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myeagleexpert · 2 days

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𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕻𝖆𝖘𝖘𝖆𝖌𝖊 𝖔𝖋 𝕳𝖔𝖒𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕬𝖜𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕾𝖙𝖆𝖗 ( PT2 )

And if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Howl's Moving Castle x Twisted Wonderland Au (Vil x Fem!Yuu) PS: This was written before Vil's new updates in the new chapters, I'm delving deeper into Vil's character and I know he's not just "a pretty boy" but for the direction of the story, he will have to follow this personality aspect a little more to this characteristic part of it. So I'm sorry if this isn't the most faithful fic to the character he is. I promise I will edit better, so that it has better quality.

Part1 You're here Next

"Bro, if you don't come soon I swear I'll get her alone!"- Ace stood with his arms crossed outside Heartslabyul's kitchen while Deuce carried a beautiful and tasty strawberry pie that Trey just made, the smell of pie woke up all the members of the dorm leaving them in a wonderful mood, if even the tyrannical Riddle smiled with that pie it would certainly work on Yuu too right?

"Don't rush me Ace! After all that stress yesterday the least we can do is apologize to Yuu."

"And you needed to give Trey more work and make him another pie so soon?"

"Well….er….With model students we must go beyond simple apologies!"- Suddenly, Deuce's jovial face turned red but he quickly remembered that shame should not stop him from apologizing to his friend.

"Come on! She's not even that mad!" raising his arms in resignation he continued “Okay, she is angry! But this happens almost every day, she is already used to it, and besides…” the nosy man put his finger in the gelatinous broth of the pie and licked his fingers. in such an unpretentious way “It’s not like she’s going to disappear out of nowhere and we won’t be able to say goodbye, she’s our friend.”

Deuce sighed heavily and finally agreed with his friend. Trapolla, with a genuine smile, began to remember some adventures they had already had and plan new adventures with Yuu and Grim would also love the antics. And hope filled their hearts. Planning after planning. After all, Yuu would always be with them, right?

“I'm grateful that you managed to get here as quickly as possible.” With a serious voice, the old crow thanked everyone present in the mirror room, from teachers to leaders and vice-leaders, some of Yuu's colleagues were also there.

"We know it's something important Crowley, we need to discuss this as soon as possible" - it was in the middle of breakfast that Riddle heard ADeuce's desperate screams, and when he turned up his nose thinking that the morning had already started badly he couldn't imagine it would get worse.

“So what do we know so far? I only heard loud noises all morning” - the lion grumbled

“The members of my dorm, Ace and Deuce, when they went to pick Yuu up for classes early in the morning, discovered that Yuu and Grim had mysteriously disappeared.”

“Have you looked for clues in the abandoned dormitory?”

“ That's the problem: the entire Ramsharckle Dorm is gone! Not even a piece of wood on the floor, no ghosts, just a mark on the floor where he used to stand” Trey replied and while he already felt anxiety in his heart, he knew that the first boys must be feeling it more. When the two arrived screaming like maniacs in the dorm asking them to follow Trey knew something was strange, due to the fact that his precious pie was dropped on the floor. Not even in an overblot had Deuce dropped a cupcake, but a pie on the floor must have been quite a problem.

“Oh, now that’s a problem.” putting his hand over his mouth Jade whispered discreetly in Azul's ear

“There are rumors all over the school. How could an ENTIRE dorm disappear out of nowhere? What about our protection field?” Leona had had his precious 9am post-sleep nap interrupted when conversations from all kinds of beastmen started to get very loud and his sensitive ears picked up some things.

“I heard that Yuu hasn't shown up to class yet. Did you take their notes?”

“The meteor shower was incredible yesterday! I took several photos and posted them on Magicam!”

“There is a horrible smell near the statues of the seven! A very strong smell of rotten eggs and vinegar!”

" You will not believe! You know that girl's dorm without magic? IT DISAPPEARED"

“Our protective field detected nothing, no changes.”

“What if the dorm is gone but Yuu and Grim are still somewhere in the school? Can Rook use his magic and try to look for them both?”

The hyena knew two things: Nothing disappears without a trace and that Yuu would do anything for her and Grim to survive. No wonder she survived 7 overblots. They are alive.

“Yes, Monsieur Dandelion” when reciting his unique magic, the hunter combined it with a magic from his wand so that everything he was seeing, others would also see with a projection of his magical range - an idea that came from Yuu.

i s e e y o u

Spell cast but no result, Rook searched every dormitory and every hidden corner of the school, the deserts of scarabia to the bottom of the waters of octaveinelle, in the royal school, in the noble school, in the cities they had visited before but nothing… for one good period of time….nothing.

“Je suis désolé, I didn’t find anything”

“Oh for the seven! How terrible! What do we do?" Crowley, oh so sad, exclaimed.

“Did they come home?"

“Did she run away?” “But what happened that made her run away so suddenly?”

Some voices whispered among themselves, others created more theories about what could have happened.

Malleus was in the corner of the room, absorbed by the shadows of the room, he could see how each person missed Yuu and Grim and how emotions were expressed on their faces, but Schoenheit's looked strange, it wasn't the same expression as sadness that Heartslabyul's dorm leader,it was Silver's expression when he was a child doing something wrong and Lillia caught him in the act… oh yes… guilt.

“Let’s split up, if the dogs just whine, it won’t help anything!” with authority determined to find the two, Crewel spoke out -“The two first year pups, Trey, Riddle, Blue, Rook and Jack go to the Ramsharckle to inspect for any clues in the dorm, any smell, footprint, anything.

Ruggie, Jamil, Jade and Carter, I need you to interrogate the students and find out how the rumors came about and if we have any useful information. Kalim and Epel, stay in this group too.

For the rest, check the library to see if there is any phenomenon linking last night to Ramscharkle's disappearance and calm down the dorms.”

“Any information must be said immediately. Stay calm, we will find them.” concluded Trey and they were soon dismissed

"Child of man, how did you know that Grim would precisely knock down that vase?" - prince in all his wisdom, asks Yuu who had just picked up a vase from the shelf exactly 5 seconds before the monster cat appeared out of nowhere and knocked in the exact location of the vessel.

"Intuition." Malleus's gaze asked for more information and so she graciously gave it “It's when we have the act of perceiving, discerning or sensing things, independently of reasoning or analysis to conclude something, you know? “ “Could this be a magic that only belongs to humans?”

“I don’t think so Tsunotaro” she laughed so cutely “So when you get a feeling about something, go ahead, there’s a good chance you’re right.”

Go ahead

His eyes narrowed and followed Vil's movements, who silently took another path from the research group.

Some things were discovered in each group:

1- The dormitory is completely gone, with all the members. 2-there is a very slight smell of Yuu in a single small section 3- Sam's friends saw Yuu just before the meteor shower started 4- Yuu was upset with some people (rumors) 5- All photos of the meteor shower are blurry 6- Absolutely nothing else

The students looked disappointedly at the paper list before handing it to Crowley, just some facts with few connections between them and no matter how much they looked for some magic or some phenomenon to explain what happened but the results of their efforts yielded nothing, just hearts. sad and heavy consciences and remained that way for a few days.

Until one day, the universe decided to smile at the boys again and especially at the manliest boy in Pomefiore who was pouting on his bed after being tugged on Vil's ear.

“Umnh…hello pewpaw?” “Hello my sweet! How are you?" his grandmother's voice calmed the lilac-haired boy for the first time in days “I’m fine grandma, things have been really complicated these days, but I’m trying hard to get stronger!” “Okay, grandma knows you’ve been having a rough day, so send an extra box of apple juice for you and your friends!” “Thank you, I’m sure they’ll love it-” “And Yuu, how is she?” my crush is missing in the middle of the world and we have no idea if anyone would say we will see her again, thank you “Well, she is… fine….but something happened that-” “Yesterday she said she wasn’t feeling very well, so I gave her that apple and lemon drink and wow! She looked really pretty!”

what WHAT?

“Yesterday grandma? What? Where?” genuinely confused and stunned even more so because Rook appeared out of nowhere next to him and silently asked to turn on the speakerphone on his cell phone. “I bumped into her in the village on Sage Island when we went to make some apple juice deliveries, I even thought you would be close to her with some friends! A pretty girl is not meant to walk alone!”

“How was she, grandma? Was she ok? Where did you see her exactly? “ Exasperated and anxious, the boy tried to control himself so as not to make it too obvious how worried he was! But Crowley, in all his old bird wisdom, ordered that no one should speak of this matter outside of the NRC people.

“She was in front of a store when we bumped into each other, I don't remember the name of the store because some were already closing. I don’t know why but she feels different”

“Like what grandma?” “Like…. magical…. but isn’t she the girl without magic who studies with you?” “Yes, yes… And!… ah… How was she d-different?" - increasingly anxious he had no idea what to think and what to ask without shouting that she was missing “I didn’t see him… um…. She likes it differently, I don’t remember what”

Rook thought of a strategy while Epel pulled out his hair, the hunter wrote on a piece of paper he took from the desk the most direct questions about what everyone wanted to know!

“Grim.was. with. her.? “I didn’t see him… um…. She looked different, I don’t remember what but it was the only thing I remember.”

“Did.she.tell.where.she.was going?” Rook's handwriting looked like a drunken French monarch writing, so give Epel credit for reading that riddle while he was trying not to pass out

“If she said, I don’t remember, she had some bags in her hand and that she had to run because she was in a hurry.” “Hurry.to.what?Hurry.to.where?”

“I don’t know Epel! I don't go around meddling in people's lives! Why are you so interested in her life? It’s like you don’t see her every day at school!”

“Sorry.dear.grandma.I’m curious.ha.ha”

“Anyway, do you know what happened here? Your uncle—-” the dear, sweet old lady couldn't finish the day's gossip because Epel had nervously hung up and ran off to send messages to the first-year students while running like crazy to Crowley's office.

Rook celebrated the victory and elegantly told the evil queen the news. Meanwhile, Lady Pewpeaw looked in the mirror and thought: I already know! She changed her hair! Or is it the hair that changes people? She looked very chic and elegant. Ahh, I hope my grandson Epel can win the heart of that beautiful girl!

As Epel ran with all the strength his legs could carry, which was a lot now that he was in the Spelldrive club, he sent messages to the other first-year students excited about the possibility of Yuu being found and a certain hunter was able to smile knowing that he would have fresh news to tell the evil Queen.

After a brief meeting between the first-year students and briefly with the leaders, Crowley allowed them to investigate possible clues. The boys searched every alley and store with their hearts burning with hope, Deuce was ready to hug her while Ace was preparing a lecture on why she disappeared out of nowhere leaving them all distressed. Jack concentrated as he remembered Yuu's familiar smell, the smell so different from the bunch of men in NRC, the smell that was unique to her. Epel was looking for the address that her grandmother had given her, always looking at the clock and the port, if she could only stay until sunset, that means she would have to leave before dark.

----- The sun finally set, giving way to the moon that illuminated the boys' journey back to school. The hopeful young hearts returned broken, hopeless, shattered, and without any trace of Yuu. Each one informed their dorm leader, Leona just turned her back and tried to sleep knowing that no matter how much she closed her eyes she wouldn't have rest until she found Yuu, Riddle for the first time didn't finish the strawberry pie, and Vil…. Vil was different. Vil was “strangely strange”, when even after receiving the news about Yuu's case he couldn't sleep properly, even with a beauty campaign that was going to make his skin wasn't radiant and a pimple appeared on the corner of his chin.

“The Campaign is tomorrow. How can I let such futile emotions ruin my skin just for tomorrow”? – the poisonous king thought as he touched up his makeup looking at a small hand mirror, taking care that his facial features didn't show the makeup.

“I can't believe we didn't achieve anything Jack!” Vil heard some voices in the hallway.

“It was a good attempt Epel. One time or another we will find an answer.”

“But…but we were so so close! I went to the exact store my pewpaw said but no clue!Damn! When the fuck we gonna have a track like this?!” maybe at another time Vil would fight with Epel for letting his accent come out rougher but the conversation was getting to the queen's delicate nerves

“In Tiana’s Palace there was only the smell of food, nothing of Grim or Yuu. I’m sorry Epel.” Vil might not have seen it, but he could have sworn Jack was rubbing his neck and looking down, probably feeling guilty about for not having found the prefect.

Is he to blame, Vil?

A voice called from the mirror and Vil was so scared that he dropped his mirror on the floor, breaking it into pieces, and he could no longer hear the gossip. But that wasn't the worst, my friends. The worst was right in front of the young prodigy's face. A wrinkle in the middle of the forehead.

“In the name of Gucci this can’t be happening!”

Is he to blame, Vil?

If he hadn't been so worried about his precious skin, he would have noticed a small bat watching him in a corner of the bathroom. Quickly composing himself, he headed to the Film Club at the appointed time.

The moon was shining in the sky and all Vil could think about was the last moments he spent with Yuu, if he said sorry, would she come back? No no, he's not the problem! This is pure coincidence! He turned over the bed and looked for his beauty sleep, but only found guilt and loneliness.

“Maybe a walk will help relax my nerves?” - he put a comfortable jacket over it before opening the door

It was supposed to be just a walk, through the hall of Pomefiore's grand corridors But Vil's desperation led him to the port of Sage's Island with his broom, looking for one last hope of finding Yuu. After all, to get a proper beauty sleep he had to solve the problem of his insomnia first. Some stores were still open, parties, nightclubs, a small village but so bright! With people laughing and talking, how lovely. Every person who recognized the celebrity asked for a photo and an autograph and the question he wanted to ask everyone died in his mouth. """Have you seen this person recently?"""

Putting his acting skills to good use, he put on his best face that didn't show how terribly guilty he felt and lost in his thoughts he entered the dorm, maybe the Film Club had something that could distract him, spend some time energy and quality sleep, maybe some sleeping pills… something…. the bedroom is not the best time right now, not when he can't sleep. And here he is, in the pit of frustrations. In the place where that day happened.

“The weather is pleasant tonight, wouldn’t you agree, Schoith?” Malleus's cordial voice cut through his train of thoughts, like the brakes on a speeding train. He had just entered the club, then closed the door. The atmosphere was strange, like sticking your hand in a hornet's nest with sleeping bees. What was the great one doing here?

“Greetings, Draconia. I thought I locked the door, the club is closed now. As you can see around, everything is a mess. ”- Vil gestured his arms indicating the mess that the studio was around, with open boxes and disheveled wigs, it seems that the students who remained there after he left did not clean up the mess, much to Vil's annoyance.

“What a vulgar club this is. With such vulgar fantasies.” Malleus's repetitive voice was like a poison, the atmosphere was no longer “strange”, it was cold and heavy, the heir of the Valley of Thorns did not hesitate to hide the contempt and hatred mixed in his words “And you are the most vulgar thing from here."

The bees woke up.

“Yes, it’s messy! A few rotten potatoes didn't clean up the mess, they'll see about it tomorrow! It's none of your business.” Angry, the bees buzzed away, leaving the environment more agitated and hostile. No matter how much Vil tried to remain classy, his eyebrows showed his indignation and his fists were ready to attack.

Malleus approached, circling the leader of the Pomefiore domain, like a predator and his prey. The prince's eyes shone a bright shade of green and his pupils became increasingly thinner. Through the window, some thunder and lightning ripped through the sky, revealing Malleus' internal storm.

“I heard that there will be an important campaign tomorrow. Surely, you don't go that way, do you? Please don’t ruin the Queen’s reputation, after all, how do you want to continue her legacy if you have broken nails like any commoner?” looking directly at Vil's closed fists, Malleus smiled with disdain and a slight satisfaction seeing the oh so beautiful Vil shaking with anger.

“How dare Malleus? I don't know what you're doing here but leave immediately!” - furious, the leader of Pomefiore took a step forward and pointed to the door, his face red and with some blonde locks falling from his hairstyle irritating him even more. He dripped snake venom into every word he said, but when has a dragon died from snake venom?

“It is very bold to challenge the Prince of the Valley of Thorns, Schothein.” Stepping forward and coming directly face to face with Vil, he laughed elegantly with mischief in every note- "Don't worry, I won't spend any more time with you, I'll just hand you a gift."

With all the doors and windows closed, Malleus raises his hand and a green smoke with sharp thorns invades the Film Club, and with a simple look thorns wrap around Schoith bringing him close and totally paralyzed, the heir's malicious laugh grows ever louder. But before he recites a macabre ancient magic, in a language that not even Vil himself understood, Malleus's power was clear, shining in an electric green, with his scepter firing across the entire environment. When he finished his rush, Malleus passed his cloak over Vil's body, which was still frozen on the ground.

“You won't be able to talk to anyone about your curse. Send my regards to Yuu.” That said, he just left the club with a Machiavellian glint in his eyes.

As soon as the door closed, Vil managed to release the air he didn't know he was holding, the smoke and thorns were breaking apart and erasing the tracks as if they had never happened. When trying to get up, Vil realized how weak his beautiful and athletic body was but it was when his knee creaked that even standing up he was paralyzed. He looked at his shaking hands, recognizing the familiar hands with veins and wrinkles looking like an old, colorless raisin.

“No…no…not again!”

He ran to the mirror of a nearby dressing room, and his ugliness was so great that he broke the mirror. A fairy's gift is a dubious thing, but coming from Malleus, Vil can confirm his greatest fears in the mirror: He was old and magicless.

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Every like, repost and comment is very welcome and appreciated. ♥

Want to see more? See the masterlist <3

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ihatelifesm · 1 day

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Oooh~ can I get a third round of that Reader S/O that's a reincarnated dark lord With Yae Miko, Lisa, Cloud retainer and Ganyu? I loved the previous two you did for this but omg the second hit me in the feels

(Hi!!! So I saw your other request with lumine and just to make it more easier for me I just mushed them together! Hope you enjoy!^^ TW ASWELL!!)

Yae Miko

She was actually hard to write for because I do not like Yae AT ALL

•So when she found out she was a little conflicted yes, but she frustrated at you she didnt understand and that made her frustrated based on lore wise

•When she confronted you about it she teased you, saying that its your fault that all the archons were split you felt uncomfortable..you didnt like when Yae acted like this and you told her to stop but she kept going, she told you its all fun and games but it hurt being teased so you left, without a trace just with a note

Goodbye

-Reader

•Yae Miko thought this was some type of prank! But when she realized you were gone her dace dropped where the hell were you?? What if you get hurt? She cant let that happen

“Darling..?! Darling where are you?!”

Lisa

•She most likely found out in books while she was in the library

•It caught her eye that you and the dark lord had so many similarities together..still she didnt judge just yet to see what you said

•She went to go ask you some questions, calmly and not to upfront to make you stressed, when you told her you didnt know she wasnt mad, disrespectful, rude, she understood, not every person reborn remembers and since that was the only book about the dark lord (in mondstat) she hid it from others so no one else can know about it and question it

“Dont worry darling I believe you… now why dont you be my little helper again in the library Hm?”

Cloud Retainer/XianYun

•Found out through the traveler while they were snooping around for whatever reason

•She was surprised and didn’t believe at first she went on her own way and researched herself, when all the features were almost perfect she quickly went to go ask you about this

•She knew that if she stayed with you that means that everyone would find out, and how you say you dont remember is even worse

“We will split paths..”

“Wait what? But——“

“Leave… traitor”

•Those words slapped you in the face a thousands times you were heart broken, the only thing you could do was leave with your head down, rather quickly at that, traveling alone

•Xianyun never forgot you,, and will never forgive herself in a million years seeing your lifless body on the floor with cuts, bruises, and a malnourished body

“I was foolish my love..Please forgive me..”

Ganyu

•She was quite confused when she heard the news she spent no time going to you and asking a whole bunch of questions

“Isittruethatyouwerethedarklordinyourpastlifeandhahsjajdbdb——“

•Needless to say she would panic but also calm down when you say you dont know anything about that

•Yes she thought about leaving but that quickly got overrun by how you two were together through thick and thin, through wars and battles no mortal can fathom, and she vowed to stay and thats what she will do forever and for eternity

“I wont leave you until the world burns down..”

Lumine

•When she broke up with you she regretted it, you were the one that helped her, didnt use her, LOVED her for HER and not for her skills

•She quickly tried to find you to apologize beg for forgiveness no one as kind, sweet, beautiful, she be with someone as shitty as her she thought, and she had to make it right

•so she bought your favorite snacks, flowers, and sweets then quickly found out in the same garden you two met at

•Quickly running up to you with a teared stained face holding out the gifts

“Im sorry… can we maybe talk it put and get back together?..”

“I——..”

(FINSIHED!! >:3 hope u enjoyed! And do u want to get back together?)

#genshin x reader #genshin impact #pearlsrequests #lumine #lumine x reader #yae miko #yae miko x reader #lisa genshin impact #lisa x reader #xianyun #xianyun x reader #ganyu #ganyu x reader

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divorcetual · 3 days

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🔥+animanga

I asked ppl to do this n then fell asleep im so sorry

ANIME ADAPTATIONS ARE NOTTTTT NECESSARY FOR ALL MANGA OH MY GOD. ACTUALLY IT WLD MAKE A LOT OF THEM WORSE. Anime adaptation baseline for animation has been getting a lot better lately (a very standard studio now could be on par with the most beloved and highly praised studio ten or twenty years ago) but NO MATTER WHAT the art- especially lighting- of a manga will almost always look worlds better than the anime adaptation, simply because more detail can be added when its a still image. Similarly, some things CANT be reasonably added from a manga without it looking weird. Comics can get away with noy having a background on a panel, be it out of ease or influencing the mood of the panel, but animation has a lot harder of a time switching from a background to a solid coor or design without good reason- its not impossible, and in fact very common of you look for it, but its just... not smth you can do as often as in manga

[ID: The manga and anime versions of the "I am L" scene in Death Note. In the manga, lights shocked reaction is visible and ghe background has a flash of white to show that. Both L and Light have more detail.

In the anime, the visuals are a lot closer to L's face, with light not seen at all. There is less detail, but there is a shadow cast over half of L's face /End ID]

Take the "I am L" scene for example. The original manga has more shock to it. More of a creepy feeling, even. The anime maintains that in a way, but it also sacrifices a lot of the original appeal of that panel- the bacground flash, Light's face, etc. I wont discredit the anime and say that they didnt do a great job replicating the feeling with great music and voice dubbing, but visual-wise its. a little lacking. I will give credit to them, the shadow over the face does a more than you would think to improve this scene.

This is a manhwa, but a lot of fans bashed the solo leveling anime for this exact reason- the art of the manhwa had so much more detail and complex lighting than the anime, bcs it would be unreasonable for animators for spend time on the lighting for a minor scene in the show, but its easy for a manhwa artist to do it. And this is DESPITE solo levelling animation and visuals being an INCREDIBLE adaptation of the mood and original panels

[ID: A screenshot of the anime vs manhwa adaptatiom of a character shooting a magic blast. The manhwa has more detail in the character and harsher lighting, and the anime has brighter light and a larger blast /End ID]

Pleaseeee click on the manhwa one to see the full thing. One thing about the manhwa vs anime is the fact that manhwas are often made to be scrolled vetically, where anime is a horizontal screen. The screenshot above of the manhwa isnt even the entire thing, it didnt fit in my screen. Imo the anime is AMAZING and does a fantastic job adapting it, but literally it Cant Do It Perfectly because of the difference in media form.

ALSO !! ppl forget that comics are an art form in of themself- the way the story is told goes beyond just showing the characters doing things. Panelling specifically is an incredibly influential aspect of it. YES, many authors dont put so much into the panels that a major facet is lost if made into an anime, but SOME DO

[ID: Two Tokyo Goul pages. One is almost entrely empty besides Kaneki sitting in a chair saying "Mother". Above him is a text box reading "Instead of a person who hurts others, become a person who...".

The second page shows Kaneki's torture, the words "Over and over" written many times across the page, in various sizes and layouts. Through yhe page Kaneki narrates "When the injections wore off Yamori would give me "food" and wait for the injured areas to heal. Then, he would start all over again and give me an injection. Repeatedly. My fingers and toes regrew as if they were nails and hair, over and over. They. Regrew. Every. Time. and I felt like I was truly a monster." /End ID]

Sui Ishida is a genius in terms of panelling and using the art form to his advantage- I didnt even include my fav page of his here, bcs theres soooo many good ones and I hit the image limit lolz. He utilizes text in a way unreplicatable by an anime adaptation, which doesnt use that. Even if it did, text shown in an animation has a different feel to it than a comic, where thoughts, diologue, and narration all use text. Much like the formatting of Solo Levellinng, TG text cant be replicated in another medium.

[ID: A page from Chainsaw Man, in which all the panels are seperates by arms /End ID]

Fujimoto has some amazing panelling in CSM, in the way he seperates panels. While this is the most notable one, theres SO many worth sharing if I wasnt constrained by an image limit. Utilizing the characters and scenes themselves as the panel borders enhances the atmosphere, and creates an even mote sinister feeling to the page.

[ID: Two panels and a page from Witch Hat Ateliar. The panels are formatted by being indented into a wall. The page has a scenic panel with a complex, storybook-like border /End ID]

Kamome Shirahama is anothet author with amazing usage of panels and formatting- when background or lore is given, the panels have a fancy, intricate border to indicate its a story being told- see the right image. She also uses the parts of other panels to interact with new ones (see left image), and often has characters interact with the borders themselves. There is SO much I can say about her work but actually I think watching this video will do you better.

im getting exhausted writing all of this I may come back and talk abt gnpp since that was the one I actually meant to write abt. Augh whatever take this for now

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mrs-barnes-rogers-writes · 2 days

Text

The Pull Of You - Part 4

Marvel

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader x Bucky Barnes

Soulmates - Feeling the pull between each other indicates a bond. A kiss confirms it.

Summary: You meet Steve and Bucky on a Tuesday. Steve ignores the soulmate pull, Bucky can't. There's something about you that neither can shake, even when you're wearing one of Clint's t-shirts and your unicorn slippers. After weeks of slipping into your bed Bucky decides he can't hold back anymore. He's telling you after the mission, whether Steve is all in or not. When you don't come back from the mission, they are both ready to burn the world down and the team have the matches to help. But is everything as it seems and have they been betrayed by someone on the inside.

Chapter Summary: Bucky is a mood and he's making a decision.

Bucky was in a mood as you made your way into the base. Or he was THE mood, according to Pietro’s whisper in your ear whilst still on the jet. Bucky had shook his head at Pietro’s ongoing efforts for your attention. His head shaking soon turned into a smirk as he saw you give him a whack to the stomach, telling him to ‘stop and leave Buck alone’.

You’d been distant for the last few days and it had got worse since you’d been back from your mission. Bucky couldn’t stand it anymore. Was it your last mission? Was it him? Was it Steve? Stevie was a punk and he had no idea how to talk to women. You were still defending his brooding though so that was a good sign, right?

But you hadn’t put the clothes on he’d laid out for you, an excuse about not wanting to use up all his nice shirts.

“They look better on you bubs.”

It was just a damn Henley. He wanted to see you in it, feel you in it, yet now you’d barely said ten words to him since you were home.

Watching the interaction between you and Pietro, Steve shook his head as he quietly smiled to himself, Bucky appearing at his side at the front of the jet. You’d been in the compound for as little as three months and you’d been a big supporter of all things Bucky but also of Steve himself. You could go toe to toe with Tony and by some sort of miracle get him to see various perspectives of a situation and not just his own. Nat had told them in the first few days of introducing you ‘she has a way about her, you’ll see’ and they definitely did see.

Steve had wondered at some point if you were some sort of enchantress. You listened and could get even the hardest and most difficult of people to listen. Secretary Ross had actually stopped turning up at the compound uninvited after you’d walked him out one day. Then he’d found Frank Castle laughing, yes The Punisher, laughing at your awful jokes, as he drank Tony’s expensive coffee and ate your homemade cookies, just twenty minutes after he’d stomped into the compound saying he was going to break Parker’s legs.

Nat was right. There was just something about you.

The evening that followed Frank’s visit, Steve decided he’d stop ignoring the pull towards you. The pull that he’d heard so many talk about, the pull of finding your soulmate. He’d long thought his had been left behind or that he simply didn’t have one and then you’d stood in front of him, messy hair piled on top of your head, wearing Clint’s T-shirt and unicorn slippers, saying it was nice to meet him and sorry you’d only just woke up, you’d been on a mission and awake for 72 hours.

Unlike Steve, Bucky had not denied the pull and had been at your side early on. But after seeing you with Frank, Bucky had been glued to your side even more and you were almost in his lap as you watched the latest series the team were binge watching. That night Steve did what Bucky did every night and climbed into your bed.

He thoughts were interrupted by Bucky squeezing his shoulder.

“I’m talking to her when we get home.”

Steve’s head snapped in Bucky’s direction.

“If you aren’t ready punk, that’s fine but I need her. I need more of her and I need to know before I ask more of her too.”

Before Steve could reply Sam’s voice spoke up.

“Wheels down in three minutes.”

Little did they know that those minutes and the ten that followed it would change their lives.

And that when they returned to the jet you wouldn’t be with them. You’d be gone.

TAGLIST

@imdoingbetternow @abaker74 @mcira @blackhawkfanatic

#steve rogers x reader #avengers au #bucky barnes #steve rogers #bucky barnes x reader #avengers #steve x reader x bucky #soulmate au #avengers soulmate au #steve rogers x reader x bucky

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snugglylime · 1 day

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JWCT Countdown Day#2: Favorite Duo/Friendship - Darius and Yaz

This is a snippet from my hybrids AU, though I've nailed down more of the details since my original post. Hope you guys enjoy!

Darius has long since lost track of the days. They’ve stopped being memorable and follow such a meandering sameness that they’re not worth keeping track of. There’s no real point in keeping a mental calendar either because there are no dates for him to look forward to.

Birthdays and holidays are off the table, and counting down the hours to weekends or anything else to be excited about has become entirely meaningless. Every day is the same, and every day he laments his lack of appreciation for the time before this horrible block of temporal sameness.

But then, as abruptly as it’d started, the sameness stops.

No one comes to check on him today. The lights around the bend down the hall continue to cast shadows into his cell, and he can still hear the persistent humming of the generators and fluorescent lights, but the sameness of the world beyond his cell is obscured by the absence of footsteps and hushed voices.

It’s entirely quiet.

So he makes a note of today. It’s a quiet, hungry, and lonely kind of day. Even if he hates the doctors with every fiber of his being- as much as he’s able to hate anyone, that is- it’s good to interact with things that aren’t just the mind-numbingly white walls of his cell.

The day continues as silently and uneventfully as it started, which is to say it adopted a new kind of sameness that’s somehow worse than the last. Just yesterday, and for the dozens of yesterdays before that, he could occupy his mind with eavesdropping or putting images to the vague sounds filtering to him from down the hall, but now there’s nothing. Nothing stirs beyond his cell. The lights don’t go out when they’re supposed to, and no one brings him dinner, which is concerning because if no one feeds him, he very well could starve to death.

Calm down, he scolds himself. You’re not some animal. It’s only been a day.

He tries to sleep, but with the bright lights and compounding hunger in his gut, it’s futile. He tosses and turns on his sorry excuse for a mattress and tries to wake from this new, hellish sameness that must be a nightmare.

Funny that he would prefer to be awake in the world where he gets poked and prodded by all manner of needles and instruments on a daily basis than the one where he’s just perpetually bored, hungry, and lonely. He really has been reduced to his basest instincts, hasn’t he?

He can almost imagine a morally corrupt psychologist sitting outside his cell, pen and clipboard in hand, taking notes on the slow deterioration of his mind. The psychologist would say that this is all just another test, just without the usual invasion of his personal space and intraveneal injections.

But no such psychologist exists, and the quiet, lonely, sameness persists long into the night (or what he assumes to be night in this windowless prison of his).

Then, just as he’s about to fall into a shallow sleep, there’s a soft click followed by a familiar whoosh of air. Within an instant, the door to his cell inches open. The lights flicker and somewhere down the hall the generators make the sound of something long-suffering.

He stares at the newly formed crack between the cell wall and the door. He’s heard that tell-tale click dozens of times, but with it has always been a doctor (or two, depending on the day and the extent of the testing he’s to be subjected to), and the set of restraints he’s grown as accustomed to as the clothes on his back.

Now there is neither, just the thin strip of light leading to the lab down the hall.

He thinks of the non-existent psychologist and how all this must be some new experiment. The isolation and hunger of the past day- or however long it’s been since he’s started keeping track of the passage of time- make it impossible for him to think straight. As he cautiously creeps out of his cell, he feels like a little kid walking into his kindergarten classroom for the first time, seeing everything with new eyes, even though he’s made this trek as many times as he’s heard the opening click of his cell door.

But even if this is some sort of test for obedience or to measure the extent to which his human brain still operates beneath the suffocating layer of prehistoric instinct and hunger they’ve injected him with, he can’t help but leap at the opportunity.

Besides, out here is where the food comes from and he’s only getting hungrier. The more logical (and generally quieter) side of his brain scolds him for acting like an animal, but he can’t bring himself to care too much. All he cares about is finding food.

But when the corridor spits him out, he doesn’t find food. Instead, he finds the lab, eerily devoid of its occupants, both animate and not. The doctors- as well as their personal effects- are all gone save for a few backpacks and pencils strewn across the floor. The embryonic chambers, usually clouded with cold fog, are clear and devoid of the canisters of their prenatal residents. All the desks have been emptied and the endless rows of filing cabinets have been gutted, some of their contents lying amongst the backpacks and pencils and whatever else managed to find its way to the floor.

The lights flicker again. The generators belch and wheeze.

If not for the gnawing hunger in his gut, he might’ve been skeeved out by the situation. But as things stand, he only feels mildly disturbed by the prospect of standing in the middle of a scene ripped straight out of a horror movie.

Not that his whole life these past few months hasn’t been a horror movie. At least this is kind of exciting.

He decides to follow the left hall. He’s never been down here before, always having been ushered to the right where all the medical offices and examination tables are. But he knows those places like the back of his hand by now, and so he knows that there’s no food there. Which must mean that the food somehow comes from the left hall.

Maybe.

Like most of his memories from his time on the island before his abduction, his memories of the tour of this place he went on so many months ago are little more than a fuzzy blotch in the back of his mind, doing nothing to guide him where he needs to go.

It doesn’t help that all the walls and offices here look identical, right down to the creaky ceiling fans and plywood desks. No expenses were spared except for when it came to the busy-bodies running this place.

By the looks of things, they were about as well off as he was in his cell.

He rounds a corner and is suddenly accosted by a cacophony of clicks and bangs, like something heavy is hitting one of the white brick walls. He hesitates between the choice of going right and investigating, or going left towards a neon green exit sign.

After a moment, he starts down the right hall. He’s still hungry, but he’s also lonely, and chances are that whatever’s making that thumping noise is more alive than anything else here. Maybe the clicking is a doctor typing at a keyboard, though how anyone could continue to work in conditions as chaotic as these he has no idea.

Then again, he has no idea what caused these conditions in the first place. For all he knows, this whole situation could just be another experiment that he’s being subjected to.

Will he ever stop feeling like a lab rat?

He follows the noises down a corridor not unlike the one leading to his cell. The tall, undecorated walls funnel him around a bend until he’s face to face with thick metal bars, just like the ones he’s stared at every day for as long as he can clearly remember.

He freezes. There’s no way he managed to make one big loop- he may not know much about this place, but he knows for a fact that the building isn’t one big circle. And even if it was, this hall is all wrong, like a mirror image of the one containing his cell.

This is someplace different.

He cautiously approaches the bars, realizing with dawning horror that the noises, having seemed so distant before, are coming from the darkness right in front of him. Then they stop so suddenly he thinks he might’ve imagined them. But now he’s standing just a few feet from the bars and can get a good look at what’s behind them, noisy creature or not. At least, he would have if not for the hand being flung into his face.

He screams and stumbles backward. The unnatural weight of his feet and the awkward bend to his legs set him off balance enough to send him tumbling shoulder-first into the wall. He grunts and licks the two, sharp teeth protruding from the gums where his canines used to be.

He’s still not entirely used to the feeling of them in his mouth, but he knows they’ll be useful in a fight if it comes down to it.

“Darius?” A voice hisses. He recognizes it instantly, even though the memories it’s attached to are fuzzy.

“Yaz?” Darius breathes. He hasn’t heard her voice in… well, however long it’s been since the abduction. Months at the very least, if not longer.

“It’s me,” Yaz sighs. Then, as if to prove her point, she steps into the thin triangle of light cast through the bars of her cell.

From the waist up, she looks exactly how he remembers. But as he looks closer, he realizes that’s not entirely true. Her skin has a pale, blueish quality to it and her eyes, stark against the abnormal pallor of her skin, are striking and unnaturally bright, like she’s seeing right through him. And below her waist, more shocking than anything else about her, are the leathery, awkwardly bent legs of a velociraptor.

Darius stares, transfixed at the homunculi standing before him. She looks like the product of a poor attempt at photoshopping a dinosaur’s legs onto a human’s body; her waist is too thin to properly accommodate the girth of the reptilian legs, and the dark, scaly flesh of them disappears beneath her shorts only to reappear as the perfectly smooth human skin of her barely exposed stomach.

“What is it?” Yaz demands, startling Darius out of his thoughts. Despite the roughness of her voice- has it always sounded like that?- her lips are turned into a nervous frown like she’s embarrassed.

“You…” he trails off, unable to find the words. He stiffens as a tail suddenly appears out of the darkness and swishes back and forth behind her body like the pendulum of an upside-down metronome. “Wow.”

“You don’t look much better,” she says with a strained grimace.

“Oh, right,” his cheeks flush. He’d nearly forgotten about the state of his own body, not that he’d ever gotten a real good look at it. He’s been denied the privilege of a mirror, and while he can feel all the strange anomalies in his stature and movement, he doesn’t have a good idea of what it all looks like. Then he shakes his head and realizes who he’s talking to. “Not that you look bad or anything. I think the… ah… tail suits you. Yeah.”

Yaz blinks at him before turning away with a muffled snort. “Shut up. Yours suits you more, dino-nerd.”

Oh. Right. He’d almost forgotten about the heavy appendage sprouting from his tailbone. Not that he’d like to remember it. How he got to be this way is a process he’d prefer to forget, but it looks like he’s not the only one to have experienced it.

Which means that in all likelihood, he and Yaz aren’t alone. The others must be around here somewhere, too.

“Sure does,” Darius grins, suddenly feeling more excited than he has in months. He grabs the handle of her cell door and cocks his head. “Ready to get out of here?”

#darius is a t-rex hybrid and yaz is a velociraptor hybrid #their friendship means so much to me ahhhhh #guys i might actually combust waiting for chaos theory 0-0 #jwcc #jwctcountdown #darius bowman #yasmina fadoula #jurassic world camp cretaceous #hybrids au

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gloomysheeep · 8 months

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Okay this is fucked to post but i need to say it, I share my toilet with 3 other people, two of them moved in only two weeks ago, some of them have people over sometimes, anyway, there's a lot of potential for people not looking into the toilet after they've flushed because they don't know we have shit water pressure. All that to say I walked into the toilet to find the most enormous turd just floating in the toilet, bowl fully clean, no toilet paper left, just. it. sorry

#txt #sorry for making the world worse by putting this out there #i couldn't keep it to myself

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the-darklings · 2 years

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What is the I'd let you win tag? 🥺 👉👈

It’s a ship tag for two pov characters from my original novel.

They’re the duo I said people would like if they liked Corinthian/Wanderer in tibyim as their dynamic was basically backwards engineered from those two.

They’re the my monster recognises your monster, they’re dark mirrors, he’s her mentor (but trying to make her worse), they’re extreme versions of each other, they’re the academic idiots who can discuss anything for hours (he’s a genius, she has insatiable desire for knowledge), he’s extremely dark and manipulative while she’s grey at best so their morality is agree to disagree since he sees the worst in people while she sees the best, big I chose you/I made you dynamic, he’s Icarus and she’ll either help and prevent the fall or crash with him. Because who doesn’t love a good dose of devotion that corrupts and potential tragedy?

#only thing you really need to know about the three main characters is that they’re all kinda awful #bring out the best in each other while also making each other severely worse #and they’re all aware of it but accept it because who else in this horrid world could ever understand them? accept them?#putting the ‘no’ in ‘no place for heroes’#these two are not explicitly romantic (since clara is in eventually in relationship with the other lead) but together they have…. vibes.#you really can’t tell what the hell is going on with them except that it does and it’s 👀#augustin is NOT made for love. if anything you should run in opposite direction.#he tends to destroy things when he’s bored of them. very few ever register on his radar as people even worth note #anyway I’m rambling sorry jdhfgjkdha i could just talk about these two for ten business days no cap #asks #v: npfh

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astrxealis · 1 year

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okay i'll seriously stop now (just a maybe) anyways please get into milgram listen the songs watch the mvs and all! <3

but just to ramble a bit: fuuta really is. so similar to the viewers/es

#⋯ ꒰ა starry thoughts ໒꒱ *·˚#⋯ ꒰ა milgram ໒꒱ *·˚#he's a twt user and kinda chronically online LMAOOO okay but to be serious. he doesn't really realize the #real world consequences of his actions until it's too late. and in the mv he so obviously shows regret and all #there's a scene where he's looking at his self from before doing the spraypaint again and tbh yeah dudes sadistic w that kinda thing #sadistic but in sort of a good way in a sense that he wants to deliver justice. but then things escalate too far as well #<- probably starts calling out people for the smallest things. not anymore about justice #or it still is about justice but even in the littlest of things... anyways yeah he likely starts it but then the others r the ones #who put more flame to the fire. i think he has problems w attention too so this kinda yk. makes him feel seen... or idk how to phrase it #bcs dude spends most of his time online right? the whole gaming thing might be an escape from reality in that he #likely doesn't have much friends if any at all (he also doesn't really get along w anyone in the prison. but i think he is a good person bc #he cares for haruka bcs hes younger). hmm. fuuta knows what's the deal with milgram #anyways yeah i think it is all just so interesting. he's definitely regretful and feels guilty and also... he's hinted at stuff #uhm. worrying. stuff. if yeah? idk how to phrase it but i think it is safest to really vote him innocent (also he deserves it imo)#he still needs to improve w some stuff but then again i dont think we should be Extremely Harsh #yk scruntinizing everything. voting him guilty again for a 'small' yk. not that what hes doing is negligible but i mean that he's #starting to improve (even if his... mental state is getting worse it seems) and it feels wrong and is exactly what he calls out #es/the viewers for if we vote him guilty for the smallest of mistakes/injustices even when he's yk. getting 'better'#sorry for terrible explanations here i hope it makes sense oml #i dont think fuuta meant anything bad fr. and then the drama audio w es like... agh wait im putting that aside for now bcs goddamn #i think there's smth to do w. Pressure. ofc. duh. LMFAO. maybe peer pressure to join in the cyberbullying #he likely didnt mean for it to escalate but maybe he started losing himself in it all w a sort of hero complex #ahhh trying to tie together stuff from the 1st trial and 2nd trial is complicated bcs the two have similar but different themes

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honestmouse20 · 1 year

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Once again smfs knows me so much better than I know myself. I can write it better than you ever felt it. Gonna give my therapist homework to listen to this bc jfc

#like specifically fake out and time to be alive and heaven iowa #those in particular i need to crawl into petes brain and find out how he Knows how i feel when i can fucking put it to words #ive spent ages in therapy trying to get to avross that im not sad and i don't wanna die anymore and thats somehow still sad #and it makes my anxiety worse bc now i have to see the world around me and how it is and realize that despite it all i still dont wanna die #idk #this is probably tmi but Still #like #i knew this stuff before the album ofc but Hearing it puts things in place and i am So unwell aboht it #things to show my therapist lol #shes already read my fics tho so like #nothing nrw #okay these tags are so lomg im so sorry #d rambles

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slipper007 · 1 year

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🫠

#im sorry for how much I've been venting on here but things are shitty and hate burdening people with it #to delete #im applying for grad school now and I asked my parents very carefully if they'd be helping me with application fees or if i was on my own #and I made sure that I didn't imply that I expected it. i made sure i worded it so that it was fine if they didn't want to or couldn't.#and I made sure I brought it up when everything was calm and there were no stressors or anything.#and I just got an exasperated sigh and even before they said anything it was over. literally just say you don't want to pay. it's fine.#don't sit there and tell me my grades are great but you don't want to waste your money. that feels so much worse than just being told no.#it feels like they don't believe I'll get in and it's not worth the effort to find out.#and honestly they're probably right. I'm a wreck lately. finishing my applications feels insurmountable.#finding the money to go even if I get accepted is impossible. and that feels awful because I know so many people getting free rides already #it's just like high school all over again. everyone's practically getting paid to go to one of their top schools and then there's me.#stressed about application fees #stressed about what on earth I'll do if they say no #stressed about how I cannot afford this without loans and being in debt.#i just. i hate this. i hate myself. my applications look like shit. the recommendation I've gotten back is literally shit.#i already know I'm not gonna do well in the quote unquote adult world and honestly this is just proving it to me #i literally haven't felt like me since junior year of high school and i don't know what to do and there's just no time to rest #and no time to put my all into anything #im doing school and 10 hours of work per week with free weekends and i can't rest already #how the fuck am I going to do school and 30+ hours a week of work and make rent and commute and agh #i feel so behind and so inferior and so fucking shitty all the time and there's nothing to fucking do about it #hhhhhhh #and nobody gets it. least of all me.

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ryn-city · 2 months

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#really starting to feel those birthday blues folks #was asked what i wanted but apparently 'to be put down like a dog' is not a valid wish #im just tired of. yea. everything #i dont know how else to put it. ive been stuck for like a decade #i just want a life thats more than an endless cycle of feeling sorry for myself #i want to not be in the same place every year with nothing changing for the better #i want to not feel like an entire waste of space who has to rely on other people #i want to not feel like bottom of the barrel unlovable pathetic and disgusting. doomed to either a life of loneliness or degradation #i want to not feel like my only shot at peace or happiness with life is outside the realm of possibility #i want to stop bolstering the people that hate me by suffering #i want the constant ringing of family saying ''youre not disabled'' to stop because it makes everything feel worse #i just want to stop feeling like the embodiment of disappointment #i wish the world wasnt like this. i wish the way of life was kinder. for everybody. i wish there wasnt no way out.

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thegaythespian · 7 months

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hate hate hate hate hate my brain

#tell me why it makes me feel anxious and like nothing is real and like time is sludge ALL DAY for no fucking reason!!!!!!#why?!????#and I was so fucking nauseous on my shift because I forgot to eat enough before it #but then also my shift for this weekend and last weekend has been the fucking worst for feeling like nothing is real #it’s an easy job but idk how much longer I can do this for #wearing my glasses is torture at my job #things feel more real now but still my vision is a bit weird #you’d think I’d be fucking used to it by now but apparently it had to get worse for no fuxking reason #and now these past couple weeks I’ve felt less grounded in my body which is so fucking great bc that wasn’t really happening before #I decided to distract myself with video games after work but now I’m done playing and we’re back at square one #anyways I’m not gonna be able to sleep tonight am I #sorry for the rant I just need to put this somewhere and have it be gone out into the world #thespian ramblings

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dragonspleenspicy · 11 months

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You know what my bio says *mostly* horny so I'm just going to be real here for a second

God im lonely and I don't know what to do 😭

#specifically lonely in the romantic way #i know most of my followers here are aro so sorry to you people hearing me complain about weird allo stuff #but i just want someone i can be vulnerable with because right now i just don't #someone i can hold and can hold me #honestly doesn't need to be romantic i wish i at least had a friend like that irl #and. i know its probably me. i need to put myself out there enough for people to see #the thing is that putting myself out there like that makes all my feelings worse #it makes me feel like a drain like a leech #what a cruel world it is where the only way to help myself is to hurt myself more

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augustinewrites · 3 months

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cw: it’s just angst

“i’m not mad.”

satoru closes and locks the front door, trailing after you into the kitchen, apprehension rising in the space kept between you. “really? because you seem kind of mad…”

“it’s fine, gojo.” you snap. “i’m fine.”

he watches you, quiet as the two of you go about your evening routine. leftovers from meals brought to the infirmary stowed away. week-old laundry tossed into the basket. you don’t say a word to him, emotions you don’t know how to make sense of still simmering.

“i’m sorry,” he says plainly as you’re both putting away the dishes.

you wipe your hands on the tea towel, glancing over at him. “do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

he shifts, unsure. “no…”

“of course you don’t,” you sigh.

“then tell me,” he insists, exasperated. “i don’t want to fight.”

“i don’t want to either,” you snap. “but you’re doing it again.”

“doing what?”

“you just spent a week in the infirmary. you were hurt.”

“c’mon,” he laughs weakly. “there was no real chance of me dying.”

“that’s not the—” you voice rises, then immediately quiets when you realize the kids are asleep. “that’s not the point. you’re losing yourself in it again. soon you’re going to drift away from us— from me,” you tell him, bleeding into the pain you’ve felt the last few days. “like you did when we were in school.”

because for as long as you’d known gojo, his drive was to constantly do more. be more. the period of time after the failure that was the star plasma vessel mission was the first time you’d witnessed it. gojo satoru doesn’t do anything halfway. he won’t permit himself to.

that’s what really scares you. he doesn’t know when to stop.

“i’m sorry that i worried you,” he apologizes, sincerity etched into his expression. you know him, know that he’s scared to say the wrong thing, that he’ll mess this up or somehow make it worse. “i had to. the higher ups—”

“satoru,” you interrupt, walls crumbling right in front of him. “i’ve always liked that you care about the jujutsu world. i just don’t want you to only care about it. not with where we are in our lives right now.”

“i don’t—”

“you do! you always have, and i get it. i know the world needs you…but things are getting worse, and we need to start thinking about the future—”

“everything i’m doing is for the future. for the future generation of sorcerers all over the world—”

“i don’t care about the world! i just care about you, and that’s the problem. one person always cares more in a relationship and that’s always been me.”

“that’s not true,” he insists, a desperate edge in his voice. “all i’ve ever wanted is you. all i’ve never needed is you—”

“i need you too! maybe that sounds selfish or needy, but i don’t want there to be a day where i have to tell the kids that you’re not coming home. if you can’t understand that—”

he doesn’t think you realize you’re crying, frustrated tears gathering in your eyes and threatening to spill over. satoru reaches for you out of instinct, your argument the furthest thing from both your minds at this moment. you let him pull you into his arms, let him hold you.

but you’re exhausted.

this is fight you’ve been having since the moment you’d met him, and you don’t think he’ll understand the impact of it until you walk away.

“if you don’t understand that,” you continue softly, “then maybe we need to take a break.”

_____

outside the apartment door, nanami and shoko sit side by side, sharing a bottle of "welcome home" wine.

"guess they forgot we were coming over," the doctor mutters, pressing her ear against the door to see if jujutsu tech's favourite couple was still fighting. “it’s way too quiet in there. you think she killed him?”

nanami sighs, loosening his tie. “it’s quite possible.”

“i’ll be the alibi and you’ll get rid of the body?”

“of course.”

#fushigojo breakup fic part one #gojo x reader #jjk x reader #gojo satoru x reader #keeping up with the fushigojos #jjk angst

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helenanell · 16 days

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A Breath of Life || Challengers

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Part Two

Pairing(s) : Reader x Patrick – Reader x Art – Reader x Tashi (sort of.)

CW: MDNI - 18+ : smut, rough / manhandling. Infidelity. Angst. A lot of yearning. (They all want each other, badly.) Manipulative behaviour. Minor spoilers for the film.

Notes: Female Reader (AFAB Reader) - Absolutely no use of y/n, (because I despise it, sorry)

Wordcount: 9.7K

Summary: You met Tashi in your final year of high school and were more than happy to have lost a tennis match against her. Afterwards, the two of you become inseparable and you find yourself feeling for her in a way that you don’t quite understand.And then things get even more complicated when Patrick and Art burst into your lives. As the years pass, desire, love and hatred all get tangled together...and so do the four of you.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

The idea of meeting Tashi Duncan had been much more intimidating than the actual event itself. It was an odd thing, to idolise someone who was the exact same age as you—a girl not yet out of high school and still so chronically unsure of herself and the world—but it was impossible not to.

You had watched every single match of hers that you could, staring for so long at the way she moved, that you were left with the afterimage of her burned into your eyes: She was in your thoughts constantly and always waiting behind your eyes when you closed them hoping for sleep.

You were brilliant at tennis, you knew that you were. But Tashi played like it was the only way she could take oxygen into her lungs; each serve and shot an inhalation and exhalation. You understood, because you felt something similar.

For a long time, you had been ignored or dismissed in every aspect of your life, by everyone. But then you had found tennis, and you were really fucking great at it.

Tennis saved your life by making you undeniably tangible. Your existence could not be disputed when someone had to react to your movements, to receive something you had offered.

It was no wonder then, that for as long a match lasted you were unhealthily obsessed with whoever it was that you were playing against. They made you real.

But then you played Tashi. You had lost, of course, but it had been a close match, neither of you dominating for long before the other gained the upper hand once more. The gasps from the crowd had been the swelling of some great tide, breaking against your flesh and reinvigorating you like freezing water.

Once it was over, you felt bereft of something vital. You felt as though you had slipped back into non-existence, only this time it was worse than ever, because your connection to Tashi Duncan was gone.

But your body remembered. It ached and throbbed, rebelling at all you had put it through- no. All Tashi had put it through. You were desperate to feel it again.

And your prayer was answered.

She appeared before you like an angel.

Tashi jogged over to you as you gathered your things after the match, flushed and with beads of sweat glistening on her skin like crystals. And her eyes…they had been wide and dark and enrapturing. And then she had said the words that would change the trajectory of your life:

“So, when can I play you again?”

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

Ruah is the Hebrew word that means God’s spirit, but it is also breath or air and is widely understood to be God’s presence in the world.

You couldn’t remember when you had learnt the word, but you knew that in the Bible, God had created Adam by breathing life into him. Which was why, when anyone joked about Tashi Duncan being some kind of deity, you could not dispute it, because that is what she had done to you.

Tashi had breathed life into you.

Her presence in your life has allowed you to come alive even off the court: you finally felt like a real person. Thanks to her, you knew that when you put your racket down, you did not simply disappear.

Tashi saw you, on and off the court, and you loved her for it.

But, by the time you were both accepted into Stanford, over a year after you’d first met, you still wouldn’t let yourself delve into that love, and work out the ways in which you felt it. Not only because, you’d only ever been drawn to guys in any romantic or sexual way, but also because you felt undeserving of her.

How pathetic would it be for you, who crawled at your best friend’s feet, to look up and whimper out words of desire to her?

You were blessed to have her in your life, let alone to be as close with her as you were. Love was so many disparate things; you could love her as a friend, and hold that carnal aspect deep down. Just having her in your life was more than enough. She was enough.

Or so you thought.

At the party celebrating Tashi, the two of you had not yet left each other’s side. You were dancing together, close enough that you could feel the ecstasy of victory buzzing beneath her skin as she held your hands and pulled you close. Her hair was silken and flowing down her back and as you were tangled up with her, it tickled against your own exposed skin.

“They’re still staring.” You whisper into her ear, laughing as she answers by twirling you around and then pulling you back in.

You practically fall into one another, having to steady yourself by placing your hands on her hips, the beaded fabric of her dark blue dress digging into the palms of your hands.

“Good.” Tashi answers, wrapping her arms around your shoulders.

She turns you enough that with your chin resting on her shoulder, you are looking right at the two boys who had been gawking all night. One dark haired with confidence coming off him in waves, the other more reserved, a different kind of potency bubbling beneath the surface.

The blonde’s eyes meet yours and he tilts his head, offering a delicate but untethering smile.

“You’re going to have to talk to them.” You offer, still held in Tashi’s arms. “Otherwise they’re going to follow you around like lost puppies all night.”

You gasp and squirm away as your friend playfully pinches your side.

“Do you really think they’re just looking at me?” Tashi questions incredulously.

You laugh at her shock. “Of course they are.” You say, gesturing up and down her form as she continues to sway to the music.

“Oh my God!” Tashi exclaims, grabbing your hand and pulling you close again. “You’re such a fucking idiot! They’re looking at you, too!”

You roll your eyes, but can’t help feeling a little buoyed at the prospect of being desired. “Yeah, right.”

Tashi shakes her head. “It’s a good thing you’re so oblivious, I like having you all to myself!”

Heat floods every part of you, acutely aware of the sweat trickling down the back of your neck, your skin uncomfortably warm.

Only when the two of you have stopped dancing do they come over.

Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig saunter needfully into your life and had you known then all that would ensue, you still would have welcomed their approach.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

The four of you had wandered down to the beach.

Art and Patrick were sitting on deck chairs that sat side by side, their legs stretched out and their gazes lustful, both of them looking at Tashi who was perched on a rock opposite them. In that moment, the moon seemed made only for her, the silver light lining her form.

You sit on the sand near her, your legs pulled up to your chest. The waves softly hit the beach behind you, lulling you into an even more incorporeal mindset. All that exists to you, is Tashi and the two boys who so clearly want her.

Despite how desperately you want to engage in their conversation, you’re exhausted and distracted by the knowledge that your parents will already be looking for you.

You’ve rested your chin on your knees, your eyes drooping shut, when a voice calls out to you.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Art is crouching beside you, his hand on your back, his knees sinking into the sand, shifting the surface beneath you. You jolt at the contact, scrambling to your feet as Tashi chuckles.

Patrick’s gaze flits between you and Art and then over to your best friend, his cheeks dimpled with a smirk.

“I’m fine.” You reassure with a shaky smile, brushing sand off the back of your dress. “I should go though, my parents will be waiting.”

“You can��t leave!” Patrick protests playfully, placing a hand to his chest. “You’ll break my heart.”

You grin, spurred on by his own smile and shrug. “And why should I care about that?”

Patrick’s mouth drops open in feigned hurt as Art chuckles, shoving his hands into his pockets and stepping away from you.

You turn to Tashi, meaning to say goodbye, but she’s already up and hugging you. She often kisses your cheek as a form of goodbye, but this time she gets so close that her lips tease the corner of your mouth as hers make contact. You are electrified by it.

You know that she isn’t doing it for you, which is confirmed when she pulls away with her eyes flitting giddily between Art and Patrick who have both gone utterly still as they watched the display.

Despite the jealous ache that blooms, you play into it, because another part of you is excited at the thought of working the two boys up. You pull Tashi back into a hug, your hands resting dangerously low on her back as you squeeze her. She giggles into your ear.

“You already have them wrapped around your little finger.” You say it quietly, but loud enough that you know the boys will hear.

Over Tashi’s shoulder, you see Patrick smirk again and Art runs his thumb over his his bottom lip with a small smile on his face.

When you do finally pull away, Tashi smacks you on the ass.

“It was great to meet to you!” Art shouts after you.

“I miss you already!” Is Patrick’s shouted offering.

You just shake your head and continue on your path away from the beach.

Unbeknownst to you, three sets of eyes follow you until you’ve disappeared from view.

When you get home, you still feel the touch of Tashi all over you. But when your hand dips under the covers, something has changed. Because when you close your eyes, it’s not just Tashi you see. Instead, multiple people are fighting for dominance in your midnight fantasy:

You see Patrick’s licentious smirk.

You see Art’s coy smile.

They’ve both invaded your mind, corrupted your thoughts that for a year had been so gloriously void of anything but Tashi.

And from that moment, you know part of you will always hate them. For so long, even knowing you can’t have her, all you’ve needed to sate yourself are thoughts of Tashi. But they’ve changed that.

You hate Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson because they’ve made you want more. You want….one of them. You don't know why and you also don’t know which one of them it is.

But what is clear to you, is that a new itch has arisen within you, and it comes with panic, because unlike with Tashi, you’re certain there’s a possibility that one of them might actually want to scratch the itch for you.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

Had he known how furious you were going to be with him when you arrived, you doubted Art would have been so eager to invite you to have lunch with him in the cafeteria.

Even when you slam your tray down and drop into the seat opposite him, he still looks happy to see you. He always did. It was infuriating.

“What are you playing at, Art?” You struggle to keep your volume down. You hadn’t wanted to yell at someone in a long time, but he had managed it.

Concern flashes in his eyes, but his lips press together in a way that tells you he knows exactly what you’re referring to. And yet he still asks:

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re fucking with Tashi’s head.”

“I would never do that.”

You scoff, stabbing the flimsy plastic fork into your salad. “Except you are, and I know that you’re doing it on purpose.”

Art pushes his own tray to the side and settles his elbow onto the table, resting his chin on his hand. “Yeah, how’d you figure?”

“Why else would you tell her that Patrick doesn’t love her?”

“Because I don’t think he does. Do you?”

You ignore his question, instead opting to pick up your apple and throw it at his head, hard. He catches it, that damnable little smile still on his face.

“For fuck sake, Art!” You erupt. “She needs to keep her head on straight. Don’t upset her just because you want her for yourself!”

He tilts his head, blue eyes sparkling as he takes a large bite out of the apple. He chews for a bit before holding it back out to you, speaking through a mouthful:

“You should have the rest of this, you haven’t been eating enough.”

“Fuck you!” You snatch it from his hand and shift in your seat, easily throwing it and landing it right in a nearby trashcan.

“Well that was a waste of perfectly good fruit.” Art licks some residue off his thumb and then leans across the table.

You fail to snatch your wrist away before he grabs it. He’s gentle but firm, and as his thumb rubs along your pulse point, you feel the residual moisture from his own mouth he’d left behind, transferring to your skin.

“You don’t have to fight this hard to protect her,” Art presses. “She’s a grown woman.”

“She’s my best friend and I don’t want you to hurt her.”

Art’s thumb stills, but he tugs your wrist a little closer. “Do you really think I could?”

You scowl, pulling free of his hold. “You know, the way you and Patrick worship her isn’t the compliment that you both seem to think it is. You’re putting her up on a pedestal, practically deifying her, but she’s not invulnerable. She feels more strongly than anyone I’ve ever known and tennis is her life. If you get in her head and fuck up her game, It will break her and then I will break your fucking hands.”

This time when he’s smiles, it’s rife with fondness for you and it makes you want to punch him for the fluttering it causes in your stomach.

“You didn’t answer my question.” He says simply.

“What?”

“Do you think Patrick loves her?” Art repeats patiently.

“Do you love her, Art?”

“Can you please just answer my question?”

“I don’t know!” You throw your hands up in exasperation. “I’m not even sure I would know love if I saw it. All I do know, is that you both lust after her and definitely for each other too, even if you’ll never admit it. You’re all totally fucked.”

Art’s jaw clenches, the muscles ticking, but instead of irritation or anger at your outburst, his gaze softens. When he speaks, it is soft and achingly tender:

“You do know love. Because you love Tashi.”

You let out an embittered laugh. “Of course I do. I tell her all the time.”

“But she doesn’t love you, not in the same way.”

You really didn’t know if he intended for that to sting, especially not with how gently he’d said it, but if he had, he’d failed. You came to accept that fact a long while ago, and while you would always want Tashi in some respect, it was not the all consuming desire it had been. The lust was gone. She was important to you. She was your best friend and you wanted to protect her.

Unfortunately, the two men you wanted to protect her from, were the ones who had usurped her as objects of desire in your mind.

“Are you trying to find yourself a catchphrase before you go pro?” You sneer at Art. “I’m not sure how great that would look on a billboard for Adidas.”

“You deserve to be loved.”

You had picked up your cup to take a drink of water, but upon hearing his words, you slam it down again and rise to your feet. He tracks your every move, as calm as ever.

“I can’t talk to you right now, Art. You’re being cruel.”

You storm away from the table, only making it a few steps before you hear the scrape of his chair against the floor as he rushes to follow you.

You’ve only just pushed open the door when he crowds up behind you.

Art’s hand lands on your back as he guides you outside, his other hand rests on your arm and even after he turns you to face him, his touch remains.

His hand is wrapped lightly around your arm, the other keeping you close- his palm pressed against your lower back. Anyone watching would think he was drawing you into an embrace. You almost shudder at the contact.

Patrick has always been handsy, touching and caressing you under the guise of teasing, but Art has always moved around you as though you’ll disintegrate at the lightest touch. The way he’d held your wrist back in the dining hall and how he cradles you now, is the most he’s ever touched you.

Your chest heaves as your flesh tingles.

Art’s head drops, his eyes on his own hand on your arm, as if he can’t understand why he’s holding you. His voice is strained:

“Patrick isn’t good for her.”

And just like that, you’re slammed mercilessly back down to earth.

Art wasn’t touching you with tenderness or affection, you were just someone he was holding in place so that you had to hear him out. So you had to hear how much he wanted Tashi.

“Oh, but I deserve to be thrown at him as a distraction so that you can have her?” You snap at him, more hurt than you’ll ever admit.

“You deserve whatever it is that you actually want.”

Art sounds frustrated now, not at you…but perhaps at what he knows you won’t say. You do want Patrick. But you also want him. You had just never considered that he knew that.

But that’s not what you say. Instead you say–

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Do you want to know why he isn’t good for her?” Art presses, entirely unaffected by your fury.

“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

The hand on your back pulls you a little closer, one errant blonde curl falls down from his forehead and brushes your temple. His breath is hot against your cheek.

“Patrick’s not good for her-“ Art begins, his tone becoming embittered. “Because he wants you. He always has.”

You rip free from Art’s grip with such force that the friction of it burns, his fingerprints leaving red marks on your arm. “You are unbelievable!”

“I’m not lying. You know I wouldn’t, not to you.”

“You will say anything to have her won’t you?” You laugh nastily. “What’s the plan, Art? Do you think that I’ll try and seduce Patrick away from her now, leaving a space open for you to swoop in?”

“Ask me how I know.”

“No.” You spit back at him.

But you don’t move.

Your body waits for words that your mind doesn’t think it can handle hearing. Something feels so close to breaking and you can’t help but feel like it’s to do with whatever force binds the four of you together.

Art steps forward, closing the distance again, he raises his hands and rests them on either side of your neck, his thumbs pressing onto where your pulse is ratcheting beneath your fragile skin.

“I know he wants you, because the night after he won our match- when he won Tashi’s number- he told me that I should fuck you.”

“Art.” You warn, frustrated tears bringing horrible pressure behind your eyes.

A small group comes out of the dining hall and have to split down the middle, because neither of you move a muscle. Art’s hold tightens, like he’s trying to leave a permanent imprint behind without it hurting you.

He whispers now. “Patrick told me to fuck you. And I know him. He said that because when he couldn't have you, it excited him to think that I would. That I'd tell him about sleeping with you.”

“That was such a long time ago.” You say shakily, coming completely unmoored.

But Art won’t let it go.

“He still looks at you the same way, and that’s not fair to Tashi. You want to protect her, right? Well what will it do her when she finally notices the way her boyfriend is constantly eye-fucking her best friend?”

You hit out against his chest with a closed fist. The shock more than the force makes him stagger back.

“You are so fucked in the head! You and Patrick are both pathetic little leeches who want the same girl, but can’t cope with the way it’s made them realise that they also want each other. You know what? I actually think so much would be solved, if you and Patrick just fucked each other!”

You start to back away and Art darts forward, trying to grab you again, but you smack his hand away and turn your back.

“Leave me alone, Art! And leave me out of your shit!”

He calls out your name with ragged desperation, but he does not follow. And even though he’s truly made your skin crawl, something about that makes you even more furious.

Why won’t he follow you?

Why do you still want him to?

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

You hadn’t spoken to any of them since your argument with Art.

You couldn’t cope with the realisation that if any of them ever did feel any desire for you, it was only because they saw you as some sort of vessel through which they could access parts of the person that they truly wanted.

You couldn’t even be said to exist in Tashi’s shadow anymore, you had simply been subsumed by it. Those two men, who you both despised and wanted desperately, would never see you, not really. To them, you were just part of her. But you would not let them ruin your friendship with Tashi. You just wouldn’t.

You knew when you arrived to watch her match that something wasn’t right. She was upset. You could see it in all the minutiae of her: in the way she took off her hoodie, in the way she picked up her racket. Something was really wrong.

You walk through the stands until you come across Art.

There are two free spaces to the right of him, so you sit down on the one furthest away, leaving a gap in the middle for Patrick to take up when he arrives. But then time passes and the match approaches and he still hasn’t materialised.

You feel Art staring long before he makes his move. The air shifts as he shuffles over into the seat directly beside you.

“That seat is taken.” You intone harshly. Your eyes are fixed on Tashi as she prepares.

“If it was, I wouldn’t have been able to sit in it.”

“Sorry, I should have been clearer. I don’t want you anywhere near me, so I want Patrick to sit there instead of you.”

Your name is a tentative as he speaks it. “Will you please look at me? I can’t handle you not looking at me.”

Your gaze remains set on Tashi, she looks up and finds you in the crowd. The furious divot between her brow eases for a moment before her eyes snag on the way that Art is leaning into you. She turns her back on the entire crowd, but you know the gesture is meant for you alone.

Fuck. What the hell had happened overnight? If it was Art’s meddling, you’d kill him.

“The match is about to start.” You say coldly.

Art’s hand lands on your knee, but when you flinch, he immediately pulls it away.

“I know I hurt you and I’m sorry. I- I need you to forgive me.”

You grit your teeth at his audacity. “Why do you need me to, Art?”

“Because I can’t stand the thought of you not being in my li-“

The match begins and Art never gets to finish his sentence.

In fact, you don’t speak to him properly for almost a decade after that. Because Tashi gets hurt. Her sporting career ends in the blink of an eye and takes your friendship with it.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

Both you and Art had sprinted down onto the court, your heart breaking in your chest as you fell to your knees beside your best friend, tears gathering in her eyes as she whimpered in pain.

What had hurt the most though, was the way Tashi had shoved your hand away when you had tried to comfort her.

“Don’t touch me!” She had barked on a ragged breath. “Get away from me. Get away!”

The hatred had dripped from her words and landed on you like a corrosive liquid. And as it had burned down to the bone, you had looked at Art and the apologetic agony with which he’d regarded you—even as he’d cradled Tashi’s head in his hands—told you what he’d done.

He’d not only told you about Patrick’s supposed lust for you, but he’d also told Tashi. He had told her that even after her now boyfriend had won her number, he’d apparently been thinking about fucking you. Art had also definitely shared his little insight that Patrick didn’t love her either, which you quickly worked out had contributed to his absence.

So Art got what he wanted: he finally had his hands on Tashi and he’d done it by carving you and Patrick away.

Art Donaldson was an attentive, gentle, even needy man, but you had been so stupid to think that meant he couldn’t also be calculated and cruel. Because of course he was. What else could win the heart of Tashi Duncan but brutal passion? It was part of what she loved about tennis: the unforgiving force of hits that once you met them, somehow felt like affection.

When Patrick had tracked an injured Tashi down, still waiting to be taken to hospital, he had been ordered away by both her and Art.

You knew that because he’d just told you. It was the first thing he’d said to you when you’d let him into your room fifteen minutes earlier.

Now, you were both sitting on the scratchy carpet of your dorm, passing a bottle of vodka between the two of you.

You felt bereft. Your body wracked with sympathetic pain for the grief in your mind. You’d lost Tashi today, you knew that. And the man that had caused it, was a man you’d spent years yearning for.

Art hadn’t only taken Tashi from you, but he’d violently ripped himself away too.

“Art wasn’t lying.” Patrick grumbles after taking another hearty gulp of vodka.

“Please, don’t.” You beg wearily, taking the vodka from his outstretched hand and pressing it to your lips. Not even the burn of the spirit going down your throat registers.

“I wanted- want, both of you. You and Tashi.”

He isn’t drunk, only tipsy, but he’s getting there, and his words are sluggish, laced with fury.

“Shut up, Patrick.”

You fall down onto your back, resting the vodka bottle on your stomach, holding it by the neck as you stare up at the ceiling.

Patrick has been sitting opposite you, but he moves languidly forward, crawling up over your body. He braces one knee beside your hip as the other slots between your legs.

You blink up at him as one of his hands rests beside your head and the other falls over your own where it still holds the vodka bottle. You let him take it from you, placing it beside your body before the hand then moves to rest on the other side of your head.

You’re now trapped beneath him, his lithe body hovering just above yours.

When he leans in, his alcoholic breath almost sears your skin as his lips brushed the shell of your ear.

“Sometimes, when we were fucking I would imagine that you were with us.” Patrick’s teeth nip at your ear. “I asked her once, you know, and she slapped me. Called me a pig. I think she was just mad because she liked having you to herself. You were such a devoted acolyte, kissing the ground she walked on—“

Fury bursts within you like a solar flare, red-hot and ruinous. He was talking about her in the past tense, as if she was dead to both of you already.

Art groans in pain when you knee him in the balls. You use the chance to shove him off you and he falls to the side, knocking the bottle of vodka over.

As you stand up, you feel the alcohol seeping into the carpet at your feet.

“You are a pig.” You hiss down at him.

It’s your room, but you find yourself storming towards the door.

You don’t get far before Patrick recovers, clambering to his feet and easily closing the distance with his long legs.

You groan in frustration as he presses you into the door, one hand above your head and the other wrapping around your torso, his fingers dangerously close to brushing your breasts over your tank top.

“If I’m a pig, why did you let me in?” He pressed his face into your neck and breathes you in.

Some of the vodka has evidently soaked into his shirt, because the scent seizes you with the same violence with which he had. It’s a secondary intoxication.

You words come out weakly, and you hate that it’s because you’re using so much energy fighting the urge to press back into him:

“I felt sorry for you.”

Patrick laughs.

The smug bastard actually laughs right into your skin, the vibrations travelling all the way down to where your body has begun to ache the most.

“Oh, sure.” He coos patronisingly. “It definitely wasn’t because you’ve wanted to fuck me for years.”

You should fight him, but you don’t want to.

You should protest when the hand that he has pressed to the door moves to pull down one of the straps of your tank top. But you simply don’t want to. You want him.

Art had been right about both of you.

No sooner has the thin strip of fabric been removed from your shoulder, than Patrick is clamping his teeth down on the exposed flesh. You yelp in surprise, the pain a burst of sordid pleasure.

Patrick laughs again, the hand he has pressed to your stomach pulling you flush against him. You can feel his need for you pressing into your backside, but in case you had somehow missed it, he bucks his hips up into you.

You gasp and he laughs again, his tongue now running over the aggravated skin where his teeth have left a dent.

“We both know what this is.” He goads.

“And what is it?” You ask teasingly, your head now thrown back and resting against his chest. He groans into your neck as you grind yourself back onto him.

“Inevitable.”

“Are you just doing this to get back at them?” You ask, not daring to speak their names.

An angry grumble you can’t quite make sense of tears out of Patrick’s throat just before he is forcefully spinning you around.

You get barely a glimpse of his feral smirk before he is easily picking you up again and throwing you over his shoulder. The slap he delivers to your ass is punishing and stings furiously as he practically throws you down onto the carpet.

The bed is right next to you, but the asshole apparently wants you on the scratchy carpet and with a wet patch where the vodka has soaked in.

“I’m doing this, because I have wanted to fuck you, from the moment I saw you dancing at that party.”

You’ve barely got your breath back after being thrown about, when he is grabbing your calf and yanking you down so that you’re laying completely flat beneath him.

“But you only ever pursued Tash-“

He cuts you off from saying her name by leaning down and pressing his mouth to your still clothed breast. His tongue swirls over the fabric, your nipple growing pert.

When his knee presses up between your legs, parting them forcefully, your head falls back, strands of your hair wetted by the spilt alcohol.

When Patrick bites down on your chest far too hard, your hand instinctively comes up to slap the side of his head.

You’re so shocked by your own burst of violence that you go still at exactly the same time as Patrick, both of you breathing furiously. When he does peer up at you, his dark curls slick against his increasingly sweaty forehead, menace dances in his eyes.

“Do that again.”

You wish you could have feigned confusion or indignation for even a moment, but your blood is pumping to all the right places to urge you to make terrible, delightful decisions.

Your second slap connects cleanly with his cheek, your palm tingling with the force as his head spins to the side.

Your handprint is already a pink mark on his skin when he wraps his arms around your torso, lifting you up just enough so that he can pull your tank top off and throw it to the side. Your chest is left bare to him and he wastes no time before peppering kisses to your sternum, to your breasts and your neck, his arms still wrapped around you, his nails digging into your back.

The throbbing ache between your legs becomes far too much to bear, so you curl your fingers into his hair and forcefully tug him away from your chest- a bead of saliva stretching between your flushed skin to his swollen lips.

You lean your head forward, taking his bottom lip between your teeth and biting, pulling at it until he groans pathetically. You let him go, beyond pleased when you don’t have to tell him what you want next.

You don’t want to wait any longer. You haven’t slept with anyone since you met him and Art.

Art.

Is it wrong that as Patrick pushes your back into the carpet and pulls down your sweatpants and underwear in one clean tug, that you close your eyes and briefly imagine that it’s Art instead?

You might have found an answer if you had more time, but when you open your eyes, Patrick is over you, his shorts and boxers already discarded alongside your clothes. His shirt is still on, but neither of you have the patience for the second or so it would take to get it off him.

Patrick smirks down at you before pressing two of his fingers into your mouth, you open gladly, your eyes locked onto each other as he swirls them around. When he’s satisfied, he pulls his fingers out, and then licks his own hand, mixing himself with you.

He swipes his wet hand over your already slick core a few times before he’s pressing himself inside of you. Your arms curl around his neck as you wrap your legs around his waist.

“Fuck.” He groans, his tongue licking up the side of your neck as his hips begin to move.

“Patrick.” You plead, your fingers digging into the nape of his neck.

He knows what you want, nipping at your neck before he is driving into you with bruising force.

In that moment, as you’re joined in the way you’ve wanted since the moment you’ve set eyes on him, you realise thar Tashi isn’t the only person that can make you feel real.

As Patrick drives into you–his lips and teeth leaving marks on your flesh that will be wine-dark by morning, and the horrible fabric beneath you leaving carpet burn on your back– you finally know more than tennis can make you feel alive.

The sex is forceful and punishing, but fuelled by a genuine passion. Nothing but your intermingled breaths and the sound of your joined bodies fills the room.

If the two of you hadn’t been so lost to your pleasure, you might have heard Art knocking on your door. But you didn’t.

He did however hear the two of you, so he walked away.

You wouldn’t speak to him or Tashi again for over ten years.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

You weren’t in New Rochelle to compete. You didn’t need to. You were on the top of your game, ranked the third best female player in the world.

No, you were in New York because despite your better judgement-- and the many years that had passed since you’d last seen him--when Patrick Zweig had called you, you’d answered.

You hadn’t heard his voice since you had told him that for your own sanity, you couldn’t see him anymore.

For the two years you had been together after Tashi had banished you both from her life, you had let Patrick consume you. And you had never played tennis so poorly in your life.

You hated what that said about you, that you had willingly discarded someone you had genuinely cared for to improve your ability to hit a ball. But hitting that ball was what kept you alive, not him.

Not only that, it hadn’t taken you long to realise that you didn’t love Patrick enough to let him affect your career.

And yet when he had called, you’d answered. And when he’d told you that Art Donaldson had entered the Challenger as a wildcard, you both knew that you would come.

From the moment you had booked the flight, to the first step you’d taken into the hotel, you had lied to yourself that you were only coming for the closure that you hadn’t received as a twenty year old.

But when you stepped into the hotel lobby and saw Tashi disappearing into the nearby elevator, your self-deception shattered.

You were here because still, after all the time that had passed, you ached for the way that you had felt when she had been in your life. You missed her. And you had missed Art.

It was a sickening truth of your life, that while no one had fucked with your head or upset you as much as Art had ended up doing, no one else had ever been so attentive to you either.

Art had watched you—watched out for you—even when you weren’t playing tennis. In fact, in moments of utter stillness, when you had been doing nothing even remotely remarkable, was when you had always caught him staring. He never shied away, or broke his gaze when he was caught, he’d just smiled as if he wanted you to know he would never feel shame for being found looking at you.

And that had not changed.

You have been sitting at the hotel bar for ten minutes, feeling sorry for yourself and nursing the same glass of gin and tonic, when you feel someone looking at you.

You turn your head cautiously, your shoulders sagging as your eyes meet Art’s. He’s sitting on one of the small leather couches tucked into the far corner of the darkened room.

It had been an inevitability, but things would have been so much easier if you never came across him.

You know you shouldn’t move- part of you had come for closure and you could get that just by watching him compete tomorrow, so you don’t need to talk to him.

But then Art tilts his head and smiles at you like no time has passed and pats his hand on the unoccupied space beside him on the couch.

You get down off the barstool.

As you approach, he watches unflinchingly.

The last time you had heard Art’s voice, was when Tashi had suffered her injury and he’d been permitted to stay by her side when she had ordered you away.

And yet even after so much time, when he greets you with a quiet ‘hello’, the pathetic girl who had pined after him returns.

You don’t respond as you come to a stop right in front of him, the tips of your heels right against the toes of his shoes, but you make no move to sit down.

It’s of course not the first time you’ve seen him since college, or been at the same event, or even in the same room- you’re both highly successful tennis players, you couldn’t help but overlap sometimes. But neither of you have ever allowed yourselves to get close, or to even speak.

It has been over ten years of your eyes connecting through crowds and across rooms that felt much larger than they were, simply because there was distance between the two of you within them.

Art sits forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He’s fiddling with his wedding ring and you can’t bear to look at the familiar way his fingers carry out the gesture.

When he looks up at you, it's so open and wanting that you almost turn right back around. But then you hear his voice again.

“Can I ask you to sit with me?”

“I don’t know Art, can you?”

He smiles, sighing softly as he runs his hand through his hair. It’s short- much shorter than the curls he’d had at college. You like it. It suits him.

You shift on your feet, crossing your arms across your chest to cover up your nerves. Perhaps you can protect yourself if you look like you’re closed off from him and from…whatever this interaction is about to be.

Art doesn’t say anything else, but he surprises you by rising to his feet. You stagger back, but his hand reaches out and lands on your side to steady.

His touch lingers for a moment too long, but he does eventually pull it away.

But he’s still close, too close.

Your hands have fallen to your sides, so it is too easy for Art to reach out and brush his fingers against yours. He doesn’t intertwine them, but he’s doing enough to let you know that it’s what he wants to do.

He whispers your name. “Will you please sit with me?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Art.”

“When have you ever known me to have one of those?”

You smile ruefully, but take a step back. His hand chases you, his fingers brushing against yours again as he tries to take your hand.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve known anything about you.” You say, hating how sad it sounds.

You should be angry at least. His meddling and his desire for Tashi is what ripped you all apart. And he has her now. They have a daughter together.

He doesn't get to ask you for anything, not even if it’s just to sit with him.

You can’t trust yourself to sit next to him.

“You do know me. Time can’t change that.” He insists, quietly but firmly.

You scoff nastily. “I knew Art Donaldson when he was in college. The world famous tennis player who does AD campaigns for sports cars with his wife, is a stranger to me.”

“Yeah.” Art laughs darkly. “He’s a stranger to me too.”

You frown at him, growing angry. He seems exhausted and down-trodden. He’s clearly hurting and you hate that you know that—you hate that you‘d been able to tell that even from across the bar—because it means that he’s right: you do still know him.

“It’s late, Art. You should get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”

You turn away from him and while he doesn’t reach for you this time, he does call out. You keep you back to him as he asks his question.

“Who do you want to win, me or Patrick?”

“Tennis can’t decide a victor between the two of you, Art. It’s never been able to.”

When you walk to the elevator, you feel a physical strain as you stop yourself from looking back at him.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

You were right, tennis couldn’t decide on a winner: it was as fickle and incomprehensible as the human heart. Which was fitting, seeing as Tashi had always described tennis as a relationship.

You had sat only two places away from her during Patrick and Art’s match, and you know she had seen you. But there had been no reaction, her face had been impassive and set on the court, her eyes hidden behind a large pair of sunglasses.

Now, the match was long over and a result had been given. And yet there hadn’t been a victory for anyone. Just like you knew there wouldn’t be.

Something had happened on that court between the two men, some silent, inexplicable exchange that had altered the very fabric of them.

This time, when Art knocks on your door, not only do you hear it, but you answer.

You feel almost shocked when you pull open the door to reveal him, dressed in a grey t-shirt and flannel pyjama trousers. You’re surprised at the sight as if you hadn’t known he was coming- as if you hadn’t readily offered up your room number when he had messaged and asked for it.

You’re also somehow certain that Patrick had given him your number, but you didn’t want to dwell on what sort of exchange had led to him handing it over.

Without a word, you step away from the door, self-consciously tightening the cord that holds the silk robe around your body. You stop and face the windows.

The curtains are drawn, by you stare forward as though the whole skyline is on display to you.

The door to your room clicks shut.

You hear Art take off his shoes before his feet are padding towards you.

When his arms wrap around your waist, you close your eyes and savour the sensation. He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, so you lift a hand and rest it on the side of his head.

“I want to retire at the end of this year.” He says and you can feel his exhaustion in the slow breaths that coast over your neck.

“So retire.” You answer softly, your eyes still on the curtains. “You’re tired.”

You know you don’t need to clarify. Thanks to the grateful press of his lips against your neck, you know he understands what you mean.

Art is weary of all that he has to be when he’s playing tennis; he’s tired of the effort it takes to play the sport for not just him, but for Tashi too. His wife has been living vicariously through him. He’s been living for two people, taking the strain of two professional athletes combined.

You know there had never been any point in competing with Art or Patrick, because Tashi would always love tennis the most.

A shiver wracks your body as Art’s hand reaches for the bow that’s keeping your otherwise bare body concealed from him.

“Can I?” His request is whined into your hair as he presses his face into the back of your head.

Instead of answering verbally, you nudge his hand away and untie the robe yourself. Then, you take hold of both of his wrists and guide his hands onto your skin. You let out a sigh of relief when Art finally touches you the way you want him to.

Your hands are still on him as his fingers move to cup your breasts, but he is the one guiding his movements now. He squeezes, his thumbs brushing over your nipples.

“Art.” You rasp, pressing back into him wantonly.

“Can I have you?” He asks, pressing open mouthed, hot kisses to your neck as he palms your breasts. “Please, let me have you.”

“Stop fucking asking me and just do it.”

You feel him grin against your neck just before he backs away, pulling back your robe and tugging it from your body.

The fabric has barely had time to pool at your feet when he’s grabbing you by the hips, his fingers digging in as he turns you.

When Art’s lips finally claim yours, you moan unashamedly. His kiss is gentle but assured, you struggle for breath as he refuses to release you. Then, his hands are cupping your ass and he’s lifting you up.

With his lips still moving hungrily against yours, Art settles you onto the edge of the bed. When he draws back, your lips chase after him and he smiles, grasping your face in his hands and giving you one more brief but searing kiss before he’s dropping to the ground.

His hands press into your knees, forcing them apart as he begins to kiss and lick up your inner thighs.

You prop yourself up on your elbows, watching where his mouth ravenously meets your flesh, tracing his path as he works his way closer to where you want him most.

When he reaches the top of your thigh, Art peers up at you through his long eyelashes, already looking drunk on you as he presses another kiss to your burning skin.

“Lay back.” He instructs gently.

But you’re too transfixed to listen- too desperate to see the moment his lips land on your core to look away.

He smiles at the realisation, delighting in your shudder as his tongue darts out and licks a line up your centre.

“Oh my- fuck!” Your head falls back, already lost in the feeling of his mouth's devoted ministrations.

As Art pleasures you, one of his hands skates up your stomach and gently presses down, asking rather than forcing you to lay back. This time you oblige, your eyes closed as your hands fist in the sheets.

“You deserve so much more than I can give you.”

You smile to yourself. Only Art could grovel as he gives so much pleasure.

Tightness begins to coil in your lower belly, but the moment he adds a teasing finger to his tongue’s movements, you realise you can’t wait.

“Art- stop.” You gasp out, sitting up and resting your hands on his head.

He halts immediately but doesn’t remove himself from between your legs.

“Are you alright?” He asks, his hands rubbing soothingly along your thighs.

“It’s not enough.” You say, tugging on his hair, trying to get him to come to you. “I need you.”

Art doesn’t have to be asked twice, but he also doesn’t rush. He presses one last kiss to your now very sensitive folds before he’s climbing over you.

You shuffle back, settling yourself onto the middle of the bed and even as Art takes off his clothes, he watches you. It’s as if he’s afraid that you’ll disappear if he so much as blinks.

Now completely naked, he lays himself over you, his arms braced beside your head. He positions himself so carefully thar it’s almost as though he’s trying to fit himself to the shape of you- every divot and curve perfectly aligned sp that you’ll be fused together forever.

As Art sweeps hair out from your face, his blue eyes bore down into you with an adoring intensity.

You smile up at him and he rewards you by cradling your face in his hands, he lowers his head, his nose brushing yours as he gently takes your lower lip between his teeth.

Only when you understand what he wants and you open your mouth, does he kiss you again, his tongue delving in deeply.

As he seeks to consume you, your hands run down his back, squeezing his sides with your thighs.

Art’s still kissing you as one of your hands reaches the curve of his arse, you dig your nails in and he jolts, his mouth moving away from yours and travelling down your neck.

Tentatively, you move one hand around and down between his legs and when your hand wraps around him, he falters, his kisses stopping.

“Is this alright?”

Art moves again, licking the sweat slick expanse of skin between your breasts.

“Anything you do will be alright.” He assures, his lips brushing a nipple and making your back arch.

“Do you want to have sex, Art?” You ask, barely restraining yourself.

His breaths are hot against your sensitive breasts when he answers. “Please.”

It is a joint effort as he slides inside of you. You gasp, arms wrapping around his neck as he presses kisses into yours.

Art groans as he begins to move achingly slowly, his hips rolling over yours with precision.

You're happy like that for a few minutes, both of you revelling in your closeness after years subjected to absent desire for one another. But eventually, you want more.

You yearn for more force and luckily as you buck up into him, Art gets the message.

As one of his hands moves behind your head, cradling it so that he can keep kissing you, the other wraps around your thigh, and pulls your leg higher over his hip, allowing himself to get even deeper.

“You’re so beautiful.” He says in-between sloppy kisses, moving rapidly as you moan and whine. “You’ve always been so beautiful.”

Even with him inside you, making you feel more desired than anyone ever has, your mind drifts to that first night you had met him. The first night you had met Patrick.

“You stared at Tashi.” You say.

You aren’t accusatory or upset, if anything the acknowledgement if it turns you on more. All four of you have always had a desire for the other, and it feels powerful to finally acknowledge it.

“-That night on the beach, you couldn't take your eyes off her. Neither of you could.”

“I wanted you.” Art asserts with a particularly powerful thrust. “I- I wanted you so badly, but you went home.”

You nod, pulling him in for another kiss as you meet his thrusts.

You understand his thinking. You’d often wondered how things might have changed had you not gone home early that night. If you’d stayed on the beach and then gone to their hotel room along with Tashi.

Entirely content with just moving as one, you both fall silent and somehow Art curls over you even more tightly, like he wants his whole body to hide yours from the world.

After you’ve both found your release he takes you into the shower and cleans himself off of your sensitive skin, each swipe of the washcloth accompanied by a kiss.

It ends up being time wasted though, because when you return to the bed, he takes you twice more.

━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

You wake up with Art’s head resting on your bare chest. He’s laying on his side, one arm stretched out on the pillow above your head and his other hand resting on your hip.

You’re sore in the most pleasant of ways as you sit up. You try to move slowly but Art stirs anyway, his head turning to press open mouthed kisses to your sternum.

You rest your hand on his cheek, meaning to guide him away, but he moves so that he can kiss the palm of your hand instead.

It’s only when you sigh into his touch, his eyes still closed as his other hand delves between your legs, that you realise why you had woken up int he first place.

Someone was knocking on your door.

And then you hear her voice.

Tashi is calling out your name, sounding almost panicked.

“Please, open the door, I know you’re in there.”

This time when you push Patrick away, he obliges, but far less quickly than you would have liked.

In the time it takes for you to throw on your silk robe and gather up all of his clothes from the floor, he has barely got himself to stand up. He’s naked and blinking sleepily at you.

When you shove the bundle of his clothes into his arms, he rushes to press a passionate kiss to your lips, holding the back of your head with his free hand.

You aren’t sure you want to know whether he’s truly still half asleep and genuinely hasn’t realised what is happening, or if he just doesn’t care that his wife is outside the door.

Flushed but furious at his casual demeanour, you push Art into the bathroom and close the door, just as Tashi knocks again.

The repeated request for you to come to the door tumbles from her lips like a prayer.

You brace your hand against the door as you draw in a fortifying breath and smooth out your hair. You swear you can feel her through the door.

The moment you open the door, Tashi is bursting in and closing it behind her. You step back, waiting for her to make the first move, for her to shout of attack or go charging into the bathroom. But she does none of those things.

Instead, Tashi pulls you into a crushing hug. You go still, shocked but healed by it at the same time.

She pulls back, taking your face in her hands.

“You’re a phenomenal tennis player.” Tashi says it rapturously.

If you weren’t burning up at the feel of her hands on you, you might have laughed at how ridiculously perfect it was that those were her first words to you after over a decade.

Tashi communicated and connected through tennis. She loved through tennis.

All you can muster is a very sincere: “Thank you.”

Tashi brushes your hair out of your face, tucking a stray piece behind your ear. You find your hands lifting, resting atop hers where they hold your cheeks.

“You need to let me coach you.” Tashi demands almost possessively.

“I have a coach.”

“They’re not me.”

“No, they’re not.”

And just like that, you were snared again.

You had gone years without any of them, and with one word, you had allowed all three of them back into your life.

Only this time, you know it might actually kill you if any of them leave. And perhaps it would kill them too.

Only time would tell.

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