#Or until his liver fails

[nohalosinhell-archive]

“‘m just gonna start drinkin’ until this shit seems normal.”

[dragonseeds]

do you think dany knew what she was doing when she hatched her dragons or was it just an accident?

oh yes i think she knew exactly what she was doing. the magic in her blood and the eggs and the fire was speaking to her, coming through in her dragon dreams—especially that last fever dream after her miscarriage. i think she knew it was possible before because she could feel the eggs stirring and the magic waking up (and she was already connecting with drogon and drawing strength from him), but it was mirri maz duur who actually taught her how to do it.

i love that what she’s actually doing is never explicitly stated, yet everything she’s doing saying and thinking gives her away. like she swears to jorah she doesn’t intend to die with drogo, she directly compares herself to aegon, she places the eggs on the pyre and tells mirri maz duur that she’s going to take her life because only death can pay for life, etc., but the closest dany ever comes to directly saying it is when it’s done and the last dragon is about to hatch:

like calling herself mother of dragons and then calling them her children is unequivocal, but before that grrm’s building the suspense and creating this heady wild momentum. it feels very similar to reading her wake the dragon fever dream, and provides such a great insight into her character. the space in the narrative where she doesn’t acknowledge what she’s doing or exactly why she’s doing it is where the magic lives, and it also gives her a place to hide any lingering uncertainty or fear, while still making it clear that she understands what’s happening: that she is in fact making it happen.

but like speaking of accidents, i’m obsessed with the difference between dany’s success and egg’s flop tragedy. she uses her husband’s funeral pyre, the husband whose life she traded her son’s for, to wake the dragons (including herself) and creates life from death. aegon v tried to hatch dragon eggs during rhaegar’s birth (the child he and jaehaerys ii traded rhaella’s happiness and agency for) and instead made a pyre of summerhall and most of his family. rhaegar was the last dragon, born in fire, and now it’s her—but it was always her and he always had to die. “the face within was her own.” crazy. insane.

i’m sure people have pointed this out before, but the magic here always makes me think of this line from the last unicorn: “real magic can never be made by offering up someone else’s liver. you must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.” grrm’s use of magic is very similar, just as the unicorn and dany are similar, and i think it’s very possible that other attempts to hatch dragons in the past failed in part because whoever was trying didn’t understand this (and also because they were a. men and b. not daenerys lol). magic has a price, and it’s always high. this is one of the hardest lessons dany has to learn, and she thanks mirri maz duur for it in the end, because she understands that it had to be her own child, her womb, her husband, her sun and his fire that’s really hers burning someone’s life away—and this whole time, the entire book up until this point, she’s been cracking open like the moon, like the eggs on the pyre, and then she joins them in the fire.

[binomech]

I mean it when I say that Kim and Harry's relationship is only possible at the point in time where they meet, as the people they are during the Hanged Man case. I love playing with AUs but the same way even a Harry with amnesia is inevitably a product of his past, so is Kim. this is a VERY long post so i'm putting it under a cut.

facts about Harry:

Harry tried to kill himself three times in one night and he failed to kill his body

The Harry you meet does not remember this, consciously, and yet sometimes the only thing he thinks will solve a situation is killing himself

Harry doesn't remember his mother, but he remembers being very loved by her

Harry is the only person left from his childhood friend group, and he forgot them

Harry learns about his life through a case ledger and a bitter coworker and a town full of people he traumatized before he tried to kill himself

The ledger says: You were brilliant and bright and you solved every mystery. You once beat a man until he could never walk again with this very clipboard because he reminded you of yourself. Out of all the policing specialties, you picked building safety regulation because it wasn't violent, and once you spotted a crumbling building and reported it but it fell before anyone in the force could give a shit and a bunch of families died. Your partner that you forgot, who you only have experienced as vitriolic and judgemental, once campaigned to keep a street mural because he knew it was a sign of hope for you and you liked it.

Your body remembers what your mind cannot: The smell of apricots and loss. Being raped. Prepping for anal with another man. Being a gym teacher, a loving mentor and then giving it up for the apricot smell. A sick liver. A sad brain. A locked jaw and chronic pain because the polio epidemic took everyone but not you. Survivor's guilt. The need to dance.

he thing about harry's memory loss is that it's that his life becomes a crime scene to investigate. and he's very good at that. he's been told it's the only thing he's good at. and his body remembers that that momentum is the thing keeping him alive. and yet everything he finds is marred with mistakes, violence and lots and lots of love that make the mistakes and violence even more damning. and he can't stop looking with morbid curiosity because it doesn't even feel like his life, but he's living the consequences of it. and sometimes he does things, he feels things, and he understands that he's not someone else and then he wants to die.

Why are you an amnesiac? Is it because the pale took you while you sank in the water next to a church where baby pale is growing? Is it what the decades of substance abuse did to your brain tissue? Is this you, protecting you from yourself, just so you can live for a few weeks more?

Why are you a detective? You remember being a happy teacher, a good teacher, you were an art student teaching gym. why did you change careers? Is the insatiable curiosity that your body remembers something that was eating you alive? Is it why you're still alive at all, to find out? Did you think you could do more with a gun in your hand and some speed in your system? Did she think that?

And then there's Kim. One of Kim's lines that is among my favorites, and weirdly honest for what we get from him usually when he's talking to people that aren't Harry is:

"My position, ma'am? My parents got ripped to shreds in the Revolution -- I would have gone the same way. I was saved by being two years old. That's my position -- the abattoir."

Harry's life is defined by a violence that he cannot remember, Kim's life is defined by a violence he cannot forget.

And that, I think, is important to their dynamic. Kim's life is defined by the degradation he has suffered, by the Moralintern as the child of revolutionaries, by his peers at every point in his life due to his racial heritage and his sexuality, by his disability. His fear isn't even fear, it's a certainty -- he's waiting for the other shoe to drop and go the same way his parents went, in front of a firing squad for daring to want something better. So he bargains, and he tries to delay what he knows is coming by not only not stepping out of line but giving the line a wide berth that could be a fucking moat filled with krakens.

He grows up Dolorian breathing the ideology of the institution that had his parents executed 24/7. He believes so deeply that he is as important as everyone else for the world to keep going, a blue forget me not, a piece of the sky. But of course he knows enough about his parents so he cosplays as a revolutionary and joins the RCM as the shitty replacement of the Commune's guerrilla.

He spends 15 years in a position usually given to recently enlisted officers because they do not believe him to be good enough. He finally promotes by going undercover as a teenager and infiltrating a fucking arcade because asians look so young and asians are so good at tech. The first partner he gets as a detective is nicknamed Eyes because he was assigned to him because his eyesight and sharpshooting could not be trusted. He doesn't see a shooter approaching and Eyes takes a bullet for him and he's the one to deliver the news to his family.

He doesn't even believe in Moralism, strictly, because he's too old and not innocent enough but the sunk cost of spending his entire life carving his tombstone as an RCM lieutenant is simply too much to give up. He rations his cigarettes to remind himself no matter how much he wants, wanting will destroy you from the inside out.

And then, he gets sent to Martinaise both because he is undeniably good at his job (he's shown them, he can shoot, he can fine, he can send people to jail facilities without breaking a sweat, he can lord over his authority to any civilian as much as any other straight white cop in the precinct) but also with the expectation that he will Fail and they'll finally have a reason to demote him. And he goes there and waits for two days for Harry to show up and when he does, he's drunk, doesn't know the basics of the world (the basics he cannot forget for one second or they will kill him, too) and is still capable of wonder.

And Kim is so fucking jealous. He's like "what the fuck, I have to do so much and this guy gets a pass?". Not because you are actually doing anything wrong, most of the questions are standard for Harry at any point in the game, but you get to forget everything and keep your job. You get to have drugs and keep your standing. You get to be violent and brilliant and no one doubts you for a second. He gets away with wearing heels and blatantly faggy old fashioned clothes. He gets to cry and show the worst parts of himself. He gets to protect you without losing anything.

Harry is everything Kim can't be, because he is a white cop.

But that's not what changes things, in the end. It's that this guy who literally is everything a good detective is and also everything awful a detective is, takes one look at you and sees you on the other side of the moat and he doesn't even build a bridge: He plunges headfirst into the moat and makes friends with the krakens and comes out soaked and dying on the other side and he smiles and asks for your opinion, Kim, you always know what to say

He doesn't know you and he's the first person that doesn't assume the worst. And you know he's putting you on a pedestal, and that you need to make sure he understands that's not good for him, but it does feel a little good to have all the things you do be acknowledged without friction.

And he makes stupid jokes and when you joke back he laughs and doesn't think less of you. And he likes art, which you will never let yourself understand, and he likes children because he doesn't have a history of 15 years trying to get kids to have a better life and them dying by the dozens, and he's everything you hate because he's everything you wish you could be.

And then he finds a miracle, and he tells the miracle about you, and you take a picture and it's not a dream. You thought, it must be the amnesia, he will remember and life will go on with the realities that you know to be true. But the picture is still there: Tangible proof that not everything you think immutable is a sure fact of reality.

Unbeknownst to you, in one of these universes he spares you from a nuclear bomb that he launches himself. If you get shot, he will hear you on the radio when he needs you the most. You are not the only one that has been changed from this.

Pre-amnesia Harry and Kim could have never found this tentative kindness because Harry was bogged down by all the things he had done and Kim was buried in things he couldn't do. But whatever happened to Harry, it opened a door in a huge web of universes, just by saying "It doesn't have to be like this". No matter where they go from the ending of the game, that is a thing you cannot un-know.

[queerfables]

'Wilson' as an episode fucking slaps. I'm obsessed with Wilson's complete lack of boundaries and I'm obsessed with the way he acts out to express resentment while still being completely incapable of saying no. He gave a patient part of his liver!! The man is in no way hinged.

For all the emphasis that gets placed on Wilson's failed marriages and infidelity, we don't ever actually see it directly on screen. This is a narrative choice I love, for the record. We see Wilson's relationships through House's eyes and it allows us to understand Wilson as a deeply flawed person without ever making him unlikable, because Wilson's flaws and contradictions are what make him irresistible to House. It's so effective, the way these failed relationships say so much about Wilson's character while being constructed largely out of inference.

In this episode, though, we watch his inability to self advocate play out in real time, and I guarantee that this is what every one of his relationship meltdowns looked like from the inside. On some deep fundamental level, James Wilson doesn't believe "I don't want to" is a valid reason not to do something. You know the fantasy trope of an obedience curse, where the victim is inescapably compelled to obey other people's requests? Wilson casts that spell on his own damn self, and he'll hold true to it even to the point of violating his own bodily autonomy. When you lack boundaries like that, it becomes almost impossible to even know what you truly want, let alone to act on it. So Wilson says yes and yes and yes until it breaks him, and then he still can't say no.

When saying yes feels like surrendering to torture and saying no feels like committing murder, the only option left is escape. So Wilson goes out drinking to trash the liver he's going to donate. He gets dinner with the pretty nurse instead of going home to his wife. All of it is him scrabbling at the bars of his cage. And the irony is that the cage is unlocked, he just has to walk through the open door, and that's the last thing he could ever bring himself to do.

I'm pretty sure that when he went to Cuddy and told her his plan to donate, he wanted her to say no. She almost did! And I think she should have, because her first impulse was right, it is insane. Unfortunately this is the Insane Lack of Boundaries Hospital, and she can't actually be expected to guess when her employee's mouth is saying yes but his eyes are saying dear god no. By the rules of universe that House MD operates within, this doesn't even break a 7 on the "unhinged measures to save a patient" scale, and Wilson invoked the power of friendship. What was she supposed to do?

And through all of this, House is the person Wilson lashes out at. I love, love, love that House is the person Wilson lashes out at. Wilson can't even admit to himself that he's angry about the position he's in. How can he be angry when he's the reason the patient needs a new liver? But House sees right to the heart of everything going on with him, and he says all the things Wilson wants to be true and can't afford to believe. Because if he lets himself believe this wasn't his fault then he might not be able to say yes. And he's going to say yes. And he hates that he's going to say yes. And he hates that House knows he's going to say yes.

So he gets angry with House, because it's safe to get angry with House. He lashes out, because with House, he can. He tells House he's wrong about him, and demands House move out, and that's not at all what he really wants but he feels helpless and coerced and he desperately needs to exercise some kind of control over his own life. The fact that he can let go like this with House is in part about knowing House isn't ever going to leave him - the closeness of their relationship is always defined by what Wilson wants, House has never once pushed Wilson away and fights to reconcile when Wilson wants distance. But it's also about knowing that he can't hurt House by setting boundaries with him. Mostly this is because House will walk right over any boundaries he considers unacceptable, but in fairness, the fact that House is kind of a terrible person is part of his appeal. If Wilson had issues around other people violating his stated wishes, House would be the last person in the world that he should have anything to do with. But Wilson's issues lie in the fear that not being compulsively available and accommodating to everyone around him might permanently fuck up the life of someone he loves. House's fucked up life is never going to be Wilson's fault and even if it was House would still kind of deserve it, so Wilson's anxious people pleasing compulsion can chill the fuck out for five minutes at a time.

I don't want to idealise, there are times in their relationship when Wilson absolutely makes fucked up sacrifices for House. I don't think it's the case that he earnestly wanted to every time. But it's also true that House brings out authenticity in Wilson that few other people manage to. House knows him. House allows him to give in to his selfish impulses without guilt and consequences, and for all the people who love the best in him, House knows and loves his worst. While Wilson is caught up in trying to bend himself into whatever shape someone else needs him to be, what House wants more than anything is the truth. For Wilson, who is so out of touch with his own desires, being an object of fascination to someone obsessed with drives and motivations must be a rush. And if we accept the throughline of this episode, it might just be the case that House's boundary pushing and obsession is something Wilson needs.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 8: Demeter, Goddess Of The Harvest]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 6.2k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Is it a story worth telling? I think so. It’s better than nothing. It’s better than watching raindrops slither down the cracked concrete walls until the prison guards come back to bloody us again.

Today I’m sending John McCain taps in the shape of the tale of Io. John has a hard time tapping back—they’re doing something to his shoulders, they’re destroying him—but he likes to listen. He’s getting it a lot worse than I am; perhaps even the North Vietnamese fear Aemond’s retribution if I die here. They should be afraid of him. He thinks he owns everything he touches, and he’ll snap bones to keep it.

So anyway, Io was a king’s daughter, a mortal who Zeus saw and wanted and took when her father kicked her out to avoid the god’s wrath. That’s easily half of Greek mythology, right? Zeus appears, irrevocably fucks up someone’s life, vanishes in a plume of clouds and thunder. He leaves human rubble behind him: ribs, nerves, disembodied hearts that leak blood from torn ventricles, minds broken in two. Zeus impregnated Io and then turned her into a cow to hide her from his wife Hera, ever-watchful, ever-vengeful, an aspiring mass murderess. When this disguise failed, Hera condemned Io to wander ceaselessly through the wilderness, tormented by the constant stinging of a gadfly. Eventually, Zeus returns Io to human form and she pops out a few bastard kids, as if Zeus needs any more of those. Then he ditches her and she marries some Egyptian dude. There are other details that I’ve forgotten. I don’t think John McCain will know the difference.

I’m sure you’re wondering how I acquired all this fabled trivia. I don’t seem like the type to lie around under trees reading folklore from religions that died thousands of years ago. You’re right, I’m not. But Aemond is. He would tell the stories, and Helaena would embroider scenes on quilts for us to burrow under in the winter, and I would dramatically act out the best parts (mostly murders), and Aegon would scribble comics in jagged black pen strokes. He has all these notebooks down in the basement filled with his new versions of ancient myths: Poseidon as a horny dolphin, Aphrodite as Marilyn Monroe.

Wait, I remember what I skipped. While Io was roaming across the globe, she bumped into Prometheus—chained to a rock for giving humans the gift of fire—and he cheered her up somehow. I guess meeting a guy who gets his liver continuously chewed out by a giant eagle would make me more appreciative of my circumstances too.

I have a lot of time to myself here in solitary confinement. My social circle is microscopic. I tap to John through the wall, I have dinner dates with Tessarion the rat. And I think about my family. They’re fucked up, but I miss them. I miss going to Monmouth Park with Fosco to bet on horse races, I miss getting hammered with Aegon while he sings Johnny Cash or Beatles songs. I miss my mother and Helaena and Criston. I even miss Aemond’s wife, though I only met her a few times before I deployed. She’s sharp, she’s hilarious. She’s mean as hell to Aegon, and sometimes he deserves it.

At first I wondered why Aemond hasn’t gotten me out yet, but I understand now. It sounds a lot better to have a brother being tortured as a prisoner of war than one who received a Get Out Of Jail Free card. It’s the kind of thing Aemond would consider. He understands which stories are worth telling.

I feel kind of bad for her. Aemond’s wife, I mean.

I don’t think she knows about Alys.

~~~~~~~~~~

On a chilly mid-September morning cloaked in fog, Mimi is laid to rest in the Targaryen family mausoleum at Saint George Greek Orthodox Cemetery in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Most of the golden plaques already have names chiseled into them: Viserys and Alicent, Fosco and Helaena. Aegon will one day be interred beside his wife. You have a spot reserved next to Aemond. All of you have already lived and died and been entombed; all of this was predestined by the stars eons before you had blood or bones.

Ari’s vault—an unnaturally tiny drawer, less than half the size of anyone else’s—is located just above yours. You can’t stop staring at it. You can’t hear anything the bearded priest in his black robes is chanting. Then Cosmo squeezes your hand and you look down at him. Mimi’s other children are somber but seem to be coping well enough—they are used to being raised by consensus, they would probably be more affected if one of the nannies died—but Cosmo always wants to be near you. He gazes up with those vast, wet, murky blue eyes, so much like Aegon’s, and you offer him a sad, reassuring smile. Cosmo smiles back. And you think: Life goes on.

Alicent is sniffling noisily; it echoes off the walls of the mausoleum. Criston—a man with no plaque assigned to him—is trying to console her. Aegon is watching you from across the cold granite chamber, grim and red-eyed in his black suit, the first time you can remember seeing him in one since your wedding. He wears no small gold hoops, only a row of stitches in his right ear. He wants to say something, to do something, but he can’t. Aemond is beside you, a hand heavy on your waist but muttering something to Otto. Back in Omaha, Otto had spent a few hours alone with the medical examiner, and when the death certificate was issued it revealed that Mimi died of a heart defect, a perfectly blameless sort of misfortune, an innate impending disaster. And so that’s what the newspapers printed, and any gossip to the contrary is confined to salacious rumors, untrustworthy and unproven.

When the ceremony is over, journalists are waiting to scavenge for photos and quotes under the guise of expressing their sympathies. It’s a shameless display, though they at least have the decency to wait by the cemetery gates. Aemond and Otto go to meet them. Alicent, Criston, Helaena, and Fosco, protective of the children, keep them far away from the feeding frenzy, hungry-eyed reporters like sharks without fins. Ludwika is reapplying her lipstick. Aegon is smoking a Lucky Strike and talking to his oldest son, Orion, a stilted exchange that holds the promise of turning warm with time.

You sit on a stone bench and Cosmo curls up beside you, rests his head in your lap, dozes off as you thread your fingers through his wavy blonde hair. In the mist there are shadows of gravestones and trees that turn skeletal as they shed their leaves.

“He is okay?” Fosco says as he ambles over, meaning Cosmo. He has his hands in the pockets of his slim black trousers that stop at his ankles. His suit is velvet, his eyeglasses speckled with drizzle from the slate-grey sky.

“He’s alright. He’s resting. Are you okay?”

“Oh,” Fosco sighs mournfully. “I keep thinking someone is missing. We came into this family together, Mimi and I. We got married six months apart. I have never had to do this without her. And I know she had her problems, but she was different when she was younger. She always liked a party, that’s why she and Aegon got along so well at first. But she was so loud and so funny, always telling these long stories, and everyone in the room would be grinning as they waited for the good part. Viserys loved her. Otto loved her. And then she had all those children one after the other, and that was hard, and Aegon self-destructed when he was the mayor of Trenton, and that was worse, and she was supposed to fix him and she couldn’t, the harder she tried the farther he ran from her. She started drinking her Gimlets before dinner, and then after lunch, and by the time you showed up it was never ending. But that wasn’t who she really was. She was like a moon that got smaller and smaller until the only thing left was a sliver.”

This family breaks people. This family kills people. “We’ll make ossi dei morti for Mimi tonight. I’ll help you, and we can teach the kids.”

Fosco smiles, swipes a tear from beneath his glasses, squeezes your shoulder with one wiry hand. “I am very glad you are still here.”

“I’m not trying to race you to that mausoleum.”

Fosco laughs. And then he says as he spies Aegon approaching: “Um…I will go avoid the paparazzi somewhere else.”

“You don’t have to leave, Fosco.”

“It is no trouble. And I suspect you enjoy your very rare privacy.” Fosco gives you a knowing glace and then heads back to where Helaena, Alicent, and Criston are lingering with the rest of the children. Now Ludwika is fluffing her blonde curls with her French tips, a smoldering Camel cigarette tucked between two fingers.

Aegon comes to you through the mist, plops onto the bench, and looks fondly down at Cosmo—now fast asleep, his face smooth and peaceful—before he speaks. “I can’t grasp that she’s really gone. We barely spoke for years, but she was always there, you know? Christ, she deserved better than this. She could have been happy somewhere else.”

“Your children need you.” It’s not the first time you’ve said it, but it’s the first time he believes you. He nods, staring out into the fog. “They have to get away from this whole circus for a while. And you have to learn how to be a real parent.”

“I’ll have time to work on it. I’m staying here. I’ve already been informed.”

You are alarmed. “What? By who?”

“Aemond and Otto.” Aegon says. “When the rest of you fly west, my kids and I will be at Asteria.”

“They’re getting you off the campaign trail,” you realize.

“They’re putting me on house arrest.”

Not seeing Aegon, not being near him? How long can I stand that? “I’m sure you’re relieved. You hate the grandstanding and the media.”

He shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I won’t be alone. I have Fosco and Ludwika.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

“About what?”

“About the fact that they need to look out for you.”

“Aegon, I’ve been doing the political wife thing for over two years.”

“But it’s different now.”

He’s right, it is.

“You’ll call, won’t you?” he asks. “You’ll let me know how the trip is going, you’ll tell me if anything bad happens? Because I can always get on a plane and meet you wherever you are. Otto might pay someone to murder me, but I’d risk it.”

“Of course I’ll call.”

“Hey.” Gently, he turns your face so you can’t hide from him. “Will you be okay without me?”

I have to be. I don’t have a choice. Instead you reply: “I’ll miss the weed.”

The tension breaks and Aegon smiles, and then he pats your cheek twice with his open palm. “Behave yourself.” He waves Ludwika over, interrupting her meditative chain smoking.

“What, what?” Ludwika says. “Are we leaving soon? Yes, it is so sad what happened to Mimi, but us standing around in the rain won’t resurrect her. And I look terrible in black.”

“I can’t be there for the last leg of the campaign.” Aegon points to you. “I need you to pay attention and check in with her at least a few times a day.”

“This is a common request. I should get a degree in it so I can charge people.”

Aegon furrows his brow at her. “What are you talking about?”

Ludwika smirks as she puffs on her Camel. “You are not the first person to ask me to keep an eye on her.” She nods subtly towards Aemond, then sashays off to give a quote to the journalists.

~~~~~~~~~~

In San Diego, Aemond meets with residents of a new public housing complex to hear their concerns about neighborhood jobs and infrastructure. In San Jose, he visits labor activist Caesar Chavez—being treated for debilitating back pain at O’Connor Hospital—and expresses support for the ongoing boycott of all grapes produced in the state. In Sacramento, he attends a Jimi Hendrix concert and receives a standing ovation from the audience; the next day he joins high school students protesting for a more inclusive curriculum. In Oregon, he makes a speech at Portland State University acknowledging the tremendous cost of the Vietnam War—in money, in time, in blood—and pledges to begin dismantling U.S. involvement as soon as he is sworn into office in January. Aemond talks about hope and despair, the bleak reality and the American Dream, and he is so overwhelmed by the crowd that he doesn’t even notice when someone takes his cufflinks as souvenirs. His lack of concern for his own safety exasperates Criston, but Aemond can’t be convinced to increase his security or his distance. If he expects the disaffected masses to carry him to the White House, he has to be real to them.

“What if another Wallace supporter tries to shoot you?” Criston demands. “What if a Nixon stooge stabs you or a crowd tramples you?”

“No one can kill me,” Aemond says, grinning wryly. “I’m not supposed to die yet. I’m supposed to be the president. It is God’s will.” And how can anybody disagree when that appears to be so true?

The earth dies as you drive north, summer withering into autumn. That familiar brisk cuttingness reappears in the air. You shake thousands of hands, smile for countless photographs. Mothers and wives of dead soldiers sob into your shoulder as you embrace them; teenage girls ask how they can get a good man like Aemond. Only one thing is missing from his glorious pilgrimage: something he wants desperately, something he cannot have (though he’ll never know why), you conceiving his child in time to announce it before Election Day. Each morning you sneak a pill and every night you bite the bullet. As often as you can, you duck into Dairy Queens to order lemon-lime Mr. Mistys.

George Wallace is in the South, galvanizing segregationists and accepting the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. Richard Nixon is working his way across the Midwest. He has chosen a politically moderate Greek as a running mate, Spiro Agnew; this does not strike you as a coincidence. He even shares a name with Aegon’s second son.

Nixon promises “peace with honor” in Vietnam, which means no immediate end to the draft. He makes speeches about “states’ rights” and “law and order,” ambiguous euphemisms designed to attract Wallace’s white supremacists without alienating too many suburban moderates. He commiserates with those lamenting the proliferation of sex, drugs, and divorce. He says he will return the nation to a more moral time. You wonder what he means. You can’t think of any such refuge in the bloodletting, spine-crushing history of mankind.

A kindergarten teacher tells you in Olympia, Washington, her eyes alight with reverence usually reserved for heroes, saints, gods: “People are voting for Aemond, but they’re voting for you too.”

And you find yourself thinking as a thousand miles roll by beyond the glass of limousine windows: How many people will I condemn if I don’t help Aemond win? How many lives is mine worth?

~~~~~~~~~~

The Hotel Sorrento in Seattle insists on giving you and Aemond the honeymoon suite: a retreat from the breakneck campaign, a romantic oasis for the future president and first lady…according to half the country, anyway. You are in the impractically large pink bathtub, surrounded by snowy dunes of bubbles. The wall to your right is a mirror, foggy around the edges; just a few yards to your left is the king-sized bed. In the top drawer of your nightstand is the card Aegon gave you in July. You aren’t sure where Aemond is, and you don’t especially care. You are relieved to be alone.

There’s a passion-red phone built into the rim of the tub, conveniently located for sudden room service revelations, champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, steak and lobster. You have a different idea. It’s 7:15 p.m. here, so after 10 on the East Coast. On the steam-slick keypad, you dial the number for the main house at Asteria.

Eudoxia picks up and demands gruffly: “Geiá sou? Ti?”

“Hi, Doxie. Is Aegon around?”

“Where else would he be? Making himself useful somehow? Killing communists, driving a rocket to the moon? No. He is a burden as always.”

“Please be nice to him. His wife just died.”

“And so he cannot put his empty cups in the sink?” Without waiting for a reply, she sets the handset down on the kitchen counter with a clunk. There is distant, muffled shouting in Greek; she seems to back and forth with somebody. Then Eudoxia returns. “Antio sas,” she says, and hangs up just as a phone elsewhere in the house is lifted from its cradle.

Aegon answers with something halfway between a groan and a yawn. “Yeah?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Hey!” You can hear it riding the wire like electricity: a rustling as he sits up, a fresh clarity in his skull. His voice is deep, hushed, still husky with sleep. “What’s up, little Io? Any interesting happenings to report from your neighborhood of the solar system?”

“I just left a riveting tea party. Apple cinnamon scones and smoked salmon sandwiches. We talked about what kind of couches I should get for the White House and I wanted to kill myself. Are the kids okay?”

He’s smiling; you can tell. “They’re alright. I could have used you this afternoon. I was trying to help Spiro with his math homework. Trying, not succeeding.”

“Well he’s in middle school and thus beyond your skill.”

“How’s Jupiter?”

You know who he means. “I don’t want to talk about Aemond.”

“Okay.” Aegon says, curious. “So what should we talk about?”

A few seconds tick by, silent and perilous. “Where are you right now?”

“In my lair. Like a beast.”

“Alone?”

A transitory pause. “At the moment.”

“On the shag carpet or your futon?”

Now he’s very intrigued. “Futon. Why?”

“I just want a visual.” Beneath the water, your free hand is resting on the velvety inside of your thigh.

“Where are you?” Aegon asks.

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Maybe I want a visual too.”

You chuckle, peeking over at yourself in the mirror. Your skin is dewy with steam; stray wisps of hair stick to your face. “I’m in a gigantic pink bathtub. It’s ridiculous, it’s shaped like a heart and everything. They have a phone installed right here in case I find myself in desperate need of filet mignon.”

“Oh.” And then he hesitates, like he’s afraid to say the wrong thing. “Big enough for two?”

“More like five. You should get a tub like this for your basement, it would delight the campaign staffers.”

“My basement’s been pretty empty recently.”

Softly, vulnerably, glass offered for him to shatter: “You aren’t seeing other girls?”

“Nah, babe. I want something they can’t give me.”

You picture him, messy hair falling over his forehead, drowsy eyes that gleam with clandestine wisdom. You can smell the smoke and rum that bleeds from his skin. “I wish you were here.”

“In Seattle?”

“No. Right here.”

Aegon exhales shakily, swallows, takes a few seconds to collect himself. “How’s the water?”

“Extremely hot and full of bubbles.”

“So I wouldn’t be able to see you.”

“No,” you say, baiting him.

“But I could touch you.”

“You already have.”

“Not enough,” he murmurs. “Nowhere close to enough.”

“Do you remember what I felt like?”

“Oh God,” he whispers, and you envision him closing his eyes, rubbing his face with the open palm of his left hand. “Yeah. Of course I do. I can’t get it out of my head. But I’ve been trying not to…you know…it felt wrong to think about you that way unless you were cool with it. Like I was betraying your trust or taking advantage of you or something.”

“No, I want you to think about me.”

You can hear Aegon moving around on the green futon, repositioning himself, yanking down a zipper. When he speaks again, his breathing is quick and jagged. “Where’s your other hand, huh?”

“Under the water,” you reply coyly.

“You bitch,” he says, laughing. “I miss you so fucking much. The house isn’t right without you in it. You belong here, you belong where I am.”

Beneath the veil of bubbles and steam, there is no scar on your belly, no infidelity, no campaign, no distance of almost 3,000 miles separating you and Aegon. Your fingers slip between your legs, finding slickness the water can’t wash away. It’s a familiar sensation, though you haven’t felt it in a while: rising steadily until you hit a plateau like a jet reaching cruising altitude. From here, it will either glide along smoothly until it dies out, or eventually turn sharp and painful. “Tell me about you,” you pant.

He can hear it in your voice, a needful surrender that sets him on fire. He can’t believe this is happening; he never wants it to end. “I mean, I’m…I’m insanely hard.”

“Stroke yourself, imagine it’s me. I wish it could be me.”

“Oh fuck,” Aegon whimpers. “Okay, okay…I want you. I want you with my fingers, I want you with my tongue, I want you to beg for it, and then…”

Impossibly, incomparably, your own pleasure is climbing faster than you can reconcile yourself to it, no longer a hunger but a violent aching, a crushing gravity you can’t fight against, a ship being dragged to the floor of the ocean. What’s happening? When will it end? You moan into the phone, amazed yet petrified. You can’t get enough air; it feels like drowning, like dying.

“I need to see you,” Aegon says. He’s close to the climax that you know men experience, he has to be; he’s gasping. “I need to be with you, let me give you what you want.”

“I want you to finish inside me.”

“Io…babe…oh my God, you’re gonna kill me…”

There are sounds out in the front room of the suite: a lock clicking, footsteps, keys and a wallet tossed onto the kitchenette counter. You’re so consumed you almost don’t notice. Aemond is back. Aemond is back!! And every ion of your ascending euphoria evaporates. “Gotta go, bye.”

“Wait—!”

You hang up just as Aemond is opening the bedroom door. He walks in—immaculately tailored dark blue suit, polished black leather shoes trampling soft pink carpet—and turns to you. He has already taken his glass eye out and put on his eyepatch. Vaguely, fleetingly, you wonder where he’s been. His gaze darts to the red phone, your fingerprints in the condensation. “Who were you talking to?”

“My parents.”

If Aemond doubts this, he doesn’t show it. He crosses the room, sits on the edge of the bathtub, peers down at you with an omniscient metallic glint in his eye. He’s always been less a man than a force of nature. “I know this year has been hell.”

You envision Persephone being stolen by Hades, Orpheus searching for his dead wife Eurydice, Charon ferrying souls across the River Styx. “You haven’t made it easier.”

There’s a flash of something in his scarred face, blazing and instantaneous like lightning, and then it fades. He reaches out to touch your hair, swept up and neatly bound with clips and pins. “We can’t forget everything we’ve accomplished together,” Aemond says. “I still need you. You’re my Aphrodite.”

He’s going to tell you to get out of the tub, to lie down on the bed, to open yourself so he can fill you. You distract him, forestalling the inevitable. Each morning Prometheus dreads the return of the eagle that pecks out his liver; as every summer ends Demeter mourns the loss of Persephone. “Any luck with Nixon?”

Aemond sighs, furious, brooding. “He still won’t agree to a debate. Wallace is onboard, he’s rabid for it, he’d show up if we held it in the fucking asteroid belt, any opportunity to spew his idiocy. But not Nixon.”

“Because he knows standing on the same stage as you can only hurt him. People thought he looked bad in 1960, can you imagine now? Television has gotten so much clearer. They’ll be able to count his sweat drops from their living room couches.”

“So how do I get him to do it?”

You look up at Aemond. It’s not a hypothetical question; he’s really asking for advice.

“I have to debate Nixon,” Aemond insists. “It’s close in the polls, which means it will be even closer on Election Day. I’ll underperform whatever is projected, my coalition is less likely to show up when it counts. College kids, hippies, transients. That’s just a fact. But the old people vote. The suburban housewives vote. Nixon’s resting on his political experience and accusations that I’m a communist, an agent of chaos. But I could slaughter him in an hour on ABC.”

You think of the mutilated Vietnam veterans waving their signs and screaming at LBJ from the other side of the wrought-iron gates of the White House. “Challenge him in public. Say that the American people deserve to see the candidates debate, and do it where everyone can hear you.”

“What if Nixon still refuses?”

“Then you call him a coward. You say he must have something to hide. You ask how he’s supposed to square up with the Russians and the Chinese if he can’t even face you.”

Aemond grins admiringly. “You’re vicious.” And he lifts your hand from the rim of the tub so he can kiss your knuckles. Once you licked up drops of his approval like Tantalus, cursed with eternal thirst. Now it is poison that turns your veins black.

“If there’s a debate, everyone should go,” you say, seized by sudden inspiration. “We should have a united front, including Aegon. It can be his return to the public eye. A month will have passed since the funeral, the timing is right. He can pose for a few photos with the kids to show the nation that they’re doing well and distract from any lingering rumors about Mimi.”

Aemond isn’t grinning anymore. He’s studying you with his cold blue gaze; no, he’s trying to intimidate you, to overpower you. “Otto and I will decide what to do with him.”

“He’s a Targaryen. He should be with the rest of us.”

Aemond stands and motions for you to follow, a snap of his wrist like a man calling a dog. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed.”

Panic, tension, an iron sinking in your belly. The water is only lukewarm now, but you don’t want to leave it. “I’m not done yet.”

“Yes you are.”

There’s nothing else to say. Legally, a wife’s flesh is one with her husband’s. You slip as you step out of the bathtub, and Aemond grabs your forearm. Not like he’s helping you; like you’re something he owns.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two knocks, swift and forceful. “Hey, it’s me. You ready? Everyone else is downstairs in the lobby waiting for the limos.”

You hurry to open the door, almost twisting your ankle as you stumble in your heels. They’re an inch higher than what you’re used to. Aemond chose them, and your dress too, and your sapphire teardrop earrings, and the silver chains around your wrist and throat, and your future and your past, and your life itself. It’s mid-October, and the night of what will almost certainly be the sole presidential debate of 1968. Aemond’s retinue is staying at the Hotel Saint Louis. It’s harvest time, the fields beyond the city being reaped of their soybeans, wheat, corn, cotton, and rice, the beef cattle culled in mechanical underworlds. Aegon’s flight must have just landed.

As soon as he sees you his eyes drop, wide and bewitched, ensnared everywhere except your face. You say: “Can you help me zip this, please?”

He blinks a few times, then shakes it off. “Sorry, what?”

“The zipper’s stuck. I need you to get it.”

“Yeah. Sure.” He steps into the suite and stands behind you. The gown is a vivid blue like the Greek flag, gorgeous and shimmering but a size too small. It wasn’t tight a week ago, but now it is, and you aren’t pregnant just always gaining and losing weight in new places, first the baby and then the pill, and it wouldn’t bother you if Aemond didn’t seem so confounded by it. Aegon says as he tugs at the zipper: “I don’t think it’s gonna fit, babe.”

“It has to fit.”

“Even if I miraculously get this closed, you won’t be able to breathe.”

“Do whatever you have to. Just…just…” You push every last molecule of air out of your lungs, suck in your belly, and you hear the triumphant squeal of the zipper. “Yes!” Oh, but Aegon was right: you really can’t breathe. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“You’re not gonna last the whole debate in that. You’ll be sweating more than Nixon.”

“I’m fine.”

“Io…”

“I’m fine. Come on.” You snatch your matching purse off the coffee table by the couch, check your makeup one last time, and hobble in your heels as you walk with Aegon out into the hallway.

At the Kiel Auditorium a few blocks away, the Targaryen children—Aegon’s five and Helaena’s three—are presented for photographs before being escorted back to the hotel by the nannies. And even in the few weeks that have passed since you last saw Aegon’s kids, there have been extraordinary changes. They talk to their father, and he talks back, and he ruffles their hair and rests his hands on their shoulders and asks them about what they’re learning from their private tutors. Cosmo tackles you before he leaves—a powerful bear hug, though he can only reach your legs—and he says he hopes you’re coming home to Asteria soon.

“Me too, kiddo,” Aegon tells him, and then smiles at you; but above his gleam of teeth his cloudy blue eyes, like the Atlantic in a storm, are gloomy and troubled.

As the audience takes their seats and the journalists are poised to capture the best images and quotes of the night, the three candidates and their wives (minus Wallace’s dear departed Lurleen) meet briefly backstage to exchange the perfunctory well-wishes. Pat Nixon is introverted and bookish, though she tries to hide it; but Aemond reels her in like swordfish until her eyes are filled with him. George Wallace gets one glimpse of your venomous glare and escapes, claiming to need one last trip to the restroom before the debate begins. But Richard Nixon beckons you to accompany him to a quiet, discrete corner of the room.

“I tried to call,” he says. He’s a remarkably normal man: medium height, receding dark hair, rough voice, weathered skin, not a god but a mortal, and—you have the impression—more aware of his flaws than his fiercest critics will ever be. “But no one at that damned beach house would ever put me through to you.”

You aren’t sure what he means. “Oh?”

“I never got the opportunity to tell you how sorry I was for your loss in July, Mrs. Targaryen,” Nixon says with unglamorous, plain, genuine compassion. “Pat and I, when we heard, we wept for you. We truly did. And for your husband to be clear across the country…I can’t even imagine. It must have been awful for you. A parent never gets over something like that. It stays with you like a scar.”

“It does,” you say softly.

“I lost two brothers. Arthur died when he was seven, tuberculosis killed Harold in his twenties. God, it just about destroyed my mother. You’re a remarkable woman. You’re lightning in a bottle for Aemond, do you know that? You’re like one of those Kennedy gals, but even better. More personable than Jackie. More intelligent than Ethel…although, to be frank, who wouldn’t be? And you’re not afflicted with any ghastly vices like Ted’s wife Joan. What would Aemond do without you? He’d lose, that’s what he’d do.”

Nixon’s smart, but he’s wounded. He’s capable, but he’s so desperate to prove it. Power could ruin a man like this. “You’re very kind, sir. You did some great work under Eisenhower. Self-made like my father was, a devotee of the American Dream. I believe you have an important role to play in this country…” You smirk, a bit mischievously. “Just not as the president.”

Nixon chortles. “No matter what happens tonight, rest assured that I hate Reagan more than I could ever dislike your husband,” he says, meaning the Republican governor of his home state of California. “You know that bastard tried to primary me?”

“Actors don’t belong in politics.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Nixon says, and then bids you farewell as the lights turn blinding and the curtain begins to rise.

As soon as the adrenaline begins to fade, all you can think about is that you can’t breathe. You take your seat in the audience between Aegon and Ludwika, who won’t stop making jabs about Nixon: “He looks like a troll,” “He looks like a sasquatch,” “Do you think Pat makes him wear a  Creature from the Black Lagoon mask in bed so she is not so repulsed by him?” The most you can offer is an occasional distracted nod in response.

“You alright?” Aegon whispers.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look alright.”

“I’m great.”

“Sure,” he says, and he acts like he’s teasing, but there’s something tremendously sad underneath. He can’t save you from this. He can’t save you from anything. What must that feel like?

On the debate stage—broadcast to a national audience—Aemond performs brilliantly. Nixon salvages what could have been a bloodbath with a handful of clever retorts that Aemond pretends not to be rattled by. The real loser of the night is Wallace, who is brutally attacked by them both: Nixon because Wallace is commandeering some of his voting bloc, and Aemond because of his near-assassination back in May. After an hour, the contest concludes and the candidates descend to the main floor to pose for photos and get lassoed into brief interviews with various journalists. Everyone in Aemond’s entourage besides you and Aegon flock to his side. By now you’re gasping in shallow gulps, close to tears and in agony from your ribs to your wobbling feet.

“I told you,” Aegon says. And then: “Come on. We’ll take the first limo back.”

In the front room of your hotel suite—one yellowish end table lamp glowing dimly, the rest of the space like twilight—Aegon wrestles with the zipper as you struggle for every breath, trying not to pass out. “Ow,” you whine. “Oh fuck, this was so stupid…”

“Don’t let him make you wear shit you don’t want to wear.”

“I have to do what he says, Aegon.”

“He doesn’t own you.”

“Legally, he does.”

He’s tugging futilely at the jammed zipper. “Are you planning on using this again?”

“I believe that would be wistful thinking.”

“You probably look better out of it anyway.” He grabs his Zippo lighter from the pocket of his emerald green suit jacket and flicks it to life. “Don’t move, okay?”

“Okay.”

“At all.”

“Got it.”

You can feel heat, intense but not painful. Aegon has pulled the edge of the fabric as far away as he can from your skin and is singeing it until it turns black and charred and brittle. Then he tucks the lighter back into his pocket and with both hands rips your dress down to the small of your back. Cool air rushes to meet the ridge of your spine; goosebumps prickle all over. Aegon is marveling at you; you can see it when you glance over your shoulder at him. Then he lays a palm against your bare skin, leans into you, inhales everything you’ve ever been: smoke and sex and starlight, strategies, shadows, secrets.

The others will be pouring into the hallway from the elevator any minute. Aemond. Aemond could find us.

“We can’t,” you whisper, hating yourself for it.

Aegon kisses the nape of your neck—so slow, so kind—and then goes to the doorway. You wait for him to leave, but he doesn’t. He’s looking at you as you hold up the ruined gown so it covers your belly and your chest. You gaze back helplessly, wanting him, needing him, a moon chained to another world’s gravity.

We can’t, we can’t, we can’t.

“I’m so sorry,” you say.

And only then does Aegon vanish.

[five-rivers]

wandering heart

For @phantomphangphucker for phic phight!

.

.

.

The needle was bronze.  

The copper alloy stood out better against ectoplasmic flesh than it would have against red blood.  It dipped in and out of Danny's skin with machine-like precision, drawing a slender purple string in its wake.  Appropriate.  Clockwork was at least partly mechanical.

“You're getting close to my liver,” said Danny.  “Careful.”

“You are aware that these facsimile organs are not at all essential to the function of your body.”

“Sure they are,” said Danny.  He leaned his head back on the cushion Clockwork had provided him.  “That's why you're sewing me up.”

Clockwork's tower wasn't Danny's usual post-battle stop, but the fight had been nasty and it had been close. His other choices had been flying an hour to reach the Far Frozen and leaving an ectoplasm trail through the mad science lab dedicated to dissecting ghosts.  The decision had been easy.  

Clockwork had complained, of course.  Ninety percent of the time spent stitching had doubled as time spent snarking.  It was fun.  

“You have more than fake human organs in here, and losing that much ectoplasm is unhealthy for a ghost regardless.  You are friends with the doctors of the Far Frozen.  Perhaps you should avail yourself of their knowledge more frequently.”

“I already have one health class I'm failing.  Don't need another.”

“You are not failing your health class.”

Danny peeled back an eyelid that had fallen shut at some point during the exchange.  “Are you using your time powers to spy on my grades?”

“Hardly.”  Clockwork picked up a pair of ornate scissors and snipped the string he'd been stitching Danny up with.  “But even so, I doubt you would notice if I removed one of your so-called organs.” 

“You could try,” said Danny.  He closed his eyes again and leaned to the side until he was slumped over on Clockwork, who made an offended noise.  “You’re trapped now.  Stuck.”

“I am a shapeshifter,” said Clockwork.  “You cannot ‘trap’ me simply by leaning on me.”

“Can too.”

Danny was tired.  Sometimes, he could shrug off both fights and injuries like they were nothing, but unicorns were vicious and Technus was mean.  Electricity always took a lot out of him.  

Clockwork sighed heavily.  Danny smiled.  

“You aren’t nearly as charming as you think,” said Clockwork.  

“And yet, you are neither kicking me out nor stealing my pancreas or lower intestine or anything like that.”

“I could.”

“But you haven’t.”  Danny tucked his feet underneath him and snuggled more heavily into Clockwork’s side.  

The ghost groaned, but obligingly made room for Danny.  Yes, yes, exactly according to plan.  The evil one, where he made friends with Clockwork.  He figured he was already halfway there, if Clockwork was willing to sew him up, but with this it was definitely closer to three quarters.  

Having thought this, Danny promptly fell asleep.  

.

The front doors of Clockwork’s tower were not made to slam open, but Danny, fingers of one hand clenched over his chest and still wearing a Far Frozen medical gown, managed anyway.  He was resourceful like that.  

“Clockwork?” he called.  “Clockwork!”  He flew from room to room, only sticking his head in long enough to assess them for Clockwork's presence.  

Finally, he found him.  

“Clockwork!” he shouted, re-energized by the sight.  “Did you steal my heart?  My heart?  My actual heart from my actual chest?”

Clockwork stared blankly at Danny for long enough that his panicked doubled and doubled again.  This was, quite literally, his only lead.

“No,” said Clockwork, finally.  “I stole the replica of your actual heart.  From your chest.”

“That’s the same thing!”

“Is it?” asked Clockwork, smugly.  “After all, you didn’t even notice this one was gone.”

“Oh my god, I cannot believe you did this.”  Friendship plan canceled.  Or something.

“I cannot imagine why,” said Clockwork.  “After all, I told you exactly what I was going to do.  You even gave me permission.”

“I thought you were joking.  Who’s going to think that you’re serious about stealing a friend’s organs?  That’s a joke.  A joke.  Banter, if you would.  Not an invitation to steal my literal heart.”

“Even so, it has been done.”

“Well, can you undo it?  Put it back in?  You didn’t, I don’t know, toss it out with last week’s eggshells or something?  Stick it in the back of the kitchen junk drawer.”

“No, I know exactly where I put it,” said Clockwork.  

“And you can undo it, right?  It’s not, like, expired?”

“It is difficult to get more expired than a ghost’s heart.”  

Danny stared at Clockwork expectantly.  

“Yes, I can undo it.  It will be the work of a moment to return it to its proper place.”  

“Great, so…  Lead on.”  Danny made a forward sweeping motion with both hands.  

Clockwork’s eyes slid back towards his time screen.  “Can it wait?”

“No!”

“You haven’t had it for weeks.  You won’t miss it for a few more minutes.”

“Uh, yes, I will!  You can time travel.  Whatever you’re doing, you can do it later.”

“I suppose,” said Clockwork.  “Very well.  Follow me.”

Clockwork led him back, through narrow halls, into a towering closet with spiral shelves.  It was full of what could only be collectively referred to as stuff.  

“Wow, I wasn’t serious about the junk drawer thing.”

“Oh, please,” said Clockwork.  “This is hardly junk.”

“You’re a hoarder.”

“I resent that appellation,” said Clockwork, flying up and rotating slightly.  Danny kept his feet on the ground, slightly intimidated.

“The only reason you aren’t drowning in all this is because your house doesn’t have to exist in Euclidean space.”

“And yet, I am not drowning in it.” Clockwork continued to float upwards, a faint frown on his face.  

“You do remember where you put it, right?”

“Yes, Daniel,” said Clockwork, visibly rolling his eyes.  “I put it right– Ah.  Interesting.”

“Interesting?  What do you mean interesting?” demanded Danny.  He flew up to hover near Clockwork's shoulder.  “Did something happen to it?  Is it– It's not there?  You said you knew where it was!”

“I said I knew where I put it, which is rather a different thing altogether.”

“No, it isn't!  It's not like it has legs!  It couldn't have wandered off on its oooohhhhhhhh my God, it could have wandered off on its own.  That thing had more ectoplasm in it than a Christmas turkey.”

“It is, in fact,” said Clockwork, “entirely made out of ectoplasm.”

“If it’s moving around like that, can we put it back in?  Would it– Would it try to escape?  Like, escape my chest?  Is that a thing?”

“Unlikely.”

“As unlikely as it starting to move around in the first place?”

“Unlikely,” repeated Clockwork.  

“Where even is it?  Do you know?  Can you tell?  Obviously, your whole ‘I know everything’ shtick is a lie, but can you, like, rewind things so that it’s here?”

“No,” said Clockwork.  “We will just have to look for it.”

“In your hoarder cave?”

“It is not a cave.”

“Ah, but you don't dispute the hoarder part?”  He spun, head over heels, trying and failing to see the entirety of the not-really-a-closet.  “What if there are things in here?  Like, living things?  Could it have been eaten?  By, like… Clockroaches?  Do you have clockroaches here?”

“Media tends to grossly exaggerate both the aggression and size of temporal boggles–”

“They’re real?”

“Why would you ask about them if you didn’t think they were real?”

“I don’t know.  It turns out I don’t think through the things I say to you very well.”

“Clearly.” 

Danny arrested his motion.  “Where do we even start?  This place is huge!”

“That statement assumes that it is still in this particular room.”

“Oh my God.”

“Although, if we are to search this room, it would make the most sense to start from either end and work towards the middle.”

Danny flipped over.  “I can’t even see the other end.”  This was only barely an exaggeration.

“Then we had best get started soon.”

Danny rubbed his face.  “Am I even going to recognize it?  What will it look like?”

“Like the organ it was imitating, of course,” said Clockwork.  “Oh, and don’t touch anything.”

Danny groaned.

.

There was something quivering and green huddled behind a bank of jars.  Was that… it couldn’t be…  He formed a stick out of ice and went to poke it.  

“What are you doing to that poor frog?” asked Clockwork.  

“Holy– It’s a frog?”

“Yes.” 

Danny stared.  Clockwork was covered in splatters and streaks of ectoplasm from head to tail.  

“Why do you– I don’t even want to know.  Did you find it?”

“Yes,” said Clockwork, holding up a jar.  There was…  Well.  It was a heart.  “Are you sure you want it back?  Surely, the sentimental value cannot be that great.”

“Wh– It’s not about the sentimental value.  Open it up, put it back in!”

Clockwork’s sigh was incredibly put-upon.  “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He unscrewed the lid of the jar, and the heart, which had up until that point, laid quiescent on the bottom of the jar, flew out, smacking Danny in the face.  

“Augh!”

“Grab it!” 

Danny managed to get a hand around a ventricle, but ectoplasm and ectoplasmic muscle was slippery.  It escaped his grip.  It flopped-flew its way down to the bottom of the genuinely-not-a-closet and made for the door.  Danny dove at it, only to get a faceful of ectoplasm from an artery for his trouble.  

Danny wondered if this was what Skulker felt like.  He let ectoplasm dribble out of his mouth.  

“That, bleh, that tastes like my ectoplasm,” he said.

“That’s because it is,” said Clockwork, tiredly.  “I will refrain from asking you to elaborate on your ectoplasm-tasting experiences.”

“Look, when nature gives you a weapon, and afterlife gives you enemies, you use the weapon.”  He peered cautiously out of the door, wary of being sprayed with what was essentially his own blood once again.  “Where do you think it–”

He got another mouthful of ectoplasm.  

“Bleh,” he said.  

“I don’t suppose you saw it?” asked Clockwork.  “Which way it went, etcetera, etcetera?”

“No,” said Danny.  

“Then this will be a long night.”

“Can’t you just, like, stop time or something?  So it won’t move around while we look”

Clockwork gave him a look.  

“I’ll take that as a no.”

.

“I think,” said Danny, from where he was dangling from the ceiling, a tangle of clock chains wrapped around his ankle, “that we need help.”

“Unfortunately, I must concur,” said Clockwork, who was underneath a pair of couches even he’d been surprised at owning.

“Unless you want to use your totally awesome time powers to find it.”

“No.”

.

“I’m sorry,” said Sam.  “What did you lose?”

“My heart,” said Danny.  “And I didn’t lose it.  Clockwork stole it.”

“Is this some kind of Ice Queen situation here?” asked Sam.  “Are you going to lose all empathy and care for other people?”

“No,” said Danny.  “It’s just the, um, physical thing.  And only my ghost half’s physical thing.  Apparently.  Apparently, the ‘human organs’ I have in my ghost form aren’t functional, unless the functionality is, like, the functionality of being incredibly annoying and spraying ectoplasm everywhere.”

“So, what should we bring for this thing?” asked Tucker.  “Butterfly nets?  Bow and arrow?  Guns?  What’s the endgame?”

“You want to shoot my heart?”

“I don’t know what you want here, dude.  I’m still kind of reeling over the fact that the guy you were hanging out with literally stole your heart.  Do you need someone to give him a stern talking to, make sure he gets you home before curfew?”

“That’s disgusting.  He could probably be my great-great-great-great-great-great–”

In ghost form, Danny didn’t have to breathe all that much, so he was able to go on like that until Sam and Tucker joined forces to stuff socks in his mouth.  

.

“How in the world did things escalate to Clockwork stealing your literal heart?” asked Jazz.  

“Okay, yeah, I see how that’d seem bad, out of context, but you see, it isn’t actually my literal heart–”

.

Danny glared at Clockwork’s idea of ‘help.’ “I bring three completely reasonable and competent people, and you bring them?”

“From my point of view, I am the one with the reasonable and competent people,” said Clockwork, gesturing at the combined forces of Nocturne, Ghost Writer, and Skulker.  “You, meanwhile, have brought three teenagers.”

“Are you really calling Skulker competent?”

“If not, he at least has experience in being outsmarted by you.”

“Hey!”

.

“Alas,” said Tucker, “the heart wants what the heart wants, and what it wants is freedom.”

“Where,” said Sam, kicking at a puddle, “is all this ectoplasm even coming from?”

“Around,” said Danny.  

“Ooh,” said Jazz, “it’s condensing it from the atmosphere?”  She paused.  “What are you all looking at me like that for?  I can have scientific curiosity!”

“I think it’s more because of what’s happened to your hair,” said Ghost Writer.

“What’s happened to my hair?”

“You don’t want to know.”

.

“Danny, I think I hate you,” said Sam.  They were sitting on one of Clockwork’s couches.  Clockwork had a lot of couches.  A fact that Clockwork seemed both bemused and distressed by.  

“Oh, trust me, the feeling is mutual.  As in, I hate me too.”

Clockwork sat down on the couch next to Danny.  “Daniel, I must tell you that while hate is beneath me, I am seriously regretting my earlier decisions.”

“Does that mean that you’re going to time travel back to–”

“Absolutely not.”

Tucker ran past them with a butterfly net, chasing down a green blur.  

“That’s a blob ghost, isn’t it?” asked Sam.  

“I do believe so,” said Clockwork.

“Well,” said Danny.  “At least this all makes us friends, yeah?  Can’t go through something like this without being friends.”  At least he’d get something accomplished with all this insanity.  

“I wouldn’t call myself friends with Skulker.  Or Nocturne.  Acquaintances, more like.”

“I notice you didn’t say anything about Ghost Writer.”

Clockwork shrugged.  “He’s somewhat more tolerable.”

“And me?”

“I suppose.”

The heart fell straight down, into Danny’s lap.

“Are you serious–”

[metalhoops]

Inspired by this post

Steve had watched the world end a hundred different ways. He’d lived the same day more times than he could count, watching the people he loved die or feeling himself die. There were things worse than death. There were memories he didn’t dredge up for fear of calling them into the waking world.

He'd held onto hope for the first twenty recurrent days, which had dwindled to a sense of steely determination until he’d lost count of the days. Then all that was left was the comfort of repetition. He was Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill, day in and day out. Steve kept trying and failing to save Eddie until it was all he knew.

Maybe he was Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and spent his life paying for it, tied to a rock while birds picked at his liver, only for it to grow back with each morning. Prometheus whose name, by definition, means forethought; one’s ability to consider possible futures. Steve had spent a small lifetime considering futures. It wasn’t a comparison he would’ve made on his own. That was Eddie, who’d spent his childhood with his head in thick tomes of fantasy and mythology.

Eddie Munson came to him like cheap furniture, in crudely disassembled pieces that Steve had been working tirelessly to put together. Each new loop brought him another piece of Eddie. His favourite colour was blue. He only woke up early on weekends to watch cartoons. He liked too much cream in his coffee.

The Eddie that existed in a world where Steve stayed with him and Dustin during the swarm of bats had told Steve his biggest dream was to make enough money to buy Uncle Wayne a proper home. His biggest fear was that when he died, no one would remember him.

Days or months later, with Steve repeating the same damn day, he’d finally learnt why Eddie’s love for his uncle ran so deep. Wayne had taken him in before his dad went to jail when the man caught Eddie holding another boy’s hand. In that world, Steve had stayed with Eddie in the RV as the rest of the group searched War Zone.  

Eddie’s mother died when he was six. He’d told Steve that later, or earlier. Steve had and has lost his sense of past and present. Eddie loved his mother deeply, though was unsure if that love had been misplaced. He recalled two mothers, one who read him bedtime stories and threw herself around the kitchen each morning with her wild theatrics and another mother who was distant and whose temper could turn on a dime. Eddie wasn’t sure which of those mothers was his and which was the mother of memory. All good storytellers know the story shapes itself in the retelling. Eddie’s mother was Janus, god of duality.

Steve understood. He loved and hated his parents. These feelings weren’t mutually exclusive. Steve loved Eddie because he’d spent the last hundred-odd days getting to know him, but Steve hated Eddie because he kept dying. Until he didn’t.

The boys lay side by side in the red-blue soil of The Upside Down, their bleeding sides caked with mud and demonic bat viscera. In the end, Steve wasn’t sure what’d done it. It’d been so long since he’d lived Eddie’s original death that it’d been smeared by the haze of memory and conjecture. All he knew was that a sea of bats lay dead around them and that it was over. Finally, over.

Steve removed his hand from where it was pressed into his side and extended it to ensnare Eddie’s. He felt muscles tug and tear from the walls of his ribs with the effort. Blood flowed freely from the cavity, but Steve didn’t care. He wanted to hold Eddie’s hand. Holy shit, they’d done it.

Somewhere along the way, Steve had fallen in love. It’d taken him ten more iterations to reconcile with the fact he could not only like a man but love him.  That was months ago, in Steve’s time. It was old news. “Steve, you still with me?” Eddie asked, his voice horse.

He was hurt, though not as badly as Steve. All his wounds were superficial. He’d be okay. Steve had been so sick of watching Eddie die, he’d been willing to put his body on the line to make sure it didn’t happen again.

In this loop, he was still ‘Steve’, not ‘Stevie’. They hadn’t grown close enough yet. Eddie only called him ‘sweetheart’ in the iterations where they kissed. Steve wanted to kiss him, but there was the taste of iron in his mouth.

“I’m okay,” Steve insisted, squeezing Eddie’s hand. He felt a sharp pain shoot through his side as Eddie pressed his hand into Steve’s wound.

“Christ, there’s a lot of blood,” Eddie muttered to himself. 

He was bad with blood. He’d scraped his knee down to the bone when he was seven and ever since, the sight of gore made him queasy. Steve wasn’t meant to know that yet. In this iteration, he hadn’t told Eddie about the loop. He’d tried before, but it never helped.

Pain and blood loss drag Steve down into a familiar oblivion. He expected to wake at the beginning of the loop, emerging in The Upside Down from Lover’s Lake, but instead, he found himself in a hospital room with Eddie in a bed by his side. It was late, too late for visitors, but Eddie wasn’t sleeping. His eyes were trained on Steve, equal parts concerned and curious.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Eddie confessed, as Steve’s eyes met his. 

Steve wanted to cry or scream. He wanted to untangle himself from the knot of cords and tubes to crawl beside Eddie in bed as they had curled up together in the back of the RV dozens of times before. He needed to hold Eddie to know he was alive, to understand he wasn’t going anywhere. Steve blinked away tears, balling his hands into fists. He didn’t want to scare Eddie.

“I scared you?” Steve choked out a mixture between a laugh and a sob.

Eddie didn’t know what to do. He never knew what to do when people cried. Steve learned that in the iteration where they’d lost Dustin. He didn’t want to think about it.  

“You almost died, man,” Eddie explained.

He somehow understood Steve wanted him closer. Eddie got out of bed, clutching his I.V. drip as he flopped into the chair by Steve’s bedside. He wanted to hold Eddie’s hand again, but he was out of excuses. He could tell him the truth, but he didn’t know what good it would do.

Steve was still used to thinking of possible futures. He was Prometheus who, unlike Sisyphus, escaped his torment. Steve wondered what happened to Prometheus after he was rescued. Did he return to a normal life? Does anyone bother to ask? Prometheus’ story is always about punishment. Afterwards, he was a footnote in the story of Hercules, but once the heroes leave the story, what’s left?

Eddie would know the answer, but it wasn’t a conversation he’d had with this Eddie. That Eddie was dead. This Eddie was and wasn’t him. This Eddie was Janus, god of abstract duality, god of beginnings and ends, god of life and death.

“Sorry my lame-ass face is the first one you had to see. Robin and the kids were in here all day. Wheeler left flowers,” Eddie tacked on awkwardly.

This Eddie didn’t know Steve. They were strangers. Of course, things were awkward. He couldn’t know he was the one person Steve wanted to see more than anything.

“No, Ed’s—.” Slip of the tongue.

“Eddie. I’m really glad you’re here, man.”

They were back to square one, but Steve could work with that. He’d been working with that for months. This time, Eddie would remember. This time, they had the luxury of taking things slow.

“One thing’s been bugging me all day,” Steve began.

After hundreds of days of getting to know Eddie, Steve had learnt a few shortcuts, a few ways to jump-start his way into Eddie’s heart.

“Can you explain what the hell Mordor is?”

It was a tried-and-true method. By that point, Steve knew Eddie’s response off by heart, but he wanted to hear him say it. Eddie gave him the same perplexed look he always did when Steve asked. It was as though Eddie thought he knew too much like there was some secret he wasn’t letting him in on, but he didn’t challenge Steve on it. He never did.

“Harrington, have you heard of Lord of the Rings?” Yes.

“No.” A million times.

“Tell me about it.”

Read Part 2 Here

[c-nstellati-ns]

Cole Cassidy stealing your cowboy hat and then he rides you until your balls are drained

fuckk yesss

you and cole were drinking buddies from back in the day, having gotten close during your shared time in blackwatch and the mess that was the downfall of overwatch itself. after everything went to shit, cole had decided it would be best to part ways till things blew over.

of course, you agreed all things considered. you would miss him, but It was for the best. you were only drinking buddies right? those secret shared kisses in the darkness of the bar, subtle touches underneath the table, brief looks to each other whenever reyes was saying dumb shit... only drinking buddies. right.

quite some time went by before you saw cole again. you were a lot older now, a lot wiser. you knew better than to fall back into those habits with the man again but... god, could you really resist? the moment his gaze locked onto you again, that same smile bringing you in once again. cole was older too now, but that charm never left- in fact, it came back better than ever.

who were you to deny the man of a shared drink, "for old time's sake?" he says. who were you to deny the shared bottle of whiskey, noticing how cole watched your lips carefully as you drank? and who were you to deny his sultry whispers against your ear as he fiddles with the buttons of your shirt?

cole cassidy was addicting in more ways than one. you would drink your liver dead if it meant seeing him like this again.

he steals your hat because, "if we're going to do this, we're doing this my way." you have no protests to his words, you drink up each and every bit of it all. he allows you to grab and grope at his body, stomach and thighs growing softer as he gets older. you let out a pleased hum when he pushes you down onto the bed like he owns you, grabbing at your erection with a satisfied sigh.

you can barely hold it all in when he lines himself up to your tip, his own cock throbbing and leaking over your stomach as he says, "god, you don't even know how long i've wanted this." his eyes screwing shut and head tilting back as he slams himself down with a guttural groan.

cole doesn't let you have the pleasure of being able to get your hands on him. instead, he ties them up with his bandana, forcing you to be still for him as he rides you like there's no tomorrow. the feeling of his weight dropping down on you repeatedly send sparks down your spine and makes you think you might never feel something as good as this ever again.

cole makes sure you know how much he's loving this- he's never been the quiet type after all.

he forces you to lay there and take him, repeatedly until his thighs burn deliciously and his hole drips with your spend to make sure you don't forget him when he leaves. he finishes himself off over your stomach and lets out a noise that is forever etched in your brain till the day you die.

he carefully unbinds your hands and lets out a soft sigh at the feeling of your touch all over him. cole made sure you didn't forget him but god, he would never forget you either. the soft touches, those loving words and your beautiful eyes that never failed to draw him in like all those other times. even now, despite being spread open in a mating press underneath you as you spoke such sweet phrases to him, he's never felt so comfortable and alive.

you made him weak. that's why he left in the first place, wasn't it? he couldn't afford to be weak.

that's why you weren't surprised to see his side of the bed empty with all his belongings gone. you'd see him in the future, at least you'd hope.

[jung-shook-iieee]

3:15 | JJK

⊶ pairing : jungkook x venom x reader. (f)

⊶ Warnings : cw: 18+ , alien sex? Not technically lol, unprotected sex, creampies, size difference, size kink, belly bulge, stalking, mention of eating people.. Yikes *, overstimulation.

⊶ Word count : 1.4k

" Jungkook and venom really likes you. "

⊶ A/N : venom is scary. Isn't he? 👀

⊶ A/N2 : don't ask me why I wrote this I mean i was just watching an edit of jk x venom and in the next few moment I started writing this. Hehe :)

                             °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Jungkook and his alien buddy aka venom doesn't know if that is love.

They only know that you make their heart beats fast every time they see you; they know that their palms start to sweat when they watch you smile at men who are not them; they both know why their stomach stops growling when your eyes meet by sheer coincidence and they know their cocks gets hard when they silently watch you sleep, hiding in the darkness of your bedroom.

Even though jungkook's body accepted the symbiote but still venom needed permission from his higher ups to stay here a bit longer.

You won't believe how strongly jungkook and the symbiote had built their relationship over a short period of time. They were one after all.

They both followed you around town while you ran errands in that nice short sundress and picturing how you were wearing nothing underneath. They would learned the streets and routes you took when you went out shopping with your friends, the stores you liked best, the dishes you preferred to eat when you went out to lunch with them, the drinks you loved to sip on warm afternoons. They watched as you turned away men who approached you on the way home, the ones who whistled at you - and wasn't it quite mysterious why those men disappeared the next day?

And there's no way you would know that the symbiote ate them alive after you left. Right? :)

And they weren't always this crazy about you. They weren't even aware of your existence until that day. The day when you were going home back and you were drunk, some old perverts tried to molest you. You surely did not remember them, but the moment jungkook laid his eyes on you he lost it, and so did venom. They helped you did not they? Venom munched on their livers in front of you and you weren't even scared of that..!! That's how they knew you were the one.

But jungkook did not wanted to take risk so he asked venom not to do something stupid, which might scare you away.

But then why in the middle of the night you feel yourself being dragged out of your bed by a strange presence??? It must be your dreams, those filthy dreams which can not be converted into reality right? But the grip on your hips were too strong to be a dream.

Jungkook sometimes fail to resist you, he's a human after all! and venom would only ignite his filthy thoughts about you , so they both sneak in your room and sometimes he let venom take control.....!!!!

Jungkook easily lifts you by the waist. he rips off your panties with his thick fingers, his chest is hard as he pulls you toward him, and a thick cock begins to rub between your folds.

"we're gonna make you feel so good princess. " Venom speaks inside jungkook's mind and jungkook mumbled a ' yes. '

" She's ours gguk, make her ours. " Venom growls over jungkook's shoulders, jungkook nodded his head, " She's mine, she's ours. "

it certainly can't be a dream, right? not when your cunt is completely soaked and jungkook starts hissing in frustration when his thick cock doesn't fit your tight slit.

your head falls back as the thick tip of his cock rubs between your slick folds and brushed against your nub.

" Just fuck her goddam kid. " Venom grumbles impatiently.

" Shut up V. We don't want to wake her up now. It's too risky. " Jungkook warned venom.

" Then let her see us, feel us. Let me out I'll take her. " Venom said impatiently inside jungkook's head. Jungkook knew you would not be able to take the symbiote for sure, he would have to prep you for that first.

" No we can't do that right now, fuck fine wait. " Jungkook frowned and he slammed his inside you making you whimper in your sleep. You arched your back and opened your mouth slightly.

"feels good, doesn't it, pretty baby?" Jungkook asks clutching your hips and using you like a fleshlight.

your sloppy cunt makes obscene noises as you are rocked back and forth, your nails scratch his thick arms, and as you reach the edge you gush onto his long shaft.

his chest slowly rises and falls, Beel feels so frustrated. your sweet cunt is too tight for his monstrous cock - damn it, by dint of grinding his head into your slit he'll end up cumming even before he has tasted your smooth walls.

" Ahh. Sto-p." you sob, looking between your thighs, with blurry eyes, slick of pre-cum mixed with your cream coats his huge cock, sliding over your thighs and down your legs.

" Don't stop gguk she's desperate for us. You cannot stop. " Jungkook nods and bites lower lip as started thrusting faster inside you.

Venom increased jungkook's dick size inside you and you can't get enough of it. Your eyes we're teary you could clearly make the difference between a dream and reality but you couldn't utter any word. You weren't pushing him away either and that made jungkook confused

Jungkook holds you firmly under your knees before spreading your legs wide and taking a deep breath. "you smell good and i'm sure you taste even better," he licks his lips before lining you up on his cock.

"Yes she smells divine jeon, the next time I'm eating her out till she faints. " Venom said over jungkook's shoulder. Jungkook only laughed at that.

his cock bullies its way into your slit. he stretches and spreads your cunt inch by inch. you cream when he's half inside, making his job easier.

You moan and cry out as his big hands hold you firmly, . his fat cock throbs inside your slit - in the darkness of the room you can glimpse the outline of his cock in your belly. it makes you feel dirty and aroused, being used as a toy by that creature or human as if you were made just to satisfy those huge, hungry beasts.

Jungkook knows venom is making his dick too big for you, but nothing can stop him, not now that your pretty pussy tightens around his fat girth. his cock throbs as he thrusts deep into it, his balls finally hitting your ass as he begins to bounce you on his veiny shaft.

he tosses you up and down on his veiny cock clutching you behind your knees, holding you wide open as you scream and cum - and he thrusts even deeper, making you come again and again.

" She's such a good girl," Venom murmurs in jungkook's ear as your legs dangle over his forearms. you could cum again just from the position, you're sure.

you become a doll in jungkook's arms as he uses you, bounces you up and down, licks and sucks your neck, murmurs in your ear before filling your belly with his sticky seed

there's so much of it. more and more, there seems to be no end. fills your belly and overflows from your cunt. his cum gushes from your slit even though his thick cock plugs it inside.

when he pulls it out, a pop echoes in your room.

your mixed cum slides out of you and he casually drops you on the mattress. shocked and still shaking you try to catch your breath, your spread pussy is aching, and your limbs are flabby as you slump onto the pillow and fall asleep exhausted.

They both admire the view huffing, venom would fuck you the next time he already made that decision.

They kissed you and cleaned you, though venom was persistent on leaving you like this so you could remember this but jungkook cleaned you nevertheless. He's a good guy isn't he?

Jungkook tucked you under the blanket and left with venom.

maybe you'll have a different dream this time or maybe you'll dream them again. Because, it was a dream after all, wasn't it?

                              °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

A/N 3 - do you guys like venom? I mean he's hot. 💀

@yellabella77 @g-o-bs--fanfictions @cherryunie @goofyhoffy @kooookie @miyaohyeahh @minpdrecs

* please help me grow my community. :)

[and-not-where-we-choose]

Mystery Spot. Sam is on day 244. He's seen Dean die 243 times. He's chewing drywall, as it were. He can't deal with Dean's face anymore. His voice. His gestures. He hasn't slept in 143 nights. He hasn't had a minute without Dean. Leaves him out of his sight, he dies – new day, new rise and shine, shitty rock song and oh, he wants out, at least a break. Can't, though, can he. He's tried to keep Dean safe throughout the day. Tried that 243 times and failed every single day, same day, new day, same day, everyday.

So on day 244, something gives.

He's still got the sensory echo of Dean being fucking electrocuted on all channels of his brain when he's ripped out of non-existent sleep, same as always, and he boils over. Dean is tying his stupid fucking laces while singing and Sam throws his knife at him, hits the jugular and windpipe and Dean doesn't even have time to turn around before he's choking on his own blood. It shouldn't, really shouldn't, but it feels good for a second. Sam's actions have impact, even if it doesn't get them out; he feels like he's got steady ground under his feet for the first time in months.

Day 245, 246, same thing. 247 and he's lunging over onto Dean's bed in one big step, topples him flat onto his back and guts him navel to sternum, drops his head against his shoulder and almost laughs before he wakes up again.

Back at it on day 248 and they fight it out, in the few seconds before Dean notices the knife it almost feels like they're kids again, sparring first thing in the morning, and then Sam slices his femoral artery. He's going for the liver the following day, soft and squelching, and the next heat of the moment iteration has him sticking sharp metal into the left side of Dean's neck and out the right.

He goes a little crazy with it when he finds out how easy he can hold Dean in a headlock, chokes him into unconsciousness and it's quiet for the first time in a long, long time, and when Dean's eyes start to flutter open after half a minute, he makes it quick and painless. He trails the knife over his stomach the next time before sliding it in, for the feeling of deliberately doing something just for the sake of doing it, the illusion of control.

At one point he holds him for a while with his back flush to his chest and feels a hammering heart through the back of his ribs, shushes into his hair before ending it. They repeat that one, because Sam likes the sensory overload it throws them in; he can still feel his own heart jumping in his chest every time before they start again. Sam's pressing soothing kisses to Dean's head, and they just land a little lower with each passing day until he's got a racing hot pulse between his teeth and quick breath against his cheek. Dean doesn't even notice Sam pulling the knife the last few times until it's in him to the hilt.

On day 280-something Sam wakes up and notices Dean's off-tune singing doesn't make his blood boil anymore and the idea of having big green eyes pinned to him in a mix of anger and pleading kind of turns his stomach as it should. So he nods, greets Dean's rise and shine, Sammy with a sleep-scratchy hell yeah and makes a new plan for keeping him alive till Wednesday.

[maxwell-grant]

hi. you've mentioned Donald Duck a few times in your posts, with scrooge being one step removed from pulp heroes, Donalds Paparinik (Italian superhero identity which I love, the new PK Adventures where lovely) in terms of their relation to the Diabolik line of European superheroes and Donalds general tendency to run head first down slippery slopes. so I'm wondering if you have any further thoughts on his comics and weird place in the superhero/pulp world

Oh God, do I. I mostly wanna talk about the superhero side of things but I feel like it's worth mentioning I grew up with Donald Duck comics, specifically the Carl Barks ones. The picture above wasn't taken by me but I own and recognize like 7 of the books in it, my mom always bought these that collected several of his stories and had these beautiful painting covers so we could read them together, and I still flip through them on occasion and love them very much (I really wanna buy a translated edition of Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck to read with her but those cost a liver). Donald Duck was one of my childhood hyperfixations and I got my hands on all the comics and movies and cartoons I could find with him, and I actually did read several of the Italian comics, I could go down the stationery right now and grab 5. I first stumbled on Paperinik via those, and for long I didn't think much of it, because Donald Duck moonlighting as a superhero for decades isn't the kind of thing that comes up often. I just thought Paperinik was a weird but funny idea for the longest time and always liked rereading a story where he puts on the costume to scare a rich jerk into leaving his granny's farm alone. And THEN I stumbled onto PKNA, Paperinik New Adventures, and oh my god this rules so much.

Actually one of the best superhero comics I've ever read, it's just constantly and consistently doing these wild absurd stories and swings into genre territory and quality storytelling. It's famous for opening it's first issue with aliens genociding an entire planet and I thought that was kinda overselled, and it's not frequently this dark (sometimes it actually gets darker though, and I probably stopped before it could really get there), but it is a very weird comic. It's more akin to Fantastic Four's serialized consistency than any kind of graphic novel prestige storyline but it is frequently so good at what it does, even the lamer issues are still worth reading. I like describing it as Donald Duck falling headfirst into Batman-level resources, forced to deal with Superman problems (on both the "huge sci-fi horrors" and "people being really, really irresponsible dicks" ends), while trying to stay Ditko's Spider-Man and failing. These do not feel quite like any Donald Duck comics I'd read before and while they would hold up with a different character, I do think they deserve credit for how they make it still always feel like you're reading a Donald Duck story, if a slightly different one. In fact I'd even say PKNA actually makes the concept feel more suited for Donald Duck in a way that brought the idea full circle.

To those of you that don't know, Paperinik started as a villain, or more of a revenge fantasy. By that point there was a tradition of doing a lot of parody stories with Donald that started in 1953. By the late 60s, readers were dissatisfied with Donald Duck always constantly being mistreated by the rest of the supporting cast and losing unfairly, so it was decided to have one of those parodies feature Donald Duck as uncovering the fortune and resources of "Fantomius" and becoming a masked rogue able to get back at them by achieving the impossible, in that he both steals from Scrooge and defeats Gladstone's luck by framing him for it.

He had a stint as a master thief until it was decided it made him too mean, so he morphed into a superhero trying to overcome his prior bad reputation and using his new skills and gadgets (still prone to malfunctioning) to deal with his typical rogues and new ones, and having the admiration of his nephews who don't know that Unca Donald and Paperinik are the same. PKNA, in turn, was sort of a reboot, shedding the previous history and pretty much getting rid of Donald's traditional supporting cast and having Donald stumble onto a different set of resources and means to fight crime, but keeping the idea of Donald Duck having a superhero alter-ego that nobody suspects. The scale and menace of the threats he's up against DRASTICALLY increases, and if anything that fact is crucial to what allows these to still feel like Donald Duck stories, even with Paperinik being a genuinely impressive and cool hero able to save the world. Nobody believes Donald Duck could be a cool and impressive person if he tried, and so Paperinik becomes not just a power fantasy, or a call to something better or be someone better, but it becomes a key component of Donald Duck stories: a thankless job he's expected to do that he doesn't want to do until his pride or something crucial is on the line. These are still parables about human failures and what can be learned from them.

I'd even say a big part of why they succeed is because they introduce a character who can pick up Donald's slack as a comically unpleasant ill-tempered grouch in need of a lesson protagonist in Angus Fangus, a character who's sort of J Jonah Jameson meets Harvey Bullock. Angus has it out for Paperinik and gets up to a lot of the antics you would traditionally expect Donald to be doing if this was a classic Donald Duck comic (and even has a Gladstone-esque rival of his own in another reporter), and getting to learn lessons and be humbled and even have his own set of impressive moments. The choice to give an entirely new cast around Donald greatly added to the comic's ability to experiment and do new things while still keeping the core of Donald.

I actually like a lot of these new dynamics better than the ones he traditionally has, I love The Raider and Lyla and One and oh god Xadhoom, Xadhoom is so fucking cool, such a cool design and name, this powerful roaring supernova stickbug alien person in a crusade of murderous vengeance who names herself her language's equivalent of creditor because the death of her entire planet is the DEBT SHE WILL COLLECT IN BLOOD ENERGY and she is just the most 90s anti-hero ever made except she's stuck in a Donald Duck comic getting into comedic situations and learning to laugh and feel emotions and learn from her mistakes again whether she likes it or not. These two are so good together.

Even with a superhero lair and supercomputer and gadgetry handed to him, Donald Duck is so comically outmatched against his opponents he still winds up winning through guile and will and comedic trickery. Donald desperately wishes he could go on self-serving ventures or just sit at home and enjoy tv, and not get dragged into dealing with murderous alien invasions, or cyberpunk revenge stories, or collapsing future timelines, and still having to solve those problems so there's a world to come back. The stories are frequently fun and they are prevailingly comedic and very good at it too, but they also get a lot out of taking weird turns into unexpected territory.

I haven't finished it because I wasn't able to find it in full or keep track of what's the og series and what's the reboot, still trying to sort that out, but god what a find this series is. What a great strange turn in the history of this great strange character.

[ryuzakemo128]

The Carina's Heart Galaxy

Chapter One: Terms & Conditions

Pairing: Poly!141 x Female Reader/ You

Content Warning: Drug use, Emotional Distress, Grief, Humiliation, Disarray and Chaos.

Words: 1398

Masterlist

Note: Up to you to on which one from task force 141 should be talking to you in the diner.

Credit for Dividers (And Template): @cafekitsune + @strangergraphics

Summary: Why would you? Who would date a nerd like you? No one ever did during high school or college. So why would anyone date you now?

You are a qualified Physicist working in Quantum Physics and Quantum Computing. It is two subjects near and dear to your heart. Something you have poured ten years of your life into. A love you knew only in romance movies and cheesy romance novels. You had no intention of dating an actual person. Why would you? Who would date a nerd like you? No one ever did during high school or college. So why would anyone date you now?

You had a roommate who had more boyfriends than you had chances at dating. You are an anomaly, you had expertise in areas like gaming, physics, Krav Maga and Taekwondo. Pottery and ceramics were your way to soothe yourself when you felt like your world was ending. Even though everyone else seemed to be fine.

One afternoon while you were clearing out the at the end of your shift. You were about to leave to head to your black vintage impala. Your father had it, and he passed it down to you when he passed from liver cancer. You packed your gear from the day's failed experimental trial.

When you reached home, crashing in your basement bedroom after changing into something more comfortable. A black turtleneck and a deep brown cardigan, followed by grey sweatpants.

You made a dating profile months ago. Discarding it when you didn't have any luck through it or offline. Your bio had “I'm a former fat kid, turned physicist nerd, cat person and prefers cats. A master of Krav Maga and Taekwondo. Studying in Astrophysics to broaden my array of knowledge. If you're willing to put up with a nerd like me, then let's talk otherwise. Thank you for your time and consideration.”

Your roommate found your dating profile and laughed hysterically. “You actually made a dating profile?” She gasped, her laughter turning into a wheezing fit.

“I made it years ago. I stopped looking at it when I had no luck in the realm of dating.” You told her. “As far I am aware, a nerd has no chance in that world.”

While you were talking with fervent, frenetic, frantic passionate lecture of Quantum computing, your roommate was talking to guys at the charity ball, you were so into it. Your roommate told you to stop talking about your work, but it came out accidentally. You stopped after apologising and when you attempted to leave early.

You never felt so embarrassed in your life. “What is the use of a charity about quantum physics if no one talks about it?” you said to yourself, mostly.

“You're so weird,” she scoffed, her voice dripping with disdain. “People want to talk about fun stuff, not quantum physics.”

You didn't speak for the rest of the night, mainly hiding at your table until your roommate left a random. You walked to the diner to eat something. The starry dress you wore felt more like one made for a child. A childish desire. You didn't feel pretty as you thought you were.

You sat in the booth in the dim lit diner, hoping to hide in your shame. You ordered two burgers, a heap of sweet potato chips and three sodas. All for yourself. “My diet is in ruins.” you muttered to yourself.

You were interrupted when a figure slid into the booth across from you, their presence commanding a blend of confidence and casual ease. You glanced up, the dim light revealing a man with a rugged demeanour and an aura that suggested he was someone who had seen and experienced much of the world. His dark, intense eyes met yours with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

“Mind if I join you?” His voice was deep, tinged with a faint accent that was hard to place. He settled in before you could respond, seemingly unaffected by your surprise. “Seems like you're in need of some company.”

You hesitated, momentarily caught off guard by the intrusion. “I, uh, wasn't expecting anyone,” you stammered, your fingers nervously fiddling with the edge of your starry dress. “I'm just here to... eat and wallow in my embarrassment.”

He chuckled, a sound that was both soothing and unsettling. “Well, that makes two of us. I was just looking for a place to unwind and maybe drown out some of my own frustrations. Seems like fate brought us together.”

“I don't believe in stuff like that. Reserved for romantic novels and romantic comedies,” you snorted. “Quantum entanglement disproves it too sufficiently. You know, when two particles link together in a certain way no matter how far apart they are in space. However, no one takes it as romantic as I see it most of the time.”

The man leaned back, crossing his arms as he studied you with an expression that was both intrigued and amused. “Quantum entanglement, huh? Sounds like you’ve got quite the mind for this sort of thing. Most people wouldn’t bring up particle physics at a diner.”

“Limited areas for lectures and what not.” you sighed as you went back to your wagyu burgers. He commented on them with, “Wagyu burgers, huh? You’ve got good taste. I wouldn’t have pegged you for someone who indulges in such luxuries.”

“You should see me with sushi, I eat more there. It's my ultimate guilty pleasure, well of them. Another is breakfast quesadillas.”

The man’s eyebrows lifted, a smirk playing on his lips as he leaned forward, clearly intrigued. “Sushi and breakfast quesadillas, huh? I have to admit, you’re full of surprises. But tell me, what brings you to a diner late at night, eating your way through the menu?”

“Other than eating my feelings?” you snorted. “I guess I’m just feeling a bit out of place. There was this charity ball earlier tonight, and let’s just say I wasn’t exactly the life of the party.”

The man’s gaze softened, his earlier amusement giving way to a more empathetic expression. “Sounds like you had a rough night. I get it—sometimes we all need a bit of solace, a place to be ourselves without the pretence. I’m more than happy to lend an ear if you want to talk about it.”

“Eh, at this stage. I think it's better to forget it happened.” You replied. “I have Stella and my new kittens to worry about.”

The man’s interest seemed to intensify at the mention of your pets. “Stella and your kittens, huh? They sound like a source of comfort for you. I’ve always found that animals can be some of the best company when you’re feeling out of place.”

“Stella is my car out there.” you said, pointing to a vintage black Chevrolet Impala 1967. “My old man loved his coffee and dipping stale bread inside it. Loved take-out more than anything. Died from liver cancer when we all thought it would be cardiac complications. I never expected him to go, not this soon. I guess he’s the reason I keep the car and the habits he loved alive. Stella’s a relic of him—there's something comforting about driving her, like I’m still connected to him.”

The man leaned in, his expression a mix of curiosity and genuine interest. “I can’t help but be intrigued by your story. You’re not like anyone I’ve met before. Most people wouldn’t open up like this to a stranger in a diner.”

“Well, when you have nothing to lose. You end up making weird choices.” you commented. “Or in my case. Get sucked into probability and win heaps of money during a trip to a casino.”

The man’s eyes widened slightly at your unexpected confession, his curiosity piqued even further. “A casino, huh? You’ve had a run of luck, it seems. Most people would shy away from such bold revelations. But here you are, sharing it with a complete stranger.”

“Like I said, when you have nothing to lose. You end up making weird, odd choices with reckless abandon.” you confessed, “I guess you could call it a form of catharsis. Or in this case. Getting high as a kite.”

The man chuckled when you said, ‘getting high as a kite.’  He leaned back in the chair, “Interesting way to cope. But you do you, I guess.”

By the time you were home, you walked into a mess, you frowned thinking, ‘What on earth happened while I was gone?’

[loversj0y]

bad day?

cc!wilbur soot x gn! reader

TWs: dissociation, explicit implications of self harm, blood

word count: 2.1k

note: please, please, please, heed the trigger warnings. i have been going through a rough time and i wrote this fic as a coping mechanism, so please be aware of what you are going into. it's not my best work but it brought me some comfort to write it, so i hope it may bring you some comfort to read it

There was blood on your hands. 

Why was there blood on your hands?

You looked up in the mirror. It took a few minutes to recognize where you were. You didn’t recognize yourself, but you knew you were looking at yourself. 

You were standing at your sink. There was blood on your hand, dripping into the sink. Fuck. 

You were slowly coming to, turning on the water from the sink and gently running your wrist until the tap. You held in a whimper, hissing at the feeling. As irritating as it was, the cool water and the sting helped ground you more and more into yourself. Once you washed the majority of the blood off your hands and arm, you sighed, slowly taking a seat on the bathroom floor. You couldn’t stand staring at the stranger in the mirror anymore. Opening up the cabinet, you pulled out the first aid kit, nestled at the back behind Wilbur’s spare hair products. The first aid kit collected dust most days now. It almost felt like it was mocking you as you opened it up, pulling out some supplies.

You made quick work out of cleaning. You didn’t want to have to stay here staring at your arm for any longer than you had to, and you’d rather not still be here on the floor when Wilbur got back from filming. After you were properly bandaged, you pulled a hoodie on and just collapsed straight into bed. You had no conscious idea of what time it was, but you felt exhausted regardless. 

You stared at your bandage for a few moments, tracing the line of where the gauze met your skin. Wilbur taught you how to do it properly. Your recovery was no secret to him, and he had always been incredibly supportive. However, the first time he had seen the way you bandage your arm, he looked almost appalled and immediately pulled out the first aid kit again. 

���Darling,” he was chuckling lightly, as if the issue was something far lighter than it was, and it made you feel more at ease as he started undoing the bandage you had done. “I’m going to teach you how to do this properly, alright? I don’t want you getting an infection on me.”

“And how do you know how to do it properly?” You asked, eyebrow raised. 

He hummed, pulling out some antiseptic cream and gauze. “You don’t spend as much time in and out of hospitals for no reason without picking up small things. I went in once because I had a pain in my side that my brain convinced me was my liver failing.” He started rubbing the cream onto your arm so delicately as he continued, “While they went to do tests, I was sharing a hospital room with this guy who had gotten this bad infection on a scrape on his leg. They were training some new nurses, so they started going over appropriate techniques for wrapping cuts and scrapes.”

“And you listened?” 

He looked up at you, pausing his hands to just smile fondly at you and chuckle, “of course I did. As convinced I was that my liver was failing, I also just thought to myself: well, if I survive this, there’s nothing saying the next time I get scraped up won’t be my end. So may as well learn how to prevent it and buy myself some time to say goodbyes.” 

You snorted softly, “That’s pretty dark.” 

“Yeah, I wasn’t doing the best at the time,” he chuckled lightly, “but it was for the better. Because now, I can make sure that doesn’t happen to you.” 

You smiled gently at him, leaning forward to kiss him gently. “Thank you, Wilbur.” 

“Of course, darling. Anything.” He smiled, turning his attention back down to finish wrapping your arm. 

Once he finished, he turned your hand over, kissing the top of the bandages. 

“If you’re trying to be cliché, that’s the wrong side,” you hummed. 

“Oh please, I saw your face when I was wrapping you, I know how tender your arm is right now. The day one of my kisses hurts you will be the day I die.”

You flushed softly, taking his hand and squeezing it gently, “Dramatic much?”

“For you, darling? Always.” 

You thought about that night as you pulled your sleeve back down to cover the bandage. No matter how much you knew Wilbur wouldn’t judge you for it, you still felt a shame bubbling in the back of your chest. Instead of pondering it or letting it consume you, you let the exhaustion take over you instead. 

You woke up to the feeling of arms wrapping around you, shifting and sighing. 

“Hi, darling,” Wilbur spoke softly as you turned to face him, settling into his arms, “Bad day?” 

You nodded softly, sighing and looking up at him. He had a gentle smile on his face. Never judgemental, always kind, even if he was finding you in bed after a few days. Even if your room was a mess and your hair was oily and you couldn’t stop crying. He always met you with nothing but kindness. 

He gently brushed some hair out of your face, gently kissing your forehead. He spoke gently, “I saw the first aid kit on the bathroom floor.” He kept the light smile on his face, as if he was asking you about the weather, not your own mental doom. “Do you want to talk about it? Or just lay here for a bit.” 

You leaned forward, resting your head on his chest. When you spoke, your voice was a bit jagged, “Lay here first. Talk after.” 

He nodded, pulling you into him closer. You pressed your head onto him, relaxing slowly. You focused on the sound of his heartbeat, closing your eyes again. He hummed softly. You could spend the next day just lying here before you spoke again, and he would never complain. He’d take as much time as you needed. 

You didn’t know how much time passed before you opened your eyes again. When you did, you watched Wilbur’s face for a moment. Contently, he continued to hum, eyes closed as one hand absentmindedly traced figures into your back. You took a deep breath before speaking softly. 

“I don’t really know what happened,” you spoke. His eyes opened slowly, his gaze full of nothing but love and acceptance. He nodded a bit, waiting for you to go on. 

It took you a while to continue, but he didn’t push, just waited patiently. 

“It felt like a glitch or something. One second I was staring at myself in the mirror and the next I was staring at blood dripping into the sink. I don’t even remember doing it.” 

He nodded, keeping you close, “Did something trigger you?” 

You frowned a bit, “I- I don’t know. I don’t think so, I just…” You trailed off, unsure of how to put it into words. 

“That’s okay. To not know,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead, “walk me through your day. I’ll try and see something you don’t.”

You nodded, taking a deep breath. “Alright, uh. I woke up pretty late. You’d been gone for a while already, the bed was cold.”

“How were you feeling when you woke up?” He asked softly. 

“Uh,” you thought, “hard to say. I- I guess numb? Didn’t particularly sway one way or the other.”

He nodded, “Alright, continue.”

You nodded, “I went to the kitchen first. Didn’t change out of my pajamas, but I went and I got water. Then I made some breakfast, something light, but I don’t remember what.” You took a deep breath, thinking back and sighing, “I- I remember feeling gross.”

“Gross?”

“Like physically? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d showered, so I just felt gross. So I went to take a shower. I- I felt… rough. Couldn’t look at myself without feeling gross, no matter how much I’d cleaned myself. At one point, I was just staring at the floor completely… blank. There were no thoughts really going through my head, it just felt like I couldn’t get out of my head.”

“What got you out of it?” He asked gently. 

“My phone went off. I- I never actually checked it, but the sound startled me enough to pull me out of it. I got out, got dressed and everything. And I stopped in front of the mirror to put product in my hair, but when I started looking at myself, it just… cut out from there.” You finished, frowning and focusing your eyes on the seam of his sweater. 

He nodded softly, “Can I see the bandage?”

You shifted your arm, lifting the hoodie sleeve to show him. “I used your method, don’t worry.”

He inspected it carefully, nodding. “Should probably change them, it’s been a while. Are you alright with me doing it, or would you rather do it yourself?”

“You can do it,” you spoke softly. 

He nodded, standing briefly to grab the first aid kit. “How here are you?”

You sighed, thinking. “About 95%. Still not fully here, but I’m mostly all back to myself.”

He nodded, sitting back on the bed next to you. He carefully started undoing your bandages, humming again to himself as he finished getting them off. 

“This will sting,” he warned, waiting for your nod before gently starting to wipe the wounds with an alcohol wipe to disinfect them. You hissed softly, and he gently shushed you. 

“I know, darling, it’s alright. I’m almost done, you’re doing great,” he spoke softly, distracting you until he’d finished cleaning them. 

“There you are, the hard part is over, love,” he spoke softly, grabbing the antiseptic cream and gauze, starting the process of dressing your wounds once more. 

“Scale of one to ten, how bad do you think they are?” He asked softly.

“Physically? They’re not that bad, probably a six. Mentally, I’m not sure. Probably a nine.” 

“A nine?” He asked softly, focused on wrapping the gauze over your wrist but still listening intently. 

“It’s just another reminder that I’m not doing good. That I’m never going to be able to fully heal. I know healing is not linear, but it’s still frustrating to have a physical reminder of it.” 

He nodded softly, “I can understand that. I think you may just be focusing on the wrong thing.”

You tilted your head, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I think when this happens, you focus on the whole thing about breaking the amount of time you’ve been clean. Am I right?”

You nodded, so he continued. 

“I think instead of focusing on the streak being broken, we should focus on how good it is that you went as long as you did. You’re treating an addiction like a competition instead of an addiction. You can’t just stop all at once, especially when you were used to doing this every day. So instead of being upset that you didn’t go as many days as you wanted or that you have to start over, focus on the fact that you went as long as you did without doing it. Because it’s a big thing, and a good thing. It deserves its praise.” 

He finished wrapping your wrist, and he placed a gentle kiss to your palm. 

You sat up, slowly leaning forward and resting your head against his shoulder. 

“Thank you,” you whispered softly. 

He wrapped his arms around you gently, whispering back, “of course, darling.” 

You kissed his shoulder lightly, and he rubbed your back gently. 

He waited calmly for you to pull away before pulling you into a gentle kiss. He placed a hand on your cheek, gently rubbing his thumb on your cheek. 

You kissed him back gently before resting your face into his hand. 

“You said your phone going off helped break you out of it when you were in the shower, yeah?”

You nodded softly, looking up at him. 

He used his other hand to gently brush your hair from your face, “alright. Moving forward, when I’m not home or not with you, I’ll text you at least once at the start of every hour. And unless I know you’re busy, if you don’t respond within… thirty minutes, I’ll call you. Does that sound good?” 

You nodded softly, “That sounds good. Maybe within twenty instead of thirty though.” 

He nodded, “alright. We can experiment with it or change it up occasionally to see what works best. Good game plan?”

“Good game plan,” you nodded softly. 

He smiled, pulling you in for another gentle kiss. 

“Good. Now, choose your comfort film of choice, alright? I’ll order your favourite in too, God knows I won’t be cooking tonight.”

[hand-picked-star]

The 13th Anniversary Arshi Fiesta

Moodboard :Historical AU

Whispers of the Heart | Chapter 16

I am not very good at writing ffs. I even read ffs very selectively. But it was an attempt of me to participate in the 13th-anniversary arshi fiesta.

I might be wrong about certain aspects of that age and era, but it's a fantasy, so why not? I don't own Arnav and Khushi and the story is purely fictional and has no relation to any living or dead. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

WARNING: 18+, MATURE CONTENT

Chapter 16

Dear Arnav,

I am writing with the last hope of reaching out to you with my words. I know you don't want to talk to me, and that is completely justified. This is my last attempt to contact you. I will not disturb you again.

First of all, I just wanted to say sorry for hurting you and your family unknowingly. I didn't know your father was married. As a sixteen-year-old girl with eyes full of rosy dreams, I couldn't resist the charm of my handsome neighbour. I was living with my old mother as my father died in the war when I was very young. Your father did marry me under my mother's persistence. And these are no justification for how I hurt your mother. I am truly sorry for what happened because of me. I didn't know any of that until your father shot himself.

Shortly after your father's death, I discovered I was pregnant. My mother refused to take any responsibility for me, so I moved to the other side of the city to start a new life with my baby. But perhaps God is punishing me for my misdeeds. I am dying. My liver is completely destroyed. The doctors say I only have a few months to live.

I had completely lost all hope, but one day I saw you at the farmer's market. You looked so much like your father, and upon asking, I learned your name. I knew in my heart that you were his son. I know it's extremely selfish of me to ask for your help, but you are the last hope of this dying mother. Please take care of my daughter after I die. She is only eleven. After I pass away, her only options will be either an orphanage or the street. I don't have any relatives left. Please, Arnav, take care of your sister. You are her last hope.

And if possible, please forgive me. I am leaving my address on the back. If you can, please visit us, your sister would like to meet you too. Even if you don't want to fulfil my request, I would still like the chance to apologize to you face-to-face.

Natalia Singh Raizada

As Khushi read the letter she found on the coat rack, which must have fallen from Arnav's coat, she felt her world flip upside down. Her mind went back to their fight last night, and Khushi remembered all the horrible things she had said to him. In every way she could hurt him, she hurt him where it hurt the most.

Last night, Arnav came back after a few hours and then locked himself in the study. Khushi spent the night on the living room sofa as she couldn't go back to the bed they shared and fell asleep in the wee hours of dawn. Arnav went to work before she woke up. Now, Khushi sat at the dining table with the letter, looking at the cold toast and omelette he had made for her. The food made her cry, not because it was cold but because the person who had made them. She had hurt him terribly. Still he was considerate enough to make breakfast for her. She polished off the plate like it was the most delicious meal she ever had.

Khushi knew she had to apologize to him. She would bear all his anger and do whatever it took for his forgiveness. An overwhelming sense of failure as a wife, as a best friend, as a lover gripped her heart in a vise-like grip. She had known him her whole life. He had always taken care of her. He had defied his conscience, risked facing scrutiny from the society and her babuji's wrath to marry her, always providing her with the best of his world. All she needed to do was love him and trust him. And she had failed at that.

She had reached a conclusion without verifying the facts, believing him to be a liar, all because she felt insecure. She had believed someone's words who clearly wanted to drive a wedge between them, instead of believing her husband.

As time seemed to crawl by, each minute feeling like an eternity until Arnav returned, Khushi found herself unable to sit still. In an effort to occupy her mind and pass the agonizing wait, she began meticulously cleaning the house, hoping the physical activity would distract her from the tumultuous thoughts swirling in her mind.

Arnav returned very late at night, entering the house silently. Khushi had been waiting for him in the living room. When she saw him, she stood up, and they stared at each other for what felt like an eternity.

"Did you have dinner?" Khushi broke the silence, her hands wringing continuously.

Arnav nodded silently, looking at the floor, and turned towards the study, likely intending to spend the night there. However, he stopped midway when she called his name.

"Arnav... I'm sorry," her voice caught, but she managed to get the words out. Khushi was so ridden with guilt that she couldn't say anything more.

Arnav nodded silently. "It's okay," he said, still looking at the floor. When Khushi didn't say anything further, he spun on his heel to go to the study, locking the door behind him. Khushi walked up to the door and tried to knock, but instead, she placed her hand flat against the wood and pressed her cheek against it, desperate to feel his presence through the door.

(end of flashback)

That was seven days ago when Khushi apologized to Arnav. Although Arnav said it was okay, things were not the same anymore. He didn't sleep in the study anymore, but he didn't hold her in bed either. He didn't reject her touch though. But one time when Khushi draped her hand across his chest, he stiffened. Khushi withdrew her hand silently as her whole body burned with hurt. She never thought her touch would hurt him someday. He hadn't touched her at all, and it was the longest they had gone without being intimate with each other. He only replied when asked a direct question and couldn't even look at her. His nonchalance had made Khushi so emotional that she couldn't initiate a heart-to-heart conversation with him. All her words had jumbled into a giant mess. Khushi feared whether she had killed the part of him that loved her. She was terrified he wouldn't be able to forgive her for how she had hurt him. That was the one past he had tried to escape his whole life, and her behaviour, her accusations, brought him back to square one. Khushi could feel he was hurting but didn't know how to make things right.

All these thoughts swirled around her head as she sat on the bench. She usually sat there every afternoon, feeding the swans that gathered in their front yard. Some of the swans had become friendly and let her pet them. One such swan came to her, seeking attention. Overcome with emotion, Khushi hugged the swan and let go of the tears she had been holding back. She missed Amma so much. Amma would know what to do in this situation, how to talk to the love of her life, and how to break down the wall he had built around himself. As Khushi calmed down, she thought she knew what Amma would say. Amma would say that Khushi just had to apologize sincerely. She had to make things right between them, and for that, she needed to talk to him and bare her heart and soul.

She gathered herself up and went inside the house. She changed her saree and tried to present herself a little better. But Devyani ji came and whisked her away to a nearby tea party. It was already dark when she returned, and she knew Arnav was home by his shoes at the door. But he was not in the bedroom, and the study door was closed. It was no surprise that he was there. Khushi sighed sadly, realizing her opportunity of talking to him for that day was gone. She went to their bedroom to change for bed. One of his shirts was lying there on the back of a chair. She took it in her hand and brought it to her nose, pressing her face in it. Tears gathered in her eyes. She took the shirt and wore it over her pyjama bottoms. Instantly, his scent engulfed her in a tight embrace, making her miss him even more.

Not being able to get into the bed without him, she went across the living room to the study door. She knew it was locked but still gave it a try to twist the doorknob. Surprisingly, it was open. She went inside silently and spotted him lying on the sofa, sleeping soundly, still in his work clothes. There were dark circles under his eyes. She wondered if it was more peaceful for him to sleep here than with her. Khushi missed his touch so much. She sat on the floor near his hip and softly, without trying to disturb him, placed her head on the side of his thigh and closed her eyes. This little touch would have to do for now, she thought to herself.

But Arnav's eyes flew open, and he got up with a start, surprised to see Khushi on the floor.

"What are you doing down there? Come here," Arnav said, grabbing her by the shoulders and making her sit on the sofa, face-to-face with him.

"I am sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. I just couldn't sleep, so I came here and found you on the sofa," she prattled on, clutching her night clothes.

The Arnav looking at her was the Arnav she knew and loved throughout her life, not the one who couldn't even look at her. And Khushi's dam broke. She continued looking at him as her tears became uncontrollable, and she started talking rapidly, hardly making any sense.

"Arnav... I am so sorry... what I did was wrong... I shouldn't have done that... I am so sorry... please, forgive me," she let out with great difficulty amidst her hiccups.

"Shhh... Khushi, it's ok....stop crying," He took her face in his hands, wiping her tears urgently with his thumb. Khushi placed both of her hands over his on her face.

"No, it's not ok. What I did was completely wrong. I should have talked to you, I should have believed you."

"Why didn't you?"

"I...I felt so.... I don't know why she made me feel that way, Arnav.....She, I mean, Ms. Kashyap... " She took a deep breath and continued, "When I found out about her last summer, I thought you would marry her. And I loved you, and I assumed you didn't love me back.... that you loved her. My mind kept forming scenarios with you and her. It was.....it was horrible." She paused for a bit and then whispered, ".....But it isn't an excuse for what I did, or what I said. It was wrong."

Arnav looked at her with an unreadable expression, grasped both of her hands in his and raised them to his lips. He placed a kiss on her knuckles as he got lost in his thoughts. But Khushi wasn't finished.

"And then I saw you coming out of that lady's house." Arnav's eyes snapped to meet hers.

"Which lady?"

"Who came to our house the other day."

Realization dawned on Arnav as she continued talking. "And the lady has a 'Raizada' in her name. I should have been smarter. I judged too quickly. I thought of the worst..." Khushi lowered her eyes and continued, "I read the letter she sent you. It might have fallen from your coat jacket... "

As Arnav absorbed all the facts and contempleted about what she had actually thought, his face became horrified.

"Oh, sweetheart, I am so sorry," Arnav said, engulfing her in his arms. Khushi clutched the back of his shirt tightly with both hands, hiding her face in his neck. Arnav held her close by her waist, gently rubbing her back to soothe her. "Shhh... I should have told you about her sooner, but I was caught off guard. I wasn't ready to deal with her yet."

"You don't get to say sorry today," Her voice muffled in his neck, tears soaking his shirt. "I am sorry. I should have believed in you." She let go of his shirt and peppered kisses all over his face.

"Shhhh... calm down," he said, taking her in his arms again. As she calmed down, their heartbeats synchronized against each other. Her limbs felt heavy.

Arnav brought her face to meet his and cupped her cheeks to wipe the remnants of tears. Her hands wrapped around his wrists instantly. She was starving for his touch and his thumb tracing her cheeks gently made her believe that everything was right in her world again. He tilted her head slightly to look in her eyes.

"And I am sorry about Lavanya too," he said softly. When Khushi was about to protest, he silenced her with a shake of his head. "There was nothing between her and me, Khushi. And I am saying this for the last time," he whispered, touching their noses together, their breaths intermingling.

And, then he rested his forehead against hers and whispered, "I've loved you for the last two years, Khushi and I love you now..... and I'll love you even when you have some of your front teeth missing." This made both of them laugh and their laughter dissipated some of the sadness around them. As their skin continued to touch, the air filled with a different kind of electricity.

"We probably should talk some more," Arnav murmered in the space between them.

"We can always talk tomorrow."

Their lips met with a fierceness that surprised both of them. All the hurt, guilt, longing, and anxiety blended together, transforming into this fiery exchange. Arnav pulled her onto his lap, clutching her waist in a bruising grip, while she clutched his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair, holding on desperately.

Soon, Their kiss calmed down, transforming into a more languid and relaxed pace, the frantic energy calming into something more smooth- a contained burn rather than a wildfire. His fingers traced a tender path along her jawlines, her hair and settled into the curve of her neck. She responded by pulling him closer as a silent plea for more. Their bodies moved in sync, drawing closer until there was no space left between them. Her hair cascaded around them like a curtain, cocooning them from the outside world.

His hands, full of desire, began to wander across her body, moving slowly but purposefully toward her chest. With a gentle squeeze, he caressed her soft curves over the shirt she was wearing, eliciting a shiver from her as she felt his body responding accordingly underneath hers. Breaking the kiss Arnav looked at her deeply, both of them breathing heavily. His hands continued to explore, tenderly tracing the contours of her form. He undid the first two buttons of the shirt and placed a kiss on the centre of her chest. He continued unbuttoning and kissing the newly exposed skin as he went, gradually revealing her body inch by inch.

A soft whimper escaped her lips, when his fingertips came in contact with her naked skin, their roughness grazing her soft and sensitive flesh, causing goosebumps to erupt all over her body. He wrapped his lips around one of her hardened peaks and sucked it softly.

Cradling his head in both of her hands, She placed a soft kiss on the crown of his head, then on his forhead, his eyebrows and kept planting tiny kisses in between soft gasps wherever her lips could reach as he showered her chest with attention. His lips and tongue explored each inch of her with tender care. His kisses travelled to her collarbone and neck as he asked against her skin, "And why are you wearing my shirt?"

"Because it smells like you, and I was missing you," she whispered into his ear, placing a soft kiss before sinking her teeth into his earlobe.

"Did you just bite me?" A smirk threatened to form on his lips as he looked at her sternly.

"I might have." Khushi bit her lower lip to control her giggle.

"You know I can bite you back, don't you?"

"You will bit me back anyways."

"Tell me to stop biting you and I will. I am an obedient husband after all." They grinned at each other, eyes twinkling with mirth. "And stop biting your lips, that's my job."

Arnav pressed his lips to hers and as promised nibbled on her lower lip. They began undressing each other. When Khushi tried to take off the shirt, he stopped her and said in between kisses, "Keep it on. It looks good on you."

He carefully positioned her in his lap again by holding her by her bottoms and they both hissed at the contact. Khushi steadied herself by gripping his shoulders as he slowly guided her down onto him, inch by inch. She whimpered in his neck as he sheathed himself into her to the hilt. Without delay, he began to move her in a steady rhythm, repeatedly filling her as her nails dug into his skin. His each deliberate and measured move sent waves of pleasure through both of them. Her soft gasps near his ear, as his length pressed deeply into her, causing shivers to run down his spine. His hands glided along her back, her sides, her bottom, her thigh, everywhere he could reach. And she melted into him. Her breathing quickened and she pressed her lips fervently against his as she surrendered herself to the sensation.

Khushi alternated between kissing him and gazing at his eyes, as she moved over him. She explored every inch of his skin available to her with soft, lingering kisses. From his neck to his jaw, his shoulders to his nose, as if she worshipped him with her lips. Her hardened peaks brushed against his chest as his hands gently controlled her movement. Their rhythm was unhurried, akin to a slow dance. In between deep strokes, he held her tightly for a bit and simply breathed her in with his forehead resting on her collarbone, his breath tickling her skin, while her fingers combed through his hair.

As Khushi savoured every moment of their togetherness, she realized she liked gazing into his eyes up close like this. She was captivated by the emotions swirling in his caramel-brown gaze. There was an intensity in his touch, in his kiss, his gaze tonight, that unsettled Khushi. And she hated it. It wasn't the kisses or the touch she disliked, but rather the fact that she made him feel like he needed to reassure her of his love. He didn't need to. Not anymore. She knew he loved her and she promised herself to always trust in his love. Now, she needed him to have the same faith in her as well.

"I love you," she said, cupping his face and gazing deeply into his eyes, feeling a slow, intense fire threatening to consume her.

"I know," he whispered as he closed the distance between their lips. As he deepened the kiss, one of his hands joined her body where they were joined. With time, they both welcomed the fire that ran through their veins as the sensation wrapped them in its warm embrace.

"I love you more than you know,'' she breathlessly murmured against his lips.

<previous> | <next>

@arshifiesta @featheredclover @phuljari

[theres-a-body-here]

Ghostface with Creep!reader

A new killer has been snatched by the Entity. Something about their cheap Halloween werewolf mask and casual clothing made some of the realms residents uneasy

Was drawn to you from the beginning

Not in the way you'd expect

He was offended

He saw you as a cheap imitation. A copycat

A masked killer that stalks their victims and records their last moments?

You were basically begging to be stabbed

The Entity shut that down real quick before he could push his blade into your liver

He made sure to downright ignore you after that event

That was until he spectated your trials

As the Entity's favorite, he had many "perks". Being able to spectate matches as they happened was one of them

You weren't bad, but you weren't great

He'd grit his teeth whenever you'd prioritize filming the survivors with your video camera instead of injuring them

He'd facepalm whenever you'd swing at a vaulting survivor, only to hit the wall

He needed to intervene

Don't get it wrong. Not for your sake, but for his

Danny hates copycats, but he hates it even more when said copycat is shit at it

Makes him look bad

After your trial, he grabs you by your arm and pulls you deep into the forest

The Entity hasn't stopped him yet, so you guess he isn't trying to kill you again. You let yourself get dragged along

Get ready for a long rant followed by an even longer lesson in stalking

"What the fuck was that? You didn't even bring one slowdown perk. Come on now. If you're going to imitate me, at least do it with finesse." Behind his mask, Danny's lips twisted into a snarl.

You occupied a spot on a toppled tree trunk, engrossed in reviewing recordings on your video camcorder. Evidently, his lecture failed to captivate your attention.

"The Entity seems to be pleased with my performance. If I was doing bad she would've let it be known. Get off my back"

Your voice retained an air of calmness, though the underlying hint of a threat was unmistakable.

Despite how it appeared, you and Danny have started to "hang out" more after that

It usually goes like this: you exit a trial and Ghostface begins to hound you over your mistakes. However, he always gives a few pointers before he leaves for his own trials

He would never admit it, but he slowly started warming up to you

Not even 2 months later, Danny shares his perks with you

"Here you faker. Maybe now you'll finally get more than one kill per trial"

He still criticizes and taunts you as you both sit near the fire with the other killers within hearing range

But it's more friendly than malicious

Amidst the silence around the campfire, Danny couldn't resist taking a playful jab at your looping skills, a smirk playing on his lips. "You know, I've seen toddlers with better footwork when it comes to catching survivors."

You shot him a mock glare. "Hey, not all of us can be stealthy killers with years of practice."

A chuckle escaped from Danny's masked lips, but before the moment could settle, Frank chimed in with a taunt of his own. "Yeah, Danny's right. I've seen snails with better chasing skills."

The campfire's atmosphere shifted instantaneously. Danny's chuckles ceased, replaced by a tense stillness. His masked gaze settled on Frank with an intensity that sent shivers down the spines of those around.

Danny's voice was low and controlled, his anger barely contained. "You've got a death wish, asshole?"

Frank seemed to realize his mistake too late, his face paling behind his own mask under the weight of Danny's glare. He stammered, trying to backtrack, "I... I didn't mean..."

But Danny's patience had worn thin. He stood abruptly, the menace radiating from him unmistakable. "You listen, and you listen well. You don't get to insult them. Only I do."

Frank swallowed hard, his bravado evaporating. "I... I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean anything by it."

Danny's gaze didn't waver, his message conveyed without a need for further words. Frank nodded frantically, looking as though he'd just escaped a close encounter with the Entity itself.

Danny's shoulders visibly relaxed as he resumed his seat by the fire, his attention returning to you. His voice regained its familiar tone of teasing, but there was an undertone of possessiveness. "Now, where were we? Ah, yes, talking about how you managed to lose a survivor while they were practically walking backward."

You and Danny didn't exactly exemplify the poster image of a perfect and conventional friendship dynamic, but it worked out well enough

Masterlist here

[pink-sparkly-witch]

The One That Got Away - Chapter Two

Warnings: angst, one small use of mild language, mentions of casual sex.

Word Count: 1.8k

Pairing: Firefighter!Dean Winchester x Female Reader

A/N: A little break from the heavier warnings in this one. I didn’t have a beta for this, so all mistakes are mine.

You can catch up here!

My Masterlist     AO3    Ko-Fi

Dean knew in his gut that the fire in the old bowling alley hadn’t been an accident. Damn, I’m good at this job! he thought with a smirk. He headed down the corridor and went to the office to talk to the Chief about last night's inferno and the fact that he had proof the building owner had purposely started the blaze to claim the insurance. 

He slowed his steps, and his heartbeat picked up when he heard Bobby talking on the phone. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but there was something in the Chief’s tone that was familiar even though he hadn’t heard it in a long time.

“Maybe…” the older man sighed, “maybe it’s time to come home.”

No, it can’t be! Dean thought. There is no way on earth that Bobby’s on the phone to…

“That’s all I’m asking, Princess,” It was her. There was only one person Bobby called princess - at least affectionately - and it was the same one he did.

Y/N.

Dean stepped into the doorway, his head cocked to one side, and he frowned expectantly. Expectant of what he hadn’t quite figured out yet. He knew he wasn’t owed anything from Y/N or Bobby. Still, he watched intently as the Chief’s eyes widened at his appearance in the doorway, and his heart dropped at the thought of Bobby kicking him out of the office. Instead, the Chief raised his hand in an ‘enter’ gesture.

“I, uh- I gotta go. I’ll call you later. I love you,” Bobby returned the phone to its cradle and leaned back in his chair.

“Everything alright, Chief?” Dean couldn’t help but ask. Bobby nodded, and Dean knew it was none of his business but pushed anyway.

“Was that her?” He could’ve cursed himself for how desperate he sounded, even after all this time. Bobby nodded again, his eyes softening, and gestured for Dean to sit.

“Danny’s in a hospice. His liver and heart are failing, and he has severe brain damage. The doctor says he’s only got about three months. She deserves to know.” Bobby grumbled, and Dean nodded.

“She does,” he said, turning his gaze to the window, unsure if he should ask or even had the right to. “How is she?”

“She’s good. I planted a seed about coming home. We’ll see if it takes root. She’s settled there, you know? She has a good job and a good life which she deserves. But this could change everything, son.”

Dean nodded again, not trusting his words and not wanting to get his hopes up. He was never one to be on the right side of good luck or fate, and he didn’t see why that should change now.

“You’ll be the first to know, Dean. Well, after Jody, of course,” Bobby grinned at the slight smirk he got from Dean. “Now, what can I do for you, Captain?”

Dean’s head was spinning with the afternoon’s turn of events. Danny was dying, and Y/N might be coming home. He’d never gotten over her. Couldn’t or wouldn’t, well, that was the million-dollar question. He scoffed as he opened his fridge and pulled out a beer.

Y/N had been the love of his life. He was pretty sure she still was. He knew she would’ve stayed if he’d asked her to, and she would’ve happily gone to the University of Kansas, but he didn’t. He couldn’t, and it was a decision he’d regretted every day. One he could still feel breaking his heart to this day, and Dean swore if he could go back in time, he would, and he’d ask her to stay. 

No one could compare to her. It’s why none of his relationships had worked out. Cassie, Anna, Lisa… they weren’t Y/N, and Dean couldn’t get past that. He tried, he really did, but once Dean saw their flaws and imperfections, it couldn’t be unseen, and whatever feelings he had for them had disappeared quickly, fizzling into nothing. That was when he knew it would only be a matter of time until he broke their hearts.

So, Dean took solace in the only thing that didn’t make him feel like a complete asshat for playing with people’s emotions: one-night stands. There were no obligations or commitments or the chance to catch feelings. He could have a fun night and go home, no strings attached. And it worked for a while.

He could take seeing Y/N’s face beneath him every time he slept with a girl. It was what got him through it sometimes. It was Y/N’s body that his hands were running over. It was her soft, supple skin he could feel under his palms and her smiling up at him, not the woman he was with.

Y/N’s big, beautiful eyes would shine with awe and adoration as she gazed up at him with lust-blown pupils. Her stunning hair fanned out on the pillow below her. Dean couldn’t even guess how often he saw Y/N under him rather than who he was with. But something had changed in him a year ago, and he’d started to notice the girls getting younger. Or maybe he was just getting older?

One night he’d been looking for a pretty girl to let off some steam with. All the women who looked around his age were with someone already or sporting a ring. Of course, their younger counterparts were just as pretty, and he quickly zoned in on an attractive woman at the bar.

Flirting had always come naturally to him, and he had her eating out of the palm of his hand in no time. She was attractive, but Dean found, for the first time, that her personality was distinctly lacking, and her outlook on life made her younger age glaringly obvious.

He had glanced around the bar for another potential companion for the night but only saw young, rowdy, desperate girls who couldn’t handle their liquor, and they held no appeal to him. At some point, he’d have entertained them. He’d probably even have found them ‘cute’ at one time, but not now.

He realised for the second time that night that these were things that had never bothered him before, but now even the mere thought of talking to them made his half-hard dick go limp. So, he turned his attention back to Stacey, or was it Stephanie? and continued to woo her until he accepted her invitation to get out of there.

Dean left her place in the wee hours of the morning, unsatisfied and still wanting. He’d brought out his A-Game and had her screaming his name and writhing in pleasure during foreplay. As soon as he was inside her, though, she became static and just… lay there, spread-eagled, and left him to it. Her moans and clenching heat told him she was enjoying herself; she just happily took everything from him, let him do all the work, and gave nothing in return.

He suddenly sympathised with every woman who’d ever faked an orgasm to make lousy sex end quickly. Even he seriously thought about faking it to get out of there fast. But, if there was one thing Dean Winchester would never do, it would be to leave a woman unsatisfied. So, he grabbed her legs, pushed them up until her knees rested on her shoulders, and pounded hard and deep until her quivering and clenching walls triggered his release.

And so ended Dean Winchester’s playboy ways. He’d taken a couple of girls home since then, but it was after Stephanie… Stacey? Or was it Sarah? that he was no longer interested in desperate, inexperienced girls who couldn’t handle their alcohol. The two he’d had since were closer to him in age and experience and had personalities that didn’t make him groan internally.

Dean knew he shouldn’t get his hopes up that Y/N might come home. It had been so long, and they were different people now. She might even have a boyfriend in Chicago for all he knew about her now. His biggest regret was that he didn’t ask her to stay, and now his mind was in overdrive, thinking about what he’d do if she did come back.

He needed to talk to her. That much was clear. If Y/N was single and still had feelings for him, he knew he wanted to try again with her. If she didn’t, well, maybe it’d be the closure he needed to move on and finally settle down.

Bobby said she had a good life up there, so them trying again depended entirely on her returning permanently. Or did it? And that begged the question: if she only came home to care for her father and had every intention of returning to Chicago when he died and they hit it off again, would he go there with her?

Yes. Dean couldn’t watch her walk away from him again. It damn near killed him the first time and would surely succeed the second. He grabbed another beer from the fridge and sighed heavily.

Why am I even thinking like this? I don’t even know if she’s coming back yet, and I’m planning our future!

Shaking his head in frustration at himself, he picked up his phone and called his best friend and confidant. He needed someone to tell him he was acting crazy. He needed to say all of this aloud, talk it through and try to make sense of it.

“Hey, Dean. Everything okay?” Benny greeted.

“Hey, Benny. Yeah, I need to vent if you’ve got the time,” Dean replied.

“Of course I do. What’s going on?”

“You remember Y/N, right? My childhood sweetheart?”

“Come on, Dean! We both know she was much more than that to you.”

“Yeah, she was. Is,” Dean corrected himself. “Bobby told me her father’s not doing good. There’s a chance she’s coming home.”

“I’ll be right over,” Benny responded.

“Thanks, man, I appreciate it.”

Three hours, six beers and several rambling confessions later, Dean felt lighter and grateful he would get some sleep before heading into his next twenty-four hour shift. He was glad Benny had come around. Dean listened to everything Benny had to say and even helped him figure out some of the things Dean didn’t have answers to yet. The confirmation that he wasn’t crazy helped too.

Although Benny agreed that Dean was getting ahead of himself, he’d encouraged Dean to talk it all through so he could prepare for all outcomes. Dean couldn’t fault his best friend's logic and talked through everything he had running through his mind: the good, the bad and the ugly.

As Dean brushed his teeth and changed for bed, he felt prepared for whatever way this panned out, whether that was with or without Y/N Y/L/N. He hoped it was with her, but the chances were it would only be temporary if she did come home.

Next Chapter >>

Tag list: @deans-baby-momma @deans-spinster-witch @leigh70 @stoneyggirl2 @hobby27 @candy-coated-misery0731 @iprobablyshipit91 @twinkleinadiamondsky @mrsjenniferwinchester @spnwoman @snackles87 @perpetualabsurdity @hoboal87 @synmorite @nancymcl @trannydean @nic-kolas @jc-winchester @winchestergirl1720 @globetrotter28 @nelachu2423 @kayleighmeister @venicesem @ladysparkles78 @roseblue373 @suckitands33 @tristanrosspada-ackles @silentbutscreaming @lacilou @kazsrm67