#even though every four years One of his the titans and/or his are like “you totally should. Fuck Bruce and his whole secret identies shpeil
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Every four years, a video of Nightwing doing some crazy acrobatic feat pops up and the internet goes crazy saying things like "Get this man on the Olympics team"
and then that somehow leads to the internet bringing up the face that Dick Grayson-- the last Flying Grayson-- is just sitting around with blood given talent and if anyone should be repping the US in the male Gymnastics Olympics, it should be him
#dick grayson#nightwing#batfam#dc comics#dc#batman#either way he never goes#even though every four years One of his the titans and/or his are like “you totally should. Fuck Bruce and his whole secret identies shpeil
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I CAN FIX HIM (NO REALLY I CAN)
masterlist | rules
❝ Can you please writhe a one shot with Jason and daughter of Psyche reader based on the song “I can fix him(no really i can)” by Taylor?Like imagine some time later when Jason is finally free from his demigod duties and goes to college with his friends,here he meets reader.Since she is a daughter of Psyche (the goddess of the human soul)she understands him immediately and she help him understand himself,discovering what he likes and to heal from his past and of course they fall in love. ❞ — anon
in which they shook their heads saying “god help her,” when you tell ‘em he’s your man
pairing jason grace x psyche!reader
warnings feelings of self loathing, slight bullying
on the radio . . . i can fix him (no really i can) (taylor swift)
an they r in new rome uni in this !! i feel like jason is a tad ooc but also its 11:30pm as im posting this and im tired
Everything you heard about Jason Grace screamed ‘red flag’. Son of Jupiter, ex-praetor, raised by wolves then sent to camp at the mere age of three or four - what was there not to be afraid of? To add to that, the way he carried himself exuded power in a way that would make anyone cower in fear. His face was inscrutable, crystal blue eyes unreadable in the same way the storms his father made were
However, you weren’t anyone. Your mother was Psyche, goddess of the soul. And as a daughter of Psyche, you could see right through just about everyone, including Jason Grace. Whenever you tapped into his energy, you couldn’t help but feel he was the complete opposite of what he presented himself as. While Jason seemed content with solitude to everyone around him, you knew that deep down, he was just seriously misunderstood and in desperate need for some loving
You were right. Jason’s life had been hell, especially the past couple years. His memory had been taken away from him, making him lose ties with all his friends and a potential lover, Reyna. Then, he’d gotten a new girlfriend and new friends, only for his girlfriend to dump him and his friends to all be too busy to spend a single second with him. Still, Jason had persevered. He applied and got accepted to New Rome University, he attended all his lectures, he got perfect grades, he tried his best to socialise.
The latter never worked out though. People either saw him as Jason the traitor, the guy who’d chosen to leave with the Greeks instead of fighting for his camp (Jason would stifle a laugh at the phrase ‘his camp’ - if this were really his camp, they wouldn’t have easily found a guy who’s the epitome of everything un-Roman to replace him. They weren’t any better), or as Jason the soldier, the man who’d toppled Kronos’ throne and won in a fight against the titan Krios, absolutely untouchable and worshipped in a way that would make his father seethe with jealousy
Eventually, he gave up. If that’s how they wanted him to be, so be it. He shut himself off from the world, focusing solely on his studies and his plans for shrines for every God and Goddess. Little did he know, a certain someone was formulating the perfect plan to become his friend
Your plan backfired. You’d spent weeks keeping note of all the classes you had with Jason, even occasionally following him to see where he’d go after class (his dorm, immediately), and yet you couldn’t seem to get a single conversation out of him. The closest you’d gotten was when you sat next to him in one of your lectures and dropped your pen - he’d simply handed it to you without a word. For the split-second your fingers brushed, you took on all his pain and felt it pull you apart. How could he cope with all of this baggage?
Luckily for you, the fates work in mysterious ways that in this case, happened to be in your favour
“Oh, I’ll leave. Sorry.” Someone mumbled from behind you. You had been having a hard time sleeping as it was exam season, meaning everyone’s late night stress as they did last minute cram sessions piled onto you, so you decided to go to the one place you knew would be quiet. It was a small garden you’d discovered as a freshman and dubbed as ‘your spot’, and you’d often come when you were feeling extra overwhelmed
Turning your head, your eyes widened as you saw none other than Jason Grace, who was about to go back to his dorm
“No, wait! You can stay, I don’t mind,” this was a first for Jason. Usually, people would go the other way at the sight of him, not offer to let him sit with them. He felt a gut-wrenching, yearning feeling in his stomach, and you felt it too. Softly, you patted the spot on the bench next to you. It was quiet between you, but with that simple gesture, you had made an everlasting mark in Jason’s mind
After that night, instead of leaving his bag on the seat next to him, Jason would put it on the floor in hopes that you’d see the empty seat and choose to sit there. You, ever the empath, did. The more you sat with Jason, the more words were said between you. You started the conversations, of course, asking him about his day and telling him about whatever minor inconvenience you had that morning
“I ran out of toothpaste,” Jason had said to you one day as you took your laptop out of your bag. This was his first time initiating a conversation. He wasn't sure why he did it, and cringed internally the moment those words came out of his mouth - toothpaste, Jason, really? - but you’d smiled and asked if he wanted to come with you to the shops after class, since you also needed to stock up on some supplies
That was the day Jason’s walls began crumbling down. Suddenly, he seemed to loosen up. His posture slackened and he smiled more often, told more jokes and even engaged in your banter. People gave the two of you weird looks as you walked around New Rome in fits of laughter, but neither of you cared
Well, not until one fateful day. Jason had been making his way to class with two coffees in hand, one for you and one for himself, when he’d overheard two people deep in conversation. He’d never been one to eavesdrop, but when he heard your name being mentioned, he couldn’t help himself
“That poor girl, she has absolutely no idea what she’s getting herself into,” one of them said. The other hummed in agreement, pity laced in his voice
“She thinks she’s doing a good thing, being friends with him and all, but he’s just going to break her heart like he did Reyna’s. Jason Grace is no good.”
He nearly dropped his coffees. Suddenly, all the confidence he’d built came crumbling down, being quickly replaced with those walls he knew all too well, the only things he could trust other than you. Since he loved you so dearly, this was for the best. You’d find some other guy to befriend eventually. If all of Camp Jupiter could replace him after years of service, who’s to say you couldn’t after a couple months of being friends?
Coincidentally, you happened to be looking for Jason when you saw him standing there, a blank look on his face - the same one people had warned you about in your first year at NRU. This time, however, they didn’t have a fighting chance in fooling you. Even without your powers from being Psyche’s daughter, you knew Jason was a sweet guy with the kindest heart
“Jason, are you alright?” You asked, reaching to place a tender hand on his shoulder. He pulled away and your face dropped as you tuned into his feelings and realised the old Jason was making a comeback. It’s not like he’d ever been gone, no one ever gets rid of lifelong trauma and horrible experiences that quickly, but Jason’s aura hadn’t felt that self-loathing in a very long time
Looking behind you, you saw a couple give you a pitying look and the pieces clicked immediately. Scowling at them, you took Jason by the arm and dragged him to that garden where you first spoke. The garden that was no longer just your spot
“Whatever they said, I don’t care,” you told him, “they’re wrong, Jason. You can’t listen to them. From the moment I met you I knew they were wrong. Don’t let them win.” His eyes stared into yours, completely emotionless. His guard was up, and you didn’t know why (slight btd ref!!). Didn’t he trust you?
His voice monotone, Jason replied, “this isn’t just about them, Y/N. You have no idea what I’ve been through. You don’t deserve to have to deal with that, it could affect you too. You could be making so many friends right now and yet you haven’t, because you chose to stick with me.”
The tension rose between you and you knew there was only one thing you could do: succumb to the pull he had on you once and for all. Grabbing him by the collar, you pulled Jason closer to you and kissed him fiercely
When you pulled away, you took a second to take in Jason’s dishevelled look before replying, “I don’t care. I’ll choose to stick with you in every lifetime.”
#jason grace x reader#jason grace x you#jason grace x y/n#jason grace#jason grace x fem reader#pjo#pjo x reader#jason grace fanfic#jason grace drabble#percy jackson x reader#jason grace x psyche reader#daughter of psyche#psyche pjo#cynwrites
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FORCE QUIT // EPISODE I: SCRAPS
you didn't have "anti-capitalist revolution" on this year's bingo card, but you never turn down a good time.
pairing: lee felix x reader | series masterlist (1/4) | next episode
series summary: it's 2077, and life's a fucking nightmare. corporate titans ate the state and shat it back out, leaving citizens of the new republic to fall in line, or fall to their knees. a reckoning is coming — where will you fall?
au: series — dystopian, cyberpunk; episode — childhood friends to strangers to something
➢insp. by: cyberpunk 2077 + the true lives of the fabulous killjoys
genre: smut + angst + some fluff
word count: 15.4k
rating: 18+— minors do not have my consent to interact.
series warnings: violence (hand-to-hand, firearms, explosives), depictions of injuries (blood/bruising/burns), some characters have cybernetic modifications, class conflict + poverty, surprise - corporations are bad!, unethical medical/tech experimentation, self-indulgent references to non-skz idols, reader is afab and uses she/her pronouns.
episode warnings: above + trainer!felix, edgerunner!reader, pov switches, time skips, reference to food insecurity + reader living check to check, reader has cybernetic retinal mods + one in her hand, reader experiences temporary vision loss after being knocked out, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected p in v penetration.
a/n: each episode features a different member x reader pairing, but the plot is linear, so you'd need to read them (in order) to get the full picture! you can sign up for the taglist to be notified of the next uploads. thank you to my beloved @sailoryooons for beta'ing this and @jihopesjoint for being my emotional support internet wife even though she doesn't stan skz. ily both endlessly!
You don’t deal in absolutes, but you know two things for sure: vending-machine burritos are a crime against humanity; and Han Jisung is a dirty, rotten bastard.
The firm stance you’ve taken on the latter may or may not have something to do with the former, but you can’t draw that conclusion now — not with the abuse your taste buds are currently suffering, anyway.
“Who the fuck —”
You cut yourself off to spit a mouthful at the ground. Notably, the remnants of that half-chewed abomination look just as awful on the way out as they did on the way in.
“— Replaced this queso with battery acid?”
Chipmunk cheeks stuffed to bursting, Jisung blinks back at you. He says nothing — suddenly too polite to speak with his mouth full — and shrugs, unbothered. That’s when the realization hits you like a boot to the skull. Drenched in disbelief, your muttering comes out in slow-motion:
“You spent the last of our cash on these.”
He swallows, though you don’t know how he could bring himself to do it. That act alone makes the rage you’re simmering in bubble over.
You repeat yourself through gritted teeth, pausing emphatically between every word, “The — last — of — our — cash!”
“My bad?” He eventually offers. Tongue flicking out, he tries to gather the unidentified sauce that clings to the corner of his mouth. He fails. “Not sure what else I was supposed to find with that little money in this part of town, but go off, I guess.”
You bite your lips together to hold back the guttural yell you’re seconds from releasing. At your sides, your empty hands clench tightly. Instead of snapping — with your words or your fists — you close your eyes, inhaling slowly through your nose. Deep breaths won’t do you any fucking good in this smog, but your brain tends to work a little bit better without visual interference.
I can go another twenty-four hours, you think. Maybe.
It’s been a while since you’ve last eaten and even longer since your last job. This isn’t out of the ordinary; gaps are to be expected when you live on the fringe, jumping from thread to thread. Still, it isn’t like Changbin to leave you hanging the way he has been lately. It sure as shit isn’t like him to dodge your calls, either.
So, you figure, if you make an unsolicited visit to his office — the stock room of a bar you know better than to frequent — he won’t have a choice. He’ll have to look you in the eye and explain the dry spell, personally. He owes you at least that much.
With your plan finalized, you hold out your left hand to Jisung. In the few moments you’d taken your eyes off him, he’d apparently gone from sitting on the hood of your car to reclining fully with his own eyes closed. Basking like a little lizard in the sunlight, it’s a miracle the hot metal hasn’t burned a hole in his shirt.
“Come on.” You nudge his bent knee with your knuckles to no avail.
As Jisung is wont to do, he pouts. “But it’s so nice out — and your car still reeks, by the way.”
The absolute, rakish audacity.
If you didn’t love him, you’d probably kill him.
Strike that.
Love is irrelevant. You wouldn’t kill him unless and until there was a price on his head. After all, your mother taught you better than to do the things you’re good at for free.
“Do we want to talk about whose fault that is?” You ask with a roll of your eyes. The affection’s still there; you know he sees it. “If I recall correctly — and I think I do, having been the only sober person present — you were the one who got blasted and barfed on everything I love in this world.”
“I got blasted and barfed exclusively on the floor of your car.”
It’s your turn to shrug. “Exactly. End of list.”
Groaning, Jisung rolls his eyes as far back as they’ll go, but he still takes your hand. He always does, always has. With your help, he scoots his ass down the hood and lands with both boots — precisely where your ejected burrito bite did, not five minutes earlier. You can’t stop the satisfied grin from spreading when he whines again, this time louder and with twice as much despair.
After playfully shoving your passenger towards his door, you unlock your own. You don’t dump yourself into the seat, however; not yet. A wall of horrible heat is waiting for you the second the door opens, and you know better than to run into it, headlong.
Jisung is less patient. He’s also more regretful, face twisting in self-imposed anguish when he drops down onto the sun-scorched leather seat. And, to your delight, the hits keep coming. You watch with a smile when the consequences of last weekend’s actions hit his nostrils. The look he gives you falls somewhere between humbled, apologetic, and absolutely dead inside.
“Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit it.” He acknowledges with a wave of his hand. Resigned, he sighs, “I’ll scrub the shit out of the floor mats the next time we can afford a wash.”
Satisfied, you finally climb behind the wheel. Pushing through the slightly-muted sting of the seat against the backs of your bare thighs, you put your foot on the brake and lift your right hand to press your thumb to the ignition port. The roar of the engine covers the way your breath hitches, but Jisung doesn’t have to hear it to notice the grimace that accompanies it.
“Still sore?” He asks.
To his credit, he looks genuinely concerned as he reaches across the center console and takes your hand in his. It’s gentle, the way he tilts your palm up, but the movement burns in every single one of your tendons. This time, you know you have a captive audience, so you don’t flinch.
Despite the trouble it’s giving you, you have to admit that the new enhancement looks beautiful in the sunlight. In the center of your palm, two rectangular, silver brackets refract iridescence. Their shine contrasts sharply with the matte, midnight black cybernetic plating that now covers the majority of your palm, spreading to the first knuckle of your fingers but coating the length of your thumb in its entirety.
More than beautiful, it’s deadly — and it aches like a motherfucker.
“I read a study about these ballistic co-processors last night while you were knocked out,” he hums.
Classic Jisung.
He has no medical or academic background whatsoever but wastes his time reading crank doctors’ research for fun. And, of course, he makes sure to mention it — casually and apropos of mostly nothing — in order to impress.
Gingerly, he runs his finger along the edge of the cyberware, mumbling, “It usually takes five days from installation for the musculoskeletal inflammation to chill.”
Your fingers twitch of their own volition, which prompts him to look up at you curiously.
“Yeah, well…” You grunt.
Less carefully than you should, you pull your hand from his, tap the gear shift, and throw the car into reverse. Peeling out of the lot, you scoff without even bothering to look his way:
“It’s been ten.”
When the War came and went, it took the old way of life with it on its way out. You might’ve been late to the party by fifty or so years, but you’ve got the gist now. It goes something like this:
Korea, as it was once known, crumpled like a beer can in the face of a corporate uprising and was quickly kicked curbside with the trash. In its place came the New Republic — in all its stolen, neon glory — promising technological revolution, profit in excess. Although the world’s eyes were trained on the peninsula then, not everyone stuck around to watch democracy die in real time.
Not up close, anyway.
Some people had enough cash to run but not enough to make staying worthwhile. With their tails between their legs and their life savings in hand, they left before the capitalist rot could set in fully; chose willful blindness and headed for countries where corporations rule from the shadows rather than broad daylight.
Most people, however, didn’t leave. People like your grandparents, who hadn’t looked up long enough to notice things going to hell in a hurry. And if they did — well, maybe they saw things for what they were: shitty, same as anywhere else.
Five decades later, that fact hasn’t changed much.
Regardless of why a person opts to stay in the New Republic, their options for survival are effectively limited to two. Simply put, a person can sell their soul to the very corporations that strangled the state, or they can starve.
Nobody ever chooses the latter.
You can safely assume everything you need to know about a person based on where their next steps take them.
For example, those who crave both chic, penthouse apartments and blood-soaked streets are most likely to fall in line with WraithCo.. The name suggests that it’s a criminal enterprise run by fucking ghouls because that’s essentially what it is. More than that, it’s the arms manufacturer monopoly that out-manned and out-gunned the national military without breaking a sweat.
The high-powered, highly-paid WraithCo. executives find joy in three things and three things only: designer suits; missiles that explode into clouds of fiberglass upon impact; and testing said missiles out on non-violent nomad encampments outside city limits.
Fucking ghouls.
Despite being the most openly violent of the major players, you find WraithCo. to be the most boring. They lack nuance, don’t bother with a false front or a positive PR spin — it’s all a little too predictable. Thanotech, on the other hand, is subtle; the perfect cover for those who like to convince themselves they’re doing more good than harm.
In furtherance of that delusion, Thanotech replaced all public hospitals with state-of-the-art, for-profit rejuvenation centers. Worse, their lobbyists ensured that medical licensure was limited to employees of those centers, outlawing the provision and receipt of medical care outside of authorized Thanotech facilities.
In short, those who can’t afford Thanotech’s astronomical rates — specifically, poor fucks like you — are left to fend for themselves in back alley clinics; to pray that they don’t wind up worse-off than they started, that the police don’t sniff them out, and that their new modifications aren’t just garbage-tier knock-offs.
Of course, some people give more of a shit about these designer mods than the patients who may or may not wind up with them. In that case, the last of the three titans has them covered.
It’s no fucking surprise that the Ulsan Corporation is the crown-jewel of the New Republic — it’s primarily responsible for killing the old one. As the world’s premier technology and cybernetics conglomerate, Ulsan is also primarily responsible for the research, development, and distribution of cybernetic enhancements.
Like the one your body is currently acclimating to.
No such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, right?
Ulsan may be less obvious with its bastardry than its counterparts, but as far as you can tell, it’s not good guy behavior to eat an established state and shit it back out. Even if you can’t tie any specific, ongoing atrocities back to them, you have no qualms about adding the desperate state of the union to their indictment.
You can blame them for the desperate measures they’ve necessitated, although you won’t give them an ounce of credit for the spark of resistance they so recklessly lit.
Despite it all, there are still people out there who refuse to accept things for what they are. They find an alternative to the comply or die ultimatum — run along the razor’s edge, taking what they can get, whenever they can get it.
Like Changbin, one of Seoul’s best-connected fixers.
Like you, a gun for hire.
Like Jisung, sitting in your passenger seat as you drive across town, who’s just happy to be included.
Generally speaking, piss and vinegar don’t mix well with club security.
If you were anyone else, rolling up to The Crypt like you own the place would be ill-advised. More than that, it would be asking to get your teeth kicked in faster than you could say, “I’m on the list.”
Thankfully, as it often does, your reputation precedes you. Nobody in the block-long line bats an eye when you cut right to the front, a fact that has Jisung smirking in a way that might otherwise get him killed. Still, the bouncer shoots you a look that says you’re more trouble than you’re worth; and you agree.
Before your friend can change the muscle’s mind, you grab Jisung by the wrist and tug him through the front entrance. You don’t let go when the door shuts behind you, although it’s more for convenience than concern for his safety. He has a tendency to wander, and you don’t have the patience.
“Haven’t been here in a while,” he muses as you drag him towards the main bar, head turning to look in every direction except the one you’re moving in.
You don’t slow down.
Winding your way through the drunks at the counter, you inch closer to the large booths along the far wall. Inside, draped nonchalantly over the plush benches, sit the big guns — mercenaries with far more sway than you, far fatter wallets. They’re living the high life you’ve always dreamed of, and they don’t even notice you staring as you pass.
“Oh, shit!” Jisung waves overhead to one of them, reminding you without trying that he — unlike you — has other friends.“S.Coups, where have the fuck have you been, man?”
You still don’t slow down.
Not when you reach the stairwell at the far side of the main floor. Not when you shuffle down the steps to the employees only section. Not even when the security camera overhead silently demands that you do.
There’s only one locked door amongst the few; you fly to it like a homing pigeon and beat against the metal with your free hand. It isn’t until the burning ache sets in that you realize you chose your right.
“Goddamn it.” You growl down at it, as if your hand will apologize for hurting. Turning your vitriol towards the door, you kick it hard, steel-toed boot forcing out a thud. “Changbin, open this shit up!”
Jisung glares as he scolds you, “Manners, maybe?”
You roll your eyes, but his expectant expression doesn’t budge.
“Fucking — fine, okay? Fine.” Hands thrown up in defeat, you take a deep breath. Your next words come out saccharine, accompanied by fluttering lashes that can’t even be seen. “Changbin, darling, could you please open this shit up?”
The two of you wait in dead silence for several seconds before Jisung’s hands fly up to your hair, unprompted. Your surprised yelp doesn’t faze him. He grabs the bobby-pin from where you’ve stashed it under your ponytail, drops to his knees, and starts to work.
You snort, “Well, damn. Look at you!”
Truly, you’re impressed. Jisung normally leaves the dirty work to you, yet here he is — breaking and entering.
They grow up so fast.
He tries not to look proud of himself, but his cheeks blush a shade of sakura and rat him right out. Though you’re sure he’d love to, he can’t even lift a hand to wave you off before the lock clicks. With a quick twist of the knob, he pushes the door open.
Changbin’s office looks close to normal, with a few notable exceptions. For starters, he’s not in it. The man you’re dealing with never sees the light of day if he can help it.
Jisung pipes up first: “Okay, what the fuck?”
The office chair Changbin normally occupies is spun to the side, as if his ass left it in a hurry. Even odder than that is the small, green light which indicates that he didn’t shut off his computer before leaving it unattended. It’s not a decision someone like Changbin — neurotic and paranoid to a borderline clinical degree — makes on his own.
That, you know outright, is a problem.
Cautiously, you slip past Jisung and walk on eggshells towards Changbin’s desk. You know it’s stupid, that no one would bother rigging the floor tiles to blow under the weight of your boots, but you can’t ignore the way your gut twists with every step. That dread only gets worse, the closer you get.
To the right of his primary screen, there’s a half-eaten vending-machine burrito that’s so covered with ants, you almost mistake them for pepper flakes. That sight makes bile rise in your throat, in and of itself, but it’s the untouched cup of coffee that sends a tingle of panic down your spine. Around the base of the glass, hardly visible on the sheet of paper underneath, is a water ring.
That coffee — at one point, however long ago — was iced.
Changbin would kill you for it if he were here, but he isn’t, so you drop down into his chair. You pause as soon as your ass settles onto the leather, still not convinced that one wrong move won’t set off some sort of trap. The breath you’ve been holding leaks out slowly when your actions go without consequences.
A quick glance up at Jisung confirms that he looks exactly as spooked as you feel. You watch his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows hard.
He knows the answer before he asks, but that doesn’t stop him. It comes out scratchy, riddled with hesitation that says he doesn’t really want to hear the response. “He hasn’t been here in days, has he?”
You shake your head, just barely, then turn to the desk. Bottom lip pinched between worried teeth, you scan the surface for anything you missed on your first pass.
Give me a hint, you motherfucker. All I need is a breadcrumb.
It’s the absence of something that grabs your attention. Eyes narrowing, you lean forward in your seat to get as close as possible to his monitors.
“Does that…?” You start to ask but your voice trails off before you finish; thoughts moving too quickly to inventory before the next one arrives.
Though black, the screens in front of you aren’t lifeless. If anything, they’re still backlit, glitching subtly in a way they shouldn’t — not if the system had been locked, powered off, or otherwise put to sleep. You don’t have to be a netrunner to know that someone is running an opp, fucking up the computer’s processing and leaving it brain dead.
It’s so small that you almost miss the minimized window at the bottom left-hand corner of his secondary monitor, screen otherwise barren. Hesitantly, you reach out your hand and press a trembling finger to it.
Jisung is hovering so closely over your shoulder that you can practically taste that burrito on his breath. You elbow him once in the chest, hard.
He coughs, pointing to the screen as he sputters, “What the hell are those?”
“Numbers, Jisung.” You deadpan. “They’re called numbers.”
Ignoring the way he grumbles in response, you grab your mobile from your pocket. It springs to life at your sudden touch and broadcasts a holographic home screen in the air just centimeters above the glass. Just as fast, it tracks the movement of your eyes flicking through the list of applications. With the faintest shudder, the GPS navigation consumes the screen.
You repeat what you hope are coordinates:
35.2029, 128.6001.
As the map loads, you and Jisung exchange glances that are underscored by tense swallows. He knows it, and so do you:
No matter where that pin ends up dropping, you have no choice but to go.
It takes three hours to drive from Seoul to Changwon. Although it’s not a route you’ve taken in years, or one you ever expected to take again, you still know it like the back of your hand. You can still navigate every turn — every crater and curve — with your eyes closed, even now.
Despite that fact, your decision to race to the southeast this time has nothing to do with sentimentality for the hometown you left five years ago.
This is just for Changbin, you repeat like a mantra, pressing harder on the accelerator.
With every stoplight and thought you race through, the background grows blurrier but the big picture gets clearer. Changbin himself has nothing to do with it; and you’re not as selfless as your inner monologue keeps claiming. You correct yourself:
This is for me and my empty bank account.
Really — who could blame you?
You need steady contracts in order to eat. Without Changbin, those get fewer and farther between. It’s the transitive property, or whatever; basic math. You might starve without him, and that is the one thing in this life that you’re unwilling to do.
In the passenger seat, Jisung stirs. When he speaks, his voice isn’t weighted down with exhaustion in the way it usually is, halfway through a car trip. For some reason, it makes your stomach turn to consider that — for what is probably the first time ever — he isn’t sleeping through a drive.
“He left in a hurry,” he quietly notes.
Out of the corner of your eye, you glance at him and confirm the presence of that worried crease between his eyebrows. It’s not accompanied by the usual, furiously-bouncing knee. That makes your stomach turn, too. Clearly, he’s vaulted over mere anxiety and landed somewhere close to shutting down.
You nod. “He did.”
It spooks him when you take your right hand off the steering wheel and give his elbow a brief squeeze. You’re not the affectionate type; you both know this. It always makes your rare touches more ominous than comforting.
“Do you think he was running to something, or running away from something?”
Leave it to Jisung to say the quiet part out loud.
Normally, you have an answer for his constant questions; and if you don’t, you resort to lying or guessing. This time, however, you don’t bother with either of those tactics because it doesn’t matter. Whatever the correct answer is, it’ll still feel wrong because Changbin doesn’t run.
Period.
Full stop.
So, the conclusion your brain keeps trying to come to is that he didn’t — he wouldn’t — if it came down to choice. The only reason Changbin would’ve disappeared like this, suddenly and wordlessly, is if he was taken.
Pulse hammering loudly in your ears, you don’t hear Jisung announce that your destination is only a few hundred meters down the road. Without his emphatic pointing out the windshield ahead, you simply would’ve continued racing forward, taking the speed limit as a suggestion to be ignored. Thankfully, your lead foot switches to the brake with enough time to make your turn. Tires hit dirt; your car fishtails as it transitions from the road to the worn-out path to your right.
“The fuck is this place?” You mutter, more to yourself than to Jisung.
It’s obsolete, you know that much.
Something akin to an industrial park, but one that clearly hasn’t been used since before the War. There are electrical towers dotting a perimeter around the space, none of which are operational; the grid system was replaced by wind power, then by solar energy no fewer than fifty years ago. The driveway below is so cracked that patches of weeds have overtaken most of what remained of the pavement. All the rest is weathered, reduced to broken bits of cement and dirt.
Your car slows to a stop halfway down the parkway, surrounded on both sides by empty storage units with doors either broken or missing entirely. Hair raising on the back of your neck, you park but don’t kill the engine. Slowly, you rest your right hand over top of the holster strapped to your thigh and open your car door with your left.
The sun set a few hours into your drive. Its absence hasn’t done a damn thing to break the thick heat waiting for you outside. Humid air settles on your skin and leaves a sheen of sweat behind like a handprint, sticky.
“These were the coordinates,” Jisung affirms with a sigh. He stays seated inside the vehicle, leaving you to wonder why. He’s either too panicked to move, or correct in assuming you’d tell him to sit his unarmed ass back down before you made him.
You don’t respond.
Instead, your eyes continue to scan the property for signs of — well, anything. Movement, a heat signature, whatever might register on your optical mods. There’s nothing, save for the stray tumbleweed somersaulting across the empty lot. You narrow your eyes to zoom in, heart pounding with anticipation.
You almost scream when you see it, but you swallow the urge. Fear won’t do you any good, but the semi-automatic strapped to your thigh might. It’s in your palm before you can blink, cocked and aimed at the figure ahead. At the bottom of your field of vision, your ammo count glows in translucent, block letters.
So, the ballistic co-processor is worth the pain.
Their posture is casual, legs dangling from the metal catwalk they sit on. Their elbows rest against the railing in front of them, as if they’re leaning on a counter in a bar and not spying on you from a scaffold four meters overhead. The way they’re watching in silence is unsettling enough; the wooden tal obscuring their face is fucking nightmare fuel, if you’ve ever seen it.
Head tilted curiously to the side, the stranger stares down at you through small eye holes, wooden mouth frozen in a hand-carved smile. Whoever they are, they’re immersed in the bit. They exaggerate every slow movement for their audience of two.
Good for them, you scoff to yourself.
Gloved hands come up to pantomime “don’t shoot” mere seconds before they grab hold of the railing in front of them. Just as quickly, they swing themselves underneath with a kick of their legs until they’re falling, falling, falling towards the ground below. They land easily on their feet without so much as a grunt. All the while, dust swirls in pirouettes around their ankles, spot-lit by your car’s headlamps.
“What — what the fuck?” Jisung squeaks.
You don’t answer, but that doesn’t stop him from repeating his question, over and over.
Hands still raised, the stranger slowly closes the distance between you. Their fingers wiggle slightly in some demented version of a wave; they’re taunting you. The unhealed part of you wants to shoot those fingers off, one by one.
You’ve never been fond of clowns.
“If you like having kneecaps without bullets in them, I suggest you stay still, chingu,” you scoff, now more annoyed than alarmed.
To your surprise, they listen. Their feet still, side by side; and their hands stay where you can see them. That is, until they curl all of their fingers into their palm, except for their right index finger. With it, they point silently over your shoulder.
As soon as you can whip your neck around, a gloved fist collides with your temple. The last thing you see before your vision goes black is a second, wooden smile looming over you.
A hushed tone manages to nudge you awake.
“You really can’t keep doing this. Seriously, your people skills are awful.”
The whole world’s blurry, and you can’t make out the source of the sound, but you’re coherent enough to know it when a second voice chimes in. It’s much less gentle than the first, higher in pitch and twice as exasperated. It snaps, “She was armed.”
“I had it under control,” the first voice huffs.
The two seem to be too lost in their argument to notice your eyelids fluttering or your fingers twitching. Your wrists aren’t bound, you realize, but that fact doesn’t help you much in your current state. Back resting heavily against the thin nylon cloth of a cot, it’d take more energy than you have to spare in order to get to your feet. Worse, your eyes don’t seem interested in cooperating.
They should be by now.
They’re open, you’re conscious, and —
Motherfucker.
The more awake you become, the more the ache in your temple reverberates down your jaw. You know without looking that the right side of your face is bruised to hell and back. Scraped up, too, if you had to guess; you hit the gravel like a bag of bricks.
They must’ve done it on purpose, hitting you exactly where they needed to in order to scramble your visual input. The most you get is shapes, black and white static. It wasn’t the hardest knock you’d ever taken to the head — not by a long shot — but it was perfectly targeted and timed.
Clearly, they’re no amateurs.
One such shadow kneels down next to you. Gentle fingers tuck a strand of hair behind your ear while their other hand tilts your drooping head to the side.
They tut, “Just look at what you did to her face.”
“From what I’ve heard, she’s been through worse,” the second voice scoffs. You watch the shadow’s shoulders as they shrug, wishing you could focus on their face well enough to bash it in.
The retort comes quickly, but it doesn’t come in Korean.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t do better.”
The hands that gently cradle your face pull away, leaving you cold. The action itself isn’t as jarring as the sudden use of English, though — especially the accent it’s spoken with. You may not be fluent, but you can sense what’s missing: the consonant on the end of that last word.
You sense something else, too, but you’re still too disoriented to follow that thought from start to finish. It’s on the tip of your tongue, just out of reach.
Who — ?
The bastard that broke your brain must notice your face scrunching in confusion because their next words seem to be aimed at you. Clipped and unapologetic, they mutter, “Should be fine within the hour. Already been out for —”
They suck in a breath through their teeth. You can’t tell if they’re stalling in order to toy with you, or if they’re genuinely doing the math.
“— Seven hours or so, now.”
Fuck!
One of the two snorts out a laugh; it’s the only reason you piece it together that you spoke out loud. Emboldened by the confirmed functionality of your voice, you speak again without thinking it through first.
You don’t care where you are or who you’re with. You only have one question:
“Is Changbin still alive? Because if he is, I’ll kill him myself.”
The man kneeling next to your cot chuckles, soft and low, but he doesn’t acknowledge your question beyond that. Instead, he addresses his hamfisted friend. “Can you please get her some water?”
“Am I a waiter now, Yongbok-ah?” The other snips, though his tone is devoid of any real heat. If his face wasn’t blurred out of existence, you’d likely find a sneer on it. “Should I roll some gimbap for her, too?”
“Actually, you should,” counters this Yongbok. His response is buried so deeply under his breath that his back talk may as well be a secret for your ears only. “Punched her clean into the next weekday — so, yeah. It’s the least you could do.”
It grows silent enough that you can hear every incredulous footstep as the waiter storms off.
The remainder says, “Sorry about him,” and for whatever little it’s worth, he sounds like he means it. You say nothing, simply marinating in your resentment.
Meanwhile, he shifts from his knees in order to sit fully on the ground next to your cot. Elbows extended, he leans back onto his palms and sighs gently, “Minho’s not as bad as the first impressions he makes.”
You scoff so forcefully that you feel it in your sinuses. “This is the second. His first is the reason I can’t see who’s holding me hostage.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” The shape beside you sits up suddenly. He sputters, “You’re not a hostage, and this isn’t a kidnapping —”
“Then what the fuck is it?” You snap, “Huh, Yongbok?”
Blindly, you throw out a half-balled fist in a half-baked attempt to even the score. It misses by a mile, nearly knocking you off balance in the process. Your wrist is encircled by the same warm fingers you felt before, doubling over but exerting no force.
“We were scouting you. You know, like, soccer?” He chuckles sheepishly. “Changbin mentioned that you were a free agent, so to speak, and we thought you might wanna join the team.”
What the fuck?
“And — it wasn’t supposed to wind up like this.” His shadow’s hands gesture vaguely at the room you can’t see. “I did try to warn you. You just didn’t turn around in time.”
There are too many questions swirling around in your skull to choose from. One of them must break free and nudge your retinal chip back into place because something turns the lights back on. Glitching wildly, your vision flickers from low contrast to high definition. It doesn’t hurt, but the surprised gasp you choke out could easily be interpreted that way.
The man next to you is back on his knees in a second, both hands finding your shoulders to either comfort you or immobilize you — and you aren’t sure which. Against your better judgment, you ignore the reflex that tells you to fight or flee. Instead, you reach out and touch his cheekbone to confirm that the faint spots you see are freckles and not lingering sensory damage on your part.
He doesn’t even blink, much less say a word. There’s no jerk to get away, and there’s not a single question asked about what the fuck you’re doing — just tolerance. Far more than you’d be extending if the roles were reversed.
Freckles.
You aren’t embarrassed, but you drop your hand quickly and scowl at him until he does the same. Once again, he raises them as he leans back. Notably, he doesn’t wiggle his fingers like the first time you crossed paths.
That reminds me —
Abruptly, you draw your arm back to deck him in earnest.
Just like the last time, he catches you before you can strike him; however, instead of capturing your wrist, it’s the entirety of your fist. His palm absorbs the shock, fingers closing around your hand. It’s the gentlest trap you’ve ever been ensnared in, which you hate.
Smart of you to prevent another attempt.
“Can I finish explaining myself?” He asks, voice soft.
Bright doe eyes scan over your face cautiously as he contemplates letting your hand go. It’s disarming, sure, but you’d rather die than admit it.
You give him absolutely nothing to work with, so he adds, “You can hit me when I’m done, if you still want to.”
All you give him in return is a glare, which he somehow correctly interprets as permission to keep going. The grip on your fist loosens, although it wasn’t constricting to begin with. Like nothing happened, you pull it away and cross your arms.
As if nonchalance has ever been your strong suit.
He stares at you, deep in thought, for longer than you know what to do with. Eyes sweeping over your features like he’ll be quizzed later, taking in every detail. It’s unsettling — what about you is even worth gawking at?
When he frowns, that spark of light in his eyes stays put. “You don’t remember me.”
It’s not a question because he isn’t asking; he’s telling. And you have no goddamn clue what he means, no matter how loudly the voice in your head screams that you should. The familiarity buzzing through your brain can’t place him — not the button of his nose, not even those fucking freckles.
“I don’t know anyone named Yongbok,” you counter, frustration evident.
You wouldn’t be this harsh if you know how not to be. Part of you feels guilty when you see the hurt flicker across his face, but both emotions — his and yours — are gone as quickly as they appear. Consequently, the walls stay up, refusing to give. Despite you, the corner of his mouth hitches up in a lopsided version of a smile.
That’s familiar, too.
“Never really went by it,” he chuckles. As he does, he tilts his head quizzically.
Another bell rings, yet you can’t name the note.
Shyly, he takes his half-smile with him and looks anywhere else. The anticipation is spinning cartwheels in your stomach, tingling down the back of your neck, and you’re seconds away from trying to smack the trapped words right out of him.
Who are you to me?
After a deep breath in and out, he glances back at you from the corner of his eye. His hesitation does nothing to prepare you for his response, which isn’t his name at all. It’s yours — a nickname, more specifically. One no one has used in damn near a decade.
“Been a while, Scraps. Hasn’t it?”
Felix has never seen anyone freeze the way you do when the realization finally hits. For a minute, he worries that Minho did more damage to your poor brain than either of them initially diagnosed; it wouldn’t be the first time. Minho’s never been known to be careful or tactful.
Your silence — and your total lack of physical response — doesn’t last, though. He nudges your kneecap with his knuckles just to make sure you can feel it. You blink rapidly, as if you’re just now remembering how.
He starts to ask, “Are you ok—?”, but your fist flies out, pops him right in the jaw, and he chokes on the rest of that question. Hands flying up to cover his face, he collapses back onto the floor with a groan. When the initial shock wears off, it dissolves into laughter that shakes his shoulders.
Honestly, what did he expect?
In a flash, you shove yourself off your cot. You’re on top of him before he can blink, pinning him down. You grip his shirt in one fist and raise the other. He braces himself for impact but doesn’t flinch, too taken aback by the fury you’re capable of communicating without a single word.
“You’re fucking with me,” you spit, breaking the silence.
Your glare is borderline feral — burning — and that makes him laugh even harder.
“You haven’t changed a bit, you know that?”
To both of your surprise, you don’t hit him again; you don’t even try. You freeze, but unlike the last time, your eyes are shaking. Your raised arm is, too, like it’s taking all you have to keep whatever you’re feeling to yourself.
Classic Scraps.
You mutter, “You’re dead,” and it’s not a threat.
Not even close, really. It’s a declaration, one accompanied by an expression that’s as close to vulnerable as he’s ever seen from you. All at once, you lower your arm; the rest of you slumps, too. Whispering, you repeat, “You’re dead.”
Something about your tone hurts worse than the burgeoning bruise near his mouth. It aches, even more so when he frowns. You deserve an explanation — an apology, too — but Felix doesn’t know where the fuck to start.
Maybe he should cash that reality check first.
“Is that what people are saying?” He asks.
He’s not sure what about that trips him up. It makes perfect sense that this is the conclusion people wound up jumping to. After all, he left without a word and never came back — didn’t leave a trace, either.
Felix wasn’t the first teenager to slip through the cracks, so he’d figured that his would be another run-of-the-mill disappearance. Sure, people tend to notice when kids go missing; but that doesn’t stop the world from turning. Sooner or later, people stop looking, either too busy or too hopeless to keep holding a torch.
Eventually, they forget.
At least, that was the reality Felix had subscribed to — that, after a while, he’d slipped through the cracks of collective consciousness. It was easier to tell himself that he wasn’t missed. His guilt couldn’t keep him up at night if nobody remembered that he existed in the first place; especially when a decade slipped past in his absence.
But you did remember.
You missed him.
You lift your knee so that you’re no longer straddling him and drop onto your back at his side.
It’s funny, he thinks as he stares up at the ceiling. The two of you spent years just like this, albeit on the hood of some junkyard sedan. Two pairs of wide eyes were always fixed on constellations, dreaming of something bigger than both of you. Of some future where you weren’t still stuck in the gutter.
“There was no trace of you anywhere.” You speak so softly that Felix is left to wonder whether you’re talking to him or yourself. “No records that you fled, no word from you, no hits on CCTV — nothing. The cops said there’d be a trail if…”
Your voice fades out before you can finish that thought, so Felix picks up where you left off: “If I was alive to leave one.”
There’s a long pause before you speak again.
“This is where you disappeared to?”
He feels a shift beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way you’ve tilted your head to gaze at him. By the time he does the same, the moment is gone, and you’re taking in the room around you.
It’s not much, but it’s all he has: A small room in a decommissioned factory, smelling faintly of sawdust despite not containing any. The cot you just sprang from is where he’s spent most nights since he was fifteen.
The floor underneath it — underneath you — is more dirt than concrete now, no matter how many times he’s scrubbed it; and the few iron shelves that hang along each wall are just as gross. So are the knickknacks he’s set on them, but he doesn’t mind.
The site itself is long forgotten. It’d be an eyesore if anyone ever looked, but no one bothers.
Even satellites have stopped paying it any attention, leaving it to fade into dirt and obscurity, not even a shadow of what it used to be. Once plush and inviting, the surrounding forest was leveled in a firefight that ended with ninety-percent of the nearby buildings getting blown to shit.
The New Republic could’ve easily organized a relief team to dig through the shattered city. At any point in the last fifty years, they could’ve rebuilt what burned in that failed uprising, but they didn’t; and Felix knows they never will because that rubble has a function. Apart from burying one of the country’s most impoverished districts, it serves as a cautionary tale. A threat left behind to the masses: this is what happens when people pose risk to profits.
Still, flowers can grow within cracks in concrete. After all, his life with you started just a few kilometers away.
“Are we still in Changwon, or did you and that asshole drag me out of the province?”
That edge of yours is ever present, and Felix is glad. It’s one of the million things he’s missed about you; a feature on the long list of reasons he wishes he could’ve called — messaged, sent a smoke signal, anything — to keep you around in whatever capacity he could.
But he didn’t.
He couldn’t.
Felix feels the weight of a lost decade sitting heavy on his chest, so he does what he always does: he chooses light. Smiling brightly, he asks, “D’you remember that junkyard we used to run away to after curfew?”
You roll your eyes. You don’t have to say it out loud; he knows you do. The two of you spent more time there than you did in your own homes, lining glass bottles along the wooden fence posts and firing stones at them with a homemade slingshot.
“We’re a few kilometers up the road, actually.”
At this, you sit up so that no part of your body stays pressed against his. Dead silence settles in the space between you like a brick wall. You bristle, then you snap, “All that time you were dead, you were still within spitting distance?”
Felix opens his mouth to respond, but your rigid posture makes it clear that you have no desire to listen. He closes it again without saying a word. It’s what he deserves, isn’t it?
“Traded in your family, your home, your — Me.” You clear your throat to hide the fact that your voice breaks. It’s too late. “And for what, Felix? To haunt some abandoned building like a ghost?”
You clench your fists, like a grip tight enough might keep you together. That part of you hasn’t changed either, it seems. Neither has the extremely unsettling way you get quieter, the more upset you are. Just like that, he’s reminded of what you used to say: the more it hurts, the less it shows.
“I couldn’t pick you out of a fucking lineup despite all of that history,” you whisper, deflated. “And you were here the whole time.”
Talking won’t do him much good, so Felix opts to show you. Palms pressed to the ground, he pushes himself to his feet, and he doesn’t bother dusting off the back of his pants once he stands. It won’t make a difference, anyway, when the whole damn city is covered in it.
Once he steadies himself, he extends his hand to you, half-expecting you to slap it away. You don’t budge. You never do, he recalls fondly.
“One chance?” His eyes are pleading, even though you don’t look up to meet them. “It’s hard to explain, but it’ll make more sense if you see it.”
Without looking, you lift your arm and slap your hand into his. A small concession, but it’s enough to make his smile reappear. He’s practically beaming when he hauls you to your feet, and you grip his forearms to keep steady.
“Fine,” you concede with a huff.
Then, you round on him with one pointed finger, jabbing him in the center of his chest with force. It’ll bruise, but he supposes that’s the whole point.
“This better be worth all the fucking theatrics, or I swear to god —”
“You’ll make me swallow my own teeth?” He rolls his eyes with a low chuckle and tugs you along after him on his way to the door. “Yeah, yeah, yeah — Heard that threat a thousand times, Scraps, and you’ve never once made good on it.”
Just to emphasize his point, he looks over his shoulder at you and grins with all thirty-two of them.
All things considered, you take everything in stride. You don’t react much at all when you discover that the abandoned building is anything but; refuse to bat an eye when the two people you woke up to are revealed to be a tiny fraction of the whole.
You even keep your hand in his as he ushers you from room to room — through the clinic, the makeshift and woefully under-equipped armory, the Hub — and introduces you to whoever you come across. He might even go so far as to call you friendly, which is a first. Receiving any kind of warmth from you typically requires high-level security clearance.
Or, at least, it used to. Felix has to remind himself more than once that, small echoes aside, there are parts of you he doesn’t know anymore. This could very well be one of them.
Halfway through the tour, you finally offer up more than a lukewarm greeting and your name. It’s just the two of you now; you don’t have to make yourself palatable anymore. Blunt as ever, you throw out, “This is a cult, right? You ran away from home to join a cult?”
There she is, he thinks.
Felix pulls a face in disapproval, which you either don’t catch or don’t care about. Instead, you turn your head in the opposite direction and let your gaze sweep over the loading dock you currently stand upon.
It’s the closest thing they’ve got to a sitting room, filled with the only comfortable furniture they could get their hands on — half-busted arm chairs, ratty old couches, tables held together with duct tape and a prayer. You drop suddenly onto one such couch, jerking him back until his ass winds up next to yours on a tattered cushion.
Felix can’t tell if you pulled him down on purpose, or if you simply forgot that you were holding onto him. Either way, he doesn’t mind, but part of him hopes it was the former.
“It’s a collective,” he corrects you, lips flattening into a firm, straight line.
“You don’t have to sugarcoat it. If it’s a sex cult, just say so.”
He tries not to laugh — really, he does — because the last thing you need is an enabler, but your deadpan delivery has always hit him where he’s weakest. He tries again while swallowing a chuckle: “It’s the Black Screen, home to the most talented and ungovernable motherfuckers on the peninsula.”
You don’t look impressed. Felix doesn’t take it to heart.
“We’ve got a reconnaissance team, netrunners —”
As if he’s doing a roll call, he points to nearby stragglers with every position he names.
“— corporate defectors, combat vets, medics, ex-fixers —”
He nudges you with his elbow, wiggles his eyebrows and murmurs, “— Edge runners —”
If that look in your eye is any indication, you still hate it when he does that.
“And a couple of wayward drunks who — well…” Felix pauses for a moment to think. It doesn’t help, so he shrugs, snickering, “I dunno how they got here, and they don’t contribute much, but they’re fun to have around!”
The corner of your mouth twitches, ever so slightly. He grins down at you, as if to say gotcha.
“So, it is a sex cult,” you repeat flatly after a beat.
Felix can’t beat your bit, so he may as well join you in it. Bested, he sighs, “Yeah, pretty much.”
You hum in acceptance of his defeat, clearly amused by how easily he still gives in to you.
With pursed lips, you continue to take in your surroundings. Your brow furrows while you process the information you’ve been bombarded with so far, but you don’t offer up any further questions or snide comments. Thankfully, the silence that falls over you both feels a lot less like lead than the previous one.
Felix’s gaze stays fixed on you, though you’re too busy looking elsewhere to notice. Maybe you couldn’t recognize him, but shit — he’d know you anywhere, anytime. You’ve gotten older, of course, finally grew into those features of yours. Still, there are hints of the kid he used to know hidden all over your face.
Original traits aside, the new additions — the tattoos, for starters — all read like you. In fact, Felix is fairly confident that he’d know who they belonged to, even if the other context was removed. After all, the cyberware installed into your hand can’t undermine the familiarity of it resting against his palm.
And it sure as shit still hits like it used to.
He considers it a blessing, really, that so much of you survived the years that flew by without him. That the scrawny girl next door — ready and willing to fight God over a single slight — still rolls her eyes the same way, still speaks in that satoori his non-native tongue could never mimic.
“Maybe I’m missing something,” you announce suddenly. The unexpected sound of your voice startles Felix so much that he jumps, knocking his shoulder into yours in the process. You ignore his reaction and continue, “This just looks like someone is collecting people as a hobby. What are you all doing here?”
Oh.
Yeah, that’s a fair question.
“We’re… starting a fire,” Felix muses.
You arch an eyebrow expectantly, although the rest of your face remains impassive. It’s less of a demand for him to continue than it is permission for him not to stop.
“And we’re going to burn it all down.” He hits you with a devilish grin, drops his voice low in a way that makes you shiver involuntarily. “The corpo-rats, the lies they sell — all of it.”
“Sounds like anarchy,” you say, tilting your head to the side. There’s a beat, then you grin to match his. “Sign me up.”
Felix stands at the far side of the dining area with his arms crossed and his head leaning back against the cinder blocks behind him. His legs are crossed at the ankles, knees aching from the sheer amount of time he’s been holding the wall up.
As much as his body wants to sit, the rest of him is out of options. The only table that isn’t full is the one you’re occupying with Changbin and Jisung. After the day you’ve had, you deserve time alone with something familiar. He recognizes that he isn’t that.
Not anymore — and not yet, either.
He finds it hard to stray too far, though. You’ve always been able to fend for yourself — that black-and-blue jaw of his is proof enough — but it’s a role he can’t help falling into, looking out for you. Muscle memory.
Although Felix can’t quite make out anything that the three of you are saying, it’s clear as a damn bell when you slam your palms down on the table. Just as obvious is the split second in which your anger gives way — when the pain in your right hand finally registers in your brain.
“That one going to be a problem?”
Hyunjin, as usual, seems to appear out of thin air. He sidles up to Felix and takes up the spot next to him along the wall. All it takes is one quick glance to confirm it — he’s exhausted. Dark half-moons sit in the wells beneath his eyes like ink, silently informing Felix of yet another all-nighter; still keeping secrets as to where he goes at night when everyone else is sleeping.
But Hyunjin isn’t a mystery Felix will ever be able to solve, so he looks back in your direction and asks, “Who, Scraps?” Then, with a shake of his head, he sighs, “No. She’s a cherry bomb, but she’s reliable. Far more than most, actually.”
It’s odd, Felix thinks, that Hyunjin didn’t already know the answer to that question. As the reconnaissance leader of the Black Screen, there isn’t much Hyunjin isn’t aware of. Felix doesn’t comment on that piece, however. Instead, he does his best to interpret your reaction.
“If I had to guess, Changbin just told her about the fake kidnapping.”
And Hyunjin doesn’t do a damn thing to conceal his smirk. That was his plan, after all.
Two weeks ago, Seo Changbin stumbled upon a lead by accident. While Felix isn’t privy to the details of what Changbin dug up, he knows it must’ve been significant. That’s the only explanation Felix can come up with as to how Changbin wound up at the rendezvous point. Nobody — not the corporate ghouls, their war dogs, or any other sorry soul — finds the Black Screen unless they want to be found.
Felix is privy to what happened next because it’s the only reason he wound up involved in this at all:
Whatever intel Changbin had was groundbreaking enough to score an invitation to the revolution, but he had more to offer the higher-ups than that. He dropped the name of someone who could be an asset, under the right circumstances. Someone who wouldn’t follow a breadcrumb trail for free but would tear the peninsula apart to find whoever owed them.
For what it’s worth, Felix disagreed with that characterization the second he heard it. Despite the mask you like to wear, you’re incapable of being self-centered. You’ve never been profit-driven, heartless, or attachment-avoidant. Just hellbent on survival for you and the people you feel responsible for, even as a kid.
The only reason Felix hasn’t asked you about your motive outright is because he knows you’d lie. The truth is simple: Unless it was for someone you care deeply about, you wouldn’t waste gasoline on speeding back to a place you hate.
Hyunjin clears his throat, pulling Felix out of the daze he’d fallen into. Given the pointed look on his face, Hyunjin must be repeating himself when he says, “She got you bad, huh?”
Confusion forces Felix’s brow to furrow.
“This?” He takes a wild guess and gestures to the bruise on his jaw before waving dismissively. “Nah, her form is terrible. Truly garbage-tier follow-through. I can teach her, though.”
Hyunjin pushes himself off the wall and moves to exit the dining area. As he passes by, he gives Felix a patronizing pat on his shoulder. “Not what I meant, Yongbokie.”
Felix frowns, unsure how to take what he’s being given.
The fuck?
“Not even close,” Hyunjin calls over his shoulder.
He shoots Felix a wink, and then he’s gone, disappearing out the door the same way he entered it — like a goddamn apparition.
“Wow. Recruited? That’s — wow.”
Jisung is doing a terrible job of pretending he isn’t blushing. He clears his throat to keep his voice even, but it’s useless. He’s not fooling anyone.
“I didn’t realize we were so sought after.”
“You’re not,” Changbin responds bluntly. He gestures across the table to you but maintains his eyes on Jisung. “She is. You just happened to be present, and they couldn’t leave a witness behind.”
Jisung doesn’t bother to hide the way his face falls. When he opens his mouth to whine, you raise your hand and silently demand that he spare you the earache. It seems to work; he slumps dejectedly and leans with his elbows against the tabletop. You proceed to ignore him.
Affect flat, you stare straight ahead at the source of all your fucking problems. The half of you that wants to hug Changbin for being alive and well is significantly quieter than the half of you that wants to grab him by the nape of his neck and shove his face into his yukgaejang.
Bastard.
“I no longer give a shit how I ended up here,” you state coolly. Liar. “That ship has sailed, and to keep it a buck with you, Binnie —”
He cringes at the nickname, which is exactly the reaction you sought.
“— I’m not interested in stroking your ego for getting one over on me. It won’t happen again. What I’m still waiting on —”
The only reason you leave that clause hanging in mid-air is to see the anticipation stir in his eyes. From where you’re sitting, it’s what he deserves: a little bit of unnecessary suspense. Really, it’s a form of reparations for the giant fucking inconvenience he’s been lately. His balance is way past due.
Jisung, perpetually along for the ride, shovels shrimp chips into his mouth while his eyes dart back and forth between your face and Changbin’s.
You shoot Changbin a sly smile and grab his beer, tilting the can his way in lieu of a bow. His eyes narrow, visibly annoyed with your stalling, but he doesn’t audibly complain when you down the rest of his drink. Resigned, he accepts the empty can that you hand it back to him
At long last, you clear your throat.
“— is an explanation for why you’re here,” you finally sigh.
Changbin rolls his eyes so hard that they go all-white for a moment. Then, to your surprise, he glares across the table at Jisung.
“You know, my life was way more pleasant before you dragged this one,” he huffs, gesturing to you with his chopsticks, “Into my bar.”
Just for a moment, Changbin sits with his annoyance. He’s entitled to some of it, you’ll concede. You’re not easy to love — you never have been — and you’re occasionally even harder to like. Despite that, he’s been known to look out for you in his own, mostly useless way; even in moments like this, when you’re being a fucking gash simply because you can.
But the fact remains that you dragged your ass across a peninsula for him. He knows damn well that you accept payment in the form of secrets when cash is too hard to come by, so….
“Spill,” you demand.
That tough exterior of his collapses like wet cardboard, just like you knew it would. He glances around the room quickly to confirm that no one is listening in, then he pushes his empty bowl out of the way. With the threat of staining his white t-shirt neutralized, Changbin leans in and asks, “Do either of you know Jung Wooyoung?”
Simultaneously, you and Jisung respond:
“The boxer?”
“The biter.”
Just the same, your friends turn to you with identical looks of bewilderment. You shrug, declining to elaborate because Changbin asked if you knew him, not how or how intimately. Truth be told, you’re not sure that he’s prepared for that answer.
“Anyways,” Changbin segues after clearing his throat. “He’s not up to either of those tasks these days.”
Genuinely curious, Jisung asks with a frown, “Did someone finally kill him?”
Fair question, you think.
With the way Wooyoung runs his mouth, it’s a wonder he’s lived as long as he has — assuming, of course, that he’s still alive. Beyond picking fights with people three times’ his size, his specialties include fixing matches and swiping other fighters’ significant others. If he’s not dead yet, you figure, it’s only a matter of time until the consequences of his antics come calling.
Changbin shakes his head, and the look on his face seems weirdly solemn, like the answer is even worse than that. It’s sobering; it knocks the smirk right off your face.
“He was short on cash, so he signed up for some clinical trial promising a million won for participants.”
Jisung, the resident non-doctor, sits up at this development. “Thanotech?”
You’re in the middle of rolling your eyes when Changbin intercepts, grimacing: “No, that’s the fucked up part. Well, one of the fucked up parts.”
Two pairs of expectant eyes lock on him.
“It’s Ulsan running the trial.”
You don’t pretend to be well-versed in any of the biomedical, cybernetic shit going on around you, but you do know that this particular corporation never leaks details of its research and development — not ever. Doing so would run the risk of a lesser titan swooping in to try and to dupe it.
But that’s not the only revelation that smacks you upside the head.
“Ulsan pays for lab rats now?” You scoff, surprised by your own interest. “Here I was, thinking they used ex-employees for that shit.”
It sounds callous when you say it out loud, but it’s a universal assumption. Part of the New Republic’s mythology, so to speak.
In your lifetime, you’ve never come across a single person who used to work for the Ulsan Corporation — not one. Just the same, you’ve never heard about anyone leaving; no one you’ve ever met has. It’s beyond the realm of possibility that a corporation like that has no turnover, so where do people go when their turn is over?
The dumpster out back, some say. According to others, they wind up in a secret mass grave in the oil fields.
“When he came back, I didn’t know where he’d been or why; I just saw him wandering around like a fucking zombie.” Changbin shivers. “He’s empty now, all sucked dry.”
Jisung looks pointedly at you, shit-eatin grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what happened when you —?”
An elbow to the center of his chest stops his question before he can finish asking it. He yelps instead, scooting his chair further down the table to get away from you, your sharp edges, and your even sharper glare.
“It freaked me the fuck out, and I didn’t have any answers, so I started poking around for something — anything — that might make sense of it.”
“So, that’s how you got pulled into the web.”
The voice from nowhere makes all three of you jump. You whip around to find yet another stranger.
How many fucking people do I have to meet today?
This particular wild card sits on top of the table directly behind yours with arms gently crossed over her chest; not closed off but cold, judging by the goosebumps making themselves known across her bare arms. Her boots rest on the chair in front of her, one chrome leg shining next to flesh-and-blood.
Whoever she is, she’s beaming. That fact confuses the shit out of you because you’re not often met with friendliness, especially from unknowns. Or maybe, you think, it’s a well-concealed effort to disarm you. Whatever it is, it’s working; the urge to snap at her for intruding is dead on arrival.
You open your mouth to ask what she means, but you can’t get the words out before someone else interjects.
Minho, that bastard, shouts from across the room, “Spider! Got a minute?”
Her eyes light up in a way that says she has several, so long as he’s the one asking. Without another word, she hops to her feet and pushes the chair that held them back under the table. As she heads his way, she sends you an apologetic smile, like she somehow owes you anything.
“I don’t know what they unraveled by pulling that thread,” Changbin sighs, nodding towards the pair exiting the room. “But this place has been buzzing since I got here.”
You need something to chew on that isn’t this, so you reach over and grab the bag of shrimp chips from Jisung’s unsuspecting hands. The frown he gives you is cartoonish, but as usual, he doesn’t put up a fight. Your version of an apology is holding a spare chip out to him, which he happily accepts.
After shoveling a handful into your mouth, you mumble, “So now what?”
“I don’t know about you, but if these guys —” Changbin gestures vaguely around the room with his index finger pointed. “— Give me a target to point at, I’ll pull the trigger.”
You snort, “That’s a lot of trust.”
It doesn’t mean much, coming from you. Your metric is beyond fucked, and you know it. That word is foreign, though; so far out of your grasp that you can’t wrap your brain around it.
“Maybe it is,” Changbin mutters while he looks down at the empty can in his grip.
For a moment, that’s all he says. All he does is stare into the black hole of its opening, as if there’s some answer lurking in the emptiness below it. He must not find it, though, because he crumples the aluminum like a piece of scrap paper.
When he glances back up at you, you see the uncertainty in his eyes. It reads like fear, which manages to unsettle you.
“I just — I can’t see what I saw and do nothing.”
Your second month in the compound starts with a bang — no, a thud.
With your body being forcibly ejected from your cot, crashing onto the ground, and your jaw clenching shut quickly with a click of gritted teeth.
“How many fucking times are we doing this?” You growl, less than half-awake.
Already past today’s quota for rage, you form a fist and swing your arm back violently against the capsized cot; it scrapes along the cement floor and skitters further away from you. The sudden burst of movement doesn’t do anything to make you feel better, but it was worth a shot, you suppose.
Felix, whose sunshine smile is too goddamn bright for this hour, crouches down in front of you. He at least has the decency to look apologetic when he lilts, “Until you learn to wake up to an alarm, I fear.”
He pauses, eyes scanning for any genuine distress beyond your shitty mood.
“Does that hurt?” He frowns.
Bleary eyes follow his pointed finger to your elbow, now prickling with blood where you skinned it against the floor. It doesn’t; and you’re not even remotely concerned about it, so you swat his hand away without answering his question and shove yourself to your feet. Once standing, you wander over to your steamer trunk to grab something clean enough to wear.
The shadowy one, Hyunjin, brought your shit to you a week ago — thank god. He provided no explanation whatsoever for how he knew where you lived or how he managed to get inside your building, but you’re a beggar, not a chooser. You’d rather enable his burglary than keep wearing the same, re-washed clothes you came here with or borrowing from people you still don’t know well.
As you peel yesterday’s tank-top up and over your head, your gravelly voice flies out to Felix, who stands and moves to lean against the wall. “You at least going to feed me breakfast before you bore me with more target practice?”
That’s most of what your time together has been so far, anyway. The chain of command is sorting out details above your pay grade; and you condition yourself to jump as high as they may eventually ask you to.
Felix doesn’t answer you, which isn’t like him. You look at him out of the corner of your eye and find him staring up at the ceiling, like his life depends on it.
“What are you —?”
Oh.
You glance down, cutting your question off midway through. He’s giving you and your semi-exposed body privacy, that’s what.
Sensing blood in the water, you swim in to scoff, “You have no problem flipping my bed when I’m in it, but bras are where you draw the line? What kind of gentleman are you?”
Still averting his eyes, he rolls them. You do him the favor of tugging on a different, slightly wrinkled tank-top; but you don’t give him the courtesy of letting up.
“Where do you stand on ass, Felix?”
“Are you always this annoying, first thing in the morning?”
Amusement slips through the cracks despite his efforts to conceal it. You slip out of the cotton shorts you slept in, dip your toes under the fabric pooled around your ankles, and flick them at him. He concedes his staring contest to the panels overhead in order to catch them.
Impressive reflexes.
“I’m this annoying at all hours of the day.” You grin impishly for just a second, then shrug. “You’re just less able to handle it, first thing in the morning.”
Bending back over your trunk, you dig through for something denim. You land on black, high-waisted shorts with a triumphant, “Aha!”, and make a big show of raising your trophy overhead. Once again, you glance at Felix to see if your attempt to get a rise out of him was successful. In a way, yes, it was — just not in the way you expected.
Based on the way his gaze lingers on your thighs and the curve of your ass, you don’t think Felix even noticed your theatrics. You don’t think he means to stare, either. As far as you can see, it’s the perfect opportunity to fuck with him further.
“Admiring the tattoos?” You arch an eyebrow and wait for him to blush out of panic at being caught. “I can recommend the artist, if you want to hit them up.”
To your surprise, you don’t rattle him. Dark eyes flick up from your body to your face, and they don’t seem ashamed of where they’ve been. Your plan backfires. More than that, it blows up right in your face, which is starting to heat up.
“The cantine closes in five minutes. Training starts in ten,” he states matter-of-factly, holding your gaze. “So, you can either eat, or you can keep pretending you’re not trying to flirt with me.”
Your mouth drops open, but you can’t even snap back at him before he chirps, “The choice is yours, Scraps,” with a playful smile.
With nothing more to say, Felix leans away from the wall. On his way out the door, he gives you a lazy, two-finger salute. Dumbstruck, you stand there, watching him leave; wondering where the hell your bumbling, sweetly shy friend from back home managed to disappear to.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Felix waggles his finger at you. A smug smile toys at his lips when you let out a frustrated grunt. “That’s the problem.”
He takes a step away from you, raises his fists to mimic your posture, and throws a right jab out into the air ahead of him. When he draws it back, he pauses with his shoulders even.
“D’you see the issue with this?” He asks, loosening one fist so that he can gesture from shoulder to shoulder.
You roll your eyes. “Is it that nobody’s currently hitting you?”
Felix, to his credit, is completely unbothered by the attitude you keep giving him. He’s far more patient than he should be with you. You, however, do not take criticism well.
“You square yourself off instead of retriggering an attack,” he gently corrects you. “By not turning and leading with your shoulder —” He twists slightly backwards, so that his body is angled similarly to the way it was when he struck in the first place. “— you leave all this surface area open.”
Okay, fine.
You’ll concede that this makes sense, but you will not admit to poor blocking. In fact, deflecting is what you’re best at, so that’s precisely what you do.
“And how exactly am I supposed to block hits that aren’t coming?”
Felix relaxes his stance with confusion scribbled all over his face. You don’t wait for him to ask what you mean, plunging right into your notes for him:
“This sparring shit doesn’t feel real because you refuse to hit me. It’s been weeks, and there still aren’t any stakes. If you’re going to insist that I learn this — which, by the way, feels pointless when I’m already armed —”
You gesture down to your thigh, where your pistol is normally strapped.
“— then you have to make me care.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, opting instead to quietly chew on the challenge you’ve raised. For a split second, you think you’ve finally grasped the straw that’ll break his back. He turns towards the door and walks away, seemingly giving up on trying to teach a rabid dog new tricks.
But Felix defies your expectations yet again, grabs your gear off the counter at the far side of the room, and heads back to you. As he walks, he pulls back the slide to fish out the round that waits in its chamber. Bullet still in hand, his focus shifts to the magazine, which he easily removes from the base of your pistol’s grip. After tucking your ammunition into the back pocket of his jeans for safekeeping, he holds your now-empty firearm and thigh strap out to you.
“Gear up.”
Now, it’s your turn to be confused. You accept the items he pushes into your hands with both eyebrows raised.
“Are we giving up on hand-to-hand, then?”
“Absolutely not,” Felix snorts with a shake of his head. “I’m just going to prove the necessity.” When you don’t budge, he waves his hand to hurry you along. “C’mon, Scraps. Strap in.”
Eyeing him suspiciously, you slip the vertical strap over your belt loop and fasten it before doing the same to the horizontal piece around your thigh. Once it’s nestled snugly against your skin, you slide your weapon into its resting place.
Holding your hands up, you fire off a saccharine smile like the brat you are. “All done,” you chirp.
The smirk that appears on his face makes your stomach flip for two reasons, the least of which is the anticipation of his next move.
“You want it to feel real, right?” His voice drops so low that you feel it deep in your abdomen. “Fine by me.”
Like before, Felix steps slightly backwards. With a nod of his head towards your firearm, he challenges you, “Draw.”
It’s unfamiliar, seeing him counter you like this. Growing up, he was content to go in whichever direction you nudged him in. The version of Felix you knew back then was passive, agreeable to fault. You may not know what the fuck he’s planning now, but he radiates newfound authority that you almost want to respect, so you listen.
“Fine,” you demur while your fingertips trail over the cool, metal grip. “Make your point and move onto something useful.”
The next sequence of events flashes by so quickly that your brain can hardly keep up.
Just as soon as you pull the gun from its holster, Felix turns in his spot, channeling the momentum into a strong push off the ground. He’s in the air before you can even level the barrel; and in the blink of an eye, the side of his boot collides with your hand, forcefully ejecting the gun from your grip. The power behind his kick sends the weapon flying several meters away, where it clatters to the floor with a smack amidst the quiet.
Gasping more so out of surprise than pain, you recoil your stinging fist and clutch it to your chest. He reads your expression incorrectly, if his widened eyes are any indication. Immediately, Felix breaks his stance to step across the distance in between you.
Worried hands come to rest on your biceps, squeezing gently. He urgently asks, “You alright?”
You blink back at him, throughly stunned by how fucking fast his reflexes are, and he misinterprets that, too.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he sputters. His next words come out so frantically that they bleed together over the course of one breath. “I really didn’t want to hurt you; I just needed you to understand that your gun can’t always save you. Sometimes, you have to —”
“That was insane,” you blurt out.
Felix’s eyes widen, caught completely off-guard by your interruption. It’s understandable, you think. After all, it’s the closest thing to a compliment you’ve given him over the past few weeks.
He peeps, “Oh?”
You nod vigorously — and there’s that sweetly shy boy from down the block, blushing slightly under the weight of your attention.
Somehow, seeing him this way feels like home; the one you knew before he disappeared, that you might actually admit to missing. Acting solely on instinct, you unfurl your right hand and seek out the warmth of his cheek, like it’ll flip a switch and turn the clock back.
It doesn’t. Of course, it doesn’t — but you can’t help feeling like this is fine, too.
Until you realize what the fuck you’re doing, and you see the starry-eyed look he’s giving you. Then, you do what you always do.
You dodge.
Patting his cheek patronizingly, you breeze, “I guess I’ll let you train me, then,” before turning to retrieve your gun.
“Oh, really now?” He laughs, like he’s already forgotten the way your mask just cracked. You can’t tell if you’re grateful for this, or disappointed. “Is violence all it takes to win you over?”
Disappointed.
You wish he’d called your bluff again, like he did so long ago in that closet you’re currently calling a bedroom. Once wasn’t enough; you want to be caught out, to have someone refuse to let you get away with the bullshit you’re always trying to pull. For some proof that you’re not the bulldozer you pretend to be.
Felix raises an eyebrow as he tilts his head teasingly to the side. “Are you actually going to shut up and take instruction this time?”
Like that.
“Maybe.” You crouch down to grab your discarded pistol off the ground, lips pursed to keep the satisfied smile off your face. “Are you going to stop pulling punches?”
Three weeks of sparring tick by before you manage to clean his fucking clock.
It came as a surprise to both of you; not just that Felix slipped up in the first place, but that you were fast enough to capitalize on an opening he’s otherwise never created. You might’ve gasped even louder than he did when you managed to seize the opportunity — but that memory is fuzzy already. It doesn’t matter, anyway, not to him. Either way, the point stands:
You actually learned from the shit he’s been trying to instill in you.
Having hobbled from the training room to his bedroom, Felix now sits on top of the old, metal counter that once served as a workbench. It’s not comfortable by any means, but he’d rather die than move from his current position. Between his knees, you stand close to him, holding a frozen sponge to his left eye with your right hand.
Funnily enough, that particular hand is the reason he needs an ice pack in the first place.
For a while, the pair of you exist in comfortable quiet. It’s nice, he thinks, just being present. He would’ve been happy to carry on that way for as long as possible, but the shitty voice in the back of his brain keeps yelling that he’s letting more moments slip by than he has to spare. Wasting time that he should be making up.
He clears his throat to shake off the rust, prompting you to glance down from his forehead to his eyes. Your expression is hard to read, but there’s anxiety in there, somewhere. Felix worries that you’re worried; you’re searching for a sign that you’ve somehow injured him further.
“You’re a quick study — if and when you want to be.” His teasing sounds pathetic because his voice is barely more than a groan. Still, he smirks, “Those corporate mercenaries won’t stand a chance.”
With his good eye, Felix watches as your mask cracks a little further in the shape of a smile.
For once, you simply nod in acknowledgement and let the compliment slip through your defenses without trying to deflect it. He wants to compliment you for that progress, too, but he’s hesitant to push his luck when he’s already flying half-blind by the seat of his pants.
Then again, it might be worth the risk to push the envelope — even if you succeed in punching his goddamn lights out for good. He doubts that he’d complain, if that were the case. You’d be an incredible last sight to ever see, wouldn’t you?
His internal monologue pipes up again, demanding that he gamble.
Every single muscle he has aches after spending hours sparring with you, but that’s not at all what he’s talking about when he says, “You’re a knockout, Scraps.”
It’s a cop out, but it’s something.
Just for a second, Felix wonders if you heard what he meant, and not just what he said. All his doubt disappears when that shy smile tugs even harder at the corners of your mouth.
“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, chuckling quietly. “If you want to get technical, you didn’t even lose consciousness —”
Carefully, you bring your free hand up to his forehead and brush flyaway strands of hair out of the way of the makeshift ice pack. By contrast, your fingertips are warm enough to simmer on his skin.
“— so you’ll have to try that joke again when you actually do.”
Although you could, you don’t take your hand back after unsticking his hair from the condensation on his skin. You lower it gently, let it rest on his shoulder, and leave Felix to wonder if it’s a choice, a convenience, or a reflex.
This eats at him.
A long time ago, this little gesture wouldn’t be something he’d have to guess at. He used to just understand, never once needed to be told. So far out of practice, he’s no longer fluent in your body language — and he hates it.
Unwilling to leave anything else up to interpretation, Felix looks up at you with one, unobstructed eye. “Wasn’t joking,” he murmurs.
You freeze without meeting his eyes.
If he didn’t know better, he might think your retinal mods had been knocked loose again. You don’t seem to see him, and that’s all he wants. All he gets is quiet, so he tries again: “And I’m not bullshitting you, either.”
It’s his low voice speaking your real name that finally draws you out of hiding. Surprised for just a moment, your expression softens when you notice the way he’s studying your reactions. You don’t speak at first, but your bottom lip is pinched between your teeth; a telltale sign that you’re trying to.
“Since this is apparently honesty hour,” you start with an exhale.
Felix braces himself for whatever evasive maneuver you’re going to throw next.
Shockingly, you don’t throw out a joke to change the subject. You take the ice pack off his eye so he can see you properly, set it down next to his thigh on the counter, and scrub your hands sheepishly over your face.
“You freak me the fuck out.”
You laugh despite yourself, and then you pause just like that; like you’re waiting on him to laugh at you, too. When he doesn’t, you take it as your cue to keep going: “Am I insane, or does this feel easy?
“I think both things can be true.” You shoot him a look that could — and might — kill him. He holds his hands up in surrender, but he keeps his eyes locked on you. “And I know you’re not used to easy.”
Felix doesn’t know what he expects you to do next, but your next move isn’t one he would’ve guessed. In the end, it’s your still-chilled palms reaching up to meet him, and your fingers filling the empty spaces between his. Brow furrowed, you study the way you fit together, like the words you’re searching for are hidden somewhere in the gaps of your chain-linked knuckles.
“I’m not used to it because I avoid it,” you correct him, frowning. “Easy scares the shit out of me. It just feels like a trap, you know? Like, the second you stop looking out for it, the other shoe will drop and knock your unsuspecting ass to the dirt.”
Keeping his fingers interlaced with yours, he lowers your joined hands until they rest against the tops of his thighs. You watch them go; he watches you, and he can’t help thinking that he’s the reason you armored up in the first place. That him leaving was the blow to the head that taught you to wear a helmet.
“I’ve got good reflexes,” Felix whispers, squeezing your hand.
At this, your eyes flick upwards. A microscopic crease forms between your eyebrows, and he knows exactly what’s coming next, so he says it first: “Excluding today, obviously.”
When you smile, it hits him even harder than your right hook did.
“What are you saying, exactly?” You ask, head tilting to the side as you narrow your eyes.
“Fuck the shoe.”
The look on your face suggests that he can’t possibly be serious, but he’s never been more so. Maybe he can’t promise you easy in a world like this one; and he can’t keep that fucking shoe from dropping, but he swears he’ll catch it when it does.
Felix has to let go of your hands to hold you properly. You lean into his touch when he snakes his arms around your waist; and you rest your forehead against his, careful not to press into the bruise that borders his eyebrow.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he whispers. You hum in reply, confirming your willingness to trade. “Kiss me now, and we’ll batten down the hatches later.”
Felix may have called you a quick learner, but you have to wonder what his basis for comparison is. From your vantage point, it’s him that catches on in a heartbeat, like nothing unexperienced is truly new to him.
Coincidentally, it’s also him that’s kneeling between your thighs, bearing the weight of your hinged knees over his shoulders and making you shake with his tongue alone.
“Fuck, fuck — nngh — fuck!”
It’s all you can say because it’s the best you can do.
Over and over, too drunk on the sensation of his mouth, you let profanity spill out of yours. He has you dripping in more ways than one, pooling on that godforsaken counter, and you can’t spare a single thought about the mess you’re making.
Every neuron fixates on him, the cotton-candy blue strands gripped tight between your fingers, and the way he devours you, like he’s making up for skipped meals.
“F-Felix,” you beg, breathless.
Looking up at you from under his lashes, he feigns innocence. It’s bullshit — he knows you’re on the brink of death, knows your whole damn body is buzzing — and his sweet smile doesn’t match his actions. You jolt, wailing, when another kitten lick trails over your clit.
“Hmm?” That low timbre of his vibrates through you when he pulls back, panting.
God, you’re spent already, but you can’t collapse until you know what he feels like, buried to the hilt in you. Something about that need makes you shiver; has your bottom lip quivering when you manage to squeak, “Please.”
Absolutely boneless, you slump against the wall behind you. With far more grace than you, Felix maneuvers his way out from under the tangle of your legs. He ensures that they fall gently back into place on the countertop.
“Gotta work on that stamina if you’re gonna help wage a war,” he teases.
The half-powered glare you shoot at him doesn’t stop him from leaning in and pressing a kiss to your forehead. It doesn’t keep his fingertips from tracing languid lines down the lengths of your bare thighs, either.
Your voice is fucked out and weightless, far softer than you’ve ever heard yourself sound. “Is that what this is? Conditioning?”
The hand not caressing your thigh comes up to cradle your jaw, like it’s something fragile. It’s the first time anyone’s touched you as if you’re breakable, worth protecting — and motherfucker, you’re one soft smile away from crying.
“No.”
He states it much more firmly than he kisses you. So gentle that you can’t believe it’s real until you taste yourself on him, so warm that you dissolve like a sugar cube on his tongue.
Fuck any other person that’s ever pressed their lips to yours and called it a kiss. They’re liars, all of them. One by one, their names disappear with every passing second in which you know better.
“Need you,” you moan into his mouth.
Fistfuls of his shirt can’t bring him close enough. Even when his head dips down and his lips are at your throat, the ache wins out. You crave him anywhere — everywhere — all over you.
“Going crazy —” You gasp when his teeth nip at your collarbone. “— waiting on you.”
Greedy hands drop to the button of his jeans, fumbling to no avail. Apparently, your dexterity flew out the window two orgasms ago. A frustrated whine jumps out after it, pushing your head back as it goes.
Felix’s low chuckle soothes you, but it’s nothing compared to the relief you feel when his hands nudge yours out of the way. That, too, is a drop in the bucket; bliss crashes in waves when there’s no denim left to separate you. His hands land on your hips, fingertips pressing into your flesh as he guides you further down his length.
Never — not fucking ever — have you made a sound quite as pathetic as the one you bury into the crook of his neck. You can’t classify it, not as a moan or a whimper. It’s desperate — loud. It’s an air raid siren; every fucking barricade you’ve built over the years being blown to smithereens.
This is it, you think.
Fuck your bank account.
Fuck staring at the sky and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Fuck your contracts, your shithole apartment, and the million different ways you were set up to lose in this life.
This isn’t about you at all. It’s about you and him; all the space and time you’re dead set on reclaiming.
This is for us.
a/n: thank you so much for reading! i’ve been working on this since JUNE, and it’s a much bigger undertaking (creatively and….. mentally) than anything else i’ve done before, so i’m scared and also excited to start sharing it with y’all.
while likes are appreciated, comments/tags/reblogs with your thoughts are really what make my brain go brrrtt.
tagging: @saintriots, @mal-lunar-28, @dabiscrustyfeet
wanna be tagged for future uploads? sign up here.
#stray kids#skz#felix#felix x reader#felix smut#felix angst#felix fic#lf#stray kids fic#skz fic#stray kids smut#stray kids angst#skz smut#skz angst#stray kids series#skz series#jade writes#re: force quit#kvanity
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hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?
GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE
Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.
I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:
Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?
Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?
Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?
We're gonna go in chronological order!
Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:
Aww. Such a cute elephant!
Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!
Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:
SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.
(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)
Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:
Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.
Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.
Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:
Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:
... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.
Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.
For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.
Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?
In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.
Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.
Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?
tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later
Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!
The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.
(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)
Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.
By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.
So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)
Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?
tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do
Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.
(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)
The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.
Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."
But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.
Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)
Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!
(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)
Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.
Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?
tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.
Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.
So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.
And look, here we are:
Aww.
Whew - that's everything I could find!
Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3
#dick grayson#anyone with more info feel free to chime in & we can crowdsource <3#i do think the toy elephant is awfully cute though <3#total digression but i was thinking about it as i was writing:#i'm fascinated by the ways that the post-crisis batboys & their stories can intersect with 90s masculinity and all its issues with stoicism#and i'm pro-queering and gender-bending - 90s comics were a total boys' club so i think it's neat that transformative fandom isn't#but i do love 90s masculinity and All Its Issues too & one of the things i find compelling about the dick-tim-bruce trio#& especially dick's place in it - is the unspoken hierarchy whereby bruce is manlier than dick & dick is manlier than tim#and so dick's in the middle as this somewhat softer-character who aspires to be a harsher & more stoic & ultimate manly-man character#caught in the middle between robin & batman & what each role represents#and like. batman is both manhood & the only desirable thing to be AND ALSO it represents this immense narrowing of possibility#because so much of stereotypical masculinity is about reducing the range of emotions you're allowed to have or express#and dick is both incredibly conflicted about bruce AND wants to be just like him & by extension is conflicted about masculinity writ large#so a lot of dick's interactions with tim veer between trying on a frat-boy-ish 'I'm The Manly Guy' persona vs. giving up on it#or trying on imitations of Bruce's Batman persona but also trying to backtrack out of it bc he doesn't like how it feels etc etc#ANYWAY i think what i am trying to say is that if tim had a stuffed animal dick would be entertained & poke mild fun at him#and call him 'teddy' for the next hour or something while tim got increasingly defensive about how the teddy bear was steph's#and/or about how the teddy bear was OLD and tim doesn't even care about it and also WHATEVEr i'm above this#and to an uninformed observer this might look like bullying BUT ACTUALLY#this ritual would IN FACT be very reassuring to both of them + tim would feel WAY better afterward than if dick had ignored it#because by poking fun at him dick shows he still respects tim enough to tease him thus subtextually exorcising the threat of wimpiness#plus allowing tim to defend himself & demonstrate that he can take a joke so they've both reaffirmed their masculinity to each other#& they don't have to be scared of the teddy bear and all it represents anymore#however also afterward dick would have a brief nostalgic flashback to when he was a kid & had a teddy bear & feel weird about the memory#because he would be unable to articulate to himself that what he misses is a past when he allowed himself to be vulnerable#anyway this wouldn't actually happen in comics but it's what would happen in my soul. you know.#ask tag#zitka
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DC headcanons but you can tell who's my favorite
For some reason Wally cries everytime he eats chicken nuggets with the Titans
Not even Wally knows why this happens
It's only with the original Titans. No one else. They have a rule that says Wally isn't allowed to eat chicken nuggets when he's around them because they all hate to see him cry
Iris sleeptalks. Barry sometimes has full conversations that make no sense with her at four in the morning
Hal has a video that lasts 40 minutes saved on every single piece of technology he has. It's about Iris (who was asleep) and Barry (very much awake, but probably delusional) arguing about whether koalas are evil or not
Tim had a Tumblr blog where he posted photos of Batman and Robin that looked like they were taken from very close angles
Jason follows it. One time he was complaining that his favorite blog hadn't posted anything in years. When Tim asked him to show him what account it was, he panicked, tried to run away, hit his head and passed out from exhaustion
Jason is still confused about that, but no matter how much he insists, Tim refuses to give his secret away
Wally has a deep hatred for Dora the Explorer
The Young Justice once ran away to a different country for a whole month and refused to acknowledge it when they came back
Iris, Barry and Hal are all dating. Barry didn't realize it at first though (Hal didn't either)
Barry was really panicking over the fact that he seemed to be in love with his best friend when he's already married
Hal was really panicking over the fact that he was in love with his best friend who is already married
Iris thought they were all just poly. They had a very long conversation after she realized none of them knew about polyamorous relationships
Wally and Dick, even though they both have their own romantic partners, are soulmates in every universe (can be seen as romantic or platonic)
Wally once got both him and Dick (as Flash and Nightwing) banned from a cafe. Dick wasn't even there
He accidentally knocked a candle and burned the table down
But what actually got them banned was commenting to the very homophobic owner that “I don't have a major opinion on that Nightwing guy besides of the fact that he gives some really good blowjobs” (they never even fucked)
In Wally's defense, he was really unstable at the moment, and he panicked
Of course, people filmed it. And, of course, it went viral. Now all of his friends quote him on that all the time
Technically they're not banned anymore because the cafe's owner changed, but he's still too embarrassed to go so he ignores that
All speedsters are constantly vibrating, some being more obvious than others, due to the fact that being still is... really fucking difficult because of everything being slower for them
Bart's the most noticeable one. If you pay enough attention you'll notice that you can sometimes see a little bit of lightning coming out of his body
The vibrations causes them to do a low rumbling sound that isn't exactly snoring when they're sleeping. What I'm saying is that they purr
Linda was thrilled when she found out
None of the speedsters are aware of this and no one plans on telling them
One time the YJ were talking and Bart interrupted them so Tim turned around to face him and said “Cerra el orto” (shut your mouth in Spanish. The literal translation would be “shut your ass” but that sounds weird in English) in a really high pitched voice. Now the entire team quotes him on that almost everyday
Diana almost dropped a car on Bruce once and now she sometimes says stuff like “I should've let that car kill you” when he's doing something particularly stupid
The rest of the JL quotes it too. It is very common to hear the phrase “I wish Diana had dropped that car” in the Watchtower
Kori once blew up the kitchen because she thought something was climbing on her leg. It was her hair
The original Titans have a monthly meetup. It doesn't matter what kind of beef some of the members have with each other at the moment, they'll still meet. It's an unspoken rule
Hartley was Linda's best man in her and Wally's wedding
That's where him and Dick met
They now share embarassing stories about Wally. They're not really friends and they don't talk, like, at all, but they still send each other videos of Wally falling on his face almost everyday
Depression, just like ADHD, is something that almost all speedsters have, but it's almost unnoticeable because they always hide it, mostly using their superspeed to do it
Green lanterns and speedsters bond over starting to glow at the worst possible moments
Wally absolutely despises the smell of cinnamon
His parents's house smelled like that due to his mom being obssessed with adding cinnamon to every meal they ate, so it reminds him too much of the terrible childhood he had because of them
You can't really blame him for leaving social events when he smells cinnamon
Bruce has a video of Hal starting crying after Barry said “I think giraffes shouldn't be real” that he uses as blackmail sometimes
Barry's actual weakness is puns, he can't stop saying stuff like “I'll be there in a flash” and then winking like he knows something you don't. It's gonna get him in trouble someday
The YJ all have Tumblr accounts
Dick and Donna used to call each other the “Wonder Twins” so now Cassie and Tim are the Wonder Twins of their generation
The og Titans once followed Batman everywhere playing Superman by Eminem because he made Dick upset
Barry looks like he's about to cry all the time and he has no idea why
When the League revealed their identities to each other everyone was confused over why he was crying
It took him a while to convince everyone that that's just what his face looks like
He always looks like he's about to cry so when he's actually going to cry it's pretty obvious. And he hates it
When Wally and Barry first met and Wally started to talk about the Flash, he made a joke about how he always came to help “in a flash”. Now Barry repeats that joke all the time
Wally hates himself for being the reason why the ‘in a flash’ jokes started
When Barry makes a joke and Wally complains, Barry answers with “You were the one that created the joke, Wally. Live with the consequences”
#dc#dc comics#wally west#barry allen#dick grayson#bruce wayne#diana prince#iris west#hal jordan#tim drake#bart allen#titans#fab five#koriand'r#young justice#linda park#hartley rathaway#donna troy#birdflash#wallinda#halbarry#hal x barry x iris#halbarris??#idk#the flash#green lantern#batman#wonder woman#the “cerra el orto” one is inspired by my friends and i lmao#justice league
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silver underground. / chapter 14.
( Read on AO3 )
Pairing: Levi Ackerman x F!Reader (Attack on Titan / Shingeki no Kyojin)
Word Count: 4K
Summary: flashback four - this is just straight-up levi filth
Warnings: SMUT, 18+ / nsfw (nipple play, fingering, dirty talk, semi-public sex, praise kink, multiple orgasms)
Previous Chapter. / Next Chapter. | Masterlist.
CHAPTER 14 - FLASHBACK: FOUR
We’re friends.
Technically it’s true.
Friends who fight until they’re a sweaty heap on the ground, expecting exhaustion to hit how it used to; before that fateful party.
Friends who meet up in secret for days, months, perhaps even years until time passes in the blink of an eye and you're left wondering if this was how it always was.
Friends who disappear from the world for an hour, then an hour and a half, two, until it borders on three because time itself is a construct.
Sparring becomes your excuse — and everyone saw it coming.
Everyone except the twenty year-old man waiting for your arrival, and you, who showed up ten minutes early because you couldn't wait any longer.
(Neither you or Levi Ackerman had ever been self-aware when it came to matters of the heart.)
Turning the corner at the determined sparring grounds, your heart squeezes at the mere sight of him: hands in his pockets, billowing white shirt slightly unbuttoned, boyish hair cascading over his forehead. His body is shrouded in shadow, out of sight, but you see him.
You always do.
“Hey,” you greet breathlessly.
Levi says nothing, yet his left hand flexes when his gaze drops in line with your chest.
Ever since your eighteenth birthday, you've refused to remove the silver necklace gifted to you. Whether you're sleeping, showering, fighting, here — it stays glued to your neck.
Today, your olive button-down shirt slopes just enough to show it off.
(Wearing something he gave you drives him crazy. You've learned well enough by now.)
With minimal patience he waits for you to near. Easily you slide into the darkness, away from wandering eyes.
“Are we fighting today?” you ask after a beat, awkwardly standing in front of him.
You know the answer before he can speak, but you ask anyway.
Levi’s eyes linger on the necklace, memorizing, then raise to your face.
One word, blunt and loaded.
“No.”
That left hand shoots out to grab your wrist as he drags you into him in one swift motion, eager to get his hands on you.
You giggle to the sky, chin lifted, as your bodies collide. Levi hums in appreciation and uses the opportunity to press slow-open mouthed kisses up your neck.
It works every time: he knows what spots halt your laughter, and the heat of his ragged breath follows.
Suddenly it's less playful and more heated.
A chill runs up your spine as his right hand runs along your waist, bunching your shirt into his fist for an anchor when your nails rake through his scalp.
You’ve only ever gone this far with him: kissing until you both run out of air, dizzy and hazed.
In alleyways, behind carts, between stores; it only took almost getting caught in the apartment once when you both swore Furlan wasn’t home to exclusively take this outside.
You don’t mind. You need the air after he steals so much of your breath.
You want more, though, but aren’t sure how to ask for it. Every fucking time you start to paw at his chest, every goddamn time he starts to bring that friction to the apex of your legs where you burn for him, it stops.
Levi pulls away and centers himself and does the gentlemanly thing of walking you both home like he’s suddenly averse to calling you stupid and leaving you behind.
(Like he’s nervous to continue.)
You want things to change, but you don’t want this to change: Levi and James. James and Levi.
(He’s never been scared of you before, so why start now?)
“Levi,” you murmur above the crown of his head.
He swirls his tongue gently along a spot that he’s mercilessly assaulted with affection without breaking the skin. “Mmm?”
“Kiss me.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” he mumbles. “Cleaning you like a dog?”
You snort and use the leverage of your hand in his hair to tug at the strands, pulling his mouth off of your neck.
The back of your hand connects with the wall he leans against, but the roughness of brick isn’t what makes your breath hitch.
It’s the way he grunts, eyes nearing that familiar black when he’s turned on.
You’ve memorized it by now.
(Hell, you’ve gotten off to it plenty in the bathroom when everyone is asleep.)
“Do you not like it when I do that?” he asks instead, taking all of his thoughts and shoving it under an invisible bed so he can focus on your face instead.
You snort, rolling your eyes.
“Don’t be stupid, Ackerman.”
It’s enough of a distraction to make his brows knit — a perfect opportunity to lean in and capture his lips for your own.
He kisses back with just as much fire, the grip on your shirt only tightening when you part your lips. Running your tongue along his lower lip is a learned weakness. You’re discovering what makes him tick, as if a sequence will unlock what you really want.
“Here,” you whisper against his lips, taking charge after a beat when he doesn’t.
You kiss him fiercely, pressing into him, but your hands leave his hair to meet him at your waist.
Levi groans in response, shifting in his stance and tensing when your hand tugs him away from the crumpled safety of your shirt.
“Let me help,” you add, shaking his fingertips free enough to glide them across the smooth expanse of your stomach.
Levi hisses, almost pulling away, but you flick your tongue against his lower lip: don’t run.
A choked moan exits his throat when he relents, but you don’t anticipate the switch of power: your feet dance around his, counter-clockwise, until your back collides with the wall that was once behind him.
Your head remains cradled by his palm, cautious not to cause injury, while his other hand explores new skin.
He’s kicked, punched, scraped at your torso a thousand times, yet what knocks the air clear from his gut is simply this: his hand riding your button-down shirt higher, exposing your body to him and him alone.
“Fuck,” he curses into your mouth, and you grin. “How are you so soft?”
“What, afraid I was going to feel like a lizard?” you tease between kisses, unable to help yourself.
“Is today’s theme of insults animal-related?” Levi retorts, but his voice is back to that strained baritone that drives you completely insane. “Fuck off, freak.”
I’m trying to. I’m really trying to.
You’re still you. He’s still Levi.
The pokes and prods do not stop just because you can feel his fingertips inching closer and closer to the swell of your breast.
Your body practically screams at him: do it, do it, do it.
“And I don’t need help,” he adds minutes later, circling back to your original statement — only to pause completely when his middle finger hits sloped fabric.
Levi pulls away to look you in the eye, panting, and all you can do is stare back.
“I’m not glass," you remind him.
“I know,” he answers lamely.
“You can touch me.”
“I am touching you.”
“Levi.”
“What?”
“You can touch more.”
“I’m being…” He falters, searching for the right adjective in his hazy gaze. “...respectful.”
You lean in to gently tap the tip of your nose to his. “You don’t have to be, y’know.” Any tension in his shoulders melt at the contact. “Unless if you don’t kn—”
“Tell me, then.”
He flinches at his sharp request, cutting you off.
Your eyes widen as arousal shoots pins and needles through your body.
There is something about how vulnerable Levi looks when his nostrils flare, so determined in his conviction.
“Tell me what you like, what you want. I don’t— if you don’t like something—”
“Moving your hand up usually helps.”
His breath hitches at your bold direction, only to nod a second after.
His chin drops to watch his hand slide — first the pad of his middle finger over your bra, second pushed higher, higher, until his palm cups your breast.
Your shirt bunches at his wrist, protesting at the stretch.
You bite your lip, wishing you felt much of anything, but an idea pops into your head — and like he's read your mind, Levi has the same thought a split-second after.
He lets go and you get ready to protest, but his fingers drop to the first button of your shirt. He spends precious seconds undoing each one like he’s opening a holiday gift, unveiling a golden ticket, and as soon as your collarbone is fully exposes he dives in to kiss it.
A whine bubbles at your throat when he slides his lips lower, hungrily dragging down the expanse of your chest. “You don’t want me to be respectful?” he mumbles against your skin, rocking into your hips.
The pressure rips your breath clear from your lungs. “God, no.”
He hums, neither positive or negative. “What do you want, then?”
“Everything,” you blurt the first word that comes to mind, “anything you’ll give me.”
“Even if it’s respectful?” he muses, nose nuzzling the soft swell of your breast.
“Levi, you annoying little— ha.”
You didn’t think he’d be bold enough to push your bra cup down, releasing your breast to the cool night air. He drags a thumb experimentally over your nipple, seemingly mesmerized by the way it rises to attention under his command.
“Yeah?” he asks. “Were you saying something?”
Your eyes screw shut, unable to see the amusement etched across his face, but you hear it.
Your entire world is on fire, and you whimper when his thumb swirls at an agonizingly slow pace.
No words come to mind — all you can do is arch your back, head bent back on the brick wall, seeking more.
Levi bends his head to kiss down your breast, earning a moan the second his lips close around your nipple to replace his thumb. He takes his time swirling his tongue, flicking it, chasing the tiny noises bubbling in your throat for him.
You’ve quickly learned that anything he can give you — the necklace, the way you moan for him, the breathy way you plead his name — is all he really wants.
“Levi,” you shakily whisper, barely audible. His free hand snakes to the other side of your chest to run across your neglected breast. “Levi.” The swirl of his tongue is his only response. You squirm against the wall as a sharp, hot pang of arousal washes over you in a hot flash. “Le-vi.”
Finally he pulls his lips away when you moan in broken syllables but not without a short flick of his tongue to the perky bud.
“Yes?”
“Someone might— mmph, see.”
You hate that you have to bring in the logistics during public displays of erotic affection, but the keyword is public. Someone could walk right past this very alley — albeit unlikely — to either try to seek out you or Levi for something related to the gang.
His thumb absently runs along the cup of your bra, as if truly contemplating your observation.
Except you know what it looks like when Levi’s thinking of a plan.
He isn’t.
There isn’t a single thought behind those eyes.
“Guess this’ll be a test, then,” he decides, letting go of your chest to crowd your space.
“A test?”
He nods. “Of how stealthy you can be.”
You tilt your chin. “Stealthy?”
“Yeah. Quiet.”
“Ackerman, if you don’t trust by now that I can be qu—”
Your eyes widen at the implication of the way his wrist turns clockwise from your chest, fingertips gliding across the plane of your bare ribcage — until they’re pointing downward.
Oh.
He waits.
Watching.
His lips part, eyes focused on watching every micromovement in your face as you connect with what he’s silently asking — what he’s offering.
“Not Ackerman.”
“What?”
“Levi,” he chides. “Look at me and say my name.”
Immediately your eyes snap up, eager to meet his request — his demand.
You’ve witnessed Levi like this countless times as a leader of the gang. How he can command respect, attention, allegiance, merely with his words.
You’re willing to comply; to let go.
“...Levi,” you correct, dazed and too horny to challenge him.
"Again."
"Levi," you whimper, bordering a beg.
A flicker of emotion passes over his face in the gentle flinch at the bridge of his nose and between his eyebrows. Then it melts into opaque adoration, and you feel the heat rise from your bones to your skin.
“What do you want, James?” Levi mumbles, angling his body so his hand is hidden between the two of you. His palm is warm against your belly. “Be good and use your words.”
Be good. Your eyes grow impossibly wider.
You blurt the first thing that comes to mind.
“You.”
The ache of a word actually makes him smile.
“How badly?”
“You wanna feel for yourself?” you boldly ask, almost tripping up his power trip.
You reach past his hand to your trousers, and his eyes blink downcast. Your hand expertly unbuttons the fabric, creating more space.
You keep your attention on his face and notice his throat bob with anticipation.
"Yeah?" he asks.
"Yeah," you tell him.
A beat passes, and his fingers move a millimeter lower.
“Is this okay?” he questions, faltering in his confidence for one second to find explicit consent, but you’re already pulling him closer to kiss you on the mouth.
A distraction from being so goddamn nervous about this: Levi, touching you where no one else ever has.
There’s no one else you’d rather have. There’s never been anyone else.
He moans against your lips at the contact and nods — I hear you, loud and clear — before his fingers start to drag lower.
Past your belly button.
Past the fabric of your underwear — not quite diving in yet, but teasing the elastic with his fingertips to get a gasp out of you.
His lips upturn against yours when he roams further south, the tip of his middle finger dragging over your pubic mound and—
“Fuck.”
Levi swears sharply, breaking the kiss when he realizes how obscenely wet you are. You think you should be embarrassed, but all you can do is rock your hips closer to his hand. It drags his fingers closer to your clit, earning a needy whimper.
“This all for me?” he asks, breathy, awed.
“Only you,” you promise, and his fingertip experimentally strokes you through your soaked underwear. You choke on a breath, head dropping back to the brick wall.
“Cant say shit like that out here,” he warns under his breath, “because I’ll drop to my knees so fucking fast, James. Fuck worrying about getting caught.”
Your exhale rushes in a woosh.
(But he can say shit like that? )
His knee nudges your legs wider, giving him plenty of room to cup your pubic mound. To tease. To play.
You swear you forget how your lungs work. The domed, rocky sky above your head swirls as you spend all of your efforts not to cave to the floor.
“Please,” you sputter, needing more.
Needing everything.
He must realize your knees are going weak, because he presses his hip into yours, pinning you in place. “I got you,” he promises, and you moan between clenched teeth at just how dirty such a praise sounds on his lips.
The world is burning around you and all he can do is experimentally tease you, opting to circle the fabric until you squeak when his index finger catches your clit.
“There?” he huffs, trying one more time. Your entire body trembles. “You need me right there?” Squeezing your eyes shut, you nod so hard that the wall scratches the back of your head. “Okay, I got you, I got you.”
Then he doesn’t stop.
Slow, agonizing circles —
It’s amazing.
It’s torture.
You can feel just how easily his fingers glide over your underwear, ruined and soaked.
It’s too much. It’s not enough.
He keeps you pinned against the wall, mumbling incoherent encouragement — that’s it, you can take it — and you’re so embarrassingly close already from what little he’s done.
“I’m not — I think I’m going to—”
“It’s okay. I want you to.”
“But I want to feel you,” you force out, whimpering as you buck against his fingers. He hasn’t let up on his rhythm; refuses to.
“You will,” he says, full of promises tonight. “This won’t be your only one tonight.”
Your eyes shoot open, mouth hanging open to ask what he means.
“Wh—”
Then he presses a little harder against your clit with the same speed and your world crumbles.
His hand quickly smacks over your mouth when you yelp, succumbing to your first orgasm. You clench on nothing, fluttering and desperate. Stars fill the corner of your eyes until he stops moving his fingers and pulls his hand from you.
You shake your head and start to protest into his palm, delusional in your high.
“Ha, shit, Levi—”
Except he’s not letting you go.
The opposite: his fingers slip unceremoniously into your underwear, and he moans at just how wet and sensitive your clit is when his middle finger makes contact.
You shriek against his palm and he shushes you, toying the pad of his fingertip over your folds.
“Thought you said you didn’t need to prove how quiet you can be?” he asks, the smugness dripping from his voice.
You breathe hotly through your nose, strings of curses muffled back at him, and Levi smirks. From this angle, he looks like the devil incarnate — his hair flops over his eyes, beads of sweat matting the ends, so keen on watching you squirm and beg.
“One more?” You make a noise of surprise. “Oh — so two more?” Your eyes widen. “Three?”
Your tongue pokes out to lick his palm, and your heart sings when he laughs.
Levi actually laughs — breathy and earnest on the tip of his tongue.
You jerk your chin, setting your mouth free from his grip.
“Three?!” you whisper sharply, and he dips his fingers into your folds again.
The high has come down, leaving your body more compliant with his touches. That familiar warmth spreads, and you rock your hips into him once again.
Needy.
Searching.
The raven-haired man nods. “If we lived alone, then I would always give you at least three.”
If we lived alone.
(Like a couple would.)
Maybe he says such a wild scenario in the heat of the moment, but you can’t help the blush creeping onto your cheeks.
“If we lived alone, then I’d already be returning the favor,” you test talking dirty on your tongue, finding that it feels more natural than you would have expected.
Levi bites his lip, holding back a sound as his eyes wander down.
"I have way more shit I wanna do to you first before you can return the favor."
"Fuck, Levi."
"That's the plan one day, just not in an alley."
(Such a fucking dirty talker without even trying.)
After a moment of consideration, his hand pushes further into your panties to find your entrance, causing you both to pause.
Out of breath and flushed, he leans in for the smallest of kisses. You oblige, meeting his lips in an ironically chaste kiss.
Then he whispers against your lips, losing his confident edge for a moment.
“Can I…?”
You know what he’s asking.
You nod quickly and brace yourself for when his middle finger slowly, carefully, pushes inside.
It’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before — a fullness that has you grasping for his shoulders in the search for something grounding. He peppers gentle kisses to your cheek.
“If it hurts—”
“No,” you interrupt, shaking your head. “Nothing hurts. Just feels… new.”
“Okay."
He doesn’t move his hand for a moment, allowing your body to adjust. Instead he tugs lightly at your trousers, pulling them down your hips for less constriction. Your bare ass touches the cool brick, causing you to hiss in surprise.
“Just tell me if it ever does.”
Then he slips his finger out, curving the digit, and pushes back in.
You moan soundlessly to the sky, dropping a hand to grip his bicep for stability. It flexes as his arm works you to ruin.
Over and over you whisper his name — Levi, Levi, Levi — and his ragged breath follows the melody.
“You feel so good,” he praises into your ear, kissing the outer shell of your ear. “Can you take more?” When you nod adamantly, he glides his ring finger to stretch you further.
This time it doesn’t hurt. It’s a delicious burn, slow and cautious, and you rock his fingers deeper into you. He curses as he watches his hand work you, focused on grinding the heel of his palm into your clit.
Levi continues fucking you with his fingers, searching for something, until the world stops — there.
You’re not sure what he’s brushed against inside you, but you’re smacking your own hand over your mouth when a strangled moan exits your throat unexpectedly.
“What?” he murmurs, but you can’t speak without moaning when he hits the same spot. “That feel good right there?” You’d be embarrassed at how quickly you nod if it wasn’t for the way he groans. “Good.”
After that, he knows precisely where to touch you — between the pressure on your clit and whatever the hell he’s found inside you, you feel insane. Out of your mind.
Like he’s taking you apart piece by piece only to put you back together in his vision.
You whine against your own hand, the sensation climbing higher and higher as you buck against him. It feels just as good this way, if not better — you never want to feel empty again. You never want him anywhere else.
Your chorus of mangled breathing mixed with the obscene sound of his fingers pushing you towards that edge for a second time carries through the alleyway.
There’s no time to be modest, not when Levi’s leaning back from your body to watch you under a curtain of sweat and lust. His eyes scan your torso to take in the disheveled trousers falling down your thighs, your open button-down shirt, your exposed chest — your silver necklace, proudly on display.
Pure admiration.
You contract against his fingers as that familiar wave starts to crest, causing you to erratically fuck yourself onto his hand without shame.
“Fuck, I can feel you getting close,” he says in awe, taking you out of the delusion. “You look so fucking good like this.”
You want to tell him you’ll look better if he fucks you right here, right now, against this wall.
That you’ll get on your knees, lay on your back, crawl on all fours, if that’s what he wants.
That he’s it — nothing, no one, will ever take that place.
(There is a word for that, right there on your tongue, but you keep your hand clamped tight onto your mouth.)
There is a word on his, too, except Levi says it:
Your name.
Your real name, smooth as chamomile.
“Come for me.” Right against your ear. "Come," he repeats.
A woman possessed, your climax crashes on command. You arch your back clear off the wall, sobbing into your own hand as you ride out your orgasm. He works you through it with a string of praises, a handful of curses, kissing the back of your hand affectionately where he imagines your lips must be.
And he keeps going until you’re frantically pushing his hand away.
Sensitive.
Way too sensitive for him to keep going a third time.
Levi pulls his fingers out of you, leaving you feeling empty yet satisfied.
It’s embarrassing to see his two fingers coated with your wetness, but your eyes blow wide when he puts them to his mouth and licks.
First his index finger, then his middle, until he pushes his digits into his mouth and swirls his tongue around them.
Levi hums like you taste better than any smuggled tea he craves.
You realize what word came to mind, the one suppressed under your palm.
You can't say it.
Not today.
.
author's note: this wasn't in the original plan but you all have been so wonderful and patient and encouraging that i felt like some spice for the weekend was well-deserved. ❤️
tag list: @lazylizzy3 @notgoodforlife @sad-darksoul @dailydoseof-love @maliakealoha @nube55 @kateastrophies @blinkingsuns @gomigami @voidszoro @tanyeonn @chishiyasan @im-just-a-simp-le-whore @vigilancio @nomi98
#snk#aot#levi ackerman#shingeki no kyoujin#shingeki no kyoujin fanfiction#shingeki no kyojin fanfic#attack on titan fanfic#attack on titan fanfiction#attack on titan#levi ackerman x female reader#levi ackerman x you#levi ackerman x reader#levi ackerman smut#levi x you#aot levi#levi aot#levi x reader#smut fanfiction#smut#wip series#amywritesthings#fic: silver underground#silver underground
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𐙚˙⋆.˚ 𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 ch.5
prime rick x reader
tags: sexually suggestive, possessive & obsessive prime rick – yandere tbh
notes: minors dni, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four
wc: 1.6k
In the vast expanse of the multiverse, amidst the swirling chaos of infinite dimensions, even the most cynical and detached souls can find themselves unexpectedly entangled in the delicate threads of love. And so it was with Prime, a brilliant scientist whose heart had long been shielded by layers of cynicism and detachment.
For years, Prime had roamed the cosmos, his intellect and curiosity driving him to explore the furthest reaches of reality. He scoffed at the notion of love, dismissing it as a mere distraction from the pursuit of knowledge and power. But all of that changed when he met you—a woman whose brilliance almost matched his own, whose laughter echoed through the void like a melody, who looked at him with sparkling eyes as he ranted about his own achievements.
At first, Prime resisted the pull of emotions, clinging stubbornly to his belief that love was nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain. But try as he might, he could not deny the warmth that blossomed within his chest whenever you were near, nor the longing that gnawed at his soul when you were apart.
Slowly but surely, Prime found himself drawn deeper into your orbit, his icy exterior melting away in the heat of your presence. He marveled at the way you challenged him, pushing him to new heights of intellect and creativity with every conversation you shared.
But love, as Prime soon discovered, was not without its challenges. Your relationship was a tumultuous whirlwind of passion and conflict, your egos clashing like titans in the arena of the mind. Yet through it all, they remained bound together by an invisible thread, unwilling—or perhaps unable—to let go.
As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, Prime found himself falling deeper and deeper in love, his heart opening to a vulnerability he had long thought extinct. He reveled in the simple pleasures of companionship—the warmth of your touch, the sparkle in your eyes, the sound of your laughter ringing in his ears like music.
But even as Prime basked in the glow of newfound love, he knew that your relationship was not without its risks. He had seen firsthand the way love could tear people apart, leaving behind nothing but shattered dreams and broken hearts. And yet, despite the uncertainty that lay ahead, he could not deny the depth of his feelings—or the hope that burned within him like a beacon in the darkness.
For Prime had discovered, in the unlikeliest of places, that even the most brilliant minds were not immune to the whims of the heart. And though he may have once scoffed at the notion of love, he now knew that it was the most powerful force in the universe—a force that could transcend time and space, and bind two souls together inextricably, forever.
Another risk Prime was faced with was that you were one of a kind. Every other y/n was dead or never even existed. You were the only one. Irreplaceable .
As the flames of love burned ever brighter within Prime's heart, they also cast shadows of obsession and possessiveness that grew darker with each passing day. What had begun as a profound connection had now morphed into something far more sinister—a consuming obsession that threatened to consume him whole.
At first, Prime's devotion to his beloved was endearing, his every action driven by a desire to protect and cherish you. But as their relationship deepened, so too did his need to possess you—to control every aspect of your life, to keep you tethered to him like a puppet on a string.
He watched your every move with a vigilance bordering on paranoia, his mind consumed by irrational fears of losing you to another. He monitored your phone calls, scrutinized your social media accounts, and interrogated anyone who dared to get too close. To Prime, love was not a partnership—it was a possession, something to be owned and controlled at all costs.
As his obsession spiraled out of control, Prime's behavior grew increasingly erratic and dangerous. He became possessive to the point of suffocation, smothering his beloved with his constant presence and demands for attention. He isolated you from friends and family, convincing you that he was the only one who truly cared for you, the only one you could trust.
But beneath the facade of devotion lurked a darker truth—a truth that Prime refused to acknowledge, even to himself. His obsession was not born out of love, but out of a deep-seated fear of abandonment, a fear rooted in his own insecurities. And yet, no amount of self-awareness could stem the tide of his obsession, which threatened to consume him entirely.
In his darkest moments, Prime's possessiveness erupted into fits of rage and violence, leaving behind a trail of destruction in its wake. He lashed out at anyone who dared to challenge his control, leaving his beloved trapped in a prison of fear and uncertainty.
But even as Prime's obsession pushed you to the brink of despair, you found within yourself a strength you never knew you possessed. With courage born of desperation, you confronted him, demanding that he release you from his suffocating grip.
“This is crazy, Rick! I thought we were friends!”
“ Friends ? You– You thought we were friends?! That is all I–I was to you?!”
As the words pierced through the fragile bubble of delusion Prime had constructed around himself, reality came crashing down with a force that left him reeling. "Friends," the words echoed in his mind, each syllable a dagger to his already wounded ego.
Prime's anger surged like a tempest within him, a whirlwind of emotions threatening to consume him whole. How dare you diminish your connection to something as trivial as friendship? How dare you deny the depth of his feelings, the intensity of his devotion?
His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles white with rage as he struggled to contain the storm raging within him. "Friends," he spat out bitterly, the words tasting like poison on his tongue. How could you be so blind, so oblivious to the love that burned within him like a wildfire?
But as the initial wave of fury subsided, a cold, calculating calm descended upon Prime—a calm born of a mind sharpened by years of manipulation and control. If you refused to see him as anything more than a friend, then he would make you see. He would bend you to his will, break down your defenses until you had no choice but to love him back.
With a predatory glint in his eyes, Prime approached you, his demeanor oozing with false charm and confidence. "You don't mean that," he said, his voice dripping with venomous sweetness. "You can't possibly deny the connection between us, the chemistry that burns like a flame."
But his beloved remained resolute, your gaze steady as you met his eyes with a mixture of pity and sadness. "I'm sorry, Rick," you said softly, your voice a gentle caress against the storm raging within him. "But I really don’t want this."
For a moment, Prime wavered, torn between his desire to possess you and the realization that true love could never be born out of coercion. But as the flames of his anger continued to rage unabated, he made his choice.
With a chilling calmness that belied the storm raging within him, Prime made it clear that he would not be denied. He would do whatever it took to keep you by his side, even if it meant bending you to his will by force.
And so, with a heart heavy with resignation, you found yourself trapped in a prison of Prime's making—a twisted labyrinth of manipulation and control from which there seemed to be no escape. And as the darkness closed in around you, you realized with a sinking feeling that you had underestimated the depths of Prime's obsession, and the danger it posed to you both.
His affection for you burned like a fever, consuming him from the inside out, driving him to ever greater lengths to make you his own.
Every action, every word was calculated to draw you closer, to ensnare you in the web of his desire. He showered you with gifts, whispered sweet nothings in your ear, all the while plotting to deepen your connection in ways that left you feeling both captivated and unnerved.
But for Prime, love was not enough. He craved more than just your heart—he longed to possess your body, to make you his in every sense of the word. And so, with a hunger bordering on obsession, he pursued you relentlessly, his touch electric with the promise of passion and possession.
You found yourself torn between revulsion and arousal, your body betraying you with each heated glance and lingering touch. There was something intoxicating about Prime's intensity, something primal that stirred within your depths, igniting a fire that you struggled to extinguish.
And though you fought against the tide of desire that threatened to consume you, a part of you couldn't help but yearn for his touch, for the forbidden pleasure that lay just beyond your reach. In the darkness of the night, you found yourself haunted by visions of Prime's embrace, his lips tracing a path of fire across your skin.
“Do you love me?”
“No.”
“…You should start before I lose every sense of self-control.”
He planted a last kiss on your shoulder before he stood up from the bed, walking towards the door.
“Tomorrow we’ll start a series of experiments. You will love me, y/n. You–You must .”
#𓂃⊹ ִֶָ 𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊#rick and morty#rick sanchez#rick sanchez x reader#rick sanchez x self insert#rick sanchez x y/n#rick sanchez x you#r&m#prime rick#rick x reader#rick x you#rick x y/n
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Crazy In Love
[eren jaeger boyfriend headcanons]
pairing // eren jaeger x black! reader
content // y/n in their loner arc, some nsfw mostly fluff, stoner! eren, mechanic! eren, streamer/gamer! eren, swearing, spoilers for s4 bc there are some ppl who haven’t watched yet
a/n // been getting back into my aot obsession
applies to both modern and canon eren
this is more of a drabble than a one shot but if you want more of this au. . .shawty all you gotta do is ask
gender isn’t really mentioned but eren’s stream does call you mommy at one point, just ignore it otherwise
streamer! eren is in the works rn tbh
——————————✩———————————
ੈ✩ | so modern/high school eren pre time skip is an absolute menace
ੈ✩ | he behaved for a week and then all that went out the window when jean said something under his breath
ੈ✩ | genuinely has anger issues, adhd, and depression—which he tends to show through unbridled rage
ੈ✩ | you’d be lying if you said he didn’t catch your eye; he was attractive and was in a trio when you ain’t even got one true friend. but he had three, and he didn’t seem to need or even want any more
ੈ✩ | that’s why it is so fucking hard to get close to this nigga; there were times he was such a dick to you for no reason—if it’s any consolation he feels like shit about that and ten times out of ten it never had anything to do with you
ੈ✩ | gremlin eren? gremlin eren
ੈ✩ | this nigga can never shut up, and while mikasa is the number one person who gets him to stop acting up, she gets ACTIVE when he’s in a losing fight
ੈ✩ | eventually he got in trouble so much that his ass got expelled, his father—after trying literally everything else, got him a medical marijuana card—mans said “bet” and never stopped since
ੈ✩ | OKAY NOW MODERN MANBUN EREN—in the time that he was gone, mikasa and armin took you under their wing, becoming your first real friends; and as they made you comfortable, you started coming into your own more
ੈ✩ | you’d heard about eren’s whereabouts, and knew they talked to him about you, but you always refused to talk to him when given the chance because there was a time where you GENUINELY thought he hated you
ੈ✩ | everyone on tumblr says he’s a stoner and i have no choice but to agree—like that’s why he’d be so mellowed out, and with no titans he’d be the coolest mf out there
ੈ✩ | then when mikasa found out you had a thing for him since freshmen year she finally gets the gang back together four years later—she 100% snitched and bro. . .you almost didn’t recognize him as he walked into the karaoke bar
ੈ✩ | he’d grown his hair out—he had just grown in general, shooting from 5’11 to 6’3, and he’s gotten some tattoos as well
ੈ✩ | your jaw went slack as you gaped at mikasa who only gave you knowing glance
ੈ✩ | not only that, but his voice has gotten an unbelievable amount of bass to it—you almost zoned out every-time it was his turn to sing
ੈ✩ | eren knows how short life is—and he goes after what he wants—he always has, but tbh younger eren never had romantic interest and for the longest time he was a closeted aromantic—getting off-topic but that changed as he grew and he asked you out immediately on a count of what i said before
ੈ✩ | guy is still aromantic but does experience love (though mostly platonic) for very few people,
ੈ✩ | because of that, his confession is the most genuine thing you’ve ever heard—“i didn’t realize it then, but i’d always felt different about you”
“you’re so precious, and sweet and kind—and you’re so fucking good to others, and i thought it was a prank or something when you tried to talk to me—but fuck, when mikasa told me you used to like me, i couldn’t miss the opportunity so i gotta ask. . .”
“would you go out with me?”—and coming from the dude you’ve been crushing on for years and being a person who no one has ever expressed romantic interest to over things you can’t control, you did in fact start crying
ੈ✩ | because he’s so hard to get close to, he’s had many pick-me’s try—even in his gremlin arc—thinking they was in a romance webtoon; jumping in while he was beating the shit out of whoever—“eren, look at me! this isn’t you!”
ੈ✩ | fuck your insecurities about that though because eren is literally the sweetest and most affirming person out there once you get to know him
ੈ✩ | surprisingly a hopeless romantic—only for you—he’s your biggest supporter and he simps so hard. your first date is a picnic, he asked jean—after he apologized and they formed a friendship—to help him throw together a little spread for you
ੈ✩ | he’s absolutely in love with you and will do anything for you
ੈ✩ | your race has so little bearing on your relationship but every once in a while he’ll randomly remember he’s got a melanated lover—and what new circumstances that brings
ੈ✩ | like when he’ll just a get a call a from you at three a.m and answers thinking he’s gonna get some ass and you just start crying
“babe i’ve been doing my hair since 10 p.m and it’s not even halfway done—and i’m so fucking tired but if i. . .” you sniffle, “if i go to sleep now i can’t go to class because my hair looks like shit”
“babe, what are you talking about, why is it—?”
he eventually comes over because he’s so confused as to what’s taking so long, but after he offered to help you and he made you cry even more he understood—nigga broke a sweat tryna wrangle that shit
y’all gave up and decided to miss out on class and tackle it in the morning; he helps you wrap it up and you guys—despite saying you were tired for an hour you could go to sleep so just watched coryxkenshin until the sun came up
ੈ✩ | he’s not only white, but he’s white-european he simply does not understand these things
ੈ✩ | but the fact that he makes an effort to understand your culture in the first place will literally make you cry sometimes—like you can visibly see him fighting his adhd so he can listen to you talk about your hair or what a ‘black card’ is and you always reward him with a kiss for listening to you
ੈ✩ | once he gets it though he’s hard chilling. you notice he started to use more aave; and he started paying for you to get your hair done bc he’s a trust fund kid, and he will always respect the amount of effort that goes into it. he’s also like, super into using aave and slang—he uses it more than you, and even knows the uncle ruckus joke despite NEVER watching boondocks in his life; he doesn’t think he’s black but. . .y’know. and it only gets worse when he meets your family
ੈ✩ | your mother LOVES him, and is constantly telling you that she wants him as her son-in-law, he’s repsectful, handsome, strong, and hard-working—she will literally never forgive you if you let him go
ੈ✩ | EREN. JAEGER. AT. A. COOKOUT.
ੈ✩ | if it’s his first one he’s super jittery and nervous at first. but eren’s a super chill dude so if you have to leave him alone he’ll be cool with anyone
ੈ✩ | your uncles wanna sit in the driveway and pop a cold one? sign him up. your little cousins/siblings swear they can beat him in mario kart? they fucking wish, your aunts wanna sit and talk shit—he was doing that anyway—he’s a super friendly person and he gets along well with anyone
ੈ✩ | will literally film tiktoks with you at the family cookout despite hating having pictures or videos taken of him—he sees how happy you are so he doesn’t care
ੈ✩ | i feel like eren has a very physical job and streams part time for funsies. so yeah when he tells your family that he’s a mechanic when they ask they literally erupt
ੈ✩ | because he’s so hard-working, your aunts love him—constantly making him plates and taking care of him and such
ੈ✩ | and if you have any messy in-laws that try to talk shit or get with him he will deadass call them out
all those years of playing COD made his trash talk elite. . .shit. . .
“how you gon’ talk about my baby when your edges ain’t laid?”
“get your fucking teeth straight before you talk shit”
ੈ✩ | it’s the fact that he did not stop—like homegirl deadass was on the brink of tears and had to leave; nobody liked her anyway so he was good
ੈ✩ | jacked as fuck so just casually holds you down when he doesn’t want you to leave
ੈ✩ | demands kisses at all times; good morning kiss, goodnight kiss, hello kiss, good bye kiss, or just because you’re looking too damn fine
ੈ✩ | shows you off on stream.
“eren, baby—oh shit, are you streaming? my fault” your heart drops as you see yourself in the viewfinder, and you back out of the room—hiding yourself behind the door
“hang on guys—oh no babe, you’re fine”
you thought you had embarrassed him by pulling up in your pajamas but the chat was in love
you hesitantly inch closer as the chat continues to go wild
‘mommy? sorry, mommy?”
‘GAHHDAMN 🥲🕶️👌”
‘oh they fine alright”
“what did you wanna tell me?” he takes off his headset, giving you his undivided attention.
“i was gonna tell you to stop screaming”
“oh damn, you coulda kept that to yourself then” his face stiffened, half-heartedly and he turned back to the game
chuckling, you begin to walk away,
“wait~” he whines, “come here” his voice lowers as you walk toward him, already knowing what he was going to ask
you give him a kiss and pull away very quickly because you know eren too well
“i love you,” his whispers against your lips, “i love you too”
you say goodbye to his viewer and head out to continue your studies
“that’s my lover” you hear him state proudly as you closed the door
ੈ✩ | ngl, i feel like canon! eren pre-timeskip would mostly act the exact same
ੈ✩ | it’d be a little easier to win him over though. since you’re ‘different’ his curiosity draws him to you, and your perseverance and skill is something that’s warrants his respect
ੈ✩ | what’s that belief that life-threatening situations brings people together? that helps too
ੈ✩ | he starts off barely even saying two words to you and now you’ll both protect each other with your lives by the events of season two
ੈ✩ | LIKE JUST IMAGINE THE SCENE WHEN HE DISCOVERS HE HOLDS THE COORDINATE; like you and mikasa are not in good shape so he’s so determined to protect you—and you and mikasa have resigned to your fates but he’s like
“i’ll keep looking after you”
“now and forever, whenever you need me”
ੈ✩ | screaming crying and throwing up
ੈ✩ | or the scene where he takes back the wall in his titan form—and you immediately tackle him as soon as he’s comes staggering out of the nape,
“you did it eren!”
ੈ✩ | most def, especially after that scene from s3—his crush on you is very obvious—like let’s say you pushed mika out of the way and you got your ribs broken instead of her; when you guys make it to that little cabin, he’s literally putting in work to make sure you don’t have to move an inch—chopping firewood, helping make dinner, even volunteering to stand watch or staying up all night in case you need him—but of course you would still come out to check on him
“he’s like a hardworking husband and they’re his doting partner” historia would smile as she watched you two interact
ੈ✩ | eren would spend years pining for you without realizing it until the he almost lost you—be it to the titans or another man
ੈ✩ | he gets the help he needs to confess from the guys who screw him over—not entirely on purpose, but he ends up humiliating himself in front of you; the next day he’s avoiding you like he’s insane until you eventually just blurt out that you like him back
ੈ✩ | i lowkey feel like eren would be way too romantic or so lowkey people have no idea you’re dating—shit not even you knew for like a month
ੈ✩ | deadass, it took this nigga pulling up with a bouquet of flowers claiming it was for your anniversary and you just blinked at him
“are we not dating. . . ?”
ੈ✩ | pre time-skip eren is when he’s the most affectionate but even then he literally only pipes up when you’re in danger
ੈ✩ | you see a different side of him in his titan form—even though he doesn’t have the capacity for speech, his eyes tell you all you need to know.
ੈ✩ | he mellows out a lot because this is the only form he’s in where he feels like nothing can hurt you—he’s untouchable and so are you. so he’s generally a lot softer in this form
���✩ | he’s like a big puppy, responding positively and humming when you scratch his head
ੈ✩ | if you don’t like saliva do NOT do missions with titan! eren. nigga literally just puts you in his mouth for cover when the spot gets too hot
ੈ✩ | and if you EVER get kidnapped for any reason eren is activating his titan form—even if the perpetrators are human he could not give a fuck—he’s already not a cautious person but he really do be wilding when it comes to you, that’s why levi tried to keep you separate before realizing that it only makes it worse.
ੈ✩ | now post time-skip canon! eren. . .bro ima be fr, that nigga is so confusing
ੈ✩ | like let’s say you didn’t know him prior and were just a jaegerist, it was genuinely so difficult to tell if he was just manipulating you or not
ੈ✩ | even when he swore up and down that he loves you—you couldn’t help but wonder if he was just saying that because he knew if you thought he cared about you, you’d be willing to do just about anything for him
ੈ✩ | now is that actually true. . . ?
maybe.
ੈ✩ | but if you knew him since childhood he’s a lot easier to read, like you were just calling bullshit when he was gaslighting mikasa and armin in that one scene—even if he tried that on you, you were not having it
ੈ✩ | he’d gladly abandon everything for you if you caught the signs quick enough, but even after he already declared war on the marlyeans, he’d still give you many chances to save him
ੈ✩ | he’s the boy who sought freedom, but he finds solace in your presence and knowing you care for him. so if you tell him you love him he will deadass just take your hand and beg you to run away with him
ੈ✩ | if you say yes—which you will—bc c’mon now, he’ll build you two a little cottage up in the mountains and live the rest of his days with you, enjoying the simple life he’d always dreamed of with the person he loves more than anything
ੈ✩ | thinking about cottage au! eren rn AHHH
ੈ✩ | now if you decide to play the anarchy route i’m sure y’all will make a great terrorist power couple
y’all some real
💅 ✨ 💖 sassy shooters 💖✨💅
i don’t actually condone this but go off ig
ੈ✩ | also generally, he’s more a physical kinda guy, so don’t feel awkward about sitting on his lap while he’s meeting with volunteers and fellow jaegerists
ੈ✩ | sometimes, you wake up to him crying quietly beside you and you always scoot over and start spooning him
ੈ✩ | every once in awhile he’ll say things that remind you of the old eren, and it makes you wanna cry every time
ੈ✩ | you still love him though, and are willing to wait for him to come around
ੈ✩ | if you die in the war though, it’s up. he’s gonna keep going forward and won’t stop until he’s dead
ੈ✩ | he loves you so much, good god you’re so heavenly
alright people NSFW time so head out if you’re not interested
ੈ✩ | so modern eren! remember how i said he was a mechanic? somehow whenever he comes home, one of you is always frustrated. like imagine you were already missing him, and he gets home and his shirt is off, his skin is glowing and hes got oil smudges painting random patches of his coveralls
“eren—“ you very loudly gulp; you had just wanted to greet your loving boyfriend with his favorite snack but when you saw him in all his glory you really couldn’t help it
ੈ✩ | eren literally always knows when you want something from him; whether it’s because he’s good at detecting it, or you’re just bad at hiding it is up for debate but he clocks you either way
ੈ✩ | but eren, being the cheeky bastard he is, makes you say it. being shy isn’t very fruitful when it comes to him
ੈ✩ | now if he’s the horny one, it’s on fucking sight yo—and there’s no running away, the longer he’s away from you, the more frustrated he becomes
“ah—! eren,” you’re preparing dinner one minute and being bent over the counter the next “—need you” he whines
ੈ✩ | yeah, mans gets v whiny when he’s desperate for it
ੈ✩ | no if ands or buts about it, eren jaeger is a nasty man—regardless of what universe he’s in
ੈ✩ | into spit, vouyerism, and all the other dirty and nasty ass shit
ੈ✩ | into anal anything—even on himself, like if you sneak down to give him a rim job while giving oral he will become so whiny
ੈ✩ | will let you peg or finger him if you’ve got the guts to dom him
ੈ✩ | his moans are something else bro
ੈ✩ | HE’S SO AFFIRMING; “go ahead baby, you can ride” “don’t be shy look at me—pretty eyes on me, on me” “fuck yes, make yourself feel good on my cock” “fuck, you’re perfect”
“i love you so much”
“fuck, are you okay? yeah? okay, gonna move”
ੈ✩ | fuck, he loves mirror sex
ੈ✩ | he’ll let you ride for as long as you want sweetheart, and when you inevitably get tired he’ll buck his hips into yours, laying you down before shifting so he could thrust up more comfortably
ੈ✩ | you don’t notice, but he pays a lot of attention to what he’s doing during sex and will constantly look up to catch your reactions when he makes a strategic change of angles as he blows your back out
ੈ✩ | so yeah he knows your body like the back of his hand
ੈ✩ | SPEAKING OF WHICH, HIS HANDS BRO OML, HE HAS THE PRETTIEST FUCKING HANDS, like they’re calloused but slender and long with a pink hue dusted over his knuckles
ੈ✩ | he would rock you on his fingers while he’s gaming because you were lonely. and because you were so good he fucks you after
ੈ✩ | so canon! eren. . .bro first of all, whoever called eren’s titan form hot. get out, bc like i’m a closeted monsterfucker but how would it work? homeboy ain’t got no lips, no dick—and even if he did it’d literally kill you.
ੈ✩ | the only thing i could think of is him covering you with his tongue or you rubbing against one of his fingers
ੈ✩ | he lets out a lot of aggression on you; sometimes he’ll even cry against you—mans just gets really emotional when he can see your face
#black reader#eren yeager#attack on titan eren#eren jaeger#attack on titan#eren x reader#eren x black reader#eren x black y/n#gender nuetral reader#anime#fanfic
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Reiner Braun - Years later
Warning : depression and suicide mention
Genre : fluff
Synopsis : Can you write how their lives will be after the ending of the manga/Anime.
Reader : male implied (you/yours)
He's still not fully able to do what he wants since they're "the Allied Nation Ambassadors for peace talks" as Annie said. This is not his dream job but even then he's not sure to have one. Being a warrior, the armored titan was his whole life and his job. He was supposed to die either eaten by another titan or by the curse of the 13 years itself. So he never really thought about having another job. Another life.
But he doesn't complain, this is a far more peaceful job than his previous one and this time they really work for peace and not to make war with another country.
So, all in all, Reiner is pretty happy. He can see his mom whenever he's in the country and you're with him, safe and sound by his side.
He prefers to let Armin talk, but as someone who lived in the "devil's island" with said devils for a few years, he still has to talk about that experience. Mainly talking about how they behaved like your average human. With flaws and qualities.
So it often makes him think about how he fell in love with you.
Talking about you, he often buys you flowers and likes to go on dates with you in every city they go to since you all travel a lot. These visits are mainly for work, "peace talks," but when you have free time, you generally spend it with him.
He is doing a lot better emotionally. His depression is not completely gone, he still has a lot of blood on his hands after all, but it's not as overwhelming as it used to be.
He still struggles to talk about it, though, and probably never told you how bad it got when he was alone in Marley. So you probably don't know he tried to take his own life a couple of times.
Though Eren was known for being a "suicidal blockhead," like Jean called him, it was no secret Reiner was a bit the same, putting himself in deadly danger more than once when fighting.
His suicidal thoughts are gone since he is doing better but for a few years he kept forgetting the curse of a shifter was gone and he now has a long life ahead for him to live.
So, for these first years after the rumbling, he didn't really have any plans with you. Mariage, family, and such he'd put it in the back of his mind because he thought he couldn't afford these.
But you reminded him each time the curse was gone and he could plan his future. Each time the same narrative went to his brain, get married and start a family.
He's definitely the one that proposed to you after a few years together. He had everything planned yet didn't follow his plan.
He wanted to wake you up with breakfast in bed, then a nice cooked lunch with an outing in the city and going to the restaurant for dinner then he'd propose to you during the dessert. He ended up proposing as soon as you opened your eyes. Both were still engrossed with sleep but he already couldn't wait for the end of the day so he ended up doing it now.
He wants kids. And it's important for him that you want them too. He won't force you if you don't but that's something he's going to miss if you refuse.
He already takes care of Gabi and Falco but that's not the same, he wants kids of his own and if you're on board you'll adopt at least one kid once you don't travel so much.
"At least one" because in his mind, he's always imagined a family with three or four kids. He wants a big family. But while he wants a big family he doesn't want to have an abnormally big one because he fears it might be too difficult for the both of you and he wants your kids to feel equally loved and cared for. So, three kids is definitely a good thing.
He doesn't necessarily want them as babies but he doesn't want them to be already all grown up since he wants to experience the feeling of taking care of something so small and fragile and to choose a name. So you ended up adopting a baby, a 4 year old and a 9 year old.
Only the 9 year old had lost their parents in the rumbling, and the other two were abandoned.
He likes to go on family trips and very often visit Jean and Mikasa so their kid can play with yours. Or sometimes you go back to Paradis to visit Historia and her kid.
Gabi and Falco like to go to your house to see the baby grow. It's not the first time they see one, of course, but they never were able to hold one. Gabi screamed in excitement the first time she got to hold the baby, making him cry.
They became good friends with the 9 year old as she is close to their age and often takes the 4 year old with them.
Karin is very happy with her son's life and often comes to visit. She often thanks you for taking care of him and making him so happy. She likes to help you around with the kids. Being the granny that likes to spoil them.
Reiner still buys you a lot of flowers even after all those years he still regularly takes you on dates, even if it's more complicated now you have kids. So every now and then you give them Karin to go a few hours in the city on a date together.
Your 9 year old and 4 year old absolutely adore Levi and think he is so cool but a bit scary. Your 4 year old really likes stealing his wheelchair. They don't like him when he asks them to clean something, though, and use their tears as weapons.
Your baby seems to prefer Connie, though. He likes being thrown in the air, which he does regularly. He's also a very funny caretaker.
#male reader#m!reader#aot#snk#attack on titan#shingeki no kyojin#reiner braun#reiner braun x male reader#reiner braun imagine#attack on titan x male reader
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[theory] Five Year War
tldr: in alternative timeline Mid-East War was 5 years long, instead of 4.
Illustration by Hajime Isayama for 3rd anniversary of Hita's museum opening.
As you can see, it is an alternative timeline where Reiner and Berthold decided to join forces of Paradis (+Marco is alive). As for the reasons... this theory is not about why Reiner joined Paradis, but I will point out some foreshadowing.
chapter 108 - nice foreshadowing: Porco is looking down on Reiner, and calls him traitor.
chapter 46 - foreshadowing of Reiner becoming a soldier.
chapters 15 and 96 - obvious contradiction; in different timelines Reiner had different experience.
chapters 40, 47 and 95 - obvious contradiction; but I'm not sure how it impacted Reiner's personality; I didn't find any clues that could explain his different behavior shown in chapter 15.
chapter 93 - Porco mentions the moment, when contradiction starts.
Alright, enough with Reiner acting different. Let's talk about the war!
chapter 108 - 4 year war, 4 years ago Anti-Marleyan Volunteers
If you are not aware, Isayama is constantly switching back and forth between multiple timelines in his story and trying to present it like it was all a single timeline. It is very easy to spot in artistic choices by WIT. In another cases, you will have to look for contradictions in dialogue. I suggest you read u/Ellen_Yevner theories if you want to be convinced about constant switch of narratives.
So, in essence: every single panel of manga and every single cut of anime can be a completely different timeline. The above image (ch108) is another example of that.
First panel shows Reiner and says that Zeke planned raid on Marley for four years.
Third panel doesn't show Reiner, and says that Zeke snuck Anti-Marleyan Volunteers four years ago.
chapter 90 - waited through winter
Of course it makes absolutely no sense! It was clearly shown in the story, that after battle for Shiganshina, Paradis waited through winter, before they went to explore the southern port, where Marley turned Eldians into Titans. And Paradis came into contact with Anti-Marleyan Volunteers by ambushing them on the sea.
In my opinion, no matter which timeline it is, the earliest Paradis could have met Anti-Marleyan Volunteers is one year after battle for Shiganshina (because they have to clean up the Titans first).
With above assumption in mind, and with the hint from Isayama about Reiner and Berthold joining Paradis, we can conclude that there exists an alternative timeline, where Mid-East War was fought for five years (in this post, I will refer to it as Timeline 2).
Because Reiner & Freckled Ymir didn't return to Marley, Marley would only have Zeke and Pieck. That will surely restrict them in their war efforts, and they would be much more cautious, which would prolong the war for one more year.
chapter 93 - Zeke has 1 year left; ships started missing 3 years ago
In Timeline 2 Zeke would have 0 years left, by the way.
"Alright, but is that it? So what if they fought for five years, instead of four? What does it matter?" I hear you ask.
Well, it does matter! Because what Paradis lacks the most? Time!
Here are some examples of Isayama re-iterating the lack of time for Paradis:
chapter 107
chapter 108
It also matters from strategical perspective, when it comes to The War for Paradis arc.
chapter 108 - Reiner; Zeke has 1 year left; Global Alliance will attack in 6 months
What would change in Timeline 2, if Zeke has 0 years left?
Reiner proposed to attack immediately, because he didn't want to give Zeke time to prepare any plans (because he still has 1 year left).
If Zeke had 0 years left, (we have to remember, that in Timeline 2 Reiner joined Paradis) Magath decision would probably be conservative - to wait for Global Alliance to form and attack in six months.
Although, it is hard to predict. Magath may also think why Zeke even escaped to Paradis, even though he has 0 years left.
From one perspective, Paradis will only gain a mediocre Titan.
From another perspective, Magath may question why raid on Liberio (with the intention of evacuating Zeke) was done in the first place, and what are the future plans of Paradis.
Magath could conclude that they are plotting something, but it is debatable whether he will make a surprise attack. Porco won't propose anything hasty, because in chapter 95 he was described as someone who follows orders.
chapter 118 - Reiner is described as the main reason, why Marley attacked so early.
chapter 118 - sounds very contradicting; isn't Global Alliance not formed yet? Isn't there like still 5 months before they all come together?
So, from above images, without Reiner pushing the decision, I'd say that in Timeline 2 Marley would attack together with Global Alliance, presumably in 6 months (we can't be 100% sure that it will still take 6 months in Timeline 2).
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Restart
A Reiner Braun x gender neutral reader fic
▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂
“This chat is twenty years overdue,
Let’s have a seat and tell me your news.
Something about you is different,
I feel at ease when you talk.
Each painful knot is untwisted,
You’ve matured more than I thought.
My destiny is knocking,
This is what I’ve been wanting.
When did our eyes get soft?
I wanna be here, wanna be yours so hard.”
▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂
Four years ago, before his betrayal, you’d been Reiner’s love. But now, after you both survived the rumbling, could you go back to how things were?
[Lyrics and title from the song “Restart” by Veela and Mod3no]
No warnings! Go crazy! Read to ur heart’s content friends!
Tags: lots of fluff, Reiner is soft, kinda spoilers if ur new to the show, post-canon AoT things, awkward ex-couple moments, happy ending
▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂
WC: 3210
AN:
I mean…I would take this man back in a heartbeat. He could step on me and I’D be the one to apologize…you get it.
I took a break from writing my usual super-long fics to bring you this one! I came across the song this is based off of the other day and…my adhd is eating it up, so I have been listening to it on repeat.
▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂
Once more, your gaze locked with golden eyes as you sat in the library. It was a lazy spring afternoon, one which you should’ve been enjoying. Instead, you were hiding indoors, attempting to distract yourself from your emotions once again. That is, until Reiner had walked in on the opposite side of the room.
You watched from over the top of your book as he exchanged a few words with Mikasa and Armin, who were doing some research that you didn’t have the heart to join in on. Then he turned around, and his eyes found you again, and for a moment you thought you could see him consider walking over. But after a heartbeat, he leaves you alone once more.
“You two can’t keep just staring at each other from across every room like this.”
You were shaken from your thoughts by a voice. It had been three months since you’d all returned from fighting Eren, and your relationship with Reiner was…a stalemate. Four years ago, before he’d left, you’d been his. From the moment you’d walked onto the training field as a cadet, he’d practically attached himself to you at the hip. You had never been sure of what the blond saw in you, but whatever it was caused his eyes to glow a little whenever he looked at you. Soon enough, that warmth had grown into full-blown love; your hands intertwining before missions, curling up a little too close when it was cold, sneaking kisses underneath the stars.
Your heart shattered into a million pieces when he left, but it was more because he was leaving you, not because he had revealed himself as your enemy at the time. You couldn’t care less if he was a titan shifter, or if he’d been keeping the entire rest of the world a secret. Each morning that you were forced to wake up alone took a little piece of your soul away from you. You were long past convincing yourself it would get better with time; you’d accepted you would feel like this forever.
You looked at the source of the voice, tearing your eyes away from the empty spot where Reiner had been standing.
“I don’t even know what I’d say to him, Jean,” you murmured as your friend sat down next to you.
“The way you look at each other says you both have a million things you want to say.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start. Besides, he’s better off not having me in his life to hold him back.”
“Now that’s just ridiculous,” Jean scoffed. “Neither of your lives are going anywhere as long as you keep up this weird…orbiting dance you’re doing.”
You raised an eyebrow at him. “Orbiting dance?”
“Yeah, you’re both too afraid to get too close to the other, even though that’s exactly what you want. So you both just keep your distance, circling around each other, hoping something will knock one of you off your path and into the other’s so you don’t have to do it yourself.”
“You learn that in therapy, or something?” You sighed, and replaced your bookmark back into the page. You wouldn’t get any more reading done.
Your remark earned a chuckle from Jean. “No, I learned it watching two people not bothering to hide their emotions at all.”
Dropping your head in mild embarrassment, you knew you’d never been good at keeping your emotions under wraps when it came to Reiner.
“Talk to him. Please,” Jean moves to stand up from his post beside you. “You’ll both feel better when you do.”
“I’ll try, Jean. But I can’t promise anything.”
Reiner knew you’d been spending your afternoons in the library, but as much as he was trying to give you all the space you needed, Historia had asked him to relay information to Mikasa and Armin. Of course they were doing their research in the library, and of course he couldn’t keep his eyes off you for two seconds when you were in the same room. It was obvious that you’d both changed; he could tell from the small conversations you’d had during the Rumbling. But hell, did he know that he still loved you. You’d grown from that rambunctious, sweet, and slightly awkward cadet into a true soldier and adult. You were level-headed and mature, a deep thinker, kind and gentle…He could tell you’d retained some of your youth, too, from the way you and Conny threw jokes at each other during meals.
But what did you think of him? He was the one who’d torn you to bits, left you alone on the island while he returned to the safety of his country. When he wasn’t with you as a Scout, he’d spent his time figuring out ways to break the news about himself to you gently, and ways that you’d be able to stay together while he completed his mission. It had all happened so fast, though, and by the time he had Eren in the palm of his hand it was too late to explain anything. Through the titan’s eyes, and through yours, he had seen the shattered pieces of your heart. That memory had resurfaced a hundred too many times while he was back in Marley, the way you’d looked at him. As badly as he wanted to pull you close now, to try and fix everything he did and put all the pieces of your heart back together, he continually convinced himself he’d just break your heart all over again. So, he kept his distance. But when the two of you were in the same room, you were so beautiful, so perfect to him, he was pulled toward you like a magnet.
You tried to talk to him, you really did. But you’d gotten one good look at Reiner after dinner and had turned on your heel, marching straight back to the solitude of your room. Now, you laid face down on your bed at three in the morning, cursing yourself for being cowardly yet again. This wouldn’t even be the first time you’d talked to him since he left, you’d exchanged words with him throughout the Rumbling. Hell, you fought side-by-side. But now that the fighting was over, everything was…different, and you couldn’t bring yourself to speak with him. There was just too much between the two of you.
Knowing it was going to be yet another sleepless night, you dragged yourself out of bed. Throwing on a pair of old sweatpants, it was time for yet another nighttime stroll around the building.
Despite the fact that you were exhausted, your–what had become nightly–walks were rather peaceful. The entire city was almost silent, and you could exist in your own mind and world for a bit. Pacing through the halls, you found yourself wishing for what you always did; that he was close.
Passing the library, you had the fleeting idea that you’d read a little more of your book, so you tugged the heavy door open. But when you settled down on one of the plush couches, book in hand, you couldn’t bring yourself to read a single word. Sitting in the silence, you stared out the window into the night sky, lost in thought.
A shifting of the couch seat next to you brings you back to the present. You had been so deep in thought you hadn’t heard the door open, but before you could conjure up a reason why you were sitting in the dark library at three in the morning, you saw a pair of eyes you hadn’t dared to be so close to in a long time.
Reiner watches fear dart behind your eyes, immediately regretting his decision to sit next to you. He hadn’t been able to sleep, as usual, so he decided maybe some fresh air would help. But when he saw you, he became so lost in the pain of the fact that you were probably doing the same as him, walking around to try and get through another sleepless night, that he forgot to glue his feet to their spot. Before he knew it he had planted himself firmly in the seat next to you, studying every inch of your face.
“Hi.” Your voice is barely a whisper, and after a heartbeat your eyes snap back to where your hands had curled tight around the book in your lap.
His face softens. “Hey.”
Your mind swirls in a panic, trying to find something–anything–to say.
“Um…What are you reading?” He asks, causing small cracks to appear in the ice that had formed between you. His voice is deep, warm, and familiar, and you feel at ease when he speaks.
“A fantasy novel.” Daring to meet his eyes once more, your heart beats picks up when you see the warm, almost smiling expression he wears.
“Didn’t know you were into those.”
“It’s a habit I picked up. From Sasha.”
“Ah.”
You went back to cursing yourself for making it awkward.
But now Reiner is fully smiling, gently, as he gazes out the window into the starry sky. “Remember when she used to tell those stories, during missions?”
“The ones where all the characters were named after different foods?”
“Heh. Yeah, those were something else.”
“She knew how to make long horseback rides a little shorter, didn’t she?” You chuckle as that odd mix of happiness and sadness washes through you once more. Silence washes over the library again.
“I’m sorry. For everything–”
“Reiner. Don’t.” Feeling your throat tighten, you look up at him, closing the book on your lap and placing it aside.
“I–”
For the first time in years, you hold his gaze. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I hurt you.” You can hear the pain in his voice. There are tears in his eyes, glistening in the moonlight.
“You were doing what you believed was right. You always have. I would have done the same.”
“What we believe is the right thing isn’t always the right thing.”
“You did what you could, with the information you were given. We all did. I could never hate you for what you did.”
“Then what do you hate me for?”
Your face twists slightly, shocked, and this time you’re the one with tears in your eyes.
“I-I mean, you have to hate me for something.” Reiner watches your expression.
But your face changes, and a soft smile takes over your lips as you gaze up at him. “Wouldn’t that be childish of me?”
At your smile, he relaxes into the couch slightly, leaning a little closer to you. “You’re allowed to hate people as an adult, silly.”
“Hate is born from not understanding. I understand why you chose to do what you did, so how could I possibly hate you?”
“I hate myself…for what I did.”
“The choices you were forced to make weren’t easy, Reiner.”
“They should’ve been.”
He pauses for a moment.
“How could I leave the person I love more than anything else in this world?”
You blink in surprise. Then, warmth floods through your veins. You lean into him, pressing against his arm and resting your head on his shoulder.
“Even if I had known what you were going through, I still would have let you go. It was life or death for you,” you murmur.
“I should have found a way to live. I would have. Shit, I’ve been stabbed and shot and bombed more times than I can count.”
“You fought in a war, Rei. It must’ve been awful.”
His hand slides into yours. “It was. But I’d fight a million more just to see you for one more day.”
“You don’t have to. And if you did, I’d be right there at your side.”
You feel him sigh, leaning his head against yours and pressing his lips against your forehead.
“Reiner…” That familiar warmth blooms in your chest, something you hadn’t felt in a long time.
“I missed you so much,” he whispers. “I wished you were there with me every day…but also I was glad you were somewhere safer.”
He missed you…You shift in your spot to look up at him, pressing a hand to his cheek. You’re no longer so afraid to look him in the eyes. “I missed you too. But I’m here with you now.”
“You are. And I’m here with you,” he echoes, as if he’s afraid it’s all a dream, and speaking it aloud would cement the two of you in reality.
And then he shifts, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into his lap, pressing his forehead against yours as your arms loop around his shoulders, tangling in the hair at the back of his head. His hands grip tightly at your waist before sliding around you completely, pulling you as close as humanly possible as your noses brush. For a heartbeat, you linger against each other, letting it settle into your minds that the other was here, until neither of you can hold yourselves back any longer, and you collapse into each other.
The familiarity of his lips against yours overwhelms you, memories of the night he first kissed you surfacing in your mind. You were both sitting on patrol, joking about something stupid, and he suddenly pulled you close. In this moment, time seems to loop back on itself, the two of you kissing in the same way you had all those years ago. Even though you’d both grown as people, he still felt the same…because the love you had for each other had never changed.
The kiss breaks when Reiner tries to somehow get you even closer, and you giggle at his effort before sliding off his lap and pulling him with you to lay down sideways on the couch. He’s nearly surrounding you completely as he lays half on top of you, crushing you slightly but you couldn’t care less. He peppers kisses across your nose and cheeks and down your neck, lingering a little longer on each one and relishing the way you laugh when the stubble on his chin tickles you.
The warmth of the moment overwhelms you, turning your laughter into soft sobs as you pull him close, burying your face in his chest.
“I love you, Reiner. It’s good to have you back.”
“Oh, baby. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, I promise,” he whispers against your skin. But you can feel the tears running down his cheeks too.
There’s a few moments of comfortable silence between you two, that couldn’t be more unlike the awkwardness of the past few months. Your fingertips trace over the contours of his face, occasionally wiping fallen tears off his cheeks, simply enjoying being so close. He tightens his arms around you, a rare soft smile appearing across his lips.
“You know, I got so scared when I saw you during Eren’s invasion, in Liberio,” he murmurs, brushing a stray lock of hair away from your face. “That place wasn’t safe for you at the time.”
“I wasn’t afraid for me. But when I saw the titans fighting, I was a little scared that you’d get hurt…” you trail off, getting lost in the way the moonlight reflected in his eyes. “What was life like, in Marley?”
He chuckles at your question, sinking into the couch next to you. “It had its moments…but overall, not great. I guess things like cars, photographs, and electricity were normal for me though. I probably grew up in a nicer environment than most people here.”
“Your mother did her best for you, I’m sure of it.”
“Heh, she definitely did something. I guess I get it from her.”
“What?”
“The drive to do absolutely anything for the people I love.”
“That’s one of my favorite things about you, actually.”
He raises an eyebrow at you. “Really? That’s what you like about me?” He was confused; that trait had caused the deaths of so many people. He’d always preferred not to think about it at all. But it was obvious that you didn’t see it in that way.
“Yeah, I think it’s sweet. It’s what’s kept you alive for so long.”
“No, that’s not it,” he sighs, “What kept me alive was you.”
“I wanted to live…so I could see you again too. I wanted it all to be over so we could be here, like this.”
The emotion behind his eyes is a mix of melancholy and nostalgia as he gazes at you. “How were things, after I…left?”
“Rough, at first. But eventually, we got rid of the rest of the titans, and took over the port. We met Yelena and her crew, and they brought us up to speed.”
“How nice of her,” he muses, causing you to snort out a laugh.
“I think we’re just about on par with Marley now, in terms of development.”
“Eh, it’s way nicer here. Besides, here is where you are.”
“Aw, I kinda wanted to live in Liberio for a bit…” you trail off, giving him a dramatic look that turns to laughter at his expression. “I’m kidding!”
“Heh, you better be,” he laughs, pulling you close once again.
You move your hand to rest it against his chest as his nose slides against yours, lips fitting together like you were made for each other. His tongue presses against yours slowly, drinking in every breath, every heartbeat…every shred of evidence that you were alive and okay and in his arms. This was everything both of you had wanted since you returned from fighting. Tilting your head, you try to get closer to him, wrapping a leg around his waist as his hands slide under your shirt and up your back. But after an especially deep kiss, he pulls away slightly, his lips ghosting over yours.
“You know, we should probably head to bed before someone wakes up early and finds us making out on the library couch.”
“Aww.” You sink into the couch a little more in protest.
He sits up halfway, still leaning over you. “I promise, my bed is comfier.”
Blushing at his words, you’re thankful it’s still dark in the library. You’d half expected him to send you back to bed in your respective rooms. Who were you kidding, though? This was the man who climbed through your window as a Scout so you could sleep in each others' arms. Hell, he’d seen you naked more times than you could count. But that was so long ago, everything felt new again.
Reiner leads you back to his room, your hand in his, and you can’t hide the smile growing on your face. Not an hour ago this was something you’d only wished would happen; but now your wish had come true. When he pulls you into his room, finally into privacy, you lose track of how many kisses he plants across your skin. And as you settle into his arms under the blankets, sleep washes over you faster than it had in years.
You wake up with your head resting against his chest, one of his hands tangled in your hair and the other around your waist, and only one thought in your mind: you were glad you talked to him.
▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂
#reiner fanfic#reiner#aot fanfiction#aot reiner#snk reiner#reiner braun#reiner x reader#reiner braun x reader#reiner braun x y/n#reiner braun x you#reiner fluff#reiner x y/n#reiner x you#heavy breathing#I love him so much#honey writes#attack on titan#aot x you#shingeki no kyojin
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The Tale of Myrkalfa Earthshaker
(BG3 Major Spoilers Ahead)
The Tale of Myrkalfa Earthshaker (BG3 Major Spoilers Ahead) begins in a way unlike most any other drow; in the light of the sun. Having abandoned the Underdark before even learning to speak, this child was shielded from Lolth's cruel embrace by her war-dancer parents for most of her younger years. At a tender age no older than twelve, she and her childhood friends were caught unawares by a drider in the forest, whose vile poison cost her nearly all those she held dear. Seeing the danger posed by her under-dwelling kin and their dark spider-goddess, the young drow made a vow to herself, to help nature reclaim balance in the world, and expunge all those who would seek to harm rather than help. Upon coming of age, Myrkalfa would grow into the Circle of the Moon, mastering the art of shapeshifting in accordance with the teachings of Elistraee as she spoke to the drow people: “A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow.”After escaping the crashed nautiloid, Myrkalfa would join forces with the charming evoker Gale Dekarios, as well as the fierce gith'yanki fighter Lae'zel and mercurial Sharran cleric Shadowheart.
By fighting shoulder to shoulder, and recruiting a host of allies with their valiance, they would travel from the hilt of the sword cost to famed city Baldur's Gate, slaying every evil in their path without heeding the call of the foul Emperor. With blade and sorcery, not a single epic opponent was spared their onslaught, from the immortal Ketheric Thorm to the undying Heart of the Gate. The Master of the House, the Murderer of Mothers, the Black Hand of Bane and his foul Titan Creation. In a single swoop of their combined might, four heroes did free this age of so many evils that they are honored still among the likes of High Harper Jaheira, Nerys Kathon of Kelemvor, and Minsc of Rashemen. And in so doing, found also the light within themselves, whether it be from the Prince of the Comet, Our Lady of Silver, the Mistress of Magic, or the bright wilds of the Dark Dancer.
Not a single tiefling life was lost for the actions of these heroes, and but an ally did fall in their fight against the Absolute. Friend Yurgir, in his zeal for battle, found himself poorly placed among the party's plans for Raphael. In so doing, he gave his life, the single friend lost to none other than fate itself. At their sides in the final fight though were Zevlor and his hellriders, Dammon and the owlbear cub, Rolan and the Arcane Tower, Dame Aylin and the cleric Isobel, Jaheira and her Harpers, Nine-Fingers and the Guild, Valeria and the City Watch, Duke Ravengard's personal guard, Florrick and the Flaming Fist, Halsin and Thaniel, the free Gondians, Arabella, Mol, the Gur monster hunters, Kith'rak Voss and his red dragon, Orpheus the Prince of the Comet, and Volo the Chronicler.In the end, Shadowheart freed her parents from the shadowy grip of Shar, instead embracing the Life Domain and the teachings of the goddess Selûne. Lae'zel saw the flawed ways of the lich-queen, choosing rather to follow the teachings of the fallen Prince Orpheus, and in their name, journeying to the lands of the gith'zerai.
Gale Dekarios, formerly Gale of Waterdeep, the Chosen of Mystra, became a professor of magic at Blackstaff Academy. Archdruid of the Moon Myrkalfa Earthshaker lived up to her namesake despite adopting a new surname, cleansing the shadowlands of Ketheric's taint and Shar's corruption and allowing nature's peace to flourish once more in Baldur's Gate. The parties were chosen to safeguard a Netherstone each. One with Shadowheart, always on the move. One with Lae'zel, beyond the cusp of the stars. And one with the Dekarios household. Those locations would seem obvious to some, but in truth, it is a dare. An invitation for the Dead Three, or any other force of evil to rear its foul maw again.
I had the pleasure to work on this piece for jæja. The project was quite exciting and very complex, but I have enjoyed every step and really like how it shaped up. As a fan of Bg3, it was quite a treat to be able to combine my stained glass style with some of our beloved companions. I hope you like how it turned out!
Thank you for commissioning me!
#fantasy#gaming#digital#digital art#digital painting#oc#bg3 fanart#bg3#baldur's gate 3#shadowheart#gale of waterdeep#lae'zel#commission#stained glass#stylized#digital illustration
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I just saw that post you shared from TW and I wanted to get some things off my chest.
There’s no need to write a pathetic piece desperately trying to downplay Hanji’s impact to Levi. Erwin and Hanji are both important to him. THATS FUCKING CANON! I’m so tired reading the same “Levi encouraged Erwin to use Hanjis squad as a bait to save his life. Therefore Levi doesn’t give a shit about Hanji and is in love with Erwin.” ERWIN IS THEIR COMMANDER AND HIS SAFETY IS A PRIORITY! That's literally how the military chain of command is preserved! Hanji would’ve done the same thing in Levi’s place without a doubt. ”Levi still mentions Erwin even though he is dead for four years.” DUUUUHHH?!Of course he still thinks about him and his promise to him! All the scouts along with Erwin died to give him the opportunity to kill zeke and he fucking failed! Of course he is eager to finish the job! And for the love of god stop using the “I’m championing for LGBT ships and you are dismissing roori becase they are gay.” Girl,roori is the least dismissed ship out there. They are literally one of the biggest army of shippers out there and theres no shortage of people defending them all the time. Also, levihan isn’t a even a straight ship?! Did they miss the whole thing where Isayama changed Hanjis pronouns in the manga?I also hate how whoever wrote this feels like their personal interpretation is the only thing that matters and ours is wrong and invalid. All that shit they are presenting about Levi and Erwin should be interpreted as romantic but those between Levi and Hange no matter how emotional and intimate should not?Grow up!If levihan bothers you so much block and mute people.Do what you gotta do to keep away from the content you dont want to see!Let people enjoy hamless shit.
I have a lot to say about every paragraph of that post, but i honestly don't care for wasting my time on someone who chooses to read the manga with their eyes closed.
Remember when that central MP told Levi that Erwin is captured and will be hanged and offered to let him go if he just gives himself in? Levi said "no", even though he should want to protect Erwin's life no matter what according to them, right? Instead Levi said "Some lives are more valuable than the others.". At that moment he prioritized the lives of Eren and Historia over Erwin.
Also "he never thought about Hange" after they died is hilariously incorrect. He told Hange to "keep watching". He followed their theory that killing Zeke might sever Eren's connection to the paths and stop the rumbling. He also used the knowledge he got from them to quickly asses that the Ackermans and shifters are immune to the titan gas and lead everyone to kill Eren.
He literally thought about them as he was having his internal monologue. They were at the front of his mind so to speak and the only active character in the panels, while everyone else was a passive listener.
He saw them among every other survey corps member when he gave them his final salute.
Years later he saw a plane fly by that reminded him of the day he lost them and erooris clowning about that panel saying "HaNgE iS A PLaNe" are just completely braindead and don't understand literary symbolism.
There are too many scenes that showed Levi cares deeply about Hange and the fact he prioritized **the freaking commander of the survey corps** at some point does not negate that he has almost been hit by Zeke's rocks worrying about their safety and that he stopped in the middle of an intense battle to make Armin protect them when they got injured.
In the forest afrer finding out what happened to Zeke (because Zeke was the last thing he remembers before the explosion??) he immediately brought the conversation to Hange's expressed feelings and gave them much needed encouragement.
Anyway. Erooris clearly are seething because all they have is the promise which, although was made to Erwin,was really about All the dead survey corps members. The moment between them was nowhere near on the level of intimacy and vulnerability that 126 and 132 had. They are clearly green with envy.
When the shippes choose to talk shit about "a rival ship" rather than talking about their own content this is how you know they have no leg to stand on.
Yes, Levi cared about Erwin deeply, yes, his loyalty to him was amazing, but he has done things to Hange he has done to nobody else and Hange was the only person who witnessed him at his most vulnerable and soft and all of it was meant for them alone.
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OH EM GEE YOUR CROW CONTENTTTT
can you do one that’s, like, the anniversary of Cayde’s death and Crow is getting absolutely hated by everyone at the tower except for our guardian? And like, the superiors, of course.
oooffff course! I really miss Cayde🫡
hyper-focused on crow, guardian is there at the end being supportive (because who doesn’t support him honestly)
added extra levels of angst because it’s my birthday and I love that crap
Also this can be interpreted as platonic or romantic
Memories™︎
It was no secret Crow got… unwanted attention simply for the face he dawned. That was why he spent most of his free time in the H.E.L.M. Walking around the Tower had always been a hassle without a mask; he could hardly take a step without getting a pointed glare or rude remark spat at him. Especially when it came to Hunters. They were furious about Cayde, and even though the Vanguard’s blood wasn’t technically on Crow’s hands, no one else seemed to understand that. No one but the Guardian. His Guardian.
He couldn’t exactly stay out of the Tower forever, though, and he did want to offer his support to the other Vanguards and Guardians on the anniversary. Give them a chance to take the day lightly. He couldn’t deny that the guilt from Cayde’s murder — a murder he didn’t even commit — weighed on him way heavier than he wanted to admit. He knew he didn’t do it, but… at the same time… by extension, he kind of did. Nevertheless, supporting his superiors and doing anything they needed mattered more than whatever was eating at him from the inside. It had to. He couldn’t undo what happened to Cayde, but he could do everything to make up for it.
The sun had already set by the time he and Glint transmatted into the Tower. Crow had taken on almost every single bounty and mission he could weasel out of Zavala, Ikora, and Banshee, even taking a handsome number of quests and bounties from Guardians that were having a rough day with Cayde’s memory. To say he was exhausted would be an understatement. He felt like crap, having been resurrected nearly a dozen, maybe two dozen times. He’d heard the Guardians talk about what they called the “Res Flu”, a kind of sickness that came upon Guardians when their body stopped and got restarted again too many times in a day. He didn’t really get it at the time, because, could Guardians even get sick?
He knew now, though, that they weren’t kidding. He felt like crap. Like he could sleep for four years straight and still be tired when he woke up. His entire body seemed to be aching from being put together again and again, reworked over and over. Between him overworking himself, Uldren’s memories of Cayde floating around in the back of his mind, and the constant windows reboot of getting resurrected again and again, his mind was nothing more than a blurry haze. He just wanted to go to bed, and that want grew exponentially as he walked slowly across the courtyard of the Tower. He was so close to his bed he could almost smell it.
But he needed to check in with Zavala and Ikora first — let them know he’d done what they asked. Unfortunately, between him and the Titan Vanguard were many other Guardians. Crow wouldn’t dare admit that the possibility of their crude words made him a little anxious, but then again, the slight buzz that surfaced in his chest and tiny bit of dread that made its debut in the back of his mind pretty much admitted it for him.
He ducked his head as he walked, tugging at his hood in an attempt to hide his face as he drifted by. The normal buzz of the tower had quieted, both due to the time and the anniversary looming overhead. Crow wished it hadn’t. If the buzz and energy had been normal, it’d be easier for him to remain unseen. He heard Glint humming along behind him, trying to provide little support. It was no secret that Crow got antsy in the Tower.
Fortunately for both his will to live and the countdown until he fell asleep standing up, no one payed him much mind as he made his way to Zavala. The Titan was leaning on the railing, per usual, gazing out at the Last City beyond. Crow drifted quietly up to his side, refraining from leaning on the railing in fear he might not be able to will himself back up.
“I finished the missions and bounties you gave me,” He muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. He was cold. Was it cold outside?
He saw Zavala shift in the corner of his eye, turning to look at him. “You finished them all? That was nearly four days work.”
“Mhm,” The Hunter replied. He didn’t dare glance over at him — mostly of the silent fear he’d be glowering at him like everyone else did. That and the fact he knew he looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.
Crow flinched when the Titan’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Good work, Crow. Go get some rest. You look drained.”
He felt drained. More than drained. Like he needed to get to his room soon or he might fall out in the middle of the Tower. Guardians were supposed to be immortal — you know, not sick. No one told him being a Guardian came with feeling like you’d been hit by a semi-truck after exercising your immortality one too many times.
He supposed there had to be a pitfall, though. There always was. If there wasn’t a pitfall, what would they appreciate? You can’t have good days without bad ones to measure them beside.
He pushed himself away from the balcony, floating mindlessly through the Tower, toward Ikora. His body was absolutely screaming with every step he took. So much so that he had to take a moment to regroup in the tunnels, pretending to fiddle with his gun or something so passersby didn’t realize how faint he looked. He only remembered Uldren getting sick few times, but it never felt like this. It was like, well, the flu — everything hurt, his brain was hazy, and he needed to sleep. He didn’t really mind absence of the other symptoms, though. He wasn’t a fan of nausea and all that.
After only hearing about a third of his own conversation with Ikora, and dropping by to tell Banshee he did what he’d asked, he made a bee-line towards the elevator. Getting down to his room on the residential floor was becoming more of a need than a want at this point. Because, all joking aside, it was starting to get hard to keep moving.
He was making alright progress… until he got to the elevator. There was a trio of Hunters standing in front of it and, if he didn’t collapse on the spot, they’d probably bully him until he did. His hood could only hide so much of his face, but at this point, taking the stairs seemed more risky than it should’ve.
He turned in a sudden, desperate attempt to get out of their line of sight, at least for a moment, but it was too late. A hand latched onto his shoulder and whirled him around. It was too easy for them to move him — he was weak.
“I don’t think you’d want to speak about what happened a year ago today, would you, Uldren Sov?”
Crow jerked his shoulder out of the Hunter’s grip, nearly wincing at the exertion the simple movement took. “That’s not my name,” He murmured flatly.
The Hunter snorted, backing up to be in line with his buddies. Three of them, all humans, all cocky-as-ever and ready to dispatch a kill-shot through Crow’s brain at any given moment.
“My apologies. I meant Little Bird,”
Crow couldn’t work up a proper response, so instead, he just walked toward the elevator. The Hunter sidestepped right into his path. He expected no less.
Crow didn’t have the time nor the energy for this.
“Get out of the way,” He ordered. The Hunter snorted again.
“No, I don’t think I will. After all, you have a murder to answer for. And everyone else here is too brainwashed by second chances to make you,” The Hunter spat, pain haphazardly hidden by venom in his tone. Crow tried to ignore the twisting in his gut that only started when he listened to the Hunter’s words. You’re the reason he’s hurting.
Crow tried to brush the thought off, attempting to blink away the vertigo that was trying to take hold of him. “I… I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry about Cayde. Now, please, get out of my way.”
Apologizing and saying please wasn’t exactly a power move, but he was practically running on empty as it was.
“Got somewhere to be, Little Bird?”
Crow closed his eyes momentarily, wrapping his arms around his middle to provide himself at least a little comfort. He looked absolutely pathetic in the face of these Hunters and he knew it. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Maybe he felt too bad to care.
“Please get out of my way,” He repeated.
“Dude, he isn’t looking so hot. Maybe you should just let him go,” One of the other Hunters piped up. The main one, a dude with blond hair, glared back at him.
“Yeah, well, Cayde isn’t looking too hot right now either, is he?”
The guilt rose back up inside of him like bile, and Crow looked away. He remembered pulling the trigger. He remembered killing Cayde. The back of his eyes began to burn and as much as he wanted to stop it, he couldn’t. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s gonna take more than a few empty words to make up for the hole you left in the Vanguard. In us,”
“I’m sorry,” Crow half-whimpered, still not opening his eyes. He could nearly feel his body getting weaker by the second. And it didn’t feel good.
He really was sorry — he really, really, really was. No one ever stopped for a second to consider that the anniversary hurt him, too. In fact, it didn’t just hurt on the anniversary. It hurt every day, living with the memories of murdering a man that would’ve been his leader. That would’ve supported him, been his friend. It hurt.
His Guardian would understand.
His eyes shot open a moment later, when the Hunter latched onto his cloak and jerked him forward. “You don’t get to be all emotional today, Sov, you did this.”
“Let him go!” Crow heard Glint’s panicked voice from behind, and he floated up to his Guardian’s side to try and offer support. There’s only so much a tiny floating robot can do, though. Crow reached up, grabbing the Hunter’s wrists where they sat close to his neck.
“Let go of me,”
“Do you understand the amount of pain and hurt you caused? In the Vanguard, in us, in everyone. There are people that have barely been able to get out of bed today because of you. People that spent weeks crying themselves to sleep because of you. People that still can’t look at Exos because of you!” The Hunter shoved Crow backwards, but it didn’t take very much force to make him hit the floor.
“Come on, dude. Leave him alone. You said what you needed to say,” One of the other Hunters stated from above where Crow was. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, coughing shakily. He suddenly felt a lot worse than he had. If that was even possible.
He was jerked off of the floor again and this time, shoved against the wall behind him. The blond Hunter was right in his face.
“Watch your back, Sov. There are more than a few of us willing to put a knife in it the first chance we get,”
Crow didn’t respond, only stayed eerily still as he and the Hunter stared at one another. He was released after a few dreaded moments of silence.
The Hunters all glared at him as they left, muttering amongst themselves.
Crow reached up to his cloak, grabbing where the other Hunter just had. He could sense the underlying pain in that guy’s voice. That Hunter wasn’t just talking about other people barely able to get out of bed, crying themselves to sleep, unable to look at Exos. He was talking about himself. And Crow — er, Uldren — had done that to him.
“Crow?” Glint floated up in front of his face, momentarily breaking his Guardian out of the trance. “We should go now.”
Crow nodded, heading into the elevator with Glint as a watchful eye. He could hardly focus on anything on the way to his room. Not the elevator, not the passersby, not Glint. All he could think about was how terrible he felt. Physically, yes, but mostly about Cayde.
How far was he from Uldren, anyway? Close enough for everyone to blame him for Cayde’s death. Maybe they weren’t as different as he pretended they were. Maybe he and Uldren were one and the same.
The gunshot that rang out from Cayde’s gun that night played in his mind on repeat, and he didn’t mind to let his eyes sting as he made his way further down the residential halls. Less likely someone would see him, anyway. With his arms still wrapped around his own torso, both to try and comfort himself and stop him from having some fever-induced breakdown, he walked into his room and shut the door with his foot. He leaned against the cool material with a deep sigh. Finally, he was alone.
Glint clicked robotically. “Uhm… Crow?”
Before he could reply, another voice came: “Oh my God, Crow! You look terrible.”
He whirled around at the voice, nearly yelling out from surprise. He blinked, and it took him a second to realize the studio apartment he was standing in… it wasn’t his. It was the Guardian’s. His Guardian’s.
He’d autopiloted his way into the wrong apartment. Same door, one floor too high.
The Guardian was staring at him with a mixture of pity and compassion, already making their way to him from across the room. Their Ghost was bobbing worriedly next to them. Crow averted his gaze. He didn’t want to have a conversation with them, he didn’t want to explain. All he felt like doing at the moment was curling in on himself and crying until the anniversary was over — for Cayde. For the man he murdered.
“How many times did you res today?” They asked, grimacing slightly as they got close enough to see how bad he looked.
“I don’t know,” He muttered. He wanted to shrink, to disappear. The closest he could get was recoiling slightly when they got close. “Ten. Twenty. Thirty. I don’t know.”
“Crow,” They weren’t scolding him, their voice didn’t contain even a hint of annoyance. They just… felt bad for him. “Didn’t I tell you about the res flu, or was that a dream?”
“No, you told me,” He replied blankly, staring at the floor under his feet. The Guardian stepped forward and watched to see if he’d recoil again. He didn’t this time, but he did turn away from their gaze.
“What kind of mission did they put you on where you had to res that many times?”
He shrugged, suddenly becoming very aware of the pounding at the back of his head. When had that started? “All of them,” He deadpanned.
The Guardian blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I took all of them. From everyone. Bounties, too. I… didn’t want them to… to do the work today,” He muttered, not sounding convincing even to himself despite telling the truth.
The Guardian’s wheels turned for a moment, before it clicked. “You’re trying to make up for Cayde?”
Crow looked away, wrapping his arms around his middle again like some sort of defense mechanism. “I remember… shooting him. I remember talking to him. I remember pulling the trigger, I… this was all my fault. I need to make up for it. I need to… answer for it. I need to be… to be…”
“Punished?” They whispered, more of a statement than an actual question. Crow couldn’t do much more than nod.
“I hurt so many people…” He hardly noticed he was swaying on his feet until the Guardian appeared right in front of him, steadying him by placing their hands on his shoulders.
“You didn’t, Uldren did. You don’t have anything to answer for,” They stated, eyes flicking across his face with worry. “Come sit down, you look like you’re about to keel over.”
“No, I… I’m gonna go to my room. I didn’t even mean to walk in here, I…” His sentence trailed off as his head throbbed so hard it made his eyeballs hurt. Screw this stupid res flu.
“If you think I’m gonna let you walk anywhere like this, you are sorely mistaken,” They stated. Instead of making him sit down, though, they decided to pull him into them.
He hated when they did that. It made him feel like a child.
He hated when they did that because it felt so… good. He didn’t deserve to feel good. Not today.
But he couldn’t force himself to wriggle out of their grip. Instead, as much as he hated himself for it, he sank into them, not moving his arms but supplying his horribly angry body with much more comfort than he’d had all day. They were warm, and comfortable, and… everything he didn’t deserve. Still, his head dropped down onto their shoulder. He let out a sigh of relief, a sigh he thought he didn’t… no, knew he didn’t deserve. Relief he didn’t deserve.
“You don’t need to be punished for something you didn’t do. You’re not Uldren,” They stated quietly, one of their hands trailing up and down his back as the other rested on his head. It felt so good and he hated it.
“I…” He sucked in a breath as the back of his eyes started to sting again. “I’m sorry about Cayde. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
“Crow…”
“I’m so, so sorry,” He bit back the sob that threatened to force its way up his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,”
“I’m sorry,”
“Crow!”
As much as he despised himself for it, the stupid sob he’d been trying to keep inside shoved its way out of him. A quiet, broken sound he didn’t mean for anybody but Glint and his pillow to hear.
You don’t get to be all emotional today, Sov, you did this.
“I’m so sorry,” He whispered, more into their shoulder than actually to them. He felt their arms shift around him.
“Stop saying sorry, Crow. None of this is your fault,” They murmured. He stirred, the guilt inside of him boiling up like a raging fire to devour every hint of comfort he received.
“It’s all my fault!” He spat, but his words held no actual venom. If they did, it was all toward himself.
“No it’s not. None of this is your fault. I know for a fact that if it really was you behind the trigger, you wouldn’t have aimed it at him in the first place,” The Guardian spoke quietly, one of their hands moving through his hair. “It isn’t fair that you have to bear his burdens. Hurt for what he did. The way these other Guardians treat you… none of it is fair. But… all I can do about it now is be here for you.”
He merely grunted in response, the momentary crying making his head hurt ten times worse. Right now, he just wanted to go to bed.
“You still with me, Crow?”
“Mhm,”
He heard them snicker lightly. “The first res flu is always the worst. It’ll pass soon enough.”
He was too tired and too comfortable to respond. So comfortable he was in jeopardy of falling asleep right there.
“You’re not Uldren. You didn’t kill Cayde. Do you understand that?”
He opened his mouth to no avail.
“Crow?”
“I… understand,” He whispered, adjusting his head slightly on their shoulder. He felt them move their arms.
They snickered lightly. “You gonna go to bed right there?”
It took him a moment to process their words, but he finally worked up a quiet: “Maybe.”
He was hardly conscious when he heard them snicker again. “Then let’s get you on the couch, yeah?”
#crow destiny#the crow destiny#destiny the crow#guardian x crow#destiny crow#destiny#destiny 2#destiny guardian#destiny guardians#cayde 6#cayde-6
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Hello… do you have any head canons for Hansen to share? I was disappointed to only have one conversation with him, and you seem like a good person to ask. >:3
Me? Having ideas about the warlord? Nooo never-
Anyways here’s a list of Thoughts that I hope are vaguely coherent, though warning: they’re a tad all over the place
He was raised by his granny on his father’s side. She was actually from Serbia, and had met his grandfather when he spent some time there then moved back to America with him. His grandfather was dead before he was born, and his mother’s parents weren’t present in his life. Grandma Hansen practically raised little Kurt, his parents were career-oriented – his father a colonel and his mother held some minor political role – so their time for him was limited.
She fostered his love for her home country as she shared stories of her own childhood while tucking him in to bed, or when he was still small enough to sit on her knee. One evening she told him a story of the bauk, and boy did that plant a mild fear of the dark him. He had to sleep with a nightlight for a few weeks after.
His granny owned a dog when he was growing up, dear ol’ Bowie. She was a big loveable mutt who was already quite old when Kurt was born. She’d sleep under his crib when he was a baby, and would walk shakily alongside him as he was taking his first steps. Almost every photo of baby Kurt has Bowie in it, up until he was four years old and she passed.
He got to choose their next pet dog when he was eight, it was a mean looking bastard he named Titan. The Barghest symbol is based on him.
His gran died just before he got promoted to colonel. It broke his heart that she didn’t get to see it, because she was so excited to see him get the recognition he deserved. He took her ashes back to Serbia, promised that he’d visit when he could. He hasn’t been able to visit for a while.
His dad’s dead by the time Barghest is finding its feet, his mother gets removed from her position while Myers is simultaneously airing her very public condemning of her son’s actions. Nothing’s heard from her since. She’s probably dead too tbh.
Kurt’s lactose intolerant. He had to learn to like his coffee black, the cramps just weren’t worth it. (weakling)
Damn though can this man handle his drink. He can hold eye contact and not make a face as he downs vodka straight from the bottle. His men get a good laugh when he blames them and their shit for it. Tbh he’s only partially joking
Kurt when he hears the bullshit Yuri tries to pull:
His right arm is a recent cybernetic only gotten in the past year or two, meanwhile his left was standard militech-issued at the time he was serving. He suffered a relatively minor injury during training and took the opportunity to get an upgrade.
He’s rather wary of netrunners, esp more combat oriented ones. While he appreciates their effectiveness and utility, he always has an edge of caution around them and takes particular care to keep them either charmed or afraid, whatever keeps them from potentially acting against him.
During Operation: Midnight Storm, there was always this quiet wariness to Hansen and his men when an Arasaka AV would fly close to their position. Each time they waited in absolute silence, dreading to hear ‘Code: A.S’ over the comms
Some of the younger, braver, stupid men were biting at the bit for it, Hansen wasn’t keen to be added to Arasaka’s graveyard by Smasher.
He’s a light sleeper. He doesn’t particularly struggle in getting to sleep, it’s just that a pin dropping can wake him
He’s quite Spartan in regards to his personal possessions – his room lacks a lot of personal touch, there’s really nothing that signifies it as Kurt’s beyond the small collection of knives and guns on display. If anything it could be mistaken as another storage room. Even the bed, while fucking massive, isn’t comfortable beyond measure, the mattress is stiff and the pillows memory foam.
He listens to the same music on repeat and has done for the past few years. I’m inflicting my personal tastes on him and saying his favs includes Biffy Clyro (x), Iron Maiden (x), and Black Sabbath (x)
Even though he could get actual real meat he still prefers the taste of synth-beef, it’s what he grew up knowing. Probably eats more pot noodles than he should, but he’s a busy man and they’re quick and filling
Because I think it’s funny and would rile Johnny up something fierce: Kurt…appreciates Silverhand’s actions back in ’23. He’s well aware Silverhand got the nuke from Militech and is a massive fucking hypocrite but hey, isn’t everyone? He wouldn’t be where he is now if Johnny didn’t get that ball a-rolling.
Barghest does have a militant structure, a very clear hierarchy of who’s in charge of who, but it’s a lot more casual? In how they speak with each other. Even with Kurt. He makes them see him as a person and not this mighty figurehead. He jokes around with recruits, might ruffle one’s hair in passing after knocking the shit outta them and giving them pointers on their footing. It’s partially real affection for the people under his command, and another part is simple manipulation – he wants to give them something real to tether their loyalty to, wants them to see him as a man, a terrifying, brutal bastard at times but nonetheless a man, and not the untouchable better-than-you titan the higher-ups at the NUSA always painted themselves as.
Speaking of brutality – it’s something I feel like the game didn’t really show of his. Even V seems quite flippant towards his threat of sending them back in body bags – Hansen’s hands were tied that particular night as he didn’t want to cause a scene in front of his guests. Bad for PR and all that. But the worst of his punishments make the corps look tame. He doesn’t immediately execute; he tortures until there’s nothing left of the person from fingernails to spirit. And then their bodies are just tossed in the disposal units. Though, public executions on his order aren’t all that uncommon either.
Not so much a headcanon as a thought: I genuinely don’t know what would have happened to Songbird had Kurt’s plans gone perfect. Maybe he might’ve let her fly away, let the little bird go on to the stars, keep his word and all that. But it’d be just as easy to make her disappear; she’s dangerous, a living weapon that’s he’s already got his use out of. A loose end who knows too much. I wouldn’t be surprised if the freedom he’d have given her was a bullet to the brain.
Knife play! Blood kink! Choking kink!! He also likes pulling hair a lot
He gets put on the back foot quite quickly if his partner takes charge, he’s used to being expected to take on that role, but he recovers and indulges quick enough
He runs hot, just an absolute radiator of a man who’d probably be great to cuddle with if NC wasn’t in a fucking desert.
He’s distressingly touch-starved and would probably sink into a proper hug like a warm bath.
While he is very much alive and well in Victoria’s canon, I do like to think that following his death certain information was transferred to NetWatch pertaining to Songbird and what Myers had her do beyond the Blackwall. Fucking her over even when he’s gone, a last little fuck you as he still somehow manages to get the last laugh.
#cyberpunk 2077#phantom liberty#Kurt Hansen#why Felix its almost like you know bald war criminals are my bread and butter-#but yea I do have some headcanons for the man#just a fewwwww#the biggest difficulty i had was deciding what iron maiden song to link to
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More than Meets the Eye Retrospective: Dark Cybertron Part 1
Hello all you happy autobots and welcome back to my long look at Transformers More Than Meets The Eye. When we last left I looked at the sister comic, Robots in Disguise.
But a necessary one for Today's review: Dark Cybertron, a crossover between both books.
Dark Cybertron is the cumilation of a plot that had been slowly building in the background of Robots in Disguise while Bumblebee dithered, Prowl tried to install a dictatorship long before he got a bug in his brain telling him to keep going with that, and Starscream was awesome. Shockwave has been up to SOMETHING over the issues, working with his mentor Jhiaxus.
Chasing Jhiaxus in the best part of RiD was Optimus Prime, redubbing himself Orion Pax out of disgust with the legacy of the primes, alongside his friends Hardhead, Wheelie and Garnak, who soon found themselves chasing Jhiaxus. Mr J eventually lured them to a dead planet, where he and Waspinator, yes the boy himself, ignited a titan and made tracks for cybertron while leaving our heroes to their deaths as Shockwave held back Soundwave and his decepticons , igniting his final plan.
It's here that mystery plan comes to fruition as the lost lighters split up gang to help save the unvierse, while Bumblebee and his Cavlcade of Fuckups, and also Arcee try to stop the apocalypse and Starscream gets a new paint job as he tries to hold on for dear life to his throne with a big ole event.
This crossover's notable for a few reasons: it's the first proper event comic for the transfomers: While there had been previous event style arcs with All Hail Megatron and Chaos and crossovers with the IDW wide Infestation and the marvel crossover Transformers/New Avengers, which also means the new avengers and likely all of marvel exisit in this unvierse.
But this is the first crossover between books within the line, something that would become a tradition as IDW liked money and Hasbro liked free advertising for whatever they were doing in the toys at the time, either threading in designs from their current lines or in the case of combiner wars and titans return, just straight up having IDW model their events to match the toyline. . This lead to the ambitious and failed Hasbro Universe with Revolution, and the universe even ends on one with Unicron.
Ironically though.. this is the ONLY one to loop in more than meets the eye. And thank Primus for that. Look i'm not anti-event comic, sometimes an event can be a total banger. For a recent example see Marvel's Judgement Day. But the big two tend to do events and crossovers EVERY damn year, not giving books a chance to rest or status quos to breathe for a bit. So having More than Meets the Eye sit that shit out is a fucking relief.
It's also from a practical standpoint as this crossover shows both creative teams had trouble meshing the two together: the narrative splits into four plot threads, one in the dead universe with Optimus, Rodimus and CO, one with the rest of the lost light , one with the cavlcade of fuckups and one with god emperor starscream. the latter two evnetually intersect and the two casts DO interact towards the end of the crossover.. but in the six issues i'm covering today the only ones to interact with the lost lighters are Starscream in a brief video call and Optimus in one of the main plots. It's clear that while the two writers liked each other.. they may not of known entirely how to make the two casts function together, and thus kept them to their corners.
The result isn't a bad story but a fractured one. I will say upfront I won't be able to judge the story as a whole till next time, but I needed to do it in two parts as it's a big boy and there's a lot to go over. So join me under the cut as darkness falls over cybertron, titans rise, and rodimus gets a new toy so stupid it will bite him in the ass for the rest of the comic. IT's Dark Cybertron and it's under the cut.
We open with Nova Prime's crew. Nova Prime was a prime who was seen as a great one.. but in reality was an supremacist piece of scrap who wanted to conquer all other forms of life. He will not be missed. Among him are our boy Cyclonus and Jhiaxus, who tells Shockwave to FINISH MY WORK.
In the present.. Shockwave almost has, having seeded ores aroudn the galaxy and experimenting on a titan, both the same one that declared Starscream chosen one and then vanished.. and that Waspinator just brought home. It starts screaming in terror and bleeding out it's eyes
Elsewhere on Cybertron, Starscream woke up from a nap to find a few hours ago the sun rose.. and hasn't gone down. He also has a new all red everything paintjob, a familiar one
As i've been told and found out.. this is Starscream's look from Transformers Armada, which I did watch when it was coming out but entirely forgot this is what Starscream looked like because my memory is quicksand and only few things escape it like X-men trivia.
It's.. not my faviorite. It's almost ENTIRELY red and whlie it does look better in later shots, it's just not as fun to look at as his classic look and while he'll keep this look for the windblade mini series, i'ts telling the artists reverted to his old standby as soon as they could. The Armada look isn't bad and looking at stills from teh anime it loks GREAT there.. but it's a bit too one note for the page, at least these pages.
Starscream decides to call the autobots for help.. not the ones he exiled, an I told you so from prowl is death in it's purest form, no OUR autobots.
For now though we cut back to Optimus. Since we last left him he and his crew are trying to escape.. and luckily run into some old friends
I love this so much. Unsuprisingly Swerve made it his ring tone. Naturally Rodimus dove in anyway to save his old friend/boss/dad.
Rodimus shows his dad around, which really feels like a teenager accidently exposing his dad to all the stuff his dumbass friends do while trying to be respectible. The wind's taken out of his sails by Ultra Magnus who asks if Optimus is taking command with all the tact and grace he's known for.
Optimus isn't, he's only here for the guest spot , he's got his own leading roll to play in the other books, but he is happy to get the tour. .until Starscream calls. Screamer of course can't help but passively agressively brag about how he was elected in by popular demand after bumblbee fucked up hard
Then asks Cyclonus for help since he knows the dead universe better than anyone. The Dead Universe is a parasite, a universe that should fucntion right but is instead both sentient and EVILLLL. And it's hungies.
Back on Cybertron, Team Fuckup is starring in horror and the Dinobots want to punch the fuck out of the sun. Bumblbee tells them to wait for it... and granted he's telling them not to punch a bright light on the horizon, something even prowl can tell is stupid which tells you something, but honestly after the last two years worth of comics, the bar for Bumlebee's competence is low.
He ends up being right as the necrotitan lands. Meanwhile Shockwave goes into a whole rant about hwo this is all ineveitible that has a bunch of vauge images and two optimus primes about ot throw hands for some reason. none of this is relevant to the rest of the crossover, it's a clear misdirect and it sure does exist. The real point is who he's talking to: Nova Prime and Galvatron, who somehow returned. Also Galvatron and Megatron are two seperate people in this continuity, happens a lot, moving on.
Onto chapter 2 and Team Fuckup's strategy is now suns out guns out.. though Bumblebee's redemption arc continues as when the Autobots want to punch the giant, Bumlebee tells them no and tells them to either get in line or fuck righ toff, which actually gets them to listen. Seems Bee got a spine with his new form and I like it. After 20 some issues of him listening to whoever yelled the loudest while ignoring the people he's supposed to be serving, this is nice. It's clear field command fits him better.
He does have a bit of an exestial crisis wondering if this is the titan that choose starscream and I THINk it is. I'm not sure. But either way it's here and i'ts big.
Back with Team Rodimus, Brainstorm tells Optimus the dead unvierse is alive and that's why going into the dead universe is tricky: it'll kill anything it senses shouldn't be there. Luckily he has a plan.. and a weird creepy parsite in a jar. It's also so fun seeing the straightlaced optimus interact with the lost lighters. So dang good seeing Chromedome resisit the urge to condescend to Optimus.
Back with Starscream he's doing what any sensible cybertronian would do in this situation: GET HIS GUN. Or a lot of them hidden in a closet Rattrap is telling him to come out of. Please everyone knows Starscream as pansexual as fuck. Rattrap urges caution.. which is like saying it's tuesday but still when Starscream is whiffing it you know it's .. also tuesday but also probably an issue.
Back on the lost light we get a great scene as Rodimus, Magnus and Optimus hit swerves. Magnus is curious if they should be having command discussions in a bar but Rodimus for once isn't snippy, which tells us deep shit is a comin: he simply wants to be by his men.. granted he regrets that when he finds Swerve taking photos but for once Swerve is also not as flip: it's three of the greatest autobots of all time, on the preciipce of SOMETHING happening, something they call feel.. that shared feeling of dread. Something's coming and it ain't good.
The trio get a text from brainstorm: He's ready. This being brainstorm the most he has is a palm thing that keeps the dead universe from killing you using the venom of a monster from there he keeps in a jar. Granted this is only because it's short notice.
So our heroes come up with a plan: split up. Rodimus, Optimus, Hardhead and Cyclonus (Since he has experince) will go into the dead universe to plug whatever stygian hole is leaking. Wheelie and Garnak will stay by in Optimus' ship to pick them up after. Meanwhile the Lost LIght will head after Jhiaxus. Magnus is doubtful he can lead.. but Rodimus perks him up, assuring him he can do this: he may of been thorugh a lot.. but this is his comfort zone: "You're chasing a war criminal and i'm leaping into the unknown"
Back on cybertron Starscream talks with Scoops, a cybertronian ratrap framed for him and who belivies in screamer's prophecy. And as it turns out Screamer REALLY shoudl've payed attention to what that prophecy was or asked or.. anything other than accept it as face value as it turns out he's pegged as a "false leader" one who will bring on the coming darkness... "The stars shall scream and the symbol of the uncreator shall become clear" and said symbol is.. not encouraging to screamer or us
Anyways back to Shockwave: he's talking to Nova, and reveals the space bridge in the Necrotitan isn't working.. but luckily he has a backup plan: megatron.
We end the issue with two more cut tos: in the dead unvierse, Team Rodtimus fight some parasites hoping to snack on them since the signal their using reads "FOOD' to them and while they get away from them fine.. someone else notices. more on him soon. Back with Team Fuckup, the Calvary arrives: SOUNDWAVE BABY.
Part 3 begins with Starscream, whose assuring his adoring public.. only for a meteor to apparnetly land near the titan.
Speaking of shooting the Autobots wage a war to destroy the not so evil forces of Soundwave, only for the metor thing ot distract them too.
Before our next plot point let's talk about this series pacing as you might of noticed the last paragraph or two was just "this plot point, now this". And that's because the series likes to jump around, jump around, get up get up and get down. It has FOUR plots it's juggling and rarely do the issues just.. focus on one or two, especially early on. So each issue is bouncing around several subplots often for just two pages at a time. I don't mind a big story having to move around, but you have to let things settle for a minute. Let a plot point marinate a bit. I shouldn't feel rushed in a 12 issue crossover. 12 issues is a LOT for a story, again why this is a two parter. We do get some good character stuff like Bee growing a spine, a lot of it feels like a reahash. For instance did we need the starscrema going to get his gun scene? no we coudl've had rattrap suggest talking to scoops earlier. None of this is bad and some of the character stuff is necessary: Rodimus showing optimus around both moves the plot along with starscream's call and is objectively hilaroius. But a lot of it feels like thumb twiddling to get to the next plot point. We probably coudl've compacted most of team fuckups scenes into half an issue, if that. It feels like their cutting to each plot to make it seem important instead of carring how a story should progress. It feels like the writers took turns with scenes instead of truly colaberating on the crossover an das a result we just jump jump jump.
So we jump! Jump for the plot to our next point: the lost light where their being pushed off course... turns out Metroplex's thumb what got embedded in the ship after the annual is alive again.. and Getaway knows why: Tyrest, for all his madness, once said you can find a titan with a titan.. and figures Metroplex is trying to reunite with itself.
At the Necrotitan, Team Fuckup sadly gets back to buisness as usual.. arguing with each other. Fortuantely this time, Bumblebee.. is still a compitent leader. He's still on "wait for it" mode.. because they really CAN'T do anything and attacking a giant statue is a death warrant, and he's taken Team Soundwave's help as while they aren't on great terms, they have the same goal: Stop Shockwave. Prowl takes this with the grace, dignity and cool he's known for
God it's good to hear ANYONE, especially Bumblebee, tell Prowl to "shut up for once". And Bee's not wrong. While wait and hope things go well was a TERRIBLE strategy when Bee was running the planet and all it did was get starscream on the throne and all of them exiled, in this case.. their facing a giant cybertronian with weird glowing eyes who they can't really understand. As we'll learn shortly titans function SORT'VE like regular transformers, but are so giant, massive and ancient their hard to parse. A small band of semi-reformed fuckups, an asshole, and a bunch of casette tapes and their player/dad isn't REMOTELY enough to stop that thing and interacting with it might just piss it off.
And sure enough Starscream seemingly prooves that hypothesis as he tries to manipulate it by talking to it.. only for it to explode into 2 or 3 pages of purple light. And This.. I like> it lets the MAGNITUDE of this thing's power play out, it's sudden, and it's shocking, and the effects afterwords aren't good as Arcee is out, the death wave having taken down their forces. once again Prowl won't shut the fuck up, wanting them to attack... and bee brushes him off essentially asking
He points out the death wave, his words not mine, is heading towards the city and despite Starscream's efforts.. it goes off. Shooting the titan would've eithe rdone nothing or set this off SOONER. There is NOTHING they can do and that.. works for me. As douchey as Prowl's being which, par for the course and all that aside, you understand his want to do SOMETHIGN.. but their in a situation where all they can do is just sit, wait, and HOPE they can figure something out. Shockwave said it best as Starscream tried talking to the titan. "We were all too late from the beginning". Unlike the bulk of the comic thus far sitting and reacting is all they have. .because they don't know the full scope of what's going on here. WE as an audience don't know what the hell the necrotitan just did: I only have it's name thanks to the wiki.
The wave not only hurt the living.. but wakes the dead as Metalhawk is back, on the bad guy's side now.. and pisssssseeed. Starscream to his credit reacts more with "Oh goody another cherry on the shit sundae that is today." but he still gets stabbed and Metalhawk is taking Megatron, bye. While Scoops goes to help people, the citzens surround starscream, his star falling.
On the lost light thei rleft with a decision: follow Jhiaxus.. or follow the severed thumb. Ratchet dosen't wanna as he feels their back in the "autobots mainstream" again... but Brainstorm disagrees.. and Perciptor shockingly AGREES: an ancient god has asked them to come find him, and given the end of days is going on back at home, an ancient god could REALLY come in handy right now. Magnus agrees and they head to a planet full of blood red water. At least I hope it's water. THey go deep into planet danzig, and find a horde of microbots ready to tear them apart. These are the amonites from the 25th issue adn they aren't happy.
Closing out the issue Shockwave prepares to make Megatron into a spacebridge. It's very impressive and not at all healthy.
Chapter 4 begins back with the lost light and with good art for those portions again! Yeah while i've glossed over it because this is a LOT of comics to go over and i'm already behind, the art for the lost light sections of parts 2 and 3 is once again by James Raiz, who has a very sketcyhy lifeldian style.. and not bein ga fan of those styles in general, I like it even lest on the quippy, weird lost light. It dosen't fit at all and the lack of expresssion dosen't really work with characters who thrive on expression even when they got no mouths.
It also works as we get bits like Brainstorm trying to hop onto Perciptor's exposition and Magnus announcing himself as "duly apointed enforcer of the tyrest accord" before remembering "Oh yeah the horrifying events of the last arc right. Just an autobot now". I'ts a bit funny but also very sad. All it gets is the super combinining amonites blowing up their window.
Back on cybertron the mob turns on starscream, with Scoops rightfully calling him out for dooming them and pointing out the black mark on him as a sign.. whne really he just tried to schmooze an elder god of a robot, but semantics. poitn is time is running out for our faviorite boy.
Back on planet Danzig, Skids remembers the amonites and wonders why their pissed.. forgetting they you know, ended their forever war and one of them tried to kill thunderclash, something the lost light prevented. Take your pick.
With the Lost Light too big a target the crew decides to split up: they have a few water vechiles and half of the aquabots, so they should be fine, but they still need more... so Magnus gets an idea: they'll take the rodpod. Like the audience Getaway wonders "what the fuck is that" before we gaze on it in all ti's glory.. or as glorious as it is as for some reason we're suddenly back to raiz art.
Yes the rodpod, which Magnus was worried about as naturally Rodimus loves this stupid fucking thing as mucha s I do. But Skids is banking on Rodimus' short attention span.
The important thing here, besides this very hilariously stupid thing happened in a major crossover and that's awesome, is Getaway's reaction. His disguist, his sheer confusion.. for now it just comes off as most people's reaction to this ego piece who aren't used to Rodimus shit by now. But true to roberts.. this bit is one of the MAIN REASONS why we still had to cover this crossover. It's not the only one but this one small character moment.. ends up changing the entire course of this entire comic and our heroes lives forever. Yes the RODPOD is so rediculous and breaks a man's brain so bad, it has deep lasting conseqeunces that will last to the finale of this comic. I love that more than words.
Our heroes take the rodpod out for a spin, and while Rung kills a guy, and it's awesome, our heroes blow up a giant super combined amonite as they apparently have no upper limit but no upper limit dosen't mean "can't blow up real good"
Back to the dead Universe where Optimus deals with some squabbling from the kids
See this.. really shows the contrast between the two styles: the bickering over with Team Fuckup is annoying at times, bette rin this series but still annoying. The banter between the lost light on the other hand feels both more genuine and funnier. And I get the quippy style isn't for everyone: The MCU has gotten some fatigue fo rthat.. but I like a bit of back and forth. it shoudln't be the whole thing, and MTMTE succeeds largley because the characters are deeply made as well as deeply hilaroius, but a little humor helps. It breaks up the dark exesntial terror of everything to occasoinally have things like Rodimus' stupid headship he built for his own amusment or Optimus being about 5 mintues from turning this dead universe around so help me god.
Yet the questions he brings up .. arne't unfair as his next cuts deep: if Optimus had asked him to stay, would he have? And the answer.. is yes. Yet what cuts deeper.. is optimus response: He has the utmost faith in Rodimus and the progress he's made.. and it's clear form his silence he both regrets he's hardly made any and the choices he HAS made. He saved the world, something he rightfully rubbe din Hardhead's face as he was one of the many who nearly died thanks to Tyrest's attmepted genocide, but it's clear the thigns he's done weigh on rodimus: Would staying have helped? Could he have made a bette cybertron?
And the hard answer is.... no. Him staying wouldn't of been a good thing: he didn't want to be there, none of the bots who left really had ideas for a new better cybertron and MORE autobots wasn't going to fix a situation where autobots being there at all was causing tension with the nails. The sad truth is Bumblebee failed not because Rodimus left, but because he didn't have any plan other than "We want to retain power" , and with a throng of people crying for a better government and something NEW that was never going to happen.
The ironic thing is while Rodimus is on a quest for the old... his going out, exploring, doing daring due war or no war.. IS something new. He's letting his bots be who they are, having down time, movie nights, open bars. Sure he's also shoved some of them into very bad situations, the whole overlord mess was a waking nightmare and should never have happened and swerve shooting rung is ENTIRELY his fault. Rodimus, like Bee, often tries to lead like this is war time instead of a shaky peace. Yet despite also operating from that style.. he's casual enough and caring enough deep down that his bots.. get to have lives. Be who they want to be. He's not yelling tat them for daring to want to not shoot people or trying to create infastructure, he's just like "when I need you, do your fucking job bro". He may be embarassed around optimus.. but his letting his crew be people instead of weapons is better than Bee trying to lead like this is a war of attrition and not "what comes after" or Prowl acting like the war neve rended and a shiny new police state is better and not what caused the war in the first place.
OUr heroes soo seen Cyclonus is bleeding.. and soon have bigger issues as Nightbeat has arrived.
Back on cybertron Prowl sucks suprising no one wanting AGAIN to attack the giant robot that just wiped out hal fof them despite having no plan other than "shoot it REAL hard" Bee once again calls him out
He brused Prowl's ego enough to actually get him to pause.. well huff like a child but Prowl does have soundwave scan the city, which picks up something bad: Megatron SCREAMING as Shockwave both turn shim into a bridge and tries to get him to join. He naturallyr efuses ESPECAILLY since the primes are involved, so instead of joining in the new world order.. he gets prime coming out of his chest.
We end the issue on Team Magnus as they find Metroplex.. and end up in his eye socket.. which is hollowed out. Which is impressive but horrifying. And also not very healthy.
Onto part 5, and Shockwave is helping his pawns out of a screaming megatron's chest
When Team Fuckup arrives... Bumblebee has no idea what Shockwav'es doing but it end snow.
It dosen't though because Metalhawk is here, and Bumblbee's attempts to pull an "I know your in there somewhere fight", failed as Metalhawk is consumed by vengance and purple stuff. Skywarp attempts to just free megatron but his teleporting fails.
Prowl questions WHY Shockwave is helping nova.. not getting that maybe, just maybe the One Eyed Two Horned Grounded Purple Plotter whose already manuvered you all like chess pieces.. is using them as pawns for something much worse. Either way he gives Nova time to escape and his best buddy Waspinator time to bring him the staff Waspinator used to awaken the titan and summons it as if it were one of his x-men.. and has it crush them as if it were his juggernaught.
Back to the dead universe, let's talk about Nightbeat: Nightbeat is an autobot detective. During Nova Prime's previous plot, he had a thing installed in Nightbeat's head to turn the poor guy into his sleeper agent. Unfortunately for him he again picked a detective and one of the best at that so while he coudln't do much, Beat at least figured out he was being brainwashed and after shooting Hardhead had enough will to beg heardhead to shoot him.
So naturally his sudden return is a lot for everyone to process. As for how the shore he died on WAS connected to the dead unvierse, Optimus correctly guesses he got swept in with the tide. We get a sense of Nightbeat's personality too, as doing a simple look at Cyclonus tells him about Tailgate's near injury: he has facial scars, they were self inflicted, and they were patched recently. Cyclonus responds to this invasion of privacy mixed with genuine sympathy by trying to choke a bitch.
Back with team fuckup they TRY to count up their wounded.. but they hav ebigger issues: Megatron is craddling Ironhide crisis on infinite earth's style, before Galvatron rips him the fuck in half, starting his streak at one and declaring WHOS NEXT.. and somehow that's not their biggest issue as the titan is still active and shockwave is now in control.
Back in the dead universe, we find out how Nightbeat survivied: he was dead going through the portal and sense dead equals alive in this universe, he's spared. Sorta like how a healing spell usually hurts a zombie in an rpg just reversed.
At any rate he has some bad news for cyclonus: his hand generator thingy broke nad the Dead Universe has reclaimed him.. and he also has time to ominously say "your all home now" before triggering a giant force field around them. Turns out his death didn't undo his sleeper agent brain thing and Nova has come for them.
Before we move on to our final chapter for this batch, let's look at this cover. Which I rarely do for tim's sake but this one well
It looks like Nova Prime is playing with his dolls again.
At any rate we're back with what's left of Team Fuckup: bumblbee' smissing while what's left is running from the titan. The Dinobots plan to lead it away.. but it was already going this way they just were running away from it and are only pulling a prometheus because their genuinely not fast enough to get out the side, especially with some of them carrying wounded.
Back with Team Magnus, they notice Metroplex is decaying... partly due to age as getting spare parts is hard for titans and partly due to the weird blood water all around Planet Danzig. Theya lso find that Metro's BRAIN is missing: he's still alive but without that he's clearly dying. Getaway notices something in the water and calls Swerve for help but h'es a bit busy getting his groove on
They do however find a place to drydock.
Back in the dead universe, Hardhead tells his friend he's going to rekill him while Optimus fakes a fight with rodimus to tell him there's a hidden barrier. While Hardhead tries to reach him Nova arrives.
Back on cybertron Starscream's no good horrible very bad day continues as he finds not only is his mark of shame spreading, but he's not the only one dying. After getting yelled at by his second tankor today he finds the titan heading right for him and the wounded
Back on Planet Danzig, our heroes find some arrows in the dry dock.. but it takes them around in circles.. then an Amonite blows up the ship, leaving them stranded.
We end this issue and the first half of dark cybertron with Nova Prime megomanically gloating... Hardhead escapes to shut him up.. only for it not to go well> Turns out PRime is not only crazy strong, but he CRUSHES Hardheads fist in his hands and then watches the poor guy desintgrate. He has plans for those left though: he's taking them to see a new friend he's made: bumlbee whose the shiny new space bridge.
So that's where we end it? Can Team Fuckup somehow save cybertron? Did any of team magnus survivie? Can Optimus shut this dude the fuck up. Find out in april folks! Thanks for reading
#transformers#comics#optimus prime#rodimus prime#ultra magnus#bumblebee#starscream#rattrap#waspinator#shockwave#swerve
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