#the doctor who brainrot is so strong right now

[bellamysgriffin]

@pscentral EVENT 21: GROWTH

#nineroseedit #tenroseedit #rosetyleredit #dwedit #rtdedit #doctorwhoedit #doctorroseedit #dwgif #dailydw #timelordgifs #usergiu #userhollywood #userriel #userraffa #usermadita #tuserheidi #usertreena #* #pscentral #the doctor who brainrot is so strong right now #expect SO many more sets lmao

[goldenlikedayl1ght]

we're in love - m. murdock

a/n: hi guys not dead just played a LOT of baldurs gate over break and now im back ay college with matt murdock brainrot this ones been floating around the old noggin a while. sorry. likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreciated! <3 warnings: DEAD DOVE with a happy ending, hard of hearing reader, cannon typical marvel violence, probably badly written violence, matt being upset, once again im tired and sleepy and bad at doing warnings, reader gets kidnapped TWICE, reader has superpowers, reader is TECHNICALLY a hybrid but literally just in the way that she has small antlers and deer like abilities (strength, jump height), fucked up experiments, ANGST ANGST ANGST, memory loss trope but like... the one from the hunger games. matt is hopelessly in love with reader, reader wants to kill matt, kissing, implied sexual ideas, cursing. SHAMELESS USE OF REAL OR NOT REAL FROM THG, reader having anxiety, and allusions of sex. word count: 7.1k summary: when your past finally catches up to you, matt truly learns what 'in sickness and in health' means. pairing: matt murdock x hoh!wife!reader now playing: we're in love - boygenius "will you still love me if it turns out I'm insane?/i know what you'll say/but it helps to hear you say it anyway."

Falling in love with Matt Murdock was the easy part.

Falling back in love with him was the tough bit.

You had spent the years leading up to meeting him as a boxer turned vigilante— Your dad had taught you how to fight young, which led to a lot of trouble at school until he eventually started helping you enter teenage fights against your mom’s wishes.

It’s how you paid for college.

And then, after your college experience, you lose control. It was never supposed to happen the way it did. You had lost a fight and stole the guy’s motorcycle in defiance. But the roads were wet from an early snow and people of New York never knew how to drive.

Just like that, the nerves in your hands were shot. The accident got your hearing too since you got sick from the cold after your accident. The infection got so bad that it took the hearing from your left ear—And half from your right.

For months, you thought you’d never gain control of your hands again, snapping from a promising young fighter to a deaf and shaky temp. You were miserable. Fighting was your everything for so long.

And then The Doctor found you.

No, not the alien from the British television show, but a man who promised you your old life back. He found you while you were at your lowest and realized that you would do anything for your old life back.

He said in exchange for your old life, all you would have to do would be a test subject for a harmless new drug he was testing out.

You were so enamored by the idea of your old life that you had decided to take him up on his offer, so you were whisked away upstate with a group of other people desperate enough to try this experiment out.

Every morning you were given a shot of blue liquid into your arm, and then, you were to preform a series of tasks to record your progress. After three weeks you grew frustrated that you had seen no progress. You spent most of your time asking people to talk into your right ear and becoming mad at The Doctor.

About a month in, you started growing antlers.

At first, you freaked out. Like, truly, screamed and yelled, wanting an explanation. The Doctor celebrated, telling you this was great news—And to prove it, he had you pick up a pen and write a sentence out. Your hands didn’t shake and did everything you told them to do.

On top of the antlers and the newfound control of your nerves, you were strong—Fast, too. You could jump twelve-foot walls. The Doctor was obsessed with you. While other patients died off from whatever drugs you were being given, you were thriving.

At the end of your three-month stay, you were excited to leave and head back to your life. You’d just have to wear beanies everywhere to hide your antlers, you told yourself. A small price to pay.

But The Doctor wouldn’t let you leave.

How could he, he asked you, when you were his best test subject?

Being a prisoner was a lot worse than you thought it would be. Day in and day out, you were trained to be a soldier, you think. Fighting various guards, doing different athletic tests. The serum hadn’t fixed your hearing, but it had given you all of these gifts.

Until The Doctor became cruel.

He gave the guards these batons that had shock currents at the end of them, instructing them to use it whenever you talked back or underperformed. For months you struggled through days of electric shocks and experiments.

One night, a guard slipped into your cell, expecting you to be an easy target. You quickly showed him differently, knocking him out and stealing his weapons. And then, you ran. You ran until your feet bled—No shoes.

An old woman who had retired upstate welcomed you into her small cabin and fed you, never asking about the small antlers growing out of your head. She simply gave you a warm knit cap and a pair of boots for the cold.

You remember eating chili with her as she told you about her deceased husband. You changed your last name to theirs, knowing The Doctor would find you if you kept going by your name. You stayed with her for a weekend, coming back from gathering firewood to The Doctor’s men there, having killed the kind old woman and on the hunt for you. You stole her car and never looked back.

The next few weeks after that had been full of killing various soldiers and armies that The Doctor had sent after you, until you eventually pushed The Doctor off a building, believing to have killed him for good.

And that was that.

You went on with your life as usual, finding a permanent job as a secretary. In a law office.

Which, of course, is where you met Matt.

With Matt, you never felt the need to hide who you were. Of course, it was a lot easier to tell him that some mad scientist had infected you with a drug that turned you into a deer hybrid when he told you that he was Daredevil.

And with time, some of the effects of the serum began to fizzle out. Strength, Agility, Antlers—Those stayed. The control over your hands didn’t. But you made peace with that. Physical Therapy twice a week and hearing aids helped.

Especially because early Sunday mornings were filled with Matt running his fingers through your hair, running his pointer finger along the curves of your antlers. He takes your hands and kisses your fingertips as they shake, hushing you softly when you start crying as he does.

He spars with you and spends nights running around New York City with you, jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

He tells you about Elektra, Stick, his dad, and Fisk.

One day, when you feel safe enough, wrapped up in his arms and a layer of blankets as snow falls against the windows, you tell him about The Doctor.  You explain to him your nightmares, and why they will never go away.

He kisses away your tears and promises he’ll never let anything happen to you.

When he asks you to marry him, you don’t hesitate to say yes. There’s not a moment where you regret that decision. You insist to get married in the summer, during the short month where your antlers shed before they grow back. He agrees happily, just wanting you to be happy.

You’ve been married for about five months when you start to think about kids. You’ve been married six when you realize the worst possible scenario is your reality—When vials of blue serum show up at your front door with a note scribbled out—

‘My Best Test Subject,

I cannot wait to catch up with you soon.

-The Doctor’

You call Matt in a panic, begging him to come home and be with you. He obliges and holds you as you calm down. He promised to love you in sickness and in health, and that is what he fully intends to do.

This is the story of the greatest challenge that your marriage would face.

• • •

After the note you had received, you almost exclusively traveled with Matt. Even for just a casual stroll, a walk to the deli or home from work, He was there with you. He knew you could handle yourself, but you felt safer with him close by.

But Matt’s senses were never as focused when it rained, especially on nights like today. The rain pours, it almost stings against his skin. And it’s loud. You don’t have your hearing aids in, so they catch you both by surprise.

It all happens too fast—

In an instant, Matt is being pulled off your arm and slammed against the closest brick alley, and when he hears the click of a gun behind him, he realizes what’s happening. He tries to fight, but before he can make any process, someone is swinging that gun against his head, and when he wakes up, he’s all alone.

He calls out to you and gets no response other than thunder rumbling from miles away. He is filled with nothing but a rage, a determination to find you.

He scrambles for his phone and uses it to call Karen.

“I need you to get Frank.” He tells her, “Please. I.. I don’t know what happened, but.. He took her, I need.. Karen, I need to find her.” He tells her.

Frank is on his way to New York within the hour.

• • •

When you wake up, your arms are strapped behind your back in some sort of metal contraption. You can feel the ache in your hands, indicating that you had fought against whoever brought you here. The room is quiet. A small cot in one corner, but the rest of the room is barren.

You’re wearing white pants and a gray muscle tee, with no shoes. You’re suddenly thankful you left your wedding ring at home, so that it might not end up in his hands.

You wait a while, and then the door opens. The Doctor, flanked by two men in heavy armor, holding those batons you’re all too acquainted with, steps into the room. You simply stare, but The Doctor looks like a child on Christmas morning.

But there’s something else to his appearance. His left eye is this bright yellow, and his pupil is a different shape. Green scales travel up his neck and coat the bottom right half of his face, and down his arms, reaching his fingertips. He looks like a monster, but you quickly realize what has happened.

Whatever serum gave you your abilities, was given to him. Only, his was made from that of snakes, not deer.

“My beautiful creation!” He gasps and takes your face in his hand, planting a kiss to your head, right between your antlers. “It’s been too long, you know.” His ‘s’ sounds are elongated, and his teeth are sharper. He has become destroyed by his own mad endeavors. When you don’t respond to his greeting, he continues to speak. “It’s been an eventful few years for you, huh?” When this doesn’t get a response from you, he stands up straight and backs up just a foot. “New job, new name… New husband.” Your head snaps up at that. “What? You think I haven’t been keeping tabs on you and the boy? What do you call him, then? Matthew or Daredevil?”

Your eyes grow wide, unsure how he knows about your husband’s secret hobby.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” You spit, your gaze hardening into a glare.

“Don’t I? You make quite the couple. The little deaf doe and her crime fighting blind husband.” He laughs, “And they say I like a project.”

“You won’t touch him or I swear to god—”

“Little doe, you misunderstand. I want nothing to do with your husband. I just want you to be the good subject I know you can be.” He tells you. “You and I are the only of our kind. I want to study you, replicate you.”

“You’re going to kidnap more people.”

“You weren’t kidnapped, you volunteered.”

“I won’t do whatever it is you want me to do.” You tell him. “I don’t care, I will escape, I will kill you.”

He shakes his head, taking one of the batons from the guards, before hitting you across the face with it. You groan in pain, turning your head back to glare at him. He sighs.

“I didn’t want to have to do this. But I did anticipate that Husband of yours interrupting things.” He hands the baton back to the guard before telling him. “Take her down the hall and get her ready, alright?”

You struggle your way down the hall, refusing to do whatever is coming to you without a fight. When the guards uncuff you to strap you to this big dentist looking chair, you manage to get out of the grasp of the guard, swinging a punch on him but this newfound advantage is short lived, as the other guard quickly grabs your arms and pushes you against the chair. You’re yelling and thrashing but they manage to get your arms and legs strapped down to the chair.

Your heartbeat is racing, and quietly, only in your mind, you beg. But not for mercy. Not from The Doctor. You beg Matt to come find you. Because you know that you do not stand a chance on your own, but maybe he could find you. He had to find you.

The Doctor sits in a chair next to you and holds up a small purple vial.

“This is hallucinogenic snake venom, mixed with a duller version of the serum we gave you. What this will do is allow me to go into your memories and alter them.” He explains as if you’re getting a simple procedure done. Tears fill your eyes.

“You’re going to make me forget him?” You ask, your voice breaking.

The Doctor hushes you softly, wiping your tears softly.

“Oh, no, little doe. I’m going to change what you do remember about him to make you hate him.”

• • •

Six months is a long time to be without your wife. For anyone, no matter who it is.

For Matt Murdock, it’s absolute torture. He spends all day half paying attention to his work while trying to research who The Doctor is. He spends all night trying to find you.

Frank lives, breathes, eats and sleeps to find you. He’s still technically a wanted man, so he pretty much stays under the radar as he looks for you. You remind him of a lot of guys he knew in the army, of himself.

Karen busies herself with research, looking through cases of old files at The Bulletin to try and see if there are any tips or stories that could maybe be connected to where you are. She gets about as little sleep as Matt.

And Foggy has the most important job of all.

Making sure Matt doesn’t kill himself in the process of trying to find you. Because for the first two months Matt didn’t sleep, hardly ate. And as he deteriorated, Foggy reminded him that to find you, he’d need to stay alive. He needs to shower, he needs to keep going to church, he needs to keep eating. The thought of hearing your heartbeat again keeps him going.

It’s as they’re packing up to go home one night that Frank comes into the office with blood-stained hands. They all know he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have something, so Karen asks first.

“What? What is it?”

“Buddy of mine found a file. Some private medicinal corporation funding a project for some sort of doctor doing cancer research, upstate.”

The location peaks Matt’s interest, because one of the few things he knows of your first experience is that the lab was in upstate New York.

“Okay, but—” Karen starts, but Frank hands her the file.

“Report shows the guy had scales.” He told her. “And I don’t know what you guys make of that but sounds to me like a side effect similar to the serum that was given to her.”

“Where?” Matt asks.

“Red, just—”

“Give me a god damn address, Frank.” He demands.

“I’ll drive you. Come on, things are probably gonna get wild and I don’t want you going alone.” He told him. Matt agrees, but only because he knows he can’t drive and would wind up walking to you.

“Then let’s go.” Before Frank can argue, Matt is walking out the door and going to get suited up for the journey ahead.

• • •

Daredevil is my enemy.

Matt Murdock hates me.

I hate him.

We were never really in love with each other.

These are the thoughts that echo through your mind as you wait for your next round of testing. The six-month mark is pivotal, The Doctor tells you time and time again.

Overall, you’ve made tremendous progress. He tells you that within weeks, other serums will be ready to test on new subjects. Maybe then, he tells you, he’ll promote you from just being a soldier.

Maybe.

You almost don’t hear the alarm going off somewhere in the distance. Of course, you don’t. The serum has never helped your hearing.

The way you remember it, Daredevil, a man who once claimed to love you, fought you to the point that he destroyed the nerves in your hands, destroyed your hearing. It’s fuzzy now, but you know this: The Doctor helped you. He put you back together.

But you do hear the alarm, eventually. It concerns you; it means someone has broken into the building. Your thoughts linger on the masked vigilante that haunts your nightmare. You’re getting stronger to defeat him, The Doctor says.

It’s a cool summer night when whoever it is broke in, breaks down your door. You immediately stand, quickly identifying Frank Castle, a grin breaking across your face. Closely behind, you identify a man in red.

Your heartbeat races, but you just stare at the pair.

Matt strips off his helmet and approaches you, wanting to make sure this was real. That you were real. His hands find your cheeks, and tears fill his eyes. He says your name gently.

“I found you, I’ve got you…”

You blink, unsure of what sort of cruel teasing that was.

Because in an instant, your glare hardens and you’re pushing him against a wall, starting to throw punches at him. He’s too far in shock to react, but Frank is pulling you off of him, and you’re struggling against him.

“Let me go! I need to kill him! He’s evil, he needs to die!” You cry, and Matt is just saying your name softly, in absolute disarray. What had they done to you, his sweet girl?

Frank pins you down to the ground, unsure of why you, a woman he had perceived to be so in love with the man behind him, are so adamant that he dies.

“Enough, Enough!” He barks, grabbing your chin and forcing you to look at Matt. “That is your husband, girl. Stop acting like he’s torturing you when he is not the one whose been experimenting on you for six months!”

“Let me go, I need him gone! He’s cruel, He’s a monster!” You cry, and Matt has started crying. Putting you both out of your misery, Frank hits you in a way that knocks you right out. Matt goes over to your now unconscious form and pets your hair.

“Why was she—”

“I don’t know.. I just don’t know, red. Let’s get her out of here to figure it out, okay?” Matt just nods and grabs his helmet, slipping it on so Frank can’t see him crying anymore.

• • •

If you had a nickel for every time you woke up tied to a chair, you’d have more nickels than you had fingers.

Today is no different.

You’re surrounded by people you don’t recognize. And one you do. Your angry glare stays on him, and he looks upset by it.

You’re unsure why. You’re so sure he just wanted you dead.

The blonde woman in front of you says your name softly. When your gaze shifts to her, you notice her soft eyes.

“How do you know my name?” You ask.

She frowns.

“It—Because we’re good friends.”

“I don’t know you.”

“You don’t… My name is Karen.” She says softly. She goes over to a nearby shelf, pulling out a picture frame and showing it to you. “Here, that’s you and me. At your wedding.”

“My wedding? The one that he set up just to hurt me?”

Matt remembers you telling him that you had never been happier than when you were getting ready for your wedding.

There’s two other men, one held you down while you were meant to kill Matt, but the other one.. You vaguely remember him standing next to Matt when you got married.

He speaks next.

“Matt and Frank, they found these vials in one of the labs. We think the man that took you used it to... to alter your memories.”

“Why would The Doctor do that? He helped me.” You tell them, unsure what to make of this whole situation. Matt is growing extremely frustrated because he knows just how scared you were of that monster.

“Untie her.” Matt tells Frank, and everyone looks at him like he’s crazy. Including you because you know that you’ll just try and kill him. “Do it,” he tells him again and very hesitantly, Frank does untie you. When you’re free from the rope, you step forward to go towards Matt, but Frank grabs your arm.

“Don’t,” he says. But then, Matt reaches for Frank’s gun on the nearby table and hands it to you. Odd choice for a man you want to kill.

“Go ahead.” He tells you, facing you now. “Shoot me, kill me if that’s what you really want to do.” He says. You stare at the gun in your hand for a second, before holding it properly and aiming it at Matt. Everyone waits with bated breath to see what you’ll do.

Pull the trigger, you tell yourself, The Doctor’s voice echoing around your head. He hurt you, the voice says. He needs to die.

And yet, you just stare at the man on the other end of the gun, trying to build up the courage to kill him. To kill the man that for months you have been taught needs to die. That you have memories of hurting you, of maiming you.

Your hand tremors as tears fill your eyes, until you eventually drop your arm, so the gun isn’t pointing at him anymore.

“Look at the photo of you and Karen,” Matt tells you, “You have hearing aids in the photo. I didn’t do that to you, you got into a bad accident, you got sick and that’s how you lost your hearing. I had nothing to do with that. You even had your powers before me, you didn’t just get them in the past six months. The Doctor is an evil man who just wanted to torture people and turn them into science experiments.” He tells you, and you want to tell him to stop, that it’s not true. But something in you tells you not to. “I love you,” he says gently, and you flinch away from him when he says this.

It breaks his heart into a million pieces. Absolutely shatters it.

“I don’t know you.” You tell him.

Sensing that Matt doesn’t know what to say to that, Frank steps forward.

“Hey. I’m Frank, you remember me?”

“You pinned me down when you found me.” He sighs softly.

“Yeah, well.. You have memories of when the two of you got married, right? So those are real memories… What about the ones of him hurting you? Do they look any different?”

You take a moment to close your eyes and really focus on the memory you have so closely attached to the man in red. They’re.. Filmy. Like they have a filter on them or like glass shimmering in the sun.

Tears fall from your eyes as you open them, your hand quickly coming up to wipe your tears.

“I think we did enough for now.. She needs to rest.” The man whose name you don’t know, but he has this shaggy blonde hair. Then this question comes up in everyone’s mind—Where will you stay?

“I’ll take the couch,” Matt says, “You take the bed.” You don’t know how comfortable you are with being alone with Matt in this apartment, even if the memories are fake. They feel pretty real.

“I don’t know if—” Karen starts.

“I.. It’s fine..” you say softly, and that fills Matt with a fraction of hope. “It’s just over night.”

Frank sighs softly, taking his gun off the table and glancing at Matt.

“We’re only a phone call away, alright?” Karen tells him.

It feels sort of awkward that they only talk to him as if you can’t hear them. Well, you can’t hear them very well, but you can hear.

“There’s clothes for you in the bedroom,” Matt tells you, “Go take a shower and I’ll walk them to the door.” Very reluctant to turn your back on Matt, you make your way to the bedroom to gather your clothes and go to shower.

You really haven’t had a good shower in six months, so it’s nice to wash the dirt off your skin and from beneath your fingernails. You spend a long time under the hot shower, letting it burn your skin. Your whole life has been turned upside down because you’re slowly coming to terms with the fact that Matt Murdock isn’t your sworn enemy, and that maybe.. he just.. does like you..

Meanwhile, Matt walks the others out, or at least to the door, hesitant to go too far from you.

Foggy glances back to him before he leaves, curiously.

“How did you know she wouldn’t shoot you?”

He hesitates.

“I didn’t.” he says softly. “I just trusted that somewhere within her, my wife still loves me.”

• • •

Later that night, you stare out the window of his apartment at that bright billboard. You gaze at it curiously, and hear Matt call your name gently behind you. In his hands, he holds your hearing aids.

You put them on, and just look at him for a few minutes.

“You kept them?”

“I never stopped looking for you..” He told you. “I prayed every night hoping to hear your heartbeat again.” He tells you, and you don’t know what to make of it. He seems so devoted to you, yet you have these memories of him beating you until you’re close to death.

“I’m sorry I can’t be in love with you the way you want me to be.”

He shrugs gently.

“In sickness and in health, right?”

“And in torture and memory alteration.”

“Same thing.”

For the first time in six months, you smile.

Maybe your husband isn’t such a bad guy.

You can only hope he’ll love you long enough for you to get your shit together and not want to kill him anymore.

• • •

Memories are a tricky thing.

You decide to spend your days with Frank, hunting down various people who worked with The Doctor. You talk a lot about your memories with him. And no matter what, at the end of the day, you have dinner with Matt.

One night, he brings home Thai Food.

“We had this for our first date,” he recalls. “You got pad Thai, your favorite.” You try to recall the memory.

“You wore a nice blue button up, right?” You say softly. He smiles gently and nods.

“Yeah. I did.” He says gently.

“Can..” You hesitate. “Can you tell me more about it? Our life together? I can’t.. discern between what’s real and fabricated.” You’re making new memories, sure, but you know he misses the life the two of you had together.

But he’s caught off guard by your request. For the past few weeks, you’ve been hesitant to indulge in any memories you think might be real.

“You used to work for me.” He tells you. “Not in a weird way, but our office is small. We fell in love over Thai food and opening statements.”

“Why did you want to marry me?”

He hesitates for a second, not wanting to scare you off.

“Because I love you.” He tells you. “Because when you were with me, it was the closest thing I’d ever knew to peace.” He confesses.

“Oh..”

“Yeah.” He takes another bite of his food. “You know if you have a memory and you don’t know if it’s real, you can always ask.”

You smile softly.

“Thanks.” There’s a soft silence that fills the room before you ask, “I have this memory of us in bed, with you running your hand through my hair.. Your fingers tracing these antlers I have.. Is that real?”

“Yeah, it is..” He promised. “I have a thing about textures and your hair is soft.”

“I’m glad.” You smile. This is nice. This gentleness that’s between you. It’s a softness you aren’t used to, one that you don’t know if you’d ever quite get used to.

Later that night, when you were meant to be fast asleep, you wake up with a startling gasp in bed. You look around panicked. You don’t quite know who you’re looking for..

Until Matt comes into the room, a concerned look on his face.

“Are you okay?” He asks, and this calmness washes over you.

“Yeah..”

“Okay. Okay, good, I’ll be in the living room if you need me.” He says softly. He’s been so good to you, sleeping on the couch for so many weeks. He goes to leave, but you call out to him. He turns back to you.

“Can you stay with me?” You ask.

“Yeah, of course.” He says softly, climbing into bed with you. You think for a second, before shifting a bit, resting your head against his chest. You listen to the gentle thud of his heartbeat, as his hand finds your back, gently rubbing up and down. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He isn’t dumb—He knows you have nightmares. And that on the nights that you do, you’re quieter and more avoidant of him. It’s a bad habit, one you want to break. Because you recognize that your dreams aren’t real.

Matt has never done anything to you, and you’re sure of this.. For the most part. Sometimes when you wake up, you must reorient yourself and remind yourself that Matt has no malicious intent towards you and no reason to hurt you.

But it takes you a few minutes to accomplish this. On those mornings, you tend to keep your distance from him, and because Matt wants nothing but your happiness, he stays away from you. But tea is always placed in front of you, and he never strays far from you.

“Not really.” You finally answer. There’s another beat of silence. “We went as the couple from The Princess Bride for our first Halloween together.. Real or not real?”

“Real.” He confirms.

“You broke my nose once during an argument. Real or not real?”

“Not real.” He tells you. “I would never hurt you. Even when we used to fight at the gym, it was always for practice, never to do actual damage. And when we would spar, it would always end with us going home and taking a hot bath.”

You close your eyes, trying to recall that particular memory. When you find it, your face flushes with this unfamiliar heat.

“You’re still trying to protect me even though I wanted you dead... Real or not real?”

“Real.” He doesn’t even hesitate. He’s not sure if you’ve realized it yet, but he’d rather die than put you anywhere close to being in danger. His hand continues to trace patterns into your skin, as you think about his response.

You fall asleep like this, close to the man who you’re realizing has never intended to hurt you a day in your life.

• • •

The day you realize you’re in love with your husband is horrifying.

Which seems like a crazy accusation to make, and yet, you feel nothing but horror when you realize that you are desperate for him. Which is insane, because you’ve been living with him for two months when you realize you are desperate to kiss him like you’re drowning and need air.

It happens at the office. You decided to cook, because you remember really liking it, and to say thank you for all he’s done for you, you want to bring lunch to Matt at work. So you make this really delicious chicken pesto pasta, and you pick up sodas to go along with it. Matt gets the following text:

‘Your favorite soda is Dr. Pepper. Real or not real?’

Five minutes later, you get a response.

‘Real. Yours is sprite.’

You pick up a bottle of each and head over to his office. You’ve been there a few times before, but mostly it was because Frank needed to talk to Karen about something, but lately you’ve found yourself wanting to go to the office just to see Matt.

Matt is surprised when he hears the familiar beat of your heart on the other side of the door. He can also hear the slight buzz of your hearing aids.

“Sweetheart, you can come in.” He calls, but you hesitate even further. Not because you’re confused as to why he knows it’s you, but because your brain sort of short circuits when he calls you the pet name. But after a few minutes, you walk into the room and place lunch on his desk, as well with your drinks.

“Do you like pesto?”

“We had pesto pasta at our wedding.” Oh.

“So you do?”

“Yeah, I do. Especially the way you make it.”

“Oh, good.” You smile and sit at the chair on the other side of the desk. “Because I made chicken pesto pasta for lunch and figured you might want some.”

“Well, thank you for thinking of me.”

There’s a quiet calm between the two of you.

“This is a pretty killer first date, huh?” This makes Matt laugh, because in his mind, your first date was eating Thai food and listening to music. But this isn’t bad either.

“Well, Chivalry must be dead then, because I didn’t even buy you flowers.” He hums, and you tilt your head.

“I don’t remember you ever buying me flowers.” He frowns at this.

“Well, I’m going to have to fix that.”

And that’s how the afternoon goes. You sit with Matt in his office, eating a homemade chicken pasta and falling in love with him. As you go to leave, he asks you what you have planned for the day.

“I have some errands to run, but I should be home to make dinner.” And for a moment, Matt forgets all that’s happened, and he lets himself believe that you have all your memories of him perfectly intact and no one’s ever made you think otherwise.

You get back to the apartment a few hours later, and just as you’re unpacking your groceries, there’s a knock at the door. When you open it, a delivery man stands with a bouquet of flowers. Your face is warm as you sign off on them.

As you put them in their vase, you notice a note attached to it. You catch yourself grinning as you read his little note, that reads ‘I’ll buy you flowers until I’m old and wrinkly. Real.’

The urge to run back to the office and kiss him overwhelms you.

So you call Frank.

This leads to the pair of you, sitting at a booth in a diner, nursing coffees and toast.

“I hope you didn’t call me here just to complain about married life.” He tells you, making a joke out of the thing that terrifies you.

“No, I just wanted you to sit here talking to a chick with antlers so you can look like more of a freak than you already are.” You tease.

It gets you both laughing. These moments, in between all the nightmares and all of the filmy memories, fill you with a light you can’t quite describe.

“So, why’d you really call me to meet up?” He asks. “I have to assume you don’t just want to chitchat.”

“I think I’m in love with Matt.” You tell him. He raises an eyebrow.

“What? Why does that sound like you think it’s a problem?” He asks.

“I don’t know.” You confess. “It’s like I don’t want to love him, like a part of me still believes he’s the bad guy. I know he does.. Besides, I was so awful to him for so long. I pointed a gun at him and he still comforts me every night. What if I don’t deserve this?” You ask. “What if I don’t deserve him?”

Frank actually laughs—Okay, not like a giggle or a belly laugh, but it gets a good chuckle out of him.

“You and Red with that shit—Questioning if you’ve done enough for something good to happen to you. With the ‘Do I deserve this?’ and the ‘Am I worthy of this?” He shakes his head. “All that shit is irrelevant. Do you want it? Do you want to be with him?”

Tears fill your eyes as you realize what that means.

“You and him, you love each other like breathing, and I know you don’t quite get that yet, but it’s the same reason you didn’t shoot him that day. Something in you knows that you love him and deserve his love.” Frank is speaking from experience, because he knows that no matter what he’s done, he knows he deserves one more kiss from his wife.

But he’ll never get that chance.

He hopes Matt does.

• • •

It takes you a long time to make your way back to the apartment. When you get there, Matt immediately stands from his place on the couch and has this look of concern etched across his face.

“Is everything okay?” he asks gently, “Your heart is racing, I just want to make sure you’re safe and—"

“I’m fine.” You smile gently. “Really, I… Thank you for the flowers.” You tell him. His face softens.

“You like them?”

“I love them, Matt.” You confess. “I’ve spent.. So long trying to rationalize everything, sort out the real things from the things that aren’t..” You’re not too sure what you’re trying to say. “I just.. I want.. I want to try. I want to try and be with you, I’m ready for that. I’m ready to be happy with you..”

He hesitates. Not because he doesn’t want to, because he doesn’t want you, but he is worried that you’re only saying these things because you feel like you might owe him. You don’t. You don’t owe him anything other than what you want to give him, and he is desperate for you to know that.

“Sweetheart, You don’t.. I don’t need.. I don’t need you to pretend like you want me just because I’ve taken care of you. It’s more than enough to just—”

Matt is cut off by his first kiss from you in eight months. Your hands rest on the sides of his cheeks, and his arms are quickly around your torso. The kiss is passionate but soft at first—Until you push deeper, desperate to be as close as you can to him. Your hand even comes up to pull off his glasses to see his eyes.

Without thinking, you pull away from him only for your hand to come down to the hem of his shirt, going to pull it off.

“Off, off, off, off—” You softly request, and he just laughs, taking your hand in his, pressing a kiss to the back of it.

“Stop. Wait.” He says gently. “I just.. I want to make sure you actually want this.. That you really want me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’ve been reserved for the past two months, rightfully so, but now you want to sleep with me.. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret. Or something you do just because you feel lonely or bad that I—” You cut him off with another kiss, breaking it shortly after.

“I want you. I want to rebuild my life with you. I want to create new, untainted memories.. It won’t be easy, but I want to be with you.” You confess. “I want countless summer nights, I want you to be there for all the nightmares, I.. I want to give you the same peace you’ve been trying to give me.”

You’re both crying and you don’t quite know why. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a gold band. He slips it onto your fingers and kisses you again. He holds the hand with your wedding ring on it as he leads you into the bedroom. Into your life together. Into your arms. Where you were meant to be.

The next morning, you lay in the quiet of your apartment, the silk sheets tickling your skin. You focus on Matt’s breathing. He traces patterns into your skin.

“What are you thinking about?” You ask, and he takes a moment to answer.

“You.” He says gently. “You’re all I’ve been thinking about for three years.” He says gently. Then, when you don’t say anything, “Our anniversary was two months ago..” You know he misses the life you could have had together.

The life that he had planned out for the pair of you in his head. The life that oh so quietly, he longs for. The one without nightmares, supplemented by the laughter of any potential children you might have.

“I could get used to thinking about you, too, you know.” And it makes him laugh, as you lean up and bite his shoulder gently, before placing a kiss to that same patch of skin. He swats your arm gently before the pair of you break down into giggles.

“In the future, if you ever.. don’t want to do that, you don’t have to.”

“I know.” You tell him.

A comfortable silence fills the air again.

“I’m so happy you came back to me.” He says gently. “I was.. I spent so long worried that.. that we’d spend years just trying to find our footing again. That you wouldn’t get better..” For the second time tonight, you cut off his overthinking with a kiss.

“I love you.” You tell him when you’re finally ready to pull away. The morning light shines into the apartment, giving Matt this glowing effect. He practically shimmers in the golden light, and you just take a moment to commit the look of him to memory.

You try and take your time, studying him. He’s so beautiful this time of day.

“Real or not real?” He asks you softly, as one hand snakes up to your hair, his fingers gently running through it.

You lean forward and place a soft kiss to his lips.

“Real.”

#matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x y/n #matt murdock x you #daredevil fic #daredevil #matt murdock fic #matt murdock angst #matt murdock fluff #matt murdock hurt/comfort #matt murdock love of my life #frank castle #karen page #foggy nelson #marvel fic #mcu fanfic #marvel comics #hard of hearing!reader #hoh!reader #deaf!reader

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

How would the M6 react to a very very short MC? Probably 4'10 or less?

No I'm not projecting, I'm a tol gorl (I'm a gnome)

The Arcana HCs: M6 with a short MC

~ @zedibleandedible of course you're not, you are a perfectly average height XD I hope you like these, friend! - brainrot ~

-- for headcanon purposes, MC is a fully grown, 4'9 adult. I'll be putting M6's canon heights by their names as well --

Julian - 6'4

Upon meeting you, his mind follows this logical process exactly:

Wow, you are very short

He knows a short person very well. That short person is Pasha

Pasha is not to be messed with

Therefore, you are not to be messed with

But also, Pasha is his precious little sister and must be protected at all costs

Therefore, MC is clearly meant to become someone very precious to him, and he must now protect them at all costs too

This is what was going on behind that plague doctor's mask before you were able to get a read on him. He was stalling because he needed to figure out how to proceed

Having learned the hard way with his little sister, he is going to check first before making any jokes about your height

But if you give him permission, he is going to make so many. He's been saving up short jokes about Portia for years and this is a brand new innocent person to unleash them all on

Kisses work by grabbing his collar and yanking. He doesn't mind it

Asra - 5'8

They think you're perfect and adorable in every way. Your height just puts you at optimal top-of-the-head kisses level

If you think he won't take advantage of this to hold you to his heartbeat each time he hugs you, he absolutely will

They're used to being the short one in their friend groups, so you're definitely a change of pace (in a good way!)

Every time he sees you he wants to pick you up

They want to pat the top of your head so badly

It's right there, and it's so pattable!

But he's so careful about not pressuring you that it takes months of you asking if there's something wrong with your hair before he explains why he keeps staring at it

Teaches you all kinds of spells to float things off of high shelves

Likes watching you put people in their place when they assume that being short means it's okay to pick on you

Knits you a closetful of beanies because the top of your head is visible and so cute and they keep getting distracted whenever they can see it. Joke's on him, you're even cuter wearing the stuff they made for you

Nadia - 5'10

She's composed on the outside but on the inside she's melting

You will not know until you've been together for a very long time and you know just how much she respects you, because

Oh my goodness

She needs to squish you so bad

Or pick you up in her arms. Just once

She knows for a fact that you are strong and smart and capable and someone to take seriously

But you are an entire foot shorter than she is

On the plus side, it means she can just smother you every time she pulls you close for a hug

On the down side, she never wants to miss the opportunity to kiss you, but she's worried that her lips aren't easily accessible enough for when you want to initiate

She starts wearing clothes with lots of fabric flowing from her shoulders so it's easier for you to pull her down for a smooch

Will absolutely destroy anyone who insinuates that you can't be taken seriously because you're too small. Valerius learned a valuable lesson about not looking down his nose at you

Muriel - 6'10

He's terrified

Look, he is over two feet taller than you are. That's at least one chicken's difference. Maybe even two small chickens

What if he hurts you on accident? What if he walks into a room and doesn't see you there? What if you stand next to him and he hits you with his elbow?

Even more scared when you have to share a sleeping space, if he rolls over he could crush you and you wouldn't be able to escape

Until he sees how you respond to Morga and how easily you take to fighting

He's still terrified, but in the other direction

You can do insanely powerful things for someone your size

You also show him proof of his size being a positive thing - you're constantly asking him to reach things for you, and you're always using his wake to get through crowds

He doesn't want to have to double over each time he wants a hug or a kiss, so he gets in the habit of finding something to sit on anytime you two are in the same space so he's easy to reach

Suddenly the hut and clearing have so many tree stump stools

Portia - 5'1

FINALLY

Finally, somebody's shorter than her and not by half an inch!

She knows how annoying all the short jokes can be, she's not going to put you through that

Unless the cuteness aggression kicks in and then she is unloading every joke she's gotten over the years just for the satisfaction of not being on the receiving end of them

Loves being able to lean her head on top of yours during hugs and does so constantly

If you ask her to reach something down for you she will melt into a smug little puddle and gently tease you afterwards

Both of you are people to be reckoned with, so if the two of you ever get an insensitive comment from some foreign noble about Vesuvia sending "travel-sized" citizens they are in for a rough time

All the sailors on the boat now mentally equate "short" with "very strong"

But you are still their go-to person for when there's a small sack of something that's been wedged between a barrel and the corner of the hold, and then would you be so kind as to squeeze in and grab it for them?

Lucio - 5'10

Oh, you never heard the end of it when he was still a ghostly goatman

He was calling you every height-referencing nickname under the sun, and the more annoyed or upset you got the cuter he thought it was

Wait, cute? Oh no. Oh no, he thinks you're cute oh nooo ...

He tones it down quite a bit as he comes to respect and admire you, and eventually quits the nicknames altogether in an attempt to get you to like him better too

But he will never stop loving your height difference!

He feels so tall and manly and big next to you

Every time you ask him to reach something or look over the crowd for you his chest puffs up with pride

Makes the offer multiple times for you to sit on his shoulders to see a performance or announcement better whenever you're passing through a busy marketplace or town square

Will defend your honor against anyone who insults your height, but likes it even better when he holds your travel pack for you while you correct them

#ask arcana brainrot #the arcana #the arcana headcanons #the arcana hc #asra the arcana #julian the arcana #nadia the arcana #muriel the arcana #portia the arcana #lucio the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana fluff #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #portia devorak #lucio morgasson

[adaptacy]

Survivor!Leland Headcanons

AKA: Post-TCSM Leland

Cw: Angst, wound scars, injuries, trauma, death, self-damaging behaviors, mention of s/h & sewer slidal thoughts

the brainrot is real and im sorry lee but you are my angst voodoo doll, luv ya bb :(

Important Notes:

I h/c that only he and Connie survived because they're the ones who escape in most of my games, but honestly most of these can go along with whoever you h/c survived- unless you h/c that Leland died... uhm... but then idk why you're here so.. gonna pretend that's not a thing

Also h/c that him and Sonny were definitely dating... you can't convince me otherwise. the whole relationship with Ana was totes a cover up cause it was the 70s but he was still close with all of them, ofc.

~ ~ ~

Dizziness/nausea:

Leland was strung up by his ankles for ~2 days in that basement. He still has bouts of dizziness for years after, and he can't go on rides that go upside down because a) trauma and b) he gets really really sick and really dizzy easily. He also has motion sickness as a result of this.

He has trouble smelling things sometimes- like, most of the time, it's fine, but if its something a little faint, he can't smell it. He was surrounded by such a thick stench of rotting meat and death for a while, and it ruined his sense of smell. He also gets nauseous easily when there is a very strong smell, especially if its something like roadkill or even just the smell of meat, like if someone is cooking and the smell is too strong.

Diet:

He was a vegan for like 4-6 months after the incident because he could not eat meat without thinking about the family, what happened to his friends-- what they became. It made him horribly sick, and he refused to eat meat ever again, but it didn't last.

See, even though he was taking iron supplements to make up for the lack of meat, he was having more trouble exercising. and he was exercising a lot. He didn't ever wanna be weak again. He didn't ever want to be unable to defend his friends, to save them, to fight back. So he worked, and worked, and worked. Punching bags were his go-to. Leland is not an angry or violent person, but he wanted to hone his technique just in case. He couldn't risk letting anyone of his friends/family be in danger again.

However, due to his vegan diet, he didn't have the energy required for how much he was straining himself. And he'd get sick because he wasn't eating filling enough meals for all the calories he was burning.

Eventually, choosing that his strength was more important, he started eating meat again, but it took a long time before he was able to eat it without reminders bubbling up. Like... a year and a half. And even then, it happens sometimes. When he bites into something that isn't cooked all the way through- he can't eat boiled chicken, or meat stews because the meat is too soft. Before the incident, he loved medium rare steak, but now he has to eat it well-done because seeing the pink, or worse, seeing the red juice leak out whenever he bites into it immediately sends him back to watching as the family ate human meat.

Physical Scars:

He has scars from the wounds he suffered. Two long ones on his back, from where Johnny sliced him, as well as a smaller one on his right chest from sissy, who also gave him one above his right eyebrow, and one on his left hip from Nubbins. And while he also had other smaller cuts and wounds, those were the ones that were large enough to actually leave scars.

However, he's dumb and will not let them heal. His doctors warn him that he needs to take it easy so his body can repair the damage, but he can't risk letting his strength suffer. So, he works out, far too hard, and every time that his scars get anywhere in the healing process, he'll end up accidentally tearing them open again when he punches too hard, or stretches too far, etc. In the first two months, there were a few occasions where he'd be at the gym, working out as per usual, and he'd feel the wounds rip a little, and then someone else would come up to him to let him know that he's bleeding. For a while, he had to pack extra shirts to change into because his blood would soak through his shirt and he'd need to change it.

Fortunately, after enough time, they stopped bleeding when he irritated them. But constantly opening them back up led to them being a bit larger than they would've been, and far more coarse. As well as sensitive- and not in a good way. It genuinely hurts if too much pressure is applied, plus feeling the pain in that exact area puts him right back in the emotional state he was in when they were dealt.

Sometimes, if he's in a really bad depressive episode, he'll push on his scars and irritate them just to be reminded of everything he went through. To remind himself that it was real. Sometimes to remind himself he'll never be the same. That he'll never be anything more than a survivor, than a victim.

Mental Scars:

Surprisingly, he doesn't develop anger issues. He develops a lot of other problems, and he'll have 'fits', but he doesn't get angry, or violent. He'll kind of just shut down, but its easy to see the way he goes from super friendly and grinning to leaning back in his chair, his eyes somewhat dark, staring off into the distance. It's easy to bring him back by just saying him name, or tapping him on the shoulder, but it does happen.

He's put on a lot of medications, mostly for his injuries, but the only ones that stick past the first year are anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds, and meds to help him sleep. He also meets with a therapist- he's cycled through a few of them, and he started out meeting with them twice a week, but after 3-ish years, he only meets with them once a month. Not because he doesn't need the help- but because he doesn't like revisiting the topic so often, he's trying his best to move on with his life.

He has really bad nightmares, as is to be expected. He'll wake up in cold sweats, and thoroughly believe the sweat is blood, that he's back in the basement, covered in a mix of his own blood and the blood of his friends, and he'll rush into the bathroom, taking off his shirt to check his scars, but they're still just scars. He has to check every single one of them to make sure they're not bleeding, even when they haven't bled in years.

The survivor's guilt is real with this one. He'll see something that reminds him of one of them, and for a while, he'd even go to call them whenever something happened, his hand barely even touching the mounted phone before he remembers. Remembers that they're gone. That they're not coming back. And he wishes it were him. He wishes he'd died instead of them, even if it just brought one of them back.

When he was still trying out different medications, he suffered from a lot of suicidal ideations. He's normally a really cheery guy, and he felt like it was wrong to feel bad- he felt like he wasn't being the person he was supposed to be when he was sad. And that made him feel like a failure. And he didn't want to keep letting people down. Fortunately, he never tried anything, but it happened sometimes when he really missed them, too. He just wanted to see his friends again. Wanted to be with them again. But he'd gently remind himself he survived for a reason, even if he didn't know what that reason was all the time. Sometimes he lived because he needed to carry on their memory. Sometimes he lived because he needed to protect others like them. Sometimes he lived because he knew they would want him to. No matter what the reason, he survived. And he knew he needed to keep surviving.

Hobbies:

He spends a lot of time volunteering at an animal shelter. He doesn't really talk about it to anyone, it's just something he does. He originally started it because his first therapist recommended that he find a hobby that gives back to the community so he can feel like he's doing good, and volunteering at an animal shelter was one of his options. He figured he liked dogs, so he agreed to volunteer for a month just so his therapist would shut up about it.

Well, even after he stopped going to that therapist, and cycled through three others, he still volunteers there. He originally only wanted to work with the dogs- maybe take them out on walks, help feed them, etc. But he really enjoys playing with the cats, too. He finds it way more therapeutic than he originally expected, and he does like that he's helping animals who need his help.

He ended up adopting a 3-legged rescue mutt, and he named it Jacs. Most people assume that it's spelled Jax, but it's not. It's named after his friends- and while its bittersweet, the dog picked up on the name and responded to it near immediately, so it stuck. He brings Jacs everywhere that he can, even brings him to the shelter sometimes and the other volunteers absolutely love him.

Reunions:

Going along with the h/c that he and Connie were the only survivors, but this can be made to fit whatever your head canons are. He and Connie, for a while, stayed pretty close, and helped one another get through all of the lasting effects. But, after a while, the relationship faded. They still meet up, but its rare, and its usually a somewhat tense encounter.

When they were all teenagers, heading off to different colleges, they promised to stay friends forever. And it worked- they stayed friends throughout college, meeting up during holidays, and even had their college graduation party together. And they stayed close friends until the end.

Leland feels guilty. He feels like he's not honoring their promise, and sometimes, he wonders if Connie even remembers. He can't blame her if she doesn't, it was a long time ago, and a lot has happened since then. And he doesn't want to make her uncomfortable. But Connie is the only living reminder of the group, and she just keeps drifting. She has a life for herself, and she's clearly moved on, or at least is trying to. Leland isn't as good at it as her. He constantly misses his friends, and wishes he could've done something different. Leland feels like he's stuck in the past, and everyone else keeps moving forward. And the one person he can talk to about it who really understands is falling through his fingers.

Relationships:

He has trouble building relationships with people. There's always that knowledge that he'll never love, understand, or know anyone else like he knew Jules, Sonny, and Ana. He has friends, of course, but romantic relationships are practically nonexistent for him. He's tried- he's dated here and there, but he feels like any partner he gets will always deserve better. Deserve someone who doesn't have so much baggage, who isn't hung up on the past, who isn't wrecked by anxiety like he is. Because of that, he can't commit to relationships.

It sucks, cause he always wanted a family. When he was younger, if you would've asked him what he wanted to be when he was older, his first answer would've been 'football player', and then it would've been 'dad'. He loves kids, and he loves the idea of settling down, but it feels impossible for him to do.

So, for the time being, he has Jacs, and that's enough for him.

The Notes:

He'll write notes to his friends sometimes. Especially to Sonny. He'll tell them about how his life is going, and how Jacs is doing, or tell them about a new restaurant that they'd love, promising to take them someday. And when he's done, he puts them in a box under the bed. At the end of every month, he burns all of them. It doesn't change anything, but it makes him feel better. Makes him feel like they're still friends.

He always burns them in his fireplace. He'll sit on the carpet in front of it, and Jacs will lay next to him, resting his head in his lap. And Leland will sort the letters out depending on who they're addressed to, and then he'll burn them in batches. He even writes them to Connie sometimes, telling her that he misses her and wishes they were still close like they were in college. He'll even fall asleep on his living room floor as the fire eases into ash and sparks.

#adapting to leland mckinney #leland mckinney #leland mckinney headcanons #leland mckinney angst #leland tcm #leland mckinney angst headcanons #leland tcm headcanons #tcm headcanons #tcm angst

[angelofthenight]

The Monster You Created Pt.6

(Sam Fortner x Reader)

Warnings: Yandere!Sam, Dark themes, Swearing, Kidnapping situation, Unreciprocated love, Sam is v delusional, Murder visualization, Possessiveness, Brief victim blaming, Manipulation

Word Count: 4.1k

(S/n) = Similar Name to yours

Table of Contents

( Sorry for the late update! Game of Thrones has taken over my life and I’m suffering major brainrot of it )

~

“-and she was telling me that ���snow can conceal but it can also reveal”, that’s what she told me right? So they might briefly be able to conceal their, uh, whereabouts, but all that blood spilled into all that white snow is bound to leave a trail leading straight to them. Her words exactly. Like, wow.” Sam said on the couch under a cap and his passionate eyes shaded by sunglasses while restating your personal analysis of the film from last night. “I didn’t know that, did you know that?”

Doctor Alan Strauss shook his head with an amused small smile. “I never thought about it in that way.” Sam threw his hands out with an enthusiastic laugh and big smile. “Exactly!” He sighed joyfully, not being able to cease his wide smile. “She is so smart, it's unbelievable.”

Alan nodded along until he decided to finally bring up the issue that’s been affecting their every therapy session. “Gene, I find it very endearing how much you love your girlfriend, but we’re here to talk about you. Need I remind you that I am not a couple’s counselor.” Sam’s smile slowly lowered and he looked to his hands in his lap. “Yeah, I… I know.”

Alan tilted his head vaguely as he noticed Sam’s energy die down like a candle once he got him to shut up about his girlfriend. “Gene, we’ve been meeting for quite awhile now and I… still feel like I don’t know much about you. I know more about your girlfriend than I do you. You spend most of the session talking about your girlfriend, (S/n), and the rest of the time I feel like you’re waiting for me to mention something related to her so you can bring her up again. And I've noticed that… you're not really opening yourself up to me.”

He noticed Sam’s clear displeasure at his prying as Sam wrung his hands together in an anxious manner. “Whenever I ask for stories or details, you have a tendency to get kind of vague or you redirect the conversation back towards (S/n). And I've noticed that I myself am feeling a little frustrated by this process. When we first started talking, you said to me that you wanted to get better for her. And the more I listen to you… continuously talk about her I’m starting to worry about the possibility of you being a little… dependent on her in an unhealthy amount.”

Sam didn’t tear his gaze away from his twisting hands, too focused on containing his expanding desire to lash out at his therapist for saying such a thing. He loved you, simple as that. Maybe Dr. Strauss has just never seen such passionate love before and didn’t understand it. Yeah, that was it! He just didn’t understand! He didn’t understand the connection you and he had. No one did. Not even his own therapist who he was paying to at least pretend to understand.

Alan disappointedly sighed at his patient's silence, even though he knew from experience that was the average reaction when telling someone what their real problem was. “I have an experiment for you.” He said which finally brought Sam’s attention back on him, a little more on edge than previously. “I think you should start spending a little less time with your girlfriend, and focus more on yourself and your mental recovery.”

Sam stared at the professional across from him, his upper lip slightly lifting. “You think we should break up?”

Alan sensed his client’s tensity, even through his dark sunglasses. He knew he had to choose his words carefully, he learned through some of their deeper sessions that talking with him about the things he has strong feelings or opinions about was like walking on a minefield. You never know when you might step on a trigger for an explosion. “No, I suggest maybe taking a break and go back when you’re feeling-”

“No!” Sam instantly snapped, a mine being set off, before recoiling back into the couch and clearing his throat from his unprepared temper burst. He shook his head while pursing his lips. “I… I won’t do it. I-I need her. When I’m away from her, I get so…” his fingers curled as he struggled to find the words, “like, so physically ill… and weak.”

Alan nodded at this with concern tugging his lips, mentally noting how defensive he got over the questioning of his relationship to his girlfriend. “It sounds to be that your… attachment to her is very similar to an addiction. And a healing strategy they encourage in rehab is slow withdrawal. You might face some painful symptoms but Rome wasn’t built in a da-”

“I think our time is up.” Sam interrupted rather dryly while rising to his feet, cutting off Dr. Strauss’ reach and closing himself off before he had the chance to enter. Alan glanced at the clock and responded calmly while looking up at his escaping patient. “We still have 20 minutes.”

Sam begrudgingly shook his head as he snatched his empty large Dunkin cup from the table that sat between the two facing chairs. “I gotta get going.” He said quickly as he darted out of the house in a heated haste, desperately needing fresh air to calm his huffing breaths from the rage he felt fuzzing up his senses.

Everyone was trying to tear the two of you apart. Everyone.

Even his own therapist was against his love for you, against the two of you being together. Not a soul understood which made him certain that no one alive had ever really experienced real love before. They were all either ignorant or jealous or lecherous.

Everyone was trying to take you away from him. Everyone was trying to devour you or taint you or just use you for their own selfish needs. Sam had already come to the conclusion that he was not a monster, everyone else were the monsters. The monsters that could never be trusted, the monsters whose minds were full of nothing but filth and greed. They were all cruel and ignorant. Every single one of them. In a state of sizzling rage boiling over the pot, Sam fantasized that if he had it his way then anyone who dared tried to keep the two of you apart or even imply it would drop dead in their next breath.

Sam squeezed his grip around the steering wheel of his truck, his eyes blown open as his pupils nearly shook like his iris’ were trying to keep his fury concealed. No matter how many people he had killed, he felt as if rivals or embodied problems just multiplied. And he repeated that thought in his head like a chant as he somehow found himself staring at the residence of the one he wanted to take his anger out on so badly right now.

He watched the man from your work, who had his sights set on your behind when you left his table, as he carried a full black garbage bag to the bin outside of his house. Sam didn’t move as he stared with flared eyes, his breath almost going silent to muzzle his anger with every ounce of his willpower.

He wished the man would just go blind, maybe that would teach him not to look at such areas on your body in such a disgusting way. He wished to rip his tongue out to prevent him from ever talking about you to others in such a filthy way again. And he wished to chop off the arm you had touched, jealousy streaming through his veins like lava as he wondered why the hell would you touch him like that and not Sam?

But he chose to ignore his own wishes and just imagine these desires in his head in intensely graphic detail. He imagined himself getting out of his car and marching right up to the man and plunging his thumbs all the way through his eye sockets. He imagined the blood running down his cheeks like tearful mascara.

He kept this all in his imagination though and repeatedly told himself to just go home, looking at the man was just making him angrier and more energetic to eliminate him. But he couldn’t. As much as he wanted to and as much he whole-heartedly believed your life would be better without him living, he knew that would postpone Sam’s recovery to be normal so that you and him could live a normal life.

And so, even when his mind was running a thousand miles per hour over who else he wished to butcher, he turned his car back on and drove home back to you. But not before picking up dinner though of course since that was the reason he went out in the first place. But even after the drive and during eating dinner with you, his previous thoughts still infested his mind like the plague.

It leached onto his nervous system as when he would take a bite out of his food he would chomp down harshly with a tightly gripped jaw; a white knuckled hold on his fork as his eyes were chained to the table because looking at you just made his anger worse. It wasn’t you who he was mad at of course, but looking up at your fragile form and seraphic eyes only reminded him of the ones who wanted nothing other than to take advantage of your indiscriminate altruism and cruelly rip you from his loving embrace.

It wasn’t until the remembrance that you wanted him to be open about who he had killed and who he had thought about killing crossed him that he finally said the first thing said in the tensely quiet dinner. “That guy who… who checked out your ass and is friends with my boss, I went back to his house again.”

Your eyes perked up towards him, your heart almost skipping a beat from the sudden break of silence. You felt your worries tug your eyebrows up as you feared where he was going with that statement.

Sam poked at his food with his fork as he continued, only giving you quick glances. “I figured I'd be okay, since what you said about feeling better knowing you’re here.” He took a slow breath, almost antagonizing your suspense. “I sat in my car across the street, and watched him take out the trash.” He paused. “I did the whole thing in my head, every second.”

You swallowed thickly, feeling relief grasp your fragile heart but not all the anxiety drained from your ribs. Not as clear indignation was still affecting Sam’s composure as he looked up at you with those dead eyes that had a tendency to come and go during the times where your fright was at its most sensitive.

“I-I want to show him… I-I want to teach him how to behave to things that don’t belong to him.” He spoke slowly as he huffed jagged breaths. “I… I still want to do it. God, even talking about it is making it worse.” He hunched over to shove a bite of food into his mouth to occupy his steaming energy.

As much as you wanted to snap at him saying you weren’t property or an object, you held back. You didn’t bother arguing over that with a man. But watching his anger gradually unfold in a sloppy entanglement of strings, a question raised to your mind in hopes of searching for more redeeming qualities in him. “For the others you… got rid of, was it always an impulse move you ended up regretting?”

“No.” Sam instantly said, not even giving it a second thought, in between bites. “They were all... I… Every one of them deserved it. And I don’t regret any of it.”

Your brows cinched together at this, your mind going back to when he told you everyone he had unnecessarily killed over you. “Even the guy I gave CPR to at work that one time?” Sam rolled his eyes as his jawline became prominent. “Especially him. I know what was running through his mind when you had your hands pressed up against him. That asshole was enjoying it and getting his disgusting kicks.”

You bit your tongue to prevent yourself from saying something along the lines of ‘no, you just know that’s what you would think you pervert’. But instead you just stuck to a short statement defending that poor victim. “He was choking.”

Sam fleetingly clenched his teeth as he shook his head in denial. “Fucking sly bastard was faking it, he knew what he was doing.” His clenched fists began to twitch in his lap as he thought back to that day, suddenly wishing he had given him a more painful death. Your eyebrows furrowed together even deeper. “He was turning blue and his eyes were rolling all the way to the back of his head.” Sam didn’t respond and only shook his head again as he slightly rocked back and forth on his heels while heated huffs populated his nose.

“And what about-” Sam roughly dropped his fork and leaned back in his chair to send you an angered glare. “I don’t know why you keep asking about them. They’re dead now.” He said with a venomous bite in his voice.

Your bottom lip fell from your top, shocked and quite offended that he would just brush all those deaths under the rug. They needed to be addressed whether he liked it or not. “Yeah. Because of you.” You snapped back, copying his glare.

Sam leaned back forward so that his elbows were back on his knees, his once furrowed brows now curving up. “They tried to take you away from me! I had to do something!” He exclaimed as his eyes dilated with depravity interlaced by the seams of desperation. “I told you they couldn’t be trusted. I got rid of them before they became an even worse problem for you. You’re better off without them anyway.” He declared with a dismissive headshake.

You leaned forward as well, your brows pinching together. “And what do you think gives you the right to make those decisions for me?” Sam released a breathy chuckle in disbelief, staring at you as if you were crazy. “We were made for each other, can’t you see that?!” He exclaimed like it was the most obvious thing in the word; his tone desperate and pathetic, almost sounding as if he were begging you to agree.

“None of them appreciate you like I do, none of them understand you like I do. Why can’t you see that? None of them come close to deserving you.” He smacked his hands on his knees to push himself to a stand, too caught up in the swirling storm of greedy desperacy. “And call me selfish, I don’t care, but I can’t share you with anyone else. I won’t.” He shook his head as he looked to the ground with hardened eyes while turned away from you, his lips pressing into a thin line. “Even thinking about you with someone else makes me want to throw up.” He said with big eyes, blown open in a state of animalistic possessiveness of something that was never his to begin with.

Sam’s tamed restraints were loosening and his mask of sane love was slipping, you could hear it through the drowsy glorification of fixated obsession of his ramble and you could see it through the way his jealousy tightened the muscles in his face.

You stiffened in pure dismay, watching him unfold then wrap his exposed emotions back in again as you tried to understand the enigma that was his deep rooted passion for you and how he went about it.

Now you were certainly no stranger to witnessing someone express their jealousy over you, having been subjected to receiving interrogations from your boyfriend over his allegation of your faithfulness when you got too touchy with one of your guy friends. You’ve never been a fan of the emotion as nothing good ever came of it.

Looking back on your friendship with Sam, you were shockingly disappointed that you hadn’t noticed Sam’s jealousy when it was literally right in front of you every single time you briefly conversed with any other person about literally anything. Living with your boyfriend you’ve grown familiar with recognizing jealousy forming. But perhaps Sam had trained his face to remain neutral during moments he surely would’ve imploded if he were alone.

And with your naivety to his burning jealousy came your naivety to his true feelings about you. But looking back you should’ve seen it coming, at least notice how similar his mannerisms around you were to a crushing little school girl.

His feelings for you were almost difficult for you to understand. You thought back to the statement someone had once said in your philosophy class: that love was just a normalized form of insanity. You always had mixed feelings in that debate but now you started to wonder if love wasn’t insanity but instead love causes insanity. You didn’t know what Sam’s mental state was like before meeting you so you weren’t sure if you were really the cause of his sanity’s downfall.

But either way you know that there is something wrong with him; something sickeningly distorted within his fogged mind of fixation that made him take love too far. Maybe he just didn’t know how to express his feelings nor how to go about dealing with the pain love inevitably came with.

Why was this happening? Why you? Was your kindness really so foreign or warm to him that it was enough to push him down the rabbit hole of hysterical adulation? Were you really that desirable in Sam’s eyes that he would inflict life-ending violence on all those who posed a threat to your peace or to him obtaining you?

God, maybe you were still clinging to the image of that endearingly awkward man you’ve grown to value as a true friend rather than a regular customer but you just couldn’t picture him hurting anyone no matter how many times he had confessed to doing so. You had such love-hate feelings for Sam, love for the friendly bond you still experienced such a weakness against and hate for how he ignorantly wreaked havoc over you by holding you prisoner until the stockholm syndrome kicked in, him being delusionally isolated from the knowledge that his actions were only creating a bigger rift between you and falling for him.

It wasn’t until a thought was birthed into your mind that you started coming to your own conclusions that could possibly convince Sam to second guess his choices. Sociopaths couldn’t feel love, so maybe he was just manipulating himself into believing he loved you.

“I know you said you don’t take pleasure in killing but… are you sure? Maybe you’re just using me as an excuse and a justified reason.” You asked carefully, looking up at him with quiet eyes as your heart was racing over the fear you were being too risky with his temper that was already kicking in the moment.

And you were right, your question caused Sam to snap his head over to your direction. His small pupiled eyes were venomously glossy with his nostrils flared and his lips parted with a grip, his brows pinching together. You felt your whole body flinch in a flight mode of fear as he suddenly started marching back towards you with a raised volume and harsh tone in his voice.

“I only kill because of you! Maybe if you would stop talking to so many peo-” He bit back his words into his throat as he noticed the way your shoulders tensed and you slightly twisted on your core as if you were bracing for him to assail you, your bottom lashes smeared with slimy tears.

He took a step back from your fear-stricken form as he ran one hand through his dark hair and the other held palm out to you in an attempt to say he meant no harm. “Ah shit, I’m sorry. God, fuck, I… Don’t be scared, I’m not mad at you, I could never be mad at you. It’s them. It’s them I’m mad at, not you.”

You hadn’t even realized your own reaction until you swallowed the thick lump in your throat and sniffle through your nose. You gulped again as you craned your eyes away from Sam and occupied your hands by rubbing them on either of your elbows to comfort yourself, just like what your mom would do with you after your dad had screamed at you till the point of your pouring tears. “I think it’s time for me to go to bed.” You said through a tight throat as you stood up to walk back over to lay in your bed, cursing yourself for reacting that way in front of Sam.

Sam speechlessly watched as you slipped under the covers and wrapped yourself up in a way to cradle yourself. He didn’t want you to cower in the corner and hug your own body to comfort yourself, that was supposed to be his job! He wanted you to love him enough to go to him for a protective embrace for safety and comfort.

He didn’t mean to lash out at you like that! He didn’t mean to blame you for your own nature. And he certainly didn’t mean to scare you nor make you fear that he was going to hit you. He would never hit you, he was not his father. He just wanted you to get that already! Why couldn’t you understand?

He felt his own throat grow heavy as he watched as you tried to restore yourself back together from the emotional injury of his outburst. Sam bit his lip, dragging his teeth as his gaze sharpened on you. “You probably think I’m nothing more than a monster while all I do is try to protect you.” He said to you, not even realizing the snotty defensiveness in his vocal chords.

It was silent for a few moments, like it was taking a millennium for his words to echo to your ears, and he started to believe you weren’t going to say anything at all. Sam sighed in disbelief, darting his eyes around the room at how this night ended as he turned for the pursuit of his room. Your soft voice, however, spoke up and halted his tracks.

“…I know.”

Sam quickly looked over you, his features softening to match your tone and his eyebrows raised. “Y-you do?”

Your face remained concealed from his wondrous stare as your hunched shoulder along with the thick blanket were blocking the view of your compact smirk. “Yeah, I… I understand that you were just trying to help me. I can’t blame you for being concerned. Maybe I am not a very good judge of character which practically makes me a walking target for social parasites.”

Sam felt a smile twitch the corners of his lips. You were finally getting it! You were finally facing your flaw that made him required to physically harm people. Sam said with a consoling tone of voice, “You’re just too trusting. It’s not your fault. You’re a genuinely good person, pure of heart, too good for this world. In fact, you deserve the world.”

He said all of this with such tender fondness that you almost forgot what kind of person he was; forget your state of lack of freedom and choices. This has happened many times, where he wasn’t shouting either in passion or anger and he just spoke gently with you. Those were the times when you actually believed he loved you and cared deeply about you. Those were the times you hardly believed he was savagely hurting people outside of the house. You would keep forgetting of the rotten part of your reality when he acted this way, it was a complete mindfuck.

And maybe sometimes you liked to pretend that you weren’t a prisoner and he wasn’t a murderer. Pretend your chain didn’t exist and you were just spending the night at your dearly beloved friend’s house. Or just for experimenting, pretending that you and Sam were a healthy and loving couple.

You pondered the question of what if Sam confessed his concealed love to you before kidnapping you. You felt too biased now to ever actually know if you would’ve given him a chance, whether you had a boyfriend or not. But maybe if he told you the truth or even waited long enough for you to start feeling strong feelings for him too, things would have gone much differently. Maybe the two of you could’ve been a happy couple.

But that was only what could have been; what might have been.

Taglist: @alices-halcyon @katlover63 @valareina

#the patient fx #the patient hulu #the patient #sam fortner #Sam fortner x Reader #Sam fortner imagine #domhnall gleeson #yandere sam fortner #Domhnall Gleeson x Reader #reader insert #yandere #yandere x reader #dark fic

[fatuismooches]

SMOOCHES!! Hii sweetheart, I hope you’ve been doing well! ໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১

I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit inactive with brainrots, school has been stressful and on top of it I’ve been struggling with my condition. Everything’s just been really heavy on me with how frequent I go to see doctors. And I may have a rare syndrome that may have affected why I grew so short (4’10). So yeah I’ve been re-reading a lot of your lovely fragile!reader works throughout the weeks.

But I keep thinking on just Zandik holding fragile!raeder while they ramble about their problems. It’s like their own safe haven, wheee you feel heard and protected by the only person who’s stuck by your side since childhood. :( I just wanna snuggle against his strong arms and fall asleep to the sound of his heart beat. Or just being comforted through examinations while Zandik checks to make sure your vitals aren’t deteriorating. But a little angsty thought: on one occurrence where Zandik is checking your vitals and he sees they haven’t improved but slowly decreased. Seeing that the medication you take is useless and he’ll need to batch something up quickly before you take notice or grow concerned. Also, fragile!reader going to Zandy for cuddles or inviting him into their room so they can cuddle. You put on a fake smile and brush it off as “wanting to be with your favorite boy”. But in reality you just really need comfort but don’t want to nag Zandik so frequently that you’ll just be a nuisance. Yeah just fragile!reader always feeling guilt </3 it’s how I’ve been for the past few days.

But I hope you have a much better week than I have had!! And I hope it’s okay to ask, but I remember you writing something about the Harbingers having a “meeting” to figure out who’s the mysterious veiled figure who is at times seen outside the lab with Dottore. I’m not sure if you ever finished it or forgot about it you don’t have to answer this I’m so sorry.

-from your dear boo boo bear 🎐 anon ୨୧

HI 🎐 ANON MY LOVE!!! <333 Please don't worry about me or brainrots! I just want you to take care of yourself. That sounds so so stressful I couldn't even begin to imagine. I hope you're managing to get rest between all of that :( I wish i could provide you with more than my words and virtual hugs, but I sincerely hope things get better for you. *hugs* And to answer your question, I'm still working on that fic, slowly but surely! It's probably going to take a while due to school and whatnot but it'll be finished eventually. I also ended up changing the title to Latin since all my Dottore fics have that theme but I also realized how bad online translators are for Latin so right now the tentative title is "Medicus potest amare? (responsum est quod sic)" That's probably way too long so it'll might get shortened. But yeah!! I hope you enjoy it when it comes out 🎐 anon ❤️

But yes! Many of the times Dottore can't really help with your problems, since they're probably related to your illness and whatnot, but what matters to you is how he listens without interrupting or nitpicking. Whether you're on his lap or cuddling together he holds you very tightly, he unconsciously holds you like that as if you would leave him. But you don't complain since you like the security of his arms. Though if it's something within his ability to do, whether it's simple or not, his clones will get it done for you. Just to make your life even the tiniest bit easier. Examinations are never fun but Zandik being the one who does them makes them a bit more comforting :( You probably dread them a lil bit since they're just a constant reminder of your sickness but Zandik and his clones do try their best to make it as stress-free as possible for you :) which is honestly a challenge for them at first considering what they usually do but dneuwidfd they'll do anything for you, yk?

Wahh the angsty thought is unfortunately a frequent reality for Dottore... </3 No matter how much he sees it, he can never truly get used to it, there's always a sharp twinge in his chest. Though he never tells you what he sees... he doesn't want you to take on extra burdens. And ughh,,, cuddles with baby Zandy ;(( honestly his childlike innocence and smile make you feel a bit better but tbh he's still a smart boy so he can probably tell when you're lying and genuinely feeling down! Zandy will still cuddle with you of course but he will probably tell Dottore that he noticed how sad you are, and soon enough the Harbinger will be in your room again. Reminding you that you are not a nuisance. That although his methods aren't conventional, he's your husband, and he's here to help and comfort you. That you two will be together until the very end of the world.

#smooches talks #🎐 anon #fragile reader <3 #dottore love notes <3 #zandy bb <3 #ahhh im giving you all of my love 🎐 anon :( <333

[seas-of-silver]

for the ask game- since my lukalix brainrot is in perpetual bloom: Gleaming blue eyes behind dyed bangs glanced away, the question followed by familiar unease punctuated by the soft shifting of water against metal: "Do you ever feel yourself... slipping from the present?"

Gleaming blue eyes behind dyed bangs glanced away, the question followed by familiar unease punctuated by the soft shifting of water against metal: 'Do you ever feel yourself... slipping from the present?'

Alix gave an empty laugh as she sat next to Luka on the bow of the Couffaine boat, glad those eyes of his weren't focused on her as she stared at the water. Those eyes of his had a power over her that she couldn't explain.

'The present is the only constant I can rely on,' Alix answered wryly. 'The present is wherever I am right now, the past is where I was, and the future is where I will be. The past could be three thousand years from now, and the future could be two hundred years ago. If I try to think of time as chronological, I'd have gone insane ages ago. As a famous British character once said, think of it more as "a big ball of wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey stuff".'

She chuckled to herself. Turns out Doctor Who made discussing time-travel and the experience thereof a lot easier.

'Why d'you ask?' she said, turning to the young man next to her. 'Are you "slipping from the present"?'

All humour dissipated into the air and floated away as she regarded him. Ever since she left her normal life behind for one hopping across time and space, she had made occasional visits to her friends when it was safe to do so - she was strict about her visits, making sure it was completely safe before venturing homeward, and if she only had, say, twenty-eight minutes to enjoy her friends' company, she'd be popping back into the Burrow by the twenty-seventh minute. Sometimes she'd see one friend or family member, other times a group of them, and while she enjoyed every second with them, it made parting all the more gut-wrenching. Most visits had either Adrien, Luka, or Marinette checking in with her about how she was coping, and that's how she built up a strong friendship with the guitarist. He was the one who understood the best what she was feeling, what she was going through, and his support was a godsend. But now, it seemed, it was time to return the favour.

'Luka, what's wrong?'

'Something's... wrong,' he answered, looking rather peaky. 'Ever since Monarch was defeated, there's been this... sense of wrongness. Like... the world's axis has shifted. Like the sky is a little too close to the ground. Like the sun is now rising in the south and setting in the north. Something about our world post-Monarch isn't right.' Luka sighed wearily. 'I've barely been able to get a good night's sleep since. I've been constantly on edge. There's this crawling under my skin that's never-ending. I just... I can't- I...'

As Luka's fingers dragged through his hair in frustration, Alix frowned. Luka was well-known for being super in-tune with people and the world, and it is what made him such an unique and awesome person, and for her, a fabulous companion. She found his insight invaluable, and trusted him when he said something was off.

Suddenly, she felt exposed. She thought she'd be safe, visiting home, but now, she could have put herself, her friends, her family, the world in terrible danger. She felt like she could be sick.

'I- I'll look into it,' she promised.

'Please,' he begged, his voice trembling. 'I... please.'

She hugged him, sitting there in the uneasy silence for a few minutes more, until her alarm to leave went off. Quietly, she untangled from him and stood.

'I promise, Luka, I'll get to the bottom of this,' she told him, before walking down the stairs into the boat, transforming, and darting into her Burrow. She had work to do.

~/~

Ask game: Give me the first sentence and I'll write a short piece for it!

#why are both the Lukalix answers so angsty? #idk honestly #it's the mood I guess #pyrusinc #ask game #writing game #seasofsilver writes #miraculous ladybug #ml #luka couffaine #alix kubdel #bunnyx #lukalix #angst #ml season 5 spoilers #fandom friends #first sentence then scene

[sgcairo]

Brainrotting hard rn so here's more dottocapilone thoughts:

Since Pants can't realy reach Capitano's head enough to bonk his head as a sign of affection, he opts to simply grabbing a teaspoon and gently clanking it againts Capitano's helmet. 'Tano sometimes retrives the clank by tapping the corner of Pantalone's glasses, either with his finger or a teaspoon. (i feel like they both drink tea togheter when they get the time)

Pantalone shows his affection to both of them by gift giving, of course. He gets Capitano the fanciest, most high quality supplies for maintaining his armour or his weapons. Brushes, oils, cleaners, blade sharpeners you name it, anything his darling needs to keep his tools fresh and clean. For Dottore, he either gives him some extra funding for his experiments, gets him some realy nice dessert or buys him some newer lab equipment. He knows getting him clothes isn't realy worth it, as the Doctor most likely won't care too much to maintain them, plus his rather questionable fashion choices, so the only 'clothing' item he's getting him is a new handmade mask. He likes seeing at least some variety in his loves looks.

Capitano very much not being used to Pantalone's nicknames. I feel like he was utterly confused when Pantie started calling him "sweetie" or "darling" or whatever other sugary title he came up with. It's especaly strange to him considering how large and intimidating he is, to the point that getting called "baby" feels absolutely ridicilous. He gets used to it eventualy tho.

Dottore's love for Cap most likely started out as a form of fascination or curiousity. What he is, how he's so strong, is he even human and what not. He felt the need to just analyze him completely. Break him down on a scientific level. See what's inside, how and why it works, how can that something reacts to things and how it can be altered. He observed him from afar in a way animal reasearchers observe a newly discovered species, and somewhere in that research, he started feeling something a bit deeper. Just like Pantalone he definetly info dumps him with whatever he has on his mind.

Pantalone is the main guy when it comes to maintaining the two's hygeine. Not only does he need to force Dottore into a bathtub at least once a week like he's trying to shower a cat, but he also needs to make sure Capitano washes his hair(we're gonna assume he has some) well and doesn't use fucking hand soap for everything. Sure, ol' Caps shower routinely, but a single bar of fucking hand soap and nothing else is not enough for a man who spends most of his time in heavy armour. And it's especaly not good for his hair under that helmet of his. Pants helps him scrub his head all nice with fruit scented shampoo and conditioners, all while explaining how to use them correctly. He got both him and Dottore some moisturizers just to be safe too, tho he doubts they'll use them often.

Capitano is usualy the one who makes sure the others aren't working themselves to death. When he has the time he'll stop by their offices/labs and "chat" for a moment, and by that i mean he lets them nap right next to him, either on a sofa or on the cold tile floor of the lab with a few words being exchanged. Before leaving he'll gently remind them to take a break, tho there have been times where he had to vaguely threathen them to rest. He makes sure to have some food delivered to them, or he'll outright bring a small snack himself.

That's it for tonight, i will return👍

(Link to the first part)

Oh dear, now I'm having my own thoughts, let me jump in on this:

Capitano is extremely protective of Pantalone in particular. Not only in a literal way, but he'll regularly ask Pantalone about his health (hc that Pantalone has a fairly weak constitution in this case) and even insist that Dottore check up on him. Capitano is always one to trust his gut, and when his gut is telling him that Pantalone has been looking a little too pale as of late... The Regrator is getting a check up and as much bed rest as feasibly possible, even if Capitano has to lay with/on him to get him to sleep. Bonus points if he can drag Dottore into bed too, Capitano is probably the only one of them with an actual sleep schedule.

Capitano and Dottore spar often- which gets messy when they both let go of their dignity and just start wrestling and biting each other. Dottore's chompers make some serious dents in Capitano's armor, but he's no match for a two-ton man on a mission, and usually ends up getting sat on until he calms down and pinkie-promises not to bite (he still bites Capitano out of spite anyways). Pantalone has walked in on them tearing into each other multiple times, it's safe to say that he nearly had a heart attack upon watching Capitano fold Dottore and throw him into a wall.

Pantalone and Capitano have tea together often. Dottore isn't civilized enough to sit through a nice cup of tea, especially when the conversation is polite, so Pantalone has to settle for Capitano instead. It's nice, especially when the two sit in silence and simply relish being in each other's company. Capitano always insists on pouring tea for Pantalone and himself, he claims that it's his duty (Pantalone is still trying to figure out what he means by that). Dottore occasionally drops by and sits in one of their laps, angry that they didn't invite him.

Capitano insists that he sharpens and takes care of Pantalone's daggers himself, and has even taken it upon himself to find the best weapons for the Regrator. Dottore can take care of himself, Capitano isn't all that worried about him, but Pantalone is the weakest of the three, and the Captain won't stand for it. While he would like to be by Pantalone's side at all times, he unfortunately has duties, making that impossible. Instead, he settles for chasing after the best and most expensive weapons across Teyvat, testing them himself to ensure their quality. In return, Pantalone slips a few poisons into the cups of people he knows the Captain doesn't like, just to do a little something for his considerate darling.

Dottore definitely collapses the second he gets back from work, which thrusts the task of washing him, getting him ready for bed, and making sure he doesn't suffocate himself in a pillow onto Capitano and Pantalone. Divide and conquer is their strategy of choice, Pantalone will take his sweet time washing every little part of Dottore with expensive oils and soaps, all while Capitano is preparing the bed and a gown for Dottore to stumble into. It's a team effort, and once Dottore is stowed away neatly, the two take time to wash each other thoroughly, especially considering the fact that ol' Cap tries to wash himself with hand soap. Pantalone will not allow it, even if it means dragging Capitano into the tub with him.

Pantalone has two rings, each engraved with the symbol of his darlings and some precious stones that remind him of them. Whenever anyone asks, he merely replies that they're for his husbands, which gets a dumbfounded expression out of the person who asked and said "husbands". Dottore is very cocky about it and flaunts the title, Capitano is still trying to recover from the fact that Pantalone considers him his husband. The two make sure to show their appreciation later, in their own ways (Dottore bites him).

Pantalone is the shortest and gets used as an armrest. This is not negotiable.

Dottore will actually agree to dress nicely if it means that they call him handsome. Especially by Capitano, who is not exactly known for dishing out compliments. Pantalone calling him "handsome boy" also helps, though the two have acquired suits more to Dottore's taste to coerce him even further. Pinstripes is definitely one of his favorite patterns, and Pantalone will spare no expense to acquire the most lavish suits with that exact pattern. Capitano is more focused on making sure Dottore stays warm with that twig of a body he has, always grumbling about furs and cotton grades.

I like to think that in this case, Dottore and Capitano were already a thing before, they looked at Pantalone one day and decided simultaneously that they wanted that one.

I'm honestly terrified of Capitano, hand soap on the hair???

#dottocapilone #dottore #il dottore #pantalone #fatui harbingers #fatui headcanons #genshin impact #genshin impact headcanons

[thatwheelchairchick]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you to @rebelrayne for tagging me in this.

How many works do you have on ao3?

available: 29, but I have 1 hidden and a few anonymous.

What's your total ao3 word count?

409,509 (but that's all of them, even anonymous)

What fandoms do you write for?

I mainly write for LITG, but I've written for Harry Potter, Euphoria, Doctor Who, Grey's Anatomy, Gilmore Girls in the last 4 years. Before that, I also wrote for Nurse Jackie, Twilight, The Dumping Ground and many others over on fanfiction.net.

Top five fics by kudos:

Safe Haven | Euphoria, Fez/Lexi at 312 kudos

My Saving Grace | Gilmore Girls, Rory/Tristan at 275 kudos

Piece by Piece | Gilmore Girls, Lorelai/Luke at 239 kudos

Right Where You Left Me | Euphoria, Fez/Lexi at 189 kudos – this one sucks, really want to orphan it as it's only popular because it was posted during the fexi craze.

Protecting Rory | Gilmore Girls, Lorelai/Luke & Rory/Tristan at 157 kudos – this is the sequel to Piece by Piece.

Also, why are my top two are both about rape? Just, why?

Do you respond to comments?

I try to respond to all of them, but I also have like 25 unread because I haven't been in the headspace to respond and most of them I got after the ONS challenge we did recently.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't tend to do angsty endings, but I guess Just This Once could be interpreted as angsty. And the ending to Protecting Rory makes me cry but that's more bittersweet than angsty.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Piece by Piece – it ends with a wedding and adoption, it's not like there's much competition there.

Do you get hate on fics?

Not now. I did a long time ago on old fics, but I haven't since I started writing fanfic again in 2021.

Do you write smut?

I'm even doing a smut challenge.

Craziest crossover:

I haven't done any crossovers that you can find on AO3, but I've written Gilmore Girls/Harry Potter, Twilight/Harry Potter… okay, anything crossed with Harry Potter. And if you could upload thoughts to AO3 without having to write them, there would be a lot more of them.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not in a long time, but it did happen when I was younger… and honestly, I saw it as a compliment because they thought it was worth stealing.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yeah, but let's just say it was a mess…

All time favourite ship?

I've had Meredith Grey/Harry Potter brain rot for years, so I guess that one, but for LITG, Gary/MC. Sorry, he's my man and always will be.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

There are so many that I couldn't even attempt to list them.

What are your writing strengths?

I have no idea. Like I can point to lines I like and say I'm strong at that, but I don't know what it is so I'm going to share something that I think I do well on a semi-regular basis:

His words are poison-tipped arrows, and they find their mark with ruthless precision. For a heartbeat, Nikki's confidence wavers, and the world tilts slightly off its axis. The familiar gnawing doubt that she had long banished to the darkest corners of her mind begins to slither forth, whispering insidious thoughts.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Being concise? Idk

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I'm not a fan, purely because if someone is reading a story in English, they're not prepared to try and translate the dialogue, so unless you add a translation right next to the dialogue, I don't like it.

First fandom you wrote in?

Harry Potter

Favourite fic you've written?

I've had Lexi brainrot for almost three years so Instincts/The Right Choice

I don't know who's been tagged or whos done it, so tagging @mnlpine, @mrsbsmooth and @queen-of-boops

[albino-whumpee]

Genshin brainrot is lowering so bare with me while it dies out. 

CW//limb loss, beheading, deshumanization, emotional whump.

So we don´t know about what happened to Childe in those three months he was away in the abyss, but what we know about him coming back is even such a big mystery. Like, mister, you fell into the fucking abyss, how the fuck did you get out? Climbed out???

So, the only thing my brain could come up with is Scara. It could´ve been skirk, but for the sake of this hc let´s say it was Scara. 

Can you imagine that? 

You go to the abyss in order to investigate. The next week you go you smell of blood and following the stench leads to a kid who looks thin but strong, a blade of water quick on his hands and then on your throat. 

The boy is so scared everything is a monster, so he doesn´t hesitate to slit your throat. Pity, you´re not able to bleed at all even if your head hangs from your neck. 

One scream, one hit and the kid is unconscious. The hell just happened? 

When he orders someone to carry the boy out, he notices something. The boy´s pocket gleams with blue light that flickers as he tries to touch it. So even in that kind of place the archons will still only look and do nothing about the situation of those they rule over? Disgusting. 

Scara heads out after finding out the kid killed quite a few monsters, so their guts and claws is all he takes back to the doctor. He barely spares a look as soldiers drag the boy out, he´s busy keeping his head in place after all. 

However, he wants to make him pay for it, so he takes him to the fatui HQ and once his head is back on place he goes back to his room. He wants to poke into his wounds, twist his guts a bit. The doctor is there anyways, he will fix him. 

But when he enters, he finds him fighting his restraints while a soldier is bawling at the loss of a limb. 

Scara can´t help the surprise in his face. 

He can´t not look at the boy in front  of him anymore. So deeply terrified his eyes has lost their shine, he screams, but does he even notice? Is he even aware enough he´s not surrounded by monsters anymore? 

Probably not, as the Rooster himself stops his water blades by freezing them. The biting ice into his skin pulls back some sense into his head, Scara guesses as he watches him twist around like a worm in between hisses. 

Scara watches from the back as the Rooster slowly calms the boy. Watches him slowly become aware he´s not in the abyss. He would have to be aware and calm to understand he wasn´t safe despite The Rooster´s words making tears come to his eyes.

He turns on his heels then. Maybe it´s mercy, but he tells himself he has lost interest in making him pay for his stupidity later. 

The cringe he feels when he sees him kneeling at the end of the line of the soldiers entrusted to him for the next mission is excruciating enough. Why would he, what does he think- He´s not in his right mind to come directly to his tent at night to talk. 

A simple fatui footsoldier. How dare. 

He makes sure his words cut enough like the line of knives laid in front of him. Without a vision, without powers as the vessel to a heart and abandoned by everyone, learning to fight was a necessity. 

Still, that the boy is looking so attentively at him as he cleans them, taking every hurting word as if it was a gift, what was wrong with him?

He just smiles and excuses himself when he finishes his report, kicking around the bush when Scara questions if he has anything else to say to him. Still, he lets him go. Being thanked for saving him when he ended up a fatui was nothing to be grateful about. 

Scara still finds himself watching that boy grow in the frontline. Every now and then, assigned to missions together. So from one footsoldier that got into too many fights for his own good, he became a debt collector. Even when that redhaired guy came after fatui camps, he stood his ground well enough to chase the intruder away covered in fatal wounds.

Once intel got word the intruder was the Ragvindir heir himself, and he was alive, not killing him earned him a punishment. But being him, he took it gracefully, using the chance to train more and more.

Scara would watch him training sometimes. That boy´s fighting style was harsh, rushed and hasty. Nothing like the elemnent he was granted to manipulate. Still, his strive for excellence showed in his movements. 

A survivor that honed himself a warrior. No, it was more like iron, hammered down on infernal heat until it was ready to start polishing it into a sharp blade. 

With those lifeless eyes of his, who was really the inhuman thing here?

Maybe that was why that family he loved so much had given him away to the fatui. He had changed too much according to the intel he had gathered on him. From a peaceful, almost introverted child, he had become an aggressive troublemaker with a cute face. 

Even if the only thing he talked about was his family, that family had abandoned him. Couldn´t he at least show a little anger about that betrayal? 

The boy himself had looked away, reflecting on the question his superior had asked of him after a report. 

“What do you care?” was written all over his face, even if he put on a smile to tell him he had a little brother and a little sister that still looked up to him as the strong, reliable older brother. They didn´t know yet what kind of monster he had turned into. 

Ajax told him his desire to keep that childish dream of a heroic brother. It was alright if he laughed at him, he didn´t care. He would defend that childish dream with his life. As a weapon, he could fight to protect that much, didn´t he?

The puppet kept watching him then, looking for the moment he would give up, but for once in a long time, a human had been honest and honorable enough to keep up his word. 

With such fragile mentality, he had climbed all the way from the bottom of the ladder. 

At one point, he wondered what would it be like to fight such a warrior that had been consistently promoted, learning from each fight he got himself into. What kind of blade would a weapon like him wield?

 Many years after he found him in the abyss, terrified out of his mind enough to actually half-chop his head off, both of them would cross blades. 

The boy´s...Ajax´s sword technique was magnificent, as well as his use of the spear. But even if he had gotten strong, he still couldn´t cut his neck like the first time. Maybe he didn´t want to as, at one point, the boy pointed the tip of his weapon at him and yet, allowed himself to be kicked down and pinned to the floor to have a blade against his neck. 

A single drop of blood rolled down his neck as Scara watched him lift his hands in surrender. 

“If I wasn´t still some kind of human, I would let you slice it. But until I have ruled the world, I need my neck” he said so lightly, Scara couldn´t hold his laughter as he lifted himself, holding tight the wound on his abdomen. 

“Please, have a battle with me when that happens” the man said, panting in between breaths as he stood. 

“Deal” 

Even Ajax was amazed by his answer. He was even more surprised to watch Scaramouche touch his neck with one cold finger. 

“Whether you give up or you actually defy everything and make it...Until then, this is mine. Don´t let anybody touch it” 

Ajax smiled brightly and for one second the shine came back to his eyes. Even if one second later he wavered on his feet and fell into the puppet´s arms. 

He knew the man in his arms would be selected as the 11th harbinger soon. Testing his strength to inform the Jester had been a lot more enjoyable than he imagined. He had also learned Ajax´s sword was loyal. Sharp for the sake of a few select people. A blade that sharp, even if it cut deep, it would be clean and over in a second. But there was no need to worry about such Ajax betraying him. 

Along the lunatics among the fatui he had to call coworkers, this ginger he had picked up by accident was by far the only one he enjoyed greeting at the banquets. 

He could say he was the only one he trusted.

#idk what says about me getting intoxicated lets me draw #is the lower of defenses? #hmm #scarachilde #delusional moya #scaramouche #childe #tw limb loss #tw beheading #emotional whump #weird shit #genshin impact #sorry i drank a bit more than usual

[kate-les-bridge-stewart]

I'm back on my ultrakill bullshit again :)

This time I'm gonna elaborate a bit on the lore behind this au

Warning there will be some spoilers for ultrakill lol

So basically the ultrakill and DW universes are separate but obviously we know the doctor can travel between them anyways

13 had heard some very odd signals coming from the ultrakill verse

She couldnt trace an exact location on the signal, just that it was coming from that universe

As for the message itself, it was even more bizarre.

It was a jumbled unintelligible mess of symbols and otherworldly sounds, with barely audible words scattered throughout

The only phrase she was able to dicifer was a strange man screaming "LORD PLEASE HELP US" (this was from one of the high concil members when gabriel was busy gutting their asses like fish)

Naturally 13 was very concerned so she went to visit the universe and was greeted with, well, a completely dead earth.

She kept trying to trace the signal which was pointing to an entirely separate dimension in this universe, that being hell

At some point she unknowingly got redirected to a signature being broadcast from V1

She did some searching thru the layers and eventually found v1 who had been running around for a while and started looking pretty tired.

Turned out they had killed everything on that layer but got lost for so long they started running low on power

Also I decided they would be completely mute meaning they couldnt communicate with anyone whatsoever, including the doctor (except other machines)

13 was super fascinated by v1 so she took them into the tardis to get to know them and also help them out

The way 13 learned about v1 was... interesting.

She asked "what fuel do you use? You look pretty low there"

V1 pointed at a puddle of something amidst the grass which 13 soon realised was blood

"Blood?" She asked with growing nervousness in her voice

V1 nods without emotion before walking over to the puddle and trying to rub some of it on their arms. They then hold out one arm to show 13 as the blood seeps into their porous chassis

Of course 13 is feeling some very strong conflicting emotions right now. First of all WHY THE FUCK IS THEIR FUEL SOURCE BLOOD????? Second of all, HOLY CRAP THAT IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE HOW DO THEY DO THAT??????

After a while of 13 doing some sleuthing for info about this universe she learns v1 is one of a series of sentient super weapons who got loose and destroyed planet earth. V1 was running thru hell in search of fresh blood to stay alive

Side note one of the ways she got this info was plugging v1 into the tardis where they projected their memory bank onto a screen for her to see

Now I know what you're wondering, "why the hell did v1 not try to kill 13?"

Because the doctor was from an entirely different universe and also a complex alien they initially didnt actually recognize the doctor as a living creature, or anything at all.

Basically they were so confused at what 13 is that the thought of killing her never entered their head

When 13 realized v1 was kind of a ticking timebomb she immediately whipped up some synthetic blood from the tardis so v1 wouldnt try to use hers the next time they got "thirsty"

As for why shed willingly keep a violent superweapon on her tardis? She thinks they're super cool and wants to get to know them

She also sees them as an opportunity to turn something made to destroy into a force for good. Kinda like what 12 did with Rusty the good dalek :D

I'm gonna continue this in another post. Trust me, the brainrot ain't going away any time soon.

#doctor who #13th doctor #thirteen #the thirteenth doctor #thirteenth doctor #dw au #crossover #ultrakill #v1

[xocasper]

Fuck Me Yourself, You Coward

Pairing: Party Poison x Reader Summary: Party always finds a way to pick a fight with you, even after you've saved their life. A slip of the tongue at dinner that night leads to much more than either of you could've hoped for, and damn does it feel good. Warnings: NSFW content Tags: hate sex, oral sex, overstimulation, light dacryphilia, dirty talk, degradation, humiliation kink Word Count: 3183 A/N: Started writing a Gerard fic, got 800 words in, quit, and ten minutes later I was writing Party Poison hate sex. You can tell by the word count that I was more into this one. Maybe one day I'll rewrite the Gerard fic, we'll see. In the meantime, please enjoy the effects of Party Poison brainrot.

“I can’t fucking believe you!” Party’s voice echoed through the diner as they tossed their mask onto the table in rage. You were just as upset, jaw clenched as you willed yourself not to shoot your fellow killjoy.

“Really? You can’t believe me? You almost died and now you’re mad because I saved your sorry ass? If I knew you wanted to die so bad I would’ve fetched you some Prozac ages ago,” you shouted back, watching as they balled their hands into fists, and for a minute you were sure they were going to deck you.

You really did save them. Did you go about it the right way? Maybe not, but everyone came back in one piece. Party may hate you with every fiber of their being, but you weren’t going to let a group of Draculoids take them out when they were capable of being rescued. While throwing a live grenade in the direction of your friends doesn’t sound good on paper, it did get the job done.

It wasn’t like anyone was in critical condition; you all had scrapes and bruises like you typically did, but they always needed a reason to complain. They opened their mouth to yell at you again, but Kobra stepped in and dragged them off, claiming that they needed to cool down. 

“Tip for next time: don’t set off explosives on such short notice,” Jet said, patting you on the back as he slid into the seat next to you.

“It's not like anything bad happened,” you huffed. “I saved their life and they're being an ungrateful piece of shit.”

Ghoul walked up and leaned against the table before making an outlandish guess. “They’re probably just worried that something will happen to you.”

You cackled when they said this, the idea of Party worrying about you was far too foolish for you to imagine. “Yeah, alright,” you replied, laughter dying out. “Now tell me why they’d be worried about me.”

“Who else are they gonna jack it to?” He gave a boyish grin and you rolled your eyes at him, shoving him away as he stuck out his tongue at you. “They do not.”

While the two of you continued to bicker about whether or not Party fantasized about you, Jet was deep in thought. “Maybe Ghoul’s right,” he interjected, and you nearly gave yourself whiplash as you turned to face him. “Not... not about the sex part; well no, maybe, I don’t know. Maybe they're into you or something and don't know what to do.”

“Bullshit. Party doesn’t have the emotional range for that,” you laughed bitterly, shaking your head at the thought of it. It wasn’t out of disgust; it was disappointment. You did like them in the beginning, how could you not? They were a strong leader and arrogant as hell, but it was charming on them. They also happened to be the prettiest person you’d ever seen.

The conversation ended after that, and you split off to fix dinner. You’d become quite good at doctoring the Power Pup to taste a bit better, which was a hard task with the lack of resources. While you liked the praise you got, you liked it more when Party kept their mouth shut; it meant you had done well. Though you’d never admit it, you consistently strived to do better to avoid their harsh criticism, or in hopes that they’d have something nice to say.

As the sky darkened, the siblings came out from hiding and joined the rest of you for supper. There was light conversation here and there, but neither you nor Party contributed. Instead, they spent their time glaring at you, and you’d had enough.

“What the hell is your problem?” you asked, stopping the discussion around you. They turned to watch whatever was about to go down, Jet ready to restrain you in case you tried to jump over the table.

“Am I really the only one who’s pissed about earlier?” they asked, receiving a chorus of yeses from their friends.

“C’mon, just admit that they helped you back there, or at the bare minimum drop it already,” Ghoul jumped to your defense, sick of the endless arguing. They were all sick of it, wanting nothing more than for you two to be civil to each other for once.

“I don’t even know why we keep them around in the first place,” they said, filling you with hurt and anger. All eyes were on you, anticipating your next move, and surprisingly you didn’t try to murder them.

“Go fuck yourself,” you spat, using all of your strength not to lash out at them again.

“Fuck me yourself, you coward.”

There was a deafening silence, and you all watched as Party turned visibly red, shocked and embarrassed by their own words. You could feel your own face burning as well because honestly, you would.

“Bet you’d like that wouldn’t you?” It wasn’t a mature response, but the conversation you had with Ghoul flashed to the forefront of your mind. Besides, humiliating Party was the highest form of entertainment.

For the first time ever, they were rendered speechless. You had won. They slammed their fork down on the table and stormed out of the diner. Kobra stayed put this time, glancing around awkwardly. You all remained silent before Ghoul’s laughter filled the room. You bit your tongue to keep yourself from joining him but eventually gave up because the situation really was funny.

“Hey, they needed to be humbled at some point, I just didn’t think it would be like that,” Kobra said, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the whole exchange.

Part of you felt guilty, but just like them, you were so damn arrogant that you couldn’t find it in yourself to apologize. Not that you could anyway, they had been gone for a while. Truth be told, you were getting a bit worried, but the guys seemed relatively calm so you kept your cool.

When they finally came back, it was the middle of the night and you were the only one awake. You couldn't fall asleep until you saw that they were okay, which irritated you more than anything. They hated you, why were you so concerned for their safety? If anything you should be hoping something happened to them, right?

You watched as they pushed through the doors, still seated at the table while the rest of the gang slept in the other room. They were quiet, shutting the doors gently and trying not to be too loud as they made their way inside. They still looked agitated, brows furrowed as they pulled off their gloves and boots, tossing them aside.

They moved to sit down, stopping as they spotted you right in front of them. You weren’t really sure what to say to them, but it didn’t matter because they let out the most over-dramatic sigh you’d ever heard, killing all the tenderness and sympathy you had for them.

“Why are you still up?” they asked, not that they cared to know the answer. They were back to glaring at you, jaw locked as they waited for you to speak. You considered your options for a moment: you could be mature and polite and this whole day could end peacefully, or you could give them the same treatment.

“Had to make sure you didn’t have another brush with death today.”

They rolled their eyes at your response and stepped closer to you, leaning against the table. “What would I do without you?”

“Probably get yourself killed considering that I was the only thing preventing it earlier,” you gave them a sickeningly sweet smile, and they traced their finger along your jawline.

“How can I ever repay you?” You knew they were mocking you, but between their tone and their touch, you couldn’t find the room to be bothered.

“I don’t know, you had a pretty good idea earlier.”

A wicked smile spread across their face as they stared you down, but you held your ground; the ball was in their court now. “You’re pathetic; you act like a bitch all the time because you can’t get laid.”

“I could fuck anyone under this roof with enough willpower, so quit trying to project onto me.” You were bluffing, but it wiped the smirk right off their face, so you pushed further. “Look, if you don’t want to have sex, that’s fine. I’m sure Kobra could fuck me better than you anyway.”

You watched with utmost satisfaction as Party once again became visibly upset; no, jealous. They muttered a “fucking bitch” before hoisting you up from your seat and kissing you with unrestrained passion. They gripped the back of your head with one hand, the other on your waist to hold you against them. Months' worth of tension was poured into the kiss, leaving you slightly breathless as they pulled away. It was only for a moment, but long enough for you to see a difference in their typical pissed-off expression, instead looking like they wanted to tear you apart.

A variety of sounds bubbled up in your throat as they bit and licked your lips, gliding their tongue against yours. Your hands slid up their chest, tracing the stitching on their jacket. Their hand tangled in your hair and they tugged you away from them, chuckling darkly at your disheveled state.

“Gotta be quiet while I fuck you unless you want everyone to hear me pounding you like a cheap whore.” They grinned predatorily at you, making your stomach tighten. They pressed their lips to yours again, only for a moment, before moving them down your neck, sucking at the skin as they went, leaving proof of your activities for your friends to see in the morning.

“Do you fuck this slow too?” you snarked, growing impatient as they took their sweet time marking you up. They lifted their head immediately, glowering at you for even considering mouthing off. “Do you ever shut up?” You started to retort, only for them to cut you off. “No? Guess I’ll have to make you. Strip.”

You burned with embarrassment as they leaned back against the table waiting for you to remove your clothes. They didn't push you any further than that, giving you space to leave if you wanted, but you’d be damned if you didn’t take this opportunity. Their eyes traced your body hungrily and made you feel small, but your facade never broke. You could see the strain in their pants as your clothes hit the floor, warmth flooding your abdomen.

They took off their jacket and began pulling down their impossibly-tight slacks, becoming increasingly frustrated as they tried to wiggle out of them. You rolled your eyes and made your way over to them, replacing their hands with your own. “Are you this bad at everything?”

“You sure are eager to find out, aren’t you?” they bit, pushing you down to your knees and watching you closely to make sure you wanted to continue. Their worrying ceased as you vigorously yanked their pants down, wasting no time hooking your fingers around the waistband of their briefs and pulling them off as well.

Their cock was thick, head dripping with pre-cum, and for a moment you wondered if you could take it all. You flicked your tongue against the tip, sucking lightly before they jerked their hips against you, causing you to choke. You began to say something, unsuccessfully of course, sending vibrations through them.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, baby, that’s rude,” they snickered above you, groaning into their fist as you wrapped a hand around them. They gripped your hair while you sucked them off, trying their best to control their volume. You ran your tongue on the underside of their dick, taking them further, watching as they tossed their head back at the sensation.

You moaned around them as they bucked into your mouth, feeling yourself grow wetter as muffled noises fell from their lips. For once they weren't glaring at you, instead smirking condescendingly which wasn’t much better, but you didn’t care.

Their breathing became uneven, and you could tell they were close. To your surprise, they pulled you off, an involuntary whine coming from you, and you felt embarrassed all over again. “Shit, you like sucking my dick that much?” their smile grew wider, and you could practically feel their ego growing. You weren’t sure how to respond so you glared at them, making them laugh as they pulled you to your feet. “Such a pretty slut, y’know that? Love how bad you want me,” they taunted in your ear, their breath making you shiver.

They sat you on the table, and you leaned back on your hands as they walked around to face you, eyes raking over every inch of your body. It made you painfully aware of how naked you were, but at least they stepped out of those ridiculously tight pants and took off their shirt, now on full display. Their fingers trailed up your body, pupils blown wide as they cupped your breasts, thumbs sweeping across your nipples making your breath catch in your throat. Their mouth replaced one of their hands, tongue gliding across the sensitive skin, tugging softly as they took it into their mouth. You squeezed your eyes shut and bit down on your lip, nearly drawing blood as you tried to stay quiet.

Their fingers brushed against your core, pushing in gently, and they watched your reaction through half-lidded eyes. They raised their head after their name spilled from your lips, nestling their head in the crook of your neck, still curling fingers inside of you. “Look at you, spread out on the table where anyone could see you,” they purred, tugging on your earlobe. “Bet you want someone to walk in, huh? Want them to see me fuck you like the dirty slut you are.”

You just about cried as they spoke to you, abdomen tightening as they continued to finger you. You could almost taste your orgasm when they removed their hand, triggering a sob from you, which was luckily muffled as they kissed you.

“Party, I swear to god if you don’t fuck me I’m gonna be in your brother’s bed tomorrow night,” you threatened, sick of their games. Their jaw tightened and they flipped you over, your chest flat against the wooden table. They gripped your hips tightly, rubbing the tip of their cock against your wet folds.

“You’re gonna take what I fucking give you,” they said, snapping their hips against yours without warning. You clamped your hand over your mouth as a loud moan tumbled out, barely being able to adjust to the stretch before they were pounding into you.

Their attempts to suppress their groans were futile, but you didn’t mind, it only turned you on more. You could barely think as they spoke to you, the words sounding gibberish as you mumbled unintelligible responses. Your knees gave out as they rubbed your clit, crying into your palm as you came around them. They continued to slam into you over and over again, using you, ensuring you wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow. The guys would be pissed at them if you were sore in the morning but it was worth it.

You could barely register the tears that were running down your face, too drunk on their touch to be aware of anything, really. They gave a harsh thrust, and you clenched around them, soaking them with your juices once again.

“Fuck,” they moaned, pulling out as you shook with pleasure, turning you back over to watch as you cried over their cock. They finished themself off and coated your thighs in their cum, collapsing on the leather cushions next to you.

Neither of you spoke, simply catching your breath and letting the reality of it set in. You weren't really sure what to say anyway.

“C’mere,” they breathed, reaching up on the table to grab your hand.

“Clean your cum off me first,” you laughed lightly, listening to them sigh, followed by the squeak of the seats as they reached for an abandoned shirt and stood to wipe you down. They gazed at your limp figure and shot you a smile; a real one this time. You returned the gesture, and they leaned down to kiss you. It was gentle, not like the ones earlier. They caressed your face, and it hit you that you looked like a mess.

“You’re so pretty,” they mumbled against your lips, and you narrowed your eyes at them in jest. “Mhm, I’m so pretty when I’m covered in spit, cum, and tears.” They pecked you once again and nodded in agreement.

“You know why?” they asked you, pausing and leaning down to whisper in your ear. “It’s because I did this to you.” You pushed them away playfully, ignoring the fluttery feeling in your stomach. They pulled on their briefs and handed over your clothes, stopping when they noticed the skeptical look on your face. They quirked an eyebrow, signaling you to continue.

“Why are you being nice to me? You never stop complaining about me, but I suck your dick and suddenly we’re cool?” They looked taken aback, but it had to come out at some point. They sighed and ran a hand through their hair, searching for the right words. “I don’t hate you. I didn’t then, either. Nothing out here is guaranteed; I mean people try to kill us every day. I figured it’d be easier to resent you than let myself like you, but that plan clearly went to shit.” Guilt swirled in their eyes, and you thought over their answer.

You shook your head, “You’re an idiot.” They opened their mouth to object, but stopped themself from arguing, so you continued. “I really like you too, so you can imagine how much it sucked to consistently be put down by you. Just... maybe only be a jerk during sex, alright?”

“Deal,” they smiled as you reached for your clothes, only to drop your t-shirt on the ground.

“Party?” They hummed in response, busy tracing patterns on your thigh. “Did you wipe up your cum with my shirt?”

“No, I wiped it up with mine,” they said before glancing down, spotting the obvious stains. “That’s ghost cum. Absolutely not mine. Guess you’ll have to wear my shirt though, seeing as yours is covered in specter semen.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, tugging on their shirt and letting them lead you into the other room. Your heart soared when they dragged you over to their mattress, pulling you close to prevent you from falling off the twin.

They pressed a soft kiss to your forehead and stroked your hair gently, allowing exhaustion to wash over the two of you. For the first time since you escaped Battery City, you felt truly safe. Even if every day out here was a death wish, you knew you could die happy with Party by your side.

#party poison x reader #gerard way x reader #danger days #party poison #gerard way #party poison smut #gerard way smut #mcr x reader #mcr smut #my chemical romance

[n1kolaiz]

"You want to know what death is? I'll tell you. Death is the loss of life. Despite everything doctors like me attempt... a patient's life can still fall through our fingers. You think death lies in the apex of science? Anyone with such little regard for life will die by my hand."

Character Analysis: Yosano Akiko

Age: 25 || Ability: Thou Shalt Not Die

BSD CHAPTER CHAPTER 65-66 SPOILERS

table of contents:

1. Author counterpart.

2. Yosano's history.

3. 'Angel of Death' defined.

4. Yosano and Atsushi.

YOSANO BRAINROT!*(#&!*@#($

1. Author counterpart.

Having been given the “Sho Ho” at birth, Yosano Akiko’s counterpart—the real-life author—was known for her zealous take on both feminism and pacifism.

Side note: Once again, to avoid confusion, I will use the name Sho Ho in reference to the real-life author, and Yosano in reference to the BSD character.

Sho Ho's writings were pretty much out-of-the-ordinary in her time, and despite being suppressed by the social norms of gender hierarchy, she sought to reform society’s view on the cultural perspectives of women and their sexuality (She expressed her love for a woman in one of her poems, but many still argued on whether she identified herself as queer or not.)

"Thou Shalt Not Die," Yosano's ability, is actually named after one of Sho Ho's most famous, controversial poems. She wrote it for her brother, who was a soldier in the war between Russia and Japan (1904-1905). In her poem, she expressed her general distaste for war and how her brother was a part of it.

O my young brother, I cry for you Don't you understand you must not die! You who were born the last of all Command a special store of parents' love

Would parents place a blade in children's hands

Teaching them to murder other men Teaching them to kill and then to die? Have you so learned and grown to twenty-four?

- excerpt from Sho Ho's poem, "Kimi Shinitamou Koto Nakare"

Her words were blunt enough to inflict guilt on her brother's conscience, as she wasn't afraid to express her disapproval over how her brother took part in the typical violent bloodshed and manslaughter of war. Such opinions perturbed the authorities, and her work was eventually banned from the public for a period of time. Later on, it was used as an anti-war statement.

2. Yosano's history.

Now, as for the character in BSD, Yosano is seen to be generally strong-willed, and later on, we see that she is terrifyingly compassionately ambitious in the way she treats her patients. She treasured life itself, and hated the thought of losing a patient.

Yosano had developed her relations with Mori Ougai back in the Great War, when she was just 11 years old. Her ability was a great benefactor in saving lives. Realistically speaking, she was used for her ability to heal injured soldiers and diminish the effect of any casualty acquired.

Initially, she wasn't aware of this, until one of her close friends pointed it out by subtly accusing Mori of manipulating her to participate in the War under the close-to false pretence of 'saving lives.'

As much as her ability did save lives, it also forced soldiers to return to the frontlines and suffer injuries over and over again. The soldiers were never given the opportunity to return to their families because of her ability. This obliged them to carry on in the war without any excuse, inserting them into a vicious cycle they had no escape out of.

Metaphorically speaking, Yosano's hatred for Mori sort of mirrors Sho Ho's disdain for war and fighting, don't you think? The way Kafka materialised Yosano's past was quite interesting because he used chapters 65 and 66 to explain Yosano's dislike for Mori, reflecting how Sho Ho used her poem to explain why she condemned the idea of war and how her brother was part of it.

Before the effect of her ability was fully understood, however, every soldier praised and thanked her for what an angel she was. One of the soldiers she had befriended and gotten close to even kept a tally of the number of times she had saved him. He was the one who gifted her the butterfly hairpin she wore all the time.

The weight of the truth that her ability was a curse rather than a blessing fully dawned on her when her soldier friend ultimately committed suicide, because the fact of being indefinitely trapped in the throes of war agonised him until his spirit gave out. This drove Yosano to loathe her ability, or rather, how it was used.

In the time she participated in the War, Yosano was given the alias 'angel of death' due to the control she retained over the battlefield, but I thought that perhaps Kafka had a reason behind giving her this title, so I did my research.

3. 'Angel of Death' defined.

Side note: I wouldn't want to disrespect any culture or religion, so if my citations are inaccurate and/or disrespectful, do feel free to correct me/let me know! I did research out of pure curiosity, and I don't intend to twist the significance of any of the interpretations.

I had to grow up learning about the basics of religious stuff, so it's kind of nice to study something out of the box, and very much against my father's rigid belief system :D

ARCHANGEL ARIEL

(archangel: an angel of higher rank)

I came across the few characteristics of angels/goddesses and their roles, and the one which really caught my attention was the female archangel, Ariel, the angel of nature.

[ source ]

In Hebrew, the name Ariel means 'altar' or 'lioness of God,' and her role is to heal. In addition to that, she is also recognised as a helper to another one of the seven main archangels, Raphael, whose role is to provide physical and emotional healing, too.

She is the protecter of the environment and the animals therein, and is bestowed with the duty to oversee the order of heavenly bodies as well as earth's natural resources. She assures the sustenance of food, water, shelter, and supplies of human beings, much like how a nurse is to a patient I suppose.

In relation to Yosano, I think this part is pretty self-explanatory, or perhaps this is blown out of proportion HA, so take this as a suggestion rather than a fact, because I'd like to believe that Kafka had a reason for giving Yosano a title as such.

In the past, I've come across the angel of death only to perceive it as a female grim reaper of some sort, so it was pretty cool to find that the word 'angel' and 'death' made up a title of a someone like Ariel, one of the purest forms of humility and compassion.

GREEK GODDESS PANAKEIA

For my beloved (wannabe/or not) students of Greek mythology (much like myself, let's make a cult!), you've probably heard of Panakeia, the goddess of healing. Medicine finds most of its vital significance in Greek history, and in its mythology, Panakeia is actually known for her ability to heal any kind of sickness.

[ source ]

Her name means 'panacea,' which is actually defined as a remedy for all diseases. Terminal diseases and injuries lead to death, right? This would bring us back to Yosano's ability to nullify any injury's effects on a person, keeping them from death itself.

Now, we know that in order for Yosano's ability to work, her patient, or victim, has to be in a near-death condition in order for her treatment to take effect. This can't exactly fit into the description of resurrection, but it can be described as some sort of rebirth.

GREEK GODDESS PERSEPHONE

So another goddess which reminds me of Sho Ho/Yosano, is Persephone, the goddess of spring and rebirth. Before Hades, the god of the underworld, fell in love with Persephone to take her to live with him, Persephone lived a happy life.

Hades, with his nature of darkness and the like, was captivated by how pure Persephone was, and stole her away from her former life to live in an environment which differed sharply from her natural aura of purity.

[ source ]

Remember when Yosano's friend left a note behind before he killed himself? The note said nothing except for, "You are too righteous." Take that as you will, but figuratively speaking, you could say Mori takes the role of Hades in the story, while Yosano can be portrayed as Persephone.

Sho Ho can also be a parallel of Persephone, in that she had to adapt to the realities of war and disharmony, while Persephone had to adapt to the raw darkness of the underworld with Hades.

Sho Ho stood against society's norms and decided to reform it, making her one of the most well-known feministic pacifist in history, while Persephone managed to escape from the underworld to return to her former position, earning the title the 'Bringer of Life,' or the 'Destroyer of Death.'

Furthermore, the way Sho Ho's anti-war poem took its effect later on, reflects the way Persephone restored balance in the world after returning from the underworld.

4. Yosano and Atsushi.

chapter 66; Yosano: "It's my fault that those close to me died... Is there some place where it's okay for me to live?"

chapter 8; Atsushi: "If I have any chance of saving them all, of returning them home safely, would that mean it's okay for me to keep on living?"

I couldn't help but think of Dazai and Atsushi back when I was reading through these panels. Ranpo (my beloved), along with Fukuzawa, accepted Yosano as she was, despite how her ability was a cause of despair and misfortune.

Ranpo looked past her mistakes and the entirety of how dark her past was to welcome her into the Armed Detective Agency. Dazai, on the other hand, knew who Atsushi was and what his ability had made him do before anyone else, and still decided to provide a safe place for Atsushi to find his sense of belonging, journeying with him as he learned to use his ability properly.

For more info about Dazai and Atsushi's dynamic, you can check out the analysis I did for Dazai :D

Atsushi desired to save people to prove his right to live, while Yosano made her wish to achieve the recovery of all her patients the reason for her existence.

Others would prefer to accuse both Yosano and Atsushi of having a saviour complex, but the reason why they pursued to save people with utmost dedication, stems from the nature of what their past was like. You know the saying 'from broken to beautiful?' Yeah, it's something like that.

The way their pasts were written out gave them a desire to change, which was, I daresay, initiated by the people who took them in: Ranpo and Dazai. Their abilities were demonised because of how they were used, but once they broke from their abilities' effect over their lives, they honed their skills to control them for the right cause instead.

In a less cynical point of view, I believe both Yosano and Atsushi stood for what was right, and wanted nothing but to achieve peace and harmony in whatever way they could, even if it meant risking their own lives to save others.

So yeah, that's it for my rants today. Thank you for reading, and if you have anything to add, go ahead! I'm open to discussions ;)

#bsd #bsd atsushi #bsd yosano #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd characters #bsd analysis #literature analysis #bsd abilities #bsd anime #bsd manga #bungo stray dogs atsushi #bungou stray dogs atsushi #bungou stray dogs yosano #bsd dazai #bsd mori #bsd ranpo #character analysis #.daydreams

[redwinterroses]

I’m doing my very best not to format this as a literary analysis paper but that’s basically what this is so forgive me if I slip back into those old habits at all. And I'm going to tag @betweenlands and @fluffy-papaya in this because guys look what your fic made me brainrot. XD

(This is a long one, y'all. We're talking 2k words. Sorry.)

That said:

Hey, let’s talk about the bead curtain in Dog at the Door.

That dang bead curtain, and why I’m currently fixating on it, and how I think it has symbolism that may or may not be intentional.

(At this point, I’m assuming it’s intentional. Everything about this fic is intentional. Including the pain. Heh. “The only difference between a running gag and a recurring theme is how seriously you take it,” says Solar. Cool. I’m taking it seriously.)

The curtain first shows up in chapter one. It’s one of the first things we see in the van, and the first thing we know about it is that Doc finds it obnoxious. Ugly. Revolting. Renbob loves it, obviously, but Renbob has odd tastes. Doc, on the other hand, literally uses his hatred of the curtain to motivate him to get out of bed in the morning.

The Red King, when he shows up, also has similar dislike of the thing, but his reaction is a little more measured, a little less extreme. More distaste, less disgust. He finds it “distasteful” and compares it to wearing a labcoat without a shirt (lol). But he doesn’t loath it like Doc does, and when Doc suggests (in chapter 13) that they take it down and use it for friendship bracelets, he’s as displeased with that idea as Renbob is. He has an ambivalent opinion, overall.

And then Ren. Ren actually reacts the least to the curtain—but ends up with the most dramatic interaction with it, which we’ll come back to in a second. He simply says (chapter 24) that normally he’d find the beads hideous, but that the light of Doc’s eye reflecting off it into the shadows makes it oddly peaceful.

There’s exactly one other use of the word “curtain” in this fic, and it’s this line right here:

“I haven’t done anything but possess him and lead his soul back to the controls.” RK throws his hands up in the air. “He’s put himself behind the curtain because he thinks I’m out to get him. My only crime is the original contract I made with him, doctor.”

In this instance, RK is talking about their “imperfect metaphor” of Ren being behind the curtain that separates the “driver’s seat” from the rest of the van that is Ren’s mind/soul. He’s saying that Ren has deliberately put himself in a position of defeat and surrender because he (Ren) doesn’t think there are any other options.

M’kay. Right about now, any sane person is going, “Red. Why are you so fixated on this bead curtain. It’s a running joke at best.”

And... I mean, sure. Kinda. But also definitely not.

This is the part where I really step out on a potentially-shaky limb with all the confidence in the world, because here’s what I'm seeing: the dividing line between life and death is often portrayed in literature as a curtain.

(And it’s interesting to note that the curtain is a barrier, a separation, but it’s only a curtain, and this one is made of beads at that. It’s a flimsy and fluid barrier, easy to pass through. Back and forth. Surrender and control, life and death.)

In fact, even in this fic it’s used that way: RK may be referring to the metaphorical bead curtain in their van of an explanation for how his and Ren’s relationship works, but in the story at that point Ren is convinced that he’s dead. Or is supposed to be dead. And by putting himself “behind the curtain,” he’s surrendering to that. Almost insisting on it, because that’s the truth of how he sees the world right then and he can’t process any other possibilities. He’s basically saying “I’m supposed to be dead, and this side of the curtain is death, so that’s where I’ll stay.”

So if the curtain in the metaphor represents the two sides of that, it’s really interesting to look at the various characters’ reactions to the literal bead curtain and see how it reflects their attitudes toward death—and specifically Ren’s death.

Renbob is... chill. He has an entirely comfortable relationship with the bead curtain, with life and death, with his own emotions—even with dealing with the emotions of the others he’s chauffeuring across the universe. While he isn’t immune to the grief of losing (or thinking he’s lost) Ren, he deals with it in a relatively healthy way—at least as much as we see. I think there was a possibly-canon ask at some point that said he was journaling and meditating so... yeah. Renbob’s got this. And 50 other bead curtains in storage. He’s the only character in the fic who passes in and out of the curtain regularly and without it being a big deal.

To put it simply: Renbob is on good terms with whatever happens in life, up to and including the end of it. (Renbob is arguably the equal and opposite of Grimdog. Two sides of the same coin in more ways than one.)

Contrast that now with Doc. Doc is... not a fan of the bead curtain. It represents a loss of control to him, (“freakin’ hippies”) and a separation from what he loves. In the past, he and Ren were on opposite sides of that conflict, and the beads still somewhat represent that tension (though in a mostly nostalgic, and not actively-antagonistic way.) But the language Doc’s narration uses to describe the beads is strong. “Obnoxious.” “Accursed.” “Horrendously evil.”

Nearly as scary as his best friend trying to kill him.

It’s played for laughs, obviously, and it is funny. But if we project the symbolism of “the curtain represents death” onto Doc’s reactions, it gets a bit less amusing. And it really fits with Doc’s attitude toward Ren’s death in the whole fic. It’s the worst thing he’s ever faced—to the extent that until RK’s seemingly-permanent presence forces him to, Doc doesn’t even try to process it. He goes right to work on the prosthetics, growls at anyone who tries to make him do anything he doesn't want to do, accepts RK as “New Ren,” and pretends that he’s going on with life.

He refuses to look at how weird the whole situation is, because if he does that he has to deal with Ren being gone forever. He ignores the thing that’s right under his nose and pretends it’s not there until a moment of quiet or actually having to interact with it brings it back to his attention, and then his reaction is vitriolic.

Doc hates that curtain, and he hates the concept of death, the concept of losing control. Even in his nightmares, he holds tight to what little control he can take, even if it’s just taking the initiative to sit in the snow and let it kill him faster. Hold onto that thought, because I’ve got more to it, but we have to talk about RK and Ren first.

RK holds both distaste and acceptance of the curtain. He doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t want it destroyed either. The distaste, notably, is when he’s with Doc, and the acceptance comes from being around Renbob. The Red King, as a blood god, is not exactly unfamiliar with death. It’s literally in his job description, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. A necessary evil, if you will.

It doesn’t hurt either that, at least up until Ren, RK has always been the one on the other side of the curtain, completely in control of the situation. He goes back and forth on his attitudes, but in the past he has been the one in control and the bringer of death. His reaction is negative, but not emphatic—the way someone who has plenty of indoor plans might react to a rainstorm.

Ren... now, Ren. Ren has, like I said, the least recorded reaction to the actual, physical bead curtain. But. But. While he normally would call it hideous, “there’s something oddly peaceful about watching light fractals spin off the walls, cutting off into the shadows.” The shadows, it’s worth noticing, are specifically implied to be RK/hiding RK in this moment. Doc’s light and RK’s shadows interacting with the curtain bring peace to Ren. He passes through it easily to find Renbob.

Ren has already accepted his death—he accepted it long before the fic even started—to an extent that he’s actively insisting on it for a large portion of the story. It’s only when he realizes that Doc is in potential danger that he starts fighting RK for control of the situation again. (“Stay away from Doc, you bastard. He wasn’t part of our bargain. Leave him alone.”)

He dislikes the bead curtain, but he doesn’t hate it, and when seen in the (literal) light of Doc’s protective, watching eye—even if he is asleep at the moment, bless—even the shadows of RK’s presence are suddenly beautiful and peaceful to him in a way that, without the “reflecting fractals” of the beads, wouldn’t be possible. Again: this is the chapter where Renbob’s influence is felt, and his peace with life and death directly affects Ren and his reactions. (“It’ll all sort itself out, eventually, and I’ll be here for you while it does.”)

And then...

And then Ren rips down the curtain altogether.

The separation is gone. For better or for worse, that divide between control and surrender, between RK and Ren, between life and death... it’s gone. It’s scattered across the floor of the van, glittering in Ren’s hair, and in the carpet. Ren has broken through that barrier, and now we just have to wait to see what the consequences of that are for him.

But... we can already see at least one consequence for Doc. Because now there is no more illusion of control and surrender for him to maintain. That division is no longer there, and we see Doc’s first real surrender in the whole story. Even in his nightmares, he was still in control: he knew it was a nightmare, and he fought against it until he “gave up”—in a way that still put him in control. He chooses to sit in the snow so it’ll kill dream-him faster.

He acts like he doesn’t care, but it’s still not that: he takes control in the only way he knows, aware that everything is only a dream and no matter what how it treats him, he’ll still wake up in the end. He looks at the nightmare and says basically “Do your worst, I dare you, but you won’t get what you want from me.”

But now—now he surrenders to Ren. He gives up. His core truth (“I’ll do anything to protect those I love,” which I talked about in this post) looks like it’s not going to be enough to save them. He can’t save Ren—from RK or from Ren himself—and that means he’s lost in the worst way possible. In this moment, it looks like Ren doesn’t even trust that Doc’s core truth—that he will do anything to save his friends—is true.

This is Doc’s lowest point: that Ren seems to think Doc’s loyalty and love have failed. And to Doc... that’s a fate worse than death.

So he gives up. He tells Ren to kill him, and he fully expects him to do so. Doc doesn’t want to die, but at this point he has completely let go of any control of his own fate. Even when facing down Ren with the Skizz blade, he held tightly to his control of the situation. He literally takes the sword in his own hand and removes it as a threat. But now—now the curtain is gone. The illusion of control is gone.

Ren is the one in control of the situation—for possibly the first time in the fic—and he chooses to remember that Doc is his friend, that he’s missed him. But Doc leaves it all to him. Even when Ren backs off, Doc stays in that surrendered state (“I can’t do anything right, unlike [Martyn.]”). He realizes that he's been in the passenger seat the whole time, and he’s now where Ren was before: no longer even trying to take back the driver’s seat.

The curtain is gone. Now we just have to wait and see who ends up on which side of it at the end.

#long post #dog at the door #datd #i got about halfway through this yesterday and then was told that the bead curtain was important to today's chapter #and I thought: okay. I'll wait and it'll probably blow my entire theory out of the water. #and then NOPE turns out I'm pretty sure this is where it was going all along and I'm just a nerd who happened to notice

[sweet-curried-powder]

Happy Birthday Cherry Blossom!

so it's cherry's birthday today, and since i've had sk8 brainrot lately both generally and ficwise, my brain would not let me relax until i wrote cherry a fic for his birthday. this took me several days to write, and i finished sometime yesterday before all my birthday celebrations took place, and wrapped up editing just now today.

so yeah, take a sk8 found fam fic for cherry's birthday!

~~

Reki, Langa, and Miya laid in wait behind a dumpster near Joe’s restaurant, watching the side door. It was Cherry’s birthday, and the kids wanted to surprise the pink-haired calligrapher, with no outside help whatsoever. As far as Joe and Cherry knew, Miya had a doctor’s appointment, Reki had to run some errands for his mother, and Langa had to go get his hair cut (Really, Langa’s excuse wasn’t really a lie. He’d gotten his hair cut by his mother earlier today, and it only took about ten minutes.). The “parents” had no idea what the boys had planned.

The doorknob jiggled, and Miya leapt into action. Joe waltzed out, fishing his wallet and keys out of his pocket, heading for his vehicle, back to the door. The door had some sort of automatic lock, where the door would lock once the door was shut, so Joe didn’t even give the door a second glance, fortunately.

Miya acted quickly, leaping to the door in less than a second and shoving his board in the doorway just before the door could close, keeping it open. By now, Joe was in his car, and starting it up. Reki opened the door, holding it for Miya and Langa, the latter’s arms full of grocery bags, watching the area to make sure Joe was gone before the redhaired boy popped into the restaurant.

The door was near the back of the large, spacious kitchen, which was neat as a pin; counters wiped clean, cooking utensils put away, nothing out of place. There was a faint smell of garlic and herbs still lingering in the air, which wasn’t overly strong, but it was mouthwatering nonetheless.

Langa set the bags down on the counter, Reki producing the cookbook from his bag, flipping to the bookmarked page, a recipe for a cherry cake. Miya rooted through the cabinets, getting out bowls, pans, and measuring cups and spoons.

“Do you think Cherry will like this?” Langa asked, getting out the ingredients and setting them on the table. “I mean, I don’t have that much baking experience besides making cakes and brownies from mixes…”

“I’m sure he’ll like it!” Reki reassured Langa, patting his friend on the back. “And besides, it’s cherry cake! For Cherry Blossom! It’s clever, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is,” Miya shrugged, opening a drawer with a bunch of aprons inside. He took some out and handed them to Langa and Reki. “Here. We don’t want stuff getting on our clothes.” The youngest took one for himself, putting it on. It was a little big on him, but it worked.

Reki threw his apron on, while Langa put his on more carefully. They fit just perfectly, since Reki and Langa were much taller than their brother.

“C’mon, let’s get baking! It’s just a cake, what can go wrong―”

There was a loud cry from Miya. The two boys turned to see Miya, whose face was coated in cake flour. He’d opened the bag too roughly, causing flour to explode all over himself and the counters.

Reki began laughing, pointing at the flour-coated boy. Miya growled, grabbing a fistful of flour and chucking it at Reki, who got a faceful of it. He coughed and sputtered, glaring at a smug-looking Miya.

“You’re kind of a little shit, you know that?”

“Thank you, dear brother.”

Langa began greasing and flouring the cake pans, making sure to get each and every little corner. Reki and Miya measured the flour, some of it flying out of the bowl and landing on the counters. Langa went to fetch the mixer from one of the shelves, gasping softly as he nearly teetered from how heavy the mixer was. He set it down on the counter, plugging it in before turning to Reki and Miya, who had started on the wet ingredients.

“‘Separate the whites from six eggs’?” Miya read aloud from the cookbook. “How do you separate egg whites?”

Reki opened his mouth to answer, before Langa took an egg from the carton. He put his free hand over the bowl, using the other to crack the egg into his hand. The white seeped through his fingers, plopping into the bowl with a satisfying noise. Langa put the egg yolk in a smaller bowl, shaking the stray egg white off of his hand.

“How’d you know how to do that, Langa?” Reki asked, tilting his head. “I thought you hadn’t cooked from scratch before.”

“Mom had a baking show on TV the other night,” Langa said, taking another egg. “I don’t know what the show was called, something about sugar or spices I think? But one of the ladies on the show did this with the eggs, I thought I could give that a try.”

Reki peered in the bowl with the yolk in it. There was still some white stuck to the yolk, but Langa had gotten most of it. He had to admit, it was fairly impressive.

“That was a good idea, Langa. Good job,” he congratulated Langa, beaming widely at him. A light blush dawned on the pale boy’s cheeks as he mumbled a “thank you” in reply.

Miya watched the two teenage boys talk with each other as they separated the eggs’ yolks and whites, blush and flour dusted across their cheeks. He shook his head, opening the jar of cherries and straining the juice into a measuring cup. I swear to god, they’re pining for each other. It’s like some sort of fanfiction.

“Okay! Whites are in!” Reki grinned, wiping some flour off of his nose. “Things should be smooth sailing from here, now that we know what else to do. Miya, the cherry juice?”

“Yeah, yeah, I―FUCK―” Miya tripped on his shoes, the measuring cup flying out of the small boy’s hands and splashing onto the floor. Luckily the cup was plastic, so it didn’t break, but the juice splashed all over the floor. “Dammit, that was all our cherry juice!”

“And we only have that one jar of maraschino cherries…” Langa mumbled.

“Don’t worry, don’t panic,” Reki tried to reassure the other two. “There’s a store right down the road, remember? They’ve got to sell maraschino cherries there, I’ll just go skate by there and pick up another jar.”

“What if Mama Cherry and Papa Joe come back before you do?” Miya asked, pulling on his sleeve. “The surprise will be ruined then…”

“I called the old man earlier and asked him to distract Cherry and Joe for a few hours while we make the cake. I’ll try and contact him and say we need more time.” Reki grabbed his board, rushing to the side door of the restaurant. “I’ll be back as soon as I can!”

“Stay safe, Reki!” Langa called out as Reki left in a rush, hopping on his board and zooming towards the shop, heart pounding as he approached the store. This could still work, this is just a minor setback, it―

“Will you shut it, you damn gorilla?!”

Fuck. It was Cherry.

Reki quickly ducked behind a trash can in a nearby alley, peering to where the voice was coming from. It was Joe and Cherry, with Shadow in between them. Shadow caught Reki’s eye, face starting to morph into one of his classic scowls.

“We need more time,” Reki mouthed quickly and quietly, gesturing towards Joe and Cherry, signaling the florist to distract the two. Shadow nodded, turning to Cherry and saying something that Reki couldn’t hear, the red haired boy sighing in relief as the group turned around, dashing to the store, weaving through the small crowd, yet trying to blend in.

He soon approached the store, ducking inside and heading for the section of the store with all the canned fruits, frantically searching the shelves. Pineapple, peach slices, apricot... it took Reki a good five minutes before he found the jar of cherries that he was looking for. He quickly grabbed it and hurried to the register, throwing a handful of yen at the cashier and running off with the cherries before they could even give him his change.

He slid into the back alley of Joe’s restaurant, banging on the door. Langa answered, being immediately greeted with a panting Reki.

“I got the cherries,” Reki panted, handing them to his friend. “I saw Shadow on my way here, but who knows how much longer the old man can stall Cherry and Joe.”

“We should hurry.” Langa nodded in agreement, handing the jar to Miya. “You two take care of cake. I’ll take care of making the fondant and frosting.” The three of them had been discussing how to decorate Cherry’s cake for several days, and eventually, they settled on frosting it with a homemade cherry buttercream (Langa had once helped Reki make frosting to frost his sister’s birthday cake with, so he knew how to do it) and branches of cherry blossoms made out of fondant. None of them had made anything with fondant before, but they had seen Joe make fondant from scratch enough times to get an idea on how it was made.

“You heard your boyfriend. Come on and help me with this cake!” Miya began draining the cherries again.

“Okay—WAIT A FUCKING SECOND!”

The next two hours were filled with trial and error. As in, 70% error and 30% trial. Reki had cut his finger while helping Langa cut the cherries for the buttercream, and Langa took Reki’s finger and put it in his mouth, his logic being that he saw it in an anime once, and he figured it was some sort of custom in Japan.

Miya had to tug on the extremely flustered Reki’s arm to get it out of Langa’s mouth, and didn’t stop teasing the two about it for ten solid minutes.

Then Reki burned his hand on the oven while putting the cakes in, and while Miya tended to Reki’s injuries, Langa went to put the last cake in the oven and burnt his hand too.

It was, not gonna lie, a disaster.

But in the end, after three and a half hours total of baking, the final result looked pretty great, for the standards of three teenaged boys. Some of the cherry blossoms on the cake were misshapen, and the branches looked like dark brown veins. But the three of them had tried their best.

“I hope Cherry likes it,” Langa said, picking at his bandaged hand. “We worked hard. And me and Reki burnt our hands.”

“I’m positive he’ll like it, Langa! Trust me!” Reki grinned, as Joe’s van pulled up to the front. “Oh, that’s gotta be them!” He bounced on his toes, trying not to move, as they were currently in the dark so Joe and Cherry wouldn’t see them when they first entered the restaurant.

They heard Joe’s keys jingle in the lock, before the door opened, and two pairs of footsteps came inside.

“The hell…? I was sure the lights weren’t off when I came in.”

“You seriously can’t remember something like that?”

“Karou, it’s not a big deal, okay? Just let me get the lights…”

You could hear Joe’s heavy footsteps head towards the light switch on the wall, the lights flicking on shortly after, revealing the appearance of their children.

“SURPRISE!” The three of them yelled, shocking both Joe and Cherry, the latter’s eyes going wide, the former jumping slightly. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

“Is… is that a cake?” Cherry asked, pointing to the cake on the table, which had a bottle of champagne and some sparkling water next to it, along with fancy glasses, birthday candles, and a box of matches. “Did you kids make this cake for me?”

“We snuck in here when Joe was leaving to make it,” Langa confirmed. “Me and Reki have the burns to prove it.” He held up his hand, Reki copying him with a stupid grin.

“It’s cherry cake too!” Reki added. “For your S name! Cherry Blossom! We even made fondant how Joe makes it and made cherry blossoms!”

Cherry. His favorite.

He remembered when he and Joe were kids. When Cherry got hurt and fell down, Joe would help him to his feet, and bring him along to the next block, where his grandmother lived, and she would give them both cherry turnovers, full of sweet cherry pie filling and with a flaky crust. It was one of Cherry’s favorite memories, of his entire life.

“Cherry?” Langa’s voice broke the calligrapher out of his trance. “Are you okay? You’re crying.”

Cherry’s hands moved to his cheek, feeling the tears that were streaming down them. He smiled softly, glancing at Joe with a fond look in his eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. Now, let’s try this cake.”

#sk8 the infinity #sk8 #sugar's writing #matchablossom #renga #reki kyan #langa hasegawa #miya chinen #cherry blossom #joe #shadow #happy birthday cherry! #i know you're not real but have a birthday offering