PLEASEE - Tumblr Posts
once we get that xavier running his hands through his bangs limited banner animation it’s gonna be so over for everybody
house was just like
house: *pushes Wilson off the couch*
Wilson: HOWSE you cannot do that! god when are you going to start taking responsibility for your actions and treating others decently
Wilson: *pushes house down a flight of stairs*
House, in a cartoon heap at the bottom of the stairs after he’s already died and come back to life: omg he’s so dreamy 😍 I hope this means he likes me 😌
@ellecdc Mother, I have a new request...
Seeing this picture woke something in me so just HEAR ME OUT PLS
Just imagine single mom!reader meeting her daughter’s primary school teacher!remus lupin at one of the parent-teacher nights, and he’s just so smitten with her that he can’t stop sending her glances across the room. Maybe after some time seeing her everyday, bringing her daughter to school, little miss sees that these two are clearly too dumb to do something about it, and she also really like mr. Lupin (he’s her fav), so she sets them up somehow, and they start to slowly fall in love witch each other, but at the same time reader is so scared after her last relationship, and everything is so complicated for her.
I’ll just leave it here I think (or not hehe)
gang why are my moots so cool
COOL PEOPLE PLEASE INTERACT
your friendly neighbourhood spiderman ! ༺ ino takuma
wc : 4.7k content : angst, fluff. brief suicidal ideation, mentions of depression, non-graphic description of a panic attack, two uses of y/n. part of #inotober'24 following prompts from day 1 and day 2, 'secret' and 'birthday' !! typos, probably. everyone says "god" too much. ↬ masterlist (jjk)
·:¨༺ you're in a situationship with spiderman, who's also... your childhood love?
october 2nd. 5:47 pm.
“don’t you have anything better to be doing?”
god knows you’ve probably asked him that a hundred times by now, but there’s a part of you that hasn’t quite gotten over the image of the city’s resident superhero ambling beside you, swamped in grocery bags he insisted on carrying - even if it is a weekly occurrence.
“like what?” he says lazily, turning his masked face towards you.
“like… protecting the city. stopping thieves. ending crime. that sort of thing.”
“the real crime would be making you heave around all these bags yourself.”
“i’m more than capable of carrying them on my own—”
“i know you are, but… it’s your birthday today.”
never mind that he’s carried those bags all these past weeks. you massage the bridge of your nose, lengthening your stride as the crosswalk light begins to flash a distressing red through the settling darkness. spiderman keeps up easily next to you, bags swinging madly from his arms, his cheerful whistling joining the cacophony of the busy city around you.
you know who he is, of course. as of last week, to be exact. from the moment you met him at age four, peeking curiously around your mother’s legs as he eagerly introduced himself as your new neighbour, ino takuma has never been good at keeping secrets. you would know; you’ve spent years together: kicking a ball down the street after school turning to lazy summer nights on the back porch turning to harried study sessions in your living room as you scraped through your final exams. he’d trash-talked the girl who’d spread rumours about you; you’d backed him up in a messy fistfight, which ended with both of you hobbling home in triumph and spending your two days of suspension in celebration.
“no secrets, yeah?” he’d made you pinky-promise, nine years old and wiping away your tears on the walk home, knees scuffed and notebook torn from falling over - from being pushed.
it’d become your thing - you’d renew the promise every time your birthday came around. sure, as you grew older, things changed - as they tend to do - but never the things that mattered. no secrets. it still applied. maybe you didn’t know everything about each other’s lives like you used to. you had other friends; he’d be busy studying; you wouldn’t have a proper conversation for weeks. but when you called him at two in the morning he’d always answer, and when he asked how you were - “how are you? really and truly?” - you’d never lie. things were different, in other ways too. you both knew it when you’d find him staring in a way that made the words catch in your throat, gaze lingering for a moment too long. but when you finally met up at his place to open your uni admission letters together - reject or accept? though takuma had always been smart, you’d never doubted he’d get in - it was like nothing had changed at all, with the two of you jumping up and down and hollering at the top of your lungs, throwing yourself into his arms and knocking him to the floor, letting the papers slip out of your hands - we are pleased to inform you - and your families with their phones out to capture the moment forever, laughing through their tears - they’re so crazy, aren’t they, just like always. and things between you were as open and free and natural as ever.
no secrets.
then you’d both moved to the city for uni. the first few months of settling in were… strange. you’d tried to meet up more often, you really had, but it’s like the universe itself was working against you because your schedules lined up in the worst ways possible, and if you saw each other on campus it was only in passing. you’d thought of flat-sharing, but that was before you found out the on-site classes for one of your subjects was on the secondary campus - that happened to be on the other side of the city.
so, you’d drifted. not a lot, but it felt like a lot, now that both of you were out in the big wide world, and the space separating you was now physical, too. you still texted often, had study calls every now and then, the usual - but slowly but surely you were becoming less and less relevant in each other’s lives.
things change, you’d tell yourself - it’s normal, it’s natural, it’s expected - what, you thought you were going to be together forever? joined at the hip? two sides of the same coin? friends until the end?
more than friends?
things change, and not often for the better. you knew that. but by god it didn’t make it hurt any less.
that was until june this year. you remembered it clearly - probably the worst thursday of your life. it’d been raining for the past three days, as if you’d needed any more reason to feel like you were drowning. you remember the crosswalk: six pm in a thick downpour without an umbrella, lost in the jostling of the crowd, trying to balance your four heavy bags of groceries - don’t crush the eggs - nearly falling off the edge of the curb into oncoming traffic, and god help you but at that moment you wouldn’t mind because your grades had been slipping and so was your footing, now, on the slick pavement, and your arms were weakening too and everything you needed so badly, had worked so hard for, was falling out of your—
then you’d felt a steady hand on your back and your burden was swiftly lifted from your loose grasp.
“don’t worry, i gotcha.”
and maybe it was just because of how in your head you were at the time, but that voice had taken you right back. eleven years old, seven pm on a summer night, a long and glorious saturday ending with you on the swings with your closest friend, and your biggest worry was whether or not your icy pole melting onto your shorts would leave a stain.
“thanks, yeah,” you’d said, and that’s when you noticed the whispers, how the crowd had near-stopped around you. and only when you turned your head to find the world-famous spiderman at your shoulder, masked face and suit and all, rather than, well - when you felt that drop in your stomach - did you realise how much you’d been hoping it was - him.
but it wasn’t, and you hadn’t spoken to him at all in a month, and even though there was an actual celebrity holding your grocery bags you couldn’t find it in you to care.
“spiderman?”
time, which had frozen for a blissful moment, started up again in double speed. pushing, shoving, the heat of bodies, loud, eager voices.
“can i get your autograph?”
“can you take a selfie?”
“i’ve been dying to meet you—”
“thank you for everything you do!”
“you don’t know how much i’ve been praying—”
“will you marry me?”
“can you sign my arm?”
“can you sign my face?”
head spinning, world swirling. the wind was picking up, spitting rain into your face, blurring your vision.
“sorry, i’ve got to - i’m sorry - could we give her some space?”
you’d felt his hand on your arm steering you away and under the cover of a nearby cafe's outdoor seating.
“i’ve got your stuff, don’t worry. someone knocked against the one with eggs but it should be fine.”
and sure enough your bags swung from his arms, the thin plastic speckled with rain, crinkling in the wind.
“thanks… you didn’t have to.”
“are you okay? can i walk you home - do you live close by?”
there’s a familiar concern in his voice. he’s not buying it; he’s not even letting you take the bags back yet. holding you hostage. maybe it’s fair. your thoughts are still muddled, knees trembling. and for the life of you, you can’t stop thinking about ino takuma. of all people. of all times, of all places.
“i feel like i shouldn’t be telling a stranger where i live.”
“i’m not a stranger.” his voice is soft.
aren’t you stupid. he’s spiderman.
“god. yeah, sorry, my brain is just a bit addled, um - i live pretty close by, you don’t have to—”
“great!”
your build, your voice, your height. the way you walk. the way you turn your head. is it arrogant of me? to think i could recognise you anywhere? when i can’t even recognise the person i’ve become, half these days?
you take the bags off him at the exterior of your apartment building. there are eggs in there, you remind yourself. don’t let them break apart.
“thanks, ‘kuma,” you say again. then, your face hot - “oh, god - sorry. i don’t…”
he’s frozen, a little. “no, that’s okay—”
“you just reminded me of someone i know, it’s not - i didn’t mean to—”
“no worries, it happens.” he gives a short laugh, scratches the back of his neck. “i’ll see you around?”
“you will? i mean. sure. yeah.” you were already turning away, as if the faster you disappeared the faster your mind would clear.
i’m seeing him everywhere.
you’d texted him then, to plan the hangout you’d been saying you ‘totally should do’ for god knows how long at this point. and it’d seemed like it would finally work out. but two weeks later, less than an hour before, he’d messaged you saying he was so sorry, really sorry but he couldn’t make it, but could we plan another time? please? i really want to see you.
you hadn’t replied. it wasn’t fair of you to give up on him that easily when you know he wouldn’t do the same to you, but these days it was so easy to… well, give up.
maybe it was a sign to stop trying. you’d had your time with him. maybe you both just had to move on. maybe he’d already moved on, and was waiting for you to catch up. maybe he’d been trying to give you little hints this whole time that he wasn’t into this anymore, not in the same way, and it’d just been flying completely over your head, and this was the last straw, because how much more obvious could you get than cancelling a hangout thirty-two minutes beforehand?
so that had made it pretty awkward when you quite literally bumped into him on campus a few days later. he was on the way to a class and you were late to yours and you’d kinda just circled around each other, all “oh my god, hi”s and “it’s so good to see you”s while already walking away, with a promise to catch up later that somehow - surprisingly! - never happened. he’d gotten taller, you’d noticed, but his hair was mussed up in the same way at the back, and his smile was just the same. you wondered what parts of you had changed: if he saw you the same way; if he recognised you at all or had to do a double take; if he noticed the bags under your eyes and the lines on your face and the stoop of your shoulders. or if he just didn’t care.
at least you had spiderman.
in theory it sounded strange, but it felt so natural, the way it developed. he’d caught you again, same time, same place, same grocery run, and you’d talked a little as he walked you home. in a month he’d be sitting cross-legged and precarious on your window ledge asking you how your day was, what you were studying, offering to quiz you on the terms you’d keep forgetting. you didn’t see him that often - he was spiderman, after all - but you were surprised how easily he became a part of your life. sometimes he’d force you to take breaks and go with him to get ice cream or boba or just walk around for a bit. he’d visited you once with a scrawny, wet kitten curled up in the crook of his elbow, panicked, and you’d taken it to the vet together and given it a name and, eventually, a home. later on, he’d started to open up a little - how he got his powers, what it was like being spiderman, all that jazz - and you were surprised how similar you were - that same thread running through both of your narratives - loneliness. isolation. he was your age, and was also in uni, and yes, he was forced to balance all his schoolwork with his choice of side career. but it wasn’t too bad because he was a fast learner. he liked f1 racing and soccer and animal crossing: new horizons. he hadn’t broken any bones before. he missed someone, too. he was a terrible liar. he liked sunrises more, but on a brisk september evening he’d swung you up to the top of a high-rise to watch the sunset.
it wasn’t exactly romantic. not really. you didn’t have the mental capacity to give it much thought because you were too busy trying to survive. he knew that; he saw that. somehow, he could tell you were drowning. this was just his way of throwing you a lifeline. at first you’d wondered why he cared, but then you’d learned to take it as it came, at face value. he was just like that. open, genuine, easy.
it wasn’t exactly romantic, not really, even if your hands had brushed and his voice had dropped a little, and something warm in you had bloomed. maybe in another life it could’ve been. there was chemistry there. if you’d asked to kiss him he might’ve said yes. but you didn’t, and he didn’t, and that was that. maybe he was in love with you. but you were in no shape to love him back and he knew it, when his hand would carefully tighten on your arm near the edge of the rooftop, even when you’d told him repeatedly, throughout these past months, that you were just fine.
and, after all, he was spiderman. how close could you get to him before he had to inevitably push you away? you weren’t delusional enough to believe he could take in you into his trust. but part of you still hoped, that one day the mask would slip.
june, to september. you spent time with spiderman and you didn’t catch a single glimpse of ino takuma. he’d never texted back after the failed hangout, after that time you’d bumped into each other. you’d never know how he’d agonised over it; you didn’t even let yourself dream that he cared about you enough to feel pain over it.
move on. just move on. it’s not meant to be.
you were getting better, for a while, but then it was nearly a week before your birthday and you’d cried yourself to sleep the night before for no reason at all, and it hadn’t gone away when you’d woken up. you’d skipped uni that day to ‘study’, and ended up getting the scare of your life when spiderman knocked on your window, though he made up for it by getting a serving of large fries as a peace offering.
he’d taken you up to the roof of your apartment and you’d sat there together in silence, watching the night sky, taking turns to grab a handful out of the box. he’d taken his gloves off to eat. you thought about holding his hand.
at some point he’d pushed the rest to you and turned to face you, mask glinting in the darkness.
“how are you?” he’d said. and when you opened your mouth to deliver a banal lie he’d cut in, “really and truly?”
you answered automatically, a built-in response to those words that always managed to pull the truth out of you when nothing else could. “i’m not doing… great. i mean. you know. you’ve seen it.”
and then it clicked. you would’ve liked to say you’d suspected, you’d had an inkling, that part of you had known all along. but it wasn’t until he’d asked you that - in the exact same tone with that tilt of his head and all of his attention on you that you’d realised ino takuma had not been ignoring you after all.
no secrets. except, maybe, this one.
takuma. ino takuma. your ‘kuma. it couldn’t be. oh, but it was. should you feel betrayed? because you don’t. because you feel warm instead, that he’s been here this whole time. that he’s never left you alone. that he’s cared about you. and there’s so much to wrap your head around, so many timelines to compare and bits of information to piece together, and you don’t know why he wouldn’t reveal himself to you but god, at least he’s here.
“do you wanna talk about it?”
i missed you. i missed you. i’m so sorry.
“i just… miss how things used to be, y’know? even though i know i can’t go back to it.” you’d shrugged, speaking with a casualness you didn’t feel, trailing a pattern on the tiles, on the inches of space between you. “everyone misses their youth. but i just miss…”
you’d trailed off. “you remind me of someone i know.”
“oh? i remember you saying that, first time we met. someone good, at least?”
“yeah.” you tilted your head back, looking up at the sky. heart picking up its pace. “someone i love.”
he goes still besides you but you don’t turn to see. you’re being too vague. he won’t know for sure - what you’re saying, who you’re referring to. but nothing feels real right now and for some reason it feels safe to cast it out into the web of secrets between you, to finally get it off your chest, to be able to say it to him. even if it’s nothing like how you imagined.
“oh,” he says.
“yeah.”
“...yeah.” there’s a strain in his voice that sounds a lot like guilt. “look, um, i gotta go. i’ll try to come again next week - on your birthday, yeah? i’ll bring you a present.”
“i don’t need—”
“but i want to anyway.” he’s tripping over his words, pulling his gloves back on, getting to his feet. “i’ll see you?”
“yeah, sure.”
“get down properly - don’t do anything stupid,” he’d thrown lightly over his shoulder.
“of course not. thanks for the - fries.”
“anytime. take care of yourself,” and then he’s gone into the night, biting his tongue because he nearly said i love you instead.
and now it’s nearly six pm on your birthday, october 2nd, and ino takuma is whistling a tune as he strolls beside you, occasionally pausing to take a picture with a star-struck child or wave back enthusiastically at someone across the street. there’s a strange warmth in your heart at how loved he is. he deserves this and more. he deserves the whole world.
“you’re coming up?” you say as he doesn’t let you take the bags from your arms as usual, instead stepping into the elevator beside you.
“it’s your birthday,” he says in response, which doesn’t really make sense.
“i’m not sure how safe it is - bringing a stranger home and all,” you tease, bumping his shoulder affectionately.
“i’m not a stranger,” he says, so softly.
you almost say it. i know.
the elevator suddenly seems far too cramped a space for the impassable distance between you. or maybe it’s the fact that the distance is so small that makes it seem so impassable in the first place. one nudge from either side and everything will come tumbling down and by god, you want it to.
you unlock the door to your studio apartment and he sets the bags on the countertop, looking around.
“not much to see here,” you say, shrugging off your jacket and turning on the light.
“i like it. it’s very you.”
“that’s a good thing?”
“of course.”
he goes silent, and when you turn you see he’s wandered to your fridge, staring at your only magnet - a picture of you and takuma, barely five years old, arms around each other and laughing about something. there’s a smear of dirt on your face. takuma’s gloved hand hovers over it as if he could reach back in time and brush it off. it’s nearly overwhelming you at this point - you want to say it so bad, that you know who he is, but what if you shouldn’t? because if he’s been keeping it from you this whole time then surely he has a reason, and maybe you should respect that. but at the same time you know you can’t continue - whatever this is - for any longer. something’s got to give.
something’s going to change.
“oh yeah, um - that’s…” you break off, hands fisting on the thick material of your jacket before letting it drop to the floor. he’s standing and looking at the photo and you’re standing and looking at him and you could nearly reach out and touch him. how have you been so close this whole time, but so far?
“yeah?” he says, voice choked even as it’s muffled behind the mask, and you know that voice, the one he uses when he’s trying not to cry.
“you know how i told you, you remind me of a person i loved?”
“loved?” his voice cracks a little.
“love.”
he doesn’t say anything. you step towards him, open your mouth to say something, close it again.
“i forgot to bring your birthday present,” he says, still looking at the fridge.
you blink. “oh - that’s okay. i told you i don’t need one anyway. it’s not that important.”
he turns towards you finally, stepping closer. “it’s important to me. i wanted to give you something.”
“maybe you can bring it along next time.”
“or i can give you something else? i mean, not really give you something, more tell you something, that i probably should’ve told you a while ago. if you want to hear it.”
you shift your weight from one foot to the other as your cat rubs againt your leg in passing.
“okay.”
he hesitates. “um. well. i’m not really who you think i am. not in a bad way, just - i think - well. i think it’s just best if i show you.” he exhales. “don’t hate me?”
“i could never hate you.”
his hand goes to his mask and he starts to lift it up. your hands close over his wrist when he pulls it just over his nose.
“y/n…”
“it’s okay, ‘kuma - i know.”
your hands come up to frame his face; you can feel him trembling.
“frick. y/n. i’m so, so—” he chokes on his words, and then it all comes out, words tumbling over each other. “i’m so sorry. i didn’t mean for us to drift - i didn’t want to lie to you, not ever - i never wanted us to be like this. if it was just studies i could’ve found a way, but then everything else happened and it was so hard to find the time, and i caught glimpses of you every now and then - well i guess i was following you, not in a weird way, but god i just wanted to see you - and i didn’t think you wanted to talk to me anymore or even know me after you ghosted me because of that hangout i couldn't make it to - i couldn't, there was a robbery and crap - so i never said anything, and i guess i just made the excuse that it would’ve been too complicated anyway because heck, i’m spiderman - and you know, i would’ve been okay just watching you be happy from afar but you weren’t even that - and then there was that day in june, and god i know how bad this sounds but i couldn’t have been happier and it’s so selfish of me to want you all for myself because if i couldn’t do anything to help you as ino takuma maybe i could help you as spiderman - but god i’m so, so sorry, i know i was just being stupid, i was all in my head, i should’ve put in more effort, i should’ve tried harder—”
“no. no, stop. that’s okay. you’re okay.” his face is damp under your fingers. “i don’t blame you for anything - i was stupid for getting so caught up in my head about it all. i should’ve texted you back, i should’ve just talked to you. i know you would’ve been there for me. i shouldn’t have—”
“it’s not your fault. god, y/n, you’ve been struggling so much and i’m so sorry i wasn’t there more for you - god, i wish none of this’d happened—”
“but maybe it’s good that this happened.”
“how?”
“because now you know that even if we had to do this all over again, i’d still fall in love with you. even if you had a different face or a different body, even if we met in another life, we’d still choose each other. always.”
his breath catches, voice rough. “really?”
“really and truly.” your hands push up his mask a little as you slide them around to the back of his neck. “‘kuma, i really want to kiss you.”
“yeah?” he breathes shakily.
you close the space between you, and time stops. his arms come around you to pull you closer; your fingers thread through his hair. of all the things you expected to feel at this moment, it certainly wasn’t relief, but right now it’s flooding through you - that you’re finally somewhere where you belong, somewhere safe, somewhere familiar, somewhere you can breathe easy and shed the weight of the world from your shoulders for just a little while… and oh, who you are kidding - because he’d carry the weight of the world with you before you could even ask - because if there’s one thing you know about ino takuma, it’s that his arms are always open and so is his heart.
you’re dishevelled and breathing heavily when you break apart, and somewhere in that indescribable expanse of time takuma’s mask has fallen to the floor beside you. you rest your forehead against his and take him in, admiring the deep honey-brown of his eyes, and of course the first thing he decides to say to break the silence is, “i’m sorry. again.”
“no more apologies.” you shush him. “we were both a little stupid, and that’s that.”
he huffs out a laugh. “you reckon we can cancel each other’s stupidity out?”
“with our luck? we’ll only double it.”
“unfortunately, you’re right.” he leans in to kiss you again, then pulls back with a jerk. “oh crap—”
“what? what’s wrong?”
“no, we just - we forgot the milk—”
“the - what?”
“your groceries!”
“oh—!”
you stumble towards the countertop for the milk, legs weak for some strange reason, and yank open the fridge door to put it in. “but it hasn’t been that long, has it - milk takes two hours to sour, it hasn’t been two hours—”
“it might’ve been.” he runs his hand through his hair, face flushed. “sorry but i kinda lost track of time—”
“i’m a good kisser, ‘kuma? is that what you’re trying to say?”
“you’re terrible.”
“guess i need more practice, then.”
“guess so.”
later, you’re on the roof, sharing a milkshake between you, filling each other in with all the tiny details of each other’s lives you’ve missed these past few months, and it’s just so natural that you can barely comprehend what made you drift apart in the first place.
change.
“happy birthday, by the way,” takuma tells you sometime past nine pm.
“aw, shucks,” you say dryly.
“i think we need to renew something.”
you don’t realise what he’s talking about until he holds out his hand, pinky outstretched. a sudden urge to smile overtakes you but you manage to hold it in, fixing a serious expression on your face as you link pinkies.
“no secrets?”
“no secrets.”
“even if you get bitten by a radioactive spider,” takuma says seriously. “it’s not an excuse. you gotta tell me these things, you know.”
“speak for yourself.”
and then you’re laughing, freely, laughing until your stomach hurts, and you can’t remember the last time you felt this happy.
“god, i love you, takuma,” you say, wiping at your eyes.
he ruffles your hair, then drops his hand to your shoulder and pulls you into his side, kissing the top of your head.
“i love you too.”
something tells you - not right now, maybe not any time soon, but definitely in the future - you’re going to be okay.
the way the first few paragraphs had been sitting in my drafts for over a month n i only finished it off now...
it's ok we were waiting for perfect timing.
hopefully my other entries to inotober will not be nearly 5k words i simply cannot function at this level daily
don't look at me posting new ideas instead of writing the fics i have supposedly dedicated myself to...
tags !! @rieamena @laughingfcx @chososcamgirl @all-skedaddle-and-no-bop
your friendly neighbourhood spiderman ! ༺ ino takuma
wc : 4.7k content : angst, fluff. brief suicidal ideation, mentions of depression, non-graphic description of a panic attack, two uses of y/n. part of #inotober'24 following prompts from day 1 and day 2, 'secret' and 'birthday' !! typos, probably. everyone says "god" too much. ↬ masterlist (jjk)
·:¨༺ you're in a situationship with spiderman, who's also... your childhood love?
october 2nd. 5:47 pm.
“don’t you have anything better to be doing?”
god knows you’ve probably asked him that a hundred times by now, but there’s a part of you that hasn’t quite gotten over the image of the city’s resident superhero ambling beside you, swamped in grocery bags he insisted on carrying - even if it is a weekly occurrence.
“like what?” he says lazily, turning his masked face towards you.
“like… protecting the city. stopping thieves. ending crime. that sort of thing.”
“the real crime would be making you heave around all these bags yourself.”
“i’m more than capable of carrying them on my own—”
“i know you are, but… it’s your birthday today.”
never mind that he’s carried those bags all these past weeks. you massage the bridge of your nose, lengthening your stride as the crosswalk light begins to flash a distressing red through the settling darkness. spiderman keeps up easily next to you, bags swinging madly from his arms, his cheerful whistling joining the cacophony of the busy city around you.
you know who he is, of course. as of last week, to be exact. from the moment you met him at age four, peeking curiously around your mother’s legs as he eagerly introduced himself as your new neighbour, ino takuma has never been good at keeping secrets. you would know; you’ve spent years together: kicking a ball down the street after school turning to lazy summer nights on the back porch turning to harried study sessions in your living room as you scraped through your final exams. he’d trash-talked the girl who’d spread rumours about you; you’d backed him up in a messy fistfight, which ended with both of you hobbling home in triumph and spending your two days of suspension in celebration.
“no secrets, yeah?” he’d made you pinky-promise, nine years old and wiping away your tears on the walk home, knees scuffed and notebook torn from falling over - from being pushed.
it’d become your thing - you’d renew the promise every time your birthday came around. sure, as you grew older, things changed - as they tend to do - but never the things that mattered. no secrets. it still applied. maybe you didn’t know everything about each other’s lives like you used to. you had other friends; he’d be busy studying; you wouldn’t have a proper conversation for weeks. but when you called him at two in the morning he’d always answer, and when he asked how you were - “how are you? really and truly?” - you’d never lie. things were different, in other ways too. you both knew it when you’d find him staring in a way that made the words catch in your throat, gaze lingering for a moment too long. but when you finally met up at his place to open your uni admission letters together - reject or accept? though takuma had always been smart, you’d never doubted he’d get in - it was like nothing had changed at all, with the two of you jumping up and down and hollering at the top of your lungs, throwing yourself into his arms and knocking him to the floor, letting the papers slip out of your hands - we are pleased to inform you - and your families with their phones out to capture the moment forever, laughing through their tears - they’re so crazy, aren’t they, just like always. and things between you were as open and free and natural as ever.
no secrets.
then you’d both moved to the city for uni. the first few months of settling in were… strange. you’d tried to meet up more often, you really had, but it’s like the universe itself was working against you because your schedules lined up in the worst ways possible, and if you saw each other on campus it was only in passing. you’d thought of flat-sharing, but that was before you found out the on-site classes for one of your subjects was on the secondary campus - that happened to be on the other side of the city.
so, you’d drifted. not a lot, but it felt like a lot, now that both of you were out in the big wide world, and the space separating you was now physical, too. you still texted often, had study calls every now and then, the usual - but slowly but surely you were becoming less and less relevant in each other’s lives.
things change, you’d tell yourself - it’s normal, it’s natural, it’s expected - what, you thought you were going to be together forever? joined at the hip? two sides of the same coin? friends until the end?
more than friends?
things change, and not often for the better. you knew that. but by god it didn’t make it hurt any less.
that was until june this year. you remembered it clearly - probably the worst thursday of your life. it’d been raining for the past three days, as if you’d needed any more reason to feel like you were drowning. you remember the crosswalk: six pm in a thick downpour without an umbrella, lost in the jostling of the crowd, trying to balance your four heavy bags of groceries - don’t crush the eggs - nearly falling off the edge of the curb into oncoming traffic, and god help you but at that moment you wouldn’t mind because your grades had been slipping and so was your footing, now, on the slick pavement, and your arms were weakening too and everything you needed so badly, had worked so hard for, was falling out of your—
then you’d felt a steady hand on your back and your burden was swiftly lifted from your loose grasp.
“don’t worry, i gotcha.”
and maybe it was just because of how in your head you were at the time, but that voice had taken you right back. eleven years old, seven pm on a summer night, a long and glorious saturday ending with you on the swings with your closest friend, and your biggest worry was whether or not your icy pole melting onto your shorts would leave a stain.
“thanks, yeah,” you’d said, and that’s when you noticed the whispers, how the crowd had near-stopped around you. and only when you turned your head to find the world-famous spiderman at your shoulder, masked face and suit and all, rather than, well - when you felt that drop in your stomach - did you realise how much you’d been hoping it was - him.
but it wasn’t, and you hadn’t spoken to him at all in a month, and even though there was an actual celebrity holding your grocery bags you couldn’t find it in you to care.
“spiderman?”
time, which had frozen for a blissful moment, started up again in double speed. pushing, shoving, the heat of bodies, loud, eager voices.
“can i get your autograph?”
“can you take a selfie?”
“i’ve been dying to meet you—”
“thank you for everything you do!”
“you don’t know how much i’ve been praying—”
“will you marry me?”
“can you sign my arm?”
“can you sign my face?”
head spinning, world swirling. the wind was picking up, spitting rain into your face, blurring your vision.
“sorry, i’ve got to - i’m sorry - could we give her some space?”
you’d felt his hand on your arm steering you away and under the cover of a nearby cafe's outdoor seating.
“i’ve got your stuff, don’t worry. someone knocked against the one with eggs but it should be fine.”
and sure enough your bags swung from his arms, the thin plastic speckled with rain, crinkling in the wind.
“thanks… you didn’t have to.”
“are you okay? can i walk you home - do you live close by?”
there’s a familiar concern in his voice. he’s not buying it; he’s not even letting you take the bags back yet. holding you hostage. maybe it’s fair. your thoughts are still muddled, knees trembling. and for the life of you, you can’t stop thinking about ino takuma. of all people. of all times, of all places.
“i feel like i shouldn’t be telling a stranger where i live.”
“i’m not a stranger.” his voice is soft.
aren’t you stupid. he’s spiderman.
“god. yeah, sorry, my brain is just a bit addled, um - i live pretty close by, you don’t have to—”
“great!”
your build, your voice, your height. the way you walk. the way you turn your head. is it arrogant of me? to think i could recognise you anywhere? when i can’t even recognise the person i’ve become, half these days?
you take the bags off him at the exterior of your apartment building. there are eggs in there, you remind yourself. don’t let them break apart.
“thanks, ‘kuma,” you say again. then, your face hot - “oh, god - sorry. i don’t…”
he’s frozen, a little. “no, that’s okay—”
“you just reminded me of someone i know, it’s not - i didn’t mean to—”
“no worries, it happens.” he gives a short laugh, scratches the back of his neck. “i’ll see you around?”
“you will? i mean. sure. yeah.” you were already turning away, as if the faster you disappeared the faster your mind would clear.
i’m seeing him everywhere.
you’d texted him then, to plan the hangout you’d been saying you ‘totally should do’ for god knows how long at this point. and it’d seemed like it would finally work out. but two weeks later, less than an hour before, he’d messaged you saying he was so sorry, really sorry but he couldn’t make it, but could we plan another time? please? i really want to see you.
you hadn’t replied. it wasn’t fair of you to give up on him that easily when you know he wouldn’t do the same to you, but these days it was so easy to… well, give up.
maybe it was a sign to stop trying. you’d had your time with him. maybe you both just had to move on. maybe he’d already moved on, and was waiting for you to catch up. maybe he’d been trying to give you little hints this whole time that he wasn’t into this anymore, not in the same way, and it’d just been flying completely over your head, and this was the last straw, because how much more obvious could you get than cancelling a hangout thirty-two minutes beforehand?
so that had made it pretty awkward when you quite literally bumped into him on campus a few days later. he was on the way to a class and you were late to yours and you’d kinda just circled around each other, all “oh my god, hi”s and “it’s so good to see you”s while already walking away, with a promise to catch up later that somehow - surprisingly! - never happened. he’d gotten taller, you’d noticed, but his hair was mussed up in the same way at the back, and his smile was just the same. you wondered what parts of you had changed: if he saw you the same way; if he recognised you at all or had to do a double take; if he noticed the bags under your eyes and the lines on your face and the stoop of your shoulders. or if he just didn’t care.
at least you had spiderman.
in theory it sounded strange, but it felt so natural, the way it developed. he’d caught you again, same time, same place, same grocery run, and you’d talked a little as he walked you home. in a month he’d be sitting cross-legged and precarious on your window ledge asking you how your day was, what you were studying, offering to quiz you on the terms you’d keep forgetting. you didn’t see him that often - he was spiderman, after all - but you were surprised how easily he became a part of your life. sometimes he’d force you to take breaks and go with him to get ice cream or boba or just walk around for a bit. he’d visited you once with a scrawny, wet kitten curled up in the crook of his elbow, panicked, and you’d taken it to the vet together and given it a name and, eventually, a home. later on, he’d started to open up a little - how he got his powers, what it was like being spiderman, all that jazz - and you were surprised how similar you were - that same thread running through both of your narratives - loneliness. isolation. he was your age, and was also in uni, and yes, he was forced to balance all his schoolwork with his choice of side career. but it wasn’t too bad because he was a fast learner. he liked f1 racing and soccer and animal crossing: new horizons. he hadn’t broken any bones before. he missed someone, too. he was a terrible liar. he liked sunrises more, but on a brisk september evening he’d swung you up to the top of a high-rise to watch the sunset.
it wasn’t exactly romantic. not really. you didn’t have the mental capacity to give it much thought because you were too busy trying to survive. he knew that; he saw that. somehow, he could tell you were drowning. this was just his way of throwing you a lifeline. at first you’d wondered why he cared, but then you’d learned to take it as it came, at face value. he was just like that. open, genuine, easy.
it wasn’t exactly romantic, not really, even if your hands had brushed and his voice had dropped a little, and something warm in you had bloomed. maybe in another life it could’ve been. there was chemistry there. if you’d asked to kiss him he might’ve said yes. but you didn’t, and he didn’t, and that was that. maybe he was in love with you. but you were in no shape to love him back and he knew it, when his hand would carefully tighten on your arm near the edge of the rooftop, even when you’d told him repeatedly, throughout these past months, that you were just fine.
and, after all, he was spiderman. how close could you get to him before he had to inevitably push you away? you weren’t delusional enough to believe he could take in you into his trust. but part of you still hoped, that one day the mask would slip.
june, to september. you spent time with spiderman and you didn’t catch a single glimpse of ino takuma. he’d never texted back after the failed hangout, after that time you’d bumped into each other. you’d never know how he’d agonised over it; you didn’t even let yourself dream that he cared about you enough to feel pain over it.
move on. just move on. it’s not meant to be.
you were getting better, for a while, but then it was nearly a week before your birthday and you’d cried yourself to sleep the night before for no reason at all, and it hadn’t gone away when you’d woken up. you’d skipped uni that day to ‘study’, and ended up getting the scare of your life when spiderman knocked on your window, though he made up for it by getting a serving of large fries as a peace offering.
he’d taken you up to the roof of your apartment and you’d sat there together in silence, watching the night sky, taking turns to grab a handful out of the box. he’d taken his gloves off to eat. you thought about holding his hand.
at some point he’d pushed the rest to you and turned to face you, mask glinting in the darkness.
“how are you?” he’d said. and when you opened your mouth to deliver a banal lie he’d cut in, “really and truly?”
you answered automatically, a built-in response to those words that always managed to pull the truth out of you when nothing else could. “i’m not doing… great. i mean. you know. you’ve seen it.”
and then it clicked. you would’ve liked to say you’d suspected, you’d had an inkling, that part of you had known all along. but it wasn’t until he’d asked you that - in the exact same tone with that tilt of his head and all of his attention on you that you’d realised ino takuma had not been ignoring you after all.
no secrets. except, maybe, this one.
takuma. ino takuma. your ‘kuma. it couldn’t be. oh, but it was. should you feel betrayed? because you don’t. because you feel warm instead, that he’s been here this whole time. that he’s never left you alone. that he’s cared about you. and there’s so much to wrap your head around, so many timelines to compare and bits of information to piece together, and you don’t know why he wouldn’t reveal himself to you but god, at least he’s here.
“do you wanna talk about it?”
i missed you. i missed you. i’m so sorry.
“i just… miss how things used to be, y’know? even though i know i can’t go back to it.” you’d shrugged, speaking with a casualness you didn’t feel, trailing a pattern on the tiles, on the inches of space between you. “everyone misses their youth. but i just miss…”
you’d trailed off. “you remind me of someone i know.”
“oh? i remember you saying that, first time we met. someone good, at least?”
“yeah.” you tilted your head back, looking up at the sky. heart picking up its pace. “someone i love.”
he goes still besides you but you don’t turn to see. you’re being too vague. he won’t know for sure - what you’re saying, who you’re referring to. but nothing feels real right now and for some reason it feels safe to cast it out into the web of secrets between you, to finally get it off your chest, to be able to say it to him. even if it’s nothing like how you imagined.
“oh,” he says.
“yeah.”
“...yeah.” there’s a strain in his voice that sounds a lot like guilt. “look, um, i gotta go. i’ll try to come again next week - on your birthday, yeah? i’ll bring you a present.”
“i don’t need—”
“but i want to anyway.” he’s tripping over his words, pulling his gloves back on, getting to his feet. “i’ll see you?”
“yeah, sure.”
“get down properly - don’t do anything stupid,” he’d thrown lightly over his shoulder.
“of course not. thanks for the - fries.”
“anytime. take care of yourself,” and then he’s gone into the night, biting his tongue because he nearly said i love you instead.
and now it’s nearly six pm on your birthday, october 2nd, and ino takuma is whistling a tune as he strolls beside you, occasionally pausing to take a picture with a star-struck child or wave back enthusiastically at someone across the street. there’s a strange warmth in your heart at how loved he is. he deserves this and more. he deserves the whole world.
“you’re coming up?” you say as he doesn’t let you take the bags from your arms as usual, instead stepping into the elevator beside you.
“it’s your birthday,” he says in response, which doesn’t really make sense.
“i’m not sure how safe it is - bringing a stranger home and all,” you tease, bumping his shoulder affectionately.
“i’m not a stranger,” he says, so softly.
you almost say it. i know.
the elevator suddenly seems far too cramped a space for the impassable distance between you. or maybe it’s the fact that the distance is so small that makes it seem so impassable in the first place. one nudge from either side and everything will come tumbling down and by god, you want it to.
you unlock the door to your studio apartment and he sets the bags on the countertop, looking around.
“not much to see here,” you say, shrugging off your jacket and turning on the light.
“i like it. it’s very you.”
“that’s a good thing?”
“of course.”
he goes silent, and when you turn you see he’s wandered to your fridge, staring at your only magnet - a picture of you and takuma, barely five years old, arms around each other and laughing about something. there’s a smear of dirt on your face. takuma’s gloved hand hovers over it as if he could reach back in time and brush it off. it’s nearly overwhelming you at this point - you want to say it so bad, that you know who he is, but what if you shouldn’t? because if he’s been keeping it from you this whole time then surely he has a reason, and maybe you should respect that. but at the same time you know you can’t continue - whatever this is - for any longer. something’s got to give.
something’s going to change.
“oh yeah, um - that’s…” you break off, hands fisting on the thick material of your jacket before letting it drop to the floor. he’s standing and looking at the photo and you’re standing and looking at him and you could nearly reach out and touch him. how have you been so close this whole time, but so far?
“yeah?” he says, voice choked even as it’s muffled behind the mask, and you know that voice, the one he uses when he’s trying not to cry.
“you know how i told you, you remind me of a person i loved?”
“loved?” his voice cracks a little.
“love.”
he doesn’t say anything. you step towards him, open your mouth to say something, close it again.
“i forgot to bring your birthday present,” he says, still looking at the fridge.
you blink. “oh - that’s okay. i told you i don’t need one anyway. it’s not that important.”
he turns towards you finally, stepping closer. “it’s important to me. i wanted to give you something.”
“maybe you can bring it along next time.”
“or i can give you something else? i mean, not really give you something, more tell you something, that i probably should’ve told you a while ago. if you want to hear it.”
you shift your weight from one foot to the other as your cat rubs againt your leg in passing.
“okay.”
he hesitates. “um. well. i’m not really who you think i am. not in a bad way, just - i think - well. i think it’s just best if i show you.” he exhales. “don’t hate me?”
“i could never hate you.”
his hand goes to his mask and he starts to lift it up. your hands close over his wrist when he pulls it just over his nose.
“y/n…”
“it’s okay, ‘kuma - i know.”
your hands come up to frame his face; you can feel him trembling.
“frick. y/n. i’m so, so—” he chokes on his words, and then it all comes out, words tumbling over each other. “i’m so sorry. i didn’t mean for us to drift - i didn’t want to lie to you, not ever - i never wanted us to be like this. if it was just studies i could’ve found a way, but then everything else happened and it was so hard to find the time, and i caught glimpses of you every now and then - well i guess i was following you, not in a weird way, but god i just wanted to see you - and i didn’t think you wanted to talk to me anymore or even know me after you ghosted me because of that hangout i couldn't make it to - i couldn't, there was a robbery and crap - so i never said anything, and i guess i just made the excuse that it would’ve been too complicated anyway because heck, i’m spiderman - and you know, i would’ve been okay just watching you be happy from afar but you weren’t even that - and then there was that day in june, and god i know how bad this sounds but i couldn’t have been happier and it’s so selfish of me to want you all for myself because if i couldn’t do anything to help you as ino takuma maybe i could help you as spiderman - but god i’m so, so sorry, i know i was just being stupid, i was all in my head, i should’ve put in more effort, i should’ve tried harder—”
“no. no, stop. that’s okay. you’re okay.” his face is damp under your fingers. “i don’t blame you for anything - i was stupid for getting so caught up in my head about it all. i should’ve texted you back, i should’ve just talked to you. i know you would’ve been there for me. i shouldn’t have—”
“it’s not your fault. god, y/n, you’ve been struggling so much and i’m so sorry i wasn’t there more for you - god, i wish none of this’d happened—”
“but maybe it’s good that this happened.”
“how?”
“because now you know that even if we had to do this all over again, i’d still fall in love with you. even if you had a different face or a different body, even if we met in another life, we’d still choose each other. always.”
his breath catches, voice rough. “really?”
“really and truly.” your hands push up his mask a little as you slide them around to the back of his neck. “‘kuma, i really want to kiss you.”
“yeah?” he breathes shakily.
you close the space between you, and time stops. his arms come around you to pull you closer; your fingers thread through his hair. of all the things you expected to feel at this moment, it certainly wasn’t relief, but right now it’s flooding through you - that you’re finally somewhere where you belong, somewhere safe, somewhere familiar, somewhere you can breathe easy and shed the weight of the world from your shoulders for just a little while… and oh, who you are kidding - because he’d carry the weight of the world with you before you could even ask - because if there’s one thing you know about ino takuma, it’s that his arms are always open and so is his heart.
you’re dishevelled and breathing heavily when you break apart, and somewhere in that indescribable expanse of time takuma’s mask has fallen to the floor beside you. you rest your forehead against his and take him in, admiring the deep honey-brown of his eyes, and of course the first thing he decides to say to break the silence is, “i’m sorry. again.”
“no more apologies.” you shush him. “we were both a little stupid, and that’s that.”
he huffs out a laugh. “you reckon we can cancel each other’s stupidity out?”
“with our luck? we’ll only double it.”
“unfortunately, you’re right.” he leans in to kiss you again, then pulls back with a jerk. “oh crap—”
“what? what’s wrong?”
“no, we just - we forgot the milk—”
“the - what?”
“your groceries!”
“oh—!”
you stumble towards the countertop for the milk, legs weak for some strange reason, and yank open the fridge door to put it in. “but it hasn’t been that long, has it - milk takes two hours to sour, it hasn’t been two hours—”
“it might’ve been.” he runs his hand through his hair, face flushed. “sorry but i kinda lost track of time—”
“i’m a good kisser, ‘kuma? is that what you’re trying to say?”
“you’re terrible.”
“guess i need more practice, then.”
“guess so.”
later, you’re on the roof, sharing a milkshake between you, filling each other in with all the tiny details of each other’s lives you’ve missed these past few months, and it’s just so natural that you can barely comprehend what made you drift apart in the first place.
change.
“happy birthday, by the way,” takuma tells you sometime past nine pm.
“aw, shucks,” you say dryly.
“i think we need to renew something.”
you don’t realise what he’s talking about until he holds out his hand, pinky outstretched. a sudden urge to smile overtakes you but you manage to hold it in, fixing a serious expression on your face as you link pinkies.
“no secrets?”
“no secrets.”
“even if you get bitten by a radioactive spider,” takuma says seriously. “it’s not an excuse. you gotta tell me these things, you know.”
“speak for yourself.”
and then you’re laughing, freely, laughing until your stomach hurts, and you can’t remember the last time you felt this happy.
“god, i love you, takuma,” you say, wiping at your eyes.
he ruffles your hair, then drops his hand to your shoulder and pulls you into his side, kissing the top of your head.
“i love you too.”
something tells you - not right now, maybe not any time soon, but definitely in the future - you’re going to be okay.
the way the first few paragraphs had been sitting in my drafts for over a month n i only finished it off now...
it's ok we were waiting for perfect timing.
hopefully my other entries to inotober will not be nearly 5k words i simply cannot function at this level daily
don't look at me posting new ideas instead of writing the fics i have supposedly dedicated myself to...
tags !! @rieamena @laughingfcx @chososcamgirl @all-skedaddle-and-no-bop
PLEASE TELL ME THE MINECRAFT MOVIE TRAILER IS A JOKE, PLEASE TELL ME THAT THE 5 PEOPLE WHO ARE GONNA GO WATCH IT COME OUT OF THE TEATHER SREAMING, CRYING, THROWING UP TALKING ABOUT HOW IT WAS ACTUALLY ANIMATED AND HAD AN ACTUAL GOOD STORYLINE AND WASNT JUST A CASHGRAB PLEASE PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
seeing Cats live would fix me mentally and physically
H-HOLD ON!! YOONGI IS NOT EVEN INTO FISHING BUT HE DOES IT JUST TO KEEP JIN COMPANY. WHY IS THIS MAN SO PERFECT?!!
I NEED SHIDOU IN GREY SWEATPANTS. I REPEAT, I NEED SHIDOU IN GREY SWEATPANTS NOW.
Lizzie gem bdubs and tango need to team up next life series to become LGBT. because of woke
I'd lose my mind if they created a Luigi's Mansion movie and leaned completely into it being a Halloween film.
Mhm
And then be like:
Confession: One day in the next few weeks we’re gonna get the OH return date. Just let that sink in, friends. They are coming back.
YALL THIS GIRL IS NOT ME THIS IS JUST A REACTION PIC I FOUND OFF TWITTER THAT I THOUGHT WAS FUNNY LMFAOOO I AM BLACK😭😭😭
I need to talk to ppl more about my brainrot... especially to actual dragon ball ppl
mockery + cnc is so top tier x-x
“listen to the sounds that sloppy cunt’s making, you can’t tell me no.”
“do you hear yourself? you sound so desperate for this.”
“please? please, what? .. what, you can’t take it? oh, is that why it’s sliding in and out of your hole so easily?”
“you’re saying you don’t like it, and yet you’re so wet. i think you just like hearing yourself scream.”