#prayed for people. was a part of something beyond me. got to act as a youth leader and HNGNDNG NOTHING

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

it's not a Sunday unless you're on the unhinged edge of exhausted and end the day moderately in love

[cacoetheswriting]

pearl: march 1986

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader word count: 3.4k summary: hushed confessions midst the end of the world.

content warnings: best friends to lovers, slow burn, violence / blood / description of injuries (events from s4), mentions of death / losing a loved one, adult language, use of pet names, emotional hurt / no comfort - if i missed anything, pls let me know!

pearl masterlist

March 21, 1986

Everyone that’s ever met Eddie Munson, knows he’s not one for rational and thought out decisions. 

As a matter of fact, even people that have never made an effort to get to know him also always just assume he acts on impulse. They’re all correct. He does tend to act on gut instinct. Based on his feelings rather than sound logic. He’s not one for overthinking and over analysing every single scenario. He acts purely by following his heart.

However, as Eddie stared into Chrissy Cunningham’s snow-like empty eyes, he deeply regretted not being a person who took a second before making a choice.

“Wake up, Chrissy.”

His own voice sounds panicked and honestly, how can it not be. She was pale and cold to the touch. This was beyond fucking weird, like some creepy horror shit and Eddie wanted no part of it.

“Chrissy, wake up!” He’s pleading, shaky hands tapping her shoulders nervously, “I don’t like this, Chrissy! Wake up!”

He finds himself still praying for this to be some sort of stupid prank, hoping that Jason Carver will jump out at any given moment with a video camera and a stupid grin plastered across his idiotic face, yelling: “We got you, freak!”. 

Unfortunately, as the lights flicker out of control and the longer Eddie shakes the blonde's seemingly unconscious frame, the more he thinks this is definitely not a high-school prank ‘cause those idiots aren’t smart enough to pull off something as elaborate as this.

“Chrissy, wake up now! Chrissy—”

Then the phone rings, startling him even more. He glances at the device mounted on the wall and his eyes gloss over with tears. He knows who’s calling. But he can’t answer, can he? You’d instantly sense something is off and he can’t risk you coming here out of worry and also being witness to… to whatever the fuck was happening right now. Plus, would you even believe him if he told you in the first place?

Hastily running a hand down his face, feeling nothing but extreme fright, Eddie approaches the phone and after quickly looking back at Chrissy, he places the handset to his ear.

“H-he- llo-”

The line distorts your voice. He can barely make out your greeting and the question that follows. Not like it matters anyway. Not like anything matters ‘cause Chrissy’s body lifts itself off the ground and is now floating mid-air in his small living room.

“What the f—”

“E-ed-die? A-re y-you oka—”

Chrissy’s unconscious frame flings itself against the ceiling with a thud and the metalhead drops the handset, chord dangling against the wall as his own body falls helplessly to the ground. 

“Jesus Christ!” Eddie yells as he tries to push himself backwards, deeper into the trailer

Every inch of him is terrified. He’s screaming now and he’s sure you can hear him on the other line. Then his gut instinct kicks in. The one he blamed for getting him into this mess in the first place is now urging him to get up and run. If not for his sake, than for the person he loved most in this world.

You’re no doubt going to either come here or call for help, or both, and when Chief Powell comes with his goon squad, they’re going to think Eddie’s responsible for this horrific scene. They’d lock him up, no questions asked. 

And Eddie couldn’t have you thinking you killed this poor girl. He needed that chance to explain himself. Surely you’ll forgive him for running. Surely you’ll understand.

March 22, 1986 

“I swear, I don’t even know her name,” Mr. Munson tells the police, “I never seen her ‘fore.” He exhales a long and no doubt exhausted breath, then briefly glances at you. “I got the call shortly after you guys did, I assume. Eddie’s friend here, well, she uh… she found the girl.”

“I think it’s— Her name is Chrissy,” you blurt out quietly, “Chrissy Cunningham.”

Chief Powell straightens his posture. His gaze narrows, only for his expression to soften a split second later. You assume it’s because you look terrible. Eyes puffy, makeup smudged from a mix of tears and stress, and your bottom lip won’t stop trembling.

“And how did Eddie know,” he pauses and lowers his voice, “Miss Cunningham?”

You shrug. “They go to the same school so I assume that’s where they met.”

Chief Powell nods, motions for Officer Callahan to come over, whispers something in the young police officer's ear, and without saying anything else to you, he walks away.

“Do you know where he went?” Officer Callahan asks.

“Eddie? No, I don’t.” You answer honestly, crossing your arms across your chest. “I-I heard him scream over the phone and when I asked what was going on and… h-he wouldn’t respond to me, I-I got here as fast as I could. Then I contacted the station and then Mr. Munson.”

“Eddie rang you?” Officer Callahan enquiries.

“I called him.”

“And did you know the young lady was with him?”

“No, I thought he was alone,” you say and glance at Wayne, who’s gone over to talk to another officer. He shoots you a timid smile, the best he can probably muster at this time, and proceeds to search the pockets of his pants for his packet of smokes.

You sigh. “Look, I know you’re probably thinking Eddie did this, but I can assure you, he did not.”

Officer Callahan raises a brow, as if to urge you to go on. So you do. 

“When I called Eddie… Sir, I heard him scream. He sounded fucking terrified. Why would he be so scared if he’s the one that did this?” You pause, “I-I think there was someone else at the trailer last night and—”

“Thank you, Miss.” Officer Callahan interrupts and leans in a little closer towards you, “Since you heard some of what happened here last night, we’ll get someone from the squad to escort you home.”

“You think I’m in danger?” You practically scoff, “Eddie didn’t do this. He shouldn’t be chased down like some sort of criminal. He’s a victim here too!”

That turns a few heads, Chief Powell and Wayne included. You curse under your breath yet even though you can feel yourself getting really frustrated, all you can think about is Eddie. What he witnessed last night, the scene you came across when you arrived at the trailer, you’re convinced something’s happening in the Upside Down again. This whole circus is a total waste of time. Eddie’s not safe.

Chief Powell is now back in front of you. His hands are on his hips, trying to assert dominance, and a frown is spread across his features. “Look, kid, I liked your dad. He was a good man and what happened to him, well it’s no doubt caused you a lot of pain.”

You’re chewing on the inside of your cheek, fighting back the tears, as Chief Powell continues. “Please let one of my officers take you home, okay? Your mom is probably worried sick since gossip in this town spreads like wildfire,” he tries to lighten the mood but fails, “And I’ll make you a deal, okay? If you stay home with your mom, I’ll make sure when we find young Mr. Munson, we won’t treat him harshly.”

One of his hands is now on your shoulder, squeezing it in an act of reassurance.

“You’ll call me too,” you add.

Chief Powell nods. “You’ll be the first person I call. Deal?”

Growing up with a dad on the force exposed you to a lot of things kids normally don’t encounter until much later in life, if ever. Your dad taught you a lot. One of the things being: people aren’t always honest when their reputation is on the line. Chief Powell didn’t really care about what happened to Eddie, not even for your sake, which meant you had to do everything in you power to find the metalhead first.

“Deal,” you lie through your teeth, faking a kind smile. 

However, you couldn’t do that alone.

-

“Dustin, please tell me you have something.”

Headset pressed to your ear, cord wrapped around your wrist. You’re bouncing impatiently and every so often, nervously peeping around the corner into the living room where your mom sat with Wayne.

They didn’t seem to hear you or your scheming, too lost in a conversation you really couldn’t follow right now. You had other pressing matters on your mind — finding your… your Eddie.

“If you stopped asking me every five seconds, perhaps I’d have more information to give you,” Dustin jeers. His tone is not meant to be harmful and you don’t take it that way. You’re just glad they all agreed to help. “Here, can one of you calm her down? I need to think.”

You assume he passes the phone to either Robin or Steve, and you’re proven right when the next thing you hear is, “Hey, how are you doing?”, in the smooth tone of Mr. Best Hair in Hawkins himself.

“How do you think?” You snap, quickly following your mini outburst with, “Sorry, this is just…”

“A lot?” Steve finishes your sentence and although he can’t see you, you nod against the headset.

“Well, our best people are on it. We’ll find him.” Steve tries to reassure.

“I hope so,” you breathe, once again glancing in the direction of Wayne and your mom. “This whole situation is just so fucked up and like really scary. I thought El closed the portal. I thought last July was the end of these encounters with the Upside Down.”

“We all did,” Steve mumbles on the other line, “But you can’t think ahead right now, okay? First thing is to find Eddie before anyone else does.”

As always, Harrington was right. “I know. I just wish I could be helping you guys, but instead I’m stuck here with a fucking police unit outside my home.”

Steve exhales into the headset. He’s about to say something when all of a sudden there’s a little commotion followed by some seemingly excited mumbling. You’re about to ask what’s going on when you hear my own being called over and over again on the other line.

“Tell me you still have your walkie?” Dustin is back on the line, “You know the one from last year’s Starcourt Mall events? Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

“I-I do, yeah. It’s somewhere in my wardrobe.”

“Go, go get it right now and make sure it still works,” Dustin instructs eagerly, “We have a good lead as to where Eddie is hiding out. We’ll contact you when we’re with him.”

You have questions that you don’t get to ask ‘cause a mere split second later, all you hear is the dial tone. 

Your mind is spinning, heart racing. They found him. A small victory — although why didn’t it feel like one?

March 23, 1986

“So, I guess they told you everything, huh?” You ponder into the walkie, pulling the bedspread up to your chin.

The room feels dark and cold. You suppose, given the situation, it almost is. Your blinds are shut tight and you have the light switched off, so that any lurkers couldn’t suspect you’re sitting here — and since yesterday afternoon, that number has unfortunately increased significantly. 

As soon as Jason’s goon squad found out about the situation, he sent a couple of his trusted “men” to keep an eye on you and your house. The police officers assigned to “protect” me, rotated in shifts, and dare you say have gotten a little too comfortable, knocking on your door to use the bathroom or smooth-talk your mom into making them coffee. Word also spread through town about Eddie being a devil worshipper and as his “girlfriend”, you simply had to be lying about his whereabouts. Honestly, all the crowd across the road is missing are pitchforks.

Idiots. As if you’d be stupid enough to lead any of them to Eddie. 

“Yeah,” Eddie exhales into the walkie, “They did.”

You swallow. “I-I suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“No,” he’s quick to respond, “Not really. I mean, you did what you had to, princess. What you thought was right and I can’t be mad at that. But it does explain a lot. Like—”

“My nightmares,” you chime and Eddie chuckles lightly before agreeing. “Yeah, like your nightmares.”

There’s a moment of congenial silence. 

You want nothing more than to be by his side and have him hold you in his arms, kissing the top of your head. Fuck. Tears form in the corners of your eyes at the thought. Not only was that not possible right now, neither of you knew when you’d actually see each other again. The topic loomed over your heads, yet you didn’t dare to utter the words aloud ‘cause things were so good recently, and now… Well, avoidance worked for you in the past, (for a while anyway).

“I’m sorry, Eds.”

“Don’t be, sweetheart.”

“Well, maybe if I told you sooner, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now. Maybe if you knew what we all knew, you could have come here instead of hiding out all alone. So yeah, I’m sorry. I’m always going to be sorry.”

Eddie sighs into the walkie. “Timing just never seems to be on our side, huh.”

When you don’t respond, because it hurts your heart, you half expect him to cut the conversation short, say he’s tired or whatever and wish you a goodnight. And you wouldn’t blame him either. You’ve all had a tough couple of days, but his must have been the most exhausting. 

The metalhead seems to have other plans. 

“Cry baby. Cry baby. Cry baby. Honey, welcome back home.”

You can’t help but crack a smile as Eddie starts singing softly. His voice, although a little distorted, is as angelic as ever and you let your eyes close, resting your head on the headboard — you’re not entirely sure at which point you drift off to sleep but you do, imagining the metalhead is next to you.

“I know she told you. 

Hon', I know she told you that she loved you

Much more than I did

But I know that she left you

And you swear that you just don't know why

But you know, hon', I'll always

I'll always be around

If you ever want me”

March 27, 1986

The last few days have been a complete and utter blur, not to mention a horrifying mess. 

You manage to sneak out of your over-guarded home, although your reunion with Eddie isn’t as happy as you both would’ve liked it to be ‘cause suddenly, you find yourselves in the Upside Down fighting for your lives.

Eddie helps Dustin up the makeshift rope before turning to you. The second his chocolate-like gaze locks with yours, a shiver runs down your spine. You can’t exactly tell what he’s thinking, but he’s serving an apologetic expression with a broken smile.

So you do what feels right in the moment and throw your arms around his neck, causing him to stumble backwards a little. He doesn’t hesitate to hug you back. If anything, his grip is a lot stronger than normal and you’re feeling even more concerned than seconds ago.

“Come on!” Dustin yells, “We don’t have time for this!”

The rest of the teens' words fizzle out into the background. All you’re focused on is the faint sound of Eddie’s heartbeat and his hushed breathing into the crook of your neck. Tears begin to swell in your eyes, but before you get to ask why this feels like a goodbye when you’ve just reunited, he places a kiss on your cheek and lets his arms fall.

“Go on, princess.”

You glance at the rope he’s now holding before looking back at him.

“Eddie—”

“Go on. I’m right behind you,” Eddie reassures and you don’t try to protest anymore because you trust him. Instead, you reach for the rope and begin to climb up, aware of his hands hovering over your lower back, ready to push or hold you up if needed. 

You fall through and immediately stand to allow space for Eddie, however, the metalhead doesn’t follow. Dustin is yelling, urging Eddie on whose sole attention is on you. You realise then what he’s been planning and your throat dries to the point where it feels like sandpaper.

“Eddie,” you call out, voice breaking, “You said you were right behind. I-I am begging you, please, please, come here.”

He offers you a smile. One that causes your heart to falter. You know what he’s doing. You know now exactly what he’s thinking. Most importantly, you know what he’s going to say next and you don’t want to hear it. Not here.

“Please, Eddie.” you beg him, eyes watering, “Not like this.”

“I love you, princess.”

And before the admission can even settle in the air, before you get a chance to say that you love him too, desperately and with your whole heart, you’re forced to watch him rush off as Dustin hollers his name.

The room comes to a standstill. For a couple of seconds, you’re unable to move. Your body feels heavy as you’re staring blankly ahead at the spot Eddie’s just vanished from. He loves me, you think, bottom lip quivering. He loves me. 

Inhale, exhale. You snap back to reality. The tears that have been forming in your eyes stop before they breach completely.

Dustin is pacing. He stops when you call his name: once, twice, three times. The two of you exchange a knowing glance. Neither of you speak. There’s no time. The young teen helps you without question. He's on the floor in seconds, ready to hoist you up.

It takes a few attempts, mostly because your whole body is shaking, but you manage to go through the portal once again.

“Don’t wait for me,” Dustin urges in a panicked tone. “Find him.”

All you do is nod.

Eddie’s not hard to find. His agonising screams give his location away pretty quickly. And you’re terrified as you run in his direction. Terrified of what he’s gotten himself into and terrified if he was gonna make it out alive.

He’s coughing up blood when you reach him. You immediately fall to your knees next to him and scan his extensive wounds, hands shaking. The scene in front of you is grisly. Your mind is racing, trying to come up with a way to help him — help get him out of here safely and to a hospital as soon as possible. 

Ultimately you feel helpless ‘cause you’re not sure how to do that.

Eddie coughs again. His hand reaches for yours and he squeezes, bringing you back to Earth.

“Look at me,” he murmurs and you oblige without hesitation. “I-I’m okay, so get out of here.”

You shake my head rather ferociously. “I-I’m not leaving you.” You finally allow yourself to start crying, readjusting your position so that his head is now resting in your lap. “I shouldn’t have let you do this in the first place. Why did you do this, Eddie?”

“It’s done now.” Eddie does his best to offer you a smile. “I-I didn’t run. I fought back.”

The tears that are trailing down your cheeks are burning into your skin. You smile back, a broken smile with nothing but pain behind it, then brush some of his loose curls away from his face. You proceed to cup his cheek and Eddie leans into your touch. It’s a moment that feels safe — despite the fact that your intertwined fingers are resting on his chest and you can feel the blood seep through. 

He squeezes your hand again. “I-I meant what I said—”

“Not like this,” you interrupt in a whimper, “Ehm… Uhm… Dustin will be here soon a-and we’re gonna get you out of here together. You’re gonna be okay. Then you can tell me again, okay? Not like this, Eddie.”

But he just shakes his head. “Yes, yes like this. I-I love you.”

“Eddie—”

“P-please, sweetheart. Please. I love you…” 

Eddie’s voice fades into the darkness that’s surrounding the two of you and his eyes drift close.

You say his name.

When you gauge no reaction, you say it again, and again, and again.

Then you scream.

First in agony, then you scream his name. You beg him to open his eyes, but he’s unresponsive. Bloody hand in yours, he’s drifting somewhere between life and death and you continue to cry.

That’s how Dustin finds you. Eddie, dying in your arms.

pearl masterlist

& tagging some cool people that expressed interest in this lil series: @cactusangie , @spenciesprincess , @capitanostella , @ashlynnkennedy , @ms1oftheboys , @kurdtbean

[restlesshush]

I know people love the “Cas can hear longing” thing, but the thing is the textual basis for it is actually pretty shaky, and it also just definitely doesn’t serve the purpose re Cas and Dean’s relationship more broadly that people want it to.

Okay so, re the textual basis: literally the only reason this concept exists is because buckleming needed a justification for Cas running into Claire again in 10x10, and her actively praying was too implausible, so they come up with “uhhh okay – her sort of wanting to counts” instead. Obviously that’s not in itself a reason to discard a piece of lore, because it is still in the show (though buckleming do have a tendency towards dropping garbage nonsensical lore, so…), but – more importantly – because of the function it was meant to serve, in context it’s a bit of a leap to take it as Cas hearing longing in general. Specifically, Cas follows up the ‘longing’ mention with asking Claire “perhaps you wanted to tell me something?”, to which she eventually concedes she does. The exchange is kind of clumsily worded – because it’s a buckleming episode –, but it seems like the mechanic is that Cas can tell if someone is perhaps ‘longing’ to pray to him, which is not at all the same as implying he could perceive longing in a romantic or other emotional sense.

Which is good, because if that were true, the implications re destiel are not ones that we want. Basically, if Dean is longing for Cas and Cas can perceive that, he’s not acting on it, so the options are that either this isn’t actually something he can perceive, or there’s nothing there to perceive. We know Cas is in love with Dean the entire time, and we know that he knows this by the 12x12 love confession at the very latest (but presumably much earlier) so even if the 15x18 confession didn’t make explicit that Cas doesn’t think Dean’s in love with him, we’ve got a very significant amount of time where Cas would in theory want to act on Dean’s ‘longing’ if he knew about it, except he not only isn’t, but also seems kind of afraid (“…I love all of you”) of making it too obvious that he’s in love with Dean in the first place. If he can perceive longing, he isn’t perceiving any from Dean directed towards him (which was a crucial part of the mechanic, as laid out “angels are able to find those who pray to them”) which isn’t really what we want to be implying.

And I mean fortunately, I don’t think the text really implies this at all, but I do feel this is worth flagging because people often seem to lean kind of heavily on the longing mechanic / Cas’s angelic senses in general for justifying Cas having an access to / understanding of Dean’s feelings that really isn’t supported by the show. Right up until the end, Cas really doesn’t seem confident at all of his place in Dean’s life, even beyond the question of Dean being in love with him or not, because – as I think is pretty widely acknowledged – the most compelling evidence for Dean being in love with / caring about Cas is how he responds when Cas is dead, which obviously Cas doesn’t see. Cas’s (very significant) insecurities re his and Dean’s relationship often go largely neglected, and using lore explanations to sidestep them is generally just quite lazy, and kind of does Cas a disservice. This isn’t to take away from people’s headcanons or anything, but I think it is worth pointing out that despite it very frequently being treated as fact, Cas hearing/feeling longing in a romantic/emotional sense is just a headcanon, and not really as useful a one as people seem to think.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Rereading the Scalding Sands event and seeing your post about Jamil's childhood friend got me thinking about it again, and I had some thoughts that are probably completely off-base but I had to somehow release them into the wild anyway, haha. I hope that's alright!

I think the most popular theory is that Jamil's friend is a twisted version of Iago, which makes a lot of sense considering his dynamic with Jafar and how iconic they are as a duo. That said, Iago has been referenced by the game in other ways (Jamil wanting a parrot as a pet, the Iago plushie for the guest room) which makes me wonder whether there's any other alternatives for who his friend might be...and the next characters that come to mind are Aladdin and Abu.

I find it really interesting that a lot of Jamil's childhood memories (hiding in the urn whenever in trouble, stealing the melon, haggling with merchants and running around the markets, etc...) seem to be direct references to specific scenes in Aladdin's first act (namely, stuff that happens during One Jump Ahead and the scene where he meets Jasmine) and that whenever he brings his friend(s) up it's usually within the context of getting up to some kind of mischief in the markets, which is something that (based exclusively on the source material) has a stronger association with Aladdin/Abu than it does with Iago. There's also that Bloom Birthday voiceline where he says one of his middle school friends would usually try to take his snacks from him, which also really reminds me of Abu, who gets several scenes where he's trying to steal or hog food in one way or another (the bread scene and the apple scene with Jasmine come to mind off the top of my head)

(.....Actually...the more I type this down, the more the little bits and pieces we know about his friend just start to sound like Ruggie..............I guess them getting along so well in the masquerade event makes a lot of sense, haha)

But in all fairness, I might be reading too much into it and forgetting something.....Still, I guess I was curious about other people's thoughts on the idea of twisted Aladdin or Abu as Jamil's friend. Does it sound plausible at all given what we know? Is it a theory that gets brought up often?

[Referencing this post!]

I think it’s possible to reference a Disney character in the lore while also having a Twisted counterpart appear in the world of Twisted Wonderland itself! For example, we hear a lot about the mermaid princess of legend (Ariel), but we also know that Rielle (presumably Twisted!Ariel) exists. This is the case for many other characters as well, from side characters to the main cast itself.

I'm under the impression that most people think Jamil's middle school friend is Twisted!Iago, but that's mainly due to Jafar and Iago being such an iconic duo in the Aladdin movie. I personally haven't really thought about it much beyond that because I just really want Jamil to have a shitty sidekick 😂 I admittedly have a weakness for that kind of a dynamic, so in my heart I was praying and hoping hard for Iago to become canon when I first played through the Scalding Sands event! I went back to reread some parts of the event and the vignette mentioned but 🤔 I only saw Najma mention the "middle school friend" once in 3-11, though it wasn't in context to being up to mischief. It seemed to just be a remark that she, Jamil, and that friend hadn't been to the market together for a long time. In the other scenarios where Jamil was being mischievous, there didn't seem to be a mention of that friend. For example, when Jamil almost set the fruit stand on fire and when he hid in an urn, he seemed to be acting alone. For the latter situation, Jamil was specifically hiding from his parent, not up to trouble with the middle school friend. In Jamil’s Yasmina Silk vignettes, silk melon vendor does mention that Jamil (alone) once swiped fruit from their stall, but Jamil reminds him that he just didn’t have money that day. He paid the vendor back by wrapping money up in a scrap of paper and placing it with a melon rind.

A lot of the activities that Jamil gets up to as a kid are references to the things that Aladdin has done, but I actually didn’t see an instance where the lone middle school friend was implicated to be a part of Jamil's antics. The best I could find was that Jamil mentions having friends (plural) that he detoured through the Camal Bazaar with (in Yasmina Silk vignettes and voice lines). In the vignettes, Jamil says “things happened”/stayed vague about other events that happened in the market, but Trey teases him by bringing up the instance when Jamil (alone) stole from the fruit vendor. Even if Jamil’s middle school friends were cited to have been involved, Jamil mentions multiple friends; there’s no way to confirm it was the specific friend that Najma brought up during the event itself. I think that story was shared less to drop lore about the middle school friend and more about showing the contrast between the freedom Jamil had back in middle school versus how he is in present day, bound by his duties to the Asims; he talks about how he experienced a lot of things during that period, including arguing with and ignoring his friends sometimes (which seems like a very normal friend thing to do, I could see this going either way since Jafar never got along with Aladdin or Abu, and even butted heads with Iago sometimes).

I believe the Broom Bloom Birthday voice lines are like... the most recent example of the friend was mentioned. Heck, it might actually be the only other time that friend is mentioned. It came to us quite a while after the initial release of the Scalding Sands Fireworks event (and in a far more limited place), so it may have been overlooked. This detail (of stealing Jamil's snacks) does lend some credence to the Aladdin or Abu theory; I don't think Iago was that eager to eat the crackers offered to him by the Sultan in the movie 😂 But I think it’s also possible (given that Jamil mentioned he had many middle school friends) that he could be talking about a different friend??

It’s possible that the middle school friend was characterized in other lines or stories (there’s a lot of them out right now, and I can’t possibly comb through them all), so there may be details I overlooked 😅

In any case, TWST didn't give too many specifics about one specific middle school friend so there's enough plausible deniability that they could be some other Twisted character, not exclusively just Twisted Iago. I think you brought up a lot of interesting points about the potential for that friend to be a Twisted!Aladdin or a Twisted!Abu! 👁 It's not a theory that I feel like I've seen all too often, so it definitely offers a new perspective and makes me excited to hear other thoughts and theories! ... Now I want to see more of Jamil and Ruggie interacting with each other--

[nerdygaymormon]

Just out of curiosity, what got you to believe homosexual acts are not a sin or against God’s wishes? I’m queer and I’ve been struggling to know if it’s like The Words of Wisdom, in which some of those things we don’t know why we shouldn’t do but are advised not to partake in them anyways.

It was a process.

It began when I was 18 and I prayed to ask if God could love someone like me (a gay person) and I got the answer "You are not broken."

At college, my best friend (he was bi) and I unofficially became boyfriends and I felt all those feelings of giddiness that come with new love. It didn't last long, the semester ended a few days later

In my 20's & 30's, several times I got the strong message that it's okay for me to seek a relationship. I assumed this meant God was gonna fix the church and then I could have a boyfriend, but it seemed very clear that having a boyfriend wasn't a problem to God. I also tried dating a wonderful woman, but there was nothing beyond liking her as a friend. There was none of that electricity from holding her hand that happens when I hold a man's hand.

As I was approaching 40 is when I decided to come out. I finally reached the point where I wasn't so ashamed and scared that someone might find out. This is part of who I am and no longer should I have to deny and pretend that it's not.

I started finding that there are scholars who disagreed with the general idea that the Bible is wholly anti-gay. The story of Sodom wasn't about sodomy. Similarly, the other verses of the Bible which are used to clobber gay people don't say what people assume they do.

Also, the church has changed its understanding of gay people. When I was young, simply having homosexual feelings was a sin and something you needed to repent of and work on changing. Eventually the church leaders came to understand people can't voluntarily change this part of their nature, and the teachings changed to it's okay to 'be' gay as long as you don't 'do' gay. I started to wonder if there will be more changes to come, and what is it that is the foundation the church's teachings on this? What revelations or scriptures are used for the policies and teachings about LGBTQIA+ people?

A big change that came with being out is that I started meeting other queer people. Going to the Affirmation conference in Utah introduced me to a lot of people whose life experiences were similar to mine. These are good people, they are not the villainous stereotypes that I'd been taught. As I learned their stories and the results of the anti-queer LDS Church policies in their lives, I could see it was bad fruit.

Due to being suicidal, I started therapy and learned that I had a lot of bad fruit in my life that sprang from the negative messages I had believed about myself. In addition to suicidality, I have social anxiety disorder, symptoms of PTSD, struggled with low self-esteem, I used to self-harm, I spent years suppressing my feelings which made me feel numb to life, and I'll be speaking to my doctor this month about the possibility that I have an eating disorder. These are bad fruits and come from the negative things taught at church about people like me.

A few years ago, I decided to start dating and it's been amazing the good feelings this gives. Getting my first kiss set off fireworks for me, it felt so good and so natural.

I guess I would say that suppressing my natural orientation caused a lot of harm, and the times I allowed myself to explore my gayness brought positive feelings and changes in how I viewed myself. The LDS Church used to define how I thought of myself as a queer person, but in time my queerness changed how I viewed the church.

[hisfluer]

i've been thinking a lot about god & god as concept & god as the answer we as people need and one we made up to make the night go by quicker. and i've been reading books that talk about god and notgod and nogod and then living where i am right now where god is a threat and why that god lived when other gods died and i feel like i've come to a conclusion that i've come to many many times before because i just didn't want it to be true for me.

i don't think i believe in god as concept or as answer. i don't believe in there being something else beyond something more. i think the divineness of god makes god too distant. i live here, i live right now, i live in a world everything exists right next to me. god being far away does not ease any worry, doesn't make the night go by faster, doesn't make anything feel ... the way god is 'supposed' to make me feel.

and i've been wrestling for years to make god real to me. just believe a little hard, pray a little more, have more faith and more faith and more faith and i had so very little to start with that i'm out. i've got nothing left to put into the god machine.

but i'm not without my beliefs. god is just the one i can do without because i believe in me and i believe in spirit and i believe the earth is a mother and a grave. i believe that our ancestors are here with us, echoing the movement of our hands to the nth generation beyond. i believe in the magic of lighting a candle and i believe in the power of prayer ( faithless as it it might be. ). i believe that pomegranates are holy fruit and the act of love is a holy act. i believe the special rocks we pick up from walks are holy and the bird feather we see could be a sign or an answer. i believe in all of those things.

i just don't think i believe in god as concept, god as answer, god as the truth and i don't think i have for over a decade.

and i started this blog as a way to explore faith, to see if my god is actually a being from a long time ago that still has a name or if it's not. if craft was a way of worship or if i should just hang up the hat and move on. i would learn names but then my faith could not match what was expected, what i expected. you were supposed to be the answer, i say, to a god who was and is the answer for so many other people but sits very silent and very quiet for me. and i started this blog when i still believed in god with a capital G. or, i tried so very hard to convince myself i did. if i'm actually honest with myself, i haven't believed in god, capitals or not, since i was in my teens.

but then there comes the really fun part of wanting so bad, wanting so much that it borders on needing, to believe. i sang the songs, i chanted the chants, i prayed prayers, i sat quietly with myself and begged for a god, to the point i was asking for any god, to listen. and hearing no response really began to carve a hole that was shaped like god. like i could trace the shape and if i could just find the shape that fit, i would be complete. but no shape fit. even if i put two in there, they don't fit. three or four, nothing. one big shape just falls out because the hole was made by the absence of ... not the presence of.

and that knowing that i will probably never fill that hole, there will never be a god or a being or anything else that'll fit, is very lonely. and honestly, that loneliness is why i started looking in the first place. because talking to people is incredibly difficult, being with others is hard, being around people makes me feel empty because i see how full they are. i am so scared of the reality that i might die alone as the possibility of meeting someone romantically or making lifelong friends just becomes smaller and smaller every day and it's a terrible fear. it'll send you looking for answers in those blank edges of the map, the blank pages at the end of the book.

but after searching and begging and wishing and hoping and praying, my reality is that the only one in that room when i cry for god is me. it's just me. me sitting on the edge of the bed, crying until my chest hurts because i want so badly to know what that love beyond mortality everyone talks about but can't feel it. me writing letters to god with no answer, me burying sigils, me carving symbols, me trying to make an ancient statue mean more than stone when that's all i can see. it's just me. it was only ever me there.

and i tried. i tried very hard. one day, i might try again. but i've never let the idea of no god sit long enough for me to get to know what it's like to not want and wish and beg.

i also want to mention that i separate god from spirit. spirits, i believe, are much more real than god. spirit is life, everything and everyone has a spirit. i think that spirits echo. this is why i believe my experiences with ghosts & the dead / animal spirits / ancestors are all very real experiences because they are echoes. all spirits come from life but i don't believe god did. i would more-so believe a rock is holy because it was prayed to for centuries upon centuries and that you would go to this rock or this tree or this land to find guidance from the spirit (or spirits) that are there than i would believe that a figure sits above us all and holds the key to life if only we would believe in them.

god as great concept has been prayed to for centuries but there is no echo of god. this is why churches feel holy because the spirit of everyone who ever sought peace lives within the walls. this is why places within the woods feel holy because the trees live and their spirit will echo when the woods are long gone. this is why i ache when my parents tell me as we drive through their old necks of the woods that have all turned into residential or industrial land 'all of this used to be woods'.

and i sit by my river and feel how old he is and there's something living in it. i don't feel god there. it's just the river. and i am more like a river than i am like a statue or a painting. parts of the earth are more alive than others, feel different than others, hold more weight than others. you see a rock and remember that rocks can take thousands or millions of years to form in a process that doesn't need you. you see a stand of trees and feel that something very old and very ancient walked there ( and for all you know, you could be remembering. that splice of dna could remember being that old and that ancient and walking through those trees when they were saplings. )

god, however, needs you in order to exist. there is no god without me. but without me, there is an earth. there's trees, rivers, plants, and animals that all exist without me. there's even people that exist without me. generations of people that i will never know and they will never know and neither one of us need the other to live. there might be something terribly lonely in that but i don't find it as lonely as sitting on the edge of the bed, begging god to help and having no reply.

i could get the same result from the river and have a much better conversation. rivers and i both have mouths but god, in any form, does not.

and maybe this is why the river has a spirit, a form of life. and why the trees are described as having clapping hands, as dancing, as being alive. and why earth is described as a mother. and why we ache at the idea of hands drawn on walls thousands of years ago. maybe this is why i remember my grandmother when i make coffee and feel connected to that life she had because when in doubt, put on a pot. and my mother tells me that out of all her grandkids, she worried for me because i was a lot like her. i feel her spirit, her echo even though i'm thousands of miles away from her, and i tell it not to worry about me because i'll be okay.

( and a quick note is that which i could very well be projecting! i could absolutely just be telling myself something to make myself feel better! there is no hard or fast rules in faith or belief or they would be facts. no one can prove or disprove god. no one prove or disprove spirits. like my concept of spirits and life beyond is very fragile at best! but i have to believe in something just there, out of the corner of my eye. i have to believe in faerie tales, i have to believe in fantasy stories, i have to believe in the magic wand that creates the carriage out of the pumpkin because without it, i would be so empty. i would lose so much of my wonder and curiosity for the world because i would see no point. what point would i have to get up if i can't interact with the spirit of the earth, with the spirit of love, with the spirit of being alive, with the spirit of magic? i wouldn't have one. others can see right down to the flat world of explanation with no magic and live perfectly happy lives but i can't. )

those are things i can believe in. and god ... has nothing to do with those things, i think.

but i don't think i would do away with god as concept, as answer, as anything out right. there's a lot to be gained by knowing humankind put their minds together and said this what love looks like or this is what war could be or i am in need in help and my help comes from a man who looks like my father, like all our fathers, or the father i need right now. i wish to win the heart of fair maiden, and if god is good she will love me in return is something that has been say in so many years for thousands of years. there's that spirit of power in words like that, in prayers passed down, in singing your grandmother's favorite hymn or writing your 8's the way your father did or a thousand different wonderful, human things.

god as human concept is a lovely thing. i have a love that is beyond my body that only a divine being could have made it possible. god, however, as divine being beyond the scope of humanity just ... isn't something i can put faith in it. i can trust the river will flow, the tree will grow, the sky will turn from night to dark but i can't trust that god did that or wanted that or willed that to be. i don't see a divine hand guiding in that kind of wholly(holy) natural chaos.

some might! and that's what i love! i love that someone can look at a tree growing in the strangest of ways and rejoice that god can bless even if the trees. i don't see that but that doesn't mean their mind or thoughts or belief is any less than mine. and it shows me how the world is so incredibly faceted just between two people looking at a tree.

i just think i've pushed and begged and pleaded and prayed for god to be there for so long that i'm ignoring the actual answer that there's just no one in that position. that the position is and never has been filled by anyone because the divine creator, above all and beyond, just doesn't fit into how the world exists to me. it's just not there. i've been trying so hard to build a very human thing for a concept that by being divine is not human. the god-shaped hole can be filled, if imperfectly but filled all the time, by the wild concept of nature and the humanity therein.

so, that's where i'm at on god.

[queenfisher1]

(#FFF214 Broken Mirror) Breaking the Dutchess' Mirror

This is a short story continuing a previous one I had written as an assignment. It is based on another short story called "The Reaper's Image" by Stephen King. Here's the link to previous short story I made (Dutchess Aria's Delver Looking Glass): https://www.deviantart.com/queenfisher1/art/Dutchess-Aria-s-Delver-Looking-Glass-917424412

@flashfictionfridayofficial

They snuck back into the crowded room, luckily without any attention drawn to their sudden reappearance. Jessy felt reassured by the lack of attention, allowing her to act as if nothing had happened. She looked around and studied the mirrors hung on the wall. They were simplistic and square, reaching from the floor to the ceiling high above her head. The reflections were plain. Dull compared to the handcrafted Delver mirror.

The Delver mirror. A shame she didn't see what she was hoping to find in it. Its delicate reflections were mystifying, yet, a part of her felt discouraged when she looked in it. Up to now, she has felt this way about the mirror. She wasn't too happy about being followed into the room either. The break was soon to be over, and the conversations bouncing off the walls simmered down into whispering of gossip.

Jessy glanced at the few who followed her into the dutchess' room, praying they wouldn't speak a word of their trespass. Isaac and Glenn were aimlessly walking and weaving about at a slow pace, something almost every other classmate did in that room. Charlie, however, stood impatiently near the door they entered from, tapping his foot and burrowing his eyebrows. His stance was tense and insecure. He seemed like he was going to faint from an unknown source of stress. Did he see something in the mirror, she questioned. Charlie wasn't sweating, if not on the brink of breaking out. His eyes were narrow and still. Something was definitely off about him, but the cause of such a stressed pose was still questionable. Miss Hall stood up from a small cushioned bench and clapped her hands twice, silencing the crowd. 

"Alright class, we shall quickly do a roll call before continuing the tour," she blurted out of her wrinkled mouth, "I need you all to be quiet unless I call your name."

She began to go through a list of names, each one responded to with either the words 'here' or 'present'. Even though no one noticed her and the others left or were notified of it, something still felt very raw and uncomfortable. Almost like something was forgotten. Or maybe even someone. Something then finally occurred to her when a particular name was called out.

“Rachel?” Miss Hall called. Everything fell dead silent. Jessy looked around to see if she could spot her, but she was nowhere to be found. She glanced at Charlie, somehow seeming more tense as he looked about the room as well. The girl who followed her into the room first was no longer with them. “Rachel?! . . . Rachel Varney!”

Norman quickly pulled out a small hand-held radio and put it over his mouth. Why, of all people, did Rachel not return? What could have happened? Thoughts blurred about her head as she tried to find a viable reason why she was not in the room they were all supposed to be in. Suddenly, the mirror came into thought. Jessy’s expression went white.

She quickly got up and ran out the room, not caring if she was spotted. Before she knew it, someone grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Hold it young lady! You’re not allowed to wander beyond the group!”

“NO!! I NEED TO FIND HER!!” Jessy cried. It couldn’t have happened to her, she thought. Why did it have to be her of all people?! Why couldn’t it have been me instead?! Why did it work for her?! I’m the one who wanted to leave this world! Tears rolled down her cheeks and wet the delicate carpet underneath her feet.

“What do you mean?! You don’t mean to tell me that you were sneaking out with someone else!” the man scolded. This is my fault, she cried. I should’ve double checked before leaving the group. I should’ve looked back before entering that stupid room! THIS HURTS!! “Where’s your friend?!”

“She’s gone!” A knot caught in her throat and her voice began to crack. “She looked at it! She looked at it, and it’s my fault!”

“Answer my question young lady!”

“We went into the Dutchess’ room,” Jessy sobbed. She wanted to fall onto her knees, but the guard’s grip kept her up on her feet. “She looked into the mirror, and it’s all my fault. I want that mirror broken.” The pain grew into an agony that snapped into great disbelief. She was able to quickly free herself in the blink of an eye and rushed to the room. Nothing was stopping her now. The guard’s voice was muffled out into a blur. Adrenaline was overflowing in her veins. She swung the door open and grabbed the mirror from the desk. Looking into its mystic, reality defying reflection, she once again saw nothing. Rage exploded in her eyes and she threw it to the floor.

The mirror landed on the top part of its brim and it shattered, scattering small glass pieces across the brittle carpet. Jessy suddenly collapsed to her knees, and knelt onto her elbows, leaning over the frame of what was once the Delver mirror. Tears come pouring out of her eyes like a river. Her arms shook unsteadily, and her heartbeat quieted into a solemn melody. If anything through her lifetime, this hurt the worst. She didn’t care anymore about leaving this wretched world. She wanted to suffer instead. This guilt was a hundred times worse than the agony she felt for simply existing.

[farfromstrange]

Foreigner's God: Chapter 7

Main Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x OFC

Chapter Summary: There is something incredibly off about Tony’s behavior, and Eliza decides she can’t do it anymore. She’s done. The fight leads to several revelations. One, she might be going slightly insane and two, Clinton Church is actually quite the nice place to go to if you’re having a panic attack. Other than that, Matt is still himself. While that might lead to some tension between them, she’s never been happier to have a place to go to that isn’t lonely, and he cares. This friendship might just be all she needs, after all.

Warnings: this is so long, mentions of drug abuse, alcohol consumption, there’s some foreshadowing, Tony Stark is being slandered, a phone call with Peter, hallucinations, panic attack, religious imagery, confession, praying, S3 spoilers, Eliza’s ever-lasting guilt, arguing, yelling, daddy issues (not the sexy kind), crying, not feeling good enough, some bad humor & cliché age gap joke

Other characters: Natasha, Steve, Thor, Bruce, Tony, Clint, Peter Parker, Father Lantom & Sister Maggie, also some random homeless man just trying to help a girl out

Word Count: ~ 10k

A/n: I tried working out some of my own religious trauma with this one and also… well, this shit is plot-heavy so you might need a clear head to read this. If anyone asks, no I’m not okay. And no, Tony just acts like an asshole. He ISNT the villain. Still haven’t done him dirty enough, but we’ll soon be done with the slander. The next chapter will be posted tonight as well!

Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated!

Read Chapter 7: right where you left me Here on AO3!

18+ MINORS DNI

The first time Eliza Bennett met Tony Stark was the day Loki destroyed New York. She’d only been working for SHIELD for a short amount of time back then, trying to get accustomed to her new life, her new identity. It’s safe to say she has always been exceptionally good at it. At being an Agent, being a hero, and every other thing way beyond her maturity level. She was never taught any better. Being an Agent in the field resembled her life at Hydra almost down a tee. Except she wasn’t killing people and she had her own free will, which was nice, but also not so much. She followed orders but she had a choice to stay or to start a new somewhere, get a taste of that human lifestyle everyone kept telling her about. It was new and scary, and she hated the fact that it didn’t feel like her.

May 3rd, 2012.

She was undercover at a gala when she heard the static rushing in her earpiece. “Mission’s over,” Natasha said. 

“What?” Eliza looked down at the glass of Martini in her hand, then back at the dance floor on which the Senator she was watching kept twirling his date around. “I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet,” she said. “I practiced my tango, like you told me to. It’d be a shame if I couldn’t show it off!”

The woman laughed. “I’d love to see it, but this is urgent. Pack up! We’re going back on the Helicarrier. I’ve got someone else covering our Russian spy senator and his bimbo.”

“Don’t call her a bimbo, Nat.“

“But it’s true. Admit it.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Eliza left the party, the black limousine waiting for her at the entrance. The nice valet opened her the door, but he was dangerously pale around the nose. She cocked her head. Someone had been threatening him.

Natasha sat in the dark of the backseat, holding a file. She should’ve expected the redhead to make her appearance so soon. Urgent meant nothing less than time sensitive and when it came to matters with such a label, she was always first on every scene.

“Wait, weren’t you just in some Russian guy’s lair?” she asked her.

“Yeah, Coulson bailed me out. Threatened the guy. I almost had him. Ended up kicking his ass like the little bitch he was.”

“Did you get the intel?”

“What do you take me for?”

“Of course, you did. So, what’s up? What’s up with the urgency?”

“I know you’ve never done this before,” Natasha said. She handed the file over, her hand enveloped in black leather gloves. “But the fate of the world depends on it, and we could really use your help right now.”

She opened the brown folder, the first page a picture of a glowing blue box. “The tesseract,” Eliza choked out. An object with the most magnetic pull.

Fury never once allowed her to be less than ten feet of it. She had to stay in the circle. Why, she didn’t know, but he had his reasons. 

“Yes, it’s recently come into possession of a, uh… I don’t know what he is. An alien? Some guy with greasy hair and a spear. He’s not of this world, that’s for sure. He stole it from the base earlier tonight.”

“This thing has unimaginable power. How could he just steal it?”

“As I said, he’s an alien. And he’s Thor’s brother. Turn the page.” She did. The next series of pictures were screenshots from the security cameras. The man with black hair stared straight at the screen. He was attractive, sure, but the crazy in his eyes killed the mood.

“Jesus.” Eliza shook her head. Somehow the glow of his scepter felt… familiar? It was just a picture, it was probably stupid, but she felt drawn to it nonetheless. “What’s the procedure?” she questioned. 

Natasha smirked. “We’re getting the band back together.”

With the band, she meant the Avengers. The Avengers Initiative failed before. Imagine her surprise when the pair set foot on the Helicarrier to find the group of unlikely allies meddled together for the first time ever. None of them looked like they belonged there.

“I could imagine better things than to be trapped on here with the Hulk,” she told Natasha. “And the guy whose brother is currently threatening to take over the world.”

“He’s still my brother!” Thor snapped from somewhere in the distance.

“He killed eighty people in two days.”

“Well, he’s adopted.”

“And I’m a former Hydra operative. What’s your point?”

“See, so even you have made mistakes, earthling.”

Eliza glared at the blond man. He was attractive. He was tall and muscular and every woman’s dream. In that moment though, all he did was infuriate her to the point, her blood boiled.

“Don’t call me earthling, you daft Asgardian Shakespeare.”

“I feel like you have been misinformed about me. I’m Thor, the God of-“

“Thunder, yeah, I know. I don’t care.” She turned to the rest of the team. “If I end up squashed,” - she pointed at Bruce - “under the edge of a Vibranium shield,” - she pointed at Captain America - “shot with an arrow through the eye,” - her eyes narrowed at Clint - “hit with a magic hammer or ATTACKED BY A FUCKING METAL SUIT, MISTER STARK!” Tony felt her finger poke deep into his chest. “I will make sure we all die up here,” she finished. “You got that?”

But Natasha taught her all about control, so she swallowed the red threatening to expose her and focused back on the task at hand.

Tony was actually the only one to eye her with curiosity instead of fear. “Do they usually start this young?” he asked. 

Eliza used to be a very superstitious person. She didn’t trust anyone outside of her fellow Agents and even then she kept her distance. She was a scared girl in a big world, not knowing who she was or how she got there, with powers raging inside of her that she couldn’t quite grasp. The Avengers were a pool of strangers that she was tossed in without ever having learned how to swim.

So, naturally, when Tony made his jokes, she put her guard up. “No,” she told him, “We usually start younger.”

“So, baby spies?” He’s never been a particularly serious person.

It was twisted that this was the thing that enthralled him about her. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut for the life of him. Eliza was so frustrated to the point where she considered putting a bullet through his iron suit. Though when he flew that missile into space, she couldn’t help but pay her respects to his heroic antics. The careless man she’d met before somehow appeared in a different light then.

“You’re a great kid,” Tony said to her after the battle. “We should do this again sometime.”

That was four years in the past. 

Eliza warmed up to Tony instantly. The respectful, caring side of him. It was the original reason why she agreed to move into Avengers Tower in the first place. She ditched SHIELD for the Avengers. He mentored her. Tony was the first person after Fury to see something in her, willing to do just about anything to bring it out in her. 

Tony Stark made her feel loved for the first time in her life. Perhaps that’s why it hurt so much to see their once so-invincible bond break apart. 

Eliza asked herself where exactly they went wrong. Was it something she did or something she could’ve prevented? As so often, there was nothing to explain Tony’s behavior other than the fact that he was just Tony. 

Tony wasn’t the man he used to be, and he certainly didn’t portray as the kind of person he wanted to be. He turned from an idol into an antagonist – Eliza wished it would’ve been a sudden change, but reflecting on the past two years she realized it was meant to happen.

Eliza knew better than to try and make him see. He had to fall head-first into the abyss to realize his mistakes. He needed a swift kick in the ass and an excellent punch to the face. She couldn’t do that. Life had to do it to him.

Like Steve once said to her, “If holding onto something hurts you more than letting go, you need to let it go. If it’s meant to be, it’ll come back to you. If it’s not, at least you got rid of the pain.”

By the time Happy pulled up to the compound, Eliza accepted the fact that it would never be the same again. She had to let go eventually. She would give him one last chance, she decided, and if he decided to turn around and shit on it, she would take Steve’s advice and save herself. For once in her life, she had to listen. Holding onto the wrong people was her best talent, but sometimes even talent has to be laid off to protect your fragile little heart. 

“We’re here,” Happy snapped her out of her thoughts.

She dreaded every step into the compound. Her heart beat up to her throat. The oxygen supply sank with every passing second.

Eliza took the familiar road to Tony’s office. He was waiting for her behind the door. She hesitated, hand on the handle. She hated confrontation. She didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t her turn to apologize, but somehow she felt like she had to. Sad, wasn’t it? He had her judging guilty without even trying, even when she didn’t need to. She was just that dependent on his approval. 

She pushed the thoughts away. She wasn’t a child anymore, she was an adult. Adults don’t make their lives dependent on one person, no matter how much they mean to them. Adults are supposed to stand their ground. She had to learn how to do that. She did it the previous night, she could do it again. Tony didn’t own her.

“You came,” Tony’s voice sounded breathy, hungover, from the corner of the room.

Eliza exhaled, a mix between a sigh and a scoff. “You left me no choice,” she said. “Sending Happy to my place was a desperate move.”

“I couldn’t reach you. At first, I thought maybe you lost your phone, but then I realized you blocked my number. If anything, you left me no choice. I wanted to talk to you without dozens of people around to ask stupid questions.”

“Why?”

“You left before I could talk to you last night.”

“Seriously? You’re just gonna act like this is all it is? Miscommunication?”

Tony scoffed. She saw the bottle of Scotch on his table, the half-filled glass. It was ten in the morning.

“Are you drunk again?” she asked.

“You don’t get to do that.”

“I don’t mind day drinking, I only mind hypocrisy.”

“I asked you here to apologize for what I said.” He took a sip.

“You were drunk, Tony.”

“And I’m sorry for that. I had one too many drinks because I didn’t want to face Secretary Ross sober. Every time I see him, I’m reminded of Rogers and what he did.”

“What Steve did?” Eliza glared. “You both screwed up! It wasn’t just him.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“It kind of seems like you don’t.”

“Give me a break!” 

She flinched away. Her eyes fluttered close, her feet carried her a step back, and her arms instantly lifted themselves in front of her chest as if physically defending herself was going to block the words from entering her ears. It didn’t. 

Tony’s frown crumbled. He didn’t have the power of empathy on his side, but he saw the fear displayed in her eyes and he felt a sudden ping of regret. “I’m sorry,” he said, quieter this time. He opened his arms - a peace offering. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

“You’re drunk,” she whispered. The tears stung behind her still-closed lids. “You’re drunk,” she said once again. She opened her eyes again. “I know what chronically drunk people are like, so I know that anything you say could either be complete bullshit or the honest-to-God truth. Tell me, why should I believe anything you say right now?”

He watched the tears slide almost elegantly from the corner of her left eye, down her cheek, and her neck. He waved his hands a little. “I’m not drunk. I’ve had two glasses of Scotch to fight off the hangover.”

“There’s still alcohol in your system. Too much to consider it sober.”

“You’re right, I’m not sober.”

“I know. What I don’t know is what you want from me. My pity?”

“No!” Tony scoffed. “It’s just been hard for me,” he began to explain himself. “Ever since Rogers - Steve - left, I’ve been feeling like I failed. Do you know what that’s like? I’m the man who killed the Avengers. I saw it. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Oh, come on!”

“No, hear me out. When that little witch Wanda played with my head, I saw it. I saw all of you, dead. It was my fault. I’m comparing these two right now and I don’t see much of a difference. Look, I’m on my last straw right now.”

Eliza shook her head. “You could’ve told me,” she said. 

“I tried! I tried to tell you that this is my worst nightmare come true. So many times.”

“How, by calling me a lost orphan in front of the most powerful people in New York City?”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I was drunk and angry and I didn’t mean it.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand because you’re not making any sense.”

“I made our friends enemies of the State. I did. Rogers, Romanoff, Wanda, all of them! I killed the Avengers.”

“And you know, Sam, Scott, even Vision, just because he’s in love with a fugitive. Can’t even say their names, can you?” 

“Jesus!” He scoffed. “You’re turning my words against me.”

“Can you blame me?” Eliza asked, challenging him. 

“This isn’t about blame.”

“What, you want me to feel bad for you?” She cocked her head. “This is on you, not me. If you’re waiting for the pity party, you’re not getting any.”

“Listen, kid. I know you’re struggling and I’m sorry I’m not there for you like I used to be, but this is hard on all of us. Especially on me. This shit show is getting on my last nerve. The press, Ross, fucking Rhodey and Happy- you know, it’s not easy when the world is resting on your shoulders,” he said. 

The exasperated laugh was an answer of heavy proportions. “Boohoo, cry me a river, Tony! Honestly, you either complain or apologize, you can’t do both and expect me to roll with it.” She wished she had the same glass of Scotch he was carrying only so she could swallow the horrendously bitter taste on her tongue, but she didn’t. She was glad she didn’t. She wanted to be better than him. She wanted her words to be sober. She wanted him to understand, for whatever the desperate attempts were worth.

Tony shrugged. “It’s true. There’s a lot more I’m carrying that you don’t know about,” he said, “and I’m glad you don’t.”

“And you don’t know about the shit I have to carry,” she replied. Her lip twitched into a sour smile. “But I’m glad you don’t.”

He smirked, but it was fake. The way she spoke left no space for interpretation of just how sour she was. She was mad, offended, disappointed, all of those things and yet, she came. She always did. 

“All I need is some time to clear my head, and Scotch. Lots of Scotch.” He poured himself another glass from the small bar in the corner of his office, a small mahagoni table overlooking the New York skyline behind the compound. The perfectly trimmed grass and bushes in the front yard lead to the small forest separating the Avengers from downtown. It was beautiful. 

“You need time,” she repeated his words. “It’s funny because when you say it’s hard on all of us, I feel like it only entails you. I had to clean up your mess, again,” she said. “I shouldn’t have to. I struggle too, you know. I’m not saying you aren’t, but maybe you should take your own words into account and think about the people around you. You aren’t the only one who lost, we all did.” 

His shoulders tensed. Something changed. Was that regret she saw in the colors around his soul? She could’ve sworn she saw black somewhere, but it was hard to tell with the mess he was and the alcohol that seemed to turn the shade of anger darker, and the pride threatened to consume him. 

“I always have to take care of everything. I trained you, Eliza. I made us a team. I got you all a job you could count on. You had all the benefits in the world. Healthcare, stability, housing… you had all of that. It was safe. You guys were safe. And yet - and fucking yet - we managed to blow up. We always do. Everything always blows up, no matter what I do, and I’m tired of watching it happen without having an ounce of control in it. I think it’s time I finally focus on myself.”

“How can you say that after everything that happened? I can’t take this anymore,” she said, and she meant it. “I have to soften all the blows. It’s not even my job!”

“You need to learn how to take responsibility,” he argued.

“Responsibility?” That was the last straw. “I’ve been taking responsibility since the day I got here! I’ve been cleaning up the messes you’ve made again and again. Now, I didn’t mind. We were a family, but lately, it feels like I’m just doing it because I’m supposed to. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I shouldn’t have accepted being used like that.”

“Being used?” Tony asked, voice dangerous as he rose from his chair. “I did everything for you. You got a home, money, and a job. You met people others can only dream about. What else do you want?”

“Maybe some appreciation, for a change. I mean, are you treating Peter the same way?”

“Peter- is this what this is about? Are you jealous of that kid?”

“No!” maybe a little. “My point is that I was around Peter’s age when we first met. After everything you learned over the years and what I’ve been through, don’t you think it’s my right to tell you your place?“

“Pepper took you under her wing, Happy worries about you all the time, I mentored you. I got you back on your feet. I made sure you didn’t go to jail. Hell, I even funded your drug addiction when I didn’t even know you were taking those stupid pills, and yet, I’ve never asked you to pay me back!” 

“Oh, please,” Eliza spat back. “What would you ever do without having my mental illness as a justification for your actions? Honestly, you’re acting like that’s all I am. Fuck you, Tony! I thought you cared about me.”

“I do!” he said. “All I ever did was because I care about you. I saw your talent when no one else did. Not even Fury shaped you the way I did. So don’t tell me you’re not being appreciated! I care more than anyone else on this planet. I saved your life, goddamnit!”

“Jesus Christ, Tony, why can’t you just listen?” Fresh tears pooled in her eyes. The water crept dangerously close to the brim, threatening to bubble over. Eliza wasn’t even surprised.

She’d cried more in the past couple of days than ever before. She was a wreck. Time had done its damage. Life had taken its toll. She was bound to break eventually, she just never thought it would happen like this. She never thought it would come to this. The world stopped spinning the day the Avengers left her behind.

“I’m so sick and tired of fixing everything,” she said. “I’m not your therapist. Hell, I’m the one who needs one. I’m not just some messed up orphan that’s become your burden. You were everything to me…” The ocean was too wide and she never learned how to swim. “I looked up to you. I idolized you and wanted to be like you. You taught me so much and yet nothing prepared me for the person you’d be.”

Eliza wiped her cheeks furiously with the back of her hand. “This isn’t you! Ever since you and Steve fell out and the Avengers broke up, you’ve been spiraling out of control. You changed! You turned into this wreckage of a man, a shell of who you used to be, and that shell is filled with so much sour hostility. The Tony Stark I know wouldn’t risk everything by putting down the guests at his party. He wouldn’t hurt his friends and family in front of everyone. The Tony I know would listen to what I have to say. He’d take my worries into account. The Tony I know would do anything to protect me, but you’re not there. You haven’t been there in a very long time, but I lived with it because I still had hope. I had faith in you, Tony.” 

He aggressively downed another glass of Scotch, knuckles turned white from the hold he had on it. 

“You taught me to always believe in the good in people, and help when someone needs it. I made it my personality trait. What happened, Tony? What happened to make you this way?”

“You don’t get to do that,” he said. “You don’t get to ask me what happened when you were the one who completely lost herself all those years ago!”

“I picked myself up again! I admit that I’m broken, but that doesn’t give me the right to take it out on people. That’s what you do. You blame everyone but yourself for everything that’s wrong with you-“

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“See? That’s what I’m talking about. You won’t listen!”

“Oh, I am listening. I am listening very well. Let’s talk about what I’m listening to, yeah? Except for the fact that you’re trying to make me feel bad for one stupid slip-up-“

Eliza interrupted him with a frustrated groan, “It wasn’t just one stupid slip-up, Tony. It’s a fucking series and I’m done watching!”

“Don’t interrupt me,” he said. “You call me a hypocrite, but while you accuse me of neglecting you, it’s you who won’t listen. You think you’re so smart, prancing around at night, behind my back, with a criminal? And then you have the nerve to pretend like you’re a good girl and lie to my face! That’s what hypocrisy is, Eliza! You’re a hypocrite!”

The words tasted like poison on her tongue.

Tony was nowhere near done. The fire just kept on burning. “You’re jealous of Peter? Well, he learned his lesson after I called him out. You didn’t. You did the exact opposite of what I told you. Fucking hell!”

“What are you even talking about?” she asked.

“Daredevil.”

“What?” The name rang in her ears. Her mind instantly went to Matt. It made her wonder just how much he knew.

“Don’t play dumb now,” he bellowed. “I know you’re working with him. You’re following down circumstantial leads that almost got you killed.”

“How would you even know?” 

“I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, remember?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” she tried to justify herself, but it was essentially all useless. Her secret was out. What terrified her most was the fact that she didn’t care.

“It’s not? Who do you think is keeping the press off your ass right now? It’s only a matter of time before your little secret comes out and then it’s Ross knocking on my door all over again.”

“You didn’t listen to me.” She remained dangerously calm. “So I took matters into my own hands.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” He threw his hands up. “You’re not a vigilante! You were with Pfeiffer when he got shot. What did he tell you? Did he play into your suspicions?”

Eliza cocked an eyebrow. “How do you know I was there?” she asked. The truth itched the back of her brain.

Tony sighed, nostrils flared. “I put a tracker into your SIM card when I got it for you.”

“You did what?”

“In my defense, you tend to get into trouble quite a lot.”

It wasn’t that easily justified. He was monitoring her like a criminal because he didn’t trust her. If her heart hadn’t been broken already, it surely would’ve broken right then and there.

“This only proves my point,” he said. “You could’ve gotten shot over a suspicion! And now Pfeiffer is dead and his blood is on your hands.”

“Don’t you dare,” she ground her teeth. “It was Hydra, you and I both know that. You just don’t want to acknowledge the fact that we failed.”

“You’re paranoid, Eliza. I stand by that. People died because of your inability to stay out of shit that doesn’t concern you-“

“It doesn’t concern me? Tony, they stole my childhood, they experimented on me and tortured me! There’s nothing more of my concern than that stupid organization! This is so much bigger than we thought. You’d know that if you’d just listened.”

“I listened, I didn’t like what I heard so I’m cutting you off,” the statement was final, she saw it in his eyes. But Eliza was done for good. He could do whatever he wanted. She was done.

“You know,” she said, “We used to be such a good team. We swore to eliminate threats. What happened to that?”

“Agendas change,” he stated.

“No, not this time. You just want to control me. I don’t know why, maybe you’re scared or maybe you just don’t have any faith in me. Either way, I’m not gonna stop. We both know that.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Am I? Or am I just not following your orders?”

“Not following my orders is a mistake. Trust me. You’re doing the wrong thing, Eliza. You’re chasing the wrong ghosts. If you do this, I can no longer protect you.”

She shrugged. “I’ll take that chance.”

“You don’t understand. If you do this, I’m gonna stop. If you do this, you’re no longer an Avenger.”

“I haven’t been an Avenger since Berlin.”

The emptiness in Eliza’s eyes put a distance of miles between them. Tony was waiting for her to pull back from the edge of the cliff, to run back into his arms. He was waiting for her to make a different decision, one that didn’t entail losing her, but one look into her eyes told him that he was no longer welcome. He wasn’t just losing her, he already had.

“I didn’t ask you to keep the press off my ass,” she said to him. “If Ross wants to arrest me, let him. I’d rather go to jail than sit back and do nothing to save this city. If you decide to do the latter, that’s your choice. It’s not mine. I want to see them burn the way they burned me. If you try and stand in my way, I might just burn you too.”

“Are you threatening me?” Tony asked.

“No,” she smiled, “it’s a promise.” The door handle felt hot instead of cold under her hands this time.

She looked down. The veins underneath her skin were glowing bright red instead of faint blue. In the reflection of the window, she caught a glimpse of her eyes. She was standing knee-deep in her misery and the pain did little to help her stay in control. 

He’s lying to you. She tilted her head.  Her reflection moved towards her. The window turned into a one-way mirror. Smoke started to pool at her feet. The stranger was trapped behind the glass. She pressed her hand against it, eyes switching between Tony at his desk and Eliza, clawing at the door handle. A strange magnetism kept her tied to the metal. 

She tipped her chin. Leave. Her mouth wasn’t moving, so how could she possibly hear her voice, so close yet so far away? 

Don’t look back. 

“If you walk out that door,” Tony said, one last attempt to close the distance between them, “We’re done.”

Eliza pulled. “That’s fine by me.”

“Maybe you should just think this through-“

“I did. I made this decision on my own. Nothing you say or do can change that. I may not be an Avenger anymore, but at least I’m not the one that killed them. You killed the Avengers, Tony. You ruined us. Do with that as you will, but if I were you, I’d rethink the decisions I made.”

She wasn’t sure what came over her.

“Eliza-“

“No, I’m done. Paint me the villain, I don’t care. At least then I know I’ve done it right. Here,” Eliza reached into the pocket of her jeans. The film of pictures weighed heavy in her hands. She hesitated, though the decision was a conscious one. “Good luck cleaning up the mess you made.” She let the snippets fall to the floor. Her face was broken in half, eyes scattered around, all familiar faces that once had been there but were long gone. “I’m not gonna do it for you,” she said. “You can lie in this yourself.”

All the strength Eliza displayed at the compound magically evaporated the second she set foot outside. She didn’t even tell Happy why she was running or where, for that matter. She wasn’t even sure where she was going. All she knew was that she needed to get out; she needed to put not only emotional but also a physical distance between her and Tony and everything else that reminded her of the life before, and just get out of the life she once lived for good. It was over anyway. 

Happy gave her space, he always did. He thought it was because of what Tony said, but the truth was much worse than that. She couldn’t stand being around him. He would do anything for her and that thought was so suffocating, especially after the conversation, that all she wanted was to abandon him completely. It wasn’t for her good, it was for his. She would always push him away, she would always hurt him in some way, and he would always come back, no matter how hard she kicked him.  

Eliza only realized she was running when she came to a halt in front of the memorial established downtown. Their names were engraved golden on the metal plate. The Battle of New York. A silent reminder of the day the sky opened up and aliens invaded the planet. Proof that humans weren’t alone in the universe, after all. 

She’d torn apart the last piece of them she had left to prove a point. It was pathetic. Those were just names on a plate, meaning the world to people. The faces lay scattered on Tony’s office floor. People read the sign and remembered the destruction. No one cared about the faces behind the names, unlike they used to.

They used to be a family. The names on the sign slowly grew into strangers. Eliza felt like everyone else, bystanders watching from the outside. Just names, no faces. Those heroes saved the world once, but that was all they were. The memories of happier times slipped further away. It seemed like she’d watched the time fly by from her little bubble like she hadn’t been part of life back then, only a watcher amid the public eye. 

She’d told Natasha once, “I’m afraid that if I accept this to be true, if I accept this one good thing for myself, that I’m gonna lose it eventually. Because there has never been anything good in my life before and I’m scared. Good things don’t come to people like me, not without a price.“

How right she’d been. Yet she was foolish enough to accept Natasha’s reassurance. “Stark may not be the most promising person, but I think he’s onto something with this group,” she’d said. “You deserve this more than anyone. You deserve to be part of a family. No one’s gonna take that away from you. I can’t speak for the rest, but I, for one, will always be there for you.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

I guess always was a lie, too.

Eliza wiped her nose. “No,” she whined. “Get out of my head!”

The sight must have looked insane. Anyone walking by could have easily mistaken her for a psychotic. 

Why? It’s not like I’m doing anything.

“Then why the fuck are you talking to me?”

I’m… not? 

“Liar.”

Well, to be fair, you kind of brought this upon yourself. The young woman looked like her. Same hair, same body type, same eyes, but there was something eerily different about her too. In every nightmare she had, the demons didn’t have a face. She was tormented by memories and self-deprecating thoughts.

If hell was real, she assumed this was how Satan and all her demons spoke because she hated it and it made her want to die.

Did you really think you could continue lying to yourself?

“Peter, hey,” she spoke as soon as the line of her phone clicked. “How are you?”

“Liz?” the boy’s confused voice sounded from the other end. 

“Hi!”

“Is everything okay?”

She silently wiped the snot from her nose. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” she said, and then she laughed. She laughed as if what she’d said was the truth. 

“Oh, you just usually don’t call me unless it’s urgent,” he said. “So I thought something happened. Is it the Avengers? Do we have a mission?”

“Yeah, about that…”

He’s not gonna understand. 

“What?” The school bell rang distinctively in the background. “I actually have class right now, so if it’s not that important and you don’t mind, maybe you could make it quick? Or perhaps call back another time? Not- not that I think what you have to say isn’t important. It always is! It’s just- I’m kind of behind with my grades and stuff and I really want to get into MIT. Spider-Man has really been kicking my ass lately.” He chuckled.

You’re gonna hurt him.

Eliza copied him. “It’s fine. I just- I have something to tell you and all I ask of you is to just listen. Can you do that?” she asked. 

There was a pause. “Okay,” Peter agreed. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m officially done with the Avengers. That’s the truth.”

And you can’t change who you truly are. 

“What-”

“Hear me out. Don’t say anything. Please.”

Don’t fool yourself again.

“O-okay.”

“Truth is, I’m done, Peter. I’m no longer an Avenger and I no longer want to be. Tony said some things… he said and did some things and I just- I quit. I know you look up to him, it’s your thing. You see him as a mentor and I want you to continue doing that, but my time here is over. It was the second Steve got onto that ship, I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. I tried to stay strong, and I tried to keep my faith, but I can’t. You’re too young, you haven’t known them as long as I have – hell, you didn’t know them at all. It’s a good thing, Peter, because that means you’re still innocent. There’s still hope,” she said.

The tears clogged up her throat and it was getting significantly harder to breathe. “I know you wanted us to be friends and I’ll continue being there for you, but it’s time I face the facts. The Avengers are done, at least the way I know them. I should’ve left earlier. It was only a matter of time before this would all escalate. There are some things you can’t be involved with, like the things I’m about to do, the things you’re gonna hear about me… The less you know the better.”

The cabby stopped where she told him to, his head turned patiently, waiting for her payment. She exhaled into the phone. 

“Eliza, you’re scaring me,” Peter’s voice was small. 

“Don’t be,” she told him. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’m just trying to make amends before it’s too late, that’s all.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but it sounds like you need me right now. Maybe I should-”

“Drop my number, Peter. It’s for the best.”

“What, no!”

“I’m sorry.”

The phone cracked between her fingers. Glass scratched the inside of her palm. She watched as the broken device fell to the ground. She stepped on it, once, twice, until it was nothing but flat garbage. The SIM card was broken entirely, and the tracker was disabled and gone for good. Tony didn’t have anything on her anymore. She could go wherever she wanted, do what she wanted and say what she wanted. She didn’t need him and he didn’t need her. It was over. She was free. Though if that had been the truth, she should’ve felt that way, too. She didn’t. Instead, she felt fucking trapped. She felt chained. War was only just beginning. 

Eliza stood alone in the middle of downtown New York. There were no walls around her, not a shield to protect her. People bumped into her on their way down the street. The briefcases of businessmen dressed in black suits hit the back of her knee, making her stumble left to right. They were all so focused on themselves, she was nothing but a mere rock in the way that could be pushed aside. In our most natural habitat, we’re all selfish assholes focused solely on whatever target we’ve set our minds to. 

The voices were so loud, she could hear the conversations overlapping. Her ears were ringing. Emotions swarmed the air like an army of mosquitos. The tornado was heading straight for the village, strong enough to destroy everything in its path. 

Congratulations, Eliza. You just fucked up everything good in your life. 

“We’re a team,” she remembered Steve saying. “Ain’t getting one without the other.”

“I think Steve might be onto something,” Wanda came up to her one night. “I don’t know a lot about working as a team, but you guys make it seem easy. Makes me want to try and be better, you know.”

“You might just be the last straw holding this team together,” Natasha said shortly before they arrived at the UN, a dreaded talk on the plane after the events in Lagos.

“We knew this would happen eventually.” The worst part wasn’t the words coming out of Steve’s mouth, it was the way he said them. He sat in the dark, glass of Scotch in hand, blue eyes endless like the dead sea. “In the end, I don’t think we were meant to be,” he said. “Every great hero falls eventually. I think this is it. This is our fall.”

She begged him to stop, begged him to find another way, but to no avail. You can fill in the blanks on this one.

At the airport in Berlin, she looked at her friends for the last time. She had the choice between helping Steve or staying on Tony’s good side. Back then, she truly believed in him. She promised her loyalty. As she watched her friends get carried away though, her heart screamed, “You made the wrong choice!”

Eliza crossed the corner into an alley just in time. She pressed against the brick wall, the darkness shielding her from the tourists and native New Yorkers crowding the streets. So many people, and so little space. The walls caved in on her. There was so much oxygen in the air and yet not enough to make its way into her lungs the way it was supposed to.

She tore the hoodie over her head. Sweat ran down her spine. Her chest ached and the burning was only getting worse. She tried to breathe - she tried to exhale, inhale, then exhaled again. She tried everything she could think up in her fogged-up brain, but the air tore through her lungs like a flaming fire.

She threw her head back. The stone dug into her skull. Her fingers tingled. Thousand little ants covered her skin. She scratched, she gasped, but the animals fed at her like a cannibal’s teeth. The sea brought its waves higher, water filling her chest, choking on salt. She was trying to stay afloat, but it was getting harder and harder to breathe and the current grew strong enough to pull her down. 

Tony was going to let the press eat her alive, and in tow with the press came Secretary Ross. She only read the first couple of pages of the Accords, but it clearly stated that any kind of mission had to be approved by the government first. Even just the suspicion of risk had to be shared before hunting down leads. No playing the hero without the official ‘go’. Those were the rules. She broke them, clean through. She was playing the vigilante, jumping into the line of fire, using the dark web for answers. She believed Hydra was still out there and she had proof, too. She was obligated to tell Secretary Ross since Tony refused to listen - technically. Technically, she was supposed to be the good girl and wait. Sit down, look pretty. Technically. 

Eliza was never one to accept technicalities. She rather fought for what she believed in instead of following the rules. It was foolish, she knew that. It was stupid, reckless, and lacking common sense. She was aware of all of that and yet when it came to her gut, she knew she could count on it. 

Secretary Ross would arrest her the second he found out. He’d incarcerate her. She didn’t even want to imagine what they’d do to her in prison. Being an Avenger she might as well just walk naked into a lion’s den. 

Hydra was out there. They were more than willing to kill her. While she was hiding in an alley, tucked away from the world, there were people out there getting kidnapped for human experiments. The only thing standing between Hydra and success was Eliza and maybe Daredevil, but she was the bigger threat. 

Eliza loathed herself. She hated her body, hated the mind she was in. None of what she had on her felt like it belonged there. She didn’t deserve the powers, she didn’t deserve the love and care she received. Her existence was trouble, it brought danger to everyone close to her. She was cursed. She knew she was cursed, she had to be. 

You care too much about people - you might just be digging your own grave.

“Hey, lady, you alright?” the homeless man next to the trash container leaned over. She hadn’t realized he was there.

Eliza blinked through the smoke standing up to her ears. “What?” she wasn’t even sure the words came out.

“You look a bit pale. Want some beer?”

She shook her head. “I- I need to get out of here.” Her fight or flight response was damaged, she knew that better than anyone. She needed to get out, she needed to go somewhere safe. Somewhere no one could find her. Somewhere she wouldn’t be recognized.

Sure you do. Run. It’s all you know how to do. Run from the truth, run from who you are. 

She bumped into someone. “Sorry,” she apologized. 

People turned to the disturbed woman running through the masses. She paved the way by elbowing her assailants in the ribs. She ran without destination. She knew New York like the back of her hand, but the many sounds and the people made it hard to focus on the map she had painted up in her head. 

Can’t you see everyone is lying to you? Open your eyes. This is all a lie.

“Stop it! Get out of my head!”

Not gonna happen. Sorry, sweetie. We’re stuck together now. 

“Who are you?” Something high and sharp pierced her eardrum. 

I’m you. The real you.

She couldn’t see five things, only the sun blinding her into oblivion. The white stairs set in stone seemed like enough of a haven. She jumped the steps and through the gigantic doors, not knowing exactly where she was until she smelled the distant scent of candles, rosemary, and roses. Three things she could smell. That was a good start. She closed her eyes and felt the cold of the steel doors, the cool air on her heated skin, and the marble under her boots. The world finally seemed to slow down. The walls put space between them. She breathed. It wasn’t good, but it was better than nothing. 

“Can I help you?” the voice startled her. She reached into the back of her jeans only to realize she wasn’t carrying any weapons. 

Wide eyes looked around. It was no wonder the voice echoed off the walls. She stood in one of the largest rooms she’d ever seen. The windows were painted with colorful pictures -  pictures that told stories almost every child knew. Wooden benches paved the hallway. Marble walls stood high and mighty above them, almost threatening. 

The balding man lifted his arms with a smile. “I come in peace,” he said. 

Eliza took another look around. “I-“ she exhaled. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Please, this door is open to anyone. Would you like to sit down for a moment, catch your breath?” 

She hugged her arms around her torso. Her legs did feel kind of wobbly. “Yeah,” she said, “sitting sounds good.” 

She followed him to the closest bench. He took place next to her, but he didn’t speak until she found her sound again.

“I’m sorry, I’ve never been to church before. This is all very new to me.”

“You seem like you’ve been looking for a safe space,” the man said. “There’s no place safer than church.”

“What do I call you? Sir? Or is it Father?” 

He chuckled softly. “I’m Father Paul Lantom, but you may address me however you like. You want to tell me your name?”

“Eliza,” she told him.

“Well, Eliza, what are you running from?”

“I don’t know, life. I gave up everything I once knew, abandoned the people I loved - it was all I had left and I threw it all away. I thought I did the right thing. But now… I think I just made a huge mistake. Oh, God,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have said that. Fuck!”

“Do you want to talk about it? I promise I won’t tell. I’m a priest, I’m under the oath of confession, no matter what you tell me.”

She wiped her cheeks. “So you’re like a therapist in a cloak?” 

Father Lantom laughed. “If that’s what you want to call it, sure,” he said. “I can tell you don’t have the best relationship with church. Would you still like to talk?”

“I don’t know. Faith and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms,” she said.

“Religious trauma, I take it?”

“How’d you know?”

“Well, religion is supposed to be comforting. You don’t appear comfortable.”

“I’m not.”

“You don’t have to see this as confession. When you say you struggle with faith, that’s your thing. I won’t talk you into something you don’t want to. God wouldn’t want that. You can just sit here and compose yourself in silence if that’s what you’d like. I’m just going to lend you some company and an open ear, if the need arises, to make sure you’re alright.” 

Eliza frowned. “What does God want, exactly?” she asked. “Why does he let bad things happen to people?”

“God isn’t a person,” the father explained. “He’s a spirit, a deity. He’s a name, not a face. He’s whatever you believe, whatever you want him to be. Some people might see God in their pets, while others simply see him as a voice of guidance. Others don’t acknowledge his presence at all and still believe faith will show them their way. It’s not about God, it’s about what’s in your heart. Despite what a lot of people think, he’s not in control of the world. Things happen, some bad, some good, and some might be even considered a miracle. But he’s not a hero. He’s our hope, our faith, and with these two things you can turn bad things into good ones. For yourself, for others. That’s the thing about religion, about God, about faith – you don’t have to believe in him for him to have your back. Just because you’re an atheist doesn’t mean you’re going to hell. God doesn’t differentiate. We’re all the same in his eyes. Metaphorical eyes, of course.”

She clung to his every word. What once used to be forced on her seemed like a whole different thing now. The faith she used to have was twisted. It wasn’t God she prayed to, it was the face of evil. Hearing father Lantom’s words changed something inside of her; it opened the doors to her heart. She pulled her knee up to her chest. The candles on the altar in the front flickered with the comfortably cold chill. 

“I abandoned my old life to do something I believe in,” she decided to tell him. “Does that make me a bad person?”

“You say you believe in it?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it your purpose?”

“I don’t know, I’m still trying to figure that out.”

“Look inside yourself,” Father Lantom said. “Do you have to do it? Could you do something else and still get the same results? Do you live for it, or do you think about it at night because you can’t get it out of your head? Does it feel right, when you think about it?” 

She answered instantly, “Yes, to all of it.”

“Then it’s your purpose. You made that decision for a reason. You wouldn’t have abandoned your old life to pursue something you only believe half of. Also, if it was so easy to abandon it all, maybe it wasn’t meant to stay that way in the first place. There’s always something waiting for you out there, sometimes it just takes some time for you to find it. It may come in the shape of a task, a purpose, or maybe even a person. And sometimes it’s all of that combined into one.“

“What if I’m not sure yet? What if I still question if I did the right thing?”

“You’re going to find the answer,” he stated. “Sometimes it just takes a while. That is something God can’t do for you. He can only guide you in the right direction.“

“Yeah, but how do I know that?”

“Let me tell you this: when the time comes, you‘ll know. There’s no guide to faith. When you’re on the right path, you’ll know because you’ll feel it deep in your heart.”

Eliza lowered her head. “I never saw it like that,” she admitted.

“Hardly anyone does.” He smiled. “Faith isn’t a task to be accomplished. You have to open your heart to it and when you do, you also have to enjoy it. It has to make you comfortable. If it doesn’t, it may not be the right time for you.”

She thought about it. No pressure, that’s what he was saying. She always thought religion, and going to church, always came with the pressure to dedicate yourself to the cause. She’d always imagined it had to be the way Matt saw God – having blind faith, always. Once in, you can’t pull back out. Just like that. 

This time, Eliza felt comforted. 

“So does God ever send you, I don’t know, signs?” she asked him then. 

“The way you’re asking I assume you’ve been asking yourself this for a while now,” Lantom replied. 

“Yeah, you could say that. A couple of days now, actually.”

“You met someone?”

“Yeah, how did you-“

“I’ve got a lot of people asking me this particular question lately. It’s like a global epidemic has broken out.” Eliza chuckled. He smiled at that. “Everyone’s seeing signs of God everywhere. It sounds crazy, and it probably is too, but I think it’s nice to hear some positive things for a chance. God knows I haven’t been getting much peace.”

“So it is possible?”

“Everything can be a sign, Eliza.”

“It’s like God sent me an Angel,” she blurted out. At this point, the confessions came straight out of the bottle. It wouldn’t stop. “When I first met him, I didn’t think much about it, but the things he makes me feel… no one has ever taken care of me the way he does. He understands me. He came when I needed him most – no, I needed someone and then he was just there and everything made sense. Or well, the things that need to make sense make sense, the rest is just… blegh.” 

“You want to have my advice?”

“Sure, why not.”

“Seems like this is something you should pursue before it slips through your fingers.”

“He’s just so good.”

“Who’s to say you don’t deserve it? Nothing good is ever truly good and nothing bad is ever truly bad. You can’t sabotage yourself just because you think the good things aren’t meant for you.”

“They usually don’t come to me,” she argued. “Or when they do, they break.”

“That’s fear talking. You can’t let that take over.”

“But-“

“Stop making excuses. Someone you speak so highly of seems like someone you should keep around. Maybe he is a sign of God, maybe not. Does it really matter?”

Eliza pursed her lips. “This all just seems so surreal.”

“I know it does.” Father Lantom slowly rose from the bench. She looked up at him. “Think about it,” he said. “And when you need any more guidance, you know where to find me.” 

“Father,” she pulled at his robe, “Thank you,” she said. 

He smiled, patting her hand. “Anytime, Eliza.”

“Would you, uh, mind if I went to the altar and tried to pray?”

“This is a church. Why would I mind?”

His playfulness awoke a feeling of warmth within her. She nodded with a smile, excusing herself and making the long road toward the front. The cross hung high as Jesus lay nailed to it. She knelt, the steps turning colder beneath her knees. 

“You know, when all else fails,” he turned back to her on his way to his chambers, “Talking to God almost always leads to revelations. He listens, even when you think he doesn’t.”

Eliza crossed her chest. She’d seen it in movies, but there was usually a lot more holy water involved. Father Lantom made her believe that there was no wrong way to speak to God. There was no right way to believe. She stared at the altar. How easy it must come to Matt, the times he went to church, the times he went to confession. It was almost like second nature to him. He carried his faith close to his heart, always.

“I don’t know how to pray,” she admitted into the high walls of the church. “But I’ll try because I need something to believe in. I tried to hold on to hope like I was taught. I thought I could do this on my own. God, I was so wrong. I have neither hope nor do I have my life under control,” she said.

Eliza stared up at the angels set into the ceiling. They soared across the sky, watching over her. God isn’t a face. Though as she looked up, she could’ve sworn she saw a silhouette in the clouds. Hidden between the angels and the endless blue, she liked to believe she wasn’t talking to a ghost. 

“I’m kneeling here right now with nothing left to lose,” she said. Her knees ached, but she suffered through it. She suffered in the hope that if she surrendered completely, the sky would provide her with answers. “I have these powers raging through me, powers I don’t even know the full extent of. They’re- they’re changing the way I’m changing, and they’re growing, they’re getting stronger, and I’m so scared of what’s gonna happen next. I’m scared of what’s about to happen to me. It’s different when almost no one believes you. It’s just that everything and everyone’s slipping away from me. I’m scared I might even lose the last good thing in my life before this is all over.” 

She sounded so desperate, so broken. Her cheeks were wet from the tears, lips salty with the taste. She was on her knees, begging, crying out; she felt like a little girl all over again. Submissive, at the edge of the cliff. 

“I’ve been surviving for so long, I forgot what living feels like. No one’s taught me how to. And I can’t live, not like this, not when the fate of the world is on my shoulders. I just need a sign, anything, to know I can win this. That all the pain was worth it. It’s tearing me apart. I don’t know how to hope anymore. I regained some faith in this, in you, and for the first time, I feel like I have a hold on religion. But these people I’m hunting, they’re set out to destroy everything in their path. I can’t keep faith knowing I might just lose everything.”

Her lip quivered, “I can’t lose him, God, I can’t,” she said. “I like to think he came around for a reason, perhaps even a sign from you. He’s led by his faith and his grief, and all he cares about is doing the right thing. He thinks you gave him a purpose. Maybe this is mine. Maybe this is what I was made for, though I haven’t quite figured out what this is. I just know he’s with me and I’d be damned to lose him. 

“I promise to worship at your feet every day from now on if it means we make it out of this alive, that these men get what’s coming for them. I’d do anything for that sliver of happiness. I need to finish this chapter once and for all. If I have to die to ensure everyone’s safety, I will. I’d do just about anything, I swear. Just make sure the people I care about don’t suffer for my mistakes. This is my battle. My sacrifice. No one else deserves to die.” 

“You have so much love left to give,” Natasha’s voice sounded in the back of her head. “Don’t throw that away. Fight for what you want. No matter the cost.”

“I’m willing to pay every price,” Eliza spoke, God as her witness. “I’m done being in pain. I want to believe in you the way Matt does. I do. I need to win. I need this. I’ve sacrificed too much. God,” she cried. “Just this once I am begging for you to listen to me. I know I’ve committed many sins, and I know I’m probably going to hell, but if there’s at least some salvation left for you to give me, I promise I’ll be forever grateful. I’m going straight now. No one deserves to suffer the consequences of my actions but myself.“

You need to learn to take responsibility.

“I’m your disciple,” she swore.

I’ve been struggling with questions of identity as of late.

“Just don’t let me down, please. God, I’m begging you!”

Who am I?

“I need answers. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find them, but I have to try. What I’m about to do, I’m gonna do for a reason. Please, forgive me.”

He listens, even when you think he doesn’t.

She crossed her chest. “Amen.”

In the corner, where the confessional booth had its place, father Lantom watched from the safety of darkness.

“Lord, have mercy on her,” he quietly prayed. “Give her all the strength you have because that girl needs it.”

Eliza rose from the marble stairs. She was fragile, barely an adult. Deep down, she’d missed so much, she just wished to be a child again. She needed to lay in the comforting arms of her parents. All the things she’d lost, she just wanted back. 

Father Lantom copied her, crossing his chest. His face had fallen, a worried crease above his brows. The shadow next to him shifted.

“I hope all that praying was worth it.” He watched her strut the hallway towards the door. “And I hope to God he listened to a word she said or else our boy’s gonna be in a lot of trouble.”

Sunlight fell on the face beside him. Soft features had all crumbled up in worry. She stared up at the father, the crucifix clutched tightly between her thin fingers.

“You think it’s her?” the woman asked.

“Hmm. I could tell the second she stepped in.“

“What should we do?”

“Nothing,” father Lantom stated. “If I learned one thing from listening to his confessions all those years, it’s that Matthew is his father’s son. He doesn’t give up, even when he should.“

“I wish he did,” she sighed. “Just once, I wish he’d stop.”

The metal doors fell shut with a loud bang. Eliza’s steps disappeared onto the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, swallowed by sun-hungry people and the summer air.

Father Lantom gave the nun a gentle smile. “Your son is resilient, Maggie. He never goes down without a fight, and he also never loses. Besides,” he looked over at the empty bench in the back, “I think Matthew finally found a match that doesn’t completely manipulate him.” 

Maggie kissed the cross in her hands. “I just hope you’re right,” she said. 

The last thing she wanted was to lose her son before she even got the chance to explain herself to him.

Matt could hear Eliza's heartbeat from miles away. He picked her up around the area of Clinton Church, but his abilities didn't quite place her in the confines of his favorite place in Hell's Kitchen, neither did he manage to pick up the father's signature voice serenading her and taking away some of the built-up anxiety. By the time he sought her out, she was on the run again, on the way to her apartment and then, sometime later, carefully making her way to the closest taxi cab.

She told the driver to stop two blocks from his apartment building. On her way, she made sure to take extra turns just in case someone was following her. He figured the action was intentional, just something she had gotten used to, and she wasn’t going to stop, especially not in times like these. 

Then, her scent filled his nostrils, followed by the steady thump, thump, thump of her heart. She came in and the world lit up. Her presence brought fresh air into the four walls he called home. Though there was something about the way she acted. Her voice dropped a few octaves, her steps dragging tiredly across the wooden floor. It made him worry. He wondered what happened. Even the last spark he had seen hours before had vanished completely, lost somewhere on the dirty streets outside. 

Foggy had poked around, asking him all kinds of questions about the night before after he quickly showed his face in the office. He asked about Eliza and if he could get her number to check on her, just to see if she had gotten home alright. Even Karen worried. Any normal person would be after the events that took place at the party. The worst part was that Matt had to make them believe that everything turned out alright. 

“I walked her home,” he lied. “She’s… what can be expected. Stark really got to her but I, uh, figured it out. She’s okay.”

“Man, that sucks,” Foggy pouted at him. “I thought he was the good guy.”

Karen only laughed sarcastically at his words. “Won’t make that mistake again, will you, Foggy?”

“No. No, I guess I won’t. I’m sorry. Tell her that.”

Matt wasn’t planning on it. 

“Don’t you have a front door?” Eliza asked from the staircase that lead from the rooftop to his apartment. “I mean, when you said ‘backdoor’, I imagined a ground-floor apartment, not this.” She gestured to the controversial entrance. 

“I thought it would be better if no one saw you coming,” he said. 

She hummed. No smart remark, not a single joke, nothing. The wood creaked underneath her boots. He tilted his head to listen closer. He analyzed the way she inhaled, slightly quivering with every second drag, and her voice was significantly more hoarse. 

She placed what he suspected to be a duffel bag on the leather couch. “I made sure no one was following me,” she stated, concerning his earlier words, no doubt. 

“Yeah, I heard.” He felt stupid just standing there, but he didn’t know what else to do. 

“So you’re stalking me now?” What was meant as a joke sounded way more serious. 

“What if I were?” he asked. 

“I’d be offended, but given the circumstances, I’d forgive you.” 

Matt chuckled. He moved over to the kitchen, his steps methodical, knowing exactly where he needed to go, yet his arms stretched further from his body in case something might end up in his path. 

“You want anything?” 

Eliza looked over at him. “Sorry, what?” she said. 

“You want anything?” he repeated his question patiently. He opened the fridge, his bicep straining against the white dress shirt that hung clad to his torso. He had long discarded the suit jacket and the sleeves were rolled up. “I’ve got beer, wine, and water. That’s about it. I, uh, don’t keep many groceries here. I have some leftovers from the Thai place around the corner. Oh, and there’s an apple. It’s all that’s left from the gift basket I got from our last client.”

She chuckled. The truth was, her heart hurt. Not just her head but her soul. The new environment made her feel exposed. At least at the church, she had found solace. Under Matt’s gaze which wasn’t even a gaze, to begin with, but an even closer observation of her behavior, she felt naked. She felt vulnerable. He saw right through her, still trying to cover it up to allow her some modesty, but goddamnit, she knew that he knew something wasn’t quite right. He could probably smell the holy water on her. He could smell the sweat of anxiety, the dried tears, and the blood from gnawing on her lip too much. She wanted to run, though she decided against it since he would’ve found her sooner or later anyway. She couldn’t hide from Daredevil, not anymore. 

“Have you eaten yet?” he asked. “You sound exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” Eliza intercepted. 

He fiddled with the fridge’s door handle. “Are you sure?”

“I’m fine, really,” she said. 

“Hm.” She was lying to him. 

Against her claims, he handed her a glass of tap water. His nod motioned for her to drink. A silent demand. She lowered her head. It worked. She took a small sip, keeping her eyes on him as he brushed past her, hand ghosting against her lower arm. He didn’t have to speak for her to know. 

Once again, she looked around the apartment. The sun was slowly coming down, darkening most of the apartment and if it hadn’t been for the gigantic billboard across the building, she would’ve been wandering in the dark. 

The billboard would’ve been quite a nuisance to a seeing person. There couldn’t be many people who would volunteer to take such an apartment for longer periods unless they were, like Matt, blind. He probably found the soft buzzing at night comforting. 

Eliza felt drawn to the different pictures flashing across the screen. She walked up to the window to take a peek outside. The glass was slightly milky in its natural state, slightly discolored too, but that’s what interested her in the first place. The architecture of the place fascinated her. It suited Matt, although it was nothing like what she had expected. 

She wiped at the window, removing some of the fog caused by the sudden change of temperature inside. Matt liked his apartment cold, she realized. The windows couldn’t keep up with the presence of two people without condensation starting to prickle at the edges. 

The billboard showed a commercial for an insurance company. Ridiculous, she thought. He probably didn’t even know about the kinds of pictures that flashed across his windows every night. Insurance companies, condoms, groceries, and from time to time, tv show announcements. Not that he would even care about the show that was put on in front of his apartment. It was new to her, all of this. He had a different perception of things. What she found annoying, he enjoyed. What he hated, she considered normal. She couldn’t see herself falling asleep to condom advertisements, but the colors were nice, so maybe it wasn’t all too bad even for a sighted person after all. 

Matt chuckled behind her. “Say it,” he said. 

“Say what?” she asked. 

“You think it’s annoying.”

“What?”

“The billboard.”

“Well, this place is a shithole.” She shrugged, “but I don’t know, I think it’s a nice shithole.”

His chuckle transcended into laughter. “Yeah,” he grinned into his glass, “Sounds about right.”

“Rent’s probably through the roof, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I got a discount because of the Billboard since no one else would take it, but it’s still a lot. Especially for someone who doesn’t even make money.”

“Expensive shithole then,” she said. 

He nodded. “Expensive shithole.”

The apartment's location was unfortunate, but the room itself wasn’t all that awful. Eliza stopped at the small wooden desk that stood in front of what appeared like a supply closet. Files were scattered around, a braille printer to one side and a laptop to the other. She traced her fingers over the rough wood, feeling the dots on the papers. She wished she could read Braille, but it seemed like a hard task to learn. 

“Thank you for inviting me over,” she said.

“Sure, yeah,” he said. “How was your, uh, meeting with Stark?”

Eliza stiffened.

“You know what, forget it.” He placed his hands on his hips. “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.”

She didn’t wait. “I quit.” Her nails dug into the paper. “I tore up our family picture and then I left.”

“What?”

“I left. I just… left.”

“Well, that’s- are you alright?”

“He knows about us, Matt!” The words came in a single breath.

“What?” he asked. 

“Not about you, about Daredevil.” she had to clarify. “He knows we’ve been working together,” Eliza said. “He’s known ever since our second night together. The press caught wind of it. He said he was the only one between the news and Secretary Ross. If he found out-”

“You’d go to jail,” Matt stated. She nodded weakly.  “Fuck! How did they- what is Stark gonna do now? He has to have a plan, right? He won’t just tell everyone. That’s not like him. Tell me that’s not like him.” 

She couldn’t do that. She wasn’t sure if it was like him. In the past? Definitely not. After what she experienced in the past couple of days? Who knew? 

“He said if I walked out that door, he wouldn’t protect me anymore.”

“God…Tell me you didn’t just walk out. At least not without negotiating a deal first.”

“I walked out.”

“Damn it, Eliza!” 

“I don’t care!” her voice cracked. “I don’t care, okay? Ross can arrest me, I don’t fucking care! I realize that now. I don’t care, even if it lands me in jail. The Accords are stupid rules. Why should I have to live by them anymore?” she said. “The Avengers are toast anyway. It’s not like I’m hurting anyone who doesn’t deserve it. I’m not making entire cities float. I’m simply fighting a fight no one else wants to. If that means breaking the rules, so be it.”

He began to pace the room. “This can’t be happening…” One of his hands got tangled in the mess of brown locks on his head. 

“It’s not about him. It’s not about me. This is about doing the right thing. You taught me that!” 

Matt turned around. “Do you even realize how much danger you are in?!” It was the first time he yelled at her and he regretted it the second the sound had finished bouncing his way across the apartment, and it slapped her right across the face. 

Eliza swallowed hard. “I-” she blew air through her nose. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he cooed softly. He took a few steps closer. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“No, don’t touch me!” She shied away. Her armor faltered. The leather of the couch welcomed her with open arms. Teardrops pearled off the fabric, leaving even darker spots where the liquid slipped from her skin. 

He wanted to punch himself. “I’m so sorry.” He slowly fell to one knee next to the armrest. “I didn’t mean it. I’m not angry at you,” he assured her, but his words meant nothing. She was scared. 

Once again, she backed away until her thigh hit her duffel bag and she had to stop in the middle of the couch so as not to throw her belongings on the ground. Her hand remained in the air, a silent warning. He didn’t move, he remained on the floor, even though his knees hurt from the wood and he could feel his stitches barely holding on for dear life. He didn’t care though. This was his fault. 

She lowered her head. “I didn’t sign up for this,” she whispered. “I didn’t sign up for any of this.”

“I know you didn’t. The reason I yelled-“ he sighed, “The reason I yelled was not that I’m angry at you. It’s not your fault. I just don’t want you to get arrested. They’d put you into special containment. They would lock you up for good,” he explained. “From what I’ve heard, enhanced individuals are considered flight risks to the government, so if you were to get arrested, they could easily use that to their advantage. I can’t let that happen.”

Eliza nodded quietly. 

“I was wrong to raise my voice. I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” 

“Okay, I’m sorry. I- I just don’t want you to get arrested because of me,” he said. 

“But it wouldn’t be because of you.”

“No, it would be. You know why?”

“No ‘cause I’m not a lawyer,” she told him.

He hung his head, chuckling. “In the eyes of the law, Daredevil is a criminal. I read the Accords after we met. I wanted to know how far you’re allowed to go. You know they don’t just apply to you as a group?” 

She shrugged. Her fingers fiddled with the necklace around her neck. She had forgotten it was still there. A nervous tick he had picked up on when he first met her at the police station, out of his costume. 

“You know.” He nodded slowly. “I figured. You read them.”

“The first few pages,” she said. 

“Not all of it?”

“No, it bored me.”

He shook his head.

“What I read though, I remember. I remember every word.”

“Alright. Well, the Accords state that you’re not allowed to work on missions without the government’s consent,” he said. “You cannot take any cases that haven’t been checked out by either the Secretary or his committee, and when they say you have to pull out, you have to comply. You’re a dog on a leash. Or, the Avengers are. Since you signed them, you are legally obligated to follow the Accords. If you break them, you’re automatically breaking the law. You’ll become a felon, there will be court proceedings, and then, depending on the extent of the crime, you could go to jail.”

“You did your research, huh?”

“It’s not just a rule book,” he insisted. “The Accords are the law now.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Eliza snapped at him. 

“I know you do.”

“Then why are you trying to make me feel bad?”

“I’m not! I’m trying to tell you that the rules that apply to the Avengers as a group apply to you as well. You each have to follow the rules, even outside of working together. And you know why? Because you’re not the ordinary human population. The government doesn’t want you guys allowed to roam freely.”

“If I do anyway, I’ll go to jail. Yes, I’m aware. Hey,” she asked, “where are you going with this?”

“This whole thing is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode! These people can prove you’re working with me, that we were with Pfeiffer that night… They have the means to destroy you. Because of me, you’re in danger. That is where I’m going with this.”

“Oh, not this again.”

“You know, perhaps it’s better if we part ways. Spend some time apart until all of this has calmed down.”

“I made my choice!” Eliza cried. “This decision is entirely on me. My life, my rules. I take responsibility for what I did, and for what I’m about to do. This has nothing to do with you. You want to save this city? So do I.”

His breath came in hot, labored puffs of air. 

“It’s not just some personal agenda that drives me, I actually care about the people! Don’t make this about you, Matt, not right now.”

“I’m not making this about me!” he argued. “I’m just trying to take care of you. I can’t do that if you’re in the crosshairs.”

“I’ve been in the crosshairs from the beginning. I grew up with several targets on my back. Even the law has known me for as long as I can remember.”

“What if I can’t protect you anymore, what then?”

“Then I’ll die!”

“I don’t want you to die!” He was yelling without even raising his voice, something she had done the night of the party after she found out who he truly was. They weren’t so much different after all. 

Eliza wiped her cheeks. There weren’t any tears. She wasn’t crying, she doubted she had any tears left to shed, but she wanted to. The feeling burned in the back of her throat. 

“We’ve still got time,” she said. 

“Time? We’re running against time, Eliza! I may not be able to read the clock, but I know when a timer is running out.”

“I just have to be careful! We’re in this together now, Matt. We were the second you jumped into that Butcher shop to save my ass. Your desperate need to push me away just to protect me can’t control you. I’m not going anywhere. You gotta deal with that or else we’re gonna have a problem.”

“No, you’re gonna have a problem because you’re the one whose life is in danger and whose freedom is being jeopardized just by being with me. This- this isn’t a joke. This is your life you’re gambling with, you realize that, right?”

“I’m trying to tell you that I don’t want you to leave me!” she cried out. “Don’t you get that? I don’t want you to go.”

Matt’s eyes softened. “What?” he said. 

Her bottom lip tangled with her teeth in a desperate attempt to stop it from quivering. Like her entire body though, she kept shaking. It was deadly quiet when she spoke again, and her voice paid the price, “You’re all I have left.” 

He rose from the floor, situating himself on the couch next to her. She curled in on herself, too scared to even look at him. He reached his hand out. “Eliza-”

“You promised you’d be there for me,” she said. “That’s what I need you to do. To be there.”

“I’m not leaving,” he breathed. 

“Are you sure because you seemed pretty convinced just now?”

“No.” He reached for her. This time, she let him. He tugged at her arm, gently at first, though when she didn’t get the hint, he hooked his arm around hers and pulled her towards him. She fell into his open arms only hesitantly. “I just don’t want to watch you die, okay?” he admitted. “And I don’t want them to take you away.”

“Maybe you can take me away,” she muttered. Her hand began to claw at his chest, her lifeline. 

He chuckled breathlessly. “And where would I take you?”

“When this is all over, I mean. I heard Hawaii could be nice.”

“I’ve never been north of 116th street.”

“The more reason for us to change our identities and travel to Hawaii.”

“Sweetheart,” he said, “When this is all over, I will take you anywhere you want.”

They sat like this until the earth finished turning and the sun disappeared. Soft moonlight mixed with the ads crossing the billboard screen. His heart beat steady. She used the sound to come back to her body.

“The world feels so surreal,” she spoke into the comfortable silence. “Like I’m detached from its axis and I’m just spinning there like a broken record, lost alone in the vastness of space.”

She inhaled his cologne. Hints of sweat and rain, and sandalwood on his skin. He was so warm, a human blanket draped over her, almost like a shield from all the evil in this world. His grip tightened around her shoulders; she allowed herself to fall further into the embrace. She allowed herself to drown in his touch. 

“It’s like I’m bacteria floating around in an organism, but that bacteria doesn’t have a name yet. I’m just… there. No one knows who I am or what purpose I serve, but what’s for sure is that I’m meant to cause damage.”

“You’re not bacteria,” Matt told her.

“But what if I am? What if I’m the virus? This story seems to depend on my talent to destroy things. Everything’s just gotten worse because of me. Because I got involved.“

“They would’ve found another way to cause damage.”

“If I hadn’t gotten involved, this could’ve been solved without having people die for it,” she said and pushed away from him. His arm caged her, she needed to get out. Matt continued to keep his hands on her. He let her bring space between them, but as she tried to flee, he pulled her back gently so she was facing him. 

He didn’t need sight to see that she was burning red. The temperature of her skin mixed with the jitters told him enough to conclude.

“Hey,” he said, “you’re the one who broke this case wide open.”

“I don’t- what if that’s not true?” Eliza sniffled. “What if, in some twisted way, I’m the reason Hydra is doing this? You heard Pfeiffer, they’re trying to make more super soldiers, stronger than ever before,” she said. “They learned from Project Chaos, they saw what Strucker managed to achieve with the Maximoff twins. What if – just, what if – they’re doing this because we survived, and now they’re trying to combine the elements to make something far, far worse than what Wanda and I turned out to be.” 

“Yeah, but what if scenarios are just speculation? It’s not real, at least not until it’s proven. What we need to focus on are facts. Plain and simple. Facts are what make cases. That’s our start-of point. Asking yourself what if will only hurt you more. Believe me, I know.”

“What am I supposed to do then?” 

“Trust me,” he begged. “That’s all I ask of you.”

Eliza tasted the words on her tongue. She wiped the tears away, though the sticky feeling of dried salt on her cheeks remained heavy. She leaned down slowly, her forehead pressed against Matt’s chest. His hand went around her neck, holding her there. The other rubbed comfortingly up and down her back.

“What does that even mean?” the sound was muffled through the fabric. “I mean, what are we?“ she asked. 

Matt ran his thumb along her pulse point. “I’m just as confused as you are,” he admitted. He felt her pulse jump directly behind the skin. 

She hummed. “I wish we would’ve met before. You know, before everyone convinced us that life is war.” 

He pulled her closer. His chuckle blew through the tiny hairs standing off her scalp. “No one has proved us different,” he said. “Life is war, we were just taught to always fight on the front lines, no matter what happens. We were taught that being soldiers is the default for people like us. And now… now we can’t live without it.”

“We were just kids.”

“We didn’t know any better.”

“Yeah… we still don’t.”

“No,” he smiled, “we don’t.”

Somewhere in the distance, church bells rang out. Reality crept through the cracks in the floorboards and polluted them with its negative energy.

Eliza sat up again. This time, she reached for her duffel bag. “We gotta follow down that lead,” she stated, and so the mask went back on. 

The softness of Matt’s features was etched in seriousness. He began to peel the tie off around his throat. It was a fascinating transition. The caring man she knew as Matt Murdock turned within a matter of a few seconds and there he sat Daredevil. He didn’t have to put on the suit, his attitude spoke for itself. There was just something about him, something that enthralled her, even as he turned into a cold piece of stone. She knew there was a broken, gooey nucleus inside – the man he presented on the outside was just an act. He kept the real Matt Murdock under locks, tucked neatly away where no one could find him. 

Eliza should’ve felt honored to have him be so vulnerable around her. Yet, she believed there was still plenty to learn about him and this complicated piece of a soul he harbored inside.

“What do you have there?” he asked.

“My suit.” She opened the zipper. “Not the one Tony gave me. It’s my old SHIELD uniform. I asked to keep it before I joined the Avengers. Also,” - the cell phone fell into her hands -“I got a new phone. Tony used mine to track me.”

“So you just keep an arsenal of phones around you?”

“Yeah, why? You don’t?”

“I don’t think that’s something normal people do.”

“I’m not normal,” she stated plainly. “In this line of work, you better come prepared. I have a lot more where this comes from. I could fake my death and no one would know if I wanted to.” Eliza got up. She asked, “Where’s your bathroom?”

Matt pointed in the direction he memorized.

“Thanks.”

Her footsteps disappeared. The door fell shut. She turned the lock twice, making sure it was secure, only then did he hear the shuffling of clothes on the floor. He chose not to invade her privacy. Instead, he made his way into the bedroom. He took the suit draped over the sofa and changed into it with precision. The door stayed open, just in case Eliza came around. He didn’t care if she saw him undressed – hell, he was as open as one could be. Some part of him wanted her to, some perverted part he didn’t want to listen to. Not that he expected an attempt on her life in his apartment, considering no one knew she was there, but he could never be too careful. 

His stitches pulled hard. The leather didn’t do much to protect his wounds. He groaned, some sounded louder than he planned to. He was in so much pain, every inch of his body sore, and all he craved was a good night’s sleep. But he couldn’t think about that. There was no time to rest, he told himself. Not until the worst was over.

“You okay?” Eliza stood in the doorway.

Matt struggled with the belt. “Yeah, fine,” he said curtly. His shoulder burned - the one part that wasn’t injured was giving him the most trouble. 

“Need any help with that?”

He sighed in relief, nodding. She helped him get the rest of his body tucked into the suit. The leather sat securely around his waist and everywhere else where it needed to; he couldn’t have done it better.

She peaked up at him and he tried his best to reciprocate the action. Judging by her smile, he missed her eyes by miles once again. He chuckled. “Guess I’m getting old,” he said. 

“How so?” she questioned. 

“My back is killing me.”

“You are, indeed, an old man,” she swatted some dust off his shoulders, “but that’s okay.” 

He pinched her side. “Careful. This old man can still kick your ass.”

“Oh. Do I need to have the nursery home on the line?” She spread her thumb and middle finger to the sides, mimicking a phone. “Shall I tell them to book you a single or double room, grandpa?”

The baton flew in her direction. Right before it could hit her in the face, her hand shot up to catch the piece of metal. She switched between him and his weapon, not sure whether to be impressed or annoyed. 

“Fuck off!” he said. 

She smirked. “I’m getting you back for that.”

Though once the baton was back in the air, his arm was already extended to catch it mid-air, his height offering an opportunity he didn’t miss.

Eliza remembered their first meeting. The way he flipped the sticks of metal expertly, almost like what he was doing right there, in front of her, smug and knowing damn well what he was doing. “Show off,” she said. 

Like on the first day, he forced one of the batons into her hand. “Try not to kill anyone,” he retorted.

 She saw an opportunity too and she surely didn’t want to miss it. “No promises.” 

[ausetkmt]

The debate about race following the killing of George Floyd has reverberated across the Atlantic Ocean, spurring the tourism minister of Ghana to appeal to its diaspora, including in the U.S., to "leave where you are not wanted," and return home.

A ceremony marking the death of Floyd was held at the W. E. B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture in the capital Accra during which Barbara Oteng Gyasi made the plea that her country is open to those fleeing racial tensions.

"We gather in solidarity with brothers and sisters to change the status quo. Racism must end. We pray and hope that George Floyd's death will not be in vain but will bring an end to prejudice and racial discrimination across the world," Oteng Gyasi said, according to Ghana Web.

"We continue to open our arms and invite all our brothers and sisters home. Ghana is your home. Africa is your home. We have our arms wide open ready to welcome you home.

"Please take advantage, come home, build a life in Ghana. You do not have to stay where you are not wanted forever, you have a choice and Africa is waiting for you," Oteng Gyasi added after a wreath-laying ceremony last Friday.

The economy got a boost as people flocked to the country for a number of cultural events, such as the music festival AfroChella, to mark the anniversary.

The government in Accra is building on that momentum with another initiative called "Beyond the Return" which aims to encourage investment in Ghana.

"We feel that given the wealth that African Americans and black Americans have, given that spending power, travel budgets of blacks in America, we felt that it's about time that we start that conversation that, instead of moving to any other destination, come back to where you came from," Akwasi Agyeman, CEO of Ghana's Tourism Authority, told NBC this week.

There was a sartorial and cultural connection between the heart of U.S. politics and Ghana this week as Democrats proposed legislation to reform the police in the wake of Floyd's death.

Lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wore scarves made from a cloth of colorful geometric Ghanaian designs called kente which had been given to them by the Congressional Black Caucus.

"The significance of the kente cloth is our African heritage and for those of you without that heritage who are acting in solidarity," Karen Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said, according to the BBC.

Meanwhile, the appeal by the Ghanaian government to its diaspora from across the Atlantic Ocean is likely to get stronger.

Lakeshia Marie Ford started coming to Ghana in 2008 as part of a study abroad program through her alma mater, Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She has lived in the country permanently for five years and is founder of the Accra-based public relations company Ford Communications.

"In terms of identity, I felt freer in Ghana. As a Jamaican-American woman, there were so many cultural similarities," she told Newsweek.

"Having that foundation as a 20-something year old allowed me to pay attention to the environment and look at how I can add value to the space, as opposed to fighting racism, as I would probably be doing in the United States."

Attracted by a fast-pace emerging economy, she said that people can bring to life dynamic ideas a lot quicker in Ghana than in the United States.

"An emerging market needs a range of skills," she said, which meant, "you can find a space for yourself regardless of the level you are at, and still make an impact."

"Africa has always been the future, and our predecessors know that well. For my generation, if we in fact answer the call to explore achieving our dreams in Africa, specifically Ghana in this case, Ghana will experience a brain gain.

"Having black people in the diaspora come to Ghana is the dream. I think it's important to also develop structures and capacities in the country to support the call.

"That effort could also include socially sensitizing Ghanaian citizens so that everyone is radically focused on the bigger picture of the commonality between Africans and African diasporans and the effort to achieve true sustainable socio-economic development for Ghana and black people who would be new residents," Ford told Newsweek.

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

Before you embark to West Africa looking for a new home, a lil advice:

study the area you are interested in returning to

do your dna testing with a dna test agency that has African Aliels such as https://africanancestry.com/

SAVE SAVE SAVE - money shrinks when you travel so take as much as you can because you don't know what may catch your eye

Make a few friends in your chosen destination and learn more about the local culture so that when you visit you're more aware of your surroundings and possibilities - this helps you to not be a victim. travel scams in Africa do happen just like everywhere else.

Check all the Visa Requirements, make sure your passport is valid for at least a year post travel to prevent any problems with visas.

Check with your local Travel Health Clinic to be sure of what meds you may need before departure, as well as what you may need to take with you in case of need. Lariam is a common med that is used for Malaria and usually taken as it's more difficult to get once you are there

Take a copy of all your travel documents, on your phone; as well as photocopies; and email a safety copy in the event of need

Don't Use Air BnB because they are horrible and poorly managed in Africa. stick to a traditional hotel for both comfort and safety.

Plan your trip knowing it will be wonderful and you will be making the journey of a lifetime. Travel with a heart full of gratitude and wonder because You are Going Home, hopefully.

Questions on Travel to the Tropics or Africa - Hit Me Up and I'll give you my experience and help with your planning. Just message me here on Tumblr and I'll hit you right back

Remember This is The mindset of an explorer so get out there and find yourself an adventure

[septembersghost]

Jess sorry I didn’t get back right away life is silly sometimes and I really felt what you said about people not seeing it as a real loss i spent months breaking down the only people who really got it where those very close to me who knew she was my light. I still can’t believe it’s going to be a year soon it’s like time has moved so fast but hasn’t moved at all.

As of right now we are fine I even get to make thanksgiving dinner which I haven’t done since 2018 but after next week we don’t know the person we are staying with was just temporary and now we have to decide if we wanna try going back to California where no one can/wants to help or stay in North Carolina and see the help they can provide. So yea i’m not sure what next week holds. I know i developed ptsd from it the compound truama has really messed me up. A funny thing of note happened after I got out when folklore came out and I heard This Is Me Trying it was just a godsend of a song, as I was going back to a bad place and it kept me going, I then spent my next therapy session breaking done the song and giving her a full on lecture on the song.

You saying all that truly means so much and it’s like fate that I come back now and reconnected with you it’s nice to know that even apart we are still in this same boat with our life jackets on holding each other up ✨💜

please don't apologize, i'm atrocious at answering or replying to things in a timely matter ever (if at all sometimes 😭), i always understand that.

it as a real loss i spent months breaking down the only people who really got it where those very close to me who knew she was my light. i feel this completely. my mom was the only person in my life who understood and it's because she was experiencing the same grief. i had multiple family members dismiss it and it made that wound even worse. we should share with each other how real and affecting that sorrow is, and why they are so irreplaceable and important to us. there's a quote of mary oliver's, and i think it applies to any of our precious furbabies: "it is exceedingly short, [their] galloping life. [they] die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old—or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give." they should be allowed to live as long as we do. the love lasts even longer.

it’s like time has moved so fast but hasn’t moved at all. i feel this beyond words too, time is has become such an unreal thing to me, frozen and flying and frightening all at once, because it never feels like it's moving until it's suddenly gone.

i'm happy you'll get to have thanksgiving dinner, and the enjoyment of making it, but i'm so, so sorry you have that fear looming over you again. :( i wish i could do something for you! the uncertainty is agonizing, i will be praying and hoping you and your mom find some help and a safe place. have you contacted local housing resources/counselors? (they were useless to us, unfortunately, the system is beyond broken, so...i get why that might not be a plausible or fast enough option.)

I know i developed ptsd from it the compound truama has really messed me up. this is totally understandable and not at all a failing on your part. i'm hugging you as close as i can from afar.

this is me trying is EVERYTHING, "a godsend of a song" is 100% true. god. that song and mirrorball carried me in 2020. timt was constantly on my mind when i returned here ("i didn't know if you'd care if i came back, i have a lot of regrets about that"). her empathy and skill with expressing emotion and putting humanity into words...it's miraculous to me. that song can fit many different experiences for us as listeners, and each one is true. "they told me all of my cages were mental" resonates deeply for me in regards to my chronic illness (as does the whole song), and the idea of the act of trying itself being the bravest thing. "pulled the car off the road to the lookout, could've followed my fears all the way down" and then making the decision not to fall. i think about what jack said in folklore lpss all the time: "the idea that not driving off the cliff is an act of trying. which is almost the ultimate act of trying." and what taylor said, "i've been thinking about people who [are suffering] or they have an everyday struggle. no one pats them on their back every day, but every day they are actively fighting something. but there are so many days that nobody gives them credit for that, so how often must somebody who's in that sort of internal struggle must want to say to everyone in the room, 'you have no idea how close i am to going back to a dark place, you have no idea.' i had this idea that the first verse would be about someone who has driven to this overlook, this cliff, and it's just in the car, going, 'i could do whatever i want in this moment, and it could affect everything forever.' but that person backs up and drives home." it's just. it's so important. what she created is so unbelievably important. she gave so many of us reasons to back up and drive home. folklore is an untouchable gift, i can't EVER talk about it enough. there's a reason why it became the heart and the emblem of that year, and why it will continue to live and breathe in the world, in us.

it's beautiful that you're here and means so much to me too, thank you for being in the boat with me, making sure we have our life jackets and some stars above us, no matter how vast and tumultuous the waves of the sea might be. at least we're trying. 💙💙💙

[feuqueerfire]

Island Part 1 Live Blogging

I didn't watch anything last week because of being overwhelmed and busy for the past 10 or so days but finally I'm ready to once again start a new show when I should be studying.

My main reason for watching this is really just Cha Eunwoo because I miss seeing his face. People seem to really like his character and say his acting improved so I'm even more excited. I wanted to start Korean sff shows anyway so might as well start here even though I got spoiled for a biiiiig thing that happens at the end of S2 and also people's reactions have been like good but not great.

Ep 1 (Mar 14)

ah they're toast

oh they're not speaking Korean

hello my beloved Eunwoo

i never know whether to trust this type of old man who is the lady's father's butler man and is some sort of mentor to her as well

oof the wedding dress monster killed and ate someone?

isn't there gonna be a fuss about the dead body

ah so the lady is a reincarnation of the woman in the white dress who previously died? and the man is the one who's been living at Tamara since then?

olden times Jeju - the guy was a child and was forced to become half human half demon. where's the other kid who became that way too

oh bulter sir where are you going and what did the student see?

lol we already saw the man being selfish and self-absorbed so that's not doing anything for me but ig he's also gonna become a demon now? also i originally thought the assistant who she told to look into those two men was him but ig it's a different man

A pretty meh first episode tbh

Ep 2 (Mar 14)

damn they really did this shit to the children

beautiful beloved Cha Eunwoo <333 I am very fond of him

oh the bulter mans is Miho's protector

the slug things are so fucking disgusting

these action scenes are so boring because they go on for too long, I don't care enough about Miho, it's only ep 2 so I know she's not gonna die or really get hurt, and the immortal guy is gonna come save her each time like bro move on why are the action and chase scenes so long

yknow I find Miho endearing when she's praying to God, Buddha and being nervous to go to sleep and her nervous mannerisms when the man in the dark comes to her room and I think it reminds me of Saras played by Ae in PS I Hate You

actually she's endearing when she's trying to get Van to sign the contract

damn is Van the one who killed Miho in her past life

also pretty meh for me, I don't care about the action, but I'm glad to see a bit more of Eunwoo and also I'm starting to be endeared by Mino

Ep 3 (Mar 14)

why the fuck is there a domestic abuse plotline fucking hell It's like I gotta either watch women being terrorized by men or turn to watch BL where they also sometimes treat women as evil caricatures like I can't

fucking hell and blackmailing her with her nsfw photos too I actually am so fucking annoyed why can't I fucking watch just a fantasy show

this is so fucking sad bro

I love Yeon-ji already

if Yeon-ji or Suryeon actually die or anything I'll be so fucking mad btw

(Linguistics) ahh I love Johan tryna get away with using banmal and referring to Miho as chingus but being shut down lol can't wait to hear him say noona

I don't care about the romantic hints toward Miho and Van whatsoever tbh

(Linguistics) please the way Miho is all wide-eyed and belatedly adds the -yo when she asks if he's really a priest

Johan is so cheeky I love him

Suryeonnnnnn if Bujille does something to her I'm gonna kill this show

nah the better save suryeon

the failed exorcism was pretty cool

This ep finally picked up. I'm glad we get our characters around each other now and some interesting things have started to happen beyond just "oh monster chases Miho and Van saves her." Most of all, I love Johan being daring and cheeky and beautiful and fun and eager.

Not a super big fan of female suffering due to an abusive boyfriend and threats of nudes/nsfw photos being leaked though like I wish it was just something else.

3 eps in a day oof

Ep 4 (Mar 15)

oh was the light-haired guy the other half-demon from the old days

omg the big devil tree-looking monster being maneuvered by Lee Suryeon

I know it's supposed to be funny that Johan was choking while Miho and Van were arguing but :) I dislike such incompetency and callousness for the sake of humour like first of all Johan was trying to help Miho, second of all we're supposed to think Van doesn't gaf but it's not like we're supposed to think Miho is like that too considering she's trying to convince Van to save Suryeon - so it's annoying that she has no worries about Johan

It's so fucking boring that we're on episode 4, both Van and Johan get to do cool action things and even if Johan gets caught, he can hold his ground for a bit with his cool sword, while Miho has yet to even improve in her hiding/escaping/running away techniques despite already being good at fighting and training. If she was at least able to get through to Suryeon with kindness or whatever, that'd be like something but she can't do that either and yells for Van constantly like okay I'm bored

well okay at least she got to speak to Suryeon and I guess some fucking light inside her made the Benjulle disappear

Ah Johan is so irritating when dealing with Van, ah so endearing

oh van calling upon Benjulle again for Suryeon's revenge

heh Van and the Gramma testing each other are so cute

did Johan leave the shrimp croquettes for Miho or is he just gone to the bathroom and will find them gone lol

I don't fully understand why Johan's doing this with Van? to test his strength? and also he wants his name? Edit after reddit thread reading: Someone said he wants to bring out the demon so that he can see if Van can control it enough so that the prophecy of him killing Miho again will come true or not. He left the shrimp croquettes so that she'd be busy eating those and not come looking for the two of them. that makes sense.

oh this is how Van had previously killed her. by his demon side coming out and stabbing her. oof Johan what have you done

A more interesting episode. I wish we got to see the weirdo abusive ex being ripped to shreds at least a little bit or maybe his dead body since we got to see Suryeon's bruised face and her vulnerable photos.

The Johan and Van fighting was pretty cool, one of the action sequences that I thought was actually fun because it involved things more than just chasing or saving Miho.

Also, I'm at least glad that Miho's rich and has connections because otherwise she'd be so fucking useless but then again, she's pretty useless with it too. She didn't seem to give a fuck when Yeomji first came to tell her that Suryeon was being abused, so I didn't think the 'empathy and kindness' would be her forte the way it is for so many female leads but then after she saw the state Suryeon was in, she did start to care more. I thought her having money would mean maybe she could actually get revenge for Suryeong but in the end, Van had to ask Bujille for help. Miho can't save herself which is irritating still 4 episodes in especially when she's been shown to know how to fight but she also can't help Suryeon much despite her status and money. What the fuck can she do by herself then except whatever pureness is inside her and whatever the prophecy will dictate?

I wish we got better-written, more interesting female characters. Yeom-ji is interesting so far, maybe she'll appear more later

Ep 5 (Mar 15)

blocked by own arm is expected

oh our affable Johan has shaking hands

I love the horror aspect of the tourist murder and organ extraction, please have more scary things

Miho fr went outside by herself in the woods after 1) the Dujille incident and 2) the Van incident? girl you are generally useless, why would you fucking do that

oh she's tracking Van's phone

Miho sounds stupid as hell with the "you promised to protect me and you did :>" like at least make her be like i believe you will overcome it or like something that doesn't sound so naive

and i wish they didn't have a romance because it doesn't make sense

pls not all the girls following behind Johan because he's so beautiful and he's relishing in that for sure oh this priest

Johan's a priest right, he likes girls fawning over him but he's not gonna fall for Miho right? I don't want another romantic line

Suryeon and Yeomji are fr best buddies, so cute I love them T.T

omg give me Johan backstory right now

so the Fox Demon is extracting livers until he finds 'his' and is aided by the evil half-demon? and then sometimes sliced up?

so this is Johan's brother at current time?

Guntan is the other half-demon

no but what exactly did that call that Johan got tell him? that they can't find his brother yet?

we're spending too much time at this orphanage and thinking about what Johan would say to his brother, so I... somehow doubt they'll actually get to meet oh no

girl this is so lol like Sujin's fiance probably gonna die and Johan's brother probably gonna die

like first of all after the lust demons have nearly killed her multiple times + Suryeon's lust demon infested Bunjille due to it trying to Miho, I feel like Miho should have enough brain cells to be like actually don't come near me

oh the husband died but at least Johan got to meet his brother; though he may die soon too who knows

Ep 6 (Mar 15)

more Johan and brother backstory

oh they're adopted by white people who have a sick child.... omg

they're gonna fucking do something to the kids T.T

I don't fully understand what happened but did they try to get Johan's brother's liver for their sick child? is that why he was sick also before they took Johan away? but why was Johan also clutching his stomach and blood on his shirt? Did the operation with the older sibling and white child not work so they tried it with Johan too? Is this white sick child the one searching for the liver now as the Fox Demon or smth? or is it Johan's brother since his liver would be missing, though that doesn't quite make sense with what happened with those other people that the brother worked with right?

ah the siblings are having a heart to heart but uhhh I feel like the "let's stay together" yearning of Johan is not gonna be long-lived

oh fuck the brother is so definitely working for Guntan or something rip

oh did Wonjeong betray Guntan and Van somehow? or accidentally betray them but Guntan believes she did it on purpose?

oh beautiful stag? reminds me of Shadow and Bone

why the hell on earth would Miho leave her friend at the funeral crying alone like

I so don't give a fuck about Van and Miho irritates me

oh the brother Chan-hee can't remember killing those people while he's a lust demon?

ah fuck Chan-hee asking Johan to kill him T.T

bro first I felt emotions for Suryeon and now Johan T.T poor guy

filing a teary Eunwoo on his knees looking desperate for later when I'm not feeling sad for him and he's not a priest

ah fuck desperate, desperate Johan but the lust demon wants to kill Wonjeong/Miho

poor fucking Johan really having to kill his brother

my beloved Johan nooo T.T

wait a second were there scenes after the title card each time?

oh Guntan has a fucking cult

oh what the fuck my beloved Yeom-ji T.T

Also, the thing that Chan-hee was getting and saying "It's not mine" is probably kidney and not liver lol I thought liver because they said that's what the Fox Demon stole but Chan-hee was not that.

Overall Thoughts:

The main female lead was whatever, wish she was just good at something. Whether it be at fighting demons (understandable that she isn't), was fighting back via kindness and empathy (I'll be forever floored that she's apparently feeling soooo much for fucking Van while her reaction to being told about Suryeon's situation was like hmm whatever just tell the cops), actual power due to her status/wealth/connections (but she couldn't even fucking put the abusive ex behind bars and couldn't keep her promise to Suryeon to get revenge for her and then dared to be like 'hmm idk how I feel about this' when Van got him killed), or her smarts (miss girl kept going everywhere in the woods by herself, including in the dark; she couldn't tell her friend to not come to her at night like this). She's not the worst ever because she can still stand up for herself and she has personality but I mourn that they've written her like this. I also just hate that the only other girl we've paid any significant attention to was Suryeon and I had to see her go through an abusive relationship; why can't we get some cool suffering, why do I have to see girls and women be tortured at the hands of men in this way every time?

Van is just fucking boring and I don't care. He's kinda cool but like he's not fun or interesting or endearing or tunning at my heart strings (except him as a child when he was being abused as he was trained T.T)

My beloved Johan <3333 Cha Eunwoo was my main reason for keeping an eye on this show since I watched True Beauty and was into Astro for a few weeks. He did so well <33 I liked his charming, cocky, beautiful character who was so intrigued by everything going on as if he really was 20 and curious about everything but also I liked his apprehension when it came down to it. The storyline with his brother was so T.T He had him for such a short time and it was so sad seeing him trying to do everything to save him and yet having to kill him in the end.

Also curious to see the evil brother half-demon Guntan and his sidekick niece Yeom-ji. They're both pretty cool compared to our 2 main characters. The Certified Noonas were talking about how cool Guntan is and all I could think about was "So, what if he's the devil, Rick? At least the devil has a job. At least he's active in the community." because mans is really active and murderous and a cult leader.

I wish the show flowed better in terms of the sequence of scenes and pacing and the main characters were more intriguing.

Rating: 6/10

[god-whispers]

sep 25

the feast begins

"blow the trumpet in zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes; let the Bridegroom go out from His chamber, and the bride from her dressing room." joel 2:15-16

i got up this morning about 3:30 am.  i don't know about you but anticipation is getting the best of me.  as i readied myself for the day i kept wondering, could this possibly be the day?  friends, that's how real out these things are to me.  if you really believe something is going to happen you act accordingly.  i pray it is a real possibility to you also.

(first let me say, no one can be positive the calendar we go by is a 100% accurate calendar of God's time.  we should be alert days and even weeks in either direction of a feast day.  we must keep watching each day as it is presented to us, being assured we are definitely "in the season."  i guess the real question is: "do you believe it could possibly be this year?  that it could be today?  "if you will not believe, surely you shall not be established." isa 7:9)

the trumpets of God are sounding throughout our land, and in the whole world.  but it is one particular trumpet i am listening for.  it is the last trump and the summons of my Lord to come and partake of the wedding nuptials.  and the wedding feast will be spectacular, something beyond our comprehension.  the guests will be innumerable.

this is the culmination of what God foresaw in the beginning.  His excitement could even exceed my own.  i think of our Lord and how He said, "with fervent desire I have desired to eat this passover with you."  fervent desire.  can you imagine what passion He brings to this event?  "the King has brought me into His chambers." sos 1:4  i think of the pomp and ceremony made over the queen of england recently.  well, the whole world is getting ready to be under the rule of a new monarch - King Jesus.

oh, how we have waited and endured and hoped and longed and desired for it to come.  not just we ourselves, but all those dead and long deceased over these past two thousand years and before.  yes, they have surely been with Jesus all this time but i think not in a way they will be in our resurrected bodies.

just think!  today could bring the fulfillment of the age of grace.  there is always a fulfillment.  there must be a fulfillment.  "to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven." eccl 3:1  some say anticipation is better than the event itself.  i do not believe that is possible in this case.

i don't think a dress rehearsal will be required, but certainly we must be dressed.  it will be with robes of righteousness flowing with golden strands of mercy acts.  i know my lowly spirit may have provided but a single thread in the wedding dress, but all threads are needed to hold the gown together, every stitch.  "the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." eph 4:16

desire, passion, love, that is the key to everything.  it is the key of david.  "He who has the key of david, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens." rev 3:7  it is love alone that can open the door of a heart.  just as assuredly, it is love alone that will one day close that door, locking out forever those who will not heed the call to embrace it.  the door must be closed to separate those who will from those who will not.

it is not our works, wants or wishes that will get us there.  it is grace alone.  "twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved."  i keep falling in love with Jesus over and over again.  i love Him for yesterday, today and tomorrow - if there is one.  for someday there will be no more tomorrows.  there will be only a now - a forever now.

Lord Jesus, i don't know if this will be the year of Your betrothal.  i don't know for sure this is the correct day to recognize this feast.  i only know for sure You are coming and because of that, i will be here - hoping, waiting, expecting - ready to come running when i hear that "trumpet call."  maranatha!

[bruhbrosworld]

When They're Jealous

Nadja of Antipaxos x reader (reader is gender neutral)

-pray. just pray.

-you love nadja to bits, but she is absolutely insufferable when she's jealous.

-surprisingly, however, she doesn't get jealous often.

-usually, when she sees someone admiring you, she gets this strange swell of pride in you.

-almost as if she knows people want you because you're just that amazing.

-and good god, she likes to rub it in ferociously when she knows someone's got their eye on you.

-she'll stride over, start talking you up, and then she'll end it with something along the lines of:

-"yeah, you see that tall juicy glass of water, they're mine, all mine. they don't want something as pathetic and miniscule as you are."

-she's like a child waving a new toy in front of all the other kids.

-okay, so maybe she does get a little jealous

-typically, it just reminds her that you're the cherry on top, and she gets to have you all to herself.

-that or it gets really weird and horny fast.

-like, darling, pls, we can't ask the convenience worker if they want to have a threesome.

-but you'll know, you'll REALLY know when she's jealous.

-if she sees you flirting with someone she finds completely detestable, or if she sees someone chatting you up that actually feels like a threat.

-she'll nip it in the bud seconds after. no time to waste when her heart and you are on the line.

-it's wrathful, passionate, and if you're really being honest, hot.

-there's no pleasantries, no politeness, absolutely nothing that isn't blatantly rude and to the point.

-she'll grab your face, sharp nails grasping your cheek like a sordid and heated reminder, and she'll brazenly kiss you in front of the person, maybe even make eye contact with them while you're completely entranced.

-she probably flips them off too, but you're none the wiser.

-and then, as fast as you can register, you're being whisked away, but not before she can whip around and hiss at the person at hand.

-and then, she's sort of hyping you up while also scolding you?

-"i know you like having all these men and women at your disposal, but please, my dark baby, you can do much better."

-and when you get home, oh boy.

-you're definitely in a doghouse of sorts, well, only if it's really bad. like laszlo and lilith level bad.

-but even then, when you're sent away, to sleep in another coffin, or to be somewhere far away from her, you know she's going to find her way back to you.

-nadja, in her own fashion, is act first, think later type of gal. she'll be mad at first, but then when she really thinks, really ponders, she flips like light-switch.

-like i know they made me furious, but at the same time, this is proof that i love them beyond any doubt and i must make them remember just who they have on their hands.

-and when she does come back, it's like a predator zeroing in on their prey.

-she'll tear you apart, but in a cool and acceptable type of way.

-like, she'll snap you half, but it will be very welcome on your part.

-she'll hold you this time, make you beg, and it's so much darker, but also so much more loving in an odd way.

-you know, she only gives this part of herself, rises this part in you, to prove to you how much better she is than all of your other options.

-to remind you that she loves you, and no one else could harbor the same intense softness you two have together.

-it's desperate in a way, but neither one of you would ever venture to admit that.

-nadja is a catch and she knows it, but when she loves you, it's different.

-it's not enough for her to find that same assurance in simply flirting and making you swoon.

-she knows she can make anyone melt, she knows she could have anyone at her feet.

-let's be honest, she could make you do that in her sleep.

-but you're not just anyone.

-and that enchantment does not prove you love her, or need her like she does you.

-she must hear you tell her, whether with the flutter of your heart or your cherished words, that you love her, and really love her at that.

-laszlo aside, i think you're the only one who has that power over her.

-and the worst part is she knows it.

-and after it's all done, after you're next to one another, breathless and still wanting. after she's made you say you love her a thousand times, you say it again, this time without being urged to.

-you say you love her, and she wonders if she should get jealous more often.

-you can't help but silently feel the same.

-next time, instead of praying for her mercy, you pray for her tender wrath.

[seijorhi]

Bully ~ Part II

Oikawa Tooru x female reader (+ Iwaizumi Hajime)

TW dub/non-con, bullying, slight degradation, voyeurism, filming, implied abuse, one mention of slapping, nsfw

Part I

‘Honey, it’s your choice. Whatever you decide to do, we’ll respect.’

The final whistle sounds, the team gathering up in a huddle and with a sigh you dutifully close your books and begin to pack them away into your bag. They still have to pull down all the nets and tidy up, but that never takes too long and the sooner you’re all out of here the better.

The sooner you can get away from them, the better.

It’s become routine at this point for you to slowly make your way down to the edge of the court while they duck into the locker room; the other third years acknowledging you with friendly enough smiles, the underclassmen no longer staring at you in vague confusion. 

But at this point you’re truly beyond caring what any of them think of your relationship with their Captain. 

Except instead of filing out like the rest of his teammates, Oikawa’s still on the far side of the court, trapped in a conversation with Coach Irihata and Mizoguchi. For a split second, his attention shifts towards you, lingering awkwardly by the big double doors, and you think you catch a flicker of irritation in his eyes – which is unusual, considering that he’s made this game his life and he has nothing but the greatest respect for both of the men before him. 

But it doesn’t really matter, you suppose. You’ll wait for him, whether it’s five minutes or fifty and he’ll either tell you what’s pissing him off, or he won’t and he’ll end up using you to work out his frustrations anyway.

With your parents away for the rest of the week and your house otherwise empty, you can only pray to any god that’ll listen that he won’t try and spend the night. Not that there’s much you can do to stop him, but a girl can dream, right?

The others are heading off, Makki laughing off some biting comment from Kyoutani, but you pay them no mind. Despite being the people you now spend the majority of your time with, they’re not your friends. 

You resign yourself to trudging back up into the stands to wait for Oikawa to finish up when a hand gently wraps around your arm, spinning you around. You start, every muscle in your body tensing on instinct, but as you come face to face with familiar olive eyes you relax – it’s only Iwa.

He regards you silently for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face before he glances over your shoulder to where Oikawa’s still talking with the coaches. 

“C’mon, they’ll be a while, I think. Let me walk you home.”

His place is almost a fifteen minute walk from yours, but you don’t bother trying to bring that up. Instead, you just shrug, shifting the strap of the bag slung over your shoulder, “It’s fine. I don’t need an escort, you know, it’s not that late.”

Maybe it’d be nice for once, walking home without Oikawa’s looming presence over your shoulder. You’re almost positive that he’ll still come by afterwards, especially because he knows as well as you do that there’s nobody to interrupt tonight, but you’ll take the tiny wins when you can.

Besides, you only have to stick it out a little while longer. 

Still holding onto your arm, Iwa’s eyebrows draw together into a slight frown and he bites back a sigh, “Shittykawa’ll throw a hissy-fit if I let you walk home alone tonight. C’mon.”

He’s not asking, you realise belatedly as he firmly but gently starts to lead you out of the gym, not sparing his best friend another glance. And you could probably dig your heels in and kick up a fuss and he’d probably let you go – at least, you think he would. He would, right? He’d listen if you asked him to stop – but what’s the point?

Nobody here actually cares what you want anymore.

Iwa’s different, you suppose. You don’t really know why. He’s just as complicit as the others, maybe even more so – he at least knows what’s going on, even if he refuses to acknowledge it or do anything about it… but that’s not entirely true, is it?

He’s the one to step in when Oikawa starts to take things too far in public. He’s the one to scare off your would be bullies, snarling and glaring at them from his place at your side. Iwa’s the reason you haven’t lost it completely, the one keeping your head above water. He’s a friend you suppose, or at least the closest thing Oikawa’ll let you have anymore.

He’s certainly the only one Tooru trusts with you whenever he’s not around, hence you haven’t heard any indignant shouts from the gym following in your wake despite the grip he has on you.

And Iwa is nice, in his own way. He cares about you, you think – or he cares enough to pretend for Oikawa’s sake. Either way, at least you know he won’t try to pull you down an alleyway and force you to suck his cock, so compared to your other options, he’s definitely the lesser of two evils. 

It’s quiet as the two of you walk, and you find yourself thankful for it. Oikawa’s always talking, he never shuts up, his incessant chatter shattering every moment of quiet, peaceful solitude you try to steal for yourself. 

And tonight, tonight your head’s already too full to pretend to play along with some semblance of chipper friendliness. 

Maybe that’s why you like Iwaizumi; you don’t have to pretend with him. He knows exactly what Oikawa is, and he’s too intelligent to believe that you’re content spending every waking moment by the setter’s side, much less that you genuinely love him. 

It’s a nice night, at least – there’s barely any clouds in the sky. You can see the stars glittering in the inky, midnight blue, and it’s peaceful, you think, with Iwa strolling quietly along beside you. 

Even when the breeze starts to pick up, the late summer night air nipping at your exposed skin. Your jacket’s folded up and shoved somewhere towards the bottom of your bag, but you honestly can’t be bothered to stop and ferret for it. 

“You’re cold,” Iwa states after a beat. Again, not a question.

Nevertheless, you shake your head. “I’m fine,” you reply, perhaps a little tersely, but he’s already shrugging off his own jacket and draping it over your shoulders. Oikawa would do the same thing, more out of a perverse sense of enjoyment from seeing you wearing his clothes than a genuine sense of concern over your comfort.

Still, you don’t fight Iwa on it, pulling his jacket tighter over your body. It’s warm, his lingering body heat making your own cheeks burn a little, and it smells like him, too. Musky, yes, but there’s something almost comforting about the fresh, woodsy scent.

Silence resumes between the two of you, but you feel the weight of his stare as the two of you wander along the path. Iwaizumi’s always been perceptive, more so than most give him credit for, and it’s only another few minutes before he speaks again.

“You’re quiet tonight.”

You hum noncommittally, staring resolutely at the concrete sidewalk rather than meet his pointed gaze. 

He huffs. “You gonna tell me what’s bothering you or not?” he tries again, the sheer bluntness almost enough to make you flinch.

“And what makes you think there’s anything bothering me?” you reply dully, kicking at the small little pebble on the pathway in front of you.

Iwa stiffens just a fraction, but you feel it – the shift in the air between the two of you. It’s the truth you won’t speak, the one he won’t acknowledge. Of course there’s something bothering you; this whole fucked up situation between the three of you. It’s not normal, it’s not healthy, surely he sees that, how the hell can he–

“Cut the bullshit,” he snaps. “You think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been acting lately? Something’s up, and if you think I’m the only one who’s paying attention…” he trails off, and suddenly his hand’s catching at yours, pulling you to a stop.

And when finally you drag your eyes up to meet his, your heartbeat quickens at the scowl written across his face, plain as day. 

“I’m not talking about… that. Did he–” he hesitates, biting down on his lip and you honestly don’t know whether you want to laugh or cry. “Something’s up.”

You could probably tell him to mind his own business, and part of you almost wants to. He might even listen, though he wouldn’t be happy about it, but the thing is, you’re just so tired. Tired of playing girlfriend for Oikawa, tired of being dragged along against your will, manhandled and fucked at every opportunity, tired of pretending that this is in any way okay, and you just want to finally give in and admit it out loud.

You want this to be over, and it’s so close you can almost fucking taste it. 

So you breathe deep, forcing yourself to relax. “My mom got a job in Tokyo. My parents… they’re leaving at the end of next week. Moving. It’s why they haven't been around much lately.”

Iwaizumi’s eyebrows furrow into a frown as he takes a second to absorb the information. “And… you? We only have a few months left until we graduate.”

You allow him a wry smile. “I know. They gave me a choice, I’m eighteen, I can stay here in the house by myself, finish up the year and graduate at Aoba Johsai before moving down with them…”

“Or?” he prods.

“Or,” you continue, “or I can go now. There’s some really good schools down there, I could have my pick. It’ll be a struggle, I know, transferring so late in the term, but–”

Iwaizumi scoffs, cutting you off, “But you’re not actually gonna go, right? You can’t just pack up and leave so close to graduation. You’re staying here in Miyagi.” 

He almost sounds angry– the muscle in his jaw’s twitching and as you stare at him you realise that he doesn’t sound angry; he is angry. His whole body’s tensed like he’s preparing for a fight, and it takes you by surprise. 

Sure, he’s pretty much the only person outside of Oikawa that you’d consider yourself to have any kind of relationship with anymore, but you’d never really thought he’d actually–

“Iwa,” you say gently, “I was gonna go to Tokyo after graduation anyway. Sure, it’s not exactly an ideal situation, but…” 

But it’s your chance to get away from all of this, from Oikawa, and you’re gonna take it and run. Whether or not Tokyo University accepts you, whether it means you have to work three times as hard to adjust to a new school’s curriculum just so you won’t completely flunk your final exams. 

It can’t be any worse than this.

He has to understand that. 

And really, what did he think was going to happen after graduation? You know Oikawa’s plans, and you’ll be damned if you let him ruin your life anymore than he already has, dragging you halfway across the world. You belong here, in Japan. Oikawa can go chase his pipe dreams on his own. 

He swallows tightly, and while the pinched scowl on his face doesn’t falter, his grip on your wrist eases just a fraction. “You were really just gonna leave without telling anybody?” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.

“Who would I tell?”

—

Sure enough, it’s a little after midnight when your bedroom door sweeps open and Oikawa strides in like he owns the place. You watch through half lidded eyes as he starts to shed his clothes, stripping off and tossing them haphazardly onto the floor until he’s just in his boxers. 

He doesn’t say much as he lifts the covers and climbs into bed beside you, merely presses a surprisingly gentle kiss to your cheek, murmuring a quiet, ‘Just sleep, cutie,’ when you try to shift away from him.

He sounds tired, exhausted really, but you don’t care enough to comment, relieved more than anything that tonight he doesn’t seem to have the energy for more. There’d been some part of you that was worried that Iwa might have told him about the walk home – the secrets you’d unthinkingly entrusted to him – but he can’t have. There’s no possible way Oikawa would be so calm right now if he had. 

And Iwa wouldn’t do something like that in the first place. 

It might not have been the most traditional of friendships, and you know he’s still a little pissed off with your decision and the fact you had no intentions of telling him, but Iwa wouldn’t break your trust like that. 

And so with Oikawa’s arms wrapped around your middle, the warmth of his chest pressed up against your back, you allow sleep to claim you once more.

—

You hardly see him the following morning. 

There’s no sign of him when you wake up, though his side of the bed is still warm – you know he likes to run in the mornings; he probably ran home to shower before school. And if you’re grateful to Aoba Johsai for anything, it’s for putting the two of you in separate classes. You’re spared his presence and those of his mooney eyed fangirls, and you can actually focus on learning. Or try to, at least.

Iwa regards you with an unreadable expression when you take your usual seat at the desk next to his, but at least he doesn’t seem as pissed off as he was when he left you last night. You only have a week and a half left until you go, but considering he’s the closest thing you have to a friend anymore, you’re not sure how you would survive if he suddenly decided to give you the cold shoulder.

Still, he is quieter than usual as you both settle into class, and you can’t help your gaze from flickering over to him throughout the lesson, an uncomfortable pit settling into your stomach. Iwa doesn’t so much as look your way, busying himself in copying down the notes the teacher’s scrawling on the board.

You honestly didn’t expect him to be hurt, and as he brushes past you on his way out after the bell rings you begin to doubt whether you should have told him at all. It stings, more than you expect.

Yet the moment you try to follow him, calling out his name, a familiar figure steps in front of you, halting you in your tracks. 

“Hey, cutie,” Oikawa purrs, grinning down at you as he reaches out to tuck a stray lock of hair back behind your ear. “I’ve missed you today. Come on, let’s go somewhere a little quieter.”

His fingers are laced with yours, tugging you along before you can even try to voice a protest. You both know you wouldn’t anyway, not anymore. 

Just like you don’t speak up when instead of dragging you outside to the courtyard, or even to the gym, he chooses an empty classroom, kicking the door shut behind him. 

There’s a question on the tip of your tongue, but you don’t have a chance to voice it as he grabs you by the collar of your shirt and smashes his lips to yours. 

Oikawa usually likes to take his time, to drag out your humiliation and reluctant pleasure as he toys with you, but today he wastes no time in shoving you back up against one of the desk, his fingers already yanking down your necktie and prying your lilac shirt open – buttons scattering as it rips.

“Tooru–” you gasp, panic flaring, but his lips curl into a smirk as he forces you back into another kiss.

“Quiet now, cutie, let me take care of my pretty girl, hm?” he growls between panting breaths. “You don’t want somebody stumbling in and interrupting us, do you?”

And your chest tightens, squeezing around your lungs like a vice, your gaze flickering back to the door – shut but not locked.

“Tooru,” you whisper again in a panic, clutching at the lapels of his blazer as he draws back enough to level a gaze at your chest, bare save for the virginal white lace bra you’d unthinkingly chosen that morning. 

His grin widens, but there’s something cold and utterly unflinching in his eyes as they flicker up to meet yours. “Lean back,” he tells you.

You shake your head, “I d-don’t–”

His hands are on your shoulders, abruptly shoving you backwards. “I said,” he coos as you sprawl back onto the wooden desktop with a startled squeak, “lean back for me.”

It’s been months since you’ve fought him, but as he flips up your skirt, fingers grazing possessively along the cotton of your panties and he sighs contentedly, sheer panic floods your system, overwhelming your better judgement. Before you can stop yourself your knees come up as you desperately scramble to right yourself, to put an end to this–

The slap to your cheek isn’t all that forceful, at least not compared to what you know him to be capable of, but it still takes you by surprise, the sharp, burning sting only registering as the shock of the blow fades.

Oikawa’s no longer grinning, his face twisted into a terrifying glare as wide, teary eyes stare back up at him. “Baby, you’re really testing me right now. You want to act like a disobedient little bitch, kick up a fuss, bring everybody running so they can see what a needy little whore you are, spread out on the table for me?” He snatches at your panties, harshly wrenching them down your now prone legs with one hand, the other reaching for his belt buckle, “You think you have a choice here? You think I give a fuck what you want?”

Your ears are ringing, the sound of your own heartbeat drowning out almost everything else.

It’s not the first time he’s hit you, or even the hardest, but with that one slap all the fight you have left just dissipates. You don’t even flinch when he spits directly onto your pussy, his thumb harshly spreading his saliva over your cunt – you just bite down on your lip to stifle the sob that threatens to burst.

And victory shines bright in his eyes at the sight of it. 

“Good girl, you know who this pretty pussy belongs to, don’t you?” he croons with saccharine sweetness, even leaning over to press a tender, affectionate kiss to your swollen lips. 

And you’d squeeze your eyes shut and try to imagine that you’re somewhere else, anywhere else if you didn’t know how much he hates it when you do. So instead, you lie there pliant and trembling, humiliation burning hot as he spreads your legs, pressing your thighs back towards your chest as he slots himself in between them.

“You look so good like this, you know?” he muses with a soft little chuckle as he leisurely strokes his cock, letting the flushed tip brush teasingly along your folds, nudging at your clit. “Prettiest little thing, and all mine, aren’t you, cutie.”

Tears well and spill soundlessly down your cheek, but your only answering is the hiccuping breath you draw in, your fingers finding purchase on the edges of the desk as he guides it back to your entrance.

It doesn’t matter that you’re not nearly ready for him, that his spit and the pre-cum that’s beading at his slit isn’t going to help ease his passage in the slightest. He’ll fuck you how he wants to – and you’re too broken to try and stop him.

Yet instead of savagely plunging in like you expect him to, Oikawa stills, regarding you with a tilted head and a cruel smirk. 

“Fuck,” he curses quietly, the sound almost reverent as he stares down at you. He shakes his head, another soft laugh bubbling out, “I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of seeing you like this, but if you’re going to be running off on me so soon, maybe I should take a little memento, what do you think cutie?”

Your stomach drops, dread creeping down your spine as Oikawa reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, opening up the camera and flicking it across to video. 

“I mean if this is going to be our last time together, don’t you think we should make it special?” You jerk, your breath coming out in short, harsh pants but you can’t move, can’t seem to lift a single finger as he leans in closer, bringing his lips to your ear, “That way we both have something to remember this by.”

And as his breath ghosts the tiny hairs on the shell of your ear he laughs again, pressing another quick kiss to your flushed, tear stained cheek. “Aw, don’t cry, cutie. You brought this on yourself.”

You don’t have a moment to prepare yourself, his hand slamming over your lips to muffle your shrieks as he thrusts his hips forward, sheathing himself in your tight little cunt with a choked moan.

“F-fuck, baby,” he grits out, biting down on his own lip as he relishes the vice like grip your pussy has on his throbbing cock, “Smile for the camera.”

Your back arcs up off the table, fingernails digging into the wood as he draws his hips back slowly, letting you feel every inch of his cock as it drags along your walls until it’s only the tip that remains inside of you.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts – a sharp and throbbing pain that only grows with each passing second. 

There’s something sadistic in his grin as he angles the phone down to where your bodies meet, your lewdly spread thighs, your glistening pussy in perfect view as another glob of saliva joins the first, pooling over your sex, sliding down his cock.

“You have no idea how perfect your pussy feels, baby,” he pants, slowly filling you up once more – your own wails stifled by his hand. “You’re mine, all fucking mine, aren’t you?”

There’s no hiding from the camera as he fucks you, slowly at first, but picking up his pace as the slick starts to build, your warm, velvety walls sucking him in deeper, squelching obscenely with every thrust. And between the sounds of his balls slapping against your ass – skin hitting skin as he fucks you roughly without care – and Tooru’s own satisfied moans, your muffled whimpers and cries go unheard. 

And just when you think your humiliation is complete, he takes his hand from your mouth, his thumb returning to your clit, teasing at the sensitive nub with slow, measured circles that have you keening, shaking beneath him as he stuffs you full. Slowly but surely that searing ache gives way to pleasure, a slight shift of his hips and his cock’s hitting that sweet spot he’s all too familiar with – and another strangled moan slips out.

“You gonna cum for me, pretty girl?”

You shake your head, fingernails digging into the wood, biting down harshly to keep yourself quiet as you feel that familiar heat pooling in your core, wanton pleasure flickering through you with every swipe of his fingers, every harsh thrust.

“No? You sure about that?” he laughs at the desperate whine that slips from your lips, “I wanna hear it, baby. Cum for me.”

But you can’t, you can’t make a sound, the door’s not locked, the door’s not locked and anybody could walk in any second, but you can feel it coming, your legs shaking and toes curling as your control slips–

“Cum,” Oikawa demands, his own voice a husky, shivering growl, and this time you’re helpless but to obey.

Your orgasm crashes into you like a wave, suddenly sweeping your legs out from under you. You arc up off the table once more, white hot pleasure exploding as you shiver and quake, your pussy clamping down on his cock and gushing as he fucks you relentlessly through it, chasing his end while drawing out your own.

And you’re so lost in the bliss, the pleasurable rippling aftershocks short circuiting your system that you don’t even realise that he’s pulled himself out of your cunt, stroking his slicked up cock with harsh pants–

Not until you feel the hot spurts of his cum hitting your stomach, a choked moan resembling your name shattering the fuzzy afterglow, dragging you harshly back down to reality.

There’s a twisted, self satisfied smirk on his face as he watches the cold realisation sink in, your eyes filling with fresh tears as your gaze flickers between him and the phone in his hand, still filming.

“You’re not leaving me,” he says, still a little breathless. “You’re mine. Isn’t that right, Iwa?”

No.

Please god, no.

Blood drains from your face, the pit in your stomach plummeting as his smirk widens and he turns his head to glance over his shoulder. You don’t want to look, can’t bear to, but it’s like trying to rip your eyes away from a car crash; your body moves with a will of its own. Heart pounding, nausea churning in your gut, you follow his gaze to find Iwaizumi by the door; jaw tight, arms folded across his chest, staring impassively back at you.

And that last little piece of you breaks.

[irrelevantwriter]

No Questions, No Lies

Pairing: Rio (Good Girls) x Female Reader/You

Rating: Explicit, NSFW

Warnings: Language, oral sex (male receiving), unprotected vaginal sex, mention of bodily fluids, angst, characters who refuse to say how they feel, asshole Rio (low key loves it)

Word Count: 4.7K

Summary: Part 4. Riding a high, you decide to invite Rio over. But things don’t go as planned.

A/N: Once again, I am here, standing in front of you lovely people and saying thank you for all the love and support this series has gotten. It means the world. And then some. Onto the good shit...this part has lots of feelings, not all of them good. Angst is heavy towards the end, but first...smut. We love some toxic ass yearning, don't we? Also, we get some Rio POV in the first half. I’ve got two more parts planned so as always, stay tuned. I hope you guys like it. Feedback is that good shit. 💗

*Read Part 1 here

*Read Part 2 here

*Read Part 3 here

*Read Part 5 here

*Give and Take series masterlist

*Masterlist in bio.

*********************

He shifted in his seat, eyes glancing in the rearview mirror. He caught a glimpse of you as you handed off the bag of cash to Mick. Your gaze tried to find his through the blackened windows, searching for his presence in the front seat of the Mercedes SUV. It was no use. The tint was as dark as he could get it without drawing attention. Not that it mattered. The cops were always sniffing around...waiting for him to slip up. They were going to be waiting a long time.

He rubbed his chin as you rounded the vehicle and opened the passenger door. A cool breeze carrying the scent of your perfume swept in as you settled into the seat. He took you in slowly, gaze sweeping over your body as it often did when in your company. The sweater and jeans you wore were nondescript enough, but the hint of cleavage was obvious. And because you wanted to draw his attention, he gave you what you wanted and admired the area he’d been up close with only weeks before.

“Hi.” You greeted somewhat shyly, the gesture making him smirk. Even after the sex, you still got nervous around him. It had lessened tremendously since he’d first fucked you on your kitchen counter, but it wasn’t gone completely. And he had to admit that he liked that. Liked that he had such an effect on you.

“Sup, mama…” He replied, licking his lips as you averted your eyes from his.

It’d been three weeks since he’d shown up at your house in the early morning hours, announcing his return. He’d be lying to himself if he said he didn’t miss being inside you. Now that he’d gotten a taste, it was difficult to manage without it. But you both had tedious schedules. He had several businesses. You had your kids. It didn’t always line up. And for three weeks it hadn’t. But seeing you now...he’d happily fuck you into the expensive leather of his seats if you’d let him.

“Everything good?” He prompted, noticing that you were fidgeting with your hands. You seemed worried, like something was weighing heavy on your mind. That wasn’t good.

“Yeah, yeah...of course.” You replied unconvincingly.

Rio leaned forward across the seat and placed a hand over both of yours, stilling the anxious movement of your fingers. Your eyes finally met his, a smile gracing your lips.

“What’s wrong?” He gruffly demanded, more out of concern for his operation than your personal feelings.

Your response surprised him.

“I need you to come over tonight.”

He took a long moment to silently take you and your words in. There was a softness in your features. It was unlike the expression of stress he’d seen you wear before. This wasn’t about business. This was personal.

“For what?” He asked, releasing your hand and sitting back to face you.

You bit your bottom lip and he watched as the appendage came away glossy and begging to be touched. His hand itched to reach out, but he stopped himself. Eager to see where you were taking this. Because he already had an idea.

“I...I need you.” You whispered, your gaze sliding to the deserted streets just beyond the windshield. You were hesitant. And that wasn’t going to work. He was going to have to teach you to take. In this world, there was no room for hesitation. You had to have the confidence to demand. If you didn’t, the weight of those around you who did would crush you.

Despite your timidness, his body hummed at your breathy confession. His blood pumped wildly in his veins while deep male satisfaction filled his chest. Inwardly, he was gloating. Outwardly, he was calm and nonchalant.

He shook his head and angled his ear towards you, as if signaling he couldn’t hear. “You gotta speak up.”

There was no humor in his tone. He wasn’t trying to tease you. He was acting as your instructor. Forcing you to be real about what you wanted.

He heard you scoff and as he turned to face you once again, he could see your hand reach out for the door handle. He stopped you with an outstretched arm, making sure to brush against your chest as he did.

“Just tell me what you want, darling.” He rasped, coercing your eyes to meet his.

You sighed, seemingly frustrated with yourself. He lifted his arm from across your body and instead let his fingertips trail down the side of your face. He watched from his peripheral as your chest expanded with a heavy breath, your breasts straining against the fabric of your sweater.

“You. I need you.” You repeated, the conviction clear in your voice this time.

He nodded, his thumb tracing the pout of your bottom lip. “That’s what I thought you said.”

Rio leaned in close, his mouth hovering dangerously over yours. You licked your lips in preparation for the action, the motion momentarily hypnotizing him. His eyes swept over your face, taking in every detail. His intense study made you shift in your seat. Maybe it was unease. He hoped it was arousal.

“I’ll be there.” He replied, pulling away and settling back into his own seat.

You blinked and nodded, still seemingly dazed by his proximity.

He hadn’t kissed you. And it was intentional. The constant push and pull of your relationship was maddening on most days. There was always an aspect of it that needed attention. Whether it was business or personal. It was always work. But times like these were what made it worth it. The teasing. The buildup. The attraction. It was so palpable he could practically taste it against his tongue. You were as frustrating as you were alluring and he was going to indulge in that combination until there was nothing left.

He wanted it all.

************

You smoothed out the fabric of your dress for the umpteenth time as you scrutinized your reflection. Nerves knotted in your stomach as you struggled to maintain some form of composure. Rio had texted you ten minutes before to say he was on his way. You didn’t know how much time that gave you, but it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be enough.

You’d regretted your desperate demand of him the instant you’d left his car earlier that day. The cool air had pulled you from the fog of your lust and threw you back into reality. And it wasn’t good. You’d made a fool of yourself. You were better than that. You could form full sentences and express thoughts. You were confident and fully capable of telling a man to come over so that you could sleep with him. Especially one you’d already slept with.

You tried to find the courage that had consumed you the last time you’d slept with him. You’d taken without asking and he’d happily reciprocated. It was the very definition of raw desire and you had every intention of recreating it tonight.

Which is why you were taking extra care to make sure your dress was perfect, along with your hair and makeup. Not that it truly mattered. He’d already seen you practically fresh out of bed in cotton panties.

A knock at the front door made you jump in surprise, the knots in your stomach now turning to butterflies. You took one last look at yourself before you made your way towards the entryway, your bare feet soundless along the cool hardwood floors.

You opened the door, seeing Rio on the other side. He looked good. He always looked good. Dark shirt, dark jeans. And that unwavering look of smugness he so often wore. He was expressive without having to do or say much. He was self-assured. Arrogant even. The calm intensity he possessed was almost a magical power, holding you captive. It had a dual effect on your body. You were afraid. But it paled in comparison to your insistent arousal.

“Hi,” You greeted, gesturing for him to come in.

He did so wordlessly, eyes taking in your form as he moved. He let you lead him through the house and towards the kitchen and you swore you could feel his gaze blazing across your back, leaving a mark. He was good at that. He was good at making you feel seen. The rush of having someone pay attention to you in the way that Rio did was utterly seductive. It was addictive. And you wanted it for as long as he was willing to give it to you.

“You want something to drink?” You asked over your shoulder, heading towards the cabinet that housed the whiskey.

Rio’s voice stopped you.

“Nah, I’m good.”

You faltered and turned to see him leaning against the wall, watching you with an amused expression. Your insides heated with every silent second that passed between you. Looking at him made you remember why you’d asked him over. It wasn’t for a drink and it definitely wasn’t for small talk. Primal need began to swell within you as you stepped towards him. He was going to make you see your desperation through.

He straightened as you approached and invaded his space. You reached a hand out to trace the buttons of his shirt, gently tugging at the end of the fabric as you did.

“Come on,” You whispered, nodding your head in the direction of your bedroom. Any form of pretense was gone. You both knew why he was there...why he’d actually shown up.

You prayed he followed as you walked down the hall and into a space he had yet to be invited into. Until now. His footsteps echoed behind you, entering the bedroom and taking in his surroundings. You swallowed and turned to face him, pure want reflecting in his eyes. It urged you forward.

“Sit on the bed.” You commanded, voice surprisingly steady.

The corner of Rio’s lips edged upwards, but he did as you said. It appeared as if he was humoring you, expecting that you’d back out and end the night before it even began. But you were far past that. He’d made it clear, without words, that he wasn’t going to make this easy for you. He was going to make you work for everything. Whether that be his money or his affection. So you’d do it. You’d put in the work. And he’d reward you.

You reached for the zipper on the back of your dress, but it was too high. You stepped between his legs and faced away from him, motioning to the metal teeth that held the garment together.

“You mind?” You asked, waiting in anticipation. It was only a second later when you felt the brush of his finger against your back as he lowered the zipper. He made sure to drag his skin across yours, slowly and feather-light. It was almost non-existent, yet it pulled a shiver from you anyway.

You caught the loosened fabric before it fell, holding it to your chest. You turned and met his hooded gaze, noting the way his jaw was clenched. You let the dress fall to the floor, revealing the black lace you wore underneath. His eyes scanned your body like a predator stalking its prey, your nipples hardening in response. The sheer material of the bra barely concealed your body’s reaction. He took notice.

“That new?” He asked, chin jutting out and gesturing to the lace that adorned your body.

You stepped out of the dress and back between the space of his thighs, forcing him to look up at you. That familiar spicy scent filled your nostrils. It was his scent. And it lured you in further to his body’s warmth.

“If you want to think that highly of yourself.” You quipped with a coquettish smile, hands resting on his shoulders. His own hands remained on his thighs; not showing any indication that he was going to reach out and touch you.

His question had been spot on though. You had in fact went out and bought new lingerie. Several things in fact. And you might’ve bought them in black. A color that reminded you of only one person.

Rio chuckled lowly at your answer, licking his lips as you eased your breasts near his face. “You can’t let me have an inch, can you?” He challenged, an eyebrow raised in question as he looked up at you.

“If I give you an inch, you’ll take a mile.” You retorted, hands skimming along the back of his scalp. His fingers twitched against your legs at the motion, so you made sure to do it again.

Again he laughed. Humorless and patronizing.

“I can’t take what’s already mine.”

He said the words with so much confidence that you had to pause. You stilled your hands and for once stared right back into the depthless pools of his eyes. You predictably got lost in them, as you so often did with anything involving the man. His declarations of ownership should’ve scared you. They should’ve made you turn and run away. Instead, you went headlong into the storm.

“Pretty confident in yourself.” You replied, lowering yourself to your knees. He let his thighs fall open to make room for you, his expression showing just how pleased he was with your change in position.

“I’m not the one on my knees.” He threw back, hand finally reaching out to caress your cheek. His thumb swiped at your lips as his eyes zeroed in on them, no doubt picturing them wrapped around him.

“Touché.” You teased, kissing his thumb as it slid across your mouth.

You ran your hands up his thighs and towards his belt buckle. He let you, posture relaxing as he allowed you to do as you pleased. You shifted his pants and underwear out of the way as you pulled him free, your mouth already salivating at the sight. He was hardening with every second, veins and ridges calling to your womb like an old friend. You could feel him watching you as you leaned forward and placed a soft lick to the head of his cock. He tasted salty, but clean, and you wanted more.

You suckled at the tip of him while your hand worked the saliva around his length. He was long and pulsing with yearning in your palm. You let your mouth water around him, the sound of skin sliding against slickened skin now filling the room. The sound aided you in your efforts. You opened your throat to take him in, swallowing and savoring the low groan he expelled. It was music to your ears.

You listened to his reactions, catching every twitch of his cock along your tongue. You mercilessly teased him as you licked long strips along his flesh before you suctioned your cheeks and tightened around him. Your hands worked in tandem. Stroking what you couldn’t fit in your mouth while traveling down to caress his sac. He grunted and jerked with the action, causing him to slip further down your throat. Tears filled your eyes, but you kept going.

Moisture touched your tongue and you knew he was close. You chanced a glance up and was rewarded with a blissed out Rio. His head was angled back, his adam’s apple bobbing deliciously behind inked flesh as his hand made it to the back of your head. He didn’t push, but he didn’t have to. You happily gagged on his cock.

“That’s enough.” He commanded, voice low and tinged with barely contained control. He pushed your hands off of him and angled your chin up to him, his mouth descending on yours without a second thought.

You let him taste himself. Tongues intertwined in a show of eroticism that mimicked what your bodies longed to do. You steadied yourself on your knees as you grabbed at his shirt while his hands cradled your face. You wanted him to touch you...to explore your body in every way possible. It felt like your entire being was on fire and only he could soothe the ache. You needed him...badly.

“Touch me...please.” You pleaded once you’d broken apart.

He began to unbutton his shirt, discarding the piece of clothing easily as you waited. “Stand up.”

You did as he said, standing on shaky legs between his own. He reached out and smoothed his palms over your thighs and around to your ass, grasping the flesh and kneading. Your eyes closed in blessed relief, a moan just on the tip of your tongue. You jerked in his arms when you felt the wet heat of his mouth against your stomach, his lips trailing kisses along the flesh. Your hands held his head steady as he gave you what you craved. His fingers slid under the band of your panties, shifting the material up and down on your hips.

Impatience drove you to reach around and unclasp your bra, baring your breasts to his hungry kisses. He didn’t miss a beat. He mouthed at the underside of your breasts while his hands cupped them, massaging the sensitive mounds with skillful touches. Your panties felt too restrictive and uncomfortable. Wetness pooled in them as Rio’s touch urged more from you.

“The bed.” You gasped, feeling him pinch a nipple. The sensation made you shudder.

His presence disappeared from your body as he stood, pushing his jeans and underwear down. They fell to the floor as he stepped out of them, his shoes already off. You took him in for the first time. Took in the scarred flesh and lines of ink that ran along sinewy muscles. He was lean, but beautifully toned. All male.

You followed his lead and pushed the last scrap of clothing you wore down. The material fell easily to your feet and you kicked them away. You reveled in the way he looked at you. Untamed and feral. Like you were sin incarnate. It made your pussy clench in urgency.

Your palms glided up his firm chest as you reached forward to kiss him. He reciprocated, insistent hands guiding you to the bed. You let yourself fall to the mattress, his body following yours. Your mouths didn’t separate. You both savored the moment of finally being bare and pressed so closely to one another. You relished the flavors that sat on your tongues as you kissed, barely able to take in a breath. Hands roamed without barriers as he wedged himself between your thighs. You accommodated him, pushing your hips up to entice him inside you. A finger found its way there instead, dragging along your walls and collecting the moisture that had settled within.

“You ready?” He whispered into your ear, his finger now strumming at your swollen clit.

You nodded and moaned, hoping that was answer enough. Your back arched into his chest when he pressed the head of his cock at your entrance, lathering himself in you. Your nails dug into his back, your legs tightening around him. He showered you with tender kisses along your neck as his hips rutted against yours, not yet slipping into the place you both desperately needed him to be.  

“Look at me.”

You obeyed, locking gazes with him as he hovered over you. The moment lasted only a second before he was pushing forward. He was fully sheathed and throbbing within you as you clung to him, mouth open but no sound coming out. His face was buried into your neck as you both became reacquainted with the other. You felt deliciously full. Overwhelmingly so as his cock nudged the natural barrier within you. He was as far as he could go, and yet you wanted him closer.

“Move.” You said with a whimper, shifting your hips so that his cock dragged along your velvet walls.

Rio obliged, a prisoner to the cyclone of sensations that had swept you both up. He set a steady pace, his strokes deep and thorough. You cried out when he thrust so hard that you edged up the bed, the headboard rattling against the wall. Beams of light glowed behind your eyelids as he hit every spot as if he was made to. You clung to the silver chain that hung from his neck as he grunted in your ear, each pass of him stealing your breath.

“This what you wanted? Hmm?” He punctuated his question with a bruising drive of his hips forward, making your toes curl.

“Fuck, yes…” You moaned, disoriented by it all. The feel of him atop you. The rhythm of his hot breaths against your neck. The growls that rumbled from his throat. The sting of being stretched as he fucked you. It was enough to have you succumbing to your climax before you were even ready.

You slipped a hand between your bodies and rubbed at your clit, increasing the intensity of your impending release. You locked your legs around his waist and scratched at the sheets as ecstasy washed over you. Your pussy contracted with earth-shattering tremors as you flooded Rio’s cock with your spendings. A litany of moans and gasps accompanied your free fall into space. The man above you stilled as you rode out the waves of orgasm and clenched around him in almost painful spasms. And then, your entire body went limp.

The headboard resumed its melody against the wall as Rio chased his own end. He maneuvered onto his knees, his cock never leaving the confines of your body. He watched you from this new vantage point, taking in the expression of euphoria you wore. Your hands trailed up your abdomen and across your breasts, cupping them for him. His hips picked up speed, his body slapping against yours and creating an echo. You accepted it all as he finally came, filling you full with every drive of his hips. He held you firm as he emptied himself within you, ensuring not a drop was wasted. You hummed at the feel of it, warm and thick and possessing you.

His fingers loosened their hold on your thighs as he came down, the flesh already sore from his grip. He soothed the area, the motion making your eyes feel heavy with sleep instead of lust. You met his gaze and let out a breathless laugh, feeling your limbs already beginning to ache with overuse. He slowly retreated from your body and settled beside you, his back pressed against the headboard as the comforter shielded his lower half from view. You eased into a sitting position, bringing the sheet with you. The act of modesty was unnecessary, but you did so anyway.

“You good?” He asked, face turning serious.

You nodded, the mess between your legs proof of just how good you really were.

“We gotta talk.”

His words made you stiffen. The post-coitus high now tainted.

“About what?” You asked, attempting casualness as you faced him.

“You’re gonna have a new contact from now on. Someone besides me.” He explained. His tone was succinct and to the point. He wasn’t interested in making this a discussion. And that annoyed you. Because it deserved one, whether he thought so or not.

“What does that mean?”

“Means I’m moving on to something else. Something different. So now you gotta deal with someone else.”

You shook your head, desperately wishing you now had clothes on. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand. It’s how it has to be.” He stated cooly, features schooled into an expression of professionalism, despite his own state of undress.

“Why?” You asked, still struggling to comprehend what he meant. Because it sounded like he was pawning you off to someone else right after he’d fucked you.

“I’m flipping my game. Nothing can be permanent. You get caught if you get comfortable.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?”

“No. You don’t.” He retorted dryly. The quickness of his reply threw you, the coldness in it obvious.

“I don’t trust anyone else.” You said, standing up and wrapping yourself in the sheet. Your thoughts were running wild, the disbelief you felt clearly written all over your face.

“I trust him. He’ll handle shit.” Rio reassured you, though it didn’t translate. He sighed and stood from the bed, searching for his underwear and pants.

Anger flared inside of you as he got dressed. He was going to drop a bomb on you and then leave? The notion made blind fury replace the satiation of sex within you.

“I barely trust you.” You threw back, watching as he buttoned his shirt. He shook his head and laughed, apparently finding your statement funny. “Why are you doing this?” You asked, trying to keep the shakiness out of your voice but failing.

He moved towards you and cradled your cheek, a gesture you were starting to loathe. He didn’t have to say anything to be condescending. The intent was clear. That familiar pit formed in your stomach as he stared at you, licking his lips.

“It’s business. This isn't personal. Don’t make it that way, yeah?”

You twisted away from his touch, gritting your teeth in irritation. “So you coming over to fuck me when you want is business?” You challenged, wrapping the sheet tighter around your chest.

“I gave you a choice.” He replied, voice raising slightly. His face hardened, his eyes narrowing and spine straightening as you fought against him.

“And what choice was that? To fuck you or die?” You questioned hotly, seeing him take a step towards you.

“You don’t make the rules. This isn’t a fucking partnership, darling. You work for me. You listen to me.” He argued, matching your aggression.

An iota of fear crept up your spine, but you ignored it. You shook your head and turned to leave, but he caught you, holding your arm with a firm grip. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t comfortable either.

“Don’t. Do. That.” He warned, pulling you to face him once again. He was pissed. His temper barely under control as he pinned you with an icy glare.

“Fine....” You acquiesced, jerking your arm free. “Leave me in the able hands of someone else. I’ll make sure and show them the same kind of attention I showed you.” You goaded, seeing the vein in his neck pulse.

“Why do you gotta make shit difficult?” He asked, choosing to ignore your remarks. Rio didn’t wear jealousy well and it was obvious.

“You were the one that came to me, remember? You were the one that spouted that bullshit about trust.” You threw back, uncaring of the consequences.

“That's right.” He confirmed, stepping in your direction and crowding your space. You were both practically breathing the same tension-filled air. “And you went along with it. So go along with this. If not, arrangements can be made.”

You blinked, willing the man before you to disappear. You shouldn’t be surprised that things took such a left turn. They were bound to. And Rio was nothing if not an entrepreneur first. You knew that. Didn’t mean it stung any less.

“Leave.” You demanded, not meeting his gaze.

“I’ll be in touch.” He said before he was walking past you and out of the room.

The slamming of the front door echoed throughout the house when he left and you released the breath you’d been holding. Tears welled in your eyes, but you forced them back. The relationship between you and Rio was doomed from the beginning. You were both operating on borrowed time. No matter how much he acted as if he cared, he didn’t. You were a means to an end. That was blatantly apparent now. You were to fall in line and operate under his orders. That was it. But you couldn’t do that. Not when your entire life was at stake. You’d made the mistake of trusting him and he decided to throw it all away. All the progress made...for naught.

Rio would always want his money more than you. It made no difference if you finally offered yourself up on a silver platter, promising to run off with him. He’d surely laugh and pat your cheek, amused by your offer. He’d only been telling you what you wanted to hear. And wasn’t that what you wanted anyway? Wasn’t he just enough for a good time and an even better fuck?

Yeah. He was.

So then why did it hurt so goddamn much?

[spaceyflowers]

stuff about latest lookism chapters (390-398)

ok i finally caught up. originally i was just planning to read along with the webtoon but its kinda behind from the latest updates and i am.. so tired of trying to avoid spoilers 😭😭😭

here are some thoughts i wanna say !

-magami is my poor little meow meow and i love him with all my heart (more thoughts on him here <3)

-doo's character development 💪 his bromance with ryuhei was pretty sweet too <3

-i thought yall were joking when yall said ryuhei's backstory for liking mitsuki was "my dick dont work but when youre around it does [lip bite]" but it was real. holy shit.

-his romance with mitsuki was ok btw. im glad it was somewhat expanded outside of "you make my dick not broken ❤️" but i still dont think he had enough of a reason to like mitsuki so much he'd lay his life down for her. all he liked were little surface level details about her ?? 😭 ("she smiles at even little things you do for her" ok bro..)

-but idk maybe surface level attraction is all he needs to feel ready to do Anything for someone which is... just sad. either way he and mitsuki should not become a couple 💀

-w.... why is cap guy obsessed with strong guys

-i hate tom lee. seriously. i dont want to see anymore of him and his creepy ass "danglers" thing.

-BIG DEAL IS HAPPY AND REUNITED EXCEPT FOR SAMUEL AAGGGRRHGHGG 💔💔💔💔💔💔

-SO HAPPY FOR WARREN AND SALLY <33

-PTJ WHEN WILL CHEONGLIANG ARC COME OUT I WANT TO SEE VIN JIN AND MARY'S BACKSTORIES AND HAVE MC PESITCIDES BE RELEVANT AGAIN. ALSO FINDING OUT WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED WITH THE MURDER VIN JIN APPARENTLY COMMITTED

-i just want more family agendas to sob over ok. cheongliang fam looks like a tragedy story i want to know what happened

-gun is such a freak <3 and i still wonder what the hell went thru his mind when he put on that hideous fit

-i pray for little and big daniel's survivals from their own personal hells

-also praying for zack and whatever the hell he's gonna go thru with that "crazy monk" 😭 ??? i also really hope this is the last act in his inferiority complex character arc thing bc i feel like it's been dragging on for too long 💔

-for zack's part, too; was absolutely wild seeing characters (cho ma and daegong ji) we havent seen since lookism was actually about lookism and not gang wars lmao

-what did eugene mean by hes gonna bring xiaolung back. my mans got his legs broken by jake. whatre yall gonna do, give him some batshit leg surgery to fix him up????? (im pretty sure its implied jake broke his legs beyond repair ?? or like. are u telling me a few months have passed and xiaolung is perfectly healed and ready to fight ?)

-jinyoung is a freak but him crying over that flashback with him and gapryong arm wrestling as they had fun bantering... i guess they did have a genuine bromance? what were gapryong's goals exactly?

-wonder how the mystery (?) with gapryong's death and jake's older bro is gonna all unfold

-lua im is ...... something! (more thoughts on my post about her here)

-i still hate johan's new haircut

-ALSO I HOPE ELI AND HOSTEL/RUNAWAY FAM STAY SAFE...... cool to see manager kim again tho 😭

afterthoughts

-will crystal be relevant anytime soon. what about her two bodies.

-i still miss jay 😭 his dad is way more involved than him???? youd think maybe jay would be more involved, too, then, but nope hes just gonna stay queer bait ig... no hope for ptj but i still wish jay got to do more with the story than be devoted to daniel bc he has an interesting design/vague backstory to be expanded upon and his dad is literally someone the main character daniel is teaming up with to take down the antagonist like ????!

-sobs.... j high gang... i miss the girls and burn knuckles 💔

-i dont know how to feel about daniel's current character arc. i understand his feelings but i honestly dislike seeing characters say "i dont want to depend on people anymore so im gonna get stronger on my own" 😭😭😭 like sure, hun, but dont leave all your friends behind to go ask an insane person like gun for help ?!