#hell. I started crying even before reading and as the story progressed I kept sobbing and laughing and marveling at the way it was directing

[grabby-smitten]

I feel so conflicted. I’m so happy but sad, empty but so full of joy, crying and laughing at the same time. Moby’s owner, you wrote such a beautiful story.

Error 404: (Self-Aware!AU, Sylus Edition) – Pt. 10

Summary: A LADS self-aware!AU featuring Sylus and a player. That’s it, that’s the plot. Tags: player!reader x sylus, fem!reader x sylus, reader x lads, self-aware!au, strong language, family issues, generational trauma, self-growth, personal issues (and dealing with it), hurt and comfort, hmmmm…. let’s leave it at that for now :) A/N: Final chapter, guys! Thanks so much for reading <3

Pt. 1 - Pt. 2 - Pt. 3 - Pt. 4 - Pt. 5 - Pt. 6 - Pt. 7 - Pt. 8 - Pt. 9 - Pt. 10

“Oh, what the hell—since when do you cook?”

“Bitch,” you laugh, nudging past them, the ceramic pot still steaming in your hands. “Do you want the risotto or not?”

The scent of garlic and pecorino permeates the air as you stand in front of the small foyer of the duplex where your friend—questionable, at the moment—lives. Your most recent culinary masterpiece, deemed safe (enough) for public consumption, rests between your hands in silent offering to the skeptic figure who’s barring you from crossing the threshold. 

It’s still warm, and you’re not one to brag, but you think you’ve outdone yourself with this one. Not that it matters—everybody’s a fucking critic these days.

“Risotto?” Khol parrots in disbelief. “You don’t show up in forever, suddenly you’re all cuoca straordinario or some shit. Get out of here with your Mario ass–”

“Don’t mind them,” Anna interjects from behind your biggest hater, all cheer as she plucks the pot from your hands. “This smells amazing, actually. Come in!”

With that, she vanishes inside, leaving you and Khol alone in the doorway. You give them a knowing look.

“Oh wow,” you remark, all mock surprise. “You live together now?”

Khol rolls their eyes, already tired of you. “You missed the biggest arc of the last five months, but yeah.”

You step inside, and right away, something feels… different. It could partly be due to how much time has passed since you last visited, and it’s clearly still their place—the brooding industrial-emo aesthetic remains intact, still suspiciously close to resembling the lair of an angsty comic book antihero on acid—but it’s been overtaken by bits of boho-chic scattered all over the space.

Where there was once nothing but charcoal, vinyl, and concrete, there are now textures. Colorful woven throws drape artfully over the arm of the leather Eames sofa they won off a Craigslist bid. Tasseled pillows have multiplied across every seat surface like some kind of fabric-based contagion, while pothos vines dangle lazily from macramé hangers, stretching towards the moody Edison bulbs like they’re trying to escape the existential crisis of living here.

And then there’s the rug. Oh god, the rug. 

A comically massive tufted ‘Flower Power’ rug sprawls across the center of the room, a swirling explosion of pinks and oranges—a final, cutesy fuck you to the apartment’s formerly depressing atmosphere before Khol’s new roommate staged her cheerful coup.

It should’ve been a hilarious sight, like a chaotic school art project where every kid picked a different medium to color and refused to compromise. But somehow… it works? 

Against all odds, the goth cryptid and the hippie gremlin have found domestic equilibrium.

“Love what you did with the place, Anna,” you call out, toeing off your shoes at the door. “It doesn’t look like a twelve-year-old’s fantasy bedroom anymore.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Khol laughs, shaking their head. “As if you’re one to talk. Last time I visited, you still had that stupid-ass sofa. Is it still there?”

You sniff haughtily. “Excuse you, but that’s a custom piece. You wouldn’t get it.”

"Alright, you two," Anna says, leaning against the archway between the living room and kitchen, one hip propped against the frame. "Both of you have terrible taste in decor. Now, I have a fabulous Prosecco to pair with the risotto." She tilts her head, shooting her partner a pointed look. "Khol, darling, be a dear and grab the crystal from the cupboard?"

"Whipped," you sing as Khol, predictably, does exactly as told. They don’t even bother with a comeback, just flashes you a lazy middle finger over their shoulder as they disappear from view.

You grin, shaking your head. The moment stretches into something easy, comfortable. It’s nice—being here, bantering like no time has passed. You let yourself sink into it, tugging off your beanie as you cross the room.

The creaky couch welcomes you like an old friend, and you flop down unceremoniously, stretching your legs out, rubbing your feet against the oversized monstrosity of a rug that is... honestly, pretty fucking comfortable, actually.

Anna follows suit, settling beside you with far more grace, tucking one foot under the other.

She watches you for a moment, expression warm but slightly inquisitive. “We haven’t seen you in a while.” 

You exhale, tipping your head back, staring up at the beams on the ceiling. "Yeah, sorry. Been a little out of it these past… couple of months, I guess."

Anna makes a quiet noise, something between understanding and acknowledgment. "You’re doing okay now?"

The easy answer sits on your tongue—yeah, of course. An automatic response, a reflex built from habit. Another front to put up, another lie to slip behind.

But you’ve been working on this. So instead, you take a breath and say,

"Not… really." 

The words feel foreign, heavy, but oddly freeing as they leave your mouth.

Your gaze flickers to the side table—framed photos of Khol and Anna, smiling, sunlit. You don’t linger.

“I mean, better now compared to, maybe, a few weeks ago. I’m getting there.”

Anna’s brows lift slightly—not in surprise at the sentiment itself, but at the fact that you admitted it out loud. There’s something thoughtful in her expression, something softer around the edges. “Good. That’s good.”

You can tell she means it. Maybe even more than you expected.

"Yeah."

There’s a brief lull. You catch yourself tugging at the edge of your cardigan—a nervous habit you never quite broke. The warmth of the apartment is settling in you quite comfortably, but there’s something about sitting still under Anna’s gentle scrutiny that makes you restless.

From the kitchen, there’s the unmistakable clink of glass, followed by a muffled, “shit.”

Anna exhales, long-suffering. “I don’t know why I even bother buying nice things.”

“‘Oy,” Khol’s voice carries from the other room, “get in here and help. We have, like, seven things to carry.”

You take that as your cue, trailing after Anna into the kitchen. Between the three of you, it’s quick work—bowls of warm, brothy risotto in hand, glasses of white wine balanced carefully between fingers.

By the time you step back into the living room, Khol is already dropping onto the blue accent chair near the window with all the dramatics of someone who’s worked far too hard for far too little.

You settle into your usual spot, Anna beside you. You don’t touch your food. Your appetite’s still in remission, though it’s been steadily improving lately.

Khol notices. “Now, why the hell aren’t you eating?” They shoot you a side-eye like you’ve personally offended them. “I knew it. You put something in this, didn’t you?”

“Jesus, Khol,” Anna sighs, exasperated, already two spoonfuls in. “Your diet was literally gas station burritos and eight-pack Coors before I moved in. You’ll live.”

She pauses, though, casting you a look. “Don’t get me wrong—this is really good.”

“Ha,” you retort as Khol prods suspiciously at a floating mushroom. You glare. “Are you fucking kidding me—”

“Alright, alright.” With an exaggerated sigh, Khol finally takes a bite. They chew once, twice—eyes narrowed in concentration, acting like some hard-ass seasoned judge from Top Chef. You can practically see them digging for something snarky to say—until, begrudgingly, they nod.

“Shit. This is actually pretty good. Who are you?”

You preen at the praise.

For a while, there’s nothing but the quiet clinking of spoons against ceramic, the occasional satisfied hum. It’s… nice. Comfortable in a way you haven’t felt in what feels like forever.

You’ve missed this.

Missed being here. Missed being with people.

Somewhere between the second glass of wine and the last few bites of risotto, Khol angles their head toward you, their curiosity piqued. “How come you’re free today? You on leave or something?”

You swirl the drink in your hand, watching the light catch on the amber surface before answering. “Oh, I quit my job.”

There’s a beat of silence. You don’t know what reaction you were expecting, but Khol just blinks at you. "Huh. Finally."

Anna looks mildly more concerned. "You quit?"

You nod, stretching your legs out beneath the coffee table. “Yeah. The OT was getting ridiculous, and they had me working night shifts again. That was kind of the last straw for me.”

Khol grunts in agreement. “Good fucking riddance. That job was killing you.” They pause for a beat, turning serious, contemplative. “You’re not hung up about it, are you? You’ve been bitching about that job for ages.”

You exhale through your nose, staring at the rim of your glass. “Yeah, no. I’m glad I left.” The words come easily, and they’re mostly true. But still—there’s something about suddenly having all this space, this aimless in-between, that makes you antsy. 

A thought strikes you, and you glance up. “Hey, you know if Marion's still looking for someone to work part-time at the bistro?”

Khol raises an eyebrow. "You looking to apply? It’s minimum wage, just telling you in advance."

"That’s fine," you assure them. "I just need something on the side. I’m doing freelance work right now, I just want something to fill in the gaps."

Anna perks up at that. "I think that’s a great idea. I can hit up Marion later, but I’m pretty sure they’re still looking."

Khol stares at you, and for once, they don’t have a quip lined up. No sharp-edged humor, no quick banter—just a quiet look of something almost foreign on their face. Pride. Maybe even relief. You’ve worried them. The realization jars you like a pebble dropped into a clear pond, sending ripples through the stillness of your self-imposed isolation. You hadn’t meant to, not really. It wasn’t like you deliberately wanted to disappear... But you did, didn’t you? You let the days blur into weeks, then months, telling yourself naively that no one would notice if you just—vanished for a while. Five months, to be exact.

You press your lips together, clearing your throat against the tightness creeping in. “Thanks,” you say, quiet but sincere. “Really.”

Khol snorts, and the moment shatters. “You can show your thanks by knocking ten percent off the cocktails when we visit.”

You roll your eyes, feigning exasperation. “Get me the job first, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Anna grins, raising her glass. “Now, that’s the spirit.��

––––

You get the job.

You stand in front of the fogged-up mirror, dragging your palm across the wet glass. The reflection that stares back is warped, smudged—half-formed, half-there—but unequivocally yours. 

A month ago, you wouldn’t have been able to say that with certainty. Back then, the figure in the mirror had been more ghost than person—distant, spectral. Fractured. Someone you watched from the outside, not as a host of the flesh you inhabit. 

Now, though, the pieces are starting to slot back into place. Some are still missing, and others don’t quite fit as they once did. You doubt it will ever return to how it was… But slowly, a familiar shape is coming back into focus. More than the shadow of a woman, but you.  Time moves like water carving through rock—gradual, barely perceptible, but steady. Inevitable.

The shifts are diminutive. A morning where you wake up feeling less crushed by the weight of grief in your chest. An afternoon where you suddenly break into laughter, and you realize it’s the first time you’ve heard it in weeks. A quiet night where you go to bed without feeling like you’re stuck frozen in an endless loop of wishing, waiting for the impossible.

You’re here, alive. Present. And for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, you’re doing more than just holding on.

(You think he’d be proud of you.) And the thought doesn’t leave you aching the way it used to.

––––

“You think I can handle taking care of another living thing? Like a plant?” You ask Maru, glancing at him lounging by the window, right where a sliver of afternoon sunlight spills across the floor. “I mean, I raised you well enough, I think. But you’re pretty self-sufficient anyway.” Maru looks unimpressed. His tail flicks once—dismissive, uninterested—before he returns to grooming himself, utterly indifferent to both your question and your sudden enthusiasm for gardening. “Well, if your dad can grow plants in that dungeon he calls a base, I’m sure I can manage,” you mutter unconvincingly. “How hard can it be?” 

–

By the middle of the second week into your little project, you begrudgingly admit that your tiny repotted begonia isn’t exactly thriving. You don’t want to be a pessimist, but the (browning) margins seem to curl inward—more than they should, if the reference pics on that “Indoor Succulents” blog you’re subscribed to are anything to go by. 

You eye it dubiously, trying to stay gung-ho about the whole thing, forcing yourself to look up care tips again. It’s just a plant. Not rocket science. So you do the research, gather more supplies, and give it another shot. You reposition it closer to where the sun lands—earning a disgruntled hiss from the sunbathing feline—and sprinkle a careful amount of water just beneath the leaves, closer to the root. Then you lean back, waiting, tapping your foot impatiently like it’s supposed to just... fix itself.

–

The next few days pass with you watching it more than you’d care to admit—checking, hoping, second-guessing yourself. 

You narrow your eyes at the leaves, more russet than Inca Flame red, still hanging limp like a sad testament to your lack of skill. 

But you keep at it, because you’re nothing if not stubborn.

–

A single flower has bloomed.

You stand there, spray bottle in hand, caught in quiet awe at the metallic pink sprout peeking through the foliage. It’s small, delicate, barely more than a bud, but unmistakably there—nestled among heart-shaped leaves that, for the first time in weeks, look alive. Brighter. 

A faint smile tugs at your lips. It’s not groundbreaking, not by a long shot. But it’s something.

The fragile blossom clings onto dear life, stubbornly seeking the sun rays, inching toward the warmth it needs to grow—larger, stronger.

You can’t wait to bear witness to it. 

––––

You’re not entirely sure how you ended up in this situation; all you could recall past the sweat blurring your vision is the memory of being in front of the reception desk, pen in hand, scrawling your name onto the sign-up sheet for beginner boxing lessons. 

It’s not… something you planned on doing, really. You’d been showing up for the past week, trying to convince yourself that fitness was something you could get into. Something you could stick with. But this one’s more of an impulse decision, fueled by a mix of post-workout endorphins and the misplaced confidence that sometimes follows after an extra few—unpremeditated!––minutes on the elliptical. 

It all started with a casual glance at a flyer taped to the wall beside the water dispenser.

GET TOUGHER, FASTER, STRONGER! SIGN UP NOW!

The cheesy tagline stared you down as you were in the middle of refilling your teal green AquaFlask. And for some dumb reason—sheer curiosity, definitely not because it reminded you of a certain someone—you thought: Why not?

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you’d marched straight up to the nearest staff at the counter, credit card in hand, and asked to sign up. Now, as you stare at the buff woman currently goading you to hit harder, reality sets in and you feel a little lightheaded. Even slightly delirious.

“Up, up–” your trainer urges, somehow not even remotely out of breath, despite being thirty grueling minutes into the session. Meanwhile, you’re standing there, red-faced and sweating like a fucking pig. “Keep your arms up at all times, alright?”

You pant, nodding weakly, fixing your posture. She gives you an approving nod in return.

It’s part of the whole self-improvement thing, anyway. Pushing yourself. Fitness, jazz, and all that. You’ve never had much inclination for sports or anything remotely physically taxing, as far as you can recall.

…Or maybe that decision was made for you the moment you tried out for volleyball in high school and took a spike straight to the face. A memory so humiliating, that your brain did you a favor and buried it deep in the recesses of your mind. 

But things are different now! You’re trying new things. You’ve done wall climbing, aerobics, even pulled a hamstring attempting HIIT Tae Bo. And if getting punched in the face is the next step in this… wellness journey, then, well, so be it. You’ll take it with a brave face and, hopefully, minimal bruising to both body and ego.

You slog through two sets of combos and thirty jab-straight-hook-uppercuts, punching like your life depends on it. You’re wheezing like an asthmatic child, and you’re about one bad punch away from toppling over.

Then, mercifully—

“Okay, that’s enough for today.”

Oh, thank god.

“You did good,” she tacks on, flashing you an encouraging smile, like you didn’t just spend the last half hour flailing at the focus mitts with all the grace of a wrecking ball.

You stare at her, unconvinced. Did I? Because from where you’re standing—wobbling, really—you’re pretty sure you looked closer to an overstimulated toddler throwing hands with gravity, but sure. It must’ve been in the fine print, to segue in a little positive reinforcement. Probably to keep people from bolting after the first session. 

Not that you’re planning to. No, of course not. You’re just... reevaluating some things. Like your life choices. And your capacity to lift your arms tomorrow. As you trudge your way out of the yoga-studio-turned-boxing-area, still gulping for air and very aware of the soreness settling into your limbs, someone calls out.

“Hey! Wait up!”

You turn your head, blinking in confusion. A guy—mid to late twenties, give or take—jogs up to you, looking offensively too fresh compared to how you feel. “Oh, hi. Sorry, do you mean me?”

He laughs as he slows to a stop, running a hand through his shaggy hair. “Yeah, you. I’ve seen you training with Coach. Just wanted to say—you’re improving.”

You blink. Wait, what?

A wave of mortification rolls through you. Shit, you didn’t know you had an audience. “Uh—thanks, I guess?”

You shift your weight awkwardly, clutching your boxing gloves tightly against your chest.

His grin turns sheepish, as though he realizes how that might’ve come off. “Fuck, sorry. That came out weird, didn’t it? I swear, I’m not, like, watching the whole thing or anything.” He makes a vague gesture to his left. “The studio’s right in my line of sight when I’m doing TRX reps. Hard not to notice.”

You force a smile. “Ah, yeah. Figures.” 

“I’m Byron, by the way,” he offers, sticking out a hand.

Now that you get a proper look at him, you notice he’s got this kind of… geeky charm going for him. Curly hair, sleepy brown eyes behind round, rimless glasses, and shy boy-next-door vibes—except for the fact that he’s jacked.

(Honestly? Work.)

You give him your name, still smiling awkwardly. You’re about to wave goodbye and turn away when— “So, what are you doing later?”

Um.

You hesitate. “I’m, uh… heading straight home after this?” Your voice comes out a little more uncertain than you intended, mostly because you’re not really sure why he’s still talking to you.

“Yeah, ‘course,” he replies quickly, glancing down like he’s suddenly nervous. “I just… thought I’d ask if you’d wanna grab coffee sometime?”

Oh.

It takes a moment for the question to fully register. The first thought that pops in your head is: Wait, how does he know I’m a barista?

… The second thought is one of pure disbelief. Holy shit, did I just get asked out? At the gym? By the Temu version of Peter Parker?

Your face burns hotter than it did mid-workout, caught completely off guard.

“I—woah, um.” You stumble over your words, eyes quickly darting away from him. “Sorry, I already have… a boyfriend. If—if that’s what you’re leading up to.”

You say it like a question. He picks up on it.

“You don’t sound too convinced,” he comments with a light chuckle, shaking his head. “If you’re not interested, you can just say that, you know.”

A prickle of irritation flares up, followed by something sharper—something that stings. You push it down. “No, he’s just… not around.” “Ah.” He clicks his tongue sympathetically. “Long distance?” “…Yeah.” You have no idea.

He shrugs, undeterred. “Alright, no pressure. We could always just hang out as friends, if you want.”

I… don’t think I do. “Um, maybe?” you answer instead, forcing out a laugh.

“Oh, come on,” he says, his grin widening. “You can even introduce me to your boyfriend,” he emphasizes the word out, “when he gets back. Does he work out? We could all hit the gym together.”

Social anxiety is afraid of this man, you think belatedly. Unfortunately for him, you’re the very embodiment of what fears him.

You’re so out of your element that all you can manage is, “He boxes too, actually.”

“Yeah? He any good?” 

That gets an involuntary snort out of you. Unthinkingly, you say, “Could probably beat you up.”

Byron laughs, startled but amused, shaking his head as he raises his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright—message received.” He flashes you a wide smile. “Well, if you change your mind about the coffee, I’ll be around.” He jerks his chin toward the pack fly by the corner. “There, usually.”

Okay, nerd. Despite yourself, you can’t help but find the whole thing slightly hilarious. Then again, you find humor in the dumbest things. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

You offer him a quick, half-hearted wave, trying (and failing) to mask your embarrassment with an exaggerated, too-casual show of nonchalance. It’s so painfully awkward, you can feel yourself internally dying from cringe. 

Without another word, you spin on your heel and start speed-walking away, practically running back to the safety of your personal space.

Smooth.

––––

It’s another relatively easy night at the bistro. You’re on the last two hours of your shift, and you’re carrying a single glass of roseberry mule to serve at table four. As you round the corner, you catch sight of a student, glasses perched low on her nose, completely absorbed in a thick coursebook on Programming Languages. Papers are scattered across the table, and she looks to be utterly engrossed in her readings, unaware of the world around her. 

You don’t want to bother her more than necessary, about to set the drink down on the only clear space—by the iPad propped up on a tablet holder to her right—when something red catches your attention.

A familiar pair of crimson eyes stops you dead in your tracks.

For a moment, you feel like you’re suspended in time. The sharp memory of a similar instance where you’re in her place, and he’s there, keeping you company while he’s polishing a gun burns through your brain, and you don’t–you can’t think—

You stand there, rooted to the spot, wide-eyed and unmoving. Then, the girl’s gaze shifts to you, and a hot flush spreads across her cheeks, betraying her surprise.

With swift fingers, she locks the screen with a quick flick on the power button, pulling you away and breaking you from the echoes of the past.

“Oh, shit,” she giggles, a nervous edge to her voice. “That’s embarrassing.” 

You shake your head, forcing yourself back to the present moment. “No—no, don’t worry about it,” you chuckle weakly, setting the drink down beside her with shaky hands. “Cute guy, honestly.”

That makes her giggle louder, her eyes bright with an almost conspiratorial glint. “Oh my god, you have no idea.”

Fuck—you can’t breathe.

––––

The night hangs thick with stifling heat, accompanied by the steady ticking of the clock as you catch your breath, your broken moans too loud in the heavy silence. The sheets cling to your feverish skin, damp and uncomfortable, as your body moves in a rhythm that feels unnatural now, but still—but always—familiar.

Your chest rises and falls in shallow, rapid breaths as you force the draconic toy deep inside you. The heat, the fire—it licks at your skin, making your whole body yearn for more. To chase more of the feeling, to chase more of the memory of him. 

Errant strands of hair stick to your forehead, your chest flushed and burning, a quiet throb spreading through you with every friction, every desperate movement.

Your body aches, a relentless thrum urging you to push deeper, to find something—anything—to fill the gaping hole inside you, a wound you’ve tried to stitch shut over months, now threatening to tear its way open again, once more ripping from the seams. 

A sharp pressure builds inside you. Your body stretches too far, too much, struggling to take in what it can’t quite handle. It burns in a way that hurts, but you need it. You need to feel more, to fill the emptiness, to grasp at something that feels real.

“Yours, yours–” you tremble, desperate. “Yours. Just yours. Please.”

-

-

-

You lie in the wake of it—pleasure fading into something heavier, regret creeping in like a shadow, waiting as always.

“I miss you,” you whisper in the dark. You always do.

You try to ignore the pull of it, the sharp descent that comes with the high.

You were doing so well.

But it’s fine. You’re fine. 

Everything’s fine.

The words swirl and echo in your mind, until they’re swallowed by sounds that ring hollow. You let the moment wash over you, sinking beneath the weight of the tides, where sorrow and longing blur with the fleeting warmth of what you can’t keep.

Tomorrow will be another day. Another chance to try again.

For now, you let go of your grip on the fragile raft of sanity you’ve built, painstakingly, for months on end.

Tonight, you let yourself drown once more in the somber depths of loneliness and despair, confined within these four walls that feel—once more—like a penitentiary.

––––

The plane begins its slow descent, and through the window, the world comes into view—large swathes of land interrupted by winding roads that seem to follow no rhyme, nor pattern. A river glints faintly beneath the fading sun, while the sky turns a dull blue, a washed-out slate, streaked with the last embers of daylight.

Below, the small city stirs.

Tiny specks of color flicker to life, lanterns strung along the streets like beads on a thread, marking the season, an ending, and the inevitable turning of time. A chill hangs in the air, the wind whipping past you from the half-open window of the taxi, sharp and crisp in a way that you can only find in the province.

Your hometown. 

It all rushes past in a blur of light and shadow, an eclectic mix of old and new—some buildings unchanged, others unfamiliar, as if they’d sprung up in the years you’ve been away. It’s been a while since you last came back, long enough for the roads to feel... foreign, almost. Though muscle memory stirs when the car takes a turn. One you could have easily navigated even with your eyes closed.

Only your sister lives here now, her and her family—a couple of hundred miles far. Far enough to feel like another world, yet close enough for the past to catch up the moment you lay eyes on the old two-story house tucked away on the quaint cul-de-sac of this suburban neighborhood. 

The residential property was left to her, scrawled onto the title in an act of generosity, perhaps. Or maybe as a weight your mother never intended to carry, something meant to anchor her eldest child while she carved a different life for herself elsewhere. Free-spirited as she is, she left with the ease of someone shedding an old coat, slipping into the shoes of another, barely a glance over her shoulder.

But houses remember. And as you step out of the vehicle, your feet meeting the rough asphalt that once belonged to your childhood, you wonder if they remember you too.

"Maru, Maru!" Your five-year-old niece cries the moment she spots the grumpy feline peering through the mesh of his portable prison.

"What—no excitement for me too?" you tease, ruffling her hair. She giggles, scrunching up her nose.

"Auntie, hi! Hi!"

You snort at her enthusiasm, setting the carrier down. The second you pull at the zipper, Maru springs out, landing with a soft thud before stalking off with his usual air of disdain. Your niece shrieks with delight. 

"Ah! Cat!"

"Well, there go the chances of her socializing with her brother," your sister remarks dryly from the doorway, sauntering closer. "Hey, stranger."

"Hey," you greet, hoisting a handful of paper bags. "Where do I dump these?"

She eyes the bags. "Any of those for me?"

"You have three kids, and one of them insisted on a Lego set. Do you know how much those cost?" You shoot her a flat look. "You’re getting socks."

"Wow, stingy." She huffs but takes some of the bags anyway, hitching one onto her hip as she grabs your other hand-carry.

You step inside, and the house greets you with a riot of lights and color. Plastic tinsel and bright string lights drape across every visible surface—along the bannister, around doorways—leaving no space untouched by the festive chaos. A Christmas tree stands proudly in the corner, nearly buried beneath an avalanche of baubles and sentimental ornaments collected over the years.

The room feels swallowed by the exuberance of it all, an almost overwhelming jamboree of holiday cheer.

It’s gaudy, excessive, and completely over-the-top, but beneath it all, the bones of your childhood home remain unchanged—familiar in a way that settles deep in your chest. The Narra wood floors are still scuffed with the marks of time, there’s still the distinct tang of turpentine mixed with waxy resin and citrus you’ve long since associated with home, and the odd decorative masks still line the far wall, their painted expressions frozen mid-celebration.

Your eyes land on the canvas floater above the mantel—a whimsical cross-stitch of three women flying kites, their stitched dresses rippling in imagined wind. You remember it well, though you never quite understood why your mother had chosen that particular scene to painstakingly sew into existence. Still, it belongs here, another piece of the house's patchwork history.

Your gaze shifts to the couch, where Andrew, your sister's husband, is sprawled out, one arm lazily draped over the backrest, the other holding his phone.

He flicks his gaze up at you, offering a half-hearted wave before turning back to whatever has him so absorbed on the screen. Beside him, your three-year-old nephew is perched on his knees, bouncing with energy as he mirrors Bluey's movements on the TV with exaggerated enthusiasm, his tiny arms flailing in childlike glee.

You sigh inwardly, rolling your eyes. Typical.

“There’s a few more hours before dinner. Want to hang out in the kitchen while I roast the ham?” She asks casually, setting down your bags by the foot of the stairs. “Actually, scratch that—you’re in charge of the punch.”

“You just want a head start on the drinks,” you tease, the banter flowing easily between you. “Hey, where’s the little squirt?”

She points toward the small crib, near the island counter. “She finally stopped crying, thank god. Don’t wake her up, or you’ll be the one in charge of putting her back to sleep.”

The two of you slip into the kitchen, where the air already carries the promise of dinner—cloves and brown sugar blending nicely with the lingering scent of citrus. A tray of ham sits on the counter, prepped and ready, the scored surface glistening under the fluorescent light. 

Your sister pulls a bottle of Luisita Oro Rum and Agimat Gin from the second-to-last cupboard and places them on the counter in front of you.

"Go ham," she quips.

You give her a flat look. "You think you’re funny.”

She shrugs, unfazed, and turns her attention back to where she’d left off before your arrival. 

The two of you fall into a natural rhythm, the kind that comes from years of cooking together. You work your way through cans of Del Monte, the metallic clinks filling the space as you drain the syrup and dump chunks of mixed fruit into the large punch bowl.

Your sister leans against the counter nearby, arms folded, her gaze fixed on the oven door, as if sheer willpower alone could make the meat cook faster.

In the background, the soft drone of the TV drifts in from the living room, punctuated by your nephew’s occasional giggles.

There’s no rush, no need to fill the silence with anything more than the occasional clink of utensils against glass and the low humming of kitchen appliances. The day is winding down to a close, and for now, everything is alright.

“So, Mom called,” she says casually, one arm braced on the counter as she leans in, glancing at you. “Kept calling, actually.”

“Mm.” You reply noncommittally, shaking the last can’s contents into the crystal bowl, watching as the fruit chunks bob lazily in the pool of alcohol.

“She’s worried about you.”

You don’t answer.

“She was. She is.” Her voice shifts, more serious now. She watches you closely, noting your lack of reaction. “You know that, right?”

Your fingers tighten around the can opener, but you pull your gaze away from the bowl. “I know.”

She sighs, resigned, already familiar with this song and dance. Familiar enough to know there’s no winning this one, not tonight. Not anytime soon. “I am too.”

You blink, before looking away. “Oh.”

And maybe she does worry—your mother. But any hope of truly knowing is swallowed by the chasm between you, the one that keeps your conversations at surface level, never breaching the depths beyond. 

Your body, born from hers, perhaps more alike than you realize, might have been brought into this world with the same pains that she’s carried. The pains of separation. The unresolved hurt of being unwillingly removed from your person—her former husband, your father—and that if you and your mother were closer, you could have opened up about your own situation. Perhaps then, you wouldn’t feel like a ship that has lost its ballast, drifting endlessly in the same turbulent seas for the longest time.

But you are your mother’s daughter, and she is her mother’s daughter. There is the truth that the women in your family are not the best communicators, nor do they wear their hearts on their sleeves. So you were born mute and overly sensitive. Pain drips from you, unnoticed, like a purposeless leak in the heart. You’ll carry it with you until you die.

“But you look… okay,” she observes, cocking her head. “Are you okay?”

You swallow. For the same reason you compare your mother to a storm you can't outrun and your sister to an intermittent drizzle, you find it easier to admit, “I haven’t… been okay for a while.” 

Not wanting to bring the mood down, especially on a day like today, you quickly add, “Things are better now, though.”

She huffs out a laugh, shaking her head. “Could be a little more specific there, but I’ll take it.” She gives you an exasperatedly fond look. “You let me know if that changes anytime soon, ‘kay?”

Your lips quirk in the faintest semblance of a smile. “Yeah, okay.”

–

It’s ten minutes before midnight.

You’re leaning against the island counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, nursing a glass of the fruit punch (though it’s mostly gin, with the teensiest amount of fruit), watching your sister’s family at a distance as they eagerly wait for the clock to strike twelve. The blinds of the large living room window have been pulled up, giving an unobstructed view of the sky, ready for the first firework to light up the dark.

For a moment, you feel like an outsider, watching through a lens, as if you’re not quite part of the scene. There’s a strange sense of detachment—voyeuristic, almost—as though you're peering in on a private, intimate moment. 

Your sister cradles the infant in her arms, and that all-too-familiar pang stirs to life—the same one that always does when you look at her.

You can't quite place what you're feeling, exactly. It’s tumultuous, and it’s complex. Andrew’s practically dozing off in his seat, and you see your sister shake her head in mild annoyance. Your nephew, fighting to keep his eyes open, starts to fuss.

Something tightens inside your chest.

“Andrew,” she hisses, startling the man awake. He blinks, disoriented, before spotting their son and the early signs of an explosive tantrum.

He sighs, and pulls the boy closer to him. “Hey, hey, little guy. Look at the sky. In just a couple of minutes, the lights are gonna go boom-boom.”

Your nephew sniffs, his eyes blinking up at him as he processes the words. “Boom-boom?”

“Yeah! Just like the one we watched on TV!”

The kid’s face visibly perks up at that, bad mood quickly forgotten. “Boom-boom!”

You watch as your sister’s gaze softens, and a small smile replaces the earlier frown on her face.

And in that instant, you understand.

You look at your sister and, for a brief moment, all you see is a wretched mirror of yourself. She is all of your fears, all of your failures, and all of what you could’ve been rolled into one. Barely in her mid-thirties, and yet already carrying the weight of a family: three kids, a husband who feels like a faded echo of your father—a man who didn’t quite measure up, who never did, and just as unreliable. 

You feel the suffocating weight of it all, of being tied to a place that’s meant to be a home but feels more like a tomb, marking the passing of dreams unspoken. She’ll grow old here, buried in the same soil you both sprang from, fading into the landscape of this town that swallows its own.

You look at her and you almost feel the repressed pain of missing the last semester of college to give birth, the lament of a missed opportunity that life has stolen from her. 

You feel her pain as if it’s yours. You feel it in the marrow of your bones—her blood flowing through you. “3…” You look at her, and it feels like seeing someone bound, held down by an anchor around her foot, unable to break through the surface of freedom. You look at her and you see dreams once aglow, reduced to cinders. You look at her and see—

She glances up at you.

Oh. “2…” In the fleeting moment where your eyes meet—eyes you two share with your mother—you feel so small.

Just a kid. Shortsighted and unfairly dismissive. Too blind to see your sister’s quiet victories, too selfish to admit you’ve diminished them just to feel less alone about your own. A child grasping for meaning, unfair in the ways only children can be. “1…” And in the fraction of a second before midnight, it's as if you’ve been doused awake. 

You see her anew—what seemed like monotony is really the bedrock of stability; tenacity in place of routine. An almost single-minded doggedness to make something out of this life. You see the steadfast strength she possesses, the kind that gets her up every morning, to face the world and all its demands without question. With purpose. 

You see resilience. Compassion. Traits that you’ve always lacked, that you’ve long resented, the same traits your mother never learned to embody.

And now you see your niece in her arms, born from this, and you name the indescribable feeling that dwells in you—borne from the pure look of adoration in your sister’s eyes for her youngest daughter—as envy.

You know, with utmost certainty, that she will be okay, because she has your sister as her mother, and she is so, so loved.

As you watch them, something inside you shifts—a deep, aching realization. 

You see… home. Something you've always longed for but never truly found. “Happy new year!” The spell breaks. The two of you startle at the sudden eruption of fireworks, the distant chorus of car horns blaring from the streets outside.

Your niece and nephew jump and shriek, their laughter ringing through the room, celebrating something they barely understand but find joy in anyway. The baby in your sister’s arms lets out a wail at the commotion, and she is soothed instantly with murmurs of soft assurances. Her husband struggles upright—then, with no small amount of effort, leans forward to press a kiss to the crown of her head.

The image before you is far from perfect, but it’s theirs.

“Auntie, auntie!” The little rascals cry out in unison, their voices overlapping in excitement. “‘appy n’year!”

A breathless, almost pained laugh escapes you. Still, you smile as you respond with your own, “happy new year!”

You’re tired—tired of running, of measuring yourself against the ghosts of your past. Tired of carrying the weight of a childhood that’s left you with more questions than answers, of making excuses for wounds that should have healed long since. You've spent so much time mourning the growing pains, the irreparable, that you never stopped to see what’s in front of you. 

This moment, this realization, feels like the final missing piece in the fractured puzzle of who you are.

The new year arrives, marked by the crackle of fireworks and the loud cheer from your family.

This time, you won’t hesitate. You’ll choose to embrace the change, both good and bad, with open arms. With the quiet resolve of someone finally ready to move forward.

You lift your gaze just as a brilliant burst of red explodes into the night sky, its iridescent glow bleeding into a softer silver before fading into the dark. 

A warmth settles deep in your chest—bittersweet, but steady. A quiet peace.

Happy new year, my love. . . . . . . .

.

.

.

.

. . .

The air at the threshold of Vagrant’s land is restless. Volatile. A hazy distortion ripples through it, folding and unfolding, like a lost mirage—an area of transition between worlds. Porch collapse, he calls it. 

Sylus has stood here countless times, watching the way this anomalous disturbance twists the very fabric of this reality, how it flickers in and out of form, erratic. Impossible to predict. 

It had taken him longer than he likes to admit to understand the phenomena for what it’s truly worth. 

Not just an alternate space caused by some spartan energy field. Not just any other protofield. But a thread. A connection. A door. 

A fault line between realities, an entryway that hums with the possibility of you.

Since the moment the idea took hold, he had thought of little else. It has consumed him in every waking moment; his entire being seeming to bend toward a singular purpose—getting to you. He had torn through endless streams of data, followed every unstable pulse of energy, mapped its fluctuations down to the smallest inconsistency.

Nights bled into days, and days bled into weeks, until he can no longer keep track. Not that the passage of time meant much to him at this point. 

He’s worked tirelessly through the stillness, through the storms of uncertainty, through the aching silence left by your absence. Ever since you’ve exchanged your temporary goodbyes. 

He had measured everything he could—the unstable frequency of radio signals streaming through the interstice. He had traced the influx in real time; recording the rate of deterioration, isolating the waveform, and filtering out outside interferences. 

But for all the data he gathered, for all the precision in his calculations, the core of this phenomenon remained just out of reach. His knowledge on the matter is rudimentary at most. He could waste years observing for abnormalities, trying to decipher how its presence has disrupted the very threads of this universe, but the why and how of it all will still elude him. 

Still, theory matters less than function. He doesn’t need to understand the full depth of it. He only needs to harness it.

It’s a gamble.

Contrary to whatever reputation he’s earned for himself, Sylus has never been one to play his cards recklessly. He deals in certainties, in probabilities stacked in his favor, in risks that—while dangerous—are still within his grasp to control. He has never been the type to leap without knowing where he’d land.

But this is different.

He has never needed to, before. Never had a reason to throw himself into the unknown with no assurance of survival, no way to predict the outcome.

He had no reason to—until you.

Now, it matters less whether or not the odds of his survival are abysmal, that he has no precedent to follow. That your world might reject him entirely. None of it matters. Because if the choice is between staying and never reaching you, or plunging into the great, endless unknown—

He’ll take the leap, every time. Without hesitation. 

He’ll leave this world behind, step beyond the edges of everything that has ever defined him, and venture into lands unseen, uncharted. Unknown. He doesn’t know what awaits him on the other side. If he’ll make it there in one piece. If he will make it there at all.

Sylus has never really questioned why he’s the anomaly in this world. The curiosities of his existence are yours to ponder. After all, he finds that he doesn’t care much of the answer as much as he cares about being with you.

Because wherever you are—that is home. 

He takes a step forward, and the universe dissolves into a blinding light.

-

-

-

Sylus wakes to the sensation of weight.

Something presses on him heavily, sinking into his limbs like gravity itself is wrapping around him for the first time.

The ground beneath him is unfamiliar, uneven—tangible in a way he’s never felt before. His fingertips press into the damp earth, leaving the faintest imprint, yielding beneath his touch. The scent of soil rises around him; a rich, bitter brown. 

This world does not recognize him, yet it cradles him like its own all the same.

Above, the sky erupts.

Fireworks split open the night, streaks of color exploding and dissipating in an instant—too fleeting to hold, too bright to ignore. A flashbang of incandescent reds and fluorescent greens, followed by bursts of crackling gold and shimmering silver scatter into tiny pinpricks before fading into the darkness.

The air is heavier here, denser in a way that feels almost… alien. It clings to the contours of his new form, seeps into his lungs with every breath. 

And oh, how it burns. Not in pain, but in its sheer presence. It rushes into him not as mere oxygen but as something real. Something palpable. He’s lost in the sensation. 

He exhales. Then winces. 

Immediately, he feels it—the weakness. The brittleness of this new body. Gone is the invulnerability he once wielded so effortlessly, the certainty that nothing could touch him unless he allowed it. 

That certainty is gone now, stripped away the moment he crossed the threshold.

He is flesh and bone. Finite. Mortal.

A lesser man might have feared it.

But in the middle of this empty field, miles away from civilization, Sylus can only laugh. 

He tips his head back, reeling from the sheer impossibility of it all, eyes tracing the brilliant display above—as if committing it to memory, a coronation of sorts. Of existence. Of arrival. Of a life finally his own.

Reborn. And for the first time in his existence, he is alive.

––––

It’s summer—the summer that marks two years since he left. 

Two years. It’s enough time to feel the weight of it, but not enough to make the events feel like something that happened a lifetime ago. 

The seasons cycle once more, as they always do, pushing time forward with a steady, indifferent rhythm. And with that change comes a familiar pang—a bittersweet ache, neither grief nor regret, just the weight of knowing that nothing stays the same. Mono no aware. 

You’re closer to thirty now, and the thought doesn’t terrify you as much as it did before. Your hair’s in a pixie cut—short and sleek, although the edges are a little ragged from the half-assed trimming you gave it a few days ago. 

It would have made you feel stupid, once upon a time, for trying out something drastic for a new look. Instead, you just take it for what it is—one more thing you did because you wanted to. Like the rest of the choices you’ve made over the past two years. It’s yours. Uneven, impulsive, maybe a little questionable. But yours.

It’s liberating. Even if it makes your head look like a pencil. 

The voice—the one that picks at your face, your body, your thoughts, everything down to the last imperfection—never really shuts up. It’s quieter now, easier to ignore, but it still lurks in the background, waiting for an opening, a moment of weakness. Maybe it always will. Maybe that’s just the price of being human.

But you don’t fight it anymore. You don’t let it drag you down to a breaking point. You carry yourself differently now, you'd say. No pep in your step just yet, but you don’t feel the need to drag your heels either. Literally and figuratively. 

The change has come in waves—sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh—but it’s there, marking you, marking the passage of time. Just like the earth, just like the seasons, you’ve shifted and grown. And perhaps that’s enough.

The sky is ablaze now, a deepening canvas of pinks and purples as the sun sinks lazily to the west. The fiery orange light spills through the large windows, bleeding into every corner of the room, and the world outside seems to slow, caught in the hour before dusk.

You’re behind the counter, wiping down plates with the kind of ease that comes from repetition, the motion so ingrained in you that it barely registers anymore. It’s all routine—the rhythm of it, the quiet hum of the bistro, the clinking of porcelain. The air is thick with the sticky smell of warm pastries, and it’s the sort of evening that feels almost liminal. A moment suspended in time.

You hear the soft tinkling of the door chimes, signaling the arrival of another customer. 

It’s a soft, unassuming sound, barely noticeable against the evening lull. You swipe your hands across your apron, turning on instinct, your mouth already forming the usual greeting. 

“Hi, welcome to—”

The words die in your throat.

It’s a slow unfolding—almost a gradual realization that stretches across the seconds like the last rays of sun dipping beneath the horizon. He stands in the doorway, a figure outlined in gold, and his presence fills the space between you, no barrier that separates, and it feels... impossible. Unimaginable. Inevitable. 

His height is the first thing you notice. He’s taller than you expected, and you know he’ll tower over you, even at a distance. His hair is dark now, the color of midnight, almost—not the silver you once traced with your fingers in your mind. The cut is still similar to what you’ve always known it to be, though a little more unkempt, as if he’s lived in this body long enough for it to take on its own wear.

Then his eyes. The red is gone—no longer the shade of crimson that used to see right through you, those sanguine pools you once loved. In its place, a stormy grey, deep and impossibly expressive, pulling you in like an undertow. The color is striking, alien in its own way, yet there’s a warmth buried beneath it—and the familiarity of it tugs at you.

Even with the changes, even though you’ve never met the person standing in front of you, you’ll know him anywhere. 

There’s a shift in the room, a subtle, yet unmistakable change in the air. It’s as if the whole bistro has drawn in a breath—and you with it. Time stretches thin, each passing second expanding into what feels like an eternity.

Your eyes lock—and for a moment, nothing else exists. 

It’s as if the world has shifted off its axis. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s as though a piece that’s always been missing has finally snapped into place.

Something settles in you, something foreign and indescribably familiar at the same time.

Sylus smiles.

“Hello, my love. Have I kept you waiting?”

It feels like home. 

____

“Now I found myself this kind of love, I can't believe it I'll never leave it behind I thought I'd never get to feel another fucking feeling But I feel— This love, this love, this love Oh, I feel it.”

End A/N: So this is done! Wow! I'm kind of proud of myself for writing something this long in the span of, idk, three months? Basically, the entire duration of my "vacation" back home. Now, with another term and a busier schedule coming up, I really wanted to finish this series before life catches up to me. *sobs* Anyway, I'm so, so happy about the reception of this fic, and you've all been so sweet :') Again, thank you for reading! I'll see you in the spin-off, or whatever shit I put out next haha <3 Tagging: @xxfaithlynxx @beewilko @browneyedgirl22 @yournextdoorhousewitch @sunsethw4 @stxrrielle @mangooes @hrts4hanniehae @buggs-1 @michiluvddr @ssetsuka @imm0rtalbutterfly @the-golden-jhope @beomluvrr @bookfreakk @ally-the-artistic-turtle @sapphic-daze @sarahthemage @cchiiwinkle @madam8 @slownoise @raendarkfaerie @sylusdarling @luminaaaz @greeenbeean @vvhira @issamomma @shroomiethefrogwhisperer @blueberrysquire @lovely-hani @fiyori @peachystea @aeanya @sylus-crow @queen-serena88 @xthefuckerysquaredx @rayvensblog @poptrim @goldenbirdiee @amerti @angstylittleb1tch @reiofsuns2001 @j4mergy @touya-apologist @gladiolus-mamacitia @btszn @wrimaira

[i-need-air]

I just read your nsfw Hybrid with Bakugou and it's SOOO PERFECT. So, I was thinking, imagine this: Relationships between hybrids and humans are still frowned upon and one of your co-workers begins to disturb you about dating Katsuki. You are annoyed, but you don't tell Bakugou until one day your co-worker tries to harass you (kiss you, pull your clothes off) saying "you shouldn't be with that damn DOG". You run away and come home crying and sobbing over and over. Giiirl, Bakugou will go FERAL. ❤

I'm so glad you liked it 💗💗💗💗💗 Yes, god, Bakugou would indeed be F E R A L indeed; ok, i started writing it and I somehow progressed this story further. MORE LORE TO HYBRID!BAKU. I also went with the flow, got very carried away and gave it a different ending to what you suggested, so I really hope you don't mind. 😅 It just happened, maybe made it darker than it should've been, oop—, BUT everything works out.

Warnings: mentions of attempted sexual assault;

Word count: 1.8k or so, I just keep adding stuff 💀;

[ Masterlist ] [ Part 1 and Part 2 of General Hybrid!Bakugou HCs. ]

× you weren't really hiding it because it was legal, yet some [ many ] were judgemental about it

× you also weren't publicly proclaiming it but whatever, that didn't stop you from putting a picture of Katsuki playfully biting your cheek as wallpaper on your phone

× one of your co-workers, Albert, was somewhat pushy

× while you got along with everyone and had an okay relationship with them, he wasn't part of your friends group

× yet you always found him near you everywhere, to which you paid no mind

× it was once he looked over your shoulder when you unlocked your phone to see that picture, and Katsuki's sandy ears could be seen

× again, you didn't hide it so when he asked who was that you just said your boyfriend

× "Uhm, your boyfriend is a... hybrid?" he asked making a face; that's when you knew Albert had to stay away for real

× you just smiled and minded your own business

× but throughout the days he kept dropping comments about, his attitude even pushier than before and you realized talking to him about it wouldn't help

× "is he any better than a normal man?"

× "like... I don't get it, [Y/N], he's a dog..." he'd whisper at you while on lunch break, baffled expression on his face

× you gave him a look of disgust, getting up from the table and going somewhere else; why the hell was he following you around?

× "seriously, tell me, is it the sex?" Albert asked hours later, following you to the exit, unaware of your absolutely uncomfortable responses as you quickened your steps, but he grabbed you by the arm, surprising you with his strength

× "if it's just the sex you better know there are some men, real men out there that can take good care of you, [Y/N]."

× you had to raise your voice for him to let go of you since heads started to turn towards both of you

× "Just drop it, Albert, it's none of your business!" you said before turning to leave

× when you walked through your apartment door you were rattled

× Katsuki walked through the door just as you prepared yourself a tea, shaking slightly, frown on your face

× "Hey, what's up?" he eyed you and sniffed the air, feeling you nervous, cup of tea almost spilling everywhere; "Hey, hey, hey, give me that. [Y/N], seriously, are you ok?"

× "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." you lied and he knew, it was obvious even if you pretended everything was dandy

× on the other side you didn't want to make him worry or anything, Albert was just annoying and hopefully he now understood where he was standing

× but Bakugou Katsuki ain't having it, babe, nuh-huh

× he didn't say anything else about it that day though, just acted as normal but prepared your favorite dinner and a warm bath for you

× the next day he decided to pick you up from work by just arriving there half an hour earlier and see if something is really up, to make sure you're fine and the issue is from there

× he'd have to walk there from his job and then you'd both drive home and it wasn't a problem as he'd do overtime some other day;;

× what he did not expect was to hear your scream of help from the wooden area behind the parking lot in your office building

× let's go back in time for context;

× you walked out of work in a rush, finishing earlier than anyone else, car as your destination just ready to bolt home; Albert was eyeing you funny the whole day but stayed behind, so you didn't know if to feel worried or relieved

× as you walked to your car and pulled your keys, someone smashed you against the door

× "ungrateful bitch" you recognized the voice instantly and froze

× before you could open your mouth he put his palm on it and dragged you somewhere

× you dropped everything on the cement, bag, keys, phone...

× of course you were putting a fight but he was strong

× "I tried to be nice, sweeheart—" he mumbled while struggling to drag you into the wooden area

× "I told you, yeah? You shouldn't be with that damned mutt!" he pushed you unto a tree, making his first and last mistake, because he freed your mouth

× "HELP!" you screamed while he started grabbing your clothes, ripping sounds could be heard

× "I'm gonna have to show you what a real man can give you—"

× and as if planets aligned, in a blurr, Bakugou Katsuki appeared, jumping straight on him and knocking him out instantly, a loud crack deafening your ears

× Katsuki was shaking in anger

× he barely could control his body, his eyes were bloodshot and he had the most feral scowl you'd ever seen on him

× you just trembled in place, grabbing your clothes to cover yourself as you could

× Albert groaned on the floor, twisting his body to turn around and see what attacked him and in a broken speech, blood coming out of his mouth, he attempted to swear, but Bakugou's growl made him freeze in realization

× he was about to pounce again, any self-control leaving his mind when you hugged him tight

× in your arms you could feel his ragged breath, a deep continuous growl still coming from within his chest

× at this point some other people heard your cries too and called the police

× meanwhile you tried to calm him down because you felt he wanted to murder that son of a bitch

× intention was clear in his eyes, even Albert stood there terrified, broken jaw forgotten as he tattered on the floor like a weak animal

× "If you ever fucking dare to look in [Y/N]'s direction again I will find you—" he said and you shivered, holding him even more tightly "—I will kill you." he tried to take a step further but you wouldn't let him "And I'll make sure your body is never found."

× sirens could be heard in the distance and after that everything passed fastly

× they took Albert away, who was muttering scrawled stuff, and took both of your statements

× much to everyone's surprise they didn't cuff Bakugou [ 💖because we live in a society💖 ] so that was a good thing;

× although you did have to go to the station; they found security camera footage of the attempted assault, which Katsuki had to watch and almost erupted in rage yet again

× but it all came to an end when you got home, both absolutely silent

× he was huffing and walking around the place, shoulders tense and hands fisted into balls

× just to distract himself he started cleaning around the house and not looking at you, while you still stood there with his jacket on staring at him

× it wasn't until he finally looked at you when he really took in your state

× until now you behaved exemplary, calming him down, giving a statement, just acting strong

× yet once you reached the comfort of your own home you just couldn't take it any longer

× tears were falling on your face, you were shaking in place at the entrance, hugging his jacket close to your body as if it were your salvation and you just watched him

× it dawned on him how his rage took over him so hard that he couldn't focus on anything else, not even your heartbeat, your scent, your breath

× in an instant he was all over you, hugging you tight and lifting you up

× "I got you, baby, you're safe now." He'd whisper in your ear as you'd pull him closer

× he'd prepare you a warm bath and never leave your side while whispering sweet nothings to you

× "I'm never leaving out of my sight again, do you understand?"

× "I'll kill him if he ever comes close to you."

× "You're safe." he'd say as pulled you into him

× you spent the following days at home as you were granted emergency leave from work and found out the bastard was, of course, fired and prosecuted

× it would've been a lengthy process but from there on some things changed between you

× he'd walk to your job from his, even changed his work hours to fit yours, and you'd go home together, for starters

× his behaviour changed and even if he still gave you the Special Bakugou Attitude, he was gentler and sometimes you'd catch him looking at you like you're the most precious thing ever

× he wouldn't really word it at first but seeing you like that and finding out it was basically because of him really fucked him up

× it would take you to remind him that it's not his fault he's a hybrid, you always want to be with him, you don't care what he is really and the only one to blame was Albert

× [ he'd growl whenever his name would be mentioned ]

× anyway, remember, he needs to be held just as much as you do and that guilt will take some time to wash away; you got each other's back and that's what mattered at the end of the day

× but the weirdest thing was, as you went to the police station some more times, Bakugou somehow impressed the Captain, Tsunadu Hakamada:

× "That dude reeks of cocaine." he'd scowl and point with a sharp glare at this cuffed man sitting in a corner, making you look at him in wonder

× "How do you—"

× "Excuse me, did I hear that correctly?" someone said behind you, making you turn towards a tall blond man in uniform watching your boyfriend curiously

× "Hah?"

× low and behold, he's the captain of the precinct and asked Bakugou to come by any other day noting it would be a pretty great opportunity that would benefit both

× [ and after some attitude and snide comments from Katsuki, he agreed ]

× you went through a lot in a few weeks, like the trauma you'd both have to work through together but one good thing that came out of this situation apart from putting a piece of shit in jail was that Bakugou was offered a position as a special officer in the precinct as long as he went through the academy as anyone else would

× people were starting to see the value of hybrids and the Captain wasn't one to let go of such an opportunity

× things were progressing little by little and it gave you hope for a better tomorrow with Katsuki by your side.

Notes: For those that don't know, Tsunadu Hakamada is Best Jeanist.

[blake-belladonna-defence-force]

It's the ✨annoying little shit✨ again

The Gremlin anon😺

Here is the ✨update✨ with what happend ✨yesterday night✨ and also ✨today morning✨

So, after I wrote my roommates conversation with Miss oh honey, I started reading it and

MY GOD!!! GIVE ME A BREAK FROM THE GAY!!!

I'M NOT USED TO THIS KIND OF CONSERN FROM SOMEONE!!! IT'S SO FUCKING ADORABLE!!!

I'M GONNA PASS OUT OF GAY OVERDOSE!!!

I wanna kiss my roommate so bad ;-;

BUT I'M TOO SHY FOR THAT!!!

But before I could panic even more, Miss oh honey gets in (I was in my roommates room because it's bigger than mine since we agreed to sleep together) and asks with big grin on her face "How ya doin?"

"Gay- Gay panic"

"Oh honey you need to make a move soon or roommates name won't handel it"

"What do you mean?"

"Honey you know that they are conserned about you and already doing that ugly sad kitten face"

"I don't think it's ugly"

"Of course you don't, you love roommates name! But now, take my advice and make a bloody move! I WANT PROGRESS IN MY SHIP"

Before I could say anything she got away and shortly after my roommate got back and didn't notice I was there

I was coverd in their blankets like a cotton ball with only my head slightly out, and for the face my roommate was doing they were in auto pilot mode

They literally started changing in front of me

And did I say anything? No cause PANIC

I COULDN'T STOP LOOKING!!!!

I TRIED TO OPEN MY MOUTH TO SPEAK BUT THERE WAS NO SOUND!!!! I COULDN'T AND I FELT LIKE A PERVERT FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO LOOK AWAY!!! I FELT SO BAD ABOUT MYSELF!!!

BUT THANKS TO JESUS AND HOLY MOTHER I GOT CONTROL OVER MY HANDS AND COVERD THE REST OF MY HEAD WITH BLANKETS BEFORE MY ROOMMATE TOOK OUT THEIR PANTS!!!

(I could only see their back since they were turned around BUT if they took their pants off... I don't want more panic and gay thoughts so I wont think about it)

As I evolved into a full white ball of blankets I felt a tap on the blankets. I got my head out and I saw my roommate only with a fucking top on, but with a really sofh expression that made me melt

IT WAS SO CUTE!!! I CAN'T HANDLE THIS!!!

But while I panicked they started laughing and saying that I looked like a cute tiny fluff ball

I never blushed so must for a laugh and a compliment, that laugh was music, I want more ;-;/

FUCKING KISS ME ALREADY!!!

But as I keep staring without being able to say anything they grafmdualy stoped laughing and started looking conserned/sad (sad kitty face here we go again) and then they look down and finally notice they are only with a top on and then they say "oh- sorry" and put a shirt on

BUT I'M NOT GONNA BE QUIET THIS TIME AND I WILL SAY SOMETHING

And what I said was "Nice"

Just that... WHY ON HELL DIDN'T I SAY SOMETHING ELSE!?!? WHY GOD??? WHYYYYY!!!!??

But before I died of embaressment they asked "Nice what?"

"You are nice- I mean- I just- You are nice to me! You always have been since the beggining and uuhh... I just- I don't want you to be sad or- or think you are a jerk just because I got embaressed in the kitchen and uuhh-"

"Wait, how do you know about me thinking that?"

"I- I could hear you two talking"

"shit"

And this when I finally notice how hard blushing!!! Were they that embaressed? But before I could jump into conclusions I rembered Miss oh honeys advice abd asked "Uh- glup Why are you so worried about me?"

Looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read and said "It's cause- sigh You've already been through so much... You deserve to at least be confortable in your own house, to have a safe place to yourself... Don't you think?"

I just- Give me second I need to CRY MY EYES OUT!!! WHY ARE TOU SO CUTE!?!? WHY!!!?? WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME!!!!???

*incoherent gay gremlin noises*

I didn't notice I was crying until my roommate, with a very conserned voice, asks "Are you ok!? Why are you crying!?"

I kept sobbing until the picked me up, with blankets and all, and hugged me tight

I NEVER FELT SO GAY WITH JUST A HUG!!! IT WAS SO SAFE AND WARM!!!

I MELTED!!! I'M NOW A GAY GREMLIN JELLY!!!

At a certant point they layed down with me and cuddled me. I felt so tiny but yet so loved, it was so good and safe ;w;

Is this what real actually good relationships feel like? Cause I love it ;w;

I'M GAYING SO MUCH OVER THIS!!!

And before we went to sleep, my roommate wiped my tears and said "Well, if it makes you feel better, I think you're hella strong"

"snif What do you mean?"

"I mean- I still about that time I saw you knocking out a guy, that was built like a greek god, twice your sise, in front of our door step!"

"Oh that- that was just-"

"Was just hella impressive!!! I ALMOST DROPED MY FOOD!!!"

THIS IDIOT MAKES ME CRY AND THEN LAUGH AND FEEL HELLA GAY ALL THE FUCKING TIME!!! don't GIVE ME A BREAK!!! I NEED TO REST!!! And that's actually what I said to them, but more like this

"Jesus Crist- Look, let's sleep already before I pass out" AND MANAGE TO SOUND FUCKING CASUAL ABOUT IT!!!

It was because I was really tired

BUT STILL COUNTS AS A VICTORY!!!

So, after I said that, my roommate nods in aproval and fucking kisses me in the forehead

WHAT'S WITH YOU AND MY FOREHEAD!!!??

Anyway, we fell asleep and this morning when I woke up, first thing I do is check tumbler, and when I get there I see shitlords ask about gremlin-fever and the gremlin in back of my head is like pspspsps do iittt

After I send that ask about giving permition for you to use my story as a fanfic I put my phone back in the table, roll over, and PROCEED TO HAVE A FUCKING HEAR ATTACK!!!

THAT DORK ON HAS SHORT AND A TOP COVERING THEM!!! IT'S FUCKING FREEZING OUTSIDE THE BED BUT THEY ARE BOILING!!! LITERAL VOLCANO TEMPERATURE!!!

I'm starting to think that shitlord anon was right about the fevor in a literal way...

BUT THIS IS NOT WHAT BOTHERS ME THE MOST!!!! THE FACT THAT I CAN FEEL EVERY INCH OF SKIN IN THEIR BODY!!!

But them I look down and see their arms around me AND FUCKING HELL HOW STRONG IS THIS BITCH!?!?!

I probably panicked for and hour or so before I realize... I CAN TOUCH IT

I now I'm the volcano!!! But when I start touching their belly OUT OF GAY CURIOSITY

THEY OPENED THEIR EYES AND ASK "What are you doing?"

WHAT DO I ANWSER TO THAT!!!??? I CANNOT JUST SAY I WAS TOUTCHING YOU OUT OF GAY PANIC

BUT IT'S NOT LIKE I HAVE A BETTER EXCUSE THAN THAT!!!

So, as an intellectual, I said "I- I was j-just c-curious to know how it f-feels to touch it"

"You were curious to know how it feels to touch other persons abs?"

"Well... Yeah b-but not- Not, like- I'm inocent I swear!!!"

They started laughing at me and got closer, and with their fucking casualty say "You can it I don't mind, you're inocent after all"

I WANNA DIG A HOLE AND HIDE!!! YE GODS ABOVE HELP ME!!!

But I remberem shitlords anon little tip, and actually got the courage to kiss their forehead. The moment I kiss tgeir forehead they stop laughing and blankly stare at me for a solid minute, BUT THIS TIME I'M GONNA BE THE ONE TEASING BITCH, so I said what shitlord anon said "I was just checking your temperature, you look like you might have a fever"

I MANAGED TO HAVE COURAGE TO SAY THAT WITHOUT SOUNDING LIKE A DYING SQUIRREL!!!!

IT'S REVENGE FOR MY ENDLESS PANICS!!!

They didn't even say anything anymore, they just nooded, IT WAS PRICELESS!!!

But then, Miss oh honey opens the door saying "GOOD MORNING LOVE BIR- Oh- Am I interupting something?"

We both just stare and since she cant se if we have clothes or not due to the blankets she does a shit-eating-grin and says "Oh- Sorry to interrupt your bonding time~ I will let you continue~ giggles"

I DIED RIGHT THERE!!!

But my roommate was FUCKING PISSED

They got out of bed and started chasing her, screaming her name in pure rage!!

And I stayed in the room... Looking at the ceiling... Thinking about my life choices...

BUT PLEASE CAN SOMEONE SEND HELP

I need it ;-;

IT'S TOO MUCH GAY PANICS!!!! HELP!!!

And also, Miss oh honey is gonna sleep here today, cause aparently one of her neighbors has covid, and his wife texted everyone that he is coming back from the hospital so he can rest home (cause the hospitals are all full and he is not having trouble with the desease), like, he got positive a month ago, and Miss oh honey went for test and got negative, she stayed at home for a while to make sure she was okay, and since her covid neighbor wasn't at home with is family cause ge stayed in the hospital (and none of is family has covid, fortunatly)

So, baisically shes gonna stay for while...

Hope ya'll have a nice day/afternoon/evening/night

- gay panic Gremlin anon

Holy shit— you go, Gremlin anon! I don’t think I’ve ever been this proud of a stranger before in my life 😂

Y’all are too cute and I’m dying. Good luck with your roommate and your wingwoman Miss “oh honey”, Gremlin anon xD

[florencwrites]

... and war 〚dreamwastaken〛

in which clay finds out firsthand, sometimes oblivion is bliss

part 1

"You do that a lot, you know?" She curled up in a ball on her side, glancing at the LED screen sideways. She'd been confined to this bed for a little over four months, the injuries to her head apparently so fucking impossible to figure out. It wasn't life threatening, they knew, but in what way wasn't it? She'd lost her life the second her head had made an impact with the window, the second her frail body had decided to give up on its, quite vital, functions.

His face lit up at the sound of her voice, eyes lingering on the screen a little longer than he had planned. He replied with a faint exhale. "What?"

"Worry." His brows unfurrowed the second the syllables left her mouth, his face relaxing as he opened his mouth to speak, to say anything. He closed it again soon after, realizing there was nothing he had on her. He did worry, a disturbing amount, too, perhaps. At least lately he did. No improvement for weeks will do that to any man, he reckoned. The love of his fucking life had been trapped inside her own mind for weeks with not even a glimpse of progress in peripheral.

"You're right." He nodded as his eyes slowly traced back towards the television, the new television he had finally been able to get her to allow him to get for her. He'd obviously granted himself the 'best one on the market', opting for also -coincidentally- the most expensive one. It had taken some convincing, perhaps some bribing too, to get the hospital to sign off on him entering her room with a powered drill. He was quite proud of himself for mounting it all by himself, her curious eyes following his every move as he clumsily tried to get it to just stay up. 'Bed rest' was her lazy excuse as she shrugged her shoulders provocatively. A chuckle had left his lips, his back still turned towards her as his white tee started sporting a few sweaty patches on the back.

"You don't have to do all of this for me, Clay." Her voice was barely above a whisper, his heart broke at the sound of it, like it had always done. She pulled at the strings of his heart almost menacingly with every word that left her mouth in that tone, especially.

A harsh creak screeched through the room, almost breaking his previously quite sturdy chair in the process, as he harshly turned in his seat. John the Cheapskate was long forgotten by the time her sad eyes found his, a soft glimmer to her pupils as she kept her eyes on his face, slowly tracing over his features. His voice sounded desperate as he reached for her hand, feeling limp in his. "Then let me do it all for us, instead."

A pathetic sob escaped her throat as she smiled through the immeasurable guilt that threatened to eat her from inside out. She felt it picking away at pieces of her, pieces she had only just learned how to pick up again, how to glue back to the rest. "Don't give up on this yet, please. I can't lose you again.." His lips stayed parted, his eyes not even daring to take a second to blink. Never had he felt the absolute terror he had felt in that second, her fingers felt so fucking cold to his touch. He could feel them slip from his in his mind, he could practically feel the emptiness overtake his being, once again urging him back to the pit he had finally learned how to climb out of.

A squeeze to his hand was all he needed from her, his lips curling at the ends at the tiny, tiny gesture. It was enough, more than enough. His mind raced back to the night he had first felt her digits cling to his again, a microscopic twitch in her fingers, barely detectable. He was sure he wouldn't have been able to notice it was he in any other situation, but God, it had been his sole focus for weeks. The absolutely elated scream that roughened up his throat for days following the incident, forced doctors and nurses originating from all over the floor to pile into her room.

"I'm glad she's well, Dream. Just.. Just take care of yourself, too, okay?" George mumbled into his microphone, he was absolutely ecstatic to hear from his friend again, days of radio silence prefacing his sudden reappearance. A groan sounded from his throat, annoyed at his friend bringing this up again. This wasn't about him, it never had been about him.

"I'm gonna need to hear you say it, don't just grunt angrily." If he wasn't so goddamn worried about his friend, he was sure to have shouted his ears off by now. However, George knew better, he knew screaming and fighting would get him nowhere with Clay, stubborn fucking Clay.

Clay rolled his eyes as his back landed against the papery wall, "I promise, okay? That good enough for you?"

"I guess." The brunette responded with disappointment laced in his words, just hoping for once to finally get him to admit something. "You-"

"Hey -uh- I have to go, man, she's back from, uh, therapy." God, when did he start feeling embarrassed about caring about his girl, about his fucking soulmate? It felt so wrong, and to be quite frank; he hated George for making him feel this way. His thumb found the end-call button hastily, almost confrontationally quick. She waved at him as she strolled through the hallway towards him, the wheels of the stroller-like device that never left her side, being connected to her veins and all that, awkwardly ticking against the tiles it passed over. He mumbled, meaning more for her to read his lips than to hear his actual tone, "Hi."

"Please, Clay, please don't cry. I don't-" Her voice was rough from the sobs that had passed through her throat the last several hours. "I don't think I can take it."

His eyes were filled to the brim with melancholic tears, threatening him to spill over, to lay all his cards on the table for him. "I can't help it, I'm sorry." She wouldn't be moving back in with him. She 'couldn't live someone else's life', she couldn't be trapped in the past if she didn't feel any sort of connection to it anymore. She wanted to move on, be friends, but move on. "I can't help it, I just keep thinking.."

A deep breath, his eyes forced closed, almost painfully so.

"I keep thinking about how you're going to end up with someone, and that someone isn't going to be me." Audible heartbreak echoed through her room, her empty room. She'd taken down the pictures, the drawings, the memories, and even the damned Christmas lights. Her throat closed up at the sight in front of her, he was in shambles. He was so absolutely fucking devastated to be losing her again, he was supposed to be her keeper, the one to make sure to never let anything happen to her ever again. They'd taken that from him, in fact, they had taken everything from him.

They sat on the edge of the hospital bed she would finally be leaving that week, hands clamped together tightly. For him it meant everything; reassurance that it would be okay. For her, it sadly meant nothing but bare comfort to the man -whom her mind still refused to acknowledge- sitting next to her. It stayed silent for a while, for minutes even. Only his heaving sobs and her shuddered breaths taking up the room.

"Why couldn't you just be mad at me, scream that I'm a worthless bitch or something." She joked sadly, a somber snort leaving his lips quietly.

No hesitation. "Because you're the love of my life."

Hesitation. "I'm sorry I was your soulmate, Clay, I am." Big strong breaths, a slight shake in her shoulders as if to muster up courage. "But I don't think you're mine, not anymore."

A wail escaped his lips before he could catch it, his salty tears staining his cheeks and neck, leaving wet streaks along the hem of his shirt.

"I don't know who I am without you." He put all of him in the open, completely bare and vulnerable in her presence. He had nothing to lose, not anymore, anyway.

She smiled at him sadly as his hand received another one of her infamous squeezes. "That's the problem, I think, me neither."

He couldn't take it any longer, almost panicked gasps screaming at him to just, please, let it all be a dream.

His sobs gradually fainted to heavy breaths, the room still spinning around him, but now, more of a carrousel rather than whirlwind. Each of the little carriages bringing new memories to the front of his mind, all the little things he had grown to love so damn much about her.

Prom night.

Wooden playground.

New cat.

Roadtrip.

First kiss.

Disneyland.

Holding hands.

Halloween.

First fight.

Moving in.

Second kiss.

Nevada.

Parents' divorce.

Roller skating.

Graduation.

Accident. All of it made him dizzy, she made him dizzy. His voice was so meek, so vulnerable, so close to another rough sob leaving his throat, however a faint smile pulled at his lips. His eyes closed in fear of what his mouth was about to ask her, in fear of it being the last thing he would say to her, in fear of closing a chapter he never wished would have reached its end. Shuddered breath, soft smile, light playfulness toying at his tone,

"We had one hell of a love story, didn't we?"

[mylovelies-docx]

Kid Krow - Comfort Crowd

Part 6!

A/N: We finally find out what promise Y/N made and couldn’t keep.

Chapter warnings: angst (as always), and like one paragraph of very vague smut.

As always, listen to the song here!

And read the story on AO3 here!

Taglist: @maraudersandco @sociallyawkwardcircus-freak-hi @hkmultifandom @spider-starry @ashleykaiba @mayangel19

Word count: 3.2k (a long boy!)

When you stormed out of the cockpit, Mille, Zalos, and Arle refused to look at you. You couldn’t blame them; you looked like hell. Zorii sat sharpening a blade and ticked her head towards the cockpit, asking silently if you wanted her to deal with Poe. You sniffed hard, scrubbed at your eyes, shook your head, and practically ran to your quarters.

You pleaded with the universe to just make Poe sit still and not follow you. You could not handle another moment with him, or else you would explode. Or more specifically, your heart would explode and you would die a slow, agonized death. All because of Poe kriffing Dameron and his stupid, stupid , friendship.

You made your way through the corridors, leaning heavily against the walls in order to not fall over in your pursuit of a private downward spiral.

Eventually you made it to your door and entered your code. The door slid open and you rushed inside, closing it behind you as fast as you could so you could be alone. But going where so many memories of Poe lived had been a mistake. Being alone with your thoughts and emotions was just too much.

It was all too much.

With a shattered scream, you broke down. Every last piece of your heart was wrecked and crushed and ripped apart until it was unrecognizable. And still, this burning, unending pain would not. Go. Away!

Outside, you heard a raised voice. Poe. Saying something about needing to talk, to explain, to apologize. But then muffled, indistinct words of warning from Zorii. You knew that Zorii would not let Poe anywhere near you after what had just happened and how upset she knew you were.

Zorii walked inside, her lithe frame seemed to be held together by rage alone. She hadn’t even bothered to knock or ask if you wanted someone around. But regardless, she was now your best friend, and you just needed company now.

“I will refrain from speaking too much on it, but I do need to emphasize how much I despise that man for everything he’s done to you,” she explained, and settled on your cot.

You wheezed out a humourless laugh. You were numb, through and through, after the havoc that had occurred over your last two encounters with Poe.

Zorii was still angry, but she opened her arms to you for comfort anyway. The look on her face and in her manners spoke of softness in spite of her fury, and it broke whatever respite your breakdown had afforded you. A cry exploded from between your lips, slamming into the walls of your quarters and deafening you. It was the sound of anguish and pain and betrayal that was ripped straight from your heart.

You hadn’t felt so miserable and pitiful in all your life: those stupid kids from back home could never have made you feel as bad as Poe has.

Zorii opened her arms wider and you ran to her. You clutched at her waist, burying your face in her stomach and just sobbed . Sobbed for the best and only friend that you had had for years before Zorii came along. Sobbed for the stupid, love-sick fool that couldn’t take a fucking hint and get over her best friend that never saw anything in her anyway.

Sobbed for yourself. Your pitiful, sad excuse of a self.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine,” you muttered over and over again in hopes of getting your pain under control. “I don’t really need him. I don’t. I don’t…”

She sighed, rubbing soothing circles into your back. “ You’ve said that lie already . We both know what a load of bantha crap it is.”

You repeat yourself over and over again, trying to drive it through your own skull instead of hers.

“Look,” Zorii sighed once again, “I know you loved him. As more than a best friend.” You cringed against her, ashamed that Zorii had to find out how you felt about the man she had been sleeping with. “And trust me, I understand the appeal all too well. I wouldn’t have started anything up with him if I had known how you felt. And to give credits where credits are due, you hid it really well; I had no idea until last week.”

You still couldn’t believe that Poe had said that to you in front of Zorii, remembering how terrible you had felt about it and how profusely you had apologized to Zorii once she had come to check on you that night.

“I overheard your holo-vid with Kes the other night as well,” Zorii admitted, wincing at her own invasion of your privacy. You were too overwhelmed to tell her you really didn’t mind.

“He mentioned some force tree or something? I don’t really know what you had said before that, but he mentioned that and you went quiet. I’ll admit that I was intrigued and maybe wandered closer to your door than I intended to.”

Her voice went soft after that.

“But then I heard you mention that he knew: what who knew, at that point, I wasn’t sure. But you went on to explain how you had felt so pretty dressed up in Shara Bey’s dress and how you had prepared a whole speech. At that point, I figured you were talking about Poe.”

You closed your eyes against her and tried hard to push the memory away.

***

It was a lovely day on Yavin IV, and the big, gnarly-rooted force tree near the Dameron’s household was a brilliant green in the midday glow. The wind was whispering through the jungle, and all the creatures that made it their home seemed to be singing along to some unspoken melody. Just for you.

And for Poe, whenever he decided to show up.

You were all nerves. Sweat under your arms, a racing heart, and clammy hands: always the best look for confessing your love to someone.

You and Poe had returned home to Yavin last month after being away for a few years. Your group had had a close call on the last run, and you begged Poe to come with you to see Kes and your gran.

Your gran couldn’t care less that you hadn’t been home, but Kes was ecstatic that you guys had come back to see him.

Poe had gone to the market to pick up some snacks for the picnic Kes told him you had planned. Poe just didn’t know that it was supposed to be a date for the two of you, and Kes wasn’t going to spoil the surprise.

You were busy getting ready when Kes presented you with the most beautiful dress you had ever seen from Shara Bey’s closet. He was adamant that you wore that particular dress, since it was the one he loved most on her. Your emotions were already bubbling over from anxiety, but the look on Kes’s face when he looked at the dress broke your heart. You could see that he was reliving a memory of him and Shara Bey, and you just couldn’t break the spell that it had over him, so you sat quietly.

He eventually resurfaced and left you alone to finish your routine, all the while insisting that you’d be his official daughter sooner or later. Your smile was so big that it hurt your cheeks.

You arrived at the tree and started to set up the blanket and pillows that you had brought from the Dameron household. The blanket was spread out in the flattest nook between roots, and the pillows were propped up against the trunk. You took your place among the pillows and waited.

And waited.

Admittedly, Poe was prone to getting carried away with conversations between himself and the vendors, but that particular outing seemed to last forever in your mind. You knew why later, but at that point in time, you were convinced that Poe felt something for you and would return for you soon.

You knew that he felt something for you; on all your spice runs, he begged you to stay inside the ship and be safe, he brought you back pretty trinkets that he said reminded him of you, and he was always flirting.

Always.

The nickname he gave you? Princess? Absolutely flirtatious. The hugs before and after he left the ship? Obviously an excuse to be close to you. The little winks he’d send over the fire at you and all the inside jokes you two had? Come on! It was all right there. And Kes agreed! So, you two devised this little set up so that you could finally confess to Poe.

Even with only the progression of Yavin Prime to get a rough estimate of time’s passage, it still took Poe entirely too long to find you. When he finally showed up, you had fallen into a light sleep.

“Where’s dad?” Poe asked, setting down a basket with absolutely nothing in it. He plopped down right beside it, startling you awake.

“Where are our picnic supplies?” You countered, rubbing your eyes and feeling nauseous and disoriented after your impromptu nap.

He lifted his hands in the air as if to say “what can you do” and grunted. “Everyone had packed up by the time I got there. Why isn’t dad out here with us? Did he go back to the house to grab something?” His nonchalance and lack of apology really ate away at your resolve to profess your love to him. You wanted to know what took him so long before you said anything about your feelings.

“No, no he never came out here,” you explained. “Why did it take you so long to get to the market? You left hours ago -- the sun’s going down.” You were wringing your hands in your lap, nervous about what his answer could be.

“I was just catching up with someone; nothing to worry your beautiful head about.” When he said that, he had smoothed over the top of your head like a cherished and beloved friend. “It’s a good thing for us, I promise,” he winked. You were eating it all up like you were starved for affection.

How tragic.

You quickly grasped his hand before you lost all nerve. You kept it between your palms, drawing patterns on the back of it that kept your eyes down and away from his questioning gaze and adorable, slightly confused smile.

The future opened up bright and wonderful before you: your mutual affections coming out in the open and that long-awaited first kiss. Stars , you had been fantasizing about Poe’s lips for more than half of your life at that point. And his hands. His hands! Maker, if they would just glide over your skin and caress you like you had pictured for years, you would die a happy woman. And you’d thread your hands through those beautiful curls at the nape of his neck and tug just a little bit, until he groaned like you had always heard in your dreams. You would move together, right on that blanket under the force tree you and Poe had always loved. You would come apart in the most delicious way, panting and crying, with his mother’s ring dangling from the chain around his neck and nestling itself into the hollow of your throat. And then he would grind into you one final time and just pour his affections into your neck and mouth for safe keeping.

How goddamn tragic it all turned out to be .

“I need to tell you something,” you whispered, looking up through your eyelashes at him. He grinned, seeming just as excited and nervous as you were.

“Me too. I’ve been dying to tell you something for days now!” He wiggled where he sat next to you, scooting as close as he could and touching your foreheads together, like you were about to share secrets that were only meant for the two of you.

“You first,” you said, breathless. You couldn’t believe it was finally happening.

“No, no. You had something to say first, so you go ahead.” Poe had still been grinning at you, the happiest you had seen him in a while.

“How about we say it together?” You countered, giving his hand a little squeeze in anticipation.

“Okay, on the count of three,” he began.

“One…” you said together.

“Two…” you continued.

“Three!” You shut your eyes.

“I love you,” -- “Zorii and I are together,”

Silence. Your eyes were still shut, but now you were holding them so tightly that shapes were floating behind your eyelids. Poe pulled his hand from yours.

“What?” He asked, sounding confused and slightly wounded. Like he couldn’t believe that you had the nerve to say that out loud and ruin everything .

“Don’t,” you began, turning your head down and willing your heart to stop its frantic pace in your chest. “I – I didn’t know… I thought…” you trailed off, unsure what to say to fix the mess that you had created.

“(Y/N), do—do you love me? As more than a friend?” He grabbed your chin and forced you to meet his baffled gaze. You couldn’t think straight at that point, so you said the first thing that had popped in your mind.

“Yes, of course I do.”

Stupid girl.

“Oh, princess.” He released your chin and sat back, resting against the pillows like he was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to deal with the situation any longer. “I’m sorry if I ever did anything to lead you on; I just thought we were friends. I mean, we both see other people, and I’ve never felt that way about you so I didn’t think you did either.”

He could not have said anything worse to you in that moment, could not have said anything that sucked all the warmth from your body any faster than that had.

Okay, (Y/N), just breathe. Think of a way out of this, you begged your frazzled mind. Anything would be better than the silence stretching between you at that point.

“I guess… I got some things confused. I’m sorry.” And now you were that little girl again, apologizing for things out of your control and no fault of your own.

You felt small again, insignificant and alone. A floating pile of junk in the vacuum of space, with no planet in sight and no answers to your distress calls.

Poe could see you spiraling, he had known you long enough to recognize the signs.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey. It’s okay, princess, we’ll figure this out,” he murmured, coming closer to you once again. He arranged the pillows so that he could lay back with you on his chest. He wrapped his arms around you and muttered soothing words, trying to calm you down and bring you back to him. Like he had done so many times before.

“No, there’s nothin’ to figure out; this is on me. Just give me some time and I’ll get over it.” You hadn’t gotten over it in all the years you had loved him-- truly loved him-- but you had vowed to figure it out, and quickly, so that you could stop feeling like that. “I promise I’ll get over it,” you said into the fist that was curled next to your face on his chest.

You closed your eyes and tried not to focus too hard on how good he felt underneath you like that. How intimate it was, how much it reminded you of the outcome of every daydream you had had.

How you knew that it was probably how he and Zorii spent their nights together now...

***

“Kes didn’t know how that day turned out because Poe and I fell asleep outside. I was too embarrassed to face him that next mornin’, so I sent Poe back to tell him we got an urgent message and had to leave. I don’t know exactly what they said to each other, but Poe looked sad when he came back and I didn’t wanna know.” The confession slipped through your lips, chapped from all the salty tears that you had cried into Zorii’s tunic.

“Oh, (Y/N). I’m so, so sorry. He was on a call with me that evening. I had no idea you were waiting on him; he just mentioned you all were going on a picnic and that his dad could keep you company for a while.” Her hands clenched against your back, as if trying to protect from a hurt that had already passed and done its damage.

“That boy wouldn’t know a Gungan from an Ewok if they were both standing in front of him. The only reason we ever got together was because I made the first move.” Her hands now continued their previous path of soothing circles, hoping to make up for the pain that she unintentionally caused not so long ago.

It amazed you how drastically things could change in such a short amount of time.

“It’s alright, Zorii, I’m not mad at you. I’m just angry at myself. Always at myself. For bein’ too slow, too emotional, too much and never enough at the same time.” You were defeated and exhausted, no longer able to keep even an ember of your earlier fire alive.

“I will not tolerate you speaking about my best friend that way; she is a wonderful person, and the best damn pilot we’ve ever had. She doesn’t deserve to be treated this way,” Zorii chided, having pushed you away from her and giving you a stern look.

You returned something resembling a smile.

You looked back to her lap where you had just spent an indeterminate amount of time; the white fabric covering her stomach was completely transparent.

“Oh Rii, I’m sorry about your clothes,” you mumbled, trying to dry it with the sleeves of your outfit. It did no good.

“I don’t really mind; I like my shirts soggy,” she said, deadpan.

This time, a real laugh bubbled up from your throat. You were immensely grateful you had a friend like her.

______

For months after Poe’s departure, you kept a smile on your shoulders until you were sweaty; begging on your knees for somebody to come and help you when it was too much to carry. Zorii did her best, but no one could replace the comfort and happiness you had once found in Poe. You eventually stopped asking for help and pretended to have moved on.

But time passes, and past hurts are less painful. Especially when you don’t think about them.

You had seen the missed messages from Poe in those early days. Every time your comm buzzed, the despair you felt over your situation returned tenfold, and the only option was to throw the device in a forgotten corner and let it die -- just like your feelings.

[wallwriterstuff]

Anything You Can Do ||Demetri Volturi x Child!Oc||

Part 1: From The Doorstep 

Words: 3125

Warnings: None, just the usual parenting troubles

Summary: Part 2 to From The Doorstep (you can read this on it’s own I suppose but for the full backstory of how Demetri became a Daddy click the link to read From The Doorstep first!)

Demetri has faced many challenges since becoming a father, fighting hard for his little one every step of the way, so separating himself from her for a few hours a day is a lot more difficulty than he’d expected it to be. In short, this is what happens when mother hen Demetri sends Astraea Volturi to nursery! 

Demetri had never had a formal education like the kind the modern world provided youths nowadays. His education had consisted of lectures and practicing the practical elements of life; in so far as he remembered that often meant his father showing him how to knock an arrow or turn soil, then clipping his ear when he didn’t get it quite right. Still, it had served him well, and until the day Amun took him what little he remembered of his human life was successful. He had been healthy and his homestead was sustainable, he had done well for himself. Convincing him that sending Astraea to school was a good thing to do was therefore very difficult when he would have rather kept her home at his side, tutored by the Masters’ and other members of the guard.

He himself had degrees in geography, history and philosophy. Alec had degrees in all of the sciences. There was nothing in this world that she needed to know that they could not teach, but after reading through a few parenting books and websites (not that he was ever going to admit he’d scoured Mumsnet and various other mommyblogs – the torment would be never ending) he very quickly realised there was one thing he had failed to do as her father, one crucial element of growing up he had not provided for her in the five years she had been a part of his life.

He had not socialised her with other children.

At home, mixing with her found family, Astraea had no problems at all. She chattered happily with everyone that loved her and played nicely with the twins, but when they went out it was a different story. Demetri had noticed it more than once, her tendency to stay to herself when they went to the park or to cling to him until he pushed her to go a little further away to explore not something she shared with other children her age. After lengthy discussions about how much she had noticed about the coven and how much she might accidentally say to any school friends she might make, permission had been granted and Demetri had enrolled her in a local nursery. He hoped that meeting other humans from all walks of life might do her some good, but the first few weeks dropping her off in the mornings were hell.

Astraea’s first day had consisted of Demetri’s ears ringing as she sobbed and screamed at the top of her lungs, anxious about him leaving her in this strange new place with brand new people. He had held her close for most of that time, taking her around the room and trying to tempt her with some of the toys and activities on offer. No child had wanted to interact with the screamer clinging fast to her father’s hand and he had been forced to sit and listen to ridiculous, childish stories on a dusty floor surrounded by little humans all much more independent than his own Astraea was.

Day 2 was very much the same, the entire week passing by with little change until she surprised him by venturing a little further from him on the last day. They only spent a few hours at a time there but she knew the room well enough to know what she liked doing, and she’d sat at the drawing table on her own for a little while, checking all the while to make sure he hadn’t left her alone before she came back with a drawing for him. He felt awful that first week, like he had failed his daughter terribly, and it didn’t feel like it got much better for a very long time. She would traverse the room, but she wouldn’t talk to the staff running the nursery or the other children, selectively mute and never letting anyone but him hear her sweet voice.

It took a lot of slow progress, but after almost a full month, he was able to finally leave her for her first full day without him. Demetri had never felt anxiety like it. It clawed at the back of his mind, every minute dragged out into a small eternity as he waited for the moment he could pick her up, wondering if the other children were kind to her, if she was having fun, if she had injured herself with those oversized building blocks he had tried to steer her away from. It was a great relief to see her come streaking toward him when he came to pick her up, the venom stinging his eyes even though he could not cry as he cradled her close and pressed a lingering kiss to her hair.

“How was your day sweet girl?” he’d asked. Her answering smile was blinding bright, banishing his dark thoughts far far from his head – at least until tomorrow when he left her again.

“I think I have a friend now, but I missed you Daddy.” She’d replied. That was the first day that she had mentioned this friend, and it had been a welcome relief since it was what he had sent her to nursery for. Then one friend became two, and two became three, three became four, and suddenly there was a whole group that welcomed her every morning and said goodbye to her every afternoon. This is a good thing he told himself over and over, She is interacting with children her age, this is a good thing. So…why did it not feel like it?

Every night as the clock crept closer and closer to the dreaded time he would have to wake her and get her ready, a hollow would open in the pit of his stomach and it would grow and grow until it nearly consumed him whole. Demetri was forced to fake every smile he gave her as he helped her dress and tie shoelaces, and the hollowness was nothing compared to the bitterness that replaced it when he dropped her off each day. It was not jealousy, he was Demetri Volturi and he was not jealous of little humans, he was not! But she did seem to enjoy their company far more. She all but ran into the nursery room these days, desperately wiggling out of her coat to join her friends. Sometimes he had to chase her down just to get his goodbye cuddles. It took him a while to understand exactly what this horrible feeling was, and then it hit him.

She didn’t need him anymore.

The Astraea that clung to his legs when new people approached her was gone. She was more confident and smiled brighter. Even going to the park wasn’t the same as she actually got involved in other children’s games, and though Demetri wanted to be happy he had helped his daughter overcome the shyness he had accidentally instilled in her, he was quietly mortified by the whole process. He hadn’t realised preparing her for the world meant preparing her to leave him behind, and Demetri…wasn’t ready. Astraea didn’t even seem to notice his pain, his bubbly little girl far too excited about all of her new friends and school to register it.  

School was another thing Demetri was dreading. How much less would she need him once she started to formally learn to read, to write? How many more new friends would take her away from his side? Goodness knows what would happen if she wanted to sleep at a friends house. He might just sit outside the place on an opposite rooftop to keep an eye on her if that happened, he wasn’t sure he could cope. He wondered though if maybe school might also be better in some way, more structure and less play. It might knock out some of the odd habits she’d picked up from nursery at least.

He’d noticed it first a fortnight ago, after she’d asked to take something of his into nursery for something called show and tell and he’d given her an antique compass alongside a well-rehearsed story about how he travelled for work. When he’d picked her up that afternoon she’d reverently held his compass in her hands and had a grand old time “reading” it, giving him directions about which way to turn as she rode on his shoulders in their mission to find her after nursery snack. He had played it off as some lingering excitement and a fun game to play. They’d been looking at pirates in the nursery after all and pirates did love to find buried treasure.

A few days after that, he’d found his shoes had gone missing, and the scent in his room led him right to Astraea’s door. His first instinct had been to immediately stop her clomping about in his polished, far too big shoes, but then he’d paused and amusedly watched as she slammed her feet down to awkwardly waddle down her line of teddy bears, pointing to each one in turn and giving them orders. It was something she had seen him do with the lower guard, he and Felix in charge of their combat training and often talking to them about footwork and rules of engagement. Hearing them come tumbling from her mouth had almost made him laugh until she had repeated a few choice words from Uncle Felix’s repertoire he’d had to have a stern talk with both of them about.

It was little things like that that had added up over the span of two weeks that had confused and amused him to no end. Poor imitations of his growling, standing with one little arm tucked behind her back. She’d even copied the way he greeted Felix and other members of the guard in the halls, nodding at them with a quick enunciation of their name. The strange habit of mimicking his actions had extended to Uncle Felix to, and Uncle Alec and Aunt Jane, though he had to admit it was hilarious to watch her glare the young boy who had accidentally crushed her artwork with his foot as he stood from the carpet into submission, Jane’s signature smile on her lips as she did it. She looked almost disappointed that she hadn’t been able to make him writhe in agony as she did so and Demetri had had a quiet word with Jane about ensuring she didn’t use her gift in front of Astraea anymore.

It had all culminated in one silly little argument one morning as they got ready for another day at nursery, one of the last coming up before the Christmas holidays. Demetri was feeling the same hollowness he always felt, not in the mood for her to push his patience as she was, and it was all over a stupid necklace. He was crouched before her, hand outstretched as he waited with all the patience he possessed for him to place her coven crest back into his open palm. She held it clutched tight in her tiny little fists, small knuckles turning white with the effort as she shook her head vigorously, holding it close to her chest.

“No! I want to wear it!” she repeated. This was the fourth time she’d told him as much despite his protests.  

“Astraea Volturi I have been patient enough with you, you are not allowed to take it and that is final, now hand it back to me. Now.” Demetri ordered, curling his fingers for added emphasis.

“No!” she cried, lower lip protruding in a pout and trembling slightly. Demetri blinked, surprised by her reaction. He hadn’t expected his daughter to get this upset over it, but she looked genuinely distraught at the thought he might take it from her. He sighed, letting his hand drop and resting his forearms on his thighs, hands clasping as he studied her tight grip on the necklace. She hadn’t really worn it before, since it was rather large and she was still only small, so it would hang down her torso for sure and probably snag on things. He didn’t want her choking if the chain got caught on anything, or for her to lose it. It was a great honour to be part of their coven and she would cherish it in the years to come, but not at the tender age of five.

“Sweet girl, I worry you will lose it, or perhaps hurt yourself if it becomes caught on anything as you play. It would be safer to leave it at home.” He tried. Astraea shook her head again, turning her body away from him. He knew full well he could take it from her without any resistance but he had sworn to never use force on his daughter long ago.

“I’ll be careful!” she promised. Her small shoulders were all hunched up, so tense as she gripped onto her necklace tight. Demetri rolled his eyes skyward and took in a deep breath, mentally counting to ten before he exhaled slowly and checked his watch. They were going to be very late if this carried on.

“I am sure you would be, but that still does not mean it is safe to take it to nursery.” He reasoned.

“But I need it!” she whined. Demetri’s brows furrowed, mind racing as fear gripped him tight. She needed it? What had she said to the other children that required her to take in her coven necklace? Had she mentioned the crest? The Volturi?

“Why?” Demetri asked, keeping his voice as level as he could so as to not alert her to his underlying panic. There was a long moment of pure silence, neither of them saying anything as his anxiety grew till he was forced to press for an answer. When Astraea turned to face him, her puppy dog eyes made him falter.

“To be like you. You always wear yours.” She pointed to the golden ‘V’ visible against his chest, and Demetri subconsciously reached his fingers up to run them over the cold metal. His expression softened slightly and he lowered himself to the ground, gesturing for his daughter to come and sit with him. She hesitated for a moment before he motioned to her once more, her little legs carrying her right to his lap where she made herself comfortable. Demetri wrapped his arms around her, looking down at her inquisitively.

“Now why on earth would you want to be like me?” he asked. Astraea was everything to him. She was his happy, bright, gorgeous, warm, curious, sweet little girl, and he wouldn’t have changed her for anything in the world. To hear she wanted to be like him…well the most selfish parts of him relished in the news. She kept her crest in her lap now, looking up at him with a small frown.

“Miss Bellomo asked what we wanted to be when we were bigger, and I want to be a hero like you that protects people.” She said. Demetri felt his cold, dead heart shatter into a million pieces. For obvious reasons Astraea didn’t know the full scope of what he did, to her he was a security guard that protected the castle, and sometimes he had to go away to find people who had tried to get into the castle and give them a telling off. He was sure she’d be horrified if she knew the truth, that he was an executioner more so than a hero, but to see himself through her eyes was extraordinary and eye opening. Suddenly, all of the little things he’d caught her doing made sense.

Every gesture of his she had mimicked, she had done in an effort to be like him. Astraea had never left him behind at all; he was always in her mind, the protector and hero that was always with her. Demetri held her close, burying his nose in her hair to inhale her sweet scent. He didn’t care that it made his throat burn horribly. He simply needed to be close to his daughter and have a little time to compose himself. When he pulled back, he clasped her head to his lips and pressed a firm kiss against her hairline.

“Oh my sweet, sweet girl, no. Please do not try to be like me.” He whispered, voice raw with unshed emotion. Her little face fell into a frown again.

“Why can’t I be like you?” she asked. Demetri stroked her cheek with his thumb.

“You cannot be like me because I need you to keep being like you,” he replied, “Astraea, my sweet girl, there are so many people in this world who would seek to change you, the way you look or the way you act, but never let them. You are kind and strong, and smart and funny…to be anything other than yourself is taking away so much good from this world. Do you understand?” He knew she most likely didn’t, not fully, but after a minute to process it, she nodded, curls bouncing around her face.

“So…I have to be me?” she asked. Demetri nodded.

“Yes. You must always be you. I love you very much as you are. You are my hero, my sweet girl.” He kissed her forehead, the adoration he felt for his little girl ten times stronger than it had ever been before. She beamed up at him, throwing her small arms around his neck to hug him close to her. Demetri returned the hug whole heartedly, vaguely noting that hollowness that had plagued him was entirely gone now. She was certainly a hero, she’d saved him from himself.

“Will you keep it safe for me?” she held out her coven crest to him and Demetri stared down at it for a long moment before gently curling her fingers back around the metal.

“How about we compromise? If you promise to keep it in your nursery bag and not take it out for any reason, you can take it with you.” He suggested. Her eyes sparkled and she nodded vigorously.

“I promise I promise!” she cheered. Demetri chuckled.

“Okay then. Let’s put it in your bag now and go, we are already late.” He watched her bounce up from his lap, bounding over her to small backpack with all the eagerness of an overly excited puppy. Demetri had never expected that when he enrolled his daughter in nursery, he would be the one to learn something new. Sometimes parenting required you to step back, not too far, but just enough so you could watch your children thrive from a distance you could easily cross when you were needed, and Astraea still very much needed him, even if it didn’t feel like it all the time.

[lostinaseaoffictionalbliss]

Bark At The Moon part 12

A/N: My taglist for this is open (but there’s only a few parts left) as well as my forever tags. However I warn you guys I’m currently working on an original book (the second in the series), but I will still answer and take requests on this blog and my side blog @im-weak-for-jaskier

Pairing: werewolf!Sam x OC

Warnings: this is for the story over all and not any specific chapter. Language, violence, attempted rape, torture, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it) marking (not ABO even though Sam is an Alpha) but I’ll will tag the chapters appropriately.

Word Count: 1226

Nola was quiet as Sam took her back to the cabin. She was pale and her eyes wide. She couldn’t believe what had happened. She had killed someone. Sure that someone was a hunter and trying to kill her mate, but she had never harmed anyone in her life. She had always been a rather gentle soul. If given a choice she never would have shot Gordon.

Sam carried Nola into his room and helped her out of her clothing. He slipped his shirt over her head and covered her up. He had a feeling she was going into shock and wanted to treat it before it got dangerous. He laid her back and elevated her legs and feet a bit. If he could he would take her to the hospital, but they would ask questions; questions that would lead to more trouble.

It took two hours before Nola finally acknowledged Sam’s presence. She gazed up at him and tears silently leaked down her cheeks. “I killed someone,” she whispered. Looking down at her hands she let out a sob. “I killed someone,” she repeated.

Sam frowned. He lifted her chin and made her look at him. “Talk to me.”

“I shot him. I...I picked up the gun and shot him. M-me...I did it. I’m a m-m-murderer...I’m a bad...person. I’m g-going to...to hell,” she wailed in anguish.

He pulled her into his lap and shook his head. “No, baby, no. What you did was in defense. He kidnapped you, threatened your friends, was about to kill me. You didn’t commit murder. You had no choice. You aren’t a bad person and you aren’t going to hell,” he said softly.

His words didn’t stop the flow of her tears. Nola sobbed for an hour straight before finally falling asleep.

Two weeks after the event-that’s what they were calling it-Nola was still upset. However Sam had finally convinced her that she had no choice and it wasn’t her fault. That didn’t stop her from feeling guilty. She had always been a good person. Driven by passion to help others and do good. Growing up she was the sweet girl giving her cookies or extra grapes to other kids. She always brought extra toys for those that had none. To take a life went against who she was at her core. Even if she had no other choice.

At first Nola barely touched food, pushing it around on her plate and then going back to her room to cry. But gradually her appetite came back and while she still cried herself to sleep she no longer ran off to hide. Sam felt like they were slowly making progress. He hoped that what he and the pack had planned would help to cheer her up a little. He knew it wasn’t easy to pull out of depression, but he wouldn’t let her succumb to it either.

It was around 11 am when Nola finally strolled into the kitchen. At this point she had given up hiding the truth from Donny and told him everything. He was shocked, but swore to keep her secret and run the hotel until she felt like coming back. That meant she could sleep as late as she wanted.

“Morning,” she mumbled moving toward the coffee pot. Sam, knowing she would sleep in, had recently made a fresh pot for her. After fixing her mug she turned and looked at the kitchen table, blinking. It was covered in different things. “What is all this?”

“Coloring books and colored pencils. Some stuffed animals,” he picked up a stuffed wolf to go with her other one, “bath bombs courtesy of Carly. Some new body lotion. I got some lavender massage oil. We got some of your favorite movies, chocolates, and salty foods. Figured we could all pile up in the den, watch some movies, junk out. I‘ll even order pizza. Then you can take a nice bath and sip some wine. After that, I'll give you a massage.”

Nola teared up and sat her mug down. She walked over to her mate and sat in his lap, laying her head on his chest. “Thank you. Thank all of you. I know I’ve been a mess lately…”

“An understandable mess.”

“An understandable mess. Anyway, I'm grateful that all of you have been here. You holding me without me asking. The fresh flowers Cas leaves in my room. The comfort foods Benny makes. Dean and Carly acting like everything is normal. All of it means so much. I still feel bad. I don’t blame myself, I know I had no choice. I’ll always regret what I did, but I believe I’m ready to move on from it.”

Sam wiped her tears away and kissed her softly. “That makes me happy. It’s normal to feel guilt and remorse, you’re a good person, but you can’t let it eat you alive. And all of us are here to help you. You don’t ever have to ask.”

Three extra large pizzas were spread out on the coffee table in the living room along with all kinds of snacks and beer bottles. Nola was dressed in her favorite pajamas, snuggled under her favorite blanket with Sam as the opening credits of Dirty Dancing started. Everyone had grabbed up a slice of pizza and was ready to watch the movie.

Sam had one arm around his mate, snuggling her. He kissed her head and relaxed. As she leaned against him, he could feel a difference in her body language. She was less tense than she had been in recent weeks, but not fully relaxed yet. She wasn’t curling up on herself, trying to hide anymore. Instead she was curling up to him, being open to his presence and the others. Nor was she quite as jumpy as she had been.

Nola was deep into the movie when she heard her phone. She grabbed it and opened up the text message. She was surprised to see it was from Nikita. She hadn’t heard from her friend in some time.

Hey I’m back in town. Was hoping you and I could catch up. I’m sorry that I haven’t messaged you. Aidan and I have been having a lot of fun and kept busy.

She smiled as she read it over. She hadn’t been bothered by the fact that Nikita had been radio silent. She wanted her friend to enjoy her vacation with her fiancé. Aidan was a good guy and by the sounds of things he had made sure Nikita was happy.

I’d love to get together and catch up. How does lunch tomorrow sound? We can hit the little bistro in town. I have a lot to tell you.

Not that she would tell her everything. Some things were better left unspoken.

Sam looked down and smiled. “You seem rather happy. Who’s texting you baby?”

“My best friend. I’ve known her for years. There isn’t a thing I don’t know about her. We’re going to meet for lunch tomorrow and catch up.”

“That’s good. I’m glad you’re happy. Of course you know you can’t tell her things.”

She nodded. “I know. I’ll tell her about you, but not everything. Promise.” She smiled.

He kissed her head and they settled to watch the rest of the movie, not worried about a thing.

***

Likes don’t spread my work! Please reblog and leave a comment if you enjoyed this! I love hearing from you guys and knowing what you think and hope to see! Also I now have my own book published. Check it out here.

[binnie-binnie-bambam]

where I’ve been...?

hey. I feel like I owe y’all an explanation as to where I’ve been for the last 3 months. but imma put it the whole big detailed story under the cut just in case y’all don’t care haha and coz I don’t wanna clog up people’s feed with my incessant rambling.

TL;DR: I’ve been through 3 months of mental hell and that took a big toll on everything, including my love of a lot of things, so I’ve been struggling but I’m gonna try to be on here more and I’m sorry for being away for so long and not saying anything about it. Thank you to everyone who has tagged me in things and sent me messages during this time, I have seen it, I promise, even if I haven’t been in the right headspace to respond, you have made this time even just a bit more bearable, and for that I thank you greatly.

so yeah, things have been rough to say the least. I want to explain what’s been going on because I’ve always been pretty open on here and I know a lot of other people struggle with the same things so I don’t feel so alone. basically, I’ve fallen into another awful depression. I’ve lost my passion and drive and desire, I’ve lost the ability to find joy in things, I have no interest in hardly anything at all, I’m just not...me...right now.

I mean, my whole summer was crazy busy because I was spending almost all of my time doing wedding prep for my best friend/cousin’s wedding so I really didn’t have much time for myself and if I did, I was too exhausted to do anything I wanted to do. that’s when my partial inactivity started. I also started to see a new psychiatrist over the summer and he started me on new meds around August. since August, over a span of ~5 months, I’ve been on and off 6+ new meds, being treated for severe anxiety, panic attacks that resurfaced after being free of them for over 4 years, severe depression, ADHD, and trying different things to see if I had bipolar, as well as having a heart condition, thyroid issues, and fibromyalgia all going haywire.

I was pretty much ok through September, aside from some not so fun side effects that got me on and off 3 new meds in that month alone. like my mood and motivation and everything was fine, we had the engagement party and bachelorette party at the beginning of the month, I got to spend a bunch of time with the guy I have a (stupid) crush on, I was busy, things were going pretty great, honestly. but October rolled around. the first half wasn’t so bad, we had a girls’ trip for a weekend sort of as a last hoorah before my best friend got hitched and that was a lot of fun and I’m super thankful I was able to go, especially since I originally thought I wasn’t going to be able to make it due to family circumstances.

and wedding prep continued on, until I was driving over to my aunt’s house for the last day of prep and things started to hit me. my aunt and I got really close this past year and this was the last time I was spending with her for a long time, like sure we see each other once in a while but I was going over there and going shopping with her and doing all sorts of stuff multiple times a week and I think I just got scared of the idea that I was facing a new normal all over again when my normal had already changed so drastically at the beginning of last year. and also the fact that my best friend was getting married and moving an hour away when she used to be 10 minutes away and I saw her all the time. like we had the rehearsal dinner the Sunday before the wedding and my oldest cousin made this speech (because she knew she’d be sobbing too much to actually make it at the wedding) and she talked about us three girls as kids growing up and all this stuff about my best friend and how perfect her fiance was for her and it was just all really sobering I guess?

and I spent a lot of nights that week writing and rewriting a letter to the couple and I definitely spent most of that time sobbing over everything and sometime that week my mood just plummeted. my dad got /really/ concerned because the change in me was /so/ drastic but there wasn’t much we could do with only a few days until the wedding so we just hoped for the best and waited till my appointment with my psychiatrist to figure out the next step. I ended up getting a migraine at the wedding (I know it was from stress and from being so upset) so I couldn’t have a good time like I wanted to and I knew I’d regret it and I definitely regret it but I can’t change anything now. I got to hug the bride and groom goodbye just as they were leaving and I’ve never struggled so hard trying not to cry, which I mean, my best friend was sooo close to becoming a sobbing mess hugging me too, and the groom, well he was a blubbering mess (he’s a very emotional dude, all three of us have sobbed watching movies together, we’re a sight lmao) so I didn’t feel too strange haha. but it was a really weird feeling and it was really hard to sleep at the hotel that night. we drove home in the rain the next morning and did absolutely nothing the entire day.

then the news hit about Woojin and I spent my Monday night quite literally sobbing myself to sleep. at that time, I was still pretty new to skz but it still hurt like hell and I know my depression warped the emotions out of proportion but it was still so incredibly painful. but nothing could prepare me for the news about Wonho. nothing. I was already so deep into my depression and that just, I still don’t even have words. something hasn’t hit me that hard in I don’t even know how long. I couldn’t even cry, it took me over 2 months to cry about it because it just hurt too much. I still can’t listen to any of their music, I can’t even see photos of them without bursting into tears, and I’m ashamed at myself for being so attached to something that I react this badly, but even more so, I’m upset with myself that I can’t support them when they need it most because it causes me so much physical and emotional pain I just can’t deal with it. I’m not giving up on them, god no, I know it probably sounds like I am, but I swear I’m not. I love them way too much for that. it’s not even possible to describe how much mx and Wonho mean to me, I’m not giving up on them, I’m just handling things in my own way at my own pace, I guess.

from then on, things just spiraled out of control. on and off more meds, more and more problems arose, I really felt like I could not keep my head above water. and on top of it, I had the 7th anniversary of my grandma’s death in early November and the 10th anniversary of my grandfather’s death in early December and to say the least, that did not have the best effect on my mental health. it’s been 3 months of pretty much hell. I genuinely have /no/ interest in things I used to do, none of my hobbies, everything, and I mean everything, is a chore. it’s still like this. but I’m trying to do more to fix it. I’m seeing my doctor next week and I just spent 6 weeks getting another med out of my system so hopefully when I see him, he’ll try something new and we’ll actually make progress instead of taking 2 steps forward and 8 steps back. I haven’t lost hope yet.

there’s been many, many times in these past few months where I’ve felt like I’ve already hit rock bottom and I’m just waiting for the final blow to finish me off. but, if I’m being completely honest, what’s kept me going has been my really close friends on here that have stuck with me this whole time and my love for kpop which thankfully, god thank you, hasn’t diminished whatsoever despite everything. I can confidently say, I wouldn’t still be here without my friends, you know who you are my loves. y’all keep my world turning and no matter how painful it can get sometimes, I wouldn’t have made it this far, I wouldn’t want to keep going, I wouldn’t owe my life to you guys, so thank you, more than words can express. I love you all to the moon and back. and then some.

so this has just been paragraphs upon paragraphs of me rambling so I really don’t know why you would’ve stayed and read the whole damn thing, but if you did, thank you, I feel a lot better getting things off my chest. and this isn’t to say I’m back completely, I can’t guarantee how active I’ll actually be, but I’ll do my best to spend some more time on here because I genuinely do miss this place and all the amazing people in it. I’m so sorry I’ve been gone so long, especially without any real explanation. I’m going to do my best to rediscover my love for things, I may have lost it for a time, but it’s not gone completely.

~

until next time, this has been “aly won’t shut up”. thank you and goodnight, I love y’all

[scattered--pages]

Nothing Broken, Nothing Thrown (1/?)

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Characters: Luka Couffaine, Anarka Couffaine, Juleka Couffaine, Couffaine Dad, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Additional Tags: Dysfunctional Family, Family Feels, Hurt/Comfort, character backstory, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Family Issues, Childhood Trauma, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Abuse, Family Abuse, Will be followed with lots of comfort and support by Mari as the story progresses I promise, But there's a heapload of pain and trauma in between, just as a warning

Ao3 link: here

Notes:

TRIGGER WARNING !!! Unfortunately, this fic is going to get quite dark at times. It talks about how I envision the Couffaine family history. From their life with their father to how Luka and Juleka, as well as Anarka, ended up dealing with the aftermath of getting away from him. In between, there will be sweet moments of Marinette comforting Luka through each step of her finding out more and more about his past, but in between, this might get a bit too much for you if you are triggered by mentions of: family abuse, alcoholism, violence, self-harm, self-destructive behavior. Part of this was written based on some of my own painful experiences from the past.

Please everyone, stay safe and do not read this if you're worried that a mention or a description of any of these might trigger any negative feelings or responses in you.If you do decide to read through, you'll get a view into how I see what made the Couffaines what they are now, ultimately stronger, happier and more free and basically the entire last chapter will be Lukanette Hurt/Comfort fluff.

As always in my fics, music inspires a great deal of my writing and the writing of this first chapter was very much accompanied by Suzanne Vega's "My Name Is Luka", as well as Hozier's "Cherry Wine", both tragic but lovely and utterly amazing songs, and listening to them while reading might complete the experience. ♡Once more, stay safe and I love all of you. ♡

Summary:

"There is something very true about that saying that talks about how the happiest and kindest people often hurt the most inside, or how they've at the very least been through such hell that you would never guess that all of that was some time ago hidden with great effort behind the ever-smiling, protective, compassionate face that they always seem to wear flawlessly. And Marinette had no idea just how heartbreakingly this was true for the boy she cared for."

There is something very true about that saying that talks about how the happiest and kindest people often hurt the most inside, or how they've at the very least been through such hell that you would never guess that all of that was some time ago hidden with great effort behind the ever-smiling, protective, compassionate face that they always seem to wear flawlessly. And Marinette had no idea just how heartbreakingly this was true for the boy she cared for. For the happy, ever-supporting and bright boy for who she has now finally without any more hesitation started to develop incredibly strong feelings for. And she suddenly felt incredibly selfish and blind when she realized that there was a reason he was somehow always her shoulder to cry on and her biggest confidante lately, to such extents that even Alya could no longer compare. Because there was something so soothing, warm and accepting about him. Something that melted her in his hug every time, making most of her worries and troubles just naturally untangle themselves right in front of him, only for him to support and listen and hold her tight through it all. But he never did the same in return. In fact, as close as they were becoming, Marinette failed to realize how little she actually knew about a huge aspect of his life or his past. And perhaps, somewhere in the back of her mind, she just convinced herself that he just didn't have anything to let out as she did, that this was why he was as he was, it only made sense. But now, her heart shattered in face of her own ignorance. Now, this was what was suddenly obvious the entire time. The sheer amount of emotions, pain and trauma that one boy had to learn to suppress and move on from.

And how did she find out? By being too nosy for her own good and taking a peek at a tattered notebook that was hanging from the pile of things they had to move to the upper deck where a former ship drawing room was being re-modeled for a new room that he could have all for himself, much to Juleka's quite equal joy who now had the entire lower deck room for her own drawings, designs and horror posters wherever she wanted them.

But one old, tattered notebook put a sudden halt to a happy moving event on the Couffaine ship. Because, as Luka, Juleka, Anarka and a few of their other friends were helping with painting the room above, Marinette was clutching at her mouth, trying desperately not to alert attention to herself, trying desperately not to sob.

The old, tattered notebook with blue and green action heroes drawn all accross the front page – was a diary.

-------

"January 7th, 2012

Today, we went back to school. I’m kind of happy about it, though. I get to see my friends again. I get to secretly buy Juleka and me a candy bar each day on our way from school with the change money mom sneaks to us. I know dad doesn’t like us spending money when there’s not enough for all the bills, but mom convinced us it’s okay if it’s just one candy bar. That’s why I usually just buy Juleka one and maybe steal a piece. I’m worried about mom, though… Her recording studio is only booked from the end of January and dad doesn’t go on his tour til February… I hope she’ll be okay. I love mom and Juleka. I love dad, too. Even though it hurts a bit to love him in the past couple of years. But he says he loves us in spite of everything and says sorry and smiles after every time he does something bad. Mom says he just has ‘bad dad’ days and that he’ll get better once he stops taking those weird pills and drinks. I really want to become a cool musician like dad one day.

Luka”

-------

Snow was falling delicately against the cold Paris ground. The after effects of Christmas holidays could still be felt in the air all around. Most of the decorations haven’t been removed yet across the city and they made this chilly winter day enveloped in fog seem just a tad bit warmer. In one apartment, however, the interior didn’t match the fancy structures covering the modern building on the outside, nor the still-loving atmosphere left behind everywhere by Christmas and New Year’s Eve. This particular fancy apartment was a mess. Instruments and bottles laying about everywhere, even though Anarka cleaned them up just the night before. The air seemed to be icier than the one outside, even though you couldn’t feel it that way on your skin. But, all things considered, today’s dinner was going by fairly peacefully. Something she was very grateful for.

“Luka, Julie?”, Anarka’s cheery voice broke the silence, “How was your first day back at school?”

The raven haired little girl looked up behind her long bangs, but seemed to be too shy or perhaps too reluctant to speak. Her father noticed that and frowned. Immediately, Luka spoke up.

“It was fun”, he fiddled with his spoon around his plate and mustered up a small smile. “We’re having a talent show in two weeks organized at school”, his eyes carefully moved up to his dad, his smile still intact, and now quite hopeful, “I was thinking about applying as a contestant.”

Gaspard’s looked up and huffed out a chuckle. “To do what?”

The little boy’s smile dropped slowly. “To… Play guitar.”

Another grim chuckle.

“Don’t embarrass yourself, kid…”

“He won’t embarrass himself!”, Anarka interjected, her face baring anger and hurt that she’s been keeping down for so long that it was now slowly seeping through the cracks each time it rose up again. “He’s really good, Gaspard!”, she reached out across the table to place a gentle hand across Luka’s. “You’ll be as good as your dad one day, won’t you?” His mother’s proud smile lured his own back onto his face, but only for a moment.

Another snarky laugh. “Merde!”

“Gaspard! Not in front of the kids, again!”

His spoon made an angry clang against the ceramic before his fist met the table. “If you wanted a fucking sweet rural gentleman for a husband and a father of your kids, Anarka, you should have stayed in the middle of fucking nowhere by the southern coast and married a fucking fisherman!”

“Dad, NO, it’s okay, you’re right, I-I… I’m not good, it was a stupid idea, I won’t sign up for the competition…!”, Luka nodded, trying to stay calm and convincing even though, underneath the table, his hands were trembling. Juleka just kept staring at her plate, face down, long black hair hiding her from the world.

Seemingly satisfied with this outcome, Gaspard smirked and continued to calmly eat his soup, like nothing had happened.

-------  

“January 16th, 2012

I’m a bit scared of dad these days. He got angry at Julie for stepping in his way when she was playing and swung his hand over her, but I managed to run in front of it and took the blow instead. She’s much smaller than me and it would have hurt her really bad. It didn’t hurt me a lot, just that my cheek was a bit purple for a couple of days, but it would have really, really hurt her. It was better this way. Dad never hit Julie before. He hit me occasionally, when he was really, really angry or drunk, and a few times he hit mom. But never Julie. He seemed to have felt bad when he realized what he almost did, it was really obvious, and he even apologized. He seemed really shaken. He even knelt down to hug us. I think he was close to crying. I was kind of happy, it was closer to how dad was a few years ago, it’s a shame Julie doesn’t even remember that dad. The fun dad. The hopeful dad. Dad’s been really, really bad since his band reunion didn’t work out and he stopped getting revenues from their music because of some issues that I didn’t really understand… I know dad can be better, if only he can stop worrying over his producer so much and if he stopped drinking. I know it. Deep inside, he’s a good dad, he really is. He gives us toys. He’s always sorry when he hits me and mom. He’s just going through a rough time, because his band isn’t as popular anymore, that’s at least what mom says. She says he’ll get better one day. I hope so too. Because sometimes I’m worried that mom is only saying that cause she’s scared of him. And my mom is never scared of anyone else, except him. I’m a bit more scared than usual, too. I’m not being very good, because I decided I really want to sign up for that talent show anyway and I’m going to get mom to get dad there by saying it’s a teacher-parent meeting or something. Cuz I really like playing the guitar. And if I show to my dad how good I am, he’ll finally be proud of me, too.”

-------

“I will not hear any of that, last month we had enough money, what the hell are you doing anyway?!”

“I only start recording in ten days, I’ve been practicing and gathering enough songs and material until that day comes, Gaspard!”, Anarka was collecting the pile of unpaid bills that she organized on the table an hour ago in preparation to talk to her husband, although now they were thrown astray. “Gaspard, I love you, but you need to realize we’re not young anymore, both of us, we can’t afford this place, we can’t afford this whole lifestyle! We can’t afford your… y-your…”, she faltered, her lower lip quivering in regret of even letting that slip out. Because sadly, nothing good will come of it. Nothing ever does.

Her husband advanced towards her and the usually brave and bubbly woman in front of him now instinctively took a shaky step backwards.

Gaspard smiled a wicked smile, twisted in the terrified irony of him being almost happy that she was able to make him mad again. Another release, another situation to explode in order to make himself feel better. “No-no, Anarka… Sweetie… Finish that sentence…”, he cocked his head in faux inquisitiveness as he continued quite literally backing her into a corner. “My? What? My d-d-drugs…?!”, he mocked the way her mouth quivered, too terrified to know if she should speak or not. “My booze?!” His hand slammed against the wall next to her. “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you?”, his voice quieted town but the venom that dripped from it now seemed thicker. His head whipped back at Juleka holding her doll and her knees against her chest on the sofa, “All of you do!!!”, he bellowed, his voice filled with rage, breath filled with gin and head filled with complete disbelief of how his entire family could be so vicious and not see that he was, in fact, the real victim here.

“You!”, he pointed at his wife, “You were just Jagged’s lost little groupie when I found you!!! ‘Nanarky’…”, he imitated Jagged’s voice like a child imitating that one kid they really didn’t like, “Give me a break! And now he is being a superstar and I’m being a failure, I’m being forgotten?!”, he laughed, but it sounded so wrong that it filled Juleka’s eyes with tears, “Were you fucking him before me, Anarka?”, he tilted her chin up, “Is that why he even placed you in his band?! You were his whore, I know you were!!!”, he was screaming again and the shaking woman in front of him was suddenly filled with gust of courage as she pushed him away, whiping the tears off of her eyes in one swift movement before she faced him again.

“I will not let you insult me or my children anymore, I will not let you talk like that again!”, she roared and, for a second, he seemed genuinely shocked by the sudden shift in the usual way she reacted to situations like this. He could usually control her, no one else could, but he could. And he really didn’t like that he didn’t succeed in doing that now. “I was a good musician, a great one, you were the one that made me leave the band, you were the one who made me believe you actually cared about me…”, the tears started rushing in again, her voice breaking but not faltering, “That you wanted a family with me, that we could do this together! YOU are the one who ruined us all!”

Suddenly, she collapsed into a chair next to her and started uncontrollably sobbing into her hands. Tired, desperate, scared, and hopeless. For a minute, there was no sound other than those heart-wrenching muffled sobs, echoing across a living room far too big for the financial status of their family lately, and the wind outside. Gaspard leaned against the table, his head in his hands. It was so quiet. Too quiet. Because it was quiet enough for one sound to finally be heard in the other end of the apartment…

His fists clenched.

“I fucking swear…”, he turned towards the hallway, “If that is a guitar I hear… That boy is dead…”

“GASPARD, NO!!! YOU WILL NOT TOUCH HIM, YOU WILL NOT HURT LUKA AGAIN!!!”, Anarka all but screamed as she flew after him, chasing his raging footsteps as they stormed down the hallway, grabbing at his shirt to pull him back, “You can’t be jealous at your son, Gaspard, he is your son, you can’t hurt him again, y-!” – a loud thud was heard as he flung her across the narrow space into the wall behind them and slammed open the doors to Luka’s room.

There, on the floor, sat the little shaggy haired boy, guitar in his lip, frozen in fear.

“D-Dad, I-I didn’t mean to, I-I…”

Gaspard took a deep breath and took a much calmer tone, “Give that guitar… to me, boy…”

“Dad, no! I-!”

“You will OBEY me, you little shit, or you’ll become a worthless piece of shit like your mother there!”, he pointed back at Anarka, her hands covering her mouth, eyes staring at Luka, afraid that if she moved, she would doom her son even more.

Luka stood up. Jaw trembling and eyes filling with tears, but his shoulders were straight and his head tilted up. “No.”

“Luka…”, Anarka let out a horrified whisper.

“What… did you say to me, boy?!”, the old rocker let out another one of those chilling laughs before it stopped as abruptly as it began its bellowing and in one swift step, he took a step forward, snatched the guitar roughly from his son and turned to the side, holding it by its neck and swinging it above his head.

“DAD, NO!!!”, the little boy cried out, and Anarka used the chance to run over to him and take him in her arms, “NOO, PLEASE DAD, PLEASE, I WON’T PLAY IT AGAIN!!!”, he tried in vain to try to wrestle out of his mother’s arms, “DAD, NO, PLEASE, IF YOU JUST HEAR ME, YOU’LL BE PROUD OF ME, AND IF-IF NOT I’LL NEVER TOUCH IT AGAIN JUST DON’T, DAD, PLEASE IT I-“

For a second, it seemed like everything turned completely quiet and still... Until a deafening sound broke the eerie silence, loud, sharp, violent.

Hundreds of splinters flew across the room.

CRASH.

The strings held the remains of the broken pieces, sticking at each side like ruffled hay.

CRASH!

Luka’s whole body went loose in his mother’s arms as she held him even closer to her, sobbing into the back of his head. He could feel wetness gathering in his eyes, but somehow, felt completely numb and empty in that moment. His one escape, his one love, the one thing he was good at – was destroyed.

The old rocker dropped the wooden remains and ran a finger through strands of course long, half-grey hair and left the room in silence.

And Luka playing the guitar was never mentioned again, at least not in that apartment.

 -------

“February 18th, 2012

I don't talk to dad much anymore. He doesn't like me talking much anyway, I annoy him all the time and it makes me sad that I can't do anything good enough so I kinda stopped trying for awhile. I wish we could be happy. When we were younger, Julie and I, it was better than now. Things weren't perfect, but we were kinda happy. Happier than now. Dad was happier. And mom wasn't crying all the time. I wish dad still loved mom. And mom him. I wish dad loved us. I don't really think he loves me at all. I feel really empty and sad... Teacher asked me if I'm okay because my grades aren't really okay anymore. They've been going bad for awhile now, but I actually failed a few tests lately. I begged her not to tell my mom and dad and she seemed really worried, maybe because I cried, and she promised she won't, if I try to make those grades better. She asked me if I was okay. I said I was and smiled. But really, I don't really think I am. I kind of just want to disappear all the time lately.

Luka"

-------

The once fancy and happy apartment on the second floor was more messy than usual. But not the kind of creative mess that Anarka liked. And neither did Gaspard, even though he was mainly the one who caused it, proceeding than to attack his wife for why things aren't tidier around here. However, oddly enough, the air in the apartment was a bit calmer these days, but Luka and his little sister still had trouble sleeping every night so Anarka re-started the tradition of reading them bedtime stories. They would all huddle up in Juleka's room in the evening, wrapped up in a blanket on each side of Anarka as she quietly told them stories about her hometown by the French coastline. About the ships there, about how there was a legend that it was built by pirates long ago after a very powerful and successful group plundered so much throughout their journeys that they decided to settle down here and after generations and generations, their families and descendants still live there. About how her father taught her how to tie sailor's knots and how to perch up a sail when she was about Luka's age, and about how the sea was always a place where she felt the most free and peaceful. How when you're in the middle of the blue water, lulled by the quiet murmur of the waves, you don't need lullabies or bedtime stories, it is so serene and perfect that it can ease your soul into a blissful sleep within seconds on calm, starry nights. Eventually, she started promising them how, if things ever get even worse, she would take both of them and they would sail away, like her ancestors, and they would fight and plunder evil people, overcome even the worst storms because, when the waves get so high and dark that you can already feel the salt suffocating your throat before it even hit you, than, in that moment, is when every true sailor can use their inner strength to its fullest and find a way to take control of the sea and survive. Because there is no storm that a pirate can't defeat. And they are, after all, pirates. So no storm can ever do them any harm.

A lot of the time, Luka and Juleka's father wasn't even home these days, and when he came home, he was cold as ice, but at least he was mostly quiet and unphased. He didn't like them bothering him, he didn't really even want to see them occasionally, and occasionally, Luka would even see him cry and then, for a moment, he would hope again, just briefly, that maybe, just maybe, he still cares. Maybe there's still a way to reach to him, to fix all of this. But Luka never tried, and he didn't even know how. Somehow, these moments only made him feel even more miserable afterwards. And then he would lock himself up in his room, he'd crawl under his blankets, he'd push away his action figures and notebooks and he'd cry as well. Sometimes for a very long time. Sometimes he wasn't even sure why. But he did feel a bit better, from broken to numb, when the rush of tears was over. He started re-telling their mother's stories to Juleka, convincing her that truly, one day, they really would all escape all this, sail away from Paris, and then everything would be okay. Because the sea fixes everything. And because they can beat any storm, because they're pirates, mom said so.

One of these evenings around a very tension-filled mid-February, things seemed like the usual. Or at least what 'usual' meant lately. Outside, Paris was still decked in bright, crimson colors, snow covering happy, bright Valentine's day decorations strewn across every cafe veranda and against many windows in the city centre apartments. Inside their apartment, once again, it was just cold. And not much else. This time, the chill reached both figuratively and literally into the tenants of the large apartment on the second floor of the condominium complex. They shut off their heating a few days ago because Anarka couldn't pay their heating bills anymore, but a kind neighbour borrowed them two moveable electrical radiators that they mainly used in their bedrooms and in the kitchen in the morning when she made them breakfast. It had to be plugged into electricity, which they still had, but it never went outside of Anarka's mind that next month, she won't have enough for electricity either, third month in a row, and then, she didn't know what she would do and how she would keep her children warm. But their lives now were lived day by then, built on promises of everything somehow getting better, on enduring everything like they did so far.

Gaspard, however, wasn't as happy with this. But he didn't really have enough will-power to do anything about it, which only fuelled his rage, making him spend the little they had on alcohol and colorful tablets that Luka thought looked like bonbons but he knew how dangerous they were and had to keep Juleka from accidentally eating them a few times, thinking they were candy. Because Gaspard no longer cared enough to at least hide them or keep them away at all. They were strewn all over the place, just like the bottles, clothes, dishes, and the pieces of their family that seemed to never have been quite whole at all.

One night, Anarka made sure Luka and Juleka washed their teeth and got ready for bedtime, one of the radiators, a bit old but practical and doing what they were intended to do, was buzzing idly in the bathroom as she helped Juleka get into her pyjamas. It got so cold that they all slept in one bed in her room. Gaspard usually passed out in the living room, fully clothes, wrapped in his coat, so he didn't mind anyway. Sometimes, he wouldn't even come home for days at a time. But today. He cared. Or minded, to put it better. The last resort he had to feeling alive and fine with this whole situation was an abundant combination of brandy and those colorful tablets, but there wasn't enough money left for him to steal from their savings anymore to buy as much as he needed and slowly, but dangerously, Gaspard was breaking along the edges.

"Anarka!", he bellowed from the living room, his voice laced with alcohol - 'fortunately' for him, that, was still fairly cheap to obtain, so his solution was to simply replace the role of pills in his daily concoctions by just consuming a double dosage of liquor in whichever shape or form he could find and buy it. "It is fucking FREEZING here!"

His wife adjusted her glasses shakily and peeked from the bathroom doors, gesturing for Juleka not to come outside. Luka peeked from their bedroom and instantly slid back behind the door frame as well. "We didn't have enough for heating this month, Gaspard", she said carefully, "You know that."

"How?!”

“Gaspard… There hasn’t been enough money… I got my pay for the recordings I did, but… Your revenues still haven’t started coming in again and this apartment costs a fortune just to maintain and-and…”

“Jesus fucking Christ, woman, that doesn’t answer my question!”, he spread his arms wide and turned around, looking around the place with a murky gaze, “I’m the guitarist of the world famous Dark Concords, we should be able to afford double as big of a place than this!”, he stared of into the distance, eyes focused on an unidentifiable spot on the wall. Anarka’s eyes teared up.

“Please, mon cher, you’re not well, you’re not sober…”, she sniffled quietly, weary of any noise she was creating, any annoyance she may be presenting. “And you haven’t been a part of the Dar Concords for a few years now, mon cher… You know th-“

“ I was a STAR, Anarka, I was bathing in money, we had enough for CENTURIES, what did you buy, where the fuck did it disappear suddenly?!"

"It's been disappearing for awhile now, Gaspard...", still calm and cautious, she attempted to muster up a brief explanation, like she was talking to a dangerously disobedient child that she didn't want to upset again instead of to a husband who, when he was sober, already knew all of this all to well, "I didn't buy anything out of the ordinary, you know that..."

"HOW is that possible?! Where the fuck did it go then if you didn't waste it?!", he advanced towards her, arms clenching

"Gaspard, please... We-We've been over this... We'll talk about this again when you're not like th-"

"Like WHAT, Anarka?! You don't like me like this, I KNOW that, I know that you've started abandoning me ever since things went even a BIT away from picture perfect!", his eyes almost seemed teary, but the way his frame shook was so violent and terrifying that wasn't capable of awakening any sympathy. Anarka gently pushed Juleka inside the bathroom as the little girl with the long black hair scuttled behind her to peek out. Her mother made sure to quietly but securely close the door to keep her away from what was happening, again, on a night she really thought would be able to pass through without this.

"You know that's not true, Gaspard...", her voice broke, tears rolling against the corners of her lips, "You can't claim that, you know it's not true...", her voice was gentle, almost forgiving, "You know I would give everything for our family, I'm still here...", she nodded her head, "We all are... We all want you to get better and come back to us..."

"Better?", his lip quivered in a way that sent shivers down Luka's spine as he carefully watched from the barely opened door of the main bedroom. "BETTER?! After everything I've done for you, I'm still not good enough for you or the world, huh?!", his voice thundered and Anarka extended a shaky hand towards his cheek, "Gaspard, please..." -- but it was all she managed to say before her body was flung against the hallway cupboard, the side of it breaking under her as she slammed against it, blood pooling beneath the skin of her eye and cheek on the side where she was struck, blood pouring out from her nose, deep crimson as it smudged against her pale skin. Luka couldn't take it. Not anymore. No more forgiveness. No more trying. No more hoping.

"I hate you...", he hissed through clenched fists, face dark as the face of a child his age shouldn't be capable of being. "I. HATE. YOU!", the boy screamed, a second before patters of bare feet started violently running against the cold tiles in front of him as he basically charged at his father in full speed. What followed happened so fast that, within a second, an angry hand pushed back, full force as well, but this time coming from a much bigger and more dangerous source, just a small shove, a throw for the man, a movement that almost seemed easy from how quick and effortless it was, but the damage it left proved a stark, chilling contrast to this. All that could be heard in one moment was the loud, shrill smashing of broken glass of the door leading from the hallway to the living room, before a sharp metallic smell filled the air. Red soaked his teal pyjama shirt in such amount that made it quickly started cling to his skin like a wet tissue, pouring from his head, side side, his back, it was horrifyingly difficult to tell.

"LUKA!!!", the scream of a mother, broken, was shrill and so engulfed in pain that it would break even the hardest heart. Her own pain didn't matter anymore because, somehow, she was by her son's side in a flash, trying desperately to cradle him as carefully as possible in her arms, not minding the shards, but minding not to make them stick into his skin even further. "No, no, no, no, no... My baby boy... My sweet, brave little boy... My angel, no, no, no, what did you do... What did you do?!", her words were dragged along with her sobs, directed at the man now holding his hand in his hands, suddenly confused, dazed and afraid as his family had never seen him. He tried to say something, mouthing words akin to 'I'm sorry' over and over, but Anarka couldn't even look at him, she just cradled her boy and repeated the last words she said like a torn mantra a few more times, before she snatched the phone from the broken cupboard and dialled the emergency services.

Her husband didn't stay to wait for her to finish the call. He backed away into the entrance door, opened it shakily and ran outside aimlessly. In that exact moment, Juleka rushed from the bathroom, shivering as she jumped down into her mother's arms, sobbing, whimpering, stretching out a small, shaky hand to clumsily but tenderly smooth it against her brothers dark hair, wet with blood, as he mumbled out words they couldn't understand... to her? To his mother? Was he even conscious? Were they pleas for help? The sounds were so disfigured that Juleka thought her brother must have forgotten how to talk from the blow of the fall, but she still tried to make him feel better, tapping at his hair with her little hand like their mom used to do when she would put them to sleep every night. Slow, calming, humming.

It was an aching image of love, tragedy and family in the worst, most wrong way possible, hurting and seeping at the edges, tearing apart. Of three people trying to make each other safe when they couldn't even protect themselves any more at this point. And so they remained, the three of them, together, until the emergency workers tore them apart and placed Luka's screaming, desperate, terrified mother into one van, a kind nurse administering something that she kept promising would calm her down, they wrapped Juleka in a blanket and placed her beside her mother on the stretcher in the first vehicle, as they rushed Luka into another, bandages, panicked personnel and I.V. tubes blocking the view at the boy's broken frame. As Juleka watched them closed the door, for some reason, a sheer surge of terror coursed through her and she felt this incredibly strong fear that she may not see her big brother any more after this and immediately broke into tears again, this time even louder, more terrified, her quiet voice suddenly spilling into screaming, gut-wrenchingly painful sobs that out-voiced even the muffling, loud roar of the red and blue sirens of the emergency vans that were rushing them away from the hell of broken glass, broken promises and a home that seemed to have never really been a home at all...

-------

The last few pages was Luka writing up what the nurses, his sister and mother told him about the whole event after he woke up a few days later, with a lot of stitches, an arm broken in three places, hip fractured, head throbbing, his small body heavy and tired, and skin still ghostly pale and aenemic from the lack of blood that still didn't quite fix itself back to normal even after a couple of days of transfusions and I.V. treatments and horrible headaches that couldn’t pass from even the strongest medications that they were able to give him. But he was alive, and they all said it was a miracle that he was after how his tiny frame smashed through those doors. He was concussed and hurt and broken, but alive. And he will be okay. For Anarka and Juleka, this was enough, and the poor woman started yelling at the doctors when they offered to explain to Luka himself the state he was in. Instead, she was intent on somehow making her children forget all about what happened. She said one of the boats stationed at the Seine’s shores is being sold and that her family will borrow her some money to buy it. They’ll finally have their boat, they’ll finally be pirates, free and happy and away from everything bad, taking life as it is, never staying at one place for too long and never having to worry about anything. She assured them of this. And Luka thought that, perhaps, she was just trying to shelter them, or at least to distract and shelter him from remembering all that happened that night, but in fact, she didn’t even need to try too much, Luka didn't remember a single thing from that day. At least at that point when Juleka secretly told him about everything, with teary eyes and hands that clutched at his hand on the bed so tightly that he thought she would never let him go. But he didn't ask her to. If all he could do now to make her feel better was to let her hold his hand for as long as they let her, he didn't mind in the slightest. And if all that helped calm his mom down was to avoid the topic of what put them in this mess in the first place, well that wasn't a difficult task either.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of this particular entry though, and the conclusion of the entire journal, was the final note about how he wondered, still, after they've told him about all that transpired, if his dad will come to visit him. Because he missed him...

"Marinette...?", a soft voice with only hints of panic woke her up from her trance. It was only than that she realized she set there on the floor, the notebook in her lap - which Luka most definitely recognized - hand over her quietly sobbing mouth, tears pouring for what could have been an eternity after she finished that last page.

Hesitant and careful, Luka stood at the entrance to the room on the boat that he used to share with his sister, in times that marked the beginning of much happier years than those whose end was described in that small journal, written in that large but cold apartment further uptown in Paris. He wasn't sure how much she read of it and it was as if he didn't know how to react. Of course, deep inside, in a way, he felt exposed, embarrassed, as one would of someone, especially someone he cares about discovering a darker side of his life that he tried very hard to hide and bury deep, deep into the past, but more so than any of the self-consciousness he might have felt, he was worried at the state that diary left Marinette in.

But just as he parted his lips to say something, the small, shaken figure on the floor sprung up suddenly, closed the distance between them and leapt into his arms, holding him more tightly against her than she ever did. If this was in any other circumstance, he might have blushed, he might have chuckled, but right now, the only meaning this embrace had was a consolation and validation of how horrific the things he went through were, as well as of how, in spite of them, he was still here, someone knew about this, or at least about a part of it, and they still loved him and accepted him instead of judging him or feeling sorry for him. Because that wasn't an embrace of pity. It was of support, of love, something he never got outside from Juleka and his mother because he never dared tell anyone about this, his 'new' life completely replacing his 'old' one in a way that he didn't even dare mention it in fear of ruining everything. Maybe people would have even judged him for how broken he got after it all because maybe other people had it even worse.

But someone else knew now.

Someone finally knew, and they accepted it with love and, for the first time in forever, Luka was the one being cared for, consoled, cradled in someone's arms, instead of it always being the other way around. And he didn't mind it being the other way around, hell he made sure it was always mainly the other way around but, god. This gripped him to his core and brought him back into the state of mind and emotion of that little boy, standing at the entrance of his room, scared and excited whenever he would see his dad come home, broken and hopeful, persistent until he became angry and terrified and heartbroken and nothing more.

"Marinette...", was all he managed to whisper, voice cracking against her hair, arms wrapped around her pulling her even closer, nearer... The girl who now exposed all of his cleverly hidden and masked broken pieces while instantly managing to hold them together and patch them up, bit by bit, teardrop by teardrop as they cried in each other's arms, second by second of desperate hands clutching at each other, unwilling to part as if they were holding onto one another for dear life.

And if a single punch, a throw, could have broken him so thoroughly, physically and emotionally, as that one did more than seven years ago, than this one embrace was enough to stitch together years of suppressed pain, fears and loss, blissfully, fiercely, all at once.

“Do… Do you want to know what happened afterwards?”

Gently pulling away to look at him, Marinette blinked her tears away and nodded firmly.

“Tell me everything, please.”

[dotthings]

WHOA SPN THAT WAS SO MUCH so this got a little along. 

Oh the callbacks in the episode. So many. Starting with Pamela freakin’ Barnes to put is in a S4 mindset. She was delightful as always, I’m sorry this is a one-off and only in Dean’s mind but she’s still a wonderful character.

So...the place Michael tucks Dean away in to keep him calm, living the dream, is a bar, like Harvelles, and they still hunt, but Dean mostly runs the bar, Sam and Cas are on a hunt, and Dean seems into running this place of solace for people with a jukebox and pool table and beer. I think this is drawn from some authentic piece of Dean’s dreams of retirement, it’s not sand-between-the-toes, but it does seem to fit with what Dean might want. It’s not a real memory and it’s not fully authentic though because Michael constructs it to keep Dean placated but it’s all built from material inside Dean’s mind. Michael gave Dean a version of his contentment and it’s inside the hunting world. Which...haven’t a lot of us been talking about this, not the either/or, that they don’t have to entirely quit the life to find a life within the life. This fit into that theme. 

Pamela and Dean’s banter was fun and oh, that little exchange “You don’t want me, you just like to flirt. I’m a psychic. I know these things.” She’s constructed from Dean’s memories. Dean controls everything there. Dean’s own brain is trying to tell him something. This fits realllly well with a bi-Dean reading. And endgame Destiel. He likes to flirt and he’ll flirt with both genders but what does he really want in the end. Just throwing that out there. And let’s think for a moment how Dean’s mind created subtext that suits a bi Dean and Destiel endgame read.

“We have shifts now because you mess up so, so many things.” I LOLed.

Interesting there’s a callback to Gadreel not Lucifer for Sam relating one of his past possessions experiences to this. Given the themes Michael uses to taunt Sam and Cas and Jack with, Gadreel is a callback to a storyline that was about Dean crossing a line to save Sam, a story about Dean as a caretaker, saving a family member. 

Jack’s belief in Dean. My heart. This following on his early S14 tactless comments, followed by his confession about why he felt so desperate to stop Michael and he and Dean relating to each other’s sense of self-blame and desperation. That was mostly resolved, between them, but in terms of the ongoing story, seeing the extent Jack believes in Dean, this is advancing. 

“Dean. He’s strong. You don’t know anything about Dean.” I’m bolding for a reason--instance #1 of Dean’s family calling him strong.

And then, instance #1 of of Michael trying to demoralize and undermine. “You’re not Sam, you’re not Cas. You’re a new burden he was handed.” Taunting Jack with not being cared for, with being unwanted, by Dean, that it was forced on him. There was some tension on that in S13 initially. By season 14, with the development of the arcs, Dean chose this, but Jack is afraid he didn’t. Jack may also be carrying similar fears or guilt about Sam and Cas, given the origins and history. 

So the source of Cas’s death-glare in the promo was Michael taunting Cas about God, suggesting that Chuck just gives up on one world, and moves onto the next and that’s why there are so many AU’s. It might be true. Cas seems really outraged about it and is probably scared it is true. We’re maybe not done with Cas’s daddy issues, his faith or lack thereof in his Father.

Jensen and Misha were spectacular playing off each other in this scene and their whole dynamic transformed because Dean isn’t Dean, same as in S4, their dynamic transformed when Misha was playing Jimmy not Cas, which gets into a whole thing about how they inhabit Dean and Cas and have to switch off certain switches of their innate chemistry and find different switches instead to do this and I’m rambling, I’m having a Jensen and Misha as acting team moment here.

Then Michael aims  taunting #2 . “Look at you. Playing nursemaid to a nephilim. Nothing like the Castiel I knew. He would’ve never been so anemic.”

Cas’s answer “You’re confusing loyalty and compassion with weakness.”

Cas with all the growth and character development isn’t weak. His vulnerabilities are part of what makes him a whole character. I’m glad Cas sees himself this way too, he’s more than one thing.

Did Jack...just offer up a little piece of his soul for Dean? Oh ok. I’m fine. *hoists flag of surrender* I’ll just stop even trying not to have feelings about that. 

Then we’re in Dean’s mind.

*internal screaming*

I WAS NOT READY FOR THIS. I was really excited for the premise of this ep and wanted this but I was not read for...this.

Lots of recognizable sound bytes but “You’re gonna die and this is what you’re going to become” jumped out at me.

*shrieking*

Yeah so. Uh. This is the point in the episode where I started crying. 

And then Cas starts sensing out the void and says “So much trauma in Dean’s mind. So many scars” and that didn’t help me stop crying at all. The mere fact of Cas, surrounded by Dean’s mindspace and surrounded by Dean’s traumatic memories, witnessing this, I need to lie down and stare the ceiling and have feelings. BRB. 

When Cas touched Dean’s soul in Hell, and pulled him out, and put his soul back into his body, he maybe didn’t go in that deep, seeing Dean’s memories and all of that. 

And Sam isn’t that shook. “Dean’s strong,” Sam says. There’s the 2nd instance of that phrase about Dean. Sam knows Dean’s been through a lot. He’s not getting what Cas is getting at yet, why Cas is so shook, and I think it’s part Cas hasn’t witnessed it in quite this way yet and part it’s that Cas has already figured out the extent of exactly what Michael’s doing inside Dean’s head and Sam hasn’t.

Oh and hey, speaking of callbacks, since the ep firmly planted us in season four-ville, remember when Sam thought Dean was too weak and so he had to step up and drink demon blood, to make sure Dean was never torn to pieces ever again. Not that Sam managed to prevent that. So much has happened and now this Sam, sees Dean as strong.

“You’ve both been through a lot, and Dean is more than strong.” The 3rd instance, this time from Cas.

With a variation now. 

Dean is more than strong.

Dean is more than strong.

My heart’s gonna explode into little rainbows. That’s how Cas, specifically, sees Dean. Jack sees Dean as strong. Sam sees Dean as strong. Cas sees Dean as more than strong.

This is Dean through Cas’s eyes. This is Cas who in S10 looked at Dean, who said "I’m not any kind of a role model” and looked so sad and insisted “that’s not true.” Because he does know Dean and what Dean has gone through and remember he saw Dean in Hell.

*flaily hands* this is SO MUCH. BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE.

MICHAEL DROWNED DEAN IN HIS OWN TRAUMA. 

*rocks back and forth*

Trauma wasn’t enough the first time though. Dean kept kicking and fighting. Squirming. Because “Dean thrives on trauma.” Sam does, in fact get his brother quite well. It keeps Dean awake and aware and fighting to go home. Cas then raises the concept of “contentment” being where they will find Dean instead of the trauma this time because that’s a fresher concept for Dean and therefore more potent in keeping him docile. JUST STAB ME. 

“The people in your real life. We need you to come back.” 

HOW ABOUT IF I JUST SIT HERE QUIETLY SOBBING FOR A FEW MINUTES BEFORE I KEEP TYPING DOES THAT WORK FOR EVERYONE. 

Cas. Cas baby, you got all the way to a “we need you.” Brave little toaster, you’re halfway to an “I” statement. Baby steps. 

Another great callback, Sam using “Poughkeepsie.” Cas’s lack of an “I” statement plea about how much he’s needed, Dean just scoffs a little, but Sam reaches for a very personal code word, so it’s a virtual “I” statement, between him and his brother, and that’s what breaks Dean free of the loop. Gotta use the “I” statements. It needed to be more personal and Cas is still not able to articulate what he needed to in order to break through that. S8 Cas is very lucky Dean is good with using the “I” statement, progressing from “We need you...I need you” and broke through the brainwashing.

Michael, the biggest anti-TFW stan to ever anti-stan, then spills 2 more instance of demoralization, by voicing the most negative fears of what Sam and Cas are to Dean. He mocks Cas’s iconic introductory line and taunts him that all he’s done since then is make mistakes (Michael’s an anti-Cas stan...an anti-Jack stan...an anti-Sam stan)...and then Michael starts in on Sam, taunting with how happy Dean was when Sam left Dean to hunt alone with John.

"They’re you’re responsibilities. They’re a weight around your neck.”

This is cutting deep. This isn’t to demoralize Dean, this is to get Sam and Cas to give up. Michael’s using things that are rooted in some darker fears, and maybe some things that should be addressed about the familial dynamics but they aren’t truth-truths. Dean has carried so much on his shoulders. But none of Michael’s tauntingly demoralizing statements are truth about how Dean feels about Jack or Sam or Cas. (Small fandom side note, I can just imagine various extremes in the fandom using Michael’s taunts to hoist their own anti flags as if canon just verified their viewpoints when Michael is deadass the villain and the words meant to hurt and not what Dean actually feels and if you use it for one you don’t like, another exists aimed at your faves too. Oh it’s diabolical).

I said before the ep aired that Michael would be worse than Lucifer when he taunts because Lucifer is a raspberry blowing asshole child, while Michael knows how to do surgical strikes. And Michael is quietly vicious wow.

Side note into Jack using his powers at extreme need but it eats a tiny piece of his soul. Which isn’t exactly what I expected. I thought they might have him be able to start, a little, tapping into the powers at extreme need and it being adrenaline based, like early Sam’s powers. Or think Luke in the cave on Hoth. Returning gradually. But this is Jack purposefully burning up a little piece of his soul to do it and...this is not going to end well. This is not good. Let’s not head for soulless Jack. Can we not do that please. I’m just starting to get attached to him, he’s already died once, come on.

Sam, Dean, and Cas working in concert to trap Michael together in the storage room. HELL YES THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL THIS IS WHAT I WANTED.

Dean’s “I got him” -- that sound you heard is me screaming for 8 million years because Swan Song callback, flipped from Sam to Dean. I got him.

“I’m the cage.”

Ok no one has said that before. It is a slight callback to S6 Great Wall of Sam and gee that’s not going to hold forever. This is not good.

Oh crap, Billie. Oh crap what is happening. What does this mean, no no no. Please tell me this isn’t going to have to be Dean sacrificing himself to save the world from himself possessed by Michael burning the world.

I really needed Sam, Dean, and Cas to talk about some of the stuff that went on while they were in Dean’s mind but I’m really happy (destroyed) by this ep. I did have some high expectations for it but wasn’t sure how high to set them, but this journey into Dean’s head went to some emotional spots I really needed it to go to and I think moves their arcs, together, forward...Sam and Cas witnessing all that. Seeing how much Sam and Cas each in different ways understand Dean. How Sam, Dean, and Jack all think so highly of him. *cries* Showing how far they’ve come.

OK THANKS FOR DROWNING ME IN DEAN TRAUMA YOCKEY

[parkernotes]

sleepless nights

also available on ao3

post-endgame / fix-it / hurt/comfort / irondad

word count: 1827

It starts like this: it’s one a.m. – he put Morgan to bed hours ago, and Pepper’s reading something on the couch in the living room; Tony plans on finishing some work in the lab and then coming back up to spend some time with her before she gets tired of waiting and goes to bed, but then his phone buzzes in his pocket. When he fishes it out and reads it's a call from Karen, his heartbeat instantly picks up; after all, it took Tony only a handful of weeks after meeting the kid to learn that when it comes to him and calls in the middle of the night, most of the time it's a wise thing to expect the worst.

“Karen, cancel call! Cancel call! Cancel–”

There it is.

“What the hell is going on?”

“ca– oh heeey, Mr. Stark!”

“Karen, run his vitals for me,” he says without a beat of hesitation, not even bothering to ask Peter directly – he knows the kid will just try to avoid the question.

"Peter's vitals are currently normal and stable," Karen supplies helpfully. "However, you've been called since it is past his curfew, and the Bedtime Protocol has been activated."

"Seriously?" comes Peter offended voice from the background, and it becomes louder as Karen's voice drowns out. "It's not that late-"

"It's almost two in the morning, you have to be up at seven and you have a quiz tomorrow," Tony scolds, wishing the kid was able to see his glare through the phone call. "What are you doing in the suit at this hour?"

There's a beat of silence, but then Peter admits quietly, "I couldn't sleep."

Tony sighs. "Are you at least at home?"

"...Kinda? I'm on the roof."

"You couldn't sleep for real or are you just coming back from patrol? Because I can check the footage right-"

"I'm serious!" Peter exclaims. "It was, like, ten o'clock when I went to bed. I was exhausted, seriously. But then I- well, it took me a while to fall asleep and then when I did I had this really, um, weird dream and now I can't-"

"Pete," Tony interrupts, but gently. "Are you having nightmares?"

The other line goes silent for a few moments again, but Tony lets him have his time. He looks around when there's a sudden noise coming from the door, but when he turns around it's just Pepper coming in, carrying her closed book on one of her hands. He mouths Peter and she instantly smiles and nods knowingly, but frowns slightly when she checks the time on her wrist watch.

"Yeah," Peter finally admits, and Tony hears a tiny sigh. "It's mostly about the battle - you know. The loud noises of the explosions and - and stuff."

Tony's heart clenches in sympathy - sometimes he forgets that Peter is only sixteen despite the time that has passed for him and the ones who remained after The Snap; he forgets that Peter was in the middle of that mess when the guy's intergalactical army starting shooting down at them with the intention to kill, and that Peter had been caught in the middle of it all and could've easily ended up among their deceased fighters even though he had just came back-

"What's the last time you've slept properly?" he asks, quickly shaking the thoughts away before they can start spiralling. Peter is here and alive, so there isn't use dwelling with the past - he only has to fix what's wrong in the present, and right now, it seems like what he needs to do is get to his kid and reassure him that everything is fine despite what his head is telling him.

Pepper, as always, catches up on the situation soon enough. She approaches Tony to stand right in front of him and run a gentle hand from the top of his head down to his nape. You should go to him, she whispers. He nods.

"Probably sometime last week?" Peter says, then quickly regrets, "But it- it's getting better, I swear! There's no need to worry, I'll be fine, I'll try to go to bed now and sleep, I'm sorry Karen had to bother you when you must've been getting ready to sleep-"

"You're not fooling anyone, kiddo," Tony sighs, only half fond - the kid is a bad liar to the point of being concerning.

He kisses Pepper on the cheek and chastely promises to be back soon as he moves quickly around the lab; soon enough the suit is spawning for his chest to enclose his body, and he's exiting through the back door of the house and into the chilly night sky.

"Mr. Stark?" comes Peter's quiet voice from the still connected call. "You still there?"

"Yeah, sorry," he says, setting the course straight to Queens right away. "I'll be there soon, yeah? Hold on tight."

"W-Wait, what? You're coming? You really don't need-"

"I don't want you to go through this alone, Pete, and I know you haven't been telling May," he says, but it's not an accusation. He just wants Pete to know that even if he's not ready to share with his Aunt what he went through just yet, Tony will be there to make sure he's fine until then.

“It’s just–” Peter starts, then interrupts himself. A few more seconds of silence, and then, “How long?” he asks quietly.

Tony smiles a bit to himself, then quickly checks the stats on his display. “Thirteen minutes. You good until then?”

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles. “Thank you, Mr. Stark. You– you really didn’t have to–”

“Don’t mention it, kiddo,” he replies, urging the suit to move faster. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

xx

Peter's indeed sitting on the roof by the time Tony arrives - the place is completely deserted and quite dirty, but the kid is sitting near the edge, arms wrapped around his legs and face resting on top of his knees. He looks up when Tony lands besides him but doesn't move, only offers him a timid smile in greeting.

"Hey," he says quietly.

"Hey yourself," Tony replies, lowering himself down to sit besides Peter with a small groan. Damn, he's really getting old. "Any progress?"

"I'm still exhausted," Peter shrugs, looking away. "Still kinda scared of going to sleep, though."

Tony sighs, taking a moment to really look at Peter; the boy has deep and dark eyebags, which definitely weren't there - or weren't as bad, at least - the last time they saw each other in person. His eyes are also a bit puffy and red - he's been crying.

"What are we working with here?" Tony asks, voice lowered down almost to a whisper as if to not disturb the quiet atmosphere that has been settled ever since he arrived. "You... said it was something to do with explosions?"

Peter nods reluctantly. "Yeah, you- you know. When they started shooting down at us," he starts, focusing on the suit's mask on his hands rather than Tony's face. "I- I had the gauntlet with me when it started and- and, um, I think most of those things were aiming at me. I thought- I w-was sure they were going to get me then."

"But they didn't," Tony says, wrapping a hand around Peter's shoulders - the boy is shaking under his hold. "I know it's something hard to digest. When- well, after New York, after I got through that hole and came back, I kept dreaming about it. I was pretty sure I was going to die then; I even tried calling Pepper, but she didn't pick up at that time."

Peter finally turns to look at him, eyes shining under the city's lights. He stays quiet, knowing that the story doesn't end there.

"I thought it was going to resolve itself eventually, if I kept avoiding the memories," he continues, giving Peter a pointed look. "Like you probably do right now. And you might be right - but you also might not, and it might get worse. That's what happened to me."

"What- What did you do?" Peter inquires softly.

"I started therapy," he says. "Believe me, that wasn't an easy decision. It took Pepper and Rhodes a really long time to convince me, because I thought that wouldn't change anything. I couldn't see how talking to a stranger would make me feel better about these- fucked up things I had gone through."

Peter nods, looking away again quietly. Fortunately, he looks thoughtful, and is not flinching away from the idea right away like Tony thought he would do.

"D-Do you think it'd work? For- for me?" he finally asks, turning around to stare at Tony with teary eyes.

"Oh, Pete," Tony breathes, reaching up to run through a hand through Peter's head before landing it on his shoulder again. "If you're willing to try, of course it will. Talking about it with those around you, like we're doing right now, will also make it better, but I think professional help is never too much. I can set you up with the one who helped me back then, what you say? She still helps me even now and then, when I need it."

Peter nods at the suggestion, almost frenetically. "P-Please," he says, raising a fist to wipe away a tear that manages to escape and run down his cheek. "If- If you're saying it helps, then I will- I will talk to May first, 'c-cause I don't know if we can-"

"I'll cover the expenses, kiddo," Tony reassures him. "Don't worry your Aunt about that, I'll have a chat with her. Okay?"

Tony knows Peter would usually complain about it, but the kid only nods which is just another indicator of how exhausted he is. He opens and closes his mouth a few times as if to say something else, but his face ends up scrunching up and he all at once breaks down in tears.

"Hey, hey, it's alright," Tony pulls him in for a hug as soon as he starts sobbing, the sound being muffled against his jacket. "You will get better, hm? I promise."

"I-I'm just s-so tired," Peter manages to say in between sobs while barely managing to breathe.

"I know, Pete. Trust me, I know," Tony soothes him, feeling his heart break at the sound of the kid's devastated sobs. He would do anything to take the pain away, to make Peter forget everything he's been through - the countless night he himself spent awake, trying everything to forget all that trauma, are still vivid in his memories and he would never wish something similar to the boy. "I'll help you make it better. You- you can count on me, buddy."

Peter keeps on sobbing but manages to nod against Tony's jacket, looping his arms around the man's torso, a silent plea for him not to let go.

He doesn't even need to ask - Tony isn't planning on doing so anytime soon.

[thedarksideofriverdale]

In Unity, There is Strength Part 6 Riverdale AU (Kurtz X OC)

Masterlist

Guide for the Characters

Meet the OC

A/N: Hello everyone! Since I’ve gotten so many people to read my story, I am gonna make a tag list soon. But, for now, I will tag the readers who want notifications of a new chapter. Thank you so much for following the progress of the story @the-gargoyle-queen, @-thatgirloverthere-, @that-idiot125, and @kurtzyoufunkylittledruggyprimary

Zara just about had enough when a certain blonde ponytail swished in the air for the umpteenth time. “Betty, you need to calm down. Pacing isn’t doing anything for you.” At the statement, the girl in question looked at Zara still with her thumb in her mouth, mid-stride. Then, she pulled the seat from the desk in the Blue and Gold office. Zara had opted to lean against the doorframe, watching over the worried blonde until Jughead had finished talking to his dad, who had just been made sheriff. 

What Zara hadn’t anticipated was Betty shedding tears for the mass murderer’s death. At the noise of sobbing, Zara squinted her eyes at Betty in judgment, but she knew better than to speak on it. Grief works in mysterious ways, she thought. Betty, aware of the attention she brought on herself, looked at Zara and wiped the tears away. “Zara, I don’t know why I’m crying. He’s terrible; I shouldn’t feel anything for him,” she choked out.

Zara sighed and walked over to Betty. She tentatively put a hand on Betty’s shoulder and rubbed lightly. “No one is going to blame you for crying over your dad’s death,” Zara said softly. After a few minutes of silence, footsteps alerted them of someone approaching the room. Jughead walked in with a concerned look on his face and said, “Zara, I know you were going to tell us about a pattern. Now’s the best time.”

“Well, me and Kurtz figured out that the victims are all people who stayed with the sisters. That’s the only correlation,” Zara said while Jughead came over to them to put Betty Into a tight embrace. 

Hearing this, Betty looked up at Jughead with calculated look in her eyes. “Juggy, all of us are in danger. Me, Polly, Cheryl... Oh my god, what are we going to do?” She looked about ready to cry again, and Jughead tried to console her while also nodding to Zara to leave the room. 

In the hallway, Kurtz was standing next to a row of lockers and, upon hearing Zara’s footsteps, started walking towards her. Zara said nothing as the two exited the school. It was 6 PM, and Kurtz looked slightly jittery, which made Zara roll her eyes. The omega saw it and asked, “What?”

“Gonna get your midnight fix tonight as well?” Zara asked with a biting tone. She then sighed. “Not that I can give a damn; there’s too much going on right now.”

“You told them about the pattern, I presume?” Kurtz asked, and Zara nodded in response. “What about Hiram?”

“No, I didn’t have time. Betty is kinda... losing it, so I left Jughead to deal with that.”

“Some friend you are,” Kurtz said quietly, while digging inside his oversized jacket for his phone.

Zara stopped next to the bike rack and clenched her fists. “You have no friends, so don’t pretend to know anything about friendship. Jughead wanted me to leave!”

Kurtz turned around to look at her and smirked. “I smelled your judgement from that room. You don’t care about your friend’s grief at all.” He turned back around and started walking towards the parking lot. 

Zara cracked her neck to the right and then to the left. She was sitting at her desk doing mind-numbingly easy math homework while Kurtz laid on the bed, reading his English textbook. Occasionally, the girl would look back at the wolf but only for a moment. She noticed that his hands weren’t very stable as the textbook shook in his hands every now and then. 

Finishing her last problem, Zara looked at the time to see that it was 10. She got up from her desk to go to the bathroom in order to do her nightly routine. Turning on the shower to boiling temperature, the girl stripped down and entered. 

After about an hour, Zara exited the bathroom, rubbing her hair with a towel. The first thing she noticed was the breeze in the room coming from the open window, and then she noticed her missing roommate. Her breath was then coming out rapidly with the amount of anger coursing through her body. She said she didn’t care, but she did. Trust meant nothing to the omega, and clearly he wanted to remain the ‘lone-wolf.’ If he couldn’t tell Zara anything, what made him good for the pack? Trust was everything to Archie.

Quietly, Zara creeped out of her room and down the stairs to see that her mother was nowhere to be found, but there was a note in the kitchen stating that the deputy would be working late yet again. She wished she could tell her mother everything, all of the supernatural stuff afoot, but she didn’t want to drag her into a world that Zara couldn’t get out of even if she wanted to. Zara went back to her room and settled into her sleeping bag after turning off the lights, but still kept the window open.

At about 2 AM, the sound of boots thumping onto the ground near her head woke Zara up. Knowing who it was, the girl jumped up rapidly, blinking away her sleep. In a deep and booming voice, Zara asked, “Where the hell were you?! I want answers! You can’t keep-” She was cut off with soft lips pressing into hers. With wide eyes, Zara looked at Kurtz and began pounding her fists against him to get him to let go, but he had a strong grip against her head, and he was much stronger than her. Then, the noise of a toilet flushing flooded into her room, and the pair heard footsteps retreating into a room and a door shutting. Kurtz pulled away from her then, and Zara was silent in shock. 

“Your mom would’ve heard you screaming. I had to shut you up,” Kurtz whispered with a smirk. Zara still didn’t say anything as the boy brushed past her and laid down on the bed after taking his shoes and jacket off. 

Zara turned to look at Kurtz. She cleared her throat before whispering, “You didn’t answer my questions. Where the hell were you?”

“I don’t need to tell you anything,” he sneered. Then, he pulled the covers over his head. Zara marched over to him and pulled the covers aside. He glared at her, but then smirked. “If you wanna sleep with me, you could’ve just asked instead of being so forceful.” That made Zara flare her nostrils and clench her right hand to punch him. “Just joking. You’re such a short fuse.” Zara still stood next to the bed, and Kurtz sighed. “Listen to me, you don’t want to know what’s going on. It has nothing to do with the case, so I have no reason to tell you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to sleep.” He went to pull up the covers again only to see Zara wrench open the nightstand drawer of where he kept his journal. She took out his journal before he could grab her wrist and walked over to her desk. She then quickly flipped through the pages until her eyes landed on the words “Gryphons and Gargoyles.”

“So, you’re still playing the game? You know, the game that caused your betas to go psycho around town and then Hiram killed them for it!” Zara clenched her jaw and threw the notebook at Kurtz who caught it before it caused too much noise. He watched the girl pace for a bit after putting his journal back in the nightstand and then, she asked, “Who is playing with you? Your pack is dead. Are you trying to create a new one? News flash, you freak, when an alpha loses his entire pack, they are no longer alpha. You can’t just recruit a fresh batch of mindless teens.”

“I’m not trying to recruit. Gryphons and Gargoyles isn’t just a game,” Kurtz huffed out, getting intensely angry by the minute.

“No, of course not. It’s also where you get your fix of fizzle rocks, you junkie,” Zara spat out. Seething, Kurtz got up from bed in a flash and raced towards the girl to pin her against the wall roughly. 

He whispered, “I have tolerated enough from you tonight. My lifestyle isn’t harming anyone, so stop butting into my business. Your weak, mortal ass couldn’t stop me anyways.” He let Zara go and went back to bed. Zara rubbed her arms after the tight pressure on them and decided not to prolong the argument. She fell asleep in her sleeping bag soon after.

[elisa-gabrielle-brianne]

Fictober #4 entry for “I know you didn’t ask for this”

Original Fiction

Want the whole story?

After being photographed attending the matinee, which Ellis complained about, and going to a dinner that Ellis didn't eat, Felipe had thankfully found peace and quiet for a few precious minutes hiding in a hotel lobby bathroom. Lillian Frost had, thankfully, found out that Ellis was in New York and called to have a meeting with her about her upcoming role opposite Xavier.

This left Felipe alone for the rest of the night and hopefully longer. He splashed water on his face and plotted his next move. He wanted badly to go visit the store where Xavier had met Erika but didn't know how to approach it.

If the photographers, whom he was almost positive Ellis had tipped off, were still around and attempted to follow him, he'd hardly be able to get much insight into the woman his secretly single friend was smitten with. He took a long breath and walked into the lobby slowly. It seemed the vultures had left, and he took it as his cue to follow.

As he crossed the street, he passed by a redheaded woman who'd clearly been crying and what he assumed was her boyfriend who had caused it. The woman was wearing sunglasses even though the lights of the city had replaced the sun an hour or two earlier and he could hear the man saying something about her being too good for “most men.”

Felipe shook his head, remembering himself using lines like that after doing something to make a woman cry. He wanted to tell the woman it was probably true, this jerk in a hoodie didn't deserve her tears, and offer to buy her a drink. Then again, that drink would probably lead to another and maybe even another, ultimately ending the night in a bed together which was the kind of thing he was trying not to do anymore and one of the reasons he was stuck in this arrangement with Ellis to begin with.

Besides, he thought looking up at the giant children's store in front of him, I have far more important things to do tonight, so he kept on walking. Inside he examined every worker on the first floor before heading up the elevator and starting his search up there.

Finding her in a room full of people wasn't going to be easy. He'd heard about Erika many times, but he'd only ever seen one picture. It was a blurry group shot with Xavier and at least one other person. It was somewhere in Brooklyn and they'd taken a picture with a cow on a leash. It came as part of a text that Felipe had of course deleted that raved about an urbanite who turned a pet cow into a creamery business.

Felipe had thought how New Yorkers were weird, but he remembered loving the message because blurry Xavier had looked so happy. So, she was probably weird, or rather eccentric, but everyone was wearing a uniform, so her clothing wasn't going to help give her away.

She drank coffee a lot, he remembered coffee in some of Xavier' stories which meant she might be hyper. Oh, but they'd meet after work so maybe she'd look tired.

She wore glasses sometimes—she'd forgotten them the day Xavier and she went to see a cartoon festival where there was a short in which Felipe voiced a lawn mower that fell in love with a Rake. He remembered the story of how close to the screen they had to sit and how Xavier gushed over how her "squinty eyes and wrinkled nose looked like a cute bunny watching a movie."

The elevator opened and Felipe attempted to find a white girl with light-ish hair (assuming she hadn't dyed it), around thirty who was either wearing glasses or not with a nose of some sort that looked either hyper or sleepy.

"Piece of cake" he mumbled, as he walked towards a table of T-shirts being knocked over and refolded by one of the three workers who fit the description.

"Hi. Excuse me," Felipe started. The glasses-less blond looked up.

"Are you?" she said, almost scowling. "You're Felipe O’Shane. Son of a bitch."

She threw a shirt down.

“That’s not the first time I’ve been greeted that way,” Felipe shined his ample teeth, “but I’m pretty sure we’ve never met.”

"Listen Dreamboat,” She calmed down a bit. “I'm sure you're really nice but I hate you as collateral damage."

People had very strong feelings about Ellis, and it sometimes led people to attack him. Plus, his characters had done some rather horrible things, so it wasn't unheard of that fans lashed out at him for their doings. After a second look at her less angry face, the T-shirt girl looked familiar. Perhaps she was in the picture.

"Are you Erika?"

"That's a no," she tossed her hair. "Why are you asking about Erika? She’s not working today."

"We have a common friend," Felipe smiled and looked at her name tag. "Rachel, that's a nice name."

With that, Rachel started twisting another shirt, as if her name being spoken by his voice had released a venom she needed to wring out of her hands.

"Your friend is an asshole." She snapped her head up so they were eye to eye, her teeth gritted in a smile. "Now please, if you could be so kind as to get the hell out of here before I get my ass fired."

Felipe backed away and jogged down the escalator. It appeared Erika's coworkers weren't nearly as nice as Xavier claimed she was. When he reached the bottom, he saw the tear stained face of the crying girl from earlier talking to one of the men downstairs.

"Well it's inconvenient, Erika, but you need to heal. Thanks for stopping by with a progress report," Felipe heard the man say as he put his arm around the girl. She started to walk toward the door.

"Holy shit," Felipe whispered. "That’s her." Having realized he needed to get her attention, he started calling her name and waving his arms over his head.

He was a semi-well-known actor with his face on buses drawing attention to himself, but he panicked, and it worked. Erika stopped and turned around. When she saw him, he could see her eyes get visibly larger.

"Don't worry, I was going to wait for you right outside, Dave." She hollered back before existing.

When Felipe got outside, she was true to her word, standing just left of the door.

“Hi,” he extended his hand. “I’m Fel-”

"Two months ago my life was sane," she said, tears coming to her eyes again. "I was normal and boring. Strange men weren't coming to my job!”

"I'm so sorry," Felipe handed her a tissue as she pressed on.

“I wasn't eating large meals at four am. I'd watch TV, work, maybe read, but you know what? I liked it. I didn't care that I was coasting through life. I don’t want chaos and I hate, I fucking hate drama. The only reasons I went to acting school at all is because most actors fail, so nobody would be surprised or disappointed in me. And because it’s all fake, even if you succeed nothing is real and nobody knows you, they just think they do but it’s not really you.”

Her eyes were saucers and her face had become a deep scarlett as she reached a hysterical pitch. “But now this isn’t fake, it’s real. This is my life and it’s too much. I want boring.”

“Breathe,” he steadied her shaking frame. “Please?”

Erika nodded between sobs.

“My name is Felipe, Who's Dave?"

Erika started to laugh. "Funny."

Felipe joined in. "But really, who's Dave? I saw you crying with your boyfriend before. Is that Dave?"

This time Erika laughed so hard she started to cough. "It was a code name. I couldn't exactly say Felipe O’Shane, famous actor, currently in theaters everywhere playing the guy who created cell phones."

"Right, I'm an idiot," he said, rubbing his stubble. "But hey you stopped crying." He smiled a toothy grin.

"True," she sighed. "And Blake is not my boyfriend."

"Oh, well I just assume when a girl is crying with a guy, he's the reason."

"Blake's not the reason I was crying, but that's a story for another day."

"Or today, we could get coffee. Xavier tells me you like coffee."

Erika took in a deep breath. That was possibly the worst thing she could hear today.

"Rain check, I'm not feeling up to it today." She put her hand on his arm. "It was nice to meet you and maybe we can talk again some other time."

She turned to walk away before looking back over her shoulder.

"Oh when you talk to Xavier tell him I send my sincere congratulations on the baby."

According to Xavier, he and Erika had only kissed—barely. Felipe stared at her leaving, dumbstruck until he Goggled Xavier's name. Three outlets were reporting a pregnancy rumor.

"Fuck my life," he hit the phone against his head. "I'm gonna kill Ellis."

[fatesfeateda]

((I don’t feel well today but I did finally get to finish a small progression story about Kather and Kindness. Heavy trigger warning here for drugs, violence, needles, torture, death, suffocation and limb loss.))

   “Come on, Alan. Please. I’ll give you anything just name your price.” Kather was practically begging at this point and Alan couldn’t decide if he wanted to yell or just shove Kather out of his apartment. Alan looked to his friend Bes, a fat rat monster, who was sitting on the couch watching all this happen. He gestured to Kather trying to get Bes to help but all she did was shrug and give him a look that read ‘What do you expect me to do?’. Alan sighed deeply turning back to look at Kather.

   “No, Kat. I’m not… I’m cutting you off dude.” Kather looked on the brink of tears at that point as he tugged at his fingers nervously. He felt like he was going to vomit, he felt like the entire world was coming after him and he just needed one little hit. That’s all, he didn’t need anything else. Just one hit and he’d be golden, right?

   “Why? You know my money is good. I can pay more. Just… Just give me a price, Alan.” Kather took a step closer to his ex who immediately took a step back. He looked to Bes again silently pleading for help. This time though she stood up and approached Kather, gently placing her hand on his shoulder.

   “Kat, you got a problem.” She didn’t bother beating around the bush for this going straight to the point. Kather looked like he’d just been hit then and his heart practically sunk into his stomach. A problem? What did she mean by that? He didn’t have a problem. He had a solution! He had a cure! This was helping him, didn’t they see that? Didn’t they see how much braver he was when he was strung out? Didn’t they see how much happier he was? So why were they stopping him?  Wh̡y ̨w̷er͜e th̵e̛y̛ ͡t͜ry̛in̶g to͏ ̵g̛et ͞i̢n ̨h͢is ͟w̡a҉y̨ ͏of h̨app͟i̸n҉ess?̵!́

   “No I don’t!” He snapped out a sudden surge of anger flickering in his thoughts. The only problem he had was that his so called ‘friends’ were trying to get in his way! They were trying to separate him from help!

   “I’m fixing problems! I’m dealing with my problems! This is not a problem! This is my solution!” He slammed his foot on the ground like a child being denied candy. He was starting to sweat and his hands were shaking. Agitation was bubbling up and a familiar voice in his head was telling him to give in to this new found anger.

   “It’s not a solution dude!” Alan spoke up pulling Kather’s attention from Bes back to him. “This is fucked up! We use to hang out together and actually do shit! But now when you come over all you want to do is get strung out and act like you’re brave. But look at you! You’re not brave with this shit! It just makes you more of a god damn coward!”

   Bes looked taken back by her friends words and glanced to Kather who was starting to tear up now. He felt a mix of anger and sadness boiling in his gut. He felt like he’d just been kicked in the cut with a steel toed boot. He͠ fe̷lt҉ ̡b͝et͞r͘ay̶ed.͠

   “Alan!” Bes snapped narrowing her eyes and glaring at her friend. She knew that was the last thing Kather needed to hear right now. He already had problems with feeling like a coward, everyone and their dog knew that. Having someone he cared about and felt close to tell him that wasn’t going to help. Especially when his emotions were already unstable.

   “You act like some big brave hero when you’re strung out but no! You’re just a bigger god damn coward then usual! You’re not facing your problems, you’re not dealing with ‘em! You’re just hiding behind drugs and a façade! Look at what this shit is doing to you too!” Alan grabbed Kather’s wrist and held his arm up, using his other hand to shove Kather’s sleeve down. Kather’s arm was covered in scars, burn marks and traces of where needles had punctured his skin. Kather tried to pull his arm away but Alan’s grip only tightened on him. Flashes of his dad holding his arm like this flashed in his arm and Kather began struggling more to pull away.

   “Let me go!” Kather yelled desperate to escape. Bes stepped up gently trying to gently push them both away from each other. But Alan used his elbow to shove her away, catching her off guard and making her stumble back.

   “Look at this shit Kather! This isn’t fucking healthy! This isn’t right! This-” Alan was cut off when a surge of aggression raced through Kather’s system. He pulled his free hand back, formed it into a fist and punched Alan straight in the cheek. Alan didn’t let go though he just froze and Kather felt the need to act again. He shoved himself forward knocking Alan off his feet and landing on top of him. Typical golden eyes suddenly taking a hint of green to them as he began pulling his fist back and hitting Alan repeatedly. Alan tried shoving him off only to get his hand bitten. Kather didn’t even seem to realize what was going on as green took further over his eyes and a grin was threatening to spread.

   Bes finally jumped in grabbing Kather and pulling him off as though he weighed nothing to her, which he actually did. She held him back as he squirmed and snapped trying to grab at Alan. He didn’t speak or make any other noise other than his teeth clacking together.

   “Kat! What the fuck!? Are you fucking nuts?!” Bes yelled using one arm to hold his body back and the other to grab his flailing fist. Alan stood up coughing out a tooth and blood, looking at the tooth on the ground then to Kather. He stared in shock and hurt at his friends’ sudden change in personality. Kather had never hurt anyone before, hell he didn’t even hurt bugs! So why the sudden change? The only conclusion Alan could come to was it was a side effect of withdrawals. Alan glared at his friends and slowly got off the ground to his feet. He brushed himself off and turned to face away from both his friends.

   “Bes. Take him out of here.” He commanded as though Bes was his personal body guard. Bes looked up bewildered, her grip still tight on her much smaller friend who was starting to calm already. The green from Kather’s eyes was fading as quickly as they’d come and he was starting to look around confused about what had just happened. He noticed the small amount of blood and tooth on the ground then looked to Alan. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

   “Alan, no! He needs our help! We can’t just-” Bes was cut off as Alan turned to glare at her, tears were brimming in his eyes and it was obvious he was taking shaky breaths trying to calm himself.

   “Take him out of here. Now!” He snapped trying to seem more angry then actively hurt. Both his friends were silent just staring in shock for a moment. Bes was the first to act, turning on her heel still holding Kat and taking him to the door. She open the door with one hand and put Kather outside the door. She glanced back to Alan then to Kather with an apologetic look.

   “We’ll talk about this later.” She said closing the door in Kather’s face. Kather stood there a moment just staring at the door as he felt his heart begin to break. What had he done? He didn’t even know. He’d stopped paying attention when Alan had pulled his sleeve down everything during that was a blacked out mess in his head. Kather stepped back leaning against the wall and pulling his knees to his chest. He broke down crying then his entire body shaking with sobs and his chest hurting as though someone had taken his heart out to step on it.

   A voice in his head was trying to console him and tell him it was all okay. The voice spoke calmly, friendly and reassuringly. It explained the situation claiming Alan had just sicked Bes on him and was going to attack him. It was creating an entire story about how two of his closest friends were turning against him now to betray him. Kather didn’t want to listen or hear it but he couldn’t seem to get the voice to stop talking. It just kept going and shoving Kather closer then closer to the edge. He felt like screaming but all that came out was heavier sobs. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to feel this.  H̵e ͢d͝idn’̡t w̵ant to ̸b͠e̡ ̢t҉h҉ere̸.

   He couldn’t say how long he’d been there before someone finally approached him. A kind older woman looking worried for him and dressed in a rather skimpy outfit with the type of heels that made her much taller than she was. She crouched down next to him and spoke up

   “Hun, are you okay? Did somethin’ happen?” Green eyes that had once been gold looked up to meet her dull gray eyes. He blinked a moment and suddenly felt a grin threatening to show through. He shook his head and wiped at his eyes trying to come off as pitiful. He had to play up this of a hurt child.

   “Y̕es. No̶.̢ ͟I͡ d̡o͞n̸’t͠ ́kn̸o̴w.̨ ” A voice that was still young sounding yet distinctly not Kather’s spoke up. He sniffled and rubbed at his eyes silently blessing his host for being such a crybaby. The woman looked more concerned then but put on a kind smile, placing her hand on his shoulder.

   “Hey, it’s okay. Tell me what happened.” She said gently and falling straight into Kindness’ trap. Kindness looked up to her then towards the rickety stairs that led up to the abandoned rooms at the top of the apartment building. A plan was forming in his head and he needed to act on it as soon as possible.

   “I̛… I ̸was u̵ps̸t̸ąi͝r͏s̷… ́J̡ust͘…҉ J̨us͟t looking ͘an̴d͠ I ̶saw…͡ I͏…” Suddenly he covered his ears and lowered his head trying to act like he was attempting to block something out. He shook his head fearful and trembling. The woman looked to the stairs then back to Kindness. She frowned for a moment as she thought.

   “What did you see?” She asked. “There shouldn’t be anything up there. It’s all abandoned.”

   Kindness took a deep shaky breath in letting air fill his lungs as he shook his head rapidly trying to act like he’d seen something horrible. He was trying to copy the actions he’d seen happen to Kather whenever Kather had a panic attack. He’d never been a terribly good actor though but all he had to do was make this silly woman believe.

   “M̧y b̵a͠g and͢ all mý m̸on͢ey͘… ͞Ìt̷’̸s u̵ṕ ̵t҉here.̶ B͟ut͢…͡ ̵I͡… I͘ ̷can’͞t ̧g͞o ̕u̵p͜ ́t͝her̕e b͝y myse̵lf̶.” He shook his head hard and pulled his knees to his chest. The woman looked thoughtful again before smiling kindly at him. She stood up, held her too short skirt so not to flash him and offered her hand to him.

   “Then you don’t have to go up there alone. I’ll go with you, okay?” She offered her voice was hoarse like someone that smoked too much but she was certainly kind looking. She almost seemed pretty but in an average sort of way. Kindness looked at her hand then followed it up her arm to her face. He made himself appear like he was debating it then slowly took her hand. She helped him up and led the way up the three flights of stairs to the abandoned apartments.

    At the top of the final set of stairs she stopped and looked around at each of the rooms. She then looked back to Kindness, kindly smiling at him trying to keep being reassuring to him. He almost wanted to laugh about how easy this all had been and how easy he’d tricked her. But he kept up his scared child act.

   “Do you remember which room it was in?” She asked him. He looked around at each room looking for a door that was even partially open. Then he saw it, at the end of the hall on the right, a door open just a crack. He pointed to it wordlessly and she led the way. She gently pushed open the door and walked in looking around for anything amiss.

    The room was in shambles, glass broken on the ground, trash littering everything and furniture covered in dust and piss. It didn’t look like anyone was there at the moment though. Exactly as Kindness needed it. He closed the door behind them and frowned at the fact that the door’s lock was broken. So instead he moved while she searched and shoved at the fridge pushing it over in front of the door. The noise it made when it fell made the poor woman jump and spin around to face him. She looked to the fridge then to him and opened her mouth to speak but was cut off when suddenly a green bubble appeared around her. She screamed yet her voice was muffled almost to the point of silence in the bubble. Kindness grinned and began to make the bubble smaller around her. It was time for some tests he’d been dying to try…

    She was begging for him to stop, to help her and trying to bargain her way out of this as he kept making the bubble smaller around her. Yet he didn’t stop he just kept going until there was no room around her and even then he kept squeezing. She screamed out in pain and he heard a crunching noise. He lifted her high off the ground, touching her to the ceiling then just dropped her. She landed on the ground with a thud, a huff and a sob. Kindness’ flattened the bubble shield to a flat shield and quickly pulled it down on top of her forcing her from a fetal position to lay flat so she’d be less crushed. Her right leg was still bent back though and Kindness could see a bit of bone poking at her skin looking like an odd lump.

   Kindness approached and poked at the lump, she yelped and tried to pull her leg away. She kicked at him with her free leg but in response he just built a shield to separate himself from her and held the shield around her broken leg so tightly it almost felt like it’d cut off blood circulation. He tilted his head in thought and then used the generated shield to act as a make shift cast around her broken leg. He tightened it and straightened it until there was another cracking sound, something popping and her screaming out in pain. He’d shoved the broken bone back into what he assumed was its original position. He grinned to himself over that and mumbled the comment.

    “I k̀neẁ ͟I̡ ͟c҉ou҉l͢d͠ u̢s͡e̢ ͟th̶i҉s fór b͟ett̛e͢r̛ ͡m̨e̕d͜i̡c̡a͏l҉ p̴urp̢o͏s͠es͏.̶ ” The woman was pleading for him to stop again. Repeating ‘please’ quietly in hopes that he’d have mercy and just let her go. Every time she tried to move he’d just reform a shield around her to keep her pinned on the ground. He could only manage two shields at a time though and had to keep an eye on both her and his ‘experiments’. He hummed a little and looked at her

    “P͝l͟e̡a͡şe͠? ͡A̧re̸ yo͡u t̴hat̵ des͏pera͝t͟e f͏or͜ i̷t t̕o ̛be͜ fi͞x͞e̵d̴? ͟H͘mm͝.. ̴Maybe ͝iţ’d͘ ͏jưsţ b̀e̷ ̵b͘e͞t̸t҉er͘ ̡if we ̧c̕út ͟įt҉ off.͢ ” He commented lifting the shield acting as a cast from around her leg and forming it to be thin and stand straight up. It almost looked like a guillotine and she was starting to scream again. He moved shield surrounding her body so it’d surround her head instead and muffle her cries. He pulled the guillotine shield down straight onto her leg making her jump yet remaining pinned by the shield holding her head. Blood began to spill and she squirmed trying to escape. Kindness moved closer to inspect the damage he’d done. He glanced to her head as she kept squirming. He knew she’d bleed out in no time so he had to perform one final experiment quickly. He stepped toward her face and crouched down to look at her eyes.

   “I͜ wond̕er ͟w̵h͝ich̕ you͘’͠l̴ĺ di͏e̕ ͢from f͡i̶r͢st. B͏le̴e̴din̵g ͘out o̸r suf́f̷o͠c͝at̛i͠on͝.̢ ” It was a rhetorical idea really. He knew which she’d die from first. But he just wanted to have some “fun” now. With a snap of his fingers all the air in the shield bubble around her head was let out and she began gasping for air. Her eyes rolled back as she twitched and fought trying to survive. Barely a few seconds past before she stopped moving, giving up the “game” Kindness was playing with her and resigning to her fate to just die there. Kindness’ grin fell and he stood walking to her ribs so he could start kicking her with all his might making her twitch a bit.

   “I’m͡ no̢t͝ ͝d̸o͜ne̵ y̸e̵t̵! ͡Mo͝v̛e!” He yelled at her trying to make her move and fight again. Yet she remained still and soon became unresponsive to his kicking her. He growled and slammed his foot down into the middle of her back, he heard a snap from that then took his foot back. He clenched his fists tightly letting a breath out of his nose. He had to calm down, he had to relax. He had to give up return. He had to act innocent…

   Gold eyes opened slowly, Kather stumbled back, tripped over the body and landed next to it. At the very sight of what had occurred he felt a loud scream escape him and quickly he scurried back covering his mouth in shock. He looked around the entire room looking for a sign of what had happened yet finding nothing. In his head a familiar voice began to speak up. It sounded frantic, a touch frightened and concerned even.

   “Ka̧t̶h̢e̢ri̧ne! ̡K̀a͜t͘h͘er͜i͘ne!͢ ̶C̡a͜n ̕yơu ̨he̵a̧r m͜e͡?̡! ̴W͝h͜a͘t di͢d͝ y͝ou ͜d͟o҉?͠! ” It asked in a frantic desperate attempt looking for an explanation. Though it didn’t need one. It knew exactly what had happened. Kather shook his head and uncovered his mouth.

   “I… I don’t… Oh god… I didn’t…” There was blood everywhere. The woman’s face was still contorted into a terrified expression. Tears were brimming and quickly escaped when he noticed the blood on his hoodie. He did… He had… He’d killed her…

   “Ìt’s ͝oka̸y.̛ It’s ̨o̴k̴a̕y̨,̢ li͟s̴ten we͡’re gǫi͠ng ̶to͞ l͏eąv͡e̵. We͟’r̸e͘ no̷t̴ g͏o̡in͟g ̀t҉o ̀te̡ll a̧ny͘one̴ wh̶a̵t̡ ̕ha͠ṕpeņe͞d. I͡ ͜forgi̵v͝e ̴yòu̡ ҉Ka͡t̢h̡e͡r.̸ ͟But̕ n̶o one͢ ͠el̛se w̴i̕ll̷. ͟Th̕e͜y҉'r̕e̛ ͏al̨l ̨g̴o͏ín͟g͏ ̡to̴ h̸a̵te ýo͠u̶.̀” The voice spoke trying to settle down Kather. Kather’s legs trembled as he tried to get to his feet. He slipped and fell again a sob escaping him as he did. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he didn’t want to hurt anyone. Yet here he was. He’d attacked Alan, killed this poor woman and there was nothing he could do about it… He was a murderer… The voice read his mind and spoke *“You can’t turn yourself in! Do you know what will happen to us if you turn yourself in?! You need to leave. You need to leave now!”

   Finally he got his strength back and he ran. He went straight for the broken window, climbing onto the rickety fire escape and running. Running as fast as he could from what he’d just done.

[wandering5280milesabovesea]

Venting session

Colorado is covered in snow, and I’m not quite ready for this part of the year.

Slow drivers, dumb drivers, bad tires. You name it, Colorado has it.

Anyways, I’m not here to talk about the snow, I’m here to vent a little.

Side note: If you don’t wanna hear my sob story, don’t read any further. 

K. Thanks.

Life has been up and down lately, with more downs than ups.

I’m trying REALLY hard to remain positive, trust me.

This morning I took an hour long shower.

15 of that was washing myself.

45 of that was sobbing from being so damn overwhelmed.

Life has been throwing me so many lemons, I don’t even have the time to make lemonade.

I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and I’m not making any progress.

I feel like I’m the only one trying in 98% of my friendships/relationships and it’s fucking draining.

I think back to how my life was a year ago today, and honestly I’d take that life back. It was chaos and I didn’t know where I was going, but it was a simple. Life was simple compared to the shit-show it is now. 

I’m suffocating.

I don’t feel like I belong here.

And that is one of the worst feelings I’ve ever felt.

I cried in the shower this morning for 45 minutes while my boyfriend sat in the other room.

In his defense he didn’t know.

But, he also doesn’t know because a large portion of my being overwhelmed is coming from him and what he has going on too.

And it’s not entirely his fault. ( honestly, I don’t really think it’s his fault at all, that’s why I keep my mouth shut)

But, when you live with someone that’s what happens right?

Their problems become yours and vice versa.

My boyfriends mom is very sick, she’s been battling multiple different things on and off for years.

This last year...

 A-fib, Pnuemonia, you name it she’s probably had it.

As my boyfriend tells the Doctors...

“The list of things she doesn’t have is shorter than the list that she does have.”

Her illnesses have changed our lives dramatically.

My boyfriend has always taken care of his mother, before me, and he will if there’s ever an after me.

He loves her and I can see that, hell I love her too.

But, its draining. And I don’t say that in a complaining I don’t want to do this type of way.

But, she has kept us up all hours of the night for the last two weeks from hallucinations...

Thinking family members are there, when they aren’t.

Thinking she has to get up and cook when she can hardly even make it to the bathroom.

You guys, my heart is breaking.

I’m watching this tear apart the man I love.

I’m watching him put his life on hold to take care of her. But she always did the same thing for him, so I get it.

My heart breaks because I hate seeing her like this, she’s never been incoherent like she has been this time around.

She’s currently in ICU, and last I heard she was doing okay.

But, I’m worried.

I’ve been told by people I talk to about it...

That if I am unhappy then I should just leave.

Then I asked myself that question probably about two thousand times over the last two weeks... am I happy?

I could come up with a billions reasons why I’m not, I could start firing off all the time times he pissed me off, and how none of this is worth it.

But, here’s the thing....

It is.

To me... it totally fucking is.

We’ve got a huge mountain to climb, and we honestly probably aren’t even halfway done yet, and that’s okay...

Because life isn’t suppose to be easy, and when you find someone who pushes you, someone who challenges you, someone who makes you want to be a better person.

You fight for it.

IF you really WANT something, you’ll do anything to obtain/keep it.

and...

that’s why...

I keep my feelings about him not being as touchy, or my feelings about him pulling away to myself.

Because at the end of the day, he still tells me that he loves me, and I can feel that he does.

I know all the things I want, all the attention I’m craving will come in due time.

He’s stressed and overwhelmed just like  I am.

But times that by 10.

You don’t give up when things get tough. 

There is a reward at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

But this man, I know he loves me. And I know DAMN WELL I love him.

So I’ll fight through whatever.

I’ll push. I’ll shove.

I’ll even cry my way through if it means at the end of this my life can start with him.

I’ve got this. He’s got this. We got this.

Sometimes you just need a little push.

If you read this far, thank you.

I just needed to let it out.

I plan on explaining more in my next blog which I am currently working on.

And, no I don’t know when it’ll be up, but it should be in the next day or two.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

XOXO.

Rebecca

[a-daydreamers-stories]

~So this is a Kozik origin story, song fic. Trigger warning- Drug abuse and Death.

Here’s the song- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0NQbKRoUGI&feature=em-share_video_user ~

Merry, merry, merry go round

I don’t want to see you down

I don’t want to see you frown

Merry go round…

Look…

Summer day

Bobby and this girl would wake up every summer day

This boy and girl had nothing, they were runaways

Kozik POV

The sun came pouring in through the window. I groaned and wrapped my arm around you tighter. I buried my head into your hair to block out the sun. I felt and heard you giggle as my breath tickled your neck. I smiled and kissed it softly.

“Mmm you awake, baby?” You asked.

“No,” I shushed you softly. “I’m sleeping…” I felt you try to wiggle out of my arms and I held you tighter. You let out a frustrated sigh after a bit of trying. I chuckled and bit you softly. You let out a moan and smacked my arm.

“Don’t do that! Jackass…”  You grumbled. I put my head on your shoulder and kissed your cheek softly.

“I’m sorry beautiful. You’re just so damn delicious.” I told you and you giggled and playfully glared at me.

“You’re so fucking cheesy.” You told me.

“Yeah but you love it.” I said.

“Yes I do and I love you.” You said.

“I love you too.” I turned your face towards me and gave you a slow, hard kiss. You kissed back with as much love and adoration as I was putting into it. I ended the kiss with a soft bite to your bottom lip. You let out a shaky breath and opened your eyes to look at me.

“I’m going to marry you.” I said in a whisper. I hadn’t meant to say it but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. I loved you more then anything, I had since our first day of high school, when we met.

“How about we get married when we both have stable jobs and we don’t live in our car anymore?” You suggested. I looked around the trunk of our car that we were currently laying in and nodded.

“Deal, I’m going to get a job and take care of us. I promise, Y/N Kozik.” I kissed you and then started getting ready for the day.

So in love that now all they wanted was pain and so it came

Never had a silver spoon present in the past

Now at last, the spoon is present and so the boy wet it

Told her bring him a slab, a cotton swab, and a match

And told her one day they’ll fly across the world and have a wedding

Like “baby I have a plan, come with me to this place

Baby give me your hand, now flip it give me a vein

Baby take off your belt, we’ll use it as a restraint”

She sees that it starts to melt, he reaches inside a case

Fills the needle with food, flicks the needle with haste

Brings the needle to her, she isn’t right in the face

The boy can tell that she’s scared, he says “I love you, okay?”

Then shoves it into her arm and says “how the fuck does that taste baby?!”

Kozik POV

A couple of days after promising to marry you, I had met some guys who offered me a job. Which wasn’t a bad thing, the downside of it though was it was a job selling heroin. Within the first week of selling I had managed to make enough money to rent us a house. You were so excited when I told you that, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you what I was doing for a job yet.

You were out looking for a job while I was out dealing. After selling, the guys I started dealing for offered me a couple of ounces to go with my payment. Curious about the stuff that I was dealing, I took it. When I got home you weren’t home yet so grabbed one of your belts and loaded some into my arm.

I kept it hidden from you for the next week and a half. You started picking up on the fact that I was hiding something though. You kept pressuring me about it and finally I couldn’t keep it from you anymore.

“Baby please just tell me what’s happening!” You sighed.

“I can’t, okay? Just leave it at that!” I raised my voice slightly.

“Are you cheating on me?” You whispered like you were afraid of your own voice. That made me pause. I never wanted you to think that. I couldn’t even think of anyone else, you were everything to me. I was never going to love anyone else.

“Fuck no! Never, baby.” I sighed and put a hand on your cheek and lifted your face so you were looking in my eyes. “You aren’t going to like what I’m going to tell you.”

“I love you and nothing will change that, Koz.” You said and kissed the palm of my hand softly. I took a deep breath.

“I’m selling heroin…” I told you. “I’ve also been using it.” I waited for your reaction. You looked confused for a second before your mouth opened slightly as it clicked.

“Oh.” You said.

“Oh?” I asked, trying to prompt more out of you.

“Is that why you were able to afford this place so soon?” You asked. I nodded. You bit your lip and thought about everything. “Are you in any danger?”

“Some but it’s worth it. If I can give you everything we’ve ever wanted then it’s all worth it. I’ll make enough money and we can buy a house and I’ll take you to England and we’ll get married. You’ve always wanted to go there.”  I told her.

“Just be safe, we can’t get married if you die on me.” You said. I smiled and kissed you softly.

“You want to try some baby?” I asked.

“Heroin?” You asked.

“Yeah, come on baby it’s a rush! Trust me.” I took your hand softly and lead you to the kitchen. “Take off your belt baby, I’ll use it as a restraint.” You took it off and handed it to me. I flipped your hand and tied the belt to the upper part of your arm. I sat you down in the chair and prepared the needle. When it was ready I flicked it and looked down at you. Nervousness was written clear as day on your face. I kissed you softly and tried to put as much comfort as I could behind it. I pulled back and looked you in the eyes. “I love you, okay?”

“I love you too.” You said and smiled softly at me. I found your vein fast and shoved the needle in. I watched as your eyes started to glaze over and smiled.

“How the fuck does that taste, baby?”

[Hook:]

Merry, merry, merry go round

I don’t want to see you down

I don’t want to see you frown

Merry go round…

Merry, merry, merry go round

I don’t want to see you down

I don’t want to see you frown

Merry, merry, merry go round

See Bobby had joined the army

Been gone for a couple months

she did anything for that feeling

But then she started that feeling, early morning she’s kneelin’

In front of the toilet look at her belly there’s no concealing

That she’s expecting a child

This woman is living foul

She’s only 20 years old

And hardly can even smile

Reader’s POV

Kozik had joined the marines a couple months ago. Cops were busting down on dealing so Kozik figured it would be a steady paycheck until things calmed down and then he would come back to deal again. When he left so did the free heroin he was bringing into the house.

The little stash that we had only lasted a week and then I started buying from the dealers that he was working for. I started stealing money and selling anything that I could to buy more and more. The more I bought, the more I needed. Everything hurt when I stopped using, especially the pain of Kozik being away.

I was so wrapped up in needing hit after hit that I didn’t even notice that my stomach was growing, not until I went to go load up and had the overwhelming urge to throw up. I rushed to the bathroom and knelt in front of the toilet just in time before I threw up. Once my stomach was empty I looked down and took in the growing bump.

I stood up slowly and rinsed my mouth off before looking in the mirror. My skin was covered with sweat and my hair was a mess. My eyes were bloodshot and had bags under them. My hands started to shake and my eyes filled with tears. I let out an angry scream and punched the mirror. Glass flew everywhere and blood started pouring down my hand. I barely paid any attention to it as I walked out and loaded up.

Ultrasound shows a baby that’s barely over a pound

Sold everything in her house just trying to score an ounce

News of her baby’s father was that he died in the war

Now that syringe is all that keeps her alive anymore

No mattress, so her and her child dyin’ on the floor

As a letter’s at the door reading:

“I’ll be home tomorrow. love, Bobby”

Reader’s POV

I went to the clinic just to see if I really was pregnant. When the ultrasound showed my baby, I began to cry. Kozik should be here for this, I shouldn’t be using, this whole situation should be different. I left the clinic and went back home even more depressed than before. I tried to stop for my baby, for Kozik. I managed to make some progress even with the withdrawal hitting me so hard I thought that I was dying.

That was until Kozik’s brother came to visit me. I had managed to clean the house up before he came. I made it like it was before I started using. He had knocked on the door and I opened it. I hadn’t seen him since Kozik and I took off when we were 17 so my eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Can I come in?” He asked. He looked nervous and I nodded. He came in and he took notice of my growing belly. “That’s… are you..?”

“Yeah I am.” I confirmed.

“Is it…?” He started.

“Your brother’s? Yes.” I nodded. He nodded and avoided my eyes.

“Not to be rude but why the hell are you here?” I asked. He took in a deep breath and then looked me in the eyes.

“Herman’s dead, Y/N.” He said. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I looked to the ground, my head swirling.  

“W…What?” I asked. My breathing came faster and I looked at him, desperately hoping that this was a joke.

“Something happened and his ship blew up.” He told me and placed his hand on my shoulder to try and comfort me. I jerked away from him, harshly.

“Get out…” I whispered harshly.

“Look, I know how you feel. I loved my brother.” He said. I didn’t want to hear it though.

“Get out!” I screamed at him. He seemed to take the hint this time and went to the door fast.

“If you or the baby need anything let me know.” He said before leaving the house. Once he was gone, I ran to my room. I found my stash and quickly set up. Just before I stuck the needle in the sobs racked my body. Days went by and I couldn’t get the heroin fast enough. The only time I felt like I could breathe was when I was high. I sold everything that I could to get more money to buy. I couldn’t even keep track of how much I was using just that I kept adding more and more to each hit. The last hit I took three needles at once and passed out on the floor. I didn’t check the mail before that, so I didn’t know about the letter in the mailbox that Kozik had sent saying he’d be back tomorrow.

[Hook:]

Merry, merry, merry go round

I don’t want to see you down

I don’t want to see you frown

Merry go round…

Merry, merry, merry go round

I don’t want to see you down

I don’t want to see you frown

Merry, merry, merry go round

Knockin’ at the door but doesn’t get an answer

Bobby’s nervous, his heart starts to beat faster

He hasn’t talked to his girl in so long

She sold his phone for a hit, damn how he wish that he could hear her laughter

But his drug hit her like a cancer

And he forgot ‘cause he had left and cleaned his act up

Passenger seat in his Acura got a picture of ‘em kissing

Under the words “happily ever after”

Kozik’s POV

I came up to the house that I hadn’t seen in months. I nervously ran a hand through my hair and looked at the picture I kept in my car. It was us sitting in the trunk of it during the time we were staying at the beach. A random tourist had a polaroid camera and asked if we wanted a picture. We had said sure and I kissed you while she was taking it.

Above the picture of us was “happily ever after” written in your handwriting. I smiled and ran a finger over the picture. I set it down in the passenger seat and got out of the car. I walked up to the house and knocked. When you didn’t answer after a couple minutes, I knocked again.

I hadn’t talked to you for a while. The phone I had left with you went out of service a while back. I figured you were still upset with me and started writing letters to you. I looked at the full mailbox and started to panic. I kicked the door in and ran inside.

He walks into the house, it’s a fuckin’ disaster

Every step he takes his shoe crushes a capsule

Holds his breath, he knows what he smells isn’t natural

Looks down, it’s the body of the queen of his castle

“Baby please, baby please!!!”

“Wake up!!!”

He screams on his knees and he sees her hands around her stomach

Inside was a child

And realizes it was his…

Kozik’s POV

The house was bare except for the bottles of alcohol and the capsules that littered the floor. I gagged as the smell hit me, full force. I put my shirt up over my nose and kept walking through the house.

“Baby?” I called for you. I made my way to our room and opened the door. My whole body froze as I saw your hand laying on the floor. I followed it to the rest of your body and my stomach lurched painfully as I noticed how still you were.

“Baby please, baby please!!! Wake up!!!” I rushed to your side and shook you lightly. I kept begging you to wake up as I shook you

“Fuck! Baby! Come on!” I let out a sob as my hands touched your cold cheek and I looked down from your face to see your other hand curled around your stomach. It was a lot bigger then I remembered. I touched it lightly and it suddenly clicked that you were pregnant. I let out a loud and painful scream of anguish that echoed through the empty house.

‘cause a facade made a girl give her love away

But those were Bobby’s consequences that he had to pay

Love is pain

Kozik’s POV

I pulled your cold body close to mine and kissed your forehead softly. I just kept mumbling how sorry I was and how much I loved you as I rocked back and forth slightly.

“It should’ve been me… I started this… I did this to you. I’m sorry baby, forgive me…” I whispered as I pulled the engagement ring I had gotten you out of my pocket and slipped it onto your ring finger. “I love you.” I kissed the knuckle above it lightly and pulled you closer as I sobbed harder than I ever have in my life. I had lost my whole world and it was because of my own stupidity.

[Hook:]

Merry, merry, merry go round

I don’t want to see you down

I don’t want to see you frown

Merry go round…

Merry, merry, merry go round

I don’t want to see you down

I don’t want to see you frown

Merry, merry, merry go round

~Thanks to @juiceboxxortiz for editing! @codenamekaraortiz, @dolphingoddess81~