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xoxo-teddybear · 3 years

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Cheater? - Bakugou Katsuki

Bakugou x f!reader

Warnings: fake cheating, cursing, angst, fluff, crack

Summary: PRANK WARS!! After coming to the conclusion that his own girlfriend pulls better pranks than him and has been one up-ing a lot recently, Katsuki decided to break their unspoken rule and pull a cheating prank

A/N: I recommend reading this fic as a continuation of this fic. It’s about Y/N’s revenge.

BAKUGOU’S MASTERLIST

“I don’t know who the fuck is listening right now, but I, Katsuki fucking Bakugou, am begging whatever heavenly body, god, spiritual being, whatever the fuck it could be, to ensure that my girlfriend does not leave my dumbass for pulling this prank. Thank you, bless.”

Bakugou kept his eyes shut with his palms pressed together in a praying motion for the longest time while he spoke to something to protect his relationship. When he was done, he took a breather and got up from the shared bed. He took out the camera and set it up behind Y/N’s makeup stuff to hide it and began to put his prank into action.

A few hours ago he had Kirishima pretend to be a girl and had his best friend flirt with him through text. This went on for some time to make sure that if you were to scroll through his conversation, you’d find a lot of messages. At the end of the texts, Bakugou had Kirishima find a random pic online of some random girl’s ass and had the red head sent it. Bakugou answered it with a very flirtatious text, which had Kirishima send a very cutesy, appreciated reply in a very girly matter, which ended the conversation. Bakugou changed his friend’s name to some random name, Kiyoko, and finished the job. Yes, the two friends were very uncomfortable doing this whole thing.

With the camera now recording, all Bakugou needed to begin his prank was his prized possession. You.

—

Bakugou and you were cuddling on the king sized bed. You both were just talking about whatever while Katsuki remained on his phone. You didn’t see it yet, but Katsuki was “texting” his friend. In reality, he was just waiting for you to look up at his screen to notice the scandalous texts he and this “Kiyoko” were having.

“Baby?” You asked while looking at your pretty acrylics.

“Yes baby?” Bakugou said while still looking at his phone. He had his arm wrapped around you while you layed on him with your cheek on his chest.

“Ion know...I love you baby,” you said in the cutest voice. Bakugou could only make a face of extreme awe to appreciate his precious girlfriend.

“I love you too Teddy Bear,” he said. You lifted your head to smile at him but you took notice of how he was still staring at his phone.

You pouted before smirking and climbing up to come face to face with him. You got in between him and his phone and grabbed his face with both hands. He smiled at you before you leaned down to peck his lips multiple times. Once you were done you tucked your head under his chin and looked to the side, just enjoying the moment. He kissed the crown of your head before going back to “texting.”

At the sound of him pressing random things on the keyboard, your pout returned. “Baby~ Pay attention to me!!” You whined.

You removed your head out from under his chin and layed your head next to his. You looked at his phone and saw a ‘thank you’ with a kissy face emoji from a “Kiyoko” before Katsuki switched the screen to some random game. “Who’s Kiyoko?”

“Hm?” Katsuki asked, pretending to be oblivious.

“Who’s Kiyoko? You were just on a text chat with her, why is she sending you a kissy face?” You asked with a little more attitude. You tried to take the phone out of his hand but he pulled it away.

“She’s just a friend, babe.” Bakugou said.

“Okay, well if she’s just a friend then why can’t I see?” You questioned.

“Because there’s nothing to see.”

“She sent you a kissy face. That’s something I’d like to see.” You said while easily taking his phone out of his hand.

“Babe, no.” He said and took the phone back. “Shes just a friend.” You took the phone back and he tried to grab it again before you held the phone away at a distance to make sure he couldn’t grab it. “Babe. Noo, stooppp.”

“If she’s just a friend then why’re you trying to hide it?” You asked with the phone still far away and him attempting to reach for it.

“Cuz we’re about to go out and-“

“What the fuck?!” You said as you looked to the texts. You froze in your position as you brought the phone closed and scrolled through the texts, stumbling upon the picture. Bakugou tried to take the phone away from you but failed (on purpose.)

“She just wanted an opinion,” he tried explaining.

“An opinion?!” You asked while sitting up and pushing him off of you. “She sent you a booty pic with you complimenting her and shit. And you’re over here calling her babe!”

“It’s not like that-“

“Then what the fuck is it like Katsuki?!” You asked. You went back to the text and reread some of the messages out loud. “‘Bet you enjoyed it when I wrecked you last night, Relax Princess Y/N’s never gonna find out, I love you Kiyoko-‘ Are you fucking serious?!” You said with a cracked voice as you looked at him.

He put on a small smile for the act but on the inside it hurt him to see you like this, but the prank would prevail. “Baby, calm down.”

“I’m not gonna calm down Katsuki, you’re cheating on me!” You continued to go on and on about how pissed you were and Katsuki was struggling to hold back his laughs. He eventually got up to run to the downstairs bathroom so he could let out his chuckles. “Where the fuck are you going?! We’re not done with this conversation!”

Bakugou said nothing as he ran to the bathroom and slammed the door shut. He bursted out in laughter as he crouched over due to all the excitement. He looked in the mirror and ruffled his hair a bit as he remembered the way you looked. The sad you would’ve made his heart ached but the angry you just made him laugh and kind of turned him on in a way.

After getting all his giggles out, he calmed down and got back into character. He opened the door to the bathroom only to see you walking down the stairs with your jacket and shoes on, carrying a small bag. “Baby?”

At the sound of his voice you only looked his way with a mean glare as you continued your walk to the front door. Bakugou ran to you as fast as he could as worry spilled through his body. “Baby, stop. Where are you going?”

“Get the fuck away from me. I’m done, we’re done. I’m going.” You said with a cold voice. Bakugou ran in front of you and held onto your arms as he pushed you back further into the house but you fought against his hold.

“Y/N, stop. It was just a prank.” Bakugou whined.

“Like I fucking believe that.” You said while trying to pry his hands off of you. Bakugou whimpered as he grew worried and felt himself getting choked up. He could feel the tears approaching but held them back. He could still save himself.

“Baby please. Come back upstairs, I’ll show you the camera!” He begged but you finally got his hands off of you as you ran to the door. You ran out the door and Bakugou grew frantic as he ran to the room to get the camera. When he came back down and ran out to the front to show you, you had already backed out of the driveway and were driving down the street. “Y/N!”

Bakugou ran back upstairs and into the bedroom to find his phone on the bed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

He was quick to find your number and call you but you declined it. He called again a few more times and like before, you declined them. He called you so much that eventually, you stopped declining them and just began to straight up ignore them. This led to Bakugou leaving voicemails.

“Baby? Please pick up it was just a prank.”

“Y/N, I’m so sorry, I swear it was a prank! Please come back home!”

“Please come back Y/N! It was just a joke, none of it was real! Please answer me.”

“Baby, please come back. I love you.”

When he realized you weren’t going to answer, he opened up the messages with Kirishima and changed his name back before calling him.

“Hello?”

“Kirishima!” Bakugou said and his friend could practically hear the tears. “Prank went wrong! Went so wrong! Y/N fucking left! She didn’t even give me a chance to explain!”

Bakugou began hyperventilating as he tugged at his hair and looked around. He didn’t even focus on what Kirishima was saying as he looked around the once shared bedroom. He went through the closet and saw some of your clothes and shoes missing. Some of your makeup was off the vanity and when Bakugou looked to the nightstand to see the smashed picture frame that held the image of you both on your third year anniversary, he began sobbing.

“Please! Just fucking call her to explain! That’s all!”

“Alright, I’ll do it. Don’t worry, okay?” His friend replied to which Bakugou only hung up. He had every right to worry. His dumbass was about to lose you. Bakugou sat back down on the bed as he cried into his hands some more. He looked at himself in the large mirror hanging on the wall before scrunching his face and screaming.

“FUCK!” He shouted and threw something at the wall. He didn’t know what he grabbed, he just knew it broke. Bakugou flopped onto the large bed and cried some more as he waited for something, anything, to happen. But that night, nothing did.

—

3 days had passed and for 3 days Bakugou had constantly been calling you, your friends, your family, anybody he could do that he could reach you. He had constantly been crying and regretting pulling that stupid, stupid prank. It wasn’t worth losing you.

For the past few days, Kirishima had been checking up on Katsuki. He had been coming over a few times a day by using the hidden house key you both left under a rock on at the house entrance. On the third day, Bakugou told him to stop coming by and that he wanted to be by himself.

—

Bakugou had been hallowing in sadness on the bed until he heard the door open. He sighed again and walked to this bedroom door. On his way there he took notice of his appearance in the mirror and even though he was in the dark, he still saw his red, puffy eyes and tired face. He finally opened the door and walked to the living room so he could ward off his pesky friend.

“Shitty Hair, I told you that I didn’t wa-“ his eyes popped open at the sight he saw in the living room. He froze on the spot but felt immediate relief. “Y/N!”

“...Hi Katsuki,” you said in a soft voice. Bakugou smiled and instantly ran to you to pull you in for a tight hug. He squeezed you tight and grew joyous when he felt you softly hug him back.

“I missed you so much! I’m so fucking sorry, it was just a prank I swe-“

“Katsuki! I know, okay? Kirishima told Mina and she told me everything.” You explained and pushed him off slightly so you could face him. He nodded in understanding and you took note of his red eyes and nose. You sighed before speaking. “This is why we don’t pull pranks like this Katsuki!”

He sadly chuckled at you reprimanding him but nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah...I’m so sorry, Baby.”

“You should be! I almost actually left you!” You said with a little pout. Bakugou sadly laughed with relieved tears in his eyes as he held you.

“I know. I swear I won’t do anything like this again.” He promised.

“You better not.” You said, squished against his chest. You leaned up and kissed his cheek before you dragged him to the couch. You and Bakugou spent the rest of the day making up and cuddling. Everything felt so right again and Bakugou definitely learned his lesson.

A/N: not spell checked, sorry! Ummm…THIS KINDA SUCKED😭🤣

Tag list : @sxcker4you @aomi04 @tessabrown101 @ebiharachan @is-this-ash @iris-shihabi @sxturn-stars @isolight

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marvelsbanner · 3 years

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Body, Mind, and Soul

Prompt: there simply needs to be more vision fic out there🥺 may i request a cute one where you've been going out for a while but the big L word hasn't been said yet and vis is just.. trying his best to tell you but doesn't know how🥺🥺 he's just so cute like that😭❤️ kissy i love ur stuff

Pairing: Vision x reader

Warnings: Slight language, tooth rotting fluff - beware of cavities

Word Count: ~1700

A/n: Reblogs, likes, and feedback are very much appreciated! <3 All mistakes are my own!

**I do not own marvel, sadly** **not my gif**

“Darling, may I speak with you for a moment?”

Vision phased through your walls to where you were sitting on your bed reading. Months ago you would have jumped straight out of your bones, startled by the synthezoid’s intrusion and lack of personal boundaries. In all honestly, it was no sooner after you had explained the concept of privacy and simple manners to Vision that you had come to look forward to his visits, not caring if he was intruding as long as he came to see you at all.

It was strange, you’ll admit- very strange. You were the newest Avenger recruit, and the youngest (if you didn’t count that he was technically born a little over a year ago? He had the wisdom of a thousand year old sorcerer, so you didn’t think of him as younger) and so he had a naturally protective nature about him when it came to you.

He always tried to be by your side during missions, saving your ass on multiple occasions. He never made you feel weak or like you needed protecting, but he was just always there for you. Not just in missions, but in everything. Joining the Avengers was a life changing decision that was not easy in any sense. You didn’t exactly have the prettiest past, which is partially what landed you there in the first place. You knew that none of the members there were exactly saints, but you couldn’t help but feel like you didn’t deserve the new chance at life you were given. Not to mention you had been hearing about the Avengers for years now, and in your mind it was hard to take them off of this pedestal of superhero-assassin-gods to simple coworkers and family.

Vision could sense your uneasiness, they all could really- but he had no filter and no sense of boundaries and was the only one to confront you about it. You were taken aback at first, but it was truly exactly what you needed.

He would bring dinner to your room, offering to sit with you as you ate- even though he didn’t need to himself. He brought you DVDs, claiming Wanda told him that they were what lifted her mood. When that didn’t work he tried bringing some old records that Tony recommended, eventually bringing some books from Steve’s “project modernization” stash that peaked your interest. Some nights he would sit with you as you read, reading over your shoulder or watching something on the tv, just content to be in your presence. You never asked him to, and you never asked why, but you also never asked him to leave.

The dynamic between the two of was certainly an unlikely one, Steve even asking you at one point if he needed to tell the Synthezoid to back off before you assured him that it was fine.

Somewhere along the way you found yourself falling for Vision, utterly terrified and mortified over the uncertainty of if he could even feel those kinds of feelings towards anyone in return. But then you would hear him laugh at one of your jokes, a real hearty laugh when the joke wasn’t even that funny- or that smile, that god damn smile that stretched across his entire face with those pearly whites that made your heart flutter in your chest, or even worse- the small, shy smile that he would give you when he didn’t think you could see him that brought a faint blush to your cheeks every time. It was in those moments you let yourself feel a slimmer of hope that he could maybe, just maybe feel the same way.

He eventually figures out that he feels the same as well, after a long conversation he had with Tony and Bruce over whether those feelings should even be possible for him or not. He decides that whether or not he should be able to, he most definitely did, and suddenly fleeting glances and stolen cozy nights turned into hands intertwined under the table during meetings and stolen kisses in the compound halls.

A year later and everyone knows that it’s never just y/n or Vision, you get the both of you or neither of you, because you were a team.

About a month after the two of you had confessed your feelings Vis had asked you to “go steady”, it was adorable really- he said he saw it in a movie and thought it was what most human couples still did, and he was so nervous and flustered and cute you couldn’t help but say yes.

Boyfriend and girlfriend, partners in crime, lovers- whatever you wanted to call it, you were. The labels didn’t matter, all that mattered was that you knew how you felt about each other. At least, you hoped you did.

Vis had been acting strangely lately. He seemed more nervous around you; he was stuttering and losing his train of thought- he would sometimes act like he had something important to say and would end up saying nothing at all. Sometimes he would bring you flowers out of nowhere or prepare a meal he knew you loved, just to disappear for the rest of the night and you weren’t sure what to make of it. Sometimes he would babble on and on about some sort of poetic metaphor and ask if you understood what he meant and when you didn’t he would just tell you to pretend he said nothing at all.

So there he was, phasing through your wall and asking to talk and you could see a large bouquet of roses behind his hand and you weren’t sure whether to be excited or scared or all of the above, so you simply dog-eared your book and set it aside, patting the empty side of the bed next to you for him to sit.

He settled on the floor before walking over to the side of the bed and sitting, revealing the bouquet of flowers fully before shyly offering them to you.

“I was informed bouquets are a romantic gesture appropriate for such occasions” he explained, hands fidgeting as he spoke, not making eye contact with you.

“And what occasion is that?” You inquire, quirking a brow at his behavior.

“Ah yes that, right, well..” He started before opening and closing his mouth a few times, unsure of how to go on.

“Darling, I don’t have much to go on with this in terms of past experience- this is all very new to me as you know, however, I have come to understand that there is a certain point in relationships, romantic relationships that is, where the feelings that one has for the other might start to change.” He explains, fingers continuing to fidget and pull at another.

“Vis.. if this is you wanting a break from me, from us- flowers don’t exactly portray that message clearly..” You reply, anxiety beginning to settle in your chest.

As soon as you say that, any worries at what he could be implying flood your mind as his face fills with distress.

“Oh no- darling, no, that’s not what I was getting at at all!” He hurriedly says, setting the flowers on the bed and taking your hands in his own. “No no, it’s quite the opposite actually! See, I’ve been wanting to tell you this for quite a while, months even! But I wasn’t sure when a good time would be, and no article online could give me a set answer and I didn’t know how you felt- I thought I did sometimes but other times I just couldn’t be sure and then on this last mission when you almost got hurt and I couldn’t bear the thought that-“ you cut off his rambling by taking his cold face in your hands, “Vis hunny, slow down. What is it you want to tell me?” You ask, finally getting him to meet your eyes. He looked more nervous now than he had been for any mission in the past.

He hands came up to rest atop your own on his face, intertwining your fingers together as he spoke softly, “Well darling, I just- I just thought, we’ve been together for quite some time now, and I think I can safely say- maybe- I hope- that neither one of us want to be letting this go anytime soon and I, well I just thought you ought to know that I love you.”

A smile immediately pulled at your lips, you had been so afraid just a moment ago that he wanted nothing to do with you and there he was, telling you that he wanted everything to do with you. You wanted to say it back, you wanted to scream it out but he was sitting there with his big anxious doe eyes and a small, nervous smile as he awaits for your answer and suddenly all your words fail you- so you pull him in to a kiss instead.

It was sweet but not chaste, lips firmly planted against each other as you fought the urge to cry because he was so perfect and you felt more loved than you had ever felt before. Your hands clutched the sides of his face as he planted his on your shoulder blades, bringing you closer to him but never too forcefully- always giving you the option to retreat, but you never take it, and you never will.

The two of you finally part, gasping for air as he searches your eyes to gouge your reaction and finds a singular stray tear, chasing it away with a swipe of his finger.

“So, may I assume that this may be reciprocated?” He asks shyly and you laugh, the two of you laugh together with big smiles and open hearts and you assure him “Yes, Vis, I love you, I love you too. Body, mind, and soul.”

“Body, mind, and soul.” He repeats, a smile forming at his lips before he pulls you in for another kiss, the rest of the world melting away until it felt like only the two of you, like it was always meant to be.

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retrievablememories · 3 years

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matched | ten (m)

title: matched pairing: alien!ten x black!reader genre: sci-fi, angst, fluff, romance, smut summary: the quest for love leads you to a new dating app with a slight twist—and straight into the inbox of someone who’s light-years out of your usual dating pool. word count: 9.7k warnings: familial conflict, strained parental relationship, mentions of cheating, prejudice/discrimination based on species, body modifications/alien biology, unprotected sex, oral (female receiving), dom!ten, photography during sex, cumshot, squirting, some spanking a/n: as always, i lose all impulse control whenever i get a ten request so i have finished this sooner than i expected

i decided to lean more into the romance plotline than stress too much over the realism of the science-fiction elements with this fic, so there are some inaccuracies/impossibilities...but that’s fiction for you 🙃

AM 2074 (After Migration)

You are lonely.

Your last breakup did not end well, to say the least, and you haven’t dated for a while since then. It seemed like a smart move—a safe one—to shun all romantic relationships until you felt ready again. At the beginning, you were glad to be alone for a while, to regroup and rediscover yourself worrying about another person’s opinions on everything you did. To not have to deal with someone else’s drama.

The toll of not having companionship is gradually getting to you, though. Even if your last relationship was a mess more often than it wasn’t, you still long for those good moments, like going on night dates on the weekends and sharing pillowtalk into long hours of the early morning. You hadn’t realized how much you’d missed those things until all the emotions of it crashed down on you at once.

Your friend Malika claims to have a solution for your loneliness. Now, sitting at this outdoor cafe, you’re simultaneously eager and hesitant to hear what she has to propose, knowing her track record for silly plots.

With twinkling eyes, she looks at you and says, “You should try a dating app.” She clasps her hands together and puts them on the table like she’s made a grand announcement. You absorb her words for a few moments, looking out at the street across from you and watching cars—some hovering above the asphalt, some driven autonomously, and many still with human drivers—pass by.

You eventually sigh, your shoulders slumping. “That’s the big solution you called me out here for? People have been using dating apps for decades, that’s nothing new.”

“Exactly! The fact that they’re still popular even in 2074 is proof that they work, Y/N. You can put yourself out there and talk to dozens of guys without even meeting them in person. If one connection doesn’t work out, you don’t have anything to lose, and you don’t have to see the guy ever again.”

“Maybe I’ll lose my sweet time and patience during the process, though.”

Malika shakes her head and types something into her hologram pad, then holds it up for you to see. The hologram displays a dating app called matched—it reminds you of what Tinder was supposedly like before it became eclipsed by more advanced platforms, though that happened years before you were even born. “This one is kinda new, but it’s gotten popular fast and has good success rates. I’ve tried it before and met some nice guys. Give it at least one chance before you hate on it.”

“Ugh, I don’t know...there are always so many weirdos hanging out on those apps. What if I meet someone who keeps a collection of severed alien tentacles in an icebox in their house? Like that one guy who showed up on the news?”

“...Really?” Malika rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Stop getting in your own way and just take a risk for once.”

You shake your head at her optimism. “I’ll do it because I know you won’t leave me alone about it, but don’t expect me to find some great love story on this app.”

Once you download the app and start making an account, it becomes pretty obvious that this isn’t just a regular dating platform.

Choosing your gender and age preferences is normal enough, and you pass through those screens quickly until you get to one that gives you two new options.

➤ Species Preference ❐ Human ❐ Extraterrestrial

Whoa. Aliens? An alien-friendly dating app?

You weren’t overly familiar with the mechanics of dating apps, and you certainly didn’t consider that ones allowing aliens might’ve existed until now. It had been 15 years since the first contact with aliens was established, and a little less than a decade had passed since aliens began migrating to Earth and taking up permanent residence—and vice versa.

Humans had little problem with accepting aliens’ technological adaptations and claiming them as their own, though they were far less welcoming of the aliens themselves. That resulted in strained interactions between the two species, with aliens trying their best to assimilate and humans questioning their every motive. As far as personal relationships went, interspecies mingling between humans and extraterrestrials was still fairly uncommon—something that only people who were considered to be on the fringes of society participated in. There were “normal citizens of society” who built relationships with aliens, but many of them also kept it solely as a kink or fetish to be done only in the dark.

You decide to check both options. It feels a little scary, like diving headfirst into the unknown, but you are open to it either way. You’ve interacted with aliens before, both as kind acquaintances and near strangers, and they’ve always been relatively normal in the grand scheme of things—beings trying to survive and make a life for themselves like anyone else. Certainly not plotting how to take over Earth as many people have speculated. If they really wanted to, they possess the technology to have done that ten times over already.

You take a while trying to come up with a clever bio and spend an even longer time mulling over which pictures of yourself to choose, but you eventually complete your profile.

The first few matches you make are not very successful.

Whether it’s human guys feeding you terrible pickup lines or alien guys who can’t make it past the language barrier—or who ask you to move back with them to their home planet after two days of talking—you don’t see any potential love interests during your first two weeks of using the app.

You’re not sure what kind of skills Malika used to make multiple good matches, but maybe you need to interrogate her so you can sharpen your own. So you decide to do exactly that.

“Don’t give up on it just yet. Just be yourself—which also means not being afraid to cuss someone out if they come at you crazy. Some of these dudes lowkey like the mean girl shit, though, which is kinda weird.” Malika speaks from the shimmering translucent mirage of your hologram pad as you walk through the park one afternoon. She couldn’t make it out to meet you today, but you managed to snatch a moment to talk to her even if it couldn’t be face-to-face. “You probably shouldn’t expect to find a boyfriend in the first few days—”

“Girl, I don't think anyone was expecting that. Duh.”

“I’m saying, just give it time!”

“Okay, but listen. You didn’t tell me it’s also for aliens. Have you dated one before? You never told me!” You lower your voice then, not wanting anyone nearby to eavesdrop on your conversation and hear that part. You feel kinda bad for even thinking that way, but it’s hard to shake the stigma associated with interacting with aliens.

“Yes, and it was the best sex I ever had, but maybe I’ll tell you about that later.”

“Sis. Don’t withhold tea from me!”

“Someday when you’re not literally standing in the middle of the park, okay?” Malika shakes her head, smiling.

“Don’t forget about it, either.”

“I won’t. And you know what to do if you find a guy. I want to be the first to know!”

“Sure, sure. I wouldn’t hold my breath on it, though.”

You decide to spend some more time on the app after that conversation instead of just deleting it like you’d planned to initially. And one day, you get another new match that catches your eye out of the many others.

“Ten? Like the number…?” Besides the interesting name, you immediately see that he’s an extraterrestrial. From the Sommu race, as it says in his bio.

You click on his profile.

You’re a little surprised by how pretty he is, which isn’t to say the other aliens you matched with were all hideous. But he doesn’t have tentacles coming out of his face or two sets of eyes, either. The most noticeable thing about his alienness is his blue skin.

“Likes...dancing, art, music, okay so we have an artist type here...dislikes...fruit. Huh. That’s...interesting.”

The pictures of him on his profile are all deliberately artistic, as in they aren’t just some half-baked selfies he took with a hologram pad. You grow increasingly curious. It’s safe to say he’s either super into himself or just appreciates the art of good photography, and you figure there’s only one way to find out. You decide to take the first step and message him.

➤ Nice pictures :)

You don’t know when or if you’ll get a message back, since he’s not online when you send it, so you try not to get your hopes up too much. Maybe you should’ve tried to come up with something more cool and funny—nice pictures?—but you try to remember Malika’s advice and roll your eyes to yourself. There’s no point in getting stressed over a dude you don’t even know yet.

You eventually get a reply back from Ten.

➤ thank you 🙏 are you into photography too? you have talent for taking beautiful photos

You giggle quietly to yourself; another line, but it’s definitely one of the tamer ones you’ve received. Why not see where this one goes?

The first conversation you have consists mostly of the regular getting-to-know-you talk, such as your personal interests and favorite things. You get him to talk more about his photography hobby, which he’s eager to tell you all about—as well as his penchant for art.

To your optimism, you and Ten quickly get comfortable with each other. You soon forget about all the other potential matches you have, but those don't matter much to you anymore. So far, you’ve connected the most successfully with Ten, which means you’re more than glad to stop spending your time reading boring messages from guys who’ve only pretended to have things in common with you.

Things go so well, in fact, that he asks you to meet in person not long after you begin talking to each other.

For your first meetup, you decide to meet at a park nearby—the same one you’d been walking through the day you were talking to Malika about that very dating app. You and Ten have talked through the hologram pad on multiple occasions, so you’re more reassured that you’re not starting from scratch with some faceless being. Still, the thrill of seeing each other in person for the first time is undeniable.

“Y/N?” You turn your head at the sound of your name, and you see Ten walking towards you.

“Ten!” You give him a smile, waving at him. You feel a little more nervous than you usually would on a date, though you can’t tell if it’s the good kind of nervousness. You mostly chalk it up to not having been out with anyone in a while.

Ten’s just as pretty up close as he was in the photos and on camera, if not even more attractive; he’s breathtaking in the light of the sun. His hair is styled nicely, meticulously-place strands curling over his forehead, and his clothes perfectly outline his slim body. He looks pleased to see you, his lips curving into a coy smile.

“You could’ve given me a warning,” he says as he outstretches his arms to you. You hug him, but not without a questioning glance on your face. He is warm and smells good, like juniper, which almost makes you forget about your question.

“Warned you about what?”

“How you’re even more beautiful in person.” He says this at your ear before pulling away, and it makes the back of your neck bloom with heat.

“Oh, you’re laying it on thick.” You giggle nervously, shifting on your feet.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks.

“Yes, let’s go!”

You leave the park to go to an aquarium nearby, which is the biggest one in the city. You find out quickly that Ten is easily fascinated by the wide range of creatures there. Despite living on Earth for a few years now, he hasn’t seen a lot of them until now.

You walk through the blue-lit hallways together, surrounded by water everywhere you turn. You observe the different animals up close and from far away, reading information about them from the signs beside their tanks.

“What the hell is that?” Ten says through laughter, looking at the squished-up mouth of a stingray as it floats in front of the glass, baring its pale underside to you both.

“It’s a stingray!”

He scrunches his nose up. “It’s ugly. But kinda cute, too…”

You both end up staying at the aquarium longer than you expected, with Ten wanting to see practically every animal they had on display; plus, you got to see some you weren’t familiar with before either.

After visiting the aquarium, you go downtown—which is otherwise known as food truck central, where you can get pretty much anything you’re craving. This area is always quite busy this time of evening, especially on the weekends. Food in hand, you and Ten end up walking through a few of the quieter back streets where there’s not as many people—streets where the closely-packed buildings give way to the grassy yards and paved roads of nearby neighborhoods.

“Should we talk about our families now, or is it too soon?” you say jokingly. “You know, that seems to be the only thing we haven’t mentioned after talking about everything else under the sun.” You’re not entirely sure why you bring this up while knowing your own relationship with your parents isn’t great, but you are curious to hear about Ten’s family.

“I don’t really know mine,” he replies.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You feel a little bad about it, thinking there was definitely a reason why he never mentioned the topic.

Ten looks confused for a moment before shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. Sommu never form close bonds with their parents or siblings.”

You give him a curious look. “Why not?”

“Well, we aren’t born or raised the human way,” he explains. “Our parents have a bunch of us at once, raise us for the first couple of years, and then go off to reproduce again and continue the population.”

You’re startled at that. “Just for a few years? How do you survive?”

“We age faster...both physically and mentally. We become independent around 4 or 5 years old, and we can live without our parents.”

“That’s...definitely very different.” You try to wrap your mind around that information, though it’s difficult. Even with your not-so-healthy relationship with your parents, you couldn’t imagine having no family whatsoever at such a young age. You also can’t even begin to comprehend what it’d look like to be taking care of yourself at only 5 years old, fast aging or not. “But, you said a bunch at once...how is that possible?”

“We are formed inside things like eggs. It’s not like your form of childbirth. See?” And you become flustered when he lifts his shirt up to show his lack of a belly button, right there in the middle of the street.

“Uh, wow.”

“The human concepts of ‘family’ and ‘relationships’ are...very new to me.” He seems a little embarrassed to admit this. “That’s why I, um, joined a dating app, for more experience...I was told I need to learn to be more…” He searches for the word. “Im...pertinent?”

“...Empathetic?”

“Yeah, that.”

“So, did that come from a previous partner, or…?”

“Yeah, I’ve had two relationships since I’ve been here.” He seems wistful now, maybe a little sad. “They didn’t work out well. Maybe we were too different.” Before the mood can shift too far into negativity, Ten turns to you with a soft smile. “But maybe that’s not the kind of thing you want to hear while we’re on a date.”

You shake your head and smile. “I don’t mind, it’s interesting to know about.” More than interesting. You want to ask him a hundred more things about what his life was like when he first got to Earth. “Anyway, you can never have too many new starts in life. Let’s enjoy this one.”

At the end of your date, Ten walks with you back to your place. It’s almost midnight at this point, with you both walking all the way back from downtown. You’d drawn more than a few skeptical stares over the course of the day, but you both did your best to ignore those and just focus on each other.

“I’m really glad we got to go out today, it was fun,” you say, hugging your arms to yourself to shield against the cool spring breeze.

“I think I haven’t had that much fun in a while,” he agrees. Ten smiles wide then, the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth, and you have to do a double take.

“What—”

“Oh, that. Sometimes I forget everyone doesn’t have this...” And when he sticks his tongue out, you see clearly now that it’s split halfway down the middle. Sort of like how a snake’s would be. “D’you like it?” His expression is wicked when he asks this, and a strange heat sweeps through your body.

“Wow.” You cringe at your lackluster answer, but that’s the only thing you can muster up at the moment, too busy internally questioning yourself. You’ve seen body modders with split tongues in documentaries and on the internet, but it’s never appealed to you like this before, and you don’t know what to do with that new realization.

“It’s okay, it takes some getting used to.” He gives you a smile that might be called innocent by anyone else, but to your eyes it’s quite obvious he’s proud about making you flustered.

“Getting used to...yeah, I’m sure.” There are about 15 different questions you want to ask him about that, too, but you aren’t going there on the first date.

“So...can I expect to see you again?”

“Of course.” You smile again at the hopeful note in his tone. “Just let me know whenever you want to go out again.”

Before Ten leaves, he places a hand on your shoulder and kisses you on the cheek. It’s a simple and short kiss, but it still makes you blush beneath your brown skin.

You wave goodbye to him from your doorstep as he goes, feeling like you’ve finally done something right for the first time in a long time.

You’d taken a chance with dating an extraterrestrial, someone so different from yourself and your species, and you figured it would be a new experience. Obviously. What you did not bet on, however, was the idea that you’d fall for Ten so fast.

After three months of dating exclusively, you feel like you could say you love him, which is frighteningly quick for you; though you don’t tell him this yet.

You’ve decided to bring him to meet your family. The idea frightens you, because your parents have never been very receptive to the aliens’ migration. But you are still holding out some hope that maybe they’ll realize all their assumptions were wrong, and that you’ve found a nice man who you love and who you’re sure loves you just as much. Whether he’s human or not shouldn’t matter.

You manage to set a date when all your schedules match up so you can bring Ten over to your parent’s house. Ten is nervous—more nervous than he was when you went on your first date—which you find a little surprising. You’ve gotten used to him being the one who you can lean on, who always seems to know the right answer.

“Do you think it will go well?” he asks, his tone implying he’s not confident of the answer.

“I hope so.” You give him a smile that you hope is reassuring and squeeze his hand.

When your parents open the door, there’s visible surprise on their faces. You’d already told them your boyfriend was not human, which drew doubtful responses when you first said it, but they’re acting as if they never knew that information—as if this is the first time they’re seeing an alien, period.

“Um…hi, mom, dad.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ten says, though his own tone is overly formal, like he doesn’t know how he should speak. “I’m Ten.”

Your parents pause for a few moments longer. Finally, the awkward quiet is broken. “We thought you were just messing,” your dad says, though he steps out of the way to let you both come in, if a bit reluctantly.

“I—no.” You’re uncertain how to respond to that, though you don’t feel optimistic about what it entails. Your mother doesn’t say anything at all, just stares at you and Ten like you’re both strangers who’ve just waltzed in uninvited. She goes back in the kitchen to finish dinner once the door is closed, not saying anything to either one of you, and you already feel a cold pit settling in the bottom of your stomach.

Your dad sits in the living room with you and Ten, and another awkward silence ensues as your dad gives a stiff smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He clasps his fingers together and pulls them apart repeatedly, like they’ll give him the answers for what’s going on.

“This is just a fling, right? Of course you won’t be staying with this ma—” Your dad almost says man but then stutters, thinking maybe the term isn’t appropriate since Ten isn’t human. He makes a vague gesture to fill in the space of the missing word.

“It’s not a fling,” you say, feeling like you’ve had cold water poured down your back. You’re sitting straight and still on the couch, and it’s not comfortable, but you’re too tense to move. Ten is almost equally stiff beside you.

“Y/N, we just want you to make good decisions for yourself.” That’s what your dad says out loud, though the look in his eyes finishes the rest of that sentence: And I don’t think this is a good decision.

“I am,” you insist. “I don’t need to be told that over and over again.”

“Me and Y/N are happy together,” Ten explains, and your dad seems a little shocked that he’s decided to speak.

“Do you truly think you’re what she needs?” your dad asks. You’re not sure what makes you more angry; the question itself, or the fact that he keeps his tone non-accusatory and light, as if he’s only asking something like where do you work? Like the answer doesn’t matter because he’s already made up his mind.

“As long as Y/N wants to keep seeing me, there’s no reason to stop our relationship.”

A sound of displeasure comes from your mother in the kitchen, and your skin prickles. Your dad nods to Ten’s answer, but he does so in a way that conveys he just wants this conversation to be over rather than consider anything that was said.

You deeply regret not leaving straight after that failed discussion, but you soon find out just how bad it can get once you all make it to the dinner table. Your mother is chillingly silent for the first half of the dinner, acting like neither you nor Ten exist, while your dad attempts to make awkward small talk about how things are going.

There comes a point where you can no longer handle the cold sweat and the nerves, and you put your utensils down. Not that you had much of an appetite anyway.

“Why won’t you even talk to me?”

Your mother glares. “You can’t guess? What kind of question is that to ask?”

You falter. You don’t know why she always does this to you. Ask ridiculous rhetorical questions that you both already know the answer to. Now you must sit here and explain why you asked like it isn’t already obvious.

“I’m visiting after I haven’t been here in a while. With my boyfriend. I thought...I don’t know. The least you could do—” Your mother shakes her head at the word “boyfriend,” and you already know everything else you said went in one ear and out the other.

“I still don’t know why you didn’t just stay with Christian?” she interrupts. “He had a decent job, came to see us often, and was NOT an alien.”

“But he cheated on me,” you say, a sickness rising in you.

“That’s what men do sometimes, Y/N. You deal with it and move on. You’re supposed to be strong—fix whatever is making him do it.”

You and Ten exchange a tense look, and there is clear confusion whirling in his eyes, but you don’t say anything to each other. “That relationship is over. I’m trying to do something for myself for once, not whatever you think I should do.” Even saying those words makes you internally recoil, unsure of what the reaction will be, but you don’t take them back.

“You may be an adult but we’re still your parents. Frankly, you need to be with a man of your own race and species—not this blue Martian here. How would you even have kids?”

Ten gives a humorless laugh, like he wants to respond but doesn’t want to make the situation worse or offend you. “You know what, I should just leave,” he says abruptly, rising from his seat.

You get up quickly after he does, but your mom slams her hand on the table. “Y/N, you better not walk out of here.”

You feel defeated and exhausted, like you always do when dealing with your parents and their objections to every single thing you do, but you decide not to give in this time. “Stop treating me like I’m still a child, ma.”

“What does being an adult matter when you still act childish? Don’t come back here crying when this doesn’t work out. I’ve already warned you more than enough.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

“So now you think you know better than me, when you couldn’t even keep a man the first time around.”

“This is hopeless,” you sigh, feeling wounded and angry at all these cheap shots.

“Y/N, please just listen to your mother for once…” your dad interjects, but you try your best to ignore their protests as you grab your things and follow Ten to the door. You can still hear your mother’s angry complaints as you close the front door behind you, though you’re surprised—but grateful—that neither of them attempt to follow you outside.

The ride back home is uncomfortable and mostly quiet.

“I’m sorry, Ten,” you say, feeling like you’ve been frozen from the inside out despite it being nearly summer. You’re near tears when you speak. Ten shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

“It’s not your fault…” he replies weakly, though his words aren’t very persuasive to either of you.

He still walks you up to your door when you arrive back at your place, trailing slightly behind you. The night air is distractingly humid, wrapping around the both of you like a physical thing. Neither of you know what to say to each other.

When you get to your front door, you turn to look at him. “I shouldn’t have made you come. I should’ve known...”

“I wanted to come,” he points out. “You didn’t make me do anything.” Ten’s tone isn’t outright harsh, but the words are noticeably sharp. Maybe he realizes it, because his face softens as if he’s said something wrong.

You nod. It’s as if there’s a mountainous gap between you two that you just can’t cross right now. “I get it.” You say this almost mindlessly, because you’re not sure what you’re getting, exactly. Your hand rests on the doorknob. You don’t want to end the night on this awkward and painful note, but neither of you are making any progress with this lack of a real conversation. Maybe now isn’t the right time to try to talk about it.

“I think...I’ll just go home tonight.” You expected he’d say that, but the words still make your heart hurt, even if you don’t want them to. He looks like he might say something else, but he just gives you a small nod before starting off.

“Ten…” You don’t know what you want to ask of him or tell him, if anything, but his name slips from your lips like it’s something you can’t keep inside.

Ten stops for a moment and turns back to you. He steps closer again, leaning forward to give you a soft kiss on the lips. When he pulls back, his eyes hold you in place.

He mumbles, “I’m not mad at you,” before leaving.

More than anything, you want to know how Ten is doing, but you’re too ashamed to contact him for the first couple days after that mess of a night. Maybe he thinks you’re just like your parents and doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. His reassurance at the door wasn’t enough to soothe your worries, and you end up tearing yourself up internally over it—repeatedly recalling the warmth of his lips and wondering if that’s maybe the last time you’ll ever feel it.

Similarly, nothing but radio silence comes from his end. He doesn’t respond even after you finally muster up the nerve to send him a text—a short text, but still a message all the same—and you fear he must really be done with you.

On Ten’s part, he does have one justification for it; he’s preoccupied with dealing with the avalanche of unpleasant memories and emotions that incident resurfaced. Everything about what your parents said and how they looked at him reminds him of his past and ongoing struggles with trying to assimilate on Earth.

Even though he’s often very sure of himself and what he wants, he begins wondering if he’s “enough” for you. Maybe you’ve just been humoring him this whole time, or you’ve decided your parents are right and you’d be better off with another human.

Those thoughts keep him up into the early morning hours, and he soon realizes he doesn’t want to let you go. In fact, he’s not sure what he’d do with himself if you decided to walk out of his life right now, and the idea of it makes him ill. Which makes him feel even more foolish for tuning you out.

Ten’s anxiety over losing you culminates in him standing on your doorstep again after almost a week of emptiness and not knowing how you were thinking or feeling—which has been killing him in its own way.

You’re not quite sure how to feel when you open the door and see him on the other side, but relief shoulders its way to the forefront.

“Y/N, I’m sorry—”

“Can you please—”

You both speak at the same time, your words breaking afterwards.

“You can talk first,” Ten says.

“Come in.” You let him in the door, and the words start spilling before you know how to stop them. “Ten, I-I’m...really sorry. I should’ve known better than to put you in that situation, but I thought…” Your words trail off. You don’t want to let him know just how desperate you still are for your parents’ approval sometimes. Even though it’s a fruitless case. “I just wanted it to go well. I want things to work now, for us. I really, really want things to work for us.”

Ten surprises himself with how quickly he moves to take you in his arms before the last words have even finished settling in his mind. He hugs you tightly. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me anymore,” he whispers, like he’s telling you something forbidden.

“That couldn’t happen.” You’re saddened he’d come to that conclusion. “But...it’s not fair for you to leave me in the dark, either. I want to help you...so would you please let me?”

Ten squeezes you a bit tighter, as if you might disappear from his arms. “I’m sorry I ghosted you...it brought back bad memories of how things were when I first got here. When people were more open about treating me like some kind of enemy. I didn’t know how to deal with it.” You tuck your chin into his shoulder and listen to his breathing, his heartbeat, the sound of his words. “Y/N, I’m not sure if I’m very good at love, or if I even know enough about it. Maybe the others were right and I’m kidding myself with something I’ll never properly learn. But, I…” His voice cracks. “I-I think I love you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Entirely overwhelmed, you answer his admission with a long kiss, cupping his face in your hands. His response to your kiss is automatic, the knots of tension unraveling in your embrace.

“I love you, Ten,” you whisper against his lips after you separate. Here and now, it doesn’t feel too soon at all; there couldn’t be a better time to say it. His expression is a lot of things at once. Relief, happiness, contentment...he’s blushing, but it shows up as a darker blue on his already blue skin. When he smiles, it turns his whole face into a picture of joy.

“I want to go away.” Quietly, you tell him this as you rest your head in his lap.

You’re both lying on your couch, the room dim and the sound of rain occupying the silence. A downpour started coming down soon after Ten got to your place. You’ve sat there just like that and listened to the rain on the windows for the past couple hours, not wanting to do anything else or separate from each other. You knew he wouldn’t want to go home, and you didn’t even have to ask him to stay.

Ten’s been petting your hair the whole time. The motion of his fingers in your kinky strands makes you sleepy, but now the movements pause at your words.

“Go where?” he asks.

“Away from all this. My parents hate me, and they won’t let me have any peace as long as I’m with you. I just want to go away for a while.” Despite you overflowing with love after finally getting your feelings out in the open, the thought of your parents’ disapproval has lingered steadily in the recesses of your mind. You close your eyes against the tears that begin to well up. Ten’s quiet for a few more moments, and then begins stroking your head again.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A few tears fall despite you trying to keep them in, and your eyelids flutter when you feel Ten’s fingers on your face, wiping them away. “Then we’ll go away.”

Ten’s homeland is a planet where the sun—or rather, a star called Proxima Centauri that’s much like the sun—is always out, no matter what time of day it is. There are days where it rains or gets cloudy, but night never falls and the star never dips any lower in the sky, always staying pinned in that same spot like a tack on a corkboard. That everlasting light throws your body clock off, and combined with this weird new form of jet lag associated with space travel, you are a mess for the first week or so after your arrival.

Ten makes a few jokes about fragile human bodies, but for the most part he tends to you as best as he knows how and tells you stories about how he grew up to get your mind off the discomfort. He feeds you these neon green drinks that don’t look like anything on Earth you’ve had before, and although they do make you feel better, you begin to think maybe you should’ve had a wellness plan before running off-planet.

You aren’t the only human who’s ever visited or even lived there, though, which gives you reassurance about adjusting to everything. By now, there’s a small population of human beings living here due to the interplanetary exchange initiated by Earth.

Before you left, Ten told you he had a small home in his homeland. You didn’t quite expect to hear this, since he’d been on Earth for a while now and had no family to return to. Though he’d migrated, he still expected to come back to his planet every so often, if only to visit. Now was as good a time as any.

Although many differences exist, the scenery is much like Earth’s; there are ecosystems with plants and animals and other living beings—like the Sommu themselves. Ten’s homeland is not filled with wall-to-wall technology like you’d expect an alien city to be, based on the small examples you’ve seen on Earth. You might compare it to the tropics back on Earth, with the Sommu yielding to nature’s rightful place in their ecosystem instead of clearing out whole forests or continually mining for resources. Ten is amused by your struggle to comprehend the newness and unfamiliarity of it all.

When you feel good enough to explore, he starts taking you to the beach often. It looks mostly like any other beach, but there are large coral forms that grow out of the ocean, reaching up towards the impossibly blue and constantly illuminated sky. Because there is no moon to guide the tides, the water is eerily still, the surface mirror-like—like a huge lake or pond that extends in almost every direction for miles. You’d almost believe it was a mirror if you hadn’t seen a bird-like creature skimming across the surface as it flew by, creating fleeting ripples.

You swim around a little in the still waters after Ten convinces you that you aren’t going to turn into a fish or something equally scary. He has to hold both your hands the entire time to get you to step in, and he doesn’t let go until you’re confident enough to explore the water on your own.

“Just focus on me, okay?” His smile is bright and shining against his blue skin, and he looks you directly in the eyes as he backs into the water, breaking the surreal stillness of it with his movements. “It’s just like the water on Earth.”

“Okay, okay,” you say uncertainly, gripping his hands and stepping in tentatively. The water does feel like any other water you’ve touched throughout your life, which helps you calm down slightly. His hands stay tight around yours as you get waist-deep into the water.

When you’re finally able to let go of him, he claps his hands more enthusiastically than the situation probably calls for. “Yay, you’re a big girl now!”

You roll your eyes at him. “You’re not funny, Ten.”

On a bright afternoon, Ten lets you into a room of his house you haven’t entered before. You’ve passed by this shining white door several times, but it’s always remained firmly shut until now.

“What’s in here?” you ask as you hold his hand.

“That’s what I’m going to show you.” He laughs and pushes the door open.

You think it’s a darkroom at first, seeing nothing but dim light and the shiny surfaces of what looks like photographs as your eyes adjust. But when he touches his hand to a panel on the wall and the lights come on, you realize it’s not a darkroom. More like a small gallery for all his pictures.

The “pictures” are physical, but they aren’t like the old Polaroids or film photos that have begun fading out of existence on Earth. They’re small crystalline squares that play eternally-moving videos on their glossy surfaces—a bit different from the translucent holograms Earth adopted. You step further into the room to look at them. It’d probably take days to explore them all, there are so many. Different scenes play out as soundless movies, and when you look for long enough, you realize they’re split into different categories. Numerous events within a life.

Many are of the beach, other scenic places around his homeland, oddly-shaped buildings, and plants in colors that there are no names on Earth for. You step closer to one of the walls to look at the collection of images more closely. You actually do “recognize” a select few, linking them together with old memories Ten had shared with you only weeks ago. There’s so much happening in these small snippets of time, so many stories you haven’t yet heard, that you feel like you could look at them forever and not get enough.

“This is...something else.” Your words seem inadequate, but you don’t quite know how to express your sheer wonder.

“I could take some of you,” Ten suggests, from somewhere behind you. “I want to.”

You glance back at him. “Hm, yeah.”

“I’m serious.” Ten comes up behind you to clasp his arms around your waist. He tucks his chin into your shoulder. His lips are close at your neck, and you let them linger there. One of your hands goes to his own hand that’s over your waist, and you run your fingertips over his knuckles as you gaze at the photo wall before you. “I think you’d be the perfect muse.”

“You could do that.” You’re still entranced with it all, and you already know you’ve made up your mind to let him take as many photos of you as he wants.

The next time you go to the beach, Ten takes some photos of you standing near the huge coral forms—or at least as close as you are willing to get—and he laughs at your lingering hesitation.

Still, the crystalline photos he takes of you are the embodiment of perfection. When you look over them later, watching yourself twirl around and strike silly poses in the water, you can almost hear the sound of your laughter twining together and feel the warmth of a star that’s not the sun on your skin.

“What if we stayed here?”

You ask Ten this while you’re lying in his bed, watching a kaleidoscope of shapes on the ceiling. The bedroom window is open to allow the breeze to come in. The ceiling of the bedroom—and every other room in the house—is more like an ever-changing reflection of shapes and colors than an actual ceiling. You might compare it to a mirror, like the surface of the ocean, but you think it’s much more complex than that. Sometimes you can see the distorted outline of yourself in it, like a funhouse mirror. Other times, you see the sky above.

Ten lies beside you with one hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach, and he turns his head to look at you.

“Stayed?”

“If we just decided not to...go back to Earth.”

He pauses for a few moments. “Is that a good idea? You have a whole life there...and your friends…” Ten doesn’t mention your family, which you are grateful for.

You sigh. Nothing like a quick injection of reality after letting your imagination get ahead of you. “We’d have to go back. I’d have to tell them goodbye. And sort some other things out. Maybe it wouldn’t happen right now. But, after I do everything I need to do on Earth...maybe I could migrate here.”

“That’s a big decision to make...and it should be yours to decide.” Ten pauses again, like he’s weighing his words. “You know I don’t have many connections on Earth…” In other words, leaving Earth and returning home for good might not be as big of a deal for him as it would be for you.

You sit up and look out the window, seeing how the warm wind stirs the trees outside. “I want to.” You say it almost inaudibly, your words nearly carried off by the breeze. You turn back to him only to find him already there, sitting across from you and looking at you closely. Your faces are only inches from each other’s as he searches your eyes. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll do anything you want to.” Ten’s voice is earnest, like he’d follow you to Hell and back if you asked, and you believe him.

Resting your hand on his cheek, you kiss him.

This kiss is a little different from the ones you’ve shared before—more yearning. More desperate. You kiss like there won’t be enough time to do all the things you want to do with each other—to each other. His split tongue bumps against yours, caresses it, and it causes a shiver to go down your spine, like it always does.

You end up lying back on the bed again with Ten’s body crowding yours in, legs tangling together and hips pressing against one another’s. Neither of you have made a move to take the other’s clothes off yet, but then he separates from your lips for a long moment and studies your features, from your eyebrows down to your mouth.

“Touch yourself for me.”

Your mouth drops open slightly.

“I want to see it.” He takes one of your hands and guides it up under your skirt and between your legs, pressing your fingers against your sex through your underwear, and you look at him with wide eyes, taking a deep breath. He lets go of your hand, and you keep yours right where it is. You’re slightly nervous about his black gaze trained on you, unrelenting and prying, but you begin to move your hand anyway.

Over your underwear, you press your finger between your lower lips, sliding between them and over your clit, and a little tremor goes through your body. You find yourself getting wet more quickly than you normally would with Ten watching you as you tease your entrance. You breathe a little heavier but make no sound yet. One of Ten’s hands reaches out for your ankle, though he doesn’t do anything other than keep his fingers there, a light touch that keeps passing back and forth over your ankle bone.

You circle your fingers across your clit more insistently, your legs tensing as the pleasure mounts higher. Ten’s lips part as he watches you, a heavy breath escaping from his chest. The hand on your ankle slides higher up your leg, just below your thigh, like he wants to slide his fingers into the mix and take over, but he doesn’t make a move to do so just yet.

Finally, Ten reaches under your skirt to pull your sticky panties off, sliding them slowly down your legs and leaving them somewhere on the floor. You want him to touch you again, the brush of his hands against your hips not enough, but he doesn’t grant your desire. “Keep going,” he says, leaning back on his hands, and you can see he’s growing hard.

You bring your hand back to its original place between your thighs, sliding through the wetness more easily and shuddering when your fingertips graze over your clit. You slide a finger into yourself then. A small moan slips out, and you close your eyes, but Ten’s fingers pinch your chin—not enough to hurt, but the sudden touch makes you look at him. “Keep your eyes open.” His thumb presses into your lower lip, and he stares at your mouth for a moment like he’s imagining sliding something hard and hot between your lips.

Ten kisses you on the lips again, and this time he trails the kisses down your body until he’s gripping your thighs on either side of his face. You pause in your movements when he reaches the junction of your thighs, and you watch as he grabs your hand and slips your finger out of yourself. He sucks the slick digit into his mouth, and you cannot tear your eyes away from him.

He lets your hand go and pulls you a few inches closer to his face, dragging you across the bed, and you can barely get your bearings back to sit up again when he slips his tongue through your lower lips. You moan, and he responds to that by repeating it again, catching your clit between the split in his tongue, and wiggling both sides.

“Oh Jesus...oh fuck.” Your hands go to Ten’s hair, pulling on it as you push your hips closer to his mouth, your back curving up. He is alluring tucked between your thighs like this, teasing and sucking your clit with his split tongue and prodding his fingers at your hole until he chooses to slide two of them inside.

His free hand keeps you close against his face as he eats you out, that wondrous tongue sliding against the most sensitive part of your body and making you gasp with boundless pleasure. Little droplets of moisture bead at the corners of your eyes from how good it feels, your stomach tensing and releasing as you try your best to keep still.

He has to keep his grip on your body tight when you come, as you try to squirm away from his tongue because of how stimulated you are. He only lets you go after he’s satisfied himself with licking up all the wet that’s spilled from you.

Then he strips your skirt off for you, because he knows you’re not quite in a state to do it for yourself right now. He peels the rest of your clothes off similarly, which doesn’t take much time or effort to do; you’ve dressed lightly for the weather.

Ten looks at you lying beneath him on the bed, his gaze stuck somewhere between awe and lust.

He slips out of his own clothes with a certain practiced ease. Yes, he’s really blue everywhere. He looks mostly human-like everywhere, too, except for the lack of a belly button.

Ten kisses you deeply as he slips into you, and you clutch at his sides. He tries to keep his pace slow at first, maybe for your sake or to just savor how it feels, but he gives into the feeling of you squeezing around him and starts thrusting into you faster. There is already sweat sliding down to his jaw, though you think it might be because of the heat, too.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” comes out of you in a voice you hardly recognize as your own.

His pelvis sliding against your clit from the proximity of your bodies makes you curl your fingers into the strands of his hair, wanting to touch every part of him you can. His lips go to the sweat-slicked skin of your shoulder, leaving little wet kisses behind as he wraps an arm around your waist and simply fucks into you, his shaft dragging against your walls.

He eventually separates himself from your neck, though it comes with some effort, to gaze at your face again. However, he finds that your eyes have drifted shut.

“Do you wanna come?” Ten asks, softly, gently, like you might break apart if he speaks too loud.

You’re a little winded from how he’s thrusting into you and can’t yet see the motive behind this question—because of course you do—but you answer with a shaky “I-I want to.”

“Then don’t look away from me.” His voice becomes harsher on these words.

“I…” Your lips move without any real words behind them as he thrusts into you harder, sinking all the way into you before pulling out to the tip. You want do what he’s just told you, but you find it difficult with the way he’s intent on burying himself into you, his eyes piercing into your own. “Mmm, I-I…”

You don’t know if you can, but the way he’s kindling your rising heat with each thrust makes you want to try very, very hard. Ten keep his hands on the sides of your face so you cannot look anywhere but at him.

The pleasure bears down on you more with each second, and you try to keep your breathing steady as another climax approaches.

“You’re almost there, come on baby,” he coaxes you, sloppily kissing the corner of your mouth before slipping his tongue in again. The way you gasp against his lips and tighten around him signals him to your orgasm, and he sits back to watch it play across your face, smirking at how you moan his name desperately.

Ten’s continued thrusts make you shiver from the flood of sensations overcoming your body, and you whimper at his movements until he pulls out and comes on your abdomen.

Ten gives you time to recover after you come down from your second orgasm, though he makes sure to lay a few more enamored kisses on your weakened body. He gets off the bed and exits the room after that. You don’t bother to ask where he’s going, because you know he’ll be back anyway.

When Ten comes back, he has his camera with him. The teasing tilt of his lips never leaves his face as he points it towards you. He takes a photo of you lying on his bed nude, with the breeze coming in and rustling the tree leaves and your hair, your skin shining bronze under the light of the eternal star. Then he comes closer, making the bed sink under his weight, and nudges your legs apart. He takes more photos of your lower stomach glistening with sweat and his cum—and photos of him sliding his slender fingers between your thighs and bringing you careening into another bout of euphoria.

The camera is soon forgotten after you come again. Ten climbs fully back onto the bed now and pulls you into his lap. His dick is hard again, and the length of it nudges against your lower lips, making you whimper from how sensitive you still are. He shushes you with a kiss and lifts your hips so he can slide into you, his shaft nudging that soft spot inside you and making you grip onto his arms.

You’re too mushy and dazed to do anything but let him push his hips up into you while you cling to him, your head lolling back. Ten’s mouth goes to the open expanse of your neck, and he wets your skin with his tongue.

The kaleidoscope of shapes above you on the ceiling morphs into one glistening reflection, throwing the blurred shapes of your bodies back to you. It’s like looking through a dense fog. You’re a little caught off guard by it, and you stare up at your nude forms. Ten looks up as well to see the cloudy figure of you cradled in his lap, and he only grins and thrusts up into you harder and smacks your ass in reply.

He grinds into you while he has you sitting full on his dick, and you think he must have set off your internal “reset” button somewhere between landing slaps on your ass and repeatedly hitting your g-spot. Your mind is blissfully, amazingly blank. The only clear thing you can distinguish is how he feels in and around you.

When you come this time, it comes with a gush of wetness that makes Ten whisper several smug praises into your ear for being such a good girl and making a mess on him.

As you quickly find out, Ten’s refractory period seems to be nonexistent, while his stamina is overflowing.

Ten knows how to mix the pain with pleasure in a way that enhances both feelings, and you don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything more perfect. One moment, he’ll say something romantic and fairytale-like to you before shoving your head into the pillow and taking you from behind in the next moment, pulling one of your arms behind you for leverage as he thrusts into you hard. You want him to do whatever he desires to you, and so you let him hammer into you until you think your hips and ass will be bruised by the next morning.

You’ve never knew that sex could be so carnal and so loving at the same time, but this is all of those things, and it makes you feel so full that you could split at the seams. You scream, cry, and moan more times than you can count, so enveloped by pleasure that it seems like the atoms of your body will simply dissolve from the intensity.

When you both finally become too exhausted to continue, it’s still daytime. Of course. But Ten draws the blackout shade forward and seals all the light out, and so you know it must be time to sleep. Time blends together here. Even if it’s not yet the midnight hour, it will be as long as you deem it so.

“Come here,” he says, and rolls you over on the bed so you don’t have to sleep in the wet spot. You grin in sleepy amusement against his neck as he hugs you to his body. “Let’s stay right here.”

You know he’s talking about sleeping for the next few hours, but you can also imagine he’s referring to your new life—one you’ll create together.

302 notes · View notes

miserablesme · 3 years

Text

The Les Miserables Changelog Part 2: 1985-1986 West End

Hello, everyone! This is the latest edition in my attempt to chronicle all of the musical and lyrical changes which the show Les Miserables has undergone over the years. Today, we look at the differences between the later of the two available Barbican preview audios (more on that in Part 1) and the West End variant of the musical as it existed in 1986. Only one rather poor quality audio is available of the show's pre-Broadway, post-Barbican form (though a friend of a friend has multiple masters from the era that she apparently keeps meaning to digitize). It is known to come from 1986, but the exact date remains a mystery. As such we cannot know when exactly most of the changes might have been made.

Reportedly (according to The Complete Book of Les Miserables) the majority of these refinements were made between the closing of the Barbican show and the opening of the West End one. However, some further refinements were doubtless made during the Barbican previews, and some likely were made between the opening of the West End production and whenever the audio was recorded. With all that cleared up, let's get started!

As I mentioned in Part 1, the very early Barbican previews of the opening "Work Song" featured this chain of lyrics (no pun intended):

I’ve done no wrong

Sweet Jesus, hear my prayer

Look down, look down

Sweet Jesus doesn’t care

I killed a man

He tried to steal my wife

Look down, look down

She wasn’t worth your life

I know she’ll wait

I know that she’ll be true

Look down, look down

She’s long forgotten you

As has also been established, later previews removed one sequence of lines to create the following exchange:

I’ve done no wrong

Sweet Jesus, hear my prayer

Look down, look down

Sweet Jesus doesn’t care

I killed a man

He tried to steal my wife

Look down, look down

She wasn’t worth your life

However, by 1986 another sequence was removed and the originally removed one was added back then. Thus, the still-current lyrics as of today are as follows:

I’ve done no wrong

Sweet Jesus, hear my prayer

Look down, look down

Sweet Jesus doesn’t care

I know she’ll wait

I know that she’ll be true

Look down, look down

She’s long forgotten you

A much better choice of cuts in my opinion. The point of the opening scene is to present the prisoners sympathetically, as comparatively innocent victims of an overly brutal and elitist police system. Establishing a member of the chain gang as literally being a murderer doesn't really help send that message!

Everything stays the same until "Fantine's Arrest". The Barbican previews feature this sequence:

(FANTINE)

There's a child who sorely needs me

Please monsieur, she's but that high

Holy God! Is there no mercy?

If I go to jail she'll die

(TOWNSPEOPLE[?])

Take this harlot now this minute

Let there be a full report

Let her go back in the morning

Let her answer to the court

(FANTINE)

Gentle Jesus! Won't you save me?

Are there tears enough to cry?

(JAVERT)

It's the same pathetic story

Please monsieur, my child will die!

I have heard such protestations...

By the 1986 recording, everything between "Take this harlot" and "Please monsieur, my child will die!" has been totally removed. I have a bit of a soft spot for that sequence, though I can't earnestly say the musical lost anything by removing it. Indeed Javert comes across as unbelievably heartless there!

As Part 1 pointed out, the earlier Barbican preview had Valjean shout "You know where to find me!" at the end of "Who Am I?", while the later preview did not. The 1986 recording interestingly reinserts that line, but now Valjean speaks it much more casually, without the slightly cheesy passion of the first recording. This makes me wonder whether or not it was initially removed because it was hard to take seriously, and a calmer rendition was reinstated as a compromise? Who knows.

A subtle change occurs at the beginning of the "Confrontation" sequence. During the Barbican previews, the number opens with a few notes being played and then repeated. However, by the 1986 recording the notes do not repeat. It goes straight into Javert's announcement (which Roger Allam has now learned to sing on time!) after the notes play the first time. The sequence would stay this way for quite awhile before being further shortened - more on that in a later edition!

We now go to the subsequent number, Little Cosette's famous "Castle on a Cloud" song. The Barbican previews give her a few lines before the main number starts (sung in a similar tune to her remarks about Mme. Thenardier's arrival at the end of the song):

They’ll come back any minute

And I’m nowhere near finished

Sweeping and scrubbing and polishing the floor

It’s the same every day, oh please!

Don’t let Madame hit me again

I should be used to it, but then

I know a place where nobody has to work too hard

And where I won’t be lonely again

These lines, taken closely from the original French concept album, don't really add much to the number plot-wise that won't be stated later except for more explicit confirmation that Mme. Thenardier is abusive. Perhaps partly for this reason, by the 1986 recording these lines are removed, and after the opening instrumentals it goes straight into the number we all know.

As I previously mentioned in Part 1, the later recording I have of the Barbican previews cut out the following lines during the preamble to Master of the House. I originally mistakenly claimed that the cuts occured after Thenardier's verse, but in actuality that verse too is removed.

(THENARDIER)

My band of soaks, my den of disollutes

My dirty jokes, my always pissed as newts

My sons of whores spend their lives in my inn

Homing pigeons homing in

They fly through my doors

And their money's good as yours

(CUSTOMERS)

Ain’t got a clue what he put into his stew

Must’ve scraped it off the street

Hell, what a wine

Châteauneuf de Turpentine

Must’ve pressed it with his feet

Landlord over here

Where’s the bloody man

One more for the road

One more slug of gin

Just one more or my old man is gonna do me in

By the 1986 recording, they are back in all their glory. Indeed, as you can read in Part 1 of this series Trevor Nunn himself has confirmed that the crew decided the number didn't work as well without the full preamble (an exception being, shockingly enough, Cameron Mackintosh).

During the Barbican previews, "Master of the House" was followed by a beautiful Well Scene between Valjean and Little Cosette:

(LITTLE COSETTE)

There is a castle on a cloud

I like to go there in my sleep

Aren’t any floors for me to sweep

(A FEW SECONDS OF INSTRUMENTALS)

(VALJEAN)

Don’t be afraid of me, my dear

Tell me your name and have no fear

How cold it grows when the sun has set

(LITTLE COSETTE)

I’m not afraid

Monsieur, my name’s Cosette

(VALJEAN)

Nor will you be afraid again

I come to take you from this place

There is a better world, you’ll see

(LITTLE COSETTE)

Give me your hand, and walk with me.

This leads into the humming duet between Valjean and Cosette. However, in what I consider the biggest mistake of this era's adjustments, the Well Scene was totally excised from the West End version and "Master of the House" is following directly by the humming duet. Trevor Nunn remarked a degree of regret about this in 1990's The Complete Book of Les Miserables. I don't have the book on hand right now, but I'll put down the exact quote later.

Of course, the Well Scene would later return in a much different form, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Perhaps to compensate for the deleted scene, another scene is added after the "Waltz of Treachery" number. During the Barbican previews, Valjean's "It won't take you too long to forget" is followed by a lot of vamping and eventually a reprise of Valjean and Cosette's humming duet. The West End production slightly reduces the vamping from about one minute to about forty-five seconds, and adds a scene (sung in the tune of "Castle on a Cloud", specifically the "there is a lady all in white" part at first and the main chorus for "Nor will you be afraid again" onwards):

(LITTLE COSETTE)

We're going home right now, monsieur

What is your name

(VALJEAN)

Now my dear

I've names enough, I've got names to spare

But where I go, you always will be there

Nor will you be afraid again

There is a sun that's shining yet

(LITTLE COSETTE)

I'm going to call you my Papa

(VALJEAN)

I'm going to call you my Cosette

The normal humming duet follows. This is a fascinating scene which seems to be exclusive to the brief era after the Barbican previews but before Broadway. It's interesting how it incorporates elements both of the opening Well Scene and of the more well-known later closing scene to the "Waltz of Treachery". It's also intriguing how it incorporates elements not really touched upon this directly in any other version of the musical, specifically just how mysterious and secretive Valjean is to the world in general as well as the fact that Cosette, in fact, is not truly Cosette's given name.

Everything seems to be the same from this point until "The Attack on Rue Plumet". In the Barbican previews, this is how the opening goes:

(EPONINE)

'Parnasse, what are you doing

So far out of our patch?

(MONTPARNASSE)

This house, we're gonna do it!

Rich man, plenty of scratch

You remember he's the bloke wot got away the other day

Got a number on his chest, perhaps a fortune put away

Took off like a guilty man, why would he want to disappear?

Now we're gonna do him right, this time no one will interfere

Everything from "Took off like a guilty man" onwards is removed from the West End version. Later in the number, we hear approximately the following exchange in the Barbican show. Fans have debated what exactly some of the lyrics are, but this is how I hear them:

(CLAQUESOUS)

What a palaver, what an absolute treat

To watch a cat and his father pick a bone in the street

(THENARDIER)

Not a sound out of you

(EPONINE)

What do you care if things scare me

(THENARDIER)

Listen 'Ponine, there might be jewels inside

There could be something for all

There could be bruises enough

You will have your share

(EPONINE)

Well I told you I'd do it, I told you I'd do it

The West End production reduces the vamping prior to this scene. Additionally, everything between "What do you care" and "You will have your share" is removed, meaning the "I told you I'd do it" is a direct remark to "Not a sound out of you". This is a much more linear and succinct way of moving the plot in my humble opinion!

That's it for act one! Act two begins largely the same, up until the scene where Gavroche reveals Javert to be a traitor. First off, Javert's original claim that they will "play their games" is changed to "spoil their games".

Next is probably this version's biggest change in the entire musical up to this point. Originally Gavroche sung approximately the following lines (once again, the recordings aren't as clear as would be desirable) in a unique tune heard nowhere else in the musical:

Good evening, dear inspector, lovely evening my dear!

A charlie for a copper who pays a call

I know who you’re supposed to be, Inspector Javert

Who never showed no mercy to no one at all

So don’t believe a word, none of it will wash

This time you’re reckoned without Gavroche!

The West End version scrapped this sequence and replaced it with "Little People" (which originally appeared in a much longer form later in the musical). This is how it went:

Good evening dear inspector, lovely evening my dear

I know this man, my friends, his name's Inspector Javert

So don't believe a word he says 'cause none of it's true

It only goes to show what little people can do

And little people know, when little people fight

We may look easy picking but we've got some bite

So never kick a dog because he's just a pup

You'd better run for cover when the pup grows up!

This edited placement of "Little People" is often attributed to the original Broadway production, but in fact it made its debut in the West End show. I'm not sure when exactly this was, given that the original cast album uses the long version. However, by the 1986 recording this is how it goes. It should be noted that it's not quite in its Broadway form, however; most notably, "We'll fight like twenty armies and we won't give up!" is not present.

A minor difference occurs during the First Attack sequence. In the Barbican production, this is how the students respond to their victory:

(GRANTAIRE)

By God, we've won the day

(LESGLES)

See how they run away

The West End production swaps the two students' lines, allowing Grantaire's slightly incredulous spirit to have a more poignant and/or amusing effect depending on your perspective.

Consequently given the new placement of the song, the show obviously had to be edited to remove the original "Little People" number. Originally, this is the way the show transitioned between the First Attack and "Little People":

(ENJOLRAS)

Courfeyrac, you take the watch

They won't attack until it's light

Everybody stay awake

We must be ready for the fight

For the final fight

Let no one sleep tonight

(GRANTAIRE)

Only little boys may sleep

For little people need their rest

Little tucks are quickly drained

And little grapes are quickly pressed

Come on little mite

It's time to say goodnight

Cue the original "Little People" number in all of its long, silly glory (in case you somehow don't know it, here are the lyrics). The West End production (and everything afterwards) cuts Grantaire's verse, so that the scene transitions straight from Enjolras' announcement to "Drink with Me". As much as I love the full-length "Little People" number (and I really do love it), I admit removing it was definitely the right choice. It's just so sweet and optimistic, it feels out of place in a musical as tragic and cynical as Les Miserables. It doesn't help that its placement is between a high-stakes action scene and a somber, slightly drunk reflection on the nature of friendships, sex, and romance. It's a wonderful song but a terrible Les Mis song. I do love it, though, and I also love how Grantaire manages to make his pre-song metaphors alcohol-related.

In the sewers, the Barbican recordings feature a unique tune not heard anywhere elsewhere in the musical (it can be heard here) before transitioning to the final Valjean-Javert confrontation. Apparently, this music was accompanied by a short chase scene. However, by the time of the 1986 recording there is instead what is essentially one repeated note which then transitions into an instrumental version of "Look Down". This is followed by the same Valjean-Javert confrontation as before.

And that just about sums this part up! If I missed anything feel free to let me know, as my goal is to create a changelog as thorough and complete as possible. I plan on making more parts in the near future covering all the changes that have been made in the show up until this day (discounting concerts). Any feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

As a side note, both for this project and my own enjoyment, I want as complete a collection of Les Miserables audios as possible. I already have most of what’s commonly circulated, but if you have any audios or videos you know are rare, I’d love it if you DMed me!

Until the turntable puts me at the forefront again, good-bye…

#les mierables #les mis #les miz #barbican #west end #changelog #history #1985 #1986 #comparison #the les miserables changelog #changes #theatre #musical #part 2

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orwocolor · 3 years

Text

Love Thy Neighbour - Chapter Seven

Pairing: Gwilym Lee x Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Cursing

Summary: Gwilym shows up in your bookstore to apologise but there still might be more obstacles on your way to happiness.

Author’s Note: And another sprinkle of angst so that chapter six doesn’t feel so lonely. Only one more chapter and an epilogue remain, so keep an eye out for those! Comments and reblogs are always very appreciated :) Check my masterlist to read the previous chapters. Dedicated to my sweetie @justgwilym.

Dragging your feet, you crash on your sofa, a floral pattern of one of the walls spinning around you. You squeeze your eyes shut, but as you lose the point of focus, you sense a rise of, so far, the most powerful wave of nausea. You fight the feeling and instead fix your gaze on one of the paintings decorating the living room.

Breathe in.

And breathe out.

You should not have drunk that much. But Jane and Charlotte were unstoppable and admittedly, you needed it. After a couple of drinks, you actually started having fun. Daniel turned out to be a very pleasant companion with a taste for slightly dry humour that, partially due to your inebriated state, made you burst in laughter multiple times during the party.

Oh god, you are going to hate yourself so much tomorrow.

Once it seems the whole world will not tilt again and toss you on your side, you brave a few steps into the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of water. Gulping it down, you can already feel its beneficial effects, which are further enhanced when you press the cold glass against your forehead. You serve yourself another drink and with each sip, you begin to trust your legs again.

You release a content sigh as a soft breeze and smell of rain touch your cheeks when you open the windows; it truly does a world of good. Grabbing yourself two slices of toast bread, you settle onto the sofa, open your laptop and click on a random video for you to watch while you wait to get better before you go to bed. If you lay down right now, you’re sure you would throw up.

With an occasional chuckle leaving your lips as you listen rather than watch a stand-up show, you almost miss a soft, hesitant knock on your door. Almost. Your fingers hover above the keyboard as you contemplate pausing the video. If you press the space key right now, there will be no doubt you’ve heard the knocking.

Slowly retracting your hand back to your side, you let the comedian continue in her sketch and you just wait. It probably takes only a minute, but for you, it’s an eternity before you can hear Gwil shut the door to his flat behind him.

You release a breath you have not realised you were holding and hide your face in your palms.

You are not in a state to face him right now. You need some time. And most importantly, you need to put some space between you, otherwise you’re going to care way too much, and you are not in the position of allowing yourself feelings of that sort.

“I’m sorry, sir, I’ll be back in a minute, just let me attend to this young lady,” you throw behind your shoulder as you rush to the cash desk and leave a customer in the historical section.

“Maybe I can be of service,” Mr Dean appears next to the customer’s shoulder, who jumps a bit, not expecting someone else, and you send a grateful glance to your friend. You knew you could count on him. Whenever he’s in a good mood, he loves to entertain people in the bookshop and no matter the topic or genre they’re looking for, he turns into an expert, gladly offering recommendations.

You hide a smile when you notice Mr Dean’s eyes sparkling as the man mentions the French revolution and he starts guiding him to the needed section.

“Here you go,” you hand the young woman her bag and say your goodbyes, a shrilling sound of chimes hanging at the entrance door announcing her departure.

While you bend down and disappear behind the till to throw away the receipt the woman didn’t want, the chimes sound again, and you emerge from behind the cash desk.

No.

He’s there, right in front of you, the surprise written in his face matching yours.

“Hello,” Gwil says softly and for a split of a second, you forget to breathe.

You’ve managed to avoid him the whole weekend by some miracle, although, admittedly, on one occasion, when you were forced out of your flat to do grocery shopping, you spotted him at the entrance door when you made a turn to your street. At that moment, you remembered you wanted to check something on your phone, and after fiddling with it long enough for Gwil to get home, you plucked up the courage to do the same.

You assured yourself you just needed some time and space and by the time you would meet him, you would have known what to tell him.

Well, your past self can go screw herself because here you are with your tongue tied.

“Hi, Y/N!” Ben is on Gwil’s tail and greets you cheerfully, his hand raised in a wave.

“Hi,” you manage to blurt out, quite happy with yourself for not butchering the single syllable. It’s all about little victories, right?

“So, uh, I’ll go check some books I guess,” Ben breaks the silence when neither you nor Gwil seems to do so, and scurries farther into the store.

“I am so, so sorry, Y/N,” Gwil eventually breathes out and raises his lowered eyes. “I wish I could have a good reason for not showing up the other day and for copping out on you like that, but I just don’t. I…”

He looks around and bites his lips, looking for a way of how to finish his sentence in books-filled shelves.

You wait patiently because you have the feeling that there is something he needs to say, and it would be ill-advised to interrupt his thoughts.

“Okay, I’m probably already not in your good books, so why not make even a bigger twat of myself, eh.”

“Ha, in the good books. Get it? You’re in a bookshop,” you chuckle, your voice not as strong as you would like it to be.

“Yeah,” he replies, and the corners of his lips rise up slightly. Soon, his voice turns serious again. “Well, I went to that stupid audition and I just fucked it up. Yeah, there’s no better word for that. I fucked it up, big time. I tried to persuade them to give me another chance, I said I would do anything, and the production assistant surprised me. She promised me another audition if I went for a drink with her afterwards, and I… didn’t refuse.” He takes a deep, shaky breath, presumably the first one since he started explaining what had happened. “I wasn’t thinking, and when I realised I was supposed to be with you, it was too late.”

“You could have called me,” you say slowly, daring to meet his gaze.

“My phone was dead. I was fiddling with it so much while I was waiting for the audition. Was driving Ben absolutely crazy.”

“Can confirm!” Ben’s head peeps out from behind a shelf and quickly hides again when he spots both your and Gwil’s not so amused expressions.

“Still,” you start and shake away the trembling feeling that is creeping to your voice, “You could have come by later and explain all of that to me that night.”

By some miracle, it’s as if he senses the direction of your thoughts, and rushes to set the record straight, offering the absolution you haven’t, until now, realised you desperately craved.

“The moment it dawned on me what a jerk I was, I said my goodbyes and left. But it was too late, and I felt like such a prick, so I actually dropped in another pub and drank some more. Was so shit-faced I stayed at my brother’s ‘cause he lives in that area.”

A great weight is lifted from your shoulders and you can finally take a deep and long breath. You feel a smile tugging at the corners of your lips but Gwilym does not see it; he is avoiding your eyes, as mortification keeps surrounding his whole person.

“I am so, so sorry,” he repeats once again and the moment the words leave his lips, you forgive him.

Actually, you already have.

You are just about to tell him so when he finally finds the courage to look into your eyes as he reaches out and gently grasps your hands that have been resting on the counter.

“Please, can you forgive me?”

His thumbs are lightly stroking your skin and you cannot tear away your gaze from his beautiful blue eyes.

“Sir, I must ask you to leave right now!”

Wait, what?

It takes you a moment to become aware of where you are and what is happening. The bookshop, right. And as for what is going on…

“Sir, I won’t repeat myself, leave this building immediately!” Peter’s voice reaches such volume that every customer stops in their tracks, their curiosity taking the better of themselves.

“I was only showing this young lad the historic section. I don’t reckon it’s a crime,” Mr Dean responds in his defence, which only infuriates Peter some more.

“You’re always just helping other customers, or browsing, or, God forbid, reading our books without paying a single penny for them. I want you gone. This is not a library!”

“Peter,” you say weakly, not capable of wrapping your head around it. He isn’t supposed to be here, otherwise you would have warned Mr Dean beforehand.

“Is that the Mr Dean you told me about?” Gwil whispers and it is only then when you notice your hands are still placed in his and his face is much closer to yours than you remember.

“Yes, I’m–” you start but Gwilym won’t let you finish the sentence.

“Trust me, darling. I’ll stop by at your place at around seven, okay?” he hastily says and places a soft kiss to your cheek before leaving you at the till dumbfounded.

“Grandpa!” he greets joyfully and rushes to Mr Dean to give him a proper hug. “Have you found the book you told me about?”

Mr Dean shoots a glance your way before he replies. “Ah, I… Yes. Yes, yes, I did, give me a second.” You’re taken aback by his quick reaction because you have not moved from your spot, your jaw down, and you are pretty sure your arms are still stretched in front of you although Gwilym’s warm palms are no longer holding them. You fix your posture in an instant and clear your throat, at least trying to give the impression of having everything under control.

Although you are not particularly proud of yourself, you’re still doing better than Peter. He is just standing there, opening his mouth like fish as no words are leaving his lips.

Gwilym pretends he has only just noticed him and raises his eyebrows in make-believe innocence. “Is there any problem here?”

It takes a couple of moments before Peter gathers his bearings.

“I’m sorry, but this is your grandfather?” he finally finds his voice and points an accusatory finger at your dear friend.

“Yeah! He’s been wearing my ear off about this wonderful book he discovered here, so I’m here to get it for him. For his birthday, you know? Which is coming soon, isn’t that right, grandpa?”

“In a couple of days, actually,” Mr Dean confirms and nods his head seriously as if contemplating the fleetingness of time and existence.

“Urgh, I’m the worst grandson ever, really, looking for gifts this late, I should be ashamed of myself.” You are fascinated by Gwil’s acting; he doesn’t miss a beat and comes up with lies so quickly, all you can do is stare in astonishment. It’s not like anyone needs you right now because all customers are watching the scene unfold.

“Ah, got it!” The victorious announcement of Mr Dean makes Gwil turn on his heel and leave Peter behind.

“Wow, that’s really pretty! You weren’t lying about the photographs.” Gwil expertly inspects the pictures of various relics and nods, approvement and appreciation readable from his pursed lips. “Excellent! We’ll take it.” He closes the book in one swift motion and heads to your cash desk.

By this time, you have composed yourself enough to remember all the common niceties, and you are quite proud of your performance as you easily scan the book that you’ve seen cradled in Mr Dean’s palms many afternoons and punch the price into the card reader so that Gwil can pay.

“Would you like it gift-wrapped?” you do not forget to ask and when your gaze meets Gwil, your heart starts beating so fast you almost can’t hear the answer.

“Oh yes, please, that is if we’re not bothering you.” Gwil’s smile lights up his whole face.

“No bother at all,” the corners of your lips rise in a matching smile and you procced to neatly wrap the book in a piece of brown paper, taking extra care to tie a dark blue ribbon around the package.

“Thank you so much, have a lovely day!” Gwilym places the book under his arm and leaves the shop, Mr Dean on his tail offers a wave and a wink that, hopefully, Peter cannot see.

Through the display window, you almost miss Gwil turning around and mouthing ‘see you tonight’ before he and Mr Dean disappear behind the corner. You almost burst into laughter when Ben suddenly emerges from behind the bookshelves and dashes after them.

You have got the feeling that Peter is mumbling something, but all you can think about is your lovely neighbour and the kiss he ever so gently placed on your cheek.

You resist the temptation to touch your face, wondering whether the imprint of Gwil’s lips can be found there, or whether the gesture is forever inscribed into your mind only.

But then, you finally register Peter’s words...

“I can’t believe it! And of all days he’s got to pick today and embarrass me in front of the buyers. God damn it!”

… and your smile freezes.

Buyers.

The sequence of syllables still sounds foreign and dangerous to your ears.

Buyers.

No matter how many times it rolls off your tongue, the word remains the same.

So that’s it. Peter’s made up his mind and he is going to sell the bookshop. And that leaves so many questions unanswered. The new owners, are they going to keep the staff, or do they plan to hire a new bunch of people? Is there even some certainty that they will not rebrand and establish a branch of a fast-food chain? It’s not like the city is flooded with them, right.

You feel the dizziness creeping up your neck as those thoughts swirl in your head, not permitting you a moment of peace. You almost crash into a passer-by, but thankfully you manage to keep yourself upright and the take-out bag with your late lunch intact in your hold.

Once you finally arrive home, you heat up the food you have brought with you and open your favourite book in a desperate attempt to diverge the direction of your thoughts.

You are torn between biting your nails from the uncertainty of your future career and halting in the story and daydreaming about Gwilym’s visit tonight. And with that mindset, you go about your day while you clean up, water plants, and dust your flat; you have been putting it off for ages.

Emerged in thoughts, you almost mishear the buzzing sound of the bell. You are wearing baggy trousers and an old t-shirt with stains God-knows from what. You have reckoned you’ve still got time to change before Gwil’s visit. Oh well, he has seen you at your worse.

However, your brows furrow as you step into the hall and catch a glimpse of the digital clock.

5.40 p.m.

Swinging the door open, you are met with no one. Another sound of the bell and the line on your forehead deepens.

“Hello,” you mutter when you press the intercom, and the static comes through.

“Y/N! Hi! Ready to go out and grab coffee with me?”

It takes a moment before the dots connect.

“Oh, Daniel, hi! I… erm… can you give me ten minutes?”

“Sure thing!”

The dash across your flat, from the door to the dresser, then to the bathroom and back to the hall could be considered a match to any Olympian’s winning sprint race, but it is too early after your accident and your ankle makes itself known. You grit your teeth and grab a purse, leaving your flat and hoping no appliances have stayed turned on.

How could you have forgotten?! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

“Hi!” you greet breathlessly when you fly from the entrance door, and Daniel gives you a lopsided smile.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” No matter how hard you try not to give anything away, the blush on your cheeks betrays you. “Oh my God, you did!” Barking out a laugh, he lets you take a couple of deep breaths before you start walking down the street. “Maybe it should be you who’s gonna buy the coffee today.”

“Gladly,” you smile and spot a cosy café. For a split second, you consider taking him to Hazel’s, but then you imagine the soft hues of brown and gold against black and white background of your most beloved café. Your mind goes straight to the day you bumped into Gwil and Ben in there and you do not wish to stain that memory. Besides, this café is right behind the corner of your block of flats, which means you shouldn’t get stuck at some far-off place. “Actually, I owe you ‘cos I’ve got some plans at seven and I need to get home by then.”

“Oh, okay,” he replies hesitantly, and you bite your lips, feeling like an arse. Well, you can make it up for him by paying for the coffee, right?

You are trying. You are really, truly trying. Daniel is nice. Funny, smart, and knows all the iconic movie lines off pat, however, the moment you look into his eyes, you feel nothing, there is no bated breath, no heart beating fast. Nothing. And honestly, it seems you are not making a particularly good impression either. He takes notice of your constant checking the time on your phone, and when you catch yourself doing it for an umpteenth time, you roll your eyes at yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter after a moment of silence, which you wish were a companionable one, but you are too fidgety.

“It’s fine, I get it,” Dan offers a sheepish smile, which you return. “Let’s get you back home, okay?”

The wind is chilling and light drizzle lands on your hair. As you walk down the street, you notice that Daniel is trying to gently hold your hand. It starts with your fingers brushing and you would dismiss it as an accidental touch but when his fingertips graze the back of your palm, you sense the intention in the gesture. You bring your hand up, brushing off a damp strand of hair and scratching the back of your neck so as not to give him another opportunity for touch.

Hoping this debacle is behind you now, you say your goodbyes and grab the door handle to your building. Oh, how foolish!

“I know you’re lost in thought today but it was a nice date and honestly, I’m not ready for it to end.” He gives you a smile and his eyes sparkle when you stop in your tracks and turn your head to face him.

His gaze drops down to your lips and you are (literally) taken aback by the movement to such extent that your body shoots away. In the process, you press your back to the doorbell panel and jump a bit, not expecting that kind of contact.

“Careful.” Daniel’s fingers find your waist to keep you upright. “I realise I might not be the man of your dreams, but I hope we can go for dinner next time.”

“I…” you start, unable to find the words that would not hurt him.

“No, don’t say anything,” he whispers, and it is only then when you realise his face has inched closer to yours. And then he presses his lips to yours, and you freeze at the spot.

Your eyelids do not tremble with emotion, neither do you melt into his touch. You just stand there, barely moving your lips and thinking that this guy just cannot take a hint. You might have been waving the ‘I am not interested’ flag right in front of his face and he still would be none the wiser.

When he finally lets go, your gaze is still fixed forward and you suck in your lips in a subconscious effort to prevent him from another attempt of a kiss. However, you catch a flicker of light in the corner of your eyes and without giving it a second thought you twist your neck, and your gaze falls into the entrance hall. The windowpane which reflected two figures kissing a moment ago turns transparent and reveals a figure standing inside.

He’s there, at the top of the staircase, taking you by surprise for a second time this day.

But this time, his eyes are hurt behind his glasses, a deep line is forming on his forehead, and it seems as if he’s rooted to the cold stone floor. Your heart is breaking at the sight of him and you know you must do anything within your power to atone for this moment because you never ever want to see such pain written in his face.

“Gwil,” you breathe out softly and bend down to escape Daniel’s embrace. Pushing the main door, you rush to your neighbour, your friend, your… “Gwil, this means nothing, I’m not –”

“My doorbell rang, and I was foolish enough to think you couldn’t wait until seven. I…” He is avoiding your gaze, his eyes roving round the hall. He brings his hands to his sides, but quickly finds out there are no pockets in his soft camel pleated trousers and so he clasps them together. When he bites his trembling lips, it is almost unbearable to keep your eyes on him, but you cannot look away either.

Then, his features harden, and it is probably worse than before as your stomach tightens.

“Goodbye.”

You almost miss the sound, his voice barely above a whisper. Tears threaten to fall down your cheeks, but Gwilym is already gone, his moccasins tapping against the cold tiles of the stairs. You fight the urge to wrap your arms around yourself and have a breakdown right here and now. All you do is simply turn around, every movement calculated so as not to make an unnecessary one. Daniel is still standing at the entrance, his eyebrows raised in the piqued curiosity of what has just occurred.

“I can’t go for another date with you. I’m sorry.”

But you don’t feel sorry at all, well, not sorry for him at least. Your thoughts have turned into a tangled ball of turmoil and indescribable emotions, which are hard to make sense of.

When you reach your floor, you stop in your tracks to your flat. You have thought you lost all the courage, but you muster some from deep inside and cross the hall to knock on his door with determination.

God knows how long you are standing there, you knock again, and again.

Nothing.

Not even a sign of hope.

Your heart skips a beat when you finally hear the creak of a door being open, but a lump forms in your throat instead when it dawns on you that it is not Gwil’s door but Mrs Thompson’s.

“Hello Mrs Thompson,” you greet meekly the slightly open door of the 3A flat and drag your feet to your home.

You do not bother taking off your shoes or clothes. Crushing straight into your bed, you finally give yourself the permission to let your emotions flow and cry yourself to sleep.

Taglist: @lv7867, @spacedustmazzello, @queenwouldyourathers, @im-an-adult-ish, @fairestkillerqueenofall, @supernaturalee, @queenlover05, @geek-and-proud, @chlobo6, @mrsmazzello, @timeandpixiedust, @kerouacsroad, @gwilsmainhoe

#gwilym lee x reader #gwilym lee angst #gwilym lee fluff #gwilym lee fic #gwilym lee imagine #multichapter #fluff #angst #vee writes #*mine

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yuusa · 3 years

Text

-ˋˏ𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐭 ˎˊ-

-ˋˏ 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑩𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒕 ˎˊ-

✧ 𝑮𝒐𝒅 𝑬𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟑 𝑴𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕

· · · · ✦ 𝑺/𝒐 𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒂𝒔 𝑯𝒖𝒈𝒐 𝑷𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒚𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒕'𝒔 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝒐𝒏 𝒂 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒋𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇-𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝑷𝒐𝒓𝒕. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒂 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒖��𝒂𝒓 𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒚𝒔𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒖𝒎.

𝑺𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒖𝒑 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑯𝒖𝒈𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝒋𝒐𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆.

You fumbled around the large boxes within the room, searching for the lost bracelet that you thought you placed in the girl’s cabin. You nervously bit your lips in frustration as you tried to sort through all of the nearly ripped clothing that was patched up with tape, most of which were clothes Hugo bought for you as a gift when the time came. However, the bracelet was a special case that was irreplaceable to you.

It had been given to you when you were much younger, perhaps around the age of twelve when Hugo went on a mission and found scraps around the area. He had been scrounging through different broken ruins to find pieces he could use to make a bond or “promise” bracelet as he referred to it as, something to reward you with when he got back from his mission.

He was able to find enough materials to make two black bracelets that were long enough to wrap around your wrist multiple times, they were identical in appearance but had small noticeable differences. For one, Hugo’s was a bit scratched up due to his habit of wearing it wherever he went, while yours was more intact as you left it behind at the caravan before a mission.

“Here, I made this for you to say thanks for always being by my side,” Hugo said, asking for you to extend your arm out, “it took me a couple of weeks to find the right materials but I finally did it.”

You extended your wrist towards him, allowing him to delicately wrap the bracelet around you with his smaller, childish hands. Although the armlets around his wrists were bonded to your body like handcuffs, he was still able to put yours on. Your eyes grew wider as he held up his own arm, he had placed his on the opposite side of yours and he gave you a wide, goofy smile.

Your fingers dragged across the smooth material of the bracelet, admiring the amount of effort Hugo had put into such a gift. There were smaller patches of tape lining the edges of the bracelet but it held itself quite well together. You could feel an overwhelming rush of emotion flood the edges of your eyes as you wiped them away with the back of your hand. Hugo’s eyes softened as you threw your arms around his neck, burying your face into the crook of it.

“Thank you, Hugo, I love it,” you said, his neck being tickled by the smile which touched his skin.

Now that you had lost the bracelet somewhere on the caravan, you were beginning to sort through your entire box of clothes just to find it. You sore that you had left it on your bed or table before you left, but once you came back from the mission, it wasn’t there anymore. You were beginning to doubt whether or not you had even placed it in your room, perhaps you might have accidentally left it on your arm while fighting the Aragami, it must have broken off or had been sliced and left behind to rot at the mission area.

You felt your sore shoulders and legs ache desperately, your mind drawing back to the earlier mission which left several bruises around your skin when you were dragged across the ground. You hadn’t checked in the mirror but you could feel your neck feeling funny, it was as if someone or something had bitten you the other night. In addition, some areas were simply sore, as if you had done some sort of intense work out before the start of the mission, however, you were starting to forget what exactly happened.

You tugged on the tips of your hair as you groaned. Cursing to yourself for your foolishness, you rummaged through your clothes for what seems like the fourth time already, growing increasingly desperate to find the sentimental gift. The doors slid open, Claire, Phym, and Lulu walking in together to see the floors of the girls' cabin covered in your clothes.

“What’s going on? Is everything alright?” Claire asked, coming to your side as you dropped your clothes onto the floor with a dejected sigh.

Perhaps it might be better to tell them after all, you thought, closing your eyes and sighing.

“I lost the bracelet that was important to me, I can’t find it anywhere in the cabin and I think it might be outside in the Ashlands,” you replied.

“The bracelet you wore around the caravan?” Lulu added, to which you nodded in response. She and Claire hummed while Phym ran up to you to give you a comforting hug.

“Don’t worry mommy! I’ll help you find it!” She said, “we can look around!”

You smiled and patted the top of her head, “thanks Phym.”

“We’ll help too, it might be in the lobby or the Medical Ward,” Claire said, putting a hand on your shoulder, “what does it look like?”

You looked down at your empty wrist, “well. . . It should look like Hugo’s. . .” It was hard to describe your bracelet due to how simple it was that it might get mixed up with other products on the caravan, comparing it to Hugo’s was possibly the best option as he wore his around his wrist for the entire time.

Lulu pressed her lips together as she placed her hand underneath her chin, “maybe it’s in the guy’s cabin? Hugo might have taken it by accident if they look the same.”

You scratched the back of your head, your mind still fuzzy regarding the events of last night. You were unsure about whether or not you had left it in the guy’s cabin, you vaguely remembered going there when Hugo asked you to come during dinner but couldn’t remember anything after that. Perhaps checking the guy’s cabin would be a good idea, it might even be there if you looked around but you didn’t know if it was an invasion of privacy to do so.

You released a sigh and nodded, leaving to open the doors of the cabin and stepping out with the rest of the girls following suit. You turned towards the male cabin and knocked on their door, hearing the sound of shuffling and mumbled voices as Zeke opened the door.

“Oh hey guys, what are you doing here?” He asked, letting the crew come inside the extremely messy cabin.

You scanned your surroundings, seeing a variety of playing cards left on the table and ground with records and disks scattered across the room. Some of the beds were extremely messy except for the top bunk, which you assumed was Hugo’s based on how straight-faced he could be at times, it reminded you of when Hugo would tell the other kids to make their beds properly before they left the room. It didn’t seem like his advice really aged with Zeke considering how battered and messy his bed was.

“We were looking for her bracelet, it looks like Hugo’s, have you seen it?” Claire asked. Lulu looked around the room while Phym danced around to try and find the accessory.

“Oh you mean the gift Hugo got for her? I haven’t seen it here, and if it’s here it must be buried in the sheets somewhere,” Zeke replied, putting his hands on his hips, “you could search around if you want but stay away from the laundry basket, that's pretty awkward just saying.”

“We aren’t gonna dig through your laundry,” Lulu playfully rolled her eyes and came to Phym’s side, her hands searching through the boxes for any sort of bracelet that matched the description of ‘Hugo’s bracelet’.

You nodded and began searching through the boxes, most of them consisted of playing cards or secret stashes of food, you assumed that Ricardo gave them to Zeke for him to share with Phym whenever she did a great job on her studying. Everyone searched through the boxes and eventually came to the realization that it wasn’t in the boxes at all. You began to feel even more stressed by the idea that perhaps you truly had lost the gift and it might be in the Ashlands somewhere.

“Where is Hugo anyway?” Claire asked, closing the box and setting it back on top of the shelf.

“He’s with Hilda and Keith right now, they’re talking about the Acceleration Trigger and how it could rack in some money,” Zeke replied, shuffling through a deck of cards, “maybe you could ask him about it? Better yet, let’s check his bed!”

“What? Why?” Lulu asked.

“The man sleeps on the top bunk, he must be hiding something dude! Look how clean his bed is! There is something going on there,” he said, “I swear sometimes when we adjust the bed, his bunk is a bit loose at times.”

“Huh, that sounds pretty strange,” Claire said, brushing Phym’s hair as she held onto her in a hug, “maybe he’s just planning something or writing his reports in bed, he is a pretty serious worker.”

“Maybe you should check, you’re his closest friend after all,” Zeke awkwardly coughed.

You gave Zeke a nod as you climbed the ladder to Hugo’s bunk, fumbling with the sheets until you touched something. You pulled it out from under the sheets and dropped back down to the floor, opening your hand to reveal a black bracelet that was exactly like Hugo’s.

“That's great! You found it in Hugo’s bed, I wonder how it got there in the first place,” Claire said, Phym clapping her hands in happiness.

“Mommy you found it!”

You pressed your lips together as you examined it, there were a few scratch marks on the sides and it was much bigger than you remembered it to be. You examined the bracelet closer and realized that while it looked exactly like Hugo’s, it was because it was his.

“Hold on, it’s not the same one,” you replied, keeping the bracelet in your hands whole the group raised their eyebrows in confusion.

“What do you mean? It looks just like Hugo’s doesn’t it?” Lulu asked.

You shook your head, “not to be picky or anything, but this one is a lot bigger than my wrist, and there's a few marks on it. It means it’s a bit more worn out than it should be.”

Zeke scratched the back of his neck, “oh man, I thought we actually found it but I guess it wasn’t the case.”

“Where else would it be then?” Lulu added.

The metal doors of the cabin opened up to reveal Hugo, standing there with a shocked expression, in his hand was a black bracelet and his wrist was completely bare from accessories, aside from his twin armlets.

“Woah what are you guys doing here? I was just looking for you,” Hugo quickly came to your side with a nervous smile, “I think I took yours by accident.”

“Wait so you guys swapped bracelets?” Zeke asked, Hugo nodding in response.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’m sure you were worried about it, weren’t you?” Hugo casually brought your wrist up to help tie the bracelet together, “my bad, our’s just looked the same you know?”

Phym smiled, “mystery solved! Mommy got her bracelet back!” She ran up to you and you brought her into your arms, picking her up and bringing her closer.

Claire sighed in relief, “that’s great news, may I ask where you both got your bracelets?”

Hugo turned to you and took his bracelet back, wrapping it around his wrist, “we both got them as kids, I usually went around to salvage some abandoned parts for something to give to the other kids. I just happened to find these two.”

You knew that he dumbed down the story a bit, in reality, you knew he had spent many days looking for parts to make a sturdy bracelet that would last years. Hugo smiled at you while you gave one back to him, the rest of the group chatting amongst each other as he brought himself closer to your ear, speaking in a low voice to avoid Phym hearing.

“You left it here after last night, how are you doing? You were limping a bit at the start of the mission,” Hugo whispered, you slowly turned to him with a blank expression before turning a flush red color.

You had completely forgotten what you had done last night with Hugo but it was slowly coming back to you. He had invited you to the guy’s cabin to check over some documents but it ended up getting a bit. . . Frisky. You pressed your lips together in embarrassment while Phym tilted her head in confusion to what Hugo said.

“Haha, don’t worry about it, I thought you would remember it with. . . You know,” he tapped on the sore part of your neck, causing you to flinch and have shivers run down your spine.

“I-It’s fine,” you replied, seeing Hugo give you a familiar goofy grin while Phym held onto you tighter, “just. . . Remind me next time okay?”

“Alright, I’ll remind you more often,” he gave you a teasing wink to which you responded with an eye roll.

#god eater 3 #god eater 3 x reader #god eater 3 imagines #hugo pennywort #hugo pennywort x reader #hugo pennywort x protagonist

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theres-a-goldensky · 3 years

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BL Show Review Series - TharnType

ThIt was requested that I make my next BL review about TharnType. And since series two is ongoing currently, it seemed like the right time to dive into this flawed series that struck gold with its two leads.

Disclaimer that these are my own opinions, and I don’t know where the BL community as a whole stands on these shows. If I disliked a show you loved or visa versa, no disrespect is intended!

MASTERLIST OF BL SHOW REVIEWS

Spoiler Warning and TW: homophobia, child sexual abuse, sexual assault

TharnType Rating: 5/10

These boys can kiss. If you want me to boil down the appeal of this show, that would be it. I said in my intro that this series struck gold with its two leads, and it’s true. Mew Suppasit and Gulf Kanawut look like they want to devour each other for every moment that they’re on screen together. They also go in full force on the bed scenes, of which there are quite a few, starting early in the series and continuing through until the end.

Often in BLs, the acting can seem stilted and the relationship forced. It’s easy to tell that you’re watching two straight men just giving it their best effort for a job. I think that’s why this series gained such a huge following. Well, the chemistry, the skinship, and of course, the fact that both leads are gorgeous.

It’s probably not for the plot, which is...gibberish and occasionally offensive. The author of the story, MAME, seems to have only one trick up her sleeve for creating drama: rape. I talked about my frustration with this when I reviewed another MAME original in the same universe, Love By Chance.

The very premise of the story is confusing, because we are supposed to believe that gorgeous, talented, kind Tharn has fallen in love with Type, who spends the first two episodes making Tharn’s life hell after Type finds out he’s gay. But...why though? I know he’s handsome, but Type is homophobic, abusive, and borderline psychotic in those first few episodes. What the hell does Tharn see in him?

That’s what I mean by the premise being faulty. If I don’t believe in the foundation of the relationship, how can I become invested in it? There’s a very easy way to solve this problem: spend the first episode or two establishing the friendship between Tharn and Type and the way they interact as roommates. Then when it all falls apart after Type learns about Tharn’s orientation, at least Tharn’s crush on him would make sense.

Instead, there’s a throwaway line in Type’s voiceover in the opening moments of the first episode saying that he and his new roommate Tharn are friends, and that’s it. We don’t even see them interact before Type finds out he’s gay and goes nuts.

Tharn is set up to be the sympathetic character, enduring Type’s bullying, even as he can see that Type has feelings for him that he’s hiding. However, in the second episode, Tharn takes advantage of a drunk and passed out Type. He doesn’t have sex with him, but he does touch his body without consent, and then give Type a hickey on his neck as a prank. And then in the next episode, he follows Type into the shower and proceeds to give him a blowjob. Type tries to push Tharn away, but eventually gives in.

(not pictured: enthusiastic consent)

And again, because Mew and Gulf go for broke during these types of scenes, the sex is really hot. However, that helps mask the fact that Tharn definitely forces himself onto Type.

We soon learn that Type’s hatred of gay people stems from the fact that he was sexually abused by a man when he was very young. This scene is shown non-explicitly in a flashback.

It really does seem like MAME believes this sad backstory is enough for us to forgive Type for his truly horrifying behavior. In fact, that’s all this bit of character development does. Once Type tells Tharn and cries on Tharn’s shoulder, he promptly forgets about it for the rest of the series. No more nightmares, no more panic attacks, no more PTSD. That child abuse plotline served its purpose of excusing Type’s homophobia, and then it’s tossed aside.

People have told me many times that I should stop taking these shows so seriously. But how am I expected not to take it seriously when the show presents such a serious topic? If you only want to be a silly, pleasant BL, then you need to focus on silly, pleasant things. An author doesn’t get to choose these heavy subjects and then wave away criticism because it’s ‘just BL.’ At least, that’s my own opinion.

And all that finally leads us to Tar. Tar is Tharn’s ex-boyfriend in high school. If you are familiar with Love By Chance, then you know what happened to him. In high school, he was gang-raped and then forced to hide the truth and break up with Tharn.

Again, MAME has a very limited toolkit. This time, the gang-rape of a child is used to illustrate the lengths to which a character will go to keep Tharn all to himself. This fact could have been just as effectively conveyed without resorting to rape. Blackmail of a different variety would have been enough. But since she did insist on going this route, it was up to her to see it through to the conclusion, which she did not do.

None of the faceless people who committed the crime, nor the mastermind who hired them all and then recorded them to blackmail Tar, see any consequences. There is a filmed confession and attempted murder and yet...nothing. No one calls the police. It’s never even considered.

And then there’s Type’s big plan to make Tharn believe they broke up so that Type could catch the bad guy. I can accept it because Type isn’t the brightest bulb in the pack, so maybe he really does think this is the only option.

However, his explanation is that Type needed Tharn to look devastated so that he won’t make the bad guy suspicious. However, then Tharn really is devastated, so he goes home, where he refuses to speak to anyone anyway. So why was Type emotionally destroying his boyfriend worth it? For the drama, I guess. Hey, at least he didn’t rape him.

But my god can these men kiss.

And there are these little moments, where Type tries to be tough around Tharn, but he can’t help smiling at his boyfriend being sweet. They make my whole heart grow.

If you are prepared for the less savory bits of this show, I’d say it’s worth it for the scenes with Tharn and Type being cute or sexy or cute and sexy together.

And if you’re interested in fanfic, I put together rec lists for multiple BL shows including this one that can be found here and here.

MASTERLIST OF BL SHOW REVIEWS

(Send me an ask if you have a show you’d like me to review - with the understanding that I will be completely honest - or if there’s anything you think I forgot or got wrong in this review.)

#tharntype #tharntype the series #bl review series #mewgulf #mew x gulf #tharn x type

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writingithink · 4 years

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Tangled Timelines Chapter 1 Rated: T Wordcount: 5,895 Summary: The Doctor and Rose have some news to share with Jackie, but the trip doesn't go quite as planned. Notes:Hello! This is my fic for the Classic Tropes Event. Mine was Fix-It Fic. This one is going to be a multi-chapter, with more tags added as I go. For those of you who have been reading the whole series, I actually plan to finish up the honeymoon fics (they've just been giving me grief). So those will come later, with edits to series order etc etc. If you haven't read the series, I think you should be okay? They're bonded. It was an accident. That should be all the info you really need. All of the thanks ever imaginable to @hey-there-juliet for betaing <33 All mistakes are most definitely mine (esp since I did a lot of glaring at this thing after it was beta'd). I own nothing.

Multiple trips to the TARDIS' library and seemingly endless cross-referencing all culminated in the moment the large tome slipped from the Doctor's hands and onto the bed. It knocked against Rose’s leg and his eyes automatically moved to her face - still asleep. Since their bonding, his wife had gotten used to him bringing various things into bed with them for when he inevitably got bored while she slept.

“And you couldn’t alert me to this, because …?” he whispered to his ship, voice flat and eyes wide as his brain struggled to assimilate everything he had just read.

There was no answer from the TARDIS, not even a hum of acknowledgement. It figured.

The Doctor scrubbed his hand across his face before leaving the bed, heading straight to the infirmary despite the fact that he was only wearing boxers and a vest. This time he didn’t ask his inconsiderate ship for any assistance, simply pulled up every single file on Rose Marion Tyler that existed, on the TARDIS or not. It only took seconds to hack into Earth hospital files, after all.

Not that they helped much, as the technology used in Rose’s time was appallingly primitive.

“Level five medical garbage,” he muttered to himself, zooming past all of her records. Vaccines, minor illnesses, nothing that gave him a good picture of Rose Marion Tyler before she stepped onto the TARDIS. Which, overall, was a good thing - it meant that she had never been so hurt that she needed a CAT scan or an MRI. It would have just been nice to have the data, what with his near obsessive compulsive desire to have the most complete picture of his wife’s biological history.

It’s as if no one had ever heard of voluntary medical data filing. But so be it. The TARDIS had more than enough base scans, starting from the first moment Rose set foot on the ship. This time he wasn’t going to cut corners like he had before, when he’d looked at just her telepathic centers and absolutely nothing else.

Thinking about the last time he and his wife had been in here, weeks ago, the Doctor opened a new screen to check the progress of the six-dimensional comprehensive deep scan results. They were nearly complete.

A feeling of dread lodged in his stomach.

They should have been finished ages ago. The fact that they weren’t -

He shook his head, wiping a hand down his face as he swiveled back to the primary view screen. The base scans should be able to offer him an explanation. Would. They would, because he needed to know exactly what was going on.

The TARDIS had automatically compiled all base scans since their last visit, and his previous parameters were still in place, focused solely on what in humans was called the pineal gland. The Doctor wasn’t sure that name quite applied for Rose’s brain anymore - Epiphysis Cerebri seemed like a much more accurate name for her telepathic center, which was still showing slow, incremental growth.

Fingers moving quickly, he navigated away and started gathering new information. Graphs of brain capacity and function, cellular activity and health, levels of all hormones and neurotransmitters and molecules with a special search for anything that wouldn’t normally be found in a 21st century Earth human.

Waiting for the TARDIS to compile all of these graphs felt like torture, even though it took a relatively short amount of time.

And then he had screens and screens of data all vying for his considerable attention and painting a picture that had his hearts going into overdrive, adrenaline throttling through his systems. Terror. Elation. Fear. Hope. All of his emotions were muddled and changing by the nanosecond. Panic was a constant, however.

All of it was so overpowering that the Doctor soon found himself actively fighting his traitorous body as it tried to enter a completely unnecessary healing trance, confused as it was by his sudden inability to keep control of processes that he generally had a tight grip on.

Two hands fell onto his shoulders, shocking him into jumping up, nearly crashing into the infirmary’s computational system. He whirled around to see the confused and frightened face of his bondmate.

“Doctor?” she asked, hesitating.

He wondered how long she had been trying to speak to him, both verbally and through their bond. Covering his face with both hands, he finally got his breathing back in order and his hearts-rate down.

“Sorry,” he finally managed, once he was capable of speech again, though the single word came out hoarse and scratchy.

“What’s happening? What’s wrong?” Rose asked, still not moving, hands fisted at her sides.

Focusing on their connection, he could feel her overwhelming concern … for him. Well, it did make sense in the ironic way these things always tended to. Since she had been asleep when he left her, the Doctor hadn’t put any thought into shielding. All of his emotions must have barreled into her like a freight train. Couldn’t have possibly been a pleasant way to wake up.

Reluctantly he dropped his hands, palms sliding down his face slowly as he gave up their paltry defense.

“Nothing’s wrong per se,” he hedged, wincing as her mental disbelief permeated their link. “It- it’s more complicated than that. It’s-”

He didn’t know how to explain it. His normally ever-present gob seemed to be offline now that he desperately needed it. Telepathic communication seemed to also be out, as his brain was still in the process of resettling from the accidentally self-induced bulldozing of his basic systems.

“It’s what?”

As the Doctor took another deep breath, Rose looked around, seeming to just realize where they were. She must have raced through the TARDIS to get to him in her worry. He felt incredibly guilty.

“It’s something that we would probably be much more comfortable discussing somewhere else,” he decided, scratching the hairs at the nape of his neck and looking down, shocked to realize that he was nearly naked. “Maybe after getting dressed. And a shower. Breakfast. Not in that order!”

Rose sighed and crossed her arms. The Doctor took a moment to notice her clothing, which consisted of a housecoat and slippers, but he couldn’t tell what she had on underneath (if anything).

“And then we’ll talk?” she questioned, both eyebrows raised, getting his mind back on track.

“Yes. Definitely. How does tea in the library sound?”

Her lips were pursed, but she eventually nodded.

“Good. Great! And I- I’m really, truly sorry for worrying you,” he sighed, finally moving forward and wrapping his arms around his impossible wife. It took a few moments before Rose relaxed into the embrace.

“This is about me, isn’t it?” she whispered after a few long, silent moments.

“Shh,” he scolded. “Shower first. Shower, clothes, food, then talking.”

Procrastination really is just a different type of running, and no one knew that better than the Doctor. He also knew that he wasn’t fooling Rose for a moment. Their bond was still wide open, the contents of their impending discussion only hidden due to the fact that it was all categorized in his mind as ‘scientific information’, and therefore held back by one of the many barriers he kept permanently in place so that he wouldn’t inundate his bondmate with headache inducing amounts of information.

“Alright then,” she conceded, “let’s get going.”

The Doctor took her hand as she pulled away, allowing himself to be led through his time ship. In his current, nebulous state he doubted he’d be able to find their room if he tried. He was just grateful that Rose understood that his desire to put off this conversation didn’t mean he wanted to be separated from her in the slightest.

It was funny, sometimes, to imagine that all of the effort he had previously put into studiously trying to not overwhelm her with just how much he wanted to almost always be in her presence had been completely inverted now that all of their cards were forever on the table.

They got into the shower together and he began to wash his wife’s hair as if on auto-pilot, only refocusing on the present moment when feelings of relaxation and contentment began to pierce through the veil of unpleasant emotions tangled across their shared minds. Once the shampoo rinsed away, the Doctor couldn’t stop himself from cupping her face and pulling her into a relatively chaste kiss. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince himself that everything would all truly be alright (for once). Because one thing that had been clear while looking through her scans was that Rose was perfectly healthy. Her life wasn’t threatened in the slightest.

Things were just … different.

Before he was quite ready, they had finished showering, were both fully clothed, somehow tea and toast had been made (though he barely remembered being in the galley), and they had reached the library. Rose immediately sat down on the sofa, a fire already crackling away in the grate. He followed her, taking a large gulp of his beverage the moment he sat down. For all of the time he had spent trying to organize his thoughts, they were still less than refined.

The problem was, despite being bonded and therefore having an intimate knowledge of her thought processes, the Doctor still couldn’t predict how she would react to any of what he’d discovered in the hours his wife had spent sleeping. And despite the fact that she wasn’t actually saying anything, he did know that she was growing more and more impatient by the second.

“Sooo,” he began, hoping that the rest of the words would just happen, as it were, “this is cozy, innit?”

Obviously it didn’t work.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” she suggested.

“Oh, blimey, alright then. Well, billions of years ago, a cataclysmic explosion of a singularity caused what you could refer to as the Big Bang, Event One, or even just ‘creation’. It resulted in a very compact, tiny universe that was very dense and very hot, riddled with dimension pockets and full of space-time anomalies that are now considered exceedingly rare. These were the beginnings of the Dark Times, of which not much is known - time travel so far back was-”

“Doctor,” Rose interrupted, “does this have anything to do with what has you so upset? The, erm, results?”

“Ah, well, no … not as such. I mean, it’s tangentially related to absolutely everything, of course, but it … right, sorry.” He took another sip of tea, followed by a deep breath. The beginning, but not that beginning. “I finally tracked it down. Old texts, ancient, that had descriptions of telepathic marriage bonds. Took ages to find one that sounded right, though. Apparently most ancient Gallifreyans needed to have the assistance of an experienced telepath who specialized in this kind of thing in order to join their minds. Knew that couldn’t be right, so I kept on digging and when I-”

The words were flowing out now, faster than he could keep track of and for once he was aware of just how irrelevant they were. With a huff he stood up and began to pace in front of the fire, hoping that the movement would help.

“Very old, very rare, very specific. That’s what our bond is. There isn’t even a translation for what they called it, the word would be absolutely meaningless to anyone else, anyone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves. It’s the specificity, though, that made me realize that there was much more at work than just your growing telepathic abilities. When I went to the infirmary, it was really a toss up - either I was right or I was wrong and hadn’t found the proper information yet.”

“But you weren’t wrong, were you?” She bit her bottom lip, eyes tracking him as he moved back and forth across the sitting area that for once seemed much too small.

“No,” the Doctor sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “The 6D scans will probably be ready later today, but I didn’t need those. Just different graphs of your base scans to measure different things. The thing is,” he nearly shouted, “if I hadn’t been about to regenerate, and then freshly regenerated, and then unpardonably distracted, I should have done this all ages ago! Quick as I could after I’d taken the Vortex out of you.”

“Think we were a bit busy savin’ the Universe to bother with all that,” Rose pointed out, comfort and understanding passing over to him through their link, along with a few spikes of irritation and general chastisement for pointlessly blaming himself for something yet again.

“And what’s my excuse for after all that?” he drawled, unwilling to let her absolve him for this appalling negligence of her health and well-being. What kind of doctor was he, if he couldn’t be arsed to take adequate care of the woman he loved?

“Maybe, I dunno, the fact that I felt absolutely fine? That we were busy navigating all your new quirks and preferences while still saving planets? Anyway, you still haven’t even told me what’s going on.”

The Doctor scrunched up his face as he dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. She was right, obviously. Somehow he was still managing to procrastinate. His teeth ground slightly as he set his jaw and made his way back to the couch.

“You have a large amount of artron energy,” he began. “More than just background radiation. Way more. I would say life threatening amounts, except you also are absolutely riddled with huon particles. Also deadly.”

“Huon particles?”

“Eradicated by the Time Lords near the end of the dark times - oh, look at that, it all came back ‘round, sort of.”

“But you just said they were deadly,” Rose frowned. “Why does it sound like they’re a good thing? I mean, your people obviously had a reason for gettin’ rid of ‘em all. How’re they even there?”

Oh, his magnificent, brilliant, fantastic bondmate - always asking the right questions. A small smile lighted her face as she caught the thought.

“See, the TARDIS is connected to the Vortex, which goes all the way back - remnants of huon particles exist in her heart, which you opened up and used to merge with her, a whole fifth dimension running through the both of you. The huon particles are stabilizing the artron energy - it’s feeding them instead of overtly impacting the rest of your body. So in this case, this one case, the reemergence of deadly particles from the dawn of time is a good thing. Even so, that wouldn’t be enough, except you didn’t just merge with the Vortex alone but with the TARDIS. The TARDIS emits chronon particles, and one of the key differences between Time Lords and non-Time Lord Gallifreyans is that our bodies are surrounded by a bio-plasmic field of chronon energy, allowing us to bond with a TARDIS.”

“Oh. Right, that’s why when you were sick the TARDIS wasn’t working properly. Couldn’t translate for us.”

“Yes, yes, exactly.” The Doctor got back to his feet, the need to pace outweighing his desire to remain close to his wife. “Now, the thing about having a surrounding field is that it can, er, leach on to others. Infect them. Not in a bad way. It’s what provides me with protection from the time stream, helps with cell rejuvenation, etcetera. So actually, if a bit of it didn’t migrate away to those I’m close with, I’d never be able to bring anyone along on the TARDIS with me. Too dangerous. Thing is, you have your own now, not just an echo of mine. Which makes sense. You two became one, of course she would bond with you as well. Thing is, to do that - your DNA, Rose. Becoming Bad Wolf. It’s given you symbiotic chronon nuclei.”

“And what’s that, then? Something to do with the chronon particles?”

“In a sense. It’s only viewable with a temporal reading, which the TARDIS base scans do automatically, because that’s what’s normal for me. She doesn’t change protocols just because the other person she’s scanning happens to be human. I’ve mentioned before that I have TNA. Triple helix instead of double, yes?”

Rose nodded, taking a wary sip of her tea.

“Well, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. Properly, temporally scanned it’s actually four strands. That symbiotic chronon nuclei is the physical, quasi-symbiotic link between the TARDIS and I. Now you have one too.”

“So wait, I’ve got four strands of DNA now? And we didn’t even notice?” Her mug clattered onto the table as she deposited it and stood quickly.

“No, no, no, just the three. No TNA. But this is where things get complicated.”

“You mean there’s more ?” she screeched, going paler than she already had been, thoughts becoming a whirl of panic. “Isn’t it complicated enough?!”

“Weeeeeell, let’s go back to that third strand I’ve got, yeah? It’s pretty much, and by pretty much I mean almost the sole reason, that regeneration is possible. Stores all the information for past and future incarnations, as well as other things,” he explained, waving his hands around, “and as far as I understood it, that’s what allowed for a Gallifreyan’s self-replicating biogenic molecules.”

“Your what?”

“Remember the nanogenes?” he asked, finally walking back to her in order to weave their fingers together.

“Yeah, ‘course.”

“Gallifreyan bodies have something like that. Biological nanites. Not only do they allow for regeneration, but on a daily basis they repair and prune any damaged or malformed cells. Hence why we age so slowly. I’ll look just like this for hundreds of years yet.”

She nodded slowly. “And lemme guess, I’ve got those too, somehow.”

“Yes. Though wired differently than mine, You’re still human , Rose. Just … with genetic modifications. Powerful genetic modifications. Obviously meant to keep you alive, because really, thinking about it properly, you shouldn’t have survived the trip back to the gamestation, much less been able to accomplish everything you did. A symbiotic self-renewing cell structure is really the obvious solution to the problem, and if you did have TNA like I do, the gigantic surge of artron energy would have triggered a regeneration, just like it did for me. But your body doesn’t work that way, so it just- just healed the damage, no mess, no fuss.”

“And they’re still there now, healing stuff?”

The Doctor nodded.

“So what does it all mean, then, exactly? Without all of the science babble.”

“Without it?” He winced at the way his voice nearly squeaked.

“As little of it as you can get away with,” Rose conceded, the smidge of laughter in her voice doing wonders for his frayed nerves.

“Alright. Well, your cell death is almost non-existent. Your brain activity, in addition to the new telepathic adjustments, has increased in both capacity and function. You likely haven’t noticed because you haven’t tried to stretch things more than average, and why would you? Despite all of these changes, it’s not like you really knew about them or have had any sort of training on how to incorporate them aside from our telepathy lessons. With the way you’re connected to the TARDIS, you could probably learn to sense time. That’s what allows for most of my time senses, by the way.”

“Doctor, less babble,” his wife helpfully reminded him.

“Right, yes, well,” he swallowed audibly, “the main thing is … you’re not going to age at the same rate as everyone else you know. Everyone human, that is. There’s no way for me to be certain how long your life might be, since our timelines are too tightly wound together.”

“They are?”

“Of course they are.” At this, the Doctor finally smiled, wrapping his arms around her. “That’s the thing, the crucial thing, about the bond. Why I needed to check the scans to make sure. It exists not just because we love each other, not just because we have compatible minds, but because our timelines were able to be synced. Literally able to be together forever, however long forever might be. This connection we have, it’s not the kind that can be forced, it can only happen spontaneously. In fact, from what I’ve read, the existence of this form of bond is exactly why the practice of making less deep and all encompassing ones came into being. Others who weren’t as, as destined for each other, for lack of a better word, wanted the same kind of intimacy. And of course it fell out of favor, not just because of Gallifrey’s abandonment of emotional ties in general, but because of the pain associated with losing a partner you’ve permanently telepathically merged with.”

“So that, us … we won’t have that?”

“I can’t view my own timeline and I can’t view yours, but I do know that they’re so tightly twined that you can’t tell the two apart. I can feel it, and maybe someday you will be able to on your own, but for now I can always show you,” he offered.

“I- I’d like that, but …” Rose trailed off, biting her lip and looking away.

“What?”

“’S just, you were so, so upset earlier. And it’s definitely a lot to take in, but, I mean, doesn’t it all seem like a good thing?” she asked, turning back toward him, eyes locking with his and broadcasting her pained confusion just as adequately as the bond itself was.

“For me? Of course it is, and the selfish part of me has never been more happy. But Rose, you have to understand that I wasn’t trying to be dramatic that night, outside of the chippy, when I said that my lifespan was a curse. You’re going to outlive everyone you know and love, aside from me. You won’t age at the same rate that they do. And I know that it’s expected for children to outlive their parents, but you’re going to spend far longer without your mother than with her. This … it was never something I wanted for you, the pain of so many goodbyes.”

Rose shut her eyes before burrowing her head into his chest, holding him tighter. For a long time they were silent, though the Doctor could hear her racing thoughts as she tried to process all of the information he had shoved at her in such a short period of time. He was content to just hold her, rubbing a soothing arm up and down her back until a singular thought rang out across their bond that had her gasping and him groaning.

We have to tell mum.

The Doctor spun around the console in a whirlwind, Rose clinging to the jumpseat. He could feel her trepidation as they landed, her worry about her mother’s reaction to their news. So he wasn’t surprised in the slightest at her shock upon opening the TARDIS' door and finding them very much not on Earth.

“Think your driving’s a bit more off than usual,” she noted vaguely as he finally stepped away from the console to grab his jacket.

“Is it really?” He gave her a look of wide eyed bewilderment, just as his thoughts inevitably revealed that he had had no intention of making the trip to Jackie’s - yet.

Rose crossed her arms, giving him an unconvincing glare as the Doctor finally met her at the door and stuck his head outside.

“Ah, perfect!” he exclaimed. “Right where I wanted to be.”

“Oh, really? And where’s that then?” his wife asked, finally stepping out of their ship and having a look around. There were rows and rows of stalls and booths as far as the eye could see.

“It’s a bazaar. On an asteroid. Moves around every four cycles to a different asteroid in a different sector. Used to just be a handful of merchants and artisans and performing artists, a sort of circus, if you will, only without the mistreated animals and exploited people. Was called Mz’trak’s Marvelous Moving Menagerie - gotta love that alliteration, absolutely amazing. But as you can see, it grew. Doesn’t have a name now. Too much going on. Still, organized enough to make it’s trip across the quadrant. They span galaxies, Rose Tyler! This is the place to go to find anything you could possibly imagine!”

“Okay,” she said slowly, drawing out the word as she turned back to face him. “And what, exactly, are we lookin’ for that’s so important that you’re putting off visiting mum?”

“Oh, right, see, about that - I thought, maybe, just maaaybe, you’d be able to find something for her here. To, erm, soften the blow, as it were. Butter her up a bit.” Make her less likely to regenerate me, he didn’t say, but he didn’t have to. The thought was pretty much blaring on a loop that his bondmate was unlikely to miss.

“Seriously?! Doctor, if you hide away again and force me to have this talk all on my own, I swear-”

“No, no, I won’t! We’ll do this together, I promise!” he hastened. No need to have two angry Tylers on his hands.

“Honestly, I don’t know why you’re so afraid of her,” Rose said with a roll of her eyes before taking his hand and beginning to walk through the market.

Normally she buzzed up to nearly every stall, wanting to see as many strange and novel alien things as possible, but this time his wife was quickly passing them by, categorizing everything in their immediate vicinity as ‘too alien’. Admittedly, the Doctor hadn’t given that much consideration when he decided that a gift for his mother-in-law would be a good plan.

“It’s a premonition I have, really,” he told her, “that your mum will be the death of me. Unlikely, I’ll give you that, but you never know. Sometimes these things have merit. I was once very good at that kind of thing, seeing the future. Well, not really. More like an unconscious tracking of future timelines that seems like a form of prescience but is really-”

“You are so full of it,” Rose laughed. “But speaking of past yous, I’m not going to regenerate, am I?”

While the Doctor had thought that he’d been very clear in the library earlier, perhaps he hadn’t explained very well. Too much ‘science babble’, probably.

“Nope,” he assured her, popping the ‘p’ and giving her one of his best grins.

“So Bad Wolf didn’t make me into a Time Lord. Just …”

“Bad Wolf didn’t do any such thing,” he frowned. “If you want, I can show you the second by second time stamps of the scans the TARDIS took of you during all that - constant state of danger, there’s hundreds of them. But no, the TARDIS did all of that herself so that you two could become Bad Wolf. If you recall, our ship is a multidimensional alien being that even I don’t completely understand. And she likes you. A lot. Didn’t want you to die.”

He stopped himself, barely, from continuing on (again) about how he should have realized this all ages ago. There was really no point to it, just his wounded ego. Plus, who had time for brooding, anyway?

“Sure she doesn’t just like you a lot?” his wife asked with a smirk. “Y’know, making sure the girl her pilot likes so much has a matching lifespan?”

The Doctor abruptly stopped his near-skipping and pulled Rose into his arms with a growl.

“Oh, I much more than like you, Rose Tyler.”

“That so?” his cheeky wife asked him with a tongue touched grin.

Minx, he chastised telepathically, his mouth now busy as he dipped her into a snog that was likely inappropriate for public, but for once she wasn’t complaining.

“Also,” he added, after breaking the kiss so that she could catch her breath, “it would be Time Lady, you know. And that is a little complicated, now that I think about it. Because you’re not Gallifreyan, but not all Gallifreyan’s are Time Lords or Time Ladies. Then again, you have the bit of genetic jiggery pokery that makes a Gallifreyan a Time, er-”

“Let’s just go with Time Lord, yeah?”

“It’s a hypothetical political correctness jumble,” he muttered with a grimace.

“So I’m a bit like a human Time Lady? Kind of?”

“Kind of. Eh. Doesn’t really matter, though, does it?”

Rose had gone back to scanning the booths, but was quick to turn her sharp gaze back to him. “How could it not matter?”

“Well, I mean, you’re still Rose Tyler. Doesn’t matter to me, what kind of species you call yourself. The important thing is that you’re you, and I get to keep you.”

And the Doctor could tell that she didn’t exactly agree with him, all of the ramifications of this still buzzing around in her head and the impending talk with Jackie making her permanently anxious. But still, she smiled at him and squeezed his hand.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

Finally some stalls came up that looked promising and his bondmate began looking at things in earnest. As he watched her flit about, the thought began to really settle in. They would be able to stay together, not just for the very short human forever that he had struggled to come to terms with, but for his forever.

The weight of the Universe on his shoulders had never felt lighter.

It suddenly did seem a little bit ridiculous, all of his worries about Jackie’s reaction. At least when it came to him . Over 900 years old, he could (probably) take it. If anything, he was more concerned for Rose. If (or really, it was more likely to be when) her mother reacted poorly, she would undoubtedly be hurt.

Flashes of their ‘marriage announcement’ briefly passed through his mind.

This time, though, he would be there for her. Absolutely no swanning off or hiding or cowering of any sort. Well, minimal cowering. Can’t set the bar too high, knowing he was about to get a smack (even if none of it was actually his fault). It would all be worth it in the end, being able to spend the rest of his life with the woman he loved.

“Do you think mum would like this?” Rose asked, interrupting his chaotic stream of thought.

“What’s that?” The Doctor walked closer to the booth, finally taking notice of his surroundings instead of blindly following his wife. “Oh! These are all made of bazoolium! That’s brilliant!” he exclaimed, touching a large piece that was either intended to be abstract art or a Raqkle Bear about to attack, unsurprised by the neutral temperature. After all there was no weather to speak of on the asteroid.

“Yeah, he was just tellin’ me that they could predict the weather,” she said, gesturing toward the shopkeeper. The Doctor barely spared him a glance before investigating the ones that were combined with wind chimes, surprised when the chimes were actually made of bazoolium as well.

“They’re not incredibly unlike the barometers you lot have, only much more accurate. The truly impressive part is the fact that this property is naturally occurring in the mineral. Plus there’s really not much interpreting to it - if it’s hot, you’ll have a nice sunshine-y day, and if it’s cold there’ll be rain. Or snow, I suppose. But all you have to do is touch it. Definitely simple enough for Jackie to get use of-”

He winced when Rose telepathically zapped him, which he really should have seen coming.

After apologizing, the Doctor (for the most part) kept his mouth shut as she selected a small one that looked as un-alien as possible, something that any of Jackie’s friends would look at and think was some random tchotchke, just a thing and then think nothing of it. As soon as she finished her purchase, he took her hand and reluctantly headed back the way they came.

In a private corner of his mind he had come up with thousands of different ideas for putting this next trip off, but eventually discarded every single one of them (even if some were astonishingly brilliant). His wife wanted to get this over with, so that’s what they were going to do.

If anything, he regretted putting all of their efforts into getting her mother some bauble to put her in a good mood when they should have also been coming up with a plan for distracting her after this ‘talk’.

“Distracting her? How would we possibly distract her?” Rose wondered aloud.

The Doctor felt strangely giddy, knowing that she’d been paying attention to him over the bond. They were starting to get pretty good at not constantly acknowledging all of the thoughts that were projected without real intent, so much so that he sometimes wondered if his wife was listening most of the time. His thoughts were very interesting, after all, so he wasn’t sure how she could ignore them if she wasn’t just tuning it all out.

She rolled her eyes, making it clear that she’d caught all of that as well.

“I don’t know,” he went on, “I’m not sure what would hold her attention, aside from gossip and telly. Maybe we should nip into the future, get some Eastenders DVDs. Or some tabloids. Then again, I doubt your mother could keep her future knowledge a secret and next thing you know, we’ll have a paradox on our hands. Can’t have that.”

Rose laughed as they entered the TARDIS.

“Dunno if it’s really much of a distraction, but I do have some laundry I’ve been meaning to bring over.”

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. “I refuse to believe your mother actually enjoys doing your laundry. There’s a perfectly good laundry room in the TARDIS. You don’t even have to do much of anything. Just put your clothes down the chute and she’ll do all the rest, even the folding.” And yes, he had told her all of this before, on multiple occasions - every time she had laundry to bring back, in fact.

So the Doctor wasn’t surprised when she said, “It makes her feel useful. She likes doing mum stuff for me.”

She said something along those lines every time. This time, however, his responding ‘fine’ was telepathic, rather than verbal as he began piloting them into the Vortex and she disappeared down the corridor to gather said laundry.

Since he was going to have to wait until Rose was finished before flying them to Jackie’s (let it not be said that he can’t learn a lesson) he almost followed her to their room. But just as he moved away from the console, he sensed that his bondmate could use some privacy while she got her thoughts in order, trying to decide exactly what she was going to say to her mum, not wanting to get into absolutely everything.

So he sat down on the jumpseat, kicked his feet onto the console, and focused on sending soothing emotions over their bond. Eventually, Rose reappeared with her giant red duffle, looking plenty nervous but definitely less so than she’d been before.

“Ready?” he asked, hopping back to his feet.

“No,” she sighed, dropping the bag onto the newly vacated seat before flashing him a wary grin. “Let’s go.”

#dw fanfiction #ficandchips #ten x rose #timepetals #tenrose #dw classic trope event #fandom: doctor who #pairing: rose x doctor #my fic #fic: tangled timelines

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breakingsomething · 4 years

Text

the fall - part six (i'm taking the chapter titles seriously now, i swear)

basic summary: everyone's mad at anti and marvin.

trigger warnings: suicidal ideation, hospitals

tagslist, because i apparently have one of them now: @synonymsforzombie @spicydanhowell @skyewardlight @dreaming-of-stories-and-stars @cest-mellow

they recovered slowly. very, very slowly.

it was a long process for all of them. not just physically - in fact, the physical recovery was the easier part for most of them. chase and henrik were ok after a few weeks in hecate's hidden wing of the hospital (they really did think of everything), and marvin was let out after a couple days. luckily, the explosion hadn't been big enough to do any serious physical damage. no, most of the problems were mental.

henrik had it worst. seeing his big brother the way he was had absolutely crushed him, like it had set back all progress he'd made since anti had had him despite jackie not even laying a finger on him. he hardly spoke, and refused to trust any of his brothers, even chase. and despite marvin and henrik's rocky relationship, it broke his heart, seeing him in such a state. marvin couldn't help but feel it was partially his fault.

"i'm sorry," he mumbled to henrik a few days after he got out of hospital. he had barely spoken to henrik recently - with chase still in hospital, it was just the two of them in the house, which made for some awkward times. chase would have been disappointed in how little they were managing to get along. "really, i - i wish things could have been different."

henrik had been sitting at the kitchen table drinking a coffee, but upon hearing marvin's words, he leapt to his feet and got right into marvin's face. "why did you have to rescue him?" he spat, much to marvin's surprise. "why couldn't you have left him, why couldn't we have -"

he let out a frustrated scream and slapped his hands over his face before running from the room, no doubt to go cry silently in the bathroom and then pretend nothing was wrong afterwards. marvin didn't stop him. he couldn't act like he hadn't wondered the exact same thing himself.

why had he saved him? anti didn't mean anything to him. all anti had caused them was pain. he'd never done a good thing in his life, as far as marvin knew. why did he risk everything in his life to rescue him?

was it really because he hated to see anyone hurting, or was it just because it was jackie behind the knife? if it had been anyone else torturing anti, would he have stopped them?

marvin didn't like to think the answer was a straight up no. but it certainly seemed the most likely.

chase wasn't doing too well either, for mostly the same reasons. he had to stay in hospital a few days longer than henrik, and marvin only figured out why right after he himself was released from hospital. the doctors of hecate told him that chase had had an illegal acquired weapon on him, which they had confiscated. marvin had been confused until they told him it was a gun.

chase has gotten slightly upset when marvin confronted him about it.

"why the fuck does it matter why i had it?" he had shouted defensively. marvin motioned for him to be quieter so as not to disturb the doctors, but chase didn't listen, sitting right up in his bed and getting even louder. "i was going to protect us, you wouldn't have been complaining if i'd saved us with it -"

"chase, i'm not complaining," marvin tried to explain, sitting down on the chair next to his bed. chase just stared at him, eyebrows furrowed in distrust, shoulders at his ears. "i was just… you're legally not allowed to possess a gun, and the last time you had one, you -"

"you're legally not allowed to possess black magic!" chase shot back, drawing in on himself. marvin blinked, mouth parting slightly. "yet you do it anyway, and look where that got us!"

marvin was at a sudden loss for words. "that's - that's different and you know it," he said weakly.

chase scoffed. "oh, is it? if you didn't have black magic then jackie wouldn't have been able to pay off those guys and get that shitty fucking necklace! that's your fault, that's on you!"

once he'd finished his outburst, he sat back, eyes wide. marvin couldn't breath.

"chase - what do you mean, "those guys" - who?"

chase was quiet, breathing heavily.

marvin leaned over, grabbing chase's arm desperately. "chase, tell me!"

to marvin's horror, tears fell from his brother's eyes and he began to cry silently, head bowing to his chest and shoulders shaking. marvin let go of his arm and gently placed a hand on his back, rubbing it in circles to try and soothe him. "i - shit, bro, i'm sorry. i didn't mean to upset you."

"not you," chase choked out. "jackie, he - he explained everything to me and henrik, he… marvin, i'm sorry, i'm sorry."

through his tears, he told marvin everything, occasionally stopping to sob into his hands when it got to be too much to speak aloud. marvin just listened, feeling more and more numb as chase explained what jackie had done. by the time he was done, marvin had almost completely shut down, his stomach roiling. he stared ahead at the window, looking out at the grey skies and swaying trees and tops of monochrome buildings. he nodded, head spinning with all the knowledge he'd just been given.

"well, that explains the missing pages of my book," he mumbled, rubbing his arms to try and ground himself.

chase sniffled, rubbing his eyes. "do you have a copy?"

marvin nodded. "mhm. i kept a copy of everything. all my copies i kept in a secret place that i only trusted jackie with the knowledge of." he gave a choked laugh that sounded more like a sob. "oh, the irony of that, huh."

chase sat up again, looking at his older brother with big blue eyes. "i'm sorry," he murmured. "i - i don't understand why he did what he did. any of it. marvin, i'm sorry, i'm sorry…"

"not your fault," marvin reassured, to which chase promptly started sobbing again, and they sat in silence for a while.

after a few minutes, chase began to calm himself, grabbing at marvin's hands. "i'm not just sorry for that," he mumbled, and scrubbed at his face with his arm. "i'm - the gun. i had - i was - marvin, i was going to -"

"you don't need to tell me," marvin said hurriedly, suddenly unable to bear hearing chase say it. he held his brother's hands tightly, looking him right in the eyes. "we're gonna get you a new therapist, ok? i know you don't like dr kimble, and if he's not good for you, then we'll find someone else. someone you can really talk to. ok? ok?" he was rambling, tears rolling down his cheeks. "i'm sorry we didn't realize how bad it was getting, i'm so sorry, we should have known, i should have known -"

"no, it's - it's ok," chase mumbled. "i've not exactly been open about… anything. and, uh, being a father and running a happy youtube channel makes you wanna hide how you're feeling. i should have told you, though." he hiccuped and let out a shuddering sigh. "jackie… asked me a couple weeks ago, how i was doing. it's so weird to think that during that time, he was…"

he trailed off. marvin's vision blurred as he stared into the distance. even jackie had noticed. even jackie…

"oh, like you'd fucking notice! you don't ever notice anything!"

jackie's words washed over him, and he slumped over in his chair. yet another strike for the asshole marvin list.

wordlessly, he reached over and enveloped his brother in a hug, chase making a noise of surprise at the sudden contact. they stayed like that for a long time, just holding each other.

eventually, the three of them were at home again, henrik practically gluing himself to chase's side at times and disappearing at others, chase spending most of his time recording or in his room alone. it was miserable, as marvin had expected it would be. no one seemed to want to talk about what had happened, which he supposed was understandable. he was almost glad he had anti as a distraction.

anti was doing worst out of all of them. he had somehow gotten even sicker, and the doctors were mildly concerned. "his temperature has gone up to 104," said anti's main doctor, who's name was dr reid and was far too nice. marvin hated her. "it keeps spiking then going back down again at random times. there seems to be… no pattern to it, really. it's strange. he also refuses to eat, so we had to sedate him briefly and put him on fluids." she hesitated. "we believe he may be dealing with suicidal thoughts, as he has attempted to hurt himself and, uh, a few others at several points. would you know anything about this?"

marvin was too tired to deal with this. "listen," he started, turning to the surprised doctor. "anti may be our brother by blood, but he's an absolute fucking asshole. he kidnapped chase's kids for three weeks once. he held henrik in a fucking basement for two months. he's killed multiple people and put our cre- our fr- our other brother jack in a coma." he paused to take a breath, deliberately not looking dr reid in the eye. "i don't know why i saved him from ja- from - fuck, i don't know why i saved him. i don't fucking know anything anymore, apparently." he blinked rapidly, cursing himself for getting so easily upset. "but we don't want to see him, or deal with him, or anything. he's a terrible person and i honestly can't say i give two fucks about what happens to him now."

he could almost feel the doctor judging him. could feel her analyzing his words. then she said "ok," far too quietly, and turned to leave.

"wait!" marvin said without thinking, and she turned back to him, eyebrows raised. he blinked foolishly, clearing his throat. what had he called her back for?

"get him something electrical," he sighed, defeated. "something you don't mind being damaged. he needs to consume electricity to survive or something. probably why he's still so sick." he sighed. "figured that'd help you. if it doesn't, then i really don't know."

the doctor's lips turned up, and she nodded. "thank you, mr mcloughlin," she said. "we will certainly try that."

she left then, probably thinking marvin secretly did care about anti's wellbeing. he didn't. he just figured he'd make life easier for the poor fuckers that had to look after the bastard glitch on the daily.

really, marvin didn't give a shit what happened to anti, and he didn't want to deal with him. but he still called the hospital for updates on him, and hung around the hospital under the guise of visiting him when really, he just needed something to distract him from his grief. with his brothers so distant, it was really all he could do.

naomi was the only other thing keeping him sane.

when he wasn't at the hospital not visiting anti, he was usually at naomi's shop. she swore she didn't mind him being around so much, but he couldn't help but feel he was just annoying her. although really, marvin was starting to feel like that a lot lately.

"have you been feeling better?" naomi asked him one afternoon, about a month and a half after jackie's disappearance. she was sitting on the counter next to the cash register, cross legged with one of her plants on her lap. the store was technically open, but barely anyone ever came in here, so she and marvin just kind of did what they wanted until someone came in and they had to act professional. she even had marvin wearing an apron with a nametag so he could say he worked there. marvin joked that at this point he practically lived here as well as worked here, and naomi told him the shop barely made enough money for her alone. and of course he'd been joking, mostly, but he kind of wished he had an excuse to hang around the shop more without seeming like a clingy weirdo.

"don't know what you're talking about," marvin mumbled. he was standing on a stool on the other side of the shop, rearranging flowers on the top shelves. honestly, he practically did work here at this point. "i've been absolutely fine."

he heard naomi sigh noisily. "i am not a dumbass, pyro. i've known you long enough to know how you think. and you've absolutely been blaming yourself for what happened to jackie."

marvin didn't say anything. he kicked the stool over a bit, glad naomi couldn't see his face when he was looking at the flowers. he was long done rearranging them, but he didn't want to go and face his friend. "no i don't," he lied. "jackie made his choice. i don't give a shit."

"lies and more lies," naomi sang, and marvin rolled his eyes at the potted chrysanthemums he was shifting around uselessly. "marvin, i get it. you don't have to hide your feelings behind your manly bastard facade with me like you do with your brothers."

marvin barked out a shocked laugh. "wow. getting personal, are we?"

"simply stating facts," naomi said. "i've let you be all "oh, look at me, i'm marvin the magnificent and i'm a cocky asshole, i don't feel anything, blah, blah, blah" for ages now, pye. but fuck, there's got to be a point where you realize you need to stop."

marvin stayed very still. he didn't reply.

naomi continued. "you're one of my best friends, marvin, you know that. we've been watching each others back since you wandered in here with your paper cat mask and accidentally set the door on fire." she laughed at the memory before going quiet. "and i love you a lot, marvin. i want what's best for you. so seeing you hurting so badly and still saying nothing for the sake of your brothers… it… ahhh." she sighed. "i wish i could help you more."

when marvin still didn't reply, she swung herself off the counter onto the floor and walked through the shelves to get to where marvin was standing. "are you sulking? come on, you know i'm right. if you wanted, i could -"

she stopped when she saw that marvin was crying, elbows on the shelf and face buried in his hands to muffle the sounds. she softened instantly, gently placing a hand on one of his shaking shoulders. "oh, marvin," she murmured. "i'm sorry. here, come and - come upstairs. you can sit in the living room, i'll make you tea."

he let her wrap her arms around him and guide him up the stairs to naomi's place, all the while desperately wiping away the never ending stream of tears and stifling his sobs. the embarrassment of letting naomi see him in this state was already hitting him, but he had cried so many times in the past month that he was starting to not care. "wait, wait," he managed, grabbing the railing. "you're, uh, the shop's still open."

"i can close early," naomi said, too brightly.

"you can't afford to do that." and it was true. florists weren't exactly in extremely high demand, and he knew naomi didn't make a lot of money off the shop. "let's just sit on the stairs and then we can listen if there's a customer."

she slowly nodded, forcing a smile before plopping down at the bottom of the stairs. she patted the area next to her and he sat down, opening the door so they could see into the shop properly.

it was a few minutes until naomi broke the silence. "how's anti?"

marvin groaned. "don't give a shit. last i heard, he was still sick. still in hospital. he's got a lot of injuries to recover from, but he's not cooperating with the nurses." he went to run a hand through his hair before remembering he had it up in a bun and he'd just completely messed it up. for a moment he forgot naomi was even there, just frustratedly messing with his hair, until she cleared her throat and he jumped. she raised an eyebrow, amused, and marvin flushed.

"uh, yeah," he mumbled, glancing away. "i don't care anyway. i don't know what he's gonna do once he's recovered and i don't care. he's not coming anywhere near my family is all i know."

naomi shifted on the wooden stairs. "if you don't care, then why do you go visit him in hospital so much?"

"i don't go visit him," marvin said. "i go into the hospital, get an update on his condition, hang around for a bit until someone tells me i have to leave, ect ect."

naomi giggled. "well, what's the point of that? might as well just call." when marvin didn't answer, she cleared her throat and scooted slightly closer to him, bumping his shoulder. "hey. tell me what's up. i can see gears turning in the big head of yours."

marvin rolled his eyes and elbowed her, but felt a very small smile on his face. "shut it, you. and…" he considered telling her he was fine again, but figured that wouldn't fly. "i have a lot on my mind, ok? lotta stuff happening. you know, what with chase being suicidal, henrik losing his goddamn mind, finding out my closest brother was holding our other brother captive in a high security basement thing underneath a music shop and torturing him with black magic that he was apparently given from some secret dark organization that provided him with power in exchange for spells that he stole from me, all that shit." he gasped for air, realizing he'd been talking so fast that he hadn't breathed in about ten seconds. "you know, the usual."

he scrubbed at his face, embarrassed. it was a little while before naomi spoke. "i feel like, maybe, you should try and visit anti."

marvin whipped his head round, and was about to launch into a rant when naomi clamped her hand over his mouth. "no, let me speak. just let me speak for a second. and i swear to the gods, if you lick my hand, i will make tubers grow out your ears."

marvin raised an eyebrow, and naomi rolled her eyes. "ok. so… ok, this might be about to sound very condescending. does that make sense in english? i don't know. anyway." she hesitated. "have you and your brothers ever been… close to anti?"

she took her hand from his mouth, and marvin shook his head. "no. jack was, before anti put him in a goddamn coma. chase and henrik knew him, before, and look where it got them."

naomi bit her lip, nodding. "ok, ok." marvin knew she only knew a little bit about jack - marvin had told her that he was their brother too, and that he had been close to anti. he didn't dare to say much more in case he sounded like a weirdo under the delusion that jack had brought them all to life. that'd be fun to explain.

naomi sighed. "what do you know about anti?"

marvin blinked, scrunching up his face. "what do i - naomi, i've told you all i know!"

she held up her hands as a sign of surrender. "i know, but -"

"he's not normal, naomi!" marvin said loudly, and naomi reeled back slightly. "he's - i don't even know if he's human, he's like some kind of fucking monster! need i remind you that he's killed people? he's -"

naomi tried to interject. "ok, but, listen -"

and then marvin snapped. "no, no, no!" he clapped his hands to his face, groaning in frustration. "fuck, he's not someone you can just reason with, nai! ok? he's - he's hurt us many times, you can't just talk to him and expect it to be ok!"

"did you ever even try?" naomi said. "did any of you -"

"nai, the first time he met me, he stabbed me!" marvin cried. "i wouldn't have time to bloody reason with him -"

"ok, i'm just trying to find a way to help you!" naomi insisted. she leaned back, hands still beside her head. "i don't want any of you to hurt -"

"if any of us deserve to hurt, it's anti," marvin spat, leaping to his feet. he was suddenly so, so angry, practically shaking with everything he wanted to scream. "it's not fair, none of this is fair! i was put in the position of - my brother, jackie is my brother far more than anti ever will be, it's not fair that it was him! it's not fair!"

"marvin," naomi said gently, tapping his leg.

marvin gave a gasping sob. "it shouldn't have to be me! i shouldn't - jackie can't have just left me! he can't - he can't just go fucking insane and leave me here to clean up the mess he made!"

he buried his face in his hands, leaning against the wall. it was only after a minute of stifling rage at himself at and everyone else that he played back what he'd said and realized, head shooting up.

"shit!" he gasped. "nai, i'm sorry -"

"it's ok," naomi said, very quietly. she stood, not looking at marvin. "you were angry, you didn't mean it."

"no, no, that doesn't give me an excuse!" marvin said, hands flapping uselessly in front of him. "i know you don't like that word, i shouldn't have - oh, nai, i'm -"

"i think, maybe," she said, staring up at the door to her flat. "you should go and come back when you're not going to explode at other people."

marvin's shoulders sagged with guilt. he nodded quickly, already stepping down towards the bottom door and then glancing back up at naomi, who hadn't moved. "i'm so sorry. i didn't mean to take it out on you, i really didn't."

"that's ok," naomi mumbled, not facing him. "can you flip the sign to closed on the way out? i'll lock up. just… yeah."

she made her way up to the top of the stairs and disappeared from his view.

marvin just stood there for a moment. then he did what she'd asked, burning with self hatred like all the anger he'd felt just minutes before was now being directed inwards at himself.

that one should count for at least three strikes on the asshole marvin list, he thought bitterly as he left the shop and the cold air hit him. he knew about naomi's past and why she didn't like that word, and yet - fuck, he was such an idiot.

it was summer. yet the shameful walk home was colder than he'd felt all year.

a few days later, he made another decision.

this was definitely a dumb idea, and if he was being honest, it was partially made out of boredom. he hadn't spoken to naomi since he'd yelled at her, having been too afraid to go round the shop or call her in case she was still angry at him. like a coward. chase was rarely in - he was mostly out god knows where, probably filming with his cameraman daniel and the rest of his crew, and henrik wasn't speaking to marvin either. marvin had spent his time sulking, avoiding calls from kazuki and staying in his room away from henrik. it was pointless, and boring, and marvin just wanted something to do, even if that something was visiting anti in hospital.

the receptionist recognized him instantly and nodded at him as he came in. marvin nodded back, saying hello to the nurses he recognized, until he came right outside anti's room.

"excuse me," came a voice, and marvin whipped round to see dr reid, smiling softly. "hey. sorry for startling you. are you going inside?"

marvin nodded. "yeah, uh… yeah, i am," he mumbled, staring at his feet. "apologies for snapping at you the other day, doctor. i'm under a lot of stress, which obviously isn't an excuse, but -"

"it's alright, mr mcloughlin," she said, shaking her head and chuckling. "i've heard much worse. go inside if you want. are you alone?"

he paused before nodding. "yeah, i'm alone," he said quietly. "don't think my brothers really want to visit."

she nodded along with him. "understandable."

he was procrastinating going inside, he knew. dr reid probably knew too, but said nothing. marvin took a deep breath and opened the door, cautiously stepping inside.

anti looked to be asleep, curled up under a blanket on the bed. marvin took a few hesitant steps forward, noticing as he got closer how sick anti looked. his right arm was wrapped in a cast, and his hair was even longer looking than when marvin had last seen it, spread out on the pillow. he was extremely pale, his freckles almost unseen, and he had big bags under his eyes and a nasal cannula on. the two most unusual thing was that his beard was entirely gone, as was the signature wound on his neck. his face and neck looked almost empty without it.

"we had to help him shave in order to properly deal with the wounds on his face," dr reid explained from where she'd suddenly appeared beside him. "it seemed that they were already dealt with in part by - uh, yes. you're also lucky you got charlotte to look him over, or his arm fracture could have gotten worse and may have healed wrong, resulting in infection or worse. she - it appeared she also managed to fix the wound on his neck, the older one. we have no clue why it hadn't healed previously, but it was nothing a bit of healing couldn't fix."

marvin had no clue who charlotte was. he assumed she was the doctor naomi had gotten to look over anti while he tried to find his brothers. "mhm," was all he could manage to say. "can you, uh… can you go?"

she nodded and left the room, leaving marvin and anti alone. marvin was already beginning to regret coming here as he walked over and gingerly sat down in the plastic chair beside anti's bed. with his beard gone, he looked about ten years younger. marvin snorted at the sight.

he wondered what henrik and chase would say if they knew what marvin was doing right now. he wondered what jack would think if he could see anti in the state he was in. jack, who...

anti stirred, making a small noise in his throat. marvin leaned back, hardly daring to breath in case he woke. after a moment, anti went silent, and marvin decided that yes, this was definitely a bad idea. as he was standing up to leave, however, his chair creaked and anti's eyes flew wide open.

marvin stayed very still as if anti were an animal that could only detect him if he moved.

anti blinked, raising his left hand to clumsily sign. "j-a-y?" he signed, eyebrows furrowed.

marvin shook his head, stepping back towards the door. "nope. i'm not, uh, whoever you think i am. i'm leaving, didn't mean to come in here. sorry, bye."

"j-a-y," anti insisted, and struggled to sit up in the bed. his body began to glitch wildly the more he tried to move, and marvin could hear the hum of static from all round. he held up both hands, still creeping backwards.

"sorry," marvin said. "sorry."

he was about to slip out when anti signed something that made marvin pause.

"what was that?" he said slowly, closing the door again. anti did it again; his left hand making a "d" shape and tapping on his right wrist. marvin didn't know the sign, but he was sure he could guess.

"dapper," he murmured, and the reaction in anti was immediate. he nodded quickly, the sound of static spiking.

marvin rolled his eyes. "ugh," he groaned dramatically, before walking back over and plopping down on the chair again.

"dapper's not here," he said, in a mocking, babying tone. anti didn't seem to notice, his eyes wide with fever. they were a bright blue at the moment, for whatever reason. "dapper is all gone, don't you remember? you were the one to drive him away, after all."

anti shook his head. "j-a-y," he signed, and his head flopped down against the pillow again. he was breathing heavily, like he'd just run a marathon. marvin watched him curiously, titling his head.

"wow, you are really sick," he said, resisting the urge to laugh. he couldn't help but feel slightly bad for the glitch; all that power he'd had over them, drained away. maybe he didn't feel too bad. "maybe we should just kill you while we have the chance."

anti's eyes fluttered closed, and he gave a small nod. "maybe," he signed, his hand shaky. "might as…" he trailed off, hand falling to his chest.

marvin raised an eyebrow. "are you coherent now? gonna say something that makes sense?"

anti flipped him off weakly, and marvin laughed. "alright, guess that's a clear enough message."

"here to mock me?" anti signed slowly. "b-i-t-c-h."

marvin leaned back in his chair, sniggering. "that's just sad. where's all your usual pizzazz, anti? come on."

"up your -" anti started coughing before he could finish that sentence, slapping his hand over his mouth. marvin just watched, not certain if he was supposed to do anything.

"are you ok?" he asked. then, because he needed to add a sarcastic element to it, "are you gonna live?"

anti flipped him off again before sinking back down on the bed weakly. his face was screwed up in pain, and he was biting his lip so hard marvin could see blood. he suddenly felt slightly bad for making fun of him.

"water," anti signed, pointing to the bedside table marvin had his arm propped up against. he hesitated before handing him the plastic cup, watching him try to take it with shaking hands.

"do you… need some help there?" marvin asked uncertainly. this whole thing was starting to become a lot weirder than he'd wanted. with everything he said and did, he kept thinking of his brothers and what they'd think of him right now. he pushed the thoughts away and focused on anti, who was rapidly shaking his head. he lifted the cup up and promptly dropped it, groaning as the water soaked into the bed and his black t-shirt.

"well done," marvin said. anti flashed him a look, a spark of his old rage lighting up in his eyes as he hit the button to call the nurses with far more force than necessary. then he wrapped his arms around his stomach and curled up so his head was almost touching his knees.

marvin sighed. "do you want me to stay here?"

anti didn't move to answer. marvin made a face, feeling slightly awkward as a nurse marvin didn't recognize came in, flashing him a small smile before walking round the side of the bed. "are you alright? ah, you've spilled - it's ok, although you know you're not supposed to try and drink without help. here, shift over, i'll get your sheets."

anti rolled his eyes in marvin's direction, and moved over towards him so the nurse could take the blankets off. marvin hadn't ever seen anti in short sleeves before, except in his original videos (which jackie showed him), and he was surprised to see raised scars over the areas where jack's tattoos were. anti saw him looking and flipped him off a third time, to which marvin snorted. "you ever gonna come up with a better response?"

"want me to break your nose and force it into your mouth down your throat?" anti signed painstakingly. marvin couldn't help but giggle.

"is that possible?" he asked.

anti shrugged and fell back against the pillows, sweaty hair falling in his face. marvin was about to reach out and stroke the hair away before reminding himself that this wasn't jamie, wasn't jackie, wasn't chase or henrik. he clasped his hands in his lap, suddenly feeling sick.

"i think i'll go," he murmured, standing too suddenly. "thank you, nurse, uh, but i gotta -" he clicked his fingers and pointed them towards the door.

"oh, of course," the nurse said, nodding as the folded up the blankets in her arms. "will we see you tomorrow? it's extended visiting hours then."

marvin glanced back at anti, who was curled up again, looking half asleep. he glanced up just slightly to raise an eyebrow, and despite it all, marvin could see the smallest hint of the old anti in his face.

"yeah," marvin said, and anti's eyes gleamed with a smirk. "i think maybe you will."

#jacksepticeye #boop writes #marvin the magnificent #antisepticeye #naomi gudmundson #the fall

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saybees · 3 years

Text

Some rather personal and tmi stuff, but I feel like I need to get it out somewhere and I don’t have anyone I really feel I can talk to about this now. It’s very long.

I’d like to start by saying that if you’re reading this please don’t tell me to just dump him. It isn’t that simple and it just isn’t helpful to say that to me.

So Jon and I have had issues in the past with porn. Jon has a porn addiction. I didn’t discover this until maybe a year into our relationship when I walked into the bathroom one day and he was watching porn and masturbating. At first I was more shocked than anything and didn’t know how to react, but it quickly turned into feeling really hurt.

I tried to talk to him about it and told him that it bothered me that he was doing that and it made me feel like I wasn’t good enough and our sex was too boring for him. It made me feel so inadequate that he had to go somewhere else for that stuff. He didn’t see the issue with it and because porn has become so normalized in our society and he has maintained that he doesn’t understand why it’s an issue for me, despite that I have explained to him many times that it really bothers me and makes me feel shitty. It feels like cheating.

Eventually I asked him to leave the bathroom door open when he goes in there because I didn’t really trust him. That didn’t stop him, however, and he continued to masturbate to porn in the bathroom even though the door was cracked open. I caught him and was really upset. It hasn’t happened again since I caught him with the door open.

I can’t even count how many times we have had this conversation/argument. It just hurts a lot and I really am so tired of having this talk with him. I asked my therapist that I used to see if I was being unreasonable and she said I wasn’t. She fully agreed with me that I wasn’t asking too much of him to stop doing it.

He doesn’t do it at home anymore, but I’m pretty sure he does when he’s at work. He’ll take a washroom break and very likely will do it then because he accidentally let it slip recently that he still masturbates. He tried very hard to redirect and I pretended I didn’t notice, but it’s been eating at me.

It wouldn’t bother me so much if he didn’t have a porn problem. I just feel like he doesn’t find me attractive or sexy. We don’t have sex very often at all and I pretty much always have to initiate it, which reinforces those feelings that I’m not what he wants. I don’t feel sexy enough or pretty enough and I’ve always had issues with feeling like I have an ugly face so this really makes it worse.

He used to follow lots of Instagram models, but has since unfollowed a lot of them, although there are still two at least that I’m pretty sure are Instagram models. Their accounts are private and I’m not going to follow them to find out what’s up. I’ll only hurt my own feelings even more than I did just going through the list of people he follows on Instagram.

I know I should talk to him about it again, but I am just so sick of having this conversation with him. Neither of us want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to because he feels guilty about it (obviously, since he has been hiding it) and I don’t want to talk about it anymore because the whole thing just makes me feel so terrible.

There was one incident where Jon had downloaded Tinder behind my back and he was showing me something on his phone when a notification popped up and it turned into me feeling like he was cheating and I cried and then he cried and it was a whole thing. He deleted it and hasn’t done anything like that since, but he didn’t include on his profile that he was in a relationship and wouldn’t give me an explanation as to why and he just wouldn’t say much other than that he wanted to make friends and talk to people, but it was just horrible and traumatic for me and for some reason I let him convince me that he was genuine and I stayed, although I really question that decision sometimes because it still deeply bothers me and I’m not entirely convinced he wouldn’t cheat on me after that. I just have a very hard time trusting him after the Tinder thing and the porn stuff. And I just feel like we didn’t really get to the bottom of that whole issue, but it feels like it was too long ago to talk about it again despite that it still bothers me.

I know we have to talk about it more, but I just don’t want to fucking do this anymore. I’m exhausted.

We might be moving to a different place in town here at some point and if he does end up buying another house I’m going to have to talk to him about this and if he isn’t willing to give up porn completely then I won’t be moving with him and I’ll stay in our current rental and we will be done because I know I will not be happy being with him for the rest of our lives if he can’t quit porn and I’ll always have to worry about it.

I did some googling and found countless articles of women (and others) saying they felt shitty that their men/partners watched porn behind their backs. So many other people who feel the same as I do and have been damaged by this kind of thing. It’s good to know I’m not alone in this, but it’s so terrible that so many people feel like this. It hurts a lot.

I’ve done some light research on the negative effects of porn and it really does seem to be very harmful, particularly for relationships. And I know he has been watching porn since he was very young, he’s talked to me about it before. I do truly believe porn is incredibly harmful and it is FAR too easy to get access to it. I feel like porn has hurt our relationship and our sex life a lot.

For our anniversary one year I even did a boudoir shoot by myself at home and made him a little book with sexy photos of me and gave it to him and he said he loved it, but he hasn’t looked at it since I gave it to him. That’s a real punch to the gut.

There was one other incident where our one friend, a lesbian, sent him and a few others a snapchat video of her making out with another girl that he used to hang out with when they were younger and they weren’t wearing tops (this girl is wild and does all kinds of stupid shit when she drinks, which is all the time) and he saved it for later. I found out because she had called him crying because someone she sent it to recorded it and sent it around to other people and everybody found out about it and this other girl had a boyfriend, but anyway he told me what was going on and he went to pull it up to show me, but she had deleted it and he told me he had saved it. I asked why and at first he lied and said he saved it so she could see it later and maybe think about what she had done, but I saw through that pretty quick. Eventually he admitted to me that he had fantasized about a threesome with those two girls and that’s why he saved it. This was not too long ago. Like late 2020. I was mad and needed some time to think and told him we would talk about it, but eventually I just told him that I didn’t want to have this discussion again (which I shouldn’t have done because I let him off the hook basically) and that if he felt like he needed to hide something from me that should be enough to know he shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. With that he said okay and we never talked about it again.

I just feel like I’m putting a lot into this relationship and he isn’t being considerate of me here. He makes excuses as to why he feels like he has to get off all the time and that it helps him wake up in the mornings or that he functions better once he’s done it (untrue, he functions the same no matter what) and it drives me up a wall that he will choose that over having sex with me?????? Like, hi hello I am a human woman(adjacent) and I am willing to have sex with you literally whenever you want!!!!!! And you’ll still choose watching porn and jerking off instead??????????????????????! Yeah, I totally feel like you want me. I totally feel loved and feel like you find me attractive. Yep. You watch porn of women who are a million times more beautiful and sexy than I will ever be and they do things I could never do or just don’t want to do and you’ll choose that over ME and tell me that you do think I’m attractive and sexy and that you love me, but you hardly actually prove that to me.

He doesn’t call me pretty unless I basically ask him to, which sucks because if I ask for the compliment it doesn’t feel real, but if I don’t ask I’ll never hear it. He is quite affectionate with me generally, cuddling up and stuff, holding my hand sometimes when driving, that type of stuff, but I almost never hear him, unprompted, tell me I’m pretty.

I don’t know, it just really bothers me and of course I have to be feeling like this right in the morning when I have a ton of school work I should do. I just feel really sad now. I don’t know how to handle this anymore. I don’t know who to go to for advice. My best buddy Ryan is having kinda the same issue with his girlfriend, but they both watch porn (they don’t live together like Jon and I do) and she has been feeling insecure about Ryan’s porn habits, but she also watches porn and I know they had a talk about it all the other day, but I don’t feel like it’s any of my business to ask how it went or anything because it just straight up isn’t, but Ryan is who I have primarily talked to about this whole thing and he’s been very sympathetic to me about it and idk I just don’t know what to do or who to turn to. The last time I talked to my therapist it was about this whole thing and she basically told me to do my own research and that she didn’t have anything else to say to me about it (because we had talked about it multiple times) and that felt really shitty and like I wasn’t allowed to still be having this issue so I stopped going to her and haven’t seen anyone else since.

I love him a lot, I really do, and we get along really well, usually, but this just hurts a lot and I know I should never have put up with as much as I have. I should have set more boundaries and been firmer with them. It feels so fucking bad that he’s done this time and time again and gone behind my back with this shit and I keep talking to him about it and it keeps happening.

I’ve mostly avoided talking about this here because it feels so personal and gross and like I shouldn’t talk about it (that’s that Christian guilt). I hate that society makes sex and related issues to be such a dirty topic and that we can’t talk about it because I feel really alone and shitty about this. I try to push it down and ignore it, but it’s so hard to do and I’m just really sad...

#personal #this whole thing makes me feel so fucking bad #i'm really sad rn #this whole thing makes me so anxious and i just don't want to deal with it at all anymore #but i know i need to because it'll just keep eating away at me if i don't deal with it

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willowfoot · 5 years

Text

🐍

As the years pass, and the humans get more and more thorough with their records-keeping, it’s a given that Aziraphale and Crowley are forced to get a bit creative with their human personas in order to blend in.

For instance, birthdays. Neither angels nor demons have birthdays precisely, at least not any comprehensible by human standards of time, so they’re obliged to make one up. It’s not quite as simple as picking a single year and sticking to it, because people tend to look at you askance if your ID states a year of birth from several centuries ago. So every few years, the two of them update their “birthday” to match with their current corporation’s apparent age.

For the sake of ease, the month and day of their “birthdays” stay the same. After some dithering (and influences from a certain Globe performance around 1599), Aziraphale settles for March 15, and is unreasonably smug over the joke of it. (“But angel, isn’t that technically mocking the murder of an actual human? How very… unangelic of you.” To which Aziraphale only swats a smirking Crowley’s shoulder and refuses to dignify him with a response.) Crowley, rather predictably, chooses June 6. (“Really, my dear?” “What? I have a reputation to maintain.”)

But while Aziraphale tends to pluck a random year that’ll set him at roughly middle-age, then proceeds to forget about the whole business for two decades or more until Crowley reminds him about it, Crowley is decidedly more methodical in choosing his years of birth. 1893. 1929. 1941. 1965. (Plus other years before and in-between.) It takes Aziraphale a while to notice a pattern, but eventually he realizes; Crowley’s birth years are all twelve (or some multiple of twelve) years apart. Perhaps it‘s simply a matter of convenience, but Aziraphale knows Crowley, and suspects there’s some deeper meaning to it.

He tries to subtly (or not so subtly) bring up the subject in conversation in the hopes of getting an explanation. “I do believe it’s that time again,” he says as casually as he can on one occasion, while he and Crowley are dining at the Ritz one lovely afternoon in May 2009. “Mrs. Wang down at the manicurist said something to the effect that I look remarkably spry for a person of fifty-five. No danger yet, of course, but I felt it best to… amend my birth certificate, somewhat, just in case.”

“Good move,” Crowley says, though he looks far more interested in aiming a piece of mashed potato with an improvised spoon-catapult at a businessman sitting nearby, dressed in an expensive suit and loudly berating a young waiter.

“I was thinking of changing it to your current birth year, in fact,” Aziraphale continues. “1965. How does that sound?”

“Mm.” Crowley fires his projectile once the waiter leaves the table. The businessman sputters and turns scarlet as the mashed potato lands neatly in his cup, spilling red wine all over his suit.

“Stop that,” Aziraphale scolds, though he discreetly twitches a finger and ties the laces of the man’s Oxford shoes together beneath the tablecloth. “I was thinking that perhaps you also ought to change your birthdate to save yourself the hassle later. Perhaps the year,” Aziraphale pretends to think, “1976?”

“Nope,” Crowley says cheerfully, popping the ‘p’. “1977”.

“What a coincidence,” Aziraphale says triumphantly. “Isn’t that exactly twelve years after your last birthday?”

“It sure is,” Crowley says, and digs right into his slice of angel cake without a word more on the matter.

Aziraphale gives up.

It’s very much a reverse Dick Turpin situation. Much as Newton Pulsifer desperately hopes for someone to ask him why he gave such a name to his car, Aziraphale unsuccessfully tries to get Crowley to explain the pattern behind his birth years, while Crowley blissfully ignores the angel’s increasingly obvious hints each time.

It takes another nine years, one failed Antichrist-raising, and one Armageddon’t later, when Aziraphale finally gets his answer.

A month after the first day of the rest of their lives, Aziraphale and Crowley are mildly tipsy in the bookshop’s back room, Crowley sprawled across the sofa and Aziraphale settled in his cozy armchair.

“You know, we didn’t celebrate our birthdays this year,” Crowley says, swilling his wine around his glass. A few drops spill out, but have the good sense not to stain Crowley’s shirt or the sofa cushions.

“We don’t have birthdays,” Aziraphale points out, somewhat fuzzy with drink. “Those dates are only for our records. You know that.”

“We can do yours first, since yours comes before mine,” Crowley continues as though Aziraphale hasn’t spoken. “But even so… the Ides of March? Really? That was the best you could come up with?”

“It’s a ref’rence. A clever one. Shakespeare said it,” Aziraphale mutters. “And you’re one to talk. Your birthday is bloody 666.”

“Technically only 6/6. Haven’t had a six in my birth year since… oh, 1965.” Crowley sighs happily. “That was a good one. Put it on my annual report to Hell and everything. Dagon didn’t appreciate it, unfunny bastard never does, but I swear I saw that arse Asmodeus nearly laugh.”

Aziraphale sits up straight in his armchair. Even sobers up, because he wants to remember this after trying for decades to find the truth. Crowley sees the revived clarity in Aziraphale’s eyes and sobers up, too.

“Angel? What is it?”

“Why are your birth years always twelve or some multiple of twelve years apart?” Aziraphale demands. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for ages, but I never could, and you were never any help. Don’t try to fool me, you old serpent. I know it must mean something.”

Crowley looks startled for a moment, then slowly begins to grin. “Why, angel. I thought you’d never ask! I wondered how long it would take for you to break and ask me outright instead of dancing around it like you always do.”

Aziraphale huffs. “Fine, you win this round. Now tell me — why?”

Crowley sits back on the sofa, cross-legged, yellow eyes alight with eagerness.

“D’you remember when I stayed in China for a spell, around 560 A.D.?”

Aziraphale frowns. “Yes, of course I do. That was when you bought me that lovely vase from Hangzhou. What does that have to do with anything?”

Crowley grins again. “I was assigned to carry out the temptation of a noble, but I ended earlier than expected and took the rest of the week off.” What he doesn’t mention is that the noble in question had already thrown himself headfirst into a thoroughly immoral life before Crowley even arrived in the country, leaving him twiddling his thumbs as he tried to figure out what to do next. “I was staying at a hotel near the Yangtze River when I heard from the locals that some sort of big event was taking place nearby.”

“And this was?”

“You see, apparently this event had been in the works for years. Sanctioned by the emperor and everything. It was going to completely revolutionize the way the Chinese used their calendar.”

The story begins to sound vaguely familiar to Aziraphale.

Crowley grins again. “They gathered some of the most popular animals together in order to host a race. A Great Race. The first twelve animals that could cross the river and reach the finish line would have the privilege of becoming part of the new Chinese zodiac… forever.”

“Crowley, you didn’t,” Aziraphale says, realization dawning.

“Oh, I sure did.”

“You invented the Year of the Snake?”

“There wasn’t a single serpent among all the contestants! Seemed a bit prejudiced, if you ask me, unless a snake was invited but simply didn’t show. So I just,” Crowley waves an airy hand, “slipped into something more slithery and lined up with all the rest.”

“I cannot believe your nerve.” Aziraphale sighs, but a smile pulls at the corners of his lips.

“Rather a neat job, wasn’t it?” Crowley beams. “I came in sixth, and so the snake became the sixth animal in the Chinese zodiac, representing the birth years of millions of humans around the world for the past two millennia.”

“And that’s why you always choose birthdays that are twelve years apart — so you can be ‘born’ in the Year of the Snake each time.” Aziraphale shakes his head in fond disbelief. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner.”

“Well, I invented it, didn’t I? Would be a shame if I wasted my contribution.” Crowley thinks for a moment. “Your current birth year is 1973, isn’t it? That would put you in the Year of the Ox.” He smiles at the angel. “Tough, clever, set in their ways, strong sense of justice, a tendency towards scholarly pursuits… fits you pretty well, I’d say.”

“And you’re a snake, of course. Crafty, passionate, optimistic, observant, and loyal to those they love.” Aziraphale gets up and moves to sit beside Crowley on the sofa, taking his hand. “Sounds about right to me.”

“Tell the whole blessed world, will you,” Crowley grumbles, though there’s little heat to it. He burrows his face in Aziraphale’s neck.

They sit there contentedly for a while, enjoying the silence and each other’s presence. Then Aziraphale frowns.

“Didn’t you ride a horse to get to the finish line?”

Crowley slowly lifts his head, cornered. “Er.”

“You did, didn’t you? That’s how the story goes, at least. The snake hides on the horse’s hoof to cross the river, then startles the horse at the last second, so that the snake finishes in sixth place and the horse in seventh.” Aziraphale narrows his eyes at Crowley. “I thought you disliked horses. What really happened?”

Crowley groans. “It wasn’t my fault, honestly. I was in the middle of crossing the river when I nearly got stepped on by that blasted creature. I only managed to avoid discorporation by latching onto his leg. I kept yelling at him to stop running, for Somebody’s sake, but he didn’t notice me, at least not until he looked down near the end and gave himself a fright.” He shudders at the memory. “I didn’t so much as cross as I was thrown over the finish line. 臭马,” he mutters.

Aziraphale kisses the pout off Crowley’s lips. “Well, look at it this way. At least you ended up finishing before him, my dear.”

—

(I’m a snake zodiac myself, so of course I had to write this.

Some notes:

I did my best but this isn’t very historically accurate, apologies. However, the Great Race that I mention here is the actual myth behind the formation of the Chinese zodiac.

In Chinese astrology, the snake and the ox are said to be “heavenly compatible”, relationship-wise. 👀

Thanks for reading!)

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #aj crowley #go tv #good omens tv #gotv #fanfiction #fanfic #willowfic #personal #chinese zodiac #snakes #this is my sole contribution to the zodiac discourse #i know Nothing about the western zodiac but i am chinese so here we are #also if youre seeing this twice i reposted it bc of tag mixups #snake crowley

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retrievablememories · 4 years

Text

style | jaehyun

title: style pairing: jaehyun x black!reader genre: fluff request: “I was watching the bts for the photo shoots for neo zone and made think about how fun it would be on set with them. Do you think you could write something more jaehyun centric about being like a new makeup artist on set. It can be a black reader as well if that’s cool with you” word count: 2.8k warnings: none that i can think of except some cursing a/n: oof okay my mind somehow skipped over the “new” part so the reader in this fic is actually pretty experienced w/ being a makeup artist. i could rewrite it but i didn’t want to wait any longer to post this fic since it’s already been a couple weeks since the request. i’m sorry if this is not what you were looking for anon, let me know 🤕

Being a Black makeup artist in a mostly Korean music industry can be weird at times. It’s not the life of roses and perfume that many others at the beginning of your career would’ve had you think it is, but you have managed to carve out your own niche. You have friends and people who support you, and a nice apartment you’re able to pay for with the salary you receive from SM, which is enough for you.

It also doesn’t hurt to be surrounded by pretty men all the time.

You worked for many different groups and solo acts before landing a steady job at SM Entertainment—some were nicer than others, and some were straight-up assholes. You can’t say you miss those days much, especially when you were just starting out and not always certain of where your next paycheck was coming from. Now, your most consistent clients have been NCT, which you are grateful for; they’re always pleasant and fun to work with.

Your latest work with them involves NCT 127’s new album, Neo Zone. You’re coming in today for the first day of the album jacket photoshoot, which you’re excited about; you haven’t seen any of the NCT members since you worked on Coming Home. You don’t mind doing makeup for the other SM acts, but there’s a certain connection you have with this group that you just can’t explain.

With your makeup bag on hand, you enter the studio where the boys are going to be shooting today, already taken aback by the loud orange checkerboard pattern on the floor. There are even garish deer heads and hooves mounted up on the walls; SM has really outdone themselves this time.

“Y/N, it’s you!” Jaehyun looks excited to see you, and his enthusiasm rubs off on you; you shoot him a welcoming smile back.

“Hi Jaehyun,” you say, walking over to where he’s standing. Jaehyun doesn’t hesitate to open his arms to give you a hug, and you appreciate the soothing smell of his cologne before pulling away.

Jungwoo and Mark run up to you too, crushing you between them in a hug, and pretty soon you end up embracing all of the boys as they come over for your attention.

“Wow, that is some hairstyle…” you say as you pull away from Johnny. You reach up to pinch one of his twists between your fingers, examining it with a look halfway between mortification and amusement.

“Do you like it?” he asks, an equally awkward grin on his face.

“Um…I’m sure the fans will love it.” You can only chuckle and pat him on the arm before making your way back over to Jaehyun to start on his look for the shoot. You pull your supplies out of your makeup bag as Jaehyun watches you from the chair; his attention is eventually drawn away when Taeil comes over to show him something on his phone.

When you have everything ready and have pinned his hair out of the way, you start painting his face.

Jaehyun only has one AirPod in his ear; you’re not sure where the other is, but you figure it must be with Taeil or one of the other members. You think he’s just listening to music without paying you any mind, but he says suddenly, “I like when you come around.”

“Oh, really? Why is that?”

“I dunno, your makeup just looks better…” He lowers his voice as if he doesn’t want the other makeup artists to hear, and you laugh inwardly.

“Maybe it’s because I know how to use the right foundation shade.” You both laugh openly at that, and Haechan takes notice, dropping in beside Jaehyun.

“What are you two laughing about? I wanna laugh too,” the younger man says, his eyes round and mischievous.

“Just the fact that it’s no fun to walk around with makeup looking like Casper the Ghost,” you say, and Haechan scoffs.

“Try telling that to….” Haechan’s eyes dart around, and you suspect the makeup artist he wants to throw shade on must be at the shoot with them right now. “...nevermind, that’s a discussion for the group chat!” Instead, he goes over to Taeyong to bother him.

“Group chat? I feel left out now,” you say jokingly, continuing with Jaehyun’s makeup.

“You don’t have one with your stylist friends or something like that?” he asks.

“Yes, but I wanna know what you guys are talking about…” You raise your eyebrows. “That’s just nosy me, though.”

“Nothing interesting,” Jaehyun replies, though you can tell by the look in his eyes that that’s far from the truth.

“Mhmm, sure.” You purse your lips together and shake your head. “Don’t let me find out you’re on some fuckboy shit.”

“If I was, would you punish me?” Jaehyun says this loud enough to draw a few mildly scandalized glances from the stylists and makeup artists standing nearby, and you duck your head, feeling equal parts tickled and embarrassed.

“You’re a mess, Jaehyun. I’m trying to keep this job, okay?” you reprimand him, but there’s no seriousness in it at all.

“Of course, you’re right—I’d never want to see my favorite staff member gone.”

“Shiiit, now I’m just a staff member?” You put a hand over your heart, acting hurt. You both laugh and joke around for a while longer until you’re done with his look for the photoshoot.

Once you finish with Jaehyun’s makeup, you do Mark and then Taeil, chatting casually with them all the while. Taeil is still a bit quiet with you, but he’s incredibly funny when he wants to be, and you can always appreciate a good joke or two. You know Jaehyun “flirts” with you noticeably more than the other members do, but you’ve gotten used to all their subtle differences and you don’t think to chalk it up to more than innocent playfulness—or over-playfulness, maybe.

You’re always somewhere nearby in the background, ready to jump in and retouch someone’s foundation or redo a highlight whenever necessary. You sit back and watch Jaehyun take his solo pictures, admiring your good work on his makeup—or maybe his handsomeness all on its own. He has a good face, you think, and try to convince yourself that you’re only thinking about it in terms of how easy his features are to work with.

Your front row view of the show is interrupted when one of the stylists comes over to ask you a question, and you’re pulled to another area to handle an issue. There’s never not something to do on days like these, though you don’t really mind it; being busy doesn’t bother you as much when the work is fairly fun.

The other boys continue playing around on the set as they wait their turns for solo photos and then group pictures. You eventually end up back in front of Taeil again, fixing a spot on his foundation with a Q-tip as a hairstylist fusses over his strands.

You sit on one of the couches on set for a moment’s break after finishing with Taeil. Johnny comes creeping over to you with the polaroid camera he’s been carrying for the past half-hour, and you can already guess what’s about to happen. You hold your hands up, blocking your face.

“I know you’re the aspiring photographer and all, but can you give me and my visage a break?”

“Just one?” Johnny begs, giving you his best pout. You give him an unimpressed look and cross your arms, but your face eventually cracks when he keeps throwing you exaggerated pouty expressions.

“It’s not happening! I’m not even prepared for pictures today,” you insist. Your complaints are interrupted when Haechan slides onto the couch beside you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders.

“Don’t you want to take a picture with me, at least?” He tries to press his cheek against yours and you gently chide him about his makeup, not wanting to create more work for the other girls on set who’ll have to fix it. “I knoww, I knoww. If you take a picture with me, I’ll stop!”

You sigh in mock distress. “Fine, one photo! Can’t keep these paparazzi off my back, can I?” You and Haechan end up striking multiple poses for Johnny while he pretends to be an enthusiastic photog capturing a celebrity couple.

“Hope Jaehyun doesn’t get too jealous,” Johnny says absentmindedly, holding one of the shiny polaroids between his fingers. You cock your head at that.

“Now why would he get jealous?”

“Because that’s how Hyung is,” Haechan replies, quickly getting off the couch and trying to usher Johnny off the scene. He acts as if the older man has just said something he wasn’t supposed to, and Johnny belatedly notices his “mistake” with an awkward shrug. Before he leaves, he hands you one of the polaroids of you and Haechan.

“Put it in a scrapbook or something!”

“Sure, Johnny.” You stare at the small photo in your hands, though Johnny’s words stay floating around in your mind well after the first day’s shoot is over.

The next day is hectic, much like the last, though the set is quite different this time around. You definitely feel a bit better about having more space to move around in without other staff members practically standing on top of each other. Johnny’s hair is back to its normal state, though now Taeil and Haechan have braids; you can’t help but squint your eyes at that, though you say nothing. It’s not worth falling out with the hairstylists again—you learned early on that these companies are gonna do whatever the hell they want.

“You look really good today—all thanks to me, of course,” you tell Jaehyun after he finishes recording his part for the BTS video. “Aren’t I magic?”

“Don’t knock the hairstylists, they wouldn’t like to hear that,” he snickers.

“I’d like to do more than knock them, but we ain’t got time for that.” You wave your hand and change the subject. “Did you enjoy yesterday’s shoot? I dunno about you, but I think it went pretty well. Hopefully today is the same.”

Jaehyun nods his agreement. “It was great.” Then he pauses before casually mentioning, “I heard you and Haechan were getting close yesterday, though.” You notice Doyoung and Yuta out of the corner of your eye, lingering around as if they’re waiting on their turn for photos, but it’s clear that they’re eavesdropping from the looks on their faces.

“Yes, so sue me for hanging out with an NCT member that isn’t you, how could I ever betray you in such a way?” You cover your mouth in faux horror and the other man shakes his head, grabbing your elbow.

“I don’t know if my heart will ever recover,” he says, going along with your act. He pulls on your arm and brings your hand to chest. “Feel it—it’s broken!”

This feels like a bold move even for him, and Doyoung makes a noise in the background that confirms your surprise. You whip your head towards the other two men and they immediately scatter, finding other things to preoccupy themselves with to avoid your scolding.

Jaehyun’s heartbeat is a little faster than it should be under your palm, and at this point you can probably guess why. Johnny’s words and Haechan’s near panic come to the forefront of your memory again. You behave as casually as you can, drawing your hand back to your side and quirking an eyebrow at him. Someone calls your name from the other side of the room, and you go to see what they’re hollering about, but not before calling over your shoulder,

“Your heart rate’s elevated, might wanna see a doctor about that!”

You end up having to retouch Jaehyun’s makeup more than usual throughout the shoot because of his playing around with the other boys, whether it’s riding in a shopping cart or trying to pedal a damn bicycle up the wall, and you almost have to wonder if he’s doing it on purpose.

“You’re really gonna make me work for this job, huh?” You put your hands on your hips after finishing your quick fixes.

“Maybe.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“So, you admit you think I’m cute?”

“What do you expect me to say? You certainly ain’t ugly...don’t let it go to your head, though.” You pat his shoulder and steer him towards the cameras. “Now go on! Don’t make me have to stay past midnight fixing your makeup all day.”

The rest of the jacket shooting goes smoothly—as smoothly as anything can on a busy set, anyway. Yuta even manages to get you to dance with him to one of the songs blaring over the studio’s speakers, though you scurry off again as soon as you see Johnny coming with his phone in hand. You know his blackmail folder must be huge at this point, and you’re not trying to become a part of the collection.

The boys come over for their hugs again as you pack up your makeup bag. Pretty soon, the only one left without an embrace is Jaehyun.

“Saving the best for last?” you ask as he watches you. He really does do that a lot, you realize.

He shrugs as if he’s unaffected by your compliment, but his dimples peeking out give him away every time.

“You can just say it, you know.” You look around and lower your voice. Though the playlist is still cycling through as loud as ever, you’d rather not have anyone else’s ears in your conversation right now.

“Say what?” he whispers back, still smiling.

“Hello! I think we both know.”

“You want to hear me say it that bad?”

“That’s rich coming from you! I’m not the one who pulled a move literally out of a kdrama earlier.” As you speak, you accidentally knock over a bottle of setting spray on the table, and both of you reach for it at the same time.

Jaehyun’s fingers linger on yours, sending little sparks of excitement up your arm and through your body. You risk a look at him, and although you’re supposed to be keeping it low right now, you feel as if you’re the only two left in the room. He leans closer, and his familiar scent hits your senses again, threatening to wrap you up permanently in its hold.

“You’re right. I like you.”

Jaehyun picks up the fallen bottle and presses it into your hand, and it takes you a few seconds to react and put it back in your bag.

“I knew it,” you lie. You’re not sure why you feel so nervous about this, or why you feel like you’re doing something you shouldn’t. It’s not uncommon for idols to date their stylists; after all, they’re around each other all the time. But that doesn’t mean the company or anyone else will approve.

“Yes, Detective, you’ve figured out the big mystery.” You glare at Jaehyun for that, but he remains unphased. He turns around and leans against the table, giving off a casual air when he’s really checking to make sure no one is heading in your direction. “So...what do you say?”

You decide to draw this out a little longer just because you can. “To what?”

“I know you like me too.”

“Maybe,” you say, mimicking his earlier answer. “What are you gonna do about it if I do?”

“Make you my girlfriend, duh.” He says it with all the confidence in the world, but then backtracks a little when you give him an amused look. “Only if that’s what you want, though; we don’t have to do anything if—”

“You’re overthinking it!” You shake your head as you put the last thing in your makeup bag and zip it up. “I want to. Really. But you’re gonna have to take me out first.”

“Just tell me where you wanna go. I’ll take you anywhere.”

You sling your bag over your shoulder and sigh. “Have you always been this good with words? Or is it just because I like you?”

Jaehyun pushes himself off the table and steps closer, crowding into your personal space. “You tell me.”

“Don’t be so obvious.” You step back when you notice one of the managers’ eyes lingering where you two are standing. “Just...text me. You know how to reach me, right?”

“Of course.”

You continue stepping backwards towards the entrance, not wanting to let him out of your sight just yet. You smile and wave with both hands, still playing the role of “makeup artist to a super-famous kpop idol” and not “departing girlfriend” like you want to. “Then we’ll talk next time! Bye, Jaehyun!”

Jaehyun waves back, and you don’t turn around until you’re well into the hallway and one of the other boys has called him to hurry up. Leaving the building, you lean against one of the outside walls to take a breather before you head to your car.

“Holy shit.”

#jaehyun fluff #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun imagines #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 fic #jaehyun fic #ambw fic #ambw kpop #ambw scenarios #ambw imagines #jaehyun #nct 127 #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct fic #yes...two fics for the price of one today

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dazeandhaze · 4 years

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What is the kagerou project?

This post is for those who are interested in interacting with my muses Kido, Kano, and Konoha, but maybe don’t know enough about the series to really know where to start plotting wise. I’ll be linking this post to their abouts (when I make them) and I welcome any questions you might have on it!

First off, the Kagerou project is originally a set of vocaloid songs / videos that later got translated to a manga, novels, and an anime. It’s a story told achronlogically, meaning pretty much out of order and not straight forward at all - another reason I wanted to make this post so newcomers don’t feel confused. That and all the mediums help tell the full story - so unless you’ve taken in all of them it’s hard to piece together the story from start to finish, and there is still a lot of details we don’t know. The kagerou project isn’t perfect but it’s a good story overall.

The actual story / character info will be below the cut cause this is gonna be a super long post.

Also if you get weirded out by snakes it’s probably not the best idea to read this - there’s no pictures but the word ‘snake’ comes up ALOT. Also please don’t read this if Suicide is a trigger for you, as that is something that I will be mentioning a few times aswell.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

First off I’ll introduce the characters / what their powers are and then explain the songs then the story and how the powers are significant and how the characters play into the story as a whole.

Azami - the medusa. Creator of the abilities.

The Mekakushi Dan - the ‘blindfold’ gang. It started as a childhood fantasy but Kido, Kano, and Seto kept the group name after Ayano’s death. Kano was the one that came up with the name.

Ayano Takeyama - Number 0, Foster older sister to Kido, Kano, and Seto. Has the snake of favoring eyes. She is able to project her feelings and memories onto others.

Tsubomi Kido - Number 1, technically the leader. Has the snake of Concealing eyes. She can make herself effectively invisible and unable to be perceived by others as long as she doesn’t touch anyone. She can use this ability on other people, and any sound they make while the ability is active is unheard of by others.

Kousuke Seto - Number 2. Has the snake of Stealing eyes. He can read people’s minds and when used to its full potential, he can read a person's memories.This ability also lets him understand the thoughts of animals, though they can still not understand him.

Shuuya Kano - Number 3. Has the snake of Deceiving eyes. It allows him to change what people perceive him as. He can change his appearance to impersonate other people and even animals. He can only use this ability on himself and not others.

Marry Kozakura - Number 4. Has two ‘eye’ abilities technically, Locking Eyes and Combining eyes. Locking eyes she inherited from her mother Shion and her grandmother Azami. It allows her to temporarily stop the movement of whoever meets her gaze. She is not able to turn people into stone, but it can paralyze them for a short amount of time. The Snake of Combining Eyes can combine and therefore control all snakes. It was directly given to her by Azami when she died and entered the Kagerou Daze. This ability causes her to automatically obtain a snake after its owner has died and also allows her to take a snake directly from them.Combining Eyes also passively causes the other snakes (and thus their owners) to be drawn towards its owner.

Momo Kisaragi - Number 5. She has the snake of Drawing Eyes. This ability can draw peoples' attention to herself regardless of their preferences in tastes or interests. She is also able to tell where a person's attention is drawn to.

Ene / Takene Enomoto - Number 6. She has the Snake of opening eyes. This allows her to to split her consciousness from her body, which then can reside in electronic devices (such as a cellphone) as a cyber-being. After regaining her body as Takane, she is still able to send herself to other electronic devices as Ene, but doing so causes her body to lose consciousness.

Shintaro Kisaragi - Number 7. Has the snake of Retaining eyes. This allows him to remember everything he sees. When his ability is fully activated, he is able to remember the events of past routes and speak with the Snake of Retaining Eyes.

Hibiya Amamiya - Number 8. Has the snake of Focusing Eyes.This has the power to perceive objects and details that are far away from an aerial view.

Konoha / Haurka Kokonose - Number 9. Has the snake of Awakening Eyes. This gives him the power to remake his body into one that he finds to be his "ideal" - as Haruka was physically weak and sickly, this meant for him to become supernaturally strong. He can also heal from even fatal injuries with this ability, which looks like multiple black snakes wrapping around his body when activated.

Hiyori Asahina - Number 10. Depending on the route she will have the snake of Focusing Eyes instead of Hibiya. 9/10 times though it is Hibiya. Just mentioning this fact for technicalities sake.

The Snake of Clearing eyes - the story’s main antagonist. This ability can interfere with and stop the use of other eye abilities completely. It normally possesses either Ayano’s father or Hibiya depending on the route. In every route it will always possess Konoha towards the end - as he is the strongest member and none of the others in the Dan can stand a chance against him. (if you see me reblog a black haired konoha, it’s him being possessed by this ability)

SONGS

As mentioned before, this started off as a set of vocaloid songs. So I will list SOME of the songs below - there’s over 33 songs related to the kagerou project but these are ones with MVs (or at least fan made ones) that have the main characters as the focus.

Shinigami Record - Azami Song

Jinzou Enemy - Ene and Shintaro song

Mekakushi Code - Kido’s song

Headphone Actor - Takene song

Imagination Forest - Mary song

Kagerou Daze / Heat Haze Days - Hiyori and Hibuya song

Konoha’s state of the world - Konoha song ft Hiyori and Hibuya

Yobanashi Deceive - Kano song

Shouen Brave - Seto song

Kisaragi Attention - Momo Song

Ayano’s theory of Happiness - Ayano song

Yuukei Yesterday - Takene and Haruka song

Children Record - everyone is here lmao serves more like an opening if anything

Moon Viewing Recital - Momo and Hibuya song

Outer Science - Clearing eyes song / The Bad ending

Lost time memory - Shintaro song

Summer time record - everyone is here but there is a focus on Haruka / the good ending

Additional memory - Ayano in the daze song

Never lost world - kido post story song

THE STORY

the first thing to know about the kagerou project story is that it is a time loop story. Each medium contains its own loop (or in the manga’s case, multiple), which is why someone has to consume all the mediums to really get the full story. Some character details or interactions only happen in one route / loop. I’ll be going over what people are most likely to find out through google searches / the easiest medium (the music or anime) but will mention other routes here and there for context. Generally most routes we know of follow most of the same story beats but some differ dramatically - and I don’t want to confuse people.

For the overall story though - it starts with Azami. She is the medusa, but not in the traditional greek myth sense. It is just what humans started referring to her as thanks to her snake-like features. Truthfully she doesn’t know entirely what she is, she was born at the beginning, and lasted through the ages with not even a physical form until she met two beings - humans and a snake. The humans tried to kill her on first sight while the snake was kind and explained what the humans were to Azami. Her physical form ended up being a mix of these two species, hence humans calling her a medusa. (pictured below is azami from the novels)

Overtime she tried to interact with humans but they always shunned her and tried to kill her until one day she met an albino man named Tsukihiko. I will skip over the specifics but she ends up falling in love with him and building a family with him. They were both considered ‘monsters’ by society and thus made a perfect pair. They even had a daughter, Shion.

Now it’s important to note that during this time she made her abilities. considered ‘eye’ abilities or ‘snakes’, Azami had the ability to create almost sentient forces within her to help her solve problems. For example, the ‘favoring eyes’ ability was created so she could properly show her emotions to her infant daughter, pass on all the love that she had onto Shion in a way she would understand even as a baby.

However after Shion was born, after creating these abilities, she realized that both Tsukihiko and Shion were going to out live her and die. She had lived thousands, maybe even millions, of years by now and hadn’t aged a day - but her husband obviously had. In this fear a new power was born, the snake of clearing eyes. It offered a solution to Azami, for them to create an entirely new world where death and time didn’t exist, where she could simply be happy with her family. She does this, and tells her husband and child they would leave the world together. They agree, but Tsukihiko wants to officially marry Azami before they leave the world. She allows him to go back to his old home to get wedding rings and someone to marry them officially, but doesn’t return. What does return are humans, out to kill Azami and her daughter. Azami defeats the men with ease but believes now her husband is all but dead. In her grief, she escapes to the world she made - the Kagerou Daze - and leaves her child behind.Tsukihiko manages to return, escaping from the confinement the other humans had put him in, and knows once he finds his daughter alone that his wife left the world. They are not upset with her, and continue to live out their days in their home in the forest.

Tsukihiko eventually dies of old age and Shion grows up. Shion has her own daughter called Mary, who is a quarter medusa. Shion is extremely protective of her daughter after the events of her own childhood, and tells Mary never to leave the house. However being the fun loving child she was, Mary disobeyed her mother once. It wasn’t long after she was found by humans who were proceeding to beat her to death when her mother found her. They were both about to die at the hands of these humans when Azami decided to intervene.

She wasn’t gone completely, she had been watching over her daughter and grandaughter from the Daze. Knowing what was about to happen to her family, she issued a command to the world to take in the two people dying and bring them up into the world. The date? August 15th.When the two arrived in the world they were dead. The world brought them back to life but they couldn’t leave back to the ‘real’ world without a new lifeforce. Azami, wanting her daughter to live, gave her the core of her power - the snake of combining eyes, also known as the ‘queen snake’. But Shion wanted her own daughter to live, and passed it onto Mary. Mary was able to return to the real world, but had no memory of the Daze or what her mother and grandmother had done for her - she was now alone.

The combining eyes was the core of Azami’s power, and without it she could no longer control the Kagerou Daze. She couldn’t tell the world to stop bringing people into it, to stop giving them powers,and to stop returning people to the real world. This was the mistake that costs the main character’s so much grief.

Each of the members of the mekakushi dan (besides Shintaro) died on the day of August 15th. The Kagerou Daze, still fulfilling its order, took them and whoever they were with at the time up into the world, and if they resonated with one of Azami’s abilities, gave them the snake before putting them back out into the real world - the snake/ eye ability being their new life force and the reason they’re alive.

Kido died in a fire with her sister, and got the snake of concealing eyes. Seto drowned with his dog and got the snake of stealing eyes. Kano died in a robbery with his mother and got the snake of Decieving eyes. Momo also drowned and got the drawing eyes ability. Takene was poisoned and got the opening eyes ability. Haruka had a heart attack and got the awakening eyes ability. Hibuya and Hiyori were in a traffic accident and depending on the route - one of them gets the Focusing eyes. As stated above, 9/10 times it’s Hibuya, Hiyori only gets it in the manga route/loop.

Ayano is a special case. She committed suicide with the goal in mind to go to the Kagerou Daze. She stays in the daze with her eye ability for a reason which I’ll get to later.

Now Shintaro does have an eye ability of his own, however it was NOT one of Azami’s abilities. I will also get to this later.

Kido, Kano, and Seto all end up being orphaned around the same time and ended up in the same orphanage. Forced into the same room together as they were the ‘strange’ kids. They were all adopted by the Tateyama family, Ayano’s family, who were researching the Medusa aka Azami. they took these kids in for their research but also genuinely cared about them. With the help of Ayano - the three children come to be not so scared of their abilities and learn to like humanity again. The hoodies the three wear were gifts from their foster parents and Ayano to hide their eyes - as when their abilities were being used / went out of control, their eyes turned red.

One August 15th, Ayano’s parents were involved in a mudslide. They went to the Daze, and her father returned with the snake of clearing eyes. This wasn’t apparent to Ayano or any of the children at first, but Ayano soon found out that her father planned to kill her two friends at school (Haruka and Takene, who have pre existing health conditions and were in his ‘special education’ class) on August 15th so that they would go to the daze and get more snakes.

She found the clearing eyes wanted all the snakes in the real world for some reason, and thus on August 15th, she committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the school building, going into the daze and holding one of the eye abilities hostage by never returning from the daze. The clearing eyes still continued with his plan, Takene and Haruka died that day as well and got their respective powers. Haruka and Takene were strange cases though, they didn’t die with another person. Instead the clearing eyes tricked the world of the Kagerou Daze, getting it to recognize the mind and body as two different entities. So Takene’s body was left in the Daze while her mind returned to the real world as ‘Ene’, and could only exist within cyberspace. Haruka’s mind was left in the Daze and the perfect, healthy, body that he wanted returned to the real world as Konoha, who had no memories and seemingly little personality.

But left the only one of their friend group, Shintaro, alive with all of his friends having died on the same day. He became a shut in, and for two years did not leave his home. The story officially ‘starts’ with Shintaro and Ene. Ene pretending she did not know Shintaro at all, found his computer during the two year timespan and proceeded to make his life hell, but also give him company within those two lonely years.

It’s important to note that Ene is crucial to Shintaro’s overall development. In some loops, her presence wasn’t enough and he ends up committing suicide out of grief. But emotions and lessons learned are kept throughout the loops, and eventually Ene came to realize that she had to help Shintaro no matter what.

Anyways, in a series of unfortunate events, Shintaro ends up needing to leave his house to go shopping as August 14th is a part of the obon holiday in Japan and he couldn’t survive one day without his precious computer being operational. On his one outing in two years - he ends up being wrapped into a robbery / terrorist attack on a shopping center and meets the rest of the Mekakushi dan (at this moment, only Kido, Seto, Kano, Mary, and Shintaro’s sister Momo). They help diffuse the situation at the shopping center and Shintaro ends up passing out (just due to nerves or he actually gets grazed by a bullet, depends on the loop), and brought back to the Mekakushi Dan hideout aka their apartment. It’s here he learns about the eye abilities, how his sister has one, and the exact events after this differ from loop to loop. Either way Shintaro becomes a sort of ‘unofficial’ member of the Dan and spends time with them over the next few days as he tries to wrap his head around the mysterious powers of the Dan and what they mean.

How the Dan ends up recruiting Hibuya and Konoha differs as well, but generally the group comes across the traffic accident that Hibiya and Hiyori were involved in and Konoha being there as well. Sometimes Ene will ask Shintaro to chase after Konoha, recognizing him as Haruka, and then they end up at the hospital and wait for Hibuya to be released / able to have visitors so they can talk to him. At this point in some of the loops, the Dan knows that August 15th is an important day to them, they’re just not sure why.

Hibuya leaves the hospital, determined to find Hiyori - not quite sure what has happened to her but knows she might be dead or lost or looking for him. Momo manages to get Hibuya to calm down and control his new eye ability, just in time for the Dan to be put into trouble.

It should be noted that technically, Azami had only 10 powers. And now with the exception of the power now taken by Ayano, all of those powers are in the real world. Which means it was time for the Clearing eyes to make its move. In the Novel and Anime route, the Dan ends up taking the fight to the Clearing eyes. (Possibly in the manga route aswell, I haven’t finished it).

Regardless, the Clearing eyes objective becomes clear rather quickly - it plans to kill every member of the Mekakushi Dan except for Shintaro (who doesn’t have one of Azami’s powers, but he still dies in some routes just for getting in the way) and Mary (who has the queen snake / snake of combining eyes, which clearing eyes wants). With each member of the Mekakushi Dan that dies, Mary gains their ability and grows closer to a full medusa. When she has five snakes - she can control the Kagerou Daze itself. The Clearing Eyes plans to kill the Mekakushi Dan, possess Mary, and become immortal + have control over the Daze and all of Azami’s abilities.

This is how most routes end. As soon as Mary has five snakes (four or more of her friends die), she has the power to control the Kagerou Daze and she has the world take in the Clearing eyes and thus trapping it there forever. After this she uses her new found powers to rewind time to sometime after her mother’s death but before everything else happened. This is how most routes start.

In the manga route specifically, the only ones alive after Mary has trapped the Clearing Eyes is Ayano (as she didn’t stay in the Daze in this route), Shintaro, and Mary. Everyone else is dead and gone and Mary is about to rewind time. Before she does though, she has Mary do something - give Shintaro an eye ability. Ayano gives up her life so that Mary may make her life force into an ability - the snake of retaining eyes. It is so that Shintaro ‘will never forget the tragedy that occurred here’. Shintaro has the ability to retain everything he sees, even across timelines. This route happens early on in the number of routes, but it’s never told to the audience when exactly it happens.

But, the problem with this is that he doesn’t remember he has an ability, it has to be triggered somehow. But it’s because of this that Shintaro killing himself out of grief in some timelines is so detrimental to the overall story - if Shintaro dies then he can’t activate his power and he can’t help save everyone. So for the story to truly be realized and head towards a good ending, Shintaro can’t die until after he remembers his ability.

In the novel route, only Seto, Mary, and Hibiya are alive after the confrontation with the Clearing eyes, and they live out their lives for almost two years before Mary decides to rewind time. Hibiya is able to contact the people who died and are now stuck in the Kagerous daze (death doesn’t exist there, so people are ‘alive’ there but trapped forever) and they all collectively make the decision to turn back time. Shintaro even comments that they’ve probably done this dozens, or maybe even hundreds or thousands of times by that point.

In the Anime route is when Shintaro remembers his ability. He remembers this due to something he knows but he shouldn’t have known. While he was friends with Ayano in school, he never knew that her siblings that she spoke about were Kido, Kano, and Seto. Yet while at the Mekakushi Dan apartment, he finds a picture with them all in it - and somehow knows that it’s the truth despite being surprised to find it out. This one event was enough for him to get things rolling and eventually remember his ability. He ends up killing himself and going to the Daze to see Ayano.

This is also shown in Route 1 of the lost time memory music video. He gets shot trying to protect Konoha (who was getting possessed by the clearing eyes, and thus tried to kill himself so that he wouldn’t hurt his friends), and he appears in the Daze to speak to Ayano and bring her back to the real world. The combination of Shintaro’s Retaining eyes, and Ayano’s favoring eyes, is enough to help get Mary to calm down. Ayano’s ability also lets her put the memories of others into other people, so she helps Shintaro show Mary that everything will be fine and that no matter what happened in every other route, they all love and care for her. This was enough to get her to calm down and for her to take everyone up into the Kagerou Daze, not just the clearing eyes.

Once trapped there, the Clearing eyes had nowhere to go and also was tricked by Konoha and Haruka into becoming the new snake / life force for Hiyori so that she could come back to life. I should note here that it is possible for those with snakes to sort of come and go from the Kagerou Daze as they please - people in the daze just can’t leave without a snake, so Mary also returns the snakes to those who had died up until this point so that they could leave the kagerou daze afterwards. Haruka is able to get back into his body after Konoha willingly gives it over, Takene gets her body back, and they are all able to have a few moments with those that they had died with to get some closure.

They then leave the daze together, and are able to continue on with their lives. (also shown in sumertime record)

Again, I skipped over ALOT here. But this is overall the major plot points of the kagerou project.

The Kagerou project is about dealing with loss, about looking forward to the future, about learning that you don’t have to deal with everything alone - there is always someone willing to help you. It’s about overcoming fear and despair, and learning to take a step forward. There is a lot of death and sadness in this story but there’s also a lot of goofy fun moments too - to remind us that even dark moments have a little light in them.

#suicide tw #snakes tw #this is over 4000 words so i hope it's worth it wheezes #i hope it's not too confusing either the kagerou project is a mess but i love it #tsubomi kido  ➼ headcanon #shuuya kano  ➼  headcanon #kousuke seto  ➼ headcanon #konoha ➼ headcanon

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missmonsters2 · 5 years

Text

Drive Her Crazy || Part VIII

PAIRING: Wanda Maximoff x OFC/Reader

Summary: AU. Meet Wanda, the new ‘It’ girl. She’s built her social standing as a social influencer through Instagram and vlogging on Youtube. Queen Bee in her social circle, she’s got everyone wrapped around her finger. She’s perfect, you think. Girls like that require a little finesse, and you’re ready to play the game.

Warnings: Non-healthy relationship, psychological games, eventual smut

Note: I’m not going to lie, the next part is straight up just smut. Continuously.

PART I || PART II || PART III || PART IV || PART V || PART VI || PART VII

PART VIII of X

Count: 5956

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It spread like wildfire.

The news that Wanda and Vision had officially broken up, and that he got signed to a label.

Wanda had heard pretty quickly that you and Natasha had also ended as well through Clint.

You had expected that you and Wanda would get together pretty quickly. After all, there were no more obstacles preventing the two of you from getting together.

Yet, to your pleasant surprise, Wanda slowed back on being aggressive with getting you. She was playing coy, enticing you to chase her.

And you loved a good chase.

You were meeting up with Wanda for lunch today. It would be a casual setting, you weren’t taking her anywhere fancy. After lunch, you were going to be taking a walk along the park before you needed to head back to work.

“Hey, you.”

A voice took you out of your thoughts as you turned to see Wanda, who had entered the restaurant and took a seat across from you.

“Hey,” you greeted her softly with a smile.

The two of you hadn’t been able to see each other every day with you being busy with your collaborations, and Wanda seeing an acting coach to help her with the audition you set up for her.

She was constantly buzzing around with excitement about the audition, along with being incredibly nervous.

You told her multiple times you had full confidence she would get the role. She would always flitter to your side as if cuddling into you was giving her the confidence and reassurance she needed.

“Sorry, I hope you didn’t wait long. I got caught up in a phone call for my next project.”

You waved your hand to shake it off.

“No, I just got here myself from being holed up in the studio. What’s your next project?”

Wanda was looking through the menu, contemplating what she was going to get as she answered you.

“I got invited to shoot a promo video for that upcoming fundraiser that’s happening on the beach. It’s me and a bunch of other social influencers that are going to be shooting it. They want to attract young rich people to the fundraisers and celebrities if possible.” Wanda seemed to decide what she wanted to eat and called the waitress over.

“Oh? That’s quite interesting,” you comment as the both of you order. “When will you be shooting?”

“I’ll be shooting tomorrow. It’ll be the entire today, they were kind of poor on time management. The fundraiser is happening at the end of the month.”

“Jesus, is that even enough time for enough people to see the promo video?” You ask, leaning back and running your hand through the front of your hair. You look over to see Wanda just staring at you and licking her lips.

You send her a sly smirk, and she coughs lightly at so openly gazing at you before drinking her water.

Wanda shrugs, “They’re going to be staying up all night to edit it and release it the next day, so hopefully. It’s just less than three weeks. I’ll have to go to the fundraiser too to show my support. I’ll be advertising it on my IG this week.”

Soon enough, the waitress comes over with your food, and the two of you eat, making smaller talk in between before you pay the bill and walk out together.

The two of you are walking through the park, enjoying the nice weather and scenery.

You walk pretty closely together, your shoulders lightly brushing with every step. It was when Wanda decided to brush her pinky against yours that you smiled before fully grasping her hands, lacing your fingers together.

That was happening a lot more. There was more skinship between the two of you. It was like the two of you magnetized towards each other. There always had to be something.

Wanda looks away, smiling as she bites her lip.

You two don’t say anything, just walking and swinging your hands lightly.

“So,” Wanda says, her voice husky. “How’s work for you?”

You lull your head from side to side. “It’s been pretty good. Been wrapped up in the studio a couple days. Will be there for a couple more. After that, I have to shoot the music video.”

“Wow, sounds like it’s going to be pretty busy for you,” Wanda commented. You could hear the slight twinge of disappointment in her voice. You tried not to openly smile at that, but it was kind of difficult.

God, you were like a lovesick puppy.

“Yeah,” you replied to Wanda. “It’ll be about two to three weeks before I finish, so actually right before the fundraiser. On top of that, I’m going to need to start looking at some places to stay.”

Wanda stopped walking, tugging you to a stop as well. You turn around to see Wanda’s confused face.

“Why are you looking at places?”

You rub the back of your neck, giving Wanda a shy smile. “Well, I did tell you that if I enjoyed it here enough, I would consider moving.”

Wanda’s giving you a smile as she’s pulling you a little closer.

“Anything in particular you enjoying?” She asks coyly and you grin, pulling her closer until you could wrap your arms around her waist.

“I could say a few things are keeping me around,” you say, grinning as the two of you are leaning closer.

You hadn’t kissed her since Tony’s party where she cornered you in the bathroom.

Wanda is grinning as she’s leaning in, eager to taste your lips again. Just as your lips were about to touch, your phone rang in your back pocket.

Wanda huffs in disappointment while you just grin, pulling back to pick up your phone.

Wanda watches you idly as you chat on the phone, biting her bottom lip gently as she takes in your look.

God, you looked so sexy today, wearing your tight fitted jeans, loose white v-neck shirt, and a leather jacket. When you ran your fingers through your hair earlier in the restaurant, she could see your double pierced lobe and a helix earring on your cartilage.

Wanda really just wanted to take you to bed.

She was having phantom flashes of your hands on her from the night at the hotel.

You put your phone away, turning to Wanda with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I need to actually get back to the studio right now. Let me drop you off?”

Wanda nods understandingly, and the two of you walk back to your car.

Smiling at you when you open the passenger door for her, she slips in, eyeing you as you walk over to the driver’s side.

She wanted you.

If there was one thing Wanda could always say about herself: she always got what she wanted.

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"Let’s take a break everyone, great work! At this rate, we’ll definitely finish recording today. How about a two-hour break? Go get something to eat, relax a little, and come back fresh to finish this off?”

Everyone in the studio cheers and claps at what you said, filtering out of the room.

You’re also packing up to head out as well. You needed to grab a couple things if you wanted to surprise Wanda in time.

“Whoa there,” Ryan, the engineer you’ve worked with for many of your tracks, called out to you. “Where’s the fire? This is new. You never leave the studio, even when you let everyone else go for a break.”

You laugh softly, not arguing against that.

“Well, I guess there’s a first for everything,” you reply to him, trying to find your keys.

“Oh man,” Ryan groans jokingly. “There’s only one thing that can change work habits. A girl.”

You find your keys and get ready to walk out the door. You turn your head back to him smirking.

“Oh no, not just any girl,” you tell Ryan. “It’s the girl.”

You hear Ryan chuckle as you close the door to the studio and walk out to your car.

Wanda had texted you this morning that the shooting was happening at the beach where the fundraiser will be. She seemed like she was going to be busy most of the day, shooting the promotional video and was disappointed you wouldn’t be able to see each other for a while.

You stopped by a bagel place to pick up your order before heading over.

You could see the filming happening in the distance and smiled at seeing Wanda with other girls you didn’t recognize huddled side by side as they laughed and splashed water in front of the camera.

Walking closer to the set, the security looking at you before letting you in. The hosts of fundraiser hired a director for the promotional video, they were trying to shoot multiple promo videos and had no experience in doing that. The director they hired was a close friend of theirs, also attending the fundraiser and wishing for its success.

And, it was someone you knew. You had worked with her in the past for your older music videos. You called her up to ask if it was okay to stop by the filming site for Wanda.

She said it was totally fine at the time you were coming, it would be around lunchtime anyways.

“Ashley,” you called over softly to alert her of your presence as you put down the bags of food onto the back table.

“Oh, you’re here! Cut! Everyone take a break.”

You looked over to see the director as she waved at you. Her voice had brought the attention of the crew around. Wanda looked over, and her jaw dropped slightly to see you.

She immediately ran over to you, jumping into your arms. You caught her in your arms, spinning her around once before you let her down.

“What are you doing here!” Wanda exclaims, hugging you again. “I thought you were going to be busy in the studios for a while.”

You laugh as you return her embrace. “Very busy, yes, but couldn’t resist escaping for a while to see you. Especially when you told me this morning you were just dying for a bagel.”

Wanda looks behind you and sees a table full of bagels that the staff was helping put out. She was about to say something when the director cut in.

“How thoughtful for you to bring some for the rest of us as well,” Ashley chimed, grabbing one of the bagels, and taking a huge bite. The other influencers and crews also helped themselves while Wanda just smiled at you.

“Well,” you say, not taking your eyes off of her. “I can’t look like I’m playing favorites here.”

Ashley just snorts. “Right, right. Must’ve been my imagination when you called me the other day bribing me with food for my crew if I let you on the set to see Miss Wanda Maxmimoff here.”

Everyone on the set laughs, including Wanda as you just smile sheepishly.

“Whoops, I’ve been caught,” you say, not even the slightest embarrassed that you’ve been exposed.

“Oh my gosh!” One of the influencers exclaims, turning your attention to her. “I totally remember seeing you at Wanda’s birthday party. You’re Lady Phantom!”

The other influencers who were at Wanda’s party look at you and start mouthing off in agreement.

You just smile and nod, while Wanda’s hanging on your arm.

“Oh my god, I am so freaking jealous that Wanda got you to play for her at the party. That was so amazing! Now you’re here to visit her on set and bring food to everyone!” The same girl that pointed you out says. “Are you two dating?”

She was asking so excitedly that you thought it was a little weird.

Both of you shake your head, feeling a little shy at such a direct question.

“No,” you say, coughing slightly into your fist. “Just here to support and visit a really good friend.”

Wanda shifts the conversation quickly, introducing you to all the other influencers who were in the promo videos.

Honestly, it was too many names, and you didn’t really care about any of them except Wanda, so the names really just flew over your head.

When you and Wanda got a chance to talk more privately, she went into a little more detail about the shoot and who was filming. The only name that was as big as Wanda’s was a girl who was standing off to the side, eyeing you the entire time.

Vanessa Goldaire, you remember Wanda telling you.

Wanda didn’t directly say it, but you could sense that there was tension between the two. Definitely some competition there, one always trying to outdo the other. You pretended to not notice it, though.

You had made eye contact with Vanessa a couple times, and Wanda noticed it because you had to look past her to make eye contact with the other girl.

It made her bristle somewhat, but she didn’t say anything.

Since you didn’t have to return to the studio for a while, you opted to stay and watch them shoot on set.

The switch went on for Wanda going back to work, but she was subtly eyeing you, grabbing your attention.

She dropped her towel to reveal her bikini suit, swaying her hips as she went into position.

You found yourself holding your breath as you watched her.

She was seducing you with no one even realizing it.

Wanda definitely wanted your eyes on her and her only.

You bit your lip.

God, she was perfect.

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The rest of the week, you couldn’t escape work. With the recording finished, you moved immediately into filming the music video. The day after you had finished visiting Wanda, you had Charles hire a crew for filming and sent you your usual assistant, Jane.

You had Jane post out applications for people to be in the music video. You spent the day with the producer to look over all the applications you received. The only person you were looking to find left was who would be the main lady lead of the video.

Your eyes were getting tired from looking at the portfolios, and you were about to just let the producer pick whoever he liked best when you came across one that made you smirk.

Vanessa Goldaire sent in her portfolio.

Initially, you had thought about casting Wanda for the leading lady for your music video to help her get a little more work to add to her portfolio when she wanted to audition for other roles.

In the end, you decided not to as the overall song and video didn’t match Wanda.

If you were going to put Wanda in your work, you wanted to create something that was solely meant for her. Complimented her in every way, like she was the song and story for the music video.

You believed that Wanda deserved that.

But Vanessa Goldaire?

Well, she would do, for both this music video and as your final play towards Wanda.

“I want her,” you pull her portfolio out, eyeing it briefly. It was similar to Wanda’s portfolio of work, but it was like whatever brands Wanda represented, Vanessa represented their biggest competitor.

The producer looks and nods in agreement. You give the resume over to your assistant.

“Call her and arrange it,” you tell Jane who nods.

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The next week passes quickly as you’re busy shooting the music video. It got delayed slightly when the singer you worked with got sick. She was well enough to work on day three.

You shot all the parts you could without the singer. With all craziness, you hardly had time to talk to Wanda.

On set, you met Vanessa, who was very professional when working. The two of you ended up frequently talking due to working together. Granted, it was all about work. Vanessa had asked you a few personal questions like how you met Wanda, or how long you were in the city for, or if you were seeing anyone.

She seemed pleased with the answers you provided, and you knew immediately that she was into you.

Soon enough, the music video was wrapped up, just in time for you to be able to go with Wanda to the fundraising event.

It was by no means an extreme fancy dress code since it was on the beach, but there was a level of unspoken standard that had to be met.

You and Wanda decided to meet there as there were some last-minute things you had to tie up for work before heading over.

The editing team would be finished in a couple days, so you just had spent some time watching the unedited clips and giving your directions and opinion.

After everything seemed to be okay, you left off for the fundraiser.

It was set in the evening, the sun still out but would soon set. You had recognized a couple people through your industry and made small talk.

Excusing yourself eventually, you went back to trying to find Wanda and soon enough, you did. She was chatting with Ashley and a couple other of the influencers (the names still escape you).

You come up, placing your hand on the small of her back, surprising her as she turns around. She’s wearing a one-piece pastel pink jumpsuit that she looks absolutely stunning in.

“There you are!” She utters, pulling you into a tight hug as it’s been a while since the two of you have seen each other. You feel her subtly inhale your scent and you do the same, feeling it calm you as you’re finally with her.

“Hey,” you say into her hair before the two of you let go, and you turn to greet everyone else.

They’re making small talk before you see Vanessa walk by. She has her arm around a man’s arm as she smiles at you when she passes by.

You’re about to turn to ask Wanda if she knows who Vanessa is with when an influencer (Lily, you think) standing next to you already starts to gossip.

“Oh, great,” Lily says as Vanessa walks past them. “Vanessa brought Derek Cartwell with her.”

“Who’s that?” You asked, the name not ringing any bells to you.

“I guess you can say Derek is a newcomer to the group. He won the lottery about...six months ago? It was about two million he won, and he went right into business. He invested everything into his idea and just sold his venture for five million. He’s already onto his next idea and is apparently looking for investors this time in addition to putting his own money in.” Lily tells you as everyone’s eyeing Vanessa and Derek.

You’re overwhelmingly unimpressed.

Really? His net-worth was only five million? Your last album made more than that.

The fact that Vanessa would bring him as a way to get your attention was also unimpressive.

She could’ve picked someone a little better at least.

Soon enough, everyone was being ushered to the seating area for the main event of the fundraiser, the live auction.

A lot of the guests who came here had donated items for the auction as sponsors. Since their target audience was young rich people, the items donated were some interesting things.

There were custom artworks, luxury vacation packages, high-end jewelry, wines, rare books, and so many other items.

You were content to sit with Wanda, enjoying the auction. Most of these items were out of Wanda’s price range, but it didn’t seem like anything particularly interested her so far, so you didn’t make any attempts to bid for anything.

Most of the items were being increased by increments of $1000 to $1500 increments.

It was getting pretty upscale quickly, but nothing had surpassed $50,000.

Vanessa and Derek sat on the other section next to you and Wanda, also in the first row. You had your hand casually resting on the back of Wanda’s chair with your legs crossed.

You could feel Vanessa eyeing you, and so could Wanda. You pretended to not notice or look over, and Wanda changed her seating position so that her knees would face you, and brush against your knees lightly.

The night went on with Derek bidding for things for Vanessa. The crowd was whispering praises to her, that she was so lucky to have someone get her all these things.

You could tell it was grating on Wanda.

It wasn’t until the last item, a pearl necklace, came into the auction that caught Vanessa’s attention.

“This is a Mikimoto white south sea cultured pearl strand, with an 18k yellow gold piece. The starting price is $5500.” The auctioneer said, and immediately, someone from the crowd increased it by another $1500. You could see from your peripheral that Vanessa was whispering in Derek’s ear, probably that she wanted the necklace.

The necklace was already at $10,000.

“$30,000,” Derek said, holding up his bidding card.

People were whispering again. Women who had attended were clamoring about how Vanessa was a lucky girl.

You finally turned your head over to see Vanessa staring you, a smirk on her lips.

You hear Wanda sigh, and you turn your attention to her.

“What’s wrong?” You ask, and Wanda just shakes her head.

“Nothing,” she says quietly to not draw attention to herself. “It’s just...Vanessa always does this at every event. She ends up making the event about her.”

You saw Wanda eyeing the necklace as well, but she didn’t seem to say anything about it.

You licked your lips, a small smirk coming out.

“$30,000 to the gentleman in the front. Anyone else?” The auctioneer called out.

Lily had told everyone that Derek was investing his money into his next venture while looking for investors as well. From what it sounded like, he hadn’t quite found anyone yet.

He had bid for many things tonight, winning most of them. If he weren’t careful, he would end up not having enough to invest into his next business venture.

You held your bidding card.

“$35,” you called.

“$35,000. Anyone else?” The auctioneer called again.

“$40,000,” Derek held up his card again.

“$45,” You answer quickly, card raised again.

“$50,” Derek retorted.

“$55,” You answered. Wanda was looking eyes wide at you as she pulled at your sleeve.

Derek looked at you, half-impressed but also half-annoyed that you were competing with him.

“$80,000,” Derek jumped the price, smirking at you.

At this point, Derek had met the necklace’s worth and then some. It would just be insane for you to bid any higher.

You smirked back at him.

He didn’t know insanity was your game.

“$100,000.”

There were whispers of shock around in the room. You knew that Derek couldn’t bid any higher.

He had reached his limit on how much he could bid before he would be putting his next business venture at risk.

His jaw clenched slightly, but he put on a friendly smile before conceding to you.

“$100,000. Anyone else?” The auctioneer said himself, also in slight shock. “Going once, going twice, sold! To the generous lady in the front!”

There were thunderous claps around as the auction came to an end. You came up to collect the necklace and held it delicately in your fingers. You went up to Wanda, who was looking at you with wide eyes and mouth slightly opened.

“What are you...?” She asked, everyone’s eyes on the two of you.

You gently took one hand to move the back of her hair to the side before undoing the clasp of the necklace and delicately placing it on her.

Once it was on, you eyed her, really just gazing at her defined collarbone.

“There,” you said softly. “Thought your outfit was missing something.”

Wanda just chokes on a laughter as she flings herself into your arms. You return her laughter with your own as you return her embrace, squeezing her lightly.

Well, at least Wanda could say this event definitely didn’t end up just being about Vanessa.

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The fundraiser moves on to just late-night drinks and chatting. The host actually comes up to greet you, thanking you for your generous donation.

“Oh, it’s quite alright. It’s a noble and worthy cause, plus Wanda now has her outfit complete, so we’re all winners here.”

The host just laughs, shaking your hand once more before moving to Wanda and shaking her hand as well.

“You are a very, very lucky girl,” he says, and she chuckles.

“Don’t I know it,” she tells him, eyeing you from the side with a smile.

He leaves the two of you together, and you turn to face each other.

“You’re unbelievable,” Wanda says, touching her necklace again. This was even more than the engagement ring Vision had gotten her.

She was basking as the lady of the night. It felt good to finally stick it to Vanessa. Wanda could see that Vanessa had been eyeing you all night, and it was really starting to annoy her.

Wanda couldn’t help but look at Vanessa and smirk when they made eye contact.

She was preening, really.

“Well, as I said, it’s a worthy and noble cause,” you have your lips turned into a crooked grin.

“The charity?”

“No. You,” you clarify, blinking slowly as Wanda tries to control her smile, biting her bottom lip.

Wanda’s moving closer to you again, and you don’t think you could survive holding out any longer.

If Wanda dragged you home, you would be quite the happy and willing participant in her plans.

Your cellphone started ringing again.

Wanda let out a quiet groan of disappointment while you blinked and pulled back.

You swore you could hear Wanda mutter under her breath, “The universe is plotting against me, I swear to God.”

You could only give her an apologetic look as you picked up your phone.

“Ah, shit,” you say as you hang up the phone. “I gotta go back to the studio. There’s some kind of problem with one of the clips. Are you going to be okay? Did you want me to drop you off or anything?”

Wanda just smiles at you with a sigh.

“No,” she says, looking around her. “Everyone is still here, so I should be too. I’ll get one of the other girls to drop me off.”

You nod, looking over to the other girls before looking back at Wanda. You purse your lips slightly before you lean in again, this time to cup Wanda’s jaw and neck as you kiss her cheek softly.

“Don’t get in any trouble,” you tenderly say, smiling as she sighs happily and chuckles.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Wanda says teasingly.

Waving once more to Wanda, you head out to your car.

You sigh, feeling sad that you have to part with her.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

You end up having the meet with the editing team a couple times the next couple of days. It’s the middle of the week when everything officially wraps up, and the video is posted.

You celebrate as always by buying champagne for everyone at the bar a couple blocks from the studio. The crew and staff decide to stick around longer, ordering more drinks to celebrate their hard work.

You have no plans to stay longer, though, wanting to see Wanda instead. You had planned to make a last play towards Wanda, but you found yourself just missing her more.

The game was good, but every good game needs an end.

You were thinking about grabbing some wine on the way home, take Wanda back to your place, set up a little blanket fort on your balcony, stargaze, and then place your lips everywhere on her body.

Just as you were about to leave, Vanessa came up to you, smiling as she leaned against the bar counter, her top riding up to show her midriff a little.

“Hey, hotshot,” she greeted you, her voice sultry as she licked her bottom lip.

“Hey, Vanessa,” you greeted politely. “Great work.”

“Thank you for the opportunity,” Vanessa says, motioning the bartender over. “Let me at least get you a drink.”

You nod, not wanting to be rude while everyone was around, but you hope she’s not going to drag this out now.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

“Please hurry and take your picture, Lil, I’m starving,” Wanda whines as Lily had now taken her 8th photo of their dinner at the restaurant.

Lily shushes her and takes her photo.

“Not all of us have magic photo-taking skills like you where you can take 2-3 photos, and they’re all amazing.” Lily looks at the photo she just took, seemingly satisfied with this one, and putting her phone away.

Wanda just laughs, pulling her plate towards her as she digs in and moans.

“Oh god, this is good,” Wanda savours the flavour with her eyes closed and fingers delicately in front of her mouth.

Lily nods in agreement, eating her own food. They try a bite of each other’s seemingly also happy with the other’s choice. They make small talk about work and some brands they’re going to be working with soon. But then Lily brings up the fundraiser.

“God,” Lily says, “that fundraiser was insane. I can’t believe your girlfriend dropped $100k on a necklace for you. Do you know how hopping mad Vanessa was after? Oh my god, Derek was so embarrassed.”

Wanda smiled, scooping more food onto her fork. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Right,” Lily snorted. “Next time we do a fundraiser together if you don’t drop $100k on an item for me, our friendship is over.”

Wanda just laughs, shaking her head a little as she looks down at her plate.

“Seriously, girl,” Lily says, leaning her head over the table more. “You need to hurry and lock that shit down.”

Lily says it kind of jokingly, mostly because she knows that Vision and Wanda had recently split up from their engagement, but then she catches the look in Wanda’s eye.

“Oh my god, you bitch,” Lily exclaims, leaning back in her chair with a smile in disbelief. “You actually want to lock that shit down. With a ring and shit.”

Wanda is blushing, trying to contain her smile as she runs her fingers through her hair.

“Holy shit,” Lily says, “Why do you lesbians move so fast?”

Wanda just rolls her eyes, not bothering to correct Lily, but is surprised with herself with how fast she did want to progress with you.

The idea of a ring on your finger, indicating to everyone that you were hers was unbelievably desired by Wanda.

But that was crazy.

“Well,” Lily says, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “You should probably hurry with that then, or at least hurry and get her to be your girlfriend.”

“Why?” Wanda says, wiping her mouth as well by patting it.

Lily looks at her with a brow raised, surprised she didn’t know.

“Vanessa told me that she got the part to be in Lady Phantom’s new music video. It’s obvious that she’s yours, Wanda, but you know Vanessa is always trying to one-up you. They’re celebrating right now at the bar, and you know how she gets when she’s drinking with someone that she wants.”

The new is shocking to Wanda. You hadn’t mentioned anything about Vanessa being in your music video. She flashes back at every party she’s been at with Vanessa and how that minx would seduce her target and swore.

“Shit,” Wanda says, standing up. She rummages through her bag for her wallet, but Lily waves her off.

“It’s fine, I got this. You should probably go.”

Wanda gives her friend a grateful smile before running out the door and grabbing a cab. She realizes that she doesn’t know what bar you’re actually at and is about to call and ask you when her phone buzzes.

Lily: They’re at the Blue Lagoon. Good luck, girlie. Get your girl!

Wanda mentally thanks her friend again before giving the cab driver the location.

When they arrive, Wanda grabs cash from her wallet, giving the driver the money before getting out.

“Keep the change!” She yells before making her way into the bar.

When she gets in, she finds that it’s pretty busy. She sees you immediately standing at the bar with Vanessa, both drinking. Wanda watches as Vanessa casually tries to lean closer, bending her leg so that it would brush against your leg. Vanessa is biting her straw, giving you bedroom eyes before she’s licking the tip of her straw.

Wanda is making her way over, because if Vanessa thinks she can snatch you...she has another thing coming.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

You were watching Vanessa’s antics, really kind of suffering through it. Maybe if you hadn’t met Wanda or this was the early stages of the game, this would’ve been incredibly attractive to you.

But it wasn’t.

Because it wasn’t Wanda.

Her knee was brushing against yours, and you knew it was probably time to call it a night and make your escape.

Just as you were about to say something, you felt someone wrap their hands around your arm.

Turning your head over, you and Vanessa were both surprised to see Wanda standing there, smiling.

“Wanda,” you say shocked. “What are you doing here?”

Wanda doesn’t answer you, only looking at you to wrap her hand around the back of your neck as she pulls you roughly into a hot searing kiss.

You moan immediately in response, feeling Wanda’s lips against yours as she’s kissing you fervently. Your hands immediately wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer to your body.

She pulls back, her lips making a small popping sound as she does, smirking at you with bedroom eyes.

“Take me home,” she says, and you nod immediately. You don’t need to be told twice.

Wanda looks over at Vanessa, who is frowning and gripping her drink tightly. She eyes Vanessa, cocking her eyebrow.

“Stay away from her,” Wanda tells Vanessa, pulling you closer to her. “She’s mine.”

Wanda grabs your hand and is pulling you out of the bar. You pass Ryan, and he’s giving you a shit-eating grin, but you don’t even do anything since you’re too happy.

God, that was fucking hot.

Wanda was fucking hot.

The two of you hop into a cab, and you’re giving your address as Wanda is sitting in the cab like she didn’t just barge into a bar and told Vanessa to fuck off basically.

She’s looking out the window while you’re trying to calm your libido, blinking rapidly.

The cab driver drops you off at your place, and you pay him while Wanda is looking around.

She hadn’t been to your temporary place before, or really this close to this part of her community.

The cab driver drives off, and you watch him for a second before turning and leading Wanda to the door.

Once the door is shut behind you, she’s immediately all over you again. Pulling at your clothes, stripping you of your jacket as she’s pressing her lips on yours over and over again.

You lead her to the bedroom where she pushes you back onto the mattress before straddling you.

She was definitely not going to let you go this time, grabbing your phone from your back pocket, turning it off before flinging it onto the ground.

That blasted thing has gotten in her way too many times.

Wanda is just looking at you like she’s going to devour you, a prey that she’s finally caught.

You lick your lips.

But you’re oh so willing to be eaten, you think with a smirk on your lips.

PART IX

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff x ofc #Wanda Maximoff Imagine #yandere wanda #Scarlet Witch x Reader #Scarlet Witch Imagine #yandere wanda maximoff #yandere marvel #Avengers #Avengers AU #avengers imagine #avengers reader insert #mcu #Modern Avengers AU #Marvel Imagine #mm: my fics #series.drivehercrazy #g.smut

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