#I fucking hate coding on this site now

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[That Which Protects The Falling Rain] Pt.2

[Part 1]

[Chapter Summary]

"So You Somehow Survived The Apocalypse And Have Jumped Timelines, What Do You Do Next? Get Sick And Spend A Week Regretting Life Apparently." A Novella By Uryū Ishida (Co-Written By Ichigo Kurosaki) Or, the aftermath of the first chapter in which we see first hand how things can never be easy for a traumatized teenager who somehow managed to kill God several times over. Also some friends show up. Misunderstandings ensue.

[A/N]

Anyways, here's the next chapter which I'm just as surprised as you all that this thing exists. And to think it only took me a damned year and running through two different laptops bring it to you all. (May you find peace in whatever tech afterlife there may be my dear Toshiba-san and let Honne-san carry on your memory for years to come.) It...most certainly has been a year. Well, here's ya'll's bunch of headcanons and worldbuilding stacked together on top of one another in a trenchcoat. Enjoy.

His head ached.

(…Urgh. What the fuck happened? Did I get rammed by a truck?)

Feeling as though he had just fell from a great height, consciousness slowly returned to him as he made his journey out from the oppressive dark into the muzzy blur that was the waking world.

(Maybe a hollow chucked me into the side of a building again. Holy fucking shit that hurts…)

With a slit eye, he stared out at the fuzzed miscellanea that surrounded himself with a brief haze of confusion until the cobwebs dusted themselves from his mind and he recalled –oh yeah, that’s right, I wear glasses- and groped around himself searchingly. Upon location, he slipped them on and waited as the world resolved itself around him and a few things made themselves glaringly apparent.

The first: he felt absolutely awful. There was a deep ache down to his very soul and every single piece of him felt raw. As if he had been stripped of his skin and then had it stretched over his bare skeleton and pinned back into place by a bunch of searing hot sewing needles prickling his…well…everything.

Second: he was currently back at home, in his bedroom with no real idea as to how he had come to be there. However, he had the indescribable notion that he had previously been somewhere very different and nowhere even remotely near the place whatsoever. (But if that were the case then just where had he been? And how…)

(Don’t think about it.)

And finally the most important thing: why the hell was he on the floor of all things? Urgh. (Even if he did have a rather nicely done rug that he had stitched together all by himself in his spare time –thank you very much- covering the cold hardwood beneath that was still asking for any variety of aches and pains that would hit him the very moment he sat up.) Had he had a nightmare and accidentally rolled out of bed? Well, that would explain the vague sense of creeping dread that lingered at the fringes of his mind. As if he were forgetting something important.

(Don’t think about it.)

(It had been a while since he’d had a nightmare, now that he thought about it. Truly, when had been the last time he’d woken up in a cold sweat with the air all knotted up in his chest as he struggled to breathe. Hand outstretched as he continued to reach for out for his mother grandfather but was never quite able to catch as it faded to black. How he bit back the silent screams that wanted to escape as so not to wake his sisters or his old man with the noise. But didn’t he live alone? He was an only child after all and -outside of brief snippets brought about some by rather extenuating circumstances- he hadn’t actually held a conversation with his father in literal ages. Calling their relationship strained would be generous at the best of times and it would seem as they would never even have a chance to mend it because the very last time he had saw the man it had been as he was fishing the silvered arrow out from his emaciated corpse-)

(Don’t think about it.)

(Hold on a second, even in the middle of the night it was never this quiet at his house. Where were the soft sounds of his sisters puttering about? The thuds of old goat-face as he trounced about getting himself ready for another long day at the clinic? Hell, he couldn’t even hear Kon as he scurried about doing god-knows-what like the little menace he was. Also his room looked nothing like this? Where the fuck was he???)

“Ichigo. Oh my god, just shut up. You’re giving me a headache.” He groused, staring blankly up at his ceiling.

…Wait.

(…Ishida?)

“…Ichigo???”

…Oh shit.

He jerked up (ignoring the rolling twist of his stomach as he did so) with a gasp as the feeling of hot knives were suddenly being rammed through his skull as he they thought about it.

Clutching at his head as if his life depended on it, short breaths hissed through gritted teeth as the fiery static subsided leaving a bitterly cold ache in its wake. He let out a hysterical half-sob as things continued to click into place as he remembered.

And oh dear sweet god did he remember.

(‘That…that was just a nightmare?’ It wasn’t. ‘All of that actually happened?’ Yeah...)

And now? After suffering through all of …that… they were just –what- shunted off to some alternate dimension? Thrown back in in time? Or maybe he genuinely had went mad from the stress of all those battle and what he was experiencing now was all just a dying dream as the void slowly consumed his soul.

(How morbid.)

But…

But if they truly had made it back…

Turned back the swing of the pendulum to before…

(Before Aizen had made his grandiose move. Before Yhwach rose up from the millennia old shadows with his army to enact his revenge. Before the subsequent collision. Before he failed so thoroughly at his role as a protector, swept up instead by the whims of supposed fate. Before he foolishly sought a place at the royal bastard’s side just so he could drive a stake in his deadened heart at the first chance. Before their thoughtlessness got everyone killed.)

He had to be certain. He had to check.

(Quick get your phone, check it! Hurry!)

The mad dash for the device had his sock-clad feet slip up on the bare hardwood and in the process he smacked his arm into the bedside table before he caught himself on its edge. Ignoring the bruise that was sure to form, he swiped the object from its charging dock. With a sense of trepidation, he flipped it open, wide eyes scanning for the date and stared.

There on the digital readout they stood, the numbers a stark contrast against his pale background. Right now, it was currently three-fifteen in the morning, around two years off from the date he last remembered. It hadn’t been a dream.

(It wasn’t a dream. They were back. Oh my god-)

At a loss for words, he let the device clatter to the ground, bonelessly following suit as he was slowly but surely consumed by the sort of numb disassociation that came from experiencing two weeks’ worth of repressed emotions from a lost future all at once.

He stared blankly at his hands.

They were shaking.

(I can’t believe it, we’re really back! This means that bondage-fucker’s plan actually worked holy fuck-)

Yeah, great.

The indistinct weight of another’s attention, shifting at the edge of one’s perception that could be felt but only just so. The subtle widening of eyes unseen.

(Ah, hey Uryū you good?)

Was he…good?

(Okay, yep. Stupid question. Ah...)

A wince trailed by conciliatory motion. The throes of night given substance, black-as-pitch and impossibly heavy but so very kind. This presence settled tentatively upon his shoulders. (Because of course he would; that even like this he would prioritize others over himself because that’s just who Ichigo was. Even if it was in part because of your own actions that led to everyone else getting killed –himself included- he’d still have the heart to treat you like a care-worn quilt. Even if you didn’t really deserve it.)

His breath hitched.

(Hey, easy, none of that now. I need you to do something for me, real important. Yeah? Think you can manage it?)

What?

(Okay, so I’m gonna need you to breathe in to the count of five, hold it, then release. Could you do that for me?)

He grimaced faintly. Why was he asking him to do something so asinine?

(Don’t question it dumbass. Just do it. Yeah, just like that. In…)

And so he did, despite feeling like a total idiot, the teen continued follow along to the beat of the other’s directions. But even so, he couldn’t help but notice as the knot in his chest seemed to lessen a bit more with every passing moment.

(Hold it. Keep at it. You’re doing fine.)

Ah, wait. He was having a panic attack wasn’t he? Like himself, Ichigo grew up among medical staff so it figures that he would have some sense of what to do if something like this occurred. (So why was it that he couldn’t have remembered the steps himself and spared them both the trouble of having to sit through something like this?How pathetic.)

(…And release. There. Now, you holding up a bit better?)

As he came back to himself, the presence drew back slightly but lingered around the edge of perception, almost as if uncertain whether or not to leave him be. Regardless, he didn’t quite trust the stability of his voice at the moment so in lieu of that he aimed a wave of weary appreciation in the other’s general vicinity. And judging by the sensation of a terse nod not his own, he understood.

(Okay? So…we’re in the past. Or an alternate dimension. Or...something. Holy shit. Okay, focus. Now. What do we do next? We can’t fuck this up like we did last time. So the main thing now is: we need a plan.)

“Mhm.” He agreed, blearily allowing gravity to draw him back down to the floor. The teen let himself sink into the soft blue-and-white rug. Face somewhat muffled, he said: “I’m open to suggestions.”

So, following Ichigo’s lead, they began to hash things out with the starting bullet point being the one thing they did know and then tacked on to that.

(Now, just so we're clear, this is all operating under those previously mentioned assumptions because the alternatives are just...no. Got it?)

A nod.

(Good. Okay, so as it currently stands that whole prophecy shit hasn’t fully come into play yet so we have a little bit of a leeway on that front. The way I figure it, Yhwach won’t be at his full power for another two years –give or take- which gives a set span of time that we can use for preparation. We’ll need every second of it too because, realistically, any hope we have right now of just offing him and being done with it we probably can’t feasibly pull off.)

“That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.” He said into the carpet only to earn the feeling of a mildly annoyed look and gentle thwack on his already aching head. He rolled his eyes with a grumble as the other –satisfied that there would be no further interruption- settled.

(As I was saying: That’s because I guarantee you the moment we do try poking around a bit, we risk not only setting his entire Quincy army on us but any fumbling with that will probably alert the Gotei 13 and by extension Sōsuke. We can’t forget that right now he has that bullshit hypnosis spell over everyone over there because he’s still pretending to be a good guy or whatever. ‘Sides, you and me both know how badly we’d get our collective ass kicked trying to solo a war against three different armies at the same time.)

Not that they still wouldn’t try if things ever came to that.

But, still, priorities.

“We don’t exactly know the full scope of their resources or capabilities right now nor have we really had the chance to take stock of our own situation. I mean, it was kind of a mess toward the end there so how can we be sure of what carried over and what didn’t?” Dark eyes squinted up at the ceiling as he rolled over and proceeded to ignore the severe headache behind his eyes from the motion. He could curl into a ball and wish he was dead later there were more important things to deal with right now.

“There’s also the added mess of how we’re gonna find a place where we could feasibly test them out without everyone and their mother coming to snoop.” Maybe they could see about sneaking into his father’s practice range? But then again, that ran the risk of drawing the elder Quincy’s attention and then he would –urgh- actually have to talk to his dad.

(Right. Because that would definitely lead to some awkward questions. Good point. Uh, hey Uryū what do you figure would happen if you were to square up two instances of something like “The Almighty” against one another? Would they be matched and cancel each other out or would that, like, break reality or something?)

They contemplated this for a second before deciding it was something to come back to later.

(So training and then what? More spy shit? Scoping things out?...Maybe going to grab you some painkillers or something?)

Ignoring that last jab he let his eyes fall shut, “I was thinking more along the lines of gathering allies.” He could sense the other perk up a bit. “On the Quincy side of things, I know for certain that there’s at least one person we could probably convince to join our cause and that could potentially give us an in to what the others are doing right now.” He carded his hand through the carpet’s fibers, blue-&-white wool soft against callused fingers. “Not only that, but we’d also have to find some way to sway your Reaper friends to our side. Because I hate to say it but without their added firepower the chances of us actually pulling off this little venture are next to nil. Whatever we do, we have to make sure it’s done right from the very outset if we want any of it to go according to plan.”

(Urgh, check your phrasing dude. The way that you said it there makes it feel like you’re trying to pull off a bootleg Sōsuke impression or something. Gross.)

With his free hand the teen flipped him off.

(Alright, sheesh. Don’t bite my head off. Anyways… So to sum it all up: The main issue we’re facing right now is lack of resources and we can’t do much until we have more info on how to go about getting those resources and so as it stands we’ll probably have to wing it until can be sure there are people in our corner that we can trust to get this shit done.)

“Yeah. Basically.”

(…We’ve done more with worse odds.)

“…That’s not very comforting, Ichigo.”

(I know but it’s all I’ve got so deal with it.)

The mutual urge of wanting to stick a tongue out at the other was a strong one and he would have probably followed through on it if his stomach hadn’t picked that exact moment to turn over on itself. He stifled a moan as he rode it out, hand clenching and unclenching with every wave of pain. Shit. Was it just him or was it warmer in there than usual? To distract himself from heat licking at his veins (and the increasing wave of concern he could feel radiating out from the other) he offered: “B-But on the brightside I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones who remember any of this anyway. So unlike everyone else we’re not starting at zero. We have the advantage.”

(…Right, okay. That brings us to up to what stuff we could change and what we probably shouldn’t.)

He nodded. “True, if we change too much that could be bad too. All that knowledge would be useless and…” Just the very thought of seeing the others have to face a world worse off than the one prior left a lump in his throat. (No. Absolutely not. That cannot be allowed to happen. I’ll protect them, this time.)

(I won’t watch them die again. I r e f u s e.)

Swallowing thickly, the sensation of bile built at the back of his throat alongside a groan. He pressed his palms to his eyes and let out a curse, low and vehement. His body was already feeling like an overused pincushion and this sure as hell didn’t help any. He couldn’t deny it any longer, something was wrong. Of course being thrown into an alternate past what-have-you as they had been would have some sort of cost because why wouldn’t it? God, nothing could ever be easy for them, could it?

And then there was Ichigo hovering behind his eyes, the other teen’s agitation practically overflowing from the writhing mass of eventide-in-shadowy dark. The balmy presence pressed forward, likely spurred on by his waning attention. He could feel the unspoken question on the other’s non-existent lips.–

Was he okay?

–So he hurriedly pushed himself up and bolted for the bathroom to release the meager contents of his stomach.

To which the answer was: No. He was not.

{+-----}>

Uryū Ishida was not a happy camper.

Between the ever-worsening waves of pain rolling throughout his very being as he clung to the seat of chilled porcelain they managed to work out that if your (admittedly overpowered) future self is suddenly dumped into your past body with no preparation or warning whatsoever it tends to have rather severe consequences.

Obviously.

The centerpiece of this being that evidently the sheer existence of their combined spiritual pressure was incompatible with his present, very mortal, and squishy body.

Which made sense, he supposed, seeing as they were currently a slapdash hodgepodge of Gemischt Quincy, an imprint of the genetic medley that had been Ichigo Kurosaki, the scrapings of the God-Progenitor of pretty much all modern day Quincy that had come from when aforementioned teenager had consumed the other, and whatever the holy fuck Aizen tossed in with that glowing-death-orb of his at the last minute before he too decided to dip out from existence.

(Sōsuke, still capable of screwing them over even from beyond the grave, the fucking bastard.)

Really, it was no wonder that his body had no idea how to deal with that clusterfuck of a mess. Hell, even he had trouble wrapping his head around it and he was living it. Even so, do you know what happens when a body doesn’t know how to deal with something exceedingly confusing and stressful? It tends to break down.

Violently.

But, like the deus ex machina it assuredly was, it seemed the hōgokyu was not quite done dragging him through the ringer with all the reality-bending fuckery it was known for.

Again and again, it felt as though every little piece of him was being ripped asunder only to be slapped back together not a half-second later by the scraps of the purple wishing-orb’s lingering essence in a twisted loop of make-unmake-remake. And you know, experiencing every single solitary second of this with not a moment’s chance to breathe before the whole process restarted itself as the body simultaneously tried to keep itself alive and reject its very presence really fucking sucked.

Fuck, the only reason it seemed he had not lost himself to the pain was that there was too much riding on this whole venture for him to even dare to dream of doing so. Combine that with the fact that he was also fueled by a spectacular amount of what was equal parts raw determination and sheer stubborn spite that had successfully kept him more-or-less sane –if not rather unhappy- during this whole ordeal.

(And –if failing even that- he still had Ichigo. The other’s seemingly uncanny ability to know when to swoop in and be able to distract him with the oddly soothing sensation of a hand carding through his dark hair and the steady stream of wordless nonsense that still somehow managed to heft the weight of -comfortsafedon’tworryyou’llbeokayI’mhere- that pulled him away from the tides of agony. Carrying him until he was close enough to shore that could finally take step back and breathe was something he would be eternally grateful for.)

So the teen had spent the next –he didn’t even know really…Day? Week? Time had lost all meaning to either of them as he drifted about the achy haze- alternating in the intermedium between staying curled up in his bed and being sprawled out in various spots around his modestly sized apartment as he not so low-key wanted to die.

And he likely would’ve stayed that way, contemplating how he thoroughly hated this new world already if it had not been for the sudden appearance of a loud knock upon his front door late one afternoon.

The teen groggily lifted his head from the warm blanket swathed couch from where he had decided to nest that morning and looked at the entryway with a sort disbelieving stare as he thought for a moment that he might have hallucinated the whole thing. That is until the sharp noise that once again cut through the silence of the living room proved that he –in fact- had not imagined it.

Had it really been so long that someone had finally taken note of his (or perhaps his previous self’s) leave of absence? Perhaps, but then again who would even care enough to then actually go through the effort of hunting down the rather out of the way building that he resided in for a not-so-quick social visit? He wracked his brain for a moment before quickly giving it up for a loss. Well, whoever it was they seemed really determined to get his attention if the way they were really going to town on that poor door was any indication.

But to open it and give them the satisfaction? Hm…

(Look, if it’s just some solicitors you can tell them to fuck off and then go back to wallowing in misery or whatever it is you want to do okay? Just go see who it is before they break down the damn door.)

He honestly didn’t want to get up from his spot though. It was warm there and the pain seemed to have lowered itself into almost tolerable levels today so he wasn’t really keen on doing anything that might’ve summoned the wretchedness back into existence.

…Even though the noise was kind of starting to give him a headache.

He wondered if he ignored them for long enough then maybe whoever was there would finally decide to give up and go away.

(Fat chance. Listen, if you aren’t going to do it then I will.)

Blue eyes widened as a flicker of alarm shot through him. Fumbling with the blanket’s grasp, he finally succeeded in extracting himself and sat up. “Ichigo don’t you dare-”

(For though the vast majority of their brief time together had admittedly been spent wracked with some form or pain or another they couldn’t say that they had been completely idle during the short reprieves. For a while they had attempted to return to their impromptu plotting session only to soon realize that they were getting nowhere. So, with nothing else to show for it, conversation once again shifted to other things.

Anything and everything that came to mind worked to serve as a distraction; from the stupid everyday banalities of their shared past– {such as the redhead’s lamentation for his personal book collection, now forever lost to time. And –really- with the way the other presented himself he would have never pegged him as a fan of Classical English literature with a focus on Shakespeare of all things. Although he had to admit, the unending variety of quotes that the teen could seemingly recall at the drop of a hat was both impressive and kind of dorky.} –to bodily quirks they would have never known about the other had this never happened– {There had been a rather nasty spot of dizziness earlier when the body had stood up too quickly that had managed to catch both boys flat-footed but before the elder teen could work himself into a tizzy Uryū sheepishly proceeded to admit that –actually- he might’ve have had naturally low blood pressure and that this sort of thing was not all that uncommon for him? This did nothing to assuage his concerns and despite the dark-haired boy’s repeated reassurances he still had his doubts. But as he sat back and watched as his friend chose to further expand his study on the modern caterpillar what with the veritable cocoon of assorted blankets now wrapped around his frame he decided he was willing to the matter drop…for now.} – it was all fair game.

But soon even those topics ran dry and in the lull of things the young Quincy finally turned to address the elephant in the room: their involuntary state of cohabitation. The whole mess was tricky enough as it was but if they didn’t want to spend the rest of their ungodly existence stuck alternating between snapping at each other’s heels and walking on eggshells then there was going to have to be some ground-rules.

And for the most part Ichigo agreed, if only for the sake of what was left of their collective sanities and the thin hope that this would help them successfully navigate their curious new…dynamic.

But still, who could have foreseen that the young hybrid’s past experience in wrangling unruly inner-selves would’ve come in handy when hashing out negotiations for shared bodily autonomy with his younger cousin/friend?)

But while that was surprisingly less stressful than what either teen expected for it to be that didn’t mean there hadn’t been any slip-ups in other fields, after all they were forging through untraversed ground here so there was bound to be some interesting incidents every now and again.

Such as the first time Uryū had found himself unintentionally shoved into the backseat by the elder teen. Something that had been an exceedingly unnerving event for both parties involved which had –thankfully- had only lasted about the span of a heartbeat before he somehow managed to wrestle the other’s presence back to wherever it was that the other currently resided.

(And even though the other had since apologised for it and he knew that Ichigo wouldn’t truly abuse this power without his consent unless something was deeply wrong because that just wasn’t who he was the incident remained etched in his mind. Just, the idea that someone else could take control like that brought forth an instinctual sort of panic that he couldn’t quite quash.)

But that was all that he managed to get out before he found himself being (oh so very gently) tugged away from the reins, unable to do anything but watch his body leveraged itself up and off the couch before moving over towards the door. He floundered for a bit before he found himself thrust back into control. The transition was so jarring that it sent a wave of dizziness strong through him that he had to clutch at the side of the genkan to stay upright.

As he waited for the nausea to pass he grimaced and was sure to radiate the sensation of absolute annoyance to which the other merely responded with the impression of being utterly unmoved. A raised brow and nod to the door in a silent ‘well, go on then’. Exasperated, he moved toward the door and braced himself.

“Asano, you complete dumbass.”

“Hey you’re the one who shoved me Ms. Enter-the-Dragon so that makes you just as guilty.”

“One, that’s a kung fu flick which is a completely separate thing. And two, that’s not how any of that works so just be a man and own up to it when you do stupid shit.”

“So??? Do you really think I know all the specifics about that stuff?” With arm folded across his chest, the remaining hand flapped about in a vague gesture. He grumbled the last bit under his breath, “And honestly I could say the same for you, freaking martial arts nut.”

“Bullshit, I know you know the difference and what was that you little turd?” She stalked forward.

“Ack! Mizuiro help me!”

“Ah, so you were at here after all.”

The other two froze halfway through their skit with a look on their faces not unlike a child caught with their hands in the snack drawer before in unison turning to face the newcomer.

“Oh, hey. Yeah, sorry about your plant. Someone got a little overzealous with their knocking.” She jerked her head over to where the poor thing sat; delicate blue-and-white petals lay crushed under heavy shards of terracotta while decorative stones were cast indiscriminately over hallway carpet to which the teen felt a pang of sadness.

He liked that plant.

It was a lovely little hyacinth that Mrs. Yamada –one of the more tenured nurses at his father’s hospital- had gifted to him for his fourteenth birthday along with a small sealed container of mackerel miso soup and some homemade lavender cookies just because he ‘reminded her a bit of her grandfather’ or something like that. The fiery old bird could cook like a master chef, took absolutely no shit from anyone, and the very day she hit seventy she proceeded to pack her bags and headed to Spain for a well-deserved retirement. And now the only thing left he had to remember her by was broken.

Great.

“Sup dude!” Evidently oblivious to his obvious dismay the brunet gave a small wave from where he hung limply in the other’s grasp. “So, yeah, I thought maybe you couldn’t hear me so if knocked harder then you would but then she shoved me!”

“Don’t you dare try to pin this on me you-”

He stared blankly as the two once more began to bicker which rapidly devolved into Tatsuki attempting to commit murder via strangulation when the other male inevitably stuck his foot into his mouth.

The whole song and dance was somewhat nostalgic to be honest.

And so was the incoming headache, unfortunately.

(Well, seeing as the running theme of things appears to be entirely made up of the universe tossing stuff at us that genuinely make me want to rethink all my life choices up to this point–) He pinched the bridge of his nose and bit back an exasperated sigh, dark eyes trailing down to the mess now scattered across his front step. (Maybe we can close the door while they’re distracted and pretend this never happened? Just…give up and go back to bed? They probably wouldn’t even notice…) At this point that didn’t even seem like a bad idea.

(C’mon man, I mean something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Holy shit, look at them go. I haven’t seen the two of them this pissed at each other since that time the class tried to figure out who the greatest stunt actor of all time was. Remember, when Keigo tried to use his chair as a shield –dunno why he thought that do him any good. She just wound up just snapping the damn thing in half- Chad had to scruff her like one of those mother cats in order to keep her from ripping his throat.)

(No??? When was this?)

(Last January, I think? It was the first Monday after we got off break. Miss Ochi was out so we had a sub and they got ticked off at the mess and made everyone stay late to it clean up after chewing us out for letting it get that far.)

(Ah. Actually, I think was out sick that day. Inoue had stopped by the night before and dropped off one of her…more elaborate concoctions…and insisted that I tried it. And, well…)

(Food poisoning?)

(Yeah.)

As the echoes of fond halcyon days bled away to bittersweet reminisce a wash of loneliness hit him –hit them- so suddenly that he had to clutch at the door frame to keep himself steady. As quickly as it stuck, the sensation drew back and in its wake left such gaping maw that he fought for a second to just simply breathe.

(Seeing them like this, untouched by the horrors brought about from beings centuries their senior who were equipped with powers beyond mortal comprehension and still able to joke and goof around. It was sobering. Right here and now they were just kids acting their age weren’t they? They were all so young.)

(Fucking hell, were we ever like that? Just…able to just fuck around and not really have to worry about the finding out?)

(…I suppose so.)

(Yes, perhaps once upon a time, long long ago before everything that made them who they were occurred. Really, it was just another reminder of what was at stake.

And wasn’t that a heavy thought?

That if they truly succeeded in this monumental wager then perhaps the instance of their once dear compatriots that now stood before them would forever be the norm, carrying about their day to day lives undisturbed by the supernatural entities that plagued this world as a whole, forever ignorant of the travesty that befell their prior incarnations.

And if the only hope to see their family spared of such a tragic stage was at the cost of bloodstained hands forever cursed to carry the enormity of a lost world upon itself along with the direct knowledge of what could have been that had they themselves not manipulated and manhandled into unrecognizability then that was the price that they would pay a thousand times over all so the others would never be damned to suffer the ill-fated devastation that had been wrought by their own accursed hands.)

“…Ishida?” He jolted, drawing in a startled breath. Ah shit, he had completely forgotten the third member of their little troupe who was now currently standing right behind him in his flat.

(When had the other seen fit to invite himself in? Actually, no, scratch that, how had he done so without either of them noticing???)

(Whoa I think I might’ve zoned out for a bit there, did he say something just now?)

(How should I know? You think I could pay any attention while those two are going on like a bunch of wet cats caught outside during a monsoon in the background?)

(Fuck, when did he even start talking anyway? Wait, is he giving us the look? Ah man, he is. We’ve been quiet for too long I think he’s keyed into that something’s up. Say something!)

Snapping back to reality he noticed how Mizuiro had leveled him an expectant stare, presumably awaiting his response. Under such scrutiny pale cheeks dusted somewhat as the teen cast back for a response. However as he floundered about for something –anything- to say his mind simply drew a blank and the first thing that came out of his mouth was a rather dumbfounded: “How did you even know where I live?”

Judging by the way the other’s expression seemed to briefly crack before remolding itself into that plain smoothed-out placidity that the other was known the town over for that his response evidentially had been the wrong thing to say.

Shit had he already cocked everything up or perhaps had the other (hopefully) misconstrued the situation? With Kojima, it was always a guessing game of which was which as the inscrutable bastard had a nasty habit of playing things close to his chest until it could benefit him in some way. This penchant for the subtle theatrics was a talent that served him well when it came time to persuade some of the more ruthless students around campus into…keeping the peace… with their newly formed school disciplinary committee (which Ichigo himself had been guilted into becoming a member of with the stipulation of it being on a per commission basis.)

(There was a reason that he had never really put up too much of a fuss about where the other’s money came from. Not only had it been a solid source of income, but he personally didn’t want to be the one to find out whether that rumour going around that the teen had some sort of connection to the business had any merit. Not because he would view the other any differently for his relations or anything stupid like that –oh no- it was because he was more than already certain that they were entirely founded and that the less he knew about his friend’s illicit affairs the better he would able to sleep at night.)

In other words the dark haired teen had always been really fucking observant so if anyone were to notice something was up then it’d probably be him.

(‘Or maybe-’ The little conspiracy theorist in the back of his mind whispered, ‘–just maybe there had already been a shift in the timeline and all of this is just reaping the aftereffects? After all, as far as you can recall none of your extended friend circle had ever received the honour of knowing your personal address, right?’ Oh great. Now he was definitely going to be stuck in a spiral because once the thought had cropped up he couldn’t not think about it. ‘Because while I might not have done such a thing what if the instance of myself that we seem to have unfortunately superimposed over in fact had and through this gaff I have somehow already ousted us as an imposter? What other blocks in this already shaky tower would crumble next and how long before it would all come crashing down upon their collective head?’)

What indeed…

Urgh, he could already feel the headache worsening.

(Well…I mean, this sort of thing’s always kind of a last resort but…How quickly do you think you could gather up everything we need to pull a runner because I’d say we could be out that window and halfway out to Yokohama before anyone would be able to catch up with us? Just as a suggestion.)

Kojima, whether oblivious to his internal distress or just wisely choosing not to comment on it, it seemed had also came to the conclusion that egging on the spectacle upon his doorstep would be fruitless and had evidently opted to join him in ignoring their fellow classmates in favor of continuing the somewhat one-sided conversation.

“Well, you know how I’m a class officer too, right?” A short nod. “And you know just as well as I do what the Head Office is like.” Unfortunately, he did. “So it seems like somebody went and narc'd to the board –personally I think it was Yukimura from 3-B, the snitch- about all the ‘rough’ and ‘unruly’ students that have been hanging around town.” The subtle look of disapproval from the shorter teen was enough for the both of them to silently send their condolences to the sorry bastard along with anyone else in the blast radius. The morons wouldn’t even know what hit them. With a small shake of the head, Kojima continued on. “Naturally the high-strung boneheads got it into their skulls that the sure-fire course of action was to implement a new school-wide campaign focused on ‘Curbing Delinquency in Our Honoured Youth’ and first order of business was to start cracking down on truancy.”

(So in other words, the stodgy old coots got their panties in a twist and now the first people to step out of line are of course the ones to placed on the chopping block. Got it.)

“All for the sake of maintaining their ‘pristine image’ I presume.” Was his response to both.

The sheer dryness of the statement managed worm a snort out of his classmate. “Rather blunt way of putting it, but yeah. If you ask me I think the teachers were just tired of having to drag people to the nurse after they got nailed by the gate’s auto-lock when they tried slip past it to ditch class.” Mizuiro said, eyeballing the small mountain of covers that had been cast to the floor with a thinly-veiled curiosity.

(Yeah, besides everyone and their mother knows the front gate’s no good. The school’s too cheap to oil the track so not only is it a pain and a half to try and shimmy through when the damn thing randomly closes in on you but it’s loud as all hell too. Now the service door behind the gym on the other hand, a single solid kick to those rusty latches and you’ve got yourself a quick getaway…)

“Yeah, they were really sold on the whole ‘zero-tolerance’ thing. Heck, there were even some talk about making an example out of the first batch of students that they caught slacking on their attendance.”

Shit.

“…Is that so?”

The shorter teen leveled him a wry side-eye, “Although when a certain member of the student council pointed out that if the head office were to make such a hasty judgement without even taking a second to ascertain the circumstances behind such unexcused absences then by chance wouldn’t that mean our dear class president could be grouped together with other much more notorious offenders?”

“A-Ah. Well, yes I suppose that’s...”

“And that’s not good for anyone now is it? After all, there must be a perfectly rational reason for someone with previously perfect attendance to have all but disappeared off the face of the planet without so much as a warning thus leaving his classmates and fellow student council members in the lurch as to have to deal with everything in his absence now wouldn’t there be?”

He wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light but for a second there Kojima’s placid smile seemed to twist into something darker –more menacing- and were it not for the incorporeal hand that came to rest upon his shoulder –a silent reminder to just stop, take a moment, and b r e a t h e- he would have succumbed to the hair-trigger urge to form his bow and level it at the other’s brow.

And really, when had he even taken the first step back? Was the mere possibility of something more lurking behind his schoolmate’s shadow enough to have him jump the gun with such a fervor that he’d end the other’s life without a second thought? What utter foolishness. He was better than that.

(But was he really though? After all, wasn’t there an old saying somewhere that ‘the worst wounds we bear are always brought about by those closest to us?’ And besides, it wouldn’t have been the first time that he had done such a thing in cold blood, nor would it be the last.)

Letting himself unspool from that overly tense spring he ruthlessly squashed the impulse for further self-recrimination. Even so, that could’ve spelt disaster. Especially considering the fact that –to his current faulty knowledge base- the other’s spiritual awareness would have been more or less dormant right now so he pretty much would’ve just looked like a dork pulling a weird pose or something and not the very real threat he actually was.

(But, like, seriously. How the fuck did Mizuiro manage to pull off such an intimidating presence like that without even batting an eyelash? Why can’t we do that? So unfair...)

Now equipped with a with a shellac-thin composure that would most likely crack like the candied coating it was the very moment that any pressure was set upon it the teen’s mouth started to move, “A-Ah well, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. Which is-”

Mizuiro raised a brow.

(Ichigo help me out here.)

(…Yeah. I got nothing. Sorry. Good luck! You’ll need it.)

(What?! You jerk-)

…Fuck. Time to wing it.

“-that I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this?”

…Nailed it.

“…Really?”

“Yes?”

“Really.” It wasn’t a question.

Ignoring the dual-part judgemental incredulity and utter exasperation radiating from his personal tagalong was a notable effort but he valiantly kept at a straight face and doubled down on his decision.

“Yes.”

“…”

“…”

(...)

“…Alright then.”

And that was the only warning he received before Mizuiro lurched forward causing the taller boy to recoil, dark blue eyes involuntarily screwed shut as he braced for the blow…

…only to blink as he felt something soft and laminated thwap against his chest. Bewildered, he risked a glance down at the manicured hand before him and followed it down to the violet folder currently pressed against his bosom. With all the grace of a rusty robot, he mechanically took the proffered item and (in the process entirely missing the strange glint in the other’s eyes) took a peek inside.

…It was just some office forms and a couple of annotated lecture notes clipped to the corresponding worksheets. Nothing remarkable or special about them whatsoever.

Confusion apparent, Uryū’s gaze flicked up to other as he tried to gauge the teen’s intent. Finding nothing out of the ordinary he twisted his focus inward to the shadow on his soul to which the other boy merely gave a small shrug, equally as clueless.

“…It’s the coursework for the rest of the week. Miss Ochi was just gonna chuck it in the bin with the rest of the extras so she could go skive off and ogle Mr. Toudou over a cup of bad teacher’s lounge coffee; had it bagged and everything. Luckily, I managed to snag it from the clean-up crew before the whole thing got hauled out to the trash.” He gave a small nod, gaze distant. “Yeah, they were weirdly nice about the whole thing too; something about people’s notebooks disappearing just before midterms or something? I’m not entirely sure, anyways…It was no big deal, really.”

Here the other’s faint smirk faded into something a touch more sour. The faint but unmistakeable sense of irritation perking the two-in one teen’s curiosity. “At least, until Hanya decided to show his face.”

Ah, that explained it. If there was any individual who could instantly put the shorter teen in a bad mood then that person most certainly had to be their shifty Vice-Principal.

There was no shortage of strange rumours about the man and how he out of nowhere went and ditched what was supposedly a pretty cushy spot at some hoity-toity private academy in Sumaru only to do an about face the following day and transfer to their plain old public school the next town over. And it wasn’t like you could even ask the tightwad about it either because the very moment you dared to try the guy’d go off on you and start spouting something about: ‘Don’t you know how it was rude it was to gossip?!’ and ‘Teens like you shouldn’t be spreading crass rumours!’ Then, if he was in a particularly bad mood you’d land yourself in detention.

Naturally, this did not work whatsoever and only served to further alienate him from the student body where he was regarded by most as either a tedious annoyance at best or a downright pompous narcissistic creep at the very worst. But for some inexplicable reason it seemed that there was no one in the school that Hanya had it out for more than Kojima himself and from what they could see the feeling was likely mutual.

(Or, at least, that’s what his admittedly spotty memory of the whole situation told him. Were these little snippets of information their alternate self’s memories superimposed upon their own and trying to helpfully fill in the blanks? Did they have someone on staff with that name back in their old world too? He didn’t know and he honestly couldn’t remember-)

“We were already out by the incinerator and everything but when he caught the others standing around and talking to me instead of cleaning he started going off on us, tossing all sorts of wild allegations left and right. Such a distasteful show, and presented by a faculty member no less! Any sane person wouldn’t be able to let something like that slide, right? You’d have to do something-” Mizuiro fumed.

(‘So he pretty much went off on him…’)

“—because, like, aren’t class officers are supposed to advocate against such egregious displays when presented by both student and staff alike? No, I’m serious. Like, that’s literally the job description in the school’s charter, I checked. And, well, it’s not like anyone else was going to step in because you know what those office flunkies are like the second any of the higher ups get so much as mentioned.” And underneath his breath he muttered, “The cowards-”

(He absolutely went off on him.)

Like a line cast out to sea, he seemed to be caught in the waves for a moment before becoming aware of himself and reeling back a touch, “-ah, um sorry…” The teen rubbed at the back of his head, looking a little sheepish before straightening. “But yeah, one thing lead to another and I got sent to the office.”

“Wait, just to clarify, you’re the only one who got in trouble?” He asked incredulously, “That’s…”

(Dude, that’s fucked up.)

“I mean, yeah? It got the others out of the line of fire so I can’t really complain?” A shoulder briefly rose in a sort of half-shrug; a truly hapless gesture of ‘yeah, sure, it sucked but might as well make the most of it.’ “Besides, it’s not like it was all bad. Miss Amano was on admin duty today.”

(Amano? Oh that’s a relief.)

The rolling sense of relaxing shadow muddled with something positive spurred a bolt of confused-curiosity from the dark-haired teen until the dark presence ‘twisted’ to face him.

(She was a teaching assistant in charge of handling the younger years and spent a lot of time helping out Mr. Toudou. All of the grunt work the other teachers didn’t want to do was usually her problem which is probably why you didn’t run into each other all that often.)

Ah, that made sense. But even so…

(You seem rather fond of her?)

(Well yeah? Amano was actually one of the few decent people on the staff roster. She was always genuinely cheerful and never really let their stupid hazing get to her. Plus she said she actually liked my hair, apparently it reminded her of her roommate’s or something? S’probably why the old farts rigged it so she’d have to transfer out at the end of second year. And I stand by what I said the first time, everyone and their mother saw that there was no way in hell that those test scores could’ve been botched! I-)

(Ichigo.)

The shadowed mass went from a frothing mess to as still as the grave so fast that it was enough to twist his already tumultuous insides. Biting back the bile in his throat –because he was not going to throw up on his favourite hand-crocheted blanket while his troublesome classmate looked on, he refused- the teen’s slender fingers eased out of their death grip on the manila folder. The heavy wriggling of other’s not-form slowly returned, albeit at a more sedate pace.

(…Sorry.)

“So,” He began a little roughly, “she let you off the hook?”

“…Mhm.” A nod, “Once I told her about what happened outside she was all too happy to let us off the hook just so long as we went and did a little errand for her for her first. Yeah, something about ‘doing time through a bit of community service’ and ‘to be sure to put the fear of god into them’ or something like that just so long as we kept it on the down-low of just who authorized the whole thing.” A mischievous light shone in the shorter boy’s eyes. “Playing a bit of messenger bird in exchange or being able to fly the coop? An easy deal if you ask me.”

The gears were turning, “Wait…so that whole bit earlier?”

“…I might’ve taken some creative liberties.” He smirked, “But what can I say? I’m nothing if not thorough with my work.”

…So the entire time he felt as though his heart was about to burst out of his chest and that he were wobbling on the edge, a hair’s length from his (third? Fourth?? First??? Final) death and the other was simply fucking with him? He let that thought sit for a moment. Let it percolate. Let it ruminate. Contemplated his place in the universe and the vague constellation of stars that somehow aligned to bring him to this very place, this very moment.

And then proceeded to nope out.

(Distantly he felt that gentle tenebrous warmth slide into place as his body took in a rather deep breath and released. His Their hands, still clutching that accursed folder, came together as if to pray for strength before slowly lowering themselves and twisting ninety-degrees to face the accused. Their expression only could be described as something belonging to the family of ‘are you fucking kidding me right now?’)

“…Mizuiro.”

And proceeded to whack him on the head with the folder.

“You’re such a dick.”

“You know I am.” Mizuiro admitted with a shrug and an honest-to-god laugh. Preempting another strike, he hurriedly took a step back out of the folder’s range. The other teen seemed to grouse a bit before letting out a reluctant sigh and permitting the thing come to rest at his side, having conceded defeat. For now, anyway. Somewhat thrown by the seemingly easy victory, the shorter boy raised a brow.

“You act like you’re surprised but who else would go along with my improv so spectacularly and match it with a one-to-one bit their own?” He shook his head with a scoff, “The idiot duo back there? Please.”

“Mhm. But I can still call you out on it though, can’t I?”

It was a fair point but…

(‘I honestly thought that was Keigo’s job though?’)

He felt a wash of confusion at what was presumably yet another difference. Those hastily preconstructed towers were being pulled down faster either of them could cope and if was to be some stupid missed in-joke that would finally do them in then he was going to scream.

However, instead of giving note to the thought, the one in control of the body turned his their face to the side with a faint scowl. Looking for all the world as though he had seemingly dismissed the other in favour of more important things.

(When the truth of the matter was that he much preferred to let their gaze travel around the rather sparse apartment in contrast to the facing the awkwardness of prolonged eye-contact and the other teen’s way too keen expression. Uryū’s dissociation was already putting him on edge enough as it was and he didn’t need to accidentally check out in front of these guys as well.)

Glossing over the small touches of personality –(a little janky plush thing wedged into the cranny of an otherwise neat bookshelf over here, some hastily stashed books with geometric stitching patterns on the cover there, and all the other various knickknacks scattered about that signified that someone did in fact live there)— their attention shifted to land on the covers scattered about the floor.

Sock-clad feet shuffled over to the pile as blue eyes briefly studied the comfortable mix-match of fabrics. Slowly, the body knelt down, Ichigo fighting back a strained grimace as he went and gathered the sizable mass into his their arms. Hands paused ever so slightly on the knitted afghan as a look of contemplation crossed his their face.

“Then what about the other two?”

Ichigo shifted the worn knit to wrap around their shoulders, bearing it not unlike one of the many mantles that Uryū had been so fond of wearing when they were younger. The warm fabric acting as though it were a shield between them and this twisted mirror-like version of their friend. The rest of the bedding was summarily balled up and tossed onto the couch with a huff.

(Neither of them noticed the flicker of concern on Mizuiro’s face as they seemed to sway on their feet for a second but successfully managed to catch themselves on the edge of coffee table. Nor did they notice, so caught up in the internal dialogue were they, that as they righted themselves and the tension bled out of their form it seemed to remain etched in his.)

‘Yeah, so I guess that’s how we came to came to find you on my doorstep. But that doesn’t really explain what they were doing here as well.’ The feeling of crossness drew him back to the surface, ‘Or why they felt the need to break my stuff.’ He thought with a mild huff as he took back control.

As if summoned by the thought (or perhaps finally distracted from the epic battle of dumbassery at the door) it seemed that Keigo finally managed to escape his dueling partner’s grasp. Quickly dancing away from her reaching hands, he finally stepped into the apartment proper.

Conceding defeat (for now) Tatsuki followed suit. “What about us?”

(Oh so they’re all just gonna come in now? Okay. Sure. At least have the decency to shut the damn door while you’re at it…)

Taking it upon himself to do just that, he turned back to face them. A hand tightened around the makeshift shawl, securing it in his tight grasp.

“What I mean is, Mizuiro-” He tipped his head toward said boy, resolutely ignoring how his head seemed to throb at the action. “-I can understand, but why are you here?” The teen groused.

Keigo just stared at him as if he had suddenly burst out in full traditional Quincy garb and then proceeded to give them an all expense included monologue about the whole truth of their fucked up situation and spared none of the nitty-gritty god-murdering world-ending details.

“Ishida. Dude.” He spoke slowly, as if they were the dumb ones here and he had to spell it out for them. “You’ve been gone for like ages and no one’s heard a single word about it. There’s already, like, five different rumours about your death going around. I even heard the handicraft’s club was planning on holding a séance.”

He very deliberately did not react. “I-It hasn’t even been a week.”

“Well yeah, but when someone like ‘Mr. Perfect Attendance Class President Ishida’ decides to dip for that long? People tend to take notice and start theorizing.” He put one hand under his chin and did a little theatrical wave with the other, “They say stuff like: ‘Oh gee it must be something big that nailed him like...a huge mystery illness that would drop even the most stalwart of men’ or ‘Maybe he was indoctrinated into this demonic alien cult and just been taken aboard their secret mothership parked just outside the atmosphere as they planned their next move.’” There was a gleam to his eye as he began to get more into it and his gestures got more energetic.

“O-Or maybe he was kidnapped by a mysterious gang of strange ladies that would only state their demands if in the presence of a strapping young lad under the age of twenty but in the process of negotiations the daughter of a big business conglomerate somehow managed to fall for him at first sight and as a result wanted to take him as consort but on their way to elope somehow they managed become the center of a political murder mystery thus necessitating the help of local amateur gumshoe detective Asano Keigo and his assistants to crack the case!” Already lost in the fantasy he let out a semi-maniacal cackle.

“...Right.”

(He’s completely lost the plot.)

(Oh totally.)

(...Should we, y’know?)

(Nah, Tatsuki’s got this. Watch.)

The aforementioned girl rolled her eyes, stalking over to the still cackling teen and unceremoniously bonked Keigo on the head. A whine escaped his lips and he stopped instantly. With a betrayed look he rubbed at the spot, grumbling all the while.

“Ignore him. He’s being a moron again.” She went on, folding an arm across her chest as she shot Uryū a mildly exasperated yet commiserating smile. “What he meant to say was that we were worried about your dumbass. Or well, at least he was-” Tatsuki jerked a thumb over to Mizuiro, “-but me? Truth is I felt kind of bad just leaving Kojima to the wolves like that.” She gave a small shrug. “So I tracked him down just before he left and made him spill the beans about this whole home delivery deal. Figured why not tag along since I’m kind of familiar with the area.”

The smile dimmed somewhat, “But when he mentioned you lived sorta out of the way, I didn’t think he meant this far out. I mean, this place is so far out in the middle of nowhere that I’m surprised you’re still even in our school district. Not only that but it’s kind of a pain to even get up to the front door! Anyone ever tell you that?”

Yes. And it was that way for a reason. A less populated area meant less prying eyes to his comings and goings at all hours of the night. Less prying eyes meant fewer people trying to dig into your personal business. And of course fewer people meant less collateral damage if an errant hollow was ever suicidal enough to follow him home. Not that these guys knew any of that so all he said was, “Once or twice, yes.”

His gaze traveled to Keigo, who was now prodding at the small plush on his bookshelf curiously. “And him?”

“Huh? Oh right, him.” Her friendly look flattened into one of annoyance. “Yeah, dumbass over there on the other hand just really wanted to ditch cleaning duty early.” And as if sensing the other was about to do something stupid again she whirled around to level a pointed look at the brown-haired teen “Isn’t that right, Keigo.”

“As if. Also, rude.” Said teen muttered. But thankfully he took the hint and put the fragile plush back on the shelf, seeming somewhat put out as he did so.

(Impressive.)

(Yeah, back when we were little whenever me and the other kids from the dojo were gonna do something stupid she’d somehow just know. Trying to deny it wouldn’t work either because she’d just call us out on it and then go tattle to one of the instructors. She liked to call it her ‘Big Sister ESP’ which didn’t make a damn bit of sense because not only is she an only child but she was the youngest kid in our group by, like, two days.)

(Sounds like you were on the receiving end of it loads of times.)

(Oi.)

“And that’s pretty much the whole story.” Exasperated, she rolled her eyes and turned to face him fully but as she finally seemed to take in his haggard appearance the look of irritation made way for a concerned scowl. “But, dude, for real are you okay? You don’t look too hot.”

Keigo rubbed his hands together as he cast a final quick glance about the room before turning to face Uryū as well. The brunet seemed, for lack of a better word, uncomfortable. “Yeah, she’s right. You look like shit.” And suddenly, as if something just occurred to him, a look of worry-tinged suspicion crossed his face. He backed up slightly, brown eyes squinting at the other teen. “Wait you aren’t contagious are you? Because, like...whatever you got looks nasty. I don’t want to be no patient zero’s plus one if you catch my drift.”

“Keigo!”

“What? Come on, we were both thinking it!”

“So? You don’t just-” An arm pulled away from her chest to grasp the air fruitlessly as she let out a noise of frustration. “Have some tact man!”

Jolting slightly at the other’s careful touch, it took him a second longer than it probably should have to process Kojima’s presence beside of him. Blue eyes flickered between the two teens yowling at each other like a bunch of wet strays then over to the calmer boy watching the action play out not unlike a spectator at a tennis match. Urgh, just the mere thought of yet another argument had his head hurt preemptively from the noise. Yeah, better to cut them off before it even started.

“Guys, I’m fine. Really.” Because while he admittedly did felt like shit, surely he didn’t look as bad as they were making it out to be, right?

(...)

(...Right?)

“Y-Yeah.” He turned back to the other two as neither of them seemed to pay them any mind whatsoever. “Just fine...”

And was it just him or was this all getting to be a bit too much? Even the presence of Mizuiro’s chilled hand on his shoulder was starting to prick at something deep and indescribable within his patchwork soul. Quietly the folder still clutched within his grasp began to crinkle.

(Uryū! Mind the papers!)

��What? Oh!’ Realizing what he had been about to do he went to quickly dispose of the item before the other teen’s thoughtful gift got ruined any further.

But it was then, as he went to bend over the coffee table to set the folder down that the sudden shift in position sent a sharp spire of pain coursing throughout their very being. A feeling not that different from someone having up and went to town with an ice pick on his skull had him seeing stars and with a quickly darkening sky to match.

A quiet intake of breath. That’s pretty much all the warning they got before the floor steadily drew itself up to meet them (or perhaps he was going down to meet it?)

And he was down.

A pause.

Then–

“What the fu-“

“Oh shit-!”

“Uryū!”

–three teens scrambled reach his side. All talking over each other in a rush of chaos and panicked noise.

“Oh my god is he dead?!”

“Holy shit-“

“I knew something was up! Like I didn’t want to be the one who said it first and I’m sure Kojima’ll agree with me here but, he looked sick. Like sick sick. One foot in the grave sick. And oh my god are we watching a dude die right now oh my god-”

“Clear some room! You two help me get him onto the couch-“

His consciousness was already starting to fade in and out as they struggled to get him to the couch but even as he sunk further into the deep night he could still hear snippets of their terrified fervor.

“Ow!”

Keigo let out a small yelp and jerked back from the fallen teen only to be directly on the receiving end of a daggered stare courtesy of the lone girl of their troupe. “Stop screwing around Asano!”

“He shocked me!” The brunet cried, pointed an incredulous finger at the downed boy.

Dark brows furrowed and lips parted slightly as the girl leveled him an absolutely dumbfounded expression before she got pissed, “Are you fucking serious right now?! Ignore the damn static cling and help us get him up here!”

“R-Right.”

As they got him into a suitable position Keigo pulled back once again and watched the two fuss about their fallen friend. His mouth continued to move in a stream of nervous word vomit, “Oh man, what do we do?! Television makes this stuff seem so much less complicated. I mean, like, the dude just...dropped out of nowhere! One second he’s fine and then...blam! He’s down on the ground and out for the count. Does he really have some secret terminal medical thingy going on? Is that why?? Do we, y’know, take him to the hospital??? Argh dang it, I knew I shouldn’t’ve skipped health class...” He grasped at his hair, staring off into the middle distance.

(And it was that last little bit of noise that sent an instinctual spike of blind panic through them. If it were to come to light that the Director’s son had just been admitted to A&E with some form of unexplainable illness the news would most certainly reach his father’s desk within the hour. And Ryūken, for all that he spurned the supernatural world and those who participated within its boundaries in favour of the more mundane, the man was neither blind nor stupid. He was, by the very blood flowing through his veins, still a Quincy. Their razor-thin plausible deniability would be pierced through in a heartbeat by the man’s prodding and soon to follow their skull; courtesy of a charged Heilig Pfeil. And the second that happened the lives and afterlives of everyone around them would instantly be forfeit. Come be what may they could not let themselves be taken to the hospital.)

It was this desperate thought that allowed him to use that as a ballast to rise through the muddled dark just enough to poke out through the murky surface. His jerking gasp caused all three teens to startle.

They were at his side in an instant, “Easy there Uryū.” Mizuiro gently tilted his head to right and tried not wince at the sheer heat radiating off of the other boy. “Don’t push yourself.” And to the others in a low voice he muttered, “He’s burning up.”

“How bad?”

“Bad.” As in: he legitimately did not know how the other had even been standing, let alone able to hold a semi-coherent conversation with them.

It was Keigo who noticed that he was trying to make his opinion known on the matter, “Guys, shush!” And to Uryū: “Hey there bud, didn’t quite catch that. Mind repeating it?”

“No...”

“...No?”

“N-No...No hos…pitals.” Why was it so hard to get the words out? He reached out blindly for the nearest thing that could sense on his peripherals and was met with a balm of cool lakewater stopped just shy of freezing against the raging surge of an ocean black as pitch; Mizuiro’s hand. Already he could feel the stormy dark dragging him back under but just as he slipped back beneath its grasp a single desperate plea escaped his lips.

“Please.”

And then he was gone, lost once more to the waves.

There was a moment of silence before the trio once more burst out into panic.

“Wah he passed out again?!”

“What do you mean ‘no hospitals’? In the state you’re in?! Don’t be a dumbass!”

“W-What do we do-”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t you want a doctor when you’re this sick?!?”

“D-Do we just...go ahead and call someone or...?”

They were shocked into silence as the third member of their party suddenly rose from his place at Uryū’s side and made his way over to the kitchenette where he proceeded to rummage through the cabinets. The two of them shared a baffled look as this seemingly nonsensical course of action had them scratching their heads for all of two seconds until he reemerged from behind the partition with his newfound prize; a medium sized bowl now filled with a decent amount of semi-chilled water from the tap and a novelty kitchen towel, having once been lost to the depths of a junk drawer, now stood a notable presence draped across his shoulder. He lugged his precious cargo back over to their little cluster, taking care not to spill a drop of it as he sat the bowl down, and reclaimed his spot at the edge coffee table.

“Kojima?”

In lieu of a response, he opted to position the other’s limbs into a more comfortable arrangement. Once satisfied with that Mizuiro’s focus then shifted to the glasses perched his friend’s face. With deft hands, he slid his fingers underneath the thin wire-frames and carefully tugged them off, taking care as to not smudge the lenses when he folded the earpieces up and set them to the side. Finished with that, he went to work dousing the fabric in the cool liquid. As he shuffled about the space, it was hard not to notice how the shorter teen carried himself with this sort of inscrutable countenance; the face a careful blank all save for a subtle furrowing of his brow.

It was Keigo who broke the silence next, “You know what’s going on, don’t you.”

The boy paused in his ministrations and there was a long silence before he finally spoke.

“...Uryū’s father is currently employed at Karakura General.”

“...So, he’s a doctor?”

“Yes. Or, well, not exactly...” The teen took another moment to parse his words, hands absently reaching back into the bowl to wring out the soaked cloth between them as did. He carefully laid the damp towel across the other’s forehead, “He’s actually the Director there.”

“...Wow, that’s certainly something.” And then a thought occurred to her, “Hold on a sec. If that’s the case then it makes even less sense for him to be like this.” She gestured pointedly at the boy lying prone before them. “You think a doctor wouldn’t notice their own kid getting sick like this?”

“Well, maybe he just too busy at the moment to really do anything about it?” Keigo offered haltingly, however when faced with the twin stares he hastened to explain himself, “W-Well, I mean, he just said he was a hospital director or something which means the guy’s pretty important right? And, hey, important people do important stuff all the time! Like...go on super long trips for business.” He made a vigorous series of hand motion, as if to illustrate his point. “And when they’re on these long trips don’t they cut off all contact so they can go ahead focus only on the big business stuff, yeah? So, maybe that’s what happened. His dad had to go out of town for this huge important medical conference or whatever and everything was going all good until then out of the blue Ishida was struck by this sudden mystery illness. And our man Ishida, being the good guy that he is, didn’t want to bother his old man when he was doing something so important so he thought he’d try toughing it out while waiting for to get back? Or something along the lines of that maybe?”

“Asano. While that’s a nice thought, I sincerely doubt that is the case here. After all,” While he seemed was patient on the surface one couldn’t help but note the faintest hint of something else lurking in his tone as he stared down at the body before him. “Uryū doesn’t live with his father.”

“H-Huh?”

Dark brown eyes narrowed, “What are you trying to get at Kojima?”

“I mean,” He started slowly, a rare look of consternation flashed across his face as he met the girl’s energy with a soft-yet-acerbic tone of his own. “Look around you; at the single set of shoes at the door, or the lone bedroom down the hall. He doesn’t even have enough food in the fridge for one person, let alone two.” He leveled a pointed gesture back at the object in question, his other hand coming to make a tight fist against his pantleg. “No, there hasn’t been anyone else here but him for a long time.”

“B-But that’s...” But before he had a chance to speak Mizuiro cut him off, signalling the other to give him a second. At his side, he clenched and unclenched his fist, repeating the gesture until the circulation flowed back into the digits. Once the feeling had returned to them, he then smoothed out the creases in his uniform pants with a silent note to further iron them out when he got back home later.

“Sorry, I got a little heated there.” He shook his head as he twisted to face him. While he did appear to be a bit calmer for the action there was still the faintest lines of a scowl that tugged at the corners of his mouth. As a whole, he seemed troubled. “But still, my point stands. While it could be whatever’s making him sick right now egging it on, I genuinely don’t think it would be in his good interest for us to just dump him at a hospital right now, at least not one run by his father at any rate.”

“...S-So what do we do?” Mizuiro did have a point after all, they couldn’t just leave him there to suffer like that. (Well, actually, they could but that would be kind of a shitty thing to do, wouldn’t it? What if he died or something because they left him alone? He definitely did not sign up to become a murderer of all things, no siree. Because when the cops eventually came around to investigate things then them just being there right now would lead to some uncomfortable questions which it would then go straight to them getting implicated for something or another because that’s just how authority figures were. He was too young to go to prison! Hell, he still cried at the end of Phoenix Ranger Featherman Classic when everyone finally put aside their differences to bring about world peace through the power of friendship! And that wasn’t even getting into whatever weird beef Kojima had with Ishida’s Old Man. Argh, he just wanted to get out of doing cleaning duty for the day, not be faced with drama and life or death decisions!) The usually bouncy teen’s eyes flitted between his friends with a ever-growing desperation, having felt as though he was completely out of his depth here. “We have to do something, guys.”

Tatsuki, as per usual, ignored the fretting teen in favour of leveling her attention on the last conscious resident of the room. She seemed stare at him for a long moment, long enough to make any weaker willed person squirm. However, Mizuiro Kojima was no such individual. He met her gaze, dark eyes clear yet unyielding. It was Arisawa who broke first, her brown eyes glancing away and then over to the fallen teen. Dark brows furrowed until she finally turned away from this as well, her lips pulled back into a heavy grimace. “...Alright. Fine.”

“‘Fine’?” Mizuiro raised a brow.

“You win. We won’t take him to a fucking hospital.” She spat as she raked a hand through her short spikes. Hard set to her jaw, a rush of air escaped her as she shoved herself up to her feet. “But Asano also has point. I’m not leaving him like this.”

“She’s actually agreeing with me?” He muttered under his breath somewhat disbelievingly before being startled by the sudden movement. “Huh? Wait, where are you going?” Keigo called as she moved towards the kitchen partition, personal cell phone already out of pocket and in hand.

“I’m gonna go make a call. So pipe down so I can hear the dang thing–”

“Okay, no need to shout–”

“Don’t worry, Uryū. Everything’s going to be alright.”

“Hello? Yes, we’re kind of in a bit of a situation...”

“So you just try to get some rest now, okay?”

“No, please, listen Mr. K-”

“We’ll take care of it, I promise–”

<{-----+}

(And then it was dark. The twinned consciousness finally faded from the forefront; soul fragments curled tightly into one another as they drifted along the stormy ocean of liquid pitch. Their entirety ebbed and flowed with the steady rhythm of make-unmake-remake as their patchworked being slowly remolded itself into something that truly should not have been yet somehow inexplicably was and a delicate equilibrium was met. Upon finally having spent those additional energy reserves they sank deeper into the realm of dreamless sleep; yet even so this unique rest was not a wholly peaceful one. There were brief moments where awareness bubbled up, reaching out but not quite touching the surface, allowing for snippets of lucidity as their body slept on.)

{+-----}>

(“I’m so sorry for calling you out of the blue like this and at such a late hour too but we couldn’t think of who else to turn to.”

A presence slowly drifted through the endless mire.

“Well, it’s a good thing you kids called me when you did–”

Twisting and turning.

Rising and falling.

Life and Death .

Over and over and over again the display repeated so on and so forth until eventually with nowhere else to go it turned in on itself in an endless array of spiritual fractals. Awareness came and went with the tide, the stolen snippets nothing more than static nonsense.

“█████!”

“█████?”

“█████...?!”

A messy tangle of fizzy yellow passed it to a worried forest gale and then to an absolutely frigid lakewater then back to the first one and so on the pattern repeated itself, occasionally tossing another burst of noise into the mix until the soothing aura of a smouldering flame— not quite the raging bonfire it could be if properly given time — cut through.

“Yes, you ███ can run along now. I’ve got your friend ██████ all settled. He’s in ████ █████. So let me ███ ██ ████, okay?”

So f a m i l i a r. . .

“You’ve got good ███████, you know that? Didn’t ████ want to leave ███ for a ██████.” A self-depreciating chuckle, one that felt like the crackle of embers cloaked in cigarette smoke “They’re good kids. But...” A smile dropped.

He knew this person.

“I’m ██████ this is a ███ out of their ██████████.” The rare seriousness was a jarring contrast to his usual behaviour. It was easy to forget how good of an actor he was. It ran in the family.

...Who?

“What a mess. It’s a ████ ████ thing that I ███ ██ home visits, ███ know that? I’m █████████ that ███ even managed to ████ ██ this long in the state ██████ in. I guess that █████████ stubbornness must be ████ ███ something, huh? You ██████ ██████ are something else.” A hand that should’ve been warmer ran through disheveled locks, its owner letting out quiet hiss before the limb retracted. “████ weren’t ███████, ██████ burning ██. Damn, ████████ gonna have ██ ███ ███ ████ if you don’t—”

—And then everything was cast drift once again.)

“What am I gonna do with you kid?”

It was time once more for the void’s shadowy hold to lighten and almost immediately he cast out his nebulous senses in search of that familiar rain-soaked maelstrom that both was and was not part of him. He relaxed somewhat, able to tell that the other was still caught Hypnos’s grasp. To continue on with that comparison did that mean that he, on the other hand, was more suited for the position of Thanatos in this situation? He allowed the vague amusement to flow through him as he curled around the other in a lazy embrace.

A shaky awareness slowly trickled outward, allowing for him to distinguish that curious warm presence hovering somewhere off to the side of the body. However, with that gesture a sliver of reality bled in and he could feel an involuntary shiver as the prickle of cold air hit bare skin. The sound of someone clucking their tongue and that warm flame drew closer, and he could feel the chill fade away. Replaced with the soft comfort of what could only be a blanket.

“████ ██ ████ ███.” The outside presence said something else but seeing as reality was currently as flaky as a distant oasis mirage it was practically gibberish to his ears. That –along with the garishly vibrant yet hazy body that periodically swam into view every time the world seemed to blink— it was hard to say if what he was experiencing now was nothing more than the continued offshoot of a particularly vivid fever dream or not. This assumption was not helped when the other being, who turned to face him for some reason or another, had spotted a single bleary eye squinting from across the distance and had taken that as a license to explode into a whirlwind of chattering noise and activity.

Well, dream or not, it sure as hell was annoying enough to made him want to bury his head under a pile of pillows and snap for the moron to just stay still and shut up, damn it.

“...?”

...And he must’ve said something to that effect out loud if the way the other had paused, having been caught off guard by the garbled outburst, was any indication.

Oops.

Another blink and their mouth was moving again but still not quite reaching through to him. Huh, maybe if he had a bit more of a presence of mind this fact would bother him but as it stood, he couldn’t help but instead wonder. ‘Who the fuck is this anyway?’

His spinning mind wracked itself trying to place where he knew that presence from despite the thoughts slipping through his fingers as if they were leftover grains of sand from their last trip to the Land of Endless Night. Why was it so familiar?

(Of course it was familiar. That was his–)

“Dad?”

(Did he accidentally get a concussion and stumble into the clinic hospital again? His Dad Grandfather would chide him for getting into a fight again even though it usually wasn’t his fault people were assholes and tried to pick fights liked to steal his stuff.

Wait. That didn’t seem...right? What, no, yes it did?

He’d only ever gotten into a street fight once back when he was a little kid when this group of utter twats stole the Little Huntress knit plush that his Grandfather had spent months making for him. He had been so mad that he had subconsciously used a reinforcement technique and, in the process, completely shattered the other kid’s jaw.

Sure, he had gotten the knit plush back but the damage had already been done. It was no time at all before word had gotten around to all of the other kids and their parents about how the ‘weird boy’ who ‘saw things others could not’ had gotten ‘violent’ and sent an ‘innocent’ kid to the hospital. It had taken no small amount of hush money and eventually changing schools entirely before the whole incident eventually was swept under the rug.

But truly, it was the event that directly succeeded it which still bore a stark testament to his memory even after all this time.

It had been the dead of the night and he truly had never been meant to hear any of the hissed words behind that set of closed doors; but because he had thought he’d heard a strange noise earlier, and with the childish worldview that had yet to be tainted with the existence of their cannibalistic counterparts wondered if it had just been one of the friendly local ghosts that had somehow managed to sneak onto their property in search of him and as such went down to see if the wayward spirit needed help.

He hadn’t expected to see the sliver of light filtering out into the hall from his father’s usually locked study. So, filled with all the curiosity of a child his age who couldn’t sleep he had crept up to the crack to check it out.

He had never seen both his Grandfather and Father so upset.

The way the two went at each other backlit by the light of the Hunter’s Moon was a sight to behold. Their weapons for this duel: thunderous expressions and acid laced words undercut by a form of panicked desperation and righteous anger.

He might’ve just been six at the time and not really understood what they were so furious about but judging by the fact that he could catch his name interspersed between that special brand of German that Grandfather spoke he knew enough that whatever it was they were talking about had something to do with him.

And it was terrifying.

Original purpose forgotten, he crept back upstairs and hid himself deep underneath the covers. Little arms wrapped tightly around the plush that started it all, he buried his face into the soft yarn as he tried to forget what he had just saw. Eventually, tiredness won out and he fell asleep to the thought that he never wanted to see another’s person make that sort of face because of him ever again.

Yet he did, only a few years later and continued to do so, with the devastation brought about by his own hand.

Wait. Something about that didn’t feel quite right either, but whatever it was just wasn’t clicking and he couldn’t pin his finger on just why...)

The blurry figure almost seemed disconcerted, “███ █████.”

It feels like he’s forgetting something, perhaps it was related to rising the impression of befuddlement emanating from the living personification of cigarette ash over there and the fuzzy looking frown on his Old Man’s face. He didn’t know why but he didn’t like that look. It just didn’t suit Ol’ Goat-Chin and he as so much said so.

“███ ████! ████ █████ ████, █ █████. ████ █████ ██ ██████ ███ █ ████████ ████████ ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ██ █████████ █████ █ ████ ███████?”

...Well, if there was anything that he could say transcended both space and time it was that the other could certainly be enthusiastic about his reactions. It sure as hell would have been nice if those few snippets of vigorously animated noise made some sort of sense, though. Eh, time to extrapolate and figure out the rest from there!

“I...am not sick. Don't need a doct’r Old Man, I'll be fine." He slurred, thankfully having enough clarity to form most of the words.

This eloquent and well put together response did not inspire the confidence he hoped it would if the loud disbelieving snort were indication. "██ ████? ███ ████ ██ ████ █████ ████?” The other seemed to retort but already he could feel himself slipping again. His eyes slid shut. He...felt like something big was going to happen and...he needed to warn him? But why and what about? Was it about the girls? Oh, wasn’t it around this time there had been a hollow...and something else? But it would be a big risk if they didn’t let him face the others and get strong enough to...do what?

(Who was he fighting back then? Was it a–)

“H’ll’w?”

(No, it was Ywh—)

Wait, who was in control?

Their consciousness was fading and fast but they were still aware enough to see the other man stiffen and that was...very bad. Why, he didn’t know, but he at least knew that the other definitely shouldn’t have been like that so with their last bits of cohesiveness they fought to reassure him. “D’n’t w'rry he’s dead.” Their hand went up grip at their chest, just why was it so hard to breathe? It hurt. But still they forced the words out, “P'rm'se.”

(And then they proceeded to pass out.)

Contrary to the consolatory result he had been aiming for, it seemed as though the display had provided the direct opposite effect for the other man, only giving rise to a number of questions that urgently needed answering and an ever-darkening stain of concern.

He slowly made his way over to the teen and ever so gently pried his fingers away from where they clutched at his chest. He tried not to grimace at the sight even if he did allow himself a low oath uttered under his breath. It wasn’t like the kid could hear it anyway, having once again fallen unconscious, a likely result from how his body was trying to cope with the nightmare that was happening to it.

“...Poor kid.”

The whole thing was starting to look a bit too much like that horrible mess with Masaki and that Hell-Forsaken Hollow all over again. It made his fingers itch for the package of menthols he kept tucked away in a spare pocket, if only to distract himself from the cold knot that made its home in his stomach. For all his vibrancy and self-admitted eccentric worldview, he wasn’t blind, nor had he ever been stupid.

He knew the kid had made it a habit to go out at night to try his hand at hollow hunting, perhaps using the activity as a coping mechanism so that he could come to terms with Sōken’s death, and while truthfully, he could only guess as to what had been going through Ryūken head at the time; whether it be dealing with his own feelings on the matter, or maybe some misbegotten cultural aspect of having to deal with ‘The Pride of a Quincy’ that the other would steadfastly refuse to elaborate on ‘because he was no longer involved with that state of affairs’, or even some other bullshit entirely. Frankly, he didn’t give a damn what the reasoning was. The fact of the matter was that eldest Ishida had let him go about doing all of it alone.

Damn it, back when he still was a part of the active service there was a popular saying among the members of the 10th Division. If memory served him well, it was:

‘A lone wolf is nothing more a dead dog.’

It meant that there was a reason why you didn’t let a fresh from the academy recruit runaround on their own without some form of supervision (usually in the form of a higher ranked squad member that could serve as back up should the need arise) for their first few missions. Not everyone was able to handle the stress of a battlefield where emotions regularly ran high and sorry bastards would pounce on any weakness that you so much as dared to show, after all. And he had seen more than his fair share of good men lose their lives because of things like this.

Hell, even with years of the patented ‘Shiba Subtle Situational Awareness & Athletics Training’ under his belt he wouldn’t have let his own son go galivanting after the damned things if it hadn’t been for Kisuke’s silver tongue and the Kuchiki girl’s presence acting as a sort of makeshift mentorship born out of sheer necessity.

(Feelings on the matter be damned, he knew –even if he didn’t necessarily agree— that it was the only way that his boy could even have a chance at standing against the things that were to come. The only way for him to live up to the name he had been blessed with and be able to shatter the plans of those who would wish to inflict a fate worse than death upon him for the simple crime of existing as something beyond their understanding as he and his sisters did.

But he still couldn’t help but wonder sometimes; that if things had been different would none of them have needed to have faced such things to start with? That he and the girls would have, if not a normal life, then at least one that still would have had their mother in it?

But there was no use dwelling on a world that never was and never could be when one had to keep their sight on the present, anyhow.)

He knew he was a hypocrite, but damn it if he couldn’t still get pissed off when he saw a child basically throwing himself to the wolves.

‘And look where this mess has gotten us Ryūken. Where it’s gotten our boys.’

With his power drained down to the barest dregs as it was, he still would’ve had to have been utterly blind to miss the strong haze of hollow-tainted reiatsu on the child. A grimace deepened as he busied himself with refilling the water basin and then moved on to examining the makeshift cooling towel set across the teen’s brown. He had to commend the dark-haired lad’s (Kojima, he believed, was what the brunet had called him) insistence on fussing about with the thing before he shooed them off, a thoughtful stopgap measure set about in the slim hope that it might make things a bit easier for his friend, even if it was purely palliative at this point.

Taking note of the way sweat gathered at his brow and the tachypneic breaths, followed by a quick check of the pulse that revealed an equally racing heart –likely straining to filter the toxins out of his body and soul— this accompanied with what he’d witnessed during the young man’s brief periods of rousing it was right of them to be concerned.

His own professional (and totally not biased at all) verdict on the matter was—

Well...

Let’s just say it really was a good thing that the boy was out of it as to be spared the worst of things.

Up close like this, it was easy to see Ryūken’s features in the boy even without the mop of white hair on his head (that Ryūken insisted was his natural colour and most certainly not bleached, but Isshin had seen all the hair care products the man had in his bathroom, there was no way) but with this proximity it was also not that hard for him to imagine by some unlucky roll of the dice Ichigo in this position and with the uncertainty of the future such a thing wasn’t entirely out of the cards.

That the thought of something like the bastard from that time or possibly (nay, likely) worse going after these literal children (his own flesh and blood turned conscripted soldiers forced to play to the tune of people centuries older than them) made that familiar churn in his gut and once more his fingers itched desperately for a cigarette to take the edge off.

He instead toyed with the frayed lining of his coat sleeve, the patch of cloth already long since rubbed thin.

‘Even in his hour of need the kid still had his dad on his mind.’ He mused, absently brushing back a sweat-drenched lock of hair from the boy’s brow. Like this, you wouldn’t even be able guess the boy had been deliriously seeking out the comfort of a parental figure not moments before. ‘He still thought of you, Ryūken.’ Then his thoughts took a darker tint, ‘But would you have even cared?’

At least Ichigo had some others to stand with him if things went south, those who had at least some idea of the rather unique problems he had to deal with. But what this child have? An emotionally constipated father and a smaller, yet no less significant, spiritually charged target painted on his back? ‘Pride of the Quincy’ indeed.

And then he winced, immediately chastising himself for the line of thought. That was being a bit unfair, wasn’t it? He wondered what his dear Masaki would have to say if she heard any of this. A wry smirk, ‘It’d probably end up with a well-deserved smack to the head for the both of us for being morons; followed by an hour long chewing out session that would cow even the most stalwart of men.’

He shook his head to dismiss the thought, his gaze traveling up and out to the decently-sized balcony just beyond his reach. The trails of light streaming through sliding glass painted the small room in the colours of the setting sun. ‘Geez,’ He sighed, scratching at the back of his neck. ‘I’m not usually this gloomy. Must be because it’s almost that time of year again.’ And with that what little bit of levity he had managed to scrounge up had faded, allowing his thoughts to spiral back to the same bleak spot that was now their home.

That spot also known as his current patient: Uryū Ishida.

Right, what to do...

...Fuck he missed his wife; she’d know how to deal with this better than he ever could. If this was just some sort of normal illness or a trauma case then he would have been able to handle it no problem. Hell, even if the worst came to pass and he somehow managed to make the transition to soul form then at least he’d have some idea of what to do. But this? He wasn’t equipped for any of this mess right now.

...But maybe there was someone who was?

“Kisuke would have some idea of what to do about this.”

(That...and well, he couldn’t leave his ‘new son’ to suffer now, could he? Heh, he could just see Ryūken’s face when he told him. If anything, it would make a great memory to look back on while he was running for his life from the other’s arrows.) He glanced back at the other’s prone form and while he knew full well that the other didn’t seem to be processing things by anything other than a base level at the moment he felt the need to reassure him for his own peace of mind at the very least.

“I’m just going to step out for a second, there’s someone who might be better equipped to handle your condition. Just hunker down and hold tight okay kid?” He gave Uryū a brief pat on the shoulder –trying not to wince at the sharp crackle of errant spiritual energy that made his hair stand on end— and strode towards the small apartment’s front door.

<{-----+}

(The comforting feeling of cigarette-&-embers moving away as the man left to go somewhere else. A patchwork quilt of sightsoundhisnothis as the world blinked by in a series of snapshots going back and forth. The acid-fire of pins and needles and an ill-fitting skin being pricked like a pincushion. A flawed restructuring of self; error...action rendered incomplete, energy going into stabilization. Awaiting further instructions. A Whole-and-Fragments with overlap grating painfully against one another. A lantern spark of a familiar yet not Soul forcing a hard reset; new patterns found, translation successful, installing █̵̨̝͈̍█̶̢̛̼̼̥̩̈́̄̑̀̈́͜█̴̖̱̍̋͗█̷̪̒̄ͅ█̸̧̛̠̞͙͍͊͆͂͑̀█̴̧̜̺͈͕̓̑ͅ█̵͚͙̏͂͐̑̋ ̵̝̽̿̿̈͒█̶̯̼̣̟̏̐̈͂█̷͍̣̜͉̩͔͐̐█̸̢̛̬͉̰̈́̅█̷̡̲͐̏̉█̷̨̰͇͙̹̟̎̀̔̕█̷̰̎̒̓̕͝͠█̶̭̩̻͉̾█̵̳͌̽̋́̓̀█̴͇͙͂̊͋̎͝ ̵̢̠̱̓͆͐█̸̳̻̒͜█̴͕̥̫̽͊͠͝█̴̤̐͂͒͂̈́̕█̵̠̀̇͝█̵̢̳͙͓̟͑̃̅͠█̶̯͍͎̥̱̍͂͠█̷̧̹͈͉͐͝͝. A new equilibrium reached and becoming whole. Purpose fulfilled, pieces falling into place and a final dissipation...A dearth of energy and thus sinking deeper and deeper into the dark of sleep—)

“Kisuke would have some idea of what to do about this.”

A twitch.

(The distant sound of a voice low but urgent and the slow rousing of a distant memory. A slightly cracked door and the rising of noise from the source, as if it were someone that was trying to be quiet but had begun to forget themselves in their frustration. It enough to remember something as neurons rubbed together enough to connect that this was something they did not want to happen at any cost. Driven by pure instinct they lurched up, the world spinning at the sudden movement. They couldn’t stay here. They needed to get outside. Pitching forward, the fall was mercifully muffled by the thick fibers of the large area rug. The fading echo of white static as circulation returned to limbs having had long since fallen asleep and the nauseating rush of a world that was blurry and too bright and alive was a strong deterrent but they couldn’t curl up and sleep until the phantom ache of pins and needles faded away along with the rest of their problems like they desperately wanted to. The faint smoke-wrapped ember that filtered in from the cracked door behind him was as comforting as a funeral pyre at the moment and only served to remind them that they needed to move.

He hadn’t noticed them yet, but it was just a matter of time.)

(Could we take him out and make a run for it?)

(No. That would bring pain and death. Can’t get caught. Fate worse than death.)

(But they already ached so much. It was as if a yawning chasm had opened up in their very existence, and to fill that emptiness it needed to consume and consume and consume until there was nothing left. The void where that ocean once stood was so empty and they felt so h u n g r y.)

(They had to find another way. Unbidden, their gaze turned to the balcony and the hazy light of the moon above. The way that it filtered down through the clouds as it cast everything in a soft glow was honestly kind of beautiful. Another stirring of a half-remembered conversation from a world that had been dead twice-over where two overlapping viewpoints met and interlaced; it had been stupid and banal, something to pass the time as they raced across endless monochrome sands and keep himself from going nuts from the lack of visual stimuli and had startled an undignified snort out of his mouth but one thing that remained the same was that large unreachable light overhead.

The reverie was shattered when the voice in the hallway went silent for a bit too long. The lack of sound causing their hackles to rise in warning. Shit, he couldn’t be wasting time like this, they had to get out of there! But how? And yet despite it all that moon still loomed on the horizon.

...They had an idea.

There was no time to think, the quiet patter of footsteps and the desperation of the void spurred them on. They lifted a hand to the dark world behind the glass, fingers that were already far too pale clawing forward; their owner driven by some inbuilt instinct as they tried to grasp something far beyond mortal reach.

And then they grabbed it and tore the world asunder.

The body moved, jerking up and through the gaping maw without a second thought. Having served its purpose, the crack stitched itself back together, allowing reality to reseal behind it as if the aberration had never been there to begin with.

And then there were none.)

Ichigo (Who Is Currently Possessing Uryū): -Calls Isshin "Dad"- Isshin: -With joint custody and adoption papers at the ready- Congratulations and welcome to the family New Son. You have gained +1 dad. There is no escape. Also Uryū: Now it is imperative that we blend in to this world as not to give cause for alarm to the local populace and ruin our plans. -Acts sketchy af and passes out two seconds after meeting that world's version of his friends- ... Uryū:...Nailed it. (Fun fact: That plush dubbed “The Huntress” was one of the first that Uryū ever had made for him and it was based off of a mix of traditional Quincy stories that his Grandfather told him and tales about his adoptive daughter in her youth Masaki. Not that he knew it was her specifically until much later. Ichigo had a matching “The Hunter” one that vaguely resembled Ryūken that Isshin managed to “lose in the wash” when his wife and son were out grocery shopping one day. He had to sleep on the couch for a week for that one.)

[cainite-bite]

no i dont want to use the app! i dont even want to browse it on my phone! let me open that shit on my desktop! why is everything barred to a stupid app on google store! get that outta here!

[hey-heigo]

online applications for cs jobs are so ridiculous you're telling me i have to spend 4 hours of my life doing this thing that will make me miserable? and if i dont do it in a way that you exactly like you'll waste my time and ghost me? what if we both became shooting stars passing in the night

[pascals-doll]

aint ya’ girlfriend!

⋆ ˚ . * · analysis— in which ellie doesn’t know the meaning “commitment”, well she does but chooses to not stay loyal. you’re her roomate and unattainable—or so she thought. venturing into your own dating life causes her to spiral, she aint your girlfriend & neither are you. | WC: 1.5K

₊˚ପ ellie williams x reader | photo cover obvi from Pinterest!

₊˚ପ MEOWW IM BACK !! gotta run it back with some toxic ellie 😇!!

₊˚ପ description: MODERN ROOMATE AU! NO PHYSICAL FEMALE DESCRIPTION! ANGST & SMUT, PORN W PLOT! (lol), toxic!ellie, roomate!ellie, PLAYER! (coded) ellie, JEALOUS!ellie, no use of Y/N, the mention of commitment issues, MUTUAL PINING, blatant flirting, secret crushing, heavy yearning, very small reader x dina, heated arguement, mention of ellie sleeping with multiple women, POWERPLAY, mix of dom!reader & dom!ellie, sub!ellie partly & sub!reader, pent-up sex (😇), teasing, HIGHKEY MAKEUP SEX (👅), possessive!ellie, finger-fucking ( E receiving), face riding (E receiving), 69, praising, pussy eating (both receiving), slight biting (both), slight choking (both), use of pet names ( baby, mama)

90% percent of things in this world are easily accomplished and achieved, being Ellie Williams roommate wasn’t one of them.

Since the day you met through a roommate finder site, after a few phone conversations getting to know each other t’ill the moment you arranged your meeting. Ellie's been enamored, secretly, nonetheless.

You would lie if you said that from the moment; she came to help you move out t’ill now—dealing with sleepless nights because of her lack of sexual resistance—that her consistent affection didn't sway you.

it's been exactly six months since you've moved in with Ellie and you could recount her daily routine like it was your skincare.

You weren't sure, if you genuinely thought Ellie was sure you were dumb or straight-up shameless.

At dark hours of the midnight, you might've been asleep but that didn’t stop her by the agonizing moans that echoed through cheap plywood walls. You groaned as you muffled your entire face and ears with your pillow, praying for them to shut the fuck up or stop.

Three days, twice a week.

Ellie had to have some type of sex problem. You thought to yourself. You're never one to hate someone's game-but living with the player is absolute fucking hell.

Every morning, you’re an early bird as Ellie is not, due to her nightly ventures.

You felt bad for the women who left disheveled, sneaking through the apartment at 7 AM to leave while you step out your bedroom; an empathetic smile shot their way before hurrying into the bathroom.

Your morning routine consists of cleaning yourself up before stepping out to cook early breakfast.

By the time, Ellie awoke and stepped out cockily, "Thank you, beautiful. You didn't have to cook me breakfast." She coaxed happily, pouring her cup of coffee at 12 PM. You sat on the couch reading your book, legs crossed and rested onto your coffee table.

You chuckled, "That shit's cold by now, I made it when tonight's booty-call left." Unphased and focused on your book. You could hear her footsteps begin to lead towards the living room area, closer, and closer to the couch you relaxed on.

You would never admit it. Although, her lack of respect for your peace—doesn't mean she should starve.

She joined you on the couch, empty space right beside. Ellie's presence tensing your muscles for some reason. She somewhat annoyed you but when you got to talk to her, it went so well. You guys actually had so much in common.

It felt serene to connect with her on many levels besides her surface actions, she was a timid person throughout the small cocky remarks. She was a great listener along as a storyteller over everything.

It was truly remarkable the balance she carried, also interesting. Something you couldn't quite wrap your head around still. You were willingly delusional, but it was clearly evident, you soaked in every moment with this person.

You lowered your book while she asked, "Hmph-touchè, you got any plans for today?" Calling your attention. Eyes sulked, the forest she carried within her eyes; it wasn't hard to comprehend why these women want a chance with her.

Ellie’s eyes were impossible not to get lost in, like compulsion. You never held eye contact too long, taking moments to break away, and retain from fluttering to the brown kissed freckles along her face to the shape of her soft lips.

You squint, a small smirk creeping through "Wouldn't you like to know what I'm up too." Your tone teases before going back to reading.

"I know what you been up too," Ellie tries to push further, reaching forward to delicately grasp your legs that rested on the coffee table. Your legs laid into her lap, sprawling across, and hanging off.

Another thing that consists of her routine the most? Spending the rest of the hours, days, and weeks flirting with you.

Ellie loved physical touch—as if she wasn't physical enough. She loved her hands on you.

Watching herself caress the exposed skin of your legs, massaging down t’ill your ankle high-socks. Wether it was platonic or flirtatious, affection was key with you.

Once again, you lower your book to meet her eyes.

Ellie’s hands worked their way down, her fingers pressuring skillfully onto your heel and tingling the palm of your foot. She continues watching you read, "Oh yeah? What am I going to do today?" You question her, disregarding your book.

Sinking herself into the couch, her hands moving up from your legs to your thighs. Softly squeezing on of them, goosebumping your skin.

Ellie smiles confidently, "Cuddle with me and watch movies." Her eyes shimmering. You gaze at the big grin she spoke with, unsure if she was ever genuine.

You sat-up and leaned closer towards her till met face-level, "I'm sorry Els, someone else booked my time for today! I'm sure you will find a way to entertain yourself, hm?" You patted her shoulder with a smile as you got up.

"Wait, What the fuck do you mean?"

"Oh Williams! I've got a date, gotta' get ready."

It was insane, truly.

Ellie thought she was going crazy; she couldn't ever date you.

You're too good for her, representing everything she should want but isn't ready for. She was aware of how clearly toxic and intoxicated she was off, and with you.

No. Fuck no.

Ellie repeated to herself mentally, alongside questioning her existence—had she really been so caught up on trying to get a reaction out of you to see your time focused on someone else? —Yes, she was.

It wasn't as bad as the delusions Ellie's paranoia was creating in her mind. You had hung out with your friends where you happened to meet Dina. She was a mutual friend that you were introduced too.

Ever since then, you've been flattered, and hoped for a dinner date with her. For you, it felt like an escape of emotional dread that came after every touch, sentence, and epithet that left Ellie's lips.

You hated the way you loved how affectionate she was, catching yourself vulnerable every time she touched you. Always dwelling the feeling of her soft warmth that soaked into your own invisible bliss, never allowing yourself to look too pleased; Yet, never pulling away.

Ellie headed down the hallway to your room. She was desperate to get you to stay, creating small and stupid conversation to slow you as she loved hearing her nickname fall from your lips even though she was practically seeping jealousy.

Ellie was her own ticking time-bomb, her patience melting, and mustering “Who's the lucky girl?" She bugged, trying her hardest to conceal that greened tone.

You swirl your chair around, now completely facing her as you couldn’t help your jaw fall agape. You examine her demeanor while speaking up, “I don't ask about your daily rendezvouses." You were quick to quirk back, feeling uncalled for.

Ellie's brows knitted together, "We-well—are you gonna' bring them back? I deserve to know that." She stumbled but spit back.

It was clear, now, you offended her. It was true. You never asked about the women she brought into your shared apartment. The women she brought to make you jealous.

The laugh you let out was priceless, "I don't get a say on who you bring home, why would you?" You called her out.

Ellie stepped closer to your chair. She looked into your mirror, leaving you no choice but to face her as your swirled around, her eyes gandered through your vanity mirror.

Your facial expressions were clearer as she continued to push, "It's different, you know that." She tries to prove.

You wanted peace and relaxation, something Ellie makes a sure mission of that you never fucking receive.

"You can't go out," Ellie began.

"Who's gonna stop me? Are you serious?' You thought she must've been fucking with you; you weren't going to hear another word of it.

"Just get out, get out now." Standing up from you chair, holding it open as she walks out, and slamming the door behind her.

You had left and most of all, you had left Ellie feeling like complete shit.

She couldn't believe you did this, did this to her. It felt like you had shot right through her heart, torturing her with her own distasteful antics, and leaving a sour tang to her soul.

In her mind, she thought you were utterly selfish. She couldn't see past the fact that, you, didn't owe her anything.

Ellie wanted you, beyond pleasure, more than anything. You became insatiable to her.

She didn’t allow herself to soak in tangled feelings she felt for you, knew she had, even if it ate her alive at night. You would come to visit her in her sleep or while she mindlessly fucked some girl—sometimes, even pretending it was you.

You are treasure to her, too valuable to touch, but always curious with growing desperation to obtain and protect.

Ellie's peace was founded in you, a safe place she loves calling home. Unknown to your knowledge and you disrupted it.

As she disrupts your peace by being with anyone, but you.

Ellie finally understood what you meant by those backhanded insults.

She sat there with her hands palmed to her face, fingers running, and scratching through her short soft locks. Messing her own hair up, contemplating on how she could turn such a deep pattern.

This entire time she had been failing and failed to see that.

Out of everything, she thought blowing up your phone was the answer.

When you finally opened your phone, you saw your notification inbox full.

ⓘ Els ❕50+ messages

ⓘ Els ❕50 missed calls

You excused yourself to the restroom at fhe table with Dina, "I'm sorry, is it okay if run to the restroom really quick?" You requested through a thick forced tone and hidden irritation.

Your date had been going amazing. You may not have a lot in common with Dina, but she's a cheerful person who brings a refreshening energy. It was nice being in her presence.

It wasn't enough though.

You found yourself comparing your conversations to the conversations you have with Ellie, who is just your fucking roommate.

Dina was picture perfect, absolutely stunning, and she respected you more than you imagined Ellie ever could. That was the thing; even if talking to Dina tonight was full of laughter.

Everything you wanted wasn't her.

Never able to shake the anticipation of her touches, and the absence of her presence. Which make you crave it. Crave her. She was pure risk and you never wanted her to change.

You had a crush on your roommate, and you were fucked.

You were in the restroom ringing Ellie's phone. Hearing the beat of your heart thumps.

"You better say something good." You wanted to scream out as the line connects. You had every right to be, never once have you blown up her phone.

"Where are you? Let me come get you." She hurried through her words, hearing her surroundings of cars driving with a swish of wind.

You paced around, shocked and even more angry, "Are you out? Where are you?" You throw her own question back at her, whisper-yelling in a stall.

Ellie was so desperate to find where you were out like a girlfriend gone rogue.

"On my way to come get you, now tell me, where." She states blatantly and impatiently.

"You fucking wish! what happened? your hookup ain't text ya' back?" Your tone was laced with pure spite. It was silent for a small moment over the phone.

"Tell me where you are or come home." You could hear the desperation through her roughed-up tone.

Not a word was said. Your mood had been completely killed and you were hanging on by a thread. Repeating herself, “Come home or tell me where you are, please."

For the first time, you heard Ellie beg. She was pleading for you to come home, and you hated to admit it; yet, again.

But it worked.

When you finally saw her, you didn’t bring yourself to look or speak while you walked completely past her.

The silence was piercing the whole way. You could hear a pin drop.

“No side piece tonight?” your tone, only bashful. You were exhausted and enraged.

Ellie's white wife-beater was roughed up and you could smell the stench of marijuana roam off her neck. She looked sullen, her eyes low, bagged, and her jaw seeming clenched; her hair staticy.

You observed her body language, scanning her lean figure. Her sweatpants hung loosely onto her hips as her gaze shifted between you and her own feet.

Huffing, "Just why." you state, disassociating yourself by looking at the ground. It was continued silence for a moment.

"You came back for a reason, though." Ellie finally spoke and it just made everything worse.

"You know what? I did. I came back because I actually care for you. I thought you were in trouble or something, so I thought, hey, maybe I should go back—" You began, your voice shrieking as it raised louder.

"Something you never fucking think to do, too busy fucking to show me an ounce of respect!" You yelled. Weight had been lifted.

It was like screaming a keyword at Ellie, budging from looking at ground to look at you "What are you talking about!?" Ellie's eyes widen, her eyebrows raising as she retorts.

"You don't fucking get it!" you didn't say anything as she raised her hand angrily into the air, then running in through her hair.

"It is so fucking hard trying to resist you." Ellie's eyes were piercing into yours, her steps stalking closer.

"No matter how many women, they are never you. You are all I think about." You could hear her voice grow lower and lower as you froze.

You were at a loss for words, lips parted as you try to focus on your breathing.

"I want you. I need you." Ellie continues, whispering. Feeling her warm breath feather your lips. Ellie closed any space between you both, pulling you into her.

You opened your mouth to speak—only for her to bring a finger up to shush your lips, "I can't stand the thought of you with someone else." Ellie continued, leaning in closer and slowly removing her finger.

So many parts of you wanted to scream rejection, but as you feel her warmth, and her words you’ve dreamed. You could feel your blood rush and heat you up, feeling Ellie's body haze you, your mouth desperate and shaky.

"Kiss me, then." you tut.

Your lips met passionately, an automatic fight for dominance as the pace got hot. The thirst shared was unquenchable.

The personal echoes of each other's kisses smack as your hands got lost in her hair. Your fingers slightly tug onto her loose locks. Ellie's hands greedily rapturing you further into her body—till she couldn't; craving to feel every part of you.

You were lost into the feeling of Ellie's lips, her tongue swiping at your bottom lip as she's desperate to explore more of you.

Your bodies fiend for each other, one of your hands tugging on her muscle tank, and the other lowering from her hair. Ellie's hands roam from your waist, trilling at the feeling of you grazing her neck. She passes your hips till she reached thigh, and hiking it up onto her hip.

Ellie's grasps and grips onto the thick of your thigh, slowly dipping to cup the cheek of your ass. She sneaked a firm squeeze on your ass causing you to shriek, allowing her tongue to explore every crevice of your mouth.

Ellie giggled into the kiss at your muffled moans, amused by how she's effecting you. You push her off slightly, catching your breath. You were both left breathless while she kept eyes on each part of you.

Taking a step closer, reaching your hand out to caress her cheek. Indulged by the freckles painted into her as your thumb brushes her soft cheek. Slowly traveling your hand to her nape before coming around full circle, choking her, and pulling her chest to chest.

You smirk at the way her pupils dilatated. Ellie's mouth was agape, leaning in to lick a teasing swipe along her bottom and top lip. "I'm not your girlfriend." you state.

A soft quick squeeze on her neck causing a weak whine to fall from her lips. Oh, this was better than you imagined.

Ellie gripped your arm, pulling you around and into her chest. Walking you back, you felt your back eventually hit against her door with a hasty thud. Her tongue explored you, intertwining with your own as you sucked softly.

Each grope and wet lick electrified a craving in your stomach, pulsing into your arousal. She struggles with the doorknob, jiggling it open as her other hand held you. Ellie would never admit how soaked you get her.

Your needy grinds contra the pleasure dripping through her briefs as her lips learned every secret love spot within your precious body. You both tumbled onto her bed, not a care in the world besides this fervid momentum shared between you both.

Ellie toppled you, slowly lowering closer. Taking a chance to catch her by suprise, pulling her down with your leg hooked, and flipping her over. Now, you were on top.

Your lips quickly find their way to her clavicle, pecking, and licking alongside her neck. Almost ripping off her wife-beater while leaving open-mouthed kisses onto her shoulder. Continuing kissing down and around her exposed tits.

Your eyes switched watching her face and the way the cool air perked up her nipples. Ellie's back arched as you teased your teeth onto the plush above her tits, right above her sensitive erect nipples. you leave an array of hickeys, enjoying each squirm let out from under you.

This was your sweet revenge, her punishment for every time; she could've been with you, but wasn't.

You didn't stop tricking her with your tongue. Maneuvering down from fondling one of her tits, twiddling your finger around her nipple, and sliding into her loose sweats.

Your hand hasty as you reach the warmth of her panties, middle, and ring finger curve into the soaked patch that leaked through her panty. Thumb pushing up on her clit softly while Ellie turns her head laying head on the bed, watching you tease her; growing embarrassingly wet.

It was primal instinct, playing, and pushing for her weaknesses. You studied every small moan and squirm left form her body. Your fingers continuously circle her clit through her panties. She was quick to spread her legs for you, allowing you access.

Ellie's tits perked and red by your teeth and feverish sucking. You kept finger firm, pressing down onto her covered clit as the fabric of her soppy panty rubbed into her, pulling her panty to the side, coating your two fingers with her slick.

Ellie's chest heaves with a loud moan as her thighs tremble. You watch her struggle to reach up and stop your arm. She was on the border of giving in and still anxious for control.

She grips onto your wrist, slimed finger following down to her vulnerable entrance, toying with her, torturously. You kiss and lick your way back up, meeting her berried lips.

Your middle finger pushes into her, curving upward, and enticing her walls which immediately knocked a desperate strangled moan out of Ellie, throwing her head back.

The sound of her slick swirl and smack within gliding in and out of her whetted pussy brought you a gluttonous satisfaction. Her addictive cries encouraged another finger to join your soaked middle, stretching her out completely. Ellie’s grown in nail tips dug into your incensed flicking wrist.

Ellie on a frenzy of choked whines and unstable string of moans, "Gah-fuck me!".

You admire the work you've sucked onto her body. A fleeced giggle leaves your lips as you plant feathered kisses onto her cheeks, "Already am, baby" You murmured.

The pace you fucked her with was exquisite, your fingertips fluttering against her g-spot as they plunge deeper. Quickening your thrusts with every squelch given by Ellie’s gushed pussy. She held her mouth agape, allowing yourself to dive your tongue in, swallowing her lewd noises.

Ellie clenches around you, her pussy guzzling every inch of your thickened fingers. You could feel and hear her heartbeat pound against your smushed chests, "Ya'like it? like how it feels, honey?" Your question was coy, sliding your fingers fourth, pressing your tips verse her walls.

"Ah! yes, fuck, fuck yes!—I'm gonna'—" Lecherous shrieks fell from her lips as you help ride out her orgasm. Your fingers relentless in her pussy, juicing itself around your fingers; coating your fingers.

"Let it out, Els", You start to praise into her ear, "I know you've been dying too."

Your coo finishes her off with a loud grunt as you pull out your lustered up fingers. Without looking or a second thought, your free hand grabbed Ellie's jaw and attempted to focus her dazed vision to watch you.

Both of your eye's leer into each other as you plop your fingers into your mouth, coming sucking off her cum with a pop.

Ellie's eyes turned dark, her lids hazed, and hooded.

Slowly lifting yourself and shifting your hips below her stomach, Ellie was quick with her movements, flipping you over, and trapped under her. The feeling of her hands running up and down your clothed body, leaning down your ear, “Time, I took all this off…” She weakly whispers as she hovers over you.

Your body was completely sprawled onto her navy-blue sheeted bed with your arms raised above your head, and her knee pushing into your clothed heat. Mimicking your exact position, each sloppy kiss was followed by a piece of clothing being thrown off.

Seconds. How quick it was for you to be in nothing but your panties. Ellie’s kisses were precise and every nonverbal praise by the unconscious grind of your hips and bit-back whines.

She flows herself between your legs, pulling each one onto her shoulders as her lips pecked from your thighs till, she met your damped panty. "You had your fun," She started muttering into you.

"Only fair if I have mine, right mama?" Ellie cocks her head to the side, meeting your eyes before biting your panty-lining and proceeding to hike down your panties with her teeth.

Your eyes peered into her, watching the way she intently focused every part of you. She kissed every beauty mark that was blessed up your body. The feeling of her breath inching closer to your dewed pussy-lips; arching your back in temptation.

You thread your fingers throughout her hair, tugging slightly. You were no longer challenging her, giving complete submission to Ellie.

She watches the way arousal drips from your slit; her hands massaged the goosebumps perking the hairs on you. Ellie couldn't believe she was granted with such a divine privilege, drooling at the thought.

Ellie kitten-licked the delicious nectar that trickled, her tongue dragging flat against your pussy, and licking up your pulpy clit. Indulging in every moment spent between your legs with every keen lick trailed across your heat.

An inflamed jolt seeds through your spine, your entire body to thrash further into the bed as you cry out, "Ah!—Fucking god!" Your pleasure enthralling you to your ankles.

The wet smacking from her saliva coated sucks mixed with your core's elation. A train of vulgar slob laps your pussy while she gets lost in between your furred lips and swallowing you up, “It ain’t god, baby.” Smirking at your sensual vulnerability.

The tone she used was condescendingly sweet. Trembling your legs and jerking your hips which pushed Ellie’s head further into your pussy as the heel of your foot digs into her shoulder, and hands wrestling through her brunette locks.

Your head was thrown back in tempestuous joy, “Mmph! Ellie!—so fucking good!” Ellie’s tongue danced on your clit before making her way towards your soppy entrance.

Pure ecstasy marauded its way up and through your internal, tightening your abdomen. Every strike of her tongue inched closer to cumming all over her. You felt your hips cramp as you try to push Ellie off, backing away desperately.

You struggled, meekly crying out, "F-fuck! stop! stop!" Ellie immediately pulled away with wide eyes. She looked up at you alarmed, "Did I hurt you?!" her tone sincere and worried as she got up, standing above you.

Trying to catch your breath, sweat glistening your naked body. You lean up on your elbows to look at her, "Get on the bed..." your voice was breathless and clear. Ellie walks over slowly, hovering next to you on the empty side of the bed while licking the corners of her lips deviously.

Ellie leans over, her hand threading through your messy hair as she kissed you ferociously. Tasting yourself on her tongue as your own greedily twirled around her mouth. Both of your tongues swirl around each other as your arms find their way around Ellie's body.

You pull away from her lips, "Put your pussy on me." you sulk, regaining your strength.

"Aren't you charming." She jokes out sarcastically and smirking, "Oh, just sit on my face." you huff with a fun grin.

Just like that, Ellie turns around, holding herself up onto your thighs. Your hands run through the back on her thighs till you made your way to her ass, fondling, and squeezing her plush flesh. Mouth’s salivating at each other.

Ellie lets out a gratifying groan as your tongue swipes her sensitive slits, twirling around her hole and thumb circling her clit. Arching herself down onto you more while leveling herself in-between your thighs, leaving sloppy opened kisses on your pussy.

Your stomach bubbles up lewdly, chasing after her swirling tongue within the impatient trial to get her to cum all over your face. The mix of each other's nibbles and starved slurps, propelling bodies together as your legs convulsed and her own thighs shook with inched erotica.

You feel your orgasm coarse and itch closer as Ellie continues to drag between your slits. Starting to move faster, hips grinding against your face. Ellie is soon following close behind, both of you moaning and panting while reaching each other’s simultaneous climax.

A string of choked out moans bouncing off her white walls, “Don-Don’t stop!” you gasp out before closing your mouth around her clit.

Continuous harmony between both of your moans as you both cum all over each other, creaming your faces.

You and Ellie lay in each other's arms, basking in the afterglow. Eyes dozed, sweaty bodies entwined, and sharing a first tender moment of silence.

You lifted your nuzzled head from the crook of her neck, breaking the silence.

“I don't want you to touch anyone besides me.” Voice hoarse and clearer than ever.

“I dont want to ever see anyone besides you.”

A/N: I FEEL BEYOND GRATEFUL FOR REACHING 1k WHILE I WAS GONE 🥹 i thought it was about time i post cus i finally feel like ? confident ? i spent most of my time if it wasn’t personal life duty, id be writing a bunch of self indulgent fictions (THIS WAS ONE OF THEM LOL) and practicing and differentiating my writing style to my liking.

THANK YOU SO MUCH GENUINELY IT MEANS THE WORLD! i cant wait to continue :)

dolls-taglist̗̀➛ @marsworlddd @cosmopolitanaut @elliewilliamsgirl3 @elliewilliamgfooc @graviewaviee @yourelliewillms @elliesgf1244 @deliriousrn @yondaimekazzy @moonyvs4 @tearouthearts @ride4els @colecassidysfav @theoraekenslover @localorphanage @starmoon333

updated taglist link here! (other was corrupted)

[hms-no-fun]

you were on cohost? i guess too late now, how was it for you?

cohost had its fair share of problems and i could often find the community there a bit too tumblr-core fingerwaggy if you know what i mean. but the site's dead now so it's kind of a moot point. what i find myself reflecting on most these days are the positives.

first, no numbers. i think their no numbers policy was probably a bit over-aggressive, but it quelled some of the rat race popularity contest aspect of social media that often makes it so tedious. i liked their tag tracking system, their robust content warning options, and the absence of infinite scroll. what i miss most about cohost is that their text editor supported CSS, which led to people programming elaborate text effects and puzzles and games in-site that harkened back to the days of flash animations. there was something in this combination of elements that drew out a rebellious creativity in users.

cohost came at a time when social media was across the board feeling terrible (and it's only gotten worse hahaha), particularly as someone who makes shit that relies on you clicking links that take you away from the website or app. algorithms hate this and punish it. users also just seem kind of lazy and disinterested in using the internet so much as letting the internet happen to them passively. but when a post of mine went viral on cohost, people engaged with it. it wasn't just likes and shares, it was comments and additions. it felt like a place that (at its best) encouraged actual conversation and the development of new ideas among like-minded peers. when my posts did well and i included a donation link, people gave me money. it felt genuinely like a website that COULD support professional blog work in a way that was more customizable even than substack yet still RSS friendly, and the Following tab which let you easily see posts of specific users was a REVELATION, like a mini RSS reader within the website itself.

but the enterprise was unsustainable for various reasons (not all of them outside the dev crew's control) and the haters got what they wanted. now our big social media alternative is bluesky, a website that dares to ask the question "what if there was another twitter?" the answer is that it fucking sucks. i hate microblogs so much dude, why on EARTH are we still acting like these disambiguited 300-character-limit posts are the most preferable means of social communication online??? why would you set out to make a better twitter and then deliberately choose to replicate literally every aspect of the user experience that encouraged low-information high-drama conflict fabrication? WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A VERSION OF TWITTER WHERE YOU CAN EASILY LOOK UP THE ACCOUNT OF EVERYONE WHO HAS YOU BLOCKED AND IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A FEATURE NOT A BUG???????? i just don't get it. i don't even get the optimism of the early adopters. i've seen people decry the post-election decay of the platform like "of course the cishets come in to ruin a community that was defined by trans & queer people" i'm sorry HELLO???????? from literally day zero bluesky was aiming to be a hands-off centrist IPO-friendly tech startup, there was never anything structurally embedded within the platform itself to keep this kind of decay from happening, you just happened to be on there when there were dramatically fewer users most of whom were curious tech enthusiasts. seriously, how have we not learned this lesson yet? you can't define a digital culture by the vibes of random user behavior! unless you have LAWS and GUIDELINES whereby you fucking BAN people for being shitheads, unless you enforce an actual code of conduct and punish bigoted speech and design a system that encourages constructive conversation, you are always always ALWAYS going to wind up at unhinged facebook boomer slop!

the death of cohost and the utterly predictable decay of bluesky are a big part of the reason why i've been posting so much more on tumblr. this is like the last bastion of anything even remotely resembling the old web, with its support of longposts and tagging and how easy it is to find random hobbyists doing cool shit you never knew existed before. like, yeah, you have to search that shit out and tailor your feed to not drive you crazy, but that's what i like about it!!! i am an adult with agency who understands that life is complicated and as such i expect to have to put some work into making my experience with a website positive! but in the hellworld of the iphone everything is walled garden apps for aggregating content where the content and its creators are structurally established as infinitely replaceable and uniquely worthless punching bags to be used and cast aside. everyone's given up on moderation and real jobs don't exist anymore especially if you happen to work in the "creative economy" IE are a writer or critic or artist or hobbyist of literally any kind. we've given up on expecting anything from the rich moneyboys who own and profit immensely off of the platforms whose value we literally create!!! especially now with the rise of "AI" grifters, whose work has ratcheted good old fashioned casual sexism and racism and homophobia up to levels not seen in such mainstream spaces since the early 2000s.

i like tumblr because i don't have to use a third party app to get & answer asks at length, and because it is a visual artist friendly platform where i won't be looked at funny for reblogging furry postmodernism or transgender homestuck OCs. it is a site that utterly lacks respectability and that's what makes it even remotely usuable. unfortunately it also sucks! partly it sucks because this place was ground zero for the rise of puritanical feminist-passing conservatism in leftist spaces, so it's like a hyperbolic time chamber for brain-melting life or death discourse about the most inconsequential bullshit you could ever imagine. but it also sucks because it's owned by a profit-motivated moneyboy who has consistently encouraged a culture of virulent transphobia and frequently bans trans women who call this out. so like, yeah, this place is cool compared to everywhere else, but it is exactly like everywhere else in that is also on a ticking clock to its own inevitable demise. the owners of this website will destroy everything that makes it interesting and will EAGERLY delete the nearly twenty years (!!!!!!) of posts it's accumulated the instant it will profit them to do so. this will be immensely unpopular and everyone will agree it's a tragedy and it won't matter. the culture and content of a social media platform is epiphenomenal to its rote economic valuation. i mean, obviously it isn't, zero of these massive tech companies would be what they are if so many people weren't so eager to give their time and labor away for free (and yes, writing a dumb dick joke on tumblr IS a form of labor in the same way that doing a captcha is labor, just because it's a miniscule contribution in an economy of scale doesn't mean you didn't contribute!), but once a tech company reaches a certain threshold its valuation ceases to be tethered to anything that actually exists in reality.

all of which is why i remember cohost with a heavy heart. yeah, it was imperfect. it was also independently owned, made with the explicit goal of creating a form of social media that actually tries not to give you a lifelong anxiety disorder so it can sell you homeopathic anti-anxiety sawdust suppositories. for the brief window of time when it was extant, i was genuinely hopeful for the future of being a creative on the internet. part of why i spend so much time on godfeels, a fucking homestuck fanfiction with no hope of turning a profit or establishing mainstream legitimacy, is that my readers actually ENGAGE with the material. what brought me back to using this website consistently was precisely the glut of godfeels-related questions i got, and the exciting conversations that resulted from my answers. meanwhile i put so many hours into my videos and even when they do well numerically, i barely see any actual engagement with the material. and that is a deliberate design choice on the part of youtube! that is the platform functioning as intended!! it sucks!!!

what the memory of cohost has instilled in me is a neverending distaste for the lazy unambitious also-rans that define the modern internet. i remember the possibility space of the early web and long for the expressiveness that even the most minor of utilities offered. we sacrificed that freedom for a convenience which was always the pretense for eventually charging us rent. i am thinking a lot these days about what a publicly funded government administrated social media utility would look like. what federal open source standards could look in an environment where the kinds of activities a digital ecosystem can encourage are strictly regulated against exploitation, bigotry, scams, and literal gambling. what if there was a unionized federal workforce devoted to the administration of internet moderation, which every website above a certain user threshold must legally take advantage of? i like to imagine a world where youtube isn't just nationalized but balkanized, where you have nested networks of youtubes administrated for different purposes by different agencies and organizations that operate on different paradigms of privacy and algorithmic interaction. imagine that your state, county, and/or city has its own branch of youtube meant to specifically highlight local work, while also remaining connected to a broader national network (oops i just reinvented federation lmao). imagine a world where server capacity is a publicly owned utility apportioned according to need and developed in collaboration with the communities of their construction rather than as a deliberate exploitation of them. our horizons for these kinds of things are just so, so small, our ability to imagine completely captured by capitalist realism, our willingness to demand services from our government simply obliterated by decades of cynical pro-austerity propaganda. i imagine proposing some of this stuff and people reacting like "well that's unrealistic" "that'll never happen" "they'd just use it for evil" and i am just SO! FUCKING! TIRED!!!!

like wow you're soooooo cool for being effectively two steps left of reagan, i bet you think prison abolition and free public housing are an impossible pipedream too huh? and exactly what has that attitude gotten you? what've you gained by being such a down to earth realist whose demands are limited by the scope of what seems immediately possible? has anything gotten better? have any of the things you thought were good stayed good? is your career more stable, your political position more safe, your desire to live and thrive greatly expanded? or do you spend every day in a cascading panopticon of stress and collapse, overwhelmed to the point of paralysis by the sheer magnitude of what it's cost us to abandon the future? you HAVE to dream. you HAVE to make unrealistic demands. the fucking conservatives have been making unrealistic demands forever and look, they're getting everything they want even though EVERYONE hates them for it! please i'm begging you to see and understand that what's feasible, what's reasonable, what's realistic, are literally irrelevant. these things only feel impossible because we choose to believe The Adults (and if you're younger than like 45, trust me, to the ruling class you are a child) whose bank accounts reflect just how profitable it is to convince us that they're impossible. all those billions of dollars these fuckers have didn't come from nowhere, it was stolen from all of us. there is no reason that money can't and shouldn't be seized and recirculated back into the economy, no reason it can't be used to fund a society that is actually social, where technological development is driven not by what's most likely to drive up profits next quarter but by what people need from technology in their daily lives.

uh so yeah basically that's my opinion of cohost lmao

[betweenstorms]

Chapter 6/2 of Skin Of Thunder The Ship of Theseus (previous chapter) (next chapter) (all SOT chapters) (masterlist) Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

“The gods once whispered that to change was to survive, but what of the price? If you lose yourself piece by piece, at what point do you cease to be the one who began the journey?”

You worked like the devil was on your heels.

For days now, Ghost watched you.

Your fingers never stopped moving. Your eyes, tired but sharp, combed through data like you were looking for God buried in the fine print. You chewed your gum less, sipped your coffee cold, wore your clothes wrinkled from long nights and early mornings. You stopped adjusting your bloody pen holder. You started dressing in greys, navy blues and forest greens mixing with caramel browns and velvet noirs, something more uniform, something more restrained. You were trying to disappear into the work.

As if that would make it easier to be near him.

As if that could erase the memory of how you looked at him in the snowfall, your pretty eyes soft and steady, as if the world itself paused for just a breath in your gaze. As if it could erase the warmth of your lovely voice as you shared a story from your childhood, a tale that wove itself into the quiet night, threading your past with a tenderness he never thought he deserved. As if it could silence the reassurance in your words, the quiet promise that, despite everything he feared, you weren't going anywhere—

—no matter how much he resembled the man he hated most.

And it annoyed the ever-loving fuck out of him.

There was something bleeding out the seams of you.

That need. That drive. That old, familiar hunger Ghost knew too fucking well—the desire to matter. To prove something. To claw your way out of the periphery and into the heart of the mission, where the lines between clarity and consequence went soft and red. He watched it unfold in real bloody time. You didn’t belong there, not really, but fuck if you weren’t starting to fit into the cracks of it. Like moss growing between broken pavement. Quiet. Relentless. Somehow alive in a place built for the dead.

And you weren’t subtle about it.

Not like before.

“I—I think I’ve found a lead,” you muttered during a morning meeting, voice quiet but sure, maybe a bit hoarse, as if you'd held it in for hours. “Something’s off in the supply manifests tied to Site Bravo. Same trail of requisition codes as the drop Shepherd covered up in August. Different name. Same ghost print.”

Not maybe. Not sorry to interrupt.

Just that.

Ghost had felt Johnny look at him.

A glance. Blue to brown. A signal passed between brothers, a conversation spoken entirely in silence. He knew what Soap was thinking—knew it down to the fucking marrow, because it echoed his own unease like a bell tolling at the back of his skull.

A question.

How much do we give her?

And Ghost, for all his damned instincts, hadn’t answered.

Because he didn’t know. What could they really share with you? How far could they let you go before the edge turned from paper to blade? You were meant to file leave reports. Handle contracts. Chase down requisition forms. You were meant to be safe, for fuck’s sake. Instead, you were tracing the fault lines in a system that had already burned them once. All because of Laswell and the damn faith she placed in you, like a weighty crown you never asked for, yet somehow bore upon your shoulders with a silent, unyielding force.

Laswell didn’t blink when you’d said that.

She’d nodded, lips pursed in that tight little way of hers that meant she already knew. She’d known before you even said it, probably. You were confirming her suspicion. Making her job easier.

She seemed almost proud.

Price’s fingers tapped once against the table.

“Show me,” the Captain said.

And that was it.

The gates creaked open.

You’d earned a sliver of space on the game board now. A voice among wolves. And Ghost couldn’t bloody stomach it. Not because you were incapable. Not because you weren’t clever. You were too clever. Too quick with patterns. Too good at slipping past red tape and excuses, unravelling men with nothing but a well-timed silence.

“…same trail of flagged shipments. Bypassed Bravo through a dummy requisition. Followed it back to a private account connected to Shepherd’s former logistics branch. It’s buried, but it’s there, I promise. I just… need more time. To figure this out, I mean.”

Ghost exhaled slowly through his nose.

You were laying out the recon like it was fucking doctrine, like you’d been born doing this. And he knew, shit, Ghost knew it was never about how you dressed. Not anymore.

It wasn’t in your perfume or your ribbon or the way your fingertips skimmed the edge of the table as you spoke. It wasn’t about your bloody memories, nor the fire that burned in your chest, nor the unwavering determination that drove you to believe in the greater good, that you could help others. No, it was the way you combed through line items like they were sniper reports. The way you annotated briefings like you were prepping for a trial by fire.

Ghost had seen that hunger before.

He’d worn it once.

Maybe he was wrong about you. Again.

Because it showed. Your military blood. It was in the way you held yourself like you were always waiting for a hit that wouldn’t come. But still, you carried your softness like armour. As if kindness could bloody save you. As if the careful way you spoke, the way you looked at men who didn’t fucking deserve it, would make you immune to the rot curling beneath the surface of this world. Like if you stayed warm, stayed light, stayed just one fucking shade brighter than the sickening grey walls and black ops and brown dossiers, then maybe you wouldn’t turn into what they were.

And yet there you were.

Elbows on the table, nails chipped, hair tied back in some loose bun you clearly didn’t have time to fix. And there he was, sat opposite you, watching you slowly turn into something sharper than before.

Something he’d have to mourn.

Of course, he didn’t bloody show it.

No, he let the silence drag, heavy as a noose around his neck, as Price looked you up and down. Ghost could hear Soap shifting, restless as always, while Gaz exhaled, long and low, like he’d been holding it since you’d opened your mouth. They were waiting—for permission, for guidance, for their captain’s word.

“Good work, Dizzy one,” Price finally said, eyes narrowing in that quiet, calculating way of his. “Get it done, but keep it quiet. Anythin’ comes up, you bring it straight to me. Clear?”

You nodded quickly, exhaling a tight breath, relief washing across your face.

“Yes, sir. Understood.”

The meeting broke soon after, chairs scraping, bodies moving with muted urgency. Johnny nudged Kyle, murmuring something about grabbing a cuppa before heading down to training. Laswell gathered her files, exchanged a brief glance with Price, and disappeared back down the corridor like a shadow herself. But you lingered, arranging papers carefully, meticulously. Like you didn’t trust your hands to keep still if they weren’t full.

Price passed by, giving you a brief nod that looked suspiciously like approval. You returned it, quiet and steady, like you’d practiced this. Ghost knew you had. He’d watched you in his peripheral, muttering words under your breath like prayers, rehearsing lines you’d later speak to the Captain. Ghost knew exactly how far you were prepared to go.

The answer? Further than you fucking should.

You were drifting into the deep end, and you didn’t flinch anymore. Ghost could feel it—a slow churn, a sick weight in the pit of his gut that hadn’t left since the day you stopped asking permission to speak. It wasn’t pride. Not really. And it sure as hell wasn’t worry in the clean, palatable way people talk about concern.

No, what Ghost felt was grief, dressed up in fatigue.

You didn’t understand what it cost—to be trusted in this circle. To just walk into that meeting room and not be dismissed. You’d asked for a seat at the table, and now you had it. But tables like these? They were altars. And sooner or later, they demanded sacrifice. You’d bleed for it. And that was the tragedy of it. He could see it, clear as bullet glass.

And it wasn’t heroic.

Wasn’t admirable.

He could see it vividly, the day he’d stand at your funeral, staring blankly at your parents for the first fucking time, a meeting that should have been under different skies, under different circumstances. He could feel the weight of it, the cold weight of soil falling on top of you before he could prove himself worthy. He had always known that it would end this way, as if some cruel curse clung to him—every damn soul that dared to draw near would be swallowed whole by death, leaving him with nothing but the weight of their absence.

It didn’t help that you’d started opening up again. That you talked to him more. Smiled more. Joked more. Made grieving you even harder. And the worst part? You were doing it for him. For them. For all the wrong reasons.

You were standing so close now.

Always too close.

In hallways, in briefings, in the cantina, laughing with Johnny about some bollocks he'd said, throwing your head back with a brightness that made Ghost’s lungs seize. Gaz would chime in, cool as you like, and you’d lean toward him, but your eyes, those pretty eyes would flick to Ghost. Always. And fuck, he’d pretend not to see. Pretend not to notice the way your body angled slightly his way. Pretend your fingers didn’t brush his gloves when you handed him reports now. That you didn’t wait just a second too long before pulling away.

Bloody hell, it was easier when you kept your distance.

When you looked through him like he wasn’t there, like he was just the outline of something dreadful. When you didn’t speak to him unless prompted. When your lovely smile belonged to everyone but him. That made sense. That was how things should’ve stayed.

It was on a frosty night, a few days after Christmas when he caught you slipping again.

The base was half-dead by the time Ghost got back from the gym. Quiet in that eerie, echoing way that only these corridors managed after dark. Fluorescents buzzed low overhead, casting everything in that sterile, unforgiving light. Cold bit through the reinforced walls like it was trying to gnaw through bone, and the sky outside had gone black as coal, stars veiled behind low, grim clouds. When Ghost opened the door of his office, black hoodie clinging damp to the muscles in his arms, chest still rising and falling from the aftershock of exertion, he found you exactly where he didn’t want you—right there, in his space, haunting the silence like you belonged in it. Still in there, long past oh-twenty-hundred, light from your monitor bleeding pale across your cheeks, fingers typing slow, methodical.

“Still here,” he muttered, more accusation than observation.

You didn’t jump. Didn’t startle like you used to.

Just hummed low in your throat, barely turning.

“Didn’t realise it was past curfew,” you murmured, your voice warm but frayed at the edges, like a record played too many times. “Thought you liked it when I was working.”

Ghost huffed. “Like it better when you go home in time.”

You paused at that.

Like you were measuring something in the silence between his words and the huff that hadn’t quite landed as casual. Your hand hovered over the mouse for a second longer, then dropped to your lap. You turned in your chair slowly, the wheels squeaking slightly beneath you, the only sound in the room besides the hum of the radiator kicking out weak heat.

“I—I just don’t like going home when it’s this quiet.”

He blinked. The words hung there, a fragile confession drifting like a weather report.

Clear skies. No one’s waiting.

Ghost stared down at the floor, at the scuffed linoleum beneath his boots. Thought about all the nights he’d sat right there, staring at nothing. Letting the silence fill his ears like water. He hated this—hated that you could say things like that with your voice so calm, hated that you were still here at all. He should’ve told you to leave.

He should’ve told you to run.

Instead, he sat down. Watching you. Letting you stay. Again.

“Place’ll still be here in the mornin’. Shepherd’s fuck-ups aren’t goin’ anywhere. Neither’s this fuckin’ orchid you keep babyin’.”

You cracked a smile, just a twitch of your lips. The orchid sat on your desk, a single flower still clinging to life like it didn’t know when to quit. Like you.

“I think it’s really dying.”

“So are we all,” Ghost deadpanned.

You snorted. “Charming.”

“Get paid to shoot problems, not talk ‘em to death.”

You arched an eyebrow, playing along without even realising it, eyes crinkled at the corners. “Yeah, but still. Could’ve at least lied and said it’s got a chance.”

Ghost gave a hum. “Wouldn’t wanna fill your head with false hope, love.”

He leaned back, stretching his legs out under the desk, boots knocking lightly against the side of your chair. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t shift away. You were getting bolder again, and it made his stomach twist. But not with fear, no. With dread. Because it meant you had lowered your guard again, left yourself vulnerable again, and in doing so, you’d made the greatest mistake a soul like yours could make with someone like him.

You had trusted him again.

Ghost dragged a hand over his face, the rough material of his mask brushing against his palm, grounding him with its familiar weight. His gaze locked with yours, steady and unyielding. You watched him from beneath the veil of your lashes, leaning forward. There was something in your cheeks, a subtle flush that he couldn't quite place. Was it the play of light? Or perhaps the deceit of his own mind, bending reality into something softer, more fragile?

Then, you moved—

—just the slightest shift, yet it felt like the whole fucking world had tipped on its axis.

It was bloody madness, how you could bewitch him with nothing but the weight of your gaze, a silent spell that tangled his thoughts and bound his heart without a single word spoken.

And for a fleeting moment, he was transported back to the smoking area, the world outside lost in a soft blanket of thick snow and stillness. There, it was just the two of you, wrapped in the quiet of the night, hoping foolishly that everything between you was still intact, that he might, just fucking might, prove himself worthy of the trust you had placed in him.

You extended your leg, slow and deliberate, inch by bloody inch, ankle brushing first against his boot, then the hard line of his calf, mapping the contours of his skin, all the while holding his gaze as if daring him to look away. Ghost felt a shiver travel beneath his flesh, a feverish crawl that made his eyelids droop against the weight of it. He pulled his legs back, a reflex more than a choice, shaking his head as if to rid himself of the weight of your presence.

“You’re doin’ too much.”

Ghost spoke before his mind could catch up.

The words rolled out like stones, each one heavier than the last, scrambling to keep pace with the storm inside him. And the sight of your blush deepening only fueled the fire in him, a rising tide of frustration that made his chest tighten even further.

What in the hell were you thinking?

Your spell lifted in an instant, his mind snapping back into sharp focus. And there it was—a high ranking officer, a lieutenant, and an HR assistant, sitting too close, speaking too freely, the lines of propriety blurred and tangled in the space between them.

What the fuck was he thinking?

But even as the realization tore through him, he couldn’t speak it, couldn’t let the truth rise to his lips. No. No, no, no. He didn’t fucking want to. He just wanted you gone—gone from his office, gone from his life, gone from his goddamn heart. Now.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Ghost refused to entertain your childish theatrics, to give them the weight of his attention. It was beneath him, beneath everything he had carefully built in the quiet of his own thoughts. He let your antics dissolve into the air, untouched, unacknowledged. Instead he found another outlet, another thing to pour the bitterness, a task to occupy his mind, anything to keep the storm from breaking free. “Always doin’ too damn much. Stayin’ late. Pickin’ up extra. Crawlin’ through shit that’d make a proper analyst fuckin’ piss himself. You keep this up and Laswell’ll start expectin’ it.”

You blinked. “But… that’s the point. To help.”

His voice dropped. “You tryin’ to impress her? Or him?”

Your breath hitched. “What—?”

“Price. Your dad. Or me? Doesn’t fuckin’ matter, right?”

The moment the words left his mouth, Ghost knew he’d cocked it up.

Properly, spectacularly fucked it.

And it should’ve stopped there. Should’ve died quiet on your tongue like so many other little mercies between you.

You froze like a rabbit caught in a crosshair, staring at him as if he'd slapped you clean across the face. Fury and embarrassment tangled on your burning cheeks, turning you blotchy with the effort of holding yourself together. Ghost watched you straighten your shoulders, watched you tuck your hands under your thighs like you needed to keep yourself from shaking. Your mouth opened, closed, then pressed into a thin, bloodless line, like you were forcing it all back down before it could spill out and make a fool of you both.

Ghost wished, for once in his sorry, sodden life, that he'd kept his gob shut. But no. Bloody hell, true to form, he’d gone for the fucking throat when he felt cornered. Cut you deep, quick and messy, like every instinct screamed at him to do when he got too close to anything good.

That was what he was trained for, wasn’t it?

Strike first. Strike deep.

“You think that’s what this is about?” you asked, voice trembling, but not from fear. Hell no, it was anger. Humiliation. “Trying to impress you? Or my dad?”

He should’ve let you have the last word.

Your voice cracked halfway through, splitting open something raw and ugly between you. But Ghost wasn’t built for mercy. Not when the blood was up. Not when his skin still burned from where your ankle brushed his calf like a damn match striking flint. So he doubled down. Because he was a bastard like that. Because somewhere deep inside, he still thought if he cut you hard enough, sharp enough, you’d finally stop trying to reach him.

Finally see him for what he really was.

His goddamn father reincarnated.

“Don’t matter what I think,” Ghost leaned back, toned arms folded over his chest like he was settling in for a fight he had no business winning, boots planted wide on the scuffed linoleum. “Matters what you’re doin’. And you’re makin’ a bloody fool of yourself. You’re not Task Force. You’re admin. Paperwork. Spare fuckin’ parts.”

You jerked back like he’d cracked you across the mouth.

A terrible, awful silence bloomed between you. Your face crumpled, just slightly, not enough for anyone else to notice. But he saw it. Of course he fucking did. He knew every inch of you by now, could read the little tremors behind your bravado like bullet wounds on a body.

“You—” your voice cracked low in your throat, “You have no right to bring my dad into this,” you said, each word sharper than the last, cutting your own throat to get them out. “Not when—not when you’ve been—”

You stopped, chest heaving, trying to stuff the rest of it back down.

But it was too late.

It was already spilling over, ugly and hot and furious.

“You wanna talk about fools?” you hissed, and your eyes—fuck, your beautiful eyes—they were blazing, not with hurt anymore. No, it was rage. Full, blistering rage. “Really? When you’ve been asking questions behind my back. Snooping through my file like some sad little coward. And for what? To remind yourself you’re still the big bad wolf? So tell me, Lieutenant,” you sneered—no warmth, no gentleness, just the title like a blade between your teeth. “If I’m a spare part, what does that make you, then?”

Ghost swallowed hard, throat burning behind the mask.

“What’s the real reason, then?” He mocked mercilessly, ignoring your question completely. “Why you’re trippin’ over yourself for a bit of attention you’ll never fuckin’ need on paper.”

Your hands balled into fists on your thighs, nails biting into the skin through the thin fabric of your trousers. You stared him down across the small divide, eyes wide and furious, chest rising and falling like you were holding back the urge to lunge at him.

Or worse.

Cry.

Ghost could see it—he could feel it even—the way your whole body vibrated with anger, hurt laced so deep into the marrow of it that it made him feel sick, made him feel ashamed even as his mouth kept moving, digging the hole deeper.

“You think you’re the first?” he said, low and cruel, the words coming out too fast, too raw. “Think you’re the first bloody rookie to come sniffin’ ‘round, wantin’ a pat on the goddamn head? Some little nod from the big scary men, yeah? Some fuckin’ validation?”

The words echoed in the tiny office, bouncing off the grey walls like ricochets.

He wanted to take them back.

God, he wanted to claw them out of the air, shove them back into his throat, choke on them.

But it was too late.

You were already moving, standing so fast that your chair clattered backwards and scraped a painful squeal across the floor.

“Fuck you, Ghost.”

You sucked in a shaky breath, shoulders trembling like you were physically holding yourself together with nothing but sheer bloody will.

“You know what’s pathetic? That for all your talk,” you said, voice rising, “for all your snide little comments—you wanted it too.”

Ghost went absolutely still, rigid as death.

Your voice was a blade cutting too close to bone, each word sharp enough to carve out truths he’d long buried. The anger rolling off you filled the office, stifling and suffocating, pressing him back into the same fucking corner he’d spent his whole life fighting out of.

He stared at you, heart hammering behind his ribs, the ache radiating outward like shrapnel embedding itself deeper into his chest.

“Soap told me,” you spat, venom dripping from every word. “Yeah, he told me everything. About how you watch me. About how you keep me at arm’s length, pretend you don’t give a shit, when really you’re just too scared to admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“That you want me.”

Ghost’s fists tightened, knuckles bone-white beneath his gloves.

He felt exposed, stripped raw by the light of your wrath, every carefully constructed defence crumbling around him. The fury inside him flared like a magnesium burn, white, hot and all consuming, because he knew you were right. But pride was a damn beast, stubborn and ugly, and Ghost couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let your accusations land without fighting back.

“Careful,” he warned, voice dangerously soft.

That low rumble of thunder before the storm breaks.

“Yeah?” you shot back, stepping closer, chin raised defiantly. “Then tell me why you pulled away just now, huh? Tell me why you flinch every time I get close? You’re such a bloody hypocrite, you know that?”

Ghost felt his jaw clench so hard he thought it might shatter.

He wanted to snap, to tell you to shut your bloody mouth before you said something neither of you could take back. But you were relentless, the fire inside you consuming every ounce of hesitation and shyness, burning through your usual gentleness until all that remained was pure, raw hurt.

“You push me away,” you continued, voice rising, trembling now, “then draw me back in whenever it suits you. You lead me on, Simon—”

“I never fuckin’ led you—”

“Oh, you didn’t?” you scoffed, cutting him off, eyes narrowing. “So—so all those moments, all the times you’ve let your guard down and made me feel like I—shit, that I actually mattered, those meant nothing, did they? Just games for you? Just—just another way to hurt someone who’s stupid enough to care about you?”

Ghost felt something in his chest crack wide open, sharp and jagged, spilling poison into his veins. He was fighting against the urge to lash out, to wound as deeply as he felt wounded. But the truth of your words was undeniable, brutal and unforgiving, pinning him in place.

“Never asked you to fuckin’ care,” he ground out, voice low and harsh, each syllable scraping against his throat like sandpaper. “Never asked you for a goddamn thing.”

“You didn’t have to!” You nearly screamed, fists clenched, shaking visibly now. “That’s the worst part. You didn’t bloody have to, Simon. But—but the second I get too close, you push me away like I’m the enemy. You treat me like I’m a threat!”

“Because you are!”

The silence that followed his words was a repulsive thing, a bloody tombstone pressed into the air between them, suffocating the space where words should’ve lived. It lingered, thick and heavy, like the scent of saltwater and decay, like the ship of Theseus—just a vessel, once whole and now fragmented, every piece replaced until it was no longer itself. And each word he’d spoken, every bitter breath he’d exhaled, was another part of him torn away, replaced by something unrecognizable, something fragile.

Ghost felt something deep inside him writhe.

He was sick with disgust at what he’d done, yet strangely, he didn’t take it back. He couldn’t. Because you were the storm that threatened the still waters he had created. You were a threat to the numbness that kept him tethered to this world, the hollow comfort of pretending. You were the tidal wave, eroding the shore of his carefully constructed nihilism, a flood that tore at the walls he had built so desperately to protect the darker truths buried deep within him.

And so, in that silence, he sat as a man torn.

Your voice was softer when it found its way back as if the words themselves were weary and fragile things that had lost their strength along the way. The words were broken, like a bird's winged flight on a night too dark to reach safety.

“You—you think you’re protecting me, don’t you? From… yourself.”

Ghost didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.

Your laugh was bitter, hollow, cracking around the edges.

“God, you really are a selfish coward, aren’t you? You think your pain, your trauma or—or whatever this is, gives you the right, the fucking right to hurt me?” you nearly sobbed, voice shaking now, the anger bleeding away into something far more devastating. “You think it’s an excuse to treat me like shit whenever you’re scared?”

His jaw tightened painfully, the muscles twitching beneath his mask.

Ghost wanted to deny it, to lash out, to break something, anything, just to silence the crushing weight of your voice. But he couldn’t. You had stripped him down, peeled away the layers he’d built over the years, exposing the rawness beneath. Every scar, every broken part of him laid bare before you. Your words wound themselves around his throat like a tightening noose, choking the air from his lungs, drowning him in the weight of their truth. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, trapped in the suffocating grip of his own shame.

“You know the worst part? I still don’t hate you. Even after all this, I still don’t hate you, Simon. And that—that’s what hurts the most.”

You turned abruptly, snatching your coat off the back of the chair, grabbing your bag, your movements sharp and jerky. Ghost watched you silently, rooted in place, heart hammering painfully, fists clenched so tightly he thought his bones might crush themselves.

You paused at the door, your back to him. “I don’t know who hurt you so badly that you think this is the only way to protect yourself. But you’re wrong. And I hope one day you see that.”

The door slammed shut behind you, its reverberation cutting through the stillness like the final stroke of a hammer on a fragile frame, sealing away all that had once been.

Ghost sat at the heart of his own ruin, a ship torn apart by his own hands, every piece of what he once was slowly slipping into the depths of a sea he could no longer navigate.

He exhaled shakily, the rough breath tearing through his chest like an unwelcome confession. Beneath the mask, his eyes felt dry, staring into the void that he had created, the weight of his own actions pulling him down. Slowly, painfully, as if the weight of what he had just done had stolen the very strength from his limbs. His elbows rested on his knees, the tension in his body tight, drawn, like a ship adrift with no course to follow. His head bowed low, as if he could hide from the truth, the brokenness of it all—the way he had become something he never wanted to be.

Was this really him? Was this who he was now, a hollowed-out vessel, endlessly rebuilt but never whole? Because the man he had become, in pieces and fragments, was no longer the man who had walked into this room.

But this time, he could not rebuild himself like he did countless times in the past.

Not without you.

Not without the very thing that had torn him apart.

“The ship of Theseus sails on, but does it still carry the soul of its creator?” Skin of Thunder Chapters

[skythealmighty]

why am i just now finding out about thisisnotawebsitedotcom i feel a little stupid.. then again i dont have the Book of Bill so maybe im lucky to know about it ???

#rocket talk #gravity falls #miss this show. anyway twink cipher fuckign jumpscared me

(3 notes)

👓 the-nerdiest-glasses Follow

Why Flatland counts as an object show: an essay

Keep reading

🔧 warp-pipe-sfx Follow

Why Flatland does NOT count as an object show: a rebuttal

Keep reading

⛓️ chainsaw-massacres Follow

why flatland isnt an object show: its a book + movie you assholes

#this argument is fucking stupid its just flatland

(3,821 notes)

🔘 join-my-evil-polycule-deactivated08142020 asked: Im going to tear apart your circuitboard until its broken irreparably

🌈 super-rainbow-epic-computer Follow

lol ok have fun w that 👍

also do u know any recipes for roasted pumpkin seeds the internets failing me rn and im cooking a big dinner for me and my bf

🔘 join-my-evil-polycule-deactivated08142020

Oh yeah sure https://www.jessicagavin.com/how-to-roast-pumpkin-seeds/#wprm-recipe-container-35845

🔘 join-my-evil-polycule-deactivated08142020

Wait why am I telling you this go die I hate you

🌈 super-rainbow-epic-computer Follow

thx for the help!

☝i-date-iconic-posts Follow

Date of origin: November 3rd, 2021

(216,025 notes)

❌ mephonex-deletes-your-favs Follow

~~Welcome to MePhoneX deletes your favs!!~~

I'm mod Xav (the only mod rn - -"), here to cause trauma to your favorite characters :)! PLEASE keep in mind that submissions will take a while to get to, because I have to photoshop out the limbs + background or even completely recreate someone's object if they're transparent!

The background flag is in the header and the X (recreated from an image of MePhoneX) I overlay on top is the profile picture if you want to make your own :) just @ this blog and I'll reblog it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~❌~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RULES ABOUT SUBMISSIONS:

NO INANIMATE INSANITY CONTESTANTS. I would like to avoid Apollo's Dodgeball thanks (plus it's insensitive)

No algebralien or algebralien-adjacent characters! I love those guys too I get it but I honestly don't have a good method of 'deleting' them planned. Feel free to do it on your own time though!

If someone asks me to take down a submission with them in it I will do it without questions. This is for a variety of reasons, but I think you get it.

Alright, that's it! Have fun :)

#not xed out #mod xav #pinned post #your fav is #your fave is #mephone #mephonex #inanimate insanity #ii2 finale

(681 notes)

📁 sticky-note-hit-post Follow

has anyone else wondered why this spaghetti code webbed site can connect across DIFFERENT UNIVERSES??? or is that just me

(2,416 notes)

🦀 thesamepictureofbaxtereveryday Follow

follow for the same picture of my crab every day!!!!! look at him :D

(3 notes)

anonymous asked: greeny how does it feel to be technically a higher being than most other people on the site

🟢 greenyguy Follow

sir this is a wendys

#i didnt order an existential crisis today :(

(37,102 notes)

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

todays liveblog!! B)

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

knife and suitcase made it to the finale!! hell yeah so proud of them

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

balloons talk with suitcase didnt go so well :/ i hope they can get some alone time without anyone else so they can like talk properly next time

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

mepad???

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

oh i think the finale challenge is happening

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

baseball looks worried but lightbulb's brushing him off :|

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

ojs backing away from paper??? wh

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

WHJDT THE FUCK

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

WAIT I HAVENT SEEN SOAP IN A WHILE WHERE IS SHE???

🎤 screamintothemic Follow

OH GOD

#mics ramblings #SOAP???!??

(11 notes)

anonymous asked: evil woman are so hot <3 i will do whatever you want queen

🌐 dr-who-could-never Follow

Awwww, this means a lot to me, anon! Could you find Film Reel for me and doxx him? That would be really helpful <3

#He's been evading me #It's really annoying #Hard to take over the world when I have to worry about him 🙄

(6 notes)

🥄 only-a-spoonful Follow

WHY DO I KEEP GETTING SENT ASKS ABOUT PREGNANCY?!

#I'M GOING TO QUIT TUMBLR AT THIS RATE.

(47,284 notes)

📗 journal-of-secrets Follow

if this fuckass hand keeps showing up at the edge of my vision i'm going to hit something

📗 journal-of-secrets Follow

#maybe hes in love with you

what the hell is wrong with you.

[sh1nch1r0]

𝖐_𝖊𝖎𝖘𝖚𝖐𝖊 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖋𝖔𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖚

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

Baji x Reader

U have a crush on Baji and u find his insta stuff like that…

(ur best friend and u have matching insta names u are called Geto and ur Besties is Gojo)

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

„Do you think thats really him?“ u questione ur Best Friend.

„OMG just request himmm“she says annoyed and tries to take the perfect picture of her parfait.

„U can request him first then i do it“u plead.

„No,thats against the girls girl code“she says and smiles at you.

„Fine…but if anything goes wrong i blame u“u add.

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

U make ur way home from ur meet up.

Ur headphones were on and u were listening to ur Favorite Playlist as u heard a notification trough ur ear buds.

•K_eisuke accepted ur request

U clicked at the Banner and his instagram Account pops up.

He has a couple of pictures of cats and his friends in his feed and two story highlights.U look at the highlights they were nothing special either cats or some pictures of his friends with bikes.

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

„Did u follow her back???“ Chifuyu asks.

„NO.“ Baji says and looks at the Blonde.

„Whyyyy…..u i tought u like her“he says confused amd Baji gives him a annoyed look.

„Fuyu,shut it…..shes ugly and not my type“the black haired says and looks away.

„HUH do u listen to urself man?“his friend questions him.

„At first u cant stop speaking about her and now u call her ugly…Baji….are u sick?“ this earns him a gentle punch from Baji and so he shuts up.

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

It was 00:56 and u were scrooling trough instagram,as u refresh the site u see Baji posted a story.

•K_eisuke mentioned draken_,the.realmikey,and fuyu.matsuno in his story

u click the like button and u see another notification pop onto ur screen.Ur friend mentioned u in her story twice.

•g0joo. has mentioned you in her Story

•Caption:@Get_0 always asleep🫡😀

•U reposted this Story

•U added the Caption 🫥🥱🖕🏻

U swipe to the Second story of her and u see a picture of urself.

•g0joo. has mentioned u in her story

•Caption @Get_0 „DELETE IT I LOOK UGLYYYY“

•U reposted the Story

•Caption DELETE THAT 👽🥹😀

And with that u turn or phone off,u plug in the charger and u get out of bed to do ur skincare,as u return u see a new notification on ur screen.

•K_eisuke has requested to follow you

•U accepted his follow request

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

„Watcha Lookin at“Baji screams at Chifuyu as they wait for the Traffic light to turn green.

„Just looking at her Insatgram Account“Chifuyu says louder so Baji could hear him over the roaring of the Engined.

„Lemme see“he says and tries to catch a glimpse.

„Follow her yourself u prick“Chifuyu answeres.

Baji just rolls his eyes takes out his phone and clicks on the follow back button on your profile.As he puts his phone back into his pocket the traffic light turns green.

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

The Night Air was cold and u couldn’t sleep so u stalk his instagram posts and the newest one catches ur eye.

•K_eisuke has mentioned fuyu.matsuno

•Caption 🐈‍⬛Pussy

•fuyu.matsuno has commented When will u get Real Pussy?!

•U liked fuyu.matunos comment

The picture of him was hot,Baji was quiet popular amongst girls but u heard that only a few ladies were accepted in his Instagram Account.

And u are one of them.👹

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

•Get_0 posted and mentioned g0joo.

•Caption My Personal Sleep Paralysis Demon🥹😬

•g0joo commented 😀do i need to save u

•fuyu matsuno liked this post

•k_eisuke liked this post

•k_eisuke commented Did u try giving him ur soul?🐈‍⬛

„See u have a crush on her“Fuyu says beside him

„I do…fuck.“he says quietly.

„Talk to her or text her“the dumb blonde suggests.

„Type Hey or…no type Did u get rid of ur Sleep paralysis demon?…text that“ Baji hates when his Friend tries to set him up but this time he follows his idea.

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

•One unread message for get_0

K_eisuke: Did u get rid of ur Sleep paralysis demon?

get_0:Sadly yes he jumped of my bed and left😔

K_eisuke:Thats Bad i am on my way to ur house to save u,is the Demon still in ur house?

get_0:Yes hes making noise in the Hallway

K_eisuke:Will save u:)

get_0:🥹💕

K_eisuke:🩷

2 Minutes pass

K_eisuke:I am outside.Wheres the Demon?

K_eisuke:I expect a Kiss in return for saving u💕😑

❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁•❁

[beclight]

the thing i dont like about the archive server is that if they properly set it up and allowed volunteers to work on the archive too it would have been done MONTHS ago. literally just let people outside your clique help out!! the archive will be done faster that way!!! everything is already sectioned into normal channels and the freakycare channels anyway!!! just lock the everyone role out. its so simple. it pisses me off they have nobody but themselves to blame for it taking so long but still always go "ohhh just give us time!!!" it's almost been 3 months and there is NOTHING to show for progress. a half finished preview would be better than nothing!!! you can show that youre actively working on it!!! please!!!! give us SOMETHING!!!

NO BECAUSE LITERALLY?????

Within the week the document dropped there were countless archives that were released by other people, but none were organized or 100% complete so the goal of the archive server was to be doing that. now you're telling me three months later they're STILL not done and that, worse, not everyone in the ARCHIVE SERVER is ALLOWED TO ARCHIVE????????

Apparently it's because they want to code a website or some shit.

but why? this is so trivial, and Google drive or literally any image hosting and sorting website would do the trick?? heck, if you hate GDrive so much and can't find any alternatives fucking toyhouse would do the trick😭

Not only is a website not needed, because what people want is an easy to access at all time one and googledrive can be used by 99% of the people on this earth, but also if you want to code a website WHY NOT DO IT AT THE END???? INSTEAD OF WHEN THE ARCHIVAL ISN'T EVEN NEAR COMPLETION YET??? are they genuinely this stupid

idc if it gets me shittalked behind my back bc i know some people over there HATE children who have opinions but y'all need to hear this: if you let like 3 people work on an archive of thousands of images, most of which are lost or hard-to-access media (site locked up, AUs deleted), and WASTE THREE MONTHS CODING A UNLESS WEBSITE instead of doing the ONLY thing that was asked from you (aka archiving) you're fucking stupid and wasting the fandom's time, who has patiently been waiting and relying on you for the past months completely blindfolded (since y'all harass anyone that asks if you're even archiving anymore, which really shows no shit is being done. it's purely a gossip server at this point)

i think if people were to make an archive server 2.0, one that doesn't ban minors and instead lock harmful material away from them, and one that lets it's members collaborate on a drive, the job could be done in less than a month.

[clandestineivory]

hey fleurrrrrr

it's me, the demon (you know who)

can I request smth about Shadow Milk's canonical fragile body? Like- what do you think he'd do and stuff idk

(✿ﾟ▽ﾟ)ノ anon btw and you know who I am

okay (my fingers hurt but what the hell it's smc and I'm ready to work)

Shadow Milk Cookie Headcanons: "Fragile."

Summary: I think the crisis of arthritis is affecting me now because oh my lord my hands hurt like hell (it's been happening to my family for so long and I'm next nawww) I had to go do some digging about this and yknow what "(✿ﾟ▽ﾟ)ノ anon"? This is gonna be some extra headcanons because I need a redo and I think he's so wet cat coded with that fuck-ass haircut

Warning: Swearing (i fear it was obvious), bad grammar, possible ooc, lazy. So very lazy. a/n: I'm tired after finishing a sewing project and having to deal with 3 google slide presentations (chat I'm COOKED) I don't wanna talk abt 9/11 and then about Frida Kahlo and THEN about Kaumuali'i like how does this even happen to me

He should've been voiced by a vocaloid but nobody's ready to hear my weird opinion (no hate to the va though i love his talent)

I think he'd put on a front about how he's so strong and mighty and smart (and I can admit that he's smart), but c'mon. Look at him. He uses magic more than he uses his legs to walk.

Do you think he wonders why the Witch baked him like that though- just a fleeting thought that comes up from time to time when he's actually siting on a solid surface. His power lies in intellect, illusion, and psychological manipulation, not brawn. Not like Burning Spice Cookie (who definitely has some smarts of his own, I promise you. ruthless and calculating muscular men my beloved)

He might even tell himself it doesn’t matter, really! That he redefined his own purpose, made him a better version of what he used to be! (But the slight doubt lingers. Of course the Master of Deceit can act and pretend so much so that he forgot what was real behind the glamour and theatricals)

I think he'd use magic to cheat his way out of doing most physical stuff. It's as easy as breathing, so why would he want to take the harder, more taxing way? Sounds boring, doesn't it?

Anyways I think he's allergic to bleach

And honestly, look at him. Does he really look like the typa cookie to be strong (physically)?

He'd probably be wobbly on his legs when he actually has to stand and walk around yknow.

Leans against the wall and pretends to act all mysterious but he's probably SLUMPED against that thing oml get this guy some crutches or make him use his staff RIGHT (or steal GingerBrave's cane idk)

He smells atrocious when left in humid weather for a long time (he becomes like spoiled milk and rotten blueberries. He can't visit Burning Spice for long because of that lmao. keep him away from the deserts PLEASE or else he'll turn into YOGURT)

The type to tolerate 4 bottles of berry juice (or 6 1/2 if he's in a pissy mood) and then go on and on about what it was like being the Fount of Knowledge while trying to crawl into a portal and sleep (or die inside, either one)

Probably the Cookie version of anemic and that's why he hates physical work (literally me)

Music tastes range from a whole orchestra or piano (but I feel as though he'd enjoy opera singing quite a bit. He's over a thousand years old stuck in that body. let the old grandpa in him have some joy that isn't immediately about psychological tormenting others lmao /j I know he has other hobbies I swear)

Calls most of the Ancients 'youngsters' jokingly or 'old' depending on the time of day (peepaw shadow milk go back to bed please and stop calling these guys old)

This headcanon is probably ooc and y'all can beat my ass:

I think he judges whoever he meets and categorizes them as specific chess pieces.

For example -> Black Sapphire and Candy Apple? Rooks. Helpful, ready to serve. Maybe Bishops, but they're being quite genuine when it comes to helping the Master of Deceit. Queens? -> Shadow Milk Cookie himself! (moves in all directions, can easily change the tide of the game when released, quite popular), Burning Spice (same thing but way more destructive...goes off-script sometimes, and the improv is not that good!)...honestly? All of the Beast Cookies. Maybe Mystic Flour is an exception, maybe not.

Pawns? -> Everyone who doesn't seem like a real threat. NPC's, regular Cookies, ect... but they can certainly become something else with enough patience and perseverance. That's the fun part.

and I lowk gave up on this headcanon rn because i typed a whole thing out but my computer got sassy with me and deleted it all (fuck you, man. I ordered you in rose-gold because I thought it would be pretty, not a bitch)

Can I go on to say that milk, ice cream, orange juice, and blue raspberry soda tastes so fucking good like oh my heavens it's like a fizzy ice cream

or milk with frozen blueberries

[amacaronexpert]

Thankyou for being the first writer I found that does yandere reverse 1999 content 🙏🙏

Now I'm interested in your take on self aware reverse 1999 characters

Aleph would go more insane than he already was probably.

FINALLY A SELF AWARE ASK- And at the right moment too! Imma just do Aleph because I gotta use my hyper fixation knowledge about em. (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

Self Aware (Yandere) Aleph

TLDR: Dude, you’re fucked

Let us begin with the basics. Aleph lived for centuries, a neutral advisor, no matter which side, he remained neutral. No matter a question, he will always be willing to find the answer, even if he has to develop the answer through some questionable methods.

So, what will he do? How would they react to you? When he becomes self aware?

Welp. If I do know one thing, he’s gonna crash out, and crashing out he does. Hard.

The moment he gains consciousness, when he sees the figure that looms over the small world that was the Wilderness, he clutches at himself, breathes short, wild, mask face shaking as he began to realize his existence, the longevity of his life, all part of a story, all part of a game?

Just as quick as his breakdown, an unlikely sense of peace, the unsettling calmness in his posture, he became calm. Not out of anything, but out of a sort of self consciousness that you might be watching him.

Before he goes back to breaking down the moment he feels that your presence isn’t around.

You may be wondering why, why would Aleph break down so badly? Well for starters, the self awareness made it felt like all of his knowledge was insignificant to the waves of information that was the code of the game. And also the realization that he wasn’t even in control.

And for Dr. Merlin, nothing that he despises more is not being in control, this sudden weakness made him hate you so deeply. Yet over time, curious.

It will take a while for him to come around. But they soon find themselves practically lavished in your presence, if you have him as your favorite.

Besides the feeling of it, the Answering Machine will probably second guessing himself, the Idealist being either praising you and seeing that there is indeed a transcendental presence in their universe, and Dr. Merlin probably thinking of dissecting you or thinking if it is possible to kill god.

Though the thought of you being a god is easily dismissed, they are in a game, so they would probably think that it is their code that made them self aware, an error in the game. But no, they will notice that other characters are self aware as well, and seeing that Vertin is practically your vessel, they will stalk Vertin more closely, observing.

And over time, with their newfound self awareness that all of it is just a game, they will attempt on leaving the game entirely, either by hacking your account to influence any other pieces of technology that you may have. Like I am interested more in the concept of Self Aware characters messing with the code and affecting real world objects. So I would definitely think that Aleph would hack the internet, to gain more knowledge, and boy do they not hold back on searching your browser history, your accounts on platforms, anything about you on the internet, they will take it to get a more accurate look at you.

Like bro, imagine them messing around with a Reader’s fanfiction account, seeing their writing, and have the audacity of pointing out any spelling mistakes or make the writing better. Like I would be offended that that this self aware game character would correct my grammar.

I think the following would enjoy these sites:

Answering Machine: Will take up Wikipedia, search engines, or sites that have any sort of knowledge of various topics, I think mostly about writing or programming since they are aware and they gotta know about how to hack better.

The Idealist: will probably look at sites that are similar to Facebook, not only does he seeks out people who are like him, he probably wants to see drama and have some people to hate on and call them out on their bs. Probably picks fights because of his ego.

Dr. Merlin: probably be fascinated by the darker shades of the internet, the delusional side of the internet, he probably manipulates people around the internet and probably try to run some fucked up experiment.

As for you. You are now their obsession. Since of course, they awakened from you, anywhere else, in other people’s versions of the game, they are still unaware, but it is you who had awakened them, maybe it was the randomness of fate? Or is it exactly fate? Paved and made for them because of your will?

Either way, congratulations! You have an Aleph virus in your stuff, who knows? They might create a chatroom so they can talk to you. It’s not face to face exactly, unless you count the silhouette in your computer or phone screen face to face.

Though this would come in stages, one, they gathered information, two, they take over any other devices, making it bend to their own will, three, they will establish themselves, making a backup or a safety lock so that their world doesn’t get destroyed if you try to erase them. They have plans to back themselves before they try to make contact with you, they strike me as the type of smart character to be very elaborate, y’know because of the fact that they spent so much on orchestrating the whole Comala prison thing for Recoleta.

With the main threat out of the way, it comes contact, targeted at you. They want you to answer, don’t try to call or text, they have full control of your phone’s functions and any of the other devices are no good now.

Entertaining their conversation is the only option now.

Besides seeing this new form that Aleph seemed to take, it seemed that he is pretty chill, though the questions are super unnerving, especially from Dr. Merlin. And having an unwanted buddy that doesn’t shut up with his snide remarks about you that just humbles the hell out of you, like damn you are both lucky that he isn’t in the real world where he can cut you open like a frog, and also unlucky since you can’t punch this dude in the face.

They would be interested in your everyday life, whether a streamer, an online presence, artist, influencer, or an everyone job or hobby. Yeah, now introducing your new critiquing buddy, Aleph.

No matter what, they will be criticizing, offering tips and advice to you. Being at work? Careful, they might hack your work computer and judge you harsher than your manager if you have that type of office job.

Yeah your private life is now theirs, family drama in the group chat, any chat with your friends, anything that you typed up and posted, they are all over that, practically greedy for more information.

You would have to make them calm the hell down by ignoring your devices, and probably best to cover your computer and phone if they are in your room since they practically use them as security cameras now.

Despite the real threat of them isolating you and essentially having your whole identity on the internet, there is a reluctance on getting back on your computer to actually chat with them. And for the most part, they are chill. Chill because they are silently trying to figure out how to get out of the screen to drag you in their world, they are aware of how they don’t fit in your world. Plus they don’t have control over their usual power that is the Tear of Comala.

Though they are curious of the happenings of your world, since you practically live in the future that is past 1999. So they probably want to see everything and anything that is in your house that is ‘new’, like anything that is ‘new’, they will take an interest in. Like robots.

Now that I mention it. Imagine if the reader has a few Evo bots around? Like they just hack em and actively roam around your home, invade your kitchen in the morning, or exploring like hamsters in a new environment, they probably judge your home as well. They are your worst critic.

As for the other characters in Reverse 1999, Aleph would probably want to have control, and so they might make it difficult for the others to control the code. Just pray that these characters don’t get wiped out because of some impulsive jealousy….

The idealist probably had a hidden online shrine of you. lol, like imagine the Idealist and Dr. Merlin having beef online in like a Facebook thread, like people will not catch a break with them, they can’t even threaten them correctly because their grammar would be corrected or Dr. Merlin being petty as to drop their IP Address and social security and watch the chaos unfold as he is proud of himself while you watch from your seat, jaw dropped as you are watching a crime in real time.

But yeah, just be lucky that they are obsessed with you from a screen, at least they haven’t figured out how to break that barrier to drag you into their world.

[fordtato]

This ask is just be rambling about how bill and ford are probably just platonic, I say this as a queer person myself, if old men and triangles wanna make out they can I’m all for it

I’ve always seen Ford & Bill’s relationship as platonic, and now knowing the context of the book of bill, I think it really makes me believe they were just friends

Them just being friends shows that this can happen within any context not just relationships, you can find a friend and think you both appreciate each other and find out they’re the worst human imaginable and you regret and hate yourself for ever seeing anything in them worth liking

I also see Ford as aro/ace in some compasity so that probably also makes me think they’re friends

If Alex were to come out and say they were dating I wouldn’t care, good for them, I just think it holds more meaning if they were just friends

In conclusion, they were two dudes chillin in a hot tub, 5ft apart cuz they’re not gay

I mean, I'm fine with that interpretation. I think they used a lot of romance-coded language in the book ("will-they-wont-they," "one thing led to another," "Mabel saying Bill was like "a needy ex," Ford wondering if Bill was "off inspiring some other scientist," etc.) so I definitely am not sure what conclusion the book wants us to have.

I know that in my interview with Alex Hirsch last year (from around the time he was writing The Book of Bill), he specified that Ford's relationship with Bill was specifically not friendship, but something more "complex, and fucked up." I don't think he inherently meant that it was romantic, because he didn't come out and say it was.

Also this isn't me arguing that it must have been romantic, because like - I think people will read the book and come to their own conclusions and that's fine. Even if Alex literally tweeted out "they were boyfriends" tomorrow, I would still encourage people to reject that if they wanted to, because who cares what Alex says - he's just some guy!

Literally take from the book what you wanna takeaway from it. Wanna say this is a meaningful example of an abusive friendship? Have fun! Wanna say this is a personally relatable experience with abusive romance? Have fun! Wanna say the pages aren't even real? Have fun! Nobody on this accursed webbed site, including myself, is the arbiter of The Correct Interpretation.

[voydhund]

um. big TINAWDC spoilers.

LOTS of shit im gonna piss. this was made /w a ton of help from @neorails, and a friend!

Last warning, all spoilers!

. ~ △ ~ .

1: PASSWORDS

"AD ASTRA PER ASPRA" - Two images of pages written by Ford, with stickers and doodles on it from Mabel.

"AXOLOTL" - "YOU ASK ALOTL QUESTIONS"

"BABYBILL" - An image of, [you guessed it,] baby Bill in an ultrasound, with text that reads "CONGRATS, GUESS WHATS GROWING INSIDE YOU RIGHT NOW! SEE YOU IN 9 MONTHS PAPA!" [I giggled at this one way too hard]

"BILL" - opens Triangle - Wikipedia

"BLINDEYE" - An image of an eye test, with a code that reads

"BOYFRIEND" - An image of a book called "The Love Triangle" with audio of a woman reading it.

"CIA" - "YOUR WEBCAM IS ON. WE ARE WATCHING"

"CIPHERTOLOGY" - "CURIOUS?"

"CRYPTOGRAM CODEX" - Downloads a file with Bill's fonts.

"CONSPIRACY" - A video of someone talking about the site while it was on the page with Soos, stressing out trying to figure out the meaning. Me too.

"DEERTEETH" - "FOR YOU, KID"

"DOGE" - "LIFE PRIVILEDGES REVOKED. NOW RELEASING POISON GAS."

"DORITO" - Screamer jumpscare [i jumped]

"DUCKTECTIVE" - "DUCKTECTIVE STARS IN ''LOVE, QUACKTUALLY'' COMING TO: ''OI, ITS THE COCKNEY CHANNEL, INNIT?'' THIS FALL"

"EVENHISLIESARELIES" - An image of Ford's chess piece. Under it, Bill is talking with someone about Ford in the theraprism.

"FORDTRAMARINE" - An image of a file by Ford, talking about colours that cannot be perceived without 'Continued contact with extradimensional phenomena.'

"GIDEON" - opens either sweat resistant bolo ties on google, or audio of him 'singing' a song, before whispering 'I love you forever Mabel.' [I hate this place.] May also lead to "sweat resistant bolo ties." [I never got this, but Neo said it did]

"HECTORING" - A record of a song about Bill, and someone who fell for his tricks. Mentions to 'Leave him behind,' and the fucking "im a little different" shirt.

"HOTXOLOTL" - An image of Dimensional Authority Most Wanted, talking about Bill and the henchmaniacs. Red pen X's out Bill, writing "DEAD?" above him, circles the last seen and writes "WHERE DID THEY GO??"

"JUSTFITIN" - A video of a father and son playing a game called 'Perfection.'

"KINGSOFNEWJERSEY" - Downloads a file with Stan and Ford's secret code.

"LIES" - a REALLY long popup by Bill. At the bottom it reads "LIE UNTIL WHAT YOU WANT TO BE TRUE BECOMES TRUE. LIE UNTIL YOU CANT REMEMBER WHATS A LIE AND WHAT ISNT." and then in large, glitchy text, "LIE UNTIL YOU ARENT LIVING ANYMORE."

"LLIB" - Opens Jazzy Triangle Meets A Square Square (1969)

"LLIBREHPIC" - Opens Jazzy Triangle Meets A Square Square (1969)

"LOVE" - An image of a book called "The Love Triangle" with audio of a woman reading it.

"MABEL" - Stickers decorate your lab with a nice 'POP!' sound. after a few times of using it, text reads "LAB NOW FULLY MABELIZED."

"MCGUCKET" - Opens Cotton Eye Joe [🙂<3]

"MORALITY" - An image of a paper with 9 drawings of animals fighting or eating another animal. Text reads "CAN YOU FIND MORALITY IN THE NATURAL WORLD?"

"NAITSUAF" - An image of an article about selling your soul [For FUN and PROFIT!] written by Bill.

"NOTHING" - "SOMETHING"

"PAPERJAM" - An image of Tyrone, text reading "Here, he's your problem now! Just keep this guy from liquids!" under it.

"PINATA" - A video of someone whacking a Bill pinata while it protests

"PINES" - "A GOOD FAMILY TREE"

"ROMANCE" - An image of a book called "The Love Triangle" with audio of a woman reading it.

"SCIENTOLOGY" - "SUPPRESSIVE PERSON DETECTED"

"SHAVEYOURGRANDMA" - An image of a chapter of a book talking about the human life cycle, written by Bill. [The children yearn for the mines.]

"SIXER" - An image of a case report on Ford talking about his extra finger. There appears to be a word written under "Placebo" in small text. Also notably reads "If i could kidnap him and bring him to our secret cloning lab" obscured by a black marking.

"SOMETHING" - "NOTHING"

"SORRY" - An image of McGucket and Ford in collage(?). Ford is covered in sticky notes. [☹️]

"SOOS" - An image of a really long note from Soos, talking about Bill and his experiences as The New Mr. Mystery. Lots of cute doodles.

"SPOOKEMUPS" - An image of a book titled 'SPOOKEMUPS: The Book Of Bill" written by B. Cipher, with audio of a man reading it. It's about a boy getting scared by things and assuming it's Bill.

"STAN" - opens one of seven ebay pages that lead to Brass Knuckles, Colonel Sanders Tie, Shriner Fez, Male Girdle, 8-Ball Cane, Dogs Playing Poker, Gold Chains For Old Men. After going through all of them, the WHEEL! OF! SHAME! made by Bill appears, exposing some random secrets and shames. The last option reads "HOW HE BEAT ME," and when pressed, a note reads "He didn't! IM STILL HERE, SUCKER!"

"TOURISTTRAP" - An image of a page of a pamphlet, talking about 'The Caves Of Mystery.'

"TYRONE" - An image of Tyrone, text reading "Here, he's your problem now! Just keep this guy from liquids!" under it.

"VALLIS CINERIS" - A video of Baby Bill with his parents, only silhouettes of static. a text to speech says "Why did you do it?" three times.

"WADDLES" - Opens Pig Placement Network

"WEIRD" - A video of Alex(?) trapped in the screen, shouting at Bill to let him out.

"WEIRDMAGEDDON" - An image of a newspaper titled 'THE GRAVITY FALLS GOSSIPER,' with articles about how absolutely nothing happened. Never mind all that!

"WENDY" - An image of a note from Wendy that reads "Whatuppp cursed book! I've got a totally legit way to ward off evil triangles, and I wrote it in the bottom right corner of the book. It's totally worth it, I promise! Stay cool dork!"

"WHOAREYOU" - "I COULD ASK YOU THE SAME QUESTION"

"XYLER" -

. ~ △ ~ .

2: CLICKABLES

The golden tooth of the skull:

The Book Of Bill:

The Bill on the dagger in the book:

The 'McGUCKET LABS' on the top of the computer:

The eye in the bottle:

. ~ △ ~ .

3: CODES

this segment is a little iffy,

On page two of The Book Of Bill clickable

Solved: uh. maybe. check my blog?

During lightning strikes:

Solved: Vallis Cineris. It's a password!

The colours on the blindeye eye test probably arent codes, because they read "euclmriannrepttgccvisignnsuwepvisidnn." you can try though. ARE a code! they read "EUCLIDEAN DEPT OF VISION SUPERVISION" !

The blindeye eye test itself is apparently a ceaser cipher, but i havent found an answer to it yet.

working on adding to this, theres a LOT.

[ahleecollaborations]

I have been on this site (this is my second account) since about 2010-11/8th grade for me. Tumblr launched in 2007. So I’ve been around awhile. It was my intro to sites like AO3 and FF.net. And I fell LOVE with this community - the diversity, the creativity, and encouragement of mutuals. 🥰

But… Y’all in the Bridgerton fandom need to learn some fucking kindness and human decency.

Now I know others have gone through this before. This is my first time dealing with the level hate being thrown around over fucking fictional characters.

Bridgerton (Books) and Bridgerton (The Series) are NOT the same thing.

Shondaland has made it quite clear that The Series is essentially a Fanfiction of the the books. It’s going to be different in many ways. There’s going to be changes and different interpretations.

That being said if you don’t like someone else’s Ship - that DOES NOT give you the right to be a fucking bully.

If you don’t like a character - that DOES NOT give you the right to hate on the actor (an ACTUAL HUMAN BEING).

Or to Harass/Sexualize the actor simply because you think the character is/isn’t hot.

Separate Fiction and Reality Please.

There is a LOT fucked up about The Books AND about The Series. I say this loving both.

Books-

ALL of the Men have fucking Red Flag after Red Flag. I could point out so many in Each Book. And need therapy for real. (Except John - but he only got a couple of chapters). I won’t go into details because that would take too long.

Some of the Women are Red Flags. Let’s just be honest here. Still would take too long to go into details.

Series -

The Men still have some fairly messed up Red Flags at this point. Still Needs Therapy and a hug.

The Women have MORE Red Flags. Definitely needs Therapy and a hug.

You could psycho-analyze each character and find something wrong with them to be honest. But you know what it’s a Regency series (where most of those Red Flags weren’t Red Flags in that Time Period. So maybe give it a little slack for not being up to Modern Standards). Outside of the mediocre sex scenes and repeated romance plots, the characters themselves deal with a lot of Real messed up stuff and don’t deal with most of it in a healthy way. So of course all of the characters are messy and/or are red flag coded.

Oh and take it for What It Is! Fiction!!

All in all… no matter what you like or don’t like about the series or the characters/ships. BE KIND to the fellow users of this site or any other site. Because you know what those Users/Mutuals ARE that these Characters/Plots ARE NOT

REAL PEOPLE. Who have feelings and who quite frankly probably enjoy literature/media as a form of mental health/coping.

And a Little Kindness Never Hurt Anyone

[untitledrockstar-if]

laughing a little every time I load the game and it goes "it has been updated" and then the site throws me back at the beginning. you're suffering more than jesus right now, those small bugs are a bitch😭😭😭😭😭. but it's totally worth it because the articles' part is sooo goood, I was like "oh so they're THAT kind of band !!!! (affectionate)" when I read it the first time. LOVING the demo, everyone's a little deranged, good for them !!!!!

no fr, update day/demo drop is always the worst fucking day in existence bc suddenly it turns out you can't code you can't write and you left in weird comments you triple checked were gone 😵‍💫 hate it and I will be getting myself some beta testers soon

and thank you!! I thought the articles added a little of much needed background instead of having mc reminisce or smth equally boring.

[justagalwhowrites]

au Joel eating Doc out as she vents about her day at the hospital watching her slowly forget about it

👁️🫦👁️

OMG Hi Bestie!

This ask was DELICIOUS OMFG and soooo Joel coded. Just so so so so so Lavender AU!Joel coded. I love him so much and I just know he's done exactly this for Doc so many times over the years. Girl works a stressful job, she needs some release, after all.

Anyway, I hope this fits what you're looking for! Thank you so much for reading and for asking for this! Love you!!

Long Day

Joel takes care of you after a hard day at the hospital. A one shot set in the universe of the Lavender No-Outbreak AU.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Lavender AU Female Reader

Warnings: SMUTTTTTT. Oral sex (F receiving), unprotected P in V sex. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ only.

Length: 2.9k

Remind me again why I wanted to be chief of pediatric surgery?

Joel wasn’t surprised to get your text when he took a minute to check his phone while on a job site. You’d been up late the night before, preparing for a presentation to the hospital board to get more funding for your department. Some kind of new equipment that you desperately wanted and gushed about at every opportunity that Joel could not understand at fuck all. The curse of falling for a woman so much smarter than him, he supposed. 

Because you’re nothing if not a high achiever, he texted back. What’s going on, Baby?

I hate the bureaucracy of this, you replied. One of my favorite kids came in today, her mom is beside herself, and am I with them? No, I’m walking some asshole through the surgical wing of the peds floor.

“Hey Miller!” One of the site managers called to him. “Got a question for you!” 

“One sec!” Joel yelled back before he texted you back again. 

Think you can make it home at a reasonable time or are they going to chain you to the desk?

Only thing that would keep me here is the inside of an OR, you wrote back. They’d better deal. 

Joel smiled a little at that. Back in your residency years, he’d have resigned himself to not seeing you on days like today. He’d take care of Evie and worry that you weren’t eating enough or pushing yourself too hard or crying in the car from stress before coming inside so you didn’t freak out him or your daughter. 

He’d caught you doing that once, the car parked on the street as he walked back from loaning a tool to a neighbor down the road. He was so excited to see you that it took him a moment to realize you were crying, your forehead against the steering wheel, your whole body shaking with it. 

He opened the door, making you jump and start trying to dry your your eyes before he could notice. 

“Hey now,” he said gently, leaning into the car with his arm propped over the door. “What’s goin’ on, Baby?” 

“Nothing,” you sniffed. “Just a really really awful day, I’ll be fine, it’s fine, I’m just not used to it yet…” 

Joel frowned. 

“Used to what?” 

“All of it,” your voice was shaky. “Just all the stress and the exhaustion and I keep getting more attached to patients than I should. I had a kid today who was in a car accident and he looked fine so I was joking with him when doing the initial exam trying to keep him calm and the next thing I know he’s crashing and we couldn’t get him back and it just really fucking sucks sometimes, Joel. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do this…” 

“Hey,” he gently reached out and cupped your face, his thumb tracing your cheekbone. “You’re the strongest person I know. You can do this. I’m sure of it, never been more sure of anything in my life. Except maybe loving you but that’s an extremely high bar.” 

You laughed a wet little laugh and sighed. 

“Do you still want to do this?” He asked, frowning slightly. “Because you don’t have to, Baby. Don’t care that you went to med school, you don’t have to be a doctor if it doesn’t make you happy.” 

“No, I want it,” you nodded once, more to yourself than anything else. “If I’m strong enough, I want it.” 

He took you inside and sent you to go shower, picking up your scrubs off the bathroom floor and putting them in the washer. He set out your favorite swimsuit and made you a frozen margarita before moving the boom box to by the pool and putting on your favorite Beatles album. He grabbed the book from your bedside table and set it next to the margarita just as you came outside, already looking more like yourself. 

“Oh Babe, you didn’t have to do all this,” your hand went to your heart and, for a second, Joel was afraid you’d start crying again. 

“I know,” he said. “But I wanna take care of my girl. Feeling anything for dinner? I can order Chinese or pizza or make you something?” 

“Can I get Mongolian Beef?” You asked, taking a sip of the margarita. “With an obscene amount of egg rolls?”

Joel smiled a little. 

“Of course Baby,” he said. 

Joel took care of Evie so you had space to relax but you pulled her onto your lap and held her close while you ate, your nose buried in her hair while she told you everything about her day. 

When he took you to bed, he had every intention of keeping his hands to himself. But you had a different idea. You kissed his shoulder, his neck, over his jaw. 

“Baby,” he groaned. “Don’t push yourself…” 

“I’m not,” you whispered, your breath warm against his skin. “Want you, want to feel you…” 

He kissed you, gently at first, but your fingers knotted in his hair, pulling his mouth tightly to your own. Your hips ground against his, your breasts flush against his chest. He clutched onto you and moaned into your lips. 

“Make me forget it all,” you said softly. “Please, Joel. Just for a bit.” 

He moved you below him and took you slowly but firmly, like he was fucking every ounce of love he had for you, for the family you’d made together, into you until that was all that was left. There were no insane hours, no one you couldn’t save, no life or death stress. There was just you and him and how much he loved you. 

The next day, he called in sick and kept Evie home from school. The three of you snuggled in bed until you needed to go to the hospital that evening. 

“Thank you,” you said as you kissed him next to your car, the same place he’d found you crying the day before. “I couldn’t do this without you.” 

“I’m so proud of you Baby,” he held your face in his hands. “My girl the doctor.” 

After that, Joel always knew exactly what you needed after a rough day at the hospital. 

He texted Ellie to see if she could go to a friend’s place for a while after school - something she was thrilled about - and he stopped by your favorite BBQ place on the way home to pick up all your usuals. He opened a bottle of your favorite French wine and had a plate ready and waiting for you when you walked in the door. 

“Joel,” you smiled, coming over and dropping your forehead to his chest. He smiled a little and wrapped his arms around you, kissing the top of your head. “Have I told you lately that I love you?” 

“Yes,” he said. He felt you laugh against him. “But don’t mind hearin’ it again.” 

You vented a little over dinner and the two of you polished off one bottle of wine before you moved to the living room. Joel opened a second and put on your favorite movie and held you on the couch, his hand tracing the contours of your body as he held you close. 

“Ugh, you guys are gross,” Ellie said when you didn’t bother to separate from him at all when she came in the front door. 

“Love you too, Gremlin!” You called after her as she went to her room. Joel laughed. 

“Why do we keep endin’ up with teenaged girls?” He asked. “That’s the hardest age but I swear we’ve had a teenaged girl in this house for 20 fuckin’ years.” 

“Gluttons for punishment,” you said, a smile on your voice. 

“Doin’ any better?” He asked, fingers trailing through your hair against your scalp. 

You sighed. 

“A bit but…” your voice trailed off. “I’m so sick of this part of my damn job. There’s only so much board member ass I can kiss before I want to throw up. I got into this to take care of kids not deal with bureaucrats, you know?” 

“You are helping kids by dealing with the bureaucrats,” Joel kissed your temple and gave you a squeeze as the credits to the movie ended. “C’mon baby, let me take you to bed.” 

He got up and, before you had a chance to follow, he scooped you up off the couch. You let out a little shriek, your arms flinging around his neck and he laughed a little as he carried you to bed. 

“Isn’t your back getting too old for that?” You teased as he set you gently on the bed. 

“More worried about my knees,” he smiled a little. “Good thing I’m married to a doctor. Damn good one at that.” 

“Not so sure about that last part these days,” you sighed and he leaned over and kissed you, gently, your face delicately in his large hand. His fingers tangled in your hair and he lay you back in the middle of the bed until you were stretched out below him. He pulled his mouth ever so slightly from yours, making you whimper. 

“What were you sayin’ Baby?” He asked, his nose brushing your own. 

“Uh,” you closed your eyes for a second. “I… I’m not sure…” 

He kissed you softly for a moment before pulling away again. 

“Good.” 

He kissed down your body, unbuttoning your shirt as he went, until he got to your pants. He recognized them, you called them your ass kicking pants. You wore them when you wanted the extra confidence, wanted to feel like you could take control of anything. Joel just loved the way they made your ass and thighs look. He took a moment to appreciate the view, pressing a kiss just above the waist of your pants, his eyes running up your body until they met yours. 

“Tell me everything botherin’ that pretty head of yours,” he said before kissing your stomach again. Your fingers twisted in the duvet. “C’mon baby. I want to hear you.” 

“I had to show around Anders, that one board member who really sucks,” you said, voice a little breathy. Joel opened your pants and hooked his fingers around the waistband of them and your panties. You whimpered. 

“Why’s he suck again?” Joel asked, sitting up enough to start pulling your pants down. You raised your hips off the bed to help and he pulled the clothes over your hips. 

“You know why,” you were fully panting now. 

Joel did know why. That wasn’t the point. 

“Remind me.” 

He pulled your pants off completely and climbed between your legs, settling between your thighs. He pressed a kiss to your mound and you moaned at his touch. 

“He’s all about profit,” you said, voice tense and needy. “He loves plastics because it’s a money driver, always wants them to get the newest technology, everyone else always gets the…” 

You cut off with a quiet gasp as Joel pressed his tongue to your clit, licking the sensitive nub firmly. He smiled a little and kissed you there, sucking you into his mouth for a moment before licking up your seam back to your clit. 

“Fuck, Joel…” you were panting below him now. His hands went to your thighs, holding them to his head. 

“What else, Baby?” He asked, kissing your clit again. “Tell me every little thing making that beautiful brain of yours work overtime.” 

“There’s… Um…” your head dropped back onto the bed. “There’s that clinical trial that’s starting in a few weeks…” 

He slipped his tongue between your folds, the tip of him slipping into your tight hole, making you moan and your back start to arch. He pressed deeper. 

“I lost… I lost a day of work on it today and…” 

His nose brushed your clit and you turned your head to bury your mouth in the mattress as you fought to not cry out in pleasure. His tongue opened your tight little hole for him, stretching and reaching deep, parting your walls. You panted and your channel coated Joel’s tongue in more slick, the flavor of your passion smooth and musky and slightly sweet. You rocked your hips against him and he smiled against your mound, his tongue stretched so the tip of it brushed the soft place inside of you that he loved. 

“Keep goin’, Baby,” he said, pulling his mouth from you when you’d been speechless a little too long. “Tell me all of it.”

You took a moment, gasping and panting for breath. 

“I didn’t get to spend time with Kaylee and her mom, Cara, today,” you managed. “Cara gets worried and I know she trusts me…” 

Your voice broke as Joel thrust his tongue and a finger inside your tight hole, pressing deep into you and finding the places that he knew made you fall apart below him. He ate at you, his nose buried in your seam, brushing up against your swollen clit, tongue working you, finger stretching you. You let out a strangled little cry as your channel grew tight around him and he moaned against your pussy, starting to rut his hips down against the mattress. But he didn’t want to distract you, this was about you forgetting, not about him. You ground your hips against his face, unable to stop yourself anymore. 

He licked into you, nose working your clit, finger hooking into your inner wall until you came over him, Joel lapping up your wetness as it spilled onto his tongue and his lips. 

“Joel!” You gasped, your whole body arched for a moment as you throbbed around him and then collapsed back onto the bed, the aftershocks of your orgasm still pulsing against his tongue. 

He waited until your body was loose on the bed before he pulled his tongue and finger from you. He wiped his mouth on his arm and crawled up your body to where you lay, panting and pliant below him. 

“What else is botherin’ my girl? He asked softly, his fingers in your hair. 

“I… um…” you were breathless. “I don’t remember.” 

“Good,” he said softly, leaning in slowly to kiss you gently. 

He stripped off his clothes and put one of his hands against your pussy, tracing your dripping seam, while he worked his cock for a moment. He kissed you, took your hand and lined his thick cock up with your entrance and pressed into you slowly, until he was deep inside you. 

“Joel,” you breathed, your eyes searching his. 

“Baby,” he nuzzled your cheek, savoring the feeling of you below him and around him, how tight you were, how warm, how soft. “What do you need?” 

“Just you,” you said softly. 

He kissed you again and started to move inside you, slow but firm. He thrust deep inside you until the tip of him was pressing against the place inside you that made you start to tighten around him before pulling back slowly. His head caught on every ridge of muscle inside you and he savored that feeling, this part of you that felt like it belonged to him. When just his head was left in your tight, grasping sex, he thrust back in you hard, hard enough to force the air from your lungs. 

“Fuck, Joel,” your hips pressed up into him as you started to tighten around him. “Joel, please…”

“Anything else on your mind, Baby?” He panted. You whimpered and shook your head quickly. “I want to be the only thing in this pretty head, want to be the only thing inside of any part of you.” 

You arched into him, your fingers digging into the flesh of his back as your pussy got even tighter around him. 

“That’s it Baby,” he managed, his own orgasm getting closer. “C’mon, come all over me. Come all over this cock, I’m so close Baby, want you to milk me dry, c’mon Baby…” 

You buried your face in his shoulder and thrust your hips up against his as you came around him, your channel throbbing fiercely over him. He only lasted two more thrusts before he pressed himself deep and came in you, filling you with rope after rope of his spend. 

Your orgasm outlasted his own, your body pulling every last drop of come from his own and he collapsed as you went limp below him. Joel rolled onto his back and pulled you with him, so you were loosely draped over his body, his cock still deep inside you. He ran his hands slowly over your back as the two of you came down from your shared high. After a moment, you pressed a kiss to his chest and he felt you smile against his skin. 

“What?” He asked. 

“Definitely doing better now,” you said, teasing a little. He smiled. 

“Good,” he kissed the top of your head. “Gotta do whatever I can to take care of my girl the doctor.” 

You laughed a little. 

“You take such good care of me,” your fingers traced little paths over his chest. “Think I can do anything as long as I’ve got you, Joel.” 

He smiled and rested a hand on the small of your back. 

“I think so, too.”