#blame the discord

[maniacjohnny]

80s WORKOUT MS BITTERS

blame the discord for these

[submariini]

my first paycheck is going to so much shit <3 

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x08 - “Killing is a Cycle”

[keefscafe]

thinking about this rn anyways that’s all

[archfey-edda]

Hey what if people you outlived could leave behind ghosts of themselves but they would be imperfect and incomplete and ignorant of how their story ended, would that be fucked up or what?

(Don't worry, returning to the funny in the next one)

Guard comics - < prev | next > (also, the ao3 colletion)

[iceagebaby]

they've tried to put me on the cover of the vogue

[foonoodlesart]

Desperation

[spamtonsometimes]

number FOUR!!!!!!

[ar4ivist]

Emo Gabriel and punk V1 or something

[charmac]

Propaganda:

Dennis is all about foreplay, there’s always so much preamble, he wants to take his time. He teases and he sucks a cock like you’d eat pussy, gentle and lavish. When it comes to Mac, he just wants to fuck, just let the man THRUST—no. Dennis’ll lick and suck and tease so it feels good, but not enough. He’s absorbed in his own enjoyment, he loves it, he’s there to show off, not just to please.

Now Mac, Mac canonically has a shallow throat and he won’t admit it. Man can’t chug for shit, but he’s extremely eager to please. He gives sloppy blowjobs that aren’t tight enough, involve his teeth too often, and he’s constantly gagging whenever it’s more than a few inches deep. Sloppy and so so eager. And he looks up at Dennis with those wet doe eyes and asks how he’s doing, Dennis can guide him, he can be so good for him, willing to do anything to please, but limited by his abilities.

Let that aide you in your decision. Who’s objectively more skilled at sucking dick and who just lives to please?

[sir-biszkopt]

Googly mound

[arcanegifs]

maybe if these people spend a lick of their time creating for the media they love instead of harassing other people with what they enjoy, they'll be less miserable.

if you're wondering why there's less fan content here over the years.... it's this. this is why.

[fanaticsnail]

It's not what it looks like!

Masterlist Here

Word Count: 2,800+

Synopsis: The ship has taken on a few more guests, the overcrowded Straw-Hat vessel now struggling to accommodate the number. Offering your room to the prisoner, Caesar Clown, you returned to find a sight you were ill-prepared to meet. Caesar had found your secret, and had them over his nose and mouth while chasing his high into his gloved fist.

Warnings: Caesar Clown x f!reader, MDNI, NSFW, 18+, smut, panty sniffing, finger sucking, masturbating, praise kink, exhibitionism, dirty talk, prisoner x captor, Straw-Hat reader, Caesar is a yandere creep - but we love him like that, lingerie kink, you like to dress up beneath your clothes for yourself.

Notes: a gift for @imveryyellow who said they recently ran out of Caesar content. I have been wanting to write him for a while, and this was exactly the opportunity I needed to take him to a solo fic. I hope you like your present!

Legs hanging limply over the edge of the much smaller bed frame, Caesar whimpered and panted into the shroud of lace covering his lips and nose. Eyes scrunched tightly shut, chains rattled together in a sinful shuffle over his thighs. Larger, white coat removed, his yellow jumpsuit was as far down his arms as he could stretch it, his feet and legs exposed while the fabric danced over his body like a flag waving in surrender. 

Hands circling the girth of his cock, he pumped it maniacally in his gloved hands. Each rough motion was complemented by a deep inhale of the clean pair of lace panties covering his nose and mouth. The scent of floral fabric softener, clean eucalyptus detergent, and the scent of your lingering perfume from your wrists flooded his senses as he desperately pistoned his cock in his leather gloves. 

He was close, his breaths coming out in rough and desperate pants. Inhaling deeply, his tongue lulled out and gently dampened the crotch of your panties, pleading for just a taste of what they shroud on the regular. His cock bobbed, pearlescent precum rolling down the clothed thumb of his right hand while his left rose to his face. His middle and unity finger collected the fabric and thrust it into his parted lips, mouthing and fucking his gloved fingers with his lips. 

��� Hha-h, fuck. Just a little more, nghh-,” he whimpered, crying into the fabric and muffling his moans. A soft fall of pathetic tears fled from the corners of his eyes as his hips bucked up into his hands. He knew he didn’t have much longer until one of the other straw-hats would come and get him, but he needed this release. He was so pent up from the capture, so needy and desperate to cum it almost hurt. 

Just as he nearly hit the pinnacle of his release, the handle of the door clicked and began to creak wide. Caesar’s eyes widened, having no time to hook the holes of his jumpsuit back over his body, nor discard the panties from covering his face. 

“Caesar, looks like you’ve got me today! I hope you’re ready to get out to the mess hall for some break- Ah-!” you gasped, your eyes meeting the golden hue of his panicked orbs. Shock wrote itself over your features, leaning against the door and clicking it shut hastily with your ass. “What the fuck are you-? Are those my panties!?” 

The mercy of the straw-hats, the softness after the carnage that placed him on their vessel and in their hands. That was who you were. The ship’s botanist, specializing in different types of plants and their uses for medicinal and weaponizing purposes. Usopp, Sanji and you all worked quite well together, the surgeon of death also enjoying your informative knowledge regarding uses of leaves, saps, and bark as balm for wounds. 

As soon as Caesar’s eyes initially found yours, he was welcomed to a kindness that was foreign for a man such as him. He was smitten, willing to do just about anything to find himself in your good graces. At the offer of your room to house him, willing to bunk with Robin in Nami’s quarters: who gave up her own room to house Law, Caesar’s heart was swollen and as engorged as his large cock pulsating in his hand. 

This was the first night he had slept in your room, swearing to himself that he wouldn’t peruse the drawers and cabinets for your personal effects. The room smelled as sweet as you did, plants and dried flowers pressed within pages of your extensive collection of journals. 

Expecting to find more of your books and findings within your desk, he was shocked to spy an array of clean lingerie. Lightning struck his heart as his eyes widened, the innocent image of you within his mind shattering and replaced by a sexual lust he had no business in rising. The next few steps were made in haste: springing himself from his clothes and viciously fisting the rising bulge in his pants while inhaling the sweet fragrance of a random pair of your collection of panties. 

“I-I-I can explain-!” he desperately attempted to relay, spitting the lace from his lips and scrambling to find the words he needed to sate your wrath, “-It’s not what it looks like! I swear! I wasn’t-.”

“-Masturbating with my lingerie in your mouth?!” you whisper in a curt hiss, flicking the lock on your door behind you and stomping over to your desk, “You had to pick that pair?” Your whine caught him off guard, lips pouting as you adjusted your collection and refolded the mess he made by hastily grabbing the lace, “I was going to wear those today, damn it.” 

Caesar’s eyes widened, his jaw shuddering, and throat gulping back a collection of saliva behind his lips.

“You’re not upset that I’m-,” he begins, halted by your hissed whisper to cut him off.

“-Touching your cock? No, it’s yours. It’s a part of you,” you offer him quickly over your shoulder, ignoring him as you shut the drawer in your desk, “It’s natural. I get it, truly. We’re all pent up after that battle, and thinking about what’s likely waiting for us in Dressrosa is only making it worse.” Turning to face the ten foot giant on your bed, you cross your arms and scowl at him.

“What I am angry about is the fact that you were slobbering all over my panties while doing it. Those don’t belong to you. They’re mine,” you curl up your lip in a grimace, eyes falling to where your lacey pair of bottoms were pooled on the floor. Rolling your head back over your shoulders, you huff out an exhale of frustration, “I don’t get many luxuries while sailing with my crew. My collection of lingerie is one of my few interests that are explicitly mine. I don’t share them, that’s why they’re in my desk and not in my bedside table.” 

Caesar slunk back against your mattress, wanting to become one with the pillow and duvet. At this turn in conversation, he didn’t know if he should feel validated in pleasuring himself, or ashamed at the fact he was using your panties as a channel for his obsession. Looking down to your toes tapping on the wooden floor, arms crossed over your chest, and brow raised at his slinking position, Caesar couldn’t help the twitch in his cock. 

He was so close to release, he could barely contain it. The way you scowled at him made his desire worsen. His cock needed it, his balls sucked into his abdomen and swelling the veins engorging his shaft, prompting his eyes to round and plead at you. 

Truthfully, you had no idea what you expected when you offered the prisoner your room. Perhaps someone else should’ve given him theirs, likely Franky. Considering the ship had no brig, you had nowhere to place him. You knew he needed at least some autonomy, truly not wanting to see the scientist be target practice for Zoro’s throwing knife skills anymore. In honesty, you both pitied him and found him attractive. Using his knowledge and skills with elixirs and potions to craft and chanel his genius had you interested, but the fact he was so willing to listen to you and follow your instructions like a giant puppy had you smitten. 

Eyes traveling down to his bobbing cock, glistening with the first pearls of his sticky release on your bed had a possessive wave overcome you. 

“Well, don’t stop on my account,” you offered him with a smirk, leaning your hips back on your desk and nodding towards his cock. Caesar felt his heart palpitate, expanding in his chest and flooding his cheeks with a rosy blush.

“Y-You-... You want-... I can-...?” he stuttered and fell over his words, the jumpsuit and shackles jingling as he hastily covered his cock, “You want-... Me to finish?” 

“Do you want to finish?” you giggled at him, floating your gaze over his body before peering into his soul through his widened eyes, “Or do you want to be all rigid and frustrated at the breakfast table?” He choked on his breath, sputtering as he hastily moved to sit up on your bed. 

“I can’t with you watching me like that!” he exclaimed, his brows furrowing and scrambling his thoughts, “It’s private.”

“My, my. How the tables have turned,” you chuckle, stepping forward towards the bed. “Need I remind you,” you give him a shove on the shoulders, “You’re in my quarters,” you move your head to his forehead, pushing him back so he lies flat on your pillows, “And in my bed.” Reaching down, you collect your damp pair of saliva-coated panties and place them on his chest, “And have been using my panties in your mouth to stifle your cute little moans. Now, go on. Finish.”

Reaching forward, you collect his right hand and draw it beneath the shroud of his jumpsuit, wrapping it around his cock without touching it. 

“I-I-I can’t,” he whimpered, his cock betraying him as his hips automatically bucked up into his fist at the first form of contact. He searched your face, his eyes begging and pleading with you to not watch him while he does this. 

“Urgh, Caesar,” you roll your eyes, stepping away from his hands and hovering over his face. Gently flicking your index finger over his dewy cheek, you hum down at him with your eyes half-lidded, “We both know you can, you want to, and you need to. Just do it already so I can go to breakfast.” You purr down at him. 

He gulps back a whine at your orders, feeling humiliated at how close you were to him while being ordered to complete his shame to its conclusion. He looked down at the panties on his chest and back up into your eyes, his lips quivering and begging. 

“I-... Do you think…?” he stuttered, darting his rounded eyes between yours, “Can you…?” His eyes flickered down to your panties on his chest, down to your waist, and back up to your eyes once more. “...Can you put them in my mouth again?” 

“Absolutely not,” you giggle at him, gently caressing his cheek with mischief twinkling in your eyes. “Those are mine. I’ve only put them on your chest to serve as a reminder as to why I’m pissed off at you in the first place. You’re too cute to stay angry at, Clown. Gotta keep them where I can see them, while not stifling those little sounds I know you make.”

“Nghhm-!” Caesar groaned as he began pumping his cock at your praise. He kept eye contact with you, his shame evident in each slow thrust. He pleaded, begged and whined for you to break away your attention so he could focus on meeting his bliss. He had a thought that floated over his eyes that he quickly stifled away in a bid to not catch your focus.

“What was that, Clown? What just floated into that intelligent, pretty head of yours, hm?” you asked him, gently cooing at him while he rocked his body into his cock. He whined, trying not to cum immediately at more of your praise. 

Looking down at your body once more, he gulped back his nerves and spat out his confession. 

“Please sit on my face,” he hurriedly cried out for you, “Sit on my face, grab my horns, and let me taste the panties you have on. I need you to, please. Please sit on me.”

A laugh fled from your lips as you considered his request. Catching your breath, you offered him a soft purred, “But if I sit on your face, I'd miss the show-.”

“-Face my chest and hold onto my horns behind you. Let me feel you, please. I need you,” he whispered, gently using your name to further emphasize his words. You shook your head at him, slowly reaching beneath your larger shirt and hooking your pants down your thighs to pool at the floor. The larger shirt you were wearing was girdled at the smallest point of your waist, the hem falling just above the middle of your thighs. 

Hooking your panties over your thumbs, you step out of your pants and gently draw your used panties up to his face. 

“I'm not going to sit on your face, Caesar,” you wrap the crotch of your underwear over your fingers and raise it to his lips, “But I will let you suck on this pair while I watch you fuck yourself. It's the least I can do.”

Pressing your fingers to his lips, Caesar moaned and opened his mouth to welcome your digits in. Gently rocking your fingers on his tongue, the larger clown desperately sucked around the damp pair of lingerie you were grinding over his palate. 

Whining and keening, he eagerly sucked the essence of your honeyed slick from the pair. His cock desperately twitched and his motions picked up. The chains rattled and his jumpsuit flopped with each rustling motion. You giggled at his eagerness, clenching your thighs together and watching in earnest as he began to unravel himself. 

“You gonna cum, big boy? Gonna make a mess?” you pout at him, catching his eyes as his movements pick up. Circling his tip, he used shallow thrusts up to keep from spilling over completely. “C'mon, baby. Let me see. Cum for me. Put on a little show for me. Make a mess in my bed and let me see you cum.”

“Mmmmph-! 'Umming-!” he muffled around your fingers, tears of joy slipping from his eyes as he chased his high. Feeling his abdomen snap, hot spurts of his release shot up and painted his yellow jumpsuit and chest with wave after wave of uncoiling ropes. Sticky ribbons of his ecstasy painted his body, prompting you to empathetically moan at the display. 

He rutt against his body, bucking his hips in languid thrusts as he rode through his high. Be felt humiliated, overjoyed, supported, and chastised by your attention while he completed his moment in solitude. 

Pulling your panties from his lips, you curtly rose your hand up and slapped him across the cheek with the heel of your palm. He squealed out a soft scream in horror, more shocked as you met him with a smile. 

“That was for taking my panties without my permission,” you nodded sternly at him, stooping down to be at eye level. Parting your lips, you hastily collect his beneath yours and kiss him earnestly. Pulling away with a humming pop, you gaze up through your eyelashes at him, “And that was for using your listening ears and putting on a little performance for me.” 

You stroll over to your desk and search through your assortment of lingerie before settling on a fresh pair. Undressing the rest of the way, you unclasped your corsetted bralette and began to assemble a more scandalous assortment of lingerie over your body. Fishnets, cut outs, garters, girdles, and body chains: items that nobody would even know was beneath your flowy shirts and tanned pants, were put casually over your skin. Completing the look with a strappy thong, you turn to Caesar and give him a soft wink. 

“Clean yourself up, Clown,” you giggle at him, watching as his jaw fell slack and eyes glazed over at your body. “I want breakfast, and it's my job to look after you today-.”

“-Do you always wear something like that beneath your baggy clothes?” he whined in a loud moan, hastily using the two pairs of panties you left on him to clean himself with. You nod in glee, your smile warm in contrast to your scandalous assortment of clothes. 

“Yes. I like to feel pretty while I work,” you shrug, looking down at the arrangement and giving it a final nod, “Now hurry up. I'm hungry.”

Caesar emitted a shuddering moan as he cleaned and redressed himself, stealing glances at you as you shrouded yourself in a fresh shirt and pair of pants. He gulped back his nerves once more, gently offering a soft question out like a puppy returning a ball thrown by their owner and placing it timidly at their feet. 

“Do you think I could convince you to ride my face later?” he asked you, peering at you over your shoulder. You laugh wholeheartedly at the question, finally both dressed, and sauntering over to Caesar Clown’s looming form. Reaching for his hand, you gave him a gentle squeeze while darting your eyes down at the shackles. 

“The thong I'm wearing…” you nod down to your pants, Caesar knowing exactly what was under them and visualizing it while you spoke, “...is crotchless. Yes, I will ride your face in it later, thank you for asking so nicely. Again, we're all a little pent up, and I think you're quite sweet beneath all that insanity.”

Caesar’s cock, regardless as to the earlier release, remained half-hard for the duration of the day. Each time he gawked at you, he remembered the assortment of lingerie hiding beneath and eyes blackened at the promise of what was to come. He was going to smile up at you, eagerly lap at your cunt with a smile on his face, while you keened and whined, gripping his horns and chasing your bliss on his lengthy tongue and pointed nose. 

He could hardly wait.

Tag list: @mfreedomstuff @daydreamer-in-training @since-im-already-here @gingernut1314 @writingmysanity @sordidmusings @i-am-vita @indydonuts @feral-artistry @the-light-of-star @empirenowmp3 @racfoam @sunflowersatori @carrotsunshine @skullfacedlady @jintaka-hane

[da-cti]

Was inspired to draw this by an Ed Vebell piece! That will be under the cut. I saw it and immediately thought of those two with it in some way. Was originally going to be nicer with flowers, however the horrors seemed more fitting

The mentioned Ed Vebell drawing!

[silverskye13]

He lost time again. He knows it, because he wakes up on the floor of his room, instead of somewhere sensible like his bed, or even the chair at his work desk. There are a few disorienting moments where he wonders how he got here. Why he's here.

He was having a beautiful dream. It was a dream of cool waters, and fields of endless grass, and someone, distant and smiling, and happy to see him.

He's in hels. He's... supposed to be in hels. No fields of endless grass here, only hot and heat. The world smells faintly of brimstone and ash, even when the windows are closed -- but who would keep the windows closed when without the windows open there would be now breeze.

The wind in hels is hot and unforgiving.

He thinks he used to like it here once. He remembers feeling... happy.

Right now the only feeling he has, is that he's uncomfortable on the floor. He stretches out his hand across the crimson stem planks, splaying black fingernails against the boards and listening to the soft shff of noise. The wood grain isn't like the wood grain on trees. There are no odd concentric circles spooling and unspooling endlessly across the bark. Instead, hard, compact fibers from the long stem press against each other like sheets of cardboard, varying in color where nutrients collected.

Well. He thinks that's why the colors are like that anyway. He used to be an expert on things like that. He has hazy memories of talking excitedly to his best friend about why hels was the way it was. The abnormalities, how different it was from a standard nether. Why there were birds, where they came from, how they lived here, of all places, tenacious against the heat and smog.

He has... memories of knowing things. They're soft and bright around the edges, less clear than his dreams. He remembers talking to people, and knowing things, but he can no longer remember what those things are.

"Moment of clarity," he says out loud to himself, to no one. He used to have those. He used to have them so often, they were normal. Not moments of clarity, living in clarity. Now those moments were so rare he wasn't sure they really happened, until he lost them again.

This was not a moment of clarity. This was, at best, a waking dream.

He was still laying on the floor.

His shoulder hurt. He thinks, maybe, he fell on it when he... left. Faded. Passed out. Slept. Dreamed. There's a bruise there. Or maybe he's been laying here for that long. He's heard of that happening to people -- laying still so long their bodies bruise. Their friends have to pick them up, turn them over, move them so they don't hurt themselves while the Universe slowly drags them away. He remembers doing that for someone once. Not his best friend. Someone else. Someone who used to live up the street. He remembers washing their hair for them while they slept, and wishing they would wake up.

There is no one here to wash his hair. His best friend... might have already forgotten about him. That happens sometimes too. People so far gone, they spend their last moments alone because... because...

There is an ache in his chest. It hurts. The pain is intense, and he cannot tell if it really hurts that much, or if its just the first thing he's felt in a long, long time. The novelty takes his breath away. It isn't fear. The fear wore off... oh... a long time ago. Back when he still thought he had something worth living for. Back when he still had hope he had a chance. When fear actually gave him something -- adrenaline, fight or flight. Back when there was still enough of him left to feel things like spite, or hate. He'd torn apart his workshop once, in that fit of anger. He never cleaned it again. Couldn't bring himself to climb the ladder. Besides, if he passed out again, he didn't want to wake on a bed of broken glass.

Still on the floor. It aches. He should move.

There's a book beside him. His sketchbook. He fell asleep, faded, passed out, left, dreamed, while he was in the middle of reading it. Old drawings. Grand plans. Notes to self. He held a hope once that, maybe, if he memorized the pages well enough, he wouldn't forget who he was. Trying to grip those pages through memory now, though, they slipped through his thoughts like water. With an effort, he musters the strength to pull the book towards himself. Doodles of sheet pattern the page its open to, and he smiles.

A beautiful, soft dream. Walking through fields of grass towards someone who was so, so happy to see him. His smile was radiant as the sun, his voice embroidered with enthusiasm, like it was a part of the fabric of his being. He'd called him by name. Taken him by the hands. "Hello hello! Finally we meet again my friend! You've been hiding for so long. But now, what's gotten into you. You look tired. Wouldn't you like to rest?"

Oh. Rest. He was always tired now. No voice to speak. No thoughts to think, save the ones that rolled past like clouds on a summer day, formless and inconsequential. He was holding a book in his hands. Oh. His sketchbook. Right. For remembering himself, and not the dream.

He has, a moment of clarity. Brief, and colorful, and formed and whole. It breaks through the formless dark of his mind and says, boldly and unapologetically, the thought of yourself as you are now once terrified you.

He lays on the floor and turns that thought over like a stone in a river. Like a bright star caught in tissue paper clouds it glares at him, pins itself on the horizon line of his thoughts. Thoughts like that are so beautiful and rare now. Moments of clarity.

Yes. When he was whole and strong and... imperfect, but alive because of that imperfection, he was terrified of this. The slow fade. The loss of will. The loss of life. He was dying. He had been dying for a very long time. The Universe wanted him, because while he lived, his Hermit wasn't whole. And his Hermit, out there somewhere, was trying so hard to be whole. And... he was never meant to exist.

No helsmet was ever meant to exist.

The ache in his chest gets deeper, bottoms out into something that leaves him breathless again. Mourning. No one else would mourn him so... surely he was allowed, while he still had thoughts to think, to mourn himself. He was crying. The soft patter of his teardrops marred the straight, compact lines of the crimson floorboards with freckles. He clutched the little sketchbook to his chest and curled up on the floor, and he was wracked, briefly, with the fear and mourning and loss he rarely was able to feel. And he reveled in it. In the fact that, for just a few moments, he cared.

Stand up, please. You're thirsty. You're hungry. You want to live.

No. No. He wanted to go back to that dream. It had been so much kinder.

Someone was out there, standing in an endless field of green, beneath an endless sky of blue. He had a labcoat folded over his arms, tightly curled horns blooming from his head, and a smile that could light up the sun. And the wind blew, and set wildflowers dancing. And they stumbled towards each other, inexorable as two stars colliding. And he was a small thing dying, searching for a moment's warmth and softness, and his Hermit took him by the hands and said, "I lost you there for a minute. Are you coming back to stay yet? You'll like it here, I promise. We'll have adventures together, you and me. There's so many questions to ask, an entire Universe to explore! And you'll be here with me, won't you?"

And he could not say he had no choice.

And he could not say he wanted to live.

Because it was all just a dream, and only the few lucky, for a moment, controlled what their dreams gave them. All he could do was hold onto his Hermit's hands and pray this one didn't turn to nightmare.

"I should... leave a note," he whispered to the empty room. "He'll... remember he's missing something... eventually. He'll... want to know."

"You're right, a note would be kind! Here, I'll help you. Dear Evil Beesuma, don't worry, I've gone to meet my new friend Z--"

There was a pencil stuck between the pages at the end of the sketchbook. On that page was a drawing of someone he no longer recognized. That face hadn't looked back at him from a mirror in... well. In a very long time. He blinked at the little self portrait, watching the stranger there for... too long. Too long.

He'd been doing something. What was it?

That ache in his chest drilled itself through his ribs. He grimaced, and buried his face in his sketchbook.

"Hey, don't cry again it's alright. It's a little confusing isn't it? I said I would help you. Will you let me help you?"

He shook his head.

"I am sorry. Truly. I'm not trying to be mean. It's just. You seem so much happier here. And you feel so tired there. You don't want to be that person anymore, do you?"

"No," he whispered. "No I don't."

"Would you still like to write something? Or would you like to come here?"

"He'll remember something's missing," he insisted quietly.

"Yeah he will. But that's what the stone was for, right?"

Oh. Yes. Yes his remembrance stone. He'd carved his name. So people would remember. But he'd never taken it to a wall. He'd thought. He'd thought. Time. He was supposed to have more time. Time to place his stone. Time to visit his friend one last time. Time to tell his neighbors, the nice ones who kept bringing him dinner twice a week, because they were worried he would be so busy in his workshop he'd forget to eat. And the shopkeep he bought his spare parts from, who always told him about his life, and the man he was seeing, and how they were living together now. And they all had someone who cared, who would remember them. Who would take care of them when they lost time. Who would pick them off the floor when they fainted. Who would help them clean up broken glass when they couldn't bare to see what they were becoming. People who cared. People who cared. People who cared.

"I'm going to be forgotten," he said quietly. "I'm going to be forgotten, and no one will care."

He was still on the floor.

He was still on the floor, and he was tired. He thought he might fall asleep again. Here. On the floor. Where he'd fallen asleep the first time, and lay until his shoulder bruised, with no one to turn him over, or carry him someplace soft and warm.

He had been dreaming of someplace soft and warm.

"Dear EB," he whispered to his dark room, as the breeze rattled the shudders upstairs, and outside someone shouted on the street, and the world turned and forgot him. "I'm sorry I didn't come to visit. I didn't want you to worry. D-don't worry. I've gone to meet a friend. Signed..."

He blinked at his sketchbook, vision unfocusing. He was tired. He wanted to sleep. The ache in his chest was fading, replaced with quiet ambivalence.

"Signed..."

"Oh deary me. Do you remember your name?"

His eyes fluttered closed. He buried his face in his hands. He thought he could see, in the distant dark in the back of his eyelids, shapes of grass. Light seeping in. Hels was hot, dry, scorching. This place wasn't. It was soft and warm, and there was sun on his skin.

"It's alright," he said, and he laughed like the sun. "That's what the stone is for, isn't it?"

Yes. Yes that's what the stone was for.

He couldn't say that out loud. He wasn't one of the rare, happy few who could control their dreams.

"So how about it?" Zedaph asked, taking him by the hands. "Will we go on an adventure together?"

He had friends back home. He had a life he had enjoyed living once.

He was never meant to exist.

He couldn't talk in dreams.

"Don't be scared," Zedaph grinned, pulling him along. "We'll go together, yeah?"

He couldn't talk in his dreams.

He closed his eyes.

He stopped feeling the grass beneath his feet.

He stopped feeling the sun on his skin.

There was only Zedaph, radiant as the sun, and perfect and whole.

In hels, there was an empty room.