#blood and tears writing

[nyandereneko]

Balancing Deficits

Word Count: 716

Summary: “They’d managed to check one box off the itinerary, surely they could make all the repressed yearning up to each other later. Presently, there was still much work to be done.”

Author’s Note: Happy day 7 of yumeweek!! It’s the last day and I kind of can’t believe it, I didn’t fully expect I’d actually be able to keep up with it and post every day but I’m so glad and proud of myself that I did, and I look forward to sharing even more content for these ships in the future because they make my heart sing :’) also shout out to the first piece featuring my other BigTM genshin f/o, we don’t know shit about him so I hope my characterization doesn’t end up proving completely OOC, but even if it does I guess this is my version of him I can adjust however I see fit hfieshfs as always thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Reblogs appreciated!

*****

“These are the documents detailing some of the more questionable accounts, but I can assure you my lord Harbinger that our agents are doing everything they can to—”

Nova allowed the stranger’s irritating babble to fade into the background of her awareness as her dark eyes narrowed on her prey. Tail twitching with the amusement of a curious kitten, she swatted at the delicate metal chain that hung so temptingly before her. If it had been anyone else, they wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale of their blasphemy and ignorance. And if she hadn’t donned the visage of a cat prior to falling victim to said creature’s instincts in the midst of her master’s confidential exchange, she would’ve likewise found herself on the receiving end of some admonition of a similarly grim nature.

But she was little more than a harmless kitten at the moment, and the man who’s lap she’d claimed was just the Harbinger that’d deigned to extend a hand to her in the throes of her debilitating isolation. He still wasn’t entirely sure what had incited his rare, irrational show of benevolence; it was a weakness and a curse that served no purpose in his line of work. Such sentiments had no place in any facet of his life as far as Pantalone was concerned, yet this poor unfortunate soul had somehow managed to override his defenses and brush against his own withered spirit—presuming perhaps erroneously that he even had one.

When he’d first laid eyes on her shivering form trapped in the confines of that cold steel prison, he hadn’t felt much of anything; at least that’s how things had seemed at the time. Before she’d burrowed past his defenses, before she’d torn through his heart like a desperate gale and saturated his psyche with her very being. Up to this point he’d understood that there was no room left in the Harbingers’ hearts for anything beyond their illustrious Tsaritsa and their lofty, crafty aspirations and schemes. Nova had succeeded in cracking the boundary of the world that held him hostage for better or worse, and moving forward together rather than floundering alone certainly sounded like a prudent plan to him.

As long as he had someone to rely on…as long as she didn’t mind his company.

“Take care of it, you know my expectations well,” the Harbinger counseled his naive underlings with an air of haughty disinterest. With a disappointed sigh he turned his attention to the devious kitten reveling in her playful insolence, the pressures of his mind instantly allayed by the mere sight of her. “I have more pressing matters to attend to, and I do so loathe wasting my precious time on petty excuses and paltry results. Should the task prove too demanding for you…well, I’m sure you’re well aware of how the Fatui prefers to balance their deficits.”

The nervous dejection plastered on his agents’ faces made Nova’s eyes roll as she continued her batting. They were past the point of no return, and everyone present was privy to the reality of their doomed fate. Meetings like this were largely a formality, one that had become noticeably less distressing in the wake of Nova’s addition to his traditionally monotonous routine. He didn’t want to admit it, to himself or to anyone else, but as Pantalone captured her paws in his grasp he realized there was nothing he wouldn’t do to preserve and protect the precious creature that melted into his touch like snow. 

In the aftermath they slipped away to some secluded corridor together, seeking to collect themselves before they moved on to their next task. Even as her paws transformed to proper hands against his own he found himself bewildered, entranced by her mystical allure. Glove met glove where they bridged their touch, and Pantalone brazenly leaned in to press their foreheads together. Nothing more, nothing less; there was still a chance they could be discovered, and the enticement wasn’t worth the risk when they were free to express their affection within the confines of their own trusted quarters—his trusted quarters, to be precise. 

They’d managed to check one box off the itinerary, surely they could make all the repressed yearning up to each other later. Presently, there was still much work to be done.

[deep-space-lines]

okay but like. I just had the weirdest thought about that ‘don’t look I’m naked’ comic. Which is that that’s essentially the same thing Adam and Eve did after they ate the fruit of knowledge of good&evil. So I feel like the theological implications of that could kneecap Gabe if he doesn’t think V1 is a being with free will.

yeah ok. i dunno man. is this anything

((side note. this isn’t necessarily meant to be in-character or story-accurate or take place at any particular point in time, just a way to explore some Thoughts. i was also imagining more that V1’s words aren't actually spoken, more like Gabriel’s more articulate interpretation of whatever garbled mechanical noise V1 is using to communicate. I think an angel could do that.))

and then they fucked nasty the end

[lumpsbumpsandwhumps]

unpopular opinion but whump should and deserves to be messy

"Yeah duh there's plenty of scenarios with blood and tears--" no. I want more.

I want pink tinted spit dribbling out of Whumpee's mouth. I want strings of saliva connecting between their busted lip to Whumper's tongue. I want drool running down the corners of their mouths because of a gag that makes it difficult to swallow.

I want sweat making Whumpee feel sticky and clammy to the touch. I want their skin to be slick and soaking into their soiled clothes. I want them to squirm in discomfort of a dirty shirt clinging to their back from precious fluids that are going to risk further dehydration. I want their hair to be continuously damp and hanging in thick strands in their face.

I want the scabs to turn white with pus and black with infection. I want old wounds to tear open and bleed a thick red. I want the pink flesh underneath to pulse and quiver, the sight of yellow fat and cartilage. I want blood vessels and capillaries to burst and spread over an area, I want burns to start brown and peel away to a tender pink.

I want Whumpee to vomit out of their nose because their mouth is gagged. I want bile to reek on their clothing and on their tongue. I want them to grow use to the taste of bitter blood and burning chyme forever in the back of their throat. I want them to have to snort and hack to be able to spit out whatever was still caught on their tongue or risk swallowing it down.

I want their tears to remain unwiped and crusting over their eyes. I want snot to smear over their cheeks and leave their lips uncomfortably tacky. I want their face to remain blotchy and red because they just can't get it clean. I want dirt and blood and skin to build up under their fingernails to the point they risk infecting their own wounds if they try and mess with it. I want Whumpee to only be sprayed down with cold water and an old towel, never any soap and never in all the creases of their body.

I want their bodies caked in grime and viscera and bodily fluids. I want Whumper to never give them the luxury of feeling clean and in fact actively making them more filthy each time. I want Whumpee's clothes yellowed and their hair matted and their skin sickly. I want injuries to never properly heal so that the only option is to amputate the necrosis. I want Whumper to force Whumpee to clean up whatever kind of mess they made by licking it off the floor.

I want arteries to spew like a garden sprinkler. I want the exposed roots of pulled teeth to dangle freely in their mouth. I want Whumpee's hair, including all of their body hair, to grow to unruly lengths that are constantly tangled and ingrown. I want them to find comfort in starving because it means there's nothing to risk throwing up. I want them to scrub their skin raw and bleeding, uncaring how much it aggravates their injuries or how the soap stings, the first chance they're given for a real bath.

I want it to be nasty!!!!!!

[deadly-halowos]

fuck “jason todd and damian wayne meet in the league of assassins” (not actually, i love that trope) i want “tim drake and damian wayne meet in the league of assassins”

imagine, either damian doesn’t go to bruce when he should so damian is still at nanda parbat when ra’s enlists tim and they meet through that OR

and hear me out

ra’s kidnaps tim after finding him stalking batman and robin and brings him back to nanda parbat. from there you could either have him train tim alongside damian, have him be damian’s teacher, or make tim have the utmost respect for damian.

from there you have tim being stuck there for several years and being groomed to be ra’s heir or….something tim eventually escapes and finds his way back to gotham becoming robin after jason dies, still trying to subtly get used to non lethal attacks that were literally beaten into him.

a year, two years, however long passes and now damian is walking into the cave and tim makes eye contact.

and depending on how he was raised, either alongside, above, or under damian you’ve got three options.

a cutesy one where damian tackles him yelling “ahki”. tim looking guilty as he holds damian as close as possible muttering apologies and checking over him to make sure he isn’t hurt. insert batfam being confused and fluff ensuing and tim and damian being the best brothers

a more neutral/angst one where damian stiffens up and prepares for orders because tim is his teacher, his mentor his grandfathers chosen. the others watch tim stiffen too, his entire body language changing, his eyes becoming cold and hard. they listen to tim bark an order in league dialect and watch as damian immediately answers, standing as still as possible. watch as tim stalks forward, confused because who is this? their son, their brother doesn’t move like this. they watch tim walk a circle around damian before he nods, walking forward and cupping damian’s cheek. watch as damian melts, tims eyes softening as he talks gently to him before patting him on the shoulder and turning damian around to introduce him.

or pure angst where when tim makes eye contact with damian, he drops to his knees and bows, muscles tense as if preparing to be hit. tim says something along the lines of “i am so sorry my prince, forgive me, let me serve you” etc in league dialect. depending on how their relationship is, damian can either stalk over to tim and slap him across the face or damian can look disgusted and tell tim to “rise timothy, you are not to call me that any longer.” and then they bond and it’s great.

idk, once again this is probably WILDLY ooc but just….imagine dude. i love tim and damian bonding.

[gatzbright]

dream & george; falling in love

Dream: 'Have either of you talked about liking each other in the past?' George: *Scoffs* Dream: ... Well— George: *Giggles* Dream: Well, none of the answers fit. But I'd say, like, we've talked about 'whether' ... George: The weather? Dream: Yeah.

Dream: The realisation that, once again, I met someone that's not going to be my friend, but something more. They were never meant to be my friend in the first place. I can't avoid it. If I'm going to fall in love, I'm going to fall in love. So this song is a cry to please be gentle, please don't make me even more paranoid.

Dream: I want that part of my life to be private, you know? Regardless of who that person is ... Once the cameras are off, once we're not doing anything, it's our time. It's me and you. There's no one else. No one else exists in the world, regardless of the fact that there's thirty-million people that are looming over.

Dream: Because I'm famous and because I have all this attention on me—when I'm in my normal life it's like, I want to put the people in my life in the spotlight and make sure they feel that way. But then there's lyrics like 'the celebrity in my bed' and 'close the curtains now you're all mine' ... It's about, you know, that special someone in your life, and how in my mind, because I feel so special, I want them to feel that same specialness. So, yeah, it's about relationships and how I want that person to feel special like I do.

dream @/dreamwastaken: .@/GeorgeNotFound you've had such a big impact on my life I don't even know where to start. helping me code my videos sometimes, helping with random ideas within videos, encouraging me and always being the light in the room to make things even just a little bit brighter. you took a chance on me out of university, making thumbnails and coding for scraps because we wanted to make it big and I’m proud to say that we did it and I’ll have an appreciation for you for the rest of my life because of your friendship, kindness, and love you’ve shown me. love you man. idc if you’re never serious or if we joke around a lot, you have a place in my heart and I’m looking forward to finally meeting you and taking our next step in content creation and friendship. LOVE U

Dream: 'Spotlight' is a song I wrote about making that special someone in my life feel as special as they truly are ... I want to be there to support them through the ups and downs, and make them feel like they have a million fans screaming cheering them on, even if it's just my voice echoing a million times. They are the most important person in the world and the only one in that spotlight of love and admiration, and I want them to know that.

a lot of my future is your future

Head Over Heels / Broken, Tears for Fears | Dream and George retake 'Am I In Love With My Bestfriend' Quiz, DNF Discord Podcast | Head Over Heels / Broken, Tears for Fears | Dream Team House Cooking Stream, Awesamdude VOD | The Diaries of Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka | Paranoid, Dream | to whoever wants to hear – lyric booklet, Dream | Franz Kafka Letter, Franz Kafka | Red Doc>, Anne Carson | Photograph of Dream and George during the Foodbeast's Panel at Twitchcon San Diego, @/itsjusttai_ | Dream Team Christmas – Baking Cookies, Sapnap VOD | Paranoid, Dream | Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, Taylor Swift | Dream's Snapchats of George, @/dream | Paris, Taylor Swift | Dream breaks down his new EP track by track, Associated Press | long story short, Taylor Swift | Dream and George on set: Everest – Dream & Yung Gravy BEHIND THE SCENES, Dream Music | Dream breaks down his new EP track by track, Associated Press | Spotlight, Dream | Technoblade Charity Stream George's POV, GeorgeNotFound VOD | Dream and George during Foodbeast's Kitchen League Battle Royale at Twitchcon San Diego, Twitch VOD | October Passed Me By, girl in red | Waiting for a Star to Fall, Boy Meets Girl | Dream Team Christmas – Gingerbread Houses, GeorgeNotFound VOD | dream Tweet, @/dreamwastaken | Dream Team Christmas – Baking Cookies, Sapnap VOD | "George napping and the sun is literally beaming him square in the face" – Photograph and Tweet, @/dreamwastaken | Paranoid, Dream | Dream and George on set: Everest – Dream & Yung Gravy BEHIND THE SCENES, Dream Music | to whoever wants to hear – lyric booklet, Dream | Dream Team House Cooking Stream, Awesamdude VOD | SOMEONE MADE A DISSTRACK ABOUT ME???, GeorgeNotFound VOD | Paranoid, Dream |

[blindmagdalena]

Eat Your Ego, Honey ( Ch 8 )

homelander x oc 18+  escort services, sex work, voyeurism, stalking, Homelander in general. see ao3 link for detailed tags. chapter index. check out the playlist!

chapter summary: After the disastrous spectacle that was Homelander's birthday celebration, America's "disgraced" hero is forced to reconcile with the demons in his head, and what that means for Layla, the woman standing precariously in their path.

additional tags: unhealthy/codependent dynamics, threats of violence, themes of abuse, canon deviation. 🖤

Sleep is a scarcity. Homelander fades in and out of consciousness, but he never truly rests. It’s strange to sleep somewhere he can't see the comfort of his own gaze endlessly mirrored back at him. Those mirrors make the world so much bigger, but for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t mind how small it is. What would normally be a dark, claustrophobic thing is now a great deal safer than the open expanse of a stage.

Layla’s warmth and the faint weight of her arm around him is the only thing that keeps him somewhat tethered. Her heartbeat is a steady metronome against his back, her breaths warmly ghosting over his neck and shoulder. It’s been hours, but it feels too soon when the covers move on his skin as she readjusts in her sleep, pulling her arm from him. He lifts the blanket and rolls to face her. 

She’s turned away from him, her dark hair fanned out in a wild splay on the pillow beneath her. Light from the unsleeping city spills in through the window, illuminating her figure. It’s strange to see her sleeping in day clothes and not the sleepwear he’s used to seeing her in. She didn’t have the time to change tonight. She was too busy taking him back into her arms, into her bed, into her life. He brushes his knuckles down between her shoulder blades, the disheveled silk of her blouse soft beneath his fingers.

He’ll find out why Starlight’s scent is lingering on her when she wakes.

Sliding closer to her, he flattens his palm over her hip and noses at the line of her throat, inhaling deeply, chasing the scent beneath shampoo and lotion until he finds what’s simply her. Her wine flush has followed her into sleep, her skin warmer than usual. She responds to his touch with a sleepy sigh of pleasure. Even now, the sound of her voice does so much to quiet the storm in his heart. He screws his eyes shut and buries his face into the soft tresses of her hair, gritting his teeth against the urge to squeeze too tight. 

The urge to keep. 

The urge to break it all apart and let the storm rage. Instead, he keeps himself perfectly still, trying to swallow the thrumming energy coiling in his tense muscles. End this, the darkness in him hisses, tempting him. How many days has he resisted the urge to reach out, not with his hands but with this thing inside him, and ruin everything? Everyone? A flash of crimson is all it would take to cleave this world in half.

But he can’t afford to. Not then, not now.

The only way he made it out of the cold isolation of the lab, far away from the bad room, was by convincing the staff, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was good. He was their perfect man-made hero. Logically, he knows they can’t ever put him back in the bad room. He’d never let them. It doesn’t stop the nightmares.

He folds in on himself, doing his best to forget that he even has power to wield against others—a whim as sharp as glass. Now, just as then, he orders his body and mind to still, to calm.

If Layla had stayed yesterday morning, things would have been different. His tightly controlled grip on her hip flexes minutely. How can she sleep so deeply knowing that she’s ruined him?

What was she doing with Starlight?

The inkling of a deeper betrayal slithers into his mind. He slides his hand up the length of her torso, traversing the familiar scape of her body, and into her hair, coiling his fingers into a gentle fist of it. One twist is all it would take to quiet her soothing voice forever. Would hair ever feel the same to him again, or would it start to smell like burning tears and cornea? The stench of grief hits him so suddenly that his eyes sting with it, and he recoils from Layla like he himself has been burned.

Has she been scheming against him all along, too?

Fucked. He’s so completely and entirely fucked.

He exhales harshly, curling his hand into a tight fist and biting into the meaty curve just below his thumb, muffling a tearful keen. He can’t think back to that morning without reliving how horribly it went wrong, and how the dominos just continued to fall until he was losing his senses in front of the entire world.

Those moments on stage play over and over in his mind, but each instance of them grows more warped than the last. He’s starting to forget what he really said, conflating memories with nightmares. How much of himself did he really let slip? How ugly does the world think him to be now? 

He can see the headlines now.

Homelander: America’s Fallen Hero

Homelander: Vought’s Poster Boy Throws a Tantrum

Homelander: Deranged Freak Snaps On Stage

He’s spiraling worse than he did during Stormfront’s smear campaign against him. It isn’t just dissenting opinions and slander—he’s finally given them real ammunition to use against him. The question is: how much, and how will he refute it? He needs to be able to recover from this.

His voice of reason is treacherously quiet. Nothing but the dreadful echo of I warned you.

With his thoughts twisting in on themselves like a pit of angry, writhing snakes, he finds it impossible to stay still any longer. His whole body is plagued with a restlessness that turns into agony. Carefully, he extracts himself from Layla’s side and slips out of her bed. He needs to see it for himself. He needs to understand the degree of damage that’s been done to him.

Stepping out into her living room, Homelander picks up the remote for her television and flips it on, dropping the volume to such a miniscule level that he’ll be the only one to hear it. He lowers himself down onto the couch and stares, watching his body move and speak, seemingly puppeteered by someone other than himself, operating in ways he’s never seen himself behave in front of a camera before.

“I’m done being persecuted for my strength–”

Erratic.

“Persecuted for my strength–”

Unhinged.

“Persecuted–”

Alive.

If they want to take us down, we’re going to take every last one of them down with us.

The sky is just barely beginning to turn with dawn’s light when Layla wakes to a chill that rolls up her spine. Her bed feels colder than it has any right to, and as the fractured events of last night spill back into her mind, it doesn’t take her long to figure out why. 

Homelander—who knows if he’ll accept that name yet—is nowhere to be seen.

Her temples throb with the aftermath of emptying a hefty bottle of wine as she lifts herself from bed, running her hands through her hair, breaking apart the tangles with her fingers.

The breadcrumb trail of Homelander’s suit leading from her balcony to her bed tells her that he hasn’t left. The image of him streaking through the sky in the nude does occur to her, though. Straightening her borrowed blouse and tucking it back into the waist of her skirt, she steps lightly through the dark of her apartment, head on a swivel, until she spots her quarry.

Reclined on her couch, Homelander paints an image somewhere between a renaissance painting and a billboard for depression, his body illuminated by the flashing light of the television. His expression is morose, his hand sitting on the couch next to him at an angle, the remote tilted in his loose grasp. As she approaches, he begins tapping on the volume until his own recorded voice fills the empty space between them.

It’s his tirade from last night.

“Hey, babe,” he drawls from the couch, voice pitched low and despondent. The way he pops each consonant makes the pet name sound downright derogatory. “So, what’s the verdict?” He asks, lazily gesturing to the television with the remote. “Is it everything you thought it would be?” His gaze slides from the screen to her, his head lolling to the side with it.

Any concern or lingering sleepiness in her face is swiftly replaced with bewilderment. “Excuse me?”

“‘Excuse me?’” He mocks, pitching his voice up condescendingly. Her expression hardens as he stands, the remote bouncing along the couch cushions where he tosses it. “Don’t play dumb with me.”

“I’m not playing anything with you,” she responds tersely. She’s never been a morning person. Compound that with the ache in her skull and the naked pain in the neck standing in front of her, she’s not feeling her usual bounty of patience. Last night, he was a weepy, sopping mess. Now she doesn’t know what to expect from the tight line of his shoulders, or the agitated curl of his upper lip. “I have no idea what it is you think you’re picking at.”

“Since when are you and Starlight pals, then?” He hisses through his teeth.

Shit. Annie. She never sent that text.

“Since yesterday,” she answers, her calm stretched thin. “She saw me at the elevator. She offered a shower and a change of clothes. That’s all.” She doesn’t find it necessary to explain why Starlight might have offered such a thing. He knows exactly how she looked when she left his penthouse, bruised and disheveled.

The memory looks to serve as a crisp slap, some level of clarity filtering into the incensed glaze of his eyes. His grip flexes, and he bares his teeth in an animalistic flash of frustration. He isn’t willing to accept fault for that yet.

“Stop fucking lying to me!” He snaps, the sudden jump in volume startling her. He advances on her sharply, halting her step backwards with an iron grip, his palm against her throat, his thumb and index finger notching perfectly behind the curve of her jaw below her ears. The contact is minimal, and yet the strength in those two fingers alone is more than enough to hold her firmly in place. 

“You’re all the fucking same! Agendas, lies, all of you trying to control me, use me, and you—you’re exactly the fucking same. You’ve taken everything from me,” he snarls. Despite his fervor, his grip remains remarkably controlled. Sometimes it’s as if his mind and his body are two independent entities: one an unstable, emotionally malnourished psyche, and the other a finely tuned weapon.

The human mind wants dangerous things to be ugly, but even now, Homelander’s twisted, angry expression is not an ugly thing. Though adrenaline surges the thrum of her heart, it isn’t laden with the fear any reasonable person would have. The thrill coursing through her isn’t rooted in some comfort that he won’t hurt her. It’s the knowledge that he—more devastating than any man she’s ever known—absolutely will if not handled correctly.

It’s like holding a thundering storm in her bare hands.

Layla stares wide-eyed and astonished, so thoroughly unaware of what he’s accusing her of that she struggles to speak around the hard lump in her throat. He leans closer yet, clutching her with all the same strength, tenderness and menace of the ocean cradling a ship.

“I killed her,” he whispers, the words passing between them like a confession to God himself. He’s so near, she could rest her forehead against his if she wanted. “I killed her for lying to me. I’ll kill you, too.”

Madelyn Stillwell. The name returns to her like a ghost, the hairs at the back of her neck prickling. Or was it Stormfront? The unnamed mother of his child? One was the victim of a domestic terrorist, one committed suicide, and the third is yet undetermined. All of them are apparent casualties of Homelander’s turbulent presence in their lives. Is she to be the fourth in a string of tragedies? Rage swells so suddenly in her heart that she almost chokes on the fire of it. What right does he have to interrogate her and  threaten her?

“Are you glad?” She asks, her voice steady despite the tremble in her hand holding his wrist in turn. “Are you glad to have killed her?”

His expression flips as if he’s been struck, crinkled brows shooting up. “What?”

“Will you be glad to have killed me?” She asks tightly, her nails biting ineffectual crescents into his titanium flesh. Her tone is sharp and no longer meant to soothe. She speaks to cut. “Or will you just be even more alone?”

Like hers, his eyes turn glassy. “No,” he says softly. She doesn’t know if that’s an answer or a plea.

“Let me go,” she tells him firmly, fighting to hold onto the fires of her own indignant anger. His abrupt flashes of softness and vulnerability compromise her resolve.

“Go where, Layla?” He snaps, suddenly loud again. His broken desperation and seething anger make his voice reedy. “Where the fuck could you go that I wouldn’t still feel you? Kill you, fuck you, love you; you’re in my fucking head!”

You’re all the fucking same!

She isn’t dead, but he’s treating her like a ghost nonetheless. As if she’s already one of the many specters haunting him.

“You love me?” She asks him, snatching that precarious lifeline out of the messy slurry of his words. She’s not sure that he knows the meaning of it. 

Does she?

The tension in Homelander’s face goes slack, stricken to hear those words fall from her lips. His mouth opens and closes as he tries and fails to form the right words. It’s too vulnerable to say yes, and too complicated to say no. Ultimately, he can’t bear to answer first.

“Do you love me?” He asks, defensive, as if she were the one who brought the terrifying gravity of love into the equation in the first place. The weight of it turns her tongue to lead.

There’s an adolescent sense of fumbling in this moment that would be endearing if he were not clutching her jaw with inhuman strength, the whispered promise of her death hanging over them like a creaky guillotine. In another life, this could have been a very sweet confession.

“Do you?” He prompts her again, desperate. He cups the back of her head with his other hand, taking a step closer. His chest bumps her forearms where she has them tightly braced, hands clamped tightly over his wrist. It’s a meager barrier to uphold, but she does so steadfastly. His hold on her is suffocating, his agonized ocean eyes filling up her vision. He’s larger than life, leaving space for little else in her life ever since he crashed into it.

Even when he’s gone, she is consumed by him like a fever that refuses to be sweated out. When her career first began, she knew well enough not to entertain superhumans. It wasn’t a bias she held against them per se, but the opposite: she knew from the start that she would become intoxicated on the danger of them. Homelander is the epitome of everything she’s ever been too afraid to let herself love. He’s the first person to ever be enough of a risk to scare her, and enough of a reward to satiate her. She can feel her destruction lurking in him just as plainly as her parents found their own in their shared thrill seeking.

“I want to,” she whispers, a secret she’s denied even to herself until now. “But you’re making it so fucking hard.”

He exhales roughly, something like hope softening the tension in his expression before he screws his eyes shut, another wave of agony contorting his features. His forehead thumps gently against hers. “I don’t know—I don’t know how else to be. I don’t know how. I don’t know how to make it easy.”

Finally, he releases her jaw from the snare of his grip, only to take either side of her face between his hands, pulling away to look at her. He’s always been younger than her in a multitude of ways, but in this moment, the agonized youth in his eyes takes her breath away. “I was—I was made to be loved. I was supposed to be everyone’s hero. They poked and prodded me, manufactured me in a-a fucking lab to be perfect, but no one—”

Layla’s eyes widen, her heart seized. What?

Homelander bares his teeth like a wounded animal, breath hissing in and out of his clenched teeth as tears roll down his cheeks. “But no one does, no one fucking does, no one loves me,” he says through his teeth, nearly choking on the words. “I don’t understand how to make it easy, Layla,” he sobs, hands shaking on either side of her face. She can’t tell if it’s from sheer emotion, or the restraint it takes not to crush her between them.

“So just—tell me what I need to do, please,” he begs her, devastatingly beautiful in the same way the sprawling webbing of a shattered mirror is. “Tell me how to be easy to love.”

Breathless, Layla stands there with her heart bleeding so freely, so painfully, that she swears there’s warm blood soaking onto the pristine white blouse she wears.

There is a monster in Homelander. At times, she can feel the claws of it in his grip on her. Hear it growling in her ear. When it comes to handling monsters, banishment is always the remedy. Slay the beast, free the man. Homelander’s monster is not so easily felled, nor is she certain it should be. He was not born with sharp teeth and claws. From what she’s gathered, they were filed into fine points long before he was a man.

People like to think of the monster within them as an outside force. Corruption, propaganda, the devil. Layla has spent enough time in bed with people’s deviance to know better. The proverbial devil is not outside of humanity, but embedded deep within It cannot be safely extracted any more than a beating heart can.

But corruption isn’t a heart—it’s a stomach. 

It craves and yearns, it twists and aches and growls when hungry. Just as Eve ate of the apple, humans take bites of sin to satiate their monster. Like people, monsters come in a wide variety of shapes, temperaments, and cravings. Some beasts can be satisfied with a nibble here and there. Others require more. Some never learned how to know when they’re full.

After all he has been deprived of, Homelander may never be truly satisfied, but does that mean he doesn’t deserve to be fed at all?

No, Layla thinks. It doesn’t.

Both of their faces are streaked wet with tears as they hold one another’s gazes. Gingerly, she brings her own hands up to cup his face, wiping his tears with her thumbs. “Okay,” she whispers, afraid her own voice of reason will hear her. “Okay, my darling.”

Relief helps smooth the crease between his brows, but it doesn’t dissipate entirely. “Say it,” he urges her, the hands still upon her face giving the faintest nudge. “Say you love me.”

“I love you,” she says, teary and quiet, but with conviction. She leans in, and he allows her to, no longer holding her firmly in place for fear that she might suddenly vanish. “I love you,” she says again, a promise that ghosts his lips. He shudders. “I love you. You’re in my head,” she says, echoing his own words back at him. Her lips brush against his in a not-quite kiss. “You were from the start.”

He exhales a pained, keening sound, pushing his fingers into her hair and pulling her deep into a feverish kiss. His hunger for her is voracious, and his desire is a force she might not withstand—not by virtue of its violence, but because of its sheer magnitude. He kisses her fiercely, one arm slipping around her middle to keep her body from bowing under the weight of his love.

“I love you, too,” he breathes, the relief in his voice palpable. She takes the air of it into her lungs like it might save her. “I love you so fucking much.”

It’s dangerous, she knows, to trick herself into believing she can satiate his mountainous hunger. Danger is like an ice bath, though. You grow accustomed to the bite of it.

Morning light creeps slowly into Layla’s condo. Homelander trails her as closely as her own shadow, breathing in against the crook of her neck while she cooks breakfast. He’s partially dressed in his undershirt and underwear, his suit folded neatly upon her vanity for the time being. It’s nice to feel his arms around her without the obstructive padding of his suit. Without the bulk of it, she fits more closely against him, his superhuman warmth like a particularly cuddly space heater pressed against her back.

“One egg or two?” She asks him, plucking one from the container on the counter.

“Mmm… Two,” he says, the deliberation making it sound more like a trivia answer than a preference.

She cracks four eggs into the pan, one at a time. “Over easy, medium, hard…?”

He grins against her neck, and she gives his hand at her hip a playful little swat with the back of her silicone spatula. “I dunno,” he says, nuzzling her. “However you like it.”

“Have you never had eggs before?” She asks, looking back at him. 

He’s got his chin propped up on her shoulder. His gaze flickers up from the sizzling pan to meet hers. “Just scrambled.”

…I was made… manufactured in a fucking lab…

She swallows a small lump in her throat, turning back to the eggs. She flips them all over easy and plates them with the toast. When she takes the toast off of the plates and begins slicing them into strips, Homelander makes an inquisitive noise.

“You’ll see,” she says cryptically, shooing him to the table as she plates their breakfasts and carries them to the table.

Homelander sits, and she sets his plate down in front of him. She sits on the adjoining corner to his, but within seconds he has a grip on her seat. The chair legs groan as he slides her closer to him, smiling at her look of surprise. “That’s better,” he says, his knee bumping hers.

He’d likely prefer she be in his lap. There’s always a lingering sense that she’s never quite close enough, even when they’re pressed tightly against one another. He might not be satisfied until he finds a way to open her up and crawl inside.

Huffing a small laugh, she gestures to his plate. “Use the toast sticks to break the yolk,” she tells him, and then demonstrates on her own meal, jabbing a piece of toast into the soft yellow yolk, coating it properly before taking a bite.

Blinking, Homelander does the same. He hums appreciatively, nodding with a mouthful of food.

“My gramma insisted that all food tastes better when it’s dipped. She always made my breakfasts this way,” she explains, her smile tinged with bittersweet nostalgia. “I can’t remember the last time I did it for myself.” 

Silence follows. She glances up to find Homelander staring intently at his plate, a cut of toast pinched between his fingers, dripping yolk back down onto the egg. Layla takes a breath to speak, but that inhale is all it takes to snap him from his thoughts, his sharp blue eyes meeting hers.

“Ryan would like this, I think,” he says. She can tell he’s working to keep his voice conversational.

“Ryan?” She echoes, though it clicks a second after she says it.

“My son,” he confirms, clearing his throat gently. She shares his trepidation as he enters this particular topic of conversation, considering the fallout the last time it was broached. He dips the toast again and takes another bite, seemingly buying time with deliberate chews.

Layla bites her tongue, choking back her own knee-jerk response. She likes children just fine, in theory. She’s had very little practical experience. Still, words of unbidden advice bubble up on her tongue as if she’s an expert. She wants to tell Homelander to go to the boy, talk to him. He told her that she had taken everything from him, presumably referring to his very public meltdown, but that isn’t true in a number of ways. He has a son out there somewhere, confused and without either of his parents.

It sets a sympathetic churn in her gut. Grieving her own parents as a child made an adult of her far too soon. She may not have raised any children herself, but she can speak as a child who was left behind.

“He’s nine. He’s strong,” Homelander continues tentatively. “I mean, really strong. Strong like me,” he says, pride underlining each word, driving out the hesitance. “He’s so much like me. I never thought I’d see it, but he’s real. He’s—” he breaks into a small, incredulous laugh. “—He’s a miracle. A real, born miracle.”

Unlike you, she surmises from his tone. He said that Vought had made him. The world has been rocked by the revelation that supes are the result of Vought’s pharmaceutical ventures, but the way Homelander talks of his son makes him sound different. An exception to that fact, somehow.

“You should go to him,” she encourages, still holding onto a level of cautiousness on the matter. “I was left behind by my parents. I don’t wish it on anyone.”

“I didn’t leave him behind,” Homelander corrects sharply. She was right to tread lightly. “He left me,” he says, though he doesn’t speak with anger so much as he does woundedness. He’s never expressed anything but love—bordering on reverence—for his son, and yet he has completely roadblocked himself from reaching out.

It’s complicated, he told her before.

“He’s nine. It’s not his job to uncomplicate things or bridge the gap,” she says as gently as she can muster, though even she can hear the weariness in her own voice. “It’s yours. He needs you to be the adult, to help the world make sense. It’s one thing to give him space, but you can’t abandon him.”

At first, there is a flash of petulant defiance in Homelander’s eyes, obvious in the tight set of his jaw. To Layla’s relief, however, it fades into quiet consideration. He looks back down to his half-finished plate.

“You can’t take personally what anyone, much less a child, does out of grief,” she says softly, reaching out to put her hand atop his where it rests on the table. “Ryan needs wisdom. Support. People who love him. He needs his father.”

He looks up at her with a level of vulnerability in those ocean blue eyes that never fails to pull her into the depths. “You think so?”

“I know so,” she says firmly. To this day, she can’t imagine what she wouldn’t do for just one more day with her own father. 

Slowly, the wateriness of his gaze becomes a sparkle. Homelander smiles. He has as many smiles as an ice cream shop has flavors, and this one says he’s just had an idea.

“What?” Layla asks after a beat, an edge of suspicion to her tone.

“Nothing,” he says placatingly. His smile shifts. She knows that flavor of smile. That one means he’s lying. “Just relieved is all. Could I use your phone?”

It’s a wonder the ease with which Homelander glides from mood to mood, as if he puts each one neatly in a box before he takes out the next one. Layla only hesitates for a second before she nods, sliding out of her chair to go and fetch her cellphone. She still needs to text Annie.

“Jesus,” she says softly, staring at her screen with a deep crease in her brow.

“What?” Homelander asks, leaning in his seat.

She has thirty missed calls, and about as many text messages.

THIS IS ASHLEY BARRET. HAVE YOU SEEN HOMELANDER? IF YOU KNOW WHERE HOMELANDER IS, PLEASE CONTACT ME. PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU KNOW WHERE HOMELANDER IS. MISS ALDEN PLEASE CONTACT ME AND ONLY ME IF YOU HAVE SEEN HOMELANDER. IF YOU CAN PLEASE INFORM HOMELANDER HE IS UP.

Ashley Barret. Layla recalls the name from Homelander’s initial booking. She had been the one to handle the details and arrange payment.

“Ashley Barret is very desperate to find you,” she says, reading the texts as she walks back towards him. “She says that you’re… up.” She stops at the table, looking at him. “What does that mean?”

The chair legs scrape audibly against the floor when Homelander stands up. “Give me that,” he says, taking the phone from her outstretched hand. His expression pinches tightly as he scrolls through the messages, lips parted. “I’m… up,” he says slowly, processing the words that mean nothing to Layla. With a tap, she hears a dial tone. Homelander holds the phone to his ear.

“Miss Alden–” answers a feminine voice immediately.

“What do you mean I’m up?” Homelander interrupts, a harshness to his voice that Layla doesn’t expect to hear outside of an argument.

“21 points with your base,” Ashley says breathlessly.

Homelander’s expression softens, becoming wonder-like. “What did you say?”

“21 points. They loved your speech!”

He looks at Layla, familiar glassiness returning to his eyes. He lifts his loose hand, which curls slowly into a fist, as if he’s taking hold of something precious, some nebulous concept of grace he had thought lost. 

“A massive 44% uptick with white males in the Rust Belt.”

“Yes,” Homelander hisses through his teeth, pumping his fist triumphantly. “Fuck yes! Yes!” With that same hand, he suddenly takes hold of the back of Layla’s neck, pulling her into a deep kiss. Her noise of surprise is muffled against his lips, his tongue a slick demand on hers.

“They’re saying you’re confident and unapologetic!” Ashley’s voice continues to prattle from the phone, though Layla’s finding it hard to pay attention with the way Homelander’s taking a fistful of her hair, bowing her back, kissing her hungrily. “That you’re not afraid to be yourself!”

He outright moans against her lips. She breaks away from him with a gasp, hand pressed against her chest. “Should I give you a moment alone with Ashley?” She asks breathlessly, only half-joking. The man is absolutely alight against her, heat radiating in his touches. The news trips an alarm bell somewhere in the back of Layla’s mind, but she’s struggling to process it in the wake of his voraciousness.

“Christ, no,” he says. The phone hits the ground with a clatter, Ashley’s confused voice continuing distantly on the line. He cups both sides of Layla’s face and pulls her back in, exhaling a pleased little growl against her lips. “Did you hear? They love me. They fucking love me,” he says between kisses, breathless and downright giddy.

Drawing back, he strokes her cheeks tenderly with his thumbs, his smile broad, eyes shining with relief, joy, and something Layla can’t quite place, though it causes a small knot to form in her gut.

“They want me to be myself.”

[bonefall]

My birthday was a couple days ago, and I got to see my bio dad for the first time in a while. He surprised me with the fact that I have a little half-sister, whom I've never met and who was adopted about two years back. So, I wondered if any situations in BB mimic this or have a theme of "secret siblings" or "secret family"? Sorry if this is a weird ask; this blog is honestly just such a cool little place and I love the way you approach the subject matter and take the flawed misogynistic foundation of the WC books and make them so much better (JUSTICE FOR BUMBLE!!!). I've also learned a lot about healthy and unhealthy relationships here and am really glad for your deep dives on Squilf and Bramble. Thanks, Bones!

Not weird at all! I really like exploring all the little nooks and crannies of complicated familial dynamics. I think one of the untapped strengths of WC (that the writers seem to be unaware of) is how their MASSIVE cast allows them to present all sorts of unique dynamics. So I like to pick up on it, since they don't.

For secret siblings...

I'm pretty heavily leaning towards Ambermoon being adopted by Wildfur, as a surrogacy. Something feels correct about it. Especially since Icecloud is getting retooled into a post-Battle of the True Eclipse birth, and a major supporting character in AVoS-era stories as a friend of Alderheart.

Thinking about it, I should zoom in and expand this. Maybe have Icecloud, somehow, acquire forbidden knowledge that would invalidate the Queen’s Rights and he (transman) struggles with if he's going to use it to expose his parents as an excuse to help Ambermoon.

(Especially since Ambermoon and Icecloud are basically nothing alike. Amber is independent, bold, and vain. Ice is jessie pinkman big-hearted, disorganized, and deceptively meek if you look past his "chill" demeanor)

But that's wip-- there's also Breezepelt and the Three, who are going to have an actual friendship. In particular I can't unsee Breeze and Lion having a deep one. I know I commit the Cardinal Sin of borderline himbo-ifying Lionblaze in BB, but I can't help it.

Hollyleaf ended up nabbing a bunch of his most violent roles to make her villainous descent smoother narratively, so BB!Lionblaze's story ends up being more focused on Ashfur's abuse, comic relief with cats in other Clans (something that the very serious Jay and Holly have a hard time providing), and the emotional fallout of the big reveal and Bramblestar's turn on them. Breezepelt slots neatly into that.

They were friends. Lionblaze's whole life came down around the reveal, everyone looking at him and his siblings differently, like they're suddenly something terrible. Why can't we find a silver lining, Breezepelt? Why can't we call ourselves brothers if the whole world is going to do it anyway? So much is changing, but THIS doesn't have to, we will take their weapon and turn it to armor, my ally, my friend, my brother.

(and when Breezepelt is lashing out at the three because of the Dark Forest's influence, Lionblaze is there, taking the blows and trying not to give in to the impulse to send him flying with a single paw)

There's also Harespring and Kestrelflight of WindClan and Owlclaw of ShadowClan. All of them are from a single litter between Whitewater and Mudclaw. She was going to raise the three of them alone as ShadowClan cats, but when the sire was smote, Whitewater felt they were cursed.

She was able to give the oldest two to their bio-uncle, Torear, but the weather was so bad that day and the runt was so sickly and small that it surely would have killed him. I don't think Owlclaw ever finds out why his mother always treated him with suspicion, but it did mess him up horribly.

Over in BB!DOTC, Thunder Storm is getting more half-siblings earlier. Clear Sky and Falling Feather had two daughters-- Pale Sky and Tiger Sky.

I want to explore the way that the various stages of Clear Sky's life acted on his kids. How any little curiosity Thunder Storm had about the life he might have had if he wasn't abandoned is crushed by seeing kittens who weren't. How Clear's favoritism of his oldest child set the trio against each other from the start. How this idea of "love" is toxic yet intoxicating.

It feels good to be the golden child. The power it gives you over his sycophants is satisfying. To know you, and you alone, have what someone else craves. Problem is, that's conditional, and it's cruel.

What Thunder Storm learns from his time with his biodad is that Clear Sky is not his father at all. He's taught him exactly what he DOESN'T want to be. There may be similarities-- in temperament, in physical prowess (though BB!Thunder is three-legged, he's still ripped), in taste and senses. But Thunder Storm's father is Shaded Flower.

(BB!Gray Wing died in the first book, rescuing Shaded Flower from being trampled by a horse. Xey're a patron of wisdom, Shaded Moss is taking the role of fatherhood to Thunder)

His sister is Rainswept Flower. His mom is Bright Storm. If there was a bond he could have had with Tiger Sky and Pale Sky, it dies simply and cruelly on the knife they used to cut each other out.

Pale might have wanted to mend it, she was the gentler one. But she dies in the First Battle along with her mother. Tiger Sky is too stubborn to accept any help, should Thunderstar offer it, and Thunderstar isn't in the business of begging for others to like him.

Naturally I'm lowkey obsessed with them lmao. I need to make a BB!DOTC overviewww

[sapphickocho]

Kokushibo: Ive had these two for ten minutes.... Muichiro & Yuichiro: *being their unhinged selves* Kokushibo: I'm not sure if I'm cut out for being a dad...

Chapter 2 of Eclipse (Tokito Traitor Au) is out now! Read it here

Kokushibo didn't adopt them. They adopted him

[strangersatellites]

trouble’s always gonna find you, baby (but so am i) 🔗

for the @steddiebang

art from @becomingfoxes and art @amethyst-crowns

with bonus art from @jellyfish-confetti and ames

explicit | 88k words | complete

Steve Harrington has spent the better part of the last five years knocking out hit after hit for the Assassin's Guild and becoming one of the most lethal agents in the business. After a series of unprecedented, wildly successful cases across the country, his boss pulls him off the active case roster for eight months. He's been keeping tabs on the Chicago Syndicate for years and has finally deemed Steve ready to take out their leader, The Sandman.

The only problem is that undercover agents have been able to turn up little to no information regarding The Sandman's identity. The only information the Guild has been able to dredge up is the name of one of their business fronts: a sophisticated private nightclub called Hellfire, and the name of its director, Syndicate member Eddie Munson.

or: Eddie is a low ranking member of the mafia and Steve is the assassin hired to kill his boss.

[galaxythreads]

i'm locking everyone who writes about abusive parents and their kids (regardless of age) in a room until they can write a storyline that ends without

the abuse being explained away or not "actually having been abuse, they were trying to protect you or insert bs excuse here"

the abusive parent child reconciling

the child is somehow at fault for not having considered their parents emotions and catering to them. yknow. as a child.

"they just couldn't reach out to you the way you needed :( sorry. He'll do better now! it actually had nothing to do with you and all the years of your life you felt ignored and belittled actually all had to do with him, and better forgive and forget!

the child having to make up because their kids "deserve to have grandparents" (not these grandparents)

emotional abuse/neglect being treated as a lesser form of abuse because it didn't leave physical wounds

moms are somehow less accountable for abuse because she's a girl and all moms are magical beings who can't be abusive somehow. (this is false)

[blurmyface4]

My love

My heartbreak

My person

When you left

My creativity left to

It's hard writing now ,love

You were my muse

Now what do I do

The pages are empty

No words in my head

How do I write without you

You are my inspiration

My love

My heart

My person

My muse

my bloody life<3

[ninyard]

If there is nobody left on this planet writing about the night Kevin Day had his hand broken, then I am dead

[absolutely-cheesy]

Broke out the cannons. Aaaaaand got my first TOTK Panic Blood Moon!

The invisible wall disappeared after this. There was nothing valuable behind it besides a truffle. Might've been a Bubbulfrog there in the past; I'd been to this cave before.

10/10 experience.

[feral-ballad]

Dulce María Loynaz, tr. by James O’Connor, from Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems

[Text ID: “You adorned my breast with a necklace of tears. / You wove me a dress with petals of blood.”]

[spatialjump05]

I find it unbelievable how you can put your blood, sweat, tears and too much time into your writing with 209392730174 instances of writer’s block and a reader can just blitz it in a few hours and go, “Right, onto the next one.”

[catastrxblues]

i am DONE with olivia rodrigo and conan gray