#man eating wreath

[tnbc-thoughtsandheadcanons]

Did Jack's toys kill anyone?

On-screen, we don't see that they do. Santa Claus comes in time to replace Jack's toys before they can hurt anyone.

HOWEVER. It's likely that the Man-Eating Wreath killed the old lady in the rocking chair, since we never have a scene of Santa replacing/fixing the wreath, on-screen.

Someone who knows the Nightmare cast asked the animator who worked on this scene his thoughts on what happened to her. He said she "totally dies". So, there's that!

[oreo-creampie]

𝐚 𝐝𝐚𝐝! 𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐬

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: heavy fluff, light angst, reader is giving birth, kento is worried about being a dad and supportive husband, you easily reassure him, twin baby girls, praise, kento is in awe of you as he should be, you're amazing, you breast feed the baby and kento bottle feeds the other baby

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧: I love your works! Could you write kento fluff, him stressing out about becoming a dad for the first time and reader is just really chill about it all!! Please and thank you🙏🙏

Oreo: I’m sick with my period at the same damn time eating chicken noodle soup, my hubby has been spoiling me so much. Brought me some Christmas themed flowers, the cutest wreath that has the house smelling like pine. Then there was running me a warm bath, making my soup this man is the best. Giving that nanami energy, cause you know he would take such good care of you. I haven’t had to lift a finger, and nanami wouldn’t let you lift one either.

Your painful contractions, rushing to the hospital, and the epidural to ensure a painless birth. Tightly squeezing his hand, pushing out the first baby girl. It’s a blur that doesn't slow down till he hears the first beautiful cry.

Letting go of your hand long enough to cut the umbilical cord. Grasping your hand between his own, kissing the back. “You’re doing wonderful love, she’s healthy and adorable.” Kissing your cheek, weakly you smile momentarily. Gritting your jaw focusing on pushing out your second baby girl. You're sweaty and beautiful.

The second baby girl is louder, her cries quieting her minutes older sister. This time the nurse brings her close to you, offering you the back the handle. Kento gently guides your hand helping you cut the cord.

"After we clean them both of you can hold one of your beautiful little joys. So chonky, healthy with a powerful set of lungs already.” The doctor gently cleans and checks you over.

One of the nurses brings his eldest baby to him. “Congratulations on such healthy wonderful baby girls.” Gently cradling his eldest babygirl in his hands, swaddled in a soft blanket. Kento supports her hand and head with one hand. She’s so small yet chunky at the same time. Swaddled in a yellow blanket.

Her beautiful chunky face scrunched up in confusion that melts away at the sight of his face. More tears trickle down his face at the soft adoring warm love in his baby girl’s eyes. Lifting her small hand, he leads down helping her touch his cheek.

Kento’s eyes widen tears trickling down his face, dripping onto the girl he names “ He’s a dad to two amazing baby girls who he wants to give the world to along side his beautiful wife.

What if he fails to be a good father?

Grinning Docter Annie announces, “Wonderful there is no hemorrhaging, you’re bleeding normally. We will keep you overnight for observation and discharge you in the morning. When you need to go to the restroom press the call button for a nurse. You will need to eat soon and get plenty of rest.”

Two nurses on either side carefully lift you for the doctor to put a diaper on you. Laying you back down, raising the upper half of the bed for you to comfortably sit up.

You're the nurse lift your baby girl out of the bath, drying her off. “Can I try to calm her down?” Kento looks up at you in pure awe. You have always been an amazing woman. He’s lucky for you to be the mother of his children.

What if he fails to be a supportive husband?

The nurse softly smiles, “You should be able to skin-to-skin and settle her, maybe help her latch.” Lying your baby on your chest. Cradling her, resting her head on your chest. Her loud cries softening to whines.

Admiring your little girl with tired eyes and a soft smile. It's a different type of beautiful to see you cradling the delicate adorable life in your hands. It's wonderful sight like the one of other baby girl in his hands.

Warm, healthy, and finally here after nine months. Here to thrive, grow, and develop interests. Kento wants to be there for them, with you by his side, every step of the way.

Her whines quiet down when you help her latch. Letting her get mouthfuls of milk. Softly breathing, “Of course, our lil Hana is hungry after all that hard work.” Kento didn't think he could fall more in love with you until this moment.

"She will need to latch and get skin with mom soon but for now getting fed by dad and doing some bonding is good too." A nurse hands Kento a bottle of formula. "We will get the overnight room and some food ready for the mom ready." Remembering the various videos and books he nudges Himari's lips with the bottle.

It takes a moment for her to latch, once she does, she's taking large mouthfuls. Failing her hand in her attempt to grab Kento's. A feat she takes moments to accomplish. Her small warm hand on the back of his, the sleepy loving looking in her eyes. "Hana and Himari are perfect, thank you my love for working so hard bringing them into this world."

The nurse and doctor trickle out of the room, taking some of the equipment with them. Leaving Kento and You along with your newborns.

"My love I know that look in your eyes and tension in your jaw. We got each other, and I couldn't have a better man by my side to raise our babies and grow old with. You're going to be everything these girls need in a father and more, trust me darling." The confidence in your beautiful face, soothing voice and tired eyes easing the weight on his shoulders.

He takes a deep breath, shoving his worries aside. Reaffirming your comforting words, "We have each other, there isn't anything we can't do to give these girls a wonderful life, don't worry about me love relax and rest." Standing up, carefully leaning down making sure not to disturb Himari drinking, kiss you gently. "I'm so grateful to get the privilege to be your husband and father to these adorable girls."

Oreo creampie’s m.list

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Vampiric.

Pairing: Yandere!Miguel O'hara x Reader (Spiderverse).

Word Count: 1.4k.

TW: Vampire AU, Blood and Violence, Unbalanced Power Dynamic, Predator/Prey Dynamics, Implied Past/Future N0n///C0n, and Obsessive Behavior.

He came to you in the midnight hours.

You’d learned, by now, to wait for his nightly visits in privacy, to sit on the corner of your bed farthest from your window and listen for the distant sound of claws digging into wood, of a body dragging against stone, of nails scraping against glass as he beckoned you to let him in willingly. Of course, you didn’t, and of course, he didn’t need you to – your bedroom window crashing only a moment after you would’ve reached it, a pair of talon-doting hands wrapping around your windowsill before Miguel hauled himself inside, scarlet blood already dotting the collar of his white undershirt. Clearly, he’d already fed, tonight. His appetite had already been sated, which meant he’d only come to you to wash the taste out of his mouth.

The alternative would’ve been kinder. When he came to you half-starved, you could blame his violence on his hunger, his cruelness on his desperation. Whatever he did tonight would only serve his own twisted sense of entertainment.

He was grinning, too; crimson painted over his lips and dripping from his chin, coating his pointed fangs and spilling onto the fine silk of his tunic. With your back to him, your shoulder pressed into the plain wood of your headboard, you watched from your peripheral as he stepped into your bedroom, letting out a bark of a laugh and arching his back before stiffening, his smile falling in an instant with a sharp, venomous hiss. He didn’t flee or melt into a pile of ash and bone as you’d hoped, but only turned back to your window, catching the wreath of purple and white flowers posted above it on his claws. “Garlic blooms,” he muttered, crushing your wreath in his fist. The ruined flowers were allowed to drift pathetically to the floor, but you forced yourself to look away before they landed. “Trying your hand at botany?”

“Someone told me that garlic was good for keeping away for keeping away unwanted pests, but they must’ve been mistaken.” You didn’t move, didn’t turn, keeping your back straight and your hands wrung together in your lap. It was all you could do to keep your voice steady, to hide how much you wanted to buckle into yourself and beg him to leave. That’d come soon enough, when you were drained of all things good and vital and had only the strength it took to hold yourself. For now, you could play confident. “Tell me, would it be worth the time it’d take to hang a crucifix?”

You felt his weight on the plush of your mattress, your stomach turning as he grew ever-nearer. “I wouldn’t think so. You know how fond I am of holy ground.”

It was true, you did. You’d never be able to forget the night he first cornered you, the hours you spent pinned against the alter of an empty chapel as a beast you’d mistaken for a man buried his teeth in your neck and he forced his body into yours. For as long as he’d tormented you, you’d thought that night would be your final one, that he’d split you open and eat you alive before the sun ever rose, but here you sat, alive and breathing and still completely in the dark as to why he hadn’t devoured you, why he hadn’t left you in the same decrepit state as the rest of his mortal victims – a dried husk, barely a shell of a corpse left in a gutter or alleyway to be found by some poor soul the next morning. Your only guess was that he took more joy in being the ghost that haunted your every waking thought than the beast who would rip you to shreds the moment you stepped into the moonlight, and even then, it was hard to tell which fate was crueler. It was hard to tell if you were glad that he’d shown you mercy, or distraught that he'd chosen to keep you as a plaything, instead.

A bitter taste spread over your tongue. His cold breath fanned over your exposed back, and reflectively, motivated by the same instinct that propels the rabbit to writhe in the fox’s mouth, you tried to stand, to flee Miguel before he thought to bite down. You made it all of half a step before a strong arm caught you by the waist, dragging you back onto your bed and against Miguel’s broad chest. There was a throaty laugh, a flat tongue ran over the curve of your throat, and then, the fox put the rabbit out of its misery and Miguel sunk his fangs into your neck.

It hurt the same way it always hurt. The pain was sharp, hot – searing your veins as he bit into you, drawing a sharp cry from the base of your throat before you could hope to swallow it down. He held you like that for a moment, then another, your body pressed against his and his teeth burrowed in your flesh, before pulling back with a rolling growl, barely giving you time to draw in a ragged inhale before his lips latched onto his fresh puncture marks, his coarse tongue over the twin streams of blood. A thin trail of scarlet slipped past the corner of his mouth, only growing thicker as he nipped at half-healed ‘love bites’ and throbbing bruises too often abused to fade. His hand fell away from your wrist and rose to your collar, finding its way to the base of your throat and catching you in an inescapable grip, holding you steady as he drank from you. Sometimes, he let you fight it, took joy in pinning you down as you shoved and kicked and screamed, but he usually preferred a submissive meal. Tonight, he was clearly in the mood to pretend you were willing prey.

You expected him to leave after he’d drunk his fill, to pull away and slip back out of your bedroom window, but you were not that fortunate. Rather, he sunk lower, burying his teeth in the curve of your shoulder. The impact was dull, just forceful enough to bruise – meant more to mark than to maim. A love bite, in the place of a puncture wound – the former just as painful as the latter. “It’s like wine,” he muttered, the words nearly lost against your skin. You felt his hand on the collar of your nightdress, starting to drag the delicate fabric downward before he lost what little patience he still had. Before you could brace yourself, before you could think to bed him not to, your body was slammed against the wood of your headboard, his fist still wrapped around your neck, his claws still tearing at your clothes. “If I had less control, I would’ve drained you weeks ago.”  His voice in your ear, his hands on your skin. He dropped lower, to your chest, and yet, you never seemed to rid yourself of the awful feeling that he was looming over you, consuming you. “You’re lucky that your blood’s not the only part of you that tastes so—”

“Please.” It was barely a whisper. Without his uncannily keen senses, it could’ve easily been lost underneath the sounds of his lips against your skin, underneath his throaty growls and stifled moans. Still, he raised his head, his scarlet eyes flickering up to meet yours as you went on. “Please, Miguel, not tonight.”

For a moment, he did not move, did not speak. You pictured, in a part of your mind you’d lost control of the day you met him, Miguel burying his talons in your chest, carving out your beating heart and making it so you’d never be able to deny him again, but the blow never came.

A small, teasing smile spread across his crimson-stained lips as he raised his head. He kissed you, the gesture gentle and lingering, before straightening his back and releasing your throat. “Not tonight,” he said, watching as you sunk into yourself. “But soon. I can’t let my amor spend their nights alone for much longer.”

You opened your mouth, but he was already gone – vanishing into the moonlight and leaving you covered in your own blood, shaking in the tatters of your nightdress, and already dreading his next visit.

[sleepw-me]

BF/GF HEADCANONS JJK⊹ ₊ ˚ 𓂃 ⸝⸝ ♡

Jujutsu Kaisen version SFW

y.itadori⸝⸝ ♡ I think everyone knows this, but let me remind you of his red shoes. I think he would be A person who likes to wear Jordans or something like that. So I imagine him lending you his shoes and you swapping them together, it's pretty sweet. he just gives you his Sneakers, and together maybe you have matching pairs?

m.fushiguroi⸝⸝ ♡ It's hard for him to show the love he has for you. Give him some time and when you walk through the streets of Shibuya together on your way to the cafe, he will hold his hand close to yours, then his little finger, spec with yours. When it's cold, he puts your hand in his jacket pocket and warms your hand there.

s.geto⸝⸝ ♡ On your first date, Geto took you to the aquarium, you walked together holding hands, from time to time he took pictures of you on the camera. One time you saw that one of your photos from that date was with his phone and the other one was hidden in his wallet. It's like he always has you with him.

s.gojo⸝⸝ ♡ He's rich and everyone knows it, that's why he takes you to rich restaurants and wants you to wear that new dress he bought you, you look great in it. He will give you flowers and a beautiful necklace for your anniversaries.

y.okkotsu⸝⸝ ♡ Sweet Yuta takes you on picnics, it's a beautiful sunny day and you both lie peacefully on a blanket among the grass and flowers. Sometimes Yuta reads to you the book he took with him and at that time you make him a flower wreath, offering him strawberries or other fruits from time to time.

n.kugisaki⸝⸝ ♡ She loves going shopping with you. You go wherever you want, try on clothes and have a great time. After shopping, you go to some cute restaurant, take photos of the food and post it on Instagram, bragging to everyone about your nice date, then you gossip and go home with shopping and a good mood.

s.ieiri⸝⸝ ♡ Every now and then you paint her nails, listening to music playing on your phone, you both sit on a bed full of blankets and talk or gossip. After finishing work, she kisses you every time and compliments you on how good a girl you are to her.

k.nanami⸝⸝ ♡ He is a morning person, he always goes to the bakery in the morning to buy fresh bread. Then he comes back to your shared apartment and makes you breakfast and coffee or tea, whichever you prefer. He wakes you up with kisses all over your face and sets the breakfast tray on the bed.

t.fushiguro⸝⸝ ♡ This man is big, everyone knows that. When he is with you, he can always protect you, although when he is with you, probably no one would dare to approach you. That's why he started teaching you self-defense because when he's gone, he wants his girlfriend to be able to fend for herself. It's sweet seeing how sometimes he holds back from using all his strength on you just because he's afraid he'll seriously hurt you.

c.kamo⸝⸝ ♡ He didn't have a childhood like all children, so you made it your goal to watch cartoons with him that you watched when you were a child and eat delicacies that reminded you of your childhood. You both cuddle together on the couch, under fluffy blankets and stuffed animals. Don't be surprised when you see him crying during the "coco" cartoon.

t.inumaki⸝⸝ ♡ This boy doesn't talk much, and sometimes he's afraid that his actions don't say enough that he loves you. That's why he leaves little cards in random places where he knows you will be, with words of affirmation and compliments on the cards.

t.ino⸝⸝ ♡ He's good at dancing, don't argue with me. He stands in front of the TV and turns on some hip hop music so you can dance together and see you move your hips, he loves it very much. If you don't know how to dance, he will be happy to teach you many moves, which will probably end in a tickle fight.

k.muta⸝⸝ ♡ I think he's such a nerdy boy. He's great with computers, so he's probably helped you fix something more than once. This sweet boy will even build a little invention for you. He will spend hours or even days just to give you that little item and see the smile on your face.

r.sukuna⸝⸝ ♡ Sukuna is possessive, even at home. When you want to work on the laptop in peace, he immediately lifts you from sitting at the desk as if you weighed nothing and puts you on his lap. When you look at him with a surprised face, he just asks - 'what do you want?'

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

Alex Cabot x Reader Headcanons

from my own wishful thinking & context clues & absolutely nothing else

Smart as fuck.

Loves brunch. Orders an omelet and a mimosa every time.

Grew up crazy rich. Trust fund baby.

New England law royalty.

Her favorite flowers are mums.

Would roundhouse kick anyone else who tried to hug her, but is super snuggly with you.

Eerily good at reading people.

Legendary speeches and closing arguments.

Would make an excellent politician, but doesn't like the ethically slimy things required.

Sees the good in you when you don't.

Stays up so late on weekends, then sleeps til noon. Even though you have told her time and time again that this is bad sleep hygiene.

Hot when she wears glasses and she knows it.

Chooses your outfits when you go on vacations because she wants the Instagram pics to be perfect.

Leaves you little love letters on sticky notes when she has to leave before you wake up.

Loves to Netflix and chill all weekend. With a big emphasis on the chill. 😉

Very hard to intimidate.

Not great about saving money, but she doesn't really have to be.

Spends an ungodly amount of money on omakase.

Doesn't let many people get close to her, but is very close to those she lets in.

Makes sure you're included in conversations because you can be a little on the shy side.

Ridiculously long nighttime skin care routine.

Has watched every single comedy special on Netflix.

Nearly unstoppable when she turns on the charm.

Makes you get to the airport 2.5 hours early, despite the fact that you both have TSA PreCheck.

A slut for cacio e pepe.

Will choose a hotel based on nothing but how the pictures there would look.

Her suitcase is always too heavy, and she always asks to put stuff in yours.

Has a parfait for lunch every day.

Cafe con leche supremacy stan.

Silk sheets only.

Sweeps you away on far-flung vacations as often as she can.

A gin-and-tonic is her Bad Day at Work drink.

Got in trouble all the time as a kid for playing with her mom's makeup.

Would 100% use her family's private jet if you hadn't convinced her it was socially and environmentally unethical. She hated that you were right.

Mulled wine on Christmas Eve. Always.

Will melt if you give her jewelry. Doesn't even care that she could buy herself better pieces.

Lets you get quirky and colorful with holiday decorations inside, but outside it's classic white lights and wreaths and candles only.

Would never ever admit it but gets pissed when you don't interact with her Instagram posts.

Favorite candy is Skittles, but she feels this undermines her badass bitch persona at work, so she'll only eat them at home.

Secretly likes to wind down with a joint on Friday nights after work.

Reminds you to wear SPF moisturizer. Every. Single. Day.

Holds your hand firmly in crowds so you don't get separated.

Takes so long in the shower in the morning that sometimes you have to get in, wash, and get out all while she's still showering.

Gets a facial and a massage every week like the bougie bitch she is.

Gives absolutely no fucks.

You do not want to be on the receiving end of an Alex glare.

The ultimate hype man. Believes in you so much that you actually believe in yourself.

Never not running late because it takes her so long to get ready. But somehow always gets there on time?

Compliments you incessantly. Like to the point that it flustered you at first.

Has to drink herbal tea instead of coffee after lunch or she'll be up all night.

[jilixthinker]

blackholes

=͟͟͞♡ jisung × fem!reader

=͟͟͞♡ parallel universes au

word count: 7.4K

synopsis: you can delude yourself and wait for the paint to dry and take away the evil. but the only truth, unique and unchanging, is that pain only creates more pain. you can close your eyes and believe otherwise, imagine another ending. but when you wake up, jisung is still sick and his illness is eating him from the inside.

content warning: explicit sexual content, oral sex (f receiving), angst, depression, mention of suicide, drinking and smoking, sufference, eventual happy ending (?)

=͟͟͞♡ please, consider reblogging if you like my works!

A drop of crimson red paint is tapping on the ground at a regular rhythm. At first glance, to someone who is not trained to know how to observe, it might even look like blood. The fingertips from which the paint is dripping off are moving slowly over the paper, searching for the weak spot on the canvas. There is always one, where the fabric gives in and the color soaks deeper. The fingers probe its full extent until a small smile of intimate satisfaction appears in your face.

The breaking point is within the body portrayed on the canvas, right in the center of his forehead. It sparkles a little like an Indian diamond, and you dip the tip of your brush in the red paint that previously soiled your fingers. At the bottom corner to the right, near the tapered shape of the feet you have just finished painting, you trace a few words.

pain creates love.

The young man on the canvas is dazzlingly beautiful. His eyes are night onyx, deep as lagoons. His lips are the color of ripe cherries, swollen and tumid. He is portrayed nude, legs spread wide and arms outstretched toward the viewer. He exudes eroticism from every angle, yet he is far from vulgar. A few strands of inky hair hide the pale, flushed skin on his cheekbones. Slender, elegant fingers are stretched out to their full length as if to grasp the air. There is no background. The only foreign element to that body is the canopy on which the boy is slumped. The draped sheets caress his figure enhancing his nakedness without covering it. The only dissonant note in that marvelous sensual work, the only weak point, is the too-hinted blush on his forehead. It's almost not noticeable if you lose yourself in the full beauty of the portrait, but you see it, because you painted it and because it's part of the canvas, part of the subject. And it is singular, as him.

"It's a masterpiece".

The voice is off-screen, as if it's coming from another world. You don't turn to check who it belongs to, but you keep staring at your painting. The sound of small footsteps unravels in the air of the room. The parquet floor creaks at every inch.

"I am not fully satisfied with it".

You run the back of your hand over the fabric, as if the epidermis could erase the color and replace it with a different image. The voice approaches you from behind and blows a crystalline laugh as his shadow reflects off the picture, obscuring the white of the canopy.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. What's wrong with it?"

As you move your gaze from the painting to turn around, the exact copy of the boy portrayed on the canvas stands out in all his glory in front of you. His shower-wet hair frames his ephebic features like a wreath, and a tiny smile illuminates his face in a cascade of light.

"It's not like the original".

The boy shakes his head and time freezes. A few drops of water land on your neck.

"It doesn't have to be".

Sharpened fingers curl around the closed collar of your shirt and begin to loosen it. Button by button, the fabric slips off your figure and the young man in front of you kneels down to slip off your shirt and deposit hundreds of tiny kisses on your hands. When he stands up again, he approaches your body and touches it, appreciating every inch of it and covering it with attention. You lift you face and bite his cheek, losing yourself in the soothing smell of Sunday sex.

Pain creates love, you are quite certain of it. Loving someone who suffers means loving every single portion of their pain and making it your own. It is not easy to desire something so abstract, but there are people who try, with soul, body, bones and sweat. Some succeed, some fail, and some keep trying. You cannot identify yourself in any of these categories. You only knows that you love, unconditionally, without a specific goal. You love so much that the pain is now only the frame to a picture of yours, you love so much that the Indian diamond on the boy's forehead becomes almost invisible to your eyes. Almost.

You can delude yourself and wait for the paint to dry and take away the evil. But the only truth, unique and unchanging, is that pain only creates more pain. You can close your eyes and believe otherwise, imagine another ending. But when you wake up, Jisung is still sick and his illness is eating him from the inside.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

You meet Jisung in the twilight of his nineteen years, when he is just a little lump of insecurity and imagination. He clutches a vanilla coffee in his left hand and a briefcase in his right, crammed with story incipits that he will never finish. He dropped out of school to become one of those freelance writers you see on the covers of magazines for intellectuals, the ones who live in unpronounceable French towns and smoke mint cigarettes while sipping aged cognacs. It must not be bad, he thinks, to be envied while basking in your self admiration.

When Jisung sees you, he is leaving creative writing school, and you are leaving art school. You have a white palette under your arm, open apron smeared with oil paints, and nose sniffing the air. In fact, Jisung doesn't really have time to see you, because fate plans to make him trip over you, causing his vanilla coffee to spill all over your pants.

With his face on fire and the excuse of dry cleaning to repay for the damage, you two get acquainted. Jisung discovers that you smoke mint cigarettes, like French writers. No cognac though, you say. You prefer gin. It goes down faster and helps me come up with new ideas for painting.

Jisung asks to see one of your works, but your condition is of him posing as a model for your next portrait assignment, because you had been looking for a face like his for months. Jisung lets you beg for a while, but then he capitulates in front of another coffee.

You live alone in a loft on the fifth floor of a suburban building. The apartment is a hellish mess and it almost looks as if a tornado has swept through the living room, bathroom and kitchen, mixing the different furnishings together. You invite Jisung to sit wherever he wants, assuming he can find a seat.

You silently eat two bowls of instant ramen and then dangle awkwardly in front of each other, thinking about what to say. After a few minutes Jisung breaks the silence and asks you to see your portraits. You dig through the easels piled against the wall before handing him a few palettes.

The portraits are not refined. In fact, that's the reason you are going to art school. You cannot seem to maintain proper proportions between the various body parts you draw. In the first painting you show Jisung, the woman's hands on the canvas are too big and stubby, in the second the eyes are exaggeratedly spaced apart, and in the third the legs are so crooked that they almost seem to belong to two different people. In spite of everything, Jisung fails to give those mistakes the connotation of flaws, because there is something that compels him to stay looking at them without speaking.

While Jisung stares absently at the portraits, you flip through the half-told stories you found in his briefcase and reads fragments of disconnected sentences with a lazy smile on your lips. Jisung reflects for the time of three cigarettes before looking at you and stating that he is ready to be drawn.

When you get up to gather your brushes and paints, out of the corner of your eyes you see the boy becoming pale and widening his eyes. A split second later, the canvas slips from Jisung's hands, crashing to the floor with a reverberating noise.

You don't have time to process what happened because Jisung runs quickly toward the exit, almost crashing against the walls. He runs down the stairs as fast as he can, tripping over his feet, hitting the steps with each step and leaving you, alone in your apartment, one hand extended toward the door, clutching the rarefied air.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"You remind me of someone I've seen before".

The second time you and Jisung met, he has the time to hide behind an alley, because it's easier not to be asked questions if you have something to hide. In this case, you happen to turn on that very alley and you find yourself in front of Jisung, curled in a quivering ball of shame. After assuring him more than once that you don't care if he broke the canvas and ruined the portrait, you convince him to have another cup of coffee together because you will never find a face like his for your painting.

You drink unsweetened black espresso, steaming hot to the limits of what is possible to drink. Jisung looks at you with an horrified look as he opens the third sugar packet and melts the grains inside his vanilla drink.

"Who?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure. Your hands".

Jisung glows and hides his flushed face behind his coffee.

"What's wrong with my hands?"

"They are vaguely erotic".

You lazily runs your fingers over Jisung's manicured nails.

"Thank you?"

"I'd like to paint those too. If you want to. You must promise not to run away and leave me alone like an idiot though".

Jisung stares out the coffee shop window and counts the drops that go condensed in the corners of the glass, Your voice is just a shade in the picture in front of him.

"Mh".

"Can I read something you wrote?"

"Didn't you already do that at your house a few weeks ago?"

"Jisung, come on, I want to read something serious".

"I'll pretend I didn't hear".

You smile andd curl your lips around your glass.

"You don't tell me that's all you wrote?"

"No. Of course not".

"Thank God. Those stories were really cheap".

You barely have time to shield your face behind your arms before Jisung's indigned look - along with his fists - dumps a shower of insults on you. It takes him a few minutes before he realizes that, hey I was just kidding, and he stops swearing.

You stand outside of the coffee shop shortly afterward, huddling under a horrible slime colored umbrella. You shove a mint cigarette between your lips and ask Jisung if he wants to try.

Jisung spends the next half hour coughing and cursing in all the languages of the world.

"You're not really suited to be a writer".

Jisung kicks you lightly and chuckles half offended as he watches you prance around on one foot yowling like a wounded puppy. Then you pull him by the hood of his jacket and smother your last words over his mouth. His comment on the kiss is anything but an insult. Jisung bites his lips and thinks that maybe you are right.

He doesn't tell you, though.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"What happened the first time at my house?"

"What are you talking about? "

"The painting".

"I thought we had already talked about that".

"Indeed. I'm not interested in the painting itself".

"It slipped from my hands".

Jisung looks down and you don't believe him for a second. You finish brushing the bluish sky and wipe your hands on the apron. You watch the canvas, but it's useless. You weren't able to paint decently for months.

"It doesn't matter. I couldn't paint anything anyway".

Jisung barely nods and closes his eyes. He squeezes his thighs together and rocks in his chair, absorbing the faint winter rays of light on his skin.

"Do blind people dream?"

You watch Jisung tensing his back like a cat and stretching slowly, making his spine creak.

"It depends. If they are blind from birth maybe they only dream of sounds".

Jisung opens his eye and observes you, illuminated by the light. He looks almost like a beam of the whitest sun, his hair is tousled and his lips chapped by the wind.

"What do you think is worse, being born without sight or losing it over time?"

"Why are you asking me this?"

"I don't know".

You twist your mouth because Jisung tells that he doesn't know to a lot of things and you can never figure out if it's because he doesn't want to answer or because he really doesn't know. You pretend to be mad at it, but the facade doesn't even last two seconds. Jisung is like that anyway. You love his everything or you don't love anything at all.

"I think it's worse to never have the chance to see colors, or the sun".

He gets up from the stool and sits in your lap, staring at an indefinite spot on your face. You stand still for several minutes without speaking, then Jisung rubs his forehead against your cheek.

"If I couldn't see, what would you do?"

"I'd be painting with words".

Jisung kisses you and you end up flying outside the universe, navigating purple galaxies in the space constellation, running through the Milky Way and on a bridge leading to the end of the world.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"I don't feel like playing anymore".

Jisung, sitting on the wooden chair, looks at the window in an absorbed manner. He crosses his ankles and wrinkles his nose as if to chase away an annoying thought.

"I am bored. I've been sitting in this position for almost two hours".

You let out a soft grunt as you pick up a multitude of dried up tubes of paint from a ceramic jar.

"You are just being bratty", you comment, resting the brush on the coffee table and rubbing your hands against each other to scrape off the remnants of color on your nails.

"What do you feel like doing?" you ask as you look up at him.

Jisung smiles and gets up from his small chair by sliding down part of the sheet that covered his hips.

"You are dirty", he says, beginning to absentmindedly touch his lower lip with his fingers.

"I will take a shower after this".

Jisung shakes his head slowly. He moistens his index and middle fingers with his pink tongue, sticking out of his mouth.

"I don't think so".

Another handful of small steps and he is in front of you, already crushed against the bones of you pelvis. With his hands he brings your neck close to his face and licks the skin exposed by your shirt, from your ear down to the collarbones. There he stops and sucks just enough to leave you with a red bruise.

"I'll clean you up", he moans, biting the patch of skin at the nape of your neck, near your hairline.

You scramble to the kitchen chair, pushed by Jisung's hands that are slipping off your shirt, and it's pointless to tell him that I can't be dirty there because he is wetting a path of bare skin down to your belly button. He sticks his tongue out and he swirls it slowly inside of it, then continues on the dimples above your hip bone.

You feel your leg muscles contracting and you clasp your hands around Jisung's shoulders, pushing him down and allowing him to curl up on the floor, a hungry expression on his face.

Jisung spreads his legs and you let your head loll against the wall behind you as he bites your skin and removes your pants. You feel a tender, raspy tongue lazily sucking on the inside of your thighs and nibbling at them slowly. His fingers cup your already sopping cunt and start moving, circling your entrance and smearing the slick on the skin around it.

Jisung's mouth is searing and his black eyes bottomless. His saliva seethes on your flesh as you tense your legs with tiny spasms each time you feel him biting closer and closer to your aching pussy. Maybe he is sucking away something else, buried deeper somewhere inside you as well, but you have no strength to think about it when Jisung finally makes up his mind and sucks your clit in between his lips.

You hold your breath and all of your blood drains from your brain to focus lower, warming where the other's mouth failed. The wet sound is obscenely filthy as his lips slide up and down along your drenching pussy, lapping at the thin, swollen skin of your lips.

Jisung alternates between spitting dribbles of saliva on your cunt and sliding his fingers inside of you, massaging your aching walls for a long time. When he harshly sucks your clit inside his mouth, he lets out a satisfied meow and closes his eyes, completely enraptured by his own ego, fulfilled while listening to your moans. His fingers grab the tender flesh of your butt and he sinks his nose into your cunt, sucking as vigorously as possible on your puffy clit.

When he feels the walls of your pussy contract around his fingers, he starts to thrust them slowly and takes his time to give kitten licks at your hardened nub, sucking only the tip of it with undulating motions.

You squint your eyes, press your hands on the back of Jisung's neck and you finally cum with a dull gasp. Jisung presses his thumb against his own lips, smearing your release on them. He stares at you with vicious eyes and swallows slowly, wiping his crimson lips with his fingertips.

"You are clean now".

You kiss him, biting hard on his lips and licking his chin and cheeks to remove all of the traces of your slick from his face. When you inhale the smell of his skin, you thank whoever is above or below for allowing you to possess him.

"You are my masterpiece".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

The spring of Jisung's twentieth year has the dull, bland taste of rain. It rains all the time, every day. Flowers fail to sprout and the few that succeed, eventually rot.

Jisung began to smoke, even though he gave up on his writing career. It wasn't really suitable, all things considered. He smokes your mint cigarettes and lets the fresh flavor fill his mouth before blowing away the residue. When he looks out from behind the window glass at the water drops tapping on the puddles, he sighs sadly.

You are splayed on the sofa with your legs curled on the floor. You snort, and your voice is hoarse as if you had just woken up.

"Would you like some tea?".

"Uh".

Jisung throws the cigarette in a jar filled with soil. He clicks his tongue against his palate and heads to the kitchen to boil tap water in the pot. He looks for the fruit tea filters behind the pantry doors when he stops all of a sudden, feeling the flesh under his skin instantly freezing. He tries to focus on something, anything. He stares at the wall, he opens his lips and, instead of a cry, what comes out is a whisper.

"Baby".

Jisung trembles and stretches a hand out in front of him. His eyes water and overflow like rain. He squeezes the air with his fingers and his veins swell on his wrists, pulsing his blood down.

"Baby", he slurs again.

You lift your head from the back of the sofa and look at your boyfriend's shoulders hunched forward.

"What's the matter?"

Jisung crinkles his eyes even more and doesn't hold back a tear that lines his cheeks and wrinkles his round chin. He squints, and thousands shades of colors disappear. His muscles relax involuntarily, and he hears the sound of shattering shards as if his brain had detached from his own skullcap to navigate inside of the the cerebral fluid.

"Baby, where am I?"

You sprint to your feet at lightning speed and you hold up Jisung before he can crash to the floor. His head, as an unconditional reflex, lunges forward and slams back against your forehead.

"Where are you?"

Jisung thrashes against your chest and continues to shake with convulsive spasms. He grits his teeth and tries to slip out of your tight embrace.

I love you say I love you and you see me I see you tell me.

"I am here. I am behind you. I won't leave you", you try to soothe him.

He turns around in deluded strength and fumbles with his fingers in search of you face. He taps lips, eyes, hair, cheekbones, squeezes knuckles and bites his own tongue.

"I don't see you".

Jisung's voice trembles. He opens his mouth two or three times, but his words dry up like a desert. A breath of wind, and he speaks feebly.

"I see nothing".

no no no no no no no

"The painting too. I couldn't see it anymore. It didn't slipped from my hands".

Jisung is gushing like a raging river and in a split second he becomes aware of herself, of you, of everything floating in his mind.

"It wasn't there".

say I'm there and you see me because I'm here and I won't leave you say that-.

"It was just a black hole".

please

"I lied to you".

I don't want to

"I never told you how my mother died".

"Jisung".

"No. You have to listen to me".

You feel your throat burning as if someone was smoking inside your stomach. You can feel the aftertaste of ash in the mouth of your esophagus and you try to swallow. But nothing goes down.

"Do you know what glaucoma is?"

"I don't think I want to know".

"It's a disease that affects eyesight. Your eyes accumulate water until the internal pressure is too much. You can't feel pain. That's why it is diagnosed too late. It's like your eyes are drowning in tears".

You die a little with each word, as if Jisung is spewing ink, and you are an inkwell collecting phantom waste.

"She couldn't stand the idea of not being able to see anymore".

"You could not have-"

"I have it".

You feel like falling. You stumble and fall. You fall for an endless time, and you fall into a dark well. You don't touch the bottom and keep falling into the cold. You try to scream but that requires oxygen, and your lungs contract, spitting out carbon dioxide because there is no more oxygen in you. So you cling to the walls, crawl your fingers and flay you skin. A cry rumbles out, but the voice is not yours.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

The first time you make love, Jisung feels broken. Not in the external sense of the act itself. He feels broken in a deeper place, where you cannot touch and where he didn't even know he could feel something. This is the reason why, in the middle of the intercourse, he starts crying and wets the sheets with salty tears. He cries so quietly that you don't even realize it.

"Paint me".

"What?"

Jisung rolls up between the covers and straddles you.

"I wish you would paint all the colors of the world on me".

He moans and rubs his nose against the protruding bones of your neck. Tears dry on the skin of his cheeks. When you taste the salt on your tongue, you softly bite his chin.

"Paint is bad for your skin, you know that?".

Jisung bursts out laughing, and you laugh too in response.

"I know, but I would like a sun on my stomach. Or on my back".

You clasp Jisung's hips in your hands, anchoring him to your waist.

"You are bright already".

"And a meadow, too, all over my arms. And light, everywhere. Beams of light all over my face. I want to shine in the night".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"You'll be there right? After".

"Where?"

"On the other side".

You slide the brush over Jisung's shoulders, lying on the floor with goose bumps caused from the cold tiles.

"Don't move".

There are empty liquor bottles scattered on the floor, with a bittersweet smell lingering in the room and permeating the walls. No light. Many unlit cigarette everywhere, a few blood stains - or perhaps paint - on Jisung's feet. You keep painting without seeing where you are passing the brush.

"I will follow you everywhere, if I can".

"You know that it won't be possible for you".

"I know".

You kiss the colors on his skin and Jisung tastes like sweat and burnt wood.

"But maybe it's better this way".

Jisung reaches out his arm and tentatively finds the neck of a bottle, brings it to his lips and drinks the clear liquid, letting a few drops slide down his chin to his nodular neck. Jisung picks up the alcohol with his fingertips and brings it to his eyes, pressing a little. It stings at first, but then he begins to see stars in front of him, so close he thinks he can gather them in the palm of his hand.

"Do you want me to open the window?" you ask.

Jisung shakes his head and pushes you against him, causing the brushes to fall from your hands. He clings to your back and pet your hair, smelling it and tasting it with his tongue.

"Did you take your medicine?"

Jisung shakes his head and searches for cigarettes inside his pants. He manages to find one and places it between your lips.

"It won't be so bad".

You inhale the smoke and blow it out somewhere in the darkness of the room. You rest your lips on Jisung's without kissing him, the dry taste of tobacco invades his throat and he smiles with the corners of his mouth.

"I have to take you to the sea, near the cliffs. I can paint the waves on your cheeks. We can even jump from very high if you want. Or you can sleep on the sand and taste the water".

Jisung pulls the smoking stick from your fingers and takes a wide puff of smoke, holding it inside himself as much as possible, then pulls you against him and opens his mouth, breathing into you.

"It will be fine, Jisung".

Jisung laughs and feels his throat tighten in a thorny grip. He gasps and pushes the lit cigarette on the back of his hand. He grits his teeth.

"How come I'm not sure?"

You take his lips in between your fingers and squeeze them until they open wide, then you move closer and whisper everything to him. You whisper the world and the universe.

you are light you are white and red you are scarlet you are perfect you are alive alive alive you are not the rain because it keeps raining and I will always wait for you on the other side always because you are alive and you are here it will be okay

And it should be okay, it should be right. Jisung would have kissed you and said it's true, it's always okay when you're here. But no, he pushes you on the chest and shrugs, his eyes blazing and his lips frozen.

"Listen to me. Outside, somewhere in this infinite universe, there is a parallel world. I know for a fact that it exists, just as I know that in that world everything is right, as it should be here. There is a Jisung running across the grass on a sunny day, and you are chasing after him and falling down in an attempt to catch him. There's the two of us laughing and drinking until dawn, throwing ourselves on the ground and hugging each other so we don't get cold. We have flowers on the balcony and dew in our hair. It never rains. The sun always shines. This world really exists, and it's beautiful. But what you have to understand - what I want you to understand - is that this world, this one, it's not that. This is the reality that hurts, the one where you have to pay a price for your life. We can't run across a meadow here, because you picked me and adopted me out of pity. You even managed to fall in love with me, and that's the wrongest thing you could have done. Because you could really be bright, you could really shine, have flowers on the balcony and dew in your hair. But you chose me. And this is not the world in which everything is right. This is the world in which I am fading, the world in which I am losing the color that you are so desperately trying to put on me. But look what happen, look".

Jisung gets up and you can feel his small body clawing in the dark inside the room to open the balcony door and go outside. The apartment is suddenly pervaded with a gray light, reflecting the color of the sky. You look at Jisung, naked, stiff and trembling under the raindrops falling from above.

Jisung pulls his lips up in a distorted smile.

"See?"

Water runs down his back and the paint drips on the soles of his feet, sliding down to his short, pink nails.

"The color melts under the rain. It only lasts a few seconds before I come back to be as transparent as your canvas. And this is not the world where the sun shines. These are blackholes. Life, light, nature, they are all projections in my head. But you. You can still make it. You don't have to follow me. Don't follow my selfishness".

"Jisung, I have to".

Jisung trembles and the water rushes over him. The reality mocks him and everything he can love.

"No, you want to".

don't come with me you are my love

"Don't follow me to the other side. You will fade too".

You clench your fists and watch the drops wetting the ephebic figure in front of you. Jisung comes to you and blows desolate words into your face.

"When I ask you to paint me, don't. When I ask you to pity me, don't. When I beg you to come with me, please, don't".

"No. I must follow you. Everywhere. As long as there are black holes, I will be behind you. As long as this world sucks. As long as I breathe".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

One night you close your eyes and, instead of the sea, you see boundless steppes and barren grasslands. After what seems like miles and miles of dry lands, inside a small depression - almost a pit - you see Jisung, curled onto himself, all naked and with his limbs tangled together, hidden from the world. You don't ask yourself why you can see such a small body at such a distance, but your muscles set into autonomous motion and you find yourself running in that direction.

After endless minutes, you reach what seems to be the final destination, but the pit gradually moves away from you. However, for some reason, you can still see Jisung swinging himself with his face pressed into the dry earth.

You speed up your run and you begin to feel your throat tightening as the first drops of sweat make their way onto your forehead. Shadows cast themselves in the barren ground, but they are distorted by the shadow of your own body and of the dim, suffocating light of the sun. The image of Jisung blurs for a few seconds, and when it becomes clear again, those same shadows are catapulted onto him as well. You lift your head and you see dozens, hundreds, thousands of hawks flying in circles over Jisung's ditch, which tightens and lengthens as it becomes deeper.

The last steps of your run are slow, while the first hawk descends in slow motion on Jisung's soft face and begins to do something to his cheeks. You see Jisung's cheekbones become parched, almost to the point you fear that a gust of wind will blow them away. The second hawk glides beside the other, and you cannot get the soles of your feet off the dusty ground as it begins, slowly, as if it was foretasting a feast, to peck at Jisung's moist eyes.

Soft tears continue to gush, tiny raindrops that can nothing against the infecundity of the place where they stand. The thousands of hawks fly inside the pit and peck at the remnants of that dead body, tearing it apart with their hooked beaks. They chew the skin and swallow Jisung's life, paralyzed in his grave.

After what seems like centuries, they soar together in their cruel dance of farewell. Your feet finally unclench, but it's no longer necessary, because Jisung now stands in front of you, perfect. The tender, rosy flesh barely flushed on his cheeks and the slender, trembling body almost hairless, beautiful.

without

eyes.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

Jisung is tired. June is an agony of dampness spent under the sheets, and you spend countless nights hoping that Jisung's sobs will cease and he will finally sleep. July is no better. The heat is starting to get unbearable and Jisung wants to keep the windows closed, hooked shut, so that not a single draft of clean air can penetrate into the apartments. Along with that, he stops drinking.

You keep opening the windows, even if Jisung screams and cries like a baby, and you force his lips open with the help of your fingers, making him swallow some liquids. August is definitely a torture when he stops taking his painkillers and his stomach turns over, forcing him to vomit all day and all night.

There is no turning back now.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"Tell me".

There is so much smoke inside the room that even if it wasn't that dark, it would be impossible to see more than an inch away from your face. You are lying half on the floor, half on Jisung's sticky thighs, smoking a cigarette that seems to be his only remaining foothold in his earthly existence.

"What?"

Jisung's voice is hoarse and distressing. It has changed exponentially in the past two weeks, since he refused to let you go outside to buy something to eat. You fighted against it, and he bit your hand viciously before starting to cry in shame.

"When you want to leave, tell me".

"You can't come with me. We've already discussed it".

"No, you have already discussed it. By yourself. You don't listen to what I say".

Jisung opens his lips and raises a graceful hand as if he was trying to slap you in the face. Eventually, the hand sags and the slap becomes a trembling caress.

"Jisung, please", you become pleading, tired and desperate. With your bandaged fingers you caress Jisung's thin knuckles, one by one.

"Just tell me. I won't follow you, I promise".

Jisung laughs. His head rests against the wall.

"You will follow me".

"Please".

Your lips meet in the compact darkness and they rub, dry, against each other in the memory of an old, worn-out passion.

"I love you, and you are a liar".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

When you manage to drag Jisung out of the house in September, you almost gave up. You don't know if it is because of the faint light or the clouds, but Jisung's once tan skin is now grayish, and it makes his figure looks unhealthy and contagious at the mere sight. You also brought out brushes, hundreds of them, and half-squeezed tubes of color.

"Why did you bring me here?"

The grass under Jisung's shoes rustles in response. You are in a park just outside the city, a destination for a few couples and students with nothing to do.

"You asked me to paint you".

"That was a long time ago".

You pick up the brushes from your bag and pull a forced smile between you lips.

"And you, quite a long time ago, told me you wanted to shine. Here, then".

The tube of yellow paint curls against the wooden palette and the brush bristles wet in contact.

"Lay down".

Jisung tries to deny it, but then he seems to see in you the edge of a precipice, and maybe he feels a rush of pity and compassion for both of you. He wonders how it is possible to have reached that point without someone having the heart to save you both. Or save at least you.

With an awkward movement he leans over the lawn and lies on his back, shivering from the drops of water trapped between the blades of grass. You kneel beside him and barely lift the edges of his shirt, uncovering his belly and round hips. Jisung closes his eyes and trembles when he feels your open mouth kissing the flesh near his navel. You begin to trace marks near that spot, dipping your brush occasionally into the color. When you finish that first step, you keep painting all around radially, as if the first object was the focal point of the entire image. With your fingers you caress his petite chest, the spots uncovered by the color, the skinny hips, and as much of Jisung as you can.

Once you are done, you lean forward. Jisung reaches out and gently touches your hair, entwining it between his index fingers and anchoring you to him. Jisung's entire chest is a cerulean expanse of sky. There is sky everywhere, interspersed with green tree foliage intertwining on the sides. Down, just above his pelvis, a clear sea joins the sky in a blue line of horizon. And in that small, hidden spot of the kiss, you painted a sun.

"Do you like it?"

Jisung opens his eyes and instead of your face he sees a black universe. He feels two tears sting and run down his cheeks, his chin and to his chest, wetting his lips folded into a smile.

"It's perfect".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

It's December when you think you feel Jisung moving on the bed and kicking off the covers. You also think you can feel his lips kissing you softly and his arms wrapping around your neck before sinking into the oblivion of sleep with his words in your mind.

remember you promised

But when you wake up, Jisung is not really there. The mattress is empty next to you and the sheets are tangled at the bottom of the bed. You snap to your feet, ignoring the dizziness and the fact that the room seems to be moving in circles around you.

"Jisung?"

You call him in a choked, shrill voice, a knot forming in your throat. You hear a ringing noise in you ears and you begin to search everywhere inside the apartment. You want to hope, you really do, that he just went out, but you cannot force yourself to believe in it because Jisung, by now, hasn't been out alone for months.

"Jisung?".

You look again, inside the shower stall, in the small balcony, under the couch, in the closet where you keep you painting canvas, inside the closet in the bedroom. But it's just when you are about to leave the house that you see it. On the living room table, between the keys and the fruit basket. A farewell letter.

You don't even understand how you actually got to pick it up, unfold it, and start reading it, that you tear it in two in your hands, teeth gritted and tears beginning to overflow from your eyes.

"Jisung".

You run outside without even closing the front door, engulfing the steps in trembling, messy strides. You reach the street and the only thing that you can think about is that I promised you, but you should have told me when you were about to go, you should have told me. You run on the road, crossing the roadway, risking getting run over, running on the sidewalks, running over people, running for hours. Until you see him.

For a moment you don't even notice him, caught up in the heat of your research. Yet it's him, standing in front of you. Perfect and naked, with a red dot on his forehead, like in your painting. Beautiful and full of life. As he has never been. As in an iconographic image branded in your head. And it's so perfect, and beautiful and full of life that you give in.

and yet you promised not to follow me

You close your eyes and take one step in his direction. Jisung smiles and spreads his arms wide, and so do you. An inch apart, and Jisung kisses you.

I love you.

You push back your tears.

"I am ready".

and you follow him.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

You are 23 years old when you die. You are found in your apartment, lying on the floor, completely naked and smeared with paint. That's suicide, it is obvious, but nobody take a guess on why you decided to end your life.

When they take your body away, a dirty brush of yellow paint slips from your hand and ends up stepped on by the coroner.

Nobody finds dozens and dozens of canvases depicting the same boy. Nobody finds intact packages of painkillers. Nobody finds mint cigarettes and bottles of gin. Nobody finds a shredded letter saying "I am going". Nobody.

"You said you wouldn't follow me".

"You knew I would".

"I love you, and you're a liar".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

Outside, somewhere in the infinite universe, there is a parallel world. There's a Jisung running on the grass on a sunny day, and you are running after him and falling down trying to catch him. There's the two of us laughing and drinking until dawn, throwing ourselves on the ground and hugging each other so we don't get cold. We have flowers on the balcony and dew in our hair. It never rains. The sun always shines. You could really shine, have flowers on the balcony and dew in your hair. But you chose me.

You chose me.

©️ jilixthinker, 2023. please do not copy, translate, or republish my works anywhere.

[moorishflower]

Apropos of the Addams family post from a few weeks back: Hob meeting Gomez and them immediately vibing. Freak4freak friendship. Taking one look at the horrific sublime and wanting to kiss it with tongue

GOD yes like I have trouble imagining writing Hob meeting Gomez Addams actually because the IPs are so different but if he ever did it would be IMMEDIATE recognition. Same hat vibes. Have you beheld my big beautiful spouse? Behold them and despair (the despair is lovely this time of year)

Like can you imagine Hob attending ANY function in the Dreaming, either as the Dreamlord's husband or his consort? Normal McNormalman wandering around amongst gods and fey and nightmares and angels and being so painfully ordinary and HUMAN that he loops back around to being just. The cryptid in the room. Everyone whispering to each other, "Does anyone know that guy? Who is that? Did he sneak in?"

Hob just happily chatting away eating canapes and mingling and discussing footie with satyrs and shit, and finally some asshole god or demigod strolls on up to him and clears their throat, and demands to know "Who are you? Why are you here? You're just some human."

And Hob blinks his big beautiful brown cow eyes and he says "Oh! I'm here with my husband! Here he is now!" And just simp mode activates IMMEDIATELY. Dream standing there in full nightmare regalia glowering daggers at whoever has dared to impugn the honor of HIS husband, visibly bleeding shadows while the unfortunate guest contemplates how swiftly their mortality is about to be ripped from their still-conscious body, and Hob tucks his arm through Dream's, "How's your night been so far, baby? Good party, the brownies seemed very interested in the latest scores for Manchester, think they might be close to setting up a league of their own, dunno who they'd play against though. Christ, you look fantastic tonight. Doesn't he look fantastic? We should definitely dance later, imagine how you'd look on the floor with all these shadows around you. Phwoar. Are you thirsty, darling?"

"Wine will suffice."

"Sure, love, be right back. Nice talking with you, mate!" And off he trots to the refreshments table, and meanwhile Dream has expanded to roughly 1.5 times his normal height and living darkness wreathes him in an aura of cold sweat and midnight shivers, and he has to lean down almost at the waist to address whoever this unfortunate SOB is. Blinking slow and deliberate, like a lizard eyeing a mouse.

"You are lucky. My husband is in a charitable mood. If you ever speak ill of him again. It will not be his mercy you must seek."

And Hob comes back with two glasses of wine right as Dream is straightening up, and the unfortunate god or demigod looks like they're about to simultaneously weep and piss themselves, and he gives Dream his drink and then in a smooth and seamless motion gets his arm around Dream's waist and dips the 8ft tall nightmare man. Logically, and based on their respective heights, it should not be that easy, but Dream is visibly enjoying it.

"My sweet," Hob is murmuring into Dream's clavicle, "my darling, my Dream. Have I told you how beautiful you are tonight?"

"Yes. But tell me again."

And at this point Hob's would-be detractor takes the opportunity to flee, just as Hob is planting a line of smacking kisses up the Dreamlord's neck. "Beautiful," he's saying, "ravishing, stunning, awe-inspiring."

And after that there's a sort of flyer or pamphlet that gets circulated through a bunch of supernatural circles, with Hob Gadling's name and description and picture, THIS IS THE PRINCE-CONSORT OF THE NIGHTMARE KING, HE IS ALLOWED AND ENCOURAGED TO BE HERE.

[itsscromp]

Hey, feel free to ignore this if you're not wanting to do it. But I've really been thinking about Venom who gets stuck with a reader who isn't good at confrontation. Like he always wants to go fight bad guys but his host has major anxiety and panic attacks just from being asked to order a coffee, let alone be a vigilante. I think it would be funny.

Venom x Reader

I really enjoy this idea anon, as someone who has anxiety, I can personally relate to this idea, Venom would probably tease you about it at first, but I think once he's properly got to know you he would be the most supportive person out there. Word count:844

"Y/n, you said I could eat bad guys !!!" Venom's head wreathed out of your body and looked at you. About a few months ago, You became venom's host. You promised to him that he would be able to hunt down bad guys and eat them. You know be a whole vigilante thing. The only problem...

Your anxiety.

You have trouble telling the waiter at the cafe what you wanted to eat or try and make an important phone call, Let alone be a freaking vigilante to an alien par... Symbiote.

"Venom I know ok, I just don't deal with confrontation that well..."

"Oh look at you, can't do anything without stuttering or freaking out" He teased you.

"Hey, not cool man..." You glared at him and he stopped, you took a deep breath and tried again to him.

"Look, yes I promised that we would go and stop bad guys and such, but it's not as easy as it seems for me venom, I... I don't know what stops me every single damn time but I just can't go through it in the end. I'm trying to work on it... but I just need help from time to time ok."

Venom tilted his head for a bit looking at you and nodding.

"Agreed, We'll help you y/n... I'm sorry for teasing you..." He apologised.

'It's ok venom, Thank you" You gently patted his gooey head and smiled.

And that he did, venom kept his promise and helped you with anything and everything he could. He wanted to make sure that you were comfortable and safe, letting you know he was still here with you and he would help you. For today on the way to work, you decided to get some coffee, The self-ordering kiosk was broken so you had to line up and order it in person. You could feel the slight panic set in, Venom could sense it.

"y/n... deep breaths, We're right here with you" He gently wreathed a small tentacle around your wrist, gently rubbing it. In a way to comfort you.

"Just walk to the counter, Say that you want *your coffee order* and pay for it, Can you do that ??"

"Yeah... I can do that." You took a deep breath. Standing in line and repeating your order, venom continued to comfort and reassure you the whole time.

When it was your turn to order, your heart began to pound out of your chest, But with venom's encouragement, You walked up to the counter.

"Hi welcome to Benny's what can I get for you ??" the clerk smiled at you.

"Can.... can..." You were starting to stutter again But you took a deep breath, feeling Venom's tendril gently rub your back in a comforting way. "Can... I get... *your coffee order* please..." You softly smiled, feeling accomplished.

You paid for your coffee and then walked out with your order, happily sipping it. "You did amazing y/n, Well done" venom congratulated you. "Thanks buddy"

He continued to help you for the rest of the day, And when nightfall arrived, You felt confident to go out and begin to look for bad guys. Walking through the streets of San Francisco, You looked around to spot any suspicious activity. Until you then heard screaming in the alleyway as a woman was about to be robbed at knife point.

"Hand over the purse lady !!" He shouted as the tip of the blade was on her throat.

"Please help me !!!" She shouted, hoping anyone right now could hear her.

"We've got a bad guy !!" Venom said excitedly.

"Ok... Ok... You got this y/n" You said to yourself as you then turned into the alley.

"L...Lea... Leave her alone !!!" You managed to get out.

The robber then turned to you and pointed the knife at you. "Stay out of this kid, before you know what's coming !!"

"Please, call the poli.." She begged you before the blade was on her throat again.

"Shut it, lady !!" The robber shouted.

"I said leave her alone !!!" You shouted again, You never shouted like that before, but it felt good.

The robber then shoved the lady and stormed to you angrily.

'The hell you say to me little punk" As soon as he was about to shank you, you grabbed his wrist from moving any further as venom enveloped your body and smiled deviously at the robber. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," He said as his tongue licked across his teeth and then taking a bite off the robber's head.

The woman was shocked, to say the least, but thankful someone stopped him.

"Thank you..."

Venom simply nodded and then climbed up the building to a nearby rooftop. "Venom did you see that !!! I did it !!!!" You shouted happily as he smiled too.

"You did excellent y/n, Remember we are here to help you. Always"

"Thanks, buddy..."

You knew venom would always rise to the occasion and help you in any way shape or form. Always.

A/N: I apologise for the delay anon, but I hoped you enjoyed it :)

Taglist: @callofdudes @fun-k-board @gooptoshi

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Now that North and South Weekly has reached chapter 10, I think it is time to highlight this interesting contrast:

"When she had left the room, he [Mr. Lennox] began in his scrutinising way to look about him. The little drawing-room was looking its best in the streaming light of the morning sun. The middle window in the bow was opened, and clustering roses and the scarlet honeysuckle came peeping round the corner; the small lawn was gorgeous with verbenas and geraniums of all bright colours. But the very brightness outside made the colours within seem poor and faded. The carpet was far from new; the chintz had been often washed; the whole apartment was smaller and shabbier than he had expected, as back-ground and frame-work for Margaret, herself so queenly. He took up one of the books lying on the table; it was the Paradise of Dante, in the proper old Italian binding of white vellum and gold; by it lay a dictionary, and some words copied out in Margaret’s handwriting. They were a dull list of words, but somehow he liked looking at them. He put them down with a sigh. “The living is evidently as small as she said. It seems strange, for the Beresfords belong to a good family.”

(Chapter III)

"He [Mr. Thornton] was ushered into the little drawing-room, and kindly greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him up to his wife, whose pale face, and shawl-draped figure made a silent excuse for the cold languor of her greeting. Margaret was lighting the lamp when he entered, for the darkness was coming on. The lamp threw a pretty light into the centre of the dusky room, from which, with country habits, they did not exclude the night-skies, and the outer darkness of air. Somehow, that room contrasted itself with the one he had lately left; handsome, ponderous, with no sign of female habitation, except in the one spot where his mother sate, and no convenience for any other employment than eating and drinking. To be sure, it was a dining-room; his mother preferred to sit in it; and her will was a household law. But the drawing-room was not like this. It was twice—twenty times as fine; not one quarter as comfortable. Here were no mirrors, not even a scrap of glass to reflect the light, and answer the same purpose as water in a landscape; no gilding; a warm, sober breadth of colouring, well relieved by the dear old Helstone chintz-curtains and chair covers. An open davenport stood in the window opposite the door; in the other there was a stand, with a tall white china vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale green birch, and copper-coloured beech-leaves. Pretty baskets of work stood about in different places: and books, not cared for on account of their binding solely, lay on one table, as if recently put down. Behind the door was another table decked out for tea, with a white table-cloth, on which flourished the cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket piled with oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves. It appeared to Mr. Thornton that all these graceful cares were habitual to the family; and especially of a piece with Margaret."

(Chapter X)

Something something the "gentleman" looks at a scene of beauty and can only think of money, status, and family connections. The "man in trade" is presented with a humbler version of the same scene, and thinks of warmth, home-likeness, and feminine care something something.

[fanfiction101]

Jareth x Fem!reader

Hi loves, sorry this was a little late as I had some family over but here you go! Also I am one of those wackos that loves Christmas so that is sort of the time that this is taking place so deal with it lol. Anyways, be safe and love you!

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I studied my eyes and my hair. I looked at my face shape and make up that I had put on earlier. Cheery Christmas music was playing in the background as I got ready.

I grew up in a rich family. My mother and father, Amanda and Christopher Whitney, were well respected scientists and engineers. I had grown up in a well-off household but my parents knew how to parent. They taught me and my younger brothers, Theodore and Sebastian, to never brag about money and often took us to soup kitchens and donation centers to not only humble us, but to help others.

But every year, a couple days before Christmas, my father holds a party in which he would invite high and elite people in society, mainly to gain business connections. When I was younger I would stay for an hour and then go to bed and as a teenager, I would just stay at a friends house for the night. Now, as a woman, I go because I could perhaps, like my father, find business acquaintances. But, my parents are thinking that I am there to find the "Special someone."

"Okay y/n," I said to myself, looking at myself in the eye, "This isn't your first time at a Christmas party. You can do this. You will not just sit quietly in the corner like last year. You will socialize and at least be semi professional depending on how much alcohol is served."

After my pep talk, I changed into my dress. It was a floor length, burgundy dress. It had a mesh layer with flowers and sequins with a silky under skirt. My mother had bought it as a Christmas gift and I felt like an absolute princess in it.

I smiled and I exited the room. As I walked down the hallway, into the large room that the parties were held in, I could smell the most magnificent cooking. The smells of spices and sugary desserts flooded the air. Ham, turkey, and chicken. Cakes, cookies and candies. My mouth was watering.

I made it to the room and was amazed by the decorations. There was a large Christmas tree with large, silver and gold bulbs in the middle of the room with tables covered in piles of food across the far wall. Wreaths hung on the walls and candles were on the smaller, round tables. Guests hung about, eating and chatting with one another.

As I was admiring the room, I heard my father call me. I turned around and saw my parents talking to someone I had never met before. The stranger had a very different style. It was a peculiar style that seemed to remind me of an '80's Gothic rock-star. His hair was wild and his eyes seemed to be different colors. I would be a liar if I said that he wasn't attractive.

"Ah there she is." My father said as I joined their group, "Y/n, this is-"

"Jareth." The man interrupted, "Call me Jareth, Miss Whitney. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. " He then took my hand and pecked it, still looking at me with those beautiful mismatched eyes. I felt my face slowly start to burn up as I took my hand back and my mother gave me a knowing look.

I swallowed and fixed my face straight. "Pleasure is all mine, Jareth. You may call me y/n."

"Mr. and Mrs. Whitney! How long has it been?" an older man with a gray beard barged into the conversation and led my parents away, rambling on about the good old days, leaving me and Jareth to ourselves.

"So," I said, trying to make conversation, "How did you meet my parents?"

"Well, I met them on a business trip and they helped a great deal in my journey a year or so ago." Jareth replied, walking to the nearest table and pulling out a chair and gesturing me to sit.

I obliged and he sat at the hair across from me. "Ah, I see. What do you do for your business."

"Well you could say I'm sort of an ambassador of some sorts. Hey can I grab you a drink?" He offered.

I nodded, "Yes, thank you." I thought about his answer and thought about how vague he was. Perhaps there was classified information I didn't need to know about.

As he got up,I looked at his cape, draping over his shoulders. It had sequences, yet he was able to pull it off without looking so silly.

When he came back with some spiced cider, we began to chat about random things. I talked about my friends, college, and family stories and Jareth told me about his parents when they were alive and his passion for music. He would make a few jokes here and there and I would laugh. As the night went on, more and more people arrived.

I tried focusing my attention on Jareth, but I started to feel a little overwhelmed. I didn't know if he could read minds or if he wanted a change of scene, but he suggested we go outside. I nodded and he offered his arm as he led me outside to a small balcony.

I shivered as the cold wind blew. Jareth took off his coat and put it over my bear shoulders. His hands were warm, but firm. My breathing stiffed as his hands brushed against my shoulders, and they stayed there for a second before he slowly drew them away. His coat smelled good. It smelled like him.

"Won't you get cold" I asked.

"I'll be alright." He said leaning on the rail.

"Are you sure?" I said taking his hand, noticing the slight shaking. "You should be warm too."

"Well then I think that the only solution then is to share that warmth, hm?" He said with a sly smile.

I felt my face heat up as I let his hands drift down to my waist.

"You know, you look absolutely lovely tonight." he said stepping closer. It was almost as if I could lean in and kiss him.

"Thank you. I could say the same for you." I said, trying to keep myself composed.

His eyes looked into mine and closed the gap between us. At first the kiss was light, but we weren't done. This kiss only deepened. I felt his hand on my cheek and his tongue tracing my lips, asking for permission to take control. I granted it, feeling him exploring my mouth.

I felt myself taking a step back, leaning against the door frame. Our kissing continued. Our hands wondered over each other. My hands were on his chest, neck, back or his hair while his hands were tracing the curves of my hips or in my hair or on my cheek.

After a while, we parted for a breath of fresh air. Jareth continued his dominance, kissing a long my jawline and onto my neck area, looking for something until his kissed my sweet spot where I sucked in my breath.

I could feel him smirking as he started to kiss is harder as I softly whimpered. After a while, He pulled away and kissed me on the lips. It was shorter but nonetheless, passionate.

"Do you think we got carried away darling?" He said.

I smiled, "You are a good kisser."

"Maybe we should do this again sometime." He said half-jokingly.

"You know, this doesn't have to end. I know a place, that is if you want to continue."

Jareth's smirk returned, "Lead the way darling."

[florsial]

It's been a while since I looked at flowers so here are Marauders era characters as plants:

James Potter: Sunflowers since he's commonly associated with the sun. Or delphinium for positivity and a big heart!

Sirius Black: Ivy, the common ivy, or English or European ivy. It's a symbol of loyalty and fidelity. Fits enough for me.

Remus Lupin: Wolfsbane. Believed to repel werewolves, and it's used in a potion in the Wizarding World. But if we want a less angsty plant there is also the tropical white morning glory. It's also known as a moonflower and symbolizes the ability of beauty to emerge in dark times, and is used to provide hope.

Peter Pettigrew: Burgundy dahlias for betrayal, for obvious reasons. But also purple hyacinths for a desire for forgiveness. Cuz I'm hell bent that Peter was regretful of what he did in canon

Lily Evans: I'm not gonna give her lily, that seems a little too obvious lol but, peonies! They symbolize love, honor, happiness wealth, romance, and beauty. Which yk, works well in my eyes

Mary Macdonald: Poppies for remembrance of the death and consolation. It's based on the headcanon she obliviated herself sometime before to during the first wizarding war because everything was getting too much for her. Also, poppies are used to create opium, which relieves pain. It's pretty sad ngl, that hc always gets me.

Marlene McKinnon: King Protea, it's very sharp-looking flower that symbolizes strength and resilience. Not much info is given about Marlene during the war except her entire family was wiped out, but given her personality in fanon. I imagine she put up a hella good fight. I would give this to Dorcas but I have another one for her.

Slytherins! (Including Pandora!)

Regulus Black: Thorns! Rose thorns mostly, but just thorns in general. From what I read, rose thorns show adversity and sacrifice. Regulus had the misfortune of being born into a family with shit views and never having a morally correct input his entire life and he basically sacrificed his life to bring down the Dark Lord. Thorns are always ways for a plant to deter herbivores from eating them, take that as you will!

Barty Crouch Jr: Bleeding hearts, cuz yeahhhh, everlasting love? Unrequited love?? Tragedy compacted into one. His daddy issues too?? Him pleading for his dad to love him?? HIS MOTHER GIVING UP HER LAST MOMENTS FOR HIM??? EVAN AND REGULUS???? CMON CMONNNNN

Evan Rosier: Venus Fly Trap for persistence. This man was not willing to end up in Azkaban and took Moody's fucking nose with him. Venus fly traps are also known to die right after digestion aka eating a fly so it fits! (I LOVEEE carnivorous plants)

Dorcas Meadows: Laurel leaves for victory and achievement. Specifically, laurel leaves in a wreath. I think it's neat since she was powerful enough that Voldemort had to kill her himself. Mf was takin them out one by one until Voldy decided she was too op. LOVE HER FOR THAT

Pandora Rosier: Not the most hottest flower (lol), but the amaranth, while it could also mean everlasting last love, but it also means hopelessness or hopeless love. This only really works if you see Pandora as a seer. Something I think is interesting is the fact that fate is fate, it's sealed and final, and there is never a way around it. If you try to get around fate, you walk right into it because you never a chance. Pandora as a seer would've saw her friends and classmates dying and can't do anything about it because fate is sealed from the very beginning. It's hopeless.

[archangeltwins]

why is diomedes ignored over the likes of achilles and odysseus?

- aged between 15 / 20 he united six other kingdoms under one banner in the name of adrastus, and his own father tydeus, when thebes was usurped

- name means godlike thinking / godlike cunning

- oft nicknamed lord of the war cry, scourge of the trojans, terror of troy, epigonoi ("one who came after") in honor of his father and great-grandfather's military achievements

- pledged 80 warships to the mycenean / achaean army, seconded only by agamemnon's 100 count

- notable kill-count rose so high, homer stopped recording how many died during writing works

- established not one, but three mythological cities, one of which is named after his great-grandfather Oeneas

- took on not one, not two, but 3 greek gods and a demigod on the fields of troy ( aeneas, apollo, aphrodite, and ares - whomst he grievously wounded and caused to flee )

- one of the top 3 champions of the goddess athena, was blessed with superhuman strength, ability to discern gods from mortals, and had his helm & shield wreathed in divine fire

- his clever armor-switch with the trojan glaucus gave him a fearsome-wroth appearance which cowed the hearts of lesser men; they became battle-bonded after this

- was one of the suitors of helen before she chose paris over menelaus, and was then sworn under divine-locked oath to protect him and attend the siege on troy

- "killing" ares netted him the man-eating mares, and claim to his blessed cities / kingdoms

- athena, when tydeus refused her offer of immortality in a fit of hubris, henceforth bestowed it upon next of kin: diomedes. he became a minor god and was allowed into olympus

[theredofoctober]

MANNA FIC— CHAPTER ONE: PAPRIKA

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham fic, TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, mild Daddy kink (it'll all make sense).

Chronologically this is the first chapter in the series.

Keep reading after the cut

Later, when you reflect on your first meeting with Dr. Hannibal Lecter, you will marvel at the Sybilan apprehension that had wreathed the merest detail of that night: the oppressive colours of his office, grey and vermillion from window to wall, the very choice to have you see him at an evening appointment, penning you in by way of the darkness.

Yet, as you sit across from Hannibal in a low leather chair, you contain only a spiteful rancour, one foot jouncing testily as the doctor attempts to extract answers from you beyond a penchant for grudging monosyllables.

“I understand that you have seen therapists in the past,” he says, in a neutral tone.

You stare at the curtains in their dissected oblongs of red and ash, like bloodied teeth against the wall: anything but meet the eyes that seem to have already picked you apart in the mere minutes you have been before him.

“Yeah,” you mutter. “A couple of times. CBT stuff. I hated it. Doesn’t work for me.”

Dr. Lecter offers you a smile so imperceptible that he might not have moved at all.

“Understandable. Cognitive behavioural therapy is a better fit for anxiety and negative thinking— it has its place, but for patients with deeper trauma, their illness may prove too complex for it to be effective. Dialectical behavioural therapy would perhaps be more suitable, in your case.”

Shrugging curtly, you do not ask him to elaborate. There is no therapy in the book that you would warm to; you had set out tonight only to put an end to familial begging, in its absence of dignity.

You resent the nakedness of your secrets before this stranger, before anyone, your suffering made public domain. Like a brow-beaten captive, you are moved to defend your self abuse against all those who seek to extract it from you.

Hannibal watches you with a dry intensity, his gaze rarely straying from your face. He is a lean, polished figure in an impeccable red check suit, dark hair swept back from a face of meticulous and rather interesting beauty.

His brows are low, almost invisible, his eyes small, and as dark as tree flux, the nose—straight, and as debonair as the rest of him—leading down from two furrows that suggest an earnest and curious whimsy.

His air, thus far, has been both tactful and polite, unperturbed by your close-mouthed unwillingness to yield to quizzing in even the most inoffensive line. You should like him, you suppose, yet you have already branded him an enemy.

He is a man; how could you ever be expected to open up to him?

“How long have you struggled with your eating disorder?” asks Hannibal.

You cross your arms over your chest, barring him out, a theological defence against the vampire of such dreaded questioning.

“You’ve read my records. You already know.”

“Certainly, but I would like to hear your experience in your own words. Such documents may represent only the most objective truths, and reveal very little of you, or what you are feeling at any given moment. Besides, they are as fallible as the professionals that create them. If there are any inaccuracies, your answers will bring them to light.”

The implication that you may share, with him, an honesty that you have refused previous therapists bears a quiet arrogance that might have won you over, were you not set so resolutely in your hatred.

“Fine,” you say. “I’ve had it since I was a kid.”

‘IT’; the word may as well be in baleful capitals, the introduction to some eponymous beast. You will give your ailment no other name aloud, have never done so, except in clandestine internet entry, forcing the thorn further beneath the nail.

Dr. Lecter digests your simple answer, finding flavour in its enigma.

“You have no intentions of recovery without intervention. What served you in your formative years, you will continue to savour.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get better,” you retort. “It’ll always be there, so what’s the point?”

The question had shaken previous professionals into stumbling objection; not so Hannibal Lecter, whose ambiguous calm nevertheless bears the same imperceptible threat as the night.

“Would you say the same to an alcoholic?” he asks. “Many live out their lives through a succession of losses and victories, and likewise, many emerge fulfilled and content in having struck out on the path of self-betterment. Yet, by your logic, you would condemn them all in their relationship to illness.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” you object; your foot bounces so violently over the arm of the chair that Hannibal glances at it, his focus unbalanced by the distraction. “It’s different for me, okay?”

“In what regard? What prevents you from regarding your own struggles with the same grace?”

“It’s... it's not the same. I don't want to talk about it.”

Panic makes you feel almost buoyant in the room, a kite with your string cut, to be devoured by the wind.

“You have not yet reached the point that recovery seems possible, or even desirable to you,” says Hannibal, across your distress. “That is quite normal. For many individuals with eating disorders, recovery can take up to ten years to achieve— a long and difficult road, yet while there is no permanent cure, there is still reward in that destination.”

This you have heard before, in other iterations; he loses you a little, a mistake that he seems to catch in your reply.

“You don’t understand.”

“If you mean that I cannot directly empathise, that is true,” says Dr. Lecter. “I do not share your struggles. Food is a great pleasure to me. Still, I comprehend the crux of your illness— that you once seized a handhold in a rock when you were falling, and still refuse to let it go when there is earth to hold you.”

You continue to jiggle your shoe in a pattern of agitation.

“You’ll never be able to hold me.”

Hannibal leans forward and places a hand upon your foot, guiding it soundly still again.

“That remains to be seen.”

Your breath peters in your throat. It apalls you that he has touched you without asking, that his hand—so warm through the leather of your sneaker—makes you imagine it within the wet turncoat of your cunt.

Suddenly you’re standing from your seat without acknowledging the motion that led you there, like a frame scratched from an old tape.

“I’m leaving,” you say, abruptly. “I’m sorry. This just isn’t for me.”

Hannibal looks up at you, and the still, smooth planes of his features alarm you in their lack of urgency.

“Please,” he says. “Sit down. You will not be leaving here today.”

He is so slim and unassuming in his tailored suit that you feel yourself the red-capped girl of fairy tale, entering an elder’s cabin to the appetites of a wolf.

“What are you talking about?” you whisper.

Dr. Lecter leans forward, speaking with a low and graceful regret.

“I must inform you that your parents have signed a written agreement for you to enter inpatient care, overseen by myself and a colleague.”

Betrayal breaks across you in a death bed sweat: how could they? What have they done?

“No!” you say. “You're lying.”

Dr. Lecter pats a folder resting on the arm of his chair.

“I would be willing to show you the paperwork, if you insist upon it.”

“I don’t care,” you say, your voice a shrill of indignation. “They can’t just send me away without my permission! It’s illegal!”

“As guardians to a vulnerable adult, it is entirely so.”

You don’t believe him, although your parents evidently did, pressed by their earnest desperation to reverse the agonies of time.

“Whatever,” you say, coldly. “I’m not staying.”

Hannibal tilts his head at an angle of frosty amusement, and suddenly you grasp that this is no ordinary intervention, but incarceration, for reasons yet unknown.

Terror snarls through you like thunder, and you run for the door, wrenching at the handle to find it locked against you.

“What the fuck?” you cry, though you had known in your most basic, animal senses that this man—this room—would be your undoing.

Dr. Lecter has gotten up from his seat and is striding towards you, seizing your arms at the wrists, as firmly as a father; you turn your head in a feral reflex and attempt to bite him, stalled by the wool of his jacket in your teeth. He turns your writhing figure towards him, your skirt bunched up to your waist in the struggle, his palm a blacksmith’s tool on your bare skin, a scarring heat.

His expression is scarcely altered by the struggle, his breathing slow, even. You are no threat to him; he has surely restrained patients like this before, a necessary training.

You will not go quietly, as perhaps others have, before you. You bring your knee into his groin until you hear him grunt in the desired pain, but he does not lose his grip upon you, only drives you back against the door, his eyes churning with a wild satisfaction.

“You will learn not to disobey, little one,” he says, and before you can absorb the threat there is a needle at your neck, and chemical night.

You half-wake some hours later to the voices of two men, one of them Hannibal, the other unfamiliar, speaking in a curt and cautious rhythm.

“This is her?” asks the unknown man— through fluttering eyelids you see him, all rumpled hair and scowling good looks, an image from some obscure Brontë novel. “The patient you talked about on the phone? What have you given her? She looks out of it.”

“A mild sedative,” Hannibal replies, “with some additional compounds. It’s alright, Will. She will revive soon, likely in a confused state. This will pass.”

Will hangs back, his mouth an angle of uncertainty.

“Forgive me, Dr. Lecter, but I’m a little confused as to what I’m doing here.”

“Your role will be paramount to the healing process,” says Hannibal, touching a hand to his colleague’s flannel sleeve with familiar tenderness. “Together, we will each be whatever our subject requires from one moment to the next. A healer, a father, a lover, a friend—”

“All while crossing the boundaries of what could be considered valid treatment into an inappropriate relationship,” Will cuts in, sharply. “Surely that’s only going to make things worse.”

Dr. Lecter approaches you, adjusting a pillow behind your head; you are too out of it to object, unsure whether it is a chair or a bed you occupy in your prone state.

“What is appropriate is not always the most effective method of healing,” says Hannibal. “This patient requires complex support. Decisions to be made for her that other professionals would not be comfortable making.”

Will shakes his head, grimly amused.

“And you are.”

“Certainly. Over the years I have seen results from the most unorthodox approaches. I have an interest in observing how she will respond to mine.”

You watch the two men exchange glances, and blearily wonder if they are merely friends, or something more.

“Dr. Lecter, I have no idea how to connect with her,” says Will. “And frankly the idea of trying isn’t something I’m particularly enthusiastic about.”

“Your discinclination to be involved may work to her benefit,” says Hannibal, smoothly. “While my part is to provide gentle guidance and compassion, you will offer the firm hand required to leash the chaos of her disturbed mind and behaviours.”

Will scoffs in disbelief.

“The good cop, bad cop routine? That seems a little obvious for you, doctor.”

“And yet it may be precisely what she craves. Stability. Discipline.”

At this, there is a certain change in the air of the room; one day, you will know it as hunger, so many appetites contained between two men.

“Well, which one is going to come first?” asks Will, relenting. “Stability, or discipline?”

“When she is fully awake, we will know," say Hannibal. "And we will deliver it.”

[quinloki]

Ace/Izou/Marco/Thatch - Semi-Sweet

Requestor: Anonymous Reader Vibes Requested: AFAB she/her CW: references to drowning, time in a coma, maybe more sweet than semi, based it a little off of the kinktober series

Eyes alight with flames, a hand wreathed in fire, a voice booming and desperate - the last things you had seen before your body had hit the ocean waves.

“The rough storm had ripped you off the deck of the Moby, you don’t have a devil fruit, but the ship was massive, and you aren’t. Even with your haki protecting you, you hit the water so hard it had knocked you unconscious.

“Even with the storm raging, members of the crew had dove off the ship to find you. I got held back, but someone like me diving into the water wouldn’t have helped.

“You were in the water… a long time. Thatch couldn’t find a pulse when he surfaced with you, couldn’t get you to breathe. Pops had used his own devil fruit to banish the storm, and the entire crew had turned toward you. Izou had performed CPR until you hacked up half the ocean and started breathing on your own. He cracked three ribs in the process, and no one knew how hurt you were before that.

“Marco didn’t sleep for almost three days. Even with Me an’ Thatch an’ Izou helping him, he couldn’t barely find fitful naps, let alone any useful sleep. He kept abusing his devil fruit to keep himself sharp, until Pops’ laid him out and forced him to rest yesterday.”

A cheerful young man sat beside your bed, clumsily peeling apples for you. When you’d asked him what happened he hadn’t held back. He didn’t look or feel threatening, and the warmth that radiated from him was comfortable.

“Thatch and Izou got some sleep once you were stable, and it was my turn to watch over you, so here we are.” He hands over the plate of apple slices, and you happily begin to nibble on one. You’re pretty sure you shouldn’t eat after four days of being in a coma, but you’re too hungry to let good sense stop you.

“How do you feel?”

“… Sore,” you answer softly, taking another small bite. “Hungry.” Your brow furrows, and you set the apple slice you were working on down. “Confused.”

“Confused about?” He questions, tilting his head.

You are quiet for a long moment, but he gives you plenty of time to sort your thoughts before you reply.

“I don’t… know any of those names.” You admit, frustration on your face. You’re not looking at him, but you can see his body jerk. “I don’t…” Your voice shifts from frustration and becomes small, tears pulling at the corners of your eyes. “Remember you.”

“You - Ah, it’s okay.” He responds. You look up and can tell the smile on his face is strained, but he’s trying to look cheerful. “Marco… um, he’s the ship’s doctor, he said that you might not remember things when you woke up.” He puts a hand to his chest. “I’m Ace, we’re… we’re crew mates, you’re part of the Whitebeard Pirates. You joined before me, so Thatch or Izou or Marco would be able to fill you in better than me.”

“Ace.” You say the name and watch his face twist in an odd emotion. “Thatch pulled me out of the sea, and Izou cracked my ribs.”

“To save you, to save you!” Ace adds quickly. “Izou has amazing control, and Marco was busy getting the sick bay ready in case he needed to do something more complicated to save you.”

“… I caused distress. I’m sorry.” You say it firmly, eyes downcast.

“Bwha- what? No, I mean, yeah, but… er… you don’t hafta apologize for it.” He assures you. “People were worried cause they care.”

“That’s -.”

“Ah, little miss negative is back.” A voice says from the doorway, you and Ace turn and look and Ace nods toward the tall dark-haired man.

“Izou.”

“You helped save me, thank you.” You bow slightly from your position in the bed, wincing against unexpected pain.

“Think nothing of it,” Izou replies, stepping into the room. He moves the apple slices away from you and gently pushes you by your shoulders until you’re laying down again. “If Marco comes in and you’re sitting up and eating, he’ll toss all of us into the sea.”

“I was hungry.”

“She was hungry.”

You and Ace speak up at the same time and Izou gives you a withering look. “Of course she’s hungry, she’s been in a coma for almost four days.” He snaps. “But food on a stomach that empty can come right back up. You don’t have the strength to vomit.

“Ace, go wake up Marco and Thatch. Tell that big oaf to make the best bone stock he can, but you come back with broth from yesterday’s soup. Clear, Ace. Clear broth.” Izou reiterates as the freckled youth takes off.

Izou sits in the chair Ace had been using.

“When you first joined you were like this.” He begins. His voice is full of warmth, like Ace’s, but different. Muted comparatively, but just as comforting. “So was I. Worried about the etiquette of a world that doesn’t matter here. Feeling like a stranger when I was surrounded by a family I never knew I needed.”

He adjusts how he’s sitting a little, the soft shifting of silk almost makes your heart ache. It’s a sound that slips through your body and tightens around your bones. You can’t remember why right now, but the emotion is undeniable.

“You adjusted faster than I did.” He continues on. “Danced right into everyone’s heart so quickly it was almost concerning. Admittedly, you danced more forcefully into some hearts than others, and created a kind of family within the family.”

Silent tears slip down your cheeks and Izou brushes the away with warm and tender fingers.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. You’ll remember. I have faith, pretty flower.” He assures you. “If you don’t, then it will be what it will be, and we’ll be happy that you’re still here.”

A soft knock at the door interrupts your thoughts and Izou speaks up for them to enter. A tall man steps inside, button up shirt open and tattoo on his chest visible. He has blonde hair, and there are deep circles under his eyes, but his entire demeanor brightens when he sees you’re awake.

“There she is.” He says warmly. You look from him to Izou and he points back toward him.

“Marco, our resident doctor.” He clarifies.

“Pineapple.” You say, before covering your mouth and turning away. There’s a moment of silence before the two lose their battle against the laughs bubbling up in them and your mortification changes to an odd embarrassment.

“Progress.” Izou says, stepping out of the way as Marco came to your bedside.

“I’ll take it,” Marco says. “Pardon me, I need to check your vitals.” He explains and you look back toward him and nod.

He checks your pulse, your reaction to a light in your eyes, temperature, listens to your heart, and presses and prods and few places asking if anything hurts. He asks you a few questions, and while you can remember your name, you don’t seem to be able to answer any of the other questions.

The soft smile on his face and the even cadence of his voice don’t change regardless of your answers, and there’s comfort in it. The two of them bring in a couple more chairs, and assure you that if you want to be left alone you only need ask, but if you can deal with them, there are at least four crew members who will want to visit with you while you have some broth.

Marco and Izou get you repositioned so you can sit up easily, and they get a tray for the bed. The two seem content to sit quietly with you for the couple moments it takes for Ace to return. There’s another man with him, tallest of the lot, though not by much, with an impressive pompadour hair style.

Both of them have a bowl of steaming broth in their hands.

“One clear,” the new comer says, “One with finely ground ginger.” He explains to Marco. “Ginger usually helps settle stomachs, so I wanted you to have a choice.”

Marco nods. “A couple spoonfuls won’t hurt, yoi. But mostly clear to be safe.” He decides and they shuffle things around a little before setting a bowl in front of you.

“Clear soup to help clear your head.” The big man says as he hands you a spoon.

“Her head’s already clear, Thatch,” Ace snaps at him. “That’s the problem.”

“Maybe it’s foggy instead you little wretch. The soup will help.” Thatch retorts, irritation on his face even as he’s trying to keep his composure.

“It’s hot meat juice, not medicine.” Ace grumbles.

“Broth is-.” Marco starts, but his eyes catch yours and he pauses. The air in the room freezes and you can feel everyone looking at you, but your caught in your own thoughts.

Spoon in your mouth, warm broth down your throat, something about the conversation has tears running down your face. You’re not upset, but you can’t stop the tears. You move, enough to have another spoonful of broth despite your crying. There’s something about the actions and the taste that compel you.

“It was… terrible.” You mutter, spooning another bit of broth into your mouth as a smile pulled at your lips for the first time since you woke. “I… I tried to make broth and it was awful.” You set the spoon down and wipe away persistent tears that continue to fall despite your efforts.

“Thatch was sick, and I wanted to help.” You continue through your quiet tears. Sniffling softly you smile. “I’d never cooked before, and it was just so bad.”

Thatch flinches as the other three look at him. “I insisted otherwise,” he asserts.

You laugh a little, there’s more mirth and energy in it, and the tears are subsiding. “You did. I had some when I got back to the kitchen and poured the rest of it out. It was,” you start laughing despite yourself. “So bad.”

Looking over at the others you can feel your face heating up. “I confessed after that.”

“To making bad broth?” Ace questions, tilting his head. Marco smacks the back of his head.

You shake your head, and Thatch speaks up for you. “She admitted to likin’ me, but also to likin’,” he makes quotes in the air for the next few words. “A couple other people too, and thought it was wrong to like her crew mates like that.”

“Turned out the other people she liked were already in a relationship with Thatch,” Izou teases, cocky grin on his lips as he brushes his hand across your cheek, wiping away an errant tear. “You remember us, sweet flower?”

You nod. “Magic soup.” You say, which is what Thatch had called the abomination you’d fed him all those years ago.

[covenantofthedeep]

but i'm right where you left me ☆

feat. | kaveh, kaeya, xiao, and ayato! summary | you're moving, but he'll wait an eon for you. - angst a/n | ahahaha i haven't written angst in so long. my ayato one is the best lowkey so i'm putting it at the top 😇😇😇

kamisato ayato |

that night, as ayato refers to it in his head, left him wounded and reeling and never wholly himself again. that night, where you had kissed him gently, too gently for the words cutting out of your mouth, and then left. that night, where you had vanished without a trace and promised you'd be back. that night, two years ago.

you had been eating a picnic dinner in front of the kamisato estate, the waves lapping at your bare feet, leaning against his shoulder. moonlight had wreathed his face in a holy glow, and a sharp pang of regret had dug itself into your ribs and stayed there. did you really have to leave? couldn't you just stay here, frozen in time, on this sandy beach, with the man you loved?

"ayato," you tell him, leaning into his ear. "i've got something to tell you."

he rests his chin against you, leaning his cheek on the crown of your head. "what is it, love?"

and suddenly you don't want to tell him, but the words are out of your mouth before you can stop them, and he draws away from you, hurt flashing in his brilliant blue eyes. he caresses your cheekbone with his finger, telling you it'll be okay, it'll be fine, you'll be back before the blink of an eye, it'll be okay.

his heart protests as he wraps ice around it, willing himself not to cry. he's not emotional; never will be. you smile at him, telling him thank you for being so understanding, telling him i love you and i'll miss you and thanking archons that he isn't upset.he nods through the rest of the night, numb and hot and cold all at once.

and then you leave, and there's a sinking pit in his stomach, because he wonders if you'll ever come back. how many years, he wonders, can he go without you until he withers up and fades away?

kaveh |

he's never been overly sappy with you, choosing instead to shower you with trips and picnics, flirtatious smiles and fancy dinners (although how he affords it, you don't know), as he's done with every other one of his lovers. he's considered himself a man of strong self-worth, never shattering when he's been dumped.

something about you, though, has him on his knees. he wants to beg and plead until you stay, cry and confess his love to you a thousand times. he's not a very emotional man; ask anyone. the pain in his eyes makes you want to stay and take his face in your hands and kiss him until he feels better, but you've got to go. a droplet of rain hits the back of your neck, making you shiver.

"i have to go. i think it'll be good for you, maybe you can branch out--" you start, but he cuts you off. he reaches for you, taking your hands in his.

"do you think i would want anyone else but you? all the days we spent together, did those mean nothing to you?" he pleads of you. wind whips your hair into your eyes, and he reaches forward and tucks it behind your ear. you've never seen him so vulnerable, and you have to leave before you can't.

and so you do, turning your back on him, leaving him standing in front of the akademiya, a dark silhouette against the cold, troubled sky.

"i'll wait for you," he calls after you. "i'll wait forever and ever until you come back."

kaeya alberich |

kaeya's never loved anyone as much as he's loved you, and between his devil-may-care exterior, and the way he won't share anything with anyone, you hadn't realized. when you tell him you're leaving, he's drops his wine glass. it shatters, and he steps over it, reaching for your arm. "no, love," he says, eyes desperately searching your face.

you swallow back a lump in your throat as you step away. "i have to go, kaeya," you tell him, tears pressing behind your eyes.

the sun highlights your body, and he thinks bitterly that you've never looked more perfect than you are now. it's the middle of the day, and you're on the balcony, his wineglass at his feet, shattered and akin to his heart.

you press your lips together to stop them from trembling and whisper, "i'll come back, kaeya. i promise."

he can't conjure up a response, instead turning away and leaning against the railings, looking down at the sidewalk below. he's tense; you want to change your mind and throw yourself at him and hug him and never let him go but.

but.

"if you're going," he says thickly, refusing to look at you, "then go."

his split heart doesn't pick itself up until many years later.

xiao |

xiao has known pain, agony so deep and gut-wrenching it doubles him over. xiao has known loneliness and sadness. he has known ecstasy--but only after he met you.

he always thought the two of you were perfect, forever a package deal, a pair. you clearly had different plans, and now his pain is back, familiar and terrifying.

"xiao," you plead, "it's not for forever."

he takes a deep breath, inhaling the petrichor air, the rich smell of the ground that you're lying on. rain pelts his face and his hands and his hair, beading on your eyelashes and concealing the tears that trickle down your cheek and into your hair.

you watch him anxiously, considering turning towards him and taking his hand until he looks at you, maybe--

"oh, my love," he says finally, turning towards you. there are so many words he could say. with you, i am happy. i am calm and safe. i can smile and laugh. with you, i am complete. he says none of these, instead opting for, "why?"

you blink away more tears, raising your arm to shield your face from his cut-glass gaze, his hurt eyes. i love you, you want to blurt. i'll always love you. but it'll hurt more, and instead, you get up and turn away. "i'll miss you, xiao," you tell him. "i'll come back."

he watches your retreating form, wondering where he went wrong. how many more years would he spend back in grayscale, without you to light up his days with splashes of aquamarine and vermillion?

[bullet-prooflove]

Traditions - Angel Reyes x Reader

Part of @storiesofsvu Holiday Bingo! The square was Decorations!

Tagging: @witches-unruly-heart @keyweegirlie @trhett21 @annetje @infinity-mars @danzer8705 @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @thatonesexycancerian @weiwei0210 @anime-weeb-4-life @multifandomloversworld @harperdoodle @cheyrenee @fanfic-n-tabulous @deliriousfangirl61 @daydreaming-belle @est1887 @thanossexual @creativitybeware @librarian1002 @mortal--soul @buddinglinguist @spookyboogyuniverse @spaghettificationandpretzels @joyfulfxckery @nu1freakshow @thebaileybugle @legally-a-bastard @bonsaijoons @justreblogginfics '@crazy4chickennuggets @kmc1989 @withakindheartx @storiesofsvu

Following on from the Taken!Series

It’s the first time since Marisol’s death that Felipe’s house is being decorated for Christmas. Angel, EZ and Felipe don’t usually celebrate the season, instead they have a couple of beers, watch a few movies and let the day pass them by. You’re not much different. You’ve been on your own since your Nana died, you used to spend the day in the fields with your music on, collecting buds or in the apothecary making the balm that soothes away all of those aches and pains. Now there’s a child in the mix things are different. Angel’s decided to go all out and that apparently includes buying the largest Christmas tree known to man.

“She’s four months old.” You remind Angel as him and EZ wrestle with getting the tree through the front door. “I don’t think she minds how big the tree is.”

“I tried to tell him.” EZ tells you as he guides the trunk into the stand and begins to twist the pins that hold it in place. “But he was adamant, it had to be this one. I think Valeria’s first Christmas is making him a little nuts.”

“Then I guess we’re doing this thing.” You say, your palm brushing over Valeria’s fine dark hair as she snuggles even deeper into your chest.

“You are doing this thing.” EZ corrects you, kissing his niece on the top of the head. “I have hampers to deliver, you get to deal with all of his madness.”

“Traitor.” You accuse as you walk him to the door.

EZ gives you that shit-eating grin of his as you shoot him the middle finger. You watch him climb on his bike, raising Valeria’s hand to wave goodbye before you close the door behind him. When you turn to face the tree, it feels like it’s even bigger than it was two minutes ago. You can hear Angel in the other room, rooting through the box of decorations that he’d brought down from the attic.

“OK kid, your dad’s gone a little crazy but we’re gonna lean it into it ok?” You say to Valeria as her tiny fist grips the fabric of your shirt. “We’re just gonna lean right into it.”

***

Valeria is asleep by the time you’ve finished decorating the living room. The tree glows from the corner of the room, bathing it in a warm light as the two of you sit on the floor alongside Valeria’s bassinet. The scent of pine floods your nostrils, the sound of Bing Crosby’s Christmas album playing on the decade’s old stereo. You’re both drinking hot chocolate, not the instant kind. One made from traditional cocoa, something Angel had picked up along with the whipped cream and marshmallows.

It's perfect, this moment. Your little family taking a breath and enjoying the holidays. It’s been a hell of a year with everything that happened with Skye and then your recovery but you’re here celebrating the holiday season with your lover and daughter.

“You know, I thought you’d gone a little insane with all of this but now I get it.” You say as you survey the room, the tiny family heirlooms on the mantlepiece, the fairy lights intermingled with the wreath. “It’s beautiful.”

“You thought I’d lost my mind, didn’t you?” Angel teases as his lips brush over your temple.

“A little.” You admit, taking a sip of your hot chocolate. “But I get it. You want the perfect Christmas for our little girl, something like the ones you remember from your childhood.”

“My mom used to make it so special.” Angel tells you as his gaze comes to rest on the tiny handmade ornaments he’d made with his mom once upon a time. “Even when we were grown, we’d still come over, help her decorate. I want traditions like that with Valeria, with you...”

His hand comes to rest upon your stomach, his thumb smoothing over the place where his son resides. He knows it’s a boy, he can feel it in his bones. “Our new baby.”

“You haven’t told anyone right?” You murmur, your palm coming to rest upon his. “It’s still too early.”

“No Mi Reina I haven’t.” He says, tipping your chin up so you can meet his gaze. There’s such love in those eyes, such tenderness, such adoration. His lips brush over yours and it’s the sweetest kiss, so soft, so meaningful. His thumb ghosts along the line of your jaw and he smiles just a little as you moan into his mouth. “Isn't that what got us here in the first place?”

He draws away as Valeria mumbles grumbles in her sleep, his gaze slipping to his daughter.

“I can’t believe how blessed I am.” He tells you, his warm fingers splaying over your abdomen. “You, Valeria and little peanut are the best gifts I could have asked for.”

“It’s going to be a great Christmas.” You say entwining your fingers with his. “The best one yet.”

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