#their grief really just hit so badly :(

[apollos-boyfriend]

parrot duo are so. ough. squeezes them. jaiden moved away to bobby fields because she didn’t think roier needed her anymore. they only lived together for because of bobby. roier had plenty of friends—a husband now, too—so there was no use for her anymore. jaiden never called that house theirs, just roier’s, because she always felt like she was intruding. she couldn’t see her own importance, and roier was too deep in grief to correct her. so she left.

meanwhile, roier feels so alone. he only has cellbit, at the end of the day. jaiden has her own life, her own friends. she moved away, and he can respect that, because he’s not going to fight for a friendship. if jaiden wants to move, if she wants her own space, that’s her decision. he’s not going to try to convince her otherwise. she didn’t need him so constantly in her life. her moving away was proof enough.

and they’re both so wrong. roier never saw jaiden as a burden. that house was always theirs. everything in it was meant for them both. roier wanted to be a family with her more than anything else. and jaiden never saw roier as anything but her closest partner. bobby fields is in sets of three, after all, because there’s no perfect happiness without roier. neither of them meant to turn their back to each other. they are missing something they could only find in each other, but that piece is long gone now. they can’t go back to what they once had. they don’t even think the other wants to. and they couldn’t be more wrong

[shawoluvs]

People handle grief in their own ways and I don't like to judge people on how they process loss but something about shorts and tiktoks and videos made with some sad, generic pop song playing over video clips from a celebrity's funeral gives me the ick. There are ways to remember people and if you knew someone personally then maybe it'd be different but there's something off about it that I can't put my finger on.

[impossible-rat-babies]

ffxiv is right. there do be consequences to your actions

[redflagshipwriter]

Mamabat- enter Jason 1/2

MASTERPOST

The air was different with Cass, now. Danny felt a little anxious as he followed her to the study after breakfast. Something about her was serious-determined-protective. 

She always felt protective towards him. That was why he'd followed her in the first place. Some ghosts lied, but they couldn't do it with their aura. He knew what she really felt for him. 

“Sit?” She asked him. She gestured at the big squashy chair. Danny did without complaint. Cass perched behind him and started dragging her fingers through his hair, relaxing him.

Man. She was good at this. Top tier mothering, right here. Danny went limp. 

“I'm worried,” Cass broke the silence. She didn't sound worried. She never really did. Her voice was quiet and serious, but still kind. Her thumbs dug into his scalp. He pushed his head back against it. Bliss. “Barbara made you sad. Because you miss your sister?”

Danny tensed. 

‘I should have figured that Batman would track me down.’

Maybe he had known, if he was honest with himself. It didn't hit him like a shock.

“Tim thinks your name is Fenton,” she added, brutally sensible as always. And yup, that was it. No point in denying it. “Declared dead. In danger?”

He sucked in air through his teeth. He wasn't going to lie to her. 

“Worried,” she repeated. 

He thought about it. He really did. Danny bit his lip. 

She was liminal. That probably meant she'd come really close to death, in at least one sense of the word. Would that mean she was desensitized to it, or extra paranoid?

…It was hard to imagine Cass over or under reacting to a possible danger. She was just so steady. But would she see him as a possible danger if she knew what he was, what he really was? 

He could feel it out before he took a plunge with the whole truth.

Maybe it was wrong. Maybe it was invasive. She didn't seem to realize that she was liminal. That meant she definitely didn't realize how much she was communicating to him under her words and gestures. 

But Danny deliberately tuned into her quiet aural communication and tested the waters. “Tim is right, I'm Danny Fenton,” he said. He knew he was too tense. She would definitely feel it. But what could he do about that? He was nervous. “I… Maybe I did die.”

Her heart dropped to her stomach. He could feel the crush of grief on her heart. 

But it didn’t wash away the thudding repetition of love-protect-my darling. There was no suspicion, no guilt, no fear. It was just pain for his sake, with no calculation about how to solve a sudden problem. 

God. He wanted so badly for that to have been how his parents reacted. His eyes started to sting.

Danny sniffled. He thought it was safe to tell her. “I died,” he corrected, and he knew he was right when Cass made a little wounded sound and leaned her body into him, aiming to comfort. “Not then, but a couple years ago. I’m different now, and it’s uh… It’s dangerous to be this way.”

“Affects?” Cass asked quietly. She started to pet his hair again. “Mood? Health?”

“...Huh,” he said, because that was a sensible question he hadn’t expected. If he really thought about his mood and emotions before and after the accident: “Yeah, uh, there’s sometimes a mood thing. I might be a little more aggressive than I was before? And I can get kind of intense sometimes.”

He had thought that was basically just a reaction to having a whole bunch of new threats in his life. But would pre-electrocution Danny have been able to actually stand and fight Skulker? He had genuinely been afraid of the jocks. Maybe… Maybe he was different. Sure, Sam and Jazz were up for shooting ghosts with Fenton tech. Would he have been if he was just human? 

…He didn’t really think so.

Oof. Well, that wasn’t exactly great for his sense of self.

Cass shook him lightly. “Health?” she repeated.

Danny forced down that revelation to deal with later. He didn’t like acknowledging that he was kind of a chicken by nature, but historically, there wasn’t much evidence of bravery pre-mortem. “Uh, my heart rate is really slow, body temp is low, so I can’t really afford to go to a doctor for a checkup,” he said. “Uh, sometimes I’ve got none at all and my hair turns white.” He paused there. That was- that was enough, yeah? He was going to be honest with her because she deserved honesty from him. But that didn’t mean he had to explain the whole great beyond and his inhuman status.

“Sounds like Jason,” Cass said, after a long silence.

Danny short-circuited. “Wait, what?” He craned to look at her. “Who?”

Cass darted forward to kiss his forehead. “Little brother,” she said cheerfully. “Want to meet him?”

Uh, yeah. Danny nodded vigorously, wondering what the hell she was on about. “Do you mean he died?” 

“Died,” Cass agreed, getting out her phone and tapping away at it rapidly.

“Not like, heart stopped for a minute on the operating table and he was revived, or what?” Danny pressed.

“Dead in the ground, came back later,” Cass said. “Dead for months. Now, very crabby.”

Danny balked. “What?”

“White hair too,” she said. Then her face did something funny. “I think he dyed it recently,” she said. 

Danny huffed a laugh. “If it’s the same thing as mine, you can’t dye it.” He saw her look over his head for white streaks. He didn’t correct her line of thought.

He hadn’t thought that anything could top the anticipation of meeting Batman. But Danny had to admit the rest of the day was a wash. Apparently Jason couldn’t make it until the evening, about an hour before patrol.

Danny nearly paced a line into the carpet. He had enough energy to do that now, even without ecto. He was getting soooo much food here. A guy couldn’t even stress out for an hour without someone coming by to make sure he had fruit and yogurt or a hot drink.

He didn’t need someone to come and tell him that the much anticipated Jason had shown up. Danny knew it when he went to take a sip of cruelty-free chocolate milk (hand delivered by the most frightening child in the world) and choked on vapor.

Damian gave him a glare and snatched the drink away. “Are you incapable of drinking beverages?” he demanded. His face looked so goddamn cross but he was just worried.

Danny managed a smile. “No, went down the wrong pipe, sorry.”

Damian didn’t seem to even see the fog, so- so that meant that either he was really unobservant or he wasn’t liminal enough to see it the way people did in Amity. That was a small blessing. Danny appreciated it and he took back his drink to have something to hold onto.

That was a whole ass ghost. That was a whole ghost coming onto the property, one that felt big and mad and old. Danny smacked his lips, disconcerted. 

He, uh, didn’t know what to expect from this.

[vickyvicarious]

"For your mother's sake."

It hits so hard, on multiple levels. First, what this might mean for her. It's her final effort, the most impactful thing she says after religion, superstition, outright pleading on her knees and crying all fail. She knows that she can't stop him from going, but at the very least she will try her best to protect him as much as she can. She places the crucifix around his neck herself, doesn't just hand it to him.

Did she lose a child to Dracula in the past? Is she seeing echoes of her own son in Jonathan's face? Or perhaps there have been brave young men who tried to fight back against him, who deliberately went to the castle and never returned. Maybe Jonathan is the first person she's met who is actually trying to go there, and while she knows it can only end in his death, the idea of letting anyone go willingly to that evil place is more than she can bear. She's giving up a piece of her own protection. The Count has been sending letters to her husband; he was the one who suggested Jonathan stay here. He knows of her. If she shows any resistance it could mean greater danger for herself, and giving Jonathan her crucifix means losing a powerful totem of self-protection. If he actually listened to her warning, she can probably expect a terrible fate of her own; maybe even just giving him the crucifix alone would be enough to ensure that. But again, whether he reminds her of her own lost son or just because he doesn't know what he's getting himself into, she can't bear to do nothing. She places herself in the role of his mother here. "For my sake," she's saying, "let me do what little I can to save you. Please."

Jonathan is an orphan. We don't know the circumstances of his childhood, but it's possible that he never even knew his mother. (It's my headcanon.) Even if he did, she has been gone for a long time now. And yet these are the words he can't argue with in the end. He was already taking her seriously, and trying to treat her with respect. Her warnings were obviously distressing to him, but there's no way he can actually turn back now. His livelihood depends on this trip, he has no actual evidence to justify leaving, and he also wants so badly to live up to Mr. Hawkins' trust in him. He is already "thinking of his father" (or the closest he has) when he says he has to go to the castle. And yet, the care and fear and love this woman is showing for him hits so hard. I wonder if he is thinking of his actual mother when he accepts the crucifix. Whether the concept of her or an actual memory... Or maybe he too is placing her in the role of his mother here. Maybe, in keeping the crucifix (and not just with him, but around his neck where she placed it, even as he rides away) he is saying yes to that implicit request as well. "I'll let you care for me. I'll accept it gratefully." It's the first motherly care he has probably felt in many long years.

In this book, children are placed in terrible danger again and again, and most of the time they can't be saved. Parents and parental figures are equally doomed, leaving our heroes all orphaned in a sense, unable to rely on any greater source of wisdom or comfort. They have to take things into their own hands and deal with the problem alone, despite still being caught up in grief for what they've lost - a kind of coming of age in that sense. There's even a literal version of this happening with both Arthur and Jonathan (and Mina) specifically, when their father figures die and leave them with sudden new responsibilities. And of course, the inheritances from these father figures help in distinct and immensely useful ways, even as they remain absent from the story throughout. They haunt the margins at best until death steals them away completely, and their illnesses tend to serve to divide our heroes from one another when they needed to be united sooner. I personally don't count van Helsing as a father figure really, but if you do then he is the only one who manages to be around and be directly helpful (and even then, he's unable to save Lucy), even though all the fathers we hear from are loved and loving. But we do actually meet a few mothers, and they are usually unable to alter the story despite being more present. Their efforts to save their children are misdirected and only bring about their own death as well, in the end. Lucy's mother seems to mean well but everything she does directly makes everything harder; the mother at the castle later tries to avenge her child possibly against the wrong person, and in any case is unable to succeed. But here, the innkeeper's wife with her crucifix manages what no other mother does. Even though she assumes this to be another wasted effort (in fact, she can't bear to remain in the room with him afterwards; re: Dracula did such a good job with the hopelessness in her voice when she says the 'mother's sake' line), her assistance helps Jonathan to survive. His 'inheritance' from this momentary mother-figure isn't just the physical crucifix, though that is useful (and also the only inheritance a mother leaves for a child throughout the book, even when it would be expected and easy and make complete sense to do so, ahem). It's also the first and the most knowledgeable and the most effective aid given to a 'child' throughout the entire book.

[lvrcpid]

how everyone reacted to you and neteyams death. (requested.)

includes: jake feeling shitty about himself. sullyfamilyxgn!reader. angst. if you haven’t read the main story, read it before reading this here

jake:

probably felt the worst. you always voiced how he was too hard on the both of you, you really only having the courage to stand up to your father. he didn’t really have time to grieve the loss of his two children but when he did , it hit him hard. jake isn’t one to cry, but realizing you two were gone forever tore that wall down he tried so desperately to keep up.

neytiri:

i feel so bad for her. her grief turned into anger. she wished it was her instead of the two of you. she carried your body while jake carried neteyams body to the bottom of the ocean. she was mainly upset and confused. why did both of you have to die? neytiri knew she wasn’t going to get that answer till the day she was reunited with her children. she just misses the lights of her life. her first steps into motherhood

lo’ak:

oh god. lo’ak was a mess when you and neteyam passed. frantically asking everyone if they knew why this happened, nobody could give an answer, they just didn’t know. baby beats himself up over it pretty badly and blames himself like it was all his fault :( you were his rock and neteyam was his idol. now it’s all up to him to carry your legacies until he takes his last breath, finally getting to see his siblings. probably doesn’t wanna go to the tree of souls, he’s only 14 it’s a lot of emotions to handle.

kiri:

shuts down immediately. probably stops going into the water since it’s possibly a trigger for her. definitely keeps your guys’ things in her hammock and sleeps with them since they still smell like you both. probably gives lo’ak a few items to give him peace at night. she probably has nightmares as well :( constantly huddled under neytiri telling her she misses you guys.

tuk:

it breaks my heart to write this ngl. poor tuk cries nonstop. it’s hard to get her to stop but when she does she kind of forgets. toddles her way over to your hammocks to ask to play and jake has to quietly remind her that you both aren’t coming home. cue waterworks. probably sits in neteyams spot for dinner and yours for breakfast. poor baby didn’t wanna move from your bodies , convincing herself you both were just sleeping :(

bonus!

neteyam:

it took him about a few days to process you both had died. he didn’t wanna freak you out or anything so he didn’t mention it to you, he wanted you to come to terms with it on your own. he felt like it was all his fault , you were robbed of life because of him. neteyam felt so guilty . like the guilt was eating him alive almost. constantly apologizing. he wanted to make the best out of it so he would constantly take you to meet passed family members he’d already met and take you to do your favorite things you did while you were alive.

a.n// NOW YALL DEF HATE ME FOR THIS. i hoped anonie who requested this likes it mwah mwah

[mono-moonchilds]

For Glory │KNJ

⤑ pairing: underground boxer!namjoon x fem!reader

⤑ genre: angst!!, smut, some fluff ig but also not really but yes??

⤑ rating:explicit (18+)

⤑ word count: 3.2k

⤑ summary: A fight to the death. No rules, no refs, and nowhere to run.

⤑ warnings: descriptive depiction of boxing, illusions of death, mentions of a stabbing, ig just violence in general fr, arguments, anyways on to the smut part of these warnings, fingering, emotional sex, missionary, riding, namjoon has a buzz cut, feel free to let me know if I missed anything but I think that's all folks

⤑ A/N: I watched Bloodhounds a few weeks then just had to make a boxing fic because I loved that show so much. hot men + fighting = sign me up.

The room was full to capacity, nothing but sweaty drunks that were hollering over each other while letting out rowdy cheers filling the place. Despite it all, it felt like you could hear everything. Every punch, every kick- each blow that landed on his bruised skin rang a thousand times in your ears. The fight had only been going on for fifteen minutes —probably less— but it felt like much longer. Both of their bodies already so badly beaten —bright red blood spewing from their wounds and covering the once pristine mat.

This was your first fight and it showed. Your hands clenching the worn wooden benches, breath hitching at every movement. You usually didn’t come to these events, and you didn’t see how anyone could. They were barbaric and rough -no gloves, no rules, and definitely no safety measures. They couldn’t use weapons but that was about it. Everything else was free game and however the match ended was how it ended.

Whether it was in a K.O. or stone-cold murder was all up to the victor.

‘Fight To The Death’ was what they called it. A sixteen-by-sixteen ring, surrounded by wired, ceiling-high fences, and absolutely no referees. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and nowhere to escape. Neither party could call a time-out either. Once they were in the ring they were stuck there until the horn blew signaling the match was over.

“Fuck!” You jumped up from your seat. That was a mean one. The punch knocked Namjoon straight on his back allowing the other to climb on top. Luckily Namjoon was able to bring his arms up and get into a protective huddle, but it was still barely any help. Lee Do Yoon was evil, and his hits were ruthless. Even in the regular matches, he had a reputation for playing dirty.

This wasn’t even supposed to be his fight. For two years Namjoon had been out —he owned a gym and had a regular life that didn’t involve the underground fighting scene. For two beautiful years, you were able to see your boyfriend come home the way he left. No bruises, no busted lips. Just a clean face and a happy smile.

All of you had told Jungkook to lie low. That bragging and arguing with The Vipers was something he did not want to do. Despite your efforts to keep out this scene and the business that went along with it even you knew that Do Yoon and his little gang were nothing to mess with. Of course, Jungkook didn’t listen. When did he ever?

The night of your anniversary was when you got the call. You and Namjoon were on your way home from dinner when his phone rang.

Jungkook had been stabbed. They did him over three different times before leaving him for dead in the middle of an alley. Thankfully Jungkook had been relatively fine, but he was in absolutely no shape to fight. He could’ve pulled out but all of them had way too much vengeance to let the incident go unchecked, letting The Vipers have another by default victory. The other man had done this before and the only reason none of them ever got him back was they were all too consumed with their grief.

Hoseok had offered to fight in Jungkook’s place and so had Taehyung but either of them getting in that ring with Lee Do Yoon would’ve been like signing their death note. It’d been years since their last fight. And even though both of them were still in amazing shape they also had way too many injuries to even stand a chance of winning.

Of course, Namjoon never told you his plan though. He kept quiet, carefully dodging your suspicious questions until tonight.

“It’s okay- he’s okay. Namjoon’s got this,” Jungkook tried to comfort wrapping his arm around you, but you shook him off sending a mean glare.

You knew it was unfair to still be angry with him, but you couldn’t help. Sometimes you just wanted Jungkook to grow up —for him to mature and think with his head. Yeah, he knew how to step but he also needed to know when to fall the fuck back. He was twenty-five and everyone was still cleaning up his messes as if he were a kid.

“Joon!” You screamed out your hands banging against the gate. Instead of grabbing your boyfriend’s attention, you grabbed Do Yoon’s. A bloody grin filling his snake-like features as he turned towards you.

“Come on Joon—” he cooed mockingly, “you gone let your girl stand there and just watch you get put down like an animal? I thought you were supposed to be something. That’s what they told me.” Do Yoon got up from on top of him swinging his leg back hard before pushing it forward kicking Namjoon straight in the side. It sent all the air out of his body making Namjoon curl into a ball as he let out a loud cry. “Your nothing,” Do Yoon hacked a bloody lob right onto his face. “Just a washed-up piece of shit.”

Do Yoon yanked his head back. Namjoon had no time to react before the other man's hard fist clocked him dead in the face six times before dropping him back on the mat. Even though the match wasn’t over Do Yoon jumped around the ring as if he’d already won the crowd hyping him up like the depraved monster he was.

“Please,” You begged. Namjoon was still down. He kept trying to get up, but his body was wobbly and failing him.

Do Yoon crouched down in front of you. His tongue dragged against the nasty wire fence as he licked it. “Once I’m done imma have a nice time with you—” he reached down groping his flaccid dick in his shorts. “me and my boys. We’re going to-”

Before he can finish the sentence Do Yoon’s face is smashed against the fence before being dragged back. Namjoon is the one on top now. His punches unrelenting as he attacks every part of the man underneath his body. For once you understood how everyone else in the arena felt. A loud cheer came from the depths of your soul as you threw your arms up. Do Yoon was able to get a few good punches in, but it wasn’t enough, newfound energy filling Namjoon’s entire being.

It should have terrified you. The way Namjoon looked -his eyes cold and distant but it didn’t.

With one last heavy punch the match was over, Do Yoon’s arms falling flat to his side. For once the audience was quiet. Everyone was waiting with bated breath to see if he would get up. Strings of swearing erupted from his goons, their hands shaking the cage wall as they yelled at him. It was too late though.

The loud countdown over the speaker started.

Ten!

Nine!

Eight!

Seven!

Six!

Five!

Four!

Three!

Two!

One!

The horn blared.

“The winner of this year's Fight to The Death: Kiiim NaaamJOON!”

As soon as the gate rolled open you were gone. Jumping up you wrap your legs around Namjoon’s waist, his strong arms lifting you into the air. The crowd fickle as ever rang out in cheers, shouting and chanting Namjoon’s praises. Your boyfriend took it all in, a loud roar erupting from his throat as he bounced up and down.

It was over.

It was all finally over.

Namjoon walked out of the venue with a limp and somewhat clean face. Though he was still marred with bruises and cuts, Seokjin had managed to patch him up well. Before the two of you got into the car, he called over Jungkook handing him one of the leather briefcases. With a shake of his head, the younger immediately declined, pushing it away.

“Take it,” Namjoon pressed shoving it into his chest. “Pay your debts and stay out of trouble.”

“I’m sorry Hyung,” Jungkook broke down into tears. “I’m so sorry,” He repeated looking at you this time. “I will. I promise I will.”

“I know,” Namjoon said pulling Jungkook into a hug. “It’s over. don’t think about it too much.”

Throughout all his goodbyes Namjoon kept a stoic face. It was only when the two of you crawled into the backseat of Hoseok’s car that he let out a loud sob. Hoseok looked back at him through the rear-view mirror but didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. Reaching over you grabbed his hand and leaned over resting your head on his shoulder.

“I did it. I fucking did.” Namjoon whispered but you knew he wasn’t talking to you. He wasn’t talking to either of you. Instead, his focus was on the golden boxing glove chain that was around his neck.

Yoongi’s old necklace.

When the two of you entered your shared apartment the story of what had gone down just hours before was all over the place. The space is messy littered with broken objects that you’d thrown around in a fit. Before you could finish making your way over to the kitchen to grab the broom Namjoon grabbed your wrist stopping you.

“We’ll clean it up tomorrow. Come on,”

Sitting down on the bed Namjoon pulled you a top of him. Your legs spread on either side of his body. “Didn’t think you would come,” 

“Called Jimin last minute. He rushed me over.”

“How come?”

You shrugged sucking in a sniffle. “I just couldn’t bear the thought of you being in that ring thinking all that shit I said was true. I didn’t mean it Joon. I didn’t mean any of it.”

Namjoon, as understanding as ever nodded his head. “Baby I know you didn’t. I know you were just angry and you had every right to be.” That made you cry. You never would understand what you’d done in life to be able to call someone like Namjoon yours.

Gingerly grabbing your brown cheeks between his palms, Namjoon pulled you in for a kiss. The remnants of dried metallic blood danced on your tongue. It reminded you of your first kiss. How the scars made his lips rough and how swollen they felt against yours. You should’ve been used to this but for some reason, it all felt so foreign. Haven got so used to your new normal you’d completely pushed down the old one.

The staying up to the wee hours of the morning wondering if he was going to be okay, sometimes having to patch him up or force him to go to the hospital when things looked too bad.

“Come on,” Namjoon hushed pulling you back in. “Stay with me,”

Flipping the two of you over he laid you down on your back. His hands instantly falling to the hem of your leggings as he pulled the tight fabric off of you. Namjoon’s lips found yours once again, a soft gasp-like breath leaving your mouth as you felt the outline of his hardening cock pressing against your lower belly. Freeing you from the confines of his hoodie Namjoon latched onto your neck, his mouth sucking hard at the exposed skin as his fingers slowly trailed down your stomach and to the place you needed him most.

It was crazy. How with just a mere touch from him you were soaked. Panties clinging desperately to your sodden pussy. Letting out a low chuckle Namjoon pulled his fingers from your panties showing you the slick digits. “Thought you said you hated me?”

Letting out a whine you rolled your eyes. “Please,” You quietly begged. You knew Namjoon was just trying to make light- show you in his own little way that he wasn’t mad at you, but you couldn’t do it tonight. You didn’t want to relive any of the shit you’d said to him.

Sliding from off of you Namjoon laid down on his side while pulling your thigh up onto his hip so that now the two of you were laying down on the bed facing each other. Pushing his hand back between your bodies his fingers made their way back into your panties- the calloused tips rubbing against your sensitive clit.

One by one he pushed his middle and ring finger into your needy hole. Forcing another low gasp from your mouth as you leaned forward burying your face into the crook of his neck. Namjoon kept a slow pace. Dragging his fingers in and out, ever so slightly curving the digits to rub them against that little spot that always made you lose it.

“You know I love you,” Namjoon breathed against your neck. You nodded. “I was always gonna come back to you. Nothing could keep me away from you.”

Your body writhes, your right hand flying up wanting to tangle into Namjoon’s dark locks but there was nothing there. Just like it was when you’d first met him his hair was once again completely buzzed leaving him with practically little to nothing. So instead, you settle for grasping at the back of his neck, practically fucking yourself onto the digits, your hips having a mind of their own as they rolled and jerked.

You wanted nothing more than to say something back, tell Namjoon how much you loved him too but you couldn’t. The pleasure over taking your body so much that the only thing you could do was let out low swears followed by the call of his name. It always embarrassed you how just with a few touches Namjoon could have you speechless and clinging to his body in desperation.

You could hear the wetness. Your slick undoubtedly leaving the bed sheets along with your inner thighs a mess. “Look at me,” Namjoon mumbled a faint smile filling his lips as you followed his command. “You know I like looking at you when you cum.”

Namjoon’s fingers sped up. The squelches from your pussy fill the quiet room. “Shit,” You swore. That familiar feeling rising up in your lower belly. You could feel your legs tightening up, the heel of your foot pressing into the back of Namjoon's calf.

“That’s right. Let go for me baby,” You don’t need to be told twice. Your vision crossing a little as your body shudders against his. “There we go. Always so pretty. My pretty baby,” Namjoon encourages his fingers not letting up even for a moment as he fucks you through your orgasm. It feels like forever before he finally pulls away, shoving the slick digits into his mouth.

Pulling away for just a moment Namjoon sits up and pulls his own hoodie off. Even though you know it's against your better interest you can’t help but look. His bare chest was exposed showing all of the bruises that littered his once clear skin. They were everywhere. There wasn’t a bare piece of skin that didn’t have Do Yoon’s dirty prints on it. “nuh uh—” Namjoon murmurs tilting your chin up. “Don’t look at that. Look at me. Just stay here with me,” Kissing your tears away Namjoon rolled the two of you over so that he was back on top of you. In one swift movement, he pulled down his gym shorts and boxers allowing his thick cock to spring free from its previous confinements.

Grabbing the length, Namjoon began to pump it, smearing the creamy white beads that’d spurted from the tip into the rest of the skin. “Joon,” You breathed needily, your cunt throbbing desperately in your panties. Even though your boyfriend just shushed you he didn’t tease much longer, the head of his cock pressing into your pussy slowly splitting you open.

Despite Namjoon’s thrusts being slow they were hard. Each push knocking the wind out of you as you begged for more. Dipping his head down Namjoon wrapped his full lips around your brown nipple suckling the pebble into his mouth.

“Right there,” You moaned, eyes fluttering closed at the overwhelming sensations that racked through your body. Letting go of your nipple Namjoon’s face falls onto your shoulder, low grunts and groans falling from his lips with every thrust.

“Fucking love you,” Namjoon whispers so low that you weren’t even sure he’d meant to say it out loud. Wrapping your legs around his lower back, you pull him deeper into you, making a low hiss fall from Namjoon’s mouth as you accidentally press into a bruise.

“’m sorry,” you slur out.

“S’okay,” He grumbles kissing your collar blade, his wet tongue dragging across the skin. Pulling away Namjoon looked down at you, a small smile filling his face as he stared. Even though he didn’t say anything you knew exactly what he was feeling because you felt the same. The happiness. The relief. Although Namjoon had given promises of winning before he left the two of you both knew very well the fight could’ve gone either way.

Gradually his eyes drifted downward, first falling on your bouncing breast but then inevitably ending on your belly causing tears to fill his eyes. This time you pull him out of it, your hands cupping his cheeks as you pull him down for a kiss. “Lemme ride you,” you say.

With a nod of his head, Namjoon changed positions causing you to let out a lower whimper. He always felt so fucking deep in this position, like his cock was right in your stomach. “Shit—” Namjoon’s eyes got wide. “do you think we’re gonna—”

“Joon—” You cut him off with a laugh already knowing what he was about to ask. “You’re big but you're not that damn big. Just give me a minute.” You finish a moan tumbling for your lips as you roll your hips just a bit to help get used to the stretch.

Instead of placing your hands on his chest you lean back grasping his thighs, eyes fluttering close as you rock back and forth. Namjoon’s hands found purchase on your waist helping you grind a little bit faster, his hips rising a little to match your movements. Lifting yourself up you drop back down, the loud sound of skin slapping together filling the room as you repeat the movements.

“Don’t think I gonna last—” Namjoon chokes out. “feel too fucking good.”

You nod your head in agreement, already feeling the sensation building. “Just a lil faster baby.” Namjoon whimpers. “I need a little more,”

As you follow his directions, Namjoon’s head falls back. His lips forming into a ‘o’ as his eyebrows furrow together. He was almost there and so were you. Reaching down you rub fast circles onto your clit, your body shaking as your orgasm hits you hard. It doesn’t take long for Namjoon to follow, a loud groan escaping him as his cum paints your inner walls white.

The two of you pant, barely allowing the other to catch a breath before you find your lips on each other once again. Carefully you slide off him and fall to the side. Wrapping his arms back around you Namjoon pulls you in once more. His hand finds rest on your belly rubbing at the barely there bump as his eyes flutter close.

“Don’t know what I would do without you,” You whisper.

“And I don’t want to find out.”

⤑ A/N: I really loved writing this couple and I kinda wanna write the prequel to how they met and also Jungkook and Yoongi's story. I hope you guys enjoyed it!

[batmanschmatman]

It’s interesting to me to see how many people have been saying they feel like [character’s] death was too sudden or too early, and while I agree from a writing standpoint we didn’t exactly have a lot of time with him and they COULD have framed the show differently to give us more, I also think it’s sort of The Point that his death is sudden and kind of out of nowhere.

The air war was incredibly fucking brutal. I’m not saying it was more or less so than what the BOB or TP guys went through because they’re all awful, but it’s a well accepted part of the WWII experience that anything to do with flying planes might have seemed glamorous and cool but was actually terrifying and had a sort of uniquely horrible flavor to it when it came to facing the death of your friends.

(And this isn’t even getting into the stuff happening on the ground when cities became viable targets, but that’s for a different post.)

When Hoobler dies, the guys are there, they see it happen, they can try to help him, and then they know after a point that he’s dying. They can sit with the body afterward and take his stuff to send back to his family. Even in the more fast paced deaths like Rob Oswalt, Sledge and the others can look at his body and have a moment - however brief! - to say goodbye. There’s often no mystery of what happened, you’ve seen the wounds and know they’re dead. And you also HAVE to push it down because you’re being shot at and need to keep yourself alive. 

All of that is real important in the grief/mourning process. Guys in the 100th usually didn’t have that unless someone on your bomber died. You’d go up with your friends, you’d see their planes get hit, there’s nothing you can do besides watch for chutes and hope they survive to be taken prisoner. And then you come back, and your friends are gone, there’s no body to bury or sit with or touch. Their stuff is all still in the barracks like nothing happened. Sometimes you’re not even immediately sure if they are dead or not! You don’t know who those chutes belonged to, or if they made it safely to the ground instead of dying on impact or immediately being caught by the Germans and executed. But your friends are gone and you were powerless to do anything to help them.

And then you get to do it all over again knowing it’s going to happen to other friends or to you and there’s basically nothing you can do about it. How do you cope with that? What does it do to you to feel like your friends just literally vanished into thin air even though the last time you saw them, they were healthy and young and alive? And then new guys replace them, and you have to decide if you want to make friends with them or close yourself off, because these guys are going to die too.

(Oh, and if a member of your crew got badly wounded? You could have HOURS before you got back to base, and you have some first aid training but you’re not a surgeon, you don’t have plasma or whole blood to give a guy to help keep him alive until you make it back. So another horrible traumatic thing you get to deal with. Wounds that could’ve been treatable if you’d been at Carentan or Guadalcanal could be fatal.) 

I’m not saying this show is a masterpiece in storytelling by any means, but… You’re supposed to feel shocked and angry and robbed of the chance to get to know these guys? Because that’s literally how their friends felt. It’s a point Miller makes a lot in the book, and a really vital part to understanding why being in the AAF (or other air forces) was such a meat grinder physically and psychologically for these guys. 

[xvxni]

Hey 😊 would you do a Damon Salvatore imagine where you’re dating but then you leave the house after a fight with him and get in a bad car crash. He feels this and searches for you, just to find you I’m time to save your life. Then he stays by your side, feeling guilty and when you wake up again he’s there taking care of you, apologizes and promises to never let any harm happen to you again? Just some lovely fluff and a bit angsty. Thank you so much 😊

Apology

Summary: Your boyfriend Damon has been acting very possessive and controlling and you get into a huge fight with him. You go out for a drive to clear your head but end up in an accident instead. Damon finds you and takes you home, making up for everything he had done.

ANGST, fluff

Damon being controlling, car crash, reader having a near-death experience

1.5K

A/N: Thank you @imagine-all-the-fandoms for being my first request! I'm so sorry it took forever (this is horrible). Do let me know if this is satisfactory. Happy reading!

Damon Salvatore X Human!Fem!Reader

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Your boyfriend of two years, Damon, was recently being very controlling and possessive. He started making your decisions for you without bothering to consult you, being unreasonably jealous of any male around you and demanding to be with you at all times, not understanding the healthy concept of giving 'space'.

But this time, it ran deep. He compelled your childhood best friend, Jake, to leave town and forget all about you. You caught him in nick of time otherwise you would've never even known about what happened to him!

Deeply hurt and driven mad with rage, you left the Boarding House for a drive after a few broken objects, wounding words and a heavy heart.

You didn't know how, perhaps you weren't in your right senses, you couldn't hit the brakes and crashed right into a tree. The car flipped over, and your arms twisted at an odd angle. Your limp and now-sore body was fastened with the seat belt, and you couldn't undo it. You were hit badly in the back of your head, and you could feel unbearable burn of a deep gash.

Your senses had perked up under the stillness of the night, and you heard a faint trickle. Then wetness across your back, your head, soon trickling down to your neck. It was a strange fluid --- coppery metallic smell, thick and red with a mud-brownish tinge. It was oddly enticing and familiar. A shiver ran down your spine when you realised it was your blood. Blood, so much blood --- your own. You were losing so much blood, and you could do nothing to stop it. You felt faint and suddenly, the hardest thing in the world was staying conscious.

You were terrified. If you were going to die, then it mustn't be like this. An accident. Your whole life snatched away just because of a mistake. God, you had so many things to do in life. Get a job, travel the world, adopt a cat --- ordinary things but they were your dreams, which now lay shattered. You didn't want your life --- and death --- so unremarkable and ordinary. And while all this time, there was a deep wound of regret in your heart --- perhaps greater than the gash on your head --- to part with Damon.

Sure, he could be such an asshole at times, but you knew that he loves you with all his heart. You didn't want your last words to him be an angry "I hate you". You had never really thought about it, what would be your last words to him. You couldn't breathe at the sheer grief that hit you at the moment. Unable to withstand the blow, you closed your eyes, succumbing to a world of endless darkness, getting lost in your way towards the blue-eyed vampire. And you couldn't do a damn thing about it...

Anger and frustration clouded Damon's mind. It was all hazy, and he was searching for a light. Ah, there it is! Remorse, regret, fear of having losing her. He knew what he did was wrong, but why couldn't she understand? He loved her so damn much, everything he did was tp protect her.

She lived her constant danger because he loved her, and he knew at times that he should let her go, but he couldn't. He needed her to function, she was his damn sanity, and without her, he lost it.

Suddenly, there was this intense urge to go find her, not to waste a single moment. He'll do anything to have her back, she can't leave him. He knew he was unreasonable, ill-tempered and sometimes too controlling, but he couldn't help himself.

He got behind the steering wheel and let his heart lead the way, for it was with her where it truly lay.

He was aghast, devastated, even. Finding her like this, so near to death, he suddenly came to his senses. He was crying, he realised. He never cried. But that's what she does to him --- make him into someone he never thought he could be.

"Y/N, no! No, no, no!" he wailed, feeling utterly helpless. He undid your seatbelt and somehow pulled you out of the overturned car. Without wasting a moment, he bit into his wrist and forced his blood into your mouth.

You drank for a moment then turned away, trying to sit up but immediately fell back and the sheer exhaustion and soreness you felt.

He was here. He was here, you realised.

"Oh Damon, I'm so sorry!" you sobbed into his chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around you and you knew he was crying into your shoulder.

You simply let things just be. In that dark night, the feeling of death heavy around you, the two of you embraced a new life. Of promises of forever, of understanding, of accepting --- and it was beautiful.

After what seemed like an eternity, he composed himself, giving you some strength, too. "Let's get you home, yeah?" he whispered and you nodded. He lifted you bridal style in his arms and helped you into his car. You leaned on him, as much as you could and he kissed the top of your head. "I'm so, so sorry..." he began but your shook your head. He understood. Not now.

You drove to the Boarding House in companionable silence. The silence was golden. The silence spoke it all. And all you needed was the silence.

With his help you went inside. The house that was so familiar --- it looked the same --- but it promised something different.

"You don't know how scared I was today," he whispered as he rubbed your feet.

"Me too... I didn't want to die like that. Not without saying goodbye, though I wonder if I ever will be able to say it-" he silenced you with a kiss. "I won't let anything happen to you. I want you all for myself, I know that's selfish. I am prick and I don't deserve you, but I do love you very much, so much that it's frustrating, and I won't be able to live with myself if something happens to you. I know I make bad decisions, I know I react impulsively, but I do it only for you. I am sorry for today. I had no reason to compel Jake, but I did it anyway because I was insecure. I realised my mistake, I have no reason to be. So, if you have it in you, please forgive me...". Tears were streaming down his face.

You wiped them away and hugged him close.

"I'm hungry," you said, trying to lighten up the atmosphere. It made him laugh. "Pasta?"

"Yes!"

[ladykailitha]

Grief (A Friend Indeed) Part 4

Hey, guys! This story is coming along at quite the clip. I have part 5 already done. I have the specific plot beats mapped out and you are in for a wild ride.

Enjoy more Lauren being awesome, Steve being a history buff, and liking alt rock. A bit of tw for allusion to cancer. It's where Penny and Wayne talk so if you want to skip it just know that Penny isn't acting herself in this chapter and is handling the grief badly.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

***

Lauren tapped her lip thoughtfully. “I suppose I’ll grant you Robin being better than me on the sheer fact that she’s your soulmate. But it was this close.” She held her finger and thumb so close together they were almost touching.

“Platonic,” Steve assured her. Lauren raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m not her type,” he added with a shrug.

“That’s fair,” she said. “I hate it when people assume that just because you’re opposite genders that you have to be romantically linked.”

Steve nodded. “As if other types of love don’t exist.”

Eddie winced. Steve caught his eye and blushed.

“I mean you can love friends and family, that’s not romantic, right?”

When no one answered, he continued. “Like one of the kids I used to babysit, Dustin. The one that built the CV tower. God I love that kid like my little brother. But I’m not attracted to him for fuck’s sake. All I’m saying is love is more then just romantic. Hell, the Greeks had a half of a dozen or so types of love.”

Eddie leaned forward interested. “Yeah, like what?”

“There’s love for the gods, love for your brothers in arms, love for your family, romantic love, and sexual love,” Steve said, naming them and counting his fingers. “I think there are more than that, but I don’t really remember.”

Oliver frowned at Steve. “Aren’t romantic love and sex the same thing?”

Steve shrugged. “You’d have to ask them, I don’t know. But I never thought so. You don’t have to be in love to have sex and you don’t have to sex with a romantic partner.”

Lauren launched into music and her tastes to quickly change the subject as Penny was starting to frown about the sex talk.

Eddie started talking to Gale about how she liked school now that she had finished kindergarten and resurfaced to Lauren and Steve’s conversation a few minutes later.

“You can’t honestly believe that Speak & Spell is the superior album,” Steve groused. “It had one hit on it and I wouldn’t even call it that.”

“I just think the band lost a little something when Vince Clarke left is all,” Lauren murmured.

Oliver sidled up to Eddie and nudged him with his elbow. “Do you know what they are talking about?”

Eddie just shook his head, enthralled. He had seen Steve passionate about sports before but this was new.

“Some Great Reward has some of the best songs on it,” Steve continued, unaware he was being watched. “God, I remember the first I heard ‘Lie to Me’, it was like someone understood me for the first time in my life.”

Lauren snorted. “You just used that one because it was the one that would raise the least amount of eyebrows.”

Steve laughed. “Maybe a little, but I was serious about that song. I must have listened to it a dozens of times my senior year of high school. But yeah, I really connected with that album.”

She hummed. She had a feeling it had to do with that girlfriend he brought up earlier, but she would wait until there weren’t so many prying eyes and listening ears.

“I’ll give you Depeche Mode,” she said. “But please tell you don’t like Tears for Fears, please...”

Eddie barked out a laugh. “Stevie boy here has both of their albums.”

Steve just shrugged. “I’m not about to feel shame for liking a good band.”

Lauren opened her mouth to argue when her mother interrupted.

“Steve, Eddie?” Penny called out. “You will have to be sharing a room.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide as if he hadn’t considered that.

“It’s okay, ma’am,” Steve said with his most charming smile. “We’ve shared a room a couple times before, we’ll be fine.”

Eddie nearly choked on his own spit. While that was true, he didn’t think it was a wise thing to say in crowd of strangers.

Penny blinked at him. “Excuse me? You’ve shared a room with Eddie before?”

Steve batted his eyelashes at her innocently. “Sure. Often times when playing their D&D game it’ll go late in the night and they’ll end up sleeping over. My house has a lot of rooms, but not that many. So we’ll often double or triple up in a room.”

Gale looked up from her toys she was playing with on the floor. “Just how many rooms do you have?”

Penny shushed her. “We don’t talk about that sort of thing in mixed company!”

“In addition to my parents room and mine,” Steve said steadfastly ignoring her, “three other bedrooms, plus another room in the basement that could be converted into a guest room in a pinch if I had to.”

Penny turned purple. “That’s enough of that talk.”

Wayne stepped in before his sister threw hands with one of his boys. And yes, Steve was his. He just didn’t know it yet.

“It’s not a sin to talk about money,” he said. “Not talking about money is how those in power stay in power. It’s why I’m in a union at the plant. Steve can’t help where he’s from anymore than you can. The size of his house isn’t going to change just because you don’t want to hear it.”

Penny’s jaw dropped. She looked around at her children and then ducked her head. She got up and headed for the kitchen. Lauren got up to follow, but Wayne held up his hand and shook his head.

“I’ll deal with her.”

Eddie stood there with pursed lips trying not smile. But it was hard. Wayne rarely stood up to Penny because he had known for years that she was Grandma’s favorite and her kids were treated like royalty. Not like him and Wayne and in his early years, Al.

His grandma was a sweet old lady who loved him, but he knew that Penny and her kids got preferential treatment because they lived close. It was hard not to be at least a little bitter about that.

“Go Uncle Wayne,” Lauren said with a low whistle. “Classism goes both ways and Grandma would have had a fit if she had seen how Mom acted today.”

Eddie let his smile break through. “Who’s up for some cribbage?” he asked pulling a deck of cards out of his leather jacket pocket.

All three of the Nelson sibling bounced up and Gale ran to the hallway to grab a cribbage board. She pulled out four pegs and then looked at Steve.

He held up his hands. “I’ve never played before, so I’ll just watch.”

Eddie cocked his head to side. “You haven’t? Huh, I thought everyone knew how to play.”

Steve just shook his head.

“Tell you what,” Eddie said, sitting down around the coffee table. “We’ll play a couple rounds of cribbage and then we’ll play something you know how to play.”

“Do you guys know rummy?” Steve asked wiping his hands on his front of his jeans.

“Yeah,” Lauren said with a grin. “That’s a fun one. We’ll play that one next.”

The other kids nodded and Steve settled into to watch the weirdest card game imaginable played on a wooden board with little plastic pegs like rejects from the Life game.

*

Penny rounded on Wayne but the seeing the look on his face caused whatever argument she had to shrivel up behind her teeth. Her shoulders slumped and she ran her hands over her face.

“Fuck, Wayne,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I just have all this rage inside. She could have tried to beat it. There were medicines and things she could have taken to give us a little bit more time with her and she just didn’t… take it.”

Wayne wrapped her in his arms and held her.

“And we almost had two funerals this year,” she continued into his shoulder, “and I’m just on my last raw nerve.”

Wayne nodded. It was touch and go for Eddie those first three days in the hospital and every was waiting on baited breath to see if he would come out on the other side.

Hell, his favorite moment that week was Eddie’s surgeon staring Sheriff Powell in the face and telling him under no uncertain terms was he allowed anywhere near her patient until she was sure he was going to live. And then by the time Eddie was out of the woods, the government had pinned the murders on someone else.

Eddie stayed under for another couple of weeks so he never got to see how bad ass his surgeon was. But Wayne did, Steve did and they were both very grateful.

“I know, Penny,” he murmured, holding her close. “It’s been such a rough year for us Munsons. How’s Danny handling it?”

Penny snorted. “You’d think it was his mama that died, not mine with all the wailing and carrying on he’s doing.”

Wayne laughed. “Sounds like our Danny.”

Danny and Penny were Hawkins High sweethearts that moved to Ashland to be closer to Penny’s mom when she slipped and fell.

“He’ll be home from work in an hour or so,” Penny said. “You wanna help me make dinner?”

“Whacha making?”

“Just chicken and rice,” she said, pulling things out of the fridge and cupboards.

“Sure.”

*

Steve tallied up the points from their five games of rummy and then threw the pen down.

“Fucking hell!” he hissed. “You’d think I’d be used to getting skunked by fifteen year olds.”

Eddie laughed. “Nah, I’m pretty sure Oliver just cheated.”

The teenager was on his feet in an instant. “I didn’t!”

Lauren put her hand on his arm. “They’re teasing you. Chill.”

Oliver sat back down.

Then the door opened and a man stepped inside. He had curly red hair, a barreled chest, and an easy smile. This was obviously Danny Nelson.

He spotted Steve right off and made a beeline for him. “You must be Steve, Eddie’s told us all about you.”

Steve stood up and shook his hand. “Thanks for having me so last minute.”

“I’m just glad Eddie’s got someone looking out for him,” Danny said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I can smell my wife’s delicious cooking.”

Steve nodded.

Soon they were all called for dinner and Steve was seated between Eddie and Lauren.

He could tell that whatever Wayne and Penny had talked about had sorted her out and she seemed a lot less hostile. But that could have also been the calming presence of her husband, Danny. He had tucked her into his side as they ate, and she leaned into his touch.

It made him grieve the lost of what his family could have been if his grandmother hadn’t died.

Maybe they still would have fallen apart, but maybe they would have been like this.

But he also knew that he had to be grateful for that money not because of the things he had gotten, but because it gave him the chance to find his own family in the monster-hunting party that were his friends.

***

Pt 5|Pt 6|Pt 7|Pt 8|Pt 9|Pt 10|Pt 11|Pt 12

And that's how my husband's family introduced me to cribbage too. It is sooo hard to follow.

Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @artiststarme @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @pyrohonk ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @chaoticlovingdreamer @messrs-weasley @goodolefashionedloverboi @maya-custodios-dionach @val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @danili666 @carlyv @rozzieroos @emly03 @wonderland-girl143-blog @justforthedead89 @bookworm0690 @itsall-taken @bookbinderbitch @redfreckledwolf @vecnuthy @littlewildflowerkitten @scheodingers-muppet @mira-jadeamethyst @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @gutterflower77 @genderless-spoon @hel-spawn @ellietheasexylibrarian @anne-bennett-cosplayer

[drarrily-we-row-along]

It had been literal years since Harry had seen him, it shouldn’t still feel like this.

Looking at Draco Malfoy while he swanned around the gala, not even noticing Harry’s existence, felt like he’d been hit with a bombarda to the chest. The grief, the rage, the fear, the brokenness, everything came back like it was yesterday. Like he was twenty one and desperately in love, like his entire life was oriented around another person. And the devastation of being left without a word; the empty, expansive void that filled his entire body.

He couldn’t stop watching him. Couldn’t take his eyes off his lithe form, so similar and yet different. He walked taller now, he was self assured in a way he hadn’t been. Open, smiling, like he actually knew he was worthy and it changed how he viewed other people. But he was still himself; clever and funny, still a little bashful when someone praised him.

Harry wondered what else was the same. Wondered if his mouth still tasted the same, if his hands could still make Harry’s body go pliant and his mind go blank. He wondered if he still got giggly after sex. Wondered if earl grey was still his favorite type of tea. If he still hated tequila. Wondered what Harry’d done wrong and how he could have messed up badly enough that Draco left after three years together without a word.

It was inevitable that he found himself following Draco when he went to the men's room, a moth to a flame that would incinerate it and leave its charred smoking remains in a pile of ash. Locking the door behind him, he waited, leaning against the row of sinks until Draco emerged from the stall. There was barely a hitch in his step, barely a flash of recognition in those silver eyes when he looked at Harry.

"Not even a hello?" he asked, suddenly incensed at Draco for ignoring him, at himself for setting himself up for this.

"Hello, Potter," he said evenly. "Enjoying yourself at this fine Ministry Gala?"

"Fuck you," he hissed.

Draco turned and raised an irritatingly perfect eyebrow at him, "Was a hello not what you wanted?"

And Harry saw it, the flicker in his eyes that meant he knew he'd asked the wrong question. "Not what I wanted," he repeated, throat tight and eyes stinging. "Not what I wanted?" He shook his head, "when have you ever cared about what I wanted?"

"Right," Draco said. "Terribly sorry that this Gala helps to fund my research and I had to be here tonight for my job." He said it calmly, devoid of any of the emotions that were racing under Harry's skin. "If you'll excuse me," he said, starting past Harry and moving toward the door, "I'll just get out of your way."

Harry's hands were on him before he even knew what he was doing, shoving him back against the door and pinning him there. "Seven years, Draco. Seven years and not a single word."

"Let me go," he said, voice still unerringly calm.

He shook his head, "No. Not until you-" he broke of, chest heaving as he fought for control, as he fought to get a breath.

"Until I what?" he asked.

"Not until you tell me why," Harry said, voice shaking. "Not until you give me the reason that you threw away three years together without a single. fucking. word."

He just stared at him, still not giving him a word.

"Tell me," he said, begged really, "just. Give me something. Give me some closure. Let me move on."

"Nothing is stopping you from moving on," he replied steadily.

He growled, "Fucking hell, Draco. Just tell me-"

"You're hurting me," the other man said, pressing a palm against Harry's chest.

Harry loosened his grip, "You hurt me," he whispered. "You tore out my entire heart when you fucked off and left. You left this giant, gaping sink hole of a wound in my chest that has never closed, never healed right. It always fucking hurts."

He shook his head, eyes suspiciously bright.

"Tell me," Harry demanded. "Tell me what I did. Tell me how you stopped loving me. Tell me why you left. I would have given you anything, I would have done anything, would hav-"

"I know!" Draco exploded, his voice sharp and furious, and Harry reveled in it, in his loss of composure. "I know that you would have and I didn't want you to."

"What?" he asked.

Draco shoved him off, "Let go of me." He tried to turn and get the door open but Harry grabbed him and spun him around again.

"What do you mean?"

"Let go!" he demanded, pushing roughly at him.

"No," he replied stubbornly. "You owe me this much, at least."

"I owe you nothing," Draco hissed, voice low.

Harry released his grip on the other man, body involuntarily taking a step back as he shrunk in on himself, curling away from him. "Fine," he whispered, wishing he could sink into the floor, wishing he could just disappear, wishing for anything that would take the pain away.

The other man sighed and Harry could hear him straightening his robes before he pulled open the door. "I owe you nothing because the cost of leaving was too high in the first place," he said.

And Harry's head filled with a thousand questions, he looked up but Draco had already left. Rushing out after him, Harry caught him just at the end of the hall. They were in plain sight of everyone at the Gala, if they cared to look their way, but Harry couldn't have cared less. "What?" he asked, maneuvering so that he was in front of the other man. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Everyone can see you," Draco said, voice low so no one would hear, his face impassively blank in a way that Harry detested; it made something go funny in his chest, the desire to break him from that shell, to muss him up, to kiss him until he was breathless and smiling, color high on his cheeks.

"I don't care." He shook his head, "For fuck's sake Draco. I don't care what any of them think. Please," he whispered. "Please just," he let out a rush of air that he'd been holding too tight in his lungs. "Please."

"Not here," he said, glancing around the room very clearly trying to clock who'd noticed them talking.

He nodded eagerly, "tell me where and when."

Draco looked at him, actually looked at him, his eyes moving over Harry's face like a caress. "Mac's, 9:00 pm."

He spun off and left Harry standing there, staring at the wall. He hadn't been to Mac's in seven years, not since Draco'd left.

The rest of the Gala couldn't go quickly enough and Harry found himself leaving before he really needed to but he couldn't help it; he couldn't stand and talk to one more person that he had no interest in talking to. Not to mention the torment of watching Draco swan about, wooing donors; Harry's heart couldn't take it.

Flooing home to change into a green jumper and a pair of jeans before heading to the diner seemed like the only reasonable course of action.

The neon clock behind the counter revealed he was only ten minutes early and he mentally congratulated himself on taking up as much time as he had.

"Well bless my soul," the waitress, Barb if Harry remembered right, said. "I haven't seen you in ages. Look how you've grown."

"And you look just the same, lovely as ever," Harry replied, smiling at her. It was true, she wore the same blue dress and apron, hair pulled back in a bun, still had the same blue eye shadow.

"Flatterer," she accused, but she looked pleased. "Where's your young man?" she asked, leading him back to the corner booth that they'd always preferred and for a moment Harry's heart twisted painfully in his chest.

"Coming, I hope," he said.

She nodded, eyes full of understanding, "Now, don't tell me," she said. "You're a strawberry shake and he's-" she broke off, brow furrowing in concentration.

"A chocolate malt," he said at the same time as another voice behind her.

Both he and Barb looked up to find Draco standing behind her, hands shoved into the pockets of his impeccably tailored trousers, top button on his black dress shirt unbuttoned. He looked like he'd stepped straight out of a muggle magazine, hair just a little disheveled but devastatingly handsome. Harry could barely breathe around how fucking gorgeous he was, how badly he wanted him.

"But if I'm being honest," he said, "I haven't had that much sugar in ages. I should probably-"

"Nonsense," she said, shooing him into the booth across from Harry. "Reunions always require something of the old to mix with the new."

Before either of them could respond to that, she bustled off to the kitchen, leaving the two of them staring awkwardly at one another.

"Draco-" he started just as the other man began with "Look-"

Harry shook his head and gave a little chuckle, running his fingers through his curls and tucking them behind his ear, "Go ahead," he offered.

Squaring his shoulders, Draco began again, "Agreeing to come here with you was a moment of weakness."

"A moment of weakness?" Harry interrupted.

Draco glared at him, "Yes. I'm really not interested in having this conversation. I'm not interested in rehashing everything that happened."

He took a slow breath, "I deserved a good bye," he said eyes stinging.

"Excuse me?" he asked, sounding a bit taken aback.

Barb came over and deposited their shakes and a platter of nachos between them. "I'll just be tidying up," she said. "Over there," she added pointedly. "Don't be shy if you boys need anything."

Harry waited until she was a reasonable distance away from their table before he said, "Listen, I don't need to know why you left. You're right, you don't owe me that. So even though I'd like to know, even though it kills me not to know what happened, what I did wrong," he broke off, shaking his head. "You can have your own reasons and I don't have to know them. But I deserved a good bye."

Those grey eyes, the ones he'd spent countless hours staring into, the ones he'd dreamt of more times than he could count, stared at him like he couldn't comprehend what he was saying.

"I loved you, Draco," he said softly, the truth splitting the wounds in his heart open wide. "I loved you more than anything, I would have done anything, I would have given you anything. If you'd told me you needed to leave, I would have been heartbroken, but I would have let you." He took a deep shuddering breath, "but I deserved a good bye."

"I couldn't," Draco said simply. He started to slide toward the edge of his bench but Harry reached out.

"Damn it, Draco," he said. "Sit down. Please. If you ever loved me-"

"If I ever loved you?" he asked and finally his exterior cracked. "If I ever loved you?" he repeated incredulously. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" he repeated, blood pressure rising.

"Yes, you fucking idiot! What do you mean 'if I ever loved you'?" He shook his head, "How can you possibly imagine that my leaving wasn't out of love for you?"

"Because it wasn't!" he exclaimed.

"Yes it was."

He shook his head, "There's no way in hell," he said. "It wasn't for me because you leaving completely destroyed me. You leaving left me in a state of depression that made me wish I was dead. For fucking months. I went to therapy; I still go to therapy, you leaving still comes up. Regularly. There was nothing about that choice that was good for me.”

“How do you imagine that relationship would have ended?”

Harry shook his head, “I don’t know. I’ve been too preoccupied with dealing with the fall out of how it actually ended to wonder how it might have ended otherwise.”

He sighed, rubbing his forehead in a gesture that Harry had seen enough to know that he was getting a tension headache. He wondered if scratching his fingers through the hair at the back of his head still helped, wondered if rubbing his neck still eased the pain. "That relationship would have ended with you hating me."

"Right," he said. "So glad we avoided that outcome."

"Do you hate me?" he asked, looking at Harry like the answer mattered to him.

He let out a breath, "I wanted to. It would have been easier if I could have."

Draco nodded, "And I wouldn't blame you if you did, but I didn't want to stick around for that." He sighed, "Look, we couldn't have kept living in the shadows. Coming out to muggle restaurants, sharing a bed, living on the edge of the world and hoping that we didn't get caught."

"Draco, I would have come out with you. If you'd wanted to tell people, I would have. Godric. How little can you possibly think of me that-?"

He shook his head, "That's my point. You would have come out, you would have told the world, and we would have lived under the proverbial shit storm that rained down on us. Constant harassment, we'd be the front page of every newspaper. I had to leave the country to get accepted into a training program that would accept me as it was."

"And?" Harry asked, "I'm not new to the media shit-show."

Draco looked at him, eyes sad like he could see something that Harry couldn't. "You're not, that's the point. Harry," he said, and the way that he said his name felt like Harry's heart was being ripped open, "you deserved time to heal. You deserved a shot at a normal life. You deserved to be happy. You deserved so much-"

"That wasn't your choice to make!" Harry exclaimed. "What I deserved, what would make me happy; it wasn't your decision. Not without me at least. Because it didn't make me happy. You made me happy."

"But I wouldn't have," he said. "It was the only way. For both of us. I needed to get my life together. I'm brilliant," he said, and somehow it didn't sound cocky, it was just a statement of fact. "Harry, I'm so good at my job. I'm so good at developing potions and magic that is helping people in ways we couldn't have imagined even five years ago."

"I know," Harry replied. "I've followed your career. I've read your articles."

The little smile that curved Draco's mouth shouldn't have felt like that still, it shouldn't have made him feel like his heart expanded four sizes. "And you needed to find your life outside of me. It felt like you hated everything, like you wanted to burn the entire world, everything outside of our bed. And I was never going to be enough to fill that need."

"You were," he said, throat burning. "Draco, I would have supported you. I would have given you anything-"

"I know. And I couldn't let you." He shook his head, "Leaving you," Draco looked down at his hands where they were clenched on the table. "Circe, Harry, it nearly killed me. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I meant what I said about the cost of leaving being too high. I wanted to give you the life you deserved.”

“All I wanted was you,” he replied.

“I know. And don’t you see why that is a problem? Harry, if all you wanted was me, how could I ever be enough? When all of your dreams, or goals, or aspirations revolve around me,” he shook his head. “I wanted more for you.”

“I didn’t mean to put pressure on you-”

He nodded, “I know. But by the end, neither of us even knew how to be a complete person on our own.”

“Three years of shared life will do that to a person,” he replied blandly.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said, and Harry couldn’t count the number of times that he’d wished to hear those words. “I am. But I would do it again.”

The dried, brittle remains of his heart crumbled in his chest. “Right.”

Draco’s hand reached across the table and covered Harry’s, and Harry stopped breathing. “You might be right,” he said. “You probably deserved a good bye. But if I’d given one to you, if I’d even tried, I never would have been able to leave you.”

He opened his mouth to reply but Draco continued.

“I’m not a brave man, I’ve never been well versed in denying myself what I wanted. But I had to give us a chance. I had to give us both the chance to grow into the men we needed to become. I had to give you the chance to be happy.”

“Is that what you think I am?” Harry asked. “Happy?”

Draco blinked, “Well, yes.” His eyebrows furrowed, “you run multiple successful charities that are doing immeasurable good. You’re always in the Prophet with some new witch or wizard gazing adoringly at you-”

“I haven’t slept with anyone since you,” he said bluntly. “Some events require a plus one, so,” he shrugged. “But I still sleep on the left side of the bed. I still unconsciously check to make sure the covers aren’t bunched under me when I roll over because my body got used to not wanting to take them from you.

“Yes, I run my charities,” he continued. “I attend ministry functions. I visit my godchildren and hang out with friends. Yes. I do the duties set before me in my life and I make time for people I love.” He shook his head, “but no one who knows me would say that I am happy.”

Draco stared at him uncertainly.

“It never made sense,” Harry continued. “I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong, how I’d fucked up so badly. I loved you so much, I wanted what was good for you, and I came to terms with that not being me. But for you to tell me it was for me,” he blew out a breath and shook his head. “Whatever you may think, that wasn’t what was good for me.”

No words came out of the other man’s mouth, and Harry decided he’d probably tortured him long enough.

He rapped his knuckles on the table and stood, dropping some money for the bill before murmuring, “good bye, Draco. I hope your life is everything that you wanted.”

Then he all but fled the diner, desperate to be anywhere that wasn’t there. His heart couldn’t take it. Maybe Draco has been right and a conversation only made things worse.

Before he could get to the alley down the street, the one he and Draco had stood in more times than Harry could count to snog until one of them got too horny and apparated them back to Harry’s bed, he heard the sound of footsteps chasing him down the sidewalk. And he would have recognized those footsteps anywhere, could have picked out Draco’s gait out of any line up. “What-” he began, turning toward him.

But he was interrupted by Draco cupping his face and kissing him, his body surging against Harry’s.

Harry didn’t waste this moment, he grabbed onto the other man and pulled him in, kissing him back with all of the heart ache, all of the desire and love that he hadn’t been able to give him when he’d left.

Draco pressed him back against the wall, caging Harry in and making him feel kept and held. “I’m sorry,” Draco managed into the kiss. “I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head, trying to just draw him back into the kiss, he didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want anything but this moment; Draco in his arms, bodies pressed together, not a space between them.

But he pulled back and Harry felt bereft. “Forgive me,” he pleaded. “I really believed I was doing the right thing-”

“Draco-”

He shook his head, pressing a trembling finger to Harry’s lips, “there hasn’t been anyone else for me but you either,” he confessed. “Harry,” he broke off, a tear sliding down his cheek, “you are the love of my life. I wanted you to be happy.” He broke, tears spilling down his face. “I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re brilliant,” Harry echoed back to him.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “If you meant it, when you said you weren’t happy here,” he started, “come with me. Salazar, I know it sounds crazy.” He shook his head, “but I’ve hated every single moment of not being with you. I love you.” He pressed his forehead to Harry’s, “I love you so much. Come back to France with me. We can start a new life there. I know it sounds crazy-”

“Yes,” he interrupted him. “Godric, yes. Let me come with you. Let me stay with you.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Draco cried, tears still pouring down his face. “You don’t know-”

“I know you,” he replied, holding Draco’s face in his hands to kiss him. “Yes, this is fast and sudden, and I’m sure we’ll have more than one fight about it. But I love you too. I have spent the last seven years wishing you’d walk back into my life, I’m not about to waste that opportunity now.”

“Come back to my hotel with me?”

He shook his head, “come back to our flat?” he whispered. “Come sleep in our bed?”

“You stayed?”

He nodded, “it was ours. I didn’t want to leave behind all I had left of you. And if you ever decided to come back,” he broke off. “Well, I wanted to be there.”

Draco wrapped his arms around Harry’s neck, “take me home,” he whispered.

“Home is anywhere, as long as I’m with you.”

[the-brash-spud]

Not gonna lie. The more I look into how they portray Bruce grieving about Jason, the more disappointed I am. They want to hurt him mentally all the time yet won't allow him to go through said mental aggony. It just seems to be so indecisive by the writers.

For example I find the whole thing of Batman wanting to off Joker in his grief and being stopped by Superman as cool and shit, but if they went with that as to why Batman didn't kill Joker then it should have continued for longer.

I mean, I would've loved a small series where Batman is out for blood. As in, he goes out of his way to try to track down the Joker and actually kill him, so all of JL needs to take turns to be on a bat duty. I think it would've been so heavy for us to watch through their eyes just how badly Batman went off kilter with grief, to the point they have to go out of their way to make sure their friend doesn't do something stupid.

Of course, he'd also manage to work around them, or generally when they're not there as everyone has their own lives. So sooner or later, he will definitely have tracked Joker. Let's say that after the initial murder attempt, he tried to do it three times more before stopping completely.

Maybe because Tim showed up or because he went to grief counselling, and as much as he was still heavily grieving (and still being hard on criminals), he doesn't go out of his way to kill Joker and people wanting to associate with him. Maybe that's when Tim showed up? Before, he was too afraid to make Bruce stop with his brutality by threats as then he was just as likely (in Tim's mind) to off him in his quest to avenge, but now (even though still shaking like a wet cold puppy) he could try to make Batman stop with being so hard on criminals. I think it would be a great wake-up call that a child that was afraid of him so much that he was shaking just looking at him but still felt as if they had to do something to stop Batman. Can you imagine the guilt? When you were supposed to give people hope from within the darkness of Gotham but lost your way so much, you were pretty much chocking out that hope and safety of better future? Making a child feel like they had to confront you? I'd imagine that guilt would've been a great narrative block to their relationship if explored further.

Additionally, imagine being a Joker goon at that time of grieving. You're used to having a gun be hit out of your hand with a battarang. That's normal, but this time, it got logged into the wall right by your head? And Batman loudly grunted in anger or however you would describe it. You'd think he was annoyed that he missed, but something is clearly off. The battarang seems a bit too sharp, too much like a knife, and thrown a bit too close to your face to be accidental. And when the sinking feeling of danger really sends in, you're in a whole world of pain before waking up in a hospital, most likely with at least one injury that won't heal fully.

Just saying, the writers fumbled a bit.

[prismartist]

just finished the prison breakout stream. screaming.

those last ten minutes man- my god. what a rollercoaster of events.

the fact that once they were finally free, there wasn't really any screaming or loud celebrating- just pac, mike, and walter standing in silence. staring up at the baby blue sky they hadn't seen in days. the gasps of breath and sighs and sniffles from pac and the way he closed his eyes for a moment, mike saying "o cielo, walter bob. o cielo, finalmente," [the sky, walter bob. the sky, finally], walter punching and jumping, all of them smiling...

(well, we could only see pac and mike, but i assume walter was, too.)

then they usher walter bob to the barbie dreamhouse, offer it all to him, assure him it can be his, giving that comfort and agency he hadn't had for years, if at all. and walter is happy, jumping for joy in front of his new home, looking at his good friends.

then the guard with the lasso comes, and he's gone.

jesus. silence comes again, but instead of pac, mike, and walter soaking in the peace, it's pac and mike feeling the shock and horror setting in. their conversation after- it is tearing me to shreds even now, because even though i understood about 10% of what they were saying, the grief in their voices and expressions alone reached out and grabbed my poor heart.

the way mike took it so badly, you could feel the anger rolling off him in waves as he stormed off, killing rubius' cat on the way, not even talking to pac, who chased after him worriedly, who was just as devastated but still trying to keep himself and mike calm. pac talked gently at mike, offered a hug; mike didn't even turn back. the final book from walter bob definitely didn't help any, and the guard's book was the last straw.

i want to take a moment here to note how they roleplayed bc as someone who really hadn't watched tazercraft before, man did they take me aback. like i said, mike conveyed his upset so prevalently. he barely talked. when they sat down, he crossed his arms, his stoic expression really seeming stressed. and when the guard's message appeared, as pac was reading it, mike took off his headphones, disconnected, and turned off his camera, leaving pac alone. which was just. whoahg. that hit. i felt the upset and the anger with him.

and of course pac, trying to up their resolve and motivation, the little inflections in his voice mixed with both sadness and hope... aghh i melted a little as he tried to get through to mike. as he tried to talk through what had happened though he was just as affected. when mike leaves, pac assures chat (or maybe just himself) that he'll talk to him later, to be calm, thanking chat for watching even though his face was somber and his voice sounded so sad.......

they're so!! expressive!!! they're incredible!!!! again, i did not understand most of the words in their conversation, but in the end that didn't matter, because all i needed was to look and listen to understand what they were feeling. which is awesome. i dunno how much of it was acting and how much was getting sucked into the roleplay, but i do know that the stream? was amazing and devastating. mano. eles são simplesmente incríveis.

i cannot wait to see more. justice for walter bob.

[angelynmoon]

Eldritch Steve verse

Part 5

-

She thinks of him from time to time, her child, the one her husband calls a monster, calls it instead of him.

She knows he's not her child, not by birth or blood, no, he's hers by choice, by wishes whispered in the dark of night to the deep woods. She'd prayed to the right god when she was young, prayed and prayed for a child of her own that never came.

Then she turned to other gods, darker gods that had not answered her either.

So, she'd whisper to the darkness, her hopes, her dreams, her wishes. She'd leave offerings at the edge of the treeline and wish.

And for years those wishes went unheard, unanswered.

Until the day she saw the monster, the wisp of shadow and too many eyes, too sharp teeth and danger and looked too long, too deeply, and saw her own desires, her own wishes, only there was a grief too deep to understand, too raw to be seen, and yet, she saw, she felt it in her own heart as year after year passed with no child to call her own.

That first night she ran, the pain and grief echoing in her own heart too much to reach out. Her tears soaked her pillow that night and she could almost imagine an echoing scream from deep in the woods.

But the nights that followed that first night saw her leaving plates of food at the treeline, finger sandwiches with the crusts off and cut in triangles. Sandwiches that lay disected in the mornings, meaty insides eaten while the rest was discarded.

She began cooking roasts again, meatloafs, and meaty casseroles, plates left out at the treeline, hoping to entice the shadow monster closer, hoping that, maybe, if she was kind enough to it, (she hadn't know he was a he then, so it she had called the shadow,) that she might ask it for what she'd asked all the other things, gods, fae, anything that might grant her wish, that it might give her the child she desprately wanted.

She was patient, she waited so long, she could wait until the creature trusted her.

What she never expected was that the creature would become the child she so dearly wished for.

It was strange, those first few weeks, learning what her special child needed, learning to undercook her roasts just enough that neither husband nor child would get sick, learning how to hide her child's unusual quirks from nosy neighbors, teaching her child to come up for air before too many minutes passed when he played in the pool.

No, she had always known what her Steve was, she'd wished for him so much, so badly, that she didn't care he was a monster, didn't care where he came from, what he was, he was hers, her baby, she loved him in ways she didn't think she'd ever be able to love a child of her body, her blood and so, fearing a child of such, she'd removed all possibility of it, her monster would be her only child.

And every now and again, in her hotel room, alone and away from her adulterous husband, she thinks of her child, her monster, if she's feeling lonely enough, she'll call him, and they'll talk for hours until time has her drifting off to sleep, but on nights like this, when she's feeling restless and worried for no reason, she'll wait up, waiting for the inevitable call from her child, he always knows where she is, what the extention is, when her husband is busy with the flavor of the week.

Her husband has not shared her bed since he fled Hawkins with her screaming at him from the backseat where he threw her after seeing what her son really was.

She'd watched her son get smaller and smaller from the back window, trying to break it open to get back, but it hadn't even cracked.

She'd asked Steve later if he'd stopped it from breaking, he'd told her he hadn't wanted her to get hurt.

She hadn't known it was possible to love her little monster any more than she already did until he'd said that tiny sentence after watching her husband drag her kicking and screaming from their home.

She never did forgive her husband for hitting her son, but she knew what had made her son take a chunk out of her husband wasn't that he raised his hand to him, no her Steve would have ignored that like a horse ignores a fly, batting it away but otherwise unbothered by it, no, what had her child reacting was her reaction, was her stepping between her husband and her child and her husband slamming her into the wall hard enough to make her dizzy and hit the floor, her husband hadn't laid a hand on her since, except to get her in their car to flee, blood leaking down his leg, staining the driveway.

It had never washed clean, part of her was glad for that, her husband never retuned to Hawkins to know that, but she had, she had to make sure her monster was doing okay.

But the money was hers, it was her house, her business and she would not disown her child, and she would not divorce her husband like he'd asked, no, it was a far worse punishment to keep him close, to remind him that their child was a monster, that all they were working for would eventually belong to the creature that had had a taste of him.

Oh, she would give him his divorce when she was good and ready to be rid of him, when she had no further use for him at her side, when her child's empire was set in stone and her husband's disappearance after their divorce would go unnoticed but that was not now, no, her husband still had his uses, for the time being.

But for now she sits up sharply as her phone rings, her monster is calling, she wonders if he will tell her more about that Munson boy, wonders if he knows that he's in love with him, wonders if, perhaps she will be a grandmother one day soon.

A mother can hope, can't she.

-

A/n: umm, enjoy.

@addelyin @merricatty @lesbiabrobin @apuckishwit @0o-mushroom-o0 @starlight-archer @darkwitchoferie @just-a-tiny-void @swimmingbirdrunningrock @intergalactic-president-awesome @vampireinthesun @goodolefashionedloverboi @adhdsummer @purpleanimeoverart @space-invading-pigeon @lilaclilyroses @nohomoyesbi @plantzzsandpencilzzs @subversivecynic @flusteredcas @persnicketysquares @freddykicksasses @little-trash-ghost @korixae @cupcakesnwhiskey @cats-ate-all-of-my-pasta

[1-800-iluvhockey]

it's never over - l.hughes

----

2:22 seconds remained on the clock, the third period is headed to the end. heart is racing, nerves and stakes are too high. every michigan fan is on the edge of their seat; they know that their team can do this, y/n knows that luke can do it. holding onto her hand tightly, ellen watches with y/n as luke skates down the ice trying everything he can to block shots.

"cmon, I know you got it in you. michigan magic." y/n whispers, ellen's hand grips tighter when she sees the shot go in, the shot that luke barely missed. now it's 4-2, and only about 1:45 left. a commercial break pauses the game but doesn't break the tension on the ice.

"ellen---" y/n says in almost a whisper as they see luke skate back to the bench, trashcan in hand, head covered. "it's okay, he is doing it because he is nervous, probably didn't drink enough water -- that boy." ellen reassures y/n as she watches her boyfriend struggle through this third period.

"yeah, it is just hard watching it. nothing that I can do but sit here and ---" y/n's voice wavers and ellen brings her closer.

"it's okay honey, you're here and this is what matters. family matters, every hockey player wants their family in the stands to make them proud. luke needs you, he needs us here for him. you sitting here is doing more than enough for him. look." ellen calmed y/n as she got her attention back to the ice.

her boyfriend skates to the faceoff, looking up in the crowd for a split moment to try and find her. she waves, and he nods -- a short and sweet moment, just enough to know that she is there for him and that he knows she is right there when she needs him.

the music signals that the break is ending and the puck is to be in play, and all the emotions are back again.

----

luke knows how this goes, as he has been here before in this exact game spot, the year before. he knows the heartbreak, the struggle, the grief he is going to endure in the next few minutes when he hears that buzzer.

but two things were different this year; it was the end but it was truly the beginning --- because it is never over. y/n's sweet voice plays in his head as he gets ready to face off, he thinks of her singing this song in his car, praising (screaming obnoxiously to the classic rock) of her favorite jeff buckley song --- lover, you should've come over. he imagines her voice saying "it's never over" in his head, as he has done the whole game to keep him going.

in reality, after that buzzer hits -- his time at umich is over; but his hockey career is truly beginning. so yes, the grief and sadness he is probably going to endure after this whistle blows will be one of the hardest things of his life --- but it is different; he has his y/n to lean on. 

----

the whistle blows and the remaining seconds of the period play out; ports is out of the goal, and michigan does everything they can to stop quinnipiac from scoring an empty netter. a player steals the puck back which causes luke to go after him, eddy gets in net ready to play makeshift goalie. y/n's breath hitches as she knows that the quinnipiac player will score as luke hooks him and eddy has an opening.

boom.

5-2 quinnipiac, nail in the metaphorical hockey coffin. a sigh comes from jim as he sees luke talking with the ref, defeated. luke got a penalty for hooking, meaning quinnipiac was on a powerplay for the rest of the game. he looked defeated while entering the penalty box, which caused jim, ellen & y/n to look at each other, knowing how their boy was going to really feel.

"I made a bet with jack that he wouldn't break his stick this year -- let's hope I win." y/n kindheartedly joked as jim laughed. "that penalty might have set him off so I wouldn't be surprised if jack won the bet, y/n."

"I have faith that he won't beat himself up too badly this year, he has a pretty amazing girl to lean on and now a new career start. y/n?" ellen questions at the end, causing y/n to get confused. "yes?"

"you're ready for jersey right?" ellen asked as y/n looks at her like she has grown 3 heads.

"ellen, I am not going with him --- no way." she says questionably. her and luke talked about it but it was never a plan.

"y/n, you two have known each other for years, I know that you guys finally started dating last year -- but I know luke wants you in jersey." ellen tells her as jim agrees.

----

the buzzer goes off which causes the conversation to be dropped as everyone rises out of their seats. half of the arena is full of cheerful quinnipiac and minnesota fans -- while the others are in denial about their seasons ending.

making their way to the locker room, y/n gets a glimpse of dylan, mackie and luke on the ice. defeat, just a look of sadness and shock on their faces. dylan looks and sees y/n in the tunnel, and just shakes his head. y/n reciprocates it but in a more "you did your best" type of head nod.

y/n and some of the families watched from the tunnel as the boys shook hands with each other. the boys led themselves back to the locker room, feeling the pain of the national title slip from their fingers once again. one of the last players off of michigan's side of the ice was indeed, a deflated luke hughes.

----

walking with his head down, helmet in hand --- luke couldn't even see who was waiting for him as he headed to the locker room. he just went to her, he could smell her perfume from a mile away. she opened her arms to her as he buried his neck into her shoulder. he didn't care who saw, he never did. he just cried, letting out the defeat into y/n's shoulder.

"it's never over baby, you still got a whole career left. I am so proud of you." y/n whispered into his neck as he nodded. his arms held her tighter as the shock factor went away. he was done with college hockey.

college hockey brought him some of his best friends/teammates and gave him the courage to finally ask y/n out on a date. without college hockey, he wouldn't be who he was today, and that's why his emotions are even higher than he would have thought.

after a few minutes, he pulled away and got a good look at his girl. his beautiful girlfriend was wearing his favorite maize jersey, looking like a total angel in this moment. she looked like she cried a few minutes ago, giving her the extra glowy effect. he was too lucky to have the best family, girlfriend, and career he could have.

grabbing her hands, he put them on his shoulders. "y/n, will you come with me? to new jersey?" he asked her softly as he watched as her eyes pooled with tears. she turns to look behind her, to find his parents looking at her, ellen nods and then she turns to him.

"always, wherever you go --- I want to come with you. I love you." she says, kissing him softly.

"good, I was hoping you didn't say no." luke says as they walk over to his parents, hand in hand.

he wasn't okay, but he knew that the grief was temporary.

michigan would always be there for him. it is home, well, a home. home was really where y/n was. all he wanted was to be with her and play hockey, but those michigan memories will be with him; those were the forever type of memories. as the university of michigan, yost arena, hockey house, and all of those friends, teammates, and memories were going to last forever. he also couldn't forget about those michigan summers, those summers on the lake with his friends and family are going to be something he can't wait for in the off-season.

forever type of memories.

they would never go away; even if it was over.

[dominicsorel]

Not really one to articulate what I’m thinking the best but I did want to discuss this at base level at the very least because it’s a feeling I’m quite familiar with. I didn’t think as much into it when I was a kid myself. Probably because I felt it was only natural to want the things Sora and Riku did. I wasn’t happy, after all.

Sora and Riku going to the play island to “get away” from their home as far as they can go is REALLY sad...and Riku saying the adults won’t let them go alone until their older hints to me more than just “wishing for independence”. It makes me wonder just WHY they want to be independent at such a young age- not to say it’s uncommon for kids to think this way in general but bare with me and remember what I said at the start.

Like not to say this to me is a red flag that something happened to Sora and Riku that made Riku want to get Sora and him out of there and is part of why Sora is interested in leaving as well but...yeah, it’s exactly that. Why is it that Sora and Riku want to leave their hometown (world, whatever) this badly? Because we know why Kairi wants to stay, why Kairi feels the way she does. Trauma, grief, a need for connection, something to hold onto, something to go back to when things get too scary or hard to deal with. Makes perfect sense!

But what started to seed the desire to leave for the other two of the Destiny Island kids and what made it their very goal at the start of KH1 and what makes them keep choosing to leave it despite any of the nostalgia surrounding it and an idealized wish for simpler and peaceful times?

We see Riku in flashbacks telling Sora that one day they’ll get away from all this and go on real adventures and stop being treated like kids which...strangely now sounds more reassuring rather than some “macho” talk from a little kid. It really sounds like he’s reassuring Sora he’ll get them out of there and then you realize...this is right after the meteor shower promise where he vowed to protect Sora, externally. What do I mean by “externally”?

The thing is we already see Riku in BBS knowing he wants to protect Sora and that he knows he can’t do it best by them both staying there so...what caused things to sprout this way? Why would Riku be so dead set on protecting Sora if there wasn’t something that could actually hurt him? It’s not just loving someone that makes you think stuff like that at such an age, it’s seeing the people you love being hurt. And how else would it make you feel as a child to be utterly incapable of doing a thing about it? Seems like your self-esteem would take a hit, over and over again. Same if you were being hurt or were hurt and couldn’t protect yourself or had to rely on someone else to do it for you. You’d probably try to overcompensate for what you think you’re missing.

Why would Kingdom Hearts spend time establishing healthy (albeit not perfect but practical) connections between these two and adult characters in their life that they only met once they leave the island? Why is Riku’s main adult support Mickey and Minnie rather...rather than his parents? Why is Sora’s main adult support Donald and Goofy rather than his parents? Why do Sora and Riku learn so much more from the adults they meet on their journeys than the ones at “home”. Terra and Aqua gave them hope that they could leave one day and a reached out hand to help make it happen. You can go on about how you think Kingdom Hearts is bad at writing relationships or whatever but it certainly has intention, even if the intention evolves as a series is going- such is the very nature of writing. Things evolve before your very eyes and older things seem different under new lenses.

And be it trauma, abuse, and/or neglect...even if by the end of the series, this isn’t brushed upon as obviously as I put it in favor of focusing on the traumas we’ve gotten to seen happen, I still believe it remains an important part of the overarching narrative and adds another layer to why Sora and Riku wanted to leave in the first place. And it’s part of why I don’t think they’ll live on the Destiny Islands in the end. They own phones now, after all. They can call their parents any time, if they wanted. But I hope they don’t.