#hint: they’re both book series

[captainbrookeworm]

Drawing hands 10 years apart!

[blaircmorgan]

Numbers in ACOTAR

This is the first time I'm sharing a theory of mine... I had posted this before on tiktok and Instagram (November 24th, 2023) I am reposting it bc I wasn't satisfied with the layout and it wasn't as detailed as this one. Oh and also English isn't my first language so pls don't mind if theres anything wrong in the grammar or if im bad at explaining xx

There will be SPOILERS for the entirety of ACOTAR series and House of Sky and Breath aka HOSAB!

SJM is known for using numbers like 3, 7, & 13 as symbolic constants in her worldbuilding. They’re familiar, but they’re also intentional. She uses these numbers like most fantasy authors.

However, there are some additional numbers that she has used, which are unusual of her to use and that make them stand out. Let’s take a look at these numbers:

21 & 5

In ACOSF chapter 56 (I will get back to this number later on) Gwyn gifts both Nesta & Emerie a book at Solstice. She tells them both to look at chapter 21 and page 5 (will come back to this number too).

She then tells us that this chapter is about the Valkyries death & Rebirth (aka herself, Nesta and Emerie).

“At the top of the first page, it merely said, Chapter Twenty-One.”

Notice how Twenty-One is written in cursive? Coincidence? I think not. SJM wanted us to notice this.

I noticed the unusual use of number 21 & 5. This was the first time SJM had used these numbers, so I did as Gwyn said. I checked chapter 21 and page 5 of each ACOTAR books to see what the key points of each chapter and page were. Then I also did some research on the number (21) itself as well.

Symbolism of 21

The number 21 in literature isn’t just a number. The number has been found in various works like art, mythology and literature. The number has been used to serve as a symbol of “completion, transition, or personal growth.”  More so the number has also been used to portray “characters’ coming-of-age, spiritual evolution, or a turning point in the narrative.”

As we hear from Gwyn, she made Merill add the Valkyries in a book, in chapter 21. We see that there is a turning point in the narrative with the Rebirth of the Valkyries.

The number is also used in the Bible. It is associated with resurrection. Death and Rebirth.

Now let’s ask ourselves this: Which two characters are associated with Death & Rebirth in ACOTAR?

Answer: Azriel & Elain

“I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. The only bridge of connection … that knife.” - A Court of Wings and Ruin

(Fawn symbolizes Rebirth)

CHAPTER 21

ACOSF

In ACOSF chapter 21 we see Nesta having a conversation with Elain. The conversation is about wether or not Elain should be scrying for the Dread Troves.

Elain wants to do it, but Nesta doesn’t want Elain to do it. With this they have an argument and Nesta says:

“Look at who decided to grow claws after all (...) Maybe you’ll become interesting at last, Elain.”

“Find me when you wish to begin.”

We see that Elain doesn’t want to just sit and be quiet anymore, she wants to do more, be more involved with helping. There is a turning point in the narrative here and perhaps even a hint at who the next book is about

Let’s also not forget the Feysand bonus chapter is right after chapter 21 so it could count as 21.5 & Feysand talked about Elain: “Let’s focus on helping one sister before we start on the other.” A hint to say  we will first read about Nesta, then Elain.

“I think she’s kind, and I’ll take kindness over nastiness any day. But I also think we haven’t yet seen all she has to offer (…) Don’t forget that gardening often results in something pretty, but it involves getting one’s hand dirty along the way.” “And thorn up by thorns” - Feysand Bonus

Feysand are talking about how there is more to Elain than we know.

ACOTAR

In ACOTAR chapter 21 we see Feyre at Calanmai.

“Everything about the stranger radiated sensual grace and ease. High Fae, no doubt. His short black hair gleamed like a raven’s feathers, offsetting his pale skin and blue eyes so deep they were violet, even in the firelight. They twinkled with amusement as he beheld me.”

This is the moment Feyre meets Rhys. This is the moment where we the readers get introduced to him as well. With Feyre meeting Rhys, there becomes a turning point in the story and as readers we knew Rhysand was going to have a bigger impact on Feyre’s story.

ACOMAF

In ACOMAF chapter 21 we see Feyre at the Weaver’s cottage.

“I froze, the ring now in my pocket of my jacket.”

Feyre gets the ring Rhysand’s mother had given to the Weaver. Rhys’s mother had said only his bride would be able to retrieve it from the Weaver (Which Feyre ofc did) and this ring ends up being Feyre’s engagement ring. Rhys had told Feyre about the ring after she had retrieved it. When they got engaged this ring was important (It’s even on the cover of ACOMAF). Feyre become the first High Lady wearing this ring. A turning point in the narrative; High Lady of Night Court.

ACOWAR

In ACOMAF chapter 21 we see Nesta is starting to train her powers (after being Made) with Amren. Not only that, but we also find out that Feyre is going to the Prison.

“To find my sister and Amren. To see which of them was still standing after their first lesson” “The fewer people who knew about my trip tomorrow to see the Carver, the safer it was”

Nesta training with Amren becomes important for Nesta’s character arc in ACOWAR, but it also becomes important for ACOSF. It also can be seen as a hint given by SJM about Nesta potentially getting her own book (Which she eventually got and again her training her powers were important.

And with Feyre going to the Prison, we get a climpse of Feyre’s future. The Bone Carver shows himself as her son to Feyre.

ACOFAS

In ACOFAS chapter 21 we get into Cassian’s POV for the first time (If we don’t count Wings and Embers). We see that there is something going on between Cassian and Nesta (hinting on the next book is theirs as SJM said; She put breadcrumbs in ACOFAS for the upcoming spin-off books in this book)

“He remained staring after her, that present in his hands. Cassian’s fingertips dug into the soft wood of the small box. He was grateful the streets were empty when he hurled that box into the Sidra.”

Cassian throws away the gift he had gotten for Nesta as she rejects it. This gift was important enough for Cassian to give to Nesta, but when she rejects it, he gets rid of it (seems familiar to another moment right?) The gift gets brought up once again in ACOSF.

(Added: Oh, I just remembered this; let’s not forget Feyre’s birthday is on the 21st of December! And she is 21 when she gives birth to Nyx! Again, Feyre’s birthday was a turning point in the world itself, if Feyre hadn’t been born that day, Prythian could still have been under Amarantha’s rule. with Nyx’s birth, we get a turning point in Feyre’s story, she’s having her own family with her husband/mate and the kid is the heir of Night Court —> Next High Lord)

PAGE 5

Cassian throws away the gift he had gotten for Nesta as she rejects it. This gift was important enough for Cassian to give to Nesta, but when she rejects it, he gets rid of it (seems familiar to another moment right?) The gift gets brought up once again in ACOSF.

ACOTAR & ACOMAF

In ACOTAR, page 5 is where Feyre shoots the wolf (Andras) with her ash arrow. This becomes the beginning of the turning point in Feyre’s story. She shoots a Fae, which leads to her ending up in the Spring Court.

In ACOMAF, page 5 we see Feyre struggling and dealing after everything she had endured Under The Mountain. This also becomes a turning point in Feyre’s story, it’s important for us readers to see, to understand and feel with her. We see that she isn’t doing well mentally.

ACOWAR & ACOFAS & ACOSF

In ACOWAR, there isn’t any pages with the number 5 and that is because Part 1 of the book is there. The Part is called “Princess of Carrion” which is a title given to Feyre.

In ACOFAS, page 5 the twins Naula & Cerridwen get’s mentioned several times. (Who are they friends with? Elain. And who do they get trained by and work for? Azriel.)

And last but not least, ACOSF, page 5 does not exist once again. The fifth page is Part 1 of the book and the Part is called: “Novice”

Novice means: a person who has just started learning or doing something.

This is an indication to Nesta’s journey, her being a Novice in the beginning of her book.

NUMBER 56

(HOSAB SPOILER!)

Now let’s get back to this number before we conclude this whole theory.

Did SJM also give us a hint from HOSAB?

In HOSAB there is someone called BansheeFan56. Now look at the username/address once again... Number 56!

Again, this isn’t a number SJM typically uses and for some reason this number stood out and then I noticed something...

In what chapter did Gwyn give the Solstice gift of Chapter 21 to Nesta & Emerie? (and basically us)

Answer: Chapter 56.

I guess SJM do love to use numbers as a hinting tool

CONCLUSION

Now with everything we know about Chapter 21 & page 5, we can come to the conclusion of who the next book is going to be focusing on.

In ACOSF chapter 21, Nesta notices that Elain is growing. In the bonus chapter 21.5, Feysand talks about how they will focus on helping Elain, after helping Nesta. Nesta’s self healing journey has been written, but her journey may not be over yet. I do think we will see more of her, but I don’t think there will be huge focus on her again like in ACOSF.

It’s time for us to focus on Elain now and there is a lot to discover about Elain.

SJM did say each book in the spin off will focus on a couple and Nessian has had their book now, so I’m certain that Nesta won’t get another book or trilogy.

Numbers has become a pattern in the ACOTAR series.

3 brothers, 3 sisters, 3 stars, 3 peaks, 3 mountains, 7 courts, 7 High Lords etc, but now we can also add 21 & 5 into this.

Chapter 21 gives us a hint for something important that is happening or going to happen

page 5 shows us some turning points as well.

The 21st chapter becomes key to the book and the upcoming one. And the 21st chapter of ACOSF hints for the upcoming book to be Elain's and most likely have Azriel as the love interest since he got a bonus chapter in ACOSF, like Cassian got a bonus chapter in ACOMAF.

Plus both Bonus chapters are focused on Elain as well.

With all that said, I want to say thank you to my friends who has helped and supported me with this theory. And also thank you (reader) for taking your time to read about my theory about SJM’s use of numbers. I hope it makes sense for you guys as it does for me and I hope you enjoyed reading this <33

I also like to thank our Gwynie for giving us the hint that the next book is focusing on Elain <3

[beloveds-embrace]

☕ anon here

Hear me out. Quiet duchess with highly specialized interests that she can't shut up about. Maybe Kyle or Simon accompanies her on a walk outside and she spots a butterfly species like the black swallowtail and starts yapping happily about how the bright colors are supposed to help ward off predators or something, and how to tell the difference between male and female. And then goes on to talk about the differences between butterflies and moths, how they're all lepidopterans but vastly different, etc. And they're just absolutely SHOCKED about how much information spews out of duchess because it's the most excited anyone has ever seen her, to the point of almost concern.

It doesn't even have to be insects like that, it could be plants. Or jewelry. Gems and minerals. Or maybe even a big oral essay on her favorite character from a book series and why they're her favorite character because of XYZ intricacies. Hyper invested duchess my beloved 💖

YES YES YES YES

It had started as a quiet walk. Simon wasn’t much for conversation, and you had always been comfortable in silence. It was a mutually agreeable arrangement- one that allowed you both to enjoy the crisp morning air without the exhausting expectation of small talk.

And then you saw the butterfly.

It had fluttered past, landing delicately on a nearby shrub, its vibrant wings a striking contrast against the greenery. Without thinking, you had stepped forward, tilting your head as you observed it with growing excitement.

“Oh!”

Simon barely had a moment to register the shift before words- so many words- came spilling out of you.

“That’s a Red Admiral! You can tell by the bright orange bands along the wings- see? They’re warning colors, meant to deter predators. Some butterflies mimic toxic species for protection, but these ones are actually unpalatable to birds!”

Simon blinked.

You turned to him suddenly, eyes bright, gesturing toward the butterfly with enthusiasm he had never seen from you before.

“Did you know you can tell the difference between males and females just by looking at their forewings? Males have these little scent scales they use to attract mates- oh! And butterflies and moths, even though they’re both lepidopterans, are so different! Butterflies have clubbed antennae, while moths have feathery or filamentous ones! And their resting positions- moths keep their wings flat or tented, but butterflies close theirs!”

You were still talking- excitedly- and Simon was still staring.

Not because he wasn’t interested. No, he was listening, genuinely- but mostly because he had never seen you like this before.

Ever.

Their quiet, reserved duchess- the same woman who could sit in silence for hours, who struggled to speak even a handful of words in company- was rattling off information faster than he could process.

And you were beaming.

Simon had seen many things in his life. He had braved battlefields, faced horrors beyond reckoning. But this was entirely foreign to him.

He wasn’t sure what to do with it.

So, he did what he could.

“You like butterflies, then, Duchess?” He rumbled, still watching you as though you had sprouted wings yourself. The prettiest, loveliest of wings.

You paused, your excitement faltering slightly, as if only just realizing how much you had said. You folded your hands together, gaze lowering, a hint of shyness creeping back into your posture.

“I… yes,” you admitted, quieter now. “I like entomology in general, but butterflies are… lovely, aren’t they?”

Simon exhaled through his nose, a huff of something like amusement.

“Yeah, love,” he murmured, glancing at the butterfly still perched nearby, and then glancing right back at you. “They are.”

He didn’t need to say the rest of his words, and you pretended like you couldn’t feel the warmth creeping up your neck.

[cumironi]

CRAMPS IS SHIT : GOJO SATORU, GETO SUGURU

you walk out of your bedroom, the dull ache in your lower abdomen makes every step feel like a small battle. as you enter the living room, the familiar sight of your two boyfriends comes into view. geto is stretched out on the couch, a book in his hand, while gojo sits on the floor in front of him, eyes focused on the tv screen, engrossed in his video game. the gentle sounds of the game mix with the soft rustling of pages, creating a comforting background noise.

they both notice you immediately. geto’s eyes soften as he watches you approach, and gojo pauses his game, turning to look at you with concern. geto sets his book aside, patting the space on his chest, silently inviting you closer.

without a word, you slide under his book on top of him, resting your head against his chest, your body pressing against his. his arms wrap around you instinctively, holding you close. you let out a soft sigh, the warmth of his body offering some relief to the cramps that are mercilessly wracking through you.

gojo abandons his game without a second thought, crawling on the couch to press against you. he tucks himself under geto's arm, nestling his head against your hip, while geto's arm curls around him.

“cramps are bad again, huh,” gojo mumbles, gently rubbing your hip. there is a hint of worry in his tone.

geto runs a hand through your hair, fingers massaging your scalp soothingly. “do you need us to get you anything?” you nod, eyes fluttering shut as you relax into the comfort of their touch. the pain is still there, gnawing at your insides, but being nestled between the two of them makes it a little more bearable. you can feel gojo's gentle rubs on your hip and the soothing strokes of geto's fingers through your hair, easing some of the tension.

“just… stay like this,” you whisper, your voice barely audible. you're too drained to say more, but they understand. they always do.

they both nod silently, cuddling closer to you. gojo moves higher, pressing soft kisses to your stomach, his hand switching from rubbing your hip to gently massaging it, trying to alleviate the cramps.

geto pulls the soft fleece blanket from the back of the couch, unfolding it to cover you all. his lips find your forehead, leaving behind a series of light kisses.

for minutes that feel endless, they stay like that, silently offering you comfort and love, enveloping you in their embrace. after a while, you feel a slight shift against your hip as gojo pulls away to stretch his limbs properly. he had been crunched up in an uncomfortable position for a while now.

“i'm gonna go get you something,” he murmurs, sitting up as much as possible without moving you too much.

“need some water too?” geto adds, his hand resuming its soothing motions through your hair. you nod slightly, your eyes still closed as you savor the warmth and comfort of geto’s embrace. “actually... do we still have that chocolate you bought not long ago? or anything sweet?” you ask softly, your voice slightly muffled against geto's chest.

gojo perks up at your request, a small smile tugging at his lips. “of course we do. you know suguru stashes sweets like it's an apocalypse supply,” he chuckles, giving geto a playful nudge.

geto huffs softly but grins, his fingers still moving gently through your hair. “can't have you raiding the cupboards every other hour,” he teases lightly. “satoru will grab some chocolate for you, sweetheart. anything else?”

you shake your head, appreciating how they always seem to have what you need. “just something sweet,” you mumble, feeling a little better knowing they’re taking care of you. gojo stands up, stretching again to relieve the stiffness in his limbs. he glances back at you and geto, his expression a mix of concern and affection.

“i'll be back in a bit,” he says quietly. his eyes linger on you for a moment, silently asking if you're alright, before he heads to the kitchen to search for the chocolate you requested. geto adjusts his position slightly, pulling you closer against him, his hand continuing to tangle through your hair.

“you doing okay, doll?”

you nod weakly against his chest, a small sigh escaping your lips as you nuzzle closer into his warmth. “i feel like i can't walk,” you admit softly, your voice laced with a mix of exhaustion and frustration. the cramps have drained most of your energy, and just the thought of moving feels impossible.

geto's hand pauses for a moment before resuming its gentle movements through your hair. he presses another soft kiss to your forehead, his touch reassuring. “then you don't have to,“ he murmurs, his voice calm and soothing. “just stay right here with me.“

you relax a little more, comforted by his words and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your ear. the pain is still there, but his presence makes it bearable. “thanks, suguru,” you whisper, letting yourself sink deeper into the comfort of his embrace.

you hear gojo rummaging around in the kitchen, the sound of cabinets opening and closing. it’s a reminder that both of them are here, taking care of you in their own ways. it’s enough to make you feel a little less weighed down by the pain, knowing you’re not alone in this.

geto murmurs a soft “it's alright, doll” as he feels you relax against him. he continues his soothing motions through your hair, the gentle massage of his fingers against your scalp providing a small respite from the discomfort.

he pauses for a moment as he hears gojo still rummaging around in the kitchen. “satoru, just bring the whole damn chocolate stash,” he calls out, his voice low but tinged with amusement and annoyance since he doesn't want you to wait for too long.

gojo laughs from the kitchen, the sound echoing lightly. “i'm not sure she needs to eat the entire stash!” gojo eventually emerges from the kitchen, a handful of chocolate bars in one hand and a steaming mug of water in the other. he approaches the couch, setting the snacks on the coffee table before returning his gaze to you.

he sits down on the edge of the couch, facing you and geto. “here we are,” he says, his voice soft and soothing. “chocolate for our sweet.”

his hand reaches out to gently caress your cheek, his thumb tracing a feather-light pattern across your skin. “how are you feeling?” you blink slowly, feeling a bit dazed from the combination of pain and medication. you manage a weak nod, turning your head slightly towards gojo's touch.

“better,” you reply quietly, your voice hoarse. gojo's hand feels cool against your flushed skin, a contrast to the warmth of geto behind you.

geto's arm tightens around you slightly, his chest rising and falling under you as he hums in agreement. “the heating pad should help too, we'll put that on her after she finishes,” he adds, tilting his head to look at gojo. gojo smiles faintly and nodded, his eyes never leaving your face. the concern is still present in his gaze, but he tries to mask it with a light-hearted tone.

“you look like you're about to pass out,” he teases gently, reaching out to brush a few loose strands of hair away from your face. he reaches for the chocolates on the table, picking up a piece and tearing the wrapper open. “open up,” he instructs, holding the piece of chocolate near your mouth.

your lips part obediently as gojo brings the chocolate to your mouth. you accept the morsel without protest, the sweet chocolate melting on your tongue and momentarily dulling the bitter taste of medicine.

gojo's eyes remain fixed on you as he watches you chew and swallow the chocolate, his expression a mix of tenderness and concern.

geto's hand resumes its gentle strokes through your hair, his fingers playing with the silken strands. “need more?” he asks quietly. gojo doesn't wait for your response before tearing open another piece of chocolate and holding it out for you to take. he seems determined to keep feeding you, whether you feel like eating or not.

“you need to eat something,” he murmurs, his tone firm but caring.

geto watches quietly from behind you, his hand still rubbing gentle circles over your side. he doesn't say anything, letting gojo handle the situation for now.

you open your mouth again, letting gojo feed you another piece of chocolate. the sweetness on your tongue is nice, but your stomach feels a bit unsettled from the pain medications.

“not too much,” you murmur between pieces, your voice a little hoarse. “might get nauseous…”

geto nods in agreement, his arm tightening slightly around your waist. “take it slow,” he advises, his fingers still moving gently through your hair. you nod slowly, keeping your eyes closed as you chew the chocolate, savoring the sweetness despite the unsettled feeling in your stomach. resting your head back on geto’s chest, you let out a soft breath, focusing on the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and the gentle strokes of his fingers through your hair.

gojo finishes feeding you the chocolate, setting the empty wrappers aside on the coffee table. he scoots a little closer, his hand returning to your cheek, his thumb gently tracing small circles over your skin.

“feeling alright, doll?“ he asks softly, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

geto's arm remains around you, anchoring you to the comfort of his chest. he glances at gojo, a small smile playing on his lips, before he looks back down at the top of your head, his hand continuing its soothing caresses through your hair.

gojo's eyes remain fixed on you, studying your every move, every flinch, every nuance in your expression. his gaze is intense but soft, filled with concern and an endless reservoir of affection.

“you look a little pale,” he notes, his voice low.

geto nods in agreement, his fingers pausing for a moment in your hair. “you don't feel like puking, do you?” you nod slightly, your eyes still closed as you rest against geto’s chest. “i’m alright,” you whisper, though your voice is strained. “it’s just the cramps… still bad. and i feel hot, not feeling good.”

gojo and geto exchange a concerned look over your head. they both know what this means. the pain is not only intense but also causing fevers.

gojo reaches out to press the back of his hand against your forehead to check your temperature. “you're burning up,“ he confirms, his voice laced with worry. geto's fingers resume their message against your scalp. “how long have you been like this?“

a wave of dizziness washes over you, causing you to sway slightly. gojo's hand quickly supports your neck, keeping you from falling forward. “easy there,” he whispers, his tone comforting yet firm. “you’re not okay, doll.” geto's hold tightens around you, pulling you a little closer to him in a protective gesture.

you mumble, “i don’t know,” your voice barely above a whisper, as you keep your eyes closed, letting the dizziness wash over you. it's not the first time this has happened—sometimes the cramps are just so bad, they bring on a fever, and today seems to be one of those days.

gojo and geto both exchange another worried look over your head. they’re both aware of your tendency to get fevers during particularly bad bouts of cramps, but this time it feels a little more intense.

gojo's hand continues to support your neck, his touch anchoring you. he glances at geto, silently communicating his concern. “we should probably move her to the bedroom,” he suggests quietly. “she needs to lie down.”

geto nods in agreement, his fingers reluctantly withdrawing from your hair. “i’ll carry her,” he says, his tone firm.

he gently untangles himself from your body, sitting up and carefully lifting you into his arms. you’re light and fragile in his embrace, and he cradles you against his chest, treating you like the most precious treasure.

a pained groan slips from your lips as geto lifts you, the slight movement sending a sharp wave of discomfort through your abdomen. your grip tightens instinctively around his shirt, your eyes still squeezed shut as you try to breathe through the pain.

“sorry, sorry,” geto murmurs softly, his voice laced with guilt as he tries to adjust his hold to be gentler. “i'm trying to be as careful as i can.” geto's grip on you is firm yet gentle, trying his best to minimize any further pain. as he holds you, he can feel the heat radiating off your body despite your shuddering.

“it's okay,” he murmurs, his lips brushing against the top of your head in a soothing gesture. “i've got you. we're just going to the bedroom.” he starts walking slowly, gojo following closely behind, his own expression laced with concern.

as geto carefully carries you towards the bedroom, gojo moves ahead to prepare the bed. he pulls the covers back and turns on the bedside lamp, casting a warm, soft glow over the room.

once he’s finished, he turns to see geto entering the bedroom, your form still cradled in his strong arms. “gently,” he cautions, as geto carefully lowers you onto the bed. the mattress dips slightly as you sink into the plush comfort, your body still trembling weakly from the pain.

gojo’s hand immediately reaches out to check your forehead, feeling the heat radiating from your skin. worry fills his eyes as he pulls back. “you’re really burning up,” he mutters, his voice laced with concern.

geto gently settles you against the pillows, smoothing the hair back from your face. he gently pries your hands from his shirt, taking a moment to place a soft kiss against your knuckles. “you’re gonna be okay,” he reassures you, his voice low and comforting.

gojo moves to the other side of the bed, sitting down beside you. he carefully pulls the covers up over your trembling form, tucking you in snugly.

“we'll take care of you,” he murmurs, reaching out to gently brush a strand of hair away from your face. geto moves to the foot of the bed, crossing his arms as his eyes scan over your form. he studies your every breath, every twitch, committing it all to memory.

the warmth of the covers is comforting, but they do nothing to soothe the pain gnawing at your stomach.

you let out a soft whimper, your body betraying the extent of your discomfort. gojo and geto both notice the sound, their own expressions darkening further. gojo is the first to break the silence. “should we give her more pain medication?” he asks quietly, his eyes flicking towards geto across the bed.

geto’s gaze doesn’t leave you as he considers the question. he knows the medication can only do so much, especially with your pain tolerance. he nods slowly, “yes, but something stronger. the over-the-counter ones don’t seem to be working.” gojo looks down at you, his hand subconsciously reaching out to gently stroke your hair. “i’ll get it,” he offers, moving to stand up.

geto’s eyes soften as he watches gojo stand up and leave the room, grateful for his quick response. his focus shifts back to you, noticing the faint tension in your expression from the lingering pain. he adjusts his hold on you, making sure you're as comfortable as possible in his arms.

“do you need your heating pad for your cramps?” geto asks gently, his voice low and filled with concern. he knows how much the heat helps to ease some of the pain, even if just a little.

he rubs soothing circles on your back, his thumb tracing gentle patterns in an effort to comfort you. “i can grab it for you if it helps,” he continues, his tone warm and reassuring, wanting to do whatever he can to make you feel better.

you manage a small nod, the tension in your face still visible.

“yes, please,” you whisper, your voice hoarse and weak.

geto gives a soft smile, his hand gently stroking your hair. “i won't be gone for long,” he assures you, his voice soft but firm. he leans down, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head before carefully sliding off the bed. he shoots one more glance at you before disappearing out the door to collect the heating pad.

as soon as he's out the door, gojo returns, a small pill in his hand. he moves to your side, holding out the pill and a glass of water for you to take.

“this should help,” he mutters, his voice laced with concern.

he watches as you take the pill, his hand moving to support your head and ease the pill down your throat as you swallow. once you've finished, he gently lowers your head back onto the pillow, his hand remaining on the side of your face to caress your cheek.

geto returns a few moments later, the heating pad in his hands. he moves to your side of the bed, plugging the device into the socket by the bed. he then sits down next to you, gently placing the heated pad against your abdomen.

the warmth from the pad instantly radiates through your body, providing a small source of relief to the pain in your abdomen. geto adjusts the heating pad, making sure it’s positioned in the right spot.

you close your eyes, letting out a quiet, relieved sigh as the warmth from the heating pad begins to seep into your aching muscles. it’s not a perfect fix, but it’s something—a small comfort amidst the relentless pain.

“thank you,” you murmur softly, your voice barely above a whisper. the heat is soothing, helping to dull the sharp edges of your cramps just a bit.

both gojo and geto give a small smile at your whispered thanks, their faces relaxing slightly as they see the small change in your expression. “you’re welcome, doll,” gojo responds quietly, his hand continuing to gently caress your hair.

geto moves his hand to yours, intertwining his fingers with yours. “try to get some rest, alright?” he instructs gently, giving your hand a soft squeeze.

gojo carefully climbs onto the bed, settling himself against the headboard on one side of you. he slings his arm around your shoulders, pulling you gently against his chest. “lean on me, okay?” he instructs softly, his thumb tracing light circles over your arm.

geto shifts on the bed, mirroring gojo's movement on the other side. he drapes his arm across your stomach, his hand resting gently just below the heating pad. both of them hold you between them, their bodies providing a warm cocoon of comfort around yours.

you let out a soft chuckle, your eyes still closed as you enjoy the warmth and comfort they’re providing. “you two take care of me so well,” you murmur with a hint of playful sarcasm in your voice. “i feel like i’m some seriously ill patient about to die soon.”

both gojo and geto give a small chuckle in response to your comment. “don’t even joke about that,” gojo replies, his voice light but holding a serious undertone.

“we care about you,” geto adds, his thumb stroking your arm in soft, soothing motions. “we just want to make sure you're comfortable and not in too much pain.”

“besides,” gojo continues, his hand lightly ruffling your hair. “you know we can't stand seeing you in pain. it kills us that there's nothing more we can do.” he presses a gentle kiss against the top of your head, his touch tender and affectionate.

you let out a soft, playful laugh, your eyes still closed as you savor their affection. “well, that’s also a good excuse for you guys to slack off from teaching, huh?” you tease, your voice light with amusement. both geto and gojo pretend to look offended, feigning shock at your suggestion.

“who, us? slack off?” gojo responds, a hint of humor in his voice. “we'd never dream of it.” geto grins, joining in on the playful banter. “indeed,” he agrees, “we are the epitome of dedication and responsibility as teachers.”

you snort softly, nodding as you turn your head to the left, keeping your eyes closed. “yeah, right,” you mumble with a hint of playful sarcasm.

as you settle back against their warm embrace, your expression gradually relaxes. the combination of their affectionate banter, the soothing warmth of the heating pad, and their comforting presence helps you let out a deep sigh of relief.

their lighthearted responses have managed to ease some of the discomfort, and you let yourself fully relax into their care, feeling a sense of peace and comfort despite the lingering pain.

gojo and geto share a knowing look as they see your expression relax. they’re both pleased to see that their efforts are having a positive effect on you, even if it’s just a small improvement.

gojo’s hand continues to gently caress your head, his touch light and soothing.

“there you go,” he murmurs softly. “just relax and rest, doll.” both geto and gojo smile as they watch you relax further into their embrace, their arms wrapping tighter around you.

“see?” geto teases gently, his voice filled with affection. “we're totally responsible.”

gojo chuckles, his hand continuing to brush through your hair in soft strokes. “yeah, just ignore the fact that we're skipping a whole day of teaching just to take care of you.”

geto gives a small shrug, a mischievous twinkle appearing in his eyes.

“details, details,” he replies airily, his expression light. “what are a few missed lessons in the grand scheme of things? compared to the well-being and comfort of our precious girl, that is.” gojo nods in agreement, leaning down to press a kiss against your forehead.

you don’t respond, your expression gradually softening as the pain subsides and the warmth of their affection envelops you. the wrinkles near your forehead smooth out, and your breathing begins to slow as you start to drift off.

their playful banter fades into the background, replaced by the soothing sounds of their gentle presence. you let yourself succumb to the comfort and care they’re providing, allowing yourself to rest peacefully in their arms.

geto and gojo watch as you sink further into relaxation, your expression softening. they exchange a satisfied look, their faces reflecting relief and contentment.

gojo’s hand continues to stroke your hair, his touch gentle and rhythmic. “she’s finally relaxing,” he whispers quietly to geto.

geto nods, his hand rubbing slow circles on your stomach, careful not to disturb the heating pad. “yeah, good thing,” he replies softly. “looks like she's gonna get some much-needed sleep.” gojo adjusts himself slightly, settling more comfortably against the headboard while making sure to keep his arm draped around your shoulders.

“i guess we’re gonna be stuck here for a while,” he murmurs, a hint of amusement in his voice. geto gives a small chuckle, mimicking gojo's action and shifting as well, his hand remaining on your stomach.

“guess so,” he replies. “not that i'm complaining.”

silence falls over the room as both men allow the peaceful atmosphere to settle in. they remain there, their arms encircling you protectively, their gazes watching your sleeping form intently.

although the day had been cut short, they consider it a small price to pay to ensure your comfort and well-being. as long as you're resting and relaxed, they're satisfied.

[reiding-writing]

BOUNDARY LINE. /spencer reid/

you go back to spencer’s apartment after a night out together, and what starts as a moment of mutual tension does not end as such.

s10!cold!reader 4.1k angst series masterlist. main masterlist.

CW | starts suggestive but definitely doesn’t end suggestive 😭, reader setting strict boundaries that spencer has no problem with, reader gets frustrated with spencer for not standing up for his own desires (but that man does not care rip), open communication, some wholesome comfort at the end

a/n | you thought it was gonna be smooth sailing now they’re officially together? oh you poor sweet naive child

The walk back to Spencer’s apartment is slow, unhurried, as if neither of you are particularly eager to reach the destination. The city hums quietly around you—distant car engines, the occasional trill of laughter from a nearby bar, and the rhythmic click of your heels against the pavement.

His hand brushes against yours once, then again, until his fingers finally catch yours and lace them together. It feels easy. Natural. Like second nature.

By the time you reach his building, the wind has died down and the streets are quiet. He unlocks the door and holds it open for you, always the gentleman.

His eyes linger on you a fraction longer than necessary, dark and quietly affectionate, but he doesn’t say anything. Just offers you that small, familiar smile before following you inside.

The elevator ride is still. Comfortable, mostly. Your bodies are close enough that his sleeve brushes yours. He smells like his usual soap, a faint hint of cologne still clinging to his skin. It’s a scent you know well by now, one you’ve leaned into on days when the world felt too heavy.

When you step into his apartment, the door clicks shut softly behind you. The place is familiar, almost like an extension of him—the slight disarray of books stacked on the coffee table, the worn throw blanket draped haphazardly over the back of the couch. The soft, warm lighting makes the whole space feel a little smaller, more intimate.

You slip off your shoes by the door. He does the same, and for a moment, the two of you just stand there in the gentle quiet, facing each other. You know exactly what’s coming—it’s in the way he looks at you, warm and patient, but slightly hesitant, as though he’s silently asking permission.

When he steps closer, you don’t move away.

The first kiss is tentative, barely more than the brush of his lips against yours. But when you don’t pull back, he kisses you again, more deliberately this time. His hand comes up slowly to cup the side of your face, his palm warm against your cheek.

You tilt into him automatically, letting your hands find their familiar place—one resting lightly at the nape of his neck, the other brushing against his side. His fingers slide into your hair, anchoring there, and the kiss deepens in slow increments. Soft, careful, as if he’s trying not to press too hard or ask for too much.

But you can feel the slight shift in his breathing when you pull lightly at the collar of his shirt, guiding him in a little closer. There’s the faintest hitch in his breath, just barely audible, when your teeth graze his lower lip.

You think it’s your idea to move toward the bedroom, but you can’t be sure. Maybe it’s his. Maybe it’s neither of you, maybe you both just fall into the same rhythm so easily that the decision makes itself. His hand finds yours, and you let him lead you down the short hall.

Your heartbeat has picked up. You feel it in your chest, in your throat. You can’t tell if it’s anticipation or nerves. Maybe both.

Inside his room, the light from the hallway spills softly across the floor. Neither of you bothers turning on the lamp. You don’t need to see him—you’ve already memorised the sharp line of his jaw, the gentle slope of his nose, the thoughtful crease between his brows. You could map it all out in the dark.

His mouth finds yours again before you can think too hard about any of it. His hands are careful where they touch, trailing lightly over your arms, your waist, your back. And yet, there’s still a quiet urgency beneath it—a gentle but unmistakable need.

You let him press you back slightly, your legs brushing the edge of the mattress. His lips trace along your jaw, down the side of your neck. The feeling is soft but deliberate, and you instinctively tip your head back to give him more space. You exhale sharply when his teeth catch just faintly against your skin.

And then—

You stiffen.

It’s subtle at first. Your hand stills where it had been idly running over the back of his neck. The other, previously clinging lightly to his shirt, goes slack. Your breath, which had been coming unevenly, holds for a fraction too long.

Spencer doesn’t notice right away. Or maybe he does but mistakes it for adrenaline. He leans back just slightly, lips parted, his breath still warm against your skin. His hands drift lower, skimming along your waist. The touch should be reassuring, comforting, but it isn’t.

Your body reacts before your mind fully catches up. You flinch—just barely—a faint, instinctive recoil from the press of his palms.

He stills immediately. You feel his lips pause against your skin, lingering there without moving. His hands stop where they are. He doesn’t pull back, but he doesn’t push forward, either. He just waits.

For a second, neither of you moves. Your heart is suddenly loud in your ears.

You want to ignore it. You want to push through it, to will your body into cooperating. You try to relax into the warmth of his hands, but your body refuses. There’s a pressure building in your chest—tight and unwelcome—and suddenly, the room feels too small.

Your fingers find his wrist and you push lightly, wordlessly, just enough to put a sliver of distance between you.

He pulls back immediately. No hesitation, no resistance. His hands fall away, giving you all the space you silently ask for.

You can feel the heat still lingering on your skin, but the moment has already fractured. You take half a step back, then another. Your arms come up loosely around yourself, a self-soothing gesture that you’re barely aware of.

Spencer’s breathing is still slightly uneven, but his voice is steady when he asks, softly, “Hey… are you okay?”

It’s the gentleness of it that nearly makes your throat close up. His voice is quiet, careful, and so achingly tender. You could lie to him. You know you could. But you can’t make yourself do it.

You shake your head once, too quickly, and then, with more force than you intend, you say, “No.”

The word lands with more weight than you expect. It sounds hard in the quiet. Sharp-edged and abrupt.

You turn away from him without thinking. You don’t mean to, but you do. Your arms are still around yourself, and you squeeze slightly, as if you can keep all the fractured parts of yourself contained if you just hold on tightly enough.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. You feel the space you’ve created between you like a tangible thing. You expect him to be frustrated. Or at the very least, confused.

But when you finally glance at him, he doesn’t look either of those things.

He just looks concerned.

His brow is faintly furrowed, his eyes searching yours. But there’s no trace of disappointment. No flicker of frustration. He’s just… waiting. Not pushing, not prying. Just there.

“Hey,” he says again, voice still low, still soft. “It’s okay,”

And it almost undoes you—the simple kindness of it. It makes your chest ache with something heavy and unnameable.

You swallow thickly and nod, but it’s a hollow gesture. You can feel your hands trembling faintly against your arms. You don’t want him to see it, but of course he does. He always does.

Spencer doesn’t move closer. He doesn’t reach for you. He just gives you the space you need, even though you can see the faint crease between his brows that only ever appears when he’s worried.

You don’t speak again right away. You don’t trust your voice. Instead, you sit down heavily on the edge of the bed, curling in slightly. The warmth that had filled the room minutes earlier is replaced by a tightness in your chest that refuses to ease.

And still, he waits.

You close your eyes for a brief moment, willing your hands to stop shaking. When you finally glance back at him, he’s watching you carefully. Gently. With more patience than you deserve.

You can’t meet his gaze for long. So you focus instead on the floor, on the soft, uneven rhythm of your own breathing, trying to piece yourself back together.

You don’t look at him when you say it.

You can’t.

Instead, you keep your eyes trained on the floor, your hands gripping loosely at the hem of your shirt, twisting the fabric around your fingers. Your voice is low, almost flat, when you finally speak.

“I don’t want to have sex with you.”

The words come out sharper than you intend. Blunt and inelegant, but it’s the only way you know how to say it—quick and clinical, like ripping off a bandage. You don’t soften the edges or give it any room to linger. You just let the words hang there, heavy and clumsy, as if speaking them fast enough might lessen their weight.

The silence that follows is instant and absolute. You brace yourself for… something. You don’t know what. Disappointment, maybe. Or confusion. Or even a flicker of hurt that he won’t be able to hide.

But there’s none of that.

Instead, Spencer’s response is immediate, without even the briefest beat of hesitation. His voice is soft, steady, and utterly sincere when he says, “That’s okay,”

Just that. Two words, simple and unshaken. Like it’s the easiest truth in the world.

You look at him then, and you hate how kind he is about it. How completely unaffected he seems. His eyes are gentle, patient, and so heartbreakingly open. No trace of disappointment. No flicker of frustration. Just genuine, unwavering acceptance.

It should ease you. Should soften the sharpness in your chest.

But it doesn’t.

Because you know what he’s doing. You know he’s trying to be understanding, and kind, and gentle. You know he means it when he says it’s okay, and that only makes the whole thing worse.

Your throat tightens. Your hands, still gripping your shirt, clench harder. Your voice feels smaller when you force out, “No, you don’t get it.”

You shake your head slightly, half to yourself, half to him. You can feel the heat building behind your eyes, sharp and humiliating. Your voice wavers despite yourself.

“I might never want to have sex with you.”

You say it too forcefully, with too much bite. It sounds harsher than you intend, but you can’t make yourself soften it. Your voice cracks slightly at the end, and you hate how small it makes you feel.

But Spencer doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t stiffen or shift away. He just holds your gaze, calm and steady, his expression completely unchanged.

“That’s still okay,” he says quietly.

You stare at him, almost disbelieving. You search his face for any sign of pretense—for the slightest flicker of reservation or doubt. But there’s nothing. Just gentle sincerity.

And that’s what makes you snap.

“Stop saying that,” you snap, your voice suddenly brittle.

He blinks, surprised but not startled. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t react. He just waits, letting you unravel without any resistance.

You exhale sharply, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. “It’s not okay.” Your voice is frayed, uneven. Your hands are trembling faintly against your lap, but you don’t unclench them. You shake your head again, hating the thickness in your throat, the tightness in your chest.

“You want that.”

He swallows. It’s the first indication that he’s at all bothered by the conversation, and he gives a tiny nod in acknowledgment. “Yeah. I do,”

There’s no sense in denying it. The fact that he wants it… but that he isn’t going to get it… it hurts. And you can clearly see it in his eyes.

You force yourself to keep going, even though the words scrape painfully against your throat. “It’s not fair,” you say, your voice barely more than a whisper. “You shouldn’t have to… settle for someone who can’t give you what you want.”

You can feel the weight of it catching in your chest—the guilt, the self-loathing, the ache of it pressing too hard against your ribs.

Because you’ve known what he wants. Not because he’s ever pressured you or even implied it. But because it’s normal. It’s human. He deserves that kind of connection with someone he loves. He deserves it in all the ways you’ll probably never be able to give it to him.

You glance at him again, expecting—wanting—to see at least a sliver of resentment. You want him to be angry with you. Or disappointed. You want him to want something you can’t give.

But he still just looks at you the same way. Softly. Patiently. With so much unshaken tenderness that you feel it press hard against your chest.

You let out a shaky breath and look away. You can’t stand it. You can’t stand how easily he accepts it—how completely. Like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t matter.

Your voice is tight and bitter when you say, “You’re supposed to want more than this.”

You feel the words lodge painfully in your throat. It’s not cruel, but it is cutting. And it’s meant to be. Because you want to make him *see* how unfair it is. You want him to feel it, to want more than you can give.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he takes a slow step closer. Still careful. Still calm. He doesn’t touch you—doesn’t even reach for you—but he’s close enough that you feel the warmth of him, grounding and steady.

When he speaks, his voice is soft but steady. “I don’t want more than you’re willing to give me,”

The words hit you so squarely in the chest that you actually forget how to breathe for a moment.

You look at him, startled by the firmness in his voice. Not forceful. Not desperate. Just certain.

His eyes are steady on yours—calm and clear, utterly unwavering. He says it again, quieter this time, but just as certain.

“I don’t want more than you.”

And there’s no room for argument in his voice. No trace of doubt. Just quiet, uncomplicated honesty.

You feel the pressure building behind your eyes, sharp and sudden, and you hate how quickly your throat closes up.

You shake your head slightly, trying to reject the softness of it. “You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not.”

There’s no hesitation. Not even a heartbeat of doubt. He says it so simply, so effortlessly, as if the truth of it is absolute.

You stare at him, feeling the warmth in your chest expand, painful and overwhelming. Your vision blurs faintly at the edges, and you look away, clenching your jaw tightly against the burn behind your eyes.

He waits. Doesn’t push. Just lets the silence settle, soft and unobtrusive.

When you finally glance at him again, his expression hasn’t changed. He’s still watching you with the same calm, unshaken tenderness.

“You could go the rest of your life without that?” you ask quietly, your voice raw and disbelieving. “And you’d be fine with it?”

He doesn’t even pause. Doesn’t blink.

“Yes.”

The answer comes so simply, so easily, that it knocks the breath from your chest.

You exhale sharply, overwhelmed by how *effortless* it is for him. You feel the ache in your throat spread, pressing hot behind your ribs. The room feels smaller somehow—too close, too warm.

You close your eyes and try to will the pressure back down. Try to keep it from spilling over.

But it’s no use.

Your voice is barely above a whisper when you say, “I don’t believe you.”

And his response is just as quiet.

“I’ll prove it to you. Every day if I have to,” He breathes out slowly, like even disrupting the air is too much. “Because I love you,”

There’s no flourish in his voice. No grand declaration. He just says it plainly, without hesitation. Like it’s already been true for a long time.

And you can’t breathe. You can’t move. You can only look at him—searching his face for any trace of uncertainty, but there’s nothing. Just calm, honest certainty.

Your throat closes up. You can’t say it back. You can’t. Your hands are trembling slightly, and you know he notices.

You open your mouth, but the words don’t come. You can’t even force them.

He just shakes his head slightly, smiling softly. “You don’t have to say it back,” he murmurs, his voice quiet but certain. “I know,”

And somehow, that’s what undoes you.

Spencer doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t push or pry or ask for more than you can give. He just watches you, quiet and patient, letting the moment settle between you.

The weight of his words still lingers in your chest, pressing against something fragile and unfamiliar. It’s too much and not enough all at once, leaving you unsteady in a way you don’t know how to handle.

You feel raw—like an exposed nerve, too sensitive to touch. But Spencer, as always, seems to know exactly how to navigate around your jagged edges without cutting himself on them.

After a moment, he shifts slightly, just enough to close some of the space between you. Not too much. Just enough to make his presence feel like something solid, something grounding.

Then, gently, he says, “Come here.”

It’s not a command. Not even really a request. It’s an offering—quiet, patient, free of expectation. An open invitation to let yourself rest, just for a moment.

You hesitate. Not because you don’t want to, but because you don’t know how.

Spencer seems to sense it. He always does.

So instead of reaching for you, he just shifts back slightly, lying down first. He moves slowly, deliberately, giving you space to decide for yourself. He leans back against the pillows, stretching out on his side, but his eyes never leave yours.

The mattress dips slightly under his weight. The space beside him remains open. Waiting.

You swallow. Your fingers are still curled against the hem of your shirt, twisted tight around the fabric like an anchor. Your body feels tense, wound up like a coil that might snap at any moment.

But Spencer doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t urge you or coax you further. He just waits.

And maybe that’s what makes you move.

Slowly—almost hesitantly—you shift, easing yourself onto the mattress beside him. You’re stiff at first, uncertain, still holding yourself slightly apart even as you settle next to him. Your body isn’t quite ready to let go, to accept the comfort being offered so freely.

Spencer stays perfectly still, giving you time to adjust. He doesn’t reach for you. Doesn’t assume.

Then, softly, he asks, “Can I hold you?”

Your breath catches slightly in your throat. The question is so simple, so quiet. There’s no urgency in it. No insistence. Just gentle, patient kindness.

You hesitate. Not because you don’t want it. But because you’re still not sure if you can.

But when you glance at him—when you meet his gaze and see nothing but quiet understanding there—you find yourself nodding before you can second-guess it.

“…Yeah,” you murmur.

Spencer waits a beat, as if making sure, and then—carefully, slowly—he shifts closer.

His arm comes around you, tentative at first, giving you room to pull away if you need to. When you don’t, he lets his hand settle lightly against your back, his fingers barely grazing the fabric of your shirt.

You exhale, shakily.

The warmth of him is immediate. Steady. Solid. He doesn’t pull you in too tightly. He doesn’t press too close. He just is, his presence a quiet, steady reassurance against your skin.

For a long moment, you stay stiff in his arms, your muscles still braced for something you can’t quite name.

But then—slowly, almost imperceptibly—the tension begins to drain from your body.

It happens in small, gradual shifts. The tightness in your shoulders eases. Your hands, still curled slightly against yourself, loosen. Your breathing slows, aligning itself with the steady rise and fall of Spencer’s chest.

And he feels it.

You know he does.

You can tell by the way his hand moves just slightly, his fingers tracing the faintest, absentminded patterns against your back. Not pushing, not pressing. Just a quiet acknowledgment of the trust you’re offering him, even if you can’t bring yourself to say it out loud.

Spencer doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.

He just holds you.

Spencer's arm is warm around you, his touch gentle and patient. His chest rises and falls steadily beneath your cheek, a comforting rhythm that lulls you into a peaceful stillness. His breathing is quiet, steady—nothing urgent, nothing demanding. He isn’t asking for anything from you now, and the lack of expectation gives you space to simply be.

For the first time in what feels like forever, the weight of your past, the endless thoughts and anxieties that usually crowd your mind, seem to soften. The world outside the room, with all its noise and pressure, fades into a distant hum. It doesn’t matter right now.

You don’t need to talk. There’s no pressure to fill the silence with explanations or justifications. The quiet is enough. The simple act of lying there together, holding onto each other in this fragile, honest way, is more than enough.

Spencer’s hand moves slightly, a quiet, reassuring gesture as he pulls you just a little closer, as if you could sink into him and find a quiet refuge from everything else. You allow it, letting yourself sink deeper into his warmth. You don’t worry about what it means, or what might come next. You don’t have to.

You can feel the warmth of his breath against your hair, his heart beating steadily beneath your ear, and the rhythm of his presence becomes something you cling to, soft and grounding. You don’t need anything else right now. Just this—just the quiet comfort of being together, of letting the world drift away, if only for a little while.

The vulnerability between you both is palpable, yet it doesn’t feel like weakness. Instead, it feels like something shared, like a moment of mutual understanding, one that doesn’t require words or explanations.

It’s in the way your bodies are pressed together, the way his hand rests lightly against your back. It’s the gentle warmth you both offer in silence, simply by existing in each other’s presence.

There is a comfort in the simplicity of it—just this.

Slowly, like a tide creeping up to shore, the exhaustion begins to settle into your bones. The soft weight of Spencer’s arm around you becomes a source of quiet comfort, and the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath you lulls you into a sense of peace that feels almost unfamiliar, like a dream you’ve been chasing but couldn’t quite reach.

The gentle pull of sleep begins to tug at the edges of your consciousness, your body growing heavier, the warmth of his embrace sinking deeper into your skin. You let yourself drift, knowing you’re safe here, in this shared silence, where nothing is expected and nothing is demanded. Just the quiet togetherness of it.

You feel Spencer’s breath grow deeper, slower, the rhythm of his body relaxing into the bed. You shift slightly, just enough to curl into him more fully, as if the simple act of holding on to each other will somehow shield you both from everything else.

The world outside fades. Time slows.

And eventually, without even realising it, you’re asleep.

[airandyeah]

Footballplayer!Sukuna X Toughgirl!Reader Who Do You Think I Am? Pt.1

My Masterlist Series Masterlist

The morning air is cool, but the sun’s already burning through it—heat shimmering against the sidewalk as you step through the gates of your new school.

Your boots thud quietly with each step, black leather sleek against the worn pavement. Jeans fitted just right, dark and cuffed, hug your legs with a sharpness that says you know exactly what you’re doing. A tucked black polo clings to your frame, understated but crisp. A studded belt slouches low around your hips, not for utility, but for style—and the message is clear: you don’t need to try hard to be noticed. You just are.

Your backpack shifts with your stride, weighed down by a riot of keychains and enamel pins that jingle softly—little ghosts, sparkly skulls, band logos, and the occasional cursed-looking charm. Your arms are full of books, no time wasted fumbling with a bag. You're here to get through the day, not impress anyone.

Then the noise starts.

Girls hollering from the front steps. Whistles. Screams. Someone yelling his name like it’s a prayer and a curse all at once.

You don’t even flinch.

Just the faint whine of a motor—deep, low, and smug—crawling closer through the noise. You shift your books in your arms, barely glancing up as a matte-black motorcycle rolls up alongside the curb like it owns the place.

Pink hair. Piercings. A cocky grin framed by tattoos you can spot even from here.

He takes off the helmet like he’s unwrapping a gift. The crowd eats it up.

You keep walking.

Because whoever the hell that is, he’s not your problem.

Not yet. ~~~ The first week is a blur of buildings that all look the same and hallways that smell like floor wax and stale ambition. The campus is stuffy—both in architecture and attitude. Ivy climbs the stone walls like it's trying to escape, but you’ve got nowhere to climb. So you walk.

You start to recognize the cliques pretty quickly.

The "cool" kids drape themselves across benches like they’re posing for a magazine—perfect hair, perfect smiles, dead eyes. The athletes move in packs, always laughing too loud, always at the center of some gravity you don’t care to feel. Nerds shuffle by in clusters, voices low and frantic, textbooks practically fused to their hands. Then the outliers—the ones who tried too hard to look like they weren’t trying at all. Losers, weirdos, wannabes. Every label pressed into place, neat and suffocating.

You stay on the edges. You don’t talk much. You don’t need to. No one interests you enough to try.

But then there’s her.

Tiffany.

Blonde. Bubbly. Relentlessly cheerful in a way that felt forced but also strangely… genuine. She attaches herself to you on day three like she’s decided your life needed more pink and perfume.

At first, you think she’s just lost. Then you realize she’s made herself at home.

She talks. A lot. About boys, lip gloss, horoscopes, drama you couldn’t care less about. She never asks if you want to listen, never pauses long enough for you to answer even if she did.

You try to shake her once. Maybe twice.

She doesn’t take the hint.

Eventually, you stop trying.

She’s annoying, sure—but she also never asked you to be anyone but exactly who you are. No prying questions, no judgment. Just endless chatter and a weird sort of loyalty.

So you get used to it. The babbling. The perfume. The blonde blur at your side.

And though you’d never admit it, you kind of start to expect her there.

Like a puppy with lip gloss and too much eyeliner.

By the end of the week, you’ve adjusted to Tiffany’s ceaseless chatter. You stop tuning her out so completely, giving half-hearted responses here and there, nodding along as she tells you about some guy in her philosophy class who apparently “stares at her like he’s in love.” You really couldn’t care less, but it’s easier to just respond than to keep pretending you're too cool for this.

“Yeah, maybe he likes you.” “Mmhm, maybe you should talk to him.”

You’re so deep in this mindless back-and-forth that you barely notice you’re at your locker until Tiffany’s voice rings louder than usual.

“So, like, what do you think of the football team? They’re all soooo hot. Especially—”

You’re just about to tell her to ease off the whole "football team" conversation, tucking your books inside your locker with a sigh, when—

BOOM.

A body crashes into yours, sending your books flying out of your arms. You stumble back, catching yourself with your shoulder slamming against the locker door, but you don’t lose your balance. You don’t even flinch. No, instead, you whip around with your finger already pointed, your hand snapping to the air like a warning shot.

“What the hell, asshole?” you snap, the words firing out with no hesitation. “Watch where you’re going!”

You don’t wait for him to speak first. You don’t care if he’s some campus legend or the football team’s king. He ran into you. And that makes him your problem.

The guy you’re facing is none other than the football player Sukuna—the one whose name has been buzzing around like a bad perfume all week. The pink-haired, motorbike-riding menace who seems to think the world revolves around him.

He stands there, towering over you, eyes narrowing like he's ready to chew you up and spit you out. But you’re not backing down.

You stick your finger straight into his chest, pushing him back a little. You can feel the heat radiating off him, but it’s nothing compared to the fire you’re throwing back at him.

"Are you seriously gonna stand there like I’m the problem? You hit me, dipshit." Your voice rises with every word, making sure the whole damn hallway hears you. “So, get your shit together and watch your step next time.”

For a moment, Sukuna’s glare holds. The world feels like it’s waiting for him to do something—anything. He doesn’t have that usual cocky smirk on his face. Instead, it’s... a little tight. A little too quiet.

And then—hell freezes over—he mumbles something under his breath. An apology. You almost don’t hear it, it’s so soft and unwilling, but it’s there. He doesn’t even meet your eyes as he steps back, almost like he’s trying to get away from you without making a bigger scene.

You watch him walk off, jaw clenched, tail tucked between his legs. The hallway buzzes with confused whispers, the girls around you still trying to piece together what just happened.

You just roll your eyes, grabbing your books from the floor with a sharp breath. You’ve got better things to do than deal with whatever this is.

Tiffany stands frozen beside you, looking like she just saw a god get knocked off his pedestal.

And you? You just shake your head and push past her, muttering under your breath as you make your way to class.

“Idiots.” ~~~

The next morning, you barely remember yesterday. It’s not that you don’t remember him—how could you forget the pink-haired jerk who had the audacity to bump into you like you were some invisible wall? It’s just that, for you, things are never worth dwelling on for long. Besides, it’s the start of a new day, and you’ve got other things to focus on.

Today, you feel different. Better. You throw on your usual outfit—black boots, but these have added buckles this time, making them even more badass. You loop another studded belt on your hip for good measure, letting it dangle a little more loose than usual. You don’t care if it’s loud or not. You’re the one wearing it. You grab your books and head out, feeling a little more like yourself.

The campus is already alive with chatter as you walk in. The smell of fresh coffee wafts through the air, the sound of sneakers and boots against pavement mixing with the distant hum of cars in the parking lot. It’s all just background noise to you. You’re not thinking about yesterday anymore.

That is, until you hear it.

The unmistakable roar of a motorcycle engine cutting through the air like it owns the whole damn place. You don’t even flinch, not like the other girls around you, their heads snapping toward the sound in sync like they’re all hypnotized. They start whispering and giggling. You can practically feel the energy shift, and you don’t have to look to know who it is.

Sukuna.

The same loud, obnoxious jerk who somehow thought he could push you around. But today, you don’t care.

You keep walking with your head held high, your boots clicking against the pavement with purpose. You’re not about to let anyone’s presence, especially his, mess with your groove. You adjust your backpack, adding a little swagger to your steps, watching the heads turn as Sukuna pulls up near the entrance. His usual cocky smirk is plastered on his face as he kicks off his helmet and swings his leg over his bike like he's some kind of celebrity.

You don’t even spare him a glance, though. You just keep walking, your mind already drifting to your next class. The last thing on your mind is that annoying guy.

But of course, fate’s a little too eager to let things slide.

Out of nowhere, you feel a hand on your shoulder. A heavy one.

You know exactly who it is without even turning around. Sukuna’s deep voice cuts through the air like a blade.

“You’re still walking like you own the place, huh?”

You roll your eyes, trying not to make eye contact.

“What, did you forget you made a scene yesterday?” you reply, casually brushing his hand off your shoulder, still not looking at him.

There’s a beat of silence. Then, Sukuna speaks again, this time quieter. Almost as if he’s reconsidering how he usually approaches people.

“Not gonna yell at me today?”

You finally turn to face him, meeting his intense red gaze. For a moment, you almost forget why you’re annoyed with him in the first place. His usual cocky demeanor is still there, but there's something different about him today—something a little... unsure?

You give him a lazy, half-smile. "Nah, not today. Just keep your distance, yeah?"

He looks taken aback for a moment, but then that same smugness creeps back onto his face. “Tch. Whatever.” And with a final glance, he walks off, his boots thudding loudly as he heads into the building.

You watch him go, a strange feeling stirring in your stomach. Not anger, not excitement—just something weird. You shake your head, pushing it down. You’ve got bigger things to deal with than him.

Tiffany, who has been watching the whole exchange, practically jumps up to your side, all wide eyes and loud whispers.

“Oh my god, did you just—did you just shut him down like that?” she exclaims, practically bouncing with excitement.

You just give her a smirk, brushing a stray lock of hair out of your face. “What can I say? I don’t need to waste energy on guys like him.”

But as you turn back to walk into the building, a small part of you wonders... What’s the deal with him, anyway?

Tag list is always open! Tags: @nina6708 , @sherrieblossoms , @charlie-xo , @iloveredwineee Perm Tags: Perm tags: @thenightperson , @makingtimemine , @nina-from-317

[pinkie-quinns]

rocker eddie/actor steve | exes to ?? | fame au p2 | p1 p3 p4 p5 interlude p6

The picture itself is not incriminating.

In the five years since Eddie’s wet dog apology they have been cordial to each other. Eddie seemed to have finally grown up. Finally got the hint. He doesn’t bug Steve after that night. He stays in his lane.

After a few years it’s a nod at a charity event. A half-smile at the town’s trendy new restaurant. A card when Steve gets an Emmy nod for his HBO series. Steve tries to not mind it. Tries to not let it get under his skin. He doesn’t send Eddie anything when he gets his Grammy.

LA is a small town. Eddie moved back once he finished his first tour. Steve does his best to keep his circle separate but LA is a small town. He nearly ends up at Eddie’s 30th after his coworker tries to drag him to some “rager in Loz Feliz.”

Sometimes, after another break up leaves him feeling shit-all, Steve drives past their dingy old place in West Hollywood. Tries to picture the version of the story where Eddie wasn’t eaten by his monster ego. Lets himself imagine them happy. Lets himself cry over it again. Like it happened yesterday instead of a decade ago.

But then he blinks and it’s been twelve years and yeah, maybe he hasn’t felt home like he did with Eddie, maybe no one else has fit him quite so right. But maybe he was just young and everything felt bigger then.

He feels weirdly at peace about it all. It’s not forgiveness, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to stomach that, but it is acceptance. It took a long time to scar but it's finally just a faded pink line. He’s happy.

And then the photo starts to circulate.

The picture itself is not incriminating.

It’s their old WeHo apartment. Eddie’s hopped on the grimy kitchen counter, acoustic guitar in hand. He’s smiling at Steve and Steve is leaned against the wall and he’s smiling back. And it’s Them. And Steve thinks they’ve never looked so young.

He doesn’t know who took the photo. Maybe Robin or Nancy or Jon. They visited a lot in that first year.

He doesn’t know how it ended up digitized, posted to a random pop culture subreddit.

What he does know is that he and Eddie have never publicly acknowledged each other.

The internet treats the picture like a cute little chachki in the first few days. A buzzpop factoid #67. It’s “Did you know Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were college roommates?”

But then news outlets were picking it up. And Eddie was halfway through promoting his third album.

They’re dead lucky the picture is not incriminating.

Steve’s still not technically out– he’s had quiet relationships with men but his team preferred a starlet on his arm at the carpets.

Eddie’s out the way a rockstar is. He’d fuck anything as long as it made him a pervert.

Their teams move fast.

The official story is that they’d both moved to LA to pursue their careers. They roomed together because they knew each other from their small town. Then Steve booked his show and Eddie moved to London and they lost touch.

Eddie repeats it on talk show after talk show. He lies and says they’re still friendly now, but their schedules keep them both so busy. They haven’t caught up in a while. He goes wistful when he says it. Steve tries not to feel downright bitter. It does quiet the chatter down.

In November, his manager tells him he’s presenting at the Golden Globes. The studio had asked him specifically, still under contract to promote their animated movie. He agrees cause he needs eyes on the tiny indie he'd finally gotten made.

In December, he finds out who he’s presenting with.

Steve throws a fit. It’s uncharacteristic. It’s not at all in line with the nice-guy persona he’s spent years cultivating. But they’ve managed to get this far without him actually having to talk to the guy. He doesn’t ever want to have to talk to Eddie Munson again.

His manager lures him off the ledge. It’s too late to change the line-up. He's put in years of work to get his movie made. She reminds him that it’s Hollywood. Everyone has to deal with this shit. Not worth blowing it all up because he can’t handle 30 minutes with his ex.

So Steve plays nice but Eddie skips out on rehearsal. Of fucking course. Twelve years and he’s still so predictable.

Steve reads the teleprompter next to a random PA and decides then and there to say Fuck Healing. He did that. And now he’s being punished. Again. He’s fucking pissed.

He’s pissed that the photo got out. He’s pissed at whoever leaked it. He’s pissed enough to convince himself it was Eddie. He’s pissed Eddie’s shouldering his way back into his life even if it wasn’t him.

And yeah, he’s still fucking pissed that Eddie left in the first place.

Steve first sees him on the carpet. It’s from a distance, and he’s determined to keep it that way for as long as possible. He wishes Eddie dashed for the real thing too, but he knows his ego couldn’t take the blow. Eddie Munson loves attention too much.

Eddie looks great, cause he’s a celebrity & it’s a 10-person job to make him look great.

Eddie looks great cause he’s always looked great. Even when his hair was all frizz and his hygiene habits were questionable at best. And Steve hates him but his dick has never gotten the memo.

Steve deals with it by drinking a lot. It’s the Globes! He sits at his table and smiles and they give him alcohol and he drinks it. It’s stupid and it’s reckless and it’s the only thing that’s gonna get him through this torture. So he picks at his ugly velvet suit and he drinks.

The wranglers grab them 20 minutes before they’re set to present. It’s earlier than usual but Munson’s been known to dash.

They’re sitting on opposite couches in the green room. Eddie’s vibrating. Leg jittering nonstop. Steve’s starting to feel woozy. They’re not talking.

After five minutes, Eddie clicks his tongue and gets up. “Gonna take a leak.” His wrangler starts after him. “Follow me and I cut off your dick.”

Steve looks at the kid, weighing tearily whether his job was more important than his penis, “I’ll- I'll make sure he’s back on time.”

Steve stumbles riled down the hall, opens the door with a slam, “You leak the photo, Munson?”

Eddie’s already washing his hands. Steve catches his reflection in the mirror. He looks weirdly hurt.

“Steve,” Eddie says his name so... sad, “C’mon, man. I- I wouldn’t do that.”

Steve laughs cold, puts his hands in his suit pockets. “Sure, yeah, man. You’d just disappear for seven years. Come back with some horseshit apology because you finally got what you wanted. Cause your ego could finally handle being around me. But sure. You wouldn’t do that.”

Eddie steps back into the wall, looks at Steve with those watery brown eyes. They’re framed by crows feet now. “Steve, I–”

Steve boxes him in, makes it so he can’t slip away this time, “You know there was a week there where I thought you'd fucking died.”

He feels like a live wire. He feels every awful thing he’s felt for a dozen years bubble to the surface.

“Mike Wheeler told me where you went. Mike. Wheeler. I thought you were dead in a ditch, you asshole. Thought I’d lost you forever. But no. You just skipped town– Skipped town because I loved you and you fucking hated me.”

He doesn’t know when grabbed a fist into Eddie’s shirt. He wants to tear it. It’s probably insured.

“Stevie,” Eddie’s blubbering. Their faces are close enough that Steve can see his lip quivering. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby.”

Now Steve really wants to laugh. Baby. It’s such garbage. Total bullshit.

“I wish you’d died. It would’ve hurt less.” He says it dry, with his big wide movie-star smile. Then he spits, bullseye on Eddie’s cheek, “I fucking hate you.”

It’s so strange to see Eddie up close after all this time. He’s blurry in the memories but so vivid here, so harsh. Makeup cracking into nicotine wrinkles. Different. A mask of the person Steve knew.

He breathes, “I know.”

----

Eddie's tongue still tastes the same.

[dduane]

Hi DD! I am rereading the Middle Kingdoms books and I was wondering if there’s a pronunciation guide for the characters’ names kicking around anywhere. Especially for Segnbora’s name and Eftgan’s nickname 😊 thanks in advance, and thank you also for the books. If there was ever a time that those of us living in reality needed fix it fic for the world….. regardless, they’re a comfort.

First of all: you're very welcome. I have to admit that at this particular point in time, there's something to be said for being able to take refuge in a universe where, when the politically or economically powerful misbehave, God is extremely likely to show up on their doorsteps—in one guise or another—to forcefully, and when necessary fatally, kick their butts. (I'm polishing a scene of that kind right now and it is so fecking satisfying.)

And for our joint amusement: here's an image of Segnbora and Queen Eftgan in that fabled Darthis dive bar the Stuck Pig, just after the events in Tales of the Five: The Landlady (and after Eftgan had had time to change out of the clothes she'd earlier been wearing for yardwork).

Meanwhile, about pronunciations in the Middle Kingdoms books: sure, no problem. A little background:

I've mentioned here and there that the groundwork for the series grew out of a period in the late 60s/early 70s when I'd pivoted toward writing Tolkien fanfic (from Trek). One aspect of the LOTR works that particularly stuck with me was the whole "Author Is Merely Translating The Red Book Of Westmarch" thing, with Tolkien claiming (in his appended materials) to be translating character names from the Westron and substituting sympathetic alternatives from Old (and Middle) English.

So early on in my ficcing process—which rapidly turned into a worldbuilding hotbed for the Middle Kingdoms universe as a whole—I scraped together enough cash to send to Blackwell's of Oxford for a copy of J. R. Clark Hall's A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. (Which you can actually now download as an .epub from Project Gutenberg, such are the wonders of the age we live in.) I promptly started mining the book for character names, and as a result Old English-based or -sounding names are scattered all through the series. Sometimes the name signals something about what's going on with the character: but not inevitably.

...Inserting a cut here, as this goes on a bit. Caution: contains inflected vowels, idiosyncratic pronunciations, snarky nicknames, mice, and the secret behind why—when he's not helping save the world—Herewiss usually seems to be in the bathtub.

...Anyway. As far as pronunciations go, probably the simplest hint is to treat these names—and other Old English-derived words in the text— as if they were indeed sort of English... and not to get unduly worried about trying to approximate the proper OE pronunciations. (Because I sure don't.) So that means "Herewiss" is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, and the "Here-" pronounced exactly like Eng. "here"; "Freelorn", the same way—just "free" and "lorn" run together. His name, like various others in the series, is a construction, and doesn't appear in Hall's. Its structure harks back to etymologies like the one involved in the now pretty-much antiquated word lorn (cf. "lovelorn", "forlorn", etc.). Its use in his name is meant to suggest someone who—when he tries to live a carefree unencumbered life—screws up repeatedly until he realizes he just can’t do that; because, like it or not, he’s destined for different things. ...Herewiss's name, though, is an alteration of an OE word that does appear in Hall's, herewisa: "wise in [the ways of] war", a captain or general. The word often implies a strategist or tactician, which is a good fit for him.

The pronounce-it-like-sort-of-English approach works for both Segnbora and Eftgan. The first part of Segnbora's name comes from the same root as the Eng. "sign", and Segnbora's "g" is also silent: so, senn-BOH-ra, to rhyme with "when MORE uh." It's derived directly from the OE segnbora, "a standard-bearer": which, as the series's plot proceeds, is a name she earns. Eftgan is just EFT-gan, rhyming with "WEFT-ten". Her name, unlike Segnbora's, doesn't appear in Hall's, but those of various of her family and relatives do, featuring the "eft-" prefix (OE "again")* that suggests repetition; or sometimes just "ef-". (Darthene royal names during the main series's century tend to start with "E" or “B”, as Arlene ones at the moment start with "F".)

The nickname situation (or "calling-name" as it's described in both the Arlene and Darthene languages) is slightly more involved. People coming up with nicknames for friends or family may chop off a congenial segment of a name and use that (as "Lorn" for Freelorn). Or they may verb-ize or adjectivize part of a name, so that the nickname sometimes acts as a pointer to something going on with that person—perhaps a character trait. Eftgan does this with Segnbora, calling her "'Berend" (as the others in the found family eventually start doing as well). This very purposeful twist of a possessive form of her name (Segnbéreind) into a pun on Dar. (e)h'bereindh, "hurried, speeding", implies a tendency to rush into things or to take sudden action that may look precipitate to the casual viewer.

Tegánë (teh-GAAH-nay), Segnbora's nickname for her onetime lover and current wife, is something similar. It first breaks the Queen's name in an archaic and atypical way (and one that would, for a fellow lore-student of the Silent Precincts, evoke some usages in previous centuries' verse forms). Then the extraneous, inflected vowels hooked onto it turn the nickname into a teasing near-opposite of Segnbora's own, a cognate to Dar. tegáneit: "methodical, calm, thorough"—with the affectionate implication that maybe the person it's applied to could occasionally speed things the Dark up a little. The two nicknames together could be taken by Darthene speakers (and there are a couple more of those in the family) as a microcosm of Segnbora's and Eftgan's relationship.

...And then there are the nicknames that have no damn thing whatsoever to do with the "right-name" of the person associated with them: like "Dusty" for Herewiss. In the dialect of Darthene commonly spoken in the Brightwood principality, the actual nickname "translated" here is Dar. Eárret(h), "[habitually] dirtied, besmirched": a word often used in frustrated affection for the kind of person who all through their childhood will inevitably find a mud puddle to jump into mere seconds after you’ve managed to wrestle clean clothes onto them. For someone who in adulthood canonically prefers to dress way down, in traditional/vernacular Brightwood leathers, for city life—the better to bamboozle clueless courtiers into dismissing him as an unsophisticated hick—but who's also been revealed to enjoy being a bit of a clothes-horse when he has an excuse, the conjoined fondness and irony underlying Herewiss's family nickname make it choice. Yet (as the best nicknames are) it's still apropos. This is a man who, whether digging in the garden or taking on a difficult piece of political work, is not afraid to get right down into it and get his hands dirty… and who won't waste time washing up until matters are fully sorted out.

...Anyway: hope this has helped a bit! The only other piece of advice: when you run into dipthongs (Héalhra, Éarn, Béorgan, etc etc), you can split them if you like (HAY-ul-hra) or run them together (YARN): exactly as you please. No one in this universe is going to care. And in the other one—bearing in mind the Realms-wide mandate for showing proper hospitality to strangers—on hearing how you sound they'll probably just buy you a drink and ask you for the news from foreign parts. (As unexpectedly happened to me, one time, here. Hit the "backstory" tab for the details.). :)

*Burns’s poem "To A Mouse" invokes this word, dialect-changed to old Scots: "...gang aft agley."

[trothplighted]

like really I am all for defaulting to Watsonian explanations over Doylist ones when it comes to HP characterization and meta and all of that, but I think we truly truly cannot do that when it comes to James and Snape.

for books 1-4 James is a completely uncomplicated hero who was selfless and saved the life of an enemy who hated him and every person who ever knew him corroborates this to Harry except for the Dursleys and Snape himself, both of whom are intended at this point by the author to be uncomplicatedly antagonistic and prejudiced and abusive (though not the worst people ever). for books 1-4 Snape is an abusive sadistic antagonist who singles out and psychologically torments and sabotages our cast of protagonists (who are children in his care) and who has some mysterious secrets but who is largely intended to be read as A Bad Guy.

in book 5, James becomes a bully and an asshole and Snape becomes a sympathetic victim. I have my own pair of theories as to why this is, but I really can’t emphasize enough that this is a complete 180 from how they’re both presented in the previous installments.

and this is really, really, really badly done. Snape gets brand new motivations around Lily that didn’t exist and weren’t hinted at before. James gets a personality transplant. none of this follows from the version of events we saw unfold in the first half of this series. you can make it work Watsonianly with great effort, but you can’t ignore or sidestep that Joanne made that call. both versions of both characters are equally canon. it’s a mess.

[pandapetals]

Double Date

You and Logan go on a double date with Jean and Scott.

professor logan howlett x professor fem!reader - married couple, cute, fluff, teasing, no y/n used, no reader description, your an english professor, logan is a history professor - imagine days of future past logan with the white streaks in his hair

read on ao3 or find more parts for the series: here

divider credit: @enchanthings

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Jean?" you asked skeptically, glancing over at her as you both sat in her office, grading papers. The afternoon sun filtered through the window, casting a soft glow over the stacks of assignments that never seemed to get any smaller. “Double dates... that's something teenagers do, right?"

Jean laughed, her red hair catching the light as she set down her pen. "We’re young, you know. Well, young-ish... except for Logan," she teased, shooting you a playful grin. "Besides, it's just a double date. It'll be fun."

You raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. "Fun is us going out for drinks or a movie without our husbands.”

Jean rolled her eyes, leaning back in her chair. "Scott and I could use a night out. It’s been a long time, especially since the baby came. His parents agreed to watch Nathan tonight, so I’m taking advantage of this rare opportunity."

You sighed, knowing there was no way out of it now. "Alright, fine," you said, smiling despite your reservations. "But if Scott and Logan start a stare-down contest halfway through dinner, you’re handling it."

Jean laughed again, giving you a knowing look. "Deal. But I have a feeling you’re going to be the one keeping the peace. You’re good at bridging that gap."

Later that evening, you found yourself sitting at a dimly lit restaurant, across from Scott and Jean, with Logan seated beside you. The tension in the air was palpable from the moment the four of you sat down. Scott greeted Logan with a nod, and Logan returned with a grunt. So far, so good. But the undercurrent of their long-standing tension hung over the table like a dark cloud.

The waiter came by, taking drink orders—Logan, predictably, ordered a whiskey straight while Scott opted for something more reserved, a scotch on the rocks. You and Jean exchanged a glance, both of you silently acknowledging the subtle stand-off that had already begun.

"So," Jean started, trying to inject some lightness into the atmosphere. "How’s your class going, Logan? I hear the kids have been really into your military history lectures."

Logan shrugged, taking a sip of his drink. "They’re learnin' somethin', at least. Though they could use a little more discipline. Kids today get distracted too damn easily."

Scott smirked, leaning back in his chair. "Well, not everyone can handle boot camp as a teaching method, Logan."

There it was. The first jab. You glanced at Jean, who raised her eyebrows in warning. You could practically feel Logan bristling beside you, his hand tightening around his glass.

"At least they listen when I talk," Logan muttered, his voice low and gruff.

You placed a hand on Logan’s arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. "What Logan means ," you said with a grin, cutting in before things could escalate, "is that the kids respect his... unique teaching style. Right, Logan?"

Logan glanced at you, his lips twitching into the faintest hint of a smile. "Yeah, somethin' like that."

Jean, ever the diplomat, smiled brightly. "Oh, I’m sure they love it. Scott's geometry students seem to survive somehow. Maybe there's room for both methods."

Scott chuckled lightly, but the tension still simmered beneath the surface. It was going to be a long night if you didn’t intervene more.

"So, Jean," you said, turning to her with a playful smile, "have you read that new book I lent you? The one about feminist literary theory in Victorian novels?" You purposefully leaned into the topic you knew would bore the men to death, hoping to shift the energy at the table.

Jean’s eyes lit up. "Yes! It’s fascinating how they reframe the narratives, right? That chapter on Jane Eyre was so insightful. It’s like reading the novel through a whole new lens."

Logan groaned quietly under his breath, and you could practically hear Scott internally rolling his eyes. You looked over at Logan, who was staring down into his whiskey like it held the answers to the universe. "Sounds riveting," he muttered.

Scott leaned in, shooting Logan a conspiratorial glance. "These two and their intellectual deep dives, huh? Bet they could talk about Victorian novels all night."

Logan smirked, finally breaking through the tension with a rare flash of amusement. "Don’t even get me started. The last time she tried to explain one of those theories to me, I ended up readin’ half of Wuthering Heights. Still don’t understand why Heathcliff didn’t just leave."

You couldn’t help but laugh, shaking your head. "Because it’s a story about obsession, Logan. It’s a metaphor for—"

"For poor decision-makin'," Logan cut in, his smirk growing. "Guy shoulda walked away and saved everyone a lot of trouble."

Jean laughed along with you, and Scott, for once, found himself nodding in agreement with Logan. "I’ve been saying that for years," he muttered, raising his glass. "Heathcliff is one of the most frustrating characters in literature."

Logan raised his glass, clinking it lightly against Scott’s, both of them sharing a rare moment of camaraderie. "Guess we agree on somethin' then," Logan said, still grinning.

You exchanged a surprised glance with Jean, both of you trying not to laugh at the sudden shift in tone. Maybe this double date wouldn’t be such a disaster after all.

As the evening wore on, the conversation flowed more easily. Scott and Logan even took turns teasing you and Jean about your "intellectual" interests, mocking the way you both could get lost in endless discussions about books, theories, and literary tropes.

"Oh, and remember last week," Logan said with a grin, "when she got all riled up about literary accuracy in that TV show?"

Scott chuckled, shaking his head. "You should’ve heard Jean going off about the scientific inaccuracies in that alien invasion movie. She almost walked out of the theater."

"Almost?" Jean said, raising an eyebrow. "I did walk out. I refused to sit through that nonsense."

The four of you laughed, and the earlier tension dissolved completely, replaced by the warmth of shared jokes and unexpected camaraderie. By the time dessert arrived, Scott and Logan were trading more quips than glares, their long-standing tension buried—if only for the night—under layers of teasing banter.

The evening drew to a close, you leaned over and whispered to Logan, "See? Told you this would be fun."

Logan gave you a sidelong glance, his lips twitching into that lopsided smile that always made your heart skip. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, slipping his hand into yours under the table. "Guess I was wrong. For once."

You grinned, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. "Don’t get used to saying that."

He smirked, leaning in close enough that only you could hear. "I won’t." Then, with a wink, he added, "But this was all for you, darlin'."

[jenchan-writingmultis]

Twisted Wonderland Boys x Reader in their respective Fairytales (Series)

(Azul's Part one) Previous Part (Leona)

─────❅─────

Content Warning: This Fic will be tagged as 16+ since it is a bit suggestive along with mentions of Gorey themes (Azul), it’s very vague. I haven’t finished Book 6 and Book 7 because I’m stuck in Tartarus, but they’re not done here yet. Riddle (Suggestive Themes), Leona (Cussing, Blood mention), Azul (Obsession, Manipulation, Cussing once, Potential Cannibalism? (He eats merpeople who are turned into Polyps). The reason for potential OOC was cause I mixed both the classic Villains with the personality of our beloved boys

Due to the Tumblr Limit, Each one will be divided unfortunately, hopefully it's an easy navigation for all of you!

─────❅─────

First Batch would be: Riddle, Leona, Azul

Second Batch would be: Kalim, Idia, Malleus

List of Villains interconnecting with each character:

Riddle = Queen of Hearts

Leona = Scar

Azul = Ursula

─────❅───── Azul:

Now Azul’s eyes might be deceiving him, but he noticed a little mermaid struggling to swim, that’s a sight you wouldn’t see every day, it’s like you’re drowning.

With his curiosity piqued, he moved out of his comfort zone, swimming to you.

The moment you laid eyes on him, it felt as though you had known him for an eternity. You hugged him tightly, wrapping your fins around him in fear. He lifted you up by grabbing your underarms, as if you were a kitten. "My, my, I'm not sure why you're struggling to swim around here like a baby fish," he mocked you, however that gave a different affect on your part, it allowed you to calm down. He noticed the remnants of tears on your cheeks.

“I thought I was drowning!” you cried out, calming down since your boyfriend but in his octopus form was here, although it was odd why he looked like his usual except, he seemed to have a darker palette on his body.

“Drowning?” he chuckled, hands letting you go as he sits you down on the coral reef, you were already deep under the sea, have you not noticed? “Why would you drown? You’re a mermaid.”

He felt stupid needing to state the obvious to you, but the way your eyes widened, looking down your fins, it seemed way too genuine to be faked. One can only speculate that you probably were cursed.

“Are you not originally a mermaid?” his octo arms tracing on your fins to examine it, indeed it was mermaid fins, not fake ones.

“I don’t know” you answered, you were terrified, your Azul never talked about his endeavors under the sea, and he never got you to meet his parents yet, he was still trying to teach you how to swim!

“You…” he sighed, his arms pulling away before he walks away, he didn’t even instruct you to follow him yet a deep feeling inside his heart says that you would follow him, which you did.

The way you tried to walk with your fins was funny, that he felt bad, you wanted to follow but not knowing how to utilize your fins were pathetic.

He guessed he can spare some of his benevolence to you.

“Oh, you poor thing” he said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he grabbed your waist with his arm, pulling you with him as he walks to his cave. You felt embarrassed having Azul help you walk, or rather swim here. “I ought to teach you how to swim, but that’s not the time right now.” He mused, the moment you went in, your heart drops, seeing polyps, their faces looking at you desperately as if they’re crying for help, yet their mouth was shut.

“Ignore them” Azul said as he walks over them, crushing a few “polyps”

“they’re my food” His arms guiding you tightened, if you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he wanted to eat you.

Shit, this guy is not your Azul, the way he smiles so emotionlessly sends a shiver down your spine, your guts telling you to squirm and run away.

Which if you were smarter enough, you should have not tried to follow him, he could have let you go if you did.

“Now, relax, I won’t turn you into one of them” referencing to the polyps, you still feared him though and for some reason that irritated him, look at him with that cute expression you did earlier, the relief.

“Stop staring at me like that” he said annoyed, pinching the bridge of his nose while putting you on the rock chair.

In front of you sat a cauldron, surrounded by an array of chemicals reminiscent of the potions you used to create together in potionology class. As he moved about, searching for scrolls, he stole short glances in your direction.

After reminiscing about the time he treated you nicely, your gaze falls back to him, who looked satisfied when he found what he wanted.

“You’re not from here, right?” he asked out of nowhere, causing you to stiffen up, well, after a few minutes of being here, you did find out that you were dreaming, you just didn’t know why.

You would be surprised by how fast Azul found out, but knowing your boyfriend, of course he’d know, he’s not slow.

“Yes,” you answered truthfully, your fins flapping a bit, similar to how a human would shake their legs whenever they’re bored or anxious.

“I could send you back to where you’re from”  Giving you the business smile he often uses whenever dealing with contracts was involved. You’d be happy if this was your Azul, but seeing those poor polyps that were once merpeople, you didn’t celebrate too early.

“What’s the catch?” you asked, your knuckles were turning white with how you clenched your hands. Azul laughs, turning around as he throws advanced potions you didn’t know in the cauldron, it changes color as he gets to work. “Oh, I’m not asking much” he purred out. Bullshit.

Azul confirmed two things with the way you talked, first, you knew about him, and second, you were human, I mean It was obvious when you, a grown mermaid, couldn’t swim. More often, merpeople tend to be naïve, accepting help left and right just with a few twists of his words, but you…

You asked what the catch was! How amusing, you were indeed human cause they’re the only type of species that would be wary in dealing with deals and promises that are “too good to be true”

About his first discovery, it was the fact that he wanted to have you take his deal, only for you to fail miserably and belong to him for eternity. He didn’t know why his instincts were enamored by the idea of having you by his side, he already had his hands full with two leeches, and having another one is already way too much, especially when it’s a mermaid who can’t even swim properly, or at all.

Unfortunately, though it seems like he can’t win against his instinct using his logic.

“You just need to answer my questions,” he stated, noticing your distrustful demeanor. Oddly, it pleased him; how interesting you were. “If you answer correctly, then I’ll help you”

Azul Part two

[freak-like-meemy]

I saw this question in the Rise of the Guardians Fans community, and I was going to leave a simple comment like a well-adjusted person. But as I wrote it out, I turned into a full-on lore goblin, poured my heart into this ridiculously long answer, and decided to post it here instead.

To be honest, I watched the movie first, fell in love with it, and then read the books—probably like most in the fandom. But back then, only the first three had been published, and when I finally read them, everything just clicked. Suddenly, the world felt richer, the characters deeper, and I found comfort in knowing their stories had always been there, waiting for me to discover them~

My Answer:

I love both the film and the books. To me, they aren’t truly comparable—the books explore how the Guardians became guardians, offering richer motivations and deeper histories than the film allows. While the movie focuses more on Jack’s personal arc—his loneliness, eventual acceptance, and role as a Guardian. The film simplifies characters and themes for broader appeal while still preserving the heart of the books. The books provide much deeper lore, delving into childhood wonder and cosmic balance in ways the movie only hints at but doesn’t fully develop.

If you say you like the movie better, it likely means you prefer the story of Jack Frost’s journey of becoming a Guardian. But the books explore how North, Bunny, Tooth, and Sandy took up their mantles—plus the forgotten Guardians Ombric and Katherine. And honestly, their stories deserve just as much love as Jack's. They’re just as compelling, their struggles just as meaningful, and their journeys are a huge part of what makes the Guardians who they are.

Production for Rise of the Guardians began in 2009, with DreamWorks Animation developing the film based on William Joyce’s Guardians of Childhood book series. After years of animation work, voice recording, and visual development, the movie was officially released in 2012.

Meanwhile, Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King was published on October 4, 2011, as the first book in The Guardians of Childhood series, introducing North’s origins and his battle against Pitch Black.

This is where I have to say—I really wish Katherine and Ombric had been included in the movie. North, Jack, and the others wouldn’t be where they are without them. Katherine and Ombric are essentially Mother Goose and Father Time, yet they didn’t receive a shred of acknowledgment. The film makes it seem like there are only four Guardians when Pitch refers to them as "the big four," but that’s simply not true—Katherine and Ombric played pivotal roles.

Many people don’t realize just how much the first book focuses on Katherine and Ombric—especially their profound impact on North. Before meeting them, he was a bloodthirsty thief and Cossack, driven by adventure but lacking true purpose. But Ombric saw potential in North before North could see it in himself. He gave him not only knowledge but also purpose, teaching him that true strength isn’t found in battle but in protecting those who cannot protect themselves. North’s magic as a wizard became an extension of his heart—allowing him to spread wonder, warmth, and belief in ways that would eventually make him Santa Claus.

I don’t know if the filmmakers realize it or not, but what I love most about North and Ombric’s relationship in the book is how beautifully it mirrors North and Jack’s.

Katherine was the first person to show him what love, kindness, and dreams truly meant. She softened the edges of his heart—not by forcing change upon him, but simply by being herself. Her wonder encouraged him to see the world differently, to embrace magic not just as a tool but as a gift meant to inspire.

It’s because of Katherine that North becomes the kind of person who can wield both strength and compassion. He builds the North Pole based on her dream—a physical manifestation of the belief and imagination she sparked in him. She teaches him that being a leader isn’t just about power; it’s about creating something that lasts, something that brings joy and hope to others. Without Katherine, North might never have found the path that led him to become Santa Claus.

Their relationship is a testament to how small kindnesses can change a person’s destiny.

So, without Ombric’s wisdom and fatherly guidance, North wouldn’t have become the wizard and mentor he is. Without Katherine’s imagination and kindness, he wouldn’t have learned to see the world through the eyes of a child. The warmth, joy, and wonder we see in the movie? That’s all because of them. They shaped him into the leader he was always meant to be.

Jack Frost wouldn’t be Jack Frost without his bond with Katherine—without her, he’d still be Nightlight. She played a vital role in his journey, shaping who he would become in ways few truly realize. As for the depth of their relationship… well, that’s a conversation for another time, because I could go on forever.

Katherine read Sandy his Guardian oath, swearing him in as a protector of dreams. In that moment, she wasn’t just officiating a ceremony—she was recognizing the quiet strength within him, welcoming him into a legacy built on trust, and belief.

Katherine is the only one who could truly reach Pitch on a personal and emotional level because they both understood loneliness and the longing for family. Their dynamic in the books runs much deeper, emphasizing their shared experience as outcasts. (I talk more about their relationship here.)

In the movie, Tooth has a bubblier personality, but she often falls into the role of the "designated girl" of the group. While she retains her warmth and charm, much of her fierce, warrior-like nature from the books is softened. The only real glimpse of that side is when she charges at Pitch with Bunny’s boomerang and later punches him in the face. But imagine if she’d had her swords—she wouldn’t have needed to pilfer Bunny’s goods in the first place. Her strength was there, but it was just barely acknowledged, leaving her feeling like a fraction of the warrior she was meant to be. Additionally, her portrayal was altered in ways that diminished important aspects of her original character, including her cultural representation. (She was noticeably whitewashed.)

And let’s talk about the weapons. Every main male character had one—North had swords, Bunny had boomerangs, Sandy had sand whips, Jack had a staff, and Pitch had a scythe. Tooth? Her wings were used as blades to destroy Pitch’s nightmares, but that’s barely the same. She was meant to be a warrior queen, fierce and commanding, yet they stripped her of her swords, making her the only Guardian without a real weapon. She deserved better.

In the books, Toothiana wields swords, carries a dark and tragic backstory, and has a sworn enemy—the Monkey King. And she wasn’t afraid to grab him by the throat and pin him against the wall. That’s how feral she is!

But beneath her warrior’s strength is a story of loss and resilience. Tooth's past brought out a deeply personal and bittersweet side to Katherine, who, like Tooth, had lost her parents at a young age. Tooth had memories of her family—faint but precious—while Katherine had none. That difference created a quiet envy in Katherine—not out of resentment, but from the longing to have what Tooth did: even the smallest fragments of love to hold onto. It was an interesting moment of vulnerability, seeing a child wrestle with emotions so complex—admiration, sadness, and a deep yearning for something she never had.

I don’t really have complaints about Movie Sandy. He’s a little badass and the closest to his book counterpart, making him feel the most true to The Guardians of Childhood. In the movie, he’s the heart of the team—warm, wise, quiet but powerful, and playfully charming. And since the film came out before Book Four was published, it’s cool how he managed to stay so spot-on to his character.

But The Sandman: The Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie gives us a better look at Sandy. He lives on a magical beach, has a giant sandcastle, commands an army of seashells with arms and legs, and—most importantly—has a harem of mermaids! Like, what a stud. The original short king. He’s just effortlessly cool, and I wish we’d seen more of him and his world in the movie.

Movie Jack works well since this was his first introduction as Jack Frost, though in the books, he’s Nightlight. I wasn’t a fan of how his transition from Nightlight to Jack Frost was handled in Book Five, and while I’ll keep my thoughts polite, there are quite a few things I didn’t like about that book. As for Bunny, I love both versions, and I have my own theories about why he’s more "human" and emotional in the film. In the books, Bunny is the last of his species—the Pookas—who were annihilated in a genocide carried out by Pitch Black, leaving him the sole survivor. Yet, despite such a heartbreaking past, the books don’t delve much into his emotions about it. Instead, what we see is his fascination with chocolate, eggs, and anything oval-shaped—a detail that might seem annoying but carries subtle undertones of comfort and attachment.

Many people prefer Bunny’s movie counterpart, and it’s hard not to when you have Hugh Jackman as his voice actor. But William Joyce revealed that Pookas were inspired by Vulcans from Star Trek, and Bunny himself was particularly based on Spock. Vulcan tradition focuses on suppressing the irrational effects of emotions, and Bunny reflects that logic-driven mindset in the books. He’s literal, methodical, and steeped in mechanical thinking—reasoning through strict logic rather than emotion.

Chocolate, however, changes everything. It mutates him, making him feel emotions more intensely. Eating chocolate triggers the release of oxytocin and dopamine, chemicals that promote pleasure, bonding, and emotional connection. Oxytocin—often called the "love hormone"—plays a key role in trust, empathy, and relationship-building, reinforcing social bonds and reducing stress. Bunny, who thrives on logic, is suddenly overwhelmed by these irrational yet deeply human sensations.

Here’s a quote from Book Two: "Alas,” he sighed, “chocolate is bad for Pookas. It makes me more like you. Illogical. Racing about. Always trying to save the day.” He shook his head, as if disgusted with himself".

But maybe that’s why chocolate and eggs mean so much to him. They’re not just indulgences or traditions; they’re a way to carry the weight of his survivor’s guilt, a way to hold onto something warm and meaningful in the wake of unimaginable loss. Chocolate makes him feel, and eggs symbolize new beginnings—hope, rebirth, the cycle of life continuing even when everything else seems lost. And that’s why it’s brilliant that Bunny is the Guardian of Hope. He knows firsthand what it means to endure, to survive, and to keep going even when his world has been shattered.

Yet, deep down, I think Bunny fears allowing himself to feel too much. If he lets go of his rigid logic, if he allows emotions to take over, does he become something lesser? More vulnerable? More human? He clings to his Pooka nature because it’s all he has left of his people, of the world that was stolen from him. But through his bonds with the Guardians, through the traditions he keeps alive, he slowly learns that emotions don’t make him weak—they make him whole. What starts as discomfort eventually becomes acceptance, leading him to evolve into the Bunny we see in the movie—strong, loyal, quick-witted, but also deeply emotional in a way that makes him more relatable and endearing.

I don’t have the energy to write EVERYTHING about Movie Pitch vs. Book Pitch, so I’ll just enjoy this meme I made instead. :3

I don’t really know where I was going with this, but I poured a lot of thought into it, and, well… here we are! Being neurodivergent means my brain takes the scenic route, and this took me hours to write—but I wouldn’t change a thing.

[sunstone-smiles]

Aren't Joltiks Just the Cutest?

Author’s note: It’s time to partyyyy!!! This is my first fic for the Hear Me Out Cake event hosted by @tickly-trashcan, and I was so happy when I saw that @a-fluffer-nutter requested Ingo! I’m absolutely hearing you out! I’m taking a page from tickly-trashcan and pairing the characters with cakes, so Ingo and Emmet get a Cookies and Cream / Oreo cake. (Here’s the link to the cake recipe where I found the image, Lol). I hope you enjoy!

Series: Pokemon

Characters: Ingo, Emmet, Joltik, and Excadrill

Word count: 1,503

Summary: Emmet wants to show Ingo that Joltiks are the most adorable Pokemon. In order to do so, Emmet thinks that Ingo and the Joltiks should spend some play time together!

---

After being brothers with his polar opposite for so long, Ingo is used to being able to quietly focus while Emmet causes a racket in the same room. As Ingo sits peacefully reading a book on the couch with Excadrill napping by his side, Emmet sits in the middle of the floor, training eight joltiks to do tricks.

Emmet cheers in the background. “Ingo, look!” Emmet rushes over to his brother. A joltik is sitting in his cupped hands. “Joltik just did a flip! Watch!”

Ingo pulls his eyes away from his story to see the little creature. As if on cue, the joltik hops up and does a flip, almost like a toy. 

“See?” Emmet exclaims.

“Wow, very nice Emmet. And you too, Joltik,” Ingo congratulates both pokemon and partner.

“I know, right?” Emmet brings the joltik to his face, then nuzzles the tiny creature, “Aren’t joltiks just the cutest?”

“Well, I don’t know about the cutest,” Ingo looks over at his napping Excadrill and gives the creature a gentle pat. Ingo would say that all his pokemon are the cutest though, truly.

Emmet narrows his eyes at his brother, taking lighthearted offense at Ingo’s words. 

“Oh, really?” he lifts a brow. He turns his attention back to the tiny creature in his hand. “Well, maybe you just haven’t spent enough time with them like I have.”

“I’m sure of that,” Ingo moves his eyes from Excadrill to his book, not even sparing a moment to see Emmet’s face. If he did look though, he would have seen that Emmet’s expression had morphed itself into a scheming smile.

Emmet leans on one leg. “Theeeen, maybe you should spend some more time with them,” he glides over to Ingo. With zero warning, Emmet places the joltik on Ingo’s shoulder. Ingo whips his head in the creature’s direction when he feels the little legs, like a tiny bird’s, resting on his shoulder.

He glances up at his brother and lays his book on the table in front of him, confused. Emmet has his hands on his hips, and Ingo finally notices the calculating smirk on his lips.

“Go on, Ingo. Get to know them,” Emmet says. By this time, the little joltik has already begun making their way towards Ingo’s neck. When they reach their destination, the electric type nuzzles into the side of his neck to show their affection.

“Emmet, what point are you trying to make?” Ingo says with a joltik mid-snuggling his neck. “You know I already like joltiks.”

“Yes, but you don’t think they’re the cutest. Which is fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I just thought that you could have some fun with them. You know, to hear me out.” Emmet’s tone appears standard, but his grin adds a hint of mischief to his words.

Ingo rolls his eyes. “Emmet, my opinion is not going to sway in an instant—ah!” Ingo’s sentence is suddenly cut off when he feels the little joltik climb into the collar of his shirt. Immediately, Ingo’s mouth quivers into a smile. The little joltik skitters across his torso, making joltik’s journey have ticklish repercussions for Ingo.

Emmet’s grin widens from ear to ear, experiencing joy that’s equivalent to sneaking ice down their sibling’s shirt. “Oh, did I forget to tell you that when joltiks are curious, they like to explore?”

“E-Emmet!” Ingo stutters with an underlying growl, trying to tame the feeling of laughter. 

“See, you would know that if you spent more time with them,” Emmet throws another quip his way.

“Very funny,” Ingo says through gritted teeth. His body begins to curl forward. “C-Come on, joltik. Gehehet out of there,” a giggle slips.

“Hmm,” Emmet taps a finger to his chin, but he already knows full well what the next part of his plan is. “Maaaybe, playing with even more joltiks will convince you of their cuteness!”

“What?!” Ingo exclaims, but Emmet’s already scooping up his seven other joltiks in his arms and bringing them to join the party. 

Ingo’s eyes grow wide. “Emmet! Wahahait!” Ingo’s giggles from the joltik’s tickles and from the anticipation spill simultaneously. Right after his pleas, Emmet gently pours the joltiks over his twin’s shoulders, and all of the little creatures wander to different places around Ingo like children exploring a new playground. Ingo scrunches his shoulders to his neck and wraps his arms around himself, already feeling the tiny creatures spider their little legs across his upper half—some even crawling into his shirt.

“Ohohohoh nohohoho!” Ingo finally bursts into laughter; his chest rumbles from his booming giggles that are loud enough for Excadrill’s ears sitting beside him. The steel and ground type pokemon blinks open their eyes. Feeling and seeing through the sleepy corner of their vision that Ingo is making sudden shifts in movement, Excadrill’s head shoots up in surprise. 

He jumps to his feet, alert and worried for his trainer, “Exca!?” Finally processing the laughter and seeing the wide smile on Ingo’s face, the pokemon leans his head to the side. “Drill?”

Emmet informs the older pokemon, “Don’t worry, Excadrill. Ingo and my joltiks are just having a little playdate.”

Excadrill nods in understanding. He’s used to the twins causing some brotherly ruckus once in a while. Most of the time, Excadrill is an audience member to their shenanigans, but this time, Excadrill thinks to himself that his trainer could use some revenge for waking him up…

The dual type spots one of the joltik perched and snuggling at Ingo’s neck. “Exca! Drill-drill!” he grabs their attention.

The one joltik returns a smile with their blue eyes. “Jol! Joltik!” As soon as the interaction takes place, the joltik scurries into Ingo’s sleeve. Excadrill smirks. The larger pokemon hops off the couch and struts over to a pillow left on the floor while looking over his shoulder with a sly smile.

“Wahahait! Excadrill! Whahahat did yohohou just tehehehell them–AHA!” Ingo’s laughter jumps a hurdle once he feels the little creatures hone in around his ribs and his belly like a coordinated attack. 

“YOHOHOHOU trahahaitor!!!” Ingo, who figured out the answer to his very question, yells over to Excadrill. The steel and ground type simply keeps grinning and plops himself onto the floor pillow.

Emmet looks Excadrill’s way. “Verrry nice, Excadrill. I didn’t think you had it in you,” the younger twin complements. Excadrill makes a happy grunt. Emmet then clasps his hands together and returns his attention to his brother. 

“So Ingo. Now that you’ve gotten more acquainted with my joltiks, there’s another reason I want to show you why they are the cutest. Technically they can’t learn what the actual move is in battles, but I taught them a miniature version of it they can use for occasions such as this one. The move is called the most endearing and adorable name. Watch,” Emmet ends his pitch by putting on the largest smirk. He pauses for dramatic effect. “Joltik?”

“Ehehemmet!” Ingo giggles his brother’s name like he was scolding him.

“Use…”

“Ehehemmet, dohohont!” Ingo’s giggles turn more frantic, like he knows what’s coming.

“Nuzzle.” 

With the command spoken, the sound of tiny electric sparks and squeaks are heard from beneath Ingo’s shirt. Ingo doesn’t even have a moment to prepare himself before a surge of electric energy zaps harmlessly, but very ticklishly, at the front of his torso, causing Ingo to explode with more of his boisterous laughter. The blast of his giggles knocks him over and onto the cushions flat on his back. He curls his knees to his chest and he rolls himself into a ball of precious giggles, still while making sure not to hurt the little joltik playing around.

“See? Isn’t that adorable?” Emmet teases. Ingo’s not sure whether or not he’s referring to the joltik or poking fun at him. Either way, Ingo surrenders.

“EHEHEMMET! Ohohohokay! OKAY! Cahahahall them OHOHOHOFF!” Ingo shouts. Satisfied, Emmet walks closer to Ingo and claps his hands.

“Okay, joltik. Playtime is over. Come on out, everyone,” Emmet says. The sound of electricity starts to silence, then joltiks begin to emerge from Ingo’s shirt. The joltiks all jump off of Ingo and into Emmet’s arms as Ingo releases his remaining giggles and regains a steady stream of air. When all eight of the electric creatures are retrieved, the pokemon crawl up and perch themselves on Emmet’s shoulders and on his head. 

Emmet lends a hand to his brother to help him sit upright on the couch. Then, he takes a seat next to him.

“So, how about it? Did I convince you?” Emmet elbows his twin to let him know he’s kidding. “Although I will say, Excadrill definitely earned some cuteness points from me for helping joltik and I earlier.”

Ingo rolls his eyes at this silly competition. “How about we just call it even and say that all of our pokemon are the cutest?” Ingo flashes his brother a soft smile.

Emmet emphasizes a nod, “Now THAT is something I can agree with.”

[agentrouka-blog]

“I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.”

I can’t tell if this is dramatic irony from GRRM and he means to subvert it or it’s a statement that may come to fruition ? Targ restoration seems very unlikely but I look at how “no one will ever marry me for love” and the willowy creature line is so obviously dramatic irony but can the same be said for the Dany line? Lot’s of Dany stans think so and obv think it’ll her and Jon’s child…I do find it funny that they’re the same people who claim that Jon’s willowy creature line isn’t ironic at all and that Sansa’s despair over only being chosen for her claim won’t be subverted at all 💀

I think that context here is a key in explaining why the line is begging to be subverted for Sansa, while acting (at best) as false bait in a broader metaphor of doom for Daenerys.

How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?" The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy, and sickly. It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. But lying came easy to her now. "I . . . can scarcely wait to meet him, my lady. But he is still a child, is he not?" (ASOS, Sansa VI)

For Sansa, the line plays on two things: 1) her disillusionment with an innocent but character-defining dream is already complete in the perfect middle of the series. What an excellent moment to set up an ironic hint where her arc will go from there. 2) Easter egg of an as of yet unknown fact: there is another cousin to whom marriage is going to be on the table. "It would be so sweet to see him once again" she later thinks of that not-yet-cousin, "but of course that could never be." Another never. What could possibly ensue down the line? It's pretty blatantly begging to be subverted.

Dany, meanwhile, is thinking this while in the process of fully embracing her dragon identity in the grasslands at the end of the fifth book (happening almost concurrently with the fourth book, so chronologically between the middle and the end). She is exiting her Mhysa-arc, abandoning the maternal role she took on at the end of ASOS, which had quickly entailed locking up her dragons for killing a little girl.

"Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons." Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children. (ADWD, Daenerys X)

Her children being the dragons.

Dany is torn between these idea of motherhood. Mother to the people, mother to dragons, mother to her own children. But, crucially, this chapter ends with a decision. She avoids examining the thought of her "moonblood", she divests herself of her commitment to Meereen, she summons and mounts Drogon, turns him away from Meereen, hunts on dragonback and gorges on the charred flesh of a horse that died screaming, calmly awaiting Jhaqo's khalasar to find her. She chooses the dragons.

The pregnancy she miscarried in the grasslands during her bout of starvation and dysentery was conceived in Meereen. Fairly soon after she started having sex with Daario and Hizdahr, even. Is it miscarried in the process of choosing to leave Meereen.

“To go forward I must go back,” she said.

She has chosen a new direction, back to her dragon identity, her personal quest. Nothing about this invites the idea of an ironic twist on motherhood being her future after all, which always stands in opposition to the dragons. The imagery is utterly consistent on that front.

In order to thematically reconnect to motherhood for herself, she would have to utterly reject the dragons, and that's going to be both extremely unlikely, and also increasingly meaningless the more she already achieves for herself through them. It's not much of a sacrifice if they have already given her power, devotion, armies, vengeance, the path to Westeros and the means to achieve all her goals. If Hazzea is not enough to convince Dany of what matters more, where is the meaning in being given "a little girl" for herself down the line, after yet more little girls will have died? Thematically, the time to earn this reward passed the moment she chose Drogon.

[infiniteeight8]

“You dont have to do this alone”

(Bonus points if its a continuation of one of my faves (the timetravel ones, soul, obsession, villain stephen, dreams)

This fits pretty nicely into one of the Tony & Soul ficlets I’ve had notes on for awhile. 😀

Most of the series is here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3910384

The most recent ficlet is here: https://www.tumblr.com/infiniteeight8/779404481691582464/tony-soul-continuation-if-this-round-of?source=share

Most of the ficlets so far have been about Tony’s adjustment period, and for good reason, but Stephen has issues, too…

-

Tony hadn’t been sure what to expect when Soul told him that Stephen needed him. It had been clear, at least, that it wasn’t an emergency. But if not for an emergency, Tony wasn’t sure how Stephen could need him. Stephen was the one with 14 million years worth of experience. 

Wong greeted Tony at the door, the Cloak hovering anxiously at his shoulder. There was a hint of relief in Wong’s expression. “He’s in the library,” Wong said quietly, almost whispering, as if Stephen could hear him somehow. 

Tony nodded, but before he could head in that direction, the Sanctum translocated him right outside the library entrance. Tony swallowed against the jolt in his stomach but didn’t rebuke the Sanctum; it was obvious they were all worried about Stephen. Entering the library, Tony found Stephen sitting in one of the generous library chairs, staring off into the distance. There was a heavy book open on the table next to him, but he wasn’t looking at it. The room was barely lit; Tony didn’t know how he could read in here.

As he approached Stephen, the room seemed to get darker, and Tony realized it wasn’t the lighting at all. 

Stephen’s emotions, as communicated by Soul, usually came across as textures. Sometimes with color, sometimes not. But the deep, bleak fatigue that radiated from Stephen was tinting everything, it was so intense. 

Most of the time, both of them treated Stephen’s millions of years worth of experience as an advantage, but… when Tony had protested that he didn’t want to live forever, Stephen had agreed with him. Making his way to Stephen’s side, Tony wracked his brain for the right words to say. How could he promise the eternity in front of Stephen would be any different than the one behind him?

Because it is different, Soul murmured. In all those millions of futures, he was always alone. No matter how close he grew with anyone, he always knew that he’d lose them—if not in the next life, then in the next century.

So Tony crouches down in front of Stephen and lifts one of his hands, clasping it between his own. Stephen doesn’t respond, so Tony finds the soul connection between them—now more than twice as thick as it had been in the beginning, a rope of intertwined strands—and touches it gently. He doesn’t try to send happiness or comfort or warmth along it. Instead, Tony projects only his presence. 

Stephen stirs, his gaze meeting Tony’s.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Tony says. “Not this time. Never again.”

Stephen lets out a shaky breath, his hand closing around Tony’s to squeeze back.

Now that he’s responsive again, Tony stands, using their clasped hands to draw Stephen up out of the armchair. Once they’re both on their feet, Tony pulls Stephen into a tight hug. Stephen leans against him, silent, but around them the shadows retreat and the light pours into the library again.

[unhinged-summer-fun]

the foolish heart's guide to not repeating history - chapter 1

Pairing: Dream of the Endless "Morpheus" x F!Reader

Summary:

Loving an Endless is a relentless struggle when the universe itself conspires to forget your existence. But when you lose your last chance with Dream, you refuse to surrender. You seek out the un-doomed version of him in the next universe over, vowing that if Dream would not go to change, change would come to him.

A/N: This is a story I posted on AO3 back in May of this year but I wanted to post it on my tumblr for Purposes. Hope you enjoy~

series masterlist

chapter 1: choosing a path

You’re amazed by how long it takes for him to find you.

Perhaps the other Destiny was better apprised of your shenanigans.

“What, exactly, do you think you’re doing?”

The man before you (behind you, a moment ago) looms. You’re not sure he has any other way of standing. In his hands is an open book, and he flips the pages rapidly without using his hands and without looking at their contents. Perhaps he doesn’t need eyes to see. Those eyes glow from the depths of his hood and the darkness of his skin. Brighter than eye-white, they shine with the snow-blue of the unseeing, yet he is very clearly reading.

“Walking,” you say.

He freezes to a degree just beyond that of statues. He tilts his head up, and suddenly, it’s you being read.

“What are you? Explain.”

“A… person?” you say, your voice tinged with a hint of uncertainty, as if you are not entirely sure of your own nature.

“She is one of us, Destiny of the Endless.” A voice—three voices—speaks from behind. You know them. They’re you, but you’re them.

“The Three cannot be Four,” the man—Destiny of the Endless—says, with an exasperation you’re sure is quite uncharacteristic of his usual moue.

“Long have men told us what we can be—and long have they failed to make it so.”

“It is not written.”

“As if that’s an answer,” you scoff, folding your arms. For the first time (Hundredth. Millionth. Hundred-millionth.), your voice rings with authority and surety that rattles the cobbles beneath your feet. As soon as it comes, it goes, but it’s enough to make everybody—the both of you, the five of you—pause.

“What is written in the Book must be. It is all of what has come to pass. Even the Three-in-One appears before it.” His frustration turns to confusion as you roll your eyes.

“You’re obviously not reading from the start, then. No sense in trying to understand the ending when you never even read what came before.”

“I have been reading the Word since the Beginning, since the dawn of time.”

You wince, remembering. Right. She doesn’t exist here.

“And you never finished it? Shame. I liked it plenty around this time. So I came back, and I’d like to do it all again! Don’t you ever reread your favorite parts of books?”

His thunderous silence told you in no uncertain terms, no.

“What is it that you want? You cannot disrupt my gardens so.”

“There’s just so much of it; I want to see it all.”

“The paths in the Garden—”

“Not just your shrubberies. I want to see the whole universe.”

Destiny of the Endless looks shocked. None had ever managed to interrupt him. His words were the Word. He speaks a little louder to dissuade you from attempting it again. “The paths in the Garden of Forking Ways are not meant to be retreaded. You must choose and remain on the path you choose.”

“Some paths will be different each time you walk them, are they not?”

The ground trembles some at your words. Destiny cannot see, but he glares at you.

“You are not of my realm. I ask again, what are you?”

“Well, you’ll have to keep reading to find out, won’t you?”

In all your time, there are some parts you wish you could experience again for the first time. Those parts are what make lives worth living, friends worth having, and mistakes worth making again and again. The feeling of growing up, of understanding, of changing for the better—all those things make it worth the pain of remembering to forget why you ever said I’m never doing that again.

But it’ll work out this time. This time.

Your sister-selves visit when you pass by a mirror on your way out the door.

“What are we up to, my butterfly?”

“No good, I’d expect.”

“She looks to be in love, or at least seeking it.”

You face yourselves and raise an eyebrow that’s echoed threefold. “You’re not helping.”

“We were never meant to help, only to decide.”

You hum, noncommittal. Your sisters haven’t seen you in several billion years, but they know you as they know all others in this or any other universe. “Suppose that’s why I never fit in with you lot. Could never quite make up my mind.”

“Making up things is something you always did well, my raincloud.”

“Now there’s a thought. Who might else do the same?”

“Surely not him.”

You cover the mirror with a black cloth and head out the door.

Upon moving somewhere new, the first place you visit tends to set the tone for the rest of your stay, first impressions and all. You suppose it’s a touch of irony that you end up at the Worlds’ End.

Nobody recognizes you because you’d never been here before, in the grandest, most cosmic sense of the word. It’s that fact that garners you a lot of attention. The truly old and powerful tend to sniff out the strange faster than anybody else, and you’re as new as it gets in this universe.

You may not have been here, to this Worlds’ End, but you’d been to it and the others like them in the universe you’d just come from. You found stability in their instability. The Four Free Houses were the Worlds’ End, the Toad-Stone, the Inn Between Worlds, and one (like you) that seemed to escape a name at all. They bore no loyalty to any reality or plane and had no location but the circumstances from which they were borne.

Because they’re the same as the ones from your previous universe, you assume a few other things are true: that countless other, smaller Houses fulfill even more specific circumstances than the Four; that the Moon Road, dangerous as it is, was as close to a path between the realms as it gets; and that the price for safe harbor was always the same: a tale for the Worlds’ End, a secret for the Toad-Stone, a promise for the Inn Between Worlds, and a heavy heart for the fourth nameless House.

You’d sat in the last one too many times to count.

“What’ll it be?”

“Red wine. Take your pick; even swill’ll do.”

You are new. Already, a few folks are creeping closer, curious, and about to ask questions you don’t want to answer. The cup of wine is put before you, and you pay your way in the usual form at the Worlds’ End, hoping that speaking of the devil will effect that same end here.

Twice and thrice more, there were and are universes.

The first time the universe happened—because they are as naturally occurring as sunrises—nobody quite knew the rules, let alone the Crafters. Even so, everybody tried their best, but as the eldest sibling in any family seems to know, the Crafters were more interested in making new things than cultivating what they had.

From that neglect, galaxies, worlds, and realities sprouted up like weeds, undisciplined and unruly. Already, the Crafters were planning how to improve things for the next universe while the one they had languished before them. There were no such things as stars or life or happiness in that first universe—

“How in the hell do you know this?”

“It’s a story, shut up.”

Ahem. Thank you.

—There were no stars, life, or happiness in that first universe. In full transparency, it was a shameful half-baked creation when I visited it. Even knowing the desolation I’d surely see, I was curious and needed to travel, so I did. I sometimes wonder what it’s like now that I’ve touched it, half because things I touch tend not to ripple outward and half because perhaps things would be different here from the universe I hail from. I can’t know for sure its fate. Maybe it’s gone, or at least tucked away on a shelf I can’t reach.

It’s fitting, considering its storied abandonment.

The second time the universe happened—because the Crafters were surely going to get things right this time—they elected to make some help. They formed several self-indulgent ideas, the most important of which were Night and Time. They created that which was from that which was not, and that which would be from that which could be.

If I have to explain, I won’t bother trying.

In the image of their creators, Night and Time created images of themselves, the first children in all of existence: eight of them, to be precise. You may have only heard of seven, but that, like the first universe, was both an accident and by design. The first of their children was underdesigned, even so.

She was once Dawn, the Dawn of Time. She was her mother’s opposite in each way and brought light to the dark garden her parents had cultivated until then. She crafted the stars from her smiles and spun comets from her kisses. She asked her parents for siblings, for others to play with and spin up worlds alongside.

So her parents, petty and cruel, created someone to plan those worlds for her, another to make their inhabitants, another to write their stories, and four more to further upend all of Dawn’s wishes—and it was then that Dawn understood her place was being usurped if she ever had a place to begin with. She could not outcompete her younger siblings, as she had been found to have faults long before they existed.

Dawn withered beneath her father’s prolonged neglect and dimmed beneath her mother’s disdain. She had not changed yet, but she would soon.

And in this second universe, Dusk, the Dark at the End of the Universe, happened.

All fell to the darkening: worlds, lives, stories, love, hope, and happiness. Even the Free Houses fell, unbound as they were to most laws set by the powers that be. Dusk stayed cloistered in the darkness with her mother as her handmaiden, made to sit in the tenebrous sanctuary among the cold twinkling of stars she’d once brought about, and waited and waited until what she knew would come.

Her parents, like the Crafters, grew bored.

The stars and the smiles they came from darkened one by one until all was as it had been before she’d come at all. In the sanctum of nothing, she started to end the universe. 

This one was sad to see. Yes, you may cry.

The third time the universe happened—and what a shock to the Crafters when they came back from work on the third universe to check on the second and found it had essentially ended itself—they found they had a particular fondness for Time and Night and even poor little Dusk. So they brought the three of them to the third and told them to do it again, but better. “Learn from your mistakes,” they said, “so it will be different this time.”

Time and Night did not need a doomed daughter to create the stars, though, so when they—

“How in the fuck did you end up here? And why?”

It feels like the Worlds’ End comes to a screeching halt. From where you hold court at the bar, among an audience of a half-dozen or a half-thousand, you don’t bother hiding your smile at the man who just walked in.

“Funny, I was just talking about you! The first you.”

The massive man cleaves the path before him and walks over, taking the seat beside you that had mysteriously and quickly become vacant. When you mention his previous incarnation, the erstwhile Destruction of the Endless laughs long and loud, shaking the firmament of the tavern, truly, for the first time. Worried looks pass over the regulars who can feel it.

Worlds are constantly being created and destroyed, and the nature of the Free Houses relies on the same principle. You remember when Destruction (the one beside you) had first created the Free Houses, and what a nightmare they’d been the first few thousand times they existed. His visits both defy and assert reality, and the unease of his entrance set the bar for every ‘random visit’ by a landlord ever since.

You wave the bartender over to get your friend a drink. “He’s on my tab.”

A half-dozen or a half-thousand beings wait with bated breath until he receives a massive stein of beer and sighs, turning back to you with a grateful smile and a question.

“Was it true that none of them grew past children?” His bright green eyes contrast with his distinctly rain-rumpled appearance. Everyone looks as though they’d trudged through some kind of storm to get here, literal or otherwise, but you supposed that was the point of the Free Houses: to be the port in every storm.

As you continue, you’re confident that the story you tell tonight is worth all the ale in every Free House that ever existed.

The third time the universe happened—because goodness, it needed to—they simply started with Destiny.

And that universe? It was sublime. That third time was indeed a charm in every way. Each of the seven (new) children of Time and Night was gorgeously powerful and did much of the work managing the universe.

Dusk remained, never to be Dawn again, and was therefore without use. Of course, she made little fancies of her own, but never anything that stayed.

If I may briefly interlude, after that rather depressing bit of history…

Night and Time of the second (and, technically, third) universe did not encourage their children to make any permanent decisions or lasting evidence of their existence. Some of them did anyway, like Dawn and her stars, and the others with worlds, life, stories, and the like. They were there to carry out functions—echoes and ripples in a pond that would forever exist in perpetuity, but never as the pond, the fish, the dirt or the water or the rock that made the ripple.

All that’s to say that this universe was not made by this one family of all-powerful beings, as it had been before. In a way, they didn’t even inherit it. They managed the wakes and the waves on the surface of a pond they hadn’t made, making and breaking them per their duties.

But even these seven children followed in the footsteps of those before them and crafted places of their own that they could rule. Some even had children. Some even got bored of their domains and left. The thing about kings is that they will never know exactly what kind of kingdom they rule unless they live among it. And very, very few of this family, in all its iterations, ever attempted to do so.

But this also meant there were things not under their purview—they were not the only gorgeously all-powerful beings in the pond. To repeatedly beat the horse I’ve long since killed, these beings set the rules for the wakes and waves the—the family lorded over.

What rules? Two simple ones.

They could not spill family blood. They could not love a mortal.

Don’t look so surprised. Adhering to these rules is more challenging than you’d think after ten billion years. Disaster struck many a time in this third universe because of them.

Now, the fourth time the—

“Pardon, but you didn’t finish that part.”

You raise an eyebrow at the woman who spoke. She has a bandage over her forehead and a worried man over her shoulder, but it seems she needs neither.

Destruction looks amused and waits for your response with a twinkle in his eye. “Tell her,” he urges after a long moment where you don’t. “Tell her why.”

Before speaking directly to her, you sigh and ask for another glass of wine—and perhaps a cheese board? Thank you so much... 

“I didn’t finish the story of that universe because it isn’t over yet, not like the other two before it. Twice and thrice more, there were and are universes.”

Skipping between worlds and galaxies isn’t too hard—especially after the first few times you’ve done it. Everyone has done it; how do you think you got to the Worlds’ End in the first place? Though… some of you will never do so again after the storm has passed and your world has ended. But it’s not hard to do again when you know what you’re doing.

It’s as simple as changing your mind. But that’s near-impossible to anyone for whom the rules outweigh all else.

That means many of those gorgeously all-powerful beings beholden to rules others have written cannot ‘skip town,’ so to speak, except in specific circumstances. They prefer their misery and their self-imposed lovelessness to the point of utter devastation of themselves and those around them. Everyone makes their own destruction in that third universe. It’s the same as it is here, or it will be. And I’m sure it will be the same in the next.

As I was saying.

The fourth time the universe was created—because some parents need a ‘safety child’ for when the first one’s depressing, the second one’s unsociable, and the third one’s done nothing wrong but still isn’t spectacular—the Crafters decided to spin up a few billion things before the usual. Yes, they created Night and Time again, and Night and Time created their seven perfect children again. Yes, they created beings more powerful than them so that they could be held in line by two simple rules, and yes, all the obstinate ones made even more rules for themselves just to keep things insufferably dull at times.

I can’t give away the ending for this one or the one before, and I can’t even tell you about the fifth time the universe will happen—because it’s still quite primordial every time I check in with it. You will have to discover the end of the universe on your own, and you’re in the right place to get practice for it. Worlds are ending all the time, after all.

When it’s clear you’ve more than paid your way in the tavern and don’t intend to say a word more, the half-dozen or half-thousand listeners wander off searching for more stories.

“You never answered my question, chuffling.”

You spit out your wine, laughing at the new name he made up for you. “That’s awful. You’re awful, waiting til I drink like that.”

“Fine, what would you prefer?”

What a loaded question. You take the time to look him over. The two of you are relics of the third universe, and though you had never stepped foot in this one, Destruction’s a regular enough wanderer that he doesn’t attract as much attention as you.

He does, technically, own the place.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve just discovered I’m not written in your brother’s book.”

He purses his lips and focuses on his beer. “Not my brother. Not here, anyway.”

“Come on, they wouldn’t have made everything the same all over again if you couldn’t call him your brother. Have you met yourself yet?”

“Do any of us?” he muses, and you roll your eyes.

“Your sister has, frequently. I haven’t, though. I’m likely not to if I was written out of this draft.”

“Then I shall simply call you friend.”

You smile at the man who was once Destruction of the Endless and nod in acceptance.

“Now, friend, you haven’t answered my question.”

How in the fuck did you end up here, and why?

“All mazes lead to Destiny’s garden. It was tricky to get back after my jaunts in Universes One and Two—they didn’t even have the concept of mazes in One until I got there, but I wandered and wandered and saw every inch of that mess until I got to the sequel. Right into your brother’s first garden where I was dreamed up but never borne. I met you again, then. You were much shorter. It was weird.”

“I’m sure it was. But very few are ever one height their entire lives. And fewer still seek to change their perspective.”

“For all your compassion, you seem to be a bit of a downer, friend,” you tease.

“Old habits. Answer the rest of the question.”

“Fair enough. And I don’t think I need to tell you—you know why I left. Why I left every time before.”

He fixes you with an agitated look. “You can’t be serious. Again?”

You stuff your face with cheese, which is an answer on its own.

“He is—I will not say different, here, but he seems to love making the same mistakes more than anything else, all for their familiarity. It’s all due to happen again very soon.” He runs a hand over his beard and huffs a sigh. “Darling, he does nothing but hurt you.”

“I hurt myself,” you counter sharply. “We were young, then. We all were.”

“And you’ve skipped to the middle of this story—why?”

“You just said why.”

“And when this time fails, you’ll just jump into Mark Five and hope there’s a Dream for you to love again in that one?” He’s made you. You’re cut from the same bolt. While you’re certainly not a creation of Destiny, you operated within his jurisdiction long enough to know Destruction well.

And he you.

“I won’t have to. This time will be different. I’ve seen every permutation, and this is the one that has to work.” It’s a bluff. You hope he sees it for what it’s worth and doesn’t blow on your house of cards. You aren’t sure if it’s your hands trembling or the floor beneath you.

But he is your friend. “What do you plan to do, exactly? You said you weren’t written into this universe’s Book. You want to—” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “you want to tangle with an Endless, and you’re not even part of this universe.”

It hurts to be scolded so. First from Destiny, and even with the backup of the Fates, he did not believe your intentions were good. Even the Fates questioned you. Now, with one of your oldest friends chastising you, warning you, you know you’re being foolish. You’re not even part of this universe. You’re technically not part of any universe, you want to say. You’d said as much a few times before, but instead you say—

“This time will be different.”

CHAPTER 2