#Replaced Miracle au

[laynore-x]

--"Replaced Miracle AU"--🐆✨🕯️

An Encanto au where Antonio is now the protagonist without a gift, Mirabel is the outcast who left casita at the age of 15, and after Alma's death, Pepa was the new matriarch, but things didn't go well after that.

[forlix]

‧ ❆ ˚ 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝・h.j.

— stars flare brightest in the absence of light, and you see his clearer than day.

words・6.4k

pairing・han jisung x female reader

genres・college!au, friends with benefits to lovers, snowed in trope, smut, MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS THAT INTERACT WILL BE BLOCKED, angst, ANGST, you have been warned, hurt/comfort, i can't write normal fluff to save my life, happy ending!!!, semi-slow burn

warnings・depictions of insomnia, recurring nightmares, graphic violence, character death (in the nightmare), fears of abandonment and falling in love, alcohol consumption, humans helping each other heal. smut warnings under the cut

playlist・stay - acoustic by jonah baker・all of me by big gigantic・babydoll (speed) by ari abdul・oasis by exo・volcano by han

a/n・hi, here's my second installment of winter falls. writing this was immensely challenging and twice as meaningful, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. thank you to my may for being so fucking instrumental in piecing together this rollercoaster—this one is for you, i love you. thanks to my sahar for everything, always and forever. and thanks to all of you for being here. happy new year ♡

smut warnings・spitplay, unprotected piv, please practice safe sex!!!, car sex, dirty talk, jisung's dick game is kinda crazy, squirting, lots of aftercare

Every time Jisung closes his eyes, he sees somebody’s back.

It’s leaving. Traipsing somewhere he can’t follow. He tries to chase it—he always does, he never learns—but the premise doesn’t so much as surface before the ghosts circling around his ankles go for his throat instead. They snare him by the shoulders, force him to his knees, slam his forehead into the permafrost hard enough to break bone. They make sure the next time he tries to move will be the last.

So he remains, keeled over in the cold, until tearwater clings to his lower lashes in small icicles. Until bloodstained snow coats his lips like the manifestation of a curse. Until the back has disappeared.

Who does it belong to? He’s left to wonder. Where is it going?

Why can’t I follow?

Then he wakes up.

No longer does he lay awake for hours afterwards, scouring the dream’s every frame for his answers.

Now, he tosses and turns in clammy sheets until his exhaustion wins.

Now, he welcomes sleep like a miracle granted by some pitying god.

You see him.

Through a living room packed with red-faced partygoers and dissected by oscillating strobe lights, albeit, but you see him anyways. 

Jisung can barely make out the rest of your face—he blames the lighting, or the soju, or both—but your eyes alone turn him to glass. Not a fancy vase through which the world distorts, but a simple pane that puts him and his ghosts on full display.

He hopes you like horror movies.

Felix knows you, because of course he does, and Jisung has never been happier to call the extroverted Australian his friend than when you come over to say hi. You stumble out of the crowd all smudged makeup and sweaty skin, your figure hugged by a short black dress with two diamond-shaped openings just above your hips, your glossy lips curved in a drunken smile. Jisung immediately wants it against his mouth.

Instead, it disappears behind his friend as you pull him into a quick hug. A few wisps of your hair dust over Jisung’s arm, momentarily replacing the smells of grease and vodka with cherry blossoms and vanilla.

“Lix, hey!”

“Darling, it’s good to see you! Feels like it’s been ages.”

“I know, right? How are you? How is everything?”

“Good, thank you. Just happy the semester’s over.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Then you go to lift your drink and discover thin air in its place. “Or I won’t. Whoops.”

This prompts Jisung’s first contribution to the conversation—and his first effortless laugh in a long while.

“Eventful night, huh?”

He meets your gaze from all of two feet away this time, and his knees buckle under him. That gaze, fuck. So clear and true, like a prism of glass refracting light into a rainbow. He would let you refract him a thousand times over if he had any light to give.

“Maybe,” you giggle. “Seems I’m a little too happy the semester’s over.”

“Wanna not get a drink to celebrate?”

Your expression flickers. Not in a bad way, more like you hadn’t expected him to ask so soon—or for yourself to have your answer so quickly.

A strobe light catches right under your eye and refracts the color in your blushing face. A rainbow.

“I’d like that.”

He tilts his head towards the kitchen. You give Felix’s elbow a light squeeze before moving past him; he gives Felix a glimpse of his growing smile before falling into step behind you. The blonde shakes his head, throws back the rest of his beer, then swivels at the sound of someone calling his name from across the foyer.

Felix will get drunk enough to forget the sight of you leading Jisung up the stairs, two bottles of pink lemonade tucked under your arm. Nothing stronger, as promised.

Jisung asks his question an entire minute after he intends to. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Somewhere I can see your pretty face without having to squint,” you reply, and his stomach tumbles like a schoolboy with a valentine.

You don’t stop at the second floor. Instead, you nudge open a door Jisung swears just materialized to his left and emerge into the night air.

It’s warm for December, but he’s still met with chilly winds licking down the sides of his neck. That’s not the only reason he shudders, though. Below his feet, he finds a metal platform akin to that of a fire escape. Above his head, a staircase that looks one forceful step away from dropping off the side of the building.

You turn towards it. 

In a hurry, he sputters, “I’m, uh—I’m not sure about this.”

A beat passes. Your hold on his wrist loosens, not to let go, just to trace wordless reassurance down the back of his hand. Your fingers feel perfect sliding into the spaces between his, like drops of honey in the craters of soufflé pancakes.

“It’s safer than it looks, I promise.”

Jisung heaves a sigh. It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

You’re right, though. The iron rungs are surprisingly rigid beneath his feet, and the two of you make it to the roof with no trouble. He does stumble when you pull him up onto the gravel, but it’s intentional, a purposeful blunder to have you closer. To snag another glimpse of that blush, another trace of that floral vanilla.

“Sorry,” he whispers almost directly upon your lips. And that earns him all three.

The next hour evades him for the most part, and Jisung is pissed about it. He’s with the woman of his dreams under a sky so clear it’s almost lustrous and he’s too shitfaced to recollect when he gave you his hoodie to wear; what you said that made his lungs capsize with how hard he laughed; how you ended up so close to each other, your legs strewn over his lap, his hands tracing over your thighs.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things. He remembers how frighteningly easy you are to talk to; he remembers your habit of smacking his stomach when you get flustered; he remembers you getting flustered a lot. He remembers the timbres of your different laughs and how your stunning features crinkle with each. He remembers feeling like a pane of glass in front of you, just like he had downstairs, and he remembers liking it, somehow. Liking the way you see through him, the way you allow him to just exist as he is. Liking the way you acknowledge his ghosts with such nonchalance, inviting them over for tea and biscuits.

He wants to remember everything about you.

It’s not often he wants to remember anything.

Eventually, your conversation comes to a natural close. In its absence, Jisung notices that the alcoholic sludge in his brain has largely diffused; with it, the rumbling bass of the party below. The full moon hangs at its highest point, blanketing the two of you with anticipatory silence, nudging you towards the only topic you’ve yet to breach.

He meets your gaze again, from all of two inches away this time, and his insides twist.

“You’re still drunk, aren’t you?”

You blink at him, not following. Then he leans his forehead against yours, lets his eyes flicker to your mouth with such unbridled want that you’re instantly dizzy—and no longer confused.

Regret pools in your eyes moments before they close. “Yes, I think so.”

Your lips are so, so close that he can feel the air shift between you when they move, can feel the soft warmth emanating from them. Jisung pulls away before he does anything stupid.

You do the stupid thing for him.

You push his shoulders to the plaster behind him, push yourself onto his lap with a swing of your body and a slotting of your legs on either side of him. 

The plush of your thighs hugging his hips, the curves of your breasts pressed against his chest, Jisung tries to stare up at you, perplexed, aroused. But you’re so close that he can’t, so he settles with whispering upon the underside of your chin, “what are you—”

“Gimme your lemonade.”

The authoritative words come out in a slurred haze, and he all but hastens to oblige. 

You pluck the plastic bottle from his wavering grasp. His empty hand hovers as if uncertain where to go. But matters as trivial as hand placement drop off his mind’s precipice as he watches you unscrew the cap, the slope of your neck illuminated by spindly moonlight, and without thinking he pushes his hands beneath the hem of your—his—hoodie.

The skin of your waist is warm and smooth where his fingertips are cold and calloused, the juxtaposition unimportant in your reciprocal desires to touch and be touched.

“Open,” you murmur.

His jaw goes slack, firstly from pure disbelief. Then, obedience. The dark locks that obstruct his vision of you fall away as his head meets the brick half-wall behind him, as if the midnight breeze itself mandated their removal.

You pour some of the pink liquid past Jisung’s parted lips. Stray rivulets slip down his cheek and vanish beneath his neckline. You break eye contact to follow their path with dilated pupils and fluttering lashes. With unadulterated desire.

He swallows, gently, and feels the sweet substance surround his tonsils.

He swallows, forcefully, when you wrap your lips around the bottle, the plastic still slathered in his spit.

The swig you take is long, deep. Your throat bobs and your eyes close as if you’re savoring a finely-aged nectar. Then your lips are popping off the opening with a soft thwock, leaving a thick strand of saliva to suspend, suspend, suspend until the very second it’s about to drop, which is when you collect the residue with a deft swipe of your tongue.

“A placeholder,” you breathe, and Jisung’s head careens. A shared bottle. An indirect kiss.

“You’re a monster,” he croaks.

You giggle and lean down, curling a hand around his cheek, pressing a wet kiss to his Adam’s apple.

“Tomorrow, if we’re both sober…”

One, two, three pecks up the length of his jaw.

“...and you still remember my address…”

A suckle to the lobe of his ear.

“...you can kiss me, for real.”

A trembling breath.

“And then some.”

Jisung moans, loudly.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things.

He shows up at your place shortly after sunset the next day. You swing open the door, your face already alight with your world-ending smile.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Then he’s kissing you like a man famished.

Jisung learns to love your back, that night. He loves its dips and curves, loves its rise and fall. Loves how it arches into him, how it looks drenched in his cum. It’s the back of his dreams.

The back in his dreams keeps walking.

Jisung has never liked winter.

He has never liked its winds, whispering woefully as if mourning something unnamed and unseen. He has never liked its palette, whitewashing the world as if refracting a rainbow in reverse.

He has never liked cracking open his eyes and seeing the scenery of his nightmare outside his window. Nor does he like trudging over the sleet as if weighed down by the same ghosts that break him time and time again in his dreamscape. They love winter. 

And this winter, he swears, is the bitterest yet. On the nights when he’s allowed to sleep, the nightmare comes in such sharp relief that he thinks he’d rather anything else, the ghosts meaner, the blood redder, the silhouette slower. It’s an act of mercy when he’s still awake by the time bleached sunlight perforates the curtains, resting upon his salted cheeks and balled fists.

This winter, it is not just dislike that he feels towards the gray winds—it’s hatred. A maelstrom of loathing so large and dark that Jisung no longer knows where it’s headed or what it’s directed to. Or who.

When winter break comes to an end, he’s probably the only person who’s happy about it.

His friends certainly aren’t, looking like a line of angry nutcrackers with their folded arms and thunderous faces standing outside Greem Cafe.

Jisung calls out a greeting as he jogs towards them, and cue the grumbling.

“What is there to smile about? Enlighten us.” That’s Hyunjin. “I have to deal with four finals and three essays in the next five days and this guy is smiling.”

“He’s accepted his fate, I reckon.” That’s Felix. “We should do the same, boys. Let ourselves down easy, y’know?”

“No, no, he’s smiling because he remembered to bring me his chem notes.” That’s Jeongin. “You did, right? Please say you did.”

Jisung is stunned into silence. “Can I not be happy to see my friends?”

“No,” Hyunjin and Felix reply in unison.

“My bad,” he sighs.

“My notes,” Jeongin repeats.

“I have them, dude. Let’s sit down first.”

The younger boy shouts an impassioned “THANK YOU” at the sky like the clouds just saved his GPA. Jisung reaches for the door to the café, then stops at the sound of Felix’s voice.

“We’re waiting on one more person.”

He turns towards the blonde with puzzled eyes. He’d been under the impression the study session would comprise just them four.

“Who?”

Felix’s response falters on his tongue when he catches sight of something in the distance, and his face changes in a way Jisung’s seen before.

“Look behind you.” Felix shuffles past him, raising his voice to shout, “yo!”

Jisung glances away from the newcomer as quickly as he sees her. It’s not until his eyes pivot to the fire hydrant across the street that he processes her identity.

In one second flat, his mind clutters full. He thinks back to that party, when all it took was the sight of your smile for him to theorize you were the most exquisite thing ever made. He thinks back to the next evening, when he kissed you and verified his hypothesis. He thinks back to what followed and would continue to follow in the few days that remained before break: entwined tongues and emblazoned hickeys, whitened knuckles and whiny praise, snapping hips and shaking bedframes.

This winter, Jisung swears, is the bitterest yet.

But seeing you, the scarf wound multiple times around your neck doing nothing to hide your gorgeous smile, feels like catching a fragment of summer in his frozen hands.

“Thank god,” Felix groans before embracing you. Collapsing on you, more like. “I’m saved.”

You reach around to pat the boy on the back, your eyes brimming with laughter. “Lower your expectations, please. I did well on one exam.”

“You aced the midterm. That automatically makes you a rocket scientist,” Felix corrects, his voice muffled into the shoulder of your coat. A few beats of silence pass. Then, “this is comfy.”

“Okay, okay, let’s go get some caffeine in you,” you giggle. “We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

Felix straightens up sleepily. And sadly. “Superb.”

Jisung hangs back as you introduce yourself to Hyunjin and Jeongin. He doesn’t even notice his growing smile until you’re standing directly in front of him and for the first time in three weeks there’s the smell of cherry blossoms in the air and a rainbow shining on his face again.

“Hi,” he offers.

“Hey,” you reply.

Hyunjin is the one to shatter the prolonged silence that follows. “Are you guys betrothed?”

Felix and Jeongin stalk into the café snickering. You and Jisung trail behind with flaming cheeks.

It takes Jisung two and a half hours to talk to you again. At that point in the afternoon, Felix is napping on the second practice test you’ve given him; Hyunjin has downed three shots of pure espresso and is currently viewing his screen with concerning intensity; Jeongin is at another table on a quiet Zoom call with his chemistry T.A., Jisung’s notes clutched to his chest like a life vest. And you’re leaning back against your seat opposite to him, scrolling through your phone in what he presumes to be a well-deserved study break. As good a time as any.

He opens up his texts with you. His fingers fly across the keyboard.

Jisung: do you have plans after this?

Your eyes stutter to the top of your screen, linger there for a moment, and lock onto Jisung’s from across the table.

He presses his lips into a thin line to suppress his smile. You let yours spill over in full form, and with it comes a soft giggle that would be worth getting his number fucking blocked just to hear one more time.

Three gray dots appear before elongating into a prompt response.

Y/N: I was gonna ask you the same thing…

He’s the one who laughs this time. Fuck, you’re cute. You’re so cute.

Jisung: can i take you to dinner? Y/N: Yes, I’d love that :) Y/N: When should we leave? Jisung: 9? Y/N: Sounds good~ Jisung: cool Jisung: it’s a date Y/N: It’s a date! Y/N: Excited 💛

With that, you put your phone face down and return to work, though your lips remain privately upturned. Jisung wants to kiss them again.

He also wants to turn you into a mess on his cock again.

Or both.

He doesn’t get much studying done after that thought surfaces.

Jisung: me too <3

When nine o’clock rolls around, you and Jisung begin cleaning up your work stations in near-perfect simultaneity. There’s confusion written all over Hyunjin’s and Jeongin’s faces as they watch you swing your backpacks over your shoulders—but Felix’s expression is a blank slate as he sips from his macchiato. Your ingenuity isn’t the only reason he invited you today.

As you make your way out of the café, your shoulders brush once, twice, and then Jisung drops his hand into the space between the two of you without uttering a word. You scoop it up in your own without missing a beat.

He steps into the freezing night feeling warm all over.

“You know what I realized?” You say as you walk towards his SUV.

“What did you realize?”

“We’ve never had a sober conversation before. Can we change that tonight?”

Jisung has broken hearts before.

There’s no euphemistic way to describe his tendency to abuse the sensitive organs, to wring them out and throw them away like irrelevant trash. To juggle and drop them with a sheepish laugh like they’re nothing more than props in a circus act.

He doesn’t do it to save himself or his partners from getting hurt or any self-ingratiating bullshit like that. It’s for himself, all for himself. All to unload his balls and his mind for fifteen blissful seconds. 

There’s blood on his hands. He never cared to wash it off.

Except you are the one asking for his heart this time around, a dash of hope in your smile as you do so, and he thinks it would be his life’s greatest honor to be discarded by you.

“Sure,” he answers.

He doesn’t even last until he’s inside the car.

Your back meets the door to the passenger’s seat, guided there by his hands on your hips. From millimeters away he watches your surprise morph into understanding, then darken into lust.

“I like when we don’t talk, though.”

It’s the most annoying thing in the world to remove so many layers in such a cramped space.

Combined, your clothing forms a tower high enough to block out the driver’s window completely. An unnecessary blockade.

The glass fogs up anyways.

“Fuck, Ji, yes, right there, oh my god.”

You have your legs spread open and the back of your neck digging into the cupholder on the door. It’s not comfortable. You’re too busy getting fucked open to care.

Jisung detaches his lips from your neck to ask, “here, baby?”

The head of his cock hits that gummy spot again, harder, sweeter. You convulse, your hand scrambling for purchase in his raven locks.

“Yes, yes, yes, don’t stop, please.”

Please. The word plays over in his fuzzy mind.

It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

His cock slips out of you and you lament the loss of contact with a high wail.

“W-why’d—where’d you go?”

He can’t help but chuckle at how incoherent you’ve become. He cradles the back of your head with a tender hand and lowers your upper body onto the leather seat, adjusting himself to your new elevation.

“Right here, beautiful. Didn’t go anywhere—promise—” 

He expels the final word through gritted teeth as he slams into you again, and the new angle is glorious. Your bodies keen in flawless harmony. Profanities tumble from his lips in a steady stream before they turn back into syllables.

“Would never go anywhere. Would never leave without making this pretty pussy cream like it deserves—holy fucking shit, baby.”

You clench around him at his words and then he’s setting a new, relentless rhythm, rocking the whole vehicle with every hearty smack of his hips against yours, your wet walls squeezing him so dreamily he thinks he sees nirvana with every thrust.

You’re enjoying it just as much, if the bubbles of spit in the corner of your mouth are any indication, and Jisung is viciously proud to be the cause. Unbelievably lucky to feel your breasts jiggling under his chest and your nails digging into the back of his neck.

“Good?” He whispers, and you nod blissfully.

“So—good, Ji, so fucking good. Your cock is perfect, fuck, I can’t even—can’t even think.”

“You’re the perfect one. Can’t believe how well your cunt takes me, shit. It’s like it was fucking made for this.”

“It was,” you breathe, and he nearly shoots his load into you at this alone. “It was, it was—oh, god, I think—think I’m gonna come—”

“Do it,” he rasps. “Come for me. Come on this cock and it’s yours.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

“Then, I will. I’ll come on your cock—make it mine. Need it so fucking bad, I’m so fucking close, oh—please—”

He anchors himself in place with a hand against the windowsill and the other travels down your body to rub fast, tight circles into your clit. You let out a wanton, prolonged moan, tilt your head back to expose him to your fluttering throat. And then you’re pulling his lips onto yours again, and the following kiss is sloppy beyond belief, the kind that can only antedate the happiest of endings.

“My cock,” you sigh into his mouth. “Mine.”

“Forever,” is the breathy response he doesn’t know if he means, the response he gives you anyways.

And then you curl your fingers in his hair. Clamp your teeth around his lower lip. Clench your thighs around his waist. There’s liquid everywhere. Tearwater spilling down the sides of your face. Release gushing all over his dick and pelvis and backseat.

He catches up the moment he realizes what’s just happened. Pulls out of you. Presses his head against the roof of his car. Spits on his hand. Pumps his pulsating cock. Sends himself over the edge you’ve just finished tripping over.

Eventually, he regains feeling in his limbs.

He opens his eyes, surveys the damage, and grins.

Your stomach is covered in ropes of white, your expression hidden behind your hands. You start shaking your head in profuse embarrassment the moment you feel his eyes on you.

“You squirted,” he says.

“I know,” you almost yell, and his grin erupts into a laugh.

He lowers himself back over you, takes your wrists, and removes them from your blushing face. He doesn’t think he’s seen you so flustered before and it has him palpitating in ways he never thought feasible.

Maybe he did mean the damn thing after all.

He pushes off the strands of hair clinging to your damp forehead and replaces them with a gentle kiss. “It was sexy as fuck and you’re everything.” 

There’s a certain softness in your eyes when he pulls away. He hopes, for your sake, it’s all in his head.

His car is in need of aftercare most of all. You shrug on your clothes with considerable effort and get to work, all while sharing comfortable chatter and easy laughter.

Those things persist during your dinner date at a nearby Chinese restaurant and the drive back to your place, which Jisung knows well enough to no longer need his GPS. Those things persist until he kisses you goodbye on your doorstep, because he would have to be fucking crazy not to after you gave him the best night he’s had in so long.

After you reminded him that he’s still capable of comfort and ease, in spite of it all.

Snow comes a few weeks into the new year. 

This winter, it falls late, and it falls hard, like a gust of breath expelled from drawn lungs at the very last minute. Held there as if lying in wait for something unnamed and unseen. 

The gust of breath is too quiet to be heard over the one Jisung lets out against the shell of your ear. “Wait here.”

He goes to roll off you. You don’t let him just yet, darting your hand around his wrist and bringing his face back within centimeters of yours.

Han Jisung is beautiful. You knew it for the first time at that houseparty and you’ve known it every hour of every day since. But it’s always clearest to you in the afterglow, when his bare skin is golden and sticky and his delicate lips bitten to bright fuchsia. 

When his irises have gone black and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light.

You close the distance that remains between you. Your lips part with a content sigh. Your hands drift over the slant of his neck; his find home in the dips above your waist.

He breaks away once you’re both out of breath, and the pad of his thumb wipes lightly at your lower lip.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” you reply shyly. “I couldn’t help myself.”

The smile this brings to his face reminds you of a candle’s flame. Soft on the eyes and scalding to the touch when he presses it back against your lips. Once, twice.

“Can you wipe your cum off me now?” You whisper, and he laughs straight into your mouth.

The mattress lifts. His footsteps grow quieter. You shiver in his absence.

Only then do you notice the blizzard.

You stumble off the bed to throw your curtains aside. Snow descends from the sky like spools of unraveling yarn. The streetlights have been reduced to foggy specks, the parked cars to blurry heaps. Every sidewalk and rooftop in sight has already been slathered in ivory.

Jisung announces his return with a disbelieving whistle.

“Am I dreaming?” You murmur.

“When did that happen?”

“I have no idea.”

You don’t even notice the wild smile on your face until you turn to him and catch his reaction to it. He looks like he’s asking himself the same question.

“C’mere,” he hums, and you oblige.

He laves the warm towel over your breasts and stomach, as well as the places his release has trickled since you flung yourself to your feet. All while supporting the small of your back with a touch fatally careful, an expression wholly adoring. All evidence of just how blurry the line between sexual escapade and lover has become in two short months.

Your ribcage fucking throbs.

“You don’t seem excited,” you say.

He finishes cleaning you off. You give him a distracted thank you, noticing the sudden shadow draped over his face like a netted veil.

“I’m not,” he answers, not unkindly.

“You don’t like snow?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

He circles around the bed to get dressed. You bend to pick up the clothes tossed aside earlier and drop them into your hamper, then slip into a clean pair of underwear and sweatpants.

“It’s a long story.”

Just as you reach for a top, a bundle of cloth travels in an arc across your bedroom and hooks itself around the crook of your arm. His T-shirt. 

You glance at Jisung. He’s already looking elsewhere, but his private smile makes its way onto your face as you slip it on.

“Well, I have time.” You sink into your mattress, now surrounded by his muted musk, his papyrus and petrichor. “We’ll be stuck here a while, after all.”

“Stuck?” Jisung repeats, the lanyard of his car keys dangling from the pocket of his hoodie, his feet turned towards the door.

A pregnant pause commences. His intentions dawn, and you gape.

“You’re not driving right now.”

He breaks eye contact.

“Right?”

That was the plan, you read in his expression.

You know better than trying to reverse a river’s current by kicking up rocks. You know better than trying to curtail the flight of an albatross by clipping its wings.

You know better than asking someone who thinks he was made to leave to stay.

And you won’t.

“I have somewhere to be early tomorrow morning,” he stammers, the lines terribly rehearsed. “The snow’s not heavy, I’ll be—”

“Stay.”

You’re not asking.

Jisung looks at you, startled, as you glide across the bed. You place your feet on the hardwood and circle your arms around his waist. Lace your fingers upon the hollow of his back. His pulse goes uneven at your abrupt proximity.

Akin to the drag of a feather, you mouth at his cheek, then the side of his neck.

“You can stay, Jisung.”

He shudders at your words, and you’ve got him.

It’s oddly normal, the sight of him clambering into your bed in your clothing—a pair of old sweatpants and your favorite crewneck—like this isn’t the first time you’re sleeping together in your two months of sleeping together.

In fact, the only indication of anything unordinary is the floaty feeling in your stomach when your head hits the pillow and discover Jisung’s face only inches away. He drapes an arm over your waist, gathering you close. You nuzzle into the crook of his neck.

The inevitable question follows.

“Can I save the story for another time?”

“Sure,” you return, keeping your voice small. He doesn’t hear your disappointment this way. “Should we go to sleep, then?”

“We should.”

Your foreheads touch. Your noses bump together. Your eyes cross, watching the adoration pull at his. You dimly register your hand threading in his fluffy locks, his thumb running over your cheekbone. Your lashes narrowly miss the surface of his eyes, and then he tips your face up by millimeters.

You don’t remember when you fall asleep. You only recall the hour beforehand that you spend with Jisung’s lips traversing yours, like you are the ocean and he’s uncovering new waters with every bruise he prints against your throat, every suckle he leaves around your tongue.

In your dream, the roles reverse and you are the one exploring him, mapping out his constellations with wide-eyed wonder.

You wake to a black hole.

For the first five seconds, you see nothing. You hear nothing. You feel nothing. You only blink in the darkness, your mind kicking into groggy gear to ask the very good question of why you’re conscious again.

Instinct moves your hand across the mattress. Empty space greets you where Jisung should be. Unfounded dread shoves your back off the bed. You gasp, the sound seeming to echo in the cavernous silence.

Your eyes adjust enough to discern light in the crack beneath your door, and you’re wide awake.

The following events go by in a blur. You stumble out of bed and into your closet, fastening your fingers around the thickest piece of fabric you find. You fly into the living room, where the lamp by the couch is left on and the pair of worn black Converse on your doormat have gone missing.

The front door is cracked open, and through the narrow inches you spot someone hunched on the stairs outside, his dark hair dyed platinum by the awning light’s fluorescence.

Your heart stills in relief, then quickens with anxiety.

You’ve tried wearing this crewneck in January enough times to know you can’t. In fact, you suspect that it somehow soaks up the temperature, lets it seep in between its every seam until it becomes one with the bitter winds. 

But he isn’t shivering, you notice as you take a seat next to him, draping the puffer over both of your shoulders on your way down. He’s simply staring off into the bleak storm, snowflakes sitting atop his head like a coating of ash, their color matching that of his frozen skin. He’s becoming one with the bitter winds. 

At first, you don’t recognize the man in front of you.

You’re well familiar with those ring-laden hands and the whetted jawline thrown into shadow, those remnants of cologne clinging to his frame. But you have never seen that gaze before, bloodshot and bleak and belonging to somebody new. Somebody who isn’t completely here, straddling the partition between the realms of people and phantoms.

Then he lifts his eyes and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light. Your stars.

And you recognize him for the first time ever.

You drop your hand to your hip, and his fingers feel stiff and cold and perfect, sliding into the spaces between yours.

“Why don’t you like snow?” You ask.

Jisung’s eyes return to the swirling sleet, but he moves your interlocked hands to rest on his thigh, and you know that he’s with you.

He’s been having this nightmare.

It takes place in a small clearing. It’s winter, and everything is covered in snow. Not the gentle kind that you can catch on your tongue, but the unyielding kind that’s hard and dense and covered in cracks, like a lake newly frozen over.

Somebody is in front of him, walking away. He can only see their back. He wants to chase after them. He doesn’t want to be left behind. But there are ghosts nearby, and they’ll split his skull open on the permafrost and tie his windpipe into a pretty bow if he so much as dreams of pursuit. He always does. He doesn’t know how not to.

Normally, the back leaves, and he can do nothing but remain. He can direct his loathing only to the snow into which he bleeds. 

Normally, he waits for the dream to end with something bordering on boredom. He’s seen this movie too many times. He fucking hates how it ends.

This time, though, the snow tastes like something.

After the flavors deliquesce upon his tongue, his head shoots up, his eyes blowing wide as they latch onto the retreating figure. He knows who it is.

His feet scrabbles against the ice with his attempts to rise to them. He lunges forward with frenzied resolve, and that is when the ghosts snap his neck.

He wakes up.

“Cherry blossoms and vanilla.”

You blink, tearwater streaking from your eyes in silent, steaming trails.

“That’s—”

My shampoo.

A broken sob escapes you in lieu of the rest of your sentence, and Jisung laughs, a flimsy facade that crumbles when he lifts his hand to dab at your moistened cheeks and it’s trembling.

“Silly,” he murmurs. “I’m used to it now.”

“I don’t want you to be.”

“I don’t want you to cry for me.”

“You died.”

“And I would do it again.”

This response comes without an shred of hesitation.

You first realized you had something to confess, that night in the the back of Jisung’s SUV. You’ve kept it locked away for your sake and his, even moreso. You see how fear clings to him like an unshakeable wraith, and you refuse to feed the parasite.

Now, your confession explodes from its fortress in the center of your soul and rises up your larynx. You panic like an inept security guard letting their only prisoner bolt free. Is it really the right time? Do you know what to say? Have you really thought this through? 

Too late. It’s rushing to the point of your tongue already. You suppose you’ll find out.

He saves you the trouble.

“Honestly?”

Your confession stills. 

“I don’t know if I’m okay, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise. You’d call my bluff. You’re good at that.

“But everything feels okay when I’m with you. You see me. You allow me just to exist as I am. You make me feel human again—you make me want to feel human again. You empty my mind.”

You feel as if you’ve been ejected into space naked, griping for air where there is none.

“I never believed in having somebody to lose,” he utters, gently leaning his forehead against yours. “But I would rather disappear than watch you go.”

You cradle his jaw with shaking fingers, trying and failing to quell the violence of your emotion.

“Don’t go,” he exhales.

You kiss him.

It should feel the same as before. You reach for the slant of his neck, him the dips above your waist. You sigh into him, parting your lips, and he moves into you deeper, harder, dipping into your mouth with his tongue’s pliant swipe. But there’s something new in the way you hold each other, in the seal of your mouth against his.

The line between sexual escapade and lover vanishes as if swept off the sand and into the sea. His stars come out of hiding at last and they bathe you in their residue, light your heart aglow.

Your confession resurfaces. It wants to stargaze also.

“I love you too,” you breathe.

The night comes and goes.

The two of you spend it entangling, sweating, your lips glued the expanse of his neck and the arcs of his shoulders, writing over the ghosts’ injuries with bruises of your making.

Only when the winds have faltered outside do you attempt to rest again. You are curled up in balmy bliss, utterly depleted. Jisung’s arms around your middle and legs threaded among yours bring you that much closer to slumber’s cusp.

You attribute it to your exhaustion when he mumbles something against you, and you have no idea what it means: “Thank you for refracting me.” 

Your confusion is palpable in your silence. His laugh hits the nape of your neck with a gentle puff, and he kisses the spot just beneath your ear. “Never mind.”

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe・@seungminsapuppy・@vivisoni・@skzms・@moon0fthenight・@sweetpickledjins・@svintsandghosts・@nhyunn ・@liknws・@hotgorloikawa・@randomwimp・ @automaticpersonabatpaper・@aceofvernons・@linos-kitten

© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support!

[auspicioustidings]

Firewatch

Summary: You are unconscious on the floor of the fire watch tower while the fire fighters decide what exactly to do with you. (Also this is a series, links are in my pinned posts to the other parts :) )

Work Count: 1.3k

CWs: It's a little (a lot) kidnap-ey

Firewatch - Firefighter AU

"Wit if we didnae dae that though?"

Price looked at the unconscious body on the floor. Soap had carried you all the way up without a word, all of them ignoring that the Scottish man had just abducted you. Scratched and bruised but miraculously not one burn on you despite the blaze that had just destroyed your little cottage and tried to tear through the forest after. 

It was a small miracle that the weather had turned, the downpour helping them to stop the flames from spreading further into the forest, their forest. His team of firefighters lived and worked here, their cabin a short hike away from the Firewatch tower. They all had their own reasons for living off grid, choosing this life. They had each other, but he couldn't deny that there had been something pleasant about watching you move into the crumbling cottage just on the edge of the forest.

You had done most of the renovation work yourself, they knew that because it had become a hobby to watch you from the tower. If it bordered on obsession sometimes, well he let that slide, had said nothing when from the tower he had watched Simon go into your cottage (didn't even have to break in, you didn't lock it, drove them wild when they realised). Neither Mactavish nor Garrick had asked where the blanket had come from when Simon returned with it that night. They already knew. He remembered it smelled of bergamot in the beginning. 

"You're suggesting we let the authorities pronounce her dead?" Price asked, although if he was being honest it barely sounded like a question, more like a statement.

"She should be dead doing the bloody electrical work herself. We supposed to just leave her to her own devices? She needs looking after."

Simon did believe that it wouldn't be a bad thing to keep you. They could look after you, give you a good life here. You'd already been testing his self-control and he knew it wasn't just him. He may have been the only one to have entered your cottage, although it should be noted that despite the raging temptation to touch you he had only taken the blanket from your sleeping body, replacing it with a thicker one. But he was not the only one who had been desperately trying to look after you despite your seeming insistence to be as reckless as possible. 

Gaz had taken a sledgehammer to the rickety ladder you were using while you were out, making sure it wasn't usable anymore so nobody had to watch you fall to your damn death. Price had to hold the man back when you had bought a new one. Safer than what you had been using, but wouldn't it be better to let them take that risk? Wouldn't it be nice to sit back and relax while Gaz patched up the roof for you?

Johnny had been near feral when you had taken to strolling through the forest, coming to within a metre of one of their traps. He had barked down the radio to the cabin in a panic from his spot on the watch tower and it had taken hours of Simon sitting with him on watch to calm him down. Johnny went out that night and picked up every trap they had laid, refusing to let anyone put anymore out until he had marked a walking trail for you to follow and then watched for weeks to be certain you had picked up on it and wouldn't stray. 

"He's not wrong. What happens when that git who delivers her mail decides he wants to cosy up? Look at her, she's practically begging to get taken advantage of. It's not safe out there for her" Gaz added. He never would have considered kidnapping you as such, but it made perfect sense to him that they don't tell the authorities that they had rescued you from the fire. This wasn't kidnapping, more divine intervention. 

They all did look at you then, unconscious on the floor in your paint splattered dungarees, breathing easily in and out. You had been choking from the smoke when Simon had hauled you over his shoulder and gotten you outside, Gaz getting an oxygen mask on you while Johnny and Price tried to contain the fire. The way you had looked up at Simon when you realised you were alive, that he had saved you. God you had been so beautiful to him, some mixture of adoration and confusion in your eyes, a hint of fear from him being in full gear and face mask.

He gently cradled your head when you tried to look over at what Gaz was doing, not letting you see him prepare the sedative. You didn't even notice the sting of the needle, probably in shock. Gaz told himself that it was so you could rest, so they didn't need to worry about you going into a panic. Of course it wasn't nefarious to sedate you, how could it be when you looked so peaceful as you slept? If he had done something wrong Simon would have stopped him, Johnny wouldn't have scooped you up and carried you all the way home, Price wouldn't have your cat rubbing against his legs after having carried the little thing here so you wouldn't worry about her when you woke up.

Price sighed, leaning down to give the cat a few scratches behind the ear. They would need to get some things from town to make you comfortable, but for the moment you'd have to stay in the tower away from prying eyes. The sheriff would be paying their cabin a visit to go over the incident report. They'd need to figure out some of the details, mess with the timelines a little to make it feasible that the fire would have left nothing behind of you.  It shouldn't be too difficult, the community trusted them and you were an outsider who had breezed into town one day. Nobody would be demanding DNA testing to confirm.

"If we are doing this, we are going to do it proper. I hear any complaints from her and you can't justify that whatever she's mad about wasn't for her own good then I put you on 24 hour fire watch for a fortnight, understood?"

They all nodded, Johnny and Gaz not able to keep from grinning. The former was bouncing on his heels, excited out of his mind that they were keeping you. Price sighed again when he looked to Simon for some sort of support and the man just laughed.

"Kyle stay with her. Make sure she stays put when she wakes up, keep her happy. Lie when you have to keep her calm. You two are with me, we need to get back home and talk to the sheriff when she comes calling."

"Whit?! How's that fair? Let me stay instead!"

"Kyle is staying because he won't bloody pounce on her the minute she's awake."

Johnny had bitched about it the whole way back to the cabin, talking to the cat in his arms when Simon and Price stopped paying him any mind. They'd need to justify why they would be buying cat supplies and the sheriff was nothing if not appreciative of them when they explained they had found the poor thing out in the trees and would adopt it now that it's owner was gone.

It all went more smoothly than they could have dared dream. The real difficulty was dealing with Johnny's endless complaining when they returned to the watch tower to find that the expectation of Gaz not pouncing on you the moment you were awake had been an unrealistic one.

[ninety-two-bees]

where the lost things go

jegulus microfic | 462 words | parenting au

═══════☆═══════

“Piglet?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Eeyore?”

“It has to be Tigger, James.”

Harry has been wailing in Regulus' arms for about an hour now—almost the exact length of time since he dropped his most beloved teddy. James and Regulus had looked everywhere for it, turning every inch of their house inside out, and had come up empty. It’s as if Harry’s Tigger had never existed in the first place.

“They don’t have Tigger, baby,” James says through the phone, barely audible over Harry’s cries. Regulus does his best to calm the baby down, but all of his efforts have proven futile. “I could try another store?”

“No, it’s—just come home, Jamie. We’ll figure something else out.” Exhausted, Regulus hangs up the call and turns his attention back to their son. He hates seeing Harry like this, red-faced and teary-eyed, not knowing how to fix it. He wouldn’t trade this life for the world, but it would be lovely if there was some kind of instruction manual.

Nothing he has tried so far has worked. Harry has no interest in eating or taking a nap or playing with another toy. He barely seems to react to Regulus’ voice. At this point, it feels like a miracle that Regulus hasn’t started crying along with him.

He has one idea left in his desperate attempt to soothe Harry. Settled on the couch with Harry curled against his chest, Regulus begins to sing. It is the same soft lullaby his brother sang to comfort him when they were kids, though Regulus would argue that Sirius is not known for having a particularly calming voice.

It takes him until halfway through the song’s second verse before Harry finally calms down. There are no more wails echoing off the walls, just the faint melody of the lullaby falling from Regulus’ lips. By the time the song ends, Harry’s eyes have fallen shut, and his cries have been replaced with soft snores.

“You’re a miracle worker,” James’ whispered voice muses from the doorway. Regulus turns his attention from their sleeping son to find his husband leaning against the door frame, Harry’s Tigger held tight in his hand.

“You found it?” Regulus asks, careful not to raise his voice any louder than absolutely necessary.

James chuckles, stepping farther into the living room to sit down next to Regulus. “It was at the front door, inside one of your welly boots.”

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was so drained, Regulus would have to bite back a laugh. Instead, he drops his head onto James’ shoulder with an amused huff, and takes Tigger from his hands to lay it on top of the sleeping baby. “Next time, you can stay home while he screams. I think I’ve earned a day off.”

[avtrbee]

saving grace

summary: morpheus is captured by roderick burgess, but is swiftly rescued by his wife

A/n: yeah ik, ik, i should be working on love game but hehe this was way too irresistible. basically a Love game au where morpheus treated you right and you save morpheus from his imprisonment at the height if burgess’ power. Think of this as what could have been is morpheus was a better husband from the beginning. gif not mine !!

Jessamy was your final warning that Roderick Burgess is not your normal opponent. He was such a ridiculously luck-favored individual that despite failing to capture Death, he had imprisoned the next best thing. He stole his tools, bringing him prosperity. The magician Burgess became renowned in the waking world, a man of miracles, blessed by the gods who created magic themselves, and- some say, has a demon locked in his basement.

You had tried to enter it once, thinking that you could just pop by and drag Dream from his cage, but someone had tipped Burgess to write runes around every entrance and exit in his house that weaken you and can ban you from entering, unless someone wanted you in. You have a strong hunch that they were the same person to warn the magician not to break the summoning circle, and enclose Dream inside a glass sphere.

You were with Jessamy, helping her dodge every bullet Burgess had tried to aim. It is through Jessamy that you finally get your first glance of the mansion’s inner lodgings, preening forward as Jessamy lights up a fire and hides in the corners of the mansion until, finally, you are greeted with the first sight of Dream in a year.

His unruly hair was the first thing you saw, before he slowly lifted his head up in hope. Morpheus is stripped bare, without his helm, ruby and pouch of sand. Without any robes. He looks at Jessamy with adoration. Wherever Dream the Endless goes, there will always be his loyal raven not too far behind. But there was a quick lift of his lips as he spots his bird- a private smile. That one is for you.

Though you were far, far away from Earth, you could hear the small clink Jessamy’s beak made as she frantically pecked on the glass orb that holds your husband. You watch in devastation how the hope in Morhpeus’ eyes faded away, replaced by a look of utter resignment. Still, he lifts his hand to touch his glass cage to his precious bird. 

While in her head, you could feel Jessamy’s emotions, how she was as desperate as you to set her lord go, her utter relief at how she finally entered the house after months of trying, and her overwhelming fear that something was going to go wrong. You feel how Jessamy pushes and fails to push this lingering fear of death that she senses in the air, trying her best to focus on the glass, to keep pecking, and pecking until-

Until nothing. 

You open your eyes with a start and mouth agape, grasping your sheets in freight as you feel a phantom pain at your back. You try to remember where you are as you get up from bed. You feet touches a lush red rug that stretches a little more after the bed ends, a floor with pristine marble walls that shimmer as you walk, and a mirror on your right that if you go through would take you to your own realm.

Home. This is where you are, home in the Dreaming, home to the private chamber you share with your husband, Dream. Dream, who is not here. Dream, who is in the waking world, held prisoner by some amateur magician who got lucky.

You know what you must do. You exit your room and walk towards his throne room in a hurry, up the stairs to his seat of power uninterrupted until you sense a quiet presence with you.

Lucienne is at the foot of the steps, looking at you in both sadness and fear as she spots your bow and quiver with your person, your trusted weapons that will aid you in whatever comes next.

“My lady,” she starts, and her warm dark gaze falls on you as you stare at her eyes back. Somehow there is an entire conversation that was said in silence as you look at each other's gaze. You can hear her warnings, her hesitations on your leave, her worry on the slowly deteriorating state of the Dreaming. You can hear her attempts to persuade to stay, that perhaps Morpheus would free himself soon. In your ears, you can also hear your replies, your attempts to soothe her worry, your promises to come back. It is not lost to you that you may be repeating the exact same thing your husband said. 

“Safe travels.” She says instead and you know you have gotten her blessing.

You slip into the waking world without a moment’s thought.

-

There are three facts you recite to yourself as you approach the Burgess Manor in all its splendor. First, there is a party tonight. The Burgess monarch seems to love these parties, having one at every month, each growing more extravagant than the last. There is a growing crowd of eager party goers hoping to catch a glimpse and the favor of the Burgess monarch. Two, thanks to the runes carved above every entrance of the house, you must be invited inside.

You walk towards the crowd in confidence, putting on a show to anyone who is looking. You glance to your right as you see yourself in the reflection of a car window- utterly gorgeous. Lips as red as the blood you will cry tonight, eyes as dark as sunless sky and your smile as deadly as your fury. Three, you are the most beautiful girl in the party. 

Not that it matters, you think to yourself as you walk through the crowd who parts as you strut. They will all see who they want to see.

You catch a boy guarding the front door as he lets other guests in. You follow the line of people, before catching the arm of an unsuspecting man, halting him from entering the door.

“Wha- oh. Oh, hello, may I help you?” His initial anger has immediately faded as he saw you, replaced by an infatuated grin. You squint your eyes when you realize he is not a reminder of his lady wife when he looks at you, but rather a girl from a whore house a couple of blocks from his home.

“I can’t help but to notice you were unaccompanied on this lovely night,” you start, tugging his arm closer until you are hugging it. “I was wondering if I can keep you company tonight…?”

The nameless man smiles easily. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

You giggle in delight and the man leads you towards the door. As you passed by the carved runes of the door, you felt a wave of fatigue run over that almost made you stumble. The man you are thankfully does not notice, as his head was still in the clouds of scoring a woman so beautiful. 

But despite his luck, the man quickly announces his leave as soon as he sees Roderick Burgess on a chair. He is more eager to save his dying company than to have the presence of Love themselves, it seems. You do not mind and laugh comfortingly as he mournfully apologizes as he takes his leave, giving you not one, but four longing glances as he approached his target. You do not mind. The nameless man had let you inside and led you to Roderick Burgess in less than five minutes. You would have considered blessing him if only he was faithful to his marriage. 

You slink behind people, accepting a glass of champagne to blend in but never leaving your sights off the man who had imprisoned Dream. He is constantly surrounded by different people, some part of his household, but most were his fellow amateur magicians and cultists, eager to get his acquaintance. You wait until he is finally alone. He stands to walk, and you follow. 

“All that talking must be tiring.” You have heard that he has a lover already, a young blonde girl that is often seen hanging on his arms in these types of events. But the fact that you had not seen her yet tonight makes you optimistic. That and how you wear his old wife’s face, the one that face that Randall inherited- its why he loved him the best, you know you have won. “Isn’t it tiring?”

It takes a second for him to reply, too taken aback by a dead face. “It is but a necessary evil of the powerful,” he says, offering you his arm. You happily accept and cling to it. “Do you drink, fair lady?” 

“I do, but I am not as fond of wine, sir.” You reply. You place your hand on his chest as a spur of red magic ignites out of your palms. You feel his heart and squeeze. “I’m afraid you must drink twice as much for the both of us tonight.”

Love me, love me, love me, your magic inside him chants.

Roderick Burgess smiles and laughs like a happy man, and you knew you spoke like his dead wife came to life. Despite his sins against Morpheus, you find comfort to at least provide him this brief fantasy. A human’s grief has always hit you a hard, and you would have felt bad for exploiting his mourning if he did not have you husband locked under his house.  You know what you must do. 

You patiently wait with a smile getting harder to hide as the hours pass by. You watch as Roderick Burgess receives drink after drink, never declining a glass of wine that was offered. You wait until he is stumbling in his walk, until he needs you by his side to keep himself from falling.   

The party was long over when he was finished. All guests had retreated home, or had passed out in the living room. Roderick Burgess clings on your shoulder as he thinks you are leading him to his bedroom. He is too drunk to notice that you have not climbed the stairs, but rather down to the hallway, towards the door to his basement.

You halted at the door that Jessamy had previously entered. “What is behind this door, sir? Surely not another one of your living rooms?”

Roderick took a glance at the door and laughed. “A great failure,” he replies. “But a blessing in disguise nonethelessh.”

His voice slurs and you smile. “Impossible. Failure does not know Roderick Burgess,” you say and he laughs even harder. “After all, they whisper of the demon you keep in your basement.”

He shrugs himself off your grip as he stumbles towards the door. “Failure? I know it well, girl. My son, gone. My wife-“ he mournfully looks at you before quickly looking away out of grief or lust, you do not know.  “-is dead. You think I do not know what you are doing? You’re just like the rest of them! So hungry for power, so hungry for what I can give.”

You seethe. He cannot give anything. Every single blessing that was brought forth to his life was because of your husband's stolen tools. 

“You are jushh like the rest of ‘em,” he declares, his words getting louder and sloppier. “But tonight, I shall show you, thanks to the wonderful company you’ve given me tonight.”

You did not give him good company. Roderick had fun by himself drink after drink. You had merely waited. 

He swings the basement doors open and enters and you follow quietly behind him like a silent shadow. There is a stone hallway that you go through before finally, you see your husband’s sphere cage. At the sound of your voice, Morpheus lets out a small grin. His eyes were curious, head tilting in confusion on what you were doing down here. You make it a point not to look at him.

“He is not a demon,” Roderick starts, walking to Dream. He stops before the summoning circle. “He is Endless. More than a God, but less than Death.” Roderick turns to you and beckons you with his hand. You accept his hand gracefully, and Roderick leads you beside him. At the corner of your eye, you see Morpheus look at your conjoined palms. “I had tried to summon Death for my Randall. I got him instead,” he spits angrily. 

“Then what does he do?” You ask, eyeing at the summoning circle. You see Dream’s prison, but you do not know how to break it yet. You must be smart. “And this?” You ask, your foot gesturing to the runes written on the floor. 

You were tugged back harshly before your foot could even touch the circle. “Break that circle and he will kill you.” Roderick hissed in an angry breath. Morpheus’ eyes darken at Roderick’s grating action, but dared not to move. 

“He does not bargain,” Roderick starts, looking back at Morpheus and you take it as your cue to move back slowly. You feel your bow appear in your hands, strong and steady just like how you must be. There is already an arrow ready on it waiting for you. “nor does he show any sort of emotions.” 

You nock the arrow, keeping your eyes on the man. Before you, Morpheus eyes your weapon but keeps a passive face giving nothing away from your scheme.

“He cannot do anything at all.” Roderick raises a hand and gestures for you without turning. “Come, love. Say hi. Don’t be afraid, he cannot even speak.”

You look at Morpheus in the eye and raise your bow to Roderick’s head. “Hello, Dream.”

Morpheus looks at you now with all the fondness in his eyes and the softest smile on his lips- the rare kind of look reserved for a selected few that you receive in bulk. “Hello, wife.”

You could see Roderick’s confused frown reflected on the glass sphere before turning his head to you. As if in slow motion, you watch his eyes darken in fury and embarrassment as he realizes he has been tricked. He opens his mouth, but your arrow hits his head first. You watch as your arrow disappears as soon as it hits its mark, and you wait for Roderick Burgess to hit the floor before you scramble to the floor and erase as much of the summoning circle as you can. You frantically scrub every written symbol you can reach until there is a wide gap.

“My Love,” Morpheus calls, halting your action. You turn to him, relishing to see him through your eyes. You raise your hand against the sphere and Dream does the same. So close and yet so far. 

“I am sorry about Jessamy,” you whisper, guilt lacing every word. Your husband closes his eyes in pain, as if reliving the exact memory of his trusted bird dying in front of him. “What must I do?” You look around quickly. “Morpheus, we don’t have much time and I- I am weakened here. There are runes, and if you want to get out you must do it now.”

“I cannot break this cage from the inside, my Love.” Dream says with the same resigned look on his face. “Leave me, if you must-“

“No!” You shriek. “No, please, Morpheus-“ You look around again, searching for the room for anything that might help. There were two desks before the sphere, probably for the guards stationed around Dream, but you do not see any firearms. There is nothing strong enough to break his cage, until the thought finally dawns upon you.

“I must cry,” you realize. 

You drop to the floor as soon as you say the words, squeezing your eyes shut as the familiar pain of your blood tears start streaming from your face. You have felt fire burn before, but nothing will ever compare to the poisonous magic your tears bring. Your head feels like it's frozen and on fire at the same time, but your eyes carry the most damage your tears bring, making them feel like a hot white pain. It is a burn, poison and freezing at the same time.

Despite your weakened state, you managed to clutch a single arrow out. You grip on it like it's your lifeline before putting it’s tip under your eye to catch your blood tears. 

“Love, why must you weep for me?” Morpheus asks, kneeling down in his cage, trying his best to be as close as he could. 

You try to laugh. “I have been deprived of my husband for almost a decade, my lord,” you reply weakly, still bowing at your burning eyes. As soon as you know the arrow is coated fully with your blood tears, you halt crying and weakly nock the arrow immediately. “He was taken from me.”

Morpheus, familiar to the power your blood tears hold, had backed away as far as he could in his glass cage. You waste no moment aiming your arrow towards the glass and shoot. The glass explodes with a loud boom that echoes across the room, shaking the basement and the house above you. Distantly, you hear screams above and you wonder if you had accidentally caused an earthquake. Your arrow makes you fly across the room, hitting the stone wall that you were behind before.

But all thoughts leave your head when a familiar touch holds your face gently. Morpheus is finally in front of you, his hands feeling so warm despite not being human. He looks at you with stars in his eyes and a smile of adoration on his mouth.

“But crying pains you.”

You feel his thumb wipe your blood tears away, staining your cheeks even redder. “I would cry rivers of blood if it means having you back.”

You smile in his hands, eyes bloodshot and cheeks stained red. Morpheus has never seen you so beautiful. Slowly, he leans forward and gives you a kiss on your head before cradling your head again to look at you. 

Your husband is not one to say his words aloud, but you heard thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you through his kiss all the same. 

“Let us go home,” you say, grasping his hand and kissing his palm. 

“As long as Dream of the Endless is with Love, his wife,” Morpheus starts. “He is already home.”

if you like this fic, check out my masterlist!

[k4zushi]

♪ 3 TYPES OF HEARTACHE

ft. alhaitham, heizou, and gaming

status : unedited, written 2/17/24 ☆ word count : 1.1k

summary : heartache comes in many forms; influenced by small things that can lead to the worst case scenario.

cw : alhaitham x reader, heizou x reader, gaming x reader, angst, established relationships, modern au, college au ( alhaitham ), highschool sweethearts ( heizou ), childhood friends to lovers to exs ( gaming ), parental issues ( alhaitham )

RIGHT PERSON, WRONG TIME ✧ alhaitham

in truth, fault for the falling out wasn’t either of yours.

it was something that the both of you had considered upon finding out that the feelings you had for each other were mutual, but instead of being cautious like you should have been, you dove in head first; paying no mind to the consequences that would follow.

alhaitham has always been a bit stubborn and headstrong but so were you.

you learned how to love from your parents and the love that was taught to you was hard and unforgiving.

even after acknowledging it as something to fix, you still struggled to undo the damage done.

it was a miracle you and him had lasted as long as you did when neither wanted to shift their stance to accommodate the other.

this proved especially difficult when you’d fight.

those fights were filled with the exchanging of passive aggressive jabs and unwillingness to compromise.

they were were always born out of a small misunderstanding or lapse in judgement, except neither of you would admit you were in the wrong, always quick to blame each other.

this wasn’t how it always was though.

while alhaitham was stubborn, he did care about you; more than he was willing to admit out loud.

he showed his love in ways other than words with his primary choice being acts of service.

just small things here and there like washing the dishes if you had a lecture right after lunch or waiting for you while you closed up for the night at the cafe you worked at so that he could drive the two of you back home.

and if you had a fight, he refused to sleep until you had begrudgingly made up with one another.

he knew you better than you knew yourself and vice versa. he knew the things that made you upset, the things that made you sigh with content, and most importantly, the things that made you smile.

it didn’t matter how many times you had fought with one another over petty issues, he was always the one you went home to at the end of the day.

you loved him regardless of his flaws and as did he. your life without him would be like a life without basic human needs; like he had replaced your lungs need for air.

and yet when 4 dreaded words left his mouth, everything came to a screeching halt.

“we should break up”

the whole world seemed to go quiet as the words echoed through your shared apartment.

that day you learned that love, no matter how strong it was, wasn’t enough to keep a relationship from falling apart.

you had anticipated this, you knew this was coming…

so why did it hurt so much?

FIRST LOVE NEVER DIES ✧ heizou

there’s always that saying people haphazardly throw about, the one that goes “you’ll always remember your first love” and your situation was no exception to that.

shikanoin heizou was a charming boy who never failed to sweep you off your feet.

days with him were filled with soft, fleeting glances and bright eyed curiosity of what was to come.

hands interlocked and fingers intertwined on after school walks as the sun laid to rest across the horizon; the very epitome of sweet, innocent, childish adolescence.

memories you look back on that leave a bittersweet aftertaste on the tip of your tongue because those times were far gone.

maybe there were things that were better left unsaid and maybe there were things that should’ve been addressed but what good is it to dwell on the past?

funny how someone you had no doubts on spending the rest of your life with can slip out of your reach in mere moments.

you tried to forget him; forget about heizou and forget about your discarded future together but it became apparent that all of it proved useless with every failed attempt at love.

you learned very quickly that there was no chance anyone could replace him and fill the empty void in your chest.

you even found yourself comparing your suitors to heizou and during those moments, you’d have to snap yourself out of your daze to tell yourself he wasn’t in your life anymore.

even with the similarities, it didn’t matter how many nice qualities or how good of a person they were, you just couldn’t reciprocate.

so you were forced to move on, forced to live life with countless regrets, and forced to survive without the person who you wholeheartedly believed completed your soul.

because your heart belonged to one person and when he left, he took it with him.

WHAT WE WANTED, NOT WHAT WE NEED ✧ gaming

long distance breaks the strongest of bonds and it hurt to let him go but the last thing you wanted was to tether him to you.

you had made the bold decision in your last year of high school to go abroad for college and many things proved difficult because of this decision.

the move from the heart of liyue to the capital of fontaine was no small feat and adjusting to the culture and environment was even harder than you imagined.

everything about fontaine was different from liyue and you often found yourself craving for comfort dishes after a rough day but weren’t able to make them due to a lack of ingredients local to the liyue region.

but despite everything, the hardest part about it all was leaving behind your childhood bestfriend and boyfriend, gaming.

it was for your education and he knew this, but of course, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt any less.

you both were off pursuing your respective passions in lands where the only thing that connected the two of you was the vast and endless sea.

by making this decision, gaming would be able to make a life for himself. he would learn how to survive without you.

growing up with someone and having them as a constant your entire life leads you to become to reliant on them.

he truly was your weakness.

and as much as you wanted to be by his side and watch him grow, you knew gaming would never achieve his full potential if he was still with you.

as his partner and best friend, you only wanted the best for him and what was best for him was to succeed.

the last thing you wanted to see was him struggling to scrape together the last of his savings in order to get through the week.

the pain you felt watching him struggle to make ends meet far outweighed the pain you felt having to leave him.

you’d always support him even if it meant that you’d only be able to cheer him on from the sidelines.

pls do not repost or claim my work!! ( this includes posting on other websites such as wattpad, ao3, etc )

AUTHOR’S NOTE : i wrote most of this in the car yesterday and the car almost flipped over LMAOO and i didn’t even realize i was in a different state until i sent my location to 2 friends and they were like “YOURE IN [ INSERT STATE ]????”

[yelenassafeplace]

Childhood sweethearts

Again sorry for my bad English, I’m French and still have a lot to learn. Anyway please do not translate or re upload this oneshot. Thank you.

pairing: aged up!Neteyam x human/Na'vi fem!reader

Author's note: In this AU: reader replace Spider (she's a scientist’s daughter and not Quarritch's), she’s a human but went through the consciousness transfer ritual like Jake at the age of 13, Neteyam is 5 years older than Lo’ak, the humans never came back to Pandora and the Sully's never left the forest to ask for Uturu from the reef people.

Warnings: baby fever, breeding kink, p in v, oral (f! receiving), fingering, clit stimulation, fingering, Neteyam talks to your pussy??, childhood best friends, best friends to lovers, unprotected sex, creampie, dirty talk, Neteyam talks you through it, belly bulge, size kink if you squint, tell me if I should add more warnings.

Na’vi vocabulary used: Omaticayan (a Na’vi clan), Eywa (the guiding force and deity for Pandora), Toruk Makto (a Na'vi individual who successfully manages to ride a great leonopteryx), the last shadow (a great leonopteryx), Olo’eyktan (a clan leader), skxawng (a moron), Ikran (a mountain banshee), Talioang (a sturmbeest)

You were many things for the Omaticayan clan and the sully family. Looking past your humanity (maybe it was because Eywa had sent them a sign) they saw you as a friend, a sister, a daughter, someone they could rely on and trust, a kind and warm soul.

You were always eager to learn new things and give a hand to people when they needed help. You were even considered as a potential woman for the many boys looking forward to the day they would get the opportunity to get a mate.

But it was useless. Your heart was already taken.

By someone who probably didn’t even feel the same way about you, but still. You had the biggest crush on the eldest son of Toruk Makto, the rider of the last shadow and the Olo’eyktan of the clan.

His mother somehow found out, or maybe she always knew, and, to your great surprise, she was pretty supportive of this (non-existent) relationship.

Neytiri treated you as her own child, always there to protect you and even teaching you how to use a bow as well as crafting your very own one when you were big enough to hold it by yourself.

You didn’t know why she was so kind to you when you were a simple human, the kind that had hurt and killed her people almost eighteen years ago. Her sister, her father, her brother and even her Ikran, had died from the hands of the sky people.

Yet, she was showing nothing but love and affection towards you.

You were approximately 3 years old when they took you in. Neteyam was already born and around the same age as you, only a few months older.

You basically grew up together, being best friends since your youngest age. You had learned to talk, walk, run, annoy Jake, swim and eat on your own together.

The bond between you only got stronger as the years went by, the two of you never left each other’s sides, Neteyam often following you like a shadow and vice versa.

And then Lo’ak was born. This child was so annoying yet so adorable. He was always causing trouble to Neteyam and you, putting you in uncomfortable positions in front of the father figure of the family.

He calmed down for a while when Kiri was born but eventually got his attitude and sass right back after 3-4weeks. And it became even worse as he grew older.

This skxawng was always arguing with Kiri over the smallest and stupidest things, Jake almost ripping his braids right off when the two off them began to hiss, or more like scream in Lo’ak’s case.

But Kiri, unlike this hyperactive of Lo’ak, was literally the calmest kid you ever met. She barely ever cried, always looking at everything around her with wide and curiosity-filled eyes.

You liked to spend time with her. Whether it was at the lab when she needed to see Grace, her biological mother by whatever miracle, or in the forest when she wanted to take a break from her family and spend some time surrounded by nature, the great work of Eywa.

You plaided your case to Neytiri and Jake to transfer your spirit into a Na’vi body through the eye of Eywa for years.

And they finally accepted when you turned thirteen. So you went through the ritual. All the Omaticayans were more than happy to, officially, fully welcome you into the clan.

You worked really hard and got your very own Ikran, named Nrraya, at the age of 15. Your first hunt and first Talioang kill happened only a few months later.

You remember the feast they prepared for you as if it happened yesterday. Everyone was smiling and dancing and eating…You were really the happiest in the world.

But then Tuk came into the world and you were even happier. She was the cutest baby ever. She learned well and quickly, she was affectionate (and she still is even now) and so, so, so loving.

You were extra protective of her, often holding her on your hip as you walked through the forest or your village, always making sure that she was well-fed and hydrated, that she slept enough and kept her entertained as best as you could when you were free and she wasn’t sound asleep.

She loved the nightly routine you had when Jake and Neytiri asked you to babysit her while they were going out to spend some time alone. And you loved it too.

You tucked her in her makeshift hammock, telling her made up stories until her head lolled from side to side and her eyes squeezed shut, a little snore confirming her sleeping state.

And today was one of those nights.

What you didn’t know is that someone was watching you. Yellow eyes scanning your form and following you as you did all of these cute and kind things. And it was Neteyam’s of all Na’vi’s.

He couldn’t help but get hard at the sight of you getting so motherly with Tuk. It made him want…No. it made him crave and need to give you a child to mother. Your very own child. A child with him. A child that you would bear within those wide hips and waist of yours.

He has to close his eyes and breathe deeply to stop himself from jumping on you and fuck you right there and then.

Instead, he waits patiently for you outside the family’s home and think a few minutes before he decides that tonight is the night he will confess what he feels for you. He already knows that you feel the same way towards him. You’re not really good at hiding things. And he can’t hold himself back any longer anyway.

You come out of the house and smile brightly at him.

"I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for too long."

He shakes his head, smiling back at you.

"No, you didn’t. Are you ready?”

You nod enthusiastically as he takes your hand in his, the little touch enough to make you shiver.

"Mhmh…We can go now."

You follow him through the forest, your tail happily swaying from side to side as you listen to him talk about his day.

Your smile falters a little when he tells you how his father had been so hard on him yet again but you quickly brighten the mood by telling him about your day too. And he listens to your rambling with a wide smile playing across his lips, glad to hear that at least one of you had fun.

You finally reach your favorite spot in the forest and lay on the mossy floor to look at the stars. Neteyam does the same and scoots closer to you.

"It’s beautiful…”

Your best friend turns his head to look at you, swallowing thickly as he watches the reflection of the sky and stars dance into your wide, pretty and almost pitch black eyes in the dark night.

"Not as beautiful as you."

Your eyes widen even more if possible, a light blush tainting your plumped cheeks with a bright purple color as you crunch your nose.

"Ew, that’s so cheesy, Neteyam ! Stop saying things like that…"

He sits and pulls you to him so you sit beside him too, tilting your head up by your chin with his free hand as he keeps your hand in his other one.

"I’m dead serious, y/n. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in the entirety of our clan. And I’m sure it would be the same beyond the village and the forest and even on earth. I could bet my life on it."

You blink up at him, heart thumping hard in your chest like it was trying to get out of your body.

"N-Neteyam…What are you saying?"

He smiles fondly at you, thumb rubbing your cheek soothingly.

"You know what I’m saying. Nga yawne lu oer, y/n."

A single tear slides down your cheek, your lips trembling as you try to keep your emotions down.

Neteyam frowns and wipes your tear away before he plants a quick, yet firm, kiss to your plush lips to try to ease the pout forming on them.

"Oh, don’t cry baby…"

You sniffle and he helps you settling on his lap, your arms locking around his neck and legs crossing behind his lower back.

"I’m sorry, I don’t want to ruin this moment. I promise I won’t cry anymore."

Neteyam chuckles softly and rubs little circles on the small of your back.

"You’re not ruining anything, princess. Don’t worry."

He sighs contently as you press yourself even closer to him and kisses the side of your face.

"I love you so much Nete’…So, so much."

"And I love you even more."

You get your head out of the crook of his neck and take his face in your hands before kissing him lovingly.

Neteyam kiss you back, groping your ass to make you gasp so he can swiftly slide his tongue in your mouth.

You feel butterflies in your tummy when Neteyam caresses your tongue with his, moaning softly against his lips as you instinctively press your clothed pussy down on his swelling cock.

He makes quick work of discarding your chest piece and get rid of your loincloth, leaving you completely bare, before he lays you down and sit back on his heels to take a look at your body.

You can practically see his cock twitch under his thin loincloth at the sight.

"Fuck…You’re so pretty."

His tail wraps around your thigh and stays nestled there as he leans over you to kiss you again, settling comfortably between your open legs. You moan at the feeling of his hard on rubbing against your pussy when he starts to move his hips slowly, desperate for any kind of friction.

"A-All of this…just f’me."

You grind up against him in hope that it will somehow make him touch you faster.

"’Teyam…please…"

He cups one of your tits and massages it before pinching your nipple, the pain shooting a spark straight down to your core.

"Please what, y/n? What do you want, precious girl? I need to hear it."

You start blabbering, cheeks pink, almost purple, and all your body burning from desire for him as he latches on one of your nipples and suck it harshly.

"F-Fuck me ! I need…I need to feel you inside of me, please Neteyam…stop this teasing. I’ve been waiting for you too long already."

He bites on the column of your throat, earning a little hiss from you, and leaves a trail of kisses and wet patches from his tongue before he gives you a few hickies.

"Ah, you’re right, my love. I’ve kept you waiting for long enough. I should take care of my needy baby now, shouldn’t I?”

Neteyam kisses down your body. Your neck, chest, stomach, just above your pubic bone, your knees, your calves, your ankles and your inner thighs…He doesn’t forget anything.

He looks at you one last time before he gives the sweetest kiss to your puffy clit.

"There she is..My little princess. You felt neglected while I was kissing mommy, mh?"

At first, you’re a little confused as why he’s saying that to you. And then you realize that…He’s not talking to you. He’s talking to your pussy.

You shouldn’t be turned on by this. But you are. You can’t help but get even wetter as you listen to him talk to your pussy, acting as if you weren’t there at all.

"Oh, did you get wetter? You like that, yeah? What a sweet girl…Daddy’s going to take good care of you, don’t worry."

He practically starts to devour you, two fingers easily sliding in and out of your fluttering hole as he laps up some of your arousal before going back to lick and suck your sensitive clit.

You can hear him growl and mutter something as your walls clamp hard around his fingers when he hits your sensitive spot.

"It’s here, isn’t it? I found your weak spot…That’s good news."

Having a hard time trying to keep your voice down, a few moans and huffs passing the barrier of your lips without your consent, you squeeze your eyes shut in hope that it will help you in any way. But it doesn’t.

"Such pretty sounds…don’t be shy, let me hear you, love."

You don’t really know if he’s talking to you or your cunt but you don’t care anymore. So you just let go and moan to your heart’s content.

"That’s it, let everyone hear how good I make you feel. Let them know who you belong to."

And just like that he brings you over the edge, lips tightly wrapped around your little bud before he releases it with a pop to lick you through your orgasm.

A loud squeal escapes you when two of his fingers replace his tongue, quickly rubbing your pussy from side to side.

Your juices gush out of your hole as Neteyam keeps abusing it and finger your pussy even harder. Your body jerk up, trying to get away from this overwhelming pleasure, and that’s his cue to slip his fingers out and let you recover from your orgasm.

"Didn’t know you were the squirting type."

You roll your eyes and lay flat, still out of breath but feeling the energy come back in you as soon as you flip him off.

"Fuck off, skxawng."

He laughs and takes you in his arms, kissing your forehead and your nose and your lips.

"Yelp. I deserved that."

You smile as he nuzzles his nose against your cheek and wrap your arms around him to pull him in a tight hug.

"Oof- are you trying to kill me already? We’re not even mated yet !"

"Yeah, but you’re annoying, so I might just…Strangle you…While I still can !"

Neteyam pretends to struggle in your grasp before you finally release him.

"Damn you’re strong."

He lays back down and pulls you on top of him so you don’t stay on the ground too long.

"Yeah, I know."

"And humble too."

"Ahah. Very funny."

You plant a kiss on his lips and the mood shifts to a more heated one again. Neteyam hold you by the neck and pulls you back to his lips when you pull back. It’s all tongue and teeth and spit, and you love it.

Your body melts against his as he reaches between you to push his loincloth to the side and holds his hard cock to guide it to your pussy. He slides it through your folds to get it wet and shudders at your warmth.

He moans out as you slowly sink on his dick, hands on his chest for more steadiness. His hips snaps up into yours to get his cock fully seated inside of you and his eyes roll back.

"S-So fucking tight…Aah…"

Your hand come to rest on the little bulge his cock forms in your lower stomach, biting your lip as you start to bounce up and down his shaft.

"You’re so deep inside, Neteyam…Look."

He opens his eyes again and lock them on your stomach, almost cumming on the spot as he sees the bulge his cock forms in your tummy before it disappears again as he helps you up ‘till only his tip stays inside and force you down right back so he’s balls deep in your pussy.

Your pornographic moans only get louder when Neteyam hold your hips still and thrust up into you, thumb rubbing tight circles around your clit.

"Gonna cum for me again? Mh? Y’re going to cum on my cock and -fuck- you’re gonna soak it, yeah?"

You nod frantically, breath coming out as loud huffs when he fucks you harder.

"Yes, yes ! Neteyam…I’m so close."

"I got you, baby. I’m gonna get you there, just relax."

And he keeps his promise. He makes you cum so hard that your entire body shakes and twitch so much that you slump on him. But he doesn’t stop thrusting, chasing his own high as your pussy holds a tight grip around him.

"G-Good girl. That was good, mh? You liked t-that? Gonna like it even more when I’m gonna cum inside of you and give you a baby…"

You can’t hold back the moan that bubbles in your chest at his words. He chuckles lowly at that before he becomes a moaning mess as he starts to cum.

"Oh…Yeah, keep clenching around me like that. Fuck, fuck, fuck…Oh, I’m cumming…I’m cumming !"

He unloads inside of you, thick ropes of cum coating your gummy walls white. Neteyam fuck his cum into you before pulling out slowly when it becomes too much and starts to physically hurt.

He keeps you close to him, his hand coming to push your hair away from the damp skin of your forehead.

"Are you okay, baby?"

You only make a "uhuh" sound, incapable of moving or say anything for now.

"Oh my pretty lady can’t even move uh? Did I fuck you so good you don’t know how to talk anymore?"

Yeah, now he was being way too cocky. You straighten up quickly and ignore your blurry vision and dizziness before you hit his chest playfully.

"Shut up or I’ll cut your dick off."

Neteyam spank your ass and laugh when you hiss at him.

"You wouldn’t. You like my cock too much to do that. But I’ll still shut up just in case…”

You spend the rest of the night cuddling and kissing, coming back to your house only after a quick shower, the sun already rising behind the two of you as you walked hand in hand.

[ghost-bxrd]

What's the batfam + Cobb's reaction to Jason coming back to Gotham post Ethiopia after being taken/trained by the LoA and thrown into a Lazarus Pit?

All out war between the League and the Court of Owls, probably. Depending on whether Talia is a good person in this au or not, they might go back to a truce (or not) rather quickly.

For one, Jason‘s still riding his Lazarus Pit high (and seeing Tim isn’t making it better), and two there was definitely some manipulation going on in the League. He‘d try to hit the Court (and Bruce) where it hurts. Or maybe just remove Tim to take back his rightful place. It‘s a bit of a toss up, really. (Mostly because Joker got eviscerated by Cobb already lol)

But ultimately Cobb… would track Jason down (a threat to his the family cannot stand) and be the first to find out who’s under the Red Hood. Jason is a good fighter, but he’s got nothing on a literal century old Talon.

Cobb would be shocked for sure, and after the initial moment of freezing up— he’d just kind of clasp Jason‘s shoulders and not let go. Maybe even hug him (he‘d definitely hug him. Cobb did not take Jason‘s death well). After this slightly awkward reunion Cobb would definitely lay into Jason for being stupid and attacking the family though, demanding he come back home right this instant (Cobb is ready to scruff Jason like a kitten if he has to. That boy is not leaving his sight for the foreseeable future.)

Jason refuses vehemently, still intent on getting… some kind of revenge for being replaced.

Cobb offers to kill Tim. (Sorry Timmy, the Talon just doesn’t like you very much yet. He‘ll get better tho don’t worry)

Thankfully that… doesn’t sit right with Jason either. (Tim‘s still a child. A kid. He can’t just— allow Cobb to kill him. Even though a part of him desperately wants to.)

So yeah, end of the story is that Jason gets dragged back to the manor (scruffed like a kitten) and Bruce almost passes out when a grown up version of his son shows up in his study, hissing and spitting insults at his nonplussed Talon.

After that it‘s just— tears. More cursing. A lot of hugs. Some yelling. (While Cobb pointedly refuses to show any feeling while simultaneously also refusing to step more than five feet away from Jason at any time.)

Alfred gets the shock of his life when he sees a grumpy Jason sitting at the breakfast table the next morning, sandwiched by Cobb and Bruce and complaining that he’s way too old to sleep in a bed with his two dads now.

Alfred is the one to think of informing both Tim and Dick about the miracle sitting at their kitchen table.

(Tim gets straight to work making his own funeral arrangements and writing up a will, expecting Cobb to turn up and gut him at any moment.)

[sasuhinamonth]

Beginnings and Ends - SasuHina Recs

It's the 21st! That means it's fic writer appreciation day!

In celebration, I'd like to share some SH recs, but in a fun way!!! I'll be posting the first and last line of the fic, along with name, author, and brief description as to why I'm rec-ing it!

Good work, writers!

p.s. - Most of the links will be to FFNet, but if you see purple text, that means it's posted on AO3 as well~ I'm just doing this to save a little time on my end, but I understand some prefer reading on AO3!

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A Miracle by Eleanor Rigby 000

"A field trip!?" The class repeated. After that, several voices chirped, each of them commenting on how psyched they are for the class field trip.

"Forever," she assured

This is a angsty, passionate story of hurt, comfort, love, and meeting an old love. The story is Modern AU where Sasuke's a model and comes back to visit his childhood town, where he meets Hinata. Honestly, this is the first and only fic that has made me actively cry, and I cannot praise it enough! Please check it out!!!

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Okaeri by The Penumbra

She felt his fist connect with her stomach and went crashing down to the ground, barely having time to register what was happening.

"Okaeri, Sasuke. Welcome home."

This is sort of a prequel to the author's other fic "Snapshots: Black and White", which is also a stellar fic. It's set in canonverse, where Sasuke and Hinata slowly develop a friendship/relationship. You'll get your fair amount of angst, but really, you can hardly avoid such things in SH fics xD.

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Ichinen by Cinderella Starsend

Hyuuga Hinata stifled a yawn as she stepped out of the door and shut it behind her.

"And I love you."

I LOVE this fic! It's split into 12 chapters, each corresponding with a month. Hinata works at Ichiraku's in an attempt to get closer to Naruto, but she bonds with Sasuke more. I really enjoy fics set in the narutoverse that change things like this, mixing around dynamics so it's not always ninja stuff and war and training. It's a cute story, and the author's prose is beautiful!

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Neji Hyuuga: Matchmaker by emilyjm

Hyuuga Neji prided himself on seeing things other people never noticed.

Mission: matchmaker must be completed within five years.. Good luck, Neji!

UGHHHHH! Where do I start????? It's set in narutoverse where Neji's not only alive, but in charge of matchmaking everyone in Konoha so that he can get Sasuke and Hinata together. It's incredible sweet and incredibly moving and incredibly moving, and I love SH fics with a heavy focus on Neji. Please read it, and please read Another Story (sequel) which is JUST as good!!!

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When Will I Lose You by @elreinodelpurgatorio

Hinata, Lady of the Underworld, stands in her peach orchard and watches the Doom God and the Messenger God speak to each other.

One of these days, Sasuke, seated on a throne next to Hinata, is the one to look at a wretched soul and say: "Request denied."

This is a really fun HadesxPersephone AU where Hinata is Hades and Sasuke is Persephone! It's a short, magical read that is always a breath of fresh air! The author is really good at coming up with pretty sentences. Highly rec!

~-~-~

What's Mine To Give by WritingHyuHin

After the massacre of his clan, Sasuke had one goal in his life at that young age. Revenge.

The things I do for you... Only you.... Hinata.

This is a rewriting of The Last movie, but SasuHina style! I think it's very believable and a fun thing to read, since I've watched The Last quite a few times. Seeing things that should be Naruto but are instead replaced with Sasuke warm my little, shipper heart. Give this one a chance!

~-~-~

Nyctophilia by Sommernacht

For as long as he could remember, the night had offered him comfort.

"Indeed," he whispered against her skin. His fingers found their way under her fishnet top, making her shiver under the touch. "The most beautiful night."

Sommer hits it out of the park once again! This was their 2022 SHMonth one-shot in which Sasuke and Hinata secretly meet each other when 'borrowing' meds at night. They grow close and confide in one another, and I think it's a loving, deep connection that is impressive to make in just one chapter!

~-~-~

A Study of Mannerisms and Other Alterations by MissLe

Sasuke Uchiha, as it was well known, was in possession of some very, very gorgeous eyes.

She decided, however, that the regal Uchiha nose would always hold a special place in her heart.

Ahhhh, this is probably one of my all time favorite fics! It's fluffy, it's cute, it's funny! I absolutely adore it! This fic is set in a Modern AU, where Hinata is a waitress at a cafe and Sasuke, a member of the firefighter team that comes by almost daily, has a pretty obvious crush on her. These two dweebs are adorable, and I read this fic so much!!!

~-~-~

Uprooted by @kiljoius

Today, Hinata is 20.

“Maybe I can live with that.” Maybe she can, too, she thinks.

Arranged Marriage? Check. Fluff and Humor in a SH FIC of all things???? Check. Witty dialogue and amazing chemistry? Check check check! Without giving too many spoilers, this Modern AU fic follows Hinata and Sasuke, who plan to act 'over the top' in their arranged relationship in order to get out of it. Lets just say it doesn't work as planned for them huhu. This is a really fun fic, so if you're in the mood, give it a read!

~-~-~

This is what I've got for now, but please feel free to comment or reblog with your own favorite fics (either your own or others) with their first and last lines.

@kiljoius @elreinodelpurgatorio @daifukumochiin @catruru @fher43 @gardenatsuntime @lavendereyedassassin @cariata @naoko-ichigo @lavender-long-stories @p-crowds @queenfox352 - You guys, too! Show off fics you like (or your own)!

Good work to all authors/writers out there! We love you!!!

Mod: PC

[laynore-x]

--"Replaced Miracle AU"--⛈️🌈🌹

Despite the drama of years ago, Isabela and Dolores are very close.

Isa is still hesitant to talk about Mirabel for objecting at her wedding with Mariano since it was Alma's wish, but deep down she is very grateful that she did (Isabela was the favorite granddaughter for possessing a powerful gift; while no matter how hard Dolores tried to look perfect or meet her standards, it was never enough for her grandmother).

After some events, Mariano and Dolores got to know each other better, and they fell in love.

(full image below if you'd like to see)

[sofasoap]

Heartbreak

Pairing : Din Djarin x f!reader. slight description of injuries on Reader otherwise no other physical descriptions.

Summary: The only time Din says no to you. Din sucks at communication.  Part 1 of the Series.

Slightly AU-ish, he didn't get N1 after Razor Crest got blown up. he got something similar.

Warning: Mature theme. strong languages. angsty. 

A/N : I seem to be writing all the Din fic for the University students at moment to push them on ( Trust me, I know your pain. been there done that)   @groguspicklejar  and @deakyjoe, this is for both of you. GET YOUR ASSIGNMENTS GOING!!

MASTERLIST For sequel to this series

Din couldn't say no to you.

First time he met you, you were a mechanic work in a dingy workshop on the planet of Coruscant.

Din can sense you don't belong there at all.  You were too... pure? Radiating this aura that has him guessing you were originally from a good family,  slight Naboo accent seeping through as you speak, no matter how much you try to hide it. Judging from the huge scar you have running from the base of your jaw towards the bridge of your nose, you must have a story behind how you end up here. But it's not for him to probe. Everyone has their own secret.

"Alright, Mandalorian,All those carbon scorings we have tried and removed, that is no problem. But, " You wipe your sweat away from your face as you reading the report from the holopad of all the damages to him. " Your Hyperdrive is on its way out. It's a miracle it actually lasted this long." Lowering your voice, " I have replaced few parts here and there as well, it's on the house. Just don't tell my boss." You winked.

Din insisted on paying for the extra components. But again, you wouldn't budge, saying you manage to reuse the parts you salvage from other older imperial ships that has been sitting in the corner of the workshop , for makers knows how long. " It's taking up space anyway. you are actually doing as a favour getting rid of it."

He couldn't say no.

Thanking you, he went on his way.

Two cycles later, he is back again.  To the same shop.

This time he can sense something is different.

The owner came out and greet him. Different person, Din noticed.  Part of him wonder if you were still there.

The owner yelled towards the corner, your head popped out from the speeder you were working on. Spotting Din with the owner, your eyes went wide slightly as you hurryingly came and answer his call.

"Hello Mandalorian, I see your back again. Your hyperdrive is still functioning?" Din was surprised you still remember him. But then, how many Mandalorians are left out there around the galaxy?

He watches you as you walk around with the holopad, running diagnostics. Tapping away, you were mumbling something to yourself, making a few notes as you go along. You look sadder, more tired. You are not as happy.

Same as last time, You explain to Din the hyperdrive is still the main problem, also the most important thing, Carbonite freezer is leaking. This is going to cost him quite a bit , he sighed, but both important components for his ship he just have to throw the money in and get it done.

"I am sorry I wouldn't be able to give you any freebies this time... my.. new boss.. isn't as nice." You lowered your voice.

That confirms his suspicion.

Few days later, after the repair has been done, you begged Din to take you with him as your owner was not looking.

" I am not a taxi service." 

" Please, I will work for free, I can maintain your ship.. I have enough credits I can take care of myself.. I wouldn't be a bother. I just need to get away from here."

The way you were looking at him, how can he say no?

He later thanked himself for it.

Din was suppose to drop you off at some mid-rim planet as per agreement, but time goes on, he feel comfortable with your presence. Not only you were an excellent mechanic, saves him a lot of time and credit to find a planet with a decent workshop, you worked your miracle to keep the ship flying with no problem.  You can even cook, keeping the ship nice and clean, Din even trust you with his weapon maintenance as time goes on.

Along came the little green munchkin.

You ease into the role of caretaker smoothly.  

Hell, what else can you not do? You take care of the child like your own.  Taking care of his needs, feeding him, cleaning him, teaching him lessons, history of galaxy, sciences, mathematics. Din not quite sure how much the baby really understand or taking in, but he love watching your interaction with the child.   Reminds him memories of his own childhood, whatever little bit of memory he has left with his birth parents before the attack.  

He especially loves it when you recite stories and sing songs to the child.

Your angelic voice.

"Sorry Mando, Do you mind if we can buy more books or holopads of stories and lessons so I can teach the child? I still got enough credit I wouldn't waste any of yours.." You timidly ask him one day.

He ended up paying for the the stuff you asked for. How can he say no to you?

The longer you spend with him, you feel there was something simmering between you two, but never acknowledged. Both of you were too scared to say something, to break the equilibrium, breaking that little temporary happiness the three of you formed, a family. Clan of three. Clan mudhorn.

He gave you a vibroblade once,

“ For protection. Blaster isn’t always going to be effective.” He commented. 

You turn the blade over, you notice the corner of the handle, there’s a mudhorn signet engraved on it. 

You want to ask him about it, but he already walked off after you look back up at him.

You were hurt. Din was hurt.  There seem to be a gap between you two after Grogu has left for the Jedi training.  Both of you were trying your hardest to recover from the emptiness. You kept yourself busy doing work around the ship as per usual, but Din, already a man without too many words, seems to shut himself out from you even more than before.

He doesn't want you anymore. Just like your family.  You are no more use to him. Mind is a dangerous thing.   

This is for the best.

" Mando... We need to talk."

 "......" " I been thinking..." 

"......"

"it's time for me to leave." " NO."

"what is the point of me staying when Grogu isn't here anymore?" 

" NO."

" Why not??? You been ignoring me since Grogu left... As if I don't exist! Just let me go Mando... please.. " you sobbed.

You left that night. Despite him saying No.

Din thought Grogu's departure broke his heart, your departure absolutely tore his heart out.  

But who can he blame apart from himself for pushing you away?  His clan of three has fallen apart. 

“Hey Mando! I see you are back with your little green thing!! Come to Aunt Peli!!”  Grogu happily ran towards Peli, jumping into her hug. 

Din’s heart healed a bit after Grogu returned from his Jedi training. But there’s still an empty part in his heart that can only be filled by you. 

“So what is the problem this time round Mando? Hyperdrive again? You are in luck! I have someone new started working for me lately, she is absolute master fixing old imperial space junk like your ship!”  Din rolled his eyes. 

A voice piped up behind an old engine. 

“ I wouldn’t say I am total expert Peli, it just happen I have a lot of.........”  

Din snapped his head towards owner of the voice. 

It was you. 

You froze on the spot once you spotted Din. 

Grogu let out a happy squeal and jumped out from Peli’s lap and ran towards you with his little short leg.  You crouched down and scoop up the little child that you admit you miss so much. He let out happy coo and noises, as if trying to express his happiness to see you and trying to tell you all the things been happening since you last saw him.

“ I know little pea... I miss you a lot too. Have you had a good time with Master Luke?”

“ ... Why are you here.”

You turn your attention back towards Din.  Frowning at his accusation tone, you stood up and face him. 

“ I work here. That is why.” 

Peli walked over and carefully extract Grogu from your embrace. 

“ Come on you little thing.. Aunty Peli got some sweets for you... let the adults talk.”  Shooting you two a glance, she walked off with Grogu into the office while all the droids followed her. 

Din clenching his fist. Part of him was glad he has finally found you, by pure accident, and the stubborn part of him was furious you left without a proper goodbye, or even, left even without his permission.

“Why did you leave.”

“ I thought i stated it very clearly that night, Mando.” 

You know his real name. but you never use it.  He hates that. It put that extra distance between you two. 

“ I didn’t give you permission to leave.”

You point a finger at his chest and spit out with anger “ OH, So I need permission from YOU to leave? What are you? My master and I am your slave?”  Din flinched, him and his damn mouth.  

“I will fix your ship up. After that. Leave me alone.”  You turned around, walking towards his ship, trying to end the conversation. 

” ... have you still got the blade.” You heard him asking as you walk off. 

”..... yes.” 

You were going to leave it on the ship the night you left, but you couldn’t bring yourself to. 

Take it as a souvenir. Something to remember him by.  You said to yourself.  You try to convince yourself. 

But you know the only thing you left behind that night was pieces of your broken heart. 

I was going to leave it as sad ending but I think someone will kill me if I did... * looking at  @deakyjoe * I might do a part 2 to this tomorrow. 

Thank you for reading! Likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated :D 

[chaoticm0therfvcker]

Almond Cookie Headcanons

In game

It’s already canon that he buys multiple of the same shirts, but sometimes, he changes the style of shirt he wears. Sometimes it’s a different color like dark brown, light or dark blue, or even plaid, and sometimes he’ll wear long sleeves or a sweater vest over his shirt as opposed to his regular jacket

People go kind of crazy when he changes his look. They’re so used to his white polo + beige jacket look that any variation catches them off guard

He’s acquaintances with espresso cookie, who gives him cups of espresso whenever he needs them. He doesn’t have much time for coffee breaks, so having easy access to coffee on the go is vital to him

Because of this, he is a bit of a caffeine addict

He clipped his jacket to his suspenders so that it never falls off even though he never puts his arms through the sleeves

He has tried wearing a fedora before to look more like the detectives you see on TV. He didn’t like it

He’s a very reckless driver, running red lights and swerving around other cars on the street. It’s a miracle he hasn’t crashed into something yet

When he does get time to take a leisurely coffee break, he likes to sit back and enjoy a nice warm cup of black coffee with some nice biscotti to dip in the coffee

Since he tries to look very put together, he wears a lot of hair gel. His hair is more gel than hair at this point

Modern au

He is a lot younger than he looks. His constant stress has caused him to age prematurely

He loves dogs, and when he’s not doing detective work, he’s helping the police officers that he works with train police dogs

If his target that he’s investigating has kids, he’ll usually bring the kid to the office to hang out and calm down. He wants to make sure they’re safe since they’re typically the children of criminals

He’s had to replace the swivel chair at his desk several times from those kids getting a little to rowdy with it

He likes collecting mugs. It’s a very random thing that he picked up from how much he drinks coffee. Now, whenever he’s at a gift shop, he picks up a mug or two

Single dad of Walnut. No one knows who her mother is, but Almond is the best dad that he can be, and now he’s training her to become a detective, just like him. This was per her request, of course

Almond is a completely different person around Walnut. He goes from this no-nonsense, hardened detective to a bright and friendly middle-aged dad who will do whatever his kid wants if she uses her puppy dog eyes

Let me know if you guys have any other headcanons!

Taglist: @janayuga @katsunemillennium @trustymikh @cedric-my-beloved @c00kietin

[dxy-drxxm]

SYNOPSIS: Lyney never feared the sight of the tank, but his "Father" changed that for him. (gen. neutral reader) [ IDENTITYV AU ]

CW/s: Drowning (or almost drowning), ooc Lyney? (he's shaken up oops), depiction of Knave! Lyney/Harbinger! Lyney, near death scenario, reader gets hurt in helping survivor! Lyney (part 2 of 3)

The familiar thumping of one's heart was something Lyney is quite used to. To him, as a magician, he would only have those when performing tricks that are impossible— only for them to work as the audience began to shower him with praise.

As an illusionist, he knew well that miracles are akin to magic tricks. That is what he was raised to believe, but outside of his job, there are things far more cruel than he may say.

So when he felt himself getting dunked into the tank his sister used in one of their shows, he felt the air leave him as he was put inside.

He banged on the glass as he saw his Father? leave, the illusion fading into a sight he can discern. He thought it was her?, but the familiar coat and attire betrayed his expectation.

It was… Himself?

… As the Knave.

He felt his eyes widened. Was this suppose to be him?

If Father gets replaced or dies, will he become like this?

The hunter turned his head to see the stunned illusionist, water pouring down to fill up the tank. And for a sheer glance alone, he could see him mouth the following words that shocked his core.

And then, he left.

His siblings are far from where he was chaired. And Heaven forbid will he let them rescue him like this.

The water is filling up to his knees.

Was this the end? He couldn't tell anymore.

After all, he knew he can turn the fates in his favor. He knew that, he was a magician! And by God will he just stop because he's stuck in a water tank!

As he felt his legs grow damp, he began to do anything in his power to get out. He tried to push the lid, perhaps use his own tricks to disappear from the tank.

He wanted to get out of this blasted tank. He was growing desperate.

At times like these, he wished he had his vision on his person.

But alas, no such luck.

His efforts rendered futile, and his desperation gnawed at him alive.

...

It's rising to his waist.

...

He wanted to crumble.

He couldn't hear the faint calling of a familiar voice— and a yelp from the hit by the grim-malkin cat. The one he had from his tricks.

He can vaguely recall how some of his tricks failed. How he and Lynette endured to get a sliver of fame, to even get a chance to perform.

This was one of those times.

He knew this moment awfully well. And the familiar despair began to get to his head.

...

It's rising to his chest.

...

Was this it? Is this the end of the road?

It can't be. I can't die here. I can't.

I can't stop here— why can't I do something? Why is there no exits here?

I can't simply drown in this tank and disappear. I don't want to disappear!

No, no, no—

Please, I need to see my sister again. I need to see my siblings again.

I refuse to sit here, and yet...

... I don't know what to do.

Can I even escape from this glass prison?

Can I escape the same prison I've been destined to be trapped in?

...

Then, it rises to his neck.

…

...

…

The seal of the tank opens.

Two hands grabs him, and with one full swoop, the playwright pulls the illusionist out as a way to rescue him.

Lyney was stunned when he felt the water leave him, and albeit he is dripping, he could smell the scent of parchment and ashes.

(Name).

"Are you okay, Lyney?" he heard them asked, watching as the tank closes but the water level remains the same. "Here," they added, handing him a syringe that they retrieved from the chests.

Am I okay?

"Come on, let's go—"

They yelped and went down as the hunter— himself— loomed over them, sighing.

"Oh, my dear poupée, you should've learned not to turn your back on a hunter!" his hunter identity said, but the playwright turned to wince and glare at him.

"Hah— and you should learn not to be so cocky."

Then, the sirens blared. And detention got ahold of the Knave.

With adrenaline, they shoved the now coherent illusionist.

"Run!" you yelled, grabbing his wrist and pulling him with them out of the big tent. "Detention will last in 2 minutes— and we'll both die if we get caught by him!"

And as soon as the two of you fled, the survivors could hear the ever familiar yet chilling laugh as the Knave is in pursuit of his showstopper.

No man will be left alive.

Not on his watch.

@.enxgmx-wrxtxr | do not republish, repost, or copy my works anywhere | 2023

[fatuismooches]

muzzle anon here- thx for HURTING ME SO MUCH :D !!! that dottore fic is 'THE' dottore fic for me now, I will read it over and over and over again, it was an amazing experience. AND I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT

Since you wrote how the raven and sparrow's destinies are intertwined. I was thinking of a reincarnation (modern) au? Idk if you would be interested but I just keep thinking of doctor zandik and fragile reader

Kinda would be ironic if zandik is still experimenting on people to find a cure for reader

Or maybe this time they are actually healthy and happy together?

Oh maybe one day Zandik remembers his past life? How he lost reader? How they both ahem went to the other side haha like the whole "you are as beautiful as the day I lost you" thing

They can also met at an university (like how they met at akademiya) it is giving soulmate vibes but hear me out. When they first see each other, they instantly know each other, they don't know how but there is just this bittersweet feeling. Both are questioning why do they feel this desire to hug each other like they have been apart for so long

(I still cant over the death of the segments, Omega, and the end tho. Beta is my fav segment but ZANDY? GONE? NOO and then Omega also? Considering how reader told Dottore they still loved him, maybe Omega thought reader hated him while dying- Like in the end he thought about how he lost the love of reader. How much he messed up? Ouch .)

Actually wait segments didnt die (delulu talk)

Dottore: it was a prank.

Reader: wha-

Segments: *was just about to celebrate their birthday but now feel guilty they just caused a borderline panic attack*

YESSS GRRRR- Imagine if thousands and thousands of years have passed and Teyvat is unrecognizable from what it once was. Elemental energy, Visions, what makes Teyvat, Teyvat, are no more, and the world is completely modernized. Since Celestia is gone as well, the eternal punishment handed to you and Dottore is finished and you two can finally be reincarnated, and perhaps this time fate may give you a happy ending.

Modern Doctor Zandik and fragile reader... your illness is so mysterious that no medicine or treatment seems to be able to cure it, no one knows what's going on with you despite all the medical advances, you get sent from doctor to doctor, clinic to hospital in hopes of a miracle but nothing... But Dottore, he is widely renowned as one of the best doctors in Teyvat, despite his... attitude. Now obviously you could never dream of affording the money to see him but, it just so happens he hears of your case and takes an interest in you... Now, he never expected to get attached to anyone, much less his patient but, it seems that history repeats itself... (unethical doctor part 2)

Happy and healthy reader... and having an instant connection with Zandik!! Oh my gosh yes. Zandik would be the most confused and annoyed because he had never felt a connection with anyone his whole life, he's always been the one by himself. He tries to ignore it, ignore the building feeling in his chest, but as fate would have it, he finds himself bumping into you far more frequently than he'd like. You've had enough of his pretty man constantly invading your mind, so you approach him one day and it all begins from there. (I imagine if he ever dreamed of his past life with you, it'd teach him not to take you for granted. Especially if it was after a fight with you or something.)

I imagine Omega didn't regret his actions, but he still deeply lamented his relationship with you - he missed whenever you'd barge in and lavish him with your affection, how you'd freely rant to him, how you loved him. All were replaced with stone coldness. But perhaps, this is the price of selfishness, one that he had to pay.

😭😭 Segments pranking you... they feel quite guilty but at the same time, it's really nice to think you care about them so much.

[lilzezthenyan]

minor infodumping about my House MD-Good Omens AU <3

House is a demon with a snake motif, Wilson is an angel with an owl motif (why he has the grey streak)

No one knows that they’re supernatural beings. they just think they’re Like That™ (waving their hands and shit happens, casually references bible lore despite neither supposedly being Christian, etc.)

House doesn’t get the infarction, but rather as a punishment from Hell, an ice cube of Holy water was pressed into his thigh, giving him a limp. The cane was just a fun addition - he the technically doesn’t need it

He’s had it for a long, long time, but it was manageable. It was just a scar. In replace of the infarction, is was the same punishment but enough to permanently disfigure him and make him feel pain. Vicodin does nothing, it’s just for the high, which does distract from the pain. He tries to miracle his pain away only for it to come back a few hours later

They met several millennia ago at a bar (or the equivalent), and then they just kept meeting that way ‘accidentally’ at several bars over the years until Wilson landed himself in jail and House graciously bailed him out (but not without relentless bullying)

In the 1600s, Wilson got thrown in jail for witchcraft (people witnessed him fling a bottle at someone's head without touching it). This is what truly kickstarts their friendship

They’re both fascinated by human medicine and it’s advances, so they both pose as humans through out the centuries to learn all they can under various names

If you really tried, you would be able to find all the doctorates and PhDs they’ve both collected over time

House created the concept of privatized healthcare

The plot is pretty similar overall, but Wilson’s patients tend to live a little longer than estimated, and House’s patients are more miserable than ever while being treated

They have an ongoing bet on who can get the most "you’re such an angel / you’re an absolute demon" by the end of each decade. Wilson is obviously winning

To explain why House has slits as pupils, he says it’s coloboma, where the iris of the eye is broken, leaving what looks like slits as pupils

Wilson physically has to restrain himself from miracle-ing away cancer (in case Upstairs gets suspicious), so he instead briefly extends his patients lives and gives them a little more luck on the side

Occasionally, House will just disappear instead of walking away. He thinks it’s funny

House has a similar relationship with his motorcycle like how Crowley does with his car. So, whenever Wilson rides with House, his motorcycle deliberately drives slowly

House and Wilson choose to present masculine most of the time, but have presented feminine in some instances. For example: Wilson really liked 1950s dresses, House liked 1980s women's fashion (because of the denim)

[the-remote-viewers-division]

I have an alternate pale theory…

Consider this like a ‘Pale-AU’ (i.e. I know it is probably not supported by canon, and certainly not supported by some other works like Joshua Jenkins designs, for example… also I haven’t finished reading PJÕL, so maybe my ideas will change after that) but I started thinking about it as a “what-if” situation: If there were to be a direct sequel to Disco Elysium :insert prayer hands:, how could we reconcile the multitude of different Harrys the player could create? What about the fates of other characters? Some change due to our influence, some die. How could a sequel storyline somehow accept all those possible variances? Introducing my almost-certainly not-correct pale theory!TM using a little bit of in-game info, some real-life stuff, and a sprinkle of imagination!

Caution: Many spoilers ahead.

So what is Pale -- just the past?

After you talk to the Phasmid you’re given the impression that humans/people created the pale accidentally (with thinking and memory and ideas and invention?); and after talking to Joyce you learn that some think the pale is “rarified past.” It’s all pretty nebulous, but I think that the pale being a product (or a by-product) of the human mind/memory is close to what could be accepted as the canon origin of the pale:

INSULINDIAN PHASMID - The pale, too, came with you. No one remembers it before you. The cnidarians do not, the radially symmetricals do not. There is an almost unanimous agreement between the birds and the plants that you are going to destroy us all. YOU - Wait, the pale is human made? INSULINDIAN PHASMID - It is a nervous shadow cast into the world by you, eating away at reality. A great, unnatural territory. Its advent coincides with the arrival of the human mind. YOU - I don't have that kind of power. INSULINDIAN PHASMID - You are a violent and irrepressible miracle. The vacuum of cosmos and the stars burning in it are afraid of you. Given enough time you would wipe us all out and replace us with nothing -- just by accident. YOU - ...how? INSULINDIAN PHASMID - We suspect it will be something like the oxygen holocaust that wiped out anaerobic life 2.6 billion years ago -- when organisms first started breathing. Only much worse. CONCEPTUALIZATION - Instead of air, you exhale thoughts. There are no trees that eat thoughts.

JOYCE MESSIER – "Some say the damage stems from extreme sensory deprivation. Others argue that pale somehow *consists* of past information, that's degrading. That it's rarefied past, not rarefied matter." JOYCE MESSIER – "They call it *the blend-over of the self*. The pale does not only suspend the laws of physics, but also the laws of psychology, maybe History, even... The human mind becomes over-radiated by past." YOU – "Who says and who argues?" JOYCE MESSIER – "The logical positivists say -- the dialectical materialists argue."

An effect of the Pale is “entroponetical crosstalk" which you can experience when you use the doorbell intercom outside the whirling and hear the woman speaking from Tricentennial Electrics a long time ago, and additionally the old pale driver also talks to you about how she’s experienced the past in the pale, like the assassination of Dolores Dei. Both are snippets of human past:

KIM KITSURAGI - "It was a recording trapped in the circuitry. From some ancient tenant. This sometimes happens. Shall we conclude here? We have other mysteries to solve." YOU - "I do have one mystery that still needs solving... the radio ghost in the Doomed Commercial Area's electronic doorbell." SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "The creepy woman!" She slaps her forehead. "We were wondering about that when we worked there... but I had completely forgotten about it ever since!" SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "It must be entroponetic crosstalk. The one you get in radios and long-distance calls... Now it makes sense, with the pale right on the doorstep." KIM KITSURAGI - "Incredible..." the lieutenant murmurs. "This would also explain why we get it on the police radio all the time." YOU - "Entroponetic crosstalk?" SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "It's quite common actually. When the signal gets routed through pale, all kinds of irregularities take place. You may hear snippets of someone else's conversation, or the voice of your former lover, or an echo of an event that took place 100 years ago." SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Pale is a shroud of memories and it doesn't really distinguish to whom those memories belong to. You could hear anything."

PALEDRIVER - "You don't need to turn back time. The pale is already churning with it. As the tide of pale rises, so does the past. Someday both will cover the whole world. That's it. That's the story." PALEDRIVER - "They say there is a point -- one that *I* have not crossed -- in the pale superdeep. If you stray too far off course on the U41-A, or in Lomonossov's Land... where every step you take is one step further from home, no matter the direction." PALEDRIVER - "It's a point you cannot come back from. Your mind becomes so radiant with the past -- there is a flip." She flicks the ash from her cigarette. "Instead of writing, it erases memory. Nearing some kind of..." She shakes her head. "Indescribable *finale*." PALEDRIVER - "Like Gabriel Buenguerro in 'Segure-me, Paraíso'..." She nods and smiles, unkindly. "You're the opposite of me then. I remember everything -- even the things I never knew." YOU - "Things you never knew?" PALEDRIVER - "The smell of liquor on Gabriel's lips after the shoot. In the motor park. The roses on the day of Franconegro's coronation. On the grand stairs of Raehl. The smoke from the fowling piece, when Dolores Dei was shot..." PALEDRIVER - "The look on her face -- like an orgasm. The wound in her chest. My hand in my father's hand..." She closes her eyes, her eyelids trembling. "Except I never had a father. And I never shot Her Innocence Dolores Dei." .. PALEDRIVER - "Thought insertion? *Dithering*? The Graad-Katla Magistral?" She savours the lungful. "It's more than dangerous -- it's *sad*. But... at first I had to make a living. Now..."

So you’d think Joyce’s theory checks out, it’s all history/memory---BUT! I did the moralist political quest my first play thru, and when you are trying to contact the airship you also get radio crosstalk from the pale.

KIM KITSURAGI - "It's cold now..." SHIVERS - A slight frisson at the point where your neck meets your spine. Something about the lieutenant's words, directed at you, but not *you*... YOU - "It's really coming down, now that you mention it." KIM KITSURAGI - "Mention what?" YOU - "It's cold, like you just said." KIM KITSURAGI - "I didn't say anything, detective." KIM KITSURAGI - "...someone has been maintaining it. The wiring has been repaired..." HORSEBACK ANTENNA - An uncomfortable silence falls over the connection. KIM KITSURAGI - "... It's been a long winter... Long and cold..." YOU - "Are you going to tell me you didn't say *that*, either?" KIM KITSURAGI - "I promise you, I didn't, even though it certainly *sounds* like me..." The lieutenant seems to wince at the sound of his own voice. YOU - "It must be entroponetic crosstalk. It's the only explanation." NOID - "So your partner's haunting himself. Trying to warn him off his current path, most like." KIM KITSURAGI - "It's eerie, for certain, but also harmless. I just wish I could remember what I was talking about..." ESPRIT DE CORPS - Something here is eating at the lieutenant, as much as he would like to move past it.

You can even hear it if Kim is not with you:

KIM KITSURAGI - "It's cold now..." SHIVERS - A slight frisson at the point where your neck meets your spine. You can *feel* the lieutenant's presence, even though he's nowhere to be found... YOU - "Kim? How did you get on my connection?" NOID - "Whoa, the cop's *own partner* is a radio-spooker. That's some *other core* business right there..." HORSEBACK ANTENNA - ... KIM KITSURAGI - "...someone has been maintaining it. The wiring has been repaired..." YOU - "Kim! Answer me." NOID - "No use, man. Don't think he can hear you." YOU - "I've encountered this before. It's entroponetic crosstalk. This is a piece of the past mixing in with our signal." NOID - "What..." KIM KITSURAGI - "It's been a long winter... Long and cold." NOID - "What have you gotten us into, lawman?" HALF LIGHT - Just *run*. Unplug that headset and get as far away as you can.

YOU - "Kim? How did you get on my connection?" … YOU - "What is he talking about?"’ SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I believe you mean, what *was* he talking about." YOU - "Wait, what are *you* talking about?" KIM KITSURAGI - "It's been a long winter... Long and cold." SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "It sounds very much like entroponetic crosstalk. It happens sometimes when sending transmissions across long stretches of pale..."

Except IT'S NOT FROM THE PAST. It is Kim talking from the future, from the fort on the island. Which hasn’t happened yet.

And it can possibly NOT HAPPEN.

You hear Kim say this stuff even if he gets shot and doesn’t come with you to the island.

During gameplay they kind of just go “huh, how strange and spooky...” and don’t really delve into it.

But that completely changes the pale right? It’s not just past, it’s also future, and not just the ONLY future, POSSIBLE future.

So, my theory is that the pale is multiverse colliding: the near pale is the places where these universes begin to overlap, and deep pale is where universes overlap to such a degree they are cancelling themselves out into nothing.

Fungal communication – mycorrhizal network

When Joyce talks to you, she talks about a fungus growing at the edge of the porch collapse. I think this fungus could be acting like a mycorrhizal network, which in our world are an underground networks connecting fungi and plants allowing them to communicate or share information. I think the fungi/spores in Elysium pop up at origin points and thrive along the porch collapse and are allowing the universes to “talk” to each other.

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I understand..." She closes her eyes. "A theory of the pale where instead of an *outer ocean* it metastasises -- like a cancer or a mould -- erupting in points *inside* the world."

JOYCE MESSIER - "An uproar of matter, darling, *rising* into the pale. Rolling. Evaporating even, a great vision. The area of transition between the world and the pale is called *porch collapse*." JOYCE MESSIER - "Imagine a grey coronal mist, cold vapour, marked by spores of an opportunistic microorganism -- a mould that's adapted to grow at the edge of the unrest. It's..." JOYCE MESSIER - She closes her eyes and breathes out heavily: "... the most *disco* thing you will ever see.

INLAND EMPIRE - The white noise turns into a wall of mist and grey mould, bubbling, sweeping over the city... it tears up buildings and raises sidewalks into the sky. It's Revachol -- at the end of the world. INLAND EMPIRE - ...and it hasn't even really started yet.

Destructive interference – “le gris”

When Lena tells you about the cryptid the Col Do Ma Ma Da Qua, you learn that they are nearly extinct because the scientists played back their own calls and since they are creatures made of sound, the recordings cancelled out the birds. They died because the signals matched and cancelled each other out.

LENA, THE CRYPTOZOOLOGIST'S WIFE - "It's the *Col Do Ma Ma Daqua*," the woman corrects her glasses. "Its name means 'thin whisper of sound'. And that's *precisely* what it is -- self-replicating sound waves, invisible and intangible! The Col Do Ma Ma is very afraid of us, which makes it incredibly difficult to track..." YOU - "Why is the Ma Ma Daqua so afraid of us?" LENA, THE CRYPTOZOOLOGIST'S WIFE - "That is a sad story." She frowns. "A group of university students assisting with the field work, in their enthusiasm for the project and, no doubt, because they were preoccupied with impressing their professors, nearly drove it to *extinction*." YOU - "Extinction?" LENA, THE CRYPTOZOOLOGIST'S WIFE - She nods gravely. "They tried to communicate with it, and had no other means but sound. So they started sending out sound waves at frequencies they thought might match the Ma Ma Daqua's. And what happens when a sound wave meets another sound wave of the same frequency, dear?" YOU - "They cancel each other out."

So... admittedly this doesn’t directly connect to the pale, but it’s illustrating the concept of signals cancelling each other out and, I'm going to say, indicates that this concept is possible in Elysium. The pale is destruction, the overlap between universes causes matter, physics, and even numbers to dissolve. The more complete the overlap, the more complete the destruction.

In conclusion...

According to my theory, the pale is the areas of the world that are affected by these fungal organisms that allow very similar, but different universes to communicate with each other, and since their 'signals' are so alike, they are being cancelled out.

So why did I force myself to jump thru these mental hoops? I think having a multiverse like this would make a sequel more possible since there are so many ways the game can be played. Any possible playthrough would be its own universe. Having a multiverse like this acknowledges and validates any play thru as 'canon,' no player will feel that they somehow played the game “wrong.”  Whatever Harry appearing in the sequel is one of the possible Harrys even if he wasn’t “your” Harry. If a character died, they died only in some of the universes, not all. Whatever world the sequel would take place in is just one of the many possibilities.

Anyway, I thought WAYYYY too much about this and now you can too. Sorry!