#“It’s so fucking dark in here” I scream from the trenches

[tedlebred]

chat I’m sitting my first ever exam this Wednesday. How am I supposed to come out alive

[back2bluesidex]

Closer To You - JJK (18+)

Pairing: Rich, spoilt brat!Jeongguk X Doctor! Reader

Theme: Angst, smut, kinda yandere if you squint, toxic relationship au.

Wordcount: 1k+

Summary: You know that you and Jeongguk are completely different individuals from every possible aspect, and there is no future of this relationship but you can’t push him away, not when he only wants to come closer to you.

Warnings: Angst, heavy language, swearing, not super explicit sex, jeongguk is kinda mean, he refuses to wear a condom (don't do the same), obsessive behavior, hints of class difference, kinda dirty talk, reader is trying hard to push him away but he won't budge. NSFW!!

Minors are not allowed in this blog!!

Listened to Closer To You by Jungkook.

It feels weird to enter your own apartment. 

Your skin crawls underneath the heavy trench coat, as if your sixth sense is telling you that there’s something or someone waiting patiently for you inside. 

Your suspicion is confirmed when you see his silhouette prominent against the bright backdrop of your otherwise dark apartment window. 

He sits still, patiently. His eyes are focused on something you can’t tell due to the darkness. 

“What are you doing here?” you finally let your breath go and you didn’t even know you were holding it on for so long. 

You turn on the lights, slip out of your shoes and coat and walk towards the couch where he is sitting currently. He turns his head to look at you. 

“Why? Expected someone else?” Jeongguk stands up on his toes and takes a few steps towards where you are standing. 

His dark jeans, dark shirt and dark expression, everything complements the dark aura he is oozing right now. But he looks beautiful regardless. 

You scoff, “Is it not justified for me to expect anyone but you? Especially when you are the one who has been ignoring me for two weeks and three days to be precise?” 

“You fucking ditched me during the party, Y/N! You made me a look like fool before my friends just because you got called at work! How would you treat me if you were in my shoes?” Jeongguk screams at your face. His height looms over your small figure. The weight of his gaze intimidates you but you know how to shake that off. 

He is angry, you know. But you also know that his anger is not justified. 

“I would have understood, Jeongguk.” you pause, taking a few steps away from him, “you need to understand that I lead a completely different life. I don’t have time to waste sipping champagne wearing over-expensive silk dresses. I am a doctor! And I need to sacrifice my personal time for the sake of my patients! If you can’t get that in your head, if you can’t respect what I do then just fuck off! Let’s break the fuck up!” 

Your voice feels hoarse instantly. You have hardly ever screamed so much. This is so unlike you, you can’t recognize yourself. Jeongguk really pulls out the worst of you. 

Jeongguk scoffs, then he is grinning and then he is laughing at the loudest possible volume, “What? What did you say? You are going to what- break up with me?” 

You hate this side of your boyfriend. 

When you first met him at the hospital, he had minor scratches and a set of big puppy eyes. When he cutely told you how he fell down while snowboarding, you couldn’t help smiling. 

Only if you knew he is just like other rich brats sporting a “I want it, I get it” attitude, you would have resisted his bunny smile and big doe eyes, you would have stayed professional when he asked for your number, you would have turned him down when he asked you out. But now you are here, 8 months into this relationship with Chaebol Jeon Jeongguk, standing on the verge of the end because you just can’t stand being with him anymore. 

“Jeongguk please… Please just stop treating me like a possession. I am not your shiny new car. I am a human being! If you don’t love me, just- just let me go.” your voice comes out weaker than it should. Even though it has only been 8 months, even though Jeongguk is not the most ideal boyfriend, even though you two have hell and heaven difference between you, you still fell for him regardless. And you know it’s a mistake because there is no way you are more than just a fancy doctor girlfriend for him. It hurts but you know rationality is more important than your feelings right now. 

You are so busy gathering your own wits that you don’t notice the heartbroken expression that takes over Jeongguk’s beautiful face. 

“I- I don’t love you? I don’t treat you like a human?” his voice weavers. The tremble in his words makes you look up at him. 

“No you don’t.” you say briefly. 

“Oh?” his eyes start glistening with moisture and he diverts those away from yours. Running a hand through his hair out of frustration he groans, “then why do you think I am with you?” 

That’s a million dollar question, you don’t know the answer properly. So, you reply with what you think is the most appropriate answer, “it makes you look cool. A normal working class girlfriend to a millionaire chaebol… What a good match!” 

As soon as your answer ends, you see Jeongguk taking fast steps towards you. He grabs you by your neck and pulls your face closer to his. You stumble, being unable to keep up with his actions. 

“I love you, Y/N. You better get that inside your head. I am not letting you go, not now, not ever.” he breathes on your face, pinning you down with a sharp, piercing look in his eyes. 

You don’t know what to feel, not when you see a weird determination in his eyes, not when his mouth is crashing on yours, not when Jeongguk is devouring your lips fervently. 

Minutes pass and you find yourself naked in your bed, with Jeongguk in between your thighs, kissing your mound, licking your clit and saying “I love you” in every interval. 

You don’t know what to feel when he pushes his girthy length inside you but refuses to wear a condom claiming to “shoot his babies inside you”. 

You don’t know if your stomach is filled with butterflies or fear or is it just Jeongguk’s bulge, when he fucks you relentlessly murmuring how much he worships your body, how he wants to fuck you every day after marriage. 

You don’t know whether to kick him out of your apartment or keep him with you forever when he cleans you up, places a kiss on your forehead, tells you that he loves you again and again and gradually falls asleep beside you. 

You only know that you and Jeongguk are completely different individuals from every possible aspect and there is no future of this relationship but you can’t push him away, not when he only wants to come closer to you. 

[flowersandbigteeth]

Hi hope you've had a lovely weekend.

How about a female human who suffers depression and anxiety, is visited by a vampire who initially meant to just drink her blood but ends up showing her that she has worth. he finds as they get very intimate that she's his mate

I like this idea! I have bipolar 1, so I get depressed a lot. The description in this is just how I experience depression, personally.

Vampire (Serge) x female reader with depression

Word Count: 4k

W: kidnapping, some talk of unaliving oneself, non sexual bath, sfw fluff

You splashed a handful of cold water on your face and gazed into the mirror. Your hair was a wreck and you had deep circles under your eyes. Objectively, you looked like shit. Sighing, you stared at your toothbrush. You should be brushing your teeth, getting ready for work, but you felt like complete trash and all you wanted to do was curl back up in bed. 

You picked up your phone and dialed your job. 

“Hey, Susan,” you said to your boss, “I think I’m coming down with something. I won’t be able to come in today.” 

Susan snarled on the other end of the line. 

“If you’re going to call out, you need to find someone else to cover your shift,” she snapped. 

You groaned, rubbing your eyes. 

“Yeah, whatever,” you said, then hung up the phone. 

Scrolling through your contact list a few times, wondering who to call, you eventually just gave up. Fuck it. Who cares if I get fired? I hate that job anyway. It wasn’t likely anyone was going to take your shift. They all hated their job as much as you. Fast food jobs were a dime a dozen, if you lost this one, you’d get hired across the street by someone else. You trudged back to your bed and curled up under the covers. In a few minutes you were fast asleep. 

You woke with a start. Glancing out the window you could see it was dark outside. You’d slept all day. You checked your phone and there were ten calls from Susan and a string of angry text messages. Not bothering to read them, you tossed your phone on your pillow and dragged your feet to the kitchen. Opening the fridge you found some leftover chinese food one of your roommates had left. You knew he would be pissed you ate his food, but you couldn’t be bothered to care and grabbed the styrofoam box. Having not bought any of your own food for over a week, you had nothing else to eat. 

Closing the refrigerator you screamed, tossing the Chinese food in the air and it exploded all over the floor, chicken landing on your bare foot.

“Who the fuck are you?” you gasped at the man standing in front of you. 

He wasn’t anyone you recognized, incredibly tall with broad shoulders. His long hair was bone white and his eyes seemed to glow ice blue in the dark kitchen. You took in his beautiful face with utter confusion. You’d never seen someone so beautiful. Was he one of your roommates' friends? You’d thought you were alone in the house. Maybe he was a hookup making an exit, but he was far more handsome than any of your roommates usual partners.  

He smiled at you, revealing straight, white teeth framed by pointy fangs, and a hand reached out running two fingers along your jaw. 

“Aren’t you a pretty little trinket?” he murmured, his eyes raking over your body. His voice was lilting and deep, his words touched by a slight accent. 

Your brow drew and you pulled away from him. 

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” you snapped, then, “what’s up with your eyes…and your teeth? Are you a cosplayer?” 

It was bizarre that a cosplayer would be in your kitchen at 11 o’clock at night, but you couldn’t come up with any other explanation. He was wearing a long black trench coat, with a loose white shirt underneath. It was only buttoned halfway up his chest, revealing the hard planes of his muscles and a gold necklace. He stared at you for a second before bursting into a roll of laughter. 

“I don’t dress up and play pretend,” he said, still chuckling a little and putting a hand in the pocket of his trim slacks. 

He leaned casually against the fridge, looking down. 

“I’m sorry I spoiled your dinner,” he said, “but it’s only fair, you spoiled mine.” 

You frowned at him. 

“Was the Chinese food yours?” you asked. 

He grinned, his fangs glinting in the low light. Again, he reached out to touch you, this time stroking your cheek. 

“No, I had something else in mind,” he purred, his glowing eyes brightening. 

“Oh…well sorry,” you grumbled, pulling away. “I guess no dinner for both of us. Make sure you lock the door on your way out.” 

You turned on your heels and marched back to your room, intending to text your roommate and ask him to get his hookups to leave when he did. You didn’t like random weirdos lurking around in the dark. You opened the door to your room and screamed again, jumping a foot in the air. 

The man stood in front of you, as if he’d materialized like magic. 

“How…?” you gasped, your heart pounding, “how did you do that…you were just…” 

You stammered, your mind blown. That was impossible. He couldn’t have gotten to your room that fast. 

He laughed again, tipping his head to the side to look at you. You blinked your eyes rapidly, wondering if this was some kind depression induced hallucination. Your parents had told you to go to the doctor to get a prescription to help with your mental illness and you’d brushed their recommendations away. Everytime you’d try to pick up the phone and make an appointment, you’d be overcome with anxiety and never manage to make the call. Now you wondered if that had been a big mistake. You were obviously losing it. 

You carefully stepped forward, placing your hand on his chest, checking that he was real. He seemed solid enough. You patted his shoulders and then his sharp jaw. 

“You’re real,” you murmured, pulling your hands away, “what the fuck?” 

You squealed as he grabbed you by the arm, pulling you further into the room and shut the door behind you. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” you screamed. “Let me go!” 

He sat elegantly on your bed, putting you in his lap. 

“I let you touch me. It’s only fair I can touch you,” he informed you. 

You tried to scramble out of his lap, but he was inhumanly strong, holding you still while he studied your face. 

“What are you?” you hissed. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “I’m a vampire.” 

Your eyes widened at him. He was clearly a nut job. You thought you were crazy, but this home intruder thought he was a vampire! Sure he mysteriously appeared in front of you, but a vampire? You just couldn’t believe it. 

“Look if you’re going to murder me to fulfill your weird fantasy, just be quick about it,” you sighed, slumping in his arms. “And delete my browser history before the police come. My password is Pandabear.” 

He laughed, before his chuckles died and he frowned at you. 

“You’re serious…” he murmured. 

You shrugged. 

“I don’t have much else going on…” you admitted. “Being killed by a cosplaying psycho will at least be a good story. Maybe I’ll make the news. That’s about all I’ve got to contribute to society.” 

His eyebrows lifted and he looked at you thoughtfully. 

“How did this happen?” he said softly. “I’ve never met a victim more willing to die.” 

Since he all but confirmed he planned on killing you, you squeezed your eyes shut and took a deep breath. 

“Okay…I’m ready…do it,” you said, feeling a little relieved. 

Finally this miserable life you had would end. 

You held your eyes shut for what felt like forever, but when nothing happened you popped one eye open and looked at him. He was smirking, his eerie eyes moving over your face. 

“What are you waiting on?” you pouted. “Did you forget your knife or something? We’ve got some in the kitchen.” 

His brow drew and he looked at you like you were the crazy person. 

“I assure you, trinket, if I wanted to kill you I wouldn’t need a knife,” he said, “but that’s no longer my intention. You’re much too precious to be food.” 

Wilting, you sighed. You were so useless a psycho killer didn’t even want to do his thing with you. How pathetic was that? 

“Well what do you intend to do with me, then?” you snapped a little offended you weren’t even good enough to murder, though you knew it was to be expected, “and what’s your name anyway?” 

He looked at you, running his thumb over your cheek, thinking. 

“My name is Serge. First, I’m going to get a snack, then I’m going to get you cleaned up,” he decided. “You haven’t been taking proper care of yourself. We’re going to fix that. No pet of mine will look so…unkempt.” 

“Pet?” you repeated, but you didn’t have much time to think about it because suddenly you weren’t and then you were. 

In a blink of an eye, you were standing in an alley, somewhere in the city. You lifted one bare foot, wrinkling your nose that your skin was touching god knows what on the ground. 

“What the-” you started to say, but the vampire shushed you. 

“Quiet, trinket,” he murmured. “You’ll scare off my prey.” 

People passed down the larger street and when the vampire found one he liked, you watched him prowl towards the man. He’d dropped something and was bending down to pick it up. When his head rose, he looked at Serge, confused. 

“Can I help you?” he asked. 

Serge put his arm over his shoulder, pulling his face so their gazes aligned. 

“Come with me, handsome,” he purred and the man followed him like a lamb to slaughter into the dark alley. 

He pushed him against the cold brick, his nose just barely grazing the man’s neck as if they were lovers. At first you drew your brow thinking you were simply going to watch Serge make out with some random guy, but that misguided thought was quickly corrected. 

His mouth opened and the fangs that already looked sharp and pointy to you, got longer and pointier before they sank into his neck. You squeaked, covering your mouth with your hands so you didn’t cry out. He drank and drank, until the man went completely limp and flopped to the ground like a rag doll. Your eyes had to be as wide as dinner plates as you stared at Serge. 

“You’re…you’re…a,” you gasped. “You ate him!” 

Serge sauntered back to you, licking the red stain from his lips. 

“I drank his blood,” he corrected, wrinkling his elegant nose. “Vampires do not eat flesh like filthy wolves.” 

He let out a satisfied sigh. 

“Now that I’m feeling full,” he said, looking down at you. “It’s time to get you clean.” 

You turned to run, instinctively, but it was no use. Serge scooped you up in his arms and disappeared you again. 

When you blinked this time, you were in a pretty bathroom. It was all white with a large claw foot tub in the middle of the room. The cabinets and sinks had a vintage look to them and fresh flowers were arranged on a couple of side tables. You’d never been in a room so expensive looking, even at a hotel. 

Serge set you on a plush chair and pulled off his heavy coat, before rolling up his sleeves and setting to work on filling the bathtub. You couldn’t help glancing at his perfect ass as he bent over to add soap and some kind of fragrant salt to the water. It was impossible not to tremble in his presence. He filled up so much space with his broad body and confident personality, but of course he was confident, he was a predator and you were just prey. 

When he seemed satisfied he turned to you, looking you up and down. 

“Strip,” he ordered and your cheeks burned. 

“Can you give me some privacy?” you asked and he let out a little bark of a laugh, approaching you with determined, even steps. 

“I don’t ask for anything twice,” he informed you, jerking your shirt over your head. “It’s best you learn that now.”  

You scrambled to hold onto your pajama pants, but you were laughably weak compared to his strong, ivory fingers. He snatched them off of you easily, along with the panties you were wearing. Your heart stuttered in your chest as he looked you over, though he didn’t leer. His look was pure appreciation, as though you were some pretty piece of art. 

He picked you up and deposited you gently in the warm bath water. 

“Under my roof you will bathe every day,” he said, applying soap to a soft loofah and picking your arm up out of the water and scrubbing it clean.  

“I can do it myself,” you hissed, trying to steal the loofah from him, but he held it above his head so you couldn’t reach. 

“You haven’t been,” he challenged. “If you could do it yourself, you would have. I will do it for you since it seems you can’t.” 

You had to admit he was right. Gathering the energy to take care of yourself felt like an impossible task. He continued scrubbing you, your arms first and then your legs. 

“I’m just depressed,” you mumbled as he focused on his task. He examined each part of you like he was memorizing every freckle and scar. 

“Sometimes it’s hard to get the energy to do anything.” 

His blue eyes flicked up to yours and a small smile played on his lips. 

“Then I’ll have plenty of opportunities to clean you,” he said, then his lips twisted in thought. “We’ll have to do something about your depression. I take very good care of my possessions. Whenever you have a problem we will address it promptly, do you understand?” 

You narrowed your eyes at him. 

“Why are you doing all this if you aren’t going to eat me?” you asked. 

It made no sense. You were just normal, boring you. Most days you couldn't even  get out of bed and when you did manage to rally and get dressed you hardly even brushed your teeth. Why would a beautiful vampire want anything from you? Why would he lower himself to bother to meticulously clean you by hand? 

“Because you’re mine,” he answered without looking up. 

When he’d managed to clean your front and back, he grabbed a small pouch filled with nail tools from one of the cabinets and set to cleaning your nails. He diligently trimmed and shaped each one, humming to himself a tune that sounded ancient. You’d never been so pampered in your life. By the time he got to washing and detangling your hair, you were practically melting into his hands. Happy with his work he scooped you out of the bath and wrapped you in a fluffy towel, scooting you towards the sink and unwrapping a fresh toothbrush he pulled from the cabinet drawer. 

“Do I have to do this part for you?” he asked, raising a questioning eyebrow. 

Your ears burning, you grabbed the toothbrush from his hand and got to work under his careful supervision. You knew it was silly to have someone watching you brush your teeth, but there was also a bit of relief there. Most days it was so hard to build yourself up to do anything. Though you were apprehensive, Serge’s careful coaxing made it a little easier. 

When he was happy you were as clean and neat as you could possibly be you were shuffled into a large bedroom. You jumped, finding another person standing there. He was very handsome, though not quite as striking as Serge, with silver, almost blue hair and dark eyes. 

“Good evening, Master,” he said, then looked at you. “Miss.” 

Serg let out an audible growl. 

“Do not raise your eyes to her,” he snapped and his servant immediately looked down. 

“This is Jules,” he said, waving generally in the man’s direction. “If you need anything you can ask him, but I’d rather you ask me.” 

You looked up at Serge and drew your brow. 

“I’m confused as to what is happening here,” you said. “You say I’m yours, but…I don’t know what that means. You kidnapped me from my home…You have someone waiting on me…I don’t understand.” 

He gave you a patient smile, tipping his head to the side and running his fingertip over your collarbone, making you shudder. 

“You,” he said, poking your nose, “are to be my little mate, trinket.” 

You blinked at him, still confused. 

“Like…pals?” you asked and he erupted into laughter. 

“You’ll understand soon enough,” he said between chuckles, but did not elaborate. 

Instead his eyes grew sharp and he looked at Jules. 

“Bring my mate clothes befitting her station,” he said and Jules gave a curt nod before disappearing. 

You let out a little gasp that he disappeared so abruptly. 

“He’s a vampire, too?” you asked. 

Serge nodded. 

“Everyone here is a vampire,” he said, placing you on the bed and placing a chaste kiss on your forehead, “but there’s no reason to be frightened. I’m their sire. They cannot harm you.” 

He rolled up his sleeve and to your horror bit his own wrist until his blood flowed, holding it out to you. 

“Drink,” he said as it dripped slowly onto the towel you were wrapped in. 

You looked up at him in horror. 

“But…I can’t-” 

You never finished your sentence, because he pressed his wrist to your lips and rubbed your throat like he was force feeding a stray puppy it’s medicine so you would swallow. It wasn’t that it tasted bad. It was a coppery and a bit sweet, but it was blood! 

When he pulled away, he licked the spot on his wrist and the wound closed. Then he licked the bit of blood that was dribbling down your cheek. Your skin heated at the intimate contact and your breath felt short in your lungs. 

“Wh-why?” you stammered. 

He carried you to the little vanity in the room, seating you at the chair. 

“My blood is good for you,” he said and looking at yourself, you let out a little peep. 

Your cheeks, which had been hollow from being too tired to eat, were suddenly plump and glowing with a dewy radiance. The dark rings under your eyes were gone and replaced with supple skin. Even your hair appeared thicker and shinier. Still you were frightened. 

“Am- Am I going to become a vampire?” you asked. 

He shook his head, twirling a bit of your hair around his finger. 

“No, not yet,” he said. “But my blood has restorative properties. It will also help even out your brain chemicals until we can have you seen by a proper human doctor.” 

Your eyebrows flew up. Vampire blood helped with depression? And what did he mean by not yet? Despite your misgivings, you did feel a bit energized, though whether it was because of his blood or adrenaline you couldn’t tell. 

He stood behind you, his hands resting on your shoulders. 

“Look at yourself,” he said, his voice reverent. “Look how beautiful you are.” 

You squinted at yourself. Yes, Serge’s blood had given you a nice facial treatment, but you wouldn’t consider yourself beautiful. 

“I’m…not though,” you whispered, your eyes getting a bit misty. 

He frowned at you, suddenly at your side, jerking your face to look at him with a strong hand. 

“Repeat after me,” he snarled. “I am beautiful.”

You paused for a moment, having a difficult time getting the words out. 

“Since we’ve only just met, I’ll grant you some leniency, but remember if I have to ask twice you will not like your punishment. I’ll count to three,” he hissed, his icy blue eyes boring into you. 

“One.” 

You licked your lips, trying to will the words to come. 

“Two.” 

Your top teeth snagged your bottom lip, preventing you from speaking. 

“Thre-”

“I’m beautiful!” you blurted out. 

He smiled at you, his face pure predator. 

“A wise choice, trinket,” he said. “You’ll tell me how beautiful you are before bed, every day until you believe it.” 

His fingers on your cheek loosened and he cupped the curve of your face, leaning forward to breathe in the scent of soap on your skin. 

“Of all the many treasures I have, you are the most precious,” he murmured into your neck. 

Lightning bolts shot down your spine, making the ends of your nerves sparkle like the fourth of July. 

“But…but…you don’t know me,” you stammered. “You don’t even know my name.” 

He chuckled against your neck, placing a kiss on the place where it joined your shoulder. 

“I’ve lived a very long life,” he said. “I know a good thing when I see it. We will have lots of time to get to know one another. For now just know that you are my little mate and you are safe under my wing. You’ll have all the luxuries you deserve. I’m going to teach you to be spoiled and insufferably self-assured.” 

You were frozen under his touch, not sure if he was playing some kind of game with you. On what planet did a fatally handsome vampire make you his…mate? What did that even mean?

He suddenly scooped you up in his arms, making you squeak. 

“You don’t believe me, stubborn little trinket,” he said. “Come, tell me what your mother christened you.” 

“(Y/N),” you said quietly. 

He looked down at you like a hungry cat. 

“A perfect name for a perfect creature,” he mused, then looked up, marching out of the room. “Let’s start the spoiling with a proper meal. What’s your favorite restaurant? I’ll wake up the owner and the chef so they can cook you something special.” 

“That’s ludicrous, Serge,” you gasped, but he only glared at you. 

You remembered that he didn’t like to have to ask twice, so you hurriedly came up with an answer. 

“Well…there’s this place I always wanted to go, but never had the money,” you admitted. 

His face softened as he carried you down a sweeping, curved staircase. 

“Come on…out with it,” he urged you. 

“It’s called Say Cheese, it’s a grilled cheese bar,” you said. “They make twenty different kinds of grilled cheeses.” 

He raised an eyebrow at you, before bursting into laughter. 

“If my sweet trinket wants grilled cheese, that’s what you will get,” he said. 

Your cheeks heated but you diffidently laid your head against his chest, surrendering to your fate.

[gotstabbedbyapen]

But now we must know, what are your headcanons for the first generation of Gods siblings? Personally? Zeus isn’t allowed to swim with Poseidon cause they always fight and Zeus goes toaster in bathtub mode where he’s the toaster.

I haven't considered Zeus doing the "toaster in bathtub" thing. Thank you Anon, I will put this into my HC list :3333

Now on with the first-generation Olympians (it's gonna be a long ride, so strap on!)

Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon were swallowed when they were young kids/nearing adolescence, not newborn babies. I want Kronos and Rhea's family to have some years of happiness together before the prophecy ruin them all.

Out of the Big Six, Demeter and Hades look the most alike to Kronos (unrelated note: Persephone looks the most alike to Kronos out of the 2nd gen)

Demeter is Kronos' favorite child because she shares his power over agriculture. Kronos has even planned her future to be his successor as goddess of the harvest.

Poseidon has the fear of dark, closed places due to his trauma of being locked in Kronos' stomach. During his first centuries ruling the ocean, he cannot stay in his kingdom at night because the realm gets extremely dark and it paranoid him. Poseidon can't go to the deep trenches either.

To cope with his fear, Poseidon's bedroom is filled with bioluminescent algae and jellyfish.

After escaping Kronos' stomach, Hera was sent to take refuge at Oceanus and Tethys' place. Around this time, she became besties with Amphitrite (I see Amphi as a daughter of Nereus but she is close with the other sea deities too)

Thetis and Hera's friendship is underrated. Hera, Thetis, and Amphitrite have occasional girl's nights where they ditch their spouses to spend time together.

As besties Hera and Amphitrite share the same taste in men *looking at Zeus and Poseidon*

Hera and Amphitrite were not happy when Zeus married off Thetis. Oh boy, there were a lot of screaming and fighting for Thetis' behalf.

It was very surprising when Thetis later made her husband Peleus immortal (there is a version of that lol)

Zeus and Poseidon created the electric eel and other aquatic animals that produce electricity. The purpose? Ask them.

When Hebe was training to become the cupbearer of the gods, Zeus watched over her and gave her tips from time to time. He used to be the cupbearer of Kronos, too.

I am seriously contemplating on whether Poseidon have a thing for Odysseus or not. Like in "I want to fuck you up both ways".

Hades doesn't outright ban the others from coming to the Underworld. The reason he doesn't like them visiting often is because some will ask (read: screaming and crying at) him to resurrect their favorite mortals.

Hades adopted Cerberus some times after Typhon (Cerberus' bio father) was defeated and the doggo had nowhere to go. From then on Cerberus was living in luxury in the Underworld with the only job is to guard the door.

Hades has a messed up sense of humor after centuries of dealing with the dead, and Persephone got infected as well. If you ask Hades "Can you give me a hand?" he will give you an actual hand.

Hades x Persephone x Minthe OT3 is real.

Hades isn't some gloomy dark man. Yeah, he wears black a lot but also with gleaming gems and fine jewelries (you know, god of precious minerals and all).

You don't believe me? Here's the testimony:

(tfw your husband rocks his dress prettier than you :DDD)

The three kings didn't draw lots to determine who will rule which realm. During the Titanomachy, they grew fond over their future kingdom and showed hints of belonging to them.

Poseidon's first hint of becoming King of the Sea is that he makes lots of sea puns. Like, a lot.

They also don't have total rule over their kingdoms. Their authority is above all but still under the Primordials of their respective realms (Zeus is under Nyx, Poseidon under Pontus, Hades under Tartarus). Every time they make major changes in their kingdom, they have to consult the Primordials first.

Demeter isn't officially crowned ruler of the Mortal Realm but they all know she is in charge of the whole place.

Even though the Big Six preside over lots of domains, they don't always tend to each one themselves but have lesser deities like dryads, naiads, nepheles, etc. to assist them while they act like the head directors.

The marriages of the three kings and queens are more about political power than love. It's not that they don't have some feelings for each other though.

When they were young and Zeus is courting Hera, he once put on a peacock tail to woo her.

Demeter is married to Leto and they raised Persephone, Artemis, and Apollo together. I don't take objection.

All of the second-generation Olympians were taken care of by Hestia at least one time.

Do not mistake Hestia's dislike of violence for her incapability of inflicting violence. She can cause more damage than your mental health is prepare for.

Hestia doesn't yell or hit others, but disappointing her is the biggest crime.

Demeter makes the best vegetable dishes, roasts, soups, anything. Kids love veggies because of her. She can make you love broccoli with one meal.

Headacanon but also true myth: Demeter adopted and raised lots of kids on her own. Many of them later became her companions or spread the agricultural knowledge they learned from her to humanity. They all love mama Demeter.

Hera treats her daughters better than her sons, but it's because she is learning from her mistakes in bringing up Ares and Hephaestus. She isn't the best but she is trying everyday.

Zeus doesn't hate Ares, but what he reflects. Ares is a raw reminder of a darker side of Zeus that he'd rather pretend doesn't exist.

I've made this joke before but it's still relevant: The only thing more complicated than advance mathematics is Zeus and Hera's relationship with Ares.

Zeus' favorite children are Athena and Apollo, obviously. His least favorite (as in he doesn't care enough compared to others) are Ares and Persephone.

Iris and Chloris/Flora are not straight because of Hera, but they know they won't have any chances with her.

Zeus' first lover is Aëtos, an earth-born man who was his childhood friend when he lives in Crete.

In the modern world, the lock screen of Hera's phone has the picture of her family being happy together. And her home screen is the pic of Zeus in a Pikachu onesie.

[eating-plastic]

Carnival Lights: Henry Barrow x Reader

Warnings: mentions of murder (come on, it's Henry), swearing, some mean!Henry, naive!reader, sunshine!reader x grumpy!Henry (my favorite dynamic lol), some fluff, probably grammatical errors

Word Count: 3434 words

A/N: This is for that anon that asked me if I wrote for Henry Barrow (assuming that they wanted me to write something for him lol). I know I said I was going to take a break from Killer Frequency, but the “people pleaser” in me wanted to get something done. So yeah, I hope this isn't too disappointing. I also hope that my interpretation of Henry is to your liking (you gotta get creative when given a blank slate like him 😆). As such, I also hope anyone else that is a fan of this skrunkly also enjoys this as well. Oh, also, this takes place before the events of the game during Marie and Henry's "national murder tour" leading up to Gallows Creek. Just thought you should know that. Bye!

--------------------

Sparkling lights and the sound of upbeat music and screams of excitement flood your senses as you skip through the crowds attending your hometown's yearly carnival. You had always partaken in the festivities ever since you were a child, and the event still filled you with joy. Some of the older booth vendors and ride operators even knew you by name.

You had originally shown up with two of your friends, promising that they wouldn't get too "lovey-dovey" with each other since they were a couple, but that was broken about 15 minutes into your arrival. Feeling like a third-wheel, you broke off from them, not really caring too much. You could easily enjoy yourself here without them.

After you finished playing a game where you had to try and hit cartoon sea creatures with a water gun (and failing since your aim wasn't the best), you decided to head to something you knew you were good at: the funhouse maze.

You knew the maze like the back of your hand, and could easily make it from the entrance to the exit, so you decided to see how many combinations of routes you could go. You wanted to know every nook and cranny that these dark, black light lighten halls had to offer.

Once you got bored, you began to make your way to the exit. Once at a crossroad where you needed to turn right, you stopped when you heard a man let out a shout of frustration. Worried that they were lost, you made your way towards the noise to help them out.

'God fucking damnit,' Henry thought. He was so fucking close to getting the man his mother told him to kill. He was right on his tail and then...he was gone. Now he was lost in this Goddamn maze and it was all his stupid fault because he knew he wasn't good with mazes. It was a good idea in theory, since the man would be all alone with no one would hear him scream. But of course in practice it had to bite him in the ass.

He tore his mask off and shoved it into his large duffle bag at his side. God, was it making it hard to breathe in this stuffy prison. Not to mention how that man was probably long gone by now.

'Augh, what am I gonna tell mom?' worry began to flood his mind. She was no doubt going to be pissed at him.

Luckily for Henry, his unaware savior was approaching.

--------------------

As soon as you rounded the corner, you were now facing a man of decent stature, with long hair, a black trench coat, and a large duffle bag at his side. It was quite odd attire to be wearing in the middle of summer, but maybe he was just a worker at the haunted house who wanted to try out the maze on his break. He also seems to be oblivious to your presence, muttering to himself.

"Hi!" you chirp, causing the man to jump and spin around.

"The hell are you doing, here?" he hisses.

"Uh, it's a maze at a carnival. I'm here having fun," his harsh tone was completely lost on you. "You're lost, right?"

"What do you think?" he snarls, but you just laugh.

"Yep! I thought so! Come on, I'll show you the way out," you grab his hand, noting that he was wearing black leather gloves. Also odd, but once again that could've been just another part of the haunted house attire.

The man rips his hand from your grip as if yours had burnt his. You look back at him confused, but just shrug and begin to run off towards the exit.

"Hey, wait!" the man shouts and begins to chase after you, making sure to be on your tail so he could leave.

Eventually, you and him were able to taste the fresh air of the carnival, with the added smell of fair foods. You turn to look at the man, only to be taken aback a bit.

He looked to be a boy about your age, with piercing eyes but a very handsome face. You also noticed that he was unfamiliar to you.

"Huh, I don't think I've seen you around before. Are you new?" you smile at him, but he just turns to walk back towards the crowded rows of booths. "Hey, wait up!"

You decide to follow him. If he was new, you didn't want him to be overwhelmed or lonely.

"I'm Y/N!" you grin, but he just continues walking forwards. His eyes scanning the crowds and his jaw tight.

"Oh, you don't talk much, huh? That's okay! What do you wanna do? Do you wanna get something to eat? Oh! Or we co-"

"Look, don't you have friends or something that you can go hang out with?" he asks sharply. Unfortunately for Henry, the tone was once again lost on you.

"I do, but they'd rather make out in the tunnel of love than hang out with me," your tone drops slightly which makes Henry's eyebrow quirk up. After a couple of seconds though, just shake your head and smile back at him. "It's okay though, because I met you! I love meeting new people!"

'Jesus, what was your deal?' Henry thought. You were like a Care Bear in human shape. So sickeningly sweet that it was making him feel weird. How could someone like you exist in the cruel world his mom had told him so much about? Has it not broken you, yet?

"Oh, look! Bumper cars! You wanna go do those?" you beam up at him. Henry sighed. If he put up with this, maybe you would leave him alone. Besides, you provided him good cover. A new face like him dressed the way he was all by himself may drive suspicion. So he turned his head to look at your eager face and uttered one word.

"Fine."

--------------------

You weren't bad at bumper cars, but you also didn't win. Not that you cared though, especially since your mystery man had won. You were surprised at his skills and made sure to tell him.

Henry listening to you gush over him was odd. Not used to getting such praise from someone who wasn't his mother. And like with his mother, it made him feel good.

You continue to skip through the crowds with him at your side. He was still scanning all of the people around you, but his jaw wasn't tight anymore. That elated you, as you took it as him finally enjoying himself. You both stop when you hear someone call your name.

"Is that you, Y/N?" the voice of an older man called from a game booth. Your face brightens and you run to him, Henry following after you.

"Frank! I haven't seen you in ages!" you hug him over the booth's countertop. Henry tenses up and watches the man closely.

"You're one to talk! I haven't seen you since you were just 'this' tall," Frank levels his hand to show just how small you were when he had last seen you. He opens his mouth to speak again, but stops when his eyes fall on Henry. "Hey, Y/N, who's your friend?"

"He's new in town! I saved him from the maze!" you chirp.

"Ah, okay," he drawls, looking at Henry suspiciously. Upon seeing you look at him fondly though, he puts on his best "friendly face" and holds his hand out. "Pleasure to meet you, son."

Henry looks at Frank's hand before shaking it, still analyzing the older man. You are completely oblivious to the tension, as you look at the milk bottles that are stacked up in the booth.

"Hey, Frank! Care if we play?" you pull some tickets out from your back pocket. Frank's mood changes at the sound of your voice and smiles at you.

"Of course! You and your friend here get three shots," he kneels down to hand you three baseballs first.

You throw all three and only get three of the six bottles down.

"Oh, well! Your turn!" you turn to smile at Henry and move out of his way. Frank hands him three baseballs just as he did with you. He takes the ball, pulls his arm back, and....

All six bottles tumble down with a force that startles both you and Frank.

"Well I'll be damned! I have never seen anyone knock those bottles down like that! You play baseball, son?" the older man asks Henry, amazed.

"No," he says, shortly.

The older man clears his throat at the awkward silence before looking towards the stuffed animals that hung around the booth.

"Well, you won. Pick out your prize."

Henry wanted to just walk away, but looked at you in his peripheral. You were staring longingly at a pink elephant plush that had a cute, cartoony face. He points to that one.

"This one right here?" Frank asks, taking the elephant down. Henry nods. "Alright! Here ya go."

Henry takes the stuffed animal and nods at him.

"Bye, Frank!" you call as Henry begins to walk away from the booth.

"Bye, Y/N! See you next year!"

As soon as you both are five feet away from the booth, Henry practically shoves the plush at you.

"Here."

"What-?"

"You wanted it. I got it. Now take it," he says shortly. You look up at him, confused, but he still continues to walk forward and scan the crowd. You take the plushie and smile at it. It was the cutest thing you had ever seen, with the softest fur you ever felt.

You squeal and pull Henry into a hug, thanking him. He tenses up and pushes you off.

"What the hell are you doing?" he scowls.

"I-I'm sorry, I-I just w-wanted to...," you trail off, hurt evident in your voice and eyes.

Your change in demeanor causes Henry to feel guilty, and the couple of eyes he could sense on him only added to that feeling. He sighs and rests his hand on your shoulder.

"Look, I'm...I'm sorry, okay. Just...just warn me before you do that again...please," his voice is now soft as he looks at you, wanting you to know that he did really feel sorry.

"Okay," you whisper, still feeling miserable about making him uncomfortable.

"Hey, why don't...," Henry thinks for a second. "Why don't we go on a ride, huh?"

"Okay," a smile forms on your face. "Which one do you wanna go on?"

"Whichever one you'd like," Henry gives you the first genuine smile you had seen that night. This causes your own smile to grow and you take his hand to lead to one of the more thrilling rides. Henry doesn't rip his hand away this time, allowing you to drag him to where you wanted to take him.

Once at the ride you wanted to go on, you handed your elephant to the ride operator and Henry hesitantly gives up his bag, before you enter the ride.

--------------------

By the time the ride had ended, you and Henry were wobbling in the best way possible. Henry let out a shaky laugh. He had never felt so alive. Where had this been his whole life? You let out your own laugh at Henry's reaction, before you and him collect your belongings and go on to do more rides and games. While walking, and even making some small talk with your mystery man, he stops when he spots a phone booth.

Henry thinks about his mother, about his mission. He had to call her, to tell her about how he couldn't get a good opening. He wouldn't mention how he was getting distracted or how he was having fun with a living ray of sunshine. He knew how she would probably react if he was honest.

"Hey, uh, Y/N?"

"Yeah?" you look up at him, beaming.

"I, uh...I have to make a phone call. I-I'll be right back, okay?"

"Okay! I'll wait right here!" you chirp.

He nods and gives you a small smile, before walking to the booth.

Henry enters the booth and sighs. He rummages around in his pocket before finding some quarters and inserting them into the machine. He lifts the phone and inserts the number to the motel room he and his mother were staying in. He waits, tapping his foot nervously as he waits. Then it stops, and a familiar voice speaks from the other end.

"Yes?" his mother says.

"H-Hi, mom."

"Oh, Henry!" her voice is cheerful. "Did you finish your 'assignment'?"

"No, I haven't. I can't get a good opening," he doesn't mention that he had lost the man to begin with. "Besides, this one person won't leave me alone. They're constantly following me around and bothering me."

His mom sighs on the other end and thinks.

"I'll be over there in a bit. Keep trying, dear. And remember, if you do find your opening, do what you must. Poor kid," she mutters towards the end of the statement.

Henry's stomach drops. He knows instantly what she meant. He didn't want to hurt you. You had nothing to do with...with all of this. You were an innocent, sweet person in this miserable world. Why get rid of someone like you?

"Henry, sweetie, you there?" his mother questions.

"Y-Yeah, yeah, I, uh...I was just looking around. Look, don't worry about coming over. I got this, I promise. I'll call you if I need you, okay?"

"Hm...okay," she pauses, clearly skeptical at her son's words. "Please just stay safe, okay? I love you."

"I love you too, mom. Bye."

"Goodbye."

There is a click, and then the line goes dead. Henry lets out a shaky breath and sets the phone back on its cradle. A knock at the booth startles him out of his thoughts. He turns around to see you looking at him, concerned.

He opens the door to the booth and steps out.

"Sorry," you apologize. "I just wanted to know if you wanted something to eat. Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, yeah...don't worry about it, okay? Food, uh...food sounds great."

"Okay. What would you like?" Henry thinks for a moment before cracking a smile at you.

"Surprise me!"

You nod and walk off to find a food booth. You knew exactly what you wanted to get. You had been craving it ever since you entered the carnival grounds.

Henry followed behind you, curious as to what you were going to get as you passed booth after booth. Then you stop, just what you were looking for.

"I was wondering when you were gonna show up," a woman greets you.

"Hi, Pam!" you smile at her and hand her some dollar bills. "Two candied apples, please!"

"Two?" Pam cocks her head to the side until her eyes fall on Henry. "Oh, I see."

She smirks, interpreting the mystery man besides you and how you were lovingly holding your elephant plush as a date.

A few moments later, Pam turns back to you and Henry with two candied apples in her hands.

"Enjoy, you two!" she winks at you when you and Henry take your treats. The two of you walk once more, while Henry investigates the sweet in his hand. You look over at him and laugh.

"What? Have you never had a candied apple before?"

"Uh, no actually. Are...are they your favorite?" he asks.

"Uh huh!" you nod eagerly. "I have to have at least one when the carnival's up!"

It was true. Ever since you had the teeth to eat them, candied apples had been your favorite treat, even with all of the cavities you had gotten over the years because of them.

Henry slowly raises the apple to his lips and bites down. The taste causes him to pause. He had never tasted something so sweet. It seemed fitting that they were your favorite.

"You like it?" you ask.

He nods his head, before he takes another bite.

--------------------

"So you really aren't gonna leave tomorrow?" you look at Henry sadly.

"Yeah, I-I'm, um...I'm afraid so."

You had learned that Henry was just visiting your hometown on a road trip with his mom. You thought that was fun, because your family always goes on road trips every summer, and yet you were going to miss your new mystery friend.

"Oh, Y/N! There you are!"

You and Henry turn around, seeing your two friends running towards you.

"Yeah, we were really worried!"

That causes Henry to stare daggers at them. They were worried? If they were so Goddamned worried about your safety, then they wouldn't have abandoned you.

"Uh, Y/N...who's this?" they both look at the man beside you that was making them feel uncomfortable under his stare.

'Good,' Henry thought.

"Oh, this is just my friend I made who kept me company this whole time," your voice is still cheerful, but you were still trying to guilt them. Henry smirks at that.

"Oh, well, uh...it's-it's getting late. We should start heading home."

Your eyes widen at that and you look down at your watch. It was almost midnight. God, your parents were gonna kill you.

"Yeah, you guys head to the entrance. I'll catch up!" your friends look at the boy besides you. Despite being the same age as them, something about him didn't seem right. They slowly turn around and do as you told them. As you watch them go, you hear a certain someone mutter something behind you.

"Henry."

"What?" you turn to look up at him.

"That's my name," Henry says.

You try the name out and smile. The sound of you saying his name made his chest feel weird.

"You look like a 'Henry'," you quip.

"That a bad thing?" he quirked an eyebrow at you.

"Nope!" you giggle and shake your head. Your demeanor changes and you awkwardly fiddle for something in your back pocket.

"Here," you hand him a small slip of paper.

Henry takes the paper and unravels it, a phone number revealing itself to him.

"Just in case you wanna keep in touch, o-or you know...just letting me know if you're gonna be in town again," you sheepishly state, squeezing the elephant in your arms. You had written your number down when he went off to make his phone call. You felt silly since you didn’t even know his name yet, but you knew you liked him either way.

"I, uh...I think I'll do just that," he smiles at you and puts the paper in his pocket. You smile back.

"I'm gonna hug you. Is that okay?"

Henry laughs, before opening his arms to you. You wrap one of your arms around him and he wraps his arms around your waist. Neither of you want to pull away, knowing that it would mean the end of your night together and who knows how long until you see each other again.

Unfortunately, your friends were waiting for you and he had a mission that you were unaware of. You pull away first.

"Goodbye, Henry," you quickly press a peck to his cheek. He tenses, but then looks at you shyly.

"Y-Yeah...goodbye, Y/N," a shade of pink crosses his face. He then clears his throat before pointing to your plushie. "You take good care of him."

You giggle and nod your head, before turning and walking away from him. Not even five feet away from him, you turn back and wave both your hand and your elephant's arm goodbye. Henry shakes his head and smiles, lifting his hand up to give a small wave of his own.

He stood there, watching your figure get smaller and smaller, until you disappeared into the crowd entirely.

--------------------

The man was killed swiftly in the haunted house of all places. No one suspected a thing, believing that the body was just a prop and the screams just sound effects.

Now Henry was laying down on his bed in the motel room his mother had rented. She was in the bathroom washing his knife and mask.

He could still hear the noises of the crowds cheering, feel the shakiness in his limbs after a thrill ride, taste the candied apple on his tongue, and feel your kiss on his cheek.

Perhaps when he and his mother got into the next town and had to split up again, he would see if that number you gave him was real.

[heresthestorymorningglory]

Together Bound In Madness

Summary: There's a reason you were told not to walk alone at night....

A/N: Hi Babes! Me again :D So uhh....this particular piece of work wasn't meant to see the light of day and live its life in my WIP folder...it was supposed to....

Then I mentioned to @ken-dom that I might share and well...here we are...what can I say y'all? She's mad encouraging and I love her dearly for it. Without her none of these would exist.

As always, this NSFW 18+ and has a few extra warnings attached; a kidnapping trigger warning being the biggest one, but others will follow.

The title comes from the Marianas Trench song The Killing Kind

Y'all should know by now I rarely post one shots.....so yeah, this will be multiple parts....I'm just not sure on the final tally yet.

Enjoy my loves! <3 

You pulled your jacket on after finally clocking out for the night. An hour later than you anticipated. 

Saying your goodbyes to your coworkers you let yourself out the front door walking up the street towards home. 

The wind blew the strands of hair that had fallen out over the course of the night around your face as you pulled your jacket more snugly around your middle.  

Your boots clicked on the pavement as you walked up the sidewalk, music changing songs before playing loudly through your headphones. 

It was quiet given the hour, which you didn't mind much, it gave you an opportunity to breathe and-

Suddenly an arm wrapped around your midsection, and a large hand closed over your mouth. 

Your heart slammed in your chest as you were pulled into the alley immediately to your left, music fading away as you pulled your headphones from your ears; the smell of conditioned leather overwhelming your senses before everything went black. 

You opened your eyes and everything was dark. Dark and cramped, and you had a splitting headache. Your knees were bent, elbows hitting obstructions on either side, your hands were bound and you realized you were moving. Your mind was racing trying to piece the events together, the last thing you remembered was walking home from work. You breathed hard through your nose, a thick piece of duct tape covering your mouth. Your heart was racing in your chest. 

Your phone, where was your phone? Your jacket didn't have pockets, and neither did your skirt; you had kept it tucked in your bra over the course of your shift, it was gone. 

You closed your eyes trying to focus on what to do next. Mouth was covered, screaming was out, your hands were bound behind your back, hard plastic zip ties biting into the tender flesh of your wrists, you could feel the same bite around your ankles, and your boots were gone. 

Another heavy breath out your nose as you felt the car roll to a stop. You closed your eyes, pretending to still be unconscious; potentially giving yourself time to think of a plan. 

You listened intently, boots crunching on gravel as they came around the back of the car. You let out a slow shaky breath trying to keep your wits about you. You couldn’t even begin to guess where you were, running was out of the question, they had made sure of that. What you assumed was streetlight flooded the trunk as it was lifted open, your eyes were closed, but you were certain your racing heart was going to give you away. You tried your best not to go absolutely rigid as you felt an arm slide under your knees, the other around your shoulders as you were lifted out. 

You had to open your eyes, you needed to figure out where you were if you had any chance in hell at getting away. 

Opting to crack your eyes open and not give yourself completely away you hoped against all hope whoever had you in their arms was more focused on getting you from point A to point B without being noticed, you weren’t exactly in an inconspicuous position. 

You fought to keep your breathing even and not give yourself away when you realized where you were, you recognized the small walkway immediately. You were home. 

What the fuck? 

Your mind raced with a whole new string of thoughts; this was your apartment complex, you hadn’t hallucinated, you lived here. You didn’t dare move, instead, you waited, the man carrying you was quiet, his breathing was unbelievably steady for carrying a bound, gagged, unconscious woman through a public space. 

You heard the familiar beep of the main door granting him access to the rest of the building. Did he live here? Or had he simply stolen your keys? Were you about to be held captive in your own apartment?! 

They hadn’t sounded like your keys…. They had a very distinct clink with the ring you had kept on them. Another familiar ding, this one was the elevator, this was your chance, the elevator had a mirror on the back wall. 

The doors opened and again, you cracked your eyes open as much as you dared. If it had been able to, your jaw would have hit the floor, you fought back the gasp that threatened to escape against the tape over your mouth. It was your neighbour. 

The slight panic that surged through your body at seeing a recognizable face made you slightly dizzy. The neighbour?! Who’s name you just couldn’t fucking place. Fuck. That’s what you get for thinking he was unassuming

He had hardly said a dozen words to you; ever; no wonder….you lived next door to a fucking Jeffery Dahmer wannabe. What the hell was he going to say ‘Hi, hope you like being chopped up into tiny little pieces and never found, because that’s my plan’?! 

You could get out of this, you could, but how? 

Again the doors pinged before sliding open and you bit down hard on the inside of your bottom lip. Your apartment door was feet away; and yet…

The one time that nosy Mrs. Collins wasn’t lurking outside…god damn it. 

He was skinny though; maybe you could overthrow him somehow…He definitely didn’t have brute strength on his side; at least you didn’t think so.

He carried you inside, and you heard the familiar click of the door closing behind him…but he didn't lock it. His confidence was unmatched. 

[streetkid-named-desire]

SilverV Week Day 1: Dreams

Johnny and V share a consciousness and subconsciousness. This means they occasionally share dreams, too.

Read it on AO3 here or below the cut.

See the prompts and read more about the event over at @silverv-week!

"Where the fuck are the panzerboys?" I could barely hear my own voice over the gunfire and explosions and cries.

Cries. Cries. Fuck I wanted to cry. I should be blowing off school to smoke weed in an alley with my chooms. Not fighting a war I couldn't care less about.

"Get up! Let's move!" Falco screamed in my ear. His breath was hot and rancid. He grabbed me by the shoulder strap of my MOLLE and yanked me up. We crouched low in the trench, not low enough to dodge bullets. These weren't world war trenches. We'd thrown ourselves into an irrigation ditch and tried to dig deeper down into the earth. The only time the enemy couldn't see us was when we were flat on our stomachs. We hustled further down the trench, closer to the forest not yet torn away by capitalist greed.

"Shit!" I tripped over a body and stood up too far to regain my footing. A bullet whizzed past my nose. I looked down, careful where I stepped.

Bodies. So many bodies. Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck!

"Here." Falco stopped and I nearly bumped into him. He jumped out of the ditch and pointed to a deeper groove in front of me. "Provide cover fire for the med AV. We got bodies to load up."

I looked to my left. My fellow soldiers were too far and too busy to call for help. I looked to my right. The untamed tropical forest was dark and menacing. But also enticing. Could I be reprimanded for desertion if they never even found me? Better to be eaten by a jaguar and her cubs than bleed to death from a missing limb.

No. I was alone. I looked up at Falco, "What, just me?"

His eyes burned with disgust. How dare I, a grunt, question my role? I was a United States soldier. My sole purpose was to be fed to a wood chipper, feet first so I could salute the one at the controls until my dying breath.

"Did I fuckin' stutter? Point and shoot, asshole!"

I kneeled in the mud cooled by the shade from the forest. I loaded a fresh magazine into my rifle and looked up. The AV whine grew louder as it extended its landing gear and thumped into the dirt behind us. Medtechs armed to the teeth filed out and walked towards the pile of bodies unceremoniously stacked next to it. A bloody cardboard box lay next to it, filled with one dog tag that matched one worn on each corpse.

I got down on my belly and looked through the scope. Four soldiers were rushing at us. There was a fifth further back, he was holding something big but I couldn't tell what.

I breathed deeply. Exhaled.

Two I got in the head. One zig-zagged and dodged my shot. I got the fourth one twice in the chest and once in the throat.

Not my best work.

Deep breath. In through my nose. Will the stench of gunpowder and burnt bodies ever leave me?

Exhale and pull. Just as the fourth man goes down I see the fifth drop to his knees and hoist something up on his shoulder.

All the air was knocked out of me in an instant. My eyes stung from the smoke and dust. My ears rang but I could hear the faint screams behind me and what sounded like a smaller explosion. The smell of AV fuel burned my esophagus.

My body felt so heavy. Except…my left arm felt weightless. The ringing got louder and blocked out the screaming.

The wailing.

My wailing.

I scrambled for my rifle. A special model for lefties. Something wasn't right. Pain shot up my shoulder and into my brain, digging deep. My arm hurt but all I could think about was getting my gun. I had to defend myself. That fifth guy could be rushing up any second. I lifted my arm and slammed it into the dirt in frustration. White searing pain knocked me cold. Sweet relief.

"Linder! Linder, can you hear me?" I'm being dragged through dirt and every uneven bump sends a new shockwave of pain through my body.

"Yeah," I croaked. My throat stung, my lungs burned. I opened my eyes and saw Falco. His face was smeared with ash and blood. His eyes were wild. He kept looking at my arm and then back at me and back at my arm.

"Fuck, Linder," he muttered. He dropped me on the ground. It was cool, quiet except for birds. Gunfire in the distance. We were in the forest. He kneeled beside me and pulled the first aid kits from a pouch on his MOLLE and mine.

He looked at my arm. He put the back of his hand over his mouth and looked away.

So I looked instead.

"V!" Bea shook V's arm. He'd been thrashing all night with his left arm moving the most. A sign his dreams were being mixed with Johnny's.

Red, shining wet meat extended from the middle of my bicep down. Parts of it were caked in dirt. Ants were crawling up and down the tendrils of gore looking for crumbs. I was numb. Would the jaguar smell the blood?

Falco wrapped the tourniquet above the stump and gripped the windlass. He looked at me. Gone was the disgust replaced by fear and pity. I frowned. And then screamed as Falco twisted the windlass over and over and over and over.

V grunted and contorted his face in phantom pain. "C'mon, V. Wake up." He was lying on his back and Bea kneeled over him. She caressed his face and tried to jostle him awake again.

"What the fuck happened?" I was breathless from the pain.

"Rocket launcher," Falco gulped back puke. Where did he get off judging me when he can barely stand to look at his injured comrade? "Hit the AV. 'Nother one exploded too close. Took your fuckin' arm, man," Falco said and finished wrapping the stump in all the gauze and bandages we had.

Falco opened his canteen and dribbled water over my lips. I grabbed it with my right hand and drank like it was the sweetest ambrosia. I handed it back and worked to prop myself up on my right elbow. Something shifted and cracked inside me. More pain. My head lolled back and I scrunched my face, trying to power through. Falco helped me sit up further, propping me against a tree, and the pain inside my body was indescribable. I felt ribs crunch and rub against each other. Something in my core didn't feel quite right, some burst organ or something.

V's mouth opened in a silent scream. His eyes scrunched tight and his left arm shot up. Bea just barely dodged getting hit in the face. "V!" Bea yelled this time and slapped his arm, hard.

"Fuck!" Johnny and V yelled at the same time. Johnny sat up through V and twisted to sit on the edge of the bed. V looked over at him, wishing he could comfort him. Touch him. Hug him. He knew he lived out these dreams the same time V did.

Bea placed a soft hand on his cheek and turned his head towards her. "Nicaragua?"

V and Johnny nodded. V sat up and shifted to sit exactly where Johnny was. They sat like that for a few moments, gathering their thoughts and letting their bodies relax. V looked at his left hand covered by the ghostly overlay of Johnny's eponymous cybermod. The pair flexed their fist and Johnny's chrome clinked inside V's head.

V got up, his knees a little shaky, and padded along the metal floor and downstairs for a drink of water.

<When you take over my body, you ever sleep?> V asked. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and placed it beneath the refrigerator's built-in water filter.

<Once or twice. Why?> Johnny looked out the window behind the sink. The neon skyline of corpo plaza made his stomach turn. Arasaka Tower, rebuilt just as tall and just as strong as the last.

<You ever have my dreams?> V pressed a button for water and filled the glass halfway. He took a small sip, breathed, then gulped the rest down. The cold water was soothing, calming his nerves.

Johnny did share V's dreams. Weird distorted rooms covered in the blood of his parents. A whole maze of them. Feeling trapped and scared and angry. His dad coming around the corner holding a knife in one hand and his mother's decapitated head in his other.

But he didn't want V to think he was a burden. This was a one-way deal. Johnny was the problem, Johnny was the one stuck in his head. Johnny is the only one that gets to feel guilty for their situation.

Johnny shook his head. <Nah, don't dream when I take over.>

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Do you have any fic about the difference between how Matt is to Alfred vs Jack/Zee? That feels untapped.

Four cunts and a Kiwi walk into a trench.... Please note this is a work of historical fiction based roughly on the Kaiserschlacht of 1918, Germany's last offensive. It is not a textbook. The interactions here cannot possibly begin to represent the real motions of history. The depictions of war and empire are fictional. Everyone's a piece of shit in this, but they are fictional pieces of shit. The existing author's views do not align with that of the fictional characters or any other message you think you're gleaning from this. Everyone in the following piece is fictional and over the age of 18. Do not get your morality from fanfic. No one is happy, no one is having a good time. They are individual, fictional characters and they are miserable. If I haven't made them miserable enough its because my wrist is busted in two places and I'm not in the fucking mood. Flanders March 1918

Matt’s slicker is draped over the tent pegs, a crude shelter against the elements beating down on them. Between Matt shoved in tightly to his left and Zee wedged into his right, and the blankets still tucked in tight all around them, Jack is as warm as he’s been since he stepped foot on this bloody continent. He shifts, something uncomfortable against his back. 

He mumbles something and tells Matt to roll over, but Zee says something about Matt fucking off if he was going to be an insomniac. But Zee is to his right, and Jack is on his back. She can’t possibly feel anything. He disregards it, rolls back asleep, and snuggles in tighter against her back. 

There’s a rush of cold air, Matt yelling at him to get up! To get the fuck up! There’s the crack of steel on a skull. He knows the sound has driven his own shovel into enough Turkish and German heads by now to know it, as well as he knows the sound of his own voice. Matt’s grunting gets louder. Jack is on his feet, pulling Zee up with him. He may as well have not opened his eyes. It’s so fucking dark.

He snatches Zee close, and she screams at him, working something over in her hands. 

“Get down,” He hisses at her. 

He’s too late. She’s lit the flare. In the dark, formless under the clothes and blankets, she might have not been noticed, but in the sick light of the flare, green as gas, there’s no mistaking her form, a girl’s form even in the trousers of the men’s field uniform, permitted this near the front with the medical officers. They were supposed to be safe here, three trenches back. There’s a joyful German noise and then the swell of bodies. Not a trench raid, not a squad. This is a counter-offensive. Matt throws one into another’s bayonet, and Jack breaks another German’s neck without thinking. The world is lit in green light reflecting from the gore.

He kills three men in seconds, Matt even more. But they’re replaced. This is no trench raid. It is a punch right through the line, a blow puncturing right through the armour of the front line. Jack takes up one of the rifles, but it won’t fire. He swings it into another man’s face. Where the fuck is his gun? Where the fuck is Matt’s? 

“Zee! Go!” Matt bellows. Jack spun and watched his sister’s face. There’s German blood there, splattered across her jaw and cheeks, her hand red, a knife that is not hers dripping. 

“Go!” Jack says and bodily shoves her back at the ladder. “Find Dad!” 

Her eyes flash with the knowledge that this is the only way to avoid the worst, but also full of loathing. She hates him, and maybe Matt, for making her go. 

“Go with her,” Matt tells him. Gripping him by the sleeve and shoving him as hard as he can. “Go!” 

“Matt!” 

“Go!” 

He’s got a German rifle to his shoulder and is already flipping back the lever and aiming. He looked up, and he was horrific in this light, face sharp, eyes narrow, lip curled back. But a flash of Matt, of peacetime. “I can slip away if they capture me. You can’t! Go!” 

“He’s right!” Zee whispered. “Come on!” 

“No!” Jack wrenched his arm free of Matt. They’re surrounded by his soldiers. Australians are to their left and their right flanks, awake now and fighting. Their souls come to his awareness like stars as the sun sets. Pinpricks of light he can’t leave. Too much is happening. “No! Stop!” 

“Jack, Go!” Matt’s firing, and something is screaming in the distance. Five bullets, then four. “I’m right behind you.” Four bullets left, more screaming. The trenches around them are coming alive. He won’t leave them. He can’t.

 But Zee’s got him by the arm and is dragging him with her.

“You know what happens if we stay!” Zee whispered. Three bullets become two. Hoarse shouts. She gripped him by the face, her own grey with terror, but her brown eyes set with certainty. She has all of Dad’s decisiveness. “What happens if I stay,” 

And just like that, she’s straightened his thoughts. He won’t let Germans have her, and she won’t leave him here. So they go. They have to go. 

“Okay,” He exhales his panic and shakes his entire body. “Okay.” 

Matt has fired twice more. He’s out of bullets, and more are coming, more are coming now. His sister tugged him back. He snatched up his sidearm, forgotten on the floor in the mêlée. 

“Be quick and be safe!” Matt tells them. It’s a benediction as hoarse as his prayers are when he thinks there is no one around to hear him. They’re just as futile, too. The time their slaughter brought them is at a standstill, and Matthew’s bullets are gone. 

“Find Alfred!” Matt screams over his shoulder as if he’s on another German. The last thing Jack sees of him is the full horrific brutality of his Matt in hand to hand. The filth of his fight. Matt was a brutal bastard. He thrust his fingers into an enemy’s face, finding eyeballs for leverage and twisting heads, viscous as a wolf just before spring. Matthew gives Germans a fight the way he gave their father before Jack was born, and that’s before his fingers close around the pine of his favourite axe. Jack turns, hearing Zee say his name. Their artillery is waking now. He can hear the guns open up. They have to go.

Zee was just ahead of him, running headlong into the dark. It’s wrong. Leaving his men. But she’s ahead of him. It’s the way the world works. Zee sailed into a new day ahead of him on their spinning planet. He follows. A German must have crawled past Matt. Jack shoots.

Zee jumped, startled, and for a fucking moment, he thought his wee Kiwi-bird of a sister, flightless and round, was going to sprout wings and fly straight home to New Zealand. But she’s repeating his name, and he’s staring into the dark, eyes swimming with the gun flash, wondering if hell is a different sort of red from home, with all its bright baked clay. Zee took his hand, her bloodied fingers around his, and looked at him. He grabbed her and hauled her along, forcing her to keep up with him despite their height, as he has their entire lives, from the moment she toddled into existence and he was taller.

He can trace her in the dark as she zigzags through the bullets and is lit by the odd shell in the sky as they escape into the night. He never lets go of her, making her steps longer when her weight hasn’t completely shifted. She is not alone. He is not alone. 

They slip into the night, into chaos, into darkness, and further back into the line. Jack trips when a floodlight opens on them, temporarily blind as Zee hauls him to his feet. Everywhere, everything is chaos. Horns honking on trucks they only see when their lanterns appear from nowhere upon soldiers firing up the ignitions, officers and enlisted men shouting. American rifles being broken out from their boxes, sleeping soldiers on rest, still dreaming as they take distributed weapons. The trenches give way to tents, and tents give way to the depots. Still, Zee pulls him along. 

“Where—” Jack asked, panting. “Where the fuck are we going, Zee?” 

“Alfred!” She huffed, breathless, like that was obvious. But he had wanted father first and figured she would, too. 

“Why?” 

“Father will prioritize defending the front line.”

“So?” 

“So— Alfred understands defense in depth. Give up the first line easily, then they pay for driving in deep, using the salients for killing zones. The more warning he has, the more of his and ours that man those salients, the more of theirs will die.” 

He swallowed. He hated it when she sounded like Dad. 

“Like Ypres before Matt took the high ground. Guns on three sides,”

“Exactly,” Zee replied. She had picked up a lantern at some point, and as she raised it, her eyes, always more brown than green, glinted for a moment with father’s thrilled, satisfied cunning. “We make them pay.” 

They stumble through the night, guided by the sensations of a nation so like and unlike them. They are flavours of the night jars that encircle the Pacific. They fly; they’re so much larger than their father. Matt, cold and clinging to the top of the world, his back against Alfred, with even more people. Then, Jack was warm and all alone in the Pacific in his early years. But the Tasman Sea is Zee’s hand on his elbow. He loves her so much, and he hates his father, and he hates Matt for making them go and both of them for being right and for being practical. He collapsed into the early morning grass off the road, nearly taking Zee down with him. Soldiers yelled, and more traffic roared in his ears.

“Jack?” Zee tugged him to a stop. “Jack, mate. Hey.” 

He couldn’t quite seem to get his breath, and he barely avoided puking all over her as he sprawled to the side and vomited what felt like everything he’d ever eaten since stepping foot in France. 

Zee made a sympathetic sort of sound, and he felt her arms around her. It’s his soldiers behind them now. He can feel hers a little, too, on the flanks and Father’s, but his own are fighting, and he is running, and he has killed again. Again. And not for the last time. What’s his count? Can he add those to his count? Matt does. Zee counts hers against the lives she saved, and now she cradles his head, gently taking him by the jaw to make him look at her. Her eyes are hers now, and it’s not her father’s words in her mouth, not his will or his brutal practicality. 

“Jack,” she said, and he squeezed her, clamping his arms around her smaller body like he had when he was little, and she was all he had of home in frigid England. “Jack, Christ.” 

“I’m sorry,” He said but didn’t let go. She squirmed, not escaping but looking up at him. “I’m sorry,”

“Look at me,” she said, and he finally lifted his eyes to her. “Thirty-six thousand.” 

“What?” 

“That’s how many you evacuated from ANZAC cove. You. Not father, not me. You and your generals planned and executed that. Your balance is still positive, do you understand me?” 

“Kiwi-bird,” He said because he was trying to argue, because she could read his mind sometimes, and he didn’t want her to, not now. He wanted to get up and move again and pretend he’d thrown up his sins with his stomach’s contents. “Don’t.” 

“Thirty-six thousand.” She said again. 

“Those weren’t directly... that kind of number is different from the ones you put back together on the table, Zee. It’s not the same. It’s not the same and it’s blood and it’s so much blood.”

“Look at me!” She said, this time harsh and sharp. “We do these things together, right? That’s what we said. My balance is your balance. You watch my back, I cover your arse.” 

“Where the fuck was that cover when I got shot in the bum at Lone Pine, eh?” Jack shot back out of spite. But then she snorted so hard he thought she might puke, too.

“It’s not my fault it’s so bloody big!” She said. “You got the birthing hips, mate.”

“You are such an arsehole.” He countered, giving his side a rub where it most certainly did not round out into berthing hips. Then he was serious. “You mean it?”

“Heart and soul, dick.” She offered him a hand up, and he let her swing him to his feet. “Your balance is my balance.” 

“Except at the commissary.” Jack huffed, unsure why that was the thought that popped into his head. “They won’t let me buy oranges anymore.” 

“Correct. I trust you with my life and my immortal soul, but not the money.” 

They push through the busy roads of new refugees and even more soldiers towards the pull of their father and the pull of whatever Alfred is, still half a stranger. It takes Zee pulling a “Do you know who my father is?” to some Oxbridge-educated fuck she might have rubbed elbows with in her school years to get them through the guard and into the command tent, and a damn good thing she did or Jack was ready to take out British soldiers like he had German. Arthur and Alfred are together, already half aware, and Father looks relieved, openly so. Not a good sign. Alfred looks bewildered. Less empire than boy startled out of bed. Because he still tends to sleep in one of those, even now. Because he is precious and held in reserve. Zee explains what happened and what needs to happen next. Jack fills in details as they go. His soldiers are the brunt just at that moment, and his heart is banging away in his chest when Alfred rolls around on him, full of piss. Looming because he does have two inches and an empire on Jack.

“You LEFT him?” He demanded, one fist gripping Jack’s collar. “You left Matt? What the fuck is wrong with you!” 

“He can get away!” Zee said, trying to wedge herself in between, struggling as much with their father’s grasp as Jack was with Alfred’s. “Matt’s been doing this for years. He’ll be fine! We had bigger things to worry about!” 

“Get the fuck off me!” Jack could do nothing about Alfred’s hold. His struggle was useless.

“Like what!” Alfred practically shouted. “What’s more important than making sure Matt gets home in one piece?” 

“Like the entire western front, you dumb cunt!” Zee shoves her face up at Alfred’s, willing to argue even if she is a foot shorter. 

“Enough!” Arthur slammed his hands down on the map-laden table and tugged Zee away, shoving one arm between Alfred’s chest and Jack’s, curling so he was in front of her. But he couldn’t break the grip Alfred had on Jack’s collar. “Get your hands off your brother, boy!” 

“Fuck you!” That was all Alfred had to say to Arthur. Zee was tugging her arm back from their father and freeing herself. 

“You left him there!” Alfred rounded on Jack again, closing the distance he already commanded with the grip on his collar. 

“You always do this!” Alfred tossed back at Arthur. “You always leave him to do your dirty work. No one watching Matt’s back because why would anyone watch his back! Why would anyone give a shit except about how much killing you need done! Why should anyone watch his back?” 

“I was!” Jack was on his toes, the angle of Alfred’s fist the only thing keeping him from using his jacket as a hangman’s rope. He didn’t care. “I was here, watching his back while you were home turning a fucking profit! We were here when it was all for nothing! You only showed up for what? For what? To take credit? Aunt Bridgie always said you were brave, that you were brilliant. She forgot to mention what a bastard you are!

“You shut your mouth. I’m not the one who just abandonded Mattie.” 

“Ah, my dear boy, but you did that first.”

One sentence. One sentence, and that’s all it took. Father looked unbothered. Alfred’s hand dropped like he’d been slapped. Jack fell back, and Zee was there, throwing off Dad’s grip and under his arm in a moment. The room was silent. Jack breathed hard. He would have probably swayed if Zee wasn’t so close, half shielding her body from Alfred, half shielding his sanity from the shouting.

“Want another first?” Alfred wasn’t facing them now. This was an argument older than both of them, conducted in shouts muffled from the other end of the house. “I took his head off his shoulders at Yorktown. I shot our dear lord father’s jaw from his fucking skull and his skull from his shoulders and the lobsterbacks surrendered. And then they left. And when the gutters overflowed, you were born.” 

Zee’s hand tightened on his, squeezing, squeezing like when the hospital ship she’d been on went down, torpedoed by that kraut bastard, and he’d dragged her corpse off a beach, and the only sign of life she could give him was the vice of her hand on his. I love you. It’s not true. I love you. It’s not true. I love you. It’s not true. 

Arthur exhaled a laugh. “Goodness, I read you lot too much Shakespeare. Such a flare for drama, children.” 

Alfred’s face twisted. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Who’s us?” Zee countered. Jack wanted to throw up again. “What’s wrong with you? You two are the kraut fuckers, not us!” Father looked almost as shocked as Alfred. “Matt wouldn’t even be out there if someone hadn’t made mess! And it wasn’t us!” 

The conversation had meandered, shot right from under them, from under Matt. Fuck.

“All right!” Dad intervened like he’d had the same thought. Hard and sharp like the furious fifties that marked the sea voyage home when Jack was small, he cut through the tension. “As flattered as your brother would be to see you defending what little of his honour he hasn’t left in a brothel, I rather think we should get to the task of finding him first, no? And perhaps, if you lot can manage more than one task at a time with the single wit I seem to have left you to inherit, we could perhaps even turn back what looks to be an entire German offensive that’s just caught us with our cocks out.” He paused and glanced at Zee. “Barring you, dear girl.” 

Jack snorted so hard they almost toppled over. Alfred sighed like a martyr. A sigh to make him sound like Matt, if there ever was one, and leaned over the table. “Where’d you put your favourite knife this time, you old bastard?” 

“Excuse you,” A note of laughter in a gravelly voice, still half-ruined by gas. “I am Father’s best knife. Only the finest for when the Krauts come for dinner, eh Dad?”

It was a pile-on, everyone rushing to get an arm around him. If Zee was his rock, the rest of them needed fucking mortar to stick together. Jack nearly elbowed Dad in the face as Arthur tried to look at a particularly large blood stain oozing from Matt’s shoulder but had to settle for turning his cheek and looking him in the eye a moment before he and Zee nearly got bowled over entirely by Alfred rocketing through. He practically picked Matt up. 

“Let me down, for Christ’s sake.” Matt laughed. “I’ve got Gilbert brains on my shirt, bud, fuck.” But Alfred would do nothing but grip him and shake his head. He might have muttered idiot. Jack didn’t hear. Matt was looking over the Yank’s overly broad shoulders, nodding at them both with a wan sort of smile that said as much of pride as it did blood loss. Zee’s hand was on his shoulder, and he glanced at her.

“You want me to slip some arsenic his coffee?” Zee whispered, not doing half as good a job suppressing her grin as she thought she was. “They burn it so bad. It could be proper strong. Nice and quick like the cholera.” Her sense of humour was morbid like that, even if he wasn’t entirely sure it was humour.

“Naw,” Jack drawled. “Reckon I’d’ve taken it some kind of personal too if someone had left you out for the Krauts.”

He got an affectionate punch in the kidneys and a squeeze for his trouble. 

“There’s nothing about you that came from a gutter.” She said, drawn tight to his shoulder. “Not a bloody thing.”

[itrustmydiscoverweekly]

They took so much of my money this week

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(5 out of 5 stars)(yes I'm very biased)

augh, I love twenty one pilots, I've been listening to them since before I was even old enough to comprehend anything they were talking about, and wow they have made another brilliant album.

I can't even begin to explain how hyped I've been for this album since the album art leaked back in February (?). I bought the vinyl and the digital remains (WHAT IS 25??) I'm so excited for the proper Paladin Strait MV. I LOVE THIS ALBUM. yes, I am biased. Glad I'm alive for this album. I don't think I've ever had lyrics so quickly memorized to any album before, I love this album. Trying to pick my favorite songs was impossible. Your honor, they're all my favorite. Anyways, I guess I picked 3.

opinion time! (as always, not opinion order, just album order)

"Vignette" THESE DRUMS oml I love them, if you get a chance, watch the mv and just watch Josh. And jesus the lyrics cut in a way so similar to self-titled, laugh this SONG. Big fan of the bird noises at the start too, wish is was a vulture to tie in with Trench but those things make nasty noises and probably wouldn't be too good for a song... Live laugh love Clifford... I think this song, although it doesn't state anything outright, is a song of hope especially with the line "Where do I grow from here". And that little instrumental before the final chorus, augh, I'm kissing Paul Meany on the mouth.

"Navigating" seems to be a lot of people's favorite and with good reason. Again, big fan of the drums here. It's such a hype song with such a painful bridge. Tyler can shush that he doesn't like this song and dear god how I want to hear Drag Path and the other scrapped songs because what else is Tyler hiding from us! Again, a lot of this album carries really, really heavy themes but with that theme of hope and Pushing through. That last chorus, man that second to last my oh my, I wanna scream with him, I love it. Super fun

"At The Risk Of Feeling Dumb" I think this song is really silly, it sounds super silly, but I can't sit here and act like the message is silly, it sucks, and it's really heavy, but it is classic tøp, happy sound, dark lyrics. this song is great, I love it, it hits deep, and the chorus is very catchy drums are less notable here but still amazing. Paul Meany struck again, I love the mixing on this song too

Honorable Mentions!!! 🥳🥳🥳

I'm gonna hold myself back, I would put every other song here but I'll pick some favorites.

"Midwest Indigo" I'm from the Midwest, I'm biased, this song is fun it's high-energy. I'm in love with the lines "I requested Counsel with the counselor/ And he canceled twice" and just the way Tyler sings them. And Josh singing "What's your ETA" and "Chill out man we're right on time" live was so cute <3.

"Routines In The Night" I feel is a sister song to "Navigating" This song is more chill, and super vulnerable aghhh. The backing vocals on the chorus at 2:10 are also so addictive, listen to just that section oml.

Both versions of "The Craving" are so sweet <3

"Lavish": the award for the most creative way to say get fucked goes to! What a wild way to end a song Tyler!

"Paladin Strait" BLURRYFACE!!!!

[lewis-winters]

I know I should be working on other WIPs-- and just working in general-- but I watched The Old Guard again yesterday so here, have the Winnix TOG Canon Divergence AU

tw for: depictions of death, the effects of mustard gas, gore, trauma, and angst!

"Stop touching it."

Dick doesn't. In fact, just to be annoying-- though mostly on reflex-- he brushes past the newly formed scar of Lewis's brow one more time, prodding and poking until finally, fed up, Lew waves his hand away with a weak growl. "You'll open it back up."

Ah. That gets Dick to back off, pulling away abruptly like he'd been scalded. And maybe he has. After all, there's blood on his mind, now. A memory both too fresh to do anything but hurt; but a situation too resolved to feel anything but indignation at his own continued terror.

It's been nearly a millennia since the beginning of their renewed existence, and while they know their lot of second chances are bound to run out one day, surely the familiarity with Death should have settled in their old bones by now. Yet, when She comes, She brings with her all the fanfare that accompanies all finality. Almost immortality does not always warrant camaraderie with pain and grief.

They were luckier this time, at least.

They hadn't been as eager to join this war as they had been the last. Not that he'd been eager to join that war, either. But just like all things, Dick's need for a cause called out to Lewis' need to make sure Dick doesn't lose his goddamn mind fighting until he drops. And so, in the midst of the 1910s, they managed to find themselves spending long nights in the deep, damp French trenches, huddled together in the dark. For two and a half years, they lived like that, shaking apart with fear, both real and imagined, as the rats nibbled on their fingers and infections slowly overtook their lungs and toes. Any warrior worth their salt would know that it's not the fighting that fucks you over, but the waiting in between. The rotting wounds left to fester. The fear that threatened to eat you whole from within, if the bullets about you didn't get to you first. Together, they passed days watching their boys die, either from sickness or bullets or both, their corpses stacked around them so high, in the dark they looked like fortress walls, caging them in as they waited for the moment it would all come toppling down.

Then, the gas came pouring in.

Lewis had taken the brunt of it, in the end, ripping his gas mask off in a desperate attempt to save what was left of Dick's face. Neither of them had enough sense at the time to hear him scream in agony, clawing at his eyes until they were nothing but pulp underneath his fingernails; but the echoes of it would have a chance to ring in Dick's ears anyway. The screaming didn't stop in France.

And it took Lew years to regain his old self, in both nerves and sight; and it took even longer than that for Dick to stop dreaming of scar tissue, gnarled and twisted and angry red, in place of dark brown eyes. The damage healed a lot slower than either of them have ever experienced before, and required more outside help than either of them were comfortable with. By the time the last of Lewis' sight had been restored to him, a whole decade and several new identities had gone by, and Dick had done his best to promise: no more fighting.

They made it through another decade before he broke that one. It barely felt like a blink of an eye.

And now, here they are again. Huddled together, blanketed by dark night, with each other's blood once again under their fingernails, a new scar on Lewis' forehead, and the tangible memory of a crater in the back of his head, where the bullet found its exit and his brains had spattered out of his skull.

"Hey," Lewis breathes, sensing the dark turn Dick's thoughts have gone and reaching out for him, touching his face with cold fingertips. "I'm sorry. That was a bad joke."

Yes. It was. But Dick is not going to reprimand him for it. He's learned that jokes are Lew's best defense against the weight of their prolonged existence. Just like drink. Just like nicotine. Or just like Dick himself, his only lone companion in this casually cruel world. How could Dick ever deny him this?

Tilting their heads together, Dick guides his lips to the new scar, and resolutely tries not to think about how much longer Lew bears the marks of his deaths, and what that might mean for him. "It'll be gone tomorrow," he says, more to himself than Lew. "You'll see. Like brand new."

"Like brand new," Lewis echoes. Resigned. Going boneless as he leans all his (dead) weight into Dick's arms and buries his face in his neck. "Always brand new."

Even against the heat of Dick's skin, Lew stays cold. Dick doesn't think he's ever known a time when he was warm.

--

Dick and Lewis were made immortal sometime between 58 and 50BC, when Rome waged war against Gaul, as explained in this deleted line: "Lewis was not made for warrior-hood like Dick had been, having gone from the luxury afforded to him by his roman senator father's fortune to a miserable roman centurion on the back of a single mistake alone. He'd known almost nothing the first time he'd fallen under Dick's Gaulic blade; that his own sword had pierced Dick's chest at the same time was a mere fluke he's since been unable to replicate."

[dandelionprints]

Time To Go

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x you

Summary: The sunlight began to stream in, the sign of a new day. A new day Tommy didn't want to begin. He'd just been called up to fight for his country in the war alongside his brothers, John and Arthur. And then there's the love of his life, how will he possibly say goodbye to her?

Warnings: slight fluff? Mentions of war and destruction/weapons, slight language.

A/N: This is my first imagine writing for this fandom! Full credit for GIF to whoever created it. I do not give consent for my works to be posted anywhere else or used without my permission, reblogs are very welcome though! I feel like this could be better but I really wanted to get something out there, I hope you enjoy it x

Tag list is here if you’d like to be added to it

Word Count: 2929

-------------------------------------------

He'd hardly slept a wink.

'What time was it?'

He was aware of the sunlight slowly creeping in through his window little by little, making his small box room in the Shelby household glow. The dull wallpaper on the walls now had shadows cast upon it and he tried to decipher what item in his room each shadow belonged to. He'd hoped that it would help him drift off to sleep if even only for an hour. God knows he needed it. He slowly turned onto his side to check the time on his pocket watch that he kept on his bedside table. '5:30am. It would soon be time to leave for the train'.

He rolled onto his back letting out a sigh, fuck he was so tired. The night was spent tossing and turning, his mind wouldn't stop racing with thoughts of the unknown that he was soon to endure. His eyes felt like sandpaper was scraping past them with each blink, his mouth was so dry that it was an effort to lick his lips successfully in an attempt to wet them. He'd kicked the bed sheets off of himself in the night as they clung to his sweaty body and he found himself constantly turning the pillow over in a desperate attempt to reach the cold side.

He'd just been called up for the War.

He wasn't sure yet what his main duty would be, would he be called up to the front? Digging trenches? A sniper man, maybe? A tunneler? God he hoped he wouldn't be a tunneler, he'd hated confined spaces ever since he was a child. His older brother, Arthur, would often trap him in their mothers wardrobe whenever they were fighting over something or he just wanted some entertainment. The sound of his brothers pleas for freedom did nothing but make Arthur laugh even more each time a scream came from the young trapped Shelby lad until their mother set the poor boy free from his dark holding. She'd always be sure to give Arthur a swift hiding on the backside each time which he'd come to see as worthwhile if it meant he got to torment his younger brother.

Tommy could feel his throat closing up just at the memory, the air in the room suddenly appearing thinner as if someone had turned a dial and was slowly shutting off the oxygen. He brought his hands up to his throat and began clawing at it as if to try and remove an imaginary pair of hands he was convinced were squeezing it, tightly.

Don't think about it, Tom.

Trying to regain back some kind of control, he lowered his hands back down to his sides and slowly closed his eyes before making sure to take some deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. His mother had taught him that trick as he was growing up, "the best way to get that breath of yours back!", she'd told him.

He'd soon come to find that it was also a neat little trick for when he'd been out stealing small rolls of bread at the bakers to help feed the family, times were hard, he couldn't let his mother see that he was out of breath from running away and then have to explain the reason behind it. He smiled at the memory and soon realized that he had gained back the control of his breathing, with each breath as smooth as the last.

He rolled over once more to grab a cigarette from his bedside table along with the lighter laying next to it. Lighting the end he laid back down on the bed with one arm rested behind his head, taking a drag of the cigarette that was now in between his fingers.

His mind quickly wandered back to everything that had kept him up all night and the thought of knowing he was about to enter a new chapter in his life. He knew that to begin with he'd have to go through some very basic training, how long this would be for he didn't know, he just knew he'd probably go on to do whatever job he was assigned very under-prepared due to the need for more men to help fight for their country, and fast. 

His brothers, Arthur and John, had also been called up. His youngest brother Finn was still not old enough, a blessing he'd admit to being relieved by. If the three were all to die in combat then at least there would still be a male Shelby to carry on the family name.

He took another drag.

His mind raced then as he thought about all he'd be leaving behind. His beautiful white horse that was a gift from his mother, the freedom of being able to do what he wanted when he wanted, to go wherever he wanted when he wanted. The woods just past the cut that he'd often escape to, trying to relieve his mind of the pressures of the city. His mother. His father. Finn. Aunt Pol. You.

He felt a pang of sadness suddenly hit him in the chest and was surprised to feel a rush of tears enter his eyes but wouldn't allow them to spill out, no chance, if he started he was afraid he'd never stop.

The cigarette had now burnt right down nearly to the filter, his thoughts pretty much wasting the time he could have spent smoking it. He rolled over again and stamped the wasted nub out into the ashtray he kept on his bedside table before once again laying down, this time rolling over onto his left hand side.

A smile grew onto his lips as he saw you sleeping peacefully beside him. He brought a hand up and gently stroked the hair that had found itself covering your eye away so that he could see every inch of your face. 'So beautiful'.

You'd first met Tommy as a young girl whilst playing out on the dim dirty streets of Birmingham. The pair of you had soon become inseparable and it was a known fact that wherever the Shelby boys went, you went too.

You were often being told off for not 'acting like a girl' by your parents, when you'd rather skin your knee's climbing walls into places you weren't meant to go in, or sneak into the pub with Tommy and his brothers to try and drink whatever leftover alcohol people had abandoned in glasses on empty tables, you didn't see the need in making sure you looked presentable all the time.

Tommy loved that about you. Your carefree, determined attitude to do whatever you wanted to do instead of being trapped by other peoples thoughts and opinions about what they thought you should be doing. Even now you were a young woman, that attitude had never changed.

His eyes shifted as you began to stir from your sleep, his hand gently cupping your cheek.

"Morning", he smiled, happy that you'd finally woken from your slumber.

He'd watched you sleep throughout the night, the constant worries of leaving you behind plunging themselves into his thoughts. He'd had to fight them off each time and reassure himself that you'd be okay back here in England with his mother and aunt Pol. They'd make sure to keep you occupied and keep your mind busy to try and warn off any bad thoughts about Tommy's well being, as much as they could anyway.

You opened your eyes fully before squinting, the room now brighter than you'd expected it to be. You heard Tommy let out a chuckle as you pulled the duvet up closer around your chin and slightly nuzzled the pillow.

"Morning", you managed to murmur, "what time is it?"

"Just after 5:30, you can go back to sleep if you want to, you need your rest", his hand was now back to stroking your hair away from your face, each brief graze of his fingers sending the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end. How did this man do it? Any time he touched you no matter how briefly was like it was for the first time all over again. Electric.

"No, I want to be with you, savoring every second before..." the realization hit you then. Today was the day he had to leave for God knows how long. Maybe forever.

As your voice trailed off he knew you were probably finding things just as hard as he was, he knew you didn't want to be apart from him either. What he didn't know was that you'd been in a constant stream of nightmares all night, terrible ones. Images of bombs going off, men being gunned down, tunnels collapsing... and you wasn't about to tell him either.

His hand was around your waist then, gently pulling you in closer as he pressed a tender kiss to your forehead. He didn't have the words to tell you just how much he'd miss you, how you'd be on his mind every second of every terrifying day. How even though he'd carry your picture with him wherever he went, he was so scared of forgetting each and every angle of your face, the way your nose slightly curved upwards at the tip, the way your lips would feel as they touched his, soft. So soft.

The thing he was most scared of though was forgetting the sound of your voice, how it sounded as you called his name in any capacity, and your laugh, God he hoped he didn't forget that. The noise was music to his ears every time even though you always said you hated the way it sounded.

He also didn't have the words to tell you just how scared he was. Not just scared, he was absolutely petrified. It was probably a good thing because he didn't want to make you worry even more, he had to put on some kind of strong front for the both of you. He was determined that he would be coming back home.Back home to the streets of Birmingham, the woods behind the cut, his family, you.

Neither of you spoke for a while, instead you lay holding one another in the perfect sanctuary of Tommy's bed. Though neither of you said it you both wanted this moment to last forever, you wanted to feel his breath gently brushing past your cheek, his slightly rough skin on the pads of his fingertips grazing every part of your body as if to tease you, his lips pressed to yours, bliss. One thing you knew for certain was that you’d miss it all while he wasn’t there.

But time was cruel and waited for no one, it was time to get up and get ready to leave for the station.

- - -

Once at the station neither of you could hold in the tears that were forming in your eyes. You let out another sob as you flung your arms around Tommy's neck, you didn't care if his uniform got a bit wet and creased, there was no way in hell that you weren't going to hold him for what could be the last time before he stepped onto that train.

Tommy had convinced his mother and aunt Pol to stay behind at the house, he knew his mother would be in pieces having to say goodbye to three of her four sons, watching them step onto the train one by one not knowing if she'd ever get to see their faces again.

John and Arthur had already gotten onto the train. With no one to say goodbye to at the station they couldn't bare to watch mothers and sons, families with children, men with their girlfriends getting to share that last hug before the men went off into the unknown, not knowing if their feet would ever touch the soil in Birmingham again. They'd rather block it out, just get on with it and deal with their emotions in private, they never wanted to be seen as weak.

A whistle blew on the platform, signalling that it was time to start boarding the train. Your stomach tensed up and you could have sworn that you didn't know how you managed not to throw up where you stood. This was the moment you had been dreading, or so you thought.

"Please, come home to me", your voice was shaky through the sobs, your hands cupping each side of Tommy's face, "I don't want to live a life where you're not in it".

Your words were like daggers to Tommy's heart and he brought his hands up to cover your own, "I will do everything I possibly can to come back to you, even if I have to dig a tunnel all the way back to Birmingham myself, I'd do it for you".

Your foreheads pressed together for a moment before Tommy released his hands from yours and gently lifted your chin with a finger. He placed a gentle, loving kiss to your lips. You silently begged for the kiss to never end but of course it did and as you both pulled away you could see the tears still running from his eyes, rolling over his cheekbones and onto the station platform.

Another whistle.

He bent down to pick up his bag that held the very few possessions he owned, the most important one being his photograph of you, it was a portrait he'd taken himself on a camera that he'd stolen from an upmarket shop on their visit to London one year. "The most beautiful girl to ever exist", he'd said.

"C'mon lad, time to go", shouted another man in a deep, burly voice as he walked past Tommy, giving him a slap on the shoulders as he did so.

"I'll write to you, I promise", he planted one last sweet kiss upon your lips.

Tommy’s eyes were still flowing with tears, he used the back of his hand to wipe his nose as he slowly started backing away from the love of his life, his feet aching to step forward, his arms screaming at him to reach out and grab your hand to run out of the station and into those woods behind the cut that you'd so often visit together. But he couldn't.

Before either of you knew it he was at the train door, a bustle of men all stepping on one by one. Tommy took one last look at you and tried his best to give you a smile before he too took a step onto the train.

The sobs that hadn't stopped since you'd left the Shelby household that morning continued, the sound blending in with what seemed to be the majority of the women's sobs on the platform. How could any of them ever stop? Their partners, dad's, brothers, uncles and so on were leaving to fight in a dangerous war, one that they knew wouldn't be forgiving. And God knows how long this war was going to last for, it could be months before the men, come soldiers, could even imagine the pure relief of being allowed to come home.

One final whistle.

The train doors were closed one by one by the conductor, a grimace on his face with every slam of the wooden frames, almost as an apology to the loved ones standing on the platform waving goodbye, as if he felt responsible for sending the men off into what could possibly be their death.

The steam started spilling from the funnel atop the train and the sound of the engine pumping as coal was being piled into the boiler at the front started to fill the air. Ever so slowly the trains wheels began to turn and as they did so the men all stuck their heads out of the windows, hoping to catch a last glimpse of their loved ones.

You saw him, clear as day. Tommy had his head poking out of a window, two men had also stuck their heads above his, trying to wave at their families. He waved at you, tears in his eyes, the smile that he'd tried to throw in your direction before stepping on the train now well and truly gone, instead a look of worry and sorrow was written all over his face. You were sure that the same was on yours too.

His features began to get less distinctive as the train crept further and further away until eventually you could no longer distinguish which face belonged to him, the distance too great. You continued to stand there until the train was nearly out of sight, and that’s when you realised, this was the moment you were dreading the most.

Tommy had gone to war and you didn't know if he was ever coming back.

[spacemagicandlaserswords]

The Clone Wars 4.07 ‘Darkness on Umbara’ Reaction Take 2

I’m doing this post and the rest of these second watch reaction posts to the Umbara arc in the more live-blogging style reaction posts I’ve done for other episodes like 1x5 ‘Rookies’, 2x10 ‘The Deserter’ and 4x5 'Mercy Mission'. So much happens in these episodes and I feel like I missed a lot of it in my first reaction posts because I was going through all the emotions.

“Just like old times, Rex” WHY AM I SAD ALREADY

That is some very cool looking nose cone art on the 501st LAAT/i behind Fives. Can’t quite tell what it is but it certainly looks cool.

More Anakin and Obi Wan snark. Excellent. Business as usual then.

Well that’s not ominous at all

Naw, Rex checking in on Tup. I read somewhere that Tup was a shiny on Umbara but I can’t remember if this is canon or fanon.

The clone piloting the LAAT/i is named Hawk! Or at least he is according to the captions. Hey Hawk! More named clones! :D 

“Time to lock and load” CACKLING

The walkers just leap backwards out the back of the low flying LAAT/i’s? How is this a good idea? 

BOING. Yeet the walker.

I think this is the first time we actually hear what the clones are saying on a battlefield. Usually it’s just dialogue between the main characters but now there’s so many of them shouting and cheering and screaming and dying.

Rip the poor clone that jumped out of the LAAT/i and didn’t even make it onto the ground before being shot.

“The enemy could have the whole place rigged with traps.” Dammit Anakin you jinxed it.

“I can’t even see the enemy” Oh that’s going to come back and bite everyone in the arse really badly.

“It’s just a vine” Oh dear.

It’s the Umbaran sarlacc!

Fives being a badass and taking out the monster like it’s nothing. That was quite clever thinking in terrifying circumstances for him to keep his head and figure out he needs to get the monster to eat the explosive.

That shot of the trenches definitely reminds me of WWI and II. They’ve even got the troopers leaning against the sides with their blasters poking above the top.

“Maybe… back in the day” Dayum Rex, there a lot of feeling in that one. 

Surely an ambush and skittering assassin bugs would be something that Anakin would sense in the Force?

Lmao @ Hardcase trying to take out the bug with the blaster equivalent of a rotary canon. That’s like taking a flamethrower to a spider.

Fives have you been gargling gravel or something?

Well at least Anakin got rid of the assassin bug. Again.

That shot of the bombers and Odd Ball bombing the ridge and the ensuing explosion definitely felt like a reference to the Vietnam war.

Ah great, fuck face has arrived. Fuck off Krell.

Lol the ominous music at Krell’s arrival was definitely not foreboding at aaaaaaaaall.

“You won’t find a finer or more loyal trooper anywhere.” DAMN STRAIGHT

How dare you impune Rex’s honour. How dare.

Cackling at Fives look at Rex immediately after Krell buggered off. He is so unimpressed.

Something about Fives’ voice is very… husky. 

“The men don’t need rest” ah fuck off

Oh you did not just address Rex by his fucking number

Is this where Rex got his dramatic flair for disappearing into the fog like he did in ‘Battle Scars’ in The Bad Batch?

I just had a heartbreaking thought. Is Fives here because Echo is gone and he doesn’t have an ARC partner (and twin) anymore? So Rex is doubling as his ARC partner for now until Jesse ends up as the other ARC in Torrent and the 501st? Do ARCs have partners and come in pairs? More angst for this already angst riddled arc (in more ways than one). Yay.

Is this Phase 2 clone armour? I think it is.

Poor Rex is trying to be diplomatic and balance dealing with Krell while also showing his men that he understands their concerns as well. I do like Fives’ view on this. He’s very ‘wear your heart on your sleeve’. I also loved that little exchange, you can really tell all of their different personalities just from that conversation. Hardcase is so gung ho, bless him.

“It’s too quiet out there.” Tup you precious anxious little bean

Rip Oz and Ringo

“You wanna piece of this” Hardcase living his best ‘blast everything’ life 

“I think Hardcase made ‘em mad.” CACKLING

Damn, Tup just taking out that Umbaran with a flip and a point blank blaster rifle shot to the face

“Make ‘em eat heat!” Hardcase is definitely in same vein as an 80s action hero

Rex just casually dual wielding with a horizontal grip like it’s nothing. Sir, you are showing off.

I would let Fives flip me over his shoulder and pound me into the ground. And then thank him for it. I have watched that part multiple times and it does not stop being hot. And the way he just casually stands up all cool and deadly and puts multiple blaster shots into the Umbaran. Sir, please contain your badassery. @nobie also has a fantastic gifset of this moment

Rex’s little flippy roll straight after this made me realise that he and Fives are fighting together. Oh Echo.

It’s almost jarring how noticeable it is that there isn’t a Jedi fighting alongside the clones. I couldn’t quite pick what felt off the first time until someone (Fives, I think?) mentions it later but it’s so obvious now. 

“Ha, ha, ha! Where ya goin’?” Hardcase is having the time of his life atm

Did Krell just shoulder check Fives?!

You can't jab Captain Rex in the shoulder like that!

Fives saying what everyone is thinking there. Also, what kind of Jedi threatens a clone with a lightsaber? Oh that’s right, a Sith.

Rex being an absolute badass

“I think he almost complimented you.” CACKLING

Fives and Rex just casually snarking while in the middle of a battlefield

[kowaindar0u]

//

so. post-reimei thoughts. probably some minor spoilers but nothing super shocking or important. also, i will warn, yuichi's been to... very dark places, emotionally/mentally that could be triggering. i'm not gonna write about it in detail or anything but just a heads up!

well, for one, i have such a love-hate relationship with the way tkrb is so vague/open-ended about a lot of things LOL like the possibilities are endless but i'm stupid and also i get stressed about "oh what if i make something that doesn't fit" so i get myself in a locked situation thought-wise which is STUPID because thats the POINT of it being WIIIDE OPEN SPAAACES yknow!!!! but brains are idiots unfortunately lol

.... that being said,,

i like the whole... "had inklings of spiritual sensitivity/power for a while before it fully manifested" thing. i'd been thinking that's how i'd go with yuichi as it's reminiscent of like... mutants in x-men LOL

and, the fact that if one has those inklings, it's possible to reach out to/be reached out to by a touken danshi in some manner? or, i wonder, perhaps even manifest a tsukumogami spirit from something by then?

So, i guess with all that in mind

yuichi's life was, like, just... very unremarkable LOL. I don't think anything immensely bad happened to him, nor did anything positive of particular note, yknow? but even the mundane tends to overwhelm him and always has, and by the time he was an adult, his anxieties had kept him from really, like, branching out, taking chances, making many close friends, leaving the house unless absolutely necessary for work, etc. He was heavily depressed and quite lonely, but he felt It was nobody's fault but his own.

Zooming in toward the end of his "regular human" life:

So. he's got himself into a pit--or maybe more like a trench-- of despair. His entire psyche just ached, and if he thought too hard about his life and existence he would just break down and cry or throw himself into a panic attack. He doesn't eat enough, and sleeps way too much, when he's not lying awake ruminating in self-deprecation.

And then... things just start getting loud. It's worse outside, which has him leaving the house even less. It's like a ringing in his ears, layered over what seems like whispers. He's pretty sure he's just finally going insane from only being with himself so much.

One day he decides to leave the house. He hasn't been able to work lately, all things considered, and so he's running out of time for basic needs, and he cannot find a way in which anything gets better. He wants to find some place quiet-- but it's hard. Memories, spiritual energy, etc are everywhere, after all.

By the time he gets to the pier, it's raining, and he's a mess. He had every intention of climbing over that railing and just giving up. He's gripping the metal bars and screaming internally at himself to just do it already, and --

A surge of...something racks his brain, and had he not been holding the railing he'd have probably dropped to the ground.

In front of him now, just over the railing, is what looks like... a rip in the air...? through it, he can see swirls of color rushing by.

Oh, he thinks. This is it. I've finally cracked. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is.

He's a little bit curious, even though he's telling himself this is just a hallucination or something. He's not even sure he can jump that far. But what does it matter? He came here to do that anyway.

So... he shakily clambers over the railing, takes in a deep breath, and jumps, reaching for that rip. Its edges seem to come to his hands instead, and he grabs on, somehow able to pull himself up and through the rip, and into the rushing tunnel of colors...

Only to get ran the fuck over by someone on a weird boat, ala the time travel sequence in hanamaru movie 1 !!

i don't know who it is atm but safe to say some poor toudan has to drag an unconscious yuichi onto his boat and bring him back to their citadel or the govt with him LOL

And from there... well, he learns everything he was hearing, was the result of latent spiritual abilities activating, and in his lowest, most distressed moment they sort of burst out, puncturing or pulling on the time-space pathway and making a hole... and the rest is history (pun intended)

maybe one day i'll write this out proper and add it to his bio. for now it's just gonna be in his tag cause i'm not very good at writing bios lol it's so awkward

ANYWAY i hope this made some kind of sense LOL?? and also that it isn't too depressing... he's better now... still plagued with depression and the gloominess but he is very loved <3 also after writing this it's so funny to me that he ... like... didn't really feel he had anything to go back to, so while as a formality there probably was a kind of ..."offer" of employment or whatever, and probably (definitely) some kind of rest period to make sure he was like... stable, lol... but other than that, he just kind of went from literally almost going off the deep end, to Saniwa

there was not really a "hmmm let me think about it and i'll get back to you" period he's just like "i think your confidence that i can do this is unearned but i don't really have a choice"

[tsintotwo]

(Part 4/4)

(Earlier: Parts 1, 2, and 3)

Okay, finally getting to the 4th and last post talking about Tom Sturridge in his projects. There's not too much left to say as these are mostly cameos.

Vanity Fair (2004)- This was the first movie Tom was in as a grownup (edit: nope, this was the 2nd)- in period clothing (and looking like a million bucks, as you would suspect). Screentime: 2min. You can tell he's still finding his footing in all this. But he's got the it factor already.

Journey's End (2017)- Movie about Brit soldiers stuck in trenches waiting for death during WW2. Sam Claffin and Paul Bettany are in this and I recognized neither before seeing credits 🤦‍♀️ Anyway, Tom plays a bad soldier: drinks and girls are his forte, fighting- not so much. His character is in this movie to basically show the bone-chilling, hope-crushing, cruelly pointless side of wars. He uses his 3/4 scenes to drive that point home like a master. There's one super emotionally charged scene with Sam that sears into the mind- they both absolutely chew it up.

Song to Song (2017)- Tom being in this movie is just the most RANDOM thing in the world, guys. Song to Song is about the music industry and rockstar life, and Tom shows up for like 2mins to play Ryan Gosling's hometown farmland brother of all things??? Wut. 2 lines of dialogue. Cute hair, tho. Cute everything.

Hello Apartment (2018)- Slice-of-life short film about how we all leave our mark in the spaces we move through. Dakota Fanning made this and asked Tom to be in it- they've been friends since doing Effie Gray. Tom is MC's stormy bf- a bit of kissing, a bit of pouting, a bit of shouting. Worth it. (Aside: some STUNNING shots in this, kudos to Dakota). This is on youtube.

That's it, actually. Only movie of Tom's I haven't gotten to is Junkhearts (2011). It's on Amazon Prime for $4 which is worth it, but it seems like an intense movie and I'll take a break before trying to watch this one.

A significant part of Tom's career has been theater work. From what I've gathered, seems like he's done some phenomenal work there- both in UK and US. Got cool awards and noms. Of course, if your play isn't Hamilton, it doesn't get to be on any screen, so there's no way to see any of those now. The one I'm most gutted about is 1984 (2017) on Broadway. I love the og classic by George Orwell, and by all accounts this adaptation/interpretation was banging (AND controversial!). Tom playing a role like Winston Smith... I'd have loved it so fuckin much * screaming-into-pillow break*

How does Tom choose his projects?

"The first thing I’m drawn to is a piece of writing, to an author, to a director. Weirdly, it’s rarely a character. I want to work with people or with texts that push me and make me learn things that I think I can’t do. Because if I think I can do it, then I can’t surprise myself. And if I can’t surprise myself, then I’m definitely not going to surprise an audience." -Tom for Interview magazine, 2022

Why does he often do troubles characters?

"... I think what I’m attracted to is being able to explore a spectrum of emotion. It’s easier to find comedy in something sad than it is to find darkness in something funny. I can be all kinds of people when the darkness is there. Also, the first character I ever played onstage was a boy who murders all of his schoolmates [in Punk Rock]. I do think there’s something to be said by, “You get stuck in a gorge that you start with.” People have always gone, “Oh, yeah. He’s the fucked-up guy.” - same

Here's something about me: I love falling in love with men on silver screen. It's the only space where it's okay to be in love with a version of someone you made in your head because you're not going to know any other version. The only space you get to channel your feelings six ways to Sunday: write posts, write stories, draw, make any art- people will actually celebrate those (whereas try talking to your friend about a new irl crush for five days straight, on the sixth they'll smack you upside your head). The feelings are intense because these men are deliberately performing for you, the emotions forever unsullied because they're not gonna come hurt you (unless they're being cancelled lol). And they're all the finest specimens! So, yeah, I love it, and it happens periodically. What's rarer, tho, is that I get attracted to an actor's whole personality. I mean, like, all of these hot men are hella charming, and you can yassify almost anyone based on interview moments. But, idk, it doesn't always click with me, and I love a character, ship a couple, then move on. Tom, tho, is going to be one of those 2/3 permanent ones. I just find him interesting which to me, is the thing. (And also, he turned out to be one of those rare people in life who lets you know things about yourself that you didn't know before. Huh. Who knew?) And yeah, okay, he's very hot and insanely talented which started this whole intense phase but while this won't last, a genuine fondness and love will. He has a place in my heart forever. It's been such a good time discovering him that I'm legit grateful to the universe.

I'll do a bonus post with links to Tom interviews/vids/ stuff that are worth checking out. Until then, guys.

[poll-ventures]

Perdition 1.4

< >

I hung up. I stared at the phone in my hand, its screen showing an old rotary telephone slamming into its receiver.

Numbly, I watched it repeat several times before it faded away into the black of the dead screen. Why had I done that?

What am I doing?

I broke into a sprint down the road, running as fast as I could to the woods. 

*****

The woods of Old Hill were untouched. Serene, tranquil, and still easing itself awake from the dusty silence of early morning. I tore through the trees at a sprint, thin vines and branches tearing at my coat as I sped over the cold packed dirt and gnarled forest roots. 

I was following a creek, and I was relatively sure it was the same one that Noel meant. I’d seen the maps of the land in the museums, but those had never held much truth when it came to small details like a small creek in the heavy western woods. Noel's parent's mansion had been built only a few decades ago, so I was guessing at a ghost.

I slowed as I approached a large fallen basswood tree, leaning on it as I caught my breath. I really wasn’t made for running, and my lungs screamed with the icy air pulling and pushing out of them. As I sat on the cool bark, I faced the way I’d come, and recognized it.

I’d been here before, with Noel, when she needed a break from her homework, or life in general. This was near the right spot.

“Noel!” I shouted, turning around on the tree to search for her. The quiet, yet alive chatter of the woods slowed as my voice rung out, then returned as it died.

A woodpecker stabbed a rhythm into a far away tree, and the forest all together went on uncaring. I swore under my breath, and moved my legs to straddle the cold dead tree like a horse.

The felled basswood spanned the creek, and I stared down its length as I caught my breath. Moving my gloved hand down the trunk, I found my glove was sticking to something.

It was a carved heart. The injured wood was green and fresh, sap building up and out at the edges of the cut.

The letters in the heart read N + J, then a date. 2-3-23. Very fresh. I stared at the ‘N’, brushing the older sap aside with my thick gloved digits.

Natalie.

The name still burned painfully in my heart, incorrect and shameful in the memories it wrought. One word from a well meaning stranger, one reminder of the date of the accident, that’s all it took. 

February 15th, 2020. The night was alive in my mind again, without my asking. I turned my head up, to face the woods. 

The woods, as many dark and cold nights on the road had taught me, could be very dangerous. Refusing to drive or even be driven after the accident, I had backpacked my way down from New York.

I’d thought the trip would be quick; Google Maps said ten days, and I thought I'd be in Old Hill in nine, maybe eight days, easy.

After the money for inns and motels had run out, I had realized that walking worked on the same kind of time that hospitals and classes right before lunch did: Slow time. 

Time that stretches on until you're sunburnt and dehydrated, until you want to turn back, but that would make things even worse, and everyone back home doesn’t want you there anyway, so just keep on heading down I-81 counting the mile markers. 

Slow time traps you in this until your eyes roll into the back of your skull, and you’re willing to sleep on a pile of rusty nails because at least they don’t fucking honk at you for having the gall to walk on the shoulder instead of in the gluttonous mud trench that sucks your falling-apart-shoes down its shit-coated-throat.

So, after a long day of trudging, the sun would go down, sometimes obligingly slow, sometimes slipping right out of slow time and into blink-and-you’ll-miss-it time, diving below the horizon and leaving you soaking wet, struggling with two damp sticks to make a fire.

This, however, was preferable to the perils of the interstate’s shoulder and its many bored, cloying cops and just-like-me vagrants.

If I had to choose, though, it’d be the vagrants. I’d shared a few kind fires with a number of them, sometimes learning their names and their stories, sometimes sitting in uneasy silence until we wandered off to sleep in private.

As the weeks wore on, I had been moving into a cold front, and not sleeping in front of the fire had become impossible. 

More often than not, I’d made camp in a thin layer of trees that lined a highway-side property. Sometimes you’d need to hop a fence, which started out hard, but by the second week was routine.

This was technically and legally trespassing, but a camo sleeping bag and a good spot usually got you through the night without disturbance. Usually.

More than once, I’d been woken by something rummaging through my belongings, sometimes even the coat I’d been sleeping in. Sometimes it’d be curious and annoyed animals, but most times it had been people. The cops had always been the worst. 

“What you’re doing is illegal,” they’d say, then look at me confused and finish either with “Sir,” or, more often, “Ma’am.” Always with disapproval in their voice and always using more force than needed.

Sometimes they’d let me move on, or I’d get a ride to their office, where they called my father, confirmed he knew where I was, then bewilderedly let me go, usually with a stern warning. 

Most cops, when they understood, had offered food and drink for my trip. Some had even offered rides, which I graciously denied. Some offered neither, and just let me go.

One, the worst, had left me locked up in the little town’s singular cell for three days and three nights. It was just outside of West Virginia, right after I’d crossed the Kentucky border. 

Jessup, as the nothing little two-road town was called, apparently had trouble keeping folk around. Or so I was told by Jessup’s top boozer, who said his name was Jesse. He’d already been in the cell when I was thrown in.

The officer who’d found me on the side of the road, a mean mugging ugly woman, had given Jesse her meanest mug as she walked away with a clipboard securely tucked beneath one arm.

Jesse of Jessup played harmonica, and drank like a fish. In the morning he was always set free, but at night, he was brought to the cell, what he lovingly and drunkenly called ‘Jesse’s Little Corner of Jessup’. 

On my last night in his town, he’d snuck in a small bottle of Fireball, a deck of cards, and his dirty harmonica, still wet from its play in the bar. After the mean-mugger had left for the night, Jesse showed me how to play Hearts, Bullshit, Garbage, and the 'ca.

He was good, and I told him as much. In his jovial way, he corrected me: “I’m not good,” I remembered him slurring, “I’m mean. ‘Jesse,’ you should say. ‘You play a meaaaaan har-moan-i-cah,’ you should be saying.”

So I did, and he cheered. We shared no campfire, but did huddle and did dance around the rattling radiator, him blowing sharply into the ‘cah and me stomping my boots and clapping my hands.

He’d thanked me for my company, and kissed me gently on the cheek. He’d reeked of alcohol and worse, but I thanked him for his good humor, and let him sleep. 

After the mean-mugger had exhausted all of her attempts to find me guilty of various crimes, she’d let me go. She had demanded I shower first, staring me down with a disappointed grandmotherly glare. So, thanks to her, I walked out of Jessup and up the highway on-ramp cleaner than I’d been in weeks.

The memory of the mean-faced officer set a worry ablaze in my stomach as I stared down the creek. Again, the stab of the woodpecker cut through the wood’s idle chatter. Why was I out here?

Why in the world had I ignored direct orders from an officer of the law, when they knew my name and phone number? It gnawed at me. I’d never done anything like this.

I finally crossed the log, and stepped off of it onto the other side of the creek. “Noel!” I shouted out again, this time more of a bark. A quick check of the woods revealed nothing but the quiet apathy that suffused the trees. Wasting my time, when she could be in danger. What the fuck am I do-

“Hands up,” a thin, scared voice said from behind me. I recognized the slight southern accent.

“Noel,” I said, half turning my head. “I-”

“I said hands up!” She was shouting now, and I turned to face her with my hands up.

Noel, almost thirteen and dressed in stained Hello Kitty pijamas, held a rifle aimed at my chest. The lever action rifle was almost comically large in her arms, and I laughed nervously, falling, then stepping backwards as she approached me slowly, gun held level against her shoulder. She was trying not to cry.

“Where is my father,” she asked in a broken voice, screwing up her face in a grimace.

“I-I don’t know, Noel, what are you doing? I came here to help you,” I blurted out, still holding my hands in the air carefully. “Please, put the gun down.”

She shook her head. “Answer me,” she said, waving it in the air. She stood on the basswood I had crossed the creek on, and faced me, searching my face for a clue.

“I don’t know,” I repeated, feeling the cold press of a tree against my back. The creek babbled quietly next to us, and I stared at her. We both stood, unmoving.

Carefully, she stared at me, then raised the gun to point at my head. “Stop fucking lying!” she barked at me. I flinched, closing my eyes.

“I’m not! The cops said you were missing, nothing about your dad! I don’t know what the hell is going on, I just want you to stop pointing that thing at me,” I said, breathing heavily. 

“Bullshit,” she spat, the curse sounding foreign in her light voice. “Don’t move,” she said, and braced the rifle against her with one arm as she dug in her pocket for something. Then she threw it at me, and adjusted her grip on the gun. 

Her phone landed next to me in the leaves, the screen lighting up to show a picture of Noel and her mother, smiling happily in a selfie. I looked up at her, facing the glare of the rifle’s blackened metal barrel. She stared at me, raw anger in her eyes.

“You know the passcode,” she growled. “Open it. Watch the video.” I blinked, then nodded, crouching slowly and taking my right hand down to put in the numbers. 9-2-1-2. Her birthday.

The phone opened, showing a paused recording of a computer monitor. The woodpecker stabbed his staccato into a nearby tree. I tapped on the screen, then pressed play.

The video was a recording of the security system in the house I’d lived in until yesterday, portrayed in black and white. It was a view from the top of the grand staircase, watching the front door and most of the upstairs balcony, and the time in the bottom left corner read 2:03 A.M..

Noel, holding the camera in the video, was quietly and carefully breathing, the view slowly moving with her breath. The time in security footage flipped to 2:04 A.M.. The real Noel’s breathing suddenly broke out in a gentle shaking wheeze, I wasn’t sure if she was sobbing, or laughing. “Keep watching,” she choked, seeing I was looking up at her.

Car headlights streamed through the front door’s windows, casting shadows on the wall of the balcony floor. The balustrade’s shadows fled quickly across the wall, then slowly melted away as the headlights died. A moment passed, and then the door opened. Noel’s father walked in. 

Kyle Montgomery was a tall man, ambiguously young but mature and well kept. Grey was seeping in at the top of his scalp, peppering his blond, jaw length hair. Carefully hanging his keys on a hook near the door, he stared at himself in the full length mirror next to the door, straightening out his thin mustache and checking his jawline. 

He mussed up his hair, then turned his head back and forth to check if it was correctly incorrect. Nodding in approval, he shrugged off his heavy business coat, and let it drop to the floor as he walked up the stairs. He shed his suit and loosened his tie, leaving him with just a tailored pinstripe button up tucked into perfect black slacks. 

As he rose to the top of the stairs, he stopped and carefully undid the highest button of his shirt, the tie hanging loosely about his chest like an ascot. 

Then, he paused, staring down at the mess of his coat on the ground, the stairs, then the hall the opposite way, where his wife and child were asleep. He looked small in the video, and suddenly very tired. Still facing his bedroom, he raised his hand gently to his mouth, and bit down softly on it. 

He turned to face my bedroom, biting down on his own flesh hard enough to draw a bead of blood. He walked to my door, then knocked on it, drawing his wounded hand to his side, near his hip. He looked as if he were going to draw a sword, though nothing was there, just his right hand hovering a few inches away from his left hip.

The door opened, and I was standing in the crack. I was dressed in pijamas, and looked at him confused. He said something, the recording silent. In the past, I nodded, widening the door.

My brain felt like it was dropped in a bath of ice water, pure confusion washing over me. “What the fuck?” I said aloud, watching myself open the door further, letting him step in. I walked away, disappearing into the room as he slipped through the doorway, then closed it. 

I stared at my door in the video, nauseated. “Noel,” I said, staring up at her from the floor of the forest. “I don’t remember this.” My voice was cracking, confusion and fear seeping into my words from my core.

“Bullshit,” she croaked. She readjusted the grip on the rifle. “I’ve literally seen you do it. I watched you open that door for him! I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but it’s got to be why he’s gone. Where is he?”

“Noel,” I pleaded, “That’s not me. There’s no way, I’m not lying. I wouldn’t do that to you, or your mom,” I said. “Beli-”

“I don’t believe you,” she shouted, almost sobbing now. “You’re a liar. You stole my dad, or killed him, or something, ‘cause you knew it wasn’t right. Almost every night at two A.M., since you got here. Look!” She gestured towards her phone with the rifle. 

I looked down carefully, cringing away from the gun as it came back up to point at me. Noel in the video was shaking, watching as her father left my room, five minutes after he had entered it.

He looked the same as when he’d entered, save for the blood and bite mark on his hand. They were gone. He walked calmly down the stairs, grabbed his coat, and left the house. The car’s headlights cast the familliar shadows in reverse.

The camera spun, and the mouse on the desktop shakily moved to a new folder, reading 2/13/23. Two days ago. The mouse maneuvered to the video file labeled 200, the second file in the folder, and opened it.

Almost on the dot at 2:03 A.M., Mr. Montgomery stepped into the foyer, shrugged his coat onto the floor, then climbed the stairs.

This time, he didn’t pause on the way to my door to bite his hand, stopping only to knock, clearly hover his hand over his empty hip, then enter my room. 

I hadn’t even looked up at him. I’d just let him in. 

“What the fuck,” I whispered hoarsely. 

The mouse skimmed the video to five minutes later, when Kyle exited punctually, closing the door after him carefully, then taking the stairs two at a time to leave the mansion. 

The video then clicked through random nights at two A.M., watching the same process occur many times over, sped up. 

Sometimes he bit his hand, sometimes he just knocked. Always, his hand reached for the empty space at his left hip. I watched, silently, until the video ended suddenly in the middle of a night.

Noel had been staring at me the entire time, burning with silent rage. “Just tell me.”

I took a deep breath, and sat on the cold, packed dirt. “I don’t know, Noel. That’s not me. There’s no way…” 

I wasn’t one to repress memories. My worst traumatic memories, I could remember in painful detail, burned into the fabric of my being. It could be an actor, but no, I’d been there at two A.M., almost every weeknight for a year. I could very distinctly remember my nights, they were usually taken up with studying and listening to music.

A coldly horrible idea formed in my head. He could have been drugging me to make me forget. Something in a drink, or something in food. He hadn’t been carrying anything in with him… 

But it could’ve been in his pocket. I writhed in disgust, and I drew my knees up to my chest, feeling my breath hitch inside me as I stared emptily at the phone. 

“What the fuck was he doing to me,” I said, hollow, not really there, not really meaning to. What had he done to me? Why couldn’t I remember? If he was drugging me inside of my room, how had I let him in? Would I let that man in my room if he knocked? No. Definitely no. “What the fuck,” I whispered, rocking slightly.

“Parker?” Noel asked softly.

“No,” I stated, almost to myself. “It’s a fake, a fake video or a fake set that he made to set me up. It’s just an actor, just…” Noel was staring at me, shaking her head.

“What do you mean?” She asked, lowering the rifle a little, stepping towards me.

“He was never home, he could’ve been, I don’t know, setting this up? There’s no way I’d let him into my room. I don’t even like your father as a person, let alone,” I stopped, feeling bile rise in my chest. “No. This isn’t real.” I stated firmly, and felt like I was coming back to myself, at least a little.

“No, Parker,” she said, stepping back again and raising the rifle. “I watched you do it. After I recorded this, I stayed up to watch you. He knocked, you let him in.”

“No,” I pleaded.

“Please, don’t lie,” Noel whispered.

“Stop calling me a fucking liar! I don’t remember any of this!” I was shouting now, on my knees in front of her.

"Just tell me the truth!" She cried, matching my intensity.

"I am!" I screamed I picked up the phone, throwing it back to her harder than I needed to. She staggered backward, shocked.

"Liar." Noel almost growled the word, dripping with resentment.

She bent to pick up her phone, momentarily hugging the rifle against her chest, hand still on the trigger guard. It was pointed at me. My eyes darted up to Noel's. She wasn’t looking at me.

What do you do?

< >

[little-engineer-who-cant]

When the past knocks on her door, Silena has to come clean

Part 4 of Sirens Scream Names Forgotten by Tomorrow, Laid to Rest in Infinity

(Chapter 1 under cut)

Chapter 1: That's the Nature of Secrets, Dark and Deep, Waiting to be Found

Summary: Silena opens her door.

“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”

- Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) 

There’s a knock on her door, one that lights the rune next to it, one that whispers if you know how to listen and Silena knows. There’s a demigod at the door. Not unexpected, not really, there’s always a part of her that’s ready. 

So she opens it, bracing herself and-

No, no, no, please, why do the gods hate me so much that it’s you?

“Silena?” Clarisse whispers, blood dripping from her mouth and left arm, onto the ripped and faded carpet in a steady stream. Silena should shut the door right fucking now. Bolt it, grab a knife, if she was smart , she would run like hell. Get out of dodge before this barely coherent house of cards comes crashing on top of her. Death by a thousand cuts.”Are you… real?” I can’t turn you away, even if it burns everything down.  

Burn everything down? It was ashes the second Clarisse came to Gotham, even if neither of them knew it then. But she’s still bleeding all over the hallway, so instead of burning, Silena shuts down.

Compartmentalizing. That’s what her textbooks call it anyways.

“Come in.” She goes through the motions. Nectar first, a gulp, then two, down the other woman’s throat to stabilize her. Heal some of the smaller injuries and reduce her susceptibility to the larger ones. Fresh clothes, bandages, stitching supplies, splinting tools, everything she needs pulled out of her perfectly packed and carefully hidden medical cabinet in the wall, slipped behind a large painting that had cost her an arm and a leg at an art fair. Focus.

“What are you doing here?” Clarisse demands, keeping very still and breathing as steadily as she can while Silena peels away the bloody and torn jacket, revealing a deep and jagged cut on her upper left bicep. 

“Living.” That’s the safest answer, the closest to the truth that doesn’t also mean hiding from everyone like you.

“Living?” The raspiness of that breathing betrays the reality of just how injured the daughter of Ares really is. The bleeding arm has become Silena’s least pressing issue. The swelling and the concerning amount of blood staining her teeth indicate some possible facial fractures. There’s no obvious sign of an entry wound anywhere but the arm, but punctured organs were a high possibility depending on which rib was broken and where. If there’s a punctured or perforated lung, Silena may not be able to help at all.

“Lay down, I need to check your ribs.” She can’t let a conversation spiral, she’s not ready, she’s never been less ready. I thought I’d have some warning. A child’s fantasy, one she’d clung to like she’d have time to don her metaphorical armor before going to war with those who she used to be friends with, those she’s fought against before. Only now, it wouldn’t be the guerilla tactics of her infiltration, it would be guns blazing across no man’s land, into the trenches they’d dug out of self-righteousness and denial.

She’s never been good in a straight fight.

“Not until I get some answers.” 

“First I need to check for broken ribs.”

“I’ll live. Now start talking, Silena, or I swear to every god I will-” No, no, no, no, not now, please, you can’t do this to me now-

“Stop talking!” she screams, clapping her hands over her ears and there’s no controlling the heat in the words that pour from her throat, and into the air around them. It’s inevitable, the way Clarisse freezes in place, face slackening and eyes going hazy in an all too sickeningly familiar facade of compliance. Just like she had stopped in place and stood without protest while Silena stole her armor for a suicide run. Just like she’d had no choice-

Instantly, she claps both hands over her mouth, scrambling away, away, away, get away, you lost control, you can’t lose control- stumbling over an end table and sending her favorite mug crashing to the ground to shatter. No, no, no-

“Silena,” Clarisse shakes off the charm , like a dog emerging from water, refocusing her eyes and extending her hand. Trying to hide a winch and hitch of breath that Silena tracks like a bloodhound, broken ribs-

“No,” she chokes, trying not to breathe, trying to shove every sound back into her own throat, strangle it all at the source-

“Silena!” And she can’t do this, I can’t lie to her again, I can’t see her like that again, I can’t, I can’t-

She risks it because the other option is Clarisse getting too close, close enough to stop you, dropping one hand to her neck and applying pressure. If she passes out, she can’t talk, she can’t hurt anyone, she can’t control anyone-

Clarisse vaults over the couch, heedless of the blood and injury and pain, ripping Silena’s hands away from her own body and yanking her close, arms fastened behind her own back. 

“No,” she whimpers, struggling against a grip like iron, you’ve never been able to fight, you’ve always been a spy, “Clarisse-”

“I looked for you,” and that immobilizes her better than any hands, that broken whisper, the brutal despair in her best friend’s eyes. “You vanished.”

“I didn’t want to be found,” it’s an admission and self-condemnation all in one. Penance, that word pulses between them.

“Percy-”

“Fuck Percy!” Silena explodes, violent in a way she’s never let herself be before but this is my life and you’ve walked back in like I owe you- “Fuck Percy and fuck the empty words you all spouted. I know the truth, Clarisse! I know you all were lying! I could feel it, all of it, all of you. Do you know what hate tastes like? How it feels to swallow around distrust? I couldn’t taste food, Clarisse! I woke up starving and instead of bread, all I could taste was how much everyone in that medical center wanted me dead!” Her breath is too fast, her heart beating too hard but she can’t stop- “How could I stay?”

“How could you leave?” Clarisse demands, tightening her hold. There’ll be bruises in the morning, she can feel it. “How could you not try?”

“Try what? To earn my penance on everyone else's terms? To lie and express my regret?” That gets the grip to slacken, that lets her worm free.

“You-” and oh, Clarisse is shattered by this revelation but it’s true, “you don’t regret it?”

“I-” Charlie. “I regret the Princess Andromeda. I…” Silena swallows around that old friend named grief. “If I could change the past, I would change that.”

“But nothing else?”

“No.” And that’s the worst part. Because Silena has had a long time to reckon with her decisions. But most of them… Most of them are ones she can live with. Most of them aren’t making her lose sleep at night.

That one does.

“How…” Clarisse steps back, shock and horror plain on her face. “How can you not? You… You betrayed us!”

“I did what I thought was right.” And even if I was on the wrong side, I was right. That’s the one conclusion she’s been able to draw. Luke used the worst methods, but what other avenue would have worked? How many millenia have other demigods been trying and failing? It was always going to come to violence to get what we deserved. “The gods would have never listened to reason, Clarisse. It was their own hubris that wrote that prophecy. And like all the other prophecies, we are the ones who went to war for it.”

“I-” whatever she had been about to say was cut off by an oof of pain, the daughter of Ares staggering forward and onto one knee. “Fuck ,” she breathes. 

“What happened to you?” Silena hesitates for a beat, you have helped worse people than her, why are you hesitating, then creeps forward enough to get a shoulder under the taller woman.

“Crazy costumed fucker-” Clarisse gasps and cuts herself off. Adrenaline’s gone, shock could be incoming. Whatever high she had to suppress the pain, it’s all gone now. Silena quickly puts one hand over Clarisse’s heart, hammering away strong and steady. A little fast, but not worryingly so from what she can tell. Then she moves her fingers to Clarisse’s neck, relief coursing through her at the rhythmic pound of a good pulse. Need to monitor that.

“There’s a lot of those.” Silena uses her position as a support to start taking inventory of the woman’s battered torso. Her shirt isn’t too bloody, a good sign but then her fingers hit a bump far too close to hip bones for anyone’s comfort. Definitely at least one broken rib. She can feel where the bone is separated. Fuck, heightened chance of perforated organs, need to watch that too-

“The one in a batsuit. Had a kid with him.” Silena’s hands freeze.

“Why did he attack you?” she whispers, ice shooting down her spine, there are no meta-humans in Gotham. And of all the people to find her here, it’s one of the ones who can be spotted as more from a mile away.

“Fuck if I know.” I can’t address this now, not with the tile under their feet getting wetter and wetter with blood slipping off Clarisse’s arm. It’s already going to be a bitch and a half to clean up, no need to add to it.

Shock position first. Then flush and stitch the arm to stop the bleeding. Then assess the bruising and fractures. If she had a punctured organ, there’d be more signs after she jumped over the damn couch. She needs to stop the bleeding, keep Clarisse’s heart rate steady and not deprive it of any more blood.

“Lay down, I need to stitch your arm.” It’s not the first time someone has bled on her couch, it won’t be the last. It’s why she got the very uncomfortable vinyl covers that Jason makes fun of her for. Easy to wash, easy to conceal. “This is going to hurt.” 

“I know,” Clarisse accepts the rubber wafer Silena hands her with a grimace and obediently tries to help elevate her feet on the tall, firm cushion Silena puts at the end of the couch. “Just get it over with.” And she shoves the black brick into her mouth and Silena turns to get a saline flush.

—

She braces on the rickety side table, a rag clutched in one hand, head bent between her biceps, and she breathes. Clarisse is here, in Gotham, and has been beaten half to death by Batman. Batman. Of all the people who have crossed her doorstep, none of them have managed to run afoul of the various guardians of Gotham until now. 

It had to be you, she stares at the closed eyes of her one-time best friend, the little scowl of pain between her brows, the discomforted curl of her lips, it had to be you. 

She’s too tired to be angry. This life, it was always on a time limit, wasn’t it? A borrowed clock ticking down the seconds until she had to start again. Soon, that’s been the mantra of her life since the end, but it’s the truth. Soon. She’ll have to run, go somewhere else too dangerous to look, start her network over. It was always going to happen, this was never a permanent solution. What is your plan? What was ever your plan? She has enough money to drop and go, she can get papers easily, charm herself a new job-

“What the fuck is this?” Her heart stops at Jason’s rough snarl.

Soon has suddenly become never.

She crashes, falling to her knees and staring sightlessly at the slowly coagulating pool of blood on the tile that all belongs inside of the woman passed out on her sofa with a dangerous amount of nectar shoved down her throat. End of the line.  

This was always something she vaguely feared, but never really believed would happen. Unimaginative. Now, she’s reaping what she’s sowed. What is your plan? a little, mocking voice in her head asks snidely.

A rag. That’s her plan. There’s blood on the tile, from where Clarisse had dripped all over during their scuffle. It needs to be cleaned. She has a rag. A plan. A lifeline. 

What else can she do? Run? She’ll never outrun a bullet. And the blood needs to be cleaned up anyways. It’s the least she can do, despite the awful state of this building. Her landlord was always kind enough to not ask questions. Eye for an eye and this whole city is playing blind.

So she unclenches her hand, folding the cloth neatly like that will change the fact that it’s wiping up the blood, not looking up at him, not answering. Just breathing, tasting his shock like a lightning bolt on her tongue, wrinkling her nose as it tangled with the ongoing thrum of Clarisse’s muted pain like cracker jacks and caramel kettle corn, too sweet to be pleasant. She wipes and waits. It’s said that a bullet to the head is quick and she’s not stopping him, practically handing him the back of her head on a silver platter, he’d make it quick.

There’s a rustle and a clink and she waits. The blinding pain never comes. His hand does instead, covering hers. She stares at the back of it, at scarred knuckles and the little tendrils of ink that creep down from his wrist. 

Wordlessly, he takes the rag from her and starts wiping at the bloody tile, brow furrowed with thunderous thoughts, eyes dark and emotions tasting more sour than an unripe lemon, but he’s here and she’s alive. Even if this calm before a hurricane doesn’t last, Silena loves him for it. 

She gets a second rag.