#happy synapses

[mistmaya]

Finally got around to watching Puss and Boots: The Last Wish… my head is incredibly full of (extremely positive) thoughts that I just have to unleash on the internet. **INCOMING SPOLIERS**

The premise of the movie already held plenty of promise- a hero down to his last limbs, the classic humbling of an egotist. In this case, a cat on his last life. It´s a set-up that´s honestly quite easy for writers to embrace with a straightforward theme: don’t take life for granted. So Dreamworks could’ve settled for the basic and still produced something pretty good but they did. Not. Settle.

Rather than a slow decline towards a humbling, Puss becomes vulnerable within the first 15 minutes when he encounters Death. From there, his identity-burial and trip to retirement set up the story for not just a lesson on appreciating what you have, but also what you can have if you’re willing to change for the better. It´s sweet, and it gets better with the introduction of Perrito.

Ngl, I was a bit skeptical about El Perrito when the movie began. I’m not a fan of perfect gag characters who simply exist for forcing life lessons upon the main characters and a quick laugh. El Perrito could’ve been one of those guys, but he absolutely wasn’t thanks to the way the writers walked the fine line between taking him seriously and as a joke with excellent balance. The scene where he comforted Puss through his anxiety attack was such a fantastic way of not only acknowledging the tangible effects of mental health issues but also the value of mental health care. (Go therapy dogs! <3) Also the humor drawn out of his backstory was absolutely foul in the best way. I probably busted a lung when he started cussing out the Bears.

Speaking of comedy, Big Jack was an unexpectedly hilarious villain. He really reminded me of how refreshing it can be to have a bad guy without a complex backstory, just some grade A asshole who’s never going to be satisfied even if he’s lived the most privileged life. We’ve got plenty of those assholes out here in the real world so its plenty of fun watching their downfall. Loved him and Jiminy´s interactions.

I already knew from the trailer and plenty of tweets that the animation was going to be impressive, but man, there’s nothing like seeing it in person. The fight sequencing was extremely creative and fun from the start. (Puss vs the Sleeping Giant absolutely had to have been inspired by Attack on Titan and we love to see it.) The detailing form Puss´ goosebumps to Goldí´s necklaces made the whole viewing super immersive. And man. The aesthetic choices (like holy cow that one red and black scene were Puss was running from Death in the Cave of lost souls??) were basically perfect. Pretty, intense, the whole package.

The romance between Puss and Kitty was just zesty enough to not be cringe. Tension, pining, sweet interactions… I’m sold. A solid found family with Perrito, but we can’t forget the most lovable and heart wrenching family: Goldi and the Three Bears. The sibling dynamic was both very real and hilarious to watch. But more importantly, Goldi’s gradual realization was a super engaging side plot that added a great parallel to puss. 10/10.

As for Death… goosebumps man. That wolf whistle was chilling- you can’t help but get the same raised hairs as Puss. A damn good take on the Grim Reaper archetype. Everything about him from his design to his lines had me running mental laps in the theater.

Overall, it’s such a relief to see Dreamworks genuinely valuing creative animation and powerful storytelling- they´ve been changing the game ever since Spiderverse came out. They didn’t really have to put their heart and soul into this movie seeing as it´s already part of one of the most cherished franchises ever made, but they did! And the fact that the movie was rooted in earnest passion really shows!

[wampiryzm]

when you listen to a song that literally changes your whole brain chemistry

[photmath]

i want to write something so angst-worthy but i don’t know if i have the heart to commit to it (also me, who absolutely loves loves angst and actually struggles writing fluff)

[deosilplanarglitches]

when you've been told to kys so many times thru your life so now it shows up for the weirdest shit

like no i don't wanna die over coffee that doesn't work fast enough but nice try ya sad sack of flesh

[tojisun]

!! female reader; dirty talking; breeding kink; slight overstim play; unrealistic sex x’>

thinking about how simon’s the type to keep saying filth to you when he’s balls deep. how, in the throes of his pleasure, so pussy-drunk, simon begins to wax poetry about the way you make him feel.

he’s got you folded in a mating press, his lips ghosting wet kisses along your trembling legs. “god, baby,” simon murmurs, his voice a drunken slur. “i need t’wife you up, i swear.” he punctuates this with a thrust, before his fingers pinch your clit.

you choke at the feeling, your legs kicking from where they’re slung over simon’s shoulders. your head thrashes against the pillow, not knowing how else to tether yourself from the stinging pleasure, your mouth falling open uselessly as garbled moans spill out.

“oh this,” he says, distracted by your reaction. “cute little thing, isn’t it?” he looks at your pussy almost with a starry-eyed gaze.

jesus-

“shu-ut up, si!” your voice breaks, weakened from the moans, but simon’s already looking too far gone, his eyes blown wide and his face flushed because of his pleasure.

“y’just squeezed me tighter, baby.” simon rips his eyes from your cunt to look at you with a sort of giddy trance. “y’like it when i play with–” he circles his thumb on your clit, making you squeal. “this? yeah? oh, lovie, you’re gushing.”

he pulls out, torturously slow, teasing, then he’s slamming back in. your ears ring at the resounding wet slide, his pelvis meeting your own with a goddamn squelch, and you scream, clawing at his back at the sharp pleasure that razes through you.

“going t’stuff you w’my cum everyday, baby.” simon giggles. “going t’make you so full.”

he nuzzles his nose on the side of your tear-soaked cheek. “y’want that, yeah? want t’feel sore because of how much cum’s stored in you? want t’be fucked until it takes?”

what-

“si! si!” you cry, mushy mind trying to understand what he’s insinuating. “wha- wh-…?”

“oh but you’d be so gorgeous, baby,” simon groans, his hand leaving your oversensitive clit to hike up along your body, dancing past your groin to plant just below your belly button. simon nuzzles close again, tracing the shell of your ear with his lips, then, “you’d be so pretty carrying my kids.”

those words make your body lock up, something in your mind just shifting right, and then you’re cumming, squirting all over simon’s cock and spraying on his legs.

simon outright moans, pulling back just enough to slot his lips against yours. you couldn’t even kiss him back, still so busy cumming, all cross-eyed at the intensity of your orgasm. it doesn’t matter to him, anyway, not when simon begins pistoning harder. faster. rougher.

every drag of his cock back in your pussy pushes more gushing squirt from you, and simon rumbles with a pleased groan, looking so blissed out as he leaves open-mouthed kisses along your jaw. you dig your nails at his back but simon doesn’t even register the prickling pain, too busy chasing his own orgasm through your cunt.

“s’right,” he coos. “nothin’ else could make me cum, baby. nothin’ else but y’r pretty pussy. y’r tight pussy. god, it’s such a delicious pussy, baby, how am i so lucky to have you, huh?” his words mingle with the thwap-thwap-thwap sounds of his body slamming against your own. it makes you dizzy with pleasure, ragged rasps of breath is all that is passing through your parted lips.

simon croons. “how’d i chance luck and end up w’such a delight?” another wet sound from your pussy rings amidst his words. “mmm, hear that baby?”

you nod, you think. or you moan a reply. honestly, you don’t even know, not with how dizzy you are at the peaking pleasure because there’s no way you’re cumming again–

“that’s the sounds that a happy wife makes,” simon purrs, replying to his own question, and the weight of his words washes over you like the pleasure that’s racing across your synapses. “that’s the sound that someone makes when they want to be bred.”

“simo-nnnnn!” you scream, the sound guttural and ragged, and your eyes can no longer see anything, and your ears are ringing, and- and–

simon laughs, the sound curling into something so, so fond. “y’r so pretty when y’cum, baby.” he kisses your wet cheek. “one more? f’r me?”

fuck-

[analyticallyminded]

tag drop 3/?

verses (part 1).

[nereidprinc3ss]

relax

in which spencer helps university student reader de-stress after a particularly exhausting assignment

18+ (smut) warnings: fingering, overstimulation, happy crying, lowkey softdom spencer, slight d/s dynamics, reader is referred to as a girl, ????idk i've never had to tag for smut before lols wc: 2624 a/n: been doing some insane literary cooking. lots of smut AND more fluff in the works (all uni reader... lol... ). idk if i love this but again need to fucking get it out of my word doc so here u go, PLEASE lmk if you like it!!

You don’t even realize the room has gone completely dark until Spencer comes in the front door and flicks on the light. 

“Why did you do that?” you snap immediately, looking up from your laptop screen for the first time in potentially hours, blinking hard as your eyes painfully adjust. Your boyfriend gives you an odd look. 

“Hello to you too...” 

“I’m sorry. Hi. How was dinner?” 

“It was good,” he says, crossing the room to the couch that has been your entire world for the past five hours. You sigh, releasing some of the tension in your shoulders when he leans down to kiss your head and set down a to-go box on the coffee table. “Have you moved since I left?” 

“...no,” you admit, moving your eyes dejectedly to the keyboard.  

“You made progress,” he appeases, leaning over you to angle the laptop upward. Immediately you wrench it away, holding it protectively against your chest. 

“Stop! I don’t want you to read it yet!” 

“I could help you with it though,” he pleads, bracing a hand on the arm of the couch. You look up into his hazel eyes, where he’s definitely playing up the puppy dog factor. His tie brushes your stomach, and he smells like lavender and clove and-- 

“You need to go away,” you realize, snapping back to reality and shrinking into the couch, away from him—trying to escape his all-encompassing sensory presence.  

“Wh- I just got back!” he scoffs, straightening. 

“You’re distracting me,” you accuse, throwing him a baleful look. 

“I’m literally offering to help you.” 

“And I’m respectfully declining because I care too much about your opinion to show you this essay until it’s less terrible. I really just need a couple more hours to finish it, please?” 

Spencer sighs, regarding your pitiful state before moving to sit down next to you. Automatically you move your legs out of the way before settling them in his lap and damn it he’s supposed to be going away. Your iron grip on the laptop involuntarily loosens a little as his hands begin to run back and forth over your legs. No—you must stay focused.  

“Spencer,” you whine, flopping your head back. You let the implied complaint hang in the air. 

“You’ve been writing all day. Your brain is exhausted, and your synapses aren’t firing at a rate that is intellectually productive.” 

“What is the point of having a brain if I can’t even use it half the time!” you almost-shout, pressing the palms of your hands into your eyes until you see fireworks.  

The couch shifts and you feel the warm, robotic weight of the laptop unpin you as Spencer lifts it from your lap. “Don’t read it,” you beg, watching through parted fingers as he sets it on the coffee table, and relaxing slightly when he settles back into the couch.  

“Come here,” he says, holding out an arm. Too mentally exhausted to do anything but comply, you pull yourself up just enough to fall into him. Immediately he wraps his arms around you, one hand slipping under your shirt to rub your back in hypnotizing passes. “I think you burnt yourself out,” he mutters. 

You nod into his shoulder, surrendering yourself to his warmth, letting yourself sink into a lavender-clove fog, wanting nothing more than to dissolve into it. The darkness behind your eyes glows an inviting amber, threatening to pull you under...  

But the essay... 

“Stop thinking about the essay,” he demands. 

“But I have so much to do,” you sigh against his jacket, the words coming out muffled. 

“The best thing you can do now is give your brain a rest. I promise you you’re not making that paper any better if you’re exhausted.” 

“I am not exhausted,” you insist, although your eyes are still closed, “I’m just really stressed.”  

Spencer hums, continuing to rub your back.  

“Do you need me to help you relax?” he says innocently. 

Oh? 

One of your eyes opens to peer up at him suspiciously. He sweeps some of your hair out of your face. 

“Because I would be happy to.” A moment passes—him looking down at you fondly; you wondering if you’re picking up what he’s putting down. 

“And how would you go about doing that?” you ask suspiciously. 

“Orgasms reduce tension and stress and improve brain function.” 

Damn. Why did the nerdiest, most un-sexy pickup line ever just turn you on?

You groan, burying your face further into his shirt—mostly to hide any trace of a blush. 

“You know what else would reduce stress and improve brain functioning? Taking an Adderall and finishing my fucking essay.”  

“Angel, you're such a smart girl, and you are fully capable of doing whatever you set your mind to—but I will lock your laptop in my gun safe before I let you look at that essay again tonight.” He speaks so softly, and his fingers are still gently combing through your messy hair... all in all, you put up a good fight, right? Maybe you should just listen to him...

“... fine.” you say eventually, reluctant to give in too quickly even though the idea quickly has filled your stomach with butterflies. 

“Fine?” he says, pausing his motions as you turn your head just enough to look up at him. “Sounds like you don’t really want it, baby. Maybe we should just go to sleep. Or I could take you back to your-” 

“Spence,” you whine, gently grabbing the front of his shirt. Now he’s going to make you beg? As if it wasn’t his idea? Those puppy dog eyes of his are deceiving. 

“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” he sighs, hand moving from your hair to your outer thigh. 

“Please?” you whisper, dignity forgotten as you look up at him imploringly. 

“Lean back, sweet girl,” he says, helping you adjust your position til you’re lying against his chest, legs sprawled across the couch. Your head lolls on his shoulder, intoxicated by his close proximity. “Perfect. Such a good listener.” 

Normally, you’d be quick to make a defensive remark, but with the way he’s slowly hiking your shirt up, running his hands over your sides so lightly it gives you goosebumps—you're really in no position to argue. Your eyes flutter shut as his hands grow bolder in their explorations, crossing your stomach, fingers just slipping under the waistband of your shorts and skimming over your hipbones before coming back up. 

“Does that feel good?” he murmurs, and you nod lazily, apparently losing access to your language facilities after running them dry all day. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem good enough for your boyfriend. “Do you remember when the last time I touched you like this was?” 

Through the hazy blur of your exhaustion, you try to think back. Was it... two days ago? Three? More? 

“Almost a week ago,” he supplies the answer for you when you take too long. What? That can’t be right. 

But when you think about it harder... it is right. It was right before finals week started.  

An errant hand straying up your torso distracts you. “Do you remember what I did?” 

You flush. 

“You... yeah,” is the best you can offer, too flustered to say exactly what he did to your body. That stray hand moves over your breast. Your back arches just slightly at the stimulation through the thin fabric of your bra.  

Thankfully, he lets you off the hook.  

“I made you cum three times, right?” 

“Mhm,” you hum through closed lips, tense with anticipation as he finally slides both hands down to your shorts and wordlessly directs you to lift your hips so he can pull them all the way off along with your underwear. 

“You’ve been so busy lately, huh. Working so hard.” 

You unconsciously drop your bent legs open, brain too foggy to be insecure about how utterly bare you are—allowing him to slowly rub up and down your inner thigh. 

“I’m gonna make you feel good, honey. I don’t think three times was enough for such a stressful week.” 

You gasp when his fingers finally brush your clit, whimpering slightly when they just barely skim your entrance before tracing the wetness back up.  

“Give me your hand,” Spencer says, taking his own from between your legs and holding it up. You don’t even think about it, releasing your grip on the arm he now has wrapped around you and holding it out for him. At this point, you’d do anything he tells you to without hesitation.  

He takes the proffered hand, gently guiding it back between your legs. Your fingers meet slick, soft warmth. “Do you feel how wet you are?” 

“Yeah,” you breathe, seeing how your fingers glisten when you pull them away. His remain, running slowly up and down your clit. Your brain seems to be vibrating in your skull as warmth spreads throughout your body. 

“Who’s that for?” 

“You, Spencer,” you whimper. He hums in approval before the room falls into silence as you both watch his teasing intently, your breath baited as you try to be patient. But your body isn’t with the program, you keep twisting slightly, your hips cant upward. “Please, please,” the words escape on a held exhalation as you finally break, arching your back against him as your search for more friction.  

Without warning, he sinks two fingers inside you. The slight stretch after not having taken anything in a week scratches an itch you didn’t even know you had, and you let out a broken moan. 

“I know, honey. You’re so good, I know.” Spencer kisses your head as he speaks over your cry, barely moving his fingers for a few moments while you get comfortable. 

Still you’re not ready for it when he withdraws and pushes back in. 

“Look at that,” he breathes. 

“Oh, fuck,” you choke, watching how your arousal completely coats his fingers as he slowly, slowly begins to fuck you with them. 

Again you feel the vibrations in his chest as he laughs slightly—probably at your earlier insistence that you didn’t desperately want this. The laughter fades as you both become entranced by the sight of his fingers disappearing into you, and your stomach twists with pleasure. His pace remains languid, and he seems to delight in the filthy, wet sounds his hand is producing between your legs.  

“You okay, baby?” he asks after a moment, seemingly snapping out of some trance. 

“Uh huh,” you whimper. One particular drag of his fingers at just the right angle has you dizzy, and then he’s speeding up. Your jaw drops at the change in pace and your hips chase his hand, wanting even more. 

“So pretty,” he mutters as his other hand moves to spread you open.  

You attempt to shut your legs around his wrist, but instead he just ruts his fingers deeper into you, palm pressed against your clit. You attempt to twist away from the extreme stimulation, but he doesn’t allow it. 

“Too much,” you squeak, bucking your hips inadvertently. 

“No it’s not,” he states, like you’re talking about the weather. 

“Spencer, I really c- ah- can't!” 

“It feels like a lot, huh?” he asks soothingly, not letting up one bit. 

“Yes!” you cry, eyes stinging as tears begin to well. 

“You’re okay, angel. It’s just been a while.” 

You are so completely fucked. Each stroke of his hand feels like an electric jolt through your whole body. It is too much, but at the same time, pleasure is pooling deep in your stomach and at the base of your spine and you never want him to stop. You throw your head back onto Spencer’s shoulder, eyes screwed shut.  

“Relax,” he mutters, carefully bearing down the pressure across your waist with his arm to try and keep you from squirming. 

A rhythmic whine breaks through the barrier of your sealed lips as you focus all your energy into taking it, when the all-consuming need to kiss him hits you. You twist your neck to look up at him, observing the furrow of his brow and the way he’s tucked his bottom lip into a bite. Thankfully he notices your movement—his eyes dart from your own half-lidded gaze to your lips and he understands what you want. 

The kiss is messy and the angle is awkward and you’re moaning into his mouth half the time anyway, but it feels so good to have his lips moving on yours that you don’t care about any of it.  

“I—ah,” you cry into him, unable to form a coherent thought as your stomach drops like you’re mounting the peak of a roller coaster. 

His fingers again change their angle and he finds the spot inside you that makes your legs spasm. Attempting to hold in whatever noises you were making is now futile—the whimpers and pants turn to full-fledged keening moans interspersed with taut silences as you fail to breathe properly.  

Your wrench your gaze and lips away from Spencer to watch through a blurry haze the rapid movement of his hand between your bare legs, the way your hips buck and twist and the way your leg bends as he hooks his free hand under your knee and hoists it toward your chest. 

“You’re doing so well, honey. Being so good for me.” 

Moisture spills over from your eyes, tracing down your cheeks and down your neck as you begin to come with no warning and a desperate, broken cry. 

A string of praise from Spencer underscores your pleading moans, but you can’t focus on anything other than the buzzing warmth emanating from your core, the bright, pulsing white that blinds you and the feeling of stardust flowing through your veins. 

Your boyfriend continues pumping his fingers slowly in and out of you for a blissful few moments, before sensing the tail-end of your orgasm and bringing his fingers up to rub lazy circles over your clit. Aftershocks resonate from the hypersensitive area and make you clamp your legs shut around his hand as your toes curl and you attempt to squirm out of his grip. 

“Done! I’m done,” you squeak, rocking your hips back and forth to try and escape his toying. 

“Okay, okay,” he soothes, relieving the pressure of his hand between your legs and moving it to run over your stomach as you come down. 

You lie in silence for a minute, enjoying the liquid sensation weighing down your muscles and basking in the warm afterglow of your orgasm.  

“Shit,” you breathe shakily after a moment. Spencer chuckles. You manage to turn yourself over, laying your cheek on his shoulder and slipping your arms under his waist. He looks down at you as he moves on to massaging your back and bare hips, eyes full of warm adoration.  

“Feel better?” 

You hum an affirmation, wiping your eyes on his shirt. 

“Oh, honey, did I make you cry?” 

You laugh into his chest and nod, a few stray tears leaking from your shut eyes. “It’s okay. Not sad tears.” 

“What kind of tears?” 

“Orgasm tears,” you mumble, a tidal wave of exhaustion you’d been fighting all day finally washing over you. 

“That makes sense. Orgasms can be cathartic or even therapeutic depending on your head space. Major losses and life changes are often associated with sexual dysfunction but the opposite is actually just as if not more common. A spike in libido can—” 

Spencer pauses, looking down to see that you’re either asleep or close to it, and smiles to himself. You’ll probably be mad about it when you wake up, but he had to get you to stop thinking about that paper somehow. 

[mxnyxxngx]

.

[vsprtn]

so many words to say “i have no clue”

[hyacinthdoll1315]

Conversion/ The Box

In one hour, I will be put in The Box.

It has a much more complex and scientific name, of course. But those of us in the system for preparation for it simply call it that. 'The Box', like a device of torture that must not be named.

I've been on the list for some time now. Conscripted, analyzed, prepared, preplanned. While I'd expected something, I doubt I could ever be prepared enough.

We would comfort each other as much as possible. Talk over our worries, assure each other. It was tough to contact the ones post-op, but the ones who did helped explain the procedure.

We wouldn't be aware for most of it anyway. Surgery tended to work better when the patient was unconscious. We'd be put inside, The augments and cybernetics would be applied and attached, our minds would be scanned and be acclimatized to the systems. afterwards we would be in treatment for another 5 weeks as we adjusted to the systems connecting to our synapses and nerves.

Some of us worried of ego death. The ones we could talk to spoke about it like rebirth. Not that they were very vocal. Their handlers tended to translate for them where able, or willing.

And The Box would be where it happened. Keeping our vitals stable while keeping us unconscious, unaware, and deprived of all sensation.

I was scared for a while. Of course I'd be, when described like that. But after some time with those who came out after, the Mech Pilots, the Dolls, the Drones, I'm excited. I think I understand what they mean, if only somewhat.

That's likely part of why I was chosen for this in the first place. Freedom from burden, from worry of choice and blame. Freedom from my slowly breaking body. A chance to find happiness and fulfillment where I couldn't anywhere else. I'd be a weapon, a tool, and that was enough for me. whoever takes the role of my handler will manage the day to day, and if I don't like it (if I even can still dislike it), I could always do what I've heard the first few did. I will be a carefully honed weapon. A tool for greatness.

I will be in The Box soon. and while I'm nervous, I cannot wait for my rebirth.

[a-b-riddle]

Out of the Shadows (1)

Dark Simon x Delusional Johnny x Kidnapped Reader

When he first saw you in the city, he nearly missed you. You would have been lost in the crowd if it hadn't been for the absolute look of defeat written on your beautiful face. It was as if any life you had within you had been sucked out.

He was on his way to Captain's when he spotted you. You were walking almost in a daze. Simply putting one foot in front of the other with nowhere to go. He had simply stood at the entrance of the metro station, watching you until you faded from you. Standing there several moments after, almost... enchanted? Bewitched?

All he knew was that he couldn't pull you from his mind. Not that night at Price's dinner with his new wife. Not when he laid next to Simon that same evening.

Or the next.

Or the next.

It wasn't until Simon practically forced Johnny to confess what had put him in such a sodden state that he had told Simon about you. That he couldn't shake you from his head. That he didn't know your name or even the sound of your voice and yet, he couldn't stop thinking about you.

And now you were just gone.

Simon made the suggestion in going back to the city to see if maybe he could spot you again. So he did.

Everyday.

For three months.

It had become an obsession to find you. He had almost given up. Assuming you were a traveler simply passing through. Simon had insisted that it was pointless. If Johnny hadn't found you buy now, searching almost every inch of the city, it would never happen.

But then there you were. Reappearing practically out of thin air. He had been driving through a part of London that was sort of well... the slums to put it mildly.

It was late in the evening. Too late for Johnny to be out and about in these parts and definitely too late for a pretty lass like you to be out so late. But even through the heavy downpour of rain and the slight fogginess of his windows he knew it was you.

You were practically sprinting, as if you were running from something.

Or someone

It wasn't until you went to a building and tried to shake the doors open did Johnny turn sharply on the side of the street to park his car. Whoever was after you, Johnny would be more than happy to handle them. It wasn't until you started banging on the steel security door shouting your name, claiming you were here did Johnny look up.

In off-white letters read West End Women's Shelter.

Johnny's heart sunk into his stomach. Had this been your situation the entire time he had spent looking for you? At a shelter?

Johnny got out of his car. The weather showing him no mercy as it began to soak his sweatshirt. "You alright!?" He had to practically shout over sound of the rain. You turned, jumping at his voice behind you.

"I'm fine!" You lied hoping your assurance would end the conversation and this stranger would just leave you alone. You weren't a stranger to strange men wanting to 'help' you.

"Saw you running and just wanted to make sure you were okay. No one chasin' ye?" You huffed but concealed your fear. Men fed off of it, like prey playing with their dinner.

"Nope!" You replied. "All good!" You crossed your arms over your chest. Too prideful to show you were freezing your ass off and just wanting him to leave so you could start weighing your options.

"You locked out?" He asked the one obvious question you couldn't bullshit. The doors weren't opening and you knew damn good and well they wouldn't until the morning.

No exceptions.

"Fuck," you hiss, low enough in hopes he didn't hear. "Yeah! Just missed curfew!" It's not until he starts making his way toward you, the engine of his car still purring do all of the danger synapses in your brain begin firing away.

"There's a hotel nearby." He said. "It's supposed to freeze over and the rain won't help ye. I could at least cover your room for the night." You looked at him. Where he expected to see relief, even joy, he found uncertainty.

If he wasn't a pervert you would say he's handsome. But even a handsome face and the threat of frostbite would convince you. You're homeless, but you hold on to what little dignity you still have.

You shook your head, taking a step back. "I don't do that."

"It's fine." He assured, pulling out his wallet.

"Stop!" you hissed, looking up to make sure the red light of the camera was off. Of course it had been. It hadn't been fixed since you came here. You turned back to look at his confused expression. "Turning tricks will get me kicked out of here, okay?"

"Tricks?" He asked, confused before piecing it together and shaking his head. "I'm not looking for a night with ye, Bonnie." He explained. "Just don't want you turning to ice." You wish you could believe him. You wish that you could believe that there was still some honest to God goodness left in people and not just those who want something in return whether it be your body or a tax right off. "Besides, looks like yer already out."

He gestures to the doors behind you with a nod of his head, but you don't take your eyes off of him. "I missed lock out." You shrug nonchalantly, as if you were facing certain death if you slept on the sidewalk tonight. "They open up at 8 tomorrow and there's always the metro."

"Look," Johnny huffed, now soaked to the bone while you got sheltered underneath the door's archways.. "Get in the car and I'll at least take you there. The train station on this side of town isn't exactly a place a lass like you should be staying. I'll take you somewhere safer and leave you be. Alright?"

You look back to the closed doors behind you, weighing your options. You were warned about the freeze, but your job had ran later than normal. Your asshole boss cutting you off last. Your feet ached and you were in a skirt, sheer black panty hose with a donated puffer jacket covering the shirt provided by the pub.

Laundry day wasn't for another two days and it was your only jacket. It wouldn't be dry in time for your shift in the morning.

Fuckkkkkkkk.

Why you? Why was it always you?

"Just to the station." You said.

"Just to the station," he repeated.

"And you're not getting anything in return, you know?" You wanted him to know. You weren't looking for a handout, but if he would help you he wasn't going to get anything more than a verbal 'thank you.'

"Don't expect to." He shook his head. "Come on before ye' get sick standing here in nothing but your stockings and a jaiket."

He makes his way over, opening the passenger door, waiting for you to follow.

You take a moment. You're options are limited. The decision a clear one.

You run from your covered sanctuary into the blistering cold rain. He just waits until you're entirely inside the car before shutting the door.

The car was warm and smelled... nice.

It didn't smell stale at all. It seemed like that's all that was around you. The smell of stale piss just outside the pub and stale beer inside of it. The poor circulation of the shelter didn't offer any sort of fresh air and not everyone there took advantage of the hot showers.

But it smelled clean and fresh. Nothing particularly note worth like minty or masculine, or musky. Just like a clean, well taken care of car.

"Name's Johnny by the way." He introduced, not taking his eyes off the road. You gave yours in return. It was only polite. He repeated your name, liking a little too much how it sounded falling from his lips. "Fitting. Bonnie name for a bonnie lass." He didn't turn and give you a cheeky wink. He kept his eyes straight ahead, trying to see through the rapid swiping of the wipers and the rain.

The two of you sat in silence even though he ached to ask you a million questions. He wanted more than just your name.

Where were you from? How did you end up in the shelter? Had you always been in this situation? Were you safe? Is that why you were so sad that day that day he saw you?

"Everyone seems to be out leaving the match." He said instead, noticing the influx of traffic that had began to build.

"Match?" You asked.

"Aye." He said. "Some football match."

"Oh." You said. "Right." You had wanted to work that night in hopes of making a decent tip or two, but the curfew was strict at the shelter so you opted out.

And still got locked out.

"Might as well make yourself comfy." He sighed, leaning back against his seat. "Looks like we'll be a minute."

The warm air incased you fully now. Having warmed up the numbness in your poor toes. If it wouldn't have been seen as rude, you would have taken off your kitten heels and given your feet some relief.

The car's seats were more comfortable than the cot at the shelter. Add that with your exhaustion from an almost twelve hour shift from serving breakfast to finishing the dinner rush, it was starting to become a fight to stay awake.

But you could spare a few seconds of closing your eyes.

There were cars lined up. People, now, all around you. If you felt him try anything funny you would know. It was okay just to rest your eyes for a moment or two.

So you did.

You let the soft hum of the car drown out the noise of outside as the pitter patter of rain lull you to sleep. Your breathing deepened.

It wasn't until Johnny saw in the window's reflection that your eyes had closed that you hadn't turned away to avoid conversation.

You had fallen asleep.

In his car.

It was a no brainer for him that he wouldn't take you to a fucking metro station to sleep. He planned to just take you to a hotel, put a wad of cash in your hand and tell you he meant it. He wasn't looking for a whore. He just wanted to help you.

Or...

Or he could do it.

He could do what Simon had given him the green light to do two months ago when his obsession in finding you had peaked the Lieutenant's interest. It wasn't every day Johnny had fancied a lass longer than a passing glance. He was the type who rarely remembered names.

So when Simon had suggested bringing you home, Johnny thought he was just pulling his leg. Simon couldn't have been seriously considering... sharing? The two of them were together. More than just brothers in arms. It was a thought, once upon a time about adding a more feminine energy to the relationship, but Johnny didn't like any of them enough to have them stick around and Simon didn't like anyone except for Johnny.

But now, it was different.

This was you. The girl who had plagued his thoughts, his dreams for months. The girl he had lost sleep over. The girl who he had thought he would never going to see again.

But now you were here.

Now.

If he was going to do it, he had to do it now.

No turning back.

[inklore]

whispering "i love you" to your "lover" while they're asleep because you're not sure if they feel the same way but you really needed to tell them that

this screams Jordan pretending to be asleep and accidentally hearing reader confess her feelings

Only they actually love reader as well

THREE LITTLE WORDS.

pairing: jordan li x (f)reader

contents: established relationship, love confession, nothing but fluff with angst, jordan being love sick.

note: thinking about them in love and happy makes me cry ok!!

It actually stops their heart. Like their body is cemented beside you, forgotten how to function properly.

Air stunts in their lungs—that haze that flows through ones brain as they’re trying to fall asleep, swept away by your words. 

“I love you.” 

A brush of a thumb against their cheek, a touch that they want to lean into, that they want to press their lips to, but their body refuses to let them. Brain refuses to work the way it’s meant to to have them open their eyes and stare back into the ones they know are looking at them.

Even when there’s rustling and you’re turning over on your side, your back snuggly pressed to their front. The smell of your shampoo brings them back to some kind of reality that doesn’t have their lungs deflating. 

You completely filling their lungs. The synapses in their brain finally sparking to life. Finally, letting air move through their chest as they breathe in and out slowly. 

Their heart following suit and beating rapidly and heavily in their chest. 

Their eyes opening, the back of your head a solace in this moment,

This moment where they don’t know what to do.

To say.

To act. 

“I love you.”

You love them. 

And fuck, of course they love you too. The longer they think about it, the longer their heart pounds in their chest, and the more images of your smile, your laugh, the way you feel beneath their fingertips flash in their mind.

They’ve loved you for a long fucking time.

Longer than they're even sure they’ve allowed themselves to grapple with. To overthink, to wonder, and to worry if you’d ever love them too. In the same way. With your entire heart, like you can’t breathe or think straight unless you know you have them—that's the way they feel about you. That’s the way they know they love you.

They've been completely enamored by you since day one, as silly and cliche as it sounds. Even with strains of hookups with other people. The two of you skirting around each other. Like fate was patiently waiting to push you two together at the right moment—a moment that would feel like a volcano bursting. 

Sparks, stars, explosions. 

They’re so sick with affection and love for you that their chest hurts. 

Any insecurity that has plagued their mind with how you felt about them, how you viewed them, has always been kissed away. Smiled away with reassurances and words.

You were an anchor to their loud mind. 

Support they’ve been craving and finally have.

But they still can’t say it back right now. Can’t pull you closer and whisper it against your ear or your lips. 

You thought they were asleep; they weren’t meant to hear it. 

There’s a fight in their brain as they debate if you really mean it or if you just said it to test it out and don’t actually like the way it feels.

Sounds.

But when they wake the next morning, their overthinking finally lolling them to sleep after hours of tossing and turning—when their eyes meet your sleepy ones, when you give them that groggy smile, they can’t help it.

They need to say it.

Need to tell you, or they might fucking burst.

“I love you too.” 

[galebrainrot2024]

GalexYou Comfort After a Nightmare

This is a brief scene of how I think Gale would comfort you after you wake from a nightmare. Good old fashion fluff. Post Elder Brain, Act 3 Spoilers. Gender Neutral. Happy Valentine's Galmancers &lt;3

You wake with a start and struggle against the arms that securely wrap you. “It’s alright, sh, it’s alright,” a man whispers against your ear, his thumbs rubbing small circles against your arms. “You’re having a bad dream..." the voice lulls, "you’re safe and here with me, alright? Do you smell that…” you inhale, scrunching your nose and shake your head. You feel his hot breath tickle your ear as he laughs almost inaudibly. Your eyes flutter open, taking in the darkness. 

“I don’t smell anything,” you rasp, your throat feels like cobblestone. You’re in a room, you feel hot and feel silken sheets entwined between your legs that you try to shake off and he brushes your hair back in a way that makes the adrenaline in your body cool. You feel his hands slip the sheets from between you to free your legs. Immediate relief.

“Seriously, it's such a strange smell...” the soothing voice pulls at you and you obey, taking another breath. You feel the neurons in your brain begin to fire, the synapses shaking to life. You smell pine... wood... dusty books?

Gale. You are in Waterdeep with Gale, your soon to be husband.

You feel your body shudder and there is wetness on your cheeks, your eyes are swollen and the world is blurry. “What’s going on..” you try to sit up and you feel his arms wrap tighter around your waist. 

“Stay with me,” he whispers against your shoulder, his lips pressed against it. Your heart settles, your breath slows, and you press back against him. You wrap your fingers over his and squeeze. He inhales your skin and sighs, kissing your shoulder again. You melt into him, the curve of his body fitting familiarly against yours. It feels like home. “That must’ve been some nightmare,” he runs one of his hands through your hair again, brushing it back behind your ears. His thumbs grace the streaks of tears and brushes his thumb over your eyelashes. “It’s alright, my love. Go back to sleep…” you find yourself drift back into the abyss, treading twilight, as Gale recounts stories of your adventures, stroking your hair, kissing you. You're not sure when sleep takes you.

[hereforthehitsbaby]

Darkness, Imprisoning Me | Cooper Adams/Abbott x F!Reader

Gif credit to @billy-crudup

Synopsis: News reports of The Butcher leaving his latest victim across the street from your house wasn't enough to spook you, not even into locking your doors. In fact, you were enticed by the idea of him getting in. But is it everything you wanted?

Warnings: Dark!Fic, Angst, Mentions of Murder, Victim!Reader, Cooper is so cute then a baddie, Essentially what I would think would go down with The Butcher

Rating: R

Word Count: 6.2K

A/N: I promise to write fluff pieces with Cooper eventually, but this man has such a choke hold on me I cannot contain. It’s the parasite in me, I blame them. I need the angst, I need the hurt. Originally this was gonna be just straight up porn but, I didn’t want to burn out.

Tagging: @rubyfruitjungle @cherryinterlude @lilly3434 @amethystblackkchaos @rosaleelovesdilfs @babygorewhore @dirtylittlefairytales @redpillbluepill @strangererotica

If you would like to be tagged for my fics, please fill this out

“The Butcher is a megalomanic, a typical wolf in sheep’s clothing. They’re meticulous and calculated. They are the perfect killer – and that is exactly why they slipped out from under the FBI’s nose.”

Calculated, that is the best way to describe most things in life, explain most passions as well. It isn’t a bad thing to be calculated, no, it’s a good thing after all. There is something about knowing that you are taking precautions and closing gaps before they can form that is rewarding. The endorphins it sends to the brain get mistaken for happiness and content. Calculated is good, calculated is safe. It means there are no possible tracks to follow or fall back on; A burned, fraying edge of a ribbon. It shrivels up under the intensity until nothing stands but a solid nub of what used to be. Calculated keeps the sanity flowing, for the opposing party that is. It brings a great sense of pride to the killer, knowing they are untraceable. Until they’re not; Their day of reckoning comes quick, quicker than they anticipate. They cannot run or hide anymore – they become infamous, they become hated. They become real.

That’s what your criminology professor used to say before she got on the case of The Butcher – what the media is dubbing him – a psychopath who likes to lure their victims into a sense of security, torture them, and then dispose of them in public places. The kicker? It’s never in one piece. All twelve victims so far have been cut into fourteen pieces, never thirteen. It made sense, thirteen being the unlucky number after all – it created a sense of bad luck for all killers to dwell on. But not The Butcher, they were clean. They clearly were not a loner; this was someone who could blend in at the drop of a hat. Disappear quickly if need be and never look back. Yet in Philly, everyone seemed that way.

Moving here wasn’t ideal for you, but Penn State offered you a great position as a first-year professor while you were pursuing your last year of your Masters. You’d be a fool to pass up that opportunity; The pay wasn’t awful but, it put you right where you wanted to be. Being the trainee of Dr. Josephine Grant was a dream come true, working under her and picking her brain about serial killers was exactly what you wanted. Since you were a kid, growing up watching all of those crime shows when everyone thought you were sleeping, you felt a connection to the field, like it was beckoning you. There was something about putting a psychopath away and finding out why they committed their crimes that intrigued you. What fired off in their synapses to where they thought killing was the only way to conduct their life. You wanted to make a change in the criminal justice field; You wanted to be that change. Philly happened to have a sociopath of their own running amok, and you wanted to be in the midst of the chaos.

Everything fell in line after that – your condo was bought at an extremely low rate compared to other mortgages in the area. You could walk to and from work and classes on the daily, leaving your afternoons open. Hell, it even helped that your grocery store was directly across the street, right across from the park. It was a sweet spot and one you felt like was too good to be true at the end of the day. But alas, you were not questioning fate as it saw you as its pawn. You were just living your life; Single, brazen, and ready to be the face of change in the field. Plus, working close with Josephine meant that you were right at the forefront of The Butcher’s ideas, patterns, schematics. Young, attractive; They all knew he was a male, and not a woman – especially with the craftmanship of the bodies.

It excited you, a man that dedicated to ending the lives of others. You wouldn’t ever admit it aloud but, being a young woman in your position was compromising. If you ever told Josephine your plan of luring The Butcher in to get more information, you’d be fired. But that was your plan at the end of the day – in hopes to uncover more. But truly, you were doing it to entice someone else. When your condo complex became the hub for the police, after another victim was found chopped up across the street from you, you wanted to lay a welcoming hand out for a certain someone. Which is why you stopped locking your doors, your windows, even barricading the deck door. Naivete got the best of you, you were most certain. But it was all for the cause, the further exploration into a serial killer’s mind. You hoped it wouldn’t be him who got in but someone else entirely, yet a girl can dream. As fucked up as it was to think; You were Grant’s pawn, a willing one at that. It was a stupid plan but, God it made you feel alive. The only other thing that did was off the table.

It's always easy to crush on the neighbor next door, not having an establishing factor caused you to admire from afar. Though it was hard not to with how thin your walls were – hearing everything that happened on the other side. It wasn’t provocative to say the least but intriguing. Nature documentaries, Golden Girl re-runs, even some mix ins of Robocop and Midnight Run to lull you to sleep. It was comforting knowing a person was there who happened to like the same things as you. But it only complicated the crush you grew to have. That wedding ring tended to complicate a lot of things – though you never saw anyone but him. It was weird to say the least but, you had no control over it. Pining from afar was the betterment of your time anyways, school took up too much.

The only time you ever talked to him was when The Butcher claimed yet another victim, tossing their remains on campus. It was obvious you were a student worker by your hoodie you always wore, showcasing the department and school. You were notorious for wearing your headphones in as you walked home anyways, which happened to spark his interest. “It’s not safe to do that nowadays – you wouldn’t hear anyone come up on you, sweetheart. I’m just looking out for you.” The sentiment of Cooper Adams’ words struck a deep chord within your body, not ever feeling something so live within you. Having someone car for you was foreign, especially with how your parents were growing up. But Cooper, he really was like a dad – if he wasn’t already. He was the neighborhood watch dog, only wanting what is best for everyone, if everyone wasn’t just you. His autumn eyes never looked away when you left or came home, they watched your every step with ease and precision – notating in case something happened. Cooper was a man, and you needed him.

”I respectfully disagree, I think The Butcher is sloppy and they know it. They keep fucking up and putting themselves on the line. I mean come on, who in their right mind leaves a trail of receipts behind them. For Lady Raven no less! The biggest popstar in the world has a serial killer coming to her concert I mean, it’s alleged but – the odds aren’t out on it, right?”

Grading papers and trying to finish the second of four halves of your dissertation on The Butcher caused you to leave campus late. A fifteen-minute walk down to your home was fine, but something about tonight felt off. October is a beautiful time to enjoy – the sweet and savory smell of pumpkin in the air, the crisp sound of leaves crunching beneath your feet. It was your favorite time of year, but you couldn’t enjoy it like you usually do. You ignored Cooper’s insightful thought to not use headphones on your way home, opting to listen to a podcast instead about The Butcher. Any new leads you could use for your dissertation you were taking, whether they came to full fruition or not. It helped to deepen your argument of what makes a killer, kill. You wouldn’t lie to yourself; The podcast was freaking you out with how soon the Lady Raven concert was coming up. Even if it was alleged, he was going to be at the Lady Raven concert, you didn’t want to take your chances. You knew how to blend in and keep an ear to the ground but, being a victim was not on your list.

Rounding the corner to your block, you saw that Cooper’s light was on in the living room – making you let a sigh of relief out. It meant he was up again watching you come home, keeping you safe as always. It warmed you heart and soaked your panties. It was a no brainer Cooper was extremely attractive; Beekeeping age to be exact. There was something about the power dynamic of an older man with you that lit you up on all cylinders, you couldn’t handle the thoughts. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t touch yourself to the thought of him – taking you soft and slow like you assumed he liked, treating you like a princess. It was what dreams are made of; he truly is prince charming in your eyes. No one is that perfect, that loyal to the job, or that kind. Beloved fire chief Cooper Adams, you wanted him.

Smiling to yourself, you removed your headphones from your ears, shoving them into your purse. The last thing you wanted was for Cooper to see that and think you didn’t heed his warning; in turn you did – the tail end of the trip anyway. Taking a deep breath, you let the weight of the world off of your shoulders, feeling safe again the closer you got to home. You knew it was silly to be spooked about this whole situation; The cleanup crew took the body away days ago and everyone trickled down from there. The caution tape still slapped against the barren tree trunks, shaking leaves from its head. But The Butcher moved on to another place and wouldn’t visit the same place twice you knew. Still though, the thought excited you of Cooper going into your home at some point to make sure you were okay. To reprimand you for keeping the doors unlocked, for seeing how innocent you truly were. You were begging for him, and hoped he caught along eventually.

You were thankful that the steps to your condo wasn’t too long, only a four steps to the front door. Hopping up each one softly, you gently put your hand on the doorknob, pushing the handle down with your thumb. The click of the stopped pushing back into its slot made you cringe, wondering how loud it was compared to what Cooper could hear. Surely, he was going to ask why he didn’t hear your keys tomorrow, and for that you’d had to think of a creative way to tell him. There was no way in hell you were going to come straight out and tell him why you left it unlocked. No, you needed to be smart about it. The heavy front door started to swing backwards for you, creaking at the hinges which in turn made you shy away from it, your heartbeat flooding your ears. The pounding in your head wasn’t helping your current situation, for every move you made was loud – causing your fingers to tremble. “Please don’t be awake,” you muttered to yourself, letting out a deep breath once the door was fully open.

The dark foyer of your condo made you feel safe, knowing once you get upstairs to the kitchen you could be okay – that nothing was coming for you. Letting go of the door caused it to fall back into place, clicking soundly when it is tightly shut. Reaching behind your back, you grabbed onto the top dial for the lock, turning it clockwise, then reaching up to deadbolt the top lock. Now that you were shut in tight – you didn’t have to worry about anything else. It was then the realization struck you; The Butcher couldn’t get into your house if he tried, if it wasn’t the front door. Your bedroom and kitchen were on the second floor. The deck stairs are padlocked shut – he would have to use a ladder. How you didn’t think of that previously was lost on you but – at least you had a good chuckle at the thought.

Grabbing onto the railing, you toed your shoes off by the stairs with a hum to your voice, showing Cooper you were okay – even if it didn’t need to know. Tiredness was setting in hard in your mind, causing a slight headache to erupt at your temple. Using your free hand to massage the tightened muscle, you made your way up the stairs; Every other creaking as you leaned forward. The strawberry cheesecake you bought yesterday was calling your name, all you wanted to do was cut yourself a slice, sit back on the couch and watching some Penny Dreadful. With the start of your weekend now commenced, you just wanted time to yourself to think. The closer you got to the top of the steps, the more you felt the sleepiness roll in behind you, wanting to curl up and snuggle the night away. A yawn released itself from your mouth, causing you to stop in your tracks. On the top step no less, you managed to press your back to the wall, so you didn’t fall, or topple down.

Shaking your head as the aftereffects of the yawn roll through you, you started to make your way into the kitchen to the fridge – feeling the draft of the windows behind opened cascading over you. With a thud on the countertops, you dropped your bag off with your phone – rubbing your eyes to ease the pounding. You didn’t realize how hard it had got to focus once you began, the feeling too good to stop. This was exactly what you needed to start – something brain numbing and desensitizing so you could continue on. You did have half a mind to sleep at the kitchen counter, everything else just seeming so far away. Just a little nap until your felt energized, it would fix everything for you. You dropped your hands at your side to stare forward, trying to let the stars in your eyes disappear before moving. Though, something was out of sorts.

Squinting your eyes in the dark of the kitchen, you strain to see what was at the far head of the kitchen table, wondering if it was just your imagination confusing you, or if there was someone sitting there. Your hand found purchase on the kitchen countertop next to your light switch, thumbing it on with a bright bulbed gleam. “Jesus!” You exclaimed out, jolting backwards into the stove, clutching your chest. There was a person sitting there, and surprisingly the one you hoped for. Your labored breathing echoed in the space as you huffed out a laugh, running your fingers back through your hair. The initial shock of seeing Cooper in your kitchen was starting to wear off, instead it caused you to be giddy. Finally, you thought with an internal smile. But it was clear Cooper did not mimic the same. Instead of looking like his usual sweet, kind, and caring self – he looks pissed off. The softness that laid upon his eyes this morning, we replaced with a darkened line of hard steel – ready to tell you off.

He was wearing that damned stripped sweater you loved so much, the autumn colors contrasting beautifully with his complexion. His biceps building as his arm crossed over his chest, his feet finding purchase flat against the linoleum. Cooper shot his brows up in a challenging way, as if to secretly say seriously. You couldn’t stare in his eyes as he looked at you, feeling the heat creep up your cheeks and neck, causing you to burn up. The tick in his jaw as he focused on you made your knees weak; Sucking down the moan threatening to escape almost broke you. “You didn’t lock your door.” Cooper stated in a non-bullshit tone, causing you to cower. If you looked at him, you knew you’d confess as to why you did. You promised yourself he’d never know about that, no matter the circumstance. “Two days the cops were here because of the body. And you didn’t think to lock your door when you went out?” The fatherly tone in his voice caused you to shrink away, jaw set in a hardened place.

Cooper shook his head back and forth with no change in expression, still so disappointed to see what you had done. “Windows open, doors unlocked. Have you forgotten there is a killer in the neighborhood?” That was the thing, you hadn’t. You left this as an open invitation for The Butcher to try something. Maybe, just maybe he’d let you live long enough to learn more, jot it somewhere or record so when you were gone, at least the evidence was behind. But there were faults in that, The Butcher wouldn’t give you time for anything. You’d be here and done in the next, depending on how long he wanted to play with you. “I’m sorry,” you squeaked, moving to the opposite counter, trying to get closer to Cooper. You could see it in his eyes he didn’t want none of that, he didn’t want an apology. The longer Cooper stared at you, the more his face shifted from annoyed and disappointed, to scared and worried. He must’ve realized how he was being and wanted to correct it before you thought differently.

“I wanted to see if you were up for having a movie night. Imagine my surprise when I see your door open and unlocked.” There was a fearful waver in Cooper’s voice, causing your stomach to sink. The one thing you didn’t want to do in your soon-to-be budding friendship was worry him or scare him for that matter. But there was a feeling of failure starting to weasel its way through your stomach, wanting nothing more than to console Cooper. He couldn’t look your way as he spoke, shaking his head away from you as he focused on the plastered white wall of your kitchen, counting the tiny specks of paint dots in my mind. “I thought…I thought The Butcher had gotten to you.” It was low, but loud enough to break your heart – tearing welling in the corner of your eyes. Your heart was plummeting, you needed to act fast.

Coming around the kitchen island, you stand at the front end of the kitchen table to face Cooper – your eyes silently pleading for him to look at you. His foot tapped against the floor in pointed rhythm with his fingers, tapping along the edge of the table as he unwound them from his chest. His thick fingers came up closer to the edge, grazing over the handle of something. Your eyes were curious, deciding to have a mind of their own as you glanced down to see the silvery glint of a sharp object – eyes going wide, breath going still. Sitting next to your thigh on the table was a meat cleaver from your knife set you just bought, the edge sparkling with attraction – wanting to be used. You understood that Cooper was scared for you, so he grabbed something to protect himself just in case. It was admirable to say the least, you felt your heart warming at the thought.

Cooper let his fingers cascade over the black handle of the knife, pulling it to him without a stutter in his step. Picking the knife up, he tested the weight of it in his palm, dragging the tip of his finger over the serrated edge, feeling it cut him a bit. You winced at the sight of blood pooling out of the small cut, your stomach doing flips. Blood never made you squeamish but self-inflicted wounds did. “I’m so sorry Cooper, I never meant to upset you with it. Honest to God, I forgot this morning.” You were lying through your teeth and Cooper knew, he fucking knew from a mile away. The saddened look in his eyes switched so quickly, if you blinked, you’d miss it. Placating a docile look to his own face, he stared at you carefully, making no quick movements or hasty decisions. He was giving you your chance to confess, and you fucked it up.

“I think you did it on purpose,” he called out, sitting forth on the chair so his elbows rested against his muscular thighs. He chuckled in a sinister way as he pointed the cleaver in your direction, waving it up to your face so you’d look at him, rather than the floor. “I think, you wanted The Butcher to come in here.” The heat sliding across your chest and neck made you feel sick, like you were exposed. A live wire touching a hot nerve ending; It was electric in a twisted way. There was no admiration or happiness but despair and darkness. He was calling you out so fast on your bullshit, it scared you. It made you feel weak just knowing he could read through you. Sweet, doting Cooper was a thing of the past as he kept going. “I think you wanted to catch him on your own and make yourself a hero.” Touch. Fucking. Down. It was the closest Cooper was going to get to the truth – he didn’t need to know the other half of it. Knitting his brows together, a light sheen in his eyes made the ember pupils go misty, your eyes letting the tears slip. “Is that true?”

“N-No, not at all!” It was obvious in your shifty tone that you were lying, that this was all bullshit. Cooper had it down to a tee, he read you like a book before you even stepped through the door. He saw you for what you are, a pusher. Cooper sighed as he lowered his head, shaking it from side to side as he stared at his boots. The leather tightened as he put his weight onto his boots. The stretch of them caused your pulse to shake, your feet moving back at the detection. You knew Cooper wouldn’t hurt you, he would even attempt to kill a fly, let alone a person. He was trying to get the point across to show you just how serious he was, but to you – he was a bit too committed to the bit. Tossing his head back, Cooper slid his calloused fingers through his hair, disheveling the length of it so it draped over his face.

 “Monsters exist, you know. They’re everywhere.” He began, his tone dropping to a lethal level. There was a drop in your abdomen as you heard it, sounding like something otherworldly. It didn’t seem like Cooper had control at all, but something else. Was it aggression? Pent up stress? Months and months of rage he needed to express? He was never wound tight so you were taken aback. You didn’t know how to navigate it, because the second you would try, it would backfire by tenfold in your face. It was the fact that Cooper was almost talking down to you that made you upset – leaning in a little too heavy on the reprimand. “I-I know that.” You shot back without hesitation, ignoring the stutter in your words as you stared at him. There was a venomous bite to your words, to which Cooper was not a fan out.

Cooper began to stand as his body evened out, his six foot three stature towering over you. Gulping down the fight you had in your throat, you focused on his facial expressions, waiting to see what he was planning next. The way he looked down his nose at you made you shiver, dread creeping its winding way across your spine. “No, you don’t. Clearly.” Cooper stated, the bladed ended of the cleaver coming to rest against your side, creeping along your sweatshirt. You didn’t dare to break away from Cooper’s expression, knowing if you did – something bad was going to happen. But it already wasn’t it? He was the bad thing. In that moment, a lightbulb went off. Cooper Adams wasn’t just the fire chief, or a doting father. He is The Butcher.

The revelation caused your palms to grow clammy, balling into shivering fists at your side. It was too good to be true, you never would’ve guessed though. The secret condo, the overt fascination in watching you, making sure you were safe. Always needing to hear you, knowing you were okay. Hell, he played the caregiver role very well – you just were oblivious to the fact that it is because you’re working with the same people trying to take him down. If there is one thing Cooper wouldn’t have, it is that. For years he has gone undetected, twelve victims, bodies brutalized into bits and pieces. “…because you let the biggest one walk through your door. Sit at your kitchen table. Watch you make a fool of yourself, and you’re still turned on.” Cooper ended his statement, causing you to tune back in to what he was saying.

Wrapped up in your own thoughts, you didn’t realize that Cooper had moved the cleaver to sit under your chin, the cold metallic feel against your skin caused your pulse to push. Anchoring you in your spot was Cooper’s free hand against your hip; A punishing strength you knew would leave bruises come the morning. With the cleaver at your throat, Cooper leaned down to whisper in your ear, letting his warm breath fan your flesh. “Don’t lie to me again, I won’t go easy on you.” Cooper growled out, his fingers driving into your hip deeper, causing you to wince at the pain. It was not a threat but a promise. A way of holding that control over you, to show you that no matter what – you were never in control of your life, for as long as he has been in it. You didn’t realize it but, you were wearing your heart on your sleeve. The emotion on your face was feeding some sick, twisted passion of Cooper’s, causing his once evil scowl to turn into a bright, beaming grin.

Stepping hard in front of you, Cooper jolted a bit to spook you – pulling the cleaver back enough so you didn’t get hurt. A cackle slipped past his lips, causing you to press against the kitchen wall closest to the stairs. “How long would it take you to get your locks undone, and get to the corner store before I caught you?” He asked it as if it was a simple question, but it was a challenge. If he could tell you left your door unlocked on purpose then, he could tell you had a crush on him too. His proposition was to showcase loyalty; Would you run and cry like the rest of his victims, or stand your ground and grovel at his feet? In another world the second option would be the best one, but this is reality – not fantasy. You couldn’t, after what he did – what he wanted to do…you were not going to be a statistic in his book – you were not going to be an easy kill. You are a fighter.

“Want to find out?” You didn’t, you truly did not want to but knew it was your only chance. If you stood your ground, it would be bloodshed. At least if you tried a bit more, pushed further – you could stop him once and for all. I mean, that was your plan after all, right? Catch The Butcher, put a stop to his shit. Your plan, a dumb – yet smart plan. But it being Cooper made it difficult for you, like a lump in your throat trying to pass. You didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t in fact, but the more he let his guard slip the obvious it became. You didn’t respond, didn’t look away from his eyes either. You stared ahead and watched Cooper with intent, challenging him to drop everything and stay there. You didn’t feel your feet leave the ground; you didn’t notice your knees hiking up with a sprint. Hell, you barely registered what was going on as your vision went from Cooper to the halfway point of your staircase, the deadbolted door only a few feet away. Jumping from the fifth to last step, you landed right on your booted feet – bringing a shaking hand up to undo the first lock. As you slid the deadbolt out from its place, you reached for the doorknob – but not before both of your hands were pinned to your side.

“Too slow there, princess. Did you even try?” That evil laugh ran your blood cold, a pout evident on his face without even turning. You went to scream but, Cooper cut off your noises with his arm across your neck, your chin sitting in the crux of his elbow. Instantly your nails found purchase in his thick sweater; Tiny fibers coming up as you pull with roughened hands. Donkey kicking your way into his knee, Cooper grunted with an annoyed mewl, letting out a heavy sigh against the side of your face as he pushes you face first into the wall. “Seems like you wanted me to catch you,” Cooper snarled, lips pressed so hard against your ear you felt his teeth grazing the sensitive skin. Fear is the biggest betrayer; When an escape comes your way, you take it. No second thoughts, you go. But alas, the fear of not knowing caused you to panic and stutter with the deadbolt. If only you had been quicker, you’d be at the police station, not at The Butcher’s mercy.

It hurt knowing this was Cooper’s goal all along, to make you lucky number thirteen in his black book of death. Just another name, just another victim, just another live lost because of the inadequacy of the police. Another pair of eyes snuffed out, another brilliant mind gone to senselessness. You know you are a survivor, you know you need to prove it. Placing a tender kiss to your temple, Cooper sways you a bit as he pushes his weight into your back, tightening his hold with a grunt. “Ask me why, come on. I know you want to.” The whisper was one of petulance, like he wanted to give you the reason before you became his thirteenth reason. It was your parting gift on this realm; To know before you met the others. You didn’t want to give in, you didn’t have Cooper Adams to have the upper hand. But the feeling of a small knife poking just under your right lung in the hold made tears fall, a gasp of sorrow spewing out. “W-Why!” You screamed, feeling the anguish and despair wallowing in the open air.

Cooper took a deep breath as you spoke the words, fueling his ego with the emotion you were giving. The glimmer of hope he was snuffing out of you set him on edge, in the best way possible. Here you were, pressed against a wall with his arms wrapped around you. His knee between your legs to keep them open and his face melding with yours. Cooper and you were one in the same, a victim and killer creating a blinding situation. One where the only outcome is red. Running his nose along the backside of your ear, nuzzling into your skull, let out in a low tone: “Because I can.” It was straight forth, no mistaking what he said or the meaning behind it. Cooper was not one to fuck around about the kill, he took it seriously as he should. It scared you how quickly he shifted into The Butcher – there was almost no time to adjust. Now, he confessed. He can so he will, and you are going to be the sweetest one for him.

“Oh, was that not what you were expecting?” Cooper pouted as he asked, feigning innocence as he omitted a sad sound in your ear, causing the silent tears to erupt. Turning your head slightly to try and see his face in the glow of the pale moonlight, your eyes shone with disbelief and tiredness. His lips screwed up into a soft smile, using his free hand to caress your cheek. Every tear that fell, Cooper kissed it away from the back. He was mourning as well, mourning a soon-to-be friend, maybe a love interest, but all in all another brilliant mind. “No one expects me to take a life, and that is the thrill of it.” There was no hesitation, no gallop along bullshit to make you feel better. Cooper was direct, manipulative, psychotic. “I hold power over everyone, and they let me.” It was stated like a prayer, a true belief that it was making the world a better place. Cooper didn’t forget the accusatory stance when he spoke next, making sure you heard his words loud and clear. To know what a mistake this was. “You let me.”

A guttural, wretched wail leaped its way from deep within your body, ripping out through your lungs like a beast fully being unleashed. You dropped your knees slightly to try and get the advantage to slip away, groaning out in frustration as he locked his own. The knife slid across your sweatshirt like butter, not cutting your skin but sending the message. Cooper wouldn’t have gutted you in his sweater, no, it would be too dirty. The blade was dull, but the point was sharp. It was meant to scare you, to keep you in check. Did he think it would cut through cloth? No, but he knew it couldn’t skin. So, Cooper let you drop out of his grasp as the knife slid, backing up only slightly for you to scramble out. Yes, you exclaimed mentally as you crawled across the foyer floor.

Like a silent killer, Cooper turned around ala Michael Myers style and watched you – a blank expression making its way back to his features. He didn’t press forth, nor did he grab at you. Instead, Cooper watched you struggle like a stuck pig in mud, scurrying your way across the stairs and start to gain your balance. The first few steps were tough to keep your balancing, your boots sliding across the laminate wood. Halfway up you started to gain traction on each step, gripping the railing and not daring to look behind. But it was quiet, too quiet. You knew in your gut Cooper was planning something; You had no idea what but, this was something more than you. “You’re so pretty when you’re scared, it’s kind of hot.” Cooper drawled out as he slowly made his way up the stairs, smirking in the moonlight as he crept after you. Turning back around you kept the same speed to keep the distance between you both substantial. Slamming of boots coming from behind you, causing you to panic. But you were able to make it free of the stairs, and jet towards the deck door in the kitchen, thankful it was still unlocked.

As you moved forward on fast feet to grip the handle, a heavy hand came to the side of your head. The weight of it felt unnatural, otherworldly. The skin wasn’t warm on the palm, but ice cold. In a second, a simple blink, your eyes were unfocused. The world around you started to spin, and you reached your hands out, trying to find anything to grab onto. Instead, you felt the boom of pain on the left side of your head, warmth coating the skin as you fell. The floor, or table never came up – you landed in the arms of Cooper, who was now grunting and panting like a dog – perfect hair disheveled, mouth screwed up into an annoyed expression. “Sleep it off, you’ll be fine.” You dismissed off your feeling as he lowered you to the ground. Everything was in a daze, a glowing aura of red around your eyeline. No matter how many times you blinked or trying to focus your eyes, everything spun like a merry-go-round. Bursts of lights coated your vision, your wrists met with hard plastic as they were tied together. Your feet following the same fate.

You felt your body move, sliding down the kitchen floor. It was cold, dry, and yet warm all at the same time… then everything went black. You no longer felt a thing.

To Be Continued…

[dailyadventureprompts]

Hey Dapper! As an avid follower of- and equally avid inspiration-taker from your work, first of all, thank you for the work you've put into all this. It is a treasure-trove of knowledge and inspiration that has certainly made me very happy. Can I ask for your thoughts on Tharizdun? I've been trying to form a concept of it for in my own world, but I've had little success.

Monsters Reimagined: Tharizdun, the Whisperer in Darkness

Being the default "god of madness" Tharizdun brings together two of my enduring gripes with d&d: gods that no one would actually worship and the enduring legacy of depicting people with mental illness as dangerous lunatics devoid of empathy and reason.

As he currently exists in the DM's toolbox, the whole point of including Tharizdun in your campaign is to act as the powersource behind whichever final fantasy style endboss wants to start the apocalypse before unleashing a mass of offband lovecraftian tentacles. Derivative, trite, his singular desire to inspire others to end the world is MCU levels of failing to give villains proper motivations.

We can do better

TLDR: Far In the wildest depths of the astral sea the ur-god Tharizdun is formless and thoughtless, yet dreaming. Resembling nothing so much as a cosmic nebula of oily clouds, a vast and shapeless expanse of churning primordial chaos that pulses with synapses of psychic lighting containing a consciousness older than time itself. Like a sleeper beset with sleep paralysis the chained oblivion thrashes against a reality it can only barely perceive, sending shockwaves of destruction across the cosmos.

While scholars of all worlds debate the true origins and nature of Tharizdun they can agree on two things:

It is more powerful than all the pantheons of creation, and it is terrified.

Inspiration: I wasn't originally going to do a whole monsters reimagined on Tharizdun, instead simply gesturing on what Matt Mercer has done with the deity (using the roiling chaos as a throughline for much of his Exandrian worldbuilding) and leaving it at that.

Around the same time I got this ask though I was considering doing my own take on Azathoth, the so called "blind idiot god" of the lovecraft mythos, inspiration struck and I decided to alloy the two concepts into what I think is a stronger whole. There's a lot of overlap in the two formless horrors, partly due to Tharizdun being a d&d's attempt to dip its toe into eldritch horror, without quite understanding the thematic framework involved.

Like many other things ( Minorities, the sea, decay, air conditioning) Lovecraft was terrified of objective reality. This might sound like a joke, but fundamental to his mythos is the fear that earth and the white men that lived upon it were not the centre of the universe created by a loving god. Lovecraft lived in increasingly scientific times and the science supported the idea of a universe in which humanity's existence was the meaningless product of random chance. Azathoth was this anxiety embodied in its most extreme scale: the capital G god of the universe which sat in the middle of all creation that was not only uncaring towards humanity (as many of Lovecraft's creations were) but the embodiment of ultimate unthinking chaos.

Trying to port Azathoth (and most of the other lovecrafitan pantheon) doesn't work because the conceits of the genre fundamentally clash. D&D DOES propose a moral universe, and goes out of its way to simplify morality down to such a cartoonish level that it has objective answers. In Lovecraft the horror comes from the fact that the cultists and their fucked up alien gods exist, where as the moral christian god doesn't... in d&d there's no reason for the cultists to worship the fucked up alien gods because the regular gods are both existent and quite nice.

The default d&d cosmology has multiple infinite voids of chaos including limbo, the abyss, and the far realm. I've already given my take on one of these, but I wanted an alternative for the origins of the weird that wasn't specifically focused on entropic decay.

There's a fascinating (and very depressing) history over the term hysteria and the connotations of mental crisis with feminine fragility. The word itself comes from the greek word for womb and there's something about the idea of "primal birthing chaos" that's worth playing with insofar as it makes weird rightoids Jordan Peterson deeply afraid.

Taking these thoughts as well as my earlier gripes in mind, its going to take a bit of an overhaul to make Tharizdun/Azathoth as a credible antagonistic force for a campaign. Also, this might be my own bias as an author showing through here but I don't go in for the lovecrafitan "truths too terrible to be understood". I think the universe is a fundamentally knowable place and if things exist outside our means of perceiving them then we'll just bullrush through and work out a temporary explanation on our way.

Here's my Fix/Pitch: Both Tharizdun and Azathoth are supposed to represent primordial chaos and formless madness. D&D's less than stellar history with mental health issues aside, we know that "madness" isn't evil and it isn't the antithetical opposite of order: It's flawed reason, it's an inability to comprehend, and it's deeply scary for those going through it.

THAT ended up reminding me of a famous quote from lovecraft himself; "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown".

What if we make THAT FEAR into the god? Imagine the panicked sensation of being woken from the deepest slumber by a sudden noise, the door opening or a loud bang going off somewhere on your street..... the phantom horror of something touching you, crawling over you in the middle of the night before you have any of your senses or reason or memory to tell you that it's just your partner or your pet or your own bed sheets. That's the stuff sleep paralysis is made of and it's been haunting us humans since the dawn of time. It's also the same horror of being born, of being a non-thing and then coming into existence in fits and starts without any understanding of the world that you're now

Now imagine there's something out there in the astral sea, the plane of dreams and thoughts... powerful beyond all imagining but created without the ability to ever fully wake up. It is stuck in that first moment of existence because it may well have been the first thing to ever exist and it's been trapped in the shapeless nightmare of an infant since the dawn of time

THAT is how you make a god about the horror of the unknown. A god that is antagonistic to us because it is sacred of us, and it is scared because it has no way of knowing us, knowing the reality it inhabits beyond its own fear.

Adventure Hooks:

The greatest threat Tharizdun presents to most beings in the universe is having a nightmare about them. Through the inexplicable paths of sleep an individual's mind may find themselves connected to the entity's own... receiving terrible visions as the thinking clouds of Tharizdun's body churn in a variable brainstorm. Some aspect of this communion will be twisted into something terrible, birthed into the cosmos with the same shrieking fear and confusion that inspired its creation. Some desperate few seek out this communion, thinking in their hubris that they can give shape to Tharizdun's creation, that the terror beyond time suffers collaborators or requests. (Yes, I'm yoinking the dream-spawning ability of beholders. They were already weird enough before they started getting involved with dream stuff)

Despite being a living entity, Tharizdun is also a place, a plane unto itself streaking through the multiverse like a collossal ameoba through the primordial soup. There are landscapes within the god, whole continents that form and erode through seasons of surreality as the paroxyc titan dreams them into being. One can create portals into these landscapes, even fly a jammership across them, but the act of doing so invites an even more chaotic backlash than visiting the chained oblivion in dreams, letting its terror leak out into the waking worlds.

The name "chained oblivion" dates back to an eon when forces of celestial order attempted to keep Tharizdun contained in the hopes of preventing the escape of its creations or its contact with other minds. This period of the multiverse oft refereed to as the "Time of Quiet" sadly came to an end when the entity's bindings were shattered by a collective of villains and horrors today refereed to as the "Court of Fools" or "Troupe of the Final Void". The Troupe are a motley bunch, unable to agree on a theology but all wanting to pick at the slumbering titan like it was a scab on the skin of heaven. Some serenade Tharzidun with cacophonous music, others hurl saints and sacrifices into its body, some worship or hunt the god's offspring while others stab it with cosmic pokers, just to get a reaction. They want to wake the chained oblivion and don't care how much of the multiverse they have to burn to do it.

Like a mollusc producing pearls as a means of containing an irritating bit of grit, Tharizdun's roiling cosmic body will occasionally spit out an entire world or strange demiplanes as a means of dislodging something it could not pallet. While this has been the genesis of many realms both beautiful and terrible throughout the astral timeline, of late all these worlds worth taking have been colonized by the Troupe. Woe and pity to any mortal who calls such a world home, ruled over by tyrants who care only for destruction, unaware of a cosmos not coloured by Tharizdun's wake.

Titles: The chained oblivion, the spiraling titan, sire of stars, the Paroxsmal god, Lord of all Hysterics.

Signs: Stormclouds that look oily and churn with otherworldly light, formless nightmares and pervasive sleep paralysis, mass delusion, darkness that echoes with the god's muttering and the sound of distant flutes.

Worshippers: Ad hoc worship of Tharizdun tends to congregate around those who have received unwanted visions of the chained oblivion, as the harrowing experiance often bestows those that suffer it with an otherworldy weight to their words, to say nothing of occasional psychic powers. Many abberations likewise pay heed to the chained oblivion, either for directly giving them life or for its great and insuppressable power. Among these include Grell who refer to Tharizdun as "storm mother", The nightmarish Quori follow in the wake of the god's psychic emanations and make up a large faction of the court of fools, and the Kaorti, terrifying mage-things remade by exposure to the spiralling titan's heart who claim to be heralds for the entity.

Art

[anika-ann]

made-up fic title: ever so softly

Hello dear 🥰 Thank you so much for participating in the game 😍

Since my brain does refuse to acknolwdge the concept so far, you too get a little drabble-ish thing 🥹 This time only with 600 words, Bucky, and a flavour of angst with hurt/comfort 😇

ever so softly

warnings: mentions of blood and violence, anxiety, sensory issues and hypersensitivity and PTSD A/N: divider by @firefly-graphics

Sometimes, your hands shake.

You’ve got a tender heart, people would say; a codename for those who get overwhelmed with the world, with people, with the noise and smells and strange textures and tastes, with emotions; with anxiety.

Your own body, your own damn brain was often your worst enemy. You were your worst enemy and you hated it with passion, especially on days when you somehow had no energy left but for that and spiralling down the void of terror made of your own synapses.

On days like these, like on every other, Bucky holds you, whispering soft words of solace and encouragement into your hair, tender lips and gentle voice, creating a protective bubble of silence and peace, tucked safe and far away from the world.

On days like these, he embraces you closely – unless you cannot bear his love for the moment, despising yourself for it all the more – and helps you put together the pieces of your tender soul you feel have imploded inside of you and suffocate you with every attempt of breath.

He sooths you and promises – begs, in truth – to keep you. Loving you,

ever so softly,

reminding you that you can choose and do the same and until you do, he will. For both of you.

And on some days, you do too.

Sometimes, Bucky’s hands shake.

It is a funny little glitch, he supposes, once he has the capacity to be sardonic with himself, which is always; his metal hand, science perfected, precious chunk of vibranium crafted to faultless functionality on engineerism, and it trembles as much as his flesh hand.

Bucky Barnes is an old man; a reborn man, haunted by an army of ghosts and undead. Doctors in his old days called it shellshock; the fancy modern name for it is PTSD.

Some days, images of blood, violence and death run on the silver screen of his mind like the most messed-up horror flick, following him through day and seeping into his nights, sleepless; or worst, consumed by nightmares than never end, because they are memories of his own actions.

His soul weighs too much to bear, drenched with blood and guilt that no penance can wash away.

Sometimes, you help with the cleanse despite it.

You take his shaking hands – sometimes his very own, sometimes the glorified invention attached to his body – and lead him to the living room where on the shelves stand his little treasures; one supposedly beautiful thing next to another, small wooden statues he had carved himself, rough around the edges but otherwise delicate, a reflection of his gentle torn soul. You do not speak a word, you do no point, letting him see what you see. To make him see that what he only perceives as a pair of hands soaked in blood and wrongdoings, had made good and beautiful too.

And even in the dead of night, you walk him to the most special room of the house, of your home, his steps hesitant, but his heart too weak to resist. Helpless and already yearning, he can never say no.

In those no longer trembling hands, you gently place the most precious thing he has had a generous hand in creating, with utmost love.

Tears burning in his eyes, he cradles your baby, his baby, to his chest with one arm, his other curling around you, pressing you to his side, lips attached to your temple. You linger in your embrace until his tears of grief and guilt turn into ones of acceptance and happiness.

Because he loves and he is loved,

ever so softly

and every beat of his heart, your heart and his child’s, promise him that despite all the pain, everything will be okay.

I hope you enjoyed the little angst but with a sweet note in the end for a change🥰

Thank you for reading and @murdock-and-the-sea for sending 💕