#that houses him. idk its a small thing! i just recall those times in the manga where after accidentally destroying a part of the town | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mitamicah · 3 years

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Spoilers from both Trollhunters the book and Trollhunters the series!

While reading the book I was really impressed with how many differences there were between the character so I have worked on giving my take on six characters from both media, book vs series, and how they differ from each other :3

I should mention that while there was illustrations in the book I tried for the challenge not to copy those but follow along the describtions in the book - when possible - to give my own interpretation of the characters ^v^

Steve

First up we have Steve. Starting out as the stereotypical bully in both version their paths seperates quickly resulting in two different ending for the musuclar blond Jorgensen-Warner is the book version of Steve. Here's how he is described from our first encounter with him: "He was handsome but in the oddest way- He eyes were too small and his nose piggish: he had a ridiculous amount of hair and a couple of teeth that looked like fangs. Yet somehow in combination these features were sort of mesmerising. His unnatural muscular bulk and odd way of speaking -crisply, politely, as if he were a foreign student who had learned English in class - completed the strange package." page 21-22 For his outfit I went with the description of him on page 224 "[my clothes] ... didn't cast me in the best light when compared to Steve Jorgensen-Warner, who looked rather rakish in blue jeans and a shirt - definitely not a blouse - opened to the third button. He dribbled the ball casually with his left hand." The bold passages is added by me This Steve is later revealed to be a changeling aka a troll Before we go on: can any of you explain to me what a "ridiculous amount of hair" even means :'D? I had a lot of trouble with this prompt because isn't this so darn subjective :'D? and the official art look way less ridiculous than I'd figure it'll be :'D x'D Palchuk is the series version of Steve. His facial appearance being way less specific (I'd say he has normal sized eyes, a big roman nose and some more or less normal teeth) and his way of speaking is definitely not polite. Like book Steve, this Steve starts out with pushing smaller guys into lockerrooms yet after that he becomes way less of a terrifying bully and much more of a silly goose who brings a lot of the comic relief in my opinion Douxie says it best in Wizards when he calls Steve the "village idiot" x'D I do not recall seeing Steve being that sporty in the show, he is much more interested in becoming homecoming king no basketballs around x'D While book Steve is revealed to be the enemy (a troll) series Steve joins the "good guys" creating the creepslayerz with the character Eli Pepperjack

Blinky

Blinky is just called Blinky in the book Here's a bit of description of him "The third [troll] had scarlet eyes, eight of them on long stems. (...) The thing from my house glided toward me with a surprising grace for something with an indetermined number of legs, all of which were hidden behind a patched kilt scaled with layers of medals, prizes and trophies and award ribbons. An incalculable tangle of tentacles twined around one another as if dying to squeese something to death. As it passed the oven, the firelight revealed olive-green skin, reptilian texture, and lacquer of slime lubricating its undulating appendages Its moth a horizontal gash.. " The bold passages is added by me So yeah this Blinky is quite something :'D I stopped caring to draw tentacles after a while but overall this was silly but fun to draw since his teeth later is described as big as traffic cones I believe he must be very tall :'D Also he's close to blind Has a bit of a dirty mouth but in a very "read" way if it makes sense :'D cannot seem to stop calling Jim dimwitted and tiny and Tobias big :'D Blinky's full name in the series is Blinkus Galadrigal he has six eyes instead of eight and they are all working just fine, thank you very much x'D His tons of tentacles and legs has been replaced by four arms and two legs and while he is still olive-green he is now made of tone like texture just like the other trolls the kilt turned into shorts and he is quite a bit smaller now not even as tall as Jim He still has this very academic way of speaking yet he is way nicer to Jim calling him "Master Jim" instead of "the short one" x'D

ARRRGH!!!

Book ARRGHHH!!!s full name is Johannah Mmmm ARRRGH!!! and she is a pretty big deal warrior among the trolls in the book - she's so badass in fact Blinky has decided to call her by her last name to honor her for her deeds for trollkind Here's a qoute from the book describing her appearance "The goliath emerged from the tunnel as comfortably as a dog from a doghouse, coarse black fur pouring into the chamber before I could make out any actual arms or legs (...) Even beneath the fur I could see loops of muscles flexing. (...) ARRRGH!!! was built like a gorilla but three times larger: Two arms, two legs, and, thankfully, just two eyes. Horns, curled like those of a ram (...) The thing's orange eyes cast about with animal perceptiveness, and it used its snout and sniffed. Its jaws fell open to reveal a purple, slavering mouth armed with haphazard daggers of teeth." Page 75-76 The bold passages is added by me (Also worth mentioning: the qoute is from before the protagonist knows of ARRRGH!!!'s gender which is why he calls her an 'it') At other times in the story we learn that ARRRGH! has quite scarred arms and really wishes for better tooth hygeine; so much so that Tobias actually end up making her a brace out of chicken wire :'D Idk I find it quite adorable :'D Now unto the serie's ARRRGH!!! - first up he is male, his name is Arghaumont and he is famous for another reason than Johannah: he was a general of Gunmar but retreated from the war making him a traitor to his people yet a hero for the good trolls in the series. Series ARRRGH!!! is likewise built like a gorilla but made of stone and having a mane long and green like it is moss his horns is way smaller and less curvy and his teeth hygeine is never brought up also his face is way less dog like x'D

Tobias

Book Tobias' full name is Tobias M. Dershowitz yet he is going by 'Tubby' or 'Tub'. Here is a describtion of him from the book: "You could call Tobias Dershowitz chubby, if you were being cute, or husky if you were being diplomatic. The fact is he was fat, and that was only the beginning of his problems. His hair was a thick, orange, out-of-control hedge. His face spilled over with the kind of freckles that make kids like Tub look like overgrown toddlers. Worst of all were his braces, marvels of modern torment: whips of stainless steel crisscrossing each tooth seperately and lashed to a dozen silver fasteners. The braces clicked so much when he spoke, you expected sparks. At least he was tall..." page 27 The bold passages is added by me The outfit I went with is described on page 259 like this: "He stood in the driveway decked out in his best approximation of a ninja: black tennis shoes, black sweatpants, a black hoodie, a belt made from a red curtain sash, and an oversize fanny pack holding his gear (...) It was unfortunate that the fanny pack was lime green..." To describe Tub is a bit difficult because sadly he is not much in the story as I'd liked - mostly he is being quite serious and let us know he is not happy by being sidelined not speaking troll nor being invited on hunts which I completely understand tbh :'D What I do find interesting is how Tub and series Jim has seem to have switched roles a little bit: In the series Jim is the one giving a speech about how he is insecure about his place in life and how he wants more - in the book this is Tub in more than one occassion: "We have to accept who we are. And before you ask, I'll tell you. We're nobody. We have no life. We have nothing to look forward to. We're not special. I just want it to go away. All of it. The stupid being scared. Doesn't it seem we've been scared forever?" page 37 "Jim, you're wrong. We were meant to do this. This is exactly what we've been waiting for. They've chosen us. Of all people! Us! (...) Jesus, Jim, take a look at my life! You know what I'm worth! To anyone? Zero! Nothing! I'm a fat loser and will always be a fat loser. Until this. This is like a present. Full of, man, I don't know. Hope?..." page 196 (talking about trollhunting here btw) Oh yeah and book Tobias gets this badass scene where he uses his dentist's tool to kill trolls I loved that Now series Tobias is way different :'D first up his name is Tobias Domzalski and his nicknames are Toby and Tobes. He is way shorter and has more neat hair (what is it with the series neating up the hair :'D? x'D). He also seems way cheerier and pretty happy with his place in life more or less Unlike Tub, Toby is in it from the start being an important player in the story He doesn't have the same drive to be something more than he is as Tub has instead Toby is going with the flow starting out quite afraid of everything troll and ended up being as brave as the rest of the team *tbh Jim's scared out of his wits too so they mimic each other x'D* Where Tub has dentist tools Toby gets a badass hammer so I'll say its an upgrade

Claire

First off we have Claire Fontaine, a foreign student from no other than Scotland with a taste for military clothing and liqourice Here's how she's described in the book "She tucked her long dark hair behind her ear and left ir with an adorable smudge of white dust. I thought she was beautiful, though she wasn't in the classic sense. The popular girl would say she wasn't skinny enough. They would also point to the fact that she didn't wear makeup or do anything to tame that hair. And her clothes -well, what could be said about her clothes? Her boots were not sexy and knee-high: in fact, they were ankle-high and rubber-soled and looked picked from military surplus racks, an array of pea-green coats and multi-coloured slacks, all of which looked as if they'd been through actual World War II combat. And that beret she wore before and after school wasn't of the look-at-me-I'm Frensh variety: it was more in the style of I'm-going-to-invade-your-country-and-be-your-new-dictator. Only one thing didn't make sense: that bright pink, exceedingly girlish backpack that inexplicably hadn't one anti-establidh patch sewn onto it (...) Oh, I forgot to mention that Claire Fontain came from the UK. That's right- the girl had an accent. I think you are starting to get the picture." page 30-1 The bold passages is added by me It is hinted at that Claire is quite tall and a great deal taller than Jim (more when I get to him) and she is actually a whole year older than Jim since they both have birthday May 2 but Claire is 16 while Jim is 15 Since Trollhunters in this story is not a "protected title" (aka the chosen hero type) Claire ends up being one herself even though nobody even herself didn't know: AND. SHE. KICKS. BUTT! She's even better than the guy that had 40+ years experience so yeah safe to say she's badass :'D Even before that she has a hilarious scene calling out Steve in the wildest shitstorm of Scottish slang I lived for it x'D She's described quite a few times with lots of bracelets, sometimes made of wire so I gave her a bit of both She's not really a part of the popular group but has her own thing going on Now onto Claire Nuñez the series' version of this badass Here Claire is hispanic and pretty much one of the most popular girls seen around her style is way more ... I've called it punk rock in purple but Idk exactly what to call it x'D she's shorter than Jim and slimmer looking than her book counterpart She enters the story not as a trollhunter but as a victim of having her brother stolen by changelings and as time progresses she becomes a fastlearning and quite competent sorcerer dealing in shadow magic Unlike Fontaine, Nuñes is seen wearing make up, shorter hair with dye in it and hair clips instead of bracelets

Jim

First up we have book Jim. His full name is James Sturges Jr. and lives with his single parent, his dad, after his mother went away the day before his birthday in start May and never returned. Sturges Sr. had been traumatized loosing his brother to trolls although none of the characters didn't know this yet - only Senior had seen the creatures making him paranoid and in turn making Jim very embarrased about his father. At the same time Jim seems to honestly worry for his father and his behavior too makes Jim very cautious and fearful a character. Book Jim is pretty much a typical teenager for the most part He is seen to be a tad clumsy and not exactly brave really. And the author's choice of basically not describing him anywhere made my job way harder trying to be book accurate :'D So I've mostly inspired him of the official illustrations in the book Here's what I could find about our little trollhunter First off: he's a short fellow that is first mentioned on page 14; "Sunshine is important for growing boys." (...) "I am not growing" I took after my dad when it came to size and was still waiting for that growth spurt everyone kept raving about. "In fact I think I'm shrinking." This is brought up most of everything Jim through the movie from him not being able to reach a point of a chalkboard (page 32) to people's dissapointing sighs taking meassurements when he is chosen as Romeo (107) and him wearing super high heels for the same reason (224) but also Blinky directly calling him a "little fellow" (page 127) On page 27 we learn that he is getting a bruise on his chin after being slammed into his locker by Steve Lockers he has been thrown into enough to have learned to open them on the inside :'D He is a skinny fella which Tobias so politely call "lack of muscletone" due to "glandular" at page 120 He is not very good at anything describing his room full of stuff from hobbies he tried and failed at (page 63) The longest describtion about his appearance is probably page 105: "I lowered my eyes and regarded the chewed, dirty fingernails holding my script, thes scuffed shoes on my feet, and realized that these were the symbols of my pityful life: worn-out, insignificant, ready to be thrown beneath Dad's industrial mower" It pretty much says it all when this is the longest quite I could find :'D For the outfit I mostly went by the small describtion on page 89-90: "I tucked the medallion beneath my shirt. After a full day of wearing it, maybe the rest of the suffocating fear would go away too. My plan was to dart into the kitchen, grab my sweatshirt and be out of the house. " I added jeans since he is said to wear jeans on page 283 - the medallion sneak out beneath the sweatshirt/shirt on page 97 which is why I added it on top here as well Now since there's a bit more to both versions of Jim due to their role as the protagonist I've added in a little extra features here being the medallion in the book vs the amulet in the series and the weaponry given to the characters For Sturges we have the medallion who's described like this: "It was a bronze medallion conntected to a rusty chain. It was engraved with a foreboding crest: a hideous, snarling face; indecipherable markings of a sevage language, and a magnificent long-sword across the bottom." page 9 The medallion is treated like it is a common artefact if a bit rare in the book - its purpose is to translate trollspeak for the wearer. Jim is giving two swords in the book; a rusty longsword he calls Clairesword (do I need to explain this one?) and a cutlass he calls Cat #6 after the one cat at Tobias' house that liked Jim x'D For Sturges' personality my feeling about him is that he is a bit more ... passive than his series counterpart. He is not really standing up for himself that much and would rather blend into the background. This qoute from Claire sums him up pretty nicely I believe "You're a good person, Mr. Sturges. A bit gloomy, but good" page 246 I do like that Jim in this version is a Taurus (I am a taurus too x'D) born on May 2nd so that's a plus It is probably also worth mentioning that in this world trollhunters aren't a chosen hero type like in the series: trollhunters or paladin was once a title held by many warriors yet now there's very few left. Sturges was a proud paladin family making Jim a chosen candidate for the honor of becoming a trollhunter but he is not the only one - or even the best - in the book. In fact out of the three trollhunters we learn about I'll say Jim is the weakest (and he is not even the least trained; ouch :'D) Jim doesn't get a nice armour like his series counterpart either but is seen in the illustrations wearing a blue hoodie (like the one in the little doodle) The full name of Jim in the series is James Lake Jr. He is the child of a single parent and lives with his mother whom Jim "mothers a lot" (Tobias' words in the first episode) This Jim is pretty "tall for his age" (Jim's own words uttered quite a few times across all three series) yet with quite skinny legs (he is called out for this by multiple characters). He is much more competent in life than his book counterpart being an exceptional cook, good at Spanish, seemingly alright in PE and at school he seems to stand pretty good if only holding himself back. Unlike book Jim, series Jim seems much more active and longing to be something more than he is - he is seen to be quite brave and protective of his friends, very kind and selfless. Also even from the start he seems much more nimble than his book counterpart being able to climb the robe (a feat book Jim didn't do before later) and with his training as trollhunter he becomes even more badass Trollhunter status in the series is way more important since the title is given to only one chosen warrior of Merlin chosen by the amulet of daylight (the medallion in the book). This also makes the amulet way more special and important in the series which probably explains its shine up from rusty bronze thing to silver and blue. While Lake Jr doesn't have named sword he does have a magical armour and sword made of daylight We do not know the exact birthday of Lake Jr but the creators have replied to a fanquestion saying it would be around fall especially October so by that estimate Jim is probably a scorpio pretty far from the before mentioned taurus in the book While Jim Lake Jr isn't seen with long lasting bruises in the original series he does get two more permanent scars in Wizards

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9tzuyu · 3 years

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dissolve (rewrite)

natasha x reader

note: this was just a huge vent fic idk. these type of fics seem to be the only thing im okay at writing. mistakes are mine as always. but i did proofread, yay!

if you want to read the original (as awful as it is) you can read it here!

wanrings: this heavily revolves around eating disorders.

i’m not tagging anyone because the content isn’t really the lightest to read.

words are used everyday, everywhere – whether to describe something or someone. there’s thousands upon thousands of them.

so you were having a hard time figuring out why you were struggling so much to justify your feelings through the basis of words. it was unnerving, draining and very annoying. your emotions should be simple, right? you were either sad or happy, angry or scared. but there was something more, something unexplainable. saying you felt alone only scratched the surface of the wave of emotion that took over. it was excruciatingly painful, far worse than any physical pain you ever had to endure. and for some reason it seemed to come crashing down at night while natasha slept peacefully. you weren't exactly sure how to express your emotions to the extent you felt them. how else was anyone supposed to understand your pain? they couldn't, not unless they could somehow shift into your body and feel your emotions themselves. but that was merely impossible as such powers do not exist. so you were inevitably stuck with words foreign to your lips. over the years you were deemed unsafe, a hazard, "an accident waiting to happen" you recall one doctor say. everyone’s eyes were on you at all times, monitoring every little movement you made. it was suffocating and at times doing more damage than good.

as an adult now you learned how freeing it could be without the fear of gaining weight or eating a bowl full of rainbow marshmallow cereal. your worth was not defined by your weight.

(at least that's what you believed prior to any relapses.) everything was going well in your life. you were a college graduate working as a psychiatric nurse and you had found love, something your teenage self could only dream of. natasha was by your side through everything. and really, the only downfall in the relationship was that she had to travel a lot for her job. but you were secure enough in your relationship not to worry or decide to call things off. in the end natasha always made up for it when she came back, so you couldn't complain too much. things were going well for you, really, they were. until they weren't. (and you didn't know why.) it happened out of nowhere. work was a little more stressful than usual, but it was nothing you couldn't handle. natasha had been away for three months, only stopping by a few times to check in on you. but again, your wife being away for so long wasn't anything new or worrisome. the two of you had followed the routine of her leaving and coming back more than a thousand times; yet somewhere along the way you lost yourself. food became less of a priority, your hunger decreased drastically, and within the first month you'd lost thirteen pounds. it truly was an accident, slipping into a full blown relapse was never part of the plan. but thirteen pounds lighter you wanted more, to feel small again. you didn't have an answer as to why you became so attached to your eating disorder, but it didn't seem like it would be letting go any time soon. the rate at which you were going natasha would most definitely be able to see a difference; not only on your weight, but in the person you once were. she'd ask what happened and why it happened, poking and prodding for an answer, but you didn't have one. so here you stood in the kitchen of your shared home, a cup of sliced fruit in one hand and your cell phone in the other. you poured the fruit into the bottom of a blender along with a spoonful of yogurt and half a cup of soy milk. another half cup of ice followed suit. while the fruit blended, you shamelessly scrolled through your instagram. there was nothing interesting going on in other people's lives, you didn't even know why you had social media in the first place. it was dumb, and quite frankly you didn't give a shit whether or not sharon went to the beach. the sound of your blender coming to a halt brought your attention back to the real world. you poured your smoothie into your water bottle. the green liquid would be your breakfast and lunch for the day - dinner was still up for debate. a soft sigh left your lips. work was beginning to feel more like a chore and less of something you enjoyed. you were quickly growing tired of it. nonetheless, you grabbed your keys and rushed out of the door.

you thought about the irony of working as a psychiatric nurse with an undealt eating disorder telling teenagers how to deal with their own issues. you felt hypocritical to say the least, especially given that all the nasty side effects were starting to make themselves known.

your hair was beginning to thin, small clumps of it already starting to fall out when you tugged a little too hard. bruises could be seen scattered left and right on your body, and you were cold. god you were cold. your fingernails were tinted blue, warmth seemingly too far out of reach. you looked ill, and it didn't go unnoticed by your coworkers.

a few hours into your shift you found yourself sitting behind the nurses station filling out paperwork. lunch had passed and when your coworker, steve, asked if you were going to eat something you lied straight through your teeth, telling him you'd grab something when the patients were eating dinner.

but steve rogers could read you like an open book. he knew you were lying because he already knew what was going on. the signs of an eating disorder were quite obvious when you were a licensed therapist. and despite your futile attempts at hiding it, everyone could tell something wasn't right.

steve played it by ear for weeks until he contacted natasha, but by then you'd already lost a considerable amount of weight. as soon as she heard the news, natasha booked the next flight home. unfortunately for her though, there was only one flight and she would have to wait two and a half weeks before being able to leave.

you didn't know it, but those were the longest two and a half weeks natasha ever had to wait.

– patients were having group therapy, so you could tune them out - not that you should, but it was hard to focus when the only two things you could think about were food and your weight.

the need to lose weight sounded so stereotypical for someone with an eating disorder, but honestly it wasn't about that. it was never about wanting to be thin. you genuinely didn't know why this was happening. the only thing you noticed was how rewarding it felt seeing the number go down, as if for you were good for becoming less. it was addictive. and it didn't help that you based your entire worth on how much you could lose.

the next time you stood up from behind the nurses station steve met you in the the cafeteria. while the patients ate you took occasional sips from your smoothie. the bottle was still full of its contents from the morning. you had completely forgotten to drink it during the day, but you didn't seem to mind it that much.

the surprise touch of steve's hand on your shoulder startled you.

i am gross, you thought. do not do that.

steve caught onto the slight flinch your body produced as a reflex, but he didn't say anything about it.

"you can leave early, boss said so."

he laughed as he saw confusion plaster your face.

"what? no!"

"go home, seriously. we have this handled. you know tony doesn't like being told no."

you bit your lip, puzzled by the sudden request. most people wouldn't mind being sent home early, but all it did for you was give you a level of anxiety reserved for food.

what you didn't know was that natasha was home waiting for your arrival. she came back just short of an hour after you left for work.

while you were gone natasha made a few thorough rounds in the house looking for key signs of your eating disorder. there was bound to be evidence given that you didn't know she was home.

unsurprisingly, natasha found a glass scale beside the counter of the bathroom floor along with empty bottles of laxatives in the trashcan. the food in the fridge had been expired a few days past their date, giving her the indication that you weren't eating as much as you should be. her concern grew even more when she found your food journal on your nightstand. flipping the pages, natasha could see that throughout the moths she'd been gone your calorie intake had decreased significantly.

guilt began to gnaw at the back of her throat.

during the few days natasha stopped by, she hadn't noticed anything wrong with you. but then again she knew most people with eating disorders were very good at hiding them up until the point they were discovered. three days wasn't near enough time for her to catch onto your tricks, not when her mind was still focused on her job.

natasha always listened intently whenever you would talk about your eating disorder, the first time being six months into the relationship on a date you felt like you had ruined.

but talking about it was much different than experiencing it with you, natasha had never done that before up until now. she read nearly every article there was about anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder and ednos. sometimes when you were asleep she would watch documentaries on the disorder, always making sure to keep her volume at a low level.

the videos that hurt her the most were the ones teenagers struggling with the simple task of eating food.

(although natasha knew it wasn't that simple.)

it hurt because she knew that was you at some point in time.

upon your arrival, natasha cooked dinner. she wanted to hold onto the one sliver of hope that steve was wrong - that he was just overreacting - but she knew in her heart he was right about his assumption. however, dinner would only confirm what natasha so desperately wanted to deny.

when you walked through the door you were greeted with the overwhelming scent of food. you cringed at the thought of having to eat, but as soon as you looked up to see the redhead who'd been gone for so long your frown was washed away. a wide smile overtook your face and you rushed to jump into natasha's arms.

"i missed you so much," you whispered. "i thought you'd be gone for another few weeks?"

natasha's arms found their way around your waist as your legs wrapped around hers. "what? i can't come home early to surprise my wife?" you giggled in the crook of her neck. she smiled feeling the vibrations against her skin, happy to know that you'd missed her just as much as she missed you.

she sat you down, back facing you, she tended to the food. "you've lost weight," she commented, not missing the sharp inhale of your breath.

"how was work, nat?"

she nodded to herself. yeah, she didn't expect you to be so open on the first try.

"it was fine. dinner's ready, i made your favorite!" natasha threw a smile in your direction as she carried the plates over to the table. she had hoped to see your face light up the way it used to, but seeing the panicked look in your eyes further confirmed your relapse.

if nothing else, natasha wanted you to have a meal before she brought up the conversation.

"great... i love it, thank you nat!" your attempt at being enthusiastic failed miserably and you knew by the look she gave you, she already knew what was going on.

but throughout the meal, and despite the shakiness of your hand as it gripped the metal fork, natasha didn't say anything.

you weren't really sure which was worse; being confronted or knowing the both of you knew what the other was thinking and still not addressing it.

natasha's meal was good, you couldn't lie about that, but each bite you chewed caused the tightening in your chest to constrict further.

now you couldn't be good. or worthy. or deserving.

nat took away your plate when you were halfway through. she knew your limits, and she didn't want to push you too much out of your comfort zone.

"go change, i'll wash our dishes. meet you on the couch?"

you did as you were told, taking as long as you could to do so. except this time was different. you didn't glance in the mirror like you usually did, you chose to fully take in your figure.

what you saw was not what you expected to see. for the first time in months you saw a version of yourself that wasn't twisted and turned to be something you didn't know was real or not.

your skin was dry, hair thinned out beyond your belief, eyes sunken and dark underneath. the revelation gave you an odd feeling – was once again something unexplainable, unjustifiable by words.

good.

that was how you were supposed to feel, right? after all of this time, after the many pounds of protection and warmth lost, you were supposed to feel good.

but you didn't. and you never would.

there was something so surreal about the realization of your own destruction. you were aware now, which meant you had to either take responsibility or choose to lose everything you worked so hard for.

"y/n?"

your wife's voice snapped you out of your gaze and you scrambled to pile your dirty clothes and rush out of the bedroom.

as you made your way into the living room you could feel the intensity of natasha's gaze. any other time you would not mind her green eyes looking at you, but this time around you felt like you were in trouble.

she patted the empty spot next to her, to which you reluctantly joined. but even after everything you still tried to play it cool.

"what's up? is everything okay?"

she gave a low chuckle, "you tell me."

"what do you mean?"

"oh i think you know what i mean."

natasha’s reply was met with the loudest silence you ever had to sit through.

she bit her lip, "you know i got a call from steve a few weeks ago. he's concerned about you, and from what he's told me so am i."

you were quick to respond, automatically knowing what steve’s phone call was about. "i'm fine. so what if i've lost a couple of pounds? that doesn't automatically mean that im relapsing, natasha."

your quick snap reminded natasha that this kind of confrontation was like walking on eggshells.

she tilted her head, licking her lips. "i'm here with you, always." nat put a hand to the side of your face, gently rubbing her thumb at the top of your cheekbone. "i'm here."

it seemed pointless now to try and say anything because your secret was already out.

your mind began racing back and forth.

you wanted to keep what you knew best and natasha understood that. even by reading your body language she knew what you were debating.

"you know, to keep it you have to give it away." your eyes darted to meet hers. "mhm. you can still have that piece of you. mourn it, grieve it, do whatever you need to do to move onto a stage where it doesn't hurt you. and from there you can help other people, share your experience, let yourself heal by helping others."

she paused, “we all have choices. some of those choices are taken from you while others leave you with only one option.”

although what she said seemed to resonate with you, there was one thing still holding you back.

"i just want to be good."

natasha hummed. you had explained it to her in the past, though your words were jumbled together as you tried to describe it.

"you can be good in other ways. you're allowed to live a life outside of the barriers your eating disorder puts in the way."

you swallowed the lump in the back of your throat. "i don't even know how it got to this point. in january i enjoyed ihop and dennys. in february i could have oatmeal and bananas, sometimes half of a sandwhich if i was feeling brave. now it’s march and i only eat one or two things a day. the idea of having a full meal makes me want to cry. and i just- i don't know how to stop."

natasha wouldn't show it, but your words cut through her heart like a knife. her mind wandered briefly to all the teenagers in the documentaries she'd watched, hoping you weren't too far gone into your eating disorder to ever come back. those cases scared her the most.

"you've got my complete support. you've tackled this before, maybe this time you can beat it? i know its easier to abuse your body instead of growing comfortable in it, but i think you’ve got this. i know you do."

"what about your work?" your question caused natasha to frown. "you think i wouldn't set my job aside for you?" you shrugged, it's not like you felt like you were worth being taken care of anyway.

natasha grew hesitant to tell you her news, but did it anyway because she’d rather you hate her than see you dead. "i've already made some appointments for you. the first one is tomorrow morning."

"i figured you would natasha. it's okay."

you spaced yourself out the rest of the day. each time you made the executive decision to recover, whether that be a genuine recovery or not, the process never failed to remind you that even trying to recover from an eating disorder felt like mourning the loss of a friend who was never good for you in the first place.

#natasha romanoff x reader #black widow x reader #avengers x reader #natasha romanov x reader #natasha x reader #natasha romanoff imagine

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headcans-oneshots-and-stuff · 3 years

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Private and Public

Fandom: Teen Wolf Pairing: Stiles Stilinski x reader Word count: 1.4k Summary: People don’t usually realize that you’re in a relationship since you weren’t one for PDA with your boyfriend. It wasn’t that you didn’t like to display affection, it was more the Public part that made you nervous. But one night at a party that might change. Warning: None Requested by Anon: malia x reader or stiles x reader. The reader is like a ('baby gay' for malia) (first relationship for stiles) and is shy/a bit nervous about doing things simple things like hugging or holding hands and they find it cute but also comfort the reader say stuff like its okay, we can take it slow, and kinda just doing things like hugging more often to get them use to it. idk sorry feel free to to change it up and do what you want. Anyway have a good day~ 🦊,🐺or🙃. A/N: so I realize I haven’t uploaded anything at all in over a week, but life’s a bitch so I’m not gonna make empty promises of me starting to upload regularly again. I guess thing’s will be uploaded when they’ll be uploaded. I’m really sorry for all those who look forward to scheduele stuff, but I hope you understand. Lot’s of love, Brina

The red plastic cup in your hand was still filled up to the brim, the only change was the temperature that it had taken on during the hour that you had nursed it without even attempting to take a sip of the gross beer inside. Honestly, you weren‘t all too sure why exactly you had agreed to tag along to the party, neither were you sure why you were even asked to. When Scott had heard of the party a bunch of juniors and seniors had planned to have on a clearing in the woods, he knew it was a recipe for disaster. The pack had tried its best to stop the party from happening altogether, but to no avail, so instead they decided that they‘d come along to keep an eye out for potential danger. Every single pack-member in the appropriate age-group - aka still in school - had shown up, even Brett and Theo had joined in, which meant that any potential danger would have to be careful. Still, you couldn‘t quite understand why you‘d been asked to come along since you were quote-on-quote ‘just a human‘ and were usually kept away from any immediate danger the second it seemed to be in your vicinity. Not today though, today you were basically dragged with them to attend the party no matter if you wanted to be there or not and Lydia had forced you to dress in something other than the nice PJ’s that you had been chilling in earlier that day. “Hey, it’s Y/N, right?” a boy asked as he joined your side. You inspected him for a few seconds until the cogs in your head finally clicked and you realized that he was in your english lit. class. “Mhm, you’re-” you bit your lip and squinted your eyes as you tried your best to recall what his name was, “James?” “Close, it’s Jim,” the boy chuckled and smiled at you. You recognized that smile and even though you had to admit that you were a bit naive, you knew that the boy wasn’t talking to you just for the sake of getting to know you as a friend. Not quite sure what you could do about it, you decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “This party is pretty boring, what?” “Well, it’s a party in the woods in the middle of the week so I doubt there was much possibility for this to be the party of the century,” you shrugged and looked around at all the drunk people who’d definitely regret drinking so much the next morning. “You know,” Jim started and you had a bad feeling you knew where this was going, “We could get out of here, My parents aren’t home, sooo-” he scratched the back of his head and you just couldn’t help but sigh. “Listen Jim, you’re really nice, really, but I’m in a relationship.” “Oh, Ohh, okay, sorry I didn’t mean to...uhm… I just- I never saw you with anyone, I thought you were- I- Uhm- I’ll leave,” he rambled before taking a big sip of the beer he was holding and walking away with his ears tinted red-ish. You gave another sigh and shook your head slightly as you thought his words over. It was true, now that you thought about it, he had no real way of knowing that you weren’t single anymore and even though usually you didn’t mind that thought, suddenly it was somewhat bothering you. You and Stiles had been dating each other for just about a month now, but besides the other pack members and your families no one really knew about it since you weren’t really into PDA. Well, it wasn’t quite that, if you were honest. It was just that this was your first relationship and you were incredibly nervous at everything it included. It wasn’t that you felt uncomfortable with Stiles, it was the exact opposite actually, being with him was the time you felt most at ease, but you were just very anxious that you’d accidentally screw up. Of course, you also feared that your nervousness would annoy him and he’d decide that you were not worth it, but that fear was absolutely rootless since he was the most supportive boyfriend you could imagine. Oftentimes you could see the longing in his eyes when he was looking at you sitting besides him at Lunch and you knew that he just wanted to put his arm around you and give you a kiss, but held himself back for you sake. He also kept on telling you that it was okay and that you didn’t need to do something uncomfortable just to please him, that he was happy with all the cuddles and kisses he got in private and that he was more than ready to take it slow. What he did to help you otherwise was that he tried to get you used to a little bit of physical contact: hand holding in the car, small hugs throughout the day, cute little texts in class and the such. Suddenly, as you were thinking about it, you felt the strong urge to find Stiles and hug him no matter how many people were around and if you didn’t still have the completely full cup in your hand you’d think you could’ve been a little bit tipsy. You looked through the crowd searching for any sign of your boyfriend and the first thing that caught you eyes was the blond locks of a certain scarf-wearing-werewolf glimpsing through a group of junior girls that were giggling about something. With a rush of determination surging through you, you made your way through the masses of teenagers - somehow managing to hand your cup to someone on the way - and ended up only a few feet away from Isaac without having been accidentally punched or stumbling. It was like a scene in a movie when you came closer and recognized a few other pack members standing around Issac and they acted like a curtain that opened up as you got closer and revealed the most incredible boy in the world. If you’d been an outstander and had seen you stop in your tracks with a goofy, love-sick smile on your lips and your eyes almost watering up, you would’ve thought that you were watching a cheap romance movie, but you weren’t an outsider- no, you were you and you were looking at your boyfriend feeling full of love and admiration. Starting to walk again, you were sure to earn a few confused glances as you slid through between Isaac and Allison and more or less launched yourself at Stiles, your arms quickly interlocking around his waist and you face pressed into his chest. Stiles was obviously surprised at the sudden attack as he stumbled a few steps backwards before stabilizing and reciprocating the hug. You were very happy that your pack was so accommodating as they just shared some confused glances before continuing the conversation like nothing happened. “Are you okay?” Stiles leaned down and whispered in your ear, obviously worried by the sudden need for affection. “Mhm,” you nodded and basket in his hug for a few seconds more before looking up at him and smiling, “I just love you a lot and I missed you.” “I drove you here, we saw each other half an hour ago,” Stiles chuckled, but his cheeky smile showed that he was endeared by your sudden clinginess. “That was too long,” you just sighed and wished he would lean down to kiss you, but then your state of adrenalin and bluntness left you and your nervousness returned. Slowly you retracted your arms and went to stand beside him when you saw that the other pack members were looking at you with smiles on their lips. Blood rushed towards your face and your ears and you suddenly felt more embarrassed than you ever thought you would, even though you didn’t regret it. “You want me to bring you home? It’s getting pretty late,” Stiles asked silently but you could read between the lines and thankfully nodded, knowing that you’d probably ask him to come with you inside when you came to your house and cuddle. Because after all, Stiles was the best boyfriend you could ever imagine and if you couldn’t hug him all that much in public, then you’d hug the living health out of him in private.

#Teen wolf #teen wolf x reader #stiles stilinski #stiles stilinski x reader #stiles #stiles x reader #stiles stilinski imagine #pack x reader #mccall pack #mccall!pack #fluff #cute #pda

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valkyriegoddesses · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on ACOSF

⚠️ SPOILERY, SO DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK ⚠️

⚔️ the good and the bad, I’ll try to get rid of the bad thoughts first and keep the positive ones for the end but idk where my line of thought would go as I recall and type so here we go

• Nesta’s journey of healing is hers and hers alone. She owes no one in the inner circle anything, they didn’t do her any favors. (Now before I delve into this, I just want to say that I see they (Feyre and Elain only) had good intentions, but I’m going to point out everywhere it went wrong, probably against what they planned, but still it went horribly wrong) She was still suffering all the same after she got her free will stripped from her, the decision made for her by packing her things without informing her or listening to her opinion or trying to have a more lenient approach to the matter, being threatened that her second option is being thrown to the human lands where she could die, being lied to about the consequences of her actions in law, being told she “belongs in the Hewn City”, being told she’s “a pathetic waste of life”, and choosing the place everyone admits they hate going to aka the House of Wind, as her destination to heal. Knowing full well she can’t make the descent down these stairs and would be imprisoned without the power to winnow. And instead of being given her space and time, they push her to talk and interact when all she’s trying to do is have some distance from everyone. Some time to herself, to not feel anything, to control the storm of thoughts raging on the inside. And she’s pushed time and time again to face her trauma and heal RIGHT NOW because apparently, they’re timing her. And she shouldn’t have her emotions on display, when she tells them she doesn’t feel like talking yet she’s forced to interact and socialize. Anyone who’s been forced to interact against their will knows how draining it is. Now imagine this coupled with being triggered by water, and being triggered by fire, which are a daily necessity. And imagine everyone got a decade or more to deal with their trauma and are still not entirely healed, yet your time is up after little over a year. It sucks. And I hate how what triggered them to action wasn’t that she was wasting away to nothing, but the bill. When the bill was high, they drew the line. And I hate how in the narrative, the “conversation” -even though I wouldn’t call it that because only one side was allowed to talk and the other side wasn’t allowed to object- was written in a way that made it about THEIR image, when she’s frequenting taverns. THEIR image, when she doesn’t show up to their parties. THEIR image when the bill for her drinking is high. (They say it’s too much money, as if they don’t have all the riches and they all spend money on things that are absolutely not necessary, and THEY drowned her with gifts, LOADS of gifts, after she sacrificed her power to save her sister, which she didn’t do for payment, but anyway the thought is, they had the money and just like they thought Amren deserves payment for what she did in the war, they should’ve kept the same energy for Nesta because she had no small role in that either). I just think they handled it badly. Not exactly how you’d talk to someone suffering from PTSD, depression and survivor’s guilt. For one, threatening a worse alternative isn’t helpful. Secondly, There were way too many people in that room. More than necessary. Feyre and Elain would’ve been enough AS HER FAMILY (and I’ll get to details on this in a moment). And Feyre was the only decent one handling it as someone who actually was looking for a better outcome and really had the intention to help, someone who wasn’t there just to humiliate. Amren and Rhys were only there to land jabs and poke at her insecurities and bad coping mechanisms. Rhys used his power on her to force her to obey him and we all know how it’s a big NO among them. Many of those in the IC had worse coping mechanisms. But what she was doing was too much for them to handle? She was self-destructing. And she kept her distance. If I told someone I needed my space and they kept poking their head in my business, I sure as hell would lash out. When someone needs space, their privacy should be respected. No matter how long it takes them.

And I don’t see where the problem with her drinking was. She never showed up to events drunk. We never saw her hungover the day after. She was spending some money on drinking yes, but it did not get out of hand. She was also spending money on food and gambling. All in all, not the worst coping mechanism among those who were criticizing her. Not to mention that everyone who criticized her were drinkers as well, and they all slept around during some part of their lives.

Now the problem with the presence of other people in that room, other than Feyre (if Elain didn’t wish to attend and preferred to have some space between her and and Nesta, it’s her choice) anyway, only Feyre’s presence was required. Everyone else there was just an accessory, only adding stress to the atmosphere, forcing Nesta to get on the defensive with the way they slut shamed her, shamed her for drinking, shamed her for not being able to take a bath even though she told Feyre how the water still scares her, etc. I can see Sarah wanted it to look like a “family” intervening. Like some tough love sort of thing. But she failed. Simply because, the IC might be Feyre’s found family and she might take such a talk from them because it would really be tough love. As for Nesta, she doesn’t view them as family. She barely knows them. So for a group of strangers, or let’s say newly acquainted people, to sit around her and point out her every flaw and shame her for every misstep, who wouldn’t lash out at that? It’s enough she’s forced to spend time among them, on holidays she doesn’t really believe in, where they force her to attend but actively ignore her presence and treat her like a ghost. Why make her come if they don’t enjoy her company? It’s just ridiculous. Then when she gets angry from all the pushing and lashes out and it’s entirely her fault. they’re all like “come to our gatherings where we will insult you, nitpick all your unhealthy coping mechanisms, but don’t be offended and seclude yourself, we all took decades to deal with our trauma and killed people while doing it but your coping mechanisms are unhealthy. And your actions are unforgivable because you lash out at us when we shove ourselves down your throat. How can you not like us? Everyone has to like us.” Then she gets thrown away to a war camp, a FUCKING WAR CAMP, while a big part of her trauma is because of war. And instead of dealing with her face-to-face, while being gentle and showing her they’re on her side WITHOUT JUDGEMENT, WITHOUT WINCING AND GLANCES AT EACH OTHER AND INNER CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HER WHERE SHE’S EXCLUDED, they’re like “we’re tired of your shit so here’s a house you can stay in while you sort this out away from our merry little circle, which has its nose up your business anyway. But still, sort it out away from us.” And in that house she became more and more closed off and her healing - and I will die on this hill - her healing DID NOT start until the house came into play which was her own doing. And it kicked off because of Emerie and Gwyn, who both didn’t judge her, didn’t demonize her, didn’t only see the bad in her, but accepted her as she was and loved every part of her. Showed her that she was not a waste of life and there are things to live for. As for the beloved inner circle? Beyond insulting her and her coping mechanisms, They don’t tell her about the weapons SHE made, because pro-colonization Amren doesn’t think it’s wise, that Nesta would use it against the world. (Amren do you hear how stupid you sound?) they always villianize her, assuming she’d be out to take the world and take revenge on everyone who ever glanced her way. They assumed she was bad, they assumed because she was angry, that she would use her power for killing and terrorizing and building an Empire like they all do. When all she wanted to do was listen to music and be around good company who passed her no judgement.

Anyway, getting into some details with each character:

Feyre: I hated Feyre’s “crying over scrambled eggs because my image is destroyed my sister spent so much money on drinking”. And the fact that when telling Nesta she was doing this for her own good, she told her she was embarrassed for her own image in the same breath. But beyond that I was fine with her. I loved her reconcilation with Nesta. I loved that she was one who wanted to give Nesta more time, recognized that she needed her own time. I love them together. I think without everyone’s interference, their reconcilation would’ve happened much faster. They were already making progress before ~some people~ ruined everything and caused Nesta to be closed off again. I don’t hate that Nesta sacrificed her power to save Feyre in the end. She’s her sister and she loves her and this is not the first time she proved this. She would do anything to protect her sisters and she hates herself for the times she misstepped. Even though it wasn’t her fault and there was a full grown man sitting there who conveniently got a redemption arc. What angers me though, is that it was only after this, that the inner circle viewed her as someone who is worth their respect. And made the sacrifice materialistic by drowning Nesta with gifts. She didn’t do it for their acceptance or for their love, or for payment. She did it because her sister needed help. Period. (Sidenote: I’m writing a post where I delve deep into their relationship, which I will eventually post, because I think I reached an understanding about their relationship)

Elain: let me get something out of the way, she has power. She has free will, she’s not a baby. She’s a grown woman who doesn’t need coddling. I hate how the fandom views her as a baby. And she’s constantly infantilized, preventing her from reaching her full potential. Now that that’s out of the way, here are my 2 cents on her, since she wasn’t in this book much: Nesta’s wording was very clear, yet I’ve seen this scene misread all over the timeline. Nesta said “I sat by your side for weeks. Weeks, while you wasted away, refusing food and drink. While you appeared to hope you’d just wither and die. No one suggested you either shape up or be shipped back to the human lands.” Nesta’s problem is NOT that Elain wasn’t “there” as in “by her side”. She explicitly stated she needed space. Nesta’s problem was that she stood between Elain and anyone who might tell her to snap out of it and lock her trauma in some dark room in the back of her head. She made sure Elain had her time. While Elain agreed to pack her bags and didn’t prevent them from shipping her away, deciding her time was up. All she wants is time, and Elain didn’t have her back on this. Then we have the fact that Elain slut-shamed Nesta. And then when Nesta comes to the party this time, Elain meets her at the door and her reaction instead of saying hi and leaving it at that or simply ignoring her, is “did Feyre pay you this time?” I’m torn on where to stand on the Elain-Nesta situation, a part of me is disappointed in Elain. I think she should’ve handled this better than anyone else because she was there, she witnessed the trauma happen, Nesta was there for her, they grew up being inseparable the entire time. If anyone should understand her better than anyone else, it’s Elain. So why did she abandon her to everyone’s judgement? And a part of me is like maybe she knew whatever she voted wouldn’t matter because the IC were taking the step anyway, and didn’t want to be there when it happened. Or maybe she’s still dealing with her own trauma in her own way and doesn’t want a confrontation. But I always circle back to the sl*t-shaming and the shaming about the drinking, and then I think about the Solstice scene where as soon as she saw her she was like “did Feyre pay you this time?” And a part of me is angry about the shaming undertone of that too, while some part of me thinks that maybe Elain felt unwanted along with everyone else and that in order for Nesta to meet them, she has to be paid, but we will never know unless we hear it from her.

Rhysand: that piece of shit, misogynist, who used his powers to compel Nesta to obey his orders, pulled rank on her, taunted and threatened her every step of the way and utilized her for his own agenda, and was *surprised* to learn the woman has trauma. Took him being inside her head and unable to wake her up from the nightmare, because the behavior she was exhibiting wasn’t enough. [insert shocked pickatchu meme]. I also would like to add that him playing the protective love interest from his mate’s own sister, WHO COULD’VE HARMED HER IF SHE WANTED TO, but never wanted to because she’s not a bad person, is so cheap. Like- you, the guy who drugged her and made her give you lap dances, are afraid for her sake… from her sister? Who only ever used words as jabs and is generally rude? Or do you feel like you’re overpowered and are trying to fill the void in your toxic masculinity and reassert dominance ?

Cassian: He was patient with her, and probably the healthiest person in the inner circle who dealt with her until she was okay, but he still silently agreed with all the shit that was said about her. Shit she didn’t deserve to be said about her as someone going through trauma. He mocked whatever progress she made on the stairs calling it pathetic in the beginning. He stayed silent when Nesta was stripped of her will, when she was told she belongs in the Court of Nightmares, when her fate was decided for her, when she was being lied to, when she was threatened to be thrown to the humans who would kill her. He made some progress and understood her better with time, but it doesn’t excuse how he stayed silent when she was being mistreated. Specially since he claims her loves her. He also stayed silent as the Inner Circle despised her presence but still used her to reach what they’re plotting for. He progressed, and he got better, I’ll give him that. But still, as someone who claims he loves her the way he does, he shouldn’t have allowed his friends to manipulate and use her in their schemes but then exclude her from everything else, even knowledge about her own power. But I love that he was patient, that he worked to understand her, that he grew to stand up for her. I would argue that they are the healthiest ship written by SJM this far.

Mor: fucking Mor, who experienced trauma, told Nesta she belongs in the court of Nightmares. Where she was abused herself. Knowing women are viewed as objects there, knowing Nesta would recieve abuse there. She said that, wishing abuse on someone who she simply didn’t like and had some quarrels with. They never saw eye to eye and that’s fine. They always had sharp tongues when talking to each other and that’s fine. What’s not fine though, is that THIS of all things, seemed so out of character for Mor. Now, she never knew Nesta was a survivor of SA. But as someone who helps SA victims, she’s the last person I expected such a comment from. It felt very out of character. I hate that this is the Bi character in all of this mess. Of all people, a hypocrite is the Bi person. The LGBTQ community deserves better. I thought about it, and maybe Mor, being like a stranger to Nesta, and seeing her ignore Cassian in front of the Illyrians who already look down on him, made her angry to the point where she just wanted to land a jab and didn’t think her words would mean anything. Maybe all she wanted to do was stand up for Cassian, but what she said was definitely not true and not okay. I wanted her and Nesta to have a talk about it, but also she grew to have decent conversations with her and she helped her when she and Cassian had that fight. So I don’t know, maybe it’s a silent progress between them.

Amren: this one told her she was a waste of life. What a great way to deal with someone who’s suffering from PTSD and depression and having suicidal thoughts, Amren. Tell them they’re a waste of life, enforce every thought they are having as fact, push them to the point where they doubt they should be breathing, and when they’re told they could tumble down a mountain and break their bones while hiking, their first thought would be “good”. Amren deserves a medal, a badge of honor for being the 500+ old woman who has healthy ways of dealing with traumatized people telling them they don’t deserve to live because the thoughts of their power and dealing with controlling that power right now is so overwhelming. Amren, who decided that because Nesta was always angry, she had no right to know that she used her power unknowingly and forged powerful weapons. Amren, who was pushing for colonization throughout this book, was afraid of Nesta misusing her power. Villainizing Nesta’s every thought, as if Nesta wasn’t overwhelmed from the thought of possessing so much power, as if Nesta doesn’t refuse to use her powers and train. As if Nesta is out there hiding as she masters her power to reemerge and turn the world upside down. You’re the one who’s pushing Rhys to colonize other territories and become high king, Amren. Maybe *you* should be locked up in the house of wind for therapy. What hurts most in this is Amren was her friend. She trusted Amren. Amren said that shitty line to her and then lied to her and manipulated her and used her to further Rhys’s agenda. She flopped from telling Feyre that Nesta is immortal and a few years are nothing, and she should be given time. She would not betray her trust, to whatever she turned into in ACOSF. And everyone give SJM a round of pats on the back and an applause for making Amren the wise one here and making Nesta, the traumatized one who was wronged, get on her knees and apologize. I mean- if you thought this apology scene was necessary, then clarification about the fight between them was just as necessary. Or you include neither scene. But deeming the apology important and not the incident? This is some victim blaming on a whole other level.

The House of Wind: The house of wind was honestly one of the best parts of this book. It was Nesta, “Lady Death” as they call her, breathing life into something, and it was gentle, and it was patient, and it was understanding, and it pushed her to be healthier without judging, without throwing insults or slut-shaming. It hated that she didn’t eat? It kept waiting for her until her body gave out and she had to eat. It didn’t like her drinking? It gave her water when she asked for wine. It showed her its darkest part where she found the greatest warmth as well, as if saying don’t be ashamed of your darkness because in it you’ll find light, and it didn’t abandon her or stop responding to her when she was angry. It was actively by her side, without any judgement, only support and pushing her to fix the behaviours without dissing her. and it was everything those people around her weren’t. It was family.

Gwyn: their first meeting wasn’t at all what you would call “friendly”, to a fault by Nesta. Gwyn didn’t even know anything about Nesta, yet she didn’t react with even more anger as ~others~ did, she didn’t fear Nesta, or give a retort, or get angry and lash out at her. She took the blow and was, with all the calm in the world, like fine, you want to tell on me, go tell. And Nesta did go tell on her, then realized by herself how she acted rashly. And later helped Gwyn without being asked to, by swapping the book so Merrill doesn’t scold her. And their friendship grew to the point where Gwyn, a traumatized person who couldn’t dare leave the library, started training with her, was her friend and had conversations with her that didn’t center her trauma or her coping mechanisms being analyzed. She went out of the library for the first time in 2 years when she knew Nesta needed her by her side. She occupied her mind with stories of Valkyries, women being strong and unyielding in a society which didn’t allow it. She took her hand and gave her a purpose in life to work for. Gave her a friend who didn’t judge, a kind face in the maelstorm of judgemental faces. Until she felt like a safe space to Nesta to the point where she spilled all her thoughts, the ones she could only admit to herself, to Gwyn, letting her inside those walls. And when she braced for judgement, she didn’t receive it. Gwyn dealing with someone’s trauma, as someone who’s been through trauma herself, is one of the beautiful corners of this book

Emerie: Another woman with trauma. She sees Nesta enter her store, of course she knows who she is, yet she doesn’t judge her. Nesta asks about making the fatigues warmer, Emerie says she’ll ask, but it’s costly. Nesta says then she can’t afford it, admits that she was cut off, Emerie, as a stranger, doesn’t judge her. She says she could make them anyway and she can pay her as she can. Because no one should feel cold. It’s simple, irrelevant. Nesta wouldn’t freeze to death, she as a stranger has no obligation to help, it’s a simple reasoning. “You shouldn’t feel cold”. It’s enough for her to help Nesta. Something as mundane as feeling cold. She asks her to join her for a meal. And Nesta asks her if she would join the training, which Emerie refuses. and Nesta blurts out that she didn’t take her for a coward. And later, Nesta sends her the herbs she wishes to get which she can’t get often because of her location, and it’s a message of “you too deserve to see what’s best in the world, to go out and experience the beautiful parts and live, not just exist”. So Emerie goes to training with her as well, and they bond over romance novels. Emerie also reaches a point where she opens up about her own trauma, and tells the truth about what she faced and her survival. This girl who is 50-something at least, who has never had friends, living a lonely secluded life, finally found someone who was trustworthy enough to be around and form a bond with. As for the fact that she is a PoC, and the illyrians are portrayed as this group of savages who abuse their women and their women have no say in their lives and futures and how they clip their women’s wings, when wings, wingspan and wingplay heavily imply that wings are erogenous parts of the body and wing clipping seems to be the equivalent of Circumcision, which again so happens to be done by the “PoC savages who abuse their women”, hits a whole lot as fucking racist and xenophobic. PoC deserve a storyline where they’re not viewed as the villains.

Azriel: I loved his relationship with Nesta. He was the best chaperon™️, he never spoke in judgement toward her. There was a silent understanding between them. However, I’m not against him showing his feelings toward Elain or her toward him. It’s fine, if that’s what they both want. I don’t think Lucien is the type to call for a blood duel. He simply brings her presents and attends when invited, he doesn’t force himself on her and keeps his distance. However I did hate that Azriel took the necklace and gave it to Gwyn, as a secondhand. I know his only intention was to make her smile but the necklace wasn’t meant for her. It’s not a trial by error, he can’t just keep trying out with different women every time he fails with one. And I’ll just leave this here.

The elephant in the room: the entire IC is involved in this, them all blaming Nesta, framing her as the wrong person, when she told Feyre about the dangers of her pregnancy? I don’t care if she did it while she was angry, her heart was in the right place. She got hurt from them deciding her fate without her involvement, voting on her, not once, but twice, about her fate because she wasn’t fast enough to deal with her trauma, then again when deciding if she should know about what she did with her own power and the weapons. and she showed Feyre what was really at play. Protecting her from what she faced with the Inner Circle. Just because she was angry while doing it does not mean she did it out of spite. She did it to expose them, specially Amren at that point. But I don’t get how it was twisted to “because she wanted to hurt Feyre”. She wasn’t even angry at Feyre. But you all would rather suck up to the Inner Circle than confront the fact that they’re hypocrites and liars with a propaganda. They’re evil. They fear Nesta using her power to seize control of everyone because it’s how THEY are. With all this High King crap. Basically colonization dreams. With how they press rank whenever it suits them, and lie about the law to win arguments. It’s because those who are inherently bad think everyone is bad just like them.

Other Elephants in the room which have been here a long time: the thing with blaming Nesta for not being the breadwinner… I could never get it. Some have money-earning skills, others don’t. She, at the point of her life when she was human, was only trained in dancing and appealing to men socially so she could uplift the family’s social status. She couldn’t hunt. Feyre could. And NEITHER, should’ve been the breadwinner. Nesta was willing to starve to death if it would push her father to do something. Feyre wasn’t willing to wait and starve or watch anyone starve. But it doesn’t mean Nesta was at fault. She was only 3 years older than Feyre. Let’s leave the “the oldest child has to step in for the parents when the parents fail” mentality in the past. It’s ridiculous. Nesta was under no obligation to be the breadwinner. And she suffered self-flagellation regularly for letting Feyre walk out there and hunt. But she literally had no skills that when she thought of something to do, she could only think of selling herself on the streets. The parents were abusive, both of them. Favoring one child over the other and planting rivalry between the siblings. “i love you” means nothing. NOTHING, when there is no action to prove it. And if anything, this book made me realize that Nesta was never okay. She was never in a good place mentally. I mean, I knew, but this book just proved it. Her mother favored her alright, but it was not in a loving way. She simply exploited her to climb the social ladder. She didn’t give her love, she gave her instructions. She enabled the grandmother to beat her, and instill some “harsher punishments” one of which Nesta still holds the scars for. She was called worthless, as a child. Why? Because she made a wrong step in a dance. She was physically and verbally abused, and her mother let it happen. Yet she was the only one who would give Nesta the time of day so Nesta still loved her. As a child, her mother was the only person who showed interest in her and she clung to. However twisted it was, it’s the only love she ever got. The only love she knew. Then she lost her. and later the family also lost their wealth. So all she was taught to do her entire life suddenly became meaningless because she can’t achieve what her mother “trained” her to do. And we know the rest of the story. She never felt at home, not even when her mother lived and she still had that wealth. She admitted as much. She was never fine. She might’ve appeared the part, but it was never true. And since she was so good at masking her emotions, nobody was the wiser.

side note: As for her power being the “bare minimum” now, there better not be a plothole, since Rhysand couldn’t contain merely the “surface of her power” because it was too much. and if that’s all she retained, then it’s good enough for me.

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metalboiimunson · 3 years

Text

Ghostly Kisses and Love Declarations

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x F!Reader

Words: 2.2k

Warning: 18+, fluff x love making

Spicy Level: 7/10

A/N: It’s finally here!! First post on this blog and first xReader one-shot since like 2015? It’s been a long time so idk how this turned out, I’m posting it before I decide I hate it. Open for feedback and way to improve. Hope you enjoy!

————

Ghostly Kisses and Love Declarations

Music was playing on the speaker, loud enough to hear around the house as you cleaned. It was something to keep you going, to keep the energy flowing so you wouldn’t call cleaning a bust. You opened windows to let fresh air in, sprayed down countertops and mopped the floor as you swayed to the music. You took dance breaks when one of your hype songs came on, of course.

A few hours later, you were sitting on the couch, leaning against the armrest with your head thrown back as you rested. You had been up on your feet all day, after all—you figured you deserved a break. Pedro was coming home tomorrow, hence the reason for your cleaning. You wanted a full day of doing nothing with him tomorrow, a day just for the two of you to catch up—in all senses.

You let your eyes drift shut, listening to the low music still playing from the speakers when your current favorite starts playing. The smooth, laid back beat playing throughout the house, causing you to mouth along with the lyrics as you raised your arm and swayed it to the beat. Your eyes still closed and feeling the music, you couldn’t help but let your fingers trace along your face as you picture Pedro.

There was a reason why you liked this song at the moment, it resonated with you. Pedro was traveling most of the time for work, so most of the time you were miles apart. Sometimes, if they allowed him, he could bring you along but that was rare. So you settled for nightly facetimes, listening to each other talk about your day. Sometimes, the way he looked at you through the screen turned you on. The way he looked at you with a sort of hunger when he thought you weren't paying attention, the way he bit his lip while he watched you speak. For a reason you couldn’t explain, you felt yourself start to heat up. He didn’t have to touch you, all he had to do was give you a simple look and Pedro had you melting.

It happened when you first met him, browsing the shelves at the local bookstore. You were in search of nothing in particular, picking up whatever cover or title caught your eye. You were nose deep in a thriller novel when Pedro came up to you and striked up a conversation, apologized for being so forward before asking if you would like to go for a drink some time as he tried to fight a dimpled grin off his face when you agreed.

Truth was, the sincerity in his eyes as he spoke to you was captivating—you would have agreed to anything he had asked you that day.

Letting your mind wander, song forgotten in the background, you allowed yourself to rest your hand on your neck for a moment before bringing your thumb up to your mouth and biting on it gently. You thought of one of the many times you had been with Pedro, rocking against each other and becoming whiny, whimpering messes under each other’s touch. A layer of sweat coating your bodies as you whispered praises into each other’s ear, his arms holding you close while he pumped into you and your nails dragged down his back.

This song reminded you of all those times and the ones alone with just your fingers caressing yourselves, moaning praises though the phone as you worked yourselves to reach your high, whimpering out each other’s name as relief spread through your body.

You didn’t even notice that the song had ended until you heard someone clearing their throat, causing you to snap your eyes open. Pedro. He stood before you, a day early, leaning against the wall with a smirk on his face that made your stomach flutter. You let your thumb slide from your mouth, dragging your bottom lip with it slowly as you maintained eye contact with him. You wanted to get up and hug him, kiss him—welcome him home, but the look in his eyes made you stay put.

You watched him walk towards you slowly, smirk still present on his face as he stood in front of you, the growing bulge evident in his jeans. He really missed you. “You’re home early...why didn’t you say?” You asked, looking up at him with a smirk.

“Wanted to surprise you..” He smirked, hand coming up to caress your cheek and slowly inching a finger towards your mouth, letting his mouth fall open slightly with a gasp as he watched you take it into your mouth.

You sucked his finger gently, perfect little ‘o’ forming around it as you did, letting it pop from your mouth as he leaned down to give you a kiss. You missed him—his scent, his eyes, his scruff. His lips, chapped and rough against your soft ones. It turned into a full makeout session in seconds, Pedro slowly rounding the armrest until he was straddling you. Your tongues fighting for dominance, nipping at each other's lips. You found yourself following him as he pulled away, not ready to give up the taste of his lips just yet.

“I missed you, P..” you mumbled, looking up at him and caressing his cheek as he hovered over you. His lips were plump, face slightly flushed and you discerned the look in his eyes as love and lust.

“I missed you too...so much.” he whispered, resting his forehead against yours. “I caught a red-eye, I couldn’t wait another day to see you..” he mumbled. “..to kiss you..touch you.” He pressed kisses along your jaw, gently nipping at your ear as he passed it and sucking on the spot below it softly.

He earned a gentle moan from you, your fingers running through the hair on the nape of his neck. “You saw me a month ago when I went to visit you, I doubt you missed me that much.”

“I recall you saying you missed me too, sweetheart.” He countered. “You also came for a week, I need more time than that with you.” He murmured, looking down at you with a small smile on his lips. “A lifetime with you would never be enough for me, nor would three.”

Your heart fluttered and you couldn’t help but let your eyes water, a hopeless romantic he was. “In that case, I hope to find you in all my lifetimes. ” you whispered, caressing his cheek gently.

“So cheesy.” He laughed, hiding his blushing face in the crook of your neck. You wrapped your arms around his neck, trying to kiss his cheek but getting his ear instead because of the position you were in.

He pulled back and you could see the love in his eyes, the way he looked down at you with blown pupils. The way his face lit up with happiness, a dimpled smile fighting its way onto his lips. He almost resembled the sun after a rainy day, warming up the earth as it shined brightly.

He picked you up, hands resting on your bum to hold you up as he walked down the hall towards your bedroom. There was a moment where he set you down so you could undress, but after discarding your bottoms you halted and watched him in awe. Taking him in as though it was the first time you were seeing him. The way his muscles tensed as he pulled off his shirt, the ridges on his back that you so many times had left marked up. The dimples sitting at the bottom of his back became visible as he slid out of his jeans, taunting you—begging you to touch them.

“...and suddenly, you have too much clothes for me.” He smirked, snapping you out of your trance. You looked up at him, smiling softly as he walked towards you and slowly lifted the hem of your shirt. He made sure to drag his fingers over your skin slowly, raising goosebumps as he slipped it off, tossing it to the side and crawling over you.

He pressed kisses down your jaw, wasting no time in sucking at your neck when you threw your head back to give him access. He left light bruises behind, pressing feathered kisses across your skin. His scruff tickling you as he inched further down your body, slowly inching your legs apart. His touch was gentle, pressing kisses over the most sensitive parts of you. He knew exactly where and how to touch you, having spent so much time figuring out your body.

So many hours memorising each other, it was an intimate thing for you. You knew every part of him, all his scars and birthmarks—even the tiny, faded tattoo behind his ear that resembled a broken flower. He knew every part of you too. Where your biggest scar was to the tiniest birthmark he could find, what took you over the edge and what turned you on.

Pedro took his time with you, making sure sex felt good for the both of you and not just him. His fingers slipping in you, touching you in just the right way as his lips pressed ghostly kisses to your inner thigh, whispering gentle praises against your skin. He earned soft moans from you, your fingers tugging at his hair as you withered under his touch. He could feel you start clenching around his digits as he ran his tongue over your clit gently, kissing and nipping at it softly. Your moans grew louder, trying to raise your hips to meet the thrusts of his fingers, but his hand was over your stomach to keep you in place.

“..Please, Pedro.” You mumbled breathlessly, ready for release.

“Please what, baby?” He hummed, still working his finger at your sex. “Tell me what you want.”

“...You. I need you..” and he wasted no time in slipping his fingers from you and licking them clean. He lined up to your entrance, coating himself before slowly slipping into you and bottoming out, earning a throaty groan from him.

You looked at each other, your legs wrapped around him to keep him buried inside, hands on either side of his face and you gave a short nod for him to move. Moans and groans filled the room, foreheads pressed against each other. You pulled him for a kiss, nipping at his bottom lip as he rocked into you, your tongues exploring each other’s mouth and you could taste yourself on his tongue. Your hands trailed down his back, digging your nails deep enough to leave crescent moons behind. You mumbled incoherent praises against his lips, throwing your head back to let out a loud moan.

“I love you..” you breathed, feeling Pedro attach himself to your neck. He placed sloppy kisses against your skin, thrusting into you at a steady pace. You could feel yourself clenching around him, the moan that slipped past his lips letting you know that he felt it too. You let your arms drop, clenching the sheets as he picked up his pace, lips never leaving your neck as he searched for your hand. He let your fingers intertwine, gripping you tightly as he thrusted into you.

‘I...fuck, I’m cumming P.” you whimpered into his ear, tightening your grip on him.

“Come on...come on, baby...” he hid his face in the crook of your neck, letting out soft moans, “Cum for me, baby.”

Moans echoed through the room, both cumming at the same time, holding onto each other tightly. You were sure you would have bruises in the morning, scattered over your bodies from all the love making.

Neither of you moved a muscle, letting the orgasm course through you. “...I love you..so much.” Pedro whispered after a while, slowly sliding out of you and laying beside you.

“I love you too, P...” You smiled softly, turning to face him, caressing his cheek gently. “..and I meant what I said, I really hope to find you in all my life times.”

He chuckled softly, pulling you into him but not before pressing a kiss to your forehead. “..and I really hope you choose me in all your life times.”

You laughed, nuzzling into him. It was quiet for a while, taking in each other’s silence. His chin rested on your head, fingers drawing figures across your back. You wouldn’t trade these moments for the world, they were intimate for you—sacred even. It was a moment to breath each other in, hold one another—bonding in the quietness.

“...you know, I really enjoy our love making but maybe we should try recreating that scene from Narcos.” You spoke after a while, laughing into his chest.

“Which of the many?” He countered, pulling away just enough to look at your face. There was a grin on his face, eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked at you with a loving glance. “You have to be more specific, baby.”

“You know exactly which one I’m talking about, Pedro.”

“I’m ready for round two...” He smirked, taking your lips in his and crawling on top of you. By the neediness in his touch and the roughness of his kiss, you knew exactly what was in store for you.

It was going to be a long night.

#this really is my comeback 😅#pedro pascal fics #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal #x reader fics #pedro pascal headcanon #pedro pascal one shot #pedro pascal x y/n #my writing: sunny

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toxicbubblegum212 · 3 years

Text

Bowers gang ~ Getting ready for the house party~ Part 6

Y/n: *You made your way into your own house, all the lights where off, of course no body was home. Your parents where never home.* "what kinda of parents are they."

Y/N: * you decided not to mess around and just go head straights for the showers. As your preparing you look at your once flawless skin. that now has has bruses, handmarks and hickeys that are slowly showing. You didn't wanna dwell on what happen earlier that night.*

*time skip (theres more interesting stuff ok!)*

Y/n: *You get out of the shower noticing not much time went by, you breath a sigh of relieife and just decided to vibe and firugre out what the hell to wear.*

Phone: *Ting*

Y/n: *You grab your phone, if was from Tyla a guy you liked from your Science class. A small smile appears but soon falls, "Why do all the guys notice me at the wrong god damn time!!!" (idk bout you guys but i got that same problem, also sorry if you can't relate).*

Y/N: "Shit" Tyla was asking if you wanted to go to a house party with him..... You already knew this was gonna end badly with your new "owners". You decided to address the issue when needed, no point in worrying bout something so small.*

Y/n: *still didn't help...you were still think bout Tyla as your hands graced over your many fashionable fabrics in your wardrobe. You felt bad that your kinda standing him up but what else can you do, it ill just add more to your plate. You took your time planing out the prefect outfit*

you choose this, sorry if you don't like it

If your looking for other parts to this series check out my masterlist (click me)

*You didn't want to bring a lot of attention to yourself cause you know a lot of people form school and around the town gonna be there... and you didn't wan't the gang especially Patrick pulling any tricks on you. Not to mention the unfinished business you have with Tyla....this is gonna be a long night. You hated when life starts being unpredictable.*

*You take your time putting on your clothes, comparing jewellery as your pick them up and place them back down. when you were finally happy you picked up your make up bag. Adding soft detailing with some eye shadow, eye liner and finally to top it all off with shinny lip gloss. Not to the mentions the mass amounts of foundation used to hide your secret run in with the gang You didn't want to go to overboard even though you loved makeup*

Unknown person: TAP! TAP!

Y/n: WHAT The-

*you look across the room towards your window, you panicked and your heart so became erratic*

Y/n: P-Patrick....

Patrick: *smiles places his large hands on either side of the glass, he looked like a predator staking its prey..*

Y/n: *you knew better then to just leave him outside, you make your way over to the window and open it. The lanky boy quickly creeped in*

Patrick: Hey there princess, you don't look to awfully happy to see me...

Y/n: Well some rando just showed up at my bed room window!...

Patrick: Henry wanted me to come check on you, make sure your not chocking to death on someone else's dick...

Y/n: HOW DARE YOU! I WOULD NEVER!

Patrick: Well the things we did last time i would consider other wise....

Y/n: I don't recall having much of a choice thanks for asking!

Patrick: Who fucking cares your not so innocent now and it's better we keep an eye on you..

Y/n: *you stay quite not wanting to cause any further argument, you finally noticed the way Patrick just towers over you...its very scary*

Patrick: *makes his way over to your bed slumping down on it, his eyes now lingering over you. Watching your every move..*

Y/n: .....what?....

Patrick: Im just surprised you choose this kinda outfit...i would have thought you would have chosen something more flashy like the rest of the girls...

Y/n: Well im not like the rest of those hoe ass girls

Patrick: Did i hit a never...*smirks*

*BEEP BEEP BEEEEPP*

Henry: GET YOUR FUCKING ASSES OUT HERE!!

Patrick: Come on princess the carriage has arrived..

#bowers gang #bowers gang x reader #henry x reader #it book #patrick x reader #patrick hockstetter x reader #patrick hockstetter #henry bowers #belch x reader #belch huggins x reader #belch huggins #victor criss #victor x reader #victor criss x reader #it 2020

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aitarose · 3 years

Text

A HUNDRED LIVES (H. IWAIZUMI) pairing: iwaizumi hajime x fem!reader

synopsis: only real relationships stand the test of time, some fair better than others—but in the end, all that truly matters is telling them you love them. all that mattered was how hajime would finally confess.

word count: 2.2k

genre: childhood best friends to lovers, fluff, slight angst, mutual pining

warnings: mentions of death

notes: i hated the way this was and i’ve had it finished for like a week and a half but now it’s in second person because i rewrote the whole thing ok aha enjoy! reblogs are very much appreciated like pls tell me what you think about this i kind of love it?? or do i? idk

↳ DIRECTORY

You knew that congratulations were in order, one for not only you, but the entire third year class of Aoba Johsai. The third year class that you’d grown up with, the people that’d graduated together from their high school duties. The very people that you’d grown up with, known for years on years, were moving on from Miyagi and saying their goodbyes.

It was saddening, knowing that you’d all have to leave your past behind, grow up and move on as an individual. You, yourself, hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that you’d be moving to Tokyo—the city of stars and big dreams. There was something solemn about the thought—beginning a life on your own, away from the friends and family you’d grown used to seeing every day.

Which was why today was all the more important, why it mattered so much in the hole of your mind. It was one final hurrah, one final farewell to all of the fleeting people you’d come to love. All of the classmates from first period, advisors who’d suggested career paths, family friends and relatives that’d seen you grow up—and him.

Iwaizumi Hajime.

As children, you and Iwa had been as close as you could possibly be—spending nearly every day with one another as you were next-door neighbors, only separated by a thin wooden fence. One that was commonly crossed, as it was impossible to stay away from his energy—he’d been your first friend, first crush, the very first boy you’d ever daydreamed about while the sun was awake.

Perhaps it’d been his smile, the joy on his face as he’d swing you back and forth on the playground. How he’d try his best to teach you how to set and spike, lecturing Oikawa as he’d complain about how you were never going to be good at the sport, and ignoring his best friend’s claims of a secret little crush on his favorite girl.

And though those times had been fun and all, the moments in which you’d meet each other between the dividing fences of your backyards during the evening hours, Oikawa long gone—and run off to the countryside to play in the old and sturdy tree house that your father had built the two of you, had always been amongst your favorite memories.

They were the memories that were always on the back of your mind, itching to be recalled, reenacted—the longing you had for him never truly going away even as you grew apart as time went on. That part of your brain, the part that might’ve loved him only taunted you—taunted you with the brokenness of the bond you thought would always last.

Your greatest wish was that you would’ve been able to keep in close contact throughout the late middle and high school years—but life had come in the way, life had ruptured your attachment to him—the responsibility of upholding your family after the death of your father had surpassed your need for Iwa, creating an abyss with no bridge to cross.

No bridge except a tiny, frail wooden beam that would only be stepped on in the times where Iwaizumi and his boasting best friend would stop at his house to hang out when after-school practice had ended. While it was rare that his path would cross yours, there were some sparing moments in which you’d miraculously be outside to greet them.

It wasn’t like you and Iwa weren’t friends anymore, it was just that you’d each let the void amass for so long that there was nothing you really had in common—nothing except the bright pink flush on the both of your faces as Oikawa would poke fun at his ace’s face, causing Iwa to drag him into his house with a stoney and angered expression.

And that was it. That was the only interaction you’d ever have, the only time you’d speak to the boy you thought you loved.

Which was why you weren’t all that surprised when he hadn’t decided to show up to your graduation party despite the handwritten letter you’d dropped off on his doorstep. His absence was deafening, making it all the more difficult to say your goodbyes as the person you wanted to see most, didn’t care enough to bid a farewell.

So, you’d decided to take matters into your own hands and somehow move on from the lost dreams that you’d once shared with Iwaizumi. The only reasonable way being to let go of that broken connection, the connection that had started with your little hideaway—the hideaway amongst the trees that you’d found yourself climbing up now.

The calloused wood of the ladder splintered beneath your hands, scratching the taut skin, sanding its softness—no doubt blistering it to oblivion. You winced, curses flowing under your breath as you hesitantly reached the top, not exactly knowing what to expect as the treehouse had seemingly been abandoned for years.

Pushing your nerves aside, you crawled into the tiny space, forgetting how much younger and smaller you’d been the last time you’d sat in the little alcove. Looking up, your eyes grazed over the clean walls of the hideout, free from overgrown plants and cobwebs and dusted to near perfection—there wasn’t a single thing out of place.

It was surprising, the sight of your childhood playhouse having been taken care of after you’d assumed it had been forgotten—after you’d forgotten. Someone had to have been maintaining its structure, keeping it tidy and homey—that someone being the boy sitting directly across from you, scaring you half to death as his irises grew wide in shock.

“What the—” You started, tripping over your own feet as you fell backwards towards the opening of the doorway. A small scream grew on your lips as you began to free fall, nearly out into the open air before Iwaizumi reached out—catching your wrist in his, reminding you of the times when this was a common occurrence—when he’d never fail to keep you on your feet.

“You alright?” He breathed out, large hand gripping your wrist, continuing to hold on even though you were standing between his arms. It was comforting, the feeling of being so close to him, back in the presence of the boy who’d you’d lost oh-so-long ago—the boy you’d been hoping to see at some point before you had to leave for university. “I see you’re still a bit clumsy.”

Rolling your eyes and stepping away from his familiarity, you crossed your arms, one resting over the other, clear confusion in your eyes. “And I see that you’re still attached to this little shack.” There was a hint of humor in your tone, laughter being vocalized, but pain within its context. “It looks amazing, though—for how long it’s been.”

Iwa scoffed, shaking his head as he bit his lip—mouth itching to say something, then refusing to do so. Perhaps it’d been a snarky remark, or maybe one of sadness, whatever it’d been was lost, now a mystery to your ears. Instead, he patted the stray couch cushion next to him, offering you a seat—the seat that had used to be yours.

You sat in silence, together yet apart as the sun was setting over the far away fields. With every second, every sun ray splitting off and being reborn in moonlight, you could feel your adolescence slipping away—the thought of being dependent and a child losing meaning, losing importance, losing validity and need.

Thoughts running wild, chaos in your mind, the only constant being fear and anxiety in retrospect to the unknown that was your future—your future miles and miles away from everything that you’d come to love. Noticing the stress in your stature, Iwaizumi took a deep breath—wanting to hold your hand, but stopping himself before he could try.

“It hasn’t been that long, you know.” He said softly, glancing over at you. A little smile grew on his face at the furrow in your eyebrows, the slight upturn of your lips, and scrunched nose. If there was any beauty in the world, any beauty at all—Iwa believed that you were gifted with all of it. “I used to come here every night.”

“Yeah, Hajime—I know.” You responded, scoffing as you called him by his first name, the only name you’d ever known him by. “We both did, I was here too—” In the midst of your smart-assed response, he shook his head. There was something about his posture, energy, that made you stop in your tracks—it was one of his little ticks, one of the things that you’d never failed to remember.

“But that’s just the thing—you weren’t here.” He mumbled, tapping the top of his knee with a finger as he leant back against the wooden walls, a reminiscent look in his eyes. “I’ve always been here, Y/N—always kept this place perfect for you, on the off chance that you’d come back. On the off chance that we’d keep our promises and not forget about each other.”

There was a sense of solemnness to the words spouting from his mouth, the truth that she had in fact left him behind—all with reason that he undoubtedly understood—but that didn’t make up for the lost years and memories that they could’ve had had she not been so distracted with the troubles of life and reliability.

“This is going to sound ridiculous since you’re leaving soon—” Iwa mumbled under his breath, internally cursing at himself at the horrible placement of his timing. “—but I’m not going to lie, Y/N. I really did think we’d end up together, somehow. When I proposed to you in that corner over there with that grass ring, I meant it. I meant every word.”

“Even if that ring had fallen apart two seconds after I tried to slip it on you.” A laugh bubbled from your throat, recalling the memory from when you were children—how he’d given you a kiss on the cheek along with getting down on one knee. The two of you had had a makeshift wedding after that, gathering all of your stuffed animals and placing plastic chairs beneath the tree—saying your vows with your parents in attendance, watching fondly at the pure sight.

Biting your lip, you turned to face him and his gaze that had already been intent on seeing you. There was a ghost of a grin on his features, wistful wonder in his irises, his hair messy and sticking in every direction due to the static—yet he was still the most handsome boy you’d ever seen. “I’m sorry.” You placed a hand on his, stopping the fidgeting nerves in his lap, and calming the rushing blood in his veins.

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting for so long.” Wincing at the thought of your carelessness, the complete disregard you’d kept for his feelings along with your own. You’d had no intent on leaving Iwa behind, you’d just been so caught up with your own problems that he’d gotten lost in the mix of it all. “I must be a pretty shitty wife.”

Iwa laughed loudly, head dropping back at your remark. The moment was filled with deja vu, reigniting all of the feelings and love you’d buried under the hauntings of your mind. He always seemed to manage to make that broken part of you feel whole again, with his directed remarks and little jokes. “You’re not wrong, left me all alone after the altar—that doesn’t exactly scream ‘perfect wife’ material.”

Those words seemed to trigger something in him, a feeling that he hadn’t yet overcome as his expression turned stoney. Placing his empty palm above yours, hands stacked atop one another in a tower, Iwa grimaced, choosing his next set of sentences very wisely—knowing full well that they could make or break whatever chances he had with you.

“It’s alright though.” He whispered, his warmth heating the radiating coldness that was you. “Since I’d rather live a hundred lives of loneliness, then see you suffer even a minute of sadness.”

With his emotions bare, confessions out on the table, the things he said were more meaningful than those three little words themselves—you couldn’t help but feel your heart grow. The love you held for him overcompensating for every mistake and pain that you must’ve caused him—the only goal listed in your head being to make the rest of your time count, make the rest of your lives worth something together.

Leaning forward, ignoring the look of surprise on Iwa’s face as your nose touched his, you smiled through the outflowing sentences—outflowing thoughts that were spouting out like raindrops in a thunderstorm. “Sounds like you might be living a pretty lonely life, then.”

He chuckled, calloused hands cupping your cheeks as he pulled you in, pressing a soft and long-overdue kiss to your awaiting lips. It was euphoria, the absolute bliss that was being with him, the boy of your dreams. It was a kiss that you’d spent countless nights thinking over, countless fleeting wishes of him holding you exactly as he was now.

While your future had always been uncertain, there was at least one constant—a constant that would hopefully always be right within your grasp, right within your arms to hold on to, listen to, love wholeheartedly. Iwaizumi Hajime was it for you, he was the endgame that you’d always been searching for.

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poptod · 3 years

Text

Pull the Stars Out of the Sky (And Gift Them to Me), pt. 7, (Ahkmenrah x Reader)

Description: Protection.

Notes: idk when i started writing smut so willy nilly but here it is, another fuckening. Pretty big warning though: dubious consent. It’s clearly consensual later on but at first there is no given consent. WC: 6.8k

He had yet to leave your side, taking you with him in every which direction as he, in his own words, marketed himself. It was a process that consisted of being charming and making witty jokes; simple things that had people trusting him. You stood mostly silent beside him, wringing your hands, stuck in distant thoughts. If anyone referred to you, you didn't notice.

They did, though––but if anyone asked about you, Ahk would make up a quick explanation, one he knew you wouldn't mind.

Your silence was originally your constant state, traipsing about the palace with a chain keeping you at Ahk's side. Over the short course of time between Amun first awakening and coming to stay with the Persian nomads, he had already grown used to your laughing, the snide comments always on your razor-sharp tongue, and that lively spark that filled your eyes whenever your heart thumped in your chest.

"You're quiet," he murmured as the two of you walked. You gripped reins in your hand, keeping your camel with all your bags beside you.

"I don't... like travelling with people," you said through gritted teeth, side-eyeing a group of whispering friends to your left.

"It's safer, isn't it?"

"For you," you mumbled bitterly.

"Oh, you're above joining in a caravan?" He said with a teasing lilt.

"I am simply experienced in this," you said, sure to speak under your breath, "and I know how to take care of myself."

Due to the size and needs of a caravan such as Mahud's, you would need to stop thrice a day, each time setting up a little bit of a home at the riverside. Inbetween those breaks, your legs ached with a familiar burn. Long walks had been your staple for a long while. Though your long break from the lifestyle had left you a little out of shape, your previous experience allowed you to navigate your way back in without too much trouble.

Ahk was taking the physical exertion overall well, despite his aching hunger. The stops would allow him to eat, a fact he was very happy to learn, going by the massive grin on his face when you pointed it out. At a few points he was partial to complaining, but always ceased if you glared at him.

The next stop for the slow-moving caravan was by an outcropping stream flowing from the Nile and out into the desert, allowing a small oasis to grow further from the river itself. Although there appeared to be no fruits growing on the tall trees, a few men and women took up nets and spears, wading out into the water to look for fish.

Numbness filled up your legs as you collapsed on the ground, leant against your camel who had also drawn to its' knees. Heat had already pooled in your face and in your feet, burning from the long day, and ready for anything to drink.

"Here," Ahk said as he rounded a bush, kneeling beside you in your shady, isolated spot.

He handed a cup to you, filled with hot tea. Not the most satisfying drink, but it was safest, and you dutifully sipped away. As you watched the other travellers Ahk shifted his position, scooting nearer to you and pressing himself to your side. Instantly his heat began to overcrowd your senses.

"Ahk, it's too hot for me to be touching anyone," you said, shifting away with your back to him.

You probably should've expected him to pull you into him and keep you there, which made you feel all the more foolish when he did it anyway and you didn't expect it at all.

"Ahk..." you whined, half suffocated by his arms wrapping tight round your chest, his face buried in the back of your neck.

"Mmm," he hummed as he took all of you in, nuzzling you with his nose. "I am... tired."

"I'd be astounded if you weren't, but you can't sleep. It's still day and we won't stay here long," you said matter-of-factly, pushing his face away from you.

"I'll just keep you here," he decided, his voice muffled through the fabric of your shirt. "Sleep forever."

"Right," you said, rolling your eyes.

You wormed out the moment he loosened his grip, much to his disappointment.

By nightfall the distant murmurs of a city sounded from ahead, blurred with singing crickets and the steady flow of the Nile beside you. Ahk had spent the rest of the day trying to cheer you up, mostly with bad jokes, but the sentiment was nonetheless there. Still, being surrounded by people for the past fourty-six hours had already taken its' toll. You hardly spoke, your chest felt caved in on itself, and your eyes were trained on the ground below you.

The city ahead, while heralding certainly crowded streets and filled taverns, would suffice as a hospice away from people who had come to learn your name. Whispering in your ear, Ahk informed you this was the city Piye had wanted the two of you to stay at for a little while. If things got worse, you'd move further south, and if they got better, you would return north down the nile.

While at first you tried to sneak away without Mahud noticing, Ahk insisted on giving the man a proper good-bye, and backed this up with the fact that you had been lent a camel. You wouldn't be able to take it with, but it was still a nice consideration for the trip to Aswan.

"We'll be stopping here," Ahk said once Mahud's attention was on the two of you. "We're to meet a friend soon."

"Ah, then I wish you safe travels," said Mahud, patting Ahk on the shoulder with a firm hand.

"Thank you. To you and your family as well. Will you be staying here tonight?" Ahk asked as he gestured to the outer markets of the city, filled with traders who came from far away to make their living, and couldn't afford a roof over their heads.

"I believe so. Tomorrow we make our money and head off again."

"Good luck to you then," Ahk said, silently urging you to say your own farewell.

"Good-bye," you said quietly, bowing your head respectfully.

As you entered the outer rim of the city, the first thing you noticed was the quiet. It wasn't all that late––the sun had set only a little while ago, and it always did that much earlier in the day during the colder months. So you kept your footsteps quiet, instructing Ahk to do the same when he didn't pick up on the eerie silence.

With no one around to direct you every which way, you had to rely off what memory you had of Aswan, as little as it was. You had visited several times, but never for very long. Most of the city was still unexplored to you.

The long light of burning torches cast itself upon the street in front of you, approaching from around the house to your right. Instantly you were darting for cover, hiding the whole of your body behind a large barrel, while you watched Ahk look around the corner.

"Ahk, you fucking idiot, get over here," you hissed, the pounding in your heart begging him to listen to you.

He looked over his shoulder, finding you mostly-hidden, and quickly made to do the same. His spot was on the opposite side of the street, guarded by a practical wall of broken-down stalls. Once Ahk was fully secured you slipped back behind the barrel, calming your quickened breath as footsteps passed you by, numbering somewhere in the tens.

Only when you were fully assured that whoever passed you was not coming back, you joined Ahk in the middle of the road and continued onwards.

"Did you get a look at them?" You asked immediately.

"Yes, but... I'm not sure if I actually saw what I saw," he said, his brow furrowed intensely.

"What does that mean?"

"They had these.. heads on them, feathered and beaked, with massive eyes. Fucking jacked, too," he muttered, pausing to check both ways before crossing the next street.

"Like your Gods?" You asked.

"Like Horus," he said with a nod. "What on Earth are they here for?"

"Just guessing right now, but they might have something to do with you."

He took your hand, and after a long while of searching the streets, you found yourself at the step of a tavern whose lights had long gone out. Again, strange; neither of you remarked upon it, but you did turn to each other with dubious eyes. The smell of mead still came from it, not yet soured or rotten.

Ahk took a cautious step forward, reaching for the door and easily pushing it open. Inside there was the expected darkness, surrounding the knocked-down chairs, broken tables, and spilt beer. Both of you stopped, your shadows stretching before you on the wooden floor as you scanned the whole of the abandoned room. The bar, where you were sure there was once an attendant, was left unmanned and covered in shattered cups, sticky with sweetened alcohol.

The door behind you swung shut, making you whip around. Fortunately it was only Ahk letting go of the door, leaving it to join you nearer to the center of the room, where you could try and peer over the counter.

"Um..." you said.

"Good evening," said a voice, accompanied soon by a man popping out from behind the bar. "How may I help you?"

"Uhhh.. what... what, uh, happened here?" Ahk asked, his expression contorted as he glanced around the room.

"Nasty Egyptian soldiers. They've wrecked up the place, and every time I fix it they come back in and ruin it, so I stopped fixing it. The party's upstairs, if that's what you're after," he said with a too-bright grin on his face.

"Really? And they don't notice that you're up there?"

"Well, they are bird brains," the man said as he leant in, though spoke in a much quieter voice.

"Wait, are they the soldiers with the bird heads on them?" Ahk asked as a revelation came to him.

"Yes, sir. Where've you been?"

"Travelling for the last couple days. How long have they been here?"

"About a week or so now," said the man, looking away as he recalled. "Heard they're crawling all over the other cities, too. So you folks want a room?"

"... sure," you said in a quiet, low voice when Ahk failed to answer.

He handed you a wooden coin with a symbol engraved with fire, informing you that the door with the same symbol was yours. There were no locks and he made sure to tell you that, as well. After offering to carry your bags and earning a 'no,' from you, he pointed you up the stairs, and returned to his spot hidden beneath the bar.

"Odd man," Ahk whispered to you as you climbed the steps.

"Ahk!" You scolded, hitting his shoulder. "We're still in earshot."

How the Horus soldiers hadn't managed to find this place was beyond either of you, as the moment you entered the upper floor you were bombarded with the tunes of dancing music, twirling and playing with the veins of each listener. The thick scent of searing meat filled the whole of the room, rivalled only by the scent of sloshed beer. Most of the food and drink came from a single corner, where a large cask of beer had been set up alongside a furnace, where the one manning the food also managed the distribution of drink.

All around you, people sat and stood, dancing in the middle or resting on the sidelines. Every crate and usable chair was taken up, most people taking seats on the floor instead in great groups of public conversation. You instinctively grew closer to Ahk, trying to keep as far away from others as you could, even as he began to wade through the crowd.

"Hey, don't you think it's a little loud in here? Won't the soldiers find us?" Ahk asked a random stranger, who had happened to stand as the two of you passed her by.

"Egyptian soldiers are hardly valued for their intelligence, young man," she said with a knowing chuckle, before continuing on to the bar.

"Told you," you murmured in his ear as you watched her disappear in the crowd.

"Oh, shut up."

After setting away your bags and manually jamming the door, you rejoined the party on the second floor, partaking in what food and drink you could afford. Piye had given you a good deal of money, but you had no way of knowing how many days or months you would have to stretch that amount across. It was better to keep a good eye on your finances, something Ahk didn't know much about, and left in your capable hands. Though, that hardly stopped him from complaining.

"We got more food when we were staying with Mahud," he whined, his cheek squished against your shoulder.

"That's because it didn't cost any money," you said.

"You are a cruel lover."

"I am, but this has nothing to do with that since we are not lovers."

"We're not?"

"No," you stated, leaning your head back against the wall with closed eyes. "We are, at best, accomplices."

There was no ignoring the sudden change in his energy. He grew quiet, as he so rarely did, and hardly moved to breathe.

As he sulked, you took care to remind yourself of what he was capable of––the strange things he'd said to you, even if they weren't entirely harmful, that had set you in a month-long mood of unease.

"You will stay here. Any attempt on your behalf to leave and I will have to punish you. Understand?"

"Then I am a prisoner," you said, your voice hoarse and broken.

"You are what you make yourself," he said in a much more stern tone, looking down at you with knowing, wary eyes. "If it is a prisoner, then so be it. But you will be, throughout all actions and situations, mine."

"I..."

"You belong to me."

He had not relented in his usage of that claim. In times of peace, in political unrest, he had kept you with him. In times of great bounty, of danger and uncertainty, you had not left him once, and you wondered how sick you would've gotten if you were to go back in time and tell your freshly-met self that you would spend the longer half of a year with him.

You supposed that, in the end, you had joined his collection. The only catch was that it cost him everything else in his ownership, including his kingdom. And yet he seemed perfectly content to lean on your side, even if harsh words came before the silence, and to wait till you returned his affections.

As he touched your shoulder, his muscles went lax, letting him fall limp against you. The moment he intook your scent he was gone, hypnotized by his own adoration for you.

Though your mind fell into a quiet stupor, dancers still circled the room in beat with music. For a moment you wondered how they'd react if they found out the Pharaoh was in their midst.

Aswan was a very Egyptian-type city considering it was still within the borders of Nubia. That meant less worker camps, less fear of Egyptian soldiers, and less knowledge on the impact the Pharaoh stressed upon higher up Nubian cities. Keeping that in mind, you assumed they would try to cozy up to him––spend some of his riches, flirt a little––however it was also possible they worshipped Amun and had already heard of Ahk's treason.

Music began to fade from your mind as the faint sound of footsteps sounded from below you, seeping through the cracks in the mud and wood. They appeared more succinctly the closer you listened, and soon you could identify the number, all marching in unison.

"Ahk," you shook him awake, eyes trained intensely on the floor, "we need to get out of here."

"What?" His sleepy face gave way for concern. "What? What's happening?"

"There's soldiers coming," you said, your grip on his arm tightening.

"Well – the man at the front said they come by every now and then. They haven't found the upstairs yet, they probably won't now," he said.

Muffled voices muttered from below the floor. Ahk opened his mouth to speak again, but you quickly silenced him with your hand, carefully tuning back into the conversation beneath you. A loud crash was followed by silence, and that combination had you jumping to your feet.

"What is it?" Ahk asked, much more panicked now that he noticed your own fear.

"They're coming upstairs," you said as you backed up through the crowd, disturbing those you bumped into.

"They're – oh fuck." Ahk's expression dropped. "The soldiers are coming!"

Ahk yelled his warning over the music, certainly loud enough to assure the soldiers that there were, in fact, people up here. Lutes and harps stuttered to a halt, the pounding of footsteps now clear through the walls.

Panic seized the partygoers. People trampled over one another reaching for their belongings casted aside, hurriedly adjusting them back onto their bodies and making for the windows. Like rats they climbed out, writhing over each other into a mass of fabric and limbs, followed eagerly by you and Ahk. Massive backpacks made it so you were the last out and the only two to see the soldiers yourselves.

The pounding door had you stuck in a trance, only able to back up towards the window. As it slammed open, you finally caught sight of the falcon-headed soldiers, their sharpened spears and sharper eyes, staring empty-minded at you as Ahk pulled you out the window.

"This way!" Came a voice from above you.

You and Ahk quickly looked up, finding a young woman offering you a hand from the rooftop. Ahk took no hesitation in grabbing it, allowing her to hoist him upwards. When he reached down to find your hand, he felt nothing, and panic struck his heart like a searing knife. He ducked his head down, watching the room upside down.

Muscled arms wrapped around your chest and face, blocking your mouth from making practically any sounds at all. The only sound you could make was from kicking your legs frantically.

He jumped back to his feet on the roof, spinning round to the woman who had helped him.

"I need a sword," he said in a rush, desperate eyes already begging.

"Um – ask Imar, I believe he has one," she said, pointing to the man who worked at the bar downstairs. Ahk thanked her in a rush and left.

"Imar!" He called as he jumped from one building's roof to another, approaching where most of the party-goers had gathered. "I need a sword, or a weapon of any sort. Crossbow even."

"I've got a sword, but I need it. There's a stock of axes over there. Don't know who they belong to, though, so take at your own discretion," he said. Ahk once more gave his thanks before running off.

The kink in your neck had only gotten worse the more you struggled, spiking pain down your spine and into your skull each time the soldier's golden bands pressed into the side of your neck. Your already travel-worn shoes were now nearly in shreds, pulling and pushing on the rough gravel roads, occasionally cutting the soles of your feet open. Thus far you had not been allowed to speak, one massive arm nearly cutting off your oxygen supply.

Although you couldn't tell for sure where they were dragging you, you assumed it was towards a temple, as the buildings around you slowly grew more complex and well-kept. A temple seemed a proper place where you could be thrown into whatever underworld Amun lived in.

Being a commodity fought over should've scared you more. There was a panic seizing your nerves, but you were numb to the surprise, instead saving your energy till you could outsmart the soldiers.

Squawking interrupted your harsh breathing, crying out from behind the falcon soldier. You opened your eyes to the dark of night, spying through the shadow-filled alleyway a running figure, followed by the heads of soldiers falling from the city's silhouette. It was then you recalled a very important fact––Amun and his soldiers might've been strong, but Ahk held within him a hunger unlike that of the starved. The hunger of the rich––of pigs and cannibals. A hunger that terrified you to your core.

The first soldier in your sight that emerged from the shadow of buildings soon stopped in its' tracks, tumbling down past its' own knees as the falcon head slipped off human shoulders. Your shocked eyes watched intently, darting upwards to see Ahk with a broad axe.

His blade came down on the last remaining soldier walking behind your captor, blood splurting from the veins and splattering on his face. Much of it landed on your foot, leaving a trail of red as you were dragged, legs still shakily kicking.

He held a finger up to his lips, hushing any muffled screams that might've come from you. Whatever he had planned, you let him do what he deemed necessary, and kept quiet to avoid the suspicion of the soldier restraining you. He raised his axe high above his head, as though he were to strike you down. Terror filled your eyes when the blade came screaming down, splitting the soldier's head in two before it could ever reach you, leaving no mark on you but the pouring blood of the falcon head. The grip on you loosened, and as you pushed yourself away the corpse fell to the ground.

Blood and nerves squelched as Ahk tore the weapon out of the skull, a horrible crack resonating in the empty street when the base of the skull finally split. He panted, droplets of blood falling into his open mouth as he turned to you, eyes frozen and wide.

"You alright?" He asked softly, in a tone so out of character from his current state.

"... yeah," you breathed out.

The axe clattered onto the ground, followed shortly by Ahk falling to his knees. From there he crawled the short distance to you, gently wrapping his arms around your middle, and pulling you into his lap. He buried himself in your neck, hid away in your warmth. The blood covering his midsection soaked through your shirt.

"Ahk, we need to leave, you know there's more of them," you said, though you did not cease in stroking his hair.

"I know," he mumbled, pressing himself tighter to you for a moment before releasing. "They didn't hurt you?"

"Nothing but bruises," you huffed. "Let's go."

You kept near the entrance to the tavern as Ahk wandered back inside, checking behind the counters and in the attic for any trace of the fleeing people. From the roof you could hear muttering, though you couldn't see anyone, and you could vaguely make out the words they were saying.

"Are you the one they're looking for?" A woman asked.

"I did anger an Egyptian god, yes," Ahk said with a curt nod.

"Imar!"

The man from the downstairs bar appeared from over the horizon of another tall rooftop. He was drenched in sweat, practically glowing in the dim moonlight.

"Yes?"

"These are the ones they want," she said, gesturing to Ahk.

"Really?" He said as he dusted his hands off. "The hell did you do?"

"I, um, attacked a God in order to save my.. um... Amoke," he answered rather sheepishly.

"You cannot stay here," Imar said firmly.

"I'm sorry, but we have many other people looking for protection. We will not risk them for two people who have private business with whatever kind of God you worship," the woman said.

"I understand. Keep safe. Do you have any ideas on where we could go for the night?"

"Try the old graves up on the hill. They hate desecrating the dead," she said before sending Ahk back off down the stairs.

Footsteps drummed for a moment before the door swung open, revealing the Pharaoh still covered in blood. By now it had dried, leaving much of it to flake off his clothes and skin, now a muddy brown instead of the vibrant red of before.

"Have you ever slept in a grave before?"

"What?"

You had expected him to ask, considering what you heard of the conversation, but you weren't wholly convinced he would actually allow himself to sleep in a tomb.

"A long while ago, I died for a little while. Well, I guess not that long ago. Two or three years. My brother killed me," he began as he started off down the steps, taking you with him as he directed you through the streets, "and I was buried. Piye returned from their banishment shortly after and dug me out of my grave... used their gift to give me life once more."

"... you're really expecting me to believe that?" You asked, almost ready to burst out laughing.

"You saw Amun come to life. There are flowers growing out of your arms. What part of my story is unbelievable to you?"

"Right," you mumbled. "Good point. So... did you sleep in that grave or something?"

"It's complicated, but I was conscious for some time, locked underground. Not Piye's magic. Khonsu's, I believe. Either way, it's not horrid if you have someone with you," he said, patting you on the back with a smile.

"Did you have someone with you?"

His expression fell, the hand on your shoulder going with it.

"I did," he said softly, offering no more than a bittersweet twitch of his smile.

Ahk caught it before you did––the trampling of numbered footsteps, growing steadily louder the closer you came to the upcoming street. You remained within your own thoughts, plagued by questions, and mostly ignorant to the slowing of his pace. Eventually he had to grab your hand, forcing you to hide behind the shadow of a tall building. You opened your mouth to say something, but he set his hand over your mouth, staring at you with an intensity that had terrified you only a little while earlier.

"They're coming," he mouthed in your ear, breath barely passing his lips as he spoke.

Steps grew louder and he pressed himself against you, squishing you to the wall with his chin on your shoulder. Pressure tightened around your chest, constricted your breathing, hastened the beat of your heart as you relied solely on your hearing.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The clattering of armor, weapons, and shields rang through the marching steps, sending the imagery of shining, sharpened stone and arrows glinting in the moonlight.

"We need to go," he said beneath his breath.

Before you could ask what he meant, his hand encircled your wrist once more, pulling and forcing you down the other side of the alley. Chirps and squawks came from behind, making your pulse rush and swell beneath your skin. They would find you––bird brains though they were, they were still soldiers of a God, with eyes adapted for darkness. They would pull you into their hell and murder your... your Ahk.

Your Ahk.

You arrived back in your body when Ahk turned into an open, empty street, running uphill as he trained his sights on the tomb-filled mountains.

"We're not actually going to stay in a grave, are we?!" You asked as you ran, trying desperately to keep up with the long strides of the former Pharaoh.

"It is our safest bet," he said, tightening his grip on you. You still attempted to squirm out, however fruitless your struggle, and the proceeding panic had you soaked entirely in fear.

He kept you running till your legs burned, till he was fumbling over his own steps, too full of adrenaline to fully control his feet. Pebbles, rocks, and dust filled your sandals, scratching at your skin as it clung to your sweat. Your throat was still too tight to take in enough breath, leaving you part-way wheezing. Soon your own legs began to give way, scraping your knees and palms across rough dirt.

"Come, up," Ahk muttered as he helped you back to your feet, casting wary glances towards the city still ringing with the cries of falcons.

A few more minutes of scrambling up unused paths and you came to the foot of the hill, where the first graves had been set up. The long tunnels led into darkness, to a place you had never been before, where death would paint every wall. Few things in life truly terrified you––death was not among them, but the cruel afterlife of the Egyptians did. The tales you'd heard of the spells necessary to memorize, the weapons, the escorts, the protective magic one needed to have to brave what they called Duat had done that to you.

He didn't take to the first grave you saw, whose door was sealed shut from the outside with rope and wood. In fact he took you past halfway up the hills till he finally found a hole in which to hide, shoving you into the overwhelming darkness, and shutting the door partway.

All that you could hear was the trembling of your own breath, echoing in the empty, dank chamber. Despite the chilling cold the ground beneath you seemed wet, as though it had rained within the earth.

Clicking came from somewhere in front of you. Instinctively you pressed yourself against the wall, surprised to find not a cave wall but a carved granite wall. A flame burst before you as you realized this, revealing the whole of the cave, each wall covered in paintings of life and magic. Hieroglyphs lined every scene, rivalled only by the collection of yellow and white stars painted onto the lapis ceiling.

Your eyes scanned the walls around you and the ceiling, wandering down the pillars and towards the dirt floor. Across from you, Ahk leant his back against the wall, a flicker of light dancing on cloth ripped from his skirt. Now the material covered only the upper half of his thighs, leaving little to your imagination as he drew nearer to you.

"I'm afraid Nubian graves don't quite compare to the luxury of Egyptian graves," he said, setting his hand on your knee and running it up your thigh.

"When will we leave?"

"When our hunger becomes too great."

Ahk might've had good impulse control and lots of self control, but you did not.

"That'll be in days!"

"You're not very patient, are you?"

"Not when I'm stuck in a fucking tomb!"

"Screaming won't do you any favors, Amoke," he reminded you with a quirk of his brow.

Though you hardly had the consciousness of mind to recognize what he was doing, his hands had set to separating your legs, wedging himself inbetween them instead.

"I don't think the volume of my voice has anything to do with our predicament," you said scathingly, crossing your arms and turning away.

"Well, no, but you will hurt your voice. And my ears. This is a small room."

He had a point, but you were adamant in your decision to avoid his gaze. So instead you looked to the floor, your arms still crossed, and a small pout on your lip. Your eyes widened as you felt warmth on your neck, soft and somewhat wet. Ahk was kissing at your neck, one hand dangerously high on the inside of your thigh and the other squeezing your waist, in the middle of a tomb.

"What the hell are you doing?" You asked, beginning to worm in his grasp. The curt movements soon turned to struggle, your heart racing as he simply held you tighter, biting harsher at your neck.

"I could've lost you so easily today," he said softly between the ministrations of his lips.

"Amun almost kidnapped me, too, and you didn't act l –" he bit down and you gasped, "like this."

He simply chuckled and continued.

"I wanted to," he admitted after a moment. "He had no right to do anything to you. I've already lay claim."

"What?"

"You're mine. I found you first." Motions began to grow rougher, hands tightening on you as kisses became hurried and desperate. "My beautiful little toy... I won't let you go, never."

"Ahk, we're in a grave," you said, attempting to pull his hands off you.

In one swoop his hands caught yours, pinning them above your head. The weight of his body still rested between your legs, keeping them apart, and allowing him access to push and grinded himself against you. His strained breathing kept your shuffling feet company, a distraction from the heat welling in your stomach.

"Ahk..."

"You are a most beautiful sight," he murmured against your flushed skin. "Truly fit to be a god yourself."

The fear rushing through your blood was one unfortunately familiar––that same fear when you first met him. When he tied you to his bed for hours. When he stood above you with angered eyes, scanning the whole of your over-exposed body.

"This isn –"

"You told me you didn't love me... do you remember that?"

"... yes," you said, still unable to meet his eyes even as he pulled away to look you in the face.

"Then I suppose I have nothing to lose," he murmured, leaning into gift the softest of kisses, barely gracing the bow of your lip, "as all I want in this realm is your love."

"And what of your kingdom?"

"My kingdom is my duty. I do not enjoy ruling, but it is something I must do for the safety of families who now rely on a government to protect them. You, however..." he trailed off for a moment, biting into his bottom lip with a grin, "... you I enjoy very much."

A quick kiss to your lips and he resumed what he started, letting your entwined hands fall in favor of feeling you. His touch slipped up your shirt, feeling the heat of your skin until it grew too much to bear, and he began untying the knots of your clothes. Once he pulled the fabric off your shoulders, he leant back to pull his own coat off. The space gave you ample time to wriggle out of his weakened grasp, though you barely raised to your feet before he grabbed your ankle, pulling you back down and scuffing you in the process.

You turned onto your back, watching with heavy, quickened breaths as he pulled you to him till your hips met, hands and piercing eyes pinning you into place. For a split second an image flashed before your eyes––rope in his hand, silk beneath you, and a servant watching it happen. You shook your head to clear it away, opening your eyes in time to see him lay you flat on the earth.

"I love you," he murmured with a reverence so deep you could swear there were tears welling in his eyes. The hands on your hips slowly ran up your waist and over your chest, squeezing and teasing your senses. "Beautiful..."

He dipped down, like a hand of God descending from heaven to grasp the unholy that sits beneath. Kisses landed on your sternum, trailing up towards your neck, where his nipping teeth had already left dark marks. Unsure what to do with yourself, you let your hands sit above your head and allowed him to do as he pleased.

"I have waited forever to indulge in you," he said, the heat of his words beneath your jaw.

Your eyes flew open.

Haji warned you about this––or maybe it was Naguib, but he didn't seem to like you all that much. Either way, you recalled a spare bit of information given to you concerning the Pharaoh; he might've originally locked you in the castle to have his heirs. Was this what he was doing? Giving into what he'd first taken you for?

"Will you give me this?" He asked, inches away from your face, your leg kinked up upon his hip.

"What?"

"The easiest form of love," he said through a crack in his voice. From here you could clearly see what you'd spied earlier––tears. "I cannot seem to win your personal love. But I will take anything you give me, and I want this."

"... what?"

He ground his hips into yours, till you could clearly and distinctly feel something hard pressing against you. A soft groan fell from him. Part of you already knew what he meant, but another part was still stunned into stupidity, your wide eyes nothing but empty.

"I need you," he murmured.

Even with all the thoughts in your head, you couldn't manage a single word. Your mouth hung open, gasping when stimulated, but mostly silent with your own confusion. There was an appeal to Ahkmenrah––his beauty, his intelligence, his humor. Quite the array of good traits even without the fact that he held massive amounts of power, or did at one point. Yet you still couldn't let go of what you'd seen him do. It loomed over you like an eclipse, blocking your thoughts and stilling your mind in its' presence.

He didn't have the strength within him to stop himself. He would need your ardent refusal, even though he knew silence was a quiet no, to regain his control. It was a funny thing, seeing him so desperate––a man as composed as him, as aware of himself as him would be remiss to be such a shameful sight.

And it was you.

You driving a Pharaoh to his knees. You taking a man whose very essence was his control over his identity and tearing his image apart. Making him a devil in his people's eyes. You weren't even asking him to ruin himself, to take himself apart just to appeal to you even in the slightest––he was doing that himself. Willingly.

Your chest felt concave upon itself as he continued, numb to the realizations in your head. He pulled off your skirt, the ties in your clothes, till both of you were nude, him still locking your body to the ground. From this angle he could thrust against you, almost fucking your thighs as your wetness grew. Gasps and moans built in your mouth despite your efforts to keep an even expression. He delighted in your own embarrassment, laughing when you squirmed with your eyes shut tight and a hot blush on your face.

"Gods, you are... perfect," he said, devolving into a long, soft moan as the head of his cock began to prod at your entrance.

A rush of excitement––or perhaps just the simpler anticipation––ran through you, and you couldn't stop the sounds that left you as he pushed in. He stretched you, filled you perfectly, and for a moment you wondered if you had been denying yourself a taste of bliss.

As he kissed you, bitter iron filled your mouth and painted your tongue. At first you wondered if he had bitten too hard (or if you had), but in a short time you realized it was the dried blood, still caked onto his face and body.

Blood passing between your lips. Mingling with your breaths and moans. It became hard to distract yourself with the forceful thrusts of the Pharaoh above you, your mind instead set fierce upon your sense of taste, and the watchful, hooded eyes Ahk looked down on you with.

He soon noticed your sudden daze, and his thrusts slowed down, going deep instead of fast.

"Are you alright?" He asked softly, though he didn't stop his movements entirely.

Your wetness squelched slightly, making you shut your eyes tight with embarrassment, your arms coming to hide your face from sight. Of course, Ahk was having none of that––he took your arms, carefully pinning them to either side of your head.

"A little shy, are you?"

"... this is my first time," you finally mumbled, turning away so you wouldn't have to see his reaction.

"Oh."

He stopped grinding into you. But you couldn't help yourself––you wrapped your legs around his hips, pulling him back into you and moaning when he was fully sheathed.

"Fuck," he groaned, eyes rolling up into his head. "Perfect little pet."

He pinned you to the floor as he finished, keeping you from scrambling away. There he kept you, warm on his cock, filling you with his seed as you whined helplessly.

Although he made an effort to take care of you, gently stroking your skin and kissing away what marks he made, the whole of the day left you both exhausted, and the bout of 'exercise' certainly hadn't helped. In the end you asked him to stop worrying and simply sleep at your side; he acquiesced, using his arm as a pillow as he faced you.

"Still hate me?" He asked, and though they would've been teasing words out of anyone else's mouth, you found sincerity in his expectant eyes.

"No."

#ahkmenrah x reader #Ahkmenrah #Night at the Museum #rami malek #rami malek character #ahkmenrah x male reader #ahkmenrah x female reader #rami40

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romanapologist · 3 years

Text

give up on a miracle - sanders sides au - chp. 1

pairing(s): as of now, romantic nicomas and platonic everyone else

warnings: lots of religious stuff

summary: patton, virgil, logan, and janus are angels in charge of answering prayers. when they find out the earth is scheduled to be destroyed in a week, their only hope for saving it is to set up two humans: thomas sanders and nico flores.

word count: 3.5k

notes: this is a based off of miracle workers but not an exact au, idk it’ll be fun, you don’t have to have seen the show, you just have to like silly angel shenanigans

Please, God, let this somehow work out.

Thomas didn’t ask for miracles too often. Well—that was a lie, he probably prayed for some inconsequential thing everyday, but he rarely meant it the way he meant this one. The man at the mall felt like fate. He was beautiful, and according to his backpack he was gay, and he was just a few tables down, and... Thomas should have just said hi as soon as he had noticed him, but he had psyched himself out. Like always.

Usually that would be the end of the story, but as Thomas was headed for the exit, the man was there too. In front of him. Speaking to him.

Thomas was too caught off guard to process the first half of what he said—though he did register being given back his abhorrent carrot snack—and when he tuned back in, all he caught was:

“Uh, it’s okay! It’s probably a bit too nosy for me to ask anyway.”

“Uh, yeah! Super nosy! What’s wrong with you, man?” was the sentence that came out of Thomas’s mouth in response. He blamed his lips for coming up with it, because he knew his mind couldn’t have been involved.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” the man smiled apologetically at him, and even that small, sheepish smile was so radiant… yeah, Thomas was mentally beating the shit out of himself. “Well, have a good night!”

So, now the fate-given man was headed somewhere else, and Thomas was about to lose him—probably forever—if he didn’t act. So, obvious answer: he had to act. But he just… couldn’t. Not without a sign at least.

Not without a push.

When no push came, Thomas told himself it wouldn’t have led anywhere anyway. He continued about his day, with only the slightest added weight in his chest.

•••

“Aw, Virge, we have to do something about this one!”

Virgil looked up from his own paperwork to see the prayer Patton had pulled up.

“‘Please, God, let this somehow work out,’” he read out dryly. “Hm, not very specific.”

“Oh, but you didn’t—c’mon, look—“ Patton waved his hand to replay the video of the scene. The figures popped up on the screen, and Patton was reminded all over again of the dopey, flustered expression of the human, Thomas, as he failed so miserably at talking to his mall crush. It was such a silly, hopeful wish—Patton’s favorite kind—and he couldn’t bear to see it go unanswered.

His fellow angel did not share this opinion, evidentially. “Nope. Nuh-uh. No way,” Virgil said, “Love prayers are stupid as shit, hardest of all, never work out. If this whole department’s getting shut down, I’d rather spend my last week answering achievable prayers.”

Patton frowned. His brown-dappled wings drooped as his excitement wavered. “Is that right, though?” he asked, “Should we really stick to… what? Finding lost wallets? Delivering extra sandwiches? Like we’ve done every year of this job? If this is all ending, I wanna finally do something that matters, Virge.”

Virgil looked betrayed. “Lost wallets do matter, Patton. Maybe they don’t end droughts, or heal hearts, but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter. If people wish for it, it matters to them. I always thought you agreed with me on that.”

Patton bit his lip. He did agree with Virgil, on some level, and on any other day he would have considered his words more carefully. But with the prayer department set to close down this very week, he had lost some of his filter. Maybe his ideas were far-fetched, but when he had joined the Department of Answered Prayers he had been hoping to do exactly that--end droughts, heal hearts.

“Virgil’s right,” chimed in Logan. Their manager made his way over, and took Patton’s tablet from his hands. He swiped upwards on the prayer, officially dismissing it as ‘impossible.’ “There is no need to feel bad, Patton. It’s not our fault humans mainly ask for impossible things. If they want impossible, they need God, and God doesn’t have that kind of time. If they want an extra sandwich… we can pull a few strings.”

Logan nodded approvingly to where Virgil was coding breezes on his tablet, screen open to a view of a rural town avenue. He was carefully, cautiously, innocuously blowing leaves into piles one-by-one. This process eventually cleared the front yard of a small house, just in time for a kind-eyed, middle-aged man to come home and cheer at the sight of the finished chore. He even did a stupid little dance to himself, and Patton saw the smallest smile tug at Virgil’s lips.

“I agree with Patton,” came a voice from over by the mini fridge. Janus was doing what he did best: sipping at the canned wine he wasn’t meant to have, not doing any work, and giving his opinion on everything anyway. “Let’s do something interesting. It’s not like it matters at this point.”

“What do you mean?” Patton squinted at him.

“Cuz the prayer department’s getting shut down, duh, what else have we been talking about?” Virgil answered.

“No,” Janus said, “Well—yes, but… you know why we’re getting shut down, right?”

Patton and Virgil tilted their heads at him, and Logan looked away. A smile appeared on Janus’s face, but not one of joy. One that had an edge, a venom in it. “Logan… you didn’t tell them?”

“It would only upset them,” the management angel replied, still not meeting Janus’s eyes.

“Yeah, because they’ll not be upset at all when they see Earth randomly explode in a few days,” Janus deadpanned.

“What?!” Patton and Virgil exclaimed in simultaneous dismay.

Logan glared at Janus. “Are you happy? Now we have to deal with this for the next week.”

“Earth can’t explode yet,” Virgil said matter-of-factly, “that’s not right. Right?”

Patton nodded emphatically. “We should’ve gotten at least a century’s notice! Or had it on a public schedule somewhere!”

“Yeah, God has to call it off. At least for now,” Virgil agreed.

“You want God to stop it?” Janus said with a laugh. “He didn’t even remember it was happening; it was His PA who told the management staff.”

“Yes, it was,” Logan narrowed his eyes at Janus. “How did you find out about it anyway?”

Janus opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Virgil cut in, “God’s not gonna do anything about it?”

“It’s been in His plan. Why would He need to change it?” Logan asked rhetorically, adjusting his large, round-framed glasses as he did so. It was a movement he made often when he was being a know-it-all.

“How’s Earth gonna die?” Patton asked, looking at the floor, still in denial. He had lived his life on Earth, he had been a human—they all had, before they died and became angels. It had been so long since he’d been alive, he couldn’t quite remember the feeling of it. The memory was blurred around the edges, but it still seeped warmth, like dough burning into bread over a fire. Now, the only connection he had to that sensation were the humans--the chance to watch them, how they lived such utterly flawed, full lives. He recalled Thomas’s hopeful expression.

“Asteroid,” Logan replied. He didn’t need to check his files to give the answer, his ink-blue wings stiff behind him--and that was when Patton knew, despite his cold, indifferent attitude, this news was weighing on him too.

“Like the dinosaurs. Well, bigger. But still unoriginal of Him,” Janus scoffed, checking his nails—well, more like checking his gloves, which seemed unnecessary. Something mournful crossed his face for a moment, but Patton couldn’t place what. “The dinosaurs were sad too.”

“You lived in the 19th century. You weren’t around for dinosaurs,” Logan stated, brow furrowed in confusion. Janus ignored him.

“An asteroid? He could prevent that so easily! Earth deserves to at least live to its natural end,” Patton said. He glanced to Virgil, hoping for backup, but his coworker seemed most focused on biting his black-polished nails into dust.

“Well, isn’t it the natural end if it was in His plan?” Logan asked, once again, rhetorically. He also adjusted his glasses again. Patton liked to think of himself as particularly nice, even for an angel, but he wouldn’t have minded seeing those glasses broken in that moment.

“I’m more interested in your claim that Earth doesn’t ‘deserve’ to end,” Janus smiled at Patton. It was a slippery kind of smile, one that he couldn’t grasp the intentions of. “Overall, it’s a dumpster fire of a planet, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, 99% of the prayers are literally impossible for angels to answer at this point.”

“Yeah, well, I know some angels who are too busy with their shitty wine to even try—“ Virgil began to complain, turning on Janus, but Patton was too busy having a revelation to pay much attention to it.

“That’s it!” Patton exclaimed, jumping up from his seat with a grin.

“Please, be more specific, Patton,” Logan sighed. “Define ‘it.’”

Patton was, once again, too busy to pay attention to this. He made for the doorway with haste, only tossing over his shoulder: “I’m going to meet God!”

•••

Logan, Janus, and Virgil made it to God’s office before Patton did. He wasn’t the best with maps, so sue him. The trio was waiting in the grand hallway for him, and he was thankful that they had decided to back him up, despite the fact they had no idea what he was doing. Even though the coworkers bickered their fair share, you couldn’t work as the only 4 angels in a crumbling department without a certain bond forming.

Patton gave them a grateful smile as he strolled past them and right up to the secretary’s desk. The secretary, who was… not present? He checked the name plaque. Engraved in the gold of it was: Mrs. Snuffles, but the ‘u’ had been scratched out and written over so that it was Mrs. Sniffles. Before Patton could even begin to be perplexed by this, a large orange tabby hopped up from the floor, where she had been hidden, and onto the desk.

The cat looked him in the eye, with a surprising amount of purpose, and meowed.

“Hello?” Patton asked, dumbfounded. “...Mrs. Sni—Snuffles?”

She meowed again, this time with an undercurrent of what Patton could only assume was impatience.

“I—“ Patton looked back at the group behind him, but they just shrugged. They were following his lead. That couldn’t be good. “We would like to schedule a meeting with God, please.”

Mrs. Snuffles trotted over to a stack of papers, and pushed the top one aside with a swipe of her paw. She looked up from it after a moment, and then jumped down from the table, going up to the gilded, arched doorway at the end of the hall. She started meowing loudly, and soon an angel with cardinal-red wings and a matching red suit jacket stepped out. He looked down at Mrs. Snuffles, then up at Patton.

“I’m terribly sorry, but God is not available right now. He’s very busy,” the angel explained with a polite smile, the kind that was trained and not felt, “and he will be until Earth explodes. Thank you, goodbye.”

“Oh,” Patton said dumbly. He maybe should have expected that.

Mrs. Snuffles hissed at the angel, and he sighed. “You really think they want to talk to Him?”

“We do!” Patton interjected.

“You think you do,” the angel replied, an undercurrent of bitterness to his tone.

“Same difference, right?” Patton said, giving the other a hopeful smile.

“Just let us in, Princey,” Virgil’s annoyed voice came from behind. “Don’t be an ass. At least not more of one than usual.”

Patton looked between the two of them. “You know each other?”

‘Princey’ gave Virgil a deadpan glare. “Fine. You want a meeting with God? Be my guest.” He stepped aside from the doorway, gesturing to it with a sarcastic flourish.

When no one else made a move, Virgil grumbled and pushed past Patton. The rest of the group followed. When they got to the door, Patton paused and turned to the red-winged man. “Princey—“

“Roman,” he corrected.

“Roman,” Patton repeated. He pointed at the cat curiously, “Mrs. ‘Sniffles’?”

Roman blushed. “I was allergic when I was alive.”

A resounding reply of “Me too!” went through the group, and they all turned to each other in mild surprise.

“It’s how I died!” Patton added cheerily.

“Huh,” Roman replied with a puzzled frown. He cleared his throat. “Well, good luck.”

“Thank you!” Patton said. He looked down at Mrs. Snuffles as well, “Thank you, too.”

She gave him a final, curt meow, and rubbed up to his legs, pushing his feet against the door. He laughed, turned to the others waiting for him, and they nodded. Roman opened the door, and gestured them in.

Patton didn’t know what he had expected God’s office to look like, but it was decidedly not what he found upon entering that door. He had expected something resembling the grand hallway leading up to it: golden statues, velvet carpet, ivory columns. And, sure, that seemed to be the basis of the office; it was everything that was added on that was surprising. The bookshelves were stacked exclusively with trashy magazines, the walls were covered in posters of boy bands and movie stars, and a side-room had been renovated into what appeared to be a personal Starbucks. Finally, in the center of it all, sitting on the sofa and watching TV, was:

“...God?” Patton asked unsurely.

The man--(should Patton call Him that?)--eyed the group from behind a pair of sunglasses. He didn’t bother to turn the TV off as He casually greeted, “Hey, babes! What’s up?”

“Um,” Patton glanced at his friends for help, but they were clearly just as lost as him. Well, not Janus; Janus seemed unbothered. This provided Patton some sense of comfort, enough for him to continue, “We wanted to ask about--”

“Hold that thought, hun,” God held up a finger. “Roman!”

Roman walked in, almost reluctantly, at the call. “Yes?”

“Be a peach and mute the TV, would you?” God asked, throwing His PA the remote. Roman caught it as if with practice, and pressed the mute button with a wry expression.

“Thanks, love you!” God said, then turned back to Patton. “What were we talking about?”

“Well--”

God tried to sip the frappe in His drink-holder, only to find it empty, and He interrupted again to say, “Roman, coffee alert! Mama needs His caffeine!”

Roman bit his lip, presumably to stop himself from letting out a sigh. When he walked to the Starbucks corner, he seemed to purposefully avoid eye contact with the group. Patton glanced at his friends, and found Virgil suppressing an amused grin, and Janus not bothering to suppress his.

“We wanted to ask about the end of the world,” Patton finally said.

God’s brow furrowed slightly. “End of the world? Oh! OH, that is coming up, isn’t it? When’s that again, Ro?”

Roman, from behind the coffee maker, replied, “7 and a half days.”

“Oo, fun!” God gasped, “That’s so soon! I totally forgot that was so soon, isn’t that crazy?”

“So crazy,” Roman agreed dryly, handing Him a new venti frappe.

“Right,” Patton said, almost at a loss, “So, you… want the world to end?”

God shrugged, using one finger to play with his coffee straw as he spoke. “It was in my plan, wasn’t it? Plus, I mean, y’know… Earth’s really, like, ‘ew’ right now, right? Like, sure, I COULD save it, and then I’d let the humans keep doing their little thing, but I don’t want that; they’re mostly messes. I wanna make… I dunno a new place with, like, more Idris Elba’s.”

“And you’re willing to kill the real Idris Elba for that?” Janus cut in. God looked him up and down critically, before asking,

“Hey, do I know you from something?”

“No,” Janus replied quickly, “Certainly not from Eden, and even if I was there, I wasn’t the snake. I’m a real angel, hush.”

Patton turned to him in confusion, but God just shrugged again, and said, “K, whatever. Anyway, yeah, what’d you gals wanna know about Earth again?”

“Um, we wanted you to, maybe… not… blow it up?” Patton asked.

“Hmm,” God hummed, “Thanks, but no thanks! Earth is gross, I’m just so over it, you know?”

“No, I don’t know,” Patton replied without thinking, unable to hide the frustration in his voice anymore, “If Earth’s messed up, all the more reason to be there for your children, and not just kill everything. It’s wrong.”

There was a ‘thunk’ against the floor, and Patton looked to see that Roman had dropped the old coffee cup he had been carrying to the trash. Logan and Virgil were staring at Patton with equally stricken expressions, and Janus’s face was unreadable. He suddenly realized what he had said. He then realized how many angels had fallen for saying much less.

God stood up slowly. He approached Patton until He was uncomfortably close.

“Awe,” He pouted, “babe, I know it’ll be sad, but how am I supposed to change it now? It’s in the plan, hun. I’m sure you understand.” He patted his cheek once condescendingly--a touch that carried the pleasant warmth of a sunbeam--before He stepped back and took a long sip of His coffee. Patton didn’t break eye contact the whole time.

“I have an idea,” Patton said in a newly sunny tone--the type of overly kind, conversational tone that should be feared-- “How about a bet?”

“Are you for real?” God gaped at the continued insolence, somewhere between disbelief and delight. In the end, delight--or at least novelty--won. “Deal with the Devil is out, deal with God is in; OK, I’m into it!”

“You say it’s too hard to save Earth now? Impossible, even?” Patton asked challengingly. He heard a quiet gasp of realization from Logan, and when he glanced behind himself, he noticed Janus was smiling, as if impressed. This gave him enough confidence to continue, “Impossible, like it would be impossible for a few random angels to answer an unanswerable prayer?”

“Sweetie, I don’t know what you’re saying, but I love the way you’re saying it,” God waved His hand appreciatively.

Patton took Logan’s tablet from his hands. He scrolled to find the ‘Discarded Prayers: Impossible’ file. He held it out to God for proof as he concluded, “If we can answer one of these prayers before the end of the world, surely you can stop it from ending.”

“THAT’S your plan?! Pat, we can’t complete the possible prayers half the time,” Virgil exclaimed. He buried his face in his hands. “Earth’s dead.”

God, however, let out a dreamy sigh, holding one hand against His chest. Patton wasn’t sure if he was meant to feel like the ambitious hero or the prize dog at a pet show. “You know, I should say no…” God bit his lip with the same expression a suburban mother might have when she was about to cheat on her juice cleanse, “...but I never could resist a little twist! Ok, shake on it!”

God extended His hand, and Patton took it without hesitation.

“I, God, proclaim: Earth will not be destroyed next week if, and only if, an impossible prayer is answered.” As He spoke, His palm began to glow white, such that Patton had to look away for fear of being blinded. If God’s touch had been a sunbeam previously, it was now the whole sun, and Patton almost cried out from the burning heat. Technically, he didn’t have skin in the same way he did when he was alive, but he swore he felt it melting off in that grip.

Yet when God pulled away, there was no extra light in the room, no damage to his hand.

God smiled innocently. “Ok! Cute! So, what prayer you gonna choose?”

Huh. Patton hadn’t thought that far ahead. Maybe Virgil’s concern wasn’t so unwarranted. He looked down at the tablet he was still holding. His eyes scanned past several prayers that were beyond impossible--fix capitalism, no more YouTube ads, fix global warming, no more incels--until his eyes caught on just the thing. An unabashed grin overtook Patton’s face in realization,

“Oh, I know exactly what prayer we’re doing.”

•••

“Well, have a good night!”

Nico turned his back on the cute mall man after he said it, and he had to push down the urge to glance back a final time. He tried not to believe in true love—it was at best unlikely, and at worst an extremely problematic trope—but he was a writer, and a daydreamer, and when he spotted the man a few tables down at the food court… he just knew.

Ok, he didn’t know, there was no way to know that kind of thing—but he did want. He did hope. And he did, in a move that was unprecedented for him, pray:

Please, if anyone’s up there: I know it’s silly, but I want this so badly. And I know it’s basically impossible at this point but, maybe… if we meet again... let this somehow work out?

#nicomas #sanders sides #sanders sides fic #what should my tag for this be #give up on a miracle #lucy.fic #patton sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #remy sanders #ts remy #ts logan #ts remus #ts janus #ts patton #ts virgil

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thebounty · 3 years

Text

Incompatible (Mandalorian x Hunter!Jedi!F Reader)

Chapter Three: The Pursuit

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: some violence, mentions of organ harboring (idk where that came from in my weird head), angst, fluff, soft mando, soft reader (this one gets pretty soft at the end), FEELINGS, slow burn, grammar errors probably

This one I actually really enjoyed writing, sorry it’s slightly shorter than the last ones, and it took me forever to write. School has been stressful but its fine (haha...haha). I hope you all enjoy, and again I am so sorry this is late, I love you all!

Chapter Three: The pursuit

Well, you didn’t necessarily lie to Mando. Most of it was true, except for a few major details you just so happened to have ‘forgotten’. Which was obviously the truth.

Obviously.

After the little incident that went down last night, you had to think fast. You could not afford to spill everything about yourself, but you also had to be smart about it. If you lied about the whole thing, there was no way he wouldn’t pick up on that. He’s a kriffing bounty hunter for makers sake, he definitely could tell a lie from the truth. Thankfully, you also knew how to maneuver around that as well. So, this is the story you told him after he threatened to kill you, after just almost dying yourself not even a few minutes prior.

Such a nice guy.

“Okay look, before you think of doing something rash let me explain myself.” You started calmly, seeing how tense Mando was didn’t make you feel any better than you already did with having to come up with something on the spot. His fingers were hovering over his blaster, almost like a warning for you to continue. You cleared your throat.

“I only found out I had these abilities a few years ago, my family never told me of them,” lie, “so before you go thinking that I’m some Jedi or whatever, a sworn enemy of a Mandalorian, just know I have never had training with this before, so I wouldn’t even know where to start. And plus, Jedi have those laser things, I don’t.” Okay that’s somewhat of a lie. You have had training but only a few short years of it. But the latter part of your sentence was obviously a lie, the lightsaber poking at your back was evidence of that, at least for yourself.

“I only use it when totally necessary, and by the looks of it, we were not getting away from those guys with a shootout or a fist fight. I was not about to die and let you take the reward of our bounties for yourself. You have the armor to protect you, I have this ability.” You spoke clamping your hands together in your lap. Mando eased just a little bit by retracting his fingers from his blaster, leaning back against the tree stump more as he contemplated your words.

All he did was shake his head. “How do I know that you won’t kill me with these abilities? How do I trust you?” Mando spoke in a lighter tone now, he felt a little more at ease with this new information. You sighed and shook your head.

“I don’t want to kill you Mando, far from that. However, if I recall you were the one who threatened me a few minutes ago. How do I know you won’t kill me?” You questioned staring directly in his visor. A short sigh escaped his modulator, if anything, it was a soft chuckle. Mando was laughing?

That’s more unsettling than a death threat.

“Look, if you don’t threaten me, I won’t threaten you. I- “Mando shook his head quickly and leaned against his forearms on his lap, leaning in a little closer to you.

“I was nervous before. I threatened you just out of instinct. I don’t really want to kill you. I just want to come to an agreement. You did save our lives back there and we do work well together, as hard as that is to admit. I just don’t want that to be compromised.” Mando spoke lowly causing you to shiver. You could tell he was telling the truth, and you felt grateful for his honesty.

You nodded, “I agree.” And that was how the conversation went, and you two haven’t spoken of it since last night.

---

Dawn came quickly and you knew that you both had to get to the city soon to track this gang, which shouldn’t take that long. You hoped at least. The sooner this was over, the sooner you could get as far away from Mando as you could.

However, despite this unspoken competition between you two, you were starting to feel something else flow from both of you. It was strong in the force, you felt it clearly. Mando was slowly starting to trust you. With trust came friendship, something Mando had extraordinarily little experience in.

However, so did you.

The last time you can remember having a friend was on your home planet, her name was Sif. She was just like you, a force wielder, a fighter, and strong. You two bonded heavily over that. Unfortunately, you didn’t know whether or not she made it out of harms way like you did, or if she suffered the same fate as your family.

This growing comfortableness between you and Mando was becoming intense but not unwanted. To put it in simpler terms-

It terrified both of you.

While you two walked together through the gates of the city Voss, after walking the longest bridge you’ve ever seen in your life, you two actually held up a conversation. It was nothing of importance and nothing personal was discussed, just talking about shared experiences while hunting bounties. Mando took an interest in your fighting style, it was unique. It was a type of martial arts style of fighting that he himself could never perform due to his armor.

It was- nice. You both found some form of comfort talking together without the unwanted tension that you two create around each other. You were both coming to realize you created walls to protect yourself from caring too much about one another. You both knew what being close to someone causes.

Pain.

You both stopped talking for a while after tracking the location of your bounties. They were last seen walking east from the city walls, in attempt to go to the Nightmare Lands, in hopes to lose any bounty hunters tracking them.

They obviously haven’t meet you and Mando before.

There was something rare in the woods that they wanted, that’s what the locals told you both at least. You and Mando made an agreement to catch them before they entered, you did not want to see what was beyond the tree line and Mando was not in the mood to patch up any more wounds you two might get. As a result, the two of you spent the remainder of the afternoon trudging through the woods following the low beep of the tracking fob.

“We’re getting close.” Mando spoke lowly as he brushed aside some branches. You nodded silently behind him.

“Do you think they’ll suspect us coming?” You questioned, Mando shrugged.

“I don’t know. They might have set up camp since it’s getting late. That’s really all I can assume.” Mando spoke as he walked next to you. His cape rustled against the slight breeze causing your cloak to move as well. You angled yourself towards him slightly so he couldn’t see the glimmer of your lightsaber. But you had no clue what he was looking at through the dark visor. You could only hope and go off of his feelings. He was somewhat anxious as you two approached where your bounties would be, he’s never taken anyone down with help before.

You could sense his uneasiness and tilted your head towards him, and a small, “I’m nervous too,” were all the kind words you could offer him without it being awkward.

Not that it would mean anything besides reassurance.

Obviously.

“I never said I was nervous.” Mando tried to hide what his voice might give away. He didn’t understand how you always seemed to read him so well despite wearing the helmet. He could read you sometimes, but it was almost always a guess.

“I can feel it radiating off of you in waves. Your helmet can’t mask all of your emotions.” You chuckled, sending him a quick wink to mask your ever-growing nerves as you two approached a small hill amongst the trees.

“I read heat signatures down in the valley, I think our bounties made camp for the night. Stay low.” Mando commanded as he got down on his knees and then his stomach as you two approached the edge of the hill. You got down on your stomach as well next to him as you looked down on the scene before you. They had one large tent housing all of them it seemed, and one little one next to them. No doubt holding the women they seemed to like to capture along the way.

You shuttered at the thought of what they do to them.

“We need to get the women out.” You whispered to Mando as he scanned the area with his small telescope. He paused for a second as if contemplating your words. He knew it was risky to try and free them, obtain your bounties, and stay out of harms way at the same time. But he knew how stubborn you were, and he did want to help them too.

“We will.” He states attaching his telescope back on his pulse rifle.

“Have any idea for a plan?” You asked gazing down at the camp. You saw smoke coming from the other side, meaning that your bounties were most likely around a fire. Not knowing they were being stalked like prey on the other end was kind of amusing.

“Most of the time I just stun them from a distance.” Mando says as he tilts his visor in your direction. The light from the sun setting created an amazing glow on the beskar, it was entrancing.

“I don’t think that’ll work this time with this many people.” You shot back, trying to think of an alternative plan.

“Do you have a better idea?” He asks taking another glance down at the tent.

“I do. It’s a little risky though.” You whisper causing him to look curiously in your direction, urging you to continue.

“I could offer myself as bait, seeing that they like women a lot, at least that’s what the locals say. I can keep my dagger hidden and then strike when they aren’t expecting it, that’s when you come in and help me take out the rest of them.” You say shrugging as if it’s not a big deal. Mando’s eyebrows stitched together under the helmet, were you serious?

“Are you kidding me? No, absolutely not.” He concludes shaking his helmet so fast you think he’ll get whiplash.

“Why not? You don’t think I’m capable?”

“No, I know you are. I- “

He sighed heavily, “I can’t protect you that well from up here.”

That made your mouth shut, and quickly. You just stared at him, his chest piece rising and falling as his heartbeat quickened. He didn’t mean to say that out loud. However, he was right. You didn’t know what they were capable of, but you knew what you were capable of.

You cleared your throat. “Listen, I know I can handle myself. With that being said, I trust you to come if things turn south. I can have my communicator with me if you want. But I trust that you’ll have eyes on me the whole time. Because I don’t think we have any other choice than to have some sort of bait for them.” You said, trying to speak the plan into existence. It was risky, but there was no other plan that would get they whole group to comply.

“Plus, I have that little gift I told you about.” You smiled. He only sighed and rolled on his back, arms crossing over his chest in the process. You could mistake him for being relaxed right now, but his emotions said otherwise. He was contemplating your words. You trusted him, that’s a big thing to him. He knew now that he couldn’t let you down if things did turn south.

He nodded once. “Let’s get this over with then.”

You both waited until the sun was completely down, the only light coming in from the ever-glowing moons in the sky and the light haze from the campfire below. Mando was perched up on the hill on the opposite side of the one you two were at earlier. It gives him a better view of the entrance of the tent.

The only way in and out.

You took off your cloak, wrapping your lightsaber in it as you set it down next to Mando, hoping he wouldn’t open it. You then started taking off your black pull over and revealing a black tank top, if you were to get into the tent undetected, you were going to have to show some skin. You kept your dagger concealed in your boot and made sure you didn’t have any other weapons on you.

Mando was pacing as you got yourself prepared, he kept making sure that his pulse rifle was loaded and making sure that the safety was already off on his blaster as well. He had to be ready for anything. He felt terrible that you were only going in there with a single dagger while these bounties were fully weaponized. He put his hands on his hips and leaned his weight back on one leg while he looked at you.

“Are you sure about this?” He asked for what seemed like the millionth time that night. You looked up to him from your kneeling position by your boot, tying it tighter as you spoke to him.

“Mando, it’ll be fine. It won’t take that long. They get me in their tent, you come down and we take them all at once. Going in quiet is our only option here. All they have to do is go in the tent all at once. Not that hard.” You whispered, making sure your cleavage was somewhat more prominent. Your hands were slightly trembling, you’ve never done anything like this before and you hoped Mando didn’t notice.

He did, and it sent him on edge, he notices everything. However, he also tried not to focus on your appearance too much, you were becoming slightly intoxicating to him and he couldn’t be distracted during this mission. He cleared his throat, darting his eyes from you.

“It’s all a risk.” He whispered as you got ready to finally leave, taking another once over of yourself. You placed a hand on his shoulder plate, gently as if to not scare him away.

“Look, the sooner we do this, the sooner we can get our reward. Then we don’t ever have to see each other again.” You said with a slight grimace. Despite everything he’s found out about your past, you were actually enjoying your time with him. He was a great fighter, bounty hunter, and he had this certain charisma about him. He felt the same way you did, but he couldn’t let you know that he was also enjoying his time with you, maybe a little too much.

“Yeah.” Was all he could say as you descended down the hill towards the camp. He sighed as he got down on his stomach again, blending in with his surroundings very well in the dark. He took a look through his telescope, to have a close eye on you the whole time.

You walked through the trees closest to the campfire where your bounties were. You counted six of them, but maybe there were more in the tent. You hoped that there weren’t anymore. After you rounded one more tree, you came into view of them.

“Excuse me?” You asked meekly. They all looked up at you from their roast. As if they were the same person, they smirked and laughed lowly at the same time. By the looks of it, they were all human. You mentally sighed with relief at that. Humans were easier to read and easier to take down, and given the wound still healing on your side, you were very thankful for that.

One man stood up and whistled lowly. “What’s a pretty las like you doing out here all alone?” He asked throwing his cleaned off bone somewhere in the brush. You smiled at him, rubbing your arms.

“I’ve been traveling alone for quite some time now. My ship broke down and I need some shelter. You folk are the first people I’ve seen for miles.” You whispered, allowing yourself to tremble slightly against the cold of the night. The man approached you as the others around the fire stood up from their positions.

“The names Randall, sweet thing.” He seethed, touching your hair. You were so grossed out but had to act otherwise, and just gave him a small smile instead.

Mando was reeling from his position. His grip was so tight on his telescope he’s surprised it hasn’t broken. He didn’t understand why he was feeling the way he was. He never cared like this before when he was with you. Not even about anyone else he’s encountered along his journey now that he thought about it.

“Why don’t you come inside, you look cold. We’ll take good care of you.” The man, Randall, smiled as his hands stroked your arms, dangerously close to your tank top straps. You grinned at him.

“That would be lovely, thank you so much.” You said as you grabbed his arm. He led you to the tent, but it wasn’t the main one. Your heartbeat started to quicken as he practically dragged you to the smaller tent off to the side, where you assumed all the other women were being held.

“I hope it’ll be comfortable for you sweetheart.” One of the other men said behind Randall, you didn’t realize they were all following behind.

Mando was concerned to say the least as you rounded the tent. He could see that they were taking you to the other tent now, but his view on you began to grow smaller and smaller until you were out of sight, even from his telescope.

“Shit.” He whispered, springing up onto his feet and stuffing his telescope into his pocket. He treaded lightly as he walked the perimeter to get a better look at the other tent these men were leading you to. He was starting to get a bad feeling about this, since they were all following you there.

His hand instinctively went over his blaster.

Once you arrived at the tent, Randall pulled back the curtain and revealed an awful sight. You couldn’t contain the scream that ripped through your chest at the sight; women, men, children, all dead, strung up by ropes inside the tent like meat. Their bodies were cut open, dripping blood everywhere. There were multiple coolers inside surrounding them, it was not a question to what they had inside.

Your stomach was in your feet as you struggled against Randall’s, now death grip, on both your arms.

“What is this?!” You screamed, struggling against his grip. Even if you were to break free, all the other men were just outside the tent.

You were trapped.

“Oh, this? We like to steal stragglers like you in the woods, harbor their organs, and sell it on the black market. Women’s organs sell the highest, and I can see why. Don’t worry darling you won’t feel a thing.” He laughed into your ear as you struggled more against him and managed to elbow him in the stomach, he loosened a bit, but a laugh broke through him instead of the grunt you were anticipating.

“A feisty one. I’m sure that’s worked on others, but not me sweet thing.” He seethed before your world turned black. The men all laughed as they wrapped rope tightly around you, stuffing you into the corner of the room.

Randall laughed lowly, “We’ll be back for you later darling.” He snickered with his friends.

Mando was resentful after hearing your piercing scream rumble inside his helmet. He was running now, and he did not care about anything else, only getting to you. It sounded stupid in his head, how caring and downright angry he was right now, except that wasn’t the worst of it.

Mando was scared.

He was not about to let you become their new donor in the black market, not at all. But he was also not about to lose someone he was starting to consider his friend.

He hated to admit that though, but it was true.

He hasn’t heard a peep from the other end of the commlink for awhile now. All he heard were the events of what happened a few minutes prior. Your scream, Randall’s voice in your ear, and then nothing from you afterwards. He listened to the men after you went silent start to discuss what they were going to do to you. He knew they were dangerous from the moment Karga talked about them at the cantina.

He was regretting taking this job now. But that didn’t matter right now.

Once he came up on the camp, he kicked the logs on the fire, drowning the flames in the dirt around it, causing the whole camp to be swallowed into darkness. They, unlike him, didn’t have night vision. He heard the group talking lowly, mumbling a few words he was able to pick up from his helmet. It was along the lines of,

“Who the fuck left the fire so small?”

“You did this didn’t you Derek?”

“Was she with someone?”

“You’re being paranoid.”

“Shouldn’t someone be with the girl?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Mando was smirking under his helmet. He was standing inside their tent now, completely surrounded in the darkness, anticipating that their next move was to come inside here. He had his blaster to stun pointed at the entrance. Mando was slightly disappointed that these men were their bounties, and you two came here for a reward.

If they weren’t, he would love to give them slow deaths right about now. He hoped you weren’t hurt.

He heard the rustling of the tent opening and aimed his blaster towards it, his finger quivering in anticipation over the trigger. He hopped Randall walked through first.

“Let’s just get the supplies and rip that bitch open- “

Blast!

The men jumped in sync. Mando assumed he hit Randall, since they all looked so shocked to see him now unconscious on the ground at their feet. As if they were one organism, all the men looked up and stopped breathing, similar to a child getting caught stealing candy, their eyes were bulging. It only fueled Mando on more.

Mando grinned under the helmet, “Welcome.” He spoke in his deep baritone voice. One of the men reached for their blade and Mando quickly stunned them down.

“Tsk tsk, that is not how it’s going to work gentlemen, please allow me.”

Mando didn’t hesitate to take them all down, giving them a few punches here and there to give them false hope, however they were no match for him.

It was almost too easy for him, but then he remembered that they were only smugglers. He could handle a thousand of them at a time if he had to, he has before.

After the fact, he focused his attention on retrieving you, and getting off this kriffing planet.

---

You awoke with a gasp, clawing at your chest. The last thing you could remember was Randall breathing down your neck, darkness, and the feeling of binds on your arms. However, the scenery around you told you otherwise. You furrowed your eyebrows and took in your surroundings. You were still at the camp the smugglers were in, which was odd to you. The fire was burning, and Mando was no where to be seen.

Was he okay?

You shook your head, of course he was, you thought. You noticed the blanket around you and the pounding in your head and the back of your eyes.

“Dang farrick.” You whispered, rubbing your temples and felt the small gash on the side of it where Randall slammed the butt of his blaster on you. You sighed.

“How are you feeling?” A voice said from behind you making you jump and turn. It was Mando, with some firewood hanging in his arms. It was an interesting sight, seeing a Mandalorian like him so domestic. He slowly walked over to where, you guessed, his sleeping mat was located and started adding the wood to the fire. You realized you were staring at him applying wood to the fire for a little too long and forgot to answer his question.

“Uh- yeah, yeah I’m fine. My head just hurts a little bit.” You answered, all of a sudden feeling shy under his gaze in the light of the fire surrounding you two. All he did was nod in return.

“That’s good. You had a pretty deep gash on your temple, but the bacta patched it up pretty quickly.” Mando responded as he sat back against the log. You nodded and glanced around.

“What happened, after I become unconscious?” You whispered, wrapping the blanket around you when you felt a cold breeze on your torso. You noticed Mando’s fist tighten into a death grip, the leather made a small squeak while doing so. He tilted his visor to the side looking away from you momentarily, almost as if he were grimacing at something sour in his mouth. The act confused you.

“Mando?” You whispered, “what happened?”

He grunted and stood up fast. “What happened was you were too reckless to see that these men were dangerous! We should have taken them together and maybe they wouldn’t have strung you up like a piece of fucking meat!” He seethed pointing a finger at you, his chest plate rising and falling rapidly with his increasing heartbeat. He felt a pit in his stomach at the sight of your face drop, his shoulders fell too.

You nodded. “I’m- I’m sorry. It was idiotic of me to think I could face them alone and be vulnerable like that.” You muttered looking down at the mat. You knew that it was risky, the whole thing was. Not just the bounties but letting yourself get so open around him. However, after seeing what could have happened to you, you truly did feel guilty. As much as you didn’t want to admit something like that to Mando, you knew it was the truth, plus he did save your life.

Mando dropped his pointed finger and sat down, closer than he was a few minutes ago and sighed.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you like that, but- they…they were going to harbor your organs, and whatever else they wanted to do to you. I couldn’t stand by and let them do that. I’m glad I got to them before they did again. You’ve- “he shook his head and looked down. “You’ve become a good friend, and a strong ally.” He admitted looking back up at you, and found you already looking at him. Somehow you were looking directly into his eyes, despite the dark visor he wore. It made him feel…

Seen, as if for the first time.

You smiled softy at him. “I appreciate that, I do. I believe we do make a good team, and I’d consider you a friend too, and a decent ally. Even though you are a pain in the ass.” You chuckled softly. Mando shook his head, smiling under his helmet. You sensed there was something more he wanted to say, so you tilted your head at him.

“Say what you want to say Mando, I can sense there is something more you want to say.” You asked calmly, he turned to you and looked down.

“I found something while I was retrieving our things, something in your cloak.” Mando started, turning around as he did so and rustled around in his bag and pulled out your lightsaber. You could feel your heartbeat in your ears as you stared at the shiny metal in his hands. You looked down feeling guilty once again. Mando didn’t take his eyes off of you though, “what is it?” he asked further.

You glanced at him and looked down at the saber. “It’s a lightsaber. I know I told you I didn’t have one, but since we’re being so honest right now, I didn’t trust you enough yet to tell you I had one.” You watched as he twiddled with it in his hand, it was almost mesmerizing. He didn’t know what he was holding or dealing with.

“Be careful with that. You don’t want to accidently impale yourself.” You grinned softly looking back up at him. He stopped his movement suddenly and set it down at your feet slowly, the act caused you to giggle slightly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to go looking through your stuff. I would be mad, but I understand what it means to have something for yourself.” He said, speaking softly. He knew what this probably meant to you, since you kept it hidden from everyone. It was something you knew you had that was specifically yours, and Mando felt the same way about his Creed. It was just his, and no one could take that away from him.

It was the softest you’ve ever heard his voice go. You didn’t know if it was because of the darkness surrounding you both or the fact that you two were finally coming to terms with letting go of the weird competition you two created, considering you two have recently just saved each other’s lives in the matter of two days.

“Did you make it yourself? How does it work?” Mando asked now leaning back against his hands, intrigued with this weapon. He’s heard of these…what were they called again? Saber swords? Laser saber? He couldn’t remember even though you just told him. He understood the Jedi used them; however, he’s obviously never met someone like that before.

Until he came close to you.

You picked up your lightsaber and nodded at him. “Yes, I made it with my old master, but that was many years ago when people like me weren’t hunted.” You said as you ran your fingers down the lines on your saber. You remember having to harvest the rare sap from a tree to build this wonderful weapon. Your master was amazing, and even though it was a short few years you still missed him. You missed everyone.

“That’s why you kept everything so hidden, isn’t it?” Mando said breaking your thoughts about your old master. Your shoulders dropped.

“I guess it isn’t much of a secret anymore, at least not to you.” You looked at him, feeling slightly anxious with the information he now possesses. He could sense your discomfort and shook his head.

“If your nervous about me telling anyone, I won’t. I know what the Empire was capable of, and if there is anyone like that still around then no one will know. You have my word.” He spoke strongly, as if to make sure you understood what he was saying was genuine. You felt instantly calm, he was radiating a comforting feeling and it helped ease your suspicions.

“Thank you.” You smiled at him and put your lightsaber behind you.

“Can you, can you still wield it?” Mando piped in, making your head turn curiously towards him.

“What do you mean?”

“Can you still fight with it I mean, do you know how to fight with it, since you don’t use it much to conceal your identity?” It was a good question. You knew you could still kill someone with it if you had to, but you were a little rusty on your sword fighting skills.

“I probably could, I mean I’m a little rusty, but it wouldn’t take long to pick it up again.” You shrugged, kind of liking how intrigued he was with the topic. He nodded while tilting his head, raising his arm out.

“Show me.” He asked, almost instructive making your gut fall to your knees. You just stared at him, cleared your throat, and stood up.

“Sure.” You shook the feeling off, you were strong. You were not about to let a simple statement like that shake you, this was Mando after all. You two hated each other.

You always will.

You squared your feet with your shoulders, stepping back from the fire, and ignited your lightsaber. The sound rang through your ears and it caused your heart to flutter, you missed the sound of the absolute power of the lightsaber flowing through you. The white saber emitted light throughout your makeshift campsite and caused the Mandalorian to have a different glow to him as he watched you hold the powerful weapon.

To say Mando was entranced is an understatement, he didn’t understand was he was feeling. He only knew that he felt drawn to you, like he was meant to be here in this exact moment and time.

“I think I can still do a few spins without cutting my leg off.” You joked and twirled it around your side and back, loving the sound it made cutting through the air. You brought it back in front of you and shrugged.

“That’s pretty much all to it. Hard to spar with it when no one else has a lightsaber. It cuts through practically anything.” You smiled as you retracted it, sitting back down across from Mando.

“It doesn’t cut through pure beskar.” He piped in causing you to nod.

“Yeah, that’s why Mandalorians and Jedi’s fought against each other. They were equally as challenging. But that was a long time ago.” You waved off the thought and yawned, feeling drained from today. Mando shifted and got more comfortable, feeling his eyes start to tug closed, but he knew he could survive off of a few hours of sleep. He didn’t know how you would though.

“You should get some rest.” Mando spoke softy as you started to lay down again. He only leaned back against the log, crossing his arms over his chest. Last attempt to try and cover his heart before he exposed it anymore to you.

“Goodnight, Mando.” You spoke softly as sleep took over you once again. Mando’s heart stopped at the softness of your voice, he felt as if he suddenly turned to liquid at the sound of it. At that moment he now understood he couldn’t cover his heart to you anymore, the thought terrified him.

“Goodnight.”

---

taglist: @tillytheslytherin @faith-quake @archaeoheart @darthcassi @areyouthorreal @cyarikaaa

#Mandalorian #din djarin x female reader #din x reader #din djarin #mando x reader #mando x you #grogu #the mandalorian #jedi reader #mandalorian x jedi

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rosy-wooyoung · 3 years

Text

[12:31]

🎄 Day 11 of the Christmas project🎄

pairing : san x fem!reader a/n: ngl i’m quite happy with this one. maybe bc it’s kinda personal? idk

You had just arrived at the cottage you inherited from your grandparents when they passed away, and, after driving for so long, you were happy to finally cut the engine. Months had passed since you last visited this small house filled with beautiful memories, and you had this strange feeling of happiness mixed with nostalgia overrunning in your body. The cottage was a small wooden house at the edge of the forest next to a lake, now frozen, the ground and the naked and lonely looking branches of the trees surrounding it covered in snow. You parked your car in the driveway and slightly shook your best friend's shoulder to wake him from his slumber. After a few minutes of constantly shaking him, San finally stirred up, softly rubbing his eyes as he looked around him.

"Are we already here?" he mumbled and you bitterly chuckled, unbuckling your seat belt and opened the door. "What do you mean already? You've been sleeping since we stopped at the gas station. It's been two hours dude," You poked his ribs before stepping out. San shook his head and got out of the car as well a few seconds later, letting out a sigh before helping you clear the trunk filled with things to get comfortable enough for the long weekend you had planned to stay together.

The end of the year was coming, so that meant a lot of things to do at work: closing cases, checking details before sending files to your boss, preparing some others for the new year, it was everything but calm when you entered your workspace each morning. Fortunately, you had worked quite hard during the week, so today before lunch, San and you took your leave of work and hurried to your car, getting ready for a few hours of driving to get to this beautiful place where you had just arrived.

"Gosh, I've missed this place so badly," you said as you looked around you, eyes roaming as you observed the trees and your surroundings. You started getting a bit emotional as you recalled the hazy yet wonderful memories you had collected while growing up until it was time for them to leave.

You remembered spending some of your Summer holidays here with your siblings when your parents grew "tired" of the three of you. They always claimed to need a break from being parents for at least a week, and so did you from them. When you were at your grandparents' house, more fun was allowed than when you were at home. It was an exciting feeling, and you were always looking forward to coming and visiting them at every opportunity you had. You never truly minded because you loved your grandparents and spending time with them. But for your younger siblings, it was a whole other story: they were constantly yelling about missing mom and dad, while you were just loving being there, catching up with your granddad

You had your little secrets with him, things that you hid from your family and your siblings. For example, you and your grandfather would secretly take two easels, always feeling that rush of adrenaline before escaping from the yells of your siblings to find a good spot to start painting for a major part of the day, hidden in the mountains hovering above the cottage. Each time, you came back from your getaway with a brand new piece of art, and a memory to cherish for the years to come. You entered the cottage, and a wave of nostalgia crashed onto you, a sense of comfort wrapping its arms around your shoulders. In the dark, you could still distinguish some of the pieces of art your granddad did when you were together. You opened the shutters and drew out the curtains your grandmother had sewed by herself, making the natural sunlight warm up the place. You then went behind the house and opened the electricity and water conducts while San took care of putting all the things your truck you carry inside the small house.

"It's a gorgeous little place that you hid from me," he teased, and you gently smiled, elbowing him in the ribs as you kept on putting everything in the right place. "It's my sweet escape," you replied as your best friend rested for a few seconds in the middle of the entrance, hands on his hips as he took in the decoration of the place.

When you had some rough times in your life - which happened more often as your grandparents fell sick one after the other -, you came to this little house in secret to unwind and spend some time alone, crying or just chilling. It was a bit like your secret garden, the spot that you had indeed kept hidden from everyone. Even your parents didn't know that you frequently visited here and spend some time in nature. That's why it wasn't as dusty and dirty as one can imagine an abandoned house to look like. Yes, it was a bit straggly, but to your defence, you haven't come to this place in weeks.

As the day went by, it was finally the afternoon, and it had started snowing as soon as you finished setting in the cottage house. You were quite tired from driving for a few hours, only being used to run a few errands for maximum 20 minutes, so you just wanted to chill and maybe take a nap on the burgundy, corduroy couch. San, on the other hand, since had slept a major part of the journey there, was just a human dynamo. Looking around, all smiley and excited as he watched the snow falling from the sky.

"Do you wanna do something outside? We could make a snowman, have a snowball fight or go for a walk?" he suggested as he let himself fall next to you on the couch, tickling your side with his left hand as the other remained against his chest. You stifled a giggle and squirmed, trying to escape from his touch. He stopped for a while, his eyes lingering on you as you were getting your breath back. "And what about going sledging? I just saw that there's a hill on the other side of the lake, we can go there," your best friend offered, but you shook your head with a pout. "San, I'm too tired for all of this," you whispered, and his eyes widened, taken aback that you declined his offer, again, "and where did you even find a sledge?" you added, not even knowing that your grandparents owned one. "There was two in the small storage unit, but don't try to change the subject. Why don't you want to go sledging?" he said while sitting up, laying a hand on your knee, shaking it a bit. "It's the best thing you could do when we have a type of weather like this!" he exclaimed while pointing outside, making you sigh and as you looked out the window. Yes, it was still snowing, and it looked quite consistent enough to sledge on it, but you could see some patches of blue sky appearing here and there, telling you that the good weather wasn't as far as you thought it was.

"Come on, Y/N, just for me," he said as he watched you stifling a yawn, happy that he managed to catch sight of a small nod in your actions. "Really? Let's go then!" he enthusiastically got up, not even waiting for you to run into the bedroom to get dressed. "The things I'd do for him," you whispered to yourself as you tiredly got up from the couch, making your way up the small stairs as well. Once you had slipped on your fleece-lined pants and warm coats, you made your way out the door, San trotting to the small storage unit behind the house to get the sledges. Those were made out of old wood, a thin rope attached to the tip of it. They looked quite old and dusty, but they would do the trick.

"So Y/N, since you're the expert of the region," San teased as he looked over, only to have you staring back at him with a fake bored look, "how can we reach this side of the lake?" he said as he pointed the side opposite the cottage, and you smiled. That is where you used to go painting with your grandfather. "Come on, follow me," you said as you confidently started walking, the memories colliding in your brain as you trusted your guts to get to this side of the lake. In the course of your walk, with San by your side, you told him some of your memories while pointing at different things.

"You see that tree over there?" you gestured to the naked weeping willow a bit further into the stroll, San nodding as his eyes followed your finger, "when it was getting either too hot or too noisy because of my siblings during Summer, I'd take a book and spend the entire afternoon reading underneath that tree," you explained with a soft smile on your face, remembering the great souvenirs as the leaves crunched under your moon boots as you stopped. "And my grandma had a whistle, and she would blow four times when dinner was ready, and I needed to come back," you told your friend, who had a sincere smile on his face. "This is adorable, it sounds like a Studio Ghibli plot," he said while taking your hand, making you walk slightly faster to pass the tree. San knew you well. He knew that if you spent too much time in front of this willow, you'd start getting emotional and probably cry, and that was the last thing he wanted to see.

You silently thanked him with a faint smile as you understood his sudden change of behaviour and you cleared your throat, keeping on telling him happier souvenirs as you finally arrived where San wanted to go. "I can't imagine how beautiful it must look here in Summer," he mumbled as he stared at the cottage on the other side of the lake. "It's even more incredible in fall," you said with a smile, "I came here mid-October and you're just surrounded by yellow and orange trees, you can really feel the fall vibes," you giggled with your friend, letting go of his hand, feeling suddenly nervous. You hadn't even noticed that San had kept your hand in his the entire time, and you were even hotter when you realised that he didn't even look bothered or shy of it.

You took a few pictures of each other going down the sledge, laughing and pushing each other around as the other took an unflattering photo of the other. The powder snow eased your falls every time you pushed the other too hard, sometimes shrieking as you could feel some snow slipping under your clothes and reach your skin. At some point, you were too tired to get up, so you stayed well muffled in your clothes, looking at the sky clearing above your heads. San was also in the snow, ignoring the freezing sensation of water against his neck and the goosebumps travelling his entire body. Instead of staring at the sky as you did, he seized the fact that you were too busy getting lost in your thoughts to stare at you. He loved seeing his best friend at peace like you currently were, it looked like all of your worries had vanished as soon as you pulled up by the house, the stressed Y/N getting replaced by the one that San imagined was the Y/N of your childhood.

The young man shifted in the snow, close enough for his hand to grab yours. As you felt pressure on your glove, you turned your head to the side, looking at him. He was already looking at you with a fond smile decorating his lips, and you raised your eyebrows, silently asking him why he was staring at you like that.

"I wish for this moment to never end," he spoke softly, the density of the snow under you two muffling his words, only for you to hear. "Me neither," you uttered, and San squeezed your hand as an answer, shooting you a wink before looking at the sky like you did just moments ago. He felt your gaze on him, and he started rolling towards you, miscalculating the number of rolls he had to do to come near you, resulting him almost crushing you as he was about to land on his back. You clutched your abdomen, anticipating his weight landing on you, but he swiftly moved around to land on his stomach, his mouth arriving millimetres away from yours.

None of you recoiled, getting lost in the other's eyes. Your breath had quickened up, something going noticed by San. He gulped but kept staring at you, your breaths forming one trail of steam above your heads, unhurriedly vanishing in the atmosphere. San pulled his thoughts and doubts to the side for an instant, his mouth colliding with yours in the gentlest way possible. Despite the dryness of his lips, the kiss released millions of butterflies in your stomach, sending warmth straight to your face. With your mittens slightly covered in snow, you cupped his face, and he groaned into the kiss, the cold against his face attempting to bring him back to reality.

But it wasn't enough to make you two stop kissing each other. You had both been secretly waiting for this for too long, and you didn't want to end the kiss right now. Making the most of it was the key point of the situation, and you let your lips linger on San's as if it was the last time before pulling away. The man gave you mere seconds to catch your breath before pulling you in another kiss, your hearts beating furiously against each other as your tongues danced together, head spinning and getting mushy due to all the emotions you were experiencing.

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

Text

Ask Explo--

...you know what, you’re right. Name change effective immediately.

Askplosion #10:

(unrelated to everything by the way but I DEMAND THE ANON WHO MENTIONED “REMARRIED EMPRESS” A WHILE BACK COME FORTH AND ANSWER FOR THEIR CRIMES. IT’S SO GOOD BUT IT’S UNFINISHED AND I’M HOOKED, HOW DARE YOU)

Asks responding to previous posts:

It’s okay! I figured that was what it was but it’s been so loooong.

Ah, wow.

Um, that’s definitely not a part 2; I think that’s more like a four-parter/five-parter or something.

Sorry! No can do!

That’s totally fair!

I think the reason I so quickly agreed with it is like--

I’ve been watching the Inuyasha sequel and it’s not like I don’t think the narrative’s apparent punching bag Moroha (who is fourteen years old) shouldn’t be punished when she does something wrong/sneaky/manipulative, but they punish her as if she’s Miroku (who was eighteen years old).

Basically, I want the punishment to take the age into account, or at least only affect Marinette on a more personal level and not be “Heart Hunter” where they take totally understandable feelings of heartache (remember, it wouldn’t have mattered which miraculous she took because Hawk Moth got the Miracle Box and Fu regardless; even beyond her emotions, I feel like she chose the best option available to her considering which temps she knew the location of) and then punish her for them by memory wiping Fu and taking away all of her temps and giving Hawk Moth the grimoire translation.

Yes!! I really wanted to respond to this one, thank you! (It’s this one and then there was another one talking about Luka and Adrien, then talked to me about how I refer to Luka as “soft” but not in a bad way; I unfortunately don’t remember the whole thing.)

Ahaha, and yeah, I feel you. Anti-salters are a very strange conundrum I still haven’t figured out; like, I get not liking salt, but...

I mean, when I don’t like certain content, I just blacklist it. If I end up seeing it anyway due to cross-tagging or a lack of tagging, then I just blacklist the person themself. You won’t see me going after people for that very reason; I only see what people send/ask me if it’s content I don’t like.

I’m glad you’ve found some peace in this blog! Hopefully it continues to be that way for you in the future!

(and yay, a fellow INTJ!!)

New Asks:

There are female writers? ;P I just assumed they were all locked in a closet until the male ones were like, “okay, pretend to help us here, we need one female writer to claim girl power.”

As for Ladybug all like, “Cute, isn’t she?” I think it was rhetorical (she could also be messing with him but “Glaciator” tells us that she didn’t know he crushed on her so who knows). The writers do this thing where Marinette is all panic-y and occasionally self-conscious as herself, but then as Ladybug, she suddenly gets a bit of an ego. I think it’s meant to be there in order to make Chat Noir look less... idk, “obnoxious” when he starts boosting his own ego; trying to balance the two by giving them both big heads, so to speak.

Honestly, I feel like Adrien needs less screen time. :|

Even when he’s not on-screen, characters are usually talking about him, or you see his face in Marinette’s room/somewhere in Paris. I’m become so jaded by the guy that I don’t even think it’d matter if they remade the series and gave it a “totally good and interesting Adrien.” That’s how badly the show has made him out for me; “Adrien Agreste” the character is just... sigh, I’m so done with him.

And yeah, this whole idea about, “Marinette is [x], we need more AAAAAADRIEN!” comes off really bad, lol, especially when Adrien has very little going for him.

(this ask ends off like there should be a part 2 but there isn’t one in my inbox, so sorry if there’s meant to be something else!)

The exact lyrics according to the wiki:

My wish for a cat who's in love, with our own Ladybug. Is that he'll get what he's always wanted! She doesn't know she loves him, only sees Adrien, But Christmas miracles always happen!

Yeah, especially nowadays, those lines bothers me. Not only does it imply “true selves,” but that it’s Chat who should be getting what he always wanted and Ladybug is the one with a problem.

Like, excuse me?

Probably Stormy Weather, even in the first episode. Ladybug and Chat Noir couldn’t even touch her until they arrived on top of the TV station.

+ With all those effects and shots, it made it feel more action-y than typical episodes.

Marinette, Aurore, Luka, Anarka, Jagged...

basically any name that I haven’t really heard before (”Luka” makes me think of Vocaloid but the Luka there was female), or a name that relates a lot to the character (like “Aurore” for “aurora” since she loves weather things).

dfjbghfkdgfdgnjfdg this anon really like, “I NEED ANSWERS!!!”

It’s as if these characters hit 18 or something and just grow overnight, I swear. I’m hypothetically fine with some more variety in character height (it’s not like the show tries to be realistic, after all), but maybe don’t give us official heights if they’re gonna be this weird/inaccurate.

Especially when they change it just for the sake of a shot anyway. If you watch “Simon Says” when Ladybug and Adrien stand next to each other while looking at the picture of Adrien’s mother, the very next close-up has an obvious difference in their heights from what you just saw.

They’re 3D models!!! This shouldn’t happen!

I... honestly never thought of the “less threatening” thing! Dang!

And yeah, Marinette isn’t helpless or incompetent, but because of the Adrien crush, it makes her that way at times since she’s always falling on him and--

...ugh, actually, yeah, don’t wanna think about those implications. Hard pass.

Gross.

I’m not familiar with that one, though Astruc deletes his tweets all the time (there was one tweet where he confirmed that Luka was poor and it only exists in screenshots now because it didn’t get archived and he deleted it almost like he realized that he was pointing out the blatant classism in the show, oops).

Yeah though, I haven’t seen anything like what you’re describing. Sorry!

It’s okay! Sorry for having you clarify but him choosing and Marinette deciding to never give it back are very different things.

I don’t recall Chat Noir having much purpose in the final fight (in terms of both contributing and actual fighting; I know Cataclysm broke the object to release the akuma but was it needed?) so Marinette might either go cat-less or get a temp. Plagg could also be helpful in his own right because he’s small and blends in with the night, so he could hypothetically sneak up on the bad guy.

Afterwards, there’d need to be a new cat, but Adrien would also have to reconsider his actions and really think about what happened. I could also see Plagg going to Adrien’s house, half to apologize for giving the idea to Adrien that Adrien leave without telling Ladybug, but also half to call him out for giving up without consulting anyone. Adrien is a lot of conflicting things (see Adrien’s passivity compared to Chat Noir’s recklessness) so he’d have to find a middle ground within himself.

Marinette might carry Plagg around in her purse for a while and let Plagg have a say in who he goes to. Plagg might grieve for a bit over not having Adrien around (even if Adrien was flawed, Plagg didn’t ask for any of this so Marinette is doing her best here).

O-oh.

That’s always the rough patch with “endgame ships.” Once it’s obvious to the audience that they’re endgame, no more effort needs to be put into them.

The other thing too is how Kagami, for example, is friends with Marinette. Even once Adrimi sinks, she’ll presumably stay friends with her. Luka, meanwhile, is Juleka’s brother.

They have lives outside of their love interests. Adrien is so into Ladybug that he doesn’t have that; I mean, Nino is Adrien’s best friend like once in a blue moon.

The entire class is just watching an episode and then calling on raised hands to answer what was wrong with what they just watched.

“Everything?”

“I mean, yes, but I’m sorry, you have to be more specific to get credit.”

I think Aeon herself is fine. It’s mostly just her transformed and that transformed name that I have a problem with (she doesn’t even look uncanny so I don’t get it). I heard there was something wrong with the name “Aeon” but searching the name doesn’t give me anything I would qualify as such so I have no idea. I just wish she was given a little less “I’m programmed to--” (makes her seem less sentient) and more “[anything that doesn’t have to do with pushing the love square]” because I feel like they might’ve done the latter to make her more “likable”? I think fans of anything usually like the “matchmaker” character provided it’s for a ship they like. Also strange that they make her a robot but Max and Markov don’t extensively interact with her, but that’s a nitpick and not a criticism of her character.

...I’m rambling, my bad lol.

(Ohhh, she was supposed to be a mummy? Like, foreshadowing her “dying”?? That went right over my head but I guess that’d be where the name Uncanny Valley came from? No clue.)

Best case scenario is probably the middle or the end of Season 4.

And yeah, it really doesn’t matter to me what they do with the love square. Marinette had gone through too much suffering and the show goes out of its way to show how much stress Marinette is being put under (and also keeping Luka away during episodes like “Gamer 2.0″ even when it makes sense for them to be there, as if trying to make sure Marinette doesn’t have enough moments with him to forget Adrien).

Like, ah, yes, I totally believe that Marinette is in a position where she can make reasonable decisions about her love life while all circles of her life are on fire.

If the Sonic movie of all things can have an interracial couple, there’s no reason why this show can’t, just saying.

And, even with Marinette, she’s white-passing (according to what basically everyone says, I’m really awful about recognizing race so this isn’t my field; I wasn’t aware that Ondine was Asian, for example).

Does Nadja count? Manon’s dark-skinned (I’m still not over the fact that all the kids in this show are dark-skinned; it’s not like it’s a problem from a representation standpoint - though all the kids are also all generically bratty/whiny so there’s that - but the percentages in this show are weird) while Nadja is really light-skinned, meaning either a dark-skinned husband or Manon is adopted.

Though I guess the problem then is that we don’t know, so there’s no established couple there.

Non-Miraculous Asks:

w-who gave you the right to say such things????

Uhhhh, that might be too broad of a question, I’m sorry!

I know this isn’t satisfactory, but I will say that my favorite genre is Fantasy/Romance (it’s why I adore Red Shoes so much; by the way, an anon asked for my opinion on that a while back and I will get to it! I’d need to watch it again to get screenshots) and my least favorite is probably Tragedy/Horror.

I don’t think I’ve watched enough to really be able to say? I’ve kind of been all over but I’ve never fully gone through any of them outside of Miraculous. I’ve seen bits of Sailor Moon, Tokyo Mew Mew, Star VS the Forces of Evil (don’t know if that counts), and I meant to watch Yuki Yuna is a Hero but never got around to it. I saw the entirety of Puella Magi Madoka Magica but you guys know how I feel about that one.

Maybe Cardcaptor Sakura by default then? It was definitely not perfect but I liked some of the character dynamics (I also have a clipcut of it - basically where I go through a series/movie and cut out parts I don’t like so it’s only good stuff - so I’m cheating a little) and the male love interest was a tsundere type that I actually ended up liking, which is really rare.

!!! That sounds sweet~ I know Sailor Moon is popular so I’ll definitely take your word for it on that one.

I would also accept a “reincarnated”/”destined lovers” trope if maybe the ship themselves are the one who set it up in the first place. I have a Lukanette AU, for example, where they basically got together and then prayed to the shrine of the renewal god that they’d “always be together,” which ended up allowing them to reincarnate over and over (as if they set up their own soulmate AU ;P) and continuously find each other.

Though I guess that’s not technically a “meant to be trope,” but still, it’s a form of it but where it was totally consensual on both sides.

Also, I finally thought of a show that ended with the ship I wanted: Gargoyles. I didn’t see the entire series, mind you, but I saw most of it and Goliath and Elisa were just... quality, I adored them.

+ With Beauty and the Beast being my favorite Disney movie, they fit right in with my tastes.

I forget that AangToph (I think the “official” name for the ship is Taang, but don’t quote me on that) exists sometimes, maybe because I’ve never shipped Aang with anyone; I’ve got no problems with the ship though.

Ugh, and this is what I mean when I talk about people who set up these reasons behind people shipping something based on what they saw a few people do. It’s like, “you only ship Adrimi/Lukanette to spite Adrienette!!”

Meanwhile, me having shipped all three at one point and then dropped off the love square.

Also, me shipping Zutara has nothing to do with it being dark/edgy because I’ve never seen it that way (intriguing, sure but dark and edgy? lol) and also avoid dark/edgy ships like the plague.

I still laugh at people who are like, “you can’t ship it because it’s not endgaaaaame!” as if shows can dictate how and why I enjoy something. Like sure, if you want to let a show/movie spoonfeed you how you’re supposed to feel, then by all means, go ahead.

I suppose people may be theoretically happier that way, but it doesn’t make for an analytic mind.

I legitimately thought that “AssClass” must’ve been the actual name for something until it registered with me what it actually meant.

And eh, I guess it depends on the comparison and how accurate the comparison actually is? Like, comparing Puella Magic Madoka Magica to Miraculous... they’re not really close at all, but comparing... idk, Bunnyx to Homura or the concept behind “backfiring wishes”... maybe?

(note that the rest of this post is more Puella Magi Madoka Magica salt so you can stop reading here if you’re not interested in that; I’m not sure if this is all the same anon but I don’t mind letting people vent so I let them go off~)

why can’t we just have nice things

I agree, and I give a little eyeroll every time it’s like, “oh, this person had [miraculous]”

+ even just in general, I feel weird about any show that mentions/implies that real world famous people are [x] or [y] in their show. It breaks my immersion; real world locations are one thing but when it’s specific people (unless they’re made up characters like Santa Claus) or games just--break me.

I also don’t know what to think when there aren’t magical boys but you have these magical girls in this frilly outfits/skirts. The demographic is girls so I presume the reason must be like, “you can look pretty and still beat people up” (;P) but having so many magical girl shows without a hint of a magical boy makes me suspicious that it’s for fanservice. Sailor Moon has Tuxedo Mask but I also don’t know what that guy did outside of the meme of him doing nothing so I’ve got no clue.

(edit: I should correct myself that I’m not talking about Sailor Moon specifically; I don’t know magical girls that well, though I do know there are ones clearly intended for fanservice (you could say that for anything, to be fair, but still). It’s just that I see things like super short skirts or very “questionable” shots and I’m just like, “hm”)

Hmmm, good question. I feel like there has to be a lot but I’m also the type who doesn’t watch a lot of TV lol. I’m just familiar with cliches and tropes and such.

The reason I try not to use “ism”s of any kind is mostly because it’s too broad. Like, you know how the English language only has one way of saying, “I love you,” but other languages like Spanish have multiple?

It’s like that, and sometimes I think it’s too easy to throw those words out there. A “small” (possibly completely unintentional/misunderstood) offense is sexism, and then a “large” offense is called the exact same thing. I’d rather go into why something is sexist than just call it that, y’know? The only exception I make is “classism” because I feel like that’s not as... I dunno, divisive?

Anyway, for that same reason, I can’t answer firmly that, “Madoka Magica is sexist.” I will however say that it makes me uncomfortable with how the show makes out the girls being emotional because they’re young and female and then proceeds to make their life a living hell before they’re old enough to properly answer to it (I know that’s the point but that kind of makes it worse?). It doesn’t help with how all the girls have different personalities, so it’s not like you have only “crybaby girls” who are being taken advantage of; it’s basically like... all girls.

Not helped is the fact that their soul gem not only deteriorates naturally, but it can also do so faster if the girl falls into despair, which then turns them into a monster (and I know it’s kind of like an akuma thing, but the fact that it’s only girls is... I dunno, it comes off wrong?). It seems cheap that the soul gem deteriorates no matter what so it constantly needs fed even if the girl is consistently happy.

I would probably opt for the show being centered more around Kyubey being new to this or something - like, magical girls are a new thing - and then have Kyubey being surprised because they presumed that the soul gem would deteriorate naturally since “emotions are powerful but destructive to the person having them,” but then all the girls team up and help each other work out their problems. Maybe the reason magical girls are usually alone isn’t even because of the grief seed (I think that’s what it’s called?) thing not being able to be shared, but because Kyubey intentionally separates magical girls so they can’t do what the main group is doing, but Madoka is so into the idea that, “We shouldn’t have to be alone,” and so she’s constantly pulling all the girls together, which keeps them healthy.

Maybe Homura’s backstory could be that Madoka originally was more sheepish and more afraid to put herself out there, especially since she was a magical girl (who are encouraged to go it alone), which is why their soul gems were both deteriorating; they were friends but kept more of a distance, or maybe they were a team but that’s all they were. Then Madoka gives Homura the last grief seed to save her and that’s what inspires Homura and makes her see Madoka as something more than a teammate, which is why Homura actively tries to save Madoka specifically (which then encourages Madoka to want to keep everyone together as friends).

In the case that Kyubey doesn’t separate them out of concern of fRiEnDsHiP, but for another reason altogether, and then it’s ultimately their own downfall when they allow the girls to hang out and realize that it’s doing a lot of good for them.

“cute and innocent”

That was exactly it. It’s on Kyubey’s trivia section on the Puella Magi Madoka Magica Wiki.

Before the anime's first dark plot twist aired, head writer Gen Urobuchi said on his Twitter account that the "Kyu" in Kyubey's name comes from the English word "cute". This was a lie meant to further mislead fans into thinking that Madoka Magica is an innocent happy show. In a later episode, it was revealed that "Kyubey" is, in fact, short for "incubator".

In my personal opinion, a spoiled plot can’t be “ruined” if it’s a good plot. If you told me that Kagome was trapped in the Modern era for three years and then decided to stay with Inuyasha at the end of Inuyasha, it wouldn’t/shouldn’t decrease the value when I finally see it for myself because it’s good. That’s not to say that everything should just be spoiled right out of the gate, but it’s saying that maybe your plot isn’t good if you have to rely on shock value to make it work??

I FEEL THAT “ASSIGNING IT TO THE WHOLE GENDER” THING SO BAD. It just adds to my “the girls all have varying personalities so it’s not like Kyubey’s only after emotional crybabies or anything” salt.

I have no idea about any of the stuff about the writers so I can’t confirm or deny them. I will very much agree on the target audience thing though, especially with the whole “keeping the dark plot a secret” because really? Who is this for then? Like, the first two and a half episodes are for one demographic and then the others are--???

I dunno. Me personally, I just like feel good stories. I do like some good conflict and drama (for context, Remarried Empress is basically a webtoon that gives you things to feel salty about and then makes its own salt fic as its plot, allowing for endless streams of feels and catharsis, so I’m definitely not against drama), but there are other times where I just want to feel good watching something.

I feel like the show expects the characters to be selfless/perfect and then punishes them even though it’s their writing that’s causing them to act out. I can’t really talking about “out-of-character” but sometimes it’s just obvious where “we did this because we needed a plot/conflict.”

Like, hello? We don’t need the main characters screwing up; why can’t we just have some feel good thing where they take the day for themselves (seriously, imagine a Miraculous episode where Chat Noir actually tells Ladybug to take a couple days for herself, like maybe someone else gets the earrings for a few days as a temp while Marinette gets to breathe; IMAGINE IT). Not everything needs to be high-stakes to be interesting and you need those calmer moments so that the action-packed ones feel more intense.

SAYAKA DESERVES BETTER.

I feel like the magical girl genre as a whole can be way more complex than it’s made out to be. I think people hear the word “magical girl” and think “cute girls in short skirts talk about girl problems and fight evil with the power of friendship and accessories.”

Ugh, just the mention of Rebellion makes me sigh internally.

Congrats on working on your own magical girl story! I hope it goes well for you!

I know it’s not technically a magical girl show, but there was also Totally Spies that Astruc worked on to some degree (I think there was some characters who were based on/a loose reference to the mains from that show but I don’t remember exactly).

The thing about the female characters suffering is that they could make for good lessons on positively directing one’s emotions (like Usagi from Sailor Moon, for example, maybe having a problem with taking her anger out on her friends, but learns that she can save that rage for the bad guys; “Gamer 2.0″ from Miraculous could’ve done that, honestly, by having Ladybug absolutely WRECK all of her gaming opponents in “violent” (cartoon violence obviously) fashion). It’s just a shame that it’s not taken advantage of.

Sayaka??? Selfish???????

*does not compute*

(Also, I wasn’t tired of them, don’t worry! It was a little overwhelming in my inbox but it’s me who’s allowing all the asks to flow in so the blame isn’t on you lol.)

I’m not sure where this obsession came from with, “you have to be selfless and you’re not allowed to use your powers for yourself.” It’s like the world’s going to end if a character leaves to go Self-Care or something. I think what happened is that shows got this idea that promoting only the giving of others is great and it’s not important to take time for yourself (even with “Gamer 2.0,” it was still Marinette playing games with everyone else, and they treated her dedication and seriousness like a bad thing when she literally did not have time to waste and they didn’t give a reason why it was good for her to take a break, only that she should).

This usually leads to the “demonization” of characters who sport a lot of self-confidence or any sort of ego. It works on both sides; Marinette is a punching bag because of her anxiety and occasional lack of confidence, but if she had an ego as Ladybug, there are parts of the fandom who deem her “obnoxious” (i.e: “Reflekdoll”). There’s a delicate balance between “be confident” and “be humble” and it’s a tightrope act.

#((Yes! This strategy works for not losing asks.))#((In other news--))#((I gotta test out this new microphone so I wanna do a ''Voiced Askplosion'' where I record my answers instead of writing them))#((Anyone who sends me a 🎤 alongside their asks will get a voiced response next time!))#((I probably can't answer everything but you know how it is~))#(((i swear that someone is going to do it just to see if they can get me to swear when I read out their asks)))#((or... like--))#((''ok i don't actually have a question''))#((''but plz say the words 'adrien and marinette are meant to be' because i want to hear how much u struggle to say it''))#category: salt #other: non ml talk #category: ramble #character: Marinette Dupain Cheng #category: fandom #episode: Evillustrator #character: Chat Noir #character: Ladybug #character: Adrien Agreste #character: Stormy Weather #category: me myself and i #category: staff #relationship: Adrien Agreste & Marinette Dupain Cheng #character: Aeon #character: Uncanny Valley #relationship: love square #MC's Renders #render: persona

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paintbrush-stan-babeyy · 4 years

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uhmmmmm so basic of lly? i get it now. i Understand and i Know. know what, you might ask.

Him

after ep 14 i did nothing but pace around my house like an excitable fool and while doing so jimmied open my brain cells long enough to finally connect the pieces of knife’s character so liek,,,, here’s a really shitty character analysis for anyone who has trouble writing him like i do dhfgdfhjf **disclaimer: idk how to write a character analysis

1. Da Basics so! knife! what’s up with him? well im here to tell you! he is a bastard nd i like him so much. from the official wiki descriptions we know he is a “ surface level jerk... with his brash attitude and tendency to bully the other competitors” but then had this turn around in s2 after everyone was like “hey,,, u should be nicer”. there’s more to it but I Will Get There. anyhow the flats of his personality really is him being a dickhead to cover up those soft bits he doesn’t know how to express because he compartmentalizes all the time. who doesn’t do that tho lmao

2. Da Beginning of a Parable right now you’re probably thinking “wow rib! that sucked we already knew all that” well watch this *goes stupid goes crazy.* in a show that’s all about the contestants, the only way you can really understand Anyone is to pick apart how they interact with others and in knife’s case he does so Very Specifically. how it works is that so far every major interaction he’s had tends to culminate until it hits a breaking point. for example *points at trophy.* everything that happened there is where i like to mark the start of his character arc. da bully? has become da bullied. it doesn’t last very long but having his softer interests- like dora- exposed, mocked, and then held against him shakes knife up to the very least. having him mention how bad trophy’s blackmail was ten or so episodes later really drives in how Much it stuck with him. it wasn’t the senseless violence he was used too and kind of forced him to realize that “oh shit,,,,,,,, people can?? interact with me???” in ways that got under the walls he set up. *points at nickel nd suitcase* these guys? also reinforced that newborn view he’s looking at. like,,,, he’s still a complete ass and doesn’t quite, Get it? and he doesn’t even know that he’s in a character arc yet but i can confidently say the sarcasm and “random act of kindness” shifted something drastically in him, solely because of how understated these traits are. the biggest issue with seeing knife’s trajectory is the subtlety in it. he is absolutely one of the most subtle characters in the show; his growth shown in snippets, pushed aside for bigger storylines and hidden under his brash nature. he still hides the soft intentions under the asshole and that’s important to remember, but it’s also important to remember that the soft intentions is what you need to focus on.

3. Then Why Is He Acting Like That Now its the subtlety babey!!! its also the compartmentalizing in action. he’s always pushed things into boxes and labels, ie “bully”, “jock”, “nerd”, whatever. in the newest ep he’s doing just that. if you recall, any major external conflict he might’ve had was resolved suuuuper early in the season, so knife has had no way to conflate his problems with the show, unlike other characters. he did all his diagnostics running on the Down Low, influenced by the idea that other characters might know what’s going on in his noggin and then saying “no thanks” to that, all while taking in their advice at the same time. he’s a “take don’t give” kinda guy (except not all the time but I Will Get There). hell, taco technically wasn’t part of the show Either. so basically, his issues? are all internal and ii is really just that to him. a game. y’all might remember a previous post that i made and subsequently lost in the void when i deleted, but when i compared mephone’s memories to the players current situations and then couldn’t for the LIFE of me figure out how knife’s played into it, i was actually lying. my guy’s general “trash” feelings over the show was, at this point, him actually taking it seriously for once. knife got done being “open” once microphone eliminated herself, and it’s back to being selfish because any internal ties, as small as they were, have wrapped themselves up neatly. all that’s left is the game, and gosh darn he really believes he’s got a shot at winning it

4. He Is Not Immune To Being Soft However this is how knickle can still w- “ok then rib, what’s going on in the inside then, huh??” glad you asked! knife has gained delicacy. after suitcase he really did decide to Stop being so thick and actually look at things now, taking up the role of an asshole observer- sort of like mepad in a sense. he got,,, perceptive, coupled with his personal sense of sectionalizing. in the end he likes,,, maybe, three other people, and that influences how he carries any interactions he has later in the series. suitcase? is a ok in his book, and he does give her genuine advice a couple times. microphone is a fairly complex situation that picks up in his box mindset. pickle? hallelujah thats knife’s favorite guy. i can’t say for sure Why he’s knife’s favorite guy but really, there’s no heterosexual explanation on why pickle was the absolute axis of knife’s turning point. ep seven honestly truly is the head of knife’s change overall actually. his random act of kindness Here branches off into any kindness he does Later. suitcase manages to keep up in his head, and microphone probably reminds him of pickle- especially with the similarities of their situations, which is why he pokes and prods at her so much. it’s his very knife way of being nice, it’s him saying “hey, taco? isn’t worth it”. its that hard shell under currented by his arc of playing fair. knife still 100% has a ways to go (apology to marsh in my mouth pls pls pls-) but i can’t wait to see how his one trackedness plays out from here

#inanimate insanity #ii knife #hey this sucks and i do nothing but talk in circles but liek.... *hands y'all this*#im tired all i know is that i Get him now sjhdkfg

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a-libra-writes · 4 years

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How the GoT Characters React To Your Kidnapping

No one asked for this & its another weirdly specific long one, bc this is westeros and shit aint sunshine and roses so idk lets just do this oh gods why is it so long

To the Gendry & Mance anons: i got u, fam ♡

In this preference, you'll be rescued by: Ned Stark, Robb Stark, Sansa Stark, Jon Snow, Benjen Stark, Jory Cassel, Dolorous Edd, Mance Rayder, Tormund Giantsbane, Theon Greyjoy, Yara Greyjoy, Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont, Missandei, Grey Worm, Tywin Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, Jamie Lannister, Sandor Clegane, Bronn, Petyr Baelish, Stannis Baratheon, Davos Seaworth, Margaery Tyrell, Brynden Tully, Edmure Tully, Brienne of Tarth, Ramsay Bolton, Roose Bolton, Oberyn Martell, Beric Dondarrion, Gendry

NED STARK

It happened many years ago, but the incident still gave you shivers when you recalled it. It was at the height of Robert’s rebellion, when fighting and chaos was at every House’s doorstep. Your family supported Robert wholly; your father and brothers had been away at war since the beginning. You were maintaining your family’s keep in your father’s stead. The Riverlands was a bloody battleground, and you made a point to visit neighboring keeps and their smallfolk to offer food and shelter in your own castle. You were returning from one of these trips when you were taken by brigands wishing to ransom you.

Your father was riding with Ned when he heard the news, and he made it clear he wouldn’t continue on until his only daughter was found. Ned had befriended him in the time they’d fought, and agreed to help. Together they traced the trail you took to the fishing villages, and soon found which abandoned house you were being held in.

You were filthy, exhausted and hungry at that point, and afraid of the sound of fighting you heard outside the door. Then the door opened and a tall Northman came in, gently asking if you were okay and carefully untying the bindings around your wrists and ankles. You remember how Ned wrapped his cloak around your ripped dress and picked you up so gently. He set you on his horse and rode behind you, asking a few questions as you two rode back, like how you were faring and if the horse was going too fast for you. Back at your Keep, he insisted on carrying you to the Maester, all while your parents thanked him. They let Ned and his host of soldiers recover at their castle, even if food was low, and Ned visited you each day to check on you. You kept his cloak curled around you as you watched the Stark host finally leave. Even well after you two met and courted, and finally married in the godswood at Winterfell, you kept that cloak with you. Ned didn’t know, but you liked wrapping up in it when he had to leave for a long time.

ROBB STARK

It happened at the worst possible moment, in the midst of the chaos of the war. You insisted on accompanying his war camp through the battles, in spite of the danger to yourself. You were newly married, but you didn’t want to hide away in Winterfell. Robb was grateful for the counsel you provided, even if he worried for your safety. You were surrounded by soldiers, you should have been safe. Should have been.

Once Robb discovered you were well and truly gone, with your personal guards found dead, all he could see was red. The young wolf immediately went to gather men and scouts, ignoring the lords who told him to leave the rescuing to soldiers. Robb couldn’t forgive himself if something happened to you - he couldn’t keep fighting the war knowing his wife was in danger, and he’d run himself ragged to find you. Grey Wind caught onto your scent and within just a few hours, they found the makeshift camp you were being held at. You gasped as Grey Wind jumped at the man beside you, tearing at his throat, and Robb wasted little time in dismounting and following his wolf. While his men took care of the remaining kidnappers, he threw his arms around you and pulled you into a crushing hug.

Once you were back at camp, Robb had you looked after, buzzing with anxiety the whole time. He’d be adamant about sending you to Winterfell for your safety, wanting his mother to go along with you. Even if you’d try to argue with Robb, he’d truthfully tell you he couldn’t stand the thought of losing you. He’d rather miss you until the war ended than grieve you for the rest of his life.

SANSA STARK

Upon hearing about your kidnapping, Sansa immediately felt sick to her stomach. She couldn’t believe such a thing could happen to you - she remembered the last conversation you two had, what you wore, the jokes you both laughed at, the last kiss you shared. It was jarring to contrast that with some terrifying dungeon, and for the next few weeks she could hardly sleep or eat, constantly replaying those memories and thinking of them as “the last”. She didn’t care who tormented her, whether it be Joffrey or Cersei or anyone else. Sansa’s mind was too occupied with terrible thoughts of how afraid you must be and if you were hurt.

She heard rumors of your rescue, and that manifested into your arrival back at King’s Landing. She awaited you anxiously, thinking of what to say, worrying about what you endured. Finally, when Sansa saw you arrive at the Red Keep, all thoughts left her mind. Forgetting decorum, she pulled you into a hug, and even though you were still aching from your captivity, you held her back with as much emotion and strength.

When the two of you finally got some time alone, and she leaned against you and held your hand as you explained all that happened. From that point, she’d try to be at your side as much as possible, and feeling like she had to appreciate each day with you in case something terrible happened to either of you. Anytime you noticed her worried expression, you’d kiss her brow and reassure her, and she’d just shake her head, insisting that she ought to be the one comforting you.

BENJEN STARK

You’d wanted to accompany him on a mission for months, and he let you go on small trips here or there, but never anything like this. Accompanied with three other brothers, the four of you were assigned an important task by the Lord Commander. In spite of the seriousness, Benjen teased you like he always did, and even risked being cheeky, since the other two brothers knew your gender and your relationship with him. They’d just roll their eyes and joke along with you. It felt freeing to be beyond the wall, and you enjoyed the expanse of snow and trees so much, you forgot about the danger.

You and one of the brothers split off from the group to investigate some odd tracks. It turned out to be a trap, and while he was killed quickly, you put up a fight and were dragged off. The wildlings recognized you as the “little crow” who followed Benjen around, and since he had killed one of their leaders months before, they wanted revenge. It wasn’t until much later that Benjen and the brothers found the corpse the wildlings left, and a shredded piece of cloak you left behind for them. Benjen’s face became unrecognizable as he steeled himself for the worst, and urged the men on the trail. He tried pushing aside his regrets and anger at himself as they followed the tracks in the snow and the small things you left for them, like small rocks or an odd shape in the snow.

They came upon the wildling camp as the sun set, and you used the chaos to escape your bindings and steal one of the wildling’s clubs to help the fight. Once it was over, Benjen wasted no time in pulling you into a painfully tight embrace. The wildlings hadn’t done more than threaten you and hit you a few times, but he kissed you in relief several times anyway. All the tension seemed to leave his body as you held his face and reassured him. As the rest of you brought your slain brother’s body back to Castle Black, Benjen still kept you close at hand. You two knew the dangers of what was beyond the wall, so while Benjen eventually relaxed after a few weeks, it was still an unpleasant fright that he tried not to dwell on.

JON SNOW

Your family visited Winterfell often, what with your mother being friends with Lady Stark and living so close. From an early age you were friends with Jon, Robb and Theon, always running about and getting into trouble with your mother. Especially now that you were a lady, she scolded, you couldn’t talk with whichever boys you wanted. Jon was always different to you, though. You couldn’t imagine not being with him, and he felt much the same, even if you both struggled to express it. Jon was determined to spend as much time with you before he left for the Wall, and you would do the same before you were married off to whoever.

Jon knew you wanted to explore Winter Town today, and he couldn’t accompany you, so he waited impatiently for you to get back with your cousin and one guard. It was late in the evening, and both he and your parents began to worry. It was discovered your guard was slain, and you and the cousin were missing. Ned gathered several men to lead the search with your father, and Jon didn’t shy away as he all but demanded to be allowed to look as well. He wasted no time in giving Ghost a handkerchief to track you, and soon the men were following the direwolf through Winter Town. Ghost’s nose led him to a shack well outside of town, where the men wasted little time in surrounding it and pulling out the failed kidnappers.

Jon thanked the gods they hadn’t done anything terrible to you, and he was the one who untied your bindings and carefully dabbed your bleeding lip. You rode back on his horse, and he carefully helped you down and guided you to Maester Luwin, as much as it upset your mother. You asked him to stay beside you as Maester Luwin checked over your bruises and applied a balm to your broken lip. Well after your parents had left, Jon risked escorting you to your room, where you gave him a sweet kiss in spite of the pain it brought you.

JORY CASSEL

A lady was supposed to stay in place and entertain, but you were often restless, especially since your brothers could go where they pleased. One of them finally gave into your pleading and took you with him to Winter Town. Your brothers ended up leaving you to enjoy the brothel, and you enjoyed the freedom to explore the town as you wished. Unfortunately, your fine dress and warm cloak caught the wrong kind of attention. When they finally noticed you were missing, they couldn’t be sure how long it had been.

Rushing back to Winterfell, they went to Jory first. He was skilled and he could get a small handful of men to listen to him - and hopefully, keep quiet about it to your parents. Jory was livid, trying to keep his cool as he swept through Winter Town. It was getting dark, and worry was eating him alive. The attempted kidnappers were sloppy, luckily, and hadn’t gone far. They were no match for trained Winterfell men, and Jory had them taken alive so they could be judged by his lord.

Before that, he had to take care of you. Jory wrapped his fur around you and held you close, patting your hair and asking how you were. They hadn’t done anything, thank the gods, and you trusted his men not to say anything about the secret relationship you two carried on. Once you were back at Winterfell, he visited your chambers in the evening to keep reassuring you, although his relief and worry was evident.

DOLOROUS EDD

He'd told you not to come on the expedition, he'd told the senior officers not to bring you. You two actually argued about it, and you joined the expedition out of spite. Edd had an awful feeling that something was going to go wrong, and it did. You accompanied a small scouting party, and the three of you hadn’t been heard from in days. To say he felt sick would be an understatement. He brought it up with Jon first, looking as dismal as he felt, and his friend managed to send Ghost on the trail. A day later, the wolf didn’t bring good news. Ghost handed his master a bloodied glove, not your’s, but one of the brothers you left with.

Sam and Jon tried to assure him, but Edd couldn’t keep the darkest thoughts out of his head. He assumed the worst, accepting that you were gone, even if his brothers were positive the scouts were taken, not killed. That was hardly better. When you and the two brothers returned, having escaped your wildlings captors, Edd bit his lip until it bled to hide just how relieved he was. Hiding your gender and your relationship with him meant he couldn’t run up and squeeze the air out of your lungs and tell you that he knew something terrible would happen, and it did, and he couldn’t ask you to strip away a few layers to make absolutely sure you were alright. So, he did this as soon as you two were back at Castle Black.

Hiding away in a small dingy room, you’d try to coax the worried, tight expression on Edd’s face as you assured him you only had a few bruises and scratches. He’d sigh heavily and pull you in an embrace, which made it difficult to put your clothes back on, but he didn’t budge. He’d be morose for a while, keeping close to you while you worked to make extra sure you were alright.

TORMUND GIANTSBANE

It wasn’t just your beauty, but your ability to fight that drew Tormund to you. He had an utmost respect for your abilities, so when you were sent on this or that mission, he didn’t worry for your safety - he just frowned that he wasn’t going with you. Tormund didn’t worry when the group of free folk you left with hadn’t been heard from in a few days. This was unpredictable land, after all. The trouble came when scouts came back, reporting that most of the group was found dead, but your corpse was nowhere to be found. They suspected crows, who had been on the move in the area.

That’s when Tormund was ready to spur to action and join the group looking to retrieve you. While they were worried you’d give up information to the crows, he knew you’d die rather than betray your comrades, and that’s what filled him with anxiety and anger. Tormund led the men himself, urging them on through the icy tundra. He was hedging his bets on the crows being soft and keeping you alive.

They found the crow camp and Tormund had to keep himself from just barrelling straight toward you. As the fight began, Tormund was able to cut his sword across your bindings so you could join in. Even if you had a cut on your face, you didn’t seem worse for wear. Once the crows were dealt with, Tormund was quick to pull you in his arms and loudly tell you how relieved he was, adding with a laugh that he knew the crows couldn’t handle such a woman. He’d plan a careful kiss on your brow and look after any wounds you had before you two would return to Mance’s camp, where Tormund would announce to everyone that you were back, and proudly bragged about the beating you delivered to the crows once he cut you free.

MANCE RAYDER

While he loved your cleverness the best, Mance couldn’t deny you had a lovely grace when you fought. It was unlike the other free folk, who stabbed or bludgeoned or slashed until the thing was dead. You were a born fighter, a good one, and you gladly took the jobs that had you in the thick of it. He rarely worried when there was possibility of danger on one of your missions, because you weren’t worried yourself. However, the tribe you were visiting had a terrible reputation, and he told you as much. Mance wanted to go with you, but you were sure you and your men could handle it.

You hadn’t been heard from in some days, and Mance had a gut feeling that he wasn’t comfortable with. That was confirmed when your weapon and the head of your men was sent back to him, with a clear message that the tribe wouldn’t join his army. The fact they hadn’t sent your head was little comfort. Mance gathered his best men and rode out at once, his face stony and his eyes betraying the terrible fear gnawing at his heart.

When they came upon the camp, it was a hard fight, and Mance grasped the leader by the throat as he demanded where you were. You were carelessly left in one of their tents, bound and suffering more than a few injuries. Mance untied you, wrapped you in his arms and assured you that you’d be home soon. Back at the main camp, he tended to your wounds in your shared tent, rinsing them with warm water, good-smelling balms and soothing you in a soft voice.

THEON GREYJOY

You spent plenty of time at Winterfell, usually playing with Sansa and Jeyne, but Theon was fond of teasing you just to see your cute face flush and yell at him. He wasn’t always a jerk. He’d been helping you work on your archery, and you two could talk on and on about horses. He knew your parents and Lady Stark didn’t approve of your friendship with him, so he always got a little thrill when he stole your attention. Of course, he insisted to Robb and Jon that you were the one with the crush.

His cocky attitude disappeared quickly when your parents came running to Lord Stark in a panic, explaining you were taken right outside their keep and they were delivered a terrible ransom note. Theon joined Robb and Ned on the search for you, trying to still his hammering heart as they followed the scent hounds. He was trying not to think of all the awful things that could be happening to you, and spurred his horse faster once the hounds picked up a scent.

He and Robb were the first ones to ride on the camp and attack the kidnappers. Ned had to remind him to leave them alive to face their punishment - Theon was too eager in beating them to a pulp, and he felt they should be killed on the spot. You were tied up and dirty, but still alright, and Theon hoped because he was the first one to come to your aid, that you’d ride back on his horse. You rode with Lord Stark back to Winterfell, and Theon sat outside Maester Luwin’s room as the old man looked over your injuries. It was hard to act like an ass when you were so tired and shaken, so he sat at the foot of your bed and tried to make you laugh instead.

YARA GREYJOY

She heard news that your host of men had encountered trouble, but Yara didn’t worry like an old woman. She trusted your skills and abilities, and you weren’t the type to want some honorable death in battle. Then she received the message - a warning from the Northmen who took you. She sighed, picked up her axe, gathered a half dozen men and left Deepwood Motte to get your sorry butt. Yara wasn’t going to let you live this down.

She found where they were holding you in a good amount of time, and you bitched out Yara as she walked in the room laughing. You headbutt her in annoyance once she untied you. The Northmen had tried to interrogate you on the Ironborn’s plans, but like Yara expected, you were made of tougher stuff. Still, she didn’t like to see the bruises on your arms and wrists, or your swollen lip and cut brow. While her men stole what they wanted from the hideout, she took a moment to take you aside and take care of those little wounds. You hissed and she told you to stop bitching, even as she carefully patted at your brow and lip.

During the next few days, when you'd laugh then wince from your lip or shift uncomfortably from the bruises, Yara would slip an arm around your waist and hand you a drink. She'd try to be subtle about touching you more carefully in bed and kissing your lips with less firmness. She didn't want you to feel coddled and mother henned after, but she didn't like seeing her girl hurting so much, either.

DAENERYS TARGARYEN

To say she was angry was… an understatement. All of the Free Cities would hear of her wrath once she discovered you were taken by her enemies. There would be no negotiating or ransom, period - She’d call for Jorah, Barristan, the Unsullied - everyone to look for you, to find the ones responsible, to get anyone with information. Once you were found, she’d take you into a suffocating hug. Barristan would have to remind her that you needed to be tended to, and she’d hold you just a little longer before reluctantly handing you to him.

While you were being helped, she’d gather all the culprits in a public space and give them a proper execution with her dragons, a clear warning to anyone with similar ideas. Even after that, she’d be buzzing with anger and once she was calmed, the worry and anxiety would set in.

As your wounds were cared for, she’d ask the care-taker if they were sure about what they were doing, then she’d want to test your food, then bathe and dress you, insisting you to be still and not help. Once you were in bed, she’d still want to keep you in a close hug, insisting that you were safe now and it wouldn’t happen again, but you were sure she was trying to convince herself and not you.

For the next several days, or even weeks and months, Daenerys would insist you not leave her side, or if you did, you’d have several Unsullied for protection. She’d become quite over-protective, and when you’d express that it was getting to be too much, she’d admit she never wanted to feel that fear of losing you again.

JORAH MORMONT

He noticed you hadn’t been back from your scouting on time, and after an extra hour passed, he began to worry. You two weren’t just lovers, you were protectors of Daenerys, and you always promptly returned from the duties she gave you. When Jorah’s suspicions were confirmed and he learned you were taken by Daenerys’ enemies, he wasted little time in gathering a group of Unsullied to help retrieve you. However, it was Jorah himself who cut through most of the kidnappers once they found the hideout. While the Unsullied finished up, Jorah beelined to where they kept you.

Since you had kicked one kidnapper senseless and nearly bit the ear off another, they’d had you painfully bound and gagged. The adrenaline was leaving Jorah quickly as his shaky hands pulled you free, and you were pulled into his embrace so quickly, it made you dizzy. You were going to tell him not to hold so tight, but your exhaustion caught up with you and Jorah carried you all the way back to the Great Pyramid. Once you two were back at your shared rooms, he immediately began fretting and worrying, wanting to give you a hot bath and a good meal and soft clothes, completely ignoring his own exhausting and the blood on his cheek and hands. You were only able to calm Jorah down by pulling him into the bath with you, and even then he was apologetic, thinking it was his fault in some way. You kissed him until that sorrowful look finally faded, and he took care of any need you had that evening. For the next few weeks Jorah was quite dogged about following you around and insisted on going with you during your patrols and investigations. Sometimes it was a bit too much, but you noticed how he kept looking at the bruises on your wrists or the cut on your forehead that was taking a long time to heal, and you let him tag along.

MISSANDEI

She didn't want to believe such a thing happened. While Missandei initially feared for your safety when you went out into Meereen's streets, she'd become more comfortable because of your training with Ser Barristan and Ser Jorah. And today you left with several Unsullied, but that hadn't helped. The report came back that you'd been taken by enemies of Daenerys, and Missandei's heart sunk into her stomach as she thought about what could happen. She couldn't even pretend to be alright.

So she waited, feeling sick and buzzing with nerves, unable to do more than pace. When Daenerys herself came to tell her the news that you were recovered, and your wounds were being tended to, Missandei collapsed with relief. She waited impatiently until you were finished, trying to gather herself, but all the strength left when she saw you sitting up in bed, fresh bruises and wounds on your body. You pulled Missandei into your arms and comforted her, already feeling comforted by her warm presence. Once you wiped her tears and she took a deep breath, Missandei was quick to make sure you had everything you needed.

She'd continue to tend to you herself, bringing you food, drink and checking your wounds. You'd notice her gloomy expression and try to cheer her, and several times she'd make you promise to be more careful once you were better. Well after your wounds healed, and you announced you were patrolling again. An unmistakable look of worry crossed Missandei's face, and she only smiled after you kissed her and reassured her.

GREY WORM

He preferred it when you patrolled together, both because you two made a good team, and it was the best way to make sure you were safe. On the days when you two had separate patrols and duties, Grey Worm would seek you out once he was finished. Normally, finding you was no problem - he knew your usual routes and you often told him what your duties were beforehand. But this time, he was having trouble finding you in the winding streets of Mereen. He didn’t worry at first, but after searching for some time, Grey Worm was beginning to get a bad feeling. He trusted his gut instincts and he just knew something was off.

That feeling was confirmed when he found your weapon buried in the chest of a thug, both carelessly left in an alley. Grey Worm knew you’d never leave your favorite weapon behind, and the scene had signs of a struggle. He gathered several of his men together and with a rigid determination, set to tracking you down. Even if he was steady in giving his orders, his heart pounded with a frightening feeling he’d never experienced before. It made his stomach churn, but he pressed on.

When they found you, it was just in time. Since you had killed one of their men and given another a hard beating, the kidnappers were ready to hurt you even more than they planned. Grey Worm and his Unsullied comrades dealt with them, and as soon as the last spear was shoved in the last one’s neck, Grey Worm was immediately at your side. He insisted on carrying you back, and he watched the person tending to your wounds with sharp eyes. You had to pat Grey Worm’s hand and tell him to take a deep breath and relax. Your wounds weren’t the worst you’d ever experienced, but he was still tense in the next few days, and asked that you stay home until your wounds were totally healed.

TYWIN LANNISTER

It would take a fool to kidnap the wife of Tywin Lannister, but it happened all the same. Your captors were confident he'd give up all sorts of riches for you, but you were anxious, worrying what sort of wrath he'd unleash - or worse, if he was coming for you at all. You tried keeping that thought from you as you stayed in captivity. It was sudden when the rescue came, Lannister men easily slaughtering your captors. You shook in fear as Ser Gregor of all people led them. A soldier carefully helped you to your feet and led to a large tent. As the captives screamed behind you, you were checked for wounds, given food and drink, and dressed in new clothing. The soldier explained that Lord Tywin was sending for you, as if you were just being picked up from visiting a friend. Still in a daze, you were hastily brought back to Casterly Rock in great comfort.

Once you arrived, you were again immediately attended to. Handmaidens gave you a fine nightgown you don’t remember owning, your bed had additional pillows and you were brought your favorite foods and drink. It was all a little overwhelming, so you sent them all away, and curled in bed, wondering where Tywin was. You were stirred from a deep sleep, feeling fingers running across your cheek and hair. You awoke sleepily, and it was odd to see that gentle expression on his face as he sat next to you on the bed, but you could tell he was trying to be stern and calm as he asked after your condition. Tywin would be adamant about you getting proper rest, and you could tell he was holding something back, but soon you were falling back asleep, still feeling the fingers running along your skin.

In the next weeks you’d have guards always following you, handmaidens attending to anything you needed, and he’d keep you close in public, when he could. In private, he’d handle you with care, and hold you much closer when you two were in bed. One sudden night he’d apologize, saying he failed, assuring you that it absolutely wouldn’t happen again. It was a vulnerability he rarely showed, making you realize the experience rattled him as much as it did you.

TYRION LANNISTER

It was wrong of him to assume that just because you two were betrothed - the marriage arranged by Tywin, no less - that you’d be safe from Cersei’s wrath. You were subtle when you defied her, just enough that she knew you were being insolent, yet careful so she couldn’t openly punish you. Tyrion warned you about treading this fine line, even if he admired and loved your courage. It was bold of his sister, downright foolish, and she’d learn that. She’d learn what it would mean to cross him like this, but for now, he was single-mindedly focused on finding you.

He didn’t anticipate her men would kill you, as that would ruin the alliance between his and your’s, but things were worse than death. Tyrion gathered all the hill clansmen he had and a group of city guards to sweep King’s Landing, and he’d even call in a favor with Varys to find out if the spider knew anything. The moment they found you, he wanted to know - the idea of you being hurt and alone made him sick with fear.

Bronn and a few of his men were the ones who found the small room you were being kept in. Tyrion came at once and had you quietly escorted to a lovely chateau outside of the Red Keep. He brought you everything you could want; food and drink, lovely dresses, a luxurious bed where a maester he trusted attended to your minor wounds. He tried to hide just how anxious he was as he explained you should stay here for a while, with several guards he trusted. While you rested and recovered, he was more than ready to enact the revenge he’d been stewing on.

JAIME LANNISTER

When you didn’t show to the usual secret spot that you two met in during the afternoon, nor in the evening, Jaime immediately felt anxiety brewing. Had you two finally been caught? Was Cersei on your trail, so you were avoiding him? The next day came, and by the second evening your absence was finally noticed by several others. It was a kidnapping, your family claimed, and they had evidence. Jaime was furious with himself at the time he wasted, but he knew he couldn’t leave the Red Keep. He went to Tyrion, shocking his younger brother with how he almost begged for help in finding you.

The kidnappers hadn’t had the smarts to leave King’s Landing yet. He wasted no time in cutting through them, a sort of ferocity that didn’t often come to him when he fought, and he finally had you in his arms again. It was only two days, only two days, but it felt like longer. It could’ve been longer, or forever, if his sister was truly behind this and wanted a way to have you killed. You had to gently ask Jaime to not hold so tight, and that snapped him out of it.

Once you were brought back and cared for under a maester he trusted, one who could keep quiet, Jaime didn’t want to bring to your family yet. Tired as you were, you tried to remind him of his sister and his duty, and you were shocked how he didn’t care. He’d stay with you even if you shoved him away, which you didn’t. You were too tired to argue,, and allowed yourself to rest against his chest as you fell asleep. In the next few weeks he’d visit you often, to the point where even Cersei was noticing his distance and you had to remind Jaime not to be so reckless.

SANDOR CLEGANE

Gods damn it all, you told him. You tried to tell him. You talked of the enemies your family was making, the threats they gave your mother and father. Sandor insisted as long as you stayed in the Red Keep and “didn’t run off to do stupid shit”, you’d be fine. When he didn’t see you for some time one day, he didn’t think much of it - you both were hiding your relationship, and sometimes that meant staying away to keep off suspicion, as much as he hated it. Then your disappearance was brought up by your parents at court, and Cersei more or less dismissed them. Sandor offered to look for you, but he was shot down. Later, he told one of the other kingsguards to watch Joffrey, and when the man argued, Sandor grabbed his neck and nearly throttled him.

Once he was free of the Red Keep, he scoured through the shady streets of King’s Landing, places he knew well, going off information your parents had and daring himself to hope. The kidnappers had you in a little hovel that he broke through with little regard for his own safety. You heard him, and the sounds of men dying as he cut through them. It wasn’t his usual detached killing; you heard distinct agony as the men were harshly wounded and thrown aside. When he all but tore down the door to the room you were in, you ignored your pain to run and fling your arms around him.

He should’ve taken you straight back to the Red Keep, to a maester and your parents, but his body moved on its own. He took you to the small house he owned, just outside the Keep. You had scrapes and bruises, a nasty knot on your head, and you both were quiet as he did what he could. You stayed with him the rest of the day and evening, and Sandor let you hold him as tight and as often as you wanted. He hated that he didn’t heed your words, and the thought that you may have been raped or killed had shocked him into something of an angry, sullen silence that only your comforts and soft kisses could pull him from.

BRONN

When he heard about your kidnapping from Tyrion, he nearly dropped the wine he was drinking, and when Tyrion confirmed it he tossed it aside as he jumped up from the table. You had mentioned some enemies your family was making, and he had brushed it off and reassured you, positive you were safe in the Red Keep. He couldn’t believe he wasn’t there to protect you, and cursed himself endlessly as he led the search and rescue for you. Much of Bronn’s humor would be gone, and he’d take it upon himself to do most of the searching.

He tore through the kidnappers with his men, and as soon as he saw you, he sheathed his sword and pulled you in his arms. Regardless of your condition, Bronn would feel all the tension leave his body because you were alive. He’d have a smirk and give you an overly-confident reassurance, as if he wasn’t making himself sick with worry the past few days.

You’d both ride his horse, with you in front of him and his arms wrapped around you as much as he possibly could. He’d still try to remain casual, attempting conversation, giving reassurances that you’d both be home soon. Your tired silence unsettled him. Finally he’d just kiss your cheek and mumble how sorry he was for not getting there sooner.

Once you two were back and you were cared for, Bronn was quite protective in the next few months, often shirking his Kingsguard duties to follow you around personally, and you’d notice when you two were intimate he’d be attempting to be gentle of your wounds, a side to him you’d never seen before.

PETYR BAELISH

Petyr blamed himself completely when it happened. There were quiet rumors and distant whispers he heard, your family had upset several Houses and created enemies, and you were a possible target. He took measures to protect you, of course - more of his spies watching you, a few incognito guards that would make sure you made it to your room safely. It wasn’t enough, and the culprits struck faster than he anticipated. Petyr set out to correct his mistake at once.

Your family was considering leaving you to your fate, and he wouldn’t forgive them for it, but ... he’d deal with them at a later time.

For now, Petyr used a considerable amount of his resources to find who took you, and where you were. Normally he would stay distant and let other men do his dirty work, but Petyr wanted you by his side as soon as possible. His plans of a grand rescue, rehearsed words, some sort of gallant action, went completely out the window when he finally had his arms around you again. Not trusting your family or anyone else, Petyr would bring you to his private suite in his brothel, personally tending to any injuries himself and giving you sweet reassurances. If they were serious, he’d call a maester, but otherwise he’d want you all to himself.

You’d notice Petyr would become increasingly more protective, insisting it would never happen again, as if trying to reassure himself more than you. He’d absolutely threaten your family behind your back, trying to contain his anger as he considered punishing them with some made-up treason or strong-arming them into allowing him to marry you. Perhaps he could have both, especially if you were already taken with him.

STANNIS BARATHEON

Once he received word that you’d been taken, the tension and anger in Stannis’ body was so fierce and immediate, his men thought you had been reported dead. Finding the culprits and retrieving you safely became his utmost priority, and as the days would pass, he’d sleep and eat less. He’d grind his teeth until his jaw ached and would struggle to wait for news; he’d have to be held back from just going after you himself. He’d implore Melisandre to try something to find you, and once you were located, Davos would be the only person Stannis trusted to get you back to him safely.

When you’d finally reunite, you’d be shocked at the strong embrace your husband would pull you into. It was almost be painful, and he’d bury his face in your hair and struggle to express his relief. Stannis would then pass you to a maester, who would check you over, and he’d stare at the both of you with intensity, making sure any injury, no matter if it was just a bruise, was found and tended to. You’d be able to finally rest in your bed again, and you’d wake up to Stannis asking if he could stay with you. Of course you’d accept, seeing how exhausted he looked. Stannis would climb in with you and bring you close to him, and you’d notice in the next few days how deeply he’d sleep and how tightly he’d keep an arm around you.

In the morning and following days, he’d want you to be by his side as often as possible. He’d occasionally stop whatever he was doing and look over you, sternly fretting about your wounds and sending you to the maester for the dozenth time. From then on, you’d be followed by a regular guard if you weren’t by his side. He wouldn’t budge on this, and when you finally expressed that he was being perhaps too over protective, Stannis would frankly tell you that he didn’t want to suffer a scare like that ever again. You could’ve been lost to him forever, and he failed in his duty as your husband to protect you.Right there, he’d take your hand and swear to you it wouldn’t happen again.

DAVOS SEAWORTH

He wasn't the first person to know, and that made his heart ache. Of course he wasn't - your relationship was secret, and your father wouldn't tell the likes of him about his daughter being taken. At least the man made you a priority: He bluntly told Stannis that he wouldn't join the war effort until he found you, especially since he suspected deserters took you for quick coin. To your father and Davos' shock, Stannis assigned the onion knight to the task. Your father was slighted, but Davos understood. You were taken at the docks of Storm's End, a place he knew all too well.

He tirelessly talked and bribed each fishmonger, sailor and captain on the docks, trying to focus on his work and not let panic set in. Your father was convinced you were taken away from Storm's End, so he searched elsewhere, but Davos still had a few men. He knew he had to find you by a certain time, it'd be impossible to know which ship left with you. Finally, he got a good lead, and more or less used Stannis' name to board an inconspicuous trade ship. Hidden amongst crates under the deck, you and several other girls were bound and gagged, meant to be sold off in Essos.

Davos' composed, determined demeanor dropped completely once your arms were wrapped around him and he could hold you tight. While the soldiers helped the other girls, Davos stayed with you, trying to keep his voice steady as he asked if you were hurt. The whole "secret relationship" thing flew out the window as you stayed close to him all the way back. When your father irritably told Davos to step back, you told him off right away and explained how he saved you. There would be plenty of gossip, but you were too exhausted and overwhelmed to care. You snuck into Davos' room that evening, wanting his comfort, and he gladly gave it to you.

MARGAERY TYRELL

She would’ve been one of the first ones to know about your disappearance, as you two were close and you didn’t show up at the secret place you two kept. Margaery went to all your usual spots and your room, and immediately felt something off. She heard you mentioning the enemies your family had made, and although she told you to be careful and maybe come with her to Highgarden, neither of you thought this would actually happen.

She’d act quick, rallying her best household knights and even her brothers Garlan and Loras. Margaery would go to Olenna, trying to logically explain that your House was close to the Tyrells, and being kidnapped while staying with them would look bad. Olenna would play along, although she had plans to find you anyway, knowing how close you were to her granddaughter. Once you were finally brought back, Margaery anxiously waited until you were checked out by the maester and safe in your room. She’d sneak into your room and throw her arms around you, unable to keep her emotion and anxiety in check any longer, and give you several kisses out of relief.

Once you both calmed down, she’d brush your hair or rub your shoulders if you wanted to talk, and if not, she’d be happy to take you in her arms while you two dozed off. From then on she’d want you by her side all the time, growing nervous if you were gone for too long, and if she couldn’t be there, she’d want a guard she knew and trusted with you. She might even have some handmaidens or guards report on you, to see if you were shaken from the experience or if your wounds were still bothering you. Whatever you like to eat, drink or wear, it would be provided for you. Margaery could come across as a bit excessive, but only because she was still reeling from the idea that you could’ve been gone for good.

BRYNDEN TULLY

He hadn’t known about your kidnapping until several days after it happened, during the chaos of the war. He nearly throttled the messenger, and then rounded on Edmure, wondering why he wasn’t informed. While he couldn’t leave his command to look for you, you’d be on his thoughts in the night, and he’d prepare himself for the chance of you being dead. He’d think about the last time you two were together, what you said, how you felt and the way you smiled, and he’d try to keep those thoughts away as he fought, hoping that they weren’t the last memories he’d have of you.

It seemed like the gods answered his prayers when his men caught rumors that your kidnappers had fled to a nearby holdfast. Leading the rescue himself, they finally found the little fort you were being held in. He dealt with the men easily, cutting past them like they weren’t even there, hastily sheathing his sword before crouching down to pick you up. He’d hold you so carefully, like you were made of glass, and whisper sweet and comforting words as he’d carry you back to his horse.

Back at Riverrun, he’d ensure the maester tended to you immediately, waiting impatiently the whole time. Once you were in back safe in bed, Brynden would waste little time in curling up with you, apologizing for taking so long and not being there. He’d be truly heartbroken, and would ask you to forgive him. Even after you reassured him and fell asleep, Brynden would struggle to sleep himself, still overcome by the guilt and relief that was hitting him at once.

EDMURE TULLY

The Riverlands were safe for anyone, so you and your husband opened Riverrun for the smallfolk seeking refuge from bandits and Lannister soldiers. Edmure confidently left Riverrun and the smallfolk in your hands. When he returned some time later to resupply his men, he was confused by the somber and terrified mood the smallfolk held, then he was told: just two days ago, you had left to help a razed village evacuate to Riverrun, and you were captured in the process.

All the fatigue from marching and battle left Edmure completely, replaced by a frantic panic. At best, they’d ransom you, at worst, you were dead. He knew this, but Robb’s fear was they’d use you to get Edmure to surrender the castle. He sent an impressive number of men with Edmure to try to find you, figuring they couldn’t have gotten far, especially since no Riverlander peasant would ever help Lannister soldiers hurt their beloved Lady. It seemed word of your kindness had spread far, and many peasants were willing to report strange things they’d seen. It meant you were alive, and that spurred him on in spite of his aching body and heart.

The soldiers were just a small group that had overpowered the few guards you left Riverrun with. They’d lured you out with a false report that a village was razed and the surviving smallfolk had too many wounded to leave. You cursed them so much they’d knocked you unconscious to keep you quiet. Edmure panicked openly as he picked up your limp body, and one of his men pointed out you were breathing. Once you were safe at home and your head wound was tended to by a Maester, Edmure finally collapsed next to you on the bed. He increased the Garrison at Riverrun and had to be reassured over and over that you were alright and had no lasting injuries.

BRIENNE OF TARTH

She would be an absolute wreck from the initial report that you were gone, to realizing it was a kidnapping, to setting off with Podrick to find you herself. Several times Pod would have to stop her, telling her to sleep and eat properly, but she’d want to forge ahead. She wouldn’t be able to stop worrying, thinking of worst-case scenarios. Her head would only clear when she had to fight, and even then, she used a ferocity that didn’t often show itself in her.

More than anything, Brienne would be angry with herself, as she swore to protect you and this happened. Once she finally came upon your kidnappers, she’d swiftly dispatch them, not even thinking as her sword guided her. A calm would settle over her as she found you, checked you for wounds, and led you back to safety. It wouldn’t be until you held her face and cried that she’d finally crack and cry with you, the days of emotional and physical exhaustion hitting her all at once.

Once back home, you’d bathe together and she’d have a maester clean your wounds, although she’d hold your hand the entire time. You could tell a heavy weight was resting on her, and once you ate and were in bed, you’d invite her and hold her close. She’d confess she blamed herself, and how fearful she was, and you’d have to reassure and soothe Brienne that nothing was her fault and you were so glad she came to rescue you. You two would end up snuggling and sleeping for most of the day and night. Once you were feeling better recovered, especially with Brienne bringing you breakfast and more medicine, she’d be even more loyal and dogged in her guardly duties. You couldn’t complain too much, as you liked having her close, but you hated the idea of her blaming herself still, and you had to reassure her often.

RAMSAY BOLTON

It would take an absolute madman to kidnap the wife of Ramsay Bolton, and the only explanation is that your captors hadn’t the slightest idea of who you were, no matter the warnings you gave them. They caught you while you traveled on the road, seeing you as a dumb and pretty noblewoman they could ransom. When you didn’t come to dinner that evening, Ramsay was immediately angered, assuming you had run away. Unbeknownst to you, he had trained his hounds on your scent, and fetched items from your room that they could track. He thought he would find you quickly, but the hours passed by, and he finally came upon your dead guards. Ramsay realized it was a kidnapping, and was gleeful, wondering what sort of men would have the gall to take his wife.

As his hounds followed the trail, his glee became apprehension, and that turned to irritation and anger. He wondered what they were doing to you, what they had done already. The thought of your skin being touched or bruised by anyone other than him made his blood boil. When Ramsay arrived at their camp, he and his men dispatched with the kidnappers in a brutal fashion - naturally, he wanted the ringleader and a few others captured alive. He’d find you quickly and ask all sorts of impatient questions - where they touched you and where you were hurt, and you’d struggle to answer. Finally he’d take you back to the Dreadfort, carrying you with an unusual carefulness as he brought you to the maester - he wanted to treat your wounds himself, but his father insisted.

Waiting for the maester to check on you and then for you to wake up wore on his patience, but Ramsay did it, alternating between torturing his captors and waiting at your bedside, sometimes not even bothering to clean the blood from his hands or face. Once you woke, he’d be delighted to inform you of what he already did, and all but beg you to tell him how you wanted the remaining kidnappers punished.

ROOSE BOLTON

He knew becoming the Warden of the North through unsavory means meant he would have enemies, and Roose took precautions in your safety, having you stay in Winterfell with several guards following where you went. His most trusted were the ones who protected you, and he never anticipated one turning against him. He struggled to maintain his aloof demeanor as he was told the news. When the first night had passed, his facade began slipping as he demanded his soldiers to keep looking. When the third night passed, Roose would go out on his own, even enlisting Ramsay and the hounds. His mind was at odds, the cynical side of him insisting you were dead or had endured something terrible already, but he wanted to hope you were safe.

Once his men finally found and retrieved you, he’d pull the fur off his shoulders and wrap you up, keeping you close as he took you back to Winterfell. He’d want to see any wounds for himself, caring for them and giving uncharacteristically gentle kisses to your temple and your lips. The worry would be evident in his icy eyes, and he’d give you whatever you asked, bathing you himself, dressing you and tucking you in with great love. Roose wouldn’t join you right away, though, insisting you needed to sleep.

Once he left you, the rage would enter his body all at once. Following his earlier instructions, his men took the kidnappers alive. Roose dealt with the leader, and once his anger was sated, for once he’d allow Ramsay to do whatever he wished to the rest. After that Roose would be particularly protective of you and wouldn’t want you to leave Winterfell for months. No matter how you asked or begged to leave, he’d refuse. He never wanted his enemies getting ahold of you again.

OBERYN MARTELL

He would’ve been one of the first people to notice you were missing, given that he loved being around you at every moment and you hadn’t been at any of your usual places for hours. He’d do his own investigating and, being the hot-headed man he was, would immediately gather a rescue party to find you. He’d be seething with anger, wondering who could’ve done such a thing, conflicting with his own guilt that perhaps you were taken by someone who wanted to hurt him. He’d be relentless in looking for you, anticipating the worst, and his men wouldn’t be able to calm him or get him to slow down.

Once he finally found where your captors were keeping you, they were dealt with swiftly by his own spear. He’d set it aside and quickly take you in his arms, petting your hair and giving you a dozen relieved kisses. He’d try to keep calm so he could soothe you better, but you could tell how tense he still was, like he was on the edge of a breakdown.

Back at your shared home, he’d want to bathe and care for you himself. You’d get plenty of soft and comforting touches, but you could still see intensity in his eyes. He’d promise you he wouldn’t let this crime go unpunished. Once you two were snuggled in bed, he’d keep a tight hold on you, and for the next few weeks Oberyn would be absolutely underfoot. He would want to do all the caring for you, rather than your handmaidens or the maester. He’d want lots of reassurance from you, as he’d be shaken and would want you to feel safe and happy in your home again, and would even feel guilty, as though he personally failed you as your protector. It would be a long time before Oberyn let you out of his sight, or let you go without guards he personally trusted.

BERIC DONDARRION

When he heard you had been separated from one of the Brotherhood’s scouting parties, and possibly taken by Lannister soldiers, the whole camp went cold at once. The most affected was Beric, who felt like ice was clawing at his heart instead of the usual fiery warmth he felt. The sternness from his knight days, combined with an almost frantic strength, led him as he led a rescue party. While a few men grumbled as to why he’d go through so much effort to save one girl, the ones following him had grown to see you as a comrade and a sister.

To their relief, you had left something of a trail with rocks, small sticks sitting upright in the dirt and even a few scraps of clothing the soldiers didn’t notice you dropping on the ground. You were terrified, anticipating the soldiers would do as they pleased with you, torture you, kill you - or all three, most likely. You heard a commotion, one of the soldiers was shot through with an arrow, and in an instant several members from the Brotherhood jumped through bushes and trees. Before you could even look for him, Beric was beside you, untying you and holding you close.

He wanted to get you away from the camp right away. While his men finished off the soldiers, Beric held you close and looked shaken. He’d take you to Thoros, who’d assure him that you were fine apart from bruises and scrapes, but it didn’t comfort the former knight. You’d curl up to him that evening and he’d sigh deeply, apologizing for what you went through. After that, Beric would be very resistant to sending you on any further scouting missions. His shoulders would visibly tense and he’d sigh again, asking you not to do such a thing.

GENDRY

He always had to watch out for you, because if you weren’t helping Arya with one of her schemes, you were hatching something of your own. While he admired that courage of your’s, he teased you were a bad influence on the already wild girl. However, when Arya came running to him that day, the look in her eyes made his heart sink. She told him no one had seen you nearly the whole morning and day, and she knew Lannister soldiers had been pestering you. She was afraid they’d taken you, like they sometimes took other girls. While he usually wanted to keep his head down, he found himself gritting his teeth, grabbing a hammer from the forge and handing Arya a dagger. Together, they snuck away into the dusk.

At an empty part of Harrenhal, they came across a Lannister soldier who was knocked clean out, and they followed the shouts and yelling. They were just in time: You had hit one of the soldiers with a rock and knocked him out, and the other two were ready to kill you for it. Gendry’s body moved on its own as his powerful arms knocked one of the men dead, and Arya was quick to stab the second. Gendry dropped his hammer and pulled you into an embrace, telling you it was safe now, even if his voice was shaking as bad as your body.

The three of you snuck back into Harrenhal, cleaning the weapons and returning them to the forge. While before he was considering keeping his head down and just working Harrenhal’s forge, now he wanted nothing more than to run away with you. When you said you had a plan days later, he stared at the bruises left on your arms and firmly agreed to help.

#game of thrones imagines #game of thrones #game of thrones x reader #got #got imagines

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tetsurobunni · 3 years

Text

IDK You Yet

☞ songfic based off of the song IDK You Yet by Alexander 23 // 3.1k words

☼ slight angst, mentions of bullying, just wanting somebody to love (insert queen song here), tsukki being tsukki, akiteru being cute, freckles

☼ pairing : tsukishima kei x yamaguchi tadashi

☞ notes : sigh this song...yea // in this story, tsukki and yamaguchi weren’t childhood friends

this text = song lyrics

italics = flashbacks and inner thoughts

The sun cast a golden haze over the empty park in which Yamaguchi Tadashi sat. Gentle birdsong could be heard in the distance, a slight breeze swayed the branches of trees. A volleyball danced in between the boy's hands absentmindedly as he sat alone on a bench.

Today had been hard, just like any other day. The bullies he faced just seemed to never know when to stop; they continuously poked fun at him and made the poor boy feel like dirt. He had hoped that as he got older his tormentors would cease their attacks, but alas, his hopes never came true.

Yamaguchi had no one to call a friend. He tried to stay as translucent as possible as to not draw any attention to himself. It was the same routine for him every day; the only thing he found happiness in was volleyball.

You can see how that would be a problem, right? Loving a team sport when you have absolutely no friends? What a joke.

He sighed, stilling the movement of the ball between his hands. The sun was setting, the sky now a light pink and purple. 'I should start back home soon,' he thought, closing his eyes. Even though he knew the approaching darkness meant the temperature would drop and dinner would be ready soon, he didn't feel any urge to go home.

After all, there was no one there that understood him, or his pain for that matter.

He leaned his head back against the wooden bench, the lingering smell of cherry blossoms floating through the air.

'It would be so nice to have someone to enjoy this with,'

He couldn't help but imagine sitting in this park with the person he loved, sitting close as they watched the sun set.

How can you miss someone you've never met?

His lips curled upwards at the thought. Some would think that was cringeworthy, or too cookie-cutter; but that didn’t matter to him. Yamaguchi just needed someone to be there.

Because I need you now, but I don’t know you yet.

He had placed love on a pedestal for as long as he could remember. His mother and father’s relationship was nothing less than perfect-the love they had for each other practically radiated throughout any setting.

Seeing his two biggest role models share something so special like that made him want it too. No, not want. Need.

He needed the passion, the validation. He needed to be wanted by somebody. That’s all he could ever dream of. He didn’t care what gender, or if they were taller or shorter, bigger or smaller.

Yamaguchi just needed somebody to love him.

But can you find me soon because I’m in my head

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he was met with was the dark starry sky. He jumped, startled, and checked the time on his watch. ‘My parents are going to kill me!’ He thought, frantically gathering his things off of the bench.

He ran down the sidewalk, taking in heavy breaths as he passed by the homes on his street. Lights shone through curtains, shielding from prying eyes. The sidewalk was dimly lit with street lamps, the lone car passing by every so often.

Straightening out his jacket the best he could, Yamaguchi stepped into the door of his house. A lone light was on in the kitchen. He peered into the living room to find it empty, no noises to be heard. ‘They must have already went to bed,’ he thought, flicking the switch to turn off the light.

Yamaguchi padded up the stairs in sock feet, treading lightly as to not wake his parents. As he passed the door to their shared room, he noticed the door was slightly ajar. Peeking into the small crack, he could see the two cuddled up tightly in each others embrace as they slept. Sighing, he gently shut the door.

‘It would be amazing have someone to do that with’

Yea I need you now, but I don’t know you yet.

As he entered his room, he took a second to scan the blank walls of his room. Spaces where pictures of friends and teammates should be were instead replaced by the pale gray of wallpaper.

He sat down on his bed with a sigh, running his hands through his dark hair. It seemed as though loneliness was a routine for him by this point, just the same empty feeling day after day.

To say he was tired of it was an understatement.

But thats exactly what his tormentors said, right?

“You’re such a loner”

“No wonder no one likes you”

“You couldn’t even pay someone to be friends with you”

“You’ll always be alone.”

And lately its been hard

It seemed that no matter how hard Yamaguchi tried not to recall the words thrown at him, they still came crashing over him in waves, beating him down over and over until he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

They’re selling me for parts

“Please just stop, j-just-stop,” he whispered, voice strained as tears rolled down his cheeks. He dug his palms into his eyes to try and stop the waterfall of emotions, but like every time before, it didn’t work.

He didn’t want to go through this anymore. He really, really didn’t. He wished that he was strong; that he could stand up to those people and tell them that he wasn’t worthless.

And I don’t wanna be modern art

The only thing that kept him sane was the feeling in his heart that there was someone out there for him. There had to be. Someone that could mend his broken parts and dry his eyes when the world got too much. He hoped and wished and dreamed about finding his person

He just hoped that they were okay with being the other half of his wounded heart.

But I’ve only got half a heart, to give, to you.

He hoped that, for once, he would be enough for somebody.

~~~~~ Tsukki’s POV~~~~~

Tsukkishima walked down the bustling street, vendors selling various foods and treats filling the air with delightful smells. It wasn't really his scene, per se, but Akiteru had paid him to get some meat buns from his favorite store. There's no way he'd pass up money and free food.

As he rounded the corner, the familiar little shop his brother had sent him to numerous times came into view. He stepped inside, the warm air and lively chatter washing over him.

He swiveled his head side to side, noticing something strange. At almost every table sat a couple sharing a meal, girls giggling at their boyfriends as they shared conversation.

For the first time since he left the house he took notice of the bright pink and red hearts that decorated the walls and windows.

'Of course, it's Valentine's day. Disgusting.'

He rolled his eyes at his realization. Valentine's Day was just stupid. Why would anyone want to celebrate such an idiotic holiday? He managed to shove past a couple who was standing just a little too close for comfort mumbling a 'tch, you're in public' as he walked past.

Not looking back to see their reactions, he walked up to the counter and quickly ordered 4 meat buns- he knew his brother would want more than two and since it wasn't his money, he decided he'd get one for himself.

Tsukki didn't know if he was jinxed by the shop or what, but as soon as he walked outside all he saw were couples. Couples here, couples there, talking, laughing, hugging, kissing. He'd never admit it, but it made him feel just the tiniest bit lonely.

He had never been one for relationships and romantics- or even feelings at that. He had always despised Valentine's Day ever since he could remember. The girls in lower secondary school would give letters sealed with bright pink and red envelopes to the boys they liked. Tsukki himself had even received a few, but he always turned them down.

No one seemed to ever catch his eye, or grasp his attention. All the girls were plain, boring, and dull. Too energetic, too shy, talked too loud- the list could go on and on.

The door creaked open as he stepped into his house, and Akiteru yelled an 'in here!' from the living room. The latter was practically drooling at the plastic bag in Tsukki's hand, basically begging like a puppy for a treat.

"Here, you nuisance, I got three for you. The other one is mine, don't even think about eating it," he said, tossing the bag to Akiteru, who instantly started digging through it to get his food.

Tsukki sat down cross-legged on the opposite side of the table, opening the package on his meat bun. Suddenly Akiteru got a sly look on his face. "Oh, I forgot to mention that today was Valentines Day, sorry for sending you out in that."

Tsukki narrowed his eyes at his brother, knowing good and well that he didn't tell him on purpose. "Whatever, I'm keeping the change from our order as payment for sending me out in that mess."

Akiteru just laughed, shaking his head slightly. "C'mon Tsukki, do you really hate Valentine's Day that much?"

"Yes."

"Well, okay then," the elder grumbled, taking a bite out of his second meat bun. "But answer this, why do you hate it so much?"

Tsukki faltered for a moment. There were many reasons as to why he hated the holiday, such as the PDA, too much giggling, confessions, all of the god awful pink-

"Is it just because you never found someone you like?"

Tsukki's eyes widened. He had never thought about it. No- there was no way he was pissed because he had never met someone he had feelings for; and he for sure wasn't upset about it.

How can you miss someone you've never seen?

"Ah, hit the nail on the hammer, huh?" Akiteru said, his face showing signs of pity.

"Shutup, will you? I don't care about liking someone, or someone liking me, or being in a relationship, or-"

"Tsukki. You're rambling. You never ramble."

The blonde stopped in his tracks. Why was he rambling? He didn't care, so why did what his brother say have such an impact his mood? He let out a quiet 'tch', moving to get up from the table.

"Tsukki, wait."

The latter faltered from his place at the entrance of the door to his bedroom, waiting for his brother to speak.

"I don't like Valentine's Day all that much either. It makes me feel super lonely, and I get into this sad funk that I can't get out of. But, sometimes, I think about the person that'll love me someday. What they look like, what their personality is, all that; it helps a little. You should try it," Akiteru said, a soft smile on his face.

The blonde responded by opening his door, walking in, and shutting it behind him. Was his brother serious?! There was no way he'd entertain such silly ideas. He'd do what he always did: ignore everyone else and keep to himself. No thoughts, just his music.

After he changed into more comfortable clothes, he slipped his headphones on and laid on his bed, letting the sounds of his music flood into his ears. Without noticing, he started to think about all the couples he saw today at the market.

He remembered seeing a girl with blonde hair and brown eyes, much like himself.

'There's no way I'd be with someone who looked like me- wait, why am I even thinking about this-'

He scolded himself in his head, took his glasses off then proceeded to run a hand down his face. He continued listening to his music... that is until he started thinking again.

He tried everything, listening to god awful rock, cleaning his already clean room, he even tried working out in order to get his brother's words out of his head. No matter how hard he tried, his brother's smiling face saying those words seemed to pop up in his mind.

"Y'know what, fine. Fine! I'll do it!" He whisper-yelled, laying down on his bed yet again. Closing his eyes, he thought back again.

"I think about what they look like."

Okay fine, he could do that.

Tell me are your eyes brown, blue, or green?

Again, he couldn't imagine his...person...having the same light, amber eyes as him.

‘Blue? No, too bright...maybe brown? Hazel? Yea...hazel is nice...’

After he got past the eye color part, he came to a standstill. He didn't really care about hair as long as it wasn't blonde... but what else? Would they have a mole? Freckles? Would they wear glasses, like him?

Suddenly Tsukki brought a pillow to his face and hit himself with it. 'I can't believe I let something that my brother said affect me so much."

Nonetheless, he continued.

"I imagine what their personality is like"

This was tricky. 'They couldn't be too loud. Loud people get on my nerves. They couldn't be too quiet either, I can't stand when someone just looks at me and doesn't say anything.'

He thought a little bit harder. 'Maybe they'd like volleyball? That means Akiteru would love them. I wonder if they would like the same food as me...'

And do you like it with sugar and cream?

'Akiteru makes coffee sometimes, I wonder if they put a lot of stuff in it,' he shriveled up his face in disgust at the thought. He couldn't stand all that sugary stuff in his coffee, preferring the bitter taste instead.

Or do you take it straight, oh just like me?

'Okay, I'm done imagining things that won't happen. This was stupid anyways," he thought, sighing and turning over on his side. For some strange reason, he felt utterly exhausted. It's not like he did a lot of physical activity today, so why did he feel so...tired?

His brain decided to play the images of the couples again in his head, and he realized why he felt the way he did. This was the first time he had actually thought about having a "special someone."

The thought made him want to hit his head against the wall.

He never thought that imagining about the person he might be with one day would make him feel so lonely.

Cause lately it's been hard

For the first time, he noticed the utter and complete lack of important people in his life. Of course there was his brother, that was a given, but he had no one he had ever considered a friend. He never talked to one person for longer than he had to, and even ignored some.

He was completely shut off from the rest of the world...

And it was his own fault.

They're selling me for parts

'It's better this way. You know it is. No getting your hopes up, no disappointment, no keeping up an image. It's better this way. All you need is yourself, not anyone else.’

"But having someone there for me really wouldn't hurt... right?"

And I don't wanna be modern art,

His phone screen lit up with a notification. 'FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL' popped up on his screen, and the blonde groaned once he saw the time.

'Two in the morning? Great. I've wasted my sleep on nothing.’

But deep down, Tsukki knew it wasn't 'nothing'. He just made the pit of loneliness in his stomach larger and harder to ignore.

How could he even imagine the person he would love when he was so pathetic?

"You're so stupid Tsukishima Kei, so, so, so mind-numbingly STUPID!"

But I've only got half a heart, to give, to you.

~~~~~Both POV~~~~~~

Yamaguchi tugged the straps of his backpack tighter as he walked towards the staff room. Students shuffled in the halls, chatter and laughter filled the air. Of course, the green haired boy kept to himself. He had already dodged one of his bullies this morning, so he was on high alert.

As if the first day wasn't nerve racking enough, for some awful reason he decided he was going to join the volleyball club.

'This was such a stupid decision you should just turn around right now,' he thought to himself, slightly panicking as he saw the sign that said 'staff room' on the door in front of him.

He just stood there, staring, unmoving, at the door handle. His heart was racing in his chest, all the air seeming to exit his lungs.

"Oi, are you just gonna stand there?"

Yamaguchi jumped from the sudden voice that came from behind him. He jerked his head, meeting amber eyes behind black frames. He tripped on his words, becoming a blubbering mess, finally spitting out a 'Gomen!'

Tsukki raised a brow at the slightly shorter boy, wondering why he was just staring at the door.

"Tch, why were you just staring at the door like a weirdo?" Yamaguchi bowed his head in apology, contemplating whether to tell this complete stranger the truth, but he finally decided he would.

"Um, I was...uh...going to... to join the volleyball club," he stammered, not meeting the taller boy's eyes. He felt highly embarrassed for some reason, like him wanting to join was humorous. Honestly, he half expected the guy to laugh at him.

"Hm, I am too."

Tsukki moved past the green haired boy and opened the door, walking in a little ways before he realized the latter was still standing there.

"Oi, c'mon. Unless you're not actually going to join..."

Yamaguchi's ears perked up at that. He decided, that for once, he was going to do something he wanted.

"Gomen, I'm coming."

Even though it wasn't visible, Tsukki slightly smiled. He wasn't actually coming to the staff room to join the volleyball club, but when he heard that this boy was going to be joining, he decided that maybe he would.

The shorter boy suddenly turned around, hands flailing.

"Oh! I'm sorry for being rude, I'm Tadashi Yamaguchi!" he said, a bright smile presented onto his freckled face.

'Hm, freckles...'

"Tsukishima Kei."

And I hope it's enough.

#tsukkiyama #tsukishima x yamaguchi #yamaguchi tadashi #tsukishima kei #slight angst #songfic #idk you yet

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