#scabby chin skin

[lord-of-the-prompts]

DESCRIBING THE PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF CHARACTERS:

Body

descriptors; ample, athletic, barrel-chested, beefy, blocky, bony, brawny, buff, burly, chubby, chiseled, coltish, curvy, fat, fit, herculean, hulking, lanky, lean, long, long-legged, lush, medium build, muscular, narrow, overweight, plump, pot-bellied, pudgy, round, skeletal, skinny, slender, slim, stocky, strong, stout, strong, taut, toned, wide.

Eyebrows

descriptors; bushy, dark, faint, furry, long, plucked, raised, seductive, shaved, short, sleek, sparse, thin, unruly.

shape; arched, diagonal, peaked, round, s-shaped, straight.

Ears

shape; attached lobe, broad lobe, narrow, pointed, round, square, sticking-out.

Eyes

colour; albino, blue (azure, baby blue, caribbean blue, cobalt, ice blue, light blue, midnight, ocean blue, sky blue, steel blue, storm blue,) brown (amber, dark brown, chestnut, chocolate, ebony, gold, hazel, honey, light brown, mocha, pale gold, sable, sepia, teakwood, topaz, whiskey,) gray (concrete gray, marble, misty gray, raincloud, satin gray, smoky, sterling, sugar gray), green (aquamarine, emerald, evergreen, forest green, jade green, leaf green, olive, moss green, sea green, teal, vale).

descriptors; bedroom, bright, cat-like, dull, glittering, red-rimmed, sharp, small, squinty, sunken, sparkling, teary.

positioning/shape; almond, close-set, cross, deep-set, downturned, heavy-lidded, hooded, monolid, round, slanted, upturned, wide-set.

Face

descriptors; angular, cat-like, hallow, sculpted, sharp, wolfish.

shape; chubby, diamond, heart-shaped, long, narrow, oblong, oval, rectangle, round, square, thin, triangle.

Facial Hair

beard; chin curtain, classic, circle, ducktail, dutch, french fork, garibaldi, goatee, hipster, neckbeard, old dutch, spade, stubble, verdi, winter.

clean-shaven

moustache; anchor, brush, english, fu manchu, handlebar, hooked, horseshoe, imperial, lampshade, mistletoe, pencil, toothbrush, walrus.

sideburns; chin strap, mutton chops.

Hair

colour; blonde (ash blonde, golden blonde, beige, honey, platinum blonde, reddish blonde, strawberry-blonde, sunflower blonde,) brown (amber, butterscotch, caramel, champagne, cool brown, golden brown, chocolate, cinnamon, mahogany,) red (apricot, auburn, copper, ginger, titain-haired,), black (expresso, inky-black, jet black, raven, soft black) grey (charcoal gray, salt-and-pepper, silver, steel gray,), white (bleached, snow-white).

descriptors; bedhead, dull, dry, fine, full, layered, limp, messy, neat, oily, shaggy, shinny, slick, smooth, spiky, tangled, thick, thin, thinning, tousled, wispy, wild, windblown.

length; ankle length, bald, buzzed, collar length, ear length, floor length, hip length, mid-back length, neck length, shaved, shoulder length, waist length.

type; beach waves, bushy, curly, frizzy, natural, permed, puffy, ringlets, spiral, straight, thick, thin, wavy.

Hands; calloused, clammy, delicate, elegant, large, plump, rough, small, smooth, square, sturdy, strong.

Fingernails; acrylic, bitten, chipped, curved, claw-like, dirty, fake, grimy, long, manicured, painted, peeling, pointed, ragged, short, uneven.

Fingers; arthritic, cold, elegant, fat, greasy, knobby, slender, stubby.

Lips/Mouth

colour (lipstick); brown (caramel, coffee, nude, nutmeg,) pink (deep rose, fuchsia, magenta, pale peach, raspberry, rose, ) purple (black cherry, plum, violet, wine,) red (deep red, ruby.)

descriptors; chapped, cracked, dry, full, glossy, lush, narrow, pierced, scabby, small, soft, split, swollen, thin, uneven, wide, wrinkled.

shape; bottom-heavy, bow-turned, cupid’s bow, downturned, oval, pouty, rosebud, sharp, top-heavy.

Nose

descriptors; broad, broken, crooked, dainty, droopy, hooked, long, narrow, pointed, raised, round, short, strong, stubby, thin, turned-up, wide.

shape; button, flared, grecian, hawk, roman.

Skin

descriptors; blemished, bruised, chalky, clear, dewy, dimpled, dirty, dry, flaky, flawless, freckled, glowing, hairy, itchy, lined, oily, pimply, rashy, rough, sagging, satiny, scarred, scratched, smooth, splotchy, spotted, tattooed, uneven, wrinkly.

complexion; black, bronzed, brown, dark, fair, ivory, light, medium, olive, pale, peach, porcelain, rosy, tan, white.

[jayrockin]

Do senior centaur wear lil caps like dentures over their empty pedicles? Are they gummy or just kind of scabby once they heal from their last tusk? What is elder care like for them?

They look like any other pedicles when they have no antler, which is a scab immediately after shedding that heals into a dark, sparsely furred skin. The dark spots I draw on Talita's chin are like that. Centaurs do not have antlers for the majority of a year regardless of age, covering the pedicles is generally not a thing, though prosthetic antlers worn as a beauty product are occasionally seen (more comparable to a toupee than dentures). There are tales of aging matriarchs attempting to hang onto power by faking antler growth, but the logistics of making such of a ploy convincing means it's more popular in fiction than real life.

[morallyinept]

Summary: Joel Miller comes back into your life unexpectedly after a gap of thirty years, and stirs up all kinds of memories and longing. Now, as you're stationed on an outpost for five days alone with the man you stupidly let go of all those years ago, you have a chance to confront him about your past life together and all the things you wished you’d said and done.

But Joel’s different now, and you know you need to tread carefully. Joel Miller is not the same man you once knew in another life.

A slow burn romance set in the post apocalyptic world, approx. twenty or so years after the initial Cordyceps outbreak.

Pairing: Post-Outbreak Joel Miller x MatureF!Reader (No name or physical description of reader. However reader is of a similar age range as Joel; in her late forties/early fifties. Joel is slightly older at 56.)

Chapter word count: 5.6k

Series Masterlist

☝🏻See Series Masterlist for full smut warnings & triggers in this story. Chapters that contain smut or triggers will be highlighted in the chapter notes below. 👇🏻

Chapter notes: You and Joel get closer to one another after a close call. Brief mentions/descriptions of smut. Mentions of violence.

☝🏻 I WILL NO LONGER BE ADDING NEW TAGS due to some of them not working as they should, despite me tagging, so please ensure you're following me and turn on notifs so you don't miss an update on this story.

Enjoy! 🖤

Previous Chapter

It’s different when you wake. He’s different.

It’s hard for your brain to translate, but you can feel that the tension in him has shifted a little; and not just from massaging him - although you can still feel the warmth of his skin blazing on your fingertips, even now.

But it's like a small part of that tension has been squeezed out through a juicer and all that is left is the pulp to discard.

You can feel it in yourself too. Something scabby has fallen off of you somewhere. Fresh, glossy skin has grown underneath. Healed.

You lay in the cot peering at him as Joel sits in the wicker chair watching the sun rise. You see its light moving slowly across his face, changing the shadows around his eyes, making them softer where they were once harsh. 

His fist is to his chin; thumb swiping back and forth against his bottom lip as he stares vacantly out at the valley. Just a slow - somewhat teasing in its agony - back and forth across the chapped skin as you watch, mesmerised for a little while.

It washes everything else away for a few moments. 

There’s an elevated, yet unspoken, understanding existing between you now; a connection that’s been reconnected somewhere with copper wires. You can feel it. Your mutual pain tethering you like stitches in the skin.

If you had known this, back in the day, that you would both have to suffer through so much to get back here, back to one another… Well, you might’ve reconsidered that perilous path, as weak as you are. He might’ve too.

Or you both might’ve hurtled down it at warp speed, colliding in a vibrant kaleidoscope of kinetic energy.

Everything happens for a reason, it doesn’t matter. It resonates in you as you feel some acquired peace between the slow, weighted absorption into the layers of your epidermis, that you had to go through all of that to get here.

To get to this little moment right now where you can just observe him and bask in the viability of it all.

It brightens you somewhere; a small luminescent glow within all the murk, to know that Joel endured and survived. And so did you. And here you both are, brought together again after an insurmountable feat of improbability, implausibility. Against all the fucking odds.

Whether its fate, destiny, whatever. It doesn’t matter. 

You're just both here; right where you're supposed to be.

And that has to mean something. Surely he has to feel that sucker punch to the jaw too? Feel the bloodied teeth plink from his mouth onto the gravel. Surely he can’t brush it off with a shrug of those broad shoulders and a gruff utterance about fate being a simple ruse and nothing more?

You think back to his words, and even the ones he doesn’t say. They still batter around your head, trying to find a way in through your orifices.

Ya needed me, so many times, n’ I wasn’t there.

And you did. You never stopped needing him. You still need him now, still want him. You need him to tell you that you made it back to him as he fills you full of that sweet relief and elation.

You need him as you both try to navigate cresting over the horizon of the billowing pain that haunts the cobwebbed crypts of your souls. You feel it tiresomely, twisting in your skin, uprooting your skeleton from the endowment of your worn and fibrous muscles.

You can still hear them, the screams. Still feel the blood slicking through your fingers, but it seems lessened somehow. The constant din in your ears is now muting, turning down.

And you know it’s because of him, because of Joel.

That incendiary presence of him fanning the fires again to burn it all away until there’s nothing left. You can feel it licking on your skin, prickling, spreading. Engulfing you. You can smell your hair burning, feel your skin boiling and blistering and you can no longer breathe as you become flaky ash piles at his boots.

Stifling, you sit up pulling the blanket off, and Joel turns to you. He drops his fist and tosses you a small smile that sinks into your chest cavity warming you still.

It’s sincere; it blooms into his cheeks revealing the dimple he never outgrew. It’s the same smile he always had for you. A smile of contentment, of satiation. He looks so different when he smiles, young again. That no worry has ever touched his face and left a bruise of tainted sadness. It’s his beautifully familiar face that has haunted you for so long. 

You can see it in him too; that slow erosion, layer by heavily guarded layer. Peeling him back like silky onion skins to reveal the naked core that makes tears sting down your face. You know that you being here, back in his life, is a welcome relief.

How could it not be when he smiles at you like this?  

You return it through your sleepy eyes. You glance at the clocks and they all read just past five in the morning, or thereabouts. 

You stand and so does he. You step forward, and so does he.

You dance that unspoken waltz as Joel passes you to take up root in the cot, ready to drift off in your lingering warmth, and you sit in the chair, your turn to watch. 

But as you pass him, your fingertips brush and you can swear you can hear the static crackles of electricity. 

You definitely feel them as they zap up your fingers and into your arm.

Hours later and Joel stirs from the cot. 

He pushes the heels of his large, calloused palms into his eyes as he wipes the sleep from them and his head feels unusually clear. 

He realises, as he wakes, that it’s the first time in a long time that his dreams have been quiet, silent. Like the centre of a hurricane; no noise, no bullshit.

There was nothing; just a peaceful calm that he sank into for a few blissful hours, and he marvels at how this must have been what it was like to sleep before the outbreak happened.

He’d just simply forgotten that it could be like this. 

But he’s sceptical. He knows this so-called calm will be fleeting, it always is. But he’s going to take the reprieve whilst it’s offered to him. 

He hears you at the stove as he blinks back info focus, he rises as you put a chipped plate inside his hands and smile warmly at him in that way you used to. Like you were always so happy to see him again.

He joins you at the wicker chairs and you both eat with some quiet contentment swimming around your ankles.  

Joel smirks as he slips a piece of meat into his mouth with his finger and thumb. Chews quietly as he watches you pull yours apart into strips and suck them into your mouth idly as you look out the window. Old habits die hard, he thinks. 

There’s so much about you that is different, yet still the same. Nuances, mannerisms; the way you speak. It’s all you in there, he’s sure of it.

But there’s another you that he’s not fully acquainted with yet. A stronger you, a weaker you. A ying-yang of yourself where there was once only arrogance and self-assuredness. A dreamer and a risk taker. A lover and a fighter.

He watches your lips; their fullness as you lick them and leave a wet sheen that he longs to taste again. He wonders if you taste different now.

Somewhere, in the back of his head, Joel remembers those lips wrapping so amiably around his cock. A renegade thought drops in front of his eyes and he’s forced to spectate.

It’s you, waking him up to see you under the covers as he lifts them up to be met with your face between his legs.

Your tongue is running up the length of him and your eyes, God your fuckin' eyes are staring at him wickedly. Gleaming as you take him fully into your hot, wet mouth.

He gasps and throws his head back and he feels it all over his body; that carnage within him that your mouth causes. That weak, brainless flesh he becomes sinking into the mattress as you pull him apart...

Joel clears his throat. Distracting himself as he feels the stirring in his jeans. He reaches for the walkie-talkie after glancing at the clocks and switches it on. 

You continue to eat and gaze out the window at yet another sun filled sky.

You flinch when the walkie-talkie suddenly crackles. Some static buzzes through and Joel twists the frequency dial at the top gently to tune it in.

The buzzing alters between high and low rumbles, and you listen carefully trying to make out anything as you put down your plate.

Joel had said no news was good news. But there is someone talking now; their voice wiry and buried so far beneath all the static it’s hard to make them out.

He raises the walkie-talkie to his left ear and then resorts to pacing as he listens carefully. 

... Branched off… A while ago… Heading north… Casualties…

“What are they saying?” You ask, feeling your body stiffen.

You’re pretty sure you hear the word casualties, but you can’t be sure. Your mind automatically conjures up scenarios that you try to stomp on.

You remind yourself to breathe. They might just be simply checking in. 

“Fuck,” Joel taps the walkie-talkie down heavily in his palm.

“Joel, what are they saying?”

“I can’t fuckin’ hear ‘em whilst ya yappin, can I?” He bites back hissing, trying to decipher the words. His eyes looking at you, but also not as he listens again. 

... Outpost three…

“That's us,” you say. Fuck!

“Quiet!” Joel paces again, opening up the door. He steps outside trying to get a better signal and drown you out. 

You sit back in the chair sighing, squeezing your fingers in and out of fists. You can still hear the crackles and fuzzed voices coming in and out as Joel stands just behind the door, his broad back to you, hand on his hip. 

Something's wrong. You can feel it. Feel the coldness of it creep up your spine and into your shoulders.

“Shit!” He marches back in and reaches for one of the tins on the shelf. He throws one open and rummages around for another battery for the walkie-talkie. 

You shake your head wearily.

“Something’s happened.” You say, feeling the panic rise up on your skin. Your throat runs tight and dry. 

“We don’t know that. We don’t fuckin’ know anything right now.” He gruffs. “C’mon on ya son of a bitch!” He seethes as he twists off the back of the walkie-talkie.

It’s rattling him too; you can see it as he tries to steady the subtle shake in his fingers. He throws you a look, one that's intended to be soft, reasurring. You're certain of it. But it's hard outlines are etched with concern.

Your heartbeat has settled into your ears, blood pumping. A sickly feeling bubbles in your stomach acids; the meat on the verge of making a ghastly return.

You stand, pacing now, with your hands wringing at themselves. You can’t help but let the worry creep in. In fact, it starts to flood in.

You glance out the window as Joel snaps the back of the walkie-talkie back on. 

“Joel.” You murmur, the dread filling you, stopping you in your tracks. 

Your eyes widen, so does your mouth. You can see them. Oh God!

There’s three of them; four, maybe five. Now six. 

“Joel!” You gasp frantically as he turns towards the door again. “JOEL!”

He stops; the alarm in your voice tugging his eyes towards the window. Shadows of infected bodies are gathering at the bottom of the hill, more of them appearing from behind the treelines. You can only watch horrified as they increase in number. 

Joel dumps the walkie-talkie and it clatters across the table clumsily. He takes the rifle off the stand and thrusts it in your hands. You start to fill it with bullets as he reaches under the cot and pulls out a hidden shotgun taped up under the slats.

He’s beside you again; his bicep bumping into yours and plucking thick cartridges into his fingers as you both glance up and down at the window like nodding dogs on a dashboard. 

There’s more. Seven, eight, nine-

“You think they broke off from the horde? They were trying to warn us?” A definite panic lodges in the back of your throat, but you swallow it down.

Endure and survive. Come on. You’ve got this. 

Joel grunts a response at you, but you don’t catch it.

You empty the remaining bullets into your pockets and clumsily drop some as they clang to the floor.

It’s alright. You’ve got time. Focus.

“Looks like they’re wandering, they're too far to know we're up here, right? We might get lucky and they’ll pass by...” But you know that’s not what will happen.

They’re a plague that keeps coming and coming. You know that if you don’t deal with this now, you might not be so lucky to get another shot.

It’s the hideous mantra of this world now; kill or be killed.  

“S’possible. Don’t matter.” Joel says, jostled but he keeps his cool. At least from what you can see anyway.

Ten, eleven, twelve-

“We can take them.” You assure him. Although, you’re certain it’s said for yourself.

“Ain’t got no choice. Can’t risk ‘em wanderin' towards the commune.” He puffs.

He looks at you and nods once. He knows that, between the two of you, you can pick them off quickly as you return that solid reassurance back to him. 

More creep up the hill. You hear the horses bray loudly in the stable sensing the death they carry with them - animals always know - and this pulls their attention.

They start running and more appear from out of the trees quickly. 

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen-

“Shit!” You gasp, cocking the rifle.

“There’s a ladder on the rear, on the right. Get on the roof. Flank me, okay?” Joel instructs you, pulling you away from the window.

You don’t have time to discuss it, argue or agree. You can hear them now. The hissing and screeching that comes from their rabid mouths. Hungry.

“GO!” Joel snaps as you both bundle out the door.

You hear his shots immediately as he fires off, rounding the shack and drawing them towards him, giving you time to get into position.

He needs you to get into position. Needs you to cover him. He needs you.

You’re scrambling for the ladder; hoisting yourself up it as fast as you can go, fire burning in your lungs. 

You throw yourself down on the roof; your chest thudding against it; breasts crushed and knocking the wind out of you, as you raise the rifle steady on your elbows and fire off rounds quicker than your brain can process your motor functions.

Bodies drop, stunned in their quick deaths. Backs of their heads explode as the bullets ricochet through brainstems that don’t function above the basic instinct to feed and spread their poison.

You hit your targets, some of them are moving too fast to be hit in the head on your first shot. Wounding shoulders or legs which slow them down instead.

Breathe. Focus.

Joel appears in your peripherals; he takes a couple of steps forward as the numbers lessen that are coming at him. His shotgun is high in strong, taught arms; he aims with precision and feels the gun shunt back into his shoulder blade each time he fires.

He reaches into his pocket as he reloads; you take up the slack whilst he does. In the throes of the screaming, the ringing in your ears, you notice how calm Joel is, how he moves with exactitude.

Aim, fire, reload. Aim, fire, reload. 

He glances up at you with a steely gaze and a nod, and you shoot the infected body running right for him as he pops out the spent cartridge shells.

It falls with several yards between them; screaming and viscera everywhere, and Joel doesn’t seem fazed, barely flinches.

His face remains vehemently stoic, drawn into that deep hypnotism of abject concentration as he wields the scythe of death again.

You’ve always been tough despite your reluctance at times. Always taken care of yourself. Headstrong, Kelper would say. Arrogant, Joel would say.

But now it’s different; he’s joined in.

Now you take care of one another and it’s not up for negotiation. You settle into it, clearing the way for him. You set them up, he knocks them down. He's got your back and you've got his, like planets in the perfect orbit of one another. He moves, you move. He runs, you run.

He shoots and reloads, you shoot and cover. Teamwork makes the dream work.

Joel steps over the body as he picks the last of them off, the shots echoing into the sky like thunder cracking; the last of the infected are gunned down until the air around you both falls eerily still. 

You push yourself up on your legs that feel like lead weights, breathing steadily despite your heart hammering.

You clock Joel standing still now. His gun still aimed, his body twisting at the waist slowly. He’s listening as he scans.

He’s listening like you are, intently. Listening for the distant moans or shrieks, listening for the beats of more running beasts drawn to the echoes of the shots that crashed around the valley. 

You scan the horizon, the bottom of the hill. The trees to the right. You check them all off carefully. You peer through the periscope and recheck all the routes again to be sure.

It feels like you both stand there for an age. You see movement to your right and aim the rifle, your finger ready on the trigger, but it’s just the brambles swaying in the breeze. You breathe out slowly and relax.

The valley is silent once more. 

Only when you're both sure that there are no more coming at you, do you retreat down the ladder and round to the front of the shack. 

“Ya good?” Joel asks, squinting in the sun as he approaches, and you scream for him as he’s yanked backward; an arm on the body of the mutated corpse beside him reaching up to clasp his calf, and pulling him off balance. 

He rolls down the hill; the infected with him, as you run forward holding the rifle up.

You can’t get a solid aim. Joel’s body is rolling around through the periscope too quickly, and if you shoot, there’s a good chance it’ll be him that receives the bullet. 

“Fuck!” You yell. You tear down the hill after them. 

Joel struggles, grunting as the jaws of the infected body snap at him, too close to his face.

His legs smash against the ground, his back pounding against it relentlessly and knocking the air out of him as he tumbles. His arms ache from the frantic struggle as they come to a stop.

The body scrambles at him wildly, shrieking and drooling with hunger and blood shot eyes. Sickly yellowing fungus grows out the side of its face like lichens, and its breath reeks as Joel breathes the fetid opacity of it in.

He has no weapon, nothing he can defend himself with. He roars out as he pushes upwards with all of his might; his legs kicking out from under him to try and knock the rabid parasite off of him that's coming closer to his face.

Somewhere, through the commotion, he hears his name - he hears you breaking through that heavy cloud of white noise. Then you’re there, aiming and shooting at the head as he holds it out for you by the chin; his fingertips inches from its snapping mouth. 

The blast echoes all around Joel's head and the body of the infected rolls off of him lifelessly.

The ringing floods his good ear, and it takes a while of you yelling his name through the void for him to come back to and hear you through it. 

“... Are you bit?... Joel?! JOEL!” You stare down at him, the rifle still aimed at him, a slight shudder on the end of it.

“No, no…” He pants, relieved. He stares at his shaky fingers then up to you with wild eyes.

“M’okay,” he wheezes, bewildered. “M’okay.”

“Jesus,” you lower the gun.

You reach forward, attempting to pull him up, but instead Joel yanks you towards him.

You topple onto his chest and he kisses you ferociously.

It happens within seconds. A snap. It’s clumsy, it’s frantic.

Your teeth clash and his tongue chokes you. His hands are grappling at either side of your head, your back, your waist. You can’t hear anything except more thunder rolling in your rib cage as your heart thrashes about inside it.

The oxygen is sucked out of your lungs by Joel swallowing it in as you both tear at one another ferally.

Your mind is a whir; a jumble of thoughts trying to untangle themselves. Your body is shaking, unable to catch up with your mind, or with him.

Your own hands shred through his sweat matted hair, fist through his shirt collar. You straddle him as he crushes you against him further; gasping into your throat as his giant hands grip and squeeze your ass into him. 

An emptiness steam rolls through you, no place for coherent thought or wonder to harbour and grow. Instead, you're pulled under, drowning.

Unable to breathe as you let yourself sink into the crashing waves of him. Choking as you gasp, pulling at him desperately. There's no air here, your lungs contract, your throat clenches. You gasp and croak as you sink furhter into the depths, lightheaded.

This is what his kiss feels like. It feels like you might die. 

You pull back, wheezing, when you feel how hard he is against you. How that bulge in his grazed denim feels so fucking good pushed against your seam as you grind on it.

Joel’s hands cup your face; you’re both panting, both wanting. Both trying to stay in some sort of control. Both shaking as the adreanline courses through you.

"Joel," you whine, so full of need as your fingers twist around the fibres of his shirt.

"Goddamn, darlin'," he rasps; those brown molten eyes pulling you in.

His fingers drag down on your bottom lip and looks into your mouth as though it can’t possibly be real.

He pulls you down to him and licks his tongue into your cheeks again, a little softer this time as he regains some control over himself. It slows; the burst, the eruption, now a reduced flow.

Letting the frenzy bloom into an insatiable desire as he really tunes into you, tastes you again. 

You’re soaring as you suck on his lip and he moans out in delight. You want him inside of you so badly. He leans up, deeper into the kiss, and then yelps.

“Aw fuck!” He twists his hand behind him. 

“You okay, what’s wrong?” You pulse to him, your hands on his stacked chest. His heartbeat thrashing underneath them. 

“S’my back. Think I pulled it as I fell.” He winces as he tries to sit up fully, and you shuffle off his lap; the heated lust in you has a glass of ice water thrown in its face as you try to assist him flaccidly.

“Shit,” he grumbles.

You sigh out and then chuckle inwardly, despairing at how the fire between your legs is abruptly doused.

“Ya laughin’ at me?” He narrows at you with a cocked brow.

You shake your head. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” you smirk.

He smirks back, his cheeks flushing, hair a ravaged mess from your desperate raking of it.

“Come on, let’s get you up. Slowly now.” You encourage.

It takes three attempts to stand fully and even that seems like a mountain he will never peak. Joel hisses as he clutches the bottom of his spine that sears and pulls tighter with each movement.

“Was too close for my likin’,” he mutters, as he limps up the hill holding onto your shoulder.

You take his weight, but you can feel he’s not putting it all on you. He waits whilst you bend to pick up his shotgun when you come across it.

“Mm,” you say with a frown blooming, somewhere a fissure inside you erupts.  

“The infected, I mean.” He assures you with a side glance. 

“I know.” You nod forlornly.

Your mind conjures scenarios that you don’t dare venture down. Cutting into the elation of the ghostly graze of Joel's lips still felt on yours. 

Something's happened, something's gone wrong out there. You can feel it as it claws at your belly skin, ripping you open.

“Don’t do that.” You hear Joel cut in. “They’re fine.”

You look at him as he hobbles beside you and a restrained smile is offered to him. He always could read you so well. 

"You don't know that." You mumble.

"I know Tommy... n' ya know Kelper. They're fine." He reassures.

You nod at him, even though the knot tightens in your gut.

Inside the shack Joel wobbles onto the cot and grimaces as he thuds down on it.

It's only then you realise his face is scratched up a little from the brambles, and the back of his hands too. Tiny red criss-crosses that graze.

“Is there a first aid kit in any of these tins?” You ask as you leave him to rummage in them. 

“Back one,” he grunts.

You reach for it and bring it over, pulling out expired antiseptic wipes and tearing the packets open. He tries to avoid it, but you pull his mitts forward anyway and swipe over them gently with the wipe. 

Joel bites down on his cheeks as he feels a little sting in the grazes, fragrant with an archaic artificial scent, but the pain in his back mutes it out.

You go for his face, but he gently bats your hand away. “M’fine, don’t fuss,” he gruffs softly and you back off.

He swings his legs up onto the cot and lays flat on his back. 

“Is there some painkiller in here?” You ask, rifling around, but find none. 

“Doubtful,” he mutters. 

“Why, did you trade it all for sourdough bread?” You smirk and you see Joel chuckle silently with his arm slung over his eyes.

“Pumpernickel.” He grins. 

You can’t help but laugh and so does he.

A heavy wheeze that rolls up from the deep pits of his chest and out the back of his throat. He laughs too hard and then winces again, and you both soften until the silly guffaws between you cease to longing smiles. 

"You're such a shit," you smirk. 

"Y'used to love me for it." He says, and then the smiles dissipate and the silence feels heavy again between you. 

You stand to return the tin to the shelf, you hear him shift on the cot.

“C’mere, lay with me.” Joel says suddenly. 

You turn and he’s reaching out his hand.

“I should keep watch.” You say, hating yourself immediately for saying it. Wondering why you're even saying it, it’s stupid. Futile.

You want nothing more than to be in his arms once again. To feel his weight crushing on yours, to taste his lips again.

To feel how hard he still gets for you after all this time.

“Could, or ya could just come n’ lay with me here for a bit.” He coaxes.

His eyes are blazing, marred with something other than ill-intention or pain. You decide it must be hunger because you know that look swimming inside of his brown irises - you never forgot it. 

You sigh, with a defeated smile and kick your boots off. You climb over him carefully, as he holds his arm out and you nestle down inside of it; your head cushioned on his shoulder.

His scruff scratches softly against your forehead and you feel his fingers gripping around the top of your shoulder, pulling you in closer to him. 

Joel smells wild, like the outside; wet leaves and soil. The faint aroma of sweat procrastinates around his shirt collar that flaps open at the neck.

You can smell the sun in the layers of his skin. A redolence of spice, possibly bergamot, buried deep in his pores somewhere.

The scent of nostalgia rears its head and leaves flutters in your chest and groin alike. He smells like home, or what home used to smell like all those years ago when you still had one.

He shuffles, adjusting to the invasion of your body against his and grunts.

“Is this okay?” You ask, you don’t want to cause him any more physical pain; the cot is only barely big enough for one, let alone the two of you squashed on it.

You feel the wall hard and uncomfortably flat against your back and buttocks.

“S’perfect.” Joel whispers. 

You feel him plant a long, unwavering kiss into your hairline and you think that this is what it must feel like to dive face first into the sun.

You lay on him, listening to his heartbeat and thinking of all the things that are on the tip of your tongue. But cowardice renders you mute. 

"S'been a long time." He starts quietly, and you know instinctively what he means.

The kiss that had exploded outside between the both of you infecting poisonous fear or doubt under his skin. And you can already feel your heart start to shrink. 

"I know. Me too." Your tone is flat. Your hand on his chest is pulling back lightly.

He stops it, firmly placing his over yours and warming it instantly. 

"I want to. Ya don't know how much I want to right now." He reassures. "Fuckin' back," he then grumbles on a distorted sigh. 

"Really?" 

"Darlin'." 

You smile and he can hear it click around your teeth. "I remember it was always…"

You search for the word knowing nothing you can say will do it justice. Joel had been a highly attentive lover equipped with an unrelenting stamina in his youth. 

Your mind casts back to a hazy, younger version of him being between your legs for what seemed like hours; drawing and pulling orgasm after orgasm out of your soaking core and into his waiting, hot mouth.

He’d take his sweet time in devouring you. It felt like the sex between you was the driving force of your relationship sometimes - you couldn’t get enough of one another. 

"It was." He agrees with a small smile crooking on the corner of his mouth.

And then you sigh wearily. The pink swirling thoughts crushed by a brutish reality that bulldozes over the possibilities.

He's right, it has been a long time.

It's been so long since you revealed your naked self to another person, vulnerable and bare. Your body isn’t what it once was. Where it was once supple and full, it’s now stretched and sagging in places.

And that panic floods you, freezes your body still and he feels you tense up under his grip.

“Stop it.” He murmurs into your hair and you smile at how he can do that still. How he can wrangle that angst out of you magically with just a few reassuring and gentle commands. 

"What if… after all this time we’re just fooling ourselves, Joel? The world is a very different place now. Is it even possible to find some semblance of happiness and cling onto it? Maybe it’s just a pipedream. A nice one, but a pipedream nonetheless.”

You’re unsure why you’re saying this, but it rolls off your tongue nonetheless, sticks to the back of your teeth like cloying fudge.

His eyes cloud over, and the tension pulls his face into that frown you’ve come to know over the last few days. Without it, he just simply isn’t Joel.

Your name is a gruff whisper on his lips as he shifts, grunting in pain, to face you, or make you face him. Subtle movements that now have your noses aligned.

“What ya scared of?” And it’s a question that carries so much weight. 

“Everything,” you barely whisper.

He pulls it out of you with those warm chocolatey eyes. “Losing you again.” You confirm after a few beats. "I was an idiot to ever let you go. I'm so sorry. I never got to tell you that."

"I know." He says. "M'sorry I couldn't make ya stay."

"No, it was all me-"

"No, darlin'. We were young. Wasn't the right time." He soothes.

"It was the best time though, wasn't it?"

He nods. “M’right here.” Joel squeezes your hand tight against his chest. You can feel the thrum of his heartbeat against your knuckles. “I’ve always been here.”

His expression flinches, melting away into something softer in the deep lines around his eyes. 

“Can we do this?” You query into his neck, seeking refuge there for a moment, faltering under his gaze. “Us again?”

“Do ya want to?” He asks back as you inhale against his skin. 

“Do you?”

“S’not what I asked ya.” He snuffles. “Tell me what ya want.”

You can feel the tears prickling in your eyes as he speaks into your hair. He hears you sniff and he reacts by holding you tighter, crushing you to him almost. A mouth full of flannel plaid shirt, as it drags against your eyelids wiping them dry.

You want to tell him; you want to rip it out of your chest and hand it to him in a sloppy puddle. You don’t want to hesitate, to shrink back into yourself. You don’t want to keep enduring and surviving because without him it’s all for nothing anyway.

You need to tell him that it’s him, it's always been him. That he's the greatest love of your life, the deepest hole in your heart.

But the words won’t come. They’re right there on the back of your tongue. You’ve seen so much horror, lived through it, but right now, you’re the most terrified you’ve ever been in your life. 

And so is he.

In a voice that is both low and so familiar in shackled want, he says “I don’t wanna lose ya again either, darlin’.”

He’d rip the world apart with his bare hands if he lost you again now. And strangely, that thought doesn’t scare him like it used to. 

It catches in the back of your throat, his omission. His softly spoken vow, and it draws your face back up to his to witness the sincerity as it warms your veins. 

You brush your thumb over the line of his jaw, feeling the soft greying scruff there that’s aged with him.

And he's never looked more fucking beautiful as you finally brave yourself to peep at him again. To confront everything you've wanted. Everything you've fought through to get here.

To get back into his arms.

“Never again, Joel.” You agree. “I’m not losing you ever again.”

His hand is felt on your lower back as he engulfs you. 

“Ya damn right ya ain’t.” Joel presses his lips to yours, tilting your chin up to him.

And you breathe him in, right down into the centre of your chest.

To be continued...

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Thank you for taking the time to read my story; it really means so much to me. I'd love to know your thoughts, and I'd really appreciate a re-blog so others can enjoy this story too. Thank you so much 🖤

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Tagging everyone who asked to be tagged & who re-blogged my teaser.

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[dorkwithfeelings]

begging screaming crying sobbing and pleading for dylan and ryan content

literally anything cute and fluffy or like,,, them during the aftermath of it all, reuniting w/each other, bc the quarry didn't show us the characters interact with each other after everything ended so now i have No Closure and i desperately crave it

i need it like i need air

I'm so excited for my first request ahhh-- I just hope it doesn't disappoint! I agree with the no closure, not just with these two but also with everyone else! Looks like us fans have to do all the hard work ourselves. Anyways, I hope you can enjoy this little piece! I poured my heart into it <3

DISCLAIMER - This is by no means beta read, but I did my best!

Title: A Little Closure (totally not because I didn't know what else to call it)

Summary: Dylan and Ryan take a moment to reflect while waiting for the cops to arrive.

Pairing: Dylan x Ryan

Word Count: 768

Genre: Fluff...?

Warnings: Some swearing and mentions of injury.

Whispers of the morning breeze mingled with the song of waking birds in the air around the otherwise quiet group of trauma-ridden camp counselors. They’d survived the night by the skin of their teeth, but what else would they have to fight? The cops would be involved, the public would find out about everything and that all boiled down to one question. Who in the world was going to believe anything they’d say? It was bittersweet to think that their battle was only just starting.

Dylan perched his butt on one of the bottom few steps that led up to the lodge entrance, running scabby fingers through his sweat-soaked, blood-crusted hair. To say he felt gross would be a massive understatement. He was filthy and in so much pain. The stump where his other hand once was throbbed, bandages grimy and in desperate need of changing. It had been easy to forget the stump throughout the night, always having something else to worry about in its place.

Everything was all a teeny bit fucked up.

“That was one heck of a rough night, huh?” Came Ryan’s voice, tone soft and a little gravelly. Dylan looked up at him, having been so distracted he’d not noticed him approaching. He shrugged, lips forming a lop-sided smile, nothing short of exhausted.

“Oh, you think?” Dylan questioned, trying to pull off his usual humor. “I thought it was a breeze. Probably had worse nights, honestly.”

“Worse than getting your hand cut off?” Ryan arched a brow, crossing his arms.

“Pfft, a minor inconvenience.”

Engulfed by silence, each boy let out a sigh. Ryan sat down beside Dylan, leaving a small gap between them. 

After allowing the silence to hang for a moment, Ryan spoke up again. “It’s alright to show emotion, y’know?”

Huffing through his nose, Dylan propped his elbows on his thighs and looked at Ryan, chin resting in his one remaining hand.

“I think all genuine emotion has been sucked out of me right now, so I’m overcompensating with supreme sarcasm.” There was no other way for Dylan to put it. He felt numb, for the most part. “I’m sure it’ll all hit me for real soon, then I’ll end up breaking down and sobbing, all that jazz.” His tone was dry, holding very little of his usual witty charm.

“That doesn’t sound pleasant. Like, at all.” Ryan remarked.

“Well, sometimes life isn’t pleasant,” Dylan replied.

Ryan didn’t like seeing him this way. It made his gut churn. Dylan was so full of life before the shit hit the fan last night, bad jokes coming out one after another, presence alone enough 

to keep the good vibes afloat.

“We’ve got a long road ahead, man.” It was Dylan breaking the silence once again. “When the police and medics get here, they’re gonna be asking questions… I’ve gotta somehow convince them that I asked you to cut my hand off, because I was munched on by a werewolf.”

Ryan pulled a face that perfectly represented ‘oh fuck’, because oh fuck. He’’d been so caught up in making it out alive that he hadn’t realized until now just how much convincing they were going to have to do. The same probably went for the others too.

“You see, officer, I screamed at my friend here to cut off my hand because a creature of myth busted through the radio hut roof and mauled on my wrist.” Dylan recited to the air, Ryan watching and knowing they were probably going to get hauled off somewhere for psychiatric therapy.

It felt like the whole world was about to declare war against them, and that they were destined to lose.

But if one thing was for sure, it was that Ryan would not let Dylan lose all hope in this situation. They still had to get to know each other better, after all. There was a kiss that Ryan intended to follow up on, and while now wasn’t really the right time, he was sure one would come along.

Putting his hand on Dylan’s shoulder, Ryan gave an encouraging squeeze. “You’re not alone in all this. I got your back, through thick and thin.”

And there it was. Dylan’s ever vibrant smile shining through for the first time since truth or dare at the firepit, paired with a little glimmer of surprise in his eyes.

“It’s cool to have your back,” He chimed, slowly arching a brow too. “But can I have your number too?”

And as the dull rumbling of police vehicles pulling in towards the lodge grew closer, Ryan rolled his eyes. 

"Smooth."

[royalreef]

@baiika inquired: Vicky; “Whose blood is that?” High Pain Tolerance - Accepting

She stumbles, a little. Foot going back before the other, tail curling around to try and catch her balance again, a more delicate act and one far harder to conduct than her companions, but one Miranda's learned by practice, for what little that means. It leaves a track of blood across the ground, a long, wet smear leading back to her foot, splayed out even through her shoe, all four digits trying to catch as wide of a base as possible, even as she has to lean up onto her toes, leaving her heel in the air.

She's blinking. A confused, bewildered blinking, the kind that suggests she hasn't really considered what Vicky has asked might have even come up. First she blinks with her third eyelids, and then she blinks with her proper lids, a repeating pattern that makes her look all the more befuddled that she's even here. Her chin tilts down, and Miranda blinks at her chest, at the great drenching of blood, of the littering of chunks and bits that cling in the joints and the folds of her clothes. She wants, in errant thought, to pick them out with her claws, to dislodge their long strings and meaty tendrils from all the cracks of her body, all the places they've wedged themselves. It would give pleasure, in an animal way, but a pleasure that she's expected to deny herself. No issue. This is still all thought, anyways.

"Is it... important? To know?" She speaks while still staring down at herself, like this is the first time she's seen herself at all. Like she can't believe what she's looking at, scales and arms and legs and a tail, like she doesn't understand what a ground is or why she's standing on it. More blood is crawling down her body, puddling beneath her on the floor, dribbling down in loose droplets shaken free by every movement. It feels weird. Sensations keep getting tangled up in each other, and her skin twitches, here and there, knowing that it's liquid and jellied mass that's drooling down between her scales and clinging her dress to her skin, but unable to understand it, unable to connect the sensation to what she's seeing in any way that makes sense. It itches, she feels. She doesn't know what else she feels.

There's saliva, webbed all around her mouth, getting all over her throat in sticky strands that tie her head together like a poorly made stuffed animal. It mingles with the blood, producing a pinkish froth, collecting and drying at the edges of her lips, forming a scabby crust that seems to bother her, in the way that she doesn't even realize. More drips down from her salt organs in front of her eyes, tracks down to her mouth and joins the fray, and everything has been dipped in crimson. Everything seems to bother her, and nothing does. Things occur on Miranda's body, and she's the last one to notice them, as if blissfully unaware of what even the red stuff meant, really.

[cyborg-franky]

Phoenix

My first fic for my OC x canon One Piece Bingo Card!

Marco x OC

Prompt: Phoenix

SFW

Word Count: 633

Header Art: @/rosiinante

“Marco? Marco the phoenix?” he laughed as he stared up at the blond.

“I think he hit more than his leg.” Ace said with a brow raised as he peered down on the grey-haired stranger currently sprawled out on the deck, surrounded by grey feathers.

“Yes, it appears that way yoi.” Marco blinked lazy eyes at the other zoan before he knelt, picking Ray up bridal style, Ace in tow to open the door to his office.

Ray was dumbstruck, he wasn’t a pirate, he was literally someone who’d ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The storm had caught the pigeon zoan and whisked him across the ocean, slamming him against the mast of the Moby Dick. He’d woken up with the Fire Fist Ace and Marco The Phoenix gawking at him like he was roadkill.

He’d heard stories about how strong the pair of them were, he also knew the Whitebeards were a reasonable bunch, as far as pirates go. He just was embarrassed to meet a tori tori no mi who was so strong and powerful when he was simply just a little scabby scavenger bird. He wrapped his arms around Marco’s neck when he was told to.

Little grey feathers sprouted along his arms, giving his frazzled nerves away, he saw a smile tug at Marco’s lips when he noticed. “That’s cute, don’t worry though, you are in safe hands”

Ray couldn’t help sprouting a few more across his arms, something he still didn’t have great control over. He wasn’t in tune with his devil fruit yet. He’d heard of Marco, who hadn’t? Ray had always been envious of his gift, that he’d hit the jackpot when it came to their zoan type.

He’d never expected to meet him though.

“Alright, thank you Ace, yoi.” Marco glanced over his shoulder and gave Ace a nod.

“Call if you need me!”

“I- I can’t believe I’m actually meeting you.” Ray mumbled as Marco gently set him down on the bed in his office, he went about the room, grabbing various supplies and watching the pigeon wince as he adjusted.

“A fan?”

“I wouldn’t say a fan, more like…. An envious admirer?” Ray hummed as he watched Marco come back with his arms full. He knelt at Ray’s feet, his hands turning into blue flames.

Marco chuckled when Ray flinched at pleasantly cooling hands running over his leg, the pain slowly ebbed away and he sighed, melting into the wonderful touches, closing his eyes and focusing on the relief.

--

Ray almost knocked over his cup of coffee when he felt arms wrap around his neck, feeling lips kissing behind his ear. He sighed and leaned back into his partners embrace, dropping his pen, abandoning the work set in front of him so he could stroke along Marco’s arms.

“You seemed like you were in deep, deep thought there, Chick.” Marco hummed against his skin.

“I was,”

He felt Marco’s nose nuzzle into his hair, a silent prompting to carry on. Ray sighed and turned to kiss Marco’s stubbled chin. He still couldn’t believe someone like Marco had settled for someone like him. He would always have his insecurities when it came to feeling like Marco’s lesser.

“Just thinking how lucky someone like you… likes me, I’m just a pigeon and your well, you.” He chuckled awkwardly.

“Baby bird, I love you, your perfect to me yoi.” Marco pulled away before turning Ray’s chair around, crouching down, his hands on his partner’s knees, half-lidded eyes gazed up with admiration and love. “Don’t worry though, I’ll keep telling you that until you see how wonderful you are.”

Ray nodded his head, hands reaching for Marco’s, intertwining their fingers together, enjoying this moment, his heart fluttering.  “I love you too.”

[dustbinflower0]

*Can anyone PLEASE help me out with my skin issues??*

So I lost a fair amount of weight and have been extremely dehydrated. The more obvious gross lanugo is the least of my problems. My skin was pretty much fine before and now it's a nightmare.

So it's very dry but at the same time oily and breaking out! I don't know how to keep on top of both problems!

For example, I had a breakout by my chin. Picked at it (oops) and it turned into this big dry patch. Weeks later it hasn't healed despite moisturizing with products made to balance ph and not clog pores. It's now kind of scabby but when I squeezed it a lot of stuff came out! My pores are a disaster but with peeling patches.

Has anyone experienced this with increased malnutrition and dehydration? I know drinking water would probably be the main thing to help but I'm struggling. Also in a very dry hospital unit now.

Acne products will dry the fuck out of my skin but moisturizing seems to be a problem too.

Any tips??

Sorry for the rant. Just so self-conscious!

[stevesharrlngtons]

“A person’s weight as they lie on top of you” & the Kid? :)

have to say that i was more inspired to write this bc of @skarsgard-daydreams ‘ the kid drabbles (: 

He suffered from frequent panic attacks. 

Ones that could debilitate him for days. Ones where his eyes would lose all ability and all he could hear was blood rushing in his ears. Ones where he would claw at his skin until it crumbled and peeled under his nails and left bloody scabby scars in their wake. One’s where his body would collapse because of the lack of air to his brain due to his ragged breaths. 

Since he had begun to stay with you, you had been able to help his severe symptoms. You mostly just gave him space and glasses of water until he calmed down, you’d found out touch could be dangerous for The Kid if he wasn’t the first to initiate, so you mostly gave soothing affirmations from afar while he simmered. Thankfully, your hovering presence was usually enough for him to remember to not mutilate himself when his anxiety took over his motor functions and left him impotent of any feeling except fear. You were grateful you were able to help even in the slightest, and especially if it stopped the faint pink scars from appearing on his arms and legs. 

Now that he was out of Shawshank and living in your home, his go to coping mechanism for panic attacks is your closet. When the familiar rush of sour adrenaline would begin to pump through him, when flashes of his captivity and evil would plague him without any hope of blinking them away, he would flee to the safety of your closet. Back to the far wall and hidden amongst your clothes. There he could begin to feel safe again, he could focus on slowing his breaths, his heart rate and mind. He could deeply inhale your scent and ground himself away from his nightmare and back to reality.

The first time this new method came to your attention was one afternoon when you returned home from work. You had been searching the house for him when you hadn’t spotted him in his usual spot on the couch, perched and waiting restlessly for you to return. You tore your small home apart looking for the oversized man, looking in cabinets and behind your washer-dryer in a desperate hunt. When it was time for you to search your bedroom, his faint whimpers and shufflings singled his hiding place from behind the closed door. You had opened the closet gingerly and let out a relieved sigh when you saw him. Though, your relief was short lived after you spotted his tear slick cheeks and the pathetic ball he had curled himself into. 

“Oh, Henry,” you had uttered, sitting against the frame of the door, not wanting to crowd him in anyway.

“I saw it all. I saw it all again,” he weeped, shifting closer to the wall he was crowded against. 

Your brows meshed in worry, “Is there anything I can do for you?” 

The Kid didn’t respond, just continued to stare at you with his multicolored irises through a pair of your dress pants and a long skirt. 

“Do you want me to shut the door?” you asked, hoping that options would be easier for him to comprehend and answer.

He gave a feeble nod and wound his hands deeper into the sleeves of his sweater. 

“Ok,” you nodded and gave him a soft smile, “I’m going to be in the kitchen if you need anything, alright? Come down whenever you’re ready.” 

You started to rise from the floor, but Henry stopped you. His eyes bugged with fear as his hand briskly moved from its folded place on his chest to grab your ankle. His clammy palm pressed itself firmly against your shine and his boney fingers impressed themselves into your skin, in a desperate plea for you to stay. 

“Stay.” 

The surprise on your face melted quickly into acceptance as you did as he said and scooted across the threshold into the closet, before shutting the door firmly behind you.  

This became the new ritual when a panic attack would arise. 

In an ideal situation, you would recognize the signs that he was about to slip before it happened. You’d see the way he tucked his chin to his chest, the way he began to pick at the woven threads of his pants, how his breathing would shallow and how he would begin to furral up and rock in place. If you caught on early, you were able to approach him gently and take him by the hand and lead him to your bedroom. He went without comment or hesitation, his fingers limp in your hold as you brought him into the closet to feel safe again. The light always off and, you always at his feet while he curled up into a ball and listened to the even cadence of your  breaths.

If you were busy, things got a little trickier. Thankfully, Henry had become very accustomed to your being near when he was spiraling (and with the help of his lack of social awareness) he would just approach you and stick out his hand weakly, eyes averted and shoulders raised around his ears. You could tell by the amount of movement in his fingers how severe the attack had become. If they were flacid and drooping, his fear had just begun; if they were twitching, it was beginning to mount; and if they were jerking and mimming like spiders legs, you knew he was deep in the throes of his frenzied anxiety. 

It didn’t matter if you were cooking, or in the shower or on a work call, whatever you had been doing was dropped and forgotten when he stuck out his hand for you. He was your number one priority in that moment (and in most). 

It was during a panic attack shortly after the new routine had been created, that you both sat in your dark closet, and Henry spoke, his voice skittish and frail. 

“Pressure. I want pressure.” 

“What do you mean?” you asked, trying to make your eyes adjust to the darkness so you could make out his face.

“I, I would like weight on top of me. To feel better.” he murmured. 

You could tell that he had brought the back of his hand to his mouth for comfort. He liked to rub his lips with the threadbear feeling of his flannel shirt cuffs to calm himself. 

“Do you want me to go get your weighted blanket?” you had bought him one a few weeks after he moved in, and he seemed to really enjoy it. 

“No.” he said softly.

“Then what, honey?” 

There was a long pause before you heard The Kid begin to shuffle on the carpeted floor. 

“Just…” he said, before you felt his chilled fingers grasp your own and maneuver you closer to where he lay. You let him move you the way he wanted, trying to be as pliable and relaxed in your movements as possible.  

“Here,” he said with finality. 

He had used your hand to drag you across the floor until your arm, shoulder and head were splayed across his chest. You knew this wasn’t exactly what he was after, but he wasn’t comfortable manhandling you (and by the little huffs of discontent he was releasing). So, you took it upon yourself to slowly throw your leg over his hips to straddle him, there you settled your body over him comfortably. 

“Like this?” you asked and you could already hear his purrs. 

“Yes, just like this.” 

His nose burrowed into the crook of your neck and his hands found your back, and he discarded clawing at his own sleeves to wind his fingers in your t-shirt. He pressed closer to the wall once more, pressing you both in your new cluster into his safe space. 

You knew that this was meant to help him, but you couldn’t help but get pleasure out of the ordeal. The feeling of his hands on you, the feeling of his solid chest below you, his obscene warmth eliminating from his body and greedily sucked up by yours. You could have stayed laying on top of him forever. 

“I want to just stay like this.” Henry had said, lips pressed to your throat. 

“Then we can,” you had gently scratched patterns against his scalp, “as long as you want.” 

“Ok,” he replied, and made no move to release you.

[emmaoftheendlessstreet]

🖋Let’s Make Characters Out of Each Other! 📠

I’ll go first :) please follow suit and engage in this writing activity with me!

Sight: squinty-eyed/crooked smile, flannel, denim, leather, messy hair, thumbs-up when dumbstruck, sitting cross-legged in chairs, animated hand gestures, short and stubby, the color red, leaning on walls/furniture, lying face down on the floor, clothes that fit, boots, round face, green eyes

Smell: smoke, burning wood, scented candles, steel strings, ink and paper,

Sound: ringing of a hammer, cackling, off-key belting, fingerstyle guitar, talking to oneself, surfer-lingo, going off on tangents, grumbling in frustration, gradually talking louder

Taste: citrus, iron/quarters, cinnamon, chile lime, mango, whole milk, cardamom

Touch: pats on the back, firm handshakes, rough, greasy, scabby skin, cotton, always touching nose and chin, warm hands and neck, 

Other: forgetting phone at home, delight at learning a word in a foreign language, the compulsion to draw, feeling like people hate you, sharing food

Make an OC, use this as a writing prompt, draw a picture, whatever you want to do just have fun with it!

[lurkerwithcomputer]

WIP Thursday

Nah, that doesn't roll of the tongue the same, does it? A day late I may be, but here's a WIP that's slowly progressing. Some teenage Kouta/Eri, with LoV !Eri.

The rain pours down, turning the dark night blurry as water runs down the window. He can kinda appreciate how the city looks, beyond his window, like one of those moody urban paintings Aunt Shino is probably tired of him putting up in his room. She's one to talk, with the traditional-style paintings of mountains and forests on every surface.

There's a knock on his window and the creak of the outside air duct. He looks over to see a very familiar face looking back. White hair glistens from the inside of her dripping hood. Her jacket might be water-resistant, but it's not a raincoat. It's not meant for what's coming down, but at least it isn't cold outside.

He hops to his feet and yanks the window open.

Fuck, I'm glad Aunt Shino's not home tonight.

"Eri? Holy shit, come in, you're soaked! Just hold on..."

He reaches out with his Quirk, to grasp the water that's dripping off her before it can get all over his floor. Controlling water is trickier than just spraying water with his Quirk, especially when he has to pull it out of fabric, but it doesn't take him that long to have a blob of water suspended between his hands. It floats in the air, jiggling like a dirty gray amoeba of rainwater and gunk. He shoves it out the window, in the same motion as he slams it shut. Free of his control, the water blob drops out of sight.

"Motherfucker!"

Eri looks up, smirking, from wiping her feet with a rag - he keeps them in his room and says it's for wiping junk food off his fingers, which isn't a lie. Technically.

The muffled, snarling yell from below, in the alley under his window, is vaguely familiar. Kouta's heard that voice somewhere before, but his recognition runs dry tonight. Eri's slightly cracked giggling tilts him over, from trying to place the voice to laughing until he can't breathe. Although, he does feel a little bad for whoever just got soaked.

"Oh shit, Dabi's gonna bitch about that for days!" she wheezes.

His laughter stops cold, along with his blood in his veins. Eri seems unconcerned by this piece of information, still giggling.

"Dabi? That Dabi? Did I just fuck up real bad?"

"Relax, Kouta, he's not gonna do anything except be saltier than usual."

He's not entirely reassured, but he'll take Eri's word for it. She shrugs out of her Quirk-dried jacket and Kouta feels a whole new wave of concern wash over him. Her forearms are viciously scabby, scratched to hell like she's shoved her arms into a blender made of fingernails. Her own fingernails, to be precise. Her permanent eyebags have gone deep enough to hide a body or two in them. He knows what she looks like when she's stressed out.

Yeah, she needs this. Those meat-grinder arms don't lie.

"What do you wanna do?"

"Watch something mindless, eat junk food... and sit really close to you. It's that kinda night and that kinda week."

After getting hot pockets, a big bowl of chips, some peach soda, and plugging his laptop into his big screen, this is honestly shaping up to be pretty relaxing. They sit on his bed with a heap of pillows behind them. The crumbs they're gonna get on his blankets are Future Kouta's problem. He leans back against her, because even though he's filled out and grown some muscle, she's grown taller instead. She wraps her arms around his ribs and rests her chin on his shoulder. He swears that a darkly metallic tang rises off her ragged forearms.

His brain chooses that moment to change his attention from the re-runs of an old knife-making show to being very aware of Eri. The way he can feel her body heat through her worn-thin T-shirt. The way she's soft against his back, despite how lean she looks. He's a teenager and he likes her. Yes, that kind of likes her. Sue him.

She brings one hand up to play with his hair.

And her hands are nice. Even if most people's definition of "nice hands" doesn't include scars and callouses, mine does.

Her hand in his hair brings her forearm right up next to his face. Where he can see her scars in too-close detail, old ghost-pale needle marks and methodical, even cut lines. Where he can feel the roughness of her raw, fresh scabbing, and the metallic scent of her self-injuries seeps into his nose. This close he can see something else, beneath more layers of old scars than someone their age should have. Etched on her skin like a fingerprint are pearly, geometric swirls, like Damascus steel, like a pattern-weld.

He shakes off the rather disturbing concept of pattern-welded skin as her other hand joins the first in his hair.

As her touch on his scalp grows firmer he melts into her, and she in turn melts into the pile of pillows, until both of them are far enough back to be staring at the ceiling instead of the screen. He's too deep in the sensations of being close to her to register the sound of the show as anything more than background noise. Her breathing, soft and steady, and slowing as she relaxes too. Her warmth, soaking into him through worn-out fabric. The rub and scratch of her fingers on his scalp, soothing him, melting him further. Her scent, vanilla and lime shampoo, and the dried blood from her arms.

He wonders, distantly, if not being bothered by that particular scent says something about him.

There's an impulse that's been building up while her arm has been right next to his face, next to his lips. It's grown like drops feed into trickles, give rise to rivers, come spilling forth as waterfalls.

He presses a kiss to her pale, scarred and scabby skin, on the underside of her arm. It gives him warm tingles, even as it stains his lips with the taste of stale, sour salt and iron. Above and over his shoulder, there's an inquisitive hum, and her quiet, low, raspy voice. An odd voice for a teenage girl, but it's easy on his ears, like the sound of surf on sand.

"Hmmm. Hey, do that again," she says, soft but eager in a way that's hard to place.

He does, again and again, and the slow-drip buildup of salted rust in his mouth is surprisingly heady, when mixed with the slow scratch of her fingers on his scalp. It's only when he loses track of how many kisses he's left, that he realizes he's tracing the lines of her scars and scabs, rubbery and rough on his lips. Eri's breath ghosts over his neck as she hums again, deeper, from her chest.

Dry, chapped skin presses against the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. He can feel her lips curl up into a smile.

There's a sudden warm pinch.

He flinches and shivers, but not in a bad way - his face heats up and his pulse quickens.

"Um. Did you just bite me?"

"Was it bad?"

"It wasn't bad. Just... a surprise. But I think I like it," Kouta replies, and if his face didn't feel too warm before, it does now.

Eri gives that raspy giggle he's grown to like so much, the one that flows over his ears like the swish of waves. Her lips brush the back of his shoulder again, and one hand leaves his hair to pull the neck of his t-shirt aside. He can't help but lean into the sensations - the texture of her scarred, calloused fingers, the scrape of her teeth, her chapped lips, the warmth of her mouth on him.

He works his way up her arm, trailing kisses, until he has to shift position. It pulls Eri's mouth away from the back of his neck, where he's sure there will be plenty of incriminating hickeys, and a few bite marks, later.

He rolls over to face her, eye to eye. She wordlessly leans back into the side of his neck, chapped lips meeting skin, fingers tangling in his hair again. He follows suit, and her neck goes from cool and damp with residual rainwater, to warm and damp with a hint of her sweat, and probably his saliva, given the hickeys he's leaving.

"Mmmmm... this is much better than stewing," she mumbles from just below his ear.

That takes him out of things just a little, but... but it's probably good that she seems ready to spill whatever's stressing her out.

He sucks one last mark, in the middle of her throat, right above her collarbones, and then rolls off her. He looks her in the eye, briefly, and something flows between them, even if neither knows what.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"I... well. Yeah. It's really Not Okay. I'm Not Okay over it."

Eri sucks in a breath.

"Kouta, they," she swallows audibly and her eyes turn wet, "The HPSC is trying to pressure the government to turn off power and water in neighborhoods that refuse their authority."

His blood flows like ice water in his veins, even as aimless fury boils in his chest. No, not aimless - but where is he gonna point it when society itself is what he's angry at?

Too big of a target. Like I'm trying to defeat an elephant with a sharpened popsicle stick.

He knew something was up - Aunt Shino has been making some dark expressions when she thinks she's alone, and when she got drunk last week she ranted a lot about the HPSC being "disgraceful bastards" without actually saying much about what's going on.

Now that he knows what the problem is, Kouta's pretty sure his choice of words is closer to "Extremely Fucked Up".

His more immediate problem is that he's got no idea what the fuck to say to Eri right now. Comfort has never been his strong suit, for all his experience with being scared and hurt, angry and alone. What he does understand is feeling the need to immediately do something about it.

Eri answers this question for him.

"That's not the really fucked up part," she says, and even though her voice is quiet he can hear her seethe, "it's that they've already started doing it."

"I don't know what to say to that," he says, because he might as well be honest, "That it's horrible, they shouldn't be doing this, I hope it makes human rights people step up their game, that it makes me despise society even more..."

A thought that's been bubbling up slowly, the more he's gotten to know her, washes over him now.

"I guess I get where villains are coming from. The ones who look at society and want to burn it all down, I mean," he says.

Eri stares at him, her eyebags made more prominent by how her blood-red eyes widen.

[carryonsimoncarryonbaz]

SKIN DEEP—a fic

So Rainbow had a pretty funny exchange on Twitter yesterday about the Watford crew and teenage acne, and in particular if Baz would have acne. Which she said he most certainly would. So, being me, I had to go write a fic about it. Because I have no chill and even less self control. So here is a slightly crack-y fic, set at pre-canon era Watford, as hormones start to surge and Simon becomes pimple obsessed.

Screen shots of Rainbow’s tweets at the end of this post, to prove this lunacy had a real life prompt.

Simon and Baz fourth year, as the ravages of adolescence commence. Pimples, blemishes and spots. Questionable concoctions. The roots of Baz’s immaculate skin care regimen. Some things even a vampire can’t avoid.

Skin Deep

Year Four

Simon

I’m just about to splash water on my face when I notice them in the mirror. I mean, I’ve been expecting this to happen. I saw the older boys go all spotty at the homes. There’s no way I’d be lucky enough to be spared.

But fuck it all. I’ve got one on the side of my nose, two on my chin and one right between my eyebrows. How did I get all these pimples in one night?

I’m half tempted to think Baz spelled me. But that’s not his style, he doesn’t sneak about doing something like this, even though he’s a prick and a plotter. No, he did things like this when we were first years, but now when Baz spells me he wants everyone to know what he’s done.

Makes a production of it, the wanker.

Like when he knocks my boater off. Spells my shoes untied during class, so I trip when I stand up. Or seals the lid on the butter dish at breakfast.

If Baz was going to spell me spotty he’d do it in on a Monday, right before class, when everyone would notice. Not in our room, on a Saturday morning, when we’ve got nothing to do and nowhere to go.

He’s still asleep so if he did do it, it must have been in the night and really what would be the bloody point of that?

I have to reluctantly admit it’s probably not him this time. It’s me. I was just hoping this particular stage of puberty would just pass me by.

The other milestones have been coming one right after another though, so I guess I’m not that lucky.

I’ve got hair in more places now.

And I grew three inches this summer (Baz grew four, the tosser, so he’s still taller than me).

He’s taller but it’s like he fits in his body. Glides when he walks. Smooth as silk on the pitch. Bloody infuriating, is what it is.

I feel like a marionette on a string, my arms and legs all out of sync, knocking into furniture and tripping over my own feet, even when my shoes are tied.

And my voice has been doing that stupid thing where it gets all deep mid-sentence, and then it goes up so high I sound like Madame Bellamy. It’s bloody awful. Baz always gives me shit about it --“going to break into song for us, Snow?”

He’s such a prick.

I lean in closer to the mirror. The ones on my chin are small. It’s the nose one that’s a disaster.

No help for it. I’ll ask Penny if there’s a spell at breakfast. Though I doubt there is, seeing as Agatha’s been spotty for weeks and I know she’d use a spell, if there was one. Penny says Agatha spells her hair to be that straight and shine like it does. I wasn’t sure I believed her but some days it’s got a bit of an uneven wave to it so I wonder if Penny may be right.

*******

“No, Simon, there isn’t a spell.” Penny is using her patient voice with me, which means she thinks my question is unbearably stupid. She leans across the table to peer at me over her glasses. “You’ve hardly got any.”

“I might only have four now. But just you wait. They’re bound to get worse. With my luck I’ll be covered in them.”

“You don’t know that. And even if they do get worse it’s human nature! The universal teen experience!”

I groan.

“It won’t be that bad, Simon. Besides everyone’s spotty.”

“Baz isn’t spotty.”

She rolls her eyes. “Not Baz again, please.”

“Have you seen him, Penny?”

“I see him every day, Simon.”

“Yes, but have you really looked?”

“Obviously not as intently as you.”

“I live with him!”

I get another eye roll.

“He’s not got one spot! I tell you, it’s proof he’s a vampire. You can’t go through normal adolescence and be as pristine as all that.”

“Everyone goes through puberty at different times. He’s probably not at that stage yet.”

“He’s taller than me!”

“He’s always been taller than you.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“It’s not like he has any control over that, Simon. It’s genetics.”

I know that. I know height isn’t something that you can magick. But it just doesn’t seem fair that each time I grow enough to catch up to him, he grows too.

He did it last summer. Did it again this summer. Even grew over the Christmas holiday this year, the jammy bastard.

And now I’m sprouting pimples right and left and he’s across the dining hall with his flawless, pearly grey skin. Not a spot to be seen.

Typical.

****

I can tell I’ve got more when I wake up. Bloody hell. The old ones dry up and get crusty and new ones take their place.

My face feels heavier this morning. I grimace and I know there’s one on the side of my nose again. It pinches when my cheeks move so it must be massive. And the one on my chin itches— it’s probably grown overnight, red and welted around that nasty white center. I can’t even imagine what my forehead looks like.

I’ve tried everything.

Washing my face twice a day.

Alcohol to try to dry them out (didn’t do a thing, except make my skin all flaky so I looked like I had dandruff and the pox).

I borrowed some ointment off of Gareth. (He’s worse off than me, the poor sod, just a face full of them.) (Which should have tipped me off that whatever he was using wasn’t working.) (Got an earful from Penny about that.)

I had some sort of allergic reaction when I used his, so my face was itching, red even in the areas between the spots, and felt like it was on fucking fire.

Practically scrubbed my face off trying to wash it away.

Of course, Baz walked in right as I came out of the en suite. Did a double take at the sight of me, the wanker, then raised that eyebrow of his and curled his lip up in a sneer. Leaned forward and studied me for a moment. My face got even hotter. I don’t like it when he stares at me like that, all intense and focused. Like he’s plotting the best way to end me without triggering the Anathema. Makes my stomach twist, it does.

Made me wish my wand wasn’t half way across the room.

But I know Baz won’t risk the Anathema. He’s never done anything remotely threatening in our room. (It’s another story out of our room.)

He’d crossed his arms over his chest after he was done inspecting me and smirked, the tosser. “You know, Snow, between the excessive quantity of moles, infinite number of freckles, and extraordinary collection of pimples you have on your face, I don’t think I can actually see anything resembling skin anymore.”

He’s going to make me trigger the Anathema one of these days.

I ended up having to see the nurse for it, when I couldn’t stop scratching at my face. She rolls her eyes almost as much as Penny. It’s not like I can help being there so often. I’ve got missions. Important work for the Mage. It’s what I do.

She’d shaken her head at me and cast some spell that made the itching go away but didn’t do a thing for the bloody spots. Looked bored and put upon even doing that, she did.

This teen experience is a bloody nuisance.

I’m more and more convinced Baz is a vampire. The entire class looks poxed except for him. Like we’re in the middle of a plague while he’s all alabaster skin, unblemished and smooth, immaculate and bloody flawless.

Perfect, just like he always is.

Wanker.

Baz

Snow is an absolute spotted mess. It was entertaining at first, to watch him peer at himself in the mirror, hear the muttered curses as he would catch sight of each new blemish.

But I’m actually finding myself almost feeling sorry for him now.

Almost.

He’s standing at his mirror, turning his face this way and that, grumbling to himself as he inspects his reflection.

It’s something he does on a daily basis since his skin condition deteriorated so precipitously. I should probably stop needling him about it.

But I won’t because he actually seems quite bothered by it. Can’t let him think I’m going soft.

I wasn’t joking the other night, when I mocked him. I don’t think he has a span of skin left that doesn’t have some manner of spot or blotch or freckle on it. At least he’s stopped with the alcohol washes. He was shedding more than a snake when he was doing that, leaving errant flakes of skin all over the bathroom sink.

Disgusting.

Whatever he’s doing certainly isn’t making anything better. Making it a far sight worse by my estimation.

He’s literally a textbook illustration of acne vulgaris. The full range: from red and bumpy spots, to glaring pustules, to crusted over, scabby craters.

More like a walking dermatologic visual in actuality. You could slap a label on him: progressive stages of teenage acne and the entire range of pigmented facial anomalies.

Although they weren’t really anomalies before the acne got to Snow. His moles and freckles just seem to fit with his tawny skin—vast arrays of constellations scattered across his face, mapping out patterns against the smoothness of his complexion.

I don’t know what I’m thinking. What absolute nonsense. Snow’s freckles are a travesty.

And he’s anything but smooth complexioned. He’s more of a lunar landscape than Shakespeare’s damask’d roses.

I can’t be arsed to mess with him now though. I’m too comfortable under my blankets.

It’s far too early for anyone to be up, but Snow’s probably readying himself to head off on one of the Mage’s blasted missions again. Despite the fact that it’s a Sunday morning and by all accounts he should be doing what the rest of us are—having a lazy lie-in.

I watch him from under half-lidded eyes, the blankets pulled up to cover the bottom half of my face. He growls one last time, savages his curls in an attempt to tame them, and then charges out the door. It slams shut behind him, further proof that Snow has no regard for the niceties of sharing a room.

Thanks to all his thumping about, I’m now wide awake. I try to go back to sleep, try to will myself into a drowsy oblivion, but that ship has sailed. No Sunday lie-in for me and I lay the blame directly on Snow.

I stay under the covers for a bit longer, dreading the chilly walk to the en suite, but eventually my need to piss outweighs the comfort of the bed.

It’s not until I’m washing my hands and happen to glance up at the mirror that I notice.

There’s a pimple on my nose. Not just on my nose—at the very tip of it. Right in the fucking center of my face. If it were anywhere else—my forehead or my cheeks, for example—I’d have some chance of hiding it. But this. I can’t hide this.

And I can’t hide the one on my chin either. Bloody hell.

I shouldn’t even have pimples. I should by all rights be immune to this. I don’t get sick, I’m not prey to infections—how the bloody hell have I ended up with acne, for Crowley’s sake? It should be one of the perks of being undead—imperviousness to the ravages of teenage skin eruptions.

For half a minute I wonder if Snow has spelled me, in retribution for my insensitive commentary on his facial imperfections. But there is no possible way Snow could have managed a spell this precise, this nuanced. I’d be covered in boils, like Job himself, if Snow had attempted to pox me.

That’s not to say that this is acceptable. It most assuredly is not. And there’s no bloody spell for it. Dev’s been spotty since last year and he and Niall have yet to find anything that does more than slightly diminish the redness.

It’s fine. This is fine.

It’s not fine.

I need to call home and talk to Daphne. Surely she’ll have some advice for me.

Simon

The sunlight filtering through the window wakes me up. I’m still knackered from yesterday. Didn’t get back until well after midnight and I’ve got class in just a bit. I stretch and groan as my shoulder pops. I wrenched it trying to free my sword from that basilisk’s skull last night. I roll my neck and pull myself to a seated position.

Baz is already up. The door to the en suite’s closed but I don’t hear the water running.

My stomach growls. I’ll have time for seconds if I get to breakfast early enough. I’m just about ready to head down there when Baz comes out of the bathroom, steam drifting behind him and bringing the scent of his shampoo with it. It’s some posh brand, in sleek, artistically shaped bottles.

Penny says it smells like cedar and bergamot. I’m not sure what cedar and bergamot smell like. All I know is that the scent is unfairly pleasant.

Unlike Baz, who isn’t pleasant at all.

He looks murderous at the moment, eyebrows lowered, eyes narrowed. He’s an arse in general but more so in the mornings. He’d sleep late if he had the chance—he’s rarely out of bed before nine on weekends, the tosser, not unless he’s got exams to study for or an away match.

I’m trying to stay out of his way as I leave but I make for the door right as he crosses the room to his wardrobe and we do this awkward half step to avoid each other.

And that’s when I see it.

He’s got a pimple on his nose. Right at the tip of it, where it comes to a bit of a point. It’s nothing compared to any of mine. I’d hardly notice it on anyone else but this is Baz.

It’s stark against his pale skin, raised and just slightly reddened.

Fuck. He’s got one on his chin as well. Two, actually.

Baz has spots.

Trivial and hardly noticeable ones, but still.

I open my mouth to say something then think better of it and hightail it down to breakfast.

I still can’t quite believe it.

Baz has spots.

Penny is disappointingly unimpressed by this unexpected and highly irregular development.

“Simon, we all have spots. This is not some earth-shattering revelation. It’s puberty. A normal part of human development. We’ve been over this.”

“No, but this is Baz. Baz, Penny. He’s not human.”

Penny rolls her eyes again. She rolls her eyes rather a lot, I’m thinking. “He is if he has spots, Simon. I’d say this disproves your vampire hypothesis for good.”

“Maybe vampires aren’t immune to acne.”

“Simon.”

“Maybe it’s some plot. He probably magicked them up himself, the scheming prick.”

“You’re relentless! First you’re outraged that he doesn’t have spots, now you’re complaining that he does! For Merlin’s sake, Baz has finally shown himself to be as imperfect as the rest of us, so let it go, Simon.”

“He’s not imperfect. Far from it. Even his pimples are impeccable—small, unobtrusive, uh . . . restrained.”

Penny stands up, takes her plate and glares at me over the top of her glasses. “That’s enough, Simon. You’re being absurd. No one has perfect pimples.” She stomps across the hall to deposit her dishes, turning back to give me a disapproving look.

I scowl at her. Baz walks in as Penny goes out.

She’s wrong this time. Penny’s not wrong about much, but she’s wrong about this.

Baz’s pimples are fucking perfect.

It’s so fucking unfair.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23383057

[blackroseraven]

So we went by super early again.

I got Quattro, checked his lump, and was really pleased to see it’s not really even a lump anymore, it’s just like, scabby gross. I cleaned it really good and he barely flinched at all and didn’t need any extra holding, so that was super super good. I was even able to trim more of the matted hair off with the scissors and wipe some of the blood up.

But of course since he has white fur and black skin any hint of blood shows up extremely clearly so I kind of ended up making it look like his whole chin was covered.

I ended up taking him up in just a halter. And at first I was like “we’ll just walk” but he was super energetic and just wanted to go go go and eventually I gave in and we cantered. It was really, really good. It felt great.

Then the knot tore loose from the halter and the loose rope hit him in the eyeball and was slapping against his face and he got mad and freaked out and started bucking furiously, and I ended up getting thrown over his head.

I did a perfect flip and landed on my feet. No one there to see. No camera going. I am so angry.

It was beautiful. It was freaking amazing. I was delighted. And I was completely goddamn alone and goddammit.

So yes.

I got on him again and did a bit of light riding to finish, then took him down and just. Groomed him for a while, spent some time with him before putting him back outside.

I got Nameless after that. She was a lot better today: I found that just leaving her in one crosstie was a lot better than trying to put her in both. I spent a long time with her and she eventually relaxed in the grooming and was really happy when I gave her some hay and molasses to eat.

I’m still trying to figure out the brand on her shoulder. So are the barn owners. Teacherlady wants to get permission to shave the hair around the brand because she thinks there’s more numbers/letters hidden in there, and I agree. It would make a lot of sense; then we could figure out where she came from and the numbers might tell us more about her; I was wondering if 74-1 meant she was the 74th horse sired that year - which would mean a larger breeding facility, but that would make sense because it’s usually larger facilities that use these types of brands - and 1 would be the year sired, so 2001. But as she’s likely 10 years old, there’s probably another number hidden under the white patch, which would make a lot of sense as it would turn her from 20 to ~10 years old.

So yeah.

It’s really interesting. I did at least manage to get the stupid sticker out of her tail, finally, and just... spent a lot of time with her. I definitely am curious to learn more about her, and I hope we can figure things out.

I’m just really relieved that all the horses are doing well.

[ineffablegame]

GO prompt idea? Spending time with the Them after the apocalypse, Aziraphale gets a nagging thought that he can never have children. Crowley is there to comfort.

I’m sorry, but this ended up being quite different from your prompt!  I hope you don’t mind (if it’s any consolation, I’m doing something in a similar vein in a bigger work!). 

Also published on my Ao3.  

Rain

It’s Gabriel who plants the seed in his mind, oddly enough – odd that one of the beings least enamored of Adam Young could rouse Aziraphale to the boy’s defense.

They are at their customary check-in meeting, the sort that have become distinctly less customary since Armageddon failed to occur.  Crowley warns Aziraphale not to attend constantly, fretting that they will discover the ruse or overcome their fear and destroy him, but Aziraphale is less concerned.  Upstairs scarcely knew him before Armageddon; they cannot possibly know him now.

Besides, skipping meetings has always bothered him.  He might have gone native, as it were, but he still believes in punctuality and doing things the Proper Way.    

“Well, Aziraphale,” Gabriel says, a little too briskly to be casual, “it sounds like everything is going…”  A pause, the phrase as expected delicately skirted. “…as usual.”

“Indeed.”  Aziraphale clasps his hands behind his back and slants a look at the other Archangels. Sandalphon and Uriel stand at a distance, Michael a few daring steps closer.  All three look like startled deer, frozen on the cusp of bolting.  Feeling a little smug and a little sorry for them, he says, “Well, I suppose I should be on my way.”

Gabriel nods with a tight smile and turns on his heel.  As the Archangels stride out, Aziraphale catches a scrap of their muttering, Sandalphon’s reedy whine:  “…if only that Antichrist boy hadn’t…”

“If only someone hadn’t mislaid him,” Michael adds.

“We should have dealt with that brat long ago,” Gabriel says.  He never bothered to learn the trick of quieting himself, has never considered that someone may not want to hear him.  His voice carries.  “Thrown him into the ocean.  Like the Nephilim.”

-

Seated alone on a bench in St. James’s Park, Aziraphale stares into the middle distance.  His mind is far away, his skin insensate to the warm drizzle of rain as it gathers like clotting blood.  His thoughts are a wound, at once raw and knitted, oozing and bandaged.  His gaze may be vacant, but his ethereal senses are immersed in another place: a place of scabby knees and dirt-crusted fingernails, of sunlight skewering through branches and the rapid percussion of cards snapping on tire spokes.  Aziraphale is physically in London, but his thoughts circle Tadfield in silent flight.

There they are, in Hogback Wood – three children, one Antichrist, and one former Hellhound.  The children are all dressed in striped shirts and tattered jeans.  The girl, Aziraphale forgets her name, she has a bandana cinched around her head, wiry wisps of curls escaping every which way. The bespectacled boy wears a carefully-arranged eyepatch.  The grubby boy is sleeved in smeared ink marks on both arms, designs that bring Crowley’s serpent mark to mind.

Standing at the center of their group, a wooden sword clasped in one hand – little more than a short stick tied to a long one, playacting hilt and blade – is Adam Young. He lifts his chin, resolute.

“You’ve mutinied for the last time, first mate Brian,” he says in a tone of unshakable authority.  “Now you gotta walk the plank.”

“But it wasn’t just me!” Brian protests.  “Wensleydale made me do it!”

“Actually,” says Wensleydale, “I’m only the pirate cook.”  His voice is the tonal equivalent of a side-eye.  “I can’t make you do anything.”

“I told you,” Adam cuts in, “you can be first mate next time.  Brian’s first mate now because he picked the longer straw.  ‘Sides, without you, we’d all starve on the high seas.”

“Why’re the seas high?” Brian asks, unperturbed by his death sentence.  “Are the waves taller than normal?”

“Don’t be stupid,” the girl sneers.  “It means they’re full of adventure.”

“Pepper’s right,” Adam says.  “It’s only a figure of speech.”

Aziraphale’s mind floats, unbidden, away from the bickering children.  It floats away from the time and the place, rising and rising through the years, the decades, the centuries, the millennia. It alights in another world, an older one.  A harder one.

He sees them, each face stark and cut-glass precise even in memory.  The children before the flood.  Most were ordinary, of course:  human through and through.  But there had been others.  Children with an uncanny brightness in their eyes, children who were stronger, sharper, and more beautiful than the others.  They grew immense, formidable, and left their human playmates behind to wriggle and rot in the dust.  People whispered that such children were favored by God, but that was only propaganda. Giants, the Hebrews called them.  Nephilim.

Heaven’s mistake, that’s what they were: children born of unions between angels and human women.  Back then, when the world was new, the angels had looked upon God’s favored children with envy.  Envy breeds contempt, and contempt breeds a desire to see a foe laid low.  And what better way to ruin the humans than to defile their women?

Aziraphale had never been involved in the mess with the Nephilim.  Perhaps he had been soft toward humans, even then, or perhaps he had unconsciously seen the writing on the wall and known to keep his distance.  He was but an innocent bystander.

“Not the kids,” Crowley had said, the words tinged with shock, disgust, horror.  “You can’t kill kids.”

God hadn’t liked the Nephilim.  She hadn’t liked a great deal of things about the new world She’d made.  And so, in Her infinite wisdom, She rent the world apart. A handful of humans survived, but not one of them carried a drop of angelic blood in their veins.

Aziraphale had thought himself an innocent bystander.  Now, looking back, he wonders.

Lost in the mire of memory, Aziraphale is startled back to the present by a blow of occult energy.  Reeling, hands unconsciously clutching the seat of the bench, he strains his sight on Hogback Wood.  Adam Young stares back at him, brow furrowed.

Then, abruptly, the Antichrist is sitting beside him on the bench.  The stick in his hand is transformed, a sword gleaming with tongues of hellfire.  The angel startles.  “A-Adam. What a pleasant—”

“Why’re you watching me?” Adam asks, without venom or preamble.

“I…”  Aziraphale trails off, considers making excuses.  Decides against it. I don’t know.”

Adam gives Aziraphale a narrow look, and the angel fights an urge to shrink back.  This boy could crack open his head like an egg, spill out his thoughts in stringy runnels. Aziraphale knows this, and so does Adam.

“I could make you tell me,” the boy says, “if I wanted.”

Aziraphale remembers uncanny eyes, minds as keen as honed blades.  “If you wanted to, yes.”

Adam swings his legs and stares at Aziraphale.  Drizzling rain clings to his curls, runs down his face in rivulets. Droplets hiss and steam off the burning steel of his sword.  “Where’s your friend?”

Aziraphale blinks, thrown.  “I… I don’t know.”

“Seems wrong, you without him,” Adam remarks.

“It is,” Aziraphale admits, and is startled by his own candor.  Adam must be leaning on him, just a little.  “Now, that’s hardly sporting.”

“You were spying on me.”

“Aha.  Point taken.”

“Seems to me that if someone tries to shoot you and then spies on you, you should be allowed.  A little.”

Aziraphale gives a nervous titter.  “W-well, you do forget that we helped you.  Between those two things.”

“Yeah.”  Adam lifts his sword, considering.  Firelight plays hellish and bright across his face, and his gaze is distant.  “Guess you did.”  He lowers the blade and looks at Aziraphale.  “What’s wrong, then?”

“Nothing,” Aziraphale sighs.  “Only I’m very old, and I’ve made many mistakes.”

“Huh.”  Adam shrugs. “I don’t see why grown-ups are so stuck on what they did wrong.  They can always try and do better.”

Aziraphale turns and stares, owlish, at the boy.  He sits, slouched and rain-damp and grubby, all the power in the universe clasped in his fist.

“Your friend’s coming,” Adam says.  “I think he’s worried, so I’ll go.”

“Oh.”  The sound is barely more than a breath.  “Well. Until next time, Adam.”

“Bye.”

When Crowley happens upon Aziraphale – looking for all the world like he’s out on a stroll, belied only by the tense line of his shoulders, the briskness of his steps – he finds the angel alone.  Aziraphale looks up at him and offers a faint smile.  “Crowley.”

“Aziraphale.”  An edge rasps along the syllables of his name.  “You should’ve let me know you were back.”

“I only just arrived.”

“Still.”  Crowley’s mouth slants, purses.  Aziraphale wants to learn the corners of that mouth, the softness and demand.  “You could’ve…”

He really was worried, Aziraphale realizes. All the fretting and discouragement – all to cover his fear.

Aziraphale stands and Crowley trails off, knowing before he’s aware.  The angel has made many mistakes over the millennia – things he’s done and things he’s left undone – and suddenly it seems the simplest thing in all of Creation to do one good thing, and enfold the demon in his arms.  Crowley is angular but pliant, stiff for just an instant before seeming to melt against him, into him.  His mouth tastes of rain.

“Oh,” Crowley says when they part.  His face is flushed up to the tips of his ears.  “Huh.  Missed—missed me, did you?”

“I did,” Aziraphale says, smiling gently.  “For a very long time.”  He takes the demon’s hot, damp hands in his own.  “Let’s go back to the bookshop.”

“Right.  Right.” Crowley coughs.  “Right.”

“I have a Bordeaux that would be quite to your liking.”

“Hnngh.  Right. Yes.”

“Do you mind if we walk?  I’ll cover you if the rain gets worse.”

“I know you will.”

“Of course.  Let’s be off, dear.”

“Lead the way, angel.”

[ao3bronte]

Unseen Scars by @ao3bronte Part 7 | Part 8  Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

This is my eighth prompt for @badthingshappenbingo ! Please reblog and enjoy!

Concussion (8/8)

A few hours later, both Plagg and Adrien wake up with a start as a brown paper sack lands with a crunch beside them. Within the blink of an eye, the kwami tears open the bag and pulls out a wedge of comté, attacking it voraciously. Adrien, on the other hand, can’t seem to drag his eyes away from Ladybug, all silhouette and cinnamon sugar against the haze of light from the streetlamps of Paris.

“Hey Kitty. I brought you some freshly baked bread. I figured after two days of soup, you would be hungry.”

Adrien swallows thickly and reaches for the bag blindly, still staring. She steps closer and her face is suddenly illuminated by the ambient light from his computer screen, highlighting the shape of her chin and the bow of her lips.

“Ladybug…th-thanks.”

She hesitates briefly before sitting at the foot of his bed. She’s as stiff as a board and a blush begins to speckle her cheekbones. Somewhere to her left, Plagg groans.

“You’re welcome,” Ladybug replies after a beat, keeping her voice as steady as possible. She closes her eyes briefly to remind herself why she’s here and opens them again, determined, “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he whispers, ripping off a small piece off the bun she’d brought him, “Much better.”

She smiles, “Good. How’s your head?”

“Um…” Adrien reaches back and gently pats the scabby lump still protruding from the back of his skull, “It still hurts.”

Ladybug settles more comfortably on the mattress, crossing her legs in front of her, “I’m not surprised, considering a building fell on top of you.”

“A building?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No…I’m not remembering a whole lot right now, to be honest.”

Ladybug presses her hand against the bulge in the duvet where his feet rest and squeezes gently, “I’m glad you’re being honest with me.”

“Who else can I be honest with? You’re my partner.”

Ladybug smiles and Adrien feels the gravity of the world start to lighten, “I’m glad. I was worried that…” she gestures between the two of them, “...this would make things kind of weird.”

“Our lives are pretty weird to begin with,” Adrien shrugs, wincing a little at the pain that slices through the base of his skull, “But yeah, no. I mean, I haven’t really had a lot of time to, um…”

She watches as his face scrunches up in concentration and tries to console him, “It’s alright...it’s been a lot to take in.”

“Yeah…” Adrien trails off, pointedly looking in any direction other than hers, “Sorry.”

He hears her sigh a little, “Don’t blame yourself for anything, mon minou. Now, Plagg,” Ladybug scoops the kwami into her palms and scratches his bloated belly, “Has Adrien been behaving himself this evening?”

Plagg’s elated purrs begin to fill the room, “Sort of. He threw up most of his dinner.”

Adrien blushes and shoves another piece of bread into his mouth, praying that it stays down this time, “It didn’t taste as good as yours. Your—your soup, I mean.”

Ladybug tries not to grimace at the graphic detail and glances back down at Plagg, “And you made sure he stayed hydrated?”

Plagg shoves his nose into the air, “Obviously.”

Ladybug shares a look of exasperation with her partner, “Good kitty. Now, go and eat your cheese.” She lowers her hand and lightly rolls him from her palm, smiling as he lays on his back with his cheese, eyes half-lidded in bliss, “Is he always this obsessed with cheese?”

“You have no idea.”

“Well, now I see where you get your cheesy lines from.”

Adrien smiles, “You sure know how to hurt my felines.”

Snorting, she wipes a hand down her face in mock annoyance and tries to keep her own smile at bay, “You’re pawful.”

“M’lady,” he goes to laugh and blanches instead, his hand instinctively clutching his head. Ladybug is beside him in an instant, gloved fingers cupping his elbows and then carding through his hair.

“Are you alright? What is it?”

Adrien pinches his eyes closed and tries to stop the sensation of nausea from crawling up his throat, “I just…need a minute.”

Fighting her own panic coursing through her veins, she continues her ministrations, her thumbs rubbing circles on his temples, “You know, headaches are pretty common after a concussion.”

‘Y-yeah?” he stutters, his teeth chattering from the thundering of the axe splitting his skull. He tries to focus on Ladybug’s fingers as her left hand travels down his cheek and around his jaw, scratching at the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” she replies quietly, “By the way, when was the last time you had a shower?”

Adrien’s eyes shoot open, surprised by the sudden turn in conversation, “Uhhh…I don’t know?”

She laughs through her nose, “I can tell. Come on, smelly cat, let’s get you in the shower.”

“Sh-shower?”

“It will make you feel better, I promise. Now, do you need help getting over there?”

Adrien is struggling to keep up with the conversation, but the pain in his head has lessened and there’s a hand in front of his face, beckoning him to stand. He laces their fingers together and lets her pull him to a sitting position for a moment, pausing briefly to fight the acid building in his stomach. He swallows against it and she supports him as he stands, dizzy but otherwise stable. At last, she lets go and matches his wobbly strides as he crosses the floor, eyes focused on the open door of the bathroom on the other side of the room.

“I’ll be out here,” she says, the blush peppering her cheeks returning with full force, “Be careful and try not to slip. Yell if you need me.”

Adrien nods as she closes the door part way behind him, probably in order to save him more easily if need be.

The water stings his scalp when he dips his head beneath the rain shower and he winces when flakes of old blood begin to pool at his feet. Didn’t he shower after he got hit in the head? He doesn’t even remember when that was…a few days ago? Maybe?

Ladybug had said that a building had fallen on top of him as Chat Noir but his recollection was hazy at best. It feels like he’s trying to see his reflection through a fogged-up glass and the image he knows is there is somehow obstructed by some intangible force he can’t wipe away. Errant thoughts and murky memories filter through his mind like a sieve, ideas and entire sentences falling through the cracks.

He pours shampoo in his hands and begins to lather it through his hair, nearly screaming as he dislodges the scabs on his scalp with his fingertips. He doesn’t remember much of what happens after that, but his bottle of conditioner is wet so he must have used it. And his loofah is on the wrong shelf, so he probably washed his body with it at some point. Was it before he washed his hair? Or after? He picks it up and smells it, grimacing when he realises he’s just scrubbed his skin with conditioner.

Merde! He just can’t win for losing!

Tears brimming at the corners of his eyes, he shuts off the water and figures that he’s had enough stupid for one day. He towels himself off haphazardly as he steps out onto the shower mat and stares up at the all too bright ceiling to keep from letting his tears stream down his cheeks; he can’t let Ladybug see what an idiot he is, even if it means locking up what he’s feeling and throwing away the key.

She’s left him a pair of fresh pyjamas just inside the threshold of the bathroom door and he feels like crying all over again.

Ladybug is waiting for him when he finally leaves the bathroom, hovering just beyond mattress platform of his bed. She gives him a quick once-over, taking stock of his soggy hair and red rimmed eyes as he exits, and she leads him over to his divan.

“My Papa used to play football when he was a teenager,” she explains quietly, folding one leg beneath her before settling on the couch, “He said that he used to hit his head all the time on the field but they didn't know a lot about concussions back then.”

Adrien follows her lead and sits down beside her, “One day when he was at university, he was playing a practice match against his friends when he was tackled from behind and fell, hitting his head against his friend's cleat. He kept playing but he didn't feel very good and when he and his friends went to the bar for drinks afterwards, he fell asleep on the table and woke up in the hospital.”

“Papa said it took months for him to recover,” she continues, “He had whiplash and had to wear sunglasses all the time because the lights were too bright and he couldn't go out with his friends anymore because they were too loud. He failed a semester of school because he couldn't sleep at night and had headaches all the time.”

Ladybug sighs, “He flunked out of school and started working as a...well, it’s a kind of job where you don’t need to worry about weird sleeping hours. He still has insomnia and waking up really early is easy for him, which makes his job easier...things always happen for a reason, I guess,” Ladybug goes to place a hand on Adrien’s knee and hesitates, resting it on the cushion instead, “At least that’s what I keep telling myself.”

“So...you’re saying that I hit my head for a reason?”

“I know it sounds silly but…” Ladybug shakes her head, “I don’t know. I just know that I’m here for you now, to take care of you.”

“But what about the akumas? I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“Adrien,” Ladybug’s hand finally presses against his, “I can handle the akumas on my own for now.”

Adrien frowns, “What if you need help?”

“I'll find a way like I always do.”

“But—”

“No buts Chat,” Ladybug shifts her hand onto his knee and squeezes gently, “Besides, Plagg and I have already come to an agreement.”

“Plagg…” Adrien warns, his eyes narrowing at the little kwami. 

Plagg shrugs noncommittally, “Ladybug is right. You're grounded until you feel better.”

“I do feel better!” Adrien exclaims, tossing his arms in the air. His voice sounds fragile in his ears and he folds in on himself in defense, “I'll be fine in a few days.”

“It's going to take longer than that and you know it,” Ladybug replies sternly, squeezing harder, “I'll come and visit you every night to check up on you. You won't be alone.”

“I'm always alone,” he grumbles and immediately regrets it; it's like he's missing a filter or something!

“No you're not. You have your friends! You have Nino and Alya and...and Marinette. We're all here for you.”

Adrien pinches the bridge of his nose, “Why didn't your stupid purification charm work on me?”

He doesn't miss the pained look on her face as she lets him go, reeling back, “I...I don't know.”

Plagg appears over her shoulder, frowning as he licks the cheese off his paws, “It healed most of it.”

Ladybug and Adrien take pause, “It was worse?”

Plagg doesn't make eye contact, “Oh yes.”

He doesn't elaborate. Ladybug has a vivid enough imagination not to ask and Adrien just sinks further into his seat.

“You could have died…” Ladybug’s voice trails off and she looks suddenly stricken, blue eyes wide and brimming with something Adrien’s not used to seeing on her features. She holds her breath and moves before her mind can catch up with her emotions, wrapping her arms around his body. She crushes him to her chest and he squeezes back, burrowing his forehead into her shoulder.

“Oh Chat.”

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until it’s spilling down his cheeks, the hot tears catching on the waterproof fabric of her suit. He tries desperately to get a hold of himself but the dam he’s built has been leaking for days now and it all comes streaming out in a deluge he can’t hold back any longer. She strokes his back with one hand and buries her fingers into the hair at the base of his skull with the other, scratching calmingly against his skin. He feels himself begin to relax again, the pent-up storm inside of him dissolving like steam, the heat of her body and heart boiling away the emotions beneath. He’s so tired, so fed up with being useless and used and he clings to her like a lifeline, scared she’ll dissolve, scared she’ll leave him behind.

(Plagg, for all his eccentricities, falls apart a little at the seams.)

“It’s okay, mon minou,” she continues to stroke his back and card her fingers through his hair, “You’ll be alright, we will take care of you.”

Adrien doesn’t know whether he falls asleep in her arms or not, but when he wakes up at 4h in the morning buried in his bedsheets with Plagg at his side, he feels a little less alone.

fin.

(I have’t decided yet if I will continue)

[qethnehzul]

Whatever It Takes for maybe Ahzidal and his apprentices? Morokei and/or Miraak?

In the three decades Morokei had been a apprentice under Ahzidal, he never expected to be out favored - let alone by someone half his age.

Morokei tried not to focus on his fellow apprentice as he scratched away at the half-filled scroll in front of him, trying his damnedest to keep his focus on the task at hand and not on his irritation for Vyr. No, Miraak now, wasn’t it. Morokei’s quill danced across the page with almost enough pressure to tear the paper. At the tender age of 20, Miraak had been given a mask and the territroy to the far north - making him the youngest priest to join their ranks, gaining his power three years before the previous youngest priest, Konahrik, and six years younger than Morokei himself had been when he’d gotten his. Ahzidal had officially taken Miraak on as an apprentice at the age of 15 - also six years younger than Morokei had been when Ahzidal took him on. The thought alone made Morokei’s face curl a bit.

Morokei hated being outdone. Hated being outshone. 

He glanced over his shoulder at where Miraak sat. The young priest sat across the room, hunched over another table with a similar stack of books and scrolls surrounding him as he scribbled away at his own test or whatever Ahzidal was making him do as an exercise. While Miraak was certainly not as experienced as he was, the boy was talented and quick to learn. Even despite the fact that the boy had largely spent the first 13 years of his life somewhere in the pits of the earth, Miraak was far beyond where Morokei had been at the same age. Morokei, who had studied and trained from the tender age of five to become a priest and a mage. Who had been honored to be easily Ahzidal’s youngest apprentice, and one who lasted longer than five years.

Miraak, Vyr, a nobody from nowhere who had only just been spared from certain death as a punishment for his sins, who had come in as a scabby, scrawny urchin off of the streets, was doing better than he had.

Morokei’s quill scratched at his paper harder, tearing up the fibers with each stroke as the priest seethed. Miraak didn’t as much as look up, unaware of his fellow apprentice’s anger. Each symbol grew progressively more crooked the more Morokei’s mind wandered from his enchanting work, becoming messier and -

Morokei almost jumped out of his skin when Ahzidal rested a hand on his shoulder, making him jerk his head up at the tall atmoran. Exhaling stiffly, Morokei loosened his white-knuckle grip on the now-squished quill before dropping it back into the inkwell with a gentle rattle, turning to wearily face his mentor. Ahzidal had a calm and yet mildly disappointed look on his weathered features as his thin fingers curled into Morokei’s robe. “Miraak,” Ahzidal spoke, his voice level. Morokei felt his heart sink and his face pale, eyes dropping to the ground.

Miraak looked up in a bit of surprise from where he was sitting, pushing back messy black hair out of his face. “Yes, In Ahzidal?” He questioned, setting his own quill aside.

“Consider this a break. I expect you to return before the turn of the next hour.”

Miraak pursed his lips, and Morokei could feel the younger priest’s gaze shifted between Ahzidal and Morokei before he got up and bowed his head. Without another word, Miraak scooped up a handful of books and his journal before scuffling out, trying not to throw Morokei another curious glance as he stepped out of Ahzidal’s private quarters.

Ahzidal did not let up on Morokei’s shoulder until the sound of Miraak’s footsteps had disappeared down the hall. The old priest shifted and move towards the fireplace, motioning for Morokei to follow. Morokei closed his eyes tightly. Of course, to salt the wounds. He got up and followed behind his mentor, taking his place at one of the two cushions placed for himself and Miraak aside Ahzidal’s chair. Morokei risked a glance up at Ahzidal, bracing himself for the worst. Ahzidal’s gaze was cast at the fire, leaning back into his chair as he brought a hand up to his face and stroked his beard. A long, heavy silence drew out between the two.

Ahzidal was expecting Morokei to answer, and Morokei wasn’t sure what to say. He hung his head, shifting his own gaze to the fire as well. 

“Petty anger isn’t like you, Morokei.”

Morokei’s lips drew back into a grimace. “No,” he exhaled. “No, it is not.”

Morokei could hear the sound of Ahzidal’s jewelry clink together as the man shifted in his seat, but he didn’t dare glance up. Silence permeated the room again, and finally Morokei snapped under the weight. 

“You favor him,” Morokei hissed, the words venom on his tongue.

Ahzidal let out a soft scoff. “That’s what this is over?” His voice was mild, skeptical, and disappointed. 

Morokei’s lip twitched in humiliation. “He’s a child.”

“And, thus, I find it unbefitting that you worry about what I think of him,” Ahzidal replied sharply. “The boy is three decades your junior.”

“And yet you favor him.”

Morokei could hear Ahzidal’s rings click against the jewelry woven into his beard. The old man sighed. “I did not choose you as my apprentice for you to fall apart to jealousy over my treatment of someone half your age.”

Morokei’s jaw tensed as he clenched his teeth together. His fingers curled into the hem of his robes. “Your approval means everything to me, In Ahzidal. And I find it vexing that that urchin is-”

“Dragonborn, chosen by Thur Alduin himself to become a priest.”

Morokei shrunk in on himself, brow furrowing in frustration. “I have spent two decades under your tutelage, studying the Eye of Magus alongside Sonaak Konahrik, doing everything you ask of me, and Vyr still is showered with your every praise at the most inconsequential things-”

“Enough.”

Morokei flinched back, immediately regretting his outburst. Ahzidal stood up sharply, and his shadow soon blocked the light from the fireplace. Ahzidal’s thin fingers reached down to lift Morokei’s face, and the moment Morokei’s eyes met his mentor’s Ahzidal’s hand crossed Morokei’s cheek with a sharp slap. Morokei grimaced, holding still as the sting bloomed across his skin.

“Complain as you will about Miraak’s age, but you are the one acting like a child, Morokei. I will not stand for petty, worthless jealousy and fighting over my praises,” Ahzidal hissed dangerously. “You are a member of the high priests and my apprentice. If you wish to continue brooding over a one-sided rivalry for my attention, I will remove you from your positions.”

Morokei swallowed harshly, but said nothing. Ahzidal turned away, returning back to take a seat in front of his work. Morokei heard him begin to turn a few pages, leaving silence to fill the room again. Slowly, Morokei exhaled and closed his eyes. “So, you concede your favoritism towards your son?”

The paper-turning paused. Morokei braced himself for the worst, finally turning to face the fireplace with chin upturned.

“Vyr will always have merits that you cannot ever posses, Heskirr. No training, no lineage, no servitude will ever make you as loved in the eyes of Thur Alduin as Vyr is. And if you must play that card, then yes - Vyr will always be more family to me than you ever will be, but you came to me as a grown man of a oustanding clan. Vyr came to me as a starving dog off the streets. There are things you will always have and understand that he never will. Accept that. To understand your differences will serve you better in the long run than your petty squabbling will. Instead of spending time hating him, learn from him what you do not know, and perhaps spend some time imparting him with your own knowledge,” Ahzidal said lowly, his voice more of a soft, tired whisper than anything. “My praise is ultimately worth little if neither of you have anything to show for it.”

Morokei slouched a bit, head drooping. Ahzidal sighed and leaned back in his seat, lacing his fingers together as he looked to Morokei. It took the apprentice a moment to finally dare to meet his master’s gaze, and he was surprised to find that Ahzidal did not look as angry as he expected.

“Vyr may find himself with an unfair advantage for my favors, Heskirr, but you must remember that you are still favored above all others. Let that be enough,” Ahzidal said heavily. “I do not wish to instill hatred between the two of you. But I cannot pretend that I can treat you as I treat him, and those reasons are outside of your control.”

Morokei forced himself to nod his head, taking a deep breath. “I am sorry, In Ahzidal, for my outburst,” Morokei finally said, bowing his head to his elder.

Ahzidal gave a simple nod in return, turning back once more to his paperwork. “You are forgiven. You may return to your work.”

Morokei shifted, pushing himself to his feet before sitting back before his messy work station. He picked up the corner of his paperwork and threw it on top of a stack of books, grabbing another length of parchment so he could start over. Rage and jealousy still stewed in his chest, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

Vyr was like a son to Ahzidal, the dragonborn, the favored of Thur Alduin. Morokei could never be those things, and it made his heart twist. 

If he could not be those, then he would simply have to do everything in his power to simply be better.

[dem0nsiget]

Just when I thought Nala was fine, I find a fuck ton of weird scabby bumps on her. They seem like the dead skin SHES had under her chin, but I mean they’re on her legs, on her belly, right where her nipples are, and now I’m fucking freaking out and crying but I don’t want to wake my mother up and get her angry at me cause she has work in the morning but I’m just

I’m so stressed now.