#these images have me on the floor howling lmao

[timetravellingshinigami]

Carlisle's the most tired Vampire in existence.

[luveternals]

paring: Konig x rebel male reader. cw: dystopia AU, friends to enemies to implied lovers(? bruh the 1st draft —sneak peak link— is literally gone, I don't know what happened bewteen that and the 2nd one T^T), war, violence and all that stuff, angst (ya, that's the only thing that didn't change lmao). ~ ~ ~

Should you really? Follow the order? Go through with the mission? Make the Empire pay for all it did? 

The longer you wait for someone to give you an answer, the greater your hesitation grows. Because your brothers are dying, your sisters are crying, your family is losing.

It started raining at some point, droplets growing heavier and angrier the further you move down the alley. You were drenched to the bone when you finally realize it, nose assaulted by the stench of wet, filth and death. It was a trap. And they knew. 

They sent you all out anyway. 

You're alone now, the last — the only one —  of the team still standing. You don't know where anyone else is. Your feet drag against the slippery asphalt, body weighted down but the leaking wound stabbing pain down your leg. The end of your gun scratching against the floor as you stumble forward. 

When you raise your head, you find a man looming at the end of the alley, rifle aimed in your direction. His face is hidden, the rain only adding to the mystery of the veil he's wearing. 

You've lost sensation on one arm and the other shakes with effort as you raise your own rifle. 

“Out of my way.”

He's silent as he watches you, grip steady around his weapon, body a large and unmovable obstacle you know you'll never surpass. 

“Outta my way!” you shout and your voice cuts through the howl of the storm raging around you, “either kill me or leave!”

Instead, he relaxes his stance, lowers his gun and, without any hint of hesitation, removes his head gear. 

Despite the lack of protection on his head, the image that presents itself before you is one of a machine built to fight until his heartbeat is forcefully put to a stop. 

It's not that sight that makes you drop to your knees, but the way he drops his shoulders as if to curl into himself. The way he lets everything he's holding fall to the ground, hands raising to show their palms to you. 

It's the perfect replica of that day. Different weather, alley, clothes on your back. But it's the same exact scene, the same exact veil covering his face, the same worried posture dragging his body down and making him seem smaller. The same indecipherable spark shining in his eyes.

“I can't stop now,” you say, voice nothing more than a whisper. You don't know if he heard but don't have the strength to do anything about it. 

He kneels next to you — you don't know when he managed to come close to begin with — and carefully takes your hands in one of his, other hand already opening his medikit.

Your senses are blinded by pain and you hear him mumble something. It sounds like an apology and it sounds strangely familiar too, as if he actually cares that your hurting despite having met you only once before.

Your adrenaline runs out eventually and the last thing you wonder before blackness takes over is if you'll ever meet your Engel again.

-

The sun is hot against the back of your neck, scalding your skin as you scurry your way through the street. You’ve gathered all you could find on your way to the shelter, but when you look at what you're carrying, it feels too little.

It's never enough anyway.

Angel is the only good thing you’ve got left in this world, and this is your offering to him. An apology for the loss and pain the two of you had been put through.

You were blessed with him keeping his bubbly cuteness and innocent mind despite it all. This offering is a gesture of gratitude for him coming into your life. And finally, a desperate request for him to forever be by your side.

You find him sitting on a low wall near the entrance of the building, head bobbing side to side and little feet kicking under him as he hums to himself.

His eyes are bright when they fall on you and his grin is nothing but blinding. Whatever protest you had about him being alone and so in the open dies with a sputter when he throws himself at you, face smushed into your stomach.

“Can I come with next time, pretty please?” his voice is small pressed against your clothes, and when he looks up his eyes are so big and round, and you know it would physically hurt you to say ‘no’.

-

The soldier kneels beside the little girl, massive hands cupping hers so gently, the weapons he's carrying positioned away from her sight. 

She sniffles and he shushes her, bringing her hands up to encourage her to wipe her tears away. He takes out his medical kit and uses it to clean the scrap on her knee. Once he's done with her little injury, he bring a smile to bloom on her face with a gentle pinch on her cheek and sends her on her way.

He must be feeling the intensity of your stare, because when he raises to his feet, he turns your way and meets your eyes. His attention doesn't drop to the knife spinning between your nimble fingers. He simply raises his arms and tilts his head, shoulders hunched forward and weapon forgotten in its holster. 

You don't have to kill him — your objective is to send the nearby base into a bit of a panic — and despite his massive stature he doesn't seem like a threat (not after what he's done for the little girl). But he saw your face. Or rather, he seems fixated by it. There's a look in his gaze that you're not sure how to decipher, his eyes seem brighter than what they've been a second ago. 

You decide to just get out of here and not look back. 

-

This is a route you’ve become quite familiar with. You know how to keep out of the way, how to mind your own business and not get involved, which turns to take to avoid trouble, which alley to stir clear from to avoid danger.

What your years of going through this part of the city taught you was that bringing a child along requires quite a bit of adjusting to keep safe. And he’s a good boy, he knows when to follow directions without complaint. What you didn’t take into consideration was his curiosity peaking at the thought of this new adventure.

You’d looked away for a second. To make sure you were going the right way.

One single second.

-

There's a wet stain on the page, smearing ink and ruining the paper. You've crumpled and smoothed the letter over and over, read the words until you've imprinted them into the forefront of your mind. Still, today they hit differently. Stronger than the first time you've opened the envelope five years prior. 

You've been assigned to your first official mission since you've joined the rebellion. 

There's never been a chance to turn back on your decision. To undo them and remake them so they turn out right. And this won't be the first time you've gone out of your way to cause trouble to the Empire. The first time you'll hurt someone. Willingly or not. 

It will be the first official action you'll take against power. Openly calling out your desire for disobedience. Destruction. Change. 

You can't undo your decisions now whether you want it or not. 

But it doesn't matter because Angel might have betrayed you by leaving for them but you're still doing this for him, aren't you? 

You blink and when you find the letter in your hands, you wipe your face dry with a hand as you pocket it and take your pistol instead, so you can load it. 

-

He's lost his spark. 

He tries to hide it, chubby little face forced into a straining smile. He winces as the expression pulls at his split lip. 

You hold him close to your chest, whitening grip so tight your muscles ache. You don't let go, instead whisper apologies against the crown of his head. 

“Shouldn't have let you come,” you say again and again. “if the guards had cared at all—”

-

“If the guards had cared at all—”

“Again with this?” Angel went through a growth spurt last summer, sending him to stand taller than you now, despite being younger. Still, he sits on your bed with his shoulders hunched over, hands wringing as he stares at you in exasperation as you stomp around the room. “It's not the guards’ fault. They weren't the only people there that day.” he says, “you can't blame everything on the Empire.”

You flinch at the words and spin to glare at him, “what?”

“I—,” he drops his gaze and does his best to avoid meeting your eyes. You see a frown settle on between his eyebrows and your cursing yourself. 

You sit beside him and gently pull him closer so he can hide his face against your shoulder. “I'm not… I could never be mad at you, mein engel. I'm sorry for snapping. It's just— we were just children when they took everything from us.”

He doesn't answer and just turns his head to press it against your neck. You shift and hide your own face against the crown of his head. The angle is awkward and quite uncomfortable and it forces you to realize how he's not a little boy anymore.  

He mumbles something. It sounds like an apology so you shush him. 

The next morning he's gone, a letter with your name on it the only evidence of him left behind. 

~ ~ ~ a/n: this took an exaggerated over-complicated turn lmao I know it's a little twisty so tell me if it's a hit of miss x3 I'll keep the sneak peek as a reminder draft 1 was kinda good too lol disclaimer: as per usual I don't know bananas about cod or the military. sorry... *sweats*

[n3xii]

30 day tarot spread challenge

ok so I have alot of tarot decks that I don't use as often as I'd like, so im gonna go a 30 day tarot/oracle spread challenge to become more familiar with all of my decks- you can do this along with me, at the end of the thirty days I'll compose a post with all the spreads in one place so more people can do it if they want too!

Day 1/30

Spread: ''this is me'' spread by Cat Crawford

decks I'm using: the pulp tarot, spirit ally's oracle deck.

My reading:

card one, the moon: the moon is a very spiritual card to get for ''what my soul is crying out for.'' The moon is all about unconscious desires, intution, instinct- the card itself shows a pair of wolfs holding a telescope and howling at the moon. so I wonder if this is trying to tell me that my soul is litterally crying out for intuitive insight and a deeper connection with subconscious forces? My soul wants me to take a closer, intimate look at what my dreams and subconscious has to say. like how people use the telescope to inspect the moon, the stars, the abstract shapes in the sky, my soul wants me to inspect the craters in my unconscious, to be curious and willing to explore them. My soul is yearning for a more profound relationship with the side of me that's turned away from the light, for the side of the moon that's never lit if you will. this is making me think of shadow work, meditation, dream work.

Card two, seven of swords: This is also a juicy card to get for the question ''what you conscious mind is saying.'' the seven of swords possesses a secretive quality, if this this represents the attitude my conscious mind has towards my soul's desires, then the attitude is very much ''go away, get out of my sight.'' my conscious mind feels the need to dismiss and repress intuitive guidance, and traits of my shadow self. The image on the deck im using shows a woman stashing papers and cash away into a safe, so I feel like this is definitely communicating that on a conscious level, I feel the need to hide and repress aspects of my soul and aspects of my shadow into a safe space that no one can access. my conscious mind wants to deceive and hide, and meanwhile, my soul wants to uncover.

Card three, ten of swords: this card depicts the conflict being created between the souls' desires and the conscious mind's desires. the ten of swords in my deck depicts the aftermath of a crime scene, with the blood staining the floor and the swords on top. The ten of swords itself is about trauma, painful but necessary endings, conflict, crisis. I think this card is trying to tell me that the wounds im creating internally are a result of this rift between my spiritual and conscious mind, the card can be about betrayal, so I literally interpret this as me betraying myself by doing this.

Card four. Lakshmi: this showing up as what will help me with my souls' desires is cool to me. this is one of the Hindu goddesses that I know the most about, I love everything about her LMAO. Shes the goddess of abundance and beauty, and each of her four arms represent different characteristics of her divinity. She represents the energy I need to embody in order to reconnect and fulfill what my soul is yearning to do. The oracle card guidebook focuses on the act of gratitude and seeking abundance from several sources other than monetary ones. I think when it comes to fulfilling my soul's objective, this is a call to be more mindful of how much I really have in terms of family, opportunity and growth, I need to be more appreciative towards my shadow side instead of dismissive of it.

Review of the spread/cards used:

The reading defiantly accurately portrays the tension between my subconscious and conscious mind. I do desire to connect with my shadow side and spiritualty more, but there's a blockage on a conscious level that makes me want to hide and tuck away any potential guidance I could receive. self-reflection is not hard for me to do, but meditation, dream work and going inwards can be difficult for me to do in a spiritual lense. My mind is always on, always analyzing and reacting to whatever junk my subconscious spews, and it makes it difficult to see what the more intuitive side of me has to say. This voice deserves more strength than what it's been allowed to exercise.

I feel like the pulp tarot carries so much opportunity to do deep, spiritual readings than people may realize. The cards perfectly display the retro aesthetic of pulp magazines and art, but they also have so much thought and symbolism to work with in it as well. I chose this deck because I dont use it as much as I thought I would when I got it because so used to using my rider waite deck (probably because it's the first deck i owned,) but im glad I tried this spread with the deck. The spirit ally's oracle is interesting because it has gods, goddess, plants, crystals, zodiac signs so there's alot of readings you can do with deck that can be both practical and spiritual. Anyways, I think tomorrow Im going to do a shadow work tarot spread to stay true to the message I got today!

[howthesleeplesswander]

[ EXTRA ]:    sender hands the receiver a spare weapon during a fight to give them a better chance after they break or lose their own.

from khioniya, for childe. during their own- friendly! -fight. & she's handing him her weapon to carry on trying to beat her ass with lmao.

if this doesn't work for childe pls ignore it!

Things done while sparring/fighting | Accepting!

((hooOOHOOOOO you have NO IDEA how feral childe imMEDIATELY was as soon as this popped up in my inbox asdlfkdj HE'S SO EXCITED TO GET HIS ASS KICKED LETS GOOOOOO 👀👀👀😎))

Long had Childe hungered to challenge the Archon who he so loyally served.

It was a secret desire, easily disguised by insatiable bloodlust towards any and all who dared stand as his opposition. More than that: it was his ultimate goal. The marker by which he would measure his greatest success...or his distance from achieving it.

For what greater strength could he possibly achieve than the almighty Tsaritsa herself? If Childe could defeat her, he would finally earn the right to be called the strongest warrior in all of Teyvat.

And yet, he'd never imagined Her Majesty would agree so easily. Treat it so casually. As they sparred the Abyss howled in every fiber of his being: ravenous and angry.

Was a friendly little spar all she thought of his power? As if this were some triviality, as if he didn't even stand a chance—?

He would prove his might. He would prove it if it left him bloodied, broken, reduced to a canvas of wounds and viscera painting stone floors—

A clattering echo rang through the halls of Zapolyarny Palace: the sound of his Vision skidding across the floor, cleaved from his belt with one elegant strike. Childe barely heard it over the roaring in his veins. Separated from their power source, the twin blades he clutched shuddered and dismantled, water sluicing through his fingers into a puddle at his feet. But the Tsaritsa did not persist. She did not take advantage of the opening to end this like he knew she could. Instead, her red-tinged image vibrated at the cadence of his feral heart as she paused to hand over her weapon.

Howling fury amplified tenfold. Notes of it colored the breathless, near maniacal laugh that poured from a grin filled with teeth.

"Why thank you, Your Majesty—but I'm afraid I can't accept you going easy on me." Purple light spilled from inside his coat and illuminated the animosity in dull eyes. Slowly, a wash of black slithered over his clothes, and in a burst of violet, he brandished the blade of a lightning-forged spear at the most powerful being in the world.

"I'll win this battle with my own strength." There was no hesitation. No fear. Only promise as he leapt back into the fight with wild and gleeful abandon.

[taeyamayang]

Hi! I would like to request something, naturally if you like to do this... I wanted to ask for Atsumu and Osamu hc as toddlers and how they acts with their parents. Thank you

sorry if this took awhile but here ya go!

THE MIYA TWINS AS TODDLERS

ㅡthe twins' quirks and antics as toddlers

✧ fluff! | wholesome | miya twins as toddlers but old enough to speak a few words

✧ purely based on how i perceive them

a/n: it's funny cos they remind me of my nephew and niece so when i saw your req i knew i had to do it lmao. thanks for requesting, anon! @/gen hope y'all enjoy, as i did writing it! thanks for reading :D

i bet before their hairs decided to have a life of their own and part ways

the twins sported a coconut hair or also known as the mop hair

the one that has a straight cut bangs that passes below their eyebrows

and heck you not their parents are always confused which one is which

since there's barely a difference between their identical faces

so osamu being a naughty kid takes this opportunity to turn situations into his favor

like when he messes his drawer and forgets to clean up

and his mother sees what he has done

his mother would come to him and scold him for not cleaning up the mess

and even though he is osamu he'd tell his mother he isn't

"not samu, mama. that samu."

pointing at an innocent sleeping atsumu in the couch

and manages to convince her

so as his mother nods and walks, uttering apologies for mistaking him for his twin

as she walks away a small smirk crawls on his face

you know how common it is for twins to have matching clothes?

atsumu HATES it

he despises it to the point wherein he wears a little scowl on his face, pouting his bottom lip when he sees his twin wearing the same shirt but in a different color

he wants to be different

he doesn't want to look like osamu

tho they're technically identical twins

but when the adults start to woo at how cute they look

little atsumu starts loving it, showing it off with his chin held high in the air

he struts using his small feet with the corners of his lips pulled up

and as the squeals get louder his ego increases

osamu stands in his spot with his short arms to his sides as he shoots him glares when he sees his twin enjoying the attention he gets from being called 'cute'

normally, as kids of the same age they have the same interests

they like the same cartoons, shows, toys, etc.

so when they end up liking the same superhero and there's only one action figure available in the house

oh dear their house turns into a hellhole

IMAGINE THE SCREAMS, THE HAIR PULLING, SCRATCHING, AND PUSHING

heck if i were their mother i would push them back into my uterus

but no, toddler miyas are running around house chasing whoever gets the hero first

and when atsumu manages to snatch it away from osamu

and osamu begins to cry

not cry, more like howl

because it gets increasingly loud as seconds passes by

toddler atsumu would instantly feel guilty

mama told him he's the a few seconds older than osamy so when it comes to looking out for the two of them

he should take the initiative

so what he does is he pats osamu little almost bald head and plants a kiss at the side of his head

thankfully osamu stops only because he's confused of the sudden affection

and their mother, who's late to the chaos, sees atsumu comforting his twin

she coos at them and encourages them to hug each other to end the conflict and be a good brother to each other

and they did

they hug in front of the adult and atsumu whispers to his twin

"no, cry samu."

and when they both release from the embrace and their mother is not within sight

osamu narrows his eyes at his twin before abruptly taking the action figure from atsumu's little grip

"mine."

this time atsumu cries louder than osamu did

but when their eyes catches the same image before them

they both stop,

dropping the action figure on the floor upon they seeinb mother in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room

with a spatula in hand and a face red in frustration and anger

oh no, they know they're in deep trouble.

rbs and likes are very much appreciated, thank you! ♡

Masterlist | HQ Masterlist

[straighttohellbuddy]

World building is the best tbh. I’m forever world building and now I have several worlds to play in and my neurodivergent brain cannot stay still enough to focus on one lmao. SLOWBURN ROMANCES ARE MY LITERAL JAM LIKE PLS!!! I LOVE THEM!! Also!!!! Concepts!!!! Pls share!!!! I love learning about the worlds of my fave fics and I can hands down say right now that this fic will literally shoot to the top of my list of favourites which means you’ll occupy the top three spots. Sorry to hear that ur feeling rough, so am sending u the biggest hug. I’m not okay but I’m taking care of myself today so that I will be 🧡-🐈‍⬛

alsjfsldkjf i have too many worlds TBH, literally one of the best parts of my 2020 was writing for the classic rock fandom and writing one of my good friend’s ocs alongside mine, like there’s so many different worlds that our two characters have now, i’m like 26k deep into a high school au that i need to get back to at some point, and then i wrote a oneshot abt the high school au but they’re adults, and then there’s also the original timeline, and then there’s the present day in the original timeline where they have kids and i probably care too much about people who aren’t real...... hahaha

OKAY OKAY OKAY HERE WE GO I’LL GIVE KIND OF AN OVERVIEW OF THE ALBUMS AND A FEW SONGS BUT IF U WANT ME TO GO IN DEPTH ON ANY OTHER SONG JUST ASK!!!

yes i have a playlist for each, if you wanna hear how i interpret the vibes of the songs. if you interpret them differently, thats awesome!! i’d love to hear y’all’s opinions on them!!

testing one two - the first ep they release, the song titles are mostly themed (fast forward, press play, pause, rewind), but are mostly things y/n has been working on for a while but never got around to finishing, things they are rather proud of. i see you shiver with... is the first song they wrote specifically for the album, and it’s the last song on the EP because it’s a Rocky Horror reference; i see you shiver with...

a n t i c i p a t i o n - first full album!! the vibe is Hopeful But Hesitant it has all the songs from the ep, plus some new ones!! collabs with youtube musicians troye and dodie, and y/n’s label sets up a collab that turns into a genuine friendship. the breakout dance hit is what else is there to say ft. Troye Sivan, which is about not knowing what to make content about when it feels like you’ve already told the world everything. it featured the prechorus and hook

You, know, ev-ery-thing about me / gave it all for free / my life in HD / So, let’s dance, let me see your hips sway / we’re gonna be okay / what else is there to say?

So say that you love me, say that you love me, say that you love me / let’s die hand in hand. / I’ll tell you I love you, tell you I love you, tell you I love you / supply and demand. 

personally, i also conceptually enjoy srs bsns which is a really upbeat song about how they don’t care if people don’t take them seriously because they know in their heart that what they’re doing is good

hyperfocus - 2nd EP, a pretty substantial departure from their usual style, but also happens to quietly be Corpse’s favourite, and is actually y/n’s most polarising, because it has both the Grammy award winning HEARTBURN and the o brother where art thou which was written partially as a joke to capture a fond moment of them and 5SOS dicking around together in a hotel. written while on tour wit 5SOS, im writing the reader as having ADHD (because I have ADHD and i can do what i want), and the backstory is that they’d changed the medication/dosage they were taking, and as it’s their first full tour, they were under a lot of stress and were in a weird place mentally and emotionally, and hyperfocus is the result of that. i’m going through some stuff has HUGE agoraphobic vibes. 

HEARTBURN has the same vibes as Florence + The Machines’ Howl. It’s about being a demon without saying that or directly implying that unless you know demons real well. This is when the pressure for them to confirm their identity got real bad, and it was their way of working through those emotions.

tear in existence in the shape of a person / when i’m seeing clearly i can’t see myself / world can’t swallow what it can’t get it’s teeth into / got everything i wanted but i ain’t got my health

Got heart-burn--- / I’ll tear me apart / I’ll tear you apart / I’ll tear me apart. 

SCREAM gets rereleased as a remixed single featuring Fall Out Boy the following year. It won the MTV music award for best collaboration in 2018. 

In the time between hyperfocus and working on it, Y/N releases several singles, including a cover of Tell Him by The Exciters to be featured in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. They also take time to sort out their health, do a little bit more YT stuff, and travel internationally to do festivals. 

working on it - is kind of a middle ground between their original stuff, and hyperfocus, like pop-punk meets horror-pop meets whatever you’d classify halsey as. the first three songs were mostly written before the fic starts, so before they’re getting back to YT, but the last three, nightmare scenario, designed to hurt (touch me), and not scared were all written after they’d started hanging out with sykkuno and corpse. 

in-universe, imposter syndrome was originally something else, along the same lines of tired that they’re hiding that they’re a demon, but after meeting corpse nd sykkuno and having people who know, and lowkey being influenced by corpse’s music, the song changes directions, and YO OKAY YO::

I literally am so fucking flattered, my darling friend @bingusmode​ wrote lyrics for imposter syndrome and I’ve been yELLING about them ever since i’ve read them!! (also bunnie is fantastic and lovely in general 10/10)

if you thought you saw me 

i’d think about it twice

cuz while i know i’m naughty

everybody thinks i’m nice

cutest giggles get me

places that i long to be

but it’s not long before

everybody hates me

when you figure out i’m fucked up

you’ll probably think that can’t be right

but babe my image runs to save me

cuz i’m ugly day and night

nothing good about me

not the angel that i seem

cuz i’m a piece of shit

and i’ll ruin your fuckin dreams

i’m an impostor babe

you better run for your life

cuz there’s a bloodlust runnin through me

and you’re dripping off my knife

there’s no one here to save you

cuz you ate up all my lies

so beg me while you can

and draft up all your goodbyes 

if any of y’all are inspired by anything i put out, feel free to take it and run!! you have my blessing!! i am so overwhelmingly flattered by people who like my stuff enough to create because of it, directly or indirectly! lyrics, art, songs, anything!! legit! I love you!!

okay so designed to hurt (touch me) has big House of Memories by Panic! At The Disco vibes, and YES it’s about Corpse. YES it sends mixed messages. YES it has greek myth imagery and YES that imagery is confusing. not sure if any of these sets of lyrics actually go after each other but also idk??

will my fall from grace be graceful / as each move i see you make? / propped up on pedestals side by side / beneath our feet they shake / i’m the only one to hear you ask  / “What have they done to me?” / My boy, your wax throne is sun-drenched / you’ll fall in the name of your legacy.

eyes like yours watched rome burn / while hands like mine lit the pyre / we both heard me say we’d go down in flames / now you’re turning me into a liar / since you smile like that, like you can’t feel the sting / and we both know i can’t feel the fire

been telling myself i’m designed to hurt / but, baby, aren’t we a sight? /

check your reflection, your angles, apollo / you’re icarus in the right light /

we’re on the edge, i’m not scared to fall / we’ll take refuge in the night /

been telling yourself you’re designed to hurt / but, baby, doesn’t this feel right?

also, albumtouralbumtour is a reference to Bohemian Rhapsody.

OKAY AND FINALLY

n o s t a l g i a - the album the reader’s working on during the fic.

literally as i was writing this, bunnie sent through some FIRE lyrics for how the light gets in, (@bingusmode) i am going to be thinking about these on REPEAT for the next MONTH BRUV

little bit of darkness, treat me like a toy 

i got my hopes up and got them destroyed

bitter taste of regret sitting heavy on my tongue

can’t believe i let you convince me that you were the one

sitting here in silence, fabric running thin

petals burning in my lungs and stealing oxygen

embers from a cigarette falling to the floor

god i can’t take anymore

so i stumble to the window and pull the shades

and the moon pours in like you threw a grenade

i can’t understand why

i keep trying

cuz i never seem to win

but having any hope is how the light gets in 

from there, moment before impact ft. Billie Eilish is a club anthem along the lines of bad guy or COPYCAT, bass heavy with a drop that’s out of this world.

powdered pain, i’m in your veins / i’m the sting, the drip, the thing / you’re craving, but you hate to see me misbehaving / i heard my breakdown got you high / it’s true, but baby i can’t lie / i never got that rush, that burn / that makes you feel alive, i had to learn / to pick the slippery slope down which i fell / plan my pitstops on the way to hell / to pick my padding before i spiral / so if i break it’ll be in style

watch my misdirect, now freeze, / notice you can’t see the forest for the trees / you’re so desperate for my demise / but baby, i’ll make you watch me rise.

this is the moment before impact

controlled chaos, crash land / take a breath, trust the plan / i know you hope i’m not okay / you get off on my audio misery

controlled chaos, crash land / take a breath, trust the plan / i need you to know i want it this way / my breakdown won me a grammy

and this is the moment before impact

ur my favourite - interlude ft. sykkuno is probably one of my favourites, it’s just really soft, just a snippet of a conversation between the reader and sykkuno, maybe one of them told a joke and they both just sound real happy and sweet. its nice. it’s a nice moment.

means something is also for sykkuno!! it’s about how good-strange it is to be open and honest with friends, and how they usually aren’t but they’re glad they can be open and honest with him!!

meanwhile, i don’t think about u - interlude ft. CORPSE is a phonecall between corpse & the reader right after they announce they’re going to feature on acting like that, where corpse asks if they do this sort of thing to spite him, to which the reader responds ‘do i consider you when i’m making decisions about my career? no, corpse, actually i don’t think about you at all’ which then directly contrasts the song that ends the album, which is (how it feels to be) beautiful fireworks, which is essentially ‘i know how hard it is to exist like this, to be the centre of attention, to give off light and bring people joy, even when you’re in pain. i’m here for you. i love you.’

okay, i swear im done now, i’ll get back to writing the fic! (also i cannot BELIVE i managed to figure out how to embed those playlists but im so happy) edit: it didn’t actually work when i posted the ask, so anyways im sorry but y’all are abt to be spammed with playlists because i care too much abt this fic

[starblaster]

can we see some of them? if that’s ok 🥺

oh, yes! there are a lot of responses, i have to open each person's 'breakdown' of answers to view them all (and at this point i think i would find it impossible to sift through each of them) but just from the past 50 or so, these were some of my favorites:

image description: eight screenshots of results from question 11 of my ghibli girls uquiz, which read as follows (transcriptions following each screenshot):

"the cat returns, i had a small crush on baron when i was younger, but now i watch it whenever i’m sick. The last time i watched it was right after my second vaccine dose, i had such a bad fever and couldn’t really move far without loosing balance. so i hobbled from my bed to my bathroom floor with my laptop and watched it at like 2am, with a towel under my head. it makes me feel emotionally coddled, and being a hypochondriac with a crippling fear of vomit, it was the emotional comfort i needed. lmao, that was grossly sentimental, ew ok anyway."

"The Tale of Princess Kaguya. Severely underrated?"

"Howl's Moving Castle but mostly for the gender"

"Spirited away. DUDE THAT ONE IS SO GOOD. I just love watching it [because] by the end Of it I forget things like chihiro does and [I'm] content again"

"grave of the fireflies......... jk can you imagine????? no probably Kiki's delivery service"

"I love every one of them, but Howl holds a special place in my heart, it was the one i saw in my childhood"

"Probably Spirited Away, that was the first one I watched so it has a lot of nostalgic value for me"

"Howl's moving castle is my comfort movie"

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

family baking time

summary: can you do a reddie x daughter where she has a dream about eddie dying and then they comfort her? like basically how we would want them to comfort us about how our souls were crushed from watching CH2 lmao

The sheets stick to Luna’s body as she desperately tries to escape them, kicking her legs out, the same way a toddler experiencing a tantrum does, dislodging the sheets in the process. The remnants of the nightmare cling to the back of her mind, like clouds obstructing the view of her normal brain, clouding her judgment.

She escapes the muffed room and trades it for the living room, can’t stand to be alone any longer without any conformation that her dad is in fact not dead, but alive and kicking. The hallway is brightened by the distorted images on the television, the volume so low it’s nothing more but a murmuring setting taken advantages off by Richie to focus on his writing process.

Luna can hear the ticking sound his keyboard makes, furious and fast paced, the way he goes when a new idea pops in his head and he has to write it down in that very moment. Under normal circumstances, Luna would find something else to do or wait to interrupt him, finding it difficult and off putting for disrupting his lively hood. Not that Richie minds her intercepting his new materiel, in fact, some material only came to be after Luna gave her input, but she does mind. But the nightmare douses her in an unhealthy amount of adrenaline, and she has to get shake it off, to prove to herself and her traitorous mind, that her dad and pops are fine, and she’s just making things up.

‘Pops’, she whimpers, blocking his sight of the tv, not that he was looking in the first place. Richie peeks up at her, and freezes mid-tap, shoving the laptop off his lap and floundering over to his daughter. He fosters her with his arms, rocking them back and forth. Luna bawls harder, digging the heels of her palms in her eye sockets to will herself to stop.

‘Kiddo, what’s going on?’ Richie asks her panickily, mentally checking over any possible sort of information. She didn’t go to bed upset, and as far as he knew, he’s pretty confident his daughter tells him everything, she didn’t argue or fight with her friend either.

‘Talk to me Lu.’

Luna weeps in hurdle of sobs, shaking her head when it’s obvious she can’t explain with the way she’s acting at the moment. Richie, frightened of the whole ordeal, understands that he cannot do any of this by himself.

‘Eds’, Richie yells at Eddie, sleeping soundly and heedless to the drama unfolding, the name sounds shaky and breathy at first, not nearly loud enough to stir Eddie from his rem stages of sleep, and then Richie bites back his bile and calls out louder. ‘Eddie.’

‘Richie’, Eddie answers, instantly alert even with the bouts of sleep, something he does because he’s not fully sated with the idea that Pennywise will never come back. He scrams in the living room, weaponizing a vase, but leaves it behind when he sees the reason Richie howled at him was because of their daughter.

‘Luna what’s going sweetheart?’

Eddie’s fight or flight is instantly shifted in gear, hands fluttering all over Luna’s body to detect any visible injuries. When he can’t find any, he grabs her a tissue and hands it over to her, so Luna can dab her tears away.

‘Settle down, it’s okay.’ Eddie calms, shooing both Richie and Luna over to sit on the overweening soft carpet. The carpet was Richie’s pick, who specifically searched for something so Luna as a child could amuse herself without having to do it on the unrelenting hard floor. Now a days, it’s mostly used during her sleepovers, or while watching a movie.

 There’s goosebumps all over Luna’s body, and they have nothing to do with the chill that comes sweeping in alongside a cool spring night.

‘Did you have a nightmare, Luns?’ Richie inquires gently, all too familiar with those himself. He recognizes the signs of one in Luna, but unfortunately clueless on how to fix it. Richie’s coping mechanisms are not ones he wants to pass on his daughter.

‘Yeah’, she sobs out, sagging backwards on the carpet so she’s laying flat down, staring up at the ceiling. After a beat of hesitations her dads mirror her position.

‘Oh fuck’, Richie complains mere seconds after upholding the stance, rolling his shoulders to work out the cricks developing in his upper back. ‘I’m too old for this shit.’

‘Since when are you suddenly too old? Yesterday you swore to us you could run a marathon in your sleep.’

Luna giggles, her dad and pops bickering like everything is normal and no one is hurt eases her mind off the edge of a breakdown.

‘I’m glad to understand that my suffering is funny to you young lady’, Richie utters, smiling himself.

‘It’s not’, Luna confesses, because even though Richie was joking, the mere visions of her dad being impaled is vividly being replayed and repeated in front of her very eyes. She blinks against the onslaught of tears and picks at the soft cotton under her to refrain from whipping her eyes again. They’re already burning, and the more she rubs, the more she’ll have trouble with it later.

‘Luna’, Eddie says miserably, taking her hand and holding it between his own, ‘We’re here.’

‘I had a nightmare. And you died dad’, Luna cries, flipping over so she cry in her dad’s t-shirt. ‘I’m sorry. Pops and me came home and the house was so empty because you were never coming back. I looked for you everywhere and expected you to be behind me at every turn but you never were.’

‘Listen to me’, Eddie explains firmly, sitting up and planting his hand on his hips to make himself as fierce as he could, ‘I am never, ever leaving you or your pops alone. Ever’, he says the last word slowly, drawing it out to allow it to sink in Luna’s head. ‘I will always come back to the two of you. Always.’

‘You big ol’ sap,’ Richie waves off, but his voice is slightly trembling despite his best efforts.

The family of three compile in a bear hug, staying there until Richie’s muscles begin protesting and he has no choice but to move positions, leaving the dog pile with a kiss to Eddie’s lips and one on Luna’s temple.

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Her pops asks, shimmying his shoulders, coking his head towards the kitchen.

‘Pops I’m never thinking what you’re thinking. Your mind is a weird place.’

‘Well first off all fuck you, second of all you’re right, and third I’m talking about  midnight baking,’ he swings his arms in the air and bows through his knees, like a child on Christmas.

‘I think it’s a good idea,’ Eddie agrees, struggling to get himself off the carpet and on both feet again.

‘The two of you are really getting old,’ Luna mocks, ‘But yes, midnight baking sounds amazing.’

The apple strudels are slightly burned, and Eddie mutters under his breath that he’s going to have to extend his visit to the gym the whole time, but Luna loves the family space, and is immensely grateful that her dad is still breathing to spend it with them.

[borathae]

↳ The Index [#09 Intoxicated]

Genre: Angst, Fluff, very lowkey Smut

Warnings: Yoongi being a soft bean, alcohol consumption, sexual tension, suggestive content, grinding lmao, dirty talk?

Wordcount: 15k

a/n: Okay soo...this chapter lowkey just happened lmaoao like it wasn’t planned at all, but I wasn’t really happy with how rushed the ending would have been otherwise. So here it is in all its glory lmaooaoa 

Needless to say you try your hardest to avoid Hoseok in the next week to come, something nearly impossible with his daily calls and text messages, asking you about your day or if you wanted to hang out with him again. To your surprise you always manage to find believable excuses as to why you couldn’t hang out with him, the most common used excuse being Yoongi. It wasn’t even a lie, you really did avoid hanging out with Hoseok for Yoongis sake and as frustrating as it was it made you miss Hoseok all the more. Especially if you could hear the disappointment in his voice every time you declined him.

You had just come home from work, tired and emotionally exhausted after having to refuse Hoseok for the nth time this week, when suddenly your doorbell rang. You stare at your closed front door for a moment, scared that if you’d opened it, Hoseok might be standing in front of you. But still you stand up from the couch and walk to the door to open it with halted breath.

The sight of Yoongi standing in front of you, his hands in the pockets of his jeans and his behind leaned against the metal railing, calms down your racing heart. You let out the breath, which you had been holding in, before smiling brightly. This is exactly what you needed right now.

"Hey baby", Yoongi greets you. A black mask is covering his face and his eyes sparkle excitedly from behind his dark fringe. He is shivering slightly, a loose white button-up shirt and black skinny jeans the only thing he is wearing, despite the cold wind howling tonight.

"Baby are you insane? Why are walking around without a jacket on?", you gasp. You take his hand, it is as cold as ice to your touch, and pull him into the apartment, throwing the door closed afterwards.

Yoongi chuckles lowly before he wraps his arms tightly around your body, pressing you face first into his chest.

"So I can have an excuse to cuddle you", he whispers, resting his chin on your shoulder.

You sigh defeated, shaking your head.

"I would have hugged you anyways. There is no need to risk your health like that Min Yoongi", you mumble, your voice resembling that of scolding.

Yoongi’s arms tighten, squeezing you.

"Don't be mad please I promise not to do it again", he whines, planting soft kisses to your shoulder and neck.

His lips are as cold as his fingers, forming goose bumps on your skin and leaving you shivering. Despite that, your eyes flutter closed, your lips parting slightly. It excites you, not sexually, no, you can feel your heartbeat quicken in your chest and immense happiness flood your system. Yoongi hadn't kissed you like that in what feels like forever. You had missed it. Had missed his soft lips on your skin, had missed the way his breath tickles you all so slightly and had missed the way the tip of his button nose brushes over your neck when he is nuzzling his face into it.

"Are you mad at me?" Yoongi asks with a small voice laced with insecurity.

Your eyes open, your eyebrows furrowing. Why would he think that? He isn’t normally like that.

"No baby, no of course not. I'm just worried for you that's all", you say, shaking your head furiously.

"Good, that's good", he sighs before stepping back to look at you. He is blushing, either from the cold or his nerves you don't know exactly. "You are probably asking yourself what I am doing here on a Wednesday night, but I missed you and I didn't want to sleep alone tonight", he says, lowering his head to stare at his feet.

You smile. He is cute like that. All shy and giddy, and soft.

"I can of course leave if you don't want me here. I totally understand", he suddenly blurts out.

Your smile drops, and so does your heart. Why does he think you would want him gone? He raises his head to look at you. His eyes race between yours, his tongue darting out ever so often to wet his lips. Why does he think you want him gone, when all you are trying to do is get back to where you two had been before Hoseok came crashing back into your life? He clears his throat, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

"Why do you think I want you to leave?" you ask, raising your left eyebrow.

Yoongi shrugs his shoulders, looking away, now staring at one of your house plants.

"I don't know maybe you just wanted to have some alone time or something", he mumbles.

"Baby", you breathe, "why would I want alone time when I can fall asleep in your arms?" you say, closing the distance between the two of you and cupping both of his cheeks in your hands, "there is nothing better on a stormy Wednesday evening than to spend my time with you", you add, before leaning forward to kiss the tip of his nose softly.

His shoulders raise up automatically at your gesture, a shy giggle leaving his lips and his cheeks becoming a bright pink.

"Really?" he murmurs shyly.

"Yes really", you assure him, pressing another kiss to his nose.

It still feels cold to your touch. Yoongi must be perished.

"Baby are you still cold? Your skin is still freezing", you say, brushing your fingers over his cool skin.

"Maybe a little. I had to walk quite a bit because I missed the bus stop and then had to walk down all the way from the next one", he whines with a pout in his lips.

"Do you want me to run you a bath? Or I can make you some hot tea if you want to", you suggest, pointing to your kitchen.

"The bath sounds great. But I don't want you to work so much for me, so I'll choose the tea please", he says, nervously fumbling with the hems of his sleeves.

"Are sure you don't want the bath? All bubbly and hot and with me giving you a massage just how I know you like it?"

Yoongi lowers his head. He scratches his cheek before looking up again.

"Okay maybe I would like the bath instead of the tea", he confesses shyly. He is excited, you can see it in the way his eyes light up.

"Awesome. I'll get the bath ready", you squeal, clapping your hands together excitedly, "you can make some tea in the meantime", you say, already storming off into the bathroom.

"I will", you hear Yoongi call after you before the door falls into its lock.

This is your chance. Your chance in showing Yoongi how much he still means to you. Tonight is all about him. You want to make him happy so the insecurities that apparently still dance around in his head get washed away. There is nothing to be insecure about. He is yours and you are his. You just have to remind the both of you of that fact.

Once the tub is filled and the bubbles are tall enough you step out of the bathroom. Yoongi is sitting on your couch, a mug of tea in his hands and one of your fuzzy blankets thrown over his body. He didn't notice you coming out of the bathroom, too invested in staring at the picture frames on your wall. You watch him for a moment, burning the image into your memory. It's him you should remember, no one else.

"Ah shit that's hot", Yoongi suddenly whines, quickly snapping his head back from the mug. He darts his tongue out, trying to cool it down. The picture is enough to crack you up. Yoongi jumps slightly, turning his head into your direction.

"I just burned my tongue", he whines with his tongue still sticking out of his mouth.

"Poor baby do you need some ice?" you say, still laughing softly.

Yoongi retreats his tongue, now looking at you with a big pout on his face.

"Are you making fun of me?" he growls, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"I mean, you did look quite funny right now", you say, shrugging your shoulders.

Yoongi rolls his eyes before standing up and walking to you.

"Whatever. Just wait until you burn your tongue and then I want to see your face when I laugh at you like a meany", he says, squishing your cheeks between two of his fingers.

"Don't, Yoongi don't squish my cheeks like that", you whine, gently hitting his hand so he would let go of your face.

He chuckles, pulling you closer to his face before pressing a quick kiss to your lips.

"You look so cute like that I can't help it", he mumbles against your lips, before kissing you again. It is longer than the first one, but still soft and before you can deepen the kiss and pull him closer he breaks away, letting go of your cheeks in the process. He clears his throat awkwardly, avoiding eye contact, as if he is ashamed of his urges to kiss you.

"Let's go take a bath now", he changes the topic and puts his hand on the small of your back, leading you into the bathroom.

He stops in his tracks when he sees the tall tower of bath bubbles in front of him. He gasps, letting his mouth fall open.

“This is the biggest bubble mountain I have ever seen”, he breathes.

He turns to you, smiling so much his cheeks buff out.

“Do you like it?”

He nods.

“I love it”, as if someone had pushed a button he suddenly fidgets around excitedly, all whilst giggling cutely. “This is so exciting right now. I haven’t had a bubble bath in ages”, his shirt is pulled over his head unbuttoned, exposing his cute torso. “I am so ready, this is the best thing ever”, his jeans fall to the floor, leaving him in nothing more than his grey boxers.

He stops, turning to you with a shy look on his face.

“Do you want me to turn around?” you ask when you sense his insecurity.

“Would it be weird of me to say yes?” he looks to the ground, “I’m sorry if this offends you, please don’t, don’t be mad at me.”

You sigh. He is still unsure. It hurts you seeing him like that. What have you done to him? This is your fault. His head snaps up at your sigh. He looks so scared and small right now, it pulls on your heartstrings threatening to shred them to pieces. You turn your frown into a reassuring smile. You shake your head.

“Whatever makes you comfortable baby”, you tell him before turning around.

You can hear him let out a breath of relieve. Silence follows for a few seconds before you can hear the sound of water splashing. He sighs happily.

“You can turn around again.”

You turn around, still smiling brightly. He has his head resting against the edge of the bathtub, his eyes are watching you and he smiling at you sheepishly.

“You look happy, I assume you like the temperature?”

He nods, sighing to show you just how much likes it.

“It’s perfect, I can already feel my whole body thawing.”

You snort.

“I’m happy, that’s what I wanted”, you walk to the bathtub, “do you want me to give you a massage now or do you want to be alone for a bit?”

He looks at you with big puppy eyes, licking over his lips.

“No stay with me please”, he licks over his lips again, “and can you touch me? I love your head massages the most”, his eyes sparkle, his cheeks glowing pink.

You smile. He looks so cute right now.

“Of course”, you say, sitting down on the stool next to the bathtub.

Yoongi sits up slightly, scooting back so it would be easier for you to touch his head. Is it normal that you feel so excited right now? Your heart is practically racing in your chest right now, your cheeks burning. Your fingers hover over his dark locks for a moment before they finally sink down. Your lips twitch up into a smile. His hair is so soft that your fingers are gliding through it with ease. After a minute of just combing through his locks, you finally put pressure to your touch, now gently scratching your fingernails over his scalp. Yoongis eyes flutter shut, his lips twitching up. He hums.

“That feels nice baby”, he breathes.

His words encourage you to keep moving your fingers the way you are doing right now. Soon Yoongis smiling lips part, complete relaxation written all over his features. He looks so peaceful right now, and beautiful. So beautiful you just have to lean down and press a ki-. Your phone ringing all of a sudden, stops all of your movements. Your stomach twists in fear.

Yoongis eyes open halfway.

“I nearly fell asleep, the damn phone woke me up”, he whines pouting.

“I’m sorry I forgot to put it on mute. It’s probably just someone from work, let’s ignore it.”

You continue the movements of your fingers. How long is this phone going to ring?

“What if it is important? I mean normally no one calls you from work at this hour.”

Your phone falls silent. Thank god.

“It’s probably our new intern Dahyun. I got the honorable task of teaching her everything she needs to know and let’s just say, it’s a lot”, you tell him. It’s not even a lie. You did have a new intern, who follows you around like a lost puppy without its mother.

Yoongi hums in acknowledgement.

“Wow congrats princess. This is so great, having your own intern to teach means that your boss trusts you a lot. I am so proud of you, you deserve his trust you are working so hard”, he says with a big smile on his face.

“Okay wow I never thought of it that way. I always silently cursed my boss for making me babysit an 18-year old.”

He snorts.

“That’s so typical of you.”

“What?” you gasp offended, “Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

You gently shake his head. He grins sheepishly.

“It’s just that you tent to see the negative instead of the positive side of things. And you know I-“

He gets interrupted by your phone ringing once again. Did it get louder or is that just the panic setting in?

“Okay she is insistent. Do you really not want to pick up?”

You look to your phone on the sink counter. The glowing screen illuminates the white wall blue. You know it’s not Dahyun, she is at her parent’s house for today as it is her father’s birthday; so she told you on Monday. She wouldn’t call you on her free day. It’s him. The man you are trying to get out of your system so badly. You probably should just let it ring and keep the peace. You made it your goal to give Yoongi your full attention tonight.

The phone stops again, but before you can relax, it starts ringing again. You sigh, so does Yoongi.

“Okay you know what? I am going to kill whoever is calling”, you spit, jumping up from the stool and running to the phone.

Jung Hoseok

Shit. This is not good, just like you had feared. You won't pick. No, he can call as often as he wants to. But then. What if he doesn't stop calling? And Yoongi starts to get suspicious? Maybe you should pick up. And tell him to leave you in peace tonight. Yes, that's a good idea. All will be fine after that.

“Just pick up, it’s okay baby I’ll play with the bubbles in the meantime”, Yoongi tells you with a reassuring smile on his lips.

You glance between your phone and Yoongi. He nods. Fine let’s get it over with.

“I’ll make it quick.”

And with that you rush out of the bathroom, throwing the door closed behind you.

"Hello?" you say quietly, so Yoongi wouldn't be able to hear you

"Wow you picked up, hey."

You scoff.

"Hey. Listen Hoseok, now is not a good time to talk."

Hoseok gasps, as if shocked.

"Did I interrupt a meeting or something? Oh my god I'm so sorry"

"What? No I'm not in a meeting I'm just-"

He sighs loudly before cutting you off without even noticing.

"Thank god. I thought I was being rude. Now that I know you aren't at work anymore can I maybe come over?"

Your stomach clenches at his suggestion. Why did you feel excited for a second?

"I bought some of the walnut pastries you love so much, I know they aren't from the actual bakery but they still taste good. I know it because I tried one."

You chuckle. This was cute. What? No. Stop that. You sit down on the sofa, it has gotten far too uncomfortable to stand.

"And we could watch a movie, I borrowed a DVD, I mean three to be exact because I didn't know what you would want to watch. But don’t worry all of them are from your favorites list."

He wrote a list of your favorite movies? He really needs to stop being so endearing right now.

"It's 2019. Hobi who on earth still owns a DVD player?"

You don’t know why you are trying to keep the conversation going. You should have just told him that you are with Yoongi tonight, now was the perfect time for it.

"I know you do."

Silence.

"Come on Y/N you can’t tell me that you will ever throw your grandpa's DVD player away."

You scoff. He is right. Your grandpa’s DVD player is one of your greatest treasures, it reminds you of the good times you had with him before he died.

"No need to call me out like that."

He chuckles. It makes you smile as well.

"So is that a yes? Can I come over and have this lovely movie date with you?"

Your smile drops. Pain. Your chest aches.

"No sorry I can't."

Silence. He takes a breath. So do you.

"What? Why? But I miss you, and I'm so lonely. I want to hold you", he sounds so sad.

Why is he so honest with his emotions lately? He wasn’t like that before (something that drove you crazy).

“Please Y/N I want to see you again and kiss you. I miss you”, he pleads.

You close your eyes. You won't let his voice affect you like that. You will not cry. Not right now, not when Yoongi is in the room next door.

"I'm with Yoongi tonight."

He takes another breath. Did your ears deceive you or did it sound shaky?

"I understand", he takes a loud breath, "it's okay. I'll just do something else instead. Go and have fun, you deserve it."

He sounded so heartbroken. You hum and nod your head, despite knowing that he can't see you.

"You too. I'll see you by-"

"Wait Y/N!"

Your breath hitches.

"Yes?" you whisper.

"Are you free on Friday? The deadline for the DVDs is Sunday."

You sigh. It really hurts.

"I can't. I'm going out with Jungkook and Seokjin."

"Oh."

Silence. You are holding your breath, waiting for him to say something.

"Where to?"

"Oh well, you know luna's for good old time’s sake."

"Oh, nice. Oh well, have fun. I'll see you sometime. Bye bye."

And with that the line cuts off.

As if the world is moving in slow motion you move your phone away from your ear and put it onto your coffee table. You stare at it, the screen is dirty from being pressed up against your cheek. Is it taunting you? Taunting your bad decision making, which inevitably made your heart ache for Hoseok once again?

You blink away the tears prickling in the corner of your eyes and let your head fall forwards into the sweaty palms of your hands. Hoseok isn’t supposed to be so open with his feelings. He wasn’t like that before. He never told you how he really felt, not after the first time you asked him at least, nor the second, let alone the third time. It had driven you so mad, that you just couldn’t see him be your husband when he asked you that one faithful night. You had known that you loved him and that you would do anything to be with him forever, but still you had left that night. Maybe you wouldn’t have left, if you had only turned around and seen Hoseok drop to the floor, with his hands clenched to his aching chest and tears streaming down his contorted face.

You sigh at the memory of walking away from him that night. You hate it so much, always being pulled between your lost love and your fiancé. It really annoys you actually.

A warm hand places itself on your shaking thigh. It gives you a gentle squeeze, making you look up.

Yoongi is sitting next to you, his lower body draped in a soft towel and his damp hair slicked out of his face. Worry glistens in his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed together.

“Are you okay baby?” he asks quietly, gently stroking his thumb up and down your inner thigh.

You nod and force a smile to your face. He raises one of his eyebrows.

“Then why are you crying?”

You do? You didn’t even notice it before. You raise your hand and tap your cheeks with it. It’s true. You really are crying. You weren’t supposed to. What will Yoongi think, it’s not normal for someone to cry after supposedly talking to your intern on the phone.

“I don’t know, I’m just so, so I don’t know, so angry with Dahyun. She, I don’t know she really-“, he is staring into your eyes, intently listening to you. You know he doesn’t mean it in a judging or even mistrusting way. It’s just him being the good and intense listener he always is. Still you have to look away today, the lie tasting terribly bitter on your tongue, “-she really breaks my last nerves with her constant unnecessary questions.”

Yoongi hums in understanding, scooting closer to you. The hand, which was previously lovingly holding your thigh, comes to rest on the side of your head now. He gently pushes your head down, so you would be able to rest it on his shoulder. New tears shoot to your eyes at his gesture, and you have to close them in order not to let them stream down your burning cheeks.

“I am so proud of you princess for handling her for such a long time now. I know how annoying new employees can be, especially if you are the one having to teach them everything. And you handled the situation so well up until now.”

He presses a kiss to the crown of your head, burying the tip of his nose into your hair afterwards.

“It’s okay to one day have enough and just let the stress pour from your system. I am here for you baby to hold you and listen to you. Just let it all out”, another kiss to your head, softer than before, “If you need to cry, then cry. If you need to yell out your anger and throw insults at Dahyun, then please do that. And if you want to be alone right now, I can leave. I really mean it, I am here to carry this burden with you.”

You have been crying the whole time he was talking. He was so sweet, so absolutely caring and understanding about a situation which was nothing but a blatant lie, that it broke your heart. A painful sob leaves your trembling lips and you can feel Yoongi arm around your body tighten.

“I love you very much Y/N. You are so amazing and strong”, he whispers between tender kisses.

“I, I, I love you too”, you hiccup and deep down in your heart you know that it is true.

You really do love the man in front of you, with 99.9 percent of your fibers you adore this loveable dork, who is holding you so gently that one could believe he thinks you would break if he squeezed you too hard. And exactly because of that, you hate how much the 0.01 percent of your body yearns for Hoseok.

The rest of your week is filled with nothing but work and your daily lunch dates with Yoongi. Your phone stays silent (if one doesn’t count in the sweet morning texts from Yoongi and the countless panicky calls from Dahyun). Hoseok however never calls you, nor does he text you. Did he finally give up on getting you to hang out with him? You can’t say that you are entirely happy about it. The realization that your plan on making him give up on you for Yoongis sake may have worked, leaves you with a painful pressure in your stomach and with an invisible hand crushing your heart in your chest.

Thankfully Friday comes soon, and with it the anticipation of finally going out with Seokjin and Jungkook (Yoongi refused to come with you, even after you had pouted at him for at least five minutes) and drowning your sorrows in alcohol.

Ten minutes after nine, only one minutes too late, Jungkook calls you to tell you that they are in front of your apartment in an Uber, which would drive you to the club on the opposite side of Han River.

The club didn’t change much from how you remembered it. The walls are still black with white, suspicious stains all over them. It spreads over two floors which were connected by two metal stairs on each side. The right side was darker than the left side, the one closer to the three of you, being shielded off from the bright lights by a broad pillar. You can make out a group of young men, six if you counted correctly, hiding in the shadows. Eventhough they are probably nothing but harmless, you feel uneasy walking past them, even with Seokjin and Jungkook next to you. You wrap your hand around Seokjins arm, gently pushing him closer to the left staircase.

“Let's go dance a bit”, you yell over the loud house music, looking between Seokjin and Jungkook.

“Sounds like fun”, Jungkook agrees with a nod of his head before grabbing your hand, which isn't holding onto Seokjins arm.

He leads the both of you down the stairs, budging quite a few people into their backs with his elbow, all to their displeasure, which they show all to eagerly with furrowed brows and curses thrown at your heads.

Once downstairs the crowd gets less, having more space to spread out, which doesn't make the stifling heat any easier to bear. Without giving you a chance to take a look around and scan for a spot in the crowd, where you wouldn't get sweaty limps pressed into your body any other second, Jungkooks drags you onto the dance floor right to where the crowd is the tensest.

“The DJ that's playing right now is just the opening act”, Jungkook yells terribly close to your ear. It makes your ear sting and you move your head back a bit. Jungkook doesn't seem to notice, continuing his loud screaming, “the real shit starts in like an hour”, he is closer again, holding you still by the back of your head, “you are gonna love it”, he is even louder than before.

“That's great Kook”, you yell, sending him a smile and stepping back so he wouldn't be able to continue yelling into your ear.

“Right”, you see Jungkooks mouth form, the music is far too loud now for you to hear anything.

Suddenly a hand that obviously isn't Jungkooks, as he has both of his at his sides, comes resting on your lower back. Your body tenses up, your fight reflexes setting in. You snap around, ready to tell the groper off, only to be met with Seokjin waving two glasses of orange liquid in front of your face. With the knowledge that it was no other than your friend touching you, your body relaxes and you accept the drink with a lopsided smile and a quick nod of your head.

“Malibu Orange, just like old times”, Seokjin yells with a hint of nostalgia glistening in his eyes.

“Didn't have this in ages”, you recall, sighing loudly.

It was your sophomore year of college at one of Seokjins house parties when you had it the last time. Seokjins parties were famous campus wide and even from neighboring universities people came over to see one of them for themselves. You and Hoseok had arrived with Namjoon and his girlfriend at that time three hours into the party. By then most of the people had either left already, having already seen enough escapades for a night, and the other half was too intoxicated to get into your way. 

Truthfully speaking you and Hoseok had always hated parties, well, Seokjin's parties to be exact. They were far too crowded for you and truthfully speaking far too alcohol-filled for you. Of course you could have stayed at home and watched a movie instead. But it was Seokjin, who we are talking about, and Seokjin knew you wouldn't be able to say no to him, not when all he had to do was whine loudly enough until the both of you agreed to come just so he would finally shut up. 

Just like most of the nights Namjoon and his girlfriend soon had disappeared into one of the unoccupied rooms and Seokjin had come over for nothing more than ten minutes before someone else had called his attention. Just like always he had left right after, but not before he had pressed both you and Hoseok one of his famous “tropical juicegasms” (nothing more than Malibu Orange so he would later confess) into your hands. Just like always it had tasted far too sweet and just like always the both of you had clicked your glasses, had looked into each other’s eyes before you had shot gunned the strong drink. Hoseok had sighed loudly after finishing his and had put both his’ and your empty glass onto the next best table. He had taken his baseball cap off his head to fix his dark locks and then had put it back on, now revealing his forehead. He had taken your hand and led you to the dance floor in the big cellar, it was crowded and hot, enough to set a dark desire to devour your boyfriend aflame inside of you. He had wrapped his arms around your waist and had pulled you close enough you could actually feel his heartbeat against your chest. It had been a slow song playing at the moment, some sort of cheesy love ballad from the early nineties, but it had been perfectly enough for you. And just for you apparently. Hoseok had looked terribly pale all of a sudden, sadness had glistened in his eyes before he had sighed loudly.

“I know I promised you to stay but I'll be going to America for a whole semester”, he then had confessed and ever since that day you had hated the taste of Malibu Orange.

“I thought you hated the taste of Malibu Orange. I didn't think I could convince you to drink it again let alone shotgun five glasses in the span of the past two hours”, Seokjin says, shaking his head in disbelief.

You look up from where you are sitting on the curbstone and shrug your shoulders.

“I guess my taste buds changed”, you mumble.

Seokjin squads down next to you before letting his ass fall to the ground with a loud groan, which sounds more like it could come from an old man rather than from a healthy, young man in his twenties.

“You literally refused to drink it. You once even straight up left me hanging at a club just because I accidentally gave you Malibu Orange. And all of a sudden your taste buds changed?”

You scoff and shrug your shoulders.

“I don't know why you are making such a big deal out of it”, you mumble.

Seokjin inspects your face for a moment. He leans back on his hands before snapping forward to stare at you with big eyes.

“It's because of Hoseok isn't it?” he asks, nudging his elbow into your side.

Your head snaps into his direction, guilt is written all over your features before you get enough hold of yourself to change it to confusion. Seokjin still had caught it however.

“How the hell did you think of such a ridiculous claim?” you ask, laughing nervously afterwards.

Seokjin raises one of his eyebrows.

“I don't know maybe because you literally hated Malibu Orange because you always associated it with the near end of your relationship with him back in college. Or maybe because you literally reek of guilt right now.”

You clear your throat, which had felt terribly tight all of a sudden.

“It's the sweat you can smell. It's too hot inside”, you state calmly.

“Alright I mean if you insist”, Seokjin mumbles turning his head to face the street in front of you, “so I guess you wouldn't mind if I told you that I can literally see Hoseok walk up to us right now to your left”, he states nodding into the direction.

You instantly jump up, brushing over your dress to get rid of any stains and comb through your damp hair afterwards. You look up with a small smile on your lips ready to greet Hoseok. However the street is empty, save for an orange-colored stray cat searching for something eatable fifty feet down the road from you.

“Did you just-?” you growl and turn around to send Seokjin a death glare, only to shut up instantly. A triumphant smile is plastered on his face, his eyes looking you up and down judgingly.

“You still want to deny it?” he asks, raising his right eyebrow.

You sigh, sitting down next to him, and hide your face in the palms of your hands in defeat.

“So when did you sleep with him again? Or should I say how often?”

You look up, staring at the passing cars, too scared to actually look at his face. Your heart races in your chest and breathing gets harder with every second passed in silence.

“I, I didn't”, you swallow, “-didn't sleep with him again. It, it was a onetime thing, a mistake. Not, not something planned.”

“Sure you didn't”

“Listen Seokjin I don't need you judging and scolding me right now. I know myself how fucking wrong of me it is to constantly crave another man when lying in the arms of another. I know how fucking wrong and selfish it is of me to not want to let go of Yoongi because he makes me smile and makes me feel accepted. And I know how fucking wrong it is to want Hoseok back because he makes me happy and I feel at home with him. So keep your sharp words I don't need any more of them”, you spit. The alcohol had made you brave.

Seokjin stares at you big-eyed and with his mouth hanging wide open.

“Jeez woman you are worse off than I had thought”

“Aren't I? And the worst part is that I can't stop crawling back to Hoseok like a woman possessed, I would probably jump into his arm if he came tonight. That’s how fucked up I am. I saw how fucking hurt Yoongi was and I do it again. Again I break his trust and the worst part is that I didn't even feel guilty in the moment, nor afterwards. Only when I sat on Yoongis lap and he played me a song he wrote for me. Am I really that heartless that I can easily give Hoseok my everything without once pitying Yoongi?”

You stare into Seokjins eyes, expecting an answer. He licks over his lips before exhaling loudly, his eyes big.

“Jesus fucking christ Y/N that's like a lot of new information you just told me”, Seokjin gasps, clasping his hand over his o-shaped mouth.

You sigh, letting your head fall forwards so you can hide it in the palms of your hands.

“You are going to be angry with me again aren't you?” you whisper, putting pressure to your eyes so they wouldn't tear up.

Seokjin laughs. It confuses you, making you raise your head to look at him. He is shaking his head.

“I was never angry at you. Just disappointed.”

You scoff.

“Oh and that's better?”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“At least I'm not ignoring you.”

“Ouch.”

“Sorry-” he lowers his head “-I didn't mean to twist the knife.”

“It's okay. I probably deserved that”

“I don't think anyone deserves to hear what Joon threw at your head. It wasn't his business to begin with and he didn't have the right to snap at you like that”, he wraps his arm around your shoulder and pulls you closer, “I mean it was still cheating and borderline not okay from you especially now that I know about your continuous infidelity. Something we still need to have a chat about by the way when we are both sober, but Joon really was too harsh.”

“How do you even know about what Namjoon said to me?”

“He told me and thought he would find an accomplice in me. But I'm my own person and I decided not to hate you for something that has nothing to do with me”

“Thanks Jinnie it's refreshing to hear that”, you take a deep breath to stop yourself from crying.

“No need to thank me. You are my friend and even though both Yoongi and Hoseok are my friends too and I don't want to see either in pain, I still have no right to be angry with you.”

You smile weakly.

“You really did evolve a lot didn't you? I can still remember when you cut off all contact with one of your friends from theater because he didn't sell you his old car even though he promised you to”, you laugh slightly at the memory.

Seokjin scoffs, lowering his head.

“I was young back then, a child trapped in a man's body who thought he can pretend to be an adult. But look at me now, fully evolved into this handsome, wise man”, he points at his face, smirking.

You fake gag, rolling your eyes afterwards.

“Should I call you Mozzarella from now because of how cheesy that was?”

“I prefer Seok-Jindi Brie but whatever suits your taste buds”, he says, cracking up at his own joke afterwards, laughing hysterically.

“I freaking hate you for making me laugh at that”, you say whilst laughing out loud.

“You're welcome”, he scoffs, squeezing your shoulder. He looks at you, now a serious expression on his face, “but in all seriousness you can always come to me and tell me everything. I would never judge you, hell why should I? I made far worse mistakes in my life than you did”, he sends you an honest smile.

Warmth fills your chest and you look down for a moment to blink away the tears burning at the corner of your eyes. You raise your head and suddenly being overfilled with unconditional love for your friend you lean forward and press a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“I really love you Jinnie, do you know that?”

Seokjin chuckles, gently brushing his fingers up and down your arm.

“I love you too Y/N”, he says, rubbing the tip of his nose against your cheek. "Everything is going to be alright, I promise", he leans back and gently pads your arm, "come now, let's go inside again and find Jungkook before he gets all panicky and causes a fit", he says, standing up.

He offers you his hand to take, pulling you up with one swift movement once you had accepted it. The sudden change of position and all of your blood flowing to your legs (and maybe the alcohol finally showing its effect) makes your head spin for a moment. You clutch Seokjins hand, letting him do most of your walking back to the club.

With the clock nearly striking three in the morning the air in the club feels even hotter than it did when you and Seokjin went out for some air. Thick cigarette smoke hangs in the air, making breathing harder. The lights had become darker once the actual act of tonight started to play, now both staircases lay hidden in darkness. It is hard walking down, with your eyes seeing nothing but a stray strand of Seokjins hair popping up and down with every step he takes, as well as with your feet feeling wobbly from the alcohol coursing through your veins. Thankfully with Seokjins hand still holding onto yours tightly and the sticky metal railing to hold on to, you soon arrive safely on the dance floor.

"Can you see Kook somewhere?" you yell, getting on your tippy toes to scan your eyes over the tense crowd.

"Probably next to the speakers", Seokjin yells equally as loud, pointing to the story-high speakers next to the raised stage.

"Let's check", you say, taking the lead, pulling Seokjin with you through the crowd.

You ignore the ownerless hands groping at your body and the occasional invitation to fuck and press through, soon arriving at the front. A cloud of white smoke ascends from a small hole on the ground in front of you, making seeing impossible for the next minute. You squint your eyes, hoping that it would help you see better. It does and you soon spot Jungkook dancing to the music next to the speakers to your right.

"Found him", you yell, pointing at him.

Seokjin smiles triumphantly before both of you walk to your dancing friend. He has his eyes closed, enjoying the music to the fullest. However he opens them when you are next to him, as if he had sensed your presence. He nods his head at you, smiling.

"Got enough air?" he asks, not once stopping the movement of his hips.

You nod.

"The cold air made the alcohol work though. My head spins."

Jungkook stops his movements and leans closer to you.

"What?" he yells.

You bring your mouth close to his ear and press a finger to his ear. A trick Hoseok had taught you, which would make speaking easier in loud environments.  

"I'm wasted, I feel dizzy", you speak with a normal voice and Jungkook nods.

"Need to throw up?" he asks, mirroring your movements, instantly having caught the trick.

"Not yet, I just need to dance a bit."

And with that Jungkook moves back and starts dancing again. The DJ had started to play some of his faster songs when Seokjin and you were outside for some air. The ecstatic sounds of low bassy drums mix with the fast rhythm of the high-heads and a melodic bass plays over the high-paced rhythm. The music courses through your body, making it move on its own accord. It feels amazing, freeing even, as if nothing or no one in this world could hurt you. You had always loved dancing, it made you happy, filled your body with endorphins and left your breathless in the best way possible afterwards. Hoseok had often compared the feeling with the satisfying warmth you have in your stomach after a night of mind blowing sex. You had laughed at him at first, but he soon had convinced you otherwise, in the most pleasurable way possible.

Your whole body freezes, your eyes snapping open and your breathing faltering. Why did your mind wander to this memory? Why did you have to think of him again? Why not imagine Yoongi pressed up against you? His big hands holding you tightly by your hips and his hot breath tickling your neck, where he has his lips pressed against it. Why him again?

"You okay? You want to go throw up?" Jungkook asks, having noticed your painful expression.

Seokjin stops as well, walking next to Jungkook and putting a hand on your shoulder.

"Need some air again?" he asks, pointing upwards.

"What time is it?" you ask, ignoring both of their questions.

Jungkook raises his arm to take a look at his silver watch.

"A quarter to four. Why?"

"Just wanted to know how much time I still have before Yoongi picks me up."

"When does he pick you up?" Seokjin asks.

The three of you had moved off the dance floor to an empty standing table. It is easier to speak, now that you aren't in the direction of the music.

"In about an hour, he said he'll come after finishing his work."

Both Jungkook and Seokjin shake their heads, scoffing.

"This man needs to work on his work schedule", Seokjin says, raising one of his eyebrows.

"You don't even want to know how many times I told him to get home at normal times", you say, shrugging your shoulders.

"Next time I'll drag him with me when I leave", Jungkook says, raising his finger.

Both Seokjin and you crack up, laughing loudly.

"Sure I'd love to see you try", you scoff.

"I am better at convincing hyung to do something for me than you think. Just wait till you come home to Yoongi on your couch on a Friday night", Jungkook retorts, pouting.

"Is that a bet?" Seokjin asks, letting his eyes race between you and Jungkook.

"I mean-", you start, before Jungkook interrupts you by grabbing your hand and shaking it violently.

"Hell yeah it's a bet", he screams excitedly.

"Alright fine, the loser has to pay a meal for all three of us", you say, shaking his hand.

"Oh I'm included? I love that", Seokjin gasps, clapping excitedly.

Jungkook nods, giving your hand a last squeeze.

"Fine with me. The bet is on", he says.

"Fine the bet is on", you say before letting go of Jungkooks hand, "now if you'll excuse me, I still have an hour left to get drunk and I'm craving some Tequila shots right now", you point at the liquor bar at the far right of the club, "you guys want to join me?"

"No thanks I think I will get some beer and then dance some more, but suit yourself", Seokjin declines, shaking his head.

You look at Jungkook, expecting an answer.

"I think I'm gonna have to refuse, I don't like Tequila", he says, nervously scratching the back of his neck.

"It's fine with me, how about we each go our own ways for a moment and then meet in front of the toilets in like half an hour?" you suggest to which both Jungkook and Seokjin nod.

"Sounds like an idea. See you guys", you say before turning away and walking to the liquor bar.

You order two shots of Tequila and a glass of water, knowing very well that your body needed the hydration just as much as it needs the buzz of the alcohol right now. The bartender turns around and gets to work, leaving you alone on your barstool. You don’t stay alone for too long however, when a tall and very much puff guy slips right next to you, too close for your liking as you can feel his sweaty arm press against yours.

“Isn’t hard liquor a little too strong for such a pretty lady like you?” he lulls with a smirk on his lips.

You move your arm away from him and roll your eyes. Just don't pay attention to him and he will eventually leave.

“Don’t you want me to buy you a nice glass of white wine instead?” he moves closer. His hot breath is hitting your face now, it smells like alcohol and cigarettes.

“I am quite fine, thank you”, you scoff, and turn your body away from him on the barstool.

He however follows your movements and circles your body, now standing on the other side with the same disgusting smirk on his face.

“Then let me buy you some Vodka instead”, he suggests, already pulling out his wallet from his jeans.

You shake your head and take the first shot of Tequila, which had arrived just now, before downing it in one go. You stare him directly into his eyes afterwards, not even wincing despite your body shuddering inside from the bitter taste of the alcohol.

“I am fine, thank you”, you spit at the wide-eyed man.

He blinks, and the surprise at your ability to drink strong liquor as if it was water (as if women aren’t able to handle it urgh) turns into a dark and lustful stare.

“You know, I love women who can drink”, he coos and steps close enough to you that you aren’t able to move your barstool away from him anymore.

“Leave me alone”, you growl, sending him a death glare.

“Don’t be like that sweetheart, I just want to talk a bit”, he says and places his sweaty hand on your naked thigh. It makes you tense up, panic flooding your system.

“Get your hands off of me, before I break your thumb”, you warn, lowering your voice.

“She is a feisty one”, he growls, squeezing your knee with his big hand.

“Yeah and I am not joking. So get away from me before I fucking rip your hand off”, you spit so fiery it would have scared away every sane person on the planet.

The man in front of you, however, apparently isn’t sane and your warning only adds to his dark gaze.

“Just one dance sweetheart and then I’m gone”, he whispers with his lips hovering over your ear. You shudder in disgust, and try to move your head away, but his hand stops you. “Just one dance sweetheart”, he whispers darkly and goes to press a kiss to your neck. But before his slimy lips can touch your skin, he is pushed away from you, stumbling backwards.

Your eyes, which were previously closed in panic, open to see him find his balance again and then stare at a person next to you. You turn your head, expecting to see Jungkook or Seokjin, only to see Hoseok next to you with his eyes aflame in anger.

“Get away from my girl or you’ll regret it”, he growls before putting a protective arm around your shoulders.

The man, who is towering Hoseok by at least two heads and could knock him out easily, grows small, his shoulders sacking and his head lowering in shame.

“Sorry man, I didn’t know she was taken”, he mumbles, raising his hands in defeat.

“Fuck off and if I see you harass another woman in here I’ll punch you so hard in the throat you won’t be able to speak to one ever again”, Hoseok spits and the man grows even smaller.

He goes to talk back, but instead just closes his gaping mouth before trotting off with sagging shoulders. Once Hoseok is convinced the man is finally gone, he turns to you, the anger in his eyes replaced by worry. He cups your cheek and inspects your features.

“Did he hurt you?” he asks, letting his other hand wander over your body to check for injuries.

"No", you shake your head, "you came at the right time."

Hoseoks eyes turn soft, his features morphing into a fond smile.

"I'm so glad I did", he adds pressure to his touch, gently stroking your cheek with his thumb, "I literally just came down the stairs and was in the middle of looking for you when I saw this asshole harass you."  

Your lips twitch up into a lopsided smile and you look shyly to the ground. It feels good, knowing that you aren't alone anymore. Hoseok's here now and he will take care of you. Although….Hoseok isn't even supposed to be here, let alone know that you are here tonight. Your head snaps up to stare at him in confusion.

“I just realised you aren’t supposed to be here. Are you stalking me?” you ask, moving your head back so his hand falls from your face.

Hoseoks cheeks become a soft rosy pink, he looks down, now fumbling with the sleeves of his leather jacket.

“I wanted to see you again, so I came here in hopes of finding you.”

You scoff. So he is stalking you. This is...weird.

“How did you even know that I am here?”

He looks up, scratching the back of his neck.

“You told me on the phone. Can’t you remember? On Wednesday, when I called you to ask you for a movie date and you told me that you aren't free on Friday because you are going to be at luna's with the guys”, he says and your stomach twists.

Oh. You totally forgot about that.

“Oh yeah, right”, you look at the glass of Tequila, “I did.” you wrap your fingers around the glass before downing the bitter liquid in one go. It leaves you shuddering at the taste, your face grimacing in disgust.

Hoseok watches you in silence, an amused smirk on his lips and his hands hidden in the pockets of his tight black jeans.

"You know the only reason why it isn't creepy that you came here to see me, is the fact that you are cute as hell", you state mindlessly.

You press your eyes shut in disbelief, massaging the bridge of your nose. Did you really have to say that out loud right now?

Hoseoks eyes turn dark, his smirk turning into a cheeky smile.

"So you think I'm cute?"

You scoff, rolling your eyes. Let's not mess this up now. You can still save yourself from the situation.

"Oh please as if you didn't know that already."

Great. That was a great answer, you should be proud of yourself, this didn't sound like flirting at all.

Hoseok snorts, stepping closer to you. His hands are now out of his jeans pockets, hovering next to your naked knee teasingly.

"So I see Tequila is still making you horny. Cute, I missed this", he says, inching his hand closer and closer. His thumb is brushing over your skin, raising goose bumps all over your leg.  

“I’m, I’m not horny”, you state as confidently as possible, despite your legs practically parting at his gaze and your eyes staring hungrily at his lips.

Hoseok chuckles, tilting his head to the side.

“If you say so.”

You two are silent for a moment, both of you staring at each other, drinking in your features.

"You look beautiful tonight angel", he smiles, brushing a strand of hair out of your face, his eyes staring at your lips before snapping up and looking into yours. "Well actually you always do", he adds making you smile shyly.

Angel. You have missed how sweetly this nickname sounded when it rolled off of Hoseoks lips. Your heart flutters, your stomach prickling in giddiness.

"Thank you Hobi", you can't help but giggle like a little girl all of a sudden, "I made some effort tonight. I wanted to look extra good", you giggle again, hiding your mouth behind your hand.

Hoseok chuckles, nodding.

"Well, you did an amazing job. I can't stop looking at you", he moves his hand even closer. Suddenly warmth rests on your knee, making you look down. He finally has his hand on your leg, it looks so familiar resting there, it makes you swallow.

"Are you flirting with me right now?"

You gently push at his chest, so he would give you more space to breathe, and he actually steps back, letting his hand fall from your knee. His neck is far too close, not to wrap your arms around it. His lips are glistening far too deliciously in the dim lights, not to kiss them hungrily. And his eyes are far too dark, for you not to lose your sanity breath by breath. With the alcohol coursing through your system it is hard to keep your composure, your hands literally itching to bury themselves in his dark, luscious hair.

"Are you not?" he asks, looking at you accusingly.

He doesn't step closer again however, giving you the space you told him to keep a few seconds ago.

"Don't give me that look, I know what you are trying to do here. You nearly got me again, but not anymore. I won't fall into your traps tonight", you state confidently with your eyes closed and your finger raised.

Hoseok smirks. He is amused by your banter. Quite honestly speaking he thinks you are adorable right now. With your cheeks beet red and your pouting lips lulling your words. Alcohol always does this to you and Hoseok lives for it. It makes him want to wrap you up in his arms and hold you close to his chest until you protest with that cute fake frown you always do.

"So you are even going to reject my proposal to dance?" he asks, pointing at the dance floor.  

With that your eyes open to look at him. His eyes sparkle excitedly, he is smiling brightly, showing off his white teeth. You let your eyes travel down his body to give yourself some time to think it over. A black leather jacket and a tight shirt, just as black as the jacket, adorns his torso, hugging his slim waist and bringing out his broad chest. Slim-fitting black jeans with a leather belt holding them up adorns his legs, showing off every ripple of his muscles. To some it may seem like a simple outfit, definitely nothing to lose your mind over, but to you (and the alcohol showing its effect) it seems like the sexiest outfit you have ever laid your eyes on.

"Stop doing-", you viciously wave your hands in front his body, "-this."

Hoseok laughs loudly, throwing his head back, exposing his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Oh how you would love to travel your tongue over his neck right now.

"I am literally doing nothing, but standing here in silence and waiting for your answer."

You pout, looking away with your arms crossed in front of your chest.

"Well, then stop doing that."

He snorts.

"What? Waiting? Standing? Or even-", he gasps with big eyes "-even worse, existing?" he clutches his hand over his chest, as if he was hurt by your words.

It's you who snorts this time around. You look at him, the adorable fake frown Hoseok loves so much on your features.

"Come on angel, I know how much you love to dance", Hoseok says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Your frown intensifies. You take a look around the club, looking for Jungkook and Seokjin judging you from far away. When you can't find them however, even after searching the crowd intensely for three more seconds, you finally relax. You jump off from your stool, now looking up at Hoseok, your bodies mere inches away from each other. Your sudden movement makes Hoseok step back, a look of insecurity flashing over his features for a mere second. Are you going to just walk off and leave him abandoned? Your next words, however have him grinning from ear to ear.

"Fine. But only one dance."

Your hand wraps around his arm before you pull him to the dance floor, with excitement bubbling in both of your stomachs. You stop in the middle of the dance floor and turn on your heels to stare at the grinning man behind you. You both stay unmoving for a moment, you because you are too scared of making the first move and therefore giving in to the urges, you shouldn't have and Hoseok because he is afraid to scare you away with being too bold.  

"Can I touch you?" Hoseok asks over the loud music, applying the trick you used on Jungkook just a few hours ago. He lets his finger travel down your neck when removing his hand from your ear, making you shudder. It's a mere innocent touch, but it still increases your heart rate and makes you chew on your bottom lip to stop the sigh from escaping. You look up, meeting his gaze. Despite the darkness and the smoke making it harder to see, you still notice how beautiful Hoseoks eyes are up close. They are warm and welcoming and even though they are looking at you in question, you don't miss the fire burning deep inside of them.

Too choked up with your feelings you only nod as an answer. Hoseok smiles, before finally closing the remaining distance between the two of you. His arms snake around your body, his big hands resting on your sides. Your own arms wrap around his neck, your fingers combing through his soft locks.

"Is, is that okay for you where I put my hands?", Hoseok asks between breaths. Your fingers are doing more to him, than he wants to let you see right now.

"It's okay, I'd tell you otherwise if it wouldn't be", you assure him, with a soft nod of your head.

With your consent Hoseok tightens his arms around your waist and starts moving to the music. You had forgotten how much fun dancing with Hoseok is. The two of you are moving together in perfect harmony, swaying your bodies to the music. The both of you are a giggling mess, when Hoseok changes it up by putting some distance between your bodies and turning you around with his hand holding yours, which results in you stumbling back into his chest as to not fall down from your head spinning. It is fun, so much fun that one song turns into two and two songs turn into three and once the fourth songs starts, the both of you glued to each together, you slowly come back into reality.

You have your back pressed against his chest, your ass grinding against him in time with the music. His hands are resting on your hips, guiding your movements, giving you a squeeze every time you decide to be bold and grind down on him with extra pressure.

"Stop teasing me", Hoseok growls into your ear, when even his hands can't stop you from rubbing yourself against him.

You crane your neck to look at him, your eyes just as hungry as his.

"Says the one, who has his boner pressed against my ass."

You grind against him to support your claim, earning a breathy gasp from Hoseok. His jaw clenches, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

"I can't help it when you are moving like that", he bites his lower lips, smirking, "besides I'm sure that if I'd slip my fingers into your panties I'd find you just as turned on and yearning for me", he growls with his lips hovering over your ear. You shiver, biting back a groan wanting to escape.

"Come on baby, you can't tell me that you aren't craving for me to fuck you with my fingers, until your legs are shaking", he kisses your neck, moving one of his hands underneath your dress, resting it on your now naked hip. New arousal shoots to your core at his words, your legs giving up underneath you for a moment. He notices, smirking against your neck, pressing you even closer to his body. His fingers caress the inside of your thighs, stroking up and down but not once close enough to where you want him to be.

"Hoseok", you let out a shaky breath, "don't do this we are in public."

His hand stops, so does his grinding.

"You want me to stop?"

His question is honest, he won't move until you tell him to. The last thing he wants is to pressure you into something.

Your legs however part further, your fingers finding their way into his hair to pull him close.

"I know I should say yes, but I fucking crave you so bad baby", you whisper into his ear.

Hoseok moans, you can't hear it over the loud music, the vibration in his chest the only indicator he did.

"You are doing things to me baby, it's unbelievable", he growls, before roughly turning you around.

You squeal, supporting yourself on his chest, your big eyes staring up at him. His dark gaze is fixated on your parted lips, his right hand resting on the back of neck.

"I want to taste you baby", he says, licking over his lips.

"No one's stopping you", you say without a second of hesitation.

Your sanity is long gone and with it your reason, the small part in your brain knowing that this was wrong apparently as intoxicated as you are. All you want to do right now is make out, your body craving the touch, your lips aching to taste him.

Hoseok is quick to act, pressing his lips against yours, his tongue darting out in an instant. He tastes like alcohol, just like you. He must have been drinking before he found you. Your lips part, granting him access easily. Your right leg wraps around his waist with Hoseoks hand supporting you. The new position allows the both of you to grind on each other even better than before, the rough material of his jeans straining against his hard cock the feeling your drenched pussy needs right now. Despite your urgency Hoseok never once loses his rhythm, always moving perfectly with the music, pressing your body against his when the beat is strong and mixing it up with deep kisses when the melody sets in. It drives you crazy, earning him muffled moans, leaving your whole body tingling and your core aching for more.

Hoseok bites down on your lower lips all of a sudden. You groan in pleasure, tightening your leg around his waist, pulling on a bundle of his hair.

"Fuck", he mumbles against your lips, squeezing your butt cheeks with both of his hand at the same time.

"I want you so bad", he growls, before delivering a slap to your right butt cheek, one that leaves you gasping for air, stumbling further into his body.

"Then fuc-", but before you can finish, two strong hands press themselves in between your bodies, breaking you up.

"What the actual fuck!?" Hoseok complains looking to his right. His eyes grow big in panic, so do yours, your breath hitching in your throat.

"Yoongi is here", Seokjin says, judgment obvious in the way his eyebrows are furrowed together.

"Seokjin oh my god I can explain", you gasp, raising both of your hand defensively.

Seokjin sighs, massaging his temples.

"Just go before Yoongi decides to come inside and sees the two of you together."

"I'm so sorry Jinnie, please don't tell him please", you plead, putting both of your hand on his broad chest.

He wraps his fingers around your wrists, moving you away.

"Just go before I decide to yell at you", he forces out through gritted teeth. He turns his head to Hoseok. "And you dipshit, we need to have a talk now", and with that he leaves you confused and alone (and very much horny) on the dance floor, dragging Hoseok with him to the men’s bathroom.

The sun is already starting to peek out behind one of the tall buildings, announcing the start of a new day, when you leave the club. The once chilly night air had turned warmer, damper. You take a deep breath, closing your eyes for a moment and trying your hardest to calm down your heart rate. You can't possibly walk up to Yoongi, with your cheeks burning and your heart racing so fast you are sure he would be able to hear it. You take a second deep breath. Your head spins so much, having your eyes closed only makes it worse. You quickly open them and decide to stare at a random car instead. However it's not random. Yoongi is watching you with tired eyes. Your eyes lock with his instantly. He smiles, raising his hand to wave at you. This is not good, this is going to be a disaster. You force a smile to your face and wave back at him slowly.

With Yoongi having spotted you, there is no use in standing around and letting him wait. You start walking after having looked left and right to make sure that there aren't any cars coming. You can see Yoongi lean over the passenger seat and open the door for you. You wrap your hands around the handle and take one last deep breath. Just blame it on the alcohol and everything will be fine. You open the door and sit down as quickly as your dizzy head allows you to.

"Hey baby", Yoongi greets you, leaning over to you. He looks at you for a second before pressing his soft lips onto yours. He pulls back, chuckling, "all I can taste is alcohol", he laughs, shaking his head.

"Yeah, sorry I got a lot to drink tonight", you mumble, turning your head so he wouldn't see your blush.

“It’s okay, I just hope that you had fun with the guys”, he says, steering the engine out of the parking space and onto the road.

You hum, nodding slowly.

“I, I did yeah.”

“Did something happen?” his question makes you snap your head into his direction, your eyes filled with panic.

“What, what makes you think of that?” you stutter, feeling sick to the stomach. Did Hoseok perhaps leave hickeys on your neck? Did Seokjin text Yoongi, telling him everything? Are you smelling of Hoseok?

Yoongi shrugs his shoulders, chuckling softly.

“I just wanted to know if something exciting happened to you. I don’t know, maybe Jungkook did one of his cringy dance moves or hyung didn’t shut up with his annoying ass dad jokes”, he mumbles, pouting.

“Oh-“, you laugh out loud in relief, before scratching the back of your neck, “-that’s what you meant. Yeah no, nothing really happened. We just talked and danced and drank some alcohol.”

Yoongi looks at you for a moment, a fond smile on his lips. He reaches over, putting his hand on your thigh and giving it a gentle squeeze. The feeling is familiar, warm, leaving you craving for more. You can’t deny the fact that you are still horny, your panties are sticking to your drenched core and every bump in the road, Yoongi drives over, makes you secretly press your legs together in search for any kind of friction.

“We had lots of fun actually”, you croak.

You part your legs involuntarily, making Yoongis hand slip onto your inner thigh, closer to where you want him to. You won’t let Seokjin deny your release like that, if he thinks he can snatch Hoseok away from you then fine so be it, but you will cum tonight.

Your little movement doesn’t go unnoticed by Yoongi, his eyes quickly looking at your now parted legs before looking back at the road.

“What the hell did you drink tonight, that made you that needy?” he chuckles, caressing the burning skin of your inner thigh with his finger tips.

“Tequila”, you breathe, parting your legs even more, your eyes falling closed.

Yoongi lets out a sound of surprise.

“Tequila? Wow okay I didn’t know that it makes you that needy”, he chuckles again, clearly amused by it.

You suddenly feel annoyed. Yoongi should know that, he is your fiancé. He is supposed to know things like that.

“I already told you before.”

Yoongi looks at you confused, before shaking his head no.

“I don’t think you did princess”, he wets his lips with his tongue, before smiling, “but it’s okay, it’s amazing to learn new things about you”, he coos, grinning from ear to ear.

You scoff, looking away, staring at the passing cars instead.

“Yeah, I think so too”, you mumble through gritted teeth.

Despite your annoyance at his ignorance (one you realise is not his fault, when your mind had cleared from the alcohol) you make love to him that night. It was rough and dirty, leaving both of you breathless and panting in each other’s arms. It’s definitely not how both of you had imagined how your first time together again would be after the big fight, but it’s perfect for the both of you. For you because it finally gets rid of the annoying knot in your stomach and for Yoongi because he finally can feel you in the way he had missed so much. 

The rest of your weekend you spent curled up at Yoongis place, never once leaving the warmth of his bed, safe for when he calls you down for food or when he forces you to go wash up a bit. Yoongi blames it on you going overboard with the alcohol and you wearing a dress “too short for the weather so it’s obvious that you had fallen sick”, but you know the real reason why you don’t want to leave the safe confines of his bed. It smells like him, it is warm and hugs you just like he does at night or at the times of the day, when his couch downstairs gets too lonely for him and he misses you. But most importantly, you don’t have to sit in your apartment alone and think of people you should have pushed out of your mind a long time ago.

 Only when Tuesday night nears, and you get the third call from your boss today, asking you if you are okay or if you need a sick leave, you decide to finally get out into the world again. You know Yoongi wouldn’t come home until midnight, as Jungkooks comeback nears and Yoongi is the main producer of his album and therefore has a lot to do. So you leave a cutely written note on his dinner table and leave for your apartment afterwards.

You are in the midst of walking up the stairs, your head lowered with your eyes frantically staring into your purse to find your keys, when a quick cough calls your attention. Your feet freeze at the stairs, and with held breath you look up, whishing that it wasn’t Hoseok standing in front of you.

“Hey Y/N”, Jimin greets you. He is smiling at you, his eyes little crescent moons and his puffy cheeks a soft shade of pink.

“Hey Jiminie, wow I didn’t expect you to visit me tonight. What are you doing here?” you greet him with an equal big smile.

Jimins smile grows, his eyes disappearing completely from having to close them. He raises his arms and only now you notice the bottles of soju and a black plastic bag in his hands. Your mouth waters, your stomach rumbling at the possible thought of food for you. He steps to his side and the feeling of hunger in your stomach is replaced with a sickening clench.

Taehyung has been hiding behind his boyfriend the whole time, his head sunken low and his behind leaned against the metal railing of your stairs. He looks small, scared even and you can’t say that you don’t feel nervous yourself all of a sudden.

“Oh”, you stutter out, fumbling with the key ring in your purse.

“I came with a mission”, Jimin breaks the uncomfortable silence, “a mission to force the two of you to make up with some soju and tteokbokki from down the road. I also have some fried chicken if the rice cakes aren’t enough”, he tells you and you can’t help but smile.

You see the corner of Taehyungs lip twitch up as well, the image of his soft smile relaxing you.

“Sounds good to me”, you smile, walking up the remaining stairs. You can see Taehyung scoot back a little, his panicky eyes too shy to look at you for more than two seconds. You decide to look at Jimin instead, raising your arm to point at your closed door. “Do you guys want to come in? Or do you want to go to the rooftop?” you ask, your finger now pointing at your ceiling.

“Rooftop sounds amazing, doesn’t it baby?” Jimin says, turning around to nudge his elbow softly into Taehyungs side.

Taehyung hums, nodding his head before raising it to finally meet your eyes. He gives you a shy, lopsided smile, his lips still pressed together, but it is enough to rid you of the last bit of nervousness you had felt still.

“Great, then let’s go”, you tell them, clapping your hands together excitedly before turning around to walk to the metal stairs leading up to the roof.

Taehyung is the first one to ascend the silver metal stairs to your rooftop, followed by you and Jimin brings up the caboose, probably making sure that none of you can secretly flee.

It is dark on the rooftop; your landlady had probably decided to turn all of the light off, thinking that no one is going to be as reckless as to sit on the rooftop with the temperatures barely above zero. But she hadn’t counted the three of you in and with a knowing hand you reach behind one of the bigger flowerpots, caressing the rough wall of the stone railing before your fingers come into contact with a cold plastic switch. You press the already crumbling button and just like magic the rooftop lights up. Dozens of fairy lights flicker to life, the majority emitting clear, white light safe for the ones you had decided to hang up, which are glowing in a variety of colors from red heart lights to green cloverleaf lights over the multi colored light bulbs. Your landlady had been angry with you at first, telling you to remove them from the public rooftop, but you had convinced her fairly quickly with some house made stew and a fine bottle of red wine.

Now your rooftop is one of your favorite spots on earth. You have spent countless nights wrapped up in blankets, your headphones in and your favorite songs the soundtrack for your wandering thoughts, watching the stars shine above you.

“I will never get tired of that”, Jimin says, his mouth opening in awe and his eyes glistening in the lights.

“Same here”, you mumble before sitting down on the stacked pallets, over which one of your neighbors had draped a soft woolen blanket. Taehyung and Jimin follow your actions, Jimins knees gracing yours whilst Taehyung keeps his distance, even going as far as to sit on the outermost end of the pallet.

“Yah, babe don’t be like that, come closer”, Jimin scolds Taehyung, grabbing Taehyungs arm and pulling closer to him as good as possible.

Taehyung sighs before obeying and scooting closer so your little circle would finally be complete.

“That’s better”, Jimin smiles, nodding contently. He hands you the bottle of soju and pulls out the plastic container filled to the brim with chicken and rice cakes afterwards. “Now let’s get eating, maybe then the two of you actually find enough courage to stop staring at each other and actually start to talk”, he says, opening the lids of the food containers.

The smell of chicken and tteokbokki hits your nose and you feel your stomach grumble, reminding you just how hungry you actually were.

“Sounds like a good idea”, you say, opening the bottle of soju before pouring each of you a drink into the small plastic cups Taehyung had gotten from the mini bar in the right corner of the rooftop.

“Thank you”, Jimin says once you have finished his drink and pours it down his throat right away, not even caring to wait for you and Taehyung to grab your drinks.

“Jiminie what the hell, you drunkard can’t you wait for us to touch glasses first?” Taehyung whines pouting.

Jimin giggles, hiding his blushing cheeks behind his sweater paws and holding his empty glass in front of you.

“Can you please pour me another one?” he asks you, still giggling like a shy schoolgirl and you roll your eyes.

“I swear to god don’t you dare drink this one as well”, you warn him, concentrating on not spilling any of the alcohol on his sweater.

“I will wait”, he promises you, nodding his head.

“I hope so”, you say, putting down the bottle of soju before taking your glass into your hand. You raise it to the middle of your circle waiting for the two men to touch glasses with yours.

The soft sound of clinking of glasses rings through the otherwise silent night. You smile at your friends, both of them reciprocating it with glowing eyes.

“To friendship”, Jimin says, looking into yours and Taehyungs eyes almost warningly.

“To friendship”, you repeat his words, staring into Taehyungs eyes unnaturally long.

“And to forgiveness”, Taehyung adds and you can see Jimin smile out of the corner of your eye.

The three of you drink your shots in one go after that, Jimin and you ending it with a content sigh whilst Taehyung shudders in disgust.

“I hate alcohol”, he whines, grimacing at the slightly bitter taste in the back of his throat.

“You want something else? I could get you some cola from my fridge”, you tell him but he shakes his head.

“No it’s alright, as long as I have some chicken to rinse myself of the wretched taste everything is fine”, he assures you, grabbing a piece of chicken and biting into it.

“Alright, just tell me if you change your mind”, you say shrugging your shoulders and taking a piece of tteokbokki into your mouth afterwards.

The three of you fall silent for a while after that, the smacking of Taehyungs lips the only thing ringing through the comfortable silence. You had told him countless times before to close his mouth whilst chewing, but tonight you couldn’t care less. You had missed the familiarity of it, even if it comes with the growing desire to force his mouth shut by pinching his lips together.

“Mhm”, Jimin is the first one to break the silence. Both yours and Taehyungs heads snap into Jimins direction, both of you watching him chew the piece of chicken before he swallows it down rather loudly, “I don’t want to make it awkward again, but can I go to sleep in peace tonight with the knowledge that you guys like each other again?” he speaks, once he had swallowed down the chicken.

You steal a glance at Taehyung, noticing that he is doing the same thing before quickly looking away. You start playing with the empty chicken box with your wooden chopsticks, holding your breath.

“As far as I am concerned yes”, Taehyung is the first one to speak and you release your breath rather loudly.

Your head snaps up to look at your best friend, tears of relief threatening to spill out of your eyes and you can’t help but crawl over to your friend and throw your hands around his neck.

“Thank you so much”, you sob, nuzzling your face into the soft material of his turtleneck.

Taehyungs hand comes resting on your back, his other finding its way into your hair. His eyes flutter shut, his own face nuzzling into your neck taking in your scent.

“I missed you a lot Y/N. I’m sorry I was too stubborn to put my pride aside and apologize to you sooner. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have talked to you like that all those weeks ago, it was mean and unfair to you”, Taehyung mumbles, his grip around you tightening.

“And I’m sorry for not telling you sooner Tae. I was just so scared that you would hate me if you knew about it, I was so ashamed”, you confess, combing your fingers through his soft hair.

“Don’t apologize it’s okay”, Taehyung assures you, pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek.

You raise your head to look at him, cupping his cheeks in your hands and smiling brightly at him. His lips turn upwards before he shows you one of his boxy smiles and his own hand cups your cheek.

“I promise to be honest with you from now on”, you tell him giving his cheeks a gentle squeeze.

“And I promise to be more understanding if you need some time to tell me certain things”, he says caressing the skin of your cheek.

“Oh my god guys I’m so happy right now!” Jimin squeals before you feel a body collapse into yours and Taehyungs sides and two strong arms wrap around you.

Jimins messy, blonde locks appear in your line of sight and your turn your head so his strands of hair wouldn’t get into your mouth. His sudden outburst of affection makes you and Taehyung giggle and after the initial shock both of you wrap your arms around Jimins body.

“Now we can start hanging out again and we can finally be relaxed in each other’s presence again. I was going crazy at home, I couldn’t even bring up your name without Taehyung either throwing a pillow at my head or breaking out into the tears of regret”, Jimin rattles on and you can hear Taehyung clear his throat in embarrassment at the mention of his little secret. You giggle, patting Taehyungs arm to which he laughs softly.

“I’m happy too Jiminie”, you giggle, caressing both of their backs.

“You know what that screams for? Another shot of soju!” Jimin exclaims letting go of you and Taehyung and grabbing the bottle of liquor to pour each of you a rather big shot.

“You are going to kill me”, Taehyung groans still accepting the plastic cup and eyeing the clear liquid with disgust.

“Shush and enjoy it baby”, Jimin dismisses him before clinking his glass with yours and Taehyungs.

“Cheer guys to being together forever”, you say to which both of them agree with a hum.

You pour the alcohol down your throat in one go, the bigger amount making even you shiver in disgust. Taehyung scrunches his eyes closed his eyebrows furrowing and his lips pouting all while Jimin pours himself another shot and gulps it down with a big smile.

“I want to fucking cry”, Taehyung whines trying his hardest to get some tteokbokki sauce on his chopsticks to eat and get rid of the taste in his mouth.

The evening turns out to be long, with many more bottles of soju and cans of sparkling rice wine following, Jimin being the main drinker of all them. It takes both you and Taehyung all of your energy to finally get Jimin up on his feet and down the stairs, loud complaints of wanting to drink more leaving Jimins pouting lips.

“We still have work tomorrow baby”, Taehyungs words finally manage to shut Jimin up, his pout only growing.

“Don’t remind me of that”, he groans leaning his butt against the railing of your stairs.

You laugh, their antics amusing your intoxicated brain.

“You two are so funny”, you smile, hiding your mouth behind your hand.

“You are funnier. Diminie can even see two of you. That’s so funny”, Jimin giggles with his cheeks blushing.

“Oh no it starts, Jimin is turning into a four year old”, you groan rolling your eyes.

“No Diminie is already grown-up”, Jimin protest buffing his cheeks out.

“Alright baby I think it’s time for us to go”, Taehyung scoffs wrapping his arm around Jimins waist.

“See you at work tomorrow”, Taehyung says before pulling out the keys of his car out of his coat pocket.

“See you guys. And sleep tight”, you tell them, hugging both of them with a bright smile on your lips.

“We will especially this guy here”, Taehyung says pointing at Jimin, who already has his eyes closed.

“Sleep tight Y/N”, he mumbles smiling tiredly.

“See you”, you smile, watching the two men descend down your stairs and walk to Taehyungs car. They turn around one last time to wave at you before getting into the car and driving off into the night.

You get inside once you aren’t able to see Taehyungs car anymore, feeling terribly tired all of a sudden. You yawn loudly making your way straight to your bed to get underneath the warm blanket. You turn the light off, letting today events run through your mind until sleep finally overtakes your system.

The loud ringing of your doorbell wakes you up an hour later, making you sit up in your bed in complete shock. You groan, opening your still-closed eyes and glancing at the alarm clock on your bedside table. Two am?! Who on earth decides to visit you at this time of the day? Did Taehyung and Jimin forget something? Is it Yoongi who just couldn’t stand the thought of you not being with him anymore?

You throw your blanket back, peeling yourself out of the warmth of your bed. Your doorbell rings again. Did it become louder or are your ears just extra sensitive? You shuffle to the door, neither caring about slipping into your loafers nor about removing your sleeping mask from your head. Another ring echoes through your apartment, followed by loud knocking.

“Y/N open up! I know you are awake I can see that you have your lights on!” Hoseoks voice sounds from the opposite side of your door and your body comes to a complete standstill.

[lesbian-raichu]

HAPPY ENTIRE MONTH OF HALLOWEEN

Here’s a short scary story - this is “Case 45: Medical Institute of Arkansas” (Continued under the cut)             Heya Sunshine, Found this out in the woods near the clubhouse. Looks like a letter or something spooky like that so I figured it might be something you’re into. I started reading on the way back it but tripped like a dumbass - I can’t fucking walk and read, I’m like a kindergartner. Skinned my hands and everything so the paper got kinda crumpled and gross. My bad. But uh, having blood on this sort of shit makes it more legit maybe? I dunno. You’ve got a better stomach for mysteries than I do. I keep thinking I hear shit behind trees and it’s not even night yet lmao. I’m gonna drop it on the table for you. I’ll call you after my classes are done.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Love,                                                                                                           C

Medical Institute of Arkansas

Log date: 10.24.2004

Name: Sarita Makwana, Chief Physician

Forgive the frankness with which I am to depict what has transpired. After today, I believe it allowable. I am writing this both to make sense of this and to convey to others what occurred here. Patient zero, James Allison Fitzgerald was committed to my care this morning, by his wife. Initial symptoms were arrhythmia, excessive hypertension, risk of stroke. It was Nurse Ellen Suzuru who performed the MRI, and who deduced based on strain of the heart that there were arterial clogs.

You know what? I am forgoing the lingo. I have no idea when this will get out. I have no idea if anyone will get to read this.

Suzuru did the scan, and as a result, the decision was made to operate. With respect to whomever reads this, I frankly don’t give a damn if we made the right choice or not. We could not have known. The thing about the scans, from what we could see, was that his ribcage looked abnormal. Several of us dismissed it as an injury, a poorly regrown bone, maybe a deformity of the third and fourth ribs. It was inconsequential, if a dying man is brought to a doctor, that doctor has few options. His wife disclosed that James had been experiencing trouble breathing for approximately three days prior to his entry, and that the pains in his chest had started merely an hour before he entered our care. I remember she rambled about a trip to France they had gone on, worrying about salmonella poisoning from snails, and I attempted to calm her down. Her husband was 6’4 and 360 lbs, heart conditions were not improbable. God, I am so tired.

We sedated him and proceeded to open him up, with the plan to insert a few heart stents to improve blood flow. The initial appearance of everything however, was fine. Confoundingly so. James was healthy.

If anything, there was some strain on the heart, but no blockages, blood flow was fine. For all intents and purposes, James had simply overexerted himself, yet when he came in he was half-conscious. At this point, I was confused but intrigued. A healthy dying man, only 40, no pre-existing health conditions. The most I could figure was that if his ribcage was poorly formed, it could  place stress on the organs, but his wife insisted to one of our nurses - Kinnings - that he was as healthy as an ox before last week. And at this point, perhaps I can only laugh, because it feels almost like a joke.

We were paying attention to the wrong thing.There were two other doctors with me - Uzumaka Williams and Desmond Corrigan. Williams said she had cut her hand, and was sent out immediately. I didn’t know how she managed it at the time, she wasn’t holding anything, just examining the patients heart, when she jerked back. She insisted she was fine, but left to avoid contaminating anything. Corrigan left after her to call my assistant. It was after about fifteen minutes of examination, right as the thought crossed my mind that I should simply stitch him up and send him to neurology, that I saw his breastbone, and the ribs curving out of it. I had not cut it out of the way, but somehow it was pushed aside, as though malleable. His ribs had been moved. Corrigan came back with Suzuru, and I asked if he had done anything, or if he’d seen Williams, but he denied both. There was no reason to lie. I wasn’t paying attention. If I had been, I would have noticed that his ribs had moved.  I perhaps would have noticed that the beeping of the heart monitor was not coming from the heart monitor at all. I would have noticed that despite the fact that I felt the patient’s heartbeat, he was dead by the time he came in. Perhaps I would have noticed that James Fitzgerald’s ribs were not ribs at all.

How many doctors does it take to realize that the patient is already dead?

That was my initial assessment, anyway.

I feel ashamed in saying I froze, but we all did. There was a long, loud creaking noise, like a door opening. The sound of beeping was being perfectly mimicked, but no one’s mouth moved. There are different types of fear. The subtle: a general feeling of unease, a pit in the stomach. The frenzied: screaming and crying and begging. Then there is the overpowering: the silencing, no scream can leave you. You’re afraid to utter a sound, afraid to breath, afraid to twitch or run.I could not turn around. God bless Desmond, who tried to attack. God bless Ellen, who tried to get its attention. My good friends, may God bless them, God save them. God help me.

I never turned around. Whatever was inside James’ body was now protruding out of him, able to control his mouth just enough to mimic the beeping, before falling silent. The opening I had made in his chest was stretched, long angled white rib bones - used as legs - lurched him forward, towards Ellen. James’ head lolled around, his mouth agape, tongue out, discoloured and bloated. The legs were segmented and thin, like that of an arachnid, and the host body was dragged along like a puppet, James’ toes dragging and swinging against the ground. I watched, frozen, as two of the sharp, eight protruding bones, stuck into her body and twisted her around, as though she were a mop on the floor. It thrashed her around in the air, and then threw her against the wall. It did the same to Desmond, poking him through the eyes, jabbing his neck erratically, piercing it several times, and shaking him madly in the air with a leg stabbed through his abdomen. An image in my head was of a child shaking a dead goldfish in a plastic baggie. Trying to make it live. Aggressive and spasmodic, able to move with extreme speed in one second, and be eerily stock-still the next.

It swiveled in my direction, twitching like a spider, or a crab, and suddenly James was making sounds. Sobbing, gargling screaming. It felt like there were words in there, distorted. The stresses on syllables felt wrong, like a movie being rewound. He ended the sentence with a long and loud gurgling howl that shook the equipment in the room. At the time, I thought I was spared. I was stabbed once, in my side, thankfully missing my lungs. With monstrous speed, the creature jerkily scuttled away. I stayed with their bodies. I was certain that someone had to have called for help, but it only took me a few hours to realize that even if it came, I wasn’t sure any of us could be saved.

I consider myself a decent doctor. I may be in nowheresville, Arkansas, but I graduated magna cum laude from my university, and chose to stay where I was close to my family. With this in mind, I have to insist - this is not an illness to be cured. This is a parasite, some bone-like tapeworm. I realized this in that time alone, and that with the screaming I heard in the building, both human and parasite, that they were looking for living hosts. Poor Desmond and Ellen were of no use to them.

God I am so tired. I’m going to take a moment. Funny. This isn’t really a report anymore. I’m back. I recorded them, the parasites. I was right about one thing, and wrong about another.

They are speaking, for some reason, backwards. Begging. Calling for loved ones. Asking to be killed.

Which of course means I was wrong. They were never dead. “Consumed” is maybe a better word. The parasite begins its control through the spine, then connects to the brain stem, keeping their human hostage like a flesh puppet. I caught a glimpse of Uzumaka, the spindly legs extending from her torn chest hoisting her around, dangling with her mouth torn at the corners, the sounds she made were the worst of them all.

The Medical Institute has been quarantined. I managed to talk to a few other doctors in Cardiology and Gastroenterology that called the room I was next to. They told me how the parasite was being transmitted. They told me the authorities are planning on burning the building. Several cops that tried to enter to save survivors were killed. The others I heard. The frenzied snapping of bones against tile, the sobbing screams, and the trails of congealing blood that followed the sounds gave me all the information I needed to know. The phone call was cut short, the other doctor had hung up on me while I spoke to them. I went back to my colleagues, my friends, their bodies cold. I have no idea what will happen now. If the quarantine is breached, then God help us.

My hand is seizing up at this point from writing. It’s the only loophole, though. I realized it before Uzumaka did. It’s transmitted through blood, whatever these things are. The smallest cut is too much. Luckily I was stabbed through my right side. I’m left-handed. I lost my motor skills sometime during the phone call, when my colleagues hung up on me, unfortunately, and I suppose my ribs are currently being dissolved by the creature taking their place. I’m writing this in the infinitesimal chance that amidst the destruction, maybe carried by an errant breeze through the window, this letter will get out, and people will know what happened to us. Though that might be selfish, as even this page might be contaminated. If I am being honest, I am too tired. I can’t do more. One of the officers is in the room, across from me, still apart from the body hanging from those towering bones, eyes plucked out, half of his face torn away. And funnily enough, I can understand him. I hear his words, no longer backwards, still wracked with agony.

My name is Sarita Makwana. I am a doctor at the MIA. I love my family. God bless them. God protect them.

And God save me.

[intim3ate]

Intoxication of the Fall | McHanzo [Overwatch]

Hanzo has long since given up fighting his transformations. When Jesse McCree follows him into the woods on the night of the full moon, Hanzo decides to give up something else, too.

My Monthly Patreon fic, as chosen by patrons in a monthly suggestion poll! The winner this time was @werekem​ with the prompt “Werewolf Hanzo/Demon McCree and some great big ol' knotty fun.” And they are definitely having a good time with some real good knotting. ;9

I had... so much fun writing this. I write so much canon-verse fanfiction I often forget how much I like writing monsters, so this was a nice return to form for me (even though I don’t write a lot of knotting itself, lmao). 

This fic was available for early access on my Patreon two weeks ago. If you’d also like to have early access to monthly fics, commissions, and WIPS, or to have a say in what I write every month, please consider pledging!

AO3 Link | Commission Info | Patreon | Leave a Tip?

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The forest is still, quiet, dark. Peaceful, or so it seems, until the clouds part to reveal the bright, round moon, to bathe the forest floor in its light. Alone, Hanzo turns his face skyward, lets the moonlight illuminate his face, wash over him like a wave, soak into his skin. It sends a ripple of warmth and a flash of heat, a trickle and then a geyser of sweet sweet thrill rushing through his veins. He falls to his knees. His eyes roll back in his head.

He had gave up fighting the transformation years ago. Now, although he doesn’t quite embrace it, Hanzo accepts it. He lets the crushing waves of heat and electricity and power wash over him without struggle, without defiance. All it takes is that first warning sign, the tiniest contraction in his muscles, the sharp prick of sensation in his ears and his nose, and he knows: soon, he will change.

The feeling comes quickly, sharply; his transformation takes him out of almost nowhere, furious and overwhelming, and Hanzo’s palms hit the forest floor. His nails, blunt, scratch at the dirt. He tries to get a proper grip, tries to ground himself, but can’t. Soon, he gives up. Short, harsh breaths hiss out through gritted teeth; his lips peel back over them as they grow, long and sharp. He growls, clenches his fists as he feels his nails grow and dig into the meat of his palms. The fur of his palms.

And then the tension leaves him. He relaxes, lets the light breeze weave itself through the soft, black-and-white fur that now covers him.

He stands. Takes a deep breath.

Howls.

And then he runs. Runs through the woods he’s fled to, relishes in the feeling of the earth beneath his feet - hands - paws. It’s liberating, somehow, to let himself be taken by this, to allow himself this small freedom after so many years of trying to hold it all back.

But he can’t let go completely. He knows what he is. Knows he’s still dangerous, even in more lucid times, like this. He knows all too well what happens when he doesn’t run, when he allows himself to himself stay in the city, to surround himself with people. With friends. With family.

He fears himself, sometimes - perhaps he always will. But it’s justified, he thinks, as he remembers his brother’s face, mangled and scarred and red red red beneath his paws. Hanzo fears his strength, his teeth, his claws, the overwhelming urge to bite and tear and rend and drink in moonlight and blood.

He fears himself. Others fear him, too.

But what doesn't fear him is the thing that stands before him.

Hanzo stops running. He straightens up, from all fours to hind legs. He sniffs the air, narrows his eyes at the man that stands before him. At the man he once believed to be Jesse McCree.

But Jesse McCree is no man at all. He may look like one in size, shape, and cadence, but now, with his heightened senses, Hanzo realizes that he doesn't... smell right. Under the layers of fabric softener in his clothes and cologne on his skin, he smells just the tiniest bit like sulfur, like wine, like fouled meat and blood. Not his own, though - like the blood of six or seven others. Hanzo wonders if that blood stains his skin or runs beneath it.

McCree holds out his hand and smiles, sharp-toothed and too wide, at the beast snarling before him. "Come on, now, don't be like that,” he says, voice like honey and whiskey.

Hanzo’s nose wrinkles. “So you were never human at all,” he rumbles as he crouches low, poises to strike. The image of Jesse McCree scoffs; his smile widens uncannily. Hanzo’s fur bristles.

“Shouldn’t be surprised you knew somethin’ was up,” he answers. He steps closer. Hanzo backs up.

"Stay away from me, demon," Hanzo growls, for McCree’s protection as much as his own. It takes everything he has not to leap at the hand, snap McCree's arm in two with his pointed fangs and his long, powerful jaw. It's like this every time: he wants to eat, to kill. To let himself go, let himself become the beast he feels inside him.

He wants to fall.

Wants to fall into Jesse. Wants to tear him apart from the inside out, with teeth and hands and tongue. The temptation is strong, overpowering. Unsurprising, too - because isn't that what demons do? Tempt?

McCree's arm moves. It's a quick motion, a small one, not meant to alarm but to remind Hanzo that his offer still stands. “It’s okay, Hanzo. You know me,” he says, and for a moment Hanzo sees the man again, sees Jesse McCree with his bright smile and his kind, warm eyes. But then he blinks and sees the demon, gaze sharp and red and hungry.

Hanzo does not move. His lips curl over bared teeth. He growls; McCree laughs. “Come on. It ain’t like you got much left to hide like this, do you? And you know what I am now, anyway. Why don’t you let me show you what I can do?”

Hanzo sniffs the air. Every muscle in his body warns against this. Against him. But Jesse McCree's pull is strong (fire and danger and meat and blood blood blood so much blood), and the urges of the wolf inside Hanzo (fight and kill and tear, bite, rend) are too powerful.

He takes his hand, and McCree smiles with far too many teeth.

---

There is nothing gentle about the way they fall together.

As soon as McCree closes his fingers around Hanzo’s paw, Hanzo yanks the demon to him and holds him there. He takes a moment to inhale deeply, to memorize McCree’s scent (so familiar but so new, so dangerous, so enticing). He lets himself feel the slightest touch of almost-too-hot heat seep through his fur, and the same instant it becomes too much, Hanzo throws McCree against the nearest tree.

McCree hits it hard, chest first, and it’s all he can do to brace himself against the trunk with both hands. He whips around, but can’t move: Hanzo is on him in the space between heartbeats, a clawed hand to his neck to hold him in place. The tips of his too-long nails dig into the still-soft flesh of McCree’s neck, but he does not press any harder. Does not cut off McCree’s air supply.

“Feisty, ain’tcha?” The demon reaches up and tangles his fingers in the thick fur behind Hanzo’s ears. “Now that you’re finally lettin’ go.”

He leans up, stands on his toes. Hanzo is so much taller like this, so much bigger, so much stronger. He could crush McCree where he stood, if he wanted. It would be easy. But he doesn’t; he holds himself back and snaps his jaws shut.

McCree raises an eyebrow. His eyes darken. His smile grows.

He kisses Hanzo.

Kissing is not easy in this form. Hanzo isn’t even sure he would call what they’re doing kissing; it’s more like they press their teeth together, bump noses, lick into each others’ mouths. It’s like they’re fighting, almost, and it sends a thrill through Hanzo, makes him feel even more like the beast he knows he is, deep down. And it feels so good, so good to let himself fall.

McCree pulls back. He grips Hanzo’s arm with one hand, fingers and nails digging in: sharp, so sharp. Had he always had claws?

“Much fun as this is, I’d rather we take this somewhere a little more comfortable,” he says, and without warning, the world around Hanzo spins and plunges into darkness. When he opens his eyes, he is in an unfamiliar place.

It’s dark here, too. Hanzo has no problem seeing in it. He doesn’t need to see much, anyway; he can smell McCree. Can feel him, soft skin under rough paws. The claws of one hand still dig into his bicep.

“Where are we?” Hanzo snaps.

“Somewhere comfortable,” McCree answers, and that’s the last thing he says for a while.

He grabs Hanzo by the sides of the face and pulls him in again. This time, what they do feels much more like a kiss. There’s still too much teeth to it, but their lips touch for a brief moment before giving way to tongues. Hanzo can taste the inside of McCree’s mouth, hot and vivid: ash and spice and blood. His eyes roll back and he groans. Lets himself fall further.

McCree pulls him forward, toward the bed. Hanzo throws him onto it, all instinct, and stretches over him, rakes his claws down McCree’s chest and tears at the clothes that cover it. He leaves jagged lines in his wake, angry and red. McCree gasps and arches into it, hissing his pleasure with every centimetre of skin Hanzo claws at, from chest to thighs to calves to hips.

Hanzo’s fingers twitch. His mouth falls open and his tongue lolls out as hot, damp breaths escape him. He looks down at McCree hungrily, like he wants to devour everything the demon is. The voice in the back of his mind that is still human reminds him this is just what the demon wants, but it’s too late: there’s no denying McCree now, no going back from this. The demon may be beneath him, may be at the mercy of Hanzo’s teeth and claws, but he is the one who is in control now.

And Hanzo will take whatever he can tear from McCree. Hungrily, happily, he will take.

Hanzo pulls back. He licks his lips, eyes roving over McCree’s naked form and stopping when they reach the demon’s dark, dark eyes. They flash at him and Hanzo grins. He takes off what remains of his clothing and crawls back over McCree to meet him in an open-mouthed kiss.

He paws at McCree’s chest. Scratches down it. Something shifts under his touch, and when Hanzo pulls away to look, the texture of McCree’s skin is different: it’s bumpy and uneven, like tiny ashen scales have erupted over it, chitinous and shimmering.

Hanzo leans down, sniffs at them, slides his tongue along the newly-formed ridges. They taste like nothing he can name. Something unique.

He pulls away again to take in the demon’s entire form. McCree returns the gaze, grinning ear-to-ear. His skin is redder, brighter, almost glowing. The black scales glint against it, but they no longer hold Hanzo’s attention: instead he turns his eyes toward the two dark, curved horns that have sprouted from McCree’s forehead. They’re tiny. Pathetic.

“Hmph. Is that all you are?” Hanzo taunts. “You smelled so much stronger than this.”

“Just you wait,” McCree retorts, finally finding his voice. Hanzo laughs and reaches for one of the horns, ready to rise to the challenge. He runs the pad of his finger over its sharp tip. McCree gasps and twitches in the wake of the touch, his entire body lifting off the bed. His cock, hard and insistent now, presses against the crook of Hanzo’s thigh, and the werewolf laughs again, rubs at the horn in his hand, fascinated by the way McCree writhes beneath his paw and enthralled all the more when the horn grows under his hold.

“You are changing,” he says. “A sex demon, then? Feeding off the pleasure of being touched?”

McCree shakes his head. “Feed off energy of all kinds.”

Hanzo huffs and leans down. “Is that so?” he murmurs, breath hot against the thin skin at the base of McCree’s neglected horn. The demon shivers, clenches his jaw. Hanzo smiles, predatory, though he doubts McCree can see it. He does not need to see, anyway - he simply needs to feel.

Hanzo’s tongue slips from between his bared teeth to wrap around the base of McCree’s horn. He licks at it, drags it up over the curved point, and McCree howls.

“Quiet.” Hanzo yanks the horn in his hand and forces McCree’s head to the side so he can bite the back of the demon’s neck, hold it between his jaws in an attempt to hush him, to put him in his place. It only half-works: McCree pants hard, helpless against Hanzo’s continued attention, but he does not shut up, does not relinquish total control. Not yet.

“You get less and less human every minute, sugar,” he says.

Hanzo digs his teeth in deeper.

McCree hisses, but the sound twists itself into a breathless laugh. “What, didn’t like that? It was a compliment, you know. Lettin’ this thing inside me take over was the best decision I ever made.”

Hanzo snarls and backs up, replacing teeth with claws and pressing his paw firmly to the back of McCree’s neck. “So you were Jesse McCree, once.”

“Yeah. Long time ago. Felt easier to keep the name than use the first one I was given. Hell wasn’t gonna be lookin’ for some no-name human, but they might’ve gone lookin’ for one of their own.”

Nails dig into Hanzo’s hip, sharp. He grunts and flinches, but his hold on McCree does not break. The demon smiles up at him with wide, excited eyes. “You know how it is. You of all people should know how it feels to be hunted.”

Hanzo’s eyes flash. He bares his teeth, lifts his paw from Jesse’s neck to grip his hair. “You talk too much,” he growls as his nails scratch against the hard flesh of McCree’s scalp. The friction is strange, exciting. But Hanzo has no time, no desire to linger on the sensation.

He moves forward on his knees. Pulls the demon’s head down so McCree is at last face-to-face with his cock, hard and red and leaking. McCree licks his lips, opens wide, and Hanzo forces him down.

It’s too much for McCree at first. He twitches violently, almost chokes. He does not try to escape, though; he moves his hands to clutch at Hanzo’s ass, to dig his nails in and pull the werewolf closer to him.

The nails of the left hand are sharper than the right’s, Hanzo notes. The palm feels rougher, too, as if his hand were made entirely of scales and stone instead of flesh. It’s hot to the touch, too hot, and he wonders briefly if that’s where the “thing” inside of McCree came from, where the demon first began to fester like an infection. But he does not give himself the time to wonder or to ask. There are more important things to be dealt with right now, and Hanzo would rather not stop Jesse in the middle of sucking him off. Not when he is so eager.

Eager though he is, McCree does not have much room to maneuver between the cock in his mouth and the vice grip Hanzo holds him in. Still, he tries: he licks at the underside of it whenever he’s given the chance, swallows around the angry red tip and tightens his lips as far down the base as he can go. Hanzo huffs and rubs the base of one of McCree’s horns with one hand, right where the flesh of his scalp is thinnest. A reward for doing so well.

McCree groans. His eyes roll back in his head, and his jaw goes slack for half a moment before Hanzo tightens his grip in his hair and shoves him down further.

“You can do better than that,” the werewolf says, voice coming out more like a snarl than anything. He thrusts into McCree’s mouth, deeper and deeper, groaning as he hits the back of the demon’s throat over and over again. Hanzo can feel himself swelling, can feel his knot begin to fill out as he mercilessly fucks McCree’s throat, and all he can think about is how much he wants it in there, how much he wants to have McCree’s deliciously too-hot lips wrapped inescapably around it.

He pulls out. Adjusts his angle. Grins ferally down at McCree, whose unfocused eyes barely register the beast before him.

And then he slams back in.

Hanzo howls, euphoric, as McCree takes him in all the way, right down to the base, lips stretching impossibly wide over the swollen base of his cock. He can’t pull out anymore - doesn’t need to, anyhow: he’s deep in McCree’s throat, past any sort of gag reflex the demon may have had. McCree’s tongue twitches, long and forked, trying to slide along Hanzo’s shaft, to wrap around it and stroke him to completion. It’s hardly necessary, though - even the slightest movement sends shockwaves of cascading pleasure all throughout Hanzo. It pushes him just as far as he needs to go, and he comes with one last stuttering howl, spilling himself down the demon’s throat.

McCree breathes, hot and heavy through his nose, stealing air between the spurts of cum gushing down his throat. He looks up at Hanzo admiringly, almost reverently, as he tries to swallow around him. Mercifully, it gets easier with every passing second as Hanzo’s knot deflates.

Hanzo pulls his softening cock from between McCree’s lips. A string of cum and saliva still connects the two of them. It breaks when he shuffles back and takes the space to admire how McCree’s neck lolls to the side, how McCree’s eyes look right through him. He looks spent, exhausted, satiated. He hasn’t even been touched yet. Not properly.

Hanzo decides to remedy that.

He leans forward and presses his nose, his lips, his teeth to the side of McCree’s neck. He licks along the demon’s jawline, between his ear and the beginning of his beard. Tries to soothe him, to bring him back to the present. Or so it seems, at first; as soon as McCree blinks, shifts, tries to reach up to touch Hanzo, the werewolf reaches between the two of them, runs the pad of his finger over the ridged head of McCree’s cock, and shivers when the demon falls back, powerless against his hold.

He strokes. McCree gasps, groans, writhes against the bed as Hanzo slowly teases him. He moves his fingers one at a time over the tip, smearing the small trickle of precum that’s begun to leak out of it. The demon’s clawed hands grip the sheets, almost tears them. Hanzo licks along his horns. McCree cries out again.

“Still so noisy,” Hanzo says, a low rumble in his chest. He squeezes McCree’s cock. The demon twitches.

“And you - ah - you’re still holdin’ back,” he stutters. “Still tryin’ to play at bein’ human.”

Hanzo growls. He leans in close to McCree’s face. His wide, powerful jaws loom dangerously close to the demon’s lips. “Silence.”

It comes as no surprise that McCree continues to speak. The demon laughs and reaches up, tangling his fingers in the fur behind Hanzo’s ear. It’s equal parts comforting and alarming. Hanzo’s hackles rise.

“That little stunt you just pulled?” McCree continues in a whisper. He leans in close. Hanzo can feel the breath on his muzzle, can smell it stronger than ever: sulfur, wine, salt. Pheromones. Arousal. “It was nice, but it weren’t enough. I want more, Hanzo. I want you to let go. Feel what I feel. I want you to stop pretendin’ to be somethin’ you ain’t.”

He stops Hanzo before he can speak, pulling the werewolf down and forcing him into another open-mouthed kiss. Hanzo ignores the way his legs go weak at the feeling of McCree’s forked tongue licking along the roof of his mouth. He ignores the eager twitch of his cock as that tongue slides over his teeth, tangles around them. Ignores the thrill of want that shoots through him when he tastes himself in McCree’s mouth.

McCree pulls away. Waits. Looks Hanzo right in the eyes, and all Hanzo sees is red. Deep, dark, all-devouring red.  

Short, suffocating silence rings between them but a moment before McCree says one thing more. He opens his mouth and his voice echoes around Hanzo: in his ears, in his mind, in his very soul.

“Let go.”

And Hanzo does.

He doesn’t know what comes over him, exactly, but in the split second after McCree speaks, he feels a frenzy overcome him: want, need, hunger, desperation.

He doesn’t think as his claws dig into McCree’s hips. Doesn’t think as he flips the demon over. Doesn’t think as he grips the meat of McCree’s ass to spread his cheeks apart, as he leans down and licks at the demon’s rim, as he pushes his long tongue past the clenched ring of muscle to stretch him open. He barely hears McCree’s loud, desperate moans of pleasure - doesn’t care when they stop, when they’re replaced by whining and panting. Nothing registers to Hanzo but the need to have McCree, to take him, to make him his.

He pulls back. Licks his lips at the sight of McCree’s hole, open and gaping and ready for him.

Hanzo does not hold back anymore.

He slams into McCree and buries himself in to the hilt. McCree cries out beneath him. His whole body goes tense, tight.

Hanzo pulls out. Slams back in again.

He holds McCree’s hips, pulls him back to meet his thrusts. He feels his knot swell again, fill out more and more with each powerful snap of his hips. Soon Hanzo can hardly move at all: his knot is too big, and when he can no longer pull out, he leans down, presses his chest to McCree’s ridged, chitinous back, and snarls in the demon’s ear: “Mine.”

He jerks his hips, presses in deeper. McCree gasps. He bucks against Hanzo, presses himself further onto the werewolf’s cock. He laughs, a raspy hiss of a noise. “You sure about that?”

Hanzo snarls. A great paw slams down on the back of McCree’s head to force his head into the mattress. He ignores the laughter. Doesn’t care about it anymore. All he cares about is pressing further into McCree, forcing the demon down, making him shut up. Making the demon beg for more. Beg for him.

McCree says something Hanzo doesn’t understand. Another language, maybe. He doesn’t care. He bites the back of McCree’s neck, trying to force him into proper submission. He digs his teeth in deep. Bites a little too hard - something cracks under his teeth. The flood of a new, unfamiliar taste floods his mouth. Not blood. Not anything tangible. It’s something new, something heady and ashy and entirely McCree.

And Hanzo wants more.

He fucks McCree hard. So hard it may have hurt a human. But McCree is not human - hasn’t been for a long time - and he relishes in it, writhes ecstatically in both pain and pleasure. It’s everything he’d wanted, everything Hanzo had refused to give him, everything Hanzo had rejected about himself until now.

“Yes, yes,” McCree hisses. He arches his back, pushes against Hanzo’s thrusting, rolls his hips to grind against the werewolf’s cock. “That’s it, sweetheart, more, give me more--”

Hanzo snarls. He yanks McCree’s hair, forces his head back as far as it will go, anything to stop the words from falling from his lips. He doesn’t want to hear anything from McCree now - all he wants is to feel him, to fuck him, to give him what he wants.

Hanzo comes, jaw opening wide and back arching obscenely. He’s poised as if to howl, but no sound escapes him. White noise floods his ears: the rush of pumping blood, the scramble of McCree’s knees against the sheets, the rub of fur against scales. He doesn’t even notice McCree has come too, not until his knot deflates once more and he pulls out, slick and sticky all at once.

When he is finished, Hanzo hovers over McCree and slowly, slowly, begins to come back to himself.

He huffs. Without thinking, Hanzo crawls off the bed, kneels at its side, and once again spreads McCree’s cheeks wide. He slides his tongue between them, licking up the mess he’d made, more instinct than care. The demon twitches feebly against him, and it’s a better reward than Hanzo ever could have dreamed.

When he finishes cleaning up his mate (Mate, he thinks, Mine mine mine), Hanzo flips McCree over and pulls him close, ridged back to furry chest. He wraps his arms around the demon and licks at his neck, all lupine affection and warmth.

“Mine,” he grunts, deep and low and rumbling in his throat. McCree smiles. His eyes glint, unseen, and he reaches back, scratches at the fur behind Hanzo’s ears.

“Mine,” McCree corrects. And Hanzo can not find it in him to argue.

[deripmaver]

🤐 (gagged or muzzled) for the prompt list?

(+ photographed, I got a gagged + recorded request with victor specifically so I decided to fill both here :D)

continuation of this, my jack the ripper au

Content warnings/tags: ABO, serial killers, mentions of mutilation, psychological torture, mild on-screen violence, violence of a sexual nature (not necessarily sexual assault - if you know anything about jack the ripper’s crimes you’ll probably get what i mean? basically he murdered prostitutes and disemboweled them/hacked them up/removed their uteruses so There’s That), sexist slurs, NO MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH

basically Victor Suffers For 2000 Words (what else is new with me lmao)

Victorblinks awake, head throbbing like the worst hangover he’s ever had.He’s disoriented for an instant, and when he groans, trying tostill the strange swirling lights that surround him, he finds thesound muffled strangely.

Andthen it all comes back to him.

Victor’seyes fly open, whole body shuddering,and he jerks forward with ahorrified shriek – but there’s something holding him back,something in his mouth. Hishead throbs miserably, but Victor thrashes, looking from side to sidein a panic. He’s been gagged, the bit of fabric knotteduncomfortably at the nape of his neck – but delicately, carefully,so his hair still splays out underneath him.

He’slying somewhere, arms and legs spread and bound to what feels like anoperating table. It’s freezing, and his body trembles with cold –he’s completely naked still, and a humiliated flush fills hischeeks as he desperately tries to squeeze his knees together, toprotect what little modesty he has.

“Mm,the jewel is awake.”

Victor’shead jerks to the side, exposing his pale neck, and he stares up inhorror at the alpha above him.

Hetries to speak, to say anything, but the gag muffles his words.

Thealpha slaps him, Victor’s head snapping back, and his eyes water atthe warm sting that blooms on his cheeks. He stares up at theceiling, whimpering, fists clenching and unclenching and strainingagainst the bonds that hold him down.

Hisheart pounds in his chest, a caged beast banging against his ribcagelike it’s trying to burst out of his body.

“Istarted gagging them after a while,” the alpha hisses, “They’dalways try to plead with me, to beg me not to hurt them. Likethey deserved mercy, those – those fucking whores,what I did to them was mercy, stopping them from spreading theirfilth – stop whimpering!Shut up!”

Victorstops, immediately, shock and terror making his whole body go rigid.He flinches as the alpha moves, expecting another slap, and hiseyelids flutter reflexively, nervously as a hand comes to caress hischeek. The alpha’s knuckledrags along the sharp bone in his cheek, drawing a high, terrifiedkeen from Victor’s throat, one which he can’t swallow down. Heflinches again, trying so hard to stop the noises coming from hismouth, but a deep pit of terror is welling up in his belly and hefeels bile rising in the back of his throat

Heknows who this alpha is.

Theydidn’t show photographs of the omega corpses, at least not in thepapers – the drawn images and descriptions were gruesome enough.The men and women’s throats cut, their abdomens slashed open withincreasing, bloody rage. Crime scenes a mess of gore, organsremoved with surgical precision. Theomegas uteruses missing, only ever found for one of the bodies –the poor omega who had incurred the killer’s wrath so awfully thathe’d hacked her body and face to bits.

Somebodies were killed at the crime scene, others were taken somewhereunknown, killed and mutilated, then dropped arrogantly inwell-trafficked spots just before dawn.

Victortrembles down to his soul as he stares down who’s taken him – thealpha they called Jack the Ripper, the terror of the whores of EastLondon.

Jack’shands run down his neck,prodding at his scent gland, which emits waves and waves of sourterror into the room. He massages it, chuckling when Victor shrinksaway – or tries to, the bindings preventing him from moving veryfar.

Victorthrashes his head back and forth, tears falling from his eyes. Jacklaughs again, eyes glittering in amusement as he keeps rubbing thespot, a mockery of intimacy.

Hisother hand travels down Victor’s side, sliding over his belly,pressing just below his navel. He prods around that area, between thejutting bones of his hips, as though feeling for something. Victorstruggles feebly, drool dripping down his cheeks from behind the gag,whimpering and crying and pleading incomprehensibly.

WhenJack presses just slightly lower, to the side, Victor squeaks andsqueezes his thighs together as hard as he can, though his anklesburn awfully from the ropes binding him to the table.

Jackfreezes. Victor shudders in relief as the fingers on his scent glandstops massaging, his blood roaring in his ears.

ThenJack hisses, “I don’t want to fuckyou.”

Victorwhimpers in response, body curling inward, just a bit. That’s allalphas have ever wanted with him.

WhenVictor meets Jack’s gaze, terror pierces him like ice-cold steel.There’s hate inthose eyes, something burning and visceral, and for the first time itreally, really hits him.

He’sgoing to die here.

Jacklets out a roar and Victor screams,waiting for the torture to start – but instead there’s a loudcrash as Jack upends atable, bottles shattering on the wooden floor. A sick, medicinalsmell mixes with hot alpha anger and omega distress, and Jack howlslike a crazed beast as he slams his hands against the walls, againsta shelf of medical textbooks, sending the pages flying like rippedflesh.

“Youthink I want to fuck you?”Jack screams, sending a skeleton model flying, showering the roomwith shattered human bones. “You sick, fucking slut, I’ll ripyour heart out, I’ll rip you apart, I hate you, I hateyou-”

Herips a scalpel up from the floor, from the upended table, and heroars in the face of Victor’s terror, his bone-deep sobs, grippinghis neck and squeezingso that the blood pounds behind his eyes, raising the scalpel up sothat it glints in the sickly artificial light-

Jackstares deep into Victor’s bloodshot, red rimmed eyes – andsuddenly, he calms. It’s as if the rage had never been there.

Hereleases Victor’s neck, watching as Victor chokes and coughsmiserably, unable to breathe in deeply because of the gag. Thescalpel comes down to his side, away from Victor’s body, and hetakes a deep, shuddering breath as he re-rights the table and placesthe scalpel on it.

“Notyet,” Jack says, half to himself. “Not yet.” His gaze flits toVictor, calm, hateful.“Can’t ruin your pretty face yet. I’m going to take my timewith you. I know no one’s coming for you. You’re a whore,and no one is looking for you.”

Thathits Victor worse than a punch in the gut.

Noone is looking for him. He was out because Yuuri didn’t come over,because he doesn’t want to be seen with him.

Victorthinks of Yuuri, of his soft, dark eyes, his sweet face – howcherished he made Victor feel, holding him, talking to him likeVictor’s thoughts actually mattered. He thinks of Yuuri in hiscollege dorm room, safe and asleep, perhaps after a night of drinkingwith his new omega friends – far away from him.

AndYuuri will wake up tomorrow to the news of Victor’s body beingfound, naked and mutilated, and Victor will have never plucked up thecourage to tell him he loves him, and Victor doesn’t even know ifYuuri feels the same way, at this point.

Thethought breaks him.

Victorbegins to sob, brokenly, tears and snot dripping down his cheeks andinto the gag around his mouth. He flops back against the table,weeping openly, terror andhopelessness clawing a void into his chest. He’s going to die, he’sgoing to die, and no one will care because no one ever cared abouthim-

Hedoesn’t even notice Jack has moved away from him until cruel handsgrip his chin and force him to look into those hateful brown eyes onemore time. Jack’s face is blurred with his tears, and he blinksfuriously to focus, cheek still stinging from the slap earlier.

“Itold you that you would be the jewel of any alpha’s collection,”Jack says, “And I intend to savor this, to be able to return to it.I gave the others a quick death, slit their throats before I tooktheir wombs. I needed to see how filthy they were, how your wombswere rotting from within. You, though, you, you-”

Jackgrits his teeth, balling his hands into fists, biting his lip so hardit bleeds. Victor stares at him in wide-eyed terror, still weeping,watching Jack calm himself. He takes deep, shuddering breaths,steppingback – then, without warning, he slaps Victor hard,so hard he tastes blood in the back of his mouth, so hard a trickleof blood drips from his nose.

Victorshrieks as his head snaps to the side. For a moment, the shock of itsnaps him out of his misery.

“Youthought you were above them, only letting rich alphas fuck you,”Jack roars, gripping Victor’s cheeks so hard it bruises him, “ButI’ll show you, you’ll see your womb is just as filthyas theirs. You’re nothing. Nothing,do you hear me?”

Victorwhimpers, nodding miserably, beginning to sob again. He’s scaredwhat Jack will do if he doesn’t. God, he wants this to be overalready, he wants Jack to kill him, please, no more of this-

Thesnap of a camera shudder draws his attention, and he stares aroundwildly, wondering what fresh horror Jack’s brought for him.

“Iwanted to capture this on video,” Jack gasps, licking his lipsgleefully, “But I don’t have an assistant to film, so this willhave to do. I want to remember this moment forever, and thanks tothis…”

Thecamera flashes one more time, a puff of smoke rising up from it.Victor swallows. He’s allowedphotographs of his naked body to be taken before, as part of largerpornographic studios, but this, this-

Hefeels violated,once again trying feebly to cover what little he can of his exposedbody. Jack wants to photograph his murder, his dissectionso he can remember it again and again. Oh, god.

Victorshakes his head, looking at the camera pleadingly, and his eyes widenin horror as the camera captures his desperate, inconsolable misery.Each exposure taking time, building up with nothing he can do to stopit. Jack moves the camera a few times, capturing different angles.

Heruns his finger along Victor’s belly, deceptively gentle. Then, hetakes a bit of black ink and draws a thin line along it, tapping thecold scalpel against his belly button teasingly.

Killme already, Victorpleads to himself. Thisis torture, please, stop.

Evenin death, Jack will be tormenting him. Looking at the photos of hisnaked, mutilated body, remembering how he died, what it felt like torun the scalpel along his exposed flesh.

Victorsobs, squeezing his eyes shut. He sobs, and sobs, and sobs, beggingfor someone, anyone to come find him, begging for this to end-

There’sa faint sound, like the click of heels on a wooden floor.

Fora moment, Victor thinks he must have imagined it, but Jack is lookingoff into the distance, so that must mean-

Someone’shere.

There’sa knock at the door.

Someone’shere.

Jackswears, a string of filth that Victor has hardly even heard from themouths of whores. He rushes around, grabbing a thick canvas cloth,and tosses it haphazardly over Victor’s body.

“Ifyou make a noise, I will rip your beating heart from your body,”Jack hisses, his ugly scowl the last thing Victor sees before hisworld is plunged into darkness.

Hisbreathing is so loud, rattling underneath the cloth. He blows hisnose, annoyed, all his sobbing clogging it and making it that muchharder to breathe.

Jack’svoice comes from somewhere far away, sickeningly sweet, the samevoice he’d used to pick up Victor.

“Ah,if it isn’t the rising star of the College of Physicians. Please,please, come in.”

Theother person is soft, timid – his voice doesn’t carry enough forVictor to hear what he’s said. He’s about to start screaming,thrashing – but then Jack says something that makes Victor’sblood run cold.

“Alittle dangerous for an omega to be out alone so late at night, isn’tit?”

No.

“Whatbrings you to my morgue at this early, Yuuri Katsuki?”

No.No, no no no NO-

Victor screams. He screams, and writhes, shouting as loud ashe can, “Run, get out of here, he’ll kill you, Yuuri, no, please,god no-”

The gag steals his words, the blood roaring in his ears. He can’tlet Jack hurt Yuuri, he loves him, he loves him so much, but thebonds are too tight and everything hurts so much.

There’s a crash. Jack is shouting, roaring, raging like a demonfrom hell, there’s the sound of shattering glass-

And Yuuri’s shriek pierces him like a knife.

[psi-psina]

The Hounds of Baskerville read-through

Pt three, UMQRA. [pt one] [pt two]

(this is again a direct continuation of pt one & two)

Credit as always to Arianne DeVere for her transcripts :)

This is the final part of this read through that I wrote before intervening events, and I don’t know if/when I’ll be continuing as I’m quite busy now. This is also quite a bit longer than the other two posts bc I just CAN’T shut up about this part, sorry about that lol.

And we’re finally out on the moor! Night falls as they approach the hollow and as they enter the wooded area, John is distracted by some ghostly rustlings and wailings and he spots a tiny light blinking off in the distance. He exhales heavily and whispers after Sherlock, but finds himself suddenly alone. Sherlock never waits for him.

He thinks the light is someone signalling, coded in morse, and writes down what the morse spells out: UMQRA. The light then vanishes and John, stumped, goes after Sherlock and Henry.

Back with Sherlock and Henry, Sherlock needling about Frankland; he says Frankland seems worried about Henry, and Henry says Frankland’s a worrier at best, and that he’s been very kind to him (Henry) since he came back.

So thinking about Frankland as a Moriarty mirror; Frankland acts kindly and concerned towards Henry (Sherlock) but this is only in order to exploit him. Frankland is literally gaslighting Henry and making him doubt his grip on reality,  in order to discredit Henry to make sure no one would ever take him seriously if he ever started to remember Frankland’s crime. Perhaps he was even hoping to simply push Henry to suicide. It is a clear foreshadowing of what Moriarty intends to do to Sherlock in The Reichenbach Fall in which he seeks to discredit and destroy Sherlock “inch by inch” in the most public and intimate ways imaginable, in his attempt to solve their “problem”.

This is also, however, the root of Sherlock’s fears about John that are explored in this episode, which is dealing entirely with Fear. This is why Frankland is heavily paralleled with John, and his two mirrors (Dr Mortimer & Dr Stapleton) throughout this episode. Frankland is the same physical type as the other villainous John mirrors (Jeff Hope and Culverton), he has a military past and is also a Dr who works at Baskerville with Dr Stapleton. He’s very worried about Henry just as Lousie is, but where her concerns are genuine, his are dishonest and exploitative. Which we will see very shortly is the exact gist of what Sherlock fears about John, and the nature of their relationship. Frankland as Moriarty is this episode’s embodiment of the fears Sherlock has projected onto John which, when understood make his behaviour throughout this episode extremely transparent.

ANYWAY.

SHERLOCK: But he worked at Baskerville, your dad didn’t have a problem with that? HENRY: Well, mates are mates aren’t they. I mean look at you and John.

Sherlock snaps suspiciously at this, clearly on edge about any insinuations about them.

HENRY: They agreed never to talk about work (Baskerville), Uncle Bob and my dad.

Hm. They agreed to never talk about Baskerville (❤️). And when they did, Henry’s dad ended up…dead. Henry points out the hollow as he and Sherlock arrive at the scene, and we cut back to John. As he’s searching for Sherlock he hears an odd sound, one that appears to be part of the soundtrack but he reacts to it (I could be mistaken but this also happens in The Blind Banker so I have a feeling it’s legit). There’s an odd pulse that is almost like an eerie distorted heartbeat, to which John reacts. And he looks for the source and finds water, dripping from an unknown source onto a drum. He looks a the oddly leaking water with no apparent source and seems curious and rather bemused, until his inspection is cut short by the Hound tearing through the woods behind him. This moment is mirrored a bit later in the episode with Henry (Sherlock) who’s attention is drawn to some carelessly leaking water in his backyard before he too is terrorised by the Hound. I’ll go into the symbolism of water a little later. Back with John, the Hound howls and John starts to run, the water forgotten, and we cut back to Sherlock stumbling down into the hollow as the Hound’s motif escalates. He fixates on huge paw prints in the mud before looking up at the sound of another howl.

On the edge of the hollow we can hear the Hound snarling and rustling and see it’s shadow on the forest floor but -

There’s nothing there.

Sherlock looks like he’s seen a ghost as a frantic Henry lurches up behind him, demanding to know if Sherlock saw it. Sherlock completely ignores him and pushes him aside brusquely, storming off. When they meet back up with John, Sherlock denies having seen anything at all.

HENRY: Look, he must have seen it. I saw it – he must have. He must have. I can’t ... Why? Why? Why would he say that? It-it-it-it it was there. It was. JOHN: Henry, Henry, I need you to sit down, try and relax, please. HENRY: I’m okay, I’m okay. JOHN: Listen, I’m gonna give you something to help you sleep, all right? HENRY: This is good news, John. It’s-it’s-it’s good. I’m not crazy. There is a hound, there ... there is. And Sherlock – he saw it too. No matter what he said, he saw it.

John escorts Henry back to his home and kindly prescribes him some downers to help him calm down after his close encounter. Henry (Sherlock) is having a strange experience however, he seems equally relieved as he is horrified at having actually SEEN the Hound. Because, as horrifying as it’s existence is, a confirmation at least allays his fears about his own sanity. We transition from Henry in the classic Holmes thinking pose as he contemplates and consoles himself, to a highly distressed Sherlock striking his own Holmesian pose by the fire back at the Inn. I love that transition, one of my many favourites. This show has THE MOST emotive transitions, it’s the BEST. 

John takes the chair opposite Sherlock at the Inn, and we see them before an empty dinner table set for two, with a heart-shaped wreath of thorns hung right over the flames in between their bodies. This is one of my favourite shots in the whole show;

Like…this image speaks a thousand words. Visual poetry. I mean the entire show is but there are moments like these where they just… completely outdo themselves man. Obviously, a burning heart made of a wreath of thorns is evocative enough in itself, it also looks like another piece of Christian imagery. It brings to mind the Sacred Heart, which is a pretty well known symbol for divine and unconditional love…the cause of Christ’s Sherlock’s immeasurable suffering. :( All of which is…contextually relevant.

^ An accurate image of Sherlock’s heart, tbh.

JOHN: Well, he is in a pretty bad way. He’s manic, totally convinced there’s some mutant super-dog roaming the moors. And there isn’t, though, is there? ’Cause if people knew how to make a mutant super-dog, we’d know. They’d be for sale. I mean, that’s how it works. …Er, listen: er, on the moor I saw someone signalling. Er, Morse – I guess it’s Morse. …Doesn’t seem to make much sense. …Er, U, M, Q, R, A. Does that mean ... anything ... So, okay, what have we got? We know there’s footprints, ’cause Henry found them; so did the tour guide bloke. We all heard something. …Maybe we should just look for whoever’s got a big dog. SHERLOCK: Henry’s right. JOHN: What? SHERLOCK: I saw it too. JOHN: What? SHERLOCK: I saw it too, John. JOHN: Just ... just a minute. You saw what? SHERLOCK: A hound, out there in the Hollow. A gigantic hound.

John smirks. Sherlock blinks back the tears. This scene is absolutely excruciating. What is it with Mark writing these horrible inability-to-communicate scenes in his episodes. I mean I know why but...I hate it.

“Cause if people knew how to make a mutant super-dog, we’d know. They’d be for sale. I mean, that’s how it works.”

Interesting, because even though the Hound is not actually real, the idea of the Hound very much is, and is VERY much for sale. The idea of the Hound is, literally, used as a ‘tourist attraction’, an in-joke that drums up business for the township, irregardless of the fact that it’s driving Henry insane. This is, undoubtedly, a meta comment on cultural gaybaiting, probably also an underhanded reaction in response to the criticism they themselves have received for it. I am not joking. Like in and of itself it’s excruciatingly poignant and incredibly well done purely in the episodes context, but as all their bullshit subtext has amounted to nothing remotely tangible, it remains an underhanded tantrum. >(

Anyway. John goes from disbelief to a weak attempt at pacification which only serves to embitter Sherlock even more towards him.

JOHN: We have to be rational about this.

This scene is an interesting role-reversal. This is, in a way, Sherlock getting a taste of his own medicine from John. This is basically John treating Sherlock the way Sherlock treated him in their argument in The Great Game (one of my favourite scenes EVER), and is absolutely 100% written as a parallel scene, simply with Sherlock the one having an emotional crisis, and John completely misunderstanding what he’s seeing. And even in these role reversals, John is still rather kindly, and Sherlock stiflingly cruel. Anyway, Sherlock is no more able to ‘be rational’ in this situation than John was as they started at each from their chairs in 221B (although again, John behaves, as always, far more rationally than Sherlock does lmao i WILL NOT discredit him there!!). And John can do nothing to appease him because they are communicating across a gulf so wide right now they might as well be speaking different languages. 

The way Sherlock admits to having seen it is so sad; it’s like a concession, “Henry’s right, I was wrong. I saw it too. He’s always been right about it.” He’s always feared, deep down, that it was real and what they all say about it is true.

SHERLOCK: Look at me. I’m afraid, John. Afraid. *[1] JOHN: Sherlock? SHERLOCK: Always been able to keep myself distant...divorce myself from...feelings. But look, you see…body’s betraying me. Interesting, yes? Emotions. The grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment.

Sherlock looks at his shaking hands with disdain as he raises a glass of scotch and takes a couple of swigs. “Look at me, I’m afraid.”

What’s got him so wound up to be shaking and forcing back tears in a room full of people? Sure he’s been drugged, but neither Henry nor John react anywhere near this viscerally to the drug or their encounter with their Hounds. This is because John, and probably Henry, are both far better adjusted than Sherlock is lol. All this is has been just below the surface all along, the drug, the Hound, just knocked his defences down.You get a big hint in Scandal, in fact, as to the nature of Sherlock’s fear here.

In that scene in Scandal, we get the first appearance of the musical motif used solely in the aptly titled “Pursued by a Hound” which is exclusive to this episode bar that one moment in Scandal (another thing linking the Hound to Irene and the events of Scandal). In that scene, we see Sherlock drugged against his will by Irene, just as he has been now, in the Hollow. The scene above is the one in which Irene wholly defeats Sherlock, and she does so by drugging him. His defeat by her, the mirror of his desire and sexuality, is not intellectual, it is wholly physical, she imposes her will upon him with a drug. She causes his body to utterly fail him and leaves him entirely at her mercy. Drugged and completely physically vulnerable.

“…Body’s betraying me.” 

So you could argue that this betrayal is fear itself, but it simply isn’t. Sherlock is not immune to emotions, he only pretends to be. He’s no stranger to fear. His desires got totally carried away on him, he fell desperately in love with John, and he is quite certain now that he was mistaken to do so. He does not hate emotions in and of themselves, he hates HIS emotions because they are not correct, they are doomed, unrequited, unfulfilled, a source of nothing but pain and suffering for him. He hates his emotions and he is terrified of his weakening body betraying his desires. To John. This fear, this visceral shame that can so easily grow and become basically synonymous with desire inside gay people living in ambient homophobia, is embodied in this episode by this idea of the Hound literally mauling it’s unwilling victims to death. It is embodied by mirrors, when Henry loses control and attacks Lousie in his home. It is embodied in The Reichenbach Fall by every man Sherlock touches being violently killed or committing suicide as a direct result of being touched by him. It is mirrored again by Eurus in The Final Problem, when she talks about raping one of her guards. 

He’s on a(nother) downward spiral. Mind’s tearing itself to pieces, body’s betraying him. He feels like a monster.

”The grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment.” But John can’t see it, and he has absolutely no chance of making any sense of it because he would never think in a million years that Sherlock is behaving like this because of him. He could never know that Sherlock’s cold disdain for emotions is an expression of the pain his own cause him, of the fear that John get a glimpse (or a faceful) of what Sherlock feels for him, even though John does suspect his friend is not alright. Like, this is certainly one of John’s uglier moments, he certainly could have handled this with more tact, and once you’re able to read Sherlock it’s so easy to fault John in this scene because once you’re in Sherlock’s head, John can appear to be a truly insensitive, oblivious dick. Which he sort of is, but you just can’t. You can’t truly fault John for being cynical and guarded at this stage, Sherlock has cut him dead and hurt him too much for John to be anything but lost when they’re in these situations now. This cynicism does grow into something uglier down the line, in Culverton, and I feel like this scene is where the seeds of that monster are first sown in Sherlock, which then properly bloom at the end of The Sign of Three.. :/

Jesus. Like I’m not joking, if I was a damaged robotic gay person having a nervous breakdown in front of my best friend with whom I was desperately in love only to have them inadvertently make a mockery of my self-hatred and inability to express myself I definitely would not be able to handle this any better. (I mean personally I would just start crying and run away).

John, getting more and more uncomfortable, tries to get Sherlock to rationalise, saying “You’ve been pretty wired lately, you know you have. I think you’ve just gone out there, and got yourself a bit worked up.” Like you would to a child. Even with that slight smile. This sounds infuriatingly patronising to Sherlock, and Sherlock gets defensive, then angry, and inevitably lashes out the best way he can; with his deductions.

“There is nothing wrong with me, do you understand!? You want me to prove it yes?” **[2]

So he launches into an incredibly scathing and specific deduction about the widow and the fisherman sitting across the room from them: very blatant mirrors for Sherlock (the widow) and John (the fisherman). (They even have matching hearts hanging above them! Although the one hanging over the fisherman is made of rusty old tin or something, make of that what you will.)

SHERLOCK: We’re looking for a dog, yes, a great big dog, that’s your brilliant theory. Cherchez le chien. Good, excellent, yes, where shall we start? How about them? The sentimental widow and her son, the unemployed fisherman. The answer’s yes. JOHN: Yes? SHERLOCK: She’s got a West Highland terrier called Whisky. Not exactly what we’re looking for. JOHN: Sherlock, for God’s sake ...

The widow (Sherlock) has a little Hound, of course…a West Highland Terrier. Like Bluebell, it’s not exactly a horrible monster. I mean. I mean look at this. Look at this monstrous Hound.

I just…I am going to scream and physically die, I’M IN TOO DEEP.

SHERLOCK: Look at the jumper he’s wearing. Hardly worn. Clearly he’s uncomfortable in it. Maybe it’s because of the material; more likely the hideous pattern, suggesting it’s a present, probably Christmas. So he wants into his mother’s good books. Why? Almost certainly money. He’s treating her to a meal but his own portion is small. That means he wants to impress her, but he’s trying to economise on his own food. JOHN: Well, maybe he’s just not hungry. SHERLOCK: No, small plate. Starter. He’s practically licked it clean. She’s nearly finished her pavlova. If she’d treated him, he’d have had as much as he wanted. He’s hungry all right, and not well off – you can tell that by the state of his cuffs and shoes.

So, this is what’s going on in Sherlock’s heart right now. :/ The fisherman (John) is treating the widow (Sherlock) to a meal, and indulging her by wearing a jumper he clearly doesn’t like because it was a gift from her, but not because he just loves her and cares about her or wants to spoil her or just spend time with her or make her happy, but because he wants to impress her and get into her ‘good books’. Why? Almost certainly money. His actions aren’t sincere but manipulative and made purely in self-interest (RE, Frankland) and he gives himself away by ‘economising’ on his own food, in spite of being ‘hungry’. John suggests he just might not be hungry but Sherlock is adamant; he’s (John) definitely hungry and not well off, and remains certain that he’s only interested in exploiting her. Those earlier awkward moments between them about money? They hint at this well of resentment. Sherlock’s the wealthy, sentimental widow and John’s the scarred, threadbare, unemployed tradesman.

Left alone with his heartbreak and insecurity, it seems this is what Sherlock thinks about John in his ugliest moments, and now the ‘drug’ lets his fears run wild. It’s eating away at him. I don’t think for a second he truly believes this of John as a person, this is another product of his own self-loathing more than anything and it is WILDLY unfair to John. It seems this is the conclusion he draws about them when trying to figure out why John chooses to continue living and working with him, despite the fact that it causes so many problems in other area’s of John’s life, particularly romantically. He would never think for a second that John stays with him because he’s like, the love of his LIFE, because he doesn’t think that’s possible anymore. :/ All of the above is the reason Sherlock is such an asshole to John in this episode. He’s so insecure he’s convinced himself that he means nothing to John beyond the social/financial perks their partnership provides him. It certainly doesn’t make it okay, it just makes him very transparent, and…sad.

The stuff about the Christmas jumper is something because

I mean, if this possibly implies that Sherlock actually gave John that jumper for Christmas I would just…Die. That seems like a rather…unSherlock thing to do so personally I don’t think it was lol. I always thought that jumper was probably from Jeanette or Mrs Hudson before I thought about this deduction, so…I don’t know really.

SHERLOCK: Now, he was a fisherman. Scarring pattern on his hands, very distinctive – fish hooks. They’re all quite old now, which suggests he’s been unemployed for some time. Not much industry in this part of the world, so he’s turned to his widowed mother for help. “Widowed?” Yes, obviously. She’s got a man’s wedding ring on a chain around her neck – clearly her late husband’s and too big for her finger. She’s well-dressed but her jewellery’s cheap. She could afford better, but she’s kept it – it’s sentimental. Now, the dog ... tiny little hairs all over the leg from where it gets a little bit too friendly, but no hairs above the knees, suggesting it’s a small dog, probably a terrier. In fact it is – a West Highland terrier called Whisky. “How the hell do you know that, Sherlock?” ’Cause she was on the same train as us and I heard her calling its name and that’s not cheating, that’s listening, I use my senses, John, unlike some people, so you see, I am fine, in fact I’ve never been better, so just Leave. Me. Alone.

Where it get’s a little bit too friendly. ...I mentioned he hates himself right. 

Anyway. John sits quietly and endures this tirade like all the others, looking more and more hurt as it goes on and Sherlock starts to mock him on top of everything else. When it’s over, he just sadly says “Yeah, okay. Okay. Why would you listen to me? I’m just your friend.” Looking close to tears himself now and Sherlock twists the knife one more time; “I don’t have friends.” he says viciously and John just

😞

Honestly, the rejection Sherlock feels is mostly self-imposed, which is why his character arc thus far has culminated in him finding self-love, but John…god the rejection John has endured from Sherlock over the course of their relationship is just beyond. Sherlock is just so casually cruel to him so often. Like now. John tries to remind Sherlock that he is in fact his friend, and Sherlock essentially tells him “You are not my friend.” John does the only thing he really can, bitterly says “Naah. Wonder why.” And walks away.

John storms out of the inn to get some air, breathing heavily, trying to calm down, and then spots that light again. Signalling him off in the distance.

We get this sequence.

John sees the distant light and goes after it immediately and we transition to Henry (Sherlock) curled up rather pathetically on his sofa, a blanket draped over his face. He sits, looking pained and tired, then stands and walks to the window. As he reaches it, Liberty In (Death) crashes through his skull and he rubs his temples, holding his head in his hands and breathing deeply.

Liberty in death.

As this is happening to Sherlock/Henry we transition back to John as he hurries toward the source of the light. And what is it? What’s sending this garbled signal John can see off in the distance? It’s sex. Specifically it’s a sexual activity known as Dogging in Britain. Wow 😩

Like, if you were not convinced that Dogs are connected to and referencing sexuality in this episode, this really ought to put that matter to rest. I can’t imagine the agony it must have caused Mark Gatiss to figure out how to work this euphemism into the mystery in this episode in a meaningful way lmao. There’s nothing else to say.

Anyway, John, realising that the light that his curiosity thought to be a meaningful signal is just a product of some voyeuristic pervs bonking, believes he’s made a mistake, turns and heads back toward the inn, kicking himself. As he retreats, with the light flashing eerily over his shoulder as though it’s trying to call him back, his phone pings with a text from Sherlock, asking him to interview Louise Mortimer. John texts him back in all caps, Ajsdhfn I love him. And Sherlock just sends through a photo of Louise for him. 😩 I swear to god, Sherlock could not be any saltier right now if he were a literal puddle of brine. John halts momentarily as he looks at Louise and he mumbles, “Ohh you’re a bad man” and in my opinion he’s talking about…both of them. 😩 Useless jerks.

As John walks off, we transition back to Henry (Sherlock).

The simplest way to look at the following sequence is pure dream logic. It is almost certainly an actual nightmare that Sherlock/Henry is having, as all Henry says the next morning is that he ‘didn’t sleep well’ and not, y’know, that there was something lurking around his yard last night that was setting off the floodlights and scaring the living daylights out of him and would Sherlock mind taking a look. No, it isn’t real. The sole purpose of these scenes at Henry’s house is to show you what is going on inside the iron box. Emotional context, with Henry simply being Sherlock’s avatar so as not to give the whole game away.

Henry (Sherlock) is sitting listlessly and being plagued by Hounds on the television. No matter which channel he tries the Hound is everywhere. Then the floodlights flick on, drenching his yard in harsh white light. We see a hose on the patio leaking water everywhere, and as the lights fade out, the silhouette of the Hound tears across the screen. This moment is the dead ringer of John’s earlier encounter with water in the woods. The attention on this eerily leaking water (Henry’s resigned and heedless as he just lets his hose leak everywhere rather than do anything about it, John’s curious and benign as he’s drawn by this mysterious dripping of unknown origins [kind of in the same way he was drawn by the mysterious light]), which is promptly shattered by the appearance of the Hound. Interestingly, the second time we see the hose, after the Hound tears through the yard and the floodlights flash for a second time, the water has stopped.

We all know the symbolism attributed to water in literature and dreams, it’s all relative to emotions and energy:

“In most dreams water indicates emotions, moods and flow of feeling energy. Because of the nature of water it lends itself to depicting aspects of how you relate to your feelings. For instance you can ‘drown’ in or feel swept away by some emotions. At other times you can feel cleansed and refreshed. But because water is vital to your existence it can show how you long for or thirst for something, and feeling fulfilled.” [x] 

Everyone’s picked up on how heavily and literally this symbolism is used in Sherlock (particularly drowning), especially in Series 4, but the focus in this episode is on leaking, and leaking water carries it’s own particular meaning:

A leaky hose faucet represents issues that weaken your ability to control yourself. Loss, disappointments, or frustrations may be distracting you.

To dream of a something springing a leak, or taking on water represents loss, disappointments, or frustrations that may be distracting you. Issues that were repressed or kept at bay may coming to the forefront. You may also feel that you are wasting your time or energy. It may also reflect an uncertain situation that is getting out of control.

Small problems that may have the potential to get out of control if you don't deal with them immediately. The potential for a problem to spiral out of control or become destructive if left unattended. Possibly a warning dream about procrastinating or ignoring problems. [x]

Leaking water in dreams represents a leaking of emotions or loss of power. Dreaming of a leak that you can't stop might symbolise an emotional situation in waking life that seems to be out of control. Passively watching a leak without taking action to repair it might be an indication that you are in a reflective stage and are not quite sure whether you want to repair the leak or just let it go. [x]

Leaking water: This can mean that your emotional energy is be used unwisely, possible through such things as anxiety or fear, especially if the water is coming through a ceiling or wall. [x]

So we have…

Loss of self-control - check.

Fear - check.  

Disappointment, frustration, anxiety - check.

A(n emotional) problem spiralling out of control and becoming something destructive while left unattended - check.

So, I hope these flashing floodlights are bringing to mind another light we’ve just seen flashing in this episode. 

This is what is happening inside Sherlock’s heart right now. Or just watch the full sequence tbh. 

The Hound is all over the television, it’s in his home, it’s in his backyard, it’s in his reflection, it’s in his heart. It won’t leave him alone and he can’t get away from it. But all that escapes the iron box is

UMQRA. That bright blaze just a tiny light, glimpsed off in the distance, blinking in nonsense morse. An utter inability to communicate what is in one’s heart. “Every time I close my eyes…I’m lost…lost in the sky and…no one can hear me.” This is what just played out between them at the inn. And John is worried, because he picks up on the signals, he does notice, and he wants it to mean something, he wants it to be a code because that’d mean he might have a chance, however small, at cracking it, but it’s Sherlock’s own actions and endless rejections that make him doubt and dismiss his own perceptions and he will never be able to act on his instincts as long as Sherlock locks him out and refuses to open his heart.

We then transition from Henry, sunk onto the floor weeping, to John and Louise at the pub on a sort-of date, horror transitioning to mirth as she cradles her head in laughter at something John said, uttering “That’s so mean...”, as Henry (Sherlock), gun in hand, cradles his head in despair on his living room floor. Another one of my favourite transitions.

JOHN: Um, more wine, Doctor? MORTIMER: Are you trying to get me drunk, Doctor?

Doctor to Doctor. John chats with Louise and ply’s her with wine as he tries to get a rapport going, changing tack and asking about Henry’s father when she stays firm on her refusal to talk about Henry.

JOHN: Okay, what about his father? He wasn’t one of your patients. Wasn’t he some sort of conspiracy nutter - theorist? MORTIMER: You’re only a nutter if you’re wrong. JOHN: Mmm. And was he wrong? MORTIMER: I should think so!

Of course, like every other Conspiracy Theorist on the show (Sherlock, The Geek Interpreter boys, Anderson & Co, etc), Henry and his father are in fact right about everything. John then makes an appeal to Louise’s concern for Henry,

JOHN: But he got fixated on Baskerville, didn’t he? With what they were doing in there ... Couldn’t Henry have gone the same way, started imagining a hound? MORTIMER: Why d’you think I’m going to talk about this?! JOHN: Because I think you’re worried about him, and because I’m a doctor too…and because I have another friend who might be having the same problem.

John probably genuinely wants to talk to someone about this because he is worried about Sherlock and he has no one to talk to about anything, ever. :/ And just as they may have gotten somewhere, Frankland interrupts and sends it all to hell. Keeping in mind the connection between Frankland/John/Jaqui in this episode, it’s obvious Frankland is acting as John’s demon here. A vexing presence that pops up just in time to prevent John from gaining any insight into Henry’s/Sherlock’s state of mind, AND an annoying cockblock. In keeping with the theme, Frankland fucks with John by insinuating that Sherlock and John are Gay while making sure Louise gets that John’s only there to get information out of her.

FRANKLAND: Didn’t you know? Don’t you read the blog? Sherlock Holmes! Private detective! This is his PA! JOHN: PA? FRANKLAND: Well, live-in PA. JOHN: Perfect.

Wow it’s almost like, every PA we see on this show is a) a mirror for John and b) romantically involved with their Sherlock-I mean, employer. Commander. Except for Janine, who is a PA who is just involved with Sherlock himself. 😩

Frankland mutters to John about Stapleton conspiratorially and finally leaves. John looks back to Louise and makes an appropriately sheepish gesture. As she leaves, Louise snarkily suggests John buy Frankland a drink instead of her, then walks away. Awkward. John sighs, foiled again, as always.

The following morning Sherlock is back on the rocky outcrop alone, contemplating his Problem. We transition to Henry’s house, as he wearily approaches the door to Sherlock’s banging. Sherlock bursts in more manic than ever.

SHERLOCK: Morning! Oh, how are you feeling? HENRY: I’m ... I didn’t sleep very well. SHERLOCK: That’s a shame! Shall I make you some coffee? Oh look, you’ve got damp!

It’s like the shittier he feels the more manic he gets. And of course, they also have “damp”, from all that leaking going on. :/ He promptly storms into Henry’s kitchen and goes straight for his sugar, stealing a couple of sachets and then dramatically making out like he’s putting coffee on. Henry wanders in and tries to ask him what his deal was last night and Sherlock abruptly slams the canister down and cuts him off and tells us what’s REALLY on his mind. Hound; this absurd term for an ordinary love…..i mean . .. . .dog. He then abruptly storms off having got what he came for, leaving his exhausted Henry behind. As he’s walking back through the village he comes across John sitting alone in the cemetery, framed by 3 huge crosses:

So the morning after, Sherlock gazes at John through a field of crosses and they are so prominent in the  frame it literally looks like they’re warding Sherlock off. Like a warning. Or reminder: John is off limits, remember that, b*tch. John, meanwhile, has situated himself amongst the dead, sending a pretty clear message about his current state of mind. He looks quite different from the day before as well. He’s gone from the striking (passionate!) combo of deep red and black, to this frigid khaki scenario that basically camouflages him. 

An impressive change in mood.

Sherlock approaches him, chewing on his mouth like he’s about to swallow his own tongue, and with no preamble, awkwardly asks John if he got anywhere with Sherlock’s..I mean, that “morse code” from last night. John curtly says no and starts walking away.

SHERLOCK: U, M, Q, R, A, wasn’t it? UMQRA. U.M.Q... JOHN: Look, forget it. It’s ... I thought I was on to something. I wasn’t. SHERLOCK: Sure? JOHN: Yeah.

Thought I was on to something…I wasn’t. :( 

YOU WERRREEEEEEEEEEE!!! HE’S EVERYTHING YOU WANT HIM TO BEEEE JOOOHHHNNNN!!! 😫

Sherlock tries to ‘break the ice’ by joking with John about his ‘progress’ with Louise Mortimer, basically confirming that his sending John to her the previous night was some bullshit self-hating gesture that seems simultaneously spiteful (towards himself), conciliatory (towards John) and deeply ashamed. I mean can you imagine. Actively alienating yourself from the person you’re obsessed with by nudging him towards a woman bc you hate yourself and feel guilty and disgusting for lusting after him because you think he’s straight but you know he’s a bit easy so you maybe feel like it’s a good thing to do by him as a MATE which is what you SHOULD be, but it’s actually just sad and makes you even MORE bitter and self-loathing because it’s pathetic, while it ALSO continues to push him away from you (the whole point BUT STILL) and give him the COMPLETELY wrong idea about your motives and feelings and just alienates him from you even more! Like there is literally No way in which Sherlock has not fucked things up with John! He’s doing his best but he is useless! UGH. Anyway, John isn’t having it, saying funny doesn’t suit him (NOT TRUE) so he should just stick to ice. Mr. ice-man. 😩 HE’S NOT!

Sherlock then gets serious, grabbing John by the arm and explaining that what happened to him last night was more than just fear, it was something he hadn’t really experienced before: Doubt. He felt he couldn’t trust his own senses. John says he (Sherlock) can’t actually believe that he saw a monster, and Sherlock says no, but he DID see it, so that leaves the question of how that could be. So this is a lame attempt at justification and also Sherlock spinning it trying to downplay the meltdown he had the night before while using his usual tactics when he’s trying to get John back on board with him after he’s fucked up: dangling the mystery and the danger and the intrigue in front of him, hoping John’ll bite and all will be forgotten. On the subtextual level, this is the emotional conundrum; Sherlock’s a rational person, he doesn’t (want to) believe the ‘monster’ is real and yet something has caused his own mind to turn against him to allow those fears and doubts about himself (the Hound), and about John, out of their carefully manicured iron box where he can no longer ignore them and pretend he’s above them. Sherlock thinks it’s the ‘sugar’ that has ‘drugged’ him and caused his senses to fail him. He’s an idiot.

The fact that he specifies doubt here I find interesting, specifically doubt with regards to his own senses, as this is another thing that rears it’s ugly head again in The Lying Detective: In which his own ‘memories’ are thrown into turmoil and he has a crisis of Faith (in John), then loses Faith (John) completely, when forced to assume Faith (John) was only ever a figment of his lonely, overactive and drug-addled imagination. He’s forced to accept his senses have betrayed him, as a direct consequence of his ‘addiction’. Here, he holds the ‘sugar’ he likes to have responsible for his close encounter with the Hound. He is wrong on both counts, a little sweetness never harmed no one (actually that’s a lie, Sherlock’s poisoned sweetness is about to hurt John a LOT) and Faith WAS always real.

So anyway, because Sherlock’s a fuck up and can’t deal with John being upset with him, John is just like hmm yes good, got something to go on with then have you, have fun with that and walks away again. Although I think at this point it’s already pretty obvious that John is struggling to stay angry with him (and is just as [if not more] angry with himself), irregardless of how hurt he is. Everyone’s made a lot of this moment and the way John’s eyes keep dropping to Sherlock’s neck as if he’s just so mesmerised by it (which, y’know, fair enough) but that was never what struck me about this scene lmao. John’s upset with Sherlock and here Sherlock is again getting right up in his personal space, putting his face mere INCHES from John’s and making intense eye contact with him. Sustained eye contact with someone at that proximity is VERY intimate and, I always felt like John’s wandering eyes here were more an attempt to break eye contact with Sherlock because it’s too uncomfortable. And, he’s upset with him! Sherlock shouldn’t keep getting away with this crap! He can’t afford to be gazing right into Sherlock’s big blue eyes like this! Dammit!!

Sherlock like...reel him in reel him in. Boy.... :/

As John is walking away Sherlock finally makes an effort at one of his awkward sort-of apologies, saying that he meant what he said last night, that he doesn’t have friends, in the plural, because John is his only friend, gazing at John like a PUPPY. :( It certainly does the trick;

Sherlock must see that tiny smile and nod. John clearly accepts this as Sherlock’s version of an apology, but isn’t quite ready to let him have it just yet, and abruptly turns away from him again, but with that out of the way Sherlock is on John’s heels immediately now showering him with praises because John’s just given him another brain orgasm.

John, you are amazing! You are fantastic! You stimulate me like no other! He literally calls John a conductor of light which is STILL one of the most excruciating things to ever come out of his trash mouth, but as always he tempers his earnestness with glib nonsense, causing John to prompt him to maybe not start ruining his apology QUITE yet (alas, he’s only getting started 😞). John asks what he’s done that’s so bloody stimulating (if only you knew…) and Sherlock turns around and holds up his moleskin, the word HOUND jumps off the page across Sherlock himself, as we look at him from John’s POV;

Beware the Hound, John! 

Sherlock looks positively devilish doesn’t he. Why did they ever stop using Paul McGuigan??? A GOD DAMN mystery. This is an obvious marker, just like the moment in The Blind Banker in which Sherlock is marked as the Deadman; so he is marked here, as the Hound. This shot, like the one at the inn the previous day, is from John’s POV because in both instances it is marking Sherlock as John’s “Hound”. John is not tormented by the Hound that torments Sherlock/Henry, because, among other things, John is not gay. John is tormented by Sherlock. Sherlock is the thing that Hounds John. It is also, without a doubt, hinting at the monstrous thing Sherlock is about to do to him. HOUND!

Sherlock speculates that perhaps Hound is actually an acronym, when he turns and spots Lestrade inside the Inn and dramatically swans over to interrogate his presence. He looks put out as John warmly greets Lestrade as Greg, and continues to petulantly demand an explanation.

Sherlock deduces Mycroft must have sent his Handler (conscience, better part, keeper; whatever you wanna call him :P) to look after him “incognito” at the mention of Baskerville, and asks if that’s why he’s calling himself Greg, which John helpfully points out is actually his name. His own better part, his GOOD man, and he’s such a cock he doesn’t even know his NAME! (But John Does!!!) The homoeroticism latent in calling Lestrade Sherlock’s handler is already enough but like look at them...

Like, I am sorry but this is sexual tension aljkald. Greg indignantly says he doesn’t just do whatever Mycroft tells him, rather giving away the fact that he probably does just that. 😩 Then John chips in and halts their squabbling, bringing forth the invoice for all the meat apparently being gobbled by the owners of this strictly vegetarian! establishment. And off they go to shake down Billy and Gary and get to the bottom of this Hound business.

*[1] Another parallel in The Lying Detective that doesn’t really need any elaboration, they’re just parallels that add more context:

I’m afraid, John. Can’t do it, not now. .....Not alone.

Like...they’re begging you to actually LOOK AT HIM. SEE what’s right there in front you!

**[2] And another:

Aaaand of course...

tagging again @sarahthecoat, @devoursjohnlock, @inevitably-johnlocked, @impossibleleaf, @tjlcisthenewsexy, @gosherlocked, @221bloodnun, @northstargrassmaiden, @poisonousindigo (u get tagged in this one bc i remember u asking me about umqra which is what really set off this whole thing lmao), @love-in-mind-palace

hope ya’ll’s enjoy :) I sure did!!

[sigurdjarlson]

random fav scenes from TLG that i’ve probably talked about 348584 times

their first meeting where khadgar basically pisses himself when he sees him and can only make a “strangled hissing noise” at him. and medivh was like moroes wtf is wrong with this kid

khadgar snapping at medivh like fucking burning him “well you haven’t really done anything” and then when he goes to apologize and Medivh just fucking laughs 

“he smiled and the room felt warm and cozy again” nuff said

Khadgar noting how well tailored medivh’s robes are to his frame like...gay.

“I know the meaning of your name as you know mine”

medivh knowing khadgar was a nosy little shit and opened up the letter and he was like heh i would do the same 

khadgar sleeping on tables in the library? fucking nerd

khadgar’s canonically the nosiest bitch ever?? and an expert at opening locks and shit

medivh asking khadgar about the fashion trends in dalaran over breakfast? lmao

Every scene with Moroes

medivh being “pleasantly surprised he was still there” every morning :’) 

medivh just straight up shoving knowledge in khadgar’s head. like literally because he’s fucking lazy “don’t they teach you anything in dalaran?”

khadgar’s description of medivh’s smile while he’s killing the orcs and later on aegwynn “the smile of the wolf, the predator” (something like this but I love it?/) like mother like son

“Yet it was her eyes that held his attention — green as summer forest, green as polished jade, green as the ocean after a storm. Khadgar recognized those eyes, for he had felt the penetrating gaze of similar eyes, but from her son.” like holy shit khadgar

medivh constantly being there “in a second” “at once” “immediately” whenever khadgar is hurt and fussing over him

khadgar reading letters to medivh while he’s in one of his mini comas but only the funny parts..because he didn’t think medivh should be alone

Khadgar fighting off SARGERAS WITH A LETTER OPENER TO savE MEDIVH depsite the fact that he’s absolutely fucking terrified

medivh waking up and seeing khadgar on his floor and the first thing he says is “why are you on the floor, lad? moroes could have gotten you a cot” like ?

khadgar blushes a lot in this book?? and like 80% of the times involve medivh 

garona beats the shit out of khadgar when he attacks her thinking she’s an intruder

khadgar being a jealous little baby because Garona is spending time alone with Medivh (*squints*) 

the fact that despite this Khadgar and Garona become friends. its cute af. 

medivh telling khadgar he’d check all the anti demon wards to make sure they’re working just so khadgar would feel safer 

khadgar’s dumbass gets caught by some orcs and Garona is like um this is my slave and when they walk away they have an exchange about “why would she want a human slave?” and then “THAT’S DISGUSTING” like oh my god they thought khadgar was her sex slave

Khadgar falls to his knees and screams when he finds out medivh betrayed them

garona’s absolute devastation when she sees the vision of her killing Llane

garona and khadgar running down the stairs screaming at moroes to run because medivh’s gone mad and his reaction is “more than usual?” and then “wherever would I go?” 

moroes being completely unsurprised even in death 

Sargeras/Medivh admits that he almost cried while killing Moroes and Cook 

Lothar’s heartbroken howl when he attacks medivh

Medivh sobbing when he sees the vision of him attacking his mother

Khadgar saying that he believes Medivh kept them close because he knew he would need them to stop him 

“Thank you..I fought it..for as long as I could.” 

lothar believes khadgar immediately when he says medivh has gone fucking nuts while Llane refuses to believe it (and also says people come to him all the time saying that l m a o) 

Lothar cheerfully smacking khadgar on the back and every time he almost knocks khadgar on his ass

Lothar listening at the door while Medivh and Khadgar talk. Medivh being completely aware of this and trying to open the door quick enough so he’ll fall on his face 

Khadgar noting that Lothar is far more intelligent than he would have thought at first glance and that he has to be careful so lothar doesn’t trick him into saying too much

khadgar saying his loyalty is to medivh but he’ll keep him updated for medivh’s sake

garona saying she trusts no one and when khadgar looks hurt she corrects herself and says she trusts him 

khadgar crying when the soldiers are beating garona and trying to burn them alive but lothar shows up and is like yo whats up

“how long have you been able to see me?’ “from my very first day’

medivh and khadger getting drunk and medivh trying to get khadgar to lift the mug magically..only for khadgar to have to fetch a broom moments later

khadgar seeing those visions of himself in the future. ow

every single time medivh scolds or corrects khadgar and then quickly proceeds to gently reassure him or make light of the situation 

“sacrifice” he said bitterly

medivh crying as he absorbs the magic from karazhan or whatever and the last images are of Khadgar when he first got there. And the description of khadgar having butterflies in his stomach.

okay just literally the whole book and the recurring theme of fate and time and *gestures wildly* its heartbreaking and gay and I love it

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

I will search the world, I will face it’s harms

A/N: this is the longest thing I’ve ever written lmao. Please let me know what you think. Can also be found on ao3:  [I will search the world, I will face it’s harms] 

Summary: Richie pushes Eddie out of the way in the nick of time but get harmed in the process. 

The deadlights are by far the weirdest experience Richie has ever been through. His awareness is muffled, and the things pennywise shows him appear secluded from him by murky and unpassable water. It’s not like virtual reality, it’s more a television show Richie follows intently, and can’t see to tear his eyes away from. He is the main roll, but he’s viewing himself from a third party.  

IT’s inspirations are clearly running dry, he repeats the same things over and over again, until even with only half a mind present, Richie notices that nothing that is happening is real. Unfortunately, that doesn’t take the fear away, rather adds something extra. The time Richie devotes to separate reality from illusion is time easier access to the deepest parts of his brain, the spots that sting the most when they’re touched upon, and Pennywise exploits with glee.

Eddie taunts him, more than a few times, sometimes about his personality and how he’s too fucking annoying to be friends or something more with, other times it’s simply about him being gay. The circumstances change, Richie confessing to Eddie after Neibolt, or Richie phoning in on Eddie from a thousand mile away, and rarely, Eddie and Richie are dating as Eddie packs his bags and tyrants over the fact that he can’t stand to be in the same room as the man who gets under his skin like a persistent itch, something that pricks and prods until you can’t stand it anymore.

Those situation are few and far between, and they’re the easiest for Richie to conform untrue, for a relationship with Eddie is something he prayed for every night as a kid, but also something he knows will always be out of reach.

When Pennywise gets bored of impersonating Eddie, he resorts to the other losers instead. There’s no other people in Richie’s life that have the ability to hurt him after all, in LA the he hardly has acquaintances. Bev kindly showing up to his apartment, her drawing the short straw, to tell him that he can’t hang out with the group anywhere, because Eddie feels uncomfortable with him now.

When Richie throws his all to promise that he won’t do it anymore, that he never planned on telling Eddie his true feelings in the first place, Bev pats his knee sadly, telling him that it’s too late to change now. She, nor any of his other friends, are ever disgusted by the fact that he’s into men, just revolted that he’s into Eddie specifically. Smart thinking on IT’s part, since Richie knows deep down his friends could never hate him solely for the type of person he falls in love with.

The illusion blur together, repeating themselves faster and faster and freezing all notions Richie conceives and he longs to bury himself in the water so this hell ends faster. Richie is pretty clueless about what happened to the kids Pennywise ate, but he hopes they died instantly and without long to worry about what was taken place.

Eddie, or at least Pennywise adaptation of him, turns his head ever so slightly to look real Richie in the eyes, his smirk so open it rips the side of his mouth and turns into carved smile– Richie still believes him to be handsome, and that’s pathetic – then says; ‘Richie. You’re going to let me die too?’

Richie frowns, disorientated, because that’s new. IT’s never addressed him before, and then he falls down harshly, his legs roughing the force of it all and docking on his back with a loud smack. His head slams the surface, brittle pricking his back and possibly leaving tiny indents from the force on which he landed on them. The drop skidders Richie after he already came to a stop, echoing and prolonging his suffering.

Eddie crawls on top of him, hands located on either side of Richie’s head to stabilize himself, crowding over him and in doing so obstructing his view of Pennywise. He’s but a breath away from actually nudging against Richie, and Richie urges to turn his head and connect their skin.

‘Rich, Rich.’

Richie squeezes his eyes shut to ground him, the images flashing in his mind rendering him delusional and unable to focus on anything, except Eddie when their eyes connect.

‘Yeah, there he is.’ Eddie beams, so different from the person IT represented him to be. His words echo in Richie head, ‘you’re going to let me die too’ sounds like a warning, and if Richie could hold on to a thought for longer than a second he might be able to process it and do something about it.

‘I think I did it, I think I killed IT’, he’s so proud of himself, and brave and Richie wants to thank him, longs to reach up and tangle his fingers in Eddie’s hair and draw their faces closer, to kiss him, and he does, tugging on Eddie’s cloths to have him lean in, but then the words repeat and he chooses to instinctively push Eddie off of him with all the might he possesses.

Not that that’s much, compared to Eddie Richie’s physic is one of a sad old lump of potato’s and there was no way Eddie didn’t work out every day, - god wouldn’t that be a sight to see- so it’s only by the surprise that Eddie lets himself roll to the side, his eyes wide and unclear about Richie’s intention.

Richie’s unsure of his own intent, just that it was something he needed to do to keep Eddie safe told to him by a feeling in his gut, but when he rolls over to guard Eddie with his body, his leg protests painfully. Broken, most likely, after the fall, but the moment of hesitation is enough to have Pennywise viciously strike. Then his broken leg and the brittle, more obnoxious than anything else, is the least of his concerns. Any lingering doubts about this being another show from a different caliber in the death lights evaporate like the wind.

It hurts way worse than it has any right too, but then again, Richie has never been stabbed by an intergalactic demon before, so what does he truly know anyway. The claw strikes him in the stomach, and Richie mistakenly glances down, blood spouting from the wound like a garden hose. His breath hitches, panicky cupping around the claw to stop the bleeding, but all he succeeds in doing is coating his hands in the dark red liquid. The pain radiates from his stomach to the tips of his toe and his head, not a single spot left unscathed, just a competition of which part causes the most anguish.

‘Richie’, Eddie freaks, laying next to him and staring shell shocked at the scene. In the distance, Bill bellows a ‘no’. Pennywise lifts his entire body up from the floor effortlessly, dangling him up like a piece of meat and discarding him across the other side of the cave. He hits the cave wall first, and tumbles down with his side scaling the edges of pointy rocks, scramming his wounds further.

His hands enclose uselessly around air, finding nothing to stop himself from plummeting. The ground awaits him with open arms, Richie’s head ricocheting on a large piece of rock where his head cascades on, splitting open his forehead. Merciless, Richie welcomes the blackness that sinks him into unconsciousness, but not before hearing Eddie agonizing shout of Richie’s name.

----

Occasionally, Richie picks up on bits and pieces of a conversation he actively should be involved in, - this is still a life or death situation - but he’s too far gone in his own head to do anything but bite his lips as an outlet instead of screaming out in torment.

Eddie wills him awake by the sheer force of desperation and howling, his words interrupted by his own sobs and harsh heaving. Richie strains his eyes open, and he’s no longer positioned in the way Pennywise threw him down. He sits up in an enclosed space within the cave, watching Bill’s back step away from him and rush over to follow the only other person he can see, Ben.

He almost screams for them to come back, he doesn’t want to die alone, but then he notices that he’s not alone at all, and that Eddie is fluttering around him, jacketless with a stripe of blood smudge across his forehead. Eddie hates that, he washes away the tinniest piece of dirt to himself up clean up, water costs be damned, but he doesn’t put in the effort to rub it away. If Richie could do it for him, he would.

He’d done it before in middle school, when Eddie in his hast to run away from Richie trying to dry his wet hands on Eddie’s back, collided with an opening door, hitting him full force just above his hairline. He’d frighteningly looked to Richie for guidance, who saw the blood and decided to conceal it, pretending like everything was okay. He’d carried the guilt all day, until Eddie set the record straight and ensured Richie he was not mad at all, he in fact found it quite funny, and swore to Richie that he better watched his back at all times.

The revenge was a push from the quarry cliff with his dry clothes still on, while Eddie stood high and mighty over the edge cackling at his demise.  

Richie lolls sideways with most of his weight resting on Eddie, who shrugs it off like Richie weighs nothing and continues to babble, even though the ringing in Richie’s ears is still going strong and he can’t distinct anything tangible. His thoughts are scattered and grasping onto them does nothing, they slip away like sand between fingers.

He focuses really hard, because Eddie always says important stuff, and Richie always listens to him like he hung the moon, so this time shouldn’t be an exception. It might be the last time he’ll be able to.

Thanks to some unforeseen force, his glasses, cracked and skewed, are still on. How they managed to stay tucked on Richie’s face is unbeknownst to him, after the throwing and falling, but Richie’s indebted.  

‘Come on Rich, it’s okay. I’ve gathered a plan. We’ll be out of here in no time.’ Eddie remains sturdy, a solid force Richie can tap energy for himself, but the disheveled hair and trembling bottom lip indicate that Eddie is not doing as well as he wants Richie to believe.

Eddie’s jacket serves as a cloth to tampon Richie’s blood, drenched in blood with some of it caked on already. Richie wonders how long he was out for.

‘Eddie, we need you’, Mike beckons him over, pleading Eddie to aid them in the fight. Weakly Richie ushers him off, but this time Eddie is prepared and steels himself, not allowing him to move an inch.

‘They’ll deal with it on their own. I’m staying’, he firmly says, leaving no room for argument, and Richie’s too tired for familiar banter, so he lets the issue rest.

He shrivels the top part of the cardigan up when Eddie’s distracted, so he can prod at his open laceration, in awe of the amount of blood it continues to spew. The injury is large enough that realistically the cloth won’t help much, even Richie can tell, the intestines peek out into the open world, a place they’ve never seen and Richie hoped they never would. ‘Wow’, he breathes lamely, capturing Eddie’s focus.

Eddie shrieks in panic. ‘Don’t touch that Richie. Stop. Is that your thing huh? Pain’, he shoots for a joke but only manages to draw out a chuckle laced with coughs of blood.

‘It doesn’t’, Richie tries, pausing to swallow a large cluster of blood back down.

‘What doesn’t Rich?’

‘Hurt. I can’t feel anything.’

And it’s true, the torment is no longer present to force Richie to suffer until his last breath, a fitting end to his life that proceeded it. In place is left no feeling at all, not even Eddie’s hand who touches his bare skin to steady him. The only thing Richie can definitively notice, is that he’s freezing cold. In a way he’s never been before.

The cold is bone deep, icing in his veins as severe as the time he went sleiing in his yard without putting on gloves or a thick coat to cover him and ended up with pneumonia. He angles for his sweater disposed by the entrance of the cave, but Eddie is blind to see what Richie is trying to convey and his muscles stop cooperating, falling helplessly in a heap on his lap. Tiredness is weighing him down.

Richie could ask Eddie for a hug, he’s that cold that he’s willing to put his dignity on the line, but Pennywise could be lurking and Eddie has to be alert to protect himself, and Richie assumes that not even Eddie’s warmth will heat him up enough to get rid of this chill.

The eyelid of Eddie’s doe eye twitches, defeating the purpose of forcing a smile on his face and a reassuring shrug, and baring his soul to Richie who’s always know all about his tells. Eddie’s worried, never a good sign, and Richie dares to think about what’s going to happen next. His death. There’s no way out with him, the descent down the well alone enough trouble than he’s worth, and if the fucking clown plays hard to get for much longer, the fight will simmer on for a lot longer.

‘Richie look at me, come on asshole look at me.’ Eddie inches Richie’s face his way, the hand on his jaw helping him do it completely numb to Richie. Since Eddie refrains him from poking his wound, Richie nibbles on his bottom lip, biting down hard enough it should leave a small injury for him to distinguish. All it accomplishes is adding more blood pooling in his mouth.

‘Come on Rich. You’re the most talkative person I’ve ever met in my life, tell me about your first stand up performance huh, what was that like?’ Eddie pleads, shoving his fabric deeper into the wound, now Richie confessed he’s unfeeling.

‘No, iss not nteresting enough Eds.’ He might slur, but at this point his surrounding are coated in a haziness Richie can’t shake off. His first stand-up was scheduled two weeks after leaving Derry, and his gags all had been derived of moments shared with the losers. By the time he began spouting off joke after joke he figured he had gotten his inspiration from other people’s life experiences, mind blank on providing clues about his best friends. It’s too sad and frustrating to reminisce on the abandonment that hit him full force for the first time after the show, and wouldn’t leave for a very long time.  

The nickname alights something in Eddie, breaks down the last of his defenses of a stoic face and lets him burst out in hysteric tears and weeps, hitting Richie to the deepest of his core.

‘It is Richie. I want to know. I’ll be the target for you to dummy practice your voices and jokes on in the future, and I won’t roast you, I promise.’

‘I lke getting roastd by you Eds.’

Eddie drops his head to heave in a laugh, looking back once to see where there’s friends are and then whisking back as if to prevent Richie from dying the second he refocuses his sight. In any other situation Richie would preen, occupying all of Eddie’s attention, but this is in a slightly different way than Richie imagined.  

‘Then I will. I’ll argue with you all night long. I want to discover who you were growing up and the mistakes you made, and I’ll even spill the beans on my greatest failures and trust me’, a humorless laugh, ‘there’s a lot of them. Please give me that change Rich. I can’t have the chance if you die on me now.’

Richie spits out a swath of blood, dripping down his chin before getting swooped up by the back of Eddie’s wrist to clean him.

‘Eddie, I.’ coughing, Richie takes a breather and mulls over what he share with Eddie now. Part of him argues to lock his secret up in a box and hide it ten feet underground – he’ll be buried with it soon – so no one will ever find it and expose it, and so Eddie can remember him with fondness, not with barely concealed revolt that Richie wanted to swipe spit with him. Another part yearns to shout it so loud it echoes the cave and shoves it in Pennywise’s dumb fucking face that he, like Eddie, can be brave too, and was, at the very end.

‘Shh, don’t work yourself up. You’re going to occupy a lot of strength during recovery.’

Eddie talks to him like Richie has the smallest change to survive, which he does not, but it makes Richie calmer, the knowledge that someone believes in him and in how long he can hold out.

Fatigue begins to call on him, angling him away from Eddie to slide down and lay on his side so he can sleep. It’s not rational, if anything he’d rest on Eddie for as long as he’s permitted, but Eddie will be pissed if he sleeps, so maybe he won’t regard it this way.

‘Hell no you won’t.’ A hand on his biceps manhandles, with great fumbling on both parts, him to sit with his back towards Eddie’s chest, giving Eddie the opportunity to both hold the wound closed and Richie to sag in comfort, trapping him between muscular arms he wishes he could feel.

‘Please Rich, tell me what I need to talk about to keep you awake. I’ll talk about fucking bread if that’s what you’re interested in as long as you don’t close your eyes.’

Richie chuckles softly, more exhaling than actually snickering, swinging his head from side to side.

‘alk bready to ‘e.’

‘Your jokes suck even more than usual.’

Ouch, is what Richie tries to say, but his lips tingle and won’t cooperate.

Eddie’s chest puffs up and down, the muscles on his legs locking so tight they vibrate in anxiousness. Richie pulls on a string of textile, tugging it out of place and it gives, then discarding it to the side because Eddie can’t stand his clothes not looking pristine clean. The action is pointless, with Richie’s back now firmly held against Eddie’s shirt there’s no way he won’t throw it out.  

‘Okay, then how about this, I’m going to tell you all about how fucking in love I am with you. I’m not doing in some filthy sewer without me kissing you, and I’m not kissing you with all this blood and grey water leeched to you, but I will say it, I won’t loss my nerves again. Kid me envisioned this whole life story you and I would live out when I told you about my crush, in such detail I could have beaten Ben in a story writing competition.’ Eddie pauses, staring off into the distance to relive the memories, then he resumes. ‘And then you can do with that information what you choose, but I can’t do it in here okay?’ Eddie rants, right hand wildly accentuating his words.

Richie stops breathing, the process of Eddie words too hard to handle, then he stops breathing for another reason altogether.

---

He’s resting flat down, breathing in and out in a much easier way than he caught himself doing for a while now, and the pain is mostly gone, leaving nothing but a small ache. His brain begs him to go back to sleep, to forgo any problems --if Pennywise is still alive he peacefully exempts himself from doing anything with that information thank you very much – but the pit on his stomach is swirling and nauseating him, and Richie has a history throwing up during inappropriate times, something he wants to avoid it this time. Sitting up might help, the first step in that being opening his eyes.

The edges of the sheet are tucked in so tightly that Richie finds it hard to move, which is weird because Richie kicks and tousles in his sleep so severe that the only man he ever had a one night stand with abandoned the bed to return home at two in the morning, unable to stand his fidgeting.

The medal bars on the edge of the bed chain Richie in, like he’s a toddler that needs help to prevent falling out of bed. Nothing in the room is blurry, Richie’s glasses still perched on the bridge of his nose.

A metallic taste lingers in his mouth, refusing to disintegrate no matter how many times Richie swallows it down. He aches for relief that comes in the form of drink, preferably ice cold water to sooth the burning pain flickering up in his throat.

His memories are still in his head, loud, clear and pressing, including Eddie’s confession or whatever the hell the last words he heard before tapping out were. Eddie could have said those things purely to amaze Richie so much that he would fight and hold out, not aware of the strain this would put on Richie’s emotions. Somehow Richie feels like he should examine that in greater detail, but there’s a bubble separating his mind and the memory, a cover that can be peeked under but not touched upon, shielding him from what could be a pretty nasty panic attack.

With a tad of force Richie can break the bubble and engage in the meaning behind locution, but he prefers to keep himself calm for a little while longer.

That means there’s only two options, either Pennywise is still alive and Richie is about to get fucked over, badly, or the losers somehow victoried and won, without help from him. Richie pleads for it to be the last one.

He’s in a hospital, that much is obvious by the stench of disinfected clogging up his nose, dampening the excitement of apparently surviving the hell hole Pennywise resided in.

The room, bigger than the previous one he ended up in after an escapade of binge drinking, is empty, exempting the nurse tampering with a machine attached to him by wires pricked in his skin. Richie starts counting how many but loses his record after the fourth tube.

She spares him no glance, full attention on filling in the tempo of his heartbeat, blood pressure and temperature on a nursing sheet.

Outside a group of people buzz in the hallway, sounding like the losers, but they pass Richie’s door without a moment of hesitation.

The television is paused on a crappy music video post, the song background to the wiring and buzzing of the equipment Richie is hooked up to. Robin Thicke’s blurred line annoyingly etches itself to a spot in Richie’s brain to stay for the next few days. The song is so blatantly sexist and over the top loaded with masculinity Richie accidentally let it slip in a few interviews that he liked the song, another way to hide his true self and the person behind the Trashmouth brand.

He tries to speak, but the lack of moisture catches up to him and all his is capable of letting out is a small squeak. The nurse doesn’t pick up on it, walking across the bed and stripping loose the duvet to investigate the cast on Richie’s leg.

Could it be possible that the losers scattered and went home already, unaware if Richie was okay but not caring either? Did they call Steve to deal with the mess so they didn’t have to?  He doesn’t think his friends would put him through something like that, but then again, he has no idea what transpired after conking out.

His overthinking about loneliness gives way to overthinking about the state of his friends, if they’re alive and well or if Pennywise struck one last time to off another member of their close knit group.

Maybe this is an illusion, a heartless game that allows Richie to release his worries, think that he’s safe only to pull the rug out under him and dangle him in the reality where all his friends are dead.

He stops his mind before it can spiral further. If that is what happened, Richie will be glad to die too. He can’t go back to greeting people he passes in the street and that being the only communication he has all day, to engaging in a conversation with a stupid mirror because it’s the only one not judging him, spotting ever single detail about him and his appearance that makes people actively circumvent him.

Part of the reason Richie limited his social circle has to do with the amount of effort and energy a friendship sucks out of him. Scooping more and more of all the ways that made Richie, so Steve can present a preferred client on front of potential sponsors and fans. He always has to chip away at his personality, and piece together a shell of acceptable features in front of people so he has a chance at getting accepted. While starting out in the comedian branch, Richie truly believed authenticity was important, but years of experience shaved away that idea. It was never like that with the losers. It was never like that with Eddie.

The nurse empties a syringe filled with a sedative, preemptive to the pain shadowing Richie’s body but not yet attacking. His mind fizzles out, the drugs lulling him into a deep sleep.

‘Shit that’s strong,’ Richie croaks out without thinking, incapacitated by the medication. The nurse jumps away shocked, the syringe ricocheting on the ground and her hand jittering.

‘Mr Tozier?’ She inquires, voice pinched, but Richie has already said goodbye to land of the awake.

------

By the time the medication is metabolized, it’s dusk, the entire room blanketed in an orange glow. The tv is switched off. Without opening his eyes, Richie can tell Eddie is next to him, his presence comforting and attention drawing.

He still peeks from under his eyelashes to confirm though, greeted by the sight of Eddie steadily observing him in between heatedly typing away on his phone. He sends out the impression of being calm and composed, freshly showered if the brand new pants and shirt are anything to go by. Upon further inspection, Richie realizes it’s his shirt Eddie is wearing. His heart skips a beat, the heart monitor picking up on it – traitor – and Eddie shoots a dagger towards the machine as if simply glaring at it will be enough to force it to keep beating regularly.

Contradictory to the previous time he woke up, the pain is firing burst of indescribable pain near the area of his stomach, and when that pain ebbs away, the nagging ache remains. Richie groans, squinting on eye open to see that Eddie zeroes in on him, leaning forward on the plastic chair to get a closer look.

He says nothing, perceiving every surface of Richie’s body with a smoldering gaze.

‘Eddie?’ Richie asks eventually, unable to deal with the pain nor the silence filling the room. Eddie blinks in surprise, inching back in his chair startled.

‘Richie?’

‘No, the fucking pope. Who else would I be?’

Eddie laughs, ‘No it’s just that. You’ve opened your eyes a couple of times before, except all you did was stare and then the drugs took you out again before you could say anything.’

‘Oh? I beat the drugs before but you weren’t here so it’s not my first time.’ It’s not intended to sound accusing, but it does. Richie can decipher from Eddie’s facial expression that he’s flabbergasted, the cogs in his head turning. A light-bulb goes off as Eddie rolls his eyes like Richie stated the stupidest thing ever, his hand covering Richie’s to draw his attention.

‘Off fucking course you’d wake up the one time I’m not here. I swear I was here all the time Rich, I only left once to demand more updates on how you were doing.’

Richie nods dumbly, fingers tracing the pattern on the hospital sheets to distract him.

‘Say, did he happen to give you any updates on how much pain medication I’m supposed to receive?’

Eddie hurriedly jumps up, lifting his hand up from where it covered Richie’s, is phone clattering to the ground with a loud bang. Eddie doesn’t check the destruction or even bothers to remove it from the floor, too busy dotting over Richie.

‘Are you in pain? See I knew the nurse gave you the wrong dosage, I fucking told her too but did she listen? No.’

‘Eddie?’

‘Now you’re in pain and we have to do damage control instead of damage prevention and-‘

‘Eds’, Richie successfully ends Eddie tirade and stops him from going after the poor nurse and her carrier, but it drains him from all his energy and renders him exhausted.

‘Right, hold on Rich, I’ll go get the doctor.’ He pets Richie on the arm twice, his fingertips lingering after the second strike as he stares enthralled, like he can’t believe he’s allowed to touch Richie in that way. As far as Richie is concerned, Eddie is allowed to do anything would him. But after he gets his pain medication.

‘Well doctor K I’m disappointed,’ Richie call to him after Eddie exits the room, ‘I thought you were the one taking care of me?’

The doctor, Nathalie, ups his quantity per his request, but warns him not to request any more, the amount dangerously high as it stands. She’s a nice woman, and has enough human knowledge to scurry away the moment she administers the pain killers, promising to be back to explain his medical condition later. He is notified that he’s been out for two days, resting while the losers gathered his and their stuff and moved into a hotel in the adjacent city so they moved out of Derry, but close enough that dropping by is no trouble at all.

Richie’s grateful, he’s so tired he won’t be able to retrain any information anyway, and Eddie is jumping at the bits for a chance talk things through. And who even does that, articulating their feeling and upsets? Not him that’s for sure, he keeps his feeling repressed like all the cool kids do these days. The pain slowly ebbs away, sometimes back with a fire that has Richie writhing but mostly suppressed by the drugs.

He’s pacing in front of the bed, not even deeming a goodbye to Nathalie, mouthing words and sentences Richie can’t hear. He seems to purposefully twirl the open space around his ring finger, the spot his wedding ring was on but is now absent.

‘So, the others are okay?’  

‘Yeah, we’re all tired but good.’ Eddie reassures him, without elaborating on exactly how they managed to stay alive and what Pennywise’s state of being is. Eddie being as unbothered as he is, is an answer to the question all on his own.

‘Aren’t you gonna leave? It’s way passed visitation hours right? Won’t someone come in and escort you out?’  

‘No, they gave up on that last night.’ Eddie waved of his concerns, not faltering his step.

‘Okay. That’s some story I’d like to hear.’

‘There’s no story. They told me to leave, I told them to fuck off and that I wouldn’t be going anywhere until you walked away with me.’ The admission leaves Richie speechless, Eddie who once refused to go to the bathroom after stopping by the school nurse because she told them to go straight to class in middle school held his ground and disobeyed a direct order, was indescribable. That amassed with the revelation in the sewers is too much for Richie to deal with, so he aims for a tension breaker.

‘Dude, you’re going to snap in half if you stay as rigid as you are now. I can see the knots in your neck, get some sleep. I’ll be fine.’

‘First of all, don’t call me dude. Second of all –‘

‘You rather have me call you Eds?’

‘Yes, and stop interrupting me.’ Richie didn’t think he could if he tried. ‘You’re worried about me? Look at you. You nearly died Rich.’

‘But I didn’t.’ He shrugged, wincing as the movement irritated his stitches. Ripping out the only thing that keeps him alive would really be the icing on the top to an already dramatized week.

‘Richie stop’, Eddie begged, stopping his frantic stewing to approach Richie. ‘Can we talk about what happened down there?’

Richie frantically denies, ‘Nope’, he overenthusiastic expresses, fearing rejection, burrowing deeper in the mattress to ignore Eddie’s pleading eyes. Those suckers have a way of encouraging Richie to ignore common sense and assist in whatever idea Eddie had designed, but he had no intention of ever addressing this issue. Eddie looks prepared for this, ready to battle with words and get his way, but the heart monitor speeds up a notch. Eddie heaves a sigh, but relents, walking forward and griping Richie’s arm towards him.

He uncurls the tight ball Richie made of his hand, soothing over his skin with his fingertips in a way that resembles a dance. He wields both his hands, one separating Richie’s pinky and ring finger, the other stuck between his thumb and pointer finger, opening up room for him to work with. Careful not to scratch Richie with his fingernails, he swoops the formers arm and hand, slow enough that he can retract if he doesn’t like it.

Bearing down on the underside of Richie’s wrist, in a circle back motion, Eddie repeats the gesture three times before moving up.

The motion’s relaxing, and Richie sags down as the tension in his arm dissipates. Eddie watches Richie with a pleased smile on his face, massaging both firm and light to differentiate the best result.

‘That feels really good.’

‘It’s a hand massage. I’d give your shoulders a rub but then you’d have to move and you cannot move. Moving results in more pain so no matter what you do, don’t move you stubborn idiot. Anyway, it’s good for reducing anxiety. I do it to myself all the time.’

Richie hoots, not deterred by the pinch Eddie gives his skin in response, the word chose too funny to give up.

‘Cave man’, Eddie spews out, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the comment, unnecessary but so Richie it hurts to think they lost this, the easiness and the jabs and the bond, strong enough to sacrifice the one for the other.

‘There are three Yin Meridians in the arm; lungs, heart and pericardium.’

‘The what from the what now?’

‘Yin meridians? Yin as in the up flow of energy in your body? Ying and Yang? ’

‘Eddie, what the fuck about me makes you think I would have any clue about any of this?’ Richie deadpans, his eyes staring at Eddie flatly.

‘Yeah well, tell me you at least know what a pericardium is?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘It’s a double-walled sac containing the heart and the roots of the great vessels, filled with pericardial fluid’, at the ignorant stare he received from Richie he dumbed down his explanation. ‘It’s the sac around your heart.’

‘Oh, why didn’t you start with that? Wait my heart has a sac around it?’ Richie’s smirk grew, but Eddie pulled the plug on that quickly.

‘Beep beep Richie not now. Anyway, shut the fuck and let me do my thing.’

He resumes massaging Richie palm, languidly and without hurry, the sun settling even lower and pitching the room red.

With a big shudder, Richie crushes his eyelids shut to avoid looking at the color as it reminds him of his own blood leaking out of him. It’s irrational, they’re different shades after all, but the thought lingers, like a cyst you can’t get rid of.

The benefit of removing sight is that touch and smell become intensified, the kneading firmer then it felt before. Eddie smells primarily of hospital soap and food, but underlying there’s the scent of vanilla shampoo, the same one Eddie applied as a kid. The sight of his own shampoo in his shower at home pops into his head, suddenly abundantly clear why Richie never contemplated buying another scent but stuck to the same plain vanilla one.  

He changes direction by palpating the webbing between Richie’s thumb and pointer finger, prodding the skin from the bottom to the top and then sliding off.

‘I’m supposed to ‘throw away’ the negative energy, connotation marks, but I can’t do that without you making fun of me so I won’t.’

‘You know me so well’, Richie dramatically sniffles, his free hand whipping away a fake tear.

‘Yeah, I really do’, is Eddie responds, stopping his ministration and seeking eye contact with Richie to get his point across.

Richie slides his hand away from Eddie’s, avoiding eye contact by dropping his chin to his chest but being stopped by a hand on his chin, forcing him to stay still.  

‘I’m tired, go back to the hotel okay?’

‘I’m divorcing my wife’, Eddie states out of the blue, tracing the edge of Richie’s chin absentmindedly. The intonation of his voice is bland, the same as if he’s talking about the weather, but his eyes are stealthy and Richie knows that he means every word.

‘Wha-?’

‘And I didn’t say this to pressure you into developing feeling for me. I don’t wanna force you to do anything, but I crashed my car in the middle of traffic remembering you all and I realized that I hadn’t been living. That night in the restaurant was the first time in twenty seven years I felt like myself again and was happy. And a clown hunted us down, isn’t that a sob story? Rich, you almost fucking died in front of me and there was nothing I could do.’

Eddie’s eyes dampen suspiciously, blinking one to many times for it to go unseen. ‘And all I could think about was how much of a coward I am, and how there was nothing I could do to stop you from dying.’

‘Eds, that wasn’t on you.’

‘Yes it was. I could have run after you faster, been more brave and stop you from blindly staggering into a trap, or if I clung to you IT might have only hurt me and you’d be unscathed.’

‘Eddie, I would gladly take another skewer to the stomach as long as you’re alright.’

‘But that’s the problem isn’t? You sacrificed your life for me and I froze when IT attacked you, I watched and did nothing.’ Eddie’s voice raised into hysterics, and he was working himself up to the point that he vibrated with consternation.

‘And I would have let you die without confessing. I called your contacts in your phone list and the only one who even bothered to return my calls was your manager, and he didn’t give a shit if you were okay, he just asked when you would be cleared to perform another performance. Said that it was of the upmost importance that you righted the wrong you did on your last stand up.’

Richie face flushed bright red, utterly ashamed that even Eddie noticed how little people are present in his life.

‘They all suck. It’s their loss that they didn’t bother getting to know you, I just wish that I was courageous enough to make you understand that there is someone who adores you, and that person is me. The other losers too but it’s different with me. I hate the fact that you woke up without anyone here to support you. I knew you were going to pull that trick so I even showered in the hospital so I didn’t have to go very far. Showered Richie, in a place full of germs and bacteria. And for the record, for this to be a hospital they have really bad hygiene, if I called a health inspector here they might have to close down.’

Eddie rants, his hand doing the chopping gesture that Richie leered out of him at every turn possible. In the same way that Richie resorts to humor as protection, Eddie resorts to germ facts. Richie brushes the comments on bacteria to the side, more focused on the everything else Eddie vocalized.

‘I lived Eds, so you don’t have to worry about that, and I shouldn’t have said that to you, I really didn’t mind, I was back under in no time.’

‘You’re not getting it. You repeatedly told me I’m brave, and maybe I was but not enough.’ Eddie sinks down back in the plastic chair besides Richie’s bed. ‘I drifted through life with the mentality that my life wasn’t terrible and I would have to be content with that. I never considered the possibility that it could get a hell of a lot better too. Starting today, I’m going to be honest and open about everything, and that starts with divorcing my wife’, he let silence linger a tad, to prepare Richie or perhaps steel himself, ‘and telling you how in love I am with you.’

Richie gasps, even though it wasn’t the first time Eddie uttered those words. In the sewer Richie rationalized that Eddie presumed he was going to die and pitied him, a last friend favor he didn’t know was going to cost him, but now there is no reason for Eddie to lie.

This is all Richie ever dreamth of getting in life, the reciprocated love from the man he cherished deeply, so why did revealing his secret not get any easier?

I love you too Eds. I’ve loved you since you stood by the sidelines of the sandbag, to horrified to join me and Stan because you saw a bandage abandoned on top of the sand and screamed at me to stay away from it when I offered to pick it up and toss it out for you. My whole live I’ve believed I’m this vile and nasty person who loved men the way he should love women, someone who deserved to rot in hell alongside the scum of the earth, but apparently you see men the same way, and how can you be anything other than an extraordinary, bewitching gift from god?

‘Do you got a bae? Or not?’

Eddie frowns, his eyebrows knitting together and his head tilting to the side.

‘I’m sorry what?’

‘Is you tryna date? Or not?’ Richie cringes, idiocy at its finest. ‘I don’t know why I said that, forget it.’

‘What the fuck is a bae? And I am trying to get it on with someone, but he’s dodging any viable answer I can detract from him.’

‘It’s Magcon. They were really popular in 2014, and I involved them in one of my quips which is how I know who they are.’

‘Show me a picture and I still would be lost on who any of them are.’

‘Oh come man, If teenage you would have definitely had a crush on Cameron Dallas or some shot, if you were born in the 2000.’

‘Teenage me had a crush on you. I had it so bad that I never had a celebrity crush right up till college and forgetting you.’

Richie shuts up again, his heart growing in size multiplied by eleven. All this time all it took was Richie getting his head out of his ass and they could have been dating for years.

‘Look Rich, I’m sorry for dumping this on you. It’s not fair and I solemnly swear I won’t let it affect our friendship if you won’t?’

‘No Eds, wait just give me a second, dude, let me try that again.’

‘Don’t call me Eds.’

‘I thought you avowed that you preferred Eds to dude?’

‘What’s up with the fancy word choice dumbass? No wait stop changing the subject’, Eddie hisses, his hands twisting together in his lap the only indication of how nervous riddled his body.

‘I feel the same way’, Richie remarks, tone quieter then Eddie has ever heard. ‘I’ve never had someone that I loved and sure as hell no one who told me they loved me so I don’t know how this goes.’

Eddie laughs breathlessly, a huge burden lifted off his shoulders. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah Eddie Spaghetti, believe it or not there’s not been one other person that fell for my good charms.’

‘I was talking about you feeling the same way, dude. And euh.. neither have I. With a guy I mean, and my marriage with Myra wasn’t exactly a prime example of love, so how about we figure it out together?’  

‘We can start a celibacy club. Until one of us gets pregnant by cheating on the other with their best friend and then hides it by claiming that we got pregnant via the hot tub.’

‘Okay what the fuck are you quoting now?’

‘It’s Glee’, Richie grins, leaning into Eddie’s touch when he caresses his cheek.

‘Idiot’, Eddie whispers affectionate, shaking his head like he can’t believe this is the man he fell in love with.

‘Love that nickname Eds.’

‘Yeah yeah’, Eddie dismisses, withdrawing his hand and ignoring the pout Richie’s wears because of it. He’s so soft next to Richie’s bed, open and venerable in a way he learned to hide from the ripe age of nine, the exact same time Sonia claimed that crying was a side effect of an illness Richie couldn’t bother to recall, and any time she spotted the tiniest amount of liquid in Eddie’s eyes she dragged him to the ER.

A feeling in his gut tugs, desperate to connect his lips with Eddie’s, to experience first hand how a kiss shared out of love manifests. Sure, it’s not Richie’s first kiss, but his previous kisses were either with a woman or a men dared by his friends, snickering and unknowingly shoving him deeper into the closet.

Richie prepares to leans forward, scrambling himself up by his elbows to get better access, and plonks back down with a pained yelp, his stomach flaring up in a burning sensation.

‘I told you not to fucking move’, Eddie chastise, instantly on high alert and checking Richie over to make sure nothing’s wrong. All the wires are still attached, which Richie is a plus in Richie’s books, but Eddie

‘I’m sorry, I just wanted to kiss you.’ Richie admits, though the words set fire to his ears and neck, the first spots to light up in self-consciousness.

‘Then asks and I’ll bend down for you. Are you hoping to get another surgery?’

‘No, but asking for a kiss isn’t exactly romantic now is it? Fuck me for striving to keep the romance alive.’

Eddie swoops in fast, their teeth clinking together from the force of which he comes in, their lips linking in an awkward angle.

He back-paddles, inhaling deeply and guffawing at Richie’s jaw slacked expression, then reconnects their lips properly this time. The kiss is wet, Richie stroking at the nap of Eddie’s neck and applying slight pressure to keep him positioned the way he is in. There’s too much smile for it to be a good kiss, but the simple reality that Eddie is letting Richie smooch him makes up for it. With a prodding tongue Eddie ventures out to take the kiss a step further, and Richie gracefully reciprocates.

It ends with a quick nip from Eddie’s teeth gliding over Richie’s bottom lip, and a hand forcefully pinning Richie down when he again tries to keep the kiss going by chasing after Eddie’s lips.

‘Stop moving.’

‘I’m sorry’, Richie says, and is rewarded by another small peck to satisfy him. Their faces remain in proximity, not kissing but breathing in each other’s air. Eddie untucks a piece of his hair, finger twirling the curl around and around ‘till Richie is dizzy from following the movement and is in danger of falling asleep while in the midst of a such a wonderful moment. The drugs are taking effect, and the satisfaction washing over Richie adds to the overwhelming amount of tiredness weighing Richie down. Eddie chuckles, charmed by the sleepy haze clouding Richie’s eyes.

‘You should get some sleep.’

Richie whines like a petulant child, scratching the area surrounding his eyes to help him fight of the fatigue. With an eyeroll Eddie kisses him on the forehead, above the bandage covering up the wound created by the stone in the cave, something Richie hadn’t even been aware of. He lingers above it, mounting words on the skin, little declaration of love.

Richie sniffles, harboring his eyes closed to stop the tears burning at the brim from spilling. Then, to distract Eddie, he chuckles, lining up the next best jab he could improvise at the spot.

‘Hey, now we’re finally at the same height for you to reach my forehead.’

Eddie pinches Richie’s neck, softly enough that it tickles and pulls giggles from Richie’s mouth.

‘Get some sleep sweetheart, you’re exhausted.’

‘Sweetheart? Eds you’re stealing my bits. I’m the one who petnames you. Cutie.’ He pinches the side of Eddie’s face and is rewarded by a loud groan, though Eddie doesn’t call him off for it.  

‘Too late.’

‘Spoon me?’ Richie questions him, patting the space next to him as an invitation.

Eddie declines, ‘With your broken foot? No way. I’ll spoon you after you get better.’ Oh yeah, Richie forgot all about that.

‘How about I do this?’ He unfastens the metal bars to ease his access, then slides his arm under Richie neck to pillow him, while his other hand hovers over Richie’s wound. It’s probably done without thinking, but the small gesture, like he’s protecting Richie from more harm, soothes Richie.

Richie tucks his head in the nap off Eddie’s neck, delving in as far as humanly possible. Eddie’s hanging half of and half on the bed, in a position that must result in muscle cramps in the morning, but he’s doing it for Richie, because Richie requested it.

Security and warmth cage him in, the remnants of the chilling cold shooed away by the living furnace Eddie provided.

‘I’m really glad you’re okay Rich’, Eddie whispers after such a long time Richie believed he had fallen asleep.

‘Yeah me too.’ Richie agrees, thankful to the universe for giving him a chance with the love of his life.

The same curl Eddie untucked before continues to get the same treatment, round and round, nudging him over the edge into sleep.

‘Goodnight baby’, Eddie whispers to the top of Richie’s head, tucking the curl behind his ears. Too tired to guard his honor of the nickname king, Richie doses.