#she can easily travel between the two realities bc of that. but shes had her hand in the twst world since she was a kid

[hiiraya]

loving you had consequences (rewrite)

masterlist

pairing: wanda maximoff x reader

words: ~1,586

warnings: angst, reminiscing

requested: inspired by a text post i saw on here a while back!

a/n: this had no plot, but i was listening to sad music while writing so that's where the angst came from, happy reading! any mistakes are my own (bc i'm too lazy to edit hehe) ♡

It starts with, hey Y/N, can I talk to you for a second?

Then, I promise it'll be quick.

And finally, please?

You wanted to say no. You wanted to turn around and pretend you didn't hear her, hole yourself up in your room until she leaves. Again.

You knew that she knew that you would rather be anywhere else than go with her, but Natasha was watching the two of you like a hawk, so you grit your teeth and nod.

The assassin nodded, content that you weren't going to run away, she gave the younger woman a pointed look before turning to face you once more.

"I'll leave you two be."

You only nod in return, wrapping your arms around your midsection as you finally faced your ex-girlfriend.

You decide to play nice, because she made the effort to corner you while you where with Natasha, knowing fully well that the older woman wouldn't let you leave without hearing her out.

She had tenacity, you had to admit.

“What did you want to talk about, Wanda?”

It seemed like all the bravado Wanda had earlier had disappeared as soon as it was just the two of you left in the room. You tried to meet her eyes, but the younger woman was bent on maintaining eye contact with the floor.

But still, you waited for her to speak up.

“About what happened, I’m--“

“Listen Wanda," You cut her off, tearing your gaze off of her to stare at the door behind her. "If that’s all you wanted to talk about, I’d rather not waste either of our time.”

“Please, Y/N, I just want to make things ri--“

You took pride in the fact that you could keep your emotions in check in a stressful situation. It came in handy whenever you were out on a mission; but right now you'd take a life-or-death situation over taking about the past.

Emotions is what brought you here in the first place.

You let your emotions get the best of you and now you search for her in the places you used to share, knowing damn well that she would never be there with you ever again.

You wouldn't let her break your heart a second time.

“Do you remember the first time you kissed me?”

You cut her off again, the abruptness of your words shocking her enough to lift her head to meet your gaze.

The intensity of her stare almost makes you back down, but you don't allow yourself to waver.

“O-of course I do." She answers, confused at the change in topic, but allowing it anyway. "What does that have to do with anything?”

You run your thumb along your knuckles, the action helping calm down your heart rate (which at this point, was racing like you'd just ran a marathon) a little.

"The first time you kissed me you told me after that you'd wanted to do that for a while."

The room is so quiet around the both of you that you can hear Wanda's breath hitch from where she stands.

You take a moment to pause and watch her, taking in the sight and letting it sink in that she was back from her travels.

This was the girl you fell in love with. The girl you spend so many countless nights with - talking to each other, kissing each other, loving each other - simply because you could.

The girl you were so sure that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.

But life had different plans for you, and now the dreams you once shared with her were tucked away in the back of your mind, for you to open on a rainy day when missing her became too much.

"I always wondered if you thought the same thing when you left me.”

You see her face drop when your words sink in, but you've already spent so many nights thinking about how true your words must be since she was so unaffected when she left.

You're already indifferent to it.

-

She knows how much she hurt you when she up and left with Vision - though the only reason she found out was because Clint accidentally let it slip when she had called to let him know where she was.

She thought you were fine.

You didn’t fight her when she told you she’d fallen for the android. You didn't yell, didn't even make a scene.

You didn't ask her why she chose him, why she was so quick to drop you and to things you planned on doing with her.

You just nodded your head, a sad look in your eyes that she never wanted to see in them ever again before giving her a final kiss on the forehead before telling her that you would have your stuff out of her room by the end of the week.

Looking back in hindsight, Wanda didn’t know whether to be grateful or angry that you let her go without putting up a fight.

You loved her didn’t you?

But you were there, standing in an oversized sweatshirt with a smile that didn't reach your eyes, waving goodbye to the new couple goodbye before they left for a holiday they were taking now that the world wasn’t in imminent danger.

It didn't take very long for Wanda to start feeling the threads of regret creeping up to her.

-

You knew something happened when Vision came back alone.

He looked directly at you when he told the team that Wanda decided to travel around on her own for a little longer.

You had your questions but didn’t pry him for more answers.

You could infer.

-

After Vision had gone back home, and she was finally alone, Wanda took the time to see the sights on her own.

The sunsets in Paris  were beautiful, especially when viewed from the Eiffel tower.

The busy streets of London keeping her busy and moving (though she'd never felt more alone while seeing the sights that the city had to offer).

The bright sun in Athens shined down on her, wrapping around her like a hug after a long day.

All the places she’d promise to visit with you.  

But there was no one there to hold her hand, no one to fall asleep next to, no one there to stop and admire the sights the world had to offer.

All these beautiful places, but something- someone was inherently missing from her side.

So, after being away for so many months, she decided to come home.

She wanted to apologise, to make things right and hopefully, get you back.

But you thought she was only here to get closure.

-

"I'm not saying all of this to make you feel guilty," You sighed.

"Because it hurt,  more than I thought it would. But I'm still here, and my world didn't end just because you left me. I learned that I didn't need you to survive, that I could do just fine on my own.

"I needed to learn to love myself and be happy being on my own.”

She knows that you’re having a tough time getting the words out. But she knows that you needed to say them and that she needed to hear them, even thought it was breaking her heart all over again.

You’d learnt to live without her and survive without her.

And she learned that she couldn't live without you.

"Don't get me wrong though, I would choose having you over losing you.” You say with a sad smile. ”But we don't always get what we want."

Wanda doesn’t mean to peak inside your head, but when your thoughts were practically screaming at her, her curiosity won over the logical side of her that told her peaking into your head would only hurt her more.

"Will you still love me in the morning?"

You asked her one night, already slipping into the clutches of unconsciousness, voice just loud enough for Wanda to hear.

She hums as she runs her fingers through your hair, smiling when you nuzzle deeper into her neck.

You were her warmth, someone she wanted by her side until the end of forever. Nothing would ever make her want to leave. She was already where she needed to be.

Of course she would still love you in the morning.

"And every morning after."

Shaking your head, she watches as you clear your throat, blinking away the scene playing in your mind, bringing Wanda back to reality with you.

“I’m just rambling now, it’s fine, it’s over, we’ve both moved on. There's nothing for you to apologise for.”

You look down for a moment, and she figures it's you taking a moment to gather yourself. When you finally lift your head up to look at her, there's a small (but still warm nonetheless) smile on your face.

“Let’s just forget this talk ever happened, okay?”

She wants to say more- she needs to say more to you, because the more you keep on talking, the deeper her heart sinks knowing that you're letting her back into your heart so easily this time. If ever.  

You’re ready to forget everything that’s happened between you two - while she’s just barely even scraped the surface of unpacking all the baggage she left when she left you.

“If there’s anything you need just let me know but other than that,” You exhale.

“Welcome back home, Wanda.”

[hobie-brown]

first line tag game

rules: list the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you published. look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any. then tag some friends.

i got tagged by @risoris :-D ty !!!!! I’m probably gonna pull from some things I haven’t published yet alongside the ones i have, just because i don’t publish my works very often and i don’t want to grab from much older stuff I’m not very proud of! hopefully that doesnt defeat the purpose of the game lol

before i jump into it and/or forget I’ll tag uhhhh @ohlooksheswriting-wips (if you havent done this already) and mmmmm @demonwithapaperhat. i dont know if you’ve shared your writing like this on tumblr tho so no pressure! both of you are completely free to ignore this if u so choose :V

Snapshots from Detention

DETENTION NOTICE

NAME: Jackson Overland-Frost

HOMEROOM: Bunnymund

REASON: Ran down the hallway during study hall with a bluetooth speaker blasting "I want to break free", thus disrupting other students

There are two seasons in Scotland. June and Winter.

Jack hums as he sets down a single foot on the cold cobblestone of the DunBroch gatehouse. Even with a guard in front awake and alert, Jack slips past him into the daunting castle easily.

Check Yes Gnomiet

 There weren't really many extensive circumstances that led up to this point. You could say it started when Merida first began indulging the boy's whims, or maybe pin it as early as when she met Frost, but no. Jack's shenanigans were typically independent of one another. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing…

Seen and not heard

When Amity was eleven years old the twins wanted absolutely nothing to do with her for nearly two years.

       They had gotten to the exact age where they were comfortable meeting up with friends all by themselves but Amity still legally wasn’t allowed to be by herself in the house. Given how both of their parents were constantly out for work, Mother and Father had set the rule that one of the twins could make plans as long as one of them stayed behind or they brought Amity along.

 Rendezvous

      An ethereal being with immense amount of power, say an archangel, is not confined to limitations of miracles and physics the same way humans and lesser angels are. Their bodies are both real and untrue to the laws of the universe at the same time, so travel can be done with a single thought, if one thinks hard enough.

Welcome you home

             Realistically, Catra’s world should have come to an end when she pulled the lever. That was when everything fell apart, when she was split and corrupted between herself and the unknown that had seemed familiar. When she turned into the nothing of another reality. Catra remembers that, that life in the back of her head like a recent dream. But that dream was not what happened. Adora got involved, everyone became themselves again, and Catra’s livelihood sputtered out and died on a much more anticlimactic note.

  the WIP title for this one is: Merida’s HARDCORE X-TREME DOPE birthday EPIC spectacular

no title for this one but its just a giant indulgent costume party w queerplatonic jarida and merida bonding with elsa bc i said so. and mavis is there. 

      Queen Elinor of the DunBroch Kingdom means well. She does.

She does, Merida scolds herself. The nerves in her hands constrict like they

disagree but Merida negates that by slamming one of her swords into her bed frame for good measure.

“Awh you guys are so cute!” Mavis slightly slurs around her plastic neon pink vampire teeth. They are the only hint Merida has that Mavis actually wore a costume to the costume party, because the gothic cape and acrylic claws on their own wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary for Mavis’ style.

This one’s a giant big four project where i really thought about the worldbuilding i would go with if i wanted to make a whole overarching story where they met. but its again, a giant story. 

   Jack never learns the names of where he goes and here is no exception. It’s not for a lack of trying but usually the denizens of the lands he visits are always too busy rushing into the warm indoors to just namedrop much of anything. If Jack had to come up with a name for where he roamed now though, it would probably be something like Greenland. The real Greenland he had visited was more his ‘style’ but wasn’t deserving of the name. Here, everywhere he looked there was something green or just about. Green trees, green hills, green thickets. 

    It was his job, then, to change that.

and thiiiiiis is a piece about modern hiccup coming to terms with being touch-starved and what that means for his overly-touchy friends :V

Stoick was many, many things, but you couldn’t quite call him affectionate. Not with Hiccup.

     The last time Stoick had picked Hiccup up was when he was four years old. It was finally time to plan a funeral for Valka. He’d been putting it off for three years but Stoick knew that even with the slim chance of her being alive somewhere out in the world, there wasn’t going to be any closure for them. This would be the closest they could get. When the casket finally arrived it remained empty and Stoick picked Hiccup as though he was hoisting an anchor, squeezing tight enough to burn. And that was that.  

What I notice off the bat? Rotbtd obsession and inside of that a smaller, more intense jarida obsession. Seriously its bad. But more to the point I tend to have a lot of stress when it comes to first lines so I’ll compensate for that by just deciding to start where I’m most interested in. So sometimes I jump in with dialogue, or a framing device, or i put forth a ‘fun little factoid’ for the reader that if I stretch it out enough will give me enough mileage for the rest of the concept. you can see that last bit especially in here i think. 

[spidersbane]

Hello! Can I get MCU, The Hobbit, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. ship? 💚

Appearance: She/her. 179,5cm tall, rectangle body shape. Fair skin complexion with quite a few birthmarks. Dyed brown with honey-red highlights, shoulder-length, straight hair with bangs. The left eye is a mix of two colors – a smaller portion of (darker) greyish-blue and a larger portion of hazel; while the right eye is just a (lighter) greyish-blue. Heptagon face shape with two dimples on the left cheek and one on the right cheek (only visible while smiling). A gap between the upper front teeth.

Personality (good and bad traits): Ever since I was a kid, I was always quite mature for my age – I identify myself as an old soul. I come off as polite and well-mannered to strangers, yet I tend to keep it to myself by being reserved. But, that’s because I have social anxiety and I’m nervous and shy when meeting/talking to people. The only people I’m comfortable with being with my inner circle – closest friends and family. I am usually more “open” with my friends than with my family. With my friends I can be my “truest-self” – I smile more, I laugh more, I feel more accepted and understood. I am the mom and the fashionista of the group. Don’t get me wrong, I am fiercely protective of my family, especially of my mother and younger sister. But, lately, I’ve been feeling like the “black sheep” of the family, Cinderella who’s been taken advantage of. I express my affection for the people I care about in little, but practical, ways. I can be a little stiff when it comes to open, gushy displays of affection. Others turn to me for help and advice. I’m kind-hearted and generous, always ready to help a person in need. Always have been motherly towards children. Very awkward at keeping small talk (usually with people that I’m not that close with). Absolutely, hate speaking in front of a public, and if I do, because of my nervousness, I tend to mess up my words and/or I practice whatever I’m about to say in my head at first. I appreciate the simplicity and am often most comfortable when I’m not getting too much attention from the world. I am sensitive – both to criticism and to others’ feelings (I sponge up the feelings and moods of people and the environment around me). Have a hard time saying no or expressing my true thoughts, feelings. I get influenced by other people’s opinions/thoughts quite hard (I take everything to the heart), that is why I tend to keep a lot to myself (may come off as a little bit tense, secretive, mysterious). I avoid the harsh reality by daydreaming (almost every day) – imagining myself in situations far from my current circumstances. Sort of like a self-escape. I worry a lot and overthink almost everything. I am easily distracted and my attention span can be quite short. I have an internal struggle between my needs and wants. I can lack focus and be indecisive as a result – when I decide on one route, I am pulled in another direction at the same time (“But what if…”, “on the other hand...”). That is why I’m having a bit of a struggle with deciding what I want to do in the future (career-wise). I am easily overwhelmed by pressure and stress. There is a self-destructive side to me (self-critical, lack of self-confidence) that I’m working on by confronting my fears (coming out of my shell). Don’t like taking pictures, or other people taking pictures of me. I feel most content when I’ve straightened out all the details of everyday life. I have a routine, that I follow by mostly every day, and if something small changes in that routine, I start to have a small internal anxiety attack. Also, I like to do things my own way, like, when it comes to cleaning the house or organizing stuff, etc. I get triggered even if people don’t do the laundry the way I do. I guess you could describe me as a perfectionist, clean/control freak. In triggering situations I can be impulsive, spontaneous, quick to act. Quick flare-ups of anger/annoyance when being provoked on my patience. Even when I’m feeling low, I manage to find humor in life and have fun with whatever I do have. Although I tend to bottle things up, I am an emotional person and my emotions are genuine – I love and care deeply and passionately and wish no ill will upon anyone, yet it hards for me to imagine someone falling in love with me or just liking me.

Hobbies, likes: My hobbies are cleaning, writing (re-writing song lyrics, making small notes, writing stories), listening to any type of music, catching up on my favorite films and TV shows, hanging out with friends, going to the cinema, or the club, being out in nature, reading, traveling. I like history, cooking, fashion magazines (or fashion in general), road trips, spirituality, mythology, books, orange juice, previous decades, cottage-core, dark academia.

Overall: Hufflepuff. INFP-T. Bi-sexual. Pisces-Aries cusp sign. “Looks like could kill you, but is actually a cinnamon roll.” A feminist, support LGBTQ+ community. That’s it, thank you!

hey @pataim ! thanks so much for sending in your request, and thank you so much for your honesty about yourself. like it takes a lot to air yourself out like that, and I admire your strength for it. but also fINALLY a 'Man from U.N.C.L.E' ship! I love that movie and attempt Illya's accent all the time, so this will be fun :)

For the MCU/Marvel - I ship you with Steve Rogers/Captain America ! 

no one can tell me that Steve doesn’t have a set routine honestly, so let me just get that out there 

he seems intimidating at first, esp as a public figure and Avenger, but Steve is nothing but passionate about what he does. so it may clash w your lack of direction, but I could honestly see him envying that a lil bit, like it’s not that you don’t have direction, it’s the fact that you still have a choice in the matter. 

your love of history put you in a museum, here you bumped into Steve in a horrible disguise. he struck up the conversation first, and once you got past the whole “holy crap that’s Captain America”, you could actually engage with him in the material and boi was he smitten 

he would love to join you when your rewatched your fave things, bc not only is he catching up on more media he missed out on, he’s also getting to know your interests in a way that’s comfortable with you. it avoids all the small talk, but leaves room for discussion after the film/show ! 

since you tend to sponge up a lot of what other people believe, it’s totally Steve who actually tries to question what you think and what you feel about things. he’s someone who encourages you to have your own opinions and to stay true to those thoughts. so while with him, you can rely on him to learn about yourself, you also gain skills for independence

overall, Steve is super patient, and despite his chaotic job as Cap, he takes comfort in his routine, and would find comfort incorporating a partner’s routine into his life. and as you grow in a relationship with him, he’s patient about teaching you how to be your own person, and helping you learn more about yourself. and while it’s uncomfortable, you grow stronger throughout being with him :) 

For The Hobbit - I ship you with Bilbo Baggins !

Bilbo is the definition of introvert, and you're right there with him

not that introversion is ever a bad thing, bc it isn't. but Bilbo is quite content to sit in his little hobbit hole and vibe. like Gandalf had to come find him, ya know. dude disappeared from his own bday.

but anyways. it's not that Bilbo lacks purpose, it's just that he's more content with a quieter life. and it seems like his quiet life would balance you out well! like the Shire is so so chill, and there doesn't really seem to be a lot of pressure on the hobbits to pick a profession. like they just genuinely do what needs to get done.

similarly, Bilbo is the type who seems a little bothered by mushy displays of affection. exhibit a: disappearing from his own bday. like he's much more the type to refill your tea when y'all are reading by the fireplace, which he would totally do w you

it will probs take you a little while to warm up to each, given just how introverted you both are. but when he explains that he has set ways of doing things, then if they're compatible w your ways of doing things, then it doesn't take you long to open up to him

like it'll be a little jarring, but he takes comfort in his routines too. and it'll be an event trying to incorporate both of your ways of life together, but he's willing to do it

overall, yours is a very quaint partnership, built on deep respect for one another. neither of you are going to push the other to do things you aren't into. and y'all just live your best lives together tbh :)

For The Man From U.N.C.L.E - I ship you with Illya Kuryakin !

I love my big Russian spy so much, so this is fun for me

so Illya is the epitome of reserved and generally quiet, so it might take a while to really break down his walls and talk to him. and he's not quite sure what to do with you once you join the team

but, he's playing his game of chess alone, and when you sit down and ask to play with him, he opens up a little more after that

if you're one who get sent out on mission with the team, get ready, bc sometimes those missions require a lot of improvising. but you'd probably be at whatever 'base' was, helping run operations from a more secure place. but Illya and Napoleon improvise a lot, leading to a lot of headaches for you and Waverly

Illya has small bursts of anger, but similar to Gaby, most times, you can intervene and he doesn't get violent. or when he does, he tries to make sure it isn't in front of you. but bc you care so deeply for him, you're there for him in the aftermath. and that's how you show your love for him.

by patching him up if he gets cut, by talking him down when he's angry. and just generally trying to take care of him. and he totally does the same for you, especially if you get sent out into the field

and much to Illya's dismay, Solo doesn't refrain form making jokes about you. but if you can take them in stride, then Solo welcomes you into the team just as well :)

[lesbian-dp]

A Shocking Turn Of Events

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Words: 1,878

Warnings: A/B/O/, strap on sex, breeding kink, I think that may be it... other than idk what I’m doing with this stuff lol.

Request: Yee.

Summary: Your first rut in ten months goes better than you could have hoped for.

A/N: I’ve changed it up some. Bc I don’t feel comfortable writing a smaller reader and stuff. Hope you don’t mind! Also. I have done research for this... but I’m still rlly new to all of this stuff. So, just keep that in mind.

Ko-Fi

18+ ONLY.

***

Sometimes she didn't understand you. Well... in reality, she didn't understand how you were an Alpha. More so, how you were her Alpha.

With how stead-fast and hard she was.

And how goofy and the ball of light you were.

It's not as if Natasha was the only one who thought that. Anyone who knew of you thought the very same. It was all over the tabloids the day the media found out you were an Alpha.

It was even worse when Steve had accidentally let it slip that Natasha was an Omega. And that you two were newly dating.

Man, he was a blabber-mouth that day.

That was seven months ago and you and Natasha were still going strong. Stronger than ever actually.

Even with the playful discussion you and she were having right now.

"I'm just saying," Natasha spoke with a smile, "You don't seem like the type to be an Alpha."

"Do you know how many Alphas are like me?"

"Well, stereotypically then."

You threw your head back, laughing.

"I mean, come on!" she continued, moving her hands to gesture to herself, "I should have been the Alpha out of us two."

"Well, considering we're going off of stereotypes here. Little you, being an Alpha? I can't see it," you chuckled.

"Oh, shut up."

"Not to mention you're a bottom."

"I said "shut up"!" Natasha yelled, playfully throwing a cushion at you.

You caught the fluffy pillow easily, with one hand, just before it collided against your face. Her outburst causing you to boom out with laughter.

"You may be the top. But you're not dominant like most Alphas are."

"I thought you liked that about me," you said from your spot laying almost haphazardly on your bed, watching as Natasha slowly started to make her way out of the room.

"I love that about you," Natasha turned to say, "But once in a while, I wouldn't mind being fucked within an inch of my life."

Your jaw dropped as she left your room. Leaving you, and the pang in between your legs, to deal with her words, smirk, and swaying hips.

You were sure she was going to be the death of you.

***

It had been almost ten months since your last rut. Those higher dosage pills Dr Cho had given you, really worked the trick. It's not that you didn't want your rut, but you had a job to do. A very important job to do. And you thought it would be best if your rut wasn't there every three months.

And oh, God. It had been a while since your last one. So, when you woke up this morning and felt how that "weird feeling" you had throughout the whole previous day, was suddenly stronger, and more recognizable as to what it truly was.

Your rut was well on its way.

And right now. It was annoying you. To. No. End.

"Why do you have a cushion on your lap?" Bucky asked amused, pulling your attention away from the TV, "It's not like you're gonna hide anything anyway."

"How about you shut the fuck up, Barnes?"

Natasha squeezed and rubbed at your shoulder, from where she sat next to you on the arm of the sofa, hoping that her mannerisms would get you to calm down somewhat.

"Oo-oo-oh. Someones testy." You snapped your head around to glare at Tony. But before you could say any remark to the billionaire, he continued to speak, "But I do agree with Y/N, here. Just because she can't hide anything with that cushion, doesn't mean it's not comforting for her."

"Wow, Tony... I think that may be the most caring sentence I've ever heard you say," Steve said.

"Yeah, thanks, Tony."

"No problem, Y/N/N. Anything I can do to keep the big bad Winter Soldier off your ass."

The proffered man laughed sarcastically, before ripping off his Wakandan made metal arm, without even flinching. And flinging it at Tony, successfully hitting him in the face with it.

"Okay!" Natasha called out, raising her hand, that was not upon your shoulder, to stop the bickering men-children. "Knock it off, boys. You're not helping the situation right now."

"Fight me, Barnes!"

"Come at me, Tin-Man!"

"Right! That's not happening!" Natasha yelled out, jumping up, grabbing your arm, and tugging you with her.

You listened to the semi-playful squabble play out behind you, as your girlfriend dragged you towards the elevator, and undoubtedly to your room.

***

Four hours later, and you were still in the same place as when Natasha had pushed you into your room, laying on your bed, all sprawled out, staring at the ceiling, and groaning lowly. The red-head watching you from the chair by your desk, with a small smile on her face at your childish response to your incoming rut.

"You know you're not the only one going through this stuff, you know?" Natasha points out, " Because of you going through your rut, it's triggered my heat."

"Yeah, but your suppressants are different from mine. You don't have all of your pre-heat bullshit," you whined.

"I'm just licky, I guess." She smirked.

"'I'm just licky, I guess'," you mimicked Natasha's words, making your voice an octave or two higher. Which was counterproductive, considering her voice was husky.

"I do not sound like that!"

"'I do not sound like that'."

That still didn't stop you though, did it?

"You're an asshole."

"'You're an asshole'."

"I will kill you," Natasha grit out.

"'I will-"

Yeah...

That might not be the best thing for you to do.

At least you caught yourself before you finished your sentence. Glancing at Natasha, then instantly directing your eyes away from her.

Before she actually killed you.

Natasha watched you for a few silent moments. Her lips up turning in a small smile when you suddenly groaned again.

"Okay you, big baby." The red-head moved around the bed to lay by your side, on the small amount of space you had left from being sprawled out on the bed. "It will hit soon."

You let out a concealed grumble at her words, closing your eyes just as Natasha began rubbing your shoulder and upper chest.

"Do we have everything we need?"

"Yeah." She nodded, lovingly kissing your cheek. "We have some water and snacks in here. And Thor said that he will leave some more outside the door whenever we need." She pats at your chest. "And the strap is ready-and-roaring to go. All we need is for your rut and my heat to hit."

"Yeah," you said hotly under your breath.

Natasha noticed the light sheen to your skin. That, paired with your heated breath, sounding like you had just finished a heavy workout. And the tingle that ran up her spine, her body starting to rock up against yours, breathing picking up mimicking yours.

"It's not gonna be long now," you continued. Turning your head, eyes locking onto Natasha's lustful ones. Yours, assuredly, the exact same watching the Russian nod lightly, "A few minutes at most."

You closed your eyes inhaling deeply, basking in the feeling of Natasha's soft lips against the side of your neck.

The next time you opened your eyes, they were fully blown with lust. So black that you could barely see the small ring of your eye colour around them.

Your rut had finally hit.

Turning to face Natasha once again, to make sure that she was in the same state as you, and by the way her eyes mirrored yours, you knew she was. You glanced down to her lips, then back up to her eyes. Asking for permission, even if you already knew the answer. You got it anyway. And you sealed the deal to your next few days, with a passionate kiss.

***

Natasha was moaning underneath you. Sounding like a wanton whore with all the cries she was letting out.

And you were only just starting to fuck her with your knotted strap.

"My God, I don't think I've ever seen you this wet before."

You could feel every rock you made, thanks to the toy curving inside of you.

The red-head panted below you, her hips gyrating against yours chasing her fast-approaching release.

"Fuck," you hissed into Natasha's ear, causing a shiver to travel down her spine, "Are you close already? It hasn't even been five minutes yet."

She moaned. "I just can't help it. You feel so good inside of me. I don't think I'll ever be able to get enough of you."

"Well, that's a good thing," you stated in a growl, as you kept pushing Natasha towards her first release, "Because I'm not stopping any time soon."

***

Hours later, dawn was just beginning to break, and Natasha was on the brink of her umpteenth orgasm. You didn't know how many she had already experienced. It could have been five, ten- God damnit, it could have been twenty-five. But that wasn't what mattered right at this moment. What truly mattered was the girl riding you like she would die if she didn't.

“Aww, baby, look at you," you cooed, passing your thumb over her puffy kiss swollen lips, rubbing the tears streaming down her cheeks into the parched, tender skin. "You're crying and still riding me just like I told you to do. I bet you’re tired, aren't you? All worn out from cumming over and over. But you’re still a good girl. You’ll give me one last orgasm, won't you?"

"Yes. Yes, Alpha, I will."

"That's my good girl."

“Oh, Y/N. I’m gonna come!”

“Do it,” you husked, “Do it. Come on my cock.”

Natasha screamed at your words, but you could tell she was close, but just couldn’t slip off the edge. Grabbing her hips, you pushed forward, so that Natasha’s head lay on the end of the bed. You started fucking into her, cocking your hip, to hit a pleasurable spot inside of her.

Natasha grabbed the sides of your jaw, pulling you down to her level. Wrapping her arms around your neck kissing you passionately.

"Fuck. I'm gonna breed you. Gonna fill that tight little pussy up to the hilt with my come, you want that don't you? You little slut?"

Even though that wasn't possible, you sure liked to talk like it was. And, so it seemed, Natasha did too.

"Yes! Please give it to me!"

You were so lucky that your bed had yet to break under the pressure of your thrusts. Even now, as you worked harder into your girlfriend, the bed took the pounding like a champ. And so did Natasha. It was almost like she was made for this.

For you to be able to hold.

To fuck.

To love.

You came a few seconds before she did, as you rode out your high, you brought Natasha to hers. Yet you still had enough mind to push further into her. So that the knot was buried deep within her, giving in to her craving that she had since her heat broke.

The red-head chuckled lightly while you peppered kisses across her neck, chest, and shoulders, a few minutes later.

"What's so funny?"

"You really did fuck me within an inch of my life then."

***

Perminant Tag List:

@imnotasuperhero, @veteranwerewolf95

[robotslenderman]

Perry and Elisa headcanons:

Elisa thinks it's weird that a Nosferatu Thinblood has a Hecata-like bite, but it's Dove who, due to her experiences with Modian, immediately realises that Perry is a full blooded Samedi. When Dove raised the possibility that Perry might be Cappadocian to Elisa, she was worried they'd have to protect him from the Hecata (and that Dove would refuse to extend that protection because of the treaty), but Dove said "nah, he's Samedi, he's Hecata. He probably has that bane as the equivalent of a genetic throwback - sometimes that happens." (Dove would know.) Much relief ensues and Elisa helps Perry learn about the Samedi and Hecata, and even gets him in touch with a couple over time.

Elisa is pretty casual about the smell. She mentions it and she doesn't pretend it's not there either. "I'd hug you, Perry, but it's three AM and you smell like shit so I'll hug you first thing tonight." Perry is a bit defensive/standoffish at first but comes to appreciate it over outright hostility and/or when people "politely" pretend it's not there while obviously not wanting to deal with it.

For example, when Elisa gives him a room in her haven she'll be upfront about the fact she's using sheet/pillow protectors to stop him leaking on stuff, a room with no carpet so the smell doesn't get stuck in it, an ensuite so he can clean himself off easily... but unlike most, you know, she's actually offering a bed instead of pretending she doesn't have a place for him to stay, and she's also pretty "yeah you smell like shit in the morning but I'm just gonna have to deal with that." He's not sure what to think about this attitude in the beginning.

Elisa also teaches him to weaponise the smell. "You just met someone? Be considerate. Insist on meeting your contacts outdoors early on in the night, and standing downwind from them. They get difficult? That's when you start visiting them in their office an hour before dawn and sitting in their chairs and leaking on their upholstery. They'll soon get the idea that you're someone they want the goodwill of - and that's invaluable. Most fledglings have to work really, really hard to have that kind of power over somebody and all YOU have to do is change what time you're meeting someone. Use that."

The above point pretty much drove home to him that yeah she hates the smell, but not HIM, and she's willing to work with it. He develops a crush on her after that.

He does make a move when he's more confident, a few years later. She turns him down and at first he's pretty self loathing over it but they have an open discussion about the smell and she's like, "look, if I had feelings for you I'd just work with that - sexy stuff first thing after dusk when you're at your best. But I'm not going to pretend I'm interested when I'm not out of pity because we both deserve better. I'm sorry I hurt you but I can't say yes to this, not when I wouldn't mean it."

He got over it rather quickly, to his own surprise.

He has his own car. He calls it the Corpsemobile. When he gets the opportunity he loves to give people ultimatums - "either I ride with you and stink up your car, or you can ride in mine. And mine smells worse than the state I'd leave your car in."

Elisa helps set him up with a good ghoul - someone who runs a small mortuary. Puts a small mattress in one of the shelves, actually makes a nice comfortable haven out of it. It being a mortuary means the smell isn't suspicious, and he just pretends to the staff that he has a medical condition and its way less hassle to sleep in one of their drawers.

Getting the corpse stink out of his clothes is almost impossible so he's ALWAYS going through fresh clothes. Elisa helps set him up with another ghoul that can give him a steady supply of shirts, underwear and pants.

He hates getting pulled over because the second a cop gets a whiff of the interior of his car they think he's got a body in the trunk. Elisa uses her connection with Dove to get him a third ghoul in the police force, but when he's not in Tucson he's SOOL there.

He has discovered that maggots actually keep the smell down, as they eat away at the rot, so when he starts rotting a few hours after dusk, he applies maggots to the areas he sees are starting to deteriorate and wraps them in bandages. The smell doesn't go away completely but it does make a difference.

When he's outside of Tucson and a cop insists on searching his car, he peels away a bandage and says "actually, that smell is me." He also has a bunch of fake medical paperwork so that they don't insist on taking him to the hospital - he says he's on antibiotics and the maggots prevent the gangrene from killing him, and because of that he doesn't have to stay in hospital.

He knows a lot of facts about maggot therapy to make it convincing. In reality I'm pretty sure that gangrene is not something that you can be an outpatient for but most cops aren't going to know that if he can be convincing enough.

Once, he was travelling with Harley in the front passenger seat when they got pulled over in the early hours. He played dead as Harley desperately tried to get him to wake up to prove to the increasingly freaked out cop that he was alive and just had a "medical condition". After calling for backup and getting Harley on the floor, when the cop opened the side door Perry went "BOO!"

The cop shot him.

They had to kill the cop and bury the body to preserve the Masquerade before backup got there, because while they can cover up Perry's clan bane with "it's a medical condition", it's a lot harder to cover up a bullet through the chest.

Perry thought it was hilarious. Harley, who's a lot more squeamish about killing innocent humans and destroying the lives of their families and loved ones for the lulz, didn't think it was funny at all.

(Elisa backs up Harley but privately also thinks it's hilarious, except for the bit where they had to kill the cop. "It's one thing to kill to protect ourselves, it's one thing to kill because we're hunters eating our prey, but it's completely another to set up a human to die for your own amusement. Don't do that again."

"I didn't kill her for the lols, I just didn't think she'd -"

"SHE WAS A COP OF COURSE SHE WAS GOING TO FUCKING SHOOT YOU, YOU DUMBASS.")

Yeah, that prank did damage his relationship with Harley for a while.

BUT sadistic prank notwithstanding, he actually has a pretty good relationship with Harley. Harley wasn't sure about the stinky Samedi at first, but was too much the southern gentleman to be anything but polite about it. He quickly got used to it and saw Perry for the lost kid he was. Because Harley was in his forties when he was Embraced, he was pretty calm and difficult to faze, so he was able to rub off on Perry and help calm him down over time.

Perry and Harley were both furious at Lettow when Lettow came back to Tucson. The way Harlow saw it, putting Elisa through her First Season was completely unnecessary and Lettow could have properly vetted her, and also a huge risk to the Masquerade. The way Perry saw it, if someone of a different clan can put her own life on the line (due to the Accounting) to take in a complete stranger who'd been a Masquerade issue for nothing in return, the least Lettow could have done was look after his own fucking childe.

They were even less impressed when Elisa got sexually involved with him and then romantically, because they saw it as Elisa wanting the security of having a sire and Lettow exploiting that. Elisa, meanwhile, didn't appreciate being infantilised. She defended Lettow because "he kept an eye on me from a distance", and he left caches for her to discover and arranged for her to have jobs when the courier jobs started drying up. Harley and Perry were like "gee, how generous of him."

Perry was like "if I knew her standards were that fucking low I'd have asked her if she'd changed her mind about not going out with me"

Lettow was on thin fucking ice with the two of them for a while, and it took time for them to realise his feelings for her were sincere and that he wasn't going to abandon her again. In the meantime he rarely took their bait and let their attacks and accusations roll off his back - as an elder he rarely took things personally, understood it was between Elisa and her childer, and wanted to respect that she wanted to maintain some peace. Part of it was also due to guilt and self loathing. But he was also glad she had two very protective childer to watch her back, since he knew that safety and support was very important to her.

Harley and Perry also threatened to Fight Him, which caused Elisa to double facepalm bc one, Men, and two, elder with super strength and fortitude. Lettow just thought it was funny but also took the opportunity to bait them on being young and rash. He didn't resist ALL the time.

Lettow and Perry would never be close, but they came to respect the place the other had in Elisa's life, and even came to rely on each other every now and then.

[aileysmirnov]

Loki x Ailey hc! part 1

I was watching Thor Ragnarok with some friends (over zoom ofc) and then It popped up in my head a conversation that I had with @melyaliz and Alex (ig: shir.0_guru) a while back, and I couldn't shake it off my brain as I was trying to write some other thing. So hopefully writing this down would apace my mind.

TW: Arranged marriage, depictions of emotional/psychological abuse

Summary: Eris and Odin find a solution to what's been threatening their domains, an alliance between 2 of the most powerful families, but Ailey and Loki don't seem so keen about it.

Disclaimer/notes: Ailey is my OC! You can learn more about her in here!

Ailey has finally been reunited with most of her family and entered the realm of gods in this AU.

Samaras is the last name of the Eris family, they are rulers of Thera (Eris kingdom) and each member bears a royal title.

Ailey is the only demi-goddess in her family, Demigods are seen as shameful in this AU and usually they have a birthmark and a weakness that distinguishes them as such. In Ailey's case is her golden rose hair once she transforms in her god-form and her weakness is her allergy to gold, it practically burns her skin, debilitates her magic and herself, is like kryptonite for her.

◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

The only reason they even know about the other, is because of their parents: Eris had been in conflict with Ares lately, and one of his recent attacks greatly debilitated her army and Odin had trouble with a few of the realms under his command forming complots against him and the safety of Asgard.

Both rulers found themselves in need of the other: Odin had the greatest warriors and military at his service, and Eris being the goddess of discord could easily rise or disipate any conflict that may come her way (except for Ares ofc), an easy way in or out of war.

And so, they decided to form an alliance; But Odin being the wise men he is, knew better than to trust blindly in the goddess of chaos, after all...Eris was known for being a backstabber who acted only to beneficiate her own interests.

To prevent that, Odin decided to make the alliance under the condition that one member of the Samaras family must marry the second son: Loki, God of mischief. And so, Eris agreed and offered her youngest daughter: Ailey goddess of ruin and folly.

God it was an absolute mess since the beginning!

Frigga was the one to inform Loki, who immediately went to Odin to protest, but like always his father ignored him, shutting him down by comparing him to his brother and how he would do anything to protect Asgard but Loki was being selfish.

Ailey in the other hand was kept ignorant of such decision and only knew about it a few hours before the engagement party began and only because a servant accidentally told her.

She was furious and much like Loki tried to protest but Eris couldn't care less about her daughter's opinion.

Ailey could rage all she wanted, Eris wasn't even paying attention, the only thing she was accomplishing was in making her angry.

—Child, I think you tend to forget your place in this world, you see: among humans you might be...special but in here... you're just an idiot with too much privilege—Eris had a way with words that could make them feel like poison, creeping in to the insecurities of one's heart.

—If it weren't for me and your brothers, you would be Hera's new toy, so please remember, dear. You not only owe me but to your brothers and this kingdom as well.

Ailey headed back to her room feeling ashamed and angry, she felt her mother's words had some truth in them, seeing as how different she was viewed here in comparison to the human realm.

When the time came for the engagement party and for Ailey and Loki to meet for the first time, is fair to say neither of them were in a good mood.

Even though deep inside they knew both of them didn't have any say in the matter and were pretty much in the same situation; they still felt irrationally mad at each other, that's why since the moment they met to the end of the ceremony they would throw little passive-aggressive remarks at each other.

She viewed him as a pretentious asshole, and He saw her as a spoiled brat.

Almost near the end of the celebration and no announcement had been made so Eris took it upon herself to throw them into the spotlight.

—I believe you two have something important to share with all of us—her face was smiling but her eyes were threatening.

Ailey bit the inner side of her cheek, rolled her eyes as she turned to face Loki who only gave an exasperated sigh before speaking in a monotone voice

—Do you want to marry me?—he didn't even bothered to get on one knee and just extended the ring for her to take.

Ailey felt tempted to say "no" and walk away gracefully but doing that would probably have a negative impact on Thera, so after a long pause she answered.

—Whatever—and put the ring on, herself.

Clearly a good start :) .

I think they didn't saw each other that much afterwards and when they did it was mostly for wedding arrangements in which they continued with the passive-aggressive comments but this time about everything the other would pick.

The mood was so uncomfortable every time they were together everyone around them was like:

I think that sometimes they would have moments where they realize they had been too harsh with the other and would tone it down a little but treating each other like that was the only way of protest that was allowed for them.

Specially for Loki since he constantly had to travel to Thera bc for some reason unknown to him Ailey refused to go to Asgard, which only made his negative opinion on her grow.

In his mind, it was probably because she thought she was too good for Asgard but the reality was: Asgard is practically a death sentence for Ailey since 90% of every building in there was made of gold.

But she will never tell him that.

I think their first "moment of closeness" came to be purely out of the realization neither of them had any option other than get married or see their domains destroyed.

So, they decided to call it a truce: both would play along with the whole marriage fiasco for a while until things died down and then they could divorce and pretend they never even met.

And so, the passive-aggressive comments slowly died down, not that they started acting like lovers all of a sudden, instead they acted like they were just... co-workers or something.

They would greet each other in a formal manner and then only talked about the arrangements and left, nothing else.

But then, inevitably they started to get closer.

It was something so gradual none of them really knew how it happened.

It started off with small comments about decoration ideas for the venue, it turns out they both had quite the interest in interior design.

Eventually those small comments became lengthy conversations about which combination of colors would look the best.

When it came down to learning about the nobility attending the wedding on each side, both would spend a little more time together. Studying the proper way on how to address them and their interests all for the possibility in forming new alliances.

But I feel like instead they would roast the hell out of them, like they would be going through a list of the Asgardian nobility that were to attend and Ailey would just point at a picture of a random Asgardian noble and go: "Oh. My. God. what is he even wearing?"

And Loki would try to force back a smile or a laugh but eventually he would just give in and start joining Ailey in the roasting.

They also have a very similar sense of humor, but Ailey is just more blunt and open about it while Loki isn't, I feel like most of the time he has genius comebacks to stupid comments people make but he's a gentleman and normally just keeps it to himself or would only say it in a polite but slightly aggressive manner, so when Ailey just bluntly says something similar to what he was thinking he can't help but laugh a bit (he won't admit to it though)

Other things Ailey and Loki have in common is their love for drama and spectacle, while Ailey is more of a ballet/dance-based plays person, she understands Loki’s enthusiasm for theater and books even sharing some of it herself.

Not only they enjoy these things, but they also found comfort in them: For Ailey ballet began as something her mother forced upon her but transformed in an outlet for her emotions and a way to connect and control her powers.

For Loki theater was a form of escapism since he was a child, every time he felt like he didn’t belong he found a safe place in countless stories of the misunderstood heroes.

This only makes their bond grow deeper; up until this point they never had anyone to talk to about their interests in such depth, so now they talk all the time about it, sometimes they would surprise themselves looking forward to the next meeting just to gush about a new play or book they just saw or read.

I feel like Loki might’ve even lend Ailey some copies of his favorite books and Ailey as a “thank you” decided to sneek out with him to the human realm to watch "Tristan und Isolde".

Everyone is able to notice the change in attitude of these two, especially Thor who only had heard about the girl but could tell how happy she made him every time Loki would mention her.

And he was happy for his brother but felt curious about his soon to be sister-in-law.

So, it was only natural when Thor asked Loki if he could tag along the next time he went to Thera.

He said no.

Thor went anyways.

When Ailey met him, she could only think about one thing: "he himbo" which she thought was cute btw.

Thor could see why Loki liked this girl so much, they were practically the same, which he found sweet yet amusing.

—Lady Ailey, a pleasure to meet you, mi brother has told me a lot about you!—he stated.

—Really?!—Ailey questioned directing an incredulous glance at Loki. 

—He asked­—Loki tried to defend himself by downplaying his brother statement. 

—No, I didn’t.—Thor retaliated with a mocking smile, he could tell his brother felt embarrassed so he decided to tease him a bit more. 

—In fact, he won’t shut up about you. 

—That’s not true, he’s just.. 

—No, he’s all the time saying Ailey this, Ailey that. It peaked my curiosity and so here I am… 

—Brother, Could you shut up?—Ailey could only smile and hold back a laugh at the brothers spontaneous quarrel. 

Truth is she thought it was sweet of Loki to talk about her with his brother. And teases him about it afterwards.

I think Thor might talk privately with Ailey and would ask her to take care of his brother. 

—I know Loki can be a bit…difficult, but have patience with him, I can tell he really likes you. 

And Thor was correct, Loki really did like her. But it might take a while for him to come to terms with his feelings, and would only manifest in small gestures towards Ailey, like: tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, subconsciously offering his arm for her to take as support when walking down the stairs, placing a hand on the small of her back as guidance whenever they were in a crowded space, sneaking small glances at her, etc.

Overall, he starts acting a lot softer with her, a lot more caring.

Ailey might be a bit oblivious to this (since she’s only used to overly sexual advances and has a difficult time understanding genuine affection), but she appreciates it none the less.

And both might even find themselves thinking that maybe…just maybe spending the rest of their lives together isn’t a bad idea after all.

[dannyphantom-rewrite]

What's "how to get to cracker barrel" ?

What's "how to get to cracker barrel" ?

Oh now that, that one isn't Actually a wip. It's a short story I finished ages ago that later ended up being inspiration for one of the plotlines in an anthology style audio drama podcast I want to make some day. There's 4 main characters:

The Mckellen sisters Jamie and Lady who aren't Actually sisters but pass rather well for twins since one of them is actually a changeling, Natalie Anderson, photographer and lady's GF, and Gavin Walker, a mage still haunted by the death of his fiance, Caleb Adams, mostly due to the fact that his fucking ghost won't leave him alone.

Art by @unded-bun (click image for higher quality)

I'm leaving out a lot of details, but I'd be happy to fill in the gaps if anyone asks.

I'll Also throw the story itself under a read more here, bc I'm still super proud of it even though it's a few years old now.

A small hotel on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia. There is a Sonic Drive-in across the busy street. Bright neon lights in the window state, “Open 24/7!” A Greyhound bus is idling in the parking lot. A man, Gavin Walker, climbs off and crosses over to the hotel. He walks easily, but not confidently. Approaching the hotel’s entrance, he spots a cat eating from a plastic bowl in front of the door. The feline is small, and feral. He is black, with white paws. He does not pay Gavin any mind as he enters, only continuing to crunch on dry cat food.

There's a desk on the left side of the lobby. The receptionist smiles kindly as he checks in. Her eyes are tired. Gavin gives her a knowing nod, and travels deeper into the building. There is a sign marked, “Out Of Order.” on the elevator. This is a good thing. Gavin takes the stairs, of which there are three flights. This is also a good thing, because three is a good number. He enters the hallway, which is old, and worn. The walls bear chipped yellow paint, and the floor, faded red carpet. Gavin continues down the hall after checking the time on his phone. It is exactly 11:59PM. He turns the device off and begins to count the seconds. At sixty he has stopped in front of the elevator. The fluorescent light above him flickers. The elevator does not have an out of order sign on it. It is the same elevator as before. Gavin enters.

He presses the button for the first floor. In the lobby the check in desk is now on the opposite side of the room. The lights are off, the receptionist is gone. It is daytime outside now. The bus is gone and the Sonic is closed. The road is vacant. There is a cat outside. She is white, with black paws. She looks up at Gavin as he approaches. They lock eyes, and he kneels in front of her.

“Hello, cat.” He says.

“Hello, Mage.” Says the cat.

She flicks her tail, “What is it you seek?”

“Direction.”

She nods and stands, before making for the road. The Sonic across the street is closed, but it was never empty. A Sonic is not a sit down restaurant. Customers are expected to pull into a parking spot and order over an intercom, and then a waitress delivers their meal directly to their car. Gavin’s pretty sure places like Sonic were more common in the 1950’s, and he knows that drive in diners are a dying breed now a days. The thought gives him a strange sense of nostalgia for something he’d never actually experienced, and he shudders involuntarily.

The cat sits down in the parking spot furthest from the building. She watches as he presses the the button on the intercom, listens, ears swiveling, as they are greeted with static. Looking out of the corner of his eye, Gavin can see something moving within the darkened restaurant. An outline of a figure, only vaguely humanoid. The thing moves like a deranged ape, long, long arms dangling to the floor and dragging it forward. Its back is hunched, legs short and stumpy. Gavin can not see its face, and he does not wish to. The intercom crackles to life.

“WhAt can aH’ do fER ya’lL?” Drawls The Thing in the Sonic. It’s got a southern accent thicker than congeling visera, and the pitch of it’s voice fluctuates wildly. Gavin glances uncertainly at the cat, and she nods.

“I’m looking for Direction.”

“Ahhhhhh……” groans The Thing, “WEll, watch’ Yer goNna wanna dO is hEad doWn the road, bout maybeEEee…..foUr, five miLeS, an’ yer gOnna wanna look fer’ weEl, watch yer gonna wanna fiNd is soMeTHing’ idEaliZed, ya knOw? Like uh, somethin’ kinDa romanticized, an’ a liTtlE faKe in sOme senSe but reAlLy true in anOther, ya follow?”

“Yeah.” said Gavin, even though he did not follow at all.

“Yep,” Continued The Thing, “n’ yer gOnna wanna gEt yourself sOme rasPberRy lemONade when ya get theRe, It’s some gOod shit, lemme tell ya.”

“Alright, I’ll uh, I’ll do that.”

“Good, GoOd, That’s Good. Y'all have a niIiiccceee daaaaaay nooooow.” And then the intercom crackled once more, and returned to spewing static. Gavin released the button and looked around for the cat, hoping, maybe, for some more guidance, but she had long since abandoned him. He started walking down the road, away from the Sonic Drive-In, and The Thing inside, and hopefully towards where he needed to be.

Gavin started to think as he walked, which was not something he liked to do often. He much prefered to act in the moment without much consideration for the consequences of those actions until they themselves became the moment. Gavin did not like to think because he often thought much too deeply, and it sometimes scared him. Gavin thought about a lot of different things in quick succession, he thought about the missing greyhound bus, and The Thing in the Sonic, and wondered if the disappearance of one had to do anything with the appearance of the other. It probably did. He thought about what The Thing had told him to do, and why he was doing it. He thought about why he’d come here in the first place, to this inverted little section of Georgia. And he thought about Liminal Spaces, about busted elevators and darkened hotel hallways and empty stairwells. The air shifted suddenly as a pickup truck speed past him, it had a faded confederate flag on the back window.

Liminal Spaces, simply put, were the areas between one place and another. The small spots in the middle of point A and point B where reality seems to be altered in such a way that the change is almost imperceptible, and yet, it is still enough to leave you feeling so impossibly strange.

Liminal Spaces can also be doorways, if one knows how to properly open them.

Gavin isn’t sure how long he’s been walking down this empty stretch of road, but it’s been long enough that he can no longer see the Sonic Drive-in behind him. It’s not even a dot in the distance now, just gone, as though it were never there to begin with. He keeps going. He walks until his feet hurt, and his legs ache, and keeps going even after that. At some point he sticks his thumb out towards the road, tired enough to risk hitch-hiking, but no cars have gone by since the pickup truck. And at some point he takes a moment to rest. He sits down on the shoulder, and just breathes for a while. And then when he stands again, he sees the Cracker Barrel just down the road. Exhausted as he is, he knows it isn’t possible for him to not have seen it earlier. Gavin decides it’s best not to dwell on that, though, because this is exactly the kind of place where Cracker Barrels can just pop into existence. (Although, as he enters the restaurant, he remains somewhat annoyed that it couldn’t have decided to do it a little sooner.)

The front of the Cracker Barrel is a store selling all manner of things. There's a back corner full of vintage candy, a small section of organic make-ups, and another full of knick-knacks like salt and pepper shakers, and dreamcatchers, as well as the usual crap that tourists like to buy, T-shirts and mugs and what not. Gavin has never actually been in a “regular” Cracker Barrel, so he’s not sure if this is a completely normal thing, but he’s certain that a “regular” Cracker Barrel would not also be selling such wares as bottled crocodile tears and Unicorn meat slim jims. There aren’t a lot of people in the store, and yet Gavin finds it impossible to get a good look at any of them. The people look normal, but they move like extras in the background of a film. The only person in the room with any notable features is the waitress standing by the back. She’s short, and her hair and eyebrows have been dyed a vibrant blue. As Gavin follows her into the seating area he can't help but stare at her hair, and he finds himself thinking that it can’t possibly be dye, it’s too bright, somehow. She smiles at him as he sits, and her teeth are a just little too sharp.

Once he’s seated, she says, “Can I start you off with a drink?” Her voice has a pleasant, lilting tone to it.

Gavin thinks back to The Thing in the Sonic, “A Raspberry Lemonade? If that’s something you have here?”

She nods, and goes off to get him one. Gavin leans back in his chair and takes in his surroundings, trying to relax. The decor in the Cracker Barrel has a sort of vintage, rustic feel to it, there’s things like black and white photos, and old advertisements on the walls. All the furniture looks antique. There are quite a few other customers present. Most of them look like the same nondescript folk from the front, but a few stand out. There’s a woman in the back corner, she’s dressed in black furs and her head is an ember eyed wolf skull. She’s sitting across from a man with the skull of a stag upon his shoulders, the antlers adorned with ivy. There’s something resembling a giant moth sitting two tables away, slowly crunching its way through a Caesar salad. Occasionally, there’s a figure leaning against the kitchen doors, they look as though they’re made up of television static. Gavin’s eyes start to hurt from trying to look at them, so he turns his attention to the menu instead. The waitress returns with his Raspberry Lemonade, and he orders the Country Fried Shrimp.

Gavin takes a sip of his drink and finds that he agrees with the Thing in the sonic. It’s definitely some good shit.

“Funny seeing you around here, Gav.”

Gavin looks up from his drink, almost spills it in surprise.

“Is this seat taken?”

Gavin manages to shake his head.

Caleb Adams pulls out the chair across from him and sits. Gavin stares at him. He’s wearing a T-shirt that reads, “NORMAL HOROSCOPES: Making your day a little more magic whether you like it or not.” Gavin’s not sure if it’s supposed to be advertising for a psychic’s shop or if it’s some strange indie band he’s never heard of. Knowing Caleb, it’s probably the latter.

He finally manages to speak, “You’re dead.”

“Yeah?” Caleb leans an elbow on the table, and props his head up in his hand, his smile never wavers, “And?”

“And- and I don’t know, Fuck, I don’t know.”

The waitress briefly interrupts his existential crisis by depositing his Country Fried Shrimp on the table. Gavin looks down at it and tries to focus on the smell of greasy seafood instead of the dead man sitting across from him.

“You seem confused.” Caleb’s voice sounds uncharacteristically sympathetic.

Gavin nods.

He sighs, frowning “Eat your lunch, and then we’ll talk.”

Gavin eats what he can, but it’s a large portion, and he’s somehow not that hungry. He takes a final bite, and pushes the plate across the table, silently offering Caleb the rest of the shrimp.

The barest hint of a smile returns to his face, “Thanks, but no.” And then he’s frowning again, “Why’re you here, Gav?”

“I just went where I was told to-”

He shakes his head, “No. I don’t mean the friggin’ Cracker Barrel, I mean Here.”

And Gavin doesn’t really know what to tell him. That he’s here because he felt lost and desperate? That he didn’t know what to do anymore? That it doesn’t matter anyway because he’s fine, everything's fine and he’s just tired?

But he doesn’t tell Caleb any of that, he just says, “I miss you.” And he can’t keep his voice from cracking.

“I know you do.” Caleb places a hand over his, “But this is damn near one of the dumbest things you’ve ever done. You knew this place wouldn’t be safe for you.”

He feels numb, “I didn’t really care.”

“Gavin,” Caleb grips his hand now, “Look at me, please. I mean, really look at me.”

So he does, he looks up at him, and finally, meets his eyes.

They have not changed. Death has not reduced the amount of compassion behind them, nor faded the sea blue color. Gavin stares. Eyes are supposed to be a window into someone's soul, a way to truly see into them, and Gavin just stares because Caleb’s eyes are still capable of conveying so much, and he can feel tears running down his face…..

“It’s time to go home, Gav, okay?” He gestures to the window, and the Greyhound bus has pulled up, “Your ride's here.”

And Gavin knows has to force himself to look away and loosen his grip, and he can’t bring himself to.

“It’s alright.” He says, “It’s going to be alright. I’ll take care of the bill, Please just let go.”

And Gavin finally, Finally manages to tear himself away.

He does not feel anything but relief as he leaves, as he boards the bus and settles into a seat. He leans back, and watches through the window as the world shifts and shimmers and is suddenly dark and starry once more. As the Greyhound pulls out of the Sonic parking lot, Gavin closes his eyes, and slowly falls into the comfort of a deep, dreamless sleep.

[fullmetalscullyy]

Hello, I saw your post about being open for prompts and I had an idea about havocs gf in Central being Rebecca after all before they get relocated, could be angsty as hell, so if this might vibe with you... Just a thought

aaaah thank you sm!! this was a fun one bc i’ve not written havolina in a long time! thank u for getting me back into it with this wonderful idea hehe 💖 i hope you enjoy this lil sprinkle of angst  

Jean closed his front door with a dejected sigh. Movement came from inside his apartment, so he knew she was already here. His eyes closed briefly, an attempt to collect his thoughts and steel himself for the upcoming conversation. It would be hard as hell.

“Hey,” Rebecca greeted him, popping her head into the hallway to offer him a beautiful smile.

Turning, he hid his forlorn look and paused, taking in her bright expression upon seeing him and the way her dark hair tumbled over her shoulder. An apron clung to her body and was dotted with red splashes of sauce. She was in the middle of cooking them dinner.

Jean’s chest tightened but he forced a smile through it, returning her greeting.

“I’ll be back in a few,” he stated. One of his hands lifted to grasp her waist lightly as he pecked her cheek. “I’m going to get changed.”

Rebecca said nothing but he could feel her eyes on him as he left her in the doorway to his kitchen.

“Okay…” She knew something was off, but then again he’d never been perfect at hiding his emotions. By God, did he try, but when it hurt this much it was hard.

Changing out of his uniform took far longer than it should have, mainly because once he’d changed, Jean sat down on his bed and didn’t move for ten minutes or so. He just stared at his bedroom wall, trying and failing miserably to come up with the words he needed to tell Rebecca he was being transferred away.

They were in the Academy together with Riza. The two of them had hit it off right from the start and he’d been smitten with her for years. They’d fooled around more than once… Multiple times. It was all fun and games though. Nothing serious. Not friends with benefits but not a relationship. It was casual, which suited them both, but recently Jean had realised that he didn’t want to be casual anymore. Neither did she.

For a few months they’d had something resembling a relationship. It was budding but it had been beautiful. That was also when Jean Havoc realised he’d fallen for Rebecca Catalina years ago but had never admitted it to himself. Even after fooling around and she’d dozed off, Jean had been content just to watch Rebecca sleep for a while and marvel at her features. He’d stroke her face and press a kiss to her forehead, a ritual of his after every night together in each other’s bed, then fall asleep.

And now, after finally coming together, they were being ripped apart.

“Jean?”

He blinked and returned to the present, finding Rebecca’s face right in front of his. She looked wary and worried at why he wasn’t moving, just staring into space in his bedroom. Shit!

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Her voice was even and controlled as she tried to discover the root of his suffering.

The words froze in his throat. If he voiced them aloud then it would become a reality. And he really didn’t want to leave her to go to Central.

“Come on,” she urged gently. Rebecca’s hands grasped his biceps and nudged him to stand from the bed. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Rebecca,” he whispered as emotion clouded his voice. Damn it! Don’t lose it now!

“Dinner is almost ready,” she repeated. One corner of her mouth quirked up. “I’m known as a shit cook and I don’t want to add any more fuel to that fire by burning our food.”

“I – I have to tell you something –” Jean was standing now, turning to face her as she gently but firmly made him walk out of the room.

“Later,” she promised. “Dinner first.”

“I can’t –” he started to argue. He couldn’t sit there in an uncomfortable silence because the weight of what had happened to him that day was hanging over him.

“You’re not the only one who works at Eastern Headquarters,” she reminded him softly.

A pained look crossed her face and Jean froze. She already knew.

“When a you, up and coming officer like Mustang gets promoted to Central, news travels fast,” she explained.

Rebecca walked around Jean to re-enter his kitchen. She busied herself over the stove as she turned dials and began to dish up.

“So, you already know?”

Rebecca nodded. Jean could tell by the set of her shoulders that she wasn’t happy about the news and that made things even worse. This was hurting her.

“We’re going to sit down to dinner. Have you washed up?”

Jean stared at her, watching her move. Why wasn’t she more upset about this? Or angry?

“Rebecca –”

“Have you washed up?” she asked, her tone more forceful than before.

Jean nodded. “Yes.”

“Then come and help me dish up the food.”

It smelled delicious and his stomach rumbled loudly, but it also twisted painfully, affecting his appetite.

“We are going to sit down to dinner,” Rebecca stated as she lifted her own plate and gestured for him to sit at his table. “Because I put far too much time and effort into it for us not to. Then,” she added, taking a deep breath. “We can talk about it. Although I don’t really know what there is to talk about. It’s going to happen and that’s a fact. Regardless, you clearly want to.” Her eyes lifted to meet his once she was seated. “So, we can,” she smiled.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Jean whispered. His food was forgotten before him, which truly was a crime because like Rebecca said, she’d spent time on this for him. No, for them. She’d made them dinner and had it ready for him coming home from work. He’d never had a girlfriend who’d put such an effort in before. They mostly just wanted to order in or expected him to cook instead. Rebecca had gone out of her way to make them something from scratch, and he found it to be a lovely gesture.

“I know,” she admitted quietly as she took a bite of her food.

“I tried…” he trailed off. “I tried to ask if you could come too but…”

“That would never happen,” Rebecca finished.

“No,” Jean conceded glumly.

“Well, we’ll just have to make the most of the time we have left,” she reasoned, her voice determined. Glancing up at him, she gestured towards him with her fork. “Eat,” she prompted. “Please.”

Jean picked up his fork and took a bite just to appease her, but found it was very tasty. He took another.

“Is that what you want?” Jean asked as he swallowed thickly.

“Want?” Rebecca frowned.

“Well, I mean, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to –”

“I’m not going to let you finish that thought,” she interrupted.

“Why?”

“Because of course I want to stick around!” Rebecca exclaimed. “How could you think I wouldn’t?”

“Because…” Jean floundered. “I don’t know,” he admitted. He dropped his eyes to his plate. “I just wanted to give you an out,” he mumbled. “In case you wanted it.” His shoulders rounded in on themselves as he tried to hide from the painful feelings creeping in his chest. He had to give her that chance just in case she wanted it. He’d never ask her to wait around and wouldn’t expect it either. She was smart, quick-witted, and absolutely gorgeous. Rebecca was way out of his league, so he had to give her a chance to leave. He was nothing special to pine over.

Rebecca stood from her chair. She knelt beside him and took his face gently in between her hands. His head was turned to face her. “Of course I want to stay. I love you, Jean. And I’m willing to see this through if that’s what you want.”

“See this through?” he echoed, feeling something like hope creep up his chest, dousing the fire of some of the pain already residing there.

Rebecca nodded. “Absolutely. We have phones. We have letters. God, that would be so romantic,” she winked. “And we have annual leave. Central isn’t a million miles away from here,” she reminded him gently. “There’s trains. I will absolutely come visit.”

Jean wrapped his arms around her tightly. “I love you,” he whispered.

Rebecca gripped onto the back of his t-shirt tightly. “I love you too. I’m not going to give you up this easily, Jean Havoc!”

He pulled away, cupping her cheek lightly. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“Did you expect me to leave?”

He nodded, somewhat nervous. “It’s a lot of effort, long distance.”

“You’re worth it,” Rebecca promised.

Jean pulled her in tight again, but his face was a grimace. Despite having her on board and willing to try a long-distance relationship, it would still be hard. He didn’t know when they’d be leaving yet, so Rebecca was right. He had to make sure every moment counted. He would ensure he cherished every little moment they had left together, because after the move he had no idea when he’d see her in person again.

i know he goes on to “date” lust but ehhhh let’s call it undercover dating bc this is cute uwu (makes things even angstier tho bc he’d probably tell rebecca abt it to get the ok from her… oh boy, more relationship angst!)

[sol-korolevas]

[be still, foolish heart];

pairing: leon kennedy x reader; chris redfield x reader

warnings: minor violence, some cheesy and cliched stuff but idc bc i love these idiots

words: 9k+ 

a/n: i’ve always wanted to write for chris since watching all of the videos with him. so here’s a story with both him and leon. enjoy and please leave any feedback if you want <3

you’ve known leon for a while. that sense of knowing was what made you feel connected to him. as a child, you were seldom seen alone and he was rarely not trying to tease you about being his shadow. it has come to a point that you believe you can read into his mind, that maybe there’s something deeply wonderful about him and you, together.

most mornings saw the both of you shooting at empty glass cans with rubber bands and small rocks, pretending you were cops. your mothers both watched on the kennedy’s wrap-around porch, with knowing smiles on their face.

now you wonder, what were your mothers thinking?

and most of all, what were you thinking when you accepted the job as a police officer alongside leon. what were you thinking when that childhood friend, the kind and brave boy, became the boy that you love.

eventually however, the boy you love was just that, a boy you love. but then you notice the startling emotions you have for him. you think it’s not just love anymore but some ingrained connection that transcends love.

yet still, you call it love.

claire redfield is never written into your fate, but she is written into his. you watch from afar as they hold hands with sherry, that orphaned girl from raccoon city.

you see a picturesque representation of a family. that burdening thought only intensifies when sherry asks if leon and claire are boyfriend and girlfriend. you almost flinch, trying to make sense of the how and the why.

(the truth is that you want to be in claire’s place. you don’t need to hold hands with sherry but you do want to be seen as leon’s girlfriend.)

no, you don’t hate claire and you’re not bothered by sherry’s presence.

“can we adopt a puppy?” sherry asks excitedly as she looks to both claire and leon.

“maybe later,” leon responds with a crooked smile. you’re suddenly aware that his gaze traveled to claire as he said it. so you decided to tear your eyes away to the side, hoping it can relieve the weight clinging to your heart.

you suddenly feel lost and awkward, until you see a truck heading your way.

“hey! over here!” you yell, waving at it, only to watch it drive past you with the driver holding out his middle finger. a tight frown settles on your face before you hear leon laugh.

“well, guess we’ll be walking for a little more,” he says. he winks at you and you feel your face flush before you look away and walk just a little faster.

——————-

time passes and the world shifts.

it’s on every mission with leon and claire that they work so well together, like two puzzle pieces–like a couple. though in retrospect, you should be prepared to accept the fact that your childhood friend is just a friend now.

and yet, where did you slip up? which opportunity did you accidentally let go?

you’re just a third-wheel–claire’s friend and leon’s childhood friend. you’re no longer in the equation that is their relationship.

it’s a sad reality and you don’t think you’re ready to accept and move on.

as you watch leon support a tired claire back to the medical tent, you stand to the side watching them. the gun in your hand feels heavy and cold despite its warm grip. leaning against a tree, you feel your brows furrowing as the injuries on your knuckles flare. the urge to go into an undead wasteland and fight cries within you. the relentless desire to tear and rip apart something, anything, just to relieve all the frustration, the anger, and the jealousy.

it’s not until chris redfield clears his throat that you look up. a bit on edge, you jump back and your finger skim against the trigger. at best, you are mildly surprised, but chris is a man who read microexpressions well.

“did i scare you?” he asks kindly, head dipping to the side. there’s concern etched onto his face and you almost feel bad.

“uh no, just thinking really hard…sir,” you force your voice to sound light. even though he’s claire’s brother you couldn’t skip the formalities. he’s not like his sister and certainly not like leon; there’s something heavy and firm about him, something that makes you half-nervous and half-shy.

not that you think he’s intimidating but–

“you’ve been awfully quiet these days. claire’s worried the missions are taking a toll on you. do you want to take a leave?”

chris’s sudden words set you on alert as you lock eyes. you are at a position where you need comfort from another. at the same time, you also want to be left alone. chris is caring a little too much and that makes you anxious, mind now heavily saturated in a desire to change subjects. most of all, you want to lay down and sleep.

as if he notices, chris’s face softens as he adds, “i can escort you back, (name).” however, you acknowledge that chris isn’t a bad person. claire’s always quick to remind everyone who would listen that her brother is a soft man inside the soldier persona.

in the past, you used to associate chris as nothing but a soldier. looking at him now, you are starting to wonder whether if he has a life outside of wars and battles.

that same curiosity keeps you rooted to your spot.

sensing the quiet, chris extends out his hand, silently encouraging you to take it. slack-jawed, you warily look at it before drifting your gaze back to his face.

chris’s lips curl into a smile, a gentle one, and slowly it dawns on you that he has a natural pull to him. you’re drawn to him like everyone else who has met him. easily you relinquish all preconceived caution about him as you slip your gun in its holster and take his hand.

there’s an awkward pause right when your fingers make contact with his, before he places his thumb against your knuckle and gently pulls you out from the shadow of the tree above.

his eyes never leave your face. the blue of his gaze is filled with warm intent. truly chris is a good soldier, not just with his combat skills but his attentive personality. for the first time, you feel yourself relax a little as he walks you down the path.

and quite suddenly you realize that chris is holding your hand. despite his presence right beside you, you couldn’t help but see a little of leon in him—or at least, the leon from your childhood.

quickly you turn your gaze to the ground, teeth worrying your lips as you attempt to calm your mind.

taking in a deep breath, you tell him, “thank you.”

————-

you’re looking again, thinking of the things that should happen but will never happen. through the twist of fate, once again leon and claire wedged their life into yours.

it all started with claire asking you to move into her family’s house.

“oh and, both leon and chris will be visiting when they’re off their missions,” she said airily. you don’t know how to handle your facial expressions anymore and claire noticed, smiling as she pats your shoulder.

when the boys do visit, you walk out to the veranda, hoping you may find some comfort among natural light and fresh air.

in front of you are countless trees and a private orchard behind them, belonging to a wealthy family. when the wind passes by you can smell the sweet fragrance intermingled with the scent of pine and wood.

the door opens and you turn to see leon coming outside. you are quick to notice the dark bags underneath his eyes. while it bothers you to see him like this, you also know that it’s common. even you had your fair share of insomnia and nightmares that prevented you from sleeping well.

“hey (name),” he says, offering you his boyish smile that you like. “it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“oh yeah, definitely a while,” you respond casually, face still tethered to the front. you think you see his smile pull back into a frown for a moment from the corner of your eyes. try as you might, you couldn’t help but feel bad all of a sudden. this could be your chance to remedy your difficult relationship with him, however one-sided and silly it may actually be.

“so next mission…it’s just me and claire.” he says it slowly as if trying not to set off some kind of fuse. that’s when you notice just how red his cheeks are. though you’re hurt to hear this, you still find yourself leaning against his shoulder.

just like old times, you think.

you close your eyes for a bit as the gradual and familiar feeling of peace overcomes you. “oh, i’ll root for the both of you–stay safe.” your voice sounds too casual and you just notices. leon inhales sharply but he doesn’t say anything; instead, he presses himself against your shoulder. his weight against you calms you, but it also reminds you of your attachment to him.

you wonder if, and when, you will ever learn to move on.

let go (name), let him go.

still, your mind dwells on the terrible things. in the past leon never worked with others, he was a lone wolf. but then things changed and he’s now working with claire and sometimes you and claire.

as always, claire is the abrupt twist in your fates. it’s not her fault, of course not—

“(name)?” leon’s voice echoes inside the back of your mind.

you open your eyes and let out a hum as a response.

“when this is over, not just the mission we’re going out on i mean, but when all of it is over, do you think you’ll stay with as an agent? you’re really something on the battlefield and i heard chris wants you to go on more assignments with him.” he’s scratching the back of his neck as he says this and you hear the uncertainty between each syllable. but you also notice the way he picks his words. the way he says us.

that’s okay, you think.

that’s okay.

you think you feel your heart dropping into a pit of disappointment right then.

it has been leon and claire, then you.

you shouldn’t think about this.

really, you shouldn’t for your own good.

pulling yourself up, you manage to detach yourself from the railing as you steady yourself. “maybe, though i-i do want to try being just an ordinary civilian first.”

you’re preparing to turn when leon catches your wrist in his hand. his lips are parted as if he wants to say something. then it begins to dawn on you.

“(name)...” he utters your name, soft on his lips. “i don’t think that’s possible anymore.” his pale eyes glint with sympathy as your face falls.

“i hate this life leon, i hate how it changed us—how it changed me.” your voice is brittle and shaky as you look at him. his gaze ceases to move from the right side of your arm, the scar from your first encounter with the undead still deep and ugly. but what he doesn’t know is the hidden meaning in your last words.

there’s something unreadable on leon’s face but just as you want to look up he has his hand placed on top of your head. his thumb is rubbing gently against the skin of your forehead.

“not your fault (name), and it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay,” he says quietly. his voice is so soothing that you feel lulled to comfort. that’s when you remember that a piece of him, the leon you knew as a child and the leon you love, is still with him. that is the intricate part of him, both unsettling and nostalgic.

your hands closed into fists as you fight the urge to cry.

after a moment’s silence, you decide to step away from him. he drops his hand to his side but his worried gaze is still trained on you. though you wish you can stay with him a little longer, the need to hide within the comfort of your room is greater.

a little time to yourself may pacify the turmoils ebbing within you.

“thank you, leon,” you say,” and please, come back alive, both of you.”

—————–

claire and leon depart the following morning. you wake to claire telling you goodbye before you hear her going down the stairs. still groggy in your sleep, you swear you hear leon’s voice by your room, talking about something before he too leaves. after their departure, the house becomes quiet and you feel your heart beating within its ribcage. they’ll be gone for a month into yet another battle and during those months–

no, you don’t want to think about it.

so you don’t and you get dressed and head out to the living room. there’s not much to do here besides watch television, hoping in some way you can flush out the worry and unrest with something else.

then you hear someone shuffling around in the kitchen and you remember chris is here too.

you suddenly remember that day he took you back to base. chris even extended his offer to send you home before realizing you didn’t have one anymore. dimly, you also remember that it was him who told claire about your situation.

even outside of missions he looked out for you.

you fold your hands on your lap as you linger upon the array of moving images on the television screen. chris is…chris is doing something; you don’t want to bother him.

“did you have breakfast? claire left some out, but i can definitely make you some good ones,” chris says from the kitchen, “my food is tastier.” you lean forward and see him appear in the doorway dressed in a sweater and jeans with a steaming mug in his hand.

“you sure she’s okay with you talking down on her cooking?” you couldn’t help but give him a teasing smile.

he feigns hurt before setting his mug down on the counter. “oh, claire knows i’m a far better gun handler and cook than her.”

you shake your head and lean back against the couch. “thank you, but maybe another time chris,” you say.

“very well, call me if you need something though.” he moves away and you turn your gaze forward.

the television is now playing advertisements and soon your eyes start drifting to the photographs standing on the table. you hear chris moving around the kitchen area, before you hear his heavy footfalls on the carpeted living room floor.

your hands tighten against one another, subtly praying for something to happen.

a small part of you want to go back to your room, but chris is already here.

“they’ll be back, don’t worry.” chris’s assertive voice pulls you out of your silence. he’s sitting beside you with a good distance put in-between. even out of armory he’s still bigger and taller than any men and women you’ve met. you remember keenly the first time you met him on an assignment. he wielded his fists like a club, smashing through mutated heads.

that’s when you decided that you’re safe as long as he’s here.

later, you asked him to train you in hand-to-hand combat, hoping that it can aid you along the way, should you only have yourself to depend on.

“how’s claire’s house? good?” he inquires, brushing his hand along his jaw. he’s turned to you, with one leg on the couch and the other on the ground. there’s not much room in-between now, to the point where you can smell his natural scent. it’s rather funny, but you notice that the difference between leon and chris is a shower.

today, you feel a different air about him. perhaps this is because he has no reason to be a soldier right now.

“yes! i like how nice it is...being an agent for the government has a lot of perks, i assume,” you say, rubbing your thumbs together as you look at chris. a slight smile crosses your face and you hope chris doesn’t mind your awkwardness. then, you remember that claire is out on another mission and your face falls. “she’ll be okay, leon’s with her too. and i can vouch for claire’s ability to survive” you didn’t mean to add the comment, besides trying to calm yourself down. you suddenly feel empty inside, useless even. if you aren’t useless, then you would’ve been picked to go too.

“both of them are good people, they will be fine. if not, i’ll find a way to get them out, bring them out of their graves if necessary.” chris’s gruff voice pulls you back into reality. you think you see half a smirk playing on his face, but there’s also a tightness to it.

“i don’t want to ever see my friends become an undead, if that’s what you’re trying to do,” you tell him. though you said it in jest, you realize the extent of such an ordeal if it will occur. too many times you had to put down people both familiar and precious to you. you’re not ready to put down a few more, but you know it’ll happen again.

hearing no response from chris, you place the back of your head on the couch headrest, letting out a small sigh. a strange silence befalls and it reminds you of the silence that came between you and chris after your last mission together. idly, you slide your fingers across your knuckles, feeling the scars there.

“thank you for everything chris,” you then tell him, “without you, i suppose i’m...dead.” you think back to the first missions you had together with him, and all of those times chris came to save you and everyone else. if anyone ever truly deserves a break, it would be him. “also i’m sorry for piers.” your voice drifts off, realizing that you shouldn’t have mentioned him.

you turn to look at chris, fully aware that he’s listening and you see a thoughtful expression, though grim and serious, on his face.

a tense silence supersedes the first. you aren’t privy to chris’s stiffness and how his face becomes thoughtful.

“what do you think of my leadership, (name)? all those men, piers, and the civilians. they died because i wasn’t enough–i should be and want to be but i’m not.”

his regular stoic face showing shards of betraying emotions–for the first time, you see him crestfallen, what you see is a man carrying broken pieces and a man filled with grief and lost hope.

you don’t know chris as well as you know leon and claire as a person. at the same time, you’re not born to mend doubts and sow wisdom. but he’s still someone you trust and respect enough that his sadness lingers within you like a bullet.

sitting up straight, you turn your body towards him, pressing a hand gently on his. “i think you’re phenomenal, as a soldier and an individual.” you pause, now at a loss for words. “and i know this may be a bit uncouth of me to say but deaths happen, even to good people. the best we can do is to live on and do what we always do: fight.”

you’re aware that you’re holding the hand of someone who has wielded it as a weapon. you’re aware that this same hand eviscerated countless enemies. but right now, you feel it tremble within your grip. countless scars and calluses etched upon his flesh—all symbols of chris’s sacrifice and of which marks him as a soldier. he’s always a hero to you, a superhuman even, a man larger than life with a god-like aura about him. yet in this moment he feels different—

“don’t doubt yourself anymore chris,” you finally add, eyes drifting to his face. it’s the same unreadable expression he usually wears, but his gaze is penetrative and intense. there is a hurricane of emotions in there that leaves you both breathless and mystified.

the difference between you and him is that of a rivulet and an ocean. maybe your words are not enough to console him, so you express your desire to comfort by squeezing his hand.

his response is simple, just a nod.

you let go of a breath you forgot to exhale.

though you fight like a wolf you are still meek when it comes to social interactions. so you suppose now is the best to distance yourself and leave chris to himself. “i’ll be in my room if you need me chris.”

except chris catches your hand in his grip and you suck in a breath, cheeks flushing at the abrupt contact. his hand swallows yours as he holds it like a lifeline. a thought occurs in you that he could possibly have held the hands of dying soldiers like this, firm and steady.

without thinking, you wrap your other hand around his, hoping it can alleviate more of his doubt and stress and whatever emotions that are plaguing him. but you know that’s not enough. in the end, it will take years and years of rehabilitation to steer chris and everyone involved away from the darkness clawing in their heart and mind.

you slowly exhale before letting it out, saying, “i’m here chris and i promise you that i will be here, with you and everyone else until i die. i won’t give up on you, leon, claire, or anyone else–we’ll win, we’ll win.”

chris is leaning towards you as he places your hands on your lap. his jaws clench, shoulders tensing in a way that makes you suspect that he’s not entirely pacified by your words.

“don’t say leave (name), i—“ he stops and he’s holding your hand so tightly again that you wince. “-don’t want you to leave, not like how piers and the others did.”

memories of soldiers turning into monstrous beasts and soldiers killed in gruesome manners still haunt your mind. there is little doubt in you that chris is burdened with the same imageries, except his comes with the feeling of failure to these individuals.

you remember watching him on several occasions gunning down soldiers under his command. those were all once people who were like him. some of them even knew you and had spoken to you.

and it’s sad to realize you only know of chris’s hurt and torment right now, when he’s baring his all. you also wondered why he chose you of all people to talk to, when he could go to claire or even leon later on.

he’s looking down at his own lap so you say his name. rather than attempt to speak more, you instead smile softly at him, hoping this simple gesture can translate into something hopeful for him.

“i won’t chris, i promise.”

he closes his eyes and sighs.

————–

almost a month later, claire and leon come back. you see claire dragging leon by his hand and you notice how red leon is. claire is smiling and leon looks embarrassed. you try not to think to that image, but to the thought that two of your best friends are home.

chris is not too far behind you, his arms resting against his chest as he welcomes them back.

“congratulations on not dying; also congratulations on a mission well done. i got the reports by the way, you both did great.” he winks at claire and then offers to assist leon with his injuries on his arm. “now if you turn…” he unwraps the bandages around his arm and assesses the damage. “i’m afraid (name) and i will have to put you down with our fists.” chris turns to look at you, briefly smiling a little.

“not gonna turn, i promise,” leon replies with a slight chuckle. you’re aware that his eyes have drifted onto you before he turns his gaze down to chris.

you find yourself feeling strangely calm and happy this time.

these days alongside chris has been your happiest. he gave you peace and you gave him reassurance. if you had met him years earlier then maybe–

“oh (name), can i talk to you after we’re done?” leon’s bright voice brings you out of your thoughts. there’s something hopeful dancing in the light of his blue eyes. of course you couldn’t turn that down, not when he’s the one asking.

“sure, come to my room later,” you say, voice softening a little as you remember chris is here too.

you see chris’s body tensing before he turns his face around. “i think i’m done here.”

for a little while you feel your face fall a little, initially hoping that chris would stay for a bit, even just to talk to you and leon. “claire and i will be fixing something for everyone, call me if you need anything okay?” when he walks by you his arm brushes against yours, causing you to stiffen this time.

gathering yourself, you then turn your attention back to leon. he has a blank expression on his face; either he’s hiding something or he’s oblivious to what occurred. and to be honest, you have no idea what happened either. chris has always been odd sometimes and you attribute it to his lifestyle.

but these days he has been close to you in physical ways. you are fairly confident to think that something is happening between you and chris, something that’s slowly bringing you out from your carapace of sadness from watching leon and claire.

“so i think we’re not needed in their sibling bonding,” you say slowly. you can already hear claire teasing chris in the kitchen. to your embarrassment, she’s asking chris if he found someone yet. awkwardly, you give leon a toothy grin before adding,”i’ll be in my room, come in when you’re ready.”

you turn and quickly walk your way up the stairs.

not long afterward, you hear leon knock on your door. you turn to see him standing against it, coolly looking at you.“you can come in leon, no need to knock.”

it’s then you notice that his hair is longer and stubble has formed on his chin.

leon finds his way next to you, seating himself on the floor beside your legs. he leans back and you have to remember that he still needs a shower. dark stains, blood you believe, clings to his shirt and you can smell something coppery sweet.

unlike a majority of people out there, you are used to it. even as children, both you and leon would climb on your bed soaked in mud-water and grime. now, the only difference is the absence of a mother or two yelling for a change of bedsheets and a bath.

“you probably don’t know this, but the mission was in your hometown.” leon’s voice is quiet as he looks up at you. there’s that same hopefulness in his eyes as if he wants to see you react. you do, of course, because the implication is there.

“the undead are gone?” you say, almost shyly. you can still remember the first night you went back, only to be met with the grotesque images of your friends and, most terrifying of all, your mother. “all gone? the town’s now safe?”

safe isn’t a correct word to say, but you grew up there. to you, that town holds a cherished aspect of your past in you. that town was where you were born, where you grew up, and where you found your first love–

“all clear, we just need to make sure the virus is gone from the water supplies and sewer systems. then, we get to cleaning it all up, but that’s for another crew.” leon smiles and you suddenly want to hug him.

and you do, because you’re both happy and still in shock over the news. you drop to the ground and crawl around to his front, before wrapping your arms around his shoulder. leon doesn’t tense and he returns your embrace with his own. in his arms you feel again the steady wing beats of a bird, caged within your ribs. warmth and affection seep into the cracks of your heart, sinking deep into the marrow of your bones.

in the end, it’s your childhood friend who gave you the greatest gift of all. still, you allow yourself to kindle your love for him in another direction.

it’s time to let go.

you lean your head against the side of his, briefly relishing in the closeness, and selfishly wanting it all for yourself.

“later i want to go back there. come with me?” you ask, voice small.

he’s rubbing soothing circled on your back. briefly, leon’s grip tightens as you let out a contented sigh. “yes, of course (name).”

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

the day comes quick but steady. though the town is free of the undead, leon and claire both warn ahead of stragglers that might have laid hidden within the buildings. of course, such a trip lures chris out too, insisting that he wants to come.

because of the nature of this trip, only you and leon has a gun by your side.

“honestly, (name) can destroy anything with just fists, give me the gun instead,” claire says, begging chris as she steps out of the car.

“and (name)’s also good with guns,” chris is quick to respond, but there is a warm smile on his face. you laugh at the exchange and then at claire’s pout, relishing in the sibling bond between them.

leon’s laughing too, quietly as he stands off to the side. you look at him and he notices, blue eyes settling on your face as he tosses you his crooked grin. not long afterward, he walks up to you and places his hand on your shoulder, saying, “take the lead (name), and prepare for anything inside.”

you nod and you walk first, leading your small group towards the path that connects to your town.

the few soldiers that are still stationed here gives a brief salute before returning to their stations.

claire walks up beside you, whispering, “chris isn’t talking to them, i think he wants to see this town bad.” she then looks over her shoulder at him. “oh and, i think a certain someone’s presence is making him more vigilant.” she gently prods you with her elbow and gives you a wink.

you know of the implications of her words and you frown a little. “don’t say that, chris is my superior and friend. besides i–” you stop, realizing that you shouldn’t say anything. your hands trail the gun holder, before finding its way skimming across your bandaged knuckles.

“heh, you’re popular (name),” are claire’s words as she grins, a bit too wide for you to be content with it. she pats your head and your mind lingers to leon, who’s talking to chris. you look back and see them talking between each other, sharing some kind of secret conversation. when they see you looking, both of them pause and look away.

noticing them as well, claire adds, “oh i’m just kidding! unless you didn’t hear anything then it’s a secret between me and (name).” she giggles and then steps back to give you space.

you are about to say something when you notice the view in front of you. the past minute has been a picture of a deserted town, with broken glasses and missing shop signs. now, you can see the destruction; the fire, the upturned cars, the dried blood staining the streets and buildings. worst of all is your memory of this place; you still remember what it was like before the outbreak happened.

closing your eyes you let out a shaky breath. you hear claire calling your name, but her voice sounds distant. everything feels far away, but you continue walking. it pains you to see this but you still want to walk ahead.

soon, you stop, muscle memory bringing you in front of the building that was your apartment. you just realize that you and your group have walked a fair way into the town. and save for the conversations at the beginning, no one has spoken. a part of you want to enter the building alone, but you know better than to do that.

“take your time, (name).” it’s chris’s voice keeps you rooted to reality. all of a sudden, the air feels suffocatingly warm. a budding silence ensues, filled with the same silence that almost makes you nostalgic in a deeply disconcerting way.

“i will, but it’s been such a long time. i grew up here, and last time i–” you stop yourself just as you hear a banshee-like shriek coming from the apartment complex. you feel something fall within you, dropping into the abyss of darkness as you sprint into the building.

something roars in your ears as you take the stairs two at a time. the heavy footfalls of your comrades follow behind you, but you’re not listening to anything but the scream. you don’t even have the time to draw a gun before you see something ambling towards you.

“mom?” your voice is small and hesitant as you shine a flashlight at the undead. she is dressed in the floral red dress you bought her, with several deep garish wounds littering her body. you think you make out bullet wounds too, but you can’t find the opportunity to see properly before you’re taking a step back. there’s something behind her, wriggling and squirming as they move. “mom, what’s happening?” you yell, voice high and scared as she continues walking forward.

someone yells behind you and you hear leon calling for you to shoot. then you realize that the tentacles behind your mother are connected to her back. before long, they are whipping across, seemingly trying to get to you and the rest.

a long groan rattles the hallway, crushing your heart even more as you finally take out a gun.

“shoot her (name), do it!” claire says. she’s right beside you, planting half of her body in front of you, jaws clenched and hands shaking. as your mother moves closer, you feel time suddenly stopping.

you’ve shot countless undead and mutated undead before. but this is different because this one is your own mother.

and despite the monstrosity that’s her appearance, you still see a normal woman.

in the flash of a second, one of the tentacles extends towards you. you see red, but it’s not blood. claire has blocked it with her own body, the tentacle penetrating her upper left thigh. you hear the sickening sound of bone and the way its wriggling through her, attempting to slide more in.

a series of gunshots ring out and you hear the awful monstrous screech. weak-willed and delirious, you sink to your knees just as claire drops down, moaning in pain. despite everything, your tears come down as you watch your mother’s body collapse to the ground.

“this isn’t right, this isn’t right…” you mutter, turning your hands palm up as you look at them, sweaty and shaky.

“claire!” leon’s voice resonates inside your head, loud and clear. you watch with lips parted as he pushes past chris towards the fallen woman. he quickly takes her into his arm, gaze lingering on her as he prepares to leave.

an emptiness plunges itself inside your heart as you feel yourself hoarsely whispering leon’s name. a chilling coldness runs down your neck, forcing you to scramble up, only to pitch forth before chris catches you in his arms.

for the first time, there’s something hateful in leon’s face as he catches your gaze. he says nothing and you think it’s for the best. you’re too weak to properly stand but you still turn your attention to chris. “y-you should go with him, i’ll catch up. your sister...she–” you feel yourself retching, the anxiety and horror crawling back up your throat.

he’s suddenly holding the back of your head and you don’t know what to do. shouldn’t chris be with claire? shouldn’t he be mad at you?

instead, chris is pressing you close to him, close enough that you can inhale his scent and feel the entirety of him surrounding you. you tremble as tears roll down your cheeks. many words catch in your throat, words of apologies, words of regrets–just words that you hope that will mend this in some way.

“come on (name), we need to leave,” comes chris’s steady words, as if nothing at all has affected him. he moves, bringing you with him. but it’s slow and you know that he’s doing it for you.

and you cling to him, thinking about what happened and how you fucked up.

this is all your fault, you and your foolish, foolish heart.

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

“claire’s getting treatment in a government facility,” is leon’s words, sharp and rushed as he comes into the house. he looks to chris first, as if hoping to hear something out of him. then he looks at you causing you to freeze while gripping your kneecaps tightly. “(name), why didn’t you shoot?” his voice is almost a whisper, but it sounds loud and clear in your head.

“i-i couldn’t, i see it and i see my mother, i’m so sorry,” you say, voice a blubbering mess. you stop talking then just as you feel nausea all over again. you couldn’t find the strength to look at leon anymore, neither could you stare at chris.

“is claire doing well?” chris finally says, his voice a refreshing addition to the tenseness of the situation. you look up to see him standing between you and leon. for the first time, you are glad chris has shielded you from him.

“why aren’t you worried for your own sister, redfield? why are you here?” leon’s unprompted question pulls your attention, forcing you to sit up from the couch as you make your way forward. unsure of why you are drawn to this, you silently watch as chris’s jaw twitches, as if he wants to say something.

his fists clench and you almost flinch, thinking he’s going to attack. every muscle upon him looks stiff, his figure poised to attack. there’s a sudden animosity on his face, and you suspect claire’s condition is only partially to do with it.

“i am, but i’m sure claire will be fine. we already secured the necessary vaccines to stop her from turning, the rest is up to the doctors,” comes his answer, calm and firm as always. he then turns and gives you a brief stare, his gaze softening a little. his fingers suddenly brush against your knuckle and you feel your breath catching in your throat.

instead of responding to chris, leon takes one step forward, body angling towards you. “(name), we need to talk.” his voice is terse and low, but you feel as if he wants chris to hear it too.

without thinking, you trail after him, shooting chris a look of apology over your shoulder as you went. you hope chris doesn’t follow, thinking there’s something wrong. you trust leon enough not to be hurt physically but you’re not sure about anything else.

leon’s hatred can run deep, and if this is what it comes to then–

no, this won’t happen. even if you realize it’s happening, you refuse to accept it.

he leads you to the veranda, the only place that you enjoy to be in beside your room. he has his arm hanging over the banister, eyes staring at the green pine trees. there’s a peacefulness in his face, only to be disrupted by the stiffness of his squared shoulders. you slowly walk up, placing yourself right beside him.

your fingers thrum against the wooden railing, mind unable to process coherent sentences. every time you try, you think back to claire lying on the ground, in pain with a hole on her leg.

this is all your fault

the voice inside your head isn’t yours anymore; you think you’re losing it because it sounds like both leon and claire.

“i never wanted this to happen.” strangely, you do find your voice. and it comes out quicker than you would like to. blinking, you start to realize how close you are to wanting to cry again. normally you wouldn’t be affected so easily but this involves leon and claire and it’s too much.

“oh, i know,” is leon’s clipped response. “but you should’ve handled yourself better. that thing could’ve killed claire and you, and chris and i might even die right there.” the last of his words come out shaky and quiet. he’s not focusing on anything, but he’s also not looking at you.

sensing you wouldn’t speak again, he continues, “the first time i was in raccoon city, a man told me to shoot anyone who’ve turned, uniform or not. that same man turned a few hours later and i had to dispatch him.” suddenly, leon’s face breaks into grief. you stop feeling the apprehension from before as you watch his shoulders sag.

“leon…”

he’s baring his teeth and you know that’s how he keeps himself from fully losing his emotions to sadness. “sometimes you have to do things you don’t ever want to do, for the sake of the many. that’s sacrifice (name), and i need you to understand that. but i promised everyone that i will protect them until i couldn’t, that i won’t let their bodies become hosts to another’s evil.” he’s gripping the railing so hard that you hear the wood creak underneath.

not knowing what else to do or say, you inch your hand toward his. slowly, you slide your fingers under his hand, quietly coaxing him to let go.

taking in a deep breath, leon relents as his hand goes limp in yours. you hold it for a while, before retracting yours to your side. “everything will be alright leon, i p-promise.”

you then look down until you see the white of the floor before preparing yourself to leave. instead, you feel a hand catching your wrist. for a second, you are reminded of chris and then it dawns on you that the man has never left your mind since that day.

before you can ruminate on why chris is so clearly ingrained in your mind, leon’s bringing you towards him.

your eyes widen as he leans close, until his lips are close enough to touch the shell of your ear.

“you and chris share something special, i noticed that,” his voice is low and husky, making your heart churn with something devastatingly warm. “do you like him, (name)?” his added comment makes your breath hitch. right after he says that his grip tightens. the lingering feeling of it reminds you once again of chris’s touch.

this turn from one topic to another, and to the one you least expect, causes you to take a step back. leon follows, his pale eyes never leaving yours. there’s no teasing on his face, but something much worrying, something that makes your heart soar but drops at the same time.

“no,” you croak out, head dipping down again as embarrassment reddens your face.

“no? it’s okay if you like him, (name). i won’t stop you from liking someone; chris is reliable and safe.” his voice is soft all of a sudden, bringing you to the times he and you would share stories together as young teens. but you detect disappointment too, of which makes you think about other possibilities, that perhaps–

“i had a crush on you!” you suddenly blurt out, head raising so you can properly look at him. for the first time today he looks taken aback, shocked even. his grip on your wrist relents a little before he’s holding it hard again.

“you had?” he murmurs. strands of blond hair cover his face, but you notice the change on his expression. a first it’s surprise, but then it morphs into sadness, stark and obvious. there’s a tense silence and you reason that leon’s processing all of this. then, he seems to chuckle to himself, before gripping both of your wrists and lifting them to his chest. “what went wrong, (name), what happened? how did chris come into your life and settle himself in there? how did we become just you and him?”

his words tear at you. those were the same thoughts that occurred in you when you looked at him and claire. but now, it all seems so trivial when leon’s the one saying it out loud. for a second, you couldn’t speak as you try to find the right words.

“you...you love me, leon?”

“yes, even though i shouldn’t. the only thing that kept me back was my own doubts and emotions. but (name), please tell me why you are different now, tell me what changed.” he’s pleading from his voice to the way his pale eyes gaze at you. leon looks so much more vulnerable here that you pause.

you think back to chris, all the times he casually brushes himself next to you when leon’s present. you think back to how tense chris gets when leon talks to you in that friendly manner. then, you think to leon, seemingly oblivious to the times chris is close to you.

of course, leon notices, how can’t he be? he just never mentions it, just like how you never mentioned claire to him. 

then you wonder when did you let leon go. chris’s presence must have aided you in the relent of your feelings, even if a portion of it is still here, covered inside your ruined heart.

then, like heavy rain, your words tumble out.

“leon i–i never stopped loving you back then, i’m sorry-oh god i never thought it would end like this–i thought–i thought you like claire! i see you and her being so close and perfect together i grew envious and sad! but i never wanted to stop loving you leon. but, but then i–i don’t know, i’m not sure if i love you now, or if that love is still as much as my love for you before. i’m not sure, i’m sorry.” your hands drop to your side as leon lets you go. you then bring them up again to hold your head, suddenly feeling confused and dazed as your heart pounded wildly.

you didn’t want to say those things, you just want to tell him that you still like him. now, it feels like you finally severed a loose string that connects you to him.

and leon, being the one who’s always bad with relationships, with his suffering and his inability to find the connection he wants, continues staring at you. you wonder why you know him so well that you can analyze things he told you. all those broken relationships with those women he mentioned, and how he still loves you and only you.

only for you to completely turn it around, thinking that he never once loved you.

that should be something, that he and you are meant to be together. this should be all a trial for you to overcome together. instead, however, you see an ocean of uncertainties. the intensity and passion you feel for him is no longer as strong as before. to you, it would be unfair to tell leon ‘i love you’ when the fire is partially smothered.

“i stand on what i said, leon kennedy. i loved you but i don’t, so you should–you should find happiness elsewhere.” your words come out cruel, causing you to flinch as you step back. he reaches out a hand to you before deciding not to.

your ear is pounding as you head back inside; leon’s gaze is heavy upon your back.

while it pains you, you feel it reasonable to do so. sometimes, letting go is better than holding on. 

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

claire returns weeks later, to a house partially divided. she only hears what chris told her, but she says nothing when you and leon are in her presence. for the past days, leon is trying to go on as many assignments as possible, all so that he can detach himself from you.

you grimly accept that fact, but you also don’t want to be in the house, especially when chris is always trying to meddle in. you don’t hate chris, you never did, you only wish that he never came into your life like this.

the night time beckons you to go out, towards a nearby land that’s just a rolling green filled with nothing but a single tree. you sit down and lean back, breathing slowly as you look up at the stars. in a few weeks leon will be back, but then you will be on your next mission.

and you don’t know whether if you ought to think of chris as more than a friend. romance and desire have nothing to do with being on the battlefield. it’s even highly recommended not to fall in love with a fellow agent or soldier.

but no one can stop the matters of the heart. you’ve lived through that, but you don’t want to live through another one.

the momentary peace you sought breaks as you see chris walking towards you. you almost forgot that he used to come here too and it was he who showed you this place. lazily you wave at him and watch him wave back at you.

he stops and slides down on the other side of the tree. for a bit, you think he’s just giving you space, or maybe you think he somehow knows that deep down you want to be alone.

“am i an open book sometimes?” you ask casually. you place an arm on your bent leg, watching a moth flutter around your fingertips.

“sometimes, yes. but i’m good at reading people,” comes chris’s answer.

“so you should be a psychologist then.” you laugh at your own words, but really you’re trying to find a reason to be happy now.

to your surprise, chris laughs as well, though it’s short and almost dry. “then i reckon my patients will all be soldiers; you would be my favorite one.”

“psychologists are not allowed to have favorites, chris. oh and i think the proper term is a therapist actually…” your words drift off, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. you suck in a breath, body sagging down as you continue watching the moth, now having flown into your open palm. you turn your hand just as the mother walks around it, now making a path across your knuckles.

silence comes between you again, reminding you that you are not a person to hold conversations with. chris isn’t either, you decide, but he at least has his stories.

“may i ask you something personal, (name)?” chris’s voice cuts across the silence, each syllable hesitant but clear. you could guess what he wants to ask, so you drop your hand to the side as the moth flutters away.

“go ahead.”

“do you still love him?”

though you are expecting a similar inquiry, you still feel yourself dry-mouthed. there’s nothing to suggest what chris is currently going through but you can also take a guess at that. it’s now so apparent that chris must have liked you–he probably still does. if you are a better person, you would have made it clear the second you found out that you cannot be with him. but after letting leon go, you are thinking otherwise.

that perhaps, chris can fill that hole in your heart.

and yet, despite that feeling of wanting him, you also realize that he still cannot replace anything.

the hole in your heart has always been open, too deeply wounded for chris to completely fill it.

“yes, i do. but at the same time, i’m not sure,” you admit, looking down to your lap. “and i’m aware that you are fond of me, but i never wanted to tell you this.” you could have left out the last part, but you want chris to know because he deserves to learn what happened that day. perhaps that can change his opinion about you, perhaps, in some silly way, he will let you go.

both of you sought affection, you know that, but it’s not the right time, and certainly not with the right person.

before you allow him to speak, you then say, “will you let me go chris? i never wanted this to happen but i don’t blame you. i just want to be at peace, for once i don’t want my heart to be burdened with these feelings.”

for a moment, you thought you hear chris sigh. slowly you look around, only to see a small part of his body peaking out from the front of the trunk. so you stand up and walk around, deciding that it will be easier to talk to him here.

you squat down in front of him, placing both of your hands on your knees as you study his face. he isn’t looking, but he’s deep in thought. you wonder what he’s thinking; you couldn’t figure it out without overthinking impossible things, but you’re curious.

“leon still holds a place in your heart, even if you don’t love him,” he says it as a fact. chris opens his mouth before curling his lips into a tight smile. that’s the smile you know to be hiding burdens. finally, he leans forward and curls his hand behind the base of your neck. “and you’re alright to let him go? to let me go as well? (name), you know you deserve love, you deserve everything that’s good for all the mess this world made”

almost bitterly you laugh, hand reaching up to wave away whatever words he spoke. “no chris, i think it’s enough for me. love is something i shouldn’t try to find right now. i need space and only that.”

you think he’s going to pull you into him, but instead, he lets you stay here. you recall the times he would do the same thing to other soldiers, except he was lecturing them on morality and discipline.

if you and he had met much earlier, if he had been your childhood friend instead of leon, then tonight might have been different. you could have found love and be in love, but that’s another story.

“i heard your confession that day (name), you’re not exactly quiet about it.”

you raise your eyes up to chris. he has a frown on his face but quickly it turns into a half-hearted smirk. you’re suddenly aware of his thumb rubbing circles on the flesh of your neck, reminding you of the time leon did the same thing to your forehead.

with a heavy heart, you lower yourself. chris doesn’t leave his hand on you for long, choosing then to drop it onto his lap.

“leon and i still share a deep connection,” you say, ascertaining your words. “but, i also moved on from him.” your hands push into the soft ground, fingers digging through dirt just as you close your eyes.

“so he holds a special place in your heart even though you moved on? that’s...that’s a soulmate (name),” chris pauses, eyebrows furrowing as if it pains him to continue. “i was hopeful that you would move on to me. but when i saw you and leon together i realized that you and leon will never separate even if you don’t love him. and then i acknowledged how awful it was for me to think of you in such a way, so i want to let go as well.”

his words shock you, only because he’s now telling you this. you stare at him with a slackened jaw. “thank you chris,” you then reply, offering him a slight smile, before shaking your head. “this could have turned out simpler if we just communicated better, all three of us i suppose.”

this time, chris’s laugh is lighter as he adjusts his position against the tree. “well, we’re soldiers (name), we’re only good at fighting and talking about combat strategies.”

as you both watch the stars and bask in the summer wind, you think you hear a distant voice urging you.

go to him, he waits.

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

leon calls the next week, saying that he will be back around the early morning. though initially excited, your mood drastically changes when you remember the words you want to share with him. nervousness buds in your heart that you couldn’t sleep. like most nights before, you pace around your room, only stopping when you want to stare at the moon.

hours later, claire comes into your room and tells you that leon’s back.

as always, his appearance could be for the better. dirt and blood and other matters cling onto him as he walks in. somewhere in the middle, his hair was cut, its edges uneven. at the very least, you see that he has shaven.

for the first time since coming out of your desecrated hometown, leon’s smiling.

you think back to chris’s words, that leon’s your soulmate. perhaps that’s why his mood is different; perhaps he feels it too.

a crooked grin spreads across his face as claire fist bumps him, congratulating him on retrieving the necessary information. he then turns toward you, seemingly expecting something from you.

you’re tired but your heart is soaring once more. silently, you cross the meager distance and put your arms around him.

“welcome home leon,” you tell him. you then pause, eyes lingering on claire and then to chris, who has made his way here. “we missed you.”

his smile is all teeth, bright and boyish and reminding you of everything you love about him.

“i missed you too, all of you,” is his soft response.

when your bodies connect, you feel the excitement of being so close to him. this time, however, you don’t doubt yourself or him it’s just this strange, oddly supernatural relationship between you and leon. 

“and leon?” you say, face still hovering close to his. “can we start over? empty slate this time?” 

for a moment, leon looks taken aback. but whatever feeling that’s going through him must be generous, for he says, “okay, let’s start from the beginning, (name).” 

you smile, touching foreheads with him, fondly remembering those days of your youths. 

[curiosity-killed]

almost like memory

@bbtree first off: thank you so much <3 and also thank you for accidentally giving me an excuse to wander off into a Shallura genre I don’t normally touch (ngl I had to make myself stop bc otherwise I was never going to get it posted - so fingers crossed, there may be more to come!)

————

His colors are wrong. Under the fluorescent lights, everyone becomes washed out and green-tinged, like they're half-human, half-hologram. The group leader had apologized for it at their first session, explaining that the church didn't have the money to upgrade to the new system that illuminates most the city. Attendance has dropped off over the years, and now more people enter for these support groups than for Sunday services. If she had to guess, it's only the state funding for these groups that's even keeping the flickering lights on.

The lights aren't the problem with him. It's something deeper, bigger: his hair's too dark or there's something missing in his face or his green t-shirt is the wrong shade. He should be in black. She brushes the thoughts away with a shake of her head. This is the first time she's ever seen the man, and they haven't even met yet. Just another delusion, mixing streams. The doctors have assured her that it’s normal, that though she can’t remember it, she still has a past locked away inside her, and occasionally her subconscious might let a little slip through and muddle her new reality. He introduces himself as Ryou Kurogane, and it’s wrong wrong wrong. The intensity of her conviction is stomach-churning, nearly nauseating. She can’t get it to shut up. He smiles at her when it’s her turn to introduce herself, and she smiles back reflexively before she remembers to duck her head, let her hair fall in a dark curtain between them.

Words don’t come easily to her. She doesn’t know if that’s new or if it’s always been that way. The doctors weren’t much help; they don’t like to talk about her past at all, even if they know it. They say it isn’t conducive to healthy recovery, to establishing her new identity. 

After the session, Ryou – not Ryou, wrong wrong wr— stays to help the group leader fold up and stack the chairs along the side. She finds herself lingering, reluctant to leave. She doesn’t know why, exactly, just that there’s something drawing her to stay. To keep close to him. She’s fussing with the water cups, flimsy little biodegradable things, when she hears him step up close. “Hi,” he says. She startles at how close his voice is, and when she turns, he raises his hands in apology. There’s something not quite right about them. They’re too similar, identical creases in his palms. She shakes it off. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. “You’re Romelle, right?” Somehow, the name the doctors gave her sounds even more wrong in his voice. Her lips twitch up in what’s meant to be a smile but comes out closer to a grimace. “And you’re Ryou,” she says. It doesn’t sound better in her voice either. “That’s me,” he says, pushing his hands back into his pockets. His shoulders curve in with the motion, as if he’s trying to narrow himself, bend himself into a smaller space. He’s taller than her. She’s not sure why it surprises her, except that she thinks he wasn’t always. Isn’t always. That makes no sense at all. It’s not like their heights could change. “Sorry, you just – you seem really familiar,” Ryou-not-Ryou says. “I – uh wanted to say hi.” “Oh,” she says. Surprise ripples through her – and relief. It’s a foreign thing, distant, as if from someone else. “I uh – I’m – I’m sorry, I was in an accident a few months ago and don’t remember – much.” The words stumble out of her mouth, tripping and falling over each other all out of order. She winces when they land, regret rushing through her before she can shut herself up. “Oh!” Ryou says. “I – I know how you feel.” She stares, waiting for the second half of whatever joke this must be. “I was in an accident, too. Amnesia, everything before is just – blank,” he explains. It seems almost too perfect to be true. How could they wind up with the same story? But there’s nothing but sincerity in his voice and gaze, and something deep in her chest says he wouldn’t lie. Not about this. Not to her. “Oh. That’s – I’m sorry,” she says. He gives a little shrug with his left shoulder as if to brush off the apology. The smile he offers her doesn’t reach his eyes, just pulls up one side of his lips. “Sounds like we’re in the same ship anyway,” he says. A funny way of saying it, but she manages a smile in response. There’s something worming up her chest, words half-formed in her throat. “Do you wanna get a bite?” He looks almost surprised by his own words, as if he hadn’t meant to let them escape. She feels the same when she answers without a conscious decision. “Yes.” They wind up in a little diner half a block down from the church, a quiet little Akubari place that uses an outdated waitstaff model, the kind that would have been popular when Allura was young. It’s all blank, but she spent hours researching them one night, watching videos of their jerky movement and listening to recordings of their little trills and beeps, in case someone brought up nostalgia for them around her. They haven’t yet, but when they do, she’s ready. She’s prepared with a whole set of pretend memories so she’ll have a chance to connect with this future stranger, a chance to imagine a shared experience. He orders tea and grilbeck with mango and she settles on water and a thick yellow soup. Learning – relearning – her own tastes over the last few months has largely been too daunting a task to expend much effort towards; she's grown used to the food that's cheap and easy, sandwiches and pre-packaged dinners. She's not sure she likes them exactly, but figuring out how to live without a past, without an identity or network or any kind of supporting structure, is exhausting enough that sometimes she just wants something to be easy. Food is a simple enough opportunity for that. “I don’t think I’ve ever tried Akubari,” she remarks. At least not in the last three months. Maybe the other her, the past her, had. “One of my neighbors is from Akubara, actually,” he says. “They kinda got me hooked on it.” There’s a sheepish tone to his voice, as if he’s almost embarrassed by the admission. It makes her smile, her nerves inanely assuaged by the description. She doesn’t really have neighbors – or, well, there are people who live in the apartments beside and above and below hers, but they don’t talk. She’s seen maybe two of them out and about in the building all told. “I’ve heard their food culture incorporates a great deal of sharing,” she says. “Yeah! Drufbila just showed up at my door one day and ushered me in to the dinner table like I was their cousin or something,” he laughs. “Their mom kept fussing over whether I was eating enough, of course.” She breathes out a laugh at that, struck by the image of the great tentacled Akubari prodding him to take just a little more of each dish. Next to their towering, amorphous forms, his lean frame probably would seem underfed. It warms her to know someone, at least, is looking out for him. Weird. She shakes the thought away, disguises it as amusement. “What about your neighbors? Any nosey grandmas there?” he asks, leaning his cheek on his hand. The motion curves his body towards her, shoulders and waist twisted as if to block out the few diners sitting in the rest of the restaurant. His attention is a gentle thing, like sunlight or — Ridiculous. The sun hasn’t been seen through the smog here in decades. She’d have to have been off-planet to have an idea of what sunlight felt like, and surely, then, someone would have been there after her accident. No one traveled alone, not that far. If she ever had, there would have been someone to notice her missing, someone to seek her out. “Oh, no,” she says. “I’m afraid my building mostly keeps to ourselves.” “That’s a shame,” he says, a sympathetic twist to his lips. “Can’t help with–” He flicks his hand up in a little gesture towards his head, and she shrugs. “It can be a little lonely,” she concedes. Before he can ask more, their food arrives on the creaking arm of their servant and is slid onto their table in three jerky pushes. Her soup nearly slops over the lip of the blue bowl with the motion, and she has to steady it with her hands. Finished, the robot gives a happy little beep, and he reaches out to pat its head. “Thanks, bud,” he says. The robot rolls away with a contented little three-note trill. He turns back to her with a little smile and lifts his fork. “Bon appetite,” he says. “Buen provecho,” she answers, from somewhere she doesn’t quite recognize. He grins, still, and she can’t bring herself to question it when that smile is so unmuddied, so clear and easy. “You wanna try some?” he offers, gesturing to his plate with the fork. Orange glaze covers the blue of the grilbeck meat, turning it almost green, and mango slivers stick out of the flesh like oddly colored spines. It’s pretty, in its own way, even in the yellowish light of the diner. “Sure,” she agrees. “Want some of mine?” They wind up with the dishes in the middle of the table, snagging a bite from each plate with equal frequency. It feels…familiar. Comfortable. Like this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. She recognizes something in his expression when he takes the first spoonful from her soup and cants his head, considering. She’s seen that look before, seen the thoughtful way he savors the bite before swallowing and giving a thumbs up. Partway into their meal, conversation resumes once more, and comes back to them as easily as sharing. “Yeah, I have Doctor Honerva, too! That’s so weird,” he says. “How have we not bumped into each other at her office?” She shakes her head and licks a bit of mango glaze off her bottom lip. His gaze drops to follow the motion, just briefly, before flitting back to meet hers. A flush starts, warm pleasure rising in her cheeks. “It’s quite a coincidence,” she agrees. Maybe that’s where she remembers him from – maybe she’s seen him in passing and those memories have become conflated with those locked away from her. “Maybe we’ll see each other now that we’ve met.” “I’d like that,” he says. There’s a warmth to his gaze, a steady sincerity in his tone, that makes her duck her head. This is the longest she’s spent with anyone aside from her doctors since waking to a cold white room three months ago. It’s getting to her head, surely. She’s not sure she minds. “Me, too,” she agrees, meeting his gaze. The moment stretches between them, soft and welcome. She could make a home in this moment, in the gentle way he looks at her, in the pleasure in the soft curve of his lips. For the first time in months, she feels warm. Safe. A four-note beep announces the robot’s return, breaking apart their quiet. They split the check and head to the door. It’s started raining, the drizzly kind that leaves the whole city stinking of wet concrete. For once, it doesn’t bother her. It’s barely a footnote next to the chapter that this evening has become. He pauses outside the door, hands back in his pockets, shoulders bowed inward. “I’m down that way,” he says, nodding in the opposite direction of her apartment. “I’m afraid I’m the opposite way,” she says. Do his shoulders slump? Maybe she’s just looking for signs now. “I – I’d really like to see you again. If you want,” he says. He bites down on the inside of his bottom lip, watching her intently. Warmth flushes through her, up to the tips of her ears. She smiles and only barely keeps it from beaming. “I’d quite like that, too,” she admits. “Here, why don’t we trade numbers?” At that, he seems to light up from within. He straightens out, broad shoulders squaring back into their full breadth, and he pulls his phone from his pocket immediately. Surprised delight radiates through his entire being as he unlocks it and flips through to the right screen. Watching him through her lashes as she does the same, she can’t suppress the feeling that this, for once, is right. This is what is meant to be. Somehow, impossibly. They trade numbers and say farewell with smiles, and when she glances back over her shoulder as she walks away, she catches him looking back as well. They both laugh, as if at themselves, and give a little wave before continuing on their way. When she gets home, she’s greeted by a grave-like apartment and her treatment unit sitting ready on her end table. She stands in her doorway, considering the machine. It’s simple, easy to use. Back at the hospital, there’s a much larger version, but this one was specifically designed for home treatment. She’s supposed to use it every night, to help her brain heal. It always leaves her feeling numb, grey. Like it strips the color from her day and replaces it with a fresh coat of waiting-room-off-white. Normally, that isn’t much of a problem. Her routine is simple and largely emotionless. Painting over it is like laying a layer of grey over ninety other layers of nearly the same shade. Today, though – she wants to keep today. She wants the gentle gold of his attention, the soft grey of his eyes. The colors aren’t quite right – but at least there are colors this time. There are shades and hues she doesn’t know she’s ever seen or felt. It’s not what the doctors told her to do, but she doesn’t want to sacrifice them this time. She doesn’t want to cover up the silver flecks in his eyes with matte. The unit is tucked neatly in her bathroom cabinet, and she settles into her blankets with a strange feeling of satisfaction. That night, she dreams impossible things. She dreams of space, unfurling in feathery nebulae with tendrils curling purple and red around newborn stars. She dreams of machines, great ships and weapons that soar through the edges of the universe. She dreams — of him. His warm eyes, his fierce dedication. His hands, one flesh and one metal, cradling her jaw like something precious, like something to be adored. His lips are soft when they press against hers, his heart beats steady and strong against her palm. His voice aches when he speaks, a single word that is a prayer, a plea, a promise – “Allura,” he says. “Allura, Allura, Allura.”

[justasparkwritings]

Codename Cupid Chapter 18

Previous: Cricket & Bunny

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x OFC

Genre: Secret AgentAU, Government AgentAU

Rating: PG15

Word Count: 1.4K

Warnings: Swearing

Summary: Our resident P.I. finds who she's been looking for, and gets an unwelcome surprise. 

(two shorter chapters today!) 

Harboring Hoseok

Present Day

           I found Jung Hoseok.

           Let me back track that statement – After months of digging, harassing my sister for more help, using all my contacts in various bureaus, lying to Euna that I’d made progress when I hadn’t, I finally have found Jung Hoseok, Hoseok Jung.

           I know, you’re wondering, how? What finally cracked the case? How did I, the person incapable of finding Min Yoongi, lucky enough to stumble into Park Jimin, find Jung Hoseok?

           You’ll be shocked, you’ll be amazed, you’ll be dumbfounded that I stumbled into him in the most millennial way possible, because I found him on, don’t hold your breath:

           Instagram.

           That’s right, I stumbled upon Jung Hoseok on fucking Mark Zuckerberg owned, Instagram. It was a coincidence, a twist of fate, that I was even in the vicinity of him, because we do not live in the vicinity of each other. I wasn’t sure he was even alive; I wasn’t sure if he had moved continents or countries. But, in the ether, he resides.

           Sometime after Jungkook told me he loves me, and after I created permanent scarring on his back from my too long fingernails (they’ve since been cut multiple times), I went to my favorite Barre3 studio. I’m not going to lie, I go regularly. I’m addicted. Yes, it can be cult-ish, but have you ever worked out so thoroughly your ass hurts when you stand? Or listened to a teacher relay the message that you are strong, that your body is powerful, that you can accomplish any challenge? If not, and I know this is propaganda, but like take a class. I can give you a discount.

           The point is, somewhere between sumo squats and parallel bridge lifts, I noticed this woman, stunning, who seems to come to class every day before or after she hits the gym with her trainer. The. Stamina. Can you believe? On a Wednesday, I accidentally bumped into her, spilling some of my water down her Sweaty Betty matching set. I apologized profusely, and she laughed it off, saying it cooled her down. She noticed my earrings, liked them, and ever since then we’ve been texting. We’ve even gone so far as to get coffee, which prompted me to do my favorite activity, troll her Instagram. Some people say Instagram is going the way of Facebook, which it easily could be, but it’s so damn fun that I pray every day the trend continues in its favor.

           A public figure, Genevieve Yang is the height of couture. She is at every fashion week, Milan, Paris, New York, and donates nearly as much as Kwan and Seo, combined. Leaving the spotlight to work on a smaller sect of her organization, focusing on women’s reproductive rights, specifically women in poverty, she’s rarely photographed or seen outside of said events. Instead, she works 8-5, exercises regularly and rumor has it, is vegan. She’s the eldest of three, and her siblings are a pediatric cardiologist and a Rhodes Scholar. Within the universe of the Lee’s, she’s looked down upon for being biracial, her father, a first generation Nigerian-American, fell in love with her mother, a first generation Korean American from Busan, during their study abroad stint in Italy. I’ve been dying to find a connection to the Lee’s, and here, in all her melanin glory, is Genevieve.

           In scrolling through her Instagram, I came across a photo series from a few weeks ago. To my surprise, standing with his arm around Genevieve’s shoulder, stands a man with dimples so deep and rays of sun beaming through the photo and barreling past my phone screen.

           Jung Hoseok.

           And who should be next to him?

           Lee Kwan-Min.  

           They’re in an ornate ballroom, gold ceilings and ball gowns, masquerade masks held in their manicured fingers. They’ve been drinking and dancing, as is evident in their, what Jungkook would call Asian Glow, and in the caption.

           Drink every night bc we’re drinking to our accomplishments

           A paraphrase from a Drake song, it seems to ring true as I scan through the other photos of the evening. It must’ve been Lee Enterprises semi-annual gala, masquerade theme taking turns with Gatsby or in the era of Bridgerton, Regency London. Their summer event, Polos & Picnics, is as you guessed it, a Lacoste and Perignon soaked day drinking celebration of everyone’s summer tans and Hampton houses. It’s anyone’s guess which event raises more money, or costs more to put on. Jun-Seo and Kwan-Min throw a few other smaller events, brunches and casino nights, all earnings going to their philanthropy. The galas are the hottest ticket in North America, and I am still stunned that Hoseok had made it into the embrace of Kwan-Min.

           Think Crazy Rich Asians meets the Met Ball. It’s all anyone ever wants to attend, and damn if I’m not jealous every year.

           Hoseok is tagged in the photo series, and by clicking on his name, I can see our mutual friend, and nothing more. The age-old question every millennial has to ask themselves is this, is that enough to send a follow request? I don’t know if it is, but what’s the worst that can happen? He blocks me? Alright, that gives me information that I can use. Sure following him would be the best case, but he could leave it pending for weeks.

           I send the request and text my newest friend, Genevieve Yang, who immediately calls me.

           “Oh Y/N, what do I owe the pleasure?” Genevieve asks.

           “I just thought we could chat, I was looking at your Instagram and-

           “Oh my god! Do the pics from the Masquerade look good? I can’t tell if people love them, or just tolerate them, you know?” She sips loudly on what I assume is some green smoothie, her favorite non H2O beverage.

           “Sure, absolutely, I totally know,” I lie.

           “Don’t lie to me,” Genevieve scolds.

           “They’re beautiful, but I didn’t recognize who was in that first one with you,” I bait.

           “Come off it, you absolutely know,” She laughs but I swear I can hear her rolling her eyes.

           “The woman looked familiar, but I don’t know from what,” I tell her, curiosity in my voice. “I have no clue who that man is.”

           If she could see me, she’d laugh. A barely eaten sandwich, cold coffee in a travel mug I got when I was 20, and dark circles under my eyes from my inability to sleep the last few nights. The paranoia of the last letter has seeped into my subconscious, and I can’t bring myself to sleep unless Jungkook is nearby, of which, he isn’t. Gone on a business trip for the last three nights, gone for five more. How incredibly rude of him, but there isn’t much I can do when his boss could possibly be 007 incarnate. Or Danny Trejo.

           “She’s one of the heirs to Lee Enterprises,” She tells me.

           “The Lee Enterprises?”

           “Oh so you do know?”

           “I’ve heard of them, how could you not? Their parties are exclusive, and that’s putting it generously,” I respond sipping on my own beverage. Two can play ASMR phone games, Genevieve.

           “Oh, the most exclusive, top of the line guests, one year, Beyonce performed, and the next, Adele,” She regales me, tempting me to go off topic.  

           “Are you dating that guy? He’s gorgeous,” I inquire.

           “Hoseok? No, no, not for me. I think he was going to ask Kwan out,” Genevieve says.

           “Really? A new boyfriend?”

           Scoffing loudly, “Just because she isn’t like her siblings doesn’t mean she doesn’t date.”

           “None of them have a particularly stellar track record,” I remind her.

           “Does anyone?” She breathes.

           “I suppose not,”

           “Mm, anyway, Hoseok is eying Kwan, I’m single and you’re still with that guy, who?”

           “Jungkook,”

           “Mm, I think Hoseok might know him,” She says.

           “What?” I ask.

           The thing with being a P.I. is accepting the reality that nothing is a coincidence. There are no happy accidents, nothing is considered fate. I’ve been so, blinded, by my personal connection with Jungkook to see the larger picture. What if he is part of this? Could he be conspiring with these other men? Does he know them, like they seem to be implying? How fucking blind have I been?

           “Yeah, he said something to me later, about knowing a Jungkook and wondering if they were the same. He said that it’s not a common name in Korea, so why would it be here?” Genevieve’s soft voice pulls me back from my panic attack.

           “Yeah, say, does Hoseok know a Namjoon?” I ask.

           “I don’t know, do you want me to ask?” Genevieve sets her drink down, the sound clinking through my phone.

           “Uh, no, no, that’s okay,” My hands hastily move against my keyboard, searching Hoseok’s followers for Namjoon.

           But I don’t find him.

           Instead, my blood runs cold at who I find.

Next: Codename Miss Cuttlefish, If Ya Nasty

[easkyrah]

So while I was delaying my hw by surfing through the web, I came across a quote that said, " 'Angels can fly,' she whispered, and then jumped." Can I challenge you into including this quote with Elain bc she's rarely mentioned? I'm really interested in seeing how your intricate, emotional, and haunting style and words incorporates this. Plus, I feel like this is kind of a hard prompt. But based on your works, I know you can handle it.

This short fic was written quite sloppily to K. Flay’s High Enough on repeat with Julia Michael’s Issues intervening once — perhaps playing the songs allow understanding in why I shaped the fic this way. The music greatly influenced the way this turned out from what I originally had in mind. I couldn’t quite find the edge I needed with this prompt, and recent events from reality pushed me towards this direction.

little bird, fly before they clip your wings for you have escaped the cage, where no man wants you to leave, forever chained

Angel

The air conditioner had broken this morning, causing damp currents of humid drafts to blast through the bakery. The loose strands escaping from her bun plastered to the nape of her neck, and Nesta had to occasionally wipe beads of sweat from her forehead.

Three more hours and she could retire for the day.

She tapped the customer’s order into the screen, ignoring the ache building up in her legs.

“That’ll be twenty dollars and twenty-six cents,” she droned, holding out her palm.

The older woman shuffled through her purse, and pulled out a wad of one-dollar bills. She frowned up to the Nesta, her forehead wrinkling. “Could you let the twenty-six cents go?” she tittered nervously. “I just have enough for twenty.”

Nesta’s face hardened. She was already on line with her boss, Ianthe. One more slip up, and she’d be fired.

Before she could turn away the elder and wave over the next customer, a tiny hand placed a handful of coins of the counter.

Elain Archeron blushed, nervously tugging a strand of golden-brand hair. “I’m pretty sure there’s about twenty-six cents there. Keep the change.”

Nesta watched the youngest Archeron dance off to her corner in the coffee shop, drawing up her knees to her chest, and staring out the window. Elain pressed her forehead against the window, tracing lines and shapes against the glass.

“What a nice little dearie, wouldn’t you agree?” the older woman crooned, and pushed the pile of coins to Nesta. “A lovely angel.”

Nesta internally snarled, snatching the bills and scooping the change. That was her money — precisely seventy five cents — that Elain had given back to her.

She dropped the extra forty nine cents in the tips box, watching her younger sister twirl out of the shop, twirling her bag around her elbow and tossing her water bottle in the air.

Cassian winced as he lumbered through the streets, rotating his sore shoulder. His wrestling partner had been merciless today, and it took Cassian an extra round to force his opponent to tap out.

If Nesta was in a good mood today, there was about a five percent chance she’d massage his tight muscles, usually ending with passionate kisses and fueled sessions locked in a bedroom.

He rubbed his bloodied knuckles, ignoring the dirty looks shot his way. A mother tucked her child under arms, muttering the word “savage” and “bastard” under her breath.

The breath winded out of him quicker than the punch his sparring partner had thrown to his abdomen. Society hadn’t been quite kind to him, watching him grow up in the sewers to become one of the elites.

A hand touched his wrist.

He glanced down to see the youngest Archeron sister. Elain pressed a water bottle into his hands and reached into her bag, fingering out a green towel.

Cassian gratefully took the towel, rubbing away the blood, and watching the stains weep into the fabric. The mother and child moved on, quickly shooting Elain confused glances.

Elain merely went on her tip-toes, slightly tilting her head. She grabbed Cassian’s hand and moved it so that the bottle poured a little bit of water onto the table.

“You should drink,” she lightly commented, wrapping the towel around his right knuckle.

“If only Nesta could be more like you,” Cassian sighed, and took a quicky chug of the bottle. “An angel.”

Elain stared into the distance, a little smile playing over her lips, as if she were seeing something he couldn’t. “But you like wildcats better.”

Cassian arched a brow and looked down at the youngest Archeron sister. “You’ve got that damned right.”

And he hurried away to the bakery, where the eldest Archeron sister awaited, casting one grateful smile over his sore shoulder to the youngest Archeron sister.

But she was already weaving through the crowd into the streets, her arms swaying to an unheard melody.

Lucien swore loudly as his blueprints scattered across the floor, black boots and thin flip-flop walking over them. Tamlin would have his head if he lost their company’s infrastructure plans for the new building.

He swooped down, gathering the papers into his arms as quickly as he could. Pedestrians briefly spared pitying glances at him, the malevolent few directly stepping onto the his plans, little smirks playing over their faces.

A passerby gently moved the crowd away, twirling in a circle around Lucien. The figure swooped down and gracefully plucked the blueprints farthest from him.

Lucien stared, enthralled by the beautiful golden-brown haired female. He gently took the blueprints from her outstretched hands, and smiled down at the doe-eyed beaut.

“Thank you,” he murmured, hefting the papers more securely in his grasp. “You’re my savior, my angel.”

She blushed prettily, gazing up at the sky. The sun cast down golden rays across her face, chasing away the shadows.

Lucien bowed at his waist, the ridiculous notion overcoming him. “May I know my rescuer’s name?”

She didn’t look at him again, much to dismay, but rather closed her eyes, her eyelashes fanning across her lids. “I am Elain Archeron,” she whispered, so softly he had to lean forward.

“Thank you, Elain Archeron.”

Her brown eyes opened, studying his red hair.

He awaited for those eyes to travel down his face and note the russet eye and scar running along his brow to jaw — to turn away in distaste, as all his former acquaintances refused to hire him for his appearances.

“A fox,” she lilted.

The corners of his lips tugged up. “Cunning and sly?”

“No,” her head slightly tilted to the side, a hummingbird’s movement. “Misunderstood.”

Lucien blinked, and watched the wondrous creature float through the crowd and past the street — into the trails of the green forest.

Azriel brooded silently, wondering why he knew bothered sticking around with his two brothers — Cassian and Rhys.

After his sparring session with Cassian, he’d taken the shortcut through the forest trails, only for Rhys to jump him and tie him to a tree. The match with Cassian fatigued his muscles beyond repair, the other brother the champion in hand-to-hand combat.

So it seemed he would remained tied to the trunk until he regained his strength and the pulsing headache faded.

Rhys had dragged him a little ways from the trail and in the shadows under the covers of a large, draping branch full of blooming leaves. Here, the darkness did wonders for the throbbing in his forehead, but did not alleviate the pain straining in his muscles.

Sighing, he leaned the back of his head against the tree, testing the ropes around him. The knot had been at the other side of the truck, so he’d have to somehow stretch the ropes out enough and slip underneath.

A gasp broke his concentration.

Azriel stared at the outline of a feminine figure swaying through the cluster of vines Rhys had dragged him through.

“You are ensnared,” the voice breathed.

Azriel watched the shadow move forward, revealing a phantom of a fading, suppressed woman, one struggling with inner demons — and seeing his own.

One who lived in the light but bathed alone in the darkness — one who had seen too much and saw too soon — one who listened to the insanity of humanity — one who danced along the lines of the beckoning darkness and toed the line of heavenly light —

— the ropes fell around his waist and ankles and wrists.

The woman emerged from behind the trunk, the thick rope unknotted.

Azriel bowed his head. “Thank you—?”

“Elain Archeron,” she mumbled. Her gaze flickered to him, asking the unspoken question.

“Azriel,” he easily returned, the cover of the darkness draping them both in silken robes.  

Elain turned the rope over in her hands, running her fingers over each harsh strand.

“You strayed from the path,” he observed, watching.

She merely smiled sadly and tilted her head to the side. “And what does that make me?”

Azriel stared at the pale cheekbones and haunted eyes, one would mistake with fragility. Her unbound hair messily tangled over her shoulder, as if searching for order and reason. He supposed that this creature wearing the robes of shadow’s whispers already knew of the answer — but desired confirmation, a sound.

“An angel?” she whispered, voice edged with the scratch of softness.

Azriel rolled out his shoulders, and looked at the dangling vines behind her.

“No,” he murmured. “A fallen one.”

A quirk of an eyebrow. “Fallen?”

“Not for sins — but for seeing too much.”

A nod, and a breeze of sigh. Brown eyes connected with hazel orbs, locked into an eternity of silence and understanding.

A little light of warmth protruded through the umbrella of darkness, shattering a tacit completion.

Elain closed her eyes. Azriel blinked.

“Goodbye, Az,” the woman whispered, and then disappeared between the canopy of vines — past the fleeting sanctuary of the oppressed’s suppression.

Elain Archeron pushed past the forest and stood at the edge. There was a rushing river at the bottom, culminating at a chasm and waterfall. The sun broke across the sky, eating away at the clouds.

She looked down, and at the flourishing and teeming greenery at the end met with rushing, flowing water.

Freedom beckoned her.

Pure, undiluted liberty.

Welcome arms, greeting her.

The taste of honey filled her mouth, and she stared at the golden beams shooting down, creating life from Earth’s rich soil, most battered away and cut into slices for construction zones.

She stared at the flight and pattern of birds soaring in the air, the monster of vines fading rapidly from memory. She remembered the drums of footsteps, stepping over creations and the Earth. She knew of the misunderstood and the broken, and thought of that fractured body still full of love and hope. She knew the darkness and coldness seeping into bones.

She stared at the whispers of nature and of light and of darkness — ensnared by the gray area.

She took a step forward, toeing the edge of the cliff.

“Angels can fly,” she whispered—and jumped.

— and as the wind tore at her cheeks and the coldness bit at her skin—the serenity quelled over her even though the chaos of the ending beckoned—

—she knew she would crash—

—because she was a fallen angel.

I want to note that I teared up writing this. I didn’t like the writing, but it forced itself out as a wicked weed. I’m not sure if this made sense to outside eyes, but if you can observe and note Elain’s condition, and the indirect flaws of society I shall not outright name, then I have done a sliver of justice. Sorry anon, hopefully I didn’t let you down too much ^.^

[scenariosofkonoha]

Tobirama and Kagami political AU Inauguration headcanons ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Bless your soul, dear

No, bless you for submitting this; I put a lot of Kagami in this bc Kagami needs so much love. I literally could spend days just writing about this, so we’re gonna start from election night on forward bc I did some research on inaugurations and ehh I hope this okay.. Also if you haven’t seen the political AU with Kagami and Tobirama then you should read this

The day before the election, the Senju-Uchiha campaign was split into three different regions, all giving speeches trying to pull in any of the undecided voters in before the following day, because there is still so much controversy over the fact that Kagami and Tobirama are running together and not against. The whole public is still in the phase of processing this, because it was only a few years back that Madara and Hashirama were running opponents and that was such a cutthroat race. Tobirama and Kagami’s opponents like playing that off to the public, because it’s so easy for them to be like, “Bad blood between families doesn’t just disappear like that; makes you really question why they’re running together…” and so there is still this controversy around Kagami and Tobirama as a pairing. Anyway, in attempt to dispel this, Tobirama was in one region, Kagami in another, and Kagami’s S/O in the third. (Lol Kagami’s poor wife has to do all these extra speeches bc Tobirama wants to stay a bachelor, but they still need someone to give the first lady speeches.)

The night before the election, everyone who is a part of the Senju-Uchiha campaign is traveling back to a singular region where they all are going to converge and wait to hear the results of the campaign, but dear Lord, they are all so exhausted. The months and months of campaigning have finally taken their toll, and they all want nothing more than this to be over, but at the same time they all feel like they are supposed to be doing something more, rather than just having patience and waiting for the election results to be counted. It’s just a strange feeling, because there’s nothing left for them to do, but they still feel like they should be doing something.

On the plane ride back home, Tobirama shuts himself away to just get away from everyone and to sleep. He’s reached his point with dealing with massive crowds of people, and if one more person asks him another stupid question, he’ll probably start sassing them, and the public doesn’t need to know of the snarky side of his attitude .

Poor Kagami is so anxious that he is continuously pacing back and forth on the jet, just trying to keep himself moving. He totally out of touch with what’s going on around him, and he keeps replaying all of his own speeches and conferences, praying that they are enough. He’s just come so far as a politician, and he’s proven that he is different from his predecessors and he’s just praying with everything that he’s got that the public will allow him as their VP. He just wants to serve his people and make Tobirama proud; just bless his little heart, such good intentions.

By the time everyone gets back in the same hotel, it’s some ungodly hour in the morning. For the most part, everyone just goes their own way bc of pure exhaustion, but Tobirama makes sure to see his running mate and thank him for everything, regardless of what the outcome may be before he goes back to sleep. ‘Course this is Tobirama, and so this more or less comes off as a pat of the back and something along the lines of “You did good…”

Honestly, Tobirama’s so proud of Kagami, because he’s seen this kid grow up and become such a good hearted politician who genuinely wants to give his country everything and guide them into a future of prosperity. Sometimes it’s refreshing for Tobirama, because even though Kagami is so young and comes from a family that isn’t always the greatest, he has the heart of a genuine leader, and Tobirama’s just grateful that he got the opportunity to run with him. It’s a bit of a sobering moment for Tobirama, but he’s still glad it happened.

Still Kagami is just so wired about it all that he cannot relax at all even hours after everyone else has gone to bed. In his head, he’s coming to the reality that in less than 24 hours, he’s either going to be the vice president or everything that he’s been fighting for will be taken away from him. It’s just not settling, and even though he hasn’t slept in over 30 hours, he’s still very much awake and just constantly contemplating everything.

Kagami’s wifey had to spike his drink with like half a bottle of Nyquil, because she knew that he was going to have to go to sleep and this was the only way to get him to calm down enough to do so. Course Kagami knew this, but he didn’t really do much to stop it; he trusts his well being with her more than himself if he had to tell the truth.

LOL AND THIS BOY WAS OUT UNTIL LIKE 6 THE NEXT NIGHT, he really needed it though. Wifey Uchiha came and woke him up, telling him that he should probably start getting ready or Tobirama would start questioning what had happened to him. Poor baby is slightly confused for a moment, because bless his heart he can’t think clearly when he wakes up, but then he just jolts awake like he’s having a heart attack, because the election results are beginning to come and he needs to be in the broadcast room in like an hour.

When everyone finally makes it into the showing room, it’s oddly calm at the beginning as they continuously watch the results come in and all of the little TV segments showing the road to the election. Of course there’s only maybe fifteen people in there, but for the first time in months, the campaign team seems calm. Up until they all made their way into the room, everyone was nervous, but when the lead campaign managers see both Tobirama and Kagami in there speaking with each other like nothing is happening and they are normal people; this huge weight is lifted off of them, because the reality that these two men may be leading the country in less than two hours is just something that everyone could easily live with.

Tobs and Kagami look so cute and adult in this too. Like both are wearing business suits; Kagami’s got a red tie with little Uchiha cufflinks and Tobirama’s got a blue tie with Senju cufflinks, and they look so official. Like let’s just swear them into office right now.

Tobirama keeps on making these snarky little comments every time an announcer says some not related to the campaign. It’s kinda funny, because he’ll just say it loud enough for Kagami to hear, and Kagami always just raises an eyebrow and its this cute little ritual between the two.

Kagami’s wife has to keep slicking bits and pieces of his hair back, because he keeps messing with it out of anxiousness and it keeps falling out. She’s takes his face in her hands for a moment and is all like, “Love, you need to calm down.” but of course he really can’t stop this nervous tick, so she just holds his hand as the results become more and more evident.

All of a sudden, like almost all of the votes are in a single moment and they are rapidly displaying more and more of them on the screen, and at first the race was neck to neck, but the second that the majority of the votes are displayed, Tobirama and Kagami have this massive lead, and it’s just like, “Holy shit,” because they are winning, and they’ve received more than 80 percent of the vote and now there’s no way that their opponents can win and Jesus Christ they’ve just won the election

The entire room erupts in cheering, because they’ve done it. Their months of grueling and exhausting campaigning have finally come to an end, and Tobirama Senju and Kagami Uchiha are the next President and Vice President

Tobirama just has this great smirk across his face; so fucking prideful. Acts like he knew he was going to win the entire time, despite the fact that he did worry about losing, but he can’t allow the world to see that sometimes he is worrisome, right?

Kagami’s just is absolute disbelief. Like it took him a second to actually process the fact that they had such a big lead, but as soon as he realizes it, there’s this huge smile and he’s hugging everyone and bless his heart.

Bring out the liquor, friends. Y’all best believe that they brought out the good stuff for this. Isn’t everyday that you win an election with a running duo that everyone thought would fail.

Kagami’s too wound up to even notice that his wifey doesn’t drink; maybe she’ll tell him she’s 2 months pregnant at a time where his heart won’t overload from everything ;)

[arrowreport7-blog]

White House revokes CNN reporter Jim Acosta's press credentials after Trump's post-election press conference

WASHINGTON --

As Washington came to grips with its new divided reality, President Donald Trump on Wednesday reveled in his party's Senate victories, mocked members of his own party who lost after not seeking his support and even suggested he may be able to govern more effectively after losing a chamber of Congress.

Trump faces the prospect, starting early next year, of endless investigations after Democrats formally take control of the House, along with stymied policy efforts and fresh questions about the resilience of his unorthodox political coalition. Still, he celebrated Republicans' success in retaining the Senate and seemed to blame losing GOP candidates for distancing themselves from him and his unorthodox methods.

He took an unabashed victory lap and, despite the split decision, declaring in a free-wheeling, combative, 90-minute White House news conference that "I thought it was very close to complete victory." He also belittled the number of high-profile Democrats, including his predecessor, who crisscrossed the nation to support their candidates, while suggesting that he alone was responsible for the Republican triumphs.

"I only had me. I didn't have anybody else," Trump said.

But the White House news conference was also quickly overtaken by Trump's ongoing attacks on the media, as the president repeatedly flashed his temper as he insulted several reporters by name, interrupted their questions, ordered some to sit down and deemed one inquiry "racist."

WATCH: CNN's Jim Acosta, woman struggle for mic at Trump press conference

Trump sparred with CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, who asked him questions about the migrant caravan headed for the U.S. and the Russia investigation.

"That's enough, put down the mic," Trump said to Acosta, as he tried to ask more questions. Acosta struggled with a woman in a maroon dress tried to take the microphone from him. She eventually succeeded and handed it to another reporter.

"CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN."

Acosta tweeted just before 8 p.m. Eastern Time that Secret Service denied him entry to the White House grounds for his live shot.

Press Secretary Sarah Sanders released a statement accusing Acosta of physically assaulting a White House intern and saying his press credentials had been revoked until further notice.

"President Trump believes in a free press and expects and welcomes tough questions of him and his Administration. We will, however, never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern. This conduct is absolutely unacceptable," Sanders wrote in the statement.

The interaction between Acosta and the intern was brief, and Acosta appeared to brush her arm as she reached for the microphone and he tried to hold onto it. "Pardon me, ma'am," he told her.

Acosta tweeted that Sanders' statement that he put his hands on the aide was "a lie."

The post-midterm election news conference marked a new low in the president's relationship with journalists.

"It's such a hostile media," Trump said after ordering reporter April Ryan of the American Urban Radio Networks to sit down when she tried to ask him a question.

The president complained that the media did not cover the humming economy and was responsible for much of the country's divided politics. He said, "I can do something fantastic, and they make it look not good."

His exchanges with CNN's Acosta and NBC News' Peter Alexander turned bitterly personal, unusual even for a forum where the nature of their jobs often put presidents and the press at odds.

"I came in here as a nice person wanting to answer questions, and I had people jumping out of their seats screaming questions at me," said Trump, who talked for nearly 90 minutes despite the run-ins with reporters.

Acosta asked Trump why the caravan of migrants was emphasized as an issue in the just-concluded midterm races. Acosta questioned Trump's reference to the caravan as an invasion, and Trump defended the term.

"You should let me run the country," Trump said. "You run CNN and if you did it well, your ratings would be much better."

After Acosta asked about the investigation of Russia's involvement in the 2016 election, Trump tried to turn to Alexander, but Acosta continued to ask questions.

"CNN should be ashamed of itself having you work for them," the president said to Acosta. "You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN. The way you treat Sarah Sanders is horrible. The way you treat other people is horrible. You shouldn't treat people that way."

Alexander came to his colleague's defense. "I've traveled with him and watched him," Alexander said. "He's a diligent reporter who busts his butt like the rest of us."

"I'm not a big fan of yours, either," Trump replied.

"I understand," Alexander said, attempting to ask a question. Acosta stood back up and began mentioning, without a microphone, the explosive devices that were recently sent to CNN and some of the president's political opponents.

"Just sit down," Trump said. "When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people."

After the exchange, CNN, through its public relations department's Twitter feed, said Trump's attacks on the press have gone too far.

"They are not only dangerous, they are disturbingly un-American," CNN said. "While President Trump has made it clear he does not respect a free press, he has a sworn obligation to protect it. A free press is vital to democracy, and we stand behind Jim Acosta and his fellow journalists everywhere."

Sanders' statement claimed, without evidence, that Trump has "given the press more access than any President in history," and concluded, "As a result of today's incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice."

Trump's post-election press conference focuses as much on himself as candidates

Though boasting that Republicans appear likely to hold the highest number of Senate seats in 100 years, Trump was quick to distance himself from his party's failure to maintain control of the House. In a remarkable scene, he called out defeated Republicans by name - "Too bad, Mike" at one moment, "Mia Love gave me no love and she lost" at another - and blamed them for not embracing his agenda.

"Candidates who embraced our message of lower taxes, low regulation, low crime, strong borders and great judges excelled last night," said Trump. "On the other hand, you had some that decided to, 'Let's stay away. Let's stay away.' They did very poorly. I'm not sure that I should be happy or sad, but I feel just fine about it."

The president's rebuke was felt on Capitol Hill. Rep. Ryan Costello, a Republican from Pennsylvania who announced his retirement earlier this year, tweeted his displeasure with the president's diatribe, writing that his colleagues have had to "bite ur lip more times you'd care to; to disagree & separate from POTUS on principle & civility in ur campaign; to lose bc of POTUS & have him piss on u. Angers me to my core."

Trump suggested there could be room for bipartisanship, declaring that Democrats - who made opposing him a centerpiece to their campaign - would, in fact, be eager to work with him on issues like infrastructure. But the olive branch he extended was studded with thorns as he declared that Republicans would retaliate if Democrats use their control of the House to issue subpoenas to seek his tax returns and investigate his business dealings, his Cabinet's conduct and his campaign's ties to Russia.

"They can play that game, but we can play it better. Because we have a thing called the United States Senate," Trump said. "If that happens, then we're going to do the same thing and government would come to a halt and we're going to blame them."

On Tuesday, the president telephoned House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, a conversation that her office said included congratulations and a nod to her pitch for bipartisanship. And on Wednesday, he said she deserves to be House speaker.

"I give her a lot of credit. She works very hard and she's worked long and hard. I give her a great deal of credit for what she's done and what she's accomplished," Trump said.

Widely viewed as a referendum on Trump's presidency, Tuesday's results offered a split decision that revealed deep tensions in the American electorate - a rift that could easily widen during two years of divided control of Congress. Trump's aggressive campaign blitz, which paid off in some key victories, suggests he is likely to continue leaning into the fray.

Control of the House gives Democrats the ability to launch investigations into the president and stifle his agenda, but White House aides called on them to reach across the aisle.

"I don't know that there will be much of an appetite for Democrat lawmakers to spend all of their time, or most of their time or even a fraction of their time investigating, instigating, trying to impeach and subpoena people," said Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway.

In addition to his conversation with Pelosi, Trump called Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as other candidates he backed during the race, the White House said. And he downplayed reports of voter irregularity and suppression, particularly in Georgia, instead saying, "I heard it was very efficient in Georgia." Trump had aggressively campaigned in the closing days of the race, his focus on boosting Republicans in states he carried in 2016.

In the three races he targeted on the final day, Trump's picks won Tuesday night, with Republican Mike Braun defeating Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Republican Josh Hawley defeating Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine defeating Democrat Richard Cordray in the race for Ohio governor.

The White House for days has stressed the historical headwinds it faced: In the last three decades, 2002 was the only midterm election when the party holding the White House gained Senate seats. And only twice in the past eight decades has the president's party picked up House seats in the midterms.

Trump's shadow loomed large over the results. Nearly 40 percent of voters cast their ballots to express opposition to the president, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate, while about 25 percent said they voted to express support for Trump.

Overall, more voters disapproved of Trump's job performance than approved - a finding that is largely consistent with recent polling. Voters scored Trump positively on the economy and for standing up "for what he believes in." But the president received negative marks from voters on temperament and trustworthiness.

Still, about one-third of voters said Trump was not a factor in their votes.

Trump's scorched-earth campaigning came to define the 2018 campaign. In the final days, he sought to motivate supporters with the battle over the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Returning to his immigration-heavy 2016 playbook, Trump went on to unleash his full fury on a caravan of migrants slowly making their way to the southern border. His take-no-prisoners approach troubled many Republicans seeking to appeal to moderate voters in suburban House districts, but Trump prioritized base voters in the deep-red states that could determine the fate of the Senate.

WLS-TV contributed to this report.

(Copyright ©2018 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Source: https://abc7chicago.com/politics/trump-revels-in-victories-revokes-cnn-reporters-press-credentials/4640053/

[andrewalanphillips]

An Insignificant Leaf?

Anthropologists, geographers, and historians have demonstrated the enduring power of landscape features to act as points of reference for communicating tacit knowledge. Humans persist in transforming seemingly natural spaces into places of significance. (Cruikshank, 2005) Identity is like an insignificant leaf. – Nuu-chah-nulth principle of hahuulism. (Atleo, E. 2014) I chose to contemplate a path at Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre (BMSC) that I walked daily. The path that intersects the forest between Buchanan lodge and the main campus road. It was here that I came upon leaves from the salal shrub, Gaultheria shallon, that had been modified with faces torn into them and strewn along the path. At the time, a classmate told me they had heard that the leaves were connected to an Oregon folk tale. Already curious about their origin and purpose the leaves became an object of increased fascination when I discovered similar leaves placed along the trail to the beach at Kiixin, an ancient village site of the Huu-ay-aht First Nations. Our guide for the tour of the village, Stella, a respected knowledge keeper of the Huu-ay-aht community, informed me that she had been the one making the leaves on the trail to Kiixin as well as at BMSC where she worked part-time. I watched as she plucked a green salal leaf, folded it neatly in her palm, and then after tearing out three strips, unfolded it to reveal a smiling face which she gladly tossed down on the trail. “CML, culturally modified leaf!” she exclaimed. We shared a laugh. Stella went on to mention that these leaves could be found up and down the West Coast Trail system which the Huu-ay-aht co-manage with Parks Canada as it passes through their traditional territory. Over the past week I have reflected on the two different stories I was told by my classmate and by Stella. As I outlined in Part I, regardless of their origin, I consider the smiling salal leaves a creative cultural intervention into place that transformed my experience of the path and in turn led me on a journey of listening, critical engagement, and deeper inquiry into place, its historical and scholarly roots, its relationship to time and space, its etiquettes and cultural constructions, and finally its connections to Indigenous values, epistemologies and discourses around decolonization and reconciliation. The following report traces my journey contemplating possible meanings of the salal leaf intervention while weaving in these themes along with an assemblage of ideas and arguments expressed by different scholars from the course readings. The two main readings I will be focusing on are Cronon (1996) and Ingold (2009). Ultimately this report explores this core question: how does the meshing of creative human interventions and cultural probes into a place transform our experience of that place? Furthermore, how might these interventions operate as tools of deeper inquiry and experiential learning in and about place? The smiling salal leaf as creative cultural intervention: Three interpretations

Decolonizing ways of seeing, knowing and being: 

The first thing that struck me about the salal leaf faces on the path at BMSC was that they consistently disrupted my journey from A to B along the path. I would reach down to pick them up and then end up pausing to consider the forest, contemplate breaking off the trail, begin to investigate the plants, pick some berries, or listen to the sounds from the forest; the wind in the leaves, bird songs and the rustle of rodents. Instead of transporting myself I was left wandering and traveling through, around and with place. This is what Ingold describes as an entirely different relationship of movement in place, one of habitation vs. settlement and distinctly anticolonial in nature (Ingold, T. 2009). This wayfaring approach increased my sensory awareness outside the path and expanded my experience of the path beyond a destination-bound throughway. There is an interesting contrast here between Ingold and Cronon regarding their concepts of individualism and identity. Where Ingold would say the creation of a “self-contained, bounded individual[ism]” can be associated with linear place-to-place travel and a tendency towards occupation and allegiance to space, Cronon suggests that the rugged individual is more of a wayfarer of the frontier, roaming boundless wide-open spaces and fleeing settlement and society (Ingold, T. 2009; Cronon, W. 1996). While their ideas about the relationship of identity and place contrast, both Cronon and Ingold would likely agree that these are both colonial relationships to place; that both maintain, through either the mythical sublime or industrial disconnection, the problematic idea of empty places; and that both conceptualize of place from within their own self-image. Whereas for a true wayfarer, according to Ingold, one would form more of a wholistic place-based imagination, where journeying on and through the land would produce a flowing interdisciplinary knowledge structure, ordering the data of experience and organizing reality through a dialogue between an internal mindscape and external landscape to form a cohesive narrative story. In this way land becomes a more central component of one’s epistemological and ontological framework than that of time, representing a distinct disengagement with western society. This way of seeing, knowing and looking gives us cause and opportunity to re-examine familiar places and landscapes through a decolonizing lens. The smiling salal leaf intervention in the path temporarily deconstructs the colonial conformity of path-based travel to polarize the new experience of the place from one’s original routine behavior on the path, producing a consciousness-raising experience.

Criticizing colonial concepts of wilderness:

The uptake of the smiling salal leaf intervention by backpackers up and down the pacific northwest coast has revealed that what Cronon described as the colonial cultural constructs of the mythical sublime and the mythical frontier are very much alive and well. Some brief internet research revealed that these smiling leaves are in fact a widespread phenomenon and up and down trails of the Pacific Northwest coast from BC down to Oregon. I found a few hiking forums discussing the leaves and noticed some themes emerging in the online conversations. One forum user exclaimed, “It is a Federal Crime to remove or destroy live vegetation in a National Park. I hope the authorities catch the vandals and punish them to the full extent of the law. Leaving no trace is the only way that the national parks will be preserved.”

Another expressed, “The trail was plastered with them. Thankfully they had stopped after the Deception Creek bridge...That was the point where it began to feel like true wilderness. It might make you and I smile, but it also sends a message to those reading it, that leaving one's 'mark' is acceptable.” Then an angry responder posted, “About the only way to truly leave no trace is to not go into the wilderness in the first place. Why are you hiking on trails? Trails are very much the work of man. If you wish to see only nature, please stay a few hundred yards off trail and make your own way. Find and follow the entirely natural elk trails, not the entirely artificial human trails!” If we are to for the purposes of this study to consider the possibility that this intervention was started by Indigenous communities then the discourse on the forums would reveal a striking irony and ignorance around Indigenous history and ideas of wilderness. An uninhabited wilderness void of humans legitimizes colonial violence, cultural erasure and the removal of all human presence from the land. The idea that leaving a mark in the wild is unacceptable and that certain areas should be preserved defies many Indigenous cultures where place is a way of knowing and relating to the world. It encourages what Ingold describes as “turning the pathways along which life is lived into boundaries with which it is enclosed” (Ingold, T. 2009). Perhaps Stella’s disruption into the path of an anthropomorphic salal leaf is intended as a coded symbol to raise the idea that wild places can and should be integrated places for both humans and nonhumans where, as Cronon suggests, we might “embrace the full continuum of the natural landscape” and learn to honor the wild (Cronon, W. 1996).

Reclaiming traditional knowledge and culture:

The salal leaf intervention could also be considered as an engagement with the overlooked and forgotten history of the salal plant’s role as an important food and medicine for indigenous peoples of the pacific northwest. Perhaps this intervention could be seen as a strategy to restory salal to remove it from the anonymity of the forest and in turn resist colonial erasure of traditional ecological knowledge and place-based relationships. The salal shrub is a “a low-profile, uncharismatic "background" plant that even people who have lived with it on the Northwest coast for years often don’t know what it is” (McDowell, 2009). Placing the salal leaves on the path with a notable cultural modification forces the attention of the passerby and symbolizes a specific human and plant connection that might invite further inquiry. In my research into the smiling leaf phenomenon the leaves are almost always salal leaves. Perhaps there is a reason these particular leaves were chosen? Maybe it was to highlight salal as a plant that, like Cronon describes, could easily become the victim of a hierarchical system of natural place valuation and in turn capitalized on or disregarded due to be being labelled as an “uncharismatic” and unattractive plant. If the intervention did draw someone into a deeper inquiry they might soon discover that “harvested salal is a shrub used in the multi-million dollar floral greens industry that employs over ten thousand people in the states of Washington, Oregon and parts of Northern California.” (McDowell, 2009). This might cause one to reflect and consider the ways that the colonial-capitalist system has come to formulate a co-opting relationship with salal based on accumulation and profit in contrast to the place-based interdependent relationship of sharing traditionally cultivated by Indigenous peoples. Perhaps this leaf is signifying alternative ways of economic organization and relating to resources.

Intervention In Place:  For my intervention into place my intention was to repurpose and restory the intervention of the salal leaf into a new place. Building on my Part II interpretations of the original intervention drawn from the readings I chose the location of the BMSC research library. Instead of challenging and disrupting the path in the forest I would disrupt and challenge the pathways of knowledge at BMSC. In a group discussion during our course someone mentioned that BMSC is still a place that needs decolonizing. Reflecting on the history of BMSC as a place of “hard science” I considered the dominant representation of that kind of knowledge in the BMSC library. Alternatively, the readings from the syllabus for Place-Based Learning in Huu-ay-aht Territory offered critical and compelling indigenous and anti-colonial counter-narratives into subjects like archaeology, history, geography, conservation, ecology and biology. My new view of the salal leaf as an encoded object representing decolonizing ways of seeing, knowing, and being led me to consider how it might intervene into the BMSC library space. I decided to print out our syllabus and attached a smiling salal leaf to each reading. I then strategically placed each reading within the library stacks next to particular books where I felt the critical commentary and counter-narrative they offered would be most amplified and thought-provoking. 

[irregodless]

so i just finished virtues last reward and im kinda angry because now life is strange kinda makes sense

DISCLAIMER: so its been like.... what.... two or three years since i even watched someone play it? im going off of what i remember which means POSSIBLY i didnt remember an explanation or didnt pay proper attention to it, so be warned

DISCLAIMERx2 COMBO!!!: this is probably some old ass news but even in the height of its popularity i kinda came into the story late and even then i wasnt crazy about it. it was good. i really enjoyed it. but it was easier for me to kind of passively mock it for having bullshitty trumped up time logic. the reason for this AND FOR MY FIRST DISCLAIMER MOSTLY is because the game doesnt really explain it to you or why anythings happening. which is fair i guess. max isnt really a time travel geek or a scientist and short of having mr “time guardian” come out and exposition dump there wasnt much to do. maybe if warren was our protag he wouldve figured it out but i cant really blame max for NOT. especially since it was reality for her. to us we can examine it objectively and understand the rules governing it as we observe the limitations. i mean for all she knew she couldve gone back in time three times and it be over and she could never do it again ever

for my explanation ill be referencing 999 and its sequel zero escape virtue’s last reward as well as homestuck (because for all intents and purposes it makes intelligent use of time travel and with colloquialisms that make it sort of easier to digest than just abstract names.) naturally some spoilers may apply to all three as well as life is strange (obviously)

if you boil the story of life is strange to its most core element, itll start to make sense. life is strange in its simplest form is this: “max caulfield solves a murder/kidnapping mystery.” everything else that happens is just kind of extra or a direct component to that outcome.

i would often complain about how max could get mr jefferson arrested and save kate with her time travelly powers but not chloe when she couldnt have done anything about those things without her power either. i was under the assumption that her abilities were an anomaly and the universe was trying to fix itself by voiding out her effects on the timeline (ie saving chloe). but in retrospect thats kind of really dumb!! why make a story where the protagonist can travel through time but then have the story ultimately be about the universe trying to make it so that everything was the same as before??? it’s silly!! so heres the thing: it was not about that. it was about max getting the information she needed to ultimately solve the mystery (and save kate i guess. im not sure how contingent her survival was to the timeline being “alpha” but if you want to say God or the Sentient Timespace Universe [”Skaia”] were in control of the outcomes and thus dictating maxs actions mayb u could say They wanted to reward kate for being such a devout follower??? maybe her life or death was ultimately inconsequential to the outcome and it couldve gone on with or without her and max was just a good person and saved her. its hard to tell.)

in homestuck there are doomed timelines. timelines wherein something goes wrong that was NOT preordained by skaia (the self-aware universe, essentially, trying to maintain homeostasis in itself) or that directly cause a paradox. one example is davesprite. an action that causes a doomed timeline is john getting himself killed (with a little help from terezi) which leads to a strand where rose and dave are stranded in their game for months. dave then goes back along the timeline to the point that determined whether or not it became doomed. although incidentally, it was the act of him going back in time to stop john from killing himself that splintered the timeline between doomed and alpha (the right one)

thus the doomed timeline was necessary for the alpha timeline to be sustained. and thereafter it ceased to be. in other doomed timelines it either disappears entirely as with davesprites timeline, or everyone just DIES like in the one where vriska and gamzee collectively get everyone killed. it’s the price u pay for not playing the part the universe wrote for u

so in order for max to go along her story to figure out mr jefferson was.... who he was, she had to slip through doomed timelines. timelines that ultimately purged themselves if they went on too long by the means of the big storm. something similar happens in 999 where a certain character gets sick if the story goes in a direction that would lead to a paradox and cause them to not have existed. and if the timeline becomes too far gone, they vanish entirely. this is basically the role of the storm. its not to eradicate the stuff max had done with her powers because she “shouldnt have had them” but because that timeline shouldnt have BEEN to begin with! max was SUPPOSED to have her powers. whether it was all morphogenetic fieldy sciencey reasoning or if “skaia” gave them to her to solve this case, who knows, but its not really all that important.

i could probably explain some of this more easily by using the name of paradoxes, but i forgot most of the official names for them and my computers being kinda silly so i dont feel like taking the time to look them up srry

anyway

max alters the timeline by stopping chloe from dying. they then go on this great big adventure where chole is the ONLY person who could have possibly helped max unravel the mysteries. which i think is fair to say she was the ONLY person to be capable of it bc of her stepdad and her rebellious attitude!

so the two go on adventures and discover what i figured out within the first five minutes of story: MR JEFFERSONS A HORRIBLE PERSON

and chloe dies a bunch along the way because while shes needed to solve the mystery, shes STILL doomed. its like in final destination. you can run from death and avoid a few attempts on your life for a WHILE, but youre still slated for death and gonna die eventually. im not sure it was the universe trying to clear her out like an antibody so much as it was... she was just more susceptible to danger. it also could have been to make maxs powers stronger. the 999 series puts an emphasis on the psychic-y powers being strengthened and honed through LIFE THREATENING SCENARIOS

now in both 999 and vlr (i havent referenced the latter nearly as much as i thought i would!) the events of the games essentially unfold because certain characters figure out that... well... thats what happens!!! so they recreate the event so that it DOES happen so that they CAN have these abilities. they hone their abilities to see and interact through time so that they can avoid MAJOR DISASTERS and fix them, all the way establishing the very parameters that allow them to do so in the first place!

so small summary:

max gets the power to swap out her consciousness from a certain place on the timeline. she does so to save chloe (as a good person and for sentimental purposes) chloe proves to be the key to discovering the mystery behind the shady shit going down at the school she was still ultimately supposed to die though so she dies a bunch along the way because thats just what she does best by working alone doomed timelines where chloe is the only one who can help unearth the mysteries (and to be fair she deserved to be there too since it DID involve her ex-girlfriend) max finally discovers mr jefferson is basically straight up evil and can go back and use the information from her travels to bring him to justice chloes still supposed 2 die tho so shes either wiped out with the timeline by means of the storm that fucks up everyone elses life or she dies unceremoniously in the bathroom because one way or another: SHE WILL DIE max then uses the information to expose jefferson. its kinda weird but i guess paradoxically makes sense that the alpha timeline dictated that for life to progress properly, max had to just MAGICALLY know it was him. (maybe it meant to import me into the game so i couldve called him out as soon as i saw him. or maybe it was only one option. like kate living or not. max can expose him and save the day OR it can go on and be terrible. but that one doesnt have any justice in it so.....) kate lives and thats important? maybe?

basically it was not about trying to undo maxs “rulebreaking” powers

but it was about ENABLING them to do the job the universe/”skaia” (not that life is strange even.... HAS a skaia, but its easy for terminology) had planned for her. which was to fuck over jefferson HARD

the only problem is that to my memory the game never explains this is whats happening. and so when chloe dies youre like “wow nothing mattered.” but the game was never about saving chloe. it was always only ever about solving a kidnapping/murder mystery

it was ALWAYS about that

chloe was never going to stay alive. ever. the final choice was whether or not to return to the alpha timeline or not stay with her as an act of love and get wiped out along with the timeline

but the game doesnt explain this. or how the time travel powers came about or how they work or what they are AT ALL (from what i remember) so it all just seems convoluted and bullshitty

but in reality there IS something driving it. it only took me playing two other games to actually understand what that was.

which is why im not sure i can actually give the writers credit for it because i dont even know if THEY knew what was up or if they just made it up and it was just convenience i was able to apply meaning to it

the fact they (again as i remember) didnt address it in the game makes it really suspect though! and it makes it hard to support them as having done something intelligent. especially when it ended up with tons of players feeling cheated because it fell in line with popular “the illuion of choice telltale style” game lines. so when the final moment came it confused them because nothing informed them that it was ALWAYS a quest of futility and despite maxs emotions or feelings about it, it was never about saving chloe. she was only a tool to achieve the goal of outting jefferson

which i cant say i totally approve of from a general point of view! especially in light of “bury your gays.” but from a time travel-esque mechanic point of view.... yeah it makes sense....

but it doesnt really leave a good feeling. because max and by proxy the player were always under the misunderstanding they could save chloe when in reality they never could.

and the entire game was just. a quest of futility. (in that regard)

but we didnt know. to make it proper, the game shouldve let us into the secret. even if max didnt know and felt cheated at the end, the audience wouldnt feel the same. itd be dramatic irony. wed feel bad but wed know why it had to happen.

anyway, as the Old Woman says in virtues last reward:

“Death was always inevitable.“