#he's this tiny little thing and he is So Angry in every photo

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

i’m obsessed with those “itkg finds out gojo raised megumi” fics & now i’m just giggling at the idea of like every month they find out megumi is someone’s boy. it could be yuuta. shoko. maki. gojo. etc.

kamo is fighting to get megumi as his boy but :( he’s just not valid enough. yuuji is seething at the idea that everyone get to claim megumi as their own in some fucking way but meanwhile, he can barely find the courage to hold his fucking hand.

kugisaki is just wondering if megumi is like the village baby. like does she need to step up? she absolutely will because she needs a doll to practice makeup on & etc. gotta put those lashes to good use.

(also the idea of gojo using jujutsu terms to describe the most parental things like sex. god i don’t even wanna imagine his period talk.)

Megumi had to give the period talk.

It was the second worst and most painful talk of his life. It used to be the first, and then Gojo decided that Megumi needed to learn about safe sex and the magic of his changing body. megumi almost killed them both just to end that conversation.

Tsumiki was unfortunate enough to have hit her period before everyone else in her class, and she was always kind of isolated from the rest of the kids because of Everything with her home life. She wasn't inviting people over for sleepovers, and she didn't really go on them herself. Her mom was completely checked out of her life from a young age. And I head canon her as someone who tends to neglect her own needs in favor of everyone else's. So she had absolutely no idea what was happening when her period came. She hadn't heard of it at school yet. She hadn't heard of it from her mom. She hadn't thought to look up what exactly happened in puberty for herself yet. She thought she was bleeding internally. She thought she was dying. It was a point of hysteria.

It did not help that Shoko had spent years lying wildly about what happened on a girl's "time of the month" to Gojo and Geto. To this day, Megumi has no idea what Gojo thought happened on a woman's period, but it sounds suspiciously like lycanthropy. As a result, Gojo also thought she was bleeding internally. He almost teleported her to Shoko for healing. He was about to take her to a hospital.

Luckily for them both, Megumi secretly loves his sister and had very quietly prepared for this eventuality while hoping beyond hope that it would never come to be.

He didn't want to do it. He just knew that Tsumiki wouldn't think of herself and that she didn't have a mom to walk her through this. At least for him, he knew that Gojo had lived through the amab puberty experience. He assumed that Shoko would step up to the plate when the time came, but Shoko was more of a wine aunt than a mom figure, and he just wanted a contingency if she didn't.

He read a book on what to expect with puberty for afab reproductive systems. He immediately returned this book to the library. He said nothing about any of this to anyone ever. He shut the fuck up about it for years. He was happy not talking about it.

Until Tsumiki got her period. And it was treated like cause for a hospital visit instead of the corner store.

Megumi calmed them both down. He told them that they were going to shut up, sit down, and listen. Absolutely no eye contact would be allowed for the duration of this conversation. They would never speak of this again. There would be no questions at the end. Everyone shut the fuck up and listen.

It was a comprehensive and medically accurate explanation. There were diagrams pulled up from the internet. He gave one (1) stiff hug to his sister and informed her that if they ever spoke of this again, he would have no choice but to kill them both. Then, he went upstairs and tried to forget it ever happened.

legitimately every time they turn around, they find out that Megumi is someone else's Boy. First it's Yuuta, and that's a crisis and a half--mostly for Yuuji, who seethes with a quiet and unexpected jealousy. Then it's Maki, who very unexpectedly fussed over Megumi's injuries after a mission and lectured him about being careful before sending him to bed. Then it's Gojo and finding out that Megumi is literally his boy, like he's his legal adoptive son. Then it's Panda and Inumaki, who have decided that the Village Baby custody agreement that only exists in their head means it's Their Right to harass any of Megumi's potential romantic partners, leading to a very confusing conversation with Itadori, who was still buffering with his gay awakening and hadn't realized he was a potential partner.

It's not Kamo. It's never Kamo.

(Kamo: he could be my boy

Maki, not missing a beat: he really couldn't

Kamo: he could--

Maki: he never will be)

Nobara doesn't have Yuuji's homosexual drive to make Megumi Her Boy but she does have a rapidly developing codependency with him and a healthy sense of competition. Fuck it, he's her boy now. She'll do it better than everyone else. She's got Her Boys and none of them go outside without the other two anymore. They're a Unit. they're gay idiots but they're her gay idiots. Fuck off.

Megumi absolutely has no awareness of any of this happening and would not be happy if he found out it was.

[hedgehog-moss]

(There is blood pictured at the end of this post) (well, 1 drop) (don't worry it's mine, not some innocent creature's)

I found a dormouse in my kitchen today, just chilling on the ceiling above my head, watching me cook. Maybe even judging my cooking technique like Ratatouille. I only noticed its presence because there's a bunch of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling above the stove and at one point I heard a rustling, then a crunching noise.

It was eating my herbs.

As if they were a little snack I'd placed here for my dormouse friends. None of my other animals can walk on the ceiling, therefore any food that's near the ceiling must be an offering to the dormice. (I admit, that's sound logic.)

A dormouse family has been living in my walls since before I moved here—I should probably call it a dormouse dynasty, by now. Here's the first post I wrote about them, in 2019 ! The cats eat a lot of them (especially Morille, she loves dormice) but apparently not enough to make the key decision makers in this dormouse community decide that living in my house is more trouble than it's worth.

Every year when they hibernate and go quiet for eight months I have the renewed hope that this time the cats got rid of all of them, but the next spring they wake up and start scratching inside my walls in the middle of the night again. (Not only that's creepy, but it's so loud.)

Anyway, this dormouse, let's call him Alfred. I saw immediately which hole between two stones he'd crawled out of and the first thing I did was to stuff a salt shaker in there to block his escape route. Step 2 was to call for backup—I summoned Morille, and she came down from the living-room 2 seconds later (the cats know it's always good news when I call them to the kitchen while cooking.)

Alfred was panicking.

I grabbed a broom and started threatening him with it like an angry old woman in a cartoon. He tried to flee towards the ladder, but Morille was there. He tried to flee towards the door, but Morille was also there. He tried to hide on top of the fridge, and Morille happily lay siege to it, like my fridge was a Gallic oppidum on top of a hill and Morille was Caesar and his entire army.

Morille was having the time of her life.

But my kitchen door was ajar, and Alfred managed a heroic jump from the top of the fridge to the lintel, like a flying squirrel. He scurried out then grabbed hold of the climbing rose right above the door. When I got out and took this photo, he looked fairly stressed and pessimistic.

I didn't want him to climb the wall all the way to the eaves and go right back into my house, so I went back in to get my broom again, either to make him lose his grip and fall straight into Morille's gaping maw (sorry), or make him run away into the woods (inferior solution; they always find their way back, unless you take them very far away.)

(I used to trap dormice humanely then drive them 3km away to release them near the barn of a neighbour I disliked, but this neighbour has since moved. (Not because of my dormouse warfare, I swear.) There's also an abandoned house in the woods where I used to exile my prisoners, but after a while I started feeling silly driving around the countryside with dormice in the backseat, so I stopped trapping them (it really was a hassle) and just let the cats eat them.)

But Alfred is a combative and resourceful rodent. In the half-minute it took me to go back in and grab my broom, he laid a trap for me.

He ran along the stem of my climbing rose in such a way that his weight made it droop jussst enough to be now hanging at face level rather than above the door. So when I ran outside again with my broom, I was slapped in the face by a thorny rose plant. (For a minute I thought I was crying tears of blood, which seemed worrying, but it was just a scratch above my eye.) (I wish it could leave a tiny scar, so people will ask how I got it, and I will tell them about the mighty dormouse wielding a rose sword.)

I sent these pics to my brother hoping to get some sympathy, and he cropped & desaturated the one with the blood teardrop then sent it back with the comment "you look like an Evanescence song"

By this point I decided Alfred had won this battle. (Not the war, because it's almost autumn aka hibernation time so he probably found another gap between two stones and went right back inside. The war continues.) But this humble dormouse set a Saw trap to poke my eyes out the second I stepped outside my house and I respect that. I admire the way he used his environment to his advantage, and teamed up with my climbing rose to level the playing field (since I had teamed up with my cat first.) He has won the right to spend another winter inside my walls, curled up in my cosy wool insulation, dreaming of dried herbs, thwarted cats, and heroic skydiving from fridgetops.

Well played.

[aliidarling]

danny johnson with friendly!survivor

DANNY JOHNSON x fem!reader

— headcanons

nsfw / sfw content below!

imagine danny seeing you for the first time, dressed in a cute black dress with black uggs, your hair with a bow in the back. his first thought is how the hell can you run in those furry boots? they must get mud all over them.

he’s at first drawn by you, your beauty, innocence, and how you’re so god friendly. it’s nerve wracking, how each time he pairs up with you, you don’t hesitate to greet him with a hug. he feels a little possessive, wondering if you do this with other killers. he asks around and they all tell him you’re scared of them, how you run off immediately and how you stick to gens.

he feels prideful at that. you were comfortable around him, safe even. if he wasn’t such a deranged lunatic maybe he’d ask you out like a normal gentlemen, but whenever he sees you he’s caught inbetween two worlds.

imagine danny seeing the other survivors take advantage of your purity, asking you to sacrifice yourself and unhook others, always blaming their generator blasts on you. one time he even witnessed them slamming a pallet in your face, and at that moment he swore he would all gut them and send them up into the entity.

his pretty princess didn’t deserve this treatment. you deserved to get pampered and massaged, get your cute little face rubbed and kissed, not whatever the hell this is.

safe to say, none of the other survivors made it out that round. you, on the other hand, escaped unscathed through the hatch with a kiss on the forehead.

imagine danny witnessing you coming into the match with a tiny pajama set, matching with all your fellow survivors. you have a black oversized tee shirt on that hugs your chest and accentuates your curves(he swears he’s not a creep, he just notices things easily..). your shorts weren’t any better, shaking off that soft skin of yours that glowed. he would rather die then to see that pretty skin all bruised and bloody.

he can quite literally melt into a puddle as he notices what’s on your shirt. it’s a graphic design of him slashing, with his name written in a flashy red font. the entity must of noticed his obsession with you, because no way this was a coincidence. he had never been more happy. he was definitely gonna make sure to give the entity some more sacrifices as a little thanks.

imagine danny slowly becoming more and more obsessed with you, a small crushing turning into a massive obsession over the span of a few months. he can’t breathe with you, can’t think, can’t sleep, can’t do anything. he starts to sneak into the survivors camp just to take photos of you, snapping you in every angle he can get. he thinks you’re the prettiest girl in the world.

whenever he sees someone interact with you while he’s doing his usual stalking he finds himself becoming so angry. why were you entertaining them? you were his good girl, not that dick steve’s or sweet boy dwight’s. his.

half of his bedroom is a mess, cluttered with random little miscellaneous he found throughout the forest of his realm. his house is small and rusty, a little cabin in the woods he stays in outside of trials, where he spends all his time thinking about you. just you. under his bed is a blood red box he hides, full of polaroids of you, some pieces of clothing he managed to snatch off your figure, even some of your missing objects you hadn’t seen in months.

did i mention he loves to break into your cabin?

imagine danny snooping through your small room while you’re out in a trial, shoving his nose into your business and sniffing everything. he goes through your closet, dressers, under your bed, even tries prying open the floor boards. he wants to analyze every part of you and understand how you work, how you function, how that tiny brain of yours thinks.

he can’t help but laugh when he finds your collection of bows and your girly objects. he doesn’t know how you’ve managed to have make up and hygiene products in this realm, but your dresser has them. no wonder he’s so obsessed with sniffing you, you have that sweet aroma of sweet goods and vanilla sweets that’s coming from your perfumes.

nsfw content below!!

imagine danny whisking you away whenever you both are matched up, taking you into one of the rooms in the myers house. he’s quick to push you down onto the rugged mattress and pull your tiny dress up, grinding his hips against your round butt. he cherishes your sweet little moans, how your eyes roll back.

he loves to tug at you, taking his mask off at times to bite and kiss you. you were the only person he’d let see him without it, especially in such a vulnerable moment. he would take advantage of his access to your butt and give it bites, leaving literal red marks on your butt. your loud squeal and annoyed glare is what amuses him and makes him keep doing it.

imagine danny holding you by your waist, his large hands that were undoubtedly covered in your friends blood grippijg you tightly as he rubbed his tip up and down your wet hole. he relishes in the fact he makes you so wet. he doesn’t have to do much, he can rub you and give you a little kiss and you’d be begging for his cock like a needy whore. he’s loves that about you, you’re easy. only when it comes to him, though.

imagine danny humming in relief as he finally slides himself deep inside you, bottoming out in one thrust. his hips snap against you as he focuses on how tight you are around him, how warm you are around his cock. he could not give a fuck about any of the survivors running around like mice, doing generators and opening chests, not knowing one of their fellow survivors were being slutted out and fucked nice n deep like the good girl you are. “shhhh,” he whispers gently, petting your face. your sweet cries make him harder.

imagine danny having you bent over one of the vaults, your head sticking out on the other side as you moan like a dumb girl, tongue sticking out. his hand is in your hair, tugging at it gently as he rolls his cock into you. he knows you’re in a position where anyone could walk across the two of you, but that only makes him more needy for you, more eager to fuck you hard.

he teases you a lot, making fun of you and giving you small jabs each time his fat tip hits your cervix. he listens to each noise you make, wanting to inhale your words. he was obsessed with every part of you, from your head to toes, your insides to outsides.

imagine danny having his days where he’s so pissed off. all four survivors escaped, and he can’t even count the amount of times he got a pallet slammed in his face. he’s quick to sneak into your cabin and push you down onto your bed, not caring about your confused pleas and dumb words about getting caught. he ignores everything you say, pulling your pants off and pulling you forcefully into a face down ass up position.

ramming his cock in your unprepared hole was one of the best feelings in the world, other then gutting his victims. your cries into your pillow are silenced as he keeps a hand on the back of your head, massaging your scalp subtly. his other hand holds you down as he batters your pussy, groaning and letting dirty phrases slip out of his mouth. a part of him feels bad for being so mean to you, you’re just a sweet girl, so pretty and innocent— you don’t deserve this, no, you deserve to be fucked gently and kissed, but that doesn’t matter right now. right now he needs a tight hole to fuck his anger into.

[teamblck]

the 141 as dads

captain john price-

• this man is would be such a good dad

• we all know for a fact this man has a breeding kink so i see him having like 3/4 kids

• waking up early in the morning and eating bowls of cereal watching old cartoon re runs with them

• would start smoking outside or exclusively in his office because he doesn’t want that around them

• type of dad in his retirement to coach his kids football/soccer team

• the best for laying the child on his chest, humming as they fall asleep

• would be super interested in what his children’s interest are (this goes for all of them but i’m putting it here)

• takes his kids on camping and fishings trips

• loves to play hide-n-seek with his kids

• his kids would mock his actions and stand in front of the tv with his hands behind his back, and when they are napping on the couch his kid would also start snoring cause we all know this man snores LOUDLY

• type of dad whenever his kids mention they like eating something once he buys like 5 boxes of it

• would cry they say their first word no matter what is is

• loves taking them to the park

kyle ‘gaz’ garrick-

• okay literally the best dad ever

• i could see him with like 2 or 3 kids

• MATCHING OUTFITS

• if he had girls he would 1000% learn all kind of cute braid styles for them

• when he found out his spouse was pregnant he would be shocked but happy and would immediately buy 100 what to expect when you’re expecting books

• would hate when he kids got into trouble cause he would hate laying the law down but would sit them down and talk every calm but firm

• then would go into another room and be like 🥺

• would NEVER get angry with his kids

• all the mothers would flirt with him in the pickup line at school and he just ignores it

• he thinks his children deserve the entire world

• his kids call Price grandpa

• will blow raspberries on their stomachs until they they can’t stop giggling

• takes 1000 photos of his kids doing anything and then spam sends them to his spouse

• got so nauseous the first time he changed a diaper

• family halloween outfits

john ‘soap’ mactavish-

• such a fun dad

•pillow forts

• ice cream for breakfast

• if he had a son/sons he would cut their hair in the mohawk style as well

• would want so many children omg

• he comes from a big family so i think he would want one as well

• but if his spouse didn’t want a big family he would be okay with it

• if you’ve watched modern family he would be like phil dunphy

• would put his kids on those kid leashes whenever they go anywhere

• i feel like one thing he would struggle with is saying no to his children

• would always help them with their math and science homework

• type of dad to do push ups while his kids are sitting in his back and they are all giggling

• the proudest dad ever! is at every dance recital or sports game or talent show and if he can’t be (because of his job) he would ask all about it when he got home and even if they did poorly he would still tell them how proud of them he is and go her ice cream

•TICKLE FIGHTS

• it would also tear him up if couldn’t be there during a special event for his children

• i also feel like he would cry at major life milestones

• if his children/kid are into sports all you can hear at games is him yelling across the field

simon ‘ghost’ riley-

• GIRL DAD SIMON GIRL DAD SIMON GIRL DAD SIMON

• just imagine him with a pink baby holder strapped to his chest

• he would be such a good father omg

• with his past with his father he would be super scared at first but then as he’s holding this tiny infant he would get angry (not at child obviously) cause how could anyone treat their child the way his father treated him?

• would be super protective of his children (i mean all of them would tbh)

• as cute as it is for the baby to wear little skull head clothing, i don’t think he would want his children knowing ‘Ghost’.

• i think one thing he would struggle with is when his kids throw tantrums when it’s over something ridiculous like he wouldn’t let them pull their siblings hair or eat something gross off the floor and he doesn’t know how to deal with them. he doesn’t want to get to firm and scare them and he doesn’t want to give into such ridiculous things so he would kinda back away and look at you for help

• his kids would 1000% get his accent

• loves to lift them up with his arms, whooshing them around like they are a super hero

• has tea parties with his kids and their stuffed animals on a regular basis

• such a big softie for his children/child are you kidding me

• his children/kid use him as like a jungle gym and are usually hanging off his arms

• would never tell them what he does for work and when they ask he would just say ‘work’

i would give any of these men children or all of them

let me know if you have any feedback!!

[strawberrystepmom]

nsfw - minors/ageless dni, i will hard block you. narumi x f!reader. they are online dating. gen is so cringe fail loser online boyfriend coded to me and i'm utterly obsessed enamored in love with him. back and forth, mentions of mutual masturbation and sending nudes, suggestive conversation, open ended to write more about them. | divider thanks to cafekitsune, wc 1.7k

Gen’s phone pings with a notification on this desk. His eyes widen despite the fact he is mid digital conflict, tossing fireballs at the final boss of the latest game he’s managed to master and beat in roughly three days, muttering to himself while clicking the direction pad with one hand and sliding his phone haphazardly into his lap with the other. 

A tiny piece of him is hoping that the notification is thanks to new results showing up under his saved search for Captain Narumi though he isn’t angry at what he does see on the screen when he looks down at it for the briefest moment, ignoring his handheld boss battle. 

fallingstarwishes: you are always online at the strangest times…

The little icon of a cartoon version of you, the character you play in the game where the two of you originally became friends, next to the message stirs a little warmth in his face. He presses his lips together to hide a smile and turns back to the fireballs being hurled at the titular hero of the game, dodging them expertly, inevitably going to win this battle just as he wins all of the rest. 

Another ping distracts him, at least momentarily, and the screen in lap lights up. 

“Shit, just give me a minute,” he mutters impatiently toward his phone, red eyes flicking down to see another message from you. 

fallingstarwishes: don’t you ever sleep? it’s so late (early?), silly.

It may be 4 am for him and roughly 2 pm for you but what you don’t know is that an hour ago he was spearing through the technicolor core of a kaiju four times his size that leveled three city blocks with just the sound of its roar using just his bayonet. He can’t leave blanks about who he is and what he does for much longer. As badly as he’s wanted to boldly brag to you about his prowess, he has always known it can make or break the two of you when the truth comes out. 

The right time to mention the whole life threatening and dangerous job thing hasn’t quite come up yet, though. You know he’s in the military although he has never been entirely forthcoming about what that entails and you’ve never asked.

He thinks about how fresh things still are between the two of you. Less than a year of knowing one another, a chance meeting in a large server for a big title slice of life game that came out last year, that has since turned into late nights (for you) messaging, gaming, and eventually voice chatting and giggling together until one of you is forced to go - either to bed or work. 

He fires off a few more fireballs at the boss, dodging the weakly tossed few they return, and the screen goes into the cutscene that effectively declares yet another victory for him. Smiling, he sets the handheld console aside, and curls his fingers around his phone. The screen fills with the conversation between the two of you, messages sent all hours of the day every day, the last one a picture of you laying in bed last night in a suggestive position claiming to be thinking of him. 

His gaze fixates on the photos for a moment, greedily looking at what he was only able to glance at before he left for his mission. He slides down to the chat bar and smirks, seeing your status go from idle to online when you notice he’s typing back to you.

captaincool: Aren’t you at work right now?

You grin from miles away, discreetly looking around the office to make sure nobody can see you using a messaging app that is very obviously not work related during your paid hours. It’s not like you’re in danger of getting caught but there is something particularly delicious about having your own little love affair nobody else has to know about. It’s just the two of you, always, in a world (or worlds, when you consider how many hours the two of you have spent across games) you’ve created to enjoy together.

Tapping out a message, you furrow your brow and jiggle one of your ankles where it’s crossed over the other. 

fallingstarwishes: stop answering my questions with new ones of your own!

Gen smiles down at the screen, thumbs tapping the edges of his phone, anxiously waiting to see what you’ll say next. 

fallingstarwishes: now, what are you doing up? 

fallingstarwishes: bored? 

fallingstarwishes: lonely? 

fallingstarwishes: need me to sing you to sleep?

Chuckling at the singing suggestion, he scrolls back up enough to see that pretty picture you sent him and hisses to himself, his adrenaline finally coming down to a normal enough level he can focus on something else besides the rapid beating of his heart and the thrill of the battle.

captaincool: A song? Just for me? Aren’t you sweet

Raising a brow while firing off his message, he wonders what the two of you actually are. There are times he absolutely considers you his girlfriend or something like it. You’ve discussed crossing the ocean to come and see him more than once though the concept of actually having a girlfriend makes him unexpectedly anxious. Someone to remember birthdays and anniversaries for. Someone who wants you where she wants you when she wants you there. Someone with demands, a comically large pair of scissors to cut his wings and keep him from being himself.

Although you’ve never given him any indication you’d want to do that, it’s something he has to reflect on. His feelings are real but so are the ties that come with them if he were to act on them.

fallingstarwishes: that isn’t even the sweetest i’ve been to you this week. did you forget last wednesday night already?

Damn, you make it hard for him to not act. 

captaincool: How are you going to tell me to sleep and then remind me of that?

Of course he remembers Wednesday evening for you (early in the day on Thursday for him). He remained locked inside of his room for an hour while your soft moans of his name filled his headphones over video chat. Begging him please, telling him how badly you wished it was him instead of your short fingers…he remembers every last moment.

He remembers most of all the sound of his name from your mouth. It’s what sends him over the edge every single time the two of you are able to sneak in a session of mutual masturbation from all these miles and hours away. It also is what he cums to when he’s simply listening back to videos and voice notes or his own imagination.

fallingstarwishes: :) <3 just making sure you remembered who you’re dealing with. you didn’t even react to the picture i sent! 

Gen scrolls back up to glance at the photo, sliding downward in his chair, thighs spreading instinctively. He places his phone down on his desk and slides his hand beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, pulling them down enough that his half hard cock pops over his underwear. Reaching for his phone, he positions it so that the camera captures just the cut of his Adonis belt and the barely visible crown of him, snapping a picture to send back to you. He holds the phone back from his face and smirks appreciatively at his own artistic ability, happy with the subtle gleam of his arousal beginning to flow and bead on the tip of his dick. 

The photo is fired off with an accompanying cheeky message.

captaincool: Is this confirmation enough that I liked it?

Your eyes widen when the photo comes through, hands shaking slightly. He isn’t the only one who recalls the sound of a name from a pair of lips they wanna feel on every inch of their body in this scenario, now is he?

fallingstarwishes: you should have spoilered that! what if my boss would’ve walked up?

Gen chuckles at your response, pulling down his underwear and letting his now fully erect cock spring free. He’ll handle this and then he’ll be more than ready to pass out although he wishes he could stay up all through the day just to talk to you. He throbs, needy and wanting for a fist that he knows would grip him just right that sadly exists an ocean away and only in his mind. He taps out a message with his free hand, rubbing the thumb of his opposite hand over his slit and moaning low in his throat.

captaincool: Then you would have to explain why you are on your phone during work anyway.

Giggling to yourself, you know he’s right. You spare a few more seconds to glance at the pretty picture on your screen, thinking about your attachment to the man and his penis both, wondering if there will indeed be a day where you are faced with them both in person. Your thumb swipes across the screen, a small gesture that is full of longing while your heart beats in time with your rapid thoughts, and you finally respond.

fallingstarwishes: handle that and then get some sleep. i’ll be around tonight and hope we can spend some time together. sweet dreams gen ♥️

His fist works up and down his shaft and he reads the message with a satisfied half smile, discarding his phone to focus on how good he feels imagining bouncing you up and down on his cock. He’s powerful and strong, more than you could even imagine, and he’d make quick work of you if he were to have his hands on you.

God, he needs his hands on you. He whimpers and shuts his eyes tightly, the slick sound of his motions bouncing off of the clutter and boxes in his room that he’ll eventually get to clearing out. It doesn’t ever take him long when he pictures you, his balls tightening, threatening to spill across his fingers in damn near record time compared to how long he likes to make himself wait when the two of you are doing this together.

But don’t worry, when he finishes, he’ll make sure that you see his pearly release all over his knuckles with a message promising he’ll have sweet dreams because you will be in them.

[dazaiandhislovelybandages]

hii~ i hope you’re having a good day/night! i was wondering if you could do Mu Qing from TGCF with the prompt #16. "Don't ever say that name again"? idk why but i can definitely see him being a petty and jealous significant other (gn reader if can please) thank youu <3

A Tiny Bit Of Jealousy {Mu Qing}

A/n: thank you for requesting and I hope you like the outcome. I just wanted to say that a) I am lowkey loving this coloured layout since the photo is for the tgcf manhua and b) I am still three books in tgcf so I am incredibly sorry if this isn't an indepth writing or if his character isn't fully accurate

Pairing: Mu Qing x gn!reader

Trigger warnings: jealousy

You never realised how and when you got in a relationship with Mu Qing and there had been times when you couldn't help but wonder and question the circumstances under which the relationship came to exist. Not in a bad way of course, never in a bad way. But when originally you thought Mu Qing was just not ready to open up to you yet, as the months and years passed by, you realised that he wasn't hiding anything from you.

It was on odd feeling, being with him. After meeting Xie Lian and Hua Cheng and witnessing some parts of their relationship you could say with great certainty that he wasn't as open with you as those two were with each other. He wasn't neglecting you but he wasn't all touchy either. He was just there and if you happened to want cuddles or kisses, you would have to ask.

On that note, he wasn't bad at picking up signs, especially when it came to you. He knew your reactions -he could predict them even-, your likes, your dislikes, your routine. He knew everything because you were open with him. And it went without saying that when it came to you, Mu Qing was an excellent listener. He could sit down and listen to you mumble about the latest gossip in the Heavenly Realm for hours. Did he care? No. But you were the one talking so he would listen to you even if his ears somehow disappear.

Naturally, he also knew every single one of your friends in the Heavenly Realm; and the ones you didn't like that much.

And god he was jealous.

He was jealous of a very few selected people but not in the toxic way. He would never try and get you away from them since he knew that their and your intentions were pure but he couldn't help but envy the fact that they could give you something he thought he couldn't: a good and fun time.

In his mind, Mu Qing thought he was boring you and perhaps that was the only thing he had never been honest with you about. He could never easily laugh, express his feelings without being asked and most of the time he was a little too focused on his work.

And then the day he begged and prayed not to come actually came. He saw you laughing with another god. Now, on the surface there was nothing wrong with it. He had seen you laugh at something another god or goddess had said a million times and it never bothered him.

But this god was Feng Xin.

"Hey!" Your melodic voice echoed around the room as you walked through the pink silk curtains. You didn't have to ask, it was as clear as day that there was something wrong with him. And you didn't have to ask what was wrong either since when the two of you started dating you made a silent agreement: Mu Qing would always tell you in his own time what was wrong.

"Hello." He responded gruffly.

"I just came to check in since I have to do some paperwork." You walked up to him and placed a soft kiss on his cheek; a kiss to which he didn't react. "Oh! Feng Xin-"

"Don't ever say that name again!"

His tone was harsh and angry but he didn't raise his voice. Him pulling away was enough to realise that most probably you had said something wrong.

"We'll talk later," was all you said and walked away.

Mu Qing sighed and sat back down at the soft pillow on the floor, closing his eyes. You hadn't done anything wrong, that small part of his brain that could think clearly said so. Laughing and talking with Feng Xin was okay. Not once had Mu Qing thought about controlling you and he would rather die than do it. But it felt like a betrayal of some kind. You knew about his bad relationship with Feng Xin so why on earth did you have to bring him up?

Though if he had to be completely honest with himself... it wasn't the fact that he and Feng Xin were practically enemies that made him angry. It was the fact that not once had he made you laugh like that. He wanted to hear that unique sound he had never heard before once again with all his heart but he didn't want it if he wasn't the one causing it. What good was a partner who didn't make you laugh with all your heart?

"I am sorry," he whispered. He had gathered the courage and later that day, at night to be precise, he had walked all the way to your palace just to apologise. You didn't deserve someone who was as petty as him and he knew it but he needed you.

"I know," you whispered back and took that one step, closing the distance between the two of you with a hug. "You always say things you don't mean when you're angry."

In an ideal world, he would have preferred it if you didn't comment on it. But you did and the truth hurt a little but he deserved it.

Gently, he wrapped his arms around you and placed a soft kiss on your temple. "Should I make up for it? What did that bastard want?"

"You know... I am pretty sure that if I tell you, you'll get angry again."

[reallyromealone]

Dadzawa and baby overhaul 2

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Aizawa and Yamada were thankful it wasn't a school day, Yamada taking an emergency day so the family could get things for little (name).

"Now, what are our thoughts on this?" Yamada asked as they casted their laptop to the livingroom tv, a rainy Sunday meaning they couldn't go out shopping so it was at home shopping.

"I like the one with sheep!" Eri said excited as they looked at sleeper onsies as (name) snuggled in Aizawas arms, little pacifier in his mouth as he lazily watched the screen, enjoying the moving pictures.

(Name) was extremely attached to Aizawa, Eri mentioning how he was only really handled for feedings or changings so he was desperate for contact.

"How about we order some lunch? Then we can move onto furniture" Aizawa said as (name) stretched his little arms up, clearly content in his new dad's arms as the family discussed what they should get for lunch, (name) now sitting up and and bouncing slightly as they spoke.

"What do you think (name)? Western or Japanese food?" Yamada asked the babe, getting close and (name) obviously not understanding what's going on just raised his little arms and reached out to the blond, wanting to be held by him "oh so sweet, western it is!"

The family ordered (fast food) and in the bag Sanza brought was some baby food "let's see..." Shinso said reading the labels and looking a little disgusted at the combinations before spotting a bottle of custard "hey (name)" shinso said cheekily to the baby as everyone ate, (name) sitting his little bum on the carpeted floor.

Aizawa and Yamada were already recording as Shinso got on his stomach and put a baby spoonful to the boys mouth, (name) taking a bite before a shocked expression washed over his face, the boy bouncing slightly and smacking his lips "was that good?" Yamada asked as (name) reached out for the spoon.

"Well at least we know he likes sweets" Shinso said as he let Eri feed the boy a spoonful.

(Name) got five spoonfuls in before he looked like a drunk man on the floor, starfished on the carpet as his dad's took photos.

The day continued, the family ordering baby supplies there were coming the next day and they had called the local furniture store about the possibility of them delivering a baby crib same day, thankfully they didn't have many deliveries so it would be able to come within the next few hours.

(Name) took a nap on the couch as Aizawa and Yamada finished grading papers, the family doing their own thing.

Eri was also taking a small post meal nap as Shinso worked on a project.

"Oh Sho, look" Yamada points to their cats who finally graced them with their presence, the two cats taking note of the tiny baby and the fatter male cat lovingly named "cat" in English flopped beside him and joined in the nap.

The other one went to go eat before sitting on the arm of the couch and watching the tiny baby, leaning over to sniff him.

The two watched as the cats accepted the baby who was fast asleep, kicking his little legs every so often.

When the crib came, the two adults thought it would be best to put it in their room for fast access to the baby if need be, sho laying on the bed with little (name) laying in his chest as Yamada put together the crib.

(Name) stared at Aizawa who stared back, the babe wide eyed before reaching over with his chubby ravioli hands and grabbing Aizawas nose.

Yamazawa family were happy (name) acclimated so well, the boy fitting in like the last piece of the puzzle.

The end of the small vacation would be in a few days and Aizawa already emailed Nedzu about the newest edition.

"ABABABA!" (Name) yelled out at 6am on the dot to his new parents, the little babe making angry baby sounds for food "yeah yeah, I'm coming" Yamada mumbled as he stumbled shirtless to the crib and lifted the boy who snuggled into the warmth of his skin "a hug and a bottle should do you good" he mumbled sleepily as the two went to the kitchen to prepare the little listener a nice meal and some coffee brewing.

"There we go, look at you go" the blond watched tiredly as the babe drank his bottle with only a little assistance from the hero "still can't believe such a little bundle of happiness came from someone so terrible" Yamada mumbled as the babe looked at him with wonder "Eri is really excited to be your big sister, Shinso is even happy about it... You really fit in well"

When (name) finished his bottle, the others trudged out and Aizawa began breakfast as Shinso got himself and his sister some orange juice, the only one happy and awake was little (name) who babbled happily.

The morning was sleepy and calm as Aizawa let the baby try a little miso soup and was pleased at the babes happy reaction.

"His stuffs here" Aizawa said as Shinso took the tiny babe who gently smacked at his face as the adults brought in all the packages "look (name), all for you buddy!" Yamada said sweetly as little Eri helped bring in the obvious clothing packages "there.." "uh dad" Shinso looked at (name) in slight horror as the babe began grunting and looking focused and then a foul smell radiated off the baby.

Freshly changed (name) giggled at Yamadas grossed out face as he threw out the soiled diaper "yeah yeah, very funny" he said teasingly as they opened the packages to figure out what was what, the cats keeping the babe company as they folded all the adorable little clothes for him, the tiny socks and little shirts.

"So when are you guys gonna tell Aunt Nem and Uncle Oboro?" Shinso asked curiously as they cleared out the office that wasn't used much, the heros tending to work in the dining room or keep anything not meant for young eyes at the office.

"When we have him settled, were going to have to bring him tomorrow so they will probably meet him then" Aizawa said simply as he put (name) in a precious kitten onsie and a little cat themed pacifier "look (name)! Toys for you!" Yamada said bringing some freshly cleaned blocks for the babe, a few sound toys to urge him to learn speech.

For now they would just spend time with the tiniest member of the family, putting him in a rolling baby chair as they set stuff up for him.

[its-time-to-write]

i know now it’ll pass - ch. 5

I think these last two chapters are my favorite🥲 Lmk with you all think of the series bc I crave validation!!! No such thing as too many comments🥺🥺

still miss you

It’s the worst. You’re working in Manchester of all places, and you really wish that you were somewhere else. But they paid the most and offered housing and were able to hire you within two and a half weeks of your breakup. Higgins wrote a glowing letter of recommendation, and just like that, you were gone. 

You’re going to miss your flat, you realize. You don’t even know who bought it. Doesn’t matter. They were willing to pay twice what it was worth as long as they were the offer you accepted.

It’s good that Jamie won’t see you around. Won’t have any lingering reminders. It’s good that you’re the one who ended things, because he won’t be able to blame himself for it. (He probably still will, you think, but you put that thought in a tiny box and put it on a shelf far away.) 

Jamie doesn’t see you, but you see him. You see him in photos on the wall and hear him in the local voices and wish you could have just accepted his love for a little while longer.

You watch every single one of his games and cheer when he makes a goal. Or a pass. Or anything, really. He’s started running like Roy Kent did at Chelsea, like he’s angry at the grass. At least his anger is channeled into something productive.

Your new flat faces the sun, and you’re on the steps all the time. It’s not standard housing, it’s a real actual flat that Man City bought for you. It’s not big but it’s clean and yours and has a real, actual garden in the back. You think that you can manage this until you meet your neighbors and realize you’re really and truly fucked and the universe hates you.

You met the husband, Simon, on one of your sleepless nights. It was still relatively early, just 1:30, but you could tell that you weren’t going to get much sleep. Dr. Sharon transferred you to someone in Manchester, but now you were awake for different reasons. Jamie’s face kept haunting you so you kept your eyes wide open. Some mornings you’d wake up under the weighted blanket and think that it was him, in your groggy haze. Then you’d blink a couple times and remember that you’d broken up.

So you don’t sleep much. And now you’re on the porch with a cup of the tea Jamie’s mum recommended so long ago, the strong smell steaming into the air. As you sit down on your chair (you have a chair now) you hear a soft voice say, “Lovely night, isn’t it?” You nod and look over to see your neighbor sitting on his chair as well on the lawn. 

“Sometimes I like to come out here and look at the stars,” he continues. “Can’t always see very many of them, but the fresh air is nice. I’m Simon, by the way.”

You nod again, give him your name, and sip your tea.

“Is that Sleep Plus by Twinings?” he asks. “I only ask because my wife swears by it. Has a cuppa every single night, so I’m well-acquainted with the smell.”

You smile. “Yeah, it is. A friend gave it to me. Said his mum loved it too. I have trouble sleeping, so…”

Simon nods. “Georgie, that’s my wife, used to have the same problem. Too many things on her mind, she said. But she’s been alright ever since we’ve been married. She says that it wasn’t really a chemical problem in her brain, but more the fact that she was always worried. Took me years to show her I wasn’t someone she needed to be worried around. But, I proved myself and here we are.” He chuckles fondly. “She’s upstairs snoring loud as can be.”

You sit in silence a while longer before Simon gets up and says, “Lovely to meet you. I’ll have Georgie invite you ‘round for tea sometime.”

Tea with your neighbors sounds wonderful until you walk into their flat and see pictures of Georgie’s son on the walls and on tables and on the fridge and in basically every possible space she can find. Simon mentions how he researched creative things to do with photographs because it “helps Georgie when she misses him,” and you know for an absolute fact that the universe has a personal hatred for you.

It has to, because why else would you have unwittingly gotten a flat right next to Jamie’s parents?

You force yourself to behave as normally as possible and thank them for a lovely meal. Georgie grabs your arm on the way out and says you ought to come over again some time. She hugs you and tells you she didn’t have a sparkle in her eyes at your age, either. She knows what it’s like and maybe you can have tea together tomorrow night, just the two of you. Talk about it and maybe you don’t have to struggle as much as she did.

You don’t smile at her, but she doesn’t mind. Georgie reaches out a hand to wipe away a tear and says, “Oh love. It’ll be alright. You’re not alone all the way out here. I miss my son something terrible and I can see you’re missing someone too. You’ve already made me feel better and I hope I can help you the way you’ve helped me. Good to have someone young around here.”

She’s smiling, and you realize she and Jamie have the same soft eyes.

Georgie hugs you tight again before you can bolt out the door. “You’re not alone, sweetheart,” she whispers. “You’ll be alright.”

—

Simon and Georgie are a godsend. Sure, you have to suffer their son staring down at you from his various portraits in the house, but you can talk to them. They’re like parents with the way Georgie hugs you and Simon is always bringing over excess baked goods. They’re always available to talk and listen, to laugh and sometimes, to cry.

Georgie tells you about her ex-husband one nights and it’s enough to make you sob. You tell her about your ex-boyfriend (the bad one) through gasps while she rubs your back and murmurs, “I’m right here, love.”

“How were you able to be with Simon?” you ask once you’ve calmed down. “I just can’t understand that. I’ve tried, I really have, but I was just waiting for him to get tired of me. And I’m not positive he ever would have.”

Georgie thinks for a moment. “I think I finally realized that James was not the standard for all men. He and Simon were very different, and Simon always showed me he respected me as a person. It took years of that, but here we are.” She laughs. “He’s a very patient man. Not many would put up with me and my Jamie.”

Jamie was patient. And funny. And the exact opposite of your ex. He’s confident with a touch of arrogance, but it’s the kind of confidence that’s contagious as opposed to oppressive. He’s sweet and thoughtful, and does things without expecting something in return. He likes to make you smile just for the sake of it, and you like to do the same.

You’re shaken from your reverie by Georgie saying, “That reminds me, Jamie’s coming into town this weekend. You should come over to meet him.”

She and Simon share a not-so-subtle glance that means you should date our son and become our actual daughter-in-law because you’re basically already ours, and that’s when you decide you’re going to be horribly ill.

“I’d love to,” you say out loud. “I’ll check my calendar.”

Table of Contents

[e-dubbc11]

After the Rain

Photos are not mine. They are courtesy of Pinterest/Google

Pairing: Billy Russo x F! Reader

Warnings: Angst, couple of swear words, mentions of physical abuse, alludes to violence, fluffy ending

Word Count: 1390

Summary: An ex hurts you, and Billy starts to see red. He’s there to make sure your ex never puts his hands on you again.

A/N: I guess I have angst on the brain and I needed to get it out. Maybe I just need a hug 🤣 and I’m still trying to get the hang of this drabble thing, it’s hard to write shorter fics 😉

As always, thank you for reading!  I appreciate it so much and comments, reblogs are welcome and encouraged. Don’t be shy to tell me your favorite part. 💕💕 💕

Heavy raindrops pelted against the windows of the high rise. The harmonious sounds of the storm over head were soothing as you quietly observed the dull city skyline from the living room window. Shadowy gray clouds travelled quickly across the sky, dumping buckets of rain on the busy city below.

It was a fast moving storm.

The intense rumbles of thunder resonated throughout the entire room, shaking the building at times. Rain attacked the side of the building vigorously, sounding like tiny pebbles hammering against the glass, it sounded as if the glass might shatter, like your heart did for him.

The sky was angry…very angry, just like he had been.

Not at you. No, no, no not at you. He could never be that angry with you, he loved you.

A flash of lightning illuminated the late afternoon sky, followed by a clap of thunder that sounded as if it was right above you, inside the room.

It startled you.

Surely, that one would wake him. But it didn’t. Over on the couch, Billy laid there fast asleep. He didn’t stir even a little bit. Normally, he was a very light sleeper but he’s been asleep since late last night.

When you first met him, he noticed the bruising on your arm. You had left your ex after he had made another handprint shaped bruise when he gripped and squeezed your upper arm, it wasn’t the first time he had put his hands on you. You were scared of him, scared that he would find you and hurt you again.

And Billy had told you. “If he even puts a finger on you again, I’ll kill him.”

Another loud boom of thunder sounded off above you.

When you hadn’t come home from work on time yesterday, Billy started to worry. His phone calls and texts went unanswered. Where could you be?

As soon as you stumbled through the door, he was sickened by the blood dripping down your chin, the discoloration that was just starting to form around your eye, your swollen cheek, and the red finger marks around your neck.

“He found me, Billy. I don’t know how but he found me.” You had sobbed into his crisp white dress shirt that was now coated in blood.

You were covered in city sidewalk dirt and filth after falling to the ground, he had made sure no one was around to help you. Your clothes were just a reminder of what happened to you so Billy threw them away, his blood boiling over, wanting to punch the wall as the rage overwhelmed him at the thought of that monster’s hands on you, hurting you, choking you so you couldn’t scream for help.

Meticulously, he cleaned every inch of your body. He washed away all traces of blood and dirt that he could see, gently so he didn’t hurt you, telling you that he was sorry and he will never let it happen again. He would make sure of that.

You felt him shaking with anger as he helped you put clothes on, making sure you were alright before he left to go do whatever it was he was going to do.

“I’ll kill him.” He had told you before with his lips pulled back to reveal gnashed teeth.

The cold hard tone behind those three words was frightening. You knew exactly what Billy was capable of but you didn’t want him to go.

“Please don’t go, Billy! Stay with me, please!” You begged.

But it was too late, he was gone.

You don’t remember passing out, it was probably a form of shock but you must have slept for at least a couple of hours because it was dark when you woke up.

The empty apartment had an eerie feel to it, the air felt ice cold and you were afraid for him. Your external wounds would heal but if they took him away from you, that wound would be too deep to recover from.

There wasn’t anything left to do but wait.

You had made yourself some tea but were too nervous to drink it, all you could do was sit in the dimly lit apartment, in silence, carefully watching the steam rise from the cup until there wasn’t any left which is when you heard keys unlock the door.

Spatters of blood that weren’t on his shirt when he left, decorated the front of it like red confetti. His hair, normally perfectly combed, had fallen into his eyes and the violent fury that had been in those dark intense eyes had disappeared.

Crashing against his body, you wrapped your arms around his torso. Clasping your fingers together around his body, you clutched him so tightly that you could feel the blood rushing out of your fingers as he embraced you back, shutting his eyes, and exhaling loudly. He was just happy to be home…with you.

“I didn’t do it.” He had whispered.

“Billy?” You said, slightly confused.

“I hurt him…bad, but I—I didn’t kill him.” He said, kissing the top of your head. “My thoughts were of you…if I had gone through with it, they would have taken me away from you. And I can’t be without my sweet girl.” He tilted your chin up to meet his gaze and kissed you ever so softly, he didn’t want to disturb the deep cut on your lip.

You pulled away slightly and looked at his hands. The dried blood underneath his fingernails was dark red, his knuckles were cut up, and his palms were stained. He had made an attempt to clean himself up before he came home but everything was stained red.

“He’ll NEVER hurt you again.” He told you with acid in his tone.

That was last night.

You woke up this morning to your face throbbing and your eye swollen and black so you went to the kitchen to get something for the pain and found Billy sound asleep on the couch as the dark ominous rain clouds started to conceal the late morning sky.

“I’ll be in, in a minute baby.” He had said last night, a glass of bourbon in his hand. “Try and get some sleep.”

But Billy never made it to the bed, he never even finished his bourbon. The weary look in his eyes before you had gone to bed, worried you. All of that hatred, all of that rage had consumed him and he was exhausted because of it, so you let him sleep. It was probably the most he’s slept since you met him.

You weren't sure you were worth all of this but to Billy, you were worth it.

He loved you and he was willing to kill for you.

Watching and listening to the pouring rain in front of the window, wrapped up in your blanket, the pain in your cheek started to subside, and you could open your eye just a little more. You probably looked worse than you felt, even managed a slight smile while turning around to watch him sleep.

The stains and dried blood had all been washed away, sucked down the shower drain never to be seen again but Billy would see them. Every time he looked at his hands, he’d see that asshole’s blood under his nails but he was alright with it because you were safe.

And he would do it all again if he had to.

As the storm passed, it gave way to lighter, silver colored clouds. The thunder was miles away by now and Billy had started to stir. His long slender fingers lightly resting on his stomach began to twitch, he shifted his body, slowly turning toward the outside of the couch.

Was there anything he wouldn’t do for you?

His eyelids fluttered open, revealing the pools of dark chocolate underneath. As he wiped the sleep from his eyes, he smiled at you. A smile that said “I love you.” A smile that told you no one would put their hands on you ever again.

You smiled back. It was a smile that said “I love you too.” And silently thanking him for being your lover and protector.

He would always be your protector.

The storm was finally over and the sky was already starting to look a little bit brighter.

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[melancholicheart]

All This Time- Chapter 2

cw: trans male pregnancy (past, mentioned), angst, miscommunication, fluff and happy ending

Simon pales and looks up at Johnny who is groaning a little and bending down to pick the small girl up who wriggles out of his grasp and runs to Simon.

“Uh, I’m not your-“ Johnny speaks to Simon for the first time, shouting his name and shaking his head, so Simon manages a smile to the small girl, “So, you’re Elizabeth, huh?”

Johnny manages to grab his daughter and he crouches to her level, talking to her quietly, “Now darling, I know you’re excited and Daddy being here is very exciting but I need you to listen to me now sweetie. Tonight, we’re going to see if you can sleep with Sarah whilst Papa talks with Daddy-

“- I promise first thing that me and Daddy will come and get you and we will spend the day together, I just need to do some grown up talk with Daddy tonight, okay Lizzie?”

She looks like she wants to argue, looking back up at Simon who is still white as a sheet and gawping at the child in shock.

“Daddy will still be here?” She whispers to Johnny.

He places a kiss on her forehead and holds her tightly, hiding his own shocked face in her tiny shoulder, “Of course, love.”

Though when Johnny looks back at Simon, he appears like he might just run away that second.

It takes a lot out of all of them, barely thirty minutes pass from the door knocking to Elizabeth being dropped at their neighbours, but Simon hasn’t spoken since and neither had Johnny.

Johnny kisses Elizabeth’s forehead, pressing her stuffed dinosaur into her arms and leaves her with Sarah, a promise of an explanation in his wake.

Simon is sat on the couch when Johnny returns, staring off at the photo album on the table. The blasted thing is still open on the picture of them both.

Johnny groans and heads into the kitchen, quickly making a cup of tea for Simon in the hopes to ease his anxiety.

He sits on the other side of the chair, after placing the tea on the table, and he mulls everything over in his head.

Johnny isn’t sure if he is angry at Simon or if his heart is aching in pity for him. Sure the base stopped Johnny from ringing but surely they couldn’t stop Simon from calling? Still, finding out you have a daughter like this makes for a difficult conversation.

“I’m sorry.” They both say in unison, surprising one another after their extended silence.

“You’re sorry?” They both say, incredulously before Johnny sighs, chuckles a little, and gestures for Simon to speak.

“I’m sorry I never came sooner. Or got in touch. I see now that you were busy. Very busy by the looks of things.” He chuckles weakly.

“I tried to get in touch. I rang every week to talk like we were doing but I was blocked from calling the base. Was told that I needed to lose the number since I no longer work there.”

Simon looks incredulous, “You what? By who?”

“The receptionist and the General. I even pretended to be someone else so I could get through to you or Price but they threatened me with legal action.” Johnny explains.

“What the fuck? Y-you were trying to reach us? I thought you’d moved on, gotten fed up of me or whatever and didn’t want to hear from me anymore.” Simon pales even further. Johnny thinks he’s almost transparent.

“I sent letters too,” Johnny says, reaching for the box and fishing out the letters still in their envelopes with the offending ‘Return to Sender’ sign printed on the front.

“They really didn’t want me talking to you, I guess.”

Simon gestures to the handful of letters, “May I?”

Johnny hands them over, letting Simon pour through the words quickly as he sees the man’s face shatter as he absorbs the words.

“Fuck me.” Simon grumbles, “Fuck! If I’d have just- shit!”

“Simon,” Johnny sighs, “It all seems like a big misunderstanding. An awful lot of miscommunication on both parts, ay?”

“How can you be so calm about this? Y-you did all of this on your own!”

Johnny looks down at the book on the table, a few loose pictures from the box littering the glass surface. His daughters beaming face, barely six months old, smiles back at him and he instinctively smiles back.

“Jesus Johnny you- I let you do all that alone. You fuckin’ had a kid.”

“You didn’t let me do anything, Simon. Like I say, it’s just miscommunication.”

“It’s more than miscommunication when it causes shit like this! I swear to fuck I’m going to rip that General a new one when I next see him.” Simon fumes, squeezing a letter in his hands.

“Si, calm down,” Johnny shuffles closer, “I know it’s a lot to take in and you’re probably angry and upset but it’s okay. I’m not angry with you. Elizabeth isn’t angry with you either.”

“Elizabeth,” Simon mumbles, eyes meeting Johnny’s, “Her name- is it?”

Johnny nods, “After your mum. And a little bit for Beth too, I suppose.”

Simon nods and feels his heart clenching in his chest, “She called me.. she said I’m her-”

“You are.” Johnny mumbles, “There’s been no one since you, Simon.”

He nods again and looks to the book on the table, the picture of him and Johnny right there. He picks it up and looks at it intently.

“So you’ve told her all about me?”

Johnny nods, “She looks at the picture every day. Always asking about you. I told her the truth, that you’re busy at war and fighting to protect her from bad guys.”

Simon turns the page to the front, the picture of baby Elizabeth there with her birth date and time beneath it in the arms of Johnny in a hospital bed.

“October,” Simon chuckles, thumb running over the silky photo, “Near mine.”

Simon’s birthday is November the 6th, very close to Elizabeth’s, whereas Johnny’s is May the 17th, much further away.

“She looks a lot like you,” Johnny says, “Sometimes when I- when I miss you I grab ahold of her and hold her tight. Won’t let her go.”

“She’s beautiful,” Simon muses, “And you are incredible, Johnny. Fuckin’ ‘ell you gave birth.”

Johnny chuckles, “Well, I was cut open. She was an emergency C-Section. She was stuck and the chord was wrapped around her throat. They thought she might choke herself so they whipped her out the top.”

Johnny lifts his shirt, a faded pale pink scar runs along the base of his stomach, “Didn’t get her out before making me sit there in pain for sixteen hours. They tried to move her around too, with their hands up me, but she was a stubborn one.”

“Like me?”

Johnny laughs, “Yeah, just like you.”

“If it’s okay with you then,” Simon whispers, “After we’ve talked some more, of course, I would like to properly meet her.”

Johnny beams wide, nodding, “Of course, Si. I’ll tell you all about her.”

Johnny sits there for the next three hours. He pours through the photo album with Simon, making comment and talking about their daughter.

Their daughter. Johnny was losing hope on that front, often dreaming of the day that Elizabeth could be introduced as ‘our daughter’ rather than just his own.

Maybe the time is now.

[quietlyimplode]

the language of flowers and silent things

Whumptober 2023: Day 14 - Just hold on

Warnings: canonical violence

Word Count: 1.5k (gif not mine)

Summary: a mission goes wrong for Clint and Natasha.

A/N: this almost didn’t get here - so it’s not been read though. it’s been a really rough start to the weekend, so if anyone has a little extra, a hug or a high five would be great.

Masterlist

Whumptober Masterlist

.

Everything is still new, but the partnership of work is familiar.

It suits them both, the consistency of work in navigating new relationships.

Natasha runs away more frequently than he can keep up with, but he always manages to bring her back, or sometimes, more recently, she returns on her own.

Fury, Phil and Maria know, but no one else does. One met it gleefully, one with expectancy and the other with a slight distain, even though he seemed to predict it would happen.

Fury tells them that things better not change, the tentative trust amongst them all, anything but stable.

It’s one of the things that sets Natasha on edge, the fear of not being useful in the world.

It doesn’t matter how much Clint tells her it doesn’t matter; that it would never matter to him, if she couldn’t work.

Okinawa is beautiful and the beaches make Natasha just want to sit and stare at the waves going in and out.

The tiny island off the coast of Japan is quaint and peaceful.

“We could just stay here,” she sighs, picking up the camera and checking the memory card.

“It feels so quaint, like the Yakuza shouldn’t be here, and we definitely shouldn’t be making deals with them.”

Clint picks up the small drone, and checks that the battery is charged.

“A deal today, then they help tomorrow, the enemy of our enemy and all that,”

He says it nonchalantly but she knows he feels it too.

Clint watches as she readies herself for the mission, almost like she’s readying for war.

Makeup akin to war paint, outfit like armor, Natasha almost looks like a different person, and he supposes that’s the point.

“The drone will follow you,” he clarifies, “high enough so it shouldn’t be heard and I’ll be taking the photos from this building.”

She nods, “Roxxon has their hands in every pie, it doesn’t surprise me that Fury wants blackmail on them.”

Checking the time, she looks out on the ocean.

“It really is beautiful here,” she says again; and he feels his heart tug at her wistful tone.

“Maybe we’ll come back,” he says, standing next to here, taking her hand walks squeezing it.

“Yeah, I think I’d like that,” she smiles.

.

Natasha looks at Akita Yodabashi and stares him down.

“The paper work, is what was agreed on, if, you feel it is not, you can take it up with your superiors.”

She stares at him with distain and almost rolls her eyes at his pout.

“It is not what we agreed on,” he says again, slowly as if punctuating each word.

Natasha switches to Japanese.

“Then, tell me what was agreed on,” she replies.

His jaw clenches.

“Money,” he tells her, raising his gun.

“It wasn’t the deal,” she repeats.

“It is now,” he starts.

“You think we didn’t know? We didn’t do our research, just as you have done?”

He throws a phone at her.

“Check the video,” he smiles.

“Then, take me to my money, as agreed.”

Natasha freezes, heart in throat as she opens the phone.

Clint stands surrounded.

Two men on either side, their large guns sling over their shoulders.

Akita smiles, gold tooth glistening.

“Two man team, Shield is very predictable

“Take me, to my money; or he dies,” he starts, “or maybe, he doesn’t die; maybe we start with his fingers, then his hands, his arms, until you give me what is mine.”

Natasha swallows, nodding slowly. Four on one is not a fair fight, no matter how much faith she has in Clint’s skills.

She glances at the video again, he has two hands crossed over his body, their universal sign for “don’t come.”

It makes her all the more anxious and angry.

He’s still in the safe house, the door frame around him, distinctive enough.

They must have been watching them from the moment they got off the plane.

If she didn’t have misgivings about how being in a relationship made them slower before, she did now.

Fury was right.

Cocking the gun and motioning for her to get into the car, Akita pushes it into her back.

“Take me to my money,” he repeats.

Natasha frowns.

“Fine,” she concedes.

She climbs in the drivers seat and waits for him to climb in behind her, pondering her next move.

She has a plan, but it’s stupid, and Clint wouldn’t approve of it; but given the situation that they’re both in, likely it’s the only play they’ve got.

.

Clint laughs.

“Four of you, in my house? For some babysitting?” he jibes, “how lucky am I?”

“Shut up,” says the man with the four and half fingers.

“Are you all missing fingers? All been bad at your jobs? Is that why you’re here?”

Clint gets pistol whipped and he smiles again, his head pulsating with pain.

He glances at the time, and the inert drone and camera.

Natasha was truly on her own.

He wonders how the meeting is going.

Did they really not notice the team of five following them? Or does the Yakuza have that many eyes on the island?

He sighs, looking around for his weapon; or something that might give him the upper hand in a four vs one battle.

It seems that he may just need to wait it out, find out Natasha’s play and go from there.

Turns out, he doesn’t need to wait long.

A car barrels into the house, hitting two of the men square on.

He takes it as his cue, rolling and grabbing a gun.

Two head shots and the other two are dead as well.

Debris is everywhere, he coughs in the dust and moves towards the car, wondering if the Yakuza honcho is inside.

It’s the mess of red on the white airbag that sends him into a panic.

“Nat??! No no no no no,” he moves, amongst the broken house towards her.

She’s not moving, and he feels his heart beating out of his chest. The car is a mangled mess, and the house around them fairing no better, as it starts to crumble.

“Nononono, shit, Nat,” he reaches her and finds her unconscious at the wheel. At least she was wearing her seatbelt.

“Fucccck, Natasha, what were you thinking?” He admonishes, attempting to pull her back.

There’s no response, no groan, no grimace even as he releases the seatbelt, and drags her out.

Akita Yodabashi lays through the windshield, and Clint stares momentarily at his broken body to see if there are any signs of life.

When there are none, he carries her to the front garden, amongst the tyre marks and broken fence.

Setting her down he taps her face lightly.

Still no response.

He feels a faint pulse and sees blood around her mouth.

“Natasha, wake up, now? Ahh, hold on, please, hold on,” he says desperately. The likelyhood of internal bleeding increasing tenfold, maybe collapsed lungs; broken bones. He just doesn’t know.

Satellite phone in hand, he calls it in frantically.

“Widow down, immediate medivac required!”

He listens for the response, and once his location is set, he pushes down again and waits.

It feels like a lifetime.

Gently, he keeps talking to her, telling her she’s an idiot and that he had it handled.

He could have taken on the four, he would have worked it out, she didn’t need to drive the car into the building to give him a chance.

The Japanese authorities arrive quickly, Police, ambulance, fire, they seem to take one look at the scene and know what’s happened, the analysis too quick of the bodies in the house and the two Americans outside of it.

“Help her, please?” Clint asks in rudimentary Japanese, hands gently holding her.

They’re quick to load her into the ambulance, Clint following close by.

The policeman stares at him and Clint is sure he’s going to detain him, instead, he motions for the ambulance to go, and follows too, providing a police escort to the hospital.

.

Clint paces, calling Coulson first, then Maria.

“No news,” he whispers.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Phil says, not understanding.

“I don’t…I don’t know,” he says softly, “will you come? They’re asking more questions than I know what to do with and I just want to be close to her.”

“Clint…” he starts.

“No Phil, just come and help me sort this out, okay?”

Clint runs his hands through his hair and looks into the hospital room, three hours in surgery to repair two broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a broken arm and perforated liver.

His concern pulls and he walks back inside changing up on Coulson.

She looks so pale, so fragile, hooked to machines; intubation running out of her mouth to support her frail lungs.

“You’re an idiot,” he whispers, taking her unbroken hand.

“An absolute idiot. What am I going to do with you?”

His kisses her hand, then becomes self conscious as a nurse walks in.

Clint steps back as she checks on Natasha.

His phone buzzes.

“I’ll be there in twenty four hours,” it reads.

.

[da-rulah]

hello! i’m not sure if you’re comfortable writing about this and i apologize deeply if you aren’t, but can i have some hcs on how copia would react to his s/o telling him about their very hard childhood for the first time? like abuse or things like that? but not specific into what happened, just how he would react?

i’m sorry if this crosses your boundaries, i don’t mean to do that at all!

i hope you’re doing well! <3 i love your writing

Hey lovely! To make this a comfort piece for people with all manners of trauma, I'm not going to write about any specific instances and I'm going to keep it quite vague. It'll also help to steer clear of potential triggers for anyone who reads it.

But I hope you enjoy a little comfort from our favourite silly little rat man 🖤

It was just a photo, and yet the memories it brought back had triggered such an exponential meltdown that you now found yourself sobbing silently on the floor of your bathroom. That in itself was a trauma response; having to cry silently as to not attract attention. Something you'd learned during your childhood.

When Copia had come home that evening after a long day of writing new music for the Ghost Project, he was disappointed to find your quarters cold, dark and empty. Where you were, he had no idea, but he figured you may be home soon.

It wasn't until he wondered over to the bathroom the clean his face of his papal paints that he saw the strip of light from underneath the door, and the silence that felt deafening from the other side.

"Amore, I'm home," he announced - no response. "Amore?" He tried the handle, to no avail.

"S-sorry, I'll be out in.. a sec..." your voice shook at you stood from the floor, desperately wiping at the tearful streaks on your cheeks. Copia knew something was wrong, but he waited patiently. When you unlocked the door and stood before him, averting your eyes, his heart ached.

"Tesoro... Why so sad, eh? Did something happen?" he held your shoulders, rubbing his gloved thumbs in circles to comfort you.

"Nothing, no, I just..." you took a deep breath, finally making eye contact with a tiny shy smile, "bad memories, that's all."

He searched your eyes for a moment, then slid his hands down your arms to meet your hands, lacing his fingers with yours. Slowly, he guided you to the couch and sat with you.

"Tell me everything, cara mio."

And you did; every sordid memory from your childhood, sparked by finding that damn photo in a trinket box you'd found when you'd been cleaning the tops of your wardrobe.

Every so often, you would see flashes of anger, utter rage flickering in his eyes like flames stoked inside him. In some strange way, it made you feel vilified, validated when you would see it - like you were allowed to be angry at the trauma you had been put through. It hadn't ever been your fault.

Copia was horrified by what he was hearing, but he stayed quiet as you poured your suffering out, laying it bare for him to see. He held you as you cried, kissed away a few of the stray tears, removed his gloves so he could rub soothing circles into the backs of your hands with his thumbs. He was just there, listening.

"You must think I'm so damaged," you chuckled without a hint of humour when you'd finished, staring at your hands in his in shame.

"Senza senso, (nonsense), I think you are the strongest person I have ever had the pleasure to meet, amore." He lifted your hands to kiss your knuckles. "You know, like when a bone breaks... it heals itself over time, and it becomes the strongest part of the bone after. That's you, tesoro. Stronger than before."

Your lip trembled at his sweet words.

"What did I do to deserve you?" you smiled, a few tears dripping to your cheeks again - happiness that you had such a kind man to live alongside.

"You suffered, amore. And now, you no longer have to suffer. Not here, not with me."

He pressed a kiss to your cheeks, one for every tear, before pressing one final, lingering kiss to your lips.

He was right - you didn't have to suffer any longer. Not with Copia at your side.

[howaboutcastiel]

I’ve been Angry and Sad

Summary: (6) Steven is grieving his mum, and finds himself back in Dr. Harrow’s office. FWMS Masterlist 

Word Count: 7.2k

Content: Medical talk, talk of being drugged (like in the show). Grief, medical terms. Derealization. Verbal abuse. Depersonalization a little. Use of ableist language. A little bit of allusion to SH and to canon-typical violence. It’s also sweet in spite of that. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it angsty? Yes. Would I eat this shit up if someone else wrote it? Also yes. Enjoy. 

“Steven? Are you listening to me?”

The voice was muffled as it made its way through Steven’s head. It had happened again—he had found himself somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, with no recollection of how he arrived there. He thought that this wouldn’t happen anymore. He and Marc had sorted it all out, right? They passed the body to each other gracefully. There wasn’t supposed to be any more confusion. No more lost time, no more mystery destinations. By that metric, he should have known exactly where he was. 

So where the hell was he?

Steven tried retracing his steps. Surely he could remember if only he could think straight. What was the last thing he did? Who was the last person he spoke to? He thought back to the start of his day—he’d been sorting his library out…

“Where the bloody hell did I put that pamphlet?” He muttered aloud as he pulled another stack of books onto the floor to organize. Steven had finally promised to go through his collection and pack some things away. Or…at least put things back on the shelves where they belonged. 

Now, though, he was searching for the psychiatrists’ pamphlet that HR had given him the day he was fired from the museum. Marc refused to talk to a doctor—aggressively, violently refused—but Steven assured him that he would change his mind if only he’d look at the nice posh faces on the slip of paper. 

“I’m sure that I used it as a bookmark in one of these textbooks…” 

He dug through the half-read books on his desk, pulling every type of paper from sticky notes to unused Kleenex from the pages that he’d marked for later. No pamphlet. He kept going, dead set on proving to Marc that therapy wasn’t the tortuous ordeal he’d been convinced of. The last book in the stack was a history textbook on the ancient Mayans. He pressed his finger against the tiny bump in the pages, opening the text to the page where his placeholder was. 

It was a polaroid. Faded, worn. A picture of Steven—or probably Marc—at his bar mitzvah. His dad on his right, and…

His mother, on his left. Smile wider than ever. 

He didn’t expect the photo to have the effect on him that it did. It was just a photograph, wasn’t it? One that he’d seen a million times before. But it was different now. This was the first time he’d actually seen her since… well… 

Steven was gasping for air before he knew it. He hadn’t seen his mother in months. He would never see her again, either. His mother was gone. Dead. He would never hear her voice, never see her face again. He couldn’t call her when he got lost or when he was having a bad day at work. She would only live now in his memories, ones that he couldn’t even trust to be real. How many of his interactions with her were even real? 

“Steven?”

He didn’t remember anything after that. He should be in his flat, then, shouldn’t he? He should be staring at that polaroid. The voice was clearer this time and Steven tried to focus on it. The lights were too bright, the noise too far away. 

“I know this is hard, Steven,” He recognized that voice. That grating voice, “but it’s been so long since we’ve spoken to each other. You came to me asking for help, do you remember? I want to help you, but I can’t help anyone who won’t help themselves.”

Yes, he definitely recognized it.

“Dr. Harrow?”

Steven’s eyes focused for a moment. It stung, but the image was clear as day. White brick. Glass table. Arthur Harrow with a mustache and glasses. “That’s right, Steven. We have an appointment. Are you ready to talk to me?”

“I don’t… remember…” He blinked a few more times, trying to ground himself. Dr. Harrow wasn’t real. He knew he wasn’t. He was sure of it. So then, why was he also certain that he was sitting in front of him now? If he tried, Steven could reach out and touch him. Couldn’t he?

Did he even know what was real anymore?

Harrow continued as if he’d gotten an affirmation. “In our last session, you told me that Khonshu had finally stopped talking to you. Has he still been absent from your life since the last time we spoke? And what about the new character—what was her name…Taweret? You had some interesting things to say about her, particularly concerning her new relationship with Marc’s ex-wife.”

Not ex-wife, you donut. WIFE. 

“No…that’s not what I want—” Steven felt like his tongue was cotton. Had he been drugged? He felt the faint sting of a wound on his neck. Was he imagining that, too? Or had the nurses injected him with something? His limbs were heavier than lead. He must have been drugged. “I want to talk about—something—not that—”

“With all due respect, Steven, I think that it’s best that you let me guide our sessions—”

“—My mum.”

Dr. Harrow stopped speaking long enough to take in those two words. His eyebrows raised, but his expression was patronizing more than it was curious. Steven tried to swallow around his dry tongue. 

“I want to talk about my mum.”

“And what about her?” There was venom in his voice. Well-concealed, but there all the same underneath the veil of patience. Steven felt his blood run cold. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

What kind of doctor—?

Steven opened his mouth to speak. To yell, actually. Of course she was dead. That’s why he wanted to talk about her. But the moment he tried to make noise, Steven realized he was no longer in the office. He gasped for air, opening his eyes to find himself on the floor of his flat. 

“What the fuck?!” He blurted, bringing his hands to his chest to press against his heart. The cotton was gone from his mouth, as was the weight in his limbs. His face was wet with tears.

“You with me?” Marc chimed. Steven glanced around the room, making sure he was really there. He was there, right? It certainly felt real. But just a second ago, he was somewhere else. And that had felt real, too. 

Steven shook his head. “What just happened?”

“Dunno, buddy,” Marc hummed, “you tell me. You pulled that picture out of the book and had a…a panic attack or something. You gave me the body.”

“I did?” He rose shakily to his feet. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I guess it was just too much. That’s what we’re here for, right? To take over when things get too much.”

Steven furrowed his brow. He made his way back to his desk. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“What’re you doing?” Marc asked, watching from behind as Steven pulled his laptop from the drawer and turned it on. 

“I just,” Steven paused to type in his password. “I want to look something up.”

Marc didn’t even try to hide his concern. “Are you okay? Did something happen that I don’t know about?”

“I don’t really know,” he admitted. “And… I don’t really know. Do you remember Dr. Harrow’s office?”

“Wh—yeah. Did you go there? What happened?”

“Again, I don’t know.”

The computer took a few moments to boot up, both because the building’s wifi was shit and because the laptop was on its last leg anyway. It had been considered an out-of-date model even before the Blip. Both Marc and Steven could feel how their nerves were on-edge. Steven tapped his fingers anxiously on the desk.

“What are you looking up, bud?” Marc prodded. 

“I’m gonna find out what the hell’s wrong with us.”

“You—what?”

Steven was as flustered as Marc had ever seen him. “Marc, don’t pretend you’re not curious. Something is wrong with us. Starting—starting with the fact that there’s an ‘us’ in the first place! We’re sharing a body! Not to mention, five minutes ago I thought I was in an office with a sociopath dressed like Ned fucking Flanders—”

“Okay, buddy. Calm down.”

Steven wasn’t calm. “That’s not normal, Marc. We’re not normal.”

“I know. I know! I need you not to freak out, Steven.”

Steven took a deep breath as the computer finally loaded. He thought about the fact that none of this was new to Marc. It was only new to him. No wonder Marc was so calm about it. He tapped his fingers some more, using his other hand to pull up a search tab. 

He sighed. “What’s wrong with us, Marc?”

“You want a list?” He chuckled humorlessly. Steven’s breath evened. 

“Do you have one?” It hadn’t occurred to him that Marc would have a name for any of this. He didn’t seem like the type of man to seek a diagnosis. 

“Well, I don’t know. If I can remember… some of it, at least. Let’s see,” Steven was stunned as Marc took a moment to think about it. “I know that it’s not called multiple personalities anymore… that’s what dad called it, though…”

“Dad knew?”

Marc avoided the question. “I think it’s… dis-associative….something.”

Steven typed the word ‘dissociative’ in the search bar. The first phrase suggested was ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder,’ which Steven selected because it was the only option with the word disorder. And whatever the hell was wrong with them, Steven thought, certainly caused a lot of disorder. 

He spent the next hour reading every webpage he could find. Steven took note of the vocabulary—switch, alter, front, trigger, host, system—and sought everything from scientific journals to online forums with anecdotal stories. A lot of people were like him, it turned out. More than he ever could have anticipated. He kept searching and reading until his eyes were sore from staring at the screen for so long. Steven only paused his endeavor after coming across a webpage that addressed the reason he’d started looking in the first place—

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Internal Worlds.

“Many DID systems have an inner world where alters may manifest and interact with one another. These worlds can range in size and complexity, and may feature static characters that act as imaginary constructs rather than alters or fragments.”

“...huh.” Marc hadn’t been listening up until that point, but Steven’s excitement had brought him back toward the front. “So that bastard’s like an NPC in our head?” 

Steven wasn’t entirely satisfied. “That makes the most sense, don’t it? But why him? Why’s our inner world even a hospital?”

“I guess—maybe it was the easiest answer?”

Steven thought about it. The first time they had been to that office was while they were in the Duat. Marc had gone first, right after he’d been shot. It was either he dealt with the Duat—and the fact that he was dead—or come up with another answer. A more relieving answer. It was a relief to be crazy. Crazy was better than dead. 

Then he’d gone again when he saw Taweret. A talking hippo? Pretty overwhelming. Then again, when he’d been triggered—Steven knew what that word meant, now—by Steven yelling at him. It’ll be all your fault. Right back in Harrow’s office. Then Steven himself. It wasn’t too hard for him to imagine how he’d landed there, in hindsight. He’d even asked for it explicitly, after he’d heard the news that his mother was dead.

Let me out. Let me out! Let me out!

Yeah. Being crazy was better than being dead. But now, they were no longer dead. So maybe the inner world didn’t need to be crazy. 

“Do you think we can change it?” Steven asked.

“What?”

He backtracked. “The hospital. D’you suppose we can change it to something more nice? Something cozy.”

Marc shrugged. “Dunno. It’s not like I made it a hospital on purpose. I would have at least added some color.”

“Yeah, why was it so white?” Steven hummed. “Surely that’s not what they really look like.” 

Marc uttered an answer before he could think. “That’s what I remember them like.”

Oh. 

He didn’t mean to say that.

He wasn’t ready to talk about that. 

“We’ve been in a psych ward before?”

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Yeah, listen buddy, I don’t really want to talk about that right now. Let’s go back to what you were talking about. You said we could change it, right? What would we change it to?”

“Now hold on a minute,” Steven jabbed. Marc rolled his eyes, cursing himself. “We’re meant to be opening up to each other, aren’t we? At least tell me when. When were we institutionalized, Marc?”

“Which time?”

Excuse me?

“Which time?” Steven scoffed. “There were multiple?”

“Okay! Don’t get defensive.” Marc drew a breath. “The first time, when we were twelve. That was for a few days, but nothing really happened. Then there was… we were fourteen. I think I was there for over a month.”

“A month?” Steven was astounded.

Marc winced. “Don’t ask, Steven. Just, please. Not right now.”

“Is that all?”

He shook his head. “There was another one, right before I ran away. Pretty sure we were seventeen. Then the Marines made me do a psych eval when they discharged me. They said that I should go to one then, but they couldn’t commit me or anything. I would have had to do that myself.”

Steven waited expectantly. There was shock and anger in the body. Marc cleared his throat.

“That’s all.”

“So three separate times, then? We spent all that time in a psychiatric ward?” His voice was resigned, disbelieving. 

“Yeah. Three times.”

Steven’s anger dissipated a bit. “Can’t believe I don’t remember that.”

He didn’t expect Marc to say anything, but he spoke up again with a hesitant voice. 

“You don’t want to remember.”

~~~~~~

Finding his way to Harrow’s office was much easier when he wasn’t looking. 

Now, though, Steven couldn’t shut off the outside world long enough to go back to that place. His goal was to change it, or at least, to see if he could. The internet had told him that some people were able to control their internal worlds. He wanted to try. Steven didn’t want his place of refuge to be an endless labyrinth of white brick hallways. 

He sprawled out on the couch, trying his best to empty his mind of any stray thoughts. He pictured the office as best he could—white brick, glass table. White brick, glass table. But he couldn’t conjure the imagery. 

“Why’s it so important to you anyway?” Marc questioned, earning a shush from Steven. “I’m just saying, it’s not like either of us plan on going back there.”

“And what good is that?” Steven countered, “We have to spend the rest of our lives inside our head, don’t we? I reckon we’ll spend a lot of time in there, considering how much shit we still have to sort through. I’d rather it be someplace nicer than a pediatric psych ward.”

Marc hummed. “So what are we changing it to?”

“Dunno yet. I’ll figure it out once I actually get there. Which I can’t do until you shut up.” 

“Rude.”

For another half-hour, Steven tried to retreat backwards. He tried everything he could think of, from playing white noise to crossing his legs and listening to a meditation guide. His mind wouldn’t stop racing and, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t focus on the big, bright office. A gust of wind made an extra large creak run through the place. Steven opened his eyes, running his hands through his hair frustratedly. 

“Why’s it not working?” He groaned, mostly to himself. “The one time I actually want to go there, I can’t.”

“It’s not about what you want,” Marc quipped. Steven let out a dry laugh. 

“‘Course not. That’d be too easy.” He lowered his face into his hands, groaning again. 

Marc’s tone was serious, though. “Think about it. When you give me the body, where do you go?” 

“…nowhere, I guess.”

“Right. Because you don’t need to go anywhere. You don’t have a reason to go to Harrow’s office. You’re too comfortable to go there. You’ve only been there when—”

“When out here was too hard.”

“Exactly.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Steven wanted to argue with Marc, but they both knew that he was right. Going back to Dr. Harrow’s office probably wasn’t going to happen by meditation, or even by napping. He would have to go there to get away from something on the outside. At least, at first. He knew that he would never stumble upon the place now. Not without being sent back there first. 

“Shit,” he scoffed. 

“What?” Inquired Marc.

“I know how to get there, then.” Steven rose to his feet. His hands started to shake. “Fuck.”

“It’s a lost cause, buddy,” Marc interjected. “It’s not gonna work. The only way to go back there is—”

Oh. “—Oh.”

“Yeah,” Steven quipped. He started to rummage through the desk drawers. “Seems counterproductive, don’t it?”

Marc pushed for control of the body. “No. It’s not worth it. We’ll deal with the office later, alright? Let’s just take the win for today.”

“The win?” Steven scoffed. “What win? I don’t want the next time I have a panic attack to be made worse by the fact that the man who tried to kill us is holding us hostage inside our own mind.”

Marc was at the edge of taking control, held back by Steven’s stubbornness and nothing else. “That’s not exactly what’s happening—”

“Well I would bloody know that if I could just get back there again.” He continued rummaging, growing sloppy in urgency. 

“Steven, stop!”

He paused his movement, barely holding onto himself. The body was still in Steven’s control, but Marc had caught his attention. 

“What’s your plan here, buddy?” His voice was patronizing, but worried. “You’re gonna look at more pictures of mom until you can’t breathe anymore? Is that really how you want to spend the day? Don’t do this to yourself.”

He persisted. “I need to go back there.”

“It’s not that important.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Steven insisted. His voice was low. Angry. 

Marc didn’t like the tone. “Oh yeah? And what don’t I get about this?”

“You’ve been crazy your whole life,” Steven jabbed. It wasn’t how he meant it, and Marc knew that, but it was still cold. “You’ve had time to adjust. I haven’t. My whole life is a lie. I feel like I’m out of my mind.”

“You are!” Marc hissed. “Can you listen to yourself? You’re literally about to torture yourself so you can fight the voices in your head.”

Steven curled in slightly on himself. “Just the one voice.”

Marc laughed, shocked. “Just the one?—Steven! Come on, man. Don’t do this.”

“Yeah?” He pulled himself upright. Marc felt a twinge of something from Steven. Spite. Whatever had made him so adamant about this, he wasn’t changing his mind now. “What are you going to do to stop me?”

Marc pushed himself forward at full force, nearly reaching the front before stumbling back, out of breath and stamina. He used to be better at this. Steven wasn’t budging, though. That was clear. 

“Don’t be stupid, Steven.”

“Just shut up.” Marc had never heard that tone of voice in Steven. Not ever. Not with him, not with Layla, not with Donna or JP. Not on the Earth and not in the Duat. It was seething, decisive. He knew from the snap in Steven’s tone that there was no more arguing. Not without a screaming match to follow. He’d made up his mind, now. Marc could only watch from there, and be ready to pick up the pieces of whatever he did. 

Marc forced the bite from his own voice. “What’s your plan then?”

Steven shook his head. 

“There’s a scrapbook in here. Somewhere.”

“It won’t be enough,” Marc chimed. It was sincere. “I know the one you’re talking about. It won’t be enough for what you’re trying to do. Doesn’t even have that many pictures of her.”

Steven gritted his teeth. “What do you suggest, then?”

“Honestly? I don’t think it’s best that you take any of my ideas.” 

He shut the desk drawer with a shaky, resigned hand. It wasn’t enough that Steven couldn’t trust his reality, but now he felt like, in spite of the strides he had made, he had less control than ever over his life. He couldn’t sort through his thoughts long enough to figure out what was real and what wasn’t, and he couldn’t do much of anything without Marc peeking over his shoulder. He felt stuck. Powerless. 

“How bad do you want to do this today?” Marc asked after a few minutes of quiet. Steven perked up enough to think of an answer. 

“Bad enough.”

“There might be one thing,” he offered. Steven immediately nodded, prompting him to spill. “But you can’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s a reason that I hide this shit from you.”

“What is it?” He demanded. 

“Just—wait a second, bud. If we do this, you gotta listen to me. And you gotta understand.” Marc went rigid and Steven pushed harder. 

“Whatever! Just out with it.”

Marc sighed. “There’s a voicemail I think you should listen to. It’ll work, I’m sure. You wanna fucking torture yourself then go right ahead, but Steven…”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Steven!”

“What, Marc? I don’t need any more warnings. You know it’s not always your job to protect me. I’m a grown man.”

“I know. I was just gonna say,” Marc stuttered over the words, bashful suddenly. His hesitance gave Steven pause. “I can’t listen to it with you.”

Steven was silent. Marc urged him toward the tray beside the door where he kept his phone and keys. “Just tell me what you find when you get there, okay? And I know he’s not real, but… give Harrow hell when you see him.”

“…Marc?”

“Go on, Steven. It’s the oldest message in the inbox.”

Marc nudged him forward. Steven grabbed the flip-phone, booting it up as his alter sank down into nothingness. That’s what it was, Steven supposed. Nothingness. That’s where Marc must have gone.  Either that, or he’d be finding a bloodied up Harrow when he got to that office. 

He scrolled to the end of the voicemail box. 

Wendy - 11 years ago. Duration 2:54.

Steven swallowed hard, his thumb hovering over the button. He hadn’t heard her voice in…

He didn’t even know how long. 

His heart rate spiked before he even pressed play. He knew from what Marc had said that it wasn’t going to be the familiar voice he knew. Not the one he remembered. Not the dripping with honey, unconditionally-loving, soft nurturing voice. Steven wasn’t sure that her voice ever really sounded like that, anyway. 

He gritted his teeth. 

Click. 

“I knew this would happen.”

He could tell from the first second of sound that Wendy’s voice was coated in liquor. Her speech was slurred, tone self-righteous and wandering. “They sent your shit in the mail, Marc. The Marines. It says you got discharged. Hah. Took them long enough, didn’t it? I thought they’d have thrown you out—hic—years ago.”

Steven hadn’t managed to breathe since the audio started. The lack of air burned in his throat, but he knew that he’d choke on his breath if he tried to take air in now. His vision was glassy and a stabbing pain stuck between his ribs. Wendy paused for what Steven assumed was long enough to take another swig. 

“What’d you do this time, kid? They find you talking to yourself in the barracks?” There was humor in her voice. It made Steven feel sick. “Or are you still just that bad at following directions? They finally cut you loose when they realized you’re dumb as a rock?”

Steven couldn’t believe his ears. He had known, in theory, that she was like this, but… hearing it for himself was something else entirely. 

“Anyway, son, this is the address that they have for you. Come and get your shit. Or text your dad where you are and he’ll send it to you. Whatever. I’m tired of staring at this box of junk on my counter. If you don’t do something with it, I’m throwing it out.”

She paused again, and Steven could hear the alcohol jostling around in the bottle as she brought it to her lips. 

“Let me know when you finally find something you’re good at. And don’t call your father this time if you need someone to bail you out. God knows you’re getting yourself into some kind of bullshit. Always are. Our money’s tight enough as it is and, frankly, I’m tired of saving your ass. You keep bringin’ trouble everywhere you go. It’s embarrassing for both of us. What kind of Rabbi’s son—”

He couldn’t listen anymore. Steven couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How was this what Wendy Spector was like? How had he never heard this version of her before? It wasn’t enough that his image of his mother was wrong. It was downright delusional. How could this woman be the same person he’d called every morning? The same person he confided in when no one was there for him? 

Hot tears streamed down his face and his throat constricted around short gasps of air. How could he have gone his whole life without seeing this? Why couldn’t he see the holes in the image of her? Was everything that he knew about her just a lie? 

Is this what it was always like for Marc?

Steven’s breathing picked up until it was short and stunted. Quick, shallow breaths increased in speed until he wasn’t sure he was breathing at all. Steven wrapped his arms around himself and leaned backward against the door. He sunk down, slamming the phone shut and chucking it somewhere to his side. 

Now she’s gone. She’s dead, and he can’t even mourn her the right way because he doesn’t know what he can mourn. Should he even be mourning at all? She wasn’t ever real, was she? Not the version of her that he knew. The real her didn’t deserve his anguish. 

What was he meant to do?

“Are you ready to talk some more, Steven?” He snapped his eyes open to find the light blinding him. The voice, however, was unmistakable.

He’d done it. 

“Is that what you want me to do?” Steven mumbled. He felt the same sluggishness he had before, but he focused this time on every little thing his senses could muster. Steven could wiggle his fingers, if he tried hard enough. He could keep his eyes open, but only while listening. Talking took too much of him. He couldn’t do both. 

“That’s what I’m here for,” Harrow responded. Steven squinted at him. He took a deep breath, then another. His vision grew clearer and his eyes less heavy. “It’s interesting, though. So often you fight with me. Now, you’re accepting my help without quarrel.”

Steven shifted in his chair. “Where’s Marc?”

“He’s resting, for now. It’s you I want to talk to, Steven.”

Dr. Harrow didn’t have the impatience in his tone from before. Steven focused as hard as he could on the feeling in his limbs. He tried to remember. He had come here for a reason. It was on the tip of his tongue. He was looking for Marc. He was looking for—

“Steven?” Harrow prompted again. “We were doing so well, don’t get distracted on me now.”

What was it that he was doing? 

“I need to leave,” Steven blurted. “I’m supposed to be… doing something…”

“Our appointment’s not over yet.” Harrows knuckles pulsed around his cane, as if he was ready to rise to his feet at a moment’s notice. “We have more work to do.”

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Steven insisted. He pushed himself up from his chair—were his limbs always this heavy?—and balanced himself against the desk. “I have to get somewhere…”

Safe. I have to get somewhere safe. 

“I can’t let you leave a session early.” Harrow stood against the cane, slowly making his way around the desk. Steven had an unparalleled hunch that he had to get out. He had to go elsewhere. He had to find Marc. He had to get them somewhere safe. 

“I’m not staying here.”

Steven’s knees buckled underneath him, but he successfully made the first step toward the door behind his chair. His vision was blurring again. He didn’t stop moving forward. 

“I’m trying to help you,” the doctor insisted. He approached Steven slowly. Gently. Steven wasn’t fast enough to get ahead of him. Dr. Harrow placed his hand squarely on Steven’s shoulder, beckoning him to sit. He turned him around, so they were face-to-face. 

Steven saw red. 

He gritted his teeth and pounced forward, head-butting the psychiatrist and knocking him backward into the table. Harrow brought his hand up to his face and Steven grabbed his cane. He drew it backward, bracing himself, and Harrow looked up at him through his fingers. Steven’s hand was around his throat. 

His face was patronizing. Self-assured. “Don’t be stupid, Steven.”

Oh, it’s far too late for that. 

Steven stumbled backward, regaining his balance on his own two feet. He lifted the cane, flipping it in his hand, and struck the doctor in his chest. The hit landed unlike wood on flesh. It was more like…

…

Like sand. 

He swung again, hitting Arthur square in the jaw. He tumbled to the ground unceremoniously. He didn’t cry or beg for help. Harrow simply toppled, but Steven didn’t let up. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. 

Not until it was safe. 

He brought the cane above his head, wielding it steady in both hands. It made a dull, flat sound as he brought it down at full force. Again. And again. and again. Steven kept going until his arms wouldn’t swing anymore. He opened his eyes, expecting to see the gruesome aftermath of what he’d done, but there was no body in front of him. There was no poor Dr. Harrow, whether dead or alive, by his feet. 

There was, however, a pile of ashen sand. Not golden, but gray. Steven dropped the cane and a puff of dust rose from the impact it made on the mound. 

He walked steadily out of the office. 

Steven didn’t know what he expected to be on the other side, but he was greeted with what he could only imagine was the field of reeds. That is, a literal field of literal reeds, spanning miles in each direction. It was a warm, colorful, peaceful contrast from where he’d just been. 

And he could do with it whatever he pleased. 

He rather liked the field as it was. He wanted to keep it. A field wasn’t exactly a home, though, Steven contested. It needed a bit more structure than that. And what better shelter to accompany a field of reeds?

A farmhouse. 

Steven didn’t have to think too hard about building the place. It was as if his mind was just waiting for the chance to conjure it. The porch wrapped around the front and the side, connecting to the exterior walls at either end. He pushed through the front door—a deep mahogany, by the way. Not white. Inside was a full living space with a kitchen and dining table, not unlike the one from his childhood, but far brighter. The room opened into the den, where a couch and two chairs met a wood-burning stove that Steven could feel the warmth radiating from as he approached. There was a singular bookshelf against the wall, with what Steven assumed was every book he could ever want. Beside it, a bulletin board. 

He knew immediately what it was for. Communication. Steven looked around further and came across a door to what he intuitively knew was his bedroom. He placed his hand on the knob tentatively, still quite in disbelief that he’d gotten himself here in the first place. He turned his palm, just a fraction of an inch, and a shuffle behind him drew his attention away. 

“Looks like you were right.”

He turned around. The image in front of him was…puzzling. 

“Marc?”

When they were separated in the Duat, Marc and Steven had looked for the most part just like the body. Sure, Marc was wearing a different shirt and his hair was slicked back the way that he always preferred, but they were otherwise the same. Same face, same stature, same body, same everything. 

This was not the case here. 

Marc looked, for lack of a better term, dreadful. His face was the same, in terms of shape and proportion, but almost everything about him was different in some way. For starters, his eyes were hollow and sunken. Not like the dark circles that Steven had gained from lack of sleep. This was something much deeper. More permanent. Marc looked like he’d never slept a wink in his life. 

He also looked smaller. Younger. Less like a warrior ready to defend himself and more like a kid who’d been drafted and given speed for performance. Marc’s muscles were sprung, his body ready to pounce at any sign of distress. His posture was straight and his chin was lifted, no doubt a lasting effect of his Marine training. Steven had the half-inclination to yell ‘at ease, soldier,’ but he figured it wouldn’t be as funny out loud. Or funny at all. 

Steven stepped closer to Marc, realizing now that Marc was looking up at him, and Steven down at Marc. He was taller than him, by a few inches at least. It occurred to him then that Marc wasn’t the only one who looked different on the inside. 

Marc’s hair was much shorter than the body’s. Not a buzz-cut, as Steven would have assumed, but short enough that his hair didn’t reach his eyebrows. The style was familiar, though, slicked back and brushed down just as Marc did normally on the outside. His hair wasn’t of interest to Steven, however. As he stepped forward, there was only one aspect of Marc’s appearance that he could manage to focus on. His heart dropped into his stomach. Or at least, that’s what Steven felt was happening as he took a closer look at Marc’s face. At his neck, at his arms. 

He was covered in scars. 

Small nicks, large gashes. Lines and holes and what he could only assume were welts from burns long healed. Marc was littered with them. A long, thick line ran across his face along the bridge of his nose. His top lip was permanently split. An indent on his collarbone resembled a ring, and a line of crescents on his neck left very little to the imagination as it replicated the texture of a half-inch metal chain. 

“What are you looking at?” Marc mumbled, uncomfortable. Steven hadn’t realized how long he’d been staring or how close he’d gotten to Marc. He went in for a hug, gripping Marc tightly for a moment. Once he reciprocated, they stayed like that for a while. Then, Steven shook his head and retreated a few steps back. 

“You look different in here,” he explained. Marc nodded in understanding. 

He gestured down at Steven’s body. “You too.”

Steven looked down at himself, noticing the way that his frame was so different from the one on the outside. He was tall, unusually tall and slender as well. He must have been at least 6 foot, a solid five or more inches taller than the body he was used to inhabiting. 

“You mind if I go look in the mirror?” Steven asked. Marc raised his eyebrows and shook his head. 

“I’ll join you. Wanna see what all that staring was about.”

He followed Steven into his bedroom. It was decorated just like a teenage boy’s room from the mid 1990s. Band posters plastered to the ceiling, Nintendo console connected to a bulky television in the corner of the room. Steven’s bed was a single, sheets covered in hieroglyphs. Marc chuckled at the contrast between the nerdy sci-fi knickknacks and the items that were unmistakably linked to Egyptology. 

Steven pulled him into the en-suite bath, which was simple and clean. 

They both froze at the images in the mirror. 

Steven’s hair was longer and thicker, somehow curlier than it was on the outside and much more unruly. He ran his hands through it, trying to calm down the odd directions that it sprang outward, but getting nowhere with the effort. His cheeks were rosy, contrasting Marc’s ashen skin, and his facial hair was grown into a shortly-kempt beard. He wore a thin, round pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose. When he tried to take them off, he found that the world was not so much blurry as it was swimming in his vision. He elected to keep them on. 

Marc didn’t do much to adjust himself. He just stared at his image, his eyes darting to each scar that wasn’t covered by his clothes. Next to Steven, he looked like a walking corpse. There were so many scars on his body that an average onlooker would wonder how he survived it all. He hated to look at himself any longer. He thought he might be sick. 

“Marc?” Steven’s voice was soft. 

“Yeah,” he choked out. His gaze still didn’t waver. It was like his eyes were glued to his skin. 

Steven raised his hand to Marc’s neck, pointing his finger at the line of circles on his throat. “What are those?”

Marc’s voice was surprisingly steady as he answered. 

“Dubai.”

He brought his hands to the hem of his shirt, pulling up the fabric to reveal a deep indent in his v-line, unmistakably a bullet hole. 

“Gabon.”

He turned away from the mirror, facing Steven head on. His hand rose to his face and he touched his index and middle fingers to the bridge of his nose. 

“New York.”

Nausea rose in Steven’s gut. He took Marc by the arm, pulling the both of them out of the bathroom and back to the den. Marc didn’t argue. 

“Are you saying you got all of these on missions for Khonshu?” Steven’s voice wavered as he sat on the edge of the couch. It was as if, on the inside, Khonshu’s armor had never existed at all. Each blow Marc had taken in battle had stuck with him. Each mortal wound he should have suffered, painted on his skin forever. 

“Some of them,” Marc answered. Steven shook his head, like he didn’t understand, and Marc lifted his shirt again. A bullet wound on his abdomen matched the lower indent on the opposite side. “This one’s from Bushman.”

“You took all of these hits?” Steven felt like his head was spinning. There were so many scars. 

Marc huffed. “Yeah, at some point or another.”

“My God.”

“It’s not so bad,” Marc countered. He could see how much Steven was affected. “I wouldn’t have gotten most of them if I didn’t have the armor. I would have never been in those fights in the first place. And it’s not like I was actually hurt that much.”

“I beg to differ,” Steven choked. His gaze fell to one particular gathering of scars, which Marc quickly hid from him by turning away. 

“Don’t even start,” he warned, covering them. 

“We’re gonna talk about those later,” Steven insisted. They sat in silence for another moment or two, taking in the new space. The architecture and furniture was vintage—out of the 1950s at the very latest. It truly felt like the two of them were on a homestead together. Safe, cozy, away from danger. The living space reminded Steven of the one in the Waltons, only smaller and without the half-dozen children constantly stomping through the place. 

“I’m gonna go find my room,” Marc finally said. Steven rose to go with him, but Marc held out his hand to gesture to him to stay behind. He retreated back into the couch, and watched as Marc disappeared behind the door on the other side of the dining table. 

Marc’s room was nothing like Steven’s. It was spacious and orderly, clearly designed for an adult. The suite reminded him of a hotel. Double doors in front of the bed led out onto the porch and the sheets a dull pattern of white and beige. The queen-size bed sat in the center of the room, not pushed to the corner like Steven’s had been. Model cars sat parallel on Marc’s chest of drawers and a thin, sleek lamp on his bedside table. The door to the en-suite bathroom was open. 

He didn’t understand why the bathroom was the way that it was. His bedroom, sure. He’d stayed in a million hotels ranging from the cheapest to almost-comfortable. Marc couldn’t understand, though, why so much care had been given to the bath. The vanity was long and glamorous. The walk-in shower was expansive and sleek. It dumbfounded him that he’d conjured a place so expensive in his mind. So luxurious, and for what? He didn’t even need to eat or sleep or shower in here, did he? The cherry on top, though, as he step forward into the spacious bathroom, was the large picture window and stand-alone tub. 

It was almost offensive how beautiful it was. The tub was big enough to swim in, it seemed. The claw-foot exterior resembled a vintage tub, same as the rest of the architecture in the place, complete with a golden faucet and knobs at the top. It was deep and wide, squeaky-clean and smooth to the touch. Marc imagined that, seated with his feet facing the faucet, the view out the window would be unparalleled. It was remarkably gorgeous. But why was it in his room?

Marc hadn’t taken a bath in more than thirty years. Only showers. He hadn’t seen the appeal since—

—since that day in the cave. 

Marc slammed the door behind him on the way out. He made his way back to the den, where Steven was warming his hands by the fire. He sat down in the chair across from him, and they sat together in peace. In quiet. 

It was better than lounging on the outside, for all it was worth. There was no busy street traffic or creaking air conditioning. Marc’s back didn’t ache like it did outside and Steven’s chest wasn’t permanently tight, either. There was…plainly stated…so little on the inside. Nothing loud or bright or overwhelming to deal with. It was just quiet. Warm. Safe. 

It lingered on for a while, almost so much that they could have felt timeless where they were. That was, until Steven jolted forward out of nowhere, prompting Marc to stand on edge just the same. The expression on Steven’s face was halfway between worry and curiosity. 

“Marc?” He timbred. 

“Yeah?” 

“We’re both in here.” He stated plainly. 

Marc was confused. “…Yeah?”

“Both of us are in here.” Steven enunciated slower. Marc shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. 

“I can see that.”

Steven huffed. “Don’t you get it?” 

“Get what?”

“If we’re both in here, then who’s controlling the body?”

Oh. 

That was a good question. 

~

~

A/N: Jonah has never proofread anything in their life. Also, I started this off by paying way more attention to whether it was accurate to real DID systems, but I don’t know if I accomplished that in the end. Bully me about it on anon. 

@n1ght5h4d3-24 @magicwithaknife @rmoonstoner @nervouslaught3r @unavoidabledirewolf @kbakery @mccn-bcys @gingermous @avatarofseshat @damreonsgirl @dragons-are-my-favorite @k8esilver @competentpotato @theconsultingdoctor10 @rayrlupin @moony-artemis @nerdory10 @valkyrieace

@ahookedheroespureheart @mt2sssss @loki-hargreeves @starfirette @celeste412 @avengersinitiative2012 @sifinskies @unspokenmoon @maplemind @mainstreambitchlife @hot-mess-express1 @toracainz @zarahbronstein @daughterofthequeen @am-3-thyst @romanarose @wand-erer5 @jake-g-lockley @in-between-the-cafes @alexismm @moonmoonboys

[sequinsmile-x]

The Aftermath

She loved her life, she really did, but there were times when the 'what-ifs' were heavier than usual.

-x-

This is sad. Hopeful I guess, but sad. Basically an exploration into how I think Emily's grief and trauma were incredibly overlooked, despite her going through so much.

(It's also a touch of me…putting into words something I've felt with some things I've been through. So…yeah. This one feels a little personal &lt;;3)

-x-

Words 2.3k

Warnings: grief, trauma, brief reference to infertility

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

It was just a day.

She knew that. A date that happened every year, rushing towards her with more fanfare than she’d like. Something she wishes she could ignore but can’t. The memory of it all clawing at the back of her mind, burrowing into her day-to-day thoughts until it was all she could think about.

It had been a long day at work, and she was grateful that they didn’t have a case, and that she could come home at the end of it. Find comfort in her house, her husband.

She sighs as she sinks into the couch, looking over at the photo from their wedding day on the side table. It usually made her smile, how Aaron was looking at her like she had hung the stars herself, and how she was looking at him in just the same way. Her smile wide, lines at the corners of her eyes as she couldn’t hold back her joy.

She’d been so mad when he first came back, a story he embellished whenever he told it. He’d managed to talk her down, the offer of dinner and as much wine as she wanted whilst she yelled at him calming her. One dinner turned into two, and then it became a weekly thing. It took almost 3 months for them to admit they were dates, and she still remembered the smile on his face just before he kissed her for the first time.

Things had gone quickly from there, neither of them wanting to waste any more time, both aware that they had missed so many chances over the years.

She hears the front door open, Aaron calling out for her as he lets himself into the house.

“Hi sweetheart,” he calls out, and she blows out a breath, trying to steady herself before he sets eyes on her, knowing he never missed a thing.

“Hi honey,” she replies, “I’m in the living room.”

She hears him drop his bag in the hallway, and his familiar footsteps as he walks through their house to find her. He leans down over the back of the couch and drops a kiss on the top of her head and it makes her close her eyes, a flash of comfort spreading through her from his touch.

“How was your day?” He asks, stepping away, leaving a chill in his wake.

“I was ok,” she replies, clearing her throat when she hears the crack in her voice, and she sighs, knowing he won’t have missed it. “Long.”

She’s looking at her hands in her lap, gently picking at the skin of her thumb, when she feels the couch dip next to her. His thigh presses into hers, the familiar warmth of him settling next to her.

“Are you ok?” He asks, and she turns her head to look at him and flashes him a smile she knows is weak.

“I’m fine, honey,” she replies, leaning in to kiss his cheek, taking the opportunity to breathe in the scent of him, wanting to have every part of him he was willing to offer.

“Em,” he says carefully as she pulls away and looks back down at her hands. He reaches for her hand, tucking it in between both of his, bringing it to his knee. “I know what today is.”

She huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. She’s briefly angry at him in a way she knows isn’t fair, frustrated that he’s as good as he is. As thoughtful and kind. That he knows her this well. It passes as quickly as it blooms in her chest, gone as quickly as the tiny flowers that show up in spring, only showing their faces before they disappear again.

There were times that she still couldn’t believe that they were here. That after everything, they’d found each other again. Finally getting the happy ending they both deserved. She loved him completely, and he loved her the same, they had done for longer than either of them would ever admit. So of course he knew what day it was.

It had once been etched into a stone over a grave that bore her name.

“It’s stupid really,” Emily says, looking at him, her smile tight.

“It isn’t,” he replies, squeezing her hand, “You’re never stupid,” he releases one hand from around hers and puts his arm around her, pulling her into his side by her shoulder, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She did. She wanted to talk about it so badly it almost spills out of her there and then, all of her thoughts and feelings pouring out onto the rug she hated. But she chokes on it, the words stuck in her throat in a way she can’t explain.

Emily sighs, her head against his shoulder, “I’m not sure how to say it.”

“That's ok,” he replies, kissing her temple, “Just say what feels right.”

She nods against him, squeezing the hand that is still wrapped around hers. She takes a deep breath, and blows it out steadily. She’s briefly reminded of a moment between them years ago, when he’d called her out on it, told her he knew she was struggling because of something as simple as the way she breathed.

It was ridiculous, looking back on it, that neither of them acknowledged that they loved each other then.

“It’s not even really that it’s the anniversary of Ian…of him stabbing me,” she says, the scar on her abdomen aching as she mentions it, years old now but still sore at times. A sign of the extent of the damage she’d endured. “It’s not even fully about the fact I had to fake my death,” she feels him tense next to her and she smiles at him, running her thumb over the heel of his hand, “It’s not your fault love, you did what you had to do.”

Aaron smiles at her, leaning forward and kissing her forehead. “I’m still sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” she says softly, closing out the abridged version of the conversation they’d had again and again since he’d come back to her. “Sometimes, I think about who I could have been without all of this. Without what happened in Rome. Without Ian - both times. The direction my life could have gone in if I hadn’t had to fake my death.”

She chokes out a noise, not sure even herself if it was a laugh or a sob, overwhelmed by finally putting into words something she had felt for years. She looks up at the ceiling in an attempt to stop herself from crying.

“Em-” he starts, clearly wanting to comfort her, but she carries on, unable to stop now she’d started. Words she’d kept caged in her chest for over a decade escaping.

“It’s not that I don’t love my life, our life. I do.” She says quickly, not wanting him to think otherwise, and she looks at him, relief easing some of the tightness in her chest when he nods in understanding. “I treasure you. What we’ve built together. I love my job. I just…” she swallows thickly, shaking her head at herself. “Sometimes I feel like I’m grieving someone I never got to meet, and that never existed. And it’s almost as if I’m the only one that thinks about her.”

He cups the back of her head and kisses her forehead, holding her close as he tangles his fingers in her hair.

“It’s understandable that you feel that way,” he assures her, encouraging her to look at him, “It was traumatic, and sent your life in a different direction. We’re all changed by what happens to us, sweetheart.”

She nods, knowing he’s right, and that if anyone understood it was him. It was another thing that made them work, that they understood the very darkest parts of each other. Had experienced similar things themselves.

“When…when Scratch had me I saw my grave,” she says, and she feels his hand tighten around hers, his guilt for putting her in that situation almost seeping into her skin, “And it had today down as the day I died, and then another set of dates starting when I came back in September,” she chuckles, the sound wet as it catches on a sob in her throat, “It’s almost as if the months in between didn’t happen. Like I just…ceased to exist for a few months. But they did happen, Aaron.”

She often felt like she wasn’t allowed to think of those months, the time she spent alone on the other side of the ocean. When she’d come back it was almost as if it all had to be buried just like her loved ones thought she had been. Their trauma, their shock, more important than hers. It was easier to deal with. To deal with Derek’s mistrust, Spencer’s anger. It was easier to take than it was to deal with the thought of what she had lost, what she knew from the start she would never truly get back.

“I know, sweetheart,” he says softly, almost as if he was worried if he was too loud he’d snap her out of sharing, as if the slightest thing would make her walls go back up, “I know they happened.”

He wants to tell her that he remembers every second of it. The guilt eating him alive the whole time, the fear that he’d somehow made the wrong call even though it had been to save her life. But this wasn’t about him, it was about her and the feelings she’d kept to herself for far too long.

“That was when I had to learn to walk again,” she looks at him, her eyes shining, “You never realise how much you use your core to walk, or sit, or even lay down comfortably until you have that kind of injury,” he nods, because he remembers too, the discomfort he’d felt after Foyet, that he knew was nothing in comparison to what Emily had experienced, still fresh in his mind even after all these years, “It’s when I found out I’d never be able to have kids of my own, not that I even knew I wanted them but…not even having the option anymore was awful.”

A tear finally trails down her cheek, and he wipes it away, “I wish I could have been there.”

She smiles at him, “We weren’t even together then.”

“I know,” he says, tucking some hair behind her ear, “But it doesn’t mean that I didn’t love you then.”

She closes her eyes and looks down at their joint hands, “We wasted a lot of time, didn’t we?”

“Maybe,” he replies, “But we have each other now, and that’s what matters.”

She smiles, the first real one all evening, “It’s a shame no one believes me when I tell them you’re such a romantic,” she wipes at her cheek, pushing away another tear that had escaped, “I’m sorry you came home to this. I didn’t even ask how your day was.”

“You have nothing to apologise for. I love you, this is what I’m here for,” he tucks her against his side, wrapping her up in his embrace, “Can I help at all?”

“You already have,” she replies, kissing his throat, “You always do,” she settles further into his side, “I’m ok, I promise. It’s just something I think about from time to time. Today more than usual.”

“Anniversaries are hard,” Aaron says, “They never get any easier either. We just…get more used to them coming around.”

She hums in agreement, her fingers idly playing with his tie, he was no stranger to this himself. She always knew when Haley’s anniversary was coming around, his mood shifting in a way he had no control over and that she understood.

“I can’t believe you remembered,” she says without really meaning to, and he holds her a little tighter.

“I’ll never forget,” he says simply, kissing the top of her head, he laughs humourlessly, “I used to visit your grave. Even though I knew you weren’t there.”

It makes her heart skip a beat, something he’d never admitted to her before weighing heavily over them both.

“When you were gone,” she offers, staring at their linked hands, “I’d talk to you in my office,” she laughs at herself, embarrassment tinging her cheeks as she buries her face in his chest, “I still have your name plate from when it was your office, and I’d get it out and just…talk like you were there. It’s where I felt closest to you.”

“It’s where we met.”

She chuckles and looks up at him, cupping his cheek, “Thankfully I’m a little more fond of you now than I was back then.”

Aaron smirks, “Just a little?”

Her smile widens as she lifts her hand from his face, holding her thumb and index finger only slightly apart. She laughs when he grabs her hand, his eyes narrowed in jest as he kisses her knuckles.

“I love you,” she says before she kisses him, “So much that it feels like it can’t be real sometimes.”

“I love you so much, Em,” he replies, leaning in to kiss her, “And I’m so glad we have this now.”

She nods, her forehead against his.

Life could be different, she knows that. They could have figured out what they meant to each other years ago and not wasted as much time. She could have never met him at all, her switch from Interpol to the FBI a natural one, one that wouldn’t have taken place if she had never been assigned to her job with Ian.

It could be different, but it wouldn’t be this. And she knows no matter what she wouldn’t change it. Everything had led her to this, and whilst she would always be haunted by the what-ifs. Inconvenient ghosts that showed up on occasion, lingering just out of sight but making their presence known, she was grateful for what she had.

For this. For him.

She nods, her forehead gently knocking against his, “Me too.”

-x-

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[stoobfoobnoob]

The winner takes it all

(The abba song has nothing to do with the story I was just listening to it while I wrote it lol)

reader x Scoups (he’s all over my fyp)

angst, breakup au, there is no happy ending

mentions: Woozi, Hoshi and Mingyu in one scene, and Seungkwan

Synopsis: You should be angry that your boyfriend of almost 10 years breaks up with you, instead you spend your time redecorating your apartment and ignore all the pain that should be consuming your heart.

----

No one tells you about what it’s like after breaking up with someone you’ve been with for a really long time. They don’t tell you how hard it is to come home to an empty apartment with half the decorations gone and the picture frames turned over until you found boxes to put them in. No one ever mentioned how cold the bed would be at the end of a long day at work or the fact that there are three-day-old leftovers in the fridge because you no longer need to make portions for two.

People failed to mention that breaking up with your high school sweetheart leaves you in tiny little pieces and makes you feel like you lost all the bets. 

Seungcheol always kept the apartment at 65 degrees. He got hot quickly and for the first time since moving in you’ve bumped up the ac to 75, he hated the linen curtains and said the light seeped into the apartment too much, and he never liked the smell of burning candles. So, since he left and packed his things you found yourself looking through all the old curtains and candles that collected dust in the storage closet. It was a good way to cope at first. Changing things that you both decided on to make it your own, leaving no traces of him to begin with. 

You didn’t touch any of his things in the bathroom. You left his shaving cream and cologne tucked away in the medicine cabinet and left his shampoo in the shower. 

You’ve been meaning to throw them all away.

incoming call from Jihoon

Jihoon was your friend from high school, he was the one who set you up with Seungcheol all those years ago. 

y/n: hey.

Jihoon: do you still want me to come over?

y/n: oh uh, yeah come when you’re ready.

Since the breakup, you no longer had someone to do the heavy lifting and you recently bought a new bed that needed assembling. 

Jihoon walked in to see that your apartment was no longer the way it used to be. The grey curtains were replaced with soft egg-yolk yellow ones, the furniture was rearranged, and there were new photos on the wall of you and your friends and paintings of generic scenery. 

“Thank you again for coming,” he sees the half-eaten sandwich on the kitchen island and the unopened mail with Seungcheol’s name on it. 

“Of course, I wouldn’t let you ask Soonyoung to help you.” His comment made you chuckle for the first time in a while. If he was gonna be honest he was expecting you to be a mess. 

It wasn’t every day that you break up with someone you’ve been with for almost a decade, he was expecting you to have swollen eyes and a stuffy nose with a cluttered apartment. But it wasn’t. You managed to do your hair and makeup like it was a normal regular day. 

While the two of you were gathering the materials for your new bed Jihoon asked, 

“How are you holding up?” There was hesitation in his voice, not completely sure of the answer. 

“It’s been hard, but I can do nothing about it.” Your voice was soft and you didn’t look up at him once. 

“I know you probably don’t wanna talk about him, but he’s not doing as well as you.” Your head snaps and your face shrivels up in confusion. 

“What do you mean?” You said. 

“Well, first off he moved in with Mingyu.” Mingyu was Seungcheol’s old roommate in college who was now a chef at a really famous restaurant in the city. “He hasn’t been showing up to work either and he just looks terrible.” Jihoon felt bad about gossiping about his friends. 

“He’ll be alright.” There was a bit of sadness in your tone like you pitied him.

----

Seungcheol fell out of love with you. He didn’t really notice that he did until he came home one night and rolled his eyes before unlocking your shared apartment. He noticed that he hated the flight of stairs he had to take every day, he hated the 30-minute drive from the apartment to his job, and he hated coming home and talking about the same 5 things with you. 

1. How was your day? 

Seungcheol always said the same things- nothing really changed at work that is interesting enough to mention. 

2. Can you replace the lightbulbs?

It had been bugging him for a while that you had been asking him to replace the bulbs when they were perfectly fine. You said that they were too yellow for the apartment and “didn’t fit the vibe” which made him clench his jaw each time.

3. Can you please turn on the heat?

There were always 10 minutes of his day when you would beg him to adjust the AC. Tell him that you were freezing and refused to grab a sweater instead of complaining; he thought it was cute at first you know. Earlier in the relationship, it was an excuse to pull you close and hug you until you both ended up on the couch. Now it was just annoying.

4. Do you want take out or no?

If there was something Seungcheol would much rather have for dinner was a nice home-cooked meal. He didn’t like contributing to the housewife stereotype that his girlfriend should cook for him all the time, but he did tell you when the two of you moved in for the first time that it would be nice to have a hot meal that you cooked for him every once and a while. Since you started working late hours, you didn’t find the time to cook dinner.

5. Should we have lunch with my parents?

He liked your parents. They treated him like they were their own, but since the two of you passed your 5th anniversary your parents would ask him if he was going to propose every time you left for the bathroom. Seungcheol started to work on days your parents were in the city. 

When he broke up with you, you didn’t overreact like he thought. You leaned back into the dining chair while he paced back and forth in front of you. The half-empty bottle of wine and the dinner plates sat in front of you like props in a movie as he told you that he wanted to end things. 

“do you love me?” he stopped in his tracks when you spoke so sternly. 

Perhaps you saw this coming or maybe you just matured so well that you didn’t pick a fight with him. 

“Of course, I love you.” He starts getting flashbacks to when he first said I love you to you, it was winter and he had to stay back after school to make up a quiz when he saw you waiting for him at the end of the hallway. You were wrapped in a thick scarf and his overcoat when he saw you, you pulled out a little bag of pastries from your bag. It was from a bakery only in the area you worked in and he had been craving them forever. He didn’t mean to say it right then and there but he did. 

Seungcheol’s ears were red and his hands wouldn’t stop brushing his hair back, “I do love you. I can’t just erase everything we’ve had and not love you... I’m just not in love with you.”

He couldn’t tell from where he stood, but your heart sank into your stomach. 

“I’m just going to ask you one thing.” Your fingers were picking at the dry skin on your lips ( a habit he hated of yours)

A small ‘okay’ left his mouth, 

“Did you fall out of love with me because there’s someone else?” He hated how you didn’t sound mad, you sounded more genuinely conflicted than angry. 

“I didn’t cheat on you.”

“I didn’t ask if you cheated, I asked if there was someone else.” 

From the way, he sat down and the awkward tension that filled the apartment you got your answer. 

-----

When Seungcheol told Jeonghan and Joshua that the two of you broke up they practically told him he was an idiot. Cursed him out and refused to believe that you guys were done for good. 

“This is just a break, right? Not an actual break-up?” Jeonghan judged him for letting you go. Letting you slip through his fingers like that. 

You weren’t expecting him to come to his senses or come back to you a couple days after. What you did expect was the countless amount of texts and phone calls claiming that you could always count on them in times of need. 

You definitely did not expect Seungcheol to move on so quickly with a girl from your work. He started showing up at your office with flowers and a new cologne you didn’t recognize. Seungcheol started picking up your coworker, walked right past your desk, and pretended like you and him didn’t spend most of your early adulthood together. 

Seungkwan, your right-hand man at work was angry for you. Practically shooting daggers when Seungcheol’s new girlfriend walked around the office, 

“He has the nerve! I mean really?? He just had to date one of your coworkers, and why aren’t you angry??” He complained while he sipped from his coffee,

It was starting to infuriate you that you weren’t as mad as you should be. 

“Is it messed up?” you asked hypothetically while you looked through your paperwork. 

“Yes,” you answered. “But he’s not my boyfriend anymore and I can’t tell him when he can move on or with who for that matter. I wish I could be mad, but I just don’t have the energy for it.” 

A few months had passed since the breakup and Seungcheol started dating your coworker when he showed up to the office late at night.

-----

You had stayed overtime to work on your next presentation when a figure appeared in the reflection of your office windows. His hair was longer now and it was black. He was wearing colors you had never ever seen him wear before and he was working out now. 

“What are you doing here?” Slumping into your chair before turning around to face him. 

“You got the bigger office!” Seungcheol felt the need to have small talk. It’s true you got the nicer office when you got promoted, it was something you had seen coming and waited to celebrate with him. 

“She didn’t tell you? ____ isn’t in today.” You said as you rubbed your temple. 

He just stood there scoping your new office out, 

“Oh, I’m not here for ____.” He got quiet again, feeling around in his pocket. Seungcheol didn’t look at you once when he put the box on your desk, 

“I bought this months ago for our anniversary, and it just came in today. I would’ve given in to my mother but she doesn’t like that kind of stuff. And ____ would see right through me if I gave it to her.” 

It was a little velvet black box, and inside was a ring. A yellow-gold band with a simple oval diamond in the middle.

“What do you want me to do with this?” You questioned, looking at him through your furrowed eyebrows.

“You can keep it or throw it away. I just thought I should give it to you.” He smiles one of those half-assed smiles while he rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Seungcheol, what are you doing here?” you whispered, your face riddled with an expression he couldn’t make out. 

If he was gonna be honest he didn’t know why he was there, he didn’t know why he couldn’t have just canceled the package or given it to someone else. Seungcheol didn’t know why he was standing in front of you, after months of pretending like he didn’t care. 

His lack of response was annoying you, 

“I miss you. My place doesn’t feel the same without you, it’s always so quiet and cold. I miss waking up to you, you were always so warm. ____ is perpetually always cold.” Seungcheol started to sound desperate.

“Don’t do that. Do not compare me to her, it’s not fair.” The tone of your voice made him feel small like a little kid being scolded. 

“Did you come here thinking you’d get a second chance? You broke up with me remember? Started dating my coworker, and you pretended like you and I were never a thing, and now you give me something for an anniversary we’re never gonna have,” You started to laugh out of frustration. 

“We were good together, Y/N.” He said trying to convince you. 

You shook your head in disbelief at the conversation you were having,

“If the universe gave me the opportunity to get back with you- I wouldn’t. Do you think I deserve this? To be in a relationship I have to second guess all the time, to be with someone who is so willing to throw all that we had away, to constantly have to convince myself that you love me?” You stood up facing the view from your window. 

“I do love you, I will always love you!” Seungcheol didn’t even hear the irony of what he just said. 

No one ever told him what happens when you realize you fucked up, people fail to mention the consequences of letting something great slip right out of your hands. People did not tell him how guilty he would feel or how stupid he must’ve looked to go back to someone whose heart he broke. They didn’t tell him what to do when he fucked up so bad. 

Seungcheol had little hope that you would jump into his arms and tell him that you missed him. He didn’t expect you to forgive him or accept the ring. 

“I think you should leave.” You told him, grabbing his hand to give him the ring back. 

You didn’t hear from him again after this. You never asked your coworker how things were going between the two of them and your friends avoided the topic all together.  

“I was in your arms thinking I belonged there, I figured it made sense. Building me a fence, building me a home- thinking I'd be strong there. But I was a fool, playing by the rules”

------------------------------

I don’t know why I wrote scoups to be the bad guy it just turned out that way 🤷‍♀️ 

[rexc0re]

“I don’t need a star..child…thing…whatever you are to decide MY future!” — star!glowduo

A/N: WAHOO! Yellow everyone and welcome to my first star glowduo writing smile. Won’t be talking abt it too much for spoilers but just know it is much more serious than the last writing, do what you will with that information :)

SUMMARY: Shooting stars are beautiful things, stars in general are. But when the shooting star looks like a human and starts explaining how they’ve watched you grow up things can get a bit messy…

WARNINGS: angst, yelling, descriptions of traumatic memories - bullying, rejection, loss of friends

Working in the museum was a great job! That is until you’re stuck with the closing shit and have to walk into each and every room to check for weirdos who might stick around. Luckily for Aimsey, he got stuck with that job tonight. It was a calm night so far so good they’ve managed to get through about almost every room with no weirdos to be found!

Now the last room she had to check just happened to be stars favorite. The sky viewing room. Along the walls displayed are photos of the sky at important points in history. But the real amazing part was the glass ceiling. Now looking through it during the day was always nice, but at night was when it was truly at its full beauty. The room itself utilizes sunlight as it’s lighting so at night you are completely surrounded by the stars and the ethereal moonlight.

Since xey had started the closing shift a bit earlier, she had the chance to sit and take in the sky for a bit before they had to leave. Pulling out a sketchbook and taking a seat on the marble floor Aimsey shuts off his flashlight and proceeds to draw the night sky with some fun doodles added in.

After doodling for a big Aimsey looks up, and would you look at that!! A shooting star! It’s wonderful and star closes his eyes to make a wish. But as she is making that wish a loud crash is heard.

Scrambling to stand up Aimsey stands up, stuffs their belongs back into the bag and turns on the flashlight pointing it around the room….nothing. Checking near by rooms, still nothing. The next logical choice is to lock up and go home maybe even call the cops.

Definitely, surely, you’re not supposed to go outside with no defense besides a flashlight and a somewhat heavy bag to find the source of the crash. Yet, that’s what Aimsey finds himself doing. Looking around the main garden there seems to be nothing. Until…they spot a light glowing from behind a tree and…is that…glitter?

Turning the flashlight off and carefully walking around to see behind the tree what aimsey sees is not what he expected. Sitting on the ground holding their head is a person? Definitely not human as he happens to have black and white skin, paper white hair that seems sparkly, freckles that look like stars, and is he glowing???

“Jeez Lussa next time we come to earth can we maybe not use the shooting star method.”

At first it seems like they’re talking to themselves before he opens up the fancy coat he’s wearing. Out floats a little star, presumably Lussa, who makes lots of angry gestures with her little arms that leaves the lad with a annoyed look on his face.

They continue their bickering until Aimsey decides that it’s enough and turns xeys flashlight back on pointed right at Lussa and mystery guy over there.

“Who. The hell. Are you two???”

The human like one stands up and whips around to face Aimsey as Lussa hides behinds his head. He stands their awkwardly like a deer in headlights (their tail really sells the whole look) until he speaks up.

“Uhm…hi?? I’m Ranboo!”

He proceeds to give Aimsey the most awkward smile xey has ever seen. She raises an eyebrow and moves a bit closer to squint at their face.

“Ranboo??? What kind of name is that?? Are you an alien?”

He squints their eyes more as Ranboo leans backwards a bit.

“No, yes?, no. I’m a Star child! Sent by Astraeus! Ya know titan star god? Yea I work for that dude!”

Aimsey gives him a blank stare. From behind Ranboos head, Lussa slaps her tiny palm onto her face.

“So you work for the Greek god Astraeus?”

“Yep!”

A moment of silence. Aimsey decides to play along with this tall tale and entertain the idea that Ranboo really is the person he says he is.

“So then what are you doing here on earth? Why would he send you here?”

Ranboos expression shifts as Aimsey can tell he is deciding what to say next.

“Well you see that’s the fun part. Funny thing is I’m uh…I’m your star spirit! Haha fun woo! Uhm..”

Ranboo shifts their gaze to the floor and then looks up after a few moments. Instead of finding the face of anger he expected he finds a look of confusion painted across Aimseys face.

“I’m sorry, you’re my what?”

“You know, your star spirit! Every human gets assigned a Star child at birth and from that point forward that child is their star spirit! We make big decisions all throughout your life and make sure you’re staying on the right track to accomplish your assigned destiny! Like do example most recently I decided that you’ll be moving into that house on maple street in a few months!”

Now, Ranboo was all smiles and happy he could finally meet his human! Aimsey on the other hand was horrified. He has been looking at a house on maple street. He has been making arrangements to move in in a few months. How Ranboo could know that xey had no idea. This is very overwhelming and suddenly there is an overflowing emotion of hurt, confusion, and anger.

Why had the universe felt the need to assign this..this…person to decide what happens in their life. Why couldn’t it be his decision. She didn’t need this random child from the stars to do it for them.

“And…why did Astraeus feel the need to give me a star spirit?”

“Well I told you, everyone gets one! To-“

“To make sure we stay on track for our destiny I got that but why do you need to be making big decisions in my life. I mean shouldn’t that be my choice?? I’m the one living it for crying out loud.”

Ranboo paused and there was a look of discomfort and pain on his face. This was not how this meeting was supposed to go. Aimsey had a point. She should be able to have complete control of their own life. This was something that Ranboo had brought up to Astraeus plenty of times and yet he never listened. Always went on some sort of tangent on how these humans needed people like Ranboo. To make sure they made it to their destiny.

Destiny.

What even is a destiny? Something a god you’ll never know of or meet decides for you? Well that just seems unfair.

As Ranboo kept contemplating what to say next, Aimsey decided to speak up for himself.

“I don’t need a star…child…thing…whatever you are, to decided MY future. That’s something I should be able to decide not you. And didn’t you say you decide how big things happen in my life? Well you sure have done a shit job at that! What about in primary when those kids just wouldn’t leave me alone? Or when my girlfriend cheated on me right before prom?? Or when I lost my best friend of 10 years? Hm? What about those times. Where those incidents all to get me to here? Working at a run down museum that’s going out of business and living in a shitty old apartment? All for this destiny thing you speak of??”

By now the reality that star had never actually made a decision for themselves in their life had hit Aimsey. It had hit Ranboo too. As they spoke more going on and on about all the things that have negatively affected Aimsey in his life Ranboo realized more and more how messed up his job was.

Tears were spilling out of Aimseys eyes as he kept talking and soon those tears turned to sobs as they shoved Ranboo a bit pushing him back. As Aimsey stands there crying into his arm Ranboo cautiously walks forward a bit. When he sets their hand on Aimseys shoulder and he dosent move away Ranboo pulls them into a very awkward-sibling like-hug.

“I’m sorry..I know how frustrating it is and trust me I’ve tried to talk to Astraeus about it for a while but he just won’t listen. If you’d like, we could maybe be friends? I’d still stay as your star spirit but this time you can put input into the decisions I make? That way you’d have more control of your life?”

Aimsey sniffles a bit and the pulls away from the hug. Looking up at Ranboo with a small smile and red eyes he says,

“I think I’d like that. But, first of all you’ve gotta tell me how you get your hair that shiny!! I mean it’s like there’s glitter in there!!! And also introduce me to you’re adorable star friend!!”

They both turn to Lussa who appears to be blushing. They both laugh and awkwardly pull away from the hug. Ranboo takes a seat and after a moment Aimsey sits down as well. Looking at the stars together, as friends this time, they begin a new chapter in their lives.

A/N: HELLLOOOO!! I hope everyone enjoyed the tiny bit of angst I snuck in there it made me hashtag sad. But also I hope you enjoy this cause I sure did I’m actually proud of this piece this time and would love to hear ur thoughts por favor smile and lastly reblogs are nice or something i still don’t really know how’s this site works shrugs okay bye bye see you next time with another writing YIPPIE