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maccreadysbaby · 2 days

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A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: none

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

the one chapter in this whole fic where bentley makes a rational decision

part thirty-nine

❝ UNLOVABLE ❞

TUESDAY — SEPTEMBER 8 — 11:07 AM

BENTLEY WOKE UP SO DISORIENTED AND FUZZY AND CONFUSED THAT HE JUST STARTED CRYING.

There were bright white lights in his face, and he wasn’t in his bed anymore, he was somewhere else. There were people moving around him, but he didn’t pay attention long enough to decide who, only long enough to decide he was terrified and wanted Bruce. What time was it? No idea. What day was it? No idea. Was he at the hospital? Was something really wrong with him?

“Whoa, hey… hey there, chum. You’re okay,”

Bentley relished in the familiar voice, peeling his heavy, kind of sticky, newly-wet eyes open to glance around the room. It took a solid minute for his brain to catch up to his vision, but when it did, he realized he was in the cave, and Bruce was sitting right next to the bed he was laying in.

He tried to bring his hands up to hide his crying eyes, but paused mid-movement when he realized he was attached to a drip.The movement also seemed to trigger a wave of soreness that washed through his whole body.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay. Just relax. You’re here, with me, in the cave. Everything’s okay,” Bruce spoke in his typical level, gentle tone, one of his hands landing on Bentley’s forehead like it always seemed to. Though, for some reason, he looked… really tired. Worn down.

Bentley breathed in and out shakily, gathering his bearings, trying to stop crying for no reason for the five millionth time in his short life. (Seriously, he had to be setting a record at this point.) Instead, he relaxed back down onto the bed and let Bruce card his fingers through his hair.

“Where’s… Nico?” Was the first thing he managed to whisper.

Bruce got a strange look on his face, before he replied: “Bentley… you’ve been down here for five days. Nico and Asten went home. It’s Tuesday.”

Bentley blinked a few times. It was Tuesday? He had been… he had been completely out of it for five whole days?

He looked around the empty room warily. “What? What happened?”

Bruce sighed softly, brushing his opposite hand through his own hair. “Someones been fiddling with your DNA, and it made you pretty sick.”

Oh. Right. Superpowers. Bentley looked down at his own feet under the cottony blanket, exhaling subtly.

“Bentley,”

He looked back up at Bruce, who had a little smile on his face.

“I will never, ever, ever get rid of you,” He reassured, sighing lightly. “I promise.”

Bentley looked down at his hands, exhaling shakily before he muttered: “My… my father told me… he never loved me. And, uh, that he never would.”

Bruce stayed silent for a moment.

Bentley breathed in and out. It was now or never, wasn’t it? The hard questions had to be asked so things could be fixed, right? “Will you tell me the truth?”

“Of course, bud. Anything,”

Bentley twiddled his fingers, purposefully keeping his eyes away from Bruce when he whispered: “Why is it so hard for people to love me?”

Bruce’s blue eyes grew grim, and he scooted his chair closer to the bed with a squeak. “Bentley Whittaker, you are not hard to love. In fact, you’re almost impossible not to love.”

Bentley looked away, breathing in to force away the urge to cry. “Then why doesn’t he love me?”

Bruce sighed lightly. “That’s his own choice, his own problem. It has nothing to do with you. You are an incredible, brave, amazing kid, Bentley, and I loved you the very first day Dick brought you to me.”

A moment of silence passed.

“Hey,” Bruce continued, his hand moving through Bentley’s hair again, and the child finally looked over at him with slightly glassy eyes. “You could set the whole world on fire and I’d still tell everybody you’re mine.”

Bentley looked down at his feet, blinking rapidly as his eyes began to burn. Did that mean that maybe Bruce wouldn’t hate him for all the things he did? And he wouldn’t get rid of him? And he could stay and keep living with them even though he was an emotional, irrational trainwreck of a child?

Bentley sniffled. “I’m…” Cold? Lonely? Tired of lying? “Can you hold me?”

In one smooth movement, minding the IV tubes, Bentley was with Bruce in the chair.

A few moments of silence passed.

“I wish you were my father,”

A few beats came and went, and Bruce kissed Bentley’s hair.

“I am,”

Oh, God — there it was. The one statement that utterly broke Bentley. That changed something inside of him just like his real father’s statement had. Something cracked. Something moved.

And so Bentley did what Bentley had been so determined not to do for literal weeks.

“You promise you won’t hate me?” He muttered into Bruce’s shirt, making himself small there, tucking his knees up.

“I could never hate you, Bentley,”

Bentley breathed in and out. Once. Twice. Three times. Maybe it really was the right time. Maybe he really should do it — just get it over with. Nico would’ve done it. It was good. It would make everything better, right? Right?

“I wasn’t kidnapped,” Is what he started out with, but then backtracked, because that was not a great place to start. “I mean, no, I was. I was. But, the… uh… the night you guys thought I went missing I actually… uh… I ran away.”

Bruce said nothing, but didn’t make a disapproving sound or expression, either. So Bentley continued.

“I guess… uh… I guess it really started back when… right before school. Or right after, I can’t remember. Something was wrong with Damian. And I tried to talk to him but he got mad…” Bentley cleared his throat. “He told me I wasn’t worthy enough to be a Wayne. That I didn’t belong here and you only had me because you felt bad for me.”

At that, Bruce let out a little sigh.

“I think he was kind of sad, I dunno… I know he didn’t really want to hurt me. I think. But he did anyways,” Bentley shook his head. “And I started looking at everybody, at Dick and Jason and Tim and Damian and Cass and Steph and Duke and… Y’know. They’re all superheroes. Really cool superheroes. And a bunch of them were Robin, and I obviously can’t be Robin, but… I… I had to do something, you know? I wanted to be good enough. So… uh… Asten and Nico and I decided that… uh… we were going to go after the Secret Keeper. Because I could prove that I belonged here if I caught a villain like you guys do.”

“So you left, in pursuit of her?” Bruce inquired gently.

Bentley nodded. “Yeah. Asten found some connections between the missing people and the Areopagus and Dr. Keene, my teacher, and found this cabin in the woods that he owned that a bunch of the victims had stayed in, so we went to check it out. Which… sounds pretty random and dumb, now, I guess…”

Silence passed.

“Uh… he found all that out by finding all the locations of where the people went missing and… uh… well. We kinda… stole Dr. Keene’s phone to get to the cabin schedules and stuff…” Bentley fiddled with his fingers awkwardly. “I know it was bad… but we wanted to help. So, uh, we met up at Nico’s house and started going to the cabin.”

Bentley exhaled heavily. Telling the truth felt strangely… good.

“We walked for a long time, and stopped by Asten’s house in Crime Alley for him to get something, and that was when Nico told me he was adopted and when I realized he had superpowers. Real ones — he has superspeed. And, well, that didn’t go over so well. He was… is really struggling with it. But, uh, anyways, Asten came back and then the Secret Keeper knocked me out and showed me all kinds of futures. Ones where I die, where I work with my father, where I was Robin… and she told me my choice to go to the cabin would lock me in and out of some. So I chose to keep going.”

Bruce still didn’t respond, keeping the door open for Bentley to continue.

“We broke into the cabin. And, uh, it looked pretty normal… at first. And then we found a trapdoor that led to the basement. Asten told me it was called a morgue,” Bentley shivered at the thought. “We opened up one of the fridges and… it was scary. I had an anxiety attack. Nico threw up in the floor. But Asten was fine, I think, and there was this computer down there that had tons of videos on it. Of our teacher, Dr. Keene, working in these labs, turning normal people into metahumans. The first one he did was his own daughter, Charlie Reins… who became The Secret Keeper. And he mind controls them all.”

Bruce exhaled.

“A bunch of the missing kids were in those videos, like Titus Lancaster and Davis Henderson. And we learned that… that… Dr. Keene was… is working for… my father. Trying to destroy you. That’s why the Secret Keeper has been attacking us. Because of me…” Bentley inhaled sharply. “Anyways, we were down there and we heard someone coming, so… we… hid in some of the fridges. Which wasn’t fun. I don’t remember much from then because I was freaking out. We ran out of the cabin and everyone was scared and Asten got his foot stuck in a bear trap and we were trying to help him and then there was a grenade and we all got knocked out.”

Bentley exhaled, sort of shaky, cringing at himself. Word vomiting wasn’t usually something people liked, but Bruce didn’t seem to mind.

“And I woke up in a warehouse, but I wasn’t actually there because it was just the Secret Keeper. I saw Jason die, and it… was really scary. I… I saw you. And I begged you to bring me home but it wasn’t really you…” Bentley fought back another round of stinging in his eyes and forced himself to get it together. “Then I woke up. Davis Henderson, the waiter that got knocked out at that bar because of me, he was there and he got me out of the machine before they could do mind control, he said.”

Bruce nodded slightly. “I remember hearing about Davis.”

“Yeah. He has to wear these super huge metal gloves now, because he kills anything he touches. His mind control was broken. So he got me out, and then we went to get Nico and Asten. And I got shot. Which was scary. And… he told us about Titus Lancaster, who can teleport, and he was going to have surgery to get new mind control so he didn’t have it then. And Davis told us to find him and that he could teleport us out,” He explained. “So we ran for a while. Lots of people were killed. Davis killed a lot of bad guys that were shooting at us, and… Nico did, too, but he didn’t mean to. He has air powers now that can make you choke.”

Bruce hummed.

“But when we were running out the Secret Keeper showed up. So Davis told us to run and he fought her. I’m not sure what happened but I hope he’s okay. He saved me…” Bentley cleared his throat. “But we found Titus, who was really scared, and he teleported us to the manor. And Asten told us not to tell anyone so I… didn’t. And you know everything that’s happened since I got home. Oh — except… I went to see my father to try and convince him to stop, but he said no. And that if I told anybody anything I knew he’d use a plan b that would destroy all of Gotham. But I don’t know what it is. Oh, and Asten has fire powers. And… I guess that’s everything you didn’t know.”

Bentley sighed and looked up at Bruce, who looked near-emotionless, processing all of the information he’d just had dumped in his lap.

“I… I know those things were bad, and that I should’ve told you, and that I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have done, but please, please, please don’t get rid of me. I’ll be better — I won’t do anything bad again. Please don’t-“

“Bentley,”

The Bentley in question was starting to cry again. “Please don’t get rid of me, Bruce. I promise I’ll be better. I promise. You can get me in trouble and yell at me and lock me up or hit me like my dad used to, but please just don’t get rid of me.”

“Bentley. Look at me please,”

Begrudgingly, Bentley looked up, his brown, watery eyes meeting Bruce’s icy blue ones.

“Please don’t get rid of me. I love you,”

Bruce breathed in and out. “Here’s what I have to say, okay? You’re right. Some of those things you did were risky, reckless, dangerous, and wrong, and you were impressively, almost stupidly brave to do them. All because you want to be loved and accepted and validated.”

Bentley looked down, wiping at his furiously leaking eyes with his non-dripped hand.

“Do you want to know what one of the most defining traits of a Wayne is?” Bruce questioned, glancing down at Bentley with a smile that threw the child for a loop. “Being impressively and stupidly brave, and doing things that are risky, reckless, dangerous, and wrong, all because you want to be loved and accepted and validated.”

Bentley said nothing.

“Every single person in this family, Bentley, has done something like this. Even me. Some of us more than once. And while I can’t say I’m thrilled about what you did or what you went through… You survived, you told me the truth, and you were trying to do the right thing. And, I’d have to say, all things considered, I’m pretty proud of that,” Bruce stated with a smile. “I am proud of you, Bentley. And I love you. So. Much. You’re pretty much stuck with me whether you like it or not.”

Bentley had never felt more relieved in his entire short life. Bruce loved him, and he wasn’t going to get rid of him, and he wasn’t mad at him… what kind of fever dream was this? How was it going just like Bentley hoped it would?

“Hey, bud, I want to ask you something. And I want you to be totally, completely honest, okay? Your answer needs to be yours and only yours,”

Bentley nodded slightly, still wiping at his eyes.

Bruce breathed in deep, running a hand over the child’s head with this fond gleam in his eyes that before now, Bentley could have only dreamed of.

“You’ve been living here for almost a year. Fostering for over half of it,” Bruce exhaled. “I think this is as good of a time as any to ask… how do you feel about being adopted, like Dick, Jason, and Tim?”

Bentley freaking lost his mind.

(In the arms of his dad?)

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

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@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @flyrobinflyy @skylathescholar @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun @xiaonothere @beatyoutothatusernameloser

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willsilvertongue · 1 year

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“Being cheerful starts now, Will thought as hard as he could, but it was like trying to hold a fighting wolf still in his arms when it wanted to claw at his face and tear out his throat; nevertheless, he did it, and he thought no one could see the effort it cost him.”

#hdmedit #hisdarkmaterialsedit #his dark materials #will x lyra #lyra x will #silverparry #cinemapix #fantasyedit #hdmsource #userlolo #userdragonz #eleanoracrain #userteresa #hdm spoilers #my edits #this scene deserves better colours but the things we are forced to do when each shot has a different look to it </3 #sorry but i am still here #will who is usually so disciplined and restrained #who has always been brave enough to do the hard thing #who just cannot help himself from calling out to lyra one last time #voice trembling and desperate #the way lyra responds as if she’d been waiting to hear that #as if she had been expecting it #they both know what it means to say each other’s name one last time #and it drives me nuts that it’s not a confession or plea that they leave each other with #although them saying their names the way they do very much acts as that here #anyway i giffed this so that no one else has to be subjected to the poor over-analysis i leave in the tags #also this scene makes me unwell and i love to feel unwell about this show

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headkiss · 5 months

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something more

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem!bau!reader

summary: you and aaron are friends with feelings more obvious than you think. or: 5 times the team suspects you and hotch are dating +1 time they know it.

word count: 6.6k

warnings: friends to lovers, the team being a little nosy, pining idiots!!!, probably inaccurate descriptions of bau jobs (for the plot!), a very small injury, a birthday, a first kiss, and fluff!

a/n: hiii this one has been a long time coming so thank you guys for being so patient with me!!! and special thanks to the anon who requested this one! i hope u guys enjoy it and please please let me know what you think <3 ily

༄

Aaron Hotchner was never someone you thought you could be this close to.

Coming to the BAU, you’d been intimidated more than anything. As Unit Chief, he’s got a reputation that’s hard to ignore. Professional, brave, cold when he has to be. His success and talent were undeniable, and all you wanted to do was prove that you belonged there, too.

Then, you really met him, and he surprised you in a way you hadn’t expected. Hotch was kind right off the bat, welcoming you to the team with a smile that felt like some sort of prize.

He was an excellent boss. Understanding and protective, quick to defend anyone on the team like they were his own family. Except, he was so much more than just your boss.

Now, you’d call him your closest friend, someone who’s number you’d call if you were in trouble. He’s your closest friend and yet you feel so much more for him.

It started slow, a friendship blooming the way a plant does with just enough sunlight. It was a shared smile here, a nudge of the shoulder there. It grew to be a seat next to him reserved for you on every plane ride.

Today, it’s eating lunch with him in his office.

Aaron usually works through lunch, more eager to get things done than he is to worry about skipping a meal. Somehow, with two tupperware containers in your hand and a sweet smile, you’d managed to get him to take a break.

“Whatcha doing?” You’d asked.

Hotch looked up from his paperwork then, dropping his pen because you were in his doorway. “You know, Unit Chief business. Reports.”

“Sounds like you have time for lunch, then.” You set the containers down on his desk, making sure to avoid the papers he’d just been working on.

“I should really get this done-”

“Hotch,” you stopped him, “you and I both know that you’re always ahead on this stuff because you stay here so late. Lunch won’t set you back.”

With a shake of his head and the biting back of a smile, a simple twitch at the corners of his mouth, Aaron agreed and stacked his paperwork off to the side.

That’s how you’ve ended up in the chair that’s usually on the opposite side of his desk, only now it’s tugged to be next to his. Your knees touch every so often when one of you shifts, and the warmth stays with you even when the contact is gone.

“Sorry it’s nothing fancy,” you say as he opens the container you brought for him.

“Don’t apologize. It’s great.” Hotch has a way of saying things that make them sound true, no matter how few words he uses, so you accept it.

“Okay, good!” There’s a small silence, a lull as you both take your first bites. “Can I help with anything?”

Aaron looks from the paperwork to your face, your eyes already on his. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” you reassure him. “I think sometimes you forget that you aren’t the only one who can do this stuff.”

He knocks his knee against yours. Purposeful this time. A silent ‘thank you.’

“Like you said, I’m ahead anyways. I’ve got it.”

“Come on, Hotch. I’m already done with my report from our last case. I’ve got time. Let me help.”

He’s always been reluctant to accept help, to ask for it, but when you’re asking so sweetly, when it’ll give him an excuse to spend more time with you, it’s hard for Aaron to say no.

“Alright. You help for an hour, that’s it.”

You grin at him, like his acceptance of your offer was some kind of gift he’d given you. Your nose crinkles a little with it, and his hand flexes in his lap, like he’s fighting not to reach out to you.

“Okay, put me to work, boss.”

“We just started lunch,” he says, a little chuckle puffing out.

“Have you ever heard of multitasking, Agent Hotchner?”

Aaron laughs, shaking his head as he reaches for one of the files in the stack he’d made and hands it to you. He’d call everyone at the BAU a friend, but there’s something different, something more about how he’d describe you.

He’s grown closer to you than he usually lets himself get to people, like you’re the only one with the right tools to break through walls he’s put up. You see each other outside of work (on the rare days you aren’t working), and still, he feels like it’s never long enough.

Hotch briefly wonders if he could just move your desk into his office. He shakes off the thought and what it might mean.

Head bent, you’re now focused on the work he gave you, and Aaron takes the chance to admire you. His eyes flick over your profile, the light hitting your cheeks, the flutter of your eyelashes every time you blink.

As if you could feel his gaze on you, you turn towards him and smile—a small, closed-mouth smile, but a smile all the same—before turning your attention back to the page.

When you take a pause and take another bite of your lunch, a small drop of sauce lands on your thigh. “Oh, shit.”

Aaron grabs a tissue from the box on his desk, wrapping it over his fingertip before wiping the small spot from your leg, his finger a spark against you even through your pants.

“Good thing you wore black,” he says, tossing the tissue in the garbage. His hand, however, stays on your leg, and though the touch is light the weight of it feels the opposite. Heavy, huge.

“Good thing you’re here to clean up after me, more like.”

Your eyes meet, and you share a smile with Hotch the way you often do. Mid-conversation, across a room, it’s a smile you sort of reserve for each other.

In the main office below, Derek, Spencer, and JJ stand together, watching the interaction through the window into Hotch’s office. You and Aaron seem to be in your own bubble, completely unaware of your small audience.

“They’ve gotta be together,” Derek is the first to speak, waving a hand towards the office where you and Hotch are talking. “I mean, come on.”

“I don’t know,” JJ shrugs, “they both seem kinda clueless.”

“We probably shouldn’t speculate about them,” Spencer, always the sweetheart, says. “But, statistically, Hotch never eats lunch. Just saying.”

JJ pats Reid on the shoulder, huffing out a laugh before she heads back to her desk.

You stay in Aaron’s office much longer than an hour that day.

Punctuality is important in the BAU. Really, if you’re not early, you’re late. You’ve always got to be ready, wheels up in ten, or five.

You suppose that doesn’t really apply to outside-of-the-office parties at Garcia’s.

It’s rare that you’re all available at the same time, from late nights at the bureau to families, it’s tough to make your schedules line up when you aren’t working, which is why whenever she can, Penelope likes to host drinks for the team.

You’re on your way there now, or, you should be. Instead, you’re getting ready in your bedroom while Aaron waits in your living room.

Hotch has offered to drive you to these things every time, and with every offer, comes your easy answer of ‘yes.’ He’d been outside in his car for five minutes before he decided to call, because you’re usually in his passenger seat within seconds of him pulling over by your building.

The ringing of your phone had your eyes blinking open, squinted against the sudden brightness of your TV. You’d accidentally fallen asleep, and, still disoriented, picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, everything okay?” It’s Aaron’s voice on the other line, and you pull your phone away for a second to check the time before sitting up quickly.

“Shit, Hotch, I must’ve fallen asleep. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, I can wait for you.” He’d wait as long as you need, he thinks. The thought passes through like a leaf blown in the wind, freely, randomly.

“Have you been waiting long?” You ask, fingers tugging at a loose thread in your pants.

“No, don’t worry. Barely five minutes.”

And he still wanted to check on you.

“Why don’t you come in? My couch is probably more comfortable than your car, right?”

“You sure?” He checks, like he hasn’t been to your place before, like you’d ever not want him there.

“Get in here, Hotchner.”

You hung up before he could reply, and he laughed to himself in his car before shutting it off and doing exactly what you’d told him.

So, now, you’re rushing to find an outfit while Aaron sits on your couch by himself.

Even though he’s in the next room, you can feel his presence around you, the steady security he gives you, the warmth that seeps out of him even when he tries to hide it.

You settle on a knitted sweater, a skirt, and some tights, which you realize as you tug them on aren't the speediest of options, but it’s too late to change your mind now. With your hair figured out and the mascara that had smudged during your nap fixed, you step back out into the living room.

Aaron made himself at home while you were gone (he often feels that way with you, at home), sitting on your couch with his arms spread across the back. He looks better than he should there, suit stretched across his shoulders, and you have to clear your throat to snap yourself out of it.

“Okay, sorry again for the delay. I’m ready to go.”

He looks up as soon as you walk in, eyes skimming over your legs and the tights wrapped around them, your waist, up your neck. His gaze lands on your eyes the way it often does, like magnets.

He shakes his head, “don’t be sorry. We’ll be what they call ‘fashionably late.’”

You laugh, because who would’ve thought that the words ‘fashionably late’ would ever come out of Aaron Hotchner’s mouth.

“Who taught you that one, huh?”

“I like to keep my sources anonymous.”

“Well okay, then. Let’s go be fashionably late, Hotch.”

He lets you lead the way to the car, only jogging up ahead to open your door before you can reach it yourself.

During the drive to Penelope’s, you take control of the music with little objection from Aaron, and when it gets to a song you know he likes, you sing along, encouraging him to do the same.

“Let’s hear it, Agent Hotchner.” You hold your fist out like there’s a microphone in it, looking at him with a grin on your face.

“I can't sing.” Aaron’s fighting off a smile, because you’re sitting beside him, not too shy to sing along, being all cute and, briefly, he thinks about reaching out and grabbing your hand and holding on.

“Sure you can! Everyone can sing, come on.” You unfurl your faux microphone-holding fist and tug on the knot of his tie, “loosen up a little.”

And, because you have some way of convincing him of things—first lunch, now this—he humors you by joining in for one chorus of the song. When your eyes light up a little, and your grin only widens, he can’t bring himself to be too concerned of how bad he probably sounds.

By the time you’re at Garcia’s door you’re a solid hour late, yet you and Aaron walk up to the door with matching smiles all the same.

“I’m getting you to do that every time I hear that song now, I hope you know.”

“That was a one time special,” he says. He reaches over your shoulder to knock on the door. His hand brushes against you, featherlight and quick, a crackle over your skin.

On the other side, Morgan says, “must be the lovebirds” when he hears the sound.

You and Aaron don’t hear him, only broken out of your little shared bubble when Penelope opens the door. “There you guys are! I made your drinks but the ice might be melted by now. You know, ‘cause you’re late.”

You know this is directed towards you more than it is Hotch, because Garcia’s a little intimidated by him still. You also know she’s only joking, and greet her with a hug before stepping in.

Aaron isn’t far behind you, though at these things, he never is.

You’re met with warm greetings from the team when you walk in, and you chat for a bit, but it isn’t long before things split off into smaller conversations. They all know that Aaron drives you to these things, and, as profilers, they’re also all able to see the way you look at each other, the way the knot of his tie sits lower than usual.

In the corner, Emily leans over to Derek, saying, “usually it takes at least two drinks for Hotch’s tie to look like that.”

“I told you, they’re together,” Derek shrugs.

“I don’t think they know that,” Emily replies.

This time, Aaron hears them, and he can’t help but look towards you in the room the rest of the night, thinking and thinking and thinking.

He ends up deciding that they might have a point. That maybe, that shift in his heartbeat when you’re around isn’t nothing, isn’t just friends.

The flight home from a case always feels the longest.

On the way there, you’re packing every hour with information about what’s going on, talking to Garcia, reading police reports. You’re all on edge, eager to get out there and help and do your jobs,

Then, on the way home, with another case solved, all you’re thinking about is going home, sleeping in your own bed, and time seems to go slower.

If your name happens to be Aaron Hotchner, you’d spend the plane ride home doing paperwork that actually can wait.

You and Aaron sit next to each other on pretty much every flight, though the seats have never been assigned. It’s an unspoken thing, like your names are written on the fabric of the same two seats on the jet and that’s just the way it is.

The first time was early on in your time on the team. It was a tough case for you, and Hotch seemed to know it without you having to say anything, so, when you got on the jet to come home, he smiled that small, twitch of his lips smile at you and nodded at the seat next to him. You’ve been sitting there ever since.

Today, your flight is on the shorter side, but feels long the way it always does. Trying to keep yourself occupied, you pull out your earbuds and shuffle your playlist, hoping that the songs will speed things up.

“Sick of me already?” Hotch speaks up when he notices your headphones.

You tilt your head to look at him. He looks tired, the way you’re sure you do, too, but never any less handsome. His eyes are soft where they meet yours, paired with a hint of a smile that you’re always able to catch.

“Sick of you, Hotch? Never.” You nod at the file he has open on the small table, “just didn’t want to distract you.”

“I thought you enjoyed distracting me. Always telling me I work too much.”

“‘Cause it’s true,” you say. “That doesn’t mean you listen.”

“I listen to you more than I listen to most people.” Aaron’s voice is gentle when he says it, the words sinking in and melting you just a little, sugary sweet. It could mean absolutely nothing, but with the way he keeps his eyes steady on yours, you don’t think it does.

“Listen to this, then,” you hand him one of your earbuds, and his fingers brush yours when he takes it from you. “But you can’t make fun of me if a musical soundtrack comes on, okay?”

“Okay,” he huffs a small laugh, and you feel a little brighter. “I promise.”

You’re aware of the team having their own conversations in the rows in front of you and Hotch, but you can’t bring yourself to join in, because you and Aaron are sharing your earbuds and his head is bent just a little closer to yours. It’s delicate, and you’ll do your best not to break it.

You talk a little longer, until it naturally fizzles out and Hotch is back to working on his files and you’re bobbing your head along to your songs. Only now, Aaron sits closer to you, his arm against yours.

He’s not sure what to do with his newfound realization that his feelings for you run far deeper than friendship. All Aaron knows is that he likes the feeling of you beside him, and that he’s planning on keeping you there as long as you’ll let him.

It’s quiet between the two of you aside from your occasional ‘this is a good one,’ and his hum of acknowledgement.

Eventually, you’re relaxed enough that your eyes grow heavy, the sleep you’ve been lacking suddenly catching up to you, and when you hit a patch of slower songs you’re fighting to stay awake.

When your head lulls onto Hotch’s shoulder, you jerk your head up, “sorry, Aaron.”

His chest does something funny. A jump. It’s not often you call him Aaron, and he’d listen to the sound of his name on your lips on a loop if he could. Because he can’t help himself, he scooches himself even closer to you.

He decides to call you something different, too, saying, “it’s alright, honey.”

You’re too sleepy to really read into that one, all you feel is the flutter in your stomach and Aaron’s hand on your head, gently guiding it to his shoulder.

When he’s sure you’re asleep, Hotch looks away from his files and over to you. Your cheek is squished against his shoulder, your lashes fanned shut. He thinks you’re the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.

Aaron doesn’t even feel the smile that spreads over his face as he reaches up and pushes your hair away from your face. He’s completely unaware of the eyes that catch him, far too focused on you.

Emily turned around when she realized she hadn’t heard your voice in a bit, and she did it just in time to catch Hotch’s movement. Instead of saying something, she turns back around and shakes her head to herself.

Hopeless, she thinks.

Sleep doesn’t come so easily with this job, with the things you see, so Aaron can’t help but try and stay steady for you, and if that leads to him letting his eyes close and resting his head on yours, then so be it.

It’s not until the end of the flight that the team checks on the two of you. As everyone stands and grabs their go bags, they notice the two of you, asleep next to each other, earbud wires hanging between you.

“Should we wake them up?” JJ asks.

“Hotch doesn’t get enough sleep as it is,” Spencer chimes in. “Neither does she, actually.”

Of course, Derek finishes with, “let’s leave the lovebirds to it,” before the team gets off the plane.

It’s only about twenty minutes later that Aaron does wake up, but he feels more well-rested than he has in a while, even with the kink in his neck.

Blinking his eyes open, he’s met with an empty jet and the comforting weight of your head on his shoulder. “Shit,” he sighs.

He debates waking you, ultimately deciding that you’d probably rather sleep in your bed rather than the seat of the BAU’s jet. Reaching up, he pulls your earbuds away, setting them on the table. With a brush of his fingertips to your cheek, he coaxed you awake.

“Hey, honey,” Aaron’s nearly whispering, like he’s afraid to scare you. Or, maybe, he’s convinced that if he moves too quickly, too loudly, this whole thing will fade away as if he’d been dreaming. “Wake up, we’re home.”

“Hm?” You grumble, scrunching your nose when he brushes your cheek again.

“We fell asleep, but we landed.”

“Oh, god.” You sit up properly, lifting your head. “I’m sorry, Aaron. Hotch.”

“Aaron is good,” he eases you. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”

Sleep-hazed, or maybe just happy that he can be Aaron to you, you agree easily and take his hand when he offers it, letting him lead you to his car.

You’ve been spending more time at Aaron’s ever since that flight. In the car, he’d convinced you to stay over at his place in the guest room, since it was closer. With your go bag already in his car and heavy, sleepy eyes, it was hard for you to do anything but agree.

It’s another slice of his life that he’s let you see, and you can’t help but feel like it means something, like you’re stepping further and further away from being coworkers who are friends and towards something different. Something more.

That flight feels like the catalyst, the thing that caused things to shift into what they are now.

Aaron’s couch is much more comfortable than yours, and though you’ve yet to spend the night again, you’re sitting there with him at almost every chance. The time off you get is rare, and Aaron wanting to spend it with you sends flutters to your stomach whenever you think about it.

You feel like you know him better, getting to see his space, how he chose to decorate, what colors he likes, which ones he doesn’t. You also know what temperature he likes to set his thermostat.

“Do you enjoy living in a refrigerator?” You ask, hands tucked into your sleeves. “Just wondering.”

Aaron laughs, a small huff, “I think you just run cold, honey.”

He’s been calling you that a lot, too. Honey.

“No way, Hotchner. Your house is what runs cold. Or maybe you’re cold-blooded.”

Not with you, he thinks. Years and years of doing what he does, Hotch might even call himself cold when he’s thinking a little too hard. But never cold with you. He thinks that might be impossible for him.

“Shhh, don’t tell anyone my secret,” he says, his arm brushing against yours from where he sits next to you on his couch. “Where are you cold?”

“Can’t feel my toes, Aaron. I might be out of commission for the next case.”

“Well we can’t lose our best girl, can we?” Best girl, he says. Like he means it, like it’s simple. “I’ve got some thick socks you can grab. Bottom drawer.”

Just like that, he’s cracked another wall of his down even further, giving you permission to go into his bedroom as if you’ve been in there a thousand times.

“Really?”

“Unless you’d rather not feel your toes-“

“Okay, okay,” you stop him, unable to fight your smile. “Thanks, Aaron.”

When you stand and head towards his room, Aaron can’t stop himself from thinking that you belong there, in his home, his room, his life. You fit in so seamlessly he wishes you’d never leave.

He stands up too, because the couch suddenly feels sort of empty without you beside him, without your warmth. He walks over to his thermostat on the wall and turns it up for you.

You’ve always thought that you can tell a lot about a person from where they live, and seeing Aaron’s bedroom now solidifies it. His place does too, but there’s something about his bedroom that feels much more personal.

Here, there’s more of him, little bits of his life scattered around. A picture of him as a kid with his parents on the dresser, the newspaper’s crossword sitting completely finished on his nightstand, his bed neatly made.

You smile at the framed photo before slipping the top drawer open and finding the pair of socks he’d been talking about. As much as you’d love to snoop, you don’t want to invade his privacy in any way. Besides, from Aaron, even a glimpse of his space feels special.

You slip on the socks before you leave his room, letting them bunch at your ankles.

As soon as you walk back into the living room, Aaron’s phone rings. Glancing at you softly, almost apologetically though he’s got nothing to be sorry about—you work with him, you know how important a call can be—he picks it up.

“Hotchner,” he says, holding it to his ear. His voice is different this way, more professional, controlled. Never any less pleasing to hear.

He’d wanted to say something about how good you look in his clothes when his phone rang, Garcia’s name flashing on the screen. Aaron wishes it was someone else, only to spend more time with you this way.

“Sorry to call late, sir,” Penelope says. “We’ve got a case. Missing kid; it’s urgent.”

“Don’t be sorry, Garcia. We’re on our way.”

“Wait, we?” She asks, curious as always.

“What’s going on?” You ask Aaron.

“Got a case. I’ll drive, honey.” He lets the pet name slip, like it’s a habit.

On the other line, Garcia’s grinning to herself in her office. She’d had a suspicion of who on the team Hotch would be with outside of work, and hearing your voice, and his use of the word ‘honey’ all sticky sweet, she knows she’s onto something.

“Oh, that’s ‘we,’” Penelope’s voice teases. “Tell her I’ll see you guys soon!”

Aaron shakes his head, fighting his smile. “Bye, Garcia.”

He hangs up and looks from his phone to you, your eyes already on him, corners of your mouth tugged up just a little like you’d heard what Garcia said, heard the lilt in her voice. Like you liked the idea of you and Aaron being a unit. We.

He likes that idea, too.

Back at the BAU, Garcia calls Derek next, who picks up with his classic, “hey, babygirl.”

First, she tells him that he needs to come into the office, that they’ve got a case, then, “you’re never going to believe this.”

Penelope loves to talk, and Derek’s happy to listen, so she tells him about how you’d been with Aaron when she called, and that you were on your way together.

“I give them another week, max, before they’re holding hands when they come in.” Derek laughs, because he can see yours and Hotch’s feelings so easily, plain as day, and he loves to be right about things.

“How mad will Hotch be when he finds out that we talk about his relationship?” Penelope’s mostly joking, only a fraction concerned.

“If the boss didn’t want us talking about it, he shouldn’t be so obvious, sweetheart.”

Once you arrive at the office, you don’t catch Penelope and Derek’s shared looks behind yours and Aaron’s—who happens to be carrying both his and your go bag—backs.

And if anyone notices the loose socks around your ankles, they don’t say anything about it.

You’re not supposed to go off on your own unless it’s absolutely necessary. You know that, the team knows that. Aaron, who is always trying to keep you as safe as possible, enforces it.

You guess that this time might be up for debate.

When it comes to what you do, you have to trust your instincts most of the time. And today, your gut told you to make a decision that might not have been safe, but to you, it felt like what you had to do.

Aaron had been on the phone with you, trying to figure out a way to make the car drive any faster to get to you. He’d heard it in your voice, in the tone of it, that he couldn’t convince you to wait for someone else to show up.

“I have to do this, Aaron,” you’d said. While the team would normally probably tease him about you calling him Aaron, as if it isn’t his name, they’d known not to interrupt this time. “You know I do.”

“You don’t have to.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he spoke. “We’ll be there soon, alright? Just-”

“I’m sorry.” And then, you hung up.

In the end, going in when you did had been the right move. A life had been saved, and you’d slowed the guy down enough that the police were able to arrest him when they arrived. All it cost you was a cut and a bruise on your cheek.

So, your instincts weren’t so bad.

Aaron, however, disagrees. Logically, he knows that he would’ve done the exact same thing you did, knows the rest of the team would’ve, too. But when it comes to you, he has a hard time thinking logically.

After you hung up on him, all he could do was breathe and breathe and breathe over the heavy thumping of his heartbeat and the worry spinning in his head. He drove the quickest he could manage, the car silent inside. A static.

It’s not that he doubts your abilities—he’s always thought you were incredible, even before the friendship, even before now—only that the idea of you being alone with such a bad man makes him feel sick.

He’d take your place in a heartbeat, if he could, just to make sure you’d be safe.

By the time he and the rest of the team get to the scene, you’re walking out of the building with a hand pressed to your cheek and a paramedic leading you to a nearby ambulance.

Aaron spots you right away, his eyes scanning the small crowd through red and blue lights and conversations surrounding him. When he spots you, everything goes quiet.

His first thought is, thank god she’s alive, then, it’s fuck, she’s hurt.

Without a word to anyone, he heads over in your direction right away. He meets you at the ambulance, where you sit on the small bench inside while the paramedic presses your cheek with gauze.

“Honey.” It comes out in a breath. Relief and pain all at once.

You look over to him, his hair a little messy, his eyes wide and roaming all over you like he’s checking for any other injuries. He cares about you, and it’s written all over him.

“Aaron. I’m okay.” You hold a hand out, and he grabs it, sitting beside you on the bench in the ambulance. “Promise.”

For now, he nods, letting the paramedic do their job bandaging up your cheek. When they’re finished, they hand you a spare bandage saying, “it’s gonna bruise, and it might feel sore for a bit, but you’re all patched up.”

The paramedic leaves after that, probably going to check on other people. The lights inside the ambulance seem to cocoon you, a bright difference to the darkness outside.

The first thing Aaron says is, “let me see.”

His hands reach for your face, rough fingertips gently holding your jaw, tilting you so that he can look at your cheek. It’s a little swollen, discolored where you must’ve been hit. There’s a furrow in his brow, something that looks like a pout on none other than Aaron Hotchner.

“Hey,” you grab his wrists, but his hands stay on your face. “I’m fine.”

Aaron’s always worried, he’s always cared about you and about everyone on the team, but this is different. He was usually able to hide things much better than this. Much better than with you.

Now, all he sees is the tiny bloodstain on your shirt and the bandage on your cheek. All he feels is your hands squeezing his wrists and your eyes locked on his.

“You should have waited,” he says. “I could have been there.”

“Hotchner,” your deadpan tone is intact, which he’ll take as a win, even if it’s directed towards him. “You and I both know you would have done the same. I had to.”

One of his hands shifts to cup your non-injured cheek. Normally, he’d be much more composed while working, but he can’t bring himself to care about how he must look right now.

“I know you did,” he tells you, because he does. “I just wish that you didn’t. I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

Your stomach is tumbling, rolling, your heart doing silly things in your chest. You can hardly feel the pain of your cheek anymore when his hand is on the other, his palm warm against your skin, his gaze even warmer.

“I’m hardly hurt, Aaron. Just a scratch.”

“Right. One that required medical attention. That’s more than just a scratch, honey.”

“If you say so, Hotchner.”

He shifts his hands so that they fall into your lap, palms up and fingers instantly finding yours, tangling together perfectly. Like puzzle pieces.

“Good job, by the way.” Hotch rubs his thumb over your skin once, back and forth. “You did the right thing.”

“Learned from the best,” you say.

You’re both oblivious to the fact that the team is watching from a distance, and that the two of you look so lovesick it’s ridiculous that you haven’t spilled your feelings yet. You’re both absolutely fucked.

Where she stands with the team, Emily shakes her head, “I haven’t seen Hotch like this since… ever.”

Beside her, JJ merely shrugs, like it’s obvious, “yeah, they’re in love.”

Spencer looks at you and Aaron in that ambulance with a smile. “The odds of you guys being right are very, very high.”

Aaron Hotchner was never the biggest fan of birthdays. Was never big into the cakes and making wishes, the song and the presents and the fuss of it all.

When he started at the bureau, it stayed that way. Days off were rare enough as it was, so he’d always work on his birthday. And while he kept the signed cards from the team, he treated it as any other day. Nothing special.

This year, you’re on a mission to change that.

While it isn’t the first of Aaron’s birthdays you’ve spent with him, it’s the first one since the two of you have grown as close as you have, since you’ve felt the way you do. You’re just hoping to make it a good birthday for him.

You’ve roped the whole team into it. Decorating the conference room with streamers and balloons and a sign that hangs crooked on the wall, bringing in a cake that reads ‘Happy Birthday Hotch’ in frosting, and keeping it all a secret.

Of course, you’ve all already said happy birthday to him, and you’ve got a present stashed under your desk for later, but you’ve been doing your best to act natural even when the anticipation of your surprise for him eats at your stomach a little.

Surprises are a tricky thing, and there’s no way of knowing whether he’ll like it or not. You’ll just have to wait and see.

While in his office, the team had made it seem like they’d all left for the day, saying their goodbyes to Hotch. Instead of leaving, though, they’ve been hidden in the conference room waiting for you to bring him in.

“Aaron,” you say, knocking on his office door. “I think I lost an earring. Do you think you could help me look for it?”

Because you’re the one asking, Aaron says, “‘course, honey. Where do you think it is?”

You smile, because he’s fallen into your trap easily, because you know that he probably would search for an earring with you if you’d actually lost one.

“I remember having it on in the conference room, so maybe there.”

He stands from his desk, gesturing for you to lead the way with his hand held out. You grab onto it before he can drop it, tangling your fingers and leading him behind you.

Aaron lets you guide him, and when you open the door to the conference room and flick on the lights, he’s met with the team’s grinning faces and a chorus of, “surprise!”

For a moment, he’s speechless, frozen in his spot in the doorway with your hand in his.

No, Aaron’s never been the biggest fan of birthdays, but maybe that’s because nobody’s ever done something like this for him. You came into his life all sweet smiles and now you’re throwing him a surprise party? He’s never ever liked someone the way he likes you.

So much that like is spilling into a four letter word and he’s happy to let it.

You know him well enough to know that he doesn’t like being the center of attention too much, so the only people in the room are those of the BAU. His closest friends. And you, his favorite person.

Before he can say anything he’s being spoken to by the team, getting a ‘happy birthday, boss,’ from Derek, a spill about how hard it was to keep this a secret from Penelope, a grin from Spencer, a tip about how you’d organized all of this from Emily, a squeeze to the shoulder from JJ.

When he finally gets the chance, the others split into their own conversations, Aaron tugs you aside to the corner of the room.

“You did all of this for me?” He asks, head bent to catch your eye.

Although you’d caught the signature Hotchner smile—closed-mouthed and quick—when he saw the surprise, you’re nervous about what he might say. You worry that you’ve done too much, that he’d been pretending to like it for your sake.

“I’m sorry if it’s a bit much,” you start, anxiously tugging at your sleeves. “I wasn’t sure if you liked surprises, I know not everyone does, but I wanted to do something for you because I care about you. A lot. And birthdays are meant to be celebrated, you know?”

Aaron can’t help but let a smile spread over his face as you speak; a real smile. His heart is light, his feelings for you melting through him like the soft pink of cotton candy. He doesn’t think you could ever do anything that he wouldn’t like.

“I’ll clean it all up, too, I prom-”

Your rambling is cut off with his lips on yours. He’s kissing you.

It’s soft, the press of his mouth against yours, and it takes you a second to push back. It stays delicate, a dance between the two of you like you’d practiced a million times before.

His hands skate down your arms to hold your hands, weaving his fingers with yours, squeezing like he’s making sure you know this is real.

You feel it all over, your stomach tumbling, your heart beating in a rhythm that thumps his name. Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, over and over.

It’s a kiss worth a thousand words that you haven’t said yet, a kiss full of feelings and meaning and you know it, just by the way he does it, because you know him and he knows you. It’s you and Aaron, and it feels like the beginning of something huge. Of the rest of your life, maybe.

When he pulls back, Hotch rests his forehead against yours, giving your head a gentle nudge, locking his brown eyes on yours.

“It’s perfect,” he says.

The next thing you hear is Derek Morgan cheering, “I knew it!”

Similar words come from the rest of the team.

“Finally,” from Emily.

“About time,” from JJ.

“This isn’t surprising,” from Spencer, who smiles while saying it.

A sweet, “yay,” from Penelope.

Distracted by Aaron kissing you, you’d sort of forgotten they were there. Bashful, you tuck your head beneath Aaron’s chin, forehead against his collar. He simply tightens his hands around yours.

And when it’s time for cake, this year, Aaron Hotchner makes a wish on his birthday candles. He wishes to spend every other birthday just like this. With you.

༄

thank you so so much for reading!!! if you liked it, please please please consider reblogging/commenting and letting me know what you thought! love you <3

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sailing-ever-west · 26 days

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Thinking about how much the strawhats need Usopp.

His place on the team has always been weird and uncertain for him. He's a sniper but also he's an inventor and he fixes the ship but the thing he gets known for is mostly the long nose and the lying. He calls himself a great captain but he's not the captain and in fact he has very little decision-making power and even less actual confidence. He's the most cowardly. Or maybe he's the bravest. He's pretty sure they only keep him around because he helped them get a ship. He'd die for them anyway.

But the strawhats don't really need a sniper, or a liar, or a guy who gave them a ship. They need Usopp. And the reason has nothing to do with whatever his official role on the crew may be.

They need Usopp because they need a (goodhearted, clever, brave, talented, but nonetheless) regular guy. It's actually so important for the strawhats to have someone who knows what it's like to be weak, who has to really grapple with the consequences of every fight and crazy adventure, who has some semblance of being average and practical about things.

Nami shares some of this role of not being impossibly strong and unkillable the way the others are, but even she has solid close combat techniques and has random bursts of crazy where she'll do things like stab a 3 inch wide spike through her foot to win a fight and help Vivi. She's just pretending to be normal. You can see the glint in her eyes and know she's actually insane.

Also, Usopp is like. Actually nice to people. Regularly. He wants to avoid conflict. They desperately need at least one crew member who wants to avoid conflict. Nami does not serve this purpose quite like Usopp does, either. Sure, she doesn't want to get into fights willy-nilly and she'll often run instead, but she has a harsh and prickly personality that doesn't exactly set people at ease. Chopper also avoids fights but that's mostly for medical reasons and he has very little problem getting into them if he thinks it's necessary. Sanji is kind to people, but he's only nice to women, and will start fights with very little prompting. Luffy is friendly but completely tactless, Zoro doesn't even try to be sociable, and Robin thinks murder is a little funny. So again, between all these weirdos, they need a guy who's just like. Hey what if we said good morning like normal people. What if when some stranger is mildly rude and has a lot of weapons we just ignore it. What if we like. Got along with people. That would be neat.

Anyway I don't have a big grand finish for this post but just. The strawhats were genuinely in need of Some Guy, and Usopp solves that problem even though he thinks he's not special enough. Of course he's unique and talented and strong, but he's still an average human with average physical strength and slowly hard-earned skills. The strawhats without that have no tether.

#one piece #god usopp #one piece usopp #straw hat pirates #one piece strawhats

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cybernaght · 9 months

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The fandom echo chamber: fanon, microanalysis and conspiracy brain

As someone who has been in fandom spaces, on and off, for 20 years, I find some fascinating trends popping up in the last decade that I thought to be fandom-specific but clearly aren’t. So, I would like to do a little examination of where those things come from, how they are engaged with, and what it says about the way we consume media. This is a think piece, of sorts, with my brain being the main source. As such, we will spend some time down the memory lane of a fandom-focused millennial.

This is largely brought about by Good Omens. But it’s also not really about Good Omens at all.

Part one. Fanon.

The way we see characters in any story is always skewed by our very selves. This is a neutral statement, and it does not have a value judgement. It’s simply unavoidable. We recognise aspects of them, love aspects of them, and choose aspects of them to highlight based entirely on our own vision of the universe.

Recognition comes into this. There is a reason so many protagonists of romance novels have a “blank slate” problem. Even when they do not, we love characters who are like us or versions of us that we would like to be. And when we say “we”, I also mean, “me”.

(I remember very clearly this realisation hit me after a whole season of Doctor Who with writing which I hated utterly when I questioned why I still clung so incredibly hard to Clara Oswald as my favourite companion. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. Oh. Well. That would do it, wouldn’t it?)

Then, there is projection, and, again, this is a neutral statement. Projection exists, and it is completely normal and, dare I say it, valid way of engaging with — well, anything. Is the character queer? Trans? Neurodivergent? Are they in love? Do they like chocolate? Are they a cat person? Well, yes, if this is what the text says, but if the text does not say anything… You tell me. Please, do tell me. Because, in that moment of projection, they are yours.

And then, there is fandom osmosis, and that is the most fascinating one of them all, the one that is not very easy to note while you are inside the echo chamber. It’s the way we collectively, consciously or not, make decisions on who or what the characters are, what their relationships are, and what happens to them.

(Back when I was writing egregiously long Guardian recaps on this blog I actually asked if Shen Wei’s power being learning actually was stated anywhere in the canon of the show. Because I had no idea. I have read and reread dozen of fanfics where that is the case, and at some point through enough repetition, it became reality.)

We are all kind of making our own reality here, aren’t we?

Back when things were happening in a much less centralised manner - in closed livejournal groups, and forums of all shapes and sizes - I don’t remember there being quite as much universally agreed upon fanon. Frankly, I don’t remember much of universally agreed upon anything. But now, everything is in one place: we have this, and we have AO3, and it’s wonderful, it really is so much easier to navigate, but it’s also one gigantic reality-shifting echo chamber, with blogs, reblogs, trends, and rituals.

Accessibility plays its part, too. If you were, say, in Life on Mars (UK) fandom between seasons, and you wanted to post your speculation fic, you had to have had an account, and then find and gain access to one of the bigger groups (lifein1973 was my poison, but ymmv), and then, if you feel brave you may post it, but also, you may want to do so from your alt account if you wanted to keep yours separate, and then you would have to go through the whole process again. And I’m not saying that fan creations then were somehow inherently better for it than fan creations now (although Life on Mars Hiatus Era is perhaps a bad example - because some of the Speculation Fic there was breathtaking), but there is something to say about the ease of access that made the fandoms go through a big bang of sorts.

(I mean, come on, I can just come here and post this - and I am certain people will read it, and this blog is a pandemic cope baby about Chinese television for goodness sake.)

The canon transformations that happen in the fandom echo chamber truly are fascinating to witness as someone who is more or less a fandom butterfly. I get into something, float around for a bit, then get into something else and move on. I might come back eventually when the need arises, but I don’t sustain a hiatus mind-state. This means that when I float away and return, I find some very intriguing stuff.

Let’s actually look at Good Omens here. Season two aired, and I found it spectacular in its cosy and anguished way; deliberately and intelligently fanfic-y in its plot building; simple but subversive, and so very tender. (I will have to circle back to this eventually, because, truly, I love how deliberately it takes the tropes and shatters them - it’s glorious). And, to me - a person who read the book, watched the first season, hung around AO3 for a few weeks and moved on - absolutely on-point in terms of characterisation.

So imagine my surprise when the fandom disagreed so vehemently that there are actual multi-tiered theories on how characters were not in possession of their senses. Nothing there, in my mind, ever contradicted any of the stated text, as it stood. This remained a strange little mystery until I did what I always do when I flutter close to an ongoing fandom.

I loaded AO3 and sorted the existing fic by popularity. And there it was, all there: the actual earth-shattering mutual devotion of the angel and the demon; willingness to Fall; openness and long heart-aching confession speeches. There was all of the fanon surrounding Aziraphale and Crowley, which, to me, read as out of character, and to one for whom they became the reality over the last four years, read as truth.

Again, only neutral statements here. This is not a bad thing, and neither this is a good thing, this is just something that happens, after a while, especially when there are years for the fandom-born ideas to bounce around and stew. I can’t help but think that so much of what we see as real in spaces such as this one is a chimaera of the actual source and all the collective fan additions which had time and space to grow, change, develop, and inspire, reverberating over and over again, until the echoes fill the entirety of the space.

Eventually, this chimaera becomes a reality.

Part two. Microanalysis

Here are my two suppositions on the matter:

1. Some writers really love breadcrumb storytelling.

Russel T Davies, for instance, on his run of Doctor Who (and, if you are reading it much later - I do mean the original one), loved that technique for his seasonal arcs. What is a Bad Wolf? Who is Harold Saxon? Well, you can watch very very carefully, make a theory, and see it proven right or wrong by the end of the season.

Naturally, mystery box writers are all about breadcrumb storytelling: your Losts and your Westworlds are all about giving you snippets to get your brain firing, almost challenging you to figure things out just ahead of the reveal.

2. We, as humans, love breadcrumbs.

And why wouldn’t we? Breadcrumbs are delicious. They are, however, a seasoning, or a coating. They are not the meal.

Too much metaphor?

Let’s unpack it and start from the beginning.

Pattern recognition colours every aspect of our lives, and it colours the way we view art to a great extent. I think we truly underestimate how much it’s influenced by our lived experiences.

If you are, broadly speaking, living somewhere in Western/North-Western Europe in the 14th century, and you see a painting in which there is a very very large figure surrounded by some smaller figures and holding really tiny figures, you may know absolutely nothing about who those figures are, but you know that the big figure is the Important One, and the small ones are Less Important Ones, and the tiny ones are In Their Care. You know where your reverence would lie, looking at this picture. And, I imagine, as someone living in the 14th century, you may be inspired to a sense of awe looking at this composition, because in the world you live in, this is how art works.

If you, on the other hand, watch a piece of recorded media and see the eyes of two characters meet as the violins swell, you know what you are being told at that moment. You don’t have to have a film degree to feel a sort of way when you see a green-tinged pallet used, when cross-cuts use juxtaposing images, or notice where your focus is pulled in any given shot. This stuff - this recognition of patterns - has been trained into us by the simple fact that we live in this time, on this planet, and we have been doing so long enough to have engaged recorded media for a period of time.

As humans, we notice things. Our brains flare up when they see something they recognise, and then we seek to find other similar details and form a bigger picture. This often happens unconsciously, but sometimes it does not. Sometimes we do it on purpose: finding breadcrumbs in stories is a little bit like solving a mystery. It allows us to stretch that brain muscle that puts two and two together. It makes us feel clever.

So yes, we love breadcrumbs, and, frankly, quite a lot of storytelling takes advantage of this. It’s very useful for foreshadowing, creating thematic coherence, or introducing narrative parallels and complexity. It’s useful for nudging the viewer into one or the other emotional direction, or to cue them into what will happen in the next moment, or what exactly is the one important detail they should pay attention to.

Because this is something media does intentionally, and something we pick up both consciously and not, it is very hard to know when to stop. We don't really ever know when all of the breadcrumbs have been collected. It becomes very easy to get carried away. There is a very specific kind of pleasure in digging into content frame by frame, soundbite by soundbite, chasing that pleasure of finding.

But it is almost never breadcrumbs all the way down. They are techniques to help us focus on the main event: the story. I truly believe those who make media want it to reach the widest possible audience, and that includes all of us who like to watch every single thing ever created with our Media Analysis Goggles on and those who are just here to enjoy the twists and turns of the story at the pace offered to them. And I think, sometimes in our chase to collect and understand every little clue we forget that media is not made to just cater for us.

One can call it missing a forest for the trees. But I would hate to mix my metaphors, so let’s call it missing a schnitzel for the breadcrumbs.

Part three. The Conspiracy Brain.

If you are there with me, in the midst of the excited frenzy, chasing after all those delicious breadcrumbs, then patterns can grow, merge together, and become all-encompassing theories. Let’s call them conspiracy theories, even though this is not what they truly are.

So, why do we believe in conspiracy theories?

One, Because We Have Been Lied To.

All conspiracies start with distrust.

If you are in fandom spaces - especially if you are in fandom spaces which revolve around a queer fictional couple - especially-especially if you have been in such spaces for a period of time, you have most certainly been lied to at one point or another.

We don’t even have to talk about Sherlock - and let’s not do that - but do you remember Merlin? Because I remember Merlin. Specifically, I remember the publicity surrounding the first season, with its weaponised usage of “bromance” and assertions that this whole thing is a love story of sorts, and then the daunting realisation that this was all a stunt, deliberately orchestrated to gather viewership.

And, because we were lied to in such a deliberate manner for such an extensive period of time, I genuinely believe that it forever altered our pattern recognition habits, because what was this if not encouragement to read into things? Now we are trained to read between the lines or see little cries for help where they might not be. Because we were told, over and over again, that we should.

(Yes, I think we are all existing in these spaces coloured by the trauma of queer-bating. I am, however, looking forward to a world where I can unlearn all of that.)

Two, Cognitive Dissonance.

The chain reaction works a bit like this: the world is wrong - it can’t possibly be wrong by coincidence - this must be on purpose - someone is responsible for it.

Being Lied To is a preamble, but cognitive dissonance is where it all originates. In so many cross-fandom theories I have noticed a four-step process:

A) this is not good

B) this author could not have made a mistake

C) this must be done on purpose

D) here is why

(Funny thing is, I have been on the receiving end of the small conspiracy spiral, and it is a very interesting experience. Not relevant to this conversation is the fact that a lot of my job revolves around storytelling. What is relevant is that my hobbies also revolve around storytelling. And one of them is DnD. Now, imagine my genuine shock when one of the players I am currently writing a campaign for noticed a small detail that did not make a logical sense within the complexity of the world, and latched on to it as something clearly indicating some kind of a secret subplot. Their thinking process also went a bit like this: this detail is not a good piece of writing — this DM knows how to tell stories well — this is obviously there on purpose. It was not there on purpose. I created a clumsy shorthand. I erred, in that pesky manner humans tend to. And, seeing this entire thought process recited to me directly in the moment, I felt somewhere between flattered and mortified.)

This whole line of thinking, I think, exists on a knife’s edge between veneration and brutal criticism, relentlessly dissecting everything “wrong”, with a reverent “but this is deliberate” attached to it like a vice, because it is preferable to a simple conclusion that the author let you down, in one way or another.

Three, Intentionality

I believe that there is no right or wrong way of engaging with stories, regardless of their medium, and assuming no one gets hurt in the process. While in a strictly academic way, there is a “correct” way of reading (and reading into) media, we here are largely not academics but consumers; consumption is subjective.

However, this all changes when intentionality is ascribed.

The one I find particularly fascinating is the intentionality of “making it bad on purpose” because, as open-minded as I intend to always be, this just does not happen.

It certainly does not happen in long-form media. Even in the bread-crumb mystery box-type long-form media.

When television programs underdeliver, they also underperform, and then they get cancelled.

If all the elements of Westworld Season 4 that did not sit together in a completely satisfactory way were written deliberately as some sort of deconstruction for the final season to explore, then it failed because that final season will now never come.

(There will likely never be a Secret Fourth Episode.)

And look, I am not here to refute your theories. Creativity is fun, and theorising is fantastic.

But, perhaps, when the line of thought ventures into the “bad on purpose” territory, it could be recognised for what it is: disappointment and optimism, attempting to coexist in a single space. And I relate to that, I do, and I am sorry that there is even a need for this line of thinking. It’s always so incredibly disappointing that a creator you believed to be devoid of flaws makes something that does not hit in the way you hoped it would. It’s pretty heartbreaking.

Unfortunately, people make mistakes. We are all fallible that way.

Four, Wildfire.

Then, when the crumbs are found, a theory is crafted, and intentionality is ascribed, all that needs to happen is for it to catch on. And hey, what better place for it than this massive hollow funnel that we exist in, where thoughts, ideas and interpretations reverberate so much they become inextricable from the source material in collective consciousness.

Conspiracy theories create alternate realities, very much like we all do here.

So where are we now?

I am not here to tell you what is right and what is wrong; what is true, and what is not. We are all entitled to engage with anything we wish, in whichever way we wish to do it. This is not it, at all.

All I am saying is… listen.

Do you hear that echo?

I do.

#fandom thoughts #fanon #good omens #good omens 2 #bbc sherlock #merlin bbc #think piece #it's been years and I still have no idea how to tag #conspiracy theories #fandom content #all fandoms

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jade-jini · 6 months

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yunjin is the only thing i can honestly think off 😭 also i’d love to see how y/n and loser g!p yunjin got together 🤭

(Look at this cute thing, I’m weak for her)

WELL OFC DEAR ANON lol. So continuing with how our loser g!p Yunjin and reader became all lovey dovey (sorry if it’s too long and if it took too long 😭) THIS IS ALL FLUFF.

As I mentioned, you guys are in the same program so you see her during class and often around campus, mostly just exchanging a few hi’s and comments about class stuff but it never became more than those short conversations. Yunjin can be a very outgoing loser, with her silly jokes and cute pickup lines and constant compliments. She was a sweet girl! Just didn’t feel brave enough to make a more bold move just yet:(. Sakura would always be like “NEVER BACK DOWN NEVER WHAT?!” And she’d be like “NEVER GIVE UP!” But then when she has the chance to turn her flirt into something else she panics and goes🧍🏻‍♀️

She was getting brave tho, she really was! Until that stupid jock mf had to ruin all the confidence she (and Sakura) has been working so hard to build. This guy was into you. At first he really thought Yunjin didn’t have a chance because how could a loser have one? but then he noticed how you’d giggle like an idiot with Yunjin and his brain went “danger 😐” so like a fvckin asshole the only thing he thought was to make Yunjin afraid to make any move at all, hurting her self esteem.

It was during a morning that she hadn’t see you around yet. She always looks forward to the classes you shared, and when she didn’t see you in your seat as always, she was so confused ‘cause you tended to be on time. She still had hopes that you’d eventually show up. However, her confusion turned into disappointment and sadness when half the class passed and you were nowhere to be found. Yunjin knew she was being dramatic but c’mon! Seeing you is her favorite part of the day :( she spent the rest of the class resting her chin on her books with a pout. Eunchae saw her friend and thought she looked like a sad puppy, she thought it was cute and funny but also had sympathy for her friend. During the little break they had before their next class that was in the same room, she tapped Sakura’s shoulder to get her attention.

“Yunjin unnie looks like a lost puppy when y/n is not around I swear” she told her while trying not to laugh. The eldest turned her head to her red hair friend and sighed with a smile as she shook her head.

“She kinda is if you think about it, I guess” she told the youngest, who couldn’t contain a laugh from escaping her lips. This caused Yunjin to look up to her friends with a frown.

“It’s not fair, why isn’t she here?!” Yunjin started, fixing her posture “Y/n doesn’t tend to miss class, and if she didn’t come to this one she might as well just miss the rest of the day and the classes we have together… ” she complained with a cute pout, but unfortunately somebody heard their conversation.

“Like you would know, wouldn’t you creep?” The guy said, while looking at the girl with a sarcastic smile (Idk bro picture a kpop boi here if you want ig-). “God you spy on her so much you know her schedule? AND you wanna talk like you’re close with her and know what she would do. You’re such a weirdo, that’s exactly why she wouldn’t look at you, you know?” He said with that disgusting mean tone, like he himself knew you any better.

Yunjin was surprised, she knew this guy and knew he wasn’t friendly specially with well, people who didn’t share his exact interest (aka if you’re a nerd), but she wasn’t expecting him to talk to her at all let alone insult her like that, I mean she has gotten kinda bullied before when she was younger but she has done her best to either ignore these people or to defend herself, to which her friends helped a lot.

“And who the fuck are you to talk to her like that?-” Eunchae started but Sakura stopped her grabbing her arm, making sure the girl didn’t start any trouble. The man just put his hands up and laughed.

“I’m just saying, y/n is way out of your league bro, you’re embarrassing yourself and most likely making her feel uncomfortable. Do you enjoy doing that?”

“I would never do that!” Yunjin was offended, she didn’t have any bad intentions with you. Did she cross any boundary? You would tell her though right? You looked like somebody who knew how to speak for yourself well enough, she’s seen it. “I’d never do that intentionally, and I’m sure she would tell me. So far she hasn’t shown any discomfort in any moment we’ve talked.” she said trying to sound a little more confident, mostly to also convince herself you actually didn’t dislike her.

“she’s just too nice to let you know!” He answered as if it was the most obvious fact in the world. “And who knows, maybe she laughs behind your back at your behavior and that’s why she keeps you close.” He finished before walking out of the room, not letting any of the girls talk back (Lord and Sakura know Eunchae was ready to curse Tf outta him) and leaving a mess in Yunjin’s head, filling it with a lot of insecurities and doubts. Girlie was gonna be overthinking about you all day and not in the sweet cheesy way she always does :(

“What. An. Asshole!” Eunchae exclaimed, getting a scold from kkura for the language “no I’m serious what’s wrong with him?? Who does he think he is?! Asshole…”

“Hong Eunchae!” Sakura said in a serious tone, making the girl simply huff and sit down with crossed arms and a pout (Manchae my kid). “Yunjini? Are you ok?” She asked in a softer tone while sitting in her chair next to her friend, who had such a sad and pensive expression “don’t pay no mind to that guy, he doesn’t know you and I seriously doubt he knows y/n.”

“Yeah exactly!” The youngest said “he’s probably just jealous that you always make y/n laugh.”

“Yeah but is it a ‘you’re so funny I’m enjoying this’ laugh or a ‘you’re pathetic and embarrassing’ laugh? Now I don’t know…”

“She’s not a bad person, unnie. You wouldn’t like her if she was, right? But if you’re feeling insecure, let’s see her behavior carefully and maybe we’ll be able to tell.”

the tall girl sighed, resting her head on her books again. Eunchae and Sakura just looked at each other (the oldest patting her friend’s head), not sure how else to comfort their friend, but hoping next time she sees you something good happens and you somehow get those thoughts out of her head.

——

Meanwhile, you decided to miss a class and went to this store you found online where they sell different types of merch about video games, animes, stuff like that, to buy some cool genshin impact photocards you saw online. You knew two things; 1. Yunjin liked that game a lot, and 2. She was probably not gonna make a move to get closer any time soon lol so you decided to give the game a try, and liked it a lot! And now you’re gonna buy some photocards for her as well as a way of making more conversation and getting closer.

Once you got them, you quickly put a Genshin Yunjin one on your phone case (some selfies for social media Ofc) and decided to finally go to class, excited to show this girl that you were basically crushing on the gift you got for her.

Your second class of the day was luckily one with Yunjin, so you were hoping to make it on time to talk with her a little bit before it started, and so you did! But weirdly, you caught the girl on her seat, very quiet while the friends of her who also shared this class seemed a little worried and empathetic with whatever was going on with the red hair girl. You took your seat close to them and waved hi to her friend, whose name if you remember well was Sakura. With a sign you asked her if Jen was ok, to which she replied with a “so-so” sign and a little smile. You nodded sympathetically and decided to maybe wait until later on the day to talk with her, now feeling slightly nervous yourself to make any move. However, while you were considering this option, kkura thought seeing you might cheer her friend up, so she elbowed Yunjin and let her know that you were in the room.

Once the girl looked at your direction, there was a sparkle in her eyes, the one that always appeared whenever she saw you or thought of you. However, once she remembered the mean words the idiot from earlier told her, her smile turned into a more shy, sad small one, and her eyes went to the floor.

“Yunjin? You’re not gonna say hi to her like always?” The Japanese girl asked her in a low voice, trying to motivate her dear friend.

“I don’t know, Kkura..” the sad girl said “What if I just make her feel uncomfortable? What if that’s what I’ve been doing? That’s not only embarrassing, but also not fair for her to feel like that, and not fair for me to keep my hopes high if I’m clearly out of her league. I don’t wanna get even more hurt and also I—”but your voice interrupted her sad rambling.

“Hey Yunjin, Look what I got!” You called, smiling that pretty smile of yours and showing her the back of your phone, hoping this somehow will help cheering her up. And it did! Yunjin’s expression went from sad, to surprised that you called, to excited.

“Oh. My. God. Is that a Genshin Impact special edition Yun Jin photocard ?!” She said in her peculiar loud voice and with a smile showing her perfect teeth. There. There it was. The excited and loud loser who caught your attention. “Omg, y/n! How did you get this? I didn’t even know you liked Genshin!”

“Well, constantly hearing you screaming about it made me curious!” You teased her while laughing, to which she blushed but didn’t stop smiling while listening to you “it was just a few days ago so I’m very new, I actually enjoyed it a lot so I decided to search info about the characters online, and went this morning to this cool store I found to buy some of these.”

“So that’s why you weren’t here earlier” Sakura commented, making you look at her a little surprised.

“Oh you noticed?”

“Yunjin did.” Eunchae answered while looking at her friend with a mischievous smile, to which Yunjin responded with a blush, a threat in her eyes and a promise for vendetta later. “She missed you and everything.”

“Eunchae!” She simply groaned, pouting at the embarrassment her friend made her go through. But to you it was actually really cute the fact that she noticed your absence.

“Well, please accept these as an apology then.” You said while getting the little bag that contained the other photocards and giving it to her. She was so surprised because a gift. For her? From you?! “I didn’t know who your favorite character was so I made sure to get as many as possible. Please take as many as you want, I mainly got them for you to be honest.” You admitted, feeling brave to confess your intentions, even with her friends around.

“Oh my~ this is so cute!” Eunchae squeaked while shaking Yunjin’s shoulder (visual representation), while the girl was just speechless holding the bag you gave her and switching from looking at it to looking at you, who couldn’t stop smiling, satisfied at her reaction while your hands were politely behind your back in a cute shy way. Of course, Sakura had to push her to get out of her shocked state. Yunjin shook her head to bring herself back before speaking.

“Omg y/n, I don’t know what to say, thank you so much!” She said, feeling touched by the detail. Yunjin was looking at you with such sweet eyes, you were making her fall deeper for you, and she didn’t know that’s exactly your plan.

“It’s ok. Just please make sure to leave some Yun Jin for me, she’s my favorite character you know?” You told her in a clearly flirty way and a wink, making sure the message was clear. This made the red hair girl’s eyes open wide as her face had no idea what to do, besides blushing and smiling like an idiot.

“Hehe, Yunjin unnie’s face is trying to match her hair.” Eunchae teased, making you and Sakura laugh at the taller girl.

“Hong Eunchae I swear to God.”

——

After that conversation, the professor entered the classroom, so you quickly agreed on hanging out after class to continue talking about your interest in common. Sakura had a class, and Eunchae went with her after mentioning she was grateful to be able to go ‘cause she didn’t want to third wheel you guys anymore, earning another groan and blush from her best friend. Talking with Yunjin was really nice, and she was really hyped and happy about sharing this topic, so much she decided to invite you to her place so you could continue there, watch some content and even play a little bit! She was excited of being able to teach none other than her crush how to play her favorite game.

Of course she didn’t realize the weight of her actions until you were actually in her room.

Oh god. Her crush was in her room. Alone with her.

Girlie went from excited to nervous once she saw you making yourself comfortable in her bed. Her bed was really soft and warm, and her room was cozy. It reflected her personality well. A nice combination of beige walls and white. Most of the room had warm colors, and the decoration was based on some posters, little shelves with albums and books, pictures and figures of video-games characters the girl was a fan of. She was very organized and clean, her desk having her computer and just a couple notebooks at the moment. You hoped you could spend more time there with her in the future (and no not only for the nasty 🤨).

“This is a really nice place Yun” you told her.

“Thanks, that’s one of the reasons I like spending so much time at home.” She said with a giggle doing her best to contain the blush in her cheeks because did you just call her by a nickname?😳 bro do it again.

“I get it, if my room was this nice and comfy I too would prefer to just stay and play all day.” You said as she lied down next to you.

“Well, you can always come and play with me!” She offered smiling innocently (aw my pookie wookie 🥺), but c’mon you had to tease her after saying that-

“You want me to come play with you, huh?” You said with an obvious teasing tone and a smirk moving your eyebrows up and down, now making it impossible for the red hair girl to not match her cheeks color with her hair.

“I mean! It’s always fun to play genshin with friends…” she said, trying to save herself from the embarrassment, but she felt it was too late so her hands went to her face as she groaned in a low voice. You laughed. She was so endearing, so cute. You couldn’t resist her and she wasn’t even trying to do anything at all. This is the girl you wanted. It just felt too right. It felt like home in your heart even before it did in your head.

“You remember I told you Yunjin is my favorite genshin impact character?” You asked her, taking her hands off her face but not letting go of them, to which she hummed in response. “And do you know why she is my favorite character?”

“Well, her playability in my opinion is really good. Her design and character description is also captivating, and since you mentioned you’re new to the game maybe that’s the reason you liked her. Although I must say I pr—” god this girl could talk. So what’s better than shutting up your crush with a kiss? Nothing bro. Nothing so that’s what you did. With a sweet kiss that she was doing her very best to correspond once the initial shock passed, as she’s been dreaming of doing since the moment her eyes fell on you. Your hand moved slowly from her own hands to her face, caressing it softly as her trembling hand went to your waist. As the seconds passed, her hands felt more comfortable, so she hugged you closer to her, to which you responded hugging her as well. Once you stopped kissing ( barely leaving any space in between your faces), you whispered in her lips “so again, do you know why Yunjin is my favorite character?”

And with her vision blurry and her mind clearly malfunctioning because of everything that was happening (but can you blame her tho?) she said:

“Who’s Yunjin?”

Bro are you serious.

#huh yunjin #Yunjin #huh yunjin x reader #yunjin x reader #le sserafim yunjin #kpop gg #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #le sserafim #le sserafim x reader #le sserafim imagines #le sserafim scenarios #le sserafim x y/n #g!p yunjin x reader #g!p yunjin #loser yunjin x reader #loser yunjin

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piratecaptainscaptainpirates · 5 months

Text

Rewatching all of OFMD today (#Renew As A Crew) and one thing that's sticking out to me immediately -

Until we see in s2 how relieved Ed is to lose the responsibility of being captain, it doesn't really stick out how fucking...tense Ed is.

When he meets Stede's crew, look at his body language! He's trying to be cool and smooth and everything, and he's charismatic enough he can pull it off, but his body language is borderline nervous, honestly. He's very stiff and cautious in his movements, always keeping at least one hand on his weapons, always glancing around. It's striking to compare it to how he acts when he's alone with Stede - you can almost see the weight grow on his shoulders when he's in front of the crew. No wonder Lucius thinks he doesn't know how to relax!

He's also extremely theatrical and showy, and part of that is Ed being tied with Stede for Most Dramatic Bitch on the Seven Seas, but it's also immediately obvious that he expects every eye to be on him, always. He acts like he knows he's the center of attention, always. Almost every movement this man makes seems so calculated.

You can see some of the weight lift when he tries telling everyone to just call him Ed, although a lot of the time he still looks pretty guarded and often holds his hands in front of himself almost protectively. Sweetie pie is trying so hard to be vulnerable but his body language still reads like he's not fully comfortable. It has to be very scary for him but he's being so brave and trying so hard anyway!

We don't see the big change until he's back on the ship in s2e5 and the crew have put him on probation. Although many of the crew are still pissed at him, Ed is, very explicitly, no longer captain. The crew don't hate him (they're mad at him, but he never lost their love), but they'd push back against orders even if he tried giving them. And what a relief that must be! Ed looks so light this episode! It's no longer his job to make the decisions, all he has to do is fix things up. He gets to talk with Fang as friends, not as The Legendary Captain Blackbeard and Loyal Crewmember. He gets to play, doing a cannonball off the ladder, and have a good time learning how to fish. His body language is absolutely night-and-day.

And after he gets out of probation? That stays consistent. In s2e6 he gets to play along with the crew, encouraging "the moving of the tub - it's a sacred tradition!!!" getting him a cheer from the crew ("yooo, this dude's devout as fuuuck!!"). He just gets to have a good time. Compared to the first time he meets the crew in s1e4, he's obviously so relaxed and willing to unwind in front of everyone - they were about to dance, and Ed doesn't even fucking hesitate to agree when Stede suggested they join everyone (fuck Ned Low for stealing that from us, honestly).

Ed wants so fucking badly to be free of the massive responsibility that's been weighing on him - think about what he said to Stede in s1e4: "they're all going to die, all the men who trusted you, and it'll be all your fault!" He has been living with so much weight on his shoulders, not just incredible responsibility but feeling unsafe to be the softer, gentle, sweet man we know he is.

He just wants to be free to be Ed.

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd ed teach #in conclusion his dream job is absolutely trophy wife who gets to stay home all day and look at stede's butt

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fairysluna · 1 year

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little wolf.

Cregan's little sister is the only one who can change his mind, which is why Aemond decides to use his charms and convince her to support the Green using some peculiar methods.

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Stark!Reader

Tags/TW: smut (p in v, loss of virginity, f!oral sex, praise, breeding, kinda innocent!kink), teasing, a bit of mean!aemond, slight dubcon, cregan being an overprotective brother, cursing. if something is missing let me know!!

Author's Note: mimor @tvrgvryen sent me this request a few days ago and I had to do it bc i loved it so much. So here it is!

Word Count: 4.9k

Aemond has always been a good observer. He has always noticed the small details, the reason why people acted as they did, the way people treated others. That's why it wasn't hard for him to realize how important you were for your beloved brother Cregan.

The day he first stepped into Winterfell after Vhagar gracefully landed on the snow, he saw how brave Cregan was for stepping between you and the enormous beast. However, that mere gesture exposed the big affection he had for you; his only sister, and with that, Aemond knew what was Lord Stark's greatest weakness… you.

He went to the North with a mission, a task to fulfill, and he was not a man that was known to give up on things. Aemond was resilient, determined. He would not accept a negative answer from the Warden of the North, and even though he knew about the oath and how Starks are famously known for being loyal to their words; he was eager to find his way to gain the North's support.

And his opportunity came up with you; the sweet, kind Lady Stark. Beloved by all, you were also known as the Heart of Winterfell, for it was said that even the small folk held dear for you. Everything that Aemond heard about you were nothing but good words, showing how much people appreciated you, which only impulsed Aemond's bad intentions.

It is true, a Stark never forgets an oath, but the North gathers when the wolf howls… and even though your brother was the visible face of your House, everyone knew that it was you the one that had true power over the masses; your gentleness made you the Queen of the North, and that information was enough for Aemond to start his devious schemes.

It all started at the training yard. The snow had fallen earlier in the morning, covering the ground with a thick layer of snow. He was staring at you as you struggled with a bow and arrow, not being able to hit the bullseye. This would only make you groan with impatience, despair even. Aemond pressed his lips and looked down at his shoes, trying to show himself amused by you wrestling.

"You're too tense, my lady," he said as he slowly walked towards you.

His black fur coat covering his slim shape, his white hair perfectly still despite the crazy wind, his hands at the back of his body. He looked so effortlessly elegant, it almost made you blush.

"My prince," you greeted him, bowing swiftly, "I'm sorry you have to watch this terrible attempt."

"I didn't know women were allowed to train here in the North," he spoke, politely as he stretched his arm to touch the fine wood of the bow you were holding.

"We're not," you replied, "but my brother insists I should be prepared to defend myself, so he forces me to train either way."

"Mhm…" he nodded, "your brother is a clever man. A beauty like yours is the target of many deprived men, he's doing well by letting you learn how to protect yourself."

"But he barely has time to teach me," you complained, placing your arms in position to shoot again, "now he's in a meeting with the Mormonts, and I am here," you let the arrow go, but it didn't even hit the target. "...failing miserably."

Aemond chuckled, and you inevitably blushed at the low sound that came out of him. You stared at him from your peripheral view, analyzing his undeniable beauty and flirtatious smirk which made your heart beat a little too fast.

"You're too tense," he repeated, as he shifted his position until he was behind you.

His hands went to your shoulders, and he squeezed them softly giving you a soft and short massage that made you close your eyes. Soon, one of his hands reached yours, the one that was holding the bow's grip. He wrapped it around yours, and you immediately felt his warmth on your cold skin. It made you gasp silently.

"You see, I'm not so good at using a bow, I think my weapon of choice is the sword," he whispered, getting closer to your ear, his breath smacking against your shivering skin, "but I know things… and I can teach you if you please, my lady."

His nose rubbed against your hair, and your delicious smell almost made him groan. Soon, the prince helped you to fix your position as your breathing was getting heavier and an unknown feeling was installed in your lower belly. You feel the heat even though it was freezing cold, you felt his body pressing against yours leaving a sensation of distress, as if your body was begging you for something.

You feared of someone seeing you; the position was quite compromising, and you were certain your reputation would be stained if someone witnessed such a scandalous scene. It felt too intimate for you, perhaps not so proper for a maiden like you. You would have tried to push him away, but there was something within him that did not allow you to do so; it was as if he had bewitched you with his charms, and you were under a spell from which you were not able to wake up.

"It's simple, my lady," he explained, "you must relax, you must let go," his voice so deep and low against your ear, "come on, no one's watching, you're under no pressure…"

His touch, so delicate and gentle, mixed with his words, which you quickly misinterpreted; 'no one's watching', it sounded more like an invitation rather than words of comfort. You couldn't help but to sigh, a gesture that brought a slight smirk upon Aemond's face.

"Let yourself go, Lady Stark," his voice turned more breathy, rapier. "That's it, so good… now, eyes on the target, don't take your eyes off of it, okay?"

You simply nodded, wildly blushing at his praise. There was a subtle shiver that went to your trembling hands, you cleared your throat trying to play it down.

"Take deep breaths, don't close your eyes," his hands left yours, now going to your abdomen, his nose brushing against your ear as he kept whispering, "good, good girl."

Your teeth captured your lower lip as you held back a whimper. Squirming in your place, you felt weak on the knees as his hands left a squeeze on your hips.

"Now… shoot."

You listened, and your hand let go of the string. Your eyes widened with surprise as the arrow hit close to the bullseye, which was certainly not perfect, but it was an improvement. A smile appeared in your face as you tilted your head to appreciate your achievement, and soon a giggle escaped you.

"Oh, Gods…" you sighed, "I did it."

"You did it," Aemond said, "you did so well."

His words made your face turn to face him, and his lips were just a few inches away from yours. Your breath hitched, as your heart pounded with so much strength that you thought he would be able to hear it… even feel it. His hand traveled upwards your body until it reached the nape of your neck.

For a moment you thought he would kiss you, that his soft-looking lips would dare to touch yours. But suddenly, he pulled away. Few seconds later, footsteps were heard dragging the snow beneath their feet, and soon you found out the reason behind his abrupt reaction.

"Sister!" you heard. The deep and roaring voice of your brother woke you up from your trance, and you turned around to face him.

You saw a frown upon his face as his eyes narrowed. For a moment you thought he saw how close you were with Aemond, but soon his own words proved you wrong.

"Septa has been waiting for you for an hour!" he scolded you, "why are you still here?"

It took you a while to speak, you knew your voice would come out weak and thin if you dared to utter a word in that moment, which not only would make Cregan be suspicious of what happened, but also would embarrass you in front of the charming prince.

Luckily for you, Aemond decided to step in.

"I was helping her train, my lord, I'm sorry for the disruption I might have caused," you looked down at the steps Aemond had left in the snow, right beside yours.

You were quick and subtle once you purposely stepped on them to erase them. Aemond noticed and he couldn't help but smirk.

"Well, stop your training and go," he demanded, "you might continue tomorrow."

You had no choice but to obey. One last glance was given to Aemond as you bowed to him, saying goodbye. Cregan followed your frame as you entered the castle, and then he turned to look at the prince. Aemond was no fool, he knew Cregan was not ignorant of his intention… he was a man after all, he could see through his facade with no big effort.

However, he did not say anything about it. He just nodded, and then he left leaving Aemond standing alone with the burning desire running down his body.

At first, he planned on just seducing you… but now? Now he will have you. He needed to have you.

That same day, quite late at night, you were found in your chambers, laying on your belly on top of the fur carpet right in front of the warmth of the fireplace. A book was between your hands as your eyes followed the traces of the poetic words that were written in it. The sound of the fire crackling and burning the wood was the only thing you were able to hear until three soft knocks interrupted the quiet calmness of the night.

You barely looked up as you muttered a soft 'come in', turning the page to continue with your reading. The door was opened in a subtle movement that you barely noticed, and soon you heard steps getting close to you.

It wasn't until you were able to see the shoes of that person that you decided to look up, only to find Aemond's grin staring back at you. You immediately sat up, crossing your legs and trying to cover your breasts with the book; the fabric of your nightgown was thin, and you knew that your skin could usually be seen through it if he dared to squint to take a look.

Your body hasn't forgotten about his touch and closeness, and in a certain way it was actually craving for more of that. But you knew it was not proper, you've heard whispers around the castle claiming that he was actually betrothed to one of Lord Baratheon's daughters, meaning he already belonged to someone else.

And yet, you couldn't help but to feel the eagerness to touch him.

"My Prince," you said, the shock of seeing him there, sitting on the carpet right beside you was shown in your voice, "what- what are you doing here?"

"I found myself alone and bored in my chambers, so I decided to wander around the castle and the path brought me here… to you," he smiled kindly as he said those last two words. Words that made your heart beat faster and your cheeks turn red, "were you reading?" He asked, pointing at the book that was covering your pebbled nipples.

"Uh… yes," you nodded, shyly, "it's a book about poetry."

"Poetry?" He asked, raising his eyebrows, "Mind if I have a look, little wolf?"

You couldn't help but to wildly blush with the pet name, feeling butterflies inside your belly as you pulled the book out of your chest and left it in his hands. Aemond's eyes inevitably went to see your soft breasts covered by a thin white layer of silky fabric, breathing deep and harsh as he felt his cock twitch inside his pants once he managed to see your nipples through it.

He remained calm, even when the only thing he wanted was to rip that gown out of your body and take you right there. Instead, he just sighed as his fingers elegantly turned the pages, reading some extract of the love poems in the book.

"I see you're a romantic person, my Lady," he commented, without taking his eyes off of the pages, "do you consider yourself a fan of the genre?"

"It's something that I enjoy reading, yes," you nodded.

"I had the impression," he confessed, closing the book and leaving it aside, "have you ever been in love?"

You shook your head, "I don't- I don't think so."

"Mhm…" he sighed, "that’s odd, you're a gorgeous lady, one might have thought you had a lot of suitors waiting for you."

"You're too kind," you said, looking retrained for a few seconds.

"I'm just stating the facts, little wolf," he spoke softly, "It seems like your brother likes to scare them away."

"Them?" You asked confused.

"Your suitors," he clarified, "that's the only reasonable explanation of why you are not married yet."

"He just wants the best for me," you defended him.

"And what would that be?"

"A husband who not only sees me as a womb with legs, but also as something precious, something worthy of love and care," your dreamy voice made Aemond smirk, the naiveness in you amused him in so many ways.

"You're asking for too much in a society like this, don't you think?"

You shrugged, "a girl can only dream."

The prince nodded, "and a man can only fulfill those dreams, am I right?" You remained silent, avoiding his heavy and penetrative stare at all cost, "have you ever been this close to a man before?"

"No…"

"I could tell," he chuckled, a sound that buzzed into your ears and made your mind go fuzzy, "you were quite nervous when I helped you with your bow this morning."

"I don't feel very comfortable with the proximity of men…" you confessed.

"Of all men, or just of me?"

That's when you realized where this was going, and the panic quickly installed in your gut as you swallowed hard. It took you some time, but you finally noticed his true intentions. You knew you had to stop him before things went further.

"My prince, I'm not quite sure what you mean by those words," you started to stand up, tumbling in your knees, "but it's late and it wouldn't be proper for you to be seen in my chambers, so please-"

Your words were interrupted by the sudden action of Aemond, who pulled you closer until you stranded him, your legs at each side of his body as he forced you to sit on his lap, his hands pressed in your hips firmly, not allowing you to escape from his strong grip.

"I think you know what I mean, my lady…" he whispered, leaning closer to your ear only to mutter with his seductive and raspy voice, "I think you can feel it."

Your breath hitched in your throat at the same time you tried to speak, "I- I don't know…"

"Tell me what you felt when I touched you this morning," he commanded, his hands lowering to your thighs, starting to lift the thin fabric of your gown, "was it similar to what you're feeling right now?"

"I… I don't-"

"I sensed your nervousness when I said how good of a girl you are," he chuckled, starting to breathe in your neck, smelling your sweet scent, "does that arouse you, little wolf? Being praised?"

"Prince Aemond, this is not proper, please-" you tried to pull away, but his grip pushed you down once again. Now you were able to feel his hard-on pressing right down your core, which sent you a sensation that caused chills down your spine.

"That's not what I'm asking you," he spoke sternly, massaging your thighs, squeezing them every now and then, "Mhm… my sweet little wolf, you're shaking. Are you nervous now? You don't have to be, I won't hurt you."

"I told you I do not enjoy this," you breathed out, feeling his hands reaching your hips underneath your gown.

"So you're telling me that if I dare to touch between your legs… I would not find your cunt drenching for me?"

His words made you squirm, the blush running to your cheeks as his thumb started to caress your mons pubis. Your body tensed as you widened your eyes, feeling his finger pressing down.

“I- I don’t- my Prince, please stop-” a small moan interrupted your words as he found your clit between your folds. His thumb rubbing it slowly as you closed your eyes; embarrassed that he was touching such a private part of your body.

“Have you ever been kissed, my lady?” He asked, trying to hold back a groan as he felt your slick coating his digit, “Has someone been lucky enough to be the first to claim your beautiful lips?”

You shook your head, Aemond hummed with delight.

“Then I guess I’ll be the first…”

You barely were able to process his words when he pressed his soft lips against yours. Slow movements that were easy for you to follow without much struggle as you held back whimpers of pleasure, for his thumb was still torturing your pearl in a slow and gentle manner.

Your hand fell on his chest, not with the intention of pushing him away. You grasp his thin blouse, catching the fabric between your trembling hands as you felt the tip of his tongue starting to tease your lips. Hesitantly, your lips parted just a few inches, enough to give him space for him to claim your mouth; swirling his tongue against yours as you tried to keep up with his slow and tempting actions.

He was able to taste your inexperience, the way you would doubt your movements before actually doing them was enough proof for him to know that you were not lying; he was the first man to kiss, which now made him more eager to also become the first man to fuck you.

A gasp escaped your swollen lips when, in a sudden movement, he laid your body in the soft carpet, spreading your legs and placing himself between them. Your nightgown was wrinkled around your hips, exposing your glistening folds to him as he kept playing with your now sensitive clit. Soft mewls were heard as he stopped kissing you in order to taste your skin. You felt the wet caresses of his lips in your neck, your jaw, your collarbones, all while your hands were grasping the fur of the carpet beneath you.

His fingers were soon covered in your juices, your hips trying to move against them in an attempt to feel more, but he pulled them away and you widened your eyes once you saw him licking them and humming after he felt your sweet taste against his tongue. Your breath was caught in your throat as you heard him groan.

"My lady, you taste as sweet as you are," he spoke slowly, you blinked a couple times still feeling your mind fuzzy, "do you want a taste?"

You gulped, not entirely sure of what to reply. The words were unable to come out, so all you could was nod.

A careless smile appeared on his face as he left a soft kiss on your cheek, before you realized your legs were on his shoulders and his face buried in your drenching cunt as you tried to squirm away from the overwhelming pleasure his tongue was providing you.

His slurping was heard, echoing in the room as you tried to push his head away from your pussy, breathing fast and unsteady as he devoured you. You felt his tongue teasing your needy hole as his nose rubbed against your clit, making you moan a bit too loudly. His hands were grabbing your hips tightly, just to make sure you don't escape from him; his fingertips burying in your soft skin as your body writhe under his skilful mouth.

You could feel your own slick slipping down your thigh along with his spit. It was messy, far from being as slow and calm as the kiss he gave you before. He was eager to make you cum; licking, sucking, and fucking your cunt until you were nothing but a moaning mess.

It was over before you even noticed it. With a loud gasp, your eyes rolling and your thighs pressing at each side of Aemond's head, you reached your first orgasm, which finished with you gulping and hiccuping with pleasure. You heard him moaning against your soaking folds, collecting all your slick to then lean over your body.

He took a look at your face, your lips quivering as your cheeks were burning and tinted with a furious red. His fingers reached your chin, and made you open your mouth, which you did without hesitation. His spit fell in your tongue before your glistening eyes closed as you whimpered. You were able to taste yourself in it, the sweetness of your release coating your tongue.

"Swallow it," he commanded, and you quickly obeyed him, "good girl…" he let out a chuckle, and you couldn’t help but to feel an unknown heat running down your body. "See? I told you you were sweet, doesn't it taste good?"

You nodded, sighing.

"So good, so delicious…" he leaned to kiss you again as his hands pulled down your gown, freeing your breasts, "I swear it, my lady, I will not rest until your cunt is mine forever."

His big hands left a soft squeeze on your tits before they went to his pants, untying the lace and pulling them down. His leaking cock was now on your sight, hard and reddish. You barely noticed he took off his shirt as you were too hypnotized seeing that specific part of his body. Aemond immediately noticed your curious eyes, and he teasingly grabbed his cock in his hand only to stroke it a few times before letting it on top of your clit.

"Do you want it, my lady?" He whispered, starting to rub himself on you.

You whined, looking down at the obscene scene of his cock parting your puffy lips.

"Do you want my cock to make you feel good?" He groaned, feeling your slick coating his shaft, "I will give it to you if you ask me… Tell me what you want."

You gulped, trying to pronounce pleas.

"Aemond… I- I want…"

"Tell me, my beautiful lady," he muttered, "tell me what you desire."

"I want you… please… it's hurting, I-"

The head of his cock reached your hole and he slowly started to sink in you. Your eyes widened as a soft cry escaped your throat. Your legs closed as you brought them against your chest, and Aemond groaned in disapproval.

"Come on, darling… keep your legs open for me," he cooed, "I want to see your pretty pussy taking my cock."

He held the back of your knees, keeping your legs folded but spread. His cock was buried in your tight cunt as tears of pain started to fall down your cheeks. A loud cry was heard, louder than all of the others, and Aemond was quick to put his hand on top of your mouth.

"Sh, sh…" he whispered, "It's okay, it'll pass. Just relax, my lady, it will feel so good."

He spreaded you open with one push, your back arched as you struggled to take him. He stayed still for a few seconds before his own lust decided that he could not wait any longer. Your walls were squeezing him deliciously as he started to pound against you, groaning and moaning as the pleasure was taking the best of him.

Grasping on the fur beneath you, you started to sob. Aemond saw the signs of pain in your face and he quickly leaned over you in order to take one of your pebbled nipples into his mouth. The feeling that brought you was indescribable, and soon the pain became bearable as his thrusts remained slow but became harder.

Aemond would choke his moans against your tit as his tongue skilfully swirling around it, licking and sucking as he kept fucking you, each thrust going deeper and deeper.

"Fuck…" he sighed, "your pussy is so fucking tight. Made by the Gods just for me."

His words made you drool as the warmth of the fireplace was starting to affect you, making you sweat. His hand left your mouth, now going to play with your swollen and needy clit.

"This little cunt belongs to me now, doesn't it?" he purred against your ear.

"A-Aemond..."

He hummed, "how sweet you sound when you moan my name like that."

"P-please…"

"What is it, my lady?" he teased you, "do you want to cum? Do you want to make a mess on my cock?"

"Y-yes…" you managed to say, choking with your words as he thrusted harder, "Oh, Gods! Yes…"

"That's it, sweet girl…" he praised you, "taking me so well, so good. I'm gonna fill you up, leave you leaking with my cum. Is that what you want?"

"G-Gods… yes, p-please!" you whined.

"Then I guess I have no other choice but to give you what you want…"

A soft chuckle left him as his thrusts became faster. His hips smacking against yours as he gripped your arsecheeks to gain stability. The sound of your slick drenching around his cock echoed in the room as you started to cry out, sobbing with pleasure and begging for more.

Aemond looked at your cunt, and a soft and subtle whine was heard as he saw the way his cock disappeared between your folds. Your pleas would only make him desperate, eager to reach his climax and seeing your abused hole leaking his pearly seed. The image alone was enough to make his cock twitch inside you.

"Fuck, so good… so fucking good," he lifted your hips, pounding restlessly against you as he leaned his head back, closing his eyes as his breathing turned unsteady, "such a perfect pussy, squeezing me so fucking good."

You clenched around him, and that was what sent him over the edge, spilling his big loads of cum inside of you at the same time that your release exploded. Your cries were heard even in the hallway, as the intensity of your orgasm took over your shaky body. The feeling of him stuffing you with his seed sent you a shiver down your spine that made you twitch your hips.

Aemond leaned over you to kiss you, pounding lazily as he was coming down from his orgasm. You receive the sloppy kiss as your eyes were closing by themselves, too worn out to keep them open.

But then, Aemond decided to speak.

"Look at you, sweet girl…" he said with an odd tone that you haven't heard from him until now, "what would your big brother say if he saw you now, huh? Filled with my seed, a mess under my touch."

Your breathing stopped for a second and only then you realized what you did. You opened your eyes only to find a smirk on his face, and your heart dropped.

"You probably will be swollen with my bastard in a few months… then what would the people think of you? The Heart of the North carrying the Prince's bastard child…"

"N-no…" you muttered, starting to softly push his chest.

"Mhm, yes…" he scoffed, "unless I take you as my bride, of course."

A shaky breath came out of your nose as tears of despair fell down your cheeks, your bottom lip quivered as your gleaming eyes looked at his.

"W-would you… would you take me as your wife?"

Aemond smirked, starting to pull out of you. He hummed delighted with the view as he saw the pearly drops leaking out of you. He sighed, putting his pants on and fixing his clothes.

"If your brother decides to join his forces with ours, I will take you as my bride and no one will know this happened before our marriage…" he said, standing up and looking down at you. "But, if he decides to join my sister's army…"

He doesn't even need to finish the sentence for you to know the consequences of that. The panic ran down your body as you sat in the carp carpet, covering your nudity with your nightgown and crying.

"How- how am I supposed to-?"

"Cregan Stark will do anything his little sister commands," he interrupts you, taking a few steps towards you to gently grab your jaw in his hand, forcing you to look at him, "so you better choose the right option, my lady."

He left a caress in your cheek with a smug smile on his face. He abandoned your chambers, letting you there feeling helpless and a bit scared.

It wasn't a big surprise for him when a few days later Lord Stark gave him the good news… and Aemond fulfilled his words, marrying you a month after the North joined the war and helped King Aegon II win the final battle against Rhaenyra.

What was a surprise, was the birth of your first child, a month earlier than what the Maesters expected.

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dreamlifebunny · 7 months

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can i just say how much i love my law of assumption girlies (of all genders) and how tremendously proud of you i am? every day you are dedicated to giving yourself the absolute best that life has to offer. every day you show up for yourself even when it's hard or scary or when you don't know what to do, because you know that better is out there. every day you love yourself enough to abandon what society has conditioned you to believe your entire life and choose a different path of unconditional love and peace. regardless of the trauma you have experienced, the oppression you have faced, and the external voices in your ears constantly telling you that you are not enough, you have taken back your power and are rewriting your story.

YES, there will be days that are hard, YES, this is a complicated journey of learning and unlearning, but every. single. day. you show up and try, and i am so, so proud of you for never giving up on yourself.

the day will come when you will be living the life you have always dreamed of, surrounded by the love you have always deserved, and doing the things you have always wanted to do, and you know what? YOU will have been the one who got you there. i love you so much, and i am so proud of you; never forget how incredibly strong and brave you are for taking this journey.

#like why am i cryin so early in the morning gdamn #law of assumption #manifestation #neville goddard #edward art #loassumption #loa #void state #master manifestor #manifesting #dream girl #it girl #bunny's originals

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willowser · 1 month

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i need more barbarian bakugo au or im gonna burst 😢😢

NOOOOOO bc !! ofc you know who he is, right ?? he's the next in line to lead your clan; you've seen him around your little village and at the smithy and felt the wind underneath the wings of his dragon as he flew overhead. you've stolen glances in the market, between the leatherworker's stall and the potter's kiln, and you've celebrated him along with your peers and you've watched him grow, from afar, into the kind of man that will come to be chieftain.

bakugou katsuki has always, always been—important. he was never among the litter of you that were escorted around by the clan childtender when you were just a young thing, nor was he ever involved in training for your first hunt or sat around the elders as the history of the clan was recounted to you; he grew up apart from the lot of you.

occasionally, his tender's would find him scuttling about in the fields with a tiny group of other boys, ones that were brave enough to wrastle with him in the dirt, or followed his commands closely enough that he allowed them to join him on unknown and unsupervised expeditions into the wilds.

you see him closely for the first time at his own nameday, at 16. it's a big celebration, a turning point in his young life, and he stands before the village with a face painted in the markings of a warrior, body unscarred and strong, and he hoots and hollers with all the etiquette of a feral child. which he might as well be, being raised by the kind of fierce chieftess that will no doubt go down in history.

your family offers a gift, as they all do, and it's you that climbs the steps of his family's hall and hand delivers it to him: a little clay dragon, a bit crude but made with care, that you've worked on for weeks. it's hard to tell how he feels about it, because he only stares at you in silence before huffing and puffing and baring his teeth at you, and then you're escorted back down to your family in the blink of an eye.

you orbit each other, distantly, though you never exchange more than a few passing words.

—so when the maidens that serve the bakugou family come to find you in the night, on the eve of katsuki's ascension to chieftain status, you're shocked to find he's taken lives and conquered settlements and tamed dragons and journeyed far and wide and grown to be the battle-hardened man that he is—but has never taken a lover.

and you're even more astounded to find that he's chosen you to be it.

#i had to cut myself off or i would have kept going LMAO #WAAAHHH HE MAKES ME CRAZY #maybe he even goes away for a few years #to fight in some war and he comes back less of a feral child and is suddenly a MAN #WHEW #oh man oh man oh man #he bares his teeth at you as a teen pls he's trying to show you how FIERCE HE IS 🥺🥺🥺#i have to go i have to stop i'll go insane you dont get it #✿ ask willow #✿ thoughts: bakugou

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mochiwrites · 18 days

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One of the hermits sits Grian down one day and tries to tell him Scar loves him, and Grian, just as faithful to the bit as he is to his husband, just keeps brushing them off.

But then they tell him everything Scar went through while Grian was missing, things they think Grian might not know or realize. How Scar would leave Hermitcraft for weeks on end to scour Highpixel and any other server they'd ever been to and come home exhausted and distraught. How Scar would beg Doc to build some universe-breaking contraption that could find anyone and get angry when told it wasn't possible. How Scar would cry for hours some days and be an emotionless husk the next.

So yes, they tell Grian, who is now in tears himself, Scar loves you. Just tell him how you feel.

Grian goes straight to Scar and apologizes for the 100th time for doing that to him, and Scar just holds him and tells him that none of that matters, that he's home and safe and that's all Scar needs.

“Scar loves you.”

Grian blinks as he stares at both Impulse and Bdubs, the pair looking at him with uncharacteristically serious expressions. This is… not what he expected when being asked to meet at Bdubs’ monolith. “Well yeah, of course he does.” They’re married. Of course he knows! Not that Impulse and Bdubs are aware of that part, at least. It’s been a very funny bit going between himself and Scar.

“No G,” Bdubs argues, making Grian’s brows furrow, “Scar loves you.”

He knows that.

Impulse glances at Bdubs before sighing quietly. “Scar never mentioned how he was when you went missing, did he?” His voice is soft as he asks, calm and friendly.

Slowly, Grian shakes his head. They had of course spoken at length about how hard it was on both sides — with Grian being pulled apart and molded into the perfect little Watcher, and Scar wondering every night if he’d ever see his husband again. But Scar never seemed to want to talk about it much outside of his nightmares. Those nights were always hard, when Scar would cling to Grian, shaking like a leaf as he feared Grian being taken from him again. That was painful enough, he never wanted to press for more.

Bdubs scoffs, “The guy was a total mess! An absolute wreck without you around!”

Impulse elbows him, muttering a quiet “dude.” He looks back to Grian. “Bdubs isn’t uh, exactly wrong in saying that. Scar really didn’t handle you being gone too well.”

Grian tenses as an uneasy feeling sits in his stomach. Of course he knew that it hadn’t been easy for Scar. He can only imagine how badly Scar handled it, something he has a feeling he won’t have to imagine for much longer. If the sympathetic look Impulse is giving him is anything to go by.

“He tried to keep a brave face for a while, I think that was to keep us from worrying too much. Not that it worked much,” Impulse confesses with a weak chuckle. “He’d leave Hermitcraft at least once or twice a month for days at a time, said he was going to Hypixel to search for you. And every time he’d come home looking more distraught and tired than the last. It was… really hard to watch him break himself down like that.” Impulse frowns, absentmindedly brushing off his pants leg.

Hearing that makes Grian’s heart hurt. ‘Oh Scar…’ He can picture it so clearly, his husband racing all over Hypixel, asking anyone and everyone if they knew about Grian or his whereabouts. Going at it for multiple days. Grian imagines him going back to their apartment, collapsing in their bed. He probably exhausted himself often, doing that. Had he been properly taking care of himself? No… probably not.

“And that’s not even touching the stuff with Doc, either!” Bdubs cuts in, earning Grian’s attention. “Do you know how many times during Hermitcraft meetings he’d beg Doc to make some world breaking machine to find you?!”

Impulse grimaces, “Doc would tell him no every time, and gosh, I’ve never seen him get so angry before.”

Neither has Grian.

His wings drop slightly, chest aching at the thought of how much pain Scar must’ve been in. And for so long…

“Cub and I caught him crying a lot,” Bdubs continues, just a tad softer as the air in the room shifts around. Both he and Impulse seem to pick up on Grian’s reaction, the response. “Sometimes he’d cry for hours, or stare obsessively at his communicator. And the next day it was like we were looking at some shell of him.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “He was flat out emotionless, G. I think I could count the number of times I saw him smile on one hand.”

No, that doesn’t sound right. Scar is a man who never stops smiling. He has a smile that’s capable of lighting up the whole room. It’s hard to picture him now without one. Because it’s Scar. Wonderfully bright and happy Scar. The man Grian loves more than anything in the world. For him to lose that…

Impulse reaches out, setting a hand on Grian’s shoulder. “But he brightened up the moment he saw you again, G. You’re Scar’s world, man. He loves you more than anything. So just… be honest with him. Tell him how you feel, yeah?”

Grian sucks in a rough breath, willing his vision to clear as he meets Impulse’s gaze.

————————————————

It doesn’t take Grian very long to find Scar afterward.

He spots his lovable man right in Main Street of Scarland, humming to himself as he constructs a trolley by some flowerbeds. He looks focused, very much in the zone of building as he rests out a color palette or two.

Grian doesn’t hesitate to interrupt him, dropping down beside him. “Scar,” he gets out, of course startling the man.

Scar jumps with the usual goofy yell of his, hard hat falling off his head and hitting the ground with a resounding thud. He looks over at Grian, shocked expression melting into one of fondness as they lock eyes. “Oh! Well if it isn’t the love of my li— oof!”

He’s cut off as Grian barrels right into him, arms wrapping tight around his torso as he buries his face into Scar’s neck. Scar stumbles backward as he rushes to hug Grian back, pressing him close. “Whoa there. Not that I’m upset about this, but what’s with the sudden hug, lovebird?”

“I’m sorry.” Grian pressed his face further against Scar, wrapped up in the familiar smell of spice and earthy tones. “I’m sorry I — I didn’t know how bad it was I—” he breaks off, squeezing his eyes shut, voice wet and shaking. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you about what?” Scar questions, his voice ever so soft as he moves to cards his fingers through his hair, picking up on his distress.

“How it was for you those years I was missing.” Grian wraps his wings around him on instinct, needing him close. He feels the way the other stiffens, going tense in his hold. “I’m so sorry, Scar.”

Scar shushes him, shaking his head as he presses a kiss against his hair. “You have nothing to apologize for, G,” he murmurs. “You’re here now and safe in my arms. That’s the only thing I care about.” And he means it. He and Grian could go through a thousand different trials, but none of them would matter, so long as Scar could hold him and keep him safe again. “You’re home. You’re here. That’s all I need, everything else is in the past.”

Grian’s breath shakes with a quiet and distressed noise, guilt flooding him. He mumbles a few more apologies; for leaving Scar, for not being there, for leaving him to struggle alone. “I love you so much,” he says, “I love you.”

Scar continues to hold him, kissing him all over. “I love you too, sunshine.”

#mochi speaks #mochi writes #secret husbands au #scarian #hermitshipping #THE AUDIBLE NOISE I MADE WHEN I READ YOUR ASK #WAILING AND SOBBINGGGGGG

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luveline · 9 months

Note

Steve zombie au with reader getting hurt at the new camp (like always) and Eddie offering support as a friend but Steve gets all jealous while trying to take care of HIS girl

for you my love ♡ steve zombie au —steve is riddled with guilty jealousy as you and eddie become friends. fem!reader 2k

It's a brave new world.

For starters, there are enough guns at camp and able bodied gunmen for fires in the daytime. There are warm meals eaten under the sun, songs sung quietly but nonetheless sung around the fire. There are happy children. There are books to be read to them, and batteries to power flashlights for story time under the stars.

Things aren't perfect, but after the tragedy of The College, things are good enough. Steve can bring himself to leave your side (though not for the first few days where he's bed bound, and not for a few more after that).

He can't lie, he hates that you like Eddie so much. His jealousy is a raging monster of stiff spines and dry eye twitches, insecurity that you've met someone new and that you trust them so quickly.

You were cagey at The College, scared of Steve's friends and petrified Steve was going to break up with you. He couldn't understand at the time how you would ever think such a thing, but now, with Eddie sitting by your knee and a piece of string between his fingers weaving a cat's cradle, your eyes alight with delight, Steve gets it. He totally gets it.

"It's not hard," Eddie promises you, letting the string fall from his fingers and into your lap.

"I don't have a complicated brain," you say.

"It's not rocket science. Even Steve can do it."

Steve picks an overcooked Lima bean up from his discarded dinner tray and aims to flick it between Eddie's eyes. You're gathered around the campfire in your cold weather coats, a procession of young (ish) adults knee to knee chatting away the worthless hours. When the Lima bean smacks Eddie in the cheek, Steve could pin it on any number of the people gathered. Christopher is a renowned professional when it comes to bothering people, and Jonathan has that older brother's penchant for being irksome, but Steve owns up to it.

"That's a touchdown."

Eddie gives him the finger as he instructs you, completely unbothered. "It's those two fingers– No– Yeah, you got it. And then push this finger under this, and this finger… Nice."

In another life, there's a Steve who doesn't care. He hasn't had to vy for your attention before besides sharing your friendship with Robin, and he's pathetically sorry about it —you should have friends. Steve thinks unabashed that you're the best person they ever made. All you want (all you've ever wanted) is to be loved and to give love back. He's known that about you for a very long time. And in his eyes you deserve what you want.

You deserve to have friends. He can share Robin, and you can have friends of your own, too. You can have everything.

Steve can't get a handle on how it's making him feel, is the issue. He's envious as a teenager with their first crush.

"You honestly just need to practise," Eddie assures you, laying back in the grass with his arms behind his head.

"You'll have to show me again."

You stay sitting and Eddie shows you the pattern again without sitting up. You aren't flirting with one another. Steve wonders if that would feel better, to be jealous of something substantial, but you're doing normal things. Eddie is treating you with exactly the kindness and friendship you deserve. Steve wishes he managed it himself when you first met, because you're his best love and his best friend.

Robin not included. (Robin is always included. Steve would die for her.)

Like she can sense his devotion, Robin puts a hand on his shoulder, pulling his weight gently to the left. "You'll burn a hole in his leather jacket."

"I hope he catches on fire."

"What are you so worried about? She had plenty of chances to leave you for somebody new. Jonathan's been nothing but sweet to her the entire time they've known one another and she barely notices."

Steve grimaces. "Jonathan likes her too?"

"He wants to be her friend, just like Eddie. I, on the other hand, want to marry her."

"Funny." Steve yanks grass up from its roots, the blades soft and cold between his fingers. There's an ice patch growing on his ass and thighs from the cold as the temperature drops. "It's fucking cold."

"You can move closer. I need to go and find Sarah for a bit. Don't burn your new kicks, Steve, they were a great trade."

Robin swapped a useless handgun for them to the resident portable blacksmith. Steve wriggles his toes in them gratefully.

Steve and the remaining group move closer to the fire slowly. When the sky is black and smooth as velvet dotted only by stars like pin holes, Will comes running with a miraculous bag of marshmallows, trailed by his ragtag group of friends; Dustin with his fraying hat, Lucas, and a teenaged boy named Peter.

Steve couldn't believe Lucas was alive at first. Eddie told the story to him when he was recovering in the shitty portable medbay. You'd been sleeping in the plastic chair by Steve's bed, your face pressed to his chest, a puddle of drool soaking into his t-shirt. He'd stroked your forehead for hours.

Eddie and a whole bunch of Hellfire members didn't quite manage the escape rendezvous orchestrated by Hopper at the start of the apocalypse. You and Steve must have just missed them when they set out in Eddie's van for safety. The story goes that Eddie's shit with directions, and while he managed to get to Michigan eventually, it was hard. They met up with a group of much older people who were able to take some of the weight off, eventually finding a group of military soldiers who'd been drafted to protect a politician's family. Their group kept growing and growing. While they never set up camp somewhere permanent, they've kept it together. If Eddie's group (or moving community) had managed to make it to The College, Steve thinks they might have survived the attack.

But you're together now. Hawkinites reunited, Hopper alive and well and nursing new plans.

"Hopper give those to you?" Christopher asks Will.

"How's that fair?" Eddie asks. "Family favouritism."

"I have to share them," Will says.

"Oh, well. Never mind. Accusation renounced."

The teens kidnap Eddie and run off to find sticks for marshmallow roasting. You turn to Steve with a smile that makes him feel worse rather than better, so subtly devoted.

"How's your arm?" you ask, leaning into his shoulder.

"Aches."

"Can I have a look?" you ask.

Steve offers his arm with no qualms. You fight to push back the sleeve of his coat and jacket. His wound is closed and healing nicely, but the infection must've been in his muscle or something because the ache won't go away. It feels as though he's done a hundred pull ups with one arm alone.

You don't touch anywhere near the site.

"I think it's looking better." You thumb over one of his little moles. "Pretty."

"You're pretty."

"You're prettier," you say, folding his sleeves down again with infinite care. He thinks you might be batting your lashes at him. That, or he's whipped to the point of delusion. "You feel okay, hm? You're mopey tonight. Do you want to go sleep?"

Steve shakes his head vehemently. "And miss marshmallows? No way."

You both notice that your question of mood went unanswered. Luckily for him, you dip down to rub your cheek against his sleeve. "Love you."

He loves you too. He says it under his breath, pressing his cheek to your head for as long as you're willing to stay there.

"Y/N-kins, Steven," Eddie says, returning with a handful of long branches covered in foliage. "I have a job for you."

You pull leaves off of the branches. It should be an easy job with the three of you sitting criss cross applesauce yanking the twigs naked excitedly, but you pull with too much enthusiasm and stab the meat of your thumb.

You hiss and look down. Your noise draws Eddie and Steve's attention in tandem, Eddie closest to the injured hand.

"Oh, shit," Eddie says, pulling his sleeve over his hand. He presses it to your skin as a surprisingly fat rivulet of blood springs and drips down to your wrist. "Here, don't get it on your clean coat."

Steve doesn't know why he does it. He isn't proud. But he thinks, That's my girl. Eddie's being friendly, and Steve knows that's all it is, but he can't stop himself from batting Eddie's hand away and moving in protectively.

"Cop a feel somewhere else, Munson," he bites.

"Steve!" you say, laughing.

Eddie rolls his eyes, sitting back in his spot with a laugh of his own. "Ridiculous. I wouldn't cop a feel ever 'cos I respect women–"

"Nice," you say.

"And if I were trying to flirt with her, Harrington, I'd definitely do it better. But as you both know my heart is promised to someone very important. I'm busy keeping the memory of metal alive, I don't have time for stealing girlfriends. Not that you're not worth stealing, Y/N."

Steve dabs your hand. You wink at Eddie playfully. "You keep her alive, Eddie. Are you gonna play some more rock songs for us tonight?"

"Duh."

"How do you manage to hurt yourself every single day?" Steve asks, distracted from the conversation by your cut. It can't be a quarter of an inch long but it's bleeding in a rush.

"See how it got faster when you came to save me?" you ask Steve. His heart drops, but you continue, "My heart gets faster when you're close. My blood pressure rises."

Steve tries not to show how pleased he feels at the compliment. You tap his elbow knowingly.

Steve assesses your cut. It stops bleeding just as soon as he leaves it alone and the kids arrive with their marshmallows, putting an end to Steve's makeshift medbay.

Someone puts a couple more logs on the fire to get it roaring now that night is creeping in. Steve insists on roasting a marshmallow for you.

"I have one working hand left," you protest.

"And knowing your luck, you'll burn it."

"I'd never control you like that," Eddie says, deadpan.

Steve stabs Eddie with a stick that's lightly smouldering at the tip. You tell Steve off, but when he presents you with a roasted marshmallow for eating you give him the world's greatest thank you kiss. Another after you've eaten it, your lips sticky with sugar.

"Do you want mine?" Steve asks.

You wrap your arm around his waist for a lopsided hug. "No. Don't ask me again though, I might say yes."

"Do you want mine? Seriously, honey–"

"I'll have it," Eddie says with a shit-eating smile, eyes trained on the fire where he toasts his own marshmallow.

You wave your hand at him. "No, you won't." You lift your chin to kiss his cheek. "It's yours. Don't let it burn, handsome."

Alright, Steve might have jumped the gun on the whole jealousy thing.

#steve zombie!au #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington drabble #stranger things x reader #stranger things fic #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fanfiction #stranger things #stranger things 4

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yandere-wishes · 9 months

Text

He's Just Ken

Summary: You're just Barbie, perfect on the outside, dead on the inside. He's just Ken, neither perfect on the outside nor on the inside.

Author's note: I condone neither patriarchy nor matriarchy. But I do love exploring different forms of mental exhaustion and extreme emotional dependency.

Warnings: Mental abuse, dark mental headspace, mentions of suicide and self-harm (only if you read between the lines), yandere behavior, yandere Ken,

Not every Barbie has a Ken. Not one for herself anyway. Every Barbie knows a Ken, but that Ken most likely belongs to her friend, or her neighbor, or one of the other Barbies. Not every Barbie has a Ken, but every Barbie knows a Ken. You know one too, one with sandy hair and ocean eyes. And a look that longs for something more. You know a Ken who keeps his heart from breaking by crossing his fingers and praying to the Malibu sun. You know a Ken who's only happy if a certain Barbie looks his way. Or rather you knew. This was before the world fell apart. This was before he destroyed it.

Ken returned without Barbie and the universe began to crack. It's fine you thought. It's fine you hoped. Ken -That Ken, the one who waited on the beach for hours on end until his Barbie walked by- returned from the real world preaching sermons on how the Kens were better, superior, the rightful rulers of Barbieland. How they didn't need the Barbies, how they no longer needed to settle for being treated as anything less than perfect. How they needn't be number two any longer. Ken returned without Barbie and the universe wept.

You've always known the real world was a messed up place. It had become evident when the thoughts started to creep in. That was years ago-albeit you'll admit you have no idea if Barbie years and human years aligned- years since you started to feel like a constant failure. Years since that harrowing voice began screeching endless dreadful thoughts into your cranium. Notions that festered your mind and heart, tiny maggots that chewed away at your soul. There was always something wrong and it was somehow always your fault. Then came the pain. Horizontal pangs that shot across your arm. Always in the same spot, always in a cluster of three. Barbies don't feel pain as intensely as humans, at least they're not supposed to.

You worried for your human back then. You truly did. But you were always too scared to leave Barbieland. Never brave enough to go find her. She's fine you hope...you doubt it though.

You also refused to go see Weird Barbie. Too scared of being labeled as anything less than perfect. So long as these thoughts merely remained inside you and no outward defects began to show, you would be fine. You could just pretend like everything was as perfect as it always had been.

Ken came back from the real world unscratched. Yet his words hit a chord within every other Ken. They began to take over. The Barbies were reduced to accessories. Pretty little things that clung to their lovers. Dressed in short skirts and maid outfits. Turned into what they weren't.

Ken destroyed what once was perfect. Yet all you could think as you watch the pillars of your homeland cripple and your friends descend into madness. Was how utterly beautiful he was.

The world turned upside down.

Barbieland fell.

Kendome rose.

And yet as everything the Barbies had worked all so hard to build came crumbling down. As your friends and neighbors began to lose themselves and submit to a tyrannical patriarchy. You found yourself utterly unaltered. Your world had been destroyed long ago. This was just another calamity that you would fake your way through. It would be easy, a lifetime of practice finally paying off. Stay quiet, stay in the shadows, no one would notice.

No one was supposed to notice...

Ken found you on the beach one night. A day or two after the hostile Ken takeover. He walked up behind you out of breath as if he'd been running.

The bonfire crackles, a warning, and a love song. Until now you'd only ever existed in his sideview. An afterthought as he impaled his heart and called it love. You had burned yourself in his rays and called it love. You're convinced neither of you knows what love truly is. The moon's rays dance as you two sit side by side. In the distance, you see Blue Mermaid Barbie and Mermaid Ken share a tender kiss. An unparalleled sight.

Ken sits next to you. Eyes following your every move. Scanning every dip and curve of your plastic corpse. He's just Ken you remind yourself with an uneasy breath. He's just Ken, nothing to fear. Although you're not entirely sure if those old ideologies shine through. He's Ken but somehow he's become unstable at worst, flammable at best. Something radioactive ticks inside of him waiting to detonate. Waiting to make the world feel a trace of his pain.

Ken's fingers intertwine with yours as waves of helplessness crash across your body. You were created to be ethereal yet all you see is perfection molded in the shape of Ken's face. He leans in, carelessly placing his chin in the subspace of your neck as he whispers. "I see the way you look at me" his warm breath tickles the shell of your ear. You flinch, in time with the breaking of the waves. "I know you want me" Reality blurs when Ken touches you. He pulls you between his legs as his lips kiss the back of your neck. His fingers run up and down your arm as if he's trying to memorize your shape, your soul, you. It's romantic you think but all you feel is puka shell shards stabbing your flesh. You know he's dreamed of this intimacy with the other Barbie.

you wonder if in his eyes you are merely a ghost. One he resurrected with desperate love and a broken heart. You wonder if he sees her, feels her, wants her. Yet he'll settle for you. The next best thing. The other stereotypical Barbie. Somewhere along the line, your own voice sounds, foreign to you. He's talking, his voice is smooth like silk. Fragile like window glass after a bombing. He asks you something, something you've dreamed of for all so long. He asks you to be his bride wife. You agree despite how degrading it sounds.

What once was a pink haven of fun and joy has now been turned into a mess of horses and black sunglasses. Barbie's dreamhouse is now Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House. You feel like an intruder, like a traitor. You feel loved, wanted, needed. Someone once told you that truths can co-exist. It's all you can think to save yourself from going mad.

There's an unspoken easiness that comes with being with Ken. The way he's always around. His hands never leave you, tracing stars on your arms, running through your hair. He wants his presence to be felt.

"I like this" you confess one night as you rest your head on his arm. "I've always felt...less than perfect. Like I couldn't be good at anything like the other Barbies." Ken laughs and it feels like the stars have cladded you in their warmth. He pinches your nose with a soft smile. "I know the feeling," he mutters and you feel your heart crack. "But you don't have to worry about that. I'm here and so long as you're with me. We're both going to be perfect." You snuggle into his chest as you close your eyes. "Ken and Barbie" you sing, a mantra, a prayer. One for a better future. One for a happy life.

You have a dream house. Had one at least. You sometimes wonder which Ken lives there now. You wonder if his Barbie feels your presence radiating off the walls and the floor and the heart-shaped night lamp you once treasured. You certainly feel Stereotypical Barbie's presence echoing from every corner. You see her ghost whenever Ken pulls you onto his lap to watch a horse flick. Infuriated and distressed. You wonder if she's angry because you didn't join the rebellion. You wonder if she's angry because she thinks you took Ken away. You see her ghost again, feel her between the pause of two breaths. She glitches and fades as you hide your face in Ken's mink coat.

"I don't like being apart from you" Ken claims as he lays your body on top of his. One hand dangling off the couch the other curling your loose locks. To Ken a touch away feels like being galaxies apart. You kiss his chin and his cheek and his nose and finally his lips. It feels like a dream. One you refuse to wake up from.

Ken is gold.

Unmetable and solid.A kaleidoscope of hope

He has so much potential rotting inside of him.

Ken is gold.

Beautiful and everlasting.

His value lies in how pretty he is. How good of an accessory he's willing to be.

You wonder if he's sick of being gold.

You felt Barbie's ghost again today. This time looming and aggravated. She wants her presence acknowledged. She has something she needs to say. Ken was out, one of the rare times you two spend apart. Something about a beach off and rock paper scissors.

You wonder if a ghost haunting is their way of showing love.

You wonder if the Kens starting a rebellion is their way of showing love.

Barbie talks for ten minutes straight. You cling to every word, you forgot how much you missed the Other Barbie's voice. It's in the final beat of her sentence that you notice she's not a ghost. Not this time. This is Barbie, the girl who had been your friend since the day you left your box. "Help me" she pleads as she grabs your shoulders. "We need to fix this", you turn your head and smile a broken smile. "I can't" you confess.

It's easy to undo brainwashing. Even easier to reinstate it. What Stereotypical Barbie and her friends can undo. You can simply redo. Even Barbies prefer ease, a few simple half-truths sung into the right ear at the right time. And the once normalized Barbies are running back to their Kens. You turn, in the rays of the golden sun, you see Barbie. Her eyes hold glimmers of unshed tears. She wears her betrayal on her pink sleeve. "Why" she whispers as her fingers reach out to hover over your heart before she retracts them. You think you may have burned her. You think she's afraid of being plagued by your depravity.

You feel like a traitor, like a monster. A creature made of pink lipgloss and shattered vows. should Kendom fall, you know your delicate dream life will fall with it. You stare into her eyes. And the words that leave your mouth feel so rehearsed, yet you swear it's the first time you've uttered them. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you both when you went through hell. I'm sorry I wasn't there when the world collapsed and you ran from the debris. I'm sorry I can't help you pick up the pieces and rebuild what once was yours.., ours. I'm sorry I'm so selfish".

Immortal hearts are cursed with the loneliest beats. Maybe that's why the other Barbies never bothered to ponder their endless existence. Maybe that's why the Kens always clung to false promises of love. Maybe saying I love you is the same as saying I'm letting you go. Stereotypical Barbie has already reached this conclusion, you know this. For a fraction of a juncture, she looks into your eyes. Trying to reason and plea and hope all in the same breath. When you say nothing more her eyes shine with grief as she turns on her heels and runs for the hilled house. You reach out to her, yet only grasp the warm Malibu breeze.

What do you call a person such as yourself?

Coward...

That sounds about right.

Ken kisses your neck, and it feels like lava sprinkling along your skin. You feel like a defeated soldier drowning in a sea of guilt. Survivor's guilt a voice echo inside your head familiar yet all so distant. A ghost from a past life or a current one unseeable to you. "I have it too" the voice replies. You wonder if it's the voice of an angel or a mortal girl. You don't tell him about the Barbie resistance or how easily they can reverse the brainwashing. You work best alone anyway.

You hear the word death replay in the background as Ken bites a sensitive spot. A faint noise, a haunting whisper. You hear the word death and it sounds more familiar than the name Barbie that has rolled off your tongue every day since birth.

Ken harbors you inside the once was dreamhouse like a forbidden secret. Sometimes the skirts feel too short. Sometimes the world feels too heavy. You always feel the eyes of the other Kens on you. You think Ken planned it that way to show the Ken world who you belong to. Just last week he took you to the beach. Both of you wearing matching pastel blues and silver earrings. Other Ken was there also adorned in pastel blue and silver earrings. You see the twitch in your Ken's jaw, the icy glare when Other Ken waves to you. "Let's go," he says, commandes really. He throws you over his shoulder and you're heading back the way you came. "I really wanted to see Mermaid Barbie..." You pout. "No no, you wanted to see a movie remember?" Ken corrects you, to be honest, he does that often. You're starting to doubt you even know your own wants anymore.

Today Ken has you dressed in a pink and white dress. You remember Setrotypical Barbie use to love this dress. You run around the kitchen cooking a pretend dinner. You really want to go shipping, to pick out something you'd like. A rose pink Lolita skirt and a matching button-up. You really want to die. Although that's normal you always want to go shopping. You always want to die. You wonder if Ken will ever let you pick out your own dresses. You leave his plate in front of him as you loop your arms around his neck. You rest your chin on his head as he pulls you closer. Not picking your own clothes is a small price to pay for the intimacy you've craved for far too long.

"Never has there ever been a girl as pretty" Ken whispers as he relishes in your presence.

"Do you have any idea what you are?" He rasps, his lips hovering over yours. You're both sitting on the bed, watching the sun die for the day.

Ken is a monster. At least that's what you're supposed to think. You have something in your mind something that squirmes around in what can only be described as reason. To call it wits and a conscious would be an overstatement. Lucide is a better word. Weak and brittle yet somehow still standing. Deep inside, your heart refuses to call Ken anything other than hero, savior, salvation.

"I'm yours" it's the first truth that's left your mouth in a long long time. You cup his cheeks and kiss him with all the doom and gratitude that lies within you. And Wow Ken tastes like mint ice cream and shooting stars. Like dead dreams that lay on the tip of your tongue. He's the beach at night and the evermore gardens during the day. He's everything good and confusing and painful and sweet. Ken nibbles your ear, playfully, and coos sweet words into your soul. Spinning tales of how you'll be together forever. You soak in his presence, rolling his name around in your head. You keep your head filled with him before your own thoughts give you a heart attack.

You're Barbie but now you are so much more than that. You're his Barbie. Ken's Barbie. Damaged yet simultaneously perfect. And he's perfect too, mesmerizing when the sun's rouge rays kiss his pretty face, bathing him in golden ichor.

You wonder if perfection and imperfection have always been in love.

Sometimes in the dead of night, you think of the little girl playing with you. Albit she isn't a little girl anymore, is she? Kids grow up. clawing and biting through the painful transformation. Sometimes it leaves their minds fragmented. Sometimes it leaves them less than whole.

Judging by how long it's been, your little girl is grown up by now. You close your eyes and give Ken a final kiss before sleep overtakes you. You hope she's okay, even though you know that can never be true. Being "okay" doesn't seem to be a real thing in this universe.

Because girls are broken and the universe knows this

Because boys are broken and the universe knows this

Because the universe does nothing. Just sits there and watches as life bends and breaks itself over and over again

Barbieland is broken too, imperfect and destroyed.

And so are the two of you.

Yet in the end, it doesn't matter.

For as broken as the world is the most important of things has been resolved.

Ken has his Barbie.

And Barbie has her Ken.

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teyamsilly · 5 months

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hey bby I luv ur works!! can u pls do jealous/possessive teyam?? maybe the reader was spending too much time with another guy and didn’t notice how it was making him feel. fluff ofc!

jealous neteyam

pairing: neteyam sully x omatikaya! reader tags & warning: oblivious reader, neteyam's patience was tested, feelings of anger and jealousy summary: your kindess was the one thing that neteyam loved but disliked at the same time. sometimes, you never notice when a guy is making approaches at you. he has heard that you made a new friend, but he didn't know that friend felt awfully comfortable around you. word count 1.3k index sevin - pretty, olo'eyktan - clan reader

my first request <3 i was really eager to write this. i hope you like it !! i've always pictured neteyam as a soft lover

You were in the healer's tent. Another woman was about to give birth, and Mo'at needed all the assistance she could get without leaving the tent unattended just in case someone needed help. So, you volunteered to stay behind.

However, you weren't alone. Vayem saw you and noticed that you were alone, then decided to accompany you. The two of you grew closer over the past days ever since he got injured badly from their hunt.

Apparently, his party that was being led by Neteyam and they were in search for food to feed the whole clan. They were successful in retrieving food, but a palulukan spotted them and ferociously chased them. Vayem wasn't quick enough to avoid the animal completely, resulting him to recieve a gash on the back. Neteyam assissted him on walking towards the healer's tent, and there you were.

You and Vayem had never spoken to each other before simply because you never crossed paths. Maybe you did, but the two of you never took notice of each other. But after he got injured, Vayem visited more often with or without injuries. You appreciated the company, plus he wasn't boring to be around with.

Vayem always had something funny to say, a laugh escaping from your lips everytime. His hand would linger on your thigh longer than what friends would do, but you didn't think much of it like you would ever. He sent hints, even obvious ones to you, but you never noticed them.

Eventually, you thought of them as platonic actions. When he would put his arm around your shoulder and pull you closer so that you two could walk together, or when he would hold both of your hands when the two of you laughed hard at a story that he shared.

Everything seemed platonic to you.

Vayem snickered, "I swear, Lo'ak would make the Olo'eyktan's hair fall out soon."

"I know," you chuckled, nodding as you did so. "He's always been brave and adventurous."

He hummed, eyes trailing to your top. His eyebrows raised in curiousity. "Is that a new top?" asked Vayem.

"Yes! What do you think? I wanted to show Neteyam, but his father called him in."

Vayem met your eyes which were filled with anticipation, waiting for his judgement. He drifted his eyes down back to the top. You were always creative, there was no doubt about that.

"You look beautiful," says Vayem. And he wished that this time you would take the hint when he looks back at you, but your eyes weren't looking at him. They were looking at what's above him, and they were shining brightly. He instantly knew who you were looking at.

"She is beautiful, isn't she?"

Vayem peered behind him, and saw Neteyam staring down at him. The Olo'eyktan's eldest son's sharp eyes spoke volumes, he was warning him.

You gleamed, "Neteyam!" You stood up from the ground, and jumped into his arms.

He chuckled at your exuberance, wrapping his arms around your waist. He rested his chin on your shoulder, staring at Veyam, who had previously gotten up. When Neteyam's palm caressed your back until it rested just above your ass, Veyam tried to disguise his grimace.

Neteyam smirked.

You pulled away, your arms still around his neck. "I thought you were busy assisting your father?"

"I was, but he dismissed me early." He leaned down and pressed his lips against yours. It started off soft, until his tongue slipped inside your mouth making you gasp.

With flushed cheeks, you pushed away. "Teyam, we're not the only people here," you whispered.

He shrugged without a care. "So? Maybe he should leave then."

You slapped his shoulder as you scolded, "Neteyam! Don't be rude."

Vayem cleared his throat, capturing your attention. He grinned and patted your shoulder. "It's okay. I will take my leave. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Neteyam glared at the hand that stayed on your shoulder. The audacity this boy have… to touch his girl right in front of him with no shame.

"See you, Vayem." You smiled.

The two shared an intense glare as Vayem walked past him, and you were oblivious to the weird vibe they shared.

"What do you think of my top?" You detached yourself from him, gesturing on the material with a proud look on your face. "Your mother gave me the feathers because she thought it would look good on me, and Tuk helped me find the beads to match it."

The thought of his sister and mother bonding with you caused a small smile to appear on his lips. It's one of the things he admires about you: you've effortlessly built a close friendship with his family. But the fact that he wasn't the first to notice you in this new material made his jaw clench.

"You and Vayem have gotten close," he pointed out as he fiddled with the feather on you.

You pouted when you haven't got an answer. "Yes, he's really funny."

Neteyam looked at you, jealousy written all over his face. "Oh? Have you been spending time without him when I'm not around?"

It took you quite a while to discover that something was wrong with the boy in front of you. He overlooked your question to begin with. Normally, he would shower you with compliments and affection. You couldn't figure out why he seemed agitated.

"Yes." You nodded slowly, eyeing him carefully. "Sometimes, he assists me with finding the herbs that I need in the forest. Most of the time, he stays with me here when I'm alone."

Neteyam scoffed in disbelief. He shook his head, a sarcastic laugh escaping from his lips. You only looked at him with confusion. "Neteyam?"

"He has no shame. His advances are obvious."

"Advances?" you pinched your eyebrows together. "He does not like me. He's only a friend."

"You are naive, sevin, if you think he wants to be your friend."

"I am not!" You crossed your arms defensively, turning away from him. Vayem may have been acting sweet towards you, but he was just being a gentleman. Right?

Neteyam sighed and placed his hand on your shoulder, moving to stand beside you. "Look, I don't mind if you have guy friends. But, sevin, these guys don't just want to be your friend. Did you see the way Vayem told you how beautiful you were?"

You looked at him with a teasing smile. "I feel priviledged to know that the mighty warrior jealous of men interacting with me."

"I trust you, I don't trust them."

You wrapped your arms around his torso, basking in his scent. Neteyam instantly engulfed you in his arms, leaning the side of his head against yours.

"I think I've knew all this time that Vayem liked me. I just didn't want to assume he did because I would be embarrassed if I spoke to him, and he tells me that he only sees me as a friend," you admitted. Your skin tingled as his palm stroked against your back, your tail standing tall.

"Sevin, if only you knew how many warriors wanted you before I had you."

You looked up, grinning at him. "Yeah? I only have eyes for one, though. The mightiest one of them."

Neteyam chuckled, his cheeks turning into a light blush. He was sure that you could hear his heart beating fast, and it made your smile widened. Eywa, that smile. The people would think that you were lucky to be chosen by him, but he begs to differ.

Your heart was filled with kindness and love. How much you give isn't limited to the people closest to you, and Neteyam considers himself special to recieve the most of your affection.

"From now on, I'm asking Lo'ak or Kiri to stay by your side," he declared, but you knew he was joking.

"Oh, yes, because Lo'ak would make a great guard."

"Or Tuk. She bites, you know?"

"Neteyam!"

#avatar the way of water #avatar fanfiction #avatar twow #neteyam fanfiction #neteyam fluff #neteyam sully #neteyam x na'vi!reader #neteyam x omaticaya!reader #jealousy

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yutasbellybuttonpiercing · 1 month

Text

- canine, but mine (pt. 1: acquaintances)

pairing: huang renjun x reader

au/genre: hybrid!au, fox hybrid!renjun, human!reader, virgin!renjun, smut, fluff, angst (?), the au is kinda unserious

don't like it, don't read it, okay... *sighs*

also, don't publicly shame me for any inaccuracies. i admittedly do not ready many (read: any) hybrid fics...

word count: 2860 words

warnings: HYBRIDS!, bullying, comforting, petting (not the sexual kind), semi-public diddling, mentions of virginity, cumming untouched, the base of renjun's tail is very sensitive......., sub!renjun ig

a/n: happy renjun day! 🦊

taglist: @jaeminnanaaa17 @i6renj

Ever since Renjun remembers, life has not been kind to him. Born not out of love between two people, but created in a laboratory for scientific research purposes, born not to be a part of society, but as an experiment for a potential weapon; part animal, part human, but not really part of either of those worlds.

Only after hybrid-rights-protests forced the government to take action against hybrid experiments, he was freed; free, but not really free, because that he'll never be. Instead, unloved by his creators that he could never bring himself to call parents, he continued growing up in a foster home, surrounded by kids that were nothing like him, kids that looked different than him, and kids that did not believe in the concept of "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself". The days he was not kicked by them, he was at least laughed at, mocked, or judged.

Renjun, objectively, knows that it's not his fault that he looks different, that he is different. He was just born, or rather: brought to life, with a set of orange fox-like ears on top of his fluffy, brown hair, a soft, bushy tail, tiny little fangs, and claws that he always keeps neatly trimmed to not accidentally hurt anyone.

The bullying did not stop when he started going to school, nor did it lessen the older he got. Kids are mean, Renjun knows that by heart, and he's never even had a friend. When he was 14, the girls in his class dared each other who would be brave enough to "kiss the freak", when he was 16, people started inviting him on dates only to laugh at him with their friends when he showed up all excited, and when he finally finished school and started going to university, he thought it would all be different. To be fair, he was no longer pushed into lockers, he was no longer spat at and people stopped pulling at his tail for fun, but the mocking did not stop. And even when he met another hybrid, a popular, big white tiger hybrid, he didn't receive any sympathy. God how he wishes to at least be a cool, strong hybrid, like a lion or a bear... or even a wolf! Why did they have to make him a stupid fox...

Ever since that day, he's told himself one thing: you're going to work hard, get through university and get a good job in the big city... where there are lots of hybrids and lots of supporters.

At this point, Renjun is fairly used to the bullying. With his goal in mind, he doesn't fight it, he just lowers his head, his ears laying flat against his fluffy hair as he waits for it to be over. He guesses that people are just not ready for hybrids yet.

One can only imagine his upmost shock when on the first day of the new semester, someone willingly sat down next to him. Admittedly, you were 5 minutes late and there were no other seats available, but you didn't beg anyone to please scoot over just so you didn't have to sit next to the weird guy with the tail. Renjun vividly remembers this day in philosophy class, as the professor went on and on about Henri Bergson and how the sand wasp instinctively knows where to sting the caterpillar to paralyze it, while Renjun was just smitten by the girl sitting next to him without gagging.

Unable to talk to you, he was just sitting there, smiling shyly to himself at this small act that seemed so big to him. He remembers almost falling off his chair in shock as you "psst!"-ed at him and awkwardly asked for a pen since you forgot yours. He remembers having to pinch himself as you smiled and thanked him, and told him you thought his shirt was cute. He remembers looking around in case you weren't really talking to him as you said, "see you next week!"

And when in the following weeks, you kept sitting down next to him even though there were other seats available, he was almost sure this had to be a dream. But it wasn't, and when during the third lesson, you softly asked for his name, he was this close to bursting into tears.

A few weeks into the semester, Renjun is currently sitting at the library, trying to memorize the different forms of utilitarianism. As always, he's sitting in a separate study room that he booked just for himself – a precautious attempt to not get made fun of as he's trying to concentrate. He crosses out his second attempt of trying to spell deontology correctly as he notices someone passing by the glass door to his study room. A moment later, the person backs up and looks inside, and he realizes it's you.

His heart stops for a moment as you begin smiling and waving at him, and he slowly lifts his hand to mimic the action hesitantly. Of course, you take that as an invitation to come in.

You close the door after slipping inside, still talking in a low tone as not to disturb anyone outside.

"Hey~" you say and sit down across from Renjun. He smiles and bites his lip nervously, "hey."

"You here all alone?" You ask softly, "is it okay if I sit with you?"

Renjun blushes. He knows you didn't think anything of it, but mentioning his lack of acquaintances is a bit of a sore spot for him.

"Sure... if you want," he says shyly, still not completely trusting that you're not going to turn this all around and make fun of him.

"Only if it doesn't bother you," you smile, "I'll be super quiet, promise!"

His smile is getting more genuine as you talk so casually to him. He just starts feeling a bit more comfortable, when sudden movements in front of the glass door make his head lift up.

A group of guys is standing there, pressing their faces against the door, clearly mocking his fox ears with their hands behind their heads. His heart sinks, he should've known this was going to happen today, it always happens when he's out in public.

"What-" you ask, noticing the pained look on his face and the way his ears are pointing down as he feels a wave of shame overcome him. You turn around, taking in the group of guys who're still silently making fun of the fox hybrid. "What the fuck..."

Renjun's ears twitch in surprise as you stand up, and he waits anxiously for what's about to happen. You rip open the glass door, lifting your finger into their face before speaking to them, hushed but still loud enough for a few people to lift their heads. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Did your mom not teach you manners? You should be ashamed of yourselves, you're university students, cut the crap with your preschool bullying, you fucking assholes," you tell them, and Renjun's eyes widen comically. You... you're standing up for him? For him?!

"If I see you doing this one more time, I'll get you kicked off campus... Now go back to being worthless idiots somewhere else. Leave him alone, I swear to God..." you say before closing the door, flipping them off, pulling down the blinds, and heading back to Renjun. To Renjun's upmost surprise, the guys actually left, and looking embarrassed at that, possibly because you just made one hell of a scene – and it's probably the sexiest thing Renjun's ever witnessed.

You sit down again, this time next to him. "You okay?"

Renjun breathes out shakily, ears twitching, tail swaying back and forth nervously. He's not sure what to make of this, someone standing up for him, it has never happened to him before. And before he can stop himself, he blurts out the question he's been asking himself since the moment your ass cheeks touched the surface of the chair next to him in that first philosophy lesson. "Why are you so nice to me?"

You halt, furrowing your brows. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He seems even more confused by that answer. "Um... You know, I'm a hybrid? Maybe you find that weird?"

You blink at him, "why is that weird?"

"Don't you... think I'm weird?" He asks. "Odd? Repelling? Freaky? Off-putting?? Anything???" He keeps listing adjectives as you keep shaking your head no. "Why... would you stand up for me?"

"I just don't like bullies," you state nonchalantly, "plus you're really cute."

Renjun's eyes bulge out of their sockets, tail curling up so suddenly that he feels like he's almost broken something in there. Maybe you're an animal friend, maybe that's all he is to you? "Cute? Like the fox parts or...?"

"Everything about you is cute. The fox parts are cute, but you'd still be cute without them."

Renjun just stares at you. This can't be real. He pinches the palm of his hand several times without you noticing, but he's just not waking up. If this is a dream, which he's almost certain it has to be, he could do anything he wants right now... like making your head explode- just to be sure! He concentrates greatly on it, but your head stays intact. He gives up. "You're not disgusted?"

"What?!" You look utterly confused, then your features soften into a look of concern. "Are people... usually disgusted by you?"

He nods without hesitation. "Usually, they just point and laugh, sometimes it even gets worse than that..." Renjun can't even bring himself to cringe as you put on a brave expression and tell him you're going to protect him from now on, because this is honestly the best thing that's ever happened to him. His heart melts at your words and it's hard to believe he's actually being comforted. There are no jokes being thrown around, no mockery, not even any pity. For once, Renjun feels like there's someone who wants to protect him. His lower lip quivers slightly as he holds back tears, and without thinking, he leans forward and places his head on your shoulder.

He hears you coo quietly, lifting your hand to his back and pulling him closer. "Is... is it okay if I stroke your hair?"

Renjun closes his eyes and nods. The warmth of the hug is comforting, the touch of your hands is gentle and soothing. His tension quickly dies down as he melts against you as he realizes that he has never felt like this before. And as you begin gently scratching and massaging his scalp, his ears begin twitching and relaxing at the feeling of your nimble fingers. He tries to hide the innocent pleasure that's shooting though his body, not sure if you would think it's odd, but his heartbeat is increasing rapidly. Your fingers feel like magic as they brush against his ears and scratch the base of his scalp. Suddenly a little too unhinged for his liking, he begins purring and nuzzling your neck, enjoying every single bit of your touch.

"God, you're adorable..." you say softly, making sure to pet him behind his ears and Renjun's entire body fizzles with pleasure at the feeling. As if it has a mind of its own, his tail curls around your legs. "Is this okay? Have you ever been pet like this?"

Renjun hums in delight, "I've always dreamed about getting pet like this..." Your fingers begin gently playing with his ears. At first, they twitch nervously, but soon, he relaxes into the touch. He notes that his ears are very sensitive when being touched by someone else that isn't himself, and he loves the sensation.

"They're so soft... I could pet you like this all day," you say softly, making Renjun smile.

"Do you...," he hesitates for a bit, "want to touch my tail too? It's even softer..."

"Do you want me to?"

Renjun nods shyly, lifting his tail a bit for easy access. The moment your fingers begin brushing over his fur, he shivers, whimpering slightly. Every other time, whenever someone's touched his tail before, it was rough and mean, but the way you oh so gently run your fingers through his fur makes him almost lightheaded.

"Your fur is so soft...," you whisper and he hums in response, eyes already closed as he gets lost in the feeling. His tail makes small circles behind your leg when you brush over the fur, he whimpers softly as your fingers move further up towards the base of his tail.

Your fingers feel so good, unlike anything he's ever felt before. He keeps questioning if this is love, or if this is what it feels like when someone really cares, but all he knows is that he craves more and more of this all consuming feeling, when suddenly, he lets out a short, loud moan. The tips of your fingers have unknowingly reached the base of his tail, causing a jolt of pure, white, hot pleasure to shoot through his body.

Shamefully, he buries himself into your shoulder, his tail curling around your leg. He's mortified as your movements pause for a second, he's sure he's messed up now, but then your scratching picks up again and he breathes out shakily, body twitching at the feeling.

You keep going and going, and he begins moaning softly.

"Is this still okay for you?" The softness of your voice makes his heart melt.

"Mhm..." is all he is able to bring out at the overwhelming sensation of being touched there for the first time.

"Have you been touched here before?"

"N-never..." Renjun whines softly. He's feeling himself harden in his pants, cock straining against the fabric of his jeans and he's sure you noticed.

"Are you a virgin, Renjun?"

The question catches him off guard, but honestly, he's too far gone now to feel shy about it. It seems that you have picked up on how sensitive he is, and he can't really blame you for your assumption. You seem so open and accepting of him that he doesn't even hesitate before slightly nodding his head, "yeah..."

"And you're sure that you want to experience... this with me?"

The feeling of your fingers on his tail intensifies with every second, Renjun feels dizzy, there's barely any blood left in his brain at this point, all of it damming up in his cock and every other sensible part of his body. "yes.. yes...!"

It seems like this is all you needed to hear to speed up your movement, fingertips scratching and petting him in the most arousing way possible, forcing whimpers and moans from his mouth. "Aahh... Ah..." He tries to hold back, but the sensation is too much for him. Your touch is too nice and it's making him lose control as he bites his lip to keep himself from letting out a vocal response, but it's not enough. He's starting to tremble, breath getting heavier as he begins panting harshly. This sensation surely feels very close to how he feels when he's about to cum.

And just the attentive person you are, you speak up about it. "Are you gonna...?"

"I... Aahh... I think so..." He says, his voice shaking as he speaks. "It feels so nice..."

Experimentally, you move your fingers to the underside of his tail, and Renjun's body jolts in pleasure, his whole body jerks as he moans out, mouth slightly open while keeping his voice down as much as possible given your current location. He reaches up and grabs your wrist to make you keep touching him there. "Please..." He says in a thoroughly pleading voice. "Don't stop.."

As he forces his eyes to open, he notices your eyes on him, your face so close to his, and his eyes inevitably dart down to your lips as he gasps for more.

Of course, you take it as an invitation to kiss him, and as soon as your soft lips merge with his, Renjun knows that he's going to cum. He feels like he's actually going to faint as the pleasure reaches new heights, your kiss building the tension up and up, his head spins as he feels himself tighten up.

Your movements quickly send him over the edge. The intensity of the sensation is making his body shudder as he pulls you closer toward him and he lets himself go, muscles tightening even further as he releases into his pants with a high-pitched moan.

Your hands carefully stroke over his tail again, your unoccupied hand coming back up to his hair to help him calm down. He's breathing heavily, body feeling fuzzy inside at the attention and from his intense release. "O-oh, God..."

"That was so hot...," you whisper, gently kissing the top of his head. He lets out a soft giggle. You successfully have made him blush once again. But just as he's really, fully calming down, he inevitably notices the sticky feeling between his thighs and cringes.

You chuckle softly as you notice the look on his face. "Maybe we should get you to a restroom..."

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steddieas-shegoes · 1 year

Note

hi! i love your works so much and i have a request ^^ i wanted to ask if you could do a jealous and/or possessive eddie? maybe where steve and eddie are super close to finally admitting they like each other and just need one more push or something, or they're just newly dating. they're both at a gay bar, and steve's been receiving lots of stares and heated gazes from some of the ppl there? maybe a person was brave enough to try but eddie's right beside him watching the entire interaction.

i've come across a fair share amount of jealous/possessive steve in steddie stories and i wanted to see it being eddie for a change. tysm in advance and i can't wait to read the other requests with your amazing writing <3

I LOVE possessive Eddie!!! I really only see it in Kas!Eddie or vampire Eddie situations and I wish it was written more for just regular old human Eddie who just has entirely too much love for Steve to contain his emotions when someone else tries to make a move. I hope you like this little thing (2500 words!) I came up with and the other requests I've been putting out so far! - Mickala ❤️

---------------------------------------------------------

Robin convinced them she needed support.

Support Steve’s ass.

She was doing just fine from the moment they stepped in the door of this place.

So fine, in fact, she’d abandoned him and Eddie before they even got their first round of drinks brought to them.

Steve sat at the table with Eddie, awkwardly watching as people kept dancing and drinking and making out in dark corners of the bar.

He tried not to look too much, though. He didn’t want anyone to think he wasn’t comfortable here.

Quite the opposite, actually.

He’d been here a couple of times with just Robin: once before he figured out he was into men, once before he figured out he was into Eddie, and once more before this where he tried very hard to be into Eddie and failed.

But Eddie had insisted on coming when he overheard them talking about it, saying he hadn’t been here since high school and could use a night in a place where he could just be himself.

As if he wasn’t always obnoxiously (and beautifully) himself.

Robin had given Eddie a Look, but nodded in agreement, saying it would be awesome to have both her favorite guys there.

Which rubbed Steve a little wrong because he was her only favorite guy.

But he got over it because now Eddie was his only company, probably for the entire night going off of the way the girl with Robin was staring at her.

Ogling her.

Steve sighed. Eddie sighed.

They looked at each other and laughed.

“She do this to you every time?”

“No, usually we stick together. Must feel brave since you’re here with me.”

“Awww, she trusts me.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but there was probably more truth to that than he cared to admit.

Robin was often afraid to leave him alone, but she never hesitated if Eddie was with him.

He felt people staring at him, but he ignored it. He wasn’t here to find anyone and it would be silly to even try knowing that Eddie was right there.

But he’d be lying if he said it didn’t feel good to have people checking him out. He used to thrive on it in high school, feeling seen by anyone was better than being seen by no one.

Then, he hated it. He wanted to be invisible and he wanted everyone to focus on anyone and anything else in the room. He got his wish most of the time.

Until Eddie.

Eddie always included him in everything, pointing out when he was being quiet or moody, asking him questions to involve him in conversations, making sure he understood what Dustin was saying which was a challenge often.

He would touch his arm when he passed by him on the way to grab a drink from the kitchen or let their thighs touch on the couch on movie nights.

He let him come over after work on the nights he was too riled up, needing to let out some of his energy with a walk, but being too scared to do it alone.

So Eddie saw him, and made others see him, and he didn’t always love it, but he accepted it.

Tonight felt different, though.

All these eyes on him meant that people found him attractive, maybe wanted to dance with him or bring him home. If Eddie weren’t here, he’d maybe give it a shot with someone, try to find a way out of this hole he dug himself into with the first guy he’d admitted to himself he had feelings for.

But he also felt Eddie’s eyes on him, practically burning a hole through the side of his face every time he looked out at the crowd.

He felt heat crawling up his neck, to his cheeks.

Having all of Eddie’s attention was a lot for anyone, but especially Steve, who frequently thought about what it would be like to have Eddie’s attention on him in bed, or in the shower, or on the couch, or the pool, or-

“Did you want another drink?”

Steve looked down at the drink in his hand. He’d barely finished half of it, so he didn’t really know why Eddie was asking unless he just needed an excuse to get up.

“Um. No thanks. Probably should just have one anyway.”

“Sure.”

Eddie got up with his empty glass and started walking towards the bar.

Almost as soon as Eddie was gone, a taller man in a suit was taking his place at the table.

“Well, hi there, honey. Never seen you here before. First time?”

The guy was older, mid-thirties at least, and probably not the type of guy Steve would want to experiment with. But he was flirting, and he was kind of cute.

Steve could let himself enjoy a little casual flirting, right? It wouldn’t have to lead to anything.

“No, but I don’t come often.”

Steve rested his arms on the table, head in his hand. He grinned at the man, that Harrington charm practically beaming off of him.

“You could come tonight if you wanted to join me in the back.”

That was smooth. Sleazy, but smooth.

Steve didn’t drop his grin, but he shook his head.

“I don’t think I’m interested in just hooking up in the bathroom. Maybe you could buy me a drink?”

He had no intention of drinking another drink, but he figured this guy would lose interest if he showed he was more needy.

He was wrong.

The guy practically tripped over his feet to stand up from the booth.

“What would you like?”

“Oh. Uh.”

“He’s good, man. How about you go buy a drink for someone interested?”

Eddie came out of nowhere. Seriously, Steve had just seen him at the bar a few seconds before he spoke.

“Is this your boyfriend or something?”

Steve cleared his throat awkwardly as Eddie stood taller, more intimidating.

“Does it matter? I’m asking you nicely to go.”

“I don’t think it’s up to you. I asked him.”

Eddie looked like he wanted to punch the guy, and Steve could admit to himself silently that he wanted to see it.

But he didn’t quite understand why Eddie was reacting like this; He’d assumed Eddie would want to try to hook up with someone while he was here and wouldn’t want to spend all his time with Steve.

“Steve? Do you wanna get a drink with this guy?”

No, he didn’t. He hadn’t even before Eddie came back. But a part of him had to wonder if maybe Eddie’s reaction was just to protect Steve from an older guy.

“I actually have to drive us back home so I probably shouldn’t have another drink. Thanks though.”

The guy mumbled something before turning and leaving, shaking his head as he walked to the bar.

Eddie slid into the booth next to him instead of across from him, letting most of their sides touch.

Steve couldn’t help the way his body naturally curled into Eddie’s, the comfort and safety of his body drawing Steve in without effort.

It should have ended there. Steve should have just let himself stay rested against Eddie’s side until Robin was done.

He did for a minute, but then his brain decided it needed explanations.

“What was wrong with that guy buying me a drink?”

Eddie was quiet for a moment, his body tense against Steve’s.

“I just don’t think he was the right kind of person to be buying you a drink. You deserve better than that.”

Steve’s brows furrowed.

Eddie didn’t know the guy, he could’ve been really nice. Other than the propositioning as his first line, he seemed like he was willing to do whatever Steve wanted to get more time with him.

“Who is the right kind of person then?”

“Someone younger. Maybe someone who doesn’t wear a damn suit to a gay bar. This is a casual place, there’s no need to flaunt your super important job. Plus, he could see your drink was still half full, he should’ve known you didn’t want one.”

“You offered me a drink before you got up.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because I’m not trying to get you drunk to sleep with me.”

Yeah, and wasn’t that a shame?

Steve dropped it. It wasn’t worth arguing with Eddie and he didn’t want to ruin any of the fun they could have.

“Should we dance?”

Eddie pulled away and looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

“You want to dance with me?”

“Why not? We’ve been abandoned by Robin and the music isn’t bad.”

The music wasn’t bad to Steve. Eddie, however, was suffering through it as it was, and that was without having to dance to it.

“Pleeeeease?” Steve pouted at Eddie, eyes wide.

“You can’t make that face. It’s not fair.”

Steve kept making the face because being fair wasn’t something he cared about.

Eddie stood up, holding his hand out towards Steve to help him stand from the table.

Steve took it, ignoring the way he wanted to collapse against Eddie the second he stood up.

They made it to the dance floor, where a surprising amount of people were dancing in pairs and small groups, enjoying the fact that they could safely here.

Just when Steve turned to Eddie, the music changed to Head Over Heels by Tears For Fears.

Steve tried not to take it as a sign.

Eddie suddenly looked even more nervous, like he’d planned on maybe getting away with just jumping around to the music and now he couldn’t.

Just when Steve was going to give him an out, another guy, this one younger, but not as nice looking, wrapped his arm around Steve’s shoulder.

“How ‘bout we dance, sugar?”

The guy was drunk.

Steve wasn’t interested in ruining his favorite song by dancing with this drunk guy.

“He’s busy,” Eddie said firmly.

The guy backed up a bit, but still had his hand against Steve’s arm, resting there with enough of a grip to keep him upright.

“Sorry, you got somethin’ against me dancin’ with him?”

“Yeah, that’s why I just said he’s busy.”

Eddie pushed the guy’s hand off of Steve’s arm and put his own around Steve’s waist, pulling him against his side with no room for air or argument.

Steve tried to catch his breath, his heart skipping a beat and his lungs exhaling instead of inhaling.

“Maybe you should let him say if he’s busy or not.”

Steve was missing his favorite song to argue with a guy he wasn’t interested in when he could be dancing with Eddie.

Unacceptable.

“I’m dancing with him. Find someone else.”

The guy rolled his eyes and walked away.

Eddie turned and adjusted his arms so they rested on Steve’s hips.

Steve didn’t know what to do.

“Have you never slow danced before, King Steve?”

“Uh. Just once.”

“Oh? Let me help you then.”

Eddie took his hands in his own and gently placed them around his neck, pulling himself closer to Steve when his hands found his hips again.

“This okay?”

“Yeah.”

Steve wasn’t sure how this was happening, how this was real.

He just knew he didn’t want it to end.

He rested his head against Eddie’s shoulder, letting himself enjoy what would probably be his only chance at dancing with Eddie for the rest of his life.

“Why do you keep sending people away?”

Why was Steve determined to ruin tonight with his stupid fucking questions?

“What do you mean?”

“It just seems like you don’t wanna share.”

Eddie didn’t respond.

Steve looked up at him, but his face was hard to read in the darkness of the bar.

“Eds?”

“I don’t.” Eddie cleared his throat. “I don’t wanna share you. I like having you all to myself. Sorry if I’ve ruined your night.”

He started to pull away and Steve panicked. He couldn’t say that and then leave.

“What do you mean? You haven’t ruined anything. I wanted to spend it with you, anyways.”

Eddie was searching his eyes, looking for any sign of a lie.

“Steve, I-” The song changed, but it was another slow song. They kept slowly rocking and staring at each other. “I have to tell you something. You’re probably gonna hate me and wanna leave me here in Indy.”

Steve gulped. Could he possibly have feelings for Steve?

“I uh. I sent them away because I was jealous.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I love you so fucking much I don’t know what to do with it all the time! Sometimes I hide in the bathroom during movie nights so I can scream into the towels. Do you know how ridiculous that is? I’ve even been caught by Max before and she promised not to say anything if I gave her $20.”

“Oh.”

Oh? What the hell Steve, say something else.

“So, I get it if you hate me. I mean, I don’t know how this happened and I have no right to send potential dates away because I want to keep you to myself.”

Steve leaned up and placed a kiss on Eddie’s cheek.

“I’m glad you got jealous.”

Eddie was blushing now.

“What?”

“If you hadn’t been jealous, you probably wouldn’t have told me all this, would you?”

“No, I guess not.”

“You know what helps with jealousy?”

Eddie looked down at him, more confused than ever.

Steve didn’t wait for him to respond.

“Making out in the bathroom of a gay bar.”

Eddie’s eyes practically bugged out of his head as he registered what Steve was saying.

“You wanna do that? With me?”

“Well, I certainly don’t wanna do it with anyone else. And you won’t let me do it with anyone else. So maybe we should do it together.”

Eddie grabbed his wrist and wordlessly led them to the bathroom in the back of the bar.

It wasn’t empty, but the single stall was available and Eddie made it pretty clear what their intentions were when he dragged Steve right into it, closing and locking the door only a second before his hot lips were on Steve’s.

It was better than what Steve could have possibly imagined, but still not enough.

Now that he knew Eddie wanted him, he wanted everything Eddie could give him.

And Eddie seemed to want to give it all to him.

His lips were almost too much, but Steve couldn’t get enough.

They weren’t even in a bathroom anymore, floating high above the clouds with happiness and contentment.

Until a knock on the stall door nearly made Steve give himself another concussion.

“Dingus One and Dingus Two! Super happy for you both, but it’s time to go.”

“Shit.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s nearly one in the morning and we agreed to leave by midnight. I got distracted by boobies.”

“Don’t we all,” Steve said, as Eddie let out a loud laugh.

They opened the stall door and Robin sighed.

“Fix your hair. I’ll be at the car.”

Steve looked in the mirror as she left the bathroom, smirking at Eddie’s reflection behind him in a similar state of disarray.

“Okay?”

“So okay.”

“You owe me a dance.”

“What? Why? We danced!”

“But it got interrupted. And I wanna dance with you.”

Eddie sighed, but smiled fondly at Steve.

“I’ll dance with you whenever you want, sweetheart.”

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #robin buckley #love confessions #possessive eddie munson #jealous eddie munson #platonic stobin #anon request #requests

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