#the text is 'three ways to survive the apocalypse'

[drawssj]

does the intention behind the artist's stroke give her work meaning?

[indigovigilance]

A Nightingale Sang in 1941

This is my inaugural meta (yay!) Eventually I will learn how to add gifs and whatnot to make this more interesting but today, I give you a wall of text.

I need to give credit where credit is due to three existing metas that I’m drawing upon heavily here:

A speculative continuation of the 1941 story, which includes an almost-kiss while “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” plays on the gramophone,

A behavioral analysis of Aziraphale during the S2E6 finale (will find ref later if possible)

A meta-analysis of the way in which “coffee” is used as a symbolic equivalent for liberty and freedom of choice, a running theme of this show (will find ref later if possible)

I’m going to expand upon meta #2 and #3 and explain why I think there is are very compelling reasons to believe that #1 will be canonized.

At the end of S1E6, an instrumental version of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” plays diegetically, but the lyrical version plays non-diegetically over the credits (we hear it but the protagonists don’t). So we the audience could plausibly say “that’s their song,” but as of the close of S1, we have no reason to believe that they know that it’s their song. Even Aziraphale’s S1E3 (1967) suggestion that they dine at the Ritz could be a reference that only he gets, or just a fancy restaurant suggestion.

So when I was watching S2E6 and Crowley said “no nightingales,” I was jarred. What does that even mean? We know it has something to do with dining at the Ritz, but what does it mean to them? The reference only works if they know it’s their song. But we’ve only ever seen them hear it together after the averted apocalypse; if this is the direct reference that Crowley is making, it leaves our 1967 reference contextless and twisting in the wind.

If we assume that there was a romantic story beat in 1941, wherein “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (which, incidentally, was written in 1939 and saw the height of its popularity at the end of 1940, so timeline-wise it’s spot-on) became their song, then a lot of events get renewed interpretations through this lens, in a way that makes this story much more cohesive and the “no nightingales” comment even more soul-shattering than it already was.

Let’s presume that immediately after this became their song and just as they were discovering their romantic potential, they were forced back into hiding. Forever after, references to the song serve as a macro for “I’d like to pick up where we left off that night.”

The 1967 suggestion of “dining at the Ritz” now becomes a directly romantic suggestion. It also gives better context for “you go too fast for me.”

Actually going to the Ritz in 2019 is not simply a celebration or even a callback to 1967, it’s a callback to their almost-romance of 1941.

When Crowley says “no nightingales” in 2023, this isn’t to say “we’re not going to eat together at the Ritz anymore.” It’s saying that the romance that began that night, the precious, fragile romance, is over.

I’ll give you a moment to dry your eyes before we move on to metas #2 and #3.

In light that this is what has been going on - they know they want a romantic relationship but have gotten so used to hiding and denying it that they are more comfortable keeping the status quo static and quo-y then trying to achieve their ideal - a lot of S2 behavior can get a fresh view.

Crowley’s reaction to Nina isn’t a realization that he’s in love - he knew that already. You can only ask someone to run away with you so many times before you are forced to admit some things to yourself. No, he’s realizing that trying to hide it (which was justified by survival), hasn’t been working, but despite failing at being stealth nothing bad has happened. He’s realizing that it may finally be safe to show it.

Crowley’s confession, then, is not a revelation. It’s making the subtext text. He’s not telling Aziraphale anything he didn’t already know. He’s saying it now because he thinks he’s safe to do so. Pin in that.

Lots of people have lots of theories about Aziraphale’s motivations in the S2 finale, which can more or less be divided into 4 camps: the genuinely held belief, the coffee theory, the lie theory, and the mutual trick theory (some version of the body-switching at the end of S1). Let me start by saying that I love all the fans and all their theories and I find their analyses to be insightful. The genuinely held belief theory, while I believe it to be erroneous, has been incredibly conducive to so many wonderful conversations and I love being in a community that has those conversations. But I’m going to explain why I think the lie theory finds the most support in canon.

Re-watch the finale (when you feel like you can) from 35:18 to 36:19 and then from 40:45 to the end, paying very close attention to Aziraphale’s words and his eyes. Michael Sheen is telling us a LOT with his eyes, and in the back half of the finale scene, with pacing.

For 60 seconds of footage, this setup is doing a lot of work. If Neil Gaiman wasn’t doing enough to beat us over the head with how evil the Metatron is, that glare at Crowley at the end with the non-diegetic ominous horns should convey the message. But again, focusing on Aziraphale. He initially refuses to talk to the Metatron; he’s made his position quite clear. There is no hint of regret or wavering; this is not someone who’s aching to return to the fold. The Metatron ignores his refusal and functionally forces him to accept a “cup of coffee.” The coffee isn’t spiked, but it is a metaphor. It is symbolic of choice. The Metatron is going to force Aziraphale to make a choice. Meta #3 does a great job of exploring the idea that a choice between anything and death is never really a choice. Hang onto that thought.

Notice I had you start up again 3 seconds before “The Conversation.” That’s because it’s important to note where the Metatron is right now. He is across the street, staring straight in through those giant windows to where our protagonists are about to have The Conversation. He is watching.

When Aziraphale returns, Crowley begins his “let me talk” riff. Aziraphale ought to be interested in what Crowley has to say, since the preamble is pretty compelling. You’ll notice that Aziraphale quickly turns to the window and back, through which he (but not we) can see the Metatron standing there, watching them. Aziraphale is then doing his best to get Crowley to STFU without raising the suspicion of the Metatron, eventually having to cut him off.

Because unfortunately, Crowley’s entire impetus for speaking up now is that it’s safe to do so. Only Aziraphale knows that they are in very real danger (or at least, Crowley is, but I’ll come back to that).

You might take something from the fact that he’s shaking his head while talking about “incredibly good news,” and seems to self-censor his criticism of Metatron (or more specifically, he takes ownership of any criticism of the Metatron, censoring out Crowley’s role in that, with the emphasis on I in “I might have misjudged him”).

Notice in the flashback that he begins the conversation reasonably relaxed. The Metatron also says a series of things about him that not only are false, but everyone, including the Metatron and Crowley, know are false: Aziraphale is not a leader, he’s a defector; he’s not honest, he lies all the time, in fact this entire season revolved around his one huge lie of hiding Gabriel. Not only does the justification not make sense coming from Metatron, but it shouldn’t make sense that Aziraphale would accept these reasons and it shouldn’t make sense to Crowley either. So is Aziraphale including these details in his recounting to Crowley so that he will get suspicious and figure out the jig? Maybe. Let’s continue.

Immediately upon being offered the job of Supreme Archangel, Aziraphale says “but I don’t want to go back to Heaven.” This is direct evidence against the genuinely held belief theory. If returning to Heaven and making a difference was a genuine motivation, we would have gotten a different response at this moment. But then we get something more.

“Where would I get my coffee?”

This is a beautiful response for a number of reasons; coffee should be trivial compared to the opportunity to be a Supreme Archangel, so it serves to highlight just how little interest Aziraphale has in returning. Taken at face value, it’s the Aziraphale equivalent of “not even at gunpoint.” But remember that coffee is a metaphor for liberty in this universe and this season. So what Aziraphale just said, in the language of Neil Gaiman metaphors, is:

I don’t want to go back to Heaven, I would rather have free will.

What does the Metatron do next?

He brings up Crowley.

Watch Aziraphale’s eyes before and after the mention of Crowley. He goes from confused to eye-flicking panic in the space of two syllables. Aziraphale already understands that his “no” is not being accepted, and that bringing Crowley into it can only possibly serve as a threat.

So the coffee, the choice, is a false choice. No one ever orders death. The Metatron has forced Aziraphale into a situation that looks an awful lot like a choice (it comes in a blue cup, after all) but it isn’t.

We definitely have some reliable narrator problems here. I’m going to presume for purposes of analysis that these cut-outs are accurate but incomplete, and that a more explicit threat about what would happen to Crowley if Aziraphale did not return to Heaven was made.

If we assume that Aziraphale has been made aware of a threat and is trying to hide that from Crowley, the rest of this scene reads very differently. Aziraphale cannot say, “you are in danger but you will be safe if you swear your allegiance to Heaven” or “I have to go, no matter what, and the only way we can be together is if you come with me,” but nonetheless he now has to convince Crowley to do the one thing he ought to know Crowley definitely doesn’t want to do all through subtext. Which we’ve spent an entire season establishing that they can’t communicate well when they are allowed to use their words. Disastrously, this is not a magic trick that Aziraphale can make work when it counts. Their failure to practice good communication means that, right now, when it counts most, they are not going to pull it off.

We see that Aziraphale is very hopeful that Crowley will pick up on his cues and play along. Obviously, he doesn’t.

If the whole riff about Hell being bad guys and Heaven being the side of truth and light is taken as genuine, it discards a massive amount of character development that we’ve witnessed in Job, Edinburgh, etc. (again, to all the genuine belief subscribers, I think it’s a compelling argument but it simply doesn’t account for the evidence). So if it’s not genuine, why say it? Again, to alert Crowley that something is Off, because Crowley should know that Aziraphale doesn’t actually believe that. They saved humanity from Heaven and Hell. They hid Gabriel from Heaven and Hell. Crowley knows that Aziraphale knows that Heaven and Hell are just two sides of the same coin. Notice again that Aziraphale glances out the window while he’s talking up Heaven; he knows the Metatron is watching, he can’t not defend the position of Heaven. I think it’s also worth noting that Aziraphale forcefully glances and gestures off to Crowley’s left (away from the window) when talking about Hell, and then turns his head to Crowley’s right (towards the window) to try to get him to realize that a representative of Heaven is literally standing right over there, just look out the window please dumbass!

When Crowley is asking Aziraphale if he said no, and we see the back of Aziraphale’s head, again we can see him turn his head to glance out the window. This is also when he changes strategies, and admits that Heaven could use a little reform. Because now there’s a problem almost as big as getting caught, which is that he won’t be able to get Crowley to go with him.

Which unfortunately makes the next part of this so much more heartbreaking. Because when Crowley begins his speech about being a team, Aziraphale wants to hear it. He can’t bring himself to shut down Crowley again, even though it could get them both in massive trouble. Notice that he glances out the window again during this, and the look of panic on his face. He begins to shake his head when Crowley mentions that Heaven and Hell are toxic; this can be taken a lot of ways but I’ll argue for the interpretation that he’s trying to get Crowley to STFU and stop saying shit that could get him destroyed.

After Crowley puts on his sunglasses we are in the “back half” and Sheen is doing a lot with phrasing here, specifically pregnant pauses.

“Come with me… to Heaven!”

“We can be together… as angels!”

Based on the pacing decision I am thoroughly convinced that the first half of each of these statements is intended to be the message to Crowley and the second half is always a qualifying statement to satisfy the Metatron.

Unfortunately, these pregnant pauses are completely backfiring in their effect on Crowley. The sentiment gives him hope and the qualifying statement crushes it again immediately. He is being taken on a horrible emotional rollercoaster with these declarations which are only further amping up his instinct to run away.

The only truly genuine, unaldulterated statement I think we get from Aziraphale is

“I need you!”

When it becomes clear to Aziraphale that there’s been an irreparable breakdown of communication between them and the subtext is not getting across, he says:

“I don’t think you understand what I’m offering you.”

He means this literally. Crowley has not understood that Aziraphale is offering him protection from whatever threat the Metatron has made.

Which makes this part extra-devastating and also absolutely in keeping with a major running theme of this season.

“I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.”

Your understanding and my understanding are different understandings.

Crowley views the offer to return to Heaven through the lens of his trauma. He understands what life in Heaven would be like. But he doesn’t understand that Aziraphale is offering him protection.

But Aziraphale just heard Crowley say that he understood everything, and he’s still going to leave. There might be a little suspense of disbelief here to believe that Aziraphale really interpreted the statement this way, but we know that Aziraphale isn’t always the brightest battery-operated candle in the drawer. So under the assumption that Crowley did understand him and is still rejecting the offer, rejecting him—

“Well, then there’s nothing more to say.”

Please pay very close attention to Aziraphale’s body language for the next part. He’s active, agitated, turning side to side, arms swinging. This is a very fidgety angel.

“No nightingales.”

Aziraphale is now completely still. He’s feeling that feeling. You know it. The one where your entire body is getting sucked into the pit of your stomach. The aching paralysis.

This is their song, the one that began their romance in 1941, the secret code for all other attempts at flirtation. Crowley has walked out on him before, Aziraphale has been stubborn and obstinate before. But they always came back together, sometimes with an apology dance or other rituals that belonged solely to them.

But now the song is over.

By saying this, Crowley has broken up with Aziraphale. We can see in Aziraphale’s sudden transition from fidgety to paralysis that he has understood it this way.

Then he turns away from the window so that the Metatron won’t see him cry.

The kiss was heart-wrenching already. But we’re not done with this analysis.

During the kiss, Aziraphale has a choice to make between two very compelling bad choices. This is the Job dilemma. But worse.

If he doesn’t kiss Crowley back, he will let Crowley think that he doesn’t love him. He will have missed out on this (maybe/probably their first kiss?) and regret it forever.

If he does kiss Crowley back, in full view of the Metatron, they are in deep trouble.

He seems to do his best to split the difference. I would even go so far to say that the awkward arm waving is Aziraphale acting for the Metatron’s benefit, to try to portray that he doesn’t want this even though he absolutely does (just not like this). The anguish when they break the kiss is absolutely real, and the first thing he does is glance out the window. Through all this he has remained painfully aware of their spectator.

He wants to say I love you. He mouths it. He breathes it.

But the Metatron is watching.

He can’t tell Crowley I love you. So he has to say the only other thing that has always unequivocally meant “I love you” when he said it to Crowley. He has to hope that Crowley understands him now, even though he never has before.

Spoiler alert: Crowley doesn’t.

My forgiveness and your forgiveness are not the same forgiveness.

One more point against the genuine belief fans (I love you): if the offer to let Crowley back in is what changed his mind, then Crowley declining removes that incentive. Aziraphale should/would have consequently retreated to his last stated position of “I don’t want to go back to Heaven, where would I get my Crowley—I mean, coffee?” [post-publication nod to @theonevoice for a great little meta] It simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

I think a lot of fans were already making these assumptions about the use of the nightingale song so this meta may not feel revelatory, however, it isn’t canon (yet), and I’m sure I’ll find company that agree that canonization of this connection would strengthen a lot of these story points, as evidenced by how it is already assumed by many fans.

If you made it to the end - omg thank you! Please leave a note and tell me your thoughts!

Bonus: somebody already made the song connection here

~~~

if you liked this, you may also like:

Book of Life and what it means for Crowley

The Erasure of Human!Metatron

Baraqiel and Azazel

~~~

Recommended related (lie theory) metas by other people:

making the subtext text by @theonevoice

Aziraphale's Decision Matrix by @yowlthinks

Nothing Lasts Forever: META by @phoen1xr0se

[uncouth-the-fifth]

click, p.2 - Sam Winchester/Reader

read it on ao3.

Pairing: Sam Winchester/Reader (late s5) Tags/Warnings: angst, love confessions, romantic sex, oral sex/cunnilingus, (aka, Sam pussy addiction: the shequel), Sam is Lucifer's vessel, reader is AFAB. Word Count: ~11k. Notes: i was commissioned for the second time by the lovely @daffodil-mania, who wanted a continuation of her last fic set during the "say yes" era of s5. (sooooo dangerous to let me put my grubby hands on this version of Sam, btw). i cannot express how BUCK FUCKING WILD uncouth-nation went for the first part of this fic, so this is for all the wonderful people who gushed over click, commented, threw me some kudos, or even just read it and liked it. lots of love, and i hope you enjoy <3 i did my best to rip out your soul as best i could. THIS CAN STAND ON IT'S OWNNN AHHH. i mean. if u wanna read it <3 Ask to be added to my taglists for future posts!

FIVE YEARS LATER

The walk from the bus stop to your apartment is a safe and easy seven minutes. If you were any other person in any other world, you’d glide onto the bus after your night shift at the university, hop off at your stop, and bumble toward your apartment without a single care in the world. Maybe stare at your phone the whole walk back. Text a hot guy who isn’t the physical manifestation of the devil on earth. Normal stuff.

But this is your life, so you sit front seat on the bus, hands in your lap, tapping a nervous beat against the angel blade hidden in your book bag. The windows rattle in their frames and gleam with rain. You could get off at your stop and take those easy seven minutes home—but the bus driver could also be a demon, so.

Since you aren’t in the mood to die a slow death tonight, walking a few extra blocks to keep anybody from knowing where you live will have to work.

On day two of this, you’d called Dean and asked if you were being extra paranoid. He’d kindly pointed out: Extra-paranoid is just extra-survival. I dunno about you, but survivin’ a lil’ extra sounds fan-fuckin-tastic to me right about now.

He’s right. You know he’s right. But it still doesn’t feel like a good answer, and that makes you picture Sam, twenty-three and still bright-eyed, running his fingers down your bare back and scowling. I’m sick of surviving. One of these days, I want to actually live my life.

But that had been before the apocalypse, before Dean’s deal, before everything. Sam was a different man now. Hunting had reached into all three of you and ripped all sorts of things out, but you would never forgive it for taking Sam’s hope for something better. God, you missed that Sam. You missed him more than anything.

The city bus lumbers up to the curb and spits you out onto the sidewalk, where you superstitiously hover, waiting for the other passengers crawling away from their night shifts to scatter. It’s only when the bus is a dark spot in the mist down the street that you start to walk, your whole body caked head to toe with oily rain. 

This time, you take a random left toward your apartment and serpentine street-to-street, never walking the exact same way the same week. By the time you’re closer to where the bus could’ve actually dropped you off, the lingering smell of old research books has been practically power-washed out of your clothes. You try to think of anything but the freezing, biting, face-stinging rain… and, like a moth to a flame, your mind floats back to Sam.

It’s been over two weeks since he dropped the nuclear option. Over two weeks ago, Sam wanted to say yes to Lucifer, and over two weeks have passed since the massive, unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object fight that’d erupted as a result.

Dean had blown up. Sam had pushed. You’d burst into tears and clawed into Sam just as deep, because why, why would he ever go there—why would that even be a fathomable possibility in his mind? Did he really think so low of himself? How could he ever give up like that? How could he leave you—?

The worst part was easily the way Sam had reacted. With Dean or John, he could yell himself hoarse, but when it came to fighting you all he could do was sit and take it. He put his head down and nodded at everything you said, even the cruel things. In some ways it made you angrier, but also inconceivably, cosmically guilty. This was Sam’s choice. And of course, because this was Sam, his choice was to save the whole goddamn world. Not a single bone in your body carried that level of selflessness, yet Sam bled the stuff.

You were still furious with him, but only because being mad at him was the only option you had left. The right thing to do would be to tell Sam, I trust you to make this decision, this is your life, and let him take that jump… But you didn’t have it in you. Saying that felt like pushing him over the ledge yourself, or telling him you’d never cared about him in the first place. If you were angry at least you were still fighting for him in some way.

You’d been on board for everything—trying to find a way out of Dean’s deal, trying to kill Lilith, everything. But the argument with Sam had torn out the final piece of you that could stand this, so you packed a bag, told Dean you’d be in a strict research-only role, and booked it back to your hometown. It was cowardly and stupid and beyond selfish, but you knew your stance. The hunt had taken everything from you. You refused to let it take Sam, too.

Maybe, Sam would take you stepping away as a serious sign to change his mind. You couldn’t imagine a world where Sam and his Winchester stubbornness would ever do that, but. It was a nice wish to hold onto.

By the time you make it up the steps to your apartment building, you’re soaked to the bone and audibly making pathetic shivering sounds. Your bookbag feels heavier than ever, digging a trench into your shoulder as you fish around for your keys. The second your apartment door is open the true weight of your exhaustion hits you—

—and then utterly disappears, replaced by a shock of pure adrenaline.

There’s a new pair of boots by your front door.

You catch the heavy door before it goes swinging against the doorjamb, straining your ears against the ringing silence. The bedside lamp is on in your room.

On dead-quiet feet, you slip in, click the door shut behind you, and slip off your bookbag. Your angel blade is in your hand in a second, but you risk a few extra steps toward your kitchen table to wiggle loose the pistol you taped underneath. Just the weight of your weapons in your hands flicks the hunter muscle memory back on in your body, and before you can think you’re hiding in the shadow beside your bedroom door. Listening.

Soft breathing. The pages of a book turning.

You know, instinctively, who it is—you would know him dumb and blind and dead. But these days, anybody could be piloting his body around.

You suck in a deep breath through your nose, heart throbbing in your ears. You wait until the fingers on your gun aren’t shaking anymore, then burst inside the room, slamming the door into the wall and whipping your pistol up to eye level.

Sam’s head flinches towards you. He is exactly as you saw him two weeks ago; solemn, determined, and open, the air around him practically steaming with safety and goodness. He’s sat comfortably on your bed, reading a book he brought with him. Despite everything, your belly still curls with butterflies when you lay eyes on him. Sam. Definitely Sam, and no one else.

Still, your paranoia has gotten you this far. You both stare at each other for a beat, equal parts scared out of your minds and relieved. Without a word, you keep your gun trained on him, and Sam lets you, his eyes big and understanding. You shuffle sideways to your dresser, and without turning away from him, pop open the top drawer and toss him the silver flask of holy water you keep hidden inside. 

He catches it. So, not a shapeshifter, then. Sam takes a drink of the holy water, even turning to the side so you can see the water go into his mouth. (A demon in Missouri had slipped past the three of you by pretending to sip—only Sam would know that.) You’re still a little terrified, but you manage to pull your weapons back down to your sides. You still don’t know what to say.

He’s really here. The part of you that had worried the argument with Sam would be your last wails with joy. He’s here, alive and in front of you. No matter how awkward you feel you can’t bring yourself to stop staring at him. By the buttery light of your bedside lamp, he literally glows with beauty, and you realize he’d scrubbed his boots off on your welcome mat to not track mud in, and he’d hung up his rain-soaked jacket in your shower to dry. Stupid polite Sam things.

You dare to glance back at your kitchen, then swivel to squint at him. “Did you… do my dishes?”

Sam lets his hands relax into his lap and nods, shy. He’s looking at you in a way he never really has before, eyes big and soul-rending. “…Yeah. I used the key you gave me to get in… Hope that’s okay.”

There’s another long pause. Usually when you stare at Sam, he doesn’t stare so intensely back, but you share a weird mutual moment where you just stand there and take each other in. It’s so obvious it’s painful, but if he’s doing it then you feel entitled to devour him with your eyes too.

“I got, uh, bored. Waiting for you,” Sam clarifies. “Thought I’d make myself useful.”

Sam stands from the bed. For a second you think he’s heading straight for you, but he moves toward the dresser behind you, kindly tucking the holy water back where it was stowed. You flit out of his way as fast as you can and set your weapons down on the closest available surface, feeling off-kilter. Why would he come here? Is he going to tell you that he changed his mind?

You hold onto the question, but you know it’s too out of character to hope for. Despair sinks into your gut like a rock in a pond. You know why Sam’s here. He would never make this decision without telling you first—without at least saying goodbye in person.

Your throat locks up with tears.

Behind you, Sam hums, “You changed your hair.”

Right. You’d altered it to be more undercover. You resist the urge to reach up and play with your hair, or give in to any of the fluttery feelings you always feel around Sam. “It’s safer.” Tightly, you ask him, “What are you doing here?”

Sam drags a long breath through his nose. You clutch the end of your bookshelf, your chest crumpling with misery. Please don’t say it. Please, please, lie to me if you have to.

“...I’m not taking the jump,” Sam breathes.

There’s more that he says after that. He talks about how you and Dean are right, and how, surely, after everything that the three of you have been through, there’s got to be another way to end this. You’ve always found another way in the past. Sam explains all this to you in a sure, quiet voice, like this is something he’s thought about for a long time, but you barely hear him after those first words. There’s this persistent tension in your chest that’s telling you that there’s something wrong here, but you don’t care—you don’t give a single fucking shit, because Sam—Sam isn’t saying yes. Sam’s staying.

“…are other ways I can make up for the mistakes I made,” he’s telling you, scrambling to fill the nagging silence.

You take a moment to force back your tears, and Sam, nervously, keeps talking.

He swallows, trying to smile. “I-I would’ve called and told you, but something tells me you wouldn’t have picked up.”

When you’ve got your bearings back, you push away from your bookshelf and turn to face him. Your legs are so leaden that you feel as if you have to physically pick up your body and drop it down the other direction, but you manage it. “What… what made you change your mind?”

Sam gets one look at your face and wilts with guilt. He doesn’t answer your question in words—just shoves his hands in his pockets and stares down at his feet, then around your room, as if his reason was in the air with the two of you. In the apartment. His eyes flicker over you just once, and you understand. Seeing you leave really had scared him.

“Be careful,” you start to joke with him, “you start validating my childish reactions and we’re gonna have a whole new set of problems on our hands.”

Sam scoffs. “It wasn’t childish to run away.”

You raise an eyebrow at his word choice, which gets an honest-to-god laugh out of him. A real good Sam Winchester laugh, dimples and all. The last dregs of anxiety in your gut melt at the sound, and Sam reassures you, shrugging, “You needed to get out. In case you forgot, I kind of invented wanting to get out. I understand. I really do.”

You know that he does. That’s not exactly going to stop you from feeling guilty about ditching them, but at least it kicked some sense into him. God. For the last five or six years, your every moment had been spent with Sam and his brother. Even just a couple weeks without him had drained you, and having him back only makes those feelings more clear. Sam’s presence commands the space in a way that turns your shitty, undecorated bedroom into someplace magical, someplace good and safe and warm, and just seeing him standing there draws the ache out of your spine.

Your reach out for his sleeve. Somehow, he’s more real than ever, a tangible person instead of the memory you’ve chased for so long.

“You’re really not saying yes?”

Sam unwinds your hand from the fabric so he can hold it instead, your fingers scooped in his fingers. You’re given a firm squeeze and are hypnotized by him in an instant, the world narrowing down to this moment between just him and just you.

Sam looks into your eyes when he promises, “I’m not going anywhere.”

The tears you’d resisted before return in one big, merciless wave. You’re so tired and the rain was so fucking cold and you’re so sick of being scared that Sam, thank god, Sam, is everything you could possibly need. He’s not going anywhere. Before you can stop yourself you’re clutching him for dear life, shoving your face in his shirt and crushing his body against yours. These last few weeks have submerged you in survival mode, and you don’t realize how deep until Sam pulls you out of the current. He’s warm and dry, and when you inhale to sob he smells like a 24-hour-laundromat, the Impala, and home home home. You could’ve lost that. You could’ve lost him.

“Th-thank you,” you choke out at nothing in particular, “thank you.”

You’ve cried a lot this week, so there are not many tears left to shed. Still, Sam holds you through all of them, swaying back and forth with you and cooing in your ear. You hear him sniffling too. When you’re both all sobbed out, you pull back to tell him you love him, to remind him of all the things he needs to hear, but Sam strangely doesn’t let you. The second he feels you pull away he clutches you back against him, and you get the uneasy impression that you’ve been comforting him more than he’s been comforting you. His whole body’s shaking.

Sam hugs you for longer than he ever has before. It’s a little worrying, but you’ve both needed it so much that you don’t even complain.

After a while, Sam slips back, and in traditional Winchester fashion tries to play off his vulnerability. He’s always been a dead-silent crier, so you have zero way to gauge how bad things are until you see his face. He looks like he’d sobbed his heart out. Your shirt is still wet from the rain, but even then you can feel Sam’s tears soaking your shoulder. Saying anything about it will just embarrass him, though.

“...I-I, uh,” you lick the tears off your lips, mumbling, “I don’t know bout’ you, but I’m beat. Do you have somewhere you gotta be, or,” you add hopefully, “or can you stick around?”

This is the part where Sam will start coaxing you to drive back with him to where he and Dean are holed up, you’re sure of it. You’re already plotting in your head what to pack and what to take, but Sam never brings it up. He doesn’t worry about tomorrow yet.

He presses his lips together. “I was hoping I could stay here tonight, actually.”

This is an even better answer. You’re nodding before he’s even finished the thought, stroking your hand down his chest. It twists your gut in knots to see him like this, so you start to steer the conversation toward something more playful, something less daunting to think about.

“You’re lucky I like you then,” you smirk. Somehow, you manage to peel yourself out of his bubble and teeter toward your dresser, scrubbing the tears off your face. “Make yourself comfortable. I dunno about you, but I’m getting the fuck out of these work clothes, I’m freezing. Do you need anything to sleep in? I’ve got at least five years of your stolen shirts in here.”

You hear him ease himself down on the end of your bed again, but there’s no sassy retort, sly comment, or any sort of line about you and your stealing habits. Instead, sweet and simple, he says, “I’ll just sleep in this. You can have them.”

Okay. Weird.

Since he didn’t take the bait, you throw out another line and try again. This time, you kick off your shoes, open a drawer, and turn back to him with two of his shirts in hand. “Really?” You wave them teasingly in the air. “You sure?”

They are some of his best shirts, easy. You’re not a cheap thief. The first is a holey, feather-soft Red Hot Chili Peppers tee, and the second is a deep maroon Stanford sweater. He has so few artifacts from that time in his life that there’s no way he won’t want this one back. Right?

But Sam just gazes at you, his whole face soft and loving as he says, “You should wear the Stanford one. It looks good on you.”

Those old hot-shivery feelings for him seep down your spine, and you feel in real-time how your cheeks flood with heat. Damn, okay. Consider yourself wooed.

You’ve been down this road with Sam many, many times—enough to know when he’s flirting with you. The forbidden labels had never been thrown around, but. Well. Sam had been your first time, as well as the many other times after that.

He’s usually leagues more subtle than his brother, but for whatever reason he’s pouring it on by the truckload tonight. When you turn around he’s nothing but big, happy puppy eyes, waiting patiently for you at the end of the bed. (Like you’re his girlfriend. Like anything about this is normal at all, and you and Sam are going to tuck into bed together like it’s any other night). Fuck, you missed him.

The bathroom is only a few steps away, but this is Sam, so you decide to just throw on your pajamas right here. Your shirt is so wet that it hits the floor with a slap. It also takes some experience to wring yourself out of your denim-turned-cement jeans, so it’s not the sexiest show in the entire world. Still, Sam’s gaze traces sensual lines down your back. You would rather go to literal, actual hell than wear your bra for a minute longer, so the second you’re free of its death grip, a long happy sigh drains out of you. A similar dreamy sigh drains out of Sam. Dork.

“I will never get tired of that,” Sam murmurs. You expect to hear some kind of hunger there, but the timber of his voice bleeds with admiration and fondness.

There are very few ways to be a normal human being while Sam Winchester adores your nude body with his eyes. The best you can do is burst into flustered, giggly laughter and give him a good eyeroll, your entire face cooking like a stove burner.

“Alright, loverboy,” you scoff, “I’m gonna go brush my teeth and take my makeup off—”

“Can I help?” Sam asks.

You sputter out another laugh, confused. “You wanna brush my teeth for me?”

“No,” Sam shakes his head, smiling big, “Lemme take your makeup off for you.”

Okay. Weirder. But it’s sweet, and you like this side of him, so you decide to indulge his mood. “...Sure.”

You go about your night-time routine. Sam continues to be a weirdo, trailing you into the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe, and blinking slow endearing blinks at you as he… watches you brush your teeth. Just. Stands there, watching, utterly enamored with this little moment of domesticity with you. On the surface level you’re a little thrown off, but it falls under the category of Freaky Sam Things that made you catch feelings for him in the first place, so. You grin into your toothbrush the whole time.

When he’s satisfied by his little ogling fest, he drifts off to hunt around for your makeup wipes. Either you’re predictable or he knows you too well, because he finds them within seconds, and patiently sits back as you finish up your routine, watching you like you’ll disappear on him the moment he turns away. Click click, you feel inside you.

“Okay,” he says when you’re done. “Close your eyes.”

You do. You wait for the cool touch of the wipe on your face, but instead, Sam’s big, rough fingers find your chin and hold you still. It takes conscience effort to not melt into his touch like a cat in a square of sunlight. Your willpower is nothing on Sam’s, though, so you give in quickly, sinking into his hand and sighing through your nose. In gentle swipes, he cleans your face. It must be a nightmare of smeared mascara considering how you’d cried earlier… And yet Sam had still been so transfixed by you. He’s the fucking best.

Sam’s hand tilts your head from side to side to survey his handiwork. Pleased, he tosses the wipe in the trash and says, “There you go.”

You open your eyes and go to double-check his work in the mirror, but Sam hasn’t removed his hand from your chin, and you really, really don’t want him to. His thick thumb comes up and caresses under your lips. He looks at you like he loves you, and with all the honesty in the world, he utters, “...You are so pretty.”

…The only way for you to survive this is by throwing him a dry look. “You’re full of shit. What’s your game, Winchester?”

That earns you another authentic Sam laugh, along with a handsome boyish smile. “There’s no game. What are you talking about?”

You squint at him. Liar.

“This.” You gestured between the two of you, suspicious. “You’re mooning over me. Why are you mooning? Are you planning something?”

A ripple of discomfort rolls across Sam’s face, but it passes too fast for you to read. His hands go right back in his pockets and he leans into the doorframe again. “I’m just… happy we’re not fighting,” he confesses.

Oh. That makes sense. Sam hasn’t exactly made up with you like that before, but. These times change everyone. You ease up on your teasing and admit, “Me too.”

“I’m sorry for scaring you away,” Sam says, and far, far too seriously for your liking, he whispers, “I’m sorry for everything.”

Your answer slips right out of your mouth without hesitation. “I forgive you, stupid,” your brows furrow together. “And I’m sorry, too. I said some pretty shitty stuff back there.”

Sam wilts against the doorframe a little. “Nothing I didn’t deserve.”

A dull pulse of anger flares in your chest, which flickers out and dies not a second later. There’s so much you want to say to that.

It is so fucking unfair—biblically, cosmically unfair—that Sam, the good guy to end all good guys, thinks of himself this way. He is the kind of righteous they make saints out of. And yet he sits in your silly little bathroom in your shitty little apartment and gives you that look, the look that says, I deserve this and so much more. I deserve to rot in hell for all eternity. He gave you that exact look when he brought up saying yes. He gives it to you now, because Sam sees everything as a sin to serve penance for—freeing Lucifer from the cage and making you a little worried. He thinks he’s so evil, so beyond saving. It makes you want to get your fists in your shirt and just shake him. 

You’re good! You want to scream. Just for once in your life, listen to me! None of this is your fault!

There’s nothing you could say to him that would ever make him let go of his guilt. But, at the very least, you could help him forget about it for a while.

“You beat yourself up too much,” you scold. Then, softer, you add, “C’mere, Sammy.”

Sam does as told, planting himself right in front of you. God, he’s changed. You look him over with a bittersweet smile. He used to be so spindly. The last few years have filled him out, forcing his body into something ready for war. The hunt reached in and tore all sorts of things out of people, but you’d been wrong about what it’d ripped out of Sam. His optimism was still there, warm and humming in the tissue of his body, and just seeing it fills you with hope. He looks so different from the man you’d had all to yourself in that cabin, but you can feel that he’s still in there. He’s still your Sam.

You take his face in your hands, smoothing your thumbs into his dimples and quietly, needily rasping, “...Can I take care of you?”

Sam’s whole body shudders with relief. “Please, yes.”

The next few beats of this dance haven’t changed. Like always, Sam comes flying in with a big, smashing kiss that shatters any leftover barriers between you. You’re not Sam’s girlfriend and he’s not your boyfriend, but Sam makes you his with this kiss. (If only for a little while). Your noses mash together and his eyes squeeze shut and then everything is just Sam, Sam, Sam at every angle. His hands are at his sides then suddenly they’re all over you, taking two greedy handfuls of your waist under the Stanford sweater. He jams your hips against his and kisses you senseless, towering over you, surrounding you, so that when you pull back to gasp for breath your lungs are flooded with his familiar heady love potion.

Either he’s giving off some Poison Ivy-level pheromones, or your body is so familiar with these steps that it knows what comes after this kiss… because you’re instantly wet.

You realized a long time ago that you and Sam have sex a bit too often for it to be considered “casual,” but even if it was, Sam is not a casual kind of lay. After that first soul-stealing kiss, Sam stares you down like a four-course meal, spins you around, pushes you down chest-first onto the bathroom counter, drops to his knees—

—and shoves his face between your legs like it’s his goddamn job.

In the middle of all your surprised shrieking and squirming, Sam nuzzles his face into your panties and moans deep and bassy in his throat, “Yes.”

Like he’s won something. Like he’s been waiting weeks to do this. Holy fuck, you’ll never get tired of that.

The second you have even an atom of your reason back, you slap a hand over your mouth. Neighbors! Sam has already forgotten what neighbors are, and is holy-mission-from-god-determined to make you noisy. He’s extra hungry for it tonight, too. You squeak out his name, not so much in shock, but more because having those huge hands squeezing where your ass starts to round out tends to produce a reaction, and Sam rumbles like a lawnmower in approval. Holy fuck.

He doesn’t have to ask you to spread your legs. One of the hands appreciating your ass slides between your thighs, cupping you through your underwear, and you have to try not to squeal when the meaty pad of Sam’s thumb swipes across your clothed folds. He presses a big kiss in that exact spot as he drags your panties down your legs, and it’s a weirdly sweet gesture that makes your heart and your belly flutter with shivery heat. Fuck. Fuck, you missed him so much.

The first few times Sam had sprung this move on you, you hadn’t exactly had enough time to fully rev up. But Sam is deadly efficient in and out of the bedroom, so he makes a point to get you extra wet (for him) with his spit, laving his hot, slippery tongue over you in one long swipe. He eats you out with all the obscene, noisy enjoyment of somebody gorging on the juiciest fruit they’ve ever tasted. Even you are scandalized.

It becomes embarrassingly clear that covering your mouth isn’t going to keep Sam from what he wants. The high, desperate moan you try to stifle only makes him work harder. You press an arm flat to the counter and bury your face in it for strength, since you’re weak and whimpering for him already. 

Sam was good in bed when you met him. But, by nature, he is a relentless and avid learner, and it’s been five whole years since he put his mouth on you for the first time. Now, Sam is a certified pussy-eating weapon. He knows your body better than anyone possibly could. You’re over the edge in a minute flat.

Your climax flies through you in one whizzing, sparking rush, then keeps flying, until your body’s squeezing out little squeaky pleas for mercy of its own accord. This is his favorite part. You claw into the countertop and wail for it, pushing at the floor in your socks to gain any sort of leverage. To press closer? To squirm away? You have zero fucking clue, since the thought part of your brain has been blasted into a smoking crater. Sam wraps a big arm around your spasming thigh to pin you open, and holy fucking shit, could that man suck the chrome off a tailpipe. His mouth is a whirlwind of licking and suction just on the right side of oh fuck too much that makes your skin feel like it’s fizzing. You are a thread that he’s just pulling and pulling until you’re so thin you could snap into nothing—

You wait for the moment when Sam pops off you, stands up, and goes for his zipper, but he never does. He remains on the floor, determined to lick you through overstimulation and straight into round two. But that’s a whole minute you could spend with his dick inside you instead, and there’s no fucking way you’re wasting that. Not when he’s here and real and not going to say yes. Sam’s not going anywhere. He’s staying, he’s alive, and the world isn’t going to end tomorrow.

“No no no,” you bite out in one short, rattling breath. “S-Suh—Sam, please please—” An unexpected sob shreds out of you. “Miss you. Need you.”

You’re actually, genuinely crying, and not entirely in the fun sexed-out way. Sam backs up. He’s not even halfway standing when you wrench him up the rest of the way, straight into a desperate, maddening kiss. It’s a brutal cross of teeth and tongue. The need for body heat and skin and him burns through you like genuine bloodlust, so you cram yourself up against him with life-or-death urgency. You get your nails into him until you feel something like shirt fabric and viciously yank it over his head, waiting for the moment when he grabs your wrists or shoves you onto the bed o-or—or starts to blow off steam. Cause’ that’s what this is all about, right?

He drags your mouths apart. Sam pants, “Slow down.”

You stop.

This is. This is new.

There’s no slowing, with this. You both go and you keep going until there’s no more fuel in your tanks, and you crawl out of bed the next day feeling like you’ve beaten the rot out of each other. You’ve never once slowed down during this before, and as your wheels spin to a halt for the first time, reality filters back in around you.

Sam stares at you. His hair is all over the place. A patchy blush speckles up his heaving chest, burning in his ears and in his cheeks. Your slick shines on his lips and the bulb of his nose. He’s just standing there and fucking looking at you, but for whatever reason it feels like the color has seeped back into the world.

“S’okay. Gonna be okay,” Sam hushes, bleeding with sweetness.

He picks up your hands, moving you as if you were a delicate glass he was turning over in each palm. Each of your hands are kissed in the center (oh my fucking god) then wrapped around his neck, and when he has you in his bubble he scoops up your face and kisses you.

It’s a boyfriend kiss. Not a blowing off steam thing, or any other excuse the two of you have used to feel each other. A genuine, I’m your boyfriend and I love you sort of kiss, foreheads pressed together, noses touching, the whole nine yards. It’s the kind of kiss that’s meant to say something. Every inch of what he’s trying to tell you echoes through your body in one ringing smash, like you’re a big cymbal he’s taken a mallet to. 

He slips off your lips and hovers, bracing himself for impact. You suck in a rattling breath.

…Then you press up onto your tiptoes to give him a kiss of your own, just pressing your lips against his, unmoving. It’s undemanding; an answer. You try to find the words to describe the shift that’s occurred between you, and end up feeling stuttery and shivery and fucking elated. Romantic. It’s fucking romantic.

“Sammy,” you sob out.

“Shhh. C’mere,” Sam whispers, his voice throaty and whiskey smooth. “Lemme make it better.”

He tries to walk you straight back out of the bathroom and towards the bed, he really does, but you stop Sam every other step to overwhelm him with obsessed, affectionate kisses. God. His chapstick is all over your fucking mouth (along with your slick) and his hands are everywhere else, feeling instead of grabbing.

“You always do,” you breathe, and that might be the most honest thing you’ve ever said to him in bed.

Sam gets this quiet, pleased smile on his face. No matter how naked and turned-on you are, you’ve always got a snappy reply ready, and you’re about to throw one at him—until you’re fucking obliterated. He smoothes his palms down your arms. Your wrists are scooped up again. With all the tenderness on the planet, Sam slides in close, kisses your throat, and places both of your hands firmly on his belt.

“Take it off,” he rasps.

This. This isn’t the first time he’s given you that order. But knowing, feeling that he’s playing this all out like it’s more than a fling to him… that Sam’s gonna fuck you like you’re someone special to him… sweet jesus, it makes you lightheaded.

“Bossy,” your murmur, grinning.

You’re downright feverish going in to kiss him next. Sam parts your lips with a slow, sinful swipe of his tongue, and there must be a drop of psychic still in him, because suddenly you’re flooded with visions of that filthy mouth between your legs. You can still feel the ghost of him there, keeping you open with his thumbs as the blunt tip of his tongue pushes you somewhere vast and sparkly and wonderful. This is going to be even better.

He sounds like he’s praying when he says, “I just like to watch you.”

Muscle memory serves. You work his clasp open without peeking down and let it hang in his belt loops, mostly because it lets his jeans sling low on his hips in the most enticing way. His belly twitches at even the slightest touch of your hands; always so responsive. Sam drops his forehead on your shoulder to watch you work, and you take the rare opportunity to kiss the top of his head. This is one of your favorite parts. When his button is undone and his zipper’s down, you’re free to smooth your hand under his waistband and take a big handful of him.

You reach in and—squeeze. Sam’s hand snaps up to clutch your arm. His nails dig in, and he rocks forward onto his tiptoes to really dig into your touch. “Yes.”

It’s the kind of soft, needy sound that makes you want to smother him with kisses and hug him until he suffocates. Instead, you cooly purr into his hair, “So sensitive, Sammy.”

A hoarse, sharp laugh snaps out of him, which dissolves into a shuddering groan. You tug at his jeans until they’re somewhere you don’t care about anymore, and forget about everything else entirely at the sight of his cock. All these years of sneaking around with him have conditioned you. Just seeing the pretty speckling of dark hair that leads to it, then the real deal, hanging blood-hot and heavy between his legs, makes your tummy flip and your mouth water. One of a million embarrassing Sam-reactions you’ll have to bring to your grave.

You take his cock in your hand, trying to swallow back the slutty amount of saliva in your mouth. Sam whimpers. A real, desperate sound, with his nails stinging down your arms and everything.

“Know you wanted to slow down,” you struggle between open-mouthed pants, “b-but—can’t—don’t wanna wait—”

Sam physically curls towards you, his hips seizing into your hand and his arms hooking around your shoulders. You’re dragged in for a sloppy kiss so deep you swear it melds your souls together. Sam is just as affected, rumbling like a racecar in approval.

“Then don’t.” He begs.

If this was any other night, Sam would just take. You’d be face down and drilled halfway through the mattress by now, no preamble, all business. He got off and you got off and everyone was happy that way. Sam would want the room dark and you would hide your face in the bedding, the two of you eager to touch and experience but terrified of breaking the illusion. He’s so generous that you suppose he’s got to have at least one place in life where he’s selfish, and you’re happy to be his outlet for it, but.

You’ve never seen him take this way before.

He looks at you and he never really stops, transfixed. You don’t doubt you could walk in a circle around him and Sam’s eyes would follow you the whole way, his gaze oozing with longing and something else—resolution? Faith? You push him onto the bed, and he drops down as if hobbling into a pew for the first time, unsure how to clasp his hands in prayer because it’s only ever been something done in his head before.

You stand there for a moment, unsure of what to do next.

“God,” Sam utters, spellbound. 

You’re blushing so hard that you forget to be sexy as you crawl into his lap, but Sam doesn’t care, still giving you those big slow doe blinks to express his love. It’s so different from the Sam you know (yet also so deeply, deeply him) that you forget what it means to be sexy entirely. He coaxes you closer to plant tender kisses under your chin, and the plan to seductively peel off your sweater for him and flash him your tits blips out of existence.

You wait for the moment when Sam shreds the Stanford sweater off you. Instead, those wonderful fucking hands tease under the hem to squeeze your waist, and Sam croaks out between kisses, “Should wear this all the time. You’re beautiful in anything, but this… you’re… mmn.”

Your heart gives a pathetic flutter. You press mindless kisses against his mouth and rock your bare core down on his lap, because he’s never acted this way before and you don’t know how else to return the favor. “Not nearly as beautiful as you, Sammy.”

The only reaction you get from him is a single huff out of his nose, like it’s something he can’t commit a whole laugh to. Like none of that matters anymore, like it would never matter for Sam, because his body may be beautiful, but it hardly belongs to him anymore. God, you’re shitty at compliments.

You’re fucking wonderful, you suddenly want to tell him. A whole swarm of little truths and sweet nothings roars straight up to the surface of your mind, a whole sea of better things you could say to him, but then one of those perfect hands is slipping between your legs and Sam’s asking you in that perfect, tinted glass voice, “You still on the pill?”

“Yes, doctor,” you tease.

Another flood of sticky heat rushes between your legs, because that question is always a precursor to being pressed into and filled and stuffed end-to-end by Sam’s dick. The one barrier that doesn’t—didn’t exist between you.

“Good,” Sam sighs, relieved, grateful. He never turned down going raw in the past, but he’s downright starved for it right now. Closer closer closer, his whole body begs.

You’re tugged in by a big hand hooked around your back, and you fall right into Sam’s summer-warm, sweat-sticky chest, giggling. He loops both arms around your middle and teddy-bear squeezes even more laughter out of you. The only way to hold yourself up is by planting two hands on his shoulders… which turns into his cupping his neck… then caressing his face, because it’s impossible to be witness to that quiet boyish grin and not shower him in affection. There’s all these little freckles on him that you can only see up close. He feels good, mystical good, prophetic-chosen-one type good.

This is the moment. You can feel the blood in your body pounding between your legs, and Sam’s cock bumps not-so-innocently against your core as you kiss one another. Every shift of his hands sends your muscles clenching tight, bracing for impact, but Sam doesn’t push into you just yet.

Your confusion must be clear on your face, because he says, “Just let me feel you for a second.”

And, obviously, you’re not an idiot, so you let Sam feel you for as long as he pleases. For the next ten uninterrupted minutes, you makeout like lovesick teenagers, whimpering and sighing and swallowing every sound the other makes. You’d always pegged him as a romantic. But seeing it, feeling it, adds a whole new dimension to him you hadn’t realized you’d been craving.

By the time the pool of need in your gut has opened up into a blackhole, Sam has caressed or squeezed or kissed every part of you ten times over. He continues to be weird and obsessed with you. (So still in character, then). Sam even pinches the ends of your ears and smooths his thumbs over the bumps of your ankles, being sexy about it but also a little terrifying. He touches you like he’s never gonna see you again.

Around the time that Sam starts suckling marks into your neck and trying to tickle you under your arms, you giggle out, “O-Okay—okay! Enough—!”

“Enough what?” Sam cocks his head. His hand makes another dive for your belly, making you shriek and squirm with more giggles. You try to wriggle away to protect your tickling sides, but Sam’s too strong and you’re a little in love with him, so it’s easy for him to pull you flush against him and blow tingly-warm breaths beside your ear. He purrs, “You need it that badly?”

“Fucking yes! So quit torturing me,” you pant, and you’re pretty sure this grin is going to get stuck on your face.

Sam’s smile gets even bigger. “Only if you say please.”

Your attitude slips from your grip like water. Next time, you’ll play push and pull with him, but right now there needs to be a lot more pushing and pulling in a different context.

The words are out of your mouth in an instant. “Please, Sam.”

As reluctant as he is to stop teasing you, Sam’s a little in love, too. He leans back enough to fist his cock in one hand, and you can’t help how your breath hitches when Sam’s touch follows the curve of your ass to where you’re soaked and sensitive for him. Those thick, maddening fingers spread you open. The velvety tip of his cock finds your hole right away, and your legs nearly give out when Sam starts to swipe himself up and down your folds one dizzying stroke at a time. Back…. and forth. Up… and down. Jesus fucking Christ.

“Okay, fine…” He concedes, his eyes glittering with joy. “You’re just so cute when you act all tough.”

Maybe not all of your attitude is gone. You bark out a laugh, telling him, “I hate you.”

Sam presses down for the last time, then presses in. You don’t mean to look into his eyes when he fills you up, and that’s probably what does you in. Sam’s rosy face flutters and twists with pleasure, but he never stops looking at you, not even once, terrified to miss even a small moment. The long hitching moan that slips out of you makes his whole face darken with desire. You’re pulled onto him deeper and deeper and deeper until—click. Cue the angel choir.

Your fingers dig desperately into his hair. Sam curls into you in one slow pulling movement, a thread pulled taut, until his face is stuffed in your neck and his hands are mindlessly scrabbling down your back.

“God, I love you,” he moans.

Soon your pussy feels achy and hair-trigger-sensitive and beyond full, which could mean that you’re all the way on him. It’s impossible to tell, since the first full minute of having Sam’s dick inside you sends you straight to the moon every time, where everything falls in peaceful slow-motion and the whole world hums with cosmic, sparkling pressure. You shove your face into him and nuzzle in a daze, little ripples of electricity sparking up your spine.

…Wait.

“What?” You register, slow.

Sam is still clutching you for dear life, even if the moment’s slowed and you’re both comfortable. He hugs you full-bodied, nose in your neck, tilted forward, the kind of hug where he sways you side to side with joy. Sam sucks in a harsh breath. Can’t hold back anymore.

“I love you,” he gushes. The words burn out of him, declarative, overjoyed.

There’s so much you want to say to that. But then Sam digs his fingers into your ass and pulls you off his lap, only to gloriously sink you down the rest of the way, and. Fuck fuck fuck. His cock drags thick and hot against the pliant walls of your pussy. You couldn’t be any more full if you tried, clamping down on him with long, silky ripples of pressure that outline the shape of him inside you in obscene detail. It’s the kind of mind-blowing that’s beyond comprehension, beyond feeble human understanding. Your eyes squeeze shut and you whimper into his hair.

“God, I love you,” he chants again through grit teeth. “So much. So fucking much.”

You find his face with your hands and kiss him quiet, tasting the promise in his mouth. When you part and the two of you really start to move, you kiss him again, and again, whispering where only he can hear, “I-I love you too.”

It should scare you how easily the confession slips out. You should be terrified, because even if you live to see next week, or next month, or next year, even if Sam isn’t saying yes to Lucifer, those words are a death sentence. And yet.

“I-I miss you,” you choke out, “I need you.”

“Me too. So much,” Sam soothes, his voice tight and sharp with restraint. You know his instinct is to jackhammer up into you and never stop, but he puts in effort to resist, letting you both marinate in the wonderful, glistening, twitchy feeling of each other. His hands are rubbing your back and he is so fucking warm, turning the rain outside to steam.

He doesn’t bounce you on his dick. It’s more of a slow, cresting drag, waves stroking a beach. You don’t think you could handle much more than that, anyway—sometimes these positions make him feel big enough to pop you like a balloon. What you can’t fit on your own, your weight pushes you down onto anyway, turning your whole body into a big expanding bubble of pressure ready to burst at any moment. You clutch at his shoulders and just throb around him for a second.

“Nuh-uh,” Sam leans away, not letting you shove your face in him like you want. Instead, a big hand cups one side of your neck and keeps you in front of him. “Wanna see your face. Look at me. Look at me,” he insists, genuinely pleading.

When your eyes find his, that’s when he decides to snap up into you for real. You don’t even get a full look at him. The arm slung around your waist drags you up off your wobbling knees, then slams you down into a beautiful, endless white space popping with color.

“Sammy!” You choke.

That’s the magic word. You’re instantly thrust up into four more lightning-fast times, one-two-three-four, and hitch out four squeaky gasps to match. Sam’s eyes bore into yours with every beat, blazing with liquid love. For a second you wonder if you’ve fallen back into your rough routine again. But then words and thoughts melt out of your brain altogether, because Sam draws you into the tenderest, sweetest kiss human beings are capable of, fucking into you deep and smooth with that deeper, smoother voice, “Keep saying that.”

Sammy Sammy Sammy, you rattle out under your breath. Sam hisses out your name the exact same way.

You do your best to help him out a little, bobbing up and down in his lap, but’s a drop of water in the ocean for him. All Sam cares about is seeing your reaction. He soaks up everything you do like a sponge, moaning when you moan, gritting his teeth when you bite your lip, grinding up as you stir down. The weight of his eyes on you is so heavy that your skin stings in its wake. Again, it’s Sam’s brand of freak-sweetness that makes you get stupid notions in your head about wedding rings and anniversary presents. But that’s—

…something he knows about. Something he just said to you five minutes ago. Above the haze of bouncing, rhythmic pleasure, you’re flooded with relief. You can tell him! Holy fuck, you can tell him!

“I love you,” you gasp out again, and just saying it feels like it could save the world. “O-oh, god, Sam—”

The breath you have left is stolen from you by another fierce kiss from him, so passionate it lets you taste the bassy, happy hum that rumbles in Sam’s throat. You’re devoured by feverish kisses for a full minute, then Sam pops off you to sob, “So much—so fucking much, yes.”

He slips a hand between the two of you to thumb your clit, stirring in and never once stopping. Every so often he’ll brush up against where you’re hot and filled to the hilt with him, your bodies sliding together with slick, filthy noises that are so—so fucking much that your thighs cramp up, protesting the constant pistoning. But the pleasure is easily worth the burn. Your core booms with long echoes of pleasure that shudder through the trembling spiderwebs that make up your nerves. You make a move to lean back on your hands and switch up the angle, (since you’re a damn good cowgirl, thank you very much), but Sam refuses to stop kissing you. He physically pulls you back in with a hand fished around your neck and kisses you breathless, determined to pound you to your climax one thorough snap of his hips at a time.

“So beautiful,” Sam gushes. His voice is hoarse and thready, like he’s moments away from bursting into tears of pure desire.

You smooth your hands down his flushed cheeks, telling him between huffy moans, “It’s okay, s’ okay, Sammy… so pretty… love you so much…”

You feel him pull the Stanford sweater up over your ass and out of his way, exposing more, more, more of your bare skin for him to touch. Sam palms the slope of your back and your belly in a daze, but that’s still not enough—he’ll never be satisfied with how little of you he’s had. He wants more. He wants forever. You embrace each other to the fullest, cheeks smushed together, chests flush, his parted lips claiming your throat, making you his—but. Sam’s breath ratchets up. Not enough not enough not enough—

In one ragged motion, Sam rolls you both over, tossing you back-first onto the bedding and smothering you with his weight.

A squeal of delight jumps out of you. “Hey!”

If Sam wasn’t all over you before, then he literally is now, dropping onto his elbows so he can cup your face in both hands and surround you completely. “Sorry,” he croaks, “need you. Need to fill you up.”

You whisper against his lips, “Then fill me up already.”

His thumbs press into your cheeks a little. Sam’s breath fans across your face, throttled by the lump in his throat.

“Tell me you love me again.”

Um. You don’t exactly have the sexy heat of the moment to hide behind this time, but you still want to say it for him. His eyes swim with something unreadable. Desire and love, enough love to put a lump in your throat too, but a third thing also. It worries you.

You bring your hands up to stroke his wrists, and give a bit too much of your soul to him when you promise, “...I love you, Sam.”

The words hit him like a bullet. Sam shudders from head to toe, unable to reign himself in any longer, and plants a long, surging kiss on your mouth that makes your belly flash with nuclear levels of lust. He squirms his hands underneath your body so he can cradle you against him—genuinely cradling, one palm cupping the back of your neck—and then burrows into you face-first, groaning your name as his cock nestles itself as deep as it can go.

With all of his weight on top of you, you couldn’t move if you wanted to. You caress and kiss and dig your nails into him, and somewhere along the way you’re given a dose of whatever has made him fucking insane for you right now. It fogs your head and turns your reason to ash, so when Sam returns to ruining you for any other man, you whimper, “Please don’t leave me.”

“Oh, baby,” Sam hiccups out, and something strange hangs in his voice.

You would ask him what’s wrong, but the shuddering, flimsy scraps left of your brain are busy being blasted all over by white-hot pleasure. Everything scorches. Sam’s bare skin and his breath and his hands feel fucking molten, melting you down like hot glass. You’re pinned down in every possible way, and it pushes the sinking, gorgeous pressure inside you all over your body, like it’s not just Sam’s cock filling you up, but him, just him, the source of all good in the world. Holy fucking fuck. His hips glide back and then thud back into you again and again and again. You get why it’s called making love, now. You can taste your love for him in the back of your throat, feel it sitting in a sticky film on your skin. It hangs like humidity in the air of your apartment. And jesus christ, it bleeds from Sam, glowing off him like fucking radiation.

When you’re shamelessly wailing gut-deep in ecstasy, Sam peels himself off you. He forces himself to sit up. His chest putters up and down with desperate little breaths, and a gloriously big hand scoops under your thigh and welds it against your chest. Whatever he sees from this new angle—probably your wet, abused pussy stretched tight around the full base of his cock—makes Sam gape, utterly transfixed. You watch as his mouth falls open, and then those dark, soul-swallowing eyes crawl up your body to meet yours.

“Keep lookin’ at me,” Sam rasps.

Even if he doesn’t sway your opinion with a few dizzying, stomach-deep drags of his cock, (which he does), you’re convinced. You lock eyes with him—and then suddenly feel stupid for not watching him the whole time. A long curl of hair hangs in his eyes and sways as he fucks into you. His expression flutters with these sinful little giveaways, exposing just how starved he is for you, how in love. Maybe if you’d looked back sometime in the past five years, that’s what you would’ve seen: how much this has always meant to him. He searches your face for the same pleasure, obsessed with his effect on you. 

“Fuck,” you shudder out. “C-could cum just watchin’ you, Sammy.”

“That’s right,” he hisses, and you’ve never heard him sound so damn happy. “Cum for me. Please. Look so pretty when you do.”

Usually, when he makes you cum, it’s the roughest part of the whole act. He’d get both your wrists pretzeled behind your back and pinned viciously in one of his hands, and that’s when you’d know the big finish was coming. His pace would go from bouncing to bruising. But this Sam, your Sam, would stop time if he could, so he slows down even further, winding you closer and closer to the top of the mountain with little figure-eights of his hips. He gazes down at you the same way you’re sure you must gaze up at him. Beautiful, he murmurs under his breath.

You utter another, tight, almost-sob of, “love you so much, Sammy,” and his dick twitches wildly shoved in you to the hilt.

“Ohh—shit,” he chokes out, and his other hand snaps desperately towards yours on the bed. They find each other easily, and you squeeze his hand with everything you’ve got, infusing in him all the love he’s infused in you.

The slow, mounting tsunami of perfection you’ve been moving towards finally overcomes you, and in one long gorgeous slippery rush you cum for Sam. And because your life is a movie—he cums for you too. He rocks faster and falls forward to kiss you, your faces pressed together, your mouths slotting against each other, your pussy squeezing down on him in golden rippling strokes. Sam hisses your name out between his teeth as he cums. You’re lanced straight through by a whole fucking universe of fluttering, flickering pleasure. To be honest, you’re a little pissed about it—because it’s the best fucking orgasm you’ve had in your entire life, and it’s all because Sam raggedly chants those words to you again and again, laying sloppy, obsessive, head-over-heel kisses all over your face. Love you love you so much baby you feel so good squeezin’ down on me.

You could’ve had this ages ago. How much more time could you have had with him, if you had just stopped being stupid?

Sam’s crazed, sobbing, hitching I love yous somehow become, in true Sam fashion, a low spiral of thank yous. He lays there and clutches you until there’s a Sam-shaped imprint in your body. You’re pretty sure he would stay inside you all night if he could, but you coax him into some cuddling instead, since you both are in desperate need. It’s. It’s new, but it feels cleansing in the holy way.

What feels like hours later, your brain dimly connects to the rest of your body. You’re halfway through detangling Sam’s hair with your fingers as he hides face-first in your chest, pretending he’s not embarrassed that he cried. At least, that’s what you assume. The Winchester mind is a mysterious one, and as much as you would hope to know what Sam’s thinking, the slow hand drawing circles on your hip tells you nothing. Is he shy that he got emotional? That seems silly, since you both sobbed into each other earlier. Is he embarrassed about everything he confessed? Does he regret it?

Just when your train of thought really starts to take the curves of your spiral hard, Sam tiredly croaks into your neck, “I meant what I said, y’know.”

He draws in a lungful of your perfume through his nose, soaking up as much of you as he can possibly get. His hands smooth over your body, innocent and loving, caressing you, memorizing you, begging silently for forgiveness. 

Sam is a dead-silent crier. But you hear him sniffle as he gushes, “God, I love you.”

Maybe if you hadn’t been so tired, you would’ve picked up on it. Or maybe you’d heard it in his voice, seen it, something, and ignored it, hoping it was something else. Everything he felt, he put into a teeny, unmarked box that he’d bury god knows where, far from where anybody could be hurt by it. Sam didn’t—he wouldn’t say that to you. Not unless it was the last time he ever could. He would feel it, but it’d go right into that box where it couldn’t hurt you. You should’ve known.

Lie to me, you’d begged him. 

…And Sam had.

_

The dull realization that you are awake sets in around noon. Noon as in after-noon, well past when you’re normally up and at em’. When you wonder why the hell you slept in so late, you remember last night’s rain, thrashing against the windows all night, and Sam, his face haloed by lamplight and bleeding with quiet resolution.

Sam. Alive, and not going to say yes.

He’d been the one to keep you up all night. With his mouth and his hands, yes, but then afterward he’d been hellbent on talking. Just… talking. You’d been sluggish and cozy and sated after having sex, but no matter how close you came to falling asleep, Sam wouldn’t let it happen. For two straight hours he asked you every question he could come up with to keep you up with him.

Do you remember when we met? Cause’ I do. Do you remember what I said to you? Do you remember what you thought about me? I remember thinking how similar we were, y’know, how much we’d get along. You were so pretty… my whole face went red every time you looked at me. Do you remember…?

Being cuddled, kissed, and protected by the man you love really tempts a girl to doze off, too, so this was not an easy battle. But Sam persisted. He studied your face intently, uttering I love yous even when sleep started to pull you under. Hearing any Winchester drop those words on you still blew your fucking mind, to be honest. Sam especially. But it was romantic as it was worrying, so you’d shut him up with a kiss goodnight and echoed it back to him. Love you, Sammy. It was probably just an anxiety thing, you assumed—Sam, for some fucking reason, was a pretty insecure guy, so you imagined that was his way of making sure you wanted all of this. He seemed… scared. He wasn’t used to being wanted.

The apocalypse was still on. Maybe the world would end tomorrow, or maybe you’d get lucky and live a whole lifetime with Sam. Regardless, he’s never saying yes to Lucifer, and that alone means that there’s still hope for the future. You’re going to spend every second of it making Sam feel wanted.

Sitting up in bed, you scrubbed at your sleepy face with the heel of your hand and stared around the room. Sam was physically incapable of staying asleep after five in the morning, so the familiar evidence of his military-efficient morning routine was all over the place. You smiled to yourself. He’d picked up after the two of you, and had tucked another blanket over you in your sleep. Stupid chivalrous dumbass.

To think, you’d been terrified you’d never see him again just last night.

You push out of bed, only to almost buckle onto the carpet rag-doll style. Even being torturously gentle, that man manages to make you sore. With a very, very happy groan, you hop (and wince) into some clean underwear, then traipse out into your kitchen to show that dork who’s boss.

“Dammit, Samuel, you’re not my maid—” you start to say, but of course, this is Sam, who wouldn’t miss a morning run for anything. Right. That explains your empty kitchen.

…But it’s afternoon. Sam would be back by now. Your gut prickles with a bad feeling, and you superstitiously sweep your apartment, looking for him. His clothes from last night are still sitting in your hamper, his shirt folded neatly in your dresser and his watch on your nightstand. A spike of nausea rolls through you seeing that his jacket is gone—and his boots. But his duffle—it’s. It’s still on your kitchen table. It looks a little smaller than usual, but his books and his laptop are still inside. He probably just ran out to run some silly errand for you, determined to make up for worrying you so much. Yeah.

You force your hunter’s paranoia down to a simmer, padding over to your breakfast table. There’s a big ol’ note smack dab in the center of it, perched on his half-open duffle bag, and you start to play with one of the bracelets Sam left behind as you pick it up.

You cross your fingers, smiling ear-to-ear. “C’mon. All bets on breakfast. Please be getting me breakfast, please be getting me breakfast—”

…That’s not what the note says.

You read it.

Then you read it again, and the hammer falls, crushing the breath out of you and doubling you over the kitchen table. You read the note for the third time, needing to be sure, and the thin sliver of hope you had—maybe you’d just read it wrong, m-maybe he was fine—turns to ash. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

You’re fighting back a surge of ugly, choking tears in an instant. He’s… Sam… he…

Your whole apartment lingers with the heat and goodness of him, like he’d been here just minutes ago. Just seconds. Even your clothes still smell like Sam. Just inhaling it tears chunks out of your reason, like—like you’d just missed him. Clawing around for something to do, you pace in a daze between your bedroom and the front door, desperate to recreate the moment you realized he was gone. You’re still just in the Stanford sweater and your underwear, but you don’t give a single shit and go careening out into the hall, stalking up and down your floor for him—because, b-because Sam wouldn’t, he wouldn’t do that to you—he would tell you first, he would never leave you in the dark like this—

…But you know Sam. And if it meant fixing his mistakes, saving you, saving everyone… Then he’d say yes in a heartbeat.

“These belong to you. You deserve a world to live in. I’m sorry - Sam.”

- tags: @samssluttybangs @cookiemumster1@lacilou@cevans-winchester @leigh70@ seraphimluxe @emily-roberts @emme-looou @aloneatpeace @williamstop @ornella0910 @chaoticshepardplaid @dakota-dream @lcvecstiel @goghkiss @spnexploration @stoneyggirl2 @urm0mmmbbg @mulattomoon @poeticsorcery @deansapplepie @rennydenny @babydollfoster @badlandsbrunette @hallecarey1

[nsharks]

bleeding blue | apocalypse au

part eight —other parts

pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!reader words: 3.2k tags: death. blood. zombies of course. reader menstruates. single dad ghost. there will be sex but it isn't here yet. slow burn!!! enemies to lovers. summary: After losing your companions, you run into a skull-masked man and his daughter. They are your last hope for survival. a/n: let's see how this trip goes

A neon-yellow lighter. A comb with a few teeth broken off. A deck of cards. That is what you have scrounged so far in this little convenience store that Blue convinced Ghost to stop in— the only stop in the village he will allow on the way to the military base. She spotted a rack of magazines from the window and the child in her begged him.

Fuckity fuck, Ghost. Please. Please. Please.

You’ve decided to sweep through the aisles to make this forced trip at least a little worth it for you. Broken glass and dust lay under the soles of your boots. All the food in here is gone, of course. The lighter you found can be useful.

Oh. You also found a corny romance book. You are in need of something to read, too. You left behind your old copy of A Farewell to Arms. You imagine that it was flattened to something unrecognizable by the mass of Greys.

You go to the aisle for toiletries. Again, these shelves have been licked almost clean. You fish your hand all the way to the back to see if anything could be there. You didn’t have time on your first trip to do much searching for anything other than medicine.

What your hand manages to knock against is a box. You pull it forward to inspect it. Gold packaging. Faded letters. It’s a box of condoms. First, you feel annoyed. It is useless to you. Expired, anyway. But then some memories come to mind along with a stir in your stomach.

Sex. Right. At one point, these were useful to you.

What you had told Blue the other day was mostly the truth. Coursework and exams meant that a steady relationship wasn’t on your mind back then. You were too young for it, anyway. You liked going out. You liked dancing with your friends. You liked meeting new people and sipping on drinks that were sweet enough to go down without a wince.

But what you didn’t tell Blue, and what you haven’t thought about in a long time, is that the last guy you had sex with was a little more than just someone you enjoyed the company of.

You trace your finger over the letters on the box, recalling the buried memory. A few weeks before the outbreak, you met him at a pub. He chatted you up. He was kind-eyed and sleek. A few years older than you. A jaw like the man in Blue’s magazine.

You didn’t even go home with him that first night. You just spent hours talking. And then texting. And then he took you out to that sushi place you loved in London three times because he saw that you were obsessed with the sashimi. He teased you for it. Finally, he invited you to his flat. He was different. He didn’t touch you until you touched him. You can remember it, that last time. The kissing. You whispered in his ear to take you to his room. He pulled out a box of condoms just like this.

The morning of the outbreak you remember telling your sister you might want something more from him.

She was thrilled to hear it.

There were a few people you texted that day to see if they were okay. Your parents, some close friends, and him. You never got a response from any of them. As you fled with Paul towards the forest, you’d dropped your phone. You only realized it later than night when you wanted to take it out and read over your old messages with him as a source of comfort.

Anyway, he was never your boyfriend, and he is now likely dead. Or Grey.

You haven’t thought about him for at least three years. Just another singed thread of an old life, unimportant to you now. Those losses are easier to deal with than the losses you had to actually witness.

You are just about to put the box back when a poke arrives on your shoulder.

“Hey, Twix, look what I found.”

Blue holds a solid stack of magazines against her chest. In her other hand, she holds up two bracelets with plastic, pink beads on them.

“Bracelets,” she smiles. “One for you and one for me.”

You raise a brow, then glance around. You spot Ghost at the front counter stuffing his backpack with cigarettes. His own treats, you suppose.

You look back at her. “Are you sure?”

She nods and offers one to you. As you slip it over your wrist, subconsciously hiding it under the sleeve of your coat, she says, “One of the books Ghost read to me talked about friendship bracelets. That can be this for us. I mean— we’re friends, right?”

“Oh. Um. Do you want to be my friend?”

“Well,” she slips her own bracelet on and waves her hand about, “Grim is my friend and he never saved my life before or gave me chocolate. So—” her voice turns hushed as if sharing a secret, “—I guess you are a better friend than him, huh?”

You bite a smile. “I guess so.”

Then, her eyes drift to the box still in your hand. “What did you find?”

“Huh?” You raise it up, almost having forgotten about it, and feel a warmth spread over your cheeks. “Oh, nothing, really.”

“What is it?”

“I-I don’t know, actually,” you splutter quickly.

“Maybe Ghost knows.” She rounds her lips as if ready to call for him but you shush her.

“No, no. Don’t ask him."

“Why not?”

“Because he—” you slide your eyes around, looking for the right excuse, “Because he doesn’t care for me, okay? I don’t want to bug him.”

“It’s not that he hates you or anything,” she assures you, sighing. “He just doesn’t trust you. Really, he isn’t so bad. He let you play would you rather with us, right?”

She is referring to the game that consumed the four-hour walk to get here. As you stepped over the same tree roots from your first journey, Ghost and Blue began a rather dark game of would you rather. Asking each other which gruesome death they would prefer. A humor she must get from him, you figured. Blue finally asked him: Can Twix play, too? He flashed you a look, jaw stiff, and you wanted to hide as you watched his eyes process this new name his daughter has chosen for you. To your surprise, he allowed it. Maybe to keep her calm, entertained, or both. You can’t say it wasn’t awkward for you, though.

Before you can protest again, she calls his name, and you regret not just telling her what they are.

He is quick to make his way over.

“Twix found something but she doesn’t know what it is,” Blue chimes, taking the box from your hand and passing it to him. You inch backward, your spine pressing into the shelves as you watch him realize what it is. Then, he offers you an unreadable glance, probably wondering why the fuck you would be looking at these.

His eyes shift back to her.

“Well,” Blue clicks her tongue. “Is it useful?”

“No.” He hands it back to her.

“What is it? Do you know?”

“Jus’ nothing useful,” he repeats, and she huffs, giving you an apologetic look and mumbling a sorry before tossing the box back on the shelf.

“Got ‘em all picked out?” He nods to her magazines.

She nods. “Yeah, I found some good ones.”

“We’re leaving, then.”

A clear sky hangs over your heads as you continue moving south. On your solo trip, you spent hours perusing Ribchester's streets, whereas now Ghost cuts right through, wanting to search the base before nightfall and then find somewhere safe to sleep.

There is no rain today, luckily. Even though it helps conceal your human scent, it also helps hide their rotten one, making it hard to detect them. It also can make shooting arrows trickier.

There is a light wind that howls like a moaning widow through the empty buildings, drowning out the sound of all three pairs of booted footsteps. Just as you told Ghost, there aren’t many of those fucks here. Their smell lingers in the air but most of them are probably trapped in the buildings and cars. Still, you keep your bow armed and Ghost clutches his handgun. Only one finds you here, but it isn’t much of a threat. A slow and pitiful one with a twisted leg that drags as it clambers out from an alleyway.

It catches the human scent, its pale eyes pointing toward the three of you.

They love the smell of living flesh. From your experience, they love the smell of fresh blood even more, but luckily none of you are bleeding, or else more of them certainly could've been drawn out like cockroaches.

Upon one look at it, you can tell this Grey must have been infected years ago, a woman tattered without any hair left on her skull. The thing is, the longer they have been infected, the longer their muscles have been rotting away. They grow slower.

For some reason, Ghost doesn't pull the trigger of his gun even though you know he sees and smells it like you do. He doesn't even reach for the axe tucked at his waist. You have never encountered Greys with him. You suspected he'd be quick to kill them. Confused, you aim your arrow and close one eye for precision, but a firm hand falls on your arm and forces you to lower it.

You give him a furrowed look.

He drops his hand and nods to Blue, who has been sticking close to his side.

"All yours, kid."

"Do I have to?" She puckers her lips in disgust and touches the fabric of his black coat.

"Good practice for you."

"With my knife?" she sighs dutifully. "Or the gun you gave me?"

"Knife. Save the ammo.”

The Grey is still a few paces away, but slowly trudging closer, enough that its flayed snarls sound over the wind.

Blue pulls out the knife from her pocket. You stand back and watch as she hurls it towards the head, but the blade pierces its neck instead, splitting the stringy flesh and exposing a larynx.

She winces.

"S'okay. You've got another," Ghost says.

She nods and reaches for the second knife strapped to her ankle. This time, her knife finds the skull, audibly cutting through bone and brain.

“Good. Now go get ‘em.”

You understand why he made her practice this. They don’t encounter them often in the forest, but he still wants her prepared— get her used to doing it on her own for the day she might not have him there. It is a reminder of what it means to be a parent in this world, and you don’t envy him for it.

Blue twists her knife out from the skull, some chunks of grey brain bubbling out, and she scrunches her nose but doesn’t seem too bothered. Before she runs back over, she mouths words to it just as you have seen her do to the dead animals. You can’t make them out.

“Sometimes I wonder what it’s like being one of those fucks,” she announces as you keep walking. She taps a finger to her temple. “I just wonder if you still remember your old life or have dreams and stuff. Or does your brain just not work at all?”

“They aren’t people anymore,” Ghost reminds her gruffly.

“I know, I know.”

“I don’t think they have dreams,” you quietly add. “They don’t sleep.”

“But maybe they are sort of sleeping,” she says. “Like sleepwalking. And maybe they are dreaming the whole time about things they remember from being a human.”

“No,” Ghost says. “They’re as good as dead. Don’t go thinkin’ like that.”

“I’m not saying I feel bad about killing them. I know they aren’t real people anymore,” she mumbles, kicking at a rock. She looks at you. “Twix, what would you do if you got bitten?”

Ghost mutters a Jesus Christ under his breath.

The question throws you off, even though it is something you have mulled over often. You hesitate, before honestly answering, “I think I would just kill myself.”

“Ghost would, too. Well, actually, our plan is for me to shoot him in the head and then run back home. Right, Ghost?”

He hums his response.

It must be a plan he reviewed with her before leaving.

A plan that he has ingrained into her brain from an age too young to fully comprehend the potential reality of it.

There are another ten kilometers to walk to get to the military base. The sore toes cramped in your boots and the growing blister at your heel wishes Ghost took the truck, but whatever his emergency plan is, it must call for every drop of fuel he has.

The terrain transforms back to soil and trees as Ghost departs from the road, and the rotten smell in the air remains faint. The game of would you rather resumes, but Blue quickly grows bored of it. Instead, she begins to poke at you with some questions as she likes to do. She seems to be more comfortable doing it in front of Ghost. It’s not like he can keep her away from you out here.

“So, Twix, how old are you exactly? You never told us.”

You tell her.

“Shit balls, Ghost,” she nudges a hip to his side. “You really are an old man.”

“Fuckin’ hell. I’m not.” He nudges her back, a bit too hard, because she practically stumbles, but it only makes her laugh more. “I’m just your old man, kid.”

Luckily, her questions stick to the minute things, and she doesn’t bring up sex again. Your favorite animal. If you have any tattoos. You should see how many Ghost has. Of course, you have only ever seen the skin of his hands a few times and the skin around his eyes.

The sound of rushing water is what quiets her.

You make it to a river.

Ghost leads you to where a bridge must have been on his map, but all that remains of it is a narrow beam of rusted metal and nothing to hold onto.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Dad.”

Blue peers down the cliff and you take a look with her. The water isn’t moving too fast, but it must be freezing, and walking around in wet clothes is a sure way to get hypothermia. Ghost doesn’t have much of a choice.

He has her walk close in front of him and keeps both hands firm on her shoulders. You don’t have anyone to help you. You tighten your core to keep yourself upright, watching each step you take. Right, left, right, left. The wind dissuades you with nudges against your left side. You pause for a moment and look up.

They are already across.

You hear Blue shout just as your left foot slips. Air whirls around you and your arms instinctively jut out to grab hold of the beam. You hang from it, breathing hard from your nose. Your bare hand clutches the sharp edge and earns you a cut into your palm, but the pain is easy to ignore. Your ears ring. You muster all your strength to hoist yourself up, but it’s not quite enough, and you almost lose your grip.

Hissing, you look down at the water that laps between rocks beneath you. Maybe you should just fall in. Your skin prickles as you imagine the icy water engulfing you and soaking your clothes.

Hypothermia. Another real threat in this world. You recall the chapter from one of your textbooks. It can set in quickly. There wouldn’t be enough time for you to make it back to the village and search for dry clothes. You should’ve brought your extra pair of old ones. You didn’t even think—

What ends up engulfing you is warmth.

You are pulled up with ease and drawn close to a hard chest. Ghost locks an arm around your waist to steady you and naturally, you lean into his hold, your boots finding their place again on the beam.

You pant. For a moment you just stand there, before you start walking again, this time with him close behind you as he holds your shoulders just as he did with Blue. Because of the proximity, you can detect the rise and fall of his chest against your back. Underneath his thick coat, the muscles of his core are tightened just as yours are in order to keep his balance.

He couldn’ve just let you fall. Blue must have asked him to help you back up.

You find your voice when you are almost across. Blue watches with her hands tucked in her pockets.

“Thank you,” you tell him.

What he tells you, warm brass in your ear that arrives in the quietest voice you’ve ever heard from him: “Don’t become a liability for me out here, Twix.”

It unnerves you, the message that lies in his words. What he means to say is he has no problem leaving you behind if he has to. Letting you die.

But what unnerves you even more is the shudder that hums through your spine from the soft drawl of his voice in your ear, uttering this new name for you when he has never even once used your real name, and the way that his filtered breath works its way down your neck. Even though he has growled threats of murder in there multiple times, you find yourself not minding if he has a few more to offer just so you can hear his voice like this again. So quiet. Probably so Blue doesn’t hear.

But he doesn’t offer anything else.

Maybe you are just in shock. Maybe you are just glad to not be freezing, and his warmth has given a confusing relief. You swallow the strange thought and find a nice burial spot for it next to your grief.

When your boots make it to the soil, his hands drop and you turn around to face him. Annoyance finally finds you. Of course, his help arrives at the same time that he warns you of the limited supply of it he is willing to offer.

Through your teeth, you say, “I won’t.”

[an-idyllic-novelist]

Kim Dokja headcanons with fem!reader who is a writer

These headcanons are dedicated to my friend @d10nsaint who recommended me this webtoon series to me when I had nothing else to read lol. Enjoy! :)

Prior to the apocalypse, Kim Dokja was neither a social butterfly nor a likable person on Minosoft’s Q and A team. Most people avoided him, and he liked to keep a low profile so he could read his webnovels in peace. 

It was a perfect, quiet routine for a contract worker like himself  until the arrival of a new junior shattered it all. [First Name] [Last Name], recently transferred from the company’s [Country] branch to HQ. And she was assigned to work under him. 

Not only was the junior a quick learner, but she was also very good-looking. Kim Dokja might be a reader at heart, he wasn’t a blind fool to not notice her. She was definitely on her way to becoming the next Yoo Sangah in the company: charming, kind, and willingly to stay late to help the team finish up any assignments for the next meeting. 

He definitely did not have a chance with someone like them. At least that was what he had thought until he looked over in her cubicle to go over some paperwork when he saw the artwork of a web novel on her computer but she wasn't there. 

SOMEONE ELSE BESIDES HIM READ WEBNOVELS?! The man was stunned to say the least. However, right now he could not afford to look like a weirdo with the CEO making random rounds to each department today. So, like the gentleman he is, he placed the documents on your desk and went right back to work. 

But he kept an eye on her…in a non-creepy way of course! It was just….hard  for him to make conversation with someone. It definitely took Kim Dokja a few times to ask [First Name] if they would be interested in going to get a bite to eat on the way home from a particularly tiring day in the office. 

To his surprise and delight, she accepted. It was nothing fancy, just a food stall. When he saw that her phone screen was opened up to the newest chapter of Three Ways of Survival he couldn’t help but blurt out that it was a mind-blowing twist to the story. 

[First Name]'s reaction to his words was stunned silence, followed by them asking him that he’s read the novel too with a starry look in her eyes. 

After that, Kim Dokja and [First Name] exchanged numbers. While at Minosoft,  the two of them worked together and remained professional. If one or the other were invited to drinks, they’d follow them. Nothing too odd to raise any alarms, just casual banter that even made a few of the other employees raise her eyebrows.

It was a whole different story when they were off the clock though. 

The two of them either went out somewhere, or just spent a good chunk of the evening texting each other web novel recommendations or their thoughts on the latest chapter of TWSA.

Kim Dokja thought he knew everything about his growing crush on [First Name] until she shyly dropped another startling revelation on him just a year after discovering that they loved reading as much as he did: [First Name] [Last Name] was a web novel writer.

Not only that, but her work was something he’d recently started to read when tls123 went on a brief hiatus due to health issues. 

Seriously, how could someone be so perfect in his eyes?!

Naturally, he read [First Name]’s work and gave her honest feedback on the plot’s progression, the characters, any and everything that would make her grin from ear to ear or hum in contemplation about where she could improve. 

He has the honor of reading her rough drafts before she published it online. Not going to lie, some of his ideas came from his favorite web novel. But [First Name] deeply appreciated his help and often thanked him for his support, especially when she was hit with writer’s block.

It took Kim Dokja another six months before he worked up the courage to ask [First Name] out on a date. He was terrified, fearing that he might lose his only friend…but seeing the bright red hue on  [First Name]’s face and hearing her stutter that she would be delighted to go out with him as more than a co-worker and a friend made his heart skip a beat.

She….she really…liked him too, huh? That’s…great. No, it was more than great. This is probably one of the happiest memories he still kept close to his heart: knowing that he loved someone, and she loved him back.

And now, no matter what happened in these scenarios, he would protect and provide for [First Name]. She was precious to him, and she gladly reciprocated that same devotion and love with no strings attached or scheming. 

It still warmed his heart to see her cuddle with Gil-Yeong and Shin Yu-Seong late at night or work with the rest of his party to ensure that everyone was prepared for what lay ahead next. 

He also took secret, sadistic delight in seeing his significant other win arguments against Han Sooyoung, especially about stories or writing. 

No matter what she said, a plagiarist is still a plagiarist even if people said that SSSSSS-Grade Infinite Regressor is superior to Three Ways of Survival in every way.

.

[rlaehrwks]

ENGLISH DUB SCRIPT FOR: OMNISCIENT READER’S VIEWPOINT

Annotated Edition

FADE IN: 

A subway with a nondescript man in a shabby suit reading on a cellphone. This man is DANIEL KIM. 

[The screen opens with a view of a cell phone, a scrolling list of chapters. Each chapter has 1 view.]

DANIEL KIM (narrating): It was a novel that no one seemed to read.

[The view pans over the screen scrolling over all those numbers.]

DANIEL KIM: I wondered why no one read it. It was a masterpiece.

[The screen pans over a list of statistics, that shall be skipped over for convenience.]

[The screen then transitions to DANIEL KIM dejectedly looking down at his phone.]

DANIEL KIM: Then again, who would read a novel with over 3,000 chapters?

I’m the only reader and it took me ten years to make it to the last chapter.

[The screen transitions to black.]

DANIEL KIM: Back then, I had no idea. 

[The screen flashes back to a scene of a horde of monsters pouncing on DANIEL KIM in a white coat.]

DANIEL KIM: On the day I finished the novel…

[A montage of scenes from later parts of the first Scenario can be seen.]

SCRIPTWRITER’S NOTES: They’re the same as in the Korean dub. Remember to censor the blood!

DANIEL KIM (in a different tone to indicate he’s in the scene): No way. I know… How this story goes. 

DANIEL KIM (narrating, in a calm tone): …The story I alone had been reading for the past ten years turned into reality…

[JOHNATHAN YORK can be seen clashing against DANIEL KIM.]

JOHNATHAN YORK: Who the hell are you!? 

DANIEL KIM (narrating): And I… became the only person to know the end of this world.

[Transition panel to a scene of DANIEL KIM’S COMPANY, looking up at the night sky. As the camera pans up, the following text appears.]

DUB 4 KIDS PRESENTS: 

OMV

FADE IN.

DANIEL KIM is sitting on a different subway, staring at his phone. His fingers are shaking over his phone screen. 

DANIEL KIM: Ah, I can’t believe it’s the Final Chapter…

I’m too nervous to even open it.

[The screen transitions to DANIEL KIM looking excitedly at his phone.]

DANIEL KIM: The ending…

[The phone text appears on his screen.]

PHONE TEXT DISPLAY:

There are three ways to survive in the apocalypse.

Everything is fading and becoming unclear now.

But one thing is certain.

If you’re reading this, you will survive.

[Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse - Final Episode]

tls123

DANIEL KIM: Huh…?

[DANIEL KIM begins frantically swiping on his phone, only for the screen to barely move.]

[DANIEL KIM looks up from his phone and at the camera.]

DANIEL KIM: I’m Daniel. Nine times out of ten, people make weird assumptions about my name. 

RANDOM SALARYMAN: Oh, you’re Danny, huh? Are you an only child? 

DANIEL KIM: The name’s Daniel. 

RANDOM SALARYMAN: Uh…

DANIEL KIM: Though I am an only child.

RANDOM SALARYMAN: Whoops, sorry to make assumptions.

DANIEL KIM: However, their assumptions weren’t wrong. I’ve been lonely my entire life.

DANIEL KIM: This is who I am in a nutshell.

[A screen of informational text appears on screen.]

Scriptwriter’s Notes: It’s the same as in the Webtoon so there’s no need to rephrase it, just change some names.

DANIEL KIM: My hobby is reading novels on the subway on my way home from work.

But today’s subway ride was unlike any other. 

[A young woman with light brown hair and a light brown suit appears. Her name is SARAH YOUNG.]

SARAH YOUNG" Oh, my. At this rate you might get sucked into your phone. 

[The camera pans up at SARAH YOUNG’s beautiful expression. DANIEL KIM appears to be enamoured with her.]

DANIEL KIM: It was Sarah Young.

DANIEL KIM: W-What are you doing here!?

SARAH YOUNG: Are you heading home?

DANIEL KIM: Yes, you too?

SARAH YOUNG: Yes, I got lucky. My team manager is away on a business trip.

[SARAH YOUNG’s hair flies by DANIEL KIM’s face. He blushes madly.]

DANIEL KIM: Do you usually take the subway home? 

DANIEL KIM (internal monologue): I bet there’s a line of men willing to take her own… Grubby jerks. 

SARAH YOUNG: No, someone stole my bicycle. 

DANIEL KIM: You bike to work?

SARAH YOUNG: Yes. I’ve been working a lot of overtime recently, so I thought I could use the exercise. And I have some personal reasons too…

[SARAH YOUNG smiles at DANIEL KIM, who blushes.]

DANIEL KIM (internal monologue): She’s really pretty up close…

DANIEL KIM (internal monologue): However, she’s out of my league. We live in two different worlds. And just so you know, Sarah wasn’t the reason why today’s subway ride was different.

SARAH YOUNG: ¿Puede Prestarme Dinero?

DANIEL KIM: Pardon?

SARAH YOUNG: It’s Spanish. It means, “Please lend me some money.”

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): Studying on the subway… She’s really extraordinary. Where would you even use that?

DANIEL KIM: You’re studying hard.

SARAH YOUNG: What about you, Daniel? What are you reading? 

[DANIEL KIM holds his phone away from SARAH YOUNG, who is peering over his shoulder to look at it.]

SARAH YOUNG: Is it a novel?

DANIEL KIM: Yeah… I guess you could say I’m studying, haha…

SARAH YOUNG: Wow, I love novels! My favorites are Haruki Murakami, Raymond Carver, and…

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): Of course.

SARAH YOUNG

Who’s your favorite author, Daniel? 

DANIEL KIM

You probably wouldn’t know, even if I told you… 

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): Yes, my hobby is reading novels on the subway. The reason why today is unlike any other is because Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse, TWSA for short, which I’ve been reading for the past ten years…is ending today. 

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): This novel is very special to me. I’ve been reading it since eighth grade.

I read it when I was bullied in school…

When I failed the entrance exams and ended up at a third-rate college…

And even now, as a contracted worker to a gaming company…

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue)" It’s bittersweet that the novel was coming to an end. Today is the day the epilogue of TWSA will be uploaded.

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue)

A serial of 3,149 chapters. A ten-year long epic journey that began in my teens and ended in my adulthood. 

I can’t believe the series went on for so long with an average view count of just one.

Scriptwriter’s Notes: The rest of the subway dialogue is omitted because it’s the same as the Korean dub, aside from name changes.

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): If I were in a different genre…

[A brown grasshopper is onscreen.]

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): If the genre of my life wasn’t nonfiction…

[A brown-haired boy with a bug tank is centered on by the camera. He is EUGENE LYON.]

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): But fantasy… Could I have been the protagonist?

Scriptwriter’s Notes: The omitted section is essentially the same as the Korean dub, but with the names changed. 

DANIEL KIM: I have to live my own life…

SARAH YOUNG: Your own life… You’re so inspiring, Daniel!

DANIEL KIM: Sorry?

SARAH YOUNG: I should also live my own life!

Scriptwriter’s Notes: The following portion has been omitted because it’s the same as in the Korean dub.

[The subway stops.]

PANICKED MAN: What’s going on!?

PANICKED WOMAN: Is it a terrorist attack!?

PANICKED CITIZENS: Ahhh!!!

[A creature with white fur smiles. This is BENJAMIN.]

DANIEL KIM: Sarah, are you okay?

SARAH YOUNG: Y-yes. What do you think’s happening?

DANIEL KIM: Don’t worry, it’s probably nothing.

SUBWAY ANNOUNCEMENT: Ladies and gentlemen, if you would. P-please evacuate—! (abruptly cut off)

[A small ball of red sparks manifests in the middle of the subway.]

SYSTEM DISPLAY MESSAGE: The free service of the 8612th planetary system has ended.

The main scenario will begin now. 

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): That was the moment that the genre of my life changed.

RANDOM CIVLIAN: “I-it’s a goblin!” 

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): No way, this is just like what happened in the novel… That can’t be. Subways stop all the time. 

SARAH YOUNG: A goblin? 

[DANIEL KIM turns to look at SARAH YOUNG.]

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): There’s no way that this can be happening in real life. 

RANDOM CIVLIANS: What is that?

[BENJAMIN manifests in front of the subway car.]

BENJAMIN: *speaks in garbled nonsense*

TEENAGED GIRLS: What’s it saying?

SARAH YOUNG: I think it’s speaking in Spanish. I’ll try talking to it.

DANIEL KIM: You really want to ask it to lend you money!?

BENJAMIN: Testing, testing. Can anyone hear me? Gosh, the language pack was malfunctioning for a bit. Can everyone hear me now?

RUDE BOY: Hey, what do you think you’re doing?

BENJAMIN: Pardon?

RUDE BOY: I’ve got an audition to get to, so can you hurry up? 

BENJAMIN: An audition, huh. That sucks. They said we’d get the most customers if we put the paywall up right now…

BENJAMIN: Okay, everyone, listen up! I’ve got something very important to tell you all! 

AFFRONTED CITIZENS:

Hurry up and restart the train!

You can’t do this to us! 

I’m gonna be late for my appointment!

DANIEL KIM (inner monologue): No way. I know how this story goes. I’ve gotta stop them. 

BENJAMIN: I… Told you… To be QUIET! 

[The body of the rude boy from earlier suddenly turns black, and it falls to the ground. The blood splatters are recolored to be dark purple. The civilians nearby look on, horrified. More of the same happens to everyone that spoke earlier.]

BENJAMIN: We are not filming a movie. This isn’t a dream, or a novel. And it certainly isn’t the reality you’re familiar with! Do you understand? 

All of you had quite the cushy life until now, didn’t you?

You were able to live without paying the costs!

You’ve all been enjoying privileged lives!

[A man in a black-and-white striped suit appears in front of BENJAMIN. His name is MITCHELL HART.]

MITCHELL HART: Is it money that you want? I’ll give you as much money as you want if you let me leave. 

BENJAMIN: Money is good. It can be used in exchange for goods and services. 

[BENJAMIN turns the money to ash.]

BENJAMIN: Too bad it only works within the confines of your spacetime. 

Try a stunt like that again, and you’ll end up in the Darkness Realm, got it?

MITCHELL HART: Ugh…

BENJAMIN: Ugh, at this rate, it’ll be faster to let you figure it out by yourselves. 

SYSTEM DISPLAY MESSAGE:

Channel #BY-7623 has opened. 

The Constellations are now entering the channel.

[A bright blue window pops up in front of everyone in the subway. Some notable people include a boy with white hair, NATHAN COOK, and a muscular man, HADRIAN LANG. Then, it pops up in front of DANIEL KIM.]

SYSTEM WINDOW:

THE MAIN SCENARIO HAS ARRIVED.

[derww]

Loosely inspired by this headcanon by anon. Thanks, anon.

It takes Ash a little less than a week to discover that Squiddo... is not just one person.

The second Squiddo looked like the first Squiddo and fell on his head during nether travelling. She, however, did not seem to know him personally, referring to him as "Funny Purple Guy" and complained that the portals refused to extinguish the damage from the fall. 

She gave him a strange-looking turquoise spear and an obviously living mushroom, which did not stop giggling and trying to hit him with its forehead. While he has not yet moved away from the stage where he swears and asks stupid questions, she said goodbye and was about to run off into the sunset, but fell off a cliff right into a lava lake. She had no death message. 

The spear was equally likely to either pass through objects or leave very unpleasant itchy burns, and the mushroom was called an Idiot and ran around spawn for almost a month until it turned over in the water and drowned.

This Squiddo – Ash started keeping a list after he met the third one, and in this set of squiggles, crooked drawings and blurred text, she was called the "Tourist" – she consistently looked in once a month, falling out of various types of portals, sometimes right in front of him.

She was always full of enthusiasm and desire to tell him the next story of her own adventure, she loved to bring some absolutely random things and died a lot and absurdly, managing to die even in the most harmless circumstances.

Another Squiddo – Squiddo the Wanderer, as he signed, adding a bunch of question marks and outlining in ink a strange squiggle of snaking holes in the wall – took it into the habit of teleporting straight to him. 

Once she scared him so much that he swung his sword, but it just went through her, as if she were not even here. This did not prevent her from dying in a surreal way – she was in the top 3 among all Squiddos in terms of the number of deaths.

Squiddo the Wanderer didn't remember much, so she got to know him over and over again every time. "Hi, I'm Squiddo," she said. "I don't know what I'm doing here. I usually explore the most remote places in Minecraft. I think I know you, but I do not know who you are." She never remembered who he was.

Next Squiddo, however, knew him all too well. "What's up, Ashswag?" she said when she appeared for the first time, coming out of a door that appeared in the middle of nowhere. "It was a hot minute, right? How are you?".

Then she mentioned a bunch of their adventures together, in which Ash had never actually participated, but for some reason she stood her ground.

It turned out they were hunting ghosts together. And they were running away from monsters. And they were surviving an apocalypse. "For some reason, it seemed to me that even different you would remember," this squiddo said. He called her the Ghost Hunter. "But at least you know me. This is already good."

She was the most calm Squiddo he had ever met. She weighed her decisions, almost did not die, and walked with her dog. She was plagued by oddities, glitches, and one (1) Herobrine, but was surprisingly calm about all of them.

Ghost Hunter sent him polaroids with all kinds of monsters and silly signatures painted with markers. He was present in the photo three times. Once, he had a human face. In another time, he had a gun.

Scientist Squiddo was the strangest of them all, because she could count to ten and knew what pronouns were. She always carried a wooden tablet and papers with her and wrote down anything. She was interested in everything about the server. Much more than she needed to know.

He began to seriously worry about her safety when she began to deconstruct the revive process in order to revive the local Squiddo if she died. He called her an idiot and said she had no idea what she was getting into and that she was risking everything she had, including her life. She grinned and said: "Bet."

At one point, he was seriously expecting admins on his own doorstep every fucking day – Scientist Squiddo, of course, settled in the same place where he lived. They never came. He couldn't decide if this was good news.

With all this, this Squiddo, Lifesteal Squiddo, did not go anywhere – she was like her other versions, constantly disappearing somewhere, but unlike them, she did not travel between worlds. She got lost, disappeared, and died a lot.

Lifesteal Squiddo didn't seem to be affected by the consequences of the deaths of all the other Squiddos; she was doing a great job of dying herself. And, among all the people, it seems that even Squiddo herself was on the list of those who did not know that there were many versions of herself on the server.

Zam fed apples to the Tourist and once even went on a trip with her, Planet communicated with the Wanderer using a language consisting of clicks and whistles, Spoke explored the mysteries following the Ghost Hunter with great enthusiasm, and Ro supplied the Scientist with calculations and data. 

Of course, Ash tried to tell Squiddo that there was a lot of her. She wrinkled her nose, giggled, and asked if he thought she was Sans from Underdale, clearly thinking he was joking. He didn't know what an Undertale was.

And then Lifesteal Squiddo got a call and disappeared. And he, surrounded by the reflections of her wandering around, wondered what kind of disaster it would lead to this time. But it was Squiddo. She was going to be alright. He would just visit her one day and ask how she was.

And when he tries to figure out where Squiddo is now, when they have only half an hour and an orbital cannon is aimed at spawn, alter Squiddo, whom he has not seen before, comes to him.

They look surreally like him. Their body is unstable, disintegrating into black smoke every now and then, and even through the usual orange glasses, an abyss seeps through.

"What are you doing here?" He tries, and they slowly, as if every movement was an effort, again and again stratified and coming together, point first at him, and then to the side.

Ash is staring at them. With hissing and gurgling gestures, Suiddo shows several numbers. Quadrant. Height. Limit. Corner. It clicks in his head.

– Thank you,– he says sincerely, and Squiddo, with a ceremonial bow, turns into a voidfog. He stares at the empty space for another moment, then takes off and calls the Foundation.

[kirvia]

i like your taste in series (judging by the stuff you make fanart of) but ive never heard of ORV before. what is it and why are you diggin it?

OMG hi thanks!! not to infodump but

ORV AKA omniscient reader's viewpoint is a korean metafictional webnovel about this guy named Kim Dokja who's been the solo reader of a webnovel, Three Ways to Survive an Apocalypse, for over a decade. TWSA becomes reality one day and subjects everyone on earth to life or death 'scenarios' (games); he is the only one who knows that the world is fictional and moreover knows how it ends. he recruits preexisting characters, including main character of TWSA Yoo Joonghyuk, and works towards alter the original storyline and reach the best ending in the shortest amount of time possible.

it starts off as a pretty generic isekai but evolves into something um. indescribably insane over 550 chapters ^_^ I'm not done with it yet but everything about it is so incredibly well written, from the characters to the high stakes pacing and complex plot. every chapter raises the stakes and somehow the writers manage to juggle all of the plot points to near perfection if not perfectly

w/o spoiling too much i personally categorize it in my head as a similar genre to Madoka Magica and Revolutionary Girl Utena to give u a slight idea of how the story eventually unfolds. The real heart of it is in the character dynamics and the love the book has for its reader imo. lots of religious motifs + trope subversions + parental issues + dynamic female characters... I'm also a horrible sucker for dokja and joonghyuk's relationship if you're interested in the homoeroticism of ORV lol

if you want to read the novel, here's the EPUB and PDF! i use the epub. if you don't want to read something that's longer than the bible then there's an ongoing manhwa which I hear adapts the original text pretty directly but haven't gotten to reading myself <3 i can safely say it's genuinely one of the best works of modern fiction I've ever read in my miserable wretched life

[x--ghost--x]

Drabble #1

TMNT 2012 transfem!Leo x reader

It was supposed to be a drabble but I made one-shot instead, sorry

Let me know if you see any mistakes!

━═━═━═━═━

"Do you really think I should tell them now?"

The turtle was sitting on the only couch (which looked like it had survived the apocalypse- oh wait, nevermind), fidling nervously with shell-looking phone, cobalt blue eyes trailing on the name displayed on the screen.

"Don't worry, dudette! I'm sure you guys will be perfectly fine!" Mikey answered tying the tails of the blue bandana into neat bow.

Finishing, he hummed in satisfaction taking a seat beside his, now, sister. Placing a three-fingered hand on her shoulder, he sent her one of his signature sunshine smiles.

Some time ago, the turtle's fearless leader decided to come out of the shell (pun intended) and explain to them how he, at the time, felt about himself thinking his brothers would help him figure out what the feeling was. After long talking session they all came to conclusion that the oldest brother is actually the oldest sister. Of course, everyone were really supportive, their father, April and Casey, Karai too.

But there was one last person who didn't know - her significant other. She knew that was wrong, you should be one of the first people to know. You both were talking many times about putting trust in each other and if there was something important you should let the other one know, that way, there wouldn't be any misunderstandings leading to unnecessary arguments.

But she couldn't help the uneasy feeling of dread that you wouldn't accept her, that you would turn your back and leave her. And she really didn't want that to happen.

Mikey took the phone out of her hand.

"Seriously, don't worry. I'm sure they would accept you like all of us did!" he encouraged. "I'm gonna text them to come to the lair and then go to my room acting like I'm not even there. Raph and Donnie are on patrol with April and Casey so you guys have time to talk. I hope they don't kill each other tho."

The other turtle chuckled appreciating her brother's attempt to cheer her up.

"Okay." she nodded. "Thank you, Mikey."

"No problemo, sis!"

━═━═━═━═━

You walked into the open space in the sewers that the turtles and their rat father used as home. And since the day you have met them, this also became your home, especially after you started dating their blue-bandana leader.

"Hello? Anyone here?" you asked not noticing anyone in the main area.

"y/n..." you heard a quiet voice behind you.

Turning around you smiled at the familiar turtle standing beside a couch, shuffling from one feet to another.

"Hi, Leo!" grimace appeared on the ninja's face. "Is something wrong? Are you okay?"

Concern washed over you.

"No, no, I'm okay! But we need to talk."

Now you started to feel nervous. Have you done something wrong? Are you guys going to break up now? You really hope that's not the case.

You both sat on the couch, both extremely nervous.

"I..." the turtle started. "I have something to tell you."

You held your breath nodding to show you're listening. After a deep breath the terrapin began to speak again.

"Lately, I began to realize I feel different about myself, that something is not quite right. At first, I didn't know why but I had a talk with my brothers and we came to conclusion that, well..."

Small encouraging small appeared on your face.

"I-I am a girl now."

You stared, frozen in place, trying to process the information. That's...

"Is that all you wanted to say?" you asked but realized how rude it probably sounded. "No, wait, that didn't came out like I wanted it to. I ment, I was stressed that you're going to break up with me!"

Now was her turn to stare at you dumbfounded.

"...Aren't you the one breaking up with me?" she asked confused.

That's not the reaction she was expecting at all.

"What? Why would I want to do that?" you asked, not understanding her way of thinking.

"Because, well..." she hesitated. "I'm not the Leo you fell in love with anymore..."

The cobalt blue irises left your face and glared at her clenched fists laying on her lap. Small glistening tears started to form in her eyes when suddenly a hand was placed on one of her own. She slowly looked up and froze seeing your face.

There was just so much love in your own eyes, warmth started to spread on her cheeks. Honest feeling almost radiated of off you when you wiped her tears using the thumb of your other hand, grinn slowly making it's way on your face.

"I fell in love with you. Not the fearless leader, not the mutant ninja turtle, not Leonardo Hamato, but you. It does not matter who you were before or who you are now. I love you for you and I want you to be yourself, whoever that is." you cupped both her cheeks in your hands. "You are still the same person who I fell in love with."

She sat there speechlessly, the look you were giving her was so soft it was starting to make her melt. That's definitely not what she was expecting, but that was better than the best scenario she had thought about before.

She lifted her hands and placed them on yours enjoying the warm feeling spreading through her body. She wanted to answer, say anything to let you know how happy she was, but nothing came out. The turtle felt if she tried to speak then she would just start crying again.

But she didn't need to speak.

"So," you spoke up after a while. "what should I call you beside 'my girlfriend'?

She laughed lightly, lowering your hands from her face with one hand and wiping the tears of joy with the other.

"I thought about Leonore maybe? I'm not completely sure yet..."

"I think it sounds lovely!" you exclaimed, smile becoming even bigger than before. "So, my dear and wonderful girlfriend Leonore, would you like to watch some Space Heros with me while eating pizza?"

She giggled again. She couldn't find anyone better, she thought.

"Of course, couldn't think of anything better." she replied matching your energy. "And thank you. For all of that. I love you."

"It was only what I was supposed to do." your smile softening. "And I'm sure you heard me said that countless of times before but I'll tell you that as many times as you need.

I love you too."

━═━═━═━═━

I think it turned out pretty good, let me know how you guys think! ^^

I made an # where I'll be putting any drabbles!

#ghost ☆: drabbles

Also tag for those ppl who wanted to read that: @disorganized-idiot @littlebeanprotector

[goodoldfashionedengineer]

Guess I'm really doing this now.

Rant about Dceased: Dead Planet as someone who enjoyed Dceased and DCeased: Unkillables

It was mainly a John Constatine run.

Which would be fine, if it was properly marketed this way.

Because it starts with talking about the new Justice League and the Big Three, Jon, Damian and Cassie. But they aren't often the ones moving the plot forward, taking agency and all that. Sure, they appear, they talk, their growth is shown, but it doesn't feel like that these are our protagonists.

And the big bad evil that was teasered in issue two only became revelant halfway through issue six. Making it one and a half issues. The pacing was so, so off with that one.

Another issue is with how death is handled. In DCeased and DCeased: Unkillables, death MATTERED. It was brought up time and time again. The victims were mourned, they were remembered.

Here? They may sacrifice themselves. Then something nice is said about them. Maybe in the next issue as well, but that's it. Just abandoned toys.

Rag Man's death was important for the story but he isn't even mentioned after his death. With Blue Devil, at least Detective Chimp regrets that he didn't listen to him when he said they should turn back.

Don't even get me started on Jason. He was one of the protagonists in DCeased: Unkillables, a leader even. Here, he barely made an appearance. Which, yeah, okay, he doesn't have to. He had a reunion with Damian, which was nice. He is part of the Shadowpact, so still a fighter. But this was in the early early issues. In the middle, there was just nothing. And when he died in issue 5, it still didn't feel earned.

Killing someone early is one thing. Killing someone in the later middle? Build up to that! Sure, he comments a few times in issue 5, he introduced Damian to Rose, his wife. He and Rose talked during the battle for a bit. But it's simply not enough.

Damian comments in issue 6 that he think Jason has changed and he would have liked to know the guy he'd become. But all of Jason's character growth in DCeased happened in DCeased: Unkillables, which takes place DURING the apocalypse. Dceased: Dead Planet tales place 5 years after the apocalypse! Show me how he has changed! Show me how Swamp Thing thinks that Jason "was a good being" because they haven't met in DCeased: Unkillables.

Rose can see glimpses of the future and yet nothing is done with it except right before Jason dies. Again, the writers can't really agree on how her precognition power works. In Unkillables they had at least two instances in which they made references to her seeing multiple futures. Once when she didn't want to open the door of her apartment because "In every future I see, I open the door and I die" and the other one when Slade was sacrificing himself and there was this text of "She couldn't see a future in which they both survived".

So yeah, not this quick "5 seconds before it happens" like in Dead Planet. Characters can easily still say something before the event she sees takes place.

And all the loose ends that were never wrapped up.

I'm tired of this and I'm just leaving if at that.

[jjcattt]

ok first of all @saltwater-martinis i am happy to announce that tmp is NOT a scam and it is in fact available right now on any podcast service. just scroll to the bottom of tma and you can find the first 2 episodes.

SECOND OF ALL THANK YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO INFODUMP ABOUT MY TMP THEORIES. spoilers and one million paragraphs below the cut btw

ok so the aforementioned gay people in computer. tmp follows the ending of tma, where tldl jmart doomed yaoi, martin has to kill jon to essentially reset the timeline and make it so that the apocalypse didn't happen. tmp takes place in said timeline, a reality where the magnus institute burned down in the 90s.

tmp primarily follows a new cast of characters, but references to tma are dotted all around the two episodes. In episode 1 we are introduced to the OIAR, essentially our surrogate archives for the series.

the OIAR uses a proprietary computer system to comb the internet for supernatural encounters, which are looked over by humans and categorized.

This is the important part: occasionally the system 'glitches' and the text is read aloud instead of simply displayed. And the text to speech voices the system uses sound very familiar.

According to the character Alice, there are three tts voices the system uses. She has named them Chester, Norris, and Augustus. So far we've only heard Chester and Norris, but it's pretty obvious who'll play Augustus.

Here's the gist of the theory: Chester and Norris are, respectively, Jon and Martin.

How do we know this? Well, obviously, they're played by the same VAs doing the same voices, but that's not the only connection. So far Chester and Norris have only read one 'statement' (they aren't called that in tmp but whatevs) each. What exactly were these statements?

'Chester' (Jon) reads a statement about the magnus institute.

'Norris' (Martin) reads a statement about the loss of a loved one.

in addition, anyone who knows anything about text to speech knows the way they talk is. definitely too human to come from any computer, let alone one running fucking windows NT.

I theorize that jmart's 'souls', if you will, somehow survived the timeline reset. With their significant connections to the institute, and especially to the archives and statements, their 'souls' inhabited the closest thing to an archive. another database of supernatural incidents. the OIAR's database of supernatural incidents.

and voice 3, Augustus? well, Augustus was the name of a roman emperor, most notable for being the son of Julius Caesar. Who is the most important character in tma with a position of significant power? Jonah fucking Magnus.

also note that Augustus was the son of the most famous roman emperor. The tts voice could very easily have been named Julius, or even something less obvious but still related to historical political power, like Charles, Mark, or Alexander. But Augustus? This name makes more sense when you check the credits of TMP. The character Gwen is credited as Gwen Bouchard. As in Elias Bouchard. The person who Jonah Magnus hijacked the body of in the 90s.

I believe Gwen is likely the daughter, or perhaps younger sister (if you, understandably, dislike the idea of jonah magnus reproducing), of Elias, as hinted by the name of the tts being someone related to an emperor, and her relation to him likely fuels her stated drive to climb the ranks in the OIAR.

In Conclusion:

[metalmewtwo-kxb]

Pokemon story/art/ask-blog for Benta the Mewtwo

Set in an apocalyptic future where most humans have disappeared and only pokemon remain. And the world is not as it had once been.

Benta, a pokemon who has existed for a long time now, has wandered the crumbling cities and empty roads looking for others who might share his ideals of rebuilding what is left of the world. Perhaps even track down the humans, if there are any left. However, the pokemon all seem to be at odds, more focused on hoarding land and food for survival. Many more are feral and vicious.

As others may find out, he is no ordinary mewtwo, and he might very well be the only one of his kind in a world full of ghosts. But is he the only wanderer? Or are there others?

And is it possible to save this future?

⚠️ Under Construction ⚠️

⚠️ Comic Pages 4-8 In Progress ⚠️

⛔️ NO NSFW ⛔️

General Itinerary (in no particular order) :

🧩 rp reply (if/when I have any)

- Thinking I'm gonna limit myself to one a day with these (or as often as I can manage) since I'm a very tired goose with limited internal motivation lol. I love role-playing! It just takes some thinking and energy. If I ever have more than one thread at a time, I'll make a weekly schedule 📅

✏️🖍 asks and/or art responses

- the art side of these can take anywhere from a day to a few days, depending on what I do exactly style/complexity-wise. Obviously can't do art replies all the time, but sometimes I could get inspired to do something other than text replies! 💕

🎨 comic art

- For the main story! The style for this is different and more uniform than what I'll be using for asks, so it definitely takes longer. I don't typically post until I'm done with a illustration/page set, so it can take a long heckin time. If one part one is 8 pages, I'd say it would clock in at two or three months before it's posted (as long as I'm not sick or somethn). I'm okay with posting peridoic snippet updates from my favorite panels though!

Temp. Edit: I've lowered the number of pages in each part to 4 since I need an easier goal to reach at a time. There's still 24 total! I just need simpler intervals. :T 🖼

Beyond this I have work and need me time, but always thank you, and I appreciate the interest! Benta is one of my comfort OCs so I'm treating this blog about the same. I want it to be a fun and cozy space while I build the apocalypse story lol.

#️⃣ tags

This is a list of tags to search on my blog for my art (which will update as they come up):

- ;mun - my general babble, updates, and so on

- ;poké art - all posts involving pokemon sketches and drawings

- ;pokedex - posts pertaining to the story's pokemon and their lore. These pokemon are "new" species, not those that are already well known

- ;rp - written replies to roleplays. Kind of recommended since some lore will likely only appear in these, and they can be a fun read for those that like to do so (the rp partner's name will also be included in the post's tags) 👍

- ;response - ask responses! Chances are they contain art and scribbles. And maybe not, depends on how I feel

- Benta - self-explanatory, posts containing content of my mewtwo OC Benta (this does/should include roleplay threads and asks, so it's more generalized and not very concise)

- ;UntilTheEnd - the comic and main story for Benta and other characters that we'll meet along the way! (Set in an alternate universe, so don't expect very much anime/game continuity lol)

- ;drabbles and chapters - more written content that can either have something to do with an established AU or with context of the main story. Typically smaller snippets, but potentially a longer chapter set. I'm a faster writer than a drawer, but I enjoy both- so this is just another means of keeping up fun content 🫶

💬 About the mun:

Age: 28

Pronouns: she/her/they/them

Occupation: A menace to modern society :V *cough* artist/writer/author *cough*

Hobby: Literally just bothering my sister and siblings like a sneaky little gremlin.

More is tba!

Thank you for the visit, and have a wonderful day!

(main -> @ draconic-hydra )

[spokenitalics]

top 10 books i read in 2022 (in the order i read them)

the master and margarita by mikhail bulgakov: in the 1930s, the devil comes to moscow; chaos follows. almost 2000 years earlier, pontius pilate sentences the mild preacher jeshua to death. also: kind witches, fireproof manuscripts, the greatest love story ever told;

here by richard mcguire: the corner of a living room from 3,000,500,000 BCE to 22,175 CE, the illusion of time, the joys and sorrows of life, the magic of comic books;

lilith's brood (dawn, adulthood rites, imago) by octavia e. butler: humanity is saved from a nuclear apocalypse by a species of hideous aliens who offer an impossible deal to ensure the continued existence of life on earth. in perfect bulter fashion, tons of discussions about hierarchical structures, gender, language barriers, consent, and the vital need to embrace transhumanism;

the faggots & their friends between revolutions by larry mitchell & ned asta: somewhere in between a fairy tale and a utopian political manifesto, a sacred text from days long gone -- the story of a declining empire ruled by the fascist patriarchy, where gay men, lesbians, feminists, and drag queens live communally, produce art, have sex, and await the next revolution;

earthlings by sayaka murata: three young people become aliens to survive the horrors of modern life. provocative, utterly chaotic, equal parts hilarious and sad;

to the lighthouse by virginia woolf: the epic portrait of a family and of an artist;

nona the ninth by tamsyn muir: god is a man, the divine is most definitely feminine, eating someone is the ultimate way to say 'i love you' -- of bad puns, mismatched families, and the horror of your exes becoming besties;

dolore minimo by giovanna cristina vivinetto: the poetic dialogue between a self-born daughter and her mother-self;

the city and the pillar by gore vidal: a gay man in 1930s-40s america grapples with society's (and his own) prejudices and chases an idealized version of his high school best friend and one-time lover down a path of self-hatred and destruction;

loaded by christos tsiolkas: 24 hours in the life of an angst-ridden gay greek-australian boy as he travels through melbourne in search of drugs, an escape from responsibilities, and something resembling love.

[polarisbibliotheque]

Survivor's Blood (Leon x Reader) - Chapter 3

Survivor's Blood

Pairing: Leon x Reader

Word Count: 5.4k

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 (you are here!)

Summary: After Raccoon City, Leon became the only Government agent with that kind of expertise. With relentless training, he was now a Special Agent - again, on his first day in the job. He just didn’t expect to live Raccoon City all over again… Maybe Leon was fated to always have the worst first-days-at-work ever.

Age Restriction: 18+. It’s horror, so expect a lot of graphic violence and blood dripping from this. I mean, VERY GRAPHICAL VIOLENCE. Nothing we haven’t seen on RE, but still. Yee been warned

Author's Notes: Phew, after a hectic week without posting, here we are with chapter 3! A lot of talking and therapy going on with Leon - an important moment for him to go from rookie naïve Leon to badass cold blooded PTSD sexy Leon. Hope you guys like it!!

Chapter 3

New Setosa Police Department, April 29th, 2001 – 21h02

“Everything set?” Grace entered the room reserved to record the broadcast, fixing her hair while the assistant gave the radio back to Leon. “Wow, dear! You really are a fast learner!”

“It’s ‘cause you have a good assistant.” Your answer was too casual, making the boy blush as he never did before. You were doing it on purpose: you knew Grace had a tendency of being a little too cruel with newbies in the industry. “Thank you for explaining everything to me, Hideki.”

“Hmmm...” Grace’s eyes were cold and filled with disdain. “Your name is Hideki then?” And the assistant only nodded in return, not knowing where to hide himself from your comments. “Ok. Then at least make me look pretty in the take, ok?”

You smiled on the other side of the line, knowing you had finally broke the ice between Hideki and Grace. It wasn’t like they knew they would leave the city together, so they had to leave their differences behind – even if it was something too idealist to say, it generally became true in survival situations.

Leon had seen that happen before.

“Ok, ok!” Hideki looked excited even. He was being recognized for the first time, at least, and not even a zombie apocalypse could shatter that feeling. “I think you can seat over there, Grace! Y/n has everything ready and programmed to go live on TV and radio, as well as leave it on auto-repeat.”

“Exactly. When you guys tell me everything is working fine, I’ll leave this place and meet the others at the school.” You nodded along, stopping yourself from smiling. “I mean… If there are others.”

No one answered you, for it was possible not to have anyone else alive. Compared to the number of inhabitants in the city, the amount of people in the NSPD was almost nothing.

“Ok, we’ll go live in five, four…” You started counting, knowing Grace would be ready even without a warning; she was born for that. Her talent for journalism was something you had never seen before. “three, two and… Live. Go.”

“Attention all residentes of New Setosa listening to this emergency broadcast.” Grace immediately started reciting the text so carefully written, wearing a serious expression and pronouncing the words as best as she could – the portrait of respect and trust. Her talent was indeed even greater than journalists on bigger stations. “We have a rescue team ready to extract the last survivors in town. With the roads blocked, we need everyone who has survived to the disaster to leave now for the school near the NSPD. I repeat: all survivors must go, from this moment, 21h02, to the school near the NSPD. In forty minutes, the Special Forces team from the Government will lead a rescue mission from the school to the NSPD. Rescue by helicopters sent by the Government will occur at midnight at the NSPD. Those who don’t manage to go to the school must go to the NSPD before midnight. This will be the last and only way to leave New Setosa for a safe haven. We still have no information regarding the Government’s next steps regarding the city. This emergency warning is being broadcasted live and will be on auto-repeat until it’s shut down by the station.

With those words, Hideki turned off the camera and you did what you were taught to do, using the recently broadcasted live recording to repeat ad infinitum – until someone shut it down.

“There you go, everything’s set.” You warned through the radio. “Can you guys check if it’s on TV?”

Nakai turned on the nearest television, tuning on Channel 8: and there was Grace. Speaking as if it was still live, but, when the broadcast came to an end, it immediately started repeating. The police officer made sure to check on a nearby radio and yes: the message was working. It was playing everywhere that had TVs and radios on.

“It’s working, y/n.” Leon rested his hands on the table, leaning towards the radio. “We’ll start organizing the rescue mission at the school. You can also go there now.”

“Great.” You had a small smile on your lips, glancing carefully at the zombie by your side; the knife still resting on its eye socket. “Do you mind if I take the radio with me? I’m completely without weapons, I could use some moral support.”

“No problem. Then I’ll know where you are.” Leon barely let you finish your sentence before agreeing. “If there’s any problem in the way, hit me up, and I’ll find you.”

“Thanks, Leon.”

Rogers and Grace observed the Special Agent at the same time, but with different looks in their eyes. Grace thought Leon was cute: you weren’t the easiest of people to deal with, but just from that last caring phrase, Grace already concluded he had a good heart, capable to melt even the hardest ones. Rogers, in the other hand, thought that wasn’t a good sign: Leon needed to remain logical in the mission and, as a Special Agent, he couldn’t think too much with his heart. But there he was, saying he would leave the whole team behind for only one person in danger.

The Commander looked down, trying to tone down his instinctive reaction of shaking his head in disapproval. Leon was young; much too young for that kind of job. He got into the police forces to save and help people – but that wasn’t the job of government agents. Their job was too succeed in their missions and avoid bigger disasters, even if that meant accepting sacrifices. And civilian casualties.

But Rogers wouldn’t say a word. Eventually, Leon would find that on his own. And, by the way things were heading, it would be precisely on that mission.

*

“How are things on your end?” That kind of question was already becoming a staple to Leon. He left the meeting room, away from the team while Rogers explained the plan to the other military agents. “Ready to walk?”

“Don’t tell me about it. It’s a considerable distance from here to the State School.” You checked the broadcast one last time to make sure it wouldn’t stop and the barricade at the only door was firm enough. You couldn’t risk a lost zombie entering the room and destroying the control panel, cancelling the transmission. “But hey, my escape route will be through the window again! They’re becoming my best friends.”

“It’s a sign for you to never use doors again.” Leon tried to at least disperse some of the tension – and it was effective, for you laughed back.

“Can you imagine? From now on, I’ll just make dramatic entrances through windows.” And it was his turn to laugh, thinking how that would be like. And, for the first time, Leon noticed he didn’t even know how you looked: he would just find that out when he got to meet you hours later at the State School. “Well, everything ok around here. How are you doing?”

“Me?” And he was caught by surprise with your question. He didn’t expect you to care about it, specially when he was safe and sound in the NSPD. “Better than you, probably.” But his comment was bitter. If regret could kill, Leon would start to be buried. He wasn’t one to pull the strings from afar and let civilians die on an undead meatgrinder as it happened before. “The NSPD is well guarded. It won’t hold for too long though; our team has already seen some barricades that won’t hold, that’s why we set the deadline for midnight. From that on, the NSPD will probably fall and we won’t be able to keep the survivors safe, so this plan better work. It has to work.”

You didn’t expect Leon to talk so much, to be honest with yourself. You expected him to just add another bitter remark, but he talked so much more. And, with that, you realized Leon was bothered and dissatisfied, as if he was keeping something to himself.

“What’s wrong? It seems like you’re not too happy about it.” You leaned on one of the nearby tables, waiting to end that talk before venturing in the streets.

And, in all honesty, you weren’t looking to forward to leave the broadcast station.

“Ah, nothing. It’s fine…”

“Leon. Up until now, you were the voice of reason and cheered me on here.” For the first time, he heard your severe voice. Leon ran his fingers through his hair, considering if he would share something like that with you or not. After all, it wasn’t like you knew each other for a long time. Actually, he didn’t even know how you looked like. “I noticed by your speech pattern that, in addition to being bitter with something, you’re not satisfied. You shouldn’t worry about being safer than me, but it was the first thing you almost bitched about. Are you ok?"

And all you got as an answer was silence.

You could hear his quiet breathing on the radio, but you couldn’t see he had one of his hands on his waist, pondering what he would say to you. He could pretend to be the most confident man in the world and say everything was fine, going on that typical drama from police flicks with macho main characters. Or he could talk about a bit of what he was feeling with someone else and, maybe, feel less crappy about it.

“I was more useful in Raccoon City than I’m being here.” Leon finally let out a heavy sigh, as if he was letting go of the air he held during all that time thinking. “I should’ve gone there with you, helping you do all that stuff and find other people while going to the State School. I should be doing something, instead of keeping my ass safe in the best guarded place in town and be just a voice in the radio. I should be effectively saving people, not sitting on a chair telling a civilian to do all the dirty work. Why did I go through all that merciless training then? What’s so special about it to give me the Special Agent title, huh?"

“Huh, who would’ve known…” You muttered back, furrowing your brows and crossing your arms. Leon, though, raised one of his eyebrows.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just...” You shook your head, with a small empty laugh right after. “It’s as if you took the words from my mouth. Some years ago, I didn’t work as a correspondent. I had a whole different career. In two and a half years, I had the biggest existential crisis of my life, noticing how things that really mattered, the things that really needed me, were happening and I was putting an effort to do what? Help dirty people get away with not paying taxes and labor rights? I felt horrible. There were days I almost threw up at my job from having to defend things I was completely against. ‘What’s all this title and status worth if I can’t use it for something that really matters?’ and that’s when I decided to go ‘fuck it’ and follow a different career. It’s not much, but I’m happy about it now."

You both remained silent for a while. Leon thought about all the things you had just said – and about the coincidence of meeting someone in the middle of a crisis who knew exactly how he felt – and you asked yourself the reason why you just opened up for a guy you didn’t even know how he looked like. For all effects and purposes, you could’ve imagined Leon one way and he could be completely different.

You weren’t the kind of person to talk about personal stuff with the first stranger you met on the streets – which made you think that the perspective of dying that night made you more open to people. You took a mental note to be careful with that, after all, what if you survived after pouring your heart out to Leon? You would never forgive yourself.

“You have to do what you think it’s best.” Even so, you couldn’t leave him with just those words and no conclusion. “Maybe not go full ‘fuck it’, but knowing how to adapt what you do now with your workstyle, what you like to do. After all, you’re the only Special Agent who survived Raccoon City, right?” With that question, he just agreed with a quick answer. “So you have a kind of expertise no one else in your team has. I don’t know how hierarchy works in your team, but I think living through that massacre gave you a certain kind of authority. I know it’s hard at the beginning, but there comes a time when we have to use our authority and hierarchy to make things work for us as well. Think about what you want and can do, put a little of your authority to use. I think it’ll help you feel better."

“I... Well...” He didn’t even know what to say, in all honesty. He didn’t expect you to give him some advice, and one that could effectively help him solve one of the things that bothered him the most. “I… Thanks, y/n.” Leon finally let the tension in his shoulders go and his expression alleviated with a small, sincere smile. “Thanks for listening and actually talking to me. I needed that.”

“No problem. You were the one who helped me cross the window, right, choco chip?” You shrugged, trying to avoid feelings at all costs. You and feelings were two things that didn’t get along. As you would say. “I will remember about that chocolate ice cream you promised me when we get out of here, Leon. Don’cha think you can get away from me.”

“Ok, ok...” He shook his head, laughing alongside you. “I always keep my word, ok? I already said you’re not gonna regret it.”

“I better not. Or I’ll sue you and everyone else responsible for all this shit!” Your answer made him laugh once more. “I’ve got credentials for that!”

But, before Leon could answer, you both heard a weird interference on the studio radio where you found yourself. You immediately turned to it, prepared to kill anything that moved, but the only thing that happened were voices trying to leave the radio. Choppy like a jigsaw, but still trying contact. Was that… Real interference?

“Leon! I think the radio from the station is picking up some survivor group frequency!” As you spoke to him, you ran towards the radio as fast as possible.

“Really?! Can you talk to them?!”

“I’m trying to find their transmission frequency…!” And indeed, you moved the radio up and down. You approached it to the ceiling, the windows, walked around the room with it, changed the frequencies with the switch, tried different switches…

Until you finally got to a place in the room that you could hear it loud and clear.

“Five people. We need help.” Both you and Leon heard a woman’s voice leaving the radio, taking a little pause before speaking again. “If anyone is listening, there are survivors in the hospital. We are in five people. We need help.” The woman sighed, seeming like she was repeating that same message for far too long, already hopeless.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” You tried to talk to her, hearing the woman choking on her own words. “I got your message! Can you…?”

“Yes! Yes! By the gods, yes!” She stumbled in her tongue, desperately talking to someone else for the first time. She had lost all hope – until your voice crossed to her radio like an angel’s. “I can hear you! Gods, someone finally listened!

“You’re at the hospital with four other people, right?” You asked back, hearing her crying on the other side of the line.

“Yes! Yes, we’re at the hospital! We don’t have any sort of communication, we’re inside an isolated room, we don’t have anything to talk to people, but I found this old radio and I thought…” The woman couldn’t hold her tears any longer, openly crying. “Gods, I thought I was going to die. I thought we all were going to die… Who are you?”

“My name is y/n; I’m no one special, but I’m assisting a Special Agent from the Government who is going to take us out of here.” You tried to give her as much reassurance as possible. “We broadcasted a message on TV…”

“We don’t have a TV in here.” The woman talked while sobbing, making you nod in return, already thinking what to do.

“We have a rescue mission at the State School. We asked all the survivors to walk there, so the agents can rescue us to a safer place.” You tried to explain as quickly as possible, but both you and Leon feared it wouldn’t be as easy as it looked like. “Can you get there?”

“Maybe…” The woman tried to control her tears; her sigh already defeated. “But we are in five and the hospital was where it all started. There’s a lot of dead people out there, aside from those… Things. Lots of them. I don’t know if we can escape without drawing too much attention.”

“I can drop by and help you.” You had already decided that when the woman said they had no television to watch the broadcast. It would be difficult and you only had a small experience with that sort of situation, but you would have to manage. “I’ll see if I can find a weapon and clear a path…”

“I’ll get to you.” Leon finally decided, drawing both your and the woman’s attention to his own voice. “I can escort everyone safely to the school, you just have to hold on at the hospital. Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah, yeah… We can.” The woman wiped new tears running down her face. “We can remain safe, but I don’t know…” She sniffed, sighing and trying to keep calm. “I don’t know how long we will last."

“Hmmm…” Leon took a look at the city map, calculating the distance between the police station, the hospital, the school and the broadcast station you were at. That was the farthest point of the group. “Y/n, you know the city well, right?”

“Yep. What do you have in mind?”

“On my map here, there’s a diner near the hospital, which for you is almost the same distance for me from the police station.” Leon used his hands to measure the distances in the map. “If we leave together from our starting points, we can meet there almost at the same time. From there to the school, the hospital is in the way…

“We’ll stop by, rescue the survivors and go to the school.” You completed his thought and he smiled, proud that you had already understood the plan. “Hmmm, I just gotta remember which diner it is… There’s a lot around here…”

“Lemme see... It’s on...” And Leon approached the map to find the street names, in the hopes you really knew the addresses; or you would have a hard time coordinating that strategy. “Iris Setosa Street, almost crossing with…”

“Oh! I know!” And a smile immediately lit up your face. “Magical Donuts. That’s it.” You let out a small giggle. “Of course they’d have Magical Donuts marked on the police station map."

“Hey. Not all cops are donut addicts.” Leon called you out, making you laugh in return. You didn’t even know he had a smile on his own lips, also having his share of fun. “Ok, your highness y/n. Our rendezvous will be at the Magical Donuts.”

“The best donuts in New Setosa, if you wanna know.” You had to add before focusing on the other radio once more. “Lady, what’s your name? I’ll call you on the radio when we get close to the hospital.”

“Valerie. My name is Valerie.” The woman wiped the tears probably for the one hundredth time that day. “I’ll wait for your contact.”

“We’ll leave in five minutes, Valerie.” Leon added before you could turn off all communications. “Our way there will probably be around ten minutes. From the donut shop to the hospital, it’s a quick walk, around five minutes if we have trouble.”

With everything planned, Valerie had the opportunity to stop talking insistently on the radio and give the good news to those who had survived with her while you and Leon prepared for your new mission that night.

“You’ll have to talk to your boss about this, right…?” You said as soon as Valerie turned the radio off and you were once more alone in your radio.

“Yeah. But I decided to take a stand, like you said. It’s not like this is my first time walking around a city with a bunch of undead, huh?” Leon shrugged, checking his ammo for Matilda. It would probably be wise to also take a shotgun and more ammo for good measure; and something for you as well. You would need it. “I can easily do that.” He finally stopped, resting both of his hands on the desk in front of him. “I just worry about you. I can get you at the broadcast station, if you need me to.”

“Hey, I crossed war zones, Leon. Don’t go around thinking I’m completely lost and naïve.” You had that severe voice again, albeit sounding like you were scolding him as a joke. Leon smiled, lowering his head. “I can take care of myself and I’ve handled a dangerous situation or two… I can get in one piece to the Magical Donuts without guns, but further than that… That’s what worries me."

"Well, you won’t have to worry anymore. I’ll be there with you.” He took a deep breath, grabbed the radio, and put himself on the way to talk to Rogers. “I’ll talk to the Commander and when I’m ready, I’ll give you a heads up, ok?”

“Ok. I’ll wait for you, Leon. Good luck.”

*

Rogers observed intently while Leon told him the plan to rescue you and the survivors in the hospital. The Commander didn’t pay much attention to the tactics, but in the way Leon spoke: he was young, it was his first mission as a Special Agent and he clearly had a tendency to get attached to people.

Leon had to get used to collateral damage, because even in Raccoon City, he didn’t accept the inevitable losses of people he met along the way. And Rogers was sure that, sooner or later, there would be collateral damage on that mission – and some that Leon would probably be more emotionally shocked than others.

“That’s the plan.” He finally finished his explanation, looking at the Commander, still leaning on the table. “I’ll get there before you guys and we meet in the State School to escort everyone back to the NSPD.”

“Hmmm…” Rogers had his brows furrowed. It was inevitable, but Leon had to learn on the field. “You do know it’s possible to lose some of these people along the way, right?

“I know, sir.” Leon nodded in confirmation, but he had a pair of defying eyes; too feisty for someone so young at that kind of job. “But I won’t lose anyone. They will all get to that school with me.”

Rogers nodded slowly. Maybe Leon was right, after all, the only person with that kind of experience in that place was him – and, even if he wasn’t much of a believer, Rogers wanted to have faith in at least something.

“Ok. Do you have your radio? Your weapons?”

“Yes, sir. And I got another one I’ll give to y/n.” Leon had a slightly cocky smile on his lips. “This is not my first rodeo, I don’t think it’s gonna be that hard.”

Confidence was half of the job done – and Rogers left Leon with that remark. With all the proper authorizations, some police officers – wary, with trembling hands – helped open the door of the department so Leon could walk on the derelict streets of New Setosa.

It was just like Raccoon City – that was his first impression upon stepping on the sidewalk of the NSPD and watch how it was all quiet and destroyed. With no signs of zombies ahead, only the devastating silence of a city reduced to nothing by a highly contagious virus.

“Banana ice cream! Are you there?”

“Hey, Leon! Yeah, I am!” You answered right away, finally hearing his choppy voice in the radio. “Can I go?”

“Yeah, you can. I’m on the street, heading there. I’ve a map so I won’t get lost; do you have any route recommendations to make my life easier?” He asked back, walking with careful steps so he would avoid attention: until he met the zombies that clearly roamed around, he intended to be just a shadow in the streets.

“Well, considering our current circumstances, I don’t think anything will make your life easier.” You pondered as he heard you opening a window, trying not to laugh out loud at your remark. You took a good look around before venturing outside. You hated the fact you were unarmed, but you found an umbrella and that had better be useful. “But I think the best way is through Ashland Avenue, just turn left on the NSPD and then the first right…”

“Hmmm, ok. Cool. I found it here on the map.” Leon followed as you spoke and mentally traced the way, memorizing the streets, entrances and paths he would have to follow to get to the Magical Donuts. “Did you find a weapon?”

“Look. That depends on your definition of weapon.” Your answer was positively doubtful, making Leon raise one of his brows. You finally jumped off the window and closed it as best as you could: you didn’t want any zombies invading the room in any circumstances.

“Why do I have the feeling something weird is coming…?” He murmured back, trying to hide his own smile even if he rolled his eyes. Your quick laugh was nervous as you walked to the nearest bushes, watching the zombies nearby through the vegetation.

“In my defense, I could chose between an umbrella or a stapler. I got the umbrella.” You whispered back, making Leon a little shocked before laughing out loud, having to control himself soon after so he wouldn’t make so much noise. “C’mon. It’s a lot more epic than you expected.”

“And a lot more ironic too.” He let out one last laugh, shaking his head and checking the street. He was almost at the Avenue you mentioned before. “I think wherever there are zombies, there will be Umbrella, one way or another.”

“Hmmm.” You murmured back, walking in silence to go through a small group of undead in all your stealth glory. You both remained in silence until you were sufficiently away from them and finally on the sidewalk in front of the studio. “I know Claire and Jill because of Umbrella, did you know that? I’m helping them on the investigation regarding everything the corporation is hiding to the public eye.”

“Really? They never told me about it. Not that we gather to remember the good ol’ times at Raccoon City…” With that comment, you let out a quick giggle. The street was empty, differently from the garden of the studio, and now you could walk more calmly. With the umbrella in your hands to hit the first unwarned zombie you laid eyes upon, but still calmly. “But we do meet from time to time.”

“We’re trying to keep it as low profile as we can.” You sighed right after. “Umbrella is too powerful. If they realize everything we’re uncovering, it’s quite possible they’ll ‘disappear’ us. We have already a lot of stuff and I even have some clues their activities aren’t just in the United States. Claire was about to talk to you so we could share some things and see if you had more information.”

“Will you look at that, life was more efficient to make us meet.” Leon finally found his first zombies along the way, roaming around a random store in the avenue. He went through them quickly: he wouldn’t waste ammo on that.

“Faster than Claire Redfield.” You outran your own zombies in the way. Differently from Leon, you didn’t check the names of the streets: knowing the whole city, you walked without a doubt and never stopped, hoping he would get there as fast as you. “But there’s a lot of people involved. Billionaires, politicians, cops even… The Umbrella corruption scheme for bioweapons research is a lot bigger than we expected. It’s like everyone always says…"

“There’s always a bigger fish.” Leon completed your thought, making you nod in agreement. “If I hadn’t seen what I saw in Raccoon, I’d say all this is conspiracy theory bullshit. But the virus sample, the experiments, the city swarming with zombies and those mutated things following me wherever I went… It wasn’t small stuff for Umbrella to go undetected. There had to be people who knew about it and let it all happen."

“Yeah… And that raises the question: why here in New Setosa now?” You let out a frustrated sigh, furrowing your brows as you followed through some small streets to avoid zombies ahead. “According to the mapping we did, Umbrella has no base in here. Of all the statements I heard from Claire, Jill, Carlos, you… It’s clearly like the G-virus or something similar, from the same family, same studies. How did that end up here?"

“Huh. I was hoping you’d lead me to the underground lab under the city soon enough.” Leon’s sarcasm dripped from his voice, making you smile with no humor on your lips. “I don’t know. What happened in Raccoon was an accident; a very unhappy accident that destroyed a whole city. But here… When they told me it was something similar to Raccoon, I thought it would be a city where Umbrella was the main sponsor, like it was there. But I didn’t find anything like that in here and no one knows how it all started. The only thing we knew was that people needed to be rescued.”

“In my opinion…” And you fell silent for a while, your steps being the only sound from your side. Leon didn’t push it: that was a difficult subject and you needed to cross a good part of the city in a low profile. He knew quite well ammo was precious and he didn’t want you to have to test the efficiency of an umbrella against hungry zombies. “In my opinion, this doesn’t look like an accident. What they say, is that everything started in the hospital and no one was brave enough to go there; that’s what I heard while I fought my way through the studio. Apparently, there isn’t a single living person who can enter or leave that place: they locked it all down and they recommended not even passing nearby."

“And that’s exactly where we’re going after we meet.”

“Yeah. Not the best of ideas, but we can’t leave those people behind.”

And your voice was so certain, Leon knew arguing with you would be useless. Even so, it wouldn’t hurt to try: after all, he was responsible for saving all survivors, including you.

“You don’t have to stop at the hospital. You can go straight to the school and I’ll meet you there with the others later.” As soon as Leon spoke, he could already hear you taking a deep breath to argue. “Hey, for all effects and purposes, you’re a civilian. And the plan is to enter the potentially worst place in this town. My worry is valid.”

“And my ‘no’ is also valid.” Your answer was as fast as his argument. You wouldn’t back down from your decision. “Those people need help and you’re just one person, Leon. I know you’ve got experience, but escorting survivors and making your way through the city on your own are two wildly different things. You’ll need all the help you can get."

“I can call someone from my unit for backup.”

“And this someone will take forever to get here. Until then, I’ll have already entered the hospital and rescued the survivors while you’ll be beautifully sitting by the door waiting for your colleague.” You shrugged, making him flash a controverse smile. Leon didn’t want to admit, but he quite enjoyed that trace of your personality. “Whether you want it or not, I’m coming along, Leon. I’m not gonna leave those people and you to their own luck.”

Leon’s smile grew larger – and he would have thanked you if he hadn’t found a few more zombies who made him remain silent for quite a while.

**

To be continued...

[laiqualaurelote]

Three-Legged Puppy Fics

List five of your least-popular fics, as well as when/why you wrote them.

we don't print retractions: Hamilton (Angelica Schuyler/John Barker Church, Alexander Hamilton/Eliza Schuyler, 2021)

This is a Hamilton AU where everyone works in journalism (except Peggy. Peggy works in marketing). It came to me because of the line from Washington On My Side - "we smack each other in the press and we don't print retractions" - and then I thought, what if they were the press? and also there really isn't enough good Angelica POV in this fandom when she is competent and ambitious and yes she and Hamilton have chemistry but what if they were also colleagues on the same footing, competing for the same front page? and so is Burr, while dying slowly of FOMO? Thomas Jefferson as the news editor from hell who probably once was a very good reporter but should absolutely not have been allowed to supervise other people? Eliza as the world's sweetest copyed? You just know Alexander would go ham if he got his own podcast. I have thought of journalism AUs for every fandom I have been in, it's just a question of fruition.

ain't practical, a world you can't touch: The English (Cornelia/Eli, 2022)

This was a Pushing Daisies AU prompted by a throwaway line in @sagiow's fic about Cornelia baking pies with her son. Many of my fic premises also come from taking things people say in shows literally and so when Eli said, "Ain't practical, a world you can't touch," a lightbulb went off in my head and then it became a way of giving them something better while taking away something else, an exchange that for me is necessary in any attempted fix-it for The English.

The Seven People You Meet In Mexico: The Sandman/Once Upon A Time In Mexico crossover (AO3 timestamp for this is 2013, which is when I got my account, but I'm gonna say 2007? 2008?)

When I was a teenager I had a Robert Rodriguez phase and a Johnny Depp phase (the latter has aged poorly) and the two dovetailed spectacularly in Once Upon A Time In Mexico. I honestly can't remember how this fic came about - maybe because it occurred to me that Sands probably was already acquainted with Delirium, and then it was just a question of him and El Mariachi meeting all the other Endless. It's been really strange revisiting this bit of juvenilia, especially after the Sandman Netflix.

Solving Your Life One Problem At A Time: Inglourious Basterds (Donny Donowitz/Smithson Utivich, 2010)

I also had a Tarantino phase as a teenager, and spent a heady few months in the Inglourious Basterds LiveJournal community (never been in a fandom with so much Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, ground was positively littered with them). This is a canon-divergent AU in which Operation Kino does not happen and nearly all the Basterds survive WWII; what would these completely deranged people do after the war in a civilian context? I have been thinking about Inglourious Basterds again recently because I am trying to learn Italian but I feel like Brad Pitt saying "Buongiorno" in the most godawful accent.

The Happiness Of Having Her With Me Unto Death: Great Expectations (one-sided Pip/Estella Havisham, 2009)

As part of my A-level revision I decided to write zombie apocalypse AUs for all of my literature texts. I managed Great Expectations and Proof (the David Auburn play about mathematics) but could not make zombie!Hamlet work.

I have always been obsessed with Estella Havisham. Someday I will write the AU where she arranges the "accidental" death of her abusive husband and teams up with Éponine Thénardier from Les Misérables and Maggie Tulliver from The Mill on the Floss, who have both survived their respective novels, to run a criminal empire. Estella is the Face, Maggie is the Brains and 'Ponine, she knows her way around. They blackmail Jaggers into helping them dodge the law. By the time Estella meets Pip again she is queen of the London underworld. She has finally, truly become her father's daughter.

Thank you @leupagus for the tag forever ago! Tagging - anyone who would like to give their rare fics some love. While we are at it I should add that @leupagus is one of the loveliest people I've had the good fortune to meet through fandom, she has been so kind to me even though she has no idea who I am, I could be a mermaid in a cistern for all she knows.

[naturalrights-retard]

I received a text from a company that has been trying to get me to promote their gold today. He was giddy about gold going up so much again this morning and chided me for not “cashing in” on the opportunity.

It was disgusting for three reasons. First, we already have a fellowship-driven precious metals sponsor that I recommend to my readers. He knows that and has been trying to coax me with higher commissions based on their higher profits. Second, the reason that gold and silver prices are going up is because the worldwide trust in the U.S. Dollar is going down. Any American that celebrates the failure of this nation’s economy is not worth talking to in my book.

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Third, and this is the big one, is that the continued rise in gold and silver prices that many are predicting will be based on events that will cause massive economic hardships for tens of millions of Americans. Moving wealth and retirement to precious metals is a defense against financial apocalypse, so being right about this one is not something that makes me want to high-five my sponsors.

Being right about this one means grim times are ahead, and that does not make me happy.

There really are so many true slimeballs in the precious metals industry. Over the past two years, during which I’ve vetted out nearly three dozen precious metals companies to find those who are truly America First, I’ve talked to some of the sleeziest people imaginable. Now, they’re getting even happier as economic doom rears its ugly head. I’ll happily stick with my guys for self-directed IRA’s backed by physical precious metals.

Switzerland-based Egon von Greyerz is one of the other good guys in the precious metals industry. His article from earlier this week about “The Everything Collapse” is worth a read and highlights how the “good news” about gold and silver is bad news for the vast majority who don’t own much of it. Here’s Egon…

The Everything Collapse

Sadly, gold is now on its way to heights which are unthinkable for most people. To all the people who have asked me over the years why gold doesn’t go up, I have replied:

“Don’t wish for gold to go up substantially for when it does, your quality of life will deteriorate remarkably.”

And we are now at the point in the world when this is likely to happen. Let me be clear, now is the time to protect whatever assets you have in order to avoid the total asset destruction that is coming next. More about this later in this article.

The Financial System Will Not Survive

I came to the conclusion early in this century that a sick financial system was not going to survive the infestation of vermin in the form of debt that started just over 50 years ago.

Nixon’s closing of the gold window in 1971 was the signal that this currency system was going to end like all currency systems in history. And for the ones who haven’t studied the history of money, let me tell you that NO FIAT MONEY HAS EVER SURVIVED IN HISTORY IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM. So with all money going to ZERO, it has never been a question of if but only of when the dollar based currency system would die.

Dalai Lama said:

But in this case my view is THAT WE REALLY NEED TO WORRY. So sadly, his wisdom doesn’t apply to the global problem that the world is now facing.

Is the Ukraine War Coming to an End?

In early January this year I wrote an article called “OMINOUS MILITARY & FINANCIAL NUCLEAR THREATS COULD ERUPT IN 2023.” I have covered the threat of a major war in many articles in the last 12 months for example “Will nuclear war, debt collapse or energy depletion finish the world”

Although it is too early to be really optimistic, it now looks like my prediction that Russia will never lose this war is getting closer. Ukraine is making the Battle of Bakhmut into their Stalingrad last stand (WWII 1943).

Ukraine has committed the majority of their remaining forces to winning this battle against Russia. If they lose in Bakhmut, even Zelensky believes that this could be the end for Ukraine. Here is the Associated Press (AP) article in which Zelensky is hinting that Ukraine could lose this war – “Ukraine’s Zelensky: Any Russian victory could be perilous.”

Scott Ritter, the former intelligence officer and UN weapons’ inspector just gave this interview in which he believes that Ukraine is on the point of losing the war:

The End of US Hegemony

At the beginning of the Ukraine conflict I and some others made the analogy with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 (which I remember well) when Kennedy gave an ultimatum to Khrushchev to withdraw the nuclear missiles pointing towards the US or face war.

In the same way as with Cuba, Russia was never going to accept Ukraine becoming a NATO country. But sadly the US Neocons have seen this conflict as the last chance to save the US military, political and economic hegemony from total collapse. Defeating Russia was the last stand for the US. But it now looks like they will fail which seals the fate of the US empire.

The US neocons forced a much too willing Europe to not only agree to the sanctions against Russia but also make direct contributions to the war both with money and equipment.

This fatal mistake by Europe and especially Germany is totally crushing the European economy. But what the US neocons never understood is that the US sanctions would affect the whole world and in particular the debt infested US and the West.

At the end of an economic era, unexpected events take place which will seal the fate of a crumbling empire.

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The End of the Central Banker

The script for the first 22+ years of the 2000s couldn’t be more perfect as the final glutinous feast of Gargantua The Central Banker (Gargantua – book by Rabelais 1543). Central bankers have been the principal creators of the current crisis which had its beginnings over 100 years ago.

Significant events in the 2000s created by fallacious Central Bank policies:

2000-2 Market collapse: Tech stocks down 80%

2006-8 Subprime banking crisis: Dow down 54%, massive money printing

2009-21 Stocks & asset markets exploding: Dow up 6X, Nasdaq up 16X

2006-20 Manipulation of rates: US 10yr treasury down from 5.4% to 0.5%

2000-23 US Debt explosion: Up 3.5X from $27t in 2000 to $95t in 2023

2000-23 Global debt explosion: Up 3X from $100t in 2000 to $300t in 2023

2020-23 Real inflation US EU: Up from 0% in 2020 to 10%+ in 2023

The extreme moves and volatility exemplified in the table above has nothing to do with free markets. They are the manifest consequences of shameless manipulation of markets and market conditions by Central Banks. Such extreme moves could never happen if markets followed nature’s laws and the laws of supply and demand.

For example, in an unmanipulated market it would be totally impossible for credit to expand exponentially and interest rates to remain at zero. The basic principle of supply and demand would force the cost of money up when demand for credit expands. And if there was no demand, the cost of money would obviously come down to the level where demand resumes.

If markets were allowed to follow the natural rhythm of nature, they would be self-correcting without extreme tops and bottoms. This is so basic that a 7 year old would understand it. But the Central Bankers choose to ignore it.

The obvious consequence of markets flowing naturally without intervention would mean that we could get rid of Central Bankers. How wonderful! No Central Banks, No Manipulation and No Extremes in the economy or markets.

Sadly, such simple solutions are the exception in history with greed and power driving man rather than reason and logic.

The bankers clearly knew what they needed to do when they met on Jekyll Island in 1910 in order to control the US and global monetary system. At this meeting they schemed to create the Fed in 1913 and followed the axiom of Mayer Amschel Rothschild a German banker in the late 1700s: “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”

From the Amschel Rothschild to Jekyll island to Nixon closing the gold window in 1971, the Central bankers and bankers have successfully taken control of issuing exponentially larger amounts of money and debt for their own benefit as well as for a very small elite who could take advantage.

Having created a structure that was above the law as Amschel said, they have so far been in total control of their own destiny with governments being dictated to by the central bankers and bankers. Thus in 2008, the Fed and a number of virtually bankrupt banks, including JP Morgan, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays etc dictated their own rescue terms to the US and other governments.

But we must remember that 2006-9 was just a rehearsal. The finale is starting now. The debt which has built up has now reached levels which means the financial system is now too big to survive.

Three US banks and one Swiss went under 2 weeks ago although two of the four were rescued temporarily at a high cost. The Swiss government could not afford to let Credit Suisse go under and is supporting the UBS takeover of the Credit Suisse at a potential extraordinary cost of CHF 209 billion.

Central banks are on standby to stop the next bank run. Many expected Deutsche Bank to be next. Governments will stop major banks from going under for as long as they can, to stop global contagion. But they will of course fail.

The FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) currently has a capital of $128 billion dollars to support a total of $18 trillion deposits. So with 0.7% cover, it is guaranteed that the US government will soon need to step in as the next lot of US of banks fail. Same in Europe where the most EU banks and the ECB are in a terrible shape.

Total central bank assets are $25trillion which is less than 10% of global debt before derivatives. Default rates in coming years are likely to exceed 50% which means much more money printing to come.

All Assets Are Priced at the Margin — Protect Yourself

As the current asset bubbles are coming to an end, the exit doors will be totally blocked by panicking sellers.

All assets are priced at the margin and even more so since the current asset bubbles have been created by the most gigantic debt bonanza. To take an extreme example, if there is one seller and no buyer in the housing market, the price of all houses will go to zero. The same is true for the stock market.

But as investors run for the exit, most will not get through since there will at some point be no buyers at any price.

This is how the price of stocks, bonds or property can go down by 75% to 100% in real terms. Some market observers say that this has never happened in history so it won’t happen today either. Yes, of course I can be wrong, but what we must remember is that nor have we ever in history had a global debt and asset bubble of this magnitude. So we are in unchartered waters and conventional wisdom doesn’t apply and is just conventional without any wisdom.

In any case, investors shouldn’t worry how much their assets could decline. Instead they should worry about protecting themselves against the risk of this happening.

Check out our new conservative news aggregator, Discern Report!.

First, investors should go as liquid as possible. Second, debts must be repaid. Nobody will want the bank to take their assets at a bargain price.

Short term government bonds could offer adequate protection. But medium and long term, governments will at best destroy the value of the currency and at worst also default. Tangible assets are undervalued and a good investment to own.

Physical gold and silver held outside the banking system is the ultimate protection just as in any crisis.

It is absolutely critical to buy gold and silver now before investors panic into these metals. There is very little gold and silver available to buy. Currently all production is absorbed and any increase in demand cannot be met by increased supply but only by much higher prices.

So my very strong advice is not to wait for the herd since you then are likely to be left with no silver or gold and no protection. But in the end, as I have stressed, the $2 quadrillion debt and derivative liabilities, cannot be saved.

In the next few years the financial system will crash under its own weight in spite of and also due to the coming biggest money printing avalanche that the world has ever experienced.