#cannot wait to share this story with you all

[angelickks]

I. damnation

REVENANT, au!remmick x reincarnated wife!reader

synopsis Vampirism is a curse of memory. Reincarnation is the curse of almost remembering. And so they dance, century after century: She returns with dreams she cannot explain. And he waits, starved and reverent and wrong. Never able to touch her without bleeding. Never able to stop following the scent of her soul. Because love—when cursed—does not fade. It rots slow. It burns gentle. It waits. And Remmick has nothing but time.

warning(s) nsfw. mdni 18+. prolific dreams. religious undertones. oral implied (f and m recieving). choking (implied). alcohol mentioned - reader is a bar owner. whole lots of sea imagery cuz well duh. yelling at annoying tourists. swearing. reader feeling lowk crazy. insomnia. slowburn asf. no use of y/n.

angel talks omgomgomg thank u guys for all the love u showed just my TEASER. holy fuck. ive been so fucking excited to share my first series w u guys, like truly. i have so much in store for u guys so i cant thank yall enough for all the love and support. i kindly ask u guys to read my authors note before starting, that will be greatly appreciated to give some clarifications about the story going forward. comment on either the teaser or my mlist post to be added on to my taglist if u guys enjoyed this first part n wanna stick around for the rest of it, ageless or untitled blogs will not be added.

#NAV.ᐟ revenant mlist, au!remmick x reincarnated wife!reader

"i know you, i've walked with you,

once upon a dream..."

DAMNATION. Total. Inescapable. The kind that seeps, not strikes.

The nights were always the worst. Not for the work, or the faces that blurred together behind the bar, or even the endless crash of waves chewing at the black rocks beyond your window.

No—that sound had become something else. A lullaby. Crooked and ancient. The kind of tune that clings to your bones like smoke. It didn’t soothe, not really. It hovered. Whispered.

Like a hymn sung just behind your ear, in a voice too old to be trusted.

No, what unsettled you came after the lights went out. Sleep had never come easy. It arrived fractured, vivid, like slipping into another version of wakefulness where your body remained behind but something else wandered freely. The doctors once called it “sleep paralysis,” scribbled it down like a footnote in your medical chart and moved on. But in the darker and bone-chillingly quiet cracks of your mind, you figured it to be a twisted sense of familiarity

It wasn’t paralysis—it was memory. Or something close enough to rot.

You saw him there, always. A figure stitched together from shadow and something too devout to be holy—reverence soaked into every movement, every word he spoke like it might sanctify or damn you in the same breath. Dreams of knives kissing skin in acts too gentle to be violence and too brutal to be love. Hands that held you like an offering. Eyes that glowed wrong, just enough to keep you from calling them human. They burned with a light that didn’t belong to this world, red and undeniably angry, but when they were on you, it was an entirely different story. Just wrong. Too steady. Too knowing.

And God, the teeth paired with those eyes, so sharp. Sharp enough to split bone from breath, sometimes white, sometimes not, but always too many.  One word had always lingered on the edge of your thoughts, even before you knew how to spell it—before you understood what it meant. Damnation.

Not just a curse. Not the flaming, shaking-fist-at-heaven kind they talked about in church pews and hymnals. This was something quieter. Older. Something that didn’t beg for repentance because it never offered redemption in the first place.

Damnation was not a place—it was a condition. A blood-deep certainty that you had been marked, chosen not for salvation, but for ruin. That your soul had been spoken for in a tongue older than any holy text. Signed and sealed in dreams that left your sheets tangled and your heart pounding like something had been chasing you through sleep and nearly caught you.

It wasn’t punishment for sin. It wasn’t justice. It was possession.

A slow, creeping inheritance of something unspeakable. It smelled like salt and coppery blood, like storm-drenched wood and old stone. It moved through you like instinct. You’d feel it in the pit of your stomach when the world went too quiet, in the corners of your eyes when shadows moved against the grain of the light. And in those dreams—those vivid, breathless, too-close dreams—you felt it fully. His touch like worship. His voice like rot dressed in silk. A liturgy of ruin sung only for you. He didn’t bring damnation. He was it. And somehow, impossibly, part of you was too.

You didn’t fear him. Not exactly. Despite the way his form shifted—familiar one night, monstrous the next—he was never made to be purely feared, or even truly frightening. There was something reverent in him, something patient. No, the fear didn’t lie in him.

It lived in the part of you that reached back. Or maybe not you, exactly—not the version you see brushing your teeth in the mirror, not the one who pays bills and walks the shoreline with salt-stung eyes. That version felt like a decoy, a performance of normalcy. The one in the dreams… she was older. Wiser. Willing. And somehow, terrifyingly, more true.

There were days when the boundary between the two began to blur, when waking up didn’t feel like waking, just moving from one version of consciousness to another. Days when your reflection seemed slightly off—as if your body remembered things your waking mind tried to forget. The dreams had lasted so long they no longer felt like dreams at all. More like bleed-through. A haunting with no clear source. And on the darker days, the ones where the sky felt too still and the silence too loud, a part of you couldn’t help but wonder: what if your dream-self isn’t separate? What if she’s always been you?

And what if he’s not just following you into your dreams— but waiting for you to remember what you really are?

That, in itself, was your damnation.

Not the holy kind. You weren’t raised on pews and psalms, didn’t bear the weight of stained glass judgment or whisper penance through trembling lips. You didn’t kneel beneath crucifixes with bruised knees and bloodied prayers like the wives in town—those women with salt-bitten hope clinging to their throats, who beg for husbands the sea refuses to return when it storms just right, cruel and alive. Though even that grief, in some crooked way, felt familiar to you too. Like you’d once known what it meant to wait on a shoreline for something that would never come back.

But no—this wasn’t religion. This wasn’t the devil in red or the wrath of any god written in someone else’s book. This was personal. This was knowing. A damnation etched into the marrow of your bones, whispered to you in dreams that smelled like brine and blood. It didn’t ask for belief—it didn’t need it. It knew you. This wasn’t a punishment handed down. 

It was a homecoming. 

But tonight, while the dreams always feel as real and vivid as your heart beating. This stirred differently, closer and too near on the horizon to be deep in the far depths of your mind. 

You dream of that same man with rough hands. They move over your skin with the certainty of someone who’s done it a thousand times—someone who’s bled for the right. His palms are wide and calloused, like he’s spent whole lifetimes carving out places for you in the dark. He doesn’t touch you like a stranger. He touches you like a man who built you up, broke you, buried you—and never stopped coming back.

You don't know his name. Never really have.

But in the dream, he says yours like it’s sacred. Like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to whatever soul he still has left. He kneels between your legs, jaw tight, eyes darker than sin. His mouth is hot against the inside of your knee—soft, reverent.  Your stomach pulls tight, breath catching in your throat.

“Mine,” he whispers into your skin. “Always been. Always will be.”

There’s a scar on his collarbone. Fresh, jagged. You don’t know how you know, but you gave it to him. A mark left in another life. One where you wore knives the way other women wore perfume.

You don’t know this man, no matter how familiar he is. But in the dream, you know how he sounds when he’s falling apart.

He mouths down your thigh, murmuring filth like prayer, eyes half-lidded like this is the end of the world and he’s choosing to spend it between your legs. You should be afraid, you think you were, once—but all you feel now is heat and grief.

His hands tighten on your hips. His tongue moves like he remembers every time you've ever broke, just like this.

“Still taste like sin,” he growls, mouth full of you. “Still so fuckin’ mean.”

You writhe beneath him. You don’t know why you're crying. You don’t know why it hurts.

There’s a weight to it. A mourning. This isn’t the first time.

This is never the first time.

“Don’t leave me again,” he says.

And it’s that line—that broken, gutted plea—that shatters the dream.

You wake gasping. Sheets twisted around you like chains. The room is cold but your body is slick with sweat, skin flushed and humming like a fever’s still clinging to you. Your heart hammers in your throat. Thighs aching.

You stare at the ceiling, blank-eyed, trembling. Hands no longer feeling like your own.

You've had dreams before, always had.  Vivid ones. Strange ones. But this—this was different. This felt real. Like a life lost. Like a man you buried. You don’t know him.

And still, you're sure, after years spent tangled in sheets that no longer bring comfort—he’s looking for you.

╭━━━━━ ━━━━━╮

You slipped into what looked, at first glance, like your own little slice of heaven on earth. A quiet coastal town buried deep along the East Coast, the kind people send postcards from and never truly leave behind. You arrived like the fog that drapes the shore most mornings. Quiet at first, uninvited, but somehow meant to stay. Even if just passing through, you’ll still be here when the tides roll back in. The kind of town where the buildings don’t sag from age alone, but from the weight of stories pressed deep into the earth. Stone walls cracked with salt and time, quaint to the untrained eye, but if you looked closely—really looked—you’d see the carvings. Etchings. Traces of lives that never quite left, lives the sea took without asking.

The wind doesn’t just whistle, it claws. Scratches at your windows, as if it knows your name, as if it’s been waiting for you all along. The sea that surrounds the town speaks in a language older than words. Not in waves or spray, but in something older. Older than maybe blood itself—ancient, low murmurs that awaken something buried deep within your bones.

The place is silent not because it’s empty, but because it holds too much memory. If you stand still enough—listen beyond the hush and the roar—you’ll catch its whispers. Names of forgotten places, footsteps that vanished long ago, shadows of lives once lived and never fully laid to rest. The soil here is heavy with blood and claim, a patchwork of hands that took without asking, resting over bones denied peace. The salted mist clings to you like a second skin, a quiet mourning that seeps into your very being. No matter how raw you arrive or how much you try to wash it away, it remains—wrapping around you, pulling at your soul, like the land itself recognizes you as one of its own.

Your Home. 

Though today, beneath a deceiving sky and promising clouds, the sun shines bright and the tides bring ships of men and women finally coming home. The town hums with a restless energy today—the docks alive with the sounds of creaking wood, shouted greetings, and laughter tangled with the sharp tang of salt and smoke. Mariners, returned after months of chasing horizons far beyond the map, pour off their ships with rough hands and tired smiles, clutching letters, gifts, and stories that shimmer with hope and heartbreak alike. The air buzzes with the weight of reunions, farewells, and the quiet promise of another voyage yet to come. Amidst the scuffle of footsteps and the town’s rising hum, your bar remains still—quiet as breath held underwater. It waits, as it always does, behind its stone walls, patient and expectant, listening for the voices that will soon fill it again. Your shoulders rest the way they always do after a night like the last—tense, worn down by a treacherous sort of familiarity. Not quite pain, but close. Not quite peace, either.

A tiredness that settles deep in the bones, edged with something stupidly hopeful. You wait for the only kind of relief you know how to ask for—not rest, not escape, but that strange, addictive calm that money can’t buy but often pretends to: the clink of glass, the scrape of boots on old floors, the same familiar faces with the same half-truths on their tongues. A little penance, a little pleasure. That masochistic ritual you’ve built your life around. 

Your bar. Your haven. Your crown.

“Busy night tonight. Y’ready to see everyone?” 

You didn’t turn right away. Just stood for a moment, eyes on the sea, its silver surface breaking like cracked glass in the late sun. Your voice came easy, even if your mouth pulled a little crooked with it. “You know, I see enough of everyone when they owe me money.”

A low chuckle answered you. Boots scuffed wood behind you, the weight of someone used to slipping in and out of places unnoticed.

“You know, most people might say that with a smile.”

You finally looked over your shoulder, slow and deliberate. “I’m not most people.”

There was a pause—just long enough for the breeze to lift the edges of your coat, to let your perfume coil into the salted air like something sweet laced with danger.

“That’s what they say, anyway. This godforsaken place. Whole damn town talks like it’s yours and you’re just lettin’ the rest of us drink here outta pity.” Carmen teases, light and playful as he is.

He's young—too young for the weight he carried behind the bar—but bright in that firecracker kind of way. All sharp teeth and quicker wit, brash enough to mouth off to sailors twice his size and charming enough to get away with it. He moved like he’d been raised in places with neon signs and trouble on tap, but something about the Crown suited him. He was exactly the kind of respectable you liked to keep on payroll: knew how to pour a drink, shut down a fight, and make a broken man laugh—all without ever letting on how carefully he was watching the room. He said things with a grin, but his eyes were always checking exits.

Just smart enough to survive. Just loyal enough to stay.

You turned then, fully, one brow raised, lips curled in that almost-smirk you were infamous for.

“It’s not pity. It’s taxes.”

The Widow’s Crown was the heart of the town—its pulse, its compass, its crown jewel. A bar tucked into the craggy cliffside like it was carved straight from the bones of the sea. Stone walls, stained glass in storm hues, a fireplace that crackled year-round like it knew secrets, and a back room only the brave or the stupid asked about.

Locals whispered that the land it sat on had been cursed or blessed depending who you asked. That your name was etched into the foundation somewhere, beneath the floorboards or deeper still, down in the cellar where no one but you ever went. The truth was simpler: you’d earned it. Fought for it. Outlasted men who tried to own it and townsfolk who thought you too sharp to hold anything soft.

You rebuilt it with salt and spite—stone by stone, drink by drink, until the walls held your shape better than your own skin ever did. Now they come to you. Always.

For drinks. For comfort. For penance.

The very things you chase yourself, just dressed different— burning in their throats as liquid courage, slipping through your veins as sleepless nights and hollow comfort. Familiar devils, all of them. And somehow, still so welcoming. Still so easy to mistake for home.

And tonight, the sea brings them back in droves—sunburned sailors, ghosts wrapped in skin, wanderers who remember your name even when they shouldn’t. “You pourin’ tonight, or is that honor left to your poor trembling staff?” 

“Depends. You planning to behave, Carm?”

“Not in the slightest.”

You just rolled your eyes and turned toward the Crown’s doors—painted black, scuffed by boots and years, still shining like a secret—throwing over your shoulder:

“Good. I hate a slow night.”

And it wasn’t.

The evening bloomed loud and warm, thick with the scent of brine, sweat, cheap perfume, and something cooking slow in the back—probably stew, possibly regret. The Widow’s Crown filled like a throat: laughter wedged between throaty shouts, bodies packed shoulder to shoulder, boots thudding against floors worn down by too many storms and too much living. The jukebox flickered alive like it needed to be summoned first. The first song it spat out was older than half the sailors inside—gritty guitar and a voice that sounded like it smoked three packs a day and made love with a knife tucked in its boot.

Glasses clinked like windchimes in a storm. Someone passed around a story that wasn’t true—about a siren, or a curse, or a woman who walked into the sea and never walked out—and no one cared enough to correct it. Not here. Not tonight. 

You moved through it all like a current—barefoot in your boots, sharp-eyed, that rag always slung over your shoulder like a flag no one dared question. The crooked half-smile you wore wasn't an invitation, and everyone knew better than to mistake it for softness. You poured drinks. You counted cash. You made someone cry in the hallway without saying much at all, and someone else fall in love by the jukebox just by listening a little too long. You reminded the room—without raising your voice, without even really trying—that this was your place. You didn’t run the Crown. You were the Crown.

"You're late," you said flatly when Carmen finally slid behind the bar, shirt wrinkled and smelling faintly of oranges and gunpowder. "You're early," he shot back, ducking beneath the swinging shelf with all the grace of someone used to being chased.

“You work here, dumbass.”

“Debatable,” he muttered, already flipping a bottle upside down with one hand and wiping the sweat off his brow with the other. “I prefer the term essential presence.”

“Keep talking like that and I’ll make you essentially unemployed.”

He grinned, all teeth. “That’s the spirit, boss.” 

Across the room, Old Lemmy—the drunk with a glass eye and a tattoo of a flamingo he swore was a phoenix—slapped the table and yelled, “Where’s my goddamn drink, woman! I’m dyin’ over here!”

You didn’t even look up. “Lemmy, you’ve been dying since Nixon resigned. If it’s taking this long, I’m not rushing it.” The bar howled with laughter, and Lemmy wheezed so hard he nearly fell off his stool.

“You’re cruel,” Carmen muttered, pouring him a whiskey anyway.

“You’re soft,” you replied, lips twitching. “That’s why I keep you around.”

Near the jukebox, Birdie—sweet-faced, sharp-tongued, and back from her third divorce—was already telling someone half her age to stop breathing near her unless he had a boat or better cheekbones. She winked at you across the bar like you were in on a secret. You were.

You always were. Everyone inside had their place, their rhythm, their role to play. You just happened to be the one who remembered how the script went when they forgot their lines. Someone leaned too far over the bar and you stepped forward, not saying a word. He backed off with an apology before your hand even reached the rag on your hip. Respect came easy here. Not out of fear—but because they knew you’d earned it.

Carmen slid you a glass of water you didn’t ask for. “Hydrate or die, boss,” he said. You took it, downed it, rolled your eyes. “I swear, if I ever go missing, they’ll find you at the bottom of the harbor with my boot in your ribs.”

Carmen just smirked. “At least I’ll die hydrated.”

The night spun on, full of sharp turns and too-loud laughter, sweat-slicked forearms, sloshed drinks, and the kind of camaraderie that stung a little the next morning but never quite disappeared. And through it all, you stood at the center. Like a lighthouse. Or maybe—like the storm that breaks against it.

But time, like the tide, always rolls back. And when the last round poured, when the stories grew slurred and the ghosts of the sea called their children home, the night changed.

The laughter faded. The sailors filtered out with the last of their pay tucked in calloused palms. Music dimmed into memory. And the salt in the air thickened—not bright and bracing like a summer breeze—no, this was heavier. Older. Like the tide had dragged up something it shouldn’t have, and now the town was bracing for its scent. You kicked the door closed behind the last straggler and twisted the lock. The sound echoed, too loud.

The bar swelled with the sea’s return. Outside, the fog began to gather. Not the soft kind that kissed your cheeks and vanished with the wind—but a thick, bone-deep kind. The kind that didn’t move so much as settle. Stubborn. Intentional. Like it had been called here. 

You stood in the threshold of the Crown, arms crossed, gaze locked on the docks below. From this cliffside view, the town looked like it was sinking beneath pale ghosts of clouds. Streetlights flickered down the narrow streets, amber pinpricks in a wash of gray. Footsteps grew quieter. Doors clicked shut. 

Even the gulls had gone silent. All that remained was the sharp-teethed wind and the crash of waves gnawing at black rocks—daring anyone still standing to feel it, to bear witness to the sea’s temper without flinching.

The days that followed moved like the storm circling slow, waiting for the right time to strike. There was no rain yet, no thunder—just that hush that comes before something breaks. Despite the new faces that rolled in with the tides—sunburned tourists and wandering souls looking for something nameless—there were still those who had lived here long enough to know better. Men and women weathered by salt and time, whose skin remembered storms even when their mouths refused to speak of them. They’d seen the sea show its teeth. They’d lost half the town to it, years before the wind ever began whispering your name too.

The town loves cruel, in its own way. A deep, briny kind of love. Gentle only in its consistency. It seduces the naive with postcard charm, then leaves them cracked and hollow, forgotten in doorframes and stonework. You’ve seen it happen more times than you can count—tourists who stumble in under starlight and salt, only to leave pieces of themselves behind. Not always by choice. It’s a funny thing to witness. But so unmistakably human.

Over time, you’ve learned the rhythm of it all. The faces that return. The ones that never leave. The patterns—of footsteps, of stories, of half-truths rinsed and repeated. Calloused hands gripping scuffed glass, promises passed across the bar like currency. It’s all part of the tide. They come bearing sea-dreams and sunburned hearts. Eyes strung with salted hope, voices worn thin from chasing the horizon. But with them—always—come stories.

Tales whispered late, when the lights are low and the whiskey’s burned clean through the throat. Of creatures with eyes too sharp to be human. Of voices that echo too closely to the ones you hear in dreams. Of things that look like people, but aren’t. As unforgiving and brackish as the waters that birthed them.

Hungry things. Waiting things. And lately—you’ve begun to think they might not be stories at all.

First, like it always have started with, came your damnation. Like it always had for as long as you could remember. Tonight, a new image surfaces, one that always follows, always clings: arms around you. Strong ones. Holding you like you’re already gone.

They’re warm, yes, but not comforting. Not safe. It’s the kind of warmth that comes from fire licking too close to skin. Desperate arms. Pleading hands. A grip that trembles, not from fear, but from refusal. They love you, you think—whoever they belong to. But it’s a love that feels misplaced, off-kilter. It doesn’t fall soft like morning light or stretch out slow like trust. It crashes. It clings. Reverent and forceful. Obsessive. A love that wants not just to keep you, but to claim you. Like an oath. A curse.

You don’t know why you’ve chalked that haunted embrace up to love. Maybe because you’ve never really known what love was supposed to feel like. Or maybe because whatever this is—this endless, hungry thing that holds you in dreams and memories and waking shadows—wants you so deeply it feels holy.

But even holiness can rot—can calcify into something brittle and cruel. It doesn’t strike with the hand after it’s fed you, but as it does—a sanctified cruelty, masked in comfort, bleeding you slow with grace still on its tongue.

Another night, another dream that leaves you wrecked. You wake the way you always do—panting, pulse slamming against your throat, sweat slicking your skin like a second, fevered layer. There’s a familiar ache—deep in your chest, sharp between your legs—and it’s so goddamn specific, so precise, it almost feels like punishment.

Twisted. That’s what it is. Downright fucking twisted.

You lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to catch your breath and think—not for the first time—that maybe you’re the fucked up one in all of this. Maybe you hit your head as a kid. Maybe you buried something so traumatic your brain decided to toss you scraps of it in cinematic, semi-erotic nightmares. Maybe this is just how madness blooms—Soft at first. Slow. Sensual, even. And then, all at once, it lives in you.

These dreams don’t just haunt you. They know you. Have been haunting you for longer than you care to admit—long enough that whole years have blurred, and you’re not sure if they’re memories or reruns. Moments you feel in your bones but can’t pin to a place, to a date, to a version of yourself that ever really existed. Time doesn’t run straight in your world. It bends. It folds. And it leaves you chasing after ghosts you’re starting to think might’ve once been you.

Is this that imposter syndrome bullshit Carmen’s always rambling about when he’s three shots deep and pretending he’s a therapist?

Because if so—great. Spectacular. Guess you’re officially losing your mind at your grown-ass age. Perfect timing. Really.

Then came the eeriness. Not the kind you feel as a kid, tucked in a blanket fort whispering ghost stories with wide eyes and sticky fingers. Not even the kind that creeps in on a lonely walk through town when everything’s gone too still, too quiet—when the streetlights flicker and you swear the shadows breathe.

No, this was something else. Something older. Hungrier.

This was the kind of eeriness that drained a person—not just their nerves or their sense of safety, but their essence. Their warmth. Their blood.

The morning sun broke sluggish through the fog, bleeding gold across the wet stones and half-drowned streets. The sea had not receded so much as curled back to watch. You showed up to the Crown early, as always. Keys biting your palm, shoulders tight beneath your jacket, throat sore from the dream you couldn’t shake. You hadn’t slept—not really. You just laid there for hours, haunted and raw, your body still echoing with phantom touches and that voice, his voice, whispering ruin like a promise against your skin.

Still, you moved. Still, you worked. That’s how it always was.

The windows were fogged and beaded with sea spray when you unlocked the front. The jukebox flickered like it had seen a ghost. You cleaned. You stocked. You counted out registers with a precision that had nothing to do with money and everything to do with control. You’d nearly convinced yourself it was a normal evening by the time the regulars started trickling in.

“Storm's rollin' in slow,” one of the dockhands muttered, shaking off rain from his coat. “Don't they always?” you replied, not looking up.

But there was one new-old face at the bar today. Captain Eli. A relic of the docks. A man with sea-glass eyes and fingers like driftwood—bent and brittle, stained by pipe smoke and salt. He’d been around since the town’s teeth first showed. Sometimes you forgot he was still alive. Sometimes you wondered if he was. He sipped his drink like he didn’t have teeth and started talking like he didn’t need an audience.

“Saw fog like this once before,” he rasped, voice dragging like an anchor chain across the floor. “Back in ‘77. Cold as death. Fog so thick it swallowed a man whole. Sea gave ‘im back a week later. Hollowed out. Eyes still blinkin’. Mouth full of someone else’s name.”

You didn’t flinch, but your jaw went tight. Someone near the bar chuckled. “Just a drunk sailor’s tale.” Eli didn’t laugh. His stare locked onto you.

“Nah. Some places remember. Some faces too. They come back wrong, though. Same skin, new time. But they carry things. Like scars. Debts.” You stopped wiping the glass in your hand.

“My grandpa had seen it. Woman just like you once, long time ago. Mean as a cut lash and sharper than God’s own sword. Married a man who didn’t stay dead. Or maybe he just refused to stay gone.” A silence fell so deep you could hear the gulls scream outside.

You met his gaze and spoke low. “You see a lotta things that ain't there, Cap.”

He smiled with only half his mouth. “Maybe. But some of it sees me back.”

And then, just like that, he turned to sip again. As if he hadn’t cracked the spine of a nightmare and left it open on the bar between you. You walked away slow, each step deliberate. But the hairs on the back of your neck stayed raised. Because his story felt more like a memory than a lie. And somehow—you knew he wasn’t talking about anyone else but you. The night carried on. At least, it tried to.

Voices rose, laughter echoed, and the Crown did what it always did: held the town’s secrets between its stone ribs and didn’t spill a drop. Men came in with weather-worn hands and salt still in their boots, nodding greetings, passing flasks, scraping chairs loud across the floor. You poured drinks like always. Cashed out the machine. Fixed the jukebox when it spat static instead of song. But it all felt… off.

Like a memory you didn’t know you had. Like déjà vu with blood under its nails. Every word the old sailor had rasped was still rattling around in your head like storm wind in a boarded-up attic.

“Married a man who didn’t stay dead.” “Same skin, new time.” “Carried things. Like scars. Debts.”

You didn’t believe in curses. Not exactly. But you knew the feel of something following you. You’d felt it your whole life—lurking just behind your reflection, moving beneath the skin of your dreams, speaking in a voice you swore you never learned but knew in your bones. Tonight, it whispered louder.

You moved through the bar like a ghost in your own body. Wiped tables, nodded politely, smiled when you had to—but your hands kept twitching. Like they wanted to grip something. Like they remembered holding a blade, perhaps even a rifle. And then came the words. Not out loud. Just there. In your mind. Words that didn’t belong to you. Not really.

“What a fool you were, to love him past the grave.”

“Don’t ask a promise from a man you have to bury.”

You didn’t know where they came from, but they sounded older than the floorboards beneath you. The captain looked at you once across the bar, like he heard them too. He raised his glass halfway, eyes shining with something just this side of recognition.

“Y’know,” he said, voice low, dragging like low tide, “we used to say it different, back then. Before the war. Before the sea took half the town.”

You raised a brow. “Say what?” 

He swirled the amber in his glass. “Love. Damnation. Fate. We didn’t call it that. Called it binding. Called it reckoning. Said some women were born with blood that called monsters to their door.” You swallowed, throat dry.

“And what’d they do with women like that?”

He smiled, all teeth. “Married ‘em. Then buried ‘em. Never stopped loving ‘em.”

You didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. The words were in you now. Like a second pulse.

Mine. Always been. Always will be.

You stared out the bar window then. Toward the black mouth of the ocean. Toward the fog that hadn’t lifted since last night. Something inside you ached—not fear, not grief—something more like homesickness. But not for a place. For a moment. A face. A name you couldn’t say without bleeding. You were forgetting something. Or maybe—remembering it. And still, the bar kept humming.

The sailors told stories they barely believed themselves. The drinks kept flowing. The jukebox played a song older than it should’ve been allowed to remember. And Eli, half asleep in the corner, muttered something into his glass that sounded like a prayer.

“Let the sea take him this time.”

You didn’t ask who. But for a second, you wished you knew. Deep down, maybe you did.

And just like that—like the slow, unexpected drip of a cracked fountain—everything stopped.

Abrupt. Jarring. Like a needle screeching off a record mid-song, leaving behind a silence that felt too sudden, too knowing. The storm, still coiled somewhere out beyond the horizon, still clinging to your skin and leaving your bartop slick with condensation, simply… stilled. Not gone, not over. Just paused. Like the whole damn world had exhaled—one long, tired breath held too long.

It reminded you of those rare moments behind the bar—you, Carmen, and the poor souls that got roped into the shift—sinking onto overturned crates, backs pressed to liquor boxes, a stolen cigarette making slow rounds between burned-out hands. Not rest, exactly. Just a break from the chaos. The kind that doesn't last long, but hits like grace when it comes. Time, it seemed, had taken one of its own. And for a second, everything felt too quiet.

And yet, your irritation? Very much alive.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” you snapped, slamming a towel down hard enough to rattle the bottles behind you. “Get this son of a bitch outta my bar before I personally handle it. Where the hell is Jaime?!”

Carmen popped up from the back with a half-eaten orange slice in his mouth. “He’s bouncing some frat guy who thought the jukebox was voice-activated.”

“Ain't that a damn miracle,” you muttered. “Then someone else can bounce this one—preferably out the front door and into oncoming traffic.” The offender in question—a sunburnt, tank-top-wearing caricature of bad decisions—was currently arguing with one of your servers about why he shouldn’t have to pay for the drink he spilled on himself.

“Babe,” the tourist slurred, gesturing with a lime wedge like it was a threat. “I’m just saying—where I’m from, the customer is always right.” You were already halfway around the bar.

“Where you’re from, do customers get their teeth knocked in for being dickheads, or is that just a charming local tradition I can introduce you to?”

The guy blinked at you like you’d just spoken Latin. “Whoa, no need to be hostile—”

“I’m not hostile,” you said, sweet as cyanide. “I’m fucking working.”

Before the conversation could evolve into something more physical, and oh, it was close, Jaime appeared—broad, silent, and cracking his neck like punctuation.

“Please escort this pile of Axe body spray out of my building,” you said, already turning back toward the bar. “And if he resists, consider it cardio.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jaime rumbled, hand already on the guy’s shoulder. “Hey—hey!” the tourist protested as he was hauled toward the door. “This is, like, discrimination or something!”

“Yeah,” Carmen muttered, passing by with a tray of dirty glasses. “We discriminate against assholes. Tough break, man.”

The bar laughed—your people. Your locals. The townies. Regulars who knew to duck when glass flew and when not to test your temper. You swept behind the bar again, mood dark as thunderclouds, lips pressed into that dangerous little smirk that made grown men shut the hell up.

Carmen handed you a fresh towel. “Feel better?” he asked.

You shot him a glare sharp enough to cut rope. “You wanna join him?”

He held up his hands. “I’m just the talent, boss.”

You rolled your eyes, but the corners of your mouth twitched. Outside, thunder groaned low and slow—like it approved. Despite the growing irritation thrumming just beneath your skin from the frat boys, the condensation, the low hum of thunder that hadn’t cracked yet—you were, admittedly, beaming on the inside. Quietly. Secretly. Like someone hoarding the last piece of chocolate or the best corner booth in a diner.

Because for once, you weren’t running on fumes and stubbornness alone. The stillness tonight? It wasn’t empty—it was earned. With the storm’s pause came something better: ease. A rare, elusive creature in your world. You hadn’t opened the bar this morning, hadn’t dragged yourself in at dawn on pure caffeine and curses. Instead, you’d woken hours later to a room still dark with fog, sheets wrapped loose around your limbs, your body heavy with the kind of sleep that didn’t ask questions or pull you under screaming. Inky silence. No dreams. No whispers through the cracks in your memory.

Just...nothing. And it had felt like a blessing.

Nine hours. Maybe ten if you counted the blurry half-conscious phone call to Carmen where you’d slurred something about prepping ice and not setting anything on fire. He’d grunted something in reply that vaguely sounded like “yes, boss,” and you’d hung up before your brain caught up.

You’d slept, by your very loose and slightly cursed definition of the word, like a goddamn baby. No ache in your chest. No tremor in your thighs. No sweat-soaked sheets or phantoms pressed too close. Just warmth. Stillness. Peace.

You’d even stretched when you woke up—stretched, like some self-care influencer and not a woman who usually started her mornings with a shot of whiskey and a half-forgotten scream into a cracked mirror. And now, even as you wiped condensation off the bar with more aggression than necessary, even as you threatened to personally exorcise the next tourist who mispronounced the town’s name—you felt the echo of that rest clinging to your bones. It wasn’t much. But it was enough.

Enough to make the thunder seem poetic instead of ominous. Enough to let your smirk linger a little longer. Enough to make you think—maybe just tonight—you’d make it through without a dream dragging you back under.

But even that peace, small and stolen, carried a warning. Because the calm always came first, before the sea took something back. And your body, whether it remembered it or not, had always known how to brace for the storm.

Sweat clung to the base of your spine, a thin sheen catching on the small of your back and soaking deeper into the black tank top stretched across your shoulder blades. It stuck tighter with every shift and lean, every dip between tables and worn barstools, the humid air turning skin to velvet and breath to fog. The kind of heat that softened the bones and sharpened the edge of every sound. Heat that made even the ghosts restless.

The Crown boomed with unmistakable pulse despite it all—rowdy, salt-laced, a little mean like all good places should be. Boots dragged across warped floorboards slick with sea-damp. A woman's laugh broke too loud and too fast, slurring into something just shy of a yell. Carmen was yelling back, of course, but it was the charming kind—him snapping a bar rag at someone with that shit-eating grin, bright eyes catching yours across the room.

You gave him a nod. Wiped the back of your neck. Told yourself you weren’t imagining the way the condensation on the windows seemed to crawl upward instead of down. The regulars were in rare form. Ricky, with his chipped tooth and lifelong tan, was in his usual corner nursing the same whiskey he’d been pretending to sip for twenty years. He was mid-story, as always, and by now you could mouth along with it like a song. “And I told the bastard, you ever touch my boat again, I’ll gut you with a spoon!”

Laughter followed—boisterous, a little too easy. “Bet you tripped over your own feet trying to get to that spoon,” someone heckled. “Hell, he probably drank the boat dry!” another shouted.

You smiled without thinking. Tossed a lime slice across the bar at Ricky’s head. It missed. Barely. He flipped you off with the kind of affection only earned by pouring a man drinks for a decade and dragging him off the floor at least twice a month. “Love you too, sweetheart.”

But then the jukebox hiccupped. Not skipped. Not glitched. Just… stopped. A single note held a little too long, like something got caught in its throat. You looked up. Carmen paused mid-pour. It started again a beat later—different track, older one. One that hadn’t been in rotation for months. You frowned. Made a note to check it later. Or maybe not. These kinds of things happened in the Crown. Electrical, magnetic, or just plain weird. It wasn’t new. Still, something about it crawled up the back of your throat and sat there. You shook it off.

Someone slammed a shot glass onto the bar. “Another round, boss lady!” You poured. Wiped your hands. Turned just in time to see the ceiling fan slow, its blades groaning like they’d aged fifty years in the last minute.

And then you heard it—faint. A scrape. Like nails dragged gently across the underside of a table. Like someone whispering their name just barely out of earshot. Your head snapped toward the hallway. Empty. Just the shadows stretching long and crooked in the corner, bending a little wrong in the flickering light. You blinked. They straightened. Carmen was talking again, someone was singing along with the jukebox, a glass shattered somewhere near the bathrooms and two patrons laughed like they’d seen it coming. But underneath all that—beneath the sweat and salt and noise—something pulled. Tugged low in your stomach like a muscle memory. Like recognition. And then it bled through.

Not a vision, not quite. Just a feeling. A warmth that wasn’t from the bar’s heat. A pressure at your throat, gentle and possessive. Hands that weren’t there, but once had been—holding your hips, lifting you, laying you down on something not a bed but not the floor either. Stone maybe. Wet. Cold. Sacred.

You sucked in a breath so fast it burned. The bar kept moving. You didn’t.

For a moment, your eyes didn’t belong to you now. They belonged to another room, another life. Dim candlelight. A mouth full of devotion and ruin against your skin. A voice rasping your name like it was a prayer and a threat all at once.

“Mine,” he’d said. You hadn’t heard it in this life.

But your body remembered it. A gust of wind swept through the Crown. It rattled the windows like a tantrum. Every flame flickered. Glasses wobbled on shelves. Then the door creaked. You turned slow. Then—A gust of wind.

It swept through the Crown with no warning, no cause. Just… entered, like it owned the place. The windows rattled with a fury that didn’t match the calm on the street outside. Flames in their low glass homes danced frantically. One blew out entirely. Glasses trembled against shelves. A napkin lifted off a table, floated, then dropped in silence. You turned slow. And there was nothing.

No figure in the doorway. No tall silhouette carved in lightning. Just the door cracked open an inch too far, letting in a mist that curled around your ankles like it had fingers. The storm, settled now, breathed soft against the threshold. A cold that sank deep but didn’t bite. You exhaled. Long. Slow. Practiced. The kind of breath you’d taught yourself to take when the dreams got too loud.

The ache in your ribs eased, just slightly. Then came Jaime’s voice. Firm, but not urgent. Just that steady, dependable calm he carried when things started to fray around the edges.

“Bar’s almost at full capacity… got a guy outside askin’ if he can come in.” You blinked—like waking up.

Your fingers found the towel at your waist, gripping it hard enough to feel the fabric bite. “Yeah,” you said, voice still a little hoarse from whatever that was. “Let him in. Just… keep an eye out, alright? Tourists are one thing, I don’t need this place flooding or fists flying in the middle of all this.”

Jaime nodded. You didn’t need to say more. He was good like that. And just like that—Normal resumed.

But something had shifted. Not the kind you could see. Just a thread in the weave gone tight. The seal had broken. You could feel it. Like a draft you hadn’t noticed until it sank into your skin. Minutes that dragged like hours passed, and then the tide came in. You were mid-pour when the Crown tipped sideways into chaos.

Not the violent kind—no, just the usual barroom mess: someone on Carmen’s end of the counter didn’t show, a table of locals were halfway through a bottle and demanding fries like it was their divine right, and the cocktail shaker was jammed again, refusing to come loose unless you used the heel of your palm like a weapon.

You didn’t flinch. You moved. Like tidewater—brisk, automatic, and always knowing where to go before anyone else did. It was muscle memory. Breathe. Step. Smile.

Carmen shot you a panicked look from the far end. You already knew. Section three was slipping. Someone no-showed, and now you were the net. You pivoted off your heel and wove your way into it—your rag slung over your shoulder, boots scuffing the floor, voice low and cutting as you flagged two college kids who were trying to steal shot glasses again.

You didn’t notice the door open with Jaime’s invitation. You didn’t hear it either—not over the hum of the jukebox, the clang of the kitchen, the bark of laughter from a group of off-duty dockworkers. It wasn’t until you turned, trying to steady a tray with two whiskey sodas and a plate of wings, that the air changed.

Like sea mist, an odd man was just—there. No thunder. No drama. Just presence.

You didn’t even look at him first, your mind too full of orders and numbers and that familiar throb behind your eyes that always came on busy nights.

“Give me a sec,” you said out of habit, turning toward the bar with the tray still in your hands, the words barely formed.

Then—He spoke. Only a jumble of three muttered words.

“‘Scuse me, ma'am.”

Simple. Low. Soft like silk dragged across old wounds. You turned without meaning to. And the tray in your hands nearly tipped.

It wasn’t that he looked familiar. It wasn’t recognition. It was the gut-punch of déjà vu without memory—the sense that your body had already knelt for this voice in a life that wasn’t yours. The rest of the bar seemed to hum around him, but nothing touched him. Not the heat. Not the sound. Not even the mist that clung to his coat like it had followed him in from the sea itself.

He wasn’t wet. But the scent of rain came with him. And like it had been waiting for his permission, the storm broke. A crack of thunder. Then the slow, deliberate tap of rain on the roof. First soft. Then steady. Then relentless.

And you—you just stared. The tray slid from your fingers and thunked softly onto the bar. Not broken. Just forgotten.

And somewhere deep beneath the Widow’s Crown, the sea shifted.

“Can I get you anything?” Your voice came out soft as a daydream, but as certain as the thunder that now boomed proud and bashful right outside your doors.

His eyes flicked up at the sound of you—cerulean, deep, and sharp around the edges like the sea right before it swallows a boat. He barely reacted. A single twitch, maybe, just a hair widened—but you caught it. You always caught things like that. Reading faces came second nature. Especially the ones that wanted to be unread.

He sat too still. Back straight, elbows resting stiff on the bartop like they didn’t belong there. His clothes were wrong, too—off in a way that set something low in your stomach turning. Black work pants, sure, the kind dockhands wore, but too clean, too pressed. Like he wanted to pass. Gray shirt clinging to a chest that told you he wasn’t new to violence, no matter how carefully he stood. You could’ve sworn—just for a breath—his eyes took on that same deep gray when they shifted under the crackling firelight, dripping down from blue like wet ink. And then that chain. Gold, delicate-looking, stretched tired across the pale column of his throat. Like it had been worn too long and he'd exhausted it. Like it had belonged to someone else first.

The leather jacket was the final nail. Too many pockets. Too many places to hide something sharp. Closed up tight like a confession not meant to be spoken, like a damn secret. Like he was trying to look like he was playing nice. He looked like a secret pretending to be a man.

In all honesty, it fucking irked you. 

The silence that followed your question went on too long—long enough to feel pointed. The heat in your chest twisted, coiling like a storm all its own, the ember of your earlier mood flaring hotter behind your eyes.

You leaned in just slightly, arms crossed, smile long gone.

“You gonna keep staring, or can I help you, sir?” Your words bit, soft and polite only in form. 

The way he swallowed at it—sharp and slow—should’ve been a sign that he was nervous, his throat bobbed. But maybe, if you really were as delusional or insane as your dream-soaked mind liked to suggest, he was satisfied with being bitten and chewed up. Even if it played as being soft, if it was you. And that—more than anything—was what really set your teeth on edge.

And then, only then, after soaking in what was barely more than a nip, he smiled. Crooked and slow, like he was in on something you hadn’t been told.

“Just lookin’ for a respectable place to ride out the storm, ma’am. Nasty one, isn’t it?”

His voice dripped like warm honey, coating each word in a tone that sank beneath your skin—soft, slow, and deliberate. It prickled as it landed, made the hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention. That alone was the first red flag: he wasn’t from here. No one local spoke like that.

His accent was strange, but not off-putting—Irish, unmistakably. But laced with something else, something Southern and smooth at the edges, like bourbon poured over old songs and Sunday confessions. The kind of voice that didn’t belong in this town full of hoarse laughter and salt-split vowels.

Just like him—he didn’t belong.

And in this sea of familiar faces, of regulars you’d poured drinks for a thousand times and traded insults with like they were currency, he stood out like a ghost in rainsoaked moonlight. Strange. Unsettling. And yet… undeniably familiar. 

That caused the flames riding high and mighty behind your eyes in that steady and blinding pulse, to move to lick at your throat. You weren’t sure why you were so goddamn irritated at this peculiar stranger, it almost left you speechless, almost.

You blinked, your mind catching up with your body too slow, too dream-drunk for your liking. Still, your voice came out smooth. Steady. A practiced thing, even as the air around you thickened like it was listening.

“Respectable’s a stretch,” you said, cocking your head as your eyes dragged over him, shameless and sharp. “But if you’re lookin’ to keep dry and outta trouble, you picked the wrong night and the right place.”

His smile twitched wider, and you hated the way it made your chest tighten—hated it so much you wished your words had been meaner, sharper, cruel enough to split skin on contact. It was a strange thing to hold against a stranger, really. Irrational. Petty. But that didn’t make it any less true.

Because despite all that he was—strange, unsettling, far too composed for a storm night—he was still just a man. And yet, you felt the need to bare your teeth like he was something else entirely.

You turned then, forcing your attention back to the bottle of whiskey itching with cold sweat and anticipation next to your elbow, shoulders tense with the weight of something unnamed. Something old. 

“What’s your poison?” you asked, voice clipped. Because suddenly, the storm wasn’t just outside anymore.

It had walked in, slow and smiling, and asked for shelter.

taglist ; @lunaleah @idiotsatan @arquiiva @pixieofthesun @kaelizl @nefertiti2003 @damnzelsoul @latebean

[mapoeggplant]

skip to loafer chapter 72 analysis // spoilers

“who shall be the one to mend this lonely soul?”: the counterpoint and similarities between the dreamer and the desolate and how to move forward even with the feeling that there is nowhere to belong.

when i opened comic days, i confess that kanechika was the last person i was expecting to see. so much so that, thanks to this confusion, i first thought that the chapter would take a completely opposite direction to what i was expecting, which was the school play. but i soon understood what sensei was trying to do and the overlap she chose for this very important moment.

it’s not new for sensei to intersperse two stories into one in order to develop one character or the other (or both) a little more. this mix of elements brings more life and support to the narrative, since the character is able to open up more when faced with something that is opposite or complementary to them. and here i believe that sensei decided to combine the two forms and gave kanechika the role of being the opposite and, at the same time, the complement to shima.

kanechika has always had a huge passion for cinema and theater. this has been evident since the first time he showed his homemade movies to his insistence that shima join the theater club. but, something that hasn't been explored in depth yet is the loneliness that comes with this passion. not everyone around you will always grow up having the same interests as you or feeling them to the same intensity. sometimes, especially for a child, it’s much easier to ignore the “different boy” than to try to understand what this cinema that he likes so much is all about.

but, even though he felt alone and couldn't really fit in with people his own age, something inside kanechika encouraged him to keep going, to try, until he found people who shared his passion or came face to face with something he had brought to life, understanding that everything he had gone through had led him there. seeing shima blossom on stage not only brought him a sense of pride for the kouhai he held in such high regard, but also the idea that he was indeed on the right path and that there were people in the world who were able to listen to what he had to say and who were able to consume his art. 

this insistence on what he loved, even if it hurted you, is the opposite of shima. the realization that your tastes, desires and dreams are valid and that you have the right to feel them would be the complement. 

shima finally took the stage dressed as the monster he had always believed himself to be. and this becomes even more vivid considering the moments in the play that sensei thought were important to highlight, such as the monster's understanding of his loneliness, the forced isolation imposed on him and the understanding that the person closest to you, such as the one who raised you, will not always be responsible for curing the persistent pain of not belonging.

while kanechika sees his passion for theater shine with his own eyes, shima stands against the world. even though it is not him himself standing on stage, it is not his words but those of the monster, shima finally stands up to face everything that he swore was much greater than he could handle.

and, in contrast to everything, we have his own victor frankenstein waiting on the other side, with teary eyes and the fear of trying, once again, to connect with the monster. a mother drowning in the open wound sees, for the first time, her son blossom and live for himself, live for his ideals and passions, face his fears and move forward. her creation that she herself could not fix, the soul so sad.

however, next to her, there is someone who has the courage to say out loud what she so desperately wants: yuki does have the right to try one more time, to be honest with her son and listen to him with all her heart, to try not to rebuild something that is broken, but to forgive what cannot be undone and start over something that they can both build together, side by side, mother and son. she sees the child she raised forcing himself to be an adult from a very young age, giving him the chance to be young for the first time, to try to take control of what hurt him so much. why not try again, in a new play this time?

for the first time in years, they look into each other's eyes, completely raw, ready to face this new unknown. for the first time, she allows herself to praise her son, something she was so afraid of doing, with a great fear of putting an enormous pressure on his shoulders once again. and he allows himself to accept the hand that his mother extends, letting himself dive into this vulnerability that the monster gave him. not only that, but he also now shows a new interest in this family that was given to him, an enormous desire to belong, to be the older brother that his little brother admires so much, to be able to be someone who has frank conversations with his stepfather. shima and yuki are, for the first time, experiencing what could be a complete family. 

and in the midst of so many new beginnings, endings, goodbyes and new days to be lived, there is that one girl, who still waits for him in the same hallway, emanating the same light that welcomes him so much. letting himself be carried away by the feeling and embracing mitsumi once and for all is another step that shima takes in his favor, another step that he allows himself to take to finally be able to walk side by side with this person that he admires so much and finds so special. falling apart in her arms, not so that she can pick him up and rebuild him, but so that he can show her every little piece of himself.

the monster found not only someone who could mend his oh so lonely soul, but someone who would give him the strength to fight alone and for himself. mitsumi isn’t the saviour nor needs to be saved: she’s the light that guides him to find his own path and our courage. it was she who showed him how beautiful it is to be true to yourself and now that he has finally embodied this monster that haunts him so much, he can give himself the chance to walk side by side with her towards a new future.

how beautiful it is to be able to read such an incredible story about taking a chance on yourself and loving without regrets. we’re once again being able to experience another beautiful chapter and for that i’m so grateful.

before we go, can we also appreciate kanechika's shirt when he was a kid? he once wore a shirt with monsters on it only to later see a monster on stage. what a comeback, huh?

thank you so much for reading and sorry for any gramatical mistakes 💛! please support sensei if you can! we will be on break next month thanks to the release of vol 12. excited to see what comes next!!!!!

[stygiansauce]

sauce my friend (am i allowed to call you any of that?) my love (all platonic :D)

i was on vacation for what felt like almost the entirety of june (two different trips both roughly a week long) and i fear ive been slacking on bothering you !!!

i saw the second sticks fic and i absolutely adore it ! i cant remember if i've properly commented on unsportsmanlike conduct (i think when that dropped was the last time i sent an ask) but i loved it, you never fail with writing insane sexual tension and raunchy ranchers :D

with countercurrent, it felt like a reminder that even in this universe of rivalry and uppercuts, the ranchers are still ranching and down bad and goofy at their core... tango's call at the end especially,,, and jimmy running to take it privately made me smile so much :D i also love how you further explained jimmy's background with the fic !!! im also always amazed at how ur exposition feels natural, as well as the dialogue between pearl and jimmy. their friendship was so blatant and heartwarming and i loved it so much !!!

ive seen ur posts about struggling with MOE and i wanted to give some words of encouragement, even if im not much of a writer. i love all your work, and MOE is such a wonderful fic so i wish you all the luck in tackling chapter 5!!! i fear ive been slacking as a saucefan, but ive wanted to illustrate so much of your writing but i can only pick and choose so many scenes... i was struggling with my MOE fanart because i wanted to make it as wonderful as i could, to do MOE justice. so from one creative to another, we can get thru this :DDD sending much love <33

HARU! my friend! (yes babe, we're friends), my love! my sweet and amazing daaarling!

GOSH this is so sweet of you, thank you for taking the time to write this out to me. It really means the world hearing how much yall like my work, it makes me more excited to share it with you all and proud that my love letter has earned your hearts too. I hope your vacation of enjoyable and restful Haru! I would kill for a vacay right now but alas I will let pet sitting my my vacay /silly.

There is no such thing as slacking! I'm grateful for you even if you're feeling quiet. The appreciation I get on my is astounding. I am always grateful for the readers that are loud about expressing their liking of my funny stories, but I'm also grateful to those that lurk. simple Kudos, or even just reading and quietly leaving after. I still got to share my art and in the end that's the whole goal of putting out fanfic! So it's okay Haru <3 I see you in my notifs I know you're still near by.

Thank you for loving sticks! I have no idea how I write the tension the way I do. I've been asked before how I do it and I just...stare at it? Till it does the thing? so it makes me happy that you all like it! I'm having a lot of fun with Sticks honestly. Playing with new dynamics and picking up characters I don't normally write for. It's also been a great way to meet new people and get closer with my friends, every day is exciting to live right now and I cannot say thank you enough for offering me that.

I will tackle MoE 5. I'm gonna do it and it's be great. I'm getting better with perfectionism (Spelling errors in IN my fic lmao omg) but to me, making the product something I'm happy with isn't really perfectionism. I want to be proud of 5 before she comes out, and I know you're all waiting so patiently so I will promise that it will be MoE standard (even or better than chapter four). There's some pressure yeah, but I know none of you hold it against me to take my time and make something we'll all love. It's funny, I was just telling Kit how I fear y'all would kill someone if I ever got a hate comment. <3

For YOU Haru, take your time too. Thank you for working on art for MoE, that alone makes me feel so proud and so loved. You could draw me a stick figure and it would do MoE justice so long as it's something you're proud to have made. This whole, fanfic and tumblr thing we're doing here is an exercise in loving things (for me at least). I want to love my writing again. I want to love my free time and my hobbies. I want to love researching funny topics, and reading, and interacting online. I do now. So make what makes you happy, something you love even if its imperfect, even if you think someone might not like it. I promise you I'll like it, because I like you <3 I am sending love right back at you babe. RAH this community ToT you guys make me soft. I have never cried more in my life than I do now (good tears!)

everyone go drink water and sleep good. I love y'all, freaking nerds /aff.

[nerdywriter36]

just finished writing my first full-length fic in years (that's being posted on AO3), the first one since Like Father, Like Son (for those that know it lol) and it is SUCH a wild mix of emotions, me and @brendadaaedestler are going THROUGH IT.

yes, that does mean that Sticky Notes and Serendipity is officially finished! the last few chapters of this story will be in your hands before you know it ❤️

[elgrandeavocados]

holy moly… ‘dissolution’ has 4000+ hits?!?!

my jaw is on the floor! i can’t believe this little story has gotten this big and continues to grow. to all those who have read, re-read, and continue to read— THANK YOU!

there’s much more that i want to say but i’m at a loss for words. just know that i’m grateful and i can’t wait to continue sharing this story with you 💗

[kentuckyfriedmegumi]

more information about my upcoming long fic!!

someone on my strawpage asked me about it, and i’m willing to share some info:

this story is based off of “skinny dipping” by sabrina carpenter. i came up with it one night in october, and if you listen to the song, it essentially tells a good part of this story…

i am aiming for it to be over 100k words, and with the progress i’m making, it looks like i’m going to get there! i’m REALLY challenging myself here with all of the descriptors, prose, and metaphorical language, pulling out all the stops!!! i hope it works!

skinny dipping is going to be 5 chapters long, with about ~20k words per chapter. it will tell the story of the past AND the present at the same time. i will be posting one chapter every three weeks (long breaks i know, but she is a beast so bear with me)

it’s partially inspired by first love, late spring by cityboys (THE itafushi fanfic, if you ask me), but only very loosely. i take inspiration in the way that they incorporate a lot of emotional language in the descriptions of the story, so this will be a deep dive into itfs tbh

i’m aiming to have the first draft done by dec 31, and if all goes well, chapter 1 will be posted sometime in january!!

it’s being beta read by @kat-likes-writing, one of my good friends and another incredibly talented author!! she and i have been working closely to make sure this story comes out the way i want it to!

[got7doubleb]

.

[malcriada]

Help save Bilal's family!

i want to talk about my friend Bilal @bilal-salah0. for over a year now, Bilal has been living in germany, trying to adjust to his new living situation in a foreign country, learning a new language and working full time. 

when the war started, he was far away from home and his family and has been living in daily fear for their lives ever since. 

being forced to work long hours and promoting his family’s fundraiser at the same time, he has taken on more responsibility than anyone ever should. still, he managed to raise money for their evacuation fund and helped take care of his family’s daily needs with the money he was making while working. 

in a cruel twist of fate, all of this got taken away in an instant. he lost his job and his apartment and even his residence permit. which means he is at danger of deportation from germany that could happen as soon as next week!

i have been in daily contact with Bilal for a while now and connected him with some of my friends in germany. together, we are trying our utmost to make sure he can stay in the country. anyone who knows german bureaucracy knows what kind of hell it is. but we won't give up.

without his job, he was forced to dip into the money of his family’s evacuation fund to cover their daily expenses like food and shelter. this meant he had to raise his goal from €70,000 to €100,000. this was not an easy decision for him to make, he even asked for my advice on whether or not to do it, because he did not want anyone to think he was scamming people. 

even in such a desperate situation, Bilal does not want to be seen as someone who would ever take advantage of people's generosity

his family is comprised of 18 members, 10 of them are adults and 8 are children under 16 years old, some of them newborns who were born amidst the chaos of war and displacement.

currently, he is sitting at:

€71,817 / €100,000

donations have been slowing down ever since he reached his original goal. i cannot stress how important it is that they pick back up!

WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME! HE NEEDS TO REACH HIS GOAL BY AUGUST 15TH!

THAT MEANS HE HAS TO RAISE NEARLY 30K IN THE NEXT TEN DAYS. THIS CANT WAIT.

his campaign has been verified and can be found on @/el-shab-hussein’s and @/nabulsi’s list of vetted fundraisers here (#132, line 136) so PLEASE don't hesitate to share and donate.

With such a tight deadline, i cant do this on my own. So i implore you to PLEASE share this wherever you can– on your whatsapp groups, on your discord servers, please share his story on other platforms wherever you have reach! Please share his story wherever you can, so that we can ease this burden from his shoulders.

[ID: a gfm link with a picture of two small children sitting in the sand in front of a cooking pot. they are looking up a the camera, eyes half-closed. the title reads "Donate to Help Evacuate My Family from Gaza to Safety, organized by Bilal salah" End ID]

tagging for reach under the cut, please let me know if you'd like to be removed:

@meaganfoster @briarhips @dirhwangdaseul @mahoushojoe

@schoolhater @pcktknife @sawasawako

@feluka @terroristiraqis @irhabiya @commissions4aid-international @wellwaterhysteria

@deepspaceboytoy @post-brahminism @khanger @kibumkim @neechees

@mangocheesecakes @kyra45-helping-others @7bitter @tortiefrancis

@toiletpotato @fromjannah @vague-humanoid @criptochecca

@aristotels @komsomolka @xinakwans @heritageposts @nibeul

@ot3 @amygdalae @ankle-beez @communistchilchuck @dykesbat

@watermotif @stuckinapril @mavigator @lacecap @yugiohz

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@palms-upturned @blackpearlblast @littlegermanboy @loveaankilaq @sar-soor

@fridgebride @27-moons @tamarrud @familyabolisher @fleshdyk3

@decolonize-solidarity @palipunk @gothhabiba

[tahani-family]

GAZA 😭😭🇵🇸🔗⬇️

support us we lost our home and our workes😔💔

My children are sick from the cold and the spread of diseases, and they are all in pain. I have been displaced with my children many times, and each time we had to bleed her precious evacuation money to buy transportation and transportation.

These conditions are absolutely catastrophic. It's the end of the world. No child, no mother, no person should have to go through this.

You can help by donating and sharing so we don't have to struggle anymore. All we are hoping for is to get enough money to evacuate to Cairo so we don't have to rely on the black market for simple things like food anymore.

You can help. 

Please take time out of your day to donate to my family, our campaign is moving very slowly and we need your help.

Please help my family get out of this hell. We, like all human beings, deserve safety, comfort, and warmth, and now you have a way to help provide these things for us.

https://gofund.me/5770752d.

Dear, please don't let me down, we deserve life and we deserve your generosity and kindness towards us, you are our lifeline and with your generosity you give us life even a little, but you relieve us of injustice and the cursed war, you are the hope and life once again, be side by side hand in hand, we will make a big difference with faith, strength, will and determination, we will reach the goal, we are very close, I hope you participate and contribute if you can. 💜🇵🇸🍉🍉💐💐.

I am a mother of three beautiful little girls, Sana and Hanan. Hla has been sick recently and Hla needs to be vaccinated very soon, but I can tell you that the situation has been very difficult in Gaza and the campaign has been slow lately.

Thank you to everyone who donated and participated from the bottom of my heart, but my campaign needs more support and interaction. I think that my campaign did not receive the required interaction and attention. It is not my fault that I am Palestinian so that I do not receive support. I think that other campaigns and non-Arab campaigns take momentum from interaction and support. It is not my fault that a Palestinian is marginalized for the sake of my children, humanity, and children's rights. Help m🙏🏻🙏🏻💔💔.

My name is Tahani, I am 30 years old from Gaza and I have three very young children, Sana, Hanan and my youngest, Hala, who grew up during the war. Our house was destroyed, I was displaced several times and I am currently separated from the rest of my family - my husband, brothers, sisters and parents. I cannot tell you how stressed I am.

@xxx-sparkydemon-xxx @lampthehealthminister @baandar @doug-dimmadumb @astronotesstuff @prokyon @the-bitch-isback @aceofrage @intheindustrynow-blog @horrorcore2002 @thescavenger29 @yvening @springcres @meowmaids @akaratna @ezras-turtleneck-blog @fagarlic @grandpom @omens-augury @pianta @kingtransgender @friendlizard @intricatecakes @marbirds @error-core-animations @block-swing-perry @br-eddrolls @kraigerzz-blog @daily-click-reminders @commissions4aid-international @anneemay @tumkaafiho @balaclava-trismegistus @ripley-stark @mangocheesecakes @bees-fantasies @girl4pay @turtletoria @rikebe @esperantoauthor @starless-gaze @frehsca

I am doing my best to take care of my children by myself, despite facing hunger, thirst, disease and the threat of death. The other day, there was heavy shelling near me and another family close to us was killed. Life in Gaza is now hell and I tell you that we are living as if we are waiting for our turn to die.

I am Tahani from Gaza, I am 30 years old. I stand before you as a person trying to maintain my family. I am married and a mother of three children: Sana, who is seven years old, Hanan, who is five years old, and a girl named hla. She grew up during the war and in very harsh conditions that no human being can bear. I moved from the hospital directly to the tent. I cannot describe the extent of the suffering and difficulty of living in the tent.

But I need help. The situation in Gaza is very bad right now, with the IDF preventing aid from entering and the food, water and medicine that is available are very expensive. Please share and donate to help me and my children survive and eventually leave Gaza.

Thank you all. I hope you will support me to save my life and the lives of my children🇵🇸🍉🍉.

‼️Please don’t skip taking a look 🍉🇵🇸.

We are trying to survive in miserable conditions in tents in Mawasi Deir al-Balah, south of Gaza. It is difficult for me to find the words to describe what we face every day in Gaza. No food, no medicine, no clean drinking water, oppression, helplessness, psychological pressure, doubts and daily trauma due to the loss of loved ones. In Gaza, it is not only hunger, disease and fear; it means actual death.

We have been forced to move more than 7 times, and my house has been completely destroyed, and I cannot provide enough milk, diapers, medicines, and vitamins for my children.💔🍉🇵🇸😭

Now, I find myself in this difficult situation, and I strongly and humbly ask for your help to save the lives of my family, especially my children, by getting us out of Gaza. The situation in Gaza has become unbearable due to slow death as a result of hunger, thirst, displacement, the spread of diseases and continuous bombing.🍉🇵🇸💔

The past months have been full of hell and horror. This war has gone on for too long, and our mental health and lives are constantly at risk. We have reached a point where there is no hope anymore in Gaza, as if we are waiting for death. Even if a ceasefire is reached, the devastation in Gaza in all its forms cannot be quickly repaired

Please help me and my children to get us out of genocide🍉🇵🇸💔.

Your help will contribute greatly to alleviating our suffering. I hope you will share my story with your family and friends.💔💔

I will be forever grateful for your kind assistance in this difficult time🇵🇸🇵🇸

Thank you for your kindness and generosity❤️.

Donation link 🇵🇸👇

https://gofund.me/5770752d

1. Verified using Butterflyeffect Project font (1153)

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #275 )✅️

[knaveofmogadore]

Kfkdks

[muletia]

𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 ⋆. 𐙚 ˚

[tfp] obsessed!orion pax x human!reader

summary: what if optimus' obsession bypassed his memory loss? what if he was so infatuated that even his past self yearned for you?

cw: fluff, pinch of angst, canon divergence: orion is taken by the autobots, obsessive thoughts, clinginess, orion literally cannot be left alone for one(1) second, tbh nothing happens in this, i just wanted to write obsessed!orion interacting with you, bad writing, silliness

word count: 4700

"Come to the base. It's urgent."

As you stare at the terse message from Ratchet, your chewing slows and stops. A storm of questions whirls in your mind, panic creeping into your body. Before you can even type a single letter, your phone rings. The caller is none other than the Autobot medic himself. You answer in less than a second.

"Hello? Ratchet, please don't scare me—what exactly happened?"

"It's about Optimus." Your heart skips a beat. "During the last mission, he was... injured. Or, to be precise, damaged."

"Is it serious?" you ask, pacing nervously around the break room. Lunch now long forgotten. "Will he be all right?"

"Physically—he's never looked or felt better. Mentally, however... that's a different story. I'll explain the details when you get here. And make it quick."

"Hold on, wait—I can't just leave work early like that. There's a whole procedure for this. I can't just waltz out, even though I’d love to leave right now."

"...In an hour and a half, I expect to see you here at the base. See you then."

He hangs up. You stare at your phone screen for a moment, replaying the conversation in your head. Something serious must have happened—Ratchet wouldn’t disturb you at work otherwise. And it involved Optimus... You bite your lip, torn by indecision. You need to at least make sure he's okay, to see with your own eyes what Ratchet was talking about. Otherwise, you'll regret your negligence and spend the rest of the day worrying.

Shoving the half-eaten sandwich into your bag, you rush to your computer to draft a request for early leave, praying fervently that your boss will grant it.

You kept pressing the gas, speeding toward the base, trying to balance obeying traffic laws with worrying about the Autobot. You knew he had been preparing for a mission recently, he had told you about it during a ride you shared, but you didn’t expect it to end like this. Maybe you should have, considering you were associated with a race of aliens deeply embroiled in a centuries-long war, but you always pushed such unpleasant thoughts to the back of your mind, wishing your friends the best. Now, though, all the worst scenarios were coming to the surface. Had he fallen into a coma? Was his processor damaged? Had he died? You didn’t want to think about such an ending. Optimus was alive. You were sure of that.

Seeing the familiar red rock, a tight knot of anxiety gripped your throat. In a few moments, you were about to drive into what was practically your second home, not knowing what awaited you. You glanced at the clock. You were half an hour late—well beyond the time Ratchet had given you.

As if on cue, the medic called you again.

“Don’t enter the hangar. Leave the vehicle at the entrance.”

Before you could say a word, he hung up, leaving you to sigh in frustration.

Following his instructions, you parked at the main entrance and made the rest of the journey on foot. The lights seemed especially harsh, glaring into your eyes as the tunnel stretched endlessly ahead of you, as if warning you, giving you one last chance to turn back. But no force on Earth could stop you now. Determined, you marched forward, needing to know what had happened to your friend.

The hangar was full of Autobots, their sheer presence intimidating. You had thought you were over the feeling of smallness that came with being one of the humans among them, but now it hit you again, hard, dredging up memories of when humans in their midst were still a novelty. You froze for a moment, your courage momentarily disappearing in the shadows of giants.

It wasn’t until your eyes landed on the reason you had left work early that you began to breathe again. Optimus stood there, seemingly whole and healthy, facing the platform where the kids likely were. Relief washed over you. He was alive. Your heart was still racing, but the weight of dread lifted slightly, leaving you braced for the next wave of bad news.

"Hey, sorry I’m late. Work took longer than I expected," you called out.

Your voice immediately caught his attention. Optimus turned to you so abruptly that it shocked everyone present, abandoning the conversation he had been engaged in. Tilting your head back to meet his gaze, you were surprised when he knelt down on one knee, making himself more accessible. You still had to look up, but now his face wasn’t obscured by his… windshields.

The first hint that something was off was his smile—wide, cheerful, and curious. Optimus didn’t smile like that, not even when something genuinely delighted him. Worry started gnawing at you again. Something was wrong.

"Greetings. You must be our next human ally, correct?"

At first, you were at a loss for words. Of all the scenarios you had imagined, memory loss hadn’t even crossed your mind. But before the conversation could veer into awkward territory or panic could take hold, you managed to reply, mirroring his smile.

"That’s right."

"You seem… familiar. As though we have met before."

The hangar fell silent, the atmosphere thickening.

"Of course he would remember her," Ratchet hissed under his breath. You shot him a glare filled with venom.

Focusing back on the mech before you, you forced a calm smile, masking the whirlwind of emotions inside you. You felt like you were on the verge of exploding—uncertain whether to jog his memories or pretend this was truly your first meeting. Why hadn’t anyone given you guidance on how to handle this?

"Erm, well…" you began, only for Ratchet to step in and spare you.

"Humans can look quite similar at first glance," the medic interjected. "Orion, this is [Name], the last human who should know of our existence."

A flicker of something lit up in his cyan optics—something indefinable, known only to him.

"Greetings, [Name]. It is a great pleasure to meet you."

He extended a servo toward you. Tentatively, you clasped one of his digits, ignoring the ache in your heart. This shouldn’t have been happening. You shouldn’t have to forge a new relationship with someone so dear to you. It felt uncanny—like he was wearing Optimus’s skin but was someone entirely different inside. It was unnerving, disorienting. Yet this stranger had knelt before you, reduced himself to your scale to show respect, just as Optimus always had. It was a glimpse of his alternate self, a sign of the inherent honor and kindness he still carried.

"Hello, Orion. The pleasure is all mine."

Letting go of his servo, you gave him an apologetic smile, signaling the end of the conversation. You needed answers, clarity about the situation, before you could decide how to proceed. As Orion straightened up, you stepped past him toward the platform. You could feel curious optics on you, particularly his, as you fist-bumped the kids. Unbeknownst to you, Orion clenched his servo in the same way you had during your handshake.

"So," you said to Ratchet, "what happened?"

The medic sighed, clearly weary of recounting the story yet again. But you had to know. You listened intently, the details unsettling and at times horrifying, but you felt a growing sense of calm. At least now you knew what you were dealing with—what topics to avoid, how to act. The relief faded, however, when you learned that the first attempt to restore Optimus’s memories had failed, and no date had been set for the next.

As Ratchet spoke, most of the team dispersed, leaving only you, the medic, and Orion in the hangar. Taking a moment to process everything, you glanced at Orion, catching his curious gaze.

This was your new reality. Optimus was gone, yet not entirely, standing just a few meters away, watching you intently. It was too much to dwell on. You needed something to distract yourself.

Standing from the couch, you headed down the stairs. You figured you’d be here for the rest of the evening, so you might as well find something productive to do.

"[Name]?" Orion’s voice stopped you in your tracks. He looked genuinely concerned. "Are you leaving already?"

His behavior puzzled you.

"I’m just going to grab my things. I’ll be right back."

"I see. May I accompany you?"

Oh, that was adorable—especially with the hopeful tone in his voice.

"I’m not sure you’ll fit in the tunnel in your current form," you teased with a laugh. "It won’t take long. I’ll be back in a minute."

This time, you quickened your pace.

For several hours, Orion's life had been filled with uncertainty. He didn’t know how he had ended up on this planet, who the Autobots around him were, or why they called him "Prime" when he felt he was unworthy of the title. And now, another enigma had appeared—you. Orion could not rationalize the overwhelming need to be near you. He had felt it the moment he laid his optics on you. The need to stay close, to converse, to observe. The need to know you better. Never before had such intense emotions stirred within him for anyone, let alone a stranger. But you weren’t a stranger. This may have been your first meeting, and he may have spoken to you for the first time, but you were not unfamiliar. Of that, he was absolutely certain.

Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes into hours since you had disappeared into the tunnel. He regretted not following you, even if it meant transforming into his alt-form. At least he would have kept an optic on you, preventing the gnawing feelings of confusion and longing from devouring him from inside.

Ratchet watched his friend closely. He recognized that look, that body language. He knew what it signified, what storm was brewing in Orion’s processor. Optimus had been the same when it came to you. For a brief moment, his friend was back. Too bad it was under such circumstances.

"Do you really remember that woman?" he asked.

"I am not certain," Orion replied, still gazing toward the tunnel. "I feel like she is not a stranger, even though I know this was our first encounter. And as… Prime, if I indeed held that title, was she close to me?"

Primus.

"Perhaps closer than any human, but only Optimus knew to what extent. That might explain why you recognized her."

"Then she is special."

"Everything points to that."

Orion glanced at him, offering a faint smile. For reasons Ratchet couldn’t quite explain, the gesture was hard to look at. Fortunately, you emerged from the tunnel, giving him an excuse to start working again.

"See? I told you it’d only take a minute," you laughed, a black backpack slung over your shoulder.

Orion didn’t confess the truth—that by his reckoning, you had been gone an eternity. He watched intently as you climbed the stairs and took a seat on the couch.

"So, Orion," you began, "what did you do on Cybertron?"

Oh. You were curious about him? Truly? He had never thought of himself as particularly interesting.

It was fortunate that you were not looking at him because his body language betrayed his embarrassment.

"I was an archivist. Do humans on Earth have similar professions?"

"Of course. You know, I’ve always admired archivists. It’s meticulous work, requiring patience and nerves of steel—if you know what I mean. Anyway, it’s an important job, and anyone who takes it up is very cool in my book."

"Cool?"

"You know, fascinating, impressive, admirable."

"Does that mean that... in your optics, I am… cool?"

He asked without thinking and immediately regretted it when you gave him an amused look. Embarrassed, he tilted his helm downward. For such a towering and formidable being, he was also astonishingly skittish. It was peculiar to see a former Prime in such a light, but it made him more relatable, more emotionally accessible. Even so, you couldn’t deny that you missed Optimus.

"Of course, you’re cool to me."

That answer brightened him. A spectacle of stars dances in his optics.

You returned to typing on your laptop, but Orion had other plans for you.

"It seems I still have much to learn about this planet."

"I think you’ll catch on quickly. Besides, if it makes you feel any better, the other bots don’t know everything either. If you’re ever unsure, just ask. I’ll do my best to help."

"Thank you, [Name]. Your kindness is very important to me."

"Anytime. If you’d like, you could also explore our literature—it’ll give you a good insight into what humanity is all about. That sounds like a fitting activity for an archivist, doesn’t it?"

He would much rather have you as his sole source of knowledge about your species, as it meant spending more time with you. He wanted to know not just what you were but who you were—your interests, where you worked, how you spent your free time, your philosophy, beliefs, and hobbies. Everything you were willing to share. He wanted to know you inside and out, to solidify this sense of connection and make it real. And if you wished, he would bare his own secrets, reveal his spark, and show you every part of himself. Perhaps then you might look at him just for a second longer.

"Yes, I believe that would be an enjoyable activity. And what is it that you do?"

He asked question after question, each answer adding a new layer of understanding about you. He shared a little in return, preferring listening to you—your opinions, your perspective.

Time passed swiftly in your company. Relentless and unforgiving, it waited for no one. Orion realized this when you set aside your device and began stretching. It was a mesmerizing sight—your movements were so different from those of Cybertronians, fluid, and light. That was until the air was pierced by the loud crack coming from your back.

Energon froze in his fuel lines, and his spark leaped to his intake.

"[Name]? Are you alright? Are you harmed?"

"Hm?" you hummed, confused. He looked as though calamity had befallen him, as though you’d been beheaded. Then you remembered—it was Orion, not Optimus, and the human body was weird. "Oh, that. Don’t worry, I’m fine. It’s perfectly normal." To prove your point, you began cracking your knuckles, stopping quickly when you saw his horrified expression. "Okay, sorry about that. But really, I’m fine. I just need to stretch."

"Alright…" he replied, though he didn’t seem convinced. You couldn’t blame him.

You rose from the couch and stepped down from the platform, intending to take a short walk. Panic erupted in his spark. Oh no. No, no, no. He didn’t want to be left alone, not after such a jarring experience. He wouldn’t let you out of his optics now—not even for a moment.

"May I accompany you?"

"Of course!" you replied without hesitation, smiling—a gesture he immediately mirrored. "It won’t be very exciting, though."

"On the contrary, I find you to be a most intriguing individual."

"Oh, thank you," you said, clearing your throat, embarrassed. Compliments delivered in that baritone still flustered you.

Together, you ventured deeper into the base, bypassing various sections. In the training room, Arcee worked on her speed, while Bulkhead struck a makeshift punching bag fashioned from an old car. The children watched the spectacle, occasionally entertaining themselves. You both quickly slipped past the always-open entryway and continued on your way.

“[Name]?” Orion inquires. You turn into an empty hangar with a high platform, starting to ascend the stairs.

“Hm?”

“How do humans attempt to court their partners?”

You hadn't expected that kind of question. You stop mid-step, pondering your answer. When you look at him, his expression is dead serious, though his optics betray a determination. Why would he want to know this? You decide it’s probably mere curiosity.

“It depends on the person.” You continue climbing the stairs until you finally reach the top, now level with his faceplate. “Some buy gifts like flowers, others go on elaborate dates. But the common factor is spending time together, and getting to know one another. Feelings tend to develop naturally that way,” you explain. “Actually, that’s an interesting topic. How did it work on Cybertron?”

“Similarly. However, instead of exchanging ‘flowers,’ we presented rare metals or crystals to leave the best impression. To demonstrate strength and potential as a partner.”

“I know a few people who would totally fall for that approach. Heh, I’d be thrilled to get a geode myself.”

Orion suddenly lights up. Were you suggesting something or just sharing an opinion? Whatever it was, he felt compelled to try. To prove himself worthy. Perhaps he could even find the ‘flowers’ you mentioned.

“I see. Thank you for enlightening me.”

“You’re welcome?” you reply, unsure exactly how you’ve helped, but the sight of his broad smile and bright optics makes it all worthwhile. He was utterly adorable.

The two of you chat casually until you’re forced to check the time. You inhale sharply, and Orion tilts his head slightly, curious about your reaction.

“It was great talking to you, but I really need to go. I have work tomorrow and I’d like to get some sleep.”

Panic flashes across his face. He had enjoyed your company so much. He didn’t feel alienated or alone when he was with you. The sense of connection played a significant role, but Orion had already let you into his spark. He had found a safe harbor in you and wasn’t ready to drift away just yet. He wasn’t ready to let go, even if the world around him were to crumble.

“May I accompany you?” he asks, desperation seeping into his tone.

“Excuse me?”

“May I accompany you?” he repeats, now begging.

“My home isn’t exactly designed to host a giant robot. Besides, it’s dangerous and... wait, do you even know the traffic regulations?”

His expression answers the question, but he still attempts to defend himself.

“I have acquainted myself with them partially.”

“Who has the right of way at an uncontrolled intersection?”

He opens his mouth but quickly closes it again, visibly crestfallen. He looks as though he might cry.

“Orion, we’ll see each other tomorrow,” you reassure him. “The first thing I’ll do after work is come here.”

He frantically searches for an argument to keep you with him—anything to prolong your company. Then he remembers his first encounter with human children.

“Every child was assigned a guardian who escorted them home and ensured their safety,” he states, refusing to give up. “Do you have a protector?”

“Unofficially, that was Optimus…”

“Then I would like to carry on his mission.”

“I’m not a child, Orion.”

“I understand that. I merely wish for your safety, [Name],” he explains earnestly. “And… I would prefer not to part from the company most dear to me.”

Your thoughts drift back to something he said earlier—how he recognized the bond you once shared, even though this was your first conversation. He hadn’t recognized Ratchet or anyone from his team—only you.

You tried to put yourself in his position. To suddenly find yourself in a foreign place, surrounded by strangers addressing you by a false name and feeding you information that might as well be fiction. And then, in a world where nothing is familiar, someone steps in—someone you vaguely recognize. You might not know their name, but you know there was once a connection. Wouldn’t you cling to that tiny thread, desperately pulling it closer if someone tried to take it away?

Orion had found solid ground, and you were unintentionally trying to undermine it. You exhale softly. You already knew you’d be saying goodbye to sleep tonight.

“Alright.” His smile makes it all worth it. It’s as though you’ve handed him a star from the sky. “Let’s see what Ratchet has to say about all this.”

"I see no objections."

Orion looks at you with excitement sparkling in his optics.

"Wow, that was quick."

"It's a good excuse for Orion to explore the area and get accustomed to his alt mode."

The medic refrains from adding that if the former leader remained at the base, he would likely have wasted away in longing for you, lamenting to every sentient being that he couldn't wait to see you again. Though the comment teeters on the edge of his glossa, he opts for discretion. Optimus, at least, had never vocalized his peculiar obsession with you quite so openly.

"Should anything unusual occur, contact me immediately. Someone will come for you in the morning," Ratchet advises his friend before turning to you. "Good night, [Name]."

You thank the medic for his diligence and ask him to take some rest, earning a piercing glare that almost feels lethal, then retrieve your backpack and head toward the tunnel. Orion stays close by, not leaving your side even after transforming. Ever the gentleman, he opens the door for you, visibly delighted at the prospect of your first shared drive together. In his mind, this was more than a mere drive—it was a deeply intimate act, almost akin to inviting a partner into one’s private space.

But his dreams are promptly shattered when you inform him that you have your own car.

The journey is uneventful but nerve-wracking; you constantly check your side mirror to ensure Orion is still following you. Thankfully, there are no issues, and he even remembers to use his turn signals when necessary. Everything proceeds smoothly until you pull into your driveway and are struck by a dreadful realization: Will a Peterbilt even fit in my garage?

You park your car to the side, leaving Orion enough space to drive safely. Exiting your vehicle, you open the garage door and wave at him to proceed. You nervously bite your thumb, watching the massive truck carefully edge into the space. There are barely three centimeters between the roof of the truck and the ceiling. When you close the garage door, the already limited space shrinks further.

"So, do you regret your decision now?" you ask, stepping around to the front of the truck.

Orion transforms with meticulous precision, carefully positioning his limbs and helm to avoid damaging the walls. The process goes well until his helm grazes the ceiling with an audible thud, dislodging a few small pieces of debris. He winces slightly and rubs his helm but offers you a warm smile.

"I do not regret my decision."

"Pfff, well, that's good. Are you all right?"

"I am unharmed."

You can’t help but feel guilty for confining him to such a cramped space, but it was his choice. If he insisted, he would simply have to endure it. Of course, that meant you would have to endure it, too, as the issues began almost immediately.

"All right, I’m going to grab my things. I’ll be back in a moment."

He panics again—something you’re beginning to expect from him.

"Please, do not leave me."

His voice is unchanging. A deep and thick baritone that permeates your body, speaking straight to your soul. It is strange to hear the same voice coming out of a shamed and uncertain being, begging you for company.

"I’ll only be gone for two minutes."

You reach for the door handle, but his servo shoots forward, blocking your exit.

"Orion," you chide, your tone sharp and reprimanding.

He doesn’t meet your eyes, his apprehension laid bare.

"Please, I do not wish to be alone."

"Two minutes," you say firmly, though your annoyance falters when you see the raw emotion in his optics. Sighing, you place a hand on the edge of his digit, catching his attention. "I’ll be back. I promise."

He believes you, of course he does. He trusts you to return, yes, he even knows it. It doesn't change the fact that he is frightened, he feels alone, and your proximity calms the storm raging through his processor. His whole body is clamoring for you, screaming for you to stay with him. He craves bodily contact, he wants your soft hands to stroke his metal and your lips to whisper sweet nothings. He wants more, he wants to feel the softness, more, more, more.

He takes his servo away.

"Good mech."

As you disappear through the door, Orion buries his face in his hands. Despite his embarrassment, he can’t suppress a grin. He had enjoyed that moment—far too much.

He wants to hear you say it again.

When you return, you’re carrying a blanket, a deck of UNO cards, some snacks, and your laptop. Orion beams at the sight of you but frowns when he notices you shivering.

"Are you cold?" he asks with concern.

"Hmm? A little, but I’ll warm up soon."

Without warning, he gently scoops you up in his servo, handling you with the utmost care. The shock is brief—you don’t even have time to protest before he places you on his chassis. His servo remains loosely wrapped around you as a precaution, but your back presses against his warm metal frame. Tilting your head up to glare at him for pulling such a stunt, you find him already watching you, amusement dancing in his optics.

"Ask next time before you do something like that," you scold lightly.

"I make no promises," he teases, earning a playful flick to his digit.

"I was planning to play UNO, but since you pulled that move, let’s watch a movie instead. Unless you’d rather do something else?"

"I leave myself entirely at your mercy."

He would have been content doing nothing as long as he could hold you close.

"All right, then. A movie it is."

It's hard for him to keep up with the plot when he's overstimulated, but he tries, because your questions encouraging discussion come out of nowhere. And it was just at moments when he started to drift off, when the optics shifted from the tiny screen to you; when there was only you and him in the world. Sometimes, however, he would focus for longer, especially during the romantic scenes. He longs to experience something similar with you, an indestructible, sappy love. To recite poetry into your ear and watch you blush, to announce to everyone how much you mean to him. To bestow expensive gifts, the geodes you mentioned earlier. He needs your tender words, your praise, your touch. You could do whatever you liked with him, and he would give you his spark.

He worries when you fall silent for too long.

"[Name]?" he calls softly, leaning closer to check on you. Relief washes over him when he sees you’ve simply fallen asleep. Poor thing—you must have been exhausted.

Still, a part of him resents it. He wanted to talk to you longer, watch more films, learn more about human romance to win your favor. But he knows his thoughts are selfish. Setting the laptop aside, he carefully covers you with his other servo, creating a cocoon of warmth and safety.

He's not sure he'll be able to recharge. At least not now, when he was too absorbed in devouring you with his optics. You felt safe with him. You gave him your trust. You chose him.

A spark of possessiveness sweeps through his processor. He doesn't want to let you go. He doesn't want you to go to work tomorrow and leave him for eternity. He also knows he shouldn't think that way. The spark goes out.

Watching you sleep, his processor churns with thoughts. You trusted him. He vows to prove his worth tomorrow, to show you just how deep his feelings run.

Because he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be himself. How much longer he will remain as Orion Pax.

[midniqhtt]

joel miller

masterlist • pedro pascal • 06/09/25

˚‧⁺ ･ ˖ · ୨ৎ recs six

one I two I three I four I five

𑣲 maybe maybe I @eupheme

𑣲 a christmas miracle I @punkshort

Years of tension after a failed hook-up attempt with Joel boil over at your office Christmas party, but not in the way you expect.

𑣲 them or us I @/punkshort

𑣲 replicate failure to protect I @josephquinnswhore

Joel cannot bare to lose you, not the same way he lost Sarah. Through his own self declared failure to protect.

𑣲 the last piece of us I @absurdthirst - @storiesofthefandomlovers

When the world ends that night, Joel has to make a choice between you and his daughter. You encouraged him to save Sarah and twenty years later, he finds out that you survived that night when he sees you in Jackson.

𑣲 the last part of him I @/absurdthirst- @/storiesofthefandomlovers

When Joel and Ellie come to Jackson, you are instantly attracted to the gruff and slightly solitary man. Chasing him down until you become interwoven in his life.

𑣲 solstice I @covetyou

Three little words. Joel heard those same three words damn near every day for the last seven months. Most days, they were the only words you said to him. Sometimes, if he was lucky, you'd say them more than once. Other days, you didn't say anything to him at all. He liked those days least of all.

𑣲 jingle bells I @strang3lov3

you and your cat stay with your dad’s best friend over Christmas.

𑣲 sarah’s friend I @joelslastofus

Joel struggles to fight temptation with Sarah’s bestfriend after he’s forced to share a bed with her.

𑣲 ex!joel I @/joelslastofus

Joel and you have broken up towards the end of your pregnancy until Sarah convinces you to come to Tommy’s annual Christmas party.

𑣲 qz!joel I @/joelslastofus

Joel has a dangerous reputation in the QZ, so when you run into him you are afraid of him until he shows you another side to him.

𑣲 not so heavenly surprise updated version I @queers-gambit

you share exciting news with your husband but don't receive the reaction you thought you'd get. and then, the Outbreak.

𑣲 let the redeemed tell their story pt2 I @/queers-gambit

reunions are bittersweet. feelings are hard. times are tough, redemption is sought, goodbyes feel impossible; there's blood in the snow, tears in their eyes, and a haunting goodbye in the air.

𑣲 the fuck it list I @auteurdelabre

During work at your father’s construction company, you’re inspired by your sexually liberated bestie to create a F*ck-It List of sexy experiences you’ve always wanted to try. But when the list accidentally ends up in the hands of Joel Miller— your dad’s best friend, the company’s co-CEO, and your immediate supervisor—things take an unexpected turn.

𑣲 daydreams I @morning-star-joy

It's been years since Joel's kissed anybody, and your lips are all he can think about.

𑣲 to live for the hope of it all I @daryltwdixon

Joel never meant to let you get under his skin, but you did—slowly, quietly, until you were all he could think about. When you go missing on patrol, the months of keeping his distance end in an instant. Finding you hurt, vulnerable, waiting for him— he finally stops fighting what was inevitable.

𑣲 family matters pt2 I @/daryltwdixon

You and Tommy had been trying for a baby for years. When a trip to the gyno answers questions you didn’t even know to ask, your husband enlists the help of his one and only brother.

𑣲 what remains of us I @stylesispunk

Joel doesn't die after the brutal encounter with abby because you saved him on time.

𑣲 a lot to live without I @/stylesispunk

what are you supposed to do if there is no him.

𑣲 i only see daylight I @/stylesispunk

What is waiting for you after life ends? Joel woke up to a life he had spent missing this whole time. You are there, Sarah is there, and a baby too.

𑣲 trouble I @forever-rogue

𑣲 salty I @/forever-rogue

𑣲 it only falls into place when you're falling to pieces I @theetherealbloom

There are a lot of people you thought would live forever. You swore Joel would be one of them.

𑣲 stitches I @pedgito

You've patched up Joel countless times before, but this is different.

𑣲 request I @joelspeach

you give joel head on the morning of THAT DAY, and it’s what saves his fucking life.

𑣲 you came? you called I @cavillscurls

𑣲 healed I @whocaresstillthelouvre

After Joel's suffering at the hands of Abby, he survives. You, a new resident of Jackson, are tasked with healing him, bringing him back to life in more ways than one.

𑣲 catfish!joel I @iamasaddie

𑣲 too close for comfort I @gutsby

You’ve been babysitting Sarah Miller forever. One day, you’re surfing the web on her dad’s computer, and you find some…unusual things in his search history.

𑣲 easy to please I @/gutsby

Months pass, and you can’t make rent—again. You find another way to pay your sleazy landlord. Again.

𑣲 still here I @sl-ut

joel is older than y/n, but that’s never been a concern of hers until very recently.

𑣲 your bear pt2 I @rrickgrrimes8

Joel Miller doesn’t just lose Sarah that night but his other daughter too. but maybe you can still be found.

𑣲 well worn I @mothandpidgeon

You grapple with Joel’s death amongst his things. 

𑣲 rest I @alwayslurkinginthebackground

𑣲 too old I @cinnxmxngxrl

You’ve been throwing yourself at Joel Miller for months, even if the answer was always a no. But tonight he comes knocking at your door.

𑣲 die for you I @dulceamore

abby wants you dead instead.

𑣲 joel dealing with wifey I @pedge-page

Mother's day starts with a bang of bad luck

𑣲 blurb I @littledes1re

𑣲 the dog of war I @bits-and-babs

When Ellie is taken by David, Joel breaks open the part of him locked away since his hunter days. As the guilt eats him alive, you try to help him subdue the black dogs of mental warfare.

[orphicmeliora]

Evermore

PAIRING: Zayne x Non-MC!Reader

SUMMARY: You have spent your life inside hospital walls, your world stitched together with IV lines, late-night alarms, and the quiet acceptance that some things cannot be fixed. You've been passed from one doctor to another, another test, another trial — all chasing a miracle that never came. Somewhere along the way, you stopped waiting for tomorrow.

But life, in its quiet cruelty and unexpected grace, gives you something you never thought to ask for — a glimpse of another world. A different kind of heartbeat, steady and sure, weaving its way into your fragile one. Moments you never believed you could have: laughter, longing, dreams too big for a hospital bed.

You don't know how long it will last. You don't even know if you dare hope for more.

But when the night is quiet and the snow falls just right, you let yourself believe — for one stolen breath — that maybe your story isn't meant to end here.

Maybe, somehow, you are just beginning.

WORD COUNT: 9.5k

You're dying.

For as long as you can remember, you've known more of hospitals than your own house. It's gotten to a point where when you think of home, it's not a cozy living room or the scent of your mother's cooking that surfaces — it's the sterile, cold corridors of Akso Hospital. The beeping machines. The too-white sheets. The antiseptic sting in the air. That's home.

You've been passed from hospital to hospital like a worn file folder, a case study waiting for a miracle. Doctors, researchers, specialists — all curious, all clinical. Some of them smiled too brightly when they poked at you; others barely met your eyes as they dictated notes into recorders. No matter their faces, it was always the same: a child with a heart too fragile for the world she lived in. Congenital heart disease, they'd say, like it was a sentence you had to carry. Words like hypoplastic, cardiomyopathy, degeneration slipped off their tongues without a second thought.

Research papers had been written about you. Trials run, theories floated, hands reaching inside your chest like gods trying to rewrite fate. But there was no saving you. Not really. Only delaying the inevitable.

At some point, death stopped being a frightening monster lurking at the end of the hallway. It became a quiet fact. A gentle inevitability. Like winter following fall. Like the last leaf leaving the branch. Sometimes you even think of it fondly — a release from the endless pricks of needles and the sting of failed hope.

You don't cry about it anymore. You stopped doing that years ago.

Just you, and the slow ticking of monitors, and the muted conversations outside your door.

But there are still things that ache. Things that death doesn't erase.

Like the school uniforms you never wore.

The scraped knees you never had from playground games.

The friendships you only knew from books and half-forgotten fairy tales read to you by bored nurses.

You grew up surrounded by adults: brisk nurses with kind smiles, tired doctors with far-off eyes, other patients far older than you. No childhood secrets whispered under blankets at sleepovers. No first crushes shared during recess.

Today is supposed to be your sixteenth birthday. A milestone for most kids — laughter, cake, maybe even a little rebellion. You asked for so little. Just a single scoop of ice cream. Something sweet, something that would make you forget, just for a second, that you're broken inside.

Maybe your body decided it was too much joy. Maybe it was just bad timing. Whatever it was, the chest pain started fast and sharp, a blooming fire that stole your breath and sent the world spinning. They rushed you to the ICU, alarms blaring, voices cutting through the fog of your consciousness.

Doctor Li was there, of course. He's always there. A steady presence when everyone else felt like passing shadows. You caught glimpses of his furrowed brow, the tightness in his voice as he barked orders you were too far gone to understand. He was fighting for you. He always did.

The world blurred. Faded. You remember thinking — distantly — how strange it was to die with the taste of vanilla on your tongue.

You don't die that night. Not yet.

But something inside you, small and bright and hopeful, dims just a little more.

The next few days bleed together in a haze of machines and murmured reassurances. You drift in and out of shallow sleep, tethered to the world by the soft beeping of your heart monitor and the cool, practiced touch of the nurses adjusting your IVs. Doctor Li checks on you more than usual — lingering longer at your bedside, as if afraid that if he looks away, you might simply vanish.

You hear snatches of conversation sometimes. Fragments that weren't meant for your ears.

It’s strange how even in survival, you feel like a guest overstaying her welcome.

"She stabilized, but barely."

"Should we consider moving her back to the general ward?"

"Give her time. Let her rest."

On the third day, you notice a figure lingering near the doorway. Not a nurse — they’re always in motion, efficient and brisk. Not Doctor Li, either — this figure carries a stiffness to his stance, a sharpness that cuts into the sterile quiet.

You glance over, disinterested. A boy, maybe a few years older than you, dressed in street clothes that look out of place in the hospital’s sanitized world. Dark hair that falls messily into his eyes, a scowl permanently etched across his face like it was born there. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, like he doesn't want to be here.

You recognize the look immediately — resentment barely contained behind a mask of detachment.

You turn your head away. You couldn't care less.

Let him glare. Let him hate. You’re used to people looking at you like that — like you’re an inconvenience, a burden. You’ve spent your whole life apologizing for existing, even when your lips stayed silent.

He says nothing to you, and you say nothing to him.

Good. Silence is easier. Cleaner.

Later, you hear the nurses whispering about him.

You don't understand why any of it matters. To you, he’s just another shadow passing through your world. Another person whose life will keep moving forward, even when yours stands still.

"Doctor Li’s son. Came straight from his graduation. Poor kid."

"Must be hard, sharing your father with the hospital."

"He'll understand someday. Sacrifices have to be made."

You close your eyes and let the steady rhythm of the heart monitor lull you back into sleep.

Tomorrow will come. Or it won’t.

It hardly makes a difference.

Tomorrow comes. And then the day after that.

Somehow, despite everything, you keep breathing.

You're moved out of the ICU eventually, back into the quieter, less urgent wing of Akso Hospital that has become more familiar than any childhood bedroom you never had. The walls here are softer shades of green, the windows wide and bright — an illusion of freedom you stopped believing in a long time ago.

Your days fall into a familiar rhythm: early morning blood draws, midday vitals checks, whispered conversations with nurses who treat you like a little sister they can't protect. You read when you can, mostly battered romance novels left behind by old patients, and sometimes you simply lie there, counting the cracks in the ceiling tiles like they hold some secret map to a life you’ll never live.

And Zayne —he starts appearing again.

At first, it’s just glimpses. A flash of dark hair down the corridor, the low murmur of his voice when he trails after Doctor Li during rounds. He doesn’t look at you. Not directly. He keeps his gaze clipped to charts and clipboards, face tight with the kind of focus you recognize all too well: the kind born from trying to control what can’t be fixed.

You wonder — briefly — why he keeps coming back.

Most people your age would run from a place like this. Wouldn't they? Chase the world outside with hungry hands, desperate to live, to feel something more than fluorescent lights and beeping machines.

But Zayne stays.

He stands at his father's side, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his lab coat, frowning at words too complicated for you to care about. He listens when Doctor Li explains your charts, your declining numbers, the latest tests they want to run. Sometimes he asks questions, voice low and rough around the edges.

You don't bother trying to hear the answers.

You’ve long stopped hoping anyone had any real ones to give.

The way his shoulders stiffen when Doctor Li mentions your heart’s deterioration. The quick, darting glances he thinks you don’t catch when you wince from another IV insertion. The rare moments his mouth tightens in something almost like frustration, or helplessness.

Still...

You notice things.

You pretend you don't see.

You pretend it doesn't matter.

And you — you have always been leaving.

Because it doesn't.

You have learned, through years of slow dying, that getting attached only makes the leaving harder.

It happens on an afternoon like any other.

The kind where the sun slices through the window just enough to make you ache for the world outside — a world you’ve only seen in pictures and half-forgotten dreams.

You’re sitting up in bed, a book resting on your lap, though you haven’t turned a page in what feels like hours. Your IV pole hums faintly beside you, the only real reminder that you’re still tethered here.

You glance up without thinking — and there he is. 

You hear footsteps before you see him.

Not Doctor Li’s sure, even strides.

Softer. Slower. Hesitant.

Zayne. 

Hovering awkwardly just inside your room, clutching a thick textbook to his chest like a shield. He's not wearing his usual scowl today. Instead, his face is carved into something tighter, more uncertain, as if he isn't quite sure whether he should even be standing here.

You raise an eyebrow, silently daring him to speak.

He clears his throat. It sounds painful.

"I—" he starts, then immediately cuts himself off, glancing away. His hand tightens around the book's spine.

You blink at him, unimpressed.

If he’s here to offer hollow pity or awkward small talk, he can save it. You’ve heard it all before — the forced conversations, the clumsy sympathy from visitors who can't even look you in the eye for long.

You drop your gaze back to your book, pretending he isn't there. Silence stretches thick and heavy between you.

For a moment, you think he’s going to retreat, like so many others have.

But he doesn't.

You freeze, your thumb hovering over the corner of the worn page.

Instead, after a beat of hesitation, you hear him mumble — so quiet you almost miss it —

"…That book’s terrible."

Slowly, you glance up again. He’s staring at the battered cover, expression wrinkling in disdain.

"I mean," he says, awkward and stiff, like every word is being dragged out of him by force, "the plot makes no sense. The heroine falls in love with a guy who literally tried to kill her in the first chapter."

You blink once. Twice.

"Yeah," you say, voice hoarse from disuse, "but it's not like I've got a lot of options."

And then, unexpectedly, a small huff of air escapes you — not quite a laugh, but close.

You hadn't realized how long it had been since someone your age spoke to you like that. Not like you were breakable. Not like you were already halfway gone.

He shifts his weight, looking vaguely guilty now. Like he hadn't meant to insult your sad little world.

You watch him for a moment longer, studying the way he fidgets — a boy trying very hard not to look like he cares, even though it’s written in every line of his posture.

Without thinking, you extend the book toward him, offering it out like a peace treaty.

"Got any recommendations, then?"

He stares at you, startled. Like he wasn’t expecting you to talk back. Like he wasn't expecting you to choose to talk to him.

Slowly, almost warily, he steps forward. Takes the book from your hand, fingers brushing yours for the briefest second—warm and real and alive.

Something small shifts in the air between you.

Barely there.

But you feel it all the same.

But right now—for the first time in a long, long while—you don’t feel quite so alone.

Maybe tomorrow he'll disappear again.

Maybe you’ll still die before you ever really know him.

The next day, you don’t expect him to come back.

People make gestures sometimes — quick, impulsive things born of guilt or pity. You’ve learned not to get your hopes up. You've learned not to expect anyone to stay.

But late in the afternoon, as the sun dips low and the room fills with that golden, aching kind of light, you hear familiar footsteps outside your door. Slower, more deliberate this time. No shuffling nurses, no hurried doctors.

You glance up from your spot on the bed just as Zayne leans into the doorway, one hand shoved deep into the pocket of his jacket, the other holding something behind his back like a guilty secret.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just looks at you, frowning faintly, like he’s annoyed to find you still there. (Or maybe annoyed with himself.)

You raise an eyebrow, a silent question.

He scowls a little deeper — a defense mechanism, you think — and mutters, "You said you didn’t have good options."

Before you can reply, he pulls his hand from behind his back and tosses a book onto your bed.

It lands with a soft thud against the sheets, the cover facing up.

You blink at it, surprised. It’s thick, heavier than the flimsy paperbacks you usually get stuck with, and worn around the edges like it's been read a dozen times. A fantasy novel, from the looks of it — something with sprawling kingdoms and sword fights and impossible magic.

You run your fingers lightly over the embossed title, almost afraid it might disappear.

"I had it lying around," he says quickly, too quickly. "Figured you could use something... less stupid."

You look up at him again, and this time you catch it — the faint pink dusting the tips of his ears, the way he can't quite meet your gaze.

You almost smile. Almost.

Instead, you trace the cover one more time, letting the weight of the book settle into your lap like something precious.

"...Thanks," you say, quiet but sincere.

Zayne shrugs, like it’s no big deal. Like he doesn’t care. But he lingers a moment longer than necessary, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

Finally, he jerks his head toward the book. "Page ninety-seven is the best part," he says gruffly. "Don't skip to it, though. You have to earn it."

And with that, he turns and stalks off down the hallway, disappearing before you can say anything else.

You watch him go, your chest feeling strangely full, like someone had opened a window inside you after years of stale, closed-off air.

You pick up the book, flipping it open carefully. On the inside cover, in faded ink, there’s a name scribbled messily: Zayne Li.

You smile — small, private, and fleeting.

—

Maybe you were wrong.

Maybe not everyone leaves.

You tell yourself it’s just a book.

And every single one of them — every single page — is littered with traces of him.

One book turns into two. Then three.

Each one arrives without ceremony — sometimes left on your bedside table when you’re asleep, sometimes handed over with an awkward grunt and averted eyes. Always worn. Always loved.

Little notes crammed into the margins. Sharp, neat handwriting in black ink. Observations. Sarcastic comments. Underlined passages with a single word beside them — you. Sometimes a whole phrase: this reminds me of you or you'd probably argue about this part.

It’s like Zayne is sitting beside you as you read, muttering in your ear.

The strange thing is — the words, the quiet thoughts he left scattered across the pages — they make you feel something. Something unfamiliar and terrifying. A buzzing under your skin, a pressure behind your ribs, too wild and heavy to name.

You devour the books hungrily.

You savor every messy annotation like it’s oxygen.

You tell yourself it’s nothing. You're just imagining things.

Until the night it isn’t.

You’re halfway through another novel — a sweeping, painful story about a dying girl and a boy who loved her too much — when it happens.

Your heart flutters.

You freeze, book slipping from your hands onto the bed.

Not in the way it usually does — the panicked, stuttering rhythm that sends alarms shrieking and nurses running.

This flutter is different.

Soft. Gentle. Terrifying.

For a second, you can't breathe — not from weakness, but from something that feels suspiciously like hope, like longing.

Within seconds, your room explodes into motion — nurses flooding in, monitors flashing to life, Doctor Li himself arriving in a whirl of urgency.

You panic.

You hit the pager beside your bed, repeatedly.

They swarm you with equipment, prick your fingers, measure your heart rhythms. Voices rise and fall in a symphony of concern.

In the middle of it all, you sit there, dazed and mortified.

Because you realize — slowly, stupidly—you’re not dying.

When the chaos finally ebbs, when the monitors hum their steady, forgiving rhythm again, Doctor Li kneels beside your bed and presses a gentle hand to your shoulder.

Not yet.

Not from this.

"You’re alright," he says, voice warm and steady. "It was just... an excitement response. A little arrhythmia. Nothing dangerous."

You nod, face burning.

You don't tell him it wasn't excitement about life. It was about his son.

It was the first time in your memory that your heart had jumped not from fear, but from feeling something more.

It was a start.

Time moves strangely after that.

You learn him.

Weeks blend into months.

Zayne visits more now — under the pretense of study sessions with his father, but you both know better. He still brings you books, still pretends it's nothing, but sometimes he stays to see which parts make you smile. You argue with him over characters. He rolls his eyes when you get too emotional. You learn the patterns of his dry humor, the sharp warmth hidden under his guarded exterior.

And, quietly, dangerously, you start to want more.

One afternoon, you find yourselves alone. Doctor Li is caught up in surgery. The nurses are busy elsewhere. The hospital is unusually quiet.

Zayne sits slouched in the chair beside your bed, tapping a pen against his knee. You’re thumbing through the latest book he loaned you — a nonfiction this time, something about stars and deep space, endless distances that make your small, fragile life feel even smaller.

For a while, you exist in comfortable silence.

Then, without looking at you, Zayne says, "You know you’re sick. Really sick."

It's not a question. It's a fact, laid bare between you.

You close the book slowly, pressing your palm flat against the cover to keep your hands from shaking.

"I know," you say, voice barely a whisper.

Zayne leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, his gaze fixed somewhere on the floor.

"I want to fix it," he says roughly. "I’m studying to fix it."

You stare at him, heart twisting.

"You can't," you say, almost gently. "Nobody can."

His jaw tightens. His fingers curl into fists against his thighs.

"I have to," he mutters. "Otherwise... what's the point?"

The words hang there between you — raw, desperate, infuriatingly beautiful.

You swallow hard, feeling the sting of tears behind your eyes.

"You don't have to waste your life on me," you say. "You have your own future. Your own world."

Finally, he lifts his head and looks at you — really looks at you.

And in his dark, tired eyes, you see it.

"I'm not wasting it," he says.

The stubbornness.

The grief.

The terrible, trembling hope.

He says it like an oath. Like a prayer.

And for the first time, you let yourself believe — just a little — that maybe, just maybe, you're not fighting alone anymore.

You glance up from your book, startled to see Zayne standing by your bedside, a mischievous glint in his otherwise serious eyes.

A rustle of cloth. The scrape of a chair being quietly pushed back.

He holds out his hand to you — palm up, steady.

"Come on," he says, voice low and urgent. "Before someone notices."

You stare at him like he’s lost his mind.

"I’m not exactly mobile, in case you forgot," you say dryly, gesturing weakly at your IV stand and the tangle of wires monitoring your heart.

Zayne’s mouth tugs into the smallest, briefest smirk.

"I planned for that," he says.

He lifts a second IV pole from behind him — wheels it forward like a grand conspirator revealing his secret weapon. It’s empty except for a few dummy wires and a hastily knotted hospital gown draped over it like camouflage.

You blink.

He actually planned this.

"You're insane," you whisper.

"Maybe," he says. "But so are you for trusting me."

His fingers curl around yours, warm and sure, and for the first time in a long while, you feel something electric under your skin — something alive.

You don’t trust easily.

You never have.

But tonight — with the sterile hum of the hospital around you, and the fierce, reckless light in Zayne’s eyes — you find yourself reaching for his hand anyway.

Carefully, painstakingly, he helps you out of bed, maneuvering your real IV to look as inconspicuous as possible. You clutch his arm for balance, and he doesn't flinch or pull away. He just stands there, solid and steady, like he was built to hold you up.

Together, you slip out of your room and into the dimly lit hallway.

The hospital at night is a different world — softer, quieter, suspended in time. The usual sharp edges of sterile life blur into something almost magical.

Zayne leads you through the labyrinth of corridors, past empty nurses' stations and closed doors, moving like a ghost through his second home.

Eventually, he pushes open a heavy door, and you find yourself on the hospital’s rooftop.

You don't ask where you're going.

You trust him.

The cool night air hits you like a blessing. Linkon city sprawls out below you, lights blinking like a thousand tiny stars scattered across the dark.

Above you, the real stars stretch in endless constellations, faint but stubborn, refusing to be erased by the city's glow.

You stand there, breathing in the night, the IV pole at your side forgotten for a moment.

Zayne leans against the railing, his arms crossed over his chest, watching you with an unreadable expression.

"This," he says, tilting his chin toward the sky, "is the closest I could get to taking you out of here."

You stare up at the heavens, feeling something bloom painfully in your chest.

"You’re not supposed to do this," you whisper, but there’s no anger in your voice. Only wonder.

Zayne shrugs. "Sue me."

You laugh — a small, broken sound — and he turns his head slightly, like he wants to hear it again but is too proud to ask.

Finally, you glance over at him.

For a long time, you just stand there.

Two kids on a rooftop.

One dying, one refusing to let her go quietly.

"Thank you," you say simply.

His mouth twitches — the barest ghost of a smile.

"You’re welcome," he mutters.

Then, after a beat:

"You’re not allowed to die yet, by the way."

You blink at him, startled.

"That’s an order," he adds, looking away as if embarrassed. "Doctor’s orders."

Not if there’s still more of him.

You bite back the emotion swelling in your throat, smiling instead.

Because you realize, deep down, you don’t want to die yet.

Not if there’s still more of this.

After that first night, the rooftop becomes your place.

Whenever the nights are quiet and the staff is distracted, he appears in your doorway with a raised eyebrow and a silent question.

You and Zayne never talk about it.

You never plan it.

It just happens — an unspoken ritual.

You always nod.

And then you're off again — sneaking past monitors, wheels squeaking faintly, IV pole rattling slightly as you creep through the halls like co-conspirators against fate.

The rooftop feels almost sacred now.

Up there, the air smells less like bleach and more like possibility.

Up there, you aren’t just a patient strapped to machines — you’re alive.

You learn more about him — the way he hates instant coffee but drinks it anyway. His ridiculous sweet tooth. The way he grips the railing a little too tightly sometimes, like he’s afraid of losing control. How his smiles are rare but real, and he saves most of them for you.

Sometimes you talk.

Sometimes you sit in silence.

He listens. Really listens.

And he learns about you — the real you, the one buried under layers of hospital gowns and medical files.

He learns you love thunderstorms. That you used to dream of becoming an astronaut before you got too sick to dream at all. That you’re terrified, not of dying, but of being forgotten.

And something inside you, long frozen, starts to thaw.

You start pushing yourself during physical therapy. You sit up longer. You fight to stay awake through bad days just so you can catch a glimpse of him passing by.

You get stronger.

Not in the way that matters medically — your charts still fluctuate, your heart still falters sometimes — but your spirit grows stubborn. Fierce. Hungry.

And even if you don’t say it out loud, you know he wants it too.

You want more time.

You want more nights under the stars.

You want more him.

But the clock is always ticking.

Some nights, the pain comes back — sharp and sudden, clenching around your ribs like an iron hand. Some nights, the monitors scream and the nurses race in, and Zayne isn't allowed to visit until you're stabilized again.

On those nights, you stare at the ceiling and try not to think about how fleeting all of this is.

And then one night, when you’re both on the rooftop again, he blurts it out.

You wonder if he knows.

If he feels it too — the way the future presses down on you both like a heavy, inevitable sky.

"You’re getting worse," he says, voice low and tight.

You don't argue. You don't pretend.

Instead, you lean against the railing, the cold metal digging into your palms, and whisper, "I know."

You expect him to retreat. To shut down the way most people do when confronted with the ugly truth of you.

But Zayne just steps closer.

"You’re still fighting," he says roughly. "Even when it’s pointless. Even when you’re scared."

You laugh — bitter, broken.

"There's no winning this," you say. "No miracle cure. You know that, don't you?"

Then, very quietly:

He says nothing for a long time.

Just stands there, breathing hard, like he’s holding back something too big for words.

"I’m still going to try."

You turn your head, meeting his gaze fully for the first time in what feels like forever.

There’s no pity there. No empty promises.

And for the first time, you allow yourself to lean just a little closer, resting your forehead against his shoulder.

Only determination.

Only him.

He stiffens — startled — but then, slowly, carefully, he shifts so you fit against him better.

The IV line tugs against your arm. Your heart monitor blips faintly in the background.

But here, in this small, stolen moment, you aren't a diagnosis. You aren't a prognosis.

You're just a girl.

And he's just a boy trying to save you.

The night it happens, you’re both too tired to pretend you're fine anymore.

The rooftop air is thick and heavy, the heat of the day still clinging stubbornly to the concrete. You sit cross-legged on a worn blanket Zayne smuggled from the staff lounge, your IV pole parked dutifully beside you, your heart monitor muted to a low, steady pulse.

Zayne lounges beside you, long legs stretched out, arms folded behind his head as he stares up at the stars.

Neither of you say much.

The sky stretches overhead in an endless velvet sweep, pinpricked with faint light. Somewhere far below, Linkon city hums and breathes without you.

Words feel too heavy tonight.

Besides, you don’t need them.

You turn your head slightly, watching him.

His face looks softer in the dark — the stern lines of his mouth eased, the tension usually buried in his shoulders melted away. You can see the faint smudges of exhaustion under his eyes, the little crease between his brows he probably doesn't even realize he has.

You realize — with a strange, aching clarity — that you want to remember this. You want to burn this version of him into your memory so you can carry it with you, no matter what happens.

Your eyelids grow heavier with each passing minute.

The monitors hum quietly beside you, a gentle lullaby.

Somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, your body leans sideways — just a little, just enough — and without thinking, without planning, you drift closer until your head finds his shoulder.

Zayne goes rigid at first — like someone just pulled a fire alarm inside his chest — but after a long, tense second, he shifts carefully, allowing you to settle against him.

You half-expect him to tease you. To make some snide remark.

But he doesn't.

Instead, he stays perfectly still, perfectly steady, like he’s afraid even breathing too loudly might wake you.

You don't remember falling asleep.

But you remember the feeling —safe, warm, suspended in something fragile and golden —as you sink into dreams for the first time in months without fear clawing at your throat.

You wake up hours later to the faintest touch — Zayne carefully adjusting your IV line, his fingers clumsy with sleep, his eyes still heavy-lidded.

He blinks down at you, caught between guilt and something deeper, something raw.

"Sorry," he mutters, voice rough. "Didn't mean to—"

You cut him off by curling a little closer, burying your face in the crook of his arm.

Later, when you’re both back inside, tangled in warmth and silence, the question slips out before you can stop it.

And for once, he doesn't argue.

He just lets you stay.

You’re still curled under your hospital blankets, the faint beep of your monitor filling the room like a heartbeat. Zayne sits in the chair beside your bed, scribbling distractedly in his med school notebook, but you know he’s only half-focused at best.

"Zayne," you say quietly.

He hums in response, not looking up.

"If you could have anything," you whisper, "anything at all… what would you wish for?"

He freezes, pen hovering midair.

The silence stretches so long you wonder if he’s going to answer at all.

Looks at you.

Then, slowly, he sets the pen down.

Leans forward, elbows braced on his knees.

His eyes are tired and beautiful, reflecting every terrible truth you both carry.

You open your mouth — to ask with who, to demand more clarity — but he beats you to it.

"I’d wish," he says slowly, like dragging the words out of his chest hurts,

"for more time."

"With you," he says, voice breaking just slightly on the last word.

Your heart stumbles painfully in your chest — not from illness, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of him, of this.

You can’t breathe.

You don’t even realize you’re crying until he’s there, wiping a thumb under your eye, the touch so painfully gentle it almost undoes you completely.

He just stays.

He doesn’t ask for anything more.

He doesn’t try to kiss you, or make promises he can’t keep.

Because he knows. You both know.

This love—whatever it is, whatever it’s becoming—isn’t about grand declarations or fairy-tale endings.

It’s about now.

It’s about this fragile, fleeting moment where you are still here, still breathing, still together.

And for tonight, that’s enough.

The days that follow feel… different.

It’s subtle at first — a lighter step in your walk, a softer smile tucked at the corners of your mouth — but it’s there.

Hope.

Tiny, fragile, impossible hope.

And it’s all because of him.

You don’t dare speak it aloud — not when your body is still betraying you at every turn, not when your doctors still whisper in careful, practiced voices outside your room — but it grows inside you anyway.

A stubborn little flame.

Because of the way Zayne looks at you now — not like a patient he’s sworn to protect, not like a lost cause — but like a person.

A girl with dreams worth fighting for.

One night, when the hospital halls are unusually quiet and the rooftop is bathed in a silver wash of moonlight, you find yourself blurting it out.

Your secret list.

The things you thought you had buried.

"I want to see snow," you whisper, breath misting faintly in the cold. "I want to dance without an IV pole dragging beside me." A soft, broken laugh slips from your mouth. "I want to eat an entire cake without someone telling me it’s too much sugar."

You glance at him, embarrassed, cheeks hot. "And I want someone to kiss me like it’s the end of the world."

But Zayne just listens — really listens — every word sinking into him like gospel.

You expect him to laugh.

Or worse, to pity you.

And when you fall silent, when you turn your face away to hide the burning in your chest, he steps closer.

You blink up at him, stunned.

"So we’ll do it," he says simply, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

"We’ll do all of it."

"Zayne—"

"I mean it," he cuts in, voice fierce and steady. "Whatever time we have — we use it. Every second. No regrets."

You want to believe him.

God, you want it so badly your heart physically aches with it.

Still—still—

But you’ve been burned by hope before.

You know how cruel the world can be to people like you.

The way he looks at you now, fierce and soft all at once —the way he says we —you think maybe, just maybe, it’s worth believing again.

"Okay," you whisper, a little breathless, a little terrified.

He smiles then — not the small, careful smirks you’re used to, but a real, breathtaking smile that lights up his whole face.

"Good," he says, offering his hand to you like it’s a promise.

You slip your fingers into his, and the night folds around you, carrying your fragile hopes into the stars.

Later, back in your bed, curled up under warm blankets and still clutching the memory of his hand in yours, you allow yourself to dream.

Tiny dreams.

Stupid, beautiful dreams.

You fall asleep smiling.

You imagine catching snowflakes on your tongue with him.

You imagine dancing barefoot in a field, laughing until your lungs ache for the right reasons.

You imagine frosting on your nose, stolen kisses, clumsy hands trying to twirl you around.

You imagine living — even if it’s just for a little while — like you were never sick at all.

The night it happens, it’s unbearably hot — heavy, clinging summer air that sticks to your skin and makes the hospital walls feel even more suffocating.

You’re dozing restlessly in your bed when he appears at your door.

Zayne.

"Come with me," he says, without preamble.

His hair is a little messy, his white coat half-buttoned and wrinkled like he’s been moving fast — a little frantic, a little reckless.

He’s breathing hard, cheeks flushed from the sprint through the halls.

You blink blearily at him, confused.

Before you can protest, he’s wheeling you out of the room, fast and determined.

He doesn’t explain. He just strides forward, unhooks your IV pole from the wall, checks the portable monitor strapped to your wrist, and mutters,

"You’re stable. Good enough."

You always have.

Your heart kicks wildly in your chest — a mix of fear and excitement and confusion — but you don’t ask questions.

You trust him.

—

He leads you to the rooftop.

It’s empty, quiet — the city sprawled out below you like a glittering sea.

The sky overhead is a deep, endless blue-black, scattered with stars.

And then —

Zayne closes his eyes.

Takes a slow, steady breath.

And the world shifts.

It starts slowly — a faint chill curling into the warm summer air, the barest shimmer of cold gathering around him.

Then, with a soft, almost imperceptible hum, it begins to fall.

Snow.

Tiny crystalline flakes drift from the sky, swirling in delicate, shimmering patterns.

You gasp — a real, sharp, alive sound — and reach out instinctively.

A flake lands on your fingertip, melting instantly against your warm skin.

"You said you wanted to see snow," Zayne murmurs, voice low and a little shy. "Real snow’s impossible right now, but…"

He trails off, lifting a hand helplessly, as if embarrassed.

As if this miracle he’s created isn’t enough.

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes.

You can't speak. You can't even think.

You just stand there, under the impossible snowfall, heart thundering in your chest like it might break free entirely.

He watches you — watches the wonder bloom across your face — and his own expression softens, the usual tension bleeding out of his shoulders.

And then—

As if the night wasn’t already enough—

He pulls something out from behind a nearby bench.

A small, messy cake.

"I made it," he says gruffly, ears turning pink. "Don’t laugh."

Lopsided.

Clearly homemade.

Icing smeared unevenly across the top.

You laugh anyway — a bright, broken sound — and it feels good, like sunlight bursting through storm clouds.

He steps closer, offering you a plastic fork.

You scoop a big, absurdly sugary bite and shove it into your mouth without hesitation, icing smearing at the corner of your lips.

Zayne chuckles under his breath — a rare, breathtaking sound — and reaches out with a thumb to wipe the frosting away.

The touch lingers longer than necessary.

The world slows down.

Your heart is pounding so hard now it’s probably setting off alarms somewhere inside the hospital.

And you realize — you don't want this moment to end.

You don’t want to forget any of it.

But you don't care.

Because then—he sets the cake aside.

Takes your hand in his.

The snow still falls around you, shimmering under the rooftop lights.

He doesn’t say a word.

He just pulls you into a slow, clumsy dance — his hand on your waist, your IV line dragging along but forgotten, your feet stumbling awkwardly in hospital socks — and you laugh again, breathless and giddy and so impossibly alive.

You sway together, turning in small circles, the city spinning lazily beyond the rooftop’s edge.

You think maybe your heart is breaking and mending all at once.

You think maybe you’re falling in love.

And when the song of the night winds down to a hush, when you’re standing chest-to-chest and he’s looking down at you with that unbearably soft expression —

You rise up on your toes.

Just a little.

Just enough.

And you kiss him.

Soft.

Gentle.

Trembling with all the things you’re too scared to say.

It isn’t perfect — your noses bump, you’re both a little off balance — but it doesn’t matter.

Because it’s real.

Because it’s yours.

Because it’s every wish you never dared to make coming true at once.

You pull back a fraction, resting your forehead against his, breathing in the cold he summoned just for you.

Neither of you speaks.

You don't have to.

Everything you feel is written in the way his thumb strokes over your wrist, in the way your fingers curl desperately into the fabric of his shirt.

You are here.

You are together.

For however long you have left.

And for now, for tonight, that's enough.

The plan takes a week to set in motion.

Doctor Li is cautious, of course — his worry etched in the lines around his tired eyes — but in the end, he agrees.

Maybe because he sees the way you light up now, the way your charts have stabilized just a little, like your heart has found something worth fighting for.

Or maybe because he remembers — painfully — what life is supposed to feel like outside sterile hospital walls.

Clearance is granted. Nurses fuss and fret, loading your bag with medications and emergency supplies, setting strict curfews and contingencies.

But you don’t care about any of that.

Because when Zayne wheels you out the front doors into the bright, wild world, it feels like stepping into another life entirely.

The city is buzzing, golden sunlight pouring like honey over everything.

And the park — oh god, the park! It's huge and sprawling and alive, filled with the scent of blooming flowers and the sound of children laughing.

Zayne’s hand never leaves yours as he leads you through winding paths, under archways draped in climbing roses, past glittering fountains that catch the light like tiny rainbows.

At one point he finds an empty patch of grass, drops a threadbare blanket he must have stolen from the hospital laundry, and you sit side by side under a tree, dappled sunlight dancing across your skin.

You’re breathless with wonder.

Breathless and alive.

For a long time, you just exist.

Breathing.

Laughing.

Watching the clouds drift by like lazy ships.

And then — quietly, almost shyly — Zayne starts talking about the future.

"Our own place," he says, tracing patterns in the air. "A tiny apartment, the kind where you can hear the neighbors arguing through the walls. We'd have to get a cat. Or a dog. Or both."

You laugh, heart aching sweetly.

He grins, warmed by your smile, and keeps going, voice steady and dreaming.

"I'd cook. You'd probably hate it. You’d tease me until I ordered takeout."

You close your eyes, letting his words wash over you like a blessing.

"And someday…" His voice falters, softens. "If you wanted — we could travel. Anywhere. Everywhere. Mountains, oceans. I’d show you real snow."

You open your eyes, finding him already watching you.

There’s a look in his gaze that’s almost unbearable in its tenderness.

"You’ll see everything," he murmurs, like a vow. "I’ll make sure of it."

You smile.

You don't say what you’re thinking — that you’d be happy seeing anything at all, so long as he’s standing beside you.

You just tuck the dream away, precious and impossible, into the quiet spaces of your heart.

You spend the afternoon like that.

Eating terrible ice cream from a street vendor.

Dancing barefoot in the grass even when your knees wobble and Zayne has to catch you, laughing into your hair.

Taking blurry, ridiculous photos with his phone — him pulling faces, you struggling to keep a straight one.

You are tired beyond words when you return to the hospital — every muscle aching, your chest tight with strain — but you are happy.

So unbearably, blissfully happy.

For the first time in your life, you feel like you belonged to the world.

Like maybe you could carve a little piece of it for yourself after all.

But happiness, you learn, is a fragile thing.

Easily shattered.

Easily lost.

It starts slowly.

Nothing you haven’t dealt with before.

A missed heartbeat here.

A dizzy spell there.

Nothing serious.

At least, that's what you tell yourself.

But soon it’s undeniable.

You don’t want to worry Zayne.

You don’t want to darken the light he’s given you.

You can’t catch your breath after simple movements.

Your fingers tremble when you try to hold a fork.

Your chest burns with a constant, gnawing ache that no amount of oxygen seems to soothe.

Zayne notices, of course.

He’s not stupid.

And he’s terrified.

The night you collapse in your room — monitors screaming, nurses rushing in a panic — Zayne shoves through the crowd like a force of nature, wild-eyed and desperate.

He’s the one who grabs your hand as they work frantically around you. He’s the one who keeps whispering your name, again and again, like he can anchor you here just by speaking it.

"Don’t," he chokes out, voice cracking for the first time since you’ve known him. "Don’t you dare give up. Not now."

You’re so tired.

God, you’re so tired.

Your vision flickers, the world tilting dangerously, but you find his face — blurry, beautiful — and focus on him with everything you have left.

"I’m so close," he says, begging now. "I’m almost there. Just a little longer — I swear — I’ll find a way —"

You smile.

Small. Broken.

You feel your heart weaken again — a tangible, physical slip inside your ribcage — but you hold his gaze.

You don’t have the strength for promises you can’t keep.

But you can give him this:

"I’ll try," you whisper.

It’s the truth.

It’s everything you can offer.

And it’s enough to make his fingers tighten around yours like he can hold you here by sheer force of will.

Like maybe love alone could be enough to save you.

It’s snowing again.

But not like before.

Not like rooftop snow under hospital lights, summoned from Evol and desperation.

This snow is real — thick, heavy flakes falling from a grey sky, the kind you can lose yourself in.

You’re standing in the middle of a wide, open field. Everything around you is blanketed in pure white.

And he’s there.

Zayne.

Not in a lab coat. Not with tired eyes and trembling hands. But whole.

Bright.

Smiling that rare, breathtaking smile he saves only for you.

"You made it," he says, voice warm as he reaches for you.

You laugh — really laugh — the sound echoing across the empty field like a song.

Your body moves easily, no wires tethering you, no weight dragging at your limbs.

You run to him.

You run.

He catches you effortlessly, arms wrapping around your waist, lifting you off your feet in a dizzying, laughing spin.

"You kept your promise," you murmur against his shoulder.

"I told you," he says simply, "I'd show you everything."

You don’t want to let go.

You don’t ever want to let go.

And so you don’t.

You stay like that — pressed against him, his heartbeat steady and sure under your palm — as the snow falls heavier, swirling around you like a blessing.

You close your eyes.

You dream bigger.

You see it all — the tiny apartment, the noisy neighbors, the stupid cat knocking over potted plants.

Burnt pancakes in the morning.

Train tickets to everywhere.

Laughing on crowded streets in cities you can't even pronounce.

Wedding rings slipped onto shaking fingers.

A life.

A real, messy, miraculous life.

With him.

Always, with him.

And for one shining, impossible moment—you believe.

You believe you’ll live long enough to see it.

You believe you already have.

The world is harsh when it drags you back.

Cold.

Bright.

Noisy.

You blink against the glare of fluorescent lights, the steady beeping of machines surrounding you.

The familiar, sterile scent of antiseptic stings your nose.

ICU.

Again.

You shift slightly — everything aches — and feel the tug of new wires and IVs threaded into your skin.

And then —

Warmth.

A hand.

Wrapped around yours.

You turn your head with effort.

And find him there.

Zayne.

Slumped in a chair too small for him, still in his hospital scrubs, dark circles bruising his eyes.

Sleeping.

But even in sleep, he doesn’t let go of you.

His hand is firm, steady, fingers laced with yours like a lifeline.

You watch him — your heart aching with something too big, too fierce to name.

You don’t move.

You don’t dare wake him.

And that’s enough.

Because for now — for this fragile, precious moment — you are still here.

He is still here.

—

You don’t know how long you just lie there, feeling his hand wrapped tightly around yours, listening to the steady blip of your own heartbeat on the monitors.

Eventually, he stirs.

You’re so tired.

But you're also… at peace.

A soft, broken noise leaves him — like even sleep can’t protect him from whatever war he’s fighting inside.

And when his eyes blink open, dazed and bloodshot, they land on you immediately.

As if he's terrified you'll vanish if he blinks again.

For a moment, he just stares.

As if he doesn't quite believe you’re real.

"Hey," you rasp, your voice barely more than a whisper.

His face crumples.

He surges forward, pressing his forehead against your joined hands, squeezing so hard it almost hurts.

You manage a smile — small, but real.

"You're awake," he breathes, voice wrecked with relief and exhaustion.

"God — you're awake."

"I wasn’t gonna miss your dramatic collapse," you joke, because you have to. Because the alternative — the raw fear in his eyes — is too much to bear.

It works, a little.

A huff of helpless laughter shudders out of him.

"You scared the hell out of me," he mutters against your knuckles, his breath shaking.

"You scare me all the time," you tease, lighter now, though your chest aches with every word. "But I’m still here."

He lifts his head, looking at you like you're something sacred.

"You have to stay," he says fiercely. "You have to — just a little longer —please —I'm so close —I swear—"

Your heart twists.

You wish you could bottle it up and drink it, let it heal you from the inside out.

He’s been saying that for so long.

So many promises.

So much hope.

You reach up, fingers brushing his jaw, feeling the stubble that wasn't there yesterday.

"I know," you whisper. "I know you're trying. I’m trying, too."

Your hand falls back to the bed, too heavy to hold up.

His hand follows immediately, cradling it again like he can shield you from the whole world.

"I can’t lose you," he says, so quietly you almost don’t hear it.

His thumb strokes over your knuckles, desperate and tender all at once.

"You won't," you whisper.

It’s a lie, and you both know it.

But it’s a kind lie.

The kind you tell someone when love outweighs truth.

His eyes glisten, wet and angry and afraid.

"You’re going to live," he says, like it’s a fact.

Like he can will it into existence.

You smile again — soft and sad and full of all the things you don't have the strength to say.

"I'll make sure of it," he vows, fierce and breaking.

"I’ll tear the world apart if I have to."

Even now, when your body feels like it’s slipping further away from you with every beat.

You believe him.

You always believe him.

Even now, when you know some promises are too big for this world.

You squeeze his hand weakly.

"I love you," you whisper before you can stop yourself.

It’s the first time you’ve said it out loud.

The first and — you know — maybe the last.

He lets out a broken, shuddering sound, and leans forward until his forehead rests against yours.

"I love you more," he whispers back, trembling.

"I love you enough to move heaven and earth if that's what it takes."

You close your eyes.

You let yourself believe it.

Just for a little while longer.

Just until the morning comes.

The days bleed together in a haze of too-bright mornings and too-quiet nights.

Sometimes you’re strong enough to sit up, to laugh a little when he brings you sweets hidden in his bag, the ones the nurses pretend not to see.

Sometimes you can’t even lift your head.

But he never leaves.

Zayne is there through all of it — a constant, stubborn presence.

He drags a battered medical textbook everywhere he goes, flipping through it with growing desperation between moments spent at your side.

You catch him muttering to himself sometimes — notes, formulas, theories — a language only he and the universe seem to understand.

His eyes never lose that fierce, determined light. Not even when the others — the nurses, the doctors, even his father — start looking at you with that pitying softness usually reserved for lost causes.

Zayne refuses.

Refuses to believe you are anything less than a miracle still waiting to happen.

And for a while, you let him.

You let yourself believe it too.

You dream together — quietly, in snatches of exhausted conversation.

Little things.

You fall asleep with his hand in yours, and for a moment, you almost think you’ll wake up to that future.

Trips you’ll take.

Places you’ll see.

A life waiting just beyond the next sunrise.

Almost.

It happens in the middle of the night.

At first, it's nothing.

A shiver.

A slight breathlessness.

You're used to it. You think you’ll ride it out like all the others.

But then the pain hits.

A blinding, seizing agony in your chest that knocks the air from your lungs.

You’re distantly aware of Zayne shouting — your name over and over—his voice cracking in a way you’ve never heard before.

Monitors shriek.

Nurses rush in.

The world explodes into chaos.

You try to find him — try to reach out — but your limbs are so heavy, your vision swimming.

You catch one glimpse — just one — of him being dragged back by hospital staff, his face twisted in a raw, desperate kind of terror that tears something deep inside you.

But you can’t speak.

You want to tell him it’s okay.

You want to tell him you’re not afraid.

You can’t even breathe.

And as the darkness rushes up to meet you —you think, faintly —

I’m sorry.

He’s still holding your hand.

Hours later, long after the machines have fallen silent.

Long after the nurses have cried quietly behind the curtains.

Long after his father stood at the door, silent and broken, and then walked away because he couldn't bear to watch his son shatter.

Zayne is still there.

Head bowed, shoulders shaking.

Your hand cradled in both of his like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.

"Come on," he whispers, voice hoarse and raw. "Come on — you promised. You said you’d try —"

He presses your hand to his mouth, breathing you in like maybe he can still find some piece of you, some lingering spark that he can fan back to life.

"You can't leave yet," he says, broken. "I’m not ready — I’m not—"

The words dissolve into a rough, gasping sob.

It’s not fair.

You were supposed to have more time.

You were supposed to see the world, to laugh and dance and live.

You were supposed to have a lifetime — not just borrowed days.

Zayne buries his face against your cold fingers.

He doesn’t care who sees.

Doesn’t care if it’s undignified or messy or hopeless.

You loved him.

And he loved you.

Enough to move mountains.

Enough to break himself into pieces trying to save you.

Enough to hold onto you, even now — even when the world is cruel enough to have taken you away.

"I’m sorry," he chokes out against your skin. "I’m so sorry — I wasn’t enough —"

It isn't true. You would have told him that if you could. You would have told him he was always enough.

But all that's left is silence.

Zayne stays there, long after the world outside your hospital room forgets.

Long after the snow he once summoned for you has melted away.

Long after the rest of the universe moves on.

Just like you.

He stays.

Because love doesn’t vanish with the heart that carried it. It lingers—stubborn and beautiful and devastating —like the first snowfall on a summer night.

The rooftop hasn’t changed much.

Zayne stands there now, a tall figure in a dark coat, hands tucked into his pockets against the cold.

The same cracked tiles underfoot.

The same rusted railings.

The same battered bench, where once — a lifetime ago — two dreamers sat and imagined a future they could almost touch.

It’s snowing.

Soft, heavy flakes drifting down from a sky the color of mourning doves.

The night he watched you dance in the middle of summer, your laughter lighting up the world more than any stars ever could.

Exactly the way it did that night.

The night he made it snow for you.

His throat tightens.

He tilts his head back, lets the snow kiss his skin.

Lets the memories wash over him — sharp and tender all at once.

The wind whistles softly around him, as if in agreement.

"You'd hate this," he murmurs to the empty air, a wry smile ghosting across his face.

"You always said snow was pretty, but cold was overrated."

He closes his eyes.

He can almost see you — spinning in the falling snow, hands outstretched, that shy, luminous smile you only ever showed him.

Almost.

Zayne shifts, pulling something from his coat pocket — a small, delicate bouquet.

Not flowers.

Paper cranes.

Hand-folded, each one painstakingly creased.

A thousand wishes, a thousand promises.

He sets them carefully on the bench.

A silent offering to the girl who once taught him what it meant to dream — even if dreams don’t always come true.

"I did it," he says quietly, voice rough.

"I kept my promise."

He swallows hard, staring out into the snowy city lights.

"I couldn’t save you," he admits, the old grief still a raw, tender thing inside him. "But I saved others."

Hundreds of them.

Patients who would have died, now living because of the research, the surgeries, the relentless fire you lit inside him.

Because of you.

Always because of you.

Zayne breathes in deep, the cold burning his lungs, grounding him.

"I hope... wherever you are," he says, soft and sure, "you're proud."

The snow falls heavier now, blurring the edges of the world.

Zayne stands there a little longer, letting the silence wrap around him like a memory, like a prayer.

Finally, he turns to leave.

But before he goes, he glances back one last time —and for just a heartbeat —he thinks he sees you.

He doesn't blink.

Standing there in the snow, smiling.

Weightless. Free.

He just smiles back, tears blurring the world into stars.

"Happy anniversary, angel," he says.

And then he walks away, carrying you with him — in every beat of his heart.

Always.

[auroralwriting]

wait for your love

spencer reid x fem!liaison!reader

after joining the bau eight months ago, you and spencer quickly became close. too close, to be just friends, that is.

word count: 2k

warnings: comfort and fluff, no use of y/n, mutual pining, (un)reciprocated feelings, spencer's love-blind, he only likes your touch, vague hints at spencer's autism, playful flirting

Spencer Reid was all you'd ever wanted. He was a sweet, smart, charming, a gentleman. He understood your thoughts and feelings. He made time for you, and actually, the two of you spent a great deal of time together on a daily basis. It was rare you'd go more than two days without seeing the resident genius.

You were even the rare exception to his physical touch boundaries-- he couldn't keep his hands off of you. Holding your hand or interlocking your pinkies was a common form of touch you shared. Hugs, cuddling, and sharing beds wasn't uncommon, either. Usually on cases, you roomed together, even if you had separate rooms. You were Spencer Reid's solace, even more so-- simply his person.

The only issue? He was just your best friend.

For as close as the two of you were, no, you weren't dating. No, you had no clue how he felt about you. Sometimes it felt like he reciprocated your feelings, but then he'd go and call you something like his best friend. So, maybe he didn't reciprocate the feelings. But that was fine, you were still in his life and he was in yours. That was all that mattered, right?

You barreled into Spencer's hotel room the moment he opened the door from your rapid knocks.

Spencer watched as you flopped face-first on his bed with a chuckle, "Hello to you, too." He walked over to where you laid, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Can you guys please profile this douche any quicker?" You groaned into his pillow, the whine of your voice making Spencer smile. "I'm seriously done with the press on this one. I cannot take another call from stupid Heather Young."

"Who's Heather Young?" Spencer asked as you flipped yourself over quickly, sitting up to face him.

Begrudgingly, you pointed to the small TV that sat in front of his bed. "She's some nosey, obsessive, and pestering news reporter who wants the full coverage story on this case." You sighed. Heather Young truly was testing every limit you had. Her phone calls boarded on stalker, at least one an hour, if not more. You'd tried to block her number, but she found another phone to use. "She won't leave me alone. I swear, Spence, every hour this woman calls!"

Spencer knew all too well the struggles of being a liaison, and this was one of them. Dealing with obnoxious reporters and pestering questions would frustrate him to no end. That's why he admired you so much, for your tolerance and patience.

Your phone rang, and you groaned, turning back over and letting yourself fall face-first back into Spencer’s pillow. He chuckled, grabbing your phone and shutting it off so you wouldn’t receive any more calls for the night. “See? Problem solved,”

“Until six a.m when she calls me trying to get an inside scoop,” your muffled voice whined.

“You’re so grumpy,” Spencer chuckled, leaning on his arm beside you. “Come on, don’t let some stupid news reporter get you like this.”

Maybe if you'd looked closer, harder, you would've noticed the adoration in the genius's eyes. However, you just rolled your eyes and scoffed at his words. "M not grumpy,"

Spencer chuckled, poking your side teasingly. "You definitely are," He chuckled at the way you squeaked, shooting upward at the ticklish sensation.

"Spence!"

"If I were to look up the definition for grumpy, your name would be its definition." Spencer continued to softly poke at your ribs and sides, causing giggles to spew from your lips like an endless waterfall. It was music to Spencer's ears.

"Spencer!" You tried to whine, but it came out as laughter instead.

After a minute or so of his relentless attack, Spencer eased. "See? Not so grumpy anymore. I just know the grumpy cure."

"Tickling me is not a cure," You argued, crossing your arms as you sat criss-crossed in front of him. When Spencer went to reach forward, you sucked in a breath, "Okay, okay! Consider me cured!"

Spencer just chuckled at your words. "Admit it, you were grumpy. I could tell based on the way you threw yourself onto my bed." Spencer joked. He wasn't wrong. His hand, instead of poking, found its way to your side, but it gently caressed you in a sweet motion.

With another roll of your eyes, you smiled, letting Spencer know wordlessly he was right. His touch was soft and comforting. Spencer's touch, no matter how it's given, was the cure.

The moment was broken when your phone buzzed, a text from JJ lighting up your screen. For a moment, ignoring it was a highly considerable option, until you realized you were still on a case, and it could be important.

"Who's that?" Spencer asked, looking over your shoulder as you grabbed your phone from his bedside table.

"JJ," You simply stated.

Where are you? The text read.

With Spence, need anything?

Why can't you ever stay in your own rooms, SMH!! Wanted to see if you're ready to give the profile tomorrow?

You chuckled at her text, As ready as I'll ever be

KK, I won't bother you two lovebirds anymore! Enjoy Spencer time!!!

Spencer grinned at the texts. "You don't think she's going to read into that, do you?"

"She already does," You shrugged, setting your phone back down. "The whole team always asks, 'When are you and Spencer getting together?,' 'When are you finally gonna date?,' blah, blah, blah."

With an eyebrow now raised, Spencer felt himself become surprised at your response. While he speculated there was some sort of, well, suspicion about the two of you, he was never on the receiving end of any of it. Apparently, that's because you were. "How many people have asked about us? Just the team?"

"Just them," You paused, considering his question. "Wait, you don't know about this?"

Spencer became more confused at your tone, "No, I don't."

"They think we're madly in love or something," you chuckled, trying to hide your true feelings, "talking about our future little genius-liaison babies."

The genius's mind became scattered, flooded with images of the two of you that his mind created in a moments notice. Children, marriage, love. It felt so surreal picturing you, yet so right. "Did you ever deny it?"

"For the first few months," You confirmed with a solid nod. "I just don't really entertain it anymore. I don't see them stopping anytime soon."

Spencer nodded, clearing his throat. "You haven't let them think it's true though, right?"

"Why?" You asked, his words confusing you. "Is there some sort of problem being with me?"

You felt defensive at his words. Maybe this was his way of telling you the feelings aren't reciprocated. Maybe, all along, you were playing the fool. This stupid, silly little mistake of a crush was mere moments from destroying your closest friendship. You wished you could swallow this whole conversation down like bad medicine and pretend it never happened.

Spencer paused for a moment, your question making his heart drop. "Why would you ask me that?" He softly asked.

"Just--" You sighed, turning over to lay on your side that faced away from him. As much as this sucked, you couldn't see yourself leaving him, either. "forget about it, Spence."

You were upset now, that much was apparent. Spencer couldn't tell if it was about the team, or his response. He wasn't good at talking to girls, let alone about romance. Spencer softly laid on his side, wrapping his arm around your middle and trying to gently pull you into him.

"Spence, it's really fine, just--" You knew this play. You knew he was going to give you the softest affection to try and get you to open up.

"It's not fine, you're upset." Spencer observed, a gentle firmness behind his voice. He hated it when you closed in on yourself.

Adamant about not moving, Spencer realized his efforts were useless; you weren't going to budge. So, he scooted closer until front was pressed against your back, practically spooning you. When your body went rigid against his, Spencer felt disappointment seep into his heart. You always melted into him. Ever so softly, Spencer let his free hand come up and begin to massage your scalp, slowly playing with your hair ever so often.

Like memory, your body began to relax into his, just the way he wanted it to. Of course, it was against your better judgement, but soft moments with Spencer Reid was what you lived for.

Spencer smiled against your shoulder, his efforts weren't so fruitless after all. "You're so stubborn," Spencer mumbled into your shoulder.

"M not stubborn," you muttered in reply, heat rising to your cheeks at his words.

"Yes, you are." Spencer said, giving you a small squeeze. It made you giggle in reply, making Spencer's heart thump loudly in his chest. Could you hear it, too? "You never answered me before,"

You hummed, "Hmm?"

Spencer said your name slowly, a growl of a warning. He needed to fix whatever happened. There was no way he was going to let you stay upset at him.

"I asked you that because.." you hesitated. "I don't know. would there be a problem being with me?"

At your soft words, Spencer realized what had happened. He'd been a fool and insulted you. How could he ever do such a thing? "Of course there wouldn't be a problem being with you," he breathed softly into your ear.

"Then.." you paused, "then why aren't we, I don't know, together?" You rolled over to face him. "I mean, we do this," Your hands waved in the air, motioning to your current position with the genius. "We're always together. We even sleep over! Even the team asks me why we aren't together and--"

Spencer felt shock flood his system at your confession. Did this mean what he thought it meant? Was he reading this right?

"Just, why? Is it me?"

Taking a deep breath, Spencer choked down his fears. "I've been.. scared."

"Scared?" Your desperation morphed into one of curiosity and confusion at his words.

"Scared," Spencer confirmed softly. "I didn't know how you felt. I didn't know if you even wanted this.. us,"

Humor slowly filled the situation. Maybe you'd both been fools, but not in the way you'd originally thought. "Do you really think I cuddle with all my best friends?"

Spencer raised a brow at your words. Yeah, he felt unbelievably stupid. How could he not have seen it before? "No, I suppose not." He meekly replied, a small smile growing on his lips. "Does that mean you-you really want to be my girlfriend?"

A chuckle escaped your lips, "Spencer Reid, you ought to know better than to assume. Don't you know what that makes you?"

He smiled in return, rephrasing his question. "You want to be my girlfriend."

"I do," you smiled.

"I want to be your boyfriend," Spencer replied with a now wide grin on his face.

You felt your heart skip a beat, "I want that, too."

"Do you want to be my girlfriend?" Spencer asked, the question feeling like one of a middle-school boy. Nothing else felt right to say, though. Nothing felt as sweet and innocent as this moment did.

A finger patted your chin as you faked deep thought. "I don't know, it's a lot to consider."

Spencer let out a small laugh, propping himself up. He moved over top of you, his weight now on his forearms as you stared up at him. "Oh, really now?"

"Yeah, being tied down is a lot, you know?"

He leaned down closer to you, so close you could feel the tip of his nose grazing your own. "Tied down," he chuckled with amusement.

"That begs your question; should I be your girlfriend?"

"I say yes," Spencer said, his lips mere centimeters from your own.

Staring down at his lips, you whisper, "I say yes, too."

Like a moment of explosion, your lips meshed perfectly with Spencer's. It felt like everything you'd dreamt of thus far. Poor Spencer, he was in absolute bliss. He felt like he'd been waiting this day his whole life and another. It was magic, heaven, and unbridled passion.

"Stay here tonight?" Spencer whispered as he pulled back, lips tingling with the feeling of you.

"Always," you smiled, pulling him in for another kiss.

[save-mohamed-family]

My life, and the lives of my children and wife, have turned into a continuous nightmare. Words cannot describe the extent of the pain and suffering we endure. Our reality in Gaza has become bleak, with each passing day burdening us with more tragedies and hardships that seem endless.

The least I can describe is the line where I stand with my children, waiting for water. I am severely injured, facing the possibility of losing my leg, yet I stand as thousands of others do. These scenes repeat daily, adding to our pain and suffering.

I had dental surgery an hour before posting this. Imagine the pain I went through because there were no painkillers available.

Don't these children deserve a dignified life like other children around the world? My children, my wife, and I are waiting for any small help from your donations. 5 euros can change the reality we live in.

Every day, or even every hour, we move from place to place. Please, I want to leave before the time comes when I can no longer ask for help and my children, my wife, and I are killed.

I am eagerly waiting for any gesture from your compassionate hearts, hoping for your kindness and mercy. I long for you to share my story and make a donation, as we are in desperate need. My children, my family, and I love you and are waiting for a change in the donation number that could alter our tragic reality.

All my information is verified and my campaign has been authenticated.

@ibtisams @marnota @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @i-am-aprl @northgazaupdates @fairuzfan @faggotfungus @ghost-and-a-half @three-croissants @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @magnus-rhymes-with-swagness @northgazaupdates

[luna-azzurra]

Enemies to Lovers (School Edition) Prompts

Detention Buddies From Hell (and Then... Not) ╰ Two students who cannot stand each other keep getting thrown into detention together. At first, it’s a war of eye-rolls and sarcastic muttering. But somewhere between graffiti cleaning and awkward silences, they start asking real questions. Like, “Why do you hate everyone?” and “Do you always talk this much when you’re nervous?”

Battle of the Group Projects ╰ They’ve been paired for a semester-long project. One’s a perfectionist who color-codes everything, the other’s a chaotic last-minute miracle worker. They clash. Hard. But during one all-nighter in the school library, they crack each other’s armor, and maybe laugh a little too long at each other’s jokes.

Hall Monitor vs. Chronic Rule-Breaker ╰ She takes her job way too seriously. He thinks rules are made to be creatively misinterpreted. He keeps getting caught. She keeps giving warnings instead of writing him up. And somewhere along the way, she starts waiting to catch him. And he starts hoping she will.

The Class President Debate Disaster ╰ They're both running for student body president. Both ambitious, sharp-tongued, and petty as hell. It starts with sabotage and anonymous posters. It ends with late-night texting about policy ideas and almost kissing in the janitor's closet after a heated debate.

Rival Babysitters Club (Yes, really) ╰ They both run babysitting gigs in the same neighborhood. Competition is fierce. Then they’re both hired by the same family for twins. Now they have to work together without murdering each other... while also baking dinosaur cupcakes and reading bedtime stories. They’re still arguing, but now it's while sharing Goldfish crackers.

Secret Pen Pals (With a Twist) ╰ Their teacher assigns anonymous weekly letters between students. They're supposed to “foster kindness and trust.” What it fosters is a connection that grows deeper each week. Neither knows they’re actually writing to the person they argue with constantly in class. Oh no. Oh yes.

Library Feud ╰ There’s only one free desk in the library, and they both claim it like clockwork. It starts with passive-aggressive note-leaving. Then competitive study playlists. Then “accidentally” sitting together during finals. Quiet enemies, quiet flirting, soft romance.

The Lab Partner From Hell ╰ They’re paired in chemistry. He’s lazy but brilliant. She’s organized but stressed. He teases. She glares. But somewhere between setting things on fire and saving each other from academic ruin, there’s a weird tension. And she’s not sure if the butterflies are from the Bunsen burner or him.

Theater Kids in a Love/Hate Spiral ╰ They both audition for the same lead. They both get it, because the director loves chaos. Cue over-the-top drama, stage fights that feel too real, and way too much time blocking scenes that require holding hands. And maybe... maybe they like it.

Enemies in the Comments Section ╰ They’re in the school’s digital journalism club. Both write opinion pieces. They always tear each other apart in anonymous comments. Turns out, they’re both also the last two at every meeting, working late and laughing a little too easily. Plot twist: they’ve been falling for each other offline while fighting online the whole time.