#not that I want to be caught in catastrophic flooding

[f0restkid]

My home state is basically entirely underwater rn with catastrophic flooding and it’s so weird and sad to be a country away

[writingjourney]

Better Than Your Hands | Terzo x f!Reader

You try not to wake your Papa when you come home but he's ever so perceptive as to what you're up to.

Content: 1.1k words, f!reader, smut (mild dom!terzo, caught masturbating, biting, teasing, p in v, light manhandling, unprotected, coming inside) 18+, MDNI

In a shocking twist of events I wrote my first Terzo smut, more as a practice than to share it but I was convinced by my friends. This is for @leezlelatch ♡

Masterlist – Ao3 link

The room is draped in deep shadows. A sliver of pale moonlight falls onto the sleeping man’s face, bare and soft without the edges of his paints, framed by his unkempt raven hair with silver streaks. He looks so peaceful like this, the reading glasses and his book safely resting on the nightstand. He sleeps in the same pose as always – on his back with one hand spread in the direction of your pillow. Only tonight his arms have nothing to curl around. 

For a moment you wish you would have come home earlier to see him reading. To have him read to you in Italian like most nights with your head on his pillowy chest. You have settled into a slower life these days and yet it is rare to see him so utterly relaxed. You’ve been wanting him all day, needing him, craving him, but you cannot bring yourself to wake him up so selfishly. 

Instead you tiptoe to the bathroom, tiptoe to your closet to find one of his shirts and then tiptoe over to your bed. You’re tired when you soundlessly slip beneath the blankets, exhausted after working so late tonight. You could fall asleep instantly, follow him into this peaceful state, if it weren’t for the persistent throbbing between your thighs.

You roll to your side, facing away from the sleeping man next to you. Your hand slides down your body, no time for gentle caresses as you shove it underneath the waistband of your panties. A soft sigh leaves your lips when you feel the wetness between your legs and you run your fingers through your folds, teasing your clit with every motion. As the friction finally provides some relief, your head falls back into the pillow. You start to rub slow but intense circles, heat slowly spreading in your body. It’s quick and messy but you think you can–

The mattress dips beneath you, a silent, unexpected quake that brings you to a stop as you try to make out any sounds that indicate whether he woke up or not. Before you can turn around a hand much broader than your own slides between your legs, cupping your own, and the strong forearm it’s attached to keeps you still.

“What do you think you are doing here, bella?” he purrs.

You shift uncomfortably, your cheeks heating up. “You were asleep when I got home.”

“Amore, you know you can always wake your Papa when you need him, eh?”

His second arm snakes underneath your body like a serpent, a firm hand spreading over your belly before he pulls you across the mattress and flush against him. One knee pushes between your legs until his thigh is pressed tightly against your wet cunt.

“Do you think I could ever be too tired to fuck you?” he asks. 

Encased by his warm body with his voice deep and his breath hot against your ear the only sound you can produce is a moan. Terzo pulls at your panties, pushing them down to your knees until he can line himself up from behind. His cock is already hard, like the mere sight of you pleasing yourself was enough to have him ready for you.

“Oh amore, not even the most vicious storm could keep me from you.” He pushes inside with a grunt, the tip of his cock sliding along your inner walls just so. “N-not even the most biblical of catastrophes.” Another inch, a slow, shallow roll of his hips. “No flood, no thunder, n-no hurricane.” He pulls back, then fills you up with one sharp thrust. “Not even Death himself.”

You keen, uselessly grabbing at the sheets. Terzo’s hand shoots up to grab your chin, angling it towards his mouth.

“Do you understand?” 

You nod as best as you can. His fingers dig into your jaw a little more tightly to keep it still. Words. “Yes, Papa.”

A soft kiss to your cheek. “Brava ragazza. Now I will show you what you almost missed.”

He rolls his hips again, letting go of your head to grab your thigh and use it for leverage. His pace picks up as he begins to fuck you, deep and precise thrusts that fill your whole body with pleasure. His own grunts echo in the quiet around you, intermingling with your desperate moans and whimpers.

“Did you think of me all day, bella?” he teases, slowing down as he rubs his nose along your shoulders. “Were you so desperate to have me that you couldn’t go to sleep without touching that sweet little pussy?”

You nod desperately, so fast your head bumps against his jaw.

“Words,” Terzo warns. “Tell your Papa how much you wanted him.”

“I wanted you all day,” you admit, squirming in his hold. “Thought about you in every meeting, even the one with Sister.”

You can feel him grinning against your shoulder blade before he gently bites the tender skin above. Still, he isn’t moving any faster, only gives you these slow, languid thrusts that drive you wild. Impatiently, you push back against him, fucking yourself against his cock, and his initial moan quickly turns into a distorted growl. His fingers dig into the soft meat of your hips before he loses his patience. With one swift roll he has you on your belly, teeth still stuck in your shoulder as he drives himself into you from behind again and again. Your cries are muffled by the pillow and the new angle brings you close to the edge within seconds. You can feel him so deep inside of you, his whole body weighing you down until all you can focus on is the heat in your lower belly. 

Terzo pushes his hand back between your bodies, leaning heavily on his other arm, and he hardly grazes your clit before you spasm around him. He groans when he feels you tightening, the orgasm a heavy crash of pleasure and relief. Terzo’s rhythm falters when he follows you, rolling his hips a few more times until he curses under his breath and eventually stills. His hair falls into his face until you can feel it tickling the skin of your neck and shoulder, all while his cock empties inside of you.

With two more lazy thrusts he prolongs both of your pleasure, fucking his come deeper into you while your body goes limp underneath him. He inhales sharply, humming against your ear before he pulls you both back onto your sides. His lips leave a soft trail of kisses over the bite on your shoulder, then up your neck until he can reach your jaw.

“Better than your hands, amore, hm?” he teases as his arms wrap tightly around you again.

You lean into his embrace, content and happy. “So much better.”

Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed – kudos, comments, rbs etc are as always much appreciated ♡

Masterlist – my Ao3 – Join my tag list

[c-rowlesdraws]

browsing twitter for longer than a few minutes gives me radiation poisoning these days, and it’s worse in the evening, in the hours when the dark feelings creep in anyway. So even though I’m really apprehensive to talk politics on my art blog (I mean, if the backlash to a hyperbolic post I made about a famous youtuber is this bad, posting about politics would turn my activity page into a window to hell), I have to vent some of my feelings or that radiation damage will just keep getting quietly worse. And a fair number of people read this blog, and seem to like things that I create and say, so for what it’s worth, I want to say some things I hope people will think about.

Someone I really admire tweeted recently about how hopeless they feel. They said that after many years of fighting for social change, they had no fight left. They said they were too exhausted to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. And I tried to understand where they were coming from, because this is someone I look up to. But I can’t. I understand feeling burnt out. I feel nauseous and heartbroken and scared, thinking about the situation in Palestine and the situation in my country. I understand that it seems like there is no good leader to rally behind.

But I can’t tap out. I can’t give in to hopelessness and say, “I can’t choose. I’m tired and I’m done”. When a choice is between maintenance of an imperfect society with incremental steps towards better things, and cranking human misery and suffering enthusiastically up to 11, I’m going with the former. We are all tired every day. But voting is not physically difficult. Even if you are tired, you can do it. There is a day where you go to a building, and you fill in a bubble next to a name, and you go home. They even give you a sticker. I said voting isn’t hard, but actually, it’s very important to say that for a lot of people in the US, voting is hard to access, and for some groups, impossible. It is made difficult on purpose, by people—Republicans, it’s fucking always them, I don’t know why I’m using vague language—who want to disenfranchise as many people as they can. If voting was really a useless gesture, if it really meant nothing— they wouldn’t be working so damn hard to stop poor people and immigrants and prisoners and folks in general from being able to do it.

If you hate Biden, god, fine, whatever. But he is going to be the nominee of the political party made up of judges and politicians that, for the most part, believe that climate change is real and ought to be mitigated, that the US should not be turned into an evangelical christian theocracy, that firearms should be regulated, that businesses should be regulated, that healthcare should be more affordable and accessible, that people should be able to get safe abortions, that trans and all lgbt people deserve to live their lives, and that asylum-seekers shouldn’t be shredded by concertina wire trying to cross the border. The wheel of social change is huge and fucking heavy and sometimes it looks like it isn’t moving at all. But we can feel it move if we all push together.

I caught a Trump ad on the radio the other day and it was some of the scariest shit. “Trump will bring order to chaos,” it said. “He will ban travel from terrorist countries, and end the disastrous open-border policies allowing illegal migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flood into our country.” The fucking anti-muslim travel ban. It’s back, baby. That was the exact phrasing: terrorist countries. If Biden’s foreign policy with regards to the Middle East is frustrating and despair-inducing already, Trump’s would be a catastrophe. The Republicans think Democrats are soft on terrorism. As much as anyone with a conscience is horrified by the US’s continued passivity with regards to Palestine, this motherfucker getting back in office would bring greater horror. I’m really sure about it. I don’t know what that part of the world will look like next fall, but I’m confident that if this dumb bloodthirsty motherfucker regains office, there would be absolutely no hope of public pressure swaying US foreign policy towards “less murder”. Protesting against war and genocide or for any progressive or civil rights cause would become even more dangerous. I still think about the woman who was run over by a car at the protest in 2017

…I’m rambling. I can’t help it. But I don’t want to just ramble unproductively. I should end this with something I hope makes sense to people snd can’t be easily dismissed, even if you already disagree with something I’ve said. I want to say how I genuinely feel.

I believe that imperfect activism is valuable, because it is better to show up and stand in solidarity with other people fighting for a more just world than to not show up at all. I believe all activism is in some way imperfect, because activists are people, and people are imperfect. That is to say, one middle-aged woman who showed up to a DC protest wearing a hand-crocheted pink pussy hat, who maybe hadn’t been to many (or any) protests before but who felt fired up about this one, was worth ten of the smug “real leftists” sneering about her on twitter. Maybe more than ten. Your own activism will be imperfect. But keep an open mind— to your own learning and to others’. Doing “the bare minimum” (and, ugh, what a discouraging phrase) is still doing. We have to encourage everyone who feels drawn to fighting for social good. We have to link arms with one another and be strong. Even if you think the person next to you is a lame-o liberal, if they believe that (for example) trans people deserve access to gender-affirming care and should not be smashed flat into fruit-by-the-foot and sent straight to hell, they are your comrade.

Be wary of people who self-identify as Cassandras and unheeded prophets, especially if their messages consistently emphasize how everything is garbage and the world can’t be saved. If someone is telling you that only they understand how uniquely horrible things are, that no progressive or leftist political philosophy is viable except for the specific one they adhere to, that no news or media sources are worthwhile or even trustworthy except for the small handful of ones they endorse… I won’t say to stop listening to them or following them, but I’d recommend listening to other people, too.

Do your own reading about issues that are important to you. Read many people’s words, watch videos, think about what you believe, and how those beliefs have changed over time, and stay open to being further changed. We are all constantly learning and shaping ourselves, and teaching, and being shaped by others. All of us are tired. But we can hold each other up.

I don’t have a rousing call to action. Just the same things many people are already saying that I’ve felt encouraged by, in a grim sort of way: protest and donate when and where you can, support political candidates on the local and national stage who do support policies you agree with, who could do real good. It feels very hard right now to be hopeful. But we all have to live in whatever future comes eventually— so I think we have to still participate, and that means things like voting. We are all tired. But we have to keep going. There is, ultimately, no sitting out. People who opt out of voting still must live under the social climate and policies imposed by the person who gets elected, and who they endorse and empower and appoint, and who those people empower and appoint, and so on.

This post doesn’t have a good conclusion. I didn’t write it thinking about what would make for a satisfying structure in general. But if you read it, then thank you for reading.

[sundrop-writes]

Your First Kiss With Gar Logan

Gar Logan x Gender Neutral Reader

Summary:

While the Titans are living in Gotham, things are spiralling out of control. You take a moment to comfort Gar and help him with an unexpected injury, and the two of you find those inevitable feelings coming to the surface.

Gar Logan x Gender Neutral Reader. Friends to Lovers. Fluff. Set during Season 3, Episode 4.

Word Count: 2,700

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: this is general fluff; set during the episode where Kory accidentally burns Gar due to her visions/waking nightmares; descriptions of Gar having a burn wound on his arm; descriptions of first aid and wound care; the reader attends to the wound because they have first aid experience; the reader used to be a ward of Doctor Caulder (not blood related to him); mention of the reader being an orphan (as everyone in the presence of DC comics lore is); the reader is gender neutral (the main pronouns used are you/yours and there are no gendered aspects to the character); mentions of Gar's past trauma; extreme mutual pining; slight angst with a fluffy ending; I believe that's it.

A/N: This is part of something I am calling the 'first kiss' series - a series that depicts that a first kiss would be like with each of the Titans characters. For context, I am not necessarily writing this as a situation where the reader has never been kissed before and this is their first ever kiss - I am writing this as a situation where this is what your first kiss in the relationship would be like. The kiss that sparks that shift from friendship into romance. (In some of the other scenarios, I might spice it up and do enemies into lovers lmao.) I just think this is gonna be fun because most of the fics I write are based around smut, where kissing is not really the focus, so I wanted to change the pace of what I'm writing and make that big dramatic kissing moment - like you get in romcoms. I hope to do one of these fics for each of the characters, and some requested Dick, so that's probably the one that I'll do next. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy!

...

A sound of pain caught your attention. 

You had been walking down one of the many winding hallways of Wayne Manor, and any thoughts about what you had previously been doing left your mind the moment you heard it. You wondered what was wrong and who was hurting. 

The family had been through enough in the past few days. Nobody in the household needed any more pain. Certainly not from your perspective. 

A wince - a gasp. Breath hissing through teeth. Distinctly, it was the sound of someone recoiling in pain. 

You followed the sound closely and traced it to an open door. There was a streak of light coming from one of the many large, expensive bathrooms that the Manor had. Through that gap, you saw a flash of green - a green shirt, green hair. It took you only a moment to figure out who it was. 

“Dammit.” Gar swore. 

He was struggling with something. Your insides immediately flooded with concern knowing this. Whatever it was, you would try your best to help him. He was your best friend, after all, and you would never abandon him during a time of need. If the problem was minuscule or catastrophic, you would be there to help him with it. 

“Are you okay?” You asked, reaching out to push the bathroom door open further. 

You likely already knew the answer, but you couldn’t help the instinctive question as it escaped your mouth. 

As the door drifted open at your touch, Gar’s eyes snapped over to you. 

He was standing at the sink with one of the long sleeves of his shirt rolled up. Your eyes were instantly drawn to the center of his forearm - you winced yourself when you saw a very nasty burn there. He had a first aid kit open beside the sink with bits of it strewn across the counter, and he was dabbling a piece of cotton on the burn. 

So that had been the source of his painful noises. 

“I - I’m fine.” Gar quickly lied. 

He reached out with his uninjured arm in a poor attempt to close the door on you. You sighed, pushing back against him. In a very Gar fashion, he didn’t fight against you as you pushed your way into the bathroom and closed the door completely behind you, sealing both of you into the privacy of the space. 

He knew that you were definitely more stubborn than he was, and it would just be easier to let you help him than to fight against your stubborn will. It was something he had learned a long time ago. The position of being your friend came with forceful caring. It was one of the things that he loved most about you. 

“Come on, Gar.” You sighed, your voice ripe with gentle pity. “You should know that you don’t have to lie to me. What happened?” 

Gar wanted to explain that he hadn’t told you a lie, that he was fine, but that died off in his throat. Again - you were stubborn. That would have turned into an entire argument. 

You gently took his wrist in hand, lifting his arm slightly to inspect the burn closer. 

He knew that you had some medical experience. From what he had seen, you were really skilled, and quite intelligent in the field of medicine, even though you hadn’t done any formal study to become a doctor. 

You had worked with Doctor Caulder for years, had been his assistant since you were a young child. He had taken you on as a ward when you were orphaned, and very early on, he started teaching you ‘his craft’. It’s how you and Gar had met. You had been there, helping to take care of him and overseeing him after Caulder had injected him with the serum. Your face was one of the first kind faces he knew during the fever induced delirium, having the serum pumping through his veins and painfully rearranging his DNA from the inside out. 

You were one of the only people who wasn’t afraid of the Tiger because of it. Even after the horrors that Cadmus had put him through - you were never afraid of him. You always saw him as the scared, shivering boy from the hospital bed. Someone who just needed your help, a hand to hold. And you had always been there, holding your hand out to him since then. Through the good and the bad, through the times when he had been scared and uncertain. 

Of course, it was only natural that he had developed certain… feelings for you. 

And of course, he was always terrified to voice those feelings. He was terrified to lose you. As a friend, as the strong person he could lean on. 

Even now, as you once again took his hand and nursed him back to health - he felt his heart fluttering in his chest, and he was terrified to lose you as a friend because of it. 

Gar tried to distract himself from those dangerous feelings by answering your question. 

“Well, what happened was…” He began, but then quickly trailed off. “I was in the kitchen, and Kory came in. But she - she wasn’t in her right mind, her eyes were all weird again, and..” 

The more words he said, the worse it sounded. He had a large burn on his arm and Kory was well known for her fiery powers. It didn’t take much brain power to put it together. 

You looked up at him with deep concern dancing in your eyes, and he scrambled to find the right words. He knew that any way he explained it, it wouldn’t sound good. He rushed to make an excuse for his friend. Someone you both loved that he had far more sympathy for in this situation. 

“Kory - see - she - Kory’s been having a really hard time lately.” Gar tripped over his own words to explain it. “It - it was an accident.” 

“She accidentally gave you a second degree burn?” You posed, feeding the words back to Gar in the hopes that it would make him realize just how ridiculous it sounded. 

Your tone was clearly scolding, an underlying anger in your voice directed at Kory for hurting your best friend. 

Gar sighed. He knew it was likely a rhetorical question, but he still was struggling for an answer. He didn’t come up with one before you spoke again. 

“Take this off.” You told him, motioning toward his shirt. “I’ll bandage this up for you.” 

Gar did as you said, wincing again when the sleeve of his shirt grazed against the fresh wound. He dropped it to the bathroom floor without much thought. You tried not to let your eyes linger on his bare torso - a gorgeous sight - as you moved to grab a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit. You had noticed that bits of cloth from his shirt had been singed onto the wound. That needed to be taken care of first. 

“I’m not mad.” Gar said suddenly. “I’m not mad at Kory.” 

That didn’t surprise you. He was never the type of person to hold grudges. You had only seen him get angry a handful of times. You had only seen him truly hold rage in his heart when Doctor Caulder had attempted to hold Rachel against her will. 

“Why not?” You asked. 

You moved him where you wanted him, and he was easily pliant to you, trusting your experience. You trapped his hand between the side of your body and your own arm so that he wouldn’t move or squirm, pinning him there. You held the elbow of his injured arm in the palm of your hand to hopefully keep him in place. You grabbed the tweezers with your other hand and then got to work. 

“I’m worr-” 

He let out a sharp gasp when you plucked off the first piece of singed cloth. You felt him flinch against your hold as you tossed the piece of cloth into the sink. But he didn’t protest. He knew whatever you were doing was something that you deemed necessary. You were helping him, and he wouldn’t fight you on that. 

“I’m worried about Kory.” Gar finished his statement firmly. 

“You’re worried about Kory?” You raised your brows at him, your eyes lingering on his face for a moment before you went back to work. 

Gar often worried about everyone else. 

He had been worrying himself to death about Jason, trying to ‘save’ someone that likely couldn’t be saved since he had magically come back from the dead. He was worried about Dick taking on the pressures of Batman now that Bruce was suddenly absent. He had been worried about Dawn and Hank’s arguing, knowing that Hank had come to Gotham just to win her back. You knew that Gar was worried about everyone, hoping that the pieces of the family would just fall into place and everyone would be happy again. (When they had last been happy, you weren’t quite sure.) 

You were likely the only person who worried about Gar in return. 

“Who’s worried about you?” You mumbled quietly. 

You plucked out another piece of the burnt cloth, and Gar bit his lip to keep from crying out with pain. 

“There’s nothing going on with me.” He told you, shooting you one of his glowing smiles. “I’m fine. I don’t need anyone to worry about me.” 

You knew that even if he didn’t take this injury into account, this was a lie. 

The toll of being such an empathetic person was never one that he voiced. The pure pressure of everyone else’s emotions piling onto him, the worry of what was going to happen to his friends. That, on top of his own troubles - nightmares of his time at Cadmus still haunting him, feeling inadequate because he couldn’t use his powers to the fullest extent, missing two of his dear friends with the absences of Jason and Rachel. 

You knew that Gar wasn’t ‘fine’. You knew that he had a lot troubling him. It was just easier for him to smile and pretend everything was okay. Because that made him feel okay. It helped him carry on. 

And a lot of the time, his sunshiney smile was the entire reason you got out of bed at all. 

However, rather than telling him this, you drove home your point in an entirely different way. 

“Ironic.” You huffed out, picking out the last piece of the cloth that had stuck to the edge of the wound. 

Gar hissed in pain. 

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Gar finally folded. 

Right now, he did need someone worrying about him. That much he could admit. 

You reached over and grabbed an anti-bacterial cream from the first aid kit. 

You were glad that you would be there to change the bandage and monitor the healing of the wound, because it was likely a lot worse - a lot more painful than he was letting on. You were worried about what kind of mental state Kory had been in that caused her to attack him, even if it had been an accident. You had seen her ‘sleep walking’, or whatever you would call it. You wondered what caused it. You wondered if it was the general stress that all the Titans were under right now. But Gar’s wellbeing was your primary concern. 

“You know you can come to me for stuff like this, right?” You told him, your voice edging on scolding as you applied the cream with a q-tip and he gritted his teeth through the pain once again. “Don’t let all that child slave labor that Caulder put me through go to waste.” 

Gar let out a chuckle at this - a dry, sarcastic sound. It was a tone that told you that while he did find your commentary amusing, he still resented your former shared ‘mentor’ for all the things he had put both of you through. 

“You know I can handle myself.” Gar told you, still slightly resistant to your caring. “Someone needs to be strong.” 

It was a dangerous double meaning. He thought that he had to be the singular strong pillar of the household. He thought that he had to be the one person in the family who didn’t fold to his emotions and let any cracks show through. 

“Let them handle themselves once in a while.” You told him pointedly as you began to wrap a bandage around his forearm. “You don’t need to be some brick wall for everyone to lean on.” 

“But-” Gar said quietly. 

“But nothing.” You cut him off. 

When you dared to look up at his face, you saw those wide puppy eyes staring back at you. His beautiful brown pupils were shining with guilt. He didn’t need to voice it for you to know that he felt like it was his responsibility to take care of everyone else. They often didn’t take care of themselves properly. If he didn’t at least try, then who else would? 

“I know this might be a newsflash for you, especially because you have that golden, shining hero heart in your chest…” You explained, reaching up and running one of your fingers across the skin of his muscled pec, motioning toward that beautiful heart inside in his chest. 

With him not wearing a shirt, the skin to skin contact was oddly intimate, causing tingles to radiate out from that point that you knew he could feel too. You became temporarily distracted from your words, and forced yourself to clear your throat and remember what you were saying. 

“But you can’t save everyone.” You continued. You distracted yourself from the tension in the air by tying the bandage onto itself to secure it around his arm. “Sometimes they do need to save themselves.” 

Gar let out a quiet huff. Internally, he had finally folded to the fact that you were right. 

“I hate it when you’re right.” He said quietly. 

“You must hate me a lot.” You replied, laughter dancing in your words as you cleverly turned the sentence around on him. 

Gar’s face broke into an easy, natural smile at this. You were too clever. 

He felt that inevitable warmth swell up inside of him again. The affectionate fondness for you that he always felt bubbling just under the surface. 

When he looked up and locked eyes with you once again, sitting in the quiet moment - a rare moment of peace stolen away from the seemingly never-ending chaos that being a part of the Titans family was - he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t hold back his feelings for you anymore. 

You felt the magnetism swell in the air, and when Gar reached out, gently gripping the side of your neck, right underneath your ear - you let yourself be taken by it. It had been coming for years, and you easily let yourself succumb to it. You let your eyes fall closed and you drifted into him like a boat drifting at sea, falling into the current that he always provided for you. 

The kiss was inevitable, and somehow - perfect. 

He was gentle, not forcing his way into your space or presuming anything of you, but falling into the natural rhythm of the attraction as you pressed your mouth against his. His lips were a sweet, soft sanctuary - so much better than you had dreamed of. The touch was so beautifully tender that you felt tingles radiating through you, a high you had never experienced before. You let out a delighted sigh as the kiss pulled at the strings deep in your soul. 

After a moment, you pulled back slightly, your forehead gently pressed against his. 

“Y/N,” Gar murmured your name quietly. 

There were so many things he wanted to say to you. 

To tell you that he loved you - as more than a friend. That he always had. To tell you that he was thankful for you, that you were the stitching that held together the very fabric of his life. 

But then-

“Gar!” Kory’s voice came shouting down the hallway. “Gar, look, I’m sorry! Where are you? Please, can you just let me apologize?” 

Of course. More family chaos. Not a moment alone. Well, no more than one moment. 

“You should find a shirt.” You told Gar, giving him a playful grin and tapping him lightly on his bare shoulder. 

Gar sighed, and nodded. And hesitantly, he broke away from you in order to go and do that. 

Eventually, he would tell you those things. He would find the right time, the right way to put it all into words. But for now, even if it was unspoken, you knew.

...

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[bunny-dr34ms]

youth is a storm - bffs!g.suguru g.satoru i.shoko x f!reader

summary. one night you see a picture of your high school friends and you think back to your youth as you reminisce how wonderfully catastrophic it was

w.c. 2985

cw/ tw; fem!reader, angst, underage drinking and smoking, irresponsible students, family issues, neglect, bully kind of,

features; g.satoru, g.suguru, i.shoko

an; i hope you guys enjoy this !! i think the trio in their youth must've been fun <3

You love bad ideas.

And no one knows that better than your 3 best friends who were always part of each reckless plan. That's why the 4 of you are getting wasted on the beach. Tonight's scheme is a last hurrah before you officially say goodbye to your high school days.

"I'm so glad I have you guys with me." You giggled after you took another swig from some fruity beer. "Let's be friends forever!" Suguru chuckled behind you, turning his hand to take a deep inhale of his cigarette. He sat on a plastic chair with you in his lap, his arm hanging lazily behind him. The boy barely fit in the chair with how large he was so he had his legs spread wide and had you lean against him.

"Yeah yeah whatever you say sweet thing." Satoru chimed in waving his hand around, a blunt sticking loosely in his fingers. He was manspreading in a similar chair next to you with dark glasses hanging on the bridge of his nose. The way his blue eyes drooped and the way his words slurred told you he was starting to feel it.

Shoko sat under Satoru and had her head resting against his leg, her hand reaching for the lighter as she lit another cigarette. "The school must be glad to get the lot of you out." All of you couldn't help but laugh as 4 years of memories flooded your minds. It really would be nice to stay friends with all of them.

4 misfits that didn't fit in, even now with each other. Satoru and Suguru were basketball jocks who cared for nothing but themselves. Shoko was one of the smartest people in school, even with her hobby of cigarettes and beers. Then there was you. A ditzy cheerleader that would wreak havoc wherever you went. The sound of ocean waves was soothing in the background and you closed your eyes and began to think back.

You first met them in the first month of freshman year, under the bleachers during late hours in front of the school. You just came back from an away game and didn't want to go home so you took the time to smoke a cigarette. Unfortunately, you realized you finished your pack before the game and sighed in defeat looking at the empty box with save for your hello kitty lighter.

All of a sudden, you hear muttering and loud whispers a couple feet away from you. You walk a little closer, trying to stay in the shadows so you didn't get caught for eavesdropping. "Are the both of you idiots? You bring blunts without a lighter?" "It was Satoru. My job was just getting the goods." "You- Stop blaming it on me like you didn't lose your lighter." "Oh? So where's yours?" "In your fucking mom's hou-" "Wait shut the fuck up- I think someone's here."

It went silent and you become hyperaware of yourself. Unknowingly, you kept moving closer and closer to hear what they were saying. Your hot pink glitter lighter that you pressed against your chest with both hands reflected the light back which got you caught.

"Hey. If you let us borrow your lighter, I'll give you one."

Your upperclassmen stepped out of the shadows. There was three of them and the girl was offering a box of Marlboro Reds that only had one stick left. There was already one in her lips, her expression nonchalant with dark circles under her eyes. You know her as one of the geniuses of the school who's won a couple awards for science.

Behind her were two infamous basketball jocks known for their looks and immense skill. They looked at you with strained expressions. You heard how they weren't fond of people they didn't know. They glance at the lighter clutched in your hand and their expression changes slightly for the better. The boy you know as Satoru leaned forward with a smile and said, "You heard her. Let us use your lighter and you get a free cig!"

You think about and nod gratefully while you hand her the lighter. You would've gave it to them even if they didn't give something back anyway. "Really!? You're a life saver Ieiri!" All you knew about them was their name and somethings about what they did. Shoko was that she was a total science nerd and wanted to be a doctor. Satoru was a rich tease that became has a talent for anything he did. Suguru was a ladies man with brains, brawn, and money. You knew the three of them but you didn't think they'd all be in one group. "How'd you know I smoke though?"

“Under the bleachers was a popular smoke spot for students and teachers alike but it's not like you can tell who smoked what when.”

You watch as the boy pull out blunts from a tin to light up with your lighter. Satoru catches you staring and smirks with the roll between his lips. Embarrassed, you can't help but blush and look away. "Ha! You think you're sneaky when you smoke a couple feet away from me? Plus only cheer girls like you smoke Pianissimo." Shoko laughs as she hands you your lighter so you could light yours up. You almost cough at the bitterness but you choke it down before exhaling out grey.

"What? Red too strong for you?"

"As if."

There was a haughty tone in your voice but rasp contradicted your claim. Now even more embarrassed, you tugged your bow and tousled your hair, feeling your scalp tingle from the release of the tight pony tail. You combed your hair as you looked at the girl next to you who tapped the ashes from the her cigarette. "Sooo..Why are you here at school?"

Shoko shrugged inhaling through the cigarette and exhaling her answer. "Studying." Your tilted head and confused look was enough question for her. "Can't study at home. I can't focus there so I sneak around and stay at school."

You continue to stare at her and nod. You knew how that felt. To not want to go home, or rather the house where only chaos ensued. "I don't wanna go home either." You whispered, not taking your eyes off Shoko. "Umm..if you don't mind me asking. Why do you smoke such strong stuff? It's not like it's cheaper or anything." Red is actually way more expensive and hard to get as a student. Even as you asked your question, you couldn't stop your eyes from wandering to the two boys smoking weed. You thought you had it bad, but these guys are on a whole different level. A sudden wave of sadness sends a sharp ache in your heart. Were they like you? Hiding away in the night to find an escape from what was supposed to be a home? Did they also try to smother every emotion they felt in an attempt to be at least wanted?

The brown haired girl hummed her eyes closing for a second. "Anything not as strong as Red doesn't do anything for me anymore." She finally turns to meet your gaze. To her you look like a barely kept together mess. You hair and make up being pulled together with the tidiness of your cheer uniform. But your eyes, round eyes full of emotion and empathy. Something about your eyes makes her want to say more. "I smoke and drink because it's all my parents ever do. I tried it and I get it now."

"So? What's your deal?" She leans against the pole to her side allowing her to face you. Now you look away. "My mom has a scumbag husband. My dad has a cheating wife." It's not the most tragic story ever but both of your parents are so wrapped up in each other, they forget you exist. Or that you exist as their daughter and not their personal trauma dumpster.

Satoru looks at you from the corners of his eyes. He sees just how lonely you truly are because he can understand. in a way. He can understand how hard it is to be so devastatingly lonely even after working to get attention from everyone but the people you need it from the most. So that's when Satoru decides that you are worthy to be one of them.

He stares and stares until you turn and make eye contact with him. "You know, my parents hardly ever see me. They just tell me to make an appearance once in a while when their friends are over to show me off like I'm some prize they won." Satoru begins to ramble about his parents. He goes on and on about how they're always at work and no matter what he did they'd never spare him a glance. No matter how long he studied or what grades he got, nothing could win them over.

All you could do was sit there stunned and watch as Satoru explained wildly with his hands and expressions. When he comes to a close he looks deep into you and says, "I know what it's like, to be lonely but not alone." The sudden change of tone made your breath catch in your throat.

Suguru sighs and you realize he's been sitting there silently as Satoru went into detail of his life. He must've had to hear it a couple times already. He fixes his hair awkwardly and sighs again, "That's Satoru's way of making you feel better." You nod and you wonder if you're supposed to say thank you or ask if he's alright or tell him he's strong for growing through it all. Suguru cuts through your thoughts before you could say anything.

"I'm a little like that too.. My family is too focused on business to pay attention to me. They think I'm already a lost cause and they put everything else into my older brother. Not that I care much anyway."

A few moments of silence pass, the only sound being the four of you blowing smoke into the night. It was comfortable. Once the sticks burn away to nothing you smile at Shoko, the the two boys.

Has there been anywhere you’ve felt so safe? Or so at ease? Or so at peace with yourself? You turn to the and smile, your arms pressed a little awkwardly into your side.

“Can we..be friends?"

Shoko laughs quietly.

"Shoko. Call me Shoko."

“Hey if you call her Shoko you’d have to call me Satoru!”

“As if she’s calling you Satoru. She’ll call me Suguru before that happens.”

That night ended with a conversation that you so needed. Over cigarettes and blunts, you finally found friends you could cry to without judgement and they’d found someone that truly lightened the weight on their heart.

Ever since then, you and them were inseparable. Classmates whispered and gave the four of you odd glances but no one cared. You didn't need your fake cheer friends anyways. Shoko, Satoru, and Suguru were enough. Suguru held you while you cried. Shoko knew what you smoked and what you drank. Satoru listened as you blabbered on and on about what your mom did or what you dad said. You were enough too. You always went with Shoko on her late night studies and library runs. You always saw through Satoru and made him feel safe to spill whatever he needed to you. You kept Suguru company every time he needed to take hit late at night from stress.

They needed you as much as you needed them

And from then on, it was the four of you against the world. You stared at the picture in your hand with a soft smile. Those really were the times. So many bad decisions and mistakes were made but you were happy. Every night was hectic and you remember crying almost every day. The worst memories you had were fighting with your friends just to make up a couple days later. Underage drinking and smoking definitely caught up to you so you quit in college with just a few drinks here and there. Satoru quit with you actually. The stability of college was hard to adjust to but you worked hard because it was a chance given to you by Satoru and Suguru. There was no chance of getting into such a prestigious college with your record without their help. To be fair, those two were there by your side when you stole from small convenient stores and violated multiple property rules. Shoko was often busy with actually studying so whenever you had a terrible idea to execute, you'd find those two. They'd do anything with you and for you. You had a bit of a crush on the both of them back then and you'd like to think they liked you too. You couldn't help it with how they flirted with you and were so overprotective of you. You'll never admit it but if one of them asked you out now, you'd say yes. Your youth was a tornado of emotions and experiences that you wouldn't trade for the world. It was heartache and joy and liberating in all the ways it counted. It was your friends and your torn apart family. It was going to school late and leaving early. It was cramming to pass and skipping practice. It was lying on rooftops late at night with smoke and booze. It was running in the rain and yelling into thunder and laughing at lightning. Your youth was a storm.

It's been almost 7-8 years since then. Now you're all adults working on your own separate careers. Satoru and Suguru have been handling their own branches of their respective family businesses. Shoko has become one of the best surgeons in the prefecture. There's just you left.

Since then you've always thought about what you really wanted to do. You've wandered and dabbled in everything but nothing seemed to appeal you. Plus, you're not the same girl you were in high school anymore. You can't just run away from things you don't want to face. The world isn't as forgiving or as colorful anymore. Dark, lonely nights like tonight would still seem to glow back then. Not anymore, it seems. As of now, you work a nice modeling job for cosmetics. You were always pretty to look at and once you finally started investing in your face, modeling offers just came to you. You go around and take a few pictures for ads and magazines every once in a while. It pays well and it's comfortable. Parts of you still crave the rush of running around town late at night, drunk or high or both. The other part is grateful for the life you have now. You get to wear expensive clothes and drink expensive champagne in a expensive home. Younger you would look at the you now with stars in her eyes, you think. Leaning against the railing of your balcony in your apartment flat, you stare out into the night. The city below you was still bustling with life and bright colors. You take another sip of the fruity alcohol in your hand. Each sip makes your heart beat a little faster.

And your view of the city is pretty. The doorbell rings and you hear the door click open. "Y/n? You in there?" "Hey let me in first." "Shut up and just hold this." "No- what the fuck why would I hold it?" "Oh my god can both of you shut it? Y/n? You there?" The chorus of fighting and yelling of familiar voices makes your smile widen. You walk to greet them and their arguing takes a pause when they see your expression. They weren't used to your silence or the smile that came it with it. "What's wrong?" Shoko speaks first as she walks to you, her hands reaching for yours. Satoru and Suguru push through the door together and join you with curious and confused faces. It's been a good week or two since you've all gathered like this. Conflicting schedules and just being worn out kept you guys from meeting any sooner but tonight you suddenly texted them asking to see them. Seeing all of them now, worried for you and here for you because you asked made you want to cry. These are the people you grew with. The people who you cried and laughed with. These are the people who are always by your side no matter what happens. They are your home. You can't help but pull them into a hug. Your face was probably red and hot from alcohol. The room felt like it was swaying under your feet as you took a deep breath. Their arms wrapped around you tightly and you closed your eyes. The picture and your drink sat on a small table on your balcony. Your smiling and carefree faces with arms wrapped around each other was immortalized in that photo. You're no longer the girl in that picture and your friends have changed too. But that's okay. You'll continue to grow with these people by your side. It's fine to live in the moment as adults too right? "Y/n?" Satoru calls out your name, pulling you out of your thoughts. You pull away from them and you realize you're teary eyed. Yeah, you're all adults now and your youth is far behind you. It's okay though. Life is different but you still have them. You'll continue to walk through each moment together. You wipe your tears and Suguru rubs your back to comfort you. "Y/n..did something happen? Is that why you called us here today?" You shake you head with a smile and when you look back up at them, you swear for a minute you can see their high school selves stare back at you. Or maybe it was the alcohol. Either way, it was them here. That's all that matters. "It's nothing. I just missed you guys. That's all."

[sassenach77yle]

🕊🕊🕊

Tonight is the Vigil of Easter, a service where we hear readings from the Bible regarding God's deliverance of His people (e.g., the flight from Egypt and the path through the Red Sea), the reading of the Passion (the description of Jesus's condemnation and crucifixion), and the Resurrection. Catechumens (the people who wish to become Catholics and have been taking instruction) will be baptized, and others confirmed. It's a time of mingled sorrow, hope and joy--the coming of Easter.

For the moment, I thought I'd post the following snip from BEES (the chapter titled "Metanoia"), as it's rather apropos. (Tomorrow, I'll post a new excerpt as an Easter egg. <g>)

[Excerpt from GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE, Copyright 2021 Diana Gabaldon]

A stack of these broadsides had been left on the breakfast table; he’d caught a glimpse of one headline as Germain had gathered them up and tapped the pages tidily into order before putting them in his bag:

THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF HENRY HUGHES Who Suffered Death on the Twelfth of June, Anno Domini 1779 ...

No stranger to the excesses of the daily press—the things Fergus printed were in fact not that different in character or intent from the tabloid papers of his own time—he had been struck by one factor peculiar to this time: to wit, the fact that the condemned men (and the occasional woman) were always accompanied by a clergyman on their journey toward the gallows. Not just a private pre-execution visit to give prayers and comfort, but to climb Calvary alongside the condemned.

_What would I say to him_, he wondered, _if I should find myself called to accompany a man to his execution?_ He’d seen men killed, seen people die, certainly; much too often. But these were natural—if sometimes sudden and catastrophic—deaths. Surely it was different, a healthy man, sound of body, filled with life, and facing the imminent prospect of being deprived of that life by the decree of the state. Worse, having one’s death presented as a morally elevating public spectacle.

It struck Roger suddenly that he’d _been_ publicly executed, and the milk and French toast shifted at the sudden memory.

_Aye, well…so was Jesus, wasn’t He?_ He didn’t know where that thought had come from—it felt like something Jamie would say, logical and reasonable—but it flooded him at once with unexpected feeling.

It was one thing to know Christ as God and Savior and all the other capital-letter things that went with that. It was another to realize with shocking clarity that, bar the nails, he knew exactly how Jesus of Nazareth had felt. Alone. Betrayed, terrified, wrenched away from those he loved, and wanting with every atom of one’s being to stay alive.

_Well, now you know what you’d say to a condemned man on his way to the gallows, don’t you?_

Diana gabaldon fb 🕊🕊🕊

[enchanted1waters]

{Dancing on blades }

Ellie williams enemies to lovers x f!reader

Warnings: smut in the next chapter 👀, gotta build up that tension fr. VIOLENCE. minorsdn! GORE.

Idfk how many words <3 enjoy

Fog and storm clouds slowly crept in as the sun began to set, leaving only a sliver of light to cascade over and through the leaves of the tall trees and vines. I slowly crept through the brush, spacing out the entire time we walked. I was an offensive general mainly, I owned two katanas. Certified in aim and precision in my blade work. Not a single soldier has had a chance up against my rage. My sister was recently killed, 1 month, 2 weeks, and 1 day. She was my other half, the only symbol of life worth living since our parents passed. Until I heard a twig snap in the tall grass.

Up until this catastrophe of a meet cute, I was a part of a group called the shadow stalkers, now before you go saying oh my god, why the hell would you guys name yourself out of the most creepy creature- well to start off my rant, ehm I DONT FUCKING KNOW ASK THE GODDAMN LEADER, HELAGIN. MAYBE BECAUSE WE'RE HUGE ON STEALTH? WE LITERALLY AREN'T HEARD OF UNTIL WERE SLITTING YOUR THROATS IN YOUR SLEEP? Sorry, I quite hate that question. It's a very frequent question for newcomers. Even the idiotic newbies they continue to put on my assigned missions.

Carrying on my ignorant group I was assigned to consists of 3 poorly trained men, all which I hate expect one. The rest contains 2 women who are pretty educated just not physically. The qualified being posted at base considering the current outbreak of violence following my sisters death. All of these people quite literally never stop talking, hence me not hearing their signaling in my ear piece. Ya see I sent myself off to take my total happy ass up to find a place for my quadrant to sleep tonight, secure it and radio it in to the team. One that was being led by sergeant l Adams, a white, blonde, blue eyed, 5'10 on a good day man. "Better get a move on, General Vilaria." His egotistical voice boomed in my ear piece as I walked up the street scouting. "Watch it Malibu Ken, wouldn't want you to hurt your plastic voice box running your mouth." I retorted back in a mocking matter, causing a lot of them to respond with giggles and chuckles over the line. Which led me to switch it off.

So I then took my sweet time. Walking up to the Seattle hotel, and walking right in, my eyes caught a glimpse of the chandelier. Gears turning in my head, took only two minutes for me to block the entrance, set the traps by the hallways and aim for the chain holding up the gigantic crystal light fixture. My finger squeezing the trigger followed by the bone rattling sound as the masterpiece shattered, alarming everything in the building to come flooding towards me. About 4 or 5 runners instantly blown up on the traps, one clicker left crawling it's way towards me only to then be fed my blade down it's throat.

Hotel cleared, secured, now to scavange, but first I needed to turn my ear piece on to radio in. Then a very strange noise filled my ear as I flipped it on, static. Nothing, this wasn't new. This happened sometimes if our directed quad was out of range, nothing a few flights of stairs and finding a lookout point wouldnt solve. I quickly found a ledge to search from. I saw officers 16, 23, 72, 54, and.....9 was no where to be seen. My eyes showered intensely over the valley attempting to find the number 9 desperately. That's when I saw leaves moving. Yet I couldn't make out what was causing this, so I pulled out my sniper rifle off of my strap back. Focusing in, my eyes sadly didn't find 9 getting up but instead sliced by the neck in one swift motion by a figure. A gasp fell from my mouth, not from horror and the desensitized gore but the sudden attack and not being able to radio it in.

Not wanting to let the intruder know of my awareness, I threw a rock towards a van next to officer 56, Adams. He quickly jumped back, following my line of sight, to which I subtly coaxed my forced companion towards the figures whereabouts. The blonde boy instead just swatted his hand and turned back around. I swore at least 50 times. Looking through my scope in frustration, I hit my knee once more. Fuck, he isn't gonna listen and get the rest of them killed. As I moved my scope slightly over the horizon, I was met with reality hit straight to my face, seeing as all 4 remaining quadrant officers were already face down or slit open. When I attempted to relocate Sergeant Adams, the figure had him in a chokehold. Then only was my vision met with brown, cold, hard eyes.

Fuck.

I had been alone plenty of times, but knowing I had now made eye contact with the successor of the fallen teammates. That sent chills on my fight or flight instincts.

That's when my senses rang a sound from the bottom of the building. Heavy footsteps. My adrenaline suddenly coursing through my veins. As I counted the footsteps and voices. I felt the strategy in the air, quickly throwing my past objective out of the window. I found myself listening for the door to click, and it did.

"You sure it was a girl? We had a male kill 12 of our soldiers." The man's voice grumbled through the air. "Yes. Nora reported a brunette with short hair. Girl that was with the bastard Abby bashed in." My heart pounded, hands starting to slip from my hiding place. That's when I heard the floor creak as the man entered the bathroom. "I can still hear her begging Abby to stop, boo FUCKING hoo." His laugh rang like poison in my lungs. The taste sour on my tongue. The millisecond he stepped beneath me, I let go of the ceiling's inner walls. In the brief falling action, I felt free, yet so spiteful. Every tear spilling into this moment fed a booming monster of grief. Leading to taking to it out on every goddamn being that stands in my waym

As I made contact with the muscular man Imediately began to claw at his eyeballs, causing him to send me flying back sandwiched between his back and a tile wall. My ears ringing at the crunch of tile and a rib of mine. The squash of his eye as my left hand finally dug it's burrow, I seized his moment of agony to grab my dagger attached to my belt. Swinging my right arm across his entire neck, yet just before pulling back I was cut off by a loud. "WAIT!" a woman, finding herself walking in on an intense battle, pointing a gun at me. "Don't you dare you little bitch", she says. My eyes met hers; in moments like these I experience dissociation. Yet for viewer experience, here I was eyes blown wide with blood lust, blood gushing down my hand, as I held a blade to a man's jugular, spitting the words, "or what." This version never met my sister except once. Once when we were still on the ranch. I still remember the fear in her eyes and she pulled my relentless 13 year old self off of the coward of a man. Snapped out of a trance as my eyes met hers. My soft skin now tarnished with blood stains. Yet Kai held me so gently. As if I would break if she held me a smidge firmer. "It's okay, little butterfly. He's not gonna hurt us anymore. We're safe. I promise."

Snapped back to reality, I flung my left hand from his eye and straight to his hand limply holding a smg to which I stocked the woman fill with many bullets. The man screamed In despair, but the butterfly that once would hold this man through his heart break now kicked him over, tied him to a chair, and leaned on the counter. "Tell me where the fuck Abby is." His lip quivered. He shook his head slightly, "don't play dumb, I see your wlf intials." I said firmly crossing my arms. "Why I do such a thing when you spend an entire clip on my WIFE." He called out with tears running out of his wounds. "It was half, ass hat. And you're lucky I made it quick. What did you say?" I lightly tapped my chin, "ah, yes boo. Fucking. Hoo." This sentence brought the grown man to a Hollar as he scream cried. I walked over to him putting a knife into his mouth in between sobs, lightly wedging between teeth. "You tell me now, and I'll kill ya fast. Resist and I'll take each accessory out one by one like a mother FUCKING Polly pocket." My eyes burned into his, a silent promise of my words. Tears streaming down out of his eyes, my gaze adverted, "that's actually disgusting. It's a shame your eyes aren't as sealed as your lips. Maybe if we take them too, hmm? Replace them to take duty as your eyelids?" I say with a growing smile. He quickly shakes his head avoiding puncturing his mouth with the blade.

Ten seconds later, his words are on a sheet of paper and someone's bursting through the door. My instincts spring into action, my boot positioning the still screaming man in front of me as a shield as I throw the dagger towards the figure, landing in the doorframe, cutting a piece of auburn ish hair. Taking my spare knife out to play, I stab the man in the head as the figure ducks behind a couch.

"I'm so sick of people crashing my shit, fuck off would you? Especially if you're with the wlf, then I'm gonna slaughter EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU" I say throwing a bottle of liquor onto the couch and throwing my lighter towards it. "I HATE THEM- SHIT , ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?" a raspy feminine voice booms from behind the flames. My mind blinks for a second at the fact she isn't one of them.

I'm halfway across the living room running for my blade in the frame, before im tackled to the floor. The impact causes my head to go a little fuzzy, the weight on top of mine, the heat all kick starting a part of me which is completely irrelevant in my current situation. "Halfway there sweetheart." I reply causing the auburnish brunette's kinda beautiful eyes to go wide eyed as we make eye contact, and a little flushed at my use of words. Allowing me to pin her legs against each other, flipping her over. She attempts to sit up, to which I use brute force to slam her back into the hardwood. "Sit. Good girl." I say with a slick smile as I reach for the blade she grabs my hand and pulls it the complete opposite direction. Hurdling me against another wall, slamming me against it.

Her vieny, calloused, tattooed hand wrapping around my throat as I look seriously finally into her eyes. Both now firm and cold. "If you aren't Wlf, who the fuck are you." She says. My eyes try to stay focused on her eyes, yet my gaze slips to her freckles. All spread out waiting to be counted and kis- "fuck you, and FUCK this." I said kneeing her in the stomach and elbowing her back as I grabbed the dagger out of the door frame. Quickly grabbing my strapped bag with all of the weapons and supplies. My cold walls starts to close again, as I'm outback into survival mode once again.

As I take one last look at the figure on the ground gasping for air, pointing my knife I promise her if she follows me. She won't be able to see which limb will be cut off next.

^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^

Many days fly by, every night that passes. I lay strapped to a tree limb up high, forced to look at the stars. Every constellation reminding me of the threatening girl I had met and her freckles. I curse myself out of the intrusiveness. Drifting off to sleep once again after looking over my route to the target of my grief. That is until I'm awoken.

The sounds barreling through the corridors, tripping over each other , limbs flying, spores airborne. I look down the street a couple hundred yards to see a total of three people, running, struggling to get a break from the hoard. I try to shift and ignore the sound. But the thought and sounds continue to eat away at my chest.

Cursing myself to hell I hurdle my way towards the warfare. Climbing up a fire escape and through the old ladder bridge I had set a couple days ago, I made it to the church bell, where I had tied a rock to the pendulum in the middle. Grabbing it I swung it causing a distraction long enough for me to get down to the three blind mice. Following closely behind as two of them started to notice why their luck had changed. As one of the girls, a new one with a darker skin tone and pretty dark eyes smiled gently at me as if I was a saint. I felt guilty twang in my chest for I was not worthy of such kindness with the amount of blood I've spilt.

Directing them to a daycare I had found on a supply run, me and a taller handsome man slammed the door shut behind us. "Hurry- shit. Get that desk!" I said in a struggle towards the woman who wouldn't stay off of my mind. She easily pushed it towards me with a few grunts. After a few objects stacked on top of each other, I noticed the windows just a clicker busted through. Throwing its limbs around sporadically at the nice woman I had just met. Before it could lay a hand on her as she backed away, I stabbed right through its skull with my katana.

"Jesus, you KABOBBED that thing. Thank you." The pony tailed woman smiled and laughed, laying a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I nodded in acknowledgement as I looked over at the other twin "help me, hammer up some boards. Now." I cocked my head towards the play pins we would later use as security on this task.

As I hung the wood, secured the strength, and calmed my breathing. Not a single thought didn't include the stupid attractive woman. I'm so fucked.

[queenofthedisneyverse]

Encanto Addams family HC's: The blue and yellow couple (rewrite hehe)

(It has come to my attention by @miracles-and-butterflies that Agustin and Felix coming in as teenagers and joining the family whilst they were still minors, only to later get married and have children is a...not ethical...so had to rewrite this. @jacarandaaaas @dandylion94)

Felix loved everything about the weather. But not the sunny kind, the kind that causes catastrophes or floods, storms and rain, etc. No, never liked how many deaths or injuries they caused, but he couldn't help but love how fierce and spontaneous these things were.

Weird things had been happening to the town he lived in in the last 13 years. Random showers, snow, hail, small tornados, lightning strikes, storms, etc.

He found it fascinating that it just kept happening so randomly throughout any season. One day, he saw lightning sprouting out of an area for hours. The next day, same thing, it went on for four days.

So, he decided to go see what was going on but stay far away so he doesn't get struck. For some reason, the forest let him through and that's when he stumbled upon her.

A swirl of lighting striking the ground and swirling around in the air. This was extremely fascinating to him; it was a lightning tornado.

Then he heard...laughter. Manic laughter and giggles...coming FROM the lighting tornado.

For some reason he stepped closer. And closer, and closer...then he stepped on a twig.

*Crunch*

The lighting paused...then harshly slammed itself into the ground. The smoke cleared and a woman with bright red hair and white sin appeared through the smoke. She looked to be in her 20's at best.

"Who.are.you?"

-

Agustin, being the nature lover he is, loved studying plants in the forest. He was actually studying to be a botanist and an herbalist. But if there was an odd-looking bird fluttering around or a non-threatening animal, he would try to sketch it.

One day, he went in to far and a jaguar tried to kill him and most likely eat him. Instead of running toward the village he ran deeper and deeper into the forest. The animal soon caught up with him and...hurt him badly. Before the animal could take a final swipe/bite at him, something spooked it, and it ran back to where it came from.

The dark forest led his body to the house; Julieta's garden to be specific. Casita alerted her and she went outside to stare at the badly bruised man.

He was cute, very cute. A nice moustache, chiseled features, and dressed very dapper. Yeah, his clothes were bloody and tattered, but she could see he knew how to dress himself.

And Julieta was aware of the forest leading people AWAY from their house, so if it brough someone here, they must be someone to trust. It happened to Pepa so this must be her new toy to keep too!

She took him back inside and nursed him back to health.

"Mama, can I keep him?"

"I think your old enough to own make that decision on your own now."

Alma didn't know of Felix at first, only four years into the relationship is when Pepa finally decided to tell her she had a boyfriend.

Julieta made her attraction apparent the first day Agustin was in their house. So, Alma knew she would be seeing more of him whether she liked it or not.

Pepa told Alma the exact way they met. Felix found her having a "lightning day" and it was love at first sight. Great...both her daughters fell in love with outsiders. But she was actually happy her daughters found someone to love, she didn't want them to be lonely forever.

Bruno did the over-protective brother talk to both of them...but more sinister

"If you hurt my Hermana I will cut your limbs off, make you eat them, burn you, scalp you, and let you starve for the rest of your days."

But they weren't discouraged, they visited the girls every other day. The girls were of age to do what they wanted, so they decided to have dates with the boys in the village they lived in when they got the chance.

Bruno usually tagged along but only to head off and do his own thing.

Alma spent her time at home doing her own things such as chatting with Pedro with a glass orb. He told her that she should get out more and for him...she finally stepped past the forest into the village with her daughters.

She hated it. Everyone was so friendly, smiley, and just...bright. The houses, the stores, the people...she didn't understand how her daughters or son could take it.

Maybe they dealt with it for their s/o and curiosities sake. Alma just tried her best to ignore it and look around to see if anything had changed.

She had the triplets in 1900 and now it was 1923, some things have changed in terms of clothing style and cars. Other than that, things were still the same. Bubbly people and horribly bright atmosphere.

Some years have passed at the girls were now married at 27/8 and soon had their first daughters at 29. Isabela and Dolores.

Bruno stayed single, he never had interest in romance. Only books and...other things.

Any questions or ideas, my ask box is open!

[dont-touch-my-soup]

The tide is brave, but always retreats

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CW: captivity, manhandling, forced to perform, dissociation

“Again!”

Jinn flinched at the force of that single word. 

The large room was nearly silent. The five singers stood motionless. Waiting for the catastrophe that started to break in like a flood through a dyke. 

They were all well accustomed to Oryn’s habits and they knew it wouldn’t take much longer until someone would bleed. 

And apparently today that someone would be Jinn. 

Jinn swallowed but his mouth was so dry it didn’t do anything to help. 

A dull ache was throbbing right behind his temples and his eyes were burning. 

He just wanted to take a rest. Sit down. Drink some water. 

Frustration drew tears to his eyes, and he hastily blinked them away.

He wasn’t sure how long they were practising already but the sun had gone down at least five songs ago and Jinn’s legs could barely hold him up anymore. He just wanted to lie down and sleep. Sleep. Sleep. 

But he knew, even if he was allowed to, he wouldn’t find sleep anyway.

Sleep had always been a difficult task since he came here. 

But since Kell had vanished it felt impossible.

He dipped his head even lower as if he could somehow become invisible if he just tried hard enough. 

It was better to blend in and hold your breath until everything was over and hopefully, hopefully Oryn wouldn’t even look at you. 

It was a tactic Jinn had used a thousand times.

But this time it wouldn’t work because Oryn already had his full attention on him.

Robin next to him sighed quietly and mumbled something that definitely wasn’t meant to comfort him. Jinn could feel the hostility radiating from her. Somehow, he was glad he hadn’t caught the meaning of her words.

Jinn felt the gazes of the other singers like knives on his skin. 

Nobody said a word but still he could feel their anger and irritation pressing down on him. 

He carefully avoided looking at them, scared of what he would find there.

It wasn’t like they could do anything anyway. 

But somehow it still felt like betrayal. And maybe that was the worst in the end. 

But it was okay. 

It was not like they had a choice. 

And it really was Jinn’s fault. They all had to wait after an already exhausting day because he had screwed up. Jinn understood their anger. 

They were all just trying to survive.

And it was hard to survive without losing yourself. 

He didn’t want to lose himself.

But the longer he was here, the harder it got to keep pieces of himself. 

Oryn’s hand shot out so fast, Jinn didn’t have the time to flinch away. He grabbed him by his hair and harshly yanked his head back up.

“What are you waiting for?” His eyes pierced into Jinn’s.

“I-I-…” Jinn started without having words in his mind.

“Sing,” Oryn ordered gruffly.

It was an effort not to lower his eyes again. It was an effort to hold Oryn’s gaze.

He was withering under Oryn’s gaze like a flower in a desert.

Oryn stared at him; his lips tightly pressed together. It was the only visible sign for his anger, but Jinn knew him long enough to know that Oryn was on the brink of snapping. There was a quiet rage in the way he moved and something cold and unforgiving in his eyes. 

Somewhere deep down Jinn knew this couldn’t be all his fault. Oryn had already been angry when they started practice. But it was a useless thought. In the end it didn’t matter why Oryn was angry.

Nervously he nestled his sweaty fingers into the hem of his sleeves. 

His stomach was in knots and maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t had dinner yet.

He really had to concentrate. He had to do better. 

Jinn took a deep breath and buried the panic deep down in his gut. He forced his mouth to open and started to sing. 

His voice sounded foreign and small in his own ears. 

His heart sank but even a bad performance was better than disobeying.

He only came to the second verse when Oryn’s voice boomed through the rehearsal room. 

"No.'' 

Jinn fell silent and ducked his head between his shoulders. He could feel his whole body trembling.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t. He was never supposed to end up here. 

“No, no, no!” Oryn’s voice was sharper than a whip. He shook his head and put one hand against his forehead as if he was getting a headache. 

Oryn sighed. “Are you even trying?”

“I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry,” Jinn whispered. He had to bite on the inside of his cheek to stop his mouth from jabbering. He didn’t know if Oryn heard him or not. His hands were shaking, and he gripped them together so hard it hurt.

Oryn snapped his fingers in the direction of a singer Jinn had barely seen before. He had to be new. “Your turn,” he commanded. 

The other one looked up with wide eyes. 

“Now,” Oryn snapped at him.

The other singer visibly swallowed. But when he started to sing, his voice didn’t quiver, didn’t break. He sang like he hadn’t been trapped here all day, forced to sing, and stand in the same spot for hours.

A tight knot formed in Jinn’s stomach. He was so much better than Jinn. It took Jinn a few moments to put a word on it. He was jealous. The realisation tasted bitter on his lips and he wished he could burn that feeling away.

Oryn turned to Jinn. “This is how it’s supposed to sound.”

“I-I am trying,” Jinn’s voice was barely a whisper. “I am-...”

“No,” Oryn interrupted him sharply. “You know very well that everyone here must earn their keep. And right now, I don’t think you deserve to be here.”

An icy feeling flooded through his veins. The words pulsated through his head and for a long moment they were mere letters before they started to fall into their places. 

He stared up at Oryn. Unable to speak. Unable to move.

His body felt heavy and numb like it wasn’t his anymore.

Oryn wouldn’t kill him just because he had one bad day, would he?

Oryn sighed. “Come here.” 

Dread dropped in Jinn’s stomach like a sack of flour. His legs suddenly felt like butter and Jinn was sure they would give way any second. 

His eyes darted to the open door. 

But he knew he would never even get out of the room. And then he would really be in trouble. 

Tears welled up in his eyes at the mere thought of it. 

He swallowed against the fear rising in his throat and looked back at Oryn. For just a second something in his statue-like face moved and Jinn wasn’t entirely sure if he had really seen the small smirk dancing over his lips or if he had just imagined it. As if Oryn had noticed Jinn’s gaze. As if he had read his thoughts. As if he wanted Jinn to try to run. 

It was enough for Jinn to force his legs in Oryn’s direction.

Slowly he set one foot in front of the other.

It felt like walking through water. His steps echoed through the room; everyone’s gazes heavy on his back. 

I am sorry, Jinn thought. He wasn’t good enough. And he’d never be good enough. He wasn’t like them. 

His fingers trembled and he pulled his sleeves over his hands to hide the movement.

Oryn snatched his elbow and dragged him closer. “You are wasting my time.” 

He emphasised every word and they rained down on Jinn like blows.

He wrenched Jinn’s hands out of the way as if he was just a puppet and put his own hand on his stomach. Jinn instinctively tried to step back, but Oryn caught his wrist and kept hold of him. His grip was tight enough to leave bruises, but Jinn didn’t dare make a sound. 

“You need to breathe here,” again Oryn pressed on his stomach and Jinn wanted nothing more than to recoil.

Jinn’s couldn’t think. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.

It had been two days since Kell had vanished and the other singers acted like nothing had happened. 

It was always like that. People vanished and everyone else just kept going. 

Like the person never even had existed. They vanished and nothing was left of them. 

And Jinn knew, one day he would vanish too, and nobody would care about it. 

They would forget his name and his voice until it was like he’d never existed at all. 

Nobody would try to protect him. Nobody would try to get him back. Nobody would fight for him. Not anymore. 

Kell had tried to protect him. He had cared about him.

At least Jinn thought so. He wanted to believe in that. He had to believe in that. 

It had been two days. Two days without Kell. 

If he just knew what had happened. If he just knew where he was. If he just knew whether … whether he was unharmed.

Maybe he had managed to escape. Maybe that's why Oryn was so angry. 

It had to be. 

But a tiny voice inside of him wasn’t so sure.

He wouldn’t have left without him. 

Maybe there hadn’t been enough time to get him. Maybe Kell didn’t really care about him. Maybe it had all been a lie. They didn’t even know each other that well and Kell didn’t owe him anything. 

But Jinn had seen Kell’s face. He knew Kell cared. It wasn’t so much about Jinn; it was about who Kell was. He cared and maybe he cared too much for his own good. 

But maybe that was why he’d made it so long. 

He hadn’t lost himself yet. 

“Again,” Oryn ordered. “Don’t disappoint me.”

Jinn could feel tears prickle in his throat. His heart was sitting heavy in his stomach. Helplessly he lifted his arms just to put them back to his sides. Oryn’s hand on his stomach was an unyielding weight and it made Jinn claustrophobic. He knew how strong Oryn’s hands were. He remembered the bruises they had left on his body. 

He shuddered. 

They had healed. And Jinn had learned to do better. He had tried so hard to do whatever Oryn wanted but Oryn always found a new reason to punish him. 

He would never be perfect. He would never be enough.

Oryn was so close. Too close. Jinn could smell his perfume. He hated that smell. It was too rich, too sweet, drowning out every other smell. 

Oryn had rolled up his sleeves. Jinn had never seen him doing that. He was always dressed perfectly. He never had a wrinkle or a stain or rolled up sleeves. 

“What are you waiting for?”

Jinn took a deep breath. Panic rolled around in his gut like the ocean in a storm. He took another breath. Then he started to sing tentatively. 

He didn’t get far.

“Stop,” Oryn said. “Just stop.”

Jinn didn’t dare to open his mouth. He didn’t dare to move. He didn’t dare to breathe as Oryn paced through the room. It was so quiet Jinn was sure everyone could hear his heartbeat. 

Finally, Oryn stopped. “Get out,” he hissed. “Everyone, get out.”

The singers moved as fast as they could without running. 

Jinn only managed one step in the direction of the door, when Oryn’s hand wrapped around his shoulder. 

“Not you.”

All hope poured from Jinn as he watched the last singers file out. He dropped his gaze down to his shoes as their footsteps faded. He didn’t move as if his life depended on it.

And maybe it did.

“Come with me. I will teach you how to breathe.”

Thank you for reading! @whumpzone @jo-doe-seeking-inspo @whump-cravings @tears-and-lilies @imagination1reality0 @suspicious-whumping-egg @i-can-even-burn-salad @siren-of-agony @villainsvictim (please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!)    

_______________________________________

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[yennasun]

TW: Dissociation, panic attacks, mentions of addiction and paranoia

January 16th, 2013: aches and pains.

The next year and a half was comprised of MT finding work wherever he could.

He worked all manner of odd jobs just to get by, but it wasn't enough.

He'd busted his ass working construction, maintenance, painting and cleaning buildings, repairs and many other back-breaking tasks. Working 70 hour weeks for measly paychecks.

It was miserable.

Pair that with the fact there was currently a housing crisis, so he couldn't even afford a small apartment. He was stuck sleeping in back alleys or park benches, in December when it was especially cold. He was homeless

It got so bad that he had to resort to setting fire to old barrels and dumpsters to keep warm, and when they weren't available he'd just activate his powers. It wasn't much better but he was at least used to it.

However it began to hurt much more than usual.

On that note, he learned the hard way that not all sticks had powers and that any that did had to register and were legally required to wear an identification card stating their powers, danger level and in the case of former slaves; their date of creation, date of relinquishment, registration signature and big bold letters announcing their status for everyone to see...

"I hope I get 3 minutes alone with the prick that made that a law" he grumbled to himself

He also learned that most sticks DIDNT have powers and they tended to look down on those that did, it was even worse if they were a freed (escaped) slave or "bondie" and he'd been called many times.

Being one or the other was bad enough, but being both all but beckoned ridicule and discrimination.

Thankfully, the guy at the registry threw him a bone, most likely because he was an escaped slave himself. He wasn't turned in, but had to register as an "amp" and a freed slave.

He had to wear what was essentially a badge of shame at all times when he was out in public or else he'd face fines which he just couldn't pay, and if he couldn't pay the ridiculous fines he'd definitely do time.

But it wasn't all bad, it actually helped him find work. And many illicit businesses had work for a level 5, or "catastrophic" level amp.

He worked jobs for the local gangs on the side, helping push drugs and intimidating any competition. But really he wasn't affiliated the gangs, he was affiliated with the money they payed him.

In that line of work, he'd witnessed and been caught in so many gunfights that he was almost used to it. At least the shots weren't as loud...

His back and shoulders ached once again, reminding him of all the terrible conditions he'd worked in; not just with the street gangs.

He'd worked in disease infested sewers, on massive skyscrapers when his contractor got him a work passport to stickcity, he'd repaired pipes in a half-flooded pump station, the list goes on.

But today, at long last he had enough to lease out a small apartment.

But in the process he'd lost many of his morals; he'd hurt people, he'd hurt them bad and he helped push drugs that fueled someone else's addiction...

Worse then, his paranoia was beginning to get out of hand.

He remembered when he was working repairs and he saw a pedestrian that he thought was staring a bit too intently at him. He'd been on edge the rest of the week over it.

Why is he there, why does he keep staring at me? Is he a commission rat? Does he want to rob me?!

That wasn't even close to the only instance, it was just the most recent and the most tame.

His mind seemed to take joy in playing all sorts of tricks on him and frankly, he was getting sick of it.

Many days he didn't even feel like himself, he'd felt like someone else was in control and he only had partial control. It was sublime.

It was as if someone else had assumed control of his body, but he controlled their thoughts, if that makes any sense.

But he wouldn't worry about that now, he had to get to shelter.

He walked in the building, cash in hand, more than confident that he'd finally be able to sleep on something soft.

He wasn't expecting much, but then again literally anything was better than what he had now.

He approached the lady at the front desk.

"You're back!" She began

Oh yeah, I've been here before...

"I'm really sorry sir, but due to the recent housing crisis our leasing prices went up and this ain't enough"

The embarrassment and hopelessness still stung at him and his shoulder tensed.

"Want to lease out an apartment?" He responded with a small nod.

"$4,500 for a 2 year lease, after that it's $600 a month rent."

He would've gawked at the huge prices if he hadn't already heard them before.

First time he heard them he nearly choked, earning a sympathetic look from the clerk.

But this time he came prepared, he had saved enough for the lease and 3 months rent. He was certain 3 months was more than enough time to scrape up enough money to continue paying rent.

"Great! I'll show you to your room." He followed her up 2 flights of stairs and went about halfway down the hall on the third floor.

"Here is your room, enjoy your stay!" She handed him his key with a smile that he honestly found welcoming.

Too many people down here are down and have constant frowns plastered on their faces, it was refreshing to see a smile after so long, Even if it wasn't entirely genuine.

He entered his room and took a second to get familiar with the place.

Taking a few steps from the door, to his right was a door leading to a bathroom where he could shower, brush his teeth, etc.

Continuing forward, he saw a living room attached to a kitchen.

In the living room was a simple sofa, coffee table, TV stand and small TV. There was also a large window to the right of the sofa.

In the kitchen was all the basics, counter, sink, cabinets both under the counter and above, a fridge and an oven with a stove top.

But best of all, it had heating.

He finally felt safe enough to let his shoulders fall, he dropped his bags containing his groceries and all but limped over to the couch, flopping on to it.

He grabbed the remote and turned the TV on, since he never used a remote before he had to experiment, seeing what buttons do what.

Before long, he found himself on the sports channel which played a re run of his first ever fight at cruiserweight which, since he was already a big shot, was against the #10 contender.

He remembered how much of a statement he made during the fight, bombing him out in 2 rounds.

He spent the first round finding range with his jab, and in the second round he landed the bomb.

He jabbed his body to set bait him into parrying downwards, opening his chin to a huge right hand. He dug his weight down and threw it with full leverage, even chopping it downwards to add even more kinetic energy to it.

The guys body froze up and he fell, after a 4 count the ref waved it off. It was a brutal knockout.

He would've very much loved reminiscing on these supposedly good memories, but what happened afterwards left a terrible taste in his mouth.

It wasn't even the first time it's happened, far from it. But this should've been a monumental achievement, deserving of celebration and praise.

Their sick smiles, almost couldn't see them because of the blood...

His blood ran cold at the memory...

Switching to the news channel, he was told the weather and finally learned what day and year it was.

"Has it really been that long?" He muttered

But he really started paying attention at the mention of his old pseudonym.

"-and there is still an ongoing investigation into the disappearance of former multi-weight class world champion "Marvelous" Michael tarvor. He was reported missing for almost 3 years now, his owner had reported that he'd practically vanished overnight for no apparent reason."

Oh he knows the reason...

"The commission had oversaw his training with his owner following his jump to the cruiserweight division, and they released a statement early last year stating the following: "we at the USFC are distraught and heartbroken to report our golden prospect, Michael tarvor as missing. We helped him accomplish so much and we've done alot for eachother, but he has vanished into seemingly thin air. He was so happy and full of life, he couldn't have left of his own accord. We just hope that wherever he is, he's okay. We want to get him home safely."

Even with his exhaustion, his blood boiled. He almost felt insulted, after everything they did to him they act like he's their golden boy in the face of the public eye.

"Slimy fuckers...those lit-little f-fuckin rats!" He nearly yelled through his rage induced stutters.

After another few hours, his anger have way to...nothing.

His emotions felt dull, the only ones that had any feeling to them was anger and sadness. But it felt as though the sadness had evolved into a perpetual mindset, it was a vicious cycle.

Over the next few weeks, he kept working bone breaking labor, he kept working with the organized street gangs.

It was awful, it felt like he didn't really get anywhere, he just had a place to stay afterwards.

His bones ached to so bad...and every day it got worse.

Eventually one of his coworkers noticed this and handed him a small pill.

"You look sore man, take that. It'll help for now, if you need more you can usually find painkillers at pharmacy stores. A little liquor will help even more" he took the pill, having a hard time swallowing it since not only did he not have water to help, but his mouth was also completely dry.

But after a few minutes it worked, it fucking worked!

The pains were dulled to neigh-invisibility.

He took that information with him to the pharmacy store a few blocks away from his apartment, buying 3 bottles of over-the-counter painkillers.

He then took that same information to the liquor store down the road, getting some cheap bourbon to see if it really helped.

As he walked home, he noticed someone walking behind him and paranoia took over.

He sped his pace up and turned a corner, looking over his shoulder every couple seconds only to see him turn the same corner.

He turned another corner, and made eye contact with the man as he turned the corner after him.

If he really was following him, he now knew that MT knew.

It didn't help his nerves, in fact his mind was going wild.

Shitshitshitshitshit he's still following! He's still following, run. Run now before he catches up!

After he turned another corner MT complied, running as fast as his pained legs would let him go.

He finally came up to his building and sped through the lobby, visibly shaken and out of breath.

The clerk noticed this.

"Is something wrong? Are you ok-"

"Yea-Yeah I'm...I'm alright." He went up the stairs, his mind running even more wild.

Why would you go back to the building you live in?! They know where you live now! Are you fucking stupid?! They're gonna get you now, they're gonna get you they're gonna get you they're gonna get you-

He ran up to his room and slammed the door behind him, locking it behind him.

His mind was racing and his heart was pounding out of his chest.

It felt so hard to breath, he felt like he was suffocating and that the walls were closing in on him.

They know where I am now...oh God they're gonna get me! They'll skin me alive when they get me, it's gonna be so much worse than before!

As it would turn out, the guy was just walking home from work and happened to live near his building. But he didn't know that.

He keeled over, on the verge of passing out from hyperventilation, before slumping up against a wall.

He reached into his bag and pulled 2 bottles out, the burbon and painkillers.

He shakily put 3 pills in the palm of his hand and washed it down with the burbon.

While he waited for both to kick in, he took deep breaths to try and calm himself down as well as using many other tricks that had worked for him in the past.

But none of them began to work until they kicked in.

It hit his body first, he got up and went to the couch with the TV still on and sat down, as the aches dulled to almost nothing he started calming down.

"They really do work..." he strung out montonously

But before he knew it, he began to feel disconnected from his thoughts and actions once again.

It was always a sublime experience, but it was never before as strong as this. It even begun to affect his memory.

He felt like a passenger, and the pilot was someone completely different. Carrying out his housework stoicly and unblinkingly.

It almost felt like watching a very dull, mildly entertaining movie but not one where he was a character, but one where he was just a spectator.

All of his thoughts blended together, a cacophony of sights, sounds and experiences that just didn't connect or makes sense at all.

Like it was someone else's thoughts.

After it finished the housework, it went over to the sofa and slowly layed down before falling asleep.

This experience only cemented a budding relationship between him, alcohol and pain pills.

And it would nearly cost him his life.

---------------------------------------------------

I know I've been out awhile but i promise I have a good reason.

On top of alot going on in my life, I had to research on how to write dissociation (as grim as it is) and I don't really have it down, which is why I kept it vague.

I will probably continue to keep it vague until I research it more and get a better understanding of it as I'm not a psychologist.

I also want to reiterate that I'm not romanticism not demonizing Dissociative identity disorder or dissociation as a whole, in this story it serves only as a character trait to further the plot. If I rubbed anyone the wrong way with it, then I apologize l.

If not, then I hope you like it :D

[beautifulgiants]

Watch "Colin Farrell, Tom Bateman & Sahajak Poo Boonthankit Interview: Thirteen Lives" on YouTube

Colin Farrell, Tom Bateman & Sahajak Poo Boonthankit Interview: Thirteen Lives

BY

ASH CROSSAN

PUBLISHED AUG 05, 2022

Thirteen Lives stars Colin Farrell, Tom Bateman & Sahajak "Poo" Boonthankit share the emotions they experienced during the rescue in real-time.

Ron Howard's penchant for bringing history to the film screen is in full effect in Thirteen Lives, which is now available to stream on Prime Video. In it, the Apollo 13 director recreates the events of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue, allowing audiences to understand why it was so dangerous for the boys trapped in a flooded cave - and how exactly the brave divers were able to get them out.

The stars of Thirteen Lives were just as affected by the gripping true story when it went down as viewers around the world were, so reliving the tense times from another perspective was a unique experience. Colin Farrell and Tom Bateman play two of the divers who traveled to help, while Thai actor Sahajak "Poo" Boonthankit (Fistful of Vengeance) plays Governor Narongsak.

Screen Rant spoke to Bateman, Farrell and Boonthankit about how they experienced the events of Thirteen Lives in real-time before reliving them on the set of the film.

Screen Rant: What a movie; what a story. I remember this happening, but I feel like the movie just elicited so many positive feelings for me of selflessness. Do you remember when this happened? And what stuck out to you most about this story?

Tom Bateman: I think the first [time] that I got really into it was when they found the boys. I remember thinking, "Those boys were being stuck in the cave, and when they found them." And then it just became this every day, checking in on the news on how they were doing. And I just remember the beauty of when they said, "They've got them out." Everyone was running around, and it's all anyone was talking about at the time. It was a beautiful, very special time.

Because, usually with the news, you're not really bonded by joy. You're bonded by bad things. "Oh, my God, have you seen this awful thing? This awful thing." I think I can count on maybe one hand the amount of times you have a news story like this, that just makes you happy and full of joy and hopeful and want to be a better person.

Colin Farrell: And that was the thing about it, though, wasn't it? That you were caught between catastrophe and the potential of what actually came to pass, because we saw it in real-time.

So, it was actually a horrible thing that was going on. And we were stuck in the fear of the present, where we believed globally that the children were still alive. But we didn't know if, while we were talking about them being still alive, they were actually dying. Nobody knew until the guys got to them, and then there was some confirmation that they were there. And then there was back and forth; there were certain dives happening. But, as Tom said, when the moment came that they started coming out and the ambulance started disappearing and airlifting them and airlifting them. And the information wasn't shared of who was out,; how many were out.

And even when the mission started, it was all very cloak and dagger. All of a sudden, all the press were pushed back and nobody knew exactly what the means were [by which] they were going to be extracted.

Poo, I want to hear, because I can't believe we worked together and I never heard from you. I never asked you, because we were all just working, so we were involved in the present together of making the film. What was it like for you, man? You were in the country?

Sahajak Poo Boonthankit: Yes, I was. I was in Thailand at the time. But I think it's very different for me, personally. I always say I heard about the boys getting stuck, and... At first, I was actually angry at the boys. "Why did they even go in there? What drove you? What took you in there?"

And then, you found out, "Okay, they didn't intend to go in when it was raining. It rained after they went in." Okay. Five days, six days go on. I'm saying, "Okay, maybe they're dead." And now, being Thai, you start to sit in front of your mantle and you pray. You light your [prayer sticks] and everything, and hope that they come out well and alive.

Colin Farrell: Was the whole country doing that, you think? The majority?

Sahajak Boonthankit: Yes, I do believe so. I do believe so. It's a cultural thing.

And then, on the seventh, eighth, ninth day, I'm saying, "Wait, I have four children. What if one of them was in there?" Now, it gets really intense. Then you hear people are coming from all over the world to help, and I can't even do anything. I don't know how to dive. I can't do anything. So, I'm just sitting there, shaking, praying, hoping. And once they came out, once we heard that the kids were all well, it was a big relief.

But it wasn't until I read the script that I understood the inner workings of everything, and all the hair stood on end. It was amazing.

Screen Rant: Because I'm a diver, I'm like, "Why can't they just dive and get them out?" I did not understand. And then, when you watch the movie, you're like, "Okay."

Colin Farrell: It's not safe.

Tom Bateman: Is it normal diving, or cave diving you do?

I've done some cave diving - not like that. Colin, I take it you're not going to keep your certification going?

Colin Farrell: Ash, it's a certified fact that your balls are bigger than mine. Because I was asked by a couple of the lads, "When you finish the film, are you going to do some cave diving?" And I said, "Absolutely not."

I mean, they did build these extravagant cave systems. There was four or five different networks that were based on the ordinance of the Tham Luang cave system. There was pinch points and bits that went down and stalactites and stuff. It was tight in there, and we had safety divers and all that stuff, but you're still in water and still looking up, and there's a roof on top of your head.

Tom, you found it uncomfortable at times, didn't you? I mean, I really did.

Tom Bateman: Thank you so much for that. One of my favorite memories, though, is I remember you and me both - I think it was Viggo, you, me, Joel and Paul. And we all got stuck in the middle. The camera-

Colin Farrell: Disaster. And I have Viggo's fin in my f**king face, and someone pushing me from behind.

Tom Bateman: Exactly. I got Paul falling asleep on my leg. But I remember coming out of it and this beautiful moment [where] I think we grabbed each other, like, "You good? You good?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm good. I don't want to go back down there again." They're like, "Okay guys, resetting, you're going again." No, I don't want to do it.

Colin Farrell: And it was a 4-foot dive with 20 safety guys in 2.5 feet of water. I did find it nerve-wracking.

The difference between... I'd done a little bit of open water scuba diving, but it's night and day from anything that has a seal on it. I don't know how they do it. It's just a very different mentality that I don't really have. I have a little bit of - don't want to diagnose myself with panic syndrome, but the head can get away from me pretty quickly

[taintedbenevolence]

This does have fontaine spoilers for the beginning about the water…

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What if darling was running away from yandere of your choice, and the reader was a fontainian, after the whole primordial sea water thing, and used that as a cover up and fakes their death. Only to encounter the yandere years later by accident. You could do whatever you want this with idea, if you want to use it.

I hope this gives you some inspiration :DD

a/n: I love you for this, anon, this concept is actually quite fun to work with. Probably wrote more than I intended to as well. I hope this is to your liking! Sorry for posting this late. Have been a bit busy. Thank you for the inspiration, I hope you enjoy this, and happy holidays to you!! <3 cw: obsessive, possessive, overly-jealous behavior, toxic relationships, stalking, unhealthy/unbalanced power dynamics, kidnapping, mildly suggestive content (?), murder, mentions of suicide, implied death. Major Fontaine Archon Quest Spoilers.

PAIRINGS, individual - NEUVILLETTE, WRIOTHESLEY, DOTTORE, XIAO, DAINSLEIF

He should've been there for you. Should've saved you. How you ever managed to slip from his grasp, he'll never know.

And now you were dead. Ever since the day the Primordial Seawater flooded Fontaine, the Iudex had a grim expression on his face. He was glad the people of the Hydro Nation had been saved from the impending, imminent catastrophe that had been written into their fates.

Yet he only cared about you. And it was only you who was gone.

Had he been too late? Was that it? No, you'd disappeared before the waters flooded Fontaine, and by then, he'd already passed his verdict on the Final Trial.

So what went wrong?

He wasn't sure what exactly could've caused your disappearance. And for all he knew, the waters had swallowed you whole, eaten you and dissolved you back into the masses.

For weeks, the skies of Fontaine were a murky gray, the children's pleas for the Hydro Dragon to cease crying falling on deaf ears.

He wept, cried, and slept. It was an ongoing cycle. He couldn't bear the pain your death had caused him. He grieved and mourned your passing, his tears not once stopping.

The pass of time became a blur to him, and with every court case, his poised, authoritative, and calm gaze became, if anything, slightly colder each time - something that not many were able to pick up.

But deep in the unbothered gaze of the Iudex lay an unperturbed regret and perpetual pain that seeped into his heart.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, and months slowly turned into years. Seeing a bright, sunny day became a rarity for the people of Fontaine, and even Furina was starting to get concerned.

Yet when she asked the Iudex, he only replied affirmatively. "I'm alright, Lady Furina. You need not worry yourself," he'd lie, but there was nothing else he'd say, for there was nothing more the rest should know.

You knew well why the skies of Fontaine, which were once a rich, vibrant color, now had dulled into a murky gray. But you were happy. You had managed to free yourself from that which the Hydro Dragon Sovereign called love.

That... that wasn't love. It was nothing but pure, unbridled, unrivaled obsession.

For someone with such a gentle disposition and a great position of authority amongst the titles of Justice, you would've never thought deep within the heart of the Iudex would lie therein such madness, a longing and desire reserved only for you.

Slowly but surely, he'd drawn you in and trapped you inside the web of his care, and you'd become none the wiser to the danger he posed to everyone who'd look at you with even a hint of ill intent.

It was only with the pass of time that you came to realize how possessive he was of you. You came to realize why people rarely spoke to you nowadays. The Iudex had set his trap, and you were falling in it.

The moment you caught on to his behavior, he then found it rather futile to keep hiding his intentions, although his calm and cold demeanor still remained.

You tried to reason with him, but he had nothing of it, refusing and restating why it was so important for you to be only his. You thought he was insane, and perhaps he was, but what could you do about it?

The moment you tried to run, that's when everything took a turn for the worse, and you came to see that day a side of Neuvillette that no one had seen. Or at least, no one alive.

All you felt around him was fear after that day. Fear of getting hurt. And so, when he had to cast his judgment in a trial, you took the chance to escape, bringing about remains of Primordial Seawater.

It was the only way to make sure he'd believe your disappearance was true.

And to this present day, it'd worked. It had worked. That was until you made one tiny mistake: going outside.

You had decided to take a walk late at night to soothe your mind. You had some thoughts that worried you and had stressed you as of late, so you took an umbrella and headed out.

It took only a few minutes until you heard thunder strike, and the familiar sensation of a gloved palm squeeze your shoulder gently. Your lips quivered slightly as you turned around, and you soon met the gaze of who else but the Iudex of Fontaine.

His deep, oceanic hues, darkened by their purple color and sharp pupils struck a distinct sensation of dread in you.

"[Name]..." he almost choked out, his deep voice flooding into your ears as his hand reached for your cheek to feel your soft skin. "... You're alive."

You want to run. You want to hide. You want to plead and beg the gods for mercy. But you stay as still as a statue, letting the dragon pull you close to his chest.

He only hums deeply, although it sounds more akin to that of a growl as he passes his hand through your hair, holding your head close to his chest. "You're safe..." he murmurs.

He quietly whispers 'mine' as he continues to hold you, and you only lay there, frozen, unsure of what to do. You'd heard this once in your life, but perhaps you should've listened when you heard it — dragons are very territorial and never share what is theirs; once they claim something, they take it to make it theirs for all eternity.

May the gods in the heavens above have mercy on any who dare lay a finger on you - because he certainly won't.

Most convicts and members in the prison were aware of the Duke's fondness of you, although far be it to be something His Grace was glad most knew. Nevertheless, he was at the very least content that none had tried to make advances with you once they knew he had his eyes on you.

As for those unfortunate enough to try to hint at even the slightest bit of romantic interest in you ... they were left unheard of. Most believed that it was because their time to leave the prison had come, but... whether it be in the deep sea or the city above, they were never to be seen again.

Wriothesley was convinced that there was no way for you to escape. He often kept an eye on you, occasionally following you when he had the time and wasn't buried in paperwork for the Fortress, and even closed the gate to the overworld at times.

Safe to say, you were locked and trapped inside. Or so, he thought.

One day, you vanished entirely. Gone. He walked around the Fortress as usual, asking if anyone had seen you, assuming that maybe you'd gone for a walk around the fortress. It could be the case, because he did understand that maybe being cooped up in his office all the time could be... exasperating, to put it lightly.

But you hadn't - you had quite literally disappeared, just like a ghost, and much to his displeasure, he didn't have any leads for the case.

Returning to his office, he couldn't even go back to work. He set down the cup of tea he held in his hand on his desk, lest he crush the cup's fragile handle out of anger and concern.

Strutting out of his office a few moments later, he could only feel a wave of fear wash over him as he saw just a few drops of water wetting the floor of the Fortress. And oh no, not regular water, Primordial Seawater.

He can swear to the heavens that not once in his life has he felt his heart drop the way it did now. The traces only led back and around the Fortress, and to nowhere in the end.

You had dissolved.

But in truth, you'd finally run free, seen the sun, something you hadn't been able to see in what felt like years. You had escaped from Wriothesley, and the Fortress of Meropide as a whole. Your plan had finally worked. By some poor miracle, you'd found a way to open the previously closed gates of the Fortress, and now were running free.

Seeing Fontaine on the surface after all this time, this imprisonment, was a blessing. You couldn't help the smile on your face as you dashed, trying to bury the fear and worry of being caught in the back of your head.

Right now, you didn't focus on the fact you could be followed at this moment, but rather, you chose to direct your attention on where to go. You decided it was best to leave Fontaine as a whole, because chances were that you'd be found and dragged back to the murky depths Wriothesley called home.

And archons, he was pissed. He knew people knew that you were preciously dear to him. He'd advised some of the guards to keep an eye on you over caution that "you might escape," because might I add, he framed you with a crime you didn't commit, and he stated that he wanted to ensure you didn't run away.

You were none the wiser that it was his doing, like the rest, but no matter how much you pleaded and begged, everyone refused to believe you. And it was Wriothesley who remained on top, once more having succeeded in his plans.

So for you to slip in between his grasp, and past everyone else's line of sight was infuriating. He put his utmost effort in maintaining a calm composure, but even then, most of the convicts passing by him could feel the seething anger that emanated from him.

Rushing to the overworld immediately, he began his search at the strike of midnight, full moon glistening and shining down on his refined figure, as he prayed to whatever existent, omnipotent entity out there that you were somehow alive. May the gods spare the poor souls who happened to walk by in the dead of night because if looks could kill they'd be dead a thousand times over with an icy glare such as his own, even if they weren't involved at all in abetting your escape.

He's just that mad.

A low growl leaves him as he grits his teeth, a frown etched onto his face whilst the rain slowly begins to pour down on him heavily, soaking him. Yet he doesn't care, pushing through it as he looks for you, not caring how drenched he is in the rain.

He moves quick and searches thoroughly for any trace left, but it seems that this time, you're finally two steps ahead of him, for by the time he's looking through the court of Fontaine, you're already on a boat, sailing towards Sumeru. Perhaps in the Nation of Wisdom would you find refuge and a place to live peacefully.

As you travel across the nation, you ponder if you'll even be accepted. When you reach the nation of Dendro, you find that really there isn't much you can do there. You have no home, no connections, no friends, nothing.

Everything you had is back in Fontaine. But for now, perhaps you can stay for a few years in Sumeru... could you? Fontaine was merely a boat ride away. You could always go back ... right?

Yet deep within you, you knew you couldn't go back. Not now. Not until you knew you were safe to come back. So you found your way to Sumeru City, building your new home there, letting time pass.

And Wriothesley gets desperate. Every waking moment is spent trying to locate you. To find you.

Anything.

Yet he hears, sees, and finds nothing about you. He's not one to lose hope about things such as these, yet, even so, faced with what little evidence he had... you were most likely dead, as far as he was concerned.

But he couldn't be completely sure. Not until three years later.

You had to go back to Fontaine, despite how against it you were. You simply wanted to go back to your homeland - you missed it, and that was fair. You thought that at least you could talk to a friend or two over there and maybe explain your disappearance too.

So, deciding against your better judgment, you paid and took the boat ride back to Fontaine, the Nation of Hydro, your homeland.

Upon arriving once more at the borders of the Nation of Hydro, you left the boat, delighting in the bright sun and scent of your home. You walk around the court of Fontaine, a smile on your face as you see the Melusines passing by, each greeting you with smiles on their faces.

Yet you can't help but feel watched. Only a little. It's probably just a queasy feeling in your stomach because things have changed since you last left. It's normal to feel a little surprised by new changes.

Surely, it's nothing more than just a little paranoia. That's all it could be.

Right?

. . .

"Your Grace."

An officer emerges to the Duke's office with ragged breathing, rushing up the stairs as the raven-haired male slowly shifts his gaze from his paperwork to the personnel that walks up to him.

A stone-cold expression is written on Wriothesley, a look that has been unchanging and everlasting ever since your disappearance. He only slightly raises a brow as he waits for the officer to speak, to which he slightly stammers.

"I-I believe, Y-your Grace..." he begins. "that we have found [Name].." Wriothesley's heart stops, and for a split moment, a new life is seen on the once dulled, blue eyes that hold so much emotion now.

"Where were they last seen?" he inquires sternly, almost too quickly as he bites his tongue lightly. "I-in the court of Fontaine.. r-right outside the Palais Mermonia," the officer responds, startled as the warden walks quickly past him. "You're dismissed," the Duke replies, and without wasting another second, he heads up to the surface, leaving the prison with haste.

He wants to — no — he needs to find you, and now, before you're gone again. He steps into the daylight, eyes darting everywhere. He trudges through the city, hidden amidst the people - which is surprisingly complicated because his presence is a rather commanding and imposing one - until his gaze finally lands on you.

He can already feel his heart pumping, its pulse quickening at the mere sight of you after having lost you for three years. Three interminable years.

Yet he refrains from nearing you. He knows that should he approach you, you'll scurry away, and should he chase, it'd draw unnecessary and unwanted attention. He stares for so long he almost forgets to breathe, keeping an eye on you as you slowly head to your house.

You find a lot of letters, all piled up on a table once you enter, which you can only presume you didn't have any time to read before you'd gone down to the Fortress of Meropide. You open the first one - the one on top of the others, feeling the temperature slowly, but gradually drop as you do so.

You read each letter, only freezing and lightly jumping as you hear the door getting shut close. You turn around to take a look at what's happened, but not fast enough. You feel your head come into contact with something firm and hard, and within seconds, you lose your consciousness, vision blurring, your body falling into another person's hold.

The Duke makes no comment, simply gazing at your unconscious form. His eyes dart over your form, scanning your body as if to see if any mark was left, to which no scratch or cut are on your limp state. He then sighs in what seems to be relief but also distaste — distaste for the methods used to retrieve you.

He took the liberty of walking you back to the prison, carrying your body with ease as your head remained leaning on his shoulder. You'd only feel the occasional brushing of his soft hair against your skin, but then again, even his warmth wouldn't reach you - not in this state.

Wriothesley dutifully brings you back to the murky depths of the Fortress of Meropide, and with haste, he leaves you in his office, letting you wake up as he runs a few errands outside of the large, steely office.

A few hours later, you come to your senses. As you slowly grasp your surroundings, beginning to wake up, you realize something - this place is familiar. You look around. You see Wriothesley's desk, full of papers as it always was, but it now seems slightly in disarray.

Dread fills you as you hear the door of the office start to creak open, heavy steps being the only sound in the large space, excluding your heartbeat, which pulses at a speed you can't register.

You try to move your legs, only to feel them restrained, the slight rattling of chains echoing. You look to your ankles, and much to your dismay, realize that they've been cuffed and chained; fear courses through you.

Oh, you poor, sweet thing - looks like you're going to have to be reminded that rules exist for a reason, and for your own safety no less. But to disobey them will mean an imminent and harsh punishment, regardless of where you've gone.

He'll go through Hell and back just to find you, drag you back, and hold you in his safe, unrelenting grip. Wriothesley vowed to keep you safe no matter the cost, and he will see his promise through until his last, dying breath.

As Wriothesley opens the door to his office, there is little to no noise — it is dead quiet, to the point you can hear your own breath as you shiver. You're sitting down in one of the corners of his administrative office, hugging your knees as you quiver in fear and apprehension.

You can already hear his heavy, slow footsteps as he approaches you, the sound of handcuffs twirling around his fingers already inciting fear in you as the Duke gazes down upon your cowering form with eyes as cold as ice. He tosses his coat aside, adjusting his tie before snapping open the handcuffs.

"I certainly hope someone's ready for their punishment."

Oh? Well, aren't you such a curious little thing, having run away from him like that.

Dottore, being the man he is, is too meticulous for such a mistake or scenario to have occurred. Rather, he found it amusing when you tried to run successfully ran away. Even you found it awfully suspicious when you'd managed to flee without being caught. Yet you ran anyways, too afraid to return to the cold lab you'd been so used to seeing.

As for the Doctor, he took this as an invitation for another experimentation; a test, by all means.

At first, he waits a couple of days to see if you'll return to him, to which he knows you won't. He's only giving you a momentary satisfaction so that you think that you've succeeded.

Yet after a week or so has passed, a little part of him begins to miss you, or rather, the way you feel. He misses the way you whine when he sinks his teeth into your neck, ignoring your pleads to stop as he traps you inside his laboratory, several of his segments taking time to watch you all day every day, leaving you alone and terrified.

Even his face forms into a tiny pout, before a small smirk finds its way to his lips at the thought of seeing you again. He figures you've stayed back in Fontaine, so, as a well-known and refined diplomat and Harbinger of the Fatui, he decides, why not give you the Nation of Justice a little visit?

So he travels to the Nation of Hydro, remaining in it for about to year to grasp all of its surroundings — shops, restaurants, landmarks - and of course, where you live. He smiles as he gazes at you through the window of your room, and sometimes you can swear that you hear a soft laughter echoing outside your house in the dead of night.

He could have taken less time to accommodate, but, he figured he'd let you have some fun of your own before he made "arrangements" to bring you back to his laboratory.

He's always had a habit of toying with his subjects; this is no different.

Day after day, he wakes up, watching you as you go about your day with a nervous but sweet expression, as if you're relieved that he's not around you anymore, but still somewhat paranoid.

It's so, so cute.

He finds your sleeping positions the best. Relaxed, calm, quiet, and unperturbed. Sometimes, he resists the urge to simply waltz into your house and take you right then and there.

But he insists on waiting.

After what seemed weeks, he decides to buy himself some coffee, and as he enters the establishment nearby his residence to get himself a cup of coffee, he can feel a familiar presence.

You.

You're the one running the shop. Selling products. And as your eyes land on the familiar, dark, ornamented mask, your heart sinks, your hands almost freezing in place. You do your best to remain calm, although your body responds first, breaking out into a cold sweat, your lips pressed nervously into a thin line.

Your smile had faltered slightly as soon as it landed on Dottore's usual smirk. "Ah, well isn't this a wonderful surprise, hm?" the Harbinger muses with a teasing voice.

"O-oh... yes," You stammer, nodding, trying to hide how terribly you want to run for your life at this moment. You're being careful with your words, hoping you're spared of any embarrassment, and for a lack of better words, any horrifying events that might take place right then and there.

You're aware of the man Dottore is; if he so wanted to ruin your life in this moment, he could. There was no telling what he would do, and you didn't want to think of the possibilities.

For now, you wanted to focus on getting through with your day and making some money. That was all you wanted. "W-what would you like?.." You barely manage to utter.

"Have you some coffee, by any chance?" he replies, maintaining the conversation casual. You only nod. "Milk? Sugar?" You continue. He shakes his head. "I'll take my coffee black, thank you," he states, as he leaves.

You take the order, but as you jot down the information on the paper, you feel your fingers trembling, struggling to grip the pen you hold properly. Cursing mentally, you try to shake off the bad feeling you carry.

And as such, the day passes by, and your anxiety and paranoia further grows until you finally return to your home. Changing into more comfortable clothes, you slowly settle into your bed, burying yourself beneath the soft blankets.

And in the midst of this night, your window slowly creaks open, a shadow creeping in and settling beside you quietly.

You slowly open your eyes in confusion as you feel the weight of your bed shift slightly. Before you get to even slightly move away to turn on the lights, you hear a pleased hum as you feel a person snake their arms around your waist, pulling you tightly towards them.

"Mm~ Oh, my love.."

Dottore. You don't need to hear another peep from this man to know it's him. And your heart pounds as you make this realization. With one arm tightly holding you by your waist and another pulling you close to his firm chest, holding your shoulder and laying on your chest, the Harbinger nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, the edges of his mask leaving small cuts on your soft skin.

He only smiles as he sees this, moving his head and licking off the blood that slowly seeps from the cuts, his tongue leaving a cold, wet trace, which only makes you shiver. He chuckles in turn, finding your terrified form undeniably endearing.

"Ah, you're so, so cute," he coos in a sing-song tone into your ear, his chilling, tight grip on you being a stark contrast to his words as his cold breath that lands on your neck causes a chill to run down your spine. "Mm~ I could just eat you right up.."

Your words catch in your throat, another bitter chill running through you as the Harbinger slowly licks and nibbles on your earlobe with purpose, his cold breath causing you to slightly tremble.

You can only feel your heart pound in fear as you feel tears start to prick at the corners of your eyes. Chuckling, the Doctor wipes away the tear that forms from your teary eyes as he presses a light kiss on your cheek, his gloved hand teasingly tracing the faint outline of your lips.

"And you'd like that, hm? Isn't that right, my darling dearest?"

He's going mad. He's losing himself.

Why didn't you call for him? Time and time again he has told you; call for him if you are in danger.

Day and night he has stalked you without reason to sleep or rest. Every waking second of his life is spent on you. You have come to fear those amber eyes since.

His voice, his eyes, his touch, his power. It all scares you. You're terrified of someone whom you initially thought of as your protector, your savior.

Yet you didn't. And the realization hits him. You didn't call for him on purpose.

Following your traces, he realizes that you left for your homeland - Fontaine. He knows already of the disappearance of people by the surging of the Hydro Nation's waters, and he pleads to the gods that you're alive.

Without purpose other than to protect you, he'd lose himself and succumb to imminent darkness, should he find no trace of your body alive and well.

He quickly finds his way through the vast seas of Fontaine, walking through the court, outside the Palais Mermonia in the dead of night.

Even in an unfamiliar nation, he does his utmost to find you, yet he finds nothing. He hears nothing. Sees nothing. Feels nothing. Nothing of you.

He fears you are dead.

And dead you are not.

His blood runs cold at the possibility and thought, and he doesn't want to believe it. Dead? No. Not on his watch. Never. He swore to himself he'd keep you alive, he won't ever break that vow, and especially not now.

For the yaksha, this is a hunt. A race against the clock.

Not only for him, but for you. You know it's only a matter of time until he finds you; the clock's ticking, time's running out, and your legs will soon give up, given how much you've run in order to stage your death.

After all, trying to fake your own death isn't something easy, and you know well Xiao is not stupid; he wouldn't fall for something simple. This had to be elaborate and complex, but without taking too much time.

Which is why, of course, you figured it'd be best if you used Primordial Sea Water for this "trick."

You had little to no time, and eventually, you just settled on taking a dive for the water.

You made a break for it, running for the nearest shoreline, and unluckily enough for you, your footsteps, though quiet, alerted the yaksha who was in pursuit.

He moved quickly, searching in the direction of your footsteps, and he found you, right when you were about to take your jump. He could feel his heart drop at the sight, and he immediately lunged towards you, grabbing you by your collar as he glared at you.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" he growls, and you feel yourself quiver. "You could have died!" he reprimands in a stern voice. Though his voice is laced with disappointment and anger, you can tell he's more than heartbroken.

He's devastated by what you tried to do. You can almost see his eyes water. And while you aren't exactly proud of yourself, you certainly don't want to be around him either.

The amount of people he's killed, the freedoms he's stripped you of because he "loves" you has terrified you and in a constant state of paranoia; in your eyes, death would be rather merciful in comparison. The moment you try to pull away, his grip only increases, to the point it's painful.

"No no no, I can't, I won't let you go again; never again," he says, teeth gritted, although you're not sure if any longer does he speak to you, or does he speak to himself to soothe his own unhinged obsession.

"My eyes will always be on you."

It matters not where you run, he'll always find you; his love for you is undying and eternal, much like the boundless karma that awaits, lying in wait for him in madness.

He was disappointed.

He believed you knew better than to run away from him. Seems you proved him otherwise.

He found his way to your birthland, Fontaine, and in sufficient days, he figured that you'd tried to use the Primordial Sea Water to fake your death.

He wasn't fazed, really. He found your actions rather predictable, and he already knew you'd try this at some point. He had anticipated this, and was prepared, yet when it happened, he couldn't help but feel disappointed that you really tried to do this, and perhaps a tinge of hurt.

He also felt a bit of worry. He knew you'd never kill yourself, but, a part of him couldn't help but wonder if you actually had recklessly gone and done the deed, falling to the dead.

Could you have hated him that much?

Reluctantly, he pushed those thoughts away as he traversed through the vastness of Fontaine, keeping himself out of others' line of sight. The sun slowly cast itself into darkness, letting the moon shine once more as shadows seeped into the quiet court of Fontaine.

He could hear footsteps apart from his own, and they were different than that of a Gardemek's. With time, he'd come to learn the sound of your footsteps, and they were all too familiar to him. He turned, and managed to catch a glimpse of you, and small trails of strange water being left behind.

Primordial Seawater, he figured. With a sigh of disdain, he took off after the trail, sooner than not, finding you running nervously about towards the shoreline. With ease, he manifested his own energy, able to cut your air circulation from afar.

With speed, he then rushed to you, knocking you unconscious and rendering you powerless as he picked up your limp body. His expression didn't change, only being one of disappointment and mild irritation.

In time, he brought you to a small dining place, to which he cared not to read the name of. Entering the small establishment, he went upstairs, carrying your body in a way that would not bring upon much question. Placing you down on one of the seats in front of the table, he heads to the other seat, in front of yours, divided by the space the table provides.

He sat comfortably on the seat in front of yours, and what seems to be a few hours later, you slowly regain consciousness. All you see is the tall blonde as he readies a glass of wine for you, your mind slowly catching up to the situation at hand.

Your expression slowly changes to one of horror and surprise as you hear his smooth voice, accompanied by a soft chuckle that reverberates, rumbling through his chest.

"You're waking up."

You say nothing, as you observe the man in front of you. Dainsleif places the glass of wine in front of you, keeping one for himself as well. Your mind is slow to analyze everything, and while your senses are still adjusting, you can at least realize what's going on. The way his serious gaze hides a playful flicker lets you know already one thing.

Your plan failed.

He only smiles teasingly as he gazes at you with a hint of longing, lips pressed into a faint, but satisfied smirk. "We know that trick of yours won't work, sweetheart. Let's not try that again, shall we?"

[golfgolyo]

Take em out, take em out, bring em out dead

Shine em up, shine em up, shine the bald head

One gun, two gun, three gun, four

You're, mine, it's all about crime

Onyx! (echoes)

Verse One: Suave

It's time to get live, live, live like a wire

I set a whole choir on fire (UHH!)

Well done, on the grill, shot skills kills

And no frills - they try to diss me? They gettin crispy

Ha, ha hah hah, AND WE DO IT LIKE THIS

In fact,? and jack Jack's

Cause they can burn in hell shit for all that I care

Beware the bald head the dread said is they fear

Stick-up's assassin, traction new reaction

These fuckin niggaz shoulda made the All Madden

Onyx is wreckin shit, slip slide step quick

? Infinite that gets crashed like a rented

The shit they write is black and white; well mines got mad color

Ain't that right, my blood brother?

Word up, raise it up!

We do it with the crew that don't give a fuck

So throw ya gunz in the air, throw ya gunz in the air

Buck buck like you don't care

Verse Two: Fredro Starr

Uh-oh! Heads up, cause we're droppin some shit

On your now shot-skills, Onyx tec-9 for a while

Keep your eyes open in the fight, I'ma swell em

The hardcore style, rowdy n wild, hits I'ma sell em (sell em)

To all competition slide back then listen

I'm kickin all that, shit to the doormat

Claimin this domain, cause mad pains

Blood stains, long range - got gats!

Crazy clips, I sink ships, cuttin faces like a pirate

I've never caught a flood, for the mad shit that I did

Heard, you got the word so observe

I shatter and splatter bodies that blows and bust nerds, OPEN!

I always leave my barrel smokin

Throw ya gunz in the air

And buck buck like you just don't care

Just throw ya gunz in the air

And buck buck like you just don't care

Just throw ya gunz in the air

And buck buck like you just don't care

Just throw ya gunz in the air

And buck buck like you just don't care

Verse Three: Sticky Fingaz

Ahhh, I hate your fuckin guts, and I hope that you die

Sticky Fingaz, the name, and my life is a lie

Cause I'm havin a bad day, so stay out of my way

And what the pistol packin people say you better obey

Just in the nick of time, I commit the perfect crime

Rip my heart, from my chest, put it right into a rhyme 9YEAH!)

I don't feel pain cause it's all in the mind

And what's - mines is mines and, yours is mine

Don't fuckin blink or I'ma rob yo' ass blind

Onyx, is rippin shit, I got the tech nine

So what the plumber got boy buck buck buck buck

It's like a catastrophe, fuckin with me G

I'm a bald head with a kinfe

I want your money or your life

So, so, so, so?

So throw ya gunz in the air

And buck buck like ya just don't care

Just throw ya gunz in the air

And buck buck like you just don't care

Just throw ya gunz in the air

And buck buck like you just don't care

Just throw ya gunz in the air

And buck buck like you just don't care

Outro:

We the motherfuckin Onyx!

And we don't give a flying motherfuckin fuck

Ay yo DS man we gonna come get you out of jail man

Fuck that, yo DS we comin man, we got the bail

We got the bail, we gonna break you out man

Fuck that, yeah!

We the fuck up out of this piec

[preppernewstoday]

Do you have concerns about emergency preparedness for your military family? The official Military website has some helpful advice on what to do - such as building an emergency kit and writing down your phone numbers. This advice is important, but it's not very specific. Here I want to highlight some of the unique issues military families have when it comes to disaster preparedness. What makes disaster preparedness different for military families? Military families, like all others, need basic emergency supplies. Many military families are in a tight financial situation and move around every year. It can be very difficult to stockpile supplies. If a family member is active duty or a first responseer, the logistics of evacuation can be more difficult. These issues can be dealt with in practical ways so that you are prepared. Also see: 1. Learn more about disasters when you move There is no place in the world that is free from natural catastrophes . However, some areas are more dangerous than others. As a military family, there isn't much control over where you live. It is possible to end up in an area of high risk. Make sure to understand the most common disasters before you move. The website www.usa.com provides information about places in the United States. Just type in your zip code. Select the "Natural Disasters & Extremes" option to get information about the likelihood of certain disasters, as well as a list of 60-year-old disasters that have occurred in your area. Consider the steps that you should take before, during and after the disaster. These steps may vary depending on what type of disaster you are dealing with. A basement is the best place to be in your home in case of a tornado. Basements are susceptible to flooding and can prove dangerous in severe storms. You should watch videos of real-life disasters. Search for "earthquake camera street camera" to find them. It's amazing to see how terrible things can turn out (and how stupid people are when they get caught up in a storm). Mental preparation helps you to respond appropriately during an emergency. Also see: Mental Preparation Techniques to Help you Get Through Disasters Find out where the shut-offs for your utility are located. You will often need to turn off utilities during natural disasters. You may need to turn off utilities prior to the disaster (e.g. if you evacuate). Sometimes you will need to do it after the disaster has occurred (e.g. if there is a gas leak). Make sure you are familiar with the location of utility shut-offs and how to turn them off safely every time you move. For some, you might need a Silcock instrument. These can be mapped and written down. A hard copy of the information should be kept somewhere easily accessible. 2. A Military Family Should Stockpile Disaster Supplies FEMA and Red Cross recommend that you have at least three weeks worth of emergency supplies. If everyone had more, it would be ideal. It's not easy to have enough supplies for 3 weeks when you move every other year. It's unlikely that you will buy fuel tanks only to be able to throw them away when you move. Or spend thousands trying to transport them to your new home. These are things you can do instead. When you move, make sure to have an emergency food budget You should ensure that you have enough money to purchase at least three weeks' worth of nonperishable food. These foods should be purchased as soon as you move into your new house. These foods can be replaced with new ones if you don't like them. This will ensure that you always have food for three weeks. Start reducing your food storage when you are ready to move. This will save you the hassle of packing and moving a lot of food. You don't have to worry about giving away or throwing away food. Also see: Emergency Foods List - What to Stockpile? Determine Which Gear is Worth Taking With You When You Move Food and water are the most important, but there are many other items that are equally important.

These items can be expensive so it is worth taking them with you when you move. Take, for example: NOAA emergency radio Water purification system Flashlights Good batteries An emergency power supply, such as a solar panel and hand crank generator, is available. Other items are important but not too expensive. Bleach, trash bags, and tape are all important emergency items. It might be more practical to purchase these items after you move, rather than carrying them around with you every time you move. Learn How to Stockpile Water Water is the most important disaster supply. Water is essential for drinking and cooking. FEMA recommends that you drink one gallon of water daily. However, there are many people who need more water than this. Read How to store water for emergencies It's not always easy to store large quantities of water. The best option for people who aren't moving is to purchase high-quality water storage containers. These containers can be too heavy and expensive to transport with you when you move. Recycled containers are a better choice for military families to store water. You can clean a soda bottle and then fill it up with water. Plastic bottles can "expire", which means they may leak. Rotate the water bottles. Read: 3. Disaster Mitigation Attenuating damage is a big part of disaster preparedness. Take, for example: Hurricane shutters are able to protect against flying debris and prevent the rise of air pressure that can cause roofs to fall. Sump pumps are a great way to keep basements dry and prevent mold growth. High winds can cause damage to trees by clearing them. *Not sure what supplies are needed to prevent disasters? These guides will help you protect your home from earthquakes and flooding. If you are deciding whether to live on base or not, consider disaster mitigation supplies When deciding whether or not to live at base, you should consider the "disaster-readiness" of your housing. It is no secret that many military housings are old and inefficient. You shouldn't expect modern disaster protections such as roof bracing, sump pump against flooding, or storm shutters. Some military housing has been renovated. Ask about the details. It makes more sense to spend more on a home that is more prepared for disasters, especially if you live in high-risk areas. Ask your Landlord for Disaster Mitigation It is not something anyone wants to have to pay for, especially if it will be a short-term rental. One solution: Ask your landlord to cover disaster mitigation supplies Most landlords are aware of the importance of protecting their investment. If they don't understand the need to protect their investment, it's probably a sign that you shouldn't live there. Ask your landlord before you sign the lease. Fire extinguishers are not required by Landlords. Clearing branches: They can fall on your home or vehicle during earthquakes, strong winds, etc. Hurricane shutters Make sure you know who is responsible for installing them during an evacuation. Sandbags You should have these ready in case of a flood or hurricane. Once a disaster watch has been established, it will be difficult to get them. Understanding USAA Renter's Insurance It doesn't matter if you're a military family, or not. Renter's insurance is a smart idea. However, your renter's policy may not cover all natural catastrophes. The USAA website makes it appear that they automatically cover flood damage. This coverage is provided separately by the National Flood Insurance Program. Flood insurance must be purchased separately from other insurance policies. Remember that coverage can take up to 30 days before it kicks in. It is not possible to buy coverage just days before a hurricane hits. Make sure to understand what is covered! More information here. 4. Evacuation Plans The average evacuation cost for Hurricane Harvey was $1,200, including lost wages and expenses.

This was only for those who were close to their loved ones. People without family or friends were more likely to be evacuated because they had to pay for accommodation or hotel rooms. Evacuation can be expensive! A plan is essential to make evacuation easier and cheaper. These are the essential components of an evacuation plan that military families should have. Get Early When you look back at the history of natural disasters, it is clear that those who were able and willing to evacuate quickly had the best luck. You are more likely to face problems if you delay in evacuating. Traffic jams Gasoline delivery in long lines Gas stations run out of gas ATMs run out of cash Fully booked hotel rooms Blocked roads, downed Bridges, etc. It is also likely to be less expensive to leave early. If you're able to leave quickly, you might be able to find lower-priced accommodation than paying for what is left. To ensure you can leave on time: Make sure you have a "Go Bag" ready and packed Don't delay! This is a waste of time and will likely cause you to forget something important due to the stress. Read What to Pack in Your Family's Go Bag ? Talk to your partner about your plans: In particular, discuss with your partner the conditions under which you will evacuate. Will you evacuate when there is a hurricane warning? Will you wait for a hurricane warning to evacuate? This will save you from having to make critical decisions when things are stressful. Learn how to create a bug-out strategy. Be aware of where you're going. Make a list with hotels, evacuation shelters and family members that you can use. Plan how you'll get there: If you don't own a car, this can make it difficult. In an emergency, look into public transportation options. Make sure you have a separate budget for evacuation You will need to budget for accommodation, as you won't likely have any relatives or friends nearby. Remember that accommodations are often booked quickly for disaster evacuations. It is important to have a Plan A (B), B (C) and C (C). You may need to be away from your home for quite some time, depending on the extent of the disaster. This will require you to have enough money to pay for your living expenses. This can quickly add up, so make sure you start building your disaster fund right away! Find out where your nearest emergency shelters are located You will need to make a list of the emergency shelters that are available. You can include addresses and mark them on a map. Include any relevant information about the shelter, including whether pets are permitted. Not all emergency shelters have the basic necessities. You will still need to bring your essential items to shelter such as toilet paper and bottled water. Also see: FEMA and Red Cross emergency shelters are similar to 5. Family Communication Plan Every family should have a plan of communication in case of an emergency. This includes: Know each other's contact information: Write down phone numbers and keep a hard copy for disaster supplies or in Go Bags. You might need these documents when you contact hospitals. Establishing communication channels: In the event that your cell phone stops working, you'll need to create a way to contact you. Setting up meet-up points: In case of an emergency or family member being unable to get there, you'll need multiple locations. Learn more about How to communicate with your family after a disaster Families of military personnel should also be aware of their service's Personnel Accountability and Assessment System. These systems enable service personnel and their families to check in on each other and provide support during an emergency. These are the links to the PAAS These systems are not the only ones that can be used to locate lost relatives in an emergency.

[lambyarn64]

Commercial, House & Workplace Cleansing Companies

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[earlgreydream]

haunted.

| bucky x reader | fluff |

Bucky is new to town and feeling lonely when the townies are unfriendly. Until you show up at his door. soft, sweet bucky fluff to make you feel good! 🥺 🥰

cw: vague mentions of murder. because there’s a haunted house. but it’s not scary! 

a/n: I love “we have always lived in the castle” and this is loosely inspired by that film

Bucky felt like everyone stared at him. He didn’t anticipate moving to the small town and being the object of attention for it. He definitely didn’t expect some people to be overtly rude to him, or stare at him like he was a creature when he walked by. 

He could’ve sworn he heard the word “haunted” whispered by a group of people when he was buying paint at the small hardware store in town. Bucky turned to stare back, but they quickly hurried away under his confused silver gaze.

His opportunities to make friends seemed grim, and he found himself spending most of his time renovating the old fixer-upper he bought. He was beginning to wonder if moving here, away from his home was a good decision. It was lonely, and he felt like he’d made a mistake. 

About a week after he moved in, the weather was particularly nice, and he decided to start tackling the garden while the weather permitted. He was working outside when he saw you. 

“Hello!” You called, walking up to the gate of the fence he was painting. 

“Hi,” Bucky grinned, setting down his paintbrush and greeting you. 

“I’m Y/N. I live next door, I’m sorry I haven’t been over to introduce myself yet.” 

“I’m James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone just calls me Bucky. You’re actually the first person to properly speak to me. People in town... don’t seem fond of my arrival.” He struggled with the right way to phrase it, but you just smiled, shaking your head.

“It’s because of the house.” You explained.

“The house?” Bucky turned to the beautiful old victorian house he had moved into.

“Yeah. People in town are convinced it’s haunted. There was a murder here, a decade or so ago. The murderer is in jail now, and the house is completely fine, and safe. But the old people here are paranoid and superstitious. I’m sorry they’ve been unfriendly. They all claim it’s haunted,” you frowned, feeling sympathetic toward your new neighbor. 

He was sweet and friendly, and also incredibly handsome. You had come over to invite him for dinner, but had gotten distracted by his confusion about the unwelcoming town. Then, you found yourself staring at him. He wore a bright yellow shirt, standing out against the lush green of the garden. 

“It’s alright. I suppose I’ll have to prove I’m not a ghost,” he laughed. 

“I believe you. You are too kind to be a ghost. I came over actually to invite you for dinner. I thought you might be lonely.” 

His bright smile made warmth spread in your chest, and butterflies flutter in your tummy. 

“I’d love to, Y/N.” 

He watched you blush, giggling with excitement. You rattled off a time before running off, the breeze ruffling your hair and skirt as you crossed the yard back to your house. You waved at him and he smiled, waving back.

Bucky looked forward to spending time with you later. The sound of your laugh and the sweetness of your smile echoed in his mind as he continued with the fence. 

He cleaned up as the sun started to set, and he gathered daisies from the garden, wanting to make a good impression on you, and thank you for your hospitality. 

Bucky knocked on your door, and you swung it open with a smile. The scent of coffee and the food you were cooking filled his sense. 

“I brought these for you!” Bucky held up the flowers. You bit your lip with a blush, taking them from his hands. 

“Thank you, come in.” 

You stepped aside, letting him into your bright kitchen, putting the flowers into a jar on the table. 

“Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee or tea while I finish?” 

“Coffee, please. I can help you,” Bucky offered, and you shook your head. 

“I’ve got it. I’m almost done,” you said as you poured him a cup of coffee. 

“What brings you here, Bucky?”

“I was just looking to get out of New York City, to something more quiet. I wanted to renovate a house, too. This seemed perfect.” 

“I’m glad. It’ll be good to see the house alive again. You’re not so bad either,” you teased lightly, making him grin.

You set down dishes of food before taking a seat beside him, chattering long into the evening. You learned that he was from Brooklyn, and that he loved New York style pizza. He was also fond of classic novels and big band music, and loved the color yellow.  

You took coffee to your back porch swing, sitting with him and gently rocking in the dusk, continuing your conversation until the stars were glittering in the sky.

The doorbells chimed in the shop you worked at. You stepped out from the back, smiling at Bucky.

“Hi!” You grinned, happy to see him. 

“Y/N. I didn’t know you worked here.”

“What can I get for you?” 

“Knobs for a dresser. There was one in the house, I’m refurbishing it.”

“Certainly. What color have you painted it?”

“Just white, I didn’t know what else to do. It needs something.”

“If... If you wanted, I could give it some detailing. I paint.” You offered shyly. 

“I’d love that.”

“They’re on the house.” You smiled, handing him the knobs he asked for.

You were kneeling in the sunroom of Bucky’s home. A record was softly spinning in the corner, and a gentle breeze blew through the open windows. Bucky brought a cup of tea to you, setting it down beside you. 

“Thanks,” you smiled, reaching up and gently squeezing his hand before going back to painting delicate flowers on the dresser. He hummed along to the old song scratching on the record, and you smiled as he sipped on his tea, taking a break from painting the walls of the sunroom a pale sage green. 

Your hand stilled as you watched him. You stared at Bucky, he was too perfect for you not to. 

Despite the rumors of the house being haunted, and a curse placed over those who resided there, you found yourself at peace with Bucky in his home. It was bright and inviting, just like him. 

Every hour spent with him had you falling more hopelessly in love with him. 

You kept Bucky awake at night. He would stare up at the ceiling, thoughts of you filling his mind and his heart. You were so tender and warm, your presence alone was a comfort to him. You made him laugh, and you made joy flood his life. 

Bucky was catastrophically in love with you.

“I’ve brought you a book. It’s my favorite, and I didn’t see it in your library,” you said, walking into his home that you’d been spending weeks helping him paint and redecorate. 

He walked around the corner of the hall, taking the well-loved copy from your hand. A soft smile crossed his face when he saw your little notes in the margins of passages you loved.

He wrapped his arms around your waist, and yours found their way around his neck. You breathed him in, feeling safe and warm in his hug. You were sad when the long hug finally broke, Bucky looking up at the clock on the wall.

“Can you stay for tea?” Bucky asked, fiddling with the hem of his yellow shirt you loved.

“Of course.” 

The two of you curled up on the porch swing with your tea, enjoying the warm weather. 

“I was thinking about planting pumpkins in the garden for autumn.”

“You should. I have a pumpkin soup recipe, I can teach you,” you suggested, and he smiled softly.

“I’d love that.”

You leaned your head against his shoulder, settling as his arm wrapped around your body. You watched the housecat run across the grass before hopping on the porch below you. His hand gently rubbed small circles where it rested on your leg, and the two of you rocked gently.

Music played faintly from inside as always. Bucky always had a record spinning or a playlist drifting out through hidden speakers. You found the habit endearing, like most little things about him. 

He had what seemed to be hundreds of tea bags, always having tea and offering it to you. You noticed that teas you mentioned you enjoyed started showing up in his collection for you when you were over. Books were stacked on nearly every surface, and filled shelves throughout the house. 

You giggled, getting some flour on Bucky’s nose while the two of you were baking cookies in his kitchen. You gasped and squealed when he knocked flour all over your shirt, covering you in the white powder. 

“Bucky!” You giggled at the mess. 

“It wasn’t me, it was the ghost,” he teased with an adorable grin. You shook your head at him and he got one of his clean t-shirts for you to change into, tossing your ruined one in with his laundry. 

The fabric of his was soft and smelled like him. You hugged it to your body, smiling as your heart raced. You went back downstairs to finish baking, Bucky promising you he was going to behave. 

“Taste this, tell me if it’s good,” he laughed, holding out a spoon of the melted chocolate to you. You opened your mouth so he could feed it to you, and chocolate smeared over your lips as he pulled the spoon out. 

You nodded in delight, and an amused smile crossed his face. 

“You’ve got a little on your face, doll,” he laughed and you blushed. 

Your breath caught as he leaned forward and kissed you, tasting the chocolate on your lips. You smiled into the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck, your heart bursting. 

“Was that the ghost too?” you giggled shyly. 

“No, that was all me,” Bucky promised before kissing you again.