#okay it's not a might anymore. i just wrote the snippet in which she mentions it and. h /pos

[loserboyfriendrjl]

zoya zabini headcanons (dedication of undying love of zoya to @arakhnee because they are who got me into her)

absolutely a suit girl, through and through, but she also rocks those long, evening dresses

110% queer, only her friends and her partners know that, though

wears big earrings

despite how much she likes to deny it, she's friends with mary macdonald, and they bond over their love for their (very different) friends and fashion

she's also friends with alecto carrow, but their friendship is more of a thing that started about because it was needed to (both are from influential pure-blooded families) but eventually they really did become friends. they were never as close as zoya and mary, despite the fact that alecto and zoya were proudly displaying their relationship

had a complicated, sort of enemies-to-lovers relationship with dorcas. what they did couldn't be called dating, and zoya loved to see marlene mckinnon jealous over them

speaking of marlene, it was well known that marlene and zoya resented each other, and they didn't even try to deny it

she crushes everyone on the quidditch pitch, hands down. james is a very good player, not a huge fan of slytherins, and he admits to her being an excellent player

always wears a gold necklace that she had been give years ago by her mother. later, she would give it to her son, blaise

she never killed her lovers; there was a curse cast on her, that when she falls in love deeply and there is no way of coming back, her lover dies. she wished to the stars that she could get rid of it, but she never did

[what-even-is-thiss]

Short stories, Nightmares

Well, I had a lot of fun writing this fic about Logic experiencing a nightmare, and Roman helping him with it, so I decided to explore Roman helping Anxiety, Patton, and himself with nightmares. @sanders-snippets had an idea of Roman helping Anxiety during nightmares on this thread and that’s what prompted me to write this. @corystssides also wrote a fabulous fic based off of that same thread and you should go and read it.

Tip Jar

Warnings? Well, they’re nightmares. They’re meant to be distressing. There’s abandonment themes and extremely painful but non fatal physical injury, a blood mention, and falling. Also, stressful situation having to do with a car.

Abstract: If you don’t remember your nightmares, its probably because either its not a problem you can deal with consciously or your dream self successfully took care of it. In this setup, Anxiety is the source of all nightmares whether he wants to be or not, and Roman is the one that helps the subconscious overcome the problems.

Anxiety’s Nightmare

Roman hated it when Anxiety was the one experiencing the nightmare. Okay, he usually did. Part of the time, Anxiety’s nightmares were easy to deal with. They were social nightmares. Accidentally coming to school in your underwear, forgetting your line on stage and having people throw things at you, uncomfortable romantic or sexual situations, things like that. Things that were easily remedied by getting Anxiety out of there or simply giving him a pair of pants to put on.

Then there were the abstract nightmares. Good God, did he hate those.

Roman tried to find where Thomas was being represented in the dream. If he could do that, he could pull Anxiety out and give him slightly more control. If the personality trait experiencing the dream could think consciously instead of riding along that made things much easier.

He suddenly found himself standing upside down on a ceiling over an auditorium. Wait no. It was a field now. And, he wasn’t on a ceiling anymore. Okay.

He started wading through the field, which seemed to be changing color, and bleeding paint? No, not anymore. Now it was a house that looked like it had stepped straight out of the 1950s. What in the name of sanity was any of this supposed to represent?

He heard inappropriate noises coming down the hallway of the house and decided to follow those.

He opened a bedroom door that seemed to have a mind of its own and saw Thomas standing there like a statue as a woman without any eyes made unwanted advances.

Roman pushed her out of the way and she warped and spasmed until she disappeared. He took dream Thomas by the hand and spun him around. As he spun around, dream Thomas turned into Anxiety, eyeshadow and all.

Anxiety fell over and Roman made no effort to catch him. As soon as Anxiety hit the floor, it began to warp and made a solid effort to swallow him.

Roman jumped down the pit to retrieve the emo persona, threw him out of the pit, and jumped after him just as the ground snapped shut.

“What is going on here? What does any of this mean?” Roman asked, panting on the ground.

“Princey!” Anxiety said urgently.

Roman stood up and wheeled around to find himself facing a giant spider. He held back a scream and then hit it with his sword. As soon as he did so, the spider exploded into several thousand more spiders.

Roman let out a shriek of terror and grabbed Anxiety’s wrist. He dragged the other side away as quickly as he could. Anxiety was secretly grateful for this,  because a moment before he couldn’t bring himself to move out of sheer terror.

The two personality traits found themselves running down a mountain that only grew steeper as they went. Soon, they fell over each other and the drop swiftly turned to a 90 degree angle. Soon, they were free falling. That was quickly brought to a stop by a tree that was growing out of the side of the wall of a mountain they had fallen off of.

Anxiety landed next to Roman at a strange angle and both heard a snap.

“Anxiety, what was that? What does any of this mean? Tell me!” Roman said, trying to stay calm.

“My leg just snapped, genius,” Anxiety said, “Ow, augh. And even I’m not sure what it means. We’ve got a lot of issues, Princey,”

Roman gently helped Anxiety turn into a sitting position. It was true. Anxiety’s lower leg had snapped clean in half and was now turned at a horribly unnatural angle. It would go back in place once the dream ended, but for right now the pain was very real.

“We need to get out of here,” Prince said. “Perhaps there is a trail, or a door, or…”

“Forget it, Princey,” Anxiety said. “We can’t fix any of this. Just let it happen. There’s no point,”

Roman stood on the trunk of the tree and angrily looked down at Anxiety. “I am really growing sick of your unbearable, defeatist…”

They heard a snap. Then a crunch. Then the tree shifted.

“Told you. Ow,” Anxiety said, trying to move his leg.

Roman grabbed Anxiety by the waist and ignored the other’s cries of pain and proclamations of stupidity as he desperately tried to reach the mountainside before the tree fell off of it.

He didn’t make it. The tree uprooted itself and everything else disappeared, leaving Roman clinging to Anxiety as they fell into an abyss.

Roman held Anxiety tighter. “What does this all mean? Tell me!” He cried out over the rushing wind. “I’m supposed to help you!”

“Shut up!” Anxiety said, unable to hide the terror in his voice. “You don’t have all the answers! None of us do! There’s no point!”

Roman took a deep breath and concentrated with all his might. “Hold your breath!” he cried out.

Anxiety hated this, but did as he was told. Roman shifted them around so Anxiety was on top of him as they fell, so when they hit the water, Roman was the one that took the brunt of the fall.

Roman moved despite the pain in his spine and dragged Anxiety to the surface of the water. They were now swimming in a dark ocean that seemed to be filled with ink. There was a sky above them full of stars though, and a shore was in sight.

It took the prince far too long to drag Anxiety to the shore. They kept going under, because of how tired and injured they were. The murky saltwater stung at their eyes and at times even Roman felt like giving up and sinking to the bottom.

When they reached the shore, the sand was mercifully forgiving and Prince moved Anxiety into a sitting position.

Anxiety coughed up seawater and pounded his chest until it was clear.

“You really are an idiot,” He said hoarsely. “Ow, ugh. I hate this,”

Roman gripped Anxiety’s shoulder. “You’re welcome,” he said, as everything faded to black.

Morality’s Nightmare

Morality was experiencing the dream through Thomas’ eyes but couldn’t really do anything. It was like his voice and body were moving of their own accord. Like he was trapped in his own skin.

Thomas was wandering through a large house. It was ornately decorated and seemed bigger than it should be. Or maybe he was a foot shorter than he normally was. It was hard to tell the difference.

“Hello?” he called out. “Is anybody there?’

The words seemed to disappear on his lips and fizzle out inches from his face. He felt weak.

“Um? Hello? This isn’t funny!” He called out.

He walked into another hallway. It was full of paintings, none of which had people in them. Another hallway was full of mirrors that didn’t reflect anything. It led to a large ballroom with no windows.

Morality wanted more than anything to run, to find an exit, to stop the dream, but he couldn’t. The body he was trapped in was moving slowly and cautiously. It barely talked over a whisper and it weighed on him like a coat made of lead.

“Hello?” he called out again.

This time the words echoed around the gigantic room, spitting his word back at him.

“Hello? Hello? Hello?” the room echoed back at him.

Morality went to cover his ears. Wait. He could move!

He looked down and saw he was wearing his blue polo shirt and cardigan. He felt his face. There were glasses there.

“Roman, where are you?” Morality called, looking around.

“I’m over here, Patton,” Roman’s voice called from everywhere at once.

“You’re gonna have to concentrate, Kiddo!” Patton called out. “I can’t tell where you are,”

“Oh, now I’ve lost track of you!” Roman said, his voice still coming from everywhere at once.

“That’s okay, Roman!” Morality called out. “You’re doing a great job!”

“I am aware of that, you incompetent dolt. Now stand still so that I may find you,” Prince said.

“I dunno if I can do that, buddy,” Patton said,

“And why not?”

“Well, the ceiling’s coming down. I’m just gonna go out into that mirror hallway, m’kay? You’re doing a great job!”

Morality took off at a sprint as the ceiling began to come down like an elevator. Decorations were pushed off the walls and the chandelier hanging from the descending ceiling shook and shed pieces of crystal that shattered as they hit the floor.

As soon as Patton reached the mirror hallway, he tripped. The ceiling was about a foot away from him when he was forcibly dragged into the hallway.

Roman picked Morality up and placed him on his feet.

“Wow, Princey, Nice save!” Patton said.

“I am aware of that Morality. May I ask how this does not scare you?” Roman said, brushing rubble off of his shirt.

“Oh, I’m scared kiddo. I’m terrified. This mansion doesn’t have an end and I’m all alone. Can’t lie about that,”

Roman looked around. “And we appear to have gotten even smaller,”

Now they seemed to be a foot and three inches shorter than normal.

“Yeah, that happens,” Morality said.

“I remember,” said Roman, recalling the last time they had this dream. “I do not like it one bit,”

“Roman?” Patton said, “Hate to be a downer, but these mirrors give me the creeps. Is it okay if we get moving?”

“Always so polite. Very well,”

The two of them held hands as they walked cautiously through the mansion so they wouldn’t be separated. Morality was concentrating on breathing normally, while the prince held his sword in the hand that wasn’t keeping track of Patton and stayed on guard.

But there was nothing to guard against. The house didn’t do anything else and they stayed at the same height. It simply didn’t end. There were no doors. No windows. The rooms only had door frames and it wasn’t entirely clear where exactly the light was coming from.

“We’re alone,” Morality said finally. “We weren’t able to find anybody. Do you have any ideas, Roman?”

Roman stopped walking and sighed. “I was about to ask you the same thing, Morality,”

They stood there, feeling the emptiness of the large dining room they were sitting in. All the chairs were too big. They seemed to have shrunk another few centimeters.

Morality didn’t look happy anymore. He was the one that had nightmares least often out of all of them. Except Logan of course. He never did know how to deal with it. He expressed his distress openly, like he always did.

Roman sat next to Morality on the floor and rubbed his back as the father character cried quietly. He would never bring this up later. What happened during dreams stayed there.

After a few minutes Roman looked up.

“We seem to have gotten even shorter,” he noted.

“Yeah, it happens,” Morality said, drying his eyes. “On the bright side, that means it must be almost over, right?”

Roman smiled. “You always did conquer your problems quickly,”

He pointed dramatically to a door frame, and an actual door appeared there.

Roman helped Morality up. “Well? Are you going to try it?” he asked.

Morality’s smile returned, and it was as genuine as ever. “You bet! Let’s get going!”

He grabbed Roman’s hand and they sprinted for the door. When they got there, Patton didn’t hesitate for a moment, and flung the door open, putting an end to the infinite house.

Prince’s Nightmare

Why didn’t Prince ever tell anybody about his solo nightmares? Well, they may be terrifying, but they were also just so… normal. And Roman could not have anyone thinking that anything about him was normal. Tonight’s nightmare, although ordinary, was the most terrifying he had experienced in a very long time.

Thomas was driving down a road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. He was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread that he was late for something, but what he couldn’t remember.

This was getting ridiculous. He was supposed to be somewhere. The headlights barely cut through the inky blackness of the country road. Where was he? How did he get there? What was he late for?

Roman slowly but surely became aware that this was his nightmare. He felt even more lost. He couldn’t get control. Dream Thomas continued to drive down the road, completely lost. He turned every corner that came up and tried to find a highway or a freeway or a town or anything, but there was nothing. Nothing ever changed. The same landscape passed him over and over again.

Finally, Roman got himself together enough to take over. The pleather jacket, t-shirt, and jeans Thomas was wearing were replaced with regal attire and Prince took the wheel.

However, as soon as he did, a sinkhole appeared directly in front of him on the road. Roman slammed on the breaks in a panic and veered to the right. As soon as the car came to a halt, he heard a cracking noise behind him.

The Prince looked behind him, and in the dim glow of the break lights he saw giant cracks appearing in the ground. The creative side slammed on the gas petal and the tires screeched off into the night.

The asphalt behind him continued to crack, and somehow he knew that he was always just a few inches in front of the canyon that was swiftly forming behind him.

Another sinkhole appeared in the road. He swerved and barely missed it. He still didn’t know why he felt like he was late for something. Being late was clearly not his biggest concern right now.

Suddenly he saw a fallen tree over the road. The break decided that now would be a good time to stop working, and the car went flying into the air.

Mercifully, the car landed upright, but the airbag didn’t go off, and Roman hit his head on the steering wheel. The break resumed working and he shakily put a hand up to his head and hit a wet spot. He took his hand down and saw to his horror that his fingers were covered in blood. He absentmindedly wiped his hand off on his white shirt and swallowed.

He went for the door, but then the car lurched forward. Another sinkhole was opening up. Slowly this time.

Roman quickly put the car in reverse, got a few feet away, and then changed into drive again. The tires skidded loudly and then he shot off into the night again as the canyon resumed its growth behind him.

“What is wrong? What does this mean? Curse you, Anxiety!” He yelled to no one in particular.

He knew that Anxiety couldn’t hear him, and that he didn’t necessarily always want to cause these nightmares, but he often found yelling to the sky helped him think better. And his general philosophy towards problems was, when in doubt blame someone else.

The blood was dripping down his face now. It was disgusting and he wished he could stop, if only to wipe his face off. He swerved around another sinkhole and yelled out a curse at the top of his lungs.

There was only one thing to do for this. He was going to have to crash the car. He had no idea where he was supposed to be going or what he was late for, but right now that didn’t matter. The car had to stop.

He made a sharp right turn and drove into a field. He hit the breaks and the car skidded out until it ran into and completely totaled a shed.

This time, the airbags deployed and the wound on his head wasn’t aggravated. He pried open the door and stumbled out into the night air. There was no longer any indication that the ground had been falling apart. Everything was quiet.

Roman wiped off his forehead on his sleeve, not caring about the consequences. He briefly thought about how much of a concussion he would have if this was real. Thankfully, it only felt real.

He put pressure on the wound and sat next to the totaled car. Maybe the dream didn’t have to end quite yet. Maybe he could just sit here for a while. Maybe.

Somewhere in the field, crickets were chirping. He let them keep going on as he slowly drifted out of consciousness. Maybe now he could sleep. Really, truly, sleep.

[stellahibernis]

Sunday Snippets, May 7th, 2017

This week was a pretty okay writing week, over 6k fic written and some editing, plus some other writing too. Again my brain kind of surprised me with what exactly I was going to write, but so it goes.

The editing was for the next chapter of for Forget the Dragon, which is the story told real time over a year. Next scheduled update is on Wednesday, so I needed to tidy it up. I also wrote a bit for the verse too, I like to be about two chapters up, and so I’ve already written the June chapter, and this week I worked a bit on the first chapter of Steve’s fic (it’ll be called Give Me Another Version in all likelihood), that’ll be out in July. I’ll try and finish it next week, it’s all laid out, just needs to be written.

Most of what I wrote this week was for At This Distance You’re a Mirage, which is the story of Bucky recovering and spending time with everyone but Steve. It’s reached the funny point where I kind of want it to be done already, not because I’m bored but because I want to see how it’ll turn out. One can only write so fast, and I’m currently at a quarter done, at the most. If it gets long I might only have about a fifth right now, so I’ll be at it for a while. It’s a post CATWS AU, where AoU and CACW never happen, but all the history we get from them is true (triggers, Tony’s parents, Maximoffs etc). Which means I had to figure out a whole new way of dealing with the triggers:D

And for some reason my brain decided I needed to write a bit for the fic where Steve’s first week in the future is extremely eventful. It’s the one I complained about on Thursday, that it’s kind of more complicated plotwise than I wanted it to be. Today’s excerpt below is from this story.

Next week, as I mentioned, I’ll tackle the first chapter of Give Me Another Version, and after that the continuation to The Platform of Surrender and Looking for the Answer, I think I’m ready to start with it now.

***

Steve wakes up in a room he’s never seen, but it’s not the oddest thing about that moment. The strange thing is that he wakes up at all. He remembers it all, remembers Red Skull and the glowing cube and the glimpse of a sky unlike anything he’d ever imagined. He remembers the plane, and the ice. Peggy’s voice over the radio, and the regret he felt knowing he’d never keep the promise he made to her.

He remembers, even though he doesn’t like thinking of it, his Catholic upbringing revolting against it, the relief he felt when the plane was going down. At least it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

Now, he opens his eyes in this unfamiliar room, and the pain of loss slams right back into him. Steve stays on the bed, not moving while it crashes over him, settles around his heart again, already like an old friend even though it’s only been weeks since Bucky was lost.

It’s only then that it registers what he’s hearing. The baseball game on the radio, that he’d taken to mean that he was back home, suddenly becomes sinister, because he knows it, he knows this game. He remembers sitting high up on the nosebleed seats, eating hot dogs that were probably terrible but still better than most he usually had to eat, and the most vivid memory of all, Bucky’s shoulder knocking against his.

It was four years earlier.

It’s all a blur afterward, the woman dressed all wrong, the men in weird uniforms, bursting out into a world unlike anything he’s ever seen. He recognizes a few buildings, but this New York is not his, not with the amount of cars, the high buildings made of glass and steel, the bright images flashing all around him.

There’s nowhere to run, Steve knows it, and he also knows he’s lost a lot more than he ever expected.

He lets the bald bespectacled man convince him to let them take him back, and what else is he to do, even if he were to run they’d just catch him, and then he’d be seen as crazy. Better to see what this is all about even if he does feel uneasy still, and for more than just because of the change. There is an undercurrent in the air he doesn’t quite understand.

He ends up in a car with Sitwell and a blond woman whose face is carefully blank. The black man driving glances at him in the mirror, and then they are off, the line of black cars moving out. Steve doesn’t talk to them, just looks at the city through the tinted windows, and wonders what lies ahead.

He catches the movement of the woman pointing something at Sitwell, who jerks and slumps down unconscious. Steve momentarily considers jumping out, except there’s no aggression in her toward him, he can tell, and so he relaxes just a fraction, ready to hear.

“Three lights until the exit,” the driver says.

She acknowledged with a nod, and then fixes her eyes on Steve. “Captain Rogers, my name is Sharon Carter, that’s Antoine Triplett. SHIELD has been infested with HYDRA, and we’re getting you out.” She does something with the pin at Sitwell’s lapel, removing the eagle and revealing the familiar sign.

[whatthisfemsheplikes]

A G/t story for my New Years Resolution

So.... I wrote a thing! I know that I said that my New Years Resolution was to romance Garrus again (which is still is) but my more serious one was to finally post some G/t stories that I’ve been working on. I’ve been in the process of writing a series with my OCs named Tori and Wesley for quite a while now. Originally, I had written a bunch of fanfiction with them inserted into it, but I later decided that they deserved their own story first. I’m still in the process of finishing it, and I’m thinking about starting a sideblog where I just post stories, but I decided to post one here just to see if people even wanted more of these two lol. So, this is one sneak-peak at their main story. The only thing worth mentioning as far as background information goes is that this story is set in a world where borrowers are kept as pets for humans, and Tori rescued Wesley by adopting him after he tried to escape his pet store but got injured in the process. Now, without further ado, I hope you enjoy this snippet that I’m calling The Nightmare! :)

The Nightmare

“Get back here, you little pest!” The booming voice shook the world around Wesley as he ran. He didn’t dare let up his pace, for if he did, he would surely be squashed by the humungous feet that were chasing after him. “S-stay away!” he managed to yell behind him. He didn’t know where he was running to, but anywhere was better than here, right? “You insignificant bug!” the voice shouted back, making Wesley wince at the volume. “Is that any way to speak to your master?” “Leave me alone!” Wesley cried out. It was getting harder and harder to continue. He was running out of breath and space between him and the giant. He didn’t know how much longer he could go on. His wavy, chestnut brown hair was sticking to his pale forehead from sweat, and he felt like all of the muscles in his frail body were about to give out.

“Stop!” the voice screeched at an inhumanly high volume. This time, Wesley couldn’t fight it. The pain of his ringing ears sent his head spinning, and he went crashing to the hard tile floor. When he looked up through slightly blurred vision, his eyes traveled so far above him that he thought his neck might snap off. He managed to make out the face of a man with a bushy mustache across his lip and black hair that was gelled down to the point of it looking like plastic. The growl that escaped from his mouth was accompanied by bared teeth, and the giant’s large hands were curled up into fists. He looked a bit disheveled with his dress shirt slightly unbuttoned and his tie hanging loosely around his neck. With great effort, Wesley was able to deduce that he knew this man. He was a previous owner, but he never knew the man’s name. He didn’t care to give it. All he was supposed to call him was “master.”

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” the giant growled. “Perhaps I should just get rid of you now. It’s not as if anyone will care that you’re gone.” Just then, a monstrously large shoe raised above Wesley, ready to stomp. He tried to back away as fast as he could, but he knew that it was useless. He couldn’t escape. He was done for. He had already accepted his fate as the shoe came zooming towards him while he let out a scream.

“No!” he cried out bloody murder as he jolted upwards and took in his suddenly new surroundings. It was dark, but his eyes were used to it, so he managed to see that he was no longer in some kind of bright, kitchen area, but rather a bedroom, still clearly made for a giant. How had he gotten away from that owner? Before he could even try to process anything else around him, he noticed that the ground below him was starting to shift a bit, and the sound of rushing air filled the space around him. When he looked for the source of the noise, he saw that he was actually laying on the chest of a giant woman, and she was waking up!

In a flash, Wesley was scooting himself away from her face and screaming again, desperate to get away from any human that could get their hands on him. However, his shriek seemed to cause the giant to panic, and he was quickly trapped in a fist before he could even react. The pressure around him wasn’t intense, but it made his body ache since he still had cuts and bruises from his escape attempt earlier that day.

“No!” he shouted again. “Please, let me go! Stop!” “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Wes,” he suddenly heard a soft, comforting voice say. It was practically the total opposite of the voice in his dreams, and when the human moved and flicked one of the bedside lamps on, Wesley could see that he wasn’t with that owner who was trying to crush him anymore. It was the new owner, Tori, who had him in her fist. Her long, curly, dark brown hair was frizzy from shifting her head along her pillow in the night, and her emerald green eyes squinted against the presence of light in the room. She took a moment to adjust her wrinkled V-neck t-shirt with her free hand as she yawned and then turned her full attention to Wesley.

“Just relax,” she said, trying to be calming. “I think that you just had a nightmare. It’s over now. Everything is okay.” Her words might have sounded comforting to some people in this situation, but to Wesley, he was still terrified. Now, he had a whole new problem with this human, but this one was very real. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to wake up his masters. She must be angry with him. After all, she had grabbed him after she had promised to not pick him up without permission. Surely she would punish him now. Without waiting for her to say anything else, Wesley felt himself starting to cry in her hand as he hung his head in shame.

“Hey, it really is okay,” Tori insisted, her voice full of sympathy and pity. “You’re safe, Wesley. Nothing is going to get you around here.” “P-please,” he stammered, ignoring her words. “Please d-don’t take me back to the pet store! I’m sorry that I-I woke you up, but p-please have m-mercy on me!” “Whoa, Wesley, please calm yourself,” she replied, a confused look on her face. “Who said anything about taking you back to the pet store?” The young man looked into her eyes with a questioning expression, his lip quivering slightly as tears continued to roll down his cheeks.

“A-aren’t you mad at me… for waking you up?” he asked, clearly fearing her answer. “Mad at you?” Tori gasped, genuinely baffled. Her shock morphed into concern in a matter of seconds. “Wes, it was just a bad dream. I’m not mad that you woke me up. If anything, I’m glad that you did so that I can try to help you.” Without waiting for him to reply, Tori carefully brushed her finger over Wesley’s cheeks to wipe away his tears. He instinctively flinched away from the incoming finger, but when he felt what she was doing, he simply tensed up in confusion rather than fear. He still felt strange whenever this human was nice to him, because he hadn’t experienced any kindness like this before. She seemed genuine, but he was still suspicious. He doubted that he would ever get over that feeling.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” she whispered. “I promise that I would never hurt you or threaten to send you back to that awful pet store, whether you actually made me angry or not. It’s just not right, and I want to help you rather than hurt you. Just because I’m bigger than you doesn’t mean that I get to take advantage of you and control you in any way.” “B-but, you grabbed me,” he mumbled. “So, I thought that that meant that you were mad.” “I’m sorry that I grabbed you,” Tori replied with a look of guilt as she instantly released her grip on him so that he was sitting in her palm. “It was just a reflex. I thought that you were in danger since you were screaming like that, so I wanted to get you away from whatever was scaring you… I guess I kind of misinterpreted what you were trying to get away from.”

“You… you wanted to protect me?” he questioned. “Of course,” Tori answered. “You seem to still have a hard time believing that I care about you, but it’s true. You’re special to me. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” “How can I be special to you?” he murmured. “We’ve only known each other for a day.” “Is there a time limit for when I can start caring about you?” she replied with a raised eyebrow. “N-no…” Wesley admitted. “It’s just… I… I’m just a borrower. You’re not supposed to care about me. I’m not even supposed to be doing things like sleeping on your chest, but I have to because you’re my owner and-”

“Wesley,” Tori sighed, bringing him up closer to her face. “How many times do I have to keep telling you that I’m not your owner? I don’t want you to think that way because I don’t see you as a pet. I see you as someone that I want to help and care about. I don’t want to make you do anything that you don’t want to do. I know that I still have to go out and buy a bed your size, but if you don’t want to sleep on my chest then I can see if I-” “No!” he cut in, a bit too insistently. When Tori threw up her eyebrows in surprise, he quickly composed himself and looked into her eyes. “I mean… no. I-I don’t have a problem with where I sleep. It’s just… I’ve always learned that I shouldn’t do things like that. I’m not meant to care about humans, because they’re not meant to care about borrowers. So… why are you so different?”

At this, Tori gave him a soft smile and rubbed a thumb against his cheek. He tried to not flinch away, so instead, he froze in place as the finger brushed against him. The more he processed it, the more that it actually felt… nice. He somehow felt comfort from it, which seemed odd to him. He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel, because he had never been shown affection before, but he wanted to believe that it always felt as good as it did in that moment. Still, he refused to let himself sink into her touch, or let her know that he enjoyed this in anyway as she spoke to him again.

“I’m different…” she went on. “Because I know what it’s like to be looked down on. I know what it’s like to be an outsider, and I don’t want to make anyone else feel like that. Plus, I just know the simple rules of respect that people seem neglect when interacting with borrowers.” “What do you mean that you know what it’s like to be an outsider?” Wesley inquired with curiosity. “I think that that’s a story for another day,” Tori chuckled lightly as she looked over at the red, glowing numbers from the alarm clock. “It’s already three in the morning. If you’re feeling better then you should probably go back to sleep.”

“Oh,” Wesley gasped when she told him the time. He didn’t realize that it was that late, and that Tori had been willing to try and comfort him at such an inconvenient time. She could have gotten mad at him like he had originally feared, or she could have simply shushed him rather than talking to him about why he had been scared. It actually made him feel better to see such an effort from her. It made him feel… safe, and he didn’t really know why. “Right,” he nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

Without another word, Tori turned off the bedside lamp and slowly lowered Wesley back down onto her chest. “You’re still okay with sleeping here?” she asked. “Yeah,” Wesley answered as he laid down on her soft skin. “I’m fine.” “Good,” Tori said with a content sigh as she snuggled back down into the bed. When she had relaxed, Wesley settled his head against her and allowed himself to feel the thumping of Tori’s heartbeat calming him as he closed his eyes.

All of a sudden, he felt something large and warm with a slight weight on top of him. He immediately snapped his eyes open only to be met with the sight of Tori’s hand on his body. His initial response was to cry out or scramble away in fear, thinking that Tori was trying to pin him down or even crush him. However, the more he looked, the more he rationalized the situation. Tori wasn’t putting any pressure on him at all, and there was actually plenty of space around him so that he could crawl out from under her palm if he wanted to. She wasn’t trapping him. It seemed like she was trying to comfort him some more.

His guess was confirmed when he watched as Tori’s thumb moved and started lightly rubbing his back up and down. She was so gentle that Wesley couldn’t help but melt into her touch this time. Every part of his brain told him not to, because it would mean feeling comfort from a human, but he didn’t listen. It felt too good to deny it. When he looked up at Tori’s face, he saw that her eyes were closed and she had a small smile on her face.

“Good night, Wes,” she whispered without looking at him. He took that as a sign to sleep, so he snuggled into her skin more. “Good night, Tori,” he replied. “And thank you… for everything.”