#mads’ drabs

[pancakehouse]

hello bab!! absolutely obsessed with this prompt game idea xx im giving you a choice between 12 and 19--take your pick xox

send me a richard siken line and i'll write a mini fic inspired by it

hi omg HELLO ridi!! isn't it insane! prob the worst idea anyone's ever had im so excited about it!!!!!

ahhh god okay i went with:

19. i take off my hands and i give them to you. (oh also, vaguely nsfw? like not at all but also sorta, to be safe!)

“Did you know I’m left-handed?” 

The question startles Remus. At first, he’s sure he’s misheard, muffled as the words are, spoken into the small dip of skin where his collarbone meets the bony juncture of his shoulder. It was never a spot Remus thought was particularly notable or interesting, at least not until the day Sirius Black decided to attach his lips there, and make it so. 

Remus' breath hitches. “Hm?” he murmurs. His hand tightens in Sirius’ hair, fingers scraping scalp, and he tugs lightly until Sirius lifts his head. “What?” 

Night sky leaks through the curtains, and Sirius’ eyes are shining, lips parted and cherry red. There’s always something that sits heavy in Remus’ stomach on the nights they do this, like holding your breath underwater, or the slow tick of a broken clock. Something that’s over, inevitably, just as soon as they're brave enough to admit it. 

“I said-” And Sirius is grinning, because surely he’s only thinking of the bulge in Remus’ trousers, and how they can be as loud as they want now, here, in their flat, and is not - like Remus - thinking of all the ways he’d break himself apart, limb from limb from limb, if it might drag this thing out a little bit longer. “I said…” Sirius leans in, presses a kiss under Remus’ jaw, “-did you know-” another kiss to his throat, one to his chest, “that I-” cold fingers, skirting under his waistband, “...am left handed.” Sirius finishes with a poke and a loud, wet smack just above his belly-button. He snickers into it, warm breath tickling the hairs there. 

“Yes, Pads,” Remus huffs, stomach trembling, his voice horribly shaky. “Seeing as I shared a dorm with you for seven years, and classes for just as long…yes, Sirius, I had noticed sometime in there that you were left-handed.” 

There’s a moment, still and quiet. The sheets are warm, and balmy summer air drifts through the open window. A bird perches on the sill, claws scratching into chipped white paint and grass that’s sprung up between the cracks. They look at each other - him and Sirius, not him and bird - and the heavy feeling in Remus’ stomach feels sort of nice. Like a weighted blanket.

Eventually, Sirius nods. Slowly. “Well, good,” he says. His mouth quirks in the corner. “Good, because I’ve noticed things about you, too.” 

Remus’ hands find themselves back in Sirius’ hair.

Have you? he wants to ask. What kinds of things?

And then: because there are so many things i’ve noticed about you. i noticed that you went for a run in the rain yesterday and your legs were hurting after and your hair looks lovely when it’s damp. and last week at the park your hands smelled like orange slices and sometimes you smile when i walk into the room and also sometimes you don’t. 

…have you noticed how i always smile? when i see you. but maybe it’s not obvious. maybe you don’t think it’s obvious, just like you don’t think i know you write with your left hand and have a scar across the middle knuckle from Prongs and maybe you don’t realise i kiss it every time i have the chance and maybe you don't notice how the smell of oranges in summer always makes me sneeze. have you noticed that? what else is there to see?

“Alright,” he says instead. Because it’s their flat and it’s his bedroom and Sirius’ knees are around his hips, and maybe he doesn’t feel like being brave enough to acknowledge anything else right now. 

“Alright?” Sirius laughs. “You’ll allow it?” 

“Sure.” Remus cups his cheek, grins slowly, hesitantly, into their next kiss. Do you feel this? he wants to ask. My hands, these hands, these lips…they’re all yours. Do you have any use for them? “Yeah, alright, I’ll allow it.”

[nonasuch]

question for my fellow film & tv costume enthusiasts: what show or movie do you love even though the costuming is hot garbage?

I’ll start, because mine is not a period piece but in fact Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show I will love forever despite regularly putting actors into the worst fucking outfits imaginable.

[starleska]

it is a truth universally acknowledged that every one of Mad Mod's outfits slays absolute penis 🔥💖

[squirrel-fund]

galla-cation #61🏖

Late af submission for @galladrabbles this week! Prompt is - sworn enemy - gifted to us by @sickness-health-all-that-shit 🧡

Today begins Mickey's POV

🔆

Mickey doesn't head towards the restaurant.

Because there is absolutely no way in hell he wants to spend the last few days of his vacation anywhere near Lip and that annoying ass smirk that practically lives on his fucking face.

And he'd bet his life that Lip is the reason Ian intervened just now.

As far as he's concerned, the oldest Gallagher brother is, and will forever be, his natural sworn enemy.

He stomps past the doors of the restaurant, that all too familiar chuckle echoing around him, but Mickey doesn't give a damn.

Because fuck him.

Fuck them all.

[threezzyo]

being tojis servant

toji zenin x fem reader. mdni lowk ooc in some parts

lazy lazy writing because i am so busy with work and school aaaaah bodyguard toji is coming and im working on the request IM SORRY DESI ANON

dividers are by cafekitsune

being tojis servant.. you have a big fat fucking crush on him.

being tojis servant.. he sleeps in. all the fucking time, and constantly grumbles that you wake him up. he just doesn't understand its literally your job to take care of him. he needs pushing.

being tojis servant.. means you find little 'presents' in his bed. pink thongs you never have even dared to wear, jammed in between his mattress and bed frame.

being tojis servant.. he simply smirks at you when you berate him for being so careless with his girlfriends coming over, when you walked in on them making out. and because you were full with jealousy.

being tojis servant.. he barely even remembers your name, but you always wait for him while he has to attend some meeting or lesson.

being tojis servant.. means you hide his favorite candy around his room in places you know he'll find. you've been doing this since he got that scar on his lip.

being tojis servant.. he sees you one day in your regular clothes, not that drab servants outfit you wear all the time. you're just wearing a sweater and some fitted jeans, but damn, he just realizes what he's been missing these past years.

being tojis servant.. he's practically jumping for joy when naobito finally upgrades the uniforms, you get the wrong size and it's incredibly tight on you.

being tojis servant.. he won't let you go anywhere near naoya after he realizes how pretty you actually are.

being tojis servant.. you're washing the dishes one day, and he lingered around, making small talk. you accidentally let it slip you've kind of had a thing... with the baker's son and you saw him making out with the butlers daughter.

being tojis servant.. toji doesn't have too much power in the zenin clan, but he has enough to fire the baker.

being tojis servant.. he's more talkative with you, lingering around you while you're cleaning his room or something.

being tojis servant.. he doesn't know what has came over him, but he can't stop thinking about you in that uniform.

being tojis servant.. he asks you to serve him in his bedroom. you, who grew up with only ever interacting with the old bat naobito, toji, and your mother, simply looks at him, confused. "but i already cleaned your room, master toji."

being tojis servant.. likes to tease you with innuendos and euphemisms that you take literally. "...rumble in the jungle? this is Japan."

being tojis servant.. means he consoles you on a particularly rough night remembering your ex. he can't help himself, taking advantage of your weakness. he knows, he knows how you feel about him, and he can't waste any more time with you.

being tojis servant.. he kisses down your spine as you sit away from him on his lap, untying your robes ever so carefully.

being tojis servant.. you blush as he presses gentle kisses on your breasts, the heat between your legs aching. he's never been the type to be gentle, but he's treating you so delicately.

being tojis servant.. means you can barely move your legs as you ride him.

being tojis servant.. he promises he'll just put in the tip, after 4 different rounds of either you riding him, him eating you out or fingering you.

being tojis servant.. he runs a nice bath for you as an apology for being a bit too fast, kissing your hand as he washes your hair.

being tojis servant.. you wake up with him holding you close, and you're not even mad that he's sleeping in again.

being tojis girlfriend.. you two run away from the zenin clan together.

Not proofread at all lol

[ghostheartfelt]

*:･｡☆ warnings: heavy gore, torture, hurt/comfort, whump, s/a towards reader, men being gross, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, blood and violence, branding (torture method), waterboarding (torture method), reader (thaye) is a badass, first kiss, dismemberment of fingers, eye trauma, protective!ghost, implications of smut/sex, aftermaths of torture. (there is probably a lot i missed, but idc lol all the other shit should b enough warning!!) 〔☆〕 desc: you and the 141 are deployed to austria with the intel of a drug boss known as rolmuth who is harboring romanian soldiers to the east coast to smuggle illegal mercenary personnel into america. what happens when a rapid snowstorm picks up and you (callsign 'thaye') are separated from the others then further captured and interrogated alongside your lieutenant?

—✩ PHANTOM TOUCH ✩—

word count —15.6k

a/n: sorry for my inactivity! the entire time i was workin on this shit... let me tell you.. this is 51 pages on google docs LMAO so i hope the length and word count makes this fat fucking hurt/comfort one shot worth it.

VIENNA, AUSTRIA.

“Move, move, move!” Price yells.

Snow fell and blanketed the ground beneath you, you were dressed in white camouflage tactical gear. 

Your movements were slower as you trudged yourself through the snow, you turned in every direction searching for your captain. 

Your lieutenant. 

Anybody. 

Rapid snowy winds smacked you in the face, nearly forcing your eyes shut as you traveled through the gusts. 

“Soap?!” You shout, planting your feet below into the patches of snow, 

Your arms raise to cover your face. 

“Fuck!” 

“Thaye!” A voice echoed through the snow that encased you in a blanket of long silence. 

Snow nestled into the ground below—everything around you seems to just slow down.

You traipse yourself heavily through the thickness around you as you snap a clip into your M4 carbine, swinging it behind you like it had been previously.

Thump.

Your head droops down and you feel your heart drop into your stomach seeing the body of one of the men you were deployed with face up.

His head four inches deep in the snow and his right eye completely destroyed, his chest marred with several bullet wounds.

The root of his nose is fractured to the point where it’s flattened into what’s left of his skull. 

You swallow the knot in your throat that might have also been barf trying to make its way out of you, kneeling down to peel the soldier’s dog tags off of his corpse.

Hudson “Scooter” Wheeler. 

It makes you smile slightly, your thumb dragging over the metal tag to wipe off the thickness of blood that had coated the carving of his name.

“I’m sorry, Wheeler.” 

The loss of fallen soldiers leave footprints and engravings on one’s heart that never allows them to be the same, again. 

You wished sometimes you could just be without the worry about who you have to lose and who you have to save. 

Restless nights followed by mornings and afternoons full of nothing but unpromised resolutions. You nearly felt as if insanity would be a better route than going through the pain of losing the people you stood side by side with, enduring the effects of grief, bloodshed, and war.

Although there were moments of bonding and camaraderie that were forced to turn into utter gore and distrust due to the change of the objective that deemed those to turn against one another in hopes of survival and success. 

Pride; a fickle sense that could drive an individual to the depths of madness and create a staked claim to prove more power then they own or deserve.

You didn’t understand it. Nor did you want to. 

You were left in a society where the drabness of gray ruled the world and pain of loss clenched to the soldier’s  hearts almost desperately. 

And yet that perpetual colour of gray; a colour so dull but so compelling, it still lights the depths of hell you lived in by merely a petite dose.

Your mouth had begun to feel tacky with your muscles stiffening as the weather conditions intensify by every fleeting moment. 

Inside your combat boots, you feel your feet begin to grow numb; similar to the feeling of stepping on fresh-cut grass and grazing dull needles. 

Now, you wonder what hypothermia would feel like. You weren’t used to this sort of weather. 

Even under your white half-face balaclava, you felt your lips and their absence of moisture. 

Still, you trekked forward, squinting eyes searching for any sign of life around you.  

Your face lights up at the sight of a shadow-like movement through the blistering storm and rapid winds once you wipe off the frost lingering on your goggles. 

They moved closer—it seemed to be one person. 

There’s a tree to your left—your legs manage to jerk themselves through the snow until you're beside it.

You cautiously lower your body into the snowpack below you, clutching your rifle in your grip while your eyes fixate on the moving figure ahead of you. 

Your finger grazes over the trigger of your carbine rifle.

A leg comes before the torso, then the face. 

The skull mask.

Ghost.

Relief washes over you immediately—raising to your knees.

“Lieutenant!” You call. 

His head immediately snaps in your direction, and the time spent staring at each other seemed everlasting, though in reality it was just a few seconds before his large hand was squeezing your shoulder and he was right in front of you.

“Thought we lost’ya,” Ghost rasps.

“What’s the sitrep?” 

“Enemy force has ordnance on standby—Price ordered all units to the West Safehouse,” he says.

You nod softly. 

“Why’d you hang back?” 

His eyes widen under his balaclava and you open your mouth to speak—Ghost tugs you by your vest, pulling you to the side.

“Gh—“

There’s a person behind him.

Sounds muffle around you, complete silence surrounding you as Ghost’s head is slammed with the butt of a rifle. 

Your hands reach down to pull your handgun from off of your hip, pointing it towards his attacker, squeezing on the trigger and unhesitantly dropping him to the ground before he can double back and finish him off.

No words leave your mouth as you turn in one quick jerk, the barrel of a L1A1 being aimed between your eyes. 

Not even seconds later was the thick handle of a bowie knife met with the back of your head. 

Immediately, your body meets with the snow, and you feel the coldness of the snow over your mask. 

You struggle to pick up your head, pain surging in the back of your head enough to blur your vision. 

Keeping your eyes open was a challenge—they constantly blink shut as you watch the enemy force yell at each other, manhandling Ghost by ripping his weapon sling off of him and dragging him by his fur-lined parka. 

His body was dragged up into a Humvee and roughly thrown in before you were picked up by your ankles and wrists and tossed right on top of him.

Your head slumps against Ghost’s bicep as you're washed up by incapacity, your mind fogging against your will. Enervation holds you captive and sweeps you off your feet. 

You’re met with blackness, next, yet the only thing you could think of was your failure to protect your superior.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

You awoke to the sounds of struggling—something teetering on the floor. 

It takes a moment for you to come to your senses and stir from unconsciousness, eyes fluttering open to take in your surroundings.

The ever-present smell of waste and deteriorated flesh smacks you with reminiscence, the overbearing cold, the taste of grime, blood, and bile in your mouth. 

When you go to move your hands, they’re immobile; binded by thick ropes that with your state of exhaustion and physical weakness, would be impossible to escape from. 

Your heavy head manages to shift for oneself to observe the room—your gear was purloined, leaving you in your cargos and a tank-top.  

Below you, the ground was concrete and stained with blood that led to the large metal door that had a closed hatch. 

Vaguely, you recall in short and brief flashes why you were there, your eyes shutting for a few moments before opening once again.

Ghost.

Where was Ghost?

“Lieutenant,” you cough. “Ghost, wh—“ 

“‘M here, kid.” Ghost wheezes. “To’yr left.” 

Your head turns, stopping at the sight of his mask on the concrete, blood smeared across the maw of the skull, over the eye socket. 

“Ghost, are you injured?” 

“No.” 

Slowly, your eyes trace up the ground beneath you until Ghost’s boots are in view. 

His soles skid against the ground as he attempts to drag the dentist chair he’s strapped in. “Fuck!”

You shift in your wooden seat in an attempt to reach your hand down to pull up the velcro flaps of your cargos. You couldn’t reach.

Ghost’s boots stop skidding against the floor as the metal door’s rusted hinges creak, the door being flung open to welcome a man inside—three other men were behind him holding military grade rifles with drum magazines.

The man inside the room raises his hand, offering departure in the Hindi language, to which his men shut the door behind him.

His arms were wrapped behind his back, the sound of his heavy boots echoing off of the thick stone walls. 

He walks around the room for a while, allowing you to raise your head to take in who he was.

A European man that’s approximately 184 centimeters with long pushed back shaggy dark hair; his eyebrows arched, a bushy beard. 

On his cheek, a nasty deep laceration scar that reaches the end of his eyebrow. Under his left eye, another scar reaches the bridge of his nose. 

The man is inches from your face, now, a tilt in his head. 

“We see how long it takes to break you, Sergeant.”  His eyes crinkled as his lips upturned in a depraved smile. 

He lifts himself from his bent position, grips the crest rail of the chair, and pulls you farther from Ghost.

“Who is your commanding officer?” He asks, feet spread apart as he looks down at you to assert his dominance.

“Fuck you.” You bite back.

The man’s hand roughly takes hold of your chin, tilting your head up towards the dangling ceiling light. 

“I eat boys like you for breakfast.” 

Ghost chuckles beside you.

His eyes narrow as he releases a choked scoff, his head swinging back before bursting into laughter.

“My drug ring reigns across the entire country—my men swarm all city.” 

His accent is thick, though his English  isn’t terrible. 

“It is either you tell me now and you and friend die quick, or you die slow of bleeding until we find on our own.” 

“Good fuckin’ luck,” Ghost grunts.

You swallow thickly, groaning as the man pulls your head back by the scalp of your hair. 

You purse your lips as you collect saliva from the walls of your mouth, spitting just above the man’s eyebrow and watching as the gob runs down over his eye.

He snarls, dragging an open hand down his face. Using that same hand, the male flexes his hand into a fist and socks you in the jaw. 

“Hey!” Ghost shouts. 

You hear it pop and you immediately outstretch your neck and slam your forehead into the bridge of his nose, arms jerking in an attempt to escape your restraints. “You motherfucker!”

He lets out a groan, his head flinging back as blood streams down his nostrils, his hand trembling over his nose.

“Bitch! Madarchod! Bevakooph veshya…” He hisses through clenched teeth. “Broke my nose!” 

His palm smacks you across the face so hard, a pinkish red hue starts blossoming across your cheek. He repeats it again, then again, and again. 

You squeeze your eyes shut, bracing yourself as numbness circles inside the flesh of your cheek, a similar feeling to those static electricity globes that you’d get for your twelfth birthday and press all five of your fingertips against.

“Hey! This is between you an’ me, a’right?” Your lieutenant gives a sharp nod, trying to reason with the man. 

He stares at Ghost for a few moments, squeezing his fingers in his fist before leaving the room, the door slamming loudly behind him.

You take the moment to actually look at Ghost, your eyes taking in his features entirely.

From his long and messy dirty blonde undercut, to his shade and stubble. 

To his bruised and bloodied lips and the thick scar running from his top lip to the underside of his chin.

To his thick and beautiful eyebrows, the scar on the start of his left eyebrow, running down to the bridge of his nose.

To his deep and all familiar brown eyes—long and light eyelashes accompanying their shape.

To the scar that spread out from the right inner corner of his lip and across his cheek as if it was the engravings of a smile line.

There were several scars littered across the male’s face; each one of vast distinction from the other. 

Once again, the door thrusts open and the man returns, cotton wads up his nostrils with another male by his side, pushing in a rolling mayo stand with different tools and items you assumed were torture devices.

“Hey! Hey! What’re y’doing?” Ghost jerks in his seat, his eyebrows furrowing as the man picks up a syringe, flicking the glass and squeezing out a droplet of the liquid inside. “What th’fuck is that?”

“You will have your answer soon enough,” he simply replies. 

“Agarwal—blade.”

The second man grabs the rotary tool from off the tray, a saw blade in the other. 

Your hands tug against their bindings enough to chafe your wrists, it feels as if your skin is being shredded with a cheese grater. 

“Paip rinch, ab.”  The taller man holds out his arm, to which the man who was now identified as Agarwal hands him a pipe wrench.

“English, asshole.” You grunt.

He slings it over his shoulder and slowly walks towards Ghost as he whistles. 

Ghost’s eyes don’t avert from his gaze, even as the pipe wrench drops from off his shoulder to clatter on the floor, hanging from his wrist and dragging along the ground.

“Who…is…your…superior?” His voice is grim, each word coming out as he takes a step.

Using the hook jaw of the wrench, he lifts Ghost’s chin.

“Piss off,” the blonde huffs.

Not even seconds later does the man swing the wrench around and belt it into his stomach. Ghost lets out a wheeze, his body lurching over in reaction to the sudden pain coursing through him. 

“No!” You yell. 

“Who.” He asks again with spite in his tone—he was demanding, it no longer was a question in his favor.

“You’ll know who when he comes’a knockin’ ‘n blows lead thru th’lot of ya.” Ghost says with a slight raise in his head.

The wrench is swung back into his stomach, causing Ghost to hurl and expel vomit onto his boots.

“Leave him the fuck alone!” You kick yourself forward a bit using your boots. Agarwal’s hands grip the slat of the chair and pull you back towards the tray.

“No, no,” he nearly coos, yanking your head back by the thinner group of hairs on the nape of your neck. 

You clench your jaw and subside, lifting yourself up with your hips to help avoid the pain.

His eye’s strain, beads of sweat rolling down the end strands of his hair regardless of how cold it was inside of the formidable room.

“Get me my player,” the bearded man says as he trails his 12” redwood handle knife across Ghost’s jawline.

Agarwal’s hand releases your hair to your relief and he leaves the room. 

“Disgusting—“ the male snarls. “Making mess of my floor.”

Your eyes narrow as you watch a pool of blood start to form as he slashes Ghost’s cheek, a groan spilling from your lieutenant’s throat.

“Fuck you ‘n y’r floor,” Ghost coughs. 

He drops the wrench to the floor, then uses a rag that was hanging out of his pocket to swipe off the blood from the knife’s blade.

Two men walk in, one pushing in a record player and the other holding a tactical vest and a book.

Your vest and your book.

His name patch reads “Gamble”, the one who throws your vest and the book onto the floor. 

“Rolmuth, the woman—she has had access to our radio frequency and has been writing down our shipment codes and locations.” 

Ghost’s head raises, his pupils shrunken as he takes in the sight of the morse code book. 

The man holding the knife cracks his head in your direction before proceeding towards you.

“Thaye…” he susurrated.

You don’t flinch when his arms raise to swing the knife over towards your temple, a maniacal laugh escaping through the barriers of Rolmuth’s teeth. 

The knife lowers to release one of your hands, though before you can reach for anything, he slams your arm backward against the back leg of the chair, the feeling of your bones snapping beneath your skin causes you to let out a sharp, excruciating cry as your now-broken arm falls limp to your side.

“Thaye!” Ghost shouts. “Fuckin’ bastard…” 

“How?!” Rolmuth yelled through his teeth, lips drawn back in a snarl as he nearly foamed out of his mouth. 

His fist meets with your cheek and your eyes squeeze together in grimace to the pain as he punches you again. 

Ghost calls out your name and you can hear the metal of his chair scrape and grind against the ground. 

You feel your cheek begin to swell, the tender flesh on your face blooming into purple and blue bruises.

He walks to the record player and takes a record out of its sleeve that was resting on the shelf of the small table the player was brought in on. It has wheels on it—similar to the mayo tray.

Rolmuth blows on the record, though the sleeve looks too clean to hold any dust, then places the record on the platter. After pressing play, he drops the tone arm down.

The record scratching sends chills up and down your spine before the music almost beautifully fills the room.

Why does the sun go on shining?

You watch Rolmuth pick up a pair of pliers.

Why does the sea rush to shore?

You wonder if he’s going to try to rip out your teeth.

Don’t they know it’s the end of the world,

He clasps them around one of your fingers on your broken arm.

Fuck.

The cold metal around your finger makes you nearly want to cry.

‘Cause you don’t love me anymore?

He was going to rip off your finger.

“Who is your captain?” His hand squeezes the pliers, applying pressure to your singular finger. 

“Go…to hell—“ 

A scream rips itself from your throat as you feel your sinew and flesh tear, the pliers tearing your finger from off your bone.

“Tha’s enough!” Ghost jerks and flails in his seat, there’s a sip of panic in his voice. “Get th’fuck off of her!” 

Why do the birds go on singing? 

Rolmuth wriggled the rest of your finger off, your eyes daring to skim down to look at the bone sticking out from your knuckle. 

Blood spews out of the gore, coating your entire hand and dripping from the crevices of your skin into your lap, staining your cargos, turning their white color into several distinct shades of red.

Rolmuth sets the finger—your finger down lightly on the standing metal tray besides you. 

Why do the stars glow above?

A penetrating ringing fills your ears; one so loud it felt like it’d be the cause of your tears instead of the pain surging through the entire left side of your body.

Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?

You’re in shock, unable to speak. Your jaw is locked, your teeth are clenched so hard it feels as if you might shatter your teeth. 

It ended when I lost your love. 

Ghost’s voice echoes in the back of your mind, when he calls out your name, you’re pulled out of your trance. You jerk your slumping head up.

You want to call out his name, but it seems like your throat is swallowing every little word that is being screamed inside of your head. 

The room is spinning and you can’t feel your arm, you can’t feel the finger move that was just severed from your hand.

“Look at me, look at me, love…” your lieutenant simpers. 

Your eyes search the room until they land on Ghost’s, he sounds far away. You feel your eyes widen as cold metal wraps around another finger once again. 

Why does my heart go on beating?

Rolmuth’s lips close in near your ear as he tugs lightly at your middle finger. 

“You don’ want to lose this finger, do you?” You feel the man’s hot breath run up the side of your face and brush past your ear.

“Who…is…your...captain?” 

Why do these eyes of mine cry?

Every nerve in your body seized, your spine stiffening with every urge to kill the man standing beside you. 

Ghost coughs up blood; internal bleeding. 

“I’ll fu…cking…skin you…” you croak, your words finally becoming coherent.

He laughs. Rolmuth’s single arm raises in a humorous gesture of surrender. 

Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?

Your eyes squeeze shut, though shoot open at the rush of heat, the pliers applying clutched pressure to your finger before Rolmuth started ripping off the second finger, wiggling it until it broke off skin and sinew. 

It ended when you said “goodbye.” 

“Look at me, Thaye.” Ghost’s voice sounds desperate, so you offer him a short glance as your jaw slacks and your body retracts.

Your strained eyes snapping to the bearded man as he places down your middle finger on top of your pointer finger.

A gag surfaces in your throat and your body twitches as you watch your finger fall and roll almost as if it’s the most natural thing. 

Ghost yells your name again.

You finally focus on him, your eyes welling up, reddening and puffing against your will.

“Jus’ look at me, angel,” Ghost’s silked voice calms you, although in a manner you can’t hear him as well as you want to. 

Every muscle and ligament inside of you feels tense and stuck.

Why does my heart go on beating?

You had three fingers on your left hand—three fingers.

Thumb, pinkie, ring. Thumb, pinkie, ring. Thumb, pinkie, ring.

“Y’ll kill her, she’s losin’ too much blood—she’s goddamn delirious!”  

Gamble’s fist barrels into the side of Ghost’s head, you hear a feral groan leave his gullet.

At least I can still put a wedding ring on my left hand. You thought.

Those three fingers trembled and twitched, it was the only movement on the left side of your body besides for your left eye—is he going to take one of my eyes? Your head is swarming with thoughts.

“Ghost…” you slur, still locked onto the blonde’s eyes. 

“I know, love,” he says as gently as he physically can. “So proud of’y…” 

His speech comes out as a garble, but you’re still able to understand him. 

“‘M gon’ get us outta here…alive, a’right?” 

Your head slumps at the attempt of a nod. 

“Save y’r energy, lovie.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Agarwal grips Ghost’s earlobe, pulling him closer. You’re not able to cognize his words, but you’re aware of the vexation in his countenance. 

You flinch once Rolmuth drops the pliers on the metal tray. He removes his latex gloves that were blanketed in your gore and throws them onto your lap. 

“Clean them up—she still is of use to me.” His voice grows more distant as he leaves the room.

Gamble injects Ghost with a syringe that was hanging off of his waist, casting him with drowsiness, his eyes struggling to keep open before he’s blacked out.

“What did you do—…what did y’do to him?” Your eyebrows stitch together. “What did you do?!” 

They unstrap his arms from the chair, then his ankles.

“Answer me goddamnit...” You seethe, tears warping in your eyes.   

“Shut the bitch up,” Gamble nudges Agarwal in the shoulder before he pushes Ghost further out of his restraints, his body still and unconscious allowing the scarred man to bind his wrists with zip ties. 

Agarwal simply nods and paces toward you. The stock of his gun smashed into your jaw before you could react.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

DAY TWO.

The woman in the doorway was bedraggled; tired eyes and shrunken tear-stained cheeks. 

There’s a light illuminating from the pulled-back curtains—a light so bright it could dry the shining tears that spill out scarlet fluid over the eyes of the miserable.

You feel only patient while waiting for the morning sun to rise over the horizon line of the ocean side.

It’s deteriorating yet caliginous frame of murky grey stone and vast sorrow of an arched entrance sat in disposition from harrowing memories filled with bloodshed, grief, and war.

Your face relaxes at the distinctly ravishing but delicate overcasted ray of light shot down from the amidst along the ruins, the melancholy ambiance nearly sent chills down your spine.

Heavenly cries of forgotten mothers begging for forgiveness of their past sins, children's playful and beatific screams, although it was nothing unknown to you.

Screams were usually followed by split rib cages and bullet wounds—tears, blood, those screams and sweat, you went through it all just for it to lie unheard and forgotten.

You searched the odd and seemingly afterlife-like realm with your eyes, you could only wonder where you were, and why you were there.

Why the flowy white dress draped over your body oscillated with the wind in a gorgeous motion.

You're lifting your head out of the water now. 

The taste of salt seems so thick, heavy. Like you could drown in it. Like you could get drunk off of it.

The waves crashing onto shore sound so loud atop the eerie silence, their white crests phasing through your body as if your presence was unknown to them.

You loved the ocean because as opposed to the ones who were supposed to; the ocean loved you and was never afraid to come too close, even at your worst.

As you move farther from shore, the water slowly travels up your body, submerging your frame. 

You close your eyes as your head is the last thing the water consumes. You feel the water bubbles tickle your skin and elevate themselves up to the surface. 

It doesn’t take long for that familiar burn inside your lungs and that familiar feeling of being gagged by the water to swarm your senses.

Your head jerks up and you let out a loud gasp as you fade into consciousness, slipping into colored imagery instead of just monochrome. 

Waking up felt like hell; your mouth was dry and most of your limbs felt unresponsive. 

Only when you see Ghost curled up on his side, laying on the floor in front of you, are you able to register where you are and what’s going on.

His knees bucked up into his abdomen  with his hands zip tied behind his back and his face battered and bruised. 

Specks of dried blood ran from his scalp down his face reaching his compression undershirt. 

He was asleep.

There was a gentle rise and fall with his chest—you could still hear his labored breaths from where you were. 

It felt colder. 

Your eyes wander down to your left hand that was wrapped in bandages that were stained red, your two fingers missing and replaced with nubs that were uneven from each other.

If your arm wasn’t broken, you could use it to break the leg of the chair and wield  it against the next person to walk through that large metal door that made you wonder if it was life or death upon you.

If your fingers weren’t missing, you could use them to untangle your restraints on your other hand.

You could barely move your wrist—the pain that swells your entire arm makes it nearly impossible.

Ghost stirs on the floor, his body curling into itself further before his legs straighten out. 

“Lieutenant,” you mumble. “What did they do to you…?” 

His eyes flicker to yours. 

“‘M alive, aren’t I?” Ghost says.

His voice is so hoarse and weak—he sounds dehydrated.

“You are.” 

Your eyes close a moment to allow yourself to breathe in the air around you.

The single door breaking up the dull room that held them hostage creaks open on rusted hinges allowing Rolmuth to enter.

Two different men from the day prior push in the same record player and the same rolling metal tray that was stained with your blood. 

“Rise and shine,” one says, his boot meeting harshly with the lower section of Ghost’s back.

 The blonde’s eyes stay intent on the movements of Rolmuth as he lifts up different record sleeves to read their names. He slides one out and places it on the platter.

That familiar sizzle fills the room before the gentle hum of the music begins.

A short gasp leaves your mouth as Rolmuth kicks down your chair by the back stile, your head immediately jerking forward before it slams down onto the cement floor.

He dismisses the two of his men.

Rolmuth’s hand levitates over the tray and he grasps an old tan hand towel, draping it over your face.

You can hear the buckle of Ghost’s pants tink lightly on the floor as he jerks himself. “Fuckin’ bastard!” He yells.

I don’t want to set the world on fire. 

It was going to be okay, you told yourself. You trained for this. Truthfully, you were one of the best swimmers on the task force. You can hold your breath—but if that rag manages to cave in, you’ll most likely panic and lose focus.

I…just want to start a flame in your heart.

“Are you ready for talk, now?” Rolmuth arches over you. 

In my heart, I have but one desire…

Your voice muffled, you call him something along the lines of an asshole and a prick, which is quickly silenced by the pressure of water that smacks you in the face.

And that one is you, no other will do…

Ghost watches the man pour a jerry can of water over your face. His breath hitching in his throat watching your body twist and turn trying to evade from the water. 

I’ve lost all ambition for worldly acclaim

Your body arches up in protest, head jerking side to side as if it would make it any more easier on you.

I just want to be the one you love…

Focus on the music, you tell yourself. You can barely hear your own voice. 

And with your admission…that you feel the same,

Rolmuth’s smile is ear to ear as he continues tipping the canister over your cloth-covered face.

I’ll have reached the goal I’m dreaming of, believe me…

You violently thrust your body, panic surging  through you as you feel water invade and swallow your lungs. 

I don’t want to set the world on fire…

Involuntarily you gasp and choke in more water, you feel your eyes roll to the back of your head.  

I…just want to start…a flame in your heart.

Your throat was burning like scolding lava, your heart throbbing inside your chest threatening to rupture. You don’t dare to make noise. 

You’re gagging, gasping, sputtering. That you can’t handle. But you don’t let yourself cry. Not like this.

I don’t want to set the world on fire, honey,

The music is starting to garble. 

Why is it starting to sound so distorted? You ask yourself. 

I…—you too—uch.  

“Stop, y’ll fuckin’ kill her! Bloody tosser!” Ghost grits his teeth before spitting out words.

Now that you have the chance to think about it, that song reminds you of someone.

I just want to start…

Your grandfather—you’d sit on that circular crocheted rug and listen to that song as him and your grandmother baked apple fritter.

A great big flame…

He loved that woman more than life itself; when she’d started to get sick with bone cancer, he helped her bathe, he helped her eat, get dressed. 

Down in your heart.

Your mother told you about how he had asked her doctor to keep the fact that she only had three weeks left to live just between them. 

You see, way down inside me,

She was still happy. So happy. He wanted to spend those last three weeks with her. He retired from his job and took her to all the places she’d talked about visiting. 

Darling, I have only one desire. 

She passed away, and he spent every day doing all her favorite things. He watered her plants, he baked. He listened to her favorite songs. 

And that one desire is you, 

He adopted a puppy—a beautiful Australian Shepherd which he named after her. Your mom would say that your grandma’s being was reincarnated into that dog. 

And I know nobody else ain’t going to do. 

Would that happen to you too? Who would you want to belong to? What kind of dog would you be? 

A deafening ringing fills your ears, you finally stop fighting. Breathing.

“She’s not movin—“ Ghost wheezes. “She’s not fuckin’ movin’!” 

He was trained for this. He couldn’t break. He couldn’t.

“Enough!” The blonde yells again.

They could crack him, but they can’t break him. They wouldn’t kill her. 

Rolmuth finally puts down the canister and removes the rag from off your face, his body bends over to lift your chair back up. 

Your body twitching, struggling to release the water clogged in your gullet

“Wake up, bitch,” he snaps and his open palm cracks against your cheek. Your eyes shoot open.

Your mouth opens, your strained and bloodshot eyes widen with horror as you vomit out water, sputtering between your lips as you hack and gag. 

The taste of bile is sickening to your empty stomach. 

Ghost calls out your name, catching your attention as you stabilize from your state of stupor. 

“So proud of’ya, Thaye,” he groans. “Y’r strong, ‘lright? We’ll kill these bastards, all of’em.” 

You can hardly spare the man a small nod before your chin is grabbed by Rolmuth’s uncut nails—blood and dirt caked underneath them.

“You tell who you are work for, I consider sparing life.”  Rolmuth runs a blade across your cheek, increasing the pressure slightly to slit your skin—a feeling similar to a paper cut. You moan in pain. “Your friend I can not speak for.”

Blood trickles down from the incise, slowly flaring through your cut and pushing from the barriers beneath your top layer of skin. 

“F…uck…—“ your silenced by sudden metal on your tongue, scraping gently like a threat. 

“I will carve out ur pretty little tongue, cut it in bits, and feed it to you.” Rolmuth coos. “Would you that, yes?” 

“Y’sick fuck, get th’fuck away from ‘er!” Ghost attempts to jerk himself up, the bonding on his ankles not allowing him to, his bruised ribs protesting in pain as he lets out a sharp breath.

Your eyes burn into his, your neck flinching as he slowly pushes the blade farther down your throat, his hand prying your mouth open. 

He chuckles lowly, small “ah’s” leaving him as he slowly opens your mouth farther to allow the tip of the knife farther down. You salivate, drool racing down your chin and over the creep’s knuckles. 

Ghost’s eyes divert from your face to the man’s hands. Disgust laced in his features. 

He swallowed thickly, he could feel his skin boiling. He wasn’t angry. 

Pissed.

He was incensed. 

More than that. 

“G..host…” your slightly muffled voice trembles.

His gaze fixes back on yours, watching as your left eye twitches at each of Rolmuth’s motions. 

“I know, love…J’s look at me, ‘lright? J’s look at me.” 

It presses onto the skin of your tongue, it’s curved edge digging into the fragile skin and tissue causing the metallic taste of iron to taint your sense of taste.

You still bore into your lieutenant’s gaze.

Saliva and blood dribbles down your neck, the sight no doubtedly arousing the male in front of you—his tongue leapt out to slowly trace along his bottom lip.

You might drown in your own saliva at this rate.

Your lieutenant purses his dry and cracked lips, but he doesn’t look away. 

He takes the blade out of your mouth, rubbing it against the cloth of his pants to clean it. 

Rolmuth raises the knife and pierces your thigh, the feeling of cold metal hitting you first along with the shock, the sound of cloth tearing.

“I want names!” The man hollered, spit landing on your face just below your eyes.

Ghost watches your pupils shrink, his own eyes widening and slowly shifting to your thigh. 

An intense tingling sensation swarms your entire leg, then a heat. A heat that felt unbearable. 

Ghost searches for your eyes again, his mouth moving, though you can’t hear anything he says.

He broke through skin and sinew, twisting the knife inside of the laceration.

“Talk, bitch!” Rolmuth’s eyes darken. 

It takes a few moments for the pain to surface, and when it does, it’s scorching. Your jaw slacks open as your eyebrows pinch together, a shrill whimper escaping you. 

“Don’ look, don’t.” Ghost pleads with you. Even he was struggling not to look at your thigh.

It didn’t take eyes to tell there was blood bubbling from the wound and dripping down your pants and trembling leg. 

A narrow vertical split across the midsection of the flesh of your thigh. Your eyes didn’t leave Ghost’s.

Was his hair bleached? It seemed like such an unnatural shade of blonde. Brunette underneath. He must bleach it himself.

Rolmuth gave it one more twist, releasing a thin, raw, scream from your throat. 

Tears stung the corners of your eyes, but you wouldn’t let them get the satisfaction of that from you. Especially not you. 

“They’ll b’ere soon, Thaye.” Your lieutenant says.

“You are weak,” Rolmuth spits. “You will break.” 

He rolls his shoulders before gripping your pointer finger and holding a jab saw above it.

Your eyes flicker to Rolmuth’s and Ghost calls your name. 

“I want a name!” Rolmuth’s scream makes your head spin. 

“Fuck y—“ your voice is replaced with a high pitched cry followed by gasps and whimpers as Rolmuth’s new blade carved through sinew and bone. He lifts up your finger against the blade and with one swift movement, your finger falls onto the floor. 

“I’ll fuckin’ kill you, y’bastard!” Ghost’s lips twitching in pain mixed in with a whole lot of anger. 

Your body jumps up, an animalistic noise escaping your throat as you swing your head back and wince loudly, the pain in your thigh 

“Name! Or I take another!” Rolmuth yells just inches from your face. 

You couldn’t handle it—your vision is swarmed by black spots and your head is killing you. Your body is in so much pain you feel so much, but so little all at the same time. 

When your eyes roll to the back of your head and lolls, you can faintly hear the man yell ‘shit’ before you’re unable to comprehend what is happening.

Everything fades into a subtle blackness, and the last thing you hear is Ghost yelling your name. Screaming your name. 

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

DAY 4

You wake up to the sound of loud groaning and thumping. 

It takes you a few moments to register that you’re awake and you can actually move. 

So you do—you upheave your head and take in the light spilling in the room from between the iron barred vent. 

It stings your eyes, blotchiness surrounding your peripheral before you’re able to adjust to the light. 

Ghost is on the floor taking blunt forces into his lower abdomen—the blonde sputters out a cough as his entire body jerks at the contact. 

The man grips the neckline of Ghost’s shirt, lifting his head from off the ground as thick red paste runs down his split and swollen lips.

His legs lift themselves up in an attempt to propel his body up and out of the man’s grasp, but he falls flat as his neck is slammed back onto the cement. 

Before Ghost can gasp for air the moment his neck is released, a closed fist slams into his cheekbone, knocking the wind out of him. 

“Stop,” you rasp. “Let’im go…”

Ghost is twitching on the floor, blood spilling from his mouth. His entire face is caked in red flakes and black and blue blemishes—the entire left side of his face is fattened with knots.

“No…” you snarl.

The man whirls his head and glares at you, an amused expression of disbelief stamped onto his face.

“No?” He says cockily.

The man paces towards you and cuts off your bindings, bundles your hair in his fist and drags you over towards Ghost, you whine and raise your unbroken arm to try and pry his hands off, but he only tugs harder. 

He pulls your hair up until you're positioned on your knees, chin raised up and neck tilted.

You hear a click, it wasn’t a gun. 

He unsheathed a pocket knife. It was a fairly decent size. You were tired of seeing knives.

Ghost watches the man’s hand lower to your abdomen, fingers pirouetting across your delicate skin, it sends a shivering fear throughout your entire body like electricity. 

“Please…” you meekly whisper, attempting to pull yourself away, your body is so weak from lack of use. Your voice came out as a croak. 

His other hand holds a knife that teases the neckline of your shirt. 

Ghost thrashes against the floor attempting to wrestle out of his bindings. “I’ll skin you,” Ghost’s voice is hoarse.

“How would you feel If I just…” His fingers trace along the scars on your stomach. “Touch her, ever so lightly…Right in front of you?” The man snickers.

You yelp as his knife cuts a thin line down your blood-stained neckline until your cleavage is exposed. 

Tears surface the corners of your eyes. 

No, no, no, no…

“Keep y’r eyes on me,” Ghost whispers weakly. “That’s it, love.”

You feel your shirt tear entirely down the middle and fall down your arms, pooling around your wrists. 

Your vision blurs and your mouth starts to feel dry, teeth chattering in unison with your trembling lips. 

When the knife rests over the center gore of your bra, your breath hitches in your throat and tears bead down your cheeks. 

The blade slices through the cloth and immediately your hand rises to cover your nude chest.

Ghost’s eyes stay locked with yours, one half-closed from being beaten beyond his control.

You feel his facial hair scrub raw against your skin, sipping in your fear and vulnerability.

“Team Delta en route for seaside, Corbin, what’s your report?” 

His radio.

The man pauses and takes his hand off the midline of your ribcage to grab his radio.

“Delta, this is Pooch on standby—hostages are stable, the woman is awake.” 

You release a choked sob, causing the man to release the talk button and bash it against the side of your face, sending you straight onto the floor. 

“Thaye…” Ghost croons.

You clutch your chest with your one hand as you feel the right side of your face swell. 

“It’ll ‘b over soon,” you tremble, releasing a shaken breath. “They’ll find..us…”

“Shut the fuck up,” his voice is slicked with spite. “Both of you.” 

“Pooch, this is Delta, rog that. Don’t kill our intel—0-7, signing off.” It crackles.

You lift your head and turn it slightly, blinking causes the pain on your cheekbone to burn like acid. 

“Go to h—“ the radio is bashed into your face again causing your vision to swim and make your head stumble. 

The sound of blood trickling and hitting the floor fills your ears, your left palm flattens against the cold floor. Missing fingers wrapped to keep you alive, not because they care.

He punches the radio into your right eye. You keep your head down in submission.

“You wanna act tough? Get treated like you're tough!” He yells.

His hand tugs your head back—you can see your own blood splattered against the communicator before you’re met with the same fate.

Ghost watches as the man beats the right side of your face in with the butt of the radio until it’s practically unrecognizable—caked and blistered. Bruising and swelling so tender on your skin. 

He can’t do anything.

He can only watch. 

You whimper and cry, hissing through your tears while your jaw clenched, the radio mercilessly landing on the same spot allowing more blood to cascade from the wound. 

The last hit is the hardest, sending your numbing cheek staggering back down onto the ground, you wheeze. 

If Ghost’s hands weren’t tied behind his back, the man standing above the two of you would be a mangled corpse. He knew that. 

Your breaths are shallow and rasped. It feels like hell to breathe—to move your face. Crimson just pools beneath you as Pooch flicks off your gore from his communicator.

He grunts in disgust as specks splatter onto the ‘cleaner’ side of your face. Like water spots on a windowpane or glass shower door. 

When you hear the door slam behind you, it makes you flinch. 

Your body has broken into tremors now, maybe it’s not tremors—but your spasming. 

And your hand is still covering your scar-ridden chest, but you feel like you might pass out again. 

Ghost’s own breaths are ragged—you wonder if lunderneath all the blood on your face if you’d look just like him. 

“Sleep,” he rasps. “I’ll watch ya.” 

You relax as much as you possibly can, your single eye twitching shut in favor of your other one. 

All you’ve had these past four days was sleep, yet it didn’t replenish. It didn’t make you feel any less tired or exhausted. 

With your bones feeling brittle and sore, it was hard to shift yourself into the mindset of falling asleep, but you tried. 

You felt Ghost scoot himself towards you, possibly just to shield your unclad chest and give you a taste of comfort. 

Your eyelids feel heavy with pain and fatigue, your body stilling as you allow yourself to sleep.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

DAY 5

Your hands are tied above your head, a gag set between your teeth which you gnaw at in an attempt to drag it down to hang around your neck.

Ghost is a few feet away from you—both of you hanging on metal piping with rope around your wrists. 

Ghost’s boots were on the floor, he was too tall to hang like you, where you could swing your feet. Did they take your shoes? 

You watch the steel poker ignite in the industrial furnace; the end of it glowing all shades of red, yellow, and orange. 

It was two different tools Rolmuth was holding, now. They had two different symbols on each one that you were unfamiliar with. He was choosing.

Rolmuth spun the branding irons with his thumbs and pointers, chuckling dryly to himself as he approached Ghost, setting one of them back inside the boiler.

His boots were so loud, they echoed off the walls of the room they were in—It looked like some sort of boiler room, but you weren’t too sure. 

You two must’ve been in a warehouse of some sort. 

Rolmuth has to look up to look your lieutenant in the eyes. 

When they’d woken you up, they threw you a gray tank top, so you weren’t as exposed as you were before. 

The Hindi man pulls down Ghost’s gag. 

“460 degrees of heat on metal…” he says as he lifts the hem of Ghost’s shirt. “You talk, I spare you more scar.” 

“Go fuck y’self, y’manky twat…”  the blonde snapped.

An open mouthed yell left Ghost’s throat as the metal is lanced firmly over the middle of his stomach, tugging at his flesh and skin.

Ghost’s eyes squeeze shut as loud whimpers escape from him, ragged winces. 

“Stop!” you cry.

God, you’d never heard him in so much pain. You never thought you’d ever hear him scream in agony, in physical pain. 

You're forced to watch the smoke trailing up the rod, Ghost’s back arching in tormentation. 

“You piece of shit!” You twist and turn your body causing the rope to shred through layers of your skin. 

His muscles tense and his knuckles go white from how hard he’s gripping the pipelines holding him up. 

Rolmuth removes the metal from Ghost’s skin—it could be described as a flesh eating parasite; the way that his skin sticks to the rod as if it’s desperate for that contact.

A hitched gasp manages to make its way past his lips as he feels a tinge of relief, his body twitching and pained moans and hisses filling your ears.  

You jerk your body weight down, kicking your bare feet until you feel the metal start to dent. 

Rolmuth sets the iron back onto the furnace over a rack, he’s bending over to adjust the heat, the fire is roaring.

You tug your arms down and you let out a strained whine at the feeling of your wrists starting to bleed.

When the metal gives in above you, it creaks and drops you down.

You slide down the metal and Rolmuth’s body swings up from fidgeting with furnace levers and knobs. 

His arms are immediately reaching for his gun while you lift your legs up and kick the heels of your feet into his shoulder blades, hard. 

Rolmuth’s head slams back into the brick base of the furnace, he lets out a groan, his form dragging down and slumping against the floor.

Your body lands harshly on the ground, an excruciating response coming from the back of your head.

Black spots cloud your vision as you slowly try to regain your composure. Your vision is blurring, everything sounds far away and echoed. 

The gun slides across the floor.

Your jaw clenches as you pick up your heavy head, your eye searching for the gun regardless of the pounding that distracted you.

When you spot the muzzle, you lurch yourself forward and reach, finger grazing the trigger guard before your pulled back by your hair, earning a yelp to leave you.

Your lungs refuse to cooperate in your chest as your scalp is nearly torn from your head. 

Rolmuth growls with clenched teeth, pulling you away from the gun and towards him as he kneels himself over you.

This was the first time you were able to get a decent look at his face—if it weren’t for your messed up eye—but you only can see the rage dispersed over his face as his hands gather around your throat.

He slams your neck down, adding onto the pain thrusting through the back of your head.

“Bitch!” Rolmuth snarls.

You suck in your gag, causing panic and adrenaline to rush through your entire body as your binded hands thrash and attempt to push him off of you. 

You duck yourself, bend your leg and kick it against his ankle to heave yourself up with all your weight upwards. 

He exclaims in his native tongue, some of which you can only recognize as insults and swears.

Ghost calls your name weakly.

Rolmuth’s hands slip from your throat allowing you to breathe and sit yourself on top of him, you tug your body and maneuver yourself until you're behind the man, pulling the knot of your bindings against his throat and crossing them over. 

His neck lifts to try and give himself access to air, though you tug and hold his waist steady between your knees. 

You yell with your clenched teeth, the fabric between your lips making the muscles in your jaw ache. 

Him wheezing beneath you, fingernails clawing at your split and abused hands before he shifts.

“Thaye!” Your lieutenant hollers.

Rolmuth’s hands reach down to his vest to pull another gun, aiming it at your foot and pulling the trigger causing you to let out an agonizing scream, pain racking your entire body. 

The bullet shoots clean through, you knew that for sure. It was too close. 

Your grip on his neck loosens so you can slap the gun out of his grip.

In three quick motions, Rolmuth’s back atop you with his hands grasping your hair again, dragging you towards the furnace until your face is close enough to feel the heat radiate onto your face.

You feel the thickness of gore engulf your foot and drip down your toes onto the floor. 

Your grunting, muffled, and loud breaths make your head pound as the man squeezes your jaw and forces your neck towards the mouth of the forge. 

“No…” you snarl with bared lips, kicking your legs regardless of the pain, throwing yourself towards him to keep yourself as far from the flames as you could.

Rolmuth laughs dryly accompanying his guttural breaths, his body stretching yet keeping a firm hold on your mandible as he takes hold of one of the branding rods. 

“No!” Your eye widens and your hands reach up to push his face away from you.

“Fuck!” He growls, shaking his face to keep your hands off as he pulls the iron out of the furnace.

He wastes no time pressing it into your side regardless of the thin tank covering your skin, and the cloth does absolutely nothing in regards to the sudden gut wrenching sensation that makes it feel like your entire body was drenched in gasoline and set on fire with a blowtorch. 

Your cry is deafening to the ears and the smell of burning charred flesh is quick to fill your nostrils. You feel and you hear your skin bubble up, sizzle, then pop, then stick to the metal and entangle itself around the start of the handle taking the appearance of something similar to chewed bubblegum. 

Even trembling and shaking, you manage to find a way to position your hands so you can plant your thumbs into his eyes and use some of the only fingers you have left to press them into his eyes, causing the man to yell. 

Still, your screams aren’t matchable as your fingernails gouge into his sockets and claw at his eyelids, shredding through flesh easily as blood began to dribble down his face and over his lips like tears. You still manage to scream louder in anger than the man can in pain. 

Your fingers shove deeper into the grooves of his eye sockets, the organs are pushed so far back that blood sprays across your face and he finally releases the rod.

It clangs to the floor, and he starts sobbing in his native tongue, convulsing hands reaching up towards his red-painted face as you pull your gag out.

“Go to hell,” You seethe wobbly as you lift yourself and steer yourself behind him, taking Rolmuth by the nape of his neck and forcing himself inside the mouth, against the grills inside the furnace. 

He shrieks and cries, moving erratically as his face is engulfed by the fire. Slowly, yet quickly, his skin is shredded by the blazes and the bottom rows of his teeth are exposed. 

It takes him a while to stop making noise before you pull his head out and throw his twitching body onto the ground, then you finally allow yourself to lean against a boiler tank and take pressure off your injured foot.

You propel yourself off the tank by your palms and drag yourself regardless of your ankle to the edge of the furnace, turning yourself around to scrape the rope against the brick.

A gasp releases from your throat at the sudden relief around your wrists, the rope falling to the ground. 

“Ghost?” You lift your head. 

“‘M here.” He replies. 

“I don’t know if I can get up.”

“I know you can,” Ghost urges. “Find…” he sputters up blistering coughs. 

“…Fin’a knife, ‘n get me outta these binds, yea?” He huffs. “‘N I’ll do the rest.”

Your eye blinks as you grip the ankle of Rolmuth’s corpse, pulling him toward you to start flipping up his vest and pant pockets.

He didn’t have a knife on him. 

Got to be fucking kidding me.

A door is swung open, a singular set of footsteps stepping into the room.

Your eye searches for a weapon—anything that can deal enough damage.

A metal fire poker is hanging off the wall to your right, so you swing your elbows back and lift yourself up by the palms of your hands.

As quick as you can, you hoist yourself up by using the support of a metal deaerator, your arm sliding against it as you limp and throw yourself towards the wall creating a subtle thud. 

“What the fuck…?” A man’s voice murmurs.

You silently curse to yourself under your breath as you grab the fire poker off the nails that were being used to hold it up.

Using the heel of your injured foot, you shuffle against some shelving, looking between the gaps for the man inside the room. 

He’s holding a Fennec, nothing you haven't dealt with before. 

He’s twenty seconds to your left, carefully skimming along the floor with his eyes down the sights of his gun.

You pinch a metal screw off of one of the shelves and toss it into the corner closest to you to lead him your way. 

“Fuck,” the younger male jumps slightly. He looked young and lanky, at least from his physique.

When you hear his boots start to rub against the floor, you lift your head slightly to watch him turn towards your direction. 

Your fingers and nubs flex on the thin metal, it’s hard to gain a clear grip.

The man comes around the corner of the shelves, the sounds of his tactical gear shuffling alerting you when he gets closer until his helmet is in sight.

You immediately thrust the fire poker into the gap below his collarbone and into his scapula, dampening the fabric of his undershirt in that area as it rips. 

Out of panic and shock, his finger grips the trigger and you have to jerk him away before any of his bullets are able to hit you.

“Please!” The boy pleads, gun dropping to hang around his neck as he grips the caps of your shoulders. You only glare at him before plunging the fire poker further into that same spot until it tears and mauls through his back, sticking out on the other end.

He’s gasping out, but it’s almost like no air is exhaling, mouth held agape as his grip on your shoulders releases. 

You shout and cry out at every thrust until the hole carved into his skin is able to suck in the hooked tip. 

The male’s head falls and you allow his body to slump down and forward, the metal rod holding his stilled body up. 

You heave dryly and press a palm on the wall to support yourself, your foot is killing you—literally.

The blown out flesh and puckered skin walls made you want to barf. You could stick a finger through your foot and feel your pulsating muscles just hug around your finger. 

You lean down and unclip the knife holster from the gun belt, unsheathing it then hobbling around the shelving towards Ghost who was still hanging from the pipes. 

“Okay, okay…” you breathe sharply, struggling to lift yourself up onto the brick platform of the furnace, nearly stumbling off before you catch your footing. 

“Keep still,” you say, arching your hand to start cutting at his bondings until he’s dropped onto the floor.

Ghost lets out a loud groan, his arms clutching his ribs. They’d broken one of his ribs, maybe multiple. You both were in bad shape.

It takes him a moment to get himself off the floor as you seat yourself and scoot off of the hearth. 

He grabs both of the hand guns that had been dropped onto the floor, holding one out to you.

You unclip the magazine, then snap it back into the chamber at the sight of one missing bullet. 

It was the same one that Rolmuth used to shoot your foot. 

Ghost’s hand rests on your cheek, gently. “Y’did good, ‘lright?” He spoke with a lilt. 

“Can y’walk?” 

“A little.” You nod. “Fuckers took my shoes…” 

He lets his hand fall to check his magazine, then he nods. “‘Don’t know if I can carry ya with m’ribs.” 

“It’s okay, just don’t wait for me.” You reply.

His eyebrows furrow. “Bloody hell, Thaye, I ain’t leavin ya.” 

“I know but—“ 

“No.” 

Ghost’s half-lidded eyes glare at you, giving you all the warning to stop.

“Stay behind me.” 

He starts walking towards the door, slowly peeking it before leaving with you behind him.

Walking hurt—even while you only applied pressure to the heel on your injured foot, the muscles contracted and the pain was torturous. 

One man entered the hallway holding a box from another room, which Ghost took care of by shooting a single bullet between his eyes.

The box had opened and dropped glass equipment, alerting four others who had been lingering in the room he came from.

They yell and communicate in their native tongue, one sticking his head out of the door threshold to aim his rifle.

Ghost fires his pistol and the man swings his head back into the room, still opening fire into the hallway.

“Fuck!” You hiss, dodging the bullets and moving quickly behind a filing cabinet, lowering yourself down. 

Ghost’s back presses against a door to your right, pulling himself out of cover to fire at the man.

Two bullets miss and the third causes his head to fling back and smear blood as his body arches and falls down to the floor.

You lift your head and aim your pistol, gasping when your throat is suddenly hooked back from behind you. 

When the combatant turns you around and attempts to make a slash at your throat, you manage to extract yourself by gripping his wrist and snapping his elbow out of place, the sounds of bones snapping as he yells.

His knife drops from his hand and you scramble to pick it up from the floor.

You groan as his boot digs into your bandaged hand before you're able to pick it up, then his hand grips your neck to lift you up.

He wraps his arms around you and squeezes you, locking his wrists over each other at your back. You clench your teeth and jerk violently in his grasp.

Ghost is fighting four other men, locking them in the crook of his elbow and smashing their skulls between the doors.

The man holding you in position crushes you in his grasp even with his broken arm. He tries dragging you into another room.

“Let me the fuck go,” you gasp, causing the man to laugh. 

“You will regret ever trying to leave your room,” he utters. 

You breathe a moment, heart pounding through your chest as you swing your head into the side of his neck and sink your teeth into his skin with all the strength in your jaw. 

Crimson liquid seeps into your mouth and down the front of your neck as you yank out the flesh of his throat. You spit out the skin and blood, wiping your mouth and tongue against the skin of your arm as the man’s grasp loosens

His shoulder blades and chest are glistening in red, gore spurting out of the torn spot in his throat as his body stumbles and he’s gargling on his own blood trying to speak.

“Fuck you…” You shutter weakly, eyes slowly skimming down to the knife lodged inside your waist. 

Shit.

He must’ve stabbed you before lifting you up, your adrenaline pumping so fiercely you couldn’t feel it until now.

You stumble on your feet slightly, shaking hands lowering to wrap around the handle and pull it out of the slit.

The runnel of red paste turns into a thick stream down as it drenches your tank top. 

You lift your head slowly and throw the knife overhead across the hallway, hitting a man who’s pointing a handgun at the back of Ghost’s head. 

It’s blade spades into the back of his skull and makes his body wriggle down onto the floor.

“Ghost…!” You gasp and press your open palm over your soaking top and open laceration. 

Ghost steps over both legs of a bloodied man before shooting him dead and advancing towards you.

“Shite…” He huffs, gently removing your hand and placing it back after gaining a clear inspection.

His hands grip the hem of his shirt and roughly tear at the fabric creating a long strip, then he moves your hand aside again to tightly secure it around your wound. 

You hiss and groan, hand gripping his shoulder as he tugs and pulls at your body while tying the knot of the fabric. 

“I’s ‘lright.” Ghost mollifies as he scoops his arm underneath your armpit.

It offers you some support as he guides you both out towards a staircase.

It wasn’t a warehouse—you and Ghost were just in a basement that was turned into a meth lab. 

Boxes and boxes full of lab equipment scattered along the floors. 

You’d never seen such a big basement, one with torture chambers and stonework rooms. 

Hell, in the corner of the room with all the steel liquid tanks and chemical barrels. 

A woman is in bright blue hazmat coveralls and a chemical mask standing on top of a metal stool. 

Ghost raises his pistol and you lower it slightly with your palm, his eyes glaring at you with his head kept facing forward. 

“You can’t miss, we don’t know what corrosives are in these tanks. Is it worth it?” You keep your voice low, personal between the two of you.

He doesn’t reply, instead he looks forward, then squeezes the trigger and picks the woman off by shooting her in the side of her neck.

You swallow thickly as her body spasms on the ground, the stool getting caught in her ankle as crimson fluid rises and bubbles inside of her mouth. 

Ghost guides the two of you up the cobble stairs, one hand dragging up the wall and the other across your lieutenant’s wingspan.

Your eyes flash at the sudden two objects being thrown down the stairs, the sudden silence as they roll down step…after step…after step before Ghost is swinging you up into arms and yelling.

He’s breaching himself through the door, into open fire before the staircase you had come up from explodes into the emitting heat compressed air and blasts behind the two of you sending you both flying forward. 

Smoke engulfs the room, giving both you and Ghost coverage to get behind cover.

You're pulled by the back of your shirt behind a deep freezer, bullets flying and hitting the metal.

“Fuckin’ pricks got us pinned!” His head lifts over to fire at three of the men who have ballistic shields covering those firing LMGs behind. “‘N I’ve got four left.”

You can’t see through the thick smoke—you can’t breathe while wheezing into the crook of your elbow. “Seven,” you inform him. 

“Cover me,” Ghost grabs your arm for a moment, letting go and serving around the freezer. 

You follow behind him with a raised pistol, shooting off at any glares you're able to see through the fumes.

Six…Five…

A man steps out from cover behind a wine cabinet, but before he can fire his rifle, you pop him in the eye.

Four…

Ghost quickly crouches down and shimmies the rifle out of the corpse’s grip, grabbing at a magazine and stuffing it into his vest he’d managed to keep.

You groan and push over a bookshelf behind Ghost once you’re both out of the smoke. He takes aim and opens fire at three men, blowing holes in their chests before he rams into the fourth with a loud yell and slams down the stock of his assault rifle into his face until his teeth and nose are finely pressed into the persian rug.

You finish off two more who try to walk through the threshold of the room, turning your head over your shoulder at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Two…

You jerk yourself away before you get slugged by a riot shield, ascending yourself and shoving your firearm past the barriers of his lips from behind. You pull the trigger and his head flings as the bullet rings out and creates a sizable hole in the back of his head.

One…

Before his body hits the tile, you take hold of his riot shield and deflect the hail of gunfire from the individual who came emerging from the threshold corner.

You walk forward until his clip is empty to drive the shield into his vest-covered chest, stunning him so you can push it aside and fire your last shot into the underside of his jaw. 

Zero.

Bullets continue spraying throughout the entirety of the house while you make sure you don’t pass out from the amount of blood you’ve lost.

You grab the TAQ-V from off the floor and click a new magazine into it, shoving a spare into your back pocket before pushing into the same room as Ghost.

He’s piling bodies on the floor, wrestling for dominance over a knife. 

You fastdraw another handgun you’d grabbed off of one of the bodies and shoot the man in his knee cap to allow Ghost to gain the upper hand and pierce the man’s temple with the weapon. 

“Thanks,” he says gruffly. 

You nod softly, inhaling sharply as you feel wet blood pool around your uninjured foot. 

They took your shoes for no reason, like they had a use for them.

Maybe it allows you to move around more quietly, but it still disturbed you that they took the time to even peel off your socks. 

“What intel did y’know that we didn’t?” His chest is against yours, head craning down to keep the conversation between the two of you.

“Lieutenant, we don’t…” You pause a moment, your head spinning. 

Hunger, thirst, the cold, the blood loss. There was so much holding you hostage and you weren’t even able to comprehend how you were still standing—limping.

“Well, Seargant?” His voice is low, still holding the same husky British drawl.

“We don’t have the time for this, for now—“ Ghost shoves you aside before you can finish, raising the muzzle of his rifle to open fire on the men entering the room.

“Fuckin’ riot shields!” He pulls you behind a flipped over tattered blue couch that had already gone through its fair share of bullets.

A bullet flies and hits the side of the couch a hair’s breadth from your face. 

“Goddammit,” he curses while replacing the magazine in his gun.

The men brandishing shields push further.

When one reaches close enough, you run in front of the shield and grab the sides before he crashes into you. 

You turn him until his body is vulnerable to Ghost, your teeth ground into each other.

“Ghost!” You yell to catch his attention, head snapping in your direction to fire a single round into the back of his head.

You throw the body off of yourself and yank the riot shield to cover yourself, ducking your head as you recoil your fist and punch one of the men baring LMGs hard twice in the jaw.

You thrust the shield into the next, throwing it into his abdomen as he topples, finishing him off by shooting him down in the chest.

One turns with his M4 raised, but you turn your gun around and bash the stock into the base of his chest, then again into his cheek, swiping your leg across the floor and knocking him down then picking his head up and slamming it down on a thick shard of glass sticking upwards to finish him off. 

Ghost drops the last body, finishing off a magazine into his vest and throwing the weapon aside. You toss him another one, which he catches with ease.

“We’ll force upstairs, look f’r our shit, ‘n leave.” He says as he picks up a frag grenade from off a vest.

“There should be Skimobiles somewhere around here, the ones they were using in the FFO,” you nod.

“A’right,” he groans while rolling his shoulders. “On my mark.” 

He trudges past bodies until he’s at the threshold of the staircase, stepping up slowly with the grenade in one hand and his gun in his other.

You follow behind leisurely, eye down the scope of your rifle. 

He pulls the clip and tosses it up, arm stretching behind to press his hand against your shoulder blade. 

“Oh shit—grenade!” A man yells from upstairs before detonation. 

“Go!” Ghost immediately backs up off the wall and skips over two steps into the corridor, prefiring as he loops around a wall.

There’s already bodies and limbs splayed across the room from the combatants who were hit by the frag.

Your back rubs against the wall as you lean to shoot down the hallway, whirring bullets firing past you.

After a few back and forths between staying flat against the wall and leaning to fire off your gun, bodies drop and you’re able to progress down the hall. 

Ghost is somewhere on the opposite side of the house, you still hear heavy gunfire.

You pause at the sight of another man at the end of the hallway and you recognize him immediately.

The look in his eyes and the scruffiness of his face made your lips stretch in almost the most feral look.

Corbin, that was his name. Callsign ‘Pooch’.

Anger burns in the depths of your lungs and stomach as you grip the wall for support, lunging yourself forward to lift your feet over each body that was littered across the hallway floors.

Sweat ran down the sides of your face and splotched down around the neck of your shirt with the blood.

You watch his face twist into a wolfish grin as he slings his gun over his shoulder and walks towards you. 

“Alright, sweetheart.” He purrs. 

White noise fills your ears.

All you can see through the glossy shine of your eyes is the man who humiliated you in front of your superior. 

All you can see through the blinding red rage is the man who beat Ghost and cracked his ribs, forcing you to watch him retract and twitch at every fleeting fist. 

Even the hail of gunfire is silent in your ears as you drag your injured foot. Everything sounds underwater, everything feels dull.

His fist intersects and meets with your cheekbone causing your head to shift to the left and your body to stumble where you stand. 

You grip his wrist and divert his second punch by lifting your arm and thrusting your knee roughly into his thigh to tamper his movements.

He groans, with grim chuckles following after. “I’m going to enjoy every last second of this,” he coos.

Your body shivers in disgust as you slide your fingers down to your waist, priming the knife stuffed beneath the hem of your shirt. “Go fuck yourself…” you hiss.

His eyes flicker down to your hand and his boot immediately connects with the middle of your torso, sending you across the floor with a loud thud.

Pooch steps between your legs and lifts your upper body by the neckline of your shirt, his knuckles slamming down to beat on your already swollen face. 

Drool and blood pour from your mouth, a strangled gasp leaving you at every punch before he releases you harshly back down onto the floor. 

Your eyes are rolling to the back of your head, the pressure and swelling in your face and head being all too much for you.

A boot is savagely kicked into the lower pit of your abdomen, making you gag on air.

“Get the fuck up.” Pooch spits. 

You clutch your stomach and turn, slowly feeling for the knife, then quickly lifting the edge trimming of your tank top and grasping the handle, pulling it out and sweeping your leg around and behind his ankles to knock him off to the side.

He yells out swears as you level yourself over him, his legs kicking out to make your chest rest on the soles of his boots. 

Both of your hands grasp the handle of the knife making it easier on your lack of fingers. His hands grip your forearms as you cry out and try forcing the knife down on him.

He kicks his legs up and backwards, upending you over him and sending the knife flying. 

You hiss and give yourself no time to recover, flipping on your stomach and army crawling with your forearms to grab the knife.

He topples atop your body, planting a piercing slap across your face before reaching for the knife and propelling it downwards into you.

Before you’re able to block, the knife breaks through the skin in your stomach, your hand managing to grab his wrist before he’s able to gut you open.

You seethe and let out a sharp whine followed by a croaked cry, your other hand circling his wrist in an attempt to push him away. 

Quickly, you roll your body off to the side and let go of him, causing the knife to pierce into the wood flooring as you grip a console table to succor yourself up.

Corbin abandons the knife and flings himself upwards, swinging his gun into his arms. 

“I’m done playing games.” 

You advance on him, grabbing the rifle and pushing it into his chest before he can aim it at you.

One of your hands grip the upper hand guard while the other grips the bolt and holds the muzzle up.

You yank his body over towards the window behind you, turning your body then grabbing the man by the back of his hair and smashing his head through the glass.

It shatters from contact and leaves cuts and shards in his skin, a loud yell clawing its way from his throat.   

His finger grips the trigger and bullets roll out into the floor as you pull his head back.

You pull the rifle sling from off his shoulder, tossing it aside and disarming him from the X12 tucked into the back of his pants.

He growls at every tug of his scalp as you shoot him in the back of the leg and force him onto his knees.

A loud wail echoes the hallway from the man below you.

 “Shut your fucking mouth,” you snap.

“You don’t get to scream.”

“You don’t get to cry and whine like a little bitch.”

There’s no remorse in your voice, no sense of mercy for the man being held on his knees and whimpering.

You smack the magazine onto the base of his nose, blood dripping it’s way down his nostrils as a struggling noise spills from his lips.

“You…fucking….” he chokes on his own words. 

His entire body violently trembles at the tortured scream he releases as you squeeze the trigger again, shooting Pooch in his shoulder then proceeding to stick your thumb into the ravage wound harshly.

“Bitch! Fucking bitch!” He strains and pants like a dehydrated dog trying to jerk away from you.

You replace your finger with your foot, lowering his back against the floor as you press your toe into the bullet hole.

Another scream tears out of him as you blow another hole into the other side—his chest convulses.

Blood seeps from his mouth, you hold the grip of the handgun with both hands and sob out loud as you empty the entire magazine into his head until his face is unrecognizable to the amount of bullet holes.

You keep pulling the trigger, even as the gun starts to click announcing its out of ammunition.

The entire floor below you is covered in gore; flesh, messings of brains, blood, skin. 

So much.

Your body snaps around as a hand abruptly drapes over your shoulder, your arm raising the gun ready to bash it into the skull of the next man to try and touch you.

“Thaye, Thaye—y’got him! Thaye, he’s dead!”

Someone calls your name trying to snap you of out haze.

Ghost—your eyes soften with glistening tears as he calmly disarms you after deflecting the hit with his forearm, tossing the handgun aside so he can push you into his chest by the back of your neck.

“‘S over, sweet girl.” Ghost says with intonation. “Can’t hurt ya anymore.”

Your eyes are wide with terror, hands bundling your lieutenant’s shirt as you exhale a shaky mewl.

It’s him who releases you first, handing you your custom rifle and radio.

His balaclava is back on his face, along with the skull mask.

“Y’r vest ‘n boots are in the room I came from,” Ghost jerks his head.

You nod softly and shamble towards the doorway in the direction he’d pointed out.

You pause.

A little boy walks out of the threshold—he’s holding a gun far bigger than his head.

Your eyes widen slightly. “Did these men take you from your family?” 

You turn your head over your shoulder to call for Ghost, the sound of a bullet whirring filling your ears.

Ghost wastes no time pulling out his handgun and shooting the little boy in the head before running towards you.

Your right shoulder is screaming at you as time seems to slow down to a crawl. You hear Ghost yell behind you and the gunshot ringing as the little boy falls back and you do too, hitting the ground hard.

The masked man is on his knees in front of you within seconds, lifting your head into his lap.

“Thaye! Thaye, don’t y’fuckin’ die, not now…” He growls, applying pressure down onto your shoulder with both of his gloved hands.

Your lips slant in a tired manner, eyelids feeling heavy. His bloody hand kneads your cheek, smearing gore along your already dirtied skin.

“Fuck! Fuck!” he curses loudly. “Stay awake, love, please…”

God, he was hurting, it hurt to have your head against the burns on his stomach, but he wouldn’t let you die.

“Babygirl,” he says weakly. 

All you can see is an uncleanable amount of red seep and cover your shirt.

Your lungs clutch together inside your chest, labored breaths escaping you with a strained noise.

“I know…I know—keep those gorgeous eyes on me, sweetheart.” He inhales a shaky breath, flipping up your blood-crusted hairs from sticking to your forehead.

You whisper an apology, catching his attention as you grip his waist. Ghost’s eyebrows furrow.

“Don’t. Don’t say sorry,” he says. “You did this, you saved our lives, love.” 

“‘M just finishin’ the job, ‘lright?” His split and bloody lips find a place on your temple, planting a raw and long kiss to your throbbing skin.

“…’least I got to see your face before—“ 

Ghost holds you, squeezing your hand as a slight warning. “Don’t talk like that.” 

It was a demand. 

“That an—“ you spur into a coughing fit, blood spraying onto the man’s vest. “…Order, Lieutenant?” 

“Spare y’r energy,” he huffs. 

“Simon—“ you slur.

“Stop.” He snarls.

Your ragged breaths start to stray, causing panic to surge through the man above you.

“No,” he growls, squeezing your smaller hand in his a bit tighter than before. “Don’t, Thaye,” he says through clenched teeth.

Your body falls limp in his lap, the grasp loosening on his shirt making his heart pound through his chest, a painful pounding that felt similar to acid reflux.

“No!” Ghost yells, desperately palming at your tangled hair in panic. “Fuckin’ massacre,” he exhales shallowly.

One arm scoops beneath the back of your knees, the other across your shoulder blades with his hand holding your arm. 

A loud strained groan claws it’s way from his gullet at the sudden pain inside his ribs as he lifts himself up and off the floor. 

His muscles tighten inside his body, a burning sensation in his abdomen as he clutches you close to his chest, feeling your blood seep into his shirt.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

The gentle rhythmic beeping and steady flow of air through your nostrils was something that felt unreal and forced.

You slowly flutter your eyes open to light slipping in between the beige curtains. Your eyes are half-lidded and threatening to close against your will as your bandage wrapped hands rests atop the metal railing on either side of you.  

It smells of strong floor cleaner and hand sanitizer, a scent that is slightly uneasy on you as you slowly slip back into consciousness. 

Your muscles feel tight in your body; pain racking your shoulder and neck as you crane it to take a look around the room. 

The walls are spinning and the ceiling above you is spiraling making you sick to your stomach. 

On the bedside table to your left—closest to the window—there’s flowers. They’re too withered to try and recognize what kinds, shredding to flakes in your fingers when you caress them between your pinky and thumb.

Your hand drags up to pull nasal tubes out of your nostrils. It’s almost as if you’ve forgotten how to breathe air, throat tightening and lips so still from lack of moisture.

There’s a penetrating migraine in the back of your skull as you carefully swing your legs over the side of the bed, the thin baby pink and spotted hospital gown flowing down your sides leaving you slightly exposed in your thigh region. 

Bare and bandaged feet slide along the smooth cold tile, sending chills up your body as you grip the IV stand with your trembling hand, the other holding onto the bed railing for support. 

You groan and strain as you struggle to lift yourself up, propelling upwards with your palm and grip on the stand until your knees straighten and your standing up somewhat decently.

Where was Ghost? Is Ghost alive?

So many thoughts coursed through your head along with the punishing feeling of dehydration. 

You guide yourself using the wheels on the IV stand towards a counter, your hands gripping the handle of the sink and pulling it upward.

A choked moan manages to break from you as you scoop the water in your hands and swill the rich liquid. 

Water dribbles down your chin, which you wipe away before lifting your head to look into the medicine cabinet mirror. 

Your hand rests on the wall in front of you as you heave.

They cut your hair shorter, not too short but enough so that it was comfortable. Your entire right side of your face being bandaged, stains of blood being a faint copper color.

Bandages wrapped around your neck and reached down your shoulder you’d been shot in.

Your hair had been taken care of neatly while you were in a coma, that was obvious.

Ghost. Where?

You grip the IV stand and hobble towards the door, turning the knob and gripping the threshold with your other hand as you step out. 

A nurse pauses in her tracks, rushing to your side in an instant. “How are you up? Your injuries are critical,” she gasps, palm flattening against the small of your back.

“My lieutenant—…my lieutenant…” you say in an undertone.

“You need bed rest, you’ve only just woken up.” Her voice is gentle yet commanding.

“No,” you bark, shuffling out of her hold. “Please take me to him.” 

The woman bites her lip before nodding hesitantly, hand against your back again to guide you towards his room.

It was only a few doors down from you—when the nurse opened the door, allowing you into the room.

You see the back of Ghost’s head facing in your direction, his hair tousled from the bandages wrapping around his head.

“Ghost,” you call.

His head turns from facing the window to facing you, you hear him murmur your name in reply.

“Y’minx,” he breathes. “Hell y’doin’ out ya bed?”

You carefully walk yourself towards him, the nurse holding her hands atop her chest nervously. The sound of the plastic wheels of the stand makes his breath hitch in his throat, the sound of reassurance that you were alive.

“You okay, big man?” Your voice is hoarse from lack of use, but he’s able to that you perfectly.

“D’ya ever worry ‘bout y’self, love?” Ghost asks with a tinge of humor. 

Heavy casting was on his right leg, bandages and patches on practically every inch of his body—similar to you.

“Sometimes,” you smile softly and push strands of his hair out of his face, your heart slightly shatters in your chest at the sight of him flinching at your touch.

Ghost scoots himself over slightly, wincing at the sudden movement.

You seat yourself beside him on the large gatch bed and his hand pushes you down to lay beside him.

“Wait, Mr. Riley—“ the nurse takes a small step forward.

“I’ll ‘b fine,” he grunts.

Her eyes blink slightly as she takes a few steps back, her lips separating to speak though no words come out. She simply turns on her ankles and closes the door behind her.

Ghost secures an arm around your waist, pushing your back flush against his bandaged chest.

Your eyes trace his tattoos and the muscles of his arms, every scar and blemish.

“Where’s the force?” You ask quietly.

“Left recently,” he mumbles back tiredly, pressing his nose into your hair. “Y’smell like pomegranate—got y’self a damn spa crew while y’were out?”

You laugh dryly, breaking into a light fit of wheezes.

“Not too hard, Seargant.” Ghost’s finger tucks a loose strand of hair from your bangs behind your ear.

Your wet bandages on your hands rub against his knuckle as you hold onto his hand, he seems to pay no mind.

You turn your body slightly so you can get a better look at his face. “Odd seeing you without your eye black.” You quip.

His closed eyes open to look down at you. “Mm, might as well see m’down in me knickers then, eh?” He chuckles huskily.

“Very funny,” you roll your eyes lightheartedly. 

You catch his small glances to your lips, his hand leaving your chest to run his thumb down your bottom lip until that same hand is cupping your cheek lovingly.

His eyes narrow, he’s sleepy, but you still catch yourself propping your body up with your elbow and closing the gap between the two of you. 

Instantly, his head cranes and tilts to deepen the kiss, his fingers gently sliding down the side of your face to press his thumb into the underside of your jaw and drag his fingers along the nape of your neck.

Ghost breathes into your mouth, the taste of mint leaf and citrus enveloping your taste buds as his tongue laced over yours.

The kiss was passionate, you feel his eyebrows furrow showing his desperation as you both kissed softly at a gentle pace and motion.

Your eyes flutter open as you feel his warm lips leave yours with a quiet pop, both of you panting lightly with his forehead pressed against yours. Ghost’s eyes are unable to open for a few moments after you disconnect. 

When they do open, your eyes bore into his brown orbs, the dark purple hue circling under his eyes showing his deprivation of sleep.  

When he feels you buck gently back into his groin, he releases a small grunt, lips meeting yours again for a small chase kiss.

“Not like this,” he says quietly. “I’d take you on this bed right here, right now, but y’ve recently waken up ‘n we’re both still in r’covery.” 

You hum in agreement, his hand finding it’s place on your chest once again with the knowledge of your lower abdomen injury.

“‘N to b’honest—‘can barely feel m’damned balls, feels like ‘ve got whiskey dick.” He grumbles, and you bite your lip to suppress a giggle.

“Simon!”

“Don’ you laugh at me, woman.” Ghost lowers his head into the crook of your neck, biting the skin gently 

“My deepest condolences, Lieutenant,” you purr, catching his lips in another kiss when you jerk his head upward with your uninjured shoulder. He growls against your mouth in reaction.

There’s a long yet short line of silence as you turn towards his back again, your legs tangling with his as you hold your lips against his knuckles.

“Y’have no clue how strong you are.” He swallows the knot in his throat as he speaks. “God, Thaye, they…they told me there was a chance y’d never wake up.” 

“Hey,” you hum. “Stop that, I’m here now.” 

His eyes stare blankly at the wall ahead of you, maybe even the same wall you were staring at—if your eyes weren’t closed already. 

“I just don’ know what I would’ve done if I made it outta there ‘n y’didn’t make it with me.” He says. 

“Y’r the reason I made it out with you in the first place. If y’hadn’t pulled that barmy stunt—“ he pauses, and you feel the rise of his chest and the fall as he exhales deeply.

“Y’survived internal bleeding, trauma to the head ‘n eye, two broken ribs, second and third degree burns, asphyxiation, dismemberment, stab wounds and gunshot wounds..” Ghost squeezes his fist tighter against your chest. 

“So did you, Si.” You coo softly. 

“Christ…” he mutters. 

His fingers interlock with yours best they can, regardless of the most of them being numbs on your knuckles, and it wasn't until your hand rested on his chest and rubbed over the raised scars, that he realized he hadn't been touched so gently in nearly eleven years. It wasn't a new feeling, but it was a feeling that he had craved desperately. 

Never had fallen in love before, but he knew you had bad experiences with it—figuring out that your ex-fiancé had cheated on you while on deployment. Someone had to love you, and he was skeptical of it being him, but it was clear you loved him too and now he was scared you’d stop. 

But hearing your gentle breathing as you slipped back into sleep hunched into his form led him somewhere he’d never been. You cleared his mind and cleared away his thoughts. For the first time, he doesn’t want to look away from what he has the ability to feel.

[strawberrysnoopy]

ACT ONE: The Photoshoot, Part Three of Four

prologue, part one, part two. warnings: tobacco, smoking, alcohol use, briefest mention of using alcohol as a coping mechanism, mentions of infidelity (as always), ada slander at times (sorry), texting for a while, leon's a bit of a perv,

author's note: btw I left the husband without a name so there's no overlap on you and your husband having the same name and you live in new york due to the modeling thing. I also try my hardest to keep the reader ambiguous because I realize that skinny, quirky, white girls aren't the only ones that read this series: if there's anything you'd like to recommend or change in the writing to be more reader-friendly, drop in my inbox and let me know! :) thank you guys so much for all the reblogs and 100 FOLLOWERS AHHH!! thank you thank you thank you!

The warmth of your fingers working against his cool and paled skin had him melting like a runny ice cream cone in your hands. His hand was on your hip, rubbing loving circles like he was trying to commit the warm feel of your flesh into his memory. This was the type of life he envisioned when he was younger: married to someone he loved deeply with every crevice of his being. He thought Ada was the person for him, but that was such a costly and emotionally unbalanced guess. "Thank you, honey." You nod in response, applying the rest of the stitching to his busted lip. His hands dare to move a little higher on your hips, squeezing your waist and getting some sick pleasure out of the way your breath stopped in embarrassment. The scene was perfect, just a good ol’ friend taking care of her busted up pal. Leon hated that he couldn’t find you earlier, sooner, before he could even lay eyes on Ada Wong. She had her charms, sure, but there was something about the soft lull of your presence, how gentle you were, how caring you could be with others that had his heart fluttering in his chest. He still can't believe out of all the places he could've met you, it was at a store while you were buying a bottle of wine for yourself and your husband. "Met" would have to be an overrated word in his dictionary. The truth was that Leon had first laid eyes upon you in a magazine. They had released their February shoot that show-cased entrepreneurial photographers on the rise, climbing their way to the top without a care in the world who they scratched on their way there. You happened to be the diamond in the rough, making everyone else's cliche photographs of "lust" or "revenge" or "innocence" themes seem drab. Your theme? Limerence. Beautiful, simmering, and chilling limerence. Your hair was pieced together lazily but curled neatly, wearing simple yet cryptic tops and little boy shorts that lovingly cradled your ass. The rookie photographer that snapped your photos had done a stellar job at making it seem like you were one of those once in a lifetime girls you met in college. He still had the magazine of course, stashed away in the depths of his closet: kept in pristine condition like a filthy little secret he loved to indulge in. "So..." He muses. He feels the little pause in your work, his eyes crinkling with amusement. "How long have you known? About your husband's infidelity?" You've always known. The first? A college girl in the first year of your "official" relationship Bubbly and vibrant and a fucking joy to be around. The kind of girl you see on ABC's 20/20 or some other type of true crime prime-time film. Your husband claimed it was a drunk hook-up. And the first time, you believed him. The second? A school teacher that looked, acted, and talked exactly like you. Maybe she was your long lost twin or some weird rip in the fabric of time and she happened to pop out. He claimed he was mad at you for the way you did laundry. You forgave him a second time, but you'd surely have a knife to his throat the third time.

"A while. It's just like some weird fact I live with, I guess. Like you have some chronic disease and it's something you deal with from time to time." He nodded, bringing your hand up to his mouth and pressing a soft kiss to your palm. He knows you don't deserve that. Nobody deserves that. Yet, he always wondered why you stayed. Your husband was an asshole, although that shouldn't be a term that leaves his lips due to the fact he's supposedly your husband's best bud, but for the sake of doing the holy honor of defending you: he was a cheating dick that didn't deserve to be maritally bound to a woman such as yourself. "Wouldn't you get a divorce? I don't mean to be like...rude or anything but I would've thought that you're the type of woman to leave his ass once he cheats." And you were. Headstrong, confident, and self-assured—he's never seen an insecure model before, or maybe that's some weird stereotype he's made in his head unconsciously. "It's a tough situation." And that's all you have to say about your marriage. He nodded, understanding your reluctance to speak on the subject. He can't say he's any different from you either considering his marriage to Ada, the very reason he can't be with you. Especially so intimately. It’s hard. The safety of it all. Having someone next to you at all times despite the shitty relationship. He knew.

Now the bathroom is silent. You’re still doctoring up his wounds while he sits up on the marble counter-top. He really wants to say something until you step in for him.

“I can’t believe you fucked my husband up like that.” You say, pulling your hands away from his face to find some more antibiotic cream. He hates that he feels his head moving forward to get your hands back on him. Pathetic. He feels pathetic, especially considering he beat the dog shit out of your husband when you graciously invited him into your home.

“I’m sorry—“ He begins, you stop him once more.

“No. Don’t apologize. I was thanking you.” He nods again, finding the motion of moving his head back and forth too repetitive. “So, thank you.”

He boldly takes your hand in his own, squeezing it and kissing the palm—feeling like he’s turning into a crazy man when your fingertips brush against his lower eyelids and cheeks.

“You’re welcome.” He releases your hand from his own, feeling guilty for not saying more to you. He feels as if you deserve more than silence, and to be honest, with everything you've gone through this week, you definitely do. "I know I said it already but I'm sorry for saying that I wanted to—" He pauses, not wanting to be so crude with his wording but throwing caution to the wind as he had already fucked everything up so far. "Said that I wanted to fuck you, that's not fair to you nor your husband."

"It's okay if you do." His heart pulses in his chest at those words. He had expected you to ignore it, maybe slap him if you were really pissed. But you agreed? What the fuck, it's like he's living in a fucking alternate universe. "It's not a crime to find someone else attractive. The only thing wrong is if you act on it." That was true, but it never took from how much he dreamed about you. The times he's jerked himself off while thinking of your gorgeous body on his mind had grown to a disgusting amount. Hell, it's gotten to a point where he doesn't even fight it anymore and Ada being in the house used to stop him, but not anymore. He'll just go up to the bathroom and rub one out with your magazine in hand. "Then I guess I'm attracted to you." Your cheeks flush red at the admission, flaring a brighter color when his hand grips your hip once more. And tighter, too. Jesus Christ, the way this whole situation had been playing out like a steamy porno. First, your husband was gone in the hospital. Second, Leon was brought into your home. Alone. Third, he admitted he wants to fuck you. No, he has to resist. You were right. It's not wrong to be attracted to someone other than your spouse but you had him wanting to act. Wanting to drag you down to the marital bed you share with your husband and fuck you senseless. "So, do you want to stay the night tonight? Considering your car is broken down and everything." You ask, your tone beautiful and raspy like it always is.

Oh, God. He's gonna fuck you.

tags:@heylesamis, @sweetserial, @iloveyousomuch1989, @galactict3a, @m1sery-busin3ss, @ssulfurr, @julia13123, @nic-stars, @stillhavingdaddyissues, @greywardensaywhat, @ressespearlz, @xqlenkdy, @g0rep1ty, @nomorekerkanymor,

[the-kr8tor]

Reporting for duty Captain!

A tasm Peter Parker request for a shy reader who likes Peter but backs out when she wants to talk to him or- OR, (more like and) a reader with w rizz who's known Peter since forever and ever. Who has the same interest in photography as he does?? Works in a photo store??

Cook chef!

*gasp* a peter parker request?! Got you, my love 🫡 happy to oblige.

Pairing: TASM! Peter Parker x fem! Reader/ TASM! Spider-Man x fem! Reader

Tags: use of Y/N sparsely, no specific physical description of the reader, CW food mentions, Love struck Peter, Fluff.

ʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔ

Peter doesn't need to ask around campus for you, he already knows where you are, a perk of knowing you since grade school. He evens his breathing when he finally reaches the worn out doors.

The bells jingle as he enters the old store, yellowed wallpaper greeting him and drab shelves lined with rolls of films, the vintage cameras make up for the boringness of the gray shelves. Ancient posters of movies lined the walls, a time capsule of the early eighties. It's silent inside, no other customer than him.

His sneakers squeak on the linoleum as he walks towards the cashier, expecting to see your smile, your hands occupied with whatever book you're currently (hating) reading. He finds it empty.

Peter's spidey senses don't tingle so he can relax knowing that you're in the back of the store. He jumps over the counter effortlessly thanks to his abilities. Knocking on the door, he hears the muffled sound of your speaker.

“Y/N?”

“In here, Pete—! Wait!!” With a creak, Peter opens the door without skipping a beat. The light from the store filters through the dark room, white covering and filtering out all the red. “No! Close it quick!”

“Oh shit!” He shuts it quickly behind him, too fast and harder than he thought, the wood almost cracks at the sheer force. Wincing, you both mirror each other's expression.

“Pete…” you sigh, closing the distance to check the door, you can't afford to lose a chunk of your paycheck for repairs. But you don't blame him, it's hard to stay mad at Peter especially when he's looking so apologetic at you, almost like a kicked puppy. “You got too excited to see me huh?”

He shuts his eyes with a smile, head falling down, chin atop his chest. He looks exasperated but he did it to hide the blush on his cheeks, hoping that if you manage to glimpse it you'd think it's from the red light.

This won't do, you thought. You missed him too much today just for him to hide his face from you. To remedy the feeling, you grasp his cheek, thumb gently placed right under his eye.

“There you are webhead,” your voice is saccharine, the ruby light bouncing off your face, illuminating your features perfectly. Peter thought he'd melt right on the spot. “Missed me?” In truth, you're the one who misses him most.

He wants to say yes without a second thought but knowing you, you're already aware of his answer. Even though you refuse to acknowledge it. Under all the teasing exterior there's shyness underneath it all, with just one flirty comment thrown your way you'd probably collapse.

Peter finally meets your smiling eyes and for a moment you're the only thing that matters.

With classes and spiderman responsibilities, hanging out with you has been scarce, he needed a fix right away, that's why he came sprinting towards the store immediately after a three hour class and after swinging across town to your favorite deli with his wind swept hair and shirt that definitely needs ironing.

“Not really.” A lie, an awful lie on his part.

“Aww,” you dramatically clutch at your chest, hand leaving his skin to his dismay. “Hear that? You just broke my heart, Parker.”

“D’you even have one?”

“Hey!” You playfully punch his shoulder. “You're the one who ruined my pictures.”

His eyes flick towards the clothesline filled with pictures that just screams ‘you.’ “I can see from here that they're not ruined.”

You click your tongue, hands on your hips, you walk back towards the table. “What are you doing here then, webhead?” Lowering the volume of your speaker, you decide to shut it off when his voice is a much better alternative.

“I feel like I should be offended by that.” Peter stands beside you, hip to hip, arm brushing along yours.

Placing his hand on the small of your back casually, he loops his thumb around your belt loop, pressing softly on your skin. He's done this a hundred times during your friendship but it never fails to wake up the butterflies in your stomach.

“I've called you that numerous times.” Holding the tongs, you carefully place the developed photo in the chemical mixture in the basin, eyes watching the picture pop up slowly.

“Stop being mean, I've come bearing gifts from the deli you like.” His voice is quiet, soft just for you.

“The one that's on the upper west side? Peter, that's really far away.”

“I don't mind, that's what web swinging is for right?”

You scrunch up your nose, Peter has the best seat in the house while he admires your expression.

“And here I thought it was for fighting crime.” You chuckle, pushing the paper further down in the basin. His deep chuckle stops abruptly at the sight in front of him.

Peter's own smiling face greets him and your charisma cracks.

“Oh” you manage to let out with your dry mouth.

You can hear him shudder a breath next to you. The picture is framed perfectly, his face centered in the middle amongst the crowd, zoomed in more like. You clearly avoided having other people in the frame, your main subject was him and him alone.

“...Good picture.” He slaps himself mentally.

“Yep, one of my best, I think.” You say quietly, too quietly. Clearing your throat, you avoid his eyes, “why don't you ready the food? Outside, please?”

Peter shakes himself awake. His skin feels like lava, there's a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. Hands clammy, he nods wordlessly. He awkwardly pats your back before leaving your side.

Walking towards the exit, your back turned towards him, shoulders slouched and tensed. He turns towards you before exiting, “looks like you missed me more, sweetheart.” He's called you that millions of times, all filled with more affection than the last but this one, oh this one he added with so much love that it could stop your heart.

And you think it has.

Peter hears you squeak, a sound he hasn't heard you make since high school when he asked you to dance during the winter formal.

You whirl around, catching sight of his Parker smile, charm oozing out of him that's already gone before you could admire him in the crimson light.

He leaves, shutting the door quickly. Laying his sweaty forehead on the door, he tightly closes his eyes again, feeling like a lightning just struck him and adrenaline coursing through his veins, needing to swing off the extra energy.

Blowing hot air, he takes his clammy hands off the doorknob to take out the food he bought, grinning through it like a mad man.

Meanwhile, you clutch the table with a grip, heart threatening to jump out of your chest, heat in your cheeks as the photo of Peter smiles at you.

Laughing to yourself, you take out his picture to clip it on the clothesline next to the other pictures. You have no idea what to say to him once you leave the room, or do you just stay in the dark room forever? Either way, you're absolutely fucked.

[pangur-and-grim]

okay I’m sharing a sample chapter because I think it’s funny, if anyone is mean I will cry real human tears

Chapter 9

I decided to take seducing the mad sorcerer more seriously.

His odd acts of kindness, listening to me gab about my friendship troubles with Glenda, patching my wounds, the dragon scale, it added up. I mean sure, the guy turned me into a vulture, threatened to pull my teeth out, and implanted my chest with some sort of sick torture device…. but……. hmm, maybe this wasn’t a great idea.

Still, I wanted out of this vulture body. He could transmogrify me. All I needed was a path, connecting between those points, a way to ‘make it worth his while’, as it were.

“My lord,” I squawked over breakfast. The mad sorcerer was having thick-sliced bread with jam, and I was having a squirrel that had gotten trapped in the chimney and only just begun to rot. I’d flown it down to the kitchen to eat with the sorcerer, figuring a lonely guy like him would enjoy a social meal.

“My lord,” I repeated, swallowing the scrap of squirrel intestine that dangled from my beak. “I think you should turn me into a woman.”

The mad sorcerer choked on his bread.

After some spluttering and hacking of breadcrumbs, and indecision on my part as to whether I should be smacking his back with a wing, he recovered enough to answer. “Why in the world…...? Also, you are flinging rat…. particles everywhere, from this point onward you are forbidden from eating indoors. Effective immediately,” he added, as I raced to get in one last beakfull.

“It’s a squirrel, my lord.” I said, wiping my beak on the brick oven I perched on. “They have the fluffy tails, that’s how you can tell.”

“Stop that! Stop that!” The sorcerer rose to shoo me off the oven and, confused, I circled the room and landed on a chair.

“Anyway, so the transmogrification, my lord. I figure since the prophecy is clear about bodily sex, I can swap to the other one while still weaselling out of the whole thing. Pretty smart, right?” I finished wiping my beak on my own back feathers, and then raised a talon to scratch an itch beneath my chin.

“’Thick eyelashes for a boy’…. I suppose you’re right.” The sorcerer seemed deep in thought. “And you are rather disgusting as a vulture.”

“Well, no, I groom regularly my lord,” I protested, “Look, there’s this nipple-looking thing at the base of my tail, see? And I get oil from there and smear it all over the place. Keeps me shiny!”

“Stop flaring your feathers, I do not wish to see it. I will use the needle if I have to, obey my instructions.” The sorcerer kneaded his forehead with a hand, his toast lying forgotten on the table. A trio of the small humanoid kitchen constructs had descended on my squirrel, one carting it away and the other two working with brushes to scrub the scraps of red off the brickwork. I decided not to protest.

“I have given you free reign of this stronghold because, lacking opposable thumbs and any possible allies, the damage you could do is minimal. As a human, the situation changes.” The sorcerer had his forehead lined and serious, but the lack of a solid ‘no’ made me giddy. Time for a sales pitch!

“I could cook and clean! And decorate, my lord, this place is pretty drab. That’s not even getting into the other stuff I could do.” I cocked my head in what I hoped to be a significant manner, vultures not having any eyebrows to raise.

“The other stuff? No, no, no I see that look on your face, please don’t answer, I know exactly where this is going.” The sorcerer’s eye flashed, and another little construct emerged to carry away his toast. Disappointment struck – I’d been hoping the sorcerer would eventually exit the kitchen having forgotten it entirely, leaving the crisp bread available for plundering. But back to selling myself.

“No, see my lord, I reckon I could perform se-“

“Shut up, shut up, please stop talking. Alright, I will turn you into a human woman if you agree to one condition.” The mad sorcerer raised a single bony finger.

“Oh, my lord?” Joy and relief unfolded like a flower. “And what’s that?”

“Please stop trying to seduce me.”

[luveline]

hi babe!! can i request just more boyfriend steve LOL i don't have a specific scenario

you and Steve move in together! ♡ fem!reader | 1k words

You lie on your back in your new apartment with the top of your head touching Steve's. The ceiling is a sad cigarette yellow and meagre light seeps into the room through old venetian shutters. You sneeze for the third time in as many minutes and Steve laughs and lolls his head to the side to look at you with pity. 

"I'll vacuum," he says, starting to sit up. 

"No no no," you protest, grasping at his bicep. "We need a break. You need one. You lifted what must've been a thousand boxes." 

"Maybe not that many." 

"It's-" you sneeze, Steve winces. "It's fine, Stevie." 

"Stevie," he repeats, almost to himself. 

He reaches for your hand and smiles at you, his canine teeth making a brief appearance. 

"I'm so happy," he says. 

You feel the same. It surprises you to hear Steve say it aloud – he's an honest guy and a total sweetheart, but he's not usually so forthcoming with positive emotion. Negative, sure. 

"Me too," you say, forcing your fingers further through his, squishing his knuckles with the force of it. You turn your face to his and wait for a kiss that you don't get. 

He's staring at you like he's never seen you before. 

"What?" you ask, a fond whisper. 

He lifts onto his side just enough to bring his hand to your face. His silence is at once unnerving and adoring, his face fierce but giving away little else. It's hard to describe but you feel more than pretty when he touches you like this. His thumb, his fingertips smooth over your cheek carefully, touch soft as a downy feather. His caressing gives you the same pit in your tummy that his compliments do. A warmth. 

Steve turns his hand. His knuckles rub down your cheek until they find your jaw. 

He moves his hand back and forth and soon you're melted, raising your chin slowly. 

"I'm happier," you declare. 

A flicker of confusion passes over his face. When he realises what you mean he gets mad. "Are you kidding? You think you're happier? I didn't even realise people could get this happy. I'm like, glowing." 

The sun sets, an orange haze descending over all of Hawkins and somehow finding its way into your drab little apartment in the middle of town. 

"Like the sun," you agree. You attempt a joking tone like his own and miss by a mile.

The light from the window kisses him and sets his hair aflame, a halo around his head as he leans over you. 

The moment is disrupted by a telling tickle at the back of your nose. You scrunch up your face and move away from his touch, worried you'll spray all over him. 

"That's it, I'm vacuuming," he says as you sneeze. 

"No!" you protest, sniffling and wiping your nose with your sleeve. "Please don't." 

"You're gonna get sick." 

"No Steve, I'm not. I just need one thing and I'll be all better," you start coyly.

He rolls his eyes. "I can guess what you need."

"Yeah?" 

"'Stevie, are you busy?'" He imitates your voice far from unkindly, a lilting, light murmur. "'Can I have a cuddle, please?'" 

He starts to laugh before he's finished and you giggle thickly, pleased as punch when he finally dips down to kiss you. His smile slides over yours. Chaste, sweet. 

"Yes," he says into your lips, "you can have a hug." 

"I didn't ask for one." 

"So you don't want one?" 

You raise your arms and sew them under his, the corded muscle of his biceps shifting as he wraps you up. He hugs you tight and kind and practically vibrating with happiness. 

You sit up and climb onto your knees, restless, desperate to get closer. You're a muddle of limbs and loose moving clothes. Your hand gets caught in the hem of his shirt and his fingers slip into the pocket of your sweatpants but it all works out and you end up exactly where you wanted to be, snug in his lap. 

"Always get what you want, huh?" Steve asks, lips skipping over your forehead. 

You nestle your face down into the juncture of his neck to hide your guilty smile. "Nah." 

"No?" he asks. 

His hand creeps to your waist and slips under the fabric of your shirt so he can squeeze tiny, firm circles into the flesh of your hip. 

"No 'cos- because I wanted the thick duvet and we had to get a summer one." 

"Because it's summer!"

"It's not as cozy." 

Steve pulls his head back to give you what can only be described as a patronising smile. You scowl at him and have just opened your mouth when he interrupts. 

"Listen, I wanted the thick one too. I did. But it's summer, and it's like, eighty degrees outside all the time and still seventy at night, and you like to cuddle." He emphasises his last few words with a pointed insistence though he doesn't stop smiling for a second. 

"You're a total facehugger," he continues. 

You giggle wildly, breathless with outrage. "How dare you." 

"Deny it, then. Or better yet, don't cling to me tonight. Prove your point." 

You can play this game, too. "That's really what you want? First night in our first home together and you want to sleep on the couch?" 

"We don't have a couch." 

"The ground?" you ask, incredulous. 

He pulls you close until your chests are crushed together and your faces are a half-inch apart, his held to the side as he takes you in again with that same intensity from before. 

"I'm not sleeping on the ground. It's kind of gross, for starters. And my arms aren't long enough to do this from the floor," he says, rubbing the curve of your back with both hands. You let yourself go limp, let your face fall to his shoulder.

"I'm happier than you," you say. 

"No, you're not." 

[pancakehouse]

#9 for the Siken asks please

hi friend!! have been dying to write them as little babies on the train, hope you enjoy xoxo

9. you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for. 

“James! There’s no one- Oh. Hello.” 

The voice is high, and posh. The boy it comes from regards Remus curiously, head tilted, dark hair falling to his jaw. His dress robes are perfectly tailored, a deep black velvet material like something a member of Wizengamot might wear. It’s something that ought to have looked silly on an eleven-year-old boy, but somehow, Remus thinks, this one makes it look rather cool.

“I didn’t realise anyone was in here,” the boy continues. He’s smiling now, not seeming to mind Remus’ silence. “Do you mind if we join you? All the other carriages are full.” 

Remus blinks, suddenly nervous. He’s never been very good at this - this conversing with kids his own age thing, especially not ones with shiny shoes and a sharp-voweled accent. But, for a reason he can’t quite tell, the words “Er- Okay," are already stumbling out.

It's said quieter than he'd meant, but the boy seems to have understood, and immediately throws himself across the opposite bench. "James!" he yells (screams, really) and within seconds, another boy - this one with dark skin and round glasses - pops his head in.

“Oh! Hi!” His grin is wide and gap-toothed and Remus finds himself, inexplicably, grinning hesitantly back. He plops down next to Remus and sticks his hand out. “I’m James. Thanks for letting us join you."

“Uh. Sure.” Remus shakes his hand awkwardly. Then, “Remus. I’m Remus.” 

It all feels incredibly silly. Shaking hands and grinning and nodding seriously like they are grown adults, and not smudged-knee boys; like these same hands aren’t just twenty minutes removed from their parents’ tight grips. 

A throat clears. Remus drops James’ hand, and they turn. The long-haired boy is watching them, brows pushed together, the barest hint of frown on his mouth. The sight of it makes something in Remus’ throat feel weird. Oddly, he feels his own mouth mirror the movement. 

"Well, my name is Sirius Black," the boy says, and Remus wonders if they are going to shake hands next. The thought makes his stomach go all twisty, so he decides to sit on his palms to avoid any problems. "And since you, Remus, found this lovely compartment, and I, of course, found Remus, then I say James here should be the one to go get us snacks. Don't you?"

He watches Remus expectantly, and Remus’ cheeks burn. “Erm,” he murmurs. “Well, I suppose—”

“Exactly! Off you go, Potter!”

James snorts, and uses a knuckle to push up his glasses. “Alright, fine,” he says easily. “Back soon, lads.”

Once he's gone, the compartment gets a bit warmer. Remus fiddles with the hem of his jumper, suddenly conscious of its ratty holes and weird green color and loose threads spilling out. He's not sure what to say, and hopes - a bit desperately - that James won't be gone too long.

That hope gets stronger when the boy - Sirius - decides to say, quite out of nowhere, "You have very long eyelashes." And then he follows this proclamation by leaning in, and peering close.

Remus feels his cheeks heat more. It really is a bit warm.

"So does my little brother,” continues Sirius. “He's also quiet, too, like you. I think you'd get along." Sirius seems to think about it. "Or- actually...well, maybe not. He's a bit of a prick, you see."

Here, Sirius begins to stumble around his words; like maybe he's unfamiliar with cursing, or else unfamiliar with speaking badly of his brother. Remus can't quite tell which.

“Oh, that’s…” Remus picks at his cuticles, the dry skin at his knuckles, “-erm. Sorry about that?” 

“Yes, well-” Sirius’ voice goes softer now, like maybe he’s sharing a secret, one meant only for them and the quiet space between their foreheads and knees. “It’s my mother’s fault, anyway. She's awful.” 

They’re so close now Remus can see two freckles on Sirius’ neck, just under his ear. It makes his stomach twist again, which is strange, because he has plenty of freckles of his own, so it’s not like they’re a new discovery or anything. Even though it sort of feels that way right now. 

Sirius nudges their shoes together, and reaches out, touching a raised scar on Remus’ wrist that is still bright pink and angry. Three moons old.

“What’s your mum like?” asks Sirius, and he keeps his eyes on that scar, finger trailing lightly around the edges. He’s frowning again, and so is Remus, but this time Remus thinks he was maybe the one doing it first. It’s getting harder to tell. “She’s not—Well, is she like mine?”

“Oh.” Remus looks out the window. Trees are flying past, blurs of greens and browns, and the rhythmic chug of the engine drowns out all other noise. He can’t hear anyone in the other carriages, and maybe that’s what makes him brave enough to say: “Well, no. My mum…she died, actually. Last year.”

Sirius’ fingers still and he looks up, eyes going wide. “She- oh my god, Remus. I’m-” He cuts off, and they're both silent for a minute. And then, softly, he asks, “What was she like? If you- I mean, we don’t have to talk about it.” 

He removes his hand, and Remus tries to smile. "No, it's okay," he says, and it doesn't hurt so much to do it. Sirius' shoe is still knocking into his and the train is loud and they're just sharing secrets right now, so it's okay. "Her name was Hope," he says. “And she was- she was really beautiful. Everyone always said so.” He traces his thumb around the scar, still warm from Sirius’ touch. “And she taught me how to ride a bike, how to read. She was—” Eyes stinging, he blinks rapidly— “my best friend.”

My only friend, he doesn’t say. The words seem out of place here, in this compartment.

“She sounds lovely, Remus,” murmurs Sirius. He has rather long eyelashes too, now that Remus thinks to look.

“Yeah.” He nods. “She was.” 

They look at each other. Sirius smiles, and Remus smiles back - or maybe it's the other way around. Their shoes nudge and their knees nudge and Remus is starting to feel strange again.

"Well," says Sirius, and his voice is still quiet. Still a secret. "You have us now. Me and James. And we...everything will be good. I promise, alright?"

Remus breathes in, then out. Presses his thumb harder into the scar. "Okay," he replies. Are you sure? he thinks. Why? "Yeah. That sounds nice."

[sp0o0kylights]

[gasps] number 10 you had me at steddissy!!

Fun Facts about Patchworks, it and Chokechain where the two fics I was like "I'm not gonna post these until theyre complete theyre so close!!" and then posted parts of anyway lmao. Patchworks ended up needing a bit more than Chokechain did to finish it out but she's close.

This one also hasn't gotten The Red Pen of death Editing yet.

Snippet:

"I can't fucking belive this." Robin hisses, and Steve just sighs. 

"How are you still mad?"

"How!? How could I be mad that after struggling with my sexuality; fighting it with tears and--and constant doubt for years, you just threw up once and that was it!"

She drops her voice as deep as it'll go, mocking Steve's own. "Guess I'm queer now, let me get my coffee." 

"That's a horrible impression of me."

"Accurate you mean." Robin mutters darkly. "For the record I don't think you're fine by the way, I think you're repressing it." 

"I'm not repressing anything Robin, I told you I'm comfortable liking both." 

"Not the queerness, dingus, the reaction to the queerness!" 

"I think you're just mad I'm better at being gay than you." 

Robin gapes, mouth swimming through the movements without a sound. 

Oh, he's really pissed her off, and Steve delights in that too, in a way only siblings and soulmates can. 

"Better than me!?" She finally sputters, and Steve settles his hip against the counter, hands crossing smugly over his chest.

"Yes." 

"You--you!" Robin's shaking a finger at him, and if steam could have come from her ears they would have. 

Steve doesn't fight his grin.

"Talking," she says finally, slamming a stack of VHS's on the counter opposite him, and God is he thankful that Family Video is dead for this conversation, "is one thing. Let's see you actually back it up, hotshot.” 

"By what? Hanging out with Munson?" Steve challenges back.

"Yes." Robin spits immediately. "We've all seen how you flirt. I want to see you put all those terrible flirting skills that we know don't work outside of high-school to the test!" 

"I told you Robin, I was bombing on purpose at Scoops." He warns, as he warms up to the challenge.

Hanging out with Eddie will be easy. 

Sprinkling a little light flirting on top?

A total cakewalk. 

"I don't believe you." Robin says with narrowed eyes. 

"Just watch." Steve tells her smugly.

The nice thing about it all? 

Steve barely has to wait a few hours before he can prove himself right.

Eddie trots in as if the universe had given him his cue, coming up to the counter with one of his wilder grins.

"Minion!" He crows, and Steve rolls his eyes in response. 

"Munson." He greets back, but makes sure to lean across the counter, curling his body towards Eddie. 

Predictably, Eddie gets right up in his face. 

"How goes the droll and drab life of retail?" 

"Not terrible." Steve catches Robin's eye, and has to suppress any hint of smugness. 

'Celebrate after you make the play!' Steve thinks in his coach's voice, and he settle himself in for the game. 

"Say Eds," he says, and watches the way the nickname grabs the older teens attention, "you still selling weed?" 

"Not to your freshman, I do keep my promises." A palm goes over Eddie's heart, face full of roughish charm.

Hook.

"Nah I was thinking for myself. My parents are home for the month and they're driving me up a tree."

A truth, though given they were close to their next departure their attention was off Steve and onto more important things. 

Like getting into the right hair salon, or making sure they rubbed shoulders with this or that person. 

"Think we could smoke at your place?" Steve dips even closer into Eddie's space, delights at how wide those doe eyes of his can grow. "I'm happy to pay." 

Line.

"Sure, absolutely, uh, man." Eddie says, and Steve doesn't hold back the grin as he watches him fumble. 

"Thanks." He beams, before reaching out to pretend to brush something off of Eddie's jacket. "You're a lifesaver." 

"Sure am!" Eddie outright squeaks, and over his shoulder Steve can see Robin gawk at the two of them.

"Certified life guard Eddie, that's me!" 

"Oh," Steve grins. "Certified. You'll have to show me how to do CPR sometime." 

"Yeah, Eddie says, before abruptly wrenching himself out of Steve's space, face fire engine red. "I can show you when we uh, hang out. To smoke. What uh, day do you...?" 

His voice goes higher in question, and Steve gives him his best slow 'I'm charmed' smile. 

"Tonight? After work?”

"Tonight!" Eddie says, before he starts dancing back, waving finger guns at Steve. "My place! Be there or be square!" 

"Well I'd hate to be square." Steve replies, giving a lazy wave as Eddie crashes backwards into the door, spins around with a curse and half falls, half tumbles his way out. 

Sinker.

Steve turns a victorious look on Robin.

"He didn't even rent a movie." He preens, while Robin tracks the absolute disaster that is Eddie trying to drive his van away. 

"Oh my God." She says, wide eyes meeting his too smug ones. "I'd say that was smooth but that was the farthest thing from it." 

"Hey, I was smooth. We're only judging me, not my dance partners." He counters. 

"Oh? Certified?" Robin mocks him once again, clenching her hands under his chin before dropping them in disgust. "I can't believe that worked, everyone knows you were a lifeguard for years!" 

"I'm just that charming." 

"More like Eddie's that far gone." She says with a dismissive snort. "He has it bad for you.” 

"I dunno," Steve drawls, resting his chin on the back of his hand. "You're just as bad the second you think a girls flirting with you." 

The offended gasp Robin lets out has Steve cackling immediately. 

"You take that back!" She howls, winging a wet rag at him. 

Steve jumps back, still laughing. 

"Steven Harrington you take that back!" 

"I promised not to tell lies Rob," He gasps, as she whips the towel at him again. 

He reaches out a hand, catching the towel easily. “I can’t take it back!” 

Robin shrieks, and soon enough they're both laughing and wrestling over the towel, all thoughts of the weird dance Steve, Eddie and Chrissy were doing, forgotten.

[astroboots]

Something Old, Something Borrowed

Summary: You wear Frankie’s clothes a lot and Santiago has feelings about that.

A/N: This was going to be a desperate sexy oneshot and then I wrote it and decided, it doesn't need the sex (I DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE). Fluff, aaaaaall fluff.

Pairing: Santiago x female reader (you) x (hints of Frankie)

Wordcount: 4.1k words

Homecoming Universe | Astroboot’s Masterlist

You wear Frankie’s clothing a lot around the house. It’s not a complaint. It’s a very good look on you, Santiago thinks. 

Softworn flannel shirts in chequered patterns of loud screechy red, or blue and yellows that Santiago cannot resist making fun of Frankie for wearing. You’ll sit on the couch, wearing one with a book in your lap and a warm cup of chocolate. On you those ugly fashion crimes look soft and inviting like you were wrapped in one big comfort blanket. 

There are also old knitted sweaters that you wear whenever you do house chores. They’re washed out and threading at the seams. Oversized enough to be little bit too big on Frankie, never mind on you, but he still loves them on you. 

Frankie’s old corduroy jacket that smells of worn leather and wood chips, that he wraps around your shoulders when you’re out and the Florida climate gets a bit too chilly in the evening. 

Santiago has a special kind of fondness for all of them. His favorite though? It’s the old military sweatshirt, a standardized edition they were issued with back in basics when they first joined. It’s a drab old thing. Grey cotton, loose-fitting without any shape or form. 

Santiago has the same one. He hates it. It’s scratchy and uncomfortable, the material is not even 100% cotton, some weird cheap polyester and wool blend that left him with red bumps every time he used to wear it. It’s why he had left it with his mom in the early days, stuffed in one of the mountain-pile of boxes packed away in his mom’s old attic along with all his other worldly possessions that he couldn’t carry on his back as he found himself increasingly on foot, never stationary long enough in one place to call it a home.

It’s a horrible sweatshirt. But it’s your favorite and in some odd way, that makes it his favorite too. 

You wear it all the time. 

On chilly mornings, when you’ve made up your mind to stay inside the house to take care of chores and lazily lounge on the sofa watching some new Netflix show. Whenever you’re down with a cold or a flu, sucking on lemon drops and nursing hot tea. 

Back when he was still on missions, taking on long strings of soul-crushing assignments, finding himself in an endless series of forgettable motels and safeholds in one nameless place after another that all congealed into an abstract concept of not home, he’d start feeling homesick. Not for Florida, not for a place, just… maybe, you, and maybe Frankie. Your voices, and your face. There would be a handful of occasions when he finally gave into temptation and just called you (too chicken shit to call Frankie in case he’d still be mad at Santiago for leaving in the first place). 

On those occasions, when the dial tone clicked and you finally answered his video call, more often than not the battered old grey sweatshirt would fill his phone screen. 

It’s why, when Santiago thinks of that sweatshirt, he thinks of home. 

“Shit,” you exclaim.  

You’re holding up Frankie’s grey army sweatshirt, inspecting it in your hands, as your face scrunches up tight with a frown. 

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s a hole in the sweatshirt. Gonna have to ask Molly to help me mend it again. I swear lately everytime I fix up one hole on this thing, two more appears.” 

Santiago leans down, grabbing the old garment from you. He runs the fabric between his fingers as he inspects it. Close up like this, he really takes a new appreciation for how old and worn this thing has become. There are soy sauce stains that haven’t quite come off during the wash. Fraying threads, the shoulder’s stretched and drooping. There’s clear evidence of your previous attempts to hold this tattered old thing together, patches of threadwork that are starting to wear in the seams along the arm. 

It makes him sad to look at it. Even sadder to see you tending to the garment like it’s a wounded bleeding creature. Favorite or not, it’s a lost cause. It needs to go. 

“You should throw the old thing out,” Santiago says. “Pretty sure you can just order something similar online.” 

You take the sweatshirt back from him, hugging it close to your chest with an indignant huff and puff of your chest. “Yeah, thanks, no. I like this one.”

“Fine, I can ask one of my buddies still in the army to get you the same one.” 

“It won’t be the same one, there is just the one,” you mutter as you cling onto the old rag. 

Stubborn. 

“It’s just a sweatshirt Boa, not even a very good one. I’m pretty sure with the money and effort you’ve wasted patching this old thing up you can get ten of these”.

Santiago looks at you, your fingers brushing against the grey material that’s grown lint all over and the same pang of sadness, of watching you hold onto something old and broken and past its usage hits him all over again. He doesn’t want to look at it. 

It’s more than he can bear as he plasters on a grin, to make a joke and make it all go away. 

“Stop holding onto old trash, or you’ll become a hoarder like your mom.” 

Fuck. 

That was definitely the wrong thing to say. 

You walk out the room without so much as another word to him. All he gets is a scathing glare that’s cold enough to hit below the freezing point for water, and that’s how Santiago knows he’s in the dog house. 

On contemplation, it was a shitty thing to say. He always forgets that you and him, for all your similarities are also very different. Santiago doesn’t hold onto sentimental belongings, the army ironed that out of him before he reached 18. People don’t get to keep personal belongings there period. Any sentimentality and individuality is scrubbed right out of you after basics, they make sure of that. 

You, on the other hand, wrap yourself in nostalgia and memorabilia. Trinkets or any old and quirky knick-knacks that make you happy. Anyone who stepped into your home would barely make it three steps before they learned that about you. There are photos of your closest friends hung all over the hallway walls, bookshelves crammed full of photo albums, books, and souvenirs and novelty coffee mugs you’ve picked up from antique markets and gas stations from your road trips with Frankie. You hoard them like little treasures. 

So telling you to throw away your husband’s sweatshirt that you practically wear every day, that you’ve had with you through thick and thin through the last ten years, and jokingly calling it trash was… probably not Santiago’s best moment. 

It’s how he ends up doing the unthinkable. 

Calling his sister. 

It shouldn't be as scary as it is. Something as simple as asking his oldest sister if she had held onto his things after selling their mom’s house. It should in theory lead to a simple yes or no answer. It’s not exactly a loaded question. 

Except it absolutely fucking is.

And this is Santiago’s second, not brightest moment of the day. 

“I’ve always known you’re an idiot, but everytime I talk to you, I’m surprised by just how much of an idiot you can be.”

It’s just the kind of thing you want to hear from your family. 

Santiago closes his eyes, teeth clamping down on the tip of his tongue for calm. This is how every conversation between the two of them goes. It's the curse of being the youngest and only son in a family of three sisters. Every question is treated like an accusation. Every sentence of his, a crime. 

Santiago is pretty sure he can ask about something as harmless as the weather and still earn himself an earful from his sister, about how the weather has treated her more kindly than Santiago. 

Calm, he needs to stay calm. 

“Look, Martina, can we just– I was just asking a question. Do you have my boxes or not? There is no need for you to get on my ass like this. I’m only asking because when we sold mom’s house, you took most of the things–”

“I’m sorry, are you accusing me of stealing mom’s things?”

For a millisecond, Santiago's sure his heart stops beating. Blood in his veins freezing cold. Fuck him.

“No, no! That’s not what I was saying at all– I was just asking if you–” 

There’s yelling. So much yelling through the earpiece of his phone. His only choice is to put down the receiver against the kitchen counter and wait it out unless he wants to get permanent tinnitus. Hunching across the kitchen counter, he rests his face against the palm of his hand, trying to rub out the tension that’s built between his temples. Getting out of bed today, might have been a mistake for Santiago cause it's proving to be a disaster from start to finish.

The kitchen porch door slides open letting in a draft that draws Santiago’s eyes up far enough to see Frankie enter the house. 

The man takes one look at Santiago’s miserably hunched up form then eyes the screaming phone and shoots him a quizzing look. 

“Martina,” Santiago offers. It’s the only word of explanation he gives Frankie, but it doesn’t seem like Frankie needs anything else to know what’s going on. 

He simply nods, with a sympathetic expression. “She called just to yell at you?”

Santiago eyes the phone where it’s at the counter, it shouldn’t be picking up his and Frankie’s conversation, face down as it is, but he’s not taking risks. He flips the phone face up and mutes it, before continuing. 

“No, I called her. Wanted to ask her if she still had my old stuff from mom’s attic.”

In the background Santiago can still hear his sister’s voice shouting and screaming even from a distance. There’s a creative stream of expletives blended seamlessly in English and Spanish until it’s baked into one well-cooked, fuck-you-Santiago-sandwich. 

“Pope”, Frankie calls out, pulling Santiago’s attention back to him. “Your boxes are upstairs.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Boa took the boxes when your sisters sold the house.”

“She did? Why?”

Frankie hums, one hand sliding over to his forehead to pull off his cap as he cocks his head to look at Santiago like he’s an idiot, before shaking his head at him.  

Geez, everyone has it out for him today it seems. 

“Your sister was threatening to take them out into her backyard and use them as kindle for a bonfire party. So Boa had me drive over. Thought we should hold onto it because you might still want your stuff someday. Guess she was right.”  

Santiago ignores the stab of guilt in his chest, doesn't want to look at it right now. Instead, he picks his phone back up, unmuting it with a quick, “Martina I have to go,” as he presses the end button not a second too soon. 

The attic is musty and hot, the smell of sawdust and plain dust hanging in the air. There’s a few humane mouse traps strategically placed in all corners of the space. Not that it seems to be doing any good (the humane ones rarely are, but neither you or Frankie would ever consider changing them for the other option). There’s mouse droppings scattered here and there. 

Frankie walks ahead to the middle of the room, pulling a large moth-eaten sheet that reveals a mountain of boxes, with your handwriting scribbled on top marked with his name and descriptors like ‘clothes’, ‘LPs’, ‘school memories’, ‘books’ and finally ‘army stuff.’

There's a strange feeling brewing in his chest that he can't quite define at seeing all his old belongings stored up in yours and Frankie (and now, his) home. Boxes upon boxes, piled up together, the way they used to be in his mom's old place.

A quiet little voice in him that tells him, guess this is home now, and is completely at peace with it-- and Santiago is willfully ignoring the agitation in him at just how at ease he is with it, as he walks towards the boxes.

“This the one?,” Frankie asks as he taps the side of the one box marked 'army stuff', and as he does, a shimmer of dust rises and swirls in the air, leaving his hand coated in a sheen of white-grey soot. 

At Santiago’s nod, Frankie drags the box out from the cluster and places it on the middle of the floor. “You wanna do this here or take it downstairs?”

It is one of the smaller boxes, barely spanning the breadth of Frankie's chest. For as much time as the army has been a domineering presence in his life, Santiago always imagined that the physical space it would leave behind would be much bigger than this small box. Even more surprised by how few things eleven years left behind. 

“Here is fine.” 

Frankie cuts the old tape open with a boxcutter knife, and unfolds the flap, as they both peek into it. There’s an old tin box. Medals that are kept in pristine condition in a glass case. His old service uniform, and other trinkets rattling around in the old cardbox. What is not here, however, is his old army sweatshirt.  

“So is what you're looking for in here?” Frankie asks, as he picks up the small tin box and gently shakes it to his ear. Even without opening it Santiago can recognize the sound of the metal chain of his dog tag jingling inside. 

"Nothing special," Santiago says, evading the question because he doesn't want to explain how he managed to upset you with his careless comments. Instead, he takes the box from Frankie and opens it.  

There’s an old polaroid photo in the metal tin. It’s a bit weathered around the corners, the colors so faded that the blue skies and yellow sand have blended into a muted sepia glaze. 

It's a photo of them at the beach, Frankie sitting in the sand, wearing only swim trunks and sunglasses, squinting like the sun is plaguing his eyes, and a grin spreads wide on Santiago's face.

"Holy crap."

From behind him, Frankie leans over, resting his jaw on Santiago's shoulder so he can take a peek at the photo too. "That's a blast from the past. How long ago was that now?"

"Summer before Redfly retired, so that must've been what? seven, eight years ago?" Santiago muses, still smiling at the photo as the memory of the warm heat of the Tunisian sun was blistering at his back, the relieving breeze from the ocean against his forehead like he's being transported right back into the moment and place.

“Remember when Benny nearly broke his leg jumping off the rocks to dive in and Will had to come get him.”

Frankie laughs, "thought Redfly was going to kill them both."

“I can’t even remember holding onto this one," Santiago says, as his fingers rub at the corner of the faded photo, unable to tamper down the smile tugging at his lips as he thinks of the memories. "We should frame this one and put it up with the other polaroids downstairs."

Frankie looks at him, still smiling, but there's a shift in his eyes into something warm and almost glowing. 

“It was a good day,” Frankie says, looking down at the photo with a smile on his face that makes Santiago's veins buzz pleasantly.

"Can’t believe you and Boa didn’t just throw all this junk away," Santiago says, more to himself than even Frankie.

Frankie merely shrugs, as his hand reaches over and dips into the box, holding up Santiago's old dog tag and inspects it. “She's a sentimental person. She likes to hold onto things that reminds her of the people she cares about. Makes them feel like they're here even when they're not, she says."

It's a fraction of a millisecond. So brief, Santiago can't even make out fully what the flash of an image he's seeing is. A blurry form trying to rise up to the surface, that he pushes down. Brown eyes, a sharp nose, the same thick hair Santiago's supposedly inherited.

Santiago snaps the tin box in his hand shut. “Whether you hold onto things or not, they're still gone,” Santiago says. 

Frankie looks away from the dog tag, eyes scrutinizing Santiago's face with something akin to concern, before he shakes his head and lets out a small chuckle. It's the quiet little laugh he has for Santiago, when Frankie sees something going on in him that Santiago can't himself. The one that tells Santiago, he needs a little bit more time to catch up before he sees it. It used to upset him, a strike to his stubborn pride. Nowadays, he's just made peace with the fact that this is a feeling he's going to constantly encounter when he is living with two people who know him better than he knows himself.  

Frankie hums, taking the box from Santiago and carefully folding Santiago's dog tags back into the tin box.

Santiago looks around himself, eyeing the boxes. "My junk must take up what? At least one third of this space. Wouldn't have blamed her if she had just let Martina torch it up."

"I don’t know. I think part of her kept onto it hoping this day would come. You living here, with us.”  He gets to his feet, observing the attic and casts one last look into the open box.  “What are you looking for anyway?”

“Nothing important. Just uhm–" Santiago hesitates again. He doesn't know why he's being so coy about this, so he fesses up. "My old army sweatshirt. It’s stupid. We had a–" Santiago stops himself, it's not a fight, a tiff at best. But he feels silly as a grown man to call it that. He shakes his head.

"I said something stupid to her this morning, and I wanted to make it up to her. Thought I was going to dig up my old sweatshirt as a peace offering.” 

Frankie's eyes squint, head cocking to the side as he regards Santiago with a puzzled look on his face. “Well Boa’s already wearing it isn’t she?”

For a moment, Santiago must've heard him wrong. When would you have had time to get up in the attic, unbox his things, grab his sweatshirt, put it on, and for Frankie to have seen you wear it?

“What do you mean?”

From across, Frankie's folding his arm, back leaning against one of the beams that go from floor to ceiling in the attic. He's giving Santiago that look. The one that tells Santiago that at this moment Frankie wonders if he really used to work in intelligence.

“She’s always wearing it. It's her favorite. Think I saw her with it this morning in the kitchen trying to patch up the latest hole.” 

"It's your sweatshirt, Frankie."

"No, I threw mine out after the first year. The material is itchy as hell, gave me rashes all over... Everything okay, Santiago?"

You're standing by the washing machine, putting in another load of laundry, wearing his (not Frankie's) grey army sweatshirt. A warm surge rises in his chest, it spreads along his arms and legs until his fingers go numb with it.

He gets it now. Why he couldn't stand to look at the sweatshirt then. Why it bothered him so much. The way you looked at it, with the same expression in your eyes that you had every time you saw him off at the airport.

Idiot, he's a fucking idiot.

He strides over the length of the floor separating you. You turn when he's not even halfway there yet, his hands already outstretched, reaching for you. One hand cupping the back of your neck, pulling you close to him, the rest of the way, his other settling on the dip of your hip as he drags you closer still.

There's a hitch of a breath. A surprised and muffled attempt at saying his name that gets cut off. His head tilts down, claiming your lips with his, pouring everything he has to say, with a grace that his words can never achieve.

I love you, it says as he slips his tongue into your parted mouth and licks into you.

I'm here now, he promises, thumb caressing the dimple of your cheek.

You're everything to me.

The tension in your shoulder thaws, the rigidness in your back softens until you're humming on his tongue. You melt for him.

You part, and Santiago rests his forehead on yours as he lets you catch your breath, taking a moment to remember, etching the image of your half-lidded eyes and a blissed-out smile into his memory. No photograph or memorabilia could ever do this justice. Not when he gets to have the real thing every day.

"You don't need the sweatshirt," he says.

The warm shade in your eyes cools, specks of annoyance bleeding into them.

"Santiago" His name is a low simmering growl in your throat. The start of a warning that you do not want to have this discussion--and if Santiago keeps pushing it could very well escalate into an argument.

"You don't need it," he continues, eyes fixed on yours, hand gripping just the tiniest bit harder around you, "because I'm not going anywhere anymore."

You freeze on the spot. Eyes blinking, and Santiago can see how you've stopped breathing entirely.

"Santiago," you start, and he pauses, giving you the time for once to find what it is you want to say. But your mouth press close again, a slight trembling of your lower lip, then you look down at your feet without another word.

His heart breaks for you. You're always so put together that sometimes he forgets. You need assurances too.

He's never said anything.

Never made promises.

It's been a year and a half since he stayed, a part of him just assumed (the way he always does) that it'd be clear by now. That you, who know him better than anyone, would know that he's here to stay now.

It's unfair to you that he just assumes.

His hand comes to your chin, tilting you up to his eyes. "You don't need that sweatshirt to remind you of me," Santiago says.

You nod. But he can see it, the way the glossiness of your eyes shimmers in the light from the wet sheen there. Tears threatening to spill, and the same sadness he felt this morning, creeps up at him, clawing at his chest.

"I'm here. I'm not going away again. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

A sole tear escapes down your cheek, leaving a wet trail behind and his thumb comes up to brush it away. He's expecting the all familiar self-loathing at making you cry to settle in his spine, but it never comes, never has the chance to, because you choke back a smile, sweet and relieved. The back of your hand wipes away the rest of your tears, the grey matted sleeve, scratching against your soft skin.

He swears to God, if that thing makes you break out in hives. 

Dipping down again, he presses his lips to your forehead.

"It's a shitty sweatshirt Boa, it's going to give you rashes, and I'm pretty sure it has asbestos in the threads," he jokes.

This time, instead of storming away, a peal of quiet laughter escapes your lips, and that makes him smile even wider. "But if you still want to hang onto it, next time it goes to pieces, I'll mend it for you. I'll fix it. Everytime it breaks okay?"

You nod against his head, and he just holds you, arms wrapped around you tight like a cocoon, unwilling to let this moment slip away.

"I have other sweatshirts too, you know," he murmurs into your hairline. "Better ones. Sweaters too. Better than Frankie's ugly grandma sweaters ones anyhow."

You laugh again, and a rush of happiness bubbles up his spine as he hears the small contented sigh on your lips that makes him know things are going to be okay before the word leaves your mouth.

"Okay," you murmur. "You fix the sweatshirt and I’ll wear some of your other stuff"

“Deal.” 

Dedication and Credits:

@frannyzooey who has been so encouraging and opened a whole new world to me when she decided to harass me with her asks and it's led me to have so much fun with opening up my inbox to requests and prompts for the first time in my life and it's made writing so freeing. I love you and adore you! You are everything. I'm so sorry I butchered your beautiful ask about finding an old smexy photo of Frankie amongst Santiago's army stuff into this abomination. THERE IS NOT EVEN ANY SEX IN HERE.

@thirstworldproblemss the other person that had me going ohfuckingyes I can't wait for her to read this! She is the fuel to my motor, the electricity to my batteries. She is everything you could ever ask for in a friend and so much more.

[irenadel]

And if the devil... 1/9

Eventual smut, Aemond Targaryen x Maid!Reader

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

“And if the devil was to ever see you, he’d kiss your eyes and repent.”

- Farouk Gouida

He’d had nothing but contempt for you the first time he’d seen you: a too tall, mannish girl mopping up baby vomit for Helaena with less tact and grace than a stable boy. He had seen the blotchy red and white of your hands and face and had thought you one of Aegon’s cruel jests for a sister-wife he did not deserve: a freakish chambermaid for a mad princess.

And far too familiar with a lady who was in every way your better.

He told himself it was not jealousy that burnt in the pit of his stomach, brighter and wilder than Vhagar’s fire. No. It was distaste and a healthy amount of distrust, he’d felt when he’d come to visit Helaena and found you rocking her gently in your arms. You’d been in drab servant red, hair escaping your work bonnet, so strangely pale that it had made Aemond squint in immediate suspicion. Whatever it was, you were no noble companion or even one of the prettier handmaidens, just a scullery girl, dress still stained from floor scrubbing, holding a Targaryen princess and gently brushing her hair out of the way.

He’d had to control the urge to snatch her from your arms and snarl at you to leave if you wanted to keep your head… It would not have been becoming. Helaena would no doubt have found it distressing. But most of all, he feared what he would do to you the moment he’d had your pale, sickly hand in his grip. Because you had robbed him of a thing which he had not known belonged to him. His right to his sister’s pain, always so far and yet so close, because he feared the things he could say if his affection were ever to escape him. And here you were, like a thief in the night, snatching his chance before he’d even known it existed.

You’d had the common sense to leave quickly with your bucket of slops, and your eyes fixed determinedly on the floor. As if you’d known your transgression.

Helaena was not half as wise as you. Her tears had been all but gone, not there for a brother to wipe away or avenge. No forthcoming confession about Aegon that he could use as an excuse to stalk his brother’s steps and pick a fight. Just her tongue loosened by the joy of Aemond’s sudden gentleness, brought on by unwarranted competition.

You’d been recently assigned to her quarters, she’d told him and you were very good at putting the children to sleep. You weren’t squeamish like the ladies of the court, would look at Helaena’s insects without problem and think nothing of her muttering under her breath, however strange her words might be. When the children were quiet, when Helaena herself hadn’t known what else to say, you had talked to her about the great locusts of the plains of Essos, told her stories of swarms of them, climbing atop the little babes, eating the grass so thoroughly no horse or cattle could survive on what was left.

But more so, you were kind and strong and willing to put the princess to bed when her head hurt so bad she could barely think. You stayed up with her when her dreams were more a punishment than reprieve from her reality, asleep in her bed besides her or waking up for her to tend to the babies. Not a wet nurse, but you had a good head on your shoulders for fussing and crying. She had come to depend on you really. 

He had not liked it at all.

He’d blamed himself for being too engrossed in weapons training and Vhagar to have noticed your creeping, insidious influence on his sister. He’d questioned his mother and had found only her relief that at least Aegon left you alone, probably less out of kindness than out of distaste. You may have been coarse and rude and perhaps unfit to deal with anything but the lower floors of a castle, but the queen had had enough problems to deal with and at least you had a strong back and a mean glare that kept even princes away.

Not Aemond though.

He’d kept his good eye on you, and a new man-at-arms he trusted always at his sister’s side. Had even thought to corner you and put the fear of the gods in you lest you had thought Helaena alone and vulnerable. Had not even considered replacing your presence with his own, uneasy with how much the prospect thrilled him. 

You’d looked up only once: a lightning quick glare for the One-Eyed Prince before the subservient mask was firmly back in place. And Aemond had been struck strangely silent by your odd red eyes and let you scurry away. Your coarse yellow hair had been escaping its thin bonnet and he’d known immediately.

Not Valyrian blood, not a misplaced bastard, not some political trick as he had suspected…

Albino.

Oh but Helaena did have quite a fondness for broken, repellent things.

He’d been less wary then, but no less watchful. He’d stopped to stare when he saw you carrying the princess’s tray or even one of her children up and down a corridor, infallible technique for getting them to sleep at last. He’d haunted his sister’s rooms, lurking in doorways, listening in to your accent (not Flea Bottom, but not court either, no one had taught you how to speak to your betters or even how to speak well at all, it seemed…) as you told Princess Helaena about having eleven cousins and wrestling them all into bed, about taking in laundry because you couldn’t take in sewing, about a crotchety old uncle who had broken his hip out at sea and needed minding now. An uncle who resented the minding and the niece and wife that kept him and his children fed. An uncle who sounded to Aemond’s hungry, savage loneliness a lot like a father and a king.

He does not hear the other talk, even if allowed to be present for it he would not consider it. He would have dismissed it as women talk, gossip, having seldom let himself dwell on kindness instead of grievance, succor instead of retaliation. He does not hear a beloved sister tell you to stay one step ahead of the dragon, as far away as you can manage, because dragons bring nothing but fire even if they love you, warm enough until it becomes death. She should know.

It does nothing to keep Aemond from following behind you. When you took the children and their mother down to the kitchens for hot milk with honey. When any of them were achy or colicky or cranky and you would put a shawl over them, babies or mother. When you insisted the princess and her children could do with a stroll and some sun, and Aemond found his heart aching with hideous envy because he could hear his sister laughing at your snappish kitchen talk, speaking softly and intimately to you, as hungry to give the attention as to receive it. (Even as his sorry, wicked heart screams out, it was mine, all this was meant for me, how dare you, how dare you take what I didn’t know I needed!) When you sang Helaena’s babies or Helaena herself to sleep and Aemond found he had to cover his  ears against your strange, foreign crooning, that didn’t sound like King’s Landing but sounded treacherously like home. He’d had to flee to the training grounds and take out this all-consuming anger on something, drown out your husky, kind voice with the din of his sword against a shield. Hitting the wood over and over again until he tore it to splinters and Ser Criston had to hold him into stillness, knowing there was no comforting a dragon without getting burned.

“My prince.”

You would say when you fled a staircase he cornered you into.

“My prince.”

When you’d courtesy, clumsily, still too sour-faced and suspicious to do it gracefully, when he managed to catch you on your way out of Helaena’s room.

“My prince.”

The day he had decided that yes, your prince, was exactly what he’d be to you, what you’d say to him, in whatever way he’d manage to tear it from your throat, in spite of Aegon’s taunting and the visceral fear at his own woeful lack of knowledge in matters of the flesh.

Because he had decided if you had no problem taking from him, he would have no problem taking from you.

Because you’d said it to him on your way out of the washing court, bonnet gone and coarse yellow hair sticking out of your pinned braid like a frightful halo, a bright purple bruise already forming on your cheekbone, as you’d glared directly at him, challenge in your head held high, and the water splashed all across your linen apron, sticking to your skin so closely that Aemond should have had you right then and there.

Because you’d said it with a curt nod, like Ser Criston when he approved of a particularly good move Aemond had just learned in the training yard, like a general to a soldier, “My prince.”

Because he’d just seen you swing a chamber pot directly into a stable boy’s face after hearing him call Princess Helaena “daft,” bringing it swinging back to the other side of his face, contents and all, just to take a step back to bring a fist into the stable boy’s friend. Aemond had been too transfixed by the sight of your heaving chest and the splotchy red of your cheeks to intervene after you’d taken a half-hearted punch to the face, returned it in kind and thrown the now empty chamber pot at the whimpering serving boys at your feet.

“And clean up your bloody mess!” You’d said before washing your hands in the fountain and strolling out of the courtyard, about as triumphant and vicious as Prince Aemond himself had ever felt when defeating knight after knight, telling himself he was better, stronger, a more fit ruler than any of them would ever be.

“My prince,” you’d said with your curt, martial nod, with your ruby-red eyes and the split knuckles of your hand, wounds taken in the defense of Aemond’s sister, wounds that should have by right belonged to him.

He’d taken your wrist in his hand, grip monstrously strong, and watched you realize the mistake you had made in the proud tilt of your head. You had forgotten for a second that pride wasn’t for your class of people, less so when confronted by a prince of the realm. He’d watched you realize your danger and how you didn’t care, that if there was a price to pay for pride you might as well pay it… and had realized himself that he didn’t care much either. Because Aemond had decided in that moment that he liked the defiance and stubborn anger in your ruby-red gaze, just as much as he had liked the ringing din of the chamber pot breaking something in that stable boy’s face. The prince had smiled at you then, his hunting cat smile, the one men all over the Seven Kingdoms would learn to fear, as he let you pass. Your prince, you would call him again, he decided as he let you go. Your prince, he would hear you call him, on your knees, on your back and beneath him, anyway he could get you. Because he wanted it. Because he had known himself to be spoiling for a fight and would be spoiling for a fight his whole life, the moment he had gone looking for Vhagar, the largest living dragon in the world, and won her. As he would win you. On your knees, your back or beneath him, as you called him your prince, because you wanted to, not ripped out of you by fear and hope for profit but because you wanted him. He would teach you that. That there were none like him, Targaryen or otherwise. That he was your prince and more than. He would teach you this, just as he had begun to teach the world.

[sylvies-kablooie]

the problem w loki s2: hey, where did the women go?

this is criticism so if that isn’t your thing you have been forewarned! i knew by episode 2 that something was off compared to s1 and i couldn’t quite place it. was it the sole focus on drab retro futurist TVA aesthetic instead of the colorful cinematography in s1? was it the focus being placed upon this Loom that we just found out is a thing and also Hey we have to stop it right now? Was it the lack of sylvie content?

but i think it just comes down to bad writing and whilst also trying to salvage what we DID get, i would feel dishonest to pretend that my problems with s2 arose from the finale alone. and while there were narrative inconsistencies between the seasons, i think a central error in s2 was sidelining the female characters.

s1 had beautiful themes, including self-acceptance and the power of love, and was building up to a ton of unanswered questions. a central theme of s1 (like it or not) was the connection between sylvie and loki. it was intended by waldron and herron from the start to be a romance, but beyond the romantic aspect, sylvie was the driving force of the show. she’s the variant the TVA is chasing, she’s the one who reveals that the TVA is a lie and makes everyone question what they were taught, it’s her that plunges the blade into HWR and opens the multiverse- and it’s no secret that in s2 she was largely off screen, only to show up at key plot points and kind of make things difficult rather than allow a further explanation into her character. and i could and might make a whole post on the sidelining of sylvie, but also- renslayer.

we saw a lot of renslayer in s1! she was pretty damn integral to the plot. her connection with mobius was fascinating, her dedication to doing what she saw as the right thing even when she learned all her gods were dead, her willingness to prune her best and maybe only friend to protect the big TVA lie- that was captivating. she’s also the first character we get to see the real non-TVA life of! she’s a principal at a school! and what did we get from her in s2?

she throws the book at victor, we learn she was his general and she’s Mad, and then exiled to the void. she’s barely there this season despite being central to s1! why, when you have an actor as talented as gugu mbatha-raw, would you not take advantage of that! we see threads of what COULD have happened in her storyline- her alliance with miss minutes, realizing maybe they never needed him at all- but at the end she’s pruned, thrown in the void and That’s That’s, stay tuned to see if anything happens in one of the endless future installments. we get that amazing I’m order line, and then what? and what type of order is she even representing? why is she so willing to toss mobius to the curb? you see why we need more development here?

b-15 met a similar fate. actually, i was really excited at the start of s2 to see her get her moment defending the new branches, realizing those were people, seeing the grief on her face; remember, sylvie showed her her life on the timeline, so this is personal for her. but she’s also quickly regaled to the side after her speech in the war room. she was a doctor, she is VERITY WILLIS, but do we get into any of this? No! (I also didn’t like her willingness to negotiate with Dox after the bombed the timelines, saying deep down I know you’re good right after we watched her cry over the devastation that had brought to the timelines, but maybe that’s another point)

and dox? what’s the deal with her! we are introduced to this strong general with a weird connection to brad, someone who is willing to go against TVA orders to bomb the timelines in the defense of what she believes is right, but then- squashed in a cube. that’s that. no examination into why she would be willing to betray the TVA in that way but also NOT join renslayer, no explanation into what was going on w brad.

(brad is worth a whole separate post but this is focusing on the ladies so just keep that in the back of your mind)

and back to sylvie. i saw some people point out how gross her being frozen during the final battles between her and loki was; how it eliminated her agency and allowed the men to have a Serious Talk. i have to say i agree with that judgement. in this season we get to see glimpses of what sylvie wants, but the unresolved relationship (whichever way you wish to characterize it- you do you!) between her and loki just hangs in the air like a heavy storm cloud i kept waiting to break but it… didn’t. the closest we got was the pie room scene, but everything between them was stilted and awkward when she was onscreen, which wasn’t that much.

it was almost as if the connection with loki was considered in opposition to her role as a Strong Woman, in a way- she was Strong and Angry. in s1 we see sides of her that defy stereotype- giving that doomed child her candy to ease the pain, her admitting to loki that she numbed herself with flings; there’s a vulnerability there, a complexity. the two of them rehashed their first fight again and again instead of moving onto something new (that being said sophia’s performance in episode 3 added a weight to the story that pleased me greatly) but overall she was regarded as a plot obstacle to be hidden away- at least past episode 3.

anyway i do think it comes down to writers biting off more than they could chew and losing the central concept of the show and focusing on sciencey plot rather than characterization. you can’t make season 1 centered around a love story and then pretend that didn’t happen and expect a cohesive transition between seasons. you can’t bombard us over and over again with the centrality of loki and sylvie’s duality- all of the we’re the sames, all of the i’m not you’s, and then move into s2 deciding it’s time to focus on only one half of that duo you spent the whole series focusing on.

you also can’t give us a “aHH we’re all gonna explode” thing over and over again and expect us to give a damn when you’re not letting the characters have dialogue that makes us say, oh man, i hope this loom thing doesn’t blow up, because i want to see where the connections they have going on end up! you can’t replace emotional weight with a ticking time bomb and expect it to do the work for you.

there are other problems with the series as well, and other people are far more articulate than i am, but the lack of female gaze and only one episode having a female writer this season was glaring, imo.

thank u for coming to my tedtalk and i’d love to hear ur thoughts!

[iloverianjohnson]

the sge movie was terrible. let me tell you exactly why i think it sucked

i think they messed up sophie and agatha's friendship. they were never lovey-dovey or "besties for life!" kind of friends. sophie was using agatha as her "good deed" to get into the school for good and evil, and agatha knew this. from this toxic relationship emerged a real friendship, but not really until they got to the school for good and evil. also, one of sophie's main character traits is that she's a shallow bitch who uses everyone to get what she wants (and we love her for that!), but they completely removed that trait when they made her "besties!!" with agatha.

wishing tree?? hello?? let sophie be obsessed with fairytales!! i know they had to do it for the exposition and for the people who've never read the books but they're not doing her character justice.

agatha's personality?? where did it go?? where did my frumpy, grumpy, sarcastic, witchy teenage girl go?? they barely gave her any of her original personality - she wasn't even slightly grumpy until she went to the school for good and evil.

tedros and agatha's relationship. it was so DRAB. the enemies to lovers banter was barely there!

i love sofia wylie... and i have literally no problem with agatha being a POC, i have to admit that sofia wylie is conventionally attractive. agatha is not supposed to be conventionally attractive. she is the opposite of the beauty standard, which is one of the contrasting traits between her and sophie. if they chose an actress who definitely does not fit the beauty standard and had agatha's whole self-realization plotline, it would have fit much better with the story. again this has nothing to do with sofia wylie being POC, so please don't take that the wrong way.

what happened to the swan crests??

why was the school master shown. like the biggest mystery of the first book is the school master. they ruined all the fun by introducing him at the very beginning.

where's sader? where's princess uma? WHERE IS CASTOR AND POLLUX????

the beast?? where's the beast at?

why was sophie punished for talking to an ever... when they were literally in the same dining room... they ruined her whole transition into evilness by having Lesso cut off her hair instead of the beast.

THE RANKINGS. THEY GOT RID OF THE RANKINGS. WE NEVER GOT TO SEE SOPHIE'S "F IS FOR..." OUTFITS.

also Lesso's character was fucked up. they took evelyn sader's plotline and meshed it with hers and it makes me so mad because it takes away from her future relationship with Dovey and it strips her of her character!

WHY WAS DOVEY LIKE THAT.

um where was the circus of talents?? like was that not the biggest thing that happened in the whole book... soman i'm so disappointed in you.

i liked how they did the trial by tale in the movie but i wish they kept the original plotline.

they did my boy yuba so dirty.

also the forest groups was so annoying to watch. i wanted to see sophie and agatha mingle with tedros in the forest.

wtf is this blood magic stuff. did we all collectively forget that entire thing happened in book 5 (or was it book 4? i don't even remember)

they could've made this a 10-episode TV show so easily. they didn't have to get lawrence fishburne or kerry washington or michele yeoh. they could've given smaller actors/actresses a big platform. if each episode was an hour long, we would've gotten much more than we got in this shitty movie. each season could be 1 book. catch my drift? netflix, you know i'm onto something.

i wanted a groom room scene.

the ever's ball. ugh. they did agatha so dirty.

HER CIRCUS OF TALENTS GOWN WAS REMOVED BECAUSE THERE WAS NO CIRCUS OF TALENTS

they did hester so dirty. like where was her witchiness? her superiority complex? her intense and undying love for her coven even though she insults and belittles them constantly?

ANADIL!! where were her rats?? also i think i saw someone else point this out that they could've cast an albino person because she is albino in the books. there's already so little albino representation. and that doesn't mean she can't be black, she could be a black albino person. i did love the girl who played her though.

i wanted more coven scenes.

tedros was not annoying like he was in the book and i was mad about it lmao

agatha and tedros felt so forced!!

that's all i can think of right now. im so mad about the movie that im going to go write an entire screenplay for a 10-episode tv series.