#thank you gin for enabling this
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as close to me as i can (18+)
Read on Ao3 | 1.2k
The kit had been Eddie’s idea.
He could lie and say he doesn’t know where the idea came from, but he does. It’s been brewing in the back of his mind for a while now, ever since he saw it on one of their trips to the nearby sex shop.
He’s noticed, of course, how Steve can get sometimes. How he’ll check himself out in the mirror, how he’ll primp and preen until he looks like absolute perfection. It’s easier to see now that they’re actually living together, but that also means Eddie sees how he hides it from others, how he makes sure to keep his vanity to himself.
Eddie has had the best time pulling it out of him, has loved watching his boyfriend become more and more self-centered in a way they both adore. Eddie loves drowning him in compliments, both casual and filthy, loves that he’s able to help Steve build up his self confidence into something that others might even call narcissistic. Not to them, though.
He wasn’t sure if the kit was taking things too far, though. He’d been worried when he suggested it, and was glad when Steve lit up at the idea, when he instantly went pink with desire and pulled Eddie into their bed at just the thought of it. Eddie had gone the very next day to buy it, and two days later, they find themselves here.
“Does that feel good, baby?”
Steve’s hands clench at the bedding and he moans into the mattress below him, his back arches deliciously as he presses his hips back to meet every thrust, and Eddie can’t help but to stare at how gorgeous his boy is as he fucks Steve with the dildo. It came out better than they had hoped, the silicone firm but not rigid, and even though Steve had whined about how weird the plaster-like casting had felt on his dick, he certainly isn't-
Actually, he's definitely whining now, all high and needy like he does when he wants Eddie to go harder, to make him feel it for days. Eddie doesnt give in yet, he wants to make this last as long as possible, but he can’t resist a bit of teasing, especially when it makes Steve flush all the way down to his shoulders.
"Yeah, that feels good. It’s such a nice dick, perfect for making pretty boys feel good, hm?”
Eddie smacks a hand onto Steve's ass just to hear him moan again, and then he pulls the dildo out completely. He leans in to spit into Steve's fluttering hole before shoving the toy back in again, and he soaks up the lovely noises his boy makes as he picks up the pace. He never thought he would get this hot from watching his boyfriend fuck himself on a replica of his own cock, but god, Eddie doesn't think he's ever been this hard in his life.
“Do you like this, Stevie? Like getting fucked with your own dick? Is it good, gorgeous?”
Steve moans and nods and Eddie slaps him again, squeezes the flesh under his hand as he says “Gonna need more than that, baby. C’mon, use your words for me, tell me how much you love it.”
He drives the toy deeper and Steve gasps, his hands clawing at the sheets as his thighs start to shake. “Fuckin’ love it! Love it so much-”
Another smack. “You love what?”
“My dick! Love getting fucked by my dick, feels - fuck! - so good!”
Eddie adjusts the angle until Steve is wailing under the onslaught of pleasure, until Eddie is almost worried that Steve’s legs might give out from how much he’s trembling. It’s heady, knowing that he can make Steve feel like this with nothing but a toy and some filthy words, and the thing that makes it even better is that Steve is just as into this whole thing as Eddie is.
“Such a narcissistic little whore, baby. Nobody else’s dick is good enough for you, huh? Just your own, ‘s the only one perfect enough for you, only one that makes you see fuckin’ stars like this, yeah?”
Steve gasps and nods, and he’s almost pulling the sheets from the mattress with how he’s tugging at it. “Fuuuck, ‘m gonna come, Eds, please! Don’ stop!”
He’s close, so close. Eddie can see it in how he shakes, in how he sobs as Eddie growls out a “Come on, Stevie, do it, gorgeous. Fuckin’ come from your own cock.” He picks up the pace and gives Steve’s ass one more hard smack, and that’s all it takes to shove him over the edge.
Steve screams when he comes, the sound muffled slightly from where he’s pressed into the bedding, and Eddie just watches in absolute wonder as he fucks Steve through it until he’s a twitchy, whiny mess. He pulls the toy out slowly and drops it to the side, doesn’t hesitate as he pushes his pants down and barely spits into his hand before he’s stripping his own dick, almost frantic in his pace.
“So fuckin’ pretty, Stevie, so good for me. Love how filthy you are, love how you’re just as freaky as I am, love the things you let me to do you.” Eddie’s babbling, but his mouth always tends to run when he’s close and Steve knows it, groans in response. “Fuck, ‘m gonna come, baby. Where d’you want it?”
He expects a groaned response, or the delirious Anywhere, please that he usually gets. Instead, a thrill of delight runs through him as he watches Steve reach back to grab his ass with one hand, spreading himself as best he can.
“In me, Ed, please. Need it so bad.”
Eddie complies and grabs Steve’s hips before pushing into his hole, still slick with lube and relaxed from his orgasm. Steve keens as Eddie thrusts two, three, four times before coming so hard that he sees stars for a moment. His hips jerk as he fills up his boyfriend, and Eddie groans when Steve twitches a bit with oversensitivity, clenching around him involuntarily. He takes a moment to catch his breath before he pulls out, and dots a few kisses over the moles on Steve’s back as he waits for his legs to start working again.
Once he can feel his toes he stands from the bed, quickly grabbing a washcloth from the bathroom and a glass of water from the kitchen before joining Steve agin. Cleanup is quick and practical, and he makes Steve drain the glass before he’s climbing back into bed and wrapping around his boyfriend like an octopus.
“So, I think that was a good investment,” he says after a moment, and Steve hums.
“I definitely agree. We should use it again, though, just to make sure we get our money’s worth out of it.”
Eddie grins and can’t resist giving a soft nip to the shell of Steve’s ear. “Oh trust me, pretty boy, I am already thinking of plans for the future.”
#i have no excuses and no apologies#sometimes when your brain gives you an idea you just go with it#thank you gin for enabling this#steddie fic#steddie#steve harrington#eddie munson#steve x eddie#joey writes
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🎶 and 🛠 for the writer emoji ask!
::waves:: hi @silverbrume! Thank you for asking!
🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?
I always love hearing other people's answers to this, because I think what works for people can vary so much, and other people's processes are fascinating to me! I am, personally, a little bit obsessed with Scrivener. I got the desktop program years ago with a NaNo discount, and quickly fell in love, but the real game changer for me was when I bit the bullet and also got the mobile app, and synced my writing folder to Dropbox, so that I can switch back and forth seamlessly between writing on my phone and on my computer. It's enabled me to really take advantage of any free moment where the mood strikes to write--on my commute, on my lunch break, in the waiting room at the doctor's office, wherever. Even if it's only a few words, or the chance to jot down an idea or plot point before I forget, it's been so essential to finishing, well, anything. And sometimes snatching even a couple minutes to do something (else) I love in the middle of a busy day feels really refreshing.
🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?
I don't listen to much music while I write--something about having other people's words in my head can sometimes make it hard for me to focus. However, I am a huge fan of making playlists for the things I write, and listening to them on my commute, when I'm exercising, etc., as a way to keep thinking about what I'm writing, and set the mood! Sometime maybe I'll post one of my 00q playlists, but for now, here are a few of the songs that I have on repeat:
"Die for Your Love" by LP
"Honey and the Moon" by Joseph Arthur (which recently featured in an amazing photoset by @bishybarnaby!)
"Don't Carry It All" by the Decembrists
"I Know A Place" by MUNA
"Beg for You" by Charlie XCX feat. Rina Sawayama (which is also the song Bond and Q dance to in The More Loving One)
"Second Chances" by Gregory Alan Isakov (which lends its title and some of its thematic material to this WIP)
"No Light, No Light by Florence and the Machine
"Hey Jealousy" by the Gin Blossoms
And last but not least, I have no self-control and have started writing something for this Carly Rae Jepsen series, so I have her music going quite a bit. :)
Would love to hear what you are listening to these days as well! <3
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hi!! can i please get a bungou stray dogs matchup? im bisexual & use she/her pronouns btw :)
for my appearance: im 5’2, have long light brown hair, brown doe eyes, a button nose, a beauty mark above my lip, and a summer tan! for my body, uhhh best i can come to describe it is mitsuri kanroji… thats basically what i got goin on ansksnekfj! i love to dress fairly soft and girly, currently im obsessed with the balletcore aesthetic (i love leg warmers so much)!
for my personality: if it matters i am a cancer & esfj. but!! more importantly, id say im fairly bubbly and energetic! i have a huge heart i tend to wear on my sleeve, and i have a complete inability to hide what i feel, and i kinda hate that. i still love things though, i think emotions make us human! im also a bit of a people pleaser & i have anxiety so i can sometimes be a bit nervous but i got this usually!! im also very affectionate and clingy with people, i don’t even notice anymore aajdkrnke. my love language is touch, and im very cuddly :) im also a plant mom and have a soft spot for any kind of animal :)
please and thank you!!
I match you with . . .
Gin Akutagawa !!
♡ given your similar choices of fashion, you two had probably met in a small shop within a mall. when you were checking out your items, being the only person in line, gin was directly behind you. she didn't really notice you at first, sorting out her own items. as you left the store, making a little ding! noise, was when you caught her eye.
♡ it began with a few compliments exchanged, and then small talk. from there on, you two were good friends, meeting up with each other on the weekends. you'd frequently hang out in little shops or in a park, enjoying the scenery and animals that passed by.
♡ gin would listen to you talk and identify plants, taking notes of which ones you were already a mother to. she'd find your passion fascinating, asking frequent questions and even considering buying a few plants herself, taking advice from you.
♡ your bubbly personality matched well with gin's calmness, as weird as that sounds. she appreciated how energetic, sweet, and lively you were; as it was a change of pace from anyone in the mafia. you two could talk for days and days about anything & everything, if gin weren't so busy.
♡ that being said, you don't have to wear your heart on your sleeve for gin to notice something's up. she's very good at analyzing and reading people and will ask you what's up as soon as she notices you're off. if you don't want to talk about it, that's completely okay! she won't budge
♡ but overtime, the more flustered you became around her, the more your feelings really became apparent. she didn't ask you what's wrong and didn't dance around the question, she's really straightforward when it comes to things like this.
♡ "do you have... feelings, for me?" gin asked you, in the privacy of her own bedroom. you two sat on her bed, admiring a new plant you had bought a few days ago. the question seemed to come out of nowhere and caught you completely off guard. gin wasn't that great at timing.
♡ "it was too obvious." gin smiled, loving your completely stunned and blushing face. and from there on, you two were the cutest couple in yokohama, although ryuunosuke would say otherwise. as well as the best plant & animal moms on the earth.
♡ if you're ever feeling anxious, gin will be there to comfort you and cheer you up with soft words and small touches. she'd hold your hand, rub your back, whatever you wanted the most. she's a great listener and will attempt to help you however you want her to. gin may not always be available, but she'll try her best for you.
♡ how she broke the news to you that she was an active member in the port mafia was quite odd. truth be told, atsushi had been the one to inform you of this. he was on a mission and had been spying on gin AGAIN, spotting you with her, holding hands. he didn't know who you were and what your connection to her was, which enabled him to immediately track you down and make sure you knew of gin's career.
♡ you had said thank you to atsushi before leaving, returning home to confront gin about what had been said. you knew she was very very busy and her brother was quite the shady figure, but it was hard to believe your calm and collected girlfriend would be part of such an organization.
♡ gin was disappointed in the way you found out. she had explained everything to you, leaving no detail out. she promised you that she'd keep you safe & protected, never crossing into harm's path. it all became clear why she had brought you to so many expensive places and bought you very expensive things. and also why she was very busy.
♡ needless to say, it was a little wild, but your love was as strong as ever and you wouldn't change a thing about gin; as long as she was okay. you didn't have to meet the other agents, only akutagawa, which already happened... much to his dismay.
♡ she's not the biggest fan of PDA, but small little kisses and hand holding are def her thing. gin loves to play with your hair, brushing it for you, as long as you're okay with it. in private, she's down for cuddles whenever you want! prefers to be the big spoon always, but doesn't mind taking turns.
♡ if you're ever gone for a while, gin would gladly take care of your house, plants, animals, etc. when you're not there to do so. gives you such a big hug when you come back!!
♡ she's not the best, but will cook for you if you ask her to. appreciates taking care of you, and wants the same in return when she's too busy and needs a break. whatever you want, she'll make it, even if she doesn't quite like it herself. enjoys cooking for you and loves seeing you enjoy it!!
♡ overall gin just thinks you're the sweetest and most interesting person she's ever met,, she loves you so so much and vows to protect you the best she can.
#bsd#bungo stray dogs#bsd gin akutagawa#gin akutagawa#bungo stray dogs gin akutagawa#bsd gin#bungo stray dogs gin
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It’s your birthday so even if you have been on your phone all day it’s your day so do you !! However I don’t want you dealing with that stuff in your day !!
Have the best evening ! I’ll have a glass of wine for you ❤️🥹xx
my number one enabler! 🙌🏻😅
it’s really fine!
it wasn’t exactly a slight on me tbf ..I was in two minds about posting it at all but I felt like I needed to address it just so people have a small warning I guess 🥲
thank you, I will! I get to watch bake off tonight which is a fun surprise bc it was supposed to be on yesterday 😅 enjoy your wine! 🍷 might join you and have a gin - why not! 🥰🥰
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Top Cocktail Glasses Of 2022 You Must Know About
An incredible way to appreciate a cocktail is in a glass that brings out its flavors, aromas, and visual appeal. But to enjoy each liquor's flavors, you should serve cocktails to your customers in the proper glass, such as whiskey sour glasses or martini glasses, etc., not just any old ones.
In this blog, we will discuss each cocktail glass and what pairs with what.
Old-fashioned glass
The Old Fashioned glass gets its name from its namesake cocktail, the Old Fashioned. The glass has a broad top to release aroma and a thick bottom to mix it.
Used for:
Old Fashioned
Selecting either neat or ice-cold whisky
Any cocktail that is made in the same glass you’re serving in.
Highball Glass
A tall, narrow glass called a highball is used for some cocktails. Drinks like the Highball or Gin Fizz that are cold and carbonated are perfect for the glass design.
Used for:
Bloody Mary
Highballs
Tom Collins
Gin and Tonic
Shot Glass
The shot glass is your go-to glass for a shot of your preferred liquor or cocktail. They come in a range of forms, dimensions, and hues.
Used for:
Whenever you intend to down a drink in a single motion.
Whiskey Sour Glasses
The whiskey sour glasses, also known as the Delmonico glass, is used for sweet, citrusy cocktails. The Sour was initially served in an antique glass when it was invented. However, there were issues with the cocktail fitting into the glass, so the whiskey sour glasses were created.
Used for:
Whiskey Sour
Bourbon Sour
Aperol Sour
Sidecar
Absinthe Glass
A glass made exclusively for serving absinthe is called an absinthe glass. The glass contains a reservoir in the stem where the correct volume of absinthe may be measured for each serving. A sugar cube can be placed in the vast top portion of the glass.
Used for:
Serving Absinthe
Snifter Glass
Whiskey or brandy is typically served in snifter glasses. The glass has a wide bottom and a tapering top. This enables the perfume to be trapped while the warmth of your fingertips gradually alters the flavor profile. The glass should be filled just enough so that if you tip it on its side, the liquor won’t spill out.
Used for:
When serving aged brown spirits.
Cordial Glass
After dinner, liqueurs are often served in cordial glasses and are designed to be shipped. These glasses resemble standard wine glasses in appearance but are made of more delicate glass and are smaller and thinner.
Used for:
When presenting your preferred liqueur after dinner.
Martini Glass
Because it has a larger bowl than a typical cocktail glass, the martini glass allows the flavors to mingle. These cocktails, including a vodka Martini, Manhattan, or Cosmopolitan, should be made in a martini glass. Thanks to the lengthy stem, the beverage can stay cool while being held in the glass.
Used for:
Martini
Manhattan
Cosmopolitan
Conclusion
We at Restaurant Solutions Inc. provide a fantastic range of cocktail glasses, including whiskey sour glasses and many more in different shapes and sizes. To know more about us, visit our official website.
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i’m not a queen, or a monster, i’m the goddess of death.
what were you the god of again?
#( ;; CHARACTER PROMO / fortislumen. )#( ; this is me with my usual extra announcements. )#( ; poor gin watched my indecisive self make this lol )#( ; thank you all for enabling me into writing my mom )
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What was *that scene* for TLoCC, or have you not written it yet? 👀
@pugetprincess, @greenglassmountain ❤️❤️❤️
ahahahaha
I'm really tempted to say it's that scene, it's one of my favorites and I'm so proud of it.
But TLOCC came to be because of this exchange:
"That's why you spared me?" said Tom scornfully. "To absolve me of my sins?"
"I can't give you absolution, Riddle," said Smith carefully. "That's not up to me."
"Then what is this? Pre-emptive redemption?"
Smith's lips curved into a mirthless smile. "I don't believe in redemption. The way I see it, there's only the choices we make and how we're bound by them . . .”
I'd read/seen a lot of bad redemption stories at the time, and I was falling out of love with the trope because of how the idea of ~redemption~ was being carelessly thrown around in a lot of fandoms. Which is . . . another rant for another time lol
But it led to this idea to do a redemption fic that isn't a redemption fic, where no one believes in it and it's not the end goal. What the characters do believe in is change, and that’s what they strive for. But having the capacity to change, choosing to change — that doesn't necessitate goodness.
So . . . yeah. TLOCC kind of started out as a spitefic hahaha
#in other words tom could very well be an evil arsehole at the end.#but so long as he never goes on a murder spree ginny will count it a success#thank you @greenglassmountain & @pugetprincess for enabling me and letting me babble about my nonsense ❤️#fic: the law of complementary colors#gin n tonic#tom x ginny#greenglassmountain#pugetprincess
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lo-fi
[crosshair & tbb x afab/f!reader] it's been a tough campaign, so you and crosshair decide that the boys in the field can listen in, as a treat.
warnings: unprotected vaginal sex, consensual exhibitionism/voyeurism, polyamory, improper use of comms, crosshair being snide
w/c: 3.9k
a/n: phone sex? broke. comm sex? woke. rip @ u when the rest of the boys get back to the ship :/ (ps: thank u for 130! big mwah)
“Area’s been cleared. No sign of any seppies here,” Hunter’s weary voice wakes you with a start, crackling over your comm as you lift your head off the familiar height of Crosshair’s shoulder. “We’ll set up camp and head back at first light.”
“Better use the ‘fresher when you get back; you’ll stink up the whole ship,” Crosshair drawls back from beside you and evades you with an easy grin as you sleepily jab at his side.
Mean, you mouth at him with a frown, and the sniper simply shrugs back.
“We’ll see you soon. Love you all, y/n over,” you say, leaning over into Crosshair’s comm.
You receive a slightly disoriented chorus of ‘love you, too’s and ‘love you, cyar’ika’s from the brothers in the field, all blended together over frequency static and the sheer exhaustion of four rotations trekking through the marshy Balnab underbrush. Luck on your side, as navigator, you had escaped the dreary fate of noxious swamp gas and heat rashes in the unlikely case that the boys might need a quick exit.
But luckier still, Crosshair had stayed behind with you, citing your very real lack of combat training as grounds to have at least one of the brothers stay behind and stand guard. After all, volunteer corps boot camps could only teach you so much. And donning that trademark grin that made you either want to kiss him senseless or smack him upside the head (depending on your mood), Crosshair had innocently claimed that if he couldn’t see through the gaseous atmosphere, how could he know where to aim, much less shoot?
(You use your karkin’ scope, shitwad, Echo had said with the sickliest smile possible, and even he couldn’t help but join in when you and the boys all erupted into uncontrollable laughter.)
Suffice to say, Crosshair had spent the last two days holed up in the Marauder with you, a couple games of gin rummy, and a few steep new favors owed to his brothers’ grumbling.
For all the cool circulating air and dehumidifier settings in the Marauder’s helm, with the viewport fogged by the greenish atmospheric haze and your only task to wait for either a distress or all-clear signal, the little card games had gotten predictable after the second day. You had been tempted, out of some combination of boredom and fantasy, to prompt a game of strip poker (though Crosshair’s various bits of armour would have given him the indubitable upper hand, even with his horrible poker face).
Tempted, not even tried. You were all too aware of the uneasy stress of the mission outside, that low-lying tension and anticipatory dread staving off any coy desire to take advantage of your time alone with Crosshair.
But now, with the all-clear signal loud and clear through the comms, there’s little holding your inhibitions back when Crosshair reaches up and ruffles your hair after you click off his comm. Regardless of how innocuous his touch may be, heat rushes to your cheeks as you lean into his palm.
“Needy,” Crosshair chuckles, quick to catch on to your preening under his hand.
“I’ve been so patient,” you exhale a grand sigh, your voice carrying the petulant playfulness that never fails to pull Crosshair into the chase. And based on the lopsided grin twisting over his lips, you’ve got him exactly where you want him. “Don’t tell me you aren’t feeling at least a little bit of the same.”
“You’re insatiable,” he snarks. But he’s already rising to his full stature and crowding you back against the nearest surface, his hands firm and insistent over your waist as the backs of your knees meet the cool holotable steel.
“Right,” you retort, lifting your chin and baring your neck to him when he dips his head low to kiss over your pulse. The first touch is always careful—it comes with the territory, sharpshooting, all calculated movements with little space for error—but Crosshair’s intentionality is no less desirous, mouthing over your skin as you feel one hand drag slow and heavy up from your waist to your neck. “I’m the needy one.”
“You’re the enabler,” Crosshair mumbles into your skin, and you can’t help the dreamy sigh that passes your lips when you feel his fingertips knead soft, slow motions over the base of your neck. “I’m just running with the punches.”
“Maker, you suck at talking sexy,” you laugh, brighter still when you feel Crosshair’s soft exhale over your skin as he stifles laughter of his own.
“Then let’s not,” he says and lifts his head to offer you a wry smile. Before you can humor any more dry banter, Crosshair pulls you flush against the hard lines of his chestplate, one hand curled over the base of your head and the other sliding around the small of your back, and swallows any words you had with his tongue.
Second nature, you lift your arms to curl over his shoulders and anchor him close.
Crosshair takes your invitation with ease, pressing his tongue over your lips before he gently shifts you up to seat you on the holotable edge and slots between your thighs. It doesn’t take the firm weight of his hand to have you rocking forward to meet him in a slow grind, and you lift one knee, hooking your calf over the hard edge of his thigh guard and pulling him closer still.
He pulls back, and you respond with a petulant whine, weakly tugging on his hip with your leg. Crosshair laughs, little but a soft huff, but one that has equal parts desire and frustration rising in your chest. Seeming to have caught on, Crosshair only leans forward enough to meet you with a chaste touch of his lips, but, desperate for more, you take the brief window of opportunity to reach up and tug his head to yours.
“Don’t be a fucking tease,” you mumble insistently, punctuating your request with a soft nip over Crosshair’s top lip. You gasp when you feel his gloved fingers grab, twisting your hair tight under his fist and tearing you from his lips.
“Don’t be fucking rude,” he snarks back, his brows raised in playful challenge. “You take what you get,” he snarls, his lips curled up in a sharp grin as he yanks your head to the side and he dips close. You feel his breath fan over your skin, a brief and heady warning before he crowds you close and drags his tongue from the edge of your jaw to the highest crest of your cheek.
Desire, sweet and cloying, curls over your spine as he steps back, leaving you in a dazed sort of stupor as you watch him make quick work of the plastoid secured over him. It takes you a moment to collect yourself, ready to launch a snide remark his way, but whatever you intended to say is far beyond coherent thought, let alone expression. He finally closes that small distance between you, presses the hard lines of muscle and sinew close between your thighs, and your head falls back against the cold tabletop as you sigh.
He’s overwhelming, intoxicating, and you can’t get enough.
It’s different between each of them. There is careful intention with Hunter, playful and boyish glee in Wrecker’s arms, the stern edge of authority when Echo presses you against the wall, Tech’s rosy warmth when he kisses you sweet. But Crosshair offers you the snide challenge, the push and pull of teasing one-upmanship when he shoots you a smug grin, pushes your thighs open, and spits onto your cunt.
“Probably didn’t need to do that,” he says a bit mildly as he brings two calloused fingers up against your cunt and gently parts your swollen sex. You might have mistaken his soft exhale as laughter when you clench down around achingly empty space, but you know better. As he lifts his hand to your lips and pushes your own arousal past your lips, watching you take his fingers deep and suck, you know better. (It’s awe.)
“Fuck off, and fuck me,” you moan around his fingers, gently nipping over his skin.
“Are you really in any position to be making demands?” Crosshair snorts and pushes his fingers down against the flat of your tongue. You bite his fingers a little harder in response, and vindictive justice crows over the haze of lust in your chest when he hisses through a grin.
“Oh, please. You want this more than I do,” you roll your eyes, crinkling your nose as he smears your own spit over your lips before he pulls away.
Catching the slight part in Crosshair’s lips, you ready another snide retort. There’s an art to foreplay with Crosshair’s cynicism. But any coherent thought promptly dies on your tongue when, instead of a snappy comeback, Crosshair kneads one hand tight over your hip, presses the blunt head of his cock up against your cunt, and pushes.
It doesn’t get old—you don’t suspect it ever will—the satisfying burn pooling warm in your gut when Crosshair anchors you to the holotable and stretches you open. For that one, long moment, the clever, biting banter you share has vanished, leaving only slow, hitching breaths and the cresting ache of want to fill its place. You don’t hold the same playful joy of victory over his head when you open your eyes to see him groan, too enraptured by your own pleasure, by the gorgeous picture he presents you, his brows furrowed and eyes fluttered shut, to poke fun at how he bows over the table edge and braces himself over you with a stuttering inhale.
You cry out with him when you finally feel him press as deep as he can, the trembling muscle of his thighs molded up against your skin. Crosshair dips low, close enough that you feel his every heaving inhale brush against your chest, and you only see love, love, love, raw and tender and so, so good when you look through your lashes and catch the warmth in his dark eyes.
That this was it, that you were as good as it would ever get.
“Ready?” he whispers, play hinting at the edges of his voice as he strokes his thumb over your hip.
“Is that even a question?” you giggle.
Silent discretion isn’t necessarily something you strive for, not since the boys heartily accepted your trembling confession that one just wasn’t enough. You’ve long since learned to dismiss any flare of bashful embarrassment that might have you clap your hand over your mouth when Echo pulled you into the nearest room or Wrecker decided that he couldn’t wait for the few quick steps between the armory and the bunk hall. But it’s obscene, the sound that bubbles up from your throat when Crosshair abruptly pulls out of your dripping cunt and shoves himself back in full.
Too high on the euphoria heavy and thick in your throat, you barely register the soft kiss he presses to the corner of your mouth before he rises up and begins fucking into you in earnest. Your eyes flutter open when you feel his rough fingertips dig into the junction of your thigh and hip, trailing low for a brief, uncertain moment before he finds your clit and presses firm over where you part around him. And when you strain your ears above the breathy whines spilling from your lips, when you squeeze down around him with a soft sob, you hear him gasping with you.
This was really as good as you would ever need it to get.
“Wait,” you laugh a bit breathlessly, squirming under his touch. “Wait, let’s call them.”
Crosshair fixes you with something like morbid intrigue, his gentle, firm movements over your clit falling still so he can offer you the unspoken question behind a quirked brow.
“The area’s clear; they’re tired; morale’s low, you know. I think it’d be fun,” you rationalize as a coy smile grows on your lips.
“Is this what you’ve been thinking about this entire campaign?” Crosshair finally asks. Despite the almost disinterested drawl in his voice, you both know it’s a weak cover for the mischievous delight at the prospect of teasing desire in front of his field-weary brothers.
“Maybe,” you breathe, breath hitching as he rolls his thumb over your clit.
“So vulgar,” Crosshair chuckles, rolling his eyes when you blow him a kiss and fall back onto the tabletop.
But he’s already reaching for his discarded commlink and shuffling it back on. He secures the plastoid snug over his forearm, and when he shifts forward to steady himself as the locks snap into place, he shifts up and presses firm against the spot in your cunt that has you arching off the holotable with a low whine.
“Save it for them, yeah?” Crosshair chuckles, and he presses for Tech’s comm.
“Crosshair?” Tech mumbles groggily, apparently having just awoken to Crosshair’s impromptu call.
“So good of you to answer,” Crosshair drawls into his bracer. As much as you’d like to sit back up and swat his audible smirk off of his lips, the snark dies on your tongue when he shifts forward hard, the firm lines of his hips connecting firm against your ass as you sink your teeth into your arm to stifle your sob.
“Is everything alright?” Tech asks through a yawn. And you would laugh at his sleepy obliviousness if you weren’t quite literally seeing stars, blinding iridescent comet trails across your field of vision, when Crosshair slips his free arm under your waist, secures you tight, and pushes his cock impossibly deeper into you. All you can do is bite down over your uniform sleeve and wonder if your high whine reaches the comm feed.
“Fine, really,” Crosshair says with a breezy flippancy that you don’t currently have the mental capacity to find irritating. “Mind telling the others to pick up?”
“Maker, this better be for a good reason,” Echo’s frequency crackles to life, albeit somewhat sourly. Following his voice, you register a hearty yawn from Wrecker’s line, and not a moment later, Hunter’s light quietly blinks on.
“Is y/n on?” Tech asks.
“Mm, she is,” Crosshair punctuates his words with another sharp thrust that has your toes curling in your boots as your legs jerk over his arms. The saccharine tenderness of earlier gives way to the smug tone you have grown to (begrudgingly) adore. “Come on, say hello.”
“H-Hi,” you whimper into your comm, trembling as Crosshair digs his fingers over the soft skin of your thigh and slowly pulls out of your cunt, just until the ridge of his cock catches on your stretched lips. This time, when he thrusts forward there is no measured, careful deliberation—only raw and rapidly unraveling need as he sheathes himself inside you with one smooth motion and crushes up against that soft spot inside you that has you sobbing over your comm.
If they hadn’t heard your soft, muffled noises before, they certainly have, now.
The collective feed goes quiet.
“Holy shit.”
And then all at once, it’s a staticky blend of voices when the realization finally sinks in and exhaustion has all but been forgotten for the night.
You hear Wrecker groan just above Hunter’s gasping, flushed “oh,” and you’re fairly certain you catch Echo and Tech synchronize a low, drawn “fuuuck” as you sigh. But Crosshair gives you little space to register the sudden and raucous desire over the channel when he cants his hips forward and fucks into you deep.
This may have been your idea in the beginning, but whatever control you thought you had has long gone as you scrabble for purchase over the cold holotable top. The teasing game, dangling the possibility of having in front of the boys in the field, is now simply a show out of your hands as you moan into your comm.
“How does she feel?” Wrecker asks, his voice breathy and low.
“So fuckin’ wet,” Crosshair laughs, angling another sharp thrust against the spot that makes you see stars.
You grip tighter to the edge of the holotable with a choked moan. There’s something so indescribably rousing to hearing them speak over you as if you aren’t even there, rutting desperately back against Crosshair’s hips as you sigh and moan into the commlink clutched over your wildly beating heart.
“Our poor little cyar’ika went four whole days without being touched—she’s dripping. Tell them how much you needed this,” Crosshair croons, a mocking sharpness curling at the edges of the gentle tone of his voice. “Tell them how much you need them.”
You tremble under him as his hips meet yours hard enough to knock the air from your lungs, unable to do more than whine as you feel him snake his arm up your chest and curl his fingers around your neck.
“I—I need you!” you manage, your words only soft sighs pulled from what little breath Crosshair affords you through a steady, devastating pace. “Maker, I miss you so much—!”
Eyes squeezed shut, you fight the urge to quell every noise that claws at your throat. As obscene as it makes you sound, your boys are nowhere near as close as Crosshair, able to do little else but close their eyes and dream of you through the modulated channel frequency alone. It’s the least you can do, you think, and you moan as Crosshair shifts his hips up hard.
“He makin’ you feel good, cyar’ika?” Hunter’s voice crackles over the channel. “Pretty baby, you feelin’ good?”
“Mmhm!” you whimper, nodding wildly as if they’re not camped out a few hundred klicks from the ship, as if they’re there, bearing witness as Crosshair pulls you apart with every insistent, heady motion he makes.
“You’re a big girl,” Crosshair sneers, digging his fingers into the soft skin of your waist as he fucks into you sharp enough it punches the breath from your lungs. “Use your words.”
“So—” Your voice wavers over a gasp. “Feels so good!”
“Attagirl,” you hear Echo groan.
You can’t imagine how much of a mess you must look, jaw slack and eyes rolled back into your head, drunk on nothing short of hedonistic joy in its purest form, legs jerking over Crosshair’s arms when he fucks a particularly deep thrust into your cunt. Maybe you’ll try a call over the holo next time.
“Close,” you whimper.
But as soon as the words leave your tongue, you realize your mistake, panic flooding in your throat when Crosshair raises his brows, a wicked grin on his lips, and simply. Stops.
“Are you, now?” Crosshair chuckles, and if you weren’t there, dangling at that precarious precipice, so, so close to the kind of pleasure that wracks through your body so hard you forget your own name, you might have slung some acerbic jumble of words his way. But you are there, twisting your hips for any sort of purchase while Crosshair offers you a knowing smile.
“I’m going to kill you,” you hiss, only to be cut short, your words swallowed by your wailing moan when Crosshair fucks into you, a shallow thrust that pushes you closer, closer to the aching pleasure just out of reach.
“Oh, that wasn’t nice, was it?” Crosshair taunts.
The boys murmur over the channel, all soft laughter while they imagine your flustered desperation, wishing it was them back on the ship, stuck to lookout duty, blessed with the cool air of the helm and your warm cunt fluttering around them.
“What do you say?” Crosshair laughs breathily into his comm, dragging one slow finger over your throbbing clit, firm enough that it sparks want through your chest but too light to do little more than tease. You sob under his touch. “Does our girl deserve to come?”
“Let’s ask her,” Echo rasps, and when you squeeze your eyes shut, your mouth waters at the hazy mental image of the eldest’s lidded gaze, his cock fisted heavy in his hand as he whispers into his comm. “You think you deserve it, cyare?”
“Please,” you gasp. It’s more than a simple response, rather, a plea for something, anything, that little bit of more to push you over the razor thin edge between teasing pleasure and release.
“Gotta answer the question, little one,” Wrecker chokes out past a straining chuckle.
“Maker, you know what I mean—!” you whie, shuddering at the jolt of pleasure that laces up your spine when Crosshair wraps his arm over your thigh and presses deeper than you thought possible.
“Answer it,” Tech breathes.
“Fuck—I deserve it!” you finally sob, and your thighs clench when you hear Hunter groan over the channel. “Maker, I deserve it!”
You’re not sure if it’s your own confession ringing in your ears or the sensation of Crosshair squeezing his hands over your waist that finally tips that delicate balance between your excruciating anticipation and release, stirring wild and devastating from low in your stomach as you arch off the holotable and scream. It crashes over you in an endlessly overwhelming wave, swallowing you whole in nothing but simple, luxuriant pleasure fizzling at your fingertips and blurring your vision with euphoric tears while Crosshair shudders, head hung low as you clench down around him.
“That’s it,” Wrecker croons. Somehow, you’re still able to catch his adoring praise over the frequency, your focus turned to the way Crosshair continues to coax your pleasure, drawing it long and desperate with what thin strands of composure remain.
A final, stuttering thrust, and Crosshair drapes himself over you, burying himself as deep as he can in your fluttering cunt and groaning softly as he fills you with warm, heavy spurts of come. All you can do is whine and pulse around him, losing yourself to the mercy of every passing sensation that sparks delirious pleasure up your spine.
“We’ll be back soon, sweet thing.”
You weakly turn your head to face the blinking comm light beside you, reduced to a blurry spot of red muddled by the lingering tears in your eyes. It’s a miracle you can hear Hunter’s voice over the dull buzz in your ears at all, but even through your exhaustion, his voice strikes want, warm and deep, through your core.
You mumble something unintelligible to your own ears in response, little more than a sign of life as Crosshair steps back and clicks off your comm.
“Quite the show,” Crosshair laughs softly, leaning close to curl his palm at your jaw and thumb at the tears beaded over your lashes. He presses his lips to your temple, and you bask under his touch. “Did such a good job, cyare.”
“When I can’t walk in two days,” you rasp through the dry itch in your throat from your (retrospectively) embarrassing show of being as loud as humanly possible over the comms. “I expect you all to take turns carrying me everywhere.”
Crosshair snorts, tapping the soft skin of your inner thigh to carefully drag his fingertips through the mess of come and slick smeared over your cunt. “Two days? It took them four to get out to the mark.”
And he’s right. The soft, fluvial wetland outside was far from conducive for fast travel, even with a clear mark and sharp navigation. But all things considered, you wouldn’t be surprised if the boys were packing up and leaving camp now, all for the chance to board and throw you onto the nearest bunk a few odd days faster.
“Four credits they’re leaving right now,” you laugh.
“Let’s make it four credits they’ll make it back in two,” Crosshair offers. He dips low and brushes his forehead close against yours, sharing soft laughter as you reach up to stroke over the back of his head.
They make it back in one.
#after two long weeks behold#anyways all the power to u in this fic#u got these boys runnin laps#crosshair x reader#the bad batch x reader#hunter x reader#wrecker x reader#echo x reader#tech x reader#yaej.writes
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For Stuff For Renji's Birthday Prompts: 1) time travel turn back the clock nonsense, bc I'm an enabler and Karakura teens plus shithead Renruki teens has *Byakuya voice* strong comedic potential OR 2) Hisana lives but due to wacky circumstances, nobody notices Rukia's existence at the Academy... until they've graduated and Renruki have joined Squad 11. Dealer's choice! (Honestly whichever you pick, I might try writing the one you don't. I am not a writer these 2 just live in my head rent free)
Why would you make me choose between these, whyyyyyyyyyy?
To be honest, I almost did them both, but this was the second one I did, and I figured that I should probably do some other people’s prompts, and then I ran out of time. I might do you some time travel shenanigans later. (This should in no way stop you from writing these, I would flip my chips if you wrote something, let alone something based on my horrible ideas)
In any case, I couldn’t resist the second options and I have spun it out into a delightful bit of Byakuya-torture. Please enjoy!!!
Special thanks to @kaicko for helping me come up with the clerical error, because you all know me, I can’t just say “a clerical error.” 😂
Read on ao3 or ff.net
💀 💀 💀
“How is the tea?” Aizen Sousuke asked smoothly.
The tea was excellent, but Byakuya wasn’t in the mood for Aizen’s needy attempts to ingratiate himself. “Adequate,” he replied dryly. “You said you had something to discuss with me.”
“Ah, diligent as always, Byakuya,” Aizen sighed, “always eager to get back to work. I’ll get to the point: I happened to speak with your wife recently at a fundraising event. She’s very interested in the people of the deep Rukon, and said she travels to South Rukongai frequently.”
Byakuya narrowed his eyes. “What is your point?”
“Well, I thought it was a bit of a strange occupation for a woman of your wife’s noble standing, but then Gin reminded me that she was actually from there herself, that there had been a bit of a to-do when you two married. I don’t tend to follow gossip myself--”
“I repeat, what is your point?” Byakuya gritted your teeth.
Aizen made a pissy little throat clearing noise and fiddled with a folder on his desk. “The fact is, Byakuya, your wife reminds me a great deal of a young woman who served in my squad a few years ago, whom I recalled also hailing from the Rukon. I wondered if there might be a.... connection.”
Byakuya’s shoulders stiffened. Impossible. He had put watches on all immigrants to the Seireitei. He would have reviewed anyone who came from the South 78th.
“Inuzuri Rukia,” Aizen read from his file, and Byakuya’s blood ran cold. “Shin’ou class of 2066. Unseated. Petite, like your wife. Dark hair. Very striking eyes. Unfortunately, an unremarkable shinigami. Potential for a good kidou user, but didn’t take direction well. More interested in sword combat, although she had little aptitude for it. Ah, here it is. Hometown: District 48, South Rukongai.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Byakuya said flatly. “Inuzuri is the 78th district of South Rukongai. Why would she carry a surname from a different district?”
Aizen made an exaggerated frown. “Very strange! A clerical error perhaps? Hold on a moment.” He stuck his head out of his office door and said something to the shinigami on reception duty. “Fortunately, there’s an easy way to clear this up. It’ll just be a minute.”
Byakuya gripped his teacup, unsure of how to feel. A clerical error. Class of 2066… she would have enrolled in 2060, in the middle of Hisana’s worst turn, when she had been bedridden for nearly four years. Their attention would have lapsed. It made sense.
“She does not sound like your usual recruit,” Byakuya accused. Aizen was constantly finding ways to skim the highest performers from the Academy, all the gifted children.
Aizen looked sheepish. “Ah, well, you see, there was a young man of some talent that I was eager to recruit who was… attached to her. I thought she might have some potential if properly guided, but it never panned out.”
Aizen’s good deed was suddenly beginning to make sense. The girl had transferred out and taken Aizen’s prize with her. He wanted Byakuya to go fetch her away in hopes that the talented one would come home. Byakuya actually felt much better now that he’d identified Aizen’s ulterior motive, and further, that it had more to do with his own petty recruiting schemes than Byakuya’s family (specifically, Byakuya’s wife).
There was a knock at the office door, and upon being bid entry, a young woman walked in. Although indeed petite and dark-haired, she looked nothing like Hisana, and Byakuya remarked as much.
“Oh, no, this is my Seventh Seat!” Aizen chuckled. “Miss Hinamori, you were friends with Inuzuri Rukia, isn’t that correct?”
The young woman’s eyes had gone wide when she recognized Byakuya. “Er, yes, sir,” she said, her eyes darting between the two captains. “We shared a room while she served here.”
“Do you happen to remember what district she was from?” Aizen asked in an overly friendly manner.
“Oh, sure, it was South 78,” Hinamori replied. “Inuzuri, of course.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know all the outermost ones,” Aizen said in his goofy voice again. “Her paperwork says 48.”
Hinamori’s brow furrowed for a moment and then her face brightened. “She and Abarai had very heavy accents when they first came to the Academy, and used a lot of deep Rukongai language quirks. I don’t remember all of it, but they both used to use ‘shichi’ instead of ‘nana’ for seven, especially when referring to their district. They weren’t very fond of their home district. I wonder if the registrar misheard.”
“Well, there you go!” Aizen said, slapping his hands on his desk. “A very logical explanation!”
Hinamori beamed.
Byakuya found Aizen’s need to be liked by his subordinates very unprofessional and off-putting, but he tried to push it aside. He was trying not to be too eager, but this was probably the best lead he’d had on Hisana’s sister in all the years they had been searching. “Where is she now?” he grumbled.
Aizen turned his doe eyes on his fawning subordinate once more. “I don’t suppose you still keep in touch? She couldn’t have lasted very long there, they must have transferred again?”
Hinamori made a face like she didn’t want to say the answer. “I’m afraid that Kira and I had a bit of a falling out with Abarai and Inuzuri when they left. I haven’t talked to them in a few years, although we still have some mutual friends. As far as I know, though, they’re both still at Squad Eleven. I heard they were doing fairly well there, actually.”
The room seemed to retreat around Byakuya. All he could hear was the blood pounding in his ears and the reverberations of the most horrible words he could possibly think of: Squad Eleven.
---
Byakuya knew it was poor etiquette to visit another captain’s squad when the man was out, but he absolutely could not stomach the idea of discussing the matter of his wife’s sister with the Kenpachi, so he waited until Zaraki and his miniature lieutenant were sent out to go trample half of East Rukongai before visiting.
He also knew that he probably should have said something to Hisana, but he couldn’t bring himself to get his wife’s hopes up, only to dash them, should this turn out to be nothing, like so many leads before it. So, the secret sat in his stomach, heavy and acidic, jostling with the guilt of his breach of etiquette.
“Is there someone here,” he gingerly asked one of the gentlemen on gate duty, “who takes care of administrative matters for the squad?”
The man swiveled his head, which appeared to grow directly from his torso with no need for an intervening neck, to his fellow guardsman. “What?”
The other fellow had been busy trying to remove wax from his ear with a pinky. “WHAT?” he shouted back.
“Paperwork!” Byakuya said a little louder. “Is there an office of some sort? A person who knows what’s going on?”
He supposed he could have asked for the girl, Inuzuri, directly, but he didn’t feel… ready.
“I think he wants Ayasegawa,” the neckless guard hazarded.
“WHAT?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Eventually, the burly gentleman returned. With him was a strangely elegant person with a silky curtain of hair cut severely to chin length and piercing violet eyes. “It really is you,” the lovely man said with a level of disdain that Byakuya almost had to admire. Before he had a chance to get offended, the man dipped into a respectful bow. “Welcome to the Eleventh, Captain Kuchiki. Fifth Seat Ayasegawa at your service. What in Soul Society can I possibly do for you?”
“Apologies for visiting while your captain is abroad,” Byakuya replied, not meaning a word of it.
“Oh, he’ll be very sorry to have missed you,” Ayasegawa frowned. “But I’m sure you could make it up to him later.”
Byakuya’s eye twitched. “Perhaps. I have come to enquire about a young woman whom I am told transferred to your squad three years ago.”
“Does she have a name? That might make it a little easier.”
“Inuzuri Rukia.”
Both of Ayasegawa’s eyebrows shot up, and his mouth curved into a feline grin. “Ninth Seat Inuzuri, of course!”
Byakuya blinked. “Ninth Seat? Captain Aizen told me she was middling at best.”
Ayasegawa's face suddenly went stiff. “She was not well-served at the Fifth, but she has bloomed here most beautifully. Inuzuri is my personal protege, you know.” He stared at Byakuya under hooded eyes. “What is your interest in her? Captain?”
Byakuya took a deep breath through his nose. “My wife is also from Inuzuri. She is trying to locate someone she knew there. It is possible this Rukia is that someone.”
Ayasegawa frowned. “Well, I can introduce you, if you like. I should warn you, though, Rukia doesn’t have a lot of lost love for her hometown.”
“My understanding is that there isn’t much to love about it.”
“Mmm,” Ayasegawa agreed. “Well, come along, let’s go find her.” He concentrated for a moment, clearly trying to find her reiatsu. She must be a woman of some power, after all. “Ugh! She and Abarai are at it again! Every day!”
Byakuya swallowed stiffly.
“Well come on! She’s out at the training fields, clobbering our Tenth Seat, yet again.”
Oh. That kind of “going at it.”
Ayasegawa was shaking his head. “The two of them are literally an unstoppable force and an immovable object.”
“Abarai was also at the Fifth?,” Byakuya probed cautiously. “I was told they were close.”
“Of course they’re close!” Ayasegawa scoffed. “They’re partners!” He thought for a moment. “Abarai is from the 78th as well, you know. If Rukia turns out to not be your girl, perhaps one or the other of them knew the person you’re looking for. Abarai is one of those people who just… knows everyone. He’s the personable half of the pair.”
“‘Partners’?” Byakuya echoed. “What… kind of partners?”
Ayasegawa stared back at him like he was insane. “Partners.”
This path of inquiry clearly wasn’t going to get him anywhere, but wasn’t particularly relevant, either. “I did not think kidou-type zanpakutou were permitted in the Eleventh,” Byakuya sniffed. “Aizen’s records indicated Inuzuri wields an ice-and-snow type.”
Ayasegawa gave a little shrug. “Zanpakutou classifications are arbitrary. Obviously, if she had a bunch of showy blizzard attacks like Matsumoto’s little prodigy friend, it would be a no-go. Rukia can take the blade of her sword down to sub-zero temperatures. She has a weapon-shattering attack and she doesn’t feel pain when she’s fighting. It’s fundamentally no different than a zanpakutou so massive that only the wielder can lift it, or a whip sword that’s controlled with one’s reiatsu.”
This sounded like a quibble to Byakuya, but it’s not like he had come to the Eleventh looking for sound logic.
“She’s incredibly fast, probably the fastest person in the Eleventh, although no one’s really sure what Yachiru’s top speed is,” Ayasegawa continued on. He glanced at Byakuya slyly. “I hear you are very fast.”
“You have heard correctly.”
“That’s why Abarai can’t beat her. If he could land one really hard hit on her, she’d go down, but he’s not fast enough and she’s just too agile. He’s my partner’s protege, you see, so I have to take their little scraps very personally.”
How did this man talk so much?
“What did you say your wife’s relationship was to her again?”
“I did not.”
“Ah, right. Oops, look out!” Ayasegawa abruptly dove to one side as a giant mass of shihakushou and pink hair and what might be a sword came crashing through the split rail fence surrounding the training field.
Byakuya was not in the habit of ducking, so he merely plunged the force of his reiatsu down into the earth like a piton. It was almost, but not entirely sufficient. Byakuya gritted his teeth as he was driven back, dirt piling up behind his heels as he skidded backwards.
When they finally came to a halt, Byakuya looked down at the meaty youth lying at his feet. This must be the infamous Abarai, although he certainly didn’t look like one of Aizen’s usual simpering overachievers. The first thing Byakuya observed was the eye makeup. Most shinigami applied at least a little eyeliner, on grounds of tradition, but few bothered to blacken the entire eye socket, as in the skeletal facepaint of old. The second thing Byakuya noticed were the tattoos painted across his forehead and neck. They were black and spikey and horrible. The third thing was the hair, which was bright pink and spikey, and utterly at odds with the makeup and tattoos. The fourth thing was the big, sheepish grin, which honestly just tied the whole hideous tableau together.
Byakuya glared down at the lout, and in a moment of pettiness, flared his reiatsu to a level that should have sent blood spurting out of his ears.
“I’m afraid that’s not going to do much to someone who has a weekly sparring slot with the Kenpachi,” Ayasegawa commented dryly.
“Sorry ‘bout that!” the lummox cheerfully apologized as he sat up and brushed himself off. He had an Inuzuri accent so thick you could spread it on toast, an accent that Hisana tended to slip into only when she was extremely bent out of shape. Abarai snapped the sword hilt in his hand, and the tangled pile of steel on the ground neatly retracted into something that looked a little more like a weapon, if a weapon were designed by a creative and overly violent child.
“That’s a captain, you buffoon!” another voice rang out, and every muscle in Byakuya’s body locked. “Show your respects!”
The voice clearly affected Abarai as well, because he leapt to his feet, spun, and slammed into a bow. “My apologies, Captain…” his eyes glanced up and abruptly widened, “Kuchiki.”
“Greetings, Captain Kuchiki! Welcome to the Eleventh Division! I apologize very profusely for throwing Tenth Seat Abarai at you!” A second young person had come to join Abarai in his bow, and they both rose in unison, Abarai looking suddenly pale and nervous, his companion looking calm and confident.
So this was Inuzuri Rukia. She had Hisana’s voice. She had Hisana’s stature, and standing next to Abarai made her look positively childlike. She wore the same dreadful eyeblack, but the eyes that shone out of it were a variation on Hisana’s, harder and three shades more purple. The rest of the face was Hisana’s. Her hair was dark, shaved on the sides, arranged into porcupine spikes on top, although one lock hung down stubbornly between her eyes. Her ears glittered with silver piercings. At least she was free of awful tatt-- wait, no. Byakuya had missed them at first, because they were white. Abarai’s tattoos were spiky and sharp, but Inuzuri’s were graceful swirls, like ribbons wrapping lazily down her forearms. Even her reiatsu was like Hisana’s-- but instead of a cool, refreshing wintergreen, Inuzuri’s was the bone-deep cold of winter, a cold so harsh it burnt in the lungs.
There was no doubt.
This atrocious delinquent was his long-lost sister-in-law.
“Can we help you with something, sir?” Inuzuri prompted. “Abarai here’s a big fan of yours.”
“Shut up, Rukia,” Abarai managed through gritted molars.
“Inuzuri Rukia, you died as an infant thirty-six years ago and were sent to the 78th District of South Rukongai, is that correct?” Byakuya said stiffly.
Inuzuri and Abarai both bristled, a pair of mongrels raising their haunches. “That seems about right,” Inuzuri replied slowly. “My early years are a little hazy.”
“My wife, Hisana also died thirty-six years ago and was sent to Inuzuri with her infant sister,” Byakuya went on. “They were separated. My wife has been looking for her sister ever since. You… resemble her greatly.” Byakuya let the implication hang in the air. He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
There was silence for a moment. Then there was the distinct noise of a laugh that, having been held in, had escaped through someone’s nose. “Sorry! Pardon me!” Ayasegawa wheezed, clapping one hand over his mouth and looking away. “Bit of. Dust. In my throat.”
“I told you! I told you, you looked like that picture of her in the Bulletin!” Abarai was hissing.
“I thought you were lying because you thought she was pretty!” Inuzuri hissed back.
“I thought she was pretty because she looks just like you!”
“Now is really not the time, Abarai!” She cleared her throat and tried to stand up a bit taller, a futile effort. “So, uh, so what? What does that mean, if I am her sister? Does that… does that make me noble?”
A higher pitched wheezing came out of Ayasegawa. The level of impudence was extraordinary.
“I would like you to come to my home to meet her, first,” Byakuya put off making any promises. “We can discuss what comes next. As a family.”
“I’m at work right now,” Inuzuri excused.
“Inuzuri, I need to know how this pans out, you can have the afternoon off,” Ayasegawa informed her.
Inuzuri’s confidence seemed to be draining out of her. She took a tiny step closer to Abarai and groped for his hand. “I’m bringing Renji,” she declared.
“Is he compulsory?” Byakuya asked. Inuzuri was absurd looking too, but at least she was small.
“He’s my family,” Inuzuri insisted.
Byakuya’s brows furrowed. This could prove problematic. “In any sort of legally binding sense?”
“We’re engaged!” Inuzuri announced.
“We are?” Abarai goggled.
“I told you I’d marry you if you could ever manage to beat me in a fight! What else would you call that?” Rukia hissed at him in a voice that was still, unfortunately, perfectly audible.
“I’ve been trying every day, and honestly, Rukia, it’s not looking good for me!”
“Can you just go with it for once, instead of arguing with me every time?”
“If you want to leave and never tell anyone you found her,” Ayasegawa put in, “I am very bribable.”
Byakuya was sorely tempted.
---
End note: To further explain the number mix-up, as I understand it “seven” in Japanese can either be said as “nana” or “shichi”. People usually say “nana” for two reasons-- 1) to avoid confusion with 4 (”shi”, although you can also say “yon”) and because “shi” is a homophone for death. Given how shitty the districts in the 70s are, I rather liked the idea that they residents use the “shichi” pronunciation as a bit of gallows humor. (And if you don’t have a rude nickname for the town you grew up in, well, congrats for not growing up somewhere shitty)
I don’t actually speak Japanese, tho, so forgive me if this is all nonsense. 😁
#renji's birthday 2k21#my writing#i loved writing this with my entire being#thank you so much#all i ever want in the way of prompts is cursed suggestions that come out of conversations i have in the bowels of my ao3 comments#strictly speaking this isn't very renji-centric but he does reach new peaks of himbo-dom in this au so i will allow it#the byakuya - yumichika interaction in this fic is so powerful#also a i z e n
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Lost Girl : Found 'Perfect 10′
The one @kmomof4 has been waiting for :)
Our cocktail is the perfect 10 (https://www.crystalmixer.com/the-perfect-ten-recipe-2/) pisang amber liqueur is a green banana liqueur and not really replaceable, but there are a whole bunch of other things you can make with it, so it's worth the investment.
Our Song is 'Cruel to be kind' by Letters To Cleo
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ISbhObKzpx5LKmXH0xe9k?si=030fb09b49ea4183
Buckle up my darlings and please don't hate me.
Thanks be to @jonesfandomfanatic who enables my gin fueled madness.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/36341095/chapters/91027024
#Captain Swan#OUAT FanFiction#OUAT AntiBagelfire Anti Neil#No Seriously#I'm not kidding#heed the tags
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@toshiro-hitsugaya
i like this. in your opinion, who would you have thought/wanted to die in the war?
out of character. First off, thank you for enabling and supporting me. Secondly, as for who I believe should have / could have died in impactful ways during the Winter War for the Gotei 13′s side...
Yumichika dies during the ‘first wave’ Fraccion invasion on Karakura Town, which leads not only Ikkaku into establishing his Bankai / becoming stronger ‘without hiding it anymore’ etc. etc. ... and it makes it make more sense that Ikakku hangs around Squad Ten from then on, because now he has to see this mission through -- but it also gives Kenpachi key motivation to invade Hueco Mundo later on. He won’t take no for an answer, those bastards took down one of his squad members, and this also will show character development on Kenpachi’s side of things who was, when initially introduced to the audience, shown as a ‘you weak fucker, I don’t care about you’ kind of captain towards his own defeated men. Instead of being disappointed in Yumichika, he’d mourn and want closure and recognize that there’s more to being a captain than being the strongest. Yumichika isn’t weak, I’m not basing this on any sort of grudge towards that character, but the way in which the Fraccion invasion worked was an ambush, and Yumichika doesn’t tend to respond immediately with guns blazing since they’re hiding their Kido-esque Zanpakuto’s true ability. Unfortunately, that leads to things quickly escalating. They can put up a good fight, maybe even take out an Arrancar with them, but holding yourself back in a life or death battle (an actual one, since I’m talking about casualties, not Tite’s no-stakes fights) isn’t smart. Yumichika dies beautifully. We get the classic backstory of them meeting Ikakku / joining the Eleventh as their world fades to black. The cliche, but it works. This first death is shoking and impactful. We care, and now are lowkey worried for our other faves.
Other casualties to sprinkle in: Third Seats we haven’t met yet in the series die, lower ranked Shinigami that are introduced as not just background characters, with a pinch of actual background characters getting killed in clusters. It adds more of a dire feeling with lieutenants and captains step in / try and fail to save them. The first wave was, after all, an ambush. The Gotei 13 knew an attack could come, but they had no idea how hard and fast and how strong the Arrancar would be. They were sealed with reiatsu limiters, still following protocol. The traitorous trio could have even briefed them all on the defending Shinigami’s abilities, what to worry about, notable weaknesses. They’re betrayers, make that mean something; I want some Gotei 13 members to panic because they’ve talked about their Zanpakuto to Aizen/Gin/Tousen before, and now they’re enemies. The disadvantages are massive. The paranoia that they could be faced with, at any moment, Aizen/Gin/Tousen too? Make shit tense.
Leading to the invasion on Hueco Mundo, which leads to Rukia almost dying in battle, and Ichigo technically dying twice too. So this particular part of the ‘war’ doesn’t need much more sprucing, except maybe that it puts Chad in the hospital (Nnoitra is ruthless) and perhaps one of Nel’s Fraccion dies (since they’re aligned with Ichigo) -- since the Hueco Mundo invasion was relatively small in terms of original cast members, I can’t say “oh, and Uryu should die” nah nah... but like... Ulquiorra did rip his arm off while in his second released form, which Orihime struggled to heal Ichigo’s wounds from. So maybe lasting damage there. Maybe it takes him a few months to actually get that back with regular healing sessions, even after Ulquiorra fades away.
Now, in retaliation, Aizen locks Hueco Mundo and then proceeds to invade Karakura Town. Or rather, Fake Karakura Town. This should have been a longer battle, spanning across days at least. It’s confirmed that it’s a fake town and thus it can begin to be used like a proper warzone. Have hideouts, take the wounded away from the frontlines, showcase methods like Izuru did in which he utilized the empty buildings during battle, hiding temporarily. Now, I know Tite wanted things to be grand and didn’t want to have to keep drawing buildings in the background / destruction, but listen: making things blow up is awesome, thanks for coming to my TED talk. Anyways, this is where the final Fraccion fight our liuetenant-ranked Shinigami friends, with some captains too. Omaeda dies whilst assisting Soifon. Yamamoto released his Zanpakuto to cage the three traitors without actually trying to harm them at all. Weird baby jail there, but alright. Could’ve made it an attack-cage hybrid. Singe Aizen’s hair a little. But I digress...
The Vizored arrival subsequently leads to Gin cutting down Hiyori. Hiyori dies. Barragan’s ability causes Hachigen’s arm to continue disintegrating. Hachigen dies, despite him still implementing his gifting Kido onto the Espada, causing Barragan to succumb too.
The battles can stay mostly the same, excluding Yumichika’s battle -- replaced by Isane, who did not follow after Unohana into Hueco Mundo (she is instructed to be there to aid in her stead) which allows her to actually... be shown fighting for once, albeit her primary function is to defend and give healing to the injured. Isane can get aid from Momo’s arrival, too. This also helps ease the burden of healing off of solely Izuru, as it makes no sense for Yamamoto to meet Aizen in this battle without proper prep for such conflicts as to send both his main healers off into Hueco Mundo. Unohana would be right to send Isane away. The rest of the Gotei 13 will need her, particularly when Ayon is released.
More potential for background Shinigami to come rushing in to defend any downed Main Cast people injured by the raging beast, a classic show of dedication and loyalty, bravery, by these Shinigami no-names who rush in to defend their superiors knowing full well they’ll die in a blink, but a blink is enough of a chance to give their lieutenant or captain enough time to stand back up and get to safety, led away by another pair of grunts --
Yamamoto can step in all the same, but imagine if Sasakibe wasn’t put in timeout in Soul Society, and was instead able to step in alongside his captain and showcase his Zanpakuto. They obliterate Ayon together, and Yamamoto steps back once more to the sidelines and urges his lieutenant to stretch his legs if he feels so inclined. Aizen Sousuke engages Wonderwiess, who absorbs the flames of Yamamoto’s Zanpakuto, and in their skirmishing -- and Wonderwiess’s eventual self destruction, Sasakibe dies to protect Yamamoto and the entirety of the present Gotei 13 within the blast radius, keeping in line with the canon fact that he, during the Blood War, dies in a similar manner. The explosion settles, and Yamamoto is unscathed but shaken to the core from this loss. He now has motivation to engage with Aizen in battle seriously, no more passiveness, chiding himself for letting such a young brat hurt him so deeply. This is a lesson for him, and now he wants to beat Aizen Sousuke senseless with his own lesson unto him. They fight at length, this could take several days of tireless fighting, or be broken up into bursts and swift disengages. This is the climax of the Winter War, nearing the end, so the earlier stages are the ones which spanned across lengthier periods of time, not this distinct portion.
Optional: Tousen / Gin assistance being an aspect of this battle against the Gotei 13 leader, having the three of them at one point or another all converging onto Yamamoto -- and he puts up a stellar fight, but Aizen’s Kyoka Suigetsu promises that they’ll never get hit with any attack thrown, and their own attacks will most certainly land. Possible parallel of Yamamoto ending up skewered against a wall on some steel reinforcement beam or his own sword in his gut lining up with how Aizen faked his death. Yamamoto is shown still alive, struggling, but elaborately bound there. Aizen wants to move on. Tousen is interrupted by Komamura and Hisagi. Gin takes on Ichigo. Aizen takes on Isshin, Yoruichi, and Urahara.
They battle in their separate ways, Tousen dies first which leads to Gin taking his time with Ichigo, losing interest. Urahara, Yoruichi, and Isshin struggle for a while against an evolving Aizen. Isshin almost dies, he doesn’t just ‘pass out like a rock’ no. Give me blood. Give me stakes when Ichigo steps up to the plate for his Final Getsuga.
Aizen and Gin depart to enter the real Karakura Town. Keigo dies, dissolved by Aizen via him drawing too close / trying to use a Shinigami’s Zanpakuto. Dan Kanonji dies to get the rest of the kids away before Rangiku arrives. Canon proceeds as normal. Gin dies. Ichigo defeats Aizen.
#[ out of character ] masquerade; hide your face#[ headcanon ] fresh snowfall; fading footprints mark his path#[ verse: arrancar arc ] casting away love; catharsis of eternity#was very tempted to put 'aizen dies' and then.#'gin dies'#AWSBENHDJM
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ALL of them for TMTTAL? Pretty please?
Aww, thanks, Gin! Tell Me The Truth (About Love) is definitely one of my fave things to have written, so I'm happy to yap about it!
☼: how i came up with the idea
I think it started with just an off-the-cuff tumblr ficlet that I wrote, not very well thought out- but that eventually became the official meet cute in Chapter 7 of the fic, where Hyeon-min confronts his STALKER. But then I got thinking about it, like, not in a very structured way- just trying to figure out how I'd get the characters to that one scene, and then @rain-hat was the best enabler, so I just started writing and then...just didn't stop for a long time.
☄: what the writing process was like
It was delightful and exhausting! I was definitely on a roll- by that time I think I'd been almost continuously writing in one fandom or the other for like five months straight- which was extraordinarily productive by my standards- but! Hot girl summer! I loved the story and I believed in it, but I think I went through all the usual emotions of "why" and "when will this torture end" and "oh my god this is all crap". I really wouldn't have made it through if not for the wonderful and generous Rain, who cheered and cried and was, I think, at some point at least 50% more invested in the fic than I was (because I was a tired rodent by then).
✄: something i deleted before the final draft
Oh man, I realized just now that I deleted all my drafts in one of my rare instances of laptop-housekeeping, so I'm sorry, I don't have anything to show for this! I didn't delete a lot (that I remember- but that's also because I often edit as I go along!) but there was a back story for Sister Lee as a labour rights activist, and there was a longish office-comedy scene at the start where Hyeon-min goes to check about his leave pay with HR, and I think the hardest was cutting out a small scene about Kang Hyeon-min's mom- I cut it for pacing, and couldn't find a place for it later, but I wish I had managed it somehow. Oh, and there was an entire backstory about Hyeon-min's realizing he's bi, and his first boyfriend.
♡: my favorite part
You're going to laugh, but eventually my favourite parts of this story were NOT the scenes between Hyeon-min and Yeong, it was the Koo-Kang family- they were the gift the story gave me- because I honestly had no idea I was going to write them that way until I wrote the first line: "It’s Koo Seo-ryeong who susses him out first, and if Kang Hyeon-min were a little less incensed with her, he might have paid attention."
I just love all the scenes I wrote for them, and I can't particularly choose, but I think this bit stands out as what (I think) is good characterization work? :D
She'd sat up, suddenly, and climbed over him, picking up her clothes from the floor.
Hand propped on the pillow, he'd watched her dress—not hurried, but efficient.
“I think we’re done here, don’t you?” she'd asked, casually, as she'd belted the wide buckle of her dress.
He had wanted to ask her what he'd done wrong—but then, he’d never known what he’d done right either .
and maybe my fave exchange (technically: text) I've ever written:
Gyeongie got me a Kit-Kat today, he writes, so Song & Kim had better get you out soon or I’m going to have a new favourite Koo sister.
As if, comes the reply, within seconds. I made a man of you, baby, never forget.
☠: something i found challenging
This was definitely the "case fic" part of the story- for someone who grew up on a diet of whoddunits, I just couldn't make it work, and a large part of my tension during writing it was the resultant feeling that I'm just plain dumb? Eventually I had to stop stressing about being *clever * about it, because, after all, it was just a plot device for the things I wanted to get at.
☾: how i thought people would respond to the fic
Lol, I thought a handful of people might enjoy it- or so I hoped- but it was a long, slow burn for a niche pairing in a relatively tiny fandom, so I wasn't expecting many readers. (But I'm thrilled so many people enjoyed it and I sometimes go back and read the comments on it when I'm feeling low. Thanks y'all!)
☽: how people *actually* responded
I think it has a small, but devoted fanbase! *blows kisses at you all *
∞: something i wish i’d done differently
Hmm, you know, this is one of the few fics I've written that I'm largely satisfied with? Well, yes, the case fic part was probably something that should have been better, and I always find my prose utilitarian- but on the whole, I think it came together pretty well!
★: something i’m proud to have accomplished
Idk if there's anything I *have * with this particular fic- personally, I'm just happy if I can get a reader to click through to the next chapter. :D
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can you expand on the symbolism of the red spider lily for your aizen? i know they are associated with the transitory period between life and death in japanese folklore, but i'm not 100% sure that's the only interpretation? i'd love to know your thoughts! hope this isn't intrusive!
random asks | always accepting!
oh no it's not intrusive at all! thank you very much for sending it in! i love to ramble about all the symbolism i can heap onto aizen so you're just enabling me, friend.
so, i very much enjoy piling symoblismm onto aizen. he’s ripe for it. he’s made for it, really -- kubo did so himself. aizen’s canon association is the sun. he’s powerful, more powertul than anything else in the known realm, and he’s capable of a wide range of things. he can be the firestorm of power or he can be the gentle heat warming the earth and causing new growth. he can be blinding or he can be illuminating. and it’s just so much fun to talk about aizen and all the symbolism related to him and the sun. it’s honestly such a good choice for him. the gaze into the sun indeed.
but as far as red spider lilies? well, i’m a sucker for motifs and the red spider lily has some very fun ones.
they are definitely associated with a transitory period, but that’s not all. the higanbana as they’re often known - or manjushage - also represent things such as loss, abandonment, and a parting of ways for lovers - perhaps permanently so. yet, in a more positive context, they also are included in the buddhist scriptures in relation to samsara -- the belief that these flowers can guide a soul towards a new beginning and rebirth. honestly, i adore it for both meanings.
now, as for how i can tie it to aizen? well, canon does a lot of that. aizen’s lost three people he cares about deeply; shinji, gin, and kaname. all three of them are very important to aizen in their own way and damn you kubo for not giving me more with aizen and kaname. well, that’s what i have @njnth for.
but truly, i tend to favor the more tragic meaning of it with aizen. he loves red spider lilies -- but given that he’s part of the flower arrangement club in the seireitei i refuse to believe he was part of only the calligraphy club he would absolutely do flower arranging, he knows what they symbolize and represent. and the shinji i tend to make the most nods to with my personal canon for aizen has a scar on his back that looks like a red spider lily.
he liked them before that point, of course, but that kind of --... helped tip the scales somewhat. but even with that, it also often gave him this quiet sense of dread on certain nights until he understood it for what it meant as he got closer to the divorce. a parting of ways. loss. and in some ways, aizen wounded himself with shinji’s loss when he yanked him down from being his captain and head of the fifth.
the greatest loss for aizen, however, has been gin. a parting of ways, as i said. though @godkilller and i tentatively say that, yes, what we have on aizen and gin finally is indeed a ship, they’re so fucking complicated that there’s no real way to define them. we use the word “ship” for them for the sake of simplicity. so i very much associate the flower with aizen in regards to gin as well if we’re going strictly via canon compliance.
so while the flower is very beautiful -- what it represents and symbolizes too is those things of pain, loss, and abandonment from two men in particular. now, if we’re not speaking of canon by itself--? it can also mean the other side of things. a new beginning. so it’s a very complex flower with those double meanings and nuances.
and aizen is a complicated and nuanced man; thus, it fits him very beautifully.
#anonymous#thank you for letting me ramble about this!#i genuinely want to plant lily of the valley and red spider lilies in my little garden.#but i don't think i'm in the right zone for either flower.#i'd have to really mix in some good dirt and compost into my soil.#it's extremely sandy.#but maybe i'll do it.#i want to do it very badly.#headcanon;#headcanon tag;
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17, 18, 25 and 28 for the yttd asks, most bc i already sorta know how you'll answer and know you'll like to but some i'm genuinely curious about too :3c SCREAM AWAY
THANK YOU FOR ENABLING ME TO SCREAM <3
17. Opinion on Kai Satou?
MY BELOVED MALEWIFE LIGHT OF MY LIFE can you tell i love him? i just think he’s pretty… 🥺 have since his first appearance, idek exactly when he grew on me i think it was maybe in ch2 when you learn more about him from the laptop and the flashbacks with mr chidouin, then i looked back on him some more the next time around and fell HARD. pretty? check. airheaded? check. weird sense of humor? check. the MISSED potential for him to be a big brother/father figure to sara? he’s got it all babey! oh and nankidai’s sketches of him are absolutely hilarious so y’know
18. Opinion on Ranmaru Kageyama?
does this count as my unpopular opinion lmao i just. do not really care about him, he’s fun to mess with and bully just a little! but otherwise he never grew on me, i think it’s a combo of.. he felt like a joe replacement at first, aside from a few humanizing comments from reko/alice (that i really loved actually!!) he doesn’t have much character outside of sara simping, and that HAIR i’m sorry if he had a better hairstyle we may be having an entirely different convo here-
25. Unpopular opinion?
i don’t care about ranmaru uhhHH i’m not sure how unpopular it would be but i prefer logic route! while emotion is more cathartic and emotionally satisfying, it doesn’t stay interesting imo
28. Opinion on Gin Ibushi
YOU MEAN MY SON?? WHOMST I WOULD BOTH DIE AND KILL EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM FOR? why yes i love him and would like to adopt him as my own. so @ gin’s mom who is no doubt a cutie too, hmu— for real though, i love this canonically autistic and sweet as hell little boy, he deserves the world 🥺🥺
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ISLAM 101: Spirituality in Islam: Part 77
Barq (Lightning)
Barq (lightning) is a light that flashes in an initiate during the first steps of the journey toward sainthood. This is the first invitation to those seeking nearness to God. The scholars of truth have related the emergence of lightning to the verse (20:9-10), Has there come to you the tiding of Moses’ experience? He saw a fire and said to his family: “Wait here! I see a fire afar off”, and have concluded that such a flash of light means the be-ginning of Prophethood for Prophets and of sainthood for saints.
The first steps to be taken on the way of truth are belief, righteous deeds and wakefulness. For this reason, lightning can be re-garded as the first step of, not this journey, but rather the spiritual states (of sainthood) that one steps through during the journey.
The difference between lightning and ecstasy is that ecstasy emerges in the home of meeting with the Beloved, while lightning flashes when permission to enter the further sanctuary of the Beloved is given. For this reason, ecstasy sends zeal into the heart, awakening in it a burning desire to meet the Beloved from among the lights of state, urging the petitioning of more and more of His gifts and to rise to higher ranks. As for lightning, it hits the eye like a dazzling light and reminds one that the door of the Beloved is ajar. For those who are to cross the threshold of sainthood, we recall the following couplet of Ibn Farid,[1] a couplet full of excitement:
Has a dazzling lightning flashed from the direction of Mount Sinai,
Or have the veils over the face of Layla[2] been opened part way?
So it is that while living in the dark night of corporeality and bodily desires, Layla began to show herself step by step and to send the hope of union into the hearts, and in the end the nights changed into days in the hearts of those who had been burning for union with her.
Because it signifies permission to enter the way to union, lightning is considered as the start of the journey for the travelers on the way to the Truth. At this setting out, God Almighty makes His servants, who are candidates for sainthood, aware of His offerings and grandeur and of the servants’ own helplessness and poverty, enabling them to awaken to the love of God and to form a sincere relationship with Him, abandoning attachment however slight to transient, decaying, earth-bound things. These are the first gifts of God. In addition, like the favors offered to Moses on Mount Sinai, initiates need to feel some things and change their solitude into company (with the True, Eternal Friend) to better endure the difficulties of the journey and the loneliness. So lightning can be considered as the pleasure of feeling God’s friendliness, and a favor given to counter the difficulties that a traveler is bound to face during the journey.
Lightning has another face, by which an initiate is reminded of God’s omnipresence and given the signal of self-possession. Initiates are warned that entering the Realm of the Holy Presence requires self-possession. Fear and alarm are aroused in their inner world by this warning. So, with its two aspects-one bringing deep pleasure and desire, the other causing fear and alarm-lightning serves to prevent the traveler both from falling into despair and from uttering words of pride incompatible with the rules of Shari’a.
The gifts coming on the wavelength of lightning are the Lord’s favors to the traveler; they are provision for the journey. These favors are the means of innocent delight for the traveler, because of Him Who sent them, and as a result of the recognition of poverty on the part of the one receiving. The traveler acknowledges this favor, as indicated in the verse (10:58), Say: “In the grace and bounty of God and in His mercy-in this, then, let them rejoice.”Reflecting on the Divine favors received, the person confesses that everything is from Him and proclaims: “All praise be to Him,” expressing the feeling of unworthiness for such favors, as Gedai did:
That which I have-I am not worthy of it;
This favor and grace-why are they bestowed on me?
Thereupon the traveler journeying to God bows in humility and thankfulness.
The saying of the pride of humankind, upon him be peace and God’s blessings, I am the master of the children of Adam, yet I am not proud at all,[3] is the crystal in which this reality is reflected, from whichever side it is looked at.
O God! I ask you for good in its entirety, with all its beginning and end and with its visible and invisible, and high ranks in Paradise.
And may Your blessings and peace be on our master Muhammad, the intercessor whose intercession is acceptable to God, and on his family and Companions, all of whom are of great merit and loyalty.
[1] ‘Umar ibn al-Farid (1181-1235) is one of the most venerated poets in Arabic, whose expression of Sufi experiences is regarded as the finest in the Arabic language. He studied for a legal career but abandoned law for a solitary religious life in the Muqattam hills near Cairo. He spent some years in or near Makka, where he met the renowned Sufi al-Suhrawardi. (Trans.)
[2] In Oriental literature, Layla symbolizes the beloved one, and in Sufi literature, the True Beloved One, Who is God Almighty. (Trans.)
[3] Al-Tirmidhi, “Manaqib,” 1; Ibn Maja, “Zuhd,” 37.
#allah#god#islam#muslim#quran#revert#convert#convert islam#revert islam#reverthelp#revert help#revert help team#help#islamhelp#converthelp#prayer#salah#msulimah#reminder#pray#dua#hijab#religion#mohammad#new muslim#new revert#new convert#how to convert to islam#convert to islam#welcome to islam
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(1/3)Now that Hisana is a hollow, does this mean that she doesn’t get to be with Byakuya as the endgame ship? Like there’s no way he could marry a hollow, have kids, a happy ending and all right? That’s so heartbreaking but it also has me leaning towards a gin/hisana thing at the end because way too much has changed for bya/hisa and there’s the added idolization that isn’t there for Gin.
(2/3) Like Gin would remember her as she really was and I think that could be better for her than trying to fight the image of herself? Plus I don’t think the hollow this would be such a big deal for Gin like it would be for Byakuya, cuz of the clan and all that. I guess what I’m saying is from my point of view, her relationship with Byakuya would be a total uphill battle, while it may be more natural and comfortable with Gin, cuz their understanding of each other.
(3/3)Like i think she totally understands his actions toward her and could forgive them. But Byakuya basically forgetting who she was? That’s huge. Actually now that I think of it. Is this going to have a platonic or romantic ending. (Or is that spoilers???) Thanks for indulging my questions and musings! Love your work!
~~
Anon, you’re totally right that in order for a ByaHisa endgame to work, there would need to be a LOT of effort put in on both ends. It’s definitely not as simple as ‘oh hey you’re alive, that’s great, let’s pick up where we left off.’ Even setting aside the whole hollow thing (which I won’t address, because spoilers), 100 years is...a damn long time. And even more than that, Byakuya has had the time and the opportunity to grow up, gain life experience, and mature as a person. Hisana on the other hand has spent the past century a.) making sure she doesn’t die and b.) piecing together all her memories like the world’s shittiest, most complicated puzzle to figure out who she used to be (and it’s not just putting together a puzzle with an impossible number of pieces, it’s putting together the puzzle of two entirely different lifetimes that are interspersed with random bits of memory from a hundred thousand other deceased souls, and figuring out which pieces belong). She hasn’t really had much time for personal growth, so while Byakuya’s changed a lot over the past century, that’s...less true for Hisana.
And then there’s the question of ‘remembering Hisana as who she actually was.’ I think saying he basically ‘forgot her’ is a bit too harsh but did he sugarcoat his memories of her? Absolutely. I mean even when they were together, he was seeing her through rose-tinted glasses-- he was a teenage boy, she was his first love, and she glowed... so bright, of course he was going to put her on a slight pedestal. And she looked at him the same way, to the point that she was willing to excuse his coldness towards Rukia when she was in a coma. Think about that. Yukimura Hisana was willing to forgive his complete and utter failure to be a source of support when Rukia needed it most. And why? Because it was so much easier to blame herself than him. I firmly believe that had their roles been reversed, she would have looked back on her memories of Byakuya with just as much sugarcoating, if not more so.
And yet the fact that their relationship does have issues (and fairly significant ones) and is a constant uphill battle and is something they’ve fought for and continue fighting for every step of the way is one of my favorite things about it. Nothing about their relationship is easy but when they’re together, it feels easy. And there’s something so romantic about him falling for her no matter the circumstance-- falling for her as both a teenager and as an adult, choosing her despite her lack of status and wealth, loving her no matter what form she takes, be it civilian or shinigami or hollow.
But then you’re also right that in some ways, a Gin/Hisana relationship would feel more natural. The thing about them is, their relationship started with neither of them giving a shit about the other’s opinion and that’s enabled them to be much more honest with each other. Also the whole enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trope is a MAJOR weakness of mine, so. Yeah.
Finally, there’s the third possibility you mentioned-- that she ends up with neither of them romantically and the ending is completely platonic. And that’s also something I’ve seriously considered, because while I can support the whole “happy ending = protagonist + main love interest get together in the end and have 3 kids and a puppy and live happily ever after” thing, I am not a fan of the idea that a happy ending can only equal that. And, maybe because there’s such a scarcity of it, the happy endings that don’t involve romance at all tend to be the most meaningful for me.
Bottom line is, I’ve considered all three options (so all of them are a possibility) but I’m still deciding on which one I like best/what feels most right to me.
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