#even the smallest of smallest donations are welcome

[cosmic-ghost-hermit]

What is your hidden talent?

Hey, everyone! It would be super helpful if yall donated to my CashApp. I want to do this kind of work full-time. I have been told by people I read for that I am meant to do tarot reading. I am inclined to believe them because fr it has been so fun for me to see how much it helps yall. Way more fun than any retail/food industry job I've had. I feel like I am actually doing something substantial with my time. If yall want me to be able to continue to do this daily it would be so awesome if yall donated. Thank you guys in advance!

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The decks I am using today are The Tarot of the Divine, Believe in You Own Magic Oracle and The Healing Waters Oracle. Take everything that resonates and leave the rest behind but always be open to new experiences.

___________

PILE ONE

Astrology: Leo, Virgo, Scorpio

Song: I Set Fire To The Rain by Adele

Vibes: Teal, green, yellow/gold, shear white cloth, smelling smoke, burning house, swimming, mixed drinks, hot chocolate, braided hair, locked doors, house plants, deep skin tone, 888, shells, feathers, crayons, colored hair, ares

Cards: 2 of Wands, 9 of Cups, 5 of Wands, Mural, Gold, Cleansing, Into the Unknown

Welcome in, pile 1! You have two hidden talents. One that you use rather regularly but unknowingly and the other you have yet to unlock. The energy I am getting from the cards makes me think the two talents are intertwined. ALSO Trigger Warning for abuse in this reading. It is VERY HEAVY. Do not read if you do not think you are ready.

The first hidden talent is starting new from the ground up. I know to you it might not sound that interesting. You have no idea how hard it can be to start new things for others. Starting from the ground up is scary and intimidating. Organizing the chaos in your mind and project that chaos clearly into reality. I see you are probably an artist of some kind. You might paint, make clay sculptures, or hand-make intricate jewelry of some kind. I see you learned to hone this ability because of a karmic relationship. They made you feel adored and cherished until you were in their grasp. When you were trapped with them, they turned on you. It's giving love bombing. This person literally blew up on you over the smallest things. I see a shattered tea/coffee cup. You stayed with them for a long time even though you knew what they were doing was wrong. You had to completely shred the life you had with them. You had to start your life from scratch. Which is why you are so used to the idea of starting with nothing and building up. The pain that you felt from that past connection still hurts you to this day. You probably have PTSD from the situation you were in. I am so sorry you had to go through all that. You didn't deserve to be treated like that.

The second hidden talent is transmutation. I see that the reason you haven't unlocked it yet is because you fear change. What happened to you in that shitty relationship makes it way easier for you to start over than to change the situation. You are scared to see things to the end. I see that this fear reveals itself in your artwork. You probably have many unfinished projects because you view yourself as incapable of seeing them through. Which by the way isn't true you are so capable of anything you want to do. Heal the hurt part of you that thinks you are incapable. Your ex was the one who instilled that in you. Don't let that motherfucker get you down. Especially if they aren't in your life anymore. Don't let them have that power over you, love. You deserve to feel good. Face your fear of them being right. You and I both know they aren't. When you do unlock this ability you will be able to transmute all the pain that asshole put you through into beautiful art. You will be able to finish all of those unfinished projects. You will be able to find true love within yourself. You will find that you were never broken like that bitch said you were. You were always lovely, sweet, and accommodating. You were always creating love everywhere you went.

_______

PILE TWO

Astrology: Sagittarius, Gemini, Pisces

Song: I Love Rock n Roll by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

Vibes: Navy Blue, white, peach, deer, horses, libraries, books, coffee, hot springs, scones, pillow forts, maxi-skirts, cowboys, mermaids, 333, wine, fine dining, tall trees, athena, artemis

Cards: The Hermit, 3 of Wands, Knight of Swords, Nostalgia, Stars, Water Codes, The Healing Lagoon

Hello, pile 2! You have one secret power but trust me it's a good one. You have the ability to pull information out of thin air. You are crazy smart. People might not think it when they look at you because you try not to flaunt it too wildly. You prefer to stay under the radar when it comes to intellect. This makes people underestimate you. I feel that some of yall reading like this for various reasons but others really fucking hate it. You have some insecurity around this skill. That's why you don't think it is a good skill tbh. You think a lot on the go even while in conversation which makes people see you as kind of ditzy. Even so, you absolutely obliterate at trivia night. Your friends come to you first when they need obscure information. You might have been a really lonely kid and spent a lot of your time reading away the time. For a big chunk of your childhood you found your companionship in novels. You may have been bullied for this. Don't let those people's words get you down. Honestly, they were just jealous of your intelligence. The friends you have now love to hear you infodump about your favorite books. They love to hear everything you know about sea creatures and astrology/astronomy. They ask questions not to mock you but because they genuinely are interested in what you have to say. You are magnificent. Your mind is unparalleled. How people perceive you has nothing to do with what is actually happening in your mind. It is just their projections of themselves onto you. Ignore them lmao. <3

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PILE THREE

Astrology: Cancer, Taurus, Libra

Song: Stay by Zedd

Vibes: All shades of blue, creeks, hanging flowers, 9999, faires, watermelon, paint-brush, rabbits, bird chips, car horn, pearls, lily pads, walking in the rain, lanterns, puppies, beaches, zues

Cards: Queen of Cups, Page of Cups, Ace of Wands, 9 of Pentacles, Raindrops, Stagnant Waters, Light House

My dear pile 3, welcome to your reading. You have a hidden ability that I feel is only hidden from you. Everyone else seems to know this about you. You have the power of hospitality and refuge. You are a safe place for everyone you know to come to if they need it. You are the type of person to tell everyone you know if they need a place to stay for any reason, all they gotta do is ask. You have a motherly energy about you, even if you aren't a woman. You always have emergency snacks for occasions like that. You host parties and everyone always leaves feeling 10 times better than when they arrived. You are the friend that lends a hand when needed. You the kind of person to have a shoulder ready for anyone to lean on, even if you don't know them well. The most beautiful thing about this is that these actions are never self-sacrificing. You have an abundance of all that you need so you can be generous constantly to those in need. I see you resting when necessary and listening to your body. I see you volunteering in your community. I think recently you helped clean up a beach or something. Maybe you organized it? Your energy is so soothing. You are just amazing, my friend. Absolutely the softest heart on earth. I also see you might foster animals! You take in rescue animals and nurse them back to health until they can find a forever home. ;n; You are the definition of an earth angel. Please see how amazing you are and how big your heart is. I wanna be your friend so bad from hearing all of this. Never stop being this beautiful of a soul, my dear. You are perfect.

_________

PILE FOUR

Astrology: Aries, Capricorn, Aquarius

Song: Black Girl Magic by Londrelle

Vibes: Cyan, yellow, rusty red, iridescent, sake, 4c hair, magic, spell casting, curse breaking, singing, tea, pottery, steam-train, festivals, celebration, 963, small forests, mercury/hermes, lambs, Oshun

Cards: The Star, Ace of Cups, 2 of Cups, 6 of Swords, 7 of Wands, Tower, Spaceship, Thank You

PILE 4, WOW. Welcome. Your energy is just sooo woah. You are so indescribable. All that you have been through. Everything you have seen. All I can say is, wow. Your secret power is balance. It is a well-earned hidden ability. You have been through so much to gain the skills that I see in this reading. You have traveled so far. When I first looked at the reading I could not pin down exactly what skill you had because you are just so good at EVERYTHING. I legitimately out loud said, "Everything??? Everything." You know how to take care of yourself. You are an excellent lover. If you are a parent you are good at that too. You are chasing your dreams. I see you performing as a singer or a musician and your talent stuns everyone in the room. You are the best manifester in a 20 miles radius. You are a witch for sure. You have worked so hard on breaking karmic familial curses and you succeeded. You succeeded far past your soul's initial expectations. You are everything, my love. Like literally everything. Then it hit me. You are a tightrope walker. You are balancing everything perfectly. Have you ever heard of Rock Cairns? They are stacks of rocks that hikers add to as they pass by on park trails. You have turned your life into something like that. You have perfectly balanced every stone you passed in your life in a pile and you manage it all on your own. First off, I want to tell you what a good job you are doing. What a good job you have been doing since you were born. Second thing, PLEASE REST WHEN YOU NEED IT OHMYGODS. You don't need me to tell you that though. You are probably smoking a joint right fucking now while reading this or you just got done doing that. No notes, baby. You got this. I just think Spirit wanted to remind you of your magnificence.

[sdwolfpup]

More Joy Day 2024 is next week!

And I finally put together a real post about it. Progress!

What is More Joy Day? An explanation cribbed from my original post:

Years ago, I was reading the American Idol recaps over on Televisionwithoutpity.com and I came to this paragraph, written by the recapper Jacob:

Some dick cuts you off on the highway, and you give yourself the pass to be a dick to the next five customers, and your bad mood fades by lunchtime, and you forget the dick on the highway, you forget the color of his car, you forget how he was on the phone with his ex-wife, yelling about custody of their kids, and how he never meant to cut you off in the first place, he was just distracted. Your day continues as planned, and at lunch you check your websites and read a funny recap, and you maybe laugh out loud, and you go home and watch TV. But those five guys give themselves the pass to be dicks to the next five -- they're having a bad day, so it's okay just this once, and they're happy again by lunch -- and those twenty-five become six hundred twenty-five, and those six twenty-five become a million, and you've added to the sum total of anger in the world. But it works with love, too, and kindness. ... Your donation is something tangible, but what it means is something altogether more powerful, and it's that you continue to stand, and you continue to remember that you're not alone, and with reverence for this fact, you can't help but add to joy. Which is your entire job, from the day you're born until the day you die: more joy.

These times are desperately in need of joy, and it is incumbent on us to do our small part if we can, to send the ripples out into the world.

So every year since 2008, in the interest of spreading more joy, I’ve proposed that on a designated day in early January we each engage in one act, either online or physical space (or both!), which brings joy to another person, in the hopes that that person will spread that joy further, and exponentially onward.

This year's More Joy Day will be on Friday, January 12!

EVERYONE is welcome and encouraged to participate in even the smallest way! Some ideas of things we can do, fannish and otherwise:

Write a fic, make a podcast, make a vid, or make a fanart for someone.

Buy someone paid discord or tumblr or Dreamwidth time.

Leave someone a nice comment on their work.

Say something nice about someone.

Say something nice about something fannish you love and encourage squee.

Donate five dollars to the charity of someone's choice.

Send flowers to an online friend in a different city.

Buy someone you know a present.

Plant a tree or a flower in someone's honor and take a picture of it and post it.

When somebody cuts you off on the road, wish them well and hope they get where they’re going safely.

Make somebody a friendship bracelet. Or a construction paper heart.

Call someone you love and tell them so.

Buy someone lunch.

Give a stranger a compliment.

Put up a Zoom background celebrating the person you're talking to.

Or anything else you can think of! The sky's the limit.

Then on Friday, make a tumblr or DW post or tweet or skeet or snapchat or WHATEVER, saying what you've done (and/or a note that it's More Joy day), and that will hopefully help spread things further.

I look forward to sharing the joy with all of you!

[ohforficsake]

The Margay: Chapter 11

What Happens in the After

prev / series masterlist / main masterlist

Summary: Santiago recruits Frankie to contract for a covert agency that pairs them with danger in more ways than one. A series of one-shot snippets taking place during and around missions.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Sniper!OFC Audrey 'Moose' Goddard

Word Count: ~10.9K

WARNINGS: Triggers for discussion of childhood abandonment / absentee parents. Please read with care.

Rating: Explicit 18+ / language / oral (f receiving), dirty talk, unprotected piv, creampie / Minors DNI

A/N: And so we come to the end of this little story. Thank you to each and every one of you who have shown interest, shared, commented, and supported me in general throughout this little journey. I can't tell you how much I have looked forward to your comments on these, the beautifully phrased ones and the incoherent screaming ones alike. My inbox is always open for incoherent screaming about these two.

Chapter Moodboard

A note: This chapter takes place in Jamaica, which was impacted this week by Hurricane Beryl. I'm always hesitant to tell people what to do with and where to send their money, but if you are so inclined, I would urge you to make even a small donation to a reputable organization that aligns with your beliefs to help provide aid to Jamaica and the wider Caribbean in the wake of that storm.

Dividers by @cafekitsune

There’s a soft shave and a haircut knocked against the door to the hut.

She has a backpack slung over her shoulder and one hand stuffed into the pockets of cargo shorts. 

The other hand’s wrapped around the dregs of her welcome drink. 

And to Frankie’s grief-sore eyes, Audrey looks like hope dredged from the bottom of his chest and given a heartbeat.

He steps aside and allows her in and as she slips past she doesn’t reach for him. 

“Hi,” he whispers when he shuts the door. 

“Hi,” she echoes.

She reflexively twists to avoid his hand when he reaches to help her out of her backpack. 

And it twists Frankie’s viscera.

“How was your flight?” He rakes a hand through his curls. He has the louvers shut and the hut is lit only by the faintest glow of sunlight through the cracks. 

“Yeah, was good.”

“Where were you coming from?”

“Why am I here, Frankie?” Audrey asks gently.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve already said that.”

“I’m trying to show you that I mean it.”

“Why.”

Because I need you.

You keep me from using.

You remind me who I am.

It all rattles around his brain. 

And yet none of it feels like it’s enough.

Because what about her…

What about her. What about him is worth anything to her. How could he ever be. The addict. The body.

She doesn’t need him to fix her car or make her come.

She doesn’t even need him to watch her six.

“Stay with me?” Is what he asks instead. “Here. For a few days.” 

In the smallest voice she’s ever heard him use. 

Not even languid words lazed across the velvet of her skin after she’s poured pleasure into his blood have ever reached this level of softness.

And she puts her backpack down on wood planks because she realizes he’s ready to apologize but hasn’t yet found the words.

She walks over to the doors that lead out to the balcony and flips both sets of louvers open. “You seen the beach yet?”

“Haven’t made it out.”

“It’s nice. Get changed,” she nods towards the bathroom door, stepping out of Frankie’s path.

His palms burn as he slips through to the bathroom.

She's no different with him as they laze in the sun.

No different except that she hasn't touched him, or reached out for him in kind.

Condensation drips from a chilled bottle of water and lands on her inner thigh, slipping because it’s pulled by gravity, and gravity taunts Frankie as his eyes follow the drop’s trajectory from behind dark lenses.

The dew of sweat highlights the curve of her breasts and Frankie catches a pale man who looks as though he considers mayonnaise a spice glare as he passes them on the sand.

Frankie taps on her chair to signal that he’s heading into the ocean and dives furiously the moment he makes it out far enough.

He can’t clear his head.

He can’t find the words.

Trevor, a benevolent bartender, attempts to give him a word of advice.

“You love that girl?”

And Frankie stares hard into his melting rum punch and then back up at kind, light brown eyes.

“I do.”

“Tell her, brother. Woman like that? Once in a lifetime and you’re gonna lose her.”

“She doesn’t need me.”

“No woman needs a man, brother.”

“She doesn’t love me.”

“She does.” He skates a rag over the bartop without looking up. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Audrey’s in the sea and doesn’t see Frankie staring with the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

He tips Trevor treble for the drink.

The bartender’s words rattle around Frankie’s brain the rest of the day.

That night Audrey’s cradled in white cotton with her nose in a book when he emerges from having brushed his teeth.

Frankie fishes the spare comforter out of the closet and moves to the left side of the bed, pulling a pillow from next to her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

And she offers half a laugh.

“Frankie—“

“It’s fine, I—“

“Frankie you’re not sleeping on the floor, that’s insane,” she gazes at him incredulously through the gauze of the mosquito net.

“I wanna give you your space.”

“It’s a king sized bed, Francisco, we’ve slept on far smaller…”

They’ve slept on far smaller under friendlier circumstances. Frankie’s broad, heavy form draped over her back, his nose nuzzled in her hair.

It flashes through his brain.

“I’ll sleep on the day bed.”

“Frankie you’re gonna get eaten alive by every biting insect in Jamaica, you’re not sleeping outside. You’re gonna get fucking Dengue. If it bothers you that much I can go down to reception and book another hut it’s fine,” she peels back the comforter and moves to climb off the bed.

“No.” It rushes from his mouth. “No, no don’t leave.”

He puts the pillow back on the bed.

Lengthwise.

Between them.

And grabs another for his head.

It irritates her enough that she nearly forgets that he still hasn’t apologized. She nearly reaches over the physical barrier between them to pull it from behind his teeth with her tongue.

She closes her eyes and breathes in and out through her nose.

And turns back to her book.

The next day they barely speak but to coordinate showers, which beach they’re going to visit, what one wants to drink when the other is heading to the beach bar.

Audrey burns through her second book and Frankie just burns with the heat of regret.

He’s the one dragging this out.

That night after dinner, they walk back to their hut in silence, both just this side of drunk on rum. A bartender mistook Frankie’s trepidatious buzzing and Audrey’s carefree chat as him being nervous to propose and kept free drinks flowing. They’ve put down more together before but Frankie is a tequila man and although rum is Audrey’s ancestral drink, she hardly touches dark liquor anymore.

Frankie stuffs his fists into the pockets of his linen pants as they navigate shell-laced concrete and figures drunk isn’t the state of mind to do this but drunk also won't let him wait any longer.

“Audrey.”

She looks to him without saying his name, but her pace doesn’t falter. She spins on her heel and starts walking backwards as a reggae version of One More Night starts playing from some far-off speaker mounted in a tree.

 There’s music in her step.

“Audrey, wait,” he reaches for her arm but thinks better of manhandling her again.

He replaces his fist in his pocket.

He kicks at a loose pebble.

He skates a hand through his hair.

“Audrey, I fucked up.”

Big green eyes meet his gaze.

“You did.”

“I was living in a fantasy that night and when I saw you. That night in DC.”

Her eyes soften now.

“You looked so beautiful. Perfect. So at ease in a place where I was so lost.”

“You always are. Beautiful.” 

“Everything just hit me at once. And it’s not an excuse, but I’ve thought about that night in Honduras every night since.”

“When Benny was out there with us.”

“When I called you mine. And you hesitated and I know you told me to drop it but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

“Frankie,” she whispers as the ocean breeze whips through her curls.

“It got in my head, Aud.”

“And I didn’t know how to handle it, didn’t know how to just talk to you and I let it fester until I lashed out, like, like a fucking child.”

“It was wrong. I—I was wrong. I ripped at you because seeing you there—on someone else’s arm—someone smarter and richer and better than me tore me up even though you didn’t do anything. You didn’t do anything.”

She steps closer to him.

“You looked like a bride.”

It makes her heart drop from her chest. 

“You felt precious and unattainable and I ripped you off of your pedestal and broke you because I finally realized that maybe everything you said is true.”

“I can’t have you so I broke you. Into the most beautiful shards I’ve ever seen.”

There are tears streaming down his face now.

“And I’ve regretted it every moment since because I’m not a sculptor and I don’t know how to put you back together. Us. I don’t know how to put us back together.”

“I was cruel.”

“And I’ve deserved to sit in it like this," he gestures broadly over his torso, "with this—this this weight crushing my chest.”

“And it’s okay if you’re done, Audrey. I’m not going to beg you to stay if you don’t want to.”

He wipes an angry hand across one cheek.

“I’d understand it if you’re done.”

And Audrey stares back at him through eyes as big as saucers before she speaks.

“Do you want to be done, Francisco?”

“No. This is me trying not to be done, Audrey.”

And she considers him more carefully than she ever has before. 

Staring through him.

And when she blinks hard to clear it she must be satisfied with what she saw because she holds out her hand. 

“Can we keep talking back in the room?” She asks him softly, because tears are still streaming down his cheeks and another couple is heading down the path.

“Yeah,” he whispers, swiping a palm down his face. But he doesn’t take her hand. 

And it twists a piece of her heart. 

She starts off again and when the gravel ends and the cement begins she can’t hear him following her anymore.

She’s doesn’t look back.

She stops to love on the petite tabby cat that roams the resort and she supposes Frankie stops somewhere behind her. 

Audrey knows that Frankie loves cats and the fact that he’s not standing right beside her makes her stomach roil. 

When they make it to their hut she heads straight for the ice bucket, scooping a clean glass through it and grabbing the unopened bottle of complimentary rum before she heads out onto the porch. 

Frankie grabs a glass and flips on the porchlight.

It washes out color and bathes her in red. 

His weight falls heavy into the chair across from her, heels of his palms scrubbing his eyes as she splits the ice and fills his glass before her own. 

“Whatever happens,” she starts and Frankie's gaze falls heavy on her, “I want you to know. There is no one else. I wasn’t—“

The back of the chair creaks as she braces her form against teak.

“I wasn’t fucking anyone else before you and I haven’t fucked anyone else in the two years since Nicaragua.” 

She meets his eyes now. 

“I want you to know that. For you.”

And he offers the barest nod.

“I haven’t been able to think about anyone else since Nicaragua,” she tosses offhandedly. 

“And frankly— I don’t really know what to do with that. But it’s the truth.”

Frankie doesn’t dare let himself hang on it, swallowing a mouthful of rum to singe the hope that curls around his heart.

“And I know I should have picked up the phone, it works two ways, right? I shouldn’t have run the way I did, and I should have said something to you but—“

A ragged breath.

“I was scared. You deserved better than that, Frankie. And I’m sorry.”

They’re quiet for a long time. Each working up the courage to take this where it needs to go.

And it’s Audrey who finds it first.

“Frankie?”

“Yeah, babe,” he says weakly as he meets her gaze.

“What does ‘not being done’ look like to you?”

His glassy gaze doesn’t leave hers.

“You. Us? Some kind of future.”

“What is a future, Frankie?”

“Everything.”

“There is no white picket fence, barefoot and pregnant dream with me, Francisco. I’m not a nurturer. I can’t give you a normal life and a home and chi—”

“Where—why does this matter, Aud?”

“It’s what you deserve,” she murmurs.

“What?”

Her voice is monotone when she starts. “You deserve to return at the end of each day to a lovely warm home and a warm meal with your daughter and a beautiful wife who’s an amazing mother.” Rattling off what she believes to be fact as though it’s plain as day. “You deserve as many kids as you want because you’re an amazing dad. You deserve—a home that’s filled with laughter, Frankie. You deserve a safe home filled with love.”

“Is that what you think I want? Audrey, is that really your only blueprint for happiness? That suburban fuckin’ nightmare?”

“It’s what I thought I wanted,” she whispers in a voice so small that Frankie nearly reaches out to hold her before she shrinks into nothingness.

“Aud,” he coos.

“It’s what I thought I wanted as a girl. Something better than what I had.”

And he can tell she’s struggling against the lock that secures the box of her memories. The childhood hopes and dreams. The things she packed away to survive this long.

He can tell she’s struggling against tears.

“Tell me,” he whispers, leaning in across the small table. “You don’t have to carry it on your own anymore. I’m here. I’m going to be here. Talk to me, Aud.”

“I just wanted—a— a home.” She stutters. “With someone who loved me. Someone I could love. I didn’t— have that.”

“We moved a lot when I was a kid. Home was never anywhere for long. Didn’t really have time to make friends, stopped trying.”

“It always felt like no one ever wanted me around. And I mean, I was the perpetual new girl with the weird eyes and the frizzy hair, I can’t blame them.”

“Aud…”

“It doesn’t matter, Frankie,” she takes a rough sip of her rum. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. It hurt you.”

She’s quiet for a beat, teeth sinking into her bottom lip to keep its tremor at bay. 

And Francisco sits with her, listening to frogs sing a midnight hymn.

“I just remember feeling like everything was my fault. When we had to move. When my parents fought—and that was a lot. Like, wake up in the morning to them yelling at each other kind of a lot. Just, all of it. I took all of it on myself.” She sniffs hard and runs fingers through her curls. “I didn’t really understand what else adults could fight about at the time.” A dismissive gesture of her hand.  “They became so distant. And it wasn’t always like that but life just got in the way., you know? They were doing their best with what they knew.”

“But I got in the way, I guess. I just grew up by myself,” she rubs at her nose with the back of her hand.  “Told myself I didn’t need anyone because I never had anyone. Not for a long time. I didn’t have anyone because I wasn’t enough to keep them around.”

“That’s not true,” he whispers.

It’s a different kind of grief to know a lover’s pain.

“I made my friends up,” she offers a weak smile, “I made them up just so I wouldn’t be alone.” 

“Because I was a person everyone abandoned.”

Audrey whispers, “and I just wanted to be loved so badly.”

And where she’s doing everything in her power to keep tears from breaking, they flow freely down Frankie’s cheeks.

She was a child. Frankie thinks. A child who needed love, needed to be held and told that she was someone’s whole world. And he can’t go back in time to change that but he wants so desperately to give it to her now.

“It’s why I ran. From you, that morning,” she meets his eyes now, “I fell back into a bad habit of running. I left you before you had a chance to leave me.”

And Frankie realizes the true weight of what he said all those weeks ago.

What he hissed into the face of a scared little girl.

He’d fuck you but he wouldn’t keep you. Yeah—I wouldn’t either.

She left because he said he would.

He has the briefest flash of his daughter’s face.

And it cracks him wide open.

“I wasn’t kind to you, Aud.”

He wants to reach out for her hand, but he isn’t sure if he can. If he’s allowed. “I wasn’t the safe place I should have been. But I want to be. I want to show you that everything you’ve felt isn’t true. I want to try.”

“I want to build a home that’s warm and safe. And I’m not talkin’ about having babies. I’m talking about us. A place that’s ours. Filled with laughter. Filled with love.”

“And I only want to do that—with you.”

“It’s not safe with me, Frankie. I don’t leave loose ends but I can’t—anywhere I am, anyone I’m with isn’t safe.”

“And you think I am? On my own, you think I am?”

He braces his elbows on his knees and leans in over the table.

“I made that choice a long time ago. Before you, Aud. I can’t unring that bell either.”

“Frankie,” she looks to him, eyes swimming with a gentle shake of her head, “I ca—I don’t. Know how.”

“Let’s figure it out together?"

“What do you want, Frankie?

“I want you.”

“You don’t know me, Frankie.”

Still she fights to push him away.

“You don’t know where my parents are from or the places that I lived. How many siblings I have. You don’t know what my favorite band is or or or my favorite fucking color. And I don’t know those things about you.”

He leans back in his chair, lips pressed into a hard line. “I know that you’re grasping at straws right now because these aren’t real questions, Audrey…”

“No, no of course they’re not. But that’s my point. We’ve known each other for two years in some fucked up, protracted honeymoon phase. Every few weeks we fly to a new country and fuck and maybe kill a few people in the process before we go our separate ways. I’ve never even slept in your bed, Francisco.”

“And I’ve barely slept in yours.”

He stares at her through wide eyes. Soft yet full of conviction.

“But I’ve cried in it.”

“I’ve seen you in crisis. I’ve seen the way you look when you’re lining up a shot. The pure determination on your face that one time you dragged Santi out of live fire because you had to get him somewhere safe. You were unshakable.”

He tips his head in an effort to catch her gaze where it’s locked on the floorboards.

“I’ve seen you look at me when you thought I was dying, Aud.”

“I’ve seen you.”

“You love in the sharpest corners of life. You love your people, Audrey. You care for their souls. You move the earth to keep them safe. To protect them. Because you care.”

“And there are people who care about you. People that love you. I love you.”

“You don’t even know my real name, Frankie.” She whispers low with glassy eyes, still trying to shake him from this delusion. 

And what should have dropped as a bombshell barely causes a ripple.

“You’ve always said that you couldn’t give me anything more than what we’ve had, but I think it’s because you don’t allow yourself to try, Audrey. I don’t want a nine to five with you. I don’t want coming home to dinner and a martini, or or or soccer game pickups and ballet practice drop-offs in a minivan. I just want you.”

“I have laughter with you. I have love with you in my life. Anywhere you are feels like home to me, and I know I haven’t lived up to being the same for you yet…”

And he thinks he hears “you are” fall from her lips as he finishes, “but I want to. I want to—with you.”

“I want to know you’ll be there in the morning and I want to get to hold you at night. I want to see you smile in city lights and I want to hold your hand in the rain. I want to go on dates and meet your friends. I want to close down bars with you. I want to do this properly. For real. I want to love you. And I want you to let yourself be loved.”

“Because I love you, Audrey.”

“I LOVE you.”

Frankie’s eyes are wide with sincerity when she looks up.

And a sudden rake of anger chafes over him.

“Don’t react.”

Firmly but kindly.

With salt on his cheeks.

“Don’t mask your shit with the lies you tell yourself. You’re not that kid anymore, Aud. You don’t have to make it up. I’m here. And I love you. And I’m not fucking going anywhere. Not if you don’t want me to.”

“And I don’t think you do.”

“And don’t tell me that you’re a horrible person who doesn’t deserve love because of what you’ve done, either. I’ve done it too. And I know you don’t think I’m a monster even after what I’ve done to you, so that dog don’t hunt.”

“So don’t spit out a lie right here to my face.”

“Please.” 

And Frankie knows this is it. 

She can forsake it now and it would be over. Over because she doesn’t want any of it. 

Whether out of fear. 

Denial. 

Overwhelm.

She could run again. Right in this moment. Leave knowing he loved her.

Leave because she can’t take it.

And that’s something Frankie can’t fix.

But he has one last plea.

“Whatever happens. Please don’t lie to me about that, Audrey.”

At least give me this to hold on to.

Something to remember you by.

The ghost in the trees. 

“I don’t stick around after making a shot.”

Maybe just this once.

And for all Francisco Morales has seen of the woman he knows as Audrey Goddard.

He’s never seen her cry.

But the red porch light catches the wet streak making its way down her cheekbone to drip off of her chin when she turns her head to meet his eyes.

“I love you, Audrey,” he repeats, as firmly as he dares.

“And I think you’re crying because yo—”

“I love you too.”

And Frankie’s heart stops in his chest.

Trevor was right. 

“I love you, Frankie. And I don’t know what to do with it.”

And the tears flow freely now. From both sets of eyes.

“And I’m sorry that I’m the one that loves you. Because I don’t know how. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know what normal is, what that looks like. I don’t know how much longer I can do this job, but I don’t know how to leave. I don’t know where I go. I don’t know what it looks like. In the after.”

“It looks like whatever we want, Audrey.”

“I don’t know how to live, Frankie. I only know how to not die.”

“And I’m sorry that that’s all I have to give to you. But I want to. If you’ll take it. I want to.”

“Can we figure it out together?" He asks, "Would that be okay?”

“Because I want all of it. All of you. Everything that hurts. Everything you’re scared of. I want to do everything in my power never to hurt you again.”

Don’t run away from me again.

He finally takes her hand that’s resting on the table between two massive, gentle fists because he can’t hold back anymore.

“And can we stop all of this, pretending like we’re strangers? Please can I kiss you and touch you and hold you again?” He pleads with a squeeze of his fingers. “I’m dying without you.”

“I didn’t know if you still wanted to.”

“Audrey, of course I want to.”

And he catches her where she leaps to her feet, chair clattering against the deck.

The force of her knocks the wind from his lungs as he folds her into his arms.

Pressing her against his heart. 

And Frankie breathes again for what feels like the first time in weeks.

And he feels Audrey breathe too.

Stuttering and damp against his collarbone.

And she pulls away, causing momentary panic before he feels her take his face in her hands.

One chaste kiss followed by one fervent one before she slips her tongue into his mouth.

Like she hasn’t tasted him in years.

“Frankie,” she sobs when she breaks the kiss, burying her nose against the thick column of his neck with her arms around his waist as the massive palm cupped at the base of her skull holds her tight there. “I love you."

“I love you, baby,” Frankie repeats as his eyes slip closed with the relief of reunion.

Of holding her right back here where she fits.

Of knowing he isn’t going to let her go again. 

Audrey presses her lips to his neck, feeling his pulse jump against her skin. 

And after a while she sniffles, “you taste like bug spray.”

And Frankie roars with laughter.

With relief.

“Come.”

He takes her hand and leads her through to the wet room-style bathroom. He starts up one of the shower heads, testing the temperature of the spray before shaking the drops from his hand.

“You can go first.”

She has one leg crossed in front of the other, one hand on the teak countertop. “Stay?” She whispers.

And a smile tugs at the corner of Frankie’s mouth as he kicks off his shoes and helps her from her sandals, shutting them on the outside of the bathroom door.

He cups her jaw gently, pressing his lips to hers once again as her fingers move under his collar, around to the buttons of his polo shirt as he does the same for her. Frankie’s eyes glitter in the low light as she slips fabric from her shoulders. They help each other undress, her hands at the hem of his shirt, his fingers carefully unfastening the zip at the back of her linen skirt.

Layer by layer they bare themselves to one another until Frankie takes her hand and leads her under the spray. 

“Let me?” He asks with soft eyes.

He starts with her hair, lathering shampoo at her scalp with strong but deft fingers, hand at her hairline to shield her eyes on the rinse, before slicking conditioner through midway to the ends.

Audrey smiles at his intentional attention to detail. 

His daughter has curly hair too. 

The humidity of the shower chokes out the humidity of the night as he quickly tends to his own hair because he won’t let her. 

He snatches shower gel from a corner shelf and a rolled washcloth from the sink, working up a lather before turning her to face him. 

He holds her chin between his thumb and forefinger, kissing her slowly at first and then more deeply with an impatient tongue. Audrey’s hands soothe over a stomach that’s more toned since last she held him, a consequence of losing himself for hours with Benny and Will at the gym.

“May I?” Frankie whispers against her lips and she nods, giving him permission to take the washcloth over her skin. 

And what began as a need to show care now turns to worship. Down her neck, over her arms and back, around her hips and thighs, down to her toes. She lets him, watching as he does the same for himself before flipping on the handheld shower head to rinse soap away.

It’s in this moment that he realizes he’s never actually seen the scars.

Because he’s never seen her until tonight.

He’s only ever seen her as perfect.

He’s never seen her pain.

He’s never actually seen her as fallible. As mortal.

He does now.

Frankie sees her skin anew. 

And it makes her all the more precious.

Frankie slots the handheld showerhead back into its spot, pressing his chest to her back, taking the brunt of the main spray as he sweeps wet hair to curl around her shoulder. Lips fall against the symbol at the back of her neck. Over the lines of moose antlers. 

The scars of her own making. 

He kneads the feathery stretch marks at the flare of her hips and the meat of her thighs, humming contentedly.

Where she grew into herself.

He runs two fingers reverently over a thread of lighter brown skin on her right shoulder before pressing a kiss there.

“Dislocated shoulder. Torn rotator cuff. Gordon patched me up.” She offers.

Bits of things she’s said in the past begin to echo in his mind. 

Frankie wants to ask what happened because he wants to know all of her stories. 

And Frankie figures that he shouldn’t hold back anymore. So he does.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to—“ he immediately apologizes.

She cranes her neck, asking for his mouth and he obliges, allowing her to press a kiss soft to his lips. “I want to.”

“Warehouse raid,” she runs her hands over his forearms where they’re locked around her waist. “Was up on a catwalk, a newbie tripped an alarm, concussion grenade went off and I fell, dislocated it. Slammed it back into the joint before I passed out. FBI managed the extraction, actually.”

Frankie hums his understanding, hands moving around her waist and down her spine.

“Here?” He asks of the faint echo of a slash just over the wings of her hip bones.

“Caught the blade of a knife, can’t remember when. Just lucky it wasn’t the pointy end. I’d be out a kidney.”

She turns to face him and meets his gaze, sweeps wet hair from his forehead and thumbs his cheek.

Warm dark eyes map her face, thumb settling on a scar at her temple, half hidden by her hairline as his other hand smooths over the panes of her back. 

“This?” He murmurs, stomach churning preemptively.

“Assassination attempt.”

“You didn’t make your shot?”

“On me.”

And Frankie’s fingers stop their ministrations as his blood runs cold.

“Range Rover with a reinforced chassis smashed my car between itself and a tree at fifty miles an hour. On purpose. Shot the driver before he could finish the job.”

“This,” she holds her wet hair back off of the scar, “was some kind of mangled metal. My car or his, I’ve got no idea.”

She settles her hands at the small of his back, “but I uh,” she starts, eyes darting over his shoulder and back, “I wasn’t okay for a long while after that.”

Frankie pulls her tight to him, one palm holding the base of her skull, pressing her face to his neck. 

“Brain was pretty scrambled,” she whispers against his collarbone. 

Frankie lays a kiss to her hair, letting up the pressure on her head to press his lips against her neck.

Down her sternum.

Tongue laving over her skin as he sinks to his knees.

Water from the spray follows his path and he spits out what makes it into his mouth.

He only has a taste for her. 

Her waist fits in the span of his hands as his lips find a round scar with rough margins just under her left breast.

He already knows what would have caused this.

“Bogotá.” She whispers.

And he presses his forehead to her stomach, drawing a rough breath through his nose.

“Audrey—” he whimpers on a ragged breath.

“I’m here,” she murmurs, carding a hand through his wet hair. 

Thumbing one cheekbone. 

Frankie asks now with touch.

His thumb fits against a lighter patch of skin just below her kneecap.

“Tripped on a sidewalk.”

He smiles and presses a kiss there.

His palm splays up over her thigh and the faint, stuttering smatter of marks there as she shower pelts his shoulders.

“Road rash. Controlled motorbike crash.”

His tongue traces them. Locking their taste away.

Thumbs skim over two small, identical scars just below each hipbone. 

“Had my tubes removed.”

And Frankie has seen too many movies, because he stares up at her with a savagely protective look in his eyes.

She soothes a hand over his wet curls and reads him dead on when she answers, “my choice, Francisco.”

“Good,” he says firmly, pressing his lips to each before he takes the flat of his teeth and his tongue over one hipbone.

He presses her against the wall with his palms, the bridge of his nose catching against her slit before he presses a kiss to her mound.

“Fell in love with you,” Audrey breathes on a sigh as her head falls back.

Frankie hums low and it thrums straight through her.

He moves slowly despite his impatience. 

A kiss at the swell of flesh just above her clit. His tongue against the crease of her thigh. 

His nose against where she’s wet for him, catching her slick on his bottom lip. 

Humming as his tongue darts out for a taste. 

“Frankie,” Audrey lets go on a cracked sigh, both hands tangled in his curls. 

“Baby,” he answers, palms settling on her hip bones as he holds her against the wall and guides one leg over his shoulder.

Finally his tongue slips through her folds and she gasps and moans. Giving him the breath from her lungs as his tongue dips inside of her and he lets slip a growl.

She tastes of salvation.

Of every dream he’s had for the past three months. 

The past two years.

She tastes of the rest of his life. 

And he drinks until his thirst is quenched by trembling muscles and full throated moans.

He doesn’t even attempt to touch his cock, desperate and obscene in its insistence between his thighs. 

He gives her his fingers instead and her muscles clamp tight around them as her hands clutch at the roots of his hair and he brings her through with heaving lungs as she urges him back to her. 

The tang of relief on her lips as he plunges his tongue into her mouth. 

Frankie shuts the water off and lifts her up with legs quickly wrapped around his waist.

Mouth never leaving his. 

He holds her firm, one hand to protect the crown of her head as he walks through to the bedroom.

“The net, Frankie,” she warns.

“Get it, babe,” he murmurs, waiting for her to find the gap in mosquito netting as he occupies her mouth with his tongue.

When finally she parts gauze he lays her backwards onto the mattress, grinding his hard length against her weeping core.

He cranes to trail his tongue over her abs. Sucking on her hipbone. Thumb brushing over her clit. 

“Frankie,” she lets go on a ragged gasp, “wait, baby, wait.”

Immediately his heat leaves her, and mercifully she acts before panic can rise in his chest.

She sits up, hand coming to his jaw as the other snakes around his waist, sucking at the plush of his bottom lip. Frankie’s hands trail over her back as she lets out soft moans with each kiss.

They make his cock throb where its pressed to her stomach.

Audrey’s fingers wrapping around the thick base of him and he lets out a strangled groan. She gives him a few tentative strokes before he stops her in a hurry.

“Baby, don’t—I’m not—,” he traps her face between his palms, the tip of his nose brushing against hers. “I want—”

And she doesn’t need him to finish his half-panted thoughts, pressing a kiss to his lips and placing her hands over his own.

Frankie lets her go and she shifts further onto the bed. An invitation to join. He tracks her mouth, head spinning from having what he’s been so long without right within his grasp. He crawls over her form before he’s stopped by a hand on his shoulder, urging him onto his back.

Frankie complies, leaned against pillows as he reaches for her.

His fingers have been too long without her skin. Every second away from it carries the burn of eternity.

Audrey gently straddles his hips, palms braced on broad shoulders as his hands settle in the curves of her waist. 

There’s a gentle smile on Frankie’s flushed lips as he stares up at her though round, soft eyes.

“Is this okay?” She whispers, cradling his jaw.

“Yeah,” he sighs, lids fluttering closed as she presses her lips to his, tongue dipping inside his mouth. Frankie’s fingers skitter over her spine as she thumbs his cheek, head dropping back against the pillows. She traces the lines at the corners of his eyes. The smattering of freckles across his cheekbones called forth by the sun. One thumb fits gently against the divot in his bottom lip, pronounced as though hewn by the hand of something divine. She sees the grey at his temples that has caught in the scruff at his cheeks.

She sees him the moment that he opens his eyes. 

Rich brown shot through with flecks of love. 

She sees this man.

With a soul like water. 

That bends and rushes. Freezes and thaws. That carves mountains jagged and soothes stone smooth. 

That boils when left untended.

That envelops every inch of her. 

And she kisses him with the beginnings of different tears in her eyes. 

For this is water that’s found its own again. 

“I love you Frankie,” she whispers into his mouth.  She reaches back, giving his hard length a few strokes as Frankie’s breath hitches. His hips buck into her hand and she guides him inside of her.

Audrey gasps in the sigh that he exhales as her body adjusts to the stretch of him. 

His forehead thumps against hers and she smiles.

“Hermosa,” he gives a tentative roll of his hips and she hums, teeth sinking into her bottom lip. 

“Cariño,” whispered against the column of her neck as she meets his thrusts.

“Mi amor,” he nips at her chin as she grips the wet curls at his nape.

Frankie cranes to pepper her throat with kisses as they find a rhythm like language. 

The give of his hips and the eager pull of her cunt. His nose smashed against her cheek. Her tongue desperate for the salt of his skin.

And it is the greatest relief to be buried inside of her. To feel the flutter of her walls and the damp slip of her body against his.

But Frankie’s fingertips dig into the meat of her ass in an effort to gain some measure of composure. He wants to be delicate. To hold her with care. 

To show her how much he needs her. Tenderly.

But Frankie’s brain starts to melt.

He wants this to last. For her. Desperately. Wants to make her fall apart one more time before he does.

Wants to feel her pleasure before his own.

But her hips render him useless. Drunk on the way she grips him. 

He skates one hand up her sternum between her breasts before palming one and sucking on her flesh. The scratch of his beard sends a chill up her spine, drawing a moan from her throat. She shifts to brace her hands on his shoulders, slowing her pace. 

One hand traces her vertebrae up to grip her hair and bring her mouth back to his. Frankie breathes hot and damp against her cheek, nipping at her jaw.

“Quiero cogerte,” he ghosts over her skin.

“Cógeme, Francisco,” she breathes and her answer in the same tongue doesn’t help his cause.

He moves at a speed she can’t register, twisting around and landing her on her back before he braces a hand on either side of her head.

He thrusts deep and sinks his teeth into her shoulder, holding there as he slowly starts to roll his hips.

Frankie catches the backs of her knees over the insides of his elbows, tongue slipping into her mouth as he sets a languid pace that has her arching with impatience beneath him.

“Te he extrañado,” he tucks against the shell of her ear before he sits up. Frankie trails his fingertips down her ribs and fits them to the curve of her waist, murmuring as he thrusts. “Tu piel y tu boca…”

“¿Solamente esas cosas?” She teases with closed eyes, tipping her face into the pillow to smother a moan.

“Hey,” he says, slowing for a moment to press his chest to hers, “all of you, baby,” offering a sincere kiss before his pace picks up again. 

And as good as it feels to be filled like this.

Affirmed like this.

Something’s not quite right.

Their rhythm is off. 

And Frankie, usually so exacting in how he pulls her apart, thread by thread, is uncoordinated. Lost in his own head. 

“Francisco—” she calls out, twisting in his hold. “Wait. Wait wait wait, baby,” and he stops, panting as he runs a hand down his face.

There’s something incongruous here. 

Perhaps it’s the weight they’ve unconsciously assigned to the reunion of flesh.

Maybe it's the frogs and the air and the rum.

Maybe it’s that Frankie hasn’t been able to come in three months. 

And apart from their dalliance in the shower—

Neither has Audrey. 

But she can tell that he’s strung out on desire. Ripped in too many directions. 

She wants him to stop thinking.

She wants him back.

Frankie soothes a hand over her stomach and swallows hard, “what’s wrong, baby,” he pants, eyes suddenly round with concern, “what’s wrong?”

And he slips his dick from her heat and sits back on his haunches, swiping a hand down his face. 

He catches how her gaze flicks down to his cock, glossed with her slick. Thick and straining against the confines of his skin. 

“Frankie,” Audrey murmurs, voice dripping with mischief. 

She makes an exaggerated show of stretching.

Rolls over onto her stomach, parts her legs, and tips her hips forward.

And Frankie’s eyes lock on her pussy, tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip.

She tosses him a glance over her shoulder. 

“I need you to stop being so sweet.”

And he groans, low and fractured, and falls forward.

Mouth latching to her cunt before he hollows his cheeks.

And Audrey lets out a small yelp, letting her head drop onto her forearms.

Frankie grips the globes of her ass in each palm, the flat of his tongue running the length of her slit before it dips inside of her. 

She bucks away with sensitivity, but Frankie yanks her back against his face.

“Frankie—” she begins to whine but he lands his palm against one cheek to stop her squirming.

“Don’t give a man a meal and expect him not to eat,”  he murmurs, muffled by her flesh and the shameless need in searing through him.

He’s back.

“Fuuuck, ” she buries her face in the sheets and he fucks her with his tongue until he hears her breath go shallow.

Frankie tears his mouth from her, skimming his tongue over his wet bottom lip, reaching down to pump his cock as he fits himself between her legs. 

The slide of his foreskin made easy where he’s leaking precome.

He skates one hand down her spine, telegraphing what he’s about to do.

“¿Quieres mi verga, gatita?” he growls.

And Audrey lights him up. 

Spitting profanity that chastises him for making her wait so long.

Frankie thrusts inside of her without pretense, blanketing her with the breadth of his form, tucking his nose just behind her ear. 

“Nice girls don’t talk like that, gatita.”

She can feel his smile on her skin.

“If you wanted a nice girl,” she arches against his weight as best she can, tipping her mouth to meet his, “you shouldn’t have called.”

Frankie hums, sinking his teeth into the nape of her neck before kissing an apology against her skin as his hips rock against hers.

His lips laze over the curve of her shoulder. Up the side of her neck before teeth sink into her pulse, all the while hips picking up in speed. 

He sits up, fingers flared over her back, heels of his palms pressing her hips into the mattress as her fingers claw at whatever fabric she can reach. 

Frankie trails his tongue over her spine as he grunts with exertion before his hands palm her hips and pull, angling them to allow the head of his cock to slide against her g-spot. He spends a moment here, allowing pressure to build before he slams his hips hard against hers, pulling a cry from her throat. 

He hums as he grinds deep, the baritone of his voice thrumming through the hollow spaces in her chest.

“So deep, Frankie,” she whispers.

And Frankie starts to litter her skin with filth.

“—tan mojada, gatita, ohh—fuck, baby.”

“Si, asi, asi, asi, así tal cual—” he pants as she bucks back against him.

“¿Quieres más duro, bebita?” He murmurs and she gasps.

“Tell me,” he grits out.

She’s breathless when she sighs into a pillow, “yes, Frankie.”   

He grabs her by the upper arms, pulling her up off of the bed, pace punctuated by hard, deep strokes that bottom out. Frankie presses one hand low against her stomach and wraps the other over her shoulder as she scrambles to brace against the wide shelf of the headboard.

“Mira, gatita,” the hand on her stomach cups her chin, tipping it up to meet his eyes in the mirror that hangs above the headboard.

“Look at us.”

Still damp curls fall in her eyes. Jaw, nose, and chin reddened from the scrape of his beard. The whites of her top teeth flash in low light where her mouth has fallen open to fill her lungs with breath only for him to force it from between her ribs on a moan.

She thinks herself a disheveled, fucked-out mess and smiles.

But Frankie.

Frankie’s beautiful.

Eyes blown dark with adoration where they’re locked on her reflection. Sun-browned skin damp with a sheen of sweat that catches the low bedroom lights, bronzing the swell of muscle in his arms. Cheeks flush with heat and lips sucked plump.

Frankie that she pulls apart like this. Hissing through his teeth and grunting through the grip of her.

Frankie that hangs on her every word.

Frankie, buried deep, rocking against where her core molds to the shape of him. 

The sight of her Frankie is pleasure unadulterated. 

Audrey reaches back for him and he quickly obliges, tucking a kiss into the curve of her shoulder before burying his nose in her hair.

A particularly deep thrust makes her moan and her fingernails catch in the scruff of his beard before tangling in his hair and Frankie cups one breast and squeezes, making her buck back against him.

He can feel the slightest tremor in her limbs as her head falls into the crook of his shoulder as she gasps, “no te pares.”

“W– with me, baby,” he stutters as his hips snap against her flesh, the head of his cock nestled deep in her warmth, hammering against her favorite spot. 

His spot.

“Fuck, ’m so close,” he presses against the curve of her shoulder, mouth falling open, tongue trailing up the tendons of her neck as she arches against his chest.

“You own this cock, baby—” he growls in her ear. “It’s yours, it’s yours, it’s y—ours.”

She takes the hand that’s gripping her hip and brings it to her clit where Frankie immediately starts winding circles against nearly over-sensitive flesh.

“God, I’ve missed you inside of me, Francisco,” tipping her face to breathe against his flushed cheek and he moans into the curve of her shoulder. He holds her fast and ruts against her without pulling out as his fingers speed up.

He watches in the mirror as her mouth falls open and her eyes fall shut, strands of wet hair clinging to her neck.

“Come for me, baby,” he purs against the shell of her ear even as his voice starts to crack with desperation. “Please, baby, please—”

Audrey can’t answer him through the sobs of pleasure.

“Baby—” he hisses as he feels his balls tighten, pace growing frantic now. “Ohfuuck—”  

His fingers dig bruises into her flesh. “Come with me. Te ruego, hermosa.”

He pleads.

“Frankie,” she murmurs against his skin before she reaches back to curl fingers in his hair. “Frankie,” she repeats, tightening her grip as his lips find her jaw.

“Acábame adentro, Francisco.”

And Frankie sees white. 

His hips slam against hers and hold there, growling and hissing with every pulse of his cock as as he floods her with his come. She answers with a sobbing keen as she clenches around him, jostled by every twitch of his hips and his heaving chest at her back.

Audrey finally lets out a stuttering breath and Frankie answers with something between a moan and a wail and smashes his nose against her cheek.

And this is something entirely new. 

Frankie knows full well how to move to wring pleasure from her blood. Audrey knows how to hold him until she hears him. 

But this is nothing that they know.

This makes her legs go numb.

Makes his ears ring.

Makes both hearts beat in rhythm.

Causes lips to crash together and stay there. Breathing each other in as his forehead falls against the back of her shoulder.

This is love.

He holds her tight to him until panting evens out into gentle moans before slipping his softening cock from her heat.

Warm palms curve to her waist and her breastbone as Frankie guides her down with him.

He wraps her in his arms, peppering her jaw and neck with kisses.

When she moves to shift off of the bed, Frankie’s arms lock around her waist.

“Don’t. Don’t leave.”

And she lets out a throaty laugh and reaches a hand back to soothe over his hair. “Frankie, I just have to run to the bathroom.”

“You always run away from me,” breath coming in deep huffs, kissing at her jaw, “when I’ve just been inside you.”

“Maybe you always hit the right spot, Francisco,” she twists to kiss his chin.

He grins and glances off the side of the bed.

“Alright, let me—” he helps her over with a groan, turning onto his stomach as she shifts to the edge of the bed, ready to help her down.

“Frankie, I can—”

“Yeah, no. Between this height and that netting you’re gonna—”

She braces a palm against his chest as she moves to climb from the bed.

And her leg gives out the minute it hits the floor.

But Frankie is quick with an arm around her middle and a laugh he tries to stifle.

“You always do that too,” he whispers as he parts the mosquito netting for her. 

“Maybe you make my knees weak, Francisco,” she snarks and bends to kiss his nose.

He lightly smacks her on the butt with the back of his hand. 

“Hurry up, Bambi.”

She returns to him in two minutes, shutting the lights off and crawling under where he holds the comforter up for her.

Arms wrapping her in a tight embrace as he folds her into the warmth of his form.

He can’t keep his hands from her skin. One pulls her thigh to drape over his hips and the other skips over the damp skin of her back.

She settles her nose against his neck.

And for a long while they just breathe. 

Frankie lulled by the weight of her body and not of his grief.

Audrey soothed by the gentle rise and fall of his chest and his fingers over her spine.

She draws idle patterns over his chest as they listen to the singing of frogs in the night.

Before Frankie breaks the silence. 

“The Caribbean.”

“Hmm?”

She shifts to prop herself up on one elbow, but Frankie’s hand over her skin doesn’t stray from its path.

“Where your parents are from. An English-speaking country in the Caribbean. You don’t have much French and you tend towards Central and South American Spanish. I never lose you in a crowd, but I did all the time when we were in Trinidad, and you understand local accents on different islands far better than either Santi or I do, even though everyone is speaking English.” 

And it sends a prickle of fear up her spine. 

To be known like this.

Even though it’s all she’s ever wanted. 

“You grew up in the States though,” Frankie continues, “somewhere in the Southeast. It’s in the way you say ‘county’ and ‘nine, and ‘right quick.’” Frankie’s hand that rests on her thigh moves to cushion his head.

“You have one brother who’s married with two kids, and I’d love to meet him because I know you two are close.”

Audrey stares at the wall, biting the inside of her cheek.

He’s paid attention. For the last two years. Cobbled together half-fragments of information in the pursuit of pieces of her.

“Your favorite color is blue and your favorite band is Nine Inch Nails.”

“That’s only because I wore that—“

“You play them too loudly in your headphones sometimes,” Frankie interrupts, wrapping his hand around the nape of her neck, bringing her mouth back to his before he whispers, “and I’m absolutely going to fuck you to that song.”

She whispers against his mouth, “baby, I will make you a whole playlist.”

“Deal.” He releases his grip and she soothes one hand over the flare of his ribs and down across his stomach.

“And I know that you legally changed your name six years ago.”

Her fingers stop their path. 

That’s not something he could have deduced from a ratty t-shirt or the color of a water bottle.

Someone had to have told him.

“You’ve been going by Audrey for longer than you went by the name you were born with. And maybe some part of you wanted to leave that behind. I don’t blame you for that.”

She looks down at him now, where he lies with a hand tucked behind his head, soft eyes canted in her direction.

“I found Spencer.” Frankie answers the question she hasn’t asked. “Well, Santi did. In Oklahoma.”

Audrey’s eyebrows briefly tick up towards her hairline before she chews on the inside of her lip.

“Gave me a pretty good dressing down. Which I fully deserved.”

“But I needed to ask him,” Frankie shifts to his side now. “I needed to know if—” he eyes flit over her shoulder and back to green.

“If I needed to let you go.”

He swallows hard.

“If it would have been cruel to ask you back,” Frankie trails his knuckles over her collarbone. “If you were really done, after…after everything I did.”

And Audrey meets his eyes with tears in her own. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d ever want to hear from me again. If I was—fucking delusional to think that there was anything I could do to make it right. And once I started working through my shit, I didn’t know. I didn’t know—” 

He swallows hard against the breaking of his own voice. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Aud.”

“But he said if I asked you here, you’d come. And one way or another, I’d get an answer.”

“Because he knows I love this place,” she whispers, shifting to lay on her back. “Because this place put me back together.”

Audrey fits her palm to his cheek, slanting her eyes up at him.

“I lived here for a month after—” she lets her hand fall from his skin but he catches it, wrapping it in the warmth of his own.

“This is where he and I called off our engagement. And I knew it was the right thing, but I just needed time on my own. To figure out—”

“—what happens in the after," she finishes.

“What happens?” Frankie murmurs. “In the after?”

“You.”

And Frankie settles down into the sheets and curls into her, palm running over her stomach and down her hip.

“That’s why he sent you here.”

“He understands you, Aud.” His hand soothes over her ribs now. “The way that I want to.”

It travels up to brush softly at her jaw.

“He’s known me since I was nineteen, he knows all of my shit,” she swipes a fingertip under one eye. “But I guess that means he also knows when I’m in love.”

“He wasn’t going to let either of us throw it away.” Frankie kisses at her shoulder before nuzzling at her skin. “He wants you to be happy, Aud.”

And she buries her nose in the fluffy tufts of Frankie’s curls as he kisses softly at her neck.

“He said if I can’t recognize how precious it is to have your love then I don’t deserve it,” he whispers in her ear.

And she hums. 

“He’s right,” Frankie meets her eyes again. 

She kisses his forehead.

“He also made it clear that if I fumble you again—“

“He’s gonna rip your eyes out,” she finishes.

“I believe him,” Frankie turns serious for a moment. 

“You should. He isn’t kidding,” she smiles and Frankie rolls onto his back, pulling her tighter against his chest. 

“And he said to tell you that Hannibal is still alive?”

And Audrey laughs and tucks her face into the curve of Frankie’s neck.

“A dog that I rescued off the streets of Havana. Went to a friend of his. God, that little thing must be fourteen by now.”

“‘I’m not a nurturer’ my ass,” Frankie teases and tips his lips to kiss her forehead as her eyes start to fall heavy.

They give in to the lull of sleep like this—tangled in each other.

They stroll down to the beach early the next morning.

Hands clasped.

Trevor is already parked at the beach bar and Frankie throws him a salute that he returns with a grin.

They push two chairs together, each trying not to lay right on the gap.

They kiss. Audrey with salt-spun curls. Frankie with red-tinged cheeks.

Audrey squints against the sun and Frankie slips his hat on her head, gently pulling her ponytail through the back of the cap, closing out the action with a kiss on her shoulder.

They share stories about their pasts.

About his daughter. 

He thanks her for sending a gift.

They hold each other in the ocean. Frankie’s chest at Audrey’s back, folded around her as they watch a crab forage on the footing of a dock.

They wave from the water and thank Trevor for refreshing their drinks, moving closer to the beach to chat about the bonfire tonight. 

“Trevor?” Audrey starts. “Could you take a picture for us?”

“Of course, sweetheart, of course.”

“You can use that one, right there,” Frankie tips his chin towards his phone where it rests on top of his towel.

“Alright now, smile,” Trevor says, holding the phone up.

Frankie puts his arm around Audrey’s shoulders and she slips hers around his back.

“Oh come on now, you love each other?” Trevor teases.

And Audrey looks up at Frankie, wrapping both arms around his neck and her legs around his waist as he holds her against his chest. 

“There you go,” Trevor says. 

Audrey presses a kiss to Frankie’s cheek right as he snaps the picture. 

A big grin plastered to Frankie’s face. 

Three more days of bliss pass like this.

Filled with the press of humid, sleep-warm skin. The slick of sweat and the smell of sunscreen. The rich vanilla of rum on each others’ tongues. 

One afternoon the man Frankie caught leering at Audrey on their first day spots her at the beach bar and sidles up far too close. She’s as polite as she needs to be. She can handle herself.

But Frankie will have none of it. 

He springs from his lounger and jogs over to her, rumbling “baby” so as not to set her nerves firing. 

And Frankie does the the only thing that Frankie can think to do.

He presses his chest to her back and lays a kiss at the nape of her neck. 

And like a reflex, Audrey melts against him.

Brain shorted by the breadth of him.

By the safety of him.

“Hi,” she tips her head back with a grin.

“Hi, baby.”

“You two just meet or something?” The man quips. “A little vacation fling?”

“It’s our tenth wedding anniversary actually,” Audrey spins a yarn that Frankie tracks in an instant. 

He holds up his bare left hand, “saltwater does a number on the rings, so…”

“Oh yeah? Congrats, then. Not feelin’ the itch as they say?”

“Not even a little bit,” Audrey cranes her head back and nips at Frankie’s chin as the arm around her middle tightens. 

Frankie hums and slips her his tongue.

“Well, congrats again,” he holds up his drink in salute and heads off behind the bar. 

The moment he’s out of earshot Audrey turns around, attempting to smother a snorted laugh with his chest and Frankie grins into her hair. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. 

“Mmm, maybe we should come back here on our tenth anniversary,” Frankie muses. 

“Let’s make it to next year, yeah?”

“Deal.”

They again make use of the double shower in their room.

Frankie orders oxtail stew and Audrey falls all over again.

Frankie climbs a tree to pick her a mango, despite every one of her protests about his back. She peels it with a pocket knife that Frankie doesn’t ask how she took on a plane. They split it and pass the seed back and forth between them until it’s nearly bone-white. 

They share cigarettes on the porch. Frankie refuses to let her light a single one.

They pet every resort cat that will let them.

A bug lands on Frankie's bare shoulder one night as he's brushing his teeth and he lets out a noise that has Audrey racing in before nearly collapsing with laughter.

They make love on the daybed as an afternoon thunderstorm rages, drowning out her cries that Frankie muffles with his palm and the moans that he smothers with her breast.

They live. 

And for this brief moment, each of them surrenders to this possibility.

That there’s a chance.

That there’s life in the after.

The two of them.

Together.

When the valet knocks on their door that final morning, shouldering their bags and running them down the stairs to a waiting van, Frankie stops Audrey at the door to the hut, stealing one last moment for themselves.

“Aud? I want to tell you something.”

And she tips her head inquisitively, arms around his neck.

"My family is from—"

"Chile," she finishes. "You grew up in Texas and have two sisters."

He nods, finishing out her questions,"my favorite color is green, and my favorite band is the Rolling Stones."

And her eyes fill with the soft light that he's come to recognize as love.

"And moose have been my favorite animal since I was a kid."

Her smile drops.

“I’m serious.”

And he looks it. 

“Frankie—”

His fingers trail nervously over the back of her shoulder.

Over the lines of moose antlers.

“Frankie,” she pulls back a fraction now with a hand on his chest.

She sounds exhausted.

“If we’re doing this—just—this doesn’t have to be a rom-com, it can just be. Please, just, don’t lie to me. Not for a cute story, not to make me feel better, not to smooth things over, please let’s be hon—“

Frankie stops her with gentle fingers over her lips. He slips his phone from his pocket and her hands drop to his waist as they both glance down at the screen. He navigates to his texts and taps on “Mamá,” scrolling up past a few messages before tapping on a picture and turning his phone to landscape.

It’s a picture of a picture.

Baby Frankie.

Buckled into the back seat of a car, thumb jammed into his mouth, mop of straight blonde hair falling in the same big brown eyes that stare back at her now. 

Tiny arm clutching a stuffed moose to his chest.

He scrolls to another. Four-year-old Frankie on a beach, squinting against the sun. 

Fingers wrapped around the stuffed moose’s antler. 

And another.

He’s older in this one, maybe around eight or nine. Sitting on his bed, grinning with two of his front teeth missing.

And the same stuffed moose, now tired and tattered, resting on his lap. 

“Mr. Bear was a moose,” he murmurs.

“What?”

“Mr. Bear,” he kisses her cheek, “the most important thing I had as a child,” he presses a kiss to her lips and tucks his phone back into his pocket, “was a moose.”

And she stares up at him. Incredulous. 

“Weird coincidence I guess,” he pulls his cap from where it was tucked into his back pocket and fits it back onto his head. 

“Frankie,” she whispers as his hands fit to her waist. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

And he grins.

“I don’t either,” he holds her tight to his form, burying his nose in her hair. “Aside from Lucia,” his arm wraps around her shoulders now, “the most important thing I have is still a Moose.”

He kisses her forehead.

Audrey looks up at him through huge green eyes.

And bursts with contagious laughter that fills his cheeks and calls forth the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“Corny,” she whispers against his lips.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she kisses him. Long and slow. With all the time in the world. “But I like it.”

“Well, then,” he hums, taking her hand, lacing thick fingers with hers.

“Let’s go, Moose.”

She stares up at him with a smile. 

“Let’s go, Frankie.”

“Let’s go.”

Taglist: @harriedandharassed @missladym1981 @sarcasm-theotherwhitemeat @toomanytookas @spookyxsam

@bloviating-vy @pimosworld

And tagging some of the lovely folks who keep me going on here and have left lovely comments (some of you from the very beginning of this series when I had no idea what this would become. 💚 As always, please do let me know if you'd prefer not to be tagged:

@tinytinymenace @legendary-pink-dot @for-a-longlongtime @theshensei @iamskyereads

@la-vie-est-une-fleur29 @soft-persephone @julesonrecord @criticalarchitecture @oliveksmoked

@jessthebaker @tanzthompson @youandmeand5bucks @ems-chaos-corner @thethirstwivesclub

@76bookworm76 @tuquoquebrute @jeewrites

Thank you all so very much for reading.

And as a little bonus: The Picture that Trevor Took

[cogbreath]

Hello ! I am a Palestinian academic educator from Gaza, seeking your urgent support in time of bad need. I am trying to reach out to generous donors or contributors to help get my family out of the hell of the war to safety and peace. The war turned our life up side down and turned us from having everything to having nothing. Our house and livelihood business have been lost due to the war and my whole family became homeless and displaced in a very small tent under the sunny hot weather. No place to shelter my family and no income to live on. Life has become unbelievably harsh and tough. That is why I am asking your kind support. Please don't leave us alone in such tragic and catastrophic circumstances. My family is in bad need to your contribution, either through directly donating whatever you can or through sharing my link. Your assistance is highly appreciated and welcome.

Dont scroll! ...

as salamu alaykum, Ayman, I will definitely do what I can to help!

guys this is another vetted fundraiser! Currently has $11,112 / $35,000, so it is in need of donations! Please donate what you can , even the smallest amount helps... or at least share to someone who can, to help save this family with 4 young children in their family.

[peculiarxafternoon]

pile 1 pile 2 pile 3

𝙙𝙤𝙣'𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙗𝙖𝙗𝙮 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙪𝙡

(21st century girls themed reading!)

paid readings | ko-fi

hello, darlings! this reading is inspired by @rainbowwitchsworld who has kindly allowed me to use their idea. we'll be looking into which of your qualities shine the most, both internally and externally, that make people understand how truly beautiful you are! some advice may be thrown in there because i really can't help myself, but the focus of the reading is you and your unadulterated, unaffected by society's unrealistic standards beauty. shall we get into it?

take a deep breath and focus on your best qualities, whatever you truly like about yourself. then, pick a pile intuitively.

! for entertainment purposes only!

! constructive criticism and feedback are welcome!

! decks used: rider waite tarot deck, mermaid tarot, astrological oracle cards!

pile 1

(cards: the judgement, six of pentacles, eight of swords, page of pentacles, five of cups rx, three of wands, scoprio)

hello pile 1! the thing with you guys is that your soul shines through to your physical characteristics so much, that it makes a lot of people agree that you are conventionally beautiful, even if you yourselves don’t see it. you have this way of going about life that isn’t very cautious, yet it puts you in the position of a student. people find so much beauty in the way you see life’s ups and downs as lessons, and in the way you want to learn more and grow more every day. it’s definitely not an easy feat, but you guys just do it naturally, the “why”s and “how”s slip of your tongue subconsciously sometimes.

you also give a lot, whether that’s material things to people in need, or parts of yourself to the people you love. in the eyes of your close environment, you’re beautiful because you manage to be the first person they go to for comfort, when they know that they need to hear the truth, no matter how harsh it is. yet, you always manage to deliver it in a way that makes your people feel safe, and understood. when it comes to material things, gift giving may be your love language, as well as acts of service. trust me when i tell you that it is so attractive when you do the little things, without expecting much back: donating to charities, helping clean a friend’s home, taking your siblings to eat at a place they really wanted to go. it’s the smallest details that others notice that make you very attractive in their eyes.

beyond that, you may be the type of person who has struggled a lot in the past, and still struggles with their mental health and upsetting thoughts. even to the people who have met this side of you, simply the fact that you have been through so much and are still looking forward to the future deems you admirable. you may like going on adventures or may be a very expressive and loud person at times, especially when you get excited, which brings out a different side of you than people are used to. needless to say, that makes you attractive too!

physical characteristics-wise, you may have red or black features (black or red hair, redder cheeks or lips, darker or auburn eyes), which adds to a sort of sleeker and more mysterious look. people may pass you by on the street and do a double take, especially if your style leans more towards darker tones. i also got a message that you look good with sharp eyeliner on, but makeup isn’t something everyone is interested in so it may not resonate for all of you. still, if you have been curious about how you’d look, maybe this can be your push to try it out!

thanks for reading!

pile 2

(cards: five of cups rx (x2), nine of wands, nine of swords rx, the high priestess rx, nine of cups, saturnus)

hello pile 2! i think the major thing that makes you attractive is how you manage to overcome your obstacles. you are a very realistic person, who sometimes doubts their intuition (even though you have a lot of it), yet you manage to be grateful for all you have. people really admire how you not only act as an inspiration for them, but remind them to be grateful for what they have themselves. you hold a lot of inner wisdom (which is why you may doubt your intuition at times), and that makes others feel at awe. some even may come to you for advice often, but others may hesitate because you have a very direct way of saying things (still, that is attractive in its own way).

you have this “don’t fuck with me” type of energy that stems from all that you’ve been through. you have experienced a lot of loss in your life and may have struggled to bounce back after that, but you are now in a state that, even when you don’t feel your strongest, people are scared to cross you. this sort of intimidation draws some in and pushes some away, but i believe your beauty is a very rare one few people can appreciate. your smarts really shine through in all sorts of situations, especially because you seem to carry a lot of miscellaneous information within you. your beauty mostly resides in your brain, your thoughts, and how you view the world even after all the lessons you’ve been through.

some people may find you so attractive that they end up dreaming of you because of how much you’re on their mind. you probably have a couple cases of secret admirers, and they all adore the way you think. you act as an inspiration for many, with the way you present yourself, and even if their attraction isn’t romantic, they feel a certain pull for you that they can’t really explain. sometimes they may even think that you hold the answers to most of life’s problems within you, especially if you have strong saturn placements in your chart. still, the way you managed to pull yourself through the worst parts of your life is something so many people find beautiful, even if they don’t know you well; it seems to be embedded in your aura.

when it comes to physical characteristics, you probably have very nice hair, whatever that may mean for you (strong, thick, lots of hair, long, etc), and a very strong bone structure. your nose and cheekbones especially may be key characteristics of your face, as well as your jawline. you just look put together no matter what you wear or how you view yourself, and people really appreciate your sense of style, and the way you manage to express yourself through it. if you haven’t tried it already, wearing more earthly or dark tones, monochrome outfits and straight lines will probably suit you very nicely, along with pulled back or shorter hairstyles that show off your facial structure!

thanks for reading!

pile 3

(cards: king of swords, three of wands, page of swords, ace of pentacles rx, the tower, the moon rx, scorpio)

hello pile 3! some of you may have resonated with pile one, so maybe reading that will be helpful, but don’t worry if that’s not the case for you! you are a very sharp, witty and creative person, a quick thinker in cases when it’s needed, which is found to be very attractive to those around you. expressing your creativity and thoughts could be your ultimate goal in life, so much so that you’re pursuing a career or a field of study that usually isn’t as financially stable as others. you know you have a message you want to tell the world, you know you love creating whatever you connect most with, and you don’t care if that’s going to make you end up poorer than most in a society that doesn’t support the masses, anyway. oftentimes you may even use your skills and talents for free, which leaves a good impression on people, other than the fact that the find you and your art enticing and moving.

what many may not know is that your art is your way of dealing with things from your past that have hurt you, and that you are currently trying to let go of. if it wasn’t for your strong mindset and the things you create, you wouldn’t have been able to move forward in life. only those who truly interact with your art and understand it on a deeper level, especially if you write, will be able to understand where you come from and how important what you’re doing is to you. your smile shines brighter when you talk about your creations, and if people found beauty in you before, those who get to see this side of you become absolutely enamoured.

beyond your more romantic and artistic side, you’re a person always ready to broaden their horizons and learn from others. you may be very open with your thoughts, telling others what you think without hesitating. it may sting sometimes, being told you’re wrong so openly, but it’s beautiful to many nonetheless. they know that you will be honest with them, and they will hear your point of view regardless, while being reassured that their point of view is also seen. you may seem like the type of person who keeps to themselves sometimes and overshares on others, but those little glimpses into who you are help people discover more of your beauty and thoughts, slowly but surely.

you may have scoprio or strong pluto or mars in your chart, so you naturally exude a sort of intimidating vibe. you may be very experimental with your fashion and like wearing more experimental or weird sort of accessories. black and red may be colours you gravitate towards a lot, but you also may not be opposed to patterns and lots of colour for some statement pieces. you are also probably the type of person who likes finding weird graphic t-shirts and wears them ironically (think the “fish love me, men fear me”) kind.

thanks for reading!

! do not copy or repost my work!

[scarlet-bee]

Hello ! I am a Palestinian academic educator from Gaza, seeking your urgent support in time of bad need. I am trying to reach out to generous donors or contributors to help get my family out of the hell of the war to safety and peace. The war turned our life up side down and turned us from having everything to having nothing. Our house and livelihood business have been lost due to the war and my whole family became homeless and displaced in a very small tent under the sunny hot weather. No place to shelter my family and no income to live on. Life has become unbelievably harsh and tough. That is why I am asking your kind support. Please don't leave us alone in such tragic and catastrophic circumstances. My family is in bad need to your contribution, either through directly donating whatever you can or through sharing my link. Your assistance is highly appreciated and welcome.

https://gofund.me/30cbaf21

Hello! Of course, I will share your link. I hope that you and your family will be safe and able to evacuate as soon as possible.

To my followers: This fundraiser has been vetted by nabulsi and is number 144 on this spreadsheet of verified fundraisers. Everyone please share this link, and donate whatever you are able to! Remember even the smallest amount helps!

[amazeingartist]

I’ve been far more vocal about palestine on twitter than here but please do not turn a blind eye, interact, spread awareness it’s easy. If it makes you uncomfortable than good, I’m glad, this is horrific situation there’s nothing comfortable about it so do something, do as much as you can!! Don’t simply be a bystander, even the smallest amount can go a long way!

If it’s lack of knowledge, here’s a couple of resources that have been made as a starting point (sharing what I’ve rted from twitter)

-

There are boycotts going on as well, which I’ll name a few major ones but please look into this if you can. Also "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" refers to the fact that every corporation is flawed, & low income people sometimes cannot avoid things like shopping at walmart or using amazon. it does not refer to u being unwilling to give up your $7 lattes from starbucks” (I have quoted a specific tweet here that sums up “consumption under capitalism” well in imo, as I myself am struggling to find the right phrasing)

Brands to Boycott (Starbucks & McDonalds are already being affected—keep it up):

McDonalds, Starbucks, Disney, Pepsi, Coke, Airbnb, Amazon, American Airlines, Bath and Body Works, Delta Airlines, Google, Netflix, Tesla, Walmart, Zoom

-

Here is a safe donation link that works off add revenue, all you need to do is click!! (there was misinformation spread about it’s legitimacy by a zionist, it is a valid source of support if you cannot donate money!)

-

I’m losing track of everything I wanted to put here so I’ll end with this—being anti-zionist and supporting palestine is NOT being antisemitic, it’s being ANTI-FACIST and not standing for warcrimes!! This is not a dispute between religion, it never has been.

[cuterozhok]

Hello my Friends!

Not so long ago I reached 500+ followers. And I decided to set a goal on Ko-Fi to help Ukrainians during the war, where you can donate to help it come true! Anyone who will donate over $15 is free to ask me for a colored sketch

Even your $1 can save someone's life, and together we can help to make Ukraine's victory much closer!

Your help is very much needed now! Even the smallest amount will help a lot

Your help is always welcome through these funds, if you want to help us right now:

u24.gov.ua

savelife.in.ua

prytulafoundation.org

Please share!

Thank you for your support and shares, stay safe everyone ❤️‍🩹

[quinnscyn]

Current Situation

I am updating just to inform that my current situation has turned abusive and I'm currently exploring my options for a safe living conditions.

It started with my dad wanting to help me be in a better housing environment from the stress of living alone in an apartment.

Mostly so I wouldn't have to handle all the bills myself , up until this point he had been kind , buying me groceries , taking me out when I needed to get things extera ,

As soon as I moved in with him he has become aggressive and violent over the smallest things such as me lowering the thermostat from 78 to 72 , leaving 3-4 grains of rice in the sink, my dog having a potty accident at 4am cause she had a tummy ache ( which as soon as I was aware she did I cleaned it up ) He has called me filthy , ungrateful , a fuck up and I should be ashamed of myself telling me nobody out side of him cares about me , makes comments about my weight, tells me my ADHD and anxiety are my choice , everyone who I have shown pictures to my living space have all agreed it is not filthy or even messy. It has only been 2+ weeks and almost every week he has started an argument pushed me to my limits , verbally , physically and emotionally . I have tried to get law enforcement in involved but he knows them all in this area and its been hard.

I was at a breaking point and reached out to my mother who he told me didn't want to speak to me , it was far from the truth he had been and is still trying to isolate me

I have paid him rent which is half the mortgage : $650 ( which he has said multiple times that I have no legal right to live in this house but apparently its mine and I should take care of it?)

paid for my own groceries which was about $200+ ( including for my pets )

as well as other things he has made me pay because its for "cleaning" up my environment which is about $200+ in total

I have had little time to work because of this, The only reason I am on the internet is because he thinks its ONLY for work.

I spent the weekend with my mother and she welcomed me along with all of her side of the family but even while with her

my dad has tried to sabotage that relationship by saying so much awful and evil things ( we compared texts and we know everything is a lie )

my moms house needs ALOT of repairs before I can be there for good I hope.

and this is only a bit of what I can get out before it becomes too long, I am so tired and stressed out ..

I'm not begging or asking but if you would like to help out you can here everything will be going to helping my moms place be repaired

[strangelovekraft]

Basegame Science Museum

Space race. Wonderment. Retro.

...is this where my donations went?

These are some of the things that might come to mind as you arrive to the home of scientific discovery and geeky fun, the Basegame Science Museum. No packs or CC of any kind required.

Constructed from monumental concrete elements and large glass panels, the building rises high above the surrounding landscape both intellectually and in actual height.

The alternating textures, colonnade motifs and highly organized landscaping reference temples and universities of old, while the simplistic cubic shapes and massive cast concrete highlight space age modernity.

The microscope, alongside the telescope and rocket ship, is simply too large to fit in the average hobbyist's garage. In the museum, though, if offers visitors a marvelous chance to see the wonders of nature magnified and, if they are lucky, bring their favourite discovery home as a stylish print.

What better way to learn science than to experience it firsthand.

The free for all laboratory space allows also little scientists to get their hands on experiments and excitement.

Speaking of children, welcome to Journey to Sixam, the cosmic play area for little exploration enthusiasts.

In a couple of years, they might be building their own spaceship outside.

The museum also takes your toddlers into account: the bathrooms and cafeteria are equipped to host even the smallest future scientists.

The cafeteria finds it inspiration from clean, bright colours, futuristic synthetic materials and atomic motifs. Rainbow-bright fountains function as a brutalist yet not brutal backdrop for your snack break.

The exhibits showcase the shift from pre-industrial era to the peak of modernism and the invention of transistor and space exploration.

Among the stellar discoveries lies an undercurrent of cold war tensions from the age of the museum's founding.

What once was a very real threat to simkind has since been resolved, and turned into an entertaining yet educational experience.

The Cool War Escape Room is a way for sims of all ages to learn about the schism and stir their brain juices.

You can find the museum under the

Creator ID: Strangelovekraft

or Item name: Basegame Science Museum

[feytouched]

for reference, my current scent of the day review queue:

libre (yves saint laurent)

amyris femme (maison francis kurkdjian)

harvest mouse (zoologist)

snowy owl (zoologist)

cow (zoologist)

violette à deux sous (guerlain)

lolitaland (lolita lempicka)

and my fragrance wishlist for future sample hauls to review:

valaya (parfums de marly)

dent de lait (serge lutens)

datura noir (serge lutens)

l'eau d'hiver (frederic malle)

ristretto intense café (montale)

fresia (santa maria novella)

splendiris (dusita)

violette impériale (historiae)

miu miu fleur de lait (miu miu)

un jardin sur le nil (hermès)

signature (montblanc)

ganymede (marc-antoine barrois)

putain des palaces (état libre d'orange)

frustration (état libre d'orange)

if you have any suggestions of fragrances you'd like me to review or that you think i might like, please tell me! i'm always looking for new stuff to sample.

also, if you enjoy my fragrance writing and want to throw a tip my way to help fund future reviews, here's a link to my ko-fi - even the smallest donations are super helpful and very welcome!

[beardeddetectivepaper]

£13,405/£50,000‼️‼️

Welcome, my brother and sister, distinguished visitors. I am Alaa Alshannat (32years old ) ..I am a single mom for my lovely twins Layan and Lilyan who have 4 years old , I suffered alot for having my babies , because they are IVF's child , I want us to survive this war. I want my family to survive this war ,my house was completely destroyed and burned, and I have attached pictures of the house for you.

Knowing that my children were studying in the best language schools in Palestine, their dreams were destroyed and their future is also unknown. I want you to light a candle in my children’s future with your support and rebuild a warm house.

Now me and my twins live in a tent , homeless without a home due to this brutal war, in addition to the poor health condition due to the spread of diseases and epidemics, lack of water, lack of clothing, poor sanitation, and lack of food.

Life does not stop when we leave Gaza. We also need housing, food, drink, care, study, expenses, and clothing. Donate so we can live.. All our sources of income were destroyed. With your donations, we are moving forward and achieving a bright future If you are able to coordinate my family members and get them out of this war and death, where there is no water, food, medicine, or shelter. There is no source of income for me.

I want to survive the war, as coordination in the Ya Hala Company, we need $5,000 _7000$ for each adult person,and 2500_3500 $ for children , after one month we will leave Gaza, and coordination in the Foreign Ministry, we need $8,000_10000$ , we will leave Gaza within one week Of course for one person I want to rebuild my home if possible, survive the war, live quietly and peacefully, and be able to provide my children with their needs. Hand in hand, we will all survive this war. The smallest donation makes me happy, even if it is $5. You are saving the soul of a human being who was exhausted from the scourge of war and emerged from under the rubble for the second time , lived in a tent that endured hunger and thirst .

Indeed, the food ran out, and signs of fatigue and exhaustion appeared on our faces. Weight loss has become evident on our bodies. Grains, flour, rice, fodder and even animal feed have run out. There is nothing left. Poverty, siege, killing, hunger, destruction and cold. This is part of what we live in the southern Gaza Strip. Children died, breastfeeding mothers' milk dried up, and we were in a state of danger.

[sentenceme-leni]

Monday. Minimum 1 sentence.

---

Regina swept into the main hall with magic crackling in furious waves around her. Even the bear gave her a respectful bow, though it went sadly unnoticed.

"Belle!" she yelled, in uncharacteristically unqueenly manner, stomping a foot so her voice would resonate all over the castle. "Don't you dare hide behind that imp, you little bitch. Come meet me right now!"

She was angry enough that she wasn't startled by Rumpelstiltskin's sudden presence at her side. Instead she whirled to glare at him. "Where is your- your---?"

"My maid?"

Regina snorted at the description, but wasn't in the mood to discuss that little liar's place in the Dark Castle. "Where is she?"

"In the library, of course." Rumpelstiltskin shrugged without apparent concern. Then he leaned up to whisper in her ear. "She's been expecting you, Your Majesty."

Regina huffed. Of course that wily little girl knew she had overstepped. "Far from me to make her wait," she hissed.

"Yes, yes, go, dearie. I'm sure you girls have a lot to gab about." He giggled at her affronted look. "Just remember, Regina-" his voice dropped into a steely warning "-you have as much leeway as I allow."

Her eyes narrowed. "Does your maid have the same limitations?"

Rumpelstiltskin smirked and disappeared in a plume of magic.

The bastard.

Regina huffed and marched on.

Indeed, the two-faced little tramp was in her domain. Regina waved her hand and tossed one of the reasons for her anger at her.

The projectile was stopped by a soft bubble of magic, but Belle still scrunched her nose. "This apple is rotten."

"This one? No. All of them!" Regina started pacing. "All my trees are bearing rotten fruit. It cannot be natural. And it all started a week after we made that little deal." She glared at those wide blue eyes. "What did you do?"

"I did nothing." Belle tilted her head, studying the apple. "But it seems that you did."

Regina grit her teeth. After two years as Rumple's companion, the girl had grown a penchant for non-answers. "Explain."

"Your magic backfired." Belle shook her head. "Wasn't it a simple deal? You even had a clear advantage. How did you let it get to this?"

"This isn't my doing."

Otherwise, Belle was right. That deal had been a gift. The location of Snow White in exchange for nothing. After years wrangling with Rumpelstiltskin for the smallest bits of help, Belle's offer had been a welcome respite.

"You didn't listen to me at all, did you, Regina?"

The use of her name instead of her deserved honorific made Regina pay attention now. "Of course I did! I promised to jail only my rebel stepdaughter, and leave the others unharmed."

Belle tilted her head. "And did you?"

"Of course!"

"I visited that town after your soldiers left. There was quite a need for healing spells."

Regina huffed. "So a couple peasants ran into swords. It's their own fault."

"They still got harmed." Belle shrugged. "You broke our deal, Regina. Sadly, your beloved trees paid the price for it."

"It was a trap!"

Belle sighed. "No, my friend. It was an opportunity."

An opportunity for what?

Regina didn't know and she didn't care. Instead she focused on what was important:

"Will my trees return to normal?"

Belle smiled. "As soon as you make amends, they should."

"Well, then." Regina nodded. A donation of some sort to that town would surely do the trick. "Next time I'll negotiate with Rumple. Dealing with the Dark One isn't this much trouble."

Belle only smiled again.

The End

15/04/24

[mihinisland]

Welcome everyone! I'm Tax/@unearthlore , and you're on the Tumblr for my first webcomic 🌉

Mihin Island is an urban fantasy drama; our protagonists are some of the few people who wield magic, and we'll be following their stories through the years 2005–2012!

Ester, a semi-immortal wizard 'born' in the 1800s, may have trouble just taking care of themself—regardless, they genuinely care about those around them. Though they'll have to face the truth, where their best has actually hurt their loved ones, causing a chain reaction that would get back at them in an unexpected way.

💭 Less relevant to the story, but there are sci-fi elements, considering the construction of the titular Mihin Island! And this is a Team Fortress 2 AU, but it does feel like clickbait when I tag it like that. Enjoy, nevertheless :]

🔗 Mihin Island, also on Tapas! | 🔗 Blog navigation

❗️Send questions or fanart to my main @unearthlore !

💚 Mihin Island is the smallest of my projects! I'm looking forward to create even more with your support 💙:

(Some Patreon tiers can get their MI pages 2 weeks early ✨)

Hope you like my brainchild, feel free to say hi and be friends on the main acc 💚

[kiirodora]

Welcome,

I am Mohammed from Gaza. Because of the war on Gaza, I lost my mother, father, and brothers, and I and my children were injured. I appeal to you to help protect my children, get them out of Gaza, and complete my treatment abroad.

With a broken heart I ask for a donation of €5 for my innocent children.

My campaign is documented👍.

I am not a bot or a scammer, and you can verify my story by requesting any information you need.

Please donate and share my story🙏.

Thank you very much 🌹.

Hello, I'm so sorry to hear of your losses. I will donate at the first opportunity I get, and I'll share the campaign here. Everyone, Mohammed's campaign has been documented by 90-ghost and is almost 50% funded with 17,826€ raised out of the 40000€ goal. Let's help them meet the goal 100%! Even the smallest donation will make a change. Please don't hesitate to donate.

[sciencelings-writes]

Frightful & Delightful

My Hurricane family secret santa gift for @flustered-flux 

Summary: The chain have to travel in the snow and Hyrule is internally very dramatic about it 

wc:3047

AO3 Link

Hyrule didn’t think he would ever get used to snow. Real snow, the kind that pilled up high and covered everything in a fluffy blanket of white. The snow he was used to was runny, slippery, and miserable, slush that froze the ground and made it difficult to get around. Hearing Wild get excited when he saw snow in the forecast left him bewildered, snow was awful! It made it impossible to travel and would leave them shivering and wet. Even with good snow, this was true, but after the first time he had experienced it, he had to admit that it was, at the very least, incredibly beautiful. 

Puffy snowflakes lazily twirled to the ground, that day hadn’t been too terribly cold or windy, the sun was still shining and the heroes had the privilege of watching as the snow slowly built up on the ground. It made the world so bright and crystalline like it had been covered in glittering clouds. There were only a few inches of it but Wind still required half of everyone else's extra clothes to keep from shivering out of his shoes. Out of all of them with limited experience with the weather, Wind was easily the most affected by it. 

That day, Wild had taught them all how to shield surf on the hills of frozen cotton, Warriors had started a day-long battle with Twilight in which the only weapons were ice and the plot was getting as much of it under each other's clothes as possible. Legend had refused to put on pants but eventually conceded to wear one of Wild’s enchanted circlets that kept the wearer warm with a magic ruby. Most of them had pulled out their old green hats to keep their heads warm, or at least less wet. 

After months of wandering through forests and fields, the change in atmosphere was more than welcomed, their constant movement kept them warm enough, and the snow allowed for different ways for them to pass the time. At the end of the day, they found an inn with a warm fireplace and made a pumpkin soup that tasted extra good after the chilly day. That day, Hyrule had decided that he liked the snow. 

This time, the snow was much less welcoming. The wind howled around the group, sending the grains of ice scraping across any bare skin left exposed. The whiteness covered the air so thoroughly that they all had to stick in a tight group to keep from losing each other, depending entirely on Legend’s map to keep them walking in the right direction. The hero himself had finally accepted wearing tights to keep from getting frostbite, as it became clear that no amount of magic rubies would keep him warm enough. 

The snow had started at a manageable height but had risen so quickly that the smallest of the heroes were forced to share Epona’s saddle, who seemed easily the least bothered by the weather, with Wild in a close second place. It had taken a miracle on Twilight’s part to keep the champion from donating his cloak to one of the others, using the reasoning that if he got sick, the rest of them would follow as he was in control of all their food and they would all rather have him cook with a little cold than allow anyone else to take control of that job. So if he got sick, they were all doomed in more than one way. 

So far, they were only kept from being solid blocks of ice with their extremely limited supply of warming elixirs and an almost excessive amount of clothing layers. Still, even Time couldn’t repress his shivering which was especially evident in his voice when he asked how each of them was doing throughout the day. None of them dared to tell him they were any less than fine because they knew he would give them his boots if they even implied that their toes were cold, leaving himself to walk in the several feet of snow in only his socks. Or at least, that’s what Hyrule’s thought process was. 

Trudging through the relentless storm made the snow seem much less beautiful, the bite of its chill piercing even the most insulated of their clothing, neverending piles of fabric never seemed enough. Any skin left to the mercy of the blizzard had long since gone pink and sensationless, looking as if they had all forgotten to apply a fireproof elixir when scaling Death Mountain. Hyrule now knew what it felt like to be burned without any flames involved. He especially hated the numbing effect of the ice, as far as he knew, his nose had fallen off of his face. 

There was no playful spirit among them, Warriors wasn’t trying to sneak any ice down anyone's tunics, Wind wasn’t trying to chase any of them around, Wild wasn’t pleading to take a break from walking to explore, they all just had to keep moving in the hopes that there was an end to the bombardment of colorlessness, straining their eyes in front for some glimpse of anything other than blinding white. 

At least Hyrule and Legend could stumble in tandem with one of their blankets anchoring them together in an attempt to share body heat. At least it prevented some snow from melting directly into his hair but it failed to keep him truly warm. 

His hands were full from having to maintain his side of the blanket with one hand and using the other to help hold open the veteran's map, though it hardly helped as the storm was too dense to identify any landmarks. Somehow though, Legend seemed confident in their path. 

Strangely enough, it was Legend’s uncharacteristic optimism that kept them from giving up on traveling to wait out the snowstorm. Though after hours of struggling against the barrage of ice, some of their confidence in the pink hero started to wane. Normally walking hours a day was expected, but the strong winds proved to make traveling far more difficult on top of the blizzard. It was only a matter of time before one of them got irritable. 

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Warriors grumbled behind his scarf, only barely audible for Legend to hear. 

“Of course I do! I’ve traveled this way a hundred times!” Their navigator snapped. 

“I’m just saying that we’re kind of blind here and it doesn’t feel like we’ve even moved, are you sure we aren’t going in circles?” The captain deadpanned. 

“Can you get past your trust issues for one day and let me get us out of here you prick? I doubt a bitch boy like you could find your own non-existent ass in this weather!” His frustration prompting him to walk slightly faster, the sudden wave of rage stemming from Warriors doubt in him poured fuel on a flame that the storm had reduced to embers within his chest. Hyrule was just being pulled along for the ride, thankfully, he managed not to fall face-first into the snow so that was a win in his book. 

“Well, that’s a little harsh…” Warriors grinned as he slowed his pace enough to get out of the veteran's peripheral vision, sending a look Time’s way. Unlike Legend, Time knew fully well about the move the captain pulled. They had been slowing down for the last half hour, their navigator just needed a little push, and nothing fueled Legend better than spite and indignant rage. Time rolled his eye at Warriors' smugness about it. 

With the sky swarming with aggressive snowflakes, it was hard to pinpoint the exact position of the sun, so it was hard to say how long it had been before the freezing torture was assumed to end. Hyrule assumed he was about three minutes away from losing his fingers, perhaps less, when they were able to catch sight of something that wasn’t snow. The simple miracle of a color that wasn’t white. 

Elevated, as if sitting on a hill, was a speck of red, soon to be identified as a lawn decoration in the shape of a bird, some brown, from a scarecrow, and the most easily identifiable, a big purple sign in the shape of a familiar bunny hood. Hyrule could’ve cried in relief but having tears freeze on his face didn’t sound pleasant so he decided to avoid doing that. 

“Thank the three,” Legend muttered under his breath before announcing loud enough to be heard over the wind, “We’re almost there! And you dicks were doubting me!”

“I didn’t doubt you,” Hyrule admitted while listening to their tired group's cheers, “Do you think your roommate has a fire going?”

“Ravio gets cold if it’s any less than fifty degrees, there’s no way he hasn’t had a fire going for a month straight. He wears a wool scarf in the summertime Rulie. I would be surprised if we got home and it didn’t feel like the inside of an oven.” He rose his eyebrows at the desperation in Hyrule's voice. Before this point, entering an oven didn’t sound enticing but at the moment, he dreamed of taking a nap in Death Mountains crater, where he was less than a foot away from molten rock at all times. Real warmth seemed like a distant memory. A dream that he knew he had experienced but just couldn’t recall. 

Even though they had all sped up at the first sign of hope, it still felt like it took forever to get to Legend's house. The fact that it was at the top of a hill didn’t help. Most of them had a point where they almost slipped on the bottom layer of ice, but only Warriors had successfully fallen and rolled several feet down the slope. Legend and Twilight were the only ones who were unable to keep from laughing. The rest of them at least tried to have some tact but in Hyrule's case, it was a battle more difficult than facing a Lynel. He managed to prevail in the end though, only letting out a snort and a puff of foggy air to add to the whiteness of the world around them. 

Finally, their refuge lay before them, the dark gray smoke exiting the chimney was a stark contrast to the light of the snow, promising a hint of heat just beyond a single door. Unfortunately, that door was frozen at the hinges and was blocked in by several feet of the cursed pieces of ice. It took a fire rod and some frantic shoveling with fingerless gloved hands before it was able to crack open. Being so close to salvation made the time flow so slowly, it felt like it took hours just to get inside. 

After a wave of heavenly warmth, Hyrules eyes were assaulted with colors and various objects, he didn’t realize how being devoid of visual stimulation slowly tortured him before this point, Even though the room felt so dim, it was active with colors and movement from the raging fire and it took an embarrassingly long moment for him to spot Legends roommate. 

Hidden in violet robes and his classic hood, gripping the handle of a comically large hammer, as if he had been preparing for a break-in. Thankfully the bunnyman lowered his weapon the moment he saw who the snow-covered creatures who had entered his home really were. Hyrule didn’t blame him, even blanketed in ice they didn’t look like the most friendly bunch, even if they all stumbled onto solid ground like newborn deer. 

“Link! Link’s family! Thank Hilda it’s just you guys! I thought I was gonna have to start playing Hylian wack-a-mole!” Ravio set down his hammer and slumped in relief. Now that they weren’t in danger of sustaining blunt-force trauma, they started to remove the soaking layers of clothes and shoes and leaving them by the door.

Later Hyrule would realize that Twilight wasn’t with them but Wild explained that he went to go put Epona in Legend's little backyard barn, mostly used for storage, specifically for the hero's orchard, but it was big enough to protect a single horse from the elements. And it also had plenty of apples in baskets that were easily accessible for hungry equines. 

With a speed only comparable to transportation, they were all piled in front of the fire, Hyrule was disappointed that just being in the proximity of a heat source didn’t immediately solve all of his problems, in fact as the numbing of the cold wore off, he was starting to feel extremely sore, but at least now he was mostly dry and fully removed from the blizzard. He also wasn’t moving and that definitely helped. 

Wind had settled in closest to the fire, covered in a blanket Ravio had given him and impatiently trying to chug the hot apple cider Ravio had also given him. Recoiling and exclaiming ‘Ow!’ before immediately trying again, only to receive the exact same result. Time had to stop him before he burned his tongue and advised him to simply use the toasty mug as a hand warmer until it was cool enough to drink. Wind was not happy with this compromise but he had accepted that maybe the drink was too scalding to chuck down his throat. 

Wild promised that once he could move his fingers, he would start on dinner, torturing them with the mental images of hearty soups with dumplings inside and fresh buttered rolls, thinking out loud about what he would make for dessert and if they would still require something to keep them warm, like a simmered fruit dish or if a pie was closer to what they would want. As their bodies needed to focus less on keeping them from freezing to death, it became increasingly easy to tell how hungry they had gotten. 

Hyrule could be patient, he had gone without food for far longer with much more difficult trials and the meal he would be able to scrape up at the end was far less rewarding than anything that Wild was able to create. 

At first, he worried that Wild would get cold being so far from the fire before he remembered that the cook would be able to stay warm next to an oven or a stovetop. It seemed like the champion never ran out of energy, at least if cooking was involved. This was unlikely to be the first time he had gotten stuck traveling in a snow storm and he likely still had to eat then. Though the traveler knew that his best explorer buddy would be sleeping hard that night despite acting so unfazed by their journey now. 

He found himself looking out the window, where the storm had slowed only to the point of providing slightly more visibility. Now that they weren’t in the middle of it, the snow had gone back to being beautiful rather than a curse sent by Ganon to turn them into icy statues or bury them in piles of white dust, leaving them to suffocate instead of freeze to death. Whichever one worked faster. 

The snowflakes swirled in the air in an unending dance within a peaceful silence, the wind was no longer howling and the warm room had started to fill with soft conversation as each of their vocal cords began to unfreeze. Hyrule stayed quiet, content with letting the mellow talking and mesmerizing falling snow lull him into a spacy state, floating lazily around his own mind, until he was suddenly interrupted. 

A weight on his shoulder forced him out of his wandering thoughts, fluffy light brown hair tickling his cheek confirming what had slumped against him. It was the well-known and accepted risk of sitting by the skyloftian, anyone was pillow-shaped to him. After a moment of shock over an event that he really should’ve expected, he leaned his own head against his snoozing brothers. Warmth bloomed in his chest and it had nothing to do with the fire. 

Hyrule had spent so many years almost completely alone, in a world that wanted to kill him, although the world still seemed to have the same vitriol towards him, he wasn’t even close to being alone anymore. Sometimes it was hard to adjust, difficult to deviate from the mindsets he had created for his constant solitude, but in moments like this, it felt like a worthwhile trade. 

He had been so used to being alone, long past any bitterness at his situation or longing for someone to be around to listen to any thoughts that he had. He was over being sad about it, it was just what his life was like. He had to constantly be on the move, becoming a target for monsters if he stayed in one place for too long, even if that place was one of his Zelda’s castles. Being lonely had been a reality that he had willingly accepted, at least before he knew anything else. 

Now, for months he had been surrounded by incarnations of his own soul that he would readily admit were as his own brothers. He had smiled and laughed more stumbling through this adventure than he ever had before, feeling truly seen and understood and supported for the first time that he could ever remember. He had once been so numb to the empty space and silence around him, but now that it was filled with eight pseudo-brothers, he was hypersensitive to every fond side-hug, hair ruffle, and encouraging back-pat that was just on the edge of being too hard. Saving kingdoms had nothing on making a joke and hearing his brothers laugh. 

Hyrule took a careful sip of his cider, it had perfectly cooled, just enough to thaw him from the inside while still being able to taste all the spices in harmony with the fruit juice. He took a deep breath of sweet warmth mixed with cinnamon, before letting it out along with the remaining chill that had made a home in his body. 

If he relished the comfortable weight of Sky on his side, leaning into his brother's mass, not one of the many witnesses felt the need to call it out.