#nothing can help the hunger in ohio

[luxe-pauvre]

Bread was the staple of most of Europe’s poor — the French Revolution had been prompted in part by hunger brought on by catastrophic weather and a poor wheat harvest. It often served as a synecdoche for food in general, and for the meeting of basic human needs—and a lot of poor people actually lived on little more than bread. People would have been familiar with the Lord’s Prayer from the Book of Matthew that implores, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and with the biblical phrase “not by bread alone.” The Bible’s prescribed supplement to bread was the word of God, with perhaps the implication that all you needed on this earth was that bread because your joy and solace lay elsewhere. The roses in “bread and roses” can be heard as an explicit rejection of religion as the other half of human need, a proposal for its replacement by the joys and comforts of this world rather than the next. By mid-1912, the legendary New York labor organiser Rose Schneiderman had picked up the phrase and would use it many times (and she too would be credited with originating it). She declared in a speech in Cleveland, Ohio, that “what the woman who labours wants is the right to live, not simply exist—the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with."

Rebecca Solnit, Orwell’s Roses

[chaos-chloe]

OC's/AU's

Ring name: Dixie Fae

Nick Name: The Southern Belle

Irl name: Scarlette Wren Price

Birthday: July 26, 1998

Height: 5’3

Weight: 126 lbs.

Hair Color: Mahogany brown wavy

Eye color: Green

Voice: Rachel Zegler in Hunger games

Tattoo: Tramp Stamp - 

Partnering: Hook 

Entrance: Solo: Buckle Bunny - Tanner Adell

      Duo: TBD

Her Out of Ring Style: Any type of western style boot, bell bottom jeans, and any old t-shirt she can find, or a plain button up with a cami underneath, and her signature hat brown leather with embroidered white roses, blue thorns and stems with slight bedazzled underneath. You can catch her wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts here and there, but she is almost always done up.

Her In Ring Style: Short-Short blue jean shorts, a white tank top that's cropped above her belly button, a leather belt with one of her old buckles she won from her Horse riding comps, all black converse sneakers, and her characters signature Western Hat with rhinestones that say Kentucky or KY.

Backstory:

Scarlette grew up in Fort Knox, Kentucky with 2 older siblings (both brothers). They were raised on their family farm with all kinds of animals, you name ‘em, they got ‘em. She was raised riding horses, leisurely and competitively, wrangling cattle, chasing chickens, herding sheep's/lambs, feeding cows, mucking stalls, anything on a farm she knows how to get the job done. Since, she was always out with her dad on the farm they always came in and sat down in the living room on the old grandma couch watching wrestling. Scarlette was always fascinated with the women and men throwing, tackling, punching, and slapping each other like it was nothing. Scarlette told her ma and pa one night, that “you’ll see me throwin’ people like i throw straw, dad.”. He laughed at her, but he could see her doing it one day. Throughout her educational years, she was a part of the wrestling team working her way up to OVW (Ohio Valley Wrestling). Soon enough August 2020, she made her debut match against Skye Blue snatching the win with a nasty Shining Wizard, later renamed to Rattlesnake Bite or RSB. She is also known for her Spinning Heel Kick renamed to Bourbon Hitter. She is a southern belle as people would call her, she is always down to help people in their matches, train, give rides, has manners, etc. but if you're nasty and mean you better watch your back. So, what happens if Hook and Orange need a female wrestler, but Kris is not there? Kris texts a pretty ole’ belle, to come to the rescue.

Ring name: Hecate Reigns

Irl name: Adeline Belladonna Anoa’i 

Birthday: April 22, 1987 

Height: 5’5

Weight: 152

Hair Color: Dark brown (almost black)

Eye color: Brown Honey 

Tattoos: One on her back and the two on her thighs down to the bottom of her knees. 

Entrance: WWE: Me and The Devil - Soap & Skin

      AEW: Seven Devils - Florence + The Machine

Group Entrance: The Shield Theme

Held the Divas Championship for 286 days.

Held the AEW Women's Championship for 135 days. 

Backstory: 

Adeline is Romans/Leatis’ younger sister, who joined her wrestling career with her brother around 2011 in NXT. As he valet/manager just to get a feel of the ring and what's going on in and around the ring. Then, when Roman moved up to WWE with Seth Seth and Dean Ambrose she became their valet. Until the day came of Hecate making her debut and snatching the Divas Championship from AJ Lee, in a surprise match that AJ was begging for a new contender on April 22, 2013 till February 2, 2014 to Nikki Bella. In May 2013 at Extreme Rules, the next three members of The Shield won a championship, with Ambrose winning the United States Championship while Seth and Roman captured the WWE Tag Team Championship.  Yet all things must come to an end. The Shield in ring, Triple H's "plan B" for destroying The Shield turned out to be Seth suddenly attacking Ambrose, Roman and Hecate with a steel chair, signaling Seth re-alignment with The Authority. On the June 9 episode of Raw, Seth described his betrayal as severing a business relationship and that he had destroyed "his own creation" to further his own interests, while Ambrose and Roman (still labeled as The Shield)  addressed Seth' betrayal with Ambrose describing Seth as a "cancer" in The Shield, while Roman claimed that Seth "committed the most unforgivable sin". Later that no one seems to know where Hecate is or where she went, she disappeared from the face of the earth; not even Roman knew where she disappeared off to. Until Hecate resurfaced in Aew, competing in women's Casino Battle Royale and defeating Riho, she became the first ever AEW Women Champion. She held her championship for 135 days until losing it to Nyla Rose. Hecate has been popping up on Aew for any and all matches she can get her hands on, until a familiar face of Dean Ambrose/ Jon Moxley joined. Jon wanted her to be with him in BCC (Black Combat Club) but she respectfully declined but will keep the offer on her mind (She won't take it because of Wheeler).  But now she had a very surprising message from an OLD friend she knows very well.

“You want to play mind games on your older brother?”

Who can say no to that question……

I really don't know how to describe Bella; I slightly want her dressing like a hot Cheeto girl "gothic" clothes, but basic ass lounge wear. Her hair is usually in a bun, doesn't matter if its messy or not. No long nails, just short nice and kept up with. Her job is a social media person for her family's bakery.

[kidneyfoundationohio]

A Q&A with Incoming Board Chair, Sheri Beck-Eyssen

Sheri Beck-Eyssen has served as a volunteer, and member of the Kidney Foundation of Ohio (KFO) Board of Directors, for nearly 20 years. In 2023, she will serve as the Chair of the Board of Directors. We asked Sheri a few questions to learn more about her, her involvement with KFO, and her hopes for the future of the organization as she steps into leadership.

KFO: How and why did you get involved with the organization?

Sheri: I have been involved 17 years and counting with the Kidney Foundation of Ohio. The Kidney Foundation of Ohio was at an event I was being honored at for the Rainmaker of Tomorrow at the Cleveland Clinic Intercontinental. The KFO had a booth at the event promoting their mission and sharing insights. I knew then the KFO mission, values, and goals of the KFO were in alignment with my passion to help others and make a difference. I was a kidney patient and now a transplant recipient, and my hunger to be part of such a wholesome organization was exactly the right fit. I wanted to make a difference in lives of those struggling with kidney ailments and to educate others on the benefits of transplantation -was a match made in Heaven. My passion continues with the KFO and the amount of improvement and positive change I have seen over the years has been nothing short of amazing.

KFO: What is your favorite KFO activity or event?

Sheri: I value all the fundraising events the KFO puts on and particularly the events that meet families in the right places to take part in helping drive donations. The golf outing and the harvest walk are likely my top favorites because it draws camaraderie and fellowship at a different level. 

KFO: What have you enjoyed about being on the KFO Board of Directors thus far?

Sheri: As a Board member for several years, I appreciate and value the transparency and networking with every board member. It is truly enlightening to see and meet so many talented and brilliant people aiming to make a difference to impact the community, its people, and drive the importance of giving back. The different insights and various professional roles of the board members help to drive the mission forward and to continually grow the organizations donations. 

KFO: What are you most looking forward to as Chair?

Sheri: I am looking forward to being the Chair for the next two years to drive progress toward an even better organization striving for even more growth in donations, endowments, and charitable offerings. I would love to see more growth in fundraising efforts, consider new and different opportunities for additional giving, and more importantly the ability to influence helping even more patients in the future.  There are so many opportunities to make positive change as the Chair and I hope I can make a footprint which will make a lasting impression.

Interested in getting more involved as a volunteer for Kidney Foundation of Ohio? Contact Annette at afetter@kfohio.org or (216) 771-2700, or visit our website to learn what opportunities are available.

[blu-bary]

okay that ohio one hurted a little but it’s too accurate— 😭

ITS NOT ALL CORN I SWEAR I DONT LIVE IN A CORNFIELD OR ON A FARM

- playlist anon

sorry playlist, i dont know what to tell you🤷

[borkthemork]

WIP Preview for a Fic Titled: “On the Corner Between E. Harry and Quay”.

----

Marcy closed her eyes for a second. The heaviness wore down her face, her nose, the ache between her eyebrows. 

She had no money. No phone. Nothing that could give them an advantage except for their legs, the fact Yunan robbed a mugger blind of ten dollars, and Olivia's ability to improvise some new swatches of clothing — being that she stole them from a clothesline and were bulky enough for all three to look casual. A bit shifty, but forgivable.

They looked semi-decent as a family. Enough of a family for people to pass them, give them some shifty eyes, but go on their way.

But the biggest challenge hadn't been braced yet. The newts didn't say it much, but Marcy hated thinking on the idea that they should starve too. Or get antsy from the topic of food alone — which they didn’t have...at all.

Marcy needed to make a decision. Either she made them hold out for hours on end until they could get to Anne's house, or they conserved more energy. With Los Angeles, the roads could become long and tedious. They'd might as well do what they could to keep their stamina.

So on the corner of W. Anaheim and Palos Verdes, they made a plan.

They stood behind a 7-Eleven, the sign flickering as a car beeped its way by. Lady Olivia had kept her hands around Marcy's for most of their excursion, but now that they had time to rest — with no one around except for the sleeping man in the alleyway corner — they should be able to get what they need. She just needed to look casual, not alarm anyone to her armor or the fact that people could definitely see how her pipe wasn't a crutch at all.

Hmmm. Maybe she could describe it as cosplay. Would that work?

Probably.

Marcy and Yunan made their move. They went down the street. Cars buzzed past them under a green intersection light, some flying by with US flags, others a myriad of bumper stickers from Ohio to Oklahoma. And when she stopped at their destination, hands on her hips, Yunan's question stood out to her the most.

"So these...7-Elevens, shall curb the hunger?" Yunan asked her. "They look rather sparse for a depository."

"I can guarantee there's a lot more than that," she said, motioning a hand to the blue-lit windows. "They've got snacks, drinks, and stuff under one dollar or less. With ten bucks, we should be able to buy enough to cover the next few blocks." She hesitated. "Until I pass out, but that's not gonna happen."

At least, she hoped.

"Just keep your mask on and don't make too much eye contact. Find whatever you need, think of sustenance. Long-term."

And the general made a little scoff, enough for Marcy to grow relieved when the sliding doors parted and welcomed them — the welcome noise a familiar tune, a familiar memory.

A memory where Anne and Sasha heard the same noise, laughed at how noisy it was, and grabbed all the hotdogs and Krispy rolls they could find. Until they gained a bag fit for kings. For massive sleepovers that went up till dawn.

Almost as if nothing had changed. 

Almost.

When Yunan parted from her, Marcy turned her attention toward the high shelves.

Her hands went through numerous arrays of candy bars. She ogled the calories on snackers, on moon bars and cracker packs, and for a moment her worries over being observed by the cash register alleviated somewhat.

Especially since the general was too intrigued toward a corner section of the store, where she mumbled names under her breath.

Hot dogs dinged from the microwaves. Slush-ees stirred in their mesmerizing and high-concentrated syrup mixes. The newspaper stands sit in their bins. One was labelled the Wilmington Gazette, and announced on the paper’s corner tonight's date:

December 10, 2020. Seven months.

Seven months of her lying, being useless, being inconsiderate and selfish.

Gosh. She really did mess this up for everyone.

Marcy sighed. She resisted wrinkling the newspapers. Instead she placed the bundle gently back before the worker could note her behavior from behind her counter. Better than having the retail worker pay them for damage. She could barely compensate.

But the confirmation came just like she expected.

Marcy Wu wasn't in Inglewood, Westmont, or anywhere near Burbank. She had dropped near Long Beach, somewhere farther South where the coast touched the docks, and now she needed to go up toward the skyscrapers if she wanted to keep Yunan and Olivia safe.

Not a bad task but…

Marcy had to be honest, she was at her limit at this point.

She’d been walking for hours with numb legs, a growing headache, and no driver’s license in sight. There were too many factors to consider. Too many consequences to count.

There came the idea of caught by police. Being caught by government scientists, confronted by her parents, over old mistakes that she oh so didn’t want to rip back open again. There came the conquering of numerous realms. There came the burning question of what secured deeply inside her mind and body. A lot that happened all at once.

But out of everything Marcy did, she couldn’t help but feel stubborn. She’d worked in stressful situations before. She fought a cult, took out an entire pirate mutiny, and practically rehauled systems so ancient and traditional that she herself was surprised when she actually fixed it all up ship-shape.

Right now, Yunan and Olivia counted on her to be safe. They had nowhere else to go, no human guide to show them what was safe and what wasn’t.

And that meant Marcy needed to improvise. Improvise until Anne took them in, allowed the newts to stay in her home, and maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to handle the mass that hid inside of her.

For better or worse, she needed to think of the bigger picture. A bigger picture where the balance between two realms continued to wobble on an uncertain axis.

And Marcy had to do something to fix it.

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

The Minnesota Starvation Study

In the 1940s, when starvation was widespread throughout war-torn Europe, little was known about the effects of human starvation or how to best refeed people who’d suffered from such deprivations. Dr. Keys led the first scientific study of calorie restrictions, at the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota, for the War Department. The researchers wanted to understand the medical needs facing millions of starving war victims and how best to renourish and rehabilitate them to health after the war. Their study was known as the Minnesota Starvation Study and the results were published in the legendary two-volume, Biology of Human Starvation (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis, 1950). The study itself was so comprehensive and intense, however, that even Dr. Keys admitted no other human experiment quite like it will ever be done again because, given what we now know, it would be seen as too cruel and life-threatening. While the degree of suffering the participants underwent would violate what is seen as the ethical rights for human research subjects today, in one respect this study was different from obesity and weight loss research done today. These men were not volunteering because they felt they needed to lose weight for fear that their own lives were endangered, nor were the study authors motivated by personal gain or selling a weight loss program. Even the recruitment poster for the Minnesota Experiment, dated May 27, 1944, asked for men willing to starve so others may be better fed. The volunteers were all conscientious objectors to the war who said they wanted to do something of real meaning for their country, make a contribution to science and help to improve the medical care for the millions of starving people in Europe. They gave their consent freely, without a feeling of personal duress and with full knowledge of the risks. The recruitment information they were given stressed how difficult the experiment would be. One participant later said: “They explained what was going to happen. There was nothing held back. They explained that they could not assure me that there would be no permanent damage… They did not know what would happen. This is what they were trying to find out… really they emphasized the discomfort… this was not going to be an easy task down the road.” Sixty years later, Johns Hopkins interviewed the surviving study participants for their first-hand experiences and they all said they would do it again:

[T]he men continued to look back on participation in the Minnesota Experiment as one of the most important and memorable activities in their lives. Wesley Miller reported, “It’s colored my whole life experience… [and was] one of the most important things I ever did… I’m proud of the work the Civilian Public Service did during the war.“ Samuel Legg seemed to speak for all of the men when he commented, “I think probably most of us are feeling we did something good and are glad we did it, and that helps us live a better life.”

The experiment — the starvation syndrome

The 40 young male participants were carefully selected among hundreds of volunteers for being especially psychologically and socially well-adjusted, good-humored, motivated, well-educated, active and healthy. They were put on calorie-restrictive diets of about 1,600 calorie/day, meant to reflect that experienced in war-torn regions, for 3 months. They dieted to lose 2.5 pounds a week to lose 25% of their natural body weight. The calories were more generous than many weight loss diets prescribe today! What this study was actually studying, of course, was dieting and restrictive eating — our bodies can’t tell the difference if they’re being semi-starved involuntarily like war victims or voluntarily. During the 3-month nutritional rehabilitation period after the diet, the men were randomly assigned to various nutritional regimens, with differing levels of calories, proteins and vitamins. The men lived at the lab and everything they ate and did was closely monitored, as was their health with a battery of tests. Daily exercise was walking about 3 miles a day. As difficult as the diets were for the subjects, they knew their hunger was less than that of the war victims they were trying to help. All but four completed the study. One of the participants said: “The difference between us and the people we were trying to serve: they probably had less food than we did. We were starving under the best possible medical conditions. And most of all, we knew the exact day on which our torture was going to end. None of that was true of people in Belgium, the Netherlands, or whatever.” Dr. Keys and colleagues painstakingly chronicled how the men did during the 6 months of dietary interventions and for up to a year afterwards. This study scientifically defined for the first time “the starvation syndrome.” As the men lost weight, their physical endurance dropped by half, their strength about 10%, and their reflexes became sluggish — with the men initially the most fit showing the greatest deterioration, according to Dr. Keys. The men’s resting metabolic rates declined by 40%, their heart volume shrank about 20%, their pulses slowed and their body temperatures dropped. They complained of feeling cold, tired and hungry; having trouble concentrating; of impaired judgment and comprehension; dizzy spells; visual disturbances; ringing in their ears; tingling and numbing of their extremities; stomach aches, body aches and headaches; trouble sleeping; hair thinning; and their skin growing dry and thin. Their sexual function and testes size were reduced and they lost all interest in sex. They had every physical indication of accelerated aging. As the physical effects became more dramatic, one study participant said Mrs. Keys confided that Dr. Keys “went through terrible times during the experiment as we lost weight and became gaunt and so on. And he would come home and say, ‘What am I doing to these young men? I had no idea it was going to be this hard.’” But the psychological changes that were brought on by dieting, even among these robust men with only moderate calorie restrictions, were the most profound and unexpected. So much so that Dr. Keys called it “semistarvation neurosis.” The men became nervous, anxious, apathetic, withdrawn, impatient, self-critical with distorted body images and even feeling overweight, moody, emotional and depressed. A few even mutilated themselves, one chopping off three fingers in stress. They lost their ambition and feelings of adequacy, and their cultural and academic interests narrowed. They neglected their appearance, became loners and their social and family relationships suffered. They lost their senses of humor, love and compassion. Instead, they became obsessed with food, thinking, talking and reading about it constantly; developed weird eating rituals; began hoarding things; consumed vast amounts of coffee and tea; and chewed gum incessantly (as many as 40 packages a day). Binge eating episodes also became a problem as some of the men were unable to continue to restrict their eating in their hunger. The act of restricting food and the constant hunger “made food the most important thing in one’s life,” said one of the participants. “Food became the one central and only thing really in one’s life. And life is pretty dull if that’s the only thing. I mean, if you went to a movie, you weren’t particularly interested in the love scenes, but you noticed every time they ate and what they ate.” These experiences are familiar to those who’ve spent their lives dieting. In fact, many of the symptoms once thought to be primary features of anorexia nervosa are actually normal biological responses of undernutrition and restrictive eating, said David M. Garner, PhD., director of River Centre Clinic in Sylvania, Ohio, in Psychoeducational principles in the treatment of eating disorders (NY: Guilford Press, 1997). It was actually Dr. Keys’ research that first evidenced the role of dieting in increasing risks for eating disorders. The extreme physical and mental effects Dr. Keys observed led to his famous quote: “Starved people cannot be taught democracy. To talk about the will of the people when you aren’t feeding them is perfect hogwash.” This was also what led early feminist activists to see dieting and weight concerns as a way to keep women preoccupied with food, filled with guilt and self-hatred, more easily influenced by others, and too mentally and physically exhausted to succeed professionally and politically.

The aftermath

The last part of the Minnesota Starvation Study revealed perhaps the most important effects. When the men were allowed to eat ad libitum again, they had insatiable appetites, yet never felt full. Even five months later, some continued to have dysfunctional eating, although most were finally regaining some normalization of their eating. As they regained their weights, their suppressed metabolism and energy levels returned, although even three months after ending the diet none of the men had yet regained their former physical capacity, noted Dr. Keys. While it seemed the men were “overeating,” Dr. Keys discovered that their bodies actually needed inordinate amount of calories for their tissues to be rebuilt:

Our experiments have shown that in an adult man no appreciable rehabilitation can take place on a diet of 2,000 calories a day. The proper level is more like 4,000 kcal daily for some months. The character of the rehabilitation diet is important also, but unless calories are abundant, then extra proteins, vitamins and minerals are of little value.

In other words, they weren’t really “overeating,” it was a biological, normal effect of hunger and weight loss. The men regained their original weights plus 10%. The regained weight was disproportionally fat, and their lean body mass recovered much more slowly. With unlimited food and unrestricted eating, their weights plateaued and finally, about 9 months later, most had naturally returned to their initial weights without trying — giving scientists one of the first demonstrations that each body has a natural, genetic set point, whether it be fat or thin. Despite the fear that with unrestrained eating everyone would continue to grow larger, it isn’t true. As Dr. Garner explained:

One of the most notable implications of the Minnesota experiment is that it challenges the popular notion that body weight is easily altered if one simply exercises a bit of “willpower.“ It also demonstrates that the body is not simply “reprogrammed” at a lower set point once weight loss has been achieved. The volunteers’ experimental diet was unsuccessful in overriding their bodies’ strong propensity to defend a particular weight level. Again, it is important to emphasize that following the months of refeeding, the Minnesota volunteers did not skyrocket into obesity.

[…] Scientists at Rockefeller University replicated the findings of the Minnesota Starvation study and went on to learn that the body has an incredibly complex and sophisticated system to regulate its fat stores. And when those fat levels deviate from the body’s genetic setpoint, compensatory mechanisms kick in to return the body to is normal state without us having a lot of say about the matter. Decades of sound studies have continued to show that healthy obese people eat and behave no differently than anyone else to explain why their bodies are bigger. It’s not “overeating,” or eating “unhealthy” foods or not enough “healthy” foods, or too little activity, that explains why some of us are fat and others lean. Conventional wisdom on obesity’s cause hasn’t changed appreciably from the time of Galen, who held obese individuals responsible for their size, said obesity researcher Dr. Jeffrey M. Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at Rockefeller University. The commonly held belief that obese people can simply decide to eat less and exercise more to control their weight is “at odds with substantial scientific evidence illuminating a precise and powerful biological system that maintains body weight within a relatively narrow range (10-20 pounds),” he said. Fat people are victimized by a social stigma predicated on these myths, he wrote in a 2004 issue of Nature Medicine. Our body shapes and sizes are, to a most significant extent, genetically determined. “The heritability of obesity is equivalent to that of height and greater than that of almost every other condition that has been studied,” said Dr. Friedman. Someone genetically predisposed to obesity will become obese independent of their caloric intake, he explains. And, while it may explain a few extra pounds, it’s not the environment, where almost everyone as unlimited access to calories, that explains the marked difference in body weights in our population today. “Why has the scientific evidence from long-standing obesity research not found its way into the minds of the public and even a significant proportion of the scientific community?,” asks Dr. Friedman. “Perhaps,“ he says, "it is because these views are shaped by a constant barrage of advertisements from the diet industry which has a multibillion dollar interest in promoting the view that weight can be controlled through volition alone… Perhaps it is because humans prefer to believe that the conscious wish to be trim is an element of our “free will” and should therefore dominate” our genes. But the average person eats one million or more calories each year, while weight changes very little, because energy balance is biologically regulated with a precision of greater than 99.5%, which far exceeds what can be consciously controlled, he explained.

[lovesnightwriter]

Monica and Darren - Epilogue

Epilogue 

Monica closed the last box of dishes that lay open on the kitchen floor. The sun shined brightly across her slim brown face as she looked up from sliding the final strip of packing tape across the box marked “kitchen”. She could feel the beads of sweat forming on her hairline as she finished her work and silently cursed herself for not remembering to tie her hair down before she started packing. As she moved about the small kitchen floor she couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment from the scattered mini mountains of small boxes. All of these boxes meant a move was finally coming.  

She got a job offer four weeks after finishing grad school and was leaving Columbus for the Chocolate City and all of the adventures it would bring. Not only was she starting her dream job but her finance, Darren, agreed to make the move with her. The timing couldn’t be better since he just finished law school and they were waiting on  bar exam results to be released any day now. The paces of moving was a welcome distraction for both of them. Monica smiled with pride thinking about how Darren managed long nights in the library studying for the bar exam, working a part time job as a youth football couch and helping her maintain a sense of sanity through grad school. 

“It’s all coming together,” Monica beamed and said to no one in particular. 

For years she dreamed of having a career as a high powered lobbyist, a fine husband and beautiful babies. All of the boxes were getting checked and while things weren’t always fireworks with Darren she knew he was a solid guy. He was hardworking and committed. Dutiful and loyal to his family, friends and teammates. His loyalty was chief among the traits Monica loved about him. 

Darren being a football phenom in the midwest regularly had ESPN pundits discussing his performance on the field. It helped that he was likeable with a magnetic personality and didn’t indulge in off-the-field antics like other high profile players in the Big 10 division. While he excelled on the field and earned notoriety for his powerful arm, off the field he laid low. He attended the occasional campus party and participated in program sponsored events, but other than that he was unusually focused on being a student athlete with hopes of playing in the NFL. That was the dream and the ultimate goal. And nothing came between him and the dream. Many of the other players, accustomed to the attention and privileges that being a star football player offered would secretly tease Darren about his straight and narrow ways when he wasn’t around. Nobody teased him or dared to bully him to his face because as a leader on the squad and one of the few students held in high regard with the coaching staff, being on his good side meant more playing time. He attended classes, never asked for any extraperks with professors and stayed away from the temptations that plagued other athletes. For years he planned on his ticket out of Ohio getting punched on draft day and he navigated the collegiate landmines with precision to ensure that it happened. 

Tall and handsome Darren was the star quarterback at Ohio State but a career ending knee injury against Penn State ended his football dreams his junior year weeks before he was to declare for the NFL. Monica was in the stands for the powerful blindside that ended his football career and wanted to run to the field when she saw him laid out on the turf surrounded by coaches and team doctors. He had to be taken off the field in the medical cart since he was unable to walk. With a towel draped over his face to hide his tears of pain and knowledge of what had just happened,  he didn’t need x-rays or doctors to tell him he was done playing football. The silence of the stadium was unlike anything either of them had ever experienced. Thousands of fans watching their star player’s career ending and all Darren had to hide his fear and tears was a small white towel. 

Monica was there to help him figure out what life after the game looked like. After several late nights spent crying from shame and depression to Monica, he bought into her dream of them being a high-powered couple moving and making deals. Him as a lawyer and her as a savvy lobbyist. Thankfully his diligence in his course work would allow him to easily get into the University’s law school. With Monica’s masterminding, he released a statement officially retiring from football but remaining an active member on campus with hopes of graduation from the prestigious law school once he finished undergrad. He said he hoped to bring pride to the school in a different way and that he would need the support of the entire campus to help him get through these next few years as he transitioned from player to fan. University administrators ate it up and all but ensured his entrance into the law program. 

That wasn’t so long ago, but seemed like a lifetime. Classes, hustling to keep money in their pockets, landing internships and graduating from their respective programs kept them busy. Over the years they’d had their fair share of disagreements when times were tense, but always came back together, literally and figuratively. 

Speaking of coming back together,  Monica could see his muscular frame just on the other side of their one bedroom apartment. He looked like a giant in the small one bedroom apartment and was making quick work of moving all of their boxes from inside to the moving truck two floors below. She wanted to go to him and make-up after this morning's dust up over misplaced toiletries but figured it best to wait until all of the packing was done. 

While he wouldn’t say it, Monica knew he was excited about this move also. The days leading up to today had been strained, but Monica remained laser focused, avoiding potential arguments like active landmines and ensuring she kept Darren in a good mood or else they would start one of the countless “discussions” on why he should stay in Columbus for a little while longer until he was able to save money and “figure things out”. Any discussion with Darren, was the equivalent of arguing a case to Monica. He was always ready with a rebuttal and while his LSAT days were long behind him, Monica felt like she was the one having the logic games played on her whenever they had a difference of opinion. In retrospect, his constant need to defend his logic made her laugh often because he initially questioned a career in law. Monica always saw the qualities of a great lawyer in him, even if he couldn’t. To her, there wasn’t much to figure out. The odds of finding a law position were much higher in D.C. than Ohio, plus the experience would be invaluable to the trajectory of his career. He could always come back to Ohio after he stacked his resume with high profile D.C. positions. She had enough money from her bar waitressing gig to get them through the month it would take for her first payroll check to come through from her new job. The plan was already in motion and like a true mastermind Monica just needed Darren to move as she instructed.

Once the kitchen was packed, Monica walked out through the french doors and across the living room. All that remained was a small brown loveseat that was being left for her little sister, and two duffle bags of clothes with odds and ends to get them through the five hour drive comfortably. 

“We had some good times in this place”, said Monica looking around the 800 square foot space. 

“Oh, now you want to get all nostalgic on me,” Darren said back to Monica rolling his eyes. 

“When we first moved in here you hated this place. You used to put toilet paper down to pee in your own apartment, no matter how many times I cleaned it” Darren stated not wanting to participate in her stroll down memory lane. 

Monica chuckled, “Wow I forgot all about that, I just had to get comfortable in the space. You know how picky I can be about my space.”

Darren’s response was a simple passing glance and “hmph” as he lifted two boxes from the kitchen and made a beeline for the front door. 

He was right. Monica hated the apartment when he first showed it to her online and even more when they looked at it in person. It was small and had very little natural light. The building smelled old and the place was a magnet for dust since there was no forced air ventilation system. But it was close to school and within their modest budget.

“Is this the last of it?,” Darren asked, doing a sweeping glance of the empty space of what used to be their home.

“Yep, that’s it” Monica replied with an eager smile. 

The place felt barren, and while it was small Monica had worked hard to make it feel more grander than the humble bare bones apartment that it was when they moved in. All of the framed posters featuring replicas of fine art by Bernie Casey and Lois Mailou Jones had been taken down and gently wrapped for the journey to D.C.

To Monica the place didn’t even smell the same. The candles she left on warmers in various areas of the apartment were also packed, taking with them the familiar scents of warm spicy clove and mandarin orange. Darren used to complain about all of the different smells but eventually he let it go. He never said much about the effort Monica put in to decorate or make the space feel cozy. Monica often walked into their bedroom in the mornings to find the throw pillows on the floor or the duvet scrunched up at the foot of the bed with him long gone in the shower or getting ready for the day with little thought to put things back in order. The thought made Monica roll her eyes as she took stock of what little was left to pack. They were leaving this place as they found it. It was time for someone else to put their mark on the space. Monica felt hunger pain and snapped out of her thoughts of leaving the space. 

“I was gonna go to Fernando’s to grab a pizza for dinner, figured we would end this how we started. A nice romantic dinner of pizza on the floor”, Monica said with a chuckle as she grabbed her keys and gave Darren a quick peck and walked out their apartment door. 

As she walked out of the two-story building she realized she would miss this place. It was nothing fancy, and needed a lot of love but it was the start of she and Darren’s adult relationship. A place and space all their own.

*****

When Monica returned she smelled Darron’s body wash in the air and heard the stream of the shower.  She set the pizza down in the kitchen and quietly walked to the bathroom where she found a naked Darron covered in soapy suds. 

Thankful for her stop at the local beauty store to get a new bonnet and scarf on her way back from grabbing dinner she would need them sooner than she thought. Quietly she undressed, wrapped up her hair and covered it with the bonnet. It wasn’t the sexiest look but Darren grew accustomed to the site years ago and dared not ask her to remove it and potentially mess up her silk pressed tresses. 

Monica slowly entered the shower behind Darron and caressed his back, making a mmmmm sound as she worked her hands over his broad shoulders. 

He jumped briefly then realized it was Monica, “you can’t be walking up on people like that,” Darron said, only half joking. 

“Well, I wanted to wash your back. May I?” Monica extended her hand for his soapy rag. 

Monica scrubbed in an exaggerated fashion at first, earning her a low laugh and “alright now” from Darren. Then she turned him around so their bodies were front to front. She saw Darron’s gaze fall to her 34C breast and knew he wanted  to touch them. 

Darron was a body man. Most men had a preference between breast or butt on a woman. He liked to say he preferred ample amounts of TNA, tits and ass. Thankfully Monica’s 5’6 , 140 build gave him just enough of both to be satisfied. 

Before Darron could reach out and begin fondling her, Monica dropped into a squat balancing on her toes, careful to keep Darron’s body in front of the hot stream of the shower head and to avoid getting her hair wet.  She took Darren’s semi erect penis in her mouth and groaned in pleasure. Within seconds Darren was fully erect and Monica could taste a small trickle of pre-cum in the back of her throat. 

Monica loved how Darren tasted, loved how the head of his dick would fill the back of her throat as she sucked him off. Slowly, Monica started to take Darren further into her mouth, while she sucked she made sure to use one hand to massage his sack and the other to stroke his dick as she sucked. Monica could feel Darren’s body relax. That was the goal, she knew he was stressed about the move and wanted to take his mind off of things. All of the “what if’s” and questions about how it would all come together. Once Darren was nice and hard Monica looked up and asked Darren, “What do you want to do?” 

“How would you like to cum.”

The words dripped off of Monica’s lips like thick syrup. Eyes locked in on Darren she smacked his dick on her outstretched tongue and let a pool of saliva sit on her tongue creating the perfect “splash” so spittl would land around her mouth as she softly bobbed him up and down on her tongue. 

Hearing no request she decided for him, pearl necklace it is. 

Monica went from a squatting position to a full two-point kneeling position. It was tricky in the tight shower but she made it work. 

She started to suck harder, using both hands to massage Darren as she sucked, being mindful to put on a show as her head bobbed up and down his hard shaft. Monica gagged and her eyeliner began to run as she massaged and sucked. Monica secretly relished being on her knees, or back or any other position that allowed her to have his hard dick in her face. Several times she wondered if she was obsessed with him but chalked it up to him being the person she’d ever been with. She didn’t know anyone or anything else. 

As the saliva gathered in the corners of her mouth, Monica continued to suck until she could feel Darren’s body tense.

“Ugh, I’m not done yet”, Monica thought to herself. 

Down on the floor of the shower she was an ameature pornstar, staring in her own dirty flick. She wasn’t a polished and buttoned up co-Ed. No, in these moments she wanted to be his fantasy. She wanted to go further, get nastier. In her mind, Darren would grab her face and fuck her mouth making her gag and hold the shower wall to keep from falling as he rammed himself into her hungry mouth. Or maybe rub his hard dick all over her face asking her if she deserved a taste—make a mess of her minimal makeup while cum and gag tears ran down her chin from the act. Any form of him taking control of her, showing her how he wanted to meet his release. But none of that happened. 

Monica massaged and sucked until she felt the hot stream of cum in the back of her throat. Darren quickly pulled himself from the warmth of Monica mouth and emptied himself into the stream of water at the bottom of the tub. 

“What a waste,” said Monica. “ I was hoping for a new pearl necklace.” She quipped with a naughty smile. 

After Monica stood she washed herself, dressed in a nightgown from one of the two duffle bags and made a picnic style set-up  while Darren blew up the air mattress they would sleep on in their last night in Ohio. While Darron wasn’t looking ,Monica pulled out a bottle of Darren’s favorite wine from her duffle bag, and two paper cups. While she wasn’t particularly fond of the bold red wine, it was his favorite. His taste in fine wine was compliments of many of the University Boosters. It seemed a crime they were drinking such a fine blend out of paper cups but this was a moment to celebrate. 

“To us!” Monica proclaimed as she thrust a cup into Darren’s direction just as he finished working with the mattress.

“What’s this?” , Darren asked with a curious look. 

Monica showed Darren the bottle of Catena Zapata Nicasia Malbec. The look she received took some of the wind out of her celebration. 

“Monica, I really hope that fell off the back of a truck and you didn’t spend unnecessary money on this wine.”

Monica didn’t let the question bother her, she told a little white lie to avoid it. “Well I purchased it when you first passed the bar and forgot I hid it. I found it when we were  packing and thought it was a great time to open it.”

“So what do you say? Cheers to new beginnings.”

[science-fiction-is-real]

Listen.  Leftists.  LISTEN.

If we want to build a strong working class movement, we’re gunna have to fucking organize with republicans.  I’m sorry.  But there’s no getting around it.   We’re gonna have to suck it up and organize with fucking republicans.

The idea of associating with someone who voted for trump makes many people on the left extremely uncomfortable.  This is especially understandable if you are a person of color, not an American citizen, or LBGT+.  And if you want to leave the work of organizing with republicans to your white cis-het comrades, go ahead, that's perfectly valid.  I don’t want to invalidate the pain of people who have experienced bigotry. 

But unless we are willing and able to organize with the ENTIRE working class, we cannot expect to gain any ground whatsoever in the fight for working class emancipation.  This is just a cold hard fact.

How are you going to organize the Walmart where you work in Cornfuck Ohio if you don’t want to associate with your Trumpster co-workers?

How are you going to organize your community to petition for and vote for progressive ballot measures if you don’t talk to your republican neighbors?

How are you going to fight for working class empowerment when entire segments of the working class are not invited to the discussion table?  Are you fighting for the working class, or just a segment of it?  Because any working class movement that is unable to build strong coalitions across the entire population is doomed to failure, as history has shown.

Working class people who vote republicans don’t necessarily do so out of hatred for anyone outside themselves.  They often do it because they correctly observe how liberal politicians consistently ignore the needs of working class people and consistently fail to deliver on promises to make life easier for the average person.

Obviously the republican politicians are no better. But If republican working class voters are brainwashed, democratic ones most certainly are too.  If you still “miss Obama,” think Kamala Harris is a badass “Girl Boss,”  or thing everything would have been just fine if Hillary had one in 2016, you need to grow the fuck up, get some class consciousness, and read a damn book.  Those guys are all objectively terrible people who have done nothing but hurt and disenfranchise working class people their whole careers.

But when you see how support for republican and democrat candidates almost always get near 50-50 vote in presidential races, well those are the same numbers we would get if the majority of people in the country were picking who to vote for at random.  It reflects the fact neither party makes a serious effort to address the needs of their voter base.

And we can see how states that swung for trump also passed some extremely progressive legislation this election.  Such as Florida raising the Min wage to 15$ an hour.  There is a deep hunger for progressive politics even in red states.

Are trump voters racist?  Well, yeah, a lot of them are.  But we most people in america are at least a little racist since we’ve grown up in a racist culture, being bombarded non-stop with racist propaganda.  To say “well, they should know better by now,” or “why don’t they bother to educate themselves,” falls back on a capitalistic individual-responsibility narrative that is no more accurate in helping to understand what’s going on than telling poor people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

We don’t have time to moralize our neighbors.  We need to build strategies based on material reality, with the goal in mind in putting money and power in the hands of the working class.

We also have to remember that the “culture war,”  the idea that american people are either stupid backward redneck racists or crusty out-of-touch liberal elites, is one that is very deliberately manufactured by the ruling class to keep working class people divided.  And we know that it’s working because the moment I suggest to you to organize with republicans, your stomach kind of twisted into a not.  

Of course, that leaves the question, how do we bring right wing-voters into our movement without compromising our values for respecting diversity, and respecting the rights of individuals to live as they please?

I would suggest the best way to do this is to speak as if leftist tolerance is a common sense idea taken for granted.  We fight for gay rights, abortion rights, and minority rights just as we fight for reduced rent and higher wages.  We concentrate on positive demands for building a better world instead of morally condemning those who are not yet 100% on board with our ideas, due to having grown up in a culture that doesn’t jive with those ideas.

The other thing we have to remember is that very few things combat bigotry besides the class struggle itself.  When we build mass movements that appeal to the material concrete needs of working class people of all backgrounds, when we encourage working class people to fight on their own behalf, what’s going to happen is people who don’t normally see themselves as allies will find themselves fighting on the same side. This is not a hippy dippy nice idea, this is something that has been demonstrated repeatedly in the history of working class movements.  Go read about the black panthers and the Rainbow coalition.  

This doesn’t mean we need to tolerate when people in our movement are racist or sexist or homophobic toward others in our movement.  But it does mean we need to approach this problem with an educate-first, condemn-second attitude. 

Obviously there is a lot of nuance to this topic, and a lot of caveats, potential counter-arguments, and lines of evidence, that I have to leave out so this post isn’t too long. 

But the thing is...  Organizing with working class people who are at a low or backwards level of political consciousness is just part of being a leftist.  

[seekfirstme]

The following reflection is courtesy of Don Schwager © 2021. Don's website is located at Dailyscripture.net

Meditation: In his Last Supper discourse with his beloved disciples Jesus speaks of his glory and the glory of his Father. What is this glory? It is the cross which Jesus speaks of here and the willing offering of his life for us. How does the cross reveal this glory? In the cross God reveals the breadth of his great love for sinners and the power of Jesus' redemptive sacrifice which cancels the debt of sin and reverses the curse of our condemnation (Romans 8:1). Jesus gave his Father the supreme honor and glory through his obedience and willingness to go to the cross for our sake. In times of defense the greatest honor belongs not to those who fought and survived but to those who gave the supreme sacrifice of their own lives for their fellow citizens.The Lord Jesus freely and willingly offered up his life out of obedience to his Father and love for us.

Jesus reveals the glory of God to us

Jesus speaks of the Father bringing glory to the Son through the great mystery of the Incarnation - the eternal Word who became flesh for our sake (John 1:14) - and the Cross of Christ which won for us pardon, freedom, and new life in the Holy Spirit. God the Father gave us his only begotten Son to set us free from slavery to sin, guilt, and condemnation. His sacrificial death brings us new life - the abundant life of peace and joy which God wishes to share with each one of us. There is no greater proof of God's love for each and every person on the face of the earth than the Cross of Jesus Christ. In the cross we see a new way of love - a love that is merciful, sacrificial, and generous beyond measure.

Jesus offers abundant life without end

Jesus offers us eternal life. What is eternal life? It is more than simply a life without end or an eternal state of being. Science and medicine look for ways to extend the duration of human life - but God offers us something vastly greater and more surpassing than a simple extension of physical life. Eternal life is qualitative more than quantitative. To have eternal life is to have the very life of God within us. When we possess eternal life we experience here and now something of God's majesty, glory, and holiness which he shares with us. Through the gift and working of the Holy Spirit, God fills us with the abundant fruit of his peace, joy and love.

We can know God personally

Jesus also speaks of the knowledge of God. Jesus tells his disciples that they can know the only true God. Knowledge of God is not simply limited to knowing something about God, but we can know God personally and be united with God in a personal relationship of love and friendship. The essence of Christianity, and what makes it distinct from Judaism and other religions, is the personal and experiential knowledge of God as our eternal Father - the one who knew us before creation (Ephesians 1:4 and Romans 8:29) and who knit us in our mother's womb (Psalm 139:13 and Jeremiah 1:5). Jesus makes it possible for each of us to personally know God as our Father. To see Jesus is to see what God is like.

A unity of love that endures forever

In Jesus Christ we see the perfect love of God - a God who cares intensely and who yearns over men and women, loving them to the point of laying down his life for them upon the Cross. Jesus is the revelation of God - a God who loves us completely, unconditionally and perfectly. Do you hunger to know God personally and to be united with the Father in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through the unity of the Holy Spirit who dwells with us? The Lord Jesus invites each of us to enter more deeply into a personal relationship of love and oneness of mind, heart, and spirit with the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who created us in love for love.

"If only I possessed the grace, good Jesus, to be utterly at one with you! Amidst all the variety of worldly things around me, Lord, the only thing I crave is unity with you. You are all my soul needs. Unite, dear friend of my heart, this unique little soul of mine to your perfect goodness.You are all mine; when shall I be yours? Lord Jesus, my beloved, be the magnet of my heart; clasp, press, unite me for ever to your sacred heart. You have made me for yourself; make me one with you. Absorb this tiny drop of life into the ocean of goodness whence it came. (Prayer of Francis de Sales, 1567-1622) "

The following reflection is from One Bread, One Body courtesy of Presentation Ministries © 2021.

BOLD AND UNCOMPROMISING

“I have never shrunk from announcing to you God’s design in its entirety.” —Acts 20:27

Historically, when the Church has been shrinking, the Lord has raised up shrink-resistant men and women who never shrink from speaking the total truth of God’s plan (Acts 20:27). They insist “solemnly on repentance before God” (Acts 20:21). They never shrink from telling people what is for their good, or from teaching them in every way God’s truth (Acts 20:20).

The Holy Spirit lavishes us with grace to expand. Yet we must put aside our old, fearful nature which shrinks from the fear of man. Jesus taught that no one sews a new “unshrunken” cloth onto an old cloth (Mt 9:16), else it would tear loose. We can’t mix our old “shrinking-violet” ways with the Holy Spirit. Nothing good comes from shrinking away. As Job proclaims: “What I fear overtakes me, and what I shrink from comes upon me” (Jb 3:25).

Repent of fear. Be bold and uncompromising in the Spirit (Acts 2:4). Help the Church expand again. “The Spirit God has given us is no cowardly spirit, but rather One that makes us strong” (2 Tm 1:7).

Prayer:  Father, I’m not ashamed of the gospel (Rm 1:16). I’m “proud to profess it in Christ Jesus” (Easter Baptismal Promises).

Promise:  “Eternal life is this: to know You, the only true God, and Him Whom You have sent, Jesus Christ.” —Jn 17:3

Praise:  Pope St. John I helped repair the schism of 482.

Reference:  (This teaching was submitted by a member of our editorial team.)

Rescript:  "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for One Bread, One Body covering the period from April 1,2021 through May 31, 2021 Reverend Steve J. Angi, Chancellor, Vicar General, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio August 5,2020"

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements

[stolen-godhood]

- Tagged by: @liliumsunshine & @sluttyspiderpolkacock - You can usually tell a lot about a person by the type of music they listen to! Put your favorite playlist on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people. 

OOC meme because Katsu’s playlist is just.... music i vibe to for him, and not really especially what he’d Actually listen to. But Here We Go !

(Under a cut bc i worried abt this getting kinda long so uhh Whoop)

- Hot on the Trail | Steam Powered Giraffe

Well you don't like that way that I am (is not the way) Way that you want and the way you understand (but I can't) Can't help being the way that I am (it's just the way) Way that it is and what I know so sorry

- You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid | The Offspring (Yes really, cringe culture is dead and it slaps)

Slowly out of line And drifting closer in your sights So play it out I'm wide awake It's a scene about me There's something in your way And now someone is gonna pay And if you can't get what you want Well it's all because of me

- Saint Bernard | Lincoln

Hung pictures of patron saints up on my wall To remind me that I am a fool Tell me where I came from, what I will always be Just a spoiled little kid who went to Catholic school

When I am dead I won't join their ranks 'Cause they are both holy and free And I'm in Ohio, satanic and chained up And until the end, that's how it'll be

- In A Week | Hozier ft. Karen Crowley

I have never known peace Like the damp grass that yields to me I have never known hunger Like these insects that feast on me

A thousand teeth Yours among them, I know Our hungers appeased Our heartbeats becoming slow

We lay here for years or for hours Thrown here or found To freeze or to thaw So long we become the flowers Two corpses we were Two corpses I saw

- Machine | Imagine Dragons (Cover by Jared Halley)

I'm not scared of what you're gonna tell me And I'm not scared of the beast in the belly Fill my cup with endless ambition And paint this town with my very own vision'

Cause I've been wondering When you gonna see I'm not for sale I've been questioning When you gonna see I'm not a part of your machine Not a part of your machine I am the machine

- Dear Fellow Traveller | Sea Wolf

Dear fellow traveler under the moon I saw you standing in the shadows and your eyes were blue You put your hand out, opened the door You said, "Come with me, boy, I want to show you something more"

You spoke my language and touched my limbs It wasn't difficult to pull me from myself again And in our travels, we found our roads You held it like a mirror, showing me the life I chose

- Absinthe | I Don’t Know How But They Found Me

I don't believe whatever this is Until you burn all of the witches I won't believe whatever this is Whatever they give you Stop drinking it down

I hear voices I see visions These spirits Are your prison

- Magnum Bullets | Night Runner ft. Dan Avidan

No longer I pretend The staircase I descend Will lead me anywhere but my unscripted end My heart and hands collide The gun lays at my side Too late to turn back Only fates left to decide Magnum bullets Settling the score Magnum bullets Kicking down the door

- Bust Your Knee Caps | Pomplamoose

You call it crime We call it smart family business And the family is famous

Bust your knee caps Bust your knee caps It's such a shame That you became such an issue Oh dear Johnny, I'll miss you

- Devil Trigger | Casey Edwards (Valiant Hearts cover)

Embrace the darkness that's within me No hiding in the shadows anymore When this wickedness consumes me Nothing can save you and there's no way out

I'm a wildfire you won't tame Igniting my temper, can't put out my flame There's no way to contain This storm swelling inside me

I'm a bomb you can't defuse Might just accept you're gonna lose Can't turn down, I refuse To hold back anymore

Uhhh not tagging people bc im p sure most of the people i’d tag already have been? Yoink it if you want i guess !

[dazzlingfantasiesblogs]

Mirror Image P1

Hey all! 

Thought I would drop a story so you all could read something to pass the time! :) 

I also have another Hurricane part coming out too! <3

Dean x Reader (maybe)

Warnings: Mention of blood. 18+. If under 18 you will be blocked. 

Please do not use my work anywhere else.

GIFS ARE NOT MINE

Walking through the bar doors, they slammed against the brick door with force. Setting down the boombox, turning the music to loud grabbing your katana. As Lily Allen “Hard out here” played. Looking the corner of the bar you seen a steel box with two humans in it. Looking closer, you seen it was the famous hunters Dean and Sam Winchester. “Oh, how over rated.” “LETS GO BLOOD SUCKERS” Dean looked through the cage to a woman with short bright blue hair, black handkerchief holding it up. A dark jean jacket, with a black lace bra underneath and ripped jeans. “Who the fuck…?” Dean whispered. Soon four people walked out the back of the bar. Fangs showing, gleaming in the dim lit trash hole that was called a bar. “I suppose I should tell you what this bitch is thinkin If I told you about my sex life youd call me a slut.” 

You sang out looking at the four men racing towards you. “It’s hard out her for a bitch” You sang out slicing the first head, watching the blood spray the wall. The smirk you wore was your greatest asset. Holding your hand up the vampires stopped in their tacks. “Forget your balls and grow a pair of tits” Putting your hand down after the single sentence. “Always trust the injustice because its not going away” After slicing the rest heads off, the bar was covered in blood. The bodies laid limp on the ground. The song stopped and you stretched out. “God damn it Y/N!” Molly walked in the door, a drop of blood falling on her face. “You realize we will have to burn this whole fucking place to the ground?!” She sighed rubbing her temples at her sister. “Was counting on it.” Flicking the lighter open with a clink you walked to the cage. “Oh wow, the big bad Winchesters.” “What in Chucks name are you..?” Raising an eyebrow rolled your eyes. “Human.” Seeing the chain on the box you grabbed your katana. “Stand back…” “That wont cut this thick..” Swiping down the katana broke the steel chain with ease. “Forged by angels.” You spoke, giving off a wink to the taller Winchester. “Than..Thank you. My name is Sam..” He held out his large hand. “Y/N. That over there is Molly. My sister. Hunters.” Dean shoved Sam aside. Sticking out his hand “Dean.” “Ah, the big heroic complex guy. Hey.” Shaking his hand firmly you nodded. “Molly” you waved for her to come over. “Molly” shook both of the mans hands. “Alright, you might want to get out so I can torch this place.”

Sitting on top of your black matte wrangler, you watched the building go up in flames. Looking over you seen Sam and Molly talking, laughing. With a faint smile your eyes turned back to the flames. How you adored the scene of a large fire. “CAS!” Molly yelled running over to the trench coat wearing man. “Hey Molly!” Cas smiled slightly. “Wait.. how do you..?” Cas looked at Dean as he spoke. “Ugh, well.. Um.. Remember when I plucked you from hell Dean? Well.. I plucked her out too.” Dean looked up at you. Your face was stoic, not as playful as before. “You have been to hell?” “Four times. Once for killing an angel that turned bad, the other three for Crowley.” Taking a swig of the whiskey, wiping your mouth. Sam watched the blue haired girl show obvious signs of internal pain. Something about her and her sister was similar to Dean and him. “Where are you guys staying?” “Motel off of 7.” Molly spoke gently, calming Y/N obvious nerves. “So are we..” “Only motel for miles dumbass.” Speaking out loudly. “Oops, was that out loud.” Chuckling to yourself you slid off the wrangler stumbling. Molly looked at Y/N and frowned. “I better get her back before she passes out..” Molly walked over and put her arm under the shorter sister and helped her in the Jeep. “Maybe we will see you around.”

Around 2AM Molly hurd a knock on the solid oak door. She had been awake, writing in her journal. Looking through the peephole, she seen Sam. Opening the door, she let him in. “Hey..” Molly looked at him confused. “Your sister, she is hurting..” Sam mumbled looking at the sprawled out body on one of the beds. Still in her denim jacket and pants. “You don’t know the half of it.” Molly sighed sitting at the bright green lime colored table. “It is funny, I am the eldest. You would think I would be more like her. Yet.. The truth is I was adopted by Y/N Mom. She was a hunter too. A great hunter. There was a haunting at an orphanage. It was terrible.. Long story short.. Y/N mom came in. Y/N at her heels and they saved everyone. Y/N Seen me cornered by the ghost and salt blasted that mother fucker. She grabbed my hand and with a smile saved my life. I can never pay back the life they have given me. Y/N has given me every option to go to college to have a normal life.. I just.. I can’t leave her.” Sam watched the beautiful woman in front of him talk. “I am so unsure why I am telling you this..” “Because I can relate.” Sam spoke with a smile. “However, My family didn’t want me to go..” Molly nodded looking at the man in front of her. “Y/N.. Y/N.. She.. Doesn’t stop. She goes so much. With or without me. She doesn’t stop till she is hurt, or asleep. I have tried to get her to enjoy life, find love.. She won’t..” Sam chuckled a bit at the irony. “Funny, Dean wanted a normal life. Or so he thought. Till he got the chance he couldn’t do it. Where are you two from?” “Ely, Minnesota.” “Lawrence, Kansas.” Sam spoke after.

After a few hours of talking, Molly and Sam got to know a lot about each other. “Want to go get some coffee?” Molly smiled “I would love too.”  they walked out the door, they left it unlocked.

An hour later Dean walked to the room with a wrangler in front of it knocked on the motel door. No answer. With instinct and worried about his brother he opened the door. He looked on the bed to see you still asleep. Stepping on a creaky wood floor board, Y/N Grabbed her gun under her pillow and pointed it at Dean. His hands flew to his glock pointing it at her. “WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING DOING HERE?!” y/n stood up looking at him through her scope. “I AM LOOKING FOR SAM!” “WHERE IS MY SISTER!”  Sam and Molly walked in laughing. “Oh shit!” Sam slid Molly behind him. “WHERE THE FUCK WHERE YOU!?!” Dean and Y/N yelled at the same time. “We went and got coffee..” Sam gazed at Dean to put down his weapon. Lowing your gun you took a deep breath in and out. “Don’t fucking leave without telling us..” Y/N growled annoyed. Holding a hand over her heart. Getting up from the bed, she grabbed some clothes and walked into the shower.

“She doesn’t play around does she?” Dean mumbled drinking his coffee. “She could take you.” Molly said calmly taking a swig of her coffee. Sam snorting a bit, chuckling. “Bull shit.. No girl that is 5’2” is going to take me down.” “Height has nothing to do with it. I am faster than you egghead.” Y/N walked out in her high waisted yoga pants and black tanktop. Her eye makeup dark with a dark ruby lip. Her arms littered in tattoos. “Going for a run..” Molly nodded looking down a bit sadly. Grabbing your head phones you slipped them in your ear and headed out the door.  “Does she always wear makeup when she runs?” Dean asked confused. “Helps her, or so she says..” Molly whispered.

“Run, don’t stop. Seven more miles..” Your mother spoke next to you. The two of your running up a hill that you were sure heaven at to be at the top. Your breathing was heavy, and the sweat dripped down your head. “Mom.. this sucks can we stop?” you spoke in gasps. “NO! Do you think monsters stop?”

 With your headphones in and the music blaring you tried to forget reality. Each bounce of your tennis shoes lifting your feet up, moving forward. Running through the streets of Avon Lake Ohio, you pushed yourself to keep going. Dodging people, pets and cars. People watched as a girl littered in tattoos jogged at full speed. Two hours passed you felt hunger start to consume you.

“She has been gone for awhile, should I go and find her?” Dean asked spinning his cup around. “No, this is normal for her. After a few kills she needs to get rid of the thought. “Could of fooled me, seems like she enjoyed it.” Molly sighed a bit. “Truth is, she does. She is stuck between loving it and hating it. She feel strapped with those feelings. The woman rarely sleeps if she doesn’t drink or take sleeping pills. She can sleep with a guy and kick him out and still not sleep.” “She isn’t getting it good then.” Dean smirked. Sam grabbed a book and chucked it at him.

As you walked in the door you seen a styrofoam box waiting for you on the table. “We picked you up some food.” Dean spoke walking out of your bathroom. “Where is my sister?” your icy eyes staring at his hazel ones. “They went to another coffee shop. They are pretty glued to the hip.”  Sighing annoyed your walked to grab your now cold coffee. “Well at least she can have some fun.” Dean looked her up and down, the sweat dripping from her forehead. Blotchy sweat stained her tank top. “Quit looking at me like I am a meal you pervert. You couldn’t handle this if you fucking tried.” Slapping your hand on his broad shoulder you kept walking towards the bathroom. “You are kind of.. rude aren’t you.?” Dean spoke up, with his lips pursed slightly. “Rude? Why because I am now fawning over the Winchesters? Sorry. The only Winchester I cared about is dead.” Cocking his head slightly to the side he looked over at you. “John.” His name escaped your lips. “He.. He was the reason I killed the thing that took my mom from me. From Molly!” You yelled a little louder than you wanted. Clenching your fists, knowing you were taking it out on his son. The pain of losing your mother. “Y/N.. I.. He never…” “Look at page 168 in his hunters journal.. The special Demon… He.. He helped me figure out how to kill that son of a bitch.” Walking into the bathroom you slammed the door shut. Starting the warm water, the pain and fear that seemed to consume you everyday over flowed. The tears and water from the shower melding together.

Dean skimmed through his fathers journal. “Page 168” Dean started to read over it. This journal entry was a tad longer than the others. “I helped two young women avenge their mother. It was a brutal hunt. I seen the same look in the youngest eyes that I seen in Dean over and over. She would never stop hunting. That much is clear. She constantly paced back and forth reading lore for days trying to find out how to kill this demon. If Dean and her ever met, it would be like looking in the mirror. They would either be the best of friends, or worst of enemies. She kills swiftly, without knowledge of her being there. She took out a vamps nest, without my help. I was captured, she walked in, blood dripping from her sword and a blank expression. She was something to be scared of. After helping escape, I found out she was Mila’s daughter. A fellow hunter that I had done a few trips with. To hear she was dead was a shocker. Y/N moving the same way as her.” Dean took a deep breath. “Special demon..” he whispered to himself. He read on how to kill it. As he kept reading, he learned how brutal the hunt was and how smart Molly was. It was like he was reading about himself and Sam. “Hey we are back.” Dean raised his head from the journal looking at Molly. “Hey guys..” Dean took a deep breath shaking his head. “So you knew our father..” Molly narrowed her eyes on the journal. “Yeah.. he.. he was a great man. When he passed.. I could only imagine how bad it hit you. It hit us as well.” Molly’s voice full of empathy with a caring undertone. “Alright, pack up. We got a hunt to go on.” Y/N spoke walking out in shorts and a sports bra. “Fuck..” Dean mumbled seeing the tattoos that covered her. Sigials, enochian and other tattoos. “You.. you have so many wardings” Sam looked at the wall as he spoke. “Any angel that grabs us gets burned. We can activate it by speaking one word.” Molly nodded pulling up her sleeve showing her arms. “We got a wendigo. Back home.” Y/N spoke coldly as she finished getting dressed. “We can help..” Sam spoke up looking at you once again. “N..” “That would be great!” Molly spoke up smiling. Sliding your hand down your face you shrugged. Molly deserved to be Happy.

Stopping in Saint Paul, Minnesota to eat Y/N got out of her wrangler. Walking ahead of the group to a bar that she often went too when she was headed back to her home city. Opening the steel door, eyes stared at the bright blue haired woman. “Look who it is, the vamp killer!” Gerald hollered from the bar. “Look who it is, the piece of shit that runs this dump!” You smiled a bit walking over to the bar, giving Gerald a kiss on the cheek. Smiling down at you, scooping you into a large hug. “So, a whole vamps nest. Rumor has it you saved…” Gerald watched Molly walk in with he two men he was just about to announce. “Winchester.” Laughing slightly you shrugged. “Molly get your beautiful self over here and give me a hug!” With a smile plastered on her face, she ran jumping over the bar. She gave Gerald a huge hug, receiving a kiss on the top of her head. “Keeping this one out of trouble?” Molly narrowed her eyes towards you. “Trying too, you know how hard it can be.” Dean watched the man behind the bar. He looked oddly familiar. “You knew Bobby..” Dean spoke up staring at the man who was in his late 40s. “Correct. I knew your father pretty well too.” Sam tilted his head slightly. “What are you two doing around my girls?” “Your girls?” Dean asked a bit rough. “Yes, I care for these two. I help them with lore, a hunt. Whatever they may need.” “Gerald. Can I get a shot of whiskey please?” Nodding the man grabbed four glasses with one large ice cube pouring whiskey over it. Grabbing the class you deemed yours, you walked to the pool tables and wracked them up. “So your headed to Ely?” Gerald asked walking over to you concerned. “Yeah.. I am guessing Wendigo..”

[tss-grimmverse]

Chapter 2: Gloxinia

it doesn’t mean much

it doesn’t mean anything at all

the life i’ve left behind me is a cold room

Virgil stirred to wide-eyed awareness twice in the night, both times because he thought he heard doors opening. But he was too exhausted to get up and check, and reluctantly settled down after the adrenaline wore off.

The third time he opened his eyes, the sky outside his bedroom window glowed an early morning blue and he desperately needed the restroom.

Groaning, he grabbed his hoodie from where he’d slung it over the headboard the night before, pulled it securely around him, and padded across the hallway. Once finished, he tiptoed cautiously into the main room, finding it exactly as he had left it the night before.

Was he still alone? If the sounds he’d heard were Logan coming in super late, at best the dude was probably still asleep.

Hell, I should still be asleep, Virgil thought, wandering blearily into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, more out of curiosity than actual hunger, and let out a surprised laugh.

“Holy troll shit, that is a lot of jelly,” he murmured, pulling out a jar to read the label. Crofters Organic.

Oh.

That explained the postscript.

The sound of front door opening and closing startled him to his feet. Virgil hastily replaced the jar, lining it back up next to its dozen or so neighbors.

Closing the fridge door, he looked over the counter and found himself face to face with the most gorgeous person he’d ever laid eyes on. His heart stuttered. The newcomer dumped a keyring on the counter…shit, this was Logan?…and adjusted a pair of half-moon glasses.

“You must be Virgil,” he said in a deep, tranquil voice, stepping out of a pair of worn athletic shoes.

Virgil made a croaking noise that tried to become a greeting before getting stuck halfway down his throat.

Logan swept through the apartment, disappearing into the furthest room and reemerging with a towel. Sweat glistened on his bare chest, bark dark and beech smooth, and sparkled in black hair braided into a dozen wavy rows against his scalp. The guy had one of those sculpted, solid builds, all broad, lean planes and bold, sensual lines. An artist’s dream to shade; a little awkward to hug.

Virgil swallowed hard, forcing his poor gay eyes away.

Somehow between the normalcy of the apartment and the weirdly formal note, he had forgotten that Logan was half faery; half Court Fae, in fact, if his looks were any clue. Such faeries were, as a rule, heartbreakingly beautiful.

Upon closer examination, his non-human heritage was obvious. Ears that swept up and back to points on either side of his head, clearly visible to Virgil’s changeling gaze. Frost white streaks that twined through his braids. And those fae, prismatic eyes: the irises an explosion of frost and indigo and smoke that coalesced into a deep slate gray.

Eyes that gazed a little too deep, burned a little too wild behind his glasses.

Virgil knew he ought to say something, but his addled brain had forgotten how to operate his mouth.

“Apologies for my unkempt state,” Logan said as he patted himself down. “I always do my running in the morning before it gets too hot.”

“Uh…yeah,” Virgil muttered, wrenching his gaze from smooth muscles and a graceful sweeping collarbone to Logan’s stormy eyes, so striking in that dark face. “No, I mean…that’s cool.”

Eloquent, Virgil.

Logan eyed him impassively.

Virgil became abruptly and painfully ashamed to be dressed in nothing but ratty boxers and a faded hoodie. Maybe he could just escape into my room and put pants on or would Logan hate me for being rude but maybe he already hates me for being half naked in the living room what the hell is wrong with me…

“Do you drink coffee?”

Logan hung the towel over one of the dining room chairs and swept past Virgil into the kitchen. A trace of that elusive teal scent from the night before followed in his wake, nearly making Virgil swoon. Even his voice was sexy: dark and ocean blue, pleasantly filling the room without being loud.

Kelpie’s mane, Virgil, get your shit together. It’s not like you’ve never seen a hot black dude before.

He pulled his hoodie more tightly around himself.

“Uh, yeah,” he belatedly answered Logan’s question. “Coffee’s great.”

“Personally I like tea.”

Oh. Well, Virgil did usually manage to say the wrong thing.

Logan pulled a Keurig machine from a bottom cabinet and set it up on the counter.

“Herbal, preferably,” he added, “though I have been known to enjoy a good Earl Gray from time to time.”

“Earl Gray.” Virgil forced a chuckle. “You Captain Picard or something?”

His Rennie family had all been very fond of Star Trek, which was the only reason Virgil knew anything about it.

Logan, however, frowned.

“I am Logan Ursae.” He adjusted his glasses. “I assumed the Youngstown Grimms would have at least informed you of my name before sending you here?”

Virgil wasn’t sure if he was being mocked or if the guy was just that literal.

“I meant, like, the Star Trek character, dude. Obviously I know who you are.”

Logan’s mouth twisted and he turned back to the Keurig.

“I’m afraid I am not at all knowledgable about popular human entertainment. I find most of it trite and shallow.”

Virgil scuffed his bare foot uneasily over the carpet. Usually he preferred people to speak their minds instead of fucking around…but this guy took that philosophy a bit far.

He did write that stick-up-the-ass note.

“Do you know that proper peppermint can be frustratingly difficult to procure unless one grows it themselves?” Logan said, once again ignoring the awkward silence that had fallen.

Or maybe Virgil was the only awkward one, as usual.

“And it cannot be grown from seed, only cuttings.”

Virgil made a noncommittal noise, unsure if Logan was even expecting a response at this point.

Logan held out a box of flavored coffees, packed side by side and seemingly organized by color.

“Um…hazelnut if you’ve got it,” Virgil muttered. “Should I, like, help or whatever?”

“Nonsense, you are my guest. Plus my kitchen is not large enough to accommodate two people comfortably.” Logan waved a graceful hand as he filled a copper kettle. “I will start our drinks, and then perhaps we should both get dressed for the day.”

Virgil flushed and pulled his hoodie closer, aware once again that he’d galavanted out here in his underwear and worse, Logan had noticed. Had he seen Virgil ogling his bare chest?

Was that why he kept prattling on about tea?

He’s probably already decided I’m weird and creepy, he’s just waiting for the right moment to call me out…

“Why even have a coffee maker if you don’t drink coffee?” Virgil asked, and then flinched. He had a bad habit of masking his anxiety with belligerence.

It was why people tended not to like him.

Logan’s mouth quirked as he centered a mug under the Keurig. “You are not the first changeling I’ve taken in.”

He brushed past Virgil again (that scent, gods, Virgil’s brain swooned again), heading towards the back bedroom.

“Go and change while I shower,” he threw over his shoulder. “Then we can properly acquaint ourselves with one another.”

With that, the door clicked shut, leaving Virgil alone with a gaping mouth.

“Bloody redcaps,” he muttered, yanking a handful of his faded purple hair. ‘Acquaint ourselves’, my gay ass. Said with a straight face. How the fuck is anyone that oblivious?

“Naughty, naughty thoughts, changeling.” Remy’s amused smirk and sunglasses were just visible from his cabinet’s half-open door. “You’re lucky the Bear’s not a telepath.”

Virgil, flushing, made a rude gesture in the brownie’s direction and stalked to his own room, slamming the door. He then leaned against it and exhaled, his heart still throbbing unsteadily in his chest.

Logan was…not what he had expected.

Virgil wasn’t sure what he had expected, after reading that note from last night. Certainly not some hot nerd with a gorgeous runner’s body and a quiet, self-assured aura, plus a bit bossy, and damn, why do I find that kinda hot?

Remy’s taunt came back to him and he groaned, covering his face. They were naughty thoughts; thoughts a changeling like himself had no business entertaining. A beautiful half-faery deserved far better than a former thrall who’d done the sorts of things Virgil had done…

Plus you haven’t made the best first impression, have you?

Virgil thunked his head against the door, realized he’d been wool-gathering like a moron for several minutes, and went to change clothes. He took a little time to comb his hair and rub a little patchouli oil behind his ears. He wished he owned something nicer than ripped black jeans, faded band t-shirts (mostly metal), and one bulky, black plaid hoodie.

He hated that it suddenly mattered.

When Virgil emerged, Logan had already returned to the kitchen, dressed in a pair of dark jeans, a plain black polo that clung rather unfairly to his arms and torso, and…Virgil almost chuckled at the sight…a blue striped necktie.

Somehow, he made it work.

“Sit where you’d like.” Logan poured hot water into a galaxy mug without turning around. The Keurig spat the last of its sweet smelling contents into a second mug, and Logan carried both to the table.

Virgil sat, feeling self-conscious as Logan passed him his coffee.

Because now the half faery clearly expected them to talk about things.

Virgil hated talking about things.

“I imagine you have questions,” Logan stated without preamble.

“I…guess?” Virgil took a shy sip and winced as it burned his tongue.. “I mean…they didn’t tell me much about you back in Ohio,” he admitted. “Only that you have some ability to hide changelings from other Fae, and that’s why I’d be safe here.”

Logan stirred a generous dollop of honey into his tea, tasted it, grimaced, and added another spoonful. Virgil stared, morbidly fascinated that anyone so doggedly serious would want their drink that sweet.

“My ability to hide you is actually a byproduct of what I am, rather than anything I do.” Logan explained. “Simply put, even as a half-blood, my Court magic burns strong enough to mask yours. A proper Court faery could hide you far better, but finding one who wouldn’t immediately turn you back over to your master would be…”

“Impossible?” Virgil shivered.

“Improbable.”

There were a million questions Virgil probably needed to ask, since he was stuck here. But as usual, his mouth refused to cooperate.

Logan eventually got up to fry a couple eggs and fix some toast, prompting Virgil to ask about the fridge full of jam, which sparked a passionate one-sided rant about fruit spreads, organics, ethics, and the superiority of Crofters that spared Virgil the need to do anything except nod with wide eyes until breakfast was over.

(He was permitted to taste the sacred jam, and had to admit that it was pretty good).

“We will need to pick up Nicodemus this morning,” Logan stated once they’d finished eating and carried their plates to the sink.

“We?” Virgil echoed, choosing to focus on that rather than on who or what a ‘Nicodemus’ might be. He slid his plate into the soapy water as Logan washed, almost dropping it when he accidentally brushed Logan’s forearm. The half-faery’s skin was smooth and pleasantly cool.

“I do not think it safe for you to be left here alone for long periods of time, at least not at first. Therefore you will need to accompany me on errands. I suggest we take thirty minutes to digest and then be on our way.” Logan paused, and turned to properly face Virgil. “If…that is agreeable to you?”

Virgil’s dislike of being ordered around must have been visible on his face. He schooled it to neutrality and cleared his throat.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Good impression, Virgil, come on.

“I mean, I don’t have anything going on until classes start in two weeks, so…you know, whatever you need to do is cool with me.”

Great. Now stop rambling, idiot.

Logan nodded and swept past again, down the hall, and then his bedroom door was closing firmly behind him again. Virgil huffed and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Definitely not a man of excess words.

Or, and I’m just spitballing here, he thought wryly as he meandered back to his own room. Maybe he hates you already.

Gloxinia: love at first sight

[whumpywhumper]

Bloodhound in Chicago-Part 1

So, @comfy-whumpee put the idea into @0idril0 and I’s whumpy heads to do a collaborative project wayyyyy back when with Clint and Lucien, and we’ve finally gotten around to posting part one. That’s right, there’s more, so keep an eye out. :) 

This is set prior to either one of our series. 

Thanks @voidwhump for reading through this 

Edit for Masterpost

<>

Lucien was growing soft in his old age.

He watched one of his young clumsily play with the human he had caught for him and all he felt was a swelling pride when the vampling stumbled and fell over his feet, not used to his new found speed. The human girl was no more than nineteen, pretty, with mousy hair and a bad knee. Someone easy for little Tristan’s first feeding.  

Tristan’s eyes were a stone cold grey, not yet the ebony black they would be when he was finally blooded. The older vampire found that he liked the way Tristan’s hunger sparked in those eyes when he focused in on his prey. He licked his lips and leaned forward, eyes skating down the exposed muscle under Tristan’s shirt, at the messy blond hair that stood up over his forehead. A scream pierced through Lucien’s careful perusal of his newest nestmate.

The girl had fallen, her knee giving way when she turned to dash away from the reaching vampire. She hit hard, her hands slapping against the concrete. Flailing, she turned over and stared up with huge eyes, tear streaks standing out on her red cheeks. “Please, please, don’t-don’t do this!”

Lucien knew that, by now, Tristan was beyond caring about what his prey said, what she begged or promised him. The venom was pounding in his mouth, the instinct to rip into her throat overwhelming. He could see his hands shaking and an echoing growl rumbled up through the air. Tristan backed the girl up to the wall, and Lucien felt a swelling in his own mouth at the mewl of fear that tumbled from her mouth when her shoulders hit the cold stone.

Experience told him that Tristan would need help soon, and Lucien stood, stalking forward, to hover behind the trembling vampling. “Grab her, Tristan,” he murmured, coaxing. Tristan shuddered at the sound of his Elder’s voice and leaned back into Lucien with a whine. The older vampire chuckled, arms encircling his lean waist. “Do you want my help, love?”

Tristan nodded, his head laying back on Lucien’s shoulder. He could feel the want rolling off of the young man, and Lucien swallowed back an urge to bury his fangs into that pale throat. That wasn’t what they were here for so he pushed Tristan away to bend over their shaking prey.

“Please, please, no!” She held her arms over her head, and Lucien caught the foul smell of adrenaline and urine seeping from her. Lucien’s nose wrinkled, but he leaned down to grab her anyway, his hands encircling her wrists to pull her up. She was featherweight to his enhanced strength, and her inane struggles did nothing to his grip.

Lucien smiled, fangs pressing into his lower lip, when she tried to kick him. “That never works, darling.” His hand encircled both of her wrists, and he pulled her against his front, other arm wrapping around her back. She quivered, trying to pull away from him, whimpering and sobbing. He rested against the wall, turning them so that the girl’s back was to Tristan, and met his hunger dazed eyes. “Come here, love,” he ordered, his voice breaking through Tristan’s haze.

Tristan started forward, his fingers carding through the back of the girl’s hair in a disconcertingly gentle grip, his other hand stretching her shoulder. Lucien could feel her breath against his throat, quick puffs of terror, could hear the thundering beat of her heart. God, this was beautiful. His young’s first feeding.

Virgin fangs pierced into the girl’s unbroken flesh, a little too in the middle of her throat, but not off enough to cause any problems. The girl’s eyes flew open when the younger vampire started feeding, startlingly green eyes staring at him in horror, and a protesting cry dropped out of her mouth. Lucien could tell when Tristan released his venom, the girl twitching in his arms, bucking against the invasive feeling, eyes dazing in pain. Tristan gave a low groan, throat working, swallowing loudly. The seal wasn’t perfect, and Lucien watched scarlet droplets dripping down to the sweet girl’s collarbone.

He licked his own lips when the girl’s eyes fluttered, and he smiled at Tristen when he opened his eyes. They were coal black with no whites showing, glassy with pleasure, his mouth still suctioned on her neck. “Good job, love,” he crooned, “Well done.”  Lucien took more of the girl’s weight as her legs collapsed, her heart galloped hollowly in her chest to Lucien’s sensitive ears, weak whimpers pushed out with every feeble breath.

Tristan bled the girl dry, her heart giving out moments before he drew his fangs out of her throat. Lucien leaned forward, licking the sweet beads of blood from the girl’s skin, before dropping her to the ground. The body fell gracelessly, sprawling between them. But Lucien didn’t pay it any mind when he pressed forward, stepping over the empty corpse to get into Tristan’s space, to grab him by the hips. “How was that, love?”

The vampling groaned, swaying into Lucien, nuzzling at his neck. “Oh my god, Lucien,” he said, “I didn’t—I had no idea—It was so-so. . .“

Lucien chuckled, “I think I understand.” He pulled the younger vampire to him, rutting their hips together. “Do you want to go home now?”  Tristan bit his lip, nodding vigorously, black eyes still glassy.  “Follow me then.”

The two vampire’s stumbled to leave, hands traveling up each other’s bodies. Leaving their prey on the concrete floor. Discarded.

<>

Clint walked into the police station already itching for a fight. Two hours. Two hours he’d been in the city. He’d nearly been run over on his motorcycle three times since he’d been in the city. If he got out of here, and his bike was gone, he was gonna be pissed.

Clint consciously suppressed a growl, squeezing his eyes shut to hide the yellow. “You’re in the middle of a group of people who would actively attack you if they think you’re dangerous. Get it together, numbskull.” He shook himself, looking around the station for his contact. The station stank, burnt coffee and homeless sweat permeating the air. That, combined with the click of keyboards and telephones..... he had a headache.

“Oí, perrito, over here.”

Clint groaned, grinning slightly as he turned toward the thickly accented voice. A small Latina was smirking at him from behind a cubical, and he felt some of his built up frustration ease at the sight of the familiar face. “Amada, my Latina Doll, I wish you wouldn’t call me that, you and every other woman seem to like comparing me to three pound fluff balls now.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t act like one, show a little fang every once and a while, maybe we’d be more respectful.” She winked at him, waving him towards her overflowing desk. Her partner’s desk was unoccupied and he was grateful, Steven didn’t particularly like him.

Scooping the thickly built woman up into a hug, he snorted. “I’m pretty sure I could eat a dear raw in front of Illyn and she’d still call me puppy.” He placed Amada down and spun her extra chair around so he was sitting backwards in it. “Now, can you please tell me why I drove sixteen hours up here, and stayed in a really shitty motel last night? I need a shower and a snack before I wolf out and one of your friends shoots me.”

She smacked him with a file before settling into her chair. “They’d have to beat me to it, I’ve been itching to shoot something since I got this case.” Amada muttered something else in Spanish before handing him the file.

“Nineteen year old female; Caucasian; lived just outside Canton, Ohio until last year.” Clint opened the file and the dimpled face of a rural charmer greeted him. Mousy blond locks framed her face and a frizzy braid had been pulled around one shoulder. “Per her parents, she developed an unhealthy obsession with tarot cards, and started trying to brew potions. Kid stuff. The coroner checked though, and she did have tracers for some latent magic; says her attacker probably didn’t even notice. So, obviously, the city is writing the death off as sup vs sup.” Amada’s face was drawn, all laughter forgotten as she laid out a crime scene photo of the victim.

Oh Sunshine... Clint cleared his throat as he picked up and examined the photo. The girl was splayed, clothing a mess on her tangled limbs. Her legs had twisted at awful angles underneath her, and her eyes were vacant and dead. “I was really hoping you would take the case so this wouldn’t happen again.”

Clint put the the picture down slowly, decision already made. “You still have the body?” Amada gave him a tight nod. “Good. We’ll stop there, then we can see what else we need.”

“We? You trying to steal my partner again?”

Clint huffed, rolling his eyes at Amada, before plastering a bright smile on his face to greet her partner. “Oh, ya know me Steven, I just can’t wait to do your job for you.”

The man glared at him before settling down at his desk, fighting his belly as he pulled himself to it. “We don’t need your help with anything. I told Amada not to call you, there’s no case.” The Latina cursed, spewing in Spanish. Steven ignored her, talking louder. “Local vamp probably got out of control when he tasted her magic. That’s it. No judge is going to prosecute, we don’t get involved with sup victims that’s just the way it is.”

Clint couldn’t help the sour growl that rumbled in his chest. “If a vamp got someone with magic, I can guarantee that this girl wouldn’t have died so quickly.” He pushed himself from the chair, jerking his head to Amada.

The heavy set man called after him, “There won’t be a finder’s fee with this one Clint, there’s not a case!”

Amada hurried to keep up with him as he walked, following his nose towards the morgue. “I’m sorry Clint, I didn’t even think of that.”

“Don’ worry about it, Doll. I bring a killer vamps head in for a bounty, I get paid either way.” It is what his boss paid him for after all, it was just a perk when the police paid him too.

When Clint stepped into the morgue, the smell of decay and disinfectant made him crinkle his nose. His sneeze echoed off the metallic surfaces of the room, and he shook himself. “Which one she in?”

Amada tugged him towards one of the farthest freezers and slid the slab out. Hackles rising, Clint approached and slid the zipper open. Death always put his wolf on edge, made it search for predators. It made him good at his job at least.

Clenching his jaw tightly, Clint pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves. Hi Sunshine... They’d removed her clothes, and he could see where they’d collected evidence. But other than that, the girl was untouched, black makeup streaked down her face, whorls of blood covering her pale throat. The brilliant green eyes were cloudy and half lidded. He closed her eyes, hiding her the best he could from his necessary voyeurism. The stench of urine and bloated bowels stung his nose, making his eyes water even as they flickered yellow.

“This wasn’t a ‘local vamp’ Amada.”  Clint whispered, gently gripping the girl’s jaw and turning her head to view the punctures more closely. There was a crust around the edges of the wound, crystalline and hard. Rubbing a finger over it, he let more of his wolf surface. Amada took a shuddering breath and stepped back as his face cramped before elongating slightly, canines biting into his gums.

“Wha-“ There was a thick cough as Amada cleared her throat, regaining her composure. “What do you mean by that?”

Clint took a deep breath, mouth falling open slightly as he let the scent of venom flow over his tongue. He brought the glove, coated with the crystal substance, closer to his nose and snuffled. He grimaced at the stale scent, it wasn’t strong enough. Sighing, he stuck the finger in his mouth and swirled his tongue around the appendage, liquefying the crystals from the glove. He heard Amada gag, and Clint smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, lips wrinkled in disgust.

“Por qué?! That’s fucking evidence, perro estúpido, Dios mío!” Snatching up a stack of papers she struck at him, pushing him away from the body.

Clint snickered at her, baring a long fang in a grin. “Would you rather have waited another few weeks for someone to tell you that you’re dealin’ with more than one vamp’?” Clint batted his eyes at her, face returning to its pure human form. “I’m faster than your lab, especially because they don’t believe there’s a case here.”

Anger thrummed through the air, Amada’s fists rattling the papers as she clung to them. “That’s still disgusting, you practically licked a dead body.”

Clint shrugged, smirking again. “Werewolf.” Raising a thick brow, he nodded to the body in front of them. “Now that we’ve established I do some weird things, do you want to know what else there is?”

“Lick anything else, perrito, I’m out.” The Latina folded her arms, staring pointedly at the young girl in front of them.

“This vamp’s never fed before, or at least if it has, it’s still too young to know what it’s doing. I think this was an initiation feed.”  Clint let the statement hang heavy in the air, watching as what he was suggesting crystallized in Amada’s mind. Her plush lips parted slowly, eyes squinting as she looked up from the body.

“What do you mean?” Her voice was skeptical, not experienced enough with the supernatural to see what he saw.

“I mean, this whole thing looks wrong. For one you’ve never had to call me for a vamp’ case in Chicago, it’s always some other sup. For two, you’ve seen a vamp’ case before, right?” Clint waited on her nod before continuing. “Look at the puncture marks. She was bitten in the wrong spot, an experienced vamp would have gone farther forward so they didn’t have to deal with the muscle. And what’s the other big part of vamp kills?”

Amada scrunched her nose, examining the puncture mark. “They don’t leave any blood behind.”

“Exactly!” Clint tilted on his toes, leaning on the slab. “Usually with a vamp kill there isn’t any blood, their saliva seals the injury off so there isn’t any clean up. But newbie vamps sometimes don’t do it right, they dribble like a fucking toddler, see the blood smears?” At Amada’s nod, he scraped a finger through the crystallized saliva again. “The saliva here is from two different vamps, one doing cleanup, zero waste, shit like that.”

Splaying playing his hands to emphasis the girl in front of him. “This is like a mother cat teaching her kittens to hunt, I can almost guarantee that the Elder was the one to lure her in. Little vamplings don’t have good control of their glamor yet, what I’ve seen with a vampling that gets made and abandoned is, let’s just say, gory.” Clint rolled the zipper of the body bag further down, examining the rest of her with careful hands. “I bet you she has some sort of deformity, or injury, that made it harder for her to run when the Elder let his glamour go to let the younger practice.”

Humming, Amada ruffled through the charts before pulling a slender folder from the stack she had snatched up. “Looks like she broke her right knee falling from a horse when she was a teenager, coroner’s report says she’s got a few metal rods in.”

Grunting, Clint examined her knees, black blood was crusted there, oozing from abrasions that hadn’t had a chance to heal. He picked up a strong wrist, feeling a small pull of sadness as he did. Her wrists were delicate, even though they wouldn’t be considered the traditional willowy. She shouldn’t have been an easy target, for any human she would have been able to put up some sort of fight. Dark bruises had bloomed on her wrists, the grip of slender, powerful hands forever cast onto pearly skin. He held her wrists up for Amada to inspect. “Vamps don’t need to do this, not unless they’re new or they have someone they can’t glamour.”

Amada’s skin turned a sickly yellow as she looked up to Clint, eyes wide as she searched his face for clarification.  “But, we have several established nests in the city, they don’t do anything like this. They have contracts with blood donors, they’ve also made contracts with halfway houses.” At Clint’s questioning glance she clarified. “Apparently, the venom is like methadone, and it makes it easier to transition off of drugs. It’s also healthier if they can’t kick the habit. The vamps that have the contracts make sure they’re healthy.”

Clint nodded his head, brow quirked with understanding. “Another point in favor of what I’m saying. Your nests wouldn’t need to kill, and they definitely wouldn’t leave a body for anyone to find. There’s a new Elder vamp’ in town trying to push in on territory, and he’s finding converts. This is just the beginning, unless we find them first.”  

Letting out a groan, Amada settled into a nearby chair and rubbed at her temple. “Mierda.”

Nodding, Clint passed a hand through the girls soft hair before gently zipping up the body bag. “Don’t worry Sunshine, I’ll find them.”

[ogceeivs-blog]

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[teatimewithtess]

Entry 6: Saturday, June 29, 11:33 pm

Recently in one of my past English classes I wrote my own version of A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift; in the original essay, Swift chooses a daring solution to solve Ireland’s problem for bad children, hunger, and poverty: eating babies. Throughout his essay, Swift provides a plentiful amount of evidence and statistics proving that his solution is the one that no one will admit to working because no one has the audacity to propose it. Given any topic, I decided to go with the political anarchy that has divided America completely. I hope you can catch on to the satirical aspects planted throughout my work...enjoy.

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A Modest Proposal

For providing the great citizens of the United States of  America with valuable, lawful choices that will aid in the development of one's’ views regarding the evolution of the future.

By Tess Butler

Unfortunately in our world today, frustrated Americans walk a road of hope and opportunity but are selfishly blocked by the doubt and ignorance from current politicians that only worry about how America can help them. From government shutdowns to never-ending debates, the American people cannot move forward, cannot move past these horrible roadblocks that cause the country to come to a halt. There has been bickering since the formation of the United States. George Washington even advised the current colonists to not create political parties because it would cause too much controversy; however, they did not heed his words. It has cost us the devolution of human reasoning in economics and politics. People argue without even obtaining the proper knowledge beforehand in order to propose a respectful argument that may lead to actual solutions. 

There is a constant debate over government, and it might never end. No matter how much all 300 million Americans try, they will never be able to work together in pure bliss, which is an unreasonable expectation anyway. Consequently, we are not using our gifts as homo sapiens, to communicate effectively and productively, but that is a future argument for a new and improved developed America. Every person has different views about each and every subject, so placing all these differentiating views in one enclosed area is not the best idea. Anarchy, protests, war, assassinations, murder, and ostracization are all consequences of opposing views; therefore, people with generally similar views should be together and share their ideas without having to worry about those frightening consequences. With similar people being together, Americans are finally united by the concept of similarity, rather than being forced together by differences. Fortunately, uniting those with common similarities is more realistic than a group of politicians actually working to better the future of the people. People would develop a more effective work ethic and become more united in a common trust of one another. Perhaps finally separating each mindset by our differences would finally allow the American people to prosper and break the bad habits we see too often in history.

As of 2019, 53% of Americans have a high level of discontent with the American economic system, 7% want a communist country, 57% of Democrats view socialism with a positive outlook; these percentages are far too high for America to continue on at its current rate. There are 327,232,426 people that live in America. If I subtract from the equation Alaska and Hawaii, which are not geographically connected to the United States and could be sold to Japan or Canada to gain some revenue, the resulting population would be 325,067,965 people. If I divided the total population into 5 different governing sections, it would equal about 65,000,000 people in each section. Even as the amount of births and deaths continue to fluctuate, it would not affect any aspect of the political districts. Therefore, each person out of the 300,000,000+ population would be finally divided for the better.

Now I will gladly propose my solution for solving differentiating views about government, even if it is denied by the current government itself, to the open minds of society. Out of the 300,000,000 people, each person will have the choice to live in one of five contrasting government sections of the “States of America.”  The five individual sections will be under the control of the following governments: democracy, republic, communism, socialism, and monarchy. The sections will be enclosed by massive Mexico funded walls that are heavily guarded by border police of that specific state; In between each of the central borders, wide channels will be created to further separate each state. Of each section, or state, the maximum population will be 65,000,000. If one might disagree with the government authority that they are born into, once reached the age of 18 they can move to a different state; however, any person can move a total of 2 times. If the population of the desired state has reached its maximum, one must go to their secondary choice. I will now introduce each specific state. State one is called “Calikota”(pronounced as kal-ih-coat-uh); it is under the ruling of a democracy and covers the area of the northern half of California to the border of Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri. The democracy is in one of the largest sections geographically because it is still one of the most wanted and popular forms of government. State two is called “Arkwasin”(pronounced as ark-wah-sin) ; it is under the ruling of a socialism and covers the area from Minnesota to Louisiana, bordering Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. State three is named “South Cosas” (pronounced as south koh-sus); it is a monarchy government and contains the remaining area between Calikota and Arkwasin, which is from southern California to the border of Louisiana. State four is known as “Hiolina” (pronounced he-oh-lee-nuh), which is under the control of a republic government; this state contains the area from Florida to the border of Pennsylvania, including Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. Finally, state five is “New Sylvinland” (pronounced as new sill-vin-lend) and is under the rule of a communism; the state contains the rest of the area of America, which is from Pennsylvania to Maine. The cheated people of America will finally have a real freedom of choice. There will be one week for choosing the desired state, and if not chosen by the required deadline, will result in a random placement. With desired political views finally fulfilled, Americans have one less problem to worry about: building that wall!

As ridiculous as it may appear, long-lasting problems require long-lasting solutions; even if it means replaying history, such as segregation based on race, and modifying it to our advantage, segregation of political views. However, I advise the people to ponder over the obvious advantages it has on every separate person and every separate thing.

First, it will finally put the phrase so commonly used to a well deserved rest: “Separate but equal.” That ironic mantra was never intended to be taken seriously because of how absurd it was to the realistic world. There is no such thing as “separate but equal”; there never has been and there never will be. So might as well teach the future intelligent and truthful generations the actual truth of the world: nothing is equal.

Secondly, people with higher education will finally have the rightful choice to actually do what they want without having the negative effects of delinquents’ decisions. Because of the accumulated knowledge and intelligence some citizens have attained, they will fortunately choose some of the best states to live in because they understand the definitions and true purposes of each government. And fortunately for them, most people with a simpler or more illiterate mindset will be forced to live in one of five random states, since they never learned a valuable enough work ethic to make deadlines. A win-win situation, as they like to call it.

Thirdly, we can teach the future generations ANOTHER key concept in the development of Americans: opposites do NOT attract. Since each state is separated by government, each person now has a common similarity among one another. We can finally distinguish the 40% of ruined relationships, because of political disagreement, and gladly participate in conversations about how much better one state is compared to another. Even though we already do that in modern America, at least we have support from 64,999,999 other people in the future States of America.

Fourthly, the smaller amount of people will directly relate to a smaller amount of problems. Finally, the president of Calikota will only have to deal with problems from 65,000,000 people instead of 300,000,000. We will gladly make the remaining citizens someone else's problem: an American specialty passed down from generations of success.

Finally, the media will be heavily affected by the dramatic decrease of viewers because of the small amount of democratic watchers. News Stations will now only appeal to that specific state, so citizens of South Cosas, the monarchy, will not be forced to listen to the verbal junk that comes out of every newscasters mouth on Fox News, CNN, etc. The people will receive real news about important topics; only 65 million people have to watch a donkey and an elephant fight.

Now, the current Americans of today withhold too much ignorance and understanding to actually diffuse the political anarchy that they started. If we would have actually listened to one another from the very beginning instead of pursuing our common self-centered ways, America would actually be at ease. Now, if one might despise my ideas I offer them with a solution that might be too difficult to comprehend, especially if one is a politician or works for the government. America has the decision to change its own government. If things are not working well, the power of the democratic government can choose to change to better help the people. Unfortunately, this solution requires many long debates and indecision, which I fear is too much for the modern politician to handle. The politicians that unfortunately run this country are hard-headed and are not open to practical solutions; they tend to draw problems out past the actual deadline.  Political parties will be our demise and ironically we are the only people that can end it. If we do not try to change anything at all, like we have not been the past 200 years, our country might finally cease to exist, respectively, on a worldwide scale. I am sure many Americans are frustrated with the insults and stereotypes we receive from other countries that are actually communicating and succeeding, and to be an American is far more than supporting an elephant or a donkey. Perhaps, in one's views of America, it is not considered American if one does not do things for a resulting positive effect, but instead because one is too greedy and narcissistic to do things for the greater good.

Now, while many people with the education of an elite ivy league school might inspect my idea and announce it preposterous, my modern problem requires a modern solution. Without proposing a solution like this would only continue to hold back America's growth. This proposal might be rejected by the highest authority of America, but is not rejected by the majority. The people of America know what they want, and what they want for this country. This solution shall be proposed to the official government of America after reaching a reasonable amount of signatures, and will continue to grow as awareness is spread. Once the solution is approved and conversed about, it will become in affect the January of the following year. As I watch idly by, in my homeland of Turkey, I will see the States of America beautifully flourish because of a foreigners idea. George Washington would be proud.

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- Tesu :)

[buckychristwrites]

Just A Touch | Part 6 | b.b.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Summary: Your powers? Controlling any feeling a human can have, from emotions to pain, with a simple brush of your fingertips. Your mission? The traumatized soldier with sad stricken eyes and scream filled nightmares.

Word Count: 4.6k

Warnings: Mostly angst

A/N: So i decided that this fic is gonna be 8 parts! So just 2 more to go! Let me know what you think!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 |

Masterlist

You jumped awake, throwing yourself up in a sitting position and frantically looking around. It was a dream, you told yourself, just a dream.

And then you realized it wasn’t.

The all too familiar darkness and cold air of the prison cell you were kept in greeted you, and you felt like you had traveled back in time. Everything was the same, from the stains on the walls to the same lumpy mattress. Even the dripping noise from a leak you could never locate was still there. It was almost like it had sat here, waiting, knowing that someday you’d return to it. Your own personal hell. You began to shake, so hard that you felt the mattress vibrating below you.

How long have I been asleep? Hours? Days? You couldn’t help but wonder. Does it even matter? Even if days had passed, or even weeks, the concept of time didn’t exist in the confines of your cell. You knew that all too well.

Without thinking, you turned around, almost expectantly, to face the adjoining cell that was only separated by a wall of bars, and you were angry at how disappointed you were that it was empty. Being here was something you had dealt with before, but you never went through it without him.

Pulling your knees up to your chest, you pressed your back against the wall and closed your eyes, focusing on Bucky. Syncing with him. It wasn’t hard at this point, you synced with him so much that it almost felt like putting on pants or brushing your teeth. It was just automatic now.

He was absolutely hysterical, his emotions bouncing off walls. Frantic. Fury. Devastation. Failure. The emotions in him were so strong that you could feel them radiating off of him from wherever he was. Probably back at the Tower, blaming himself for what had happened and demanding they find you.

Unless he didn’t want to find you.

Unless they didn’t want to find you.

You had, of course, messed up the first real mission you had ever been a part of. Maybe they didn’t want to put in the effort. Who were you to them anyway? Just another sad human that HYDRA had broken. And Bucky was a soldier, someone who had a knack for efficiency and following orders. He would understand if they let you go because you couldn’t do those things without fucking them up.

Before you realized it was happening, you began to sob. Ten years had gone since you were in the hands of HYDRA, and now here you were again. And you were so fucking scared, mostly because a large part of you was deeply afraid that you weren’t going to make it out so easily this time. It was Captain America and the Avengers who saved you before, and you had no doubt that HYDRA took its precautions to ensure it didn’t happen again.

The door to your prison had opened, and you shot up to your feet. Out of the shadows came Karpov, a smug look on his face as he stared at you. He slowly approached the bars of your cell, stopping a few feet away. You swallowed hard.

“You’re finally awake,” He remarked, sounding impressed. “You have been asleep for days. We were worried about you.” You blinked slowly, but tried to remain neutral. How was it even possible that you had been asleep for days? “It must have been the exhaustion from taking care of the Winter Soldier all this time.” Your heart skipped a beat at the sound of his name, and you took a deep breath.

“How did you find me?” You asked simply. Karpov laughed, as if it was the silliest question he had ever been asked.

“You zink zat Tony Stark is ze only one who has facial recognition software?” He asked. You closed your eyes. So they had been looking for you at the same time as the Avengers were. Tony obviously got to you first, but ultimately HYDRA got you in the end. Karpov began to walk around the room in slow circles. “You vere a very hard girl to find, very careful.” He snickered. “But one mistake can cost you everyzing.” Biting your lip back, you closed your eyes to hold back the tears. If only you had been more careful. Not only would you not have eventually been recaptured by HYDRA, but you wouldn’t have been found by the Avengers either. You would’ve still been living your boring little life in that small Ohio town, and even though it wasn’t the best of lives, at least you would’ve been safe.

And maybe there would’ve been no harm in Bucky never knowing that you had ever existed.

“And zen we saw that you had found your Winter Soldier again, seeing you go into zat building with zat Tony Stark.” He scrunched up his nose in disgust. “And we couldn’t allow zat.” He stopped right in front of the bars. “So we set you up. Sending out a message we knew the Avengers would intercept about a meeting we had orchestrated to get you.” He put his hands on the bars and brought himself closer, his face pressing into the cage. “And now zat we have you, moya lyubov’, we can get our Soldat back too.”

Something inside you snapped, and you threw yourself forward. Karpov didn’t move in time to miss you grabbing his head through the holes in the bars and slamming his head into the metal.

“Don’t you dare do anything to Bucky!” You screamed, shooting bolts of pain through the nerves of the Colonel. Karpov began to shout, but you kept holding him, refusing to stop. If you killed him, they would more than likely kill you, and if you weren’t able to escape again, then that was your next best option.

Two guards came out of nowhere, one grabbing Karpov while the other punched you hard in the face to make you let go. Stumbling backwards, you hit the floor. It had been a long time since you had pushed pain like that into anyone, and it took a toll on your body. But it always had. When you sat up, cradling your face, Karpov was also being helped up off the floor as he stared at you. He was a mixture of angry and ecstatic, which made you incredibly anxious.

“You still have it,” He said, awestruck. “Can you feel it? The power? It must be so exhilarating to know that you can kill someone with just a touch.” He approached the bars again, a sinister smile on his face. “You can pretend all you want, moya lyubov’, but you are nothing but a killer. A torture machine. That’s all you have ever been good for, and that’s all you will ever be.” Despite you knowing that he would say anything to make you do anything he said, something about his words made your chest hurt. He stared at you for a second longer, before turning and walking out of the room, once again leaving you to the sound of the untraceable leak and your thoughts.

_________________________________________

Weeks had passed. You had began to count the days by the feeding schedule you were given. A small cup of cold eggs and a glass of water in the morning, and a ham and cheese sandwich with a glass of water in the evening. The first time they came in, you tried to attack the guard, but they were wearing special clothing to protect against your pain, which could only occur with skin to skin contact. So you ended up just getting the shit kicked out of you and no meals for three days.

Now you were weak. The food was disgusting, and you would only eat a little bit before kicking it away from you and into the corner to be picked up when the next meal came. You could feel the muscle tone you had gained from the training with Natasha depleting, and your body was beginning to become thin and frail. But you didn’t care. While it was convenient that you had the powers of the fast healing serum to help you if a guard decided he was having a bad day and needed to rough up their only prisoner, it began to slow with the rest of your feeble body.

Everyday, you focused on Bucky. Day and night. It was all you had that kept you sane, giving you something to focus on that wasn’t your hunger cramps or the constant discomfort and pain you were in. Most days he was the same, sad, anxious, afraid. Others he was angry, confused, desperate. But one feeling that he felt consistently, was longing. And this time, there was no doubt in your mind what, or who, it was for.

You thought about him all the time, letting every single detail of him run through your mind so that you wouldn’t forget them. His laugh, his smile, the sound of his voice, the way his arms felt wrapped around you, how he would become putty in your hands every single time your skin touched his own, the way he looked at you when you said something snarky, or the way his eyes twinkled when you said something sweet. But most importantly, you remembered the first, and last, kiss that you shared with him at the mall, merely minutes before you were captured. There was a sort of hunger on his end of it, like it was something he had been wanting for the longest time. He had never held you like that before, with his hands pressed so hard into your back that you couldn’t break free even if you had tried. You had begun the kiss to keep suspicions off of the two of you during the mission, but it turned into something else, something incredibly real, and you knew he had felt the same way. Sometimes it calmed you, to know that you had a moment like this with him. But sometimes it just hurt you, to know that you probably would never have it again.

He even ended up in your dreams when you were able to sleep. In the good ones, it was him comforting you, telling you that he was going to find you, or it was scenarios of him saving you from the prison you once shared. In the bad ones, it was him ending up back in the cell right next to yours, the two of you back to where you had started, or it was instances of him getting himself killed trying to save you. The worst part about the bad ones was that you couldn’t tell which situation would be worse.

One morning, about an hour or two after you had received and denied your first meal of the day, the door opened and three guards walked in. All of the guards looked so similar that it was nearly impossible to even try to give them separate identities. You had never seen more than three at a time, and you wondered if it was the same guards each time or if they were all different but looked too similar for you to know the difference. Maybe that was the point. You blankly watched them as they unlocked your cell and let themselves in.

“Get up,” One said as he and another grabbed you on either side and yanked you up before you had the chance to attempt to do it yourself. “The boss wants to see you.” With the two holding you up and the third flanking, the four of you walked out of the cage.

As you walked down the hallway, looking around and taking in the dark, familiar hellscape, you thought about fighting them and trying to run off, but it would be no use. The guards still brandished the thick clothing to ward off your abilities, and even if they weren’t, you were still too tired to try it. Even if you had been eating the food you were provided with, it wasn’t enough to give you any sort of strength. It was only enough to keep you alive.

They turned you down a hallway, and you had a moment of deja vu, and that’s when you knew exactly where they were taking you.

The room you had spent almost as much time in as your cell, was also exactly the same as it was the last time you had been in it. A medium sized room with dim lighting and a chair with arm restraints in the middle. The sight of it made you feel sick. On the wall in front of the chair were long chains that went around your wrists. The chains were long enough for you to reach the chair, but no further. You felt your entire body go numb as they took you to the chains and locked you into them. It was a familiar feeling, being back in those chains, and you hated every second of it. You were so focused on the cuffs around your wrists that you didn’t notice that two of the guards had disappeared, for when the door had reopened, a strangled yell filled the quiet room, making you look up. The guards dragged a beaten man that you had no recollection of ever meeting to the chair and secured him in, despite his fighting. Entering the room and closing the door behind him was Karpov, looking stern yet smug in a way that only he could pull off. He approached you, not afraid to be close considering your weakness.

“I have a job for you, moya lyubov’,” He said in a gentle voice. “Or, shall I say, a mission? Is zat what you call zem now?” He laughed, shaking his head. The guards lifted you up again and brought you closer to the man in the chair. From his clothes, you could tell he was a SHIELD agent, and your eyes closed.

“I need information from zis man, some very important information,” Karpov said. The way he was speaking was like he was talking to a child, which made you angry, but you were too weak to act on it. “We tried to do zis ze easy way, but he would just not cooperate. But we mustn’t worry, because we have you again, moya lyubov’.” You shuttered at the use of that name. Before you could say anything, Karpov turned away from you.

“Now, Agent,” He sneered. “I’m going to give you vone last chance to give me what I want.” Without hesitation, the Agent spit at Karpov’s feet.

“I’ll die before I tell you anything,” He said confidently. “So do what you must.” You watched the man in awe. While it was common for the properly trained detainees to refuse to give up information, which is why you were there at all, it was a rare day that they disrespected Karpov in such a way. The man was calm and self-assured. You didn’t have to sense him in order to know that, but sensing him did make it emit off of him and onto you. Karpov turned to you, obviously very displeased with this reaction.

“You heard the man,” He said to you. “Do it, moya lyubov’.” He turned away from you again, beginning to pace around the room.

“No.”

He stopped, still for a second before turning towards you. His eyes were widened slightly in surprise.

“Excuse me?” He asked, his voice sounding just as shocked as he looked.

“I said no.”

He was quiet for a second, and then he began to laugh. It was loud, but there was no trace of humor in it at all.

“I’m sorry,” He said, his laughs subsiding as he wiped away an imaginary tear from under his eye. “It’s just very bold of you to assume you have a choice.” You shifted, standing up a little straighter.

“I don’t have anything to lose,” You shrugged. It was quite painful for it to be said out loud. “So you do what you gotta do. Bring out the Torture Machine or whatever. But you can’t use fear to control me anymore.” He looked so incredibly angry that his face turned a bright shade of red and even his breathing started to increase in pace, but all he did was turn away from you.

“I’m disappointed in you, moya lyubov’,” He said, before he started the mantra of your trigger words. The last thing that entered your mind before your switch flipped was Bucky, and how proud he would be of you right now if he were there.

_________________________________________

A few more weeks passed and Kaprov had continued to bring you out to perform your former duties, and you continued to defy him as yourself. It was a good idea on their part to put the Winter Soldier trigger into you as well, you thought to yourself, for when things like this happened. They did it as a failsafe in case you decided to get bold back when they had first given you the pain ability, but they realized that when they used fear against you, the fear of losing your life and then eventually, when you didn’t care about whether you lived or died, the fear of losing Bucky, it wasn’t necessary.

They were probably very relieved to have it now.

There were multiple downsides to them triggering it in you though, like the deep exhaustion you felt after waking up from it in your cell or the fact that they cut back your already small portions of food and water to punish you for your defiance. It also bothered you that it left patches in your memories of what had happened during your time in it, but you always remembered when you killed someone. And it seemed like Karpov was always having you kill someone.

You continued to focus on Bucky every day. It was the only thing keeping you sane, and it kept you from thinking of what you were doing when you were the Torture Machine. It had now been almost two months since you were picked up by HYDRA, and Bucky was starting to feel hopeless. There was rarely a time he felt any sort of positive emotion, it was mostly just heartache and desperation. It killed you to know that he felt like that, and you wished that there was a way you could let him know that you were okay, or even better, where you were. It was the same compound that the two of you were holed up in before, and you wondered whether he didn’t know where it was or if he just hadn’t considered it yet. But the more hopeless he felt, the more you felt it too. It was starting to get harder and harder for you to hold on. You knew that if you didn’t start eating more soon, that you would die. Maybe that was for the best.

The door opened and you didn’t have to look up to know that Karpov had just entered the room. When you did eventually look over, you noticed he was holding a tray in his hands and he looked more smug than usual. The guards opened your cell and he slipped the tray in. Your eyes narrowed at its contents. It was a full meal, carefully prepared chicken, pasta layered with sauce and cheese and a salad with carrots and tomatoes stirred in,  a bowl of freshly cut fruit on the side and a whole gallon of water set down next to it. Karpov exited your cell, standing right outside the bars to watch you. When you continued to stare between him and the food, he chuckled lightly.

“Eat up!” He exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. “You look so terribly weak and hungry, I know you need your strength.” You continued to stare, only moving to sit up on the mattress. It was a long stare down between the two of you, and the way he patiently watched you without falter made you uneasy.

“What have you done to it?” You asked slowly. He cocked his head to the side in what appeared to be confusion. You didn’t buy it. “Is it poisoned? What’s in it?” He laughed again.

“Nothing is done to it, moya lyubov’,” He said in a gentle voice that, if you didn’t know any better, would’ve made you believe him. “Although, I believe it was you who said that you had nothing left to lose, so what does it matter?” You looked away from him.

He was right. You didn’t have anything left to lose. So even if the food was laced with the worst of poisons, whether it killed you quick or slow, it didn’t matter. The food looked amazing, and you hadn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks. So you slowly crawled to the tray on the floor, and began eating. It was surprisingly just as good as it looked, and there didn’t appear to be any trace of anything toxic. While you enjoyed the only luxury you had ever received in your combined time of being here, you were still very suspicious, and very much aware it came at a price.

“So what is it that you want from me?” You asked through a mouthful of food, your words just barely understandable. Karpov smiled widely, and you knew that he had been waiting for you to ask this very question.

“For now? I just want you to build your strength,” He said. “It is of the utmost importance.” You narrowed your eyes at him, but continued to eat. If wasn’t going to kill you, then there was no reason for you to not eat it.

After that meal, you did start to feel stronger. A few hours later, they brought you your lunch, which was of the same quality. Spaghetti and meatballs with two bread rolls, a salad, fruit and another gallon of water. Karpov and the guards silently watched you pig out, scarfing the food down so quickly that you almost made yourself sick. It wasn’t normal for Karpov to be hovering around you like this, he normally left that to the guards, but you were too consumed by the delicious food to care. By breakfast the next day, you had now had four regular sized meals, and although your body couldn’t possibly be back to where it was in just a day, your energy and sanity seemed to return to a normal level. Your body no longer ached so much and you honestly had forgotten what it felt like to be able to stand up without getting dizzy. You still looked like shit, with your ripped, dirty clothes and your unkempt hair that you tried to keep clean by pouring some of the water from the gallons you were given over it. You also tried to wash off your face with the water but without a towel, you knew that you were just pushing the dirt around, and none of it made much of a difference when you still sat on either the dirty floor or disgusting mattress. But it was a start.

When the guards entered your cell to take your tray from breakfast, two of them stayed behind, and Karpov entered shortly after. He had a sinister sort of look on his face, and you suddenly felt uneasy. Everything came at a price, and you knew you were about to pay it.

“Something has happened within zee last couple of days, moya lyubov’,” He started. You rolled your eyes.

“Don’t call me that,” You said sternly. He looked taken about for a second, but it left as quickly as it came as he looked at you with something between anger and self-satisfaction. He took a couple of steps forward.

“After all zeese nice meals we’ve given you, and you still have so much disrespect,” He said, shaking his head as he pace. Part of you almost began to feel bad, but you pushed that out of you real quick. That was exactly what he wanted. He gave you a look of disappointment, but you didn’t react to it, instead just looking away. He huffed for a second, before shaking his head and continuing the speech he had begun before you interrupted.

“As I was saying, moya lyubov’,” He said, side glancing at you when you visibly flinched at the name before going on. “Something unprecedented occurred within the last couple of days, and we needed you to be as strong as possible for it.” You watched him with narrowed eyes.

“What is it that happened?” You asked him. He didn’t even attempt to hide the smile that came with your question, and you knew that whatever had happened was very bad.

“Come with me, and I will show you,” He said, gesturing you to follow. Dumbfounded, you sat and just continued to stare at him as he patiently waited for you, his calm expression not changing once. Slowly, you stood and walked behind him out of the cell with no help from the guards. They were several yards behind you as you walked, which made you feel even more uneasy. Whatever it was that had happened had changed something in the air, a sort of tension filled the empty spaces of the hallways that you were walking through of your own free will, but Karpov didn’t seem to notice.

“Don’t be so rigid!” He exclaimed as he walked next to you. “Not everything that happens around here is bad! I think you vill like zis one. You might even consider zis… sort of a gift.” A gift. The word made bile start to rise in your throat. This was bad. You began to let your eyes wander the hallway, trying to look casual as you looked for the best way out. Most of the doors were locked, and the guards were suddenly a lot closer to you than they were before. They knew that whatever was about to happen, you weren’t going to like it.

You approached the door to the familiar chamber, Karpov stopping outside of it with his hand on the doorknob. He looked down at the floor before looking back up at you. Your breathing began to quicken as pain arose in your chest. This was it. Whatever he had been hinting at was about to occur, as soon as he opened that door. Maybe he was going to finally kill you for every time you disrespected him. Maybe he was going to completely turn you into the Torture Machine. Or, maybe he was going to completely wipe your memory and start fresh. You fully hoped that he would just kill you.

“We have a very special guest for you,” He said as he began to push the door open. You didn’t move. A guest?

“Go see him, moya lyubov’,” He said earnestly, nodding towards the door. “Your gift.” You could feel your front start to crumble as you realized what he was saying. Slowly, you entered the room.

It took you a second to process it.

Strapped to the chair in all his glory, disheveled hair now longer, beard slightly fuller, slightly bruised and bloodied but nothing too serious, was the man you had been longing this whole time for.

“Hey, doll,” His groggy voice said softly, as if he had just woken up, and he shot you a goofy smile. Tears filled your eyes as you took in the sight of him, a full minute passing before you finally spoke.

“Bucky.”

_________________________________________

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