ㅤThe other shinobi's throat felt almost too soft under the sole of his sandal; almost like it would be too easy to step a little too hard, crush it like it was a twig like so many others dusting the forest ground. Itachi went one step above, however; no pun intended. The kunai in his right hand, he took a final look at the man's struggling expression and then tossed it. It landed on that man's forehead, but not perfectly in the center - an inch or two to the right. Which made the Uchiha huff in annoyance, as light quickly died in that same man's eyes. Because his aim was never going to be flawless again, not after losing his depth perception along with his left eye.
«Finished.»
ㅤHis tone was casual and unhurried, like he was simply reporting the weather for the day. Instead, it was to let Shisui know he was done with his part of the mission; get rid of the guards, while Shisui himself dealt with their target. The one they were supposed to kill and bring proof back to the small rural village nearby, to be exchanged for the bounty. Money for the Akatsuki. It was Itachi's life now, one he both enjoyed and hated. Almost as much as he both loved and hated Shisui, after everything that had happened between the two of them in the past long months.
Speaking of Shisui-
ㅤWith silent steps, Itachi walked back to his partner. The older Uchiha was crouched down in front of the target, no doubt busy with removing the head to be shoved into a sack and then carried back. After having his own eye removed in such a gruesome way, really, no other display perturbed Itachi anymore. If anything, it felt vindicating and well deserved; the entire world deserved to burn, for what it had imposed upon him when all he had wanted was to do the right thing. Nobody had pitied him back then, why should he pity anybody or anything at all now?
ㅤKneeling down behind Shisui, he let the other man work till it was also finished. And then... he brought a hand up to bury in his partner's hair, those luscious curls that had always had Itachi so enamored. Almost gently. Until it wasn't. Until he grabbed a fistful of those curls and yanked back, hard, forcing Shisui to glance at him from that uncomfortable angle while Itachi's fingers went to dance over the older one's Adam apple. «How easy it would be,» he said, his tone now an eerie mix of amusement, detachment, and, yes, love - if any of this could be ever called love. It felt like it for them, and that's all that mattered. His single remaining eye glistening with the same blend of contradicting sentiments. «To slit it open,» he concluded, simply, but what he did was to lean down and place a kiss on the corner of Shisui's lips, before letting him go.
pros about dating lucci and shamrock: they'd treat their partner like an absolute king/queen, spoiling them in every and any way possible
cons about dating lucci and shamrock: their partner would be in one of the most toxic relationship dynamics ever, including but not limited to emotional (and financial) manipulation and abuse, gaslighting, control, jealousy, possessiveness, sometimes ignoring boundaries and so much more
the other day, i was talking to my brother, and he said, "the thing about anxiety is that it tells you if you just follow every single rule it creates for you, then you won't get hurt and you won't hurt the people around you."
(the only problem, of course, is how badly following those rules hurts yourself and the people around you.)
somehow, this turned into writing a lullaby from the point of view of my anxiety disorder, which i'm trying to learn how to ignore a little more. i guess that's kind of paradoxical but even just verbalizing the thoughts i take for granted can help sometimes. (it sort of inescapably sounds like a toxic interpersonal relationship, so warnings for that.)
LYRICS
The world outside can be cold and strange
uncertain winds, too-certain rain
But i'll guard you from the stormy sea
all that I ask is you listen to me
Stay who you've been, stay where you were
let it all pass by, a beautiful blur
don't waste time wond'ring who you could be
Listen to me, listen to me (x 2)
Scars and stories are for other girls
unsinkable types, alive in the swirl
You'd snap every sinew in that mess you call a body
if you ever tried venturing beyond me
So stay where you're put, do as you're told
no one will break you, if you learn how to fold
Smother the whisper who wants to be free
Listen to me, listen to me (x 2)
You say the box that protects you has dwindling air
Well, have you considered, you're breathing too much?
You know I wouldn't say this if I didn't care
You know I'll always always always be in touch
The walls are dragging inward like a dying star
stay were you are, stay where you are
What others call inertia I call destiny
Listen to me, listen to me (repeat)
A short fanfic my partner wrote for me I did a re-translation I love it just want to share with y'all
🤭🥰😋☺️🥴🤗，👍👍❤️🖤💙，😼🧡🥷🐺，❗😼🧡🧡😨
Hurt/Comfort
Creed held the mutant boy who is two turns smaller than him, and said nothing.
Every muscle in Daken's body trembled, and at the moment, an aura of disturbed pheromones surrounded his whole body. He lay motionless on Sabretooth's chest, clenching his teeth against some unknowable nightmares.
"What did Romulus do to you again?" It was a long time before Creed asked.
Daken still said nothing, the blood from his nose gradually staining Sabretooth's suits; he was badly wounded. Even in such a terrible condition, he resisted Sabretooth's embrace with all his might. Being so close, he could clearly hear Creed's heartbeat, so he knew that the giant mutant didn't really care for his wellbeing, he just god damn enjoys smelling the fear of others.
The nights after the Saint Ball went like this: Xiomara would come home from her day program, and go straight into the kitchen to scrounge together dinner for herself. She would eat it in the kitchen, with her back to the wall, and then she would smoke a cigarette out the back window, and then another. She’d go upstairs and take enough potions to knock out a troll, and then she’d crawl into bed until the dreamless sleep ripped her out of consciousness.
The days after the Saint Ball went like this: Nate would come home from work at 5am. Xi knew he was home when the loose floorboard in the hall creaked. That was her rousing alarm: Wake up, get dressed, tie her runners, go for a run. She went the long way around the house so that she didn’t need to pass Nate, who would be sinking in to sleep on the ratty couch. She would stand in the front garden, hopping back and forth and then stretching her legs out. Harriet would meet her, and then they would run.
Xiomara was working on her breathing during the morning’s run, timing her pace with the steady inhale and exhale that ought to keep her going. It irked her that the exercise seemed to come naturally to Harriet, who ran as if it were the simplest thing in the world. While Xi loved running, and reveled in the natural runner’s high that came with the itchy legs and aching sides and sweaty back after every occasion, she definitely had to work at it.
It sparked a natural competitiveness between the girls, and after months of the run being part of their morning routine, Xi was finally pushing Harriet to a pace where she actually had to… Try to stay ahead of her fictive sister-in-law.
Their run this morning was a steady-paced loop towards Hammersmith and back, the breeze from the Thames whipping across their faces in the icy air. Xi could see her breath in the air, she watched it as she timed her pace: In, step, step, out, step, step, in…
They turned right to run around a boat shed, ready to continue on their run, when a burst of red light shot across them. It narrowly missed Xiomara’s legs and instead left a scorching mark on the light wood of the shed. The girls barely had time to react before the stunning spell was shot again—then another.
Xiomara’s legs went wobbly from the sudden stop in her pace and she reached down with numb fingers to take her wand from its hidden hip holster. She was just raising her wand arm when there was a tight grip on her upper arm. She immediately pulled against it, twisting to get out of the assailant’s grasp, when a harsh voice said, “Thanks for the tip, sweetheart—consider your Pinnock contract fulfilled. You're off the hook—for now..."
Xiomara’s expression contorted, her mouth half-open for the split-second it took for her to process this. This was Hamilton. He’d come for Harriet.
She bucked her head back, lurching her chest forward after she heard the back of her skull connect with his nose—which broke with a sickening snap. In the cacophony of spells shot across them, Xiomara could barely make out Harriet, who had responded in a smarter, less physical way, aiming her wand with pin-point precision and shifting her weight as if she’d been duelling for years. She couldn’t hear anything, save for the high-pitched ringing in her ears and the incantations shouted across them. But when Harriet reached her hand across in her direction, already turning her feet, ready to spin, Xiomara leapt across to her. No sooner had they touched fingertips, than Harriet was apparating them back to the safehouse.
The wards set off immediately, as they always did when wix apparated directly into the home rather than the garden. Xi clamped her hands down over her ears, wand still in her right hand, and was about to call out to Harriet about fixing the wards, when she turned and became aware of Harriet Pinnock’s wand, pointed right in her face.
“What the fuck was that, Winters?” Harriet yelled, stepping forward so the tip of her wand was practically burning a hole in the blonde’s cheek.
And Xiomara, who was so dependent on her routine, and potions, and safety, and quiet and calm and an uneventful morning run, shook her head earnestly, tears already gathered in her eyes. A voice, somewhere deep, whispered: You’ll. Explode. Xiomara whipped her head back and forth. No, no. No.
“No?” Harriet laughed harshly, “That all you can say? You fucking sold me out, Xi? Huh? And now you want to deny it? I don’t give a fuck who you are, if you think I’ll—”
Xiomara wouldn’t hear what Harriet would do. In fact, she barely managed to hold on long enough to hear Harriet’s first few comments before she lost herself. It was a rising heat that started low in her belly, then overcame her chest, her shoulders, down her arms, before Xiomara pulled her wand back and yelled, the force of her magic knocking them both away from each other and to the ground.
Xi fell into the back of the couch, and cried out, immediately feeling the crack at the back of her abdomen. Harriet must have landed somewhere less damaging, because Xi had barely managed to stand with the splitting pain that ran down her side, before the older girl sent a spell straight at her. There wasn't enough time to try to counter it, or even to duck out of the sizzling beam's path—but to Xiomara's surprise, when she instinctively raised up her arms to protect her face, the spell ricocheted in a shower of sparks against the translucent white-gold barrier of a shield.
When she whipped her head around, she saw its caster: Nate, climbing over the back of the toppled couch, a scorch mark in the shape of a body burned into the upholstery where Xi had hit it. His hands were stretched out in a tut in front of him and he looked like he'd gotten about five minutes of sleep before being rudely thrown into consciousness.
"The fuck are you thinking, Harry?" Nate croaked irritably, his voice hoarse. The room had grown uncomfortably still and voyeuristic as hedges gathered along the edges of the room to see the commotion, to witness the fallout. Someone, at some point, had silenced the wards.
So it sliced through the room like an axe, the sound of Harriet Pinnock, who was never the loudest voice in a room, screaming at her brother and punctuating every word: "She SOLD ME OUT!" Her wand stayed trained on Xiomara in incrimination.
Nate looked between Xi and Harriet, dumbfounded, refusing to believe it. He shook his head and debris fell from his mussed-up hair. "No, she didn't. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about—"
Harriet barked another humorless laugh. "Fucking open your eyes, Nate! She's been playing us into dad's hand from the start—"
"—Harriet," Nate snapped in warning.
"—Nate," she shot back, teeth bared, not budging. The siblings squared off for just a moment before Harriet gave a growl of frustration and lowered her left arm, the one holding her wand, and with her right hand she gestured at a spot on her inner forearm, just beneath the elbow.
For some reason beyond the comprehension of everyone watching the argument, the cryptic signal from his sister caused Nate to stiffen suddenly. He held eye contact with Harriet, a silent conversation no one else was privy to, while his fingers grazed over a mirrored spot on his own arm. Nate had a small raised scar there, that much Xiomara did know from her own thorough cataloging of all the sensitive spots on Nate's body that she could touch to invoke a reaction.
Where the scar had come from, though, and what the fuck it meant to Nate and Harriet was beyond Xi—and she didn't have a chance to consider it any further before Nate was rounding on her and hissing in accusation, "What the fuck, Xi? You told him she's here?"
“You are just as guilty in this,” she snapped, before pressing her hands flat against the floor to steady herself while she stood. “You do this all the time, it doesn’t surprise me that your fucking sister is exactly the same.”
“Me?” Nate barked back with an incredulous laugh, and Harriet was aghast at being addressed only as his fucking sister. Nate tugged his hands through his hair, tightening and pulling. “Christ, what does that even fucking mean–”
“—I am not the only one who signed that contract, Nate! You know perfectly well what it says. What, you think it just went away?”
Nate scoffed, holding up the sigil on the back of his hand, which seemed to shimmer and gleam with sadistic glee, while he talked over her. “I’m well the fuck aware, Xi! In fact, I’d say you got off pretty fucking easy, getting high and drinking plum-fucking-wine while I was going through hell—”
“You have NO IDEA what I’ve been through!” The bursting abruptness of the way she shrieked it forced the argument’s momentum to a screeching, momentary halt. They were both breathing heavy and still heated as Nate held his tongue, waiting.
But instead of elaborating or explaining, instead of letting him in, Xi sniffed and took a breath. Cold and dismissive, she continued, “You don’t get to toss away your own guilt by making me out to be the bad guy…”
Nate threw his hands up, genuinely too stunned to know what to say. To break the silence, Ruma stepped forward, her brother anxiously hovering a hairline behind her. Ajai’s hand was half extended, itching to take her sister’s arm and transport them both the hell out of there.
The therapist raised a hand, as if she were trying to soothe a frightened animal. It wasn’t the first time Xiomara had been treated like this. She remembered Nate approaching her in the Caves while she wailed. She remembered healers approaching her in Clearer Skies, talking her through each step they made. She remembered Isaac approaching her in the hotel bathroom.
Ruma opened her mouth to speak, and the French woman cut her off—
“Fuck off, Ruma. This has nothing to do with you,” Xi snarled, leaning forward. The move was enough to spook Ajai into action, the traveller’s fingertips barely grazing Ruma’s shoulder before both hedges disappeared.
“When you’re done being such an insufferable bitch, maybe you’ll wake up and realize not everything in the world revolves around you,” Nate sneered, and Xiomara scoffed.
“And that’s you, isn’t it? Great to hear from Mr. Benevolent himself…”
“Better that than a hypocrite and a fucking snitch—”
The two continued to bicker like that, a ping-pong game of back and forth that increased in intensity with each barb shot back to the other.
Neither seemed to notice how the walls began trembling, the floorboards and furniture creaking and quaking, the glass in the windows whining dangerously. It wasn't until he felt one particularly tumultuous shake of the safehouse foundations, jolting them all off balance, that Nate snapped out of his anger enough to glance around in alarm and become fully aware of the powder keg he'd put them in by provoking her.
"Xi—stop it…"
But Xiomara was beyond reasoning with, long past simmering and fast approaching boiling point. Heat was radiating off of her in waves as she sneered, "Or what? What are you going to do, hit me? Fuck me? You gonna drug me, Nate?"
Nate flinched, looking genuinely stricken by the blow and without a ready response to throw back. Everything held still for one tense moment that seemed to stretch on for hours.
Then someone—Harriet, maybe, Xi couldn't be sure—moved in Xi's peripheral vision, and she exploded.
She threw out her arms as a furious scream ripped its way out of her throat, and a ripple of scalding ambient energy burst outward from where she stood and knocked back everyone within a ten-foot radius—including Nate and Harriet.
Hedges were yelling—at her, at Nate, at each other, Xi really didn't give a fuck and couldn't comprehend any of it, anyway, over the roaring in her ears and the sound of plaster crashing down from the ceiling. Entire strips of the wall were searing and peeling off. Xi's vision was vibrating and blurring. YOU’LL. EXPLODE.
A sorrowful voice with a distinct Irish lilt managed to cut through the clamorous noise within Xiomara's head. This voice was not loud, but it was far too close as it said, "I'm real sorry 'bout this..."
Xi flung a hand back, throwing a wave of energy at the too-close intruder. But it didn't throw Oz like it had the others.
In fact, the wiry hedge witch who normally moved his body with about as much balance and grace as a drunk toddler, uncannily braced himself against the torrent Xiomara sent at him from less than three feet away, such that the most it did was to blow his dark hair back like a warm breeze. Despite the commotion and the still-imminent peril, the Free Traders stopped what they were doing to face Oz and openly gape.
His face was filled with palpable regret as he opened up his tattooed palms on either side of his body, joints twitching as if he were gently caressing the air, assessing it. Then he arced them forward, tracing a circular shape with his right hand curving up and to the left while his left hand swept down and right. His wrists met in the center, palms thrust out toward Xi so that she could see the words inked there, fingers curved slightly as if waiting to catch a baseball.
And then she felt it—a draining, suctioning sensation of the torrential magic that was swirling around and within her, that had pressed up against her bones as it begged release from her body just moments ago. Now it was being siphoned out of her in a powerful rush, and seemingly funneled between Oz's open, waiting hands. His arms, his shoulders and back, trembled and strained as he took in the current. His spine curved forward as his body cowed into itself, but his feet stayed firmly planted on the ground, the sigils on his hands glowing brighter and brighter until he finally dropped his arms, panting with exertion. The house, though clearly battered, had stopped shaking.
"What the fuck. Did he just do?" Nate said from where he was propped against the broken banister of the stairs, wheezing like he’d had the air knocked out of him.
Oz's head swiveled toward Nate, his eyes glazed over, but he made no effort to respond. He didn't look like he could respond, swaying where he stood like the magic he'd just siphoned from Xiomara was whiskey. The air all around them felt thinner, too, like they were standing at the peak of a mountain and the oxygen was sparse.
"Par off, blud," Rue growled at Nate with odd and unexpected protectiveness bolstering her tone, "He just saved all our fuckin' skins."
There wasn't a chance to question what the fuck had just happened. Xiomara's face was shining with sweat, and all at once she started shivering where she stood—her drastically overheated body reacting to the sudden, vacuumous removal of its power source.
Nate made a panicked lurch toward her, but it was Rue who got there first; in the secondmost baffling and unprecedented event that had occurred in the FTB safehouse within the last five minutes, Rue placed her hands on either side of Xi's convulsing frame, brow furrowed in concentration until the blonde stilled and her complexion returned to a normal shade.
Harriet hovered behind her brother, murmuring something to him so low that only he could hear. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and an emotion that looked like genuine anguish washed over his face for just a moment before it was gone, and his hazel eyes hardened and shuttered. His voice only barely more audible than his twin, Nate said, “Xiomara…You need to leave. We have rules. You broke them.”
As weakened and drained as she felt, practically squashing Rue as she leaned on her for support, Xiomara shook her head. “No,” she replied, looking up at Nate past heavy eyelids.
An awkward beat, and then: “Well, you don’t get to—”
“—No, you don’t get to make me leave. This is my house as much as yours. I’m not just another hedge you can kick out on the street because they pissed you off,” she hissed, rocking back and forth as she disentangled herself from Rue. “You have no shortage of friends, and family, and money, and people that will tell you everything you want to hear. I have nothing except this house. You leave…” She cut a withering glare up to Harriet, and then spat, “...and you take her with you. We’re done.”
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐘 𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐒 𝐓𝐎-𝐀𝐍𝐃-𝐅𝐑𝐎 on the waves — creaking like a ghost ship, lost in the fog. One man cannot steer a ship of this caliber — but Westley supposes it doesn’t matter, in the end. What’s going to happen to him is going to happen to him, and to his ship. Maybe in the end, it’s where they both belong — torn into pieces at the bottom of the sea. Westley can’t for the life of him tell whether the roaring in his ears is his own blood rushing through his body — or whether it’s the sea, angry beneath them. Until this moment, the captain of the Arcady had no idea what he was capable of — and now, he almost wishes he still didn’t. The blood will take hours to clean from the ship — days, even.
They’d locked Elio away before the mutiny. Westley supposes that was kind of them. Why should the lover suffer for the crimes of the damned? Westley’s seen it in old pirate movies — where the crew turns on the captain — where the sentence is death. He’s been so afraid of that very scenario that he’s changed every couple of years once finding out that he wasn’t what he thought himself to be — wasn’t human. Safer that way — for him, and for them. A bullet in his gut — a knife across his throat, all very dramatic — bleeding out as he’d been thrown into the stinging agony of the sea as shark bait. But it hadn’t been the sharks that had found him.
By the time the Kraken had deposited him back on the ship, his wounds were already healed — and black vines like ink, like tattoos, had been snaking up his arms, his hair dripping salt water and his eyes that same haunting shade of red. He could remember it if he tried — what came next, the massacre — a mass grave at sea — but he doesn’t want to try, doesn’t want to remember. Just looks at his hands stained with blood — looks at Elio, chained away and spared from that fate. When Westley looks up at his once-lover, his eyes are crimson. They’d been on their way back to Italy, ironically. To rid Elio of his foolish, idealistic notions that Westley could be what he needed him to be. “I am the darkness. Nothing more,” he says, his voice thick and strained from the saltwater. Blood trickles down the steps that lead into the prison. He could let Elio go — but perhaps he’s safer in a cage until Westley decides what to do with him. He can’t go back to civilization now. “I told you to stay away. Is this what you wanted? Is this what you thought you could love?”
YES. YES I DO. I REALLY REALLY DO. ill put it under the cut
⚠cw for past abuse, toxic relationships, and the like
ive mentioned it a few times but i hc the two as biological brothers, with about a 5 year age gap. the two lived in the splatlands, and most of Ichiya's earliest memories was of his older brother and parents arguing, whether it was about him, school, work, literally anything, it didnt matter. they both hated their family and wanted out.
while Ikkan wanted a quiet life anywhere away from their house, Ichiya dreamed of blaring music and turf war, and eventually met Murasaki and Namida at school when he was around 12, making their first demo song for squid squad and officially forming a band when they were 14 (Ichiya and Namida are the same age, while Murasaki is 2 years younger).
As they rose in the ranks quickly, Ikkan realized that using the money he had saved up over the years and the new source of income to move out with the other three following close behind. Inkopolis was close-by, convenient for work, and far enough away from their parents that they could reasonably hide their address and not be dragged back to that hellhole.
which would seem like a happy ending, but neither of them really,,,came out unscathed. Ichiya had an awful fear of not being taken seriously causing him to become extremely bombastic and aggressive, putting on a sort of confident persona for the media. and Ikkan,,, well, after growing up solely on abusive relationships he sorta,,, started defaulting to them quickly, trying to create arguments because that at the very least was the most familiar thing for him. it all boiled to a head when Ichiya and Ikkan were having what was essentially a shouting match at the studio, and Ikkan stormed out; yelling on his way out that he hoped is brother would have a fun time living without him. the fear and stress ended in Ichiya yelling at Namida and Murasaki following her, and then they just,,, never showed up at the studio again
Ichiya took it hard, basically throwing himself back in to school and taking every music class he could get his hands on (in these classes he also met 004Clm!) . after about a year Namida and Mura reached back out to him and the three sorta became shaky friends again, catching up with each other and eventually forming Front Roe and moving to splatsville after about 7 years of radio silence from SQSQD. Ichiya changed a lot-- him making the choice to not show his face online anymore is because he doesnt want media attention, he just wants to make music and share it with the world like his inspirations did for him.
i havent exactly fleshed out how Ikkan and Warabi met, but i feel like a lot of the "tension" they have is a lot of Ikkan defaulting to arguments and shit out of comfort even if its not healthy, but Warabi helps him through it and they both come out much better :) love wins
uhhh also some quick Beika thoughts-- he and Ichiya were really good friends at school (first friend Ichiya really had) and when squid squad moved away he sorfof felt like inferior and stuff, hes really insecure but feigns confidence and projects a lot of his insecurities on Ichiya and stuff. im still developing that part tho give me time
