#starfish snippets

[zeestarfishalien]

Ya know Danny could absolutely get away with doing homework on the watchtower bc ghosts would absolutely go for a school called Casper High School in the ghost zone. I imagine it going a little like this.

Some Leaguer: "What the...are you doing homework?"

Danny: *not really listening* "Uh, yeah, of course."

Leaguer: "but you're, y'know..."

Danny: *panicking internally but committing to the bit* "Ghosts have schools too."

L: "Okay yeah. Sorry, that was insensitive of me."

D: "It's okay."

Also the idea of someone finding a piece of paper like a form for school gets left behind and they immediately know it's for Danny because Casper High School? That's a ghost school if they ever heard one.

[zeestarfishalien]

You know the saying, "living well is the best revenge?"

It kinda is.

Well, before a month ago, Jason would've said that's bs and gone on his way, but here he is at his third club tour of the day with a drop-dead exhausted Bruce trailing along behind him like a lost sickly puppy. If said puppy was 6'2 and absolutely shredded. Not that he looks it when he's drooping with exhaustion like this.

It's his own fault really. He could have sent Alfred or Dickie along with Jason to go explore the clubs and dance studios and more that are available to all those with money to burn. But no, the stubborn twit just had to "bond" with Jason.

time travel fanfic idea where Jason comes back to before he was adopted, him and Batman still meet and he still ends up being adopted by Bruce Wayne, but he just refuses to acknowledge Batman and Robin, he acts like a civilian boy, he has over thirteen extracurriculars that Bruce does his best to keep up with. He regularly works out and trains all the fighting he's learned over the years, he goes on a gap year before college to recuperate the all blades and pretends to be the civilian in a family of crime fighting vigilantes.

He's doing pre-med and keeps nagging his siblings to go to college too (Cass, Tim), Duke is the one who spends more time with him bc everyone else is nocturnal and sleep through the day, but Jason likes to drive Duke to his classes and pick him up so they can have lunch together, Damian had a hard time at first, because Jason speaks every language that he speaks and all bat related things have to stay at the cave, his league training didn't prepare him for a civilian brother.

During an attempted kidnapping during one of the Wayne galas, Jason's whole plan almost gets blow up because one of the guys has taken a woman hostage and his Red Hood fried brain just pounced on the dude with all his might, wrestled him for the gun and kept him stuck under his boot with the gun pointed between the guys brows.

He had to pretend to be scared when Batman came to the rescue and act like he didn't know how to handle a gun.

+ Alfred 100% thinks Jason was on a children gang and that's why he's so good with knives, guns and rifles, but who's he to say anything about people's past

[fushiguruuzzzz]

+ CHAPTER ONE // DON’T CRY OVER SPILLED COFFEE 

series mlist 

Tags — cursing, Toge embarrasses himself (again) Words — 1.2k

After being endlessly berated and smacked over the head with a rolled up newspaper, your friends were forced to leave. You were left alone, standing idly by the kitchen entrance as you waited for any reason to do otherwise. It was a Tuesday afternoon, business was as slow as it could get. The snowfall didn’t do much to help either, halting the usual student company that travelled by foot. You could count the amount of people inside on one hand, which you figured you could actually resort to doing once your boredom reached its peak. 

In the midst of your blank staring at the wall, the sound of the bell above the door rang. You were snapped out of your daze, clearing your bleary vision with a few short blinks before you could force your feet to move. You took your time striding across the tile floor, cluttered with tables and booths alike. 

Your gaze landed on a group of people settling into seats near the furthest window. A nearly empty diner, and they chose the most inconvenient place to sit. That seemed to be how this day was going, with every order lost in translation and the lack of self control had by your pink haired friend. 

“Hi there,” you greeted, a honey-sweet smile spreading across your face as you addressed your peers. “Can I get you guys anything to drink?” 

It took the break in chatter, the way they all looked inward to their own preferences, for you to really notice who was sitting before you. The green haired girl with a constant look of disdain on her face—you shared a class with her. Accompanying her was a timid boy with black hair and… a panda?, whom you didn’t recognize. And then there was the last one. The platinum blond, violet eyed boy who you’d seen before, and not exactly in a manner you’d consider a good first impression. All you knew of him was that he needed to work on two things: hiding his staring, and walking straight. Maybe then he wouldn’t end up sprawled out starfish position on the sidewalk because you’d made eye contact. 

The corners of your lips pulled up just a little further, something he caught. They all seemed to, based on the amused glances shared and met by annoyed, possibly embarrassed ones from him. 

“Coffee, please,” said the intimidating woman in the corner, unable to hide her smirk as she looked between you and Toge. 

You nodded in acknowledgment, glancing to the other three. 

“Pepsi,” the panda added, voice low and booming. 

A smaller, more boyish voice came next, much easier on the ears than the former. “Just water, please.” 

You looked to the last boy, the one you’d been mentally referring to as ‘cockroach’ as of late. He cleared his throat. “I uh… I’ll have coffee too. Thanks.” 

“Got it,” you said, turning on your heels and walking to the kitchen without a second thought. Realistically, it was to suppress the chuckle bubbling in your throat. Could he be any more awkward? He seemed friendly enough from third person, but the moment he looked you in the eye it was like something flipped. Probably the slip. 

Emerging from the large double doors that lead to the back, you balanced your strategically placed array of drinks on a tray as you walked to the back corner of the diner. Their conversation halted, falling more silent as they gratefully took the beverages from your offering hands. Things got somewhat uncomfortable once they’d received their orders, the unspoken memories of Toge’s clumsiness hanging in the air. You shuffled away silently, retreating to the back once again. The only thing you could do now was wait for Miwa to clock in and hope for a snippet of conversation before she was pulled away by business, and you by the homework awaiting you in your apartment. 

“That’s her!” Panda grinned, speaking so loud that Toge was sure you could hear him from across the building. 

“I think he saw that,” Maki deadpanned. “Did you see his face? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Toge so awkward.”

“I wasn’t that awkward,” Toge grumbled in response. “I don’t even know her, so why would I be so affected?” 

He lifted his cup of coffee to his lips, resisting the urge to wince. He wasn’t the biggest fan of it, but his mind had drawn a blank when he saw you and he spat out the first thing that came to mind. Truth be told, he was affected. Very much so. But he wouldn’t admit that, of course not. 

“Look! It’s yn!” Panda feigned a gasp, pointing behind Toge. Panda, being the socially unaware animal he was, had read your name tag and decided it was perfectly acceptable to refer to you by your first name. 

Toge whipped his head around, so caught off guard that he lost his grip on the mug in hand. Not only was the space behind him lacking you, he was now lacking his drink, as it was instead rapidly spilling all over the table and his lap. The now lukewarm drink bled into his pants, and he’d never been so grateful to be wearing black. 

“Shit!” he placed a hand over his mouth, grumbling under his breath as he tried (and failed) to stop the mess with a few napkins sitting to his left. Yuta gasped from beside him, recoiling away but panicking, trying to help. Panda and Maki did nothing of the sort, relishing in his humiliation and giggling into their palms. 

“It’s not hot. It’s fine,” he sighed under his breath, shooting Yuta a thankful glance. He could feel his face heating up, glancing around the diner to see if anyone had witnessed his fumble. As if the universe was working against him, you came into view. You had a bag over your shoulder, it was apparent you’d clocked out, and he almost thought he was safe. Almost, until you caught sight of him. 

You were immediately concerned, amusement only lingering in the back of your mind as you rushed over. “Woah, hey, are you okay? Was that hot? W-“ you were silenced by a small shake of his head, though he avoided your eyes as if you were Medusa. You let out a breath of relief at that, shoulder deflating ever so slightly. “Okay, that’s good. I just clocked out, but I can get you some paper towels if you’d like? I mean, it seems like the cup was full when it spilled…” you winced, glancing down at the creamy brown puddle. 

“That would be great! He’d appreciate it,” Panda cut in, shooting you what was meant to be a reassuring grin. 

When you left, Toge had gained and lost many things. He had your name, your attention, some paper towels, wet pants, and no dignity. You had homework, a wad of cash in your pocket, a smile, and the funny memory of the flustered boy in the back of your mind. Maybe work wasn’t all boring after all. 

Yes, they indeed chose that diner because of the cockroach incident

Yn was lwk giggling to herself on the way home

They started tallying the amount of times kcp (Kurt Cobain Painters) have been banned from the diner on a chalkboard in yn and Nobara’s apartment. It’s nearly full.

Their manager is never around so they just come back 😭😭

There’s like four workers total at that damn diner and its yn, Miwa, and other randoms

Save them

I’m writing this on the same day as I released chapter zero so that I have a break… (I did in fact not have a break. The next chapter is queued.) I have like four final projects in the works rn someone kill me I hate it here 💔💔 sigh camp counsellor kuroo has double the likes of this damn series after a few days not complaining tho I love kuroo 🤤

Taglist — 34/50 (inaccurate, masterlist has correct #)

@anotherwriternamedclara @ruruisru @adoresia @auroratumbles @sh0ot1ngst4r @princesa14 @soobin1437 @mystic-megumi @cinnamxnangel @lizbix @s3ns4ti0n4l @anonnieghost @s4toruz @azinniya @gumims @bubybubsters @k4ss11333 @rreveurdoll @kaged-kitty @rwura @aldebrana @laaalaaaloooppppsiiieeeee @hqnge @lloversss @h1ddenverse @good-mourning0 @daisies-and-domming @vi0let-writes @strxwberryfetish @dazaisfavgf @hearts4aloise @coolgirl458 @keyaea @jealovsie

— reminder to make sure your tag setting are working!! :)

[schemmentisimpasours]

That Time: Headcanons

Summary: I'm dying of fucking cramps and I needed a little self comfort on what my comfort characters would do to help take care of you during that time of the month.

I kinda like this. Might do more of these

Warnings: Talks of menstruation, blood, mood swings

Characters: Olivia Benson, Ayanna Bell, Melissa Schemmenti, Ava Coleman, Alex Blake, Tara Lewis, Athena Grant, Chessy

Fandoms: SVU,Organized Crime, Abbott Elementary, Criminal Minds, 9-1-1, The Parent Trap

~-~

Olivia Benson

Calls Fin and takes a work from home day whenever she can. Stays in bed with you while you are in and out of sleep rubbing your back between signing paperwork. Wakes you up occasionally to keep you hydrated and eating.Uses essential oils to rub into your sore back and your hips. Keeps a candle lit because you swear that you smell and it calms down your anxiety over it. Makes you stay in bed preparing comfort food for you all day. Fills the bath tub full of bubbles and stress relief bath salts to soothe your aching muscles. Reads you your favorite book while playing with your hair till you fall asleep in her lap.

Ayanna Bell

Has Sloot rework all your social media so you only see happy videos and blocks all news. Keeps ginger ale and soup on standby because without fail you get sick every time. Forces Stabler to run errands and bring you lunch from your favorite deli with an extra large slurpee.Uses various pressure points to relieve pain in your neck and shoulders. Sets up 3 large fans in the bedroom to help cool you down even if it means wearing hoodies all day. Watched youtube videos to learn how to give you a deep tissue massage. Let's you fall asleep like a starfish across the bed just happy you are comfortable.

Melissa Schemmenti

Frets over you every time because she knows you are in a lot more pain than you let anyone know. Is constantly checking in on you keeping you hydrated and medicated with pain meds on rotation. Barks at anyone who so much as raises their voice at you. Gently guides you away from annoying coworkers before you rip their head off. Holds your hand until the cramps pass. Bakes homemade cookies and cannolis. Keeps the house extra cold for when you overheat. Has blankets and her hoodies on standby (you refuse anything that doesn't smell like her) for the moments you start to shiver. Tucks you in bed (in light cotton sheets so you don't sweat)and reads to you (occasionally throwing in snippets of Italian) till you fall asleep curled around her with your head lying on her chest. She refuses to move for the rest of the night.

Ava Coleman

Makes you take the day off and it is non negotiable.If they are short subs steps in unwillingly to help for the day so you can stay home. Marks the days on her calendar with a bright X to prepare for what she calls her "baby's doomsday". When she can she stays home with you making the same tea her grandma made her growing up. Forces Gregory to be her personal Uber Eats for all your cravings. Orders your favorite Chinese food to eat on the couch while you watch sad movies. Cries over the sad movies because you are crying and she hates seeing you in pain. Covers the bed in black silk sheets to keep you cool and cover up anything so you never have to worry. Rubs your back as you hug her like a koala bear until you fall asleep. She won't admit it but having you so needy and clingy is her favorite thing.

Alex Blake

Constantly tracking your symptoms and flow to check for abnormalities. Keeps a calendar in her purse to prepare for the day especially when she knows cases are extra heavy. Always keeps heating pad patches for you. Makes you hot tea with lemon but keeps other caffeine in her bags. Has a random assortment of snacks that you steal from her often. When the cramps are bad she holds you until they pass. Since you are constantly on the go she keeps a handful of comfort items tucked in her go bag. Packs an extra hoodie for you to curl up on at night. Pulls strings so on cases you have the hotel room together so she can hold you while you fall asleep. Breaks down the mean of complex words to lull you into sleep when you struggle to push past the pain.

Tara Lewis

Has extra pads and underwear packed in her go bag because she knows that you always forget. Often is the one reminding you that your period is coming when she notices a shift in your demeanor.Holds your hand wherever you go so you can squeeze it if you are in pain. Or to pull you away from someone before you snap at them. Is feeding you bits of chocolate and pretzel randomly throughout the day. Holds you in the back of cars or the bathroom when you burst into tears randomly. Kisses your forehead whenever she can and reminds you constantly how proud of you she is. Waits for you to tell her when you need pain medicine but if you wait too long will give you gentle prodding. Falls asleep rubbing your back.

Athena Grant

Is calling to check on you every hour on the hour. And reminds you to take meds regularly with a slight threat if you don't listen. Driving to check on you at work or home in between calls. Doordashes you lunch and chocolate covered strawberries. Comes home early if she can to set up a huge movie night. Drags in the TV from the living room. Creates a cocoon of blankets and pillows with fans on full blast. Holds you while you cry after you insist on watching Bolt. Even considers getting you a dog at some point. Will fall asleep curled around you so she can sense any sign of distress during the night.

Chessy Always one to be a caregiver, Chessy immediately steps in to care for you. She has a calendar to track the days so she has all the essentials prepared. Has sheets on standby and will clean up the bed before you get self conscious if it comes a day or two early. Chocolate is stuffed in all the cupboards in different varieties. There are various forms of heating pads including one shaped like a shark. When the cramps are bad she holds you rubbing your back gently. She lets you complain reassuring you that you are going to be okay with small kisses on your forehead. She draws up a bath for you and sits on the side of the tub reading a book to you. Will let you lay on top of her to sleep because it's the only way you feel comfortable.

-

Taglist

@derpyavocado @panerasbox @babytakeittothehead @milfjuulpod @yoyo-w @cupldscntrl @milfslvr

@liliapleasesteponme @italianaidiota

@marvel210

[mirrology]

I wonder how will the reader in the itoshi brothers x male reader view the snow after the fight of his older brothers there

NOYADE ❛ ❁. ━━ (n.) an execution carried out by drowning. / UN.

❛ ⟡. blue lock, itoshi brothers & male reader. platonic. wc: 1.2k

❛ ⟡ ━━ reader sure is going through it!!! , reader isn't into football ,, communication? I barely know her , more alnst world memories ,, reader misses people who he doesn't even remember , some wholesome moments with Rin & Sae at the end ,, reader, Rin and Sae no longer share a room. this surprisingly took a while （；´д｀）ゞ

❝ It's not the room. Not beginning. Not the crowd. Not winning. ❞ 𓂅 not, big thief.

You lay in the cold embrace of the snow, staring at the gray sky in contemplation. Your arms were slack and spread out in a starfish pose, having just finished making a snow angel. You took a deep breath, feeling the frigid air rush into your lungs, and it hurt as if needles were sinking into them. You shifted to your side, and the iciness of the snow touched your cheek, melting instantly upon contact with your skin.

You closed your eyes, undoubtedly exhausted from the events that had transpired only days ago. Sae had come back from his trip to Spain. You had been watching Rin practice Football from the sidelines after his match since you never got into it like your brothers, nor did you have the talent to.

The eldest walked onto the field. His face had changed since his youth. It was a sad sight; he looked tired. Despite his expression, you felt happy to see him. Next thing you knew, things went south. Sae told Rin that he had given up on his dream, and Rin didn't take it lightly. Hurtful things were said, and you were not acknowledged. Not even once.

You watched with wide eyes and a heavy feeling in your chest as the once fruitful relationship between them crumbled before you. It was cold, too cold. Your hands shook, you were frozen in place as cold beads of sweat ran down your face. You felt useless.

Sae had given you a single glance as he left, a look that sent shivers through your body. Your eyes burned with the urge to cry, but you didn't. You couldn't. Shedding tears was difficult and it was hard to think about it. Instead, here you were, drowning in memories of a fleeting past. The image of music sheets and a boy with silver hair surfaced from the depths of your mind, presented in snippets.

There were two others: one girl had black hair, while the other girl had the brightest pink hair you had ever seen. That was all you recalled, and it frustrated you.

The snow surrounding you melted into your winter coat, ruining the snow angel you had created just moments before. An itch in your nose snapped you out of your daydream, causing your face to scrunch up in discomfort.

You let out a sneeze, which made you open your bleary eyes. Reaching up, you wiped under your nose, cringing in disgust as watery boogers stained the sleeve of your coat.

You returned to your original position by flopping down to your back, groaning as you suddenly felt queasy. Footsteps crunched in the fallen snow as a person walked up to you. A shadow covered the lower half of your body and a familiar voice spoke. "What are you doing?" Rin raised an eyebrow at your dazed expression.

He had changed in these past few days. His outgoing personality had become more closed off and harsher, although not much to you. You merely grunted back at him, too tired to reply verbally. You raised your arms at him, opening and clenching your hands again and again to emphasize that you wanted him to pull you up.

Rin deadpanned up but did what you asked anyway. You stumbled a little as you stood upright as a wave of nausea hit you like a truck.

Rin noticed because of your swaying. He sighed out from his nose and crouched down, signaling for you to get on his back. You blinked and quickly wrapped your arms around his neck as he grabbed your legs to carry you. You buried your face into his neck, mumbling an apology. "M'sorry Rin-nii…" your voice wavered, even though you knew he didn't mind carrying you.

"Why are you apologizing? I don't mind." He fondly spoke, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He started walking back into the house, his body heat helping you stay warm. When the both of you entered he let you down and you took your shoes off at the front door. Once you were done Rin grabbed your hand and let you to your room.

You took off your coat and fell limply onto your bed, just wanting to take a nap and get rid of the nausea. Your brother sighed when he saw your exhausted state, he walked over and covered you in your bed sheets. He smoothed out the edges and gently tucked you in.

Rin nodded at his handiwork and went to leave, although he was stopped by your hand grasping his. He looked back and was met with your pleading face, "Don't leave Rin-nii… please?" you said, your voice slightly hoarse. The former's face softened.

He mumbled out an "Okay." and urged you to scoot over. He laid down beside you and wrapped his arms around you, just like he would when you both were little. You quickly fell asleep, you always did feel safe in his arms.

When you woke again Rin was gone, perhaps he had gone to his room. Your eyes darted to your phone that was on the nightstand next to your bed. Picking it up, you squinted when the harsh light of the phone shone on your face.

You looked at the time, it read 1:49.

It was late and your throat was dry, so you got up to get some water. You snuck downstairs as quietly as you could, grabbed a cup, and filled it with the refreshing liquid. You gulped it down eagerly and let out a relieved sigh when you finished it.

"What are you doing?" A monotone voice said behind you.

Your eyes widened, knowing exactly who it was. You quickly got yourself together and turned around to Sae, meeting his piercing gaze. Bringing up the cup you held, you pointed to it and simply said "Water."

Your voice was still hoarse even after drinking the water and your expression was slightly dazed. Sae narrowed his eyes and reached over to pluck the cup from your hand, and set it down on the counter. He then grasped your hand to pull you out of the kitchen.

"Get back to bed." He murmured, his grip tightening slightly as he felt how warm you were.

"Kay" you replied as you let him tug you back to your room, getting increasingly sleepier. When you both got to your door, he let go of your hand and turned to look at you. You looked back.

It made you nervous just looking at him like this even though it didn't show on your face, since you sported a blank face. But Sae knew he was your brother after all.

Sae reached over and wiped a bead of sweat that had formed on your forehead. "Sleep well." He spoke softly and walked away, leaving you standing in the hallway. You touched the spot that he wiped and an indescribable feeling overtook you, maybe he was still the brother you knew.

Whatever, you would think of it tomorrow. You walked to your bed and got under the covers, sleep enveloped you as you thought of your brothers.

The snow made you confused and it was now hard to look at because of the memories attached to it, you want to stay away from it. You were always sensitive to the cold anyway.

[4suke]

anatomy of a breakup.

kuroo tetsurou x reader. angst, exes post-breakup, oneshot crossposted on ao3 as higashikatas.

you don’t get it.

it keeps you up at night, it takes your mind away from schoolwork, it makes you replay every single moment of the last year and a half and all the years of friendship before, and you still don’t get it. 

you’ve pulled apart every interaction both by yourself and with yaku, who has been nothing if not kind and patient and supportive and so simply unlike himself… and so like himself at the same time because yaku morisuke is nothing if not the best friend you will ever have. far too many evenings have been spent starfished on his too-big bed with his beloved weighted penguin plush on top of you, while the guy himself paces around alternating between sitting beside you or at his tiny desk-chair. he’d never been good at sitting still, less so when the topic of conversation upset him just as deeply as it did you. 

you wish feelings made sense. even the mere thought brought a fresh wave of pain, because it had never been you who had wanted the logical side of things. it has always been him, while you had laughed and patted his elbow placatingly. you wish a lot of things made sense, actually, but they didn’t and there was also nothing you could do about any of them. so you wallow in your heartbreak and let the voice at the back of your mind call you pathetic until it goes hoarse.

there’s no space for recovery. you’re in close proximity to tetsurou at almost all times- if not physically, then in the framed photograph on your nightstand you can’t bring yourself to throw away, or in the matching phone wallpapers that all the volleyball team bar two (yaku, out of consideration for you, and kenma out of sheer stubbornness) have, or in the group chat that still floods your phone every night. in kenma’s not-so-secret private instagram, in kai’s shared google photo album, in lev’s clumsy little wannabe vlogs, in yaku pretending he isn’t in the same room as you when tetsurou calls. most of all, he’s in your own head- you hold so many memories of him you might just burst. 

you wish the world would stop. stop reminding you of him, stop existing with him in it, stop existing with the both of you in it- anything would be preferable. but the earth refuses to stop spinning because you’re sad, and you wish that the earth didn’t have quite so much of kuroo tetsurou in it. 

(funnily enough, that isn’t the only impossible thing you wish for.)

the earth will not stop spinning, and your friends will not let you stay rooted in the muck of feelings he left you in. you continue to eat lunch with the second-years (on all five days of the week instead of just two now), you continue to walk the first-years home when they stay back late for practice (you do it alone now), you continue to poke fun at taketora and lev over the post-game bowls of ramen and you continue to treat inuoka like your long-lost son. you continue to crack a smile at fukunaga's puns and you continue to beg kai for homework answers over text mere hours before the deadlines. you continue to smile at tetsurou in greeting, continue to stay back when he asks you to discuss their prospects at nationals with coach nekomata, continue to offer to clean up the gyms every other day so he can head home to take care of his grandmother. the heavy knot of heartbreak still hangs like dead weight inside your rib cage, but as long as you continue complaining about kenma’s god awful sleep schedule and continue nodding energetically at snippets of songs that play when yaku slips you his earbuds, you can gloss over the way tetsurou hurt you. 

you get used to the weight with time. it doesn’t fade, but your friends seem to notice a difference even though they say nothing about it. kenma stops hiding his instagram stories from you when he posts another tetsurou grandpa moment. yaku stops sending you cautious glances during practices. taketora finally stops treating you like you’re about to break and starts clamouring for you to join the team bonding sessions once again. 

you aren’t fooled, though. your pain isn’t the kind of scar that heals up cleanly and quickly. you’re fighting to pretend you’re fine, existing this close to kuroo tetsurou and ignoring every instinct that screams at you to quit your post as nekoma’s volleyball manager and beg your parents to let you transfer to itachiyama.

the only thing that makes it hard to stick to the track, unsurprisingly, tetsurou is himself. 

he isn’t even trying. he’s normal again, and you know him well enough to tell that he (unlike you) is not faking a thing. there’s no internal conflict behind the large honest eyes every time he nods at you in greeting, no hesitation or pain echoing across his mind when he casually throws himself onto the couch between you and kenma on movie night and slings an arm across the back of the sofa inches from your head and shoulders. 

that , at least, makes sense, you think to yourself, walking home alone after a night out at the arcade with the team. he was the one who broke up with you so why should he feel any of the pain? why should he feel the ghosts of your touch on the sides of his face and the insides of his wrists every time he absentmindedly brushes against you in a crowded hallway? why should he lie awake at night trying not to think about the feeling of your arms curled around his waist when you used to nap together during free periods? 

he has no reason to agonize over something he chose to end, you know. rationalizing it doesn’t make it better.

the messy cannonball of emotions tucked neatly between your ribcage’s left walls wouldn’t hurt half as bad if it was another thing you shared with tetsurou, you think bitterly, wrapping your scarf tighter around your face. but life is unfair and this is the one thing you don’t share. you’re unbalanced. kuroo is fine and you are not.

you skip the next team outing. you sit in your bathtub, lukewarm water up to your shoulders with your head pressed against your arms, and you don't get it.

[impyssadobsessions]

I don't have much time but I wanted to share this with you while I can! I can't draw but I can write and this is the only way I can share this imagery with you!

The world is passing by in a flurry of colors.

Which usually isn’t that unusual for Clark…usually though it’s because his flying of his own accord. Now…now it was because he was hurdling who knows how fast in piece of metal that was more of a mobile armory then an actual RV then it supposedly was.

There were no support handles to hold on to for just a bit of comfort, no, that was replaced by a handle that would pull down and release a fog horn sound.

So all he could do was pull his knees up to steady himself against the front console, using his size to squeeze himself into a cannonball form in hopes he didn’t get dislodged on a particular rough bump.

Then again if he did, maybe he could get propelled forward and through the front and take the engine out on his way.

Wishful thinking…at least he was doing better then Bruce.

Who was currently sprawled out on the floor of the RV looking like a disheveled cat hanging on to whatever and however he could. Maybe it would look more natural in his Batman outfit but at the moment both if them were in civilian wear and seeing the ‘Prince of Gotham’ doing an impression of a deranged starfish just added on more to today’s bizarreness.

Jack Fenton was giving him a large smile as he drove through another wall, “Don’t you guys worry! I’ll get us to our boys! No speed limit or any barrier can stop a Fenton!”

Clark could only let out a groan of despair as a response...

AMG THIS IS LOVELY LMAO!!! Bruce just imitating one of his sons to keep himself from being thrashed around.. or worse... throw up. ahhhh imagine they both slump out of the rv when they arrive, shaking and so grateful to touch the ground. Bruce is definitely calling for a private jet after this and Clark might agree to ride with him just to have a slower ride.

Danny gives them pity pats when he learns... Jon and Damian like how bad could it be. Damian thinking his father been in a space ship and Jon like we fly that fast every- Only for them to be overheard by Jack by their curiosity, so they all end up being drove back by him. Which bruce and clark like OH GOD please- which becomes a little relief when it turns out Jack drives safer with children.... still deranged but one they can handle. Damian still doesn't see what got their fathers so twisted up. Danny knows though and then asks dad how long it took them. "Regrettably 3 hours son. I was hoping it would be two." Damian frowned and done the math then asking if there was a flying feature in the... rv? "AHA! Nope, but I've been trying to convince Mads to let me install one. She said it would cost too much in gas though, and take up room for the ghost scanner." Damian does the math.. then realizes why his father and clark are shaking in the rv.. even by the tiniest of amounts. "That's my dad! :D" Danny grinning. "He's cool." Jon says innocently enough, not realizing the horror of that statement until it takes them over five hours to get home. Jack decided to play it safe and follow SOME speed limits and road signs. Jack is never allowed to drive again next time they hang out. Bruce or Clark always gets the keys =w= or has limo. ahh sorry got inspired. I LOVE this snippet ;w; !!!! <3 Thank you for writing this. <3<3<3

Link to prompt

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Fate vs. Choice - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Jinx has a decision, and a deadline.

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Six o’ clock. Late evening.

The Cathedral of Progress.

Lanterns burned in their iron-scrolled brackets; the shadows cut flayed patterns on the granite walls. In the nave, the acolytes chanted, cloaked and cowled. In their palms, the lit tapers cast long, lean shadows across the stone floors. Their voices were a mechanized hymn: harmonized down to the smallest atom vibrating in the air. There was no music riding the currents. Only silence, draping a veil of total stillness over the congregation. Perhaps even eternal damnation, to those who dared trespass.

Jinx didn't give a ripe toot about damnation. She'd already fallen from grace: the moment she'd set a wind-up monkey loose to rescue her family, and jinxed them instead. Her own jinx, since that fateful night, was an inevitability, and a long time coming.

Now, at nineteen, she was the living, breathing epitome of it.

The harsh sweetness of coffee cut through the chants. Jinx cracked an eyelid open; for one long giddy second, the world spun in a sickening circle.

Then it righted itself. Or Viktor did: a cool hand clasping hers.

“Wake up, Jinx.”

Her eyes fluttered open. She lay, starfished in an indolent sprawl, in sweetgrass that swayed as if under an invisible caress. The aroma of lilies was ascendant; twilight had deepened their perfume. The night-garden was tucked into the courtyard at the heart of the Cathedral, abutted by a small cemetery of granite.

Under the surreal refractions of a stained-glass dome, it was a wonderland: teeming with long-dead saints, and the perfumes of late-blooming flowers, all a-glow in holy light. Upon closer scrutiny, the holiness inverted into the uncanny. Every plant, aspirating beneath the multicolored rays, was revealed to hold an almost numerical symmetry: logarithmic spirals of orchids, geometrically-profound petunias, grid-patterns of clovers all fractaling in golden ratios.

As if every organism—from soil grain to leaf tip—had coalesced into life under the touch of a divine hand. Or a very obsessive mathematician.

Or—both.

Then there was the tree.

It was a prehistoric sycamore of darkling wood: five times the height of the average Piltovan oculus; three times as broad across. The branches fanned out into spokes as big as a ferris wheel. The ends of each spathe, splayed wildly under the skylight, erupted into iridescent blooms. They were nearly gem-like in their purity: their crystalline petals glowing in colors of multicolored amethyst, chrysoprase, quartz, topaz, ruby. The canopy spread over the entire garden; the roots curled deep into the bedrock.

By nightfall, it gave off an eerie luminescence: bathing the garden in an ephemeral glow. By daylight, it cast a rainbow halo across the grounds. Its fragrance changed constantly: one minute pungent as wormwood, the next citrusy as lemon zest, another woody as cardamomh. Insects swarmed about its roots; butterflies flocked its boughs. Some even swore they'd spotted faeries dancing in rings beneath its shadow.

The hallucinogenic effects were, by Viktor's accounts, an ur-example of magicoreality: an object, space, or phenomenon that is created through the combined imagination of multiple entities. It was real, because they believed it real. And vice versa.

Like a mobius strip blossoming into being.

Viktor's acolytes had transplanted the tree—roots to stem—from Singed subterranean laboratory. Something in the soil of the Cathedral's grounds nourished it with unique potency: the tree flourished where naysayers, Silco chief among them, predicted it would rot. By the first month, it'd become the centerpiece around which every botanical beauty revolved. By the sixth, it was the brilliant heart of a preternatural paradise: creepers, ferns, lilies, ivies, marigolds, all erupting in a palette of purest life.

By the tenth?

The tree was worshipped as an entity unto itself. It dominated the cultists' rhetoric; it haunted their reveries. It was rumored that Janna herself had breathed life into its veins, rescuing it from the brink of collapse. Pilgrims from the depths below, voyeurs from the heights above, arrived in droves to seek the sheltering boughs as if for the same restorative breath.

And under those twirling branches?

They were never the same again.

Formerly pallid patients were rumored to stagger from their sickbeds, sit beneath the blossoms in solemn ceremony, then unfold from their atavistic comas miraculously reborn. Like larvae metamorphosing into butterflies.

From devolution to evolution.

But though the tree restored a measure of life to its devotees, its own was an hourglass suspended between grains. The fruits hanging off its branches evoked a spectrum of incandescent sea-shells washed by whitecaps onto arid shores. They were entirely inedible; ash and air. And as soon as they fell, their shells fossilized: petrifying into stone-crusted facets within minutes of detachment, before dissolving into inert dust.

It was the tree's perpetual paradox: the promise of life, forever beyond reach. And death, ever-encroaching at its heels.

In its shadow, Viktor, the most devoted disciple of one, held court weekly with the most notorious apostate of the other.

"Wake up, Jinx."

Viktor's hand, freed from its tight leather glove, squeezed hers. His fingers, long and thin, held a delicate strength: there were calluses, velvety, at the tips, and a roughness along the heel. A scientist's hands, evolved into a healer's. Tonight, Jinx saw ink smudges on the knuckles. There was also a tiny nick, from wielding a scalpel during the evening's surgery on a young boy's ruptured appendix.

The boy was safe. Tucked into a cot at the infirmary, with the others under Viktor's care: each dosed with enough poppy-milk to see them through the night. The boy's mother, one of the dozen souls who'd flocked to the Cathedral seeking the Machine Herald's aid, had wept at her son's restoration, kissing the hem of Viktor's robe in a show of gratitude.

It was a scene that Jinx had witnessed, over and over again, during her visits. And it never failed to unsettle.

Devotion, undiluted, had that effect. Especially when it was devoid of desire.

Daily, scores of souls passed in and out of the Cathedral. Each brought with them a problem, a poison, a plea. Each, Viktor addressed in their turn: salving their sores, purging their pustules, and bestowing, with a steady hand and a soft voice, his personal brand of salvation.

He never charged for his chem-modifications. Even the most complex, which took months to design, were given for free.

His payment, his only payment, was everything.

From the start, he’d made plain that his services were offered on a strictly non-partisan basis, and would cease immediately should any faction in Zaun attempt to co-opt his work. Except that was a lie. Everyone knew, in Zaun's hierarchical honeycomb, Viktor had no love for politics. But he was fiercely political: his sacrifices, solely and exclusively, were for the elevation of Zaun's future.

It was his singular obsession: the evolution of the present into an age of transcendence, and the eradication of the past into obscurity.

Viktor hated the past. A past that’d left him broken, disfigured, discarded: an imperfect specimen, unworthy of survival.

The same past, which had yet forged him.

And Jinx, his muse and mirror, who'd been reborn in its bloodshed.

"Jinx," Viktor repeated. "Wake up."

His hand squeezed hers, then let go. A moment later, a metal cup was pressed into her grasp.

The warmth radiated; Jinx's flesh drank it up. The coffee gave off its curls of aromatic steam: a nutty blend of chicory root, black chocolate liqueur, and the sweet whiff of anise.

Diluted, as always, with sweetmilk.

Viktor, his own cup balanced precariously between two fingertips, reclined with an easy elegance in the grass. His staff lay within arm's reach: the undying habit of a boy whose mind is always five steps ahead, but whose body is forever falling behind. Everywhere, leather-bound books were scattered, some facedown with cracked spines, others bristling with raven's feathers that doubled as bookmarks. An inkwell glittered, half-empty, on a stack of maps scribbled with notes.

In this garden, Vitya was ever-studying, ever-searching. Never satisfied with the knowledge already in hand, and the miracles already in motion.

Something he and Jinx shared in common.

Reclining on elbow, Viktor sipped from his cup with the other hand. Then he plucked a notebook from the pile, stirred through its pages with a fingertip, and resumed writing with his cockatrice quill: a rapid series of symbols that, unfurling, imprinted themselves in a secret pocket of Jinx's brain, and the darkest recesses of her heart.

Destiny: charted beyond the stars.

Jinx sat up, knees tucked against her chest, and drank from her cup. The flavor was just as it should be: bitter chased by sweet, complexity balanced by simplicity.

Viktor's handwork: the paradox distilled into metaphor.

Just like the garden, where every blade of grass grew exactly the same height, and every flower, in its arrangement, was a repetition into infinity.

Sipping, Jinx's eyes flicked from bloom to bloom. Then, she noticed:

A single blossom out of place.

A lone iris, curling its way from between the tree's roots. It was sly as an intruder, bright as a fallen star.

The same hue as Powder's wishful blue eyes.

Jinx's lips curled. Tentatively, she reached out. Her fingers traced the blossoming petals. They were silky, smooth. Almost too flawless to be real.

"Is this place," she whispered, "alive?"

It was only half-joking. During each visit, she could never escape the sense that the garden—multiform, deviant—was suffused with a spiritual awareness sister to sentience. And the tree, gathering them both under its protective penumbra, was rooted right to the crux of Zaun's stony heart.

"Not exactly," Viktor replied, without looking up from his notes. "Not by our reckoning. More a kind of... meta-life."

"Meta-life?"

Viktor, dipping the quill in its inkwell, shrugged.

"This tree is but a reflection—an iteration—of something larger-than-life. Something of a piece with the city's vital flow. A conduit of sorts."

"Like, what? A portal?"

"Perhaps," he said, and absently rested a palm on his leg, the site of his first augments. "Or perhaps a lens. Something which reflects, refracts, magnifies. An imperfect metaphor."

"Serpent's tongue. Apple's flesh. Devil's promise."

"Precisely. A system of shorthand within which meaning can be imparted, and context given."

Jinx's eyes lingered on the flower: a star's winking light, buried under layers of soil.

"What's the point, though?" she wondered. "I mean, yeah, I get it: a symbol's powerful. But if you're trying to forget the past—"

"Forgetting is not the same as erasing," Viktor corrected, patiently. "And what good is a symbol, Jinx, if no one knows what it stands for?"

Double-edged question and double-pronged answer: classic Viktor.

Sighing, Jinx returned to her cup. The coffee, cooled, had lost its bite. She drained it anyway, then let the cup rest in her lap. Her eyes, half-lidded, took in her companion.

He was still garbed for his duties: a mauve linen robe with a high collar, its sleeves rolled up, the hem draping past his knees. It was a garment, once, meant to conceal. Now, it served a purpose quite the opposite. Its folds bared the armature that held Viktor together: once emaciated, now elegantly streamlined beneath a segmented exoskeleton of synth-plates. His bad leg, encased in gleaming obsidian augments, now held the flexile precision of muscle, and the springing strength of a steel cable.

The fusion was seamless: the stuff of futuristic fairytale. When he moved, it was with an almost regal glide. As if, somewhere in the gaunt structure of Viktor's frame, there was an ancient drop of royalty, finally emerging from its hardscrabble shell in a blend of princely asceticism and common-born resilience.

Under the tree's canopy, Viktor's pallor was offset by his deep-hued robes. The effect wasn't peaky so much as pearlescent. His untidy curls tumbled freshly-glossed along his shoulders: the barest delineations of a beard teased the contours of his jawline. The sum total was neither masculine nor feminine. Only androgynous; ethereal.

Transcendent as stardust.

The rim's of Jinx's eyes burned. Why was it that even at their closest, Viktor seemed as if he was dissolving into astral orbit, a beautiful moon drifting farther from reach?

And why did Jinx feel herself hurtling on an opposing trajectory: crashing to earth with fatal velocity?

The wind, still unseen, sawed gently through the tree's branches. Its blossoms whispered: the susurration of silk sheets, or a lover's sigh. Jinx found it fitting that, though the Cathedral of Progress was, technically, the building's newly-christened designation, ordinary Fissurefolk referred to it, unofficially, by a different epithet.

The Resurrection Root. The Everbloom. The Glass Garden.

And the most popular—

Der Wunschbaum.

Ur-Nox for Wishing Tree.

Except Ur-Nox was a double-edged sword. It was the language of the ancients; Mages and Guardians who'd lived in the time before Zaun had ever been. Their language, therefore, was the language of enchantment: one half lofty, the other half sinister. Wish, for instance, was rooted in the word Wunschet: to want. To desire beyond the bounds of reality.

But it was also rooted in Wählen: to choose.

A wish could be a heart's deepest desire unlocked. Or it could be a will to power: to take what you want, no matter the cost.

And me? Jinx wondered. What do I want?

And what will I give to seize it—or throw it away?

At her silence, Viktor stopped scribbling. His eyes, deep-gold, met hers.

"All right, Jinx?"

"Y-Yeah."

"You should wake up."

"Don't wanna."

"No?" Scritch-scritch went the pen, runes blossoming in its wake. Distantly, Jinx heard the acolytes singing, a ghostly engine of harmony. And—could it be?—Sparky's yips, cutting through the choir: a dissonant counterpoint. The greedy mutt, somewhere, was begging for treats. "If you do not wake, how will your Name Day be celebrated?"

"Multitasking's a thing. I've always been a pro."

"You are terrible at multitasking."

"Am not!"

"You fell asleep during the surgery."

"You told me not to interrupt. So I closed my eyes. But I was listening. I always listen."

"You were drooling." And, closing the notebook with the coordinates plotted inside, he set it down. In a single graceful movement, he'd shifted closer. Close enough to touch his thumb against the corner of her lips, where a grin had stolen in. Viktor's own lips, palely-parted, were a few inches away. "You look like a child when you sleep. Peaceful. It is... rare."

"I was havin' a sweet dream."

"Oh? Tell me."

"A night full of stars. Wishes a-popping like fishes. And a beautiful boy." Her voice, at half-octave, came breathless. Always, his proximity did that to her: an unravelling of everything she held dear about herself. Like deja vu—except more desolate. Dying, when you longed to be reborn. "Except he won't wish me a Happy Name Day. He won't even gimme a kiss."

At that, Viktor smiled: a slow, secret curl that was yet the saddest expression in the world.

"Perhaps," he murmured, "he is a fool."

"Yeah?"

"And a coward." The thumb, tracing the full jut of her bottom-lip, was cool as snowfall, and as chaste. "Because he knows, deep in his heart, that you are still a child. The child he sees when you sleep. And because, despite whatever tradition or legality declares, you are not yet a woman. Certainly, not the woman who, once she comes into herself, will outrace him, and his grand designs, and fly off on wings of stardust."

"You talkin' about Silco?" Jinx quipped. "'Cause, no offense, but he's no competition. I can outrun that fossil anytime."

The levity fell flat. Viktor's golden eyes, augmented to their depths, lost their imperceptible luster. A moment later, his hand retreated, as if it'd never been.

"I know," he said, "that this is only an interlude."

"You think so?" Jinx, impulsively, caught the hem of his sleeve. "Pretty harsh frame to put 'round forever."

"Forever means little in a cosmos of infinite permutations."

"Not so long as we're still us, right?"

"A conundrum in itself." He didn't withdraw, exactly. Only laid his fingertips over hers, knotted into his sleeve. "Are our mirrored selves—in the physical, in the quantum—so very different at their crux? Is one less worthy, less agentic, than the other? Or are they simply two sides of the same coin, flipped endlessly, until the universe collapses on itself."

"Yikes. Talk about buzzkill."

"I am not a man for platitudes, Jinx." The smile, sadder, stayed on the surface. "Not will I feed you falsehoods, in hopes that the future may hold more than the present."

"So you say."

"So I mean." And, surprising her, he caught her hand in both his own: a tender clasp. "We've pledged our spirits as one. We've plotted our course. Escape velocity is inevitable. But the path ahead will not be easy. Not for either of us. If anything, it will be harder, given what we must renounce to see the destination through. And I—I cannot be sure—"

A crack in his faultless equilibrium. In turn, Jinx felt her own fragile serenity evaporate.

"Sure of what, Viktor?" she said, with quiet ferocity. "That I'll change my mind halfway? Chicken out before the starting gun goes off? Let Silco dictate my choices, like I've always done?"

"No, Jinx, no."

He shook his head; the curls danced, a ribboning cascade of cornsilk. There were silver streaks beginning to thread at the temples. Thirty-three, and a full-grown man where Ekko was still shedding the last vestiges of boyhood. But moments like this, it struck Jinx that Viktor was, at his core, even younger than Ekko. Two orphans prematurely thrust into roles before their time: the savior leading his flock to the promised land, and the savant saving souls that the world would sooner crush underfoot.

But both, in their hearts, still children. Still seeing Jinx, and what she'd become. But never, ever seeing her for who she was: the girl, not the legend.

The woman, not the jinx.

"Never that, Jinx," Viktor said. "Never would I think so little of you."

"...But?"

"It's been difficult, these past months, for us to speak frankly."

"Vitya," Jinx said, a touch exasperated. "We're speaking now. Aren't we?"

"We are." A squeeze, gentle, on her fingers. "At risk on both ends. But I have never once doubted your commitment. Your passion far exceeds mine; far exceeds whatever designs I may conjure. The world will be a better place, with you striving to make it so. My only fear is that, if you choose this path, yours will be the lonelier one."

"Lonely, how?" The ghost-prick of tears. "We're bonded, aren't we? Even if it's not what either of us planned—"

"A bond that can never be consummated. Never, in any sense, bear fruit." His grip tightened; yet the timbre of his voice held no rebuke. Only truth. "I am a creature born of disappointment, Jinx. Faulty in form and function. Unfit for any world except the one I will create, and even that shall be a long time coming. Yet, in the Void, you gave me a glimpse of paradise, and it was... indescribable. All I will ever want."

"And?" Her lip quivered, but held. A child, he'd called her, and yet her voice was steel. "Wasn't it enough? Wasn't I—?"

"You? Not enough? My dearest." Even though his sigh was bittersweet, a mote of passion shot through: the same passion that'd flowed, so effortlessly, between them in the otherworld. The same passion that now translated itself—sublimated and yet quartered—into the gentle dexterity of his hands on a circuitboard fused to a sobbing boy's flesh, and the consoling caress afterward as the boy's mother, sobbing too, laid a kiss of gratitude upon her savior's robe. "You are the only star in a universe without light. But because you are, you are far too much. For anyone's good. Least of all mine."

The tears, against Jinx's will, spilled free.

"So I was a mistake?"

"Yes. And no"

"How?"

"You were a miracle," Viktor said, and his smile, in its sadness, was radiant. "And a miracle is a gift bestowed by Fate. Without factors such as deservingness, or suitability, or even equity, thrown into the equation. A miracle, simply, is. As you, Jinx, always are. I know you've made your peace with our bond. You've acclimated yourself to it, the same as I have. But if we commit—truly commit—to the path ahead, we must renounce the rest, in every way. And Jinx... I cannot, in good faith, ask that of you. Not when I know what you stand to lose. Not when I know all the ways you need, and deserve, to be loved."

The tears kept falling. Jinx made no effort to stop them. The garden, with its Wishing Tree, was a time-out from pretense. Not sanctuary, but as close as Zaun's chaotic confines allowed. The other one—the Wishing Wagon, in civilization's shadowed cul-de-sac—was her true refuge. But that was a different her, with a different future.

A girl who'd yet to realize her greatest wish. A woman who, at the crossroad's fork, could take a chance.

She'd never told Viktor about the Wishing Wagon. Same way she'd never told Ekko about the Wishing Tree. Both were secrets within secrets: mirrored halves of a fractured whole.

And Jinx, at the liminal space in between, wondering: What's it mean?

What did it mean that one man had her soul at knifepoint, but another was holding her heart hostage? What did it say that she and Viktor fit together just right, but she and Ekko were built from perfectly mismatched puzzle pieces? What did it matter if she needed them both, but in ways so opposite they might as well be a different language?

How could she make the ends meet?

Especially when her life—her death—still hung on Silco's strings?

And her past—her future—still hinged on Vi's?

"Maybe," she said, and caught her lip in her teeth, "that's the point."

"Oh?"

"Maybe... the glimpse of paradise was all it was. A glimpse. The rest's about struggling to make it happen. Because it's the only way. Because choice is nothing but fate with a kick."

"Jinx, no."

"Why not? It makes sense. In a twisted sorta way." Her eyes, smarting-wet, blinked hard. "Fate's not a pretty delivery-gal on the front step with a package. He's a blind old pirate, throwing darts at a map and laughing as they land. Doesn't matter who gets skewered. Once that bullseye hits, it hits. And you're on the hook. No takebacks." Her other hand, lifting, aligned itself with Viktor's jaw: stubble yielding velvety beneath her palm. "We were always gonna be on the hook, Vik. At least, in the Void, I saw where we’re headed. What, in the end, we could become. And sure, the path's not a fairytale. But if we don't take it, the rest'll be fucked. And blind old fate'll be laughing his ass off, watching us sink under the waves."

"Perhaps," Viktor said, and leaned into her touch. But the smile, always, stayed sad. "But Jinx?"

"Yeah?"

"Fate is not the same as choice." Turning his head, he laid a kiss, pure as a snowflake, in the heart of her palm. "Even the cosmos, no matter its dictates, allows breathing-room for free will. I have mine, and I know what they will cost. Now, and in every incarnation. But you, Jinx: you are still so young. Your wishes, the ones that matter, have yet to be made. And once they are lost, you will not have the chance to reclaim them."

"Because I'm a child, right?" The anger, a flashfire that filled her to the seams, in this garden only left her aching. "Too dumb to know what I want. Too naive to make the tough call."

All at once, Viktor closed the gap.

Silently, he swept Jinx into an embrace: a cradle and a coffin holding both living and dead in sacred embrace. His arms made a crossbones at her shoulderblades; his breath stirred the top of her scalp. They were both clothed, but Jinx felt her heartbeat resonating through their ribcages, keeping time with the rhythmic dirge of the Cathedral's chants, and the Old Hungry's distant chimes

Reality and dream: melded into one.

Somewhere, Sparky was pawing at Jinx's slumbering shape in search of belly-rubs. Behind her eyelids, neon bled through. She heard fireworks; smelled engine-grease. Felt an odd pressure on her spine that had nothing to do with Viktor's cool fingertips tracing its curve, and everything to do with being bound, on a visceral level, beyond this communion they both shared.

"Fate," Viktor breathed, and his lips, against her temple, imparted prophecy, "will always come due. But choice? That, my dearest Jinx, is an arrow aimed straight for the heart. And to deny it: that is an error far graver than anything science, or the cosmos, could dole out." He kissed her forehead: the sweetest absolution. "Your choice must be yours. Do not allow a hand, no matter how divine, to dictate it."

Jinx, closing her eyes, lay her cheek to his chest.

"Not even yours?" she whispered, as the tears stopped falling.

"My hand, like my heart, will belong with you, Jinx. Even if you choose another path."

"Mirror, mirror on the wall."

"In every iteration," Viktor murmured, a tender withdrawal, "of this cosmic joke. An imperfect metaphor. Do you understand?"

"I do," Jinx lied, and lifted her face. "Kiss me?"

"This is not a space for secrets, Jinx."

"Then it's a perfect place, ain't it? 'Cause I won't have any left, after tonight."

"You will," Viktor said, and his thumbs smoothed the fading tear-tracks from her cheeks. "You do. We all carry secrets within ourselves. But to hide one, here, is to desecrate the very vow we must keep. And to deny our truth—any of our truths—is the greatest dishonor to the other. Do you understand?"

Foreboding rippled over Jinx's skin. The garden, the tree, the chants: all the beautiful trappings of ephemera, slipping like sand through the hourglass.

"Viktor." She caught his hand in hers, holding it fast. "Please."

"I'll see you tonight, Jinx."

"Don't—don't go—"

"Tonight. When you make your choice. Whatever that choice may be."

"But—"

"Wake up now."

The hourglass, upended. The Cathedral, the garden, the embrace, dissolving. All the dreamscape and its dazzling details, blotting out.

"Viktor!" Jinx cried. "Viktor!"

"Happy Name Day, Jinx," he said, and the ghost-imprint of his kiss died before it met her mouth. "I will kiss you, truly, tonight."

The ceiling spun above: a galaxy's worth of stars, winking out. Her hands, searching, found nothing.

Nothing but the blue iris, unfurling at the tip of a finger.

And Viktor's voice, deep as midnight.

"Make a wish."

The last winking star: her own.

[avonne-writes]

Seven Sentences Sunday

I've been tagged by several people, thank you, lovelies ❤️ Since I haven't finished my omegaverse PWP yet, I wanted to share another snippet.

The way the evening light dances with the flutter of Bucky's sheer curtains paints everything in mellow, calming colours. It gets Gale giddy, the fact that he’s back here, and the space is not only safe but familiar now.

He lies down in the middle of Bucky’s bed like a starfish, and a rush of contentment, akin to curling up in a new nest, washes over him. Everything smells like his mate here, and it's going to carry Gale's scent too, soon. He squirms, stretching and rubbing his pheromones on the sheets, and watches as Bucky climbs over him on his hands and knees.

He gives Gale a dorky smile, biting his lip. One of his big palms strokes Gale's chest and stomach through Gale’s shirt. “What do you feel like tonight?”

Tagging @hogans-heroes @chutefullofholes @girlswiththecurls and @trekkiehood

[getouyuri]

does anyone else feel like a raging homosexual rn (snippet of princess fem!rafayel x royal bodyguard fem!reader yuri that I’m writing rn)

“Here we are,” you say, breaking the silence with words that don’t necessarily need to be spoken, but you feel that you need to say something, for some reason. Maybe it's the tension you’ve felt all day, watching suitor after suitor take those pretty painted hands of Rafayel’s that you adore so much to tarnish her skin with kisses; maybe it's the odd silence that’s befallen her.

At the doorway of her bedchambers, you fold your arms and watch Rafayel dismiss her servants, murmuring that she’s capable of handling her bed routine. You note that Rafayel even slips the ladies a few coins for the trouble, smiling kindly, and all the servants sweep out of the room.

You’ve been sneaking into this very room since you and Rafayel were children. The two of you chat about everything and nothing at all, from the political state of Lemuria to the latest gossip in the palace. Rafayel is not just a woman of unparalleled beauty and power, but also a highly intelligent individual that gets the gears in your head turning. You’ve always been in awe of her radical views, her passion for the arts and her adoration for her subjects. Speaking to her during stolen interludes is something that you could do for hours.

But it’s not a good idea right now. Not tonight. You can feel it.

A painting of the setting sun hanging over the sea is bottled up and preserved in the depths of her pink-blue eyes. Or maybe her eyes are like sea glass, weathered perfectly by tumbling waves, all glittery and alluring. Rafayel looks at you with an intensity that you haven’t seen before, peeling you back layer by layer and snapping up what spills out with her pointed canines. It makes you want to crawl into the safety of her jaws.

After a beat, you exhale through your nose and bow to her. It’s that time of the night where you’re meant to stand just outside of her chambers, doing your routine of keeping guard and idly imagining what Rafayel is doing inside. The mental image you have, of Rafayel dressing down, taking her silks and dress off and settling into bed, is enough to make you want to press your hands to your warming cheeks.

“I���ll see myself out and keep watch. Shout if you need me,” you tell Rafayel, stopping only when she abruptly grabs your wrist. “… Your Highness?” you ask softly, eyes flitting over her.

Her earrings catch the steady shine of the moon. The curtains are open, flooding the room with the crisp cool air of the night, and the light of the candles along Rafayel’s chamber walls dance merrily to a silent song. The room hums with an intimate warmth.

Finally breaking her silence, Rafayel shakes her head. “I wish for your company; stay,” she murmurs, voice honeyed and sweet. She releases your wrist so that she may slide the doors to her personal chambers shut. The thunk of settling wood puts a halt to any protests you may have harbored.

Not that you could ever say no to your princess.

Rafayel turns away. You hardly dare to blink or even move a muscle as she takes her time removing her ornate jewelry, each one a symbol of her status and the expectations placed upon her. She always carries the weight of the empire on her delicate shoulders, and seeing her let go, even in this small way, stirs something deep within you. Her hair pins go next, golden seashells and starfish releasing her hair and allowing the purple strands to fall silkily around her shoulders in loose, inviting waves, scented with oils and brushed to perfection.

Rafayel glances at you, then. It stops you from doing something stupid; like twirling some of it around your fingers and pressing it to your nose. “Miss royal bodyguard,” she singsongs, lowering the straps of her dress, revealing her neck, her collarbones, then her shoulders, “come help me unlace my corset.” And her dress drops.

The gentle flutter of fabric as it pools to the floor at her feet is the only sound in the charged silence of her chambers.

“I…” your throat’s gone dry. You clear it. “I’m not your maid, Your Highness.”

Rafayel raises one eyebrow. “I never said you were, silly girl. Can’t friends ask for favors?”

Friends. Right. As if you wouldn’t fall to your knees before her and beg for her favor if she asked.

You feel like you’re in a trance as you move towards her, the first step unsteady, the second a little more stable. Creamy skin unfurls before your eyes, a scattering of moles and beauty marks dotting her like tiny scales. It looks like someone’s taken a paintbrush, dipped the bristles into paint, and flicked it to create a spray of constellations on her skin. Aphrodite herself could not compare to the raw, sensual beauty that radiates from Rafayel in waves.

You swallow hard once you reach her back, trying to maintain an air of composure. Rafayel flutters her lashes at you from over her shoulder before she fully faces forward, putting herself at your mercy. So, slowly, reverently, you sweep her hair to the side, exposing her nape and the pillar of her spine.

It takes all of your willpower to not groan aloud. Someone grant you strength.

Beneath your hand, her skin smolders hotter than the candles surrounding them. You touch her for a moment, fingertips lingering, before you mentally right yourself and begin to work on the intricate laces of her corset. Your fingers brush against her back a few more times as you shakily loosen each stay, and you swear you feel her shiver.

[zeestarfishalien]

I am endlessly fascinated with the idea of Death being kind and supportive of the living mortal creatures. I've seen a few pieces of media with that idea but not as many that explore the idea of Life as a fickle and potentially cruel or uncaring being. They are easily bored and when bored they simply move on to the next interesting thing, leaving chaos and bloodshed in their wake.

They don't even have to be cruel. The stagnation caused by an uncaring god who grew bored with you is its own special type of hell.

In the places Life leaves behind, Chaos, Famine, Disease, War, and more move in to reap the benefits.

Idk man, just Death being kind and caring while Life just doesn't care once you no longer interest them...

[g00seg1rl]

Outtakes Tuesday

It unfortunately or fortunately happens to be that sometimes sentences or paragraphs become a tad too bizarre to make the very low bar to enter my fics 🤭

Below are just random small snippets without much context that didn’t make the cut or I needed to get outta my brain and into words to torture you all with me; solidarity, right? 💗

Next Week 💗

Azriel whined, high and somehow still needy as he came almost violently, shooting stripes like a murkily filled water gun and covered the window like he’d been paid to take it out. It appeared someone also paid him to try and take out Eris’s dick, the vice grip he had on him felt lethal.

Eris’s chocolate starfish felt as constricting as a Chinese finger trap on its extension. Azriel pulled his hips back, withdrawing his blunt and girthy water rifle before slamming it back inside Eris’s gummy walls.

Eris’s nails anchored in the toned, tan flesh of Azriel’s back, raking up and down as Azriel moved, creating bloody strips as a memento of their coitus.

“Oh, yes, just about there bucko, that’s a lad.”

”Ah, Ah, Ah, Shut Up Eris, fruity Brit.”

His fleshy cucumber pierced her velvety channel, the pulsing heat stole a guttural moan from his lips. She felt fantabulous, glorious, too good to be legal- it was though, for all records.

She was so tight it seemed like she was trying to skin his dick, he’d already been circumcised and figured he’d opt out, pulling back out till only his top remained and pouring lube on the exposed part of his dick to slick the gripping way.

Who to tag and slightly but affectionally jumpscare.. @the-darkestminds @astro-h0e-4azris @nus4y @jules-writes-stories @fourteentrout @mistandmemories @fingerpoppingood @pippsmcgee @mudandmire @queercontrarian @makinglongwordsslutty @iftheshoef1tz @chunkypossum I hope you all enjoyed/your therapy bills get lost in the mail 😘

[kydrogendragon]

Belated mermay? 👀

More MerDream Content! You can read the first snippet and summary here.

“Hey there,” he says, voice soft. “You doing okay in there?” He watches, eyes straining in the dim lighting for a sign of, well. Anything, really. The creature simply floats, weightless, in the water, the edges of it’s fins fluttering gently in the tank. He sighs, turning around. He leans back against the cool glass and slides to the floor with a thump. “Don’t know what I expected,” he says to the empty—well, mostly empty—room. “Bloody thing might look kind of human, doesn’t mean it speaks English of all things. Could be a bloody spanish mermaid for all we know. Or french. Or…or Atlantean? Bonjour? Hola?” He pauses, looking up into the tank behind him. “Konnichiwa?” No movement. Shocker. “Right, well. Glad I promised Jo the impossible then.” Hob shifts, settling in. At least he could try talking, get the giant creature used to his voice. Maybe it’ll help if they go forward with this plan of hers. Maybe he won’t get his arm chomped off, at the very least. So he talks. And talks. And talks a bit more about every little thing. About the crew, about this ship and the things he's seen and done and read so far on their journey. He talks about the little coastal town he'd grown up in and still lived in as of today. He talks about the seagulls and the wind, the starfish and the waves. He talks about the coffee shop that makes the best scones around and the young lady that just took it over from her grandmother. He talks. And talks. And talks a bit more until a yawn rips through him. "God," he yawns, stretching out his limbs as he does so. "I need to get to bed. 's late. Well old friend, thanks for listening to my ramblings. Though I suppose you didn't have much of a choice. I think the other's have some tests they're running this morning, but I'll try and stop b—" Hob freezes. As he turns, dark eyes bore into his own from the cocoon of black fins and scales and pale skin. The creature had moved closer, unfurled ever so slightly, enough to give Hob sight of the human torso and face it bears. It's fins graze the glass beside Hob's head. A shiver runs down his spine. How long had the thing been there? He lifts his hand. The creature blinks and in one moment to the next, it's once again burrowed within itself, hidden from the world.

Wip List

[faejilly]

WIP Folder Game

Rules: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs some people.

I have rearranged The Unending WIP List Of Doom™️in ellipsus, so I'm doing this again, because I amuse myself? Or something?

tagged by @foodsies4me and no pressure tagging: anyone who's writing, @violetcarlin @la-muerta @genginger @sleepytimegrrl @lynne-monstr

I actually sort my WIP folders by fandom (idk why) but I will skip that level of stuff so my stupid WIP titling may be more properly incoherent appreciated

anglerfish

ashes of roses

barba tenus sapientes

Chicory

clizzy

Eldritch+

The Fire (baker's dozen/unlucky 13)

greenhouse something

how do I keep making this sad?

iafy ?

i had rather a rose than live forever

it begins with a prayer

ladyw

Kaidan POV

kisses bftw

narwhal 2

opposition in all things

other (bb) greenhouse?

pandemonium

starfish

Weaver Snippet

Welcome to the Downworld (for Dummies)

what she doesn't say

while i breathe i hope

[puppetmaster13u]

Hey, you want a WIP, a lil drabble, a lil snippet of a thing lol?

☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇☀️🦇

 “Bruce, Steph isn’t sharing the sunscreen!” a teen screeched from a villa, followed by the sound of something crashing to the ground. “The books! Bruce!” 

   A man with raven colored hair, currently sitting at a table with a cup of coffee, let out a long sigh, looking to the sky as though praying for patience. “Kids,” he called. “Don’t break anything. Steph, give Jason the sunscreen. Tim,” he turned towards the teen crouched on the counter reaching towards the coffee maker. “How much coffee have you had?” 

   Blue eyes glowered over at him, hand turning from the coffee machine to the kettle sullenly. He gave a nod, taking a sip of his own drink. “Alfred is outside with Damian and Dick- and breakfast,” Bruce informed the boy, getting a tired grumble as he slunk out the door. 

   “Don’t forget to take your antibiotics!” he called after him quietly, more than slightly concerned. Tim didn’t have a spleen after all, and he hadn’t had the best resistance to sickness already. 

   Another crash echoed through the villa, followed by an enraged screech and laughter. The man sighed, looking forlornly at his coffee before getting up to see what else had been broken. A small child with orange hair careened past him, shovel and bucket clutched in one hand and a starfish with a single eye standing on her shoulder. 

   “Mornin’ Bruce!” “Hi dad!” Both exclaimed gleefully, somehow already full of energy before even a single morsel of food. Then again he wouldn’t be surprised if they snuck some sugar before. “Don’t run in the house!” he called back, even if they were already racing out the door. 

   That was seven kids accounted for- unless Jason and Steph murdered each other. In which case that was five. 

[ladykailitha]

Nanny please!

WIP Wednesday! Just clearing out the inbox! See you next week!

Snippet

Suddenly there was a clash, a bang, a clatter followed by an ear piercing scream. Eddie was up out of his bed faster than lightning and made a dash for the girls’ bedroom.

He met Steve outside the door, but when they looked in, both girls were sound asleep. Janice, splayed out like a starfish and Joan, curled up into a little ball.

“If that wasn’t the girls...” Steve said, wide-eyed and panting for breath.

Then there was another clatter and a scream that clearly came from the kitchen. They dashed down the stairs and raced to the kitchen. There standing in the middle of kitchen was a very disgruntled Hopper holding what appeared to be a pile of rags. Until it screamed again.