#all to jump on some woke point about 'privileges' with the character it did not APPLY to!

[katyspersonal]

(vent) Again I am not touching my other interests here often, but I think Thomas Astruc (Mir4culous L4dybug) is one of the WORST examples of this meme amongst the showmakers:

Like... imagine writing an absolute textbook example of the mary sue character who is instantly talented in everything she does, the super ultra skilled designer and artist recognised by world wide celebrities for her skill, repeatedly hired by celebrities to do commissions for them, loved by everyone, one of the best video-gamer, apparently can invent complex mechanisms, is "the best Miraculous holder and the best holder of a ladybug miraculous who ever lived" (in 5000+ years!), instantly masters every miraculous she holds the first time, while also always getting away with her awful actions (if not getting rewarded for them) and taking up so much screen time that the supposed second main character (whose whole potential was assassinated to make him goofy, annoying and useless without this woman) might as well not exist

And when you DO address that, you are claimed to be some sort of sexist who just hates to see the girlboss wi- I mean, can't handle to see female lead or whatever. Not just that, but also claiming another character who was abused and neglected by her mother to the point of living basically without her, has god awful father that absolutely fails to act like a PARENT and instead just spoils her with gifts and favours and only had two whole friends in her entire life is evil just for the sake of evil and can never change and would not WANT to change because "she would not want to give away her PWIWWILEGES UWU".

That's not feminism, that's 'how do you do fellow kids'. That's the example of a boomer learning what ideals these darn modern kids support and trying to jump on the bandwagon without actually understanding any of this... and ironically ending up hurting the exact people you try to cater to. Also all mentioned characters are 14-15 years old.

Sigh... Sometimes I just wish show makers stopped trying to jump onto ideas they clearly do not understand. This is always just so embarrassing to watch.

[infinitecrime]

Just a quick statement in case anyone was wondering where I have been/will be. I've been taking, and will continue to take, a short Tumblr break until the SCU (Sebastian Cancellation Universe) wears itself out and goes on hiatus. I deleted Tumblr off my phone a few days ago and realised immediately that all this vicious, misinformed discourse pretty much solely exists on here and twitter, and if I want to avoid it, I can simply remove myself from the space.

I'm certainly not going to be gone forever - the head Canceller has made it quite clear that her sole intention was to "bully Sebastian off the internet", and presumably his fans too, while using POC and social issues as pawns/collateral damage. To quit the fandom feels like letting them win, but taking a break feels necessary at this point.

I like to listen to others who have different perspectives and value their opinions - but at the end of the day, I form my own and do my own research. And so far, I have seen absolutely nothing to change my opinion that Sebastian is a kind and well meaning man who sometimes doesn't think through every conceivable perspective before his does something - in other words, a flawed human. I'm not going to call for the end of a man's career and/or life, or withdraw my support of him, because 4 years ago he (accidentally, for all we know) liked a video of a man being called out for rapping the N-word and being told to censor himself, or because he smiled weird next to a statue while playing a Buddhist character. We can criticise him for his own actions, but these are willfully disingenuous interpretations specifically designed to harm not just him, but also POC fans who look up to him. I won't let myself be lied to, gaslighted, or dragged into a herd mentality. A disturbing number of people are not actually angry at him, but are simply scared of being harassed if they dare to question what they're being told or form their own opinions, so join the herd. The pursuit of the moral highground is addictive but futile, and you lose it as soon as you stoop to bullying, abuse, harassment, stalking and running dedicated, deranged hate accounts.

I'm not going to cancel him for a handful of bad jokes or mistakes made years ago that have been profusely apologised for and learnt from, either, and I'm not going to cancel him because of the years old actions of people he is associated with that he had nothing to do with. This isn't fair, proportional or helpful, at all. It's not activism, and it's not social justice - in fact, the constant malicious attempts to cancel him are only making it harder for him to see legitimate criticism or respond without setting a precedent that death threats will get his attention and a grovelling apology for things he didn't say and views he doesn't hold.

If your whole life was on tape and available to comb through with the worst intentions, and you weren't hiding behind anonymous accounts, I could construct equally terrible narratives from every bad joke, misspoken word, ill thought out comment, accidental like, dubious friend, mistake, genuinely hurtful moment or show of ignorance that you have ever made, but apologised for, grew from and forgot about instantly. You have that right: but you don't grant it to him, because he isn't truly a human being to you. So many of the blatantly and demonstrably false accusations I have been seeing would have been dispelled through the most basic level of fact checking and critical thinking, but through herd mentality and what I can only describe as moral bloodlust, they've gained serious, dangerous traction.

For someone who was raised in a deeply insular, conservative, traditional, orthodox environment, he has done a genuinely excellent job of freeing himself from that cycle of ignorance and using his platform in a positive way, as well as responding when he genuinely has misstepped. He will likely never be on the same level of educated/woke as a ~25 year old American who was literally raised knee deep in social justice twitter discourse, because he didn't have that privilege, but we are all on a journey and progress is not linear or with a clearly defined end.

The ironic thing is: the current state of the fandom is a direct result of how nice and willing to listen and learn Seb has been! The level to which he used to engage with fans and respond to criticism and feedback has created an expectation that he will ask how high whenever he is told to jump, and if he doesn't respond to every little thing, this means he doesn't care or hates us. His willingness to own up to mistakes, apologise and grow publically has created the strange idea that if he's not doing something publically, it's not happening, as if he only exists while we can see him, like social media peekaboo. His openness and willingness to act on criticism of those in his social and professional circles has led to the belief that we can demand he cut anyone we dislike out of his life immediately instead of helping and supporting them in making amends and learning, if only we can dig up some old dirt on them. It's entitled, parasocial nonsense. This is a total stranger who owes us nothing, is not actually accountable to us, does not have to ever respond to us or meet our demands, and has a complex and private inner life that we ultimately know nothing about.

I feel immensely sorry for the fans, especially POC, who have been wrongly led to believe that Seb hates or is discriminatory towards them on the basis of lies, hyperbole and some serious reaching. I feel deeply sorry for Seb's friends and family, who have been subject to an enormous amount of abuse and harassment (much of which has been racist, sexist, bodyshaming, xenophobic and cruel in nature - all in the name of social justice?) merely for being friends with him, and who recently had to see #RIPSebastianStan trending. Mostly, I feel immensely sorry for Sebastian, who has not been allowed the same basic rights everyone else in the world gets: the right to learn and grow, the right to forgiveness and freedom from harassment, and the right to be judged on things that *you* actually *did* rather than fictional narratives.

I cannot imagine the mental toll thousands of people calling for your death must take. I cannot imagine how it feels to have hate accounts dedicated to abusing you and critiquing your every move, and that of everyone you love. I cannot imagine the impact of obsessive doxxing, stalking and harassment. I cannot imagine all of this happening when you have been quite open about your mental health issues and serious struggles. There are truly only so many messages telling you to kill yourself that you can take, and I just hope he has people in his corner to remind him who he truly is and what he truly stands for.

[hyper-cryptic]

You've been visited by the random OC question fairy! :D ~☆

Has your character ever broken someone's heart? Have they ever made someone close to them (friend, s/o, etc.) cry? How has this situation affected their actions in the future?

What an honor! Visited by the OC Question Fairy themself! 

Well! Let’s say that Kate has a history of breaking hearts. I will start with her relationship with Preston first since this one wasn’t as brutal as their relationship with her husband but a lot of stuff that happened there affected her relationship with Preston.

The relationship between them and Preston was spontaneous, both of them were at their lowest point and were looking for the slightest feeling of comfort, to even feel something again. Preston confessed his feelings to Kate and she...thought she corresponded. It was love, but not the love that she and Preston thought it was. They never fought, but not because they didn’t have any problems - they had A LOT - but because none of them wanted to create conflict between them, plus, Kate’s traumatic experience with discussions and trust issues made it harder for her to open up. They both finally sit down to talk after they visited Goodneighbor for the first time. Preston finally came to the realization that their relationship wasn’t as good as he thought it was, and Kate didn’t look happy in it anymore...The look in her eyes when they met the peculiar Mayor of Goodneighbor, it was so obvious that she was interested in him, romantically interested in him. Preston told her that she clearly didn’t want to be in this relationship and wasn’t enjoying herself anymore like she used too, as much as it pained him to say it. But he needed to get it out so that their relationship didn’t worsen anymore than it already was. Kate was confused, she didn’t get it. Why did he want it to end? Wasn’t he happy with her? Why did he care? Questions like that revolted inside her head as the conversation went on, even asked some of them. Preston let it clear that he wanted her to be happy, to enjoy herself, and if being with him didn’t make her happy then he wasn’t happy.

 “I don’t...I don’t understand. Aren’t you happy?” Kate’s throat felt tight, her voice was shaky as she desperately wanted the conversation to come to an end, and be able to go to the closest bar and forget about it the next day. “A relationship has to make both parties enjoy themselves, Kate” his words were like a slap across the face. She knew this, or at least thought she knew it. Preston’s face softened “Kate, I can’t be happy if you aren’t.” he swallowed  “I- I saw a look in your face I’ve never seen yesterday. I want to know what you want.” his voice was firm. It wasn’t a suggestion. Kate started to feel tears coming out of her eyes as she tried to think of an answer. Why was she crying? She snapped at the thought “Goddammit! I don’t know! I- what am I supposed to do?!” she threw her hands at the air and turned away. “That’s something you gotta find yourself, Kate. You don’t need me to tell you what you want” he chuckled, but the look in his face was miserable. “But, I think- I know you don’t want me. And that is fine, I’ll survive.” He put his hand on Kate’s thigh, the touch made her jump. She didn’t realize she had been shaking this whole time. She looked up to encounter his eyes. He had a soft, warm smile across his face, his eyes so full of emotion. “Alright. If that’s what-...If that is best.” she finally broke the silence that felt like forever. Preston sighed in relief “Hey, we’re still friends, this isn’t the end of our friendship if you don’t want it to be” his whole body tensed as he waited for her response. “Yeah, that...that would be good. For us. To stay friends.” She looked away once more time at the awkwardness of her words. “Man, it’s going to be really awkward from now on, huh?” she joked, trying to make the awkwardness go away. Preston let out a cackle “Let’s hope it won’t get in the way.”

(DID YOU GUYS LIKE THAT? I DON’T KNOW IF IT WAS GOOD, I HOPE IT WAS)

TW for abuse , non-con , unwanted pregnancy , suicidal thoughts and suicide attempt for this next part!! Procced with caution.

Pre-war Kate was a pretty cold-hearted person, they had to be. Being an immigrant during a war would be rough, and sadly, this is america *wink*. She married a white man during her early twenties, he was 27, a soldier. In those times, soldiers had more privilege than normal citizens, so she hit the jackpot. His name was Sam Walker, he was enough of a “decent” guy for Kate to marry. He was deeply in love with Kate, but she didn’t return the same feelings; she only married him for citizenship and the privilege that came with the man’s service for the country, so you can imagine how that became a problem. They had...quite lots of fights, mostly ended in either of them crying out of desperation for one reason or another. Sam, at this point, felt entitled to Kate’s love and was in denial about Kate’s un-correspondence to his feelings that was so clear to his friends and family. He was desperate that, in one of their sex sesions, he “forgot” to put a condom on. Kate didn’t notice, since she had gotten drunk out of her mind, hell, she probably didn’t even remember the day after that she even had sex with her partner. About 4 weeks or so, Kate started feeling sick, so she went to the doctor. Doctor got her to take a pregnancy test. It was positive. She couldn’t believe it, when did this happen? Sam “comforted” her, saying it was ok, that it was just another challenge they had to go through. Kate felt trapped, felt like there was no other option than...having this child. And she did.

It was nothing better once Shaun was born. But Sam was happy. Kate had to go through postpartum depression, unable to look at her baby, unable to look at herself. She quit her job and became a housewife. She felt like her life was crumbling apart, like all her opportunities, her potential, it had all been blown away. She could find some level of comfort talking to Codsworth, but he couldn’t do anything better than comfort her, to look at the bright sides...what bright sides were there? Eventually, after 2 months, Kate warmed up to Shaun, thinking to at least give this kid a happy life, the happy life she couldn’t have. She swore to him that he wouldn’t have to suffer like she suffered, even if it has to mean to leave her pride behind, her dignity...if there was some left. And then the bombs dropped.

This relationship affected pretty much every other relationship she had after she woke up. Every single one. The one most affected was her relationship with Preston, that I showed up previously. But also her relationship with Hancock and Nick. Even affected friendships, like with Deacon and Danse. The amount of guilt, shame, and pain she felt during her next months out in the 'Whealth + the horrible things she witnessed AND an alcohol addiction was sufficient to drive her to a suicide attempt. If it wasn't for Dogmeat barking constantly, Sturges wouldn't have been able to find her trying to overdose herself with Med-X inside Shaun's bedroom. After that accident, Codsworth and Preston put extra effort into taking care of her and this lead to Prestons confession, in an effort to give her something and him to live for. It was a great help for a while, but...nothing that would actually make her see clearly. After a month or so, she met Hancock, and she could start to see a reason to continue and help people more than "it is the right thing to do" . He was her inspiration, a whole new world that she could start seeing. But even so, she wasn't able to heal properly, until she she started to bring Valentine and Deacon along that she could start to heal and be at peace with herself.

[janiedean]

Hope this is okay to ask but I was wondering what your thoughts are on the way Tyrion is treated by some of the fandom, especially Cersei stans? I feel he is held to a different standard to other male characters and as someone with an invisible disibility irl it makes me a bit uncomfortable. I’ve seen many “Lannister stans” who either hate him or want to ignore he exists.

sure it’s okay to ask don’t worry ;)

that said: when it comes to tyrion’s fandom treatment especially on tumblr there’s like a whole bunch of like... WE’RE ABLEIST BUT MASKING IT BEHIND FAKE WOKE ARGUMENTS crap going on because not counting the fact that show!tyrion has been what he was since S5 bc dnd can’t obviously write him and stopped giving peter decent material after then and it shows, but like... show!tyrion being nowhere near as complex as the book version is a problem that 99% of the show characters had so I don’t think it’s like a valid argument:

the premise is that tyrion is outside like TUMBLR and the likes circles a clear fan favorite when it comes to the general audience if not the fan favorite - like there’s more tyrion merch than idk jon snow merch and maybe maybe he was 50/50 with dany but like... I think that if we did a general poll tyrion would come out as the most liked character, which... I mean fair tyrion is an a+ character and he’s extremely relatable on a whole shitload of levels and let me tell you if a disabled character is for once the main fan favorite I won’t complain:

problem is beyond the fact that he’s disabled he’s... about everything tumblr hates in the sense that a) man, b) (presumably) straight man who has a lot of sex to deal with his issues, c) his issues are not exactly pleasant to deal with, d) not Standard Attractive, e) basically his one trump card is outsmarting people so it’s really easy to attach the whole AH MANIPULATING SCHEMING ASSHOLE argument to him, f) an abuse victim from at least his father and cersei but we all know men can’t be abused on this website *rolleyes* plus he hates the shit out of cers/ei which like.. is apparently the cardinal sin and the key to being labeled a misogynist always, which automatically means that when it comes to tumblr asoiaf fandom nine times on ten people will ignore the fact that his disability is a reason people discriminate him and that the treatment he received because of it gave him TRAUMA and start going like AH BUT HE’S A MAN AH BUT HE’S RICH which... doesn’t mean he can’t be traumatized even if he has male and money privilege;

for what it’s worth anyway bc as stated okay being a lannister did mean that he had a better upbringing/situation economically than a commoner with dwarfism but that doesn’t make his abuse any less damaging, but people on here just... don’t seem to get it;

but yeah like the point is that male chars on tumblr are already held at different standards than female ones (again theon gets more shit than cersei ever had for doing a lot less horrid stuff) but tyrion as... the mega fan favorite especially in within the male fanbase (reddit/w-org and the likes) is held to an extra standard in the sense that if the dudebro faction likes him then he’s BAD NEWS, which means that the fact that he’s disabled and that it affects his life is thoroughly ignored because they have to cry about how he has male privilege over c. and so she can’t abuse him (which... lmao the day I read that shit in S2 I was so out, but whatever);

anyway thing is: ‘lannister stans’ in my experience is a thing that like... is weird in this fandom because actually I never met a supposed lannister stan who likes all of them or who doesn’t ignore some exist, like.. usually most lannister stans who pretend tyrion doesn’t exist are either c. stans or tywin stans or both and don’t get me started on how this fandom has a weirdass tywin worship thing going on for which they think tyrion killing him is an unforgivable crime when it was basically what that asshole deserved and the narrative is having tyrion go in the downward spiral for shae not for tywin. c. stans usually say they also stan jaime but like... they stan whichever version of jaime they think exist that is compatible for a book ending that has the murder suicide thing happening that doesn’t exist in the books and they ignore tyrion exists same as their fave, but then again here we fall back in the pit where everything c. specifically does is seen as either fight against the patriarchy or feminist rebellion or trauma justification on account of c. being a woman and if a man does it it’s horrid or if she does it to a man then it doesn’t matter, so like... it’s a lost cause;

anyway like if someone say they’re a lannister stan and ignore tyrion when whether they like it or not tyrion is the only lannister in the main five povs (which i’d like to remind everyone are jon dany tyrion arya and bran regardless of whoever is everyone’s fave) and the one that has most narrative weight then like... just say you like c. or tywin and go;

tldr: while I think that the show did tyrion a lot of dirt in order to make him more... idk cleaned up when the book character is good as it is, tumblr fandom is swimming deep in ableism and denying that men can be abused and affected by that when it comes to tyrion’s treatment, never mind in the neverending absolutely shallow argument that’s everywhere in asoiaf fandom which is that no one outside specific group of people has understood that one of the key messages of these books is ‘how you look outside doesn’t mean shit about your personality and people who aren’t standard attractive are people with needs and personality who also deserve love and have a lot to give and will meet someone who’ll give it to them’, because the race is basically shipping beautiful ppl together even if it makes sense and negating at all turns that brienne/arya/tyrion/sandor/anyone else who’s not standard attractive are like... viable romantic partners on an even level with whoever so there’s that too, but like I think that on tumblr it shows that ppl are extremely hypocritical when it comes to tyrion and that it shows that their wokeness stops at the surface bc if you read those books and miss The Fucking Point when it comes to tyrion’s disability... text comprehension where have you gone ;)

also when it comes from c. stans** I just sigh and roll my eyes but then again c. stans generally think c. is the only person in these books with justified issues and trauma reaction and downplay not only how she abuses others but also the effects on the ppl she abuses whether they’re men or women so like... they don’t even admit how she is with jaime do we think they’d admit it for tyrion? doubt that.

**before everyone else jumps on me: with c. stans I mean the vocal side of c. standom where almost everyone is like that and from whom I never saw once an acknowledgment that she actually did abuse him (or anyone kllkjkgdj), not whichever c. stan around who likes her because she’s terrible/recognizes that she’s bad etc, I mean no ill will, if you didn’t feel called out reading it it wasn’t about you, peace and love.

[seb-owns-these-tatas]

Witcher Of The Night (Chapter 4.1)

THIS IS MODERN ERA READER WHO WOKE UP IN THE DIMENSION OF THE WITCHER.

WITCHER OF THE NIGHT MASTERLIST

CHAPTER 4

Characters: Geralt of Rivia x small!Naive!Reader

Summary: Seems like a Hirikka wants to be adopted. Thus, it was the Hirikka's presence that made things a lot more complicated for Geralt as he seemed to have a difficult time saying no to those doe eyes that you and the Hirikka had; leaving Jaskier to realize there was seriously something fishy about you and it was not just because of the witcher's frustration for his great abstinence that he badly needed a woman. Hence, there was something more.

Warnings: Fluff and tension from Geralt and Y/N! A tamed Hirikka who wanted to join the fam-bam! The word vagina and smash 😂 curse words and a very dramatic bard! Brief mention of Yoda. 😂 Soft! Geralt! 😍 Y’all can sense how Y/N has a crushie on the witcher. Taking care of an endangered species at home; but will eventually be freed when...it’s time.

Words: 4,100+

A/N: THANK YOU FOR ALL THE UNDYING SUPPORT! It's still full of fun, excitement and development. You'll have a sip of the plot soon enough! Problems will arise soon and I don’t know if you’ll like it? Heehee!

TAGLIST IS STILL OPEN FOR THIS ONE! Heehee! Don’t forget to REBLOG, COMMENT OR GIVE FEEDBACK IF YOU DID LOVE THIS CHAPTER! IT’LL MAKE ME SMILE!

Disclaimer: PNG's used in edits are not mine even the GIF's too. However, the edits and oneshots are definitely from moi. Characters, places and said monsters aren't from moi as well.

MY WORKS ARE NOT NOT NOT NOT NOOOOOOT TO BE POSTED ON ANY OTHER WEBSITES. My official username in Wattpad is “TATATHEPOTATO” and that’s the only other site I have for writing aside from Tumblr. Thank you, Tater tots!

Some people said that when you're on your way to a journey you never knew about, it would be as difficult as taking a trek up the Mount Everest; saying that the way back home was pretty much effortless because the right path home was already engraved inside your head.

Not for you. You were heaving breaths again as you were not even halfway through the forest till Geralt's house.

Your eyes scanned the whole woods. It was extremely vast, thick and humid. Thoroughly astir with life like you have never seen before. Never, even back in your dimension; in earth to be precised. The forest of Kaedwen was like a fantasy genre game that has came into life and you were completely astounded even though, you were hunched over your knees like a dog panting in heat.

You've heard his horse gallop, wheezing before you as you gave them both a huff of exhaustion; giving Geralt a nasty lour when you've breathed in another deep one. The witcher suddenly jumped off his horse as you carry one with heaving breaths when he'd abruptly called out for you.

"Come," He demanded; standing beside Roach completely poised and with authority. Both hands on his leather belt with those hypnotizing set of peepers fixated on you. His expression lukewarm.

A baffled crease of your forehead coming together as you stood up straight; lips forming a tight thin line full of enervation. You've sauntered to where he is, very languidly and feeling your soles hurt every now and then. With Geralt suddenly conscious of your limping form and the huge cape you were trying to keep away from dirt because you've held the ends of it as you walked through the forest. "Why? Is there something wrong?"

The witcher shell-shockingly tutted when you were at arms reach, shaking his head as he does so. You've felt him take a step closer, towering over you with a stare he could muster that can get your face boiling in twitterpatters.

His palpable warmth was radiating off you quite irresistible. Such a warmth that could want one person to be engulfed in all night against the crisp wind that the kingdom of Kaedwen can offer. A tempting gesture you've wanted to take but had no will to do because it'll be very much strange for a person who'd suddenly appeared out of nowhere and hug the warmth out of him because of the cold wind.

"Turn around," He deeply muttered, slightly leaning his chiseled face down to your side as if to whisper in your ear. You've felt the baffling goosebumps rise your skin; the familiar warmth suddenly itching your face once more like a charger that was about to explode.

Faces close to each other and the vision of him leaning down just to whisper in your ear was enough to make you stammer like a high-school girl again. His Aurum eyes undeniably clearer and different when stared at with only a few inches away. It was giving an effect that makes you question yourself what your name was when you already know what it is, that kind of effect as each day passes.

"Why--why are you so demanding---" you started with a wild stammer. One side of his lips lifting in an inconsiderable amount that got your heart pounding, "Turn. Around." Geralt repeated, very much firmer and clearer with that subtle mischief in his peepers.

The cheeky bastard knew what he was doing.

You've stood your ground. Your eyes narrowing at the Witcher with a tenuous amount of pout because of how he'd gotten out of the ordinary since the moment he'd given you his hooded cloak.

A brief amount of headstrong stares were shared before the other raised his white flag, wanting to roll his eyes at the disobediency. The tall, brooding man sighed exasperatedly before you've felt his gentle fingers hooking your hips and painstakingly turning you around to his satisfaction.

This was the first time he has held you in such way. Your breath hitched and Geralt definitely heard and felt how your body react to his touch. It was like he was injecting a fiery kind of warmth that shoot through your veins when he turned you around.

Your legs were submitting to his demand. He was like your master and you were his puppet that he could play with the strings. Totally controllable with just one whisper.

"A stubborn midget, indeed." He uttered, completely lackadaisical. You bit the insides of your lips in consciousness. Very attentive of his fingers tightly clasping your hips and his warmth radiating from behind.

Geralt couldn't help but get a whiff of that delectable scent you had. The irresistible scent that boils his emotions like fireworks popping in the sky. He deeply sighed, eyes fluttering closed as he breathed. A coherent growl coming out of his chest making you turn your head to the side; wanting to ask what was wrong because he seemed to be having a battle within himself.

His touch was sending you the shudders whenever you were having a date with one of your suitors. These suitors that eventually got tired of courting because of how boring you were in reality. They were just attracted to the outer beauty you had; the adorable expressions you make or a sweet voice that gives them the thrill of having you. But, when they finally had the privilege on seeing the real you; they suddenly stop and find another woman who was worth the courting.

Kind of disheartening but you were used to it. All the damn time. They've called you boring but you've called yourself an idiot for liking them a lot in the end when they were officially pulling away.

Though, with Geralt's touch; there was something different. Something that could get your heart feeling the thrill and comfort you wanted and needed that nobody could ever give and you were beyond dumbstruck because of it.

"Hold on to Roach," the witcher suddenly dictated as you were distracted by those fingers clasping your hips, "What---" you asked out of nowhere, feeling his hold go firm as he pulled you closer to him. The mellowness of your face growing hotter when you've also felt his breath on top of your hair. You were panicking, but in a good; thrilling way.

"---and jump when I carry you," he added with the gruffest tone he could perpetrate. Your hands were quick to grab onto Roach's body when all of a sudden, you've saw an animal sitting on the ground in your peripheral vision; only catching the silhouette of his body.

"Wa-wait," Geralt ceased to carry you onto his horse's back. A curious hum leaving his chest as he haven't carried you midway yet. The sound of feet shifting was heard and you've turned your soles to be met with a brown animal who also had a lanky torso, legs and feet to stand, with arms that had the same structure of a human. Big eyes in the shade of dirty yellow, a stout jaw and nose but with sharp teeth of a wolf.

"Geralt?" the sound of your voice consists of slight fright but also completely fascinated and with utter interest. No words were given to you when you've pointed at the Hirikka who stood on its feet, languidly blinking back at you with those doe eyes, "A walking puppy!"

You've given the Hirikka a toothy grin as you were enchanted by how adorable it is. The animal was beyond out of this world for you as there were no types of animals like it. The Hirikka slanted his head to the side, curiously watching what you were doing as he'd seen you smiling before he languorously tried to smile back but it appears as if he was threatening you and showing its teeth.

The witcher's eyebrows were met with a tight knot; thoroughly judging you from behind. It was the Hirikka he'd given an apple before you even met Cuthbert.

"---Or...It's...It's a walking cat!" you pressed on and pointed at the animal with no idea that it was already a monster standing before you. Your giggle was enough for Geralt to know that you were ecstatic for seeing a Hirikka rather than being scared. He kept silent and continued listening to your rambles, "---A big cat with the ears of Yoda!"

You were about to make a run for it; before Geralt held you in place and tugged you back with his hands still on your hips. Totally unaware that he was still holding you because it felt all natural for him to be touching you like that. Your eyeballs were close to having it pop out when you've felt him keep you rooted in your place as he mindlessly droned, "No, It's a monster. A Hirikka. An endangered one," he paused, feeling you sigh and notice the dejected pout you had because it wasn't just a normal animal but a monster to their world.

The latter was quick to back-paddle; trying to lighten your hopes up, "---But, harmless. Never fear, midget."

Your smile flared up into a grin, all teeth shown at the Hirikka with Geralt's enlightening statement before yanking your head back to meet those gold eyes staring back at you in humdrum. The upper portion of your head; hitting his armored chest with a soft thud. Those peepers of yours overflowing with perversity and a hint of beseeching.

"Geralt?" you beamed wider than ever before; hoping you looked worthy enough for the favor to be accepted.

The witcher dropped his hands to his sides, not even noticing he was holding you longer than he intended to. He crossed his sturdy arms with a look of irritability and refutation from the whole idea. He just knew what you were pointing out as you wanted to hug the Hirikka if he didn't pull you back.

"Can I---"

Geralt sighed a deep one; looking away as he wanted to roll his eyes, "No. Only a demented person will think of having a Hirikka as a pet,"

"I'm not taking him as a pet," you countered and wholly turned your body to give him that puppy eyes of yours, "---I'm befriending the cutie!" with a point of your fingers, the Hirikka smiled another one; entirely benign to even begin with. You've seen the Hirikka blink cutely and wanted to do everything just for Geralt to say yes. If you would be staying in their world, you might as well find something entertaining to get your weariness by taking care of a Hirikka rather than staring at Jaskier who slept all night like a big baby.

"No, you're wanting him to be a pet," Geralt retorted with another sigh of vexation; emphasizing the word 'want'.

Another sally was sent, "You told me it was already endangered," pause. "---The poor little thing needs to be taken care of especially that he's all alone and so hungry. You don't want him dying in starvation, right?"

Geralt groaned to himself, closing his eyes to relax himself from telling you that monsters can't be kept as a pet nor taken care of because they knew how to take care of themselves. Yet, there you are; looking at him like what a Hirikka appeared to be like as you were trying to act pretty cute just to have what you wanted.

"Creatures wandering in our world should be left untouched. Not be taken as a pet," the latter seethed with his jaw clenching when he was met with your twinkling, hopeful eyes.

However, you weren't backing down that easily. "Come on! Even just until I'm here then you can let him go, please? please? please?"

His face was in the correct wrinkle of a wince like he was close to punching a wall. Geralt hardly exhaled and gave you a grimace; a look that could get your knees turn to jelly because of how sexy it looked like. You were definitely out of your mind for finding a scowl attractive from a witcher you hardly knew about.

"Fuck," his cursing seemed to be a definite affirmation for your request and his next words confirmed your hunches, "---Fine!" he gruffly exclaimed.

Thus, you beamed back at the witcher and jumped excitedly, giggling in the process and resisting yourself from hugging him tight, "---Just don't fucking starve the horseshit because you're definitely going to be his next meal,"

Geralt didn't actually mean that because Hirikkas don't eat people. Just plants, fruits and sometimes animals when its that time of the month or a full moon.

Despite of trying to threaten you and having the chance to back out from your wishes, your smile even grew wider if that was even possible; snapping your fingers to tell him that you had something in your weird mind. "I'm naming him Kolby!"

The Witcher's forehead creased more, mouth turning into a frown as he beseeched, "Why?"

"What do you mean why? One deserves a name even a stone!"

He turned his back away from you, shaking his head to open his back that was latched behind his horse, grabbing onto another fruit. It was a plum. He threw the fruit towards the awaiting Hirikka who was now closer within an arms reach and the Hirikka gladly accepted it with a loud wheeze, "I'm not an idiot to be naming a stone, Midget." he gave you the side-eye.

You raised an eyebrow back at him; your smile never seem to be fading since the moment you had with him back in Cuthbert's house, "Says the person who's dressed up in an all-black costume like he was out of an action role playing game,"

"It's an armor," Geralt shut his bag closed, mouth forming a thin line from your naivety and how you weren't taking his world seriously. His voice turned a pitch lower and utmost gravely, "You don't know how this world is filled with beasts, Midget."

He turned his booted heel to see you still smiling back at him. Geralt hummed out of his habit and abruptly pulled you to his solid chest. The uttermost close proximity letting your smile fall from the action. You gaped up at him in question, when he'd given you an answer filled with a touch as he gently held onto your hips and turned you around like you were his stuff toy.

"Now, jump." he rasped. Before you could even comprehend, he'd lifted you with no sweat and you were holding onto Roach's body with all your life. Half of your torso still hanging onto his horse as he haven't lifted you all the way.

"Geralt!" you shrieked, his horse utterly huge for you to jump on by yourself with Roach neighing in the background.

To the witcher's unfortunate position, he was inches away from your clothed bum. His eyes narrowed at what was shown to his face; his nose flared as he stared, turning his head to look away with a displeased hum and seeing the Hirikka judging him from the side.

He glared at the poor harmless monster as it looked like he was judging him for even looking.

They've both stared like they were having a competition before you frustratingly quipped and pulled your whole body to raise your leg to the other but finding that it was quite difficult, "Help me! But, don't touch my ass!"

Geralt gave the Hirikka a death stare before he'd touch your clothed thighs; intentionally avoiding the bare skin of your legs. You could feel him shooting daggers across your back with no reason you'd know and finally had your legs across the other side when he'd pushed you through it. Your face was all red and mellow because of the fact that you've uttered out loud for him to not touch your ass; which was sudden. He wouldn't dare to touch it because who even are you to tell that he wanted to?

Well, you do if it was the other way around. If the bum was....his.

But, he didn't need to know that you lowkey wanted to tap it. The secret should be left alone.

"I-I don't know how to ride a horse," you stumbled over your words from the embarrassment and thought he wouldn't also ride, yet you were surprised when you've felt him grunt from behind; feeling his presence and jumping on his horse as he held onto the halter from behind you.

"Oh," was the only word you could muster as you felt yourself be caged in his brawny arms. Your face started to become beet red as you've realized the meaning of your random thoughts that ran behind your head. Those thoughts that planned to keep you from sleeping all night with the painful reality of not being able to go home yet and probably even the face of a certain witcher that was making the butterflies run wild inside your stomach.

You've finally arrived in their home with Kolby following behind you and Geralt when you were riding his horse.

At the present moment, Kolby was standing before their wooden door. It was Geralt's idea to welcome Ciri and Jaskier for his presence as it would be the best gift for the bard as a token for his benevolence and for keeping their friendship in tact and strong still.

There were padded footsteps behind the door and a booming voice resonating from behind it before the door opened and creaked as Jaskier came into view as he went on and on with his talkative mouth, "Why, Geralt! Have you enjoyed your conquest with Y/N--!!" his words were cut short as he shrieked and jumped on his spot when he was welcomed by a Hirikka that he'd seen before but very much smaller and midget looking.

Jaskier's baby blue eyes were wanting to come out of his eye-sockets as he fell back on his knees. Hastily standing on his feet as Ciri emerged from the kitchen to look at the commotion happening on their doorstep. The bard violently pointed at the Hirikka who stepped foot inside with its doe eyes scanning the whole cavern. "---IT'S ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS AGAIN! I thought he'd already tasted its painful demise from that foolish knight years ago?!"

You and Geralt followed suit after Kolby did; giving Jaskier and Cirilla a guiltless smile while the witcher was smirking behind you; specifically entertained by Jaskier's bolt from the blue.

"What's that creature doing in our home, Geralt?!" the bard jogged away from the harmless monster with a proximate amount of space where as he was already in the far end of their house with that scandalizing frown on his pretty face. You gave the Hirikka a soft pat on the head; automatically leaning closer from your sweet touch and purring in a way he does.

"His name is Kolby!"

To say Jaskier was shocked isn't enough. He was beyond flabbergasted. Extremely floored. "It has a name?!"

The Hirikka's feet was waggling in sheer pleasure; like an animal who loved being pet on the head. Jaskier gave you both a look of pique from how normal it was for you to be petting a Hirikka when a normal person would've stabbed the life out of the monster. "You---You are simply bonkers, Y/N!" he stood rooted on the ground, never paying a chance to get close to the three of you.

Cirilla excitedly strolled to where you were, Her eyes gleaming with pure curiosity and fascination. "What is it?" she'd manage to ask as she stepped in to give you and Geralt a hug for being safe as you've arrived home.

The princess dropped her feeble arms around you and aimed to look at the monster who was shorter than her, studying the monster with a crease of her forehead and noting how adorable its eyes were.

"It's a Hirikka, princess." Geralt dearly answered for you as he gently closed the door behind and stepped inside their home. Cirilla gave him a look before she went on with more queries, "Does it bite?"

The witcher gave her a small beam for reassurance as he shook his head, "Utterly harmless. Just don't starve the poor fella',"

Jaskier gave a glout and inspected the whole scene before him. "Are you perhaps short of a marble?!?!?" the message was sent to you or maybe to Geralt and Ciri as well when he'd gestured with his arms like he was gesturing how long his patience were wearing down for the stuff happening and the changes occurring when you've arrived.

You gave Kolby a short set of your tutting but it was actually for the bard who was judging you from a distance; caressing the Hirikkas head as Ciri wholeheartedly did as well.

"There, there, Kolby. Don't be sad. Jaskier is just mean because he's just sexually frustrated,"

Jaskier was quick to retort, his hands now on his hips as he eyed you who had been downright offended by your opinions, "I AM CERTAINLY NOT!" he bellowed with a huff and a sassy eyebrow raising from your banter. The latter pointed at the witcher behind you who had his smirk raised more than he intended to. Jaskier's vexation towards the Hirikka completely entertaining him that he couldn't help but emit a low chuckle from behind that certainly caught your ear as it was the first time you've heard him laugh. Hence, it was like the angels sung for you, "THE WITCHER BEHIND YOU IS! NOT ME!"

"---Tell me, Geralt," The sonneteer fixated his blue eyes on the man behind you. A frown etched on Jaskier's face, "Were you against this idea that the rat wanted a Hirikka as a pet?!"

Geralt crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at the bard as he thought for a moment before giving him a mocking answer, "At first, yes."

"And now?"

The witcher kept his lips closed, just staring at the bard and trying not to smile back at him from how his mouth went completely ajar from his silence. Jaskier already knew what happened and what his answer is even though his question wasn't verbally answered by the man himself.

He knew Geralt wanted to smash. Maybe because he utmost needed it or not because you were just a woman with a vagina that could give him pleasure. There was something more for his hurried fondness for you. There was something more; deeper, greater and utterly unexplainable. Jaskier knew that the witcher had the hots for you as he was openly accepting what all you wanted and he wasn't just doomed because Ciri already had Geralt wrapped around her own finger with the fact that she was his child of surprise.

But, you weren't any child of surprise nor weren’t you a child. Though, you already had him wrapped around your own fingers by bringing home a Hirikka that he certainly doesn’t do ever in his life. 

"---Of course, she'd managed to control your overly deluded fondness for her and used it to her advantage!" It was like he sounded to cry out. You couldn't help but giggle from how he was dramatically crying like a baby as Ciri continued petting the Hirikka for you.

Jaskier exhaled a breath, loud enough for you to hear his denial about the whole Hirikka saving thing. He sent the witcher a glare full of aggravation, "I am utmost disappointed in you, Geralt!" and he shook his head as he pinched the bridge of his nose when he continued to wail like a kid.

"---Please tell me he's not sleeping beside me,"

Geralt hoarsely scoffed as it turned into a smile that appeared faultless. He nodded his head towards the Hirikka who shortly licked Ciri's face as he gestured for the tamed creature, "If I'd choose you between Roach to be noshed for his satiation, you know what my answer would be, bard."

Jaskier groaned to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose tighter and having a mental breakdown for meeting a Hirikka on their doorstep and even getting to live with one when he'd seen his species get killed by a knight and now it was going to sleep where he takes his nap. It was stressing him, everything is.

"Great, utterly great," he muttered with his eyes closed, one last sigh given as a sign of submission for everyone who stood before him.

PLEASE DO GIVE FEEDBACK WHEN YOU HAVE THE TIME, BB’S IF YOU LOVED IT! THANK YOU! LOVE YOU AND STAY SAFE!

Taglist: @alyxkbrl​ @himarisolace​ @barkingbullfrog​​ @ayamenimthiriel​ @hellodevilslittlesister​ @vania-marie​ @spookypeachx​ @grungelovebug​ @fangirl-inthe-us​ @nympeth​ @amirahiddleston​ @gabethelobster​ @dreaming-about-starfleet​ @uncoolcloudyhead​ @melaninstylezz​ @psychosupernatural​ @missjenniferb @dance-dreamer​ @marvelousell​

[bexterbex]

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 72

This is the part where I reiterate if you see something in the tags/warnings you don't like, please just leave the story.

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. | Tag lists are closed | INBOX OPEN

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother,  but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, A character shamelessly based on Zelda

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 72: Ink and Lies

You woke up with a pressure behind your ear and a hand between your legs. The last few mornings since you’ve been crowned Empress, since your wedding, Kylo has woken you up by fingering you and playing with your clit. Basically giving you an orgasm to start the day, not that you were complaining at all. You also tried to happily return the favor, but it was much easier to do some sort of handjob, wrist match name attention mix to get him off since he has really too big for your hands to handle properly. But that is what your mornings consisted of.

You and Kylo had done some work over the last few days but not much, you weren’t going to be able to get a proper honeymoon in the middle of a war, but your love nest was enough. Today was the first day that Kylo would be leaving the ship. The Alazmac apparently had something for him, something of Vader’s that they wanted to give you both as a wedding present. You weren’t exactly happy that he was leaving the ship, as you had wanted him close, he was right in the sense that him guarding you made you feel safer.

In the last few days, you had seen very little of your staff outside a few visits from your ladies-in-waiting and Mitaka, who relayed important messages. Hux was bearing the brunt of the responsibility of the First Order at the moment, not unlike before you were in the picture, but you felt bad.

In the couple of hours that Kylo was gone, you and your ladies-in-waiting did some rehabilitation work. Your body in many ways had taken a beating and you needed to be restored to some sort of functional state.

Eyeing you up and down, scanning over the many, many love marks. “You know you look like you’ve been attacked by a pack of wild dogs,” commented Adlez.

This caused a snort of laughter at the comparison, “If only you knew the truth.” Especially with your new nickname for Kylo. You didn’t mind the beast, especially in bed. But after the last few days, it would be nice to be able to feel the lower half of your body finally.

“Maybe you need to put him on a leash, hmm? Some obedience training? It’s worked wonders on his knights. And the pack of dogs they are.” Again it felt like Adlez was full of surprises. She’s hinted at her sleeping around with the knights, teaching them ‘manners.’

You tried to play off the smirk that was on your face. “All of them or just Cardo?” You knew the rowdy Knight of Ren had a soft spot for her. So much so that Kylo asked you about it.

“All of them.” She shrugged, “But Cardo has been a special boy.” The images that popped into your head were rather... scaring. You were just grateful that you did not have to witness them in real life.

Your face flushed with embarrassment, “Oh my god, didn’t need to know that, but good for you.” You really didn’t, she had her private life, and you had yours.

“You should ask the Supreme Leader about their wedding gift for you two.” Some rather terrifying possibilities jumped around in your head. You almost didn’t want to know, especially if he hasn’t shown it to you yet.

“Do I want to know?” You probably didn’t, but you might be able to get an answer out of her, eventually. “Well, it might just help with that obedience bit. He is their leader, their alpha and now you are their alpha too. Teach him some new tricks.” And the dog imagery was back, you wonder just how much she knows. But for now you wanted to drop the subject all together.

They ended up filling the tub with bacta for you to soak, Kylo had expressed the discomfort about you going to the med bay for treatment. And since none of your ‘injuries’ were severe or life-threatening it was a long bath in gross bacta gel for you. Adlez told you to submerge yourself but that meant Kylo’s favorite love bites would be healed too and you weren’t about to do that, you wanted to wear a few of them with pride.

By the time you got out, you felt renewed again. The only bruises left were those high up on your neck, along your jaw, and of course the one behind your ear. Still marked up for him, still owned, but it wasn’t like you needed it because you had your wedding ring and you doubt there is any place in the galaxy that doesn’t know your face now. You were his and were proud to display his conquest marks. You also haven’t worn any proper clothes in the last few days, if you were just with Kylo you were either naked or wearing just a robe, but if you were meeting with someone you wore a wrap dress. Which seemed to be Kylo’s favorite type of garment on you because he could easily untie you and have access to whatever he wanted.  

After Adlez and Olivia-Rose made you human again you had a meeting with your staff and Hux. They seemed to eye your condition carefully. Not really knowing how Kylo had left you, since you had really only been meeting with Mitaka and your ladies-in-waiting.

“What are my most pressing matters?” You knew you did not have much time to be talking with them Kylo would be back soon, and your rehabilitation treatments took a bit longer than you initially expected. Adlez insisted on you being repaired from head to toe with face masks, hair removal, and the works.

“You still need to meet with Senator Apolin about your education,” said Mitaka. Your thoughts went back to the dinner, and how he treated you. Acting as if you were some idiot girl that tricked her way into Kylo’s bed with the intent to rule the galaxy.

A thought popped into your head, you had new privileges now. “Do I or does being Empress now negate that?”

Hux cleared his throat, “I would say that it negates it. He technically has no right to question you now, I suggest a letter versus a call.” He seemed to have your back in many ways, especially when it came to dealing with Pryde and his friends. You wondered just how much he hated the man.

“Right,” you turned to Lieutenant Amala Graven. “Can you write up something about it? Something along the lines that since he, unfortunately, did not set up a date prior to me becoming Empress that he now is not in the position to review my education?” This made you feel happy, knowing that an old man like him wouldn’t be getting his way this time, and that you had tricked him into thinking he had some power over you.

She pushed up her glasses before she began taking notes, very diligent in her work. “Yes. Would you like it to be formal or semi-formal?”

“Formal, but as much hidden sass as you can put in it. Also, let him know that it was unfortunate that he couldn’t attend the wedding.” You were glad he didn’t. You were honestly surprised you were able to handle Pryde being there, but then again, you didn’t know he was there until after the wedding and consummation of your vows were over.

“But we did not extend him an invitation m’lady,” said Mitaka you could hear the worry in his voice. You don’t know if it was because the invitation was ‘forgotten’ or if it was because you were possibly going to piss off a powerful ally.  

You thought for a moment. Even if he wasn’t invited he still had an expectation to uphold his duty. “Has he sent a gift?” You were sure you knew the answer, one of the rooms that shared your chamber’s hallway was cleared out just to hold all of them, some of them still arriving.

Hux answered for the captain. “No, he has not.” You could see the wheels turning in his mind, you knew he agreed with you and what you were about to do.

You looked between both of them, holding your ground. “Then my point still stands. Shall we move on to the next topic?”

Before you could move on Kylo entered the room and ordered everyone out. He was holding something in his hand that you could not see. He chose not to remove his helmet before speaking to you. The chilling sound of his distorted voice haunting you to the bone. “I must leave.”

Waves of confusion washed over you, with their freezing cold waters. “Leave be you just got back? Where are you going?” Your mind was racing a million miles a minute. You were supposed to be relatively safe now, that other danger was not supposed to happen for a while, or at least that’s what you thought.

“I have something left to do.” The black voids of his visor peering into you, this was no guard dog at the moment, this was something else. You could feel something was wrong.

“But why must you go? Can’t you take me with you?” You didn’t understand what was going on, because he wasn’t explaining anything.  

He stepped closer to you, but with his helmet on, like that it didn’t feel sweet it felt threatening. “No, I must go alone. It would be best for you to return to your home planet.” So he was shipping you back to your home planet, to do away with you?

“What’s going on? You’re scaring me.” You wanted answers, answers that he never seemed to give you.

You felt them again, inside your mind. You felt the black tendrils forcing themselves to wrap around your brain, stretching, familiarizing themselves with their new home once more.

His voice taking a whole new, unfamiliar tone of harshness with the mask. His hand with an extended finger outstretched towards you, “You will not fight me. You will do as I say when I say it. You will go home to your planet while complete what I must do. Do you understand?” You were being talked down to, like a child but all you could do is nod. Your body involuntarily doing what he asked, were as the small rational part of your brain was struggling to survive. She was losing the battle.

“I will have a ship and the knights escort you back to Earth. Where you will wait for my return.” So that was it, you were a princess being locked away in some tower before your prince in black armor decides to return to you. No more fairytale for you, just the cold harshness of reality.  

He then left you alone, standing there unable to move as the tears fell down your face and the black inky blob in your brain took over. It forced you to sit down while you began to sob, awful ugly tears. All of your hard work was for nothing, as he crushed your dreams in a second.

Your spark, your flame of rationality was loosing against the downpour of black water that was Kylo in your mind.  You blacked out, or you thought you did. When you woke up, you found yourself on board the Steadfast in your old cold and bright chambers. Adlez, Olivia-Rose, and Mitaka were there with you. The black ink creature receding back into the corners of your skull.

You took hold of yourself again. “Where am I?” You knew where you were technically, but your brain wasn’t clicking. How did you get here? You don’t remember a thing.

Adlez had a look of confusion on her face. “You’re onboard the Steadfast , m’lady. We transferred here three days ago. You’ve been with us the whole time.”

You tried to cool your features as panic set in. “Why am I here?” Something was wrong, something was majorly wrong. Why didn’t you remember any of it? The lack of memories for the last few days was terrifying.

“We were to bring you to Earth, the Supreme Leader said that you wanted to visit your family. So that’s why we are headed there. Are you alright m’lady?” Mitaka’s voice was full of concern. You could tell he was able to sense something was wrong and if he could, then Adlez knew something was.

Just as the word No was going to come out of your mouth you felt the black ink creature take hold of your head. “Yes, I’m fine. I just spaced out for a moment that’s all. I think I need to go lie down and rest for a while.” Your body then took you up the stairs, automatically, without your consent. As your head hit the pillow all you saw was darkness, but you heard a voice. His voice. Kylo’s voice.

‘I need to protect you. Let me protect you.’

‘Why are you doing this? You’re hurting me Kylo. You know this!’ The doctor told you as much. He was going to smother the life out of you, for what? You didn’t know.

‘I am protecting you. I do not know what this purpose is yet, therefore you must be protected.’

‘You’re killing me, Kylo. Your killing the part of me that makes me, me!’  You were internally screaming at him now. Crying and begging for him to stop, but the black tendrils only held you tighter.

‘Man serves the interest of no creature except himself, I must do what I need to do to protect you.’ You don’t know what scares you more, the fact that he was doing this or the fact that the voice that he was choosing to speak to you in your mind was that of the mask. He wasn’t even using his own natural voice, this was devoid of emotion.

‘Please… don’t do this.’ You could feel the grasp you had on yourself quickly slipping away. You were losing any control you had and terrifying didn’t even begin to describe it.

‘You are mine.’ While before you thought the mask made him devoid of emotion, this came out as a snarl. The monster was rearing his ugly head in full form.

When you awoke it was like you were staring out of windows, except they were your eyes. You could not move yourself. You could not move your own body. No, he was doing it. You were trapped inside your own mind, watching how the outside world spoke to ‘you’ without it being you.

You realized you were surrounded by dying embers in your own mind, with black rain attempting to wash them away. You were trapped. And your captor was on the other side of the galaxy, claiming to be protecting you, or at least the you that wasn’t you. A man who claimed to love you, but in fact he failed to understand you. The beast, the monster had taken over him, taken over you. But there was no exit that you could see around you, no exit to this nightmare you were about to be forced to witness.

A/N: I even bolded some of the tags you should be concerned with in this chapter. 

[lu-undy]

Chapter 33 - SBT

Here it is!

"You still want to drive or shall I?" 

"You keep your filthy spooky hands off of her!" 

"Filthy hands? Me?" Lucien exclaimed as they got closer to the van. "Bushman, my hands are in excellent hygienic and cosmetic condition, unlike yours!" 

Lucien and Mundy hopped in the van. They fastened their seatbelts but, to Lucien's surprise, nothing happened. Mundy did not start the engine. He just had his hands on the steering wheel and he was staring at nothing in front of him. 

"Bushman?" 

"Hm." Mundy woke up from his daydream. 

"Something is the matter?" Lucien asked as Mundy started the van and started driving off. 

"N-no, it's just… I'm surprised you know Lulu, is all."

Lucien smiled. 

"Head for the old centre of town… He is an interesting character, Lulu. Like any artist I believe, he has been cursed."

"What d'you mean?" 

"The man is way too romantic for his own good. He sees beauty in everything, even in the most tragic disaster." Lucien said smiling, albeit sadly. Of course he was talking about himself, but for Mundy, it was Lulu that it was all about. "When he sings, he gets possessed by the words that come out of his lips, as if they had control over him and not the other way around."

"You seem to know him so well… How did you meet and become friends?" 

"It was… It was decades ago now, in Paris, even before I became a sp-... Uh…"

"You wanted to say before you became a spook, eh?" Mundy joked. 

"Oui, you are contaminating me with your jargon, Bushman. But oui, it was before I got my current position." Mon Dieu, what would have happened if he had slipped and said he was a spy?

"You said Lulu was singing in the poshest place in Paris, right?" 

"Oui, he was. And what a sight…! His shows were phenomenal, people came from all around the world to see him. Some were even lucky enough to share a chat, or a meal with him. Oh that man led the happiest of lives, and he loved it there."

"What happened? Why did he leave Paris?" 

"I am not sure entirely, but he stopped singing. Maybe he wanted to take a break, retire for a while."

"And then he decided to sing again?" Mundy asked. 

"Apparently, oui. I guess retirement did not suit him, or the other way around, God only knows."

"Why come to Australia? That seems awfully far from home." 

"He is well travelled. Well, I guess he has travelled to such an extent that nowhere is really home anymore." 

Mundy heard the distress in Lucien's voice. It struck him. Why was the man in the mask distraught about that? 

"You almost sound… sad. Were you that close friends with Lulu?" He asked. 

"Oh, oui, the best of friends." Lucien answered. "I think I got to know him at the most innocent point of my life. I was a young adult, carefree, not a clue about the cruelty of life, or so little. Each time I think of Lulu, his personality, it brings me back decades ago that feel like another life altogether." 

"I guess it makes sense if all that happened before… y'know." Mundy didn't dare say that it had happened before Lucien lost his fiancée and son. 

"Oui, it did." 

"Hm, I get it…" 

"As much as the man is cursed, he is extremely lucky." Lucien said. 

"What d'you mean?" 

"Don't you sometimes wish you could feel something else than just this brutal lust for revenge?" Lucien asked. 

Mundy's eyebrows jumped at the unexpected burst of truth. 

"Yeah actually. I uh… Sometimes I even wonder how it all was when I had my parents, how happy I was without feeling happy. I didn't know I was happy. If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself to feel privileged."

"But would your younger self understand that privilege?" Lucien asked and Mundy's eyes shot to him. 

"I can see you were very close to Lulu, you talk like him." 

"Have you talked to him? Oh, by the way take it right here and we should park nearby."

"Alright." Mundy flicked his blinking light and took the turn. "And yeah, I went to have a chat with him." 

"Lucky you! The man is arrogant and doesn't just let anyone talk to him." Lucien answered, still playing Mundy like a damn fiddle.

"Really?" Mundy's heart jumped. He felt special… 

"Oui, I assure you. And given the long queue of ladies and admirers of all sorts, Lulu has no choice but to live like that, pushing people who look at him with fondness away from his life "

"Oh, wow… I had no idea…" Mundy parked and stopped the van. He looked down and fell deep in thought, his hands still on the steering wheel.

"But I guess that if he accepted a chat with you, he must have found something worth his while under that brown hat of yours, hm?" 

Mundy looked at Lucien. The French bastard was smirking and exited the van. L sure did have quite the smirk, a bit like Lulu, Mundy thought. But that mask made him look so… non-human.

"Let us go." Lucien opened the door for his colleague to get in.

"Oh…" Mundy looked at the tailor's shop. He recognised it. It was the one he had come to when he had asked about that blue and golden button! 

"Come on, Bushman. I know you have rarely seen suits of that standard, but don't be too impressed." Lucien mocked him. 

"Spook…" 

They both slipped in. 

"Ah! L!" Richard and his impeccably trimmed moustache welcomed the Frenchman warmly. "Bonjour mon ami!"

[Hello, my friend!]

The two Frenchmen shook hands while Mundy hoped the tailor wouldn't recognise him...

"Please, Richard, meet my friend, M." Lucien turned to face Mundy and frowned. "Bushman, your manners!" Lucien pushed himself to the tip of his toes and snatched Mundy's hat off his head. 

"Oi! My hat!" Mundy tried to take it back but Lucien turned away from him.

"You are inside, you don't need it, you impolite!" Lucien answered. "Richard, please pardon my friend's manners."

"No problem at all." Mundy and Richard shook hands. "How may I help today? I hope you liked the few suits I made for you, L?" 

"They were divine, Richard, as usual. And I think I am getting used to wearing a bit more colour now." 

"Ah, you see? I told you!" Richard exclaimed happily. 

"Shall we take a seat, please? Our request might take a bit of explaining." Lucien asked. 

"Of course, please." 

Lucien and Mundy sat on a sofa while Richard was on an armchair in front of them. 

"So, what will you need?" 

"We are attending a masquerade ball and we need disguises, costumes." 

"Ah, I see. M, do you mind standing up and removing your jacket, please?" 

Mundy looked at Lucien who nodded, and the Aussie removed his sleeveless jacket as he stood up. 

"Here." 

"Oh, a tall man indeed…" Richard stood up and started taking measurements. "Hm… Paul, tu peux venir prendre les mesures du Monsieur s'il te plaît?"

[Paul, can you please come and take the measurements of the man here?]

Paul and his brother emerged from the workshop and got busy around Mundy. The Aussie felt awkward standing up between Lucien and Richard, with both Richard's sons turning around him with tape measures. He kept looking at what they were doing, turning his head left and right nervously. 

"What costumes do you want?" 

"I would like to go for a costume of Le Roi Soleil." 

"Didn't you want to go Louis-the-whatever?" Mundy asked. 

Lucien rolled his eyes.

"Le Roi Soleil is the Sun King, which is the nickname that Louis the Fourteenth got, because he radiated such strong power, it was as if France was ruled by the sun itself."

"Crikey… You never stop, do you…?" 

Lucien smirked and tilted his head on the side. 

"I see you are starting to know me."

"And for you M, what would you like?" Richard asked.

"To be honest, I have no idea, mate."

"Give him something that suits him and he can keep it even outside of the party. A new suit won't hurt him."

"Ah, I see. Shall I also make masks?" Richard gestured to his sons who took notes.

"Naturally. M, I would recommend one for you too." Lucien said. 

"Why?" 

"First, to hide your unpleasant face."

"Spook…" 

Even Richard cracked a smile under his moustache. 

"And second, it is better to hide your identity. The longer they don't know who you are, the better."

"Is it why you wear your mask?" 

Richard's eyes went to Lucien. 

"Amongst other things, oui." Lucien looked at Richard. "How long do you think it will take before we can get the costumes?" 

The tailor was looking at his son's notepad and Mundy's measurements. His eyes went up to the hunter. 

"A well-built man you are, sturdy shoulders, tall…" Richard sprang off his armchair. He put his hands on Mundy's shoulders and opened them. "Don't stand slouched, straighten your spine, here, that is a nice posture, I will spare you the chin…"

"What about my chin?" Mundy asked, as he had just been re-arranged by the tailor as if he had been made of clay.

"Ah, watch this." Richard said and raised his index finger. "L, would you mind standing up, please?"

"But of course." Lucien stood up next to the hunter and pulled the panes of his jacket to close the button again.

"Look here, M, this is how to stand tall and proud. Look at the way L holds his head, the chin slightly up, the chest proud, without overdoing it, that posture!" Richard was pointing as he was turning around the Frenchman. "The curves on his spine, the fabric of the vest just follows it almost poetically, and that is not talking about his proportions!" 

Lucien himself started to blush and looked at his feet. 

"This man's body has been designed for modelling!" 

Mundy squinted and as he stared more, he started to see Lulu's graceful silhouette on L.

"In more than thirty years in the business, I haven't met a single man, not a single person, with a body like his." 

"Richard…" Lucien looked at the floor, slightly embarrassed. He brushed his eyebrow with a finger and licked his lips.

"That, and an exquisite taste in clothing!" Richard went on, as if Lucien hadn't interrupted him. And he turned to Mundy. "But you…" 

He got closer to the tall Aussie and pointed an accusative index finger at the man.

"You have no understanding of fashion. You do not honour the fabrics that you wear and vice versa. You dress up because you have been raised to and that is one of the very few things that still separates you from the animal."

Lucien raised his eyes to Mundy who lowered his, and faced the other way. 

"But look at you…! Such potential! If you just saw the numbers! Paul, the notepad!" 

Paul handed his father the notepad on which he had written Mundy's measurements. 

"It's all here! The numbers! Now, words might lie, faces might lie, anything can lie, but numbers…? Numbers cannot lie! And do you know what these mean?" 

Mundy didn't dare move. Lucien was watching the whole scene unravel in the centre of the room, surrounded by rolls of fabric on wooden shelves, under yellow lights. 

"The numbers that I see here do not mean what I see! I see a man whose clothes are older than my sons' careers but the numbers on the paper here, they scream! Such injustice! You could be so much more! Why do you treat your clothes this way…? Why do you choose to present yourself this way?"

"I didn't choose."

"Of course you did! And of course you do, everyday!" Richard answered. "Now, I will take it as my responsibility to show you the potential that these numbers show. I will make a suit that you will keep for your entire life, and it shall reveal what you could be. Do I have your agreement?" 

Richard extended his hand and looked Mundy dead in the eyes. The Aussie raised his eyes from the floor up to Richard. 

"A-alright." He shyly raised his hand and Richard shook it firmly. 

"Right, now L, should I give him the same pockets as you?" 

"Non, the classic ones and just two extras."

"Dimensions?"

"Same as my jacket ones." 

"Understood. Fine, now, was that all?"

"I do believe so." Lucien said. "Thank you a thousand times, Richard." 

"My pleasure." 

A few moments later, Lucien and Mundy were back in the van. 

"Gosh, your friend is… Intense." Mundy said. 

"To be honest with you, I never saw him getting so emotional." Lucien answered. "You, Bushman, you have your effect on people. First, it was Lulu, now Richard, who next? Me?" 

"Yeah, well, I don't know. I never asked to have people shout at me about my clothes, eh." 

"And yet…" Lucien looked at his friend. He stared at him with a smile. 

"And yet what?" 

"Can you drive me back to Maurice's? I need my motorcycle." Lucien answered. 

Mundy looked at him for a second. What the hell did he mean, that Spook? 

"Yeah." He started the van and off they went. The ride was mostly silent if one doesn't count the rumble of the engine. 

"You could bring your sheila to see Lulu. If she likes you, she likes posh stuff and she'll no doubt love Lulu."

"My sheila?" Lucien repeated. 

"Yeah, your sheila, the one that waitress at the diner talked about… what was the name again… Payrlee or something? She French too I guess?" 

Lucien was about to burst out laughing. Mundy thought that Perle was a woman… 

"Her name is Perle, or for you in English, Pearl."

"Ah, right. Poetic." 

"Indeed, and again I am surprised in a good way that you of all people appreciate the poetry. But non, I found her here in Australia, not in France." 

"Ah, so it's fairly recent, eh?" 

"Oui."

"Guess it makes sense." 

"What?" Lucien asked. 

"You're a classy bloke, you've got the manners goin' and all. No doubt the sheilas queue for miles for you, eh?"

"I cannot complain in that regard." Lucien smirked. 

"Must be a French thing."

"What?" 

"It's a bit like with Lulu. The other day he received heaps of letters from sheilas."

"Quite the interest you have with that singer, M." 

"What?!" Mundy blushed and his grip on the steering wheel hardened.

"In French we say 'Tous les chemins mènent à Rome.', 'All the roads lead to Rome', but with you, all the discussions lead to Lulu it seems."

Mundy didn't know what to answer as he started to realise that yes, he was quite interested in the singer.

"Quite the admirer, you are." Lucien said. 

Mundy decided to just be honest about it. 

"It's the way he sings, not the bloke himself, although he isn't unpleasant to watch."

"What do you mean?" 

"Well, he has a way of… Mh… No, I can't tell you." 

"Why not?" Lucien asked. 

"Because you'd tell him and also, you'd bully me for it and I don't need that." 

Mundy got startled when he felt L's hand on his shoulder and it reminded him of Lulu's exact same gesture.

"M, I do like to laugh but if matters are serious, I am also able to lend an ear, as you already know."

"Do I?"

"At the Doctor's, weren't you the one who accepted to speak openly as if I wasn't there?" Lucien asked and Mundy sighed. 

"Yeah, I guess." 

"So you know I can listen. Go ahead if you want to speak."

"Hm… It's just… Lulu just speaks about his feelings so freely, it's insane…!"

"Do you envy that? Do you wish you too could do that?" Lucien asked and Mundy briefly looked at him before his eyes snapped back on the road. But in that furtive gaze, Lucien had read the distress that Mundy failed to hide. "I can understand." He added, to try and help.

"I'm sure you could understand the nightmare it is to live without your loved ones for so long, but I'm not sure you can anymore."

"Why?" Lucien asked. 

"Because you have someone again now." 

Mundy arrived in Maurice's district and parked the van where they had started their journey. He pulled the handbrake and cut the engine. Silence fell in the van. 

"Having someone now does not erase the decade of my life that I have wasted." Lucien said. 

"No, but it helps to forget it." 

"M, I will tell you something." Mundy raised his eyes to the man in the mask. He looked focused. "I found someone who helps immensely, but if they could speak here, they would tell you that they very much feel the weight of those years on me and on us. She helps, yes, but I know that she will never heal me." 

Mundy's eyebrows jumped. 

"Why? How d'you know that?" 

Lucien's lips pursed up in a smile. 

"If you knew Perle, you would understand. She isn't the sort of company that you would expect to help me beat La Solitude completely and even worse…"

"What d'you mean worse?"

"Paradoxically enough, sometimes she makes me feel worse."

"How?"

"Because she makes me remember those easier, sweeter times. She makes me remember those times and the fact that those times ended. She is a constant reminder that whatever I have with her, or with you, or with anyone is bound to end. Nothing is ever-lasting, nothing truly means anything." Lucien answered. 

"So she never goes away, the Solitude, eh? That's it, we just have to deal with it till we get Duchemin, kill him and then get killed for it, hm?" Mundy concluded.

"Non, M. What I am only saying is very specific to my case. What I am saying is that Perle helps, but she will never heal me completely."

"Can we even heal completely?" Mundy let his hands rise and fall on the steering wheel. "Can we even get out of that… that…"

"That constant, dark grey cloud around our heads?" Lucien finished his sentence for him. "I believe we can, M. I am older than you and I have seen my fair share of things in life. I have seen things your mind would not comprehend and so have you, only you don't see it that way."

Mundy raised an eyebrow, confused. 

"Like what?" 

"Look there." Lucien pointed through the window, at the children playing in the dirty street. "What do you see?"

"It's a bunch of kids playin'. What about it?"

"You are only seeing that?" Lucien asked. "There is so much that you are seeing but choosing to dismiss…"

"Really? Like what? What do you see then?"

"M, those children who are playing, look at their old clothes, look at their messy hair, look at the dirty street they are playing in, with no adult supervision. This is in fact a horrible sight. These children, our future, those who tomorrow will decide of the rules of our world, they are playing in the dirtiest street of their town, with an old, half-deflated ball, with no adult to make sure they are safe, and they do not care about it. And that is the worst part."

"Why?" 

"Because it means that not only do they not have parents to care for them, they also now are completely familiar with the idea of them not being worth any adult's attention. That is why each time they come to deliver a message to me, I…" Lucien took a deep breath. "They remind me of my Jérémy. Little blond heads, blue eyes, an innocent outlook on life, not a care in the world, why would he?" 

Mundy felt the distress in his friend's voice. He put a hand on his shoulder and tapped it gently. 

"But these children, M, they do not see all this like I do. Non, they are having fun! They are enjoying their game that they are playing with the best ball they have ever had. They are growing up together, playing and enjoying their time, a time that they are not counting at all!"

Lucien turned his face away from his window to look at Mundy. 

"This is what I find incredible and this is what makes me think that we can heal from whatever Duchemin did to us. The children in their non-existent wisdom show it to us everyday. Tant qu'il y a de la vie, il y a de l'espoir."

Lucien looked at the lagoon blue eyes. They reminded him of Perle's. 

"As long as we live, there is hope." He translated himself. 

"You think so?" Mundy asked. 

"I am sure of it. If I could cut my hair, shave my unkempt beard, put on the suit and tie again, the mask, all that after ten years off; if I now manage to wear any other colours than black and grey, if I accept to work with you, then surely there is hope and I am pulling myself out of La Solitude's grip. But look at yourself, Bushman, I am sure you could see the same progression."

Mundy frowned. 

"Here you are, with someone on your passenger's seat in your van, talking to this mysterious man in a mask that you don't even know the face or the name of, you even go to the Queen Victoria and watch concerts while enjoying fine food, all that while wearing a suit and tie! Would the M from five years ago ever think of doing that? Non, of course not. Yet here you are." Lucien said and Mundy's jaw dropped as he started to realise it all. 

"You are not even realising it, but you are healing already."

Mundy blushed. His blood was boiling with energy as he practically buzzed on his seat. He was healing!

"I'm… Am I?" He asked. 

"Oui, you are." 

"Jesus, I never saw things this way before…"

"Because you have always been scared." Lucien answered.

"Of what?"

"Looking inside you."

"Why?" Mundy asked.

"Because of the risk. Think, Bushman. If you let yourself look inside here," Lucien poked Mundy's polo shirt on his chest. "Then, you take the risk of finding things that you don't want to find."

Mundy blushed. 

"Guess you're right." He sighed. "But you… You're really like Lulu."

"How so?"

"You manage to put words on stuff I knew was somewhere in me, but never managed to really say."

Lucien gave him a grin that was almost sweet.

"Contrary to you, I asked myself all those questions before you. I knew the risks and I took them."

"What did you find then, in there?" Mundy poked the Frenchman's jacket on his chest like he had done a few seconds before.

"Does it matter?"

Mundy sighed. He now knew that whenever L didn't want to talk about something, he would just say "Does it matter?".

"A bit. But if you don't wanna talk about it, it's fine." He sent a sweet smile back at L. "Although, uh… Thanks."

"What for?" Lucien raised a curious eyebrows. 

"I like chatting about those things. And I never really had anyone to do that with before. To be honest, that's also a reason why I quite like Lulu, he accepted to talk with me about that." 

"Whenever you want, Bushman." 

Their eyes met with a smile on both parts. 

"But right now, let us wait for Richard to make the suits." Lucien exited the van. 

"When is the party?" 

Lucien looked through the van's open window.

"In a week so we have time, enjoy your holidays." 

"You too, Spook."

They nodded to each other and Lucien turned to get to his motorcycle. 

"L?"

Lucien turned. 

"Uh, enjoy your time with Pearl, eh?" 

The Frenchman smiled. 

"That's all I hope for." He answered.

[t-tyrants]

FRIENDS NOW :)

Wrote a lil creepypasta based on the two pictures I drew of Zipper.  I haven’t written any pastas in a while so I hope u enjoy!

Like almost everyone on twitter, I too have spent my quarantine time playing the new animal crossing. It has been a really good distraction from the chaos of the panicking world. It was probably the only thing keeping my mental health from jumping off a cliff. While I am only 24, I still was part of the at risk group. Having a weak heart, I have had to be very careful of my own health fo my whole life. I didn’t really want to die right now, so I’ve been mulled up in my flat, getting paranoid over every cough. The only thing that had been keeping me from overthinking is animal crossing.

Making friends with the animals visiting my island had been my main focus. No critter was allowed to leave my humble abode without having all their dreams and hopes fulfilled. Some of my favorites were Mischka, Raymond and Lolly. What can I say, I like cats? Of course, I visited some of my real friends’ islands too. But while I could do most of my work home office style in a few hours, many of them didn’t have that privilege. Lizzy was out there, saving lifes, Matt was getting yelled at by customers and I was just sitting on my ass, playing video games. Sometimes I felt bad about it. Sometimes I was simply thankful. They were all very tired but they still took some time out of their life to check in with me. After all this would be over, I would try to make it up to them. 

Still, all I could do now was talk to animals, get some peaches, catch some fishes and draw new clothes. Day in, day out. It started to feel like routine. So when the easter special event started, I was hyped. Sure, those were pretty much the same game mechanics as before but i was way more interested in the elusive Zipper T. Bunny himself. I have had never played an animal crossing game before so I wasn’t aware that he was a part of the game. I had spent hours finding eggs all around the island just to get a few dialog lines from that weird bunny. Of course, I was pretty sure that this wasn’t a bunny. The big zipper, the unmoving eyes, the forced happiness - whoever was under this suit was doing a job and would prefer to be at home. 

But that wouldn't stop me. I tried talking to him again and again in hopes of getting a new line of dialog. Still, I knew it was a game. I knew that Zipper wouldn't just get out of his head and show me his real self. But I was convinced that there had to be some sort of easter egg for the curious players. There had to be. I had spend so much time working for the easter event, I didn’t even notice that the real deal was getting closer too. 

I woke up gasping for air from a nightmare I forgot just as quickly. Looking at the alarm clock, I could see it was 2:54 AM, Sunday. It was easter. I got out of bed, there was no use trying to fall asleep now. Instead, I walked to my couch and turned the switch on. Getting comfy between the couch cushions, I walked up to Zipper. “Happy Easter,” I chimed into the darkness of my flat. I didn’t talk to Zipper, I just stood next to him, as all of a sudden, I could feel tears in the corners of my eyes. The game had been a great distraction but now, at 3 am, it all came crashing down on me. 

I was lonely, I was stressed, I was afraid. 

And all I could do is play a game and run after a rabbit. 

“Aren’t you tired?” A dialog prompt. I rubbed the tears from my eyes and looked up. “Not really,” I sighed as I answered with ‘No’. “Why?” Zipper asked. Now this was something different. “You are very persistent. Don’t you have anything else to do?” I leaned closer to the TV as I pressed ‘No’ again. Zipper was finally talking. This was what I had hoped for all this time. “You aren’t going to stop bothering me?” Ha, you wish. I pressed ‘No’. Zipper T. Bunny turned towards me. Not my character. But me, behind the TV screen. He grabbed my character’s hand. They just stood there, quietly looking towards me, swaying a tiny bit with the wind. They looked so cute. What a cute thing to include in the game. Now if I only could get to photo-mode… 

“What do you want from me?” The dialog field was unexpected. Instead of three options, a keyboard popped up. This was my chance. I started typing frantically. “Who are you? Why do you wear a suit? What do you do when you aren’t working for this easter event? Who are you really? Can we be friends?” The keyboard disappeared. I hadn’t even pressed ‘send’. How strange. The game stopped. Nothing moved. No more music. Did I break it? Mashing all buttons, nothing happened. Before I could get up, a dialog field popped up. “Do you really want to know who I am?” I pressed my back into the couch. ‘Yes.’ “Do you really want to be friends?” Holy shit. “Of course,” I called out while pressing ‘Yes’ again. 

The dialog disappeared again and all was quiet. All but a weird buzzing. As it grew louder, suddenly the TV started to flicker. Was it breaking right now? I was uncovering the most interesting, literal easter egg and my TV wanted to destroy it all for me? 

The screen turned red. The green, lively island was gone, replaced by some weird, red mush. But Zipper T. Bunny and my character were still standing there. Still, they too had changed. I stared, mesmerized. His head was gone. The bunny suit head. But beneath it… was nothing. Just empty air. At the neck, red liquid left the suit, dirtying the otherwise radiant yellow. I was so intrigued by this change which was entirely inappropriate for a children's game, I hadn’t even looked at my character. It’s pupils were gone and blood had started pouring out of her eyes, nose and mouth. 

Now, I was searching for some sort of easter egg but this was too much. Who would even put something like this into animal crossing? What if a small child stumbled across this? This would traumatize them and ruin a whole video game franchise and pobably stuffed animals for them. Maybe even the whole concept of eastern. 

As I wanted to get up and take my phone to document this mess, I could feel it all of a sudden. Cold breath hit my neck. Cold breath, followed by even colder hands that crawled over my shoulders. I froze, unable to even move my eyes from the display. I could feel the icy nails scrap over my skin, seemingly carefully not to draw blood. My whole back was covered in goosebumps. “So….” The voice was raspy and deep. “Do you really wanna be friends?” I had to suppress the urge to laugh nervously. This was really happening. The bunny suit on TV was twitching. The hands slowly wandered up to my neck. “Of course,” the words left my mouth all of a sudden. The hands stopped. “Are you sure?” Relieved that my neck was still untouched, I decided to go all in. “Absolutely. That’s why I tried talking so much to you before.”

Silence. The whole room seemed frozen. It felt like hours had passed when the voice returned. “So you really had fun with the easter event?” The voice sounded softer and quieter. “Yes,” my voice was quivering too. “Would you mind… if I stick around even when easter is over?” There was a lot of sadness in his voice. For a split second, I felt like the two of us were just the same. Lonely, stressed, afraid. 

“You can stay as long as you want to,” I said, driven by this realisation, only to regret it right away. I didn’t know what I just agreed to. I should have asked questions. But as soon as the words had left my mouth, the hands were lifted from my shoulders and the cold breathe disappeared. I was still stuck in place, frozen. 

I didn’t know how much time had passed but it felt like I was woken up again when the music started playing from the TV again. I looked up, it was all back to normal. My island was back, my character looked as always and Zipper T. Bunny, head and all, was turned towards them. There was a dialog box open. As I read it, I didn’t know what to feel at all. Was I scared? Happy? Confused? All I knew was that I should get back to bed. I quickly shut off the switch and walked up to my bed. As i hid beneath the covers, pressing my eyes closed, trying to fall asleep, Zipper’s last words just wouldn’t leave my head. “FRIENDS NOW :)” 

When I woke up a few hours later, the flat seemed to be frozen. Absentmindedly I ran up to my heater, trying to get some warmth into these rooms. It was already put on the highest setting. I walked up to my kitchen window and opened it. I was expecting to see snow with this temperature but outside, it was warm. I kept the window open as I turned around to look for clues. Not sure what to do, I decided to check up on animal crossing again. Starting the game, there was nothing pointing towards last night's weird occurrence. Talking to Zipper, he was back to his old tunes and none of the villagers seemed to be changed either. I was nearly convinced that this was a bad dream, when i opened up the album and saw a new pictures. 

Staring back at me from the TV was Zipper T. Bunny holding my hand, head missing with a crude smile drawn over the empty space.

With tired eyes, I smiled back the picture. It was comforting in a strange way. Somehow, the flat felt less empty now. 

Just a little colder. 

[eternal-love-song]

Slow Reformation - Coffee or Tea

Ochako and Toga spend their first morning alone.

Izuku x Toga x Ochako [Aged Up Characters, Established Izuku/Ochako, Fluff, Domestic Fluff]

A follow up to Nowhere To Go. Slow Reformation part 1 Waking up together

Himiko yawned as she walked into the kitchen. She had been waking up earlier since staying with her crushes. Her Izuku was a morning person and half the time she woke up when he did. those times were usually because she'd wrapped herself around him in her sleep and he jumped out of bed when he saw her, but her Izu was silly that way. Honestly, it worked better than an alarm clock. The other half the time she was snuggled up with Ochako, who slept like a log, hard and heavy.

It was odd for her to wake up alone nowadays. When you shared a bed with two other people, the odd of waking up alone were pretty low. So it was odd to her that she'd woken up alone today. If she didn't wake up with Ochako, they at least woke up together.

Himiko sat at the kitchen table, stretching her arms out across them and laying her head on them. She waited for one of her crushes to find her. She was rarely alone for more than a minute or two. She didn't really mind though. She hadn't been alone too much when she was with the league either, though she knew the reasons were much different.

"Oh, Toga! You're awake," Ochako said as she entered the room. "Izuku had to go out, so it's just us today."

Himiko lifted her head from the table to look at Ochako. "Izu-baby is gone?"

Ochako frowned at that, but Himiko couldn't for the life of her figure out why. Ochako placed her hands on her hips, glaring at Himiko as she leaned forward. "Just because Izuku isn't here doesn't mean you can try anything! I'm not push over, you know."

Himiko imagined fighting with Ochako. She remembered how effortlessly Ochako had tossed Himiko over her shoulders, how lithely she's dodged Himiko's stabs, and smiled. "Ochako's really strong," she agreed. If she wanted, she could probably look around for a knife and get Ochako to dance with her again. That would be so much fun!

An uncertain look crossed Ochako's face and she leaned away from Himiko. "Remember our rules, you're not allowed to try anything if you want to stay here."

Himiko felt like cold water had just been dumped all over her. "What? But I thought..." Wasn't Ochako offering to fight her? Was Ochako really that much of a tease that she'd dangle this in front of her just to pull it away? Was it because Himiko hadn't responded fast enough? She slammed her hands on the table as she pushed herself to her feet. Her eyes were sad and pleading. "Ochako is so mean!"

"H-huh?" Ochako took a step back from her upbrupt movement. "I didn't do anything!"

Hmiko looked down at the table. She must have done something wrong, that was why Ochako was teasing her. She needed to be on her best behavior then. She had to earn the right to fight with Ochako, to have her knives back. Sleeping with her crushes was a privilege, but that didn't mean she was worthy of them, not yet. 

She dropped herself back down into the chair at that realization, sighing sadly. Her crushes were the nicest people in the world, of course they wouldn't have wanted to tell her that up front. But... Izuku was the nicest, nice person in the world. He wouldn't have teased her just to prove a point. "Why did Izu leave?"

Ochako looked at Himiko like she was a knife she didn't know how to name, confused and puzzling Himiko out as she crossed her arms. If she only asked, Himiko could have told her the answer. She knew a lot about knives after all. 

"Deku's still a hero," Ochako told her. "He has work to do."

She nodded. She should have known her vacation with Izu wouldn't go on forever. She let her head fall back onto the table. "What do we do now?" she asked softly. Ochako must have been as lonely as Himiko without Izuku nearby, so they would need to comfort each other.

"For starters..." Ochako paused, as if she was at a loss. "Um... do you want something to drink?" 

Himiko turned to look at Ochako, smiling as she saw the small blush on her cheeks. Ocjako wore her blood so cutely. "Ochako is the cutest!"

"Wh-what are you on about?" Ochako turned away from her as she went further into the kitchen. She made a lot of noise opened cabinets and cupboards for little to no reason that Himiko could tell, but she smiled at Ochako the whole time anyway. The longer she watched, the more Ochako blushed. Himiko loved it. She looked over her shoulder, caught Himiko's gaze, and turned around just as quickly. "D-Deku made coffee because he left?"

"Does Ochako like coffee better or tea?" Himiko questioned.

"Um, tea. Why?" Ochako looked over her shoulder, embarrassment momentarily forgotten.

Himiko smiled brightly. "I want to do what Ochako would like."

Ochako blinked at Himiko before turning away again. "Ah, I see. W-well, I suppose I could take some time to make tea then."

"Ochako is wonderful," Himiko sighed dreamily. They were silent while Ochako made the tea, but Himiko's mood didn't drop one bit.

[just-some-random-blogger]

Welcome To The Jungle

EXO Park Chanyeol & Oh Sehun Characters: Park Chanyeol, Oh Sehun, Kim Minseok (Xiumin), Byun Baekhyun, Kim Jongdae (Chen) Summary: Chanyeol decides to go to the Amazon on his vacation week. Once there, be meets an exasperated safari tour guide called Sehun... amongst others... Word Count: 1k+ Warnings: BISH ITS CRACK TURN AWAY NOW IF YOU CANT & DONT

A/N: If you wanna know why, then you should know while my exams, I HAD MINSEOK DANCING TO TEMPO LIKE A BISH IN MY HEAD THE WHOLE TIME LET ME LIVE GDAM

This was such a long time coming UGHHHHHH

i cant believe

“Annyeong!” Chanyeol grinned brightly, bowing 90 degrees to the equally tall man wearing the khaki uniform he was expecting him to wear. Chanyeol was so giddy, he looked like an over-overgrown child; his hands were on either strap of his backpack, and was rolling back and forth on his feet. “I was so excited when I heard my tour guide was from Korea! How long have you been working here?”

The man with lopsided lips blinked, “Long enough to want out.”

Chanyeol burst into bright laughter, making the other pull his face in equally as much disgust as annoyance. The man on the job clenched his fist tightly and did everything in his power not to roll his eyes. He forced a smile and spoke with no conviction whatsoever, “Welcome, sir, to the most spectacular safari you will ever have the privilege to be on.”

Chanyeol broke into the largest grin at his words nonetheless.

“My name is tour guide Oh Sehun and I’ll be showing you the wonders of the amazon today.”

Chanyeol nearly squealed and Sehun finally backed away. “C’mon,” the tour guide said, proceeding to walk towards his ranger jeep, “the sooner we leave, the sooner we get back.”

Chanyeol wasted not a second and ran towards the vehicle, sitting in the front seat, buckling himself in before Sehun even gave instruction. Sehun rubbed his nape and breathed out hot air, “That brat. He was probably spoiled as a child. He has no manners at all.”

Once Sehun was eye’s view of what Chanyeol was doing, he couldn’t even tell his client off because he put the complicated seat belt on without any help. Sehun knit his brows deeply and stuffed himself to the driver’s seat beside him, securing himself in quickly. “Is this your first safari?”

“It’s my third, actually.”

Sehun couldn’t help but scoff out a chuckle, to which Chanyeol thought innocently as an impressed laugh, so he continued, “Yeah, the first time I went on one was on my birthday two years ago.”

Sehun was uninterested, and yet he found himself asking one last question, out of sheer formality. He started the car and grunt when it didn’t open. He turned to Chanyeol, “How old were you?”

“24.”

Sehun, who had been fussing with the engine, whipped his head to Chanyeol’s direction just as the jeep hummed, confirming its ignition. This bastard’s was my age two years ago,  Sehun thought gripping the steering wheel tightly. How sad. “Hold on tight, hyungnim. The road is bumpy.”

The jeep whooshed forward, heading deep into the thick jungle before them, stirring Chanyeol’s insides in excitement. The man with messy hair had his adrenaline pumping. He held a big grin. He couldn’t let Sehun’s statement go unnoticed however, “I’m older than you?”

Unfortunately for you, “Yes.” Sehun answered simply, shifting the stick.

“Waaaah, I have a cool dongsaeng. Cool.”

Sehun upper lip rose out of instictive disgust, which involuntarily prompted him to drive faster. Chanyeol took full advantage of this and raised his hands up in the air, cheering, as if he was on a roller coaster ride. Sehun growled at his actions, proceeding to shout at the man, “Babo-ya! Do you want to get your arms cut off?!”

“MWO? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Chanyeol shouted back, louder, not even bothering to put his arms down or stop his obnoxious howling. 

If he fucking wakes the tribe, I swear to--

At this point, they were met with a rocky road that was near a very shallow river. It made Sehun drive a little bit more cautiously, and Chanyeol finally keep his hands to himself and hold on to the handle bars.

The jeep came to a stop as they got to furthest the jeep could take them.

Sehun swiftly removed his seat belt in one motion and jumped out, turning to a struggling Chanyeol. He smirked at him and cleared his throat, “This way... hyung.” he placed his hand behind his back and started walking off,  “You have to move quickly if you want to see the animals.”

Once Chanyeol was free from his restrictions, he wasted no time and jumped out of the vehicle. He jogged up behind Sehun who was already walking off. He didn’t notice that Sehun had pulled out a longish knife with him, you know, the ones to chop off leaves and branches and stuff.

Chanyeol pulled out his camera and took pictures with a smile. Sehun finally turned back at him and sighed, “Right. You’re gonna wanna not do that when there are animals around. They have very acute senses of hearing and event he sound of a camera shutter can scare them away, some birds especially.”

The man behind the tour guide lowers his device and nodded slowly. “Oh, gwenchana. Real life experiences are better than pictures anyway.”

Sehun rolled his eyes.

The two continued walking and Chanyeol eventually strided next to Sehun.

“Watch your step, hyung. Some objects on the ground seem--” before Sehun could finish his sentence, Chanyeol stepped on quite a big rock and went wobbling forward, “--invisible.”

Lucky for Chanyeol, he was quick enough to suppost himself, and Sehun had enough heart in him to grab his arm and prevent him from falling. The later of the two did bother hiding the roll of his eyes, the former smiled and spoke a thank you.

“There,” Sehun pointed, “do you see? It’s a toucan.”

“Waaaah,” shutter proceeded by flapping of wings.

Sehun pursed his lips and threw Chanyeol a nasty look. Chanyeol showed his teeth, “Mianhe.”

Sehun released a breath, “Whatever... your loss anyway.”

The two moved not much forward and came across another bird. Unfortunately before Sehun could identify what it was exactly, Chanyeol scared it away by his giggling this time.

The trip continued on, exasperating at Sehun’s end, and excitingly frustrating on Chanyeol’s end, because he kept unintentionally scaring a bunch of animals away. On the bright side, a stick insect thought his shoulder cool. Chanyeol felt bad however that he panicked when it started moving to his neck and swatted it, swiftly ending its life.

At this point, Sehun thinks Chanyeol could even scare away a tiger if they ever come across one, or maybe even a band of gorillas.

Chanyeol started talking about his life in Seoul somewhere between Sehun’s how-much-nicer-it’d-be-not-to-know and thanks-for-boring-me-half-to-death.

Apparently he was a photographer.

How charming.

“-- but then I decided I would much rather do something I wanted, thus I went to another company and ditched the millions of won I--” “Shut up.” Sehun spat out.

Chanyeol pulled his head back in suprise and utter offence. “Mwo-”

“Shhhhh.” Sehun raised a hand and stopped in his tracks, “something’s here.”

For a moment the two stayed perfectly still, and nothing but the jungle spoke. Sehun clenched his jaw, dreading the gut feeling in him. He licked his lips and heard a rustle from his left. Not late after, Chaneyol saw the leaves move. He went reeling towards Sehun, clutching his arm. Sehun hissed, “You woke the tribe. Great.”

The man was small, but he looked furious.

“T-the tribe? Wh--”

“Maehokjeogin neon lovely”

Chanyeol started waking backwards, hiding behing Sehun’s shadow, grapsing onto his biceps. Sehun hissed and shook him off, “They’re doing their tribe chant, it means they won’t attack us yet.”

”Yet?” the other repeated, nervous.

Teum eopsi jopyeojin geori Bulgyuchikaejineun heartbeat Jamsi nuneul gama trust me.”

Chanyeol tilted his head at what he heard, “Is… is that… Korean?”

Sehun rolled his eyes and shoved him back,  “If you want to live to—“ but the tour guide couldn’t finish his argument for there was suddenly a loud screech from the bushes, making Chanyeol yelp and jump into Sehun’s personal space.

Sehun shoved him off, but Chanyeol only recoiled back into his place.

There was a spear by the bushes, both of them could easily tell. Whoever it was was heading for them at an eerily slow pace.

“Are they barbarians? CANNIB—“ “Shut up, and do not raise your voice. It only excites them to know you’re scared.” Sehun cut Chanyeol off. The latter gulped.

Then suddenly, there was a battle-cry like scream and the hair Chanyeol’s skin stood up.

From in front of them emerged at small, mud painted man, wearing a skirt made of leaves and a rock necklace. He looked enraged, his chest was heaving and his already narrow were narrowed. His mangled hair and rock pointed spear made him look intimidating… but not to them, not to anyone sane. In fact, Chanyeol was now just… confused.

Sehun huffed and rolled his eyes.

The tourist leaned to his guide and whispered, “Is he—“ “Yes. Just…” Sehun sighed, “let me handle this.”

Sehun walked over to the man in his normal pace, making the man point his speak at him. “You have upset the jungle.” the shorter one spoke.

“Upset the jungle? Or you and Baekhyun hyung?”

“HIS NAME IS TA!”

Chanyeol pulled his head back and Sehun rolled his eyes, “Minseok hyung, you should head back—“

“MY NAME IS POZI, CITY BOY!” Pozi, or to Sehun and the rest of the world, Minseok shouted at the man, slamming the end of his spear on the ground repeatedly.

Chanyeol decided to speak up at this point. “Jjangkkaman, you’re not a native?”

Sehun cursed Chanyeol’s stupidity and Minseok turned to him, “Native by heart.”

“Hmp, you know what, this is above my pay grade, we should just—“ but yet again, Sehun was cut short.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” someone screamed in and jumped on Chanyeol’s back. Chanyeol was quick to jolt him off however, and he shuddered the way he did when a bug crawled on him.

The man, who looked similar to Minseok, fumed in anger as well.

Chanyeol looked at him like spoiled pizza.

Sehun turned to Chanyeol. “They’re on drugs.”

The newly arrived mud covered man growled, “We are not!”

Sehun nodded his head in full disagreement.

“Baekhyun hyung, you’re wearing mud and leaves. Also, you pretend to be primitive but I caught you making a campfire and roasting marshmallows. Where’d you even get that?”

Minesok spoke, “The jungle provides.”

“Actually, I gave them that.” A separate voice chimed in, and soon a man in attire similar to Sehun’s appeared.

“I’m so sorry these two interrupted your tour,” the man spoke to an utterly confused Chanyeol, stretching his hand out to him. “Kim Jongdae. Biologist and meteorologist,” he introduced, shaking Chanyeol’s hand.

“Uh, Park Chanyeol… photographer?”

The two broke away and Sehun crossed his arms.

“These two, believe it or not, are actually my associates. They believe doing this makes them better scientists.” Jongdae explained, making Chanyeol nod his head as if it was now suddenly perfectly normal, perfectly understandable.

“That seems cool.” Chanyeol spoke.

Sehun pulled a face.

Baekhyun quipped, “Do you want to join our tribe?”

“Ya! I will not have you pull a Jongin here!” Jongdae scolded.

“Kai joined voluntarily.” Minseok spoke.

“Jong-in, his name is J o n g i  n!”

Sehun huffed, “Ye, it’s been fun. Let’s go back now Chanyeol.” Chanyeol suddenly frowned, “Mwo? But they just got here.”

Sehun shot him a look, “So you’re staying.”

Chanyeol was silent. Minseok and Baekhyun cheered and started doing their chant again. Chanyeol turned to Jongdae, who was shaking his head in disagreement.

He pursed his lips, “Alright. I’ll go with you Sehun-ie.”

Jongdae let out a breath of relief.

Sehun scoffed and started walking off, “Don’t call me that.”

Don’t mess up my tempo Deureobwa igeon chungbunhi I said don’t mess up my tempo Geunyeoui mameul humchil beat Eodiedo eopseul rideume matchwo 1, 2, 3 Don’t mess up my tempo Meomchul su eomneun ikkeullim

[canadiankazz]

The Fourth Time - An L.A. by Night fanfic

Jasper and Annabelle's relationship has taken a lot of intimate steps lately, but when she lets him take the reins, so to speak, and let his more dominant side out, they manage to find a way to get even more pleasure out of it. 

SPOILERS for the end of Campaign 1 including the one-shots. This has gone off canon, so consider this an AU. It's worth reading Part 1 (The First Time), Part 2 (The Second Time) and Part 3 (The Third Time) before you read this. This fic takes place almost directly after The Third Time. This was written before the premiere of Season 2, Episode 2.

I lay no claim to owning any of the characters involved. Things are gonna get more kinky than they have been in this series so far from here on out. We are way past tame wrist biting now. We’re getting into some mild BDSM stuff in this part.

As always, special thanks to @cravatfiend for the support and encouragement during the writing of the drafts. When I asked them for a safe word, they picked the best one for Annabelle. I had the privilege of watching them read this for the first time and all they could say was "...Damn!" High praise, indeed. 

All my love, also, to @gokaiyellow for their additional input, @fluffy-wookiees for being adorable, and to everyone else who has enjoyed this series so far. There are many more parts to come after this one, no worries. (As of posting, I’m currently finishing writing part 8 with ideas for part 9!)

Also posted to the author's Ao3.

First posted Feb, 2, 2019.

The Entire ‘Feeds From’ Master List Can be Found Here

The Fourth Time

Annabelle was having a nightmare. She was running for her life through a dark sewer. Her shoes splashed through the filth. Rats squeaked and scattered in a panic as she charged forwards. Behind her, she could hear a dreadful snarling echoing through the tunnel. She couldn’t see the monster chasing her, but she could hear it. Its hungry growling was getting closer and closer. When, not if, but when it caught her, it was going to rip her apart and eat her alive. Her eyes scanned the walls and curved ceiling frantically for a ladder or escape hatch up to the streets above. There! A ladder appeared to her right. She climbed it as fast as she could, but right when she was about to push up through the manhole cover, she felt sharp claws grab her leg and pull her back down. She screamed.

Annabelle woke with a shudder. Her Beast strained in her chest and throat. The room she was in was dark. There were no windows. She was on her side facing a blank wall. She could feel someone else's body pressed against her back and a long arm curved cosily around her side and stomach that was not her own. There was no breath or body heat coming from the person behind her.

Then she remembered. She was in Jasper's sanctum again. In his bed, again. And he had fed on her last night, again. And now...

She tried to turn her head to look at him without disturbing him. His arm tightened around her a little.

“Jasper?” she whispered.

“Mm.”

He was awake. Annabelle relaxed a little and went back to looking at the wall. He seemed comfortable where he was and so was she, to her mild surprise. Their relationship had taken many great leaps these past few months.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey,” he mumbled into her hair.

“Sleep well?”

“Like the dead.”

She rolled her eyes and poked his arm. “Ha. Ha.”

She heard him snarl softly in her ear as he smiled.

“You need a bigger bed,” she told him.

“Why?”

“Because we only barely fit on it.”

“I thought that this was only going to be a temporary thing,” he said, sounding amused. “Something to tie me over for a little while.”

“Well, clearly... it's not,” Annabelle said softly.

“We can't keep doing this forever,” he told her. His voice was gentle, but firm. “The others are going to find out, and... it's not a healthy relationship.”

Annabelle frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean is that...” he sighed, thinking of what to say. She felt him roll back slightly away from her. “It's one sided.”

“No... you feed from me sometimes and let me sleep in your bed sometimes, that's fair.”

“But you don't have to sleep here.”

“You don't have to feed from me either, but here we are,” Annabelle said pointedly. She sighed and touched his hand. “I don't want to argue with you. I... I am happy for this to continue as long as you want. I don't feel like it's one sided, Jasper. I thought you liked it... Liked me.”

“I do,” he admitted softly, “but that’s the problem. I think I’m liking it too much and... that scares me.”

Annabelle thought she understood now. He had told her that a Kindred feeding from another was a big deal and she got why now. Blood was more than just food for them, it was life, and sharing your life with someone else left a big impact. So too did someone forcibly taking it away. He had been trying to adjust to this new, kinder type of feeding and despite the fact that they had only done it three or four times in the past few months, maybe things were still, on an emotional level, going a little too fast for him. Annabelle awkwardly shifted, rolling over to face him. His hoodie was down. From what little light there was in the bedroom, she could see his pale, gaunt face. “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t let it scare you. I think I get it though. We’ve been kind of going at my pace a little bit.”

Jasper remained quiet, but gave a slight nod. He could see she was more or less on the right track. He felt it in his blood.

“Okay,” Annabelle sighed slowly. “Do you want some emotional space?”

“I think so. To think things over.”

Annabelle nodded and stroked his arm. Her Vitae has done a good job healing him. “Okay,” she said. She didn’t want to make Jasper uncomfortable in this relationship. “How about this... if you want to do this again, you call me, okay? And we’ll do it however you want to.”

“Okay,” Jasper said. He lent forward a little and his forehead touched Annabelle’s for a brief, tender moment. “Thank you,” he whispered. Then he rolled over and got out of bed.

Annabelle stayed where she was, not wanting to get up yet. “You still owe me a boon, remember?”

“Mm. True.”

“And I've thought about what I want from you. If anything happens to me, anything really bad, I want you to take care of Mark and Elleanore for me.”

“What do you mean by 'take care of?'” he asked.

“Watch out for them. Make sure they don't get attacked, I guess? Just keep them safe, as best you can.” Her hand found her golden locket around her neck and held it.

Jasper considered this briefly and decided that it wasn't unreasonable. It was certainly less embarrassing than teaching X how to moonwalk. “Alright,” he nodded.

“Thank you,” Annabelle said tenderly.

Then Jasper stretched his long limbs. Annabelle could her his joints crack and pop. She sat up and sighed. She was hungry. She needed to go.

She packed up her laptop and the little plastic candles she had brought the night before. Jasper helped to collect them. “Will I see you again later?” She asked hopefully.

Jasper shrugged. “At some point, yes. I want to explore my labyrinth this week, and I know the others will be tracking down those other Kindred who attacked us the other night. We should help with that.”

Annabelle nodded. She was angry that her group had been attacked and she hadn't been there to help. At least she could help in the aftermath. She dreaded to think what would have become of Jasper if she hadn't gotten to him when she did. “Yeah.”

An invisible Jasper walked Annabelle to Griffith College, then they parted ways. They both had a lot to do.

**

Jasper kept himself busy over the next few weeks. He explored his labyrinth. He visited Eva. He received and carried out more jobs for Baron Abrams. All the while, Annabelle's movements and moods were in the back of his mind. The longer he went without feeding on her, the weaker his bond with her became. Part of him missed that. He found himself delaying finding another more permanent solution to his empty larder. He knew that eventually he would have to go back to his more aggressive feeding style, but he also knew he would miss having someone give him their honest and thoughtful consent. It made him feel a tiny bit less like a monster.

That got him thinking. Despite himself, he started to formulate a plan, purely hypothetical, of how his next feeding session with Annabelle could go. She had asked him to come back to her when he was ready to initiate things again and had said that they could do things his way if they wanted to. He had genuinely appreciated that. There was something dominant about him that was asking to be satisfied. Every time it came down to the act of feeding in the past, Jasper had been violent and dominant. Until Annabelle came along and offered herself to him, that is. That had changed things. Jasper had become what was for him, very submissive. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it wasn't what he wanted to be doing all the time, every time.

He was curious, also, about how far he could push Annabelle's boundaries. She was the one who always wanted more and he had been holding back. He knew very well what he was physically capable of and what his Beast demanded of him. The thought of challenging Annabelle, daring her to keep up with him intrigued him. By the time Jasper finished planning the night he had in mind, he knew that he might regret it forever if he didn't try it. The worst that would happen was Annabelle would say no. He might be a little disappointed, but that was nothing new. He waited another few nights, then decided to set his plan in motion.

**

Annabelle was on her way home when she thought she heard something behind her. She paused, straining her senses, searching for something unseen. At first, there was nothing, then she heard Jasper’s disembodied voice in her ear. “Hey.”

She jumped. “God...!”

“No, just me.” Jasper sounded highly amused.

“Jasper, what are you doing?” She hissed, annoyed at being startled like that.

“I was going to ask you...” he started, then hesitated, possibly reconsidering his words. “Would like to come over tomorrow night for another round?”

Annabelle felt a ghost of a touch on her neck and shoulder, right where he had bitten her last time. She shivered and something deep in her core twisted in the memory of pleasure. “Uhhh... sure,” she said faintly. Her mouth was dry and she swallowed. “Can I ask why? I thought you might not want to any more.”

“I’d been thinking,” Jasper said in her ear with a light snarl, “that there are a few things I would like to try with a consenting individual such as yourself, and I don’t know when I will get the chance to do them again. I would be a fool to not ask.” He put special emphasis on the word ‘consenting.’ His voice was soft and sensual, unusually so, but it was undercut with a thirst that Annabelle recognised.

“Okay, um... how about I come over tomorrow and we’ll talk about it and... see where we go from there,” she said.

“Alright. Come by 3:00,” Jasper replied, “and bring those little plastic candles. And yes... you may sleep over as well.”

Annabelle nodded. “See you then.”

“Oh, one last thing...” she felt Jasper’s lips on her ear and she shivered again, despite herself. “In the meantime, can you think of a safe word, please?”

Annabelle’s eyes went very wide. What on earth could he be planning that would need a safe word? “Uh...” she stammered.

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course. Well, I have to, for us to do this, right?”

“We don’t have to do this,” he reminded her.

“I know, but... I want to.” Annabelle swallowed nervously and steadied her nerves. “Okay. I’ll think of something.”

“Alright. See you tomorrow.”

She didn’t hear him leave, but she hadn’t heard him approach either. She stood there in mild shock for another little while with her hands over her mouth and cheeks. She cursed herself for being as excited as she was. This was going to be very, very interesting. She hurried the rest of the way home.

**

When Annabelle arrived once again at Jasper's sanctum the next night, she had her bag with her with the plastic candles and her laptop in it. She had fed earlier, as much as she could without killing any one. She was almost beside herself with nervous excitement. Part of her thought that she should be more apprehensive, that she should let someone know where she was just in case things went bad. But she trusted Jasper. He had been very good to her so far, very good indeed, and he didn't seem to want to ruin this relationship they had going. She trusted the control he had over himself. She still believed that, over-all, he wasn't a bad guy.

She knocked on his front door. Jasper answered it quickly. He had been waiting for her in the passage way on the other side again. He was wearing a different black hoodie this night. This one had fewer layers and just a straight zipper up and down. It was casual. Easy to get into and out of. Interesting.

They smiled at each other and Jasper invited her in. She followed him closely back down the long passage way, though she was sure by now she had the route memorised. They caught up with a little small talk. As they got closer to his rooms, Annabelle could hear faint music. It was classical, something with an orchestra and a choir. They weren't singing in English... Latin, maybe? Annabelle wasn't as knowledgeable on her classical pieces. “You're playing music?” She asked, pleased and surprised.

“Yeah, to set a mood.” Jasper smirked at her. She recognised her own line that she had used on him last time she was here.

“Oh, I see,” she chuckled. “What is it?”

“Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor.” Jasper licked his fangs. “Tell me... have you learned Blush of Life yet?”

“Um... yeah. Yes, I have.” Annabelle had used it very successfully around Elleanore. It gave her a pulse, warmed her skin, let her breathe and otherwise seem almost entirely human again. Annabelle tilted her head a little at Jasper, slowly working out what he had planned. “Why?”

His grin was sharp. “I would like you to use it tonight.”

“Oh... yeah, sure. Right now?”

“If you'd like, or we can wait until we get to the bedroom.”

“I'll wait,” she decided. So far, she liked where this was going.

In the bedroom, they set up her candles on the floor as they did last time. The room was soon full of artificial, warm candlelight. The classical music continued in the background, unobtrusive.

“Did you decide on a safe word?” Jasper inquired.

“Yeah. Um... are you familiar with the stoplight method?”

He considered it. “Red, yellow, green?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Green means go, yellow means slow down, and red means stop. It's basic, but effective.”

Jasper nodded. “Alright. We're going to use that tonight. Unless I hear you say 'yellow' or 'red,' I'm going to assume that everything is green.”

“No gags, then, please,” Annabelle specified.

“No,” Jasper agreed. That had never been a part of his plan for tonight.

Annabelle kept glancing at his fangs while he spoke. She couldn’t help it. His eyes had a hungry and excited gleam. She suspected that he and his Beast were working in near harmony tonight. Well, they had their safe word in place. Everything would be okay. She was feeling brave and keen to see how far Jasper was going to push things tonight.

When she was ready, Annabelle nodded and slipped off her red jacket, as was their custom by now. She had worn the good bra again. Jasper recognised the shape of it under her thin tank top. He snarled a little when he smiled.

“On the bed, please,” he gestured to the bed. Annabelle complied, her lips twitching into a little smile. She sat on the bed, then lay back. As she did so, she activated Blush of Life. Her Beast stirred a little, but was still mostly dormant. She glanced at Jasper. He was staring at her with an expression of incredible desire. He came over to her and sat on the bed. He held her hand and seemed to marvel for a few seconds at its warmth. Annabelle's body fell back into the natural rhythm of breathing. Jasper felt her pulse in her wrist. His fingers were very cold by comparison, and felt very dead. He snarled to himself, pleased.

“I don't have Blush of Life,” he explained softly. “I never bothered to learn how to do it. I mean... why would I? Who am I going to try to convince that I'm alive?”

“You still could learn,” Annabelle said. She could think of at least one person he might have used Blush of Life on, if he could, but bringing up that person was very likely going to ruin the mood, so she didn't.

He shook his head. “I could, but it's doubtful.” He seemed to be enjoying just feeling her hands for a moment. The classical music swelled and faded into a new piece of a similar feel to the last, but a faster tempo.

Jasper moved suddenly. With little warning, he was on top of Annabelle, straddling her hips. He had one knee pressed on either side of her ribs. He wasn't very heavy, especially not for a Brujah's strength to support. Annabelle's insides quivered in anticipation. She felt vulnerable, but she remembered all she had to do was say one or two words and he would stop. She understood finally what he had been planning. Jasper looked down at Annabelle, his icy eyes boring into hers. Her heartbeat sped up considerably. Her face flushed. She met his gaze, excited but steady. The degree to which she wanted this to continue bewildered her.

Slowly now, he peeled his hood off his head. Then his hands went to the zipper in the front of his hoodie and he slowly began to tug it down. Annabelle's eyes went wide as Jasper's chest was exposed. He was built of nothing but lean muscle. His flesh was as pale as death save for the starkly contrasting mass of black veins that criss-crossed his body like an insane roadway map. He had no body hair. He unzipped the hoodie down to the bottom, but didn't take it all the way off. This was a compromise, she realised. She had wanted to see what he looked like under his layers for a while, and he had always said no. This was an in-between he was allowing her.

She gave him a warm smile, but when she reached to touch him he stopped her. He gripped one hand in each of his and leaned down over her. He pinned her warm hands and wrists down with his deathly cold hands to the mattress above her head. He continued to watch her, as if daring her to say 'yellow' or 'red.' She didn't. His grip on her was strong. Their faces were close now. Annabelle was breathing hard.

Jasper bared his fangs and growled at her, as if trying to scare her. He was the monster from myth and legend, the deadly black shadow with razor sharp fangs who stalked helpless people at night and she was the young, naive victim. He was perhaps even trying to provoke her one last time into saying their safe word. She did look scared for a moment. There was fear in her eyes, in her Beast, but still she didn’t say either of the words that would make Jasper pull back. A true victim, she was no longer. Annabelle was allowing this to happen.

“Green?” he rasped, edging towards losing control.

“Green,” she nodded and tilted her head to expose her neck. Blood, warm blood, flowed there, and some of it at least, was his for the taking.

The music swelled again in the background as the choir reached a melodramatic crescendo. With a hungry snarl Jasper bit Annabelle hard in the throat. She gasped at the pain. Jasper had good aim. His long, wicked fangs had landed right on her jugular. He bit deep, and his mouth filled with Vitae. She was as sweet, strong and aroused as always, but this time her blood was body temperature. Jasper had never had warm Vitae from another Kindred before. His Beast exalted. He began to drink greedily, keeping an ear open for Annabelle wanting to end this early. He hoped she would not.

The pleasure of the Kiss soon followed, radiating out over Annabelle's body and making her moan. Her eyes rolled back in her skull. She flexed her arms against Jasper, but he still held her down, firmly pinning her to the mattress. Her body, still under the influence of Blush of Life, reacted as it normally would have to intense pleasure. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her pulse raced, sending vital blood into Jasper's hungry mouth. Her brain was very soon dizzy, but she didn't care. Her Beast scrambled, but was soundly ignored in the overwhelming wave of sensations. Annabelle didn't know if it was because of this new, intense situation or the anticipation that had led up to it, but the pleasure this time was near orgasmic. When she felt Jasper bite a little harder in his enthusiasm, it crossed that threshold and she crested with a cry. Annabelle's body trembled uncontrollably underneath Jasper's from her core outwards.

Jasper lingered on Annabelle's throat for a moment or two longer, then pulled his head back with a snarl. His fangs and tongue were painted a deep crimson. Annabelle only barely noticed this. She shivered when he licked her wound closed and he thought he heard her whimper. His Beast whispered at him to continue, that this had been the best he ever had, but he clenched his jaw and ignored it.

Jasper sat up and let her hands go. She didn't move them. She lay there still, breathing hard, eyes closed. Each exhale had a little moan attached to it. He watched her chest heave up and down for a minute. The music faded and changed again to a soprano singing backed by strings and a piano.

Annabelle opened her eyes and saw Jasper watching her. He was still straddling her hips. She smiled up at him. “Wow,” she mumbled. She lowered her hands and rested them on his knees on either side of her body. Jasper didn’t mind. He chuckled at her reaction. “I... mm...” Words were failing her as her blood-deprived brain swam in a haze of endorphins.

“Good?” Jasper confirmed.

Annabelle still couldn’t speak, but she nodded.

Jasper slid carefully off of her and sat on the bed next to her. He hadn't taken a lot of Vitae this time, but what he had taken was potent indeed. His head was also filled with endorphins, mainly from her, but he didn't have the Blush of Life to let his body do anything about it.

“I can't believe you let me do that,” he chuckled softly. He re-zipped up his hoodie, but only part way. He left the top third or so of it open. “I thought for sure you were going to stop me when I pinned you down.”

Annabelle stretched and smiled at him. Other than an internal scolding from her Beast, she was content, still reeling slightly from the pleasures she had been through. “But I didn't.”

Jasper relaxed down next to her on the narrow bed as best he could. He found himself playing a little with her long, black hair. Their bond had deepened again, he knew. At that moment, in that place, he did not care. “You liked it... rather a lot,” he remarked, still amused. His fangs, when Annabelle saw them, were clean now.

“Yeah...” Annabelle marvelled. She covered her face with her hands as embarrassment washed over her. The pleasure this time had been too, too much. “Oh my God!” he heard her muffled giggle.

“What?” Jasper inquired, though he was fully aware of what had happened to her body and why. He was having fun.

Annabelle peeked at him through her fingers. She was grinning. “Is that what you had planned?” she demanded.

“More or less, yes. I'm glad it worked.”

Annabelle groaned softly. “Did you know about... that I would...”

Jasper smirked. “I kind of suspected... but no, but it was a pleasant surprise.” He stroked a cold, pale hand down her arm to her chest, where it settled over her still-beating heart.

“Boy, I'll say,” Annabelle agreed.

Feeling Annabelle's magically enforced heartbeat made Jasper get very quiet and suddenly a little introverted. His eyes found the gold locket hanging around Annabelle's neck and the silver ring on her finger and he pulled his hand back. He got up and went to turn off the music and the lights so that they could settle into bed.

When dawn broke over the City of Angels, the majority of the population arose to begin their day of work and school and life, but Jasper and Annabelle were once again literally dead to the world. The two vampires shared the little bed, holding each other. Where their relationship would take them now, neither of them knew, but in that moment at least, they were content.

[initiala]

Hook Echo (5/9)

Summary:  They’re in a rut. That’s what Deputy Emma Swan tells herself over and over again as her boyfriend, Killian Jones, grows more and more distant, and more frustrated, due to complications with his dissertation research on tornado formation. But storm season’s more than halfway over and this dry spell is doing nothing to make things easier for him–or their relationship. Will everything blow over, or is there a greater storm on the horizon?

Rating: E

Content warnings:  Graphic depictions of injury resulting from natural disasters, minor character death

Hmmm... things are starting to change up top. I wonder what that means?Thanks again to @optomisticgirl, @spartanguard, and @idoltina for all they did on this.

This is also on AO3 or FF.Net if that’s how you wanna roll.

Killian was gone by the time she woke up. And really, "woke up" was a stretch — she hadn't slept well at all the night before; in fact, Emma had still been awake when Killian came home from the bar. She'd lain there for hours, stewing, not sure who she was more upset with, but when he came to bed she immediately rolled over and clung to him. "Emma? You should be sleeping, love."

She shook her head. Killian sounded exhausted, but there was worry in his voice when he asked, "Darling, what happened? You left earlier than I thought you might, you didn't say goodbye. I didn't even see you or the girls leave. You're not really angry with me for taking your underwear, are you?"

Emma half rolled her eyes, nudging him to put his arm around her, which he obliged. He stroked her hair and it felt so nice she almost started crying all over again. "It's not the underwear," she said quietly. "Did - did Liam say anything to you?"

There had always been this unspoken agreement between her and Liam that they not mention their disagreements with each other to Killian, but she was starting to think it was a mistake. It almost felt like tattling, and she really didn't want to make him feel like he had to choose between her and his brother, but even after almost three years, it felt like Liam was still trying to put a wedge between them. And for what, because Killian was almost done with his studies? That was the same excuse he'd been using for years, and still Killian hadn't finished. It wasn't his fault, and it certainly wasn't hers.

She'd only forbade the night chases last spring, after all. And after what had happened, Liam should be thanking her for that, not scolding her.

Killian's hand stilled for a moment, then resumed his ministrations. "He mentioned something about abusing my break privileges, but that was about it. Why, what did he say to you?"

It took all of her willpower not to get up and drive over to Liam's place in that moment and rip him a new asshole the way he deserved, once and for all. It fucking figured that he would lay all the blame on her, take everything out on her, and let his brother off scot-free. Killian seemed to notice something was up because he sounded much more alert when he said, "Emma, if Liam spoke out of turn to you, I need you to tell me."

She sighed, her anger deflating just as quickly as it had built up. "It's nothing he hasn't said before," she mumbled. "Though he was a little more… crass about it this time."

He was quiet for so long she thought he'd fallen asleep. She jumped when he spoke again. "I'll talk with him about it. You'd think he'd bloody give up and accept things by now, but no, that requires someone without a pig's brain in their head."

Emma chuckled weakly, relaxing more into his embrace. She appreciated that he wasn't in denial or tried to downplay the fact that Liam and her didn't really get along. He'd have to be blind, or an idiot, to miss the fact, but she at least attempted to play nice and be polite while they were around his brother. It just bothered her that with how much she knew Killian talked about her, Liam had only found more fault with their relationship; surely he didn't just focus on the bad things, right? There were plenty of good things to talk about too.

Right?

She shook her head of those bad thoughts. "I'm a big girl, Killian; I can handle Liam."

"Aye, love, I know. Still doesn't mean I can't tell him to stuff his opinions back up his arse where they came from."

They'd fallen asleep not long after that, Emma a little more uneasily than Killian, but he could sleep through a, well, through a tornado.

(Which she knew for a fact that he could, and he'd been steaming mad about that the next morning.)

Still, she must have dropped into a deep sleep at some point because she never felt him get up or heard him pack his overnight bag and leave. After she ate, she decided to spend the day getting some prep work done on the painting they'd been putting off doing; she threw on some working clothes and spent the morning stripping the wallpaper in the hallways. The house was always weirdly quiet when Killian was gone so Emma kept the radio on, blaring a classic rock station and singing along to keep herself from going back to what had happened last night with Liam.

God, she really wanted to just punch him in the nose.

The front door opened and startled her so much that she almost fell off the stepladder. "Jesus, Mom, ever heard of knocking?" Emma said, climbing down and turning down the volume a little.

"I have, though you still haven't learned to keep your music at appropriate levels," Ingrid said, though she smiled. "I knocked three times."

Emma winced. They really needed to get the doorbell fixed - whatever the previous owner had done before moving out hadn't lasted through the winter. "Yeah, well, you did always say I could do whatever I wanted once I had my own place."

Ingrid laughed. "That is true. Anyway, I stopped over with a couple of things, mind if I put them in the kitchen?" Emma waved her on, then followed to wash the dust off her hands. "I didn't know you and Killian were doing remodeling already."

"Kind of a spur of the moment decision," Emma said over the water. "He's over in Norman and I don't have anything to do until my shift starts at six. Figured I'd get a jump on some things."

"Killian went to Norman?"

She dried her hands slowly. "Yeah," Emma said, avoiding the look Ingrid gave her. "There's some thesis stuff going on."

"Bad thesis stuff, I take it."

"That's what we're going to find out."

"Mm."

Emma never did like it much when Ingrid made that noise. It meant she knew too much, or had guessed at whatever it was Emma was hiding from her, like the fact that her high school boyfriend was actually in his twenties or how he was having her hold on to his pot for him. She watched as Ingrid pulled a pint out of the freezer and sat down with it and a couple of spoons at the table. "I was going to leave this for you to try at your leisure, but I think you need someone to talk to. Ice cream helps."

"Mom…"

"Sit. I'm experimenting with some flavors for June and I need a second opinion."

Ingrid's latest kick was trying to out-do Ben & Jerry's by taking what she called 'sub-par ingredients' and replacing them with some more local flavor. She kept it to one new flavor a month and there were running polls and commentaries on her social media pages about which ones might become permanent additions to the roster. It was a very popular scheme and Emma hadn't seen Any Given Sundae this booming in years. "You know if it's not rocky road I'm not really interested," she said, sitting across from her.

Ingrid rolled her eyes as she took the top off the container. Whatever the flavor was, it was blue. "I can't believe I raised you to be such an ice cream snob."

"You bought damaged goods, you knew this going in."

The look Ingrid gave her was hard to read, but there was never any pity or sympathy in these kinds of expressions. Just some scrutiny and a little bit of reproof. Emma tried not to squirm under her gaze. "Something's going on with you and Killian," Ingrid said finally. "You haven't been this hard on yourself or this distant in years."

She gestured with her spoon for Emma to take the first bite. More to keep herself from answering the thinly veiled accusation, Emma did - blue raspberry and there were… Swedish Fish? She winced, swallowing. "Ok, I get it, you're going for a more ocean-related Phish Food, but no Swedish Fish. Gummy stuff only tastes good on froyo."

"We do not mention the accursed in this house, Emma."

"It's my house, Mom. I can talk about froyo all I want. Froyo froyo froyo."

Ingrid rolled her eyes again and took her own spoonful. Then she made a face too. "Alright, I see your point. Maybe I'll have something for July… No, I was working on that Independence Day themed neapolitan, so maybe it'll be for August, a last hurrah of summer. Hang on, I have more. In the meantime, talk."

Emma blinked at the speed at which her mother changed both marketing tactics and conversation topics. "About what?"

"Whatever it is that has you so… you."

"Mom."

"Emma."

She sighed in disgust, stabbing at the ice cream for more of the blue raspberry - gummy fish aside, her mom did make a mean blue raspberry - and shoving it in her mouth. "It's not me and Killian," she said, ignoring Ingrid's look about talking with her mouth full. "It's me and Liam."

Ingrid's brows furrowed for a moment, then understanding dawned. She opened the new pint and Emma was relieved to see chocolate in this one. "He's still giving you a hard time."

"I don't think I'd call it that anymore. He's just... " Emma sighed. "He's just mean about it now. And I don't get it. He doesn't give Killian that hard of a time - I asked. He only lays into me about it, like I'm the only one with any say in this relationship. We bought a house, for Christ's sake. You don't buy a house with someone you're only screwing around with."

There were brownie bits and fudge swirls in this one and Emma nodded in appreciation before taking another spoonful. Ingrid looked pensive. "Have either of you tried talking with Liam about his behavior?" she asked. Emma started to respond, but Ingrid held up her hand. "I don't mean taking him to task for it, I mean asking him about the root cause of all of this. It's gone on too long for it to be jealousy or something petty."

Jealous? Liam? Of them? Emma almost laughed at the idea, and would have if she wasn't so pissed at him. "We probably have," she said. "I don't remember, but Liam doesn't listen to me. If Killian has, it hasn't gotten anywhere. He said he'd talk to him again after what happened last night."

"What happened last night?"

Her face warmed. Fumbling for the words, Emma tried to explain what had happened at the bar without going into explicit detail, though she had zero doubts that Ingrid was well aware of what she meant by 'visiting Killian' and the context in which Liam's current anger happened in. The look she gave her confirmed that. "He was on break," Emma said, the defense feeling weak.

"Well, I'd still call it impolite at best," Ingrid said, making Emma wince, "but I'm not going to sit here and lecture you. It's already done and you're a grown woman. So I can see where Liam might be a bit irritated for last night, but it's hardly the worst thing to ever happen."

Particularly when it wasn't even the first time she and Killian had had sex at the bar, but Emma wasn't about to mention that. Alluding to it at all was humiliating enough. "It just isn't fair that he went after me and then Killian gets off scot-free," she grumbled, digging into the ice cream. "It takes two to tango."

"I don't need to remind you that life isn't fair," Ingrid said. "But I can maybe see where Liam's a little blind when it comes to his brother. We tend to develop blind spots about our children."

Emma thought back to when Killian had first told her about losing his parents, how Liam had practically raised him after their father died. She supposed Ingrid had a point, but it didn't mean Liam had to be an asshole about it. She said so, and Ingrid smiled. "I didn't say it was right," she said. "But sometimes it helps to see where someone is coming from."

Just then, Emma's phone rang, and it gave her an excellent excuse to avoid figuring out how to continue that particular conversation with Ingrid. It wasn't a number she recognized, though it was local, so she answered with her professional voice in case it was one of those stupid robo calls. "Deputy Swan speaking."

"Ah, Emma. This is Nemo Bhavsar, Killian's advisor."

Her eyebrows went up. "Dr. Bhavsar, hi." She shared a confused glance with her mother. She knew Killian had listed her as one of his emergency contacts, but he'd only left a couple of hours ago. "Is everything okay? I thought Killian was meeting with you today."

"He did, we just concluded the meeting."

"That was short."

He laughed. "Indeed, but for good reason. There's a strong front coming off the Rockies and I managed to get some funding to allow Killian to take a team out to Wyoming, possibly into the Dakotas if he follows it. We've had luck there in the past and I think this is just what he needs to finish everything."

The sinking feeling of fear for him was buoyed by the small hope that he might be done soon, but Emma was still confused. "I'm glad to hear that, but I'm a little confused on why you're calling me about it?"

Dr. Bhavsar exhaled - not quite a sigh, but close. "Killian gets this look in his eye when he's focused, one where he quite forgets the proper courses of action outside of accomplishing his task. I thought it might be better to notify you now, rather than receive a phone call when he's three states away."

She frowned; he wasn't wrong, per say, but she'd also never seen Killian get that worked up that he'd completely forget to call her. "Well, you've known him longer," she said dubiously.

"It's an academics thing, I'm afraid. When one gets caught in the single-minded pursuit of knowledge, one can lose sight of what's truly important. I've seen it many times before."

She pursed her lips. She hoped he was wrong in this case, but she knew better than to bet on that. Though, she remembered one of the things Liam had implied the night before, that without her Killian could focus better and actually accomplish what he'd set out to do. That hit her like a punch in the gut. "Well. Alright, thanks for giving me a heads up."

"Not a problem, Emma. Have a good day."

"You too." After she hung up, Emma stared absently at the ice cream starting to melt along the edges of the carton, chocolatey blobs against the scooped and scraped lines dotted with fudge and brownie bits. She didn't like to think that maybe Liam was right, that maybe a few days away from her would be good for Killian's research, would be good for him in general. But the thought was there, racing around and around in her brain like a merry-go-round out of control. She glanced up at Ingrid, who looked concerned. "Well," Emma said, forcing some optimism she definitely did not feel, "looks like I might be taking care of all the painting myself over the next few days."

It did make her feel better that Killian called later that night; he and Will were still on the road with two research assistants, somewhere in Kansas. He sounded excited about the prospects ahead and Emma couldn't help but smile as she listened to him go on about the models and figures. "How long do you think you'll be gone?" she asked, tucking her legs up against her tighter.

"If the line of storms stays strong, we could be after it a week or so. Depends on what we run into."

The urge to say something sappy gripped her tongue, but she held off, not wanting to embarrass him in front of his peers. Or maybe it was the lingering thought that he'd do better without her nearby. "Okay. I guess you'll be too busy to call much?"

"Probably, but I'll try to touch base when I can, love."

God, Liam couldn't have planned this better, if he even knew about it. He'd be crowing. Asshole. Emma swallowed, her heart both very full from missing Killian already and hurting because of what his brother had said. "Stay safe, Killian. Good luck."

"As safe as possible."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Then it was just her, her erratic work schedule, and the messy house she'd made for herself. Emma sighed, and she swore it echoed through the empty house.

When she wasn't working, she kept the TV on rather than the radio. The noise helped to drown out the lingering taunts and obsessive thoughts in her mind. But there was another bonus to it. She primed every wall in the downstairs except for the kitchen while watching more Weather Center Live and Local on the 8s segments than she could remember ever watching in her life, even living with Killian. If there were going to be any updates on the front he was going after, she wanted to know as soon as possible.

She also watched a lot of weird survival-type shows about extreme weather conditions and even something about killer bees, but that usually got interrupted by news updates.

And it was on the news updates that she finally got word of Killian.

She was painting the living room - a dusty turquoise color she liked and she hoped he didn't have any objections to - when she heard the news break sound clip. Emma paused, watching the broadcaster move in front of the green screen and showcase the severe storm they were tracking in eastern Wyoming. Her lips pursed, worry causing her heart to beat a little faster, and she went back to painting, keeping one ear on the TV and waiting to hear what happened.

"We've got a regular correspondent, storm chaser Killian Jones, on the line. Killian it's good to hear from you, can you tell us what you saw there?"

Emma whipped her head around, watching as footage was shown on the screen from what must be the aftermath, listening to Killian talk about the storm. He sounds tired, she thought. And frustrated, which meant he didn't get what he needed out of this one. The scene certainly looked like there'd been a tornado, a couple of downed trees and debris everywhere, a caved-in house and an overturned pickup. "No deaths," she heard him say, "just a few minor injuries the first responders are tending to, but my team and I will be helping where we can before following this one."

Emma turned the volume down. She'd gotten what she needed, Killian was alright and he was going to be a bear about not getting what he needed, and it was going to be a long couple of days while he chased this system across the country.

Part of her wanted to run over to the bar and snap her fingers at Liam - Emma being around didn't have any effect on how Killian's research was going. The other part felt ashamed for feeling any vindication from his failed chase.

Really, though, overall she just felt drained.

She was going to need more paint.

The next couple of days passed much the same, but as Emma moved on from the living room to the dining room (a green that looked nice with all the whitewashed trim) and then into the hallways and stairwell (a neutral caramel that went with everything), Killian seemed to pop up on every evening storm report. Even on TV she could see how frustrated he was, the way he ran his fingers through his hair and the slight clench of his jaw during a question; that was the third day of chasing this particular system, when they were close enough to a nearby affiliate for a news team to come out. The other times were all phone-ins.

She didn't watch the livestreams, if Will did any; it would only make her more anxious, and they'd started muting them, mostly due to how much swearing went on when the chases went live, so it wouldn't help her figure out what was going on anyway.

Killian didn't call at all in that time and she had absolutely no idea what to think about that. Well, she kind of did, but it was such a mess of conflicting emotions that she didn't have the strength for sorting through right now, and so she just hoped she had no idea why he hadn't called.

Still, it was surprising to come home after a late shift at work to find the TIV in the driveway. Surprising, and a little hurtful that he hadn't called to say he was coming home, but Emma was glad to see the monstrous thing in one piece, nary a scratched pirate flag in sight - and hopefully the man who captained it was in one piece as well.

She opened the front door, thankful the smell of paint had died down with all the windows being open, and noted that all the lights were off downstairs. Emma left her shoes by the door and locked up, then went upstairs quietly. The upstairs was dark, too, and she shuffled around in the bedroom to get her things, trying not to make any noise - but her own silence alerted her to the fact that she didn't hear Killian.

He wasn't one to snore, but he could breathe pretty loudly when he put his mind to it. She flicked on the bedside lamp and noted with a frown the bed in much the same state as she'd left it that morning. Where was he?

Leaving everything in a heap on the bed, she went back downstairs. The hall light illuminated enough that she could see into the living room and just make out the lump on the couch that hadn't been there earlier.

Her heart sank with every step she took. She took in the empty beer bottles on the floor, the blanket that was half on the floor at this point and exposing his tightly folded arms and his scrunched up legs, and even in the poor lighting she could see the scowl that remained on his face even in sleep. Emma wanted to wake him, to bring him up to bed and hold him and ease away his frustrations, but her pulse just hammered in her throat every time she tried to open her mouth.

She could be glad he chose to come home, but it hurt to see him balled up on the couch, clearly having drank himself to sleep, rejecting the idea of the comfort of their bed and her arms.

So she swallowed past the lump in her throat and fixed the blanket, tucking it up around him and making sure it wouldn't slip down again. She hesitated, then felt a pinch of disgust at herself for doing so; she brushed his bangs away from his forehead and pressed a kiss there, not daring to hope he was waking up when he stirred a little under her. "I love you," she whispered.

She lingered for a moment, watching him, then slowly walked back to the hall, turned off the light and went upstairs, alone.

Two years ago…

"Swan!"

The front door slammed shut, jarring Emma out of her pleasure-filled daze. The sound of feet on the stairs and Killian talking as he ran happened faster than she could react. "There's an imminent event, the instability levels are the highest I've seen in ages, we're guaranteed to get something and I know I promised you-"

He stopped at the top of the stairs, his words cut off as he took in the sight of her spread out naked on the bed with her vibrator clutched in one hand. Killian blinked, slowly, mouth dropping open a little. "Interrupting, am I?" he asked, his voice sounding strained.

She was a little strung out, her body thrumming from a peak just out of reach, and she couldn't help but laugh a little. "Well, it's hot, and I was bored."

Her lofted bedroom had been stifling when she'd woken up; Mary Margaret was off at work and Emma had slept late after getting in around three in the morning. She'd opened the little windows above her bed and turned on the fans, but it only helped so much. So then she'd figured, whatever, she was home alone, she was a grown-ass woman, she could be naked in her own apartment if she wanted to.

And well, then she'd gotten bored scrolling through her phone.

Emma sat up, wincing a little as her core throbbed in protest. "What's going on with some imminent event?" she asked.

Killian crossed the room in two strides, his hands going to her shoulders as he gently pushed her back down on the bed. "Different imminent event first," he said, dropping to his knees.

"What - are you serious?" she asked. He took hold of her legs and gently pulled her forward until her ass was just at the edge of the bed. She felt warm in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature of the room; bad enough that he'd walked in on her going to town on herself, but now he was putting aside something urgent just to- "Oh God," she cried, her head falling back as he parted her with his fingers and licked a long stripe up her center.

She was definitely sensitive, definitely ready to come, and now she definitely didn't care about anything else other than keeping her boyfriend's head between her thighs.

He tasted her with short, firm strokes, easing her legs up over his shoulders and then gripping her hips with firm hands. She couldn't catch her breath, straining under his cruel ministrations. His tongue swirled around her clit and dipped down to her entrance and Emma's fingers dug so hard into her comforter that she expected the cross-hatch marks would never go away. God, she'd been so close when he'd hurried in, lost in a fantasy where they were playing a game of pirate and kidnapped princess; she wondered how he'd take such a game, if he'd be willing to make her submit to his whims, but that was a conversation for when he wasn't doing that with his tongue inside of her.

She made a whining noise when he pulled away, but she hadn't noticed his hand leaving her hip - something firm nudged her entrance and she lifted her head, looking down at him in confusion and he grinned at her, winking when he flicked the 'on' button of her vibrator. Emma gasped, her toes curling and her legs tightening over his shoulders, and then that absolute asshole bent down and pressed down on her clit with the flat of his tongue. Her gasps quickly turned into pleading moans, his name tumbling from her lips with a few curses tossed in for good measure. She couldn't hear him over the low thrum of the vibrator, but she knew he would be chuckling because he was an asshole like that, and her hips seemed to be rutting up against his face all on their own. She scrambled for a better grip on the bed, but his other hand found hers and she gripped him tight. "Killian - oh, fuck, Killian -"

And then she was flying, bucking wildly into his face and felt so good that it almost hurt, her skin was so overly sensitive from his attentions and her earlier play with the vibrator.

Killian turned it off and gently pulled it out of her while she trembled from aftershocks; she was sure she'd never be able to unlock her fingers from his, she was holding onto him so tight, and he looked at her with a mix of smug satisfaction and gentle adoration as he stretched out on the bed next to her, bringing their clasped hands up to his mouth to kiss her fingers. "Still bored?" he asked.

Emma exhaled, then turned her head to look at him. If she wasn't so overwhelmed by the aftermath of her orgasm, she'd be overwhelmed by the amount of feeling in the look he was giving her - the amount of feeling in her chest she wanted to express. But it was like a vice gripped her tongue, and she could only reply, "No, but now I think I need a nap."

He grinned and then, with an amount of energy it would take another decade for her to muster, he bounded to his feet and went to her wardrobe, tossing a t-shirt, jeans, and a lightweight plaid shirt at her, all while talking. "No time for naps, Swan, though I suppose you can do that in the car." He went to her dresser then, looking through the drawers. "As I was saying, there's an imminent event and we need to be on the road."

A pair of her own underwear hit her in the face, then a bra. "We?" she asked, not moving; she couldn't, really, her legs felt like jelly and laying on the bed felt nice.

"Yes, love, 'we'. I did promise you I'd take you on a chase when the opportunity presented itself, didn't I?" He paused, looking into the drawer thoughtfully, then tossed a pair of socks at her as well. "It'll be muddy if we have to get out of the TIV, so boots or trainers please. Work boots, not your everyday ones."

With enormous effort, she managed to sit up, moving the clothes off of her and onto the bed next to her. "You do realize that you've effectively rendered me useless for a few hours."

"That's why you'll be in the back. Will's driving, I've got the computers. You'll be along for the ride, a third set of eyes, but you can nap in the car until things get underway."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "You really think Will's going to be okay with you bringing me along and then me just conking out in the back for most of it?"

"He'll be fine."

"And you don't get to tell him why I'm so out of it."

Killian gave her another cheeky grin and she rolled her eyes, giving in. She grabbed everything and padded down to the bathroom to put herself together. She kept in mind that they'd be in the car for most of the day, and out in the wet and the wind if they got out, and braided her hair after brushing some dry shampoo through it. When she came out, Killian was cooling his heels by the door, and Emma raised an eyebrow at him again. "Am I going to eat at all today or is this a 'grab what you can when you can' kind of day?"

"We'll stop by Granny's on the way to Will's. Come on."

In fact, it seemed like he'd called ahead before he'd even gotten to her place, because Granny had two bags of take away waiting for them at the counter. "You bring her back in one piece now, you got it?" she asked, glaring at Killian pointedly over her glasses.

"If she's not in one piece, then it's because I'm also not in one piece."

Emma, blushing a little from Granny's overprotectiveness, gave a smile of thanks as Killian paid and they hurried back to the TIV.

They ate as he drove; Will still lived in Norman, so they were going to backtrack a little before making their way west and south to meet up with the cold front Killian was pinning all of this on. This was the first time she saw the TIV's interior all set up for a chase; instead of the brackets being used for Killian's computers, Emma just set up the trays to put her food on, smiling sweetly when he gave her an exasperated look. "It's a lot lighter than two laptops and all your batteries and wifi cables and whatever," she argued, spreading her onion rings out in front of her and sorting them from smallest to biggest, just because she could.

"No respect," he said with feigned dismay.

"Nope," she said, startling a laugh out of him. "Respect is for men who don't barge into my apartment unannounced and then give me excellent orgasms."

He hummed, an amused glint in his eye. "I'll keep that in mind."

She finished her breakfast-slash-lunch just as they pulled into Will's apartment complex; it was very much a student apartment block, one on the lower-end amenities-wise, but if Will was having similar money woes as Killian, it wasn't unexpected. Killian honked twice; Emma glared at him. "We have to get out anyway, just go and knock on his door."

"It's how he knows it's me!"

"And him opening the door to your face wouldn't let him know it was you?"

"Well, then we both have to get in the TIV and this way I'm getting things situated while he gets in."

Emma rolled her eyes, shaking her head. Men. They got out and she went to sit behind the driver's seat while Killian got his computers set up; Will hurried down the stairs and practically vaulted into the TIV. "Bloody hell, it took you lot long enough," he commented, barely buckling his seatbelt before getting them back out onto the road.

"We stopped to eat," Killian said mildly. Emma hid a smirk at his phrasing; she still felt pleasantly worn out from earlier. "And yes, there's something for you, you heathen."

While Will drove, ate, and managed to cuss out half the drivers on the road all at the same time, Killian started filling them both in on their plan of attack for the day. At this point, he'd gotten everything connected and running on his laptops and he could point out the wind and temperature patterns on his charts to Emma, who by now could at least understand what he was talking about, if not make an educated guess on what his charts meant.

They'd head west and south, possibly heading into Texas if they didn't meet up with the line before then. They would get into position to launch their probes, and possibly intercept if it could be managed. More for Emma's benefit, Killian explained how they had helmets and extra harnesses in the seats to keep them as restrained and safe as possible in case something went wrong with the intercept.

She watched him as he talked, fascinated at how animated he was about the whole process, from safety measures to tiny points of data. She couldn't see his eyes too well, he was wearing sunglasses even if he wasn't always looking back at her, but the enthusiasm in his voice was more than a little infectious. Yes, she'd asked if he'd take her out with him sometime, but it didn't mean the prospect wasn't more than a little scary; only now was she realizing that scary was okay - as long as he was there with her.

At one point, she leaned forward enough so that she could play with the hair at the nape of his neck while he talked; slowly, as if he reacted without realizing it, he relaxed into her touch. She smiled when he make a noise of content, but Will's reaction wasn't so pleased. "Oi, if you two are going to be all touchy-feely for the duration, I've got no problem letting you two get out and walk to Texas from here."

"Oh, stop it," Killian admonished.

Emma eyed the back of Will's head, pursing her lips. "Hey, I'd play with your hair too, if you didn't keep it cut like you were still a cadet."

"It's more practical this way."

She hummed, lightly scratching at Killian's nape one more time before sitting back in her seat. Killian turned a little to look at her, an exaggerated pout on his lips, and her stomach did a little flip.

God, she was so fucked for this man.

Smiling, she turned away, watching the endless farmland pass by outside. It was fairly repetitive: field of crops, dilapidated barn, the occasional pasture filled with some livestock, house, repeat. Eventually, it proved to be just soporific enough to put her to sleep, the excitement of the morning catching up with her.

She didn't know how long she slept for, and when she did wake it was hard to convince herself to open her eyes; the seats were comfortable with all the extra padding - another safety measure. Also, Killian and Will seemed to be having a rather heated discussion about her.

"Mate, I just don't see why you brung her."

"She wanted to come. I promised her ages ago I'd take her out, she wants to see what I do besides stare at Excel sheets."

"She don't take you out where she works."

"She's police, Will. Why are you so bothered by this? We've had other people work with us before."

"That's the thing, innit? They work with us. She's just - a bloody tourist, like one of those groups that charge you a couple hundred and drag you around the countryside and go 'welp, looks like it was a bad day, folks, sorry, no refunds'."

"She's not dead weight. If we need an extra pair of hands, she'll be more than capable. I thought you liked her."

Will's voice was quiet and Emma knew she needed to make it known soon that she was awake, but she also really wanted to know the answer to this. She and Liam were still less than friends, and she wanted to hear if Will thought similarly. "I do like her. This isn't against her, this is... I dunno, mate. I don't like feeling like I'm just playing chauffeur or third wheel on some kind of 'impress the girl' tour."

Killian sounded like he'd had a small epiphany. "This isn't about Emma. This is about Ana."

"Don't wanna talk about that c-"

They hit a hole in the road that caused the whole back end to jolt and Emma let out a little shriek of surprise as Killian swore. "Bloody fucking lazy-ass, penny-pinching, corrupt sons of-"

Will pulled over and Killian barely waited for him to stop before getting out and going around to inspect the front tire where they'd hit. They could still hear him cursing ODOT and all the holes they hadn't patched up on the highways, and Emma let her head fall back with a sigh. "How much of that did you hear?" Will asked, surprising her.

She caught his eye in the rearview mirror. He didn't look guilty so much as he looked embarrassed that she'd overheard. "Enough," she said, "to know that I seem to have this problem with the people in Killian's life."

"I'm sorry, lass," he told her. "Shoulda waited to talk to him without you nearby."

She shook her head. "Not sorry you said it, though."

"Like that mind-reading bastard said, it's not about you."

"Ana."

He sighed. "Don't wanna get into it, but she's a right bitch of the first order. Thought she was everything, instead she took everything. Look, I do like you, not that my opinion matters 'coz I'm not the one dating you, but you're good for him." Killian continued to swear outside and Emma smiled wanly. "Ain't never seen him happier, present situation excluded, and that might be what put a bug up my arse about it. So I'm sorry - my shit getting in the way."

She pursed her lips. Yes, it stung. Could she fault him for letting his own feelings cloud his judgement? No. "Next time you have a problem, just take it up with me personally; don't go through Killian. He's got enough on his plate."

He caught her eye again and she saw the crow's feet form around his eyes as he smiled. "He does, but I dunno if I wanna go head on with you, lass - you'll knock me dick up through my teeth if I'm not careful."

Emma just smiled, not confirming or denying anything, as Killian got back in and practically ordered, "It'll hold for now, just drive."

They stopped a little while later for gas and to put a little extra air in the tire, just in case; Will was the one to get out this time, leaving Emma and Killian alone in the TIV. Killian shoved his sunglasses up on top of his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry if you heard-" he started, but she interrupted him.

"We already talked about it. He apologized, we made a sort of deal that we'll butt heads with each other about anything else in the future. He'll leave you out of it."

He looked guilty, and she unbuckled herself to lean forward and play with his hair again. "I didn't want today to go like this," he said. "Losing my temper like that, letting Will run his mouth. I wanted to share this with you, and I feel like it's just going badly."

Emma closed the space between them and kissed his cheek. "It's not your fault. I'm not even mad, I'm just… you have a lot of people who love you, and I'm a little worried about how much I have to prove to them that I - that I care about you too."

His eyes flicked up to hers, completely catching on to her stumbling over the words. They were just shy of a year of dating and they hadn't said it yet. Oh, she'd almost said it - back in April, for instance, when he'd taken her for that picnic and taught her about storms. One morning a few weeks ago when he'd surprised her at the station with hot cocoa and a bear claw, she'd covered up the urge to say it by taking far too large a bite out of her breakfast.

This morning, laying naked in her bed when he'd eaten her out and not asked for anything in return.

She knew he felt it. The way he was looking at her right now definitely said it. But he was waiting for her to make the first move, letting her set their pace, and she was just too damned scared to say it.

Even though she was almost positive she felt the same way as he did.

The door opened and Will got back in, so Emma just kissed Killian on the cheek again before sitting back in her seat.

Dark, heavy clouds sat low in the sky as they got back on the road and Emma scanned the cloud base carefully for any signs of activity. Lightning lit up the cloud interior here and there, and the occasional cloud-to-ground bolt made her start with surprise, but she reminded herself that this was what they'd come out here to chase and it would only get worse - if they were lucky.

Odd, to think that the worse the conditions, the luckier they'd be.

"Emma, love, do you mind navigating?" She looked up and saw Killian offering her the smaller laptop. "I'll give you where we need to be going and you tell Will where to turn. It gets trickier to look between both screens sometimes, especially when I have to send emails."

"Sure." She thought she'd do better with her phone, but she'd use the thing that didn't suck up her data plan out here in the middle of nowhere. "You're writing emails? Now?"

"Updates to the National Weather Service, love. Strictly business."

They stopped just on the edge of the storm and got out - Emma mostly to stretch, but Will and Killian wanted to get their anemometers and barometers and whatever-meters balanced to the area before going in. Killian took some photos too, while Will set up a GoPro on the front dash. "I can stream this on our social pages," he explained while Emma watched. "With social media, news stations can pick stuff up, let people know how bad it is, and we can get some cash from it."

Killian came up beside her, slipping his arm around her waist and tucking his hand in her pocket. She leaned into him and he pressed a kiss to her temple. "I let Will deal with Twitter and whatnot, I'm not good with the hashtags and selfies and whatever else kids are doing these days."

"You're such an old man," Will grumbled, looking down at his phone.

"Selfies are easy," Emma said, taking his camera from him. She held it in front of them and she felt his head bump into hers as they leaned in close.

Okay, selfies with an actual DSLR weren't as easy as they were with the phone, but she had to admit the photo came out nice anyway. Even if her hair was escaping from its braid, wisps of it all windblown and sticking up a little from all the static in the air.

"Now how do I put this on Twitter?" Killian asked, a teasing tone in his voice.

"First you shove it up your arse-" Will stopped, laughing as Emma reached over and smacked him on the arm.

A rumble of thunder reminded them why they were out there. "Alright, it's now or never," Killian said. "Let's get the helmets on now so we don't have to scramble if we get close to an intercept."

As they strapped in, belt and harness this time, and Emma settled her helmet on, she suddenly wondered why they hadn't seen any other chasers out, and mentioned it. "There's at least three other teams that we know of out now," Will said. "Just texted 'em. This storm's big enough to come at from a few different directions, so we coordinated a little."

"And I've been emailing with a few as well. We're all working for the same goal," Killian added. "It's not like one person gets to grab the singular prize and they win. Everyone has different reasons for chasing, so the only real reason we have to coordinate is so that if someone gets in trouble, the others can go help out. We're all looking at the same section of the storm, so you'll see another crew soon."

She had a thought; she could see their location on the map, so maybe these other crews were visible too? And there it was - if she zoomed out on the map, she saw what he was talking about; everyone's GPS location was there and she counted five other teams in the area. She went back to the original map positions as Killian started reading off probable target areas and Emma got to work figuring out how that translated to the GPS.

Rain splattered against the windshield, slowly at first with fat drops of rain, but soon increased to a torrential downpour. Killian didn't want them to get stuck in the rain too soon, so he and Emma worked together to get them towards the southern side of the storm, still east of where the hook was starting to form on the map. But the rain was persistent, even as it tapered to a more visible hindrance, and as they moved closer to their target area, hail started to pelt against the hard outer shell of the TIV. "That's good, right?" Emma called over the racket it was making.

"Hopefully!" Killian said.

"If it don't break our equipment!" Will added.

Emma saw another map come up on Killian's computer, this one mottled reds and greens. "Wind directions," he said. "We're looking for red and green close together, it signals they're in rotation and either a funnel cloud or an actual tornado."

He brought the radar and the wind map up side by side, and Emma joined Will in actually scanning the skies for signs of activity. "All the technology in the world can't make up for human senses," Will said.

She thought it was interesting how they balanced -Will could do the technologically social side of their job but preferred to use his eyes to do the actual work, Killian was helpless at social media but could run several programs at once to detect tornadic activity. Even if they were good friends otherwise, she was starting to see how they worked well as an actual team; friendship could only help so much in a working relationship.

"I think - yes, we need to go a bit northeast to get ahead of it, but there might be something," Killian said.

Emma scanned her map and told Will where to turn next. She zoomed out and saw a few other teams heading the same way. "Three others think the same," she said.

"Good. We'll get into position and deploy the probes, and then hopefully we can intercept."

"And it'll be a good day for everyone," Will added.

She looked out the window, looking towards the south and west of where they were. The rain made it a little harder to see, but she could still tell where the cloud bottoms were; wispy, low-hanging cloudlets darted along faster than the darker mass above, and she wished she knew more about what she was looking for in the churning gray clouds. For all that she'd lived most of her life in the Midwest and Tornado Alley, she'd never seen a tornado in person before, just the aftermath.

They put in another couple of miles before Killian launched the probes; it was one thing to know that it was basically like having six giant t-shirt cannons sticking out of the TIV, but it was another for all those air pressure valves to be released at once, right near Emma's head. "Sorry," Killian said, his voice dimmed by the ringing in her ears.

"What?" she asked loudly.

"I said - oh, bloody hell, you're teasing."

"Only a little." Emma looked at her map again. "Will, skip this next road and turn left on the one about a mile down the way."

"What? That'll put us way out of the way of the probes."

"Yeah, but the wind map says they'll get picked up and carried off - and the storm's turning."

She glanced up and Killian was looking back at her with sheer delight on his face. "You're learning, Swan."

She smiled, pleased that he was so pleased at how quickly she was picking everything up. The rain suddenly dropped off and Will swore. He gunned it, and all three of them looked off to their left. "I see it!" Will shouted. "Funnel cloud!"

Killian had his phone out in a second to call it in, while Emma scanned the clouds for what he was talking about. She only saw the wispy cloudlets, though, until Killian hung up and said, "Look behind the scud, it's a bit pointy -"

"The what?"

"Little wispy bits, they're called scud, look behind them for the funnel."

She looked again and saw what he was talking about: the thin funnel cloud was rotating as it slowly stretched downwards. "Can we get ahead of it?"

"Doin' me best, lass."

The engine roared as Will floored it again. He asked how many roads were available for turnoff ahead and she told him three; he took the second one, slowing down enough so that the whole TIV didn't tip over during a turn but just barely - they still leaned uncomfortably far and the tires were actually squealing a little before they got some traction and rumbled off on down the road. She wondered just how just further they'd go, watching as the funnel cloud reached the ground and a cloud of debris swirling upwards around it, when they slowed suddenly and the TIV shook as they went offroad. "Deploying," Will said, parking and pulling on a lever that dropped the lower armored flaps.

Killian had his own buttons to push, the ones that deployed the spikes deep into the ground and anchored them in place - in theory. One of these days, they might not work as well as they'd hoped, but he'd told her that in all his intercepts so far (three, in the last five years or so) the safety measures had worked without fail.

"Now what?" Emma asked.

"We wait," Killian said, his eyes on the tornado.

"If you're the praying type, I'd do that too," Will added.

Emma wasn't sure she liked the sound of that, but she swallowed hard and gripped her harness for something to do with her hands. The TIV started to shudder as the wind outside picked up. "It's not the funnel that's the problem," Killian said. "It's the wind's all outside it and what they carry. The funnel's just the middle."

He said all of this very calmly and Emma wondered if that's what she sounded like when describing a crime scene, and if people thought she was crazy for being so calm about something so dangerous, too.

Something bashed into the TIV on the passenger's side and she yelped. "See?" Killian said.

A small rain of debris started to join in beating up the TIV, along with the rain, and Emma's fight-or-flight instincts were extremely unhappy with her current situation. The wind outside roared and she squeezed her eyes shut as the shaking grew more violent. There were some serious regrets about asking to come chase sometime and she felt very much like she'd gotten into something way over her head here. She wasn't the type of person who put much stock into praying, but she thought it might not do any harm to asking whoever might be listening to get them through this in one piece.

Something touched her knee and she opened her eyes. Killian was reaching back for her, giving her a reassuring look as he twiddled his fingers at her. She took his hand and he squeezed it, just as the view outside of the windows grew dark with the amount of dirt flying through the air.

Emma didn't think she blacked out at all during the interception, but if she had to recall it later, the only thing that came to mind was how dark and loud it was, and the warmth of Killian's hand in hers. It felt like it lasted for days, and she didn't realize it was over until he tugged on her hand a little to bring her out of whatever trance she'd gotten lost in. "Come on," he said.

She blinked - surely he didn't mean what she thought he meant. But no, he did, letting go of her hand to undo his safety harness and seatbelt; Will was doing the same. She followed their lead, a few beats behind; she left the helmet on, though, she didn't want a rogue two-by-four falling out of the sky and bashing her head in.

The sky was already lighter as the storm rolled on ahead. Emma joined them on the road, watching as the tornado started to rope out in the distance. Killian was taking pictures again, Will filming with the GoPro. Emma felt the adrenaline start to wear off, and leaned back against the TIV for support, not caring how filthy her clothes were going to get. Killian turned, putting the camera on the passenger's seat. Evidently, his adrenaline was still pumping, because he pulled her up and whirled her around, a grin on his face. "That was the best intercept we've had in ages, love, you were brilliant!"

"Me?" she asked, breathless.

"You," he said. "You picked up on everything so quickly, you made that last call on where to go, and without it we wouldn't have gotten nearly so many results. We make quite the team, if you don't mind me saying."

Finally, she started to grin. She was tired - exhausted, really - and everything was sort of catching up to her all at once. "We do," she said, "and don't take this the wrong way, Killian, but as much as I love you I never want to do this again."

His face went slack. "What?"

"I never want to go chasing again. I think this was more than enough-"

"No, the part before that," he said.

Emma paused, trying to remember what she'd said. She'd gotten to see what he did, which was what all of this had started out as, and she loved him, but this had been more than-

She loved him.

She'd said it out loud.

She met his eyes, the fight-or-flight instinct coming back, and he was looking at her with such raw hope that it gave her the courage to ask, "The part where I said I love you?"

"Aye," Killian said, his voice cracking. "That's the one. You bloody maddening woman, you'll be the death of me."

He picked her up and spun them around again, meeting her lips with a quick kiss. "I love you, too," he said softly, for their ears only.

Emma grinned, bumping his forehead with hers.

Will sighed, loudly. "If you two are done bein' all twitterpated with each other? Can we go find our probes? Get back home before it gets too late and maybe start looking at the data?"

Killian hardly spared a glance to his friend. "Dunno, mate, we might not get back early enough for data mining. We've probably all earned a good rest after today, don't you think, Emma?"

She smiled coyly, hoping he was implying what she thought he was implying. "Oh, definitely. Take a look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow."

After all, she did have to repay him for this morning.

[ol-razzle-dazazzle]

Rattus Rattus- Chapter 2: Rats With Wings

Here we are again! Thank you all to my fellow Fyogol shippers, it’s nice getting awesome comments, and I really appreciate it- even if I haven’t had much time to respond to things! I’ve been a bit stressed, but here’s the next chapter. 

The next one I’m going to be honest might take a while- as I have two exams in 3-4 days. It might take a week, it might take two. Probably just a week, since I’ve already written half of the other chapter- in which we will be introduced to Pushkin (and hopefully you’ll actually enjoy his character and not feel cheated)! After these initial chapters, things will start to pick up and become more interesting, so keep a watch out ;3c As for those wondering where Ivan will come into the story, he’ll come much later- after school and we will all suffer

Trigger warnings aren’t really needed for this chapter: just more catholic shenanigaggles, also Fyodor has misophonia (I personally hc him as autistic like myself)

Class went rather well, barring Fyodor accidentally picking up Myskin by the tail because he thought it was a pencil. There was a somewhat looming sense of dread, when the teacher glanced at him- and whether it was because he had heard about the rat fiasco or because he was a new student, the attention and requests to recite English was frustrating.

He hadn't even ended up going to his dormitory, let alone pack or unpack his stuff or look around the place (despite that being his own fault). Granted, Fyodor didn't bring too much- just a heap of books, school supplies, and food for Myskin that was disguised to his family as taking a strange craving for seeds and fruit. Irregardless, his family gave him some money that he could spoil through the weeks- and he hopes the nurse is nice and manipulable enough to get potential free lollies like he promised Nikolai.

The class bell rang again and Fyodor then decides to swear to memorise the timetable because he flinches every time the wretched alarm rings. He has no clue where the chapel is let alone how to get there, so he stands outside the classroom Nikolai entered. 

"Ah! Fedya!" Nikolai calls, waving. "Lovely of you to join me." He looks around, peering into Fyodor's bag. "And the magnificent Myskin." He pats the rat. 

As the two walk, Nikolai filled in as much information of the place as he knew. Curfew is at 9:30, but extends 15 minutes each year- older students also have privilege of leaving to explore the town more frequently, but for their current year, visits are once every three weeks. Saturdays are free days, with the addition of any services or clubs students wish to partake in- and Sundays have an 8AM chapel service, which continues for an hour, as well as one at 8PM.

"And dorms?" 

"I'm not sure…I think they're mixed with years, two to four to a room." Nikolai thinks, "Well, generally speaking- I won't be in mine very often."

"How come?"

"Well, thing is…" Nikolai scrunches his face. "I'm here on a 'scholarship' of sorts. So, I'd mainly reside in my own room because 'asceticism'."

"That sounds rather stupid." Fyodor replies.

"…It is." Nikolai shrugs. "But I need to maintain the church as well."

"But we're going there to do just that." Fyodor frowns. "I'm not sure how I am supposed to sleep surrounded by people."

Nikolai sighs, "Well, we have to manage anyway. I'm as disgruntled about this as you are."

"Stop dragging your feet, you two." The teacher folds her arms, "For now you'll be cleaning the balcony with the bell tower." She hands them a broom, spray, mop and dustpan. "As for the rat, you're lucky it must've scuttled into the forest- as it hasn't been sighted."

Fyodor heaves a sigh. 

"Also, while I do not have the time to oversee your detention, I will check the job is satisfactory in two hours." 

Fyodor glances to the side, hoping for an incredulous 'Two hours?!'- but found none. 

"Thank you." A smile instead.

However, the moment the doors closed and they clamoured up the stairs, a loud groan came from the other boy as he shut the door. "Two hours?! Seriously?"

A little late on schedule, but lovely nonetheless. 

"It'll take us an hour to clean the thing!" Nikolai sighs, leaning against the wall, staring around him. While the tower was somewhat shabby and didn't have much room- due to the enormous bell and sets of pulleys, it was a nice view outside.

"Just…please don't ring it." Fyodor winces, finally he is face to face with his arch-nemesis- the bell that had tormented him thrice. 

"Oh yeah- you don't like the noise." Nikolai peers over at the bell, "It's going to ring twice, automated- but there's a clock on the wall so I'll let you know…are you sensitive to loud noises all the time?"

Fyodor scrunches his face a little, not wanting to admit it. "…Maybe." 

"Ah- I was just wondering because I know I can get a little loud."

"No!" Fyodor's surprised at his sudden response, "No, it's fine. I like your voice."

"Well, first time I've ever heard that!" Nikolai laughs, and it's a laugh that's far more superior to any bell. "Alright, let's get this done so we can spend the spare time lazing around."

"Hm, okay…" Fyodor examines the copious heavy tools. "I'll coat the bell with the spray, and you can sweep."

"Sure- but I wanna clean the balcony, and you can mop and polish." 

"How come? The balcony would be the hardest part- she probably wants you to scrape the bird-"

"Eh, just a part of being a bird lover. I mean, you probably deal with it regarding Myskin."

"Myskin is very sophisticated and I am, in fact, training him to use a litter box or a disposable container." Fyodor frowns, "Also, I'm a bit worried he'll get nervous and jump from this height…" He zips open his bag, and inside it the mouse sleeps. "Well, either that or get awoken with the bells." He zips it back, "Poor thing has had enough trouble as it is."

Speaking of which…this would be a good chance to talk to Nikolai about…that.

"We'll sneak a snack for him and us when we go to nurse after this, your treat, right?" Nikolai smiles, getting the broom and dustpan, sweeping. "But after we get dismissed, come on now. Also don't talk while your head is inside the bell, back when I was in Ukraine I've hit my head wayyy too many times."

"Ukraine?" Fyodor raises an eyebrow. 

"Also check the ropes to see if they're frayed or not." Nikolai interjects quickly, "Geez- there's so much dust here."

"Why did you come-"

"Come on Fedya! Ring ring ring! Sweep sweep sweep, clean clean clean!" He hums for a little while in this manner, and Fyodor resigns with a sigh, getting the spray and cloths.

The iron was surprisingly both hard and easy to clean- easy when there weren't blemishes or bird excrement, but difficult otherwise. Fyodor was not exactly known for 'elbow grease', and often resulted in 'ngh's and 'hah's and all matter of exerted effort. 

"Is it really that hard?" Nikolai whistles, collecting the corners. 

"Oh shush- you got the easy job." Fyodor rolls his eyes, moving to the corner to clean around the rim. "I'm sorry I'm not as tough as most people- but my strength lies in mental fortitu- AH!" 

He fall backwards onto the floor, flinching at air and invisible strands. "…It seems that churches are also a haven for spiders." 

"What were you saying?" Nikolai grins, "Also, I haven't swept that part yet- move over here."

"Oh shush. Besides, I'm working harder than you are- you've been humming along and I've already cleaned that part.

"Not really, there's a whole layer in the middle and top that needs to be done- as well as the underside." Nikolai points out.

"I know that- I'm working my way up." Fyodor looks away, and continues cleaning the other side, brushing away the cobwebs. 

"Hmm…you don't need to be so defensive." Nikolai shrugs, "Besides, you'll have a growth spurt soon enough."

"Kolya, if you do not shut up I will make sure you drink this whole spray bottle." 

And of course, as if the thunder of God himself decided to add more effect, the bell rang loudly.

Said effect was Fyodor once again fell as he was startled, bringing his hands to his ears and dropping the bottle. 

"…I was right on the nose." Nikolai shudders for comedic effect, "You're scary, Fedyaaa."

He picks the bottle up and helps Fyodor. "…Thanks." At least he can clean the inside now.

"Just, please, don't fall now. I won't be able to catch you."

"You didn't catch me the first time." Fyodor murmurs, trying to make short work of the job- and by the time he was finished Nikolai had cleared the place of most dust and insects. 

"Okay, now for the top part- you're going to need a ladder. I can hold it for you-"

"Nah, you can do it." Fyodor hands the spray and cloth over. "I'll hold the ladder." 

"You aren't going to let me fall because I teased you a bit, are you?"

Fyodor just smiles, as he brings the ladder.

"…That's horrifying."

"It's fine right- you have the weird relocation thingy."

"…" Nikolai silently climbs up the bell tower, glancing to see if Fyodor was supporting it before he cleaned around it. 

"You know I will have to inevitably ask or pry it out of you." Fyodor helps him down. "As I respect you, you will have the choice." 

He's pretty serious when he needs to be, huh. "Well…okay- fine. We'll take a short break. It's fair enough." Nikolai takes off his blazer. 

"So…?" Fyodor sits up on the wall, tapping next to him for Nikolai to sit. 

"Well, okay- this is pretty weird but…some people have gifts. Like supernatural powers. I don't really know why, but one day- I was sleeping, and I must've put my hand in my other sleeve, because when I woke up- BAM!" He flutters his arms, "It's gone!" 

"Because I had pretty bad vision in this eye-" He pokes the blurred one, "I didn't really know what was going on- because it was my left hand. And then I hear my family scream like nothing else before and…" He puts his hand in his jacket, as it materialised in front of them, waving. "There it was in the kitchen, shaking and wriggling around. You should've seen the face on my mom when she saw it- she almost had a heart attack!" 

With that, he gets up. "And that's that."

"No it's not."

"If we waste too much time, we won't get to go bird-watching." Nikolai puts his finger to his lips. "It's only fitting such dramatic things are revealed on top of dramatic places."

"Must you be so extra?" Fyodor groans- just when he's getting somewhere. 

"I must." He grabs the scraper and gets started on the balcony. The noise irks Fyodor, but nonetheless he grabs the mop and starts cleaning any leftover grime.

The bell rings again, and amidst the scraping he almost curses (he does, but in a Catholic school no one needs to know that.) "Alright, done. Balcony time." He chucks the supplies away. "We have half an hour."

Nikolai sighs, "Someone's eager. Fine, but you better tell some juicy backstory too."

"There's nothing juicy about it. I don't have magical tele-location abilities."

"Wow, Fedya- way to isolate me." He perches on the edge. "If you fall here, I'll catch you. Probably."

Fyodor perches next to Nikolai, holding the wall a little for support. Nikolai sighs longingly, "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Fyodor sneaks a glance at Nikolai, his eyes half lidded and a relaxed smile- no grandeur or theatrics. The way his messy ponytail flutters and his bangs getting even more messed up- it's a strange picture.

A beautiful one. Well, when Fyodor's hair isn't getting in the way.

"Yeah."

"You keep looking at me and the wall, trying not to look down." Nikolai stifles a laugh. "It's almost like a storybook, in the distance."

"…" Fyodor glances quickly for a moment, being encapsulated. A forest, lush and green. The clouds, surprisingly for Russian weather, not looming and gray. The town in the distance with colourful houses and stalls and buildings.

"It's what birds see. They can go anywhere they want- and they see the world like this- in constant motion and flight." 

"Yet they still return to the same places, still tied." 

"You think so?" Nikolai looks at Fyodor, "I find that even nicer. A being that can go anywhere in the world and yet still returns."

"Will you return to Ukraine?" 

"No- for that's no longer my home."

"It's where your family is."

"And will you return to your family?"

"…I don't have any particular attachment to them."

"Neither do I." Nikolai sighs, "They thought I was possessed or had some strange interference with 'things not of this mortal realm'. So they took me to the priest."

"Usually things like 'gifts' are blessings and curses." 

"For someone so quiet, you're rather perceptive, aren't you?” Nikolai glances at him, turning a little to see him with his better eye, “Yes, they are. And what happens when a human sees something they don't understand?"

"They purge it."

Nikolai exclaims, "My! That's morbid! Ah, so Fedya is a realist. Well, not quite- one can't exactly 'bless away' tele-location. But, I managed to find out that it's accessible via an outer garment. Maybe that's why magicians wear long sleeves." 

The words struck Fyodor as odd, 'bless away'- 'not quite'. But for now he pushed them out of his mind. 

"Nikolai? What if everyone has a special ability but they just never know it?" Fyodor hums in thought, "It could be something really stupid and bizarrely specific like being immune to bombs, but only when they're in a certain shape."

"Ahahaha! You come up with the most preposterous things, Fedya. But…I guess I probably wouldn't be the only one. Maybe it's like when you learn a word, and then you see it pop up everywhere… That would be interesting, to see what other people would have."

"Hm, I don't think people would use them very well- such things could spiral out of control."

"Well, that's mean."

"It certainly would give someone a predisposition to a strange fate."

"Fedya, did you really have nothing else better to do as a kid than flick through dictionaries?"

"You have your ability, I have mine." 

There's the laugh again, like bells. 

A sharp knock on the door interrupts them, as they open it. 

"Hmm…fine- it's a satisfactory job. Go on, then- and I expect the two of you to have learnt your lesson. Gogol, you can stay back for introduction into your room- and Dostoevesky, go to the nurse's office and then you will be taken to your dorm." 

Nikolai stretches, as they walk down the stairs. "Alright, see you soon- at dinner."

"You have an hour and a half- and I expect you two to be prompt."

And so Nikolai waves at Dostoevesky, and he manages to find the nurse's office- swiping some lemon drops- and gets given directions to his dorm.

The hallways are rather empty and wooden, everything echoes- and it makes him think of that saying 'the walls have ears, the doors have eyes'. Watchful eye of God, huh. He puts his ear to the door, and hears some chattering- thumps of pillows, and turns the door. 

[ko-fanatic]

A Young Ootori’s Notebook (part four)

Rating: Explicit / Mature (for series as a whole)

Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club

Relationships: Kyoya & hosts, mentioned Yoshio Ootori x Yuzuru Suoh

Trigger Warnings: Drug abuse/addiction, depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, self harm

Summary: He feels like he's both laughing and crying at himself, truth written in odd contradictions and stranger than fiction. It oddly fits him.

No knowledge of A Young Doctor’s Notebook needed.

Other parts of this series: Part one | Part two | Part three

"You were depressed?"

Haruhi's voice cut through the silence of the club room, even Kyoya turning his tired, bloodshot gaze to her. Her brow was furrowed, head tilted to the side in confusion, something a little too close to hurt marring her features. It wasn't the done thing to upset Haruhi; the club was made up of six boys who would do anything to see her happy, even if their willingness to admit that varied. He saw Haruhi as a little sister, especially with all the comments Ranka had made about adopting him - God rest that beautiful soul. Therefore, the sight of her upset was one that made him feel... guilty.

Contrary to popular belief, Kyoya Ootori did in fact have both feelings and a conscience. He was one of those boys who used to bawl their eyes out if they disappointed any adult in the vicinity, even if he had grown out of that by the second year of elementary school. He didn't like hurting people. He always hated it when his mother asked him about friends and, when he replied that he only had associates, she would give him that sad, knowing smile; she knew it meant "I don't have any friends".

Despite his age, despite all their ages, it was like the crease between Haruhi's eyebrows were a punch to the gut.

"You had us. You didn't say anything," Tamaki continued when Haruhi seemed to be at a loss for what to say. His hand clasped her shoulder, a tangible reminder that he was there to support her, and Kyoya felt some distant sadness at the gesture. Almost fifty, and no one to give him the same gesture; the closest thing to a chest to lay his head on and two strong arms to hold him was a bottle of pills, a vial of morphine, and syringes. Pathetic.

"There was no point mentioning it," He began, feeling the tension of the room increase tenfold with that comment, "I just... I wasn't going to jump off the nearest building. I was just numb. Tired. Unmotivated. There was no use talking about it, because there wasn't anything you could do. I just needed the anti-depressants."

Looks were shared, and Kyoya couldn't help but feel as if he must have missed something. It was like they were seeing something so clearly, even though he couldn't perceive it at all. He didn't know what the looks meant, but he knew they'd tell him soon enough - even if he didn't want to know.

"You know that meds... Only go so far, right?" Kaoru began tentatively, eyes wide and sad, a slight glaze over them. If Haruhi's hurt look made him feel like he'd been punched, Kaoru's was like getting shot. Still, he couldn't make himself speak up, couldn't say the words he always thought and never said, because they weren't what Kyoya Ootori was supposed to be; he didn't want to be a burden.

"I was there, Kyoya," Kaoru began once again, his voice thick with tears that made Kyoya dig his too-long nails into his wrist - hard. He hurt him. He hurt them all, "You could've picked up the phone, texted, emailed. Fuck, I was always there, and you didn't even send me a single word. Not even a hello."

He was a horrible person, really. They were right when they called him a demon, evil, anything like that. His wrists stung, something warm trailing sluggishly down his arm, but he only tightened his grip. He deserved it. He deserved the pain like he deserved his life crashing down around him. Karma. He brought it on him-fucking-self because... Happiness was too hard for him.

Large, strong hands pulled his bony one away from his wrist, calloused thumb brushing away the thin track of blood that ran down from violently crimson marks. Kyoya just bit his lip, feeling undeniably small in Mori’s soft grip, forcing himself to look at that concerned expression. This is what he does. He worries people over nothing.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Mori murmurs, voice low and rumbling, and Kyoya vaguely remembers putting his hand down his boxers and moaning as he thought of that voice telling him how good he was, how beautiful. He was a horny little shit as a teenager, not that anyone knew, but it was still something he felt guilty about. Friends shouldn’t think about friends that way, and Mori would be disgusted if he knew.

He just nodded vaguely in response, turning back down to the non-judgmental, impartial floor once again. He could stand looking at the polished floor much easier than his worried, disappointed friends, after all. Not that he could blame them; this was never meant to happen. After all, the pills were working alright when he first had them.

However, these things never seem to last…

The room was trashed. That was the first thing he noticed when his consciousness slowly reappeared, the last who-knew-how-long a blur and too intangible to take a hold of. It was all far too strange, and the mess in his once pristine apartment was almost overwhelming. There was so much to pick up, so much to clean, so much to fix. It was like the strewn and discarded belongs were slowly piling on his back, weighing him down and crushing his rib cage.

The mirror was smashed. The cracks running across the glass seemed almost like a spider's web, drawing him in and making his gaze stick to the centre, the only thing he could do was to wait for something wholly unpleasant to come along. It was a shame too, a nice thing that was good craftsmanship, but it could be replaced. It could all be replaced, because it wasn't special. Nothing in this room was; it was expensive, but uniform. Black and whites that looked like a carbon copy of some magazine. A home that was too cold and sterile, too replicable, to ever feel cosy.

Even his blood could be easily replaced, he reminded himself as he finally felt it trail down his fist, warm and wet. He could be replaced in his entirety, actually; he was just as uniform as the apartment's furniture. He wasn't sure why anyone would want a carbon copy of pathetic, cruel, evil Kyoya, though. An improved version, perhaps; prettier, kinder, softer, better. He was a spare of a spare, an accident, so he could understand the want to have him be something else; he just felt as if he couldn't change himself.

He tried, after all. The pills were meant to make him happy, but all they did was provide some temporary relief - and some side effects. He couldn't eat properly, his usual jeans and hoodie he wore for lectures hanging off him more than usual. He woke up with numbness that prevented him from simply standing. He was nauseous, constantly. To crown it all, this was another bad day of a bad week of a bad month.

“We get it already,” The old man groaned, and Kyoya gritted his teeth, feeling as if he might punch the man in the face, “Angst, angst, angst. I’m Kyoya Ootori and my life fucking sucks, despite having more than anyone can ever want. This isn’t enough, you feel empty and unfulfilled, so you’re going to take it out on the furniture. Very mature.”

��Will you just… leave me alone,” He grumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face and trying to think about how he should even start to tidy up the chaos. He should probably shave before his next lecture, there was the pickle of stubble against his palms. Honestly, it all seemed like such a big chore. All he wanted to do was go to bed and sleep, but he hadn’t even been awake for an hour, and he slept entirely too much the night before. Not to mention the few days before that. He either slept for around fifteen hours or didn’t at all, and the yoyoing between the two was exhausting all by itself. Still, he couldn’t bend to that exhaustion, he couldn’t leave his apartment in this state.

“No, you can’t,” The old man sighed, “If you’re so intent on living in a pigsty and becoming a worthless procrastinator, then go ahead. However, if you want to do the sensible thing and fix this, then you should go to the doctor. You have the privilege of being able to go for the smallest of quibbles, so take advantage. What good is being rich and having an excess of time if you don’t use it to better yourself?”

“What about yourself?” He scoffed, shooting a glare at the man, lip pulled into an almost feral snarl, “You don’t do anything! You only sit there and critique how I live my damn life, looking as if you’re about to drop dead! I’ve had enough of the constant assaults against my character, my choices… Why don’t you bugger off and leave me be!”

The man leaned forwards, elbows against his knees, studying him as if he were only a sample under a microscope. Something to be examined and dissected. His expression was odd, somehow managing to be both humoured and humourless; contradictory and unsure. Something in his chest shrank, reminded of his father before Yuzuru managed to thaw him a little, and the man cracked a misplaced grin.

“You do know that I can’t do that, don’t you?” He began, grey eyes tearing apart every twitching muscle and crease in his expression, “I can’t leave you, much like you can’t leave me. I’m in your head, and you’re in mine. This is some odd plane between reality and actuality. Between past and future, but not present.”

The explanation unsettled him, but he didn’t question it. He didn’t do anything more than shutting the door behind him before falling into bed. The mess would be there tomorrow.

Maybe he could find his sanity there too.

[sabineelectricheart]

Heartbeat, or Lack Thereof

Summary: Sylvain is disinherited due to his active participation in the toppling of the Leicester Alliance. The feeling of abandonment leads to unplanned confessions.

Rating: T - Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.

Words: 2500

Notes: You know, the main thing I took away from Azure Moon when I played it is that Dimitri is kind of a dick for praising the Margrave just because he did his own damn job. Anyways, I hope you like this one.

Every other week, even in barren lands like Faerghus, even so up north such as the Gautier territory, traveling minstrels visited the court, singing and dancing their way into a noble family’s favour. The troupe often told stories of love, of faraway princes and princesses, matched by the infinite wisdom of the Goddess, fated to care and protect one another in eternal harmony, even in face of rejection, death or material impossibility.

Alas, Byleth was a wanderer, like the minstrels, and so rarely partook of their artistic gifts. She worked in terms of tangible feeling and introspective self-reflection. Or as introspective as she could be since Sothis occupied her mind.

Much the better for her. The fantasy is all well and good for the youth, for that short and blissful period of ignorance between communion and betrothal, but soon one will inevitably figure out that the real act of love was nothing like the minstrels’ tales, and it bodes well to beware as not to fall under its trappings.

Love, in actuality, did not feel like floating up to the Blue Sea Star. Rather, it felt like jumping off the highest spire of the monastery, ever conscious of the hard ground below. There was nothing freeing about it either; your heart was suddenly caged in your ribs, longing to beat for someone who could never know. There was nothing beautiful or sweet about the act of falling in love with the one person you could not have.

Sylvain Gautier walked around the land with a feigned sympathy only a few could see through. Every step of his was reckless and unplanned, a storm raging through the stone corridors. His formative years had left him hurt and broken, but also wild and imprudent. In an effort to disguise the fact that he always felt too much or too little, he became cavalier and, at times, disgustingly pompous.

Those who had the privilege of knowing Sylvain Gautier through more than shouts in the hallways and romantic trysts in the village knew that there was more to him. He was incredibly insecure, needing constant reassurance that he was enough. He lived each moment of his life, waiting for someone to leave him. He flinched when voices were raised and when someone moved too suddenly and he woke up from nightmares drenched in sweat. He was indeed loyal to those who he feels deserve it, to the point to be easily self-sacrificing, and had tender eyes that could read his friends perfectly.

For many Moons, Byleth had the pleasure of observing and admiring the character complexities of Sylvain Gautier, first on the condition of his teacher, and later as his partner-in-arms. Over time, with much work and even more patience, the green-haired woman became privy to his deepest thoughts and feelings.

Occupying such a position on the young heir’s life, the woman often served as support whenever he got letters from either of his parents, with him letting her stroke his messy, red locks.

With his head in her lap and his hand clutching her thigh as if you might disappear if he let go, he would whisper to her, “I do not know what I would do without you.”

Byleth had no heartbeat, and yet she could not deny with any regard for the truth that his sweet whispers never failed to send a warm feeling through her still, oddly-silent chest. There was something about feeling needed, having a purpose in someone else’s life, that always made her feel light, that made her feel alive in ways she never did before coming to Garreg Mach.

Yet, whenever it came to the Gautier scion, her light feeling would soon collapse on itself.

“You are my best friend.” He always reiterated a non-heartbeat later.

Despite her overall inexperience with the matters of the heart, the young woman knew what this meant. Regardless of any potential reason, it was clear that Sylvain did not need her the way she wanted him to needed her, nor did he love her the way that she wanted him to love her, the way he seems to love any other girl at the monastery. Nevertheless, be stupidity or goodness of spirit, she would still sit with him until he fell to a placid sleep.

Sylvain walked through the hallowed halls of the monastery every day with a new beauty or beau on his arm. He relished in the attention and letting go of the protocol and narrative so staunchly protected by the nobility. For Sylvain, hook-ups were fun, feelingless, and a great way to forget who he was for a while. If it earned him a dirty look from Ferdinand or Lorenz, much the better.

Philandering may have been an unhealthy coping mechanism, but that did not stop him from coming back to his dorm in the middle of the night after crawling out of another stranger’s room.

Alas, every hand wrapped around his bicep felt like a punch to her gut and every flirty smile he sent to others made her head hurt, in spite of the ostensively liberal way of life practiced by the mercenaries. His romantic advances were never aimed at her. For her, he reserved only companiable cheering, always an arm’s length away from her whenever the skies were fair. The desperate holding was only when tragedy struck.

It was a tense day, but with the sense of normality that settles whenever one fights a bloody civil war against nobility and organized religion. Byleth was sitting by the Cathedral, looking over the great expanse beyond the monastery’s walls, Sylvain once again in your arms.

The redhead was crying, his tears pooling against the worn grey wool of the dress she took to wearing while in Garreg Mach. He clutched the fabric between his fingers as his body wracked with sobs. The woman silently rubbed his back and waited for the crying to subside so that they could talk. He always needed a good cry before he could divulge his reasons for such despair.

Eventually, his body stilled and he let out a sniffle. His hold on her tunic loosened and he moved into a sitting position. He faced you but still looked down, fiddling anxiously with his fingers.

Byleth grabbed his hand and steadied his nervous movement.

“Sylvain.” She breathed out, in a low and compassionate tone. “Are you ready to talk now?”

He sighed.

“I am officially disinherited.” He said, quietly.

You blinked, furrowing your eyebrows.

“What do you mean?” you asked.

“I failed to convince my father to align our House with the Empire, and as a punishment for partaking on the invasion of the Alliance, I am disinherited, effective immediately. I am no longer a Gautier.” He explained, his voice wavering.

“Oh, Sylvain.” The former professor breathed.

“It is fine. We have the Lance of Ruin from when I got it five years ago, and I even managed to convince a battalion to defect with me.” He muttered darkly, pulling his hand from yours.

“The war effort always benefits from collaborators, especially powerful nobles with strategic territory, yes. Yet, this was never the goal, was it?” She countered, making another grab for his hand. “You, just like most of our friends and allies, just want to avoid having to fight with kin. You are terrified of it, and with good measure, it makes you human. As was the case with Miklan, no matter how terrible they are, your parents still raised you, and you still love them. It will not be easy to let go of that. Nevertheless, I understand if you feel at least a little bit sad.”

He allowed his old professor to hold his hand as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“They said that I am a disgrace. That I am nobody, ready to be wiped off history, along with the Empire.” He said, his voice breaking.

Byleth sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed his fingers.

“Now, that is a lie if there ever was one.” The woman declared with certainty.

Sylvain looked up at her with his doleful puppy eyes, tears brimming at the edges, threatening to fall once again. A dread rose on her still heart looking at such scene.

“You are brave and you are kind. Regardless of Edelgard’s vision or methods, regardless of our chances out there, you are fighting for what you believe and you are a better person than your parents could ever be, and so you will always be somebody. They think you to be a disgrace because you did not conform to their narrow-minded plan for you, and I need not tell you what I think about it. You are free, now. You can be whomever you want to be.” She declared firmly, trying to make him believe her.

Sylvain shot an indecipherable look at her.

“I am not nearly as good as you think I am.” The horseman muttered.

“I am confident you are.” She responded, with the usual laconic tone of her protocolary interactions. “If you do not see it now, then I can only hope you could gaze at the situation from my point of view.”

Byleth tentatively reached up to touch his face and wiped his tears. Surprisingly, he leaned into her touch. It was more intimate than any other touch between the two of them had ever been before.

“You may not be perfect, but you are more than good enough for me. Just the way you are, however it may be.” She whispered under her breath, knowing that would be the greatest compliment she can ever hope to offer him.

He reached up to his face and placed his hand over hers.

“I do not deserve you.” He said quietly.

This would normally be the time when he would reframe every flirt, every appreciative comment and every promise of love. Yet, he did nothing of the sort.

“I love you.” Sylvain whispered instead.

Byleth jerked her hand away, her green eyes widening in shock. She stared at him, searching his face for any sign for it to be a cruel joke. With her breath caught on a too-tight throat, she scooted away, her thin yet strong hand coming to cover her gaping mouth.

Sylvain raked a hand through his red hair and groaned.

“I am sorry! I should not have said that!” He lamented, flustered. “We can pretend I never said a word if you would like. I shan’t mention it again, I swear.”

The man moved his long arm as if to reach for her hand but stopped himself just short. She remained silent and unmoving.

“Yell, scream, cry, do what you will, but please, just say something, anything!” He begged.

Byleth slowly mustered her famed cold spirit to respond to this man’s foolish declarations of love. As she did, she thought back to every person she caught him kissing in empty classrooms. If he loved you as he said, why had he chased so many others? Just this morning he had snogged a kitchen girl behind the dining hall cupboard. How was what he said possibly true?

“I know you hold little regard to the institution, as do I, but it is much unseeingly to lie about such things.” She finally whispered.

Sylvain closed his amber eyes tightly.

“I am not lying to you, I promise.” He sighed. “I would never.”

The former mercenary scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“I have heard that story many times before.” She stated harshly. “Should I guess what comes next? Have I captured you body and soul? Or is it that I am completely different from all other girls? Do not insult my intelligence, Sylvain. I refuse to become another nail in your bedpost.”

He shook his head wildly.

“You have indeed captured me body and soul, and you are indeed different from all other girls.” He replied, frantically. “I am not lying. You would never become another nail on my bedpost, as you put it, because I love and respect you too much for subjecting you to such. I know I have said it all time and time again, but I swear that, if you just give me a chance, I would fight a thousand kingdoms and a thousand years if it only meant proving it to you.”

The woman dismissed his claims with a wave of her hand and looked away, out to the great expanse.

“You might have neglected to point it out, but I remember such a time when you said you hated me, that you would make me pay for something neither of us had any control over. I might have forgiven you, and I might even trust you, but I must draw the line somewhere.” She says, detached as she never was in many Moons with him. “I have watched you chase after every person in Fódlan. I have watched you kiss girls you barely know and flirt with any boy who indicates that he might enjoy what you have to offer. How do you ever expect me to know that I am in any shape or form different?”

Sylvain’s face crumpled at her harsh words.

“I did not know how to tell you! In fact, for a time, I could not even name what I felt, and it seems to have come back to bite me.” He spit, bitterly. “I always thought that you would hate me and leave. I never even considered that you ought to feel the same, and I still do not. Nevertheless, all my other so-called romances were nothing other than a quest for what you gave me, and when I found myself undeserving of it, to distract me of what I could not have.”

He was practically yelling now, begging her to believe him. “If I could turn back the clock and live every single day of my life as a virtuous man, it would be no penitence at all. If I could renounce my past, I would do regardless, but more so if you can honestly say that would make me a man deserving of your love.”

Byleth sighed and looked down at her hands.

“I have reason not to trust you, Sylvain, and I cannot say for sure whether I actually do.” She said. “Yet, for every rhyme and reason I can come up with not to give you my heart, you still have it.”

Sylvain let out a breath, a smile slowly filling his face.

“You love me?” He asked, as always, needing reassurance.

The woman met his amber eyes.

“How could I not?” She replied.

Sylvain tackled her body in a hug, pressing her feverishly close against him. One of his hands was against her waist, the other cradling the back of her head.

It would still be many Moons until her heart could beat, but when it finally did, Byleth knew their pulses would be forever synchronized. If one beats, it is only for the other.

*_*_*_*_*

Fire Emblem Masterlist

Three Houses Masterlist

[swampgallows]

i just woke up, it’s close to noon here, five hours is good enough i guess. i keep thinking about college and how fucking suicidally depressed i was then and how ive spent half of this year being unemployed and generally just struggling to take care of myself in the most banal and basic ways possible, and how depression really does just delete years from your life. you live through them in a daze,  you’re already a ghost, you’re already dead. questing in wrath of the lich king is honestly some of the last shit i remember concretely before going into a two year gray area of passing my classes and nothing else. i remember breaking up with my boyfriend because he chose raiding over me. i dont want to talk about it again. the memory is still painful. still, even still, ten years later. and in late 2008 i was attacked in my dorm room and i was screaming and my roommates thought i was being a big ol slut. they thought any guy that came over was someone i was fucking. when i went to blizzcon in 2008 and my brother stayed in my dorm they thought i was fucking him too until i told them he was my little brother. they tried so fucking hard to suppress my interests and make me “like them”. “there’s more to life than world of warcraft and pokemon” they said as if going to college basketball games and rewatching disney movies has any more enrichment or depth beyond what i was fucking doing. my life is so full of hatred, from myself, from other people, just being fostered in me in general, and it’s only within the last few years that i’ve gotten to heal from it at all, all the time being hurt more and more

i was talking to a friend yesterday who is just 19 and thinking about where i was when i was 19, which of course puts me in 2009 again, the year i dropped out of existence, and i was telling them about how i was essentially raised by the ilk of 4chan and the piece of shit community on wow that, like, since i’m around ~liberal genderqueer~ tumblr-type spaces all the time, genuinely shocks me to remember still exists, of those fucking hypermasculine overcompensating military dudes. and we were talking about how like, nerds in general tend to have shit social skills or anxiety or are Othered in ways that have them reinforce this piece of shit pecking order where the loudest and meanest proclaim themselves the Leader and everyone just follows them because theyre too meek to challenge them or they mistake arrogance for confidence and assume any asshole crowing that loud about how Right they are all the time Must Be Right. 

and i thought of my own life, my ex QP, my old friend groups, my abusive ex boyfriend, how i mistook so long their malice as strength, how i was duped by their self-aggrandizement. they had no skills, no talents, no girlfriend (except when i dated them), no women in their lives in general, no real friends they could count on (except, for my abuser, an older man with 3 children and a brand new divorce whose house he muscled and manipulated himself into—”i cant even bear to be in the old master bedroom anymore”—and my abuser promptly MOVED HIMSELF INTO IT) no hobbies, and the one or two hobbies that they had—fishing, video games—they were fucking less-than-passable at. my ex-qp wasn’t good at video games. he would use cheat codes or just play the strongest character and rely on everyone else to pick up his slack. warrior, carry, tank, what have you; all of us his underlings to support him to victory—”I’m doing all of the damage and getting none of the kills”—he would whine, oblivious to the concept of teamwork and seeking credit within the only realm he had a semblance of succeeding in. 

anyway so when i first joined tumblr i swung the pendulum in the other direction because i absolutely had to, it was for my survival to become a virulent feminazi as they put it, and i was obnoxious about it, and i reposted rape statistics all the time and challenged people all the time because i had to. i had to let it overtake me in order to purge all of the 10+ years of toxic social conditioning that places like 4chan and their little infestations in WoW and all of my abusive partners instilled in me. i had to be vocal about rape this and sexual assault that because i spent the better part of my adolescence trying to laugh away the fact that i was raped as a child, trying to make jokes about my “delicious flat chest” and pedobear and “surprise buttsecks/it’s not rape if you yell surprise” and “delicious loli”; some of the images i had willingly saved on my ancient hard drive are absolutely harrowing to go through now as an adult knowing my mushy impressionable 14 year old traumatized mind was trying to cope with and gloss over what had happened to me and with the future i was facing as a budding adolescent in this kind of environment. men didnt want to be responsible for what happened to me or with what would happen to me, it made them uncomfortable for me to talk about it, so i was told to laugh it away, that nobody cares that i was raped, that i was stronger if i could just laugh about it, that no topics were beyond reproach or off limits, and that if i wasnt desensitized to my own suffering then i was weak, i was a sheep, i was a burden, i was letting my emotions get the better of me.

obviously, tumblr as a whole DIRECTLY acts in opposition of this: everything is rooted in our traumas, which we are expected to lay bare for all to be taken seriously: 4chan demanded that we invalidate the trauma by making a joke of it and allowing the masses to pick it apart for their own entertainment, to become part of the anonymous “legion” by offering up our individuality to be consumed by the group (as a currency of “lulz”, basically); tumblr, reflexively, demands we validate the trauma by making it an open and public integral asset to our identity, to have easily digestible and categorized characteristics so as to fit into the tumblr hierarchy of needs, their own misinterpreted facsimile and microcosm of existing systematic oppression, and obtain a sort of fixed currency of privilege or “woke points” dependent on identity politics. so i definitely needed to purge my previous conditioning with this reclamation of my identity as a survivor, etc, and had about 7 years of misplaced anger and fury condensed into a good two or so years instead, and even now im still parsing details. 

it wasnt until i was 22 that i had even heard the term asexuality and it wasnt until i was 25 that i realized i was bi (or “could be” bi), even though i had already been in love with and sexually active with women years prior lmao. i had been told by every possible source that having a dick inside me would change my life and change my outlook and change me into a better person or whatever the fuck, that i would “understand” and “grow up” and “become a woman” or whatever and guess what it did fucking NOTHING, just like every teen drama romance or whatever tries to stress over and over, sex is not a magical lifechanging event that hands you a million dollars and a healthy brain. it changes your life in some ways and it’s definitely not something to be taken lightly but in no way is it a cure for anything.

i dont know where i’m going with this, im just fucking pissed off about my life, im pissed off that healing takes so long and that i had to do any of it in the first place. im so pissed about all of my time wasted with this fucking piece of shit body and fucking piece of shit brain and i wish i could just go back to work and be a functional human being but im like just a short leap away from doing any of that. i have to get in touch w my previous HMO once the new year starts now that im confirmed for medi-cal, and i should have done it months ago, but i have to just accept that this whole time ive been not USELESS but just utterly CONSUMED by self-preservation, that it is taking most of my effort to want to be alive and stay on this planet any longer. especially now with my teeth bugging me so bad because i cant fucking take care of myself so im grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw and i guess eating improperly or what have you idont fucking know. im going to buy a waterpik even though it’s fifty dollars and i have not made ANY MONEY in the last 6 months or done ANY of what i wanted to do and i still have a number of commissions needling at me that i genuinely like cant fucking even look at withotu fucking hitting myself and crying, and im seriously not trying to make fucking excuses, i am so fucking ashamed and consumed by self-hatred about this, this has been a problem for me SINCE COLLEGE where i was an ART MAJOR that i had to fucking beat the shit out of myself to try to draw anything “seriously”, and i do mean literally beating myself, bludgeoning myself with my morris sticks and smacking myself in the face/head and clawing at my skin, and i fucking hate it

i just know i need like SO MUCH recovery or healing or whatever the fuck, i feel so long overdue for very basic shit, and part of me feels like a withering plant, like pouring water over dry leaves thinking it’s just going to saturate itself and be instantly rejuvenated. im losing leaves in the process, as it were, and getting no “water” all this time. i feel like i’m in drought mode. these last six months are me basically conserving all i have, toeing away from the edge of the cliff because iw as so ready yall i was so fucking ready, i was ready to jump off, i spent whole lunch hours just ready to fucking leap, staring down the void, staring at the winding road that went up the mountain, staring at the deer who stared back at me, hiding my face from Adults who treated me like a wind-up doll, i just couldnt take it, ic ouldnt be somewhere that sterile, i couldnt be spending so much of my life getting so little back, i coudlnt see my friends ever, i couldnt breathe, but in general my brain is sick and i need to heal from all of these things, i need to figure out how i can cope with being alive because i am going to be alive at least a little longer and i need to not fear and crave death simultaneously. i do not want to die, I DO NOT want to die, but i cannot live in a constant state of recuperating. my life has just felt like the Shutting Down... screen for the last 2 years. 

NEED a new dentist NEED my teeth fixed PLEASE GOD open the stem cell dentin treatment to clinics worldwide GOD fix my TEETH PLEASE let me REGROW my TEETH NEED therapy NEED to fix my brain NEED to figure out how i can cope with being unable to support myself in this shit fucking economy NEED TO RECOVER NEED TO GET BETTER PLEASE IM FUCKING SUFFERING