Damsel In Distress

damsel in distress

IN WHICH: desperate times call for desperate measures.

PAIRING: zuko x reader

INSPIRED BY: moment’s silence (common tongue) — hozier

WARNING: suggestive themes, making out ;)

NOTES: i got distracted while writing the next part of stars. i hope you all enjoy!

you could feel someone following you.

you had been taught to be aware of your surroundings and follow your gut— your grandfather, a retired fire nation general, had taught you well. he had raised you as his own ever since your parents died in battle, and taught you the truth about the fire nation from the very start. he was a careless old man, one who didn’t fear being caught by the firelord or being killed; he claimed that he was old enough.

his advice was simple; follow your gut, and be aware.

he expected you to accomplish great things. you were trained to be prince zuko’s personal body guard, and while he was proud of that alone, the fact that you had chosen to go off with zuko during his banishment was what he was truly proud of.

“you and iroh will be the only voices of reason on that ship,” your grandpa had explained as he packed multiple tea bags into your bag (when you weren’t looking, of course). he watched you fondly, observing the way you were sharpening your sword. you looked so much like your parents.

“be aware, y/n. a big storm is brewing.”

on the ship, your job soon blossomed into an advisor and body guard. you became iroh’s pai sho partner and looked up to him as a role model. you had joined the old man in trying to explain to zuko that his honor wasn’t worth it, but at the same time, you helped zuko train. you were a nonbender, but that only meant that you were strong in combat— especially hand-to-hand.

fast forward a few months, you were sure that your grandfather would be glad to hear that you were living a somewhat normal life in ba sing se alongside iroh and zuko. setting up a tea shop under new names was certainly a spontaneous decision, but you weren’t complaining at all. to you, it felt like a vacation; you could finally let out a breath you had held in for years. a small prt of you missed the adrenaline that came along with fighting, but you knew that this life was the life you all deserved.

you all deserved peace.

but as you walked down the dark alleyway of ba sing se, your hands holding a woven basket that you used to hold your belongings, you knew that your peace was disrupted. something was wrong. someone was watching.

you kept up a cool front, but listened to the little sounds around you. you could hear the faint swoosh of air coming from someone, and the small puffs of breath being taken by someone who wasn’t you.

you heard them land quietly behind you. you could tell they were experienced— you almost didn’t hear them. almost. you heard their feet come closer, each step making you slow your walk.

you turned around abruptly, basket still in your right hand as you shoved them up against the nearby wall. your right arm went up to their throat, eyes glaring into the blue mask the other person wore. if looks could kill, the stranger would certainly burst into flames.

your arm was hard against their neck, almost cutting off their air supply. you were both breathing heavily, chests heaving against each other before your free hand went up to pull the mask up.

your eyes met familiar amber ones, your scowl faltering at the sight of the fire prince. your arm fell from his neck, a scoff leaving your lips as you pushed yourself off of him. the warmth he radiated was gone, now replaced by the cold night air. “you were following me?” you asked, already knowing the answer as you crossed your arms over your chest.

“you were gone longer than usual!” zuko protested, thankful for the darkness around him as his face burned red. he huffed grumpily, copying your actions and crossing his arms. “you told uncle that you’d be back before 12! you were late!”

“i wasn’t late!” you argued, foot tapping against the cobblestone. “but because of this stupid stunt, i might be!” your angry look faltered at the soft sound of gruff talking, your head turning towards the sound while zuko only groaned.

“don’t be mad at me because i got worried!” zuko fired back, throwing his hands up in exasperation as he paced. “spirits, it’s so hard to be good,” he grumbled under his breath before he stopped his pacing, pointing an accusatory finger towards you.

“i’m not some damsel in distress, zuko.” you replied, eyes still staring into the darkness. you could feel people coming.

zuko was blind to your strange behavior, instead choosing to tell you off further. “i know you aren’t! you’ve kicked my ass more than i could count. anyway— know how dangerous it is to be out so late especially when we—“

you suddenly moved closer to him, shoving him up against the wall once again. zuko’s words died in his throat as he looked down at you, but your mind was elsewhere. you were looking down the dark alley, your brows furrowed.

“i’m not done,” zuko forced out, making you shush him harshly. your legs were practically tangled together, and your arm was up against his body, practically trapping him under your body. his body was against the wall behind him, and zuko didn’t move as you narrowed your eyes. that’s when he heard it: deep voices.

“kiss me,” you stated, not even looking at him. you dropped your basket on the ground.

“what? you can’t be serious,” zuko hissed, his body temperature rising. but that didn’t seem to bother you as you looked back at him.

“do you trust me?” you asked sternly, making him nod before you came forward.

your hands reached to his neck, your touch gentle as you brought him down to meet your lips. his eyes fluttered shut, the voices from before disappearing into the background and being replaced by you. his senses were flooded by you. you tasted like sugar cane and smelled like moon flowers. you were intoxicating, and zuko found one of his hands going up to hold your neck, his thumb gently caressing the skin under his fingertips.

he tasted like tea and smelled like jasmines. the mere taste of him made you crave more, and your leg was instinctively placed between his legs.

you pulled away from him briefly, breathing slightly labored. your eyes met his, and you came in the middle again, lips slotting over each other. you slipped your tongue into his mouth, reveling in the low moan he gave out. your fingers ran through his hair, making his blue mask drop onto the ground as the kiss became more passionate. you tugged at the black strands, listening to him groan deeply.

you pressed him harder against the wall, yet zuko didn’t care as he bit down on your bottom lip and pulled, making you let out a whine that he wanted to hear more of. the voices were nearer now, and he could hear them jog down their alleyway.

his lips trailed down to your neck, making you close your eyes tighter and tilt your head to the side to give him more room. zuko opened his eyes briefly to see who the voices belonged to.

dai li. three of them came to a sudden stop at the sight of you both, and one immediately got your attention.

“hey! what’re you two doing here?” he yelled, ignoring the exasperated looks of the others as his voice echoed in the alley.

zuko opened his mouth to answer, but you beat him to it. you looked back at them, feigning indifference as you cocked a brow. “what do you think?” you responded, the corner of your lips curling up into a confident smirk. you glanced back at him, giving him a small wink.

zuko died right then and there.

“go home,” the dai li soldier stated sternly, making you let out a deep sigh. you were a good actor.

“c’mon lee,” you pulled away from zuko, grabbing your basket and his mask, hiding it from the dai li as you tucked it into your basket. you took zuko’s hand in yours, your act breaking for a second when he intertwined your fingers. “let’s have more fun at home,” you said, reverting back to your lie as you gave the dai li an innocent smile. with that, you ran off with zuko, letting out a loud laugh when you reached the entrance of the jasmine dragon.

“holy shit!” you let out, unable to hold back your laughs as you looked up at the sky. “i can’t believe we got away with it!” you looked at zuko, face flushing when you felt his warm hand tangled with yours. he was looking at you intently, amber eyes gleaming with something you’ve never seen before.

you leaned forward, gently planting your lips onto his for a quick peck. you opened up the door to the jasmine dragon, sending him a suggestive look that he read immediately. as the door shut behind you both, your basket dropped to the ground as this time zuko pushed you against the wall, lips meeting yours once again.

┈┈ 𑁍༅ཾ༚ ┈┈

NOTES: the sub jumped out of zuko real fast in this one. lmal this was so self indulgent, but once again, thank you for reading and sorry for any typos!

TAGSLIST: @beifongsss

Newsflash: Chuuya cares for Dazai

This can be sort of counted as a part two of my analysis talking about Dazai's care for Chuuya. In this post I will be focusing on Chuuya's feelings and care towards Dazai, hope you enjoy! :)

Chuuya Nakahara is a very expressive character, therefore, it is logical to believe that his feelings towards Dazai are easy to grasp, which is true. But just because we can understand Chuuya's feelings easier does not make them any less complex.

This is going to sound much harsher than I intend it to but Chuuya's hatred towards Dazai is defiently more genuine and prominent than Dazai's "hatred" towards Chuuya. Fellow Soukoku shipper reading this, I know this hurts but bare with me!

Dazai's "hatred" for Chuuya is truly not as strong. Don't get me wrong, there are some aspects that Chuuya has that Dazai finds annoying, but he doesn't truly hate him. Chuuya is one of the first people that Dazai ever actually started to harvest genuine care for. Chuuya was also one of the reasons Dazai wanted to continue living in Fiftheen, not to mention how Chuuya was basically Dazai's drive to continue living and fighting in Stormbringer. I think that Dazai's reasoning to "hate" Chuuya is because of the sole reason that Chuuya was indirectly making Dazai bring out aspects of himself that he has never shown or even knew he had before. I believe that another reason Dazai could "hate" Chuuya is because of how loyal he is to the pm, which could be seen as ironic considering the fact that Chuuya's loyalty was exactly what drew Dazai in back when they were 15.

As much as I hate to admit it, Chuuya does "hate" Dazai. He even resents the idea of being associated with Dazai. The reason for this is simple: he hates what Dazai Osamu represents. Everyone in the port mafia saw Dazai as inhuman, even Dazai himself doesn't see himself as human, and Chuuya desperately wants to be seen as human. So he proyects his own anger and fear of not being human onto Dazai. Another reason Chuuya could hate Dazai is because of how Dazai, a biological human— rejects his own humanity. Something that Chuuya craves so bad.

The reason as to why I say that Chuuya's hate can be considered stronger than Dazai's is because both of these characters strive for one thing: Humanity.

Dazai sees Chuuya as a human. During Stormbringer he doesn't even doubts Chuuya's humanity even after Chuuya's sketchy background and orgins. Dazai even likes to drop small hints to Chuuya that he is human.

This pannel represents their view for each other very well. Dazai says "im human too, you know?" he says the word "too", emphazasing on the fact that he is also calling Chuuya human. And what is Chuuya's response to that? "Nobody would believe that shit." So... Is Chuuya talking about himself or about Dazai here? I would say both, on one side this can be seen as Chuuya insulting Dazai. But if we look at the bigger picture and also Dazai's choice of words, Chuuya is actually saying that its hard to believe that he himself is human. But at the end of the day, he is just proyecting his insecurities and anger towards Dazai like he always does, but this time it was an insult that hurts both of them.

Chuuya "hated" Dazai. Back when both of them were in the pm, Chuuya acted like he didn't give two shits about Dazai. During the times we've seen these two when they were in the pm, Dazai's care for Chuuya was 10x more evident than Chuuya's care for Dazai. Chuuya's behavior towards Dazai is much more crude and vulgar, but that does not mean that Chuuya doesn't care for Dazai, infact Chuuya cares a whole lot for him. Back then, Chuuya did not want to accept it. He did not want to accept that he cared for the person who he wanted to see as "inhuman" so badly.

Even though Chuuya "hated" him when they were in the pm, he felt close to Dazai, he felt so close to him to the point he truly trusts him with corruption and with battle strategies.

Chuuya defiently held a lot of care for Dazai in the pm but he never took the time to think or even realize his care. I would like to say that Chuuya's care was instincitve. Chuuya never hesitates to save Dazai, there was never an ulterior motive to save him, he just dives in without a question.

My favorite example to show when it comes to Chuuya's instinctive care will always be in stormbringer, code 4:

"So that's how it is..." Dazai said as he stared back at the black lump with a stern expression on his face.

Cracks appeared on the ground. Something that looked like the head of a reptile pooked out of the lump.

"Watch out!" Chuuya jumped to the side by manipulating gravity and grabbed Dazai, rolling over to the woods.

Chuuya did not even think twice of pulling Dazai away from harm. Chuuya didn't hesitate at all. The reason for that is simple, he cares. He just doesn't want to accept it nor acknowledge it.

Another perfect example of Chuuya's care when they were back in the pm is the whole microscope situation in the dragon head conflict. Its quite funny how a minute before realizing Dazai's plan, Chuuya told Mori how Dazai is better off dead, but the moment he realize that there was a chance to get Dazai and his own friends out of Shibusawa's mess, he did not overthink it at all and quickly goes over to help Dazai.

So my point is Chuuya was so focused on his own self-proyecting towards Dazai to even realize he cares for him. But that all changes the night Dazai leaves the pm.

The next think I will be discussing about is something that I have talked about on my last previous posts, so if you want a more detailed explanation about this you can go read them. (for some reason I can't link my own posts but they aren't hard to find!)

But anyways, Chuuya has lost so many significant people in his life, he's either been betrayed by them or they die. Dazai has been such a constant person in Chuuya's life and I believe that Chuuya didn't really acknowledge that, maybe he did realize in some sort of subconcious level, hence why he always is instinctively protective over Dazai when he's in real danger.

It was actually Dazai's departure when it hit Chuuya that he indeed does care for Dazai. It was the moment when he realized how wierd it feels to have that one person who stuck with you since you first entered the pm to suddendly disappear.

I think everyone in this fandom can agree that Chuuya was hurt by Dazai leaving without any explanation, even Asagiri confirmed this in the afterwards of stormbringer by saying that Chuuya's feelings towards Dazai leaving the pm haven't been fully revealed yet, and I think its pretty evident by Chuuya's expression when he mentions Dazai's departure, he wasn't happy about it at all.

It was Dazai's departure that wierdly enough strenghtened Soukoku's bond from Chuuya's end. Sure, Chuuya holds a lot of grudge and resentment towards Dazai for leaving, but Dazai has also been the only person in his life who was able to leave and come back, and not only just "come back" but both of them also managed to mantain the same partnership and bond they've shared for years.

When they see each other in the basement, Chuuya chooses to let him go. He could've restrained him to give Dazai a harder time, especially if we consider the fact that Dazai literally "betrayed" the pm– betraying Chuuya to an extension. But Chuuya lets him go, because he doesn't want him to actually die.

Chuuya could've also shown a way stronger resolve when it came to fighting Dazai in the basement, but he doesn't. He lets Dazai "harass" him back. He even goes as far as to humilate himself to make Dazai laugh.

There was literally no reason whatsoever for Chuuya to do this. It was just a sublte bonding moment between the two.

In the lovecraft battle, Chuuya was being so open about his trust for Dazai. These two always have this "actions speaks louder than words" thing going on but I think that Dazai really needed that reassurence, Dazai needed that reassurence that Chuuya still trusts him even after leaving him, he needed that reassurence that Chuuya trusts him.

Back when both were in the pm days, Chuuya would've never said this outloud. Ever. But now that he actually realized how important Dazai is to him so he can't help but say it out loud, to show that vulnerable side of him. Even when he believes that theres a posibility Dazai doesn't care back.

I literally love this "light punch to the chest" gesture, its so subtle yet so sweet. Showing us how although they both are in opossing sides now, they will always find a way to keep their partnership and bond. This little punch screams "I still see you as a partner and that's not changing you idiot" and I love that so much.

And then of course, we can talk about Dead Apple and how much trust Chuuya puts into Dazai and his strategies. We even have Chuuya admiting to trusting his vitality and craftiness. Chuuya trusts Dazai so much to the point he used corruption with the faith that Dazai will nullify it, even when everyone deemed Dazai dead.

These two truly treasure each other and especially their feelings towards each other. It's so intimate, it's so familiar and it's so bittersweet.

Dazai Osamu [ 太宰 治 ]

it’s me, from the depths of grad school hell, giving you babie megumi 0.5x selfie, courtesy of gojo being annoying, jjk ch 210, thank you gege sensei

so pretty

the moon in paintings. x

bungou stray dogs + @ao3-crack