#it's piling up and making me stressed for some odd reason

[occamstfs]

Tenor Troubles

Masculinization spurred by a going from a Tenor to a Bass, bit of an odd one but hope you enjoy! -Occam

Max probably should have read his contract more closely. He knew that grad students across the board were getting shafted, but the agreement he has with the College of Fine Arts was some next level exploitation. He prided himself on his voice, being able to sing higher than even most of the Altos he has previously studied alongside. But his degree plan on the already signed contract suggests he is going to be enrolled as a Bass in the graduate program. Clearly there has been some misunderstanding that he’ll just need to work out with the department.

He knocks on the door of his advising professor and without waiting for a come in he bursts through the doors to see the man who is both his boss and professor staring at him less than pleased. Max’s face reddens in embarrassment and before he can even open his mouth to speak, Dr. Reyes addresses him.

“Maxwell is it. I trust you have a reason for barging into my office? I ask that you take more care towards decorum in the future.”

Max stumbles through an apology before getting to the matter at hand. “Y- yes of course I’m so sorry doctor it won't happen again, I swear.” He raises his eyes to his professor’s stern gaze, flinching back slightly as he goes on, “it’s just that, um, it looks like there was some kind of mix-up with my enrollment, I mean clearly you can tell I’m a Tenor right?” He raises his tone slightly and smiles awkwardly as he tries to make it clear to the man across from him that he certainly does not have the range.

Dr. Reyes rubs his beard, briefly covering his own mouth and wiping a smile from his face. “Well now Maxwell, there does seem to be a mismatch between your vocal training, and your preferred classes and yada yada,” waving his hands dismissively as Max’s face stains a deeper shade of scarlet by the second. Reyes goes on, “I'll see what I can do but all these changes take time If you must change your plan it’ll be at least a week. Until then if you could see to it that you fulfill the TA demands asked of you and attend your classes hm? You are under contract are you not?” The image of his signature at the bottom of contract feels burned into his retinas as he starts to reply, “well yes but-” An alarm goes off on the professor’s desk. “Very well Maxwell, if you would excuse me.”

Dr. Reyes makes his way to the next class smiling as he too thinks of the fine print of Maxwell's contract. ‘The student will become what the program asks of him.’ What a dunce one must be to sign that without an inquiry. Giving one last glance behind him to see the small student shaking with rage at the series of events, veins appearing to bulge out of his neck as he thinks about chasing after his professor, almost taking a step before grasping at his head. Max doubles over and grunts, after a painful second he rises once more and sees his advising professor enter a classroom. He exhales through his nose and walks to the concert hall with the undergraduate Bass students, the course he is, both legally and otherwise, compelled to assist with. 

The Next Week

Max is inches away from just dropping out. He was well-prepared to be constantly stressed from grad school but the wrench of working with students who don’t respect him and professors that are expecting him to sing alongside the rest of these professional bassists, it’s impossible! Dr. Reyes must be doing some sick joke on him, there is no reason it should be so difficult to fix this! He shouldn’t be graded for the university’s mistake. Beyond the looming threat of flunking these courses for his inaptitude he is also constantly hungry. His stomach rumbles and sends pangs through his body as he sits through each course on vocal instruction. He succumbs to stress-eating assuming one plate must fall and it may as well be his waistline.

Every time he indulges in his hunger he finds weight almost immediately piles on. Alongside his meticulously honed falsetto he has always enjoyed just how tight and small he kept his twinkish figure, though this begins to slip as he finds himself straining his tight pants and his stomach showing through his button ups.

The final issue lies precisely in his private vocal practice, in lieu of the training his program should guarantee. As he goes about practicing the arias and vocalizations that he typically uses as warmups he finds himself struggling to hit the highest notes. He works his way through them slowly and slips up, finding his range is peaking out much lower than it ever should. He grimaces and refuses to deign and see if his range has increased in the other direction. He goes note by note, taking his time to feel the stress and vibrations of his vocal chords. Reaching the pinnacle of the piece he strains to hit the high note and his voice promptly cracks. He feels a tear. He coughs and gasps for air concerned that he has truly injured himself. 

When no blood or further pain reveals itself Max finally clears his throat and drinks a glass of water. He tests his voice, “Uhhhh-” forcing his hand over his mouth before even getting a full syllable out. Eyes watering as he hears his voice is unmistakably deeper than it was not a minute ago. This spurs him to action as he storms to the college and bangs on the door of Dr. Reyes.

For his part Reyes is sitting at the desk finishing an email and grinning as he hears the banging grow only more fervent at his door. He finishes his email almost laughing at how effective he is at controlling the man at the door. Knock as he may he could not storm in if he wanted to, as he must desperately. Closing his laptop and reaching to grab a tea bag from within his desk he calls to allow Max entry, “Do come in Maxwell.”

Stomping into the room, unaccustomed to the new weight he carries, which Dr. Reyes is all too pleased to notice. He takes a deep breath as he prepares to shout at the professor, his chest growing as his already prodigious lungs expand. Before finishing though Reyes raises a finger and strikes him passive and mute. “Now Max, why don’t you have a seat.” He clenches his hands with a furor and sits, stewing in his mind while also rapt with attention. “How have you been liking your classes?” Max continues to sit silently watching as the prepare a pot of tea, beginning to forget his ire as he looks on in confusion at the man. Reyes turns once more and rolls his eyes, “Well go on.”

Shaking out of it Max finally starts clearing his throat a few times hoping the voice he has worked so hard to protect and train will return “I, ugh- Sorry it’s ugh!” Dr. Reyes leans against his desk and steeps the tea bag, eyebrows raised with a thin smile on his face. Failing to speak as he so wishes the rage returns to Max and he shouts out, “It’s my fucking voice! I came here to learn and all these classes are just a waste of my fucking time!”

Reyes pours the tea into a large mug and sets it in front of his student, “Now now, if you were having voice problems why didn’t you just say so Max. I am a professional after all! Have some of this and I’m sure it will set you right as rain.” The professor watches as Max grasps the mug and stares into it. He remembers that Reyes was already preparing it when he came in. But it’s not as if his advisor would do something truly untoward right? Sensing the hesitation Dr. Reyes’ eyes darken and he commands, “I did say to drink it did I not.”

Max quickly raises the glass and sips. His eyes remain dark and he continues, “what seems to be the problem with your voice young Maxwell?” Taking a break from drinking he starts to explain all of his troubles to the man who should be looking out for him. Gesturing to his clearly larger body, Reyes notices beyond the weight gain that the sitting man is adjusting himself as his pants begin to grow even tighter, his ankles growing exposed as if his legs were lengthening. 

He continues to stumble onward with his recollection, forgetting what exactly bothered him enough to storm in. Reyes half-listens and takes care to refill the tea cup as needed, taking in the physical changes to the man rambling and wondering just how far they will be able to go. Eventually Reyes speaks up, “you were having trouble with your voice, yes Maxwell?”

Max’s eyes glimmer with recognition and he almost jumps with a start, “Yes! That was it I couldn’t sing the part I auditioned with in Nessun Dorma and I was-” His professor interrupts as he takes a big swing at Max’s psyche, “Is that so? What were you doing singing that Maxwell, that’s for tenors.” As if a grenade went off in his mind Max struggles to reconcile and remember what his problem was, did he not audition as a Tenor? But he couldn’t sing high to save his life right? Or no. 

Reyes watches as Max’s brow grows sweaty in his inner struggle. He physically raises the cup to Max’s mouth helping him finish the entire pot of tea. Confident that the man before him is far enough gone to only latch on his words, Reyes offers him a bone, “which side of your range are you struggling with boy.” Feeling emasculated by the professor infantilizing him he feels an urge to test his lower range. Reyes sees the resolve in Max’s eyes and challenges him, “Go on, sing your lowest note, now.” Max takes a deep breath and produces a sonorous note sustaining it far better than he would have ever expected himself to. 

Reyes smiles and shoots to plant another seed, “Well now Maxwell, I’m not quite sure what the problem is then. Your range seems to be what any trained Baritone’s should be.” The word Baritone echoes through Max’s head as he once more grows paralyzed in his own mind. He ekes out a “B- Baritone?” his voice cracking even deeper as he freezes. Reyes watches as his eyebrows knit together in confusion, they seem to grow thicker as they near each other.

Vocal range and masculinity don’t inherently match one-to-one but the professor is more than happy to allow it, staring as the weight from Max’s stomach begins to slightly redistribute itself, it slides up his chest, straining the buttons near his collar. Reyes shifts to look at Max’s face, eyes lingering on the Adam's apple making itself unmissable on his neck. He sees peach fuzz growing on Max’s upper lip and sideburns. Thoroughly pleased with the acceleration he has achieved today an alarm once more goes off on his phone and he readies to send his protege off. 

“Maxwell dear, I thank you for your patience. Of course I know that you’d prefer to be with the other Baritone student’s though I am sure you are learning valuable information working outside your comfort zone hm? I’m sure we’ll have this snafu fixed by next week.” Max just stares in a stupor as he stares at his professor, the empty mug of tea still in his hand before he sets it down to scratch at his tighter shirt. Dr. Reyes offers him a kerchief to wipe the drool from his mouth as he leads him out of his office, “Why don’t you try your warm ups, I’m sure they’ll set you right as rain.” 

Just as he did last time he takes one last look at his growing student as he begins to wander down the hall, his pants swiftly turning from slacks to tight capris. He hears the echo of the man humming to himself as he walks down the hallway to his own office hours. He’ll need to be ready for whatever his Bass performance students need right? Can’t have them out showing him even if he’s still working outside his comfort zone. Just one more week of this and he’ll get to show off to the Baritones, once more with his choral cohort.

The Next Week

Dr. Reyes stays abreast of how his star pupil is doing this week. He visits during private lessons and checks into lectures on music theory and rehearsals. He hears the man force his voice to be stronger. After any challenge he hears the man force himself to be louder. When struggling with curriculum, surely impeded by the doctor’s manipulation, he clutches at his head as his body surges larger, tightening clothes that were already sizes too large when he started his education here.

He sees Max looking at his reflection in the mirror of a practice room. He checks his beard from every angle, tilting his head up to see his large Adam's apple and smirks watching it vibrate as he hums. He unbuttons yet another button of his shirt, allowing an even greater view of his pecs as thick chest hair spills outward. Reyes hears his voice power through the soundproofed room as he approaches. He has clearly decided to leave Baritone behind without any prodding as he endeavors to show off his talents despite ostensibly singing to himself. 

Dr. Reyes knocks on the door of the practice room and like an eager dog Max falls over himself to answer it. He now stands taller than his professor whose head now lies directly at the hairy pecs spilling from his opened shirt. Max’s eyes glimmer as he looks down to the smug face of the professor. He quickly sits down to lower himself below the doctor and eagerly awaits whatever is soon to spill from Reyes’ mouth.

“I must say Maxwell, you have truly outdone yourself. Truly you hold one of the most powerful Bass voices I have heard in my time.” Max sits quietly, his heart racing with excitement from such kind words. He struggles to stay silent, lest he speak out of turn, though he cannot hide the rumble in his chest as his deep breaths accelerate. The doctor struggles to keep it together as he sees a pulse in the unmistakable, currently growing, bulge in Max’s pants. He briefly wonders if he’s gone too far, before looking back to the man’s face, seeing his eyes still staring directly into him waiting.

Perhaps he can go farther. “Is it not a shame though, my dear Max, that you’re not a true Basso Profundo?” There is a loud tear in the room as Max’s body surges larger. He shoots up inches more in height revealing a hairy stomach and pubes that already spill beyond the bounds of his pants. Reyes hears a catch in his student’s breath and watches as his Adam's apple bulge even further from his throat. His cock bursts the zipper of his pants and Max moans loud and deep enough for the professor to feel it in his chest. Reyes can’t take his eyes from the hair covering his chest grows even darker, curling as each strand grows thicker.

Before losing control of himself and his desires Dr. Reyes forces one last statement through Max’s mind, “You know the department has always wanted a basso profundo coach. How would you feel about being an assistant professor, Max?” In response Max can only sit in awe as a look of what can only be described as pleasure stains his face, mouth lolling open as his eyes grow crossed. His hands clench the sides of his chair as he struggles to not lose control over himself and the professor. Thinking of staining the practice room only makes it more difficult to keep it together. 

Reyes feels a hunger within himself as he stares down at the massive man seconds away from cumming all over himself. In time he too will only know Max as the powerful man he is now. At this juncture however the doctor sneaks out of the practice room and heads to return to his office to prepare for office hours, what kind of a professor would he be if he wasn’t there for his pupils after all. 

Walking down the hallway he hears the man in the practice room lose control, his voice echoing down the hall before hearing him run out and to the nearest bathroom. He prioritizes increasing the soundproofing of the practice rooms before turning to see the new Assistant Professor sprint down the hallway towards the nearest restroom. Struggling to move swiftly or quietly in his far-too-strained clothing. Reyes returns to the desk and smiles once more to himself as he thinks of a future for himself, his program, and his new star Basso Profundo, before hearing yet another knock at the door. 

“Do come in.”

[wheeboo]

RANIAAA MY LOVELY HRU😍😍

this is such a random thought but i had this idea in my head of superman!mingyu who’s just a gentle giant in a big muscular body🥺🥺 an adorable coworker at a newspaper outlet that fights crime

clark kent superman mingyu... IM GONNA RIP MY HAIR OUT RACHEL UR PUTTING THOGUHTS IN MY HEAD !!!!

no cuz ik mingyu would be the type to apologize for his superhuman strength after punching the bad guy 😭😭 like my dude is just always underestimates his powers ITS SO CUTE AND ENDEARING NGL 😭😭

anyway here's a long ass headcanon cuz they gave me SO MUCH BRAINROT LMAOOA

superman!mingyu who looks so DASHING in his suit and he always likes to wave to the pedastrians when he's flying and watching over the city

superman!mingyu who besides using his powers to fight crime he's always called to help save some kitty who got stranded in a tree, his red cape flowing so elegantly behind him as he floats down to the ground, cradling the little one in his arms :((

superman!mingyu who while patrolling sees some thug snatch a person's purse, making him throw away the doughnut he was eating and flying off after the thug. he manages to retrieve the purse back and returns it to back to the owner... to you hehe. his heart may have done a lil leap once you gave him a thankful smile

superman!mingyu who struggles to keep his heroic identity at bay, thankful for the pair of glasses that he wears to blend into the normal commotion of society. he's almost been caught one too many times, and there's even a lil dent in the elevator from his hands at the daily planet

superman!mingyu who finds out you work as an A-list journalist at the daily planet. tries his best to be so friendly and charming around you--gives you coffee in the mornings, opens the doors for you, offers you a shoulder whenever you're stressed. just doesn't help that he's called into action at the worst times possible, but this doesn't seem to sever your little connection together :')

superman!mingyu who asks to treat you after a stressful day at work, and even offers to walk you home, lamely using the reason, "well what if someone comes up and snatches your purse? I'll be there to save you!" and lowkey regrets saying that afterwards thinking he gave himself away HAHAH

superman!mingyu who almost impulsively confesses his feelings for you at your doorstep, but just has to be interrupted and called into action. has to contemplate for a moment, before promising that he'll explain everything soon and rushes off

superman!mingyu who secretly hovers near you when you're walking home at night to make sure you're safe :(( and subtly guides you away from any potential danger

superman!mingyu who thinks he's just so good at hiding his identity, thinking that you don't notice the way he looks a bit disheveled when showing up to work or the way he even wore his glasses upside down one time... but you're very observant, more than he thinks

superman!mingyu who finally gathers the courage to ask you out on a real date, suggesting a quiet dinner at a restaurant he knows you like. he's determined to spend the evening with you as mingyu, but he feels the urge to just tell you everything because he trusts you that much, yet he can't get himself to

superman!mingyu who finds himself stuck in a bit of an argument with you one night at the daily planet as stress had been piling up on you on top of his odd behaviour recently, which you also bring up out of frustration

superman!mingyu who freezes when you claim him to be superman, your words hanging in the air as the two of you stand together at the balcony near the top of the building. even with his continuous denials, the determination in your features is hard to challenge

superman!mingyu who suddenly feels a jolt of panic as he watches you climb onto the railing, your hands gripping the cold metal as you look back at him with a mix of defiance and trust

superman!mingyu who watches in horror as you let go of the railing and lean backward, your body tipping over the edge in slow motion, his heart catching in his throat as he sees you disappear from view

superman!mingyu who wastes no time, his glasses falling to the ground as he rushes to the edge and leaps off after you. his arms wrap around your waist when he finally catches up to you, pulling you close as he slows his descent to the ground

superman!mingyu who can't help but stare at you in pure panic and worry once you reach down the ground, looking over your face for any signs of injury or discomfort. his face softens when he doesn't though

superman!mingyu who tells you please never scare him like that again, and kisses you in that moment, hands trembling as he cups your face gently, silently vowing to protect you for as long as he could <3

[deesseshesca]

Message from your spirit guide

Message from your spirit team

 Just a head up …. We love you 

Good afternoon, pretty souls, today I’m channeling your spirit guides. 

Choose the image that’s speak to you and allow yourself to soak ONLY what’s reasoning with YOUR SITUATION 

Rules and Disclaimer 

I am the type of tarot reader to say as it is. Nothing is sugar coated but everything is sent with good intention. If you are not ready to face some truth, you should vagabond somewhere else. 

TW: DV, MENTION OF ABUSE 

PILE 1

You go ahead and purchase that Cartier bracelet that is not going to destroy your hard work. Make sure you wear it at the baby shower. We know how much you pray for your sister  regarding her fertility issue, your niece\nephew is on his/her way. And we are as excited as you. Don’t you dare overthink your body right now. You look amazing. Everyone is telling you so you better believe them. Ok you may not be at your dream weight but babe you must agree that you never looked so good. You better show off ! You told the whole truth and will be rewarded. I know you were scared to say it all because you felt like you messed up somewhere which is ok but that does not mean you deserve it. Yes, you agree to be in a relationship with him. But you did not agree to the mental abuse. You did not agree to the constant yelling, the name calling and disrespect. You did not sign for physical abuse. Whether or not you orgasm or not doesn't matter, if you did not want to do it, then nah. He did IN FACT abuse you. Let’s forget the couple slap here and there and the punches on the wall. People from his family want to drag you but everyone knows you are a good woman and did not deserve anything you were thru. We know it was an extremely stressful moment for you, but now you can sit back and relax. Everyone is congratulating you right now. Even the people on the street can’t wait but to compliment you on your glowing skin and amazing sense of style. But we know that it has been months, even years in the making. You decide to stand up when you had nothing but faith in YOU. The days that you had to stick to your diet. Stop eating your feelings. All the time you had to stick to a budget, so you can have this financial security. The hard work you did in uni so you can get the degree that got you this amazing job. Nothing grew overnight. Success looks so good on you ! The odd thing is you want more . You can see it because of the upgrade in your wallet. You went from fast food, to a five star restaurant.  You went from exam week to working in big cooperatives. But yet you want more. There are days where you feel so happy and extremely grateful for what you have but other times you fall into deep depression because you want more from life. People around you don’t get it. ‘’You went from HELL to HEAVEN’’. Not quite. There’s more for you out here. And your soul knows it and calls for it. So let’s do it. Don't let the doubtful people stop you. The success that you have at the moment, you did on your own. With very little support. So, what if you want more ? Go get it ! Stop waiting for validation when you are the standard. 

You are all about you right now. Focus on the future that you want for yourself. But people around you are calling selfish. I’m hearing ‘’ Why are you acting brand new ? Why are you so Hollywood all of the sudden ?’’. But you know better than to give those comments your attention. 

You may be a lawyer. Or a future one. You may want to start grad school. 

Advice from me : You don’t need a tower moment to know when a season is finished. If you want, go get it. That’s it, that’s all. 

What it is- Doochii

BIG SALE (CAD$)

General: 22 $

Love : 33 $

Mystery: 41 $

Message me to have the whole run down, ONLY 3 SPOTS (ONE OF EACH)

PILE 2

We heard you… We heard you but are you telling them Always talking in front of the mirror what you are going to tell them. To tell them to fuck off. Tell them they got you fucked up. But nah. You know better. They know better. That’s why they are always coming back because you never switch up. They did. They switch is not just in your head. They are abusing you and anybody with critical thinking can see it from a continent way. I know it may not look like it in 3D but you are actually doing it. Ok you may not have the greatest grade. Ok you may not have the richest boyfriend. Ok your business is not making a milli a year . But let me remind you who the fuck you is. Nobody's surprised when you succeed because you always do. That’s why when you fail or struggle you get way more reaction since they wish upon you. But everyone knows that you are way better than them. They laugh because you don’t have the greatest grade. You are literally in one of the hardest programs. They are making fun of you while they did not even make it to uni. They are making fun of your man for not having extremely abundant funds. Not knowing the way he wakes you up with grateful text all the time, gives the best orgasm, even when he is mad, never raises his voice, always opens the doors for you, will not go to sleep without calling you, will literally throw  his whole life away just to see you smile. And he is ACTUALLY studying in a very rewarding and respectful major. Like c’mon. Those girls are out here messing with men for some cash while having a side of beating, cheating and sprinkles of hella disrespect. Literally   begging to be heard. While he's literally blowing your phone when he is with his friend because he can’t have enough of you. Your business went from being an idea to making weekly orders. They don’t even have a business. I don’t even think they have an IDEA to bring to life. Except they mean remarks and mean mug face. Since it kills them to see you win all their life, they prefer to wish for your downfall. Instead of asking for advice, lord know you would have given them some. Really girl, they wish they were you. They will accept to change life with you quicker than then their men can last, if God ask them. Why are killing yourself to impress them ? It hurts to see you go the extra mile for people that would rather see you die than to help you. Out here giving your last cent to that one annoying friend that humiliates you in front of everyone. Out here helping your mom knowing them well that she would never nurture you, even if Jesus ask her ? You don’t have nothing to prove to those people, because you are not on the same level as them. So let’s get it together and move on. They are mad at you because you are actually working towards your dream life. They thought you would stay miserable with them forever, but you know better. So YOU did better. If they mad about it let them. They were not there, when you overthink every move, when you were uncertain, when you could not sleep because of anxiety and  when you would crash on your bed completely exhausted without real result but your dreams to motivate you to keep going. Do us a favor and act like the queen that you are. 

You have a habit of loud outbursts of energy when something excites you. You give me the vibe that look like Jade (aesthetic) but act like Cat from Victorious. 

You have been putting yourself out here. The fact that you are surprise by your success get me. People been waiting for you. I feel like you think you don’t deserve it, but all your customers are more than happy. They never had such a good product. I’m hearing this is the best _$ , I spend in my life’’. In school you said you will have a academic comeback and babe YOU DID ! Plus you have a man that is sweeter than anything. Literally goes to the gym, work, study and lives to love you. (Man does he love you) 

Rules - Doja Cat

BIG SALE (CAD$)

General: 22 $

Love : 33 $

Mystery: 41 $

Message me to have the whole run down ONLY 3 SPOTS (ONE OF EACH)

PILE 3 

We are behind you no matter what. But there's nothing we can do if you don’t act on it. You've been through a hard divorce with a very awful man. Intense narcissistic behavior. He made you believe in all his promises. You don’t have to explain yourself, we saw it coming. We also know that he was a fine con. He was all right at first. Everything a woman could wish for you got it emotionally and materially . People around you saw you guys as the ultimate couple goals. But he was hiding dark intentions. Disrespecting on a daily basis, humiliating a front of his colleague and requesting from you absolute submission and sexual intercourse when he felt like it. When you try to live you fear for your life with good reasons. You are a victim of military men. But you are not a victim of life. He mess you up so much, that your belief system is constant bad self talk. You don’t trust yourself with any decision even regarding that divorce. Knowing damn well he treated you like a piss of shit. How many times did he hold a gun at you ? How many time has he choke you ? How many times has he threatened to kill you, if you ever refuse to listen to him? Good looks and a good d were not good enough and will never be enough to deal with a deranged man.  Now, finally divorce, he is going around calling you cheater when you never did. Not that you never wanted too. Sometime you wanted im to feel as fuck as you did. But were too afraid of the repercussions. You literally have medical proof of STD’s he gave you. But God was he slick with it. Never laying hands on you but destroying everything around you. Never telling what to do or not do. Just warning you of how he would react if you did not act like he wanted. Never telling you he was cheating, just told you he needed space or asking for a threesome. Now here you are, years later. You rebuild your life on your own, brick by brick. Boundaries stronger than ever. You thought you over the self sabotage but damn is it biting you right back in front of that new man. The man of your dream. Is this one the real deal ? Or is it a trap ? You can’t take another heartbreak. But he is everything you need. There is a block coming from you. You know you are the problem. He knows you have a blockage that you are terrified to reveal and swear he will wait for you. Is that not something your ex-husband used to say before it all went south ? How can you actually trust your judgment with this one? Imagine if you are stopping him  from meeting the real one while he falls for the mess you are in. Please set yourself free. You got your divorce, you went to therapy, you develop strong boundaries but yet you are still bound to the past. You made a mistake, like all humans do. You deserve good things to happen to you. You have a way better judgment now than you did back then. Now, you actually know how to recognize a monster. You know damn well it ain’t him. Go for it, you deserve it. If it is too scary, set the pace, I swear he ain’t going anywhere. 

SELF SABOTAGE 

I was never there - Weeknd

BIG SALE (CAD$)

General: 22 $

Love : 33 $

Mystery: 41 $

Message me, to have the whole run down. ONLY 3 SPOT (ONE OF EACH)

PILE 4

There’s a lot of things we don’t understand about you. Your love for rap music and obsession with Nicki Minaj. We don't understand that you love to learn everything and anything. We don’t understand half of the things you chat about regarding chemistry, physics or whatever other science took over your heart. But we LOVE YOU SO MUCH. We support you every step of the way ! We can’t not wait for you to have that damn degree in science that makes you cry on school night but brings a sparkle in your eyes the second a person asks you a question about it. Sometimes we push random people around you to ask about the likelihood of a cell in a decade body or something like that so we can hear you speak for hours. It gives you a glow. You aura shine so bright when you are in the lab. Even your teachers are in awe of your dedication. I know you keep reminiscing about the good old times. When having A’s in your fav subject was as easy as closing your eyes. Now you spend hours just to understand one slide in the professor PowerPoint. It is useless to beat yourself up. You are deepening your understanding about one subject at the moment. It is ok if some parts of it are harder to understand than others. I must warn you it will not be easy. You will spend more time in the library than with your friends. You will spend most of your time in the school year stuck in your room away from your loving family. But don’t hurt yourself with guilt. We are not taking your disappearance as any form of disrespect. We are so supportive of you. We never knew such a beautiful bundle of joy and knowledge would ever be born in our lineage. You know, we are a family of lawyers, business man, psychologist and philosoĥer. Your parents may not get half of that you're saying. Your brother may roll his eyes sometimes when you go on about one specific detail that sparks your interest but they are all amazing by the way your brain works. Let me tell you this, you will succeed. You will get it. We will be waiting at the finish line, with flowers and gifts to celebrate the day you will be walking on the podium. As proud as you, because we know how much work you put into every step of the way. The lonely nights, the hard exam and way too big project . Also stop procrastinating and start developing some discipline. You are not here to succeed in your exam but to prepare for your future career. Is time to build some stamina.Don’t worry, I PROMISE YOU: NOTHING BAD IS COMING YOUR WAY. It may get a little gray here and there but we are protecting you from any evil. You can calm your anxiety and enjoy the journey. I won't let ANYONE get in the way of my favorite prodigy. You may not be realizing it but are living in one of your prayers. 

I LOVE YOUR SPIRIT FAMILY. GOD ! They are amazed by you. Literally anything you do is an event that needs to be accelerated. Since you first breath they were going coco about you.  I had a clear image about your spirit team. I see 3 chair. A lot of wealth around them. One of the chairs is a throne where an older man sits in power. He was the one speaking but everyone else shared that feeling. 

So high - Doja Cat

BIG SALE (CAD$)

General: 22 $

Love : 33 $

Mystery: 41 $

Message me to have the whole run down. ONLY 3 SPOTS (ONE OF EACH)

[clangenrising]

Month 9 - Leaffall

Scorchplume wasn’t speaking to Yarrowshade and it was driving him crazy. It was over the stupidest thing, too! The night Aldertail had come to camp and Yarrowshade had tried to wait up for her return, he had woken just in time for her to slip into the leader’s den with Nightfrost and Goldenstar and she hadn’t come out. 

Nightfrost had explained to him that Scorch had been withholding information about Ghost and the city cats, information that might have put everyone in danger. It was clear that Nightfrost’s opinion of Scorchplume had tanked overnight and that sucked, but he was still determined to make sure Scorch was alright. 

The next morning, he’d sought her out and said, “Hey, Scorch, how are you doing?”

“As well as I can be,” she’d said, eyeing him with the same cool gaze she had used when he was visiting her in the healer’s den. 

“Yeah?” he’d asked. “I was really worried about you.” 

“Why?” she had turned her face away. “Weren’t you busy looking after Scrap?” 

“I can worry about two things at once,” Yarrowshade had frowned. 

“Hm.” 

“Did you want to go hunting? Maybe we could talk about it?” 

Scorch had turned to him and said, “What is there to talk about?” in a way that felt like a claw to the face. 

“I… I don’t know, I just…” 

At that point, Nightfrost had called out, “Yarrowshade! I’m going hunting, did you want to come?” Scorch had stared at him with her bright blue eyes for a good long beat and he'd realized this was a test. 

“Scorch,” he’d started, but she’d cut him off.

“Go.” She’d said, “Don’t let me stop you from fawning over Nightfrost.” 

And so he’d left in order to respect her wishes, but for some reason she’d only seemed to get angrier with him as the weeks passed. He didn’t get it! He would have gone to Smokyrose for advice, but she was still on kit leave and, besides, he knew that Scorch wasn’t exactly her favorite cat right now. 

But something had to change. He and Scorchplume weren’t even on patrols together anymore and he couldn’t tell if that was because Nightfrost had decided to separate them or because Scorch had personally requested it. Either way, it was a bad sign. 

He contemplated which option he would prefer as he followed in Nightfrost’s paw prints through the snow. It had come down hard that morning and while the wind had died down for once, a light dusting of flakes continued to flutter down over them as they patrolled the southern border. 

Pantherhaze, walking behind him, said, “What are the odds that they just aren’t coming back?” 

“They’ll be back,” Nightfrost said without looking back. Pantherhaze sighed and shook his fur. Yarrowshade studied the back of Nightfrost’s head, thinking. Was it just him or had she been colder lately? He wished he knew how to help her with all of the stress she was dealing with. If you wanted to stop stressing her out, you’d leave her alone, said a part of his mind. That was nonsense, he reasoned, but the thought had its hooks in him and it wouldn’t let go. 

He sighed and let his gaze wander. The snow was starting to pile all up so high that he and Pantherhaze were belly deep in it, another reason why they were following in Nightfrost’s wake. The horizon had turned a foggy grey-white, obscuring the mountains and the farther reaches of the forest. Ahead of them, he knew the border stretched on for a long while even though he couldn’t see it. He tried to trace it with his eyes, but paused when he spotted a white shape in the snow moving in their direction.

“Is that the EarthClan patrol?” he asked, pointing with his muzzle, and Nightfrost stopped, squinting into the snow.

“Who goes there?” she called.

“Bogmist!” the white shape replied cheerfully, “And Dawnbird.” A moment later, the two EarthClan cats reached them, Dawnbird’s tortoiseshell pelt appearing suddenly from behind Bogmist’s fluffy white fur. After the gathering, Orangestar and Goldenstar had met to discuss the city cat threat and how to combat it and had come to the conclusion that they would put a temporary hold on patrolling the border between their territories and instead send those patrols to jointly watch the southern border. This was the second or third patrol of this kind Yarrowshade had been on and there was almost always at least one deputy or leader present. It seemed that both Clans were taking the city cats very seriously.

“Hello, there,” Pantherhaze smiled. “Congratulations on your warrior name, Dawnbird!”

“Thank you,” she smiled and dipped her head politely, but the smile fell off of her face shortly after. She must be disappointed her brother wasn’t there to sit vigil with her, Yarrowshade thought, once again kicking himself for his part in Toadpaw’s disappearance. 

“Any news?” Bogmist asked, grey eyes sparkling. 

“Not yet,” Nightfrost said. “Let’s hope it stays that way.” 

“StarClan willing,” Dawnbird nodded and Pantherhaze echoed her prayer. 

“Well,” Yarrowshade said, trying to sound cheery. “I hope you’re ready to walk back and forth in the snow!” 

“We don’t mind,” Bogmist chirped, shaking the snow from her fur. “Whatever keeps the kits safe, right?” 

“Aw, are there new kits in EarthClan?” Pantherhaze asked.

“No,” she laughed, “I don’t expect we’ll be having any new kits for some time. But I heard Smokyrose finally found herself a beau!” 

“Ah,” Yarrowshade and Pantherhaze exchanged awkward glances. “She did but its… probably over between them.”

“Oh, no!” Bogmist asked, “Why?”

“Because he’s one of the rogues,” Nightfrost said curtly. 

“Oh,” said Bogmist. 

“Come on,” Yarrowshade said with an awkward laugh. “Let’s get to patrolling.” And so they did. It was cold and boring work, but it needed to be done. Bogmist did her best to keep up the conversation and he tried to oblige her but the longer they went the more he started to worry that Nightfrost was getting sick of it and he found his desire to respond slowly waning. They walked back and forth over the border for most of the morning and into the afternoon and found no signs of intruders, just like all the other patrols like this he’d been on. The snow at least made it easy to know if anyone had passed through. Still, Yarrowshade found his paws were starting to grow num from the cold. He thanked the stars when it finally stopped falling. 

“The next patrol should be coming to relieve us soon,” Nightfrost said eventually. 

“I hope so,” Bogmist said, “I’m starving!” 

“Look,” Pantherhaze said, pointing up ahead, “that must be them.” 

Yarrowshade looked and saw a small group of cats standing around in the track they had worn into the drifts of snow and frowned. Something wasn’t right. One of the cats turned to look at them and as he did, the bright snow glare glinted off of something around his neck. 

“Those aren’t Clan cats,” he hissed and the energy changed. 

“What do we do?” Dawnbird whispered. “Should I run back to camp?”

“No,” Nightfrost said, “You would show them exactly where we live. Only run if I say so.” Dawnbird nodded. The cats ahead of them had risen to their feet and were walking towards them at a leisurely pace. 

“This might not be a fight,” Pantherhaze said softly.

Nightfrost started walking to meet them. “We can only hope so.” 

The cat in the lead was a large, blue-grey and white tabby with an impressive stature despite his slim cheeks. He sported a blue collar with a softly tinkling bell that Yarrowshade thought clashed oddly with the claw scars on his muzzle. Behind him was Ghost - Ghost and two other cats, the brown tom that had fought with Floodpaw and a burly ginger tabby with a kittypet collar of his own. 

Yarrowshade felt his hackles starting to rise. How dare Ghost show his face here? How dare he bring that mangy scoundrel back with him? He was so angry that he only barely registered that the kittypet in front seemed to be in charge. 

“Hail and well met,” called the big grey tom, smiling jovially. “You must be the cats of RisingClan.” 

“We are,” said Nightmist, squaring her shoulders to match his height. Yarrowshade was glad that at least one of them was as physically imposing as the stranger. “What business do you have being on our territory?” 

“Not on your territory,” the kittypet corrected. “I know we aren’t welcome there, that’s why we waited on the edge of it.” Ghost glanced over his shoulder at the sable pelted tom who ducked submissively. His dark blue eyes stayed fixed on Yarrowshade though, burning with something similar to what Yarrowshade himself was feeling. 

“What’s your name, my darling?” the kittypet in charge asked Nightfrost. Yarrowshade had to bite his lip to stop himself from demanding he speak to her with more respect. 

“Nightfrost,” she said cooly. “Who are you?” 

“My name is Razor,” the tom purred, stepping closer into Nightfrost’s space. A growl leapt to her throat, ears flicking backward and Yarrowshade took a step forward too, baring his teeth. Razor only chuckled and stepped back, although Yarrowshade noticed that he was still closer than he had been before. 

“Well there’s no need for that kind of behavior,” said Razor. “I was just being friendly. Do they not have that out here in the sticks?” 

“Razor,” Ghost said, and Razor glanced back at him, his smile fading for a split second. Ghost lowered his gaze immediately. Apparently he had said all he needed to say.

Razor sighed. “You’re right. We’re here on business.” Turning back to Nightfrost, he said, “I wanted to come down personally and apologize for my underlings’ behavior. I understand they got distracted picking on some of your young ones, yeah?” 

“Picking on is an understatement,” Nightfrost glared. “They’re lucky they got off so easily.” The tom in the back scoffed and Ghost stepped towards him threateningly, which immediately silenced him. Razor’s ear twitched but he didn’t look back. It seemed to Yarrowshade that he was used to Ghost handling the rogues for him. 

“And I am grateful,” said Razor, still smiling. “It was more than they deserved, on that we agree.” He shifted his weight to lean in again and lowered his voice as if he and Nightfrost were having a private word. “To tell you the truth, they were out here looking for a cat named Scrap who I’m eager to find. She’s a bit… unwell, you see - in the head - and I’d love to find her before she gets herself hurt. You cats wouldn’t have happened to see her anywhere, would you?” 

“What does she look like?” Nightfrost asked, striking Yarrowshade again with just how smart she was. He would have told Razor to go shove something unpleasant up his rear but that would have given their position away, confirmed that they had taken Aldertail in, or at the very least caused a fight they probably didn’t want. 

Razor tilted his head in Ghost’s direction. He didn’t look at him, only cast his eyes over the snow over the shoulder closest to Ghost, but Ghost received the signal all the same and said, “She’s young, a spotted brown tabby with a notched ear like this one,” he flicked his tail in the sable tom’s direction. “I believe she has blue eyes.” Razor smiled, satisfied, and looked back at Nightfrost. 

Nightfrost hummed thoughtfully and then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Have you checked the thunderpath? Most cats don’t survive crossing it.” 

“The 'thunderpath',” Razor laughed, sounding like he was amused by the novelty of it. “I assume you mean the road back there?” 

“If that’s what you call it,” shrugged Nightfrost. “The stone path the monsters prowl.”

“Monsters,” chuckled Razor again. “Yes, yes, we’ve checked the ‘thunderpath’ plenty. I’m quite certain she came this way. You’re sure you haven’t seen her?” 

“I’m sure,” Nightfrost said. “You can go back to your city now.” 

“Don’t be rude,” Razor said, a dangerous edge slipping into his voice. “I’m just trying to help a cat in need. We’ve been perfectly civil, haven’t we?” 

“You’re not welcome on our territory,” Nightfrost said, stepping into his space this time. “Leave and don’t come back.” 

“Careful, girl,” Razor rumbled, and the cats behind him tensed. “I’m not the kind of cat you should threaten.” 

“I’m aware of your reputation,” Nightfrost growled back, “but I don’t care. Leave.” 

“Who told you about my reputation?” Razor grinned. “Scrap? Because she’s quite paranoid, thinks everyone is out to get her. She’s not exactly the most reliable source.” 

Nightfrost rolled her eyes. “I told you, I haven’t met this Scrap cat.” 

“Then why don’t I believe you?” Razor purred lowly, leaning even closer to take a deep breath of her scent. Yarrowshade’s back started to arch aggressively. Behind Razor, he saw Ghost shuffle, but the older tom said nothing. Deceitful coward, Yarrowshade thought. 

“She told you to leave,” he snapped, tail bristling. “If you’re smart, you would listen.” 

For the first time, Razor’s eyes fell on him and suddenly he felt extremely small. Nightfrost’s jaw clenched and she closed her eyes for a frustrated beat. Had he made a mistake? His gut twisted with anxiety. If things got violent it would be his fault. 

“Quiet, whelp,” Razor snarled, then smiled and said, “the big kids are talking.” 

“No,” Nightfrost said firmly, “We’re done talking. Either leave now or stay and make an enemy. It's your choice.” Razor chuckled darkly, swinging his gaze back to her in a slow arc. 

“Oh-ho-ho-ho, you are just adorable,” he said. There was a pause, as he looked her over with a gaze that felt deeply disrespectful, predatory even. Then he stepped back and said, “Fine. We’ll leave. Don’t let it be said that I am quick to make enemies. If you find Scrap and feel inclined to return her, I would make it worth your while. I’m sure food is hard to find this time of year, right?” When none of them responded, he shrugged, and said, “I could see you fed until spring, maybe after. All you have to do is help me out. I reward those who help me, don’t I?” One ear turned back towards the cats behind him.

“Always,” the tom with the notched ear said eagerly.

“Handsomely,” said the ginger kittypet. 

Ghost simply grunted. 

“See?” Razor said. “Think about it.” With that he flicked his tail and turned and started back through the snow towards the city in the distance. The kittypet followed closely behind him and the sable pelted tom slank after them about a tail length behind, keeping a respectful distance. Ghost stayed where he was, staring for a moment, and Yarrowshade glared at him.

 Eventually, he spoke. “Is Smokyrose alright?” His voice was low and tense

“No thanks to you,” Yarrowshade scoffed. 

“And the kits?” he asked. 

“They’re fine.” Nightfrost said curtly. “Two baby girls.” Yarrowshade frowned. Why was she telling him? If he had cared about the kits he would have been there for their birth. He watched as something like relief flashed across Ghost’s face. 

“I’m glad,” he said. “I would have-”

“Ghost,” barked Razor, having halted in his tracks to look back at them. “What are you up to?” 

Ghost smirked and lifted his voice to say, “Oh, just familiarizing myself with the local delicacies.” Yarrowshade wanted to hurl. The ginger kittypet and the tom with the notched ear snickered, but Razor just rolled his eyes.

“We have girls in the city. Much less angry ones. Come on.” 

“Alright,” Ghost called back reluctantly. Then, under his breath he said, “Tell Rose I’m sorry,” and strutted off after the other city cats, the same clawable smirk on his face. Yarrowshade was bristling until they were starting to disappear behind the snow banks. 

“So that’s Smoky’s beau…” Bogmist said with a bit of a grimace. “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t get it.” 

“I’m sure he was a lot more charming around her,” Pantherhaze said weakly. 

“What was all that about?” Yarrowshade grumbled, “Asking about the kits, saying he’s sorry? If he had been actually sorry he wouldn’t have abandoned her in the first place.” 

“Maybe Razor has some sort of leverage over him,” speculated Pantherhaze. “Maybe he couldn’t come back even if he wanted to.” 

“That’s wishful thinking,” scoffed Yarrowshade. “Did you hear what he called Nightfrost? And none of them blinked an eye. No, he’s a scumbag through and through.” 

“Yarrowshade,” Nightfrost said suddenly and he realized that she had been lost in her own thoughts since Ghost had left, “go back to camp and make sure that the other patrol is on their way. Pantherhaze, you too. Make sure you tell Goldenstar about everything that was discussed. Bogmist, you and Dawnbird can head back to EarthClan too.” 

“Thanks, Nightfrost,” Bogmist said. 

“StarClan light your path,” added Dawnbird, and the two headed off toward their camp. 

“What about you?” Yarrowshade asked her, lowering his voice. “Are you gonna stay here?” 

“Yes,” she nodded. “I’ll make sure the next patrol is prepared and see to it that Razor and his ilk don’t come back.” 

“They’re not gonna come back tonight anyway,” Yarrowshade said. “You should come back to camp. Maybe we can get some prey and unwind a bit.”

“Please, Yarrowshade,” she sighed, “this is not the time for flirting.” 

“I’m not flirting,” he promised. “I just think you’re pushing yourself too hard. You need to relax.” 

“I’m the deputy,” she said. “I’ll relax when we’re safe. Now go back to camp.” 

“Promise me you’ll be back before dark?” he asked, ears wilting. 

Nightfrost sighed. “Sure. I’ll be back before dark.” 

“Okay,” nodded Yarrowshade, disappointed. “I’ll be looking forward to it.” He stepped forward to butt his head against her shoulder but last minute he decided against it and stepped around her instead. Pantherhaze joined him, and they started the trip back to camp. 

“You okay?” Pantherhaze asked after a while. 

“Yeah, I guess…” he replied. Was he okay? He didn’t really know. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” 

Yarrowshade sighed heavily. “I just… I don’t know where I stand with her, y’know? I can’t tell if she’s just stressed or if she’s getting tired of me.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Pantherhaze. That didn’t make him feel any better. 

“Thanks,” he said, bumping up against his old friend. “Let’s go get out of the snow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Pantherhaze agreed enthusiastically. “I’m freezing!”

[gothic-daydreamer]

-My Safe Place -

Larissa Weems x Female!Reader

This is my first post on Tumblr so please excuse any mistakes I may make!

Warnings: claustrophobia, panic attack, crying, public embarrassment, shouting.

...

I love the dust of a library.

Running my finger along the wooden shelves gives me a feeling of euphoria as I carve a track in the coating, the smell of the warm leather as the summer sun shines in through the library's large glass windows.

If I inhaled a second time I would smell the freshly pressed pages of newly bound books, one of the most comforting sensations I could remember experiencing in my life.

Yes, if I was to name my favourite place, it would be the library of Nevermore Academy. My own little paradise.

I balanced precariously upon a wooden ladder, only a few feet above the ground. I held the railing with one hand, clasping a grouping of books with the other. I scanned the titles on the shelves as I searched for the beginning of a new group, the letter S.

"Rest of the wicked... Room for another... Reckless romance..." I smiled briefly as I found the space between, carefully balancing myself to remove 'Secrets of the Heart' from my pile and wedge it between the last R title and the nearest S title.

I could hear the sound of footfall across the old, wooden floorboards. The footsteps were too... Elegant, too sharp to be a student. I assumed Marilyn was back to return A History of Aquatic Herbs, or perhaps the more unlikely option of Mrs Daripius bringing me the new shipment of ink pots.

"Did you find the Lebanese Watercress you were searching for, Marilyn?" I didn't bother to turn as the footsteps paused at the end of the aisle. I climbed another rung higher on the ladder, stretching to reach the shelf above me and place my last book, The Art of Pyromancy, into it's rightful place.

I didn't realise how close Marilyn had gotten until a hand laid itself on my calf, and I turned to find it was not Marilyn who had startled me, it was blonde hair I saw instead of red. Larissa grinned up at me, caressing my lower leg with her thumb "I still find it odd, having to look up at you"

I snorted in amusement, finding it slightly disturbing myself "it's quite the role reversal" I agreed, turning to double check I had placed my books in the right order. Once satisfied, I turned back to the beautiful woman below me. Larissa lowered her eyes to take in my full outfit, from the kitten heels on my feet to the cream cardigan that hung loosely from my shoulders. She smiled appreciatively while running her hand from the top of my knee to the start of my ankle, and back again.

"you don't realise, do you?" Larissa's head was level with my stomach at the height I was elevated to and I felt butterflies fill me as she laid her head against me. I still held the ladder with a hand to keep myself balanced, but my free arm found it's way to wrap around her shoulders and nestle my hand into her soft white hair.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Lissy" I smiled down at her as her eyes closed, seemingly finding peace in my embrace. The older woman was quiet for a few moments, as if she didn't want to spoil the blissful silence she found herself in. I let my fingers work their way through her carefully maintained curls, receiving a hum from the Principal as she relaxed even further into my embrace.

"you don't realise how pure you are, and how rare that is to find" her soft, mumbled voice brought my heart to pieces. This woman was strong, and beautiful and fierce, like a silver haired lioness, and whilst I admired her strength and bravery, I loved the softness and vulnerability she showed only to me. Larissa had been mistreated by many in her life, all of whom I couldn't fathom a reason to hurt or replace this- this angel that currently belonged in my arms.

Instead of replying, I just smoothed her hair from where I had tousled it. Larissa seemed like she needed some gentle reassurance, some recompense for her stress and to know her hard work wasn't unnoticed "you are the most wonderful person I have ever had the privilege of marrying, do you know that?" I heard a chuckle in response to my joke "I hope you aren't a serial monogamist, my love" she teased in response, lifted her head from my stomach to shine those beautiful blue eyes up at me.

"perhaps I am" I found myself lost for thought as I laid a palm against Larissa's soft, pale cheek. I saw the little smile lines that embraced her eyes, showing a life of laughter and years of enjoyment. All I could think of was how beautiful she was "but I seem to have grown rather fond of you, so I think I'm ready to commit myself at long last"

Larissa held the sweetest smile I'd ever seen, I felt blessed as she gifted me with it "hm... I'm glad to hear that" with surprising quickness that let loose a squeak from me, I was pulled from my ladder and into the arms of the now much taller woman. My sound of shock was quickly muffled as soft red lips met my own, and I relaxed into my wife's hold. A gentle sigh left Larissa as she broke away a few moments later, peace written across her face as she set me down fully on my own feet.

Without the aid of my ladder I was 5'4 compared to Larissa's 6'3, I reached perhaps only to her collarbone. Especially with the heels she loved so much, I was much shorter. I found her absolutely alluring, like one of the many sirens of the school, except they didn't have the same affect on me as Larissa did.

No one had ever made me feel the same way Larissa did, and no one ever would again.

"are you lost, my darling?" Larissa's voice broke me from my mind, leading me back to her. I smiled, leaning up to kiss her briefly again "I'd never stray from you, Lissy" I noticed a soft blush spread across her pale skin at the name, she had always claimed to hate it. Liar.

"I trust the adjustments are under way, are they going well?" Larissa had begun walking down the aisle of shelves, with me following like a loyal pet at her heels. Her posture was straight as an arrow, projecting an air of confidence that I often found myself envying.

"the adjustments are going well. The workmen are quiet and don't disturb the student's studies" Larissa hummed in approval as we continued down the long aisles of books, headed towards the main staircase of the library.

"and the foreman? Is she being more reasonable?" I remembered the icy, stiff behaviour of the woman who seemed to think she had the right to dictate Larissa in her own school. Oh, what a mistake that was.

In the end, it had taken my influence over my wife to settle things. Sadie, the foreman, seemed to take a shine to me and became more open to Larissa's conditions. I wasn't entirely sure how I managed it, but I wasn't complaining.

"she is a joy compared to before. In fact, we've even arranged a lunch in Jericho" the winding oak staircase was lined with a red carpet that muffled our footsteps. Larissa remained silent as we descended into the lower levels of the library, where more students laughed and a few stressed over books on languages, arts and the like.

"oh, you have" the Principal stated flatly as students moved aside for her to pass through, I walked a few steps behind her through the crowds. I didn't receive the same respect as Principal Weems did and so had to pause and clear my throat to gain passage.

Something was bothering the taller woman, I could tell. She hadn't even glanced back at me as she kept walking on through the crowd which parted like a sea for her to wade through, whilst I drowned in ignorant students that failed to let me pass.

A loud laugh barked in my ear and the owner of it shoved another student playfully, but hard enough to send him slamming into me and causing a domino effect that crushed me between the boy and another student. My heart hammered as I panicked and froze, the students around me were pressing so tightly against me i felt as if I would suffocate.

I glanced around desperately, hoping to catch the eye of either of the people I was crushed between, but both had their backs to me as the boy who shoved the other held him and unknowingly trapped me in place.

I set my sight on Larissa again, willing myself to overcome the pressure on my chest and cry out for her. The students remained oblivious to me, no one spared me a glance as my breathing quickened in a desperate attempt to fill my blocked chest with refreshment. I was trapped.

"p-please-" my voice was laboured and my breath was harsh, it felt like a boulder was dumped on me and it was rapidly caving in my chest. Was I dying? It felt like it. I found myself begging and pleading silently for Larissa to turn, to take notice.

Maybe I had somehow psychically sent a message to her, or she felt my stare burning into her skull, but Larissa had paused. I watched her turn to face the crowd I was trapped in, and her face fall as tears tracked from my eyes. I was hyperventilating and shaking as I was pressed against from all sides.

"move aside, now!" She barked orders to the students in her way as she kept her cool so as not to just barge past them, seeing the fear on my face had struck a cord of deep worry and protectiveness as she waded through the sea to get to me. I was still crying, but I hadn't realised yet.

Students moved aside for their Principal as she hurriedly marched through them as if they were ants around her feet, even the people around me took notice and flung themselves as far from me as they could, likely to avoid Principal Weems and her well known anger.

Larissa knew when patience and forgiveness was needed in her role as Head of the Academy, but sometimes her judgement became clouded when it came to me. The two boys who inadvertently trapped me were attempting to shrink away, to vanish into the crowd before the Principal could notice them. Unfortunately, they didn't succeed.

Larissa towered over them, which was quite something as these boys had stretched a lot over the summer holidays, her hands settled on her hips as she took on an air of anger and authority "Laurence. James. My office, now!" The poor boys were cowering in front of her, like two terrified puppies caught stealing scraps from the kitchen. I felt pity towards the two, I knew how terrifying Larissa could be when she was angry.

I swallowed back my remaining terror of the crowd and made my way towards her, slightly trembling hands enveloping one of her own. Larissa was tense, so tense I half expected her to move away from me, but she turned her head and set her cold eyes on me "it was an accident, Principal Weems. No harm done" I tried to give her a reassuring smile and laughed lightly to clear the tension, but it came out more nervous and shaky than I intended.

Larissa scanned over my face, seemingly taking in my trembling lips and mascara stained cheeks. Her eyes softened a little and I felt a light squeeze on my hand before she turned to look back to the boys with her angry glare reinstated "did I tell you to stand and stare? My office. Now" her sharp voice snapped irritably, and the students took off like speeding cars.

I expected Larissa to follow them, but instead she held my hand tighter and began leading me through the crowd. I felt the stares on me, it wasn't often a teacher broke down in the middle of a crowded place. I felt close to tears again at the humiliation. I think Larissa noticed, because with one yell of "back to your business!" All eyes averted from me instantly. I squeezed her hand in gratitude.

As soon as we left the crowd I already felt safer, even more so as we left everyone's view and I was pulled from behind Larissa and her arm went around my shoulders in a half hug as we continued to briskly follow the corridor. It took me an embarrassingly long second to realise where she was taking me, and by the time I did the door to my office was closed and Larissa sat herself down onto a spare armchair in the corner.

I stood in front of her, head lowered as I wiped frantically at my face. My eyes stung from the liquidised makeup that mingled with my tears. I was humiliated. I was supposed to be responsible and strong for these students, an example, but I couldn't even do that right.

I heard a disappointed sigh from in front of me "I'm sorry" I blurted out before she could speak. Larissa held herself to high standards and she expected the same of her staff, I was no exception. I expected a speech, a lecture on responsibility and how I had failed in my duty as a role model to the students.

But instead I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"come here, darling" I was too scared to look up at her face, fearing I'd see disappointment. I came closer to her, until I was pulled to sit on her lap and her arms were around me. I shivered, leaning into her. My office was always cold, and Larissa was always warm.

She held me as she stroked her fingers across my bare arm, relieved to feel that the little tremors from before were beginning to dissipate. She paused, and then, she spoke.

"I'm not angry with you, sweetheart" I shook my head, leaning it onto her chest "b-but I got-" "you reacted to a stressful situation, it isn't your fault" I heard the hesitation in her voice "I shouldn't have left you like that" I heard her swallow "I'm sorry"

I raised my head, looking up to meet her eyes. Larissa tried to smile for me, but I saw guilt and regret "i- I was irritated at how close you are becoming with the foreman, a silly little jealousy. I shouldn't have let it affect me like that" Larissa closed her eyes, and sighed "I trust you more than anyone, but I suppose old wounds still aren't entirely healed"

I knew what she was talking about. Morticia Frump had strung Larissa along, using her to test her questioning sexuality, but as always, she returned to her schoolgirl romance with Gomez. Leaving a heartbroken Larissa behind.

Larissa tensed slightly as I laid a hand against her cheek, feeling her soft skin under my thumb as I rubbed her cheekbone affectionately. I leant up to kiss her forehead, an infrequent form of affection as we were rarely on the same level "I understand, Lissy. You don't have anything to worry about, I love you. You are my everything and I could never replace you"

Larissa held my eyes, searching me for any hint of a lie. I saw the desperation and vulnerability in this strong, intimidating woman and knew she needed reassurance.

Without a word, I reached into my purse and retrieved my phone. Within a few taps on the screen I had Sadie the Foreman's contact visible.

Me: hi Sadie, I'm afraid I can't make lunch today. I completely forgot about my plans with Principal Weems. But I hope you enjoy your time in Jericho!

I purposely avoided putting an x at the end, as I knew Larissa was watching me type it out and would overthink my casual gesture. I placed my phone back into my bag and looked up at Larissa, seeing a smile on her face "you didn't have to do that-" I kissed her quickly to shush her "of course I did. Anyway, I'd much rather spend my lunch with you"

I leaned closer to her ear, holding her shoulders for balance "you're much prettier" I saw a rosy dusting of blush on the Principal's face as I pulled away, she was absolutely adorable. I loved when she was the intimidating and professional Principal Weems, but I must admit I prefer my soft and easily flustered Lissy anyday.

Her hand came up to wipe away the makeup that stained my cheeks, smearing some of it on her fingers. She didn't mind. I closed my eyes as I felt her softly kissing my face and leaving marks of her red lipstick all over me. Now it was me who was flustered, and she loved it.

"you are absolutely adorable, sweetheart." Her fingers smoothed back my hair from my face, and I smiled up at her as her eyes shone with affection "my angel"

I got to lay against her chest for another few minutes until Larissa was satisfied that I was fully calm, and then there was the added 10 minutes because I just wanted to hold her. She couldn't deny me anything. Until she insisted she had to deal with the two boys in her office.

"but Lissy-" "no, darling. Someone could have gotten seriously hurt, you could have gotten hurt" I noticed her anger bristle at the thought of me getting hurt, but it was gone as soon as she looked over to me "they need to be punished to ensure it doesn't happen again"

Larissa smoothed down her dress, checking her gloves were on properly too. I just sighed and leaned back in my chair "just don't scare them too much. It was an accident" Larissa huffed in annoyance "fine"

She bent down to kiss my forehead, stroking my hair behind my ear as she did so. Her eyes softened "I'll see you for lunch"

She shut the door behind her as she left, off to terrorise the poor students currently panicking in her office.

I smiled as I thought back on how protective she was,

She really was my silver lioness.

[rising-volteccers]

hiii! it's star anon 🌟

this week was relatively hectic, and it's just wednesday! 😭 i was going through your writing prompt tag and the first set that popped up (food as a love language) reminded me of how i felt today.

tw for discussions of eating and food!

technically, i felt "fine", but for some reason, my hunger cues were non-existent? for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, i barely had the motivation to eat. this is very odd for me because i love food. 😔 i resorted to eating outside and going for my comfort foods, which at least helped me eat and hydrate regularly today. i was surprised because this happened out of nowhere, though i'm thinking it's the stress piling up from college. i kept zoning out during today's lectures and study sessions.

so yeah, all this made me think about how murdock would prepare to respond to situations where any of the crew members may be going through what i experienced. three prompt bullets stood out to me:

⋆ “i know you said you weren’t hungry, but i made you something anyways.” ⋆ gently reminding them to eat ⋆ always having the ingredients for their comfort meal on hand in case they have a bad day

of course, murdock would do any of these for all the crew members, though i feel like this would be a more frequent occurrence with friede, liko, and dot. i guess that's because they're the most prone to forgetting, overthinking, or worrying.

though do feel free to go about this in any way you wish! i'd love to see your take on this. ❤️ i'll just take it easy for now. hopefully, the rest of the week goes better for me, and i hope it does for you as well!

Heya! I totally get what you mean about stress dampening hunger cues. I'm someone who experiences the same and still working on finding ways to eat better! I hope that the rest of your week goes well, and that you'll do well with your classes! I believe in you!

This was such a nice prompt that I ended up writing a piece about it! I also rub my self indulgent hcs about Friede too in this hehe. Hopefully this would be a nice read!

Series: Pokemon Horizons

Characters: Murdock, Friede, Liko, Dot

(This piece centers around food and eating. Also the food mentioned are meant to be potato stew, ochazuke and bento respectively!)

--

The quote 'food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate' has stuck with Murdock for the longest time. He can't properly recall the origins, only that it carved a spot in his heart and he grew around it. Murdock enjoyed food and cooking. He loved cooking for others. To him, there was no greater joy and satisfaction than seeing the people he cared for eat the food he made for them.

When he became the chef for the Rising Volt Tacklers, Murdock understood the weight of responsibility now saddled atop his shoulders. With all the traveling they do, he needed to take into account the supplies on hand. Mollie helped him in that regard but ultimately, it came down to him on how he stretched a particular ingredient to use in several meal times. 

Not to mention keeping track of everyone's eating habits. Food allergies aside, Murdock knew what people liked and disliked so he cooked accordingly, ensuring that no one left the dining table hungry. He also regularly asks what the crew wanted to eat for mealtimes, indulging in special requests or making someone's favorite if he felt like they could use a pick me up.

(Like Liko for example. She had adapted to life on board remarkably well but unlike the ever cheerful Roy, Murdock noticed that she had the tendency to keep to herself. It reminded him of Dot–it was thanks to her friendship with his niece that Dot had started to come out of her shell. The gratitude he had couldn't properly be expressed through words so he showed it through his cooking.

The day after they found Liko and got back her pendant, Murdock chose to make one of her favorite dishes. He sensed that she had a lot on her mind, unsurprising given the nature of her disappearance. It pained him to learn that a child her age had to experience an awful thing yet he felt pride that Dot saw Liko to be a valuable friend, drawing her out of her room and off the ship for the first time since he brought her along. 

Murdock spent the time after breakfast prepping the ingredients to make a stew. It was similar to Mollie's favorite but with more potatoes added in and different seasonings were used. He also made fresh buttered rolls to dip into the stew, making it into a hearty meal to enjoy during lunch. 

When he spotted her initial surprise morphing into quiet excitement, Murdock knew he made the right choice. He happily refilled her request for seconds, enjoying the warmth that blossomed in his heart at seeing her overall mood improved). 

Aside from making the food, Murdock got into the habit of reminding others to eat. He understood that at times, circumstances made it difficult for all of them to sit down and have a meal together. If they were in for a spot of rough weather, most of them would eat when they had the chance to seeing that they had different responsibilities in getting the Brave Asagi through safely. 

Arceus knows the amount of times where he gently nudged Orla into leaving the engine room to grab some muffins he made, or all but strong arming Friede into eating something because the endearing fool had it in his head that he would only eat after the danger had passed. Mollie didn’t need much convincing seeing that she ate when she was hungry, while the Liko and Roy happily ate anything he put on their plates. Especially Roy who ate like he had a bottomless pit for a stomach. Good appetite for a growing boy his age. 

These days, Murdock found that he had another person to add to his list of gentle reminders. It was one that he’d always be happy to do so because it was Dot, his niece who recently started eating solid foods. He trusted Mollie’s assessment in that Dot got all the nutrients she needed from the gummies but it still pained him to see her subsisting on only that.

Eating shouldn’t just be about getting the appropriate amount of nutrients. It should be an occasion, something to enjoy and make one feel happy to be alive. Thus when Dot started to eat the doughnuts he left out, it motivated Murdock to find more dishes for his niece to try. Once Dot started to eat more, he encouraged the habit through gentle reminders. 

(Like the night where Murdock spotted Dot standing on deck, a rarity seeing that she only really came out when Liko or Roy was around. Quaxly was with her, spotting his presence first by waving a wing at him. This prompted Dot to turn and look at him in surprise.

“Uh… hi,” she spoke up, soft and slightly hesitant.

“Good evening Dot,” Murdock responded warmly. He knew better than to press the reasoning behind her being out here, lest he spooked her into returing back to her room. Instead of letting the silence between them grew awkward, he asked, “Have you eaten yet?”

“H-huh?”

“Have you eaten yet?” he repeated gently. Judging from the way Dot fiddled with her sleeve, it gave him his answer. Murdock kept his tone kind, lacking any judgement upon knowing that she hadn’t eaten dinner yet. 

Murdock instead invited her to join him for supper. Dot looked hesitant at first but Quaxly’s encouragement had her shuffling behind him as they made their way to the kitchen. While she sat at one of the chairs, he made a simple Johtonian dish where the leftover rice he planned on using for fried rice tomorrow had soup added into it. He found this to be a nice, comforting dish that was light on the stomach. 

Dot seemed to agree, or at least she ate it with minimal complaints. Murdock hid his smile behind each spoonful, pleased to see his niece slowly learn the joys of eating).

Still, sometimes reminders were not enough for he could not contend with what went on in a person’s mind. In this particular case, he meant of Friede’s. His captain proved to be the one that pushed Murdock to expand his repertoire. Try out various recipes that would fit his particular palate, or fit a certain texture that he liked.

Murdock knew of his dislike for sour and sweet-spicy flavors. His aversion to slimy and too soft textures, of leafy greens and things that pop in his mouth. How he had the tendency to skip meals when he became fixated on a task, or whatever belief that settled in his brain that told him that he shouldn’t eat until they were in calmer waters. Sometimes Friede just plain forgot to eat, citing that he didn’t feel hungry until Murdock placed food in front of him. He ate like a Munchlax by then. 

While it pushed him to work harder, Murdock did not harbor any resentment towards Friede. In fact, he found it to be quite the fun challenge to see what sort vegetables he could sneak into the captain’s meal without him realizing. The sense of pride and gratification to see Friede happily eat something that he made was one that he cherished too. It made him happy that he was able to provide his friend a proper, balanced meal that he could enjoy without worry. 

(A recent memory of this was the time Friede became fixated in understanding more about Roy’s Ancient Pokeball. He apparently found some old books from an antique store during their last supply run in the city that could provide more information and had holed himself in his room since then.

While Friede did come out occasionally, it was for more coffee and some berries he swiped from the fruit bowl before he disappeared in his room again. Murdock had long since learnt that while he could force Friede to eat something, that would in turn make him reluctant to eat whatever meals that he ate now in the future. Something about association with an unpleasant event, even if it was necessary for his continued good health. 

Instead, Murdock spent a bit of time after everyone ate their dinner to make something for Friede. He pulled out a medium sized container that would fit his purposes. Murdock easily put together some sandwiches, vegetable sticks with peanut butter and sugared doughnut holes to put inside. Friede would be more likely to eat something that he could eat with one hand, as well as contrasting crunchy and soft, toothy textures. 

Murdock also filled a thermos with his preferred nighttime blend before carrying it with him to Friede’s bedroom. He entered after some perfunctory knocks, finding the young professor hunched over his desk with several open books, one hand lightly tugging at his hair. An easy indicator for stress, he came to learn. 

“I know you said you weren’t hungry but I made you something anyway.” Murdock went straight to the point, knowing that Friede would be in no mood for small talk. 

Friede briefly raised his head to acknowledge Murdock’s presence and the containers he placed on his bed, then went back to his book with a soft grunt. 

The chef simply smiled, bidding Friede a good night before returning back to the kitchen so he could clean up. Come the next morning, Murdock would find Friede fast asleep on his bed, the container empty sans a few crumbs while the thermos was all but drained).

So yes, Murdock shows his love through the food he makes. It speaks for him when words would fail, and the joy he gained was enough to make all the effort he put in worthwhile. As long as his family ate well, Murdock wouldn’t ask for anything more.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Awareness

Prompts: This isn’t really a prompt more like headcanon that I thought would be cool. Soooo take this and use it as you please or just leave it, whatever strikes your fancy:) Basically instead of Virgil being a dark side before anxiety, anxiety is his dark side. Before he was anxiety he was instead some kind of awareness or watchfulness (either a gray or light side). After the mindscape split or king spilt or some traumatic past event happened Virgil freaked out becoming anxiety. And now as his make up gets lighter he is reverting back to who he was before. Except no one knows who he used to be, thinking anxiety was just created after the past traumatic event.  Anyway, you’re awesome! You’re such a talented writer and I’m glad I stumbled upon your account <3 - anon

Heyo! So, I really wanted to share a headcannon that I think is truly wonderful. Y'know how lots of people stand behind the spider!Virgil headcanon??? Well what if all he has are the hidden eyes and the ability to stick to surfaces. Like, he gets spooked and BAM! He's on the wall, or maybe on the ceiling! It has proba ly scare each side a couple times? I thought I would be really cool! - artwithtoto

Heyo. I don't know if you're taking anprompts anymore, but if you are, I have one for you. {Virgil being a mother hen to the other Sides in small ways and helping them with their anxieties, and overall taking care of the otherSides, then maybe they take care of him.} I thought it would be super cute. :) Thanks for your time. - anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: none

Pairings: gen

Word Count: 3015

There are a few things that people take for granted when it comes to Anxiety. For one, it actually is a healthy amount of anxiety and stress that keeps you alive; fear of death, helps, ties into that whole self-preservation thing Janus is always talking about. Keeps you aware of things too, like deadlines, other people, just a general hey, we exist in a way that has to interact with a bunch of other things, let’s maybe be sensible about it. 

Now, of course, everything in moderation. Too much Anxiety is bad. But, as they’ve discovered, not any at all is also bad. 

Something that the Sides in particular seem to forget is that Virgil’s tied to the general Anxiety in the Mindscape too. That means that when one of them gets scared or starts freaking out about something, whoops, he gets summoned. Most of the time this is fine, odds are they’re having a nightmare or stressing about some project—which is his job, thank you, no stealing his thunder—and he can just get them out of it and sort everything out as much as possible before they both go their separate ways and someone gets some sleep. 

Sometimes it’s a bit more than that. 

Virgil appears outside of Patton’s door one morning. Well, technically it’s morning. He shakes himself off and looks around, orienting himself at this end of the hallway before shaking his head and knocking lightly on the door. 

“Hey, Pat? You in there?”

No response. 

“Patton, I know I got summoned here for a reason, you gonna open the door?”

When silence comes again, Virgil frowns and reaches out to test the knob. His frown deepens when it gives right away and the door swings open with a low creak. 

“Hey, Patton? You okay?”

He glances around, squinting in the darkness, trying to figure out where Patton might be, when he spots the closet door ajar and a pile of clothes outside. He steps a bit closer and the pile shudders. 

“Pop Star? That you?”

“V-Virgil?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, it’s me.” Virgil closes the door gently and crouches, shuffling over to sit next to him on the floor. “What’s going on?”

“It’s silly.”

“You’re upset, that’s not silly.”

Patton’s face—no glasses, he must’ve just woken up—turns and stares at him, small bits of his face a tad shinier than others. Virgil lets out a soft noise and reaches out to brush the tears away. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around him, “hey, let’s get you back in bed, okay? Come on, up we go…”

He scoops the little ball of Patton into his arms and carries him back over to the bed, tucking him in and sitting on the edge. 

“What scared you?”

“The…the dark.” Patton glances over his shoulder. “Monsters in the closet.”

“You need me to check?”

“Don’t—“ he grabs his sleeve— “they’ll get you too.”

“What if I stay? Keep watch for you?”

“But you need to sleep too.”

“I’ll sleep here.” Virgil lies down next to him as Patton pulls back the covers, immediately snapping himself into something softer. “Yeah? This okay?”

“…thank you.”

“Hey, it’s okay, Pop Star. Whatever scares you scares you. You don’t have to be ashamed of it.”

Patton smiles, turning over to snuggle into the blankets. Virgil keeps one eye on the closet and one on him as they drift off to sleep. 

2.

Virgil’s yanked abruptly through the ceiling to sprawl on Logan’s bed, wincing when the sharp spiral of a notebook digs into his ribs. “Ow.”

“Virgil? What are you doing here?”

“You tell me, Specs. I was minding my own business scrolling through the Internet and then poof, I’m here.”

As he says that, though, he looks up and realizes the reason Logan’s got notebooks strewn on top of his bed is that his desk is an absolute nightmare. Papers piled up haphazardly, there’s at least three different water bottles he can see, and the desktop of his computer is littered with too many icons. 

“…you know what, nevermind, I know why I’m here.”

Logan sighs, adjusting his glasses. “I certainly don’t. If you could explain it—“

“C’mon, Specs. You know better.”

“I’m not in the mood for any riddles, Virgil, if you could let me get back to work—“

“That’s strike one.”

“Strike one—this isn’t baseball, Virgil, I have several projects I have to—“

“Strike two. C’mon, L, just come over here.”

“…Virgil, I can’t, I have to get these finished. The second draft is due this Friday, I have to give Roman time to—hey!”

“Strike three.” Virgil adjusts his grip on the squirming nerd as he pulls him away from his desk, wrapping his arms around him to prevent any escape. “Stop fighting me. You’re not going to win.”

“Let me go, I need to—“

“You need to stop stressing out about this, that’s what you need to do. Oh, for—L, stop.”

Logan stops, mouth forming a tight line as Virgil rests his chin on his shoulder. After a few more moments of being tightly restrained—or properly cuddled, as Remus likes to call it—he lets out a long breath and sags against Virgil’s chest. 

“Hey, L,” Virgil says quietly, “you need to take a break. You’re gonna work yourself up and then nothing’s gonna get done.”

“…I know.”

“Come on, snack time. What do you want? We got crackers, we got fruit, I’m pretty sure there’re some pretzels left too, if Remus hasn’t eaten all of them.”

“Pretzels sound good.”

“Great. Come walk with me.”

“Thank you,” Logan mumbles as Virgil moves him gently out of the door, “for checking.”

“That’s my job!”

3.

“If you could just—“

“Nope.”

“But I want to—“

“Nope.”

“Virgil, this is ridiculous, I am clearly capable of—“

“No, you’re not.”

“Well, if you could let me go—“

“Nah.”

“You’re not being fair.”

“Mm. Nope.”

“Oh, after all the conversations we’ve had about hearing each other out, did you just decide that no longer applies to you?”

“Not when it comes to you neglecting your health.”

“Neglecting my—bitch, I am the only one who practices regular self-care around here.”

“Which means you know better.”

“Just let me go—“

“You take that thermometer over there and if it tells me you’re within normal limits, I’ll let you up.”

“Fine, fine. Then will you let me go?”

“If that thing says you’re within normal limits, yeah, I’ll let you go.”

“…fine.”

“What’s it say?”

“…I’m still too cold.”

“Mhm. So get your snake ass comfortable ‘cause I’m not letting you up until you can feel all your scales again.”

“I hate you.”

“Liar.”

“…yeah, maybe.”

“Shh, snake-face. Just go to sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll kick your ass into taking care of it too, don’t you worry.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Sure.”

“I wasn’t!”

“You should be sleeping.”

4.

Most of the time, Virgil’s normal Side-like appearance is what gives the others the most comfort. They all look pretty much the same, give or take a few things, and it’s a sense of, well, normalcy. It’s not unexpected, it’s not jarring, it’s not going to give them something else to be worried about. 

With Remus, though…

Remus is a tricky little stinker. He’s simultaneously one of the most difficult Sides to interact with and he’s much smarter than he lets on, which means that if you’re having a problem that you can’t quite put the words to, he’s gonna be able to put the words to it and then you’ll have to confront it. 

Blessing and a curse. 

Of course, Remus also has his side of the Imagination to wrestle with and it can get a little…tempestuous. Monsters, ghouls, all the intrusive thought gremlins that make absolute nuisances of themselves and only Remus by and large can deal with them. This means that his understanding of…well, what happens outside of the Imagination is a bit different than everyone else’s. 

So sometimes Virgil gets little pings from Remus when he feels like he’s too much of a freak for the rest of them and that just won’t do. 

Now, Virgil does not make a habit of scaring the other Sides—unless it’s Halloween. This does mean that there are certain parts of him that he doesn’t get to show very often. 

All the Sides, contrary to popular belief, do have some animal-like tendencies. It’s just that the Dark Sides are the ones who show it off more. Remus has his octopus-like and squid-like moments, some Kraken moments in there too, Janus is just a snake—with extra arms because…sure—and Virgil’s a spider. 

Pausing for gasps of shock…

It’s not like he grows a bunch of extra legs, or massive fangs that sprout out of his mouth, although those would be cool. No, he just sticks to walls and has a bunch of extra eyes. 

Spiderman would be much more interesting if he had more eyes. Just saying. 

So when he gets summoned to Remus’s room and finds him mumbling to himself about freaks and monsters and sounding eerily similar to a certain chaos Dorito, he climbs up into a corner of the wall and waits. 

“Who’s there?” Remus’s head whips around. “If that’s one of you, I told you you’re not allowed in here right now. I have shit to do.”

Virgil chitters quietly. Remus’s head swings back and forth. 

“I’m not kidding,” he says again, voice getting higher, “come out now and I’ll take you back home. I’m busy.”

The shriek he gets when Virgil pounces on him from the ceiling is priceless, as is the scrunched-up face and little pout he gets when he realizes who it is. 

“Emo,” he whines, smacking Virgil’s chest, “you scared me!”

“Sure did, little octopus. You gotta be quicker than that.”

“You snuck into my room!”

“Got summoned, actually.” He gives him a mock stern look with eight eyes. “Your voices being mean to you again?”

“…maybe.”

“I’m here to tell them to fuck off. You wanna help?”

Remus nods and a few of his tentacles curl out of his back. Virgil nods approvingly and drags Remus up into his lap, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing him tight. 

“I want you,” he mumbles, “I want you a lot. You’re a good bro.”

“Don’t let Roman hear you say that.”

“You’re both good.”

“I gotcha, little octopus, you just stay right here with me.”

5.

Whoever decided that the creativitwins—he saw it online, it slaps, he’s stealing it—get the most rational fears is a piece of shit. He’ll say it. 

There’s only so much you can do for people who are really, really scared. You can’t just talk them out of it, you can’t just cuddle it away, you’ve really just got to rely on them to ask for when they need help and what exactly they need you to do for them. 

In case this has escaped your notice, Roman is really bad at this. 

This does mean that whenever it gets bad enough for Virgil to actually get summoned, it’s really fucking bad. 

So when Virgil appears in Roman’s room, he’s already swallowing back a curse at the sight of their brave prince, sitting in a heap on the floor, tears streaming down his face. 

“Hey, Princey,” he murmurs, crouching down and reaching out for Roman’s hands, “can you look at me?”

Roman blinks and looks up, sniffling. 

“You scared right now?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Thank you for telling me. Can I help?”

He sniffles again, squeezing Virgil’s hands weakly. 

“That a yes, bud? Yeah? Okay. I’m gonna come sit with you. You just keep looking at me, okay? Nowhere, else, just at me. J gave me a new eyeshadow palette, you have a look and tell me what you think of the pigment. Personally, I think it’s a little too desaturated for me, but you’re the color expert.”

As he talks, he carefully loops Roman’s arms around his neck, easing himself to the ground and reaching to resettle Roman’s limbs to prevent any cramps or stiffness. 

“I don’t think my undertones are quite right for it either. I was talking to Remus the other day about eyeliner and really, I think my eyes water too much. I’m all for the disheveled-haven’t-slept-in-a-week eye bags, but I’m not trying to go full Winter Soldier here.”

A tiny laugh. He smiles, reaching out to cup Roman’s face in his hands, tugging them a little closer. 

“Hey,” he says again, brushing away some of the tears. “You’re doing great, okay? Just keep looking at me.”

Roman’s fingers twitch and he takes a shaky breath. “’S a lot.”

“Everything’s a lot right now? That’s okay, Princey, you don’t have to deal with it all right now. I know it’s overwhelming and scary, we’re here for you, remember?”

Roman shakes his head. “’S a lot of eyeshadow.”

Virgil gasps, gently tugging his hair. “How dare you?”

It’s worth it for the watery giggle he gets in return. 

“Unbelievable,” he says, half-scolding, half-complimenting, “you are absolutely unbelievable.”

“Mhm.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“…no?”

“Nah, Princey,” he murmurs, leaning forward to rest their foreheads together, “you’re stuck with us. We’re not going anywhere.”

+1. 

“Hey, Virgil?”

Virgil lets his head lean over the arm of the couch. “What’s up?”

“Your—your eyeshadow. It’s purple.”

“Is it?” He touches his face. “Huh. Didn’t know that was coming back.”

Logan’s book thuds as it closes. “Coming…back?”

“Well, yeah. It hasn’t been like that since…oh, before the Split.”

He glances around as all other sounds in the living room come to a stop.

“What?”

“Your eyeshadow was purple before the Split?” Patton sits up. “Why did it change?”

“Uhh...did you guys not also change when the Split happened?”

“I don’t remember shit from before the Split,” Remus announces proudly as Roman rolls his eyes, “and neither does Ro!”

Roman just wraps his arms tightly around Remus and pulls him closer, setting his chin on his shoulder. “I’m just gonna hang onto this.”

Janus sighs as the twins start playfully pushing each other, turning back to Virgil. “I don’t remember changing, as such, no. Just…becoming me.”

“How is that not changing?”

“In a manner of speaking, are we not all always changing?”

“Okay, that’s enough of that philosophy book,” Logan mumbles, taking it from Janus’s hands, “but I have to agree. I do not remember any significant difference with myself before and after the Split.”

Virgil’s hands pause. “…oh.”

“Kiddo? Did you?”

“Well…yeah. My—my whole thing changed?”

The twins stop too. “What do you mean ‘your whole thing?’” Roman sits up. “Like, your role?”

“I wasn’t always Anxiety.”

You could hear a pin drop. 

“…I thought you guys knew that?” They all shake their heads. “No, I—I used to just be Awareness. Then the Split happened and everybody freaked out and I…”

…changed.

“Whoa, hey.” Remus is suddenly right there. “Hey, Emo, it’s okay. You’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

Yeah, yeah, of course it is. Why is Remus talking like that?

“Shh, little one—“ oh, hey Logan, “we’re right here. We still care for you, no matter what your role is.”

Oh. Oh, shit, he hasn’t freaked out about this in a while. 

“Probably because you haven’t had to think about it.”

Thanks, J. 

“You need a cuddle?” Virgil opens his arms and something Patton-shaped fills it. “Hey, kiddo, it’s okay.”

Well, now that he’s realized he’s freaking out, he starts freaking out properly. Sobbing, snotty mess, all over Patton’s shirt. How embarrassing. 

“Don’t be ashamed of needing help,” Roman chides like a hypocrite, which he immediately acknowledges, “don’t be like me and wait until it’s too much to deal with.”

“It’s our turn to take care of you.” Remus ruffles his hair and carefully puts him in Patton’s lap. “You just be a little mess right now, okay?”

“Remus, that’s rude.”

“What? Not all of us can look like tragic heroes when we have breakdowns, Roro.”

“It is unfair how easily you do that.”

“Just let Virge be all messy. He can have a little mess, as a treat.”

Leave it to them to make him laugh when he’s trying to have a breakdown. He buries his head in Patton’s shoulder and yeah, he’s just gonna stay here for a while. 

General Taglist: @frxgprince@potereregina@gattonero17@iamhereforthegayshit@thefingergunsgirl@awkwardandanxiousfander@creative-lampd-liberties@djpurple3@winterswrandomness@sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes@iminyourfandom@bullet-tothefeels@full-of-roman-angst-trash  @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind@demoniccheese83@pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious@firefinch-ember@fandomssaremysoul@im-an-anxious-wreck@crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch@enby-ralsei@unicornssunflowersandstuff@wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv  @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams@averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb  @cricketanne @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws@cecil-but-gayer@i-am-overly-complicated@annytheseal@alias290@tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance @whyiask@crows-ace @emilythezeldafan@frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires@cyanide-violence@oonagh2@xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx@rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734@triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo@cerulean-watermelon@puffed-up-bees@meltheromanstan@joyrose-fandomer@insanitori@mavenmush@justablah65@10paradox10@uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous@cutebisexualmess@bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti

If you want to be added/taken off the taglist, let me know!

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Unblock Gridlock

Unblock Gridlock: Real Sounds In Fake Space

Watch this video on YouTube

Thumbnail and script below the fold

You might know this game, at least by looking at it. I learned about it the first time from watching ASMR channels softly talking while they tried and solved the different puzzles of a physical version of the game. They call it Rush Hour, because that tends to be the branding attached to it.

It’s a sliding block puzzle, where you have a bunch of blocks that can only be slid along their longest axis. The idea behind it is inspired by a thing from a bygone history, where people would depict in magazines lots of cars all locked in against one another, stuck in place, until the road cleared, all at odd angles, and getting out involved shifting everyone just enough in the right way.

It’s funny to think about how ‘rush hour’ as a concept is kinda dated to me. Obviously it happens, but I grew up knowing it was one of the worst things my dad had to deal with, and we had to map whole days around it, but also now I couldn’t tell you a thing about it because I catch the bus everywhere. Perk of living in a place with nice public transport, not going to lie to you.

The original puzzle design driving Rush Hour is the product of a designer known as ‘Nob.’ Nob is short for Nobuyuki Yoshigahara, a prolific puzzle designer from Japan. Now, I don’t know Nob’s work very well, but based on reading up on Nob’s work, the reason I can’t really appreciate the scope of Nob’s work is the reason why standing on the ground outside my house, I can’t really see the scope of Australia. I don’t know Nob well but by what I can see, looking at his work, as a game developer, and its scope, it is remarkable for its *vastness.* The man wrote over 80 books on puzzles, and was at one point writing seventeen monthly columns on puzzles across a host of different puzzle publications. If you’re into puzzles, you probably are into puzzles made by people who built on the work of Nob.

My favourite anecdote learning about this history, by the way, is that when the 4×4 Rubiks Cube was released with a mechanical flaw that meant it could fail under stress, Nob was so intrigued by the design that he redesigned it – someone else’s design! – and mailed the revision to the publishers of the game. This being the 1980s, they implemented his changes. You got one of them little metal elk puzzles? Yeah, there’s a reason there’s an ‘N O B’ inscribed on them.

Nob was also an early adopter of computer technology to design and solve puzzles. Foreshadowing.

I don’t know why Rush Hour became a darling of the ASMR set. For those of you unfamiliar, ASMR refers to the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, a science-sounding way to describe a phenomenon of experiencing pleasant tingles due to a wide variety of subtle stimuli that are hard to explore in most everyday situations. It’s a big deal on Youtube, a platform that gave the medium a lot to work with and if you’re not interested in it, you might not know anything about it. It has that name because it’s a lot easier to talk about, and a lot easier to search rather than ‘that nice fuzzy feeling in the back of my head.’

It’s also the genre of reading like this. I’m deliberately aiming for a soft-spoken version of my normal presentation without making anyone feel like their ears itch.

ASMR is a really interesting, broad community – I think I’m in the ‘selfconscious fictional’ part of it, where I want someone to talk to me nicely about something obviously fantastic. Some folks want to hear a pretty girl playing with cellophane, some folks want to have their cranial nerves examined, and some people like to watch methodical, slow playing of manual tabletop games. It’s a thing that provides structure for a video that’s often about forcing yourself to not act quickly, not do things maximally efficiently. Sometimes, when you go looking, you’ll find an ASMRTist playing Rush Hour.

Rush Hour has a lot of potential as an ASMR game. It has moving physical pieces. It can make pleasant sounds when the pieces are slid into location. It rewards thoughtful consideration of pieces and what they need to fit in various places. It’s something you can get better at over time, too, which means the learning process shows itself in longer videos. It’s brightly coloured, to make sure it’s reasonably easy to understand what it’s doing.

I know I’ve been talking about Rush Hour a lot in this video ostensibly about a different game, Unblock Gridlock. That’s because Rush Hour serves as the underpinning of it, but there is a big difference in computer games and videogames, and that flows from a place of scope. The Rush Hour physical game ships these days with forty cards, showing forty puzzles, and they’re complicated, but the really long solutions can’t really be shown on a card easily. It’s not like you’re going to get a puzzle that’s forty steps long.

What you do get, though, is a weird cousin of procedural level generation. Under the hood, Rush Hour is a math puzzle. The math is about graphs, and involves something called nondeterministic constraint logic, but ultimately, if you can give a computer anything that fits on a Rush Hour board, it can solve it pretty much trivially, because largely, computers are pretty good at solving this kind of math. That means that while Rush Hour presents you with forty puzzles, Unblock Gridlock presents you with a positively bananas 9,392 puzzles. I’m pretty confident to make that many puzzles, the designers made the computer generate possible puzzle configurations that could be solved within a certain number of steps, and picked a reasonably-sensible set of those.

It’s a good value proposition if what you want is a giant pile of puzzles to work through. If you get a Jumbo 10,000 Puzzles book and think bet, well, Unblock Gridlock is going to be good for you. It feels kind of bottomless to me, and I say that with over a hundred puzzles under my belt after seven hours of play, in little two-and-three-minute increments.

And now I’m gunna talk about something that’s a bit of a bummer.

Oh, and in Unblock Gridlock you’re playing a cop, so, mnyeh to that I guess.

It’s a great puzzle game, I like it a lot. I just need to dedicate myself to controlling when and how I play it.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[clairswritingsnippets]

Following Thomas through the streets of Poppy Valley, it genuinely surprised Rowan how many people actually came to the small town for school. This was only intensified when they entered Galaxy ramen, as most of the patrons were their age. Odd. Eventually the two settled in a quiet corner, Rowan having elected to leave his back to the door for Thomas' comfort. He had seen enough on entering.

The space and alien themes were everywhere, not that Rowan minded, and the food smelt good at least. That was confirmed once they ordered and got their meals, it was pretty good ramen. They ate in silence for a moment, before Rowan elected to keep up with the illusion that was scoping the place out for Thomas and his future date.

"I think this place would work, nice atmosphere and good food, little fear of being overheard with everyone chatting."

"Uh, yeah, good to know."

Rowan hummed, pretending to not notice Thomas' awkwardness.

"Don't stress Thomas, I'm sure that they'll be more interested in you than anything else."

"What?"

"That's the point of the date, to learn more about the other person? Like, it's the same as hanging out with a new friend but with romantic undertones."

"You know more than I thought about this."

Rowan let out a mock offended noise.

"Excuse me? I'll have you know I've had two partners in the past."

"Actually?"

"Yeah, girlfriend in the first half of 9th grade, before we broke up and I dated a guy through all of 10th."

"Huh."

"Yeah. What about you?"

"Never dated anyone, never had the desire too. I preferred teasing everyone."

"Fair enough."

The two chatted for a bit, enjoying the company the other provided. This carried on as they headed to the grocery store after their ramen, grabbing the needed ingredients for a baking extravaganza. A few bribes to the Valerian cooking staff and the Kitchen was all theirs.

"Have you ever baked with any of your family Thomas?"

"Nah, they were more focused on the investigations and cryptid hunting."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, my family has always been into the weird and mysterious."

"What about you?"

"I was…"

"Was?"

Thomas paused his whisking of the batter for what Rowan thought was a chocolate cake, they had bought several types of mix, and looked like he was debating telling the other something.

"I used to go on hunts with my grandpa, but on our last hunt… Well, whatever it was we were hunting? It killed my grandpa. I came back alone, and I haven't been hunting since."

He looked off to the side, not wanting to meet Rowan's eyes. Could only make a noise of sympathy, understanding that feeling of why did I survive but not the person I cared about? Why did it have to be me? They lapsed into silence after that.

Eventually the conversation started back up, hesitant at first, and soon the two were laughing along like nothing ever happened. Soon enough they had a whole pile of goodies in containers, the equipment was cleaned and put away, and the garbage thrown away. The two sat there for a moment enjoying their treats, before Rowan couldn't help but look over and snort.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, just you have a little something."

Rowan reached up and quickly wiped away a smear of chocolate from Thomas' cheek without thinking, making the two pause, Rowan not quite pulling away and Thomas not saying anything as colour began to appear on both their faces. Clearing his throat awkwardly, Rowan pulled away and turned back to the containers of sweets.

"So, uh, feel like delivering these to your friends that are here?"

"You doubt my power to eat all these Beránek?"

"No, but sharing would be more fun, and reasonable."

"... Fiiiiine. But we'll have to stop by Jimsonweed and give some to Nobu."

"Alright."

And so they wandered the dorms of Val Prep, handing out cookies and slices of cake to the other students, with more than enough to head over to Jimson Weed and Morning Glory. By the end they were left with a single container, and soon found themselves on one of the flat rooftops of Val Prep, the sun sinking below the horizon. Rowan's guitar and a blanket were spread out on the snow free section, giving them a nice view of the whole of Poppy Valley.

"This… this was fun. Thanks Rowan."

"Not a problem Thomas."

Nearby the flock pecked at the cookies Rowan had offered in payment for them unlocking the door. They really were smart little birds.

Now that the two of them were truly alone, Rowan felt his mouth go dry. How the hell was he going to say this? He was only more sure that he was the target of Thomas' affections after watching the other today, and the kitchen incident

cemented that fact for him. So grabbing the guitar he figured he'd let the music speak for him.

"Sleep on me, Feel the rhythm in my chest, just breathe..."

He sang, feeling Thomas look at him,

"And if you have nightmares, we'll dance on the bed

I know that you love me, love me

Even when I lose my head…"

He gave Thomas a pointed look at that part, causing the others face to turn a brighter red than Rowan's school colours. The colour only intensified as the song went on and Thomas got what Rowan was saying.

"So. Did I get it right?"

Despite how sure of it he was, there was the chance he was wrong, and it almost seemed like that was the case as Thomas sat in silence. But then;

"Yeah, you did."

He looked defeated.

"Let me guess, you don't want me around?"

"The exact opposite Thomas. I was hoping this would get it through to you, but since you sometimes aren't able to see it, I'll spell it out. I feel the same, and I'd like to pursue this if you're willing."

The two had gotten up and were standing close, letting rowan see the thoughts racing behind the taller teen's eyes.

"But I-"

"If you're about to quote Sullivan's dry, piece of shit writing he calls a journalism piece, don't. You know I'm not scared of you and can punch you back just as hard."

Rowan cupped Thomas' cheek, and the other closed his eyes, leaning into it.

"Alright. But promise me you'll get away from me if I get too violent?"

"We'll see."

"That's as good as I'm getting from you isn't it?"

"Yeah."

They stood there for a moment, before from over by the flock;

"Sha-la-la-la-la-la

Don't stop now

Don't try to hide it how

You want to kiss the girl

Sha-la-la-la-la-la"

Both looked to the birds, who all looked particularly smug as "Kiss the Girl" from the little mermaid played from their phone. Rowan couldn't help but bust out laughing as Thomas followed suit.

"Think we should give them what they want?"

"Why not?"

And that kiss was something else. Awkward, but genuine, and that made it special to Rowan in so many ways.

The birds pecked at their device as a slow dance came on.

"Care to dance sir?"

Rowan grinned at Thomas as the other looked back at the birds.

"I didn't really get a chance to at the masquerade, so y'know what? Why not."

And that's what they did, as the sun set and the stars appeared, the only thing that mattered was the two of them.

[xviruserrorx]

Write fanfiction they said! It will be fun they said!

[blueparadis]

❝ CITY IN RAIN ❞ + TAKEMICHI HANAGAKI

→ €ONTENT & WARNINGS — afab-reader, explicit smut, mature language, sub-dom dynamics, s/m dynamics, oral acts, m-oral, m-receiving, blow job, mean-dom! Hanagaki, hard dom! Takeomi, mild dirty talk, use of pet-names; implied voyeurism, exhibitionism and threesum, manipulation, dubcon, master-slave theme. porn with plot. TAP HERE TO VIEW MY WORKS WC— 0.88k ; brainrot courtesy to the latest chapter and my beloved CEO OF HANAGAKIS aka @1900-aria

→ PRECIS — Acting advisor Hanagaki Takemichi who has an eye on Takeomi’s favourite doll finally gets to know the reason of his favouritism. ft. Acting Advisor Bonten!Takemichi & Advisor!Takeomi.

H.T read the initials as the man in a black suit signed the papers. Being, the acting advisor of Bonten wasn't easy for Takemichi but what else he could do. After all, he can't either rely on the Haitanis or his friend, Kakucho who's out of the station along with Takeomi; to think that Manjiro would let one and only advisor out of his sight is odd. Probably he's getting rusty. Kokonoi was already busy with a pile of paper works and Haruchiyo? Out of question.

He taps on the table as you walk towards the door carrying the papers. “Naoto is repeatedly coming in my way! Guess, I should make things harder for him.”, he mumbles. But sitting on his chair felt different. Not only there was a great amount of stress but greed kept lurking every now and then. Greed to use his resources, just like Takeomi does. A tempting desire to taste the lavishness of his life. So, he took the next chance that knocked on his door of fate.

“Yes...? Come in!”, he speaks and you walk up to him in quick, short steps. It's raining. Transports are light, some staffs are unavailable due to the trio’s handiwork to create more cases for Inspector Tachibana to solve.

“Anything, you needed darling?”, he inquiries. You stop near his desk, frozen eyes widening at the sudden beckon, at that odd name.

“you... called .... for me, sir?”, your words tumble as you watch the new young boss leaving his seat to walk towards you. He's close, just inches apart. Eyes on you, hands inside his pocket while you could feel yourself sinking in nervousness, breaths short and irregular.

“why can't I? Is it odd to expect a call at this hour? Didn't your favorite boss make it a habit for you?” Rude. How very rude!

You open your mouth in reflex but he immediately curls his arm around your waist while the other grabs one of your hands. A smirk laces his harsh lips before he shoves his leg in between yours.

“Guess then, I have to do it!”, he boldly mumbles latching his mouth along your neckline.

Your free hand travels under his arm, resting on his back as he places open mouth kisses but not for long. As you relax, he places your arms along his shoulders while his hands traced rough patterns on your ass making you moan softly. It's sweet. It's addictive. It's tempting.

“You’ve grown out of habit, I suppose!”, he whispers slipping his hands into your pants.

“At least, he knows to pick the best!”, he utters rubbing your wet folds yet halting immediately. A swarm of warmth smothers your cheeks as you watch him lick his fingers that are slightly glistening with your juices; his eyes staring at you, scanning every inch of you.

Hanagaki must have seen you being in Akashi’s arms while he tortured your pussy by gagging you, or simply cockwarming him during a meeting. He thought it was nothing but a show-off. All he could do was a scoff to wipe away the want to have you, at least once.

You were Akashi’s favorite among the girls he picked and honestly, he didn't think it would be this easy. Perhaps, you wanted this too. “Such a smart mouth!”, he hums as you lick his fingers, slowly and meticulously.

“Such a fucking waste!”, he growls forcing you to go on his knees. It's too fast. You're too weak. And it's best not to fight, after all, it surely wouldn't hurt to taste a foreign cum, the cum of a man whom you've seen lurking occasionally around your boss’s quarters when Akashi’s hands were all over you!

“Suck!”, Hanagaki instructed. His cock was to gawk at. Fat, six inches with a line of veins along with his foreskin. You look up to him for a moment and he flinches watching you smirk. Grabbing his knees, you take his cock into your mouth, nose hitting his trimmed pubic.

Hanagaki was sure taken by surprise. First, he didn't think you'd be so good with your mouth, as if you're a trained pet, and second the view of your hard nipples through your white shirt was turning him on more.

“Fuck! Fuccck...so this is why he makes you wear light tones, huh?”, he hisses leaning against the table as you continue sucking him off, followed by occasional broad licks along his thick girth.

Your breath hitches, struggle to breathe as he grabs you by your nape pushing his aroused cock inside. He groans throwing back his head in pleasure, his moans echoing in the room.

He doesn't even feel the need to warn you before cumming but you were already used to that, you're Takeomi’s best pick. How could you disappoint him and taint your reputation! Thick, murky, and warm; you swallowed his cum as he releases his hold.

At the very next moment, he notices you picking yourself up, his fluid leaking along the corner of your lips. He likes it. He likes the way you took him. He likes you. Snatching off a tissue he pulls you closer by grabbing your ass to wipe his juices clean. Next time, he won't be so hard on you, he thinks.

“Woah... Look what we have here!”, Takeomi tartly speaks watching you two. How long has he been there? He exhales a long puff as he walks up to you.

“So, babydoll Care to elaborate on how all this happened?”, he asks with long trail of intonations, squeezing your cheeks.

Hanagaki is calm. He strolls around the table getting a nod from the advisor. “Looks like, you're not going home today!”, Hanagaki adds watching the splattering raindrops coursing through the window sill.

tags— @zoraedits @haitaniapologist @etheralyonn @dancingintherainwithchifuyu @manjiroscum @ily-inupi @shujiful

Networks— @downtown-roponggi @tokyometronetwork @planetonet

[kindestegg]

Deltarune Theory: Ralsei is a guide for the script

It feels crazy that Deltarune Chapter 2 has only been out for like, what, two weeks? As of the time I’m writing this, and yet, there has already been so much secret hunting and speculation over this. Not even the full game, and people already go crazy over it. Naturally, I am part of this craze. In fact I was one of the people that played it as soon as it dropped.

And, I thought it was only me, but, at least for a little while, Ralsei’s behavior struck me as… odd. Not outwardly malicious, but just… odd. Particularly the first bit of the game, it was just so… happy and convenient? And Ralsei was at the center of it all, orchestrating it, making sure everything happened accordingly.

Eventually, that initial feeling of distrust went away, but… not quite. And it seems a lot of people began to feel the same way, pointing out bits about Ralsei that are just… out of place. Things that didn’t seem to stand out in the first chapter, are now popping out about him.

Questions include:

How does he know about what’s outside the Dark World, about the school?

How does he know about the game mechanics and call them out by names?

Why is he so interested in keeping the balance between only Kris acting and him and Susie doing magic?

Why does he seem so eager to dismiss what happened with Spamton NEO?

Why doesn’t he turn into stone or even get weak at any point during the time he spends in Cyber World?

Are the parts of his name and design connecting to the Dreemurr’s intentional, and if so, what does that mean for his relation to Kris?

How and why does he take player control away to look at what Susie is doing? Why must he wait until Kris is willing to do it? What does he tell them when he succeeds in this?

Now, I don’t intend to pose here “a supreme theory to rule them all”, I’m just a guy having fun and I’ve seen people voice particularly similar ideas to this one I’ve had, so I want to at least try to answer these questions through a relatively simple idea that would, almost entirely, immediately answer ALMOST all the doubts.

First, let’s start with some steps to build up this idea. For one, we know for a fact that Ralsei holds knowledge over game mechanics and may even break the fourth wall at times.

But we also know that Ralsei’s design resembles a lot of characters from Undertale we know and were fond of. For one, he can be likened to Toriel in the sense that he is the one to give you the first tutorial of the game and his clothes resemble her original outfit as well. Another connection, much more common, that people have made is that he is like Asriel, no doubt due to his name being an anagram, but also due to the fact he is also a cute young goat.

I would like to do a complete turn around here though, and say I do not think any of this points to Ralsei being related to Kris in the familial sense, for more than one reason, but my main one being that I don’t think Toby would be as frankly disgusting as to imply such a thing when there is so so much teasing in the direction of Ralsei possibly having a crush on Kris. I mean… really, Toby?

You know, I’m not too sure this would be the smartest idea, Mr. Fox, but alright.

However, I do think all these hints in his design and name have a purpose. And it has to do with how us, the fandom, see these two characters. For one, they are very beloved characters, and Toriel is one that we associate with her tutorials and guidance, whereas Asriel is one that people have yearned to see more in action. They are back, in a sense, but not present in our adventures so far.

What I’m getting at is that Ralsei is specifically designed to be the darling of the fandom. He is made to be loved, to be trusted, to cause feelings in us that make us want to protect him and accept his advice. This, in a way, also affects the in-universe characters who see him, as Susie put it: “as a big portable teddy bear”, whose job is “giving hugs”.

And I don’t just mean this in a character design way, like “oh wow Toby was so smart to make a perfectly marketable boy!” No. I think Ralsei exists as a meta element, his form being a direct manifestation of what we want to see.

He looks like that because he wants us to see him and lower our guard and expect his guidance. Remember how his form was shadowy and vague throughout all of chapter 1 until the very end of it and how he poofs into nothing but a pile of clothes in both chapters so far, no matter what form he’s in? What if he’s a shapeshifter? What if Ralsei isn’t even his real name? That certainly would explain why he says he doesn’t know what being Ralsei-like is like.

Ralsei? Ralsei? Oh God he’s gone.

Now, do I think he’s lowering our guard in the sense of leaving us vulnerable for an attack? Not exactly. I think it's so we learn to accept him…

Accept that he is a GUIDE for the game’s script. His entire existence hinges on guiding the main characters, specially Kris, throughout the story, and making sure the whole story, all seven chapters, play out exactly as planned.

You see, Ralsei isn’t evil. His goal is pretty simple, actually: guide us, the player, throughout the game, making us feel as safe and happy and secure. In that sense, of course he pushes so hard towards the pacifist route. After all, that’s the one that’s closer to a completionist route, as the sparing + recruiting mechanic adds more characters to your town, and therefore more content. He wants you to see all this content and get the most enjoyment out of it. His code urges him to bring you the best experience possible.

This would also answer why he does that thing with taking our control away from Kris and to watch Susie’s shenanigans. Because it’s satisfying to us. Notice how stressed out and pushy he gets in the alternate route when Susie comes out of Noelle’s room without being able to let us see what happened. He knows he messed up, something went wrong. He was supposed to let us see, so that we wouldn’t be bored, because God forbid the players be bored.

Just imagine this going through his head.

He also seems to genuinely care about Kris and Susie, and with good reason, as he knows these are the protagonists, and he is supposed to care for their well being too and ensure they reach their goal. I do think, however, there is a good amount of being genuine in his care, as he has no reason to react so boldly sometimes to either of them, showing outrage or affection in pretty telling ways. He isn’t heartless despite carrying out this job.

However it is also worth noting, for all his care, he cannot do the one thing that Kris would desire the most: free them from our grasp. And that is his ultimate failure towards them, and may end up creating conflict later on in the game.

From, here, there are two possible pathways:

Ralsei does not know about the dilemma Kris is going through, and believes Kris is entirely oblivious and passive towards being in a video game. He may even end up being the final boss to fight, as he desperately tries to keep everything on rails while Kris very much does not care for any of that.

Ralsei is entirely aware of what’s going on with Kris, after all, everything in a game’s design is planned, even the cutscenes, therefore even Kris’ struggles. Ralsei knows of the fate that lies ahead, that Kris will eventually be free, how it all ends. But to get there… is still a road ahead.

I think Ralsei’s affection towards Kris will definitely be explored in the later chapters. Not just because of the teasing we’ve been getting, but, if Ralsei really is a guide of the game’s code and script, what would that mean for him to get so attached towards the character the player is controlling?

Ralsei will have to make a choice. He will either recognize Kris is suffering and cannot wait any longer, or be faced with possibly having to fight them himself. This is why those two pathways matter as well. If he doesn’t know, his choice will come later and it will be an unpleasant surprise for him to find out the game universe is breaking apart around him with the self awareness of certain characters. If he does know, however, his choice is NOW, and waiting for the inevitable will be torture.

Just how long until he breaks? Or will he keep the facade until the very last chapter?

Like I said, I don’t intend this theory to be the biggest, most revealing and coherent theory. But… It could add a very interesting layer to Ralsei’s character, as well as answer many questions posed beforehand. He knows the school layout and game controls because he is part of the code. He can get to the other Dark World’s easily and remain unharmed because the game demands him to be. He looks like this so that we love him. He wants to give us the most fulfilling Castle Town so that we will love the game. He doesn’t protest even when Kris does things like try to give him the thorn ring, because to him, everything will be okay anyway. Everything he is, is for us. He isn’t evil or malicious per se, he just opposes Kris’ biggest need.

But he may have gotten himself attached. And that may be a clue to sparing him if he does become a final boss.

But! Tell me what you thought of this theory! Do you think it’s way too weird and farfetched, or do you think it’s possible that it could happen? Or maybe you agree with some stuff but not with other stuff? Go ahead and tell me!

[kiame-sama]

28 Years (5th Pregnancy)- Yandere!Silva x Reader

Warnings; yandere relationship, yandere tendencies, yandere behavior, yandere, mention of past trauma, pregnancy, c-section, more arguing, vasectomy, Zeno is so done with his son's bullshit

"No. We are not doing this again. I won't allow it!" "Hey, I told you how to fix this from ever happening again." "I did use protection. It clearly didn't work." "I didn't say 'use protection' did I? I said you should get a vasectomy since it's clear that regular protection and emergency medication doesn't work!" "I shouldn't have to-"

"ENOUGH!"

You and Silva fell silent at the firm and loud command from Zeno, looking over at the frustrated elder assassin. He happened to be holding young Alluka in his arms while the infant whined and cried from all the noise, compelling you to take the young child and set to comforting the infant. Alluka quickly quieted once in your grasp and allowed you to return your attention to the matter at hand, the new heartbeat that originated from within you.

You had been trying to avoid a third pregnancy given your prior back-to-back pregnancies and your already fragile health, yet here you were with another infant growing within you. You assumed something like this would happen, given your past attempts with contraceptives and how little they actually worked. Naturally, you suggested Silva have a vasectomy as it was not only a surefire way, but also a reversible surgery.

Originally, you suggested getting your tubes tied despite the danger that came with it but Silva quickly shot down the idea with his usual explanation of not wanting to lose you. Silva knew somewhere in him that the typical contraceptives wouldn't work, given the fact that he had used several similar methods to trigger a termination of prior pregnancies you were unaware of. He had hoped in some way that your body hadn't built up a resistance to them, but he also knew it was going to happen eventually.

He did plan on undergoing a vasectomy when you had first suggested it, but he quickly forgot about it in favor of getting to finally fuck you senseless now that your body had somewhat recovered after your most recent pregnancy. He had just been so relieved you were able to be brought back from your cardiac arrest following his mistake of once again taking your child away, and couldn't help himself from indulging in his favorite pass-time; fucking you. It was clear to everyone how addicted Silva was to you, in the way he would always return to your side after a job, how he would guard you jealously from anyone other than himself.

He was so whipped for you.

But now, you had a serious choice to make for your future and the future of the life already growing within you. It wasn't hard to guess what Silva wants to have happen, and some part of you agreed after enduring all that you had. Yet... You still felt that maternal connection already forming, wanting to protect all of your children from Silva, even the new child within you that had yet to take even a first breath.

"You're not keeping it." "Yes, I am." "No. I won't tolerate this again!" "Good thing you aren't the one who has to tolerate it. Last time I checked, its my body that goes through all the strain and effort of pregnancy, not your’s." "Are you doing this just to hurt yourself? To try and exhaust your body to the point of death?" "... Again, last time I checked, I wasn't the cause of my heart stopping." "..."

Silva stood silently, passive expression on his face as he wrestled with his own mind over the matter at hand. On one side, you were right; he was the reason he almost lost you, he's been the reason every single time. Even if it was complications during birth, it was still his fault entirely for getting you pregnant in the first place. On the other, he knew the immense toll another pregnancy will have on your body and the chances of you dying during birth increased with each one. The odds were not good.

It was then Silva spoke, his voice gentle and not at all like what you were expecting him to growl out with. It was the voice you scarcely heard on those far and few between days Silva would be truly gentle in every way, usually reserved for when he decided to honestly apologize to you for something. He was proud and cold, but there were those moments when that pride was set aside, when he would actually explain how he felt instead of leaving it at short sentences that never offered answers.

"(Y/n), don't do this again. Don't stubbornly hold on to this one. I know you already love it, as you love all of our children, and you will always fight for their safety no matter what, but for once you need to let me win. Let it go." "... If I say 'no', will you take it from me anyway?" "(Y/n)..." "Are you going to take my baby away from me again, Silva?" "..."

A soft sigh left Silva's lips as he frowned, knowing you were going to win the argument regardless of what he said or did. He knew he owed you more than he could give and there was no way he would force you to give the child up. If you truly wanted to keep it, he wouldn't be able to convince you otherwise. Still didn't mean he had to like it.

"There is no sense in saying the obvious or telling you the risks you run having another baby so soon after your two prior pregnancies." "I know..."

Zeno hummed in a contemplative way, knowing Silva would refuse to go out on a job while you are pregnant and he had already refused to leave the Zoldyck estate in favor of keeping an eye on you. Given how intensely and fiercely he protected you, Zeno knew the immense toll the pregnancies have taken on Silva as well as you. But no one in the family wanted a repeat of the events that took place after Silva had taken Alluka away from you without telling you.

It was going to be a long eight months.

~~~~Four Months~~~~

"You need to sleep, (y/n)." "But what if something happens?" "Nothing is going to happen." "You don't know that..."

Silva frowned as he watched you pace in front of the couch in your shared rooms, chewing on your lip as you cradled your youngest in your arms. The child had already fallen asleep in your arms an hour ago, yet you still held on securely and refused to set your baby down for even a moment. Silva had seen the way you reacted to Illumi being taken and the subsequent over protective behavior you showed once you got him back in your arms.

Your behavior now was similar to how you behaved then, refusing to let your infant out of your sight to the point of impacting your health negatively. Silva knew you were reacting the way you were because of how he had managed to take Alluka from you in the first place. He had taken Alluka while you were sleeping even though you slept with the infant swaddled in a pile of blankets in your arms, so now you refused to sleep in fear Alluka would disappear from your arms once again.

Now he had to face the lasting consequences of his actions in the form of soothing you to the point of trusting him once more. It was going to take a while, however, as Silva had broken your already fragile trust yet again by stealing away your newborn, so it was unlikely he would be able to get you to trust him completely any time soon. Instead of the trust he once had, he had to watch you slip away into anxiety driven behavior due to his careless and selfish behavior.

It was driving him mad to watch you slip into such frenzied behavior, especially given the fact that you were enduring your third pregnancy in a row. Not only did you need sleep now more than ever, but you also had been refusing food in favor of feeding Alluka instead. It infuriated Silva to no end, as he had no choice but to let your anxious behavior play out until you calmed down once more. He wasn't going to chance doing anything that may be upsetting to you, but that also meant he wasn't going to force you to rest no matter how much he wanted to.

"At least sit down, (y/n)." "With you? No. No, not again." "I swear to you, I won't take-" "You've said that before, and it didn't stop you from taking Alluka away from me." "I'm aware I made a mistake, but I assure you-" "No."

It was going to be a long four months until you gave birth again and potentially trusted him once more.

~~~~Six Months~~~~

You hummed as you looked down at where your darling Alluka slept, curled up and held securely in the arms of Illumi. Silva had reached a breaking point when it came to your anxious and stressed behavior, deciding to allow Illumi to be by your side consistently so you would finally relax and get some much needed sleep. The presence of your eldest nearby did wonders to soothe you, trusting in your son to take care of his little sibling and keep Silva from stealing the infant away.

Though Silva disliked the fact that he had to share your attention and affection with his eldest son, the alternative was far worse in his opinion. You had gotten to the point of rarely sleeping so you could ensure Silva could not steal your baby away, draining yourself immensely in the process to the point you were not only rapidly losing weight, but you were becoming far less coordinated by the day. When enough was enough, he consulted his father on what his next step should be and the answer was obvious; let Illumi help take care of your wellbeing.

Your eldest practically jumped at the chance to spend unlimited amounts of time with you, not even perturbed by the fact that he had to take care of his youngest sibling. An extra cot was added into the bedroom, allowing Illumi to be present for around the clock assistance in child-care and to give you the added comfort of having your most trusted son nearby. You ensured to teach him how to properly hold an infant and how to soothe Alluka's fussing relatively quickly, only strengthening your motherly bond with Illumi by allowing you to put full faith in him with Alluka's well-being.

For once, Silva's plan worked like a charm. Not only did you finally start catching up on the rest you needed, you began to eat your meals with Illumi and therefore began to eat regularly once more. Along with your physical health, your mental health began to improve as well. You started smiling and talking more, resting with surprising ease in the arms of the very man you refused to so much as blink around only weeks prior.

Thanks to your teachings, Illumi was a rather brilliant nanny in your stead. Alluka would hardly make a peep when held in the comforting arms of Illumi and similarly, Illumi would make little to no noise while caring for his sibling. Even if he had more responsibilities with taking care of Alluka, Illumi wouldn't trade that time for anything in the world. He could spend time with you, talk with you, relax in your maternal love and affection.

Truly it was a win for all three of you. Alluka was always cared for. Illumi was finally able to spend more time with you. You were able to relax for the first time in who knows how long. Even Silva had relatively few losses, given how much more affectionate you were with him now you knew your infant was safe.

~~~~Eight Months~~~~

Silva paced outside of the delivery room, looking up almost every minute to check the time before resuming his endless pacing. He was much like a caged lion or bear, pacing just to pass the time and to do something other than sit still. He certainly was far more dangerous than any of those animals combined, only serving to add a rather pointed reminder to any doctor of what their fate would be should they fail.

But that was the whole purpose of this endeavor, to ensure nothing failed. Surely nothing could have gone wrong with all the precautions that were put into place.

Surely.

Either way, the long time it was taking only served to make Silva more anxious and his presence all the more intimidating. It in truth had only been a few hours since you went under so the doctors could perform a c-section to safely deliver what would be your fifth child. After the close calls with both Killua and Alluka as well as the fact this was your third back-to-back pregnancy, Silva wanted to take no chances with your life.

A c-section was how Killua and Alluka ultimately had to be delivered despite the fact you were able to have a 'typical' birth with Illumi and Milluki, so naturally it would only make sense for your fifth child to be delivered via c-section. It didn't sit well with Silva, however. Nothing would sit well with him until you were safely out of surgery and in his arms.

But what was taking so damn long?

"For fuck's sake, Silva, sit down. Pacing doesn't make it go faster and intimidating the doctors will only make it more likely for them to mess up." "Their lives are forfeit if they so much as make a single mistake." "And they know this. They've known this. All you're doing is adding another element no one wants to deal with."

Despite his father's chiding words, Silva continued to pace and glare at nothing in particular. Where it always seemed as if the man had a scowl on his face, it seemed ten times worse given he was actually scowling. The moment the door opened, Silva was pushing past the frightened doctor and into the room where his wife lay motionless.

For a moment, Silva felt an honest pang of fear in his chest when he saw you were not awake, the ever present beep of the EKG soothed him to know you were still alive and merely unconscious. The doctors all scattered like frightened rats, scurrying away from the intimidating mountain of a man who silently pulled up a chair, sitting by your side and refusing to take his eyes off of you.

Zeno, Maha, Milluki, and Illumi entered the room in a much calmer manner as they also came to stand around you. Alluka had been moved into Zeno's care given the impending delivery of the new addition to the family, and Illumi stood ready to receive the newborn and care for it while you recovered. Everyone had been preparing for the newborn in their own way, from the butlers ensuring the utmost safety to Zeno taking over Alluka's care, it seemed everything was finally prepared for and taken into account.

Meanwhile, in the past month, Silva had finally undergone a vasectomy so there would be no further chance of yet another pregnancy threatening your future with him. It was possible that it could be reversed and so it was the only surefire way no unexpected pregnancy would happen again. Where Silva felt he would have no reason to reverse the change since he already had five children, the option was always still available should something ever come up.

Perhaps finally there could be peace in the house. At least, peaceful enough no sudden pregnancy could threaten your life. Now all that needed to happen was getting the new infant out before Silva could finally have you all to himself once again.

He could wait. He could wait as long as he needed to. Because in the end, you would always be his.

[onp4012]

Pick a Card: Where Should Your Attention Be Focused Right Now?

Pick any photo/number from above to get an insight about where your attention should be focused right now

feel free to suggest PAC’s in the inbox

Please like and reblog 〽️

©onenormalperson4012

here’s the masterlist

Pile 1

Queen of Pentacles, 4 of Swords, 5 of Cups, Page of Wands, King of Cups

Damn pile 1, why are you so pessimistic? What are you so scared of? You feel so powerless and so insignificant, but for what? You ask yourself too much “what would people say?” or “why would someone give me attention?” or “why should I even try since I fail at everything?”. The truth is, you are significant, as any other person and you shouldn’t go through life thinking everything is going to go bad. You don’t need to plan so much, you don’t need to calculate the odds. Since I started this pile I could’ve literally hear “You’re gonna go far, kid” by The Offsprings, so many of you every time you lose or fail, tend to get stressed and angry because you didn’t do good enough. Guys, you really did good enough. The only thing left is to goddamn realize you did something good, because you are here with a reason. I don’t know what the reason is and neither you do most likely but since you found my account out of countless accounts you sure needed to hear this. All you need right now is a little bit of trust in yourself and your powers. You need to focus all your attention on feeling good when you fail and be more confident.

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Pile 2

7 of Swords, 8 of Swords, Queen of Swords, 2 of Swords, 10 of Wands

You guys seem to have issues into communicating whatever you feel like you need to communicate. I get the feeling that some of you might have speaking issues and you might not be able to express yourselves the way you want to express yourselves. It’s like you’re thinking “I gotta say this so badly but I literally can’t because I cannot think of how to put my thoughts into words verbally” and this makes me think that few of you have Mercury retrograde in your natal chart, maybe even in 1st house, and you would rather write your thoughts than speaking them. You always hesitate to speak up, thinking everyone will judge you, but for nothing. Gotta tell you a secret: nobody gives a shit. No one will kill you if you speak up and no one will hurt you if you give your opinion on stuff, so put your swords down and goddamn relax because life is not supposed to be lived serious. Once, in my class, I was with other 2-3 colleagues (who I just met since it was a new school) and two of them had a convo about idk what subject I knew the answer to, so I got into the convo and told them what was the answer and one of them got aggressive and said smt like “oH wHY Do U gEt In PeOpLEs bUsiNesS¿” because I can and because I want to. Since I knew the answer and I told them the answer that shit turned out to have helped them later that month. So you need to focus your attention into gaining a bit more confidence to speak up. I know it doesn’t make any sense but you remind me of “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode. You feel like words aren’t necessarily but they actually are. You need to speak.

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Pile 3

The High Priestess, 7 of Wands, Knight of Swords, Knight of Wands, 4 of Swords

You are very very very very very stubborn if you ask me. You tend to feel entitled to say whatever comes to your mind. People who chose this pile seem to be very easily offended and very DEFENSIVE. Now before you get mad at me for dragging these qualities, repeat after me: Opinions should be respected and I must NOT judge people based on their opinions. You guys seem to care too much about being right than be equal. Some of you might not be used to share stuff with other people so I think that those specific people don’t have siblings and are their parent’s only child. You are fiery, you are intelligent but you need to let other people speak as well (AND RESPECT THEIR OPINIONS). Seems to me that you’re the type of people who make life hard for the pile 1 people (don’t get mad, it’s just a joke lol). You are very motivated, you got wit and charisma but too much FIRE. Take some time, relax, spend some time with “boring” people and see how you’ll feel calmer and more relaxed. You need to focus your attention on your own discipline and work with your “fireness”. Speaking of a song, I’m not sure if you listen to Joji but I highly recommend you to try him. Don’t focus on the lyrics, but on the beat and energy.

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Pile 4

King of Swords, 7 of Pentacles, Page of Cups, Ace of Swords, Ace of Cups

Do you guys have a crush atm? Do you like someone? I surely think so but you keep on trying to rationalize your emotions and it’s not fair for your heart. A human should work 50/50=Brain/Heart, not 90/10=Brain/Heart. You’re a goddamn human, not a machine. It’s ok to have feelings and it’s ok if you wanna know why you have those feelings but trust me, you’ll never get your answer through psychology or science. Speaking through my own experience since I’m the type of person who would’ve chosen this pile most likely lol. You wanna tell your crush how much you like them but you feel that you’re too cold to express your feelings. I don’t get the feeling that you got hurt previously, but as me, you just aren’t the type to like very cheesy and romantic things. I believe your crush is someone very intelligent who drew you in with their mind and intellect. You seem to want to have a stable life with that someone you like but you feel that they will think you’re not their type or that you’re boring or fuck knows what. You need to focus your energy into working with yourself and convincing yourself to believe that it’s ok to have feelings. You need to get into that “I’d love you for infinity” state without losing your ground. It would be harder to reach that state than lose your ground if you ask me lol.

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Pile 5

7 of Pentacles, Queen of Pentacles, The World, 3 of Swords, Page of Pentacles, The Chariot

You guys were put to the ground many times in your life by toxic people and with each time you became more closed off and cold, being afraid to follow your dreams anymore. You just wish for things to happen and think about future possibilities but it’s not enough. It’s time to take your own life in your hands and believe you can make those wishes come true because you are very capable of doing so, you just need to work hard and believe. Money are very important to you and you really fear that if you’ll follow your dream, you’re not gonna be able to make enough money, but to me honest, total bs. Your dream can bring you money and can give you a stable/rich life. The type of life you’re dreaming about. Some of you might be involved into arts and fear that your art might not get popular, but trust me, it will. You need to make more friends and gain support from them while you work hard on those dreams. You need a team which can help you whenever you need help. I don’t quite see that you will ask for a lot of help but you will still need people who you know you can count on. You have me for example. Don’t forget about me when you’ll get rich because I contributed the way I could to your dream 😂. I’m offering you support at the moment basically (jk ofc). Anyways, before I even pulled the cards I heard “Airplanes” by B.O.B. and I totally forgot the lyrics before I searched it up hahaha.

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I hope it resonated and I’ll be continuing to do pick a card readings and I’ll see you next time. Bye bye

[twinklelilstarkey]

Stopping You - Michael Gray [Part 11]

Words: 10.8k+

Summary: Y/N and Michael finally decide to talk about what happened.

Warnings: Female!Reader. 18+. Smut, unprotected sex [pls use a condom]. Cheating! Overthinking. A very slight mention of blood.

Prologue    Part 1    Part 2    Part 3    Part 4    Part 5     Part 6    Part 7   Part 8    Part 9    Part 10    Part 11

“Oh, shut up!” You laugh out loud.

Finn laughs from beside you, laying on his back over Polly’s carpet as you lay on her couch on your stomach, looking down at the youngest Shelby brother.

“I would never do such thing.” You defend yourself, “Is that what you really think of me, Finn?”

Finn laughs with you as he stares up at you, hands resting on his chest, as he continues to assume how possible it is for you scare any girl that he’s interested in, away.

“Oh, please.” He says with a playful look on his face, “You would probably make her so many questions about her life choices that she would just run off.”

“Well, sorry if I continuously look out for you.”

The front door of Polly’s home swings open and almost makes you and Finn sit up by how high you two jumped from how it startled you.

You had been so focused on the conversation that you didn’t even hear the motor of a car outside. And now you two are acting as if you were caught talking about something you shouldn’t have been.

Polly walks inside the house, dark cigarette over her lips, and soon walks in Michael, following her every step.

“But why would he transfer the money if he didn’t need it?” He asks his mother, frown over his face as he closes the door behind him.

Polly shrugs at his words and takes off her furry jacket, leaving it by the hanger before taking the cigarette from her lips and exhaling a large cloud of smoke out of her lungs.

Her eyes move off her son, who has most of his back turned to you and Finn, and Polly finds you, almost falling off the couch from the strange position.

“Why are you on the ground?” She asks Finn, gaining a smile from the two of you.

“It’s comfortable.” He answers.

Michael looks over his shoulder and his eyes meet yours right away. Finn’s answer is able to manipulate a slight grin on his face, which hovers over his lips. There is no vocal answer on his part, just silence and a look of amusement.

It’s been almost a week since your nightmare, a total of 5 days to be exact. And Michael has been in Polly’s house for most of those days, mainly surrounded by work and nothing else.

You’ve questioned Polly about it after he left for the hotel and all you got as an answer was that he was trying to prove to Tommy that he can be forgiven. Quite odd, but who are you to question that?

At least 3 of the nights of those 5 days, Michael slept over at Polly’s. For a reason you do not know why, but it surely has to with Gina. You didn’t ask Polly about it, assuming she wouldn’t know, but honestly because it sounded wrong just to imagine yourself questioning such a thing.

Like said before, he had been working for most of his time over at the house, hidden in Polly’s office or seated at the dinner table, surrounded by papers while holding a cigarette between his fingers or lips as a way to lift off his stress.

You two didn’t talk much, but most of your conversations were in the mornings. Like the one after the night of the nightmare. They would end when his mind was somewhere lost in the papers and you two fell into the natural silence between sentences. You never disturbed him to keep the exchange of words alive, therefore, the talking of the day was done.

Michael and Polly continue their conversation soon after taking their eyes off Finn and you and, slowly, start making their way to the kitchen, where most silence of the house resides.

Their voices are low, but you can tell that they’re talking about work - something you’ve been forcefully pulled away for these past few days.

You look back at Finn once they’re out of your field of view and he’s staring at the ceiling, deep in thought.

“Who’s occupying your mind, uh?” You tease him, poking his chest.

He snaps back to reality and looks over at you, playful smile on his lips as he adjusts his head on the tall pillow.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He says back.

Your eyes widen at his words and a shocked expression twitches your features.

“So, there is someone in your mind?” You ask in a squeak, not controlling your vocal cords in a such exciting moment, “Finn Shelby, I cannot believe you.”

He stays silent, his smile just grows at your shocked and squeaky words.

“What’s her name?!” You ask in almost a scream, overly excited.

“I’m not telling you that,” He says, lifting and turning his head to the side on the pillow, “It’s none of your business.”

“Oh, Finn, come on!” You drag out your words for dramatization, “Can you just tell me if you two are dating or not?”

He thinks for a second and you just stare at him as he does it.

Seconds later, he’s still silent, slowly getting on your nerves over playing with your excited emotions like that.

“I swear I won’t look into it, just please answer my question.” You plead.

Finn sighs, slowly giving up.

“Okay…” He breathes out, “I am not telling you her name. But…” You hold yourself up with your elbow in excitement, “We are dating.”

A loud gasp escapes your mouth, and you hold in another shriek of excitement over his words.

His smile is just enough for you to believe that he likes the girl too much to sell any more information about her to you, but you honestly couldn’t feel any happier.

“For how long?” You ask, holding yourself up to sit up, unable to contain your emotions.

“I’ve known her for a bit. Been dating for like… 2 weeks?”

Your jaw almost hits the floor, but before you could even ask why he didn’t tell you before, you got yourself the answer. You would’ve gone all inspector mode to try and find any girl in Birmingham that is overly happy about a certain event.

Nothing he wouldn’t do for you too. Plus… You were in a hospital not that long ago-

“Wow.” You sigh, falling back to lay on the couch, “You were seeing someone while I was dying?”

A loud laugh escapes Finn’s mouth and bite in your smile to continue your acting.

“No! God, I was seeing her before you got shot.” He tells you, “Good to know that’s what shocked you the most about my whole confession.”

“I have to have my priorities.”

He continues to smile up at you, finding your words so amusing that he’s finding it hard to hold his chuckles every time you open your mouth to speak.

“Does Polly know?” You ask him.

“No-”

Before he could have finished saying the simple word you’re already out of the couch and running to the kitchen.

Sure, it hurt a little to do that movement so quickly, but you’ve got a great mission up ahead… Tell Polly the big news: Finn has finally stopped having sex with everyone that has a pair of legs.

Finn laughs at your excitement yet doesn’t stop you. Polly will know now or later anyway.

Either you tell her now or someone will, in the future. Or worse, her second sight might let her know of the news when they’re in an argument.

A wave of chills runs through Finn’s spine at the thought, and he shivers absurdly as a reaction.

Thank god he told you first.

You run in the kitchen and Michael continues his conversation, not finding any problem with you hearing anything he’s saying.

You wait beside them for the conversation to end, hands behind your back, swaying back and forth on the heels of your feet like a child waiting for her parents’ permission to go play outside.

Michael finishes and Polly gives him a quick answer. You don’t care enough to hear them. You just want to dump out the news at the center of the table.

“Do you have that on paper?” She asks Michael and he nods, “Go get it.”

Michael nods again and leaves the room, leaving you to stare back at Polly with a huge smile.

“What do you want?” She asks.

She looks down at the ashtray as she dips the tip of her cigarette down, yet you see her hiding a playful smile, probably finding yours contagious.

“Finn just told me that…” You pause to add some suspense, “… he has a girlfriend!”

Polly, right on that second, looks up at you with widen eyes.

She stares at you, analyzing every small bit of your face, trying to see if you’re joking in anyway, but she finds nothing.

“He has a fucking what?” She whispers in shock.

(…)

It has been a few hours. All of you had lunch together, which was filled with a whole bunch of teasing Finn while he tried to hide behind his hands and act like he only wants to stare down at his food.

And, of course, while that happened, you tried not to choke in your water or water while laughing so hard.

Now, Finn is sitting beside Polly on the couch as she tries to squeeze out of him as much information as possible. Michael is standing by the couches, packing his stuff up to leave.

You make your way down the stairs, just returning from the bathroom, and Michael looks over his shoulder at you.

“Are you leaving already?” You ask him, curious.

“Yeah. Need to go take care of something.” He says, being careful with his words. Polly has been too careful with pulling you away from work, Michael doesn’t want to be the one to break that lack of information.

He looks back to what is in front of him, and you notice three boxes of what you believe is paperwork related to the family’s business.

Polly and Finn are still siting, deep into their whispers, probably hiding any kind of potentially important information about his girlfriend from you.

Before you can even tease them for their antics, Michael says something.

“Could you help me carry this one?” He asks.

You nod right away. It’s one of the smaller boxes, the emptiest too. It won’t even make you blink an eye with any possible discomfort.

He piles the two bigger, and fuller, boxes and grabs them, their height only reaching up to his chest. You grab the smaller one, holding it on your hip. You help Michael with the door and leave it slightly open before following him to his car.

The silence between you is not by any means uncomfortable. It’s quite comforting, actually.

Michael opens the backseat door open with some difficulty and turns back for you to give him the other box. You do it and as you’re about to turn and leave, he says something.

“Wait.” He says, making you look at him, “I have something for you.”

“For me?” You ask confused.

He doesn’t answer. He closes the door and walks over to the front seats, opening the passenger seat door, hiding whatever is in front of him with his body.

Michael turns and you have to bite your tongue to not say anything.

It’s a small bouquet of flowers, most of them being wildflowers, your favorite. The exact same ones that have quite a history when it comes to the two of you.

You and Michael didn’t argue in your relationship, but when it did happen, and when he would be the main reason behind those same fights, he would give you flowers.

It was a rare occasion for you to receive them, but this type of bouquet is Michael’s apologetic bouquet. Always has been. It has all your favorite flowers arranged just like you loved, always in the same way to show off their vibrant colors.

“What are you apologizing for?” You ask and a small grin forms on his lips.

You remember them.

“The same thing as I’ve been apologizing for the past few weeks.”

You extend your hand and take the bouquet from his hand, ignoring how your hand rested right above his for some good few splits of a second.

You bring the flowers close to you, hiding any kind of positive expression, as you admire them silently.

“There’s a note inside. But you can read it later.” He lets you know.

“I will.” You say, looking back up at him, but this time, with a small grin.

He nods, small smile prominent on his lips as he does it. He looks relieved, probably because you accepted his flowers in the first place, but, also, nervous, almost like those same flowers are a ticking bomb of some sort.

“I’ll see you later, then.” You decide to say, breaking the intense stare down.

“Yeah,” He exhales, “I’ll see you later.”

To escape any possibility of another stare down, you turn on your heels and start walking towards the house. As you stand up the porch, you steal a glance over your shoulder, already finding Michael looking straight at you.

You offer him a small smile, different from the grin, and finally step into Polly’s home.

The sound of Polly’s and Finn’s voices fill your ears, and you close the door behind you, trying not to look back at Michael, who is still standing by his car.

The front door closes, slowly, and Polly lifts her gaze to meet yours, finding the slow motion and lack of slamming of her door so unlike you. You step aside into view and a gasp escapes her lips.

“Are my eyes deceiving me?” She says out loud.

“I’m afraid not.” You answer, eyebrows lifted, trying to show that you’re as shocked as she is.

She stands from beside Finn, who is as shocked, and walks towards you. She takes the flowers from your hands and analyzes them.

“Let me guess.” She says with a playful tone, “Another apology?”

You chuckle at her and she smiles brightly at you.

“You’re correct.” You announce, stealing a look at Finn, who looks amused, “Might have to write this one down as the official thousandth one.”

“I’m glad you’re keeping count.” Polly jokes with you making you smile.

She walks back to the kitchen to get a vase and you follow right behind her. Finn stands from the couch and does the same as you.

Polly sets them over the kitchen counter gently and looks around for the perfect vase, one you can later take to your own home, when you’re healed.

Finn walks up to the flowers and analyzes them silently, just like Polly. He brings up his hand and carefully pulls something out, a small envelope.

“I’m sure this is for you.” He says, handing the envelope to you.

You take it into your hands and hold it carefully close to you.

Polly starts filling the vase with water and looks back at you, staring down at the small paper, just the size of your hand.

“Well, open it!”

You smile at her tone and you do as told. Finn looks at you questioningly as you undo the top and Polly stops the water from running.

You take the small note from inside the envelope and put down it down. You unfold it, careful with making it face you and you only, and as the word meets your eyes, Polly swears she sees them brighten.

Meet me behind the barns tomorrow at 3.               – M

(…)

With both Polly and Finn at work, possibly at a meeting, you’re left to stay home alone until 3. You’ve taken your time to get ready. You’ve done your make-up, nothing too intense, just your normal light look, and have gotten dressed.

A floral green dress hugs your body, nothing unlike your usual style. Not a suit, but something you would wear when out with Polly at your day’s off. And on top of that, a long dark coat, which covers your body from any cold wind.

What even is going to happen today?

You step out of Polly’s home, keys in hand and coat closed enough to protect you from the harsh wind meeting you as soon as you make your presence to the outside world.

You climb in your car. Poor thing as been sitting there by the front of the house for days now, quite sad.

As you make your way to the familiar location, Michael is standing by his car.

He didn’t expect the day to be so cold and windy, but like any other place close to Small Heath, the weather is just unpredictable.

He shakes his cigarette, letting the white and bright red ashes fly with the wind as they burn at the tip of the poisonous, yet addicting and calming, stick. His eyes are stuck on the gravel under his feet, heart ponding against his chest and with his hands shaking.

It’s like taking you on your first date all over again.

He’s just a nervous and anxious wreck.

The sound of a car door closing in the distance makes him snap back from his thoughts and look over his shoulder. You’re right there, just a few meters away from him. Your jacket is open, falling by your sides, as its material and your thin dress move with the, now, calmer wind.

“Sorry for being a little late.” You apologize and he shakes his head.

“No worries.”

He leans away from his car and walks to stand beside you. Your hands are stuffed in the pockets of your jacket, shielding them from the cold, and with that he takes your outfit in, finding the flowers in the fabric somewhat familiar to his gaze.

“Should we start walking?” You break his trance.

“Uh- Yeah, yeah.” He nods.

The abandoned barn stands tall beside the two of you as you walk by it. This is just outside of Small Heath. A small barn where Tommy used to have some of his horses, ones that weren’t exactly for racing. Maybe family horses… Can you even call them that?

Right behind the old structure, is a vast field. One, that for you to meet its true beauty, you have to walk for some good few minutes or well… get yourself a horse and ride for not even 3 minutes.

The green fields meet your eyes and for a second, you feel like you’ve lost your ability to breathe. The air is clearer where you stand then from whatever corner you stand in the whole Birmingham, but god, it’s breathtaking.

No sight of pollution, of smoke or even of people. Just peaceful green, tall wild grass, trees scattered through each curve of the irregular grounds.

It’s as calm as nature can be.

You walk beside Michael, both of you admiring the familiar grounds you step on, yet not opening your mouths to break such a comforting silence.

The sounds surrounding you are nothing but the patter of your feet on top of the grass, which is so tall it comes close to your upper thighs, the wind hitting the tall leaves and making them hit your legs, the branches of the trees moving and making the leaves collide with one another, and simply the wind over your ears.

Everything so silent it even makes your ears seem to vibrate.

“God, Michael, you are unbelievable.” You tell the man behind you without even looking over your shoulder.

“You were the one that had the idea!”

“And you went with it!” You say in a louder tone at him, “You’re supposed to be the one with the brains in this relationship, not me.”

The man chuckles from behind you, each of you riding your own horses as the sun shines on the two of you, marking and showing nothing but its natural beauty of the season.

“We can still go back.” He says, reigns resting by his legs, letting the horse move on its own.

“And say what?” You ask with a smile, “Yeah, sorry, Polly. The party was the most boring idea ever, and we had to walk out?”

“Something like that.”

You exhale out a chuckle and shake your head.

“Why did she even let the neighbor plan out the party?” You ask him.

You look over your shoulder to stare at your boyfriend and he’s already looking at you.

“She said something about wanting to give the woman a chance.” He shrugs, “Did you expect any less from her? She has been apologizing to my mom for the past year, this party was the least she could’ve done.”

“A cake would’ve done it.”

Michael smiles in amusement at you and you continue to look at him.

“You really think you can buy your way to my mom’s heart with a cake?”

“I did.” You say and he rolls his eyes. “And it worked.”

“It worked because you were already part of the family. And hitting my mom’s side of the car is not the same as what you did.” He says defensively.

“I think what I did was quite horrid, if you ask me.”

“I thought it was funny.” He smiles.

“Yeah, well, that’s because you like seeing your crazy family in distress and me in trouble.” You defend yourself, checking the field in front of you to see if you’re close to your destination, “Seriously, Michael, you worry me sometimes.”

A loud cackle of disbelief escapes Michael’s lips and you grin at the sound.

“You broke a vase of flowers on my cousin’s head! You didn’t destroy a whole side of a car!” He tells you and you turn back to him.

“Yeah! I know! But it still made me almost pee myself in fear when it happened.” You confess, finding it almost impossible not to laugh, “I could’ve had nightmares with what could’ve been my consequence.”

“God, you’re dramatic.”

You smile and stop the horse, finally standing by the usual area.

“No, I’m just realistic.” You tell him, “Finn could’ve gotten hurt, and if he did… I could’ve been dead by now.”

“Wow!” Michael chuckles. “You’re just… out of this world.”

“Oh, thank you.” You say, finding his words, out of context, funny. “But still… I feel bad for leaving.”

“Don’t.” He says as you jump down off your horse, “My mom won’t care, and Finn left like 2 hours ago. Nobody cared.”

“Still… It’s your birthday Michael.” You tell him, “You should be celebrating it.”

Michael jumps out of his horse and brings the reigns to the front, walking over to you with the horse just a meter behind him.

As he lets go of the reigns, like any other time here, he stands tall in front of you, not caring that the horse is moving away to go eat the perfect patch of green grass not too far away. You look up at him and wait for him to say something.

“And I am.” He says, “I prefer to stay here with you, then eat whatever was on that table.”

He presses a kiss over your lips, and you gasp.

“That is mean, Michael!” You say defensively, “That woman worked very hard…! And all night!”

He thinks of what to say next for a bit.

“And you still gave the idea to leave.”

Your mouth opens in disbelief at his words.

“You’re heartless, Y/N.” He says, amusement thick on his tone, lips twitching to smile again.

You scowl and smack his chest, hard.

“You little bitch.” You curse him out, making him laugh and take a step back from you.

The silence stays thick between the two of you, yet as soon as the wind lifts off ever so slightly, Michael finds himself being curious. He steals a look your away and notices you’re walking while staring down at the grass.

“You’re quiet.” Michael comments out loud, snapping you back to reality.

You blink your thoughts away and quickly lift your head ever so slightly, not enough to stare at him but enough to see how much you still have to walk.

“So are you.” You whisper back at him, soft grin on your lips, “I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

You look over at him, ignoring your overthinking mind that hesitates so much to do it, and to your surprise, he’s already looking at you.

“About…” You sigh stretching out the word in your lips, shifting your gaze forward once more, finding his eyes intrusive for some reason, “Old times?” You answer as a question, unsure. “The past few days have made me kind of stuck in memories, I guess.”

He nods, even though you’re not looking at him anymore, and also brings his gaze away from you to stare at the greenery at his front.

“That makes two of us.” He confesses.

“Really?” You ask, surprised.

“Yeah” He nods, again.

You nod, pursing your lips while saying to yourself mentally ‘who would’ve thought you’re not the only crazy one’, and, in a quick decision, you decide to blur out whatever is on your mind.

“Mine were actually about, uhm…” You hesitate, catching yourself and your urges midsentence, and Michael notices, bringing his gaze back to you, “That one time we both came here-” You sigh when lost for words and you shake your head slightly with a scowl.

Your discomfort over your own troubling thoughts doesn’t go unnoticed by Michael, and he decides to ease up some of it with his words.

“One time? Out of the thousand times we came here?”

You look back at him and feel yourself relax at his playful tone.

“Yeah. It was a quite special day, actually.” You add.

A full-on smile appears on the man’s face, pearly white teeth out to show amusement at your words.

“Again. Which one out of the hundreds of days like that?”

Your heart tightens at his words and you welcome them with a smile, shaking your head at his comment. Your hand lifts and lays over his arm, pushing him away from you as playful push for him to shup up such nonsense.

Michael looks down as the smile on his face stretches and a chuckle escape both of your mouths.

Your playful touch had been missed, and his body made it obvious to him. The way it warmed up and boiled after so many years of pure and utter cold.

Your hand falls back to your side as you two continue to walk in silence, eyes focusing on the path ahead.

In a simple matter of seconds, you find yourselves looking at each other, silently. Almost as if admiring one another.

“It was your birthday.” You admit, “The year before you left.”

“Why that one?”

You shrug, checking if you’re still too far from your destination.

“I don’t know. It just came to me for some reason.”

He nods and you steal a glance at his smiling self.

“Was it the amazing food that we loved so much that we had to run off?” He starts, “Or was it the amazing entertainment it was given to us throughout the evening?”

A laugh escapes your lips, and a weight lifts off Michael’s shoulders. How relaxing it feels.

“God, don’t remind me of that.” You say to him.

“Why? Is the awfully well decorated cake hunting your mind?”

Another chuckle leaves you and you roll your eyes.

“I see that you’re just as mean as before when it comes to analyzing other people’s hard work.” You joke with him and he smiles down at you.

“Guess so.”

Silence falls back in between you and you two walk calmly again, nothing rushing you to leave and get to the usual spot any quicker.

“What about you? What memories of the old times have been hunting you?” You jokingly ask.

“There have been a lot of them.”

“What was the last one you thought off?” You ask, trying to ease the question for him.

“Our first date.”

You snap your head at him, not expecting him to also confess that he was thinking of two of you, and he smiles at your reaction.

“Why?”

“I was shitting my pants before coming in here. Was scared you would bail on me. Just like I felt in our first date.” He confesses and you scowl.

There’s a silence of a few seconds before you decide to break it with your curiosity.

“Why would I bail on you?”

He scoffs.

“We both know the answer to that question.”

Silence.

Back to complete and utter silence, yet this time. It’s not as comfortable.

The sweet and loving conversation has died down with the slight indirect mention of how your relationship came to an end.

The patter of your feet is all you hear but also all you prefer to look at in this moment.

Michael steals a glance at you and notices the way you hesitate to look up.

He curses himself in his head and his smile is back down, dead, with no reason to come back so soon.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No.” You cut him off, “Don’t worry about that.” You stuff your hands back in the pockets of your jacket. “We had to talk about that sooner or later.”

He nods and you look up, seeing him do it.

“We’re getting close.” He announces, making you look up.

Oh God, you missed this.

The fields look the same, just as green and still with small specks of color from the wildflowers. The trees seem to have gotten bigger and fluffier in a way, but they’re still standing tall and creating the perfect little hidden spot between them.

Exactly where you and Michael used always sit.

Michael notices that you had stopped walking after taking a few steps alone, and when he looks back over his shoulder at you.

Memories and all types of emotions erupt through your body harshly. You breathe in deeply, eyes showing the slightest bit of tears of which you can not tell if it’s either sadness or happiness to be back after so long.

Michael notices your different mood, yet he doesn’t understand what is going on. He turns to you completely, having his back to the familiar fields to check on you and his eyes are stuck.

Your eyes are filled with emotion, a soft scowl is written over your face, decorating it. Your body seems to shake slightly at the wind that seems to love to come back at unfortunate moments, and you’re just there. Standing and staring.

You break from your trance as something in front of you appears. You look down to see Michael extending his hand to you, face soft with a comforting expression.

You lay your hand over his, taking it out of your warm pocket and Michael pulls you in further to take steps closer to your destination.

You do as he does while your hands fall connected by your sides. Your eyes are focused on them, staring down as if to check if it’s real or just like in your nightmares, realistic, yet so far deep in your mind that it will bring you great terror in a space of seconds.

Slowly, you get closer to the scenery you had just stared in the distance, and you start to notice small details. There are not as many flowers since autumn is still very much present in this day, yet the place is just as warm and welcoming, still shielding you from most of the cold wind.

Your hand stays connected with Michael’s even when you stand between the familiar trees, neither of you feeling capable enough to pull away yet. Your other hand reaches and touches the trunk of the tree you used to always sit next to.

It feels so unreal that you almost have to pinch yourself.

“Feels weird to stand here.” You confess.

Michael steps closer to you and nods.

“It’s been a long time.”

“A bit too long, maybe.” You add and he agrees again with a nod, “We used to almost come here everyday before winter. I missed it.”

You look up to meet Michael’s eyes and their icy blue color meets your gaze right away. They’re soft, familiar, and comforting.

“Want to sit?” He asks you, eyes still connected.

You nod and he lets go of your hand, for your (big) disappointment.

Michael takes a seat next to the tree and lays his back against it, and you’re quick to follow him, sitting by him, legs to your side as you adjust the thin fabric of your dress.

Michael sighs and your eyes find him again, he looks nervous. More than you.

“I should be the one to start talking.” He whispers, making you tilt your head as if to signalize that you’re listening, “I… Uhm… I-I don’t even know where to start.”

“The beginning would be great.” You joke, gaining a playfully annoyed look from him, “Okay… Uhm…”

You think for a second. Would it be too harsh id you just asked it?

“Why did you do it?”

Michael holds in a gasp at your sudden and direct question, and you continue to stare at him. He notices how you’re analyzing his face, from hair to chin, from ear to ear.

You’re studying him intensely, trying to find the answer yourself in his features.

“It’s stupid.” He says to you.

“I don’t care.” You admit, “I just want to know why.”

He has said, weeks prior, that he did not know why he had done it, which did lead you to scream at him and throw a plate at his head.

But you didn’t believe him, not even a bit. And the fact that he is hesitating to say it out loud now, it’s just a clear reason that good things surely aren’t going to come from his mouth.

“I did it be- because… Fuck.” He comments mid-sentence, shaking his head, finding his nerves ridiculous, “I did it because I couldn’t focus at work.” He licks his lips, eyes still focused on you, “Every time you called was awful. I felt helpless when you would tell me that you missed me and that you were worried about me.”

He sighs and you look at him confused.

“I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I couldn’t hear you tell me to be careful anymore. I knew I was going to get hurt at one point- It’s bad, I know it is, but I- I just couldn’t deal with your calls… They just made me want to come back home every time, and I… I knew couldn’t.” He confesses, stressed with his own words.

What the fuck is he saying?

“I started to worry about myself. I-I would panic because I was scared that I wouldn’t come back at one point… If I got too hurt or- you know.”

You stay silent.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He tells you.

Silent is set between you two again, and you, honestly, just want to hit him.

“You’re such a fucking idiot.” You curse at him.

He doesn’t say anything back, yet his mind is filled with questions: did I say enough? Did I say too much? Do I look or sound as much of an asshole as I feel like I do?

God, his words sounded so much better in his mind. Now it just all sounds like… He’s stupid, that’s what he sounds like.

You can’t believe him for a few good seconds.

For so long, you made yourself think so many awful things about yourself, and now you know you weren’t even the exact cause of the problem.

He didn’t break up with you because were too clingy or too annoying over the phone, it was because you were making him… be careful?

“What did you want from that one call?” You question, “And be honest.” You sound calm, surprisingly. “Just me to stop calling?”

“No.” He scowls at you, “I expected you to move along with your life. Find someone else.”

Oh, and the urge to punch him intensifies.

“I knew it would take time, but… I wanted you to find someone better, to just live your life.” He says sincerely and you continue to stare at him. “God, this sounds dumb but… It would be better for you to have someone in case I would never come back…” He sighs, “Does that even make sense?”

You don’t answer him, so he continues.

“When you stopped calling. I thought that’s what had happened.”

Calling after his final call, he means.

“God, Michael...” You exhale, looking away from him and shaking your head.

“It’s stupid of me, I know.” He comments to you, “I’m really sorry.”

His voice is small in the middle of your silence. It’s thick with emotion and you just know that he is beating himself for it still. For everything that he has done and stopped doing for the past few months.

His thoughts are degrading in every way possible. Michael can’t see a reason why they shouldn’t be. He knows you went through really rough few months because of him, now. Thoughts like his shouldn’t even be compared to something as small as a pinch.

You look back at him, yet your eyes don’t meet his. His gaze is focused on something in the distance, mind completely filled with thoughts you’re sure that you’re too familiar with.

“I’m going to forgive you. Not now, but I will.” You confess, “It will just take a bit of time on my part.”

Michael clenches his jaw, not really believing you for a second.

Is it bad that he doesn’t feel like he deserves it? He just gave you the most half assed justification and apology, yet you are still thinking about forgiving him?

Like, what the fuck?

“My ego is just too big for me to forgive you so soon.” You crack up a joke.

The slightest of curve appears over Michael’s lips, but his eyes still don’t go to you. You scratch the side of your neck and without him noticing, you shift to sit closer to him.

You look back at him before starting to talk again.

“Just so you know.” You start, “Your plan didn’t really work… I didn’t move on after… After you ended things.” You whisper.

His head snaps back at you and you hold a comforting look to welcome his eyes back to your own.

You don’t want him to feel worse, you really don’t want to. What’s done is done. Both of you can’t go back in time to change anything.

“You didn’t?”

“No.” You chuckle.

“Why not?”

“Fucking Birmingham men are disgusting.” You justify with a disgusted look on your face. “And I was already working for your family when I was feeling more… okay, so, I had to stay here, stuck with the sight of either saggy old men or just way too cocky younger men.”

He grins slightly at your distaste for the locals, and you offer him a smile.

“I am, supposedly, from Birmingham” He says, trying to sound offended, “And you dated me just fine.”

“Yeah, well…” You comment with a cringe and his grin grows, “You’re still three quarters a country boy, so you don’t really count.”

He rolls your eyes at you and you hit your shoulder with his playfully, swaying to force his stiff body to move a bit.

But, even with the playful mood and slight grin, he still looks hesitant.

“What’s done is done, Michael. The best thing we can do now is learn from it.” You tell him with a soft voice.

He just stares down at you.

“And just so you know, I should be upset at you. I feel like I should. And don’t get me wrong, I want to beat you up for being this stupid.” You confess, “God, you were supposed to be the smart one in all of this.” You add, exhaling your words.

He doesn’t say anything.

“And the reason why I’m not mad is that it has been a long time. I took a long time to heal and grow as a person.” You continue, “I just feel like all of that would’ve gone to waste if I became upset over the reason why it all happened.”

Still nothing from him.

“Blaming and hating ourselves doesn’t get us nowhere, you know?” You ask, “Especially hating other people. It’s just so stupid. Life is fucking shit. It is, but-” You sigh. “I don’t have to hate you for it, or… blame you for it.”

Where the hell are you going with this? Michael asks himself.

“You moved on, right?” You ask rhetorically, “Maybe it was meant to be.” You shrug, “Sure, it was a little harsh, but you found Gina. If you hadn’t made that last call to end…” You move your finger around to point at the two of you, “this… You would’ve been still dating me and not been able to be with her.”

Your words sort of hurt Michael. It is the truth, everything is true. If it weren’t for that last call, he wouldn’t have looked or thought of any other women but you.

No Gina, no nobody. Just you.

But is that supposed to sound like a bad thing?

His heart still beats for you, he knows he still feels for you. Every day that passes, it gets more and more intense. The same way his love for Gina disappears, yours grow.

It’s like his heart is pushing Gina away and open back the space that you once used to own and rule.

“What?” You question when noticing that Michael has been staring down at you and hasn’t said a thing.

“I still feel like I would’ve taken back what I did.” He confesses.

“And what about Gina?”

He shakes his head dismissively.

“She would’ve been fine without me.”

There’s a silence between you two again, and you’re just registering what has said and trying not to take it in a certain very biased way. All of that while he just stares at nothing.

“Where is she, by the way?” You ask curiously, “You’ve barely spent any time at the hotel lately.”

Michael scowls at thought about the fight they had in Polly’s kitchen.

“Yeah… We’re going through a rough patch, right now.”

“Really?” You ask and he nods, “God, you guys went from happily engaged to this in what…? A month and a half?”

He sends you a slight glare.

“What? It’s true.”

“What happened to not hate others? And that that will get you nowhere?” He comments and a smile grows on your face.

“Yeah, well…” You chuckle, “I don’t hate her. I just… dislike her. She was rude to me.” You smile at him, “But, seriously, I really don’t like her. At all. Like god damnit, Michael, I’m sorry to say, but you sure don’t know how to pick them.”

A big chuckle escapes Michael and you smile at him triumphantly. He shakes his head at you and brings his gaze back to yours.

“I picked you. For years.”

“Yeah, and that’s why that’s obviously the highlight of your life.” You say nodding at him, and his lips finally stretch into a smile.

Who knew insulting him would’ve fixed his sad mood?

You bring your hand up and hesitatingly, you lay it over his, letting your fingers find their way to the space between his thumb and his pointer finger, sliding into his palm and giving it a squeeze.

Michael’s eyes move to your hands and you hold your breath, scared that he will pull away.

His eyes slowly come back up to you and they’re as soft as you’ve ever seen them. He holds your fingers and brings your hand up to his lips, kissing the back of your hand softly.

You give him a small smile and he exchanges hands, connecting your left hand with his right so it’s more comfortable to him.

He intertwines your fingers, slowly, and his movements are the slowest you’ve ever seen them, yet they’re sweet. Letting your fingers slide and fall themselves in between his or yours.

“I missed you.” He whispers under his breath, making you look up at him again. “A lot.”

You grin at him and give his hand a squeeze as your answer.

You don’t know it, but Michael is biting his tongue to not apologize to you again. The urge to do it is stronger than him.

It’s like if he repeats it for as many times possible, you will eventually forget what he did.

He doesn’t want you do forgive him. He wants you to just forget it. Act as if everything as always been perfect.

“I substituted you with Finn, so I can’t say the same.” You say playfully, making his lips pull up again.

“I noticed. Weirdest fucking pair, I swear.” He scoffs.

“Jealousy is a serious disease, Michael.” You comment back, nodding.

“Could say the same thing about you.”

“Excuse me?” You ask confused, yet still smiling.

“You’ve barely had a full conversation with Gina, but you just told me you ‘dislike’ her.” He says, amused tone, “Sounds like jealousy to me.”

You laugh at him and shake your head.

“Wow! You really are crazy.” You say, making him smile, “Must have been the air in New York. Probably messed your brain up.”

“Stop” He pokes your leg with his other hand, “Insulting.” Another poke, “Me.” Another poke. “It’s not funny.”

“Then why are you smiling so brightly at me, hey?” You ask with as just as big of a smile.

You two stare at each other with the smiles on your faces and your heart quickens at the sudden change of atmosphere. Everything seems so perfect between you two. Gina doesn’t seem like a barrier between you two anymore.

It’s like old times.

“Are you still marrying Gina?” You catch yourself asking.

His eyes widen slightly at your sudden question and your smile falls slightly. You’re embarrassed at the sudden slip of words but it’s already too late.

“I’m not sure.” He answers.

You react shocked at his answer. What is happening?

Both of your hearts are almost coming out of your chests, it’s like they’re going to explode if a specific confession escapes both your lips.

“Why?” You whisper, your voice failing you.

“I don’t-” He thinks for a second, “I don’t think I love her anymore.”

You hold in a sigh and continue to listen to him.

“I’ve been telling myself that she has changed ever since we got here, but…” He pauses, searching your face for any hesitation, “I think she has been like this all along. And all that has changed as been that-” He suddenly stops.

“That what?” You whisper, almost feeling out of breath.

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” He confesses, “I can’t stop comparing her to you. Or look at her and just… wish that she’s you.”

Your breathing is heavy, almost like you’re fighting the weight of a thousand stones on your chest. Everything is going on too quickly, but all you feel is relief.

“What are you saying, Michael?” You ask, voice falling into a whisper again.

He stays silent, almost as if rethinking about what he’s about to say.

Your eyes unconsciously lower to Michael’s lips and his smile as fallen as well. He’s serious. Your breathing has gotten quicker without you even realizing, and when your eyes go back to Michael’s, you find him doing the same thing.

“I love you.”

You stop breathing, shock erupting through your system.

“I never stopped loving you. Never. I’ve been lying to myself for all this time, trying to make myself believe that I was happy with Gina but I’m not.” He says, “I’m not happy with anyone else but you. Because I can only love you. Only you. Nobody else.”

He said it.

He said everything that has been troubling his mind for so long. He finally said it.

He said what you have been dreaming that he would say for the longest time. You almost can’t believe this is reality. Your body has gone numb, your heart is beating at an insane speed.

It all just feels so unreal.

Michael’s mind is going at miles a second, overthinking ever curve of emotion in your face. Every twitch, every slight movement in your hand still holding his, now more loosely than before.

What if he spoke too soon? What if he just… destroyed everything you two could’ve still shared. You probably don’t even think about him in that way anymore. All that could’ve been shared as just friends was all destroyed now with his confession.

The confession you have waited for so long and expected it to never be real. The confession of his love for you.

You take a deep breath, feeling Michael tense up next to you at what seems like a way to compose yourself into talking again, and suddenly you let go of his hand.

Michael almost gasps at the lack of your natural warmth against his palm and his heart begins to break, threatening to shatter with just a simple movement.

And then, you just bring your hand behind his neck and pull him towards you, letting your lips connect like the old times. Like the old times you have been visiting lately in your mind for this long and painful time.

It all feels like fireworks are erupting through your body, pinching your muscles and making them rise awake to reality.

You and Michael don’t move for a few quick seconds, but as soon as his lips move and his head tilted slightly to the side, you felt like you could cry.

His nose scrapes your cheek as you kiss sweetly and slowly, and Michael’s hands find their way to you. You gasp against his lips as his hands touch your waist and the thin, almost see-through, fabric of your dress does you no justice.

You bring both of your hands to his face and cup it close to you as he pulls you in to him with his hands. You sit on your knees, rising and your lips disconnect with the sudden movement.

You meet his eyes before you move any further and you feel like you’ve fallen in love all over again.

Michael pulls you in and you move to straddle his lap, his eyes run through your body, eyeing every bit of skin his eyes can lay on as you move, and your jacket opens naturally. You lean your lips to his again and he is the one to begin the kiss this time. His fingers dig deliciously into the ribs by your waist and your hands go up to his hair.

His hands drag from your waist to your hips and down your legs, rising your dress to finally touch your skin. Its warmth is so familiar and so calming that Michael feels like he could pass out right in that second.

You gasp as his grip on your upper thighs intensifies and you pull away slightly. There is absolutely no regret or shame in both of your stares, absolutely nothing. Michael brings his hands up and slides the jacket off your shoulders.

You let him take it off and he lays it by his side, a hand comes to rest over your back and in the matter of a second, you’re laying on your back on the cold but dry ground while Michael is hovering over you.

Michael connects your lips again and you smile into the kiss. His lips as just as soft as you remember them, and he still kisses in the same way. You feel like you’re in a dream all over again.

He pushes away and before you could even open your eyes, his mouth starts pressing soft and wet kisses all over your neck. Your hand moves back to his hair and he slowly leaves a trail down your jaw and neck down to your exposed chest, savoring absolutely every bit of soft exposed skin.

You pull down the collar of his blazer and he seems to get the hint, because he lifts off you, making your body erupt into shivers from the cold. He takes off his jacket and throws it next to you, and as his hands work down his waistcoat, your lips find their way to him again.

A soft inhale of air escapes Michael’s mouth at the feeling of your lips and he’s quick to take off another layer of his suit, not caring if he rips a button or not. He lays you back down and follows you to the ground, holding himself up by his arms and laying right in the middle of your legs.

You two smile at each other as soon as your noses touch and the sound of a soft peck interrupts the silence.

Michael is completely lost in the bliss of the moment, just savoring every single second of it. While you still believe you’re in shock with whatever is going on.

Months prior to this you would’ve passed out with just the idea of seeing Michael again, and probably even punch yourself if you knew what would happen later on, or now. But, god, you couldn’t care less, now.

With only an arm holding him up, Michael squeezes the soft skin of your thigh and starts layering the skin close to your neck with kisses all over again. You, impatient as one can be, lay your hand over his and pull it further towards you.

The dress falls to your hips and exposes your skin to the cold evening. Both of your hands play with the buttons on Michael’s shirt before being able to pull it off him and expose his chest to you.

He presses a kiss onto your lips again and sits up on his knees, pulling away from the kiss and staring as if to make sure this isn’t his mind playing tricks on him and it’s really you.

He discards his shirt to one of his sides, not really caring if it will fly with the wind and it will lose it forever.

“What do you mean ‘okay’, Michael?” You ask, confused, staring at the plain wall in front of you.

“I’m agreeing with what you said. Maybe it is true.” He says through the phone, “You keep on calling me every day-”

“What?” You ask, scowling, “I haven’t called in so long… You-you haven’t picked up any of my calls… Michael, I just want to check on you.”

“I am fucking working, Y/N- God. It’s always the same thing. You’re always fucking checking on me. I. Am. Fine.” He says with the most arrogant and angry tone you’ve ever heard him with.

“How am I supposed to know that? You’re almost across the world, Michael, the only thing I can do is call you.” You defend yourself, shaking your head in confusion, “We haven’t talked in months.”

“I just. I just want you to stop it, okay?” He questions. “I am so done with this. With you making everything seem like such a big and dangerous thing when it never is. You just keep on distracting me all the time. I need to work.”

“What?”

“You did it just now. I went to work today, like any other day. Stayed on my office, did what I was supposed to do. What Tommy ordered me to do. I just told you that I had someone on my office, and you got all fucking worried- like Jesus, Y/N.” He takes a deep breath, “This is my job. I need to do this-”

“I know.”

“You don’t seem like you do.” He continues, “You’re constantly asking and-”

“That’s not true-”

“But it is. Every time you call, it’s always this same thing… I’m tired.” He sighs his words at the end.

You stay silent for a few seconds, letting his words sink in.

“I’m… just worried about you.” You whisper and he sighs, “I- I didn’t mean to-to interrupt you or to make you mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

Tears well up at your eyes and a small shaky breath escapes your mouth, yet it isn’t picked up by the phone.

Michael stays silent as well, making your heart ache more by each second.

You blink your tears away and look up at the window beside you, letting the streetlights shine into your cold and lonely room.

Your bed is still made. The wind of the winter is still hitting the old windows harshly, making them whistle as they hold themselves together. But that is all you have, their whistle and the soft lighting.

Other than that, is you and your silence.

“Well, if I’m such a burden to you then maybe it’s better if we stop talking to each other.” You let the hurtful words escape your mouth before you could even catch them. Too late to take them back.

You don’t hear anything from the other side of the call. For a few seconds you believe that Michael had ended the call before you even said anything else, but his voice comes back.

His voice comes back and shatters the silence with the bitter truth.

“Okay.”

And after that, all Michael heard was the small and weak beeps signalizing the end of the call. Signalizing the end of you and him ever being together. Signalizing the end of your long relationship.

And the supposed end of your love for him and his love for you. Just… the end.

You tilt your head to the side as Michael continues to kiss down your neck and you close your eyes. Your hand is lost on his hair as you get lost in thought. Why does the memory need to come back now?

Michael lifts his head and looks down at you. The look on your eyes confused him and he pulls back to look at you.

“Is everything okay?” He asks, fearing the worst.

You don’t answer, yet your hand moves to cup the side of his face. He leans closer to your palm and your heart tightens.

He’s sorry. He apologized. He regrets it. He wants to take it back. Michael. Your Michael wants to take it back.

You pull him closer to you and you reconnect your lips with his. The kiss is soft all over again and the feeling is enough to push all those awful memories and thoughts away.

Your hands travel down his cheeks to his neck and lightly travel down to his chest and his stomach. Your feather like touch makes Michael’s skin erupt into chills from how soft and light it is.

“I love you.” You whisper into his lips.

He looks at you in the eyes and whispers his answer back.

“And I love you.”

Your fingers fidget with the button of his pants and soon unbutton it with a quick movement. Michael looks down at your hands and smiles, looking back up and presses a kiss onto your jaw.

He pulls away, and without wasting any more time or feeding more into your impatience, he takes a hold of your dress and pulls it up, exposing your underwear and your stomach. Michael takes a hold of the sides of your undergarments and pulls them down your smooth legs.

The cold air and the sight steal small, almost inaudible, gasps from the two of you. Another piece of clothing flies off to the side, which makes you chuckle slightly, and Michael smiles at the sound of your laughter.

You stare up at the tree above you for a second and you soon feel soft kisses being pressed at the bottom of your stomach. It has been long enough since you’ve felt something like this, yet it feels familiar, which makes sense.

It is still Michael. It has just been a long time.

“Michael,” You call out of him, holding yourself up by your elbows, “There’s no time for this, please.”

You didn’t have to say twice, because Michael quickly rose his body back up and pressed a kiss into your lips again.

There’s the sound of his zipper and soon the shifting of fabric and while lost in the kiss, Michael lays you back on the ground comfortably. His hand grabs into your leg and squeezes it softly, feeling himself lost for a second as your soft hands travel through his skin.

You gasp into the kiss as you feel him press into your entrance and Michael clenches his jaw at the sudden warmth touching him. You pull him close to you and Michael’s spear hand almost digs into the ground as he hides his head on your neck.

His other hand aligns him and slowly, he moves his hips towards yours. You groan lowly at the intrusion and he stops, giving you time as he doesn’t you to feel any kind of discomfort.

Your hand, that holds the back of Michael’s head, closes and he moves slightly again, moving in closer and closer to you, taking your movements as a hint for him to keep going. His cock slowly sliding into you, inch by inch, letting your warmth and wetness envelop him into its familiar hold that he so missed.

You gasp and he holds himself steady right as your take him all in. He lifts his head to check on you and his lips pepper your skin with soft kisses, some lost in his uneven breathing as he does so.

“You can move.” You whisper at him.

He doesn’t say anything, he lifts a few inches away from you and his hand comes back to your thigh. His movements start and they soon become thrusts.

Your soft gasps evolve into moans and Michael swears he’s dreaming. Your sounds are complete music to his ears, making them vibrate at the sweetness they carry, and, god, he had missed this.

Slowly, his thrusts start to accelerate, and your eyes force themselves closed. The way Michael’s hips hit yours and the way you squeeze him is driving the both of you insane. Your nails are digging into his arm as a small ball of pleasure starts to build up at the end of your stomach.

Michael lifts his arm and lays his hand beside your head. He eyes your body, still covered by the almost see-through fabric.

His breathing his loud and the sound of your bodies colliding with each other is all that fills your ears. His hand lets go of your leg and goes to your waist, his eyes analyzing your chest.

Michael presses a kiss on your sternum, over your dress and you arch your back at the feeling of his soft and warm lips. He clenches his jaw as the fabric stretches and exposes your chest to him, braless, nipples peeking through and appearing noticeable.

A shear layer of sweat covers the top of Michael’s forehead as the wind cools the warmth the both of you are creating. He lowers his head again and kisses you over the fabric of your dress that hugs your body so beautifully.

He looks down at where the two of you connect and a groan escapes his lips.

He, without any warning, grabs into your leg again and pulls up to your chest, letting another soft moan escape your mouth.

“Fuck, Michael…” You whisper at him.

He lifts off you and brings his other hand to your other leg. Still thrusting into your pussy, the sight as just improved to Michael, while you are lost at the difference it made to just rise your legs.

“God, you’re so perfect.” He mumbles at you, voice almost breaking into a whisper from his heavy breathing.

You throw your head back as his movements speed up and the pleasure in you intensifies.

After so long, it almost feels unreal to feel such emotion. It is more than pleasure, it’s an explosion of emotions.

All of those same emotions have been bottled up at the back of your mind and long forgotten, almost as if you had dismissed them because you didn’t believe you would ever feel them ever again.

But they are back and you’re feeling them at such a rate that you feel like tears are starting to well up in your eyes, blurring your vision.

You’ve probably thought this a thousand times, but, god, it feels like you’re dreaming. You pray that this won’t end in any way close to how your dreams usually do, but in a way, you’re not worried.

You don’t fear a bad ending in this, you don’t feel scared or anxious. You feel good. You feel happy and loved. Loved by someone who has shown way more love to you than any other person.

Someone you would vow to never stop loving if it meant that he will never leave your side. Someone that has never belonged to someone the same way he has belonged to you. No matter who has or will come in between you, you know the truth and you believe that it is the truth.

He loves you. He hurt you, but he loves you. He showed he was sorry, he apologized- Jesus, he saved your life. He didn’t let you die in his arms. He cried and feared your death right when you were bleeding a puddle into the ground.

Michael belongs to you and nobody else. He knows it, and he has told that himself that many times before. Now more than ever.

He belongs to you and you belong to him. And that is just how it is, and how it always will be.

A/N.: I am not going to lie... I cried when proofreading Michael’s confession about his feelings. I’m such a cry baby, god.

[Sorry that the apology part was so shit. I, myself, struggled with justify that shit and got myself annoyed with it.]

Taglist: @ohhersheybars @woodland-mist @onlythechicagoway @soleil-dor @finn-shelbys-bulldog @oh-theres-a-woman @peakyxtommy @ms-reader @beautycinders @lovemissyhoneybee @graceedwards @jadesbabylon @marvelismylifffe @a-dorky-book-keeper @peakascum @shanetoo @hufflemendes @cherrytop02 @http-cherries @burnitup @livingforbarnes @iccyyyybitch @ravennaofasgar @carezzesuigraffi @fernweh-fangirl @hufflepeople @huskyhunny @desertgremlin @fireawayxx @lemur46 @sugarcoated-lame @i-sneeze-to-appease @gabytodd @cococola-cocaine @namelesslosers @dibs-on-mikey​ @lreincarnationl @lil-hungryy @7shadesofharold @sh4desofsadness @fairyofvoid @kennastyles 

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Hope you enjoyed this! If would like to make any questions about the characters or when the next part will be available. My ask box is always open.

[barbarianprncess]

is there a reason you’re blushing like that !!!!

i actually loved writing this so thank you for the prompt!

forever house

read on ao3

or

“Mom, I’m home!” Percy calls distractedly into their apartment as he wrestles with his skateboard.

“Hi honey,”  Sally answers from the couch, and he can hear the smile in her voice when she says “There's a surprise for you in your bedroom.” He furrows his brow and hurries upstairs. He opens his bedroom door expecting cookies and is instead greeted with familiar blonde hair and a bed overrun with papers far too complicated to be his own. He can’t help the smile that overtakes his face at the sight of his girlfriend, still in her Catholic school uniform.

“Hey!” He leans over his bedspread being very careful not to wrinkle her designs to plant a kiss on her cheek. “How’s my favorite genius?”

“Hey Percy.” Annabeth is currently scrambling to get her papers in order, which he finds odd because usually when he calls her a genius she’ll smile and kiss him extra gently. And then she only needs a little prodding and he can get her to explain what she's working on. She gets this crinkle in the corner of her eyes when she talks about her projects and gesticulates wildly to get him to understand. It’s awesome.

But right now, Annabeth is beet red, eyes manic, and piling papers with a vengeance. He’s not entirely sure what’s happening but Annabeths got this look in her eye- like one wrong move and she’s gonna bolt. “What’re you working on?”

“Nothing!” She says voice cracking in a way that clues him in on the fact that the subject of her stress but her work. Which Percy finds ridiculous because he may not understand the nuanced and complicated world of design, but Annabeth’s smarter than anyone, she’ll figure whatever it is out. Annabeth gets like this sometimes- ADHD fixation and her need for perfection is a combo that doesn’t mix well and in the months that they’ve been dating, there have been more than a few times when Percy had to loosen her fistes curled around her designs in frustration, and talk her down from a panic attack because Apollo didn’t love his statue. Percy hates that her work does that to her, but he likes taking care of her.

“Annabeth,” He says slowly, hands already positioned to relieve her of the designs that she managed to wrangle in her lap, but she bats them away.

“No, no it's not- I’m not.” She looks up at him and her eyes soften at his concern. “I’m fine, seriously I’m not stuck on anything.” Percy raises his eyebrows skeptically.

“Sooo… is there a reason you’re blushing like that?” Annabeth's hands fly up to her neck as if she can stop the flush of her skin from the outside. Which is a mistake on her part because Percy immediately grabs the blueprint she was so desperately trying to hide. She lunges for it, causing the remaining papers to fall forgotten on the floor, but Percy's growth spurt, along with the angle she’s sitting on his bed, makes it so he’s able to keep her at bay.

“Percy!! Give it back, oh my gods, I’m gonna kill you!” He’s heard that before and he’s still breathing so, he takes his chances. He makes out the words “Forever House: Annabeth Chase”, and a vague sketch of what looks like a shoreline. He catches Montauk and something about support beams when Annabeth finally succeeds in snatching the paper from him. She’s flushing even harder now, and her hands are covering her face.

“Which of the gods are asking for a forever house?” He laughs until he notices Annabeth shaking her head and she lets out a muffled ‘none of ‘em’ from behind her hands.

“Hey, hey Annabeth.” He says softly poking at her sides and pinching at her cheeks (he gets mostly fingers because she’s still covering her face but, all the better to grab her hands with). She sighs and lets him take her hands and sit on the edge of the bed, still not meeting his eyes. He squeezes the fingers in his grasp, a silent promise not to make fun of her, and she takes a deep breath and forces out an explanation.

“Well, a couple weeks ago, while I was waiting for you to get out of school, me and your mom talked for a while and she mentioned some of your trips to Montauk and how much you loved them, and we were looking at pictures and she mentioned how you always said you wanted to live there, right on the beach when you got older, and inspiration kinda struck and I started sketching out your hypothetical beach house. And I guess subconsciously, your beach house became a version of…. the forever house.”

Now, Percy’s heard of the hypothetical ‘forever house’ before. Annabeth had told him once about her favorite theoretical place, created when she was little. Having lost every person and place she was told to call home, caused a deep distrust for anywhere she lived in the future. (He doesn’t blame her, he’s not sure he could ever trust anything if he went through what she went through before Luke turned to Kronos- let alone everything she went through after.) So to cope, in her head she’d design a house that she’d build when she was older- now known as the forever house. She told him she daydreamed about building it, how it’d be open and bright with huge windows so she’d never feel alone again. But, despite its openness, it’d be sturdy and rooted in place. The design and location changed over time but it always had big windows and it was always immobile. And no matter what happend, that house would be her ‘something permanent’. Her forever house.

As what she was saying registered, Percy’s smile grew impossibly wide. Annabeth must’ve assumed he was laughing at her and deflated. “I know, it’s stupid and creepy just forget it ok I didn’t mean-”

He let go of her hands as she rambled and cut her off with a kiss. He wasn’t sure how to articulate what he was feeling with words, so he let his body speak for him. His thumb swipes at her cheek (I’m sorry that you had to build a house in your head because the people that were supposed to love you didn’t, it wasn’t your fault, thank you for trusting me anyway), he runs fingers through her hair (It’s an honor to be a part of your future, I’m going to care about you, on purpose, for as long as you’ll let me), he tilts up her chin to deepen the kiss (I love you, all of you).  

When they part he rests his forehead on hers and allows himself a minute to be in awe of her. He learned a long time ago that Annabeth was brave. But after learning so many of the intimate details of her past, he thinks that her ability to love at all is an act of bravery. Everytime she tells him a secret, or holds his hand, or lets him walk through one of her walls is an act of rebellion. To love Annabeth is to be in awe of her relentless courage.  

“Thank you.” He whispers. He doesn’t clarify what for and she doesn’t ask. She just smiles something small and says, “You’re welcome.”

He kisses her forehead because he can and half-laughs out, “You made me a house.”

“Ugh.” She buries her head in his shoulder bites at his collarbone in annoyance. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t, you love me, you know how I know?”

“I’m begging you to shut up.”

“Because you made me a house!” He says gleefully into her hair.

Annabeth shoves him back on the bed and he pulls her down with him. She half on top of him, face buried in his chest when she retorts,

“I made us a house.”

He hopes she doesn’t mind when his arms tighten around her. It’s instinct. And a necessity. And when he whispers i love you into her hair, it's a silent promise. A promise to do anything and everything possible to get them to that house one day. From the way she smiles into his shirt, she’s gonna do the same.