#my soul is just too heavy and tired for a name that sounds like summer and butterflies

[marrys-dream-world]

Imposter

Read on AO3

Summary:  Adrien's mother is kind and sweet and loving. The only problem is that it isn't her at all.

Notes: This is based off on this post by @infinitysgrace and a post athat I can’t find anymore, but was about how Emilie’s eye color could be wrong in the wishmaker flashback because it wasn’t her, it was a sentimonster. I took some liberties with sentimonster lore because I’m not 100% sure about all that, but I think it turned out well. 

One of Adrien’s earliest memories is of crying. 

He was young, perhaps three or four, and his room was blurry through his tears. When he grew older, he would get used to his father’s insistence that a night light was coddling Adrien, but at the moment, all he knew was the darkness surrounding him. The room was too big and his bed was in the middle of it, the light from the huge windows playing shadows that tricked his eyes. So he started crying, hoping it would call his parent’s attention and that they would come to him.

(When he grew older, he would learn that crying was useless.)

He felt more than saw his mother coming in, leaving the door open in a crack of light. Her arms wrap around him and she hums soothingly, the sound filling up his chest. She’s warm and smells sweet, like her favorite lavender perfume. He sinks into her, tears drying and sobs reducing to whines. He has tired himself out with that and would probably fall asleep even if left alone, but his mother doesn’t leave. She tucks him in and stays as his eyes close.

The last thing he sees are her wide blue eyes. 

-

Both his parents have drastic mood changes, but Adrien would say that his mother is the most prominent example of this. His father is usually just stoic and, if Adrien pushes him enough, gets annoyed with him. At worst, he’ll get angry and rage at Adrien, calmed down only by his mother’s calm words as she diverts his attention so Adrien can get away. His mother, though, always feels like whiplash.

“Why can’t I go with you?” Adrien, aged seven, asks his mother. He’s sitting on her bed as she packs her bag for another trip with his father. He stopped keeping count of them after the fifth. 

“You’re too young, baby.” She said and even the pet name didn’t stop the sting from her dismissive tone. “Next time, okay?”

He bits back a ‘you said that last time, too’. 

“But I’m already- “

“Adrien.” His mother chides, frowning. Her (disappointed) green eyes held him down. “I said you could stay here with me if you weren't going to be disruptive. Can’t you behave, just this once?”

He swallows back a lump in his throat. “I-I’m sorry, mother.”

But she already turned her back to him and packed the rest of her bag in silence. His mother leaves out her customary goodbye kiss when she leaves for the trip. He isn’t allowed downstairs to see them go and Nathalie insists it isn't a punishment, even though it feels like it. Adrien mopes in his room, not feeling up to enjoy his free day, no tutors or photoshoots, when all he can think about is his mother.

That’s why he’s taken back when she walks in his room.

“Mother?” He gaps, unable to hide his surprise. “I thought you left. Aren’t you going to miss your trip?!”

“I changed my mind, Adrien. Your father and I decided that the trip would be more productive with just him.” She said, eyes warm. Adrien always thought it was beautiful how her eyes could look blue or green, depending on the light. 

“But why?” He asked. She had been so excited for the trip!

“To stay with my precious son, of course.” His mother said, taking him into her arms.

All his questions evaporated right then and there. 

-

After their last trip, his parents decided to take a break from traveling. To network, his father informed him, which meant more boring family dinners and stiff ties. His mom always tuts when he complains about it, so he stays silent this time. At least it’s a dinner with Chloé, his best friend, and her family, so he and her are really only required to have dinner and then they can go off and play in the hotel rooms. 

“Arnold- “ Mrs. Bourgeois starts during dinner, before being nervously corrected by her husband.

“It’s Adrien, dear.”

“Oh right, Adrien. You grew up really well, you look more like your mother everyday.” Other people say it gushing, followed by a ‘so cute’ and pinches to the cheek. Mrs. Bourgeois says it like it’s a fact she approves of; Chloé even copies the small nod her mother makes. “You have her eyes.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I don’t think so.” He says as politely as he can, but everyone in the table still throws him confused glances.

“You don’t think you look like your mother?” His father asked, raising an eyebrow.

Adrien shook his head. “No, I just don’t think I have her eyes. Mother’s eyes are blue and green and mine are just green.”

The Bourgeois family looks at him like he grew a second head. His parents, however, become tense all of sudden.

“Emilie, Gabriel, I think your son might be colorblind.” Mrs. Bourgeois says dryly and Adrien waits for his parents to come to his defense. They don’t. 

“Maybe. You know how children are.” His mother says, lightly. “I love your hat, Audrey. Is it new?”

The topic changes to Audrey’s new fashion exploits and Adrien and Chloé are finally allowed to go play. 

(Nathalie takes him to an eye doctor Mr. Bourgeois recommended the next day. The colorblind tests come back as negative.)

-

At age eight, Adrien was already used to working on fashion shows for his father’s brand. It didn’t make them easier to go through, however. 

It’s a summer one, this time, and his clothes are light and airy and his skin felt itchy and hot in the air conditioned cat walk. Looking at the bright lights around him hurt and the camera felt like it was looking uncomfortably deep into his soul. Was it too obvious that he wanted to run away? The crowd claps everytime he comes and everyone is smiling. Except for his father. 

After the show, his father spends the rest of the ride in silence as his mother tries to defuse the heavy tension that permeated the air with small talk and gushing compliments about the clothes and Adrien’s performance. It falls flat as she hardly looks like she’s up for talking, dark shadows under her eyes and skin paler than usual. Whenever Adrien asks her if she’s sick, she denies. As soon as they arrive home, he drags Adrien from the car towards the house, grip strong on his left upper arm. 

“Do you enjoy embarrassing me in front of everyone, Adrien?” His father asked calmly, but his hand tightened on his arm. 

Adrien couldn’t speak. It felt like it was happening to someone else, his mind weirdly detached from the situation. The only thing stopping him from floating away was the pain in his arm. 

“That’s enough, Gabriel.” He heard his mother, voice muffled. It felt like he was underwater in the pool and she was speaking from far away. Her hand, though, he felt acutely as she extricated his father’s hand from his arm. “Adrien, go, please.”

He runs away without second thought, only pausing guiltily at leaving his mother with his irate father when he starts hearing his father’s screaming. Adrien hides under the blankets in his room, heart racing long after the noise stops as he tries to focus his mind into anything else. He startles when he feels a hand touching his blanket cocoon. 

“Shhh, it’s okay, baby.” He hears his mother’s voice and frantically tears his blanket away. 

Adrien relaxes as he looks into her wide blue eyes and comforting smile, trying to leap for a hug. She stops him. 

“Let me see your arm first.” She says and he reluctantly takes off his jacket, wincing. The bruise on his arm doesn’t look pretty, so it’s for the best that he doesn’t go out much after fashion shows. “I can’t believe I let you get hurt.”

Her tone is soft and she looks, weirdly enough, genuinely confused as she touches the bruise on his arm and coos in apology as he flinches. 

“Father is just stressed.” Adrien parrots back his mother’s usual spiel after his dad does something less than exemplary. “It’s just how she is, it’s okay.”

"It 's not okay.” His mother says right away. “I’m supposed to not let anything hurt you, Adrien.” 

She says that with such a passion that he can believe she actually means it. But instead of the elation he expected when he heard it, all he felt was a surge of anger. Because why now? After all those moments when she scolded him for avoiding his father or not looking him in the eye, why now?

“There isn’t anything we can do about it, is there?.” He snaps, echoing her words to him from what felt like yesterday. 

She deflated. “I’m sorry. There isn’t.”

-

His father went away from a trip again and his mother, once again, decided to stay. 

Spending time with his mother during father’s trip was great, especially since she was in such a good mood and looking much healthier than she did these days. She lets him have an extra scoop of ice cream for dessert as soon as Nathalie turns her back on them, she spends the whole day playing with him in the garder, she helps with his homework and makes him a snack between classes. They play the piano together, making up different tunes and giggling. 

“Don’t I have to practice this?” He asked, pointing to the sheets of the classical song he was supposed to learn. 

His mother wrinkled her nose.

“You already work too hard, Adrien, it’s nice to have some fun once in a while.” She said, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. She usually didn’t wear it when spending time with him, only when she spent time with father, so it caught his attention. “Besides, nobody has to know.” 

They watch a movie he picked that night. His mother rarely did that and when she did, she was very picky about it. Artist stuff, he supposed. This time he got to choose, though, and he picked on based on a manga he liked, Astroboy. His mother seemed excited in the beginning, but her mood quickly subdued as the movie went on. 

“Are you not liking it?” He whispered to her and she shook her head.

“I am, baby, don’t worry. Are you?”

“Yeah. It's not really like the manga, but I like it.” He said. “I just think it’s a little unfair, you know. How he doesn’t know he isn’t really the scientist’s son, that he’s just a robot.”

His mother’s arms tighten around him. “I don’t think it’s unfair.”

“Really?” Adrien watched as the images from the screen played on his mother’s blue eyes.

“Really.” She repeated. “Him knowing would be crueler.”

-

At age ten, Adrien is awakened on a rainy night by his mother shaking him.

It was the night his father was supposed to come back from a trip and he had spent a fun day with his mother, studying and playing (“You need both to be a healthy boy, Adrien!” She grinned at him and he beamed back at her). His mother had looked a little skittish earlier, looking over her shoulder often only to just find Natahalie and fidgeting with the ring on her hand, that she usually wore every time his father was traveling. She wouldn't tell him what was wrong and insisted she hadn’t been sick. Nevertheless, he worried. 

“Mother, what’s wrong?” He asked, sleepiness fading away as he noticed how frantic she looked. 

“Adrien, I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Every moment I’ve been conscious, it’s been on my mind. Can you trust me?” She asked him, stroking his head with the hand that wore her wedding ring, and he nodded. “I need you to pack a small bag and come with me, okay? We’re going on a trip, just you and me.”

“A trip?” It was all he ever wanted, but the look in his mother’s blue eyes made him hesitate. “Is everything okay?”

“No, baby.” She said, kissing the top of his head. “But it will be. Hurry up, I need you to pack while I handle some things. Meet me downstairs in five minutes, okay?”

With anyone else, even his father, he would have asked more questions. This was his beloved mother, though, so he just got up and started to pack his clothes and some of his stuff that he couldn’t do a few days without. He carefully closed his door, running down the stair and to his mother by the door. She looked damp, her outfit changed and an umbrella hanging by her feet along with some bags. 

“Adrien?” She asked, turning her green eyes to him. In her left hand, she held her wedding ring.

“Mother? Are you okay?” He asked, noting how much paler and shakier she looked than when he saw her upstairs. 

“Yes, of course.” His mother said as she put her wedding ring back on. “Whatever I said to you upstairs, forget it, okay?”

“W-what?”

“I didn’t know what I was saying.” She said, eyes staring straight at her ring. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. Go back to bed, baby. Your father is back earlier than expected and he won’t like to see you up so late. ”

He nodded, unwilling to argue, and took his bag back with him to his room. His mother suddenly acting weird and standoffish wasn’t anything new, it was fine. She would go back to being his sweet, kind mother soon enough. He was sure of it. 

(She never did.)

[ppersonna]

thunder - ksj | m

your voice was the soundtrack of my summer. do you know you're unlike any other? you'll always be my thunder. - thunder, boys like girls

↳ summary- you allow your best friend Jin to take you backpacking once per year.  apparently, this year’s outing would be the wettest yet.

↳ rating- explicit/18+/nsfw

↳ pairing- kim seokjin x reader

↳ word count- 6k

↳ genre- fluff, tiny angst, smut, comedy

↳ warnings- penetrative sex, unprotected sex, fingering, dirty talk, light dom!jin, light sub!reader, fucking in tents haha ha ha ha, cum play, cum eating, possessive dirty talk

↳ a/n- wow hello! its been so long since i uploaded a fic i almost forgot how to do it! i would like to give you a fic that i’ve had in my storage since march, and one i’m excited to finally finish. i’d be nowhere without @taetaewonderland​ @xjoonchildx​ @ladyartemesia​ for hyping me up to post it in the first place.  thank u to @shadowsremedy​ for being my fav beta ily ily ily. enjoy my babes! pls feel free to message me!

 “Kim Seokjin, if you got us lost, I’m going to murder you,” you seethed as your pulled your booted foot out of a slick puddle of mud. 

“I didn’t get us lost, dear. The map is wrong,” he replied coolly as he twisted the crumpled map from portrait to landscape, and back again. “I’m an excellent navigator, but when the tools I have are faulty…”. 

You grumbled, stopping your walk to sit on a fallen log. You sighed audibly at your best friend, still maneuvering in the small clearing in the forest, trying to match the map to where you were. You chanced a look at the sky as you sought to catch your breath and sate your anger. Dark, heavy clouds were forming, the kind that didn’t just indicate a sprinkle but a torrential downpour. 

“Shit, Jin. It’s going to storm soon,” you warned.  

He stopped his map seeking and glanced at the sky, frown buried deep in his face. 

Instantly, as if it never changed, he returned to his bright and cheery demeanor. 

“Well! Looks like we should work faster to make it back to camp, huh?” 

Seokjin would be excited for an unexpected kink in your plans. The boy was obsessed with “roughing it”. You agreed to one weekend with minimal hiking. Camping, in your opinion, was meant to be spent drunk around a fire eating s’mores and telling scary stories, not walking for miles through nothing but trees, mud, and probably bears.

Camping had never been your favorite hobby, and you allowed Seokjin to take you off trail backpacking once per year. The man looked forward to it, planned it several months in advance, and counted down the days until he stuffed you in his Jeep down a deserted forest highway to the campsite. 

Only, Jin never took the “minimal hiking” thing too seriously. 

“It’s an easy hike,” he had promised you that morning as you set up camp. “More of a stroll than anything.” 

You kicked at the dirt beneath you now, upset you had listened to the dark-haired man’s empty promises. 

“How about we just go back the way we came from?” You suggested as you stood up and brushed the dirt off your backside from the log. 

“Nonsense,” he sniffed. “I’ve got it right here. We can take this trail,” he gestured at a clearing through the trees, “for about a mile, turn left at the open valley, and we’ll be back at camp two miles after that!”  He proclaimed his findings as if it were so easy, so obvious. 

“Great, three miles of hiking. After we’ve already done four, at least.”

“Yes, my ever-positive sunshine, you should be happy I found us a shortcut.” He patted your head and smiled at you as he adjusted your backpack strap that was sliding off your shoulders. He lingered, eyes on you and your lips for just a fraction too long, before he turned and began leading you through the forest. 

Your heart was racing, unrelated to the elevation or the hike. 

You gave in so easily to Jin not because he was your best friend since childhood, but also because he was the man you were hopelessly in love with. 

You’d been smitten with the older boy since your senior year of high school, when he jokingly asked you to prom and you realized you wanted Seokjin courting you to be a regular occurrence. 

You stayed by his side through it all, all girlfriends and breakups. It hurt to watch him with another, but maintaining his friendship was more important than anything else and you weren’t about to lose him to a crush that you could easily just avoid. 

Seokjin was attached to your hip, a fact your friends never let you live down. They were relentless in encouraging you two to be alone, and for you to admit your feelings to him. They told you they were sure he would reciprocate it.  

Unbeknownst to them, you had admitted it. 

You and Jin once got messy drunk on the floor of your apartment, where you slithered up into his lap and whispered your secret devotion to your best friend. Seokjin merely laughed and kissed your nose. You were so embarrassed and rejected you never brought it up again. Best to leave it be, rather than bring a 15 year friendship to a screeching halt. 

So—you valiantly stood by him as his best friend and confidante. You were there when he excitedly told you about his new girlfriend, or when he called you crying over their breakup. Your heart twinged at both; you wanted to be the reason for his excitement and the balm to his wounded heart. 

You allowed Seokjin to take you on all his wild adventures. Like now—traipsing through the forest with no direction in sight, because you would have done nearly anything for the boy.

A crack of thunder shook you from your thoughts and you jumped at the sudden sound. 

“Ah, so cute,” he smiled at you, “still afraid of thunder?���

You blushed and pouted. “It just surprised me, is all.”

He smirked as if to say he didn’t believe you and nodded. “We should get a move on, don’t want to get caught in the rain.” 

You shivered at the thought. It was already cool in the forest; the trees providing enough coverage it locked out any sun, if there had been any. You quickly moved in step behind your best friend. It only took a few minutes of silence before the telltale pitter patter of droplets on leaves began. A fat raindrop landed on your forehead. 

“Fuck,” you groaned. “It’s starting.”  

“I know,” Jin suddenly looked worried, his confident demeanor cracking. He looked back at you and tightened the straps on his backpack. 

“Let’s run?”

You were powerless to deny any request from him. Plus, you didn’t really feel like getting drenched. 

You adjusted your own backpack and took off, running through the quickly dampening forest beside Seokjin. 

The rain came in a downpour. It hit you hard, blurring your vision. Seokjin slipped his hand into yours, not wanting to lose you in the storm. You pushed your legs in time with his, jumping around fell logs and rocks and skipping large puddles. 

You were drenched as Seokjin pulled you into a makeshift canopy of rocks, a momentary pause from the storm to catch your breath. Your hair was soaking wet, as if freshly showered. Seokjin’s hair stuck to his face, and you smiled as he looked at you with concern. It only took a moment until you were both bursting with laughter, finding humor at the moment. 

It was something you loved about Seokjin. He always knew how to make you laugh in times it seemed impossible. 

“This sucks,” you spoke through your joyful laughter.  He nodded in agreement. 

“I think we’re almost back. We need to turn soon, and then we’ve got about two more miles. You ready?”

You agreed and pushed back the slick hair in your eyes, before doing the same for him. His eyes sparkled. You didn’t know what it meant. 

In an instant, you were running again. The backpack bounced against your back and rain pounded your body. The things you did for Kim Seokjin. You were whipped, and you knew it. 

The trail seemed like it went on forever. You both became so tired of running that you slowed and trudged slowly through mud as rain pelted you, accepting your fate of soaking to the bone. You were sure you had never been this drenched in your life.  Your clothes were stuck to your body and dripping down into your shoes and socks. Your teeth chattered in the breeze—it felt as if the wind whipped right through you.  The sky rumbled again, as if warning you to hurry lest it dump more rain on you.

Seokjin was always the caring companion. He rubbed your shoulders and arms to warm them up and promised a roaring fire. You hated how much it made your heart burst.

You were very much looking forward to your one-man tent, stocked with a sleeping bag and blankets. You could strip down and dry off and slip into the warmth of your own personal nest. 

Seokjin waxed poetic about his own spacious tent—a lofty family sized one, and how he made sure he brought his sleeping bag along with 8 thick blankets, and how he couldn’t wait to snuggle down into his own.  Seokjin was the picture of preparedness. He even kept a locking box full of snacks in his tent because the boy was a foodie and couldn’t survive without the treats. It came in handy. 

“What would you do if we were stuck out here forever?” You posed to your best friend, curious about his response and desperate to pass the time as you hiked. 

“Well,” he thought aloud. “I’d miss the guys. But I’d be happy to be stuck out here with you.”  

Your cheeks flushed. 

“You wouldn’t miss, ah—what’s her name? Miya?” 

Seokjin shrugged. “She’s fun. She’s not you, though.”

You couldn’t help but grumble internally. She was good enough to date, and you weren’t. She was different in some respect. 

“Are things not going well with her?” You asked, secretly hoping they weren’t.

“It’s fine. She’s nice and all,” he sighed.  “Just, there’s no spark there, you know?”  

You knew all too well. Any man you tried to date paled compared to your best friend, and the fireworks behind your every heartbeat when you were near him.

“What about you?” He was peering into your eyes and into what felt like your soul. “You and Jungkook sure seem cozy.” His tone sounded annoyed, sarcastic even.

You couldn’t help but bark a laugh. 

“Oh god, no,” you shook your soggy head.  “Not my type. We’re good friends and that’s it. Plus, I’m sure he’s into Jimin.”

Seokjin shrugged again. “You sit on his lap and cuddle up to him all the time…”

“Are you jealous?” You smirked, nudging the man.  Please, god, please be jealous.

“N-No!” He was sharp. “I’m not.”

Ouch.

You remained silent, eyes downcast at your muddy boots as you walked alongside the man.

“Sorry,” he mumbled after a beat of silence. 

“Don’t worry about it, Seokjin. I got it—loud and clear.”

Seokjin looked hurt, a wave of dissatisfaction crossing his features. He wanted to say something, mouth opening to continue his apology. You ignored it wholly. He knew your feelings. There was no way he couldn’t remember that night. You pushed ahead of the man, walking in front of him to avoid his pained gaze and likely hurried apology.  

The light of day was leaving. Everything around you was steadily getting darker, and the rain showed no sign of giving up. You silently begged to be back to the safety of your camp soon, lest you become walking mountain lion bait.

“There’s camp!” Seokjin finally pointed and ran through the rain ahead of you.

“Oh thank fuck,” you sighed, feeling as if it lifted a weight from your shoulders. You couldn’t wait to strip out of your soaking clothes and slither into your blankets.

“Oh shit,” Seokjin whispered, stopping where he stood.  You followed his gaze, concerned about what stopped the boy so quickly.   

Your tent was ripped open, the insides of it exposed to the wind and rain. Everything you owned was soaking wet. You had set it up in a clearing with not too many trees above it, and it appeared the lack of protection against the wind and rain tore the poor fabric to shreds.

A worn-out and distraught sob left your lips.

“No!”  

You ran to the tent and nearly cried. Fortunately, beyond just being soaking wet and useless for the night, everything was intact. There was only no warmth to be had. No warm clothes to change into. Nothing.  

“What the fuck am I going to do?!” 

Seokjin placed a hand on your shoulder.  

“You can share with me?” He sounded hopeful. “We can hang your clothes to dry and when the storm passes, we can build a fire and let your tent air out.  But you should probably sleep in my tent tonight.” 

You bit your lip. You had slept with Seokjin in more beds than you could count, always being forced to share a bed as the designated ‘best friends who don’t care’.  And it was never easy for you. You always woke up with the delicious scent of his cologne and shampoo, and your body curled around his. His hardness would always be pressed up against you, and it took all you had not to wrap your mouth around it to wake him up.

“Yeah, thanks Seokjin,” you breathed. “I’m fucking freezing. And I’m tired. I just want to get some sleep.”

Seokjin slipped his backpack off and pulled yours off your frame. He hung them from a sturdy branch, protected by layers of trees overhead, to let them dry.  

“I have some towels in my tent, go on in. You can get dry and hand me your wet clothes to hang. Then you can get in the blankets and I’ll make us something to eat.”

You blushed. Seokjin hadn’t seen you fully naked, ever; at least not since you were toddlers.

Slipping into his blankets while stark nude would be a dream. It was something you fantasized about more than you’d care to admit. But, in the current conditions, being naked and clammy in the blankets next to your best friend who didn’t return any feelings for you sounded more like an awkward moment waiting to happen.

If Seokjin noticed anything, he didn’t show it. He acted as if making you strip in his tent was a normal thing, nothing out of the ordinary. 

“I’ll wait out here,” he nodded dutifully. 

You slipped out of your muddy boots and socks, and into his tent. It was nice and spacious, and the blankets looked incredibly enticing. It was kind of Seokjin to let you stay with him, even kinder that he would remain soaking wet to make you something to eat. Your body felt so worn out and drained, and you were sure he did too. 

You peeled the wet clothing off of you, every bit, before sticking your head out the door and handing him the clothes.  

“Don’t worry about food, okay? You should get dry too.”  

He wrinkled his forehead. 

“You sure?” 

You bit your lip and nodded. 

“I’m sure. Plus, we have your snacks.”

“Ah, good thinking,” he shot his finger guns at you. “I’ll be there in a minute, then. Hand me a towel and I’ll get undressed out here.”

You shyly handed him a towel, now very aware that you and Seokjin would be in the same tent—naked. The thought thrilled you as much as it scared you. 

It didn’t take long to burrow yourself into his freshly made bed roll, sliding into the neat layers. Seokjin was nearly military in his routine and order.  Everything was always tucked, pressed, and laid down perfectly. 

Your body wracked with shivers and chills—the blankets and sleeping bag were cold from the ambient air outside. You folded yourself together in a fetal position to maintain some warmth. It felt good to lie down on the soft bed mat, but the blankets were doing nothing to provide warmth. 

The sound of the zipper opening the front door flap of the tent made you shake harder. You could feel the wind blow through the opening now. The sound of the storm was loud, and you were grateful for the heavy tarp covering Seokjin’s tent. It provided some respite from the wind and kept all water off the tent. At least Seokjin had been smart in his setup. You ignored the man’s suggestions to set up better, and you were fully regretting it now.

Seokjin had the towel wrapped around his waist and stepped about the tent easily. He dabbed at his upper body with a smaller towel from his suitcase and rubbed his hair dry. The normally perfectly coiffed head was now static-y and sticking up wildly. It would have made you laugh if you weren’t so cold. 

Seokjin moved around you and slid into the blankets, leaving a large space between you, before he threw the towel around his waist onto the floor. He was naked now; you noted internally. You both were. A shiver ran down your spine, unrelated to the relentless chill.

It was silent. All you could hear was the beating of the rain on the tarp and your teeth chattering as you shivered. 

Seokjin stole a look at you, finally, and noticed your position, holding yourself to build warmth. 

“Shit, are you okay?” He asked. 

“I’m j-j-just col-l-ld,” you whispered. “And t-t-tired.”

Seokjin didn’t reply, but you heard the scratching sound of a moving sleeping bag and rustling of blankets and suddenly felt a very warm, very naked body pressed against you. It was blissful, and you moaned out loud at the feel of him spooning you. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. You didn’t know what for, and couldn’t bring yourself to reply. 

You burrowed yourself down into his warmth and felt his arms wrap around you, securing you against him. He radiated heat. He felt like heaven. Your eyes closed—he had you feeling like you had stepped into a delicious sauna.

Seokjin’s muscular arms hadn’t moved an inch since they wrapped around you, but now his hands slowly rubbed at your torso, warming you everywhere his hand dragged. It felt electrifying and your body relaxed easily under his delicate fingertips. 

It started out innocent, rubbing along your stomach and side to warm you further. But his hand began straying north, reaching the crest of your breasts. Your breath hitched as he rubbed over the cold swells. Your nipples were hard from the chill and pebbled even further with the touch of his hands. It made a gasp stick in your throat.

His lips touched your neck, lightly. They were warm too. It seemed his entire body was twenty degrees warmer than your own, and every touch felt like a raging flame. His hands continued rubbing along your breasts as he laved and sucked.

 at the column of your throat.  

As instantly as it began, Seokjin stopped. His hands hovered above your breasts. 

He pressed kisses to your neck and face. “We should sleep, babe,” he sighed.  

You wanted to protest, to push him further, to take care of what he started, but you couldn’t find the energy. Seokjin’s warmth matched with the comfort of his bedroll, and the soothing rise and fall of his breath was lulling you into sleep. Even though it was still early evening, the hike and the run back to safety took it all out of you.  

Seokjin’s arms felt like safety. He secured them around you, slipping just underneath your breasts where his thumb could trace alongside the bottom as you easily succumbed to sleep.

It was still dark when you woke.  

The rain was still coming down, light this time. It sounded relaxing, soothing. Seokjin was still spooning you, sleeping soundly behind you. You twisted in his grasp to gaze at him. 

His hair was dry now, sticking out randomly about his pillow. You were sure if he saw it he’d panic, normally so precise with his looks. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep, none of his chaotic energy and dramatic charisma. 

You loved every facet of Seokjin. You loved the flamboyance, the sensitivity, the deep compassion for his friends.  

You turned around, as gently and quietly as you could, and pressed a hand to his cheek—rubbing at the warm and soft flesh. He sighed softly in his sleep, moving against his pillow. An eye cracked open, and he stared at you. 

“Why are you awake?” He whispered, his voice gentle. “It’s still dark.” 

He was confused, and the look that graced his features was adorable. You wanted to photograph it and frame it, make it the lock screen of your phone. 

You shook your head. 

“Don’t know.”

Seokjin’s hand rubbed at your shoulder, then up to your face. He tucked your hair behind your ear and smiled at you. 

“You look so cute in the moonlight.”

You closed your eyes, letting his compliment wash over you. You couldn’t find the words to reply. You let him continue caressing your cheek, feeling as if you were living a fantasy where Seokjin touched you like a lover. 

You were so close to him, chest pressing against his own. Something about the quiet storm, the dark tent, had you disregarding any embarrassment you should have felt pressing your naked tits to the man's chest, but the spell of the forest had you pressing closer. Your lips were inches apart, and you could feel his breath on your lips. 

The feel of Seokjin’s lips pressing against yours was light, but felt as if all the fireworks in the world exploded behind your eyes and within your belly. It started sweet, gentle. You kissed him like you always wanted to, full of unrequited love and unwavering desire. Your arms slithered around his neck, pulling him even closer against you.  

The kiss turned deeper, mouths opening to allow the passage of tongues. He sought into your mouth, caressing yours with his own, pouring what felt like his very spirit into you. His hand left your back and slid up your sides to press against your breast. 

“Seokjin,” you murmured, feeling your brain swirl headily. “Feels good.”

He didn’t reply, only kept kissing at your neck and pinching gently at your hardened nipples. It made you cry out, gaping at the slight pain.

“If you want me to stop, tell me.” 

His words were gentle. His hands stilled, stopping all ministrations against you.

Your breath was hard and shaky, matching the erratic beat of your heart in your ribcage. Your unrequited crush of years was now roaming your body, touching you as a lover rather than a friend.

“Please, don’t stop.”

He was on you again, now bloodthirsty for any part of your skin to touch. He tugged at your nipples, suckled up your neck to kiss and lick at the shell of your ears.  You pressed against him, gasping at the feel of his now stiff cock. He circled his hips, relishing in the feel of you against him. You wondered how he would feel inside you. He was thick and long—it would be a stretch, and a most delicious and welcome one.

He pressed you back against the pillow, hovering over your body as he kissed down your neck and sucked at the pressure points there. A pleasured sigh passed through your open lips, reveling in the feel of him on your skin. It was something you dreamed about often. It felt unreal to finally have it. 

You were on display for him, and his eyes raked over you as if you were a Dalí in the Louvre. His hands slid up to cup your breasts, and you tilted your head back to moan. You didn’t care at all about how you looked, how this might be awkward in the next few hours. You cared only about feeling Seokjin within you, getting him off, succumbing to your own pleasure wrought by his hands and his cock.

“Fuck, babe,” he sighed. “Wanted this for a while.”

“Me too,” you gasped as he slid a finger down to your core, circling faintly over your slick folds.

“Have you?”

“Seokjin, I’ve been in love with you since high school.”

Seokjin closed his eyes and smiled, breathing through his nose in contentment.

“You weren’t just saying that when you were drunk then.”

You shook your head, and Seokjin opened his eyes to peer at you.

“No, Seokjin,” you whispered needily, his finger still so torturously close to your clit. “I meant it.”

He leaned down with a smile and planted gentle kisses on your cheeks, adoring and gentle.  

“I’ve been in love with you too. I thought you were just drunk. I never acted on it because I didn’t want to get my heart broken.”

He pulled up and allowed his free hand to cup your cheek.

“I’m going to fuck you now, okay?” He asked. “Like, really fucking hard. You good with that?”

You couldn’t help but laugh. A deep, hearty chuckle passed between both of you, enamored with each other and the situation of being naked and intertwined together, the warmth of your matched confessions surrounding you.  

“Fuck me, please,” you begged.

And Seokjin would be loath to deny you.

His teasing finger finally slid into your core, fucking into you with ease from your slick walls.  You gasped at the welcome intrusion, eyes fluttering closed as he began a slight pace and watched the way you fell apart.

“So pretty,” he whispered. “So fucking pretty.”

He slipped another finger in, scissoring them open as he worked at you.  Your legs trembled, and it made the older man smirk.  

“Look at you,” he praised. “So easily turned into a *gushing* puddle for me.”

You nodded pathetically, back arching as he added yet another finger and pressed at the spot inside you that had your mind spinning and thoughts erasing.

“Oh—God, Jin!”

As much as Jin wanted to see you get off around his fingers, he was desperate for more. You were finally all his—something he’s wanted since he could remember. All he’s wanted was for you to be his.

He pulled his fingers from inside you and smiled as they came out slicked up with your own essence.  He ensured you made eye contact with him, then popped them into his mouth one-by-one, to suck them clean.

It made your mouth nearly fall to the floor as you watched him suck his fingers clean of you. Your body trembled with a need you hadn’t felt before. It was stronger than anything you’d felt before. It was unadulterated desire for Seokjin.

“Mm,” he sighed happily as he pulled the final digit from his mouth. “Delicious, as I thought.”

“Oh, my god,” you gaped. “Jin…,”

The man merely shook his head and smiled, crowding you down and hovering over your lips.

“You’re mine now, you got that?” 

His eyes tracked yours, watching your every movement. It took you a moment to swallow your nerves, to regain any ounce of confidence.

“I’ve always been yours, Seokjin.”

He held you down, watching you with a gleam of wonder in his eye, before surging forward and planting his lips onto yours. His tongue dove in instantly, seeking solace in the warmth of your mouth. Allowing him passage was easy, almost natural. Jin’s tongue swirled around your own as your arms slithered around his neck to bring him closer. Kissing Jin felt like everything you’d imagine it would be, and yet like nothing you could have even dreamed.

Jin didn’t just kiss you—he consumed you. He lapped his tongue into your mouth like he couldn’t get close enough to you. His chest pressed against your body and he groaned into your mouth at the feeling of your perky breasts pushing into his own broad chest.

“Baby,” he whispered as he pulled away. 

It sounded like a dream—the pet name fell from Jin’s lips so easily, as if it were always meant to be spoken to you.

“You’ve always been the one I wanted,” he breathed as he pressed his lips down your neck. “Always the girl I wanted and could never have.”

“Jin,” you gasped as your fingers carded through his hair. “Jin, you’ve always had me.”

He lifted his head and peered deep into your eyes again, so deep it felt like he was glimpsing into your soul.

“I only want you. No one else.”

It knocked you breathless, and it took a moment for you to refill your lungs before nodding.  

“I’m all yours.”

There was acknowledgement in both your admissions. An understanding that there was no more separation of you, and of Jin. That after tonight, it would be a partnership, and the beginnings of something more, something you’ve only dreamt of with the older man.

“Mine,” he whispered, before pressing his lips back to yours.

The kiss was sweet, nearly cloyingly sweet, as his hands cupped your face. He kissed you with every intention, every desperate plea he’s held in his heart for you.

Jin’s length pressed against you—his hips rutting minutely as he kissed you.

“Jin,” you gasped as you pulled away from his lip locked embrace. “Please, I need you.”

Jin’s charming smile spread across his lips, blooming your heart along with it.

“As you wish,” he whispered as he pressed in for another soft kiss..

Instantly, Jin flipped around and switched positions, guiding you to sit atop his hips while he settled down into the mess of blankets and pillows.

“What?” He asked as he noticed your confusion at the sudden mood change, a smirk rising on his puffy lips. “You think I’m gonna let you lay back and make me do all the work?”

There he was, your Seokjin. Never able to keep a comment to himself, regardless of the situation—always working to make you laugh. It made your heart sing.

His hands slid to grip at your hips while you lifted yourself up to hover over his hardened length, lining up the tip to just graze the wetness there.

“You see what you do to me?” You asked with a coy smile. “You see how badly I want you?”

Jin bit his lip, mesmerized by the way your cunt slicked up the head of his cock, desperate to spear into you but holding back.

“Fuck—,” he breathed. “P-Prove it.”

A smirk crossed your features before you took the plunge and allowed his length to slip inside you as you sank to his hips.  The intrusion was welcome, and you gaped at the sensation of him plunging deep.

“Oh, my God!” Jin gasped as you had taken him to the hilt.  His eyes bulged for a moment before they closed in bliss.  “You feel so fucking good.”

You didn’t need to speak. The feeling of Jin’s thick length inside of you was more than enough agreement.  He felt so thick, so long, prodding at the spot inside you that had you weak and stretching you wide to make you gasp at the sizzle of pain.  After a moment of adjusting to his size, you let your hands fall to his chest as you began to slowly rise and fall and set a pace on his cock.

“Oh, fuck, baby,” he whined—eyes wide open and watching you bounce on him. “Shit, this is where you belong.”

You eagerly pinched at your nipples as your pace quickened, nodding at Jin’s encouraging words. Your mouth felt dry, and you felt unable to even vocalize your pleasure beyond your loud sighs and moans.

“Jin,” you breathed.

He nodded, assisting your pace by gripping your hips.  He tugged you down, face to face, to rest on his chest while your hips kept their quick speed of enveloping his cock in your tight heat.  He let a hand cup the side of your face, the other moving to grip your ass.

“You’re all fucking mine,” he grunted as he thrusted his cock up into you, matching the rhythm of your rise and fall. “Gonna make you feel so fucking good every day, baby.”

You nodded quickly, heartbeat rising as you quickened each pound.  Jin’s lips pressed to yours again, this time messier, hotter.  He licked into your mouth, desperate for any more of you he could consume.

“Fuck, you drive me fucking crazy,” he said, cock still thrusting deep inside you. “Let me fuck you from behind?”

You didn’t bother replying, simply removing yourself from his body and assuming the position on your hands and knees.�� Jin scrambled to line up behind you, hand pumping his slick cock as he marveled at the sight of you presented for him.

“Take me, please,” you whispered, turning your head to peer at him with a desperate smile. “Fuck me until I can’t see straight.”

Jin hissed an expletive, before lining himself up in your sodden folds and plunging in without a second thought.  Your eyes widened at the new angle, gasping as you felt it hit different areas inside of you that had you squeaking with each hard thrust of his cock.

Jin’s hands gripped your ass, your hips, anywhere he could leave his brutal fingerprints.

“God, you take my cock like a fucking queen,” he gasped as the sound of skin slapping echoed around the tent. “Look at your pussy, so fucking wet for me.”

He marveled at the way his cock plunged deep inside you, then came out covered in your creamy slick.

“You gonna cum for me, baby? You gonna let me claim this pussy with my cum?”

The pleasure was overwhelming—it felt like every nerve ending was lit on fire, and you were a burning fuse about to detonate into a thousand brilliant explosions.  Each thrust of Jin’s thickness had you crying for more, moans echoing off the trees outside.  You were suddenly thankful you were in the middle of nowhere, allowing you to be loud and needy.

Jin reveled in your desperate sighs and the way your body pushed back against his to match his pace.  He knew his end was coming, knew it was going to be short-lived from the start. He’s wanted your body for as long as he could remember, and wanted you in his life as his lover, his girlfriend, more than just what he had been relegated to for so long.  

“Mm, baby, you look so good on your knees for me, fuck,” he gasped as his speed increased. “I can’t wait to make you cum on my cock every fucking day, love. This is my pussy now.”

Jin’s possession of your body made you see stars, vision blurring as your cunt tightened its grip around his cock.  Jin gasped at the grip and his hips stuttered.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he groaned. “I feel you, baby, fuck. Cum for me, angel. Let me feel this tiny little cunt milk me.”

The coil inside you was tightening, pulling tight and making you gasp and scream at the oncoming rush.  Jin’s pounding was relentless, making your entire body shake with the anticipation.  

Your hand dipped to circle at your clit, the ultimate piece to your end. 

The coil snapped, and your cunt pulsated wildly around his cock, vice-grip tight.  It felt as if you had been catapulted off into space, vision blurring and all sound indiscernible from the blood rushing in your ears.

Jin’s climax quickly overtook him at the feeling of your delicious heat gripping at his cock.  With just a few strokes inside you, his cock pulsed hot stripes of cum within you and painted your channel.  Something primal in Seokjin loved that he was within you now, a piece of him deposited inside. 

He allowed a few moments to pass to catch his breath, before slowly easing his spent cock from your dripping walls.  He groaned as he watched a bit of his seed drip out, and he was careful to collect it on his fingers.

“Come here,” he whispered as he pressed his chest to your back and lifted you upright, sitting on your knees.  He presented his fingers to your lips, dripping with your combined slick, and wrapped his free arm around your stomach.

Obediently, you opened your mouth and allowed the man to swirl his cum-coated digits in your mouth. It made your stomach erupt in butterflies, the taste of you and the man you’ve only dreamt about for years now on your tongue.

A crack of thunder shook you from your silent reverie, and Jin removed his fingers from his mouth before wrapping both arms around you and tugging you down to lie face to face on the mused sleeping bags.

“Now, aren’t you glad we did this?” He asked with a chuckle and a kiss to your nose.

You wrinkled your brow and smiled coyly.

“I would have enjoyed it more if you hadn’t gotten us lost.”

Jin pouted and huffed.

“I didn’t get us lost,” he sniffed with indignation. “The map was wrong.”

[turtle-steverogers]

hii, it's the unsent project anon again!! sometimes i think about steve. instead of going back in time for yk, he goes back in time to see his mother again. and has a dance with his mother because he never got to before for several reasons. it would be more rocking from foot to foot than anything else. and steve can barely see through his clumped up lashes from the tears while she strokes the side of his head before cradling it (its a bit of a stretch because he is all big and healthy now) while muttering, "my stevie, my boy" and steve just grins "it's me, ma".

(he would come back after spending some time with her, with a heavy heart but still)

was thinking about this at like 3 in the morning

anon i genuinely think you're trying to murder me lakjdflksjfaskdjflksf

anyway i wrote another fic

-

There are extra white jackets in the back closet, and Steve steals one that’s approximately his size, despite the shoulders being a bit too tight. Pants are a little harder to come by, but he manages to find a pair that look like they’ll fit him in some poor chap’s locker. He tugs them on, grimacing at the way they hug his thighs and fall only to his ankles. They’ll have to do.

He’d already scoped out the hospital the night before-- he knows she’s on the third floor in a private ward. Good, he thinks. She deserves it, if nothing else.

He is focused as he moves through the halls, head down as he passes other nurses. There’s a clipboard discarded on a table near the children’s ward and he swiftly picks it up, squinting at it. He doesn’t process any of the words on the page, but his act seems sound, because nobody stops him.

He makes it to the stairwell at the end of the hall, pushes open the door and takes the steps two at a time. The smell is one that is achingly familiar-- the walls grey and hazy. The air seems thicker, the lights yellow and dim. And though he’s been removed from the past for over a decade, it still feels like home. Like normal. His normal.

But he does not belong anymore, and he will not stay. He’s already been a ghost once. He’s hesitant to be one again.

Especially now, when he is out there somewhere. Most likely in the shitty tenement he shared with Bucky, but also possibly at the grocer he worked at, his ma’s telegram in his pocket. Savoring the bits of her that he could salvage with the knowledge he’d never see her again, even while she’s alive.

Closure has been something Steve always felt he lacked. But he’s seen hell now-- lived in its fiery pits for more years than he can count. He can take some goddamn closure for himself.

The third floor is nearly vacant. No one is in the hallway when Steve steps out of the stairwell, but he can hear voices in the rooms that line the sides. Coughs echo ominously off the walls, and Steve’s toes curl in his shoes, a brief wave of anxiety washing over him. He hadn’t missed these hospitals, and he’d hoped to never deliberately step foot in one again. But this is necessary. This is worth it.

He walks swiftly towards the end of the hall where the private wards are and stops in front of the first room. The name next to the door is incorrect, so he continues on until he sees it, heart stopping in his chest, then speeding up enough to make his lungs tighten.

Sarah Rogers-- TB. Alternative uniform required.

Steve closes his eyes against the blood rushing from his head. He wants to tell himself it’s been so long since he’s felt this detached from reality-- this out of place in a space that should feel so familiar-- but it hasn’t. The feeling, he’s realizing, never truly left him when he woke up from the ice, and the reverse here is strange.

And there’s something even stranger about reconciling this, because he’d lost his ma far before he’d ever died. This grief is an old wound-- one that’s scabbed over only to bleed circumstantially. He’d grown used to living with this particular, bone deep pain. He isn’t sure if he’s here to lance that, or if he’ll walk away with a deeper wound. He isn’t sure it matters, either.

He pushes open the door.

The room is lit with natural light. There is a desk with a vase and a water pitcher on it, along with a few medicine bottles and a tissue box. The bed is pressed against the far wall, the covers barely disturbed save for the frail figure that lies in it.

Sarah turns her head and looks at Steve.

Steve’s world stops.

He hadn’t seen his ma when she was this ill. His last memories of her are of when she was healthy-- cheeks red and full of life, eyes alight with an optimism he still valiantly tries to uphold. Life had not been kind to Sarah Rogers, but she was the kindest soul Steve had ever known, even in the shadow of his father’s violence.

Is, he corrects himself as he looks at her. She is the kindest soul. She’s there. She’s right there.

She’s right there, and she looks weak. She is gaunt and frail, eyes sunken in and cheekbones sharp against papery looking skin. There’s an exhaustion in the lines of her young face that Steve recognizes as the long standing effects of illness-- your body praying to be done fighting while your mind begs otherwise.

Steve resists the urge to turn and run.

Sarah’s face does something strange as she looks at Steve, and he realizes that he’s been standing there for longer than would be normal for a nurse-- shell shocked and silent. She opens her mouth to say something, then stops, eyes widening as she seems to process what she’s looking at. Or who she’s looking at, most likely.

A wizened hand comes up to cover her mouth and she gasps, fear flashing through her eyes and no, no, no--

Fuck, he’d thought of this. He’d had a fucking plan for this, but he can’t remember it now and he really doesn’t want his ma calling security on him, because he has so much to say, and--

“Ma,” he says frantically, taking an aborted step forward. She shies away and he stops, hands flexing at his sides. “Ma, it’s me. I swear it’s me, I can explain.”

Sarah looks suddenly furious. “This is not funny, young man. I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave this instant.”

Fuck, her voice. Her goddamn voice, as weak as it is now, still has the same strong cadence. The subtle Irish twang. And fuck, Steve can’t help it. He bursts into tears.

“Fuck,” he says, falling to his knees. Why did he think he could do this? Why did he think he could stomach the weight of everything that’s happened since he last saw her-- handle standing in front of her with blood on his hands, underneath his fingernails. In his goddamn soul. What would she even think of him now?

He sobs, biting down on a knuckle to keep silent, his other arm going around his stomach. It’s how he used to cry when he was much younger, and more frantic, and that seems to convince Sarah more than anything.

“Steven?” she says. She sounds incredulous. Damnit, she probably thinks she’s hallucinating. Steve had hallucinated a couple times when he was ill enough and his fever was high. Mostly his father, but he’ll digress.

He looks up, and he can barely see her through the tears that clump on his eyelashes. Sarah’s face does something complicated, then softens, and she reaches out a hand. Steve looks at it and sobs harder.

“Oh, Stevie. My boy, come here,” she says, because maybe he is a goddamn hallucination, but her instinct was always to comfort those in pain. She was a nurse, after all.

Steve is goddamn helpless.

He manages to get to her bedside, chest heaving as he buries his face in her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs. “It’s me, ma. I promise it’s me. I can explain, I swear.”

“I don’t doubt that you can explain,” Sarah says sternly, and fuck, he’d missed her chastising him. He can’t help it, he laughs, breathless and watery. “What happened to you? Why are you--” Big. Healthy. “Steven, you can’t be in here. I’m highly contagious.”

Steve shakes his head. “Don’t matter. I can’t get sick.” And oh, his accent is back. He hasn’t had one in years. Decades. A goddamn century.

Sarah lets out a strangled laugh that quickly turns into coughing, and Steve briefly wonders how close she is to death. She died in Winter, and it is sometime in Fall right now. Close then, he thinks. He hugs her harder as the coughing dies down.

“A stór, do you hear yourself? You had pneumonia last Summer.”

Summer. Last Summer. In this world, it had only been a mere few months without her. A fresh wave of grief washes over Steve, and then he can’t help another laugh, then another, and suddenly he’s cracking up into her stomach. Laughing like the insane man he feels he often is.

Sarah freezes, then reaches out to lift his face, their eyes meeting. His laughing stops. She gasps again.

“It really is you,” she murmurs, thumbs moving to the outside corners of his eyes, where there are two identical freckles. Little stars, she used to call them.

Steve offers her a brave smile. “Yeah, ma. It is.”

Sarah shakes her head. “What happened?” she asks again.

“I… so much,” Steve breathes. “I don’t know how to explain it all. I-- I don’t know where to start, but god, I just wanted to see you. I needed to see you.”

Sarah studies his face. “You’re so tired,” she says, thumb stroking his eye again. He leans into the touch, closing his eyes. His lip trembles.

“So tired,” he agrees.

“You don’t need to tell me everything,” Sarah says. “I’m not sure I want to know. But I just… Steven, you look so different.”

Steve laughs, wiping at his eyes. “In a few years, there’s a war,” he says. Blunt-- they’d always been so straightforward with each other. “A scientist-- god, please don’t be mad-- a scientist offered, or… offers? Offered me an opportunity, and I took it.”

“Of course you did,” Sarah murmurs, looking fond and angry despite. She seems to set that train of thought aside. “Germany?” and oh, right. It’s already been in the news, the new reign.

“Yeah.”

Sarah hums. “My dear, you look like you’ve seen more than just war.”

Just war. As if any war was just anything.

As if his war ever truly stopped.

He casts his gaze down.

“Yeah,” he says again, and he thinks of Bucky, who’s also yet to come home from the war. Bucky, who is probably somewhere at the docks right now, untouched by anything but insecurity and financial hell. He desperately wishes they both can soon. This visit, he hopes, will bring him one step closer.

Sarah must read his mind, because her face clouds over.

“Bucky…?”

“Survives,” Steve says quickly, then backtracks. “Kind of. We both kind of died, then came back to life in the future and--” Sarah looks horrified now, and Steve shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. He’s alive. We’re together.”

“Alright,” Sarah says slowly. “As long as you’re together.”

Steve nods, and fuck, he wishes he could have brought Bucky, too. Sam as well-- showed his ma his new friends. The brave new family he’s made for himself. The thought has his eyes swimming again, and he screws up his face, trying not to cry. He’s a goddamn mess. It’s ridiculous.

“I must admit, I’m quite confused,” Sarah says. “And sweetheart, you’re not talking.”

Steve shakes his head, and her arms come around him. He melts into the hold-- savors the feeling. Memorizes the pressure, her smell, and pockets it away for later.

“I just missed you so much is all,” he croaks. “And I-- ma… I’ve done so much. I’ve hurt so many people. Killed so many people, and I still feel so lost, and everything hurts and oh Christ, I’ve just-- I miss you.”

He had sworn to himself, before coming in, that he wouldn’t unload any of this onto her. But her warmth is all encompassing, and he craves her comfort. Her approval. Her strong, sure tone telling him everything will be okay.

That he will be okay. He has to be. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s not.

“Lord’s name,” Sarah murmurs, and Steve huffs another laugh. She runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what happened to you. I don’t know how any of this is possible, but I do know you, dearheart. And I know that you are a good person. A gentle person-- my gentle boy, if you’d had a choice, you wouldn’t have chosen violence. But you know more than anyone how mean the world can be. You might have had to make hard decisions, done bad things, but you, Steven, are not bad.”

Steve’s lips part. It doesn’t fix everything, the words-- it barely scrapes the surface of the wall of pain and guilt that suffocates him. But for a moment, the world seems clearer. Quieter. The ache in his chest lanced for one, freeing breath.

“Ma…” Steve says. He doesn’t know how to thank her-- what to say-- because here she is, offering him warmth and closure, even though she might still think he’s nothing but a figment of her imagination. He craves her compassion; her generosity. Swears to uphold it as best he can.

You always stand up, she once told him. He will still, he thinks. He always will. And he will now.

He’ll go home to his family-- his life-- and goddamn live finally. He’s been surviving for so long, he realizes. It’s about damn time for him to stand up and live.

“You’ve still got the same heart,” Sarah continues. She pokes his freckles again. “I can see it in your eyes.”

Steve lifts a hand to cover hers. Her hands are as soft as they always were and he turns his face to kiss her knuckles, then leans forward to kiss her cheek, eyes closing as memories of doing that before running off to school or to play flash through his mind. She smells faintly of vanilla. He wonders if she still dabs it behind her ears.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you, ma. I love you. I love you so much-- thank you for being there for me. For raising me, and loving me.”

Sarah hugs him. Outside the room, there are voices; shuffling. He needs to go. The window is open, and they’re only three floors up.

“Loving you is the easiest thing that I’ve ever done,” Sarah says. She looks at the door. The voices are closer now. She kisses his forehead. Another echo of a life long gone. “Go now, Steven. Go home.”

Steve looks at her one last time, drinking in the love in her eyes. And as he climbs out the window, the too-tight doctor’s coat ripping around the shoulder seams, he can’t help but think that he’d gotten her eyes right whenever he’d painted her.

Her love won’t be something so easily forgotten.

-

Bucky catches him before he can collapse as he reappears on the launch pad. He lowers them to the ground, cradling Steve’s head with and letting him practically climb into his lap as he weeps, overwhelmed.

After a few minutes, he pulls back. Bucky’s watching him, concerned, and Steve leans in to gently kiss him.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, wary as they pull apart. He reaches out to swipe some tears off Steve’s cheeks.

Steve shakes his head. “It’s fine, I’m fine,” he says. “All the stones are back-- everything’s okay. It’s over. It’s all over.”

Relief washes over Bucky’s face and he kisses Steve, smiling. “Oh god,” he murmurs. “Thank god.”

Steve wraps his arms around his neck, humming in agreement. Sam and Bruce are somewhere-- Steve can hear them talking-- but it’s distant.

They’re quiet for a long time, breathing in each other. Bucky’s arms feel so goddamn safe that Steve feels his resolve slipping again. He can tell Bucky things. He can be here with him now. Home.

“I went to see her,” he whispers.

Bucky stills where he was previously rocking them lightly.

“Her…” Bucky says, then shifts. “Your ma?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Bucky squeezes him tighter. “How-- how was that? How did she…”

“She was confused. I don’t even know if she knew I was real.”

Bucky pauses, then kisses behind his ear. Steve thinks of vanilla again.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky murmurs.

“No, it was-- good. Needed. I feel… good.”

“That’s so good, honey.”

“She asked about you-- wanted to know if you were, um, alive. I told her you were.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asks, and there’s a small smile on his face now. Bucky had loved Sarah as if she were another mother, and Steve had done the same with Winnifred. It was a privilege to have had both of their protective arms. “What did she say?”

“She said, ‘as long as we’re together’.”

Bucky smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. Steve wants to reach out and touch, so he does, because he can do that now. Bucky is tangible. He is here.

“She’s got a point,” Bucky says. He goes back to rocking them and Steve rests his head on his shoulder. He hears Bucky start to say something, then stop.

“What?” he asks, pulling back.

Bucky studies him. “Did you want to stay?” It isn’t accusatory, just curious, and Steve considers it.

“Maybe a little,” he admits. “Just… instinctively. It’s an opportunity I might have taken up if someone offered it ten years ago, but… I’m a ghost there now, like I was a ghost here, and I don’t want to do that again.” He bites his lip, shaking his head. “I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to.”

Bucky nods, cupping Steve’s cheek and thumbing his jaw affectionately. “I hear you,” he says. “I was just wondering.”

“And besides, my ma told me to go home before I left,” Steve said, cupping Bucky’s cheek in return. “So I did.”

Bucky smiles, and presses their foreheads together.

“We can do that now,” Bucky says. “We can go home. We can rest.”

And there are still things to do-- Steve doesn’t think there ever won’t be things to be done. But that can wait for another day.

“Yeah,” he agrees. He’s grungy, dirt digging in bone deep from the whirlwind of the last few weeks. He smirks, climbing off Bucky’s lap. “But I call first shower.”

Bucky snorts and stands, pulling Steve up.

“Yeah, whatever, asshole.”

Yeah. The world can wait another day.

-

There’s a bottle of vanilla in the spice cabinet. Steve sees it as he’s looking for the cinnamon. The kitchen is empty, but for the first time in years, he knows he’s not alone.

He takes the vanilla out and dabs some onto his fingers, gently rubbing it behind his ears. He closes his eyes, letting the smell wash over him. He can still feel his ma’s arms around him, keeping him warm.

Home. He’s home.

-

thanks for reading yall aflkdjflaksjdf

[pennyserenade]

TINY DANCER 

tags: javier peña x female oc, javier peña, rockstar!au, fluff  rating: t ( teen ) (for now) warnings: language, alcohol  word count: 1.6k+ summary: a band of young men from laredo, texas are on the verge of rock’n’roll stardom and anita rodríguez is the woman who follows them into it. a story of rock’n’roll and all the fluff that follows notes: this is very self indulgent and heavily inspired by the movie almost famous, as well as whatever fleetwood mac had going on, and the book daisy jones & the six. as you can tell, this is a genre of fiction i favor heavily, and i’m more than happy to make this everyone’s problem. thank you for baring with me

Summer time has never tasted so sweet on the tongues of these impassioned young men from Laredo, Texas, she bets. Perspiration covers their foreheads as they stand under the much too bright colored lights, and the crowd before them cheers them on with an eagerness that belongs only to those who really loved music. And they respond like men who really love music—all smiles and grins and heavy panting from giving their young bodies away to it. One might even say their souls.

Even from behind the curtain, she can feel the wave of electricity that rolls off of them. It is a beautiful thing to hear after suffering under the heavy blanket of Texas heat for her own performance.

They had liked her alright, responded about as warmly as they could for an opening act they hadn’t really known, but they turn these young men into Gods. She feels it tight in her stomach, that everlasting and endless excitement reserved for falling in love, not with people, but with moments. Even if it’s all for not, this little musical and spiritual journey she has partaken on, she will at least have been there for the moment these men had exhaled themselves into true and complete stardom.

Not bad for a band called El Fuego, she thinks.

“My God they’re something, aren’t they, Anita?”

Her sister holds aside the curtain to make room for herself. “The one in the really tight jeans was talking to me during your performance. He’s beautiful, I swear it. Just godly.”

Anita smiles. “You can’t fall in love with rockstars, baby sister, it’s unethical and impractical. Have your years with me taught you nothing?”

“Yeah, but those rockstars were a dime of dozen and tight jeans looks like sex out there,” she whines. Anita scans over the men, trying to decipher whom she might mean. That’s when she catches Tight Jeans’ eyes. She gives him a grin and without missing a beat, he gives her a charming wink. A wink reserved for a man on top of the world.

“What’s his name?” Anita asks.

“Javier Peña,” she responds. “He’s just gorgeous isn’t he? They all are.”

All Anita can do is grin as she continues to watch the rest of their performance.

****

This isn’t her first rodeo. This isn’t even her second or third or fourth. In fact, she’s lost track of the times she’s been led back to hotel rooms with a slew of people she doesn’t know, swept dangerously up in the shared euphoria that is the after show comedown.

In her hand she holds her second drink of the night. It’s a concoction she’d mixed for herself, made up of too much juice and too much alcohol, but she deserves it, she reckons. She’s opened for a damn good band and she’s a pretty damn good singer most of the time, and that Javier guy has been looking at her all night, despite the group of women that surround him. He has a good way of being present with them and present with her, too, genuine grins and attention for all to spare. Like the charming and humble lead guitarist he is, he strums idly at an acoustic guitar while he speaks with the women.

She’s been standing in the same place for too long, drinking the same second drink, listening to the beginning of songs he starts before he falters off into the next one. Even over the light hum of chatter and the radio nearby, she can focus on him. She watches his fingers as they strum—watches the way he doesn’t need to look down at them to keep them steady and trained. He’s a professional musician, through and through, even if he may just be some guy from Laredo to most individuals in the world. His manager had been so brave to wager that they were going to hit nationwide success by next week when one of their songs got radio air. She asked if she could keep opening for them, when they got big. All he did was grin. She likes to think it’s a yes.

“Hello.”

Coming back to earth, Anita finds Tight Pants in front of her. Not starling close, but enough to elicit something ghastly in her.

He smells of leather and good cigarettes, and her baby sister was right, he does look like sex. He’s all lean muscle, and though the perspiration has gone from his forehead, she bets if he were to lean in close and press his lips to hers, she might be tempted to taste the residue of it in what would become haste and passionate kissing.

“Hello,” she responds.

“I’m Javi, from Laredo.”

He extends his rather large hand for her to take, and she does. She wonders if this is the approach he uses with a lot of women. He’s good looking enough to be dangerous, but then again, she’s smart enough to understand where the line between fun and serious ends and begins with these men. She’s a rockstar too, privy to sex and drugs just like the lot of them, even if she is just a one man band.

She puts her hand in his and he gives her a firm shake. “Anita,” she says, then inspired by the liquid courage in her, she adds, “From somewhere warm, but hopefully headed some place better.”

He gives her a laugh and she finds that unfortunately, it’s the sort that makes one’s own lips tug upwards.

“You sounded good tonight. Did you write that song?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “You sounded good too. I mean, you probably know that already, but.” She smiles. “Who writes for you?”

“Graham.”

“Graham’s the...”

“Lead singer. Dirty blonde over there talking to your—“ He looks at her. “Sister?”

She nods. “Yeah. She said she had talked to you earlier.”

“Yeah. We talked about your someplace warm. California, is it?”

“Cali indeed.”

“I’ve never been.”

“Well, Javi, I’m sure you’re about to.”

His dimple appears for her. He looks at her like she wishes he wouldn’t, because it makes her badly want to stick to his side for the rest of the night. And on his lips.

Even more unfortunate for her, he rummages in his pockets and pulls out a packet of those good cigarettes that make up his aroma. He opens it and takes one out for himself, sticking it between his lips, before offering her one.

“You smoke?”

She takes one. “Sometimes,” she nods. “Are we allowed to, in here?”

Javi shrugs his shoulders as he lights his. “Dunno,” he responds. She leans forward so he can light hers too. “Suppose we should go sit on the balcony on the off chance that this is the one hotel in America that doesn’t allow it?”

****

“You know Me and Bobby McGee, Laredo?” she nods down to his guitar.

The air outside is just cool enough to be comfortable in, so, despite that their cigarettes have long been stamped out and the party inside awaits them, they stay on the patio, rooted to the furniture. He hasn’t made any moves on her, a fact which takes her by surprise, and so they’ve lulled into a comfortable ebb and flow of natural conversation.

He tweaks his fingers on the neck of the guitar before he begins to strum the strings of it . His hair, overgrown in a way that suits a man of his occupation, cascades over his forehead as his brow becomes pinched from focus. In an instant, from his fingers comes the tune of her desire. He looks up at her, grinning, once he gets into the flow of it.

“¿Hablas español?” he asks, over his guitar.

“Un poquito, but not much,” she tells him. “Why?”

“No reason,” he dismisses, “Can you sing Me and Bobby McGee?”

“Sí.”

He laughs. “Well, put on a show then.”

***

She sobers up halfway between the sun tucking itself into the sky and the sun peeking back out from the horizon, but she can’t remember when. They’d played a lot of songs and her throat feels hoarse, but she can’t recall any one song that had felt particularly clear. It all sort of blended together up until this moment.

Javi lays, back rested against the chair, looking tired. His guitar now rests beside him, quiet, and he stares out at the city below them.

There’s a soft hum of normal people doing normal things below them; the horn of an eager taxi driver, the breaks of a bus, the chatter of patrons going in and out of the hotel.

They sit in the comfort of this city’s morning routine while she smokes his last good cigarette. “I was never much for staying up all night,” she tells him, passing it over to him.

He takes it between his lips and nods. “I was never much for sleeping all night.”

“And why’s that?”

He shrugs, exhaling the smoke. “Don’t know. Sometimes the past haunts me, sometimes it’s just too fuckin’ hot, sometimes it’s the company.”

“Mm,” she hums. “I must admit, I didn't peg you as the get-to-know-me-in-the-early-morning type. Thought you’d be content just charming me with your guitar for the rest of eternity.”

“Well,” he passes the cigarette back to her, pushing his digits against her own in the process. “I’m not, really, but we’ve talked about our favorite songs all night and you’re our opener for the rest of this tour, so why not?”

She takes a drag off the cigarette. “I’m not the opener for the rest of the tour.”

“No?” he asks.

“No,” she shakes her head. “This was a favor, I think. A very kind one.”

He looks out in front of him, falling into silence. Thinking.  Then he says, “I think I’m in the position to call in some favors right now if you’d liked to be. The opener, I mean.”

She lets the smoke out from the side of her mouth, which has risen up into a wide grin. “Javier from Laredo, I think I could kiss you right now.”

He takes the cigarette back from her fingers, offering her his own grin. “I think I’d like that,” Javi says, tone soft. Genuine.

She swings her legs over the side of her lawn chair, and holds herself up just far enough to press a chaste kiss to his cheek. He turns though, not entirely on purpose, she thinks, and their noses brush against one another. She rises from her seat when he leans down and fills the space between them, resting against his own chair as his lips move against her own.

No tongue, though. He pulls back after a few seconds, brown eyes full of warmth. She’s surprised by the amount of control he has over himself. Surprised that he wants to use it, too.

“I better go check on my sister,” she breathes out, resting her hand over his chest.

“Okay,” he nods. “I’ll see you in the next city, Anita.”

“Yeah,” she smiles.

“Look for me?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she promises.

She likes this man and his tight jeans, she’s decided. Likes him a lot.

EVERYTHING : @astroboots , @frannyzooey , @wyn-n-tonic , @rosiefridayrogersunday , @melaniermblt , @theorganasolo​ , @amneris21​ , @honestly-shite , @over300books , @elegantduckturtle, @pbeatriz , @pretty-brown-eyess , @brcwneyes  ,  @chronic-nosebleed

JAVI :  @wyn-n-tonic , @rosiefridayrogersunday , @disgruntledspacedad , @melaniermblt , @walt-breslin , @theorganasolo , @amneris21 , @hb8301 , @penajavier , @darnitdraco , @over300books , @dobbyjen , @paperbag33 , @rebel-fanfare , @p3dr0pasca1lov3r247

TINY DANCER : @itssmashedavo (just because i thought this might interest you)

[youryanderedaddy]

Mirror gaze

I am kinda proud of this one, ngl

Tw: dark, obsessive behaviour, slight horror, Stockholm syndrome, mindbreak, suicidal thoughts (hinted?)

 You were so cold. So incredibly, terribly cold, your hands felt blue and heavy, and it was summer. Sam was still at work, you had guessed, and you went to do your own thing. You were doing the dishes, scrubbing each and every spot to perfection. You weren't satisfied until you were able to see your tired reflection in the mirror. But your concentration was short - lived as you heard a woman's high - pitched voice calling for you from the living room. She sounded annoyed and sad at the same time. The idea of angering her filled your lungs with heaviness, so you quickly ran out of the kitchen, following the source of the continuous yelling.

 Soon you were standing in front of her. She looked even more terrifying than she did yesterday - her skin had lost its healthy colour and glow, her eyes were empty, the bags under them deep and black. The woman was sick - she struggled to breathe probably and her small, thin body was swaying hopelessly from side to side.

 Suddenly she pointed her bony finger in your direction and you couldn't help, but notice how each of her once long sharp nails were now broken.

 "How are you treating my boy?" The woman asked sternly, her dead eyes focused on you. The deep growl hidden underneath her feminine voice caused icy shivers down your spine and you gulped loudly to cover the long silence.

 "I am doing everything he asks of me." You answered after a while, your words drowning in the sea of tiny little breaths coming from the person next to you. Your reply wasn't satisfactory though and her thin lips remained closed in an aggravated expression.

 "Does he seem happy?" She spoke again, signing in exhaustion. You wondered how her bruised numb legs managed to support her weight so easily. Perhaps they weren't - the woman was often panting and crying in pain even though she wasn't moving an inch. Mentally you pictured how her big dark pupils became endless holes in the ground and some starved worms crawled out of them. The image almost made you chuckle, but when you opened your own eyes, her gaze was set on you, still emotionless and empty. You tried to cover your orbs and your fingertips came out wet.

 "I think he is." You started off, still staring at your hands. They seemed unnaturally big. Sam liked your arms - he always said that they were soft and smooth, but now that they were so abnormal, would he still want to touch them? To touch you? The wave of your thoughts splashed against a hard rock when the woman raised another question.

 "Are you good enough for him?" She inhaled slowly and for a moment her nostrils dilated. There was a small trace under her nose, resembling something sticky and red, but you couldn't quite put your finger on what the liquid could be. You stayed quiet as time went on and on and the damp spot seemed to grow bigger the longer you kept your silence. But it wasn't your fault - you had no idea how to respond to the woman. Sam always called you disobedient and ungrateful. Sometimes he would squeeze the air out of your lungs if you had been particularly bad, and it always comforted you, knowing that he cares enough to help you become better for him. But there were also times where he would hold your hand gently and whisper things you didn't understand in your ear. Sometimes he would touch your flesh and reach very deep - into your heart and soul. It always made you confused when the man was acting kind. And in the end you weren't sure whether you were deserving of his attention or not. You wondered what would happen if you weren't good enough. If you were exactly who you were right now.

 "Do you love him?" The woman kept on, slightly parting her chapped cold lips. Her voice was so small now that you found it hard to hear what she had to say. You noticed a lock of hair falling down to the ground as she stared at you in anticipation. You felt so tired and hazy - the woman was making you lightheaded and her words hurt your ears. You didn't like her. In fact some days you could swear you absolutely despised her. A part of you wanted her dead.

 "I need him." You uttered at the end, your shoulders shaking because of the low temperature in the room. The window was open wide, but the sun couldn't reach the room you were in. It never did. Impulsively you stretched out your hand in an attempt to push the woman away, to at least touch her. She smiled softly.

 "Honey!" The man's voice lingered in your ears from far away. A pair of hands wrapped around your body and pulled you in a tight, suffocating hug. The familiar smell of caffeine and liquor hit your senses and you melted down to your very core. You were safe, for now. She was gone.

 "Baby, you were talking to yourself again." Sam whispered slowly, stroking your hair up and down. He was holding your wrists in a solid grip as you were trying to fight him, to break free of this endless grasp. The metal chains around your ankles jingled against each other in a mockery of your fruitless efforts. You weren't good enough after all.

 "Baby, please, calm down. I'm here now." The man cooed at you, kissing your neck softly. "Don't slip into your mind again, I'm begging you." Sam pleaded, desperate for you to calm down and return to him in one piece. The big salty tears were stinging your skin, running down your cheeks, washing away the dried blood. You were suffocating.

 "I love you, Sam." You sobbed, digging your short nails into his arm. Your head was pulsating with sharp pain. "Don't leave me."

 And then the man started reassuring you, promising that he was in love with you, that he would never leave your side, that he would always be there for you, all the while holding you too close. But he just didn't understand.

 Because the woman was back. And in her tiny bruised hands she was holding a knife with your name on it. 

[beauty-of-depravation]

Wanna make love ?

Gif not mine ♥️

Okey I've written the whole damn thing in one go, i didn't read it twice, I'm thirsty for Bucky everyday of my life.

Warning : explicit sexual content +18. Fingering/fucking/Making love/ condom is not an option/from slow to rough/ slow burn/FwB kind off/ dom Bucky/dirty talk

You always were a bold girl.

The afternoon had been going amazingly. Bucky is your best friend, and recently you both have been feeling off. You don't know if it's the approaching winter, or the work related stress, or just the weight of your pasts, but you needed this afternoon. A whole afternoon spent talking, about big everythings and sweet nothings. You went from talking about tragic events and confessing some pent-up feelings, pretty intimate emotions and impressions, to laughing and fooling around. the wind was strong and the rain fell violently on the window. Bucky was sitting on the wooden bench under the window and you were sitting cross-legged, on the carpet, your half-emptied glass of wine in hand, and an empty pack of cookies by your side. You still have a huge smile on you lips, and your belly still hurts from laughing soo hard, Bucky is one goofy motherfucker. The calm slowly comes back, and you let yourself fall on your back, still smiling softly. The silence is not awkward, it's serene.

And then you feel it.

They say nothing good happens after 2 am. They say it all seems to start after few taquilla shots. They say that hot summer nights are the most likely to lead to sex. The stories talk about how two best friends are in love, the girl comes back after a terrible date, her guy best friend invites her to drink. Maybe him too had a terrible night. after few shots, they flirt, fuck hard, then confess.

What about calm rainy afternoon. What about sharing a bottle of red wine. What about the fact that Bucky can't get drunk, and you only had two glasses. and then you want to make love ? What about If you are not in love, you just want to make love.

What if you are not falling in love but just falling in desire ?

What could possibly go wrong ?

You tilt your head back up, and look at the man by the window. One leg bent against his wide firm chest, the other on the ground, his long brown locks framing his face, his amazingly beautiful eyes are fixed on the apocalyptic landscape behind the glass. He is wearing a black t-shirt, and sweatpants. Your eyes wander over what you know to be a perfectly toned chest, and to his metal left arm which is facing you. He doesn't really like to leave it seen by everyone like that, but with you, he doesn't have this complex.

You stand up, walking to the bench, and sit beside him, also admiring the stormy weather.

— Wanna make love ? you say in raspy, dreamy voice, without looking at Bucky.

— What ? you hear him turn around to face you.

— I said, wanna make love ? you repeat, still not looking at him.

— Y/N what do you mean "make love"

— Bucky, are you completely dumb ? you finally turn your face.

— You mean ...sex make love ?

— Yes, James, because we are six. Sex make love, you reply with humour in your voice.

— i mean, where did that come from? he asks hesitantly.

— i don't know. I want to make love.

— right now ?

— yes, right now.

— with me?

— yes, with you.

Poor man is so confused, but you can see his body tensing.

— i ...i just want to have you inside of me right now, while we look out the window, look how much it's raining, and how the thunder rumbles, wouldn't it feel so good ? You heard his breathing go heavy, but you still add, if you don't want to just say no.

— it's not that I don't want to, he answers quickly, just need to make sure ...are you drunk?

— A little tipsy. Not enough for me to not know what I'm asking for and not enough for  you to feel guilty.

— So, you are just a weirdo ? Some humour is back in his tone but you feel like his voice is ... deeper.

— Yes.

— will it ...make things weired ?

— no, consider i want ....a really deep hug.

— from me ?

— James, if you don't kiss me in the three next seconds consider that I've changed my mind.

But you decide to go easy on him, and lean down half of the way, he comply and bring his lips to yours, gently, slowly, you start kissing eachother. It's ... poetic. Like you wanted it to be. You weirdo beauty obsessed girl.

You and Bucky, it feels perfect. Two souls permanently damaged. Two best friends. Why do people always think that "soulmates" is a word for couples only?

His tongue gently caress your lip and you part them, letting him invade you.You taste eachother the wine and the tenderness. His flesh hand is soon traveling along your back, to the back of your neck, and it sinks into your hair. A muffled moan escapes your lips when his metal hand grab your ass and push you against him, pressing your chest to his.

— Wait, wait, you breathe.

— What ? Bucky move his head back, and  look deepe into your eyes, half- worried, half disappointed.

— Relax, we are not stopping, James.  Just, let me straddle your lap. 

He chuckles, you love this sound, it makes you smile whenever you hear it.

— come here, he whispers, as he grab you ass more firmly, extend both his legs on the bench, leans his back to the wall behind him, and pulls you close, he initiates another kiss, and you start slowly moving your hips on his. 

You hear him grunt, and a cheeky smile come to your lips, as you feel him getting hard. You feel him smile arrogantly to, and you don't understand why, until he suddenly push his hips up, crashing his hardening cock with your crotch, a loud moan escapes your throat, you open your eyes and meet his gaze analyzing you, his metal hand take control of your hip rolling, and he makes it more intense. You can feel it now. The man is...god blessed. Fuck.

— Bucky...! you whine.

— Yes, doll ?

— don't tease.

— Then get of me.

— What ?

— Don't worry, Y/N, we are not stopping. You stick your tongue out at him, falsely irritated as he quotes you. But you face becomes red pretty soon when he adds in a dangerously low voice, his lips against your ear, Let's just get you ready for my cock, yeah ? Let me taste this pussy, doll.

He chuckles at how fast you jump off his lap. He slides down from the bench to,  drop to his knees and tap the space on the bench in front of him, taken by a sudden shyness you sit at some distance from his face. A loud laugh escapes his throat, and he suddenly grab under your knees and and pulls you toward him.

— Don't shy away, doll. Now, you are not allowed to cum, and don't you dare move. Understood ? he instruct while pulling down your pyjama pants and underwear at the same time.

— Yes.

— good girl. I'm going to take great care of you. he says, with nothing but sweetness and desire in his voice.

And suddenly, his mouth is on your pussy, his tongue flat against your clit. You mewl your pleasure, and your forearm covers your eyes, as he licks a line along your sex.

— Oh, god !

An deeply amused "Ehmmm" is his only reply.

He kiss your lips, bite your inner thigh and leave a hickey there. Then licks again, from your entrance to the head of your clit. You squirm at the feeling, and his metal hand push your hips down

— Doll, i really want to take you, make it hard for me to prepare you, and I'll push inside of you right now.

— Then do it, I'm wet enough, you argue.

— No, you are not, I'm to big for your little pussy.

You moan and your inner walls clench imagining him

— Cocky shit.

— I saw how you clenched, into dirty talk sweetheart?

— i can still change my mind about what we are doing.

He chuckles again, and ...it's weak to say he gets to work. He fucking eats you out like you are his last meal. He roughly suck at your clit, making his name spill from your lips like a plea, both his hands on your thighs forbid you to move an inch, as he keeps pushing and playing with the devil's door bell.

His tongue flicks your nub, and it takes a scream of pleasure away from you.

— I'm going to push a finger in, doll.

You moan and try to make a move toward him.

— ohh, so needy... Alright. But you have to tell me which one.

Your eyes snap open.

The mother fucking bastard. He knew, and you knew he knew. And you knew he knew you knew by the tone he used.

Okey. You might had confessed to Bucky, about a month ago, that you were...very curious of how his metal fingers felt inside a woman. And be might have answered by :

"They never get tired"

And you said "your too sweet to put a woman through that in bed" and he replied with a wink and "try me"

Ohh. Ohh. No.

But as if he was reading in your mind, he said :

— don't worry doll, not tonight. Tonight, we are going to make love slowly, by the window, for as long as you want. But i still want you to admit it.

— Oh, please..

You slaped yourself mentally, you were aiming for a sharp tone, but you sounded...needy.

— Say it, or you'll never know...

— You fucker... alright...i want the metal hand...

— what do you say?

— fuck off.

— alright alright, We'll work on manners another time.

And with that, he pushes knuckle deep one cold metal finger.

— how does it feel, sweetheart ? Tell me, his voice is sweet but still firm.

Oh that, that is an exercise you love. You focus on the feeling.

— it's cold, and it contrast with my temperature, i can't feel the hard metal on my walls, and ...oh when you move it like that, i can feel the tip of your finger lightly pushing on the spot...

Bucky is focused on your breathy description...and when you mention the sweet spot, he suddenly push harder on it.

— oh yeah ? This one ? Like that ?

— Oh fuck, Yes yes there Buck, right there.

— yes m'aam.

And with that, a second finger push inside of you, and he start pumping a little faster, pushing on your sweet spot.

— Oooh your fingers fill me up Soo good buck.

— Two fingers and already full, doll ? Unless I make you take at least three, my cock is going to stretch you out...oh doll, you just clenched around me. Like the idea of being stretched out on my big cock, hmm ? Good girls take a little pain, perfect girls enjoy it, which one are you ?

As you moan and don't answer, a third finger roughly push inside you, no warnings.

— Ooohhh buckyyyy !!!

— I said, which one are you ? His voice is now commanding. And his fingers fuck you harder, waiting for the answer.

— Pain is part...fuck.... part of beauty.

You feel him smile against your thigh, as he kiss it sweetly while fingering fucking you with all his might.

You feel your orgasm coming, you focus your mind on the sound of the rain behind you, and the feeling of Bucky's fingers pumping in and out of you at a demential pace, and his lips are back on your clit as he draw circles on it. Your soul is about to leave your fucking body. And you smile, the image of it is beautiful, you have this amazing man between your legs, and behind you a storm is ragging.

You moan loudly, and grip the sides of the bench and ...

— WHY DID YOU FUCKING STOP ?

a loud laugh, a real sincere laugh echos in the room as you sit up, looking at Bucky.

— Oh my God, your reaction is priceless doll ! You are the most fun I've had in decades!

— well that's not a surprise...you mumble, rolling your eyes, as he keeps laughing.

— Soo light headed... He says, taking off his shirt, and then his sweatpants. He went back to serious, and you had a hard time swallowing your saliva with the look he gave you. I told you, you were not to fucking cum. And you forgot.

Your eyes open wide. Shit.

He then grabs you by the waist, and sits down, his back to the wall, and make you straddle his lap once again. You wiggle on his muscular thighs, as he sows wet kisses on your neck, his long fingers grab the hem of your t-shirt. He slowly takes it over your shoulders.

— Fucking hell, i'm still a man doll, your tits freely bouncing at every movement you made had my head spinning all afternoon.

You giggle and he smiles at you sweetly, giggling to.

— Your skin is so soft...

He kisses a line between your breasts, then capture one of your nipples between his teeth, making you arch your back. He swirls his tongue around the sensitive nipple and suck on it passionately, as his flesh hand plays with you other boob, massaging it, pinching and rolling the nipple between his fingers. He then make his way of kisses up you neck, stopping behind your ear, he whispers:

— So now, sweetheart, let's follow the original plan, you are going to sit on my cock, and we are going to make love, as slow as I command you to, looking out at the storm. And if you want to cum, you are to beg for it.

— What ? But i..

— Oh, no back talk now sweetheart. Those boxers are getting tight.

You look down at the huge bulge. Ohh.  He wasn't kidding... forgetting about the arguing, you caress his length through the thin fabric, and he release a deep growl. You slowly kiss his neck while sliding your hand in his underpants, feeling how his cock jumps at you touch, how heavy, and hot it is between your fingers.

You can barely close your fingers around it's girth.

— Told you you needed to be prepared... He expire between two heavy breath as you play with him.

You don't answer him. Because you can't deny he was telling the truth, and you don't want to flatter his already flattered ego.

— you planning on taking the boxers off at some point, doll ?

— Hmmm, you might need to say please...

— Fuck...

You squeeze harder on his shaft, and he moan.

— Okey, okey i guess I earned that ...please doll, take the fucking boxer off so I can ruin you pussy ?

Your entire body shudder, as you finally push the boxers down, letting his erection bounce to his stomach. Your hand slowly travels up and down his thickness, spreading the precum. You want to taste him. Want to know how much if him you can take in your mouth, in your throat, maybe he'll push your head down and make you take more, You look up at him, his head is thrown back, his eyebrows frowned and his mouth slightly opened. That's... beautiful. You want to see what he will look like when the head of his dick will hit the back of your throat.

— Fuck...i want you in my mouth, Bucky.

— Fuck ...I'm going to get cursed for missing this opportunity...fuck. no.

You have an obviously desapointed look on your face, as you keep slowly stroking him.

— Oh doll, don't play the puppy eyes on me. I want to see you choke to, but another time. Right now, come here, on top of me, so i can play with your perfect tits, and lower yourself on me.

You moan, excited to have it inside of you, You lift your hips and slowly, slowly move down.

— Ohh fuuuuuck.

The tip going inside of you is the most delightful feeling. It's heavenly.

You feel Bucky tense under you, he is trying to keep himself from moving with all his might. You devilishly decide to play a little more.

You sink few centimeters more, not even half way down, and then back up, then back few centimeters down, and you stop. Acting like you need more time to accommodate his size, even though you only have the tip in.

— oh Buckyyy,  you are Soo biiiig, you feel so goooood, you moan in a fake porn star voice.

He gets it, your playing with him

You know what they say about teasing ? It backfires.

— Oh really ? Then doll, why don't you take all my fucking cock, you.fucking.tease. and with that he grabs you hips and snap them down roughly.

The next moans that escape you mouth are everything but overplayed.

— Fuck Bucky...

— That's what you get for being a tease, now bounce, slowly, and everytime you stop, I'm going to spank that ass. Leave pretty hand prints on it, yeah ? Now, bounce.

For how long did it go ? You can't even say anymore.

— Oh ... sweetheart, your legs are shaking ? Well, to.fucking.bad. *SMACK* take it harder. Ohh sweetheart, i didn't mean harder like that, it's not enough for a tease like you, is it *SMACK* ? More like that, he says as he grab you hips and empale you on his cock, up and down, up and down, no breaks, you are not going fast enough for his liking? No problem, he bucks his hips up, meeting you halfway.

— What, you want to cum ? But no, you can't. Don't even think about it. *SMACK SMACK*

— Doll, look in my eyes, right, look at me, you are doing so good for me. Go slower, you can't cum just yet remember, go slower.

— Look at those beautiful nipples, you like when I suck on them, yeah ?

— Grab on my shoulders, kiss me.

— What ? Why did i spank you this time ? Because I wanted to sweetheart *SMACK*

— tomorrow there will be my handprints all over those pretty cheeks. *SMACK*

— sweetheart ? Let's take a break. Yes, sit down, no, no, keep me inside. Just sit down, you wanted to make love right? I think you know better then to tease me know ? Yeah ? Good girl. Keep me inside of you, let me wrap my hands around you, let's look at the storm, aren't we confortable like that ?

You looked at the storm. From time to time he's move slowly. Or you'd readjust to feel him. the pleasure was a slow burn.

You grabbed the wine bottle from the floor, and you shared what was left of it. From time to time between heated kisses and touches you or him would crack up a joke, a dirty comment or a philosophical one. You asked eachother how come not more best friends had sex like that ? It was the best feeling. You had nothing to prouve to each other, you had no expectations, you were just here to feel good. You kissed for what seemed like hours, sometimes open eyes, sometimes closed, sometimes heated kisses, tongue swirling and mixing breaths, sometimes just gentle pecks.

By the end, you were both on the verge of insanity. You needed to cum. Bucky was sweaty and struggling to keep control, his hands all over you, his breath heavy and his voice as desperate as yours.

— Okey, what do you think about fucking me now ? You propose, heavy breathing.

— We done with love making? Asks Bucky with the same tone.

— The storm calmed down, you reply with a smile.

— Fuck, finally. Get on you back doll, he orders.

You painfully got off him, your legs muscles were sore.

— you're an asshole

— and I'm going to make you cum, get over yourself, he replied, still finding in him the strength to keep up with you temperament, as he stands up before you, towering over you body. God the man is beautiful. What a sight.

he raises your legs and puts your feet on his shoulders.

— Ready ?

— More then FUCK.

You head throws back.

— Oh. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He curses to as he pushes inside of you and immediately starts pounding. You really are crazy tight, fuck.

Your sounds of pleasure mix in the air, the room is full of the smell of sex. It feels soo good. No one can fuck you like that, no one can understand how you like it like he immediately does. And no one except you can make him confortable enough for him to fully enjoy the moment. You both have wicked mids which are always afraid of something, afraid of an inversible threat that is constantly around you, the only thing you trust, is each other.

— Bucky, bucky I'm going to cum, fuck fuck, Bucky !

— yeah ? You are going to cum on my cock, doll ? He fucks you harder is that's even possible, and his metal fingers go to your clit and furiously rub it. Say please.

— Fuck...Fuck off.

You didn't think he'd be capable to stop. But he did. immediately. Everything stopped.

— You are not going to fucking cum if you do not beg, I'm not backing off of this. You say please, Bucky, make me cum, please. Or i leave you like that.

— Oh my God are you...arggg your breath is taken away from you as he roughly snap his hips, pushing himself all the way in, as a warning.

— fine! Fine, please Bucky make me cum! Please!

He smiles, and start pounding and bullying your clit so much you might cry.

— see. What. Arggg, a fucking good girl you ...can be. let it go, doll, cum, cum around me, ohh god, your clenching Soo hard, you feel Soo fucking good, don't try to escape, keep cumming, keep fucking cumming, oh God I'm cumming to, oh god doll you feel Soo good, so good...

You scream and cry out, your orgasm dragging out as he keeps playing with your love button, and his cock twitchs inside of you as he spills his hot sperm deep inside you.

— oh fuck, doll Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He grunts and moan, and bite at your calf as he orgasms. And collapses on your chest. You hug him tightly, and you stay like that. Both panting.

They say it all ends with a happily ever after.

But maybe love story's always have to bring tragedy. They make us irrational, and some philosophs say that being in love brings the worst out of us, jealousy, insecurities, codependency...etc

What if the best love stories are friendship stories. And nothing says we can't spice them up a little, right?

They also say male/female friendship doesn't exist.

At the time you didn't fucking care what they said.

[winter-fox-queen]

Kisses Like Wine Part 7

Thank you, thank you for all the kind words, clever tags…I hope this ending is a good one for all of you. <3

Summary: We end where we begin…at a party. Will the Thief get everything he came for?

Warnings: Making out…I don’t know why, the man exudes pure sex, but I couldn’t fit the smut in. Stealing things. The reader is female, blank canvass, no y/n.

I stared at the card.  All that blackmail, clever managing to break into a warehouse, avoiding getting killed…and all I had to show for it was an empty chair and a card.

A King of Spades. What the hell did that even mean?  It’s been a few days, and I had no idea where he was, if he was alright, anything.

But I did have a bit of luck.  I learned that there was to be a ball…and it was tonight. The Heart of the Rhine would be on delicious display, around the neck of a lady who claimed to be one of the “Last Habsburg Princesses” — though people made fun of her for her grandiose claims.  But still.  She was going to the ball, wearing the Heart, and I was going to steal it.

I had a glass fake.  It wasn’t a very good glass fake, but it would do with the time I had.  I also had a beautiful dress, a soft, filmy green that clung where it should and sparkled like a thousand diamonds had been sewn into it.

I then tried to treat myself to dinner, but the card was declined…finally, my father had cut me off.  I laughed…I had bought everything from the skin out for the ball, made sure I was the most beautiful and elegant I could be, and it was the MCDonald’s cheeseburger that got declined.

I told myself I was dressing for the part, not for the man.  I hadn’t picked out the most beautiful lingerie to wear under the dress that I could just in case he would get to see it.

I’d give my soul to know his name, and it scared me, how far I’d gone.

How much I wanted him.

So, there I was.  At the entryway to the Great Ballroom (which I’d cleaned yesterday, and helped set up this morning before collecting my paycheck and canning my maid outfit and wig for good, thank you very much) I paused.  It was going to end the way it began.

I told myself I was ready.

“I thought you’d be in the corner, singing to yourself, angel.”  His voice was like a heavy velvet wrap around my heart.  I was suddenly so very aware.  Aware of the warmth of his body near my back, the feel of his hand as he moved to take mine, bending low and kissing the knuckles, the dark pools of his eyes never leaving mine.

“It’s not a masquerade, this time.”  I was proud that I almost sounded unaffected.  Almost.  He was wearing a jacket of silvery grey, it shimmered a little in the light.  “All masks are off.”

“Are they?”  He presented me with a little pouch.  Smiled down into my eyes, his eyes so deep and dark — but warm, like summer shadows.

“What’s this?”  I took it gently.

“A thank you present, for later…hide it in one of the pockets you had sewn into your gown.”  He caressed my cheek gently.  “Thank you for rescuing me.”

I tried to feel it through the velvet of the pouch as I stowed it…paper?  Around something hard?  His caress distracted me.  “I can’t believe you got caught.”

“Perhaps it is time for me to retire.”  He held out a hand.  “Shall we?  We did not get to dance properly last time, and tonight, we have time to kill.”

I let him lead me out on the floor.  His hand on the bare skin of my back was warm, intimate.  He’s held me close before but this is different…my breath still came faster, heat still pooled in my belly at his touch, feeling his body move against mine, but it felt like home just as much as it felt like lust.  Would he move this smoothly, if we were alone in his bed?  Would be be this gentle, but this firm as he lead me?

“How…”. I shut myself off.  I had been about to say, “How do you fall in love with a Thief?”

“How do I plan to take it?”  He tapped his forehead to mine gently.  “You know better than to ask.”

“Well.  She has four guards around her everywhere she goes.  She’s never alone — someone is always talking to her, always saying something.”

He turned me gently in his arms, and now I was back to his front, as they continued dancing to the music.  His cheek was pressed against mine, and I felt the bristle of his beard.  “They’re all men.”  I said softly.

“Good.  Good.  And see how much she drinks?”

I spin away, his hand gently guides me back and we are face to face again.  “That can’t be it.  That’s too easy.”

“Sometimes it is.”  His nose brushed mine.  “Enough talking.”  He kissed me.  I stopped right in the middle of the dance floor.  The world was spinning, but I was still, tucked up against him, his mouth exploring mine, his hands pulling me close.  When I opened my eyes I realized he’d guided us off to the side, in a shadow created by one of the pillars that lined either side of teh room.  He looked down at me, as if trying to say something, then sighed, closed his eyes and placed his forehead to mine, cupping my face with both of his hands.

“Will you ever tell me your name?”  I whispered.

He pressed his face against my neck, I felt him smile.  “Maybe,” he said softly.  “Or perhaps you should make one for me.”

“I’d rather know yours.”  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders as he started kissing my throat.  I was pretending to keep my eye on the mark, but failing.  “Stop distracting me…anyway…I am tired of calling you The Thief in my head all the time.”

He looked up.  “Really?  Is that all you call me?”

“Yes.”  I drew it out.

“Liar.”  He said, and kissed me on the nose.

“This is not what I expected.”

“And what did you expect?”

“Well.”  I played with the satin lapel of his jacket.  “I thought you’d drag me off to some quiet corner and have your way with me.”

His hands closed in on my waist, and squeezed.  “Is that you want, my darling?  To hide somewhere and taken so passionately that I need to keep my hand over your mouth to stifle your moans?”

I looked up at him.  “Sounds lovely.”

His mouth twisted into an oddly alluring smirk.  “Well.”  He said softly, leaning closer.  His eyes dashed a quick glance over my shoulder, and his frame sank.

“Is she heading for the restroom?  Already?”

He nodded.

I held up a finger.  “Hold that thought.”  I moved through the crowd, muttering about woman and their humming bird sized bladders.

I went in.  There was an attendant, the black cloth of the uniform shirt a little too snug around her arms and shoulders.  She was built like an amazon, and I thought, That is not coincidence.  I used the restroom, washed up, and was checking my makeup as my mark approached mirror.

My body was between the attendant and the mark.  Could I do it?  Dared I?  “Excuse me…the clasp of your necklace looks undone…”. I reached over to fix it, thankful that she had worn her hair upswept.  The fake was palmed in my hand.

“I’ll see to that,” the attendant said, pushing me aside gently.  “It looks alright.”  Her tone was less gentle this time, and she frowned at me.  The Hapsburgh Princess — the papers said her friends called her Norri — gave me a glare in the mirror, then kept fixing her face.

“Must have been a trick of the light.  I’d hate for you to lose your necklace, it’s really pretty!”  I backed to the door.  “See you around!”

He was leaning against the wall next to the door.  “Attendant?”

“How’d you know?”

He put an arm around my waist.  “You need work on your poker face, my love.  Which is a shame, because our next shot at the jewel is during the poker gamethey have set up for later.”

I let him lead me away.  “What?  You think to get her to add it to the pot?”

He shrugged elegantly.

“Oh, come on.  Tell me.”  He lead me to a balcony, overlooking the city.

“I have a plan.  You know how to play, right?”

“I do…I am adequate, but…”

He handed me a card.  “This is so you can join the game.  The chips have been purchased.  Just collect at the end and cash them in.”

“What happens if they figure out that I’m your accomplice?”

He reached over and tucked some hair behind my ear.  He looked very sad, in the golden light.  “They won’t.”

I cupped his face in my hands.  “Why are you so sad?  What are you going to do?”

He shook himself and gave me a blinding smile.  “Nothing!  Everything will go according to plan.  Now…”. He sat down in one of the wicker chairs on the balcony.  “Come, let me hold you for awhile.”  He unbuttoned his coat with careless flicks of his fingers, then looked up at me, held out a hand.

“Well.  We do have to kill an hour…” I sat down carefully.

“Shhh.  Give me your whole weight, my dove.  None of this awkward half sitting, eh?”  I shifted as his arm closed around me, and he traced my jaw with his knuckles, and kissed me.  His mouth was hotter and sweeter than sin, I shifted to get closer, pressing my chest to his.  I ached to be touched, as those soft lips met the skin of my neck, nipped and licked, burning a path that made me moan softly.

“That’s it, my beautiful girl.”  He whispers in my ear.

“What do I have to do to get you to tell me your name?  Just the first.  Lie.  It’s fine.  Just tell me…”

He’s playing with the strap of my gown, he’d been in the process of pushing it aside.  “I will not lie, not to you, not about that.  But I have promised myself — I will only tell my name to the woman I love.  The woman I want to…”. He cut himself off and looked at me.

“Alright,” I gave him a brave smile, trying to cover the hurt.  “Tell me something else.  Anything.”

He ran his hands up my arms.  “That you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

I let him pull me back, kissed him.  “I love you, but I know nothing about you, and I hate myself for it.”  I whispered in his ear.  His hands stilled and I slipped off his lap, made a point of looking through the glass door.  “Ah.  It looks like they are opening the poker tables.  See you there?”

The angle I was at, I couldn’t see his face.  I kissed the top of his head, enjoying the feel of his soft curls.  “It’s OK.  It really is.”

And I went inside.  I heard him follow, but like Orpheus, I did not dare look back for fear of losing everything.

In this case, everything was my sanity, my will not to start crying, not to berate myself…You know, no-strings screwing could be a ton of fun.  I felt a bit like Anne Boleyn, leading Henry the 8th of a merry dance to get what I wanted…knowing full well he could kill me if he felt like it.

I knew he wouldn’t kill me.  But I knew he’d probably leave me.  Maybe that was why he looked so sad.  Could the world’s greatest thief feel regret?

He across from me at the table.  There was another guest, then Norri, the mossy green diamond glowing.  I felt an unreasonable hatred for it, for her, for the whole place.  For diamonds worth millions but still not as unattainable as one Thief.  Hell, the moon would be easier to get.

Another man, me, the dealer.  I ran my hand over the tray that held my chips, the rough edges cool against my palm.  If I walked out with this tray I could get home.

We started playing.  I was surprised.  I expected silence, quiet desperation…but no.

The table wanted to talk about love.  LOVE.  I threw in some chips.

“I have been in love exactly three times in my life.”  The Thief said idly, accepting new cards and inspecting his hand.  The pile of chips in front of him was respectable, but not gross.  He was winning just a little more than he was losing.  Me?  I was annoyed and out for blood.  “The first one poisoned me.”

“Really?” Norri was fascinated.  So, of course, was I.  “Why?”

He nodded and threw some chips in.  “Difference in opinion about how to run the family business.”

“The second?”  I asked, despite myself.

His eyes flickered down to his cards.  “I made her sad.  She could not bear me, the way I am.”  He gave me the sweetest of smiles.  “It happens.”

“I’m calling.”  Norrie says.  “And you must tell me the third?”

We paused to show our cards, or not.  I had a full house, and won, scooping my chips in.

“She is the one I love most.”  The dealer was dealing cards again.  “I did not know how much I loved her, when I first met her I saw a beautiful woman, inside and out, underappreciated, stuck in a cage when she would be so much more.  I thought, I could give her a way out.”  He grinned.  “Vanity is one of my many, many vices.”

Everyone laughed.  Except me.  He reached over and took the cards from the dealer, despite the man’s protests.

“I wish I could start over,” he says, shuffling the cards.  He looked into my eyes.  “But it is almost midnight, Cinderella, and the fairy tale is over.”  I realized the backs of the cards were different…when had he changed them?  “I am so sorry,” he said, and raised his hands, and rained the cards over us.  The power went out, and the cards, as they flew into the air hissed and spat, flaring with fire for a second before becoming sparks and ash.  Norrie screamed next to me.  I felt a touch as light as feathers for the briefest of seconds.  A kiss on my temple.

And then the lights came up again, and the greatest thief was gone again.

I was searched…we all were.  The fake necklace was gone, but this time it was me who hid it in a small panel I’d found while cleaning.  The going away present he’d left me, the little pouch, was well hidden in my dress, so I was snot surprised that they did not find it. They also did not find the playing card.  I found it later, where the first card was.

The Queen of Hearts.  I never knew that looking at a playing card could feel like a kiss and a slap at the same time.

I traded in my chips.  I took my money.  I walked out the door, and thought, I am done with all of this.

There were no more diamonds.  No more clues to follow.  A black car was waiting outside.  I quickened my steps, wondering, hoping.  The door opened, and all hopes were dashed.  My brother came up to me, looking…relieved.

“Are you alright?”

“I am.  I failed.  So maybe not for long,” I joked.

“It’s time for you to come home.”  He looked so serious.  “No one’s mad…we just miss you, and this was good…you had fun, we tried to get the diamond back, but…enough is enough.”

“I hate to give up now…”

“It’s OK.  Just come back.”  He gave me a tentative smile.  “Where else are you going to go?  It’s your home.”

“I have options.”  I said.  I hugged him…it was as stiff and welcoming as I expected it to be, so it was short.  “I think…I think I’ll take a rain check.”

“Dad’s frozen your cards…”

“I know!”  I said cheerfully.

“What are you going to do?  I don’t understand…I…”

This time, I petted him, and my “I know” was far more serious.  I could never make him understand.  He was as much a prisoner as I was, but no one saw enough in him to show him a way out.  I started walking.

“Did he seduce you?  Is that what this is?”

“Sadly, no.”  I said over my shoulder.

As I walked, I took the pouch out.  Under a street lamp I looked at it.  A signet ring.  Heavy.  Old gold.  I held it up to the light, and etched in the blood red ruby was a little devil’s head.

I knew where he was.

And I knew his name.  I’d seen it — and the little sigil from the ring — enough times, researching the Midas’s Rainbow.

There is, if you know where to find it, a castle.  It overlooks a formidable bay that had been the bane of many a ship, in the old days.

It looks abandoned.  The land for a good distance around it is private, and it is very hard to get to.  People at the closest town will tell you it is haunted by a man who sold his soul to the devil, and that he has lived there for hundreds of years.  That his castle has a vault full of cursed treasure.

There are people there who will tell you the story with an almost mocking twist.  And you — and I — both know that these are the people who have been paid, and paid well.  To spread the legend.  To bring in supplies.  To try and dissuade lone women from walking the long, rutted path into the woods, to climb past rocks to the lonely castle over the ocean.  To approach it, the red painted drawbridge bound in black iron.

There’s a door, set in the drawbridge.  The knocker looks like the heraldic devil’s head in the ring I wear on a chain around my neck.  No one answers my knock.

It does look abandoned.  Quiet.  But I hear a song, sung softly, and I walk around until I am in a garden.

I call his name, and when he turns, he laughs, a sound of relief as much as pleasure.

I drop my bag, my purse, and throw my arms around him.  He crushes me to him, and I can barely whisper his name, over and over, and that I love him, I love him.

“Welcome to your home, my love,” he says, in a pause between kisses, “Thank you for coming to find me.”

The End.

(Unless the actual commercial gives me thots)

With extra, most loving thanks to the people who have been following this and loving it:

Thank you to you lovely people for being on my tag list, if you want added or dropped just let me know.  <3

@grogusmum @mishasminion360 @hnt-escape @littlemisspascal @pedro4ever @writteninthestars18 @fromthedeskoftheraven @sharkbait77

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[shimmeringclouds]

Karamatsu - Lycoris Radiata

𝘠𝘰𝘬𝘢𝘪!𝘒𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘴𝘶 𝘟 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

Dim. Yet warm. You figured that's how a forest would be during the summer.

With that thought in mind, however, it didn't help you whatsoever with finding the path you were supposed to be walking along. Of course you would lose track of where you were meant to be walking; wandering minds and feet aren't exactly a good pair.

Glancing upward through the mess of tree branches and leaves, you could just about make out the glimmer of stars above you. Looks like you missed dinner. Again. Was it really so hard for you to go for a relaxing walk in the woodlands?

Sighing, you rubbed your upper thighs. Sore. The blood pumping through them felt weird against the fabric of your trousers, thumping uncomfortably against your fingers. Tingling. Just... weird.

Tree trunks stood by attentively, waiting patiently for your tired figure to curl up against its' bark. And you did just that, groaning as you stretched out your arms and legs. Your arms fell with a thud to your sides, fingers absentmindedly caressing the cool grass beneath you.

...Now what? Were you just going to sit there for the rest of the night? A ridiculous idea, surely. However, it was the only thing you could do. It's not like you knew if anyone was nearby to help you get home and, even then, you didn't think you could just trust anyone you would meet in the middle of the woods at night.

Another sigh. You're good at those, aren't you? You tried to take a look at your surroundings, only to see the dark figures of trees and bushes (at least, you hoped they were bushes). Dark blues and greens, hues of black, absences of colour.

A flash of red. A stark contrast to the deep colours around you. A beautiful flower, you saw. Its' crimson petals clustered together in the centre, with numerous similar coloured stems curling upwards, swaying and dancing with the wind.

"A Spider Lily, huh?" you muttered. You reached out and grazed the tips of your finger against it, a small smile tugging at your lips. "You shouldn't bloom here, all alone like this..."

Your mind briefly wandered back to a conversation you had had with a friend at some point throughout the week. Being the flower enthusiast she was, you always allowed yourself to become subject to her seemingly endless rants about flowers, plants, herbs - anything that she had knowledge about. You remembered what she had said about these richly coloured beauties.

'If you see someone that you may never meet again, these flowers will bloom along the path.'

It sounded like a beautiful but tragic piece of poetry. You began to wonder where the myth had even come from. When was it first spoken? Was it based on true events? Was it really such a bad thing, not meeting someone again?

You knew, from experience, that letting people leave your everyday life was actually beneficial for yourself. Although it took you a number of years to realise it, you found that the kinds of people you attracted were a lot worse than they appeared to be. Deep down, they were monsters. Horrible people, who have the audacity to call themselves human.

Of course it was painful, but only at first. Now, it didn't bother you much anymore. Your soul felt lighter, if anything, indicating that you were getting better, not worse.

Releasing the flower from your ghost of a grasp, you leaned your head back, closing your eyes. That was enough for today. It was time to rest for a while. Breathing in, and out, slowly, ever so slowly, a feeling of slumber crept its way into your body.

Relaxing your tense muscles, you released a long, heavy breath. Sleep.

"It's dangerous to sleep out here, my dove."

"WHA-!!"

An unholy shriek escaped from your throat suddenly, and you pushed your body away from the tree you were leaning against, crawling rapidly across the ground. Whipping your body around, your wide eyes landed on the lantern that outlined the shadowy figure, who stood just behind where you were previously sitting.

"S-Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you, angel!"

The deep, husky voice that whispered into your ear became slightly higher pitched and frantic. You saw the figure step forward, causing you to flinch.

"Ah, do not worry, princess. I won't harm you..."

"That's what they all say!" you blurted out. A short silence followed before you asked:

"Who.. Who are you?"

The figure stepped forward, raising its' lantern to reveal itself.

It was... a man. Yet he wasn't human. His skin was pale, eyes surrounded by red markings. On top of his brown hair was a pair of glowing blue horns, which seemed to flow like fire. his clothing seemed old fashioned, covering his slightly built figure in dark robes of satin and ribbons. The lantern that he held also emitted the same coloured light as his horns, flickering before you.

"You may call me Karamatsu, my dear," he bowed slightly, a cat-like grin crossing his features. "I am but a humble spirit who spotted a wandering soul, lost and alone in a forest that humans should be cautious with. Perhaps some guidance is in your best interest?"

"I, uhm... You're not.. human?" A deep chuckle sounded, sending a shiver up your spine. It was echoey. As if, even though he was standing right in front of you, he was still so far away.

"I'm afraid not, flower. I am an Aoandon. But do not be afraid, I am not here to hurt you. I would only be a guilty guy if I were to leave such a beautiful woman alone in the woods, where anything could happen."

He reached out a partially gloved hand to your figure, still on the ground.

"Please, allow my light to guide you home."

You were sure that if you could see the words he spoke, they would be surrounded by flowers and sparkles. You never knew a man - or anyone, for that matter - to speak in such an overzealous manner.

However, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It didn't make you feel uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, actually. You guessed that's why you reached up and grasped his unnaturally cold hands, allowing him to pull you upwards in a swift motion. He grinned softly down at you, making you realise just how short you were compared to him.

"May I ask for your name, love? Or would you prefer the names I give you?" he winked. You suppressed the urge to roll your eyes, in fear that he would actually hurt you if you got on the wrong foot. So he was a gentleman and a flirt? What an odd combination.

"[Y/N]..." you decided to not answer his second question. It was probably for the best.

"[Y/N]. A wonderful name! As gorgeous as the stars above! I am certain that they aligned to create a bridge just for us to meet on this special night!" Karamatsu's hands were waving around in wild, extravagant gestures. He looked ridiculous. What a strange character.

"I- .. Sure.."

For most of the journey, you listened to this... spirit, ramble nonsense about the scenery around you, or about your features that he found endearing. There were times where he would deliberately lower his voice into something he thought was sultry and enticing, peering into your eyes with a smouldering stare. You didn't mind the dip in his voice at all, not a single bit. It was just the way that the poor man was clearly trying too hard to make you fall for him.

'He clearly has never been successful with any woman before... How cute!'

You couldn't help yourself. You had just met him, and you already wanted to know more about him. Was that weird? Probably. Maybe it was the touch-starved part of yourself that was talking, longing to be held in someone's arms after being neglected by so many for so long.

"Watch your step here, my dear." His voice snapped you out of your thoughts, peering up at him to see this a pale hand was held out to assist you. You gladly took hold of it, fingers grasping his colder ones. Even as he helped you over a few jagged rocks in your path, you weren't willing to let go just yet. Although his skin was cold, his touch felt inviting and comforting.

You didn't want to let go yet.

And it seemed that Karamatsu was overjoyed by this, his eye glistening with a kind of happiness that you had never seen a human hold before.

"A-Are you afraid, sweetheart? There is nothing to fear, not as long as I am here by your side! However, if you wish to hold me tightly, I will never object you!" The slight tremor of nervousness in his words sounded so endearing to you.

"Good, because I wasn't planning to let go just yet."

You had never seen a human wear such a broad and satisfied smile, either. It was contagious, causing you to smile timidly up at him in return.

Eventually, though, your midnight stroll had to come to an end for the both of you. Karamatsu had led you to the beginning of the trail where, just a little further ways down, was a bus stop for you to get home.

"We have arrived, my angel."

"Ah... right," you mumbled, slight disappointment seeping through your tone. Karamatsu chuckled, his cat-like grin widening slightly.

"What is this? Is my fair maiden unwilling to let me go?"

"Something like that..." you mumbled, keeping your face directed towards the ground as you released your hold from his arm. Karamatsu's cheeks bloomed pink, a shade darker under the moonlight.

"A-Ah! Well," luckily, he was able to snap out of his surprised stupor, "Do not be so sullen, my moonbeam!"

'Moonbeam?'

"I'm sure the stars will align once again to reunite us as we journey through our lives together, and one day... One day, maybe..."

His bold tone suddenly simmered down to a gentle murmur, almost lost to the breeze if you weren't standing so close to him. A gentle smile was on his face now, his eyes glazed over in reminiscence of something akin to a far away daydream.

"I hope, one day, our paths cross again, my love."

His cold fingers caressed your own, lifting them up to press a chaste kiss onto your knuckles. It may have been brief, but the cold touch burned itself into your skin, lasting as he slowly, reluctantly, pulled away.

"Have a safe journey home, angel!" He grinned, saluting quickly before turning away, holding his flickering lantern before him to lead his way back into the forest he called his home.

You had no words left in you. They had all been snatched away by his comforting words and soft touches. His kind eyes, his dazzling smile. His glowing aura that led you through the darkness around you.

Ah, but good things never last long for you. You had to leave before you missed the next bus. You had leave this lonely, broken soul behind. Just like how he had no choice but to leave yours.

Turning away, you caught a glimpse of red from the corner of your eyes.

A trail of red spider lilies. Standing tall and blooming where he once stood a moment ago.

'Please... Meet me here again. One day.'

[iomhair]

Robb knows that he should not trust him. Under no circumstances he should believe the deceiving smile and velvet words that slip off the Kingslayer’s lips. He knows that all of them are a lie. There is nothing happening between them, they are nothing alike, they are in the midst of a war and this is just a quick way to erase all of the heavy memories that are weighing upon Robb’s shoulders.

They call him the King in the North. They call him the Young Wolf. They call him the Conqueror. Yet the Kingslayer calls him Robb - nothing more, nothing less. Never a Stark. Just Robb. His own name sounds incredibly sweet when it’s the Lannister who whispers it. It’s so easy to believe him, so easy to fall into this dark abyss of hopes and dreams that will never come true, Robb already knows it. But Robb also wants to believe the damn Lannister, and so he jumps into this abyss without thinking of the consequences, already hearing the sound of his broken heart.

Sometimes Robb wonders why did it have to be the Kingslayer. It could have been anyone, really. What a cruel, unfair fate. What a bitter irony. What an undisputable disgrace. But the shroud of another sleepless night falls on the camp once again and Robb is shivering in the anticipation. He never believed in fate, after all.

* * *

- You missed me, boy?

- I am not your boy, Lannister.

- Oh, but we both know that it isn’t true, Robb. Five minutes in this cozy tent of yours and you will be anything that I please.

Robb knows that he has lost this fight without even starting it. Lannister’s shackles fall down with the familiar sound and Robb dares to look up, immediately meeting the warm gaze of the green eyes. Gods, he wished them to be anything, but not that tender, affectionate, that… untrue. Mocking, let them be mocking, but not this promise of something that Robb will never dare to name, not when Lannister is his prisoner. Not when there should be nothing but hatred in his heart.

Jaime, my name is Jaime.

Robb closes the eyes. This very moment he’d give anything to hear the Kingslayer call his name.

- Come with me.

* * *

He is lying. Robb knows it. Robb thinks of it when the gentle fingers of his prisoner are tangled in his messy curls, when the warm palms caressing his body, when their lips meet and it makes Robb smile so wide, daring to be happy just a moment longer. He just knows it. He should not believe a single word that slips off these treacherous lips that have already said so many lies. In fact, they should be shut forever, and not be caressed like Robb’s life depends on it.

Yet Robb believes all of it.

- You are so beautiful, Robb. Don’t rush, let me enjoy you a bit more, pup.

Tears almost run down Robb’s cheek as he takes Kingslayer’s hand and brings it to his lips, nuzzling into his palm, letting it slide through his curls and feeling Lannister’s scent once again. Robb swallows the desperate gasp, masking it under the impatient growl. 

- Shhh, don’t you worry, wolf, I’ll make you feel good, I promise…

His promises worth nothing, Robb knows it. He always knew. Yet the shards of his heart beat faster every time he hears Lannister whisper any damn lie into his open neck. His body gets weak every time the Kingslayer smiles and touches Robb’s face. His very being is defeated, destroyed, decimated, and Robb tries to think of anything that would bring him to reality. Winterfell, his homelands, those were always a saving anchor. But the Lannister’s embrace is warmer than the fields of heather, heated by the Northern sun. The Kingslayer’s eyes are as green as the Northern hills in summer and Robb is already drowning in them, unable to look away. 

Lannister. Kingslayer. Oathbreaker.

- Jaime…

The loud moan finally breaks the silence and Robb is biting his reddened lips, as if trying to silence himself, to take back this cursed name that he just spoke so recklessly. But it is too late, the Lannister is looking at him with the undeniable curiousity and something else, something that Robb prefers not to acknowledge, something that is just another one of his lies. Robb growls and tries to turn away. Yet Kingslayer’s hand is already caressing his face, gently holding him by the chin.

- Say it again, wolf. Call my name and I’ll make you remember this night till the end of your days.

He should not listen. And he really should not obey. The Lannister is lying, he will never stop lying, he is using him, they are using each other. None of this has been true, none of it has any future, simply because the lions and wolves don’t match, don’t belong together. And yet...

- Jaime.

- Seven be merciful... What have you done to me, pup?

Robb never knew that one’s lie could bring him that much happiness.

Please, let it never end, - he thinks with the foolish naivety, as Kinglsayer’s lips caressing his chest and stomach.

* * *

Robb wants to go home. He wants this war to end right here and now. He wants the men to stop dying for him. He also wants to see how Lannister’s golden mane would look on the furs in his old room in Winterfell.

- You look tired, Robb. I shall take it as a compliment. Did I wore you down, wolf?

Robb wants to stop being that happy. But every emotion is already written upon his face, the tenderness sparkles in his blue eyes, the affection is silent, yet so loud. His heart is howling in desperation – don’t trust the Oathbreaker. Don’t believe a single word that he says. But gods, how Robb wants to believe him.

- I’d love to stay with you tonight. That is, if you want me to.

Lannister’s voice is quiet. Careful. His eyes are prying. Hopeful.

- Robb?..

He wants it. Seven be damned, how badly he wants it.

Robb knows that he is lying. None of his words were ever true. None of them ever will be. Yet none of it matters when Jaime’s lips meet his own in the greedy kiss and their bodies are intertwined, and the tent is filled with soft whispers and sweet promises.

- I want you to stay tonight with me, Jaime.

If Robb was to believe him, he could swear that Lannister’s face changed for a second or two. The forbidden expression of tenderness is deceitful as well, for Robb knows that the Lannisters always pay their debts and one day the debt will be paid with none the less than his heart and soul, that are now filled with the false sensation of love and care.

[slater-later]

I Want to Watch You Grow

Brian Kelly x Trans Masc Reader

Read it here on AO3 if you would like!

- This is a Brian Kelly x Trans Man reader fan fic. This conronicles your long term relationship with Brian and your development with yourself. Your body, and transition as a transman.

- I hope everyone enjoys this. Finds space within themselves and their relationship with the world. It’s okay to be trans, being trans is beautiful. it’s a difficult, glorious journey that is far more of a beginning then an end. Living happy life, being proud of yourself and your body.

- The fic is long, about 12 pages. So please, soak it in, and I wish you the happiest day!

The two of you had been dating for some time. You had met at a small high school party. A good group of friends coming together around a Summer bonfire, slipping your feet out from the well worn sandals and wiggling them infront of a fire. The soles of your feet toasted, turning them around to be goldened on both sides. You held a long metal skewer with two plump marshmallows on the end, rotating it around as you warmed it to a golden ball of glory.

It was sweet, being able to spend time with old friends and make some new. Your friend Ronnie had invited the skater kids from school to join you. He had bonded with them over their mutual love for rock and rap music. It made sense, they both loved Public Enemy. Blasting ‘We Got the Power’ out of their car radios whenever they had a chance. 

You enjoyed it, they threw out some good rhymes and it was a battle cry for your youth. You generation. You couldn’t help but bob your head to the music and belt along.

It was towards the end of the night when you two met. Brian had showed up late, hair slicked with a heavy line of sweat. A shirt quickly shoved into his pants, trying to clean up for his group of friends after a long day of skating.

He had skipped out of work that day- well, really, the restaurant was slow so there wasn’t much need for two busboys. He had spent the rest of his afternoon and late into the stary night, skating at the skatepark. The street lights clicked on and it had made it hard for him to see the clear edges of the ramps. It was time to turn in and get a bite to eat. Putting aside the new trick he caught from someone else. Trying to nail it. 

If he knew it could be done, then he could. He just needed enough time and perseverance to figure it out.

With skating, the possibilities were endless. It was his place to let go of life’s worries and focus on something where had complete control. The complete right to be, what and who he is, with no to tell him otherwise. Skating was like a lifeblood for him, his way of life.

His boundless universe.

He came jogging in, skateboard in hand as he approached the group huddled around the warm fire. 

The trees swayed, creaking under the age and weight of their own majesty with a long gust of wind. It was dark, the hum of Summer turning to a deep pitch of haze. Black rolling in, only to be illuminated by the glaze of starfull and a half crescent moon. The forest was thick, lulled by the hum of heated crickets and hushed by the cool breeze of night. Smoke pooling from the warm fire, whisping and licking up the sky with powerful might. Your toes curled, seeking a gentle relief from its delightful burning flame.

They were roasted and baked. You tucked them into the ground, shifting your heals to push back the brush and find a damp, cool, interior.

Brian waved, throwing an arm up to welcome everyone. A boy buzzed in the background, rolling a hit out of a cheaply made bong. Coughing as he blew out his lungs. Stoned till’ the cows come home.

“Hey guys! Sorry I’m late, it uh, took me a while to find you guys,” He smiled, strolling on into the circle and making his way over to Yabbo. Giving him a high five and saying hello to Buddy. 

You popped your marshmallow onto a graham cracker and some chocolate. You munched on your treat, washing it down with a sip of beer.

You watched Brian that night, catching his eyes as he chatted with Buddy over some trick he had been captivated by. Transfixed on trying to nail, to, gleam the cube. 

He noticed, his shit stain smirk would appear even in mid sentence. Hands flailing out, gesturing and expressing his exasperation on some wild tangent he was on about skating. About life. About love. It was amusing to watch him, loud and audacious as he was. He could even make Buddy loud, who was normally a quiet and reserved guy. Get him chuckling about some silly joke he made, and pairing it with an audacious face. Hands whipped out, a cross between a dragon and a gorilla.

You had finished off your second beer, musing with a friend about the stars as you gazed. Heads turned up, pondering the wide expanse of space. Its’ glorious bounds, its beauty, its’ wonder.

It put things in perspective for you. Not in a scary way, but in a comforting one. That sometimes, our emotions can feel massive. And they can be! But they also fall away, soothe and ease, as we realize, this shall pass. As all things. Even life. And so, what we must work towards is enjoying it. Like moments like these- feet kicked up on a stump, back eased into a lawn chair with a good beer in hand, spending time with friends. The summer breeze cooling your warm skin, still tanned and glowing from a long day spent outside. Walking, running, and spending time with those that mattered to you. You can’t steal back time, but instead, enjoy it.

Brian tapped Buddy’s shoulder, gesturing for him to shift over as he stood up. Slicking to the outside of the circle, making his way over.

He stopped at the bag of mellows, nabbing two and popping one in his mouth. Munching on its sugary goodness as he finished the trip. Sliding down and popping on the ground, criss-cross-apple-sauce style.

You picked your chin up from the stars, turning your head towards him, “Hey.”

“Hey,” He smiled tiredly, softly. It had grown late and the group had died down, calming and chatting amongst themselves. “So, I uh, don’t think I caught your name,” He mused, chuckling with an anxious delight. He had caught your fancy and talking to attractive people always made his insides flutter.

“It’s Y/N, what’s yours?” You smiled, letting out a tiny yawn, hand hovering over your mouth.

And on command, it was his turn. “Briannn.” He said, pushing through his wide open mouth, eyes turning to closed slits. Watering. 

“Jesus, I’m beat,” He muttered, whipping his eyes.

“You too?” You couldn’t stop, the two of you speaking through widely stretched mouths, yawning and releasing the tired souls of your body out into the air. Like ghosts being exercised. 

“Yeah!” He squeaked, putting his hand over his mouth. This time his mouth reaching out farther. As if a shark could unhinge its massive jaw.

Slowly, both of yours bodies cooled down. Chatted about the quiet, peaceful sounds of the forest. How the night made your feel alive, at ease within your own body. It was easy talking with such a nice man, cracking soft jokes and poking fun at the world. The politicians, the fat cats, and parents. Some stupid shit a drunk girl did at school, how the one guy on the football team fucked the head swimmer and stirred drama in the theatre group. He had been dating Jared, but it all fell for shit when he saw Sam in those swim trunks.

You both agreed, he looked mighty fine in the spandex speedo. And Tom did too, especially when he found out how kind he was.

“So who do you think is the biggest class clown? Don or Vinny?” You mused, shifting your weight in your seat. Turning towards him.

“Ahhh, I’m not so sure. Vinny is my man, but I really like Tabitha-”

“That bitch?” You shot, clicking your tongue. “She fucking stole $20 out of my backpack, fuck her!”

His eyebrows knitted, looking disappointed. “Yeahhh, she ain’t very nice. I disagree with you there,” He looked at the blaze, shaking his head. “But it’s not a ‘frienship’ competition. I give her props pouring that bottle of stinky slick on that jerk in Ceramics. That one that makes all those gross racist comments in school.” Fuck him for his piece of shit mind. There was no reason to be like that.

“-Ugh!” Your eyes rolled, shaking your head, “I know, I fucking hate him. He’s a piece of shit,” Internally you groaned, thinking of his disgusting face.

“For that, I respect her. The fool won’t change his mind and he needs to learn that he can’t do shit like that. It’s not like he’ll listen, I’ve tried,” He popped a mellow into his mouth, chewing. “She got 3 days of suspension for that. It was pretty ballsy,” Shitting on racist was both funny and satisfying. 

“What-? Why did she get that-?”

He shrugged, looking amazed, “I don’t know. It’s fucked up, that’s school for ya. It’s not right.”

You shook your head disgusted. If only they would understand, listen. “Ok, so, who has your favorite comedy?

“-Sam,” He smiled, poking a branch into the fire.

You watched him stir up the flame, picking at a log and turning it over. 

“Same, he’s really nice. He’s quiet but he has a smart tongue on him,” Slowly the fire grew. Emboldened by the new life, “Tom’s really lucky.”

Brian shot you a look, teeth flashing in a grin, “Cuz Jared’s so hot?”

You shot up in your seat, pushing yourself closer to him- “Okay though, right?!” Brian burst out laughing, head thrown back as he boomed. 

You waved your hands up into the air, desperately. “He has those pecs! Those thick arms! I just wanna be hugged by him!” He was a big tall teddy bear! A muscular one too! Who doesn’t love a big teddy bear?!

“I know, I know!” He slapped his knee, face red and warm, and it wasn’t from the booze. “He’s cute! He’s really cute!” He laughed, smiling through his big open mouth.

The two of you talked for the rest of the night, making another round of smores and sipping on the last of your cold beer. It was easy, talking to him. You found a kind of warm comfort and acceptance by such a free soul. By someone who really just wanted to be seen and heard, and loved for who he was.

*****

That night would bloom into many others. A few months you spent together, as friends, and the others, as lovers. You slowly got to know each other over time progressed. Eventually, love bloomed. Infatuation took to desire, day dreaming about the next time you’d see him. Hand propping your chin, staring off into a whiteboard filled with math equations as the teacher droned on. The last week of school was a buzzkill, bittersweet, and painfully long. 

You wanted it to end. For it to be Summer, to be scott-free and without responsibilities. But that also brought changes and your second stage of life was on the horizon.

****

The time came and both of you decided to take a year off from college. Work and save up some money. Spend time together as much you can. 

You planned on going away to school a few hours away. Brian hadn’t quite decided, but it looked to be the same. 

Both of you would attend the same school and it would work out well. Eventually, you both got through the next four years with your brains intact for the better. He majored in music production with a minor in entrepreneurship. He wanted to do something in music, start his own band and maybe build his own label. You majored in _____ and loved it. And your relationship had lasted, strengthened. Finding a quiet peace and home in one another. A thing you quietly wished for in your heart and didn’t know you needed until you found it.

The freedom to be yourself with another. One who would love and accept you, regardless of the circumstances and the changes.

But it didn’t always make it easy. You had been having feelings about your body. Ones that you didn’t quite like and found increasingly frustrating to have. To not have the words, the names, to understand and express how you felt.

You already knew you weren’t straight. That had long been established to yourself and to Brian’s knowledge. He didn’t care- well, that wasn’t quite the right way to put it. He was supportive of your queerness and actually encouraged it. You both were fluid as a snake- bodies and gender thrown right out of the door. What mattered was the person, the attraction, and the two of you- had a lot of that for one another.

He also wasn’t one to put up many questions about the way you dressed. Switching out fem for? Masculine? He was game. He liked your style, even sowed on some patches on your jacket when he asked. Though as time wore on, catching the way you shield away from your chest… Your feelings about your body… He noticed. 

“Hey babe?” He slid into the frame of the doorway, hand grasping the side of the wood as he leaned in. Watching you do your hair, clothed, and fixing your hair.

“Yeah? What’s up?” You looked at him through the mirror, running a comb through your head. “Is my coffee ready?”

“Yeah, it’s on the kitchen table. With your toast,” He walked in, looking quiet. Tentative. “Can I talk to you about something?”

You turned, “Yeahhhh…” Your voice fluttered, knowing that face he makes. It made you uneasy. “What do you wanna talk about?”

“Are you… alright? You’ve been distant lately, like somethings on your mind,” He paused, looking down. Guilty, “Did I do something wrong? Are we alright?” He leaned his back against the wall, thumbs hooked into his jean pockets. Glancing up at you.

You set down the brush, turning, “Yeah,” You coed softly. Tenderly to the sweet man, “We’re okay, I’m just going through some stuff,” It was easier to put that into words. You needed time to figure things out, to share how you felt. You didn’t even have them for yourself, at least not clearly.

You hoped time would reveal itself, help your understand and work through what you were feeling.

And you didn’t know how it would change you. Or, for the matter, Brian. Your relationship with him.

He gestured to you, beat, “Do you.. Wanna talk about it?”

It fell on silence, unsure.

“Yes… but not now. I need some time,” You stepped, drawing his eyes.

“Like… how long?” It was bugging him, an itch he can’t scratch. A problem he saw, a frustration he can’t touch.

It was yours, and one that effected him. He wanted you happy and content.

To ease your pain.

“I’m not sure,” You slipped a hand into his and locked fingers together. Drawing his hand up and lined your hips with his. Brian’s other slip around your waist, pulling you close. “You’re going to have to wait, to trust me until I’m ready to talk about it. But I do love you- and it’s not because of you,” You pressed your lips to his, slowly lifting them away. “Or something you’ve done. We’re okay.”

“Alright, I just-” He looked into your eyes, vulnerable. “I want you to be happy, no matter what. Whatever it is.”

“And I thank you for that, I really do. I appreciate it,” Another press, lips locked, tongues twisting for a moment. 

“Oh? Is someone?” 

You laughed, caught red-handed, “Yeah, a bit.” You mused.

****

And for a while, it was left like that. You ordered yourself a proper binder and he was properly happy for you, seeing you excited to go and slip it on as soon as it came in the mail. You checked yourself out in the mirror, beaming as you found a sense of newfound confidence and comfort in your appearance. Your body.

He liked the way you smelled after you changed deodorants. You smelled rich and musky, one that you both adored. For him, it was intoxicating. Even picked up your armpit in bed as you yelped, his head buried in your pit to get a good whiff of your scent. Both of you sent laughing and shouting and you play fought in bed, beating back the monster you so endearingly loved.

“Fucking hell Brian!! Give me my arm back!”

“No! Never!” He bellowed, hand tightening around your wrist, pinning it against the wall as your feet kicked against him. He loved it, making you mad and crazy at the same time.

Tickling was your enemy! One that he used and abused, to get you laughing and squirming as he tied his body around yes. Pressing kisses to your cheek like a woodpecker.

****

Eventually, you found answers. The internet helped and a good stack of books about gender. It worked to ease your feelings about your body and the amount of envy you had for the masculine. It was difficult at first, being able to sort through attraction and gender envy at the same time. Slowly, you found answers. A confirmation of your feelings and way of life. The amount of euphoria you received when the simple stranger called you ‘man’ or ‘sir’ felt glorious. Elating and at home with yourself in a way that felt right. A homecoming.

You started to approach the subject with Brian. The two of you were friends with trans people, but it still felt fresh. Weird, and confusing to go through yourself. Being trans still didn’t give you cut and dry answers, it was a journey. A grey area because, even through they had gone through that journey, it was still personal. You had to find answers for yourself and the world is a weird, wild place.

But, it didn’t mean you were something else. Or strange for that matter- you were you, and that’s what mattered. You were exploring.

You two had been laying in bed. A quiet Saturday day spent outside, running errands and going to the farmers market to buy fresh produce and bread. It was lovely and peaceful. You guys had turned into bed early, curled under a soft comforter as you sprawled out in bed. The sun had set.

“Hey,” You whispered, dusting a piece of long hair out of his face. He was turned towards you, a fit of blankets wrapped around him as his body cupped towards yours. 

“Hey,” He yawned, eyes fluttering in sleepiness.

You dusted a finger along his jaw, his chest slowly rising and falling. A ham all baked like a warm potato. “Can we talk?”

He shifted his head closer to your touch, liking the way you slowly stroked his skin. “Yeah, what’s up?” He yawned.

“I’ve been thinking, for a while now. That I might be trans,” You paused, wanting to release the next few words from your brain. “I think I am.”

“Oh?” He shifted up, sitting up now and trying to wake up his brain. Serious conversation time. “Really?” His voice was kind, asking for confirmation.

You nodded, “Yes.”

“As in nonbinary or trans masc?” He ran a hand through his hair, swooping the fluff back. Pulling himself together.

You laughed, feeling the butterflies swarm in your stomach. “Trans masculine.”

“Okay,” he smiled, nodding. Taking it in. “So uh, what do you want to do? If anything at all?”

“Honey-” You pestered, giving him a look.

“I’m asking! That’s up to you!” He was ginger, trying not to pry but dying inside. The questions!

“Clothes, that’s for one thing.”

“You’re already wearing my boxers- we gotta get you more of those.”

You had been stealing them from him. They were comfy, among other things. You couldn’t help but crack a guilty smile. He had mentioned it before when he had ran out, pissed because he hated wearing dirty ones.

“And shirts, and some good cuffed jeans-” You added.

“Dickie’s has those, we can thrift you Carhart’s from Goodwill.”

You paused, holding your breath. Holding onto the next few words, as if they couldn’t be taken back. Releasing them into the world, “And transitioning. I think I want to do that too.” 

He reached for your hand, his thumb stroking your palm as the two of you laid in bed. Him looking down at you as your sprawled out, your elbow propping yourself up. “Okay, if that’s what you want, I support you. I want that too,” He pulled up your hand and pressed his lips to them softly. Firmly intertwining his fingers with yours, squeezing them tightly. Securely.

“Do you want to go by different pronouns? A name?”

“Yes, I want to be named Y/N,” You smiled, feeling his hands pull you in.  Draw around you in a deep hug as he slid down to your level, comforting and embracing you. “I want to go by he/him pronouns.” You chuckled against his skin, head buried into the crook of his neck.

“Well hello my Prince, I’m so glad to meet you Y/N,” He pressed a kiss to your cheek, smiling through it as your heart brust. Crying in relief, in tears of joy and relief.

“You’re not mad?” You squeaked, tears rolling down your cheek.

“Baby~” He purred, pulling back, to look into your eyes. “Of course not, I want you to be happy. You’re precious to me,” He said, soothing you. “Is this what’s been bothering you?”

You nodded.

“I’ve been… wondering about it,” He mused. “I kinda figured it out after you bought your binder and started shaving your face. You barely had peach fuz but you looked so happy… so, much more bright that day,” You had slowly been trying things out. Listening to your body and how you felt. Changing your style, presenting more masculine. You even bought clothes from the men’s section and started to let go using gender specific pronouns for yourself. To ease the pain of dysphoria while you figured out feelings. Your therapist helped. 

“But I’ve been waiting until you tell me, that’s your stuff,” He wiped your chin, brushing off the stream of tears. “I know you’d tell me eventually, whatever your answer was- I want to support you. I chose that long ago, I stand by that.” He smiled, adding, “And if things change in the future, that’s okay too. Gender and bodies are a tricky thing.”

There was so many choices- my so options- in how trans people choose to express themselves. All of them are valid, it’s what makes you happy is the most important thing. What aligns with yourself.

“Thank you,” You sniffled, peaking out a smile. You were happy, and now tired, and just wanted to curl up in bed. The rush of emotions flooding your system, the bent of stress and relief washing over your system. Draining you. 

You wanted to feel this moment in its security, its acceptance. “That means a lot to me Brian.”

“Of course- and for what it matters-” He leaned into your ear, whispering, “I think you make a handsome man. And will continue too.” 

“It doesn’t change things- between us?”

He shrugged, unfazed, “I don’t think so. I’m attracted to you and I like men so-” Another quizzical look, “I don’t see how it would change things in that department. I think I need to know more but I don’t think so.”

You raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

“I want to read more about it so I can help you. I know it can be hard for trans people to get the resources they need to transition. We’re going to both go through this and I want to help you. -If that’s what you want, of course.”

“Oh! Okay,” you nodded. You slid down together, laying in each others arms. Curled underneath the seats, your tears dried up. Heart shining. “I want that, your help. I fucking hate calling the doctors office.”

He laughed, “I know! I know!” You would get stressed, talking on the phone could be weird sometimes. It made you anxious.

You tucked your head into his chest, hearing it beat with the life you held so closely. His arms wrapped around your waist, holding you close. “Thank you Bri, for everything.”

“Of course Y/N,” He spoke softly, warm. “I love you, you’re my everything.”

The two of you drifted off to sleep in bed, listening to the sound of Summer rain come in through the window. Drops slapping against the hard concrete, easing you into a deep slumber.

****

The two of you got along better after that. You were able to save up enough money to see a gender therapist. A general practice doctor that specialized in transgender health, giving you access to the hormone treatments you so desperately needed.

The changes came slow at first, the T being newly added to your system. Eventually, the body hair came in. Sprouting up your legs and turning thicker, darker, up your knees. Your body weight shifted, redistributing around your body with a healthy addition of exercise. Your jaw widened, spotting itself with facial hair which you so proudly grew. Cleaned up and trimmed, sculpting it to your desire. 

That was one of your favorite moments. When you asked Brian to show you how he shaved his face. He pulled out of his bag of clippers, helped you learn how to wash your face and spread shaving cream on your face. How to guide the razor against your skin, trimming the well grown facial hair.

“-Like this- you gotta go against the grain if you want it smooth,” You were both creamed up, with your hair clipped back. He had a headband pushing his strands back, keeping it from falling into his face.

“Okay,” You mumbled in front of the mirror, guiding the razor across your skin. Wincing when you nicked yourself and hoping you don’t do that again.

“It’ll get easier, trust me,” He assured, slicking the last bit of cream off of his clean face. He mostly kept himself clean shaven, though there was a time where he rocked a thin mustache. Even some musky stubble around his cheeks. Which you loved.

And so was your transition. 

In time, you qrew to love and enjoy your body even more. Seeing the face you so expected- and wished for- being reflected in the mirror. Muscles come in, adjusting your body shape to one that you desired.

Brian was very supportive. Even helped you find a good doctor for your top surgery. He pitched in money for your procedure, taking some extra hours as the store manager at the record shop where he worked. He was planning on taking it over from the owner in a few years. He had helped them expand into a second storefront. He was proud of it.

He drove you to your surgery, making sure you had everything prepared. Extra magazines, music, books, even your sketch pad and journal if you so wished it. You would sleep after your surgery in the hospital bed, groggy and tired from the boat load of meds and painkillers lulling you to a peaceful state. He wanted to make sure you were content, that you healed well and passed the time while you recovered. The tiny hospital tv having few channels to capture your attention. He ready to help you pass the time.

After your surgery, you couldn’t move your arms very much. At least not above your head. It would pull at your incisions, the area bruised and draining of fluids. He would tend to you, changing your bandages and helping you get things from the kitchen cupboards. Asking you to relax and let him take over- when you insisted on cooking dinner. That you felt fine, that the pain wasn’t too bad. Even though your chest ached, he didn’t want you to push yourself.

It was okay to lean on someone else, to let them tend to you at times in need.

He adored you and embraced the new found man you had become. He liked hearing you softly talk into his ear, listening to how your voice had dropped. Had changed, deepened, and thickened. It was an adventure for the both of you, one that you happily embraced and found a new home. In you, yourself, and each other.

He was proud to call you his boyfriend, his favorite man on Earth.

[zet-sway]

Spiritual Shrios Summer Fill: Godless

This is a prompt fill for @rosenkow's Spiritual Shrios Summer! Prompts | release | oasis | moan | delirium | pray | sweat | whisper | afterlife | contaminated | skin | worship | incense | godless | petals | taste | nectar | caress | mirage | ripe | sundown | hallucinate | salt | intoxicated | soul | embrace | hunger | wet | adrenaline | breathe |

PROMPT WORD: GODLESS | WORDS: ~1800

Rated: "G" - General Audiences AO3 Link: "The Frozen Sea" Pairing: Thane / FemShep Summary: The ocean licks at her knees - not to claim her, but to mark her. 'One foot in the grave,' as the human adage goes.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Shepard looks forward to being the first one up and awake.

Her cabin is suffocating. There are nights when she appreciates the privacy, but the silence of her isolated quarters makes her insides itch in an uncomfortable way. Just before the common area lighting begins to grow from the dim cadence of the night cycle, she leaves her room and greets the morning, intangible as only time on a starship can be. First she checks on the night crew, then starts coffee for Gardener. Finally, she makes her way down to the shuttle bay for PT. Alone.

It's unexpected when she has a visitor one quiet morning.

"Sere Krios," she says, rising from a deep stretch on the mat.

He smiles warmly, equally as surprised to see another soul at this hour. "Commander, good morning. And please, just Thane if you wouldn't mind."

Thane is the newest member of her crew and they've only spoken twice before. Maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that he has his daily rituals as well, given his condition. He's dressed simply. Black pants, a sleeveless shirt, his defined, green chest exposed for all the world. Drell and humans share some attractive qualities. He's easy on the eyes.

She's staring, she realizes, and looks away. Thane takes his place on the mat and begins his own warm-up.

Day after day, he joins her, and they build a routine. Together, they begin with stiff, groggy stretches; then there's cardio, sweat, and strength training. Their conversations are light and technical. He respects her silence. She respects his discipline. On leg day, they limp back into the elevator in tandem. If she's lucky, she has time to join him and the crew for breakfast after her shower.

When she's alone, she quietly recalls how the light bends around the contours of his body.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He's there as usual when she steps off the elevator and into the shuttle bay. Fully armored, helmet under one arm, weapons holstered, but ready.

"Shepard. No training today?" He rises from his place on the mat where he's been exploring the human practice of yoga, per her suggestion. It suits him. Yoga is all about breathing.

"I was beginning to think you tired of my company."

She gives him a weary smile and shakes her head.

There's a new, abnormal tension between them and by his gaze she knows he feels it too. She likes Thane. She knows hardly a damn thing about him, but he's a comfortable presence, follows orders... doesn't ask intrusive questions. However, she's breaking their routine unexpectedly, and in the moment, his gaze is almost painful.

"Is there something I should know about Alchera?"

Okay, maybe he does ask intrusive questions.

His voice is a hot knife through her muddy thoughts. The detour to Alchera hadn't been on their flight plan, but somehow, he knows. Times like this, his eidetic memory puts her on edge. She asks herself how many other kernels of obscure knowledge are locked away in his mind.

Stepping up to prep the shuttle, she weighs the consequences of lying to his face. Only six people on the ship know where she's going and why, and she doesn't want to talk about it with any of them. The words are too hard to say out loud. This is where I died.

"Alliance HR," she says finally. A partial truth.

His brows rise and his posture straightens just a bit. "Human remains." Fuck if he isn't perceptive, but if he has questions, he keeps them to himself.

She nods once, happy to have stopped this conversation in its tracks. Then she changes the subject.

"PT tomorrow," she offers with a smile. "I can't be lifting without my spotter."

"Of course, Shepard. The pleasure is mine," he responds with an acknowledging nod. She feels bad for interrupting his training as he leaves on the elevator, but she doesn't want to face her team until her task is done.

Let's just get this over with.

Alone with her thoughts, she exhales a breath she didn't know she was holding and starts her pre-flight checklist.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It's well past dinner when she comes to him. The doors at his back swish open and she stands quietly inside the threshold. A fistful of clinking metal dangles from her hand and he knows she's come to have the conversation she avoided earlier.

"Did I catch you at a good time?"

"You did," he says smoothly. "Was there something you wanted to discuss?"

She sits across from him and the metal spills from her fist. Dog tags. Twenty of them. Her gaze is fixed on them and she appears shrouded in a fog of thoughts.

"Did you know them?" The question is gentle, he's almost afraid to know the answer.

Shepard takes a deep breath and blinks slowly. "Yeah. They were my crew."

Thane can feel a chill, as though the icy surface of the planet is still clinging to her long after she's left it. "Your ship went down on Alchera?"

She nods.

"...and you were among them."

"Yes."

He realizes now why she brushed off his words earlier. It strikes him as odd that she would bring this to him instead of Garrus, Tali, Joker, or Chakwas. All of them served on that ship with her, although he isn't sure if they were on board during the attack. She chose him for this, maybe because he'd asked, unknowingly, down in the shuttle bay. Regardless, she's here now and he struggles to understand her needs.

Thane refocuses. There's a pile of dog tags before him and each one represents a human life, now in the arms of Kalahira.

"May I read them?"

She glances up at him then, surprised. "Won't you remember them forever?"

"I'd like to."

Her lips twitch just slightly in the most cautious of smiles, and she nods. "Knock yourself out," a quietly uttered and somehow charming human expression.

Thane picks up each tag one by one and passes his eyes over them. Every name, a life extinguished. Stories unfinished. Loved ones mourning for years without closure or a body to bury. Memories percolate in his mind and he pushes them back because now is not the time. For each name, he offers a silent prayer to the goddess for their eternal peace. When he finishes, the tags are a neat horizontal stack before them.

Hands folded, he looks at her. "I don't see your name."

It's less of a question and more of an observation, but she dips one hand into her shirt collar and produces a pair of clinking metal tags. They dangle from a new chain but the metal scorched and scuffed almost to a state of illegibility. One from the Alliance, the other from the Spectres. Her name is heavily embossed into each one.

SHEPARD DECEMBER HUMAN SYSTEMS ALLIANCE

His expression lifts and he smiles, hopeful. "You survived."

Shepard shakes her head. "I was spaced."

"But you must have-"

"No, Thane." Her tone is firm, unwavering. "I was spaced."

Her intense green eyes pierce through him. There's a twinge in her voice that makes his insides clench. "I read the data on Project Lazarus. I died."

It feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. Thane tries to control his features but her assertion shakes the very foundations of his faith. Many had said she died, but he'd always understood it as a metaphor - a near death experience.

He reaches into himself for calm and a memory rises, unbidden. "Jesus and Lazarus, from the Christian bible. '...I am the resurrection and the life.'"

"Kalahira..." he breathes. "Shepard, I didn't know."

She grunts out an ugly, short laugh and tears her eyes from his. "I can't believe you read the bible."

Her words fly past him without acknowledgement. He sees her as though through fogged glass, thoughts spinning. "Kalahira released you from the sea." When the words leave his mouth, they sound like irrefutable truth.

There's silence while she fidgets across from him, and then she asks, "Do humans go to the sea too?"

"We believe all life does."

He has a thought, then. "What do you believe, Shepard?

Her expression is mildly uncomfortable. "Before or after I died?" But then she shakes her head, reconsidering. "The universe is grand enough that maybe it is god's design. But I don't think god gives a damn about us. Agnostic, I guess." Shepard pauses and looks at him, but her eyes are distant. "Maybe I'd like to believe in your sea. Right now it feels easier to accept."

"To bring comfort in dark places is the purpose of spirituality. It does not matter what you believe as long as it brings you peace."

"Some humans would disagree with you."

Aware of the myriad of human religions and their conflicts, he brushes off her statement. "This is my truth. Their opinions don't concern me."

Shepard's gaze is searching, revealing the cracks in her armor, slivers of well-hidden vulnerability. "So I went to the sea. And now I'm back."

"If I am to accept what you say, I can offer no other conclusion." He doesn't ask what she remembers, he knows he might not like the answer.

"Then what am I now? Besides a soggy, undead cyborg?"

Her voice is laced with sarcasm but Thane thinks over her question carefully, aware he will be turning it over in his mind for days to come. Kalahira, Irikah, Siha, the gods and their angels, his lover and confidant, memories and oaths... regrets and comforts.

A heavy veil of epiphany descends on him, awestruck, painfully aware of his mortality, and prickling with a primal, deeply buried fear. Once human and now something in between, she is Commander Shepard, avatar of the Sea, chosen of Kalahira. The ocean licks at her knees not to claim her, but to mark her. 'One foot in the grave,' as the human adage goes.

The fist of tension in his gut calls to mind the image of Irikah's eyes in his scope all those years ago. I thought she was the goddess Arashu. But it's not Arashu who sits before him now, but Kalahira. Her icy breath howls across the inhospitable surface of Alchera, her unfathomable currents gathering those courageous enough to follow her into the abyss. How appropriate that she appeared just as he sought his demise in the Dantius Towers. She will be the one to ferry him into the unknown when they finally breach the relay. He prays she will be merciful.

Placing one hand over hers, Thane squeezes reassuringly. He doesn't linger, the gesture is as much for him as it is for her; he wants to know that she is real, as he finally answers her question.

'Then what am I now?'

"A woman with a purpose so great, the goddess herself answered the galaxy's cry for your return."

[cyhyr]

Summer of Whump Day 21: Hopelessness

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: G

WC: ~1200

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply; Dissociation

Notes: A continuation from Day 17: Collared.

A/N: Look at me posting something on time. 

~

Iruka decides early on that he would determine a day to be the time between sleep. He can’t see the sun, can’t tell relative time based on the meals he’s brought, and really all he does is exist within the cell deep under Konoha. And so, he wakes, his body moves itself as base instincts require it, and then he sits in a chair at the table in the cell. Here, he’s brought his meals, spaced throughout the day; always some kind of fortified rice porridge with a glass of water. He can taste the vitamin additive.

Occasionally, he’s brought scrolls to unseal. Many of them have Sandaime’s personal seal on them, and he’s screaming at himself for doing this but he literally can’t help it. Some require him to have the scrolls for hours at a time to figure out the fūinjutsu and a way to release it; he can’t help but be appreciative to Danzō for giving him work to do in his imprisonment.

Because sometimes, there are days when he wakes, eats, sits, waits, and waits, and waits, and then his body stands on its own like every other and goes to lay back down to sleep. And he can’t because he’s-he’s… gods, he’s understimulated, but worse, he’s trapped in his own body, his own mind, and he can’t even fidget during the day. 

He tries to keep a tally of the number of days he’s here, and he does well for the first two weeks or so. Then Danzō stops sending as many scrolls down for him to unseal, and the days of sitting and waiting begin in earnest, and honestly… Iruka starts to drift.

It’s quiet, so quiet in the cell. The ANBU don’t talk to him. He can’t talk to himself. 

He recites poetry in his head, whatever he can remember.

One day, he decides to count. He falls asleep at 60,217.

He thinks. About. 

The cracks in the stone floor are filled with—what are they filled with, what could they be filled with, who was in this cell before him, were they trapped in their own mind too, or were they at least allowed to pace.

He figures out how to sleep sitting up at the table, waiting between meals. He just. Turns off. It’s pleasant. His eyes hurt when he wakes up; he doesn’t think he blinks enough when he does this. The pain is nice. It’s something he can do to himself to prove he exists.

The steel collar is heavy around his throat. It’s warm now; it used to chill him. He’s gotten used to it.

He’s not sure anyone’s looking anymore, if they ever were. He only sees the ANBU who brings him his meals. Who would be looking for him hasn’t he always been here—no—but what else is there besides sleeping and waiting and eating and waiting and sleeping and.

And.

There’s no more poetry, no more counting, no more observations of the cell. His body aches from inactivity and something deeper, something he craves but can’t put a name to.

And.

He’s not sure who he is anymore. He wears Danzō’s collar. He performs fūinjutsu for Danzō. He has no control over what he is or what he does.

...And?

He sleeps. 

What is a day.

~

Someone yells, “He’s here!” and the cell door opens. It’s not a meal time. He wants to scream, to ask this person who he is, but the collar refuses to let him do anything besides press his palms into the tabletop as he’s been doing since he woke up. He keeps his eyes forward because that’s what the collar says to do.

“Iruka?”

The man is wearing a black mask over the bottom half of his face. The wrong kind of mask. The wrong…?

“He’s not responding. Keep Naruto down the hall,” the man says.

Naruto.

He knows that name.

Laughter, bubbles, Fox, rage, love, family, ramen, student, love, for Naruto, for Naruto, for family, for love, Naruto Naruto—

Iruka. That’s him. That’s his name.

Something trails down his cheek.

“I don’t see a way to remove the collar.”

He can cry gods, why hadn’t he tried to cry before.

Distantly, he can hear a young boy shouting. The timbre is familiar. Familial. 

The tears fall heavier.

Someone else enters the room, he can’t tell any distinguishing characteristics through the haze of tears. The voice, as it comes, is deeper; masculine: “We thought this might be the case. You’ll have to overlay your seal on the collar. Look at it; they should meld well.”

“Until we can find a way to remove it.”

“Kakashi, don’t get your hopes up.”

“I can’t have him sealed to me with-with that around his neck.”

There’s silence in the room for a few seconds. The shouting down the hall stops. Iruka finds he misses it.

He also finds he likes having a name. He likes being able to cry. He doesn’t understand what these two men are talking about; they can’t remove his collar, the locking mechanism is on the inside and it’s sealed to him—he won’t know what he is without it.

“Sensei, I’m going to perform a few seals to try and counter the ones on this collar.”

The first man makes hand seals and then puts a hand on his neck and Silence, Blank, and Still fight in his head against new seals, Belong, Home, and Join. Own, Will, Control—these words remain, but the source is changed. His very soul is being torn in two, and he wishes he could scream.

“Kai.”

And his wish becomes real, his voice hoarse and weak and the sound raw and painful as he screams and makes noise for the first time in. In. How long…? 

He sits back into his chair, dipping his back for the first time ever and putting his forehead against the edge of the table. He squeezes his eyes shut and the tears slip out and he laughs because it feels so good to finally be in control of his own body again.

“Iruka-sensei, are you alright?”

He heaves a sigh, picks himself up, and looks at the two men in the room with him. “Kakashi-sensei, Jiraiya-sama,” he nods to each of them. “Thank you.”

Jiraiya grins and walks out of the cell, waving down the hall.

Kakashi, on the other hand, puts a hand on his shoulder and says, sadly, “Don’t thank me yet. I had to put my own version of Danzō’s seal on you, to counter it. It’s… It’s a Hatake seal. A spousal seal. But it’s only on the collar, and as soon as we find a way to get it off of you—”

“Kakashi-sensei, please,” Iruka places his hand over Kakashi’s on his shoulder. His voice is still soft by necessity and he’s tired, so very tired, but he continues, “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

Naruto flies into the cell, crying for Iruka and flinging himself onto his lap like he were eight-years-old instead of twelve. Iruka can’t quite catch him; Kakashi steadies them. He holds Naruto as tight as he can and noses into his hair and remembers hope again.

[sardinesandhumbugs]

If you're still doing the musical writing prompts, could you do 45, maybe with Mole?

Of course I can! 45 was “Home. I've heard heard the word before, but it never meant much more than just a thing I've never had” from a Very Potter Sequel. Sorry for the long delay, nonny, but hopefully it was worth the wait! It certainly turned out longer than expected.

x

"The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you’ve got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You’ve got to stop. You haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home."

The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

x

If someone had asked Mole what home was before that fateful spring morn, his answer would have been easy.

Home was the cosy, still air of beneath-ground. It was the door jamb that stuck and the window that leaked. It was the carols that alighted his porch each winter, the smell of jams being prepared in the autumn, and the dust that made him sneeze every spring cleaning. It was found in solid things that marked the passage of time as surely as clockwork in the sunless tunnels. (Clockwork marked the hours, and seasons marked the year, and everything else between was of little consequence.)

Several months on, and his answer is no longer so sure.

The first hint – at least, the first hint he takes notice of – that it is no longer the clear-cut divide of holiday verses home comes in the fright of the Wild Wood, so far from either.

(If he had been taking notice, he perhaps would have seen the spare glasses that now live at Ratty's riverside residence, the household chores that are shared without comment, or the divide in the larder that Ratty has made for Mole's more species-specific snacks. But he hasn't been taking notice, and such things have passed him by in the comfort of a new normality.)

So Mole is far from home (either, both) when Ratty finds him. They are both scared and shaken, but there is no doubt in Ratty's voice with the question, "Wouldn't you rather just go home?" as if home couldn't be anywhere but the river. Maybe (probably) for Ratty it's true (he had certainly once proclaimed it to be his food, his drink, his company – his world) but for Mole, the word is an altogether more complicated affair.

In that moment, however, he longs for the sunlit riverbank.

It is only later, when they settle into the familiar underground air of Badger's sett, that Mole remembers Mole End at all. It lasts only briefly – they have so many other issues at hand, namely that of the disastrous Toad – but it is enough to give him pause. It leaves him stranded between betrayal and mutiny. Betrayal, for his hasty abandonment of his home, and mutiny as he realises he does not want to give up his newfound riverbank life.

But when it comes to it, it doesn't really matter – not in Badger's sett, nor in his brief yuletide return to Mole End – because in the end, at Mole End, he looks to Ratty and knows that he'll follow wherever his friend goes.

(The feeling, though Mole does not realise it at the time, is mutual. Although in Ratty's case, the stubborn loyalty had made itself known months ago, back when he chose the open road over his river – if only for a passing season. Even so, he has never had cause to doubt (not even on the open road, not really) that his river might not be enough to tempt even the most stalwart undergrounder to linger a while longer – but Ratty looks to his friend, surrounded by his titular home, and realises Mole is as much of the earth as he is of the river and that one day it may reclaim him.)

x

It is the week following Toad's grand party that life eventually settles back to the point that Mole can finally turn his mind to more homeward bound matters. For as life has calmed – as adventures and escapes and daring retakings have made way for the more mundane reality of day-to-day living – he realises another spring is on its way out, a year has passed, and he is in danger of becoming rooted to the riverbank. There is the scent of summer on the horizon, thick and heady, and a strange sensation he hesitates to call homesickness lingers in him. It whispers of dirt and earth and it makes his claws itch until he can stand it no longer and he knows – he knows he must return.

He attempts to casually bring up the subject as they clear away dinner.

"I'm thinking," he says, "of returning to Mole End." Ratty's step falters, if only for a moment. "Just for a few days," Mole adds. "I thought I might get some of that spring cleaning done that I never finished from last year."

"We'll make a trip of it then," Ratty suggests brightly, and if Mole knew him just a little less well, he might believe the forced cheer – but he does know him that well and he reads past the façade. "I've never picnicked underground before, but there's a first for everything–"

"Just me, I think," Mole interrupts. "It's just a little tidy up; there's no reason to drag both of us there."

"Oh." Ratty falters again. There's some unease at the sure exclusion, but there's a trace of relief too; underground is still a discomfort to the riverbank-born animal although, if Mole is being brutally honest with himself, his reason for returning alone is more to do with his own needs than Ratty's.

He is not brutally honest. At least not this time. But he suspects Ratty has him figured all the same, for he lingers by the door, watching as Mole packs up a few choice belongings to accompany him to Mole End. Ratty's stance is nonchalant, but the way he talks of their plans after Mole's return feels like he is eking out a promise he isn't sure Mole will keep.

Mole senses enough of this to hold his tongue when it comes to the strange homesickness that has stolen over him. He has learnt enough of his friend to know the comment, however innocuous, however true his intent to return to the riverbank, will do little to help. And it will recede, if only he can ground himself in the underground existence that has served him well all the years previous – but for that, he must go alone. Ratty would bring with him the reminder of the sunny shore above, of rivers and boats that turned his head in the first place.

And the strange homesickness does settle back in Mole End – momentarily. Beneath the ground, the muggy summer loses its grip and the air is steady, constant. It is a refuge from the humidity that stifles Mole – Mole, who has never considered claustrophobia, but when the air grows heavy and airless in the sway of summer, it is all he can do to retreat to north-facing rooms and wait out the heat. But in the bowels of the earth, the seasons are muted and he sleeps sounder for it.

He oversleeps. He assures himself that it is the comfort of a long-familiar bed, but part of him wonders if he has grown too accustomed to the wake-up call of the morning chorus and the sunrise – if he is not so much an undergrounder as he was a year ago.

His underground instincts sated, he turns his attention to more practical considerations. The door jamb that sticks and the window that leaks is all well and good through the lens of nostalgia, but it is quite another kettle of fish when it comes to tending to them. And as he adds yet another chore to the list (a home neglected, he realises, continues to decay with, or perhaps because of, its owner's absence) Mole End seems to shift from cosy to tired. He knows it not to be as grand as Toad Hall, nor as chronicled in history as Badger's sett, and certainly not as comfortably ship-shape as Ratty's place, but the reality settles in about him as he stands, frozen, with the chore list in paw.

What Mole End is, is dark and dim and shabby.

And, worst of all, that homesickness has returned.

He is an underground animal – or was, once upon a time. Now he is not so sure, for while his burrow calls, so does the bright sun-filled air above... and he doesn't think there is a word for an animal that holds both worlds in their soul.

Home. this place is home, he tells himself, but the definition has shifted, expanded, grown in his year's absence, and he doesn't know what to do with that.

His reverie is broken by a knocking at his door, and he finds his porch crowded by four very familiar animals. Mole gapes for a moment until Toad bounces in.

"So this is Mole End, eh? Naturally, it's not as grand as Toad Hall but then, of course, what is?"

"Toad, be civil," Badger warns.

Mole squeezes out of the way as the large mammal enters. "It's only a small home," he says, apologetic. "I'm afraid it's going to be a little snug with everyone here–"

"Don't you worry about that, pet," Mrs Otter assures as she follows after the others. "Snug is my home with the pups on a regular day."

Mole turns to the last animal yet to enter. Ratty stands at the threshold, hesitant as if wary of a boundary overstepped. "I know you said you wanted to attend to this alone," Ratty says – he shifts the trusty luncheon basket between his paws – "but it's been three days and, well" – a wan smile – "I've seen your attempts at spring cleaning. I figured you might appreciate the help if you were still at it."

"So you brought Toad along?"

Mole's humour seems to mollify Ratty's nerves, for the water rat's smile turns rueful. "Toad brought himself along."

Mole leans in with a conspiring whisper. "Do you think he even knows what a broom is?"

There is an almighty sneeze from Badger as Toad unsettles a layer of dust from the kitchen cupboards.

Ratty grins. "Do you?" The humour, however, is as quick to go as it was to arrive, and as he watches the other animals descend upon Mole End he glances back to his usual housemate with unease. "Of course, if you'd rather we left you to it, naturally we can–"

Mole commandeers the basket. "Stay." He doesn't mean it to sound such like an order, but for all his previous bluster, he suddenly doesn't want the newcomers to leave. For despite the extra shadows they cast, Mole End somehow feels brighter than before in a manner not quite tangible. "And, just between you and me," he adds as he ushers his friend inside, "I hadn't got that far with the cleaning."

There's another sneeze from Badger that sets the lanterns swinging, and a fresh falling of dust scatters down from above.

Another grin from Ratty. "You don't say?"

Badger wastes no time in assessing the undertaking ahead. He settles back into that same role as in the retaking of Toad Hall, distributing the chores with little fuss, and quietly Mole is glad for it, because the task of Mole End has become overwhelming in the past few days.

Regardless of the nature of the housework, it is humour, not tedium, that springs up. And at some point in this collective effort – between the idle conversations and the laughter and the "Where's the duster – I swear I left it here just a moment ago" – Mole End sheds its overcrowded air. Nothing palpable changes, for the occupants continue to fall over one another and Badger still has to duck his head through doorways, but somewhere in the midst of all this it has become cosy, not cramped.

Somewhere in that space, that strange homesickness has quelled.

Mole realises this midway through restoring the peeling wallpaper back to its proper place, teetering on a stepladder while Ratty applies paste to the paper's underside. He falters in his task to take note – to truly take note – of his friends. To listen to the bustle of Mrs Otter as she strips the beds, and the jabbering of Toad as he regales her with some loosely-related story. (Mole believes it is his experiences from the open road; a period in which Toad categorically did not take to the chores like a duck to water, whatever he is emphatically telling Mrs Otter.) Further off, there is something that sounds suspiciously like humming, coming from Badger as he inspects the tunnels for natural wear-and-tear, partnered with his sure steps and the tap of his cane.

Mole lingers too long in thought, and his balance flounders. Ratty catches the ladder before it can tip and his laughter is both familiar and new as it bounces across the earthen walls in an echoing reprise.

Home. this place is home, Mole realises, and the definition has shifted, expanded, grown in his year's absence.

And he's okay with that.

[literameera]

White Sails

2433 words

The oceans going to swallow him whole some day and only then could he die happy.

Caspian already gave his soul to the sea, his first great love. Initially I was excited for him and how he got to live out his dreams. He’d write to me about his exploits, I’d gasp and laugh when appropriate, as if he can see, and finally when the stories ended, I’d write to say that I’ve been living the same way: wake up, work, eat, sleep and mostly anticipate. He’d tease that I live like a widow refusing to believe her husband's dead, wasting away staring out the window, hoping for him to someday return to her. Like the ship of Theseus every time he left a part of him had been replaced, how long has he been a man I couldn't recognise, a ghost wearing my lover’s skin.

Only the wooden planks stepped on by Theseus himself belong to the original ship, the rest are imposters high off the glory of His name. Your skin cells regenerate every twenty-seven days – and it’s been longer than that since my hands held his, the wind already swept all memories of my words from his mind. He can only belong to one and she’s infinitely larger than me. To him, her cold embrace feels like coming home. It’s selfish – I’d remind myself – selfish to want to steal what makes him happy all because I feel lonely, he’s loved the ocean long before he’s loved me, and he will long after. I can only hope she’s kind when she does finally take him. I’ve heard that saltwater burns your lungs and that a body only sinks for a moment and as it fills with water it floats to the top, I don’t want them to find his body, he wouldn’t want them to either. I hope his clothes weigh him down and 80% becomes all of him, that he sinks to Atlantis and the sun never feels him again, we don’t deserve it.

But then he comes home, the wind in his hair, salt clinging to his skin and horribly chapped lips, he kisses me hello and I get a taste of what he feels. He tells me he’s missed the warm water from the shower while I wash his locks, that his land legs haven’t grown back yet so can I hold on just a little tighter ‘to make sure I don’t fall of course’. I tell him our neighbours' gossip and he laugh and gasps when appropriate and says that he’s missed the shop at the end of the street, in the morning he’ll grab groceries and those chocolates he’s loved since he was a kid, and some things never change. When it’s quiet and we lull we watch the sun set, sitting on a linoleum countertop in the kitchen, he glows orange in its light and tells me he’s missed me.

When a whale dies its body sinks to the benthic zone, there where there’s no sun, no blood, no heat, no me, or him the oceans creatures eat on its flesh, their entire life's sustenance reliant on an animal they’ve never seen alive and blobfish get their namesake feature from the rapid shift in pressure, they essentially burst while being pulled up by fishermen. The universe is kept spinning by forces we don’t know and can’t name and one day the sun could burst, and we wouldn’t know until 8 minutes later when its light should touch us and won’t. But it did that day, the light travelled through a solar system to shine on him, and shine on me, and that’s how we met. It was fate. Eight years later it’s still fate when Caspian wakes up beside me, his skin a warm brown, like the terracotta pots he brings back to accommodate my ever-growing garden, and his tousled hair a sun-bleached orange, the roots betray their natural umber colour (the same as the eyes he was currently hiding behind tired palms), men like him are born out of stardust, and they can’t help but to replicate its heat. He’s looking at me now, his warm hands place a stray strand of my own umber hair behind my ear and pauses on my cheek, my bronze skin a slight contrast to his, brown eyes reflecting brown.

‘Let’s go over the plan, alright Leya?’ He breaks the silence, ‘we’ll lock up, give the keys to Theo and Honora, they promised to water our plants and dust the place while we’re gone, we pick up your jumper from the market –Eilidh promised it’ll be done by then- and then it’s me, you and wherever you can land your finger on a map.’

‘Yeah, I can’t wait. Me, you and The Caspian’ the smile I give him falters and my bottom lip trembles. He frowns.

It was my idea to come with him, I was tired of being alone and he was tired of forgetting synonyms of vast for his letters home, I knew he exhausted all the ways to say I love you when he started to transcript theology to me:

‘They believe that next to Christ, that’s what they call him, there was a man that lived in sin, two in fact but only one of them matters. They don’t know anything about this man, not even his name, except for his last words. And they were that of forgiveness and salvation. A man whose entire history is left out of the book that chronicles it. We know nothing of his home, his family, his life, not even his crimes, but we know that he loved and was loved in return. I don’t believe a lick of it but by God these people are good storytellers.’

I did want to go. Maybe the second I see the flickering reflected crescent moon on the ocean waves I’d decide I never wanted to leave, that the past 25 years of living and four years waiting can all be justified by that one experience. But I also couldn’t just leave. He was the one with adventures and loose ties and sea salt, and I’m the one that waits. The diligent partner with a cup of tea and open arms for him, who were we if not that? Who am I without anticipation and loneliness? For years, my life was contingent on feeling and watching a ticking clock, and now I just get to be free? It doesn’t sound real. It doesn’t sound fair on the woman I used to be, the one still waiting. He knows how I feel, he must, from the furrow of an eyebrow I know he’s got me pegged.

‘Remember the night before I left- the first time that is- and I kept going over lists, obligations and checking everything twice, I even meal prepped your food for months in advance. And you told me everything will still be here when I get back...’ He pauses to hold my face in both hands, brown eyes locked on brown eyes to make sure I was listening, ‘everything will still be here when we get back. If you don’t want to go that’s fine, we won’t, I’ll spend the next six months right here with you, and every day after that if you want me to. I’m tired of you being alone. But if you do want to go... We lock up, see the world and come back, it’s that easy.’ With that he kisses my temple -the most delicate part of the head – and climbs out of bed.

Honora and Theo promised to give all the leftover perishable foods to the family around the corner, they have seven kids and not enough to feed them all. They also ensured once a week every plant will be watered, all letters brought in, and the surfaces periodically dusted. The jumper Eilidh had made was beautiful, she told us wool is preferable when wet because it resists water and keeps you warm. She made it green, in case I miss the trees, and Caspian paid her double. I had hoped the air would be electric, brimming with something, as if it knew I’m leaving this time too. Everything was the same, same as it's always been and same as it always will. And I won’t be, I’ll go out there, replace my ships planks and come back me, but not wholly or maybe as more, and if Caspian’s with me the whole time who would notice the change, all of my red strings connect back to his.

It was half a day's journey to the port, and I felt it all. At some point my head was pulled to rest on his shoulder and every time the sun shone particularly bright he held a hand over my eyes to shield them. When we were close to enough to the sea to smell it, the briny tang light in the air, he came into himself, as if he swallowed sunlight, and grinned.

I hate this. Caspian told me I will at first, I haven’t got the familial love he has. A runaway father that was only 19 when he met his future wife at the port. The family was forcibly moved to a landlocked town when opportunities dimmed and Caspian's childhood was spending every holiday possible making the hours long treks to the beach, with just enough time to wiggle his toes in the sand and swallow lungsful of water when learning to swim, and when he was older it was learning how to sail with his father. Finally, it’d get too cold to continue so his mother would swaddle him in towels and place him on her lap, until he eventually grew too big for her, together they’d watch the sun set. He told me once that it was like the water was just a mirror and everything radiated pink and orange and golden hues until finally... darkness, and there was twice as many stars as usual. Then they’d go home and count down till the next summer. His love was intergenerational, it’ll grow on you, trust me. But it won’t, I hate this. I feel sick & disoriented, it’s too loud and quiet at the same time. Like when people move from a bustling city, heavy in smog and movement, to a quaint village, and there they find the crickets and pollen too much to bear. There was none of the sounds I was accustomed to and all too many of ones I wasn’t. I can’t even swim.

How did we plan for weeks and not think that I would need to know how to swim?

Caspian had finished prepping the sails and letting us go in the wind's direction, promising he’ll take us as far East as he can find – and then carry on. He had tried to explain all the terms to me, but words like ‘jib’ and ‘hull’ and ‘tiller’ easily slipped out of my mind like water. Instead, I stood by the helm and just watched him work, focusing on the beads of sweat running down his forehead and pushing supper down as far deep as it goes, as to not ruin this for him. When he had finished, he gave me the tour, showing me the saloon, where to cook, where to rest, where to pray, how to store in such a small space and when I was overwhelmingly exhausted from the information swimming in my head, he grabbed some pillows and blankets and led me back to the cockpit. There he prepped everything like it was our bed at home and laid down, gently pulling me down with him, our knees were bent awkwardly, and we were closer together than usual. That’s when I understood When I was younger my mother would bring me to visit her friends and after the initial gasps and hugs and ‘my how you’ve grown!’ they would largely ignore me to talk to each other. One of her friends, Mariam, had a baby boy that would sleep in a wooden bassinet pushed to the wall closest to where I was sitting, when he did stir, they’d finally address me again and tell me to rock him slightly, let him be lulled back to rest. Here, we were lightly rocked side to side by Poseidon himself and entire galaxies shining down on us, like a sleeping baby in a bassinet. I didn’t know there could be so many stars and still such a vast darkness. Caspian told me about the constellations he knows and the ones he’s made up, his own mythologies mapped out above us. And when I was too tired to listen, eyes drooping and his words bleeding into each other he tenderly held my elbow to help me up, shifting so I could rest my weight on him, and walked me to the bed, trying as best he could to push my dead weight into the cramped space. Leaving only for a moment to bring the pillows back in, before climbing into bed besides me.

The next morning, we stopped on still waters, and he taught me how to swim. In the afternoons, after I showed him my grandmothers' recipes for the cold, he tried to teach me more sailing terms and by the evening I’d read to him under the dimming light, I’d have to stop after a moment, too nauseous to read the words. It was a routine we near perfected in a month. I could tell he was happy; he was drowning in it. Shockingly, I was too, a saloon that smelled like garlic and spice, secured down potted herbs, dry storage spaces filled to the brim with my books, and his slow breaths when I should be asleep, was enough. On days the wind was too bad to pause he’d make me use the knots he taught me and shout what I need to do if we tip over, the exhilaration was more than anything I’d ever known.

Resources would run low, and he’d dock in the port of a country I'd never heard of, a culture unfamiliar and language unknown. With limited communication and lots of points & smiles we’d buy what we need and when our food was restocked, I’d ask to stay a few days more. We’d integrate ourselves in the local community and learn how to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ and plan to return in the holiday season. We’d make pocket communities across the world and relish in hot water and write letters to the people back home.

[blacknailpolishonguitarstrings]

Forgotten in the rain

The streets were empty and quiet, devoid of life, save for the occasional passing car, rushing and hissing over the wet asphalt. Dark clouds swirled in the gray sky, pouring their sorrows on the desolate city below. Most remained in their homes far away from the endless rivers of water falling from the sky, but not Sirius. No, he most certainly did not despise the grim weather or the rain. On the contrary, he rather enjoyed it, finding it peaceful and almost…serene. He liked to hear the sound of the millions of droplets of water clattering against the windows and cars, sliding down vibrant green leaves, falling on the ground, sinking into the earth and turning it into mush, and disappearing down the drains into the cold metal pipes. It calmed him, washing away the restlessness, pain, and memories, even if it only were for a few short minutes. A light, trembling wind fought his way into his body, past his leather jacket, chilling him to the bones, ruffling his wet hair. But again, he did not mind. A dark green leaf, the colour of Aisha’s eyes, detached itself from a low hanging branch, fluttering briefly in front of his face, before titling down and falling at his feet on the gray cobblestones.

Aisha…she was lovely. A smart, funny, gorgeous woman filled to the brim with joyous life. A temperamental, but kind soul. But it was not the same. Something was still missing inside of him, a small, but important void in his chest, almost as if he had lost something he had never possessed in the first place. And it hurt. He hid it well but it pained him.

He continued walking, immersed in his thoughts and not paying attention to his surroundings. Sirius was so distracted, that he did not notice the pots full of flowers standing on the side of the sidewalk and nearly fell flat forward on his face, as he tripped, knocking them over. White petals flew in the air, and gently settled on the dirty pavement, around withered green stems. Cursing he picked the, up, stepping on one in the process and leaving behind ugly black stains on the squashed flower. They were beyond salvaging.

With a heavy sigh, he entered the little flower shop, water running down his clothes and heavily dripping on the floor. His hair lay in wet black and gray strands on his face and neck, sticking to his skin, and his blue-gray eyes shone bright with curiosity in the dim lighting as he looked around. The place was small and dark, walls covered in crackled navy blue paint, and a couple of dingy light bulbs hung from the bare ceiling, casting their flickering light on the room. Flowers of every shape, colour, and size were cramped in glass vases, broken stems and yellowed leaves were strewn here and there across the floor, and dried bundles of faded pink roses and baby breath flowers hung upside down above the counter, suspended on thin strings.

Sirius stood there, immobile, holding the damaged flowers, at loss, when the green door behind the counter opened, and an old man appeared. He was very tall and slim, dressed in a knitted cream jumper and brown corduroy pants. His hair fell on his face in a mess of graying dark copper curls stricken with white locks, casting shadows over his eyes. He seemed oblivious to Sirius’ presence, nose deep inside a large leather-bound book he cradled tightly with one hand, a steaming red mug of tea in the other. Clearing his throat, the black-haired man walked up to the counter, running a nervous hand through his dripping locks.

“Hello, sorry…I…Uhm,” he stuttered.

The shopkeeper looked up, clever green eyes meeting a confused silvery blue gaze. It was as if a bucket of ice-cold water had been poured over Sirius, filling his bones with fear, chilling every inch of his skin with anxiety. Those brown flecks swimming in pools of emerald, those sun-kissed golden curls, the millions of little freckles peppering pale, once youthful now wrinkled skin, the warm wool of knitted cardigans, the sharp scent of burning hot tea that has just been brewed, the crinkle of rapidly turned pages…he knew all of these things. He was more than familiar with them. It all belonged to Remus John Lupin. It was his Moony. His Moony, who he hadn’t seen in years. Memories washed over him, flicking in his mind like a flipbook, rushing through the years.

The first time he saw the tall, lanky boy with gangly limbs on the Hogwarts Express, the nervousness written all over his face, clear as day, as he sat on the stool, the Sorting Hat heavy on his head and insecurity dancing across his taught features as the name “Gryffindor” resonated in the Great Hall. Sirius remembered the first year, spent in nervous glances and reclusion, the bitterness and resignation when his secret came out, and they found out he was a werewolf.

He remembered Second Year, when Remus’ smiles gradually got brighter and he became more comfortable, yet he still wouldn’t change in front of his friends.

Then came Third Year, and the whole Animagus process, where he finally saw what it was like to turn into a vicious beast once a month, what it was like to tear yourself apart and wake up the next day, just a little more tired and broken than the day before. Fast forward to Fourth Year where his problems with his family truly began, Remus’ constant worried glances, and that cold, dark Christmas Eve of 1974 where he, Sirius Black, appeared at the Potter's barely breathing, beyond hurt and wrecked.

He, of course, never forgot Fifth Year and the stolen, longing stares, the minute he realized he liked boys, and the precise moment he understood that the boy in question was Remus John Lupin, his best friend. He also recalled, with regret and sorrow, the time that he gave away Remus’ condition to Snape; an idiotic, dangerous, so-called prank that near,y cost him one of the most important people in his life.

And then Sixth Year and its tension, the first drunken kiss, the secrets, the lies, and the blissful nights spent at the very top of the Astronomy Tower. Sirius kept the memories of summer 1977 dearly, reminiscing of the sweet warm nights, the bonfires, the day the rest of their friends found out about him and Remus, and the pure joy and happiness of those few weeks.

He remembered Seventh Year and the mounting fear, hanging heavy in the air, the worried whispers, and the empty, saddened stares...all things that perdured even after Hogwarts.

Then came the War, accompanied by mourning and grief, only brightened for a few moments by James’ and Lily’s wedding, and then Harry's birth. A joy that didn't last long, as Sirius’ rapidly deteriorating relationship with Remus finally broke with the death of their best friends and his unjust imprisonment.

He remembered every excruciating full moon of the twelve years spent in Azkaban, every other remaining day blurring into an unintelligible mess, slowly sinking into insanity, with no knowledge of Remus’ whereabouts.

He remembered, without doubt, the first time he saw his godson, Harry, all grown up, looking just like his father, brave and kind, having survived more than he had ought to. And then there was Remus too, looking exhausted and grayed, only a pale, faded shadow of his former self. The next few years were spent between Order missions, confrontations with Death, and the same old, familiar stolen glances. They attempted to rebuild their relationship, yet they never regained that special, magical even, bond.

And after the War, Remus disappeared. At first, they exchanged weekly letters, which then got rarer and rarer, until they stopped coming altogether and for years, Sirius knew nothing of him. Until now.

“Excuse me, sir!” said Remus waving his hand awkwardly in front of his face. “You...wanted something, right?”

The other wizard suddenly shuddered, blinking, as if he had just been roused from a trance.

“Yeah, sorry...I...um...was just, you know...thinking,” he stuttered, blushing.

His former friend raised a sarcastic, amused eyebrow.

“I just wanted to pay for these flowers I sort of...destroyed. By accident of course!” Added Sirius hastily, watching him apprehensively.

“That’s alright, I should have thought to bring them in a while ago already. It’s curious, really, you remind me of someone I used to know a long time ago. His name was Sirius Black. Quite a peculiar name, isn't it?” he replied pensively.

A flare of hope lit up inside Sirius. Maybe, just maybe, he remembered and recognized him.

“Remus?” he asked quietly.

“You know me?”

A look of surprise crossed his face.

“I…,” he hesitated. “No. I thought I knew you but I guess I was wrong. I must have mistaken you for someone else, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s alright, it happens to everyone from time to time,” answered Remus lightly. “Do you want anything else?”

“Maybe white roses, for my girlfriend.”

“Excellent choice! These are my personal favourites” he said, reaching for a bouquet of snowy white roses, with soft petals and lush, dark green leaves.

“I know they are,” thought Sirius bitterly. “You told me in Third Year on a lazy summer day that white roses were your favorite flowers because your mum’s garden was full of them.”

“I’m sure she will love them,” he smiled.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Riot Fest 2021: 9/16-9/19, Douglass Park

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Much like Pitchfork Music Festival earlier this month, this past weekend’s Riot Fest felt relatively normal. Arriving at Douglas Park every day, you were greeted by the usual deluge of attendees in Misfits t-shirts and dyed hair, the sound of faint screams and breakneck guitars and drums emanating from nearby stages. The abnormal aspects of the fest, at least as compared to previous incarnations, we’re already used to by now from 2021 shows: To get in, you had to show proof of vaccination and/or a negative test no older than 48 hours, which means that unvaxxed 4-day attendees had to get multiple tests. Props to the always awesome staff at Riot Fest for actually checking the cards against the names on government-issued IDs.

For a festival that dealt with a plethora of last-minute changes due to bands dropping out because of COVID-19 caution (Nine Inch Nails, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr.) or other reasons (Faith No More/Mr. Bungle because of concerns around Mike Patton’s well-being), there were very few bumps in the road. Whether Riot Fest had bands like Slipknot, Anthrax, or Rise Against in their back pocket as replacements or not, it very much felt like who we saw Thursday-Sunday was always supposed to be the lineup, even when laying your eyes on countless “Death to the Pixies” shirts. Sure, one of the fest’s main gimmicks--peeling back the label on Goose Island’s Riot Fest Sucks Pale Ale to reveal the schedule--was out of date with inaccurate set times and bands, and it still would have been so had Faith No More and Mr. Bungle stayed, since Fucked Up had to drop out last minute due to border issues. But the festival, as always, rolled with the punches.

The sets themselves offered the circle pit and crowdsurfing-inducing punk and metal you’re used to, with a few genre outliers. For so many bands of all styles, Riot Fest represented their first live show in years, and a few acts knew the exact number of days since their last show. For every single set, the catharsis in the crowd and on stage was palpable, not exactly anger, or elation, but pure release.

Here were our favorite sets of the festival, in chronological order.

WDRL

Last October, WDRL (which, amazingly, stands for We Don’t Ride Llamas) announced themselves with a Tweet: “y’all been looking for an alt black band,, well here you go”. A band of Gen Z siblings, Chase (lead guitar), Max (lead vocals), Blake (drums), and Kit Mitchell (bass guitar), WDRL is aware, much like Meet Me @ The Altar (who, despite my hyping, I couldn’t make it in time to see) that they’re one of too few bands of POCs in the Riot Fest-adjacent scene. Their set, one of the very first of the weekend during Thursday’s pre-party, showed them leading by example, the type of band to inspire potentially discouraged Black and brown folks to start punk bands. Max is a terrific vocalist, able to scream over post-punk, scat over funk, and coo over slow, soulful R&B swayers with the same ease. The rest of the band was equally versatile, able to pivot on a dime from scuzzy rock to hip hop to twinkling dream pop. Bonus points for covering Splendora’s “You’re Standing On My Neck”, aka the Daria theme song.

Joyce Manor

Joyce Manor’s self-titled debut is classic. The best part of it as an album play-through at a festival? It’s so short that you can hear it and you’ll still have half a set for other favorites. So while the bouncy “Orange Julius”", “Ashtray Petting Zoo”, and ultimate singalong “Constant Headache” were set highlights, the Torrance, CA band was able to burn through lots from Never Hungover Again, Cody, Million Dollars to Kill Me, and their rarities collection Songs From Northern Torrance. Apart from not playing anything from Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired (seriously, am I the only one who loves that record?), Joyce Manor were stellar, from the undeniable hooks of “Heart Tattoo” to the churning power chords of “Catalina Fight Song”. After playing “Christmas Card”, Johnson and company gave one final nod to the original fest cancellation, My Chemical Romance, who were slated to headline 2020, then 2021, and now 2022. If you ever wondered what it would sound like hearing a concise punk band like Joyce Manor take on the bombast of “Helena”, you found out. Hey, it was actually pretty good!

Patti Smith

Behold: a full Patti Smith set! After being shafted by the weather last time around, a sunglasses-laden Smith decided not to fuck around, leading with the inspiring “People Have The Power”, her voice as powerful as I’ve ever heard it. Maybe it was the influence of Riot Fest, but she dropped as many f-bombs as Corey Taylor did during Slipknot’s Sunday night headlining set. After reluctantly signing an adoring crowd member’s copy of Horses, she quipped, “I feel bad for you have to cart that fucking thing around.” It wasn’t just the filthy banter: This was Smith at her most enraptured and incendiary, belting during “Because The Night” and spitting during a “Land/Gloria” medley, reciting stream-of-consciousness hallucinogenic lyrics about the power of escape in the greatest display of stamina the festival had to offer.

Circa Survive

“It feels good to dance,” declared Circa Survive lead singer Anthony Green. The heart and soul of the Philadelphia rock band, who cover ground from prog rock to post-hardcore and emo, Green was in full form during the band’s early Friday set, his falsetto carrying the rolling “The Difference Between Medicine and Poising Is in the Dose” and the chugging “Rites of Investiture”. While the band, too, can throw down, they’re equally interesting when softer and more melodic, Brendan Ekstrom‘s twinkling guitars lifting “Child of the Desert” and “Suitcase”. Ending with the one-two punch of debut Juturna’s introspective “Act Appalled” and Blue Sky Noise’s skyward “Get Out”, Green announced the band would have a new record coming soon, one you hope will cover the sonic and thematic ground of even just those two tracks.

Thrice

Thrice played their first show since February 2020 the same day they’d release their 11th studio album, Horizons/East (Epitaph). To a crowd of fans that came to hear their favorite songs, though, the Irvine, California band knew better than to play a lot of the new record, instead favoring tracks like The Artist in the Ambulance’s spritely title cut and Vheissu standout “The Earth Will Shake”. Yeah, they led with a Horizons/East song making its live debut, the dreamy, almost Deftones-esque “Scavengers”, and later in the set they’d reveal the impassioned “Summer Set Fire to the Rain”. But the set more prominently served to emphasize lead vocalist Dustin Kensrue’s gruff delivery, on “All the World Is Mad” and “in Exile”, the rhythm section’s propulsive playing buoying his fervency. And how about Teppei Teranishi’s finger tapping on “Black Honey”?!? Thrice often favor the slow build-up, but they offered plenty of individually awesome moments.

Smashing Pumpkins

William Patrick Corgan entered the stage to dramatic strings, dressed in a robe, with white face paint except for red hearts under his eyes. He looked like a ghost. That’s pretty much where the semi-serious theatricality ended. The Smashing Pumpkins’ first Chicago festival headlining set in recent memory was the rawest they’ve sounded in a while, counting when they played an original lineup-only set at the United Center a few years back. It was also the most fun I’ve ever seen Corgan have on stage. Though they certainly selected and debuted from their latest electropop turn Cyr, Corgan, guitarist James Iha, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, guitarist Jeff Schroeder, and company more notably dug deep into the vault, playing Gish’s “Crush” for the first time since 2008, Adore’s “Shame” for the first time since 2010, and Siamese Dream barnburner “Quiet” for the first time since 1994 (!). Best, every leftfield disco jam like set opener “The Colour Of Love”, “Cyr”, and “Ramona” was quickly followed by something heavy and/or recognizable, Chamberlin’s limber drum solos elevating even latter-day material like “Solara”. At one point, Corgan, a self-described “arty fuck,” admitted that years ago he would have opted for more experimental material, but he knew the crowd wanted to hear classics, the band then delving into a gorgeous acoustic version of “Tonight, Tonight”. And while Kate Bush coverer Meg Myers came out to sing Lost Highway soundtrack industrial ditty “Eye”, it was none other than legendary local shredder Michael Angelo Batio who stole the show, joining for the set closer, a pummeling version of Zeitgeist highlight “United States”. Leaning into the cheese looks good on you, Billy.

The Bronx

Credit to L.A. punk rock band The Bronx, playing early on a decidedly cooler Saturday early afternoon, for making me put in my earplugs outside of the photo pit. Dedicating “Shitty Future” to Fucked Up (who, as we mentioned, had to drop out), the entire band channeled Damian Abraham’s energy on piercing versions of “Heart Attack American” as well as “Superbloom” and “Curb Feelers” from their latest album Bronx VI (Cooking Vinyl). Joby J. Ford and Ken Horne’s guitars stood out, providing choppy rhythms on “Knifeman” and swirling solos on “Six Days A Week”.

Big Freedia

The New Orleans bounce artist has Big Diva Energy, for the most part. After her DJ pumped up the crowd to contemporary Southern rap staple “Ayy Ladies” by Travis Porter, Big Freedia walked out and showed that “BDE”, firing through singles like “Platinum” and “N.O. Bounce” as her on-stage dancers’ moves ranged from delicate to earth-shaking. At this point, Freedia can pretty much do whatever she wants, effortlessly segueing between a cover of Drake’s “Nice For What” to “Strut”, her single with electropop DJ Elohim, to a cover of Beyone’s “Formation”. Of course, the set highlight was when she had volunteers from the crowd come up and shake and twerk--two at a time to keep it COVID-safe--all while egging them on to go harder. Towards the end of the set, after performing the milquetoast “Goin’ Looney” from the even-worse-than-expected Space Jam: A New Legacy soundtrack, she pulled out the beloved “Gin in my System”. “I got that gin in my system,” she sang, the crowd singing back, “Somebody gonna be my victim,” a refrain that compositionally not only leaves plenty of room for the thundering bass but is thematically a statement of total power--over sexism, racism, the patriarchy--even in the face of control-altering substances.

Les Savy Fav

During Les Savy Fav’s set, lead singer Tim Harrington at various points--*big breath*--went into the crowd, deepthroated an audience member’s mohawk spike, found a discarded manikin head with a wig on it, revealed the words “deep” and “dish” painted on his thighs and a drawing of a Red Hot on his back, rode a crowd member like a horse, made a headband out of pink tape, donned ski goggles, surfed on top of a door carried by the crowd, squeezed his belly while the camera was on it to make it look like his belly button was singing, and referred to himself as a “slippery eel.” Indeed, the legend of Les Savy Fav’s live show starts and ends with Harrington’s ridiculous antics, as he’s all but out of breath when actually singing dance-punk classics like “Hold On To Your Genre”, “The Sweat Descends”, and “Rome (Written Upside Down)”. We haven’t heard much in terms of new music from Les Savy Fav in over 10 years--their most recent album was 2010′s Root For Ruin--but I could see them and the extremely Aughts genre in general become staples of Riot Fest as albums like Inches, The Rapture’s Echoes, and !!!’s Louden Up Now reach the 20-year mark. Dynamic vocalists, tight bands, and killer grooves: What’s not to love?

State Champs

This set likely wins the award for “most immediate crowd surfers,” which I guess is to be expected when you begin your set with a classic track 1--album 1 combination. “Elevated” is the State Champs number that will cause passers-by to stop and watch a couple songs, the type of song that can pretty much only open or close a set. And because they opened with it, the crowd immediately ramped up the energy. It’s been three years since the last State Champs full-length, Living Proof, so they were in prime position to play some new songs. As such, they performed their bubblegummy “Outta My Head” and “Just Sound” and faithfully covered Fall Out Boy’s “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago” (releasing a studio version earlier this week). But the tracks from The Finer Things and Around the World and Back were, as usual, the highlights, like “All You Are Is History”, “Remedy”, “Slow Burn”, and set closer “Secrets”. At the end of the day, it didn’t entirely matter: The crowd knew every word of every song.

Bayside

Putting State Champs and Bayside back-to-back on the same stage made an easy decision for the many pop-punk bands at Riot Fest. Bayside’s been at it for twice as long, so the breadth of their setlist across their discography is more variable. Moreover, they’ve thrice revisited their discography with acoustic albums of old songs, so even their staples are subject to change. They provided solid versions of Killing Time standouts “Already Gone” and “Sick, Sick, Sick”, Cult’s “Pigsty”, and older songs like their self-titled’s “Montauk” and Sirens and Condolences’ “Masterpiece”. For “Don’t Call Me Peanut”, though, they brought out--*gasp*--an acoustic guitar! It was a rare moment not just for one of the most popular pop punk sets but the festival in general, a breather before Vacancy shout-along “Mary”.

Rancid

“Rancid has always been anti-fascist and anti-racist,” said Tim Armstrong before the band played “Hooligans”. It was nice to hear an explicit declaration of solidarity from the street punks, reminding the crowd what really matters and why we come together to scream and mosh. The band expectedly favored ...And Out Come The Wolves, playing almost half of it, and they perfectly balanced their harder edges with more celebratory ska songs like “Where I’m Going” from their most recent album Trouble Maker (Hellcat/Epitaph). My two favorite moments? The breezy, keyboard-laden “Fall Back Down” from their supremely underrated 2001 album Indestructable, and when they asked the crowd whether they wanted the set to end with “Time Bomb” or “Ruby Soho”. “We have 4 minutes left, and it’s disrespectful to play over your set time,” said Armstrong. It’s easy to see why Rancid continues to make an impression--instrumental and moral--on touring bands new and old.

Run the Jewels

The brilliant hip hop duo are masters of balancing social consciousness with the desire to fuck shit up for fun. Live, the former tends to come in between-song banter, the latter with their actual charismatic, tit-for-tat performances of the songs. However, Run the Jewels also are probably the clearest live performers in hip hop today, Killer Mike and El-P’s words, hypersexual and woke alike, ringing in the ears of audience members who don’t even know the songs. (Looking around, I could see people smiling and laughing at every dick joke, nodding at each righteous proclamation.) Some of the best songs on their most recent album RTJ4 (Jewel Runners/BMG) are perfect for these multitudes. Hearing both RTJ MCs and the backing track of Pharrell Williams and Zack de la Rocha chanting “Look at all these slave masters posin’ on yo’ dollar” on “JU$T” as the rowdy crowd bounced up and down was the ultimate festival moment. For those who had never seen RTJ, it was clear from the get-go, as Killer Mike and EL-P traded bars on “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)” that they’re a unique hip hop act. For the rest of us, it was clear that Run the Jewels keep getting better.

The Gories

It felt a little weird that legendary Detroit trio The Gories were given the first set of the final day--I’d have thought they’d have more draw than that. No matter what, they provided one of the more satisfying and stylistically varied sets of the festival, showcasing their trademark balance of garage punk and blues. Mick Collins and Dan Kroha’s guitar and vocal harmonies were the perfect jangly balance to Peggy O’Neill’s meat and potatoes drumming on “Sister Ann” and “Charm Bag”, while folks less familiar with The Gories were treated to their fantastic covers of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” and The Keggs’ “To Find Out”. Smells like time for the first Gories album in 20 years!

FACS

I thought it would be ill-fitting to watch a band like FACS in the hot sun, early in the day. Their monochrome brand of post-punk seems better suited for a dimly lit club. But the hypnotic nature of Brian Case’s swirling guitar and Alianna Kalaba’s slinky bass was oddly perfect in a sweltering, faint-inducing heat. Just when you thought you might fade, squalls of feedback and Noah Leger’s odd time signatures picked you back up. Songs from their new album Present Tense (Trouble In Mind) such as “Strawberry Cough” and “XOUT” were emblematic of this push-pull. And everything from the band’s red, white, and black color palate to their lack of stage banter suggested a cool minimalism that was rare at a festival that tends to book more outwardly emotional bands.

Alex G

On one hand, Alex G’s unique combination of twangy alt country and earnest indie rock makes him an outlier at Riot Fest, or at the very least a mostly Pitchfork/occasional Riot Fest type of booking. On the other hand, like a lot of bands at the festival, he has a rabid fanbase, one that knows his back catalog hits, like “Kute”, “Kicker”, and “Bug”, as much as if not more than hyped Rocket and House of Sugar singles, like “Bobby” and “Gretel”. Backed by a band that knows when to be loose and when to tighten up--and the instrumental chops to do so--Alex G was better than he was a Pitchfork three years ago. He still sings through his teeth, making it especially hard to hear him on louder tunes such as “Brick”. But when the honesty of his vocals combines with the dreamy guitars of “Southern Sky” and circular melodies of “Near”, it’s pure bliss. 

HEALTH

The formula for the LA industrial noise band has pretty much always been Jake Duzsik’s soft vocals contrasting John Famiglietti’s screeching bass and pedals and BJ Miller’s mammoth drums. Both in 2018 and Sunday at Riot Fest, the heat affected Famiglietti’s pedals, which were nonetheless obscured by tarp. Or so HEALTH claimed: You wouldn’t know the difference given how much their sound envelops your whole body during one of their live sets. Since their previous appearance at the festival, the prolific band has released two new records on Loma Vista, Vol. 4: Slaves of Fear and collaboration record Disco4: Part 1. Songs from those records occupied half of their excellent set, including battering opener “GOD BOTHERER”, “BODY/PRISON”, and “THE MESSAGE”. It was so wonderfully loud it drowned out K.Flay’s sound check drummer, thank the lord.

Thursday

Last time Thursday played Riot Fest, Geoff Rickly was battling heroin addiction, something he talked about during the band’s triumphant late afternoon set on Sunday. He mentioned the kindness of the late, great Riley Gale of Power Trip in extending a helping hand when he was down and extended his love to anybody in the crowd or even the world at large going through something similar. To say that this set was life-affirming would be an understatement; after 636 days of no shows, Rickly was at his most passionate. He introduced “Signals Over The Air” as a song the band “wrote about men beating up on women in the pit,” that a record exec at the time told them that it wouldn’t age well because he thought--no kidding--sexism would eventually end. Rickly’s voice, suffering from sound issues last time around, simply soared during Full Collapse’s “Cross Out The Eyes”, No Devolucion’s “Fast to the End”, and two inspired covers: Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” and Texas Is The Reason’s “If It's Here When We Get Back It's Ours”. The latter the band played because TITR guitarist Norman Brannon’s actually on tour with them, though Rickly emphasized the influence the NYC post-hardcore greats had on Thursday when they first started. Never forgetting where they’ve come from, with self-deprecating humor and radical empathy, Thursday are once again a force.

Devo

Much like the B-52′s in 2019, Devo was the set this year of a 70′s/80′s absurd punk band with some radio hits that everybody knows but with a swath of die-hard fans, too. It’s safe to say both groups were satisfied. You walked around the fest all day wondering whether the folks wearing Devo hats were actual fans or doing it for the novelty. By the time the band actually took the stage after a career-spanning video of their many phases, it didn’t really matter, because it was clear the band still had it, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale’s vocals booming throughout a massive crowd. They ripped through “Peek-a-Boo”, “Going Under”, “That’s Good”, “Girl U Want”, and “Whip It”, which caused the fans waiting for Slipknot (and presumably some Devo heads) to form a circle pit. And that was all before the first costume change. Mark passed out hats to the crowd, fully embracing converts who might have only known “Whip It”. The feverish chants of “Uncontrollable Urge” and synth freakouts of “Jocko Homo” whipped everyone into a frenzy. And the band performed the “Freedom Of Choice” theme song for the first time since the early 80′s! I had seen Devo before, opening for Arcade Fire and Dan Deacon at the United Center, but the atmosphere at Riot Fest was more appropriately ludicrous.

Flaming Lips

“The Flaming Lips are the most COVID-safe band in the world,” went the ongoing joke, as throughout the pandemic they’d give audience members bubbles for their bubbles to be able to play shows. The normally goofy and interactive band scaled back for Riot Fest. Before launching into their traditional opener “Race For The Prize”, Wayne Coyne explained that while the band is normally proud of where they come from--Oklahoma City--they’re saddened by the local government’s ignorant pandemic response and wouldn’t risk launching balloons or walking into the crowd because they might be virus spreaders coming from such an under-vaccinated area. To his and the band’s credit, they wore masks during the performance, even when singing; Coyne removed his only when outside of his bubble that had to be deflated and inflated many times and that sometimes muffled his singing voice even more than a mask. Ever the innovative band, they still put on a stellar show. Coyne autotuned his voice on “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1″, making it another instrument filling the song’s glorious pop melodies. Less heavy on props, the band favored a glitchy, psychedelic setlist that alternated between beauty (”Flowers Of Neptune 6″, “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate”, “All We Have Is Now”) and two-drummed cacophony (“Silver Trembling Hands”, “The W.A.N.D.”). They’ll give a proper Lips show soon enough, but in the meantime, it was nice to see them not run through the motions.

Slipknot

Apart from maybe moments of Slayer, I’ve never witnessed a headliner at Riot Fest as heavy as Slipknot was. Even the minor ethereal elements present on their most recent and very good album We Are Not Your Kind, like the chorus of voices during “Unsainted”, were all but abandoned live in favor of straight up brutality. Sure, there were moments of theatricality--Corey Taylor’s menacing laugh on “Disasterpiece” and pyrotechnics in sequence with the instrumentation on “Before I Forget” and “All Out Life”--but for the most part, Slipknot was the ultimate exorcism. Taylor’s new mask, with unnaturally circular eyes, seemed like it came from a particularly uncomfortable skit from I Think You Should Leave. They bashed a baseball bat to a barrel during the pre-encore performance of “Duality”. And the songs played from tape, like the gasping-for-breath “(515)”, were designed to contrast Slipknot’s alien appearance with qualities that were uncannily human. For a band whose performances and instrumental dexterity are otherworldly--who else can pull off tempo changes over a hissing, Aphex Twin-like shuffling electronic beat on “Eyeless”--the pure seething emotion on songs like “Psychosocial” and “Wait and Bleed” shone through. Like Smashing Pumpkins, and like so many other successful Riot Fest headliners, Slipknot abandoned drama for pure, unadulterated dirt.