loveable, even. He reminds you a little of a puppy; eager for affection, bright and boisterous with boundless energy (and enviable stamina). He’s sweet and adoring and funny and he has this uncanny ability to make everything else fade away when you’re with him, to make you feel like you’re the only woman in the room, beautiful and perfect and entirely his-

But that didn’t make him your boyfriend.

You weren’t lovers, and whether it was in two weeks or two years, you both knew this arrangement had an expiration date. And because of that, there were no strings attached. At any point, either one of you could end it without an explanation - no questions asked, no feelings hurt.

—

Truthfully, you don’t know an awful lot about Bokuto’s line of work, only that his position within the company is senior enough that he can move around his schedule pretty much as he wants, leaving him free to see you whenever he likes.

Which wasn’t a problem when that was once or twice a week.

“Sorry, Koutarou, you know I can’t. Maybe tomorrow?”

The petulant whine that echoes down the phone fills you with an odd sort of guilt. “Why not? You said no on Friday, too,” he pouts. “I miss you, baby. Wanna see you again.”

You shove down the faint, flickering unease that nudges at your gut. You’re not his girlfriend, and you find yourself wondering whether or not he sometimes deliberately lets himself forget that.

Nibbling at your bottom lip, you frown, “I told you I have work today. It’s too late for me to try and find someone to cover my shift, and if I call in again-”

You can kiss your job goodbye. You’re already on thin ice with your boss, and it’s not like new waitresses are hard to find these days.

“Well… what time do you finish?” he asks, his voice thick with dejection, as if he already knows what your answer’s going to be.

You bite back a sigh, “Late. I’m on close again.”

The short silence on the other end of the phone is deafening. “… I’ll come pick you up afterwards.”

This time you can’t stop the soft sigh that escapes, “Kou, I’m gonna be exhausted, I won’t be any fun to be around.”

“Still wanna see you. You’re always working,” he grumbles. “Feels like you don’t have time for me anymore, baby.”

Slowly your eyes flutter shut, and you take a deep breath. It always comes back to this. “I need this job, baby. We’ve talked about this… I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I have the whole day off, I’m entirely yours.”

“All mine, hm?”

You smile, “All yours, promise.”

He hums in acknowledgement, not entirely happy, but temporarily placated. “Fiiiine. But I’m holding you to it.”

As if you expected any less. “I have to go get ready for work. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“I’ll see you later,” he promises, and you hang up a moment later.

When he said that, you assumed that both of you were on the same page as to what ‘later’ meant.

Three hours into your shift, you hadn’t expected to return from the kitchen to find a grinning Bokuto lounging in one of your booths.

“He asked for you specifically when he came in,” one of your coworkers tells you, shooting you a playful wink. “Didn’t know you were into silver foxes, Y/N. But I can’t say I blame you, he’s hot!”

“Yeah, thanks,” you mutter distractedly, glancing over your shoulder to check your manager wasn’t watching before making your way over.

The smile on your face is tight as golden eyes flicker towards you. “Bokuto,” you begin quietly, “what- what are you doing here?”

An odd look passes across his face at the use of his family name, but the smug grin remains. “You said you had to work tonight,” he says with a cavalier shrug, as if that explained everything.

“Yes, because I’m working! Kou, I need this job, I can’t-” you break off with a huff, darting another glance over your shoulder. Thankfully, your manager’s busy berating your co-worker for a screwed up order and hasn’t noticed your absence yet.

Taking advantage of your distracted state, Bokuto reaches across the table to take your hand in his, his thumb stroking back and forth along the back of your palm. “Hey, hey, relax. You’re here to work, I get it, baby. I’m just here for some food, cross my heart,” he swears, drawing an imaginary X over his chest with his finger.

Gently tugging your hand back, you ignore the hurt little pout he gives you. “So you decided to drive twenty minutes across town just to eat here?” you ask, trying to keep the exasperation from colouring your tone.

He shifts a little in his seat, cheeks flushing a dusty pink under your narrowed stare. “… Well, maybe I wanted to see my pretty girl, too,” he admits, “But I swear I’ll be on my best behaviour!”

Somehow, his words don’t fill you with confidence, but what are you supposed to do? Kick him out? Snap at him for coming despite the fact you told him not to? Taking a deep, steadying breath through your nose, you force yourself to relax. Bokuto’s not hurting anybody by being there, and so long as he keeps his hands to himself, so long as he behaves, it won’t be an issue.

He’s a paying customer, and you’ll treat him just like you would anyone else who walked through the restaurant’s doors.

Yet despite trying to reassure yourself of that, you can’t escape the niggling sense of unease sitting in the pit of your stomach. Even if he’s the perfect gentleman tonight, the perfect stranger, you’ve worked hard to keep your boring day to day life and the one you’ve created with him in nice, neat, separate boxes. Bokuto hasn’t met your friends or your family and outside of Misuzu they don’t have a clue about your arrangement with your attractive if somewhat clingy benefactor.

You don’t want them to know.

Him being here threatens that - it makes you nervous.

But you’ve been with Bokuto long enough to know that you can’t tell him that without hurting his feelings, and you definitely don’t have the energy to deal with that tonight. It’s a conversation for another day.

Instead, you allow a small smile to tug at the corners of your lips, “You know the food’s pretty average here, you might be disappointed.”

Bokuto grins again, mischief sparkling in those golden eyes, and your traitorous heart skips a beat. “Yeah, don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he leans in closer, “I’m far more interested in what’s for dessert.”

Warmth floods your cheeks as he snickers.

—

For the most part he keeps his hands to himself, but you can’t quite bring yourself to relax when you can feel those golden, hungry eyes burning a hole into your back as you move around the restaurant serving other customers.

You pretend you don’t see the scowling glower he sends to the harmless office-worker who spends a good forty five minutes flirting with you every time you go over to check on his table.

Bokuto orders enough food to feed a small army and stays until close, leaving a more than generous tip on his way out.

It goes without saying that he waits for you to finish up. The moment you slip out the door, calling out one last goodnight to your coworker, he’s on you, pushing you up against the brick alleyway wall, hiking your legs up over his hips as his mouth attacks yours, greedy and eager, swallowing up any and all protests you might’ve had.

He doesn’t take you home like you ask, but back to his penthouse suite, and neither of you get much sleep that night.

—

You’re halfway through washing your hair a few days later when your shower head splutters once… twice… and stops completely.

A blockage in the plumbing, your landlord informs you rather apathetically. It’s affecting the whole floor and it’ll take at least a day or two to get somebody out to fix it properly, leaving you without running water for the entirety of that time.

In hindsight, there were at least three other people you could have (and probably should have) called first, but he’s already answering the phone before the thought even occurs to you.

And then it’s too late to backpedal. You find yourself grateful that he can’t physically see the way you flush and fidget, pacing around your living room as you awkwardly try to explain the reason you’re calling at ten in the morning.

“Would, I mean, i-is it okay if I come over to use your shower? Just for this one time, mine kind of got interrupted this morning.”

God, from the way you stutter, stumbling over your own tongue, you’d think you were asking him to marry you. You’ve spent the night at his countless times before, but asking for a favour, even a small one like this - maybe you’re toeing an unwritten line in the sand? Bokuto isn’t with you because he loves you, he’s with you because it’s mutually beneficial for both of you, because of an agreement.

He wants fun, easy, not you saddling him with minor inconveniences. Calling to ask him to come save you, albeit from something as mundane as a lack of access to a functioning shower, feels like something you’d ask your boyfriend to do.

Not your sugar daddy.

But just as you’re about to backtrack and apologise for interrupting his morning, he speaks. “What d’you mean? Just come stay with me till it’s fixed.”

He says it with such certainty, as if it’s the most obvious solution and for a moment you’re stunned into silence. “A-are you sure? I don’t want-'' Don't want what? To be an inconvenience? A problem? “I don’t want to be in the way,” you finish lamely.

Bokuto just laughs, “Don’t be stupid, baby, of course you won’t be in the way. Just swing by the office and I can give you the keys. Or I can just get you another set made? I don’t know, we can figure it out later. I’ll see you soon, ‘kay?”

And you have to admit, as apprehensive as you were stepping into his penthouse alone for the first time, showering in Bokuto’s fancy ensuite bathroom (which you’re fairly sure is bigger than your actual bedroom) is a hell of a lot nicer than doing it at home. The lotions he has are all expensive brands with french names you’ve never even heard of before, but they smell amazing and they leave your skin feeling all soft and silky. Even the shampoo he’s bought for you to use is far nicer than the one you have at home, though you’re secretly pleased that its scent’s similar - your favourite, actually.

Did he buy them knowing that or was it just a coincidence, you wonder. You never thought to ask.

Without work, or Bo for that matter, to occupy your time, you decide to take advantage of his gigantic TV, opening up Netflix and settling into his ridiculously comfortable couch…

… And wake, a few hours later to the feeling of fingers carding through your hair and a pair of lips pressing against your cheek.

Bokuto’s home, you realise with a start, and there’s drool on your chin. Face burning with embarrassment, you hastily wipe it away with the back of your palm and try to sit up, only for Bokuto’s hand to wrap around your wrist, halting you in your tracks.

“No, don’t get up, baby,” he says, easing down onto the couch beside you and shifting your head onto his lap so he can continue threading his fingers through your hair. “I like coming home to this.”

Still half asleep, curling up and nuzzling further into those warm, thick thighs of his, you miss the intensity of the adoration burning in golden depths as he coaxes you back to sleep.

—

The two of you are in bed, your cheek resting on his chest, his arm slung over your waist and knuckles brushing idly along your side, when Bokuto breaks the comfortable silence.

“Move in with me.”

You tense in his arms, heart skipping a beat. For a split second, you’re almost positive that you misheard him. “I-I’m sorry?” You push yourself up onto your elbow, turning your head so that you can look at him properly.

But Bokuto doesn’t miss a beat. “Move in with me,” he repeats, golden eyes bearing down on you.

The expression on your face is frozen halfway between disbelief and hysteria, and you’re staring at him, waiting for that stupid grin to break across his face, for him to laugh and tell you how ridiculous you look, because of course he’s joking.

He’s joking, right?

“Koutarou,” you begin slowly, “Wha- I don’t… Why would you want me to move in with you? We barely- I mean, we’re not…”

He shrugs his shoulders, “Why wouldn’t I? It makes sense. My place is bigger and nicer, and I like having you here with me. Feels right.”

It feels right??

“I-I can’t just move out of my apartment, Kou.”

His eyebrows knit together, and he huffs, “Why not? It’s a shitty apartment.”

“That’s not the point!” Knocking away the hand that reaches for you, you push yourself all the way up until you’re sitting properly. “I don’t want to move.”

Owlish eyes narrow, a flash of irritation sparking. “Why not? It makes perfect sense for you to move in here with me. You wouldn’t have to work at that stupid job anymore for one,” he huffs.

“Bokuto, I’m not going to quit my job,” you mutter. “We’ve talked about this.”

“Why, though?!” he explodes. “You don’t need the money, I’ve told you I can take care of you, whatever you want, baby, name it and it’s fucking yours. You don’t need to work and you don’t need that shitty little apartment!”

Like a crystal glass slipping from numb fingers, the fantasy you’ve convinced yourself you’ve been living shatters into a thousand jagged shards in the space of a single breath.

Oh, how naive you’ve been. How fucking stupid.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you inhale deeply, “Kou, that’s not-”

Strong fingers grip your jaw, and your eyes shoot open as he tugs your face back towards him. Your breath catches in your throat, heart hammering painfully against your ribs. His eyes are wide, pupils blown out, but it’s the intensity in his gaze as he stares at you, the blank expression-

“I love you.”

—

39 missed calls. 72 unread messages.

Flowers, bouquets of roses, peonies and chrysanthemums piled up by your door between boxes of chocolates and other gifts you won’t bring yourself to open.

Wide eyed, Misuzu gingerly steps over them, holding two steaming mugs in hand. “Holy fuck,” she murmurs, and for the first time since this stupid, awful mistake began, there’s not a trace of mirth to be found. “Y/N, I…”

But she doesn’t have the words, and you can’t blame her.

“He told me he loves me,” you sigh. “He asked me to move in with him and told me he loved me, and I grabbed my clothes and all but ran.” You still can’t get the image of Bokuto’s face out of your head, the raw, aching hurt swimming in his eyes as you all but stumbled over excuses in your haste to get out of there. But he didn’t lift a finger to stop you, didn’t say another word.

He just watched numbly, hunched over against the headboard as you fled.

There’s a short beat of silence between the two of you as she sets down the drinks and collapses into the chair beside you. “And… do you love him back?”

Exhaling loudly, you drop your face into your palms. “I-”

You like how he makes you feel beautiful, the filthy, wonderful praise he lavishes you in when the two of you sleep together, the way he touches you, fingers and mouth so eager to please as his cock fills you, inch by delicious inch.

You like being adored, treasured, and you liked Bo, but… you don’t love him.

That was never on the cards, that wasn’t what your relationship was.

Every line he ever crossed, every boundary he toed, you keep replaying them again and again over and over in your head like a never ending loop. You hadn’t even wanted this whole stupid sugar baby relationship to begin with, and every step of the way he was the one to coax you forward.

And you let him, swallowing down your doubts and your insecurities each and every time. You let him think that this was something else entirely…

How had you not seen this coming?

“No,” you admit.

The hand that takes yours is soft, and when you glance over with eyes beginning to burn with unshed tears, Misuzu squeezes it gently. “Then end it. Walk away.”

And with your head on her shoulder, her arms wrapped loosely around you, you type out a short message to Bokuto. No strings attached and no questions asked, you’d promised each other that much when you’d started this mess. You wonder if it still holds true.

I’m sorry. Clearly we were on different pages and want different things. I didn’t mean to lead you on or for things to go as far as they did, but I can’t do this with you anymore.

You send it and block his contact, and when the tears come and painful sobs rip their way free, Misuzu holds you tight and murmurs soft reassurances. It’ll pass, all breakups hurt.

—

A week after your ‘breakup’ you get a notification on your phone that money’s been transferred into your bank account.

For a moment, you think that maybe it’s an accident, a recurring transaction he’d simply forgotten to cancel (you doubt he’d even notice) until you click into the transaction itself.

It isn’t the sum itself that startles you - twice the usual amount - but the short note attached in the description.

I need to see you. Please.

You transfer the money right back into his account.

—

Without your weekly supplement from Bo, it doesn’t take long for you to come to the realisation that your current salary just barely covers rent and your bills, and if you want to eat anything other than two minute noodles in the foreseeable future, you’re going to need either more hours, or a second job.

Thankfully, the timing works out well. When you go to your boss with your most winning smile to try and convince her of your plight, she simply shrugs and agrees, having had to let one of the junior staff go only a few days before. The one catch being that instead of working a mix of morning and afternoon shifts with the occasional closing thrown in, you’re now exclusively on close, five nights a week, Tuesday through Saturday.

Mostly, it doesn’t bother you. The shifts are long and you always leave feeling aching, drained and barely human, but usually it’s quiet enough, and so long as you can get the last few lingering customers out early enough, the actual close runs pretty smoothly between you and the other staff.

It’s not what you really want to be doing, but you’ve learned to make the best of it. This is adult life, and for the first time since high school, you’re supporting yourself entirely. It might not be the greatest job in the world, and there are absolutely days when you just want to throw in the towel completely, but there is a slight pride to that fact. You don’t need anybody in your life to coddle or support you, you’re figuring this shit out as you go along.

You just wish, sometimes, that you could do that without having to work until the early hours of the morning.

On paper, the kitchen closes at midnight and the last customers are supposed to be out within half an hour of that. Then, between yourself and another server, you can usually get the restaurant tidied up and closed a little after one.

You knew right from the moment you clocked on that tonight wasn’t going to be one of those nights. The girl who’s supposed to be on close with you called in sick and your boss hasn’t bothered to replace her.

It’s not the first time you’ve had to close by yourself, but it’s still a pain, especially when the last few customers take forever to finish up and leave.

One of the kitchen staff offers to stay back, his bag slung over his shoulder, hand already on the door handle but you just shake your head with a tired smile.

“Nah, I can handle it. Thanks, though,”

To his credit, he doesn’t immediately take the offered out. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”

Without any help, it takes almost twice as long for you to finish up, and it’s a little after two when you finally flick off the lights and lock the doors.

Your feet are killing you, and all you can think about is sinking into your bed at home, burrowing into your blankets and sleeping for a week straight-

“Hey, baby.”

Leaning against the hood of his car, arms folded across his broad chest and eyeing you with an unreadable expression, is Bokuto.

The tiny hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

There's nothing inherently threatening about him being here, but it’s the middle of the night, you haven’t seen him in almost two weeks and you don’t need to glance around to know that the car park’s empty. There’s nobody in sight.

Just you and him, and the few feet of distance separating you.

“K-kou, what are you… what are you doing here?”

He smiles at that, the way his name slips from your lips, but only for a fleeting second. It fades, and a cold, uncomfortable feeling settles in the pit of your stomach.

“I missed you, y’know?” He pushes off the hood and takes a step towards you, “You didn’t call me.”

He’s always been bigger than you, towering over you looking like some Adonis with those rippling, powerful muscles of his. You used to like that strength, squealing in wicked delight when he’d hoist you up with a grin, hands gripping your thighs, squeezing your ass, your back shoved up against the wall so he could drive his cock deeper into ‘his pretty fuckin’ pussy’.

But that was then.

You’ve never been scared of his strength. Even that morning in the apartment, he didn’t lash out, didn’t scream or yell, he just… shut down. He wouldn’t hurt you, you know that.

That doesn’t stop you from skittering backwards like a frightened little bunny, your back hitting the wall.

The very moment you do, you watch as his eyes widen in surprise, hurt flashing for a split second-

-before they darken, his face twisting into a scowl, and you can’t escape the feeling you’ve made an awful mistake.

Dread creeps its way up your spine, tightening like a vice around your chest, making it hard to breathe. Your brain is screaming at you to run, adrenaline surging through your veins, but even as your heart races and your breathing spikes, you can’t seem to move your legs.

It wouldn’t make a difference even if you could - with your back up against the literal wall, Bokuto and his car blocking your only escape route, you’re trapped; a fact that hasn’t escaped either of you.

Paralysed in fear, you can’t so much as twitch as he takes another slow, calculated step forward.

Desperately, you open your mouth - to try and placate him? To apologise? Scream for help? - but all that escapes is his name in a choked, breathless whisper.

“Bokuto…”

As he stares at you, he almost looks regretful.

Almost, if not for the grim determination resolving like steel in those golden eyes of his. “I love you, and I know you love me, too,” he says, closing the gap between you. “I’m doing this for us, baby.”

#yandere haikyuu #yandere bokuto x reader #yandere bokuto kotaro x reader #yandere bokuto koutarou #yandere bokuto kotaro #yandere bokuto koutarou x reader #tw manipulation #tw toxic behavior #tw kidnapping

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idy-ll-ique · 3 years

Text

Breaking The Rules.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader (sort of Winter Soldier x F!Reader too)

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Warnings: like,,, lots of murder

Requested: nope

Summary: The Winter Soldier attacks the building where Y/N works and comes face-to-face with her. Surprising her and himself, he lets her go, breaking the rules, not following his orders. Y/N is so thankful about his mercy that she is now the world's biggest Bucky Barnes stan. What happens when their paths cross again 7 years later?

Author's Note: Hiya peeps! Okay so I don't really know if I've done a good job writing this but I tried my best so,,, enjoy!

---

The Asset is not thinking.

The Asset is not made to think.

Casually stroking his gun as he walked into the plain building, he watched the people inside the room pause for a minute. Then the screaming began. He simply stood there, the scene unfolding in front of him as people ran; inside rooms, out the building as they jumped out of windows to avoid him. He let them.

Finally having had enough because HYDRA demands some kills, Soldat, he cocked his gun and started out by fighting the security guards that had an ounce of bravery in them as they approached him with their own guns. He killed them easily. Then he moved further into the building, ending the lives of anyone who tried to get in his way.

What was his purpose of doing this? There was none. He was programmed to kill, and the program had no specific targets. No targets, only kill. He walked up the stairs of the building as more people, who had not been dead, escaped. Then he ended up on the floor where she was.

Y/N was going through a stack of papers, wearing headphones, when she heard a scream. It had been so sudden and loud that she startled badly, the papers flying from her hands as she turned around, ready to give the person a piece of her mind only to be met with the prettiest blue eyes she had ever seen in her life. The breath left her lungs and fear overtook her.

The person in front of her; she had heard of him. They called him The Winter Soldier. He was covered in black leather, his silver arm shining in the sunlight that entered through the window on her right. She quickly glanced at it; she was 10 stories above ground. He had a black mask on (more like a muzzle, she thought) and a peculiar look on his face.

She looked around the room, her eyes filling with tears when she saw the bodies of her coworkers, the friends she had made at the workplace, littered on the floor. Damn you, stupid headphones. She discarded them. He had killed them all. The Winter Soldier didn't really have a say in what he did, she told herself, he had been programmed to act like that.

Nothing but a murder toy for HYDRA.

And she hated them for that.

"Don't cry." She looked back at the Soldat, her eyes wide in confusion. Huh? Why would he say that? She blinked away the tears and started raising a hand to wipe them off when he suddenly raised his gun. Her hand paused mid-air and she held her breath, waiting for him to finally put her out of her misery as her eyes unconsciously watered once more.

When he saw her hand, though, her palm was facing him. Ready to rub off the tears, he noticed, and he lowered the gun. "Don't cry," he repeated and Y/N, as absurd as she found the situation to be, did as he ordered. She wiped the tears off and rubbed her hands on the jeans she was wearing, staring at the man. He stared back at her.

When he first entered the floor, he had done what he had been told, until there was no one alive in the room. Or so he thought, until his eyes landed on Y/N. She was wearing some sort of a device over her head, completely oblivious to what was going on. Was she deaf? Did she not hear the gunshots?

As he approached her cautiously, someone screamed behind him. And he saw how the papers flew out of her hand she whirled around, her big, doe eyes blinking at him until recognition sparked in them. Then she cowered. For some reason, as he looked at her, he couldn't bring himself to harm her. She looked… adorable, almost. So he did what he did best.

Stared.

Her eyes were darting around the place, and they watered when they landed on the bodies on the floor. He gulped quietly under his mask, something inside him stirring uncomfortably as he watched her cry. And suddenly, he couldn't help himself. "Don't cry," he blurted out and she looked back at him. He stared. She blinked rapidly and started raising her hand.

Thinking she would raise a hand on him, he immediately held up his gun as a warning but realized that she was simply drying her tears, new ones in her eyes as she looked at the gun. And he suddenly felt very apologetic. "Don't cry," he repeated and allowed her to wipe her tears. But he was surprised to hear her speak.

"Please don't hurt me."

She was shaking, arms going around herself, but she wasn't crying. At least she was not crying. He didn't reply, only stared as a foreign, almost forgotten word came to mind. Pretty. She was pretty. Soldat or not, how could he bring himself to harm a pretty thing like her? He raised his gun again when he remembered his orders; kill, do not show mercy.

The pretty woman started crying again, this time her tears were much more prominent. "Please, please don't do it, please… I have done nothing to you, don't do it…" she pleaded, fingers intertwined as if in prayer. Kill her. But he ignored the order and lowered his gun again.

"Pretty," he stated and her brows furrowed. Y/N blinked at him, pretty? Did she hear that right? He called her pretty, right? "Pardon?" she blurted out and his head tilted to the side. "Go." His voice sounded strained and for a moment, Y/N wanted to embrace him, to comfort him but hurriedly dismissing the thoughts, she turned on her heels and ran out the building.

The Asset stared at her as she ran.

He had not been programmed to think.

Then why had he?

---

"Guys, I'm telling you, it was so surreal—"

"Oh my God, Y/N, will you stop—"

Steve, Sam and Bucky glanced at the group of ladies that ended up at the bar next to them. A few years had passed since the incident between Bucky and Y/N took place and he was back to normal. No longer the Winter Soldier; he was an ally of the Avengers now. Steve glanced at his friends, lips curling into an amused smile.

"What do you think they're talking about?" he whispered and Sam snickered quietly. "Why don't we listen?" Bucky simply shook his head, but was also kind of intrigued at this surreal experience that Y/N talked about. Y/N… that name sounded kind of familiar to him, but maybe it was a common one, what did he know?

"He called me pretty!"

"We know he's hot, Y/N, but seriously, the Winter Soldier did not call you pretty."

The three men froze and their eyes darted amongst each other. "He did," Y/N whined, "I'm telling you!" Bucky almost dropped his glass but managed to hold on, his jaw dropped. Thankfully the ladies were not aware of the men shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation. "Wait wait wait, what is this about you and the Winter Soldier? I've not heard that story."

"Ugh, Sam, you've done it now!"

Steve and Bucky glanced at Sam with smirks and he rolled his eyes. "Samantha," he snarked but the super soldiers only shrugged in reply. "Okay okay, this was like… 7 years ago. I was in my office, working, when our building was attacked. By him." And Bucky, try as he might, couldn't remember shit.

"Dude, I was wearing headphones so damn strong that I didn't hear literal gunshots echoing around the room, like what?"

"Seriously, Y/N? You know we won't say anything if you tell us you're lying."

"But I'm not lying," Y/N insisted, "I heard a scream and finally took off the headphones. When I turned to see who had screamed, he was literally standing in front of me." Hazy memories slowly flashed in his mind; a plain building, those red-black headphones and the fluttering of papers. He gulped his drink down.

"And didn't kill you like he had been trained to? I still think you're lying. Or maybe you just have severe trauma and you made up a story of the handsome Bucky Barnes calling you pretty." Bucky nearly laughed when Y/N's face turned red but then guilt started weighing heavy in his stomach. He had put her in danger…

"I don't have trauma, don't joke about stuff like that! Anyway, I was like, scared shitless. I thought I was gonna die, I started crying but he told me, don't cry. Like huh?" Bucky didn't remember that part. Steve and Sam were now definitely drawn to the story, their eyes set on their glasses as they listened.

"I didn't want to anger him so I wiped my tears but he raised that goddamn gun again and I started crying again. He repeated his words and I started pleading, as we've all seen in action movies." Snorts drifted between them. "Please don't hurt me, let me go…" Y/N mimicked but Bucky's heart rate suddenly spiked. The same voice, the same tone…

He had had a nightmare the previous night.

She was the one he heard.

"Okay, so after I'm done begging, you know what he fucking says? Out of all things, he literally called me pretty. Like just— just that one word came out of his mouth. I'm literally still so confused," she spoke animatedly and the friend who had not heard the story before gasped. "Seriously? No way," she scoffed.

"Yes way!" Y/N got impatient. Why did no one ever believe her? She got that it was an outlandish story, but it was real! Y/N wished the Soldat was here; not to kill, of course, merely to confirm the fact that he had, indeed, called her pretty. But that man was long gone, replaced by someone who was stable-but-not-so-stable, undoubtedly handsome and with a new metal arm. This Bucky was much better than the dangerous Soldat.

"Then he told me to go. He sounded so fucking soft, you know? I have so much respect for Bucky Barnes, I mean, look at him. He went through so much he didn't deserve, and sometimes I just wanna—" She made a choking gesture, "—everyone who hurt him." Her friends chuckled but he could tell she wasn't lying. She really did care for him.

After all he put her through…

"I'm serious! Look at him! He looks like a lost puppy. How can you not care about him?" Y/N whined and her friends shook their heads. "You just have a big crush on the man, accept it." Bucky rolled his eyes as Steve and Sam smirked at him. He nudged them both, keeping silent. "You know what? I wish he was here right now. He probably doesn't even remember but if he did—"

"I remember it, doll, only vaguely…"

Y/N's group froze as their gazes followed the voice, landing on the three Avengers beside them. Her friends were mortified, Y/N even more so. Did he hear the story? "D-Did you… hear…" she stammered and Bucky pursed his lips. "I'm sorry." The apology fell out before he could stop himself and Y/N, ever the Bucky-apologist, instantly shook her head.

"It was not your fault. HYDRA did that to you. You didn't deserve any of it, mark my words." She sounded like Steve, he noticed and smiled gently. After all he put her through… she still stood by his side. "Thank you, doll, that really means a lot," he said sincerely and Y/N grinned at him. "You're welcome!" And before she could turn to her friends, he spoke up again.

"I meant what I said."

"Hm?" She looked at him, head tilted in confusion. "When I called you pretty, I meant it. You are pretty, very much so." She went red under his intense gaze and shied away, forcing Steve, Sam and her friends to burst into boisterous laughter. "Th-Thanks," she mumbled and Bucky craved her more.

"Join me for a drink?" he questioned and her eyes widened. He mistook it for fear and immediately lowered his head. "Sorry, I overstepped—" He froze when she took his metal hand, holding it gently, looking at him with the same eyes he had thought to be adorable 7 years ago. "Of course I'll join you." A genuine smile bloomed on his face and without a care in the world, he led her away from her friends.

She was going to be his.

Forever and always.

The only woman caring and wonderful enough to accept him, broken and everything.

---

A/N: Leave a like if you enjoyed, thanks for reading! Love you all 🖤

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