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luvhhannie · 4 months

Text

freshman year

“hey, yn!” a brunette yelled across the hallway.

minghao, trying to figure out where his art history lecture is, looked towards the brunette figure who just yelled. it's not common to yell as early as 8 in the morning on the hybe campus, but for some reason, today is different. minghao watched the brunette girl run towards another figure, laughing.

"after all those years in highschool, we still end up being in the same building in college." the other figure said to the brunette. the brunette chuckled and hooked their arm on their friend's shoulder.

"oh come on, yn! the universe is telling us we're soulmates...even though jaehyun has a little crush on you." the brunette said as the two of them started walking. minghao watched the two as they walked past him. minghao accidentally made eye contact with the h/c girl as they stroll past him. she smiled shyly at him, before continuing her conversation with her friend.

"jaehyun doesn't like me! and besides he's not my type."

"is mark your type? i didn't know you were into younger people."

minghao shook his head off and continued going his way to his first class in his first day in university. he made his way to his lecture room, thanks to wonwoo who called him and told him where it was. entering the room, he saw easels and various art mediums and substrates filling up the room, as well as art stations and their own stools. he saw a familiar raven haired male and walked towards him

"hey hyung, i hope we don't have assigned seats here." he said to wonwoo. wonwoo chuckled and motioned his hand toward the station next to his.

"it's alright, miss dawn doesn't really care as long as you do your work. i'm kinda surprised that she's teaching all of art history." wonwoo mentioned. minghao looked around the room and saw people that looked older than him.

"i didn't even know that this was a mixed class-"

"yn!" a voice cut him off as he rolled his eyes. how many times is he going to get cut off with people calling the same person? he thought to himself.

"oh? ten? didn't know you attend this uni." yn said as she placed her bag next to "ten"'s station. they were both sitting in front of wonwoo and minghao.

"yeah, i'm transferring to smu next year though. most of my friends are there." the slender male said to his friend, who only scoffed.

"oh wow, now that i'm here, you're transferring? what a great friend you are, ten." yn mumbled. minghao watched the two figures bicker when suddenly wonwoo cleared his throat. he shifted his gaze from you to wonwoo.

"you know them?" wonwoo asked minghao. he shook his head no as wonwoo giggled.

"you're friends with jaehyun right? he's also friends with ten." wonwoo stated as minghao just nodded his head.

"we're not really close though" minghao simply replied as he just stares looks at yn's way.

when minghao first saw yn that morning, he thought to himself that if the birth of venus was personified, it would be yn. he didn't really believe in love at first sight, he just thought that yn was beautiful, really. not until it was their mid first semester when minghao accidentally smeared yn's piece with the black charcoal he was using.

"fuck..." he whispered as he just stares at the now flawed art piece. it was once radiant and bright, not until minghao's charcoal smudged the vibrant landscape. yn was getting a paper towel to correct her shadows and highlights when she finally came back to her station, seeing her piece. minghao expected her to be mad, furious even. but he was only met with a shocked face.

"what happened?" she asks him. minghao looked at her with solemn eyes and bowed his head ever so slightly with fear.

"I was passing through your station and I accidentally smeared charcoal all over your piece...I was trying to avoid toppling over your easel but this is just...worse. I'm really sorry...I know that you put all of your handwork in this and I just...I'll tell miss dawn about it!-" he rambled on as yn just sighed and looked at him fondly.

"it's alright, it's just a tiny smudge! and besides, it even looks better with it. kinda gives off a harry potter and willy wonka crossover universe." yn joked as minghao just looked at her. he just made the worst mistake ever as an artist and yn was just making light of it. he just stared at her and she smiles softly.

"don't worry about it, your so called mistake may be the one I've been looking for, for this piece." yn said to him. yn sat on her stool, minghao still standing next to her. she looked up at him and reached out her hand.

"i'm yn ln. you're myungho right?" yn asked minghao. minghao nodded his head and finally smiled, gently wrapped his hand on hers.

"yeah, that's my korean name though. i'm xu minghao." he said, shaking her hand.

"well, it's nice to properly meet you, minghao, even though I have always admired you as an artist ever since the first semester started." yn giggled and blushed. minghao widened his eyes and smiled.

"so did i."

at that moment in freshman year college was the moment that minghao realized that it was definitely not just a crush.

˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖

yes or no I x. minghao x reader - blast from the past

𓇢𓆸 synopsis: where jaehyun is forced to be yn's wingman for mingyu, but unbeknownst to him, mingyu is also getting some help from his friend.

previous <- -> next | masterlist

𓇢𓆸 taglist (open!): @writingbarnes @90s-belladonna @leewonkyeom @to-mi-yo

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oliviajdjarin · 2 years

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Ruhn Danaan: Personal

Pairing: Ruhn Danaan x fem!reader

Summary: Ruhn thought fake flirting wouldn’t get under his skin. He was wrong.

Warnings: Major jealousy, reader seduces a male, reader gets felt up by a male, reader wears a tight dress, reader has her hair done, Ruhn shatters a glass, allusions to sex, reader is alluded to having curves, LOTS of swearing, Queen Bryce is here too, ruhn bleeds, let’s pretend the White Raven didn’t *spoiler* explode. Set during the events of HoSaB (sort of), spoilers!!, I apologize if things don’t line up with canon.

A/N: I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this man since I finished HoSaB, so I thought I’d try something new. I hope you enjoy :)

If you’d like to leave a like, comment, reblog, or ask, it would be very appreciated <3

SJM Masterlist

(I found this drool-worthy art on Pinterest. Absolute full credit to the owner).

You had known the powerhouse that is Bryce Quinlan for over a decade.

And yet, no matter how much time seemed to pass, her stubbornness never seemed to dwindle.

“I’m going Y/N.”

“You’re mated, Bryce. To the Umbra fucking Mortis. They’ll smell it.”

“So? You would be surprised how little that matters to the right male.”

She placed her hands on her hips as she said this, and your eyes trailed down her body. Her skin-tight dress brought out the best parts of her, and the red of her hair was even more vibrant against the dark shade of black.

Beautiful, as she had always been.

“I’m being serious, Bryce,” you responded. “You’re Starborn. You saved this city. If this male has real, usable information on the rebellion, he’s not going to tell you.”

“And he’ll tell you?” she questioned back.

“Yes,” you responded breathlessly. “You would intimidate the Hel out of him, while I am a random female buying him drinks. If I get him drunk enough, he’ll spill.”

Bryce gnawed on her bottom and lip and fidgeted with her rings. A faint pink began to show beneath her freckled face.

“I don’t like this Y/N.”

“I know Bryce,” you responded, “that’s why you’re coming with me.”

“Still,” she replied, “if you get pulled into a separate room, how will I know you’re okay?”

“You know I’ll be okay. I can handle myself,” you said, and moved a bit closer to her. “Whoever this male is and whatever information he has, it’s not worth you being in danger.”

“Danger?” said a voice behind you, deeper and more gruff than either you or Bryce had ever made your voices.

A shot of electricity shot down your spine, and your mouth instantly dried.

“Ruhn,” Bryce mumbled with a roll of her eyes. “Seriously? I want my key back.”

Ruhn Danaan

Half-brother to one of your closest friends, and the hottest male you had ever laid your eyes on.

You turned around with a gulp, reeling in the feeling that his voice gave you no matter how many times you had heard it, and squeezed your hands at your sides.

And there he was. Ruhn Danaan. The Crowned Prince of the Valbaran Fae, and your decade long crush.

Holy Hel did he look good.

It was obvious he had just gotten off from the Aux. His tight black leathers covered him from his back down to his legs, and his tattoos bulged on his forearms. His hair had been the same since the day you met him—long and shaved on one side—but it never failed to do his sculpted face justice. His lip piercing was just visible enough, and the Starsword strapped to his back showed just how broad his shoulders had become over the years.

He was intimidation personified, so much so that it felt like you were standing in his shadow, and you could not take your eyes off him.

You must have been crazy, stupid, insane, but the blue eyes that stared at you every time you closed your eyes didn’t seem to want to leave you either.

You were dressed similarly to Bryce—tight dress, glittery heals, hair and makeup done more so than usual, and fancy perfume emulating off of you— which was making you feel like you should sink into the floor.

Had he ever seen this much of you?

You weren’t embarrassed, you could wear whatever the Hel you wanted, but his slow gaze over you from your feet up to your face sent beads of sweat dripping down your back. He had to have been able to smell your fear—and, of course, other things.

You were so fucked.

“Danger tends to follow me,” Ruhn replied, “but it seems that I followed it this time.” His eyes didn’t leave yours.

He wasn’t talking about you. No way.

Bryce huffed in annoyance. “The only danger here is Y/N thinking she can seduce a rebel sympathizer into leaking information.”

Ruhn’s eyebrows raised. “Seduce?”

You swallowed. “If need be.”

“‘If need be,’ of course you will have to,” Bryce mocked. “It has happened every time you’ve done something like this.”

“Every time?” Ruhn questioned, and folded his arms over his chest. “So you’ve done this before?”

A hint of mischief coated his irises, and your heart had never beat so fast.

“Only out of necessity,” you responded with the best smirk you could muster.

Ruhn huffed out a laugh. “Well Bryce, it seems like Y/N is more experienced in this field.”

“You’re my brother,” Bryce responded. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I’d really rather not see you get targeted by the rebellion because of your star Bryce,” Ruhn said, gesturing to her chest.

“I’ll hide it.”

Both you and Ruhn gave her an unimpressed look. You both knew it tended to shine whenever it wanted to.

Bryce groaned in annoyance. “You’re both the worst.”

“Either way I’m going with you,” Ruhn said, tipping his chin up with pride.

“Not in that outfit you’re not,” Bryce responded, and you chuckled.

“And what would you prefer me wear Y/N?” he asked with a tease. Heat began spreading from your cheeks down to your neck.

Nothing.

“Something without a literal target on your back.”

Ruhn laughed through his nose.

“Fine. I’ll meet you ladies at The Raven,” Ruhn said, floorboards creaking as he backed out of Bryce’s apartment door.

You couldn’t miss the hint of excitement coating his eyes, and the heat pooling in your lower stomach.

~*~

The last thing Ruhn expected to see when he entered Bryce’s apartment was you looking the way that you did.

And holy Hel did you look good.

He had known you since you and Bryce were sixteen years old, and as soon as you laid eyes on him, a girlish film went over them. He remembered it. Vividly.

You had obviously found him attractive, and he viewed it as one of Bryce’s silly little friends with a silly little crush.

Until, he was lucky enough for Bryce to reconnect with him. And that was when he saw you. Really saw you.

It knocked the wind from his lungs to see how you’d grown up, and the female you had become. The more he got to know you, the more he realized how self-assured, confident, and fucking smart you were.

And seeing you in that dress. Gods. It cracked the little control he had left into a million pieces.

He had his eyes on you now. He wanted you, badly.

In the beginning, he thought it was just a physical thing, but as the months developed, so did his feelings.

These quote-on-quote “feelings” made him feel like the sixteen year old. He thought he knew his way around women and females, but you tended to send him right back to square one.

And he was about to watch you, potentially, feel up a random man for information.

He brought his drink to his mouth and took a large gulp. He savored the burn of it in his throat.

“There she goes,” Bryce mumbled next to him, and the two of them watched as you slowly made your way closer and closer to the male target. His heart quickened with each step you took.

Bryce and Ruhn were seated at a table far enough from the bar to be subtle, and Ruhn had changed into a plain grey T-shirt and jeans. His hair remained down, and he sure as Hel wasn’t opposed to revealing more of his tattoos.

He saw how you looked at them. He didn’t want you to stop.

“I should be the one doing this,” Bryce mumbled. The male had finally taken notice and introduced himself to you.

“Relax, Bryce,” Ruhn replied. “She’s going to be alright.”

“You just want to watch this. Pig.” Bryce threw back a shot of some sort of clear liquid.

Ruhn raised his eyebrows and took another sip of his drink.

Maybe.

You leaned against the wooded bar in such a way that your curves were highlighted in the party lights. The makeup you chose brought out your eyes perfectly, and the male was becoming more and more interested in the way your hair curled over your shoulder.

Your eyes flickered over the male, and you leaned closer and closer, inch by inch.

Ruhn leaned forward in his chair, watching your every move. Blood pressure rising.

The male leaned in closer, and brushed your hair from your neck. You tipped your head back to show that you enjoyed it, and the male took the opportunity to whisper something into your revealed skin.

You smiled, eyes closed, and the male’s large hand squeezed around your waist. Pulling you into his chest.

And right at that moment, right as your hands covered his chest and his hands moved down your body, it was as if Ruhn’s senses had been dialed to 0.

The music disappeared. The slight buzz he had disappeared. The flashing lights and dancing bodies around him disappeared.

There was only you, wrapped in the arms of another male, looking fucking incredible.

And smiling.

He expected to enjoy this, but he didn’t. Not at all.

Never in his life had Ruhn’s vision tunneled so quickly.

He felt his heart plummeting to his feet, so fast he felt the nausea hit him like a wave, and his normally even breathing quickened to an uneven pace.

Fake.

This was fake.

Don’t take it personally.

You brought your eyes away from the male’s face and down to his arms. Your fingers that were once splayed over his chest now moved to his bicep, tracing the intricate ink that Ruhn hadn’t noticed before.

It sure as Hel feels personal.

Ruhn didn’t realize how tight his jaw was until it started to grow sore, and he didn’t realize just how many times he had imagined you doing that to him until it wasn’t him.

He could make out Bryce’s faint voice next to him, asking if he was okay, but the lack of oxygen and blood flow through his body only allowed him to focus forward.

The male traced his finger down your spine, and Ruhn’s fae senses allowed him to pick up on the chills that erupted across your arms.

He felt his face begin to grow more and more red, and the grip on his whiskey glass become more and more relentless.

The male watched as you traced down his arm, smirking, and he brought his free hand to the side of your face. He tilted your head to the side, and whispered something in your ear once more.

You rubbed your lips together and nodded, and the male dipped his mouth down to where the tendons in your neck met your collarbone.

Ruhn’s nostrils flared.

And then, as if he had all the time in the world, licked a clean stroke all the way up to your ear, and you exhaled loudly from your mouth.

Ruhn heard it. As much as he didn’t want to, he heard it.

And the idea that he wasn’t the cause of it caused his control to finally snap.

The force of his grip on the glass became too much for the cheap material, and dozens of tiny glass shards rained over the table like a firework.

The liquid from the whiskey dripped onto the sticky wooden table, and the rest covered his hand to his wrist.

“Ruhn!” Bryce scolded next to him, shaking glass shards from her hair and brushing them off her dress. “What the fuck.”

He didn’t even turn to look at her. Or his hand. Even as he felt warm blood start to drip down his wrist as well.

No. He kept his eyes forward, like the trained leader he was, and felt your eyes meet his own.

The male next to you looked annoyed, but not shocked. Like he saw stuff like this all the time. He waved his hand to the bartender, gesturing to clean Ruhn’s table that was now covered in whiskey and glass.

But not you.

You kept your eyesight locked into his, and a thread of understanding stretched between the two of you.

You knew he had been watching you, you knew he shattered the glass, and you knew why.

Your lips grew into a toothless smile, and the thread of understanding pulled tighter.

He knew you knew, and he knew you liked it. He could smell you—what you were thinking.

A similar smile etched on his face.

The rest of the club, the city, the world disappeared as you looked at each other. Knowing how the night would end.

Tag list: (since this is a new character for me, I decided to start a new tag list. If you’d like to be tagged for Ruhn or for any of my fics, please let me know!)

@leahkenobi

#ruhn danaan #ruhn danaan x reader #prince ruhn #ruhn danaan smut #crown prince of the valbaran fae #ruhn Danaan angst #crescent city #crescent city fanfic #hoeab #hoeab spoilers #hosab spoilers #post hosab #throne of glass #acotar #sjm books #sjm #sarah j maas

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bryleeoz · 8 months

Text

OZYMANDIAS ~ NEW ERA

ROOK INTRODUCTION LORE DUMP POST!!

Hello delta-runers!!

I've never used tumblr in my life and I feel like a bumbling old man but I need to connect to my audience SOMEHOW, so from now on I will be secreting my DELTARUNE Chapter 3 content onto this account for more frequent and accessible updates!

Now you may have heard of OZYMANDIAS from this little video here...

youtube

WELL THIS VIDEO STINKS! AND I HATE IT!!

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT... DON'T WATCH IT!!

A Version 2 has been in the works for a while and should be dropping soon... and that version will be the one to represent my vision for the project going forward! (get it? vision like pissin crew)

anyways, though I wanted to wait for V2s release before doing this, there's no point in stalling this any further... so from now on I will be doing character introduction posts here on this account! giving insight and details about the chapter's cast and crew!!

And really... who better to start with then the one... the only...

ROOOOKKKKK!!!!

GIVE IT UP FOR ROOK EVERYBODY!!! WOOOOOHHHH!!!!

Well let's get fucking CRACKING shall we...!

Rook is Tennavision's MVP. One of HOMEWORLD's most renowned figures famous for excelling and being the best at everything. Gifted with an inhuman amount of strength, he surpasses any and all darkners in sheer power alone and arrogantly flaunts it at any opportunity, he is better than you and he knows it.

Being the TROPHY IN ASRIELS ROOM Rook is the utter embodiment of living in one's shadow, the constant praise asriel gets all over Hometown, and the effect its had on Kris, personified into one big boisterous bird!

Having so many accolades and achievements Rooks ego is unimaginably large, he's seflish and self centered only ever having his best interest in mind, but what's more, being constantly covered in praise for his whole life just the concept of someone being on the same level, let alone SURPASSING him... isn't even comprehensible in his mind.

So when the Fun Gang arrive and proceed to complete HOMEWORLD's famous unbeatable gameshow... CHANNEL CHASERS. Winning the love, fame, and affection of all of homeworld...

Well, it's bound to cause a stur..

*Curtains dramatically close

...

OOHHH THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL!!! BRAVO!!!! I LOVE ROOK!!!!!

Apologies for the extremely long post, future introduction posts will be way more short and concise but I hope this one was at least fun to read :]

Anyways, see yall in like 5 years lol!!

#Youtube #deltarune #deltarune chapter 3

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lucky-clover-gazette · 10 months

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The Big Picture

The Four Swords manga, adapted/retold using both canon and additional scenes, with a focus on Vio and Shadow's individual characters and ambiguous relationship.

Chapter Two: Who Are You? (Part One)

Link glances down at his own tunic. So that would make him…

“Purple,” Red says, although he doesn’t seem quite satisfied with the title. Link—not Purple—crosses his arms over his chest. “No… Violet? Maybe just Vio?”

“Isn’t that a girl’s name?” Vio mutters, although he’s already subconsciously using it for himself. Red either pretends not to hear his question or simply decides it isn’t worth answering.

Read the rest on ao3 or under the cut:

As rare creatures who thrive in both the Dark World and realm of light, the dragons have been invaluable to Ganon and Vaati’s grand evil plan. It had taken some negotiation with the union leaders, but sure enough, Shadow basically has an entire fleet of them at his disposal. And look at him now!

“Fly! Fly, my dark ones!” he calls to his minions, perched atop the strongest of the bunch. “Tear down Hyrule Castle!”

The dragons cover the castle in darkness, alerting the guards outside. Shadow steadies himself on the lead dragon’s back, reaching out an arm for balance. The loose sleeve of his undershirt flutters in the wind. “There’s a new Link in this chain!”

Shadow’s dragon opens her mouth wide, politely informing the guards that there is a fireball in her throat. The cowards drop their spears at once, literally running for the hills. Shadow hopes they’re singed on their way out.

He still expects some resistance inside the castle. During mandatory research he’d learned all about the royal knights, whose forces are lead by the hero’s own father. And he knows the four heroes will show up, too, eventually. How could they not? Those idiots are courage personified.

But so is Shadow, and he actually has the guts to get his hands dirty. Their strengths may match his strengths, being cut from the same cloth, but they have four times the weaknesses. In a way, the Four Sword’s bizarre magic only makes Shadow’s chances better—not that he’s ever needed fate’s intervention in the first place.

He glances down at his tunic, focusing his magic on its many interwoven threads. One by one they shift from black to green, making him the spitting image of Hyrule’s savior.

“Well?” he asks the dragon, putting his hands on his hips. “How do I look?”

She shakes her disapproval with only a second’s glance.

“Missed something, huh?”

The dragon huffs.

“Where’s a Dark Mirror when you need one, am I right?” He runs a hand through his hair, very proud of the quip. “Oh, my hair!”

Purple locks shift to blonde, red eyes to blue as a final touch. Shadow clears his throat. “Okay, what about now?”

The dragon’s nearest deadly claw curls into a thumbs-up.

“Thanks,” Shadow says, and means it.

─────────────────

It would be a beautiful hike, if not for the circumstances.

Link stands directly beneath a rainbow, the cool spray of a waterfall hitting his back. The four have made good time through the sprawling overworld, trekking through dense woods and climbing down a scenic cliffside.

“Are we there yet?” Link asks, second-closest to the front of the group. Of course the one in green takes the lead, as he clearly enjoys doing, while the other two lag slightly behind.

“We should see it when we cross the river!” answers the leader, while someone pants loudly behind them both.

“Can we rest a little?”

That was definitely the Link in red. Link turns his head and sure enough, the guy is on his hands and knees like he just singlehandedly took down an entire hinox. But if we’re all echoes of the same person, Link wonders, how is one of us more easily exhausted than the rest?

Throughout the quiet hike, he’s found himself questioning many aspects of the others’ and his own personhood. It’s a bizarre feeling, to know you’ve been alive for nineteen years, but you’ve only been yourself for less than a day. He is simply not the same Link who drew the Four Sword from its pedestal, which is a difficult reality to accept when that former self is the very foundation of his existence. All of his questions have led back to this: where does Link Prime end, and where does he begin?

“We don’t have time for that,” their unofficial leader tells the Link in red. “We’ve got to tell my father about all this as soon as possible!”

His father? Our father? Link isn’t quite sure. He has memories of the captain, of course, all the way from childhood to young adulthood. But just as with Zelda, there’s a certain distance he can’t help but feel. Link watches the memories in his mind like an actor is playing himself. He can recall the hero’s past, but lacks the emotional and sensory details of actually experiencing it.

The most brutish of the four clears his throat. “First, we need to make a decision.”

“About what?” asks the Link in red, who seems to have caught his breath. Guess he got his rest after all.

“Names! Names!” hollers the Link in blue. “We can’t all be called Link, we need nicknames!”

At first Link bristles at the thought of this—that’s his name!—but quickly realizes that the conviction just isn’t there. Maybe he doesn’t feel like just Link anyway. He wonders what the almighty Goddesses would think about that.

“I wear red clothes,” says the Link wearing red clothes, “so call me Red. You’re Blue…”

“Huh?!”

Link glances down at his own tunic. So that would make him…

“Purple,” Red says, although he doesn’t seem quite satisfied with the title. Link—not Purple—crosses his arms over his chest. “No… Violet? Maybe just Vio?”

“And Green! Whady’a think?”

Green runs a hand through his hair. “It’s weird, but it makes sense. I guess.”

Blue, meanwhile, is less willing to accept Red’s idea. “You can’t just change people’s names,” he fumes, pointer finger outstretched. “I won’t answer to anything other than Link!”

“It’s a great idea!” Red enthuses. “I’m a genius!”

“You’re an idiot!” Blue shoots back, stepping up on a rock for just a little more height than others. “Look, just ‘cuz we look alike doesn’t mean we’re gonna be buddies!”

“You’re no fun...”

“Riiiiiiight,” Vio says, finding that he quite enjoys being a snarky contrarian. “Hanging around with you fools is dangerous to my health.”

Blue grabs him by the collar, but he remains thoroughly unimpressed. “You callin’ me a fool? I oughta…”

“Oh, c’mon! Stop it!” shouts Green, his eyes sparkling with self-righteousness. “We’re all copies of the same person! Do you really want to hurt yourself?”

Distantly, Vio wonders how exactly that would work—do they feel each other’s pain? Maybe if he can goad Blue into actually throwing a punch, he’ll—

“Don’t say this guy is the same as me, or I’ll pop you too!” Blue growls, now pointing at Green. “You three can call each other stupid nicknames!”

Vio smirks and slides away, making a mental note to investigate at a later time. Having observed Blue’s first few hours of existence, he expects many more violent outbursts to come.

“My nicknames aren’t stupid,” Red says quietly. Vio knows he should say something reassuring, but it doesn’t come as naturally as it once did. And before he can figure out the right words to say, the conversation has already moved forward.

“If there’s a main Link,” says Green, “it’s me! Everyone knows Link dresses in green!”

Blue stretches his tunic as if searching the fabric for any hint of greenish pigment. “Rats.”

For a second Vio thinks this is a sign of resignation, but then Blue launches towards Green in a new fit of rage. “You think you’re better’n me just cuz you wear green!” he shouts, grabbing at Green’s tunic. “Take it off! We’re switching tunics right now! And hats, too!”

Vio can’t help but smirk at the absurdity of it all. Red, meanwhile, seems genuinely confused. “Why isn’t ‘Blue’ me more laid-back and mellow? If we’re all the same person, why are our personalities so different?

Green shoves Blue away, his tunic still completely intact. “Because we’re each a part of my… errr… Link’s whole personality,” he tells Red, ignoring Blue’s indignant huff. “Green is focused and motivated,” he says of himself, and Vio almost has to respect his unearned confidence. “Blue is hotheaded and aggressive—”

“What?!”

“Red is innocent and optimistic,” Vio interjects, patting the poor guy on the head. See? He can be nice. He’s great at being nice.

“Oh, I see!” Red exclaims, turning to Vio with a smile. “Vio is super cool.”

Vio finds himself glancing away, bangs falling over his eyes. Is one backhanded compliment all it takes to earn this simpleton’s respect? It feels too easy, too shallow. Red can’t possibly respect him if he doesn’t understand him, and none of them understand each other in the slightest. “Hmmm…. I’d prefer calm and collected.”

Before he can gauge Red’s response, Vio spots two familiar women climbing up the cliffside. The others see them too, finishing each other’s thoughts aloud:

“That’s…” Blue says, his voice low.

“… Arcy…” Vio mutters, the name familiar on his tongue.

“… the castle cook!” Red exclaims, and now Vio remembers why.

“Hey, Arcy!” Green calls out, hands cupped around his mouth.

The others rush towards the women, ignoring Vio’s motion to stop. “Idiots! Not at all once!”

“Arcy,” Green repeats, “thank goodness! We got lost trying to find the—”

Arcy wields a stick like a sword, pointing it right at the four. Beside her, the young girl looks absolutely petrified. “Stay back,” Arcy warns, “you monsters! How did you find us all the way out here?”

Red wipes at a tear. “Monsters? That really hurts!”

Green continues to talk when he really should just shut up and let Arcy explain—although Vio is already piecing things together himself. “Listen, Arcy, I drew the Four Sword and got split in four. But inside we’re all the same Link!”

“All the way out here…” Vio mutters, too busy contemplating Arcy’s words to disagree with Green’s demonstrably incorrect explanation.

“I used to think you were a good kid!” Arcy cries, holding onto the small girl for dear life. “But those things you did… you’re a demon for sure!”

Blue looks incredulous. “What did I do?”

“Wait,” Vio says, meeting Arcy’s panicked gaze. “Do you mean a dark, shadowy Link?”

She gives him the smallest of nods. While Vio just rolls his eyes at the reminder of that purple-haired freak, Green lunges for the poor woman.

“The castle,” he demands, grabbing desperately at Arcy’s wrists. “What happened at Hyrule Castle?”

#my writing #four swords #fs #shadow link #vio link #red link #blue link #green link

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buckttommy · 2 years

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like the petals in our pockets (may we remember who we are) {40k}

IT'S HERE! My Big Bang fic is finally here!! I'm so excited to finally put this out into the world for you all to read. This fic is sans art, and therefore no longer apart of the challenge since my artist unceremoniously dropped out, but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless! Please be mindful of the triggers and enjoy the ride <3

Summary:

His name is Evan Buckley. Alias: Captain America. The year is 2022. He is not on the battlefield. This is not World War II. He is alive. He is alive. He is alive. What a goddamn curse that is. or; seventy years is a long time

.i. сон (slumber)

Sunlight streams through the curtains, a warm August breeze ghosting the soft skin his neck from the open window.

Buck is dreaming.

He knows the weight and feel of the dream by now like the lingering sweetness of cream soda on his tongue. Can probably draw every inch of it from memory, down to the notches in a wooden floor that’s long since been torn down and gentrified, and the dark shadows of the mouse hole in the kitchen baseboards.

Slightly chapped lips press against his temple right where his hair meets his skin, Eddie’s body a warm, solid anchor beside him where Buck’s head is pillowed on Eddie’s bicep. Late afternoon sun heats the worn patch of floor underneath their backs.

Buck turns his head and studies the side of Eddie’s face—the slope of his nose, the hills of his cheekbones and the soft curve of his mouth. He is beautiful in a painful sort of way, a crystal so sharp it cuts your hands when you cradle it, but Buck wants to cradle him forever. Wants to keep him tucked into the ventricles and chambers of his heart, locked away and kept safe from the world at large. He wants, he wants, he wants. If he had a sketchpad and stick of charcoal, he would draw every inch, every plane of Eddie’s body over and over again and never get bored, but he’s never been good at art, and he’s not sure he’d be able to capture the resplendent beauty of him anyway.

read on ao3

tags list (please interact with this post if you want to be notified when i post a new fic!) also, if you asked to tagged and weren't included here, it's because i tried to tag you and was, for some reason, unable to <3

@trickster-archangel @dadbodbuck @hetrez @iwasrunningwiththew0lves @ravipanikar @eusuntgratie @shannonhutchins @treesofgreen @stardustsea @welp-that-didnt-work @ellelans @goldenretrieverfirefighters @person-personified @slowlyfoggydestiny @rosepersomnium @kananjarus @hearteyesdiaz @recklesslyhealing @paxbe @bitchhans @stromlidjess @magiicisms @queen-of-books13 @fear-o-phobia @bibuddie @wild-fire-heart @leothil @kaseysgirl86-blog @eddiecore118 @anthotneystark @elenaazra @timothyonlyfans @raemarr @likeawesternwind @oriyatea @simwizard43 @enbyeddiediaz @ekstasisandangst @toboldlynerd @yeaheddiediaz @imsupposedtobewritting @prettyboyandthekid @alex1424 @captainhaterade @dearbuck @wallflowerjournal @peaceoutbitchez @buddierights

#me: *always filters ao3 to exclude crossovers*#also me: lol what if i wrote a 40k crossover #jack.txt #my fic #gonna post this before i throw up all over myself sdkjsfghjakdj

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snelbz · 2 years

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Rendezvous {Elriel}

Oops, this was written for Week One of @elrielmonth, but Tara and I got hella busy. So enjoy this (late) oneshot and expect us to work on the rest of the weeks in the next coming days!

(Also, this story is will be continuing and turning into a mini-series. So look forward to that in the coming weeks, too!)

WC: 4728

Elriel Month. Week One. Forbidden Love.

Co-written with @theladyofdeath.

Elain sat across the table from Feyre, picking at the beautiful display of food that had been set between them.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t hungry.

Her mind was just elsewhere.

It had been like that more and more lately, that scattering of her mind. One moment she was fully engrossed in conversation and the next she was thinking of him.

“Elain?”

Her eyes snapped up to Feyre’s and she realized she had been picking at a grape for the past few minutes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep the best last night.”

Feyre frowned. “Why not?”

She lied. “I couldn’t get comfortable. One of those nights.”

Feyre nodded, both because she understood and because she knew not to push. “I was just asking what you’re doing today. It’s beautiful out this morning.”

She shrugged a delicate shoulder. She was right, the late spring sky was calling her name. “I was thinking I might spend some time in the gardens. The peonies have bloomed and I was going to prune them back and make a bouquet for Nesta.”

They’d always been Nesta’s favorite flower, the fluffy buds making her smile even when the shadows crept into her eyes.

“You should join me on a walk,” she offered, stirring her tea. “I was hoping to take Nyx out into the Rainbow today.”

“That’d be lovely,” Elain mused, thinking about how Azriel had run out of charcoal the night before he’d been sent on a mission. She was sure Feyre would duck into some shop for something, would be swamped by the friend she’d made at her studio, and she could sneak off to buy a few pieces for him. “I can wait to garden if you’d like to go after breakfast.”

“That’s perfect,” she smiled, and Elain could almost feel the thread of power she unspooled to check and see if her sleepy infant was awake yet. Night personified, Nyx slept better than any baby she’d ever met. “Rhys is meeting with Azriel at the House of Wind this morning for a report. Gives us time to spend in the sun.”

Elain blinked, trying not to show any surprise or rush of emotion as she asked, “Azriel’s returned?”

“Just this morning,” Feyre responded, sipping from her mug. “Apparently, he had a rough couple of days. Rhys couldn’t even wait for the sun to come up before he was out of bed and getting dressed.”

It was the same any time Azriel or Cassian returned home after days away, without Rhysand. He had been staying in the city more and more while the other two went away to deal with the dark side of being a part of the High Lord’s inner circle. Elain had always thought Rhys felt a sense of guilt about it. So, every time they crossed back into the city, he was running to them.

“His love for his friends is inspiring,” Elain said, although she was thinking of something else, someone else, entirely.

Feyre was saying something in response, but Elain’s mind was reeling. A thousand thoughts, a thousand escape plans, ran through her mind. None of them seemed logical - or appropriate for sitting across the table from her sister.

“Elain?”

She blinked and looked up at her sister. “I’m sorry, you were saying something?”

“Your cheeks are flushed,” she said, eyebrows lowering in concern. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she replied, reaching for her napkin on her lap and lightly fanning herself with it. “I must have overheated while I was working in the kitchen this morning.”

Since Azriel wasn’t in her bed, keeping her up until the Cauldron knew when, she’d been falling asleep and waking up earlier and earlier. Her own hand did the job, but her fingers weren’t nearly as skilled as Azriel’s. After she’d awoken before sunrise, she’d quickly wrung an orgasm out of herself and was in the kitchen covered in flour before even Nuala and Cerridwen were awake.

Feyre was watching her sister curiously. “If you’re not up for a walk, it’s okay. Nyx and I will just go. Or, we can wait a few hours. Let you rest.”

Elain continued to fan herself with her napkin, pretending to think, pretending to weigh her options. She loved spending time with Feyre, loved spending time with her nephew, but she wouldn’t be able to focus on a thing until she saw him.

“A few hours of rest may be helpful,” Elain agreed. “I’ll try to catch up on some of the sleep that I missed during the night.”

Feyre smiled. “Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll take Nyx to see Nesta. He hasn’t seen her in a few days.”

Elain nodded, that guilt fading just a little bit. She had seen Nesta only the night before, so her absence would not be suspicious.

They finished their breakfast and Feyre headed up to the nursery to get Nyx ready for the day. Elain went to her own room in the river house, wondering how long she needed to wait until sneaking to the townhouse.

It had always been their place of refuge. Though Rhys and Feyre had given it to Elain after the completion of the river house, she often stayed with them in it. She often made excuses to stay there, so it wouldn’t be as obvious that she snuck off when Azriel returned home.

Every time he returned home.

She knew as soon as he was done speaking to Rhys, he would be making his way to the townhouse, either relaxing and sunning his wings on the rooftop patio or already waiting in their bed.

She certainly didn’t want to leave him waiting for long.

Freshening up, Elain listened as Feyre sang to Nyx as she got him up and ready for the day. Their voices passed her closed door and she heard Nyx babbling as they descended the stairs.

“Let’s go, my little love,” Feyre crooned and then Elain heard the front door open and close.

She waited for as long as she could, but was likely only a couple minutes before hurrying down the stairs, aiming for the front door.

“Elain?”

She halted, not expecting to hear Nuala’s voice from the direction of the kitchen. “Yes?”

“Would you mind helping us with the baking for dinner tonight?” The elder of the half-wraith twins appeared through the wall, something that should have unnerved Elain, but she’d quickly grown accustomed to. “Cerridwen has tried to replicate your braided bread, but it’s not nearly as neat as yours.”

With a quiet sigh, Elain nodded. Tying her hair back as she entered the kitchen, she glanced at the clock above the stove. It wasn’t even ten yet. She sorely hoped she saw him before dinner.

Pausing before the counter, Elain reached for a large ball of dough. She smiled at the two fae who were her closest friends and started kneading.

~~~

Azriel pointed to a cluster of trees over the continent for the third time. “It was impenetrable. Whatever is in this copse of trees doesn’t want me to see what it’s up to.”

Rhysand, no wings today, was lounging in a chair in the war room atop the House of Wind. Azriel had also gone over every note from his mission three times, and Rhysand still thought of something new to ask each time he finished, which spurred more questions.

Before he could ask anything else, Azriel started to subtly move towards the door.

Rhysand waited until he had nearly in the hall to ask, “Where are you going?”

Azriel didn’t hesitate. “I just got home, Rhys. I’d like to go down and bathe, considering I haven’t in three days.”

“Three days?” Rhysand said, scoffing. “That’s nothing. You’ve gone soft in your old age.”

It was true. They’d all gone far longer without the luxury of a bath, but little did Rhysand know that bathing was the last thing on his mind. At least, he wouldn’t be bathing alone. Azriel’s High Lord had made his demands clear when it came to Elain Archeron, and although Azriel had never gone against Rhysand’s demands before, this time…he couldn’t help himself.

She had always surprised him, always intrigued him, always captivated him, ever since their first meeting. And now, he couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without her in it.

Even if the life they had together remained in the shadows, their love ignited only in secrecy.

He made a move to leave the room again, the hallway beckoning before him. But he heard Rhysand say, “Az.”

He halted in the doorway.

Rhysand released a quiet breath, “After you’re done, let me know. There’s a…situation in the Court of Nightmares. We’ll fly down to the river house after you bathe and eat, Cassian will meet us there. I’ll fill you in after you’re done.”

“It…can’t wait?”

There was silence between the two males. It was rare when Azriel questioned his High Lord, but it had been over two weeks since he’d seen Elain, since he’d been inside her…

“We captured one of the mortal queen’s personal guards sniffing around the borders between Day and Night,” he confided. “Helion has given us free reign to deal with him as we see fit, to find out why he was on our lands.”

They will deal with him, Azriel thought, but his hands would be the ones covered in blood at the end of it all.

Reluctantly, Azriel nodded before dismissing himself.

An hour later, he was trailing behind Rhys, Velaris growing larger as they flew closer and closer. His eyes settled on the townhouse a few blocks away from the sprawling manor they aimed for now. He wondered if she was already there, already waiting for him. He would fly to her as quickly as he could, as soon as this matter in the Court of Nightmares was handled, as soon as he’d washed the blood from his skin.

They both landed smoothly on the grass of the back lawn, and as they approached the house, Azriel noted the slight differences in the garden from when he’d left. The peony bushes had bloomed as beautifully as Elain had hoped they would, the irises and lilacs as well.

Rhysand opened the glass door leading into the house and followed Azriel inside as he held it open for him.

The scent of baking bread, intertwined with a delicious scent of honey and jasmine.

Sniffing quietly, Azriel knew Elain was not waiting in the townhouse for him. She was only a few rooms away, but Rhys was leading him towards his private study, where he knew Cassian was likely waiting for them both, Amren as well.

Azriel halted in the middle of the atrium. “I’ll be right there.”

Rhysand paused, hand on the door frame.

“I’d like to get something from the kitchen,” he said, hoping Rhysand wouldn’t push him, that he didn’t realize who was in the kitchen. “I’ll just be a moment.”

One minute, he just wanted one minute with her, to kiss her, smell her, taste her… Nuala and Cerridwen would make themselves scarce, especially when they saw the look on his face. The two half-wraiths were the only two who knew of their secret.

Rhysand looked at him for a beat, that passive look that he gave to the enemies he played games with but Azriel could see right through it. “Be quick.”

Azriel nodded and strode down the hall until he was pushing open the kitchen door.

Only to find it empty.

Well, empty of Elain, anyway.

Mor stood by the counter, cutting off a piece of warm, fresh bread. She popped it into her mouth and moaned. “Mmm. They’ve done it again. Delicious.” She looked to Azriel. “Always nice to see you back in one piece.”

“You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” he said, simply, crossing his arms.

She rolled her eyes. “Have some bread.”

He did, angrily eating it as he hurried from one side of the manor to the other, to Rhysand’s study.

There was no sign of her anywhere.

~~~

It seemed Elain would be stopping by Nesta and Cassian’s riverside apartment after all, since Cassian stopped her as he headed for Rhysand’s study and told her that her sisters and Nyx were waiting for her there to go get lunch.

She nodded, forgoing the bouquet she planned to make in favor of getting there sooner. Maybe, if they finished with lunch quick enough, she could make an excuse to stop by the townhouse…

She knew her sisters would offer to come along, would offer to help with whatever excuse she came up with to go there.

“What’s on your mind?”

Elain had been tapping a manicured, pale-pink fingernail on the table top. Nyx, sitting in his mother’s lap, was reaching for her finger. She slid her hand towards him, letting him wrap his own chubby hand around her finger.

Nesta had been the one to speak, a cup of tea still held between her hands.

Shaking her head, Elain returned to the conversation. “Nothing. Just didn’t sleep well. You were telling me about the new priestesses who’d begun training when we had dinner last night. How was this morning?”

Nesta’s eyes, their mother’s eyes made over, lit up. “The youngest of the three, Mira, hasn’t spoken to a male in over three centuries. She’s making amazing progress, not just with training.”

And so their lunch went, Elain’s mind on the townhouse across the city, Nesta and Feyre animatedly talking and playing with Nyx.

Elain tried to be engaged, but she couldn’t shake off thoughts of Azriel - where he was and what he was doing.

She saw her sisters often, could be with them and talk to them as much as she wanted. Azriel, though, she only got a few miniscule moments with a week, if that.

“Elain?”

She had to stop spacing out.

“I’m sorry,” she said, yet again, and mustered a smile as well as she could. “What we’re you saying?”

“I wanted to show you and Nesta the new pieces at the gallery,” Feyre went on, eyeing her sister suspiciously. “If you have the time and energy, of course.”

Elain was conflicted.

She knew it meant a lot to Feyre. She also knew that if she said no, Feyre’s suspicion would grow. Yet, the townhouse awaited.

“Perhaps for a few minutes,” she said, at last. If only she had wings and it wasn’t a twenty minute walk to the gallery.

They began the walk, the day gorgeous and not a cloud in the sky. The kind of day she knew someone with wings would love.

People waved at Feyre as they walked, some at Elain, and even some at Nesta. An artist Feyre had been working with from the Brush and Chisel approached and began speaking with Feyre, both smiling down at Nyx as he rode along in his little stroller.

Nesta fell back, walking next to Elain. She could tell her sister wanted to say something, was going to pry as soon as Elain glanced over at her. So she kept her eyes on the approaching Rainbow, the blues and greens and reds beautiful and pleasing to the eye.

It worked for a moment, but not for long.

As they rounded the corner, the gallery within view, Nesta asked under her breath, “You okay? You seem awfully on edge.”

Her tone intended that she already knew Elain was not, in fact, okay.

“I just didn’t sleep-.”

“That’s shit and you know it,” Nesta mumbled. Elain swore that the more and more time her older sister spent around her mate, the filthier her mouth became. She could only imagine what Nesta would be spewing out of her mouth in a hundred year’s time.

Elain wasn’t sure how to respond. If she could tell anyone about Azriel, it would be Nesta. Nesta would understand and she would never say a word. Yet, the words wouldn’t come out. They formed perfectly in her mind, but they couldn’t find their way out.

Nesta eyed Feyre up ahead of them, saying hello to a vendor on the street. She stopped and gently grabbed Elain’s elbow, causing her to halt.

Elain couldn’t meet her eye.

“If you’re in trouble-.”

“I’m not,” Elain promised, and she must’ve sounded convincing, because after a minute, Nesta dropped it. “I’m not, I’m just feeling a little…off today.”

“And is there a reason for that?” Nesta pushed, sneaking a glance to look at Feyre to make sure she was still occupied.

Elain shook her head. “No reason. Now, let’s go look at these gorgeous pieces of talented sister created and choose which ones we should decorate our homes with.”

She looped her arm through Nesta’s and led her towards Feyre, then towards the gallery where she could ask no more questions.

~~~

Azriel sat at a large oak desk in an office deep beneath the living quarters in the House of Wind, oiling one of the many blades piled atop it. His brothers had just departed and he wondered how long was appropriate before bolting from his office and flying down to the townhouse. Looking at the clock in the wall, he saw that dinner was in a mere two hours.

There was no way he’d be able to do what wanted with her in less than two hours, especially considering Elain was probably helping to cook the delicious meal they’d be consuming. It was the first time their entire family, Mor and Amren included, would all be in the city in over a month. He was sure it would be a massive spread of food and Elain was likely already toiling away in the kitchen, flour on her face, the hair at the nape of her neck curling slightly from the heat.

They often did that while he was inside of her, both of their bodies gleaming with sweat—

He groaned, realizing he had become uncomfortably still.

And uncomfortably hard.

Maybe he did have time, maybe he would take her quickly now and again tonight. Maybe she could spare ten minutes for him to just give her a taste…

Azriel threw the dagger onto the desk in front of him and sighed.

This was torture. He had too much energy building up and none of it was healthy without a release. After cleaning another blade, he hurried up to the roof and trained, all by himself, until the minutes turned into hours and he decided it was time to bathe for the second time that day.

He wondered if Elain had tried to see him as much as he had hoped to see her that day.

After scrubbing off his sweat and stench, he pulled on a simple pair of pants and a matching shirt, leaving the comfort of his armor at home.

He walked instead of flew, allowing the extra time to help him clear his mind. With them all together, he couldn’t allow a hint, a scent, of his attraction to Elain to show. The more and more time they spent together, the harder that endeavor became.

By the time he made it to the manor, he was not only starving but perfectly calm. He could already smell the food, could hear his family gathered together. Surely, he was the last to arrive.

Hopefully no one had any questions about it.

Although, he assumed Cassian and Mor would, and they were not shy asking those questions, loudly, with everyone present.

True enough, Azriel was the last to arrive. Everyone met him with mixed greetings - some of excitement and some of it’s about time.

His eyes scanned the sitting room, looking for Elain, but she was nowhere to be found.

“Dining room,” Feyre announced, and Azriel could practically hear her stomach growling. “If I don’t eat now, I won’t be so pleasant here soon.”

“And you’ve been pleasant for the past twenty minutes?” Cassian mumbled, taking Nesta’s hand as they followed Feyre out of the sitting room.

Feyre shot him a vulgar gesture before disappearing out of sight.

Azriel was in the back, getting his usual glances from Mor, as they all walked to the dining room and took their places around a long, narrow table.

Elain arrived then, carrying a plate full of rolls, breads, and muffins. “Don’t wait on my account,” she said, voice rushed.

Their eyes met for a fleeting moment and he knew that she’d been trying to get to him as desperately as he was trying to get to her. Her cheeks heated immediately, and she looked down at the dirty apron she wore, wiping it off. Rather than take it off or change, she took her seat in between Feyre and Cassian, digging right into the dish of garlic roasted green beans in front of her.

Rhysand’s eyes were wary, watching his sister-in-law, but he nodded. “It’s nice to all be under one roof again.” He looked at Azriel and Mor respectively. “Let’s enjoy each other’s company tonight.”

I plan to, Azriel wanted to say aloud. Wanted to, but couldn’t.

He found Elain’s eyes and saw the same want, the same need reflected there. Her gaze darted to the door leading to the kitchen. She was suggesting they sneak away, suggesting that, despite the presence of their entire family, they disappear into the kitchen together.

Cauldron boil him, there was nothing he longed for more.

He shook his head, enough that she noticed, but anyone else would have thought he was annoyed by the way his hair skimmed over his forehead.

Ignoring the disappointment in Elain’s eyes was easier said than done.

A sudden guilt crept over him for the fear of disappointing her alone, but he pushed it down as he shoved a forkful of vegetables into his mouth. He ate quickly, avoiding conversation, but no one saw that as anything out of the ordinary.

The only thing out of the ordinary was that Azriel would not look up from his plate. Typically, he loved having dinner with his family. He lived for nights like this. Tonight, however, the second he looked up he would look at Elain, and he would once again be weak.

She made him weak.

It wasn’t a complaint, but she couldn’t make him so weak when there were witnesses.

It had been a long time since someone had such control over him.

And it had never been with someone he was forbidden to see.

As Feyre and Rhys took Nyx up to bed, Cassian opened a bottle of good bourbon in the sitting room. He poured a knuckles worth for Nesta and then himself and held the bottle out to Azriel.

“I think I’d like to take a walk,” Elain said, talking to no one in particular. “It’s been such a beautiful day, I can only imagine the clear night will be stunning.”

She was out the door before either Mor or Nesta could offer to join her.

He knew exactly why.

Cassian stared, the bottle still outstretched. “That was…”

“Strange,” Nesta finished for him, narrowed eyes on the spot where Elain had just been.

Cassian’s eyes fell on Azriel again. “Drink?”

He shook his head. “Not tonight. I have some reports I need to go over after this afternoon.”

This afternoon.

Cassian had been there while he’d cut and torn and ripped the information out of the mortal queen’s guard. It had amounted to little, but he knew his brother wouldn’t push him.

He nodded briskly once and raised his glass in farewell. “Right.”

Azriel didn’t bother to say goodbye to his High Lord and Lady, instead slipping out the door and into the balmy night. He could see Elain just ahead, already heading down the hill towards the townhouse. He could easily catch up to her, easily scoop her in his arms and fly them directly to the townhouse. There was a chance someone would see, would talk and it could eventually reach Rhys. And if he followed her, trailing behind, if she entered the townhouse before he did, it would be clear they were meeting.

So instead he’d beat her there. Azriel took to the sky, letting her hear the wing beats he usually kept silent as a gentle breeze, letting her know he was heading for the townhouse.

And he would be waiting for her.

~~~

Elain walked slowly through the streets of Velaris, fighting the urge to run. It was a long walk but nothing out of the ordinary. The streets were always busy at night, beneath the starlight. Elain was just another peaceful civilian, enjoying the calm, warm night.

She nodded to those she passed, smiling in greeting as an exchange.

It only took a minute to see an Illyrian overhead, heading in the same direction she was.

Elain absentmindedly picked up her pace.

With each step, her heart grew wilder, beating ferociously inside of her chest. Just the thought of being near him in a matter of minutes was enough to consume her.

She made herself stop at a shop or two, even going so far as to buy a box of sea salt caramels, covered in dark chocolate. It was just a few moments, but it delayed her further, so that she was just a passing buyer, shopping on the way home from dinner.

And then the townhouse was in view, a welcoming orb of faelight glowing in the foyer. She knew she’d extinguished all the lights when she’d last left and she increased her pace as she let her grin grow.

She was through the iron gate, barely acknowledging the bite of it in her grip, and then she was up the stairs and pushing the door open. The antechamber was open to the foyer beyond and it was…empty.

She listened quietly for a moment, hearing nothing, before she called out, “Az?”

The soft press of his lips on her throat would have scared her, had she not gotten used to his shadows and the way he was prone to step in and out of them without a thought. “I’ve tried to get here all day,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her from the back.

Leaning back into him, Elain relished in his warmth and the feel of his lips on her skin. “I have, too,” she admitted. “Everyone needed something—”

“And it couldn’t wait,” he finished for her, loosening his arms so she could turn to face him. “It had to happen then.”

“Exactly.” She was rising up on her toes, eyes closing as she waited for him to kiss her.

“What’s in your hands?”

Elain’s eyes opened and she was grinning, even if she hadn’t gotten her kiss yet. She pulled the box from behind her back. “I stopped at the confectionery down the hill. They had just finished making a fresh batch of these.”

His hazel eyes were sparkling and she could have sworn he was nearly vibrating with excitement. “Chocolate caramels?” He asked. Elain only nodded and let him take the box. His fingers grazed hers. “These are my favorite.”

“Are they?” She asked, voice cool and amused.

He breathed a laugh, knowing that she knew that fact fully well. “Thank you.”

Her smile grew as he set the caramels down and slowly slid his broad arms around her waist. For a moment, neither of them said a thing. They simply looked into each other’s eyes, silently, dwelling in the moment that they finally found for one another after such a long day.

“I missed you,” he said, at last, and it was hardly more than a whisper but it made chills sweep down Elain’s back, her arms.

She knew that the time he spent away was no vacation, was no holiday away from the real world. When he was away, his time was spent doing horrible things that Elain could not fathom.

Even if it did support the greater good.

“I missed you, too,” Elain said, but before she could get out the last word, Azriel’s lips were against hers.

The kiss was soft, sweet, genuine, but Elain knew exactly where it would lead.

Her arms went around his neck, their bodies pressed up against one another in safe comfort as that kiss deepened. For the first time that day, Elain relaxed.

She could finally do so as she melted into the arms of her forbidden love.

#elriel month #elriel #elain x azriel #elain archeron #azriel #pro elriel #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas

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hxhhasmysoul · 1 year

Text

Is Jujutsu Kaisen feminism for 15yo boys?

The short answer is yes, so you can skip the rest of this ridiculously long post.

____________________

Disclaimers:

If you haven’t read the manga up until chapter 204 you’ll see spoilers here, also you probably won’t know what/who I’m talking about at times.

I have adhd, this is rambly af, this post is actually for me to organise my thoughts and not a hot take I want to convince others to buy into. but anyone is welcome to read if they have the patience.

They/them pronouns for Akutami because if the cursed cat isn’t explicitly assigning a gender to themself, hell if I will.

They/them pronouns for Kenny.

Now let’s watch this post age like dairy. I so hope it won’t, Gege please don’t disappoint me.

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Let’s go.

There are a few things that make me obsessed with juju.

1. The fact that its plot and story structure are my wet dream - all these factions and individuals who are doing their own thing. All of these plots intertwining and coming together.

2. My sweet child Yuuji. *coughs* I mean, juju’s focus on characters. I’m very normal about Yuuji, I fucking swear.

3. The art, it’s simply beautiful but I also have thoughts.

4. The bs power system, I live for that stuff.

5. It’s aggressively progressive.

So lets focus on point 5.

Is juju as politically left as I am? Fuck no, not even close. There are things I wish it was braver on, like for instance the queerness. Fuck, braver on its leftism and feminism too. Is it very current and openly and aggressively progressive? Very much so.

If we look at the biggest antagonists of juju we get:

1. Toxic masculinity personified. A hyper-individualist. A 1000yo manosphere youtuber. A guy who thinks that strength should dictate hierarchy. A man who thinks he can hurt whomever he wants for his own pleasure and amusement because everyone is beneath him. A man who doesn’t care for anyone else but himself. A mass murderer and nihilist.

2. A 1000yo person of unknown gender who presents most often as a man. An eugenicist. Someone entitled to women’s bodies and their reproductive rights. Someone who thinks their own children are only as valuable as they fulfil their ambitions. Someone who thinks they can hurt anyone because their goals are superior, because people are instrumental to them. And also a fucking classist piece of shit. (honestly idk why half of the fandom reacted surprised to the hyper capitalist moment in the recent chapters, as if in their first scene in the entire manga they didn’t say: this is a nuisance but at least it’s the poors that are being burnt to death before my eyes. - Gege didn’t need to add this line there, it’s not relevant to the conversation that is happening then but the line is there anyway.)

3. Two awfully sexist clans which have huge superiority complexes and are built on bloodlines and traditions and breeding for power.

4. A bunch of mostly faceless old people who pull the strings from the shadows and do everything in the name of the status quo, constantly using tradition as an excuse. Who are afraid of the new, of the changes in society of new technologies. They won’t even accept them when they create powerful sorcerers.

5. A male presenting personification of human hate and fear of one another. Who again, feels entitled to the bodies of others and doesn’t respect the bodily autonomy of others. Who’s a destructive and cruel nihilist.

6. A young man who got radicalised into fascism because he was faced with the horrors of the status quo, of toxic tradition and backwater thinking and drew the wrong conclusions as to how to fix it.

On the other side we get kids and tired and/or silly millennials. And isn’t that just like real life, where the inaction and misdeeds of the previous generations blows up in the faces of today’s teens.

1. Teenagers. Teenagers who either don’t have family connections and come from lower classes. Or outcasts from their rich and powerful families. Children betrayed by traditions and the status quo. Children used or targeted by old people, ostracised, disrespected and violated. Children who have to suffer and die because the old people are only concentrating on maintaining the status quo.

2. Gojou, this ex edgy teen who saw his bf (I won’t police how you read that) get redpilled and radicalised into fascism. It was all fun and games, stanning the joker and tyler durden until Getou decided to seriously go full on fasc with it and Gojou was like: man for real? I thought we were memeing here. So then Gojou turned into one of those “this is how I got off the far right pipeline” videos. Gojou is actually this rich privileged boy but he’s trying, he really is taking his best shot at progressivism. (sealed)

3. A feminist who’s calling out and fighting worthless old farts who feel entitled to women’s bodies. And who wants to change the world to make life better for everyone.

4. A socially conscious man disillusioned with capitalism who takes a lot of responsibility for other people. (deceased)

5. A victim of eugenics who tries to be a good older brother to his brothers, also victims of eugenics. (the only one here who’s actually over 30)

6. Some other, less important, decent people in their twenties.

There are few people over 30 in juju that deserve any respect.

1. Headmaster Yaga, single dad. Does felting as a hobby. (deceased)

2. Yoshino Nagi, good single mum. (deceased)

3. Iori Utahime, a woman trying her best to do right by the teens despite having to work with Gojou.

4. Higuruma Hiromi, an idealist, mentally broken by the realities of the criminal justice system. Hobby: 5 min therapy sessions.

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Juju isn’t in any way shy about the fact that we should not respect elders when they fucking destroy everything. It’s established very early on that regressive traditionalists suck. That passive adults suck. That the status quo sux. That it should be the duty of adults to protect the children and not to make the world worse for everyone. That educating the youth and instilling different values in them is what can save us all, if we’re not beyond saving. That we need social change. We even get teen Noritoshi’s story, a cautionary tale about respectability, about trying to satisfy the requirements of the system to protect your own and how that is doomed to fail. And my leftist soul resonates with all that.

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So in this clear leftist propaganda there is also feminism.

And Gege does their best feminism when they aren’t trying, especially when they aren’t trying to verbalise it. My suspicion is that with this much internalised leftism Gege has internalised a lot of feminism but at a conscious level the fact that Gege was most likely socialised male takes its toll.

What I mean by that is that Nobara’s girlboss rant at Momo is weak. But I will give it a pass because Nobara is 16 and nothing about her screams discourse junkie so you know, it fits her character. Because even at it its least inspired the feminism in juju deserves a passing grade. Gege is trying.

There’s also the sad truth of shounen that women just aren’t meant to be prioritised in it, that it’s not the genre expectation. The fact that Maki gets so much focus and page time, that she has her own fucking arc, it’s already a lot for shounen. The fact that she’s built and now also permanently disfigured and the dudebros and weebs still worship the ground she walks on is a fucking achievement in itself. Proof that if you write a female character well you can take away her standard beauty and not tank her popularity. It’d be still much harder to make her not typically pretty from the start and achieve this but culture changes one step at a time. I wish we were there but we aren’t so I’m going to appreciate what I can get.

Maki is both verbalised and implicit feminism. Verbalised because she fucking slaughters a whole fucking clan of misogynists. It’s not subtle. Implicit because of her appearance and personality. She’s written like a male character but not meaning that she’s masculine or that she could be replaced in the narrative by a man. No, she has a narrative arc of her own, she’s written with agency and with no regard for making her personality be pleasing or oriented towards others. And her story is specifically a story of a woman in the world of jujutsu.

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Generally, in most cases, if you try to apply the feminist lens to a shounen manga you’ll just make yourself sad. You can do it for some shounen characters or plotlines and get something nice but you need to be very careful not to try to generalise that onto the whole work. My enjoyment of a lot of titles is dependant on my very conscious choice to rein in my feminism and leftism.

With juju, though, with juju you’re safe. You can do it. You can go for it. It’s not going to be the most radical and mind-blowing experience ever but it’s possible.

Because the female characters aren’t where the most of the feminism is. They can’t be, it’s a shounen and they don’t get enough pagetime. The verbalised feminism is very clear in how the villains are framed, how much misogyny you can find among the evil characters. The implicit feminism, the better one, is very strong in the young male characters.

Unlike in a lot of hyper violent media targeted at boys, in juju you never have these lines about what a man should be. Or what it means to be a man, especially a true man. What is most important is that nothing like that is ever said to a teenage boy. On the side we’re meant to root for we get a lot of different men and none of them are labelled as “true”. They are there for readers to identify with, to model behaviour after. And because no teen in the manga has his masculinity questioned then no reader will have to question his. Juju won’t contribute to such insecurity for anyone, an insecurity that can turn violent irl.

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Girls in juju are people.

What’s more, all the teen guys in juju have extremely normal relationships with the girls around them. They just interact with them without any exaggerated awkwardness or this “girls are strange, we can’t bond with them unless we want to date them”. Among the teens, the new generation, the hope for the future, there’s no separation built between men and women. Not through words and not through actions.

The nonsexual, organic friendship, built on idiot to idiot communication, Yuuji and Nobara have, gives me life. And it happens despite Yuuji not understanding Nobara at first. Because it doesn’t matter that she’s different from him, they don’t dwell on it, they don’t try to make the differences into a big thing, into a rift. There’s no big arc of them working out their differences because these differences aren’t artificially blown up to underline some core differences between men and women. They can fail to understand each other totally but they can still be friends, they can still vibe with one another, care for one another. Femininity and masculinity don’t need to be some issues to deal with while forming a friendship between a guy and a girl.

It’s fascinating how Yuuji fighting together with Megumi isn’t half as exciting and organic as when he fights together with Nobara. Their strengths and powers compliment each other so well. I’m actually angry that Gege didn’t let them fight Mahito together longer. Even if they would’ve done to Nobara the same thing they did. Why not let them be epic together again? (I’m also super angry at what they did to Nobara, she better come back, fucking hell)

And it’s a pattern too. Despite Yuuji being very much socialised as a guy in a very patriarchal and sexist society, so much so that he has a type at 15 and hangs bikini posters on his walls, he hasn't turned girls into aliens in his mind. They are still just people in his head. When Yuuji interacts with a real woman the male socialisation isn’t deeply rooted enough to hinder him. It’s never an issue.

____________________

Toudou

Toudou tries to do this very masculine bonding thing with Yuuji and Yuuji is super confused by it. Because Yuuji’s relationships aren’t built on the concept of masculinity. And I mean Yuuji bonds with Toudou eventually because it’s Yuuji but we are shown the struggle when with Nobara or Megumi or Junpei it just happens. Also Yuuji is the only one who bonds with Toudou but that’s because Yuuji is compassion.

Toudou is generally disliked and his dumb male posturing contributes to that. Also in the Japanese context it’s very clear that Toudou is an unserious person and that’s how he’s meant to be perceived. If you have any doubt about that, the juju fanbook is there for you where Gege is very clear about that. Basically the idol thing is there to paint Toudou as immature. The whole conversation Megumi has with Toudou is a very clear lesson for teen boys. Be like Megumi and girls will like you, if you are a Toudou you’re a joke. You can be built and powerful and clever and still be a joke and girls won’t like you.

I like Toudou a lot btw, I actually think it’s funny that an 18yo boy thinks he reached some deeper truth about people because he knows what a fetish or kink is and he’s tactless enough to ask openly about it. It’s fucking hilarious but also some teen boys just be like that unironically. But I also like him because of how his character is framed and how he functions in the story. Because Toudou gives another important lesson to teen boys. A lesson about rejection. In the story he makes up in his head we see him confessing his feelings to Takada and she turns him down. And he just takes it. This is such an important message. In Japan stalking is a huge problem, stalkers murdering their victims is a problem. Men who feel entitled to women in such a violent way. And here we have a guy who gets rejected and takes the L with grace. And all he wants is for his best friend to console him.

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I’m very normal about Yuuji.

So the balls on Gege to name their typically shounen protag “calm compassion”, or maybe “endless humanity”, “endless compassion”, “quiet humanity”, all of the above? More?

Gojou says that to be a sorcerer one needs to be crazy. And he says that Yuuji has a few screws loose from the start. The thing is that yes, Yuuji is odd but not in the way the rest of the sorcerers are. So far in the manga Yuuji has never entered the state of mind that to my understanding Gojou is thinking about when he talks about being crazy. What I think Gojou means is this state of unhinged glee during the fight. And the ability to compartmentalise the fights and the kills.

So far in his fights Yuuji has been neutral, proud of himself when he was doing well, hyper focused, frustrated, desperate, depressed and filled with all-consuming rage. Never filled with unhinged glee. And he hasn’t compartmentalised any fight, any failure or any kill, not one, they all seep into a huge ball of guilt inside him. And it’s his kills and Sukuna’s together. Yuuji’s compassion is actively destroying him from the inside. Yuuji can’t disconnect from his humanity and that’s a basic job requirement for a sorcerer.

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Yuuji constantly shows how much emotional intelligence he has. When he defuses the situation with Junpei at the school. When Megumi finds out about Tsumiki going under the bridge. When he’s with Chousou. When he puts his depression on hold to help Megumi during the culling game. He shows understanding, emotional support, physical contact and prioritises the emotions of others over his own.

Compassion, empathy, responsiveness towards others, willingness to adjust and accommodate aren’t stereotypically masculine traits. No, they are culturally feminine in many places around the world, including Japan.

Yuuji is also passive and reactive despite being stronger than normal people, and that too is culturally more feminine than masculine. Yuuji doesn’t really have much of the shounen protag drive. It can be lit in him in the form of resilience or determination or rage but it’s not self-sustaining, reactive not proactive

And speaking of Japan and East Asia, what Yuuji is displaying can’t be written off as collectivism either. Because these reactions are personal, they aren’t towards the society at large. They aren’t giri aka a specifically culturally Japanese sense of duty, or any other of several similar concepts. There is no sense of duty or obligation in what Yuuji does, not on a group level. Yuuji says that he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if people got hurt because he didn’t try to get rid of Sukuna. For him it’s not because it’s the moral thing to do, or the right thing to do but because he’s concerned about the suffering of those people on this very empathetic level. As Nanami says: he genuinely gets upset on behalf of others.

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That might be why Yuuji isn’t really that popular as a character. Maybe that’s why people prefer Megumi who’s more typically masculine, stoic, distant, intellectual but also proactive and not reactive in his violence and values.

A lot of people consider Yuuji weak. They complain about how much he loses and how in most of his fights he gets carried by other characters, how they are actually the winning factor and not him.

I actually like that a lot. I think it makes the story interesting, it makes Yuuji interesting that he’s at his best when he’s not alone, that he’s actually doing best when he’s support. That his strength is in how he compliments others. I honestly don’t want him to change into a more typical shounen protagonist. Thematically the way his fights go suits him perfectly because humans are a social species, we thrive on cooperation. And if Yuuji is boundless humanity he shouldn’t stand alone.

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I’m very normal about Yuuji so it turned into a post about him. I swear this wasn’t the plan. The plan was to write about leftist propaganda. The other guys in juju are actually really cool too. Like Megumi, him constantly trying to figure out his values and reconcile what’s happening around him with them is great. Yuuta with his need to belong and justify himself is amazing. Chousou the family oriented sap (please survive baby). Hakari who said fuck you to the conservatives even though he wasn’t so well positioned as Gojou and it resulted in him getting ostracised. I’m not going to shout out everyone or go deeper into these characters but I really like how there isn’t one type of masculinity in juju.

I don’t know how much these are conscious choices by Gege, or how much it’s just their internalised leftism seeping through. But it’s nice. It feels good to read. And I hope that because the messaging isn’t always as didactic as with the Zen’in or the Kamo clans, that it’ll go down well and actually be this tiny crumb of feminism in the minds of 15yo boys who read it. And with how hype juju is atm, I hope that overt leftism will strengthen in the pop cultural mainstream directed at boys. And with it feminism.

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Could juju be better?

Of course, there’s no perfect work of art. No author is perfect and perfectly enlightened. No work is ever going to 100% match with anyone’s politics, sensibilities or expectations. etc etc. But I really think juju already does a lot. The fact that it’s open to a feminist reading is a lot. And I appreciate it for it.

I really wish juju was better on the queer stuff but I’m wary of assigning blame here. Idk if it’s Gege who misunderstands stuff and is uninformed and crude. Or is it because they write a shounen series for Shounen Jump a corporation which is averse to risk.

I really wish Kirara had a canon gender and identity. I wish Gege made an official call on Kenny’s gender as they did with Tengen. I wish Gege also clearly stated that Kenny is Yuuji’s mum because the fandom cishets are really twisting themselves into pretzels trying to come up with theories that the mum is actually some woman controlled by Kenny and not Kenny. I wish Gege made NobaMaki canon instead of drawing fanart of the ship and pretending it’s not what it looks like. And even though ItaFushi leaves me mostly cold I wish Megumi’s answer proved to be what all the itafushis headcanon it to be, even if it was to prove to be one sided. I wish I wish I wish.

#off topic #rambling #my ramblings #jjk #collecting my thoughts #i write out my adhd i'm sorry #i didn't even talk about character designs but i ran out of steam #i have extreme juju brainrot #this is the tip of the iceberg #i'm sure i forgot half the things i wanted to say #i will regret this in the morning

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childrensbread · 1 year

Text

The 7 Heavenly Virtues: Faith

Trials and Temptations

💜 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position.

But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower.

For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created. ~James 1:2-18 ✝️

Devotional

Part of the Christian life is seeking to cultivate and practice virtue. Virtue, at its core, is the essence of God's nature. God is the source of everything which is right, good and true. He is virtue personified.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be looking at the 7 heavenly virtues which have traditionally found themselves at the core of the Christian journey: Faith, hope, love, justice, moderation, courage and wisdom. As we contemplate them, our prayer is that we will grow in them. Why not commit to joining us?

If you and a friend who are a similar age, sit down for a coffee, and begin discussing the highs and lows of the Christian life, there would be no moment in the conversation where either party would say: "I want sorrow, struggle and sadness to be included in my walk with Jesus." There would be no plan or purpose that Jesus could present before us in our present that would cause us to willingly sign up and subscribe to a season of suffering.

However, if you were to have the same conversation with a seasoned saint, a mature believer, who has walked with the Lord for a considerable amount of time, they would tell you that picking and choosing the parts of your story according to your preferences would considerably limit your experience of seeing the ultimate good God has in mind for your life.

If this truth seems difficult to absorb, swallow or accept in the midst of your own fiery trial, today's verses found in the Book of James can help us in the hardest and harshest of trials. Wrestling with James' words help us heal, and hold us in our difficulties.

James encourages us to: "consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds".

This verse is easy to read, hear and pull out when we're stuck in the drive-thru or the coffee shop got your order wrong. Not so much when you're experiencing excruciating pain, never ending turmoil and unceasing heartache in your life.

To say we should be joyful about these situations can feel as though James doesn't understand our situation and it causes us to feel his words are overwhelmingly unrealistic. But James doesn't say, 'feel joy, but instead to intentionally consider where joy breaks through the cracks of our brokenness - in the midst of our pain and heartbreak.

To put it simply, experiencing joy in our life rises and falls on whether we have faith in God in the middle of what our minds can't accept as good at all. We can be quick to project the hopelessness of our circumstances onto God, and judge God's faithfulness based on isolated events, rather than the promised eventual purpose God can bring from the most hopeless of situations.

The cross you bear, will be the crown you wear. Why? Because your pain will not be a scar of shame, but a scar of glory.

Remember, Jesus' grip on you is tighter than anything you face. He can use your trial to work something in you that is beautiful that has a huge impact on you and those around you. So that even the most difficult things in your life will be used for your good and for His glory. 🙏💜🙂

Source: Glorify App

Image: The Dyrt

My Glorify Referral Link: https://share.glorify-app.com/MRSPINO777 ✝️

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metvmorqhoses · 3 years

Note

I understand you like villains, but the Darkling is a manipulative and abusive person who doesn't care about Alina. He only wants to use and enslave her. Even the small nice things he does are manipulation. Their ship isn't healthy. Alina belongs with Mal.

look, the darkling is a thousands of years old ethereal being who almost completely lost any form of attachment to his humanity, being completely lost in the rivers of time and of his own devouring power, with the sole exception of a loosely defined sense of patriotism (which is filtered by altered, almost god-like morals that cannot be understood nor can apply to normal human beings), and his recognition in alina of his only equal mate, his only place of belonging in endless oceans of solitude, recognition that deeply unsettles and enrages him at first (after all she is an oblivious child and he an ancient superhuman), but that he’s too mature and intelligent not to accept and respect in earnest in his own way.

so, saying that he doesn’t care about alina and that he’s only there to play with a naive girl’s head to obtain her power, is nothing but sheer oversimplification and lack of understanding of his character.

of course he constantly manipulates her, he’d manipulate reality itself given the chance, that’s the way he navigates the world, through power, coldness and charisma. i think it’s quite obvious he thinks best being in control of everything important, he is the one having the bigger picture after all, he’s everything he has ever had since remote times, he’s been alone in his godly point of view for thousands of years, it’s only natural he thinks his agenda and opinions superior to those of a bunch of children (the king himself to him is but a child). in his eyes, he is the centuries-old man and she is but a precious little girl in whose hands the very reason of his every battle and hope is being placed by fate. his succeeding in having her power by his side is capital for him, after all his ambition and distance from humanity is endless, and so is his desperation. that’s why he opts for the most effective way to ensure having it (putting the collar on her, being sure to be in control and not subjected to the whims of a teenager). honestly, from his point of view, this is simply mere logic and effectiveness, nothing particularly evil or personal. let’s not forget he was hoping all along she would join him willingly.

yet, leaving aside the political agenda, the very fact that he does take the time to “manipulate” alina, that he cares enough to spend himself, the detached uncaring god, to try his best to be liked by her, to be admired and somehow understood by her, even to confess himself in his own subtle way full of half-truths, is the proof that he does care for the person behind the power he so much craves. there’s literally no pragmatic reason to charm someone you already have de facto captive in your own guarded palace and that you plan to enslave, if you don’t somehow crave her attachment. she fashinates him, she unsettles him. she reminds him of who he used to be. what we perceive as manipulation is his immoral and very wrong way of caring. he probably believes she would never love the real him, he probably thinks she would flee screaming. and, honestly, he wasn’t that wrong after all.

yet he craves and he tries to touch this light from his abyss of darkness, he’s anything but cold indifference. his manipulation probably wants to have many different effects on alina, that don’t necessarily exclude one another. one simple act of manipulation can have the aim to secure her trust in order to claim her power more easily and can at the same time aim to make her simply smile. these two facts can peacefully coexist in such a man’s mind. the first doesn’t make the second less real or important.

asking mal for her favorite flowers and then giving them to her himself can be a way of charming her and can be a way to literally give her her favorite flowers. It’s undoubtedly a petty move, yet very effective and even somehow funny if we shed the very popular woke indignation. it’s something very childish and very human to do. this is not so much political scheming as it is kindergarten rivalry, if we are honest with ourselves. in the darkling’s mind, the end always justifies the means and the evil plan behind giving alina her favorite flowers stealing the information from her sweetheart or reading their letters, is being able to get to her heart in the easiest way possible, disregarding every rule because he thinks himself above them all.

i’m honestly astonished adults don’t seem able to understand that the darkling wanting alina’s power and aiming to be in control of it, having his way in everything, and the darkling loving her are not only compatible truths but also in many ways codependent ones.

and how lame constantly labeling every unusual relationship “unhealthy” as if that would immediately rule out their right to beauty or complexity. especially in fiction, adults should have the right, the agency, to have their disgustingly unhealthy relationships in peace, without moralists constantly trying to diminish what they share because of it. the majority of fascinating things in art and in life are unhealthy. grow up. the women in these relationships are not fragile little flowers, they can deal with abysmality, they can even enjoy it. you are taking their choice and their own complexities away from them.

and really, in this very case don’t even have me started with mal. his love confession at the end of shadow and bone was cringe-worthy. “now i see you, alina”. like literally this boy fucked everyone that moved but alina, who lived for him and who clearly needed help because she was literally rotting away, and yet he didn’t even know she existed until she became important and famous, then proceeding to shame her for it in the little palace, only in the end to confirm his shallowness by saying “now that you are basically a goddess personified i see you”, and she is even supposed to deeply appreciate that? seriously? is this the healthy love you want women to lower their heads to? not to mention the only thing that keeps that love barely lukewarm is alina’s childhood trauma and obsessive attachment to the only person who was with her during those hard times. what a fairy tale.

in short, nothing wrong in having banal points of view, to each their own i suppose, but i’d appreciate if you’d avoid coming in other people’s inboxes acting like the moral artistic police when you clearly even lack the means to do it. thank you.

#shadow and bone #the grisha trilogy #the darkling #darklina #books #anon #one and one thousands stories lis told #villains

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nikethestatue · 3 years

Note

Hey, love yours Elriel posts! You write so beautifully! It's a delight to read your one shots and fanfics. Was wondering if you could write something about Azriel having an insecure moment and Elain reassuring him which leads to them having their first time.

Thank you so much! Here you go!

An Elriel one-shot.

When Stars Were Falling

The party inside was in full swing, people coming in and out of the House of Wind, drunk on champagne, on the afterglow of the falling stars, on this magical evening.

Elain, picking up the hem of her cobalt velvet gown, made her way out onto the terrace.

She’d noticed Azriel’s face after the announcement. She’d known how he felt, even if his expression remained stoic and emotionless. But the eyes…the eyes were a giveaway. The eyes ached with pain, and disappointment, and such longing, that even across the room, she felt that gaze lacerate her heart.

If only he understood that this wasn’t her fault. That she had no idea. She was just as shocked, as surprised and as unsettled as he was. Yet she felt unbearable guilt, for whatever reason. As if she’d been lying to him all this time. He was a rational male, and there was no way that he would be blaming her for this turn of events, but she sensed that something snapped into him. He plunged into a darkness that was deeper and thicker and more dangerous than any of his natural brooding.

Up and down the balconies and terraces she searched, her high-heeled strappy sandals only a hinderance to the search. Once she moved to the darker, less-prominent side of the house, there were fewer people around, and she hiked up her skirt above the knee and launched into a veritable run. Gods, she hoped that he didn’t fly away. Her winnowing abilities left much to be desired, and she had no idea how to winnow to a male who did not want to be found. Last thing she needed was to get lost in the folds of the universe where even Rhysand wouldn’t be able to find her.

She found him at last.

Azriel. Her Azriel.

Alone, he was sitting on the balcony, upon the stone railing with his feet dangling off of it, and he seemed unperturbed by the dark chasm below him. His wings, usually tightly pressed and meticulously cared for were drooping limply behind him, dust and debris smudged over the delicate membrane.

“Azriel,” she said softly, so not to startle him.

He did not turn to her, though the shadows skittered away, allowing the two of them privacy. She was glad for it. She didn’t want to think that he needed them around her, to protect him from her.

“You left,” she noted the obvious. Her palms were sweaty. This new Fae body of hers certainly wasn’t terribly useful when it came to preventing her fingers from shaking, her breath from stalling, her heart from hammering in her breast.

“I was there for Starfall,” he reminded her listlessly.

She looked at the dark sky, and said, “They are still falling.”

“I’ve seen this for 520 years…” he shrugged.

“And you no longer see the beauty in all of it?” she pressed, coming closer.

“Perhaps appreciating beauty such as this isn’t a gift that is given to a bastard-born maimed nobody like me,”

“Azriel!” she exclaimed, horrified at the words, at the hate that she heard in his dark, controlled voice.

“Elain,” he whirled to her, “please leave.”

He’d never been so blunt with her. Never said something like this to her face. She always assumed that he never wanted her to leave his side.

“Why?” she pleaded.

“You’ll be a High Lady,” he spat. “Mated to the heir to Day Court! What do you want with me?”

She cried, “I didn’t know! Lucien didn’t know! Nobody,”

“But it’s irrelevant, isn’t it? You still are. Congratulations, by the way,” his tone was somber, but resentful too. Mocking. “The golden crown of Day would look lovely on you. You are sunshine personified,” he chuckled bitterly. “It only makes sense. The Cauldron, after all, doesn’t make mistakes. It’s never wrong.”

She walked across the balcony and stopped at his side.

“Look at me,” she demanded.

“I’d rather not.”

“Please,” she reached out to touch his shoulder, but he flinched away, as if she was going to burn him with her fingertips.

“Elain, I will humbly request that you leave,” he said curtly. “Please. I will deal with this myself, as I see fit. I know exactly what I am. What my role is. I am the spymaster for the High Lord of the Night Court. Someone I thought of as a brother, but who betrayed me, hid things from me that he ought to have revealed so not to play with my heart and emotions,”

Her throat bobbed, but it was not her place to defend Rhys. This was between the two of them. All she wanted to do was to reach and gently tug on his jacket, to ensure that he did not fly away from her, from the conversation.

“I am no heir. I am not fit to be mated to you. To be loved by you. To be chosen by you. I know it now. I think that I’ve known it always…”

Tears streaked down her cheeks.

“I am sorry that I am making you cry,” he sighed. “That I could never make you happy.”

“Az,”

He finally turned to her and then gently, tenderly ran his scarred thumb over her cheek, catching her tears.

“I am sorry, Elain. You deserve it all. You deserve the world. You certainly deserve to be the High Lady of Day. You deserve Helion as your father-in-law and Lucien as your mate, as your husband,”

“I do,” she nodded solemnly.

Perhaps he wasn’t expecting this simple agreement from her, but he looked at her with some surprise, his scarred hand still cradling her cheek, her jaw.

So, he couldn’t keep away, after all. Elain maintained her expression, but her heart beat a little faster.

“I do,” she repeated, nodding slowly, as if considering her thoughts.

“You do,” he concurred.

She looked away, at the falling stars that streaked across the sky.

“There is only one problem,”

The harsh skin of his palm scraped the tender skin of her cheek when his hand tightened on her face a little.

“I don’t want to be a High Lady. Not unless you are a High Lord. Perhaps,” she mused, “we are missing a Court? Maybe you should become the High Lord of Dusk…”

Everything in Azriel stilled. His hazel eyes darkened. His body tensed, coiling around her every word.

“That’s the only way I would be a High Lady,”

She continued, in the same light tone, “I do know a secret.”

“Another secret?”

“Well, I didn’t know about that other secret. But I do know another…”

“Tell me?”

“Aren’t you the spymaster? Do you want to venture a guess?”

He sighted, looking exhausted and shook his head no.

“What secret, Elain?” he pressed. “Please,”

“The Cauldron does make mistakes,” she offered simply.

She threaded her fingers with his and pressed his palm to her cheek, and then kissed it. Kissed the inside of his palm, then the hand.

“It made a mistake with a bastard born nobody Illyrian and a human girl who didn’t like and feared the Fae. It made a colossal mistake when it decided that this girl could ever love anybody but this Illyrian. Because that’s all she could do. She loves his scarred hands and his scarred, tormented heart, and his beautiful brain, and his smile,” she kissed his hand with each proclamation. “She loves his glorious wings, and, if she is being honest, his face doesn’t hurt either—not that she is vain or anything,”

“No.”

He exhaled a shaking breath.

“Anything else she loves?”

“Oh, yes,” Elain took his other hand, and began her slow barrage of kisses anew, “she loves his humour, and she even loves his walk…The Illyrian saunters, did you know that?”

He cocked his brow, “Saunters?”

“Yes. Very distinct walk. You know, sometimes, when he isn’t watching, she’ll play with his shadows?”

“He does know that,” he chuckled. “The shadows don’t listen, and sneak out to play with the girl,”

She stepped closer, and her breath bathed his ear, when she whispered, “And she wants those shadows to glide over her naked body when their master is inside of her,”

Azriel started, breathless.

A wild, teasing glint lit up her brown eyes when she pulled away,

“I want you, Azriel. I choose you. I need you. No one else. Never anybody else. Never.”

“Elain, do you understand,”

“I understand,” she interrupted him. “I know what I am doing. If I am going to walk the path of Eternity with someone, it would be you. Only you. My love. No High Lady titles or riches could ever sway me.”

She looked at him and then, through the tears that were streaming down her face, she smiled and said,

“Kiss me, you stupid man. Male. Whatever. Shadowsinger. Azriel. Because I love you.”

And he did.

Because he loved her too.

When Azriel winnowed them to Hewn City, into its dark palatial glory and into his bedroom, Elain had no hesitations. It was always going to be the two of them. Bonds and Cauldrons be damned.

In the frenzy of the next few days, her clearest recollection was that of his voice.

It’s his fucking voice.

Azriel and his damned midnight voice, that flowed over her like the velvet of her favorite dress, smoothing along her lips, her neck, and down down down her body, where it whispered and praised and instructed and paid homage to every little part of her. Elain listened to that voice, tempering it with the way her hips tilted up to meet his thrusts and loved how it deepened for her… Dragging her nails down his back and listening to his voice groan and delight in her. She moaned, moaned, moaned for him and came to his every touch and heard how he applauded her. Yes love. Just like that. Good, good, good. Again, again, again. Elain, Elain, Elain. And the I love you that ruined her every single time he parted his lips and told her.

#elriel #elriel fanfiction #elriel fanfic #elain and azriel #elain x azriel #elain acheron #elain archeron fanfction #azriel

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alyxia91 · 3 years

Text

In A Million Years

Soft Bakugou, because there’s something I love about the thought of this tough guy absolutely melting for someone. I’m sorry it’s kind of a long, slow-burn. I ramble. I’m working on it.

When you first met Bakugou, you were undeniably intimated. How could you not be? He was anger, pride and explosions personified. You wondered if standing too close was a hazard to your health, if not physically, mentally. But as time went on and you became more accustomed to his personality, you found that that red hot anger wasn’t scorching you, rather drawing you in and keeping you warm. Small, barely there conversations in passing grew enough to where you could confidently say he was a friend, and someone you relied on - you hoped he felt the same. You didn’t notice the sideways glances he would send your way, or the faint blush that would flush across his face whenever you smiled at him. How he wished he would be the only one you smiled at, the only one to hold your attention. But you were too nice, while not overly popular by the typical standard, it was fair to say everyone liked you, including the explosive future hero. Those feelings only continued to grow as you progressed through your years at UA, both of you drawing closer and closer to each other subconsciously. He didn’t notice that he spoke to you differently, softer than anyone else; and you never realized that you were almost always touching him in some way - a hand on his arm, fingers brushing against each other.

Neither of you noticed that you’d fallen in love with each other.

It wasn’t until a fight against the League of Villains that those feelings were violently pushed to the forefront, when you got seriously injured.

The fight had been typical, if not chaotic. Everyone was doing their best to keep themselves alive while fighting. You were no different, your shadow fiends fighting at a distance while you kept up inn hand-to-hand combat. Thank God you practiced against Bakugou frequently - otherwise you doubted you’d be able to keep up. The years of training also prevented too much energy being wasted keeping your multiple shadow fiends active - it was a skill you wanted to grow further. You’d gone up from having one out for a few minutes to having multiples out for hours. Right now, you had 13 running around fighting and defending.

Explosions sounded to your left - you didn’t have to look to know it was Bakugou. Even in scenarios like this, somehow he was never too far from you, always keeping an eye on you. Unfortunately, that eye missed Tomura coming towards him, arm stretched out and hand reaching to grab at his face. You, however, noticed the movement in your peripheral, and with a swift kick to the stomach of whatever moronic douchebag you were fighting, launched yourself towards the pair. Your left arm stretching as far as you could make it, desperately trying to stop Tomura from making contact.

This resulted in your left hand grabbing his, your arm crossing over his body as an additional barrier. Pain erupted from your finger tips and you watched as your palm and fingers turned to dust. The pain shot up your arm, nerve endings for limbs you were quickly loosing firing desperate warnings to get the hell out. Glitching your jaw, you willed a sword, a mace, ANYTHING strong to be formed with your right hand - by some grace an axe pulled itself from your fingertips, the purple smoke billowing off of it the only indication that you had created it. Without a second to think, you swung the axe across your arm, severing in and stopping the decay.

A different kind of pain shot through you, and before you truly knew what was happening, you stop up and pout your palm to Tomura’s chest. You met his eyes, and the maniacle grin he had on his face was enough to drive you to send all of your shadow fiends to him. With the strongest push you could muster, you distanced yourself from him just as they arrived to swarm him. You turned to look at Bakugou, to make sure he was okay, safe...alive, and you were met with easily the most wild eyes you had ever seen. You’d never found him particularly easy to read, but right now there were so many emotions flashing through his eyes you wondered if every emotion he’d ever felt was in there.

“Suki...” you whispered, suddenly too tired to speak properly. “You - you - what the hell did you - are you crazy?! You idiot! You could have-” Whatever he was saying was drowned out by a ringing in your ears, suddenly so loud and overwhelming you had to close your eyes. You dipped your head, an attempt to hide it to block out everything. “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop” you whimpered, desperate for the pain to cease; and just as suddenly, it did.

You awoke hours later, the repetitive beeping of a heartrate monitor letting you know where you were. ‘Goddamnit. It’s been so long since I was here...thought I was doing better’ you thought, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. You signed, resigning yourself to your fate. You made the decisions, you would live with the consequences. The door opening caused you to blink, pulling you out of the aimless thoughts. Bakugou walked in, silent and looking exhausted. He paused when he saw you try to sit up, falling slightly when you tried to lean on where your left hand used to be. Three large steps brought him to your side, helping you sit up properly.

You two sat in silence, neither really sure what to say. He had almost died, and you had lost a hard and most of your lower arm to save him, as well as almost dying yourself. What could either of you say? You opened your mouth, only to close it again. Unsure of what else to do, you reached across and places your left hand on top of his, slightly uncomfortable with the twisting of your body. The contact broke him, and you saw his eyes shut tightly before a small cry erupted from his lips. Tears fell and he grabbed your hand, desperate to hold on to you, to remind himself that you hadn’t died. He brought your hand up to his lips, kissing them and resting them there, his warm breath tickling your fingers.

“You are so stupid....so so stupid” he said, desperately trying to control his breathing, “you can’t do shit like that...you can’t...I can’t...you...you..” panicked breathes interrupted each word, his grip tightening with each attempt at breathing. “Katsuki, I need you to breath honey - I can barely understand you” you said softly, voice somehow not wavering despite the emotions welling in your throat “copy my breathing, yeah? Look at me” He shook his head, terrified that you’d disappear and this would all be a dream. "I’m not going anywhere. I promise I’m here” you said, tightening your grip slightly to help reassure him. A deep inhale through his nose followed before he finally lifted his head and looked at you. Even here, after you’d lost so much blood, you were beautiful. He’d never get tired of looking at you - and he almost lost you. In the blink of an eye, his entire world was almost gone. “I’m so sorry” you said, keeping your eyes connected with his “I didn’t think, I just saw you were about the die and I reacted. I didn’t think how it might affect you. I’m so...so sorry Katsu” “Please...please don’t ever do anything like that again. I can’t....I can’t see that again. You were dying in front of me and I couldn’t do anything. The only thing I could do was cause more damage to -” he stopped, and looked down at your arm. You followed his gaze, realizing for the first time just how much of your arm you had lost. Just before your elbow, a diagonal line towards the outer part of your arm. “Couldn’t do a clean line huh? Well done’ you chastised yourself. “You were bleeding so much...so much...Todoroki was too far away, but we had something to close the wound. I...I had to try...it wouldn’t stop..” ‘He cauterized it’ you realized. Your body tensed with the realization, guilt overwhelming you.

Bakugou felt you tense beneath his hands, his body immediately doing the same. Were you angry? Did you hate him? He didn’t want to do it...he didn’t want to hurt you. But you were dying there, bleeding out in front of him and - “You saved my life, Katsu. I’m sorry I put your in a position to have to do that” “I’m sorry” he said suddenly, feeling overwhelmed and undeserving of your apologies “If I had been paying more attention. This wouldn’t have happened. I was too busy making sure you were safe. If I’d been paying attention, you’d have your arm...your life wouldn’t have changed. I’m sorry. I’m sorry” tears welled up in his eyes again, guilt crushing his heart and pulling hi away from you.

“Hey, hey. Katsu...Katsu please stop. I’m not mad at you, I’d never blame you for this. We both made it, yeah? You saved me. I’m awake and here with you, because of you, okay? I’m still me. I don’t hate you, or think that you should have done something differently. If anything I should have done things differently. But, I will ALWAYS try to save you. That I won’t apologize for. You’re too important to feel any remorse for saving” Bakugou stayed silent, absorbing your words. He kissed your fingers again before standing up, and laying your hand down across the bed. No longer twisting, you sat up straighter, worried that he was going to leave. Instead, and to your utter surprised, he moved one arm behind your back, and another under your knees, lifting you up and maneuvering himself beneath you on your bed. He opened his legs, placing you between them before wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you against his chest.

“You are so stupid” he mumbled into your neck “you’re too important to throw your life around like that. I won’t survive if something happens to you. I can’t. I need you here, with me. Got that?” Heat engrossed your face, butterflies erupting in your stomach as you processed his words. You nodded, placing your right arm over his and intertwining your fingers. “I’m sorry” you whispered again. He responded by pulling you closer to him, bodies impossibly together. You felt his left arm release, coming down to lift yours up to inspect. You relaxed, letting him examine the bandaged limb. He didn’t say anything, he just let his fingers gently run across the bandage, You signed before inhaling deeply, imagining what your hand used to look like. Suddenly, purple smoke wrapped itself around the wound, molding itself into the missing arm and hand. Bakugou pulled away, eyes widening as the smoke solidified, leaving a purple arm and hand. Experimentally, you wiggled the fingers, excitement coursing through you as you saw them move, felt them against the palm. Bakugou reached forward, expecting his hand to pass through it - but was shocked when you came into contact with solid warmth. It felt like your other hand...exactly the same. Another cry passed his lips and you curled your fingers around his hand, squeezing lightly. Tears hit your shoulder, and your body shook with his as he cried, not even attempting to hide it. His arms wrapped around you again, hugging you tightly.

“I love you. I love you so much” he said, hiccupping softly

“I love you too Katsu”

He hugged you tighter still, willing your body to mold into his own

“I’m never letting you go. I’m never letting you get hurt again”

“Katsu, I’m going to get hurt”

“No. Not like this. Anything more than a papercut is too much” he grumbled against your neck, lips whispering over your skin “And if paper cuts you I’ll destroy it” You couldn’t help but smile. You knew it was an impossible promise to keep, but you also knew he’d move heaven and earth to keep it. “I promise to try to avoid those kinds of situations from now on, okay?” “You fuckin’ better...” he muttered, finally kissing your neck. You turned towards him, eyes sparkling and a smile on your face., his expression mirroring yours. You were both beyond exhausted, but damnit you were so happy.

“I can’t -” he started, only to stop himself “Katsu?” He didn’t say anything, just leaned forward and kisses you, soft and careful. Scared to shatter you, scared of seeing your skin turning to dust again. You smiled into the kiss, tightening your grip on his arms around your midsection; a sign that you weren’t going anywhere, that you wouldn’t break. He understood, and deepened the kiss. Hold you against him. Holding you where you belonged; and he was never letting you go. Never in a million years.

#katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou x y/n #bakugou katsuki #katsuki x you #mha #mha x reader #mha x you #bakugou #no beta read #bakugou fluff #bakugou angst

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yelenasdog · 4 years

Text

the pillowtalk of a pessimist (spencer reid x fem reader)

genre: fluff with a millisecond of angst

summary: pillowtalk takes an interesting turn for spencer at the mention of the harsh realities of his work.

words: 1.3k, she’s a shorty.

warnings: nsfw themes (nothing smutty, it’s just implied and also directly stated that they slept together), typical criminal minds violence + death, and maybe cursing? idk.

a/n: btw this isn’t the fic i was ranting on about that i’m writing, she’s still in the works. also! this could be an x oc or anybody bc i didn’t use y/n if you would prefer to read it as such.

🂦∙🂦∙🂦

A pale stream of moonlight shone through the open window of apartment 23, the home of Doctor Spencer Reid. It illuminated a small section of his bedroom, specifically on one of his many floor to ceiling bookshelves, a beacon of knowledge that was there 24/7 for the taking.

The gold engravings on the spines of his many reads shimmered, a beautiful contrast to the dark mahogany the shelf was made out of.

The room smelled like a mixture of his cologne, her perfume (Chanel no. 5, specifically), and the results of their previous affairs that lingered in the crisp air of the night.

She took a deep breath, settling down further into the white duvet, pulling it over her bosom in response to the chilly temperature. The dark green walls of the room welcomed and calmed her, overwhelming the girl with a wave of serenity that could only be brought to her by him.

He quickly took note of her unsteady breathing and shift in position, immediately jumping to action. He pulled her closer by her shoulders with his strong arms, eliciting a squeal from her and a chuckle from him, more so at her reaction than the move itself.

Her head laid on his bare chest, her hair splayed out with half of it residing on his pillow, the other half on his bicep. She could have appeared to be an angel, although in his eyes, she truly was.

She rested her hand on the left side of his chest over his heart, her fingernail ghosting shapes on his tanned skin. Circles, squiggly lines, even abstract faces.

“How do you do it?”

Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. If his hearing wasn’t so acute, he was sure he would have missed it. This would have saddened the genius greatly, as he valued everything she had to say with a burning ferocity, and even one word lost would be a shame.

“What?”

He was confused by the nature of the question, attempting to search every corner of his brilliant brain for what she might have been referencing. Was it an equation? No, she hated math. Perhaps the way he so effortlessly could play any instrument because yet again, math. He decided that couldn’t be the subject at question either, she played better than he did, glorious melodies flowed from her fingertips. So the doctor was truly stumped.

The answer was simpler than he had imagined.

“Your job.”

With those doe eyes he was so fond of, she looked up, meeting his own glance.

If the term “heart eyes” was able to be personified, Spencer would be the guy to personify it whenever his eyes landed on the one in front of him.

“What do you mean? I get up in the morning, drink some coffee, and get to it.”

She giggled, but the sound he loved so much ceased with her pout.

“That’s not what I mean, Spence. How do you go on everyday, seeing body after body,” she trailed off, obviously distraught. Spencer wrapped his large hand tighter around her, placing his chin on her hairline.

“How do you consistently manage to look at these victims, these people, with lives that they never got to finish living-“ A tear slipped down her cheek, she bit her bottom lip, tasting her own salty droplets on her tongue. She sniffled, burying her head further in his neck with what he presumed was shame.

“And not break down when you do.” Her voice was muffled, but the emotions she felt were evident nonetheless.

He took a moment to carefully articulate an appropriate response. The gears in his mind turned ever so diligently, finding a solution to dry her tears.

“It’s not much different than what I initially said. I get up in the morning, drink some coffee.”

He pushed a hair away from her face, admiring her distinct features as he often did. She looked up, moving her left hand to trace his sharp jaw as he sat in thought.

“And I realize that these people that are now dead, are a part of the hundreds, of throusands, of millions of people that die every year. It’s a part of life, what gives it meaning.”

She gave a dry, humourless laugh.

“What, you don’t have a specific statistic for that?”

“Oh, I do, but I don’t think you want to hear it.” He tilted his head, weighing the option of disclosing the information but deciding against it.

“But the bottom line is, they have families. Families that are grieving, and hurting, and needing answers and justice. I cannot do my job and give them the closure they deserve if I’m staying focused on my own emotions and delving deep into who the victims were, rather than how to catch those responsible for hurting them.”

She moved on to her back, stilling managing to keep her eye contact with Spencer.

“But you’re a profiler! That’s what you do! You’re supposed to, what did you call it, ‘delve deep’ into who they are.”

“Pretty girl, are you trying to tell the one with 3 doctorates how to do his job?”

She rolled her eyes, lazily throwing a hand on his neck, right behind his ear. She ran it back and forth, savoring the intimate moment.

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up, Agent.” She taunted, poorly trying (and failing) to agitate Spencer. She had a hunch (that was more true than either of them would let on) that it wasn’t possible for her to do so, and he found himself proving it to be correct.

“I just had to learn to let the family do what they had to do so that I could do the same.”

The girl’s tone softened as she spoke, staring at the popcorn ceiling.

“I guess so. I’m just too empathetic, my heart is too pure.” She joked, a feathery laugh falling past both of their lips.

“Of course. I would expect nothing less.” He teased back, enjoying the dynamic they both held in the tender moment.

“You amaze me.” She muttered, leaning in, analyzing him and his ruffled post-sex hair, his gorgeously long lashes, and his light 5 o’clock shadow that donned his chin.

He huffed quietly, doing the exact same thing, minus the scruff of course.

“I could say the same to you, pretty girl.”

Their lips connected once again, in a different manner than the feverish and needy kiss from before.

This time, it was a union of two individuals, allowing themselves to mould together in a way only the two of them could. It was slower and sweeter, with more feeling poured into their lips while they moved in sync.

“M’ tired.”

“Yeah? You wanna go to sleep, bubs?”

She grinned as she snuggled into his arms, her exhausted eyes fluttering to a close.

“Bubs, huh? That’s new.”

A worried frown made its way onto his face as he rushed to cover up his previous words.

“D-do you not like it? I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable-“

“Spence.”

He stopped, looking over her for any microexpressions, only seeing positive signs. That wasn’t technically profiling, right? He hoped he would be in the clear if she ever was to find out.

“I love it, baby. Say it again.”

“Bubs?”

“Mhm. Say it again.” She sounded with content. He smirked, a proud feeling infiltrating his body, causing him to puff up his chest in the slightest way.

“Goodnight, bubs.”

He reached up, his paranoia forcing him to close the window above him, despite being a more than qualified FBI agent with a revolver safely tucked away in the top drawer of his night stand that never quite was shut all the way.

It was just the pessimist in him.

She wrapped around his figure, intertwining his form with her own.

“Sleep well, Spence.”

He felt happy with her, happier than he had been in a long time. He relished in that, allowing it to lull him to a well needed rest.

But what could he say, she just brought out the optimist in him.

🂦∙🂦∙🂦

hj posting at a time that isn’t 3 am?????? unheard of. also i may or may not have pulled an all nighter to write whatever tf this is bc my ex posted something with his new gf and i felt pathetic LMAO. anyway, i hope your day is fabulous, go drink some water and remember things are what you make of them and it’s all about intent! love you, xx hj.

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raplinesmoon · 3 years

Text

Burn After Reading (KSJ x F!Reader) - II. Birkins in Busan

Pairing: Kim Seokjin x Female Reader

Genres: action, heavy angst

AUs: exes-to-lovers, spy!AU

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: so much... regret, pining, mentions of sex, mentions of past relationship, breaking and entering, OC and Seokjin are lowkey jerks for deceiving poor sweet Jimin but that’s the name of the game, poor spy tactics because idk how spies work

Ratings: R

Summary: The agency made the biggest mistake they ever could by trusting Kim Seokjin one more time. You weren’t going to do the same.

A/N: Welcome to Chapter 2! This is heavily unedited, so please bear with me, but I get so excited writing these two because my heart just hurts along with them. I hope you enjoy! Lots of love, Isi 💜

Crossposted to AO3 here.

Previous Chapter | Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

Where spies go, humidity follows. Or that’s how it seems as you’re met with the briny tang of the sea air and the suffocating smell of seafood.

Seokjin is once again at the wheel, maneuvering you both to your next destination. You don’t know why it’s so easy to slip back into this comfortable pattern, to make your peace with the fact that he’s back for good. That the agency wants its star team reassembled once again.

None of this takes away from the fact that your body is heavy, and your limbs have devolved into a mass of jelly (Seokjin loves jellies, you remember fondly). The headaches haven’t stopped since Havana. Your lives are now irrevocably intertwined once more.

For better or for worse. Till death do you part.

You stop before your thoughts can wander into even more dangerous territory than the city you find yourself in right now.

4 Hyehwa-daero-2-gil, Yeongson-dong 1. Destination is in sight.

Park Jimin has the same infectious energy as Hoseok. Sunshine personified, except this time, there are no dark clouds looming over the horizon.

You know he’s innocent, a poor soul who’s become an unsuspecting prey in this game of predators.

“Lovely to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Choi! Thank you for taking some time out of your busy day to take a look at the property. It’ll be a greater starter apartment for newlyweds like yourself.”

You want to vomit. You suppose there’s no other excuse for you two. Falling back on Seokjin has always been a reflex, like riding a bike again after a long time. He’s somebody you know too intimately to ever forget, regardless of how much space you try to put in between you.

Seokjin’s smile is gentle yet blinding at the same time.

“Thank you Mr. Park, we’re so excited and honoured to see the home that could potentially be the start of our new lives together.”

He’s laying it on thick, you think. But he’s not entirely lying.

You follow Jimin up the winding staircase of the building as he leads you down a hall and stops in front of a shabby, wooden door, not unlike every other door in this building. Apartment 412.

The harmless facade betrays the simple apartment, for you know this place is a house of lies. A former outpost for the trafficking ring run by the man who’s currently hunting you while you’re hunting him.

Pulling your burner phone out of your black Birkin bag, you shoot Jimin an attractive smile, and you visibly see him gulp.

“The apartment is absolutely beautiful! You don’t mind if we take a few pictures just to help us make a decision?”

“No, not at all.” Jimin grins, stepping towards the door. “I’ll be outside by the car and leave you two to look around. I hope everything’s to your liking.”

As he leaves, you turn to Seokjin and nod. Now the real mission can begin.

Legend states that Yeongdo District used to be named after the legendary “cheollima”, mythical horses that possessed such speed and unfiltered raw talent, their shadows couldn’t even keep up with them.

Looking at Seokjin, you can see why. Recon has always been his specialty. He’s always been able to hide behind that handsome face of his. While normally any ordinary person walking down the street would do a double take at him, he’s always been able to shoot a stunning smile and wink their way in order to placate them. No questions asked.

The both of you move through the apartment sneakily and swiftly, gloves on, snapping pictures of anything and everything in sight. Lingering long enough to leave Jimin convinced you’re really looking for a forever home.

You step out onto the balcony. The sea is visible on the horizon, and just for a moment, you close your eyes, letting yourself breathe in the briny air.

——————————————————————————

“Nice view, isn’t it?,” a clear voice rings out.

Your breath comes out in heavy pants, and you want to collapse. You turn to see the intruder that’s encroached on your quiet break.

The sight of him nearly has you falling to the floor. Dark hair frames the most perfectly angular face you’ve ever seen, with plush lips you’re yearning to feel against your own. His broad shoulders block the surrounding countryside from view, until all you can focus on his musky scent, tinged with sweat and also the sweet smell of flowers.

“Kim Seokjin. I’m a fellow recruit. ” He extends a hand, lifting you up to a stand. “I saw you out on the field today, your skills were quite impressive.”

“____. I know about you, Kim. The academy was all abuzz with the news of a handsome new recruit who arrived over the weekend.”

“Oh, so you agree that I’m handsome?” He smirks, but you can see the genuine sparkle in his eyes.

“It’s too bad that we have all this training to go through. It’d be fun to sneak out and enjoy the scenery a bit, wouldn’t it?”

“We’re here to train. There’s no time to just enjoy the scenery, we have a job to do.”

“We’re human beings, not robots ___. If you ever change your mind and decide you wanna explore a little, you know where to find me. I look forward to working with you agent.”

He winks and spins on his heel, leaving you far more breathless than target practice ever could.

——————————————————————————

The memory nearly knocks the wind out of you. You feel tears pool in your eyes. It’s been so long since that fateful moment. So much has changed since then.

“____? I’m in the kitchen, I think I found something.”

You feel disembodied, letting your footsteps lead you to the sound of Seokjin’s voice.

He looks so at home, so domestic in the tiny kitchen, and your heart aches. It all comes crashing back to you.

Late nights spent in the recruits’ kitchen, Seokjin whipping up a batch of ramen to soothe your tired souls.

Giggles and hushed whispers as the two of you ran out into the night, exchanging secrets under the cover of darkness.

Stolen kisses after target practice, as he slams you into the wall and crashes his lips into yours.

The scratchiness of his cheap sheets underneath your fingers as the two of you make love on his bunk bed all through the night, keeping quiet not to wake up Yoongi, your fellow recruit below.

Seokjin taught you how to live, not just to work. Being this close to him again has you feeling like a livewire, alight with more emotion than you’ve allowed yourself to feel since your parting.

But you know he’s not the same anymore. Seokjin’s approach to you has become cool, almost clinical. He treats you like part of the job now, something you’d always criticized him for not doing in the past.

“Did you take all the pictures we needed? I found this under the floorboards.” He pulls out a discarded map, and a few notes with varying handwriting, a cry for help from the women that were kept here. It’s not much, but it’s enough for you to take back with you and analyze.

“Let’s go,” he says, not even bothering to spare you a glance. “We’re done here.”

You should be grateful that he’s working with you, willing to see this mission through. Yet there’s a strange sickness rising up in your chest. It feels a lot like heartbreak.

Rumex: Tomorrow. Recon. You know the spot.

Good job today. Get some rest please. I’m sorry. Your fingers hum over the keyboard, itching to type out the fatal words that lay bare your weakness. The fact that you still care just as much as he did once.

Delete.

Rumex: Burn after reading.

A/N part 2: Thank you so much for reading. In case you’re curious, the title of this chapter refers to a tactic used by spies known as “black bag operations”, which involve breaking into a location and gathering info without leaving any signs behind. OC is hiding all her tools in the Birkin bag, under the guise of being a newlywed housewife. As always, any feedback and comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway.

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kodzumie-archived · 3 years

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Hello! I was wondering if I can request Nagito comforting his s/o who’s insecure of their acne scars? Thanks for taking your time to read this :)

❝I LOVE YOU THERE, TOO❞

Synopsis; If his words weren’t enough to clear the fog of misery, he’d find another way to prove to you that his admiration is sincere.

Featuring; Nagito Komaeda x GN! Reader

Warning(s); Established relationship, self-degrading thoughts, low self-esteem, breakdown, and hurt comfort.

Kodzumie’s Note; Absolutely, love! Thank you for your request. I hope you’ve had a wonderful day, and I also hope you know you’re absolutely precious. Take care, my dear! Muah! <3

➤ NAGITO KOMAEDA

⤷ Nagito Komaeda is a devoted lover. He hails you—his lover—for your every action and word, following you to the ends of the Earth as he babbles praise, restlessly.

⤷ He admires you entirely, and values every inch of you. He values your lips as they curl into the smile he oh-so adores; your hands that seem to fit within his like puzzle pieces; your eyes that glimmer as though they were brushed upon with a sheen of stardust, a glow that not even the constellations could rival.

⤷ His heart pulsated with a fondness that he harbored only for you. Intricate conveyance of his love for you muddled within his words; his ramblings that seemed to be phrases crammed together along with the conception of hope.

⤷ Though he tried his utmost best to display to you that he thought of you as perfection personified; what you deemed as flaws he had claimed to be his favorite parts (though he truly loved every part of you equally).

⤷ So he finds it hard to believe that someone as faultless as you would doubt themselves. Every sign seems almost overlooked as he begins to notice the subtle inklings of fragility within your gaze; a gaze that was not directed towards him, but to yourself.

⤷ The idea of you being unable to see the grace within yourself was estranged to him. How could you not see your own magnificence?

⤷ But it’s a truth and one that he struggles to accept. Every undeniable sign that you—his beloved constellation of hope—were truly rendered blind to your allure. Unable to perceive the eloquence of yourself; of the one Nagito swore to himself he devoted himself to, wholely.

⤷ His heart encapsulated a lifetime’s worth of admiration for you; a strung sonnet of affection through his riddling of words, amongst his typical rambles. Though it seemed that his words were interpreted as void; a travesty believed to be induced by your denial. If his words couldn’t convince you of what he finds faultless of your self-proclaimed faults, he’d find a conveyance that’ll help you understand.

⤷ Time and time again, he’s professed to you that his heart is sealed amongst your clutches; devoting himself entirely to you, and to—albeit scum like him is unworthy of such—your love.

⤷ Nagito, though a clutter of questionable motivations and stability, is an honest man. His words a sliver lining brushing upon the canvas of truth with the saturation of hope.

⤷ Yet his hopes of portraying his idealizations of your divinity were fragmented upon the nullification of ontological realization; words can only express so much.

⤷ He’s forced to bare this fact as he’s painfully aware of the falter of relief at each attempt of consolation. For every expression of dissatisfaction, he contorts your words into how he views you; an ethereal blessing of hope amongst a personified, societial of rubble. But, after spending so long in denial of your own repudation, he’s come to discover that the shake of your head is equivalent to the brush of his confession. You don’t believe it.

⤷ You don’t believe his relentless confessions of how astounding he views you; how he truly percieves you as a goddess amongst the pitiful bounts of humanity. You don’t believe it. But of course you wouldn’t. It’s difficult to believe something that he utters as though it was rehearsed.

⤷ Nagito is known for his rambles. It’s a common occurence for the male to mutter on and on about the beauty of hope and its paradoxical conquering of despair. He’s known for his excessive rants, and yet, it fuels your doubts about his insincerity all the same.

⤷ And after long last, he’s aware of this; finally knowledgeable of the way your eyes gloss upon his fervent compliments. He assumed it was spurred in accordance to the swelling of your heart, having satisfied you with his rebuttal to your claims: But he couldn’t have been farther from the verity of the sheen of tears.

⤷ You were suffering; caged within the abyss of the subsequential torment you were forced to bare. Every word, every whisper, it’s as though they mauled at your heart; tearing into the delicate chassis with agonizing malice.

⤷ Nagito was painfully aware of the effect of words, or rather lack of. The vocalized confessions a mere spec of dust amongst the gust of genuinity. But there was a beauty in silence; and a tidal of sincere conveyance through action.

⤷ The lingering notion fixated within the back of his mind as he’s seated beside you once more. He feels as though he’s encapsulated within a trace, his mind fogged with a searing remembrance; deja vu.

⤷ You’re glaring at your lap as your hands brush upon your face, doused in vulnerability as you attempt to conceal yourself from his view. He could hear it; the pluck of pitch as you shakily began to spill your innermost worries; your underlying insecurities.

⤷ “I hate them. I hate them so much, they just... they won’t go, no matter what I do.” His heart ached as with each word that pooled from between your lips, you struggled to maintain your composure. Sinking within the seas of wishfulness; yearning for relief from this grief of being unable to accept yourself as you are.

⤷ Yet you perk your head at the silence in response to your venting; a dreadful silence. Why has your boyfriend—a man who seems to never cease fervent rebuttal—not talking?

⤷ And instantaneously, the tendrils of your doubts engulf you. It hurts, it’s tauntingly painful. Has he finally accepted that there’s no use in persuading the veracity? Has he given up on attempting to convince you—and, per your instilled panic, himself—that you aren’t what you see yourself as?

⤷ The silence is thick; a tense atmosphere in which air has condensed into a fog that neutralizes air. Your lungs burn with the suppression of your sobs as you bite your bottom lip.

⤷ They’ve won, they’ve won, they’ve won; the thoughts and beliefs of your self-loathing have won. and you’re unable to breathe through the weight upon your heart. It hurts; it’s suffering you’ve endured for so long and after such desperation, he seemed to have been subdued as we—

⤷ “...ere.” You falter. The final syllables falling upon your ears as they escaped him, yet you hadn’t caught them. Turning to face him with a visage of poorly veiled pain interlaced with confusion, you ask him to repeat himself.

⤷ Yet you weren’t met with the reptition of mere words. Instead, the sensation of his cold hands cradles the sides of your face, ever-so-gently pulling you closer until you were separated by the proximity of a few centimeters; his breath fanning over your face.

⤷ You feel a gentle weight press against your forehead; his lips. He kisses against the skin with such delicate ministations, savoring the contortion of your expression as he pulls away. “I love you there.” He mutters, a gentle smile upon his lips before he moves onto his next destination.

⤷ A kiss to your left cheek. He lingers for a moment before pulling away, exhaling ever-so slowly. “I love you there.” Once again, he confesses. Repeating the same to your right cheek as he utters the words once more, “And I love you there.”

⤷ His lips glide along your skin as he proceeds to peck your chin, tilting your head slightly to provide ease in accessing such. “I also love you there.” He chuckles, swallowing your anticipation before moving on.

⤷ Upon puckering his lips, he pressed a rather firm kiss against the tip of your nose. You’re able to feel the smile on his lips as he cradles you closer, the urge to embrace you admist the heat of sensuality. “And, guess what? I love you there too.”

⤷ Finally, he hovered above your lips, your breaths melting into one as he gazed into your glossed orbs; the quivering of your lips prominent as he envelops your lips within his own, closing the space between the two of you.

⤷ This time, he loiters against you, parting only to return and engulf your gasps, suckling on your bottom lip ever-so gently. He savors every millisecond; every ounce of your taste. And he savors the salty taste that faintly douses his tongue as tears cascade from your fluttering eyes; crying into the kiss.

⤷ His words unable to convey the sincerity of his admirations due to the plague of repetition, and the ringing of his muddled sonnet of devotion; his expressions perplexing and unable to provide you with the consolation you needed; the security you yearned for.

⤷ Thus, as he pulled away with heavy pants, his eyes softening as you begin to sob; relieving yourself of the pent-up inklings of fogged eyes, unable to detect the flickers of light within the shadows of your self-proclaimed faults.

⤷ The lingering sensation of his lips atop where all you couldn’t stand about yourself induced your heart to swell with a sense of joy; a sense of being able to understand the way he sees you one day. His lasting kisses having filled the air with comfort more than verbal consolation ever could as he finally says, “And I love you there, too.”

#sdr2 x reader #dr2 x reader #nagito x reader #nagito komaeda x reader #danganronpa x reader #nagito hcs #nagito headcanons #nagito imagines #danganronpa hcs #danganronpa scenarios #danganronpa imagines

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kanonsarchivedblog · 3 years

Text

Night Terrors

Word Count: 1627 Rating: T Warnings: Descriptions of wounds, body horror Characters: Tobirama Senju, Hashirama Senju, Izuna Uchiha ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The dream always begins the same. He’s had it so many times by now, he could recite it by memory if he could get the words to form in his mouth rather than his brain alone. If he could bring himself to speak out loud, to vocalize, to just finally tell it to the world and get it off of his chest. But he can’t. And so, the dream begins. It’s near winter, the end of fall- late, late enough that his breath fogs in the early morning air. He is ten, here. The sky is starting to lighten now, the sun not yet breaching the horizon to the east but starting to, the rays making streaks of gold that dance through the retreating navy, banishing the night once again. Hashirama is standing beside him, shaking in the early morning chill. He never did like the cold; he couldn’t handle it the same way that he could, or the way Mother could. Hashirama whines softly, wanting to go back inside. Hashirama always whined, even now. Their father had left the night before, called away late to some important meeting. Kawarama wasn’t back yet. He should have been back. He was seven. He didn’t know anything- he barely knew what flowers he could and couldn’t snack on, what mushrooms would kill you the moment you breathed in their spores and which ones were the best to roast over an open fire. He was seven, so little.

Butsuma approaches, a weird bundle in his arms. Except that isn’t just clothes. Red is staining white, and it’s Kawarama wrapped up in that little bundle, looking too small to possibly be his little brother, but it is. It is him, because he’s sitting up in that bundle and looking at him and telling him “This is your fault. This is your fault. This is your fault.” But he can’t talk. His mouth isn’t moving right, the jaw broken, pried apart by adult hands, broken and hanging loosely, tongue lolling far too long to be normal, but that’s what the tongue is, isn’t it? It goes down the throat. But his eyes aren’t there, even though he can feel him looking, his eyes aren’t there. Instead it’s black holes in his head, but it isn’t black, not really, just a really dark red because that’s muscle and tissue there where his eyes used to be. Butsuma is talking. “He is a shinobi.” He says. But he wasn’t a shinobi, he was seven. Shinobi were older. They had to be older. Kawarama could barely hold a sword. “He died a shinobi.” Butsuma says again. “He died a shinobi.” “He died a shinobi.” His brothers repeat. A shinobi. A shinobi. He died. Died. Died. Dead. The world swirls around him, fading into darkness, and it’s like he’s waking up except he knows he isn’t awake. The ceiling above him isn’t the ceiling in the Senju compound in Konoha, but the thatched ceiling of his childhood. His mother is screaming. He moves before Hashirama does. Or, Hashirama is moving, but he’s moving to pull the blankets up, telling Tobirama he doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to know. But Tobirama is twelve, and knows more now. He knows what a mourning cry is. She is kneeling on the ground, clutching the lifeless body of Itama. Itama, who was only nine. Who had been sent out because Butsuma needed Hashirama and Tobirama at home to watch over Mother. Itama, who was stabbed over and over and over and there are too many holes to count from blades. Itama, whose lifeless eyes stare at the sky as Mother howls out a sound that’s not human in any way. Grief, personified; her white hair is wild, blowing in the cold spring wind, whipping it this way and that, and tears are streaking down her pale cheeks, cheeks that hold the same scarlet streaks that his would in four years, but he didn’t know that then. She is crying, and Hashirama is on the porch, and Butsuma is yelling and he is always yelling, always screaming. The Uchiha did this, the Uchiha massacred his boy, the Uchiha are responsible even though it was his fault for bringing his son onto the battlefield. The Uchiha killed him. Uchiha men killed him. Uchiha men desecrated him. He didn’t know what that word meant, then. He knows what it means now. The world swims once more, and as he blinks, he’s staring at scarlet eyes with a peculiar windmill pattern. He blinks, hard. Izuna. He’s pretty, he can’t help but think- a softer face, a smile that was far too cocky for someone like him, far too taunting. He’s holding Tobirama’s shirt, and Tobirama is in a river while Izuna is laughing, trying to run away but the current of the water is pushing him back to Tobirama, and he catches him, and it’s that weird moment when time seems to slow. When everything stops and he just stands with him in his arms and oh. Wait. They can’t do this. They step back from one another like they had been burned, Izuna throwing his shirt so quickly and harshly that it smacks him in the face. By the time he grabs it off of his face, Izuna is gone, and he is alone in the river with a smile that’s too big and cheeks that feel too warm and he has to dunk his head into the river when Hashirama suddenly appears, calling for him. When he rises, he’s not in the river. He’s on a battlefield, the sound of fighting all around. The Uchiha and the Senju. That’s right, that’s this fight. He spins, and finds Izuna, his blade raised, tears in his eyes. Madara is screaming across the field at Hashirama; their fight is flashy and stupid and too big and of course it is, because that’s what Hashirama is. Flashy and stupid and too big for his pants, Mother always said. She’s gone by this time, taken by grief and maybe his father’s hand, they never knew the truth of the matter, only woke one day to find him already burying her. But Izuna is there, his hair having fallen from it’s tie. The wind rustles it, and he looks so beautiful, even torn up and bloodied and bruised and with dirt smudged across his features. So beautiful, even as he lunges first. Uchiha were so fucking devoted to their clan, it confused Tobirama sometimes. He’d do anything for Hashirama, sure, but not for his father. Not for his other clansmen, who were lying in heaps, dead or dying or maybe trying to hide beneath all those bodies, hoping to get away from this fighting once and for all. He can’t blame them. He isn’t sure what he’s devoted to, now. Izuna’s blade crashes with his own. They aren’t using Jutsu- Izuna’s chakra reserves were too low, and Tobirama couldn’t risk signing right now, not with Izuna coming at him over and over and telling him to just give up, to just let him do this, to just die already, you stupid fucking albino Senju. That catches him off guard, he even laughs as Izuna goes in and gets him across the top of his left thigh. Going for an artery and just barely missing. He can’t remember what happens next, even in this night terror he can’t piece it together. It’s so many flashes all at once of skin, of laughter, of those crimson eyes with those pinwheels, of heat, of heartache, of funerals, of Hashirama laughing, of Madara laughing, of feeling weightless, of the feeling of someone atop him, of holding someone in his arms, someone with black hair and pale skin and then- Then, he is holding him in his arms, except this time it’s Izuna’s blood on Tobirama’s blade, and Izuna’s head in his lap as he smiles up at him, as Tobirama apologizes for things having to end this way. As tears fall from his eyes and onto Izuna’s pale cheeks, as Izuna closes his eyes, as Tobirama does not let out a mourning cry but instead lifts Izuna’s body and carries him to where Madara and Hashirama are fighting. As he feels hands, actual hands touching his actual face, and he’s awake, jolting upright on the futon, gasping for breath and looking around for the phantom hands. The bedroom is empty, the sky moonless. He reaches over and grabs a candle from beside his bed and lights it with a wave of his hand. Nothing sits in the corners waiting to reach out and take revenge, nothing sits at the top of his futon, stroking his cheeks as he struggles through another night terror, nothing lays beside him, onyx hair spread out across pale sheets. Nothing. Alone. His penance. He breathes a sigh of relief and closes his eyes, shoulders slumping as if he were Atlas and he, alone, held the weight of the world. A shake of the head, and he reaches up to snuff out the flame, never blow it out. No, that was an insult to the spirits, always has been, always will be. Mother taught him that. He lays back down, eyes falling closed, but for a hint of a moment, he thought he saw scarlet above his head, gazing down at him. A trick of the light, Tobirama thinks as sleep pulls him back under quickly. Exhaustion does that to a man when you have to go behind and fix every single mistake your brother makes and make sure that the village doesn’t fall apart while he’s in office. A trick of the light, even as the shadows begin to move.

#m's scribbles #naruto #naruto fanfiction #tobirama senju #izuna uchiha #tobiizu #naruto imagines #tw: death #tw: body horror #tw: night terrors

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