#[ who gets to live. only one who gets to survive. i just. ]
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🪓 — Canon Facts About Ticci Toby
all of these are directly stated by kastoway himself in deviantart posts/comments, instagram stories, or tobys canon story
I. Toby has a split eyebrow from the car crash
II. He only attended grade school for a short time when we was 12 before being homeschooled due to bullying
III. Kastoway describes Toby's eye colour as "dark brown/black"
IV. Kastoway created Toby as a fan character when he was 12 just for fun. He never expected him to get the attention that he did
V. Toby was stated to be 19 in 2013, which means Toby was born on April 28th, 1994. Today he'll be turning 30 years old
VI. In Toby's age chart, he is shown to be in a straitjacket at 30 years old, and described to "not have much time left on his plate", "any bit of sanity in him is probably gone", and "lives out the rest of his days in a mental asylum and/or gets put down"
VII. He has little to no memory of his life before becoming a proxy
VIII. When he was a toddler, he'd carry around a cow stuffie and put bandaids all over it
IX. Toby was killed by Clockwork, who was possessed by Zalgo, sometime between ages 19-25 (presumably 20-22). Kastoway had vague plans for Toby to "miraculously survive" and live up until around 30 years old, with no contact to the others
X. Toby chews his hands to the point of eating his own flesh, which is why he wears gloves
XI. He is born and raised in Denver, Colorado, USA. He has German ancestry
XII. His theme song is noted to be "I'm Not Alright" by Shinedown
XIII. His personality is described to be, "volatile, friendly at times, sarcastic at times, natural born trouble-maker, mostly up-beat"
XIV. In an older, outdated reference sheet, his friends are listed as "Jeff The Killer, BEN, BOB, Smile Dog, Slenderman, Splendorman, Mr. Widemouth, Ragface, Eyeless Jack", and his rivals are listed as "The Rake, Masky, Enderman, Zalgo"
XV. His mask is a mouth guard, like the one Hannibal Lecter wears
XVI. He is canonically shipped with Clockwork
XVII. Toby has "big ass eyebrows" (Kastoways words himself)
XVIII. Toby doesn't hate Masky, he just acts like an annoying little brother around him because he's jealous that Slender favours him. He's chill around Hoodie, but they don't talk much
XIX. Kastoway was inspired by Marble Hornets to create Ticci Toby
XX. Toby's tics are described as to "uncontrollably crack his neck, twitch around, bend over backwards"
XXI. In his updated appearance (the sketch made by Kastoway in 2014 with the cheek gash), he's described to be in his early 20s. He also said he was thinking of having the cheek gash be caused by the fire, but said that Toby eating through his own cheek was "a really good idea"
XXII. Toby was originally going to be a cannibal before Kastoway put the idea on the back burner, though he says "he'll eat some of the things he kills kind of like Eyeless Jack"
XXIII. He had CIPA, Tourettes, Schizophrenia and PTSD after the car crash
XXIV. His older sisters name is Lyra, his mothers name is Connie, and his father is canonically unnamed (though he's typically called Frank by the fandom, this is not stated by Kastoway)
XXV. He was originally going to be 5'4....... But ended up being made 5'6 (lucky bastard)
Thats all I can think of right now... Happy Birthday Toby
#tombtalk#creepypasta#creepypasta fandom#ticci toby#creepypasta headcanon#ticci toby headcanons#toby rogers#creepypasta ticci toby#ticci toby creepypasta#ticcitoby#ticci toby facts
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i'm not trying to start anything, but i just saw a post criticizing misha collins for not choosing to quit spn when the network was homophobic and he was "profiting from homophobia" and i just think it's kind of... wild? that young people think that a person could just. decide to not work for a prejudiced corporation when they have a family to provide for?
i don't know, i don't even really want to debate or go into it more, but it's just kind of surreal to see opinions from people who weren't there in 2013 when misha collins was literally the only person willing to support not just destiel shippers but actual queer and trans and ace fans. i have no doubt that he saved lives through the care he showed to vulnerable young people who desperately needed to see someone give a damn about them. he's significantly flawed in many ways, but he will always be a saint in my eyes for how much he cared.
like i just don't think that people accustomed to this modern era where hardly anyone blinks over two men kissing on tv can understand what it was like when we were mocked and silenced, when we weren't allowed to breathe the word 'destiel' without getting booed, and misha was the only damn person who spoke up for us. the only one. who was probably risking his job in saying the things he did.
things have changed. that's wonderful. don't judge people surviving previous eras by the standards of today.
#i'm just. i'm kind of bewildered#misha doesn't get to call himself an ally because he kept working for the homophobic network do you fucking hear yourself#tell me what network WASN'T homophobic in 2012 please tell me#he was not some super wealthy actor who could pick and choose who he worked for however he liked#he had kids to feed#good lord#wank for ts#spn#feel free to ignore this i just had to get it off my chest
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COMPASS
bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW
A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.
This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.
Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.
CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst
I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡
There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.
The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.
Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.
And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.
This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.
The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.
Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.
And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.
Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.
But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.
Life debts.
In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.
Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.
But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.
He will never be able to wash them clean.
But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.
The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).
And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.
This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.
For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.
But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.
“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.
They were late.
The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.
He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.
The stupid, greasy fuck.
By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.
And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.
Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.
Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.
Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.
Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.
Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.
Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.
He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.
One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —
A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.
The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.
The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.
“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”
“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.
He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.
Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.
So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.
He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.
He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.
The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.
Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —
A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.
No good.
“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.
Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.
Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.
It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.
He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.
But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.
He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.
Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.
It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.
“You got someplace I can hide?”
——-
You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.
His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.
Sanemi Shinazugawa.
You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.
You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.
But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.
It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.
Hence, its presence in the Silo.
So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.
You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.
If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.
But you owed him.
Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.
But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.
Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.
But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.
You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.
His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.
You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.
Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.
There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.
A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.
One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”
The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”
You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”
The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.
Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.
But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.
“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.
There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.
In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.
That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.
However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.
But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.
He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.
You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.
He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.
A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.
“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“
“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”
Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”
He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.
“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.
You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“
But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.
—-
By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.
As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.
Right in front of two, marked cop cars.
One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.
There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.
He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.
He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.
Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.
Take your trouble somewhere else.
Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.
You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.
Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.
What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.
Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.
The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.
The Kizuki.
In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.
Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.
Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.
There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.
Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.
But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.
Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.
Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.
He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.
Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.
—
His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.
You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.
Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.
Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.
Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.
Or so he tells himself.
The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.
He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.
The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.
And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.
He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.
Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.
With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.
He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.
Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.
But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.
And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.
—
Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.
Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.
The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.
That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.
So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.
His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.
He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.
Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.
Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.
At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.
And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.
“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.
He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.
“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”
—-
Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.
He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.
He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.
The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.
Step.
A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.
Step.
The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.
Step.
The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.
Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.
Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.
For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.
The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.
He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.
His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.
That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.
“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”
It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”
“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”
That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”
His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”
You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”
Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.
You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.
But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.
He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.
“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.
He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.
Your restlessness boils over. “What?”
“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”
Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”
He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.
“This can’t be your dream life.”
You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.
Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.
Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”
“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”
His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.
You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”
His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”
You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.
He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“
“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.
Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.
—
His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.
You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.
You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.
“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”
You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.
Return-exchange only. No refunds.
“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”
“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”
You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”
“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”
You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”
“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”
“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”
His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”
The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.
Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.
You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.
Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).
Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.
But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.
Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.
“Read that.”
His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”
“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”
His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.
Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.
His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”
You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”
His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”
He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”
“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”
Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.
Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.
But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.
“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”
“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”
Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.
It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.
You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”
You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.
——-
Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.
Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).
Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.
And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.
Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.
Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.
That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.
That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.
You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.
Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.
It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.
You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.
—
“You look like shit.”
You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.
You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.
Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.
“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”
Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”
It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.
Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.
The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.
But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”
He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”
Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.
Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”
You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”
“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”
“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”
The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”
The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”
You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”
“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”
It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.
You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.
Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.
You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.
And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”
Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.
And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.
—-
In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.
His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.
But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.
It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.
Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.
He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.
It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.
You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.
Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.
He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.
And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.
The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.
For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.
And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.
He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.
You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.
A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.
Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.
It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.
But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.
Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.
The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.
The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.
Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.
It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.
With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.
He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.
He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.
In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.
Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.
He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.
Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.
It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.
So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.
With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.
And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.
As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.
—
“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.
“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.
He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”
You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”
“Dunno. Curious.”
“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”
Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”
Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”
“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”
“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”
And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.
His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.
“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”
You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”
Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.
Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“
“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”
You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.
Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”
—
Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.
By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.
You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”
“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”
You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.
Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.
Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.
He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.
Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.
He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.
You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”
Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”
You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.
Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”
It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.
“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.
You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.
“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”
He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.
That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.
As long as it was more than this.
But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”
———
Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.
To wake up in the morning, Princess.
He’s full of shit and you know it.
Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.
You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.
He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.
More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”
Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.
Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.
It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.
But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:
He wants out. Dreams of it, even.
This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.
It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.
Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.
Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.
That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.
A cop-out, is what it is.
But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.
The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.
He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.
But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.
You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.
You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.
Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.
True love.
And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.
And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.
He wants out.
He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.
And, above all, he dreams of love.
—
If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.
It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.
Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.
You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.
You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.
There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.
The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.
Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.
“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”
“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.
You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.
You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).
Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.
Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.
He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.
But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.
And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.
Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.
“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”
You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.
You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.
Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.
“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”
“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”
“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.
“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”
You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.
“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”
He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”
You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.
You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.
You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.
A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.
Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.
“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”
Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.
But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.
A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.
Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”
There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.
Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.
“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.
But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.
He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.
You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.
But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.
Intimate.
Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.
But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.
You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.
Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.
Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.
You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.
Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”
You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”
A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.
“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”
For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.
His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.
And then he turns and leaves.
You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.
And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.
An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.
The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.
Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.
You’re in love with Sanemi.
It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.
It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.
You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.
You won’t.
—
Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.
Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.
It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.
Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.
Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.
Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.
He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.
But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.
Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.
As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.
So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”
You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”
You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.
If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.
You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.
Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.
As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.
Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.
So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.
And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.
He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.
The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.
One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.
They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.
Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.
Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.
Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.
He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.
The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.
He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —
His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.
Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.
Safe; you were safe.
Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.
You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”
“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.
He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.
You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.
And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.
His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.
That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.
But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.
Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.
He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.
He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.
So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.
No matter how much he wanted to.
And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.
“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”
Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.
“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.
A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“
“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”
The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”
He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.
Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.
Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.
More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.
But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.
He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.
He will rot you from the inside, out.
His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.
You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.
Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.
Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.
In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.
He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.
You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.
Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.
You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.
And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.
(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)
But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.
He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.
A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.
He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.
Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.
He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.
“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.
You shouldn’t; you can’t.
But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.
His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“
Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“
But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”
“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”
You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.
“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”
Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“
Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”
Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.
Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —
“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”
All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.
It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.
It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.
Fuck, you just did.
And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.
You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.
He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.
Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.
He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.
But this is worse. He has frightened you.
He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.
He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“
Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”
“You don’t owe me anything —“
“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”
You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.
“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”
But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”
Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.
You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.
He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.
But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.
Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.
This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.
The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.
Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.
But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.
Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.
You want more, and he needs you, too.
His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.
One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.
He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.
“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”
Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.
Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.
But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?
“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.
Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.
Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”
He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.
More. He needs more.
He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.
Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.
Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.
The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.
As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.
He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.
“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”
He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.
But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.
“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.
He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.
He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.
His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.
He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.
Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.
He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.
With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”
“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.
“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”
“I am ready -“
“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.
“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.
He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.
You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.
A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”
He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.
One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.
A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.
The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.
He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.
His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.
You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.
Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.
“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.
He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.
“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.
Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.
“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.
“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”
His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“
It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.
Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.
It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.
He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.
The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.
But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.
“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”
His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.
“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”
The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.
Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.
But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.
Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.
He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.
Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.
“Are you sure?”
You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.
He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.
Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.
But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.
“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”
You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”
You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.
But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.
He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.
The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.
Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”
His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.
The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.
The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.
Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.
Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.
With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.
His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.
Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.
“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”
Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.
He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.
“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.
There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.
Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.
You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”
With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.
You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.
But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.
Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.
It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.
Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.
Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.
With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.
You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.
He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.
He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.
When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.
His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.
And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.
He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.
Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.
Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.
One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.
His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.
“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”
Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.
And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.
His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”
You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.
The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.
“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”
He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.
Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”
You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.
He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.
So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.
The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.
Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.
It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.
Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.
Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.
You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.
But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.
“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.
“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”
Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.
With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.
You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“
“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”
Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.
A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.
And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.
“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”
A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.
“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”
His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.
You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.
The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.
Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.
But he needs to see you, first.
“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”
Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.
“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.
Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.
“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“
He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.
But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.
He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.
Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.
He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.
He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.
“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.
One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”
You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —
“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”
It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.
Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.
Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.
He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.
It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.
All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.
He doesn’t deserve any of it.
Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.
He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.
He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”
You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.
A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”
For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.
His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”
Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”
Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.
He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.
But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.
“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.
Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.
Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.
He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.
What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.
His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.
But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.
His eyes widen. There’s his answer.
Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.
Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.
He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.
But he can try.
He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.
And he’ll get there, maybe.
In time.
LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!
#demon slayer#sanemi shinazugawa#kimetsu no yaiba#kny#kny x reader#kny fanfic#kny sanemi#sanemi x reader#kny fic#demon slayer fanfic#demon slayer smut#kny smut#shinazugawa sanemi#sanemi x you#sanemi smut#demon slayer sanemi#kimetsu no yaiba sanemi#sanemi x y/n
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pixeljade: #it IS very much a complex issue and I feel like saying that has been pissing off a lot of folks on both sides #one fact i would add to the table is that the current actions against palestine DO constitute a genocide by definition #its a word i hear pro-Israel people get very upset by because they think it is inherently comparing this to the holocaust #but its not. some people DO and thats its own discussion. but calling it a “genocide” is simply accurate and undeniable
Speaking as someone who was that pro-Israel person in her teens and very early 20s, the reactions you're describing are 800% cognitive dissonance freak outs. Most of these people, like me, received either directly or indirectly from their Elders in the Jewish community a very trauma-induced and deeply emotional information about the history of this situation, which boils down to: "They tried to kill us all once and they didn't now we finally have returned to the Promised Land, the only place we have to shield ourselves against It Happening Again. Israel's detractors hate that Jews can defend themselves now, and if any of them, including the Palestinians, were to have their way, they'd see us all dead. We must defend ourselves at all costs, and not let anyone ever put us in existential danger as a people ever again."
And then to have some rando 19 year old who knows jack shit about your or your community or your community's trauma to get up in your face and start screaming at you about genocide? It's only going to trigger that intergenerational trauma, and cause the party being screamed at to dig deeper into their defensive, cognitive-dissonance fueled response. Which, if we were to boil that response down to a thought process, looks like "This person hates me and all Jews. They think we're a hive mind who don't deserve to live. Thank G-d for Israel."
What's complex, is that not everything in that trauma response is wrong, and not everything the dumbass 19 yo who has no interest in unpacking their own learned anti-Semitism was wrong.
Israel's actions towards Palestinian Arabs since 1948 does fit several definitions of genocide and/or ethnic cleansing. And many of the Westerners who scream about it the loudest are fairly openly anti-Semitic.
Now, as someone with big Holocaust intergenerational trauma in her family, I am sympathetic to the Jewish kid in this scenario. But cognitive dissonance is just that: the domain of a child. Adults understand that cognitive dissonance is a little voice in our head telling us "Hey comrade our discomfort with this is a little much. Maybe this is a learning opportunity?"
I mean, that's what I did. But it's difficult. Its uncomfortable, and that scares people. It's much easier to believe that "They call it the Naqba because they hate us and think our survival and access to national self-determination is a disaster,"* than it is to understand that "They call it the Naqba because it was the near total dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arab populations from their generational homes and properties."
And again, everything I'm saying here is a result of my journey from a hardcore Zionist-in-the-contemporary-sense child (though always left in terms of domestic US Politics), to a grown Holocaust historian who understands that Israel is no better and no worse than all the other nation states (for new readers, I understand the nation-state as a political entity, the logical end point of which is genocide and/or ethnic cleansing), and openly criticizes it on those grounds.
*A rabbi in a youth group I belonged to told me this almost verbatim when I was 15. And when you're 15 and somebody tells you they love you you're gonna believe them.
#this post is clunky but i have a fever so w/e#i have great love and compassion for my community as an american jewish woman#so much of how american jewry remembers the history of israel is shaped by our collective trauma#sometimes in ways that we ourselves don't understand#i'm not here to shit on them#but i am here to compassionately call them in#and the only groups who i don't expect that compassion from#are actual palestinians
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Oc introduction time!
Meet Bao Lian! :D ✨💕
More info after the cut!
°Here are some few facts about her ✨
Lian is a red panda demon!
Surprisingly she's one of the few demons who are known to be actually nice! She has never harmed a mortal in her life!
She eats fruits and take lots of naps to recharge her energy!
Also rely on the strength she has that are ten times more powerful than a normal mortal, kinda like super strength! So don't be fooled by that adorable face, she's a strong gal!
Her strength also increase the more her emotions are built up! Especially when she's angry (which is rare, she's just a happy gal)
She's also a demon who's capable of taking mortal souls from them and consume it but has never done that before ;; (Nervous laughing)
Her hands can turn into big red panda paws! She uses her claws to chop down wood as materials for herself and to fight off other demons that bother her in her little hut!
She lives nearby a village and she actually helps protect it! The villagers there are very accepting of her and would offer fruits to her as a thank for helping them survive demon attacks💕
Its possible that she is the only red panda demon known throughout the history (or is she?)
Some likes and dislikes!
Likes
She absolutely loves fruits! Especially peaches and any type of berries!
Likes to nap, she's just eepy :3
Lian also loves to explore, she wants to learn what mortals have to offer, very curious gal
She likes to cook and bake! Very great at it too, the village ladies who lives nearby help taught her the basics and then kept improving ever since :3
Dislikes
She dislikes any demons who comes near her hut uninvited, especially trying to claim her only home (as any people would honestly)
She doesn't like it when her fur gets wet, not from baths obviously but when it gets wet unexpectedly like her getting up in rain or someone splashing water on her.
Vile demons aren't the only ones she deals with, she also hates mortals who are absolutely awful towards others, especially when it comes to the village people she protects.
Thats what I have of her for now! You can ask me more about her too or you can actually ask HER yourself, I've been wanting to do an oc QandA so it'll be fun! :D
Bonus : Have more lian doodles and arts from friends :3
Last two drawings are made by my great friends @littlethingsrae and @justaliltoasty 🫶
#digital art#lego monkey kid oc#lego monkie kid#lmk#lmk oc#lmk oc art#drawing#artists on tumblr#lmk fandom
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My Experience in Inpatient Psych
So I know a lot of people on here have talked about their experience in inpatient psych facilities, but I'd like to add mine just to give all you writers out there a writer-focused one. It's below the cut just in case you have to sit this one out for your own reasons.
To give you some background, I am 30 years old and have had hallucinations since about 16 and bizarre intrusive thoughts (someone living in my house that wasn't supposed to be there, somebody poisoned my walls, etc...) for about a decade, as well as very severe anxiety since I was about 3 years old. This is something not a lot of people know about me, even people I am friends with IRL.
The only thing I am actually diagnosed with is anxiety, which I'm starting to think is a failing of the psych systems I have been a part of. I have had counseling off and on and prior to this hospitalization I took escitalopram, aripiprazole, and gabapentin prescribed by my primary care doctor- all for the severe anxiety.
Quite frankly, I should have been in inpatient psych at least a few times before this, and it's by sheer dumb luck that I've survived to continue this blog.
On Friday, I was at home alone and made a few pretty bad decisions. I wont say what they were because frankly they're embarrassing, but they have to do with self-harm. I was scheduled to work Saturday and at about 9pm I realized that if I drove myself to work I would crash my car. Since my wife drives me sometimes, I figured I would just ask her to.
I told my wife and she asked- even if she drove me to work, since I was a nurse, would I be able to keep myself safe around insulin or other potentially dangerous drugs? I couldn't answer that question. We talked for a couple hours and came to the conclusion that I probably needed to go to the emergency department.
At this point I figured they would evaluate me and release me because I couldn't possibly meet the criteria for inpatient. I was wrong in this assumption. After telling them the decisions I had made that day, the feelings of wanting to die in a car crash, plus about a previous attempt, they recommended inpatient. Turns out, when you're a nurse, you can make some really bad life choices with the knowledge you have, and they didn't want to take any chances.
I was given paper scrubs to wear (so I couldn't hurt myself with my clothing or a hospital gown). I was also given a patient companion (someone who sits in the room and makes sure you don't hurt yourself).
They gave me the option of signing myself in voluntarily, or putting me on a writ of detention. A writ of detention is a piece of paperwork that allows a medical professional or law enforcement officer to hold someone for 3 days in a psychiatric facility against the person's will for the purposes of psychiatric treatment. Whether you sign the voluntary or get placed on a writ, you cannot sign yourself out. You need to wait until the psychiatrist taking care of you thinks you're ready to go.
I didn't believe at this point I needed to go inpatient, but I took the voluntary option because there are some perks, like being able to leave within 3 days if appropriate. At this point I was convinced I was probably going to have to call off work Saturday and Sunday, probably be out of the hospital Monday, have a few days to rest and be back at work on my next scheduled shift after that, which was Thursday.
Well, that's not what happened.
Because of some of the decisions I had made, along with bed availability, they wanted to keep me in the observation unit overnight before they sent me to psych. I stayed overnight in a unit that shares staff with the unit I work on, so I was taken care of by my coworkers. This was surprisingly not that bad. I like my coworkers and they were really professional about it.
Saturday I felt like I was in a fog all day. I couldn't watch TV. I couldn't color or write. I worked out some in my hospital room and paced the halls once or twice. Mostly I hung out with my wife and occasionally talked with my companion, but even talking was difficult. I had refused ativan because I felt like I had no hope of finding a medication that made me feel better, and I figured I didn't want to take the one medication that might actually work and then not be able to get it ever again.
Around 7PM I took a 45 minute ambulance ride to the facility. Getting my blood pressure taken is a big anxiety trigger for me, but my brain felt so scrambled that I couldn't express this well. They took it every 10 minutes on the ride there and by the time I got there it was in the 170s/100s (BP goes up when you're having severe anxiety). This was not their fault of course, but no matter how much I thought about telling them or refusing the BPs, I just couldn't do it.
When I got to the facility I was greeted by a tech who took my BP again (150s/90s this time), showed me around and looked through my personal belongings (basically just the clothing I came in with since my wife took my phone and wallet knowing I wouldn't be able to have them on the unit) to make sure I didn't have anything I wasn't allowed to on the unit. She showed me around my room and was really thorough with telling me how things worked, what the rules were, etc..
The rules included:
No patients allowed in other patients rooms
No personal belongings that had strings, belts, or laces, or that could be used as a weapon
No caffeine after lunch and no free access to caffeine
No personal electronics (including eReaders and watches). There was a TV in the day room and 2 phones mounted to the wall for patient use
A little later my nurse came into my room and asked me a ton of questions. Here's the thing about any hospital- you get asked the same questions over and over. By the time I'd gotten there I could give my story in under a minute. Or at least, that's what it felt like. There were only 2 clocks on the unit, at the nurses stations.
The unit itself was laid out in a "T" shape. There was a main nurse's station at the place where the two hallways intersected. At the end of the long hallway there was another smaller nurses station, a cafeteria/day room, and a "comfort room" which was a small room off the day room that had a collection of the oldest and worst donated books that have every come together on a bookshelf.
I did some pacing that night and then went to bed, but didn't sleep particularly well.
On Sunday morning the tech woke me up to take my blood pressure, which was, not unsurprisingly, still high. It was about 5 AM so I got up and paced the longer of the corridors for about an hour. Breakfast was served at 8 and the food wasn't that bad. The coffee was about the worst I'd ever drank, which I suppose helped with the no caffeine goals.
Just after breakfast I met with a psychiatrist on an iPad for about half a minute, and I'm not exaggerating there. The only questions he asked were whether I was suicidal and whether I would be fine with tripling my dose of aripiprazole in light of the hallucinations. I had had a 50-lb weight gain in the last year so I asked to switch my med. He switched the med to cariprazine. That was all.
I had a much longer meeting with my nurse later. All the nurses did an excellent job of assessing me, asked tons of questions, and it seemed like they really tried to figure out what was going on. That day I also met with a social worker, and a therapist, and a nurse practitioner. Each of them did an assessment to see what my needs were while I was there.
There was also a music therapy session where I cried my eyes out to Because of You by Kelly Clarkson.
I was really tired by the end of the day but I also didn't think I could sleep so I asked for trazodone. I should clarify that when I say "I" in this piece I really mean my wife convinced me to ask because I legitimately didn't believe I needed or deserved any of the things I asked for at this point. To my utter shock and surprise, they gave me the trazodone.
My first night on trazodone was amazing and I realized I hadn't slept well in a long time. With trazodone I fell asleep and stayed asleep until the blood pressure cart came rolling down the hallway at 5am. The second I got up on Monday morning I was wide awake.
I paced a lot Monday. I went to a goals session in the morning where I gave a goal to write 3/4 of a page. I didn't know if I could do it or what I was even going to write about, but I know I like to write and it might be a reasonable introduction to getting back to life.
I also was having kind of a rough day brain-wise. My brain was coming up with all the ways I could hurt myself in my room. There weren't a lot of them, but it was trying. I told the nurse during her assessment and she asked if I felt I could keep myself safe. I asked her what she would do if I said no. She said they could move me to a more secure part of the unit and give me more supervision. I knew what part of the unit she was talking about, and I didn't want to go there (no space to pace, and pacing was keeping me alive right then). So I told her I could keep myself safe (if anything, the idea of moving was good motivation to do stay safe in itself). I hallucinated some black and white blood cells falling from the ceiling and music coming out of my vents.
I also had another meeting with the social worker to figure out discharge plans. I voiced in the meeting that I wasn't sure that I could trust my wife, since it felt like at the time she was the one who exaggerated my symptoms to get me in here. The social worker said we had really good communication skills, since this was something I felt needed to be said in front of both of them and we both stayed really calm through the whole thing.
I finished the day with an art therapy session that really helped me turn a corner. The prompt was to draw the emotion(s) you felt right now on one side of the paper, and to draw the emotions you wished you could feel on the other side. For the first time I realized that my emotional state was actually really bad and that the suicidality hadn't come out of nowhere, and that I needed help.
When my wife came to visit later that night I was able to tell her about my breakthrough, even though I still felt a little bit like she had done something to get me in here and I still wasn't sure I needed to be inpatient.
Tuesday was a lot better. I felt like I had woken up out of some kind of fog and I had no idea how long I'd been in it. I went to goals group, a spiritual group, and group occupational therapy. My goal was to be more social and I made a friend and we paced together and worked out. I read a quarter of The Martian by Andy Weir (my wife brought it for me because the best thing on the bookshelf was Louis L'Amour). I wrote about how good I suddenly felt. Turns out, I thought, a few days of good sleep, lots of therapy, and a new medication or two will really change things.
A quick side note about The Martian. I highly recommend it to anyone who is chilling in a psych hospital but has the ability to read while they're there (I sure didn't the first few days). I don't really know why, but the first few times I read it, I felt like they had created this superhuman character in Mark Watney just so they could throw a ton of wild things at him for the story. This time reading it, as a suddenly not suicidal person, I realized anyone with Mark's skill would have done the same thing and not just died on Sol 7 to get it over with.
Wednesday I woke up not feeling nearly as good as Tuesday, but still like the fog had lifted. I was a little disappointed (I hallucinated my cat (thanks for coming to visit me, Corina), some spiders, and just felt kinda meh. But I remembered how good I felt the day before, and that really kept me hopeful about going home.
I saw the psychiatrist again and asked to go home. He joked a little about me staying till Christmas, but ultimately he said as soon as his note was in I could go. I ended up leaving at about 12:30 with my wife.
In the time since leaving I have required a lot of support from my wife. The medications are all locked up, so are the blades and anything I could use to hurt myself. My wife has me in eyeshot at all times. I can't drive due to intrusive thoughts, so she does all the driving now. I quit my job because I feel like it was a big part of why I ended up as bad as I was. As someone who has been a pretty independent person this is a big change of pace, but something that is really necessary to my healing.
Ultimately at the end of my hospital stay, I was prescribed escitalopram, gabapentin, trazodone, cariprazine, and then a few days later propranolol. I'm currently on a total of 5 psych meds and honestly I don't care one bit because its so much better than being not on them at this point in my life.
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I did the thing again. If you missed the livestream but want to know what happened, I wrote down some notes again. (Spoiler warning, obviously, as I will mention who won the death match)
. The Nightmare Time theme is so fucking good
. Xander murdered Grace last death match and won
. James and Matt like wrestling (not each other - the sport)
. BOTTLE IMPS!!!!!!!!!!!!
. WORKIN BOYS GETS RELEASED ON YOUTUBE AT 425,000
. Lmao the backing music is Jane's A Car
. We are the Lords In Black
. HARMONY AND BARRY!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE HARMONY SO MUCH
. Ted and Hidgens are a duo lmaoooooo
. Melissa and w o m a n
. Mariah really loved w o m a n
. CCRP set up a water filtration system that pissed people off
. USE IT OR LOSE IT
. Harmony and Barry are just so annoying that Paul and Emma want to fight them
. Paul is the first to die
. Coffee makes Barry stronger
. Jon is the only one who thought Paulkins would win
. Rip Harmony :(
. Paul throws spare change at Harmony and Barry, summoning the Homeless Man, who wins the fight for them
. Bill and Alice get an easybake oven stolen from them by Sherman
. Love Vs Crazy
. Frank and Bill get mistaken for eachother mid-fight
. Sherman is vicious
. Frank wants Sherman to die
. Alice eats Sherman's soul and becomes a little kid again
. Ruth has a crush on Hidgens
. Ted and Hidgens have a dead body???????
. The dead body is a Frankenstein amalgamation of all the Workin Boys
. Frankenruth?????????
. RICHIE HAS THE POWER OF GOD AND ANIME ON HIS SIDE
. Ted and Hidgens win with help from the Workin Boy
. “w o m a n is here!”
“I'm fucking here, bitches”
. Shapiro + Bailey are looking for Roman
. Dog…
. Oh no
. Roman is the dog.
. Melissa and w o m a n die
. MISS HOLLOWEEN!!!!!!!
. Bottle Imps was supposed to be between Forever and Always and Time Bastard
. Bill meets the founder of CCRP
. CHARLES IS IN IT
. CHARLES FOUNDED CCRP
. HARVARD LAW SCHOOL COMMUNITY ORGANISING PRICK?!?!?!?!?
. HOWIE?!?!?!?!?!?
. Bill's been at CCRP 13 years
. Coven’s Communication Research and Power
. Charles wants… ALL the money
. If it's actually Billted oh my god…
. Jane didn't die, but their dog did so she divorced him
. THEY'VE COVERED THE PROTESTS LIVE AT THE HATCHETFIELD KENNEL
. THE PROBLEMATIC PUPPY BIT SOLOMON LAUTER
. DONNA WANTS THE DOG TO DIE
. THE DOG IS IN THE CAR
. THE DOG CAR RUNS OVER DAN AND DONNA
. GOT MY PAW ON THE GAS
. Everyone is cheating on each other
. Ethan used to bully Pete
. Pete and Steph don't tip
. Lex flips out
. Lex suddenly develops a gluten intolerance????
. Jason and Kyle save Steph and Pete
. Max breaks into Camp Idontwannabang, Grace reads him Bible stories, they're about to kiss, then Boy Jerry and Girl Jeri burst in to kill them
. Grace is so Jesus loving that Lumberaxe kills the Jerries
. MISS HOLLOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN
. Excorcism???
. “Christ’s in hell with your mother”
Riley
. Miss Holloway has a witch hat!!!!!
. Evil mask??
. Riley's in hell smh
. “You basic bitch”
. MISS HOLLOWAY THROWS HERSELF INTO A WOOD CHIPPER
. Joey is Ted again
. YELLOW JACKET
. Alice and Bill get pissed about Paulkins trash talking Mamma Mia
. Joey: “This is the future the libs want”
. General MacNamara drops in from a helicopter and shoots Bill and Alice in the head
. James will murder Paul and Emma himself if they survive again
. Ted accidentally confesses to murdering Ruth and Richie
. Joey: “Here's the thing, ACAB”
. Thrash murders Shapiro for being a cop lmaooooooo
. Sam’s a dick to Tim at Pizza Pete’s
. Hannah straight up murders Charlotte and Sam
. I have to go to bed :( (Stopped right before Holyghost v Lautity)
. I'm baaaa-aaaaaack! It's the next day, I have pancakes, and I'm just realising I accidentally wrote Lautity instead of Lautski… I just love them too much
. I haven't checked Tumblr cause I don't want to be spoiled for who wins
. OH SHIT WORKIN BOYS IS ON YOUTUBE
. I'm back on the livestream, I'll check that out later
. They're at Perky's Buds, Grace has dragged Max there for a protest, Steph dragged Pete there for weed
. Grace wants Steph to go to heaven
. Five minutes for A THOUSAND DOLLARS?!?!?!?
. THEY DID IT IN ONE MINUTE
. Joey: “You horny little fucks”
. Max just murders Steph and Pete
. Max wouldn't want to hit a girl, Ziggs comes out, fails to land a single shot on them, but attracts the nighthawks which peck out Steph and Pete’s eyes
. Nicole Rodriguez is so fucking talented damnnnnnnnn, also I love Cool As I Think I Am (Reprise)
. This song will always destroy me emotionally :(
. Why is Joey doing a British accent lmaoooo
. This isn't the next scene, but is after it chronologically
. BRENDA!!!!!!!!!!
. BRENDA WORKS AT MISS RETRO'S
. If only it was a real werewolf… Wayward Guide, anyone?
. “Shit-eating grin” is my favourite Americanism. It's so funny I love it
. I kinda love Tucker
. More skidoos???
. Kyle's in college?????????????? Damn
. Even Stacy's in college
. Miss Holloway: “Cause the 80’s were bitchin’ ”
. Oh nooooo :(
. Miss Holloway: “The intranet”
. Oh god
. Oh shit
. Oh fuck
. Even though I knew this was going to happen I'm still devastated
. Oh god :((((((((
. God we need NMT3
. Joey: “Is this a bad time to announce Curt and Kim are getting divorced?”
. VIRGINITY ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
. Tedgens are stealing from CCRP, Paulkins are about to go on a date, they find them, and Hidgens goes all murder-crazy
. Corey: “Some of us are wrong and many of us are right”
. Joey: “Jon, Ted is gooning all over this office”
. Jon: “Great job everybody, all the food is gonna be poisoned next week”
. Goddamnit I just got spoiled for it :(
. Tedgens manage to find the Bastard's Box and trap Paul and Emma in it
. Hidgens hears Workin Boys coming from the box, but Ted stops him from touching it
. Tom and Becky want to buy the Waylon Place, and find Grace and Max burying Pete and Steph
. Tom coaches the Hatchetfield Nighthawks??????????
. Gen Z Vs Millennials
. Someone pulled $800 from the Kickstarter :(
. Will arrived literally as soon as Max died
. Grace and Max are ghosts now
. Meg Lloyd is also insanely talented
. Will loves Tom and Becky
. Sauce Saturday
. RUN AWAY WITH MEEEEEEE
. They're in the Starlight theatre, Wilbur is there for some reason
. “He was driving the car that killed your dog”
. NOOOOOOO JENNY
. LAUREN!!!!!
. Wilbur just straight up cheats so Tedgens win
. OHHHHHHH TED VS HIDGENS
. Ted always dies though :/
. A girl Miss Holloway saved has died
. MISS HOLLOWAY IS RENEGOTIATING HER DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
. Lore….
. Miss Holloway chops off her toes?????
. AND DIPS THEM IN CHOCOLATE?????????
. AN OLD POP STAR THE WORLD’S FORGOTTEN
. That's what that tune is called?
. OH MY GOD THE LORDS
. I NEED TO DRAW THIS
. Why do the Lords eat toes
. Blinky has a mouth???????
. Nibbly lmao
. Mariah: “Lauren, you're muted, baby”
Lauren (muted): “FUCK”
. Blinky, my love
. This is so fanfiction coded I love it
. Tinky likes Miss Holloway????? Duke really was right about everyone being in love with her
. I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY
. Lmao Tinky
. Double calculators, and an abacus????
. Blinky (covering his ears): That's a bad word!
. BLINKY HAS EARS??????
. HER NAME
. BE A PALLY WAL
. OH MY GOD MISS HOLLOWAY
. Ted wins!!!
. THEY'RE GONNA DO DND
. Well.
. Nightmare Time Cover!!!!!!!! Needy Beast, my love
. Oh god that was amazing
#starkid#team starkid#hatchetfield#hatchetverse#a pit stop in hatchetfield#cinderella's castle#cinderellas castle
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A debate I had on Reddit about abortion rights.
The person I'm arguing with is an active participant of the Mensa subreddit, so they already fancy themselves a genius to some extent.
Me:
No arms, no legs, no heart, no brain. Just a blood vessel pumping blood from the host to the clump of cells.
And the "But there's a heartbeat" excuse is a lie. You're only hearing the host's blood pumping into cells cause the heart isn't fully formed until 10 weeks. Additionally, the brain isn't even fully developed until 24 weeks. No heart organ, no brain, it's not a viable life outside its host body.
Them:
Yeah that's an empirical argument to deny ontology. That's not convincing to anyone who thinks there is an essence to being human that isn't tied to having arms and legs.
Me:
I'm sorry, but are you trying to use philosophy to argue whether or not someone is capable of living without a heart, brain, and lungs?
Them:
How do you determine what is human and what is not? Arms and legs? What do you call someone without arms and legs? Or a mechanic heart? You can't answer the question 'what is human' based on physical qualities only. So yes, logically you cannot answer the question without philosophy.
Me:
I think you are confusing personhood with the human species.
A person is someone who can think, breathe, and exist on their own. They have a personality and their own opinions on subjects like abortion.
A human being or homo sapiens is a species on earth that evolved enough to form social groups and cultures and, therefore, are capable of personhood. Some other more complex animals might be capable of personhood, like Koko the Gorilla. She was intelligent, learned to communicate using sign language, and even had her own pet.
I'm not discussing this subject in terms of personhood. A fetus isn't developed enough to form a sense of personhood if it can't even survive on its own at 2 months gestation.
Them:
I'm talking about the essence of what makes one a living human. As long as pregnant women before the 3rd month believe they're carrying a child, which is all of them who want to *keep* the child, I am not appealed by the argument that it's suddenly no longer a child but rather a fetus for biological/scientific/empirical reasons when there are various financial and social advantages of it being so.
The points you mention are even still different from mine.
Me:
>The points you mention are even still different from mine.
Correct because again, you fail to see the point of the argument.
You yourself say;
>As long as pregnant women before the 3rd month believe they're carrying a child, which is all of them who want to *keep* the child,
That's all fine and dandy cause it's her *choice* to do so, not yours and not the government's. But it's not yours or anyone else's place to force your philosophical or religious views on an entire nation and bully us all into following them by making your opinions a law.
Them:
It's a choice to recognise a human as a human, you're saying? So where's the end to that travesty of logic? A cat is a dog, a man is a woman, that dog is a man and that man is a dog. That's a wild world you're living in. I don't see the world that way, it defeats both logic and common sense. But it surely makes a way to justify doing whatever the hell you like doing. I won't force morality on you, but I'll tell you when it's absent.
Me:
Again, you're trying to use philosophy to argue science, and that gets us nowhere. I already stated I'm not talking from a philosophical standpoint.
You can see the world however you want. Your morals aren't always going to line up with your neighbors morals. Your neighbor might think it's immoral to eat any kind of meat. Are you gonna give up that steak dinner cause they can smell it in their living room? How would you feel if the entire government decided eating meat is a crime and, therefore, it's banned and you go to jail just for eating a hamburger. Kinda sucks when other people force their philosophy and religion on you by passing laws to get their way.
Now I know you're gonna be like, "But you can't compare pregnancies to diets!" But you're already equating philosophy with science. So, let me give you another scenario.
Do you like eggs? Eggs are just undeveloped chickens who were denied the ability to develop and hatch. Will you give up your eggs and bacon just because your vegan neighbor says it's immoral?
Since to you personhood and human are one and the same. Say aliens decide to visit earth; they have arms and legs and a brain, can speak, express emotions, and have their own culture. Are they human? Do we give them the same rights as you and me even though they weren't born on earth and are basically invading our planet? Or are they just displaying personhood?
If you say yes, they are human and deserve the same rights as you and me, then you also need to give those same rights to the "illegal aliens" that cross the border.
Why are undeveloped fetuses given more rights to life than families with children who are trying to seek a better life? Why do we value a fetus over the actual baby? Once it's born, if the mother says she needs help, she's scorned and looked down on for asking for WIC, foodstamps, and cash benefits to help feed and cloth her baby. She should have thought of that before deciding to have a baby, right? But if she decides she's unable to afford a baby, and she can't afford to take time off because the pregnancy is making it hard for her to work, she's called a murderer for seeking an abortion.
To pro-life advocates, a fetus is more important before it's born than after it's born. And you won't convince me otherwise. The same people pushing for abortion bans, banning mifepristone (a drug that's also necessary to help with incomplete miscarriages), and even simple birth control are the same people who vote to cut funding to welfare programs, free lunch programs, and to entire school districts. That's not very pro-life of them now, is it?
-------
They gave up the argument after that.
I could have converted this into a rant solely from my perspective, but I felt it would be better just to copy it as a script.
Pro-lifers are not actually pro-life. They are just anti-women and anti-choice. If they actually cared about the fetus, they would care about it after its born by passing laws and regulations that would ensure the child has the best quality of life possible and every chance to succeed. Instead, time and again, they vote against those laws.
They don't care about the fetus once it's born. Why is that? Could it be that their true goal all along is to force women back into submission because they romanticize the bygone era of the 1800s and early 1900s when women didn't hold jobs, didn't vote, and couldn't do anything without their husband's explicit permission?
I dunno, that's just the vibe I get from the anti-choice supporters. Why else would they say things like, "Stop riding dick if you can't take accountability." But then start foaming at the mouth when you remind them accountability goes both ways. When's the last time they made a child support payment?
#pro life is anti-women#reddit#reddit rants#pro choice#personal rant#rants#rant#long post#long rant#my body my choice#abortion is a human right#abortion is healthcare#abortion rights#reproductive freedom#reproductive rights
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SCREAMS IF U DONT TELL ME MORE ABOUT DRACULA TOJI EXPERMENTING ON YOU-
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cw. vampire toji x afab reader, dracula au, noncon, experimentation, blood, mentions of pregnancy, breeding, predator/prey, size difference, yan toji, you are compelled by him. divider creds: cafekitsune.
Okay, I just think that Count Toji must be tired of living in his castle, bored of having spent centuries in this land where he only goes out hunting at night to survive and watch others live their lives under the hot and threatening sun.
Curiosity would lead him to set his eyes on the girl who occasionally walks around his castle, Toji is not interested in her social class or status; all he wants from her is the taste and ecstasy that her young blood can give him. He often sees her stop in the distance and admire how majestic the building is, so tall and imposing.
Toji believes that she managed to notice his presence once. Standing in front of the second floor window, as the sun set and he turned his back to the shadows. When their gazes met, it was then that he realized that the pleasures and memories of his human life still lingered there hidden under the clothes of the elegant lord he pretends to be, he wanted her, he wanted her on his property, he wanted her holding his hand and carrying his seed inside her.
With this idea in mind, he waited and counted the days until she would pass by his castle again; he waited and waited until, during twilight, he saw her walking slowly up the clear, flower-filled hill.
The dense flakes of black clouds hid the sun that day as if someone was conspiring on his behalf, so he took the opportunity to approach her, cautiously, making sure his movements would not frighten her, though nothing could make his dead heart beat faster than the sight of her running down the hill as she flees from an inevitable outcome.
Toji blamed her smile. If she hadn't smiled at him in that open, friendly way, as if inviting him to take her right there and then, he might have let her slip away. After all, it was not yet dark and anyone could catch him in the act; however, the way her heart was beating, hidden under her corset-tight ribs, and her nervous, choppy breathing, with her chest rising and falling, had never made him feel so alive as he did at that moment.
She doesn't remember how long it's been or how she got there, sometimes she thinks all she knows is that castle and her master. There are gaps in her memory about the family she lost one day and who she was before; all she remembers are the Count's words: “This is your home now.”
She serves him. She dresses for him. And she allows him, for some reason, to take anything he wants from her including her blood. Whenever he asks she goes to the back room, perfectly decorated with a bed with red silk sheets and sheer curtains hanging from the ceiling. Toji strips her of her clothes and she offers him her previously injured and fang-marked left arm, he feeds sometimes until she faints and loses consciousness. Other times, he calls her to breed her.
Toji is obsessed with the idea of getting her pregnant. One night, he told her how he wants to have children, how he wants to procreate, and that is the only reason she is there, not to serve him dinner or clean his floors; she is there to accept his cum every night and every time he wants to give it to her.
Toji has tried it so many ways, with her on top, underneath, beside him. His fangs are in every inch of her skin, marking her as his, and he keeps trying, wishing that at some point she might give him an heir for eternity so he won't be alone.
So far, though, none of that has worked.
There are days when she wakes up lucid and fear creeps through her veins, making her get out of bed in the middle of the night and run downstairs, screaming in terror. She doesn't remember how many times it has happened, she only knows that he finds her opening the front door and pushes her from behind crushing her against the old wood.
"Where are you going?" he growls annoyed against her ear, his breath hitching.
"Please, my lord; let me go."
Toji is quiet for a moment, perhaps weighing the decision?
"Let's make a deal. I will open the door and you will run as fast as your little legs will allow. If you can catch a moonbeam, I'll let you go.”
The castle is gigantic, she thinks. It will be a moment before she can step out of the shadows of it and reach the light.
"What if I don't make it?" her tear-filled eyes close for a moment and the tears fall.
The Count laughs softly, grinding his hips against her lower back showing her how hard what is about to happen makes him.
"You don't want to find out and ruin the surprise, do you?"
Toji flings open the door and she almost falls to the floor. Her hands touch the ground and she gets up in a hurry to get away from the castle, running as far as she can. Grass brushes against her feet, pebbles cut into the soles of her feet and her dress gets tangled between her thighs, but she keeps going without stopping. She looks back and sees him in his sleeping clothes from the doorway mimicking being a man, wrapped in darkness from his home with jet hair covering his eyes. And with red eyes and sharp fangs, she finally sees him for what he is.
A monster.
She looks ahead, screaming from the depths of her lungs for help. She thinks of her family, of her mother, and picks up the hem of her dress with one hand to run faster. The moonlight seems so close that she thinks she can reach it, but it all becomes a distant dream again the moment a sharp sound tears the air; like the cry of a wounded animal, and her body falls to the ground. Her palms bleed and she screams in pain, in rage, in fear.
"Please!"
"I've got you. Let's go back home."
notes. i believe faithfully that he does this kind of experiments with you. he spreads your pussy with his fingers, pushes his cum inside, maybe hm fucks you in the ass all this to see your reaction. he is addicted to the way you respond to pleasure, to pain, that he wants to know everything about you. how much would your body resist before breaking, how much he should do to make you pregnant.
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Day Zero
chapter 2
masterlist
pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x plus size fem!reader
summary: Ghost doesn't know what to do. He looks for Riley everywhere, with no results. He slowly loses his mind and does something he hasn't done for a long time…
You wonder who and where Riley has been with all these years. How he found you? Why is he wearing that weird vest?
And above all, where is the person who put it on him?
tags: AFAB reader, plus size reader, dog german shepherd, alcohol, weapon
author's note: I didn't expect so many comments, likes… everything… Thank you for this, it motivates me a lot.
Unfortunately, what everyone probably expects doesn't happen in this chapter… or maybe it does?^^
I plan to add new chapter once a week.
However, I have more free time this week, so I will add the next part in a few days.
Chapter 2: The one with(out) Riley
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Day 730
You & Riley
It had to be Riley.
Of all the things you dreamed of all those lonely nights. About family, friends. Everything you've been longing for. You missed him the most. For your beloved dog. I t wasn't like the other family members were important to you. You just knew and pretty quickly came to terms with the thought that you wouldn't see them again.
It was difficult, hard. However, the realization of the unpleasant truth and mourning in such strange and new lonely conditions passed. The loss of the dog was unexpected and sudden. And knowing from day one that many animals somehow survived. Somewhere deep in your heart you felt that Riley was just there. And eventually, one way or another, you will be together again. But you thought it would happen after you died.
Not now. And not like that.
The dog was so happy to see you that he jumped at you with his front paws, trying to put them on your shoulders, but he was so excited and exhausted that he hit you with full force, pushing you. You hit the ground with a loud thud, crushed by the mass of the dog who was now licking every inch of your body, clothed or not. It didn't matter to him at all.
"Oh my god Riley...stop it, oh fuck" as you try to get out of the weight you don't know if you're in pain or if you're happy or shocked.
You're going through a million emotions. Many thoughts are running through your head. You have so many questions. So much confusion.
"Riley, man, calm down... I know, I know..."
You're trying to say something and at the same time get rid of the dog that has gained a lot of weight after these two years. Not only was he handsome, but he looked like a decent dog. Adult, mature. After many attempts, you finally manage to sit down, the dog seems to let go for a moment, panting loudly and sticking out his tongue. You look at each other as if each of you wanted to express and tell you everything that happened and what you felt during these months of separation.
Riley still had that incredible wisdom in his eyes, something that made him seem so human. This was one of the features that made him easy to recognize. The second thing was the fact that, unfortunately, before he came to you, when he was a puppy he lost part of his left ear. That's why as soon as you saw an animal running towards you, in a split second you knew it was him.
It was something so incredible, even impossible.
And you remember your mother's words the day the puppy showed up at the door of your family home
"Fucking miracle"
Scratching Riley's ear, you shook your head in amusement and whispered, barely audible
"Yes Mommy, you were right… as always. He's a miracle."
Now you were just curious about the person who had kept Riley alive for so long and kept him in such great shape.
Slowly standing up, brushing off the dust from your clothes and wiping your cheeks, which were wet with dog saliva. You looked around the area, not seeing another living creature.
“Riley, who did you come with? Where is this person?”
You asked the companion next to you, grabbing your backpack and slowly walking in the direction the dog came from. However, the wounds on your feet from the long walk were so painful that you had to give up after walking a few steps.
“So, I guess we'll have to wait here for this mysterious Ghost?”
Walking towards a small building that was probably an energy building. Hoping that there will be a working power supply with electricity inside. which the tower still works and sends a signal, from time to time you looked with a smile at the dog which was glued to your leg and was following along with you.
For the first time in a long time, you smiled.
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Day 731
You & Riley
Nothing, silence, emptiness.
As if the arrival of the dog didn't change much. And it changed practically everything. The world took on new colors for you, you felt that it was a signal, a sign. Whatever. Something refreshing that restored meaning to your life after such hopeless and miserable, long and lonely months.
And somewhere deep inside you believed that someone would eventually show up. And after many hours of sitting in a dingy little building next to the tower, you lose hope again. Maybe Riley's arrival was everything you deserved in this new life.
When trying to get more comfortable on a concrete floor, you need to be careful with your dog. With every movement you make, even the smallest one, Riley raises his head and looks at you. He gets closer if you move your body away from his just the slightest. As if he was afraid that you would disappear from his sight again.
The night and half of the day passed. No one came at noon.
Like the mysterious Ghost, sleep never came.
“Darling, I'm so tired... everything hurts,” you say quietly, stroking the animal's fur with your hand.
“Riley, I think we should wait a little longer, maybe one more day?” You look towards your backpack. Unfortunately, all the supplies you had packed were slowly running out. Your water supply would last for another day. Maybe if you saved more for the next two days. You had food for two or three days. However, you didn't expect before that you would have to count all the food and water for two.
It wasn't a problem. At all.
“Oh boy… you don't know how glad I am that you're here with me,” you muttered, placing your hand on the dog's body, finally falling asleep.
And the last thought was that in two years you haven't said as many words as today.
And it wasn't a problem. At all.
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Day 730
Ghost
Ghost felt like he was slowly losing his mind. That he's about to go crazy. Since all this happened, this whole cataclysm, the apocalypse. The end of the world... Everyone could call it whatever they wanted. That damn Day Zero. The man was able to organize himself in all this chaos, pursue his goals, plan and live. From day one, everything made sense, meaning, some direction for him.
Planning, patterns, predictability. Sticking to the schedule, drill.
His years in the army prepared him for this. It was in his blood.
So now that there had been no sign of Riley for over 24 hours, the only living being for whom he got up and went to sleep every day, it all made no sense. His life had no meaning.
Yesterday when he left the fucking house with a pillow in his hand that he took for the dog. In terror, he ran around the area shouting the dog's name, hoping that it would appear soon. Ghost was under the illusion that Riley would run around the corner with some prey in his mouth. Wagging his tail happily.
Nothing like that happened.
Ghost, in his madness, destroyed several objects he encountered on his way. Screaming loudly and cursing. This couldn't be true. Something bad must have happened. The dog had been clinging to Ghost continuously for 2 years. Even when he taught him to hunt or search in new unknown locations, the dog was able to return to the man.
Why wasn't he there now?
Ghost finally went home after many hours of frantic searching. All the time he was wondering what else he should do to make his friend come back to him.
When he finally reached a safe place and parked the car, he looked around the area, hoping Riley had found his way home, and stuck his tongue out, wagging his tail. That the dog would be sitting outside the house, waiting for Ghost.
Unfortunately, to the man's horror, there was no sign of any presence.
Ghost felt under his skin that if he was left alone, he would lose ground. And his entire planned, arranged life will collapse day by day like a house of cards.
The house seemed unusually quiet and empty. Even though every space, every corner, cabinet, shelf and floor was filled with objects that the man had collected for two years. Supplies, clothes, items needed for survival. He was proud of how easily and quickly he adapted to the new challenge. How he was able to find himself alone, without other people.
This was another difficult and important mission for him.
I'm sitting in a chair at a large oak desk. He converted the room into an office where he kept maps, important documents and books. Ghost leaned back in the leather chair and closed his eyes.
He was afraid of this moment. Yes, he expected that one day he would be alone again. That he would have to say goodbye to his best companion. However, a German Shepherd should live up to 13 years. Maybe Riley would have lived another year or two in good health. Ghost was ready for this terrible situation. But that was to happen in the future. Someday, when they're both ready. In many years. In at least 9-10 years. That was the plan. That was the assumption.
And now Ghost was staring at the blank white ceiling, feeling like his world had collapsed once again.
The first was the death of his family.
The second time was when his teammate died.
Third… no, no, no. This couldn't happen again.
"No!" the man growled loudly, getting up from his chair and hurrying towards the room that was now the large pantry.
He must have had something strong to drink. Bloody hell. He had to drink that fucking brandy.
It's been a long 730 days since Ghost last dipped his lips in alcohol. Two years of sobriety.
And a drunk lieutenant meant something very dangerous.
Pure madness.
If someone showed up at Ghost's door now. The person should step back and leave without hesitation. And never come back. For your own safety. Your pathetic life.
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Day 732
Walking towards the city in the morning, with your dog by your side, you felt as if the world smiled at you and let you go back to your happy years. When you were younger and Riley was just a few months old puppy. This is exactly what your mornings looked like. You were walking along quiet streets somewhere on the outskirts of your city, enjoying the new, sunny day. You usually went to your favorite cafe and bakery, then went to the park with your dog. Lazy, ordinary mornings.
Unfortunately, now despite the idyllic landscape, peace and quiet, greening grasses and trees. Nothing else here was like back then.
Silence, deserted, ruined buildings.
Even though the world changed completely that day, the city looked remarkably good and clean, the main roads were passable, cars and other things on the road had been moved so that one lane was empty. You decided to go to the center and plan further walking there.
You entered several buildings and checked several vehicles.
Weird. All the more important and necessary things you could find in these places are gone. Medicines, canned goods. Batteries, clothes, shoes. The fuel from the car was drained, batteries, light bulbs and other things from the engine were removed.
The city looked like someone had definitely lived there after Day Zero. For a long time.
However, after a few hours of walking around empty streets, you decided to enter the last building where you expected to find at least a few drops of water. Even fermented, rotten food. Whatever.
“Riley, come on, one more place and we're going back to the tower, maybe Ghost will show up tomorrow?”
you lightly pulled the dog's leash. The dog was still sitting on its hind legs, looking in the opposite direction from which you had come.
You didn't have time to react.
Focused on the dog, you leaned down to give him the command again to finally move.
You didn't have time to do anything else.
Shot.
And the whistle of the bullet.
That's all you heard...
You didn't have time to do anything else.
taglist: @leviathanleva @chocolate-noodles
#simon ghost riley x reader#simon ghost x reader#simon riley x you#cod#ghost#call of duty fanfic#cod au#cod x reader
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hi! I'm english-catalan and have lived most my life in England but am currently in living in Catalunya. I was just wondering based on your post about catalans who wrote national anthems, all of them seemed to have [cognom] i [cognom] names. I've seen some people whose names are written like that and others who aren't, and it struck me as an odd coincidence that all five of those were written in that format as I don't see it terribly often so it got me wondering- is there a difference between [cognom] i [cognom] and [1r cognom 2n cognom] names, or are they just two different ways of writing the same thing? sorry if this is a weird/stupid question 😭
It's not a stupid question, don't worry!
Nowadays they're two ways of naming. When a child is born, the parents can inscribe them in the civil registre as [name] [1st surname] [2nd surname] or as [name] [1st surname] i [2nd surname]. Choosing one or the other is simply a matter of preference, but the i option used to be more common back in the day and nowadays sounds old-fashioned and maybe even a bit pretentious.
Originally, Catalans only used 1 surname, because in Europe women weren't considered independent adult human beings. For many centuries and up to the 19th century, women didn't have a social class, a surname, nor lineage, because they were considered a possession of a man: their husband, if they didn't have a husband then of their father, and if they didn't have neither husband nor father of their brother. So, for example, the wife of a noble wasn't considered a noble herself, she was technically only the wife of a noble. This happened all over Europe, and in fact many countries in Europe and European ex-colonies nowadays still only pass down the father's and husband's surnames, even forcing women to lose their own surname when they get married and having to get their husband's surname, as if they were still his property. This used to be the case in Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese, and the other European languages that nowadays have both father's and mother's surnames.
Having two surnames originated in the Castilian nobility in the 16th century, with the purpose of stacking more titles and having names that sound different from the common people. To show that they're two separate titles and not just one surname with two names they separated them with the "y" ("and"). Catalan nobles started having a closer connection and marrying with Spanish nobles in the 16th and 17th centuries and adopted the "y" costume. It didn't really catch on to most of the people outside of the upper class until a law made 2 surnames mandatory in the 19th century, though many people were already imitating the nobles in the 18th century. With time, Spanish language lost the tradition of adding "y" between the surnames, but it survived in Catalan. In the early 1900s, when the standard spelling of Catalan was made, people who wanted to be named in Catalan changed the "y" ("and" in Spanish) to "i" ("and" in Catalan).
With time, some people even came to proudly use the "i" between their surnames as a way to show that they're Catalan and they're named in Catalan, not only that it just so happened that they were named Catalan names but that they actively choose it and use it. There's also some people who say that adding the "and" between surnames makes them more equal, because it puts them both at the same importance (for example, in the statement "I buy orange and honey", oranges and honey are in an equal position; "I buy orange honey", the central word is honey and orange is just added to it), but that's more of an a posteriori perception or folk etymology kind of situation imo.
But since the early 20th century to nowadays, the "i" has become less and less popular and nowadays it's unusual to find, at least among young people.
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Wild idea: Shen Jiu's qi deviation is a premature ascension necessitated by the sudden power vacuum caused by the fall of Water and Wind Masters.
Shen Jiu who's a genuine asshole with a soft spot for one man and working women seems like a logical shoe-in for Lord Water Master but he takes bubbly, exuberant Shi Qingxuan's position. Shen Jiu isn't enthused about the comparisons being drawn and the unquiet laments of his character. To make matters worse his fucking subordinates keep stonewalling him, and after he makes some disparaging comments about his predecessor, Ling Wen wrinkles her nose at him which all the civil gods take as a cue to refuse to constructively work with him.
Shen Jiu in a fit of rage descends upon the capital. The loser might just be manipulating his efforts via nepotism. Shi Qingxuan is obviously not doing that being busy with such things as surviving destitution and other fun things.
Prior to meeting Shi Qingxuan, Shen Jiu had a clear idea of a fake kind, young master. But it turns out, Shi Qingxuan, if he's anyone resembles Qiu Haitang far more than her horrible brother, so Shen Jiu decides not to enact Qing Jing Peak's flavour of getting rid of unwanted extras. Instead he decides to fuck the gods and the ghosts, he tells his whole story to Shi Qingxuan.
"And I'm just so very worried about my sect and my dear brother Qi-ge. What if this impostor harbors ill intentions? What will beceome of my dearest shixiong?" He sighs heavily. "But even though I'm now the most powerful god whose ever hailed from CQMS, I am bound by heavenly law not to interfere." Another heavy sigh. "What use is all this power, if I can't protect the one I..." A rough hand covers his, Shi Qingxuan meets his eyes solemnly. "Don't throw away your good fate for your brother's sake, I'll head to CQMS right now and check on him. I'll warn him of the impostor and I'll tell him of your good fortune."
And that's how Shi Qingxuan travels to CQMS, where he through some shenanigans ascends as Lord of the Wine peak. (This is possible because due to some very unwise drinking choices the former Lord of Wine peak declared that the position would go to whoever could beat him in combat not in a drinking contest as was tradition and was subsequently trampled to death by an inebriated horny moose shrew. This caused some problems for CQMS as horny moose shrews only lived for up to a decade. It was decided that whoever beat the old Peak lord's drinking record would gain the position.)
#mxtx crossovers#tgcf#svsss#i don't know where this is going but i thought it was funny#shi qingxuan#shen jiu#ideas that i like to rotate in my head
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angel in hell ; the ghoul x reader
summary: hell on earth is more tolerable with his light by his side.
warnings: allusions to s~mut (minors DNI!), reader as an 'entertainer' is used loosely (for your creativity!), cocky (softer) hard-ass x beautiful badass darling trope mmm, reader was born before the war, age gap but not really (think him in his 40s & you in your 20s/30s but in 200-ish years old), less angst and more fluff overall!
a/n: just a little tester because I could not help it HAHAHA had this in my mind for a few days, and now that I've started the show, I have an excuse to post it 💅🏼 please enjoy & don’t forget to leave some sugar! ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ
» curious about my writing? come & check out my main m.list!
'You wondered how your dead father would react to your relationship with a deadly and smitten cowpoke.' ;
You were an entertainer before it all. The best of the best. A real knockout of the century and the kindest of them all.
If only you knew it had its downsides.
Your admirer (read: obsessor) being none other than the Overseer of 33 himself, forcing you into the vault lifestyle with him to be his beloved.
But your mental strength, your humanity, your free will was unbudgeable.
Not even the experiments could budge you.
Not until that one fucking serum.
You tried everything. Before and after your escape.
But the afterlife, or whatever the fuck that existed outside of this godforsaken world, just wouldn't take you.
Your mama always said that by living a good, long life, the universe gets to show you what they had to offer.
Thank the heavens she didn't live long enough to take her words back, if she knew the hell her only daughter was put into.
And though the Vault taught you how to survive better than poor souls on the surface, sometimes you wished you didn't remember how to. Yearning for the ignorance and the near-zombified state they were in over the pristine lifestyle that would jump out of you every once in a while.
At least whatever the underground snakes injected you with kept your youth intact.
Though, you weren't the only one reminiscing your old days, remembering the smiles that immediately bloomed from your presence.
Howard, The Ghoul remembers you.
Nobody at his great age could ever forget a sweet face like yours. Standing out from all the yuppies, despite being well-off yourself at the time, much like you were now. You knew your rights from your wrongs, and they were never for show. Regardless of the bags under your eyes on sleepless nights, or the scars that would decorate your skin after a rough-up, just until your curse magically wooshes it away.
Despite your scoffs, your wave-offs over your old life, that the present had no need for an entertainer, he would say otherwise.
All. The. Time.
Always countering your modesty with the highest praises, albeit sometimes lewdly.
But… not always.
He knew that you knew you were one of a kind if he was able to tell you his life before the bombs dropped. That he was able to tell you stories of his late family. That he was able to tell you that you were 'somethin' special t'him'.
You wondered how your dead father would react to your relationship with a deadly and smitten cowpoke.
But you were on your own now.
Always been for over two hundred fucking years.
At least, that was the way it was before.
Not anymore. Not with the foul-mouthed gunslinger and his pooch, who, to the chagrin of your man, adored you more than him.
Which, really, how couldn't you talk Howard's ear off for harming the sweetheart at first?
Disbelief was something he had lived with from the day he stumbled upon you in the badlands one fine night. The pretty little lady who didn't look like she could hurt a fly back then now aimed her trusty rifle at him with an unlit ciggy in between your lips. Not a tremor in sight as you looked through your scope.
He was half-tempted to be shot.
And well, you did, taking the shot. It did as good as a chocolate teapot, and as you quickly tried to reload, he took a good look at you.
You were a sight for sore eyes before, but today, gorgeous wasn't even cutting it, and if he wasn't daydreaming about your messy hair and sorry clothing article for a sleepwear, then he definitely was about that one night—your first night.
How you teasingly pulled the wide collar of your top down, revealing more and more of your velvety skin. How gentle your kisses were, brushing your lips along his neck like he'd finally break after a lifespan of wandering. How you looked up at him, lips parted and eyes dazed with lust and dare he say, affection.
He knew he was a goner.
But like all the time, he wanted to be greedy.
And for once in his life, after an eternity, the future was finally shedding him some light of hope.
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a/n: if something ain't right, no it isn't ❤️ don't worry about it, still hope you enjoy! ;; gorgeous rose divider by @firefly-graphics ♡
#will the fixation be temporary? beats me.#might as well have fun with it!#make no mistake; i know my fallout lore (kinda. a little.)#— reve's reverie 🌹#the ghoul#the ghoul x reader#the ghoul x f!reader#the ghoul x female reader#the ghoul x you#cooper howard#cooper howard x reader#cooper howard x f!reader#cooper howard x female reader#cooper howard x you#cooper x reader#cooper x you#fallout#fallout tv series#fallout series#fallout x reader#fallout x you#walton goggins
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"Open it." For my boy Josh (prompt for the five sentence fic!)
"Open it."
It isn't a request.
It's a dare. An ice-cold threat that freezes Josh to the spot. He stands paralyzed, his clammy palm welded to the doorknob. Josh's sorry life flashes before his bloodshot eyes, and his freedom taunts him from the other side of the unlocked door. It calls him, it pulls him like a magnet.
Josh wants to live, and not just survive. He wants his life back. His simple, mundane life. He'd give anything and everything to blend back into the world and fade into the background.
"Go on, Joshy. See what happens the second you open that door." Felix stalks closer but Josh doesn't face him. He can't face him. With his puffy, tear-stained cheeks and deer-in-headlight eyes. Josh's ears prick up at the sound of slow footsteps coming to a stop just over his shoulder.
"You know I'd catch you, don't you, honey?" Felix half purrs, half growls. Josh's thumping heart falls to the pit of his stomach. "God have mercy on you, I'd hunt you down like a wild animal. And when I finally find you...?"
Josh physically cringes and shrivels up as Felix nibbles at Josh's neck and kisses the dip of his collarbone. Felix slowly reaches around to place his hand on top of Josh's shaking one, on the door handle, and pulls it away.
"I'd snap your legs like twigs," Felix whispers in Josh's ear. "I would just love you bed-bound. It would be my dream come true, baby... the things I'd do to you..."
Josh hears Felix actually lick his lips and his gut suddenly twists. Josh thought his life was already a fate worse than death...somehow, it can get worse. He spins around to face Felix, eyes blown wide and sparkling - his lip wobbling like a small child.
It's a risk he's not willing to take. Any foolish bravery suddenly dissolves and his fight or flight suddenly switches off. Josh just feels empty.
He collapses into Felix's arms in a slump. His body rockets with sobs as Felix cradles him and smoothes the jet-black hair over his scalp.
"Sweet boy," Felix mumurs dotingly, "sweet, confused little boy. You know you belong with me, don't you?"
Josh nods miserably into Felix's chest.
"I'm the only one who knows you inside and out, who will take care of your every want and need. You'll never leave me, baby-blue."
#yall better believe that calm fury Felix does not last long#Felix would whoop Josh's ass into next year like an hour later#like PUNISHMENT TIME OH DARLING ONE 💞💞💞💞#but thank you for the prompt!!!#josh barlowe oc#felix conner oc#play pretend#yandere whumper#obsessive whumper#kidnapped whumpee#escape attempt#kinda#whump#whump writing#answered asks#whump community#whumpblr#whump blog#whumpee#whumper#captivity#conditioning
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Obi wan Headcanons my lord? feed the poor
God, I have a lot of them .I'm going to split this up in a few parts just because it makes sense . Strap in !!!
Part 0: baby obi wan
His parents noticed that he was a surprisingly bright child, and since they were farmers from stewjon, they weren’t well off. When they had their second child (a son) they brought obi wan to a near by testing unit on the neighbour planet Klommet , in hopes of giving both him and his brother a better chance at survival.
Obi wan was tested at the age 1 and a half. He was clearly gifted but nothing special.
He used to cry a lot when he first got to the jedi temple. Most jedi got rather annoyed at the younglings crying, except one ,qui gon jin .
Qui gon voluntured a lot at the creshe , he believed that crying children needed confort not a lecture. Obi wan got attached to qui gon rather quickly as a 2 year old ( qui gon looks a bit like his late dad)
As he grew up , he got along well with the other children and formed close friendships with them ( po ,kit ,quinlan) . Seeing this, qui gon went back to helping the new kids.
Part 1 : padawan years
Obi wan is rather talented at most things, not on a “ WOW YOU’RE THE BEST “ way but more like a “…that shouldn’t go so easily “ . He picks things up quickly, which causes him to be rather inpatient. Not impulsive, he doesn’t rush he simply hates waiting. That's why he hates meditating. He doesn’t understand it.
He doesn’t know it but when discussing who would get which apprentice , his name fell quite a few times . Obi wan likes to learn and so many suspect that he would be a nice well behaved padawan.
He was so happy when they informed him that qui gon would be his master . Qui gon had always stood out as the nicest jedi , not that the others weren’t but he had seemed to understand obi wan a bit more.
The first thing qui gon asked of him was to meditate. Obi wan started stressing immediately, and it went pretty bad in the beginning. Qui gon thought it was hilarious how quickly he was distracted. “ the wall paper does not need your attention right now “ he would quip or “ breathe through your nose and dont rush it” . It took obi Wan's a year to truly be able to meditate properly.
Luckily time wasn’t wasted because his fight skills and knowledge were unmatched.
Piloting took some getting used to. Not only was he scared of heights , but he also wasn’t a fan of rollercoasters. Qui gon always noted how slow he was . “ If you keep flying like this, we won't get there before im 60 “ or “ we can always walk , it might be faster” . But his master did help him, he would go to more desserted planets with obi wan . The planets that even if he would fly faster, he couldn’t hit anything . Obi wan got his red piloting bead 5 months later with the promise to let go a little.
He picks up quickly with missions , like i said he’s a natural . His first mission was a bit stressful but after that hes pretty much set . Also when they get back to their ship , qui gon cooks a home cooked meal because hes not going to let obi wan live on war rashens and blue milk.
He also teaches him how to cook
Obi wan starts feeling a bit quilty because he starts thinking of qui gon as his dad since well he is a little. But the jedi code says no attachments and he will follow that . Until he has a nervous breakdown because if qui gon is a jedi master that follows the jedi code he probably doesn’t care about him , he ends up getting in quite a lot of danger on a mission because of this . When he confesses to qui gon why he did all that he doesn’t respond,he just pulls his padawan into a hug . “ you are my kid obi wan “
When he turns 20 , he starts to really push qui gonn to let him take his trials. He just wants to be a jedi master.
That all changes a bit when he meets the dutches of mandelore Satine . He falls inlove quickly but he’s a real coward about it ( Satine notices) . Satine ends up pulling him into a kiss 2 months later at a gala she had to attend. They had a night together……
Qui gonn knows 100% . He finds it hilarious how his bumbling fool of a padawan got himsel into this mess . He prepares for the inevitable “ im leaving the order “ not that he wants him to . Obi wan is just that kinda kid .
When he sees obi wan the next morning, he looks like he cried acts rather somber and asks when they are leaving . Qui gon figures out what happened but doesn’t say anything. They leave and he gives him some space .
For the next 2 years it all goes smoothly until…
Part 2: early Anakin years
Obi wan isn’t too happy with the orphan. They are on a dangerous mission in the middle of who knows where with the queen of a planet that’s about to die . And now they have Ani , he wasn't going to lie it was a sweet child . But why now.
Obi wan has a quiet panic attack when qui gon says he will take anakin as his apprentice . He doesn’t feel ready to take the trials since his self esteem plummeted a bit after the Satine debacle and no one helped him take care of that ( fuck the jedi council) .
During the flight back to Naboo, padme went to her room and qui gon had a call with the council, leaving obi Wan to babysit ani . The child would yap non stop “ Did you make your own lightsaber?” “Yes” “can i hold it?” “No” “ when do i get mine?” “ When you're ready” “ but i am ready” “ no you’re not “ “yes i am “ “ no you’re not “ “ Did you choose THAT color?” “ Yes, i did” “ It's kinda ugly” “…” . A true test of patience but strangly lovable.
About 2 hours later was when the child fell asleep next to obi Wan . Anakin was still shivering , tattooine was a warm planet, something the ship heaters couldn’t compete with. Obi wan draped his long outer coat over the boy in hopes of giving him some warmth . Seeing the child peacefully asleep, Obi wan realised why his master liked him.
It took 48 hours to get to Naboo . It also took 48 hours for Obi wan to look at Anakin as his little brother.
When he first sees Maul he’s scared . He doesn’t want to be, but he simply is . Back in school him and his friends would joke about the sith and how cool it would be to defeat one . Right now , face to face with the first sith in ages , he’s horrified, and the red zebrak seems to kick on it
All he hears are the red force feels buzzing . He doesn’t hear his own scream or the blood dripping from his master . He feels an immense amount of pain, but the moment those shields lay down, he's up . He only focuses on gett to his master in time .And when he’s hanging in the hole , he snaps back into his jedi mind. The sith shows a new hubris, and he sees his chance. He wins
When qui gonn tells him his final wish , he can only lie to him . He doesn’t feel fit to be a master ,he might be the only jedi who pased the old trials ( to kill a sith ), but he feels like a fraud to weak to safe his master. Qui gon passes in his arms and obi wans let the tears fall.
He sees Anakin after he returns from his “trip” and he almost wants to cry again . Anakin looks so confused “ where’s qui gon ?” “ he passed away , anakin” The tears start to well in the little boys eyes, and all that obi can do is pull him into a hug .
The next weeks are quite hard , anakin becomes his padawan, and he becomes a jedi master. They attend qui gons' funeral, and anakins enters the academy since he needs to do both his padawan ship and the basic training. He is a bit pissy about it , but obi Wan cheers him up with home cooked meals .
They are not allowed to go on mission yet together just obi wan alone, and its extremely hard breaking to leave anakin alone .
When they are home together, obi wan pampers the little guy rotten. He brushes and braids anakins hair he buys him miniatuur planes in hopes of getting a better piolet than he is . He helps him with his homework, and he is just a total single dad .
When about a year has passed obi wan realised that he didn't know his birthday so he asked ani and he didn’t know either . They chose marche 5th because its a week from then and obi Wan can plan his birthday.Ani loved it.
Anakin doesn't make a lot of friends in school or anywhere. Which bothers obi Wan greatly , he thinks anakin is a great kid who can do no wrong. It all escalated when a child calls Anakin a slave ( obi wan does not know how they got here )
Obi wan threatens to destroy him to the boys face . He ends up crying, and Anakin isn’t bothered ever again. ( the jedi council was not happy )
And so it pretty much continues for a few years
Part 3: late anakin years
Anakin is now 20 years old, which is double the age he was when obi Wan met him .
Many people think that obi Wan is past his prime, but this man is absolutely ribbed. He has perfect physique, he’s just covered in robes and coats and stuff
He keeps extra kyber crystals around because Anakin keeps losing/breaking his lightsaber
Anakin requested black robes, and the council wouldn’t let him because of the association with the sith, and obi wan was like “ No , let my padawan express himself . Plus, I killed the last sith years ago “ so they let him because nothing is scarier than getting on obi wans' bad side
When they meet padmé again, obi Wan is almost laughing at how bad anakin is hiding his feelings for her . He also realises that he will have to talk to his padawn about it .
Obi wan gets a little stricter over the last year since anakin definitely doesn't think before he does anything
When the council decided to let Anakin go with Padme , he couldn't help but warn anakin once again. He reminds him of the problems that might occur or the heartbreak ( he's definitely not projecting)
When shmi dies, he tries his best to support anakin best he can . He doesn’t remember his parents, but he assumes it's like losing Qui gon, so he does everything he needed back then . Home cooked meals ,hugs ,pep talks, pulling him out of mission….
He noticed from the moment they set foot into the arena that they were together. On the one hand, he was extremely nervous about it, and on the other, he was a bit proud of his boy.
ALSO, he gets that shiver down his spine because he realises that qui gon knew about him and Satine, and he's a bit embarrassed about it .
He doesn't tell it to anakin because just like his master he thinks that it might be better to give them space .
He gets really offended that he wasn't invited to the wedding. He knows it was supposed to be undercover, but please
Padme and anakin will sometimes invite him for dinner as if they aren't dating, and he truly enjoys those evenings together.
He likes padme immensely . She helps to calm anakin down, and she's all around a great person .
She's also the first out of her and anakin to realise that obi Wan knows . Sadly, this happens after the wedding, so now it's like a shared secret.
Now that anakin left the nest , he gets to enjoy hobbies. He starts experimenting with cooking until Kit , Quinlan and Po are so done with it that they start ordering out . Then he gets a pet a feathered veractyle he names boga , when the planet he’s visiting allows it she will be his transport . He also keeps a variety of plants ( they remind him of qui gon) and books .he collects golden trinkets. Anakin jokes that it all goes against the jedi code, but he likes it .
HE ALSO LOVES TO GOSSIP with his clones anakin padme kit po anyone that wants to listen.
Talking about his clones , he loves them dearly not as much as anakin but like coby is one of his closest friends.
212 has tried to give him nicknames before, but it never sticks , they do like saying the negotiator in funny voices .
Obi wan thinks that his clones are the best clones, but it seems that every jedi thinks that.
He is now a jedi council member, and he still has that off feeling that he doesn’t deserve it . His ideas dont link with the others, and he feels that he doesn't have a lot of influence on it . Qui gon was never part of it, and he understands why more and more. He loves being a jedi master but kinda hates the council.
That also makes it really hard for him to help Anakin with his dissatisfaction with his position rn . Being on the council but not a master feels like the worst-case scenario, but he has to help anakin not be pissy, so he does . It is a great honor to be on the council.
He didn't know about padmé being pregnant. So he just thought anakin was so stressed out about his career and the jedi order . After everything happened as it did , he felt that he didn’t support anakin correctly.
Obi wan objected when they wanted anakin to spy on Palpetine . He doesn’t want his boy near any danger and definitely not in the front line . He yells and fights for it until it goes to a vote, just as his seat on the council, obi Wan would leave the council immediately if it meant that Anakin was 100% safe . In the end , the vote goes for the spying and obi wans demands to tell anakin himself. It doesn’t go well, obi Wan feels like he's betraying his brother.
In the coming weeks, he will see the loveable orphan of tatooine change to a traumatized war veteran, and he's not happy about it. He tries to calm him down and speak to him just like he did when shmi died . Sadly, this time, it doesn’t seem to work.
When his clones betray him , he feels fear for the first time since the deul of the faiths . Not only is he in danger, but they are in danger , anakin might be in danger . He feels his life falling from betw his fingers . Boga and some of his dear clones die when he gets back to his ship . He calls to anakin, but he doesn’t pick up . He flies to the temple.
When yoda and him visit the temple, dread fills his mind. He still didn’t receive anything from anakin and was really worried about it . They see the temple lithered with death children, and all he sees are small Anakin's death on the floor . Then they see the footage of the night before, and the world falls beneath him . Anakin is a murderer, a sith, and still his brother . Obi wan chooses to go alone to face him ….
{that one deleted scene }
The deul with anakin is the worst moment of his life. Nothing compares to it . He tries to enter with an open mind and the little voice in the back of his mind telling him to redeem anakin . Sadly hes to far gone. The deul ends with his dying friend near the fire , obi wans whole life in pieces and a almost death padme.
The birth of Luke and leia is a small piece of hope, but padmé passes away . Obi wan has no one anymore.
He's extremely happy with the organas asking to adopt leia, and he himself asks to adopt Luke, but that did not happen because of the circumstances. If the sith starts hunting jedi , Obi wan will be at the top of the list
In the end, he lives near Luke until he grows to be a jedi .
He tries to meditate, but his bond to the force is pretty much broken .
Part 4: obi wan alone
Since moving to Tatooine, he has got some new dreams . He gets flashbacks to his childhood before being a jedi, but the worst once are the anakin once . They all start the same , meeting ani quick flashes through their years together and then Mustafar .
He believes that he killed anakin and that he burnt to death .
He has mixed feelings towards his actions. On the one hand, he as a jedi had to kill him, but as his brother, he is simply broken.
He doesn’t think of himself as a jedi anymore. Over the years, he has come to question the jedi order . For how they treated anakin and ahsoka even padme . He promised to himself that he wouldn’t teach Luke to throw away his emotions.
When darth maul shows up on tattooin, he's in some strange way. Sorry for him . They were both just children raised for war , he wished partly that they could have got Maul out before Naboo or that he wouldn’t hold the anger he had towards him for the death of his father . He took a deep breath and let it go . In the end, Maul died in his arms , the same way he had hoped he would have pulled anakin up after their duel.
He tries to meditate again in hopes of connecting to qui gons' spirit or anakins . He hopes to apologise to anakin to pet his hair and tell him it's alright to get one last evening diner with padmé and Anakin . From qui gon, he just wants comfort a long hug or a smile that shows him he’s proud of his padawan, even a home cooked meal .
He starts working as a butcher for sand whales . In the beginning, he used to walk there, but then lars pointed out that that was really suspicious for the other people in town . So he went shopping for a transport that was nice and easy to maintain . That's how he ends up with his eopie Akkani .
Akkani is a bit of a lazy animal , she just wants to eat and walk and eat again. He's happy he has a pet, tho because he gets a bit lonely.
He keeps all of his jedi things in a chest in his gave , including his own lightsaber and 2 sets of beads . One set is his own padawan braid beads, and the other are anakins . He also has some other stuff such as qui gon' s old kitchen knife and some pictures of his clones scrabs of r2d2 when he needed repairs a feather of boga some model airplanes anakin used to play with and so on. ( NO BURYING IN THE DESSERT I HATE THAT)
He really wants to train Luke, but Lars won’t let him . Which hurts obi Wan a lot . He wouldn’t push Luke to be a soldier like the once before , he would connect him to the force just like qui gon wanted with Anakin .
That's why he started reading up on the ancient scripts about the jedi . He loves the Yawa sellers just because he can buy his books without the empire noticing.
He will wait forever in hopes of setting the universe back to balance for the mistake he made on Mustafar.
This took so long and its not even all of it .( i left out the kenobi series because i didn’t want to rewrite it and i couldn’t figure out how to add to it without rewriting it srry)
Also i wrote a little obi wan reacting to ahsoka being Anakins padawn not that long ago ( link below )
And i left his later relationship with satine and maul out because it might be a bit long . If you want that you can always ask in my requests ( i do have some thoughts about those)
#this took so long#im fighting demons#writer block#star wars#obi wan kenobi#darth maul#help#writing#headcanon#yippee#qui gon jinn#qui gon and obi wan#anakin skywalker#anakin and obi wan#obi wan x reader#obi wan x you
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case study of the self-identified god
#obsessed with the fact that rain world is a game about survival#yet every character we meet has the express goal of trying to optimize killing themselves#every creature in game seems perfectly content fulfilling their role in the ecosystem no matter how many cycles they do the same thing#(rly obvious with gourmand's entire route. guy who lives their life to the fullest without the slightest hint of resentment)#it was really only the ancients who thought they were above it and thought of it as something to escape from#5pebbles is so interesting because the only reason hes “”“godlike”“” is because of his vast knowledge. if he was in any slugcats shoes he#would die instantly which is ironically what hes been trying to do this whole time#this comic was kind of exploring the idea of awareness (divinity) as something that drags down ones enjoyment of life (walking).#if 5p would humble himself down enough to walk around like any other creature#he would a) be much happier in life and b) achieve the ascension he's been gunning for for millennia like all the slugcats did#but he never will.#getting rid of all his work on the problem or even his awareness of it entirely#would just be a trick of convenience that steals away his godhood#and him calling himself godlike is kind of a cope LOL#a cope being faced with a problem he was never meant to solve#a cope being faced with what he did to moon#a cope being faced with the rot inside him#oh well.#anyway fuck 5 pebbles i hate that guy#rain world#rain world fanart#rw five pebbles#rain world five pebbles#rw gourmand#rain world gourmand#five pebbles#rain world void worm#rain world ancients#also JUST KIDDING ilu 5p. you suck but i💛u
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