#they did not have to go that hard on the day-old texture

[moocha-muses]

[jamiethebeeart]

:D (I ramble in my tags about this)

[talkorsomething]

want to cut my hair again like you wouldn't believe. What are the possible consequences of going bald

[vampsired]

Random things about JJK characters

cast ᯓ✦: gojo, geto, shoko, nanami, haibara, utahime. BOLD = favs

GOJO SATORU

1. Will interrupt you with the loudest ‘WHAT?’ if he couldn’t hear the start of whatever you were saying.

2. Chokes on food and drink too many times to count

3. Has a violent pollen and dust allergy but still loves flowers and is the first to go headfirst into old dusty places (twin)

4. His jokes almost always fail… horribly

5. Sun burns easily

6. Doesn’t know how sit like a normal human being and hates sitting still for too long; just asks to go to the bathroom to get a lil stroll in

7. Addicted to sweet stuff

8. Gets everyone sick when he’s sick, but always denies it

9. Hates silence, he’s mr yapper #1 - (haibara is #2)

10. Whenever he gets a crush or a slight interest in anyone, it’s everyone’s problem and everyone has to hear about it

11. Violently extroverted and the biggest hypocrite you have ever met

GETO SUGURU

1. Tackles people as a form of bonding and he loves poking people bc he knows it hurts

2. Laughs a little too hard at jokes Gojo makes which were not funny at all so he doesn’t feel bad

3. Smacks his hair into peoples faces whenever he goes to redo his bun

4. Thinks different hair textures and types are so cool

5. Owns an electric guitar (rockstar geto🥴)

6. Defo wants to own a motorcycle or alr has one

7. Obsessed with horror movies that it’s almost borderline worrying

8. Loves breakfast foods

9. Can sleep anywhere, no matter the surface or what going on around him

10. Gives the stankest side eye whenever someone comments on his bangs

11. Has a very good spice tolerance ~ puts hot sauce on everything

SHOKO IEIRI

1. Notorious for eye-rolling

2. Loves medical shows and cackles whenever someone (namely gojo) gets disgusted by the portrayal of organs

3. Hates cooking

4. Complains about having a dry throat worried she might’ve contracted a cold while smoking right infront you

5. Can’t nap unless she’s extremely tired, like she can’t nap until her body is borderline shutting down (same)

6. Always says she’s going to stop smoking, stop eating junk food, stop having energy drinks, stop ordering out - but never sticks to it

7. Trips over stuff constantly and stubbed her toe alot

8. Has a obsession with minture stuff

9. If she wears makeup, she always removes it off her mole and quite likes even tho she was told to remove it when she got older (she never did <3)

10. Yells at the TV whenever something she’s watching annoys her

11. Giggles at the nude medical diagrams in textbooks

NANAMI KENTO

1. Absolutely loves the smell of books

2. Has prescribed glasses for reading and writing but doesn’t wear them unless he’s by himself

3. Knows cool random facts

4. Hates when people touch his face

5. Doesn’t particularly like hugs unless it’s from someone he likes

6. Loves cats

7. Very peculiar about shoes

8. Enjoys poetry and horror mangas (exchanges mangas with suguru)

9. Very talented at drawing, haibara always asks him for help to draw little stuff on cards or to show him how draw small things on his book in class when it’s boring

10. Absolutely hates liars. When people drag on jokes with lies for a little longer than needed; he hates that too

11. Hums sometimes and gets v embarrassed when he’s caught + he tells no one his music taste, haibara probs noticed it tho

HAIBARA YU

1. Very passionate about Spider-Man (me too bro) - loves Miles

2. Cuddles with a stuffy or pillow whenever sleeping/napping

3. Hates long car rides because he feels cramped

4. Day dreams with his eyes wideee open

5. Whenever he wears socks on wooden floors he’ll slip atleast once

6. His eyebrows furrow whenever he’s thinking

7. He’s such a bad liar, it’s acc so funny bc he can’t contain smirking

8. Accidentally wears mismatched socks and some teachers sanctioned him for it

9. Quotes well known saying wrong

10. Always is dropping his pens trying to spin them in his fingers like nanami can, but can’t rlly get the hang of it

11. Loves juice, his favourite is mango and apple juice. He doesn’t really care for orange juice.

UTAHIME IORI

1. Plays with the ends of her hair a lot of the time

2. Always cold

3. The worst person to send notes to because she makes it so obvious

4. Has beautiful handwriting

5. Is very bad at understanding sarcasm and also gets very mad when sarcasm is used to point out a stupid question

6. Scared of dogs IRL but loves watching cute dog videos

7. Violently dances to girly songs

8. Loves hugging her girl friends for a long time, find it awkward to hug guy friends in general but doesn’t mind it

9. Jumps up and down and air punches when describing a situation which annoyed her. (realll)

10. Dress to Impress fiend alongside Gojo and Haibara, (Suguru helps Gojo, and Nanami helps Haibara ~ however they both dont like the game but have good opinions)

11. Is the type to get irrationally mad at that one friend who purposely gets them mad (Gojo)

© vampsired on tumblr. all rights reserved. do not cross-post, translate, copy in any way, etc.

🔗 divider link (credits) masterlist send requests ᡣ𐭩

reblogs are heavily appreciated ᡣ𐭩

AN: the support I’ve been getting recently has actually surprised me, thankyou so much everyone <3

[angelltheninth]

Could I request Neuvillette getting a lip-biting, toe-curling blowjob from his s/o in his office?

Toe curling, tail curling all of it will happen.

Pairing: Neuvillette x Fem!Reader

Tags: nsfw, smut, blowjobs, office sex, under the desk, growling and whimpering, Neuvillette has a tail

Word count: 1k

Ao3

A/N: First full fic on this blog!

You strode into the Judge's office like you owned the place, with your head held high and a mischievous gleam in your eyes. A gleam that Neuvillette saw right away. "My love, I have work to do." He spoke up immediately. If he didn't he would give you an inch and you would take a mile.

"And I'm here to tell you that don't. You're done for the today, everyone's already gone home and you're still here, writing... whatever." You weren't gonna let him spend another night cooped up alone in his office. If you have to drag him out of here you will do so. "I know you're ancient and powerful and not a human but this isn't healthy Neuvillette."

Neuvillette glanced up at you and sighed heavily. You could tell he's been sitting for too long, his posture was tense, stiff. In the back of your mind you wondered what it was like for him when he didn't have anyone to drag him away from his job. Did he ever take a break?

"I'll be done in a few hours. I'm sorry but if I stop now it will be hard to get back into my work flow." Neuvillette explained.

"Aren't I here to help you with that? Come on, we take the rest of the day off and then come back rested and relaxed. What better way to handle stressful work?" You rounded the desk and tilted his chin towards you with the tips of your fingers. He was cool to the touch, "You know I'm right, your Honor."

He groaned at your attempt to entice him. Strong as he was he was weak against you. Very weak. "A few more papers then."

You straightened out with a huff. If you couldn't make him relax out side of the office then you'll do so in his office. A simple massage won't do, not when he's been working all day. Working... and pent up. Without saying a work you pushed your way past his legs and beneath his desk.

"Did you drop somethi-ah- hah!" Neuvillette breath stopped in his lungs as you pressed your lips against his clothed crotch, sucking and kissing until you felt his cock stirring. "Darling... is it... smart to do this here?" He was careful but not protesting or pushing you away. Neuvillette had a very tight lid on his lust, it took a little bit of work to get him comfortable enough to show it.

"Why not in here? You fucked me over this very desk just last week. There are claw marks still on it. Besides," You poked your head out from between his legs while you undid his pants, "what better way for you to unwind and get back to work uninterrupted then your pretty mate sucking all the stress out of you?"

Claws. Mate. Sucking. Those words made the normally calm man growl in approval and anticipation. "Harlot."

"Old man." You grinned at him as you pulled his cock out, feeling the slightly ribbed texture pulsing in your hand, hard and strong. Even this part of him felt slightly colder then a regular human cock. "Don't let me stop you from working."

How was he supposed to work or even look at the papers on his desk when the most beautiful sight was under it. Your lips wrapped tight around his tip, your cheeks hollowed out and your eyes swimming full of lust. Gradually you took in more, more until your nose touched the blue and silver pubes just above his cock. His gloved hand pressed against your cheek, confirming that he was not planning on working while you sucked his cock.

"Go on then. You wanted me didn't you? Now you have me." You did have him. And you had his cock pushing against the back of your throat. You licked the ridges on the underside, letting your tongue drag up slowly as you pulled your head up. Fuck, even his cum tasted cool against your tongue.

You let go of his cock with a wet pop and swiped your tongue against his tip. His groan was immediately followed by a sound of crinkling paper. He cursed under his breath when you bend your head all the way down again. As you swallowed around him length you felt something sneaking around your ankle and then your hips. His tail was strong but soft against your body, secure and safe, almost protective. But also keeping you from moving away from his cock.

This was his silent way of making sure you finish what you started.

You never planned on leaving him hard. That would defeat the propose. You bobbed your head up and down faster and faster, making sue the tip of his cock went in as deep as it could go. You didn't stop as he moaned, you didn't stop as the end of his tail caressed your hip.

"Sweetheart, I'm gonna come." He warned expecting you to pull away not go all the way down again and stay there. Neuvillette moaned your name, his gloves ruined when his claws popped out and his cock shot hot jets of cum into your talented mouth.

You welcomed the onslaught, swallowing with gusto. Your eyes teared up slightly but you refused to pull away to take a breath until he stopped coming.

"Feeling relaxed now, your Honor?" You asked with cum covered lips and a grin.

"I don't know what I feel." His brain was still struggling to catch up with his body. You helped him tuck himself back into his pants and got up from under the desk. Looking down at it you saw new claw marks on it. This was gonna be very fun to explain. "Please go clean yourself up. I can't focus with you looking like that."

With his cum dripping down your chin that is.

When you came back he was already working again. However instead of a distraction you pulled up a chair to the opposite side of the desk and started looking through papers that you could handle. Under the desk you felt Neuvillette's tail wrap around your ankle once more, as a thanks for helping him finish early.

[johnbrand]

Pump and Jump

“Devin, what are you doing here?”

I had not expected anyone to be in my apartment when I got home from work, least of all my sister’s muscular douchebag of a boyfriend. In public, he was always popular to be around. Sociable and knowing exactly what to say and how to act, perfectly aligned with modern male beauty standards and a strong, commanding personality. Everyone treated him like a king, yet I was the one he proceeded to yank around like a subject. Because I was not at the same level of traditional masculinity, I had immediately been deemed as inferior.

“Your twat sister and I had a fight,” Devin replied, the slur came out naturally.

“How did you even get in?” I persisted. “I lock my doors.”

Unbothered, Devin continued scrolling on his phone. “I took your sister’s key.”

I was dumbfounded at Devin’s actions, but was too tired to fully deal with them. I tossed my backpack to the side and moved to the kitchen, my starchy suit itching against my skin with every step. But changing clothes were going to be dealt with after I fixed up something to eat.

“As long as you're in there, why don't you grab me a drink?” Devin’s voice was loud and clear. “A snack would be great too, I could polish off a bag of chips.”

I gulp, pausing for a moment. Instead of preparing anything for myself, I reenter the living room with an ice-cold beer and a few eating options. Devin does not react to my actions at all, simply opening the can and then munching on the first bag of snacks. I could already smell his natural musk, a mix of pungent body odor loosely covered by a cheap spray-on deodorant.

Assuming Devin was satisfied, I turned back to the kitchen to finally help myself.

“Where are you going, buddy?” Devin stopped me. “How about you give me a foot massage while I eat? These puppies are sore from having to haul everything over.”

Haul everything over? I thought. Kneeling in front of the table, I turned my head to sneak a peek of my bedroom. All across the small space were Devin’s belongings; boxes and bags and scattered objects filling my once pristine sanctuary. I was furious, but the potent funk coming from Devin’s feet beside my face nauseating me to the point that making an argument seemed futile. Tentatively, I placed my fingers against the wide, meaty soles. Devin grunted softly as I began to make slow circles.

It was hard to describe, but there was something so captivating about the texture of Devin’s feet. They were soft and stiff at the same time, their flesh both malleable and muscular. I could not help but feel my mind wander as I continued to work at his feet, puzzling over just how large they were. Size 13, Size 14…could they even be Size 15? Devin’s foot funk was so sharp, so pungent, so much that before I knew it the sun had already gone down. 

“Hey Devin, I think I’m gonna head to bed now,” I stated, removing my hands from his feet. Yet I could not deny the strange urge to place them back.

Devin, unphased, continued scrolling through the device in his hand. It took me a few moments to register that it was mine. I immediately commented on it. “You don’t remember?” Devin replied. “I asked for it when my phone died, and you handed it over with no argument. You even volunteered to remove the PIN so I would have access to it in the future.”

Was that true? I tried to open my phone to check, but for some reason my old password was not accepted.

“Oh yeah, I decided it would just be safer if I changed it all together,” Devin nonchalantly addressed. He stood up and stretched, his towering height and size engulfing my own and my possible protests. “Alright, I’m gonna head to bed, good night roomie.” In a mixture of shock and awe, my eyes followed as Devin proceeded to my his bedroom, closing and locking the door behind him.

After just a few days, I quickly became accustomed to not only Devin, but in addition his needs. It was funny how the more time I spent with him, the more it felt right for him to treat me as his inferior. The apartment quickly became Devin’s, and my sole responsibility was to maintain it. Overtime, I was conditioned into faggotry, taught about the hierarchy and where I belonged in it. Which obviously–and what I would soon come to learn, rightfully–was below Devin.

In the end, Devin and my sister inevitably broke up. Eventually I learned it was because he had lied about wearing a condom. Through manipulation, and his massive cock, Devin had bred my sister thoroughly, apparent shooting straight into her womb. Being in a red state, abortion was not an option, but Devin had no plans on fathering his child. Since then, my sister had lamented about his abrupt “disappearance," having no idea he had been living with me since the initial fight. She would never know that she was just one of many women Devin had successfully “pumped and jumped” as he called it; my nephew would arrive with an abundance of half brothers and sisters.

[yurinaa-world]

"𝑅𝑒𝓅𝓊𝓃𝓏𝑒𝓁 𝑅𝑒𝓅𝓊𝓃𝓏𝑒𝓁 𝐿𝑒𝓉 𝒟𝑜𝓌𝓃 𝒴𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝐻𝒶𝒾𝓇"

💫𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓈: Moze, Jing Yuan, Aventurine, & Blade x Gender-Neutral reader

💫𝒮𝓎𝓃𝑜𝓅𝓈𝒾𝓈: His hair is something else

💫𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈: Fluff, & Spelling Mistakes

💫𝑀𝑜𝓏𝑒 “𝒮𝒽𝒶𝒹𝑜𝓌 𝒢𝓊𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒳𝒾𝒶𝓃𝓏𝒽𝑜𝓊 𝒴𝒶𝑜𝓆𝒾𝓃𝑔”

A shadow guard like Moze has no time to take care of himself, which truly does explain the texture of his hair, rough and slightly tangled—because he never took care of it, has a lot of split ends with how his hair was styled and cut, it’s horrendous. 

He doesn’t have time to care about outside appearances and you usually can’t catch him on a day off to take care of his body properly until he (unlucky) gets injured and gets sent home, acting shameful and wishing he did things differently as if he got suspended from school. But you think this is positive since now he should take his “day off” and take care of himself.

Since he’s spending it with you, he’ll accept his situation. “See now you’re hair feels nice,” you complimented, scratching his scalp with your fingers, while you sat on the bed and had him sitting on the ground; his arm around your calf, pressing the side of his face against your knee. He may have been injured, but at least he can enjoy every part of your body, even your legs. “Doesn’t it feel nice when finally take care of hair?”

“Mhm,” He hummed. forget his hair, the feeling of you is way better to him. It might just be his only bliss. His hair was usually dry and unkept, like a quick comb (if he was lucky) and getting out there. (He would try to fix it up when going to see you, like running his hands slightly through it—just making him look like a total goof). 

Such rugged and matted feeling to it, yet it never bothered him when it was in his face, you always chided him about personal care, and he tried to listen, he truly did but his life had always been like this before you fell into his life. Old habits just die hard.

“Moze, move, I need to dry your hair.” Gently tapping him so he could move off your leg so you could dry his hair, yet he refused, he wanted to stay in this position for a little longer, but for the first time in a long time, he’s let his guard down.

“Forget it.”

💫𝒥𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒴𝓊𝒶𝓃 "𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒢𝑒𝓃𝑒𝓇𝒶𝓁 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒳𝒾𝒶𝓃𝓏𝒽𝑜𝓊 𝒞𝓁𝑜𝓊𝒹 𝒦𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉𝓈"

His hair is slightly messy when he puts it down from that ponytail he wears every day, his hair has been cut in several different layers which has just caused a complete mess when it’s put down. You needed a closer look at it, just curious, which he doesn’t mind at all, just keep running those pretty fingers like a lullaby being sung to a child and he won’t complain.

There may be a few tangles here and there, yet his hair was soft. The odd thing is, there are always birds popping in and out of that white nest that he calls his hair so you didn’t expect it to feel so good! 

“Seems like you’re having fun, yet try to be a little gentle with me.” 

That tired expression accompanied by his groggy voice, looking up at you from your soft lap as if you were some being out of this world. 

“Was I being too rough?” You worried, stopping your fingers, “I was only messing with you, keep on going,” he reassured you, a smile plastered on his lips just to make feel better, which you just laughed at before going back to where you left off. 

“Your hair is so odd.”

“What is odd about it?”

“So many layers and cuts at this point you’ll just have to wait for it to grow back to put into one proper layer.” you talked like some sort of dictionary that you were all about hair, yet it was adorable that you analyzed the strands of his hair as if he were your subject in a lab. 

“Do you like the style of it now?” he hummed, eyes closed and relaxing while your gentle fingers prodded against his scalp.

 “Of course I do! It suits you well! I couldn’t imagine you with anything else.”

“If you like it then I shall keep it that way.”

💫𝒜𝓋𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓊𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑒 "𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒮𝑒𝓃𝒾𝑜𝓇 𝑀𝒶𝓃𝒶𝑔𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝒻 𝐼𝒫𝒞 𝒮𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓉𝑒𝑔𝒾𝒸 𝐼𝓃𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝒟𝑒𝓅𝒶𝓇𝓉𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉"

His hair looks like something out of a commercial, it looks so glossy like a diamond, looking smooth and soft to the touch, and you can't forget how well-moisturized it is. It makes any hair model jealous of him, yet it just makes you wanna touch his hair more, just to feel if it’s as soft as it looks. You can’t help yourself, it’s more like a need than a want.

No tangles, no matting, nothing bad at all. Just a touch that’s all you have to do while he wears his signature hat.

“Want a touch?”

He won’t act like he doesn’t see you staring, loving at his hair, looking like you wanted to get a feel—eyes lighting up whenever he goes to take off his hat. Tonight he feels tired, just wanting a little love from you after a tough workday. You, were already in bed as he came in, arms out waiting for him to hug you, which he couldn’t resist.

Feeling your arms around him, probably fixed the stiffness of his shoulders, as if you’re like a remedy to every problem he’s had.

 His scalp is killing him, won’t you help him out? Taking off the hat that sat perfectly on the top of his head and threw it to the side, one knee down on the bed, sinking the bed with the weight of his knee, before bending down; giving the go-ahead card to touch his hair.

It was just as soft as it looked to be, your soft fingers gently going through and touching his hair. He can see your eyes shine so brightly while playing with his hair as if he were a little doll.

Just the feeling of those pretty fingers makes him want to stay forever.

“Keep on going.”

💫𝐵𝓁𝒶𝒹𝑒 "𝑀𝑒𝓂𝒷𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒮𝓉𝑒𝓁𝓁𝒶𝓇𝑜𝓃 𝐻𝓊𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓈"

Rough and straw-like, are the only words you can use to describe his hair, you can tell he never takes care of it properly—always too busy going on missions, a quick shower—to get all that muck off and he’s gone out again, it’s truly a sad sight to see. A man with those illustrious locks of hair just to not be treated properly.

Even now with his hair wet and still filled with so many tangles, every time you try to move the hairbrush after fighting with a knot it just ends with another fight with another nasty knot, which makes him look back at you, biting his lip while pain looks in his eyes, as this wasn’t just the consequences of his actions. 

“Don’t look at me like that, you should brush your hair more often,” you groan after manually untangling the knot in his locks before arriving at the same problem again when you attempt to brush it again. “What am I going to do with you, blade,” sighing at the fact it’s been an hour of you doing this.

You hear his groans of pain while going through his hair, sectioning it pretty well. You can feel your hands go numb from all that fighting you had to do with his hair, but it was worth it since now his hair is silky smooth and smells like oranges, you can’t forget the little bows as well, and he’ll let put it on begrudgingly since you did all that work (and that you gaslit him about your pain).

“Like it? You’re so pretty now.”

“Tsk…”

if you liked this, consider tipping me on ko-fi! it'd mean a lot!

[daman19942]

TSR CC Recommendations: TS2 Lot Builders

Nobody asked for this but I have a little time on my hands and I said I might do it, so here is a list of some TSR lot builders who I recommend checking out. A few notes under the cut before we get started (all details under the cut, as well, in case you aren't interested in my preamble):

This is not meant to be paid promotion for TSR. I believe TSR asking users to pay for their CC is ridiculous, especially for a 19 year old game they haven't supported in 7 years. But I spent many years uploading there during the peak-TS2 / pre-TS3 era and know there is great CC in their archives that newer players may not know about. And unlike TheSims2.com, which has sadly shuffled off this mortal coil, TSR's content is still available to freely download (assuming you can stomach the pop-ups and wait times)

This post will only be about lot builders because that was what I was primarily uploading and downloading in this era. I was friendly with some of the creators I am about to list, but none of them are still active members of the TS2 community.

The preview pics might be a little rough and the architecture styles will likely feel very dated compared to the most popular styles these days, which are more colorful, cluttered, and use 3t2 and 4t2 conversions. Re: the previews: too many of us were using free trials of PaintShopPro back then, and TSR limited us to 2 previews, so we did our best. Re: the styles: unlike pre-2010's CAS CC, which was full of hand painted and "realistic" textures (LOL), these are the same objects you can find in the game today, just being used in different ways! Sometimes for the first time! And, yes, while some of these creators used CC, it was mostly Homecrafter walls and floors, as you'll see below.

This was also the hey-day of CFE lot building, which has certainly fallen out of favor to more traditional builds (in part because graphics cards have improved and these types of builds don't look as good in 2024, and also because the great CFE experimenters, builders, and tutorial writers are no longer part of the community and their original discoveries are gone as well - I am happy to go down a massive rabbit hole on this piece of TS2 history if anyone else cares, but trust me, you don't have to care).

Alright that is enough caveating, here are some recs! (Links are in the creator's names and they take you to their Lots, though many of them have other creations, too).

Lord Tiko Speaking of great CFE builders! Lord Tiko built spaceships, boats, pagodas, domes, windmills and bridges, oh so many bridges before retiring mid-TS2 because of health issues. He was one of the first builders to take Daihtnaoz7's single and double bridge tutorials and apply them to really big lots. I'm still not sure how he built the Venice Rialto Bridge, or his other European water lots. Overall, a massive inspiration to me when I was prioritizing CFE builds.

Hatshepsut My favorite "traditional" home builder, and someone I considered a friend. She specialized in English and American builds, and I had many of Hat's houses in my old saves and was impressed by her range and decorating style which was (for the time) more varied than many of her peers. Knew how to take great preview pics of her houses, too.

Tigerblue Another builder I corresponded with, Tigerblue was probably the least prolific uploader on this list for sheer number of uploads, but she also crossed a range of styles. Her builds leaned way into specific styles (see the previews, these were all part of consistent sets of 3,4, or even 10 lots), but this was also what happened when a new EP dropped and everyone raced to uploaded builds using as many of the new objects and styles as possible. Tigerblue just happened to be better at it than most of us.

Cyclonesue Do current TS2 players know Cyclonesue? Because it's hard to think of someone who had a bigger impact on building and decorating of the era, first with her English and Tudor builds and later with her extremely distinct grunge creations. Seriously, check out her Urban Renewal series and the corresponding objects. Iconic stuff that surely now feels frozen in time. I probably only played 20% of her lots that I downloaded, but they still make for great hood decor. Like Tiko, someone who happily experimented with CFE.

Illiana The creator who inspired me to make this list is, ironically, the one on it who I know the least about (she is a Featured Artist but not in the Hall of Fame, whatever that means). I just started playing her Tri-Annyas fraternity house and have a few other lots floating around my game. She built in a range of styles, from classical to modern to Twikki Island to grunge. Revisiting some of them in-game, the TSR previews do not do them justice.

*EXHALES* If you made it to this point, kudos to you. I'm sure there are creators I've forgotten, and houses I haven't linked to, but this is a good starting point for digging into some of the eclectic builds the TSR(chives) have to offer (I just coined that, is it clever? It is not). Maybe I'll do a Part 2 if people like this.

If you have any favorites of your own, let me know what I missed! And as I do with my old Exchange re-uploads, I am tagging @sims2packrat and @oldasscustomcontent for general TS2 history awareness!

[swiftcast-selene]

✨ pre-dawntrail wol questions! ✨

over on our little server i've been asking a WoL development question a day until dawntrail and it's been well-recieved so far, so after a month of doing it i figured i may as well put them on here~

use them to draft your own posts! send each other asks about them! answer them in the tags! do whatever you want with them, as long as you're having fun!

how is your wol about personal hygiene? are they on top of it? always perfumed and spotless, a little messy sometimes, or do they have to be reminded to groom?

is there a texture your wol absolutely can't stand, either food or feeling-wise? or is it not something they tend to worry about? do they go to great lengths to avoid it or do they just power through it?

what is your wol's evening routine? do they prepare for the next day? do they just wing it? do any weapon or gear upkeep? just pass out because that's tomorrow them's problem?

how does your wol's echo manifest itself? do they see visions as they happen? all at once? delayed? do they get any physical symptoms from it?

does your wol have any siblings? how do they get along with them? is it a good relationship or is it tense?

how does your wol feel about romance? are they a hopeless romantic, waiting for The One, or are they more casual? do they believe in soulmates?

how does your wol feel about their hair? is it important to them? just kind of in the way? who cuts it? do they take good care of it or are they not particularly fussed about it?

how good is your wol at taking care of their armor/clothes? do they mend them themself? pay to gave it fixed? just change it when it gets old?

what's in your wol's travel bag? any trinkets? any vital items they cant go without? do they travel light and figure stuff out on the fly, or do they bring way too much with them? (bonus points if you have images!)

how does your wol sleep? very light? very heavy? do they need a specific item to fall asleep? is it easy for them to fall asleep, or does it take them forever? where do they prefer sleeping?

where was your wol during the last calamity? how did it make them feel? did it change their life, and if yes, for better or for worse?

shadowbringers spoilers: how did they feel being so... up and personal with another calamity? did they feel responsible? scared? did they feel like they owed the first to stop it, or were they more detached from the situation?

for the canon casters: what does casting magic feel like to your wol? how does being "out of mana" feel?

for the physical fighters: how does it feel when they do those impossible moves? the twirls, the jumps? do they supplement with aether? dynamis? is it purely physical or is something else involved?

what would your wol be if they weren't the wol? what would they do as a job or career? would they be happier?

is your wol good at cooking? what's their specialty? what can they never get right no matter how hard they try? what flavour profile are they good at cooking? what do they eat on the road?

out of all the scions, which one is the one your wol gets along with the best? what about the one they get along with the least? why?

how good is your wol with money? do they save up? scrounge around? spend it with wild abandon?

what would you say is your wol's greatest flaw? what part of their personality causes them the most problems?

what is your wol's best quality? what's the thing that they do that really gets stuff done of makes people like them? hard mode: their own perception vs. a friend or partner's perception.

what does your wol do to unwind? any hobbies? reading? sewing? croquet? sitting in a dark room in complete silence?

how good are your wol's table manners, based on their own culture? how does it compare to ishgardian table manners? eorzean? doman? steppe?

what is your wol's inner monologue like? do they refer to themself as "i"? "we"? "you"? is it organized or all over the place? are they kind to themself, or do they chide themself constantly?

what's your wol's relationship with food? do they skip meals or do they eat at specific times religiously? is food important to them, or is it just a means to an end to keep their body going? does food mean something cultural or personal to them?

what is your wol's relationship with their family? are they estranged? still very close? tense?

what does your wol think about lying? is it unacceptable to ever lie, are white lies okay, are they a pathological liar? how do they feel about people who lie to them?

how does your wol feel about allag in general? the tech, the experimenting, the crystal tower? any thoughts on allagan ruins? are they impressed, scared, resentful, neutral?

what sense does your wol most rely on? hearing, touch, sight, smell, taste? maybe even aethersense or dynamis?

how does your wol feel about mind-altering substances? do they partake? do they dislike them? are they neutral? do they take them socially, or anytime, or not at all?

how does your wol feel about children? do they want them? like them from a distance? hate them? no strong feelings?

how does your wol work out? lifting? sports? walking? how often do they do it? is it for fun or to keep up their physique? do they enjoy it?

[rollinouttahere-writes]

How about strawhats with a reader who didn’t realise they ate a devil fruit, and they and the crew only realise when either they discover their ability or they start to drown when they accidentally fall (or get thrown by an enemy) overboard? (Tried to leave the devil fruit ability either up to you, or have the ask in a way that you didn’t have to create a devil fruit 😅)

I finally found a way to work this old ask into a request! Sorry to whoever sent it in originally, I just could not come up with a plot for it until I got this one. Apologies for there being little to no yandere content here.

You Are What You Eat

Straw Hats x GN!Reader

1.8k words

Loud growls echoed through the forest. Not the deafening roars of a predator about to rip you apart, no, but the rumbling of a deprived stomach demanding sustenance.

You really shouldn’t have taken off into the woods without grabbing a snack first, but you couldn’t help it. After days of being at sea, you were eager to explore the new island you’d stopped at. Robin said you all would need to split up to find the ruins she was looking for, so you took initiative and threw yourself into adventure the second the ship was close enough for you to be able to make the jump.

Thus far, you’d had no luck. You hadn’t even stumbled across an abandoned pathway or ancient tools. It’s hard to believe this island had ever been populated at some point. Maybe this wasn’t the right one?

At this point you weren’t even really looking for ruins, you just wanted something to eat. Unfortunately, this search was having similar results. Nothing. It appears all the fruit trees on this island are still in a flowering stage, and you didn’t know enough about foraging to be taking your chances on root vegetables in the ground. Restaurants were obviously out of the question, much to your chagrin.

There was some rustling in the tree above you. Your head snaps up to assess the situation, only for something to nail you right in the face. Your knees buckle and you fall on your ass, cradling your face after the blow. 

Cracking open an eye, you try to find who just assaulted you, but you were definitely here alone. Looking at the ground, you discover what your assailant really was. A fruit.

Pain is forgotten instantly as you snatch up the strange looking fruit. It’s a light blue color and reminds you of a ball of yarn with the way the skin is textured. You have zero clue as to what kind of fruit it’s supposed to be, but as your stomach growls even louder, you can’t find it in you to care.

Using your shirt to wipe it off to the best of your ability, you take a bite as you get back on your feet. Your face scrunches up instantly. The taste… isn’t great, but it’s not the worst either. If you had to describe it you would say it tastes like an uncooked spaghetti squash. The real problem is the texture. It’s completely stringy on the inside, making you feel like you’re eating a wet clump of yarn.

But… beggars can’t be choosers. You’re starving, and you don’t want to let it go to waste either, so you power through it. As you’re choking down the last bite, a chill runs down your spine, making every nerve light up in a tingling sensation. Then, as quickly as the feeling began, it disappeared.

Weird. Whatever.

“(Y/N)! Where are you?!” Luffy’s voice cut through the thick woods.

Finally! You were starting to wonder how you’d gone so long without running into anyone else. Running towards the sound of his voice, you call back to him, “Over here!”

It’s not long before he comes into view, along with the rest of the crew. Luffy grins and runs to meet you halfway, “Why’d you run off so quick? I wanted to go with you!” He lifts you up into his arms and spins you around gleefully.

“Did you? Sorry, I thought we were all gonna split up,” you scratch at the back of your head and wonder if you misheard.

“We were, but then we found the ruins Robin was looking for straight away, so we’ve just been looking for you this whole time!”

Mortification washes over you immediately and you hang your head in shame, “You’ve got to be kidding me! I ran right past it, didn’t I?”

“You sure did! Pretty dumb, huh? Zoro didn’t even get as lost as you did!” Luffy set you down, smiling the whole time while he mocked you.

“Watch it!” You swatted at him, not that he particularly cared or even reacted to it. 

“Now that you’re done being lost, we really need to get going before it gets any later,” Nami was tapping her foot impatiently, no doubt itching to find the treasure rumored to be hidden there.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry! Let’s go!” You wanted to move on from this blunder as quickly as possible, thank you very much. There were a few chuckles from the group as you marched on ahead, but they mercifully didn’t tease you about it anymore.

“Are you hungry? You ran off before I could hand you your lunch,” Sanji sidled up next to you, offering a sweet smile while extending the masterfully packed bento towards you. The cook shot a dirty look over his shoulder to your captain, “Don’t worry, I made sure that he couldn’t get his hands on it.”

You’re sure you missed a battle of epic proportions over your unclaimed lunch. Happily taking it into your own hands, you waste no time cracking it open and digging in as you walk, “Thank you, Sanji! You’re the best!” He puffed up in pride at your compliment, assuring you that it was no problem.

It wasn’t long into the trek when you all came upon a wide but shallow river. It wasn’t so deep that you would need to swim to cross it, but it would be enough to pose a problem for your devil fruit possessing companions.

This wasn’t a big deal, everyone knew the drill. Those that couldn’t get in the water would pair off with someone who could to carry them across. Robin was perched up on one of Franky’s shoulders, much to Sanji’s heartbreak. Luffy latched onto Zoro and was telling him to hurry up and get going so they could all see the ruins.

That just left Chopper, who hurried over to you with his arms up. You were his preferred method of transportation in situations like this. Stuffing your now empty lunch box into your bag, you scoop up the reindeer and place him on your shoulders.

Without any additional fanfare, everyone starts wading through the water. At its deepest, it comes up to your waist. Trudging through waist deep water does naturally take a bit of effort, but this felt much harder than usual. Exhausting even. Your head was swimming and you didn’t even realize you’d stopped until Chopper spoke up.

“(Y/N)? Are you okay?” He leaned forward to try and see your face better, but you could hardly even register what he was saying to you, much less respond to it. Your silence must have bothered him, and he started to panic, “Guys wait! (Y/N) isn’t looking too good!”

That was the last thing you heard before collapsing into the rushing river. Logically, you knew you should be freaking out. You were underwater and had dropped Chopper in with you, you know you should be flying into action, but you weren’t. You felt listless. Like a puppet whose strings just got cut. The world around you was rapidly fading to black and you felt powerless to do anything about it.

Just before you could fully pass out, arms lock around your torso and wrench you out of the water. You coughed and gasped for breath. The relief of getting your head above water was palpable, but you still felt weak.

You were carried to the other side and gently sat down against a tree by a very concerned Sanji. His hands were clamped onto your upper arms and his eyes raked over your body looking for literally anything that could explain what just happened, “Talk to me, what’s wrong?”

Everyone else was crowding around you, too. Chopper wiggled his way to the front, fur still wet from his unplanned dive. Despite that, though, he was in doctor mode, “Give them some space, we need to figure out what happened!” 

While he was checking your pulse and breathing, you found it in you to speak again, “I’m sorry about that, didn’t mean to drop you. I don’t know what came over me.” 

“Were you already not feeling well? It’s not like you to just collapse like that.”

“I felt just fine until I got in the river. Did anyone else feel weird after getting in the water?” You asked. Maybe there was something in it that makes people sick?

Everyone shrugged off the question, saying that they all felt fine. Chopper wasn’t happy with the lack of any answer for why this happened. Making a quick decision, he stands up and announces that he’s going to take you back to the ship for now.

“No, I’m fine! Give me a minute, and I’ll be good to go, I swear!” You try to plead your case, but no one entertains it.

“You don’t need to force yourself to go on, I’ll help you and Chopper get back to the ship,” Sanji held out his hand to help you to your feet. Reluctantly, you accept the help and wait for him to pull. 

He does, but you don’t move. Your hands are still joined together, but your arm is… oh god.

Several things happen at once. Sanji looks down and sees a bunch of blue strings connecting your now disembodied hand to the rest of your arm. Sanji screams at the sight, Chopper faints, Usopp is just straight up gone, and you feel like you’re about to throw up.

“What is wrong with your arm?!” Nami shrieks, looking about as nauseated as you felt.

“I don’t know!”

“Did you eat a devil fruit recently and not tell us?” Robin was the most outwardly calm, but was still visibly disturbed by the turn of events.

“No? How would that- Wait. Hang on. I might have,” everything suddenly clicks in your mind. The out of place fruit, the weird feeling you had after eating it, the water, and now this. You absolutely ate a devil fruit and didn’t even realize it.

“What do you mean ‘you might have’?” Everyone shouts in unison.

“Well, you see, it’s a funny story. You’re gonna laugh,” the unamused expressions on their faces told you otherwise. You continued, “While I was off on my own, I got really hungry. Then I got hit in the head by a weird fruit, so I decided to eat it.”

“You ate a random weird looking fruit and didn’t think that MAYBE you should mention that to us???” Nami looked like she wanted to throttle you right about now.

“... Yes?”

Nami exploded and started laying into you for your transgression, and you were helpless and just had to take it. Until you felt a weird tugging sensation from your arm. Looking over, you see Luffy experimentally poking his hand through your strings with a look of wonder on his face.

“Luffy, get out of there!” Sanji yells while trying to kick him away. 

This devil fruit thing is going to take some getting used to.

[mspaesthetic]

what brush did hussie use to draw everything

He used the default hard round brush preset in Photoshop with the Pencil tool. Some newcomers to digital art might hear the word "pencil" and get confused, thinking it refers to a literal pencil texture brush, but it's a distinct tool from the typical Brush tool. In other programs, similar brushes might also be called the Binary brush or Pixel brush.

The Pencil tool is basically the same as the Brush tool, but draws the strokes with pixelated hard edges. The Brush tool on the other hand draws strokes with anti-aliasing, smoothing the outline of the strokes. This is done with semi-transparent pixels, something that the Pencil tool specifically does not use (hence why it could be called a Binary brush, because a pixel is either fully opaque or not).

Something to note is the version of Photoshop Hussie used: CS3. In CS3, if you had pen pressure enabled, the minimum brush size the strokes could go down to was 2px only (if the brush diameter was set to at least 3px). Setting it to 1-2px would not net you any benefits out of having a pressure-sensitive drawing tablet. In other words, brushstrokes can't taper off to 1px thin ends.

(Bear with me since I currently don't have a computer with Photoshop installed so I'm using these kinda shitty old demo gifs that weren't supposed to be used)

Photoshop CS3 brush engine

The brush engine changed slightly in versions after Photoshop CS3, however. Starting from Photoshop CS4, setting the brush size to 2px with pen pressure enabled would make the 2px brush size invert and jump up to 3px as the minimum brush size, while only going back down to 2px if you applied pressure or drew at an angle or something. (I unfortunately don't have any images on hand demonstrating this clearly.) Only setting the diameter to 3px makes the ends 2px, as you can see below.

Photoshop CS4 brush engine

You can still see this shitty behavior in Photoshop CC versions to this day:

Photoshop CC 2024 brush engine

Maybe this doesn't really matter too much if you're normally drawing hero mode panels, but it does produce slightly different results when drawing sprites.

Also if anyone tries to sell you on using a square brush, disregard them. They're an idiot, plain and simple.

[faghubby]

Not Knocking changes my life

I opened the door to my bosses office. I had thought he had already left for the day and wanted to leave the incedent report for him to look over. I dropped it when I saw him. His pants around his ankles as he jerked off. I froze for a moment his cock was so big. He didn't stop instead he spun his chair a bit so I had an even better view.

"So sorry Mr Green" I stuttered he was still slowly stroking himself. I had never seen another man jerk off before.

"Paul check out this one" he said moving his computer screen. I was even more stunned when I saw what he was jerking off too. A slender small femme boi. I tried to leave.

"What Paul I know this is what you watch" He said. I froze.

"That virus we got last week" he added as if telling me how he knew.

"Paul are you wearing panties now?" He asked.

"No, of course not" I stuttered I wasn't sure I could get any more uncomfortable then I was now. He stood kicking off his pants as he stepped and grabbed my arm.

"Prove it" he said. He was so close I could of touched his cock. I let him turn me. He started to unbutton my shirt. I panicked and closed the door.

"Mr Green you're married" I said it was stupid but only thing I could think of. He removed my shirt. Standing very close now. He looked down into my eyes. He was at least 6 inches taller then my 5'5" slender frame.Mr green was old enough to be my father. I was 22 year old loser. And this successful handsom older man wanted me. unbuckled my belt I couldn't move. As he unzipped my pants and let them fall around my ankles.

"You little liar" Mr Green smiled when he saw my satin yellow panties. He cupped my bulge. My 4 inch penis straining against the flimsy material. His hands wrapped around and gropped my ass with both hands.

"Mr Green" I stuttered

"You should probably call me John with what is about to happen" John told me. John pulled his shirt off and led me back to his chair. He sat down and pulled me to his lap.

"Sit on Daddy's lap and watch this with me" John told me. He continued to rub me thru my panties. I stroked his cock as we watched porn on the computer.

"Do you suck cock baby?" He asked.

"I never" I mumbled

"I got myself a little virgin sissy" he laughed. I stroked him faster as his breath sounds increased.

"Look how she takes his big cock in her ass" John said he rubbed me thru the panties. I came. A moment later I made him cum. My hand coated with his seed. There was so much I thought. I never came that much.

"Have you ever tasted it?" John asked scooping up a glob of his cum and bringing it to my lips. I shook my head but opened my mouth and tasted his cum. The salty taste and texture was odd. But Iooked them in the eye for the first time and licked my hand. He was still rock hard. I was surprised.

"Why don't you sit on it" he suggested.

"It's so big and" I stuttered.

"We don't even have to take off your pretty panties" he smiled. And moved me his cock rubbed against my ass. I started to gyrate on his lap.

"I am going to teach you everything" John told me. He rubbed and pinched my nipples.

"Do you have a girlie name?" John asked. I just shook my head no. He pulled my long hair out of the pony tail I always kept it in.

I got hard again as I did I doubled my efforts pleasing him. I spun around on his lap. I don't know why but I leaned in and kissed him my tounge danced in his mouth. This made him cum all over my ass. He stood lifting me with him. He set me down and pulled my panties down bending me over his desk He used his cum as lube he worked his fingers in my ass. I cried out loud as he did. As his fingers probed my ass. He stroked my dick just a few times making me cum on his desk.

"I love you to except that I am going to have you" John told me. I nodded. He watched as I got dressed and left.

The next day I got called to HR. At first I thought it was over the forklift accident. But when I got called into a private office by Gina. Gina was an older woman of about 60. I thought of last night.

"Paul, sit down. You are not in trouble. Mr Green just wanted to show his appreciation for your professionalism in reporting the incident. She handed me an envelope. I opened it and it was a pass to a salon. I must of looked confused.

"Paul, John is discreet and on occasions chooses people to achieve their potential. I am aware of somethings, not details. But I help Mr Green at times. And if you don't want to continue or want to even file a complaint I will help you with that. I also am someone you can contact I'd there is a problem." Gina told me she handed me a new cell phone. "Both mine and Mr Green numbers are in the phone. It is the only number you are to use to reach Mr Green." Gina was very calm about all of this. She stopped and looked me straight in the eye.

"John won't want half way, that coupon you hold is for a full body wax and mani pedi." Gina warned me. I nodded as to say I understood.

"Okay, that appointment is in an hour" Gina smiled. It was 9 am I had 6 hours left on my shift.

"It's okay go" Gina assured me. I left and drove across town to a very upscale salon. I sat in the car for ten minutes trying to build the courage to go inside. Having to pee I went in to use the bathroom. As soon as I walked in I was greeted by a very good looking woman in her 50s

"You must be Paul" she said greeting me. I was stunned.

"We are alone except my assistant. This is just between us" she said making me feel at ease. She showed me to a locker room I stripped and put on a pink robe. Kelly the salon owner explained everything and answered every question with care. Her assistant Mary another woman in her 50s. They made chit chat. As they scubbed, waxed, plucked my body. It took forever but there were breaks where I soaked in a hot bath. They didn't stop until every hair below my chin was gone. They also did my nails. My toes where painted a hot pink my fingers a clear polish. They weren't done next the treated my hair adding highlights and some volume to my hair cut and styled it. Mary showed me how to style it to look more femine. She then smiled alittle.

"Trust me?" Mary asked. I nodded and she shapped my eyebrows. Not alot but they where thinner. I got a text with an address. And time from John.

I arrived to find a hotel I got another text room 1204. How did he know I was here. I went up to the room . John answered the door wearing a fluffy robe.

"Those are for you?" He said. I saw several presents. I was already amazed at how generous he had been. I didn't even know if I could do what I knew he wanted. I had never been with anyone. Not even a woman. John sat on the bed. He watched me as I walked across the room. His eyes never leaving me. I just approached him I stood in front off him for a moment. Then sank to my knees.

"I never, not sure how, and you're so big" I said with a certain amount of fear. John said nothing just spread his leg a bit further. I opened his robe. His cock was still impressive even soft I thought. As I reach ed and stroked him. I bought my head down and took just the head in my mouth. His hands gently played with my hair. As I licked and sucked his cock. Making it grow.

"Cup the balls, gently caress them. Even lick and suck them" John told me. "That's nice with the tounge wrap it around like that. Don't take to much. You will get better at it slowly" he told me. "You can use your hand some. No such thing as to much salivia" he kept encouraging me. My jaw started to hurt. But I kept going it took more thspen a half hour to get him close. He stood pushing me back. As he unleash a tidal wave of cum into my mouth and all over my face. It dripped down my chest. He helped me to my feet and grabbed a towel. He feed me big globs of his cum but basicly cleaned me. Then led me to where he had left the gifts. The first box was beautiful white lingerie like a bride would wear. A corset that attached to stockings, and a little thong.

"I love to see you in this" he told me. I picked up the box blushing and went to the bathroom. I needed his help with the corset but managed the rest. He ran his hands all over my body when I came out.

"You look so lovely" he told me. Kissing me. I melted in his arms. He then handed me the next present. I opened it to find ha jeweled butt plug. He took it from me and lubed it up. I bent over he pulled my thong to the side and slowly worked it in. It wasn't that big but felt huge as he set I'm place. I was so aroused I would of let him do anything at this point. But he sat me down next to him and opened a small box. It had a gold necklace. With "Paulie" in it he didn't ask just put it on my neck.

"You will need alot of training before I can fuck you" he told me. He pushed on the plug. "Would you like to start?" I just nodded. He grabbed a bag and set it on the table. He positioned me on the bed my face buried in a pillow and my ass high in the air. He removed the plug and replaced it with something longer. After about ten minutes he used another toy thicker. Then another. And another.

"That's enough for today" John told me.

"Please daddy, try I can take it please let me feel you inside me" I pleaded. He got behind me and applied even more lube. I felt the huge head of his cock pushing against me. Then my ass suddenly opened and engulfed the head of his cock. I screamed as it did. Daddy didn't move just held me still. The pain subsided sum. I was in pain. But I wanted him, I wanted to plase him. So I pushed back. Letting more of his massive cock rip my virgin asshole open. Tears flowed down my face now.

"That's enough" Daddy smacked my ass. And pulled out. I crawled into a fetal position. Daddy came and lifted my head and set it on her lap. He ran his hands thru my hair.

"Shhh, it's okay you did well" he told me. Then he reached down and pushed a plug in my ass.

"I never want to see you not wearing this" he said running his hand across my necklace. "And if you aren't wearing panties you better be Commando." He told me. I met him once a week at the hotel. At work though I couldn't even hide the special attention he gave me. It was obvious to all my co workers and I was teased about it. They didn't know exactly who was throwing me favoritism. But at least once a week I found myself in his office (usually after hours) or in his car. He took pleasure not only in teaching me to be his slut. But pushing me to be more and more femine.

Once a month I had a spa appointment, where I learned skin care, but also make up tutorials. At first he had me get my ears pieced. He loved buying me jewelry and perfume. I could now take half his cock in my ass. But still not been able to take all 10 inches. Orally was worse but I was beginning to get over my gag refex.

Then one night he calls drunk tells me he is outside my appartment. I was in bed I get up and throw on some clothes and let him in. He is forceful for the first time is normal gentle patience gone. He rips my clothes off annoyed at my male clothes. Then bends me over my table. My ass is plugged. He pulls it out and drives his cock in. Not stopping this time not working about me he FUCKS me. Driving all 10 inches of his two inch thick cock into my ass. I can do nothing but bite my lip as he pounds away. I cum on the table after only a minute he doesn't even notice. Smaking my ass as he uses me. I almost pass out by the time he fills my ass with his sperm. He pulls out and leaves. Barely saying a word. I grab my shirt and wrap it around myself.

As I arrive at work the next morning I am met in the parking lot by miss Gina. She quickly ushers me to her office.

"I am guessing things changed last night" She smiled. "John has asked me to have you read this and answer any questions you may have. As I read what looked like a contract. Gina made the comment.

"You know you are a year younger then his daughter?" I blushed I had not even thought about it.

I was confused by the language of the document I was reading.

"Basically it says you agree to be his. You will not be permitted to have any relations with anyone else. You will wear what he asks you too. Do what he demands. In exchange he will set you up in a condo, with an allowance." Gina said. She stopped looked at me. "You will be his sex slave for at least the next 5 years" she stated. "He may have you alter your body permanently" she added.

I nodded that I understood. I went to see him before I signed. He locked his door and dropped his pants he pushed me to the floor.

"Take it all" he commanded as he shoved his cock in my mouth. I had never took more them half. But now he forced it down my throat. Soon he was fucking my throat as I tried to relax as tears flowed down my face. His balls slapped against my chin and I felt like I had won the world series. He continued to fuck my throat till he came straight into my stomach. He pulled out and helped me up.

"You're fired" he said. Handing me a tissue to wipe my face. "Gina has the keys to your new place. No need for any of your old things unless I gave them to you. And some personal things" John told me. I didn't even tell him I hadn't signed. I went back to Gina signed it and was driven back to my place where I was given a box to pack up a few things from my old life. Before bought to a gorgeous two bedroom condo. The place was furnished and closets full of clothes. I was left alone the closets where almost completely women clothes. I had recover worn a dress but I tried them on.

John came in around 7pm. He had a key. He walked straight up to me and pushed me over a table. Flipped the dress up and tore my panties off.

"You drive me crazy" he told me his cock sliding across my ass. He smacked my ass. And let me go.

"You are to be fitted with a chastity cage" he told me. I can't have you flopping all over. As he said it there was a knock at the door. He opened it and two men entered. They sat me down pulled up my dress and took measurements. First of me hard then one of them put some kind of gel on my penis. It got soft immediately. They took more measurements then locked me in a steel cage. And gave the keys to John. He thanked them and they left.

"You are a woman now, I will not have you dressing or acting in any other way" John informed me.

"Lily (his wife) knows all about you. She even has keys to this place. You will treat her with respect if she chooses to meet you" he told me. He then picked me up and carried me to the bedroom. He tossed me on the bed and ripped the dress off of me. He was gentle he was rough and corse. Biting and cursing he play raped me. Then pulled out and shoved his cock down my throat. I was so turned on my penis hurt unable to grow. As I moaned even cried as he used me.

"This is what you are for" he told me.

"Yes, thank you Daddy" I moaned.

I learned Lily allowed me because I did everything she had no interest in doing and Daddy needed. Daddy even took me on trips with him on occasion. He transformed me. I had not only my ears pierced several times but also my nose and nipples. I had c cup implants he didn't want them big with my small frame. My clit was locked away in a custom made cage that was so small it compressed it even when soft. He even had me get a tattoo that said Daddy's toy on my ass. Unless I was naked no one would ever suspect I was really male.

I knew my place, if Daddy had a stressful day. I was going to feel it. It wasn't even beyond him to tie me up of spank me. I was his to do as he pleased.

Till one day Lily rang the bell. I invited her in. I never went out without Daddy or at least Gus his driver. I didn't have a car. And really no money everything was paid for.

"Paulina, I have a proposition for you." LILY said. "A few months ago you met a man named Mohammed" she continued I remember.

"Mohammed has asked for you" Lily told me. "John likes the conquest but he has you properly as far as he is willing to take you. He will soon replace you. But Mohammed" Lily smiled. I was confused.

"If John throws you out you have nothing" Lily pointed out.

"John is aware I am here. I propose you meet with Mohammed" Lily continued. I had said almost nothing. Lily got up.

"A car will arrive tonight at 6" she told me. And left. I didn't know what to do but fussed and panicked about meeting this man tonight. Was picked up by a driver and driven to a hotel. In the presidential suite I met Mohammed. He was a good looking man. Taller then I remembered. His black bald head shimmered in the light.

Without a word he pointed to the floor at his feet I dropped. He unzipped his pants, I reached out and helped him. I pulled out his lovely black cock. I had only ever touched John's. He wouldn't like me touching Mohammed's. But I couldn't resist and sucked his lovely cock. It wasn't as thick as John's but just as long. Mohammed stopped me before I finished.

"I am told you like disapline" He says.

"I understand my place and need to be spanked" I told him.

"What about more then spanked. Have you ever been whipped?" He asked his hand cupping my face. I swallowed hard

"No sir" I replied.

"I am going to" he told me he pulled my hair. As I stood. He had me strip. Naked. He didn't care about my pretty lingerie. He tied my hands above my head. And laid me on the bed. Where he tied that to the frame then my feet spread apart where tied as well. He used a belt. Across my ass. Then let it lay there. Slowly moving it then again. And again. It was slow, it made me jump and cry everytime. But also strangely erotic. I never went back to the condo.

Sir. Gave me a dozen lashes that day. Before he fucked my ass pulling out to cum all over my welted ass. I belonged to him after that.

Mohammed was different although much more strict he was there everyday. There was no second like. I traveled with him. And practically every night we slept in the same bed.

He was Mohammed in public but always sir when we where alone. Now 26 years old. I am pain slut to a 58 year old. He doesn't even have the keys to my cage. He says if we ever need it off he will just have me castrated.

I want to marry this man, but he says he cant. He is married to a woman he hasn't seen in 20 years.

[iveleftitwithyou]

ruderal pt. 2 | paul lahote x reader

hi everyone! this is part two to this imagine. i stayed up extra late tonight working on this, so i hope you enjoy! i meant this to be as like a shorter imagine series but i'm not good at not going into detail so it will probably be a longer series than i anticipated.

word count: 2.82k

warnings: swearing, angst, sexually suggestive content

the reflection of light on the side of your house as you pulled into your driveway was a familiar sight. you sighed, quickly realizing you had a headlight out based on the lack of light on the left side of the wall. you made a mental note to talk to your dad about it tomorrow, not in the mood for much conversation after the events of the day. at this point, the only thing on your mind was throwing yourself on your bed and burying your head under the covers.

“hey” you called loudly to your dad as you entered the front door.

“hey, y/n” he replied, eyes glued on the football game in front of him. “how was it?”

“it was fine” you lied with a slight sigh. as much as your dad respected your former schoolteacher, he wasn’t one for socializing with the townsfolk, opting instead to stay home from the visitation. “i’m gonna head up to bed i think.”

“alright, sleep tight” he replied absentmindedly, eyes still on the tv. something good must have happened, you guessed, based on the cheers emanating from the speakers. you didn’t know much about sports.

without reply, you ascended the stairs and headed into your room. you opened the middle drawer of your dresser with intention, sighing as your eyes fell upon a black shirt in the back corner. it was an old, faded Nirvana t-shirt you had “borrowed” from Paul back when you were still together. despite not having worn it in two years, a part of you couldn’t let it go, leaving it at the back of the drawer every time you purged your clothing. your fingers brushed the thin material, tracing the slight difference in texture between the woven fibers and the printed graphic. with a deep exhale you gripped the folded shirt and pulled it out of the drawer.

glancing quickly over your shoulder to make sure your blinds were shut, you awkwardly pulled off your turtleneck, the head hole getting stuck under your chin as that style of top normally does. your bra and pants quickly met the same fate as the sweater - tossed onto a chair in the corner of the room where laundry goes to die.

you sighed again as you pulled Paul’s oversized shirt over your head. why were you sighing so much today? why were you giving Paul the power to make you so moody? why was he still so important to you? why did putting on this shirt bring back all of the memories you tried so hard to repress?

you sat quickly on the edge of your bed as the flashbacks overwhelmed you. flashbacks of smiles, of long nights talking and laughing on the phone, of ice-cream dates, of walks on La Push beach, of heated fights and your remorseful, affectionate reconciliation. 

before you knew it, your knees were to your chest and your head was in your hands as you sobbed quietly, your body shaking. it was a symptom you had picked up after the break up - tears were always accompanied by trembling. 

as much as you hated to admit it, seeing and speaking to Paul today really fucked you up. but, what else could you expect when you knew deep down you’d never truly moved on? of course seeing him again would make you spiral. 

you pondered the harsh words you’d spoken to (well, more like yelled at) him this afternoon. your mind was split - half of your brain told you that he deserved it, that he left you without warning and scarred you forever. he made you feel like you weren’t good enough for him. but, the other half felt intense guilt for being so rude to him today when it seemed like he had just wanted to make amends. that part of your brain, the one that missed him instead of hating him, worried that you may have just lost your only chance to learn the real reason behind that Wednesday night phone call. 

tears continued to flow from your eyes as you toyed with the hem of the baggy shirt. it seemed like you couldn’t stop replaying the events of the afternoon in your head. this appeased both sides of your brain in different ways but both made you miserable in their own right. there was one detail that stuck out, though - the look on Paul’s face as he made eye contact with you for the first time in two years. on the surface, it just looked like shock. it looked like he was surprised to see you there when he hadn’t laid eyes on you for so long. but past the facial expression, the intensity of his eyes as they met yours was honestly unlike anything you’d ever seen from anyone. it looked like a storm was brewing behind them, full of pain and sorrow and conflict. was it just because he had missed you? or was something more going on?

your curiosity and desire for answers overpowered your sadness, causing the tears to slow and eventually cease as you attempted to analyze the situation. your eyes were glued intently on the blank wall in front of you; if anyone walked in right now they would think you were either possessed or taking the expression, “watching paint dry” a little too seriously.

the sound of a cupboard slamming downstairs snapped you out of your trance - your dad must have gotten hungry. this welcome distraction was enough for you to remember you needed to finish getting ready to sleep. rubbing your eyes, you threw your legs off the bed, feet hitting the soft rug underneath you. you grabbed the first pair of pajama shorts you could find in your dresser, stepped into them, and headed into the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face. you couldn’t manage to put in the effort to do much more than that tonight.

when you were done in the bathroom, you dragged your feet back down the hallway, shutting your bedroom door behind you and turning off the lights as you continued to move towards your unmade bed. in one swift motion, guided by the moonlight streaming in between your blinds, you collapsed in bed and rolled over so the blankets were on top of you. before you knew it, you were drifting off to sleep, feeling a sense of calm for the first time since the funeral. this was short lived, however, as your dreams that night were filled with memories of Paul Lahote.

—— 

you woke late the next morning, your blinds dispersing the sun’s rays into a soft glow around your room. for a split second, you felt peace, before your brain caught up and Paul’s face flashed through your mind. you groaned, wishing for that second of peace back.

you went through the motions of the morning: get up, shower, get dressed, brush your teeth - all with that man’s stupid expression playing over and over again whenever you weren’t actively trying to think of something else. 

since it was a rare (relatively) warm, sunny day in Forks, and a Sunday at that, you knew exactly what you needed: a beach day. of course, you knew just the spot. sure, you had memories with Paul at La Push beach, but you’d been going there for years, and he never managed to ruin it for you. your dad was friends with Billy Black, so you were friends with some of the other boys on the rez growing up. even after your breakup, none of them were ever hostile towards you - you just kind of drifted apart - so you still felt comfortable enjoying La Push’s beautiful scenery.

you hopped back in your car after a quick bowl of cereal alone in the kitchen, reminding yourself to be back before dark so you wouldn’t risk getting pulled over for your burnt-out headlight. the engine sputtered to life and you made your way out of your driveway and onto the road. the radio hummed faintly in the background, but you were kind of enjoying the quiet as you weaved your way through meandering tree-lined streets up to the beach. you parked on the side of the road, surprised that there were no other cars parked there today with it being so beautiful outside. it definitely wasn’t warm enough to swim, or even wear shorts, but you didn’t have to wear a sweater, so that was a win in your books.

your backpack was slung over your shoulder as you hiked over the guardrail to the flat beach. a couple of minutes of walking brought you to your favorite spot; the cliff. while the rest of the beach was sloped dunes, the cliff was a rocky structure that would make anyone nervous if they got too close to the edge. however, the flat sand leading up to it made a great relaxation spot as long as you stayed back from the drop-off.

you laid out your beach towel as a barrier between you and the sand along a tree that you could rest your back against. it was perfect for your planned activity: reading all day.

you pulled out your beat-up copy of The Great Gatsby, flipping to where you’d dog-eared the corner of the page you left off on. it wasn’t your first time reading the book, and you were sure it wouldn’t be the last.

finally settled in, you allowed yourself to get lost in the drama unfolding on the pages in front of you. this continued for an amount of time unknown to you - minutes or hours, you didn’t really know - until you saw something moving in your peripheral vision.

you eyed the moving figure cautiously, instinctively pressing your back further against the tree. as the person continued to walk closer to you, their features were more distinguishable, and your heart raced for multiple reasons once you finally realized who it was - Paul Lahote, of course. it had to be him.

you slammed your book closed, not taking your eye off Paul as he approached you.

“y/n, can we talk?” Paul spoke loudly, still a good distance away from you. most of you wanted to keep it that way.

“about what, Paul? i have nothing to say to you.” a lie, but he didn’t need to know that.

“can you at least give me a chance?” he huffed, moving a little closer to where you were seated.

“a chance to do what? hurt me again? not interested.” you hoped he would take your words and the absolute death glare you were giving him seriously and back off. but, it was Paul, and he was stubborn, so, of course, this was not the case.

“what are you reading?” he switched the subject, obviously trying to relieve some of the tension between you two. unluckily for him, you still weren’t interested in conversation, so you just tilted the cover of the book in Paul’s direction. he scanned the cover and nodded, “of course, your favorite.”

“you remember my favorite book?” you spoke before you had time to think.

“of course i do. i remember a lot of things about you.” he asserted, taking a seat next to you but still a few feet away. a large part of you wanted that space to be bigger, but there was another, smaller part of you that wanted to scoot closer to him. of course, you resisted this urge, staying planted in the position you were when he approached.

“Paul, i really don’t want to talk. i think you should go.” you sighed. you placed the book down next to your hip and leaned fully against the tree behind you, closing your eyes as your head rested on the bark.

“i’m not going anywhere. this is my land, not yours” he protested angrily. it reminded you of the fights you two used to have. Paul was very stubborn and was quick to snap. he’d never hurt you physically, but you two were definitely a match for each other verbally.

“fine, then i'll go” you stood up sharply, shoving your book into your backpack and tossing the towel over your shoulder as you began to move past Paul on the way back to your car.

“y/n, wait,” you felt a strong hand grip your forearm. “don’t leave, i- i’m sorry. that was too harsh.”

Paul was… apologizing? without prompting? this was definitely uncharacteristic behavior for the Paul you knew. had he matured over the last two years?

“yeah, it was.” you agreed, stopping in your tracks.

“please just sit back down.” his voice was soft - another abnormality for him. you were used to his pride stepping in, but there was no hint of it in his speech in that moment.

against your better judgement, you obliged. to make matters worse, you ended up right next to him, as he was still holding on to your arm. the irony of the situation was not lost on you - two years ago, you'd likely sat in the exact same position, but under completely different circumstances.

“alright, i sat. you can let me go now.” your words came out softer than you meant for them to. it was hard to use harsh words with Paul after he had been so soft.

he dropped your arm, looking somewhat flustered. you ignored it as you brought your knees to your chest and wrapped your arms around them, staring out at the glistening water ahead. 

it took a few minutes before either of you broke the silence, but Paul eventually did. 

“i know you hate me for dumping you. i would hate me too. but there’s a lot you don’t know about,” he blurted. “i never wanted to hurt you.”

“well, you did, Paul. you left me with no explanation. was i not good enough for you? what do i not know? did you meet someone else?” as much as you didn’t want to be spilling your insecurities to your ex boyfriend right now, your need for answers overwhelmed this instinct.

“what? do you really think that i left you because you weren’t good enough? don’t you think i would have figured that out sooner than a year in?” he spat, visibly angry at the accusation. “and no, there was no one else. i haven’t been in a relationship since you.”

you were disappointed that the answers didn’t help. while it was nice to hear that it wasn’t because he lost interest in you, it still didn’t provide any clarity on the actual reason. his use of the words “in a relationship” instead of “with anyone” made you shiver as you thought about all of the girls he’s probably hooked up with in the last two years. you decided it was in your best interest to not ask him to elaborate on this point, both because his face was already red with anger and because you were disgusted at the thought.

“then why? what happened? why did you leave?” you felt tears start to well up in the corners of your eyes, this conversation feeling eerily familiar.

“i can’t tell you.” Paul deadpanned, looking pained as he spoke, like he didn’t want the words to come out of his mouth.

“bullshit, Paul! why would you come talk to me and act like you want to make things right if you can’t even explain why you ruined them in the first place?” your vision was blurry with both tears and anger as you waited for a response.

“i just… can’t take being away from you anymore,” Paul replied, looking you in the eyes with probably the softest expression you’d ever seen on his face. it didn’t outweigh the anger and hurt you felt, though.

“yeah, well, you should have thought of that two years ago. i’m not doing this with you if you won’t even answer my questions. you may not want to stay away from me, but i don’t want to be around you.” you stood up, once again collecting your belongings. you managed to dodge Paul’s attempt to grab your hand and slip past him, digging in your backpack for your car keys as you trudged through the sand.

“y/n, wait,” Paul called after you, scrambling to his feet. he followed you to your car, continuing to call your name, but didn’t make another attempt to grab you, which you were grateful for.

“Paul, like i said, i’m not doing this with you.” you repeated. the majority of you wanted to slam your car door closed, drive off, and pray you never had to see him again. but the small part of you that, for some reason, he still had a grasp on, made you look over your shoulder just before getting in the driver’s seat and give him an invitation: “call me if you decide to tell me the real reason.”

tags: @secretdreamlandmentality

[deadboyfriendd]

Stains in the Granite

Summary: Throughout the years, Steve has undergone multiple head traumas. You knew this much when you were together. The migraines, the forgetfulness, moderate hearing loss in one ear, vertigo. The list was expansive. When you were together. It’s been over a year since you had last spoken to him, but an unexpected call from Hawkins Regional sends you reeling back to him. A forgotten emergency contact, he probably just never bothered to update it. You would let Robin know and be back to your regularly scheduled activities, sans Steve. A dead line turns the spigot, worry plugs the drain, and your inability to let him go drowns you in the tub. When he wakes up, he falls in love with you again. And again the next day. And again the day after that. They say he’ll regain his long-term memory storage eventually. They say the amnesia will wear off soon, but, for now, this is who he would have to be. He may only have to live through losing you once, but you’re not sure if you could handle losing him again every day until he regains his memory. You wouldn’t have the heart to tell him.

Content Warning: My content is 18+, Minors DNI, head trauma, mentions of hospitals and the things that go in them, smut, fluff, angst, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, alcohol

Word Count: 14.2k

Author’s Note: This is dedicated completely to @dr-aculaaa I have had this piece in the works for months before getting it to the version that you are getting. Drac has tirelessly loomed over my docs like God beta reading, helping out with dialogue, and brainstorming these characters with me. This is as much her baby as it is mine, and I love her very very much.

Drac, I love you.

Find the Playlist Here!

Granite, noun, gran·​ite ˈgra-nət 

: a very hard natural igneous rock formation of visibly crystalline texture formed essentially of quartz and orthoclase or microcline and used especially for building and for monuments

: unyielding firmness or endurance

the cold granite of Puritan formalism.

the cold granite of your heart.

You were sullen, eyes unable to focus on any one speckle of the countertop in front of you. You ran your hands over it in a grounding motion, forcing tired eyes upon skin instead of stone. You blinked and it settled. The warmth of your palm could feel the slight unevenness of the surface, where the natural stone had been polished down just slightly too much. You watched it catch the light, glitter beneath your fingers snuffed out by the shadows of your touch. You watched the way the light cast a glowing square onto the ground in its early-morning iridescence. You had not slept, only watched the sunrise before you went to sleep. 

You missed the nonchalance of high school, when being sad was not an inconvenience, in the same way you missed the grandeur of college, where being sad was an art. Now, though you took comfort in the blanket of sadness, it was more obnoxious than anything. Your sighs held a certain bitchiness to them now, less sad than they were unimpressed. 

But you couldn’t help the way the hogs-hair bristles from your years-old, overused brushes stuck in the too-thick paint. You couldn't help the frustration that bubbled through when the linseed oil seeped through too thick and thinned the pigment of your paint so thin the underpainting shone through. It was hard enough to paint your heartbreak, without the added interruption of frustration and all of its woes. You wanted to pick at the scabs of old wounds, reopen them and let the blood drip down onto self-stretched canvases with ragged edges. You wanted your art to feel as raw as your heart did. 

Sometimes you wish you could go back, study something practical like education, be something stupid like an art teacher and talk about fulfillment with dead eyes, but you were too ceremoniously tortured for that. You thought about easy, but you didn’t want it. You craved goddamned difficult. You were goddamned difficult. 

But people bought it. Commissioned it to hang in their ugly suburban sprawls. Ugly art in ugly homes. Maybe people liked the subjectivity, felt like they could see their own heartbreak in it. You weren't so pretentious that you felt like the only person in the world to experience it. You certainly weren’t. Maybe there were people that were introspective, that wanted to feel the heartbreak when they dissociated into the white walls of their cookie-cutter homes. Maybe heartbreak was the only emotion they could force themselves to feel. 

Maybe they took comfort in it, too. 

You didn’t exactly know who you were anymore. Yes, at whatever bullshit ice breaker you could define yourself as an artist. An even more bullshit mediocre descriptor that served as a face to the sacrifice of self you went through for the sake of it all. That was usual, it just came with the territory. It was your only redeeming personality trait. You traded your sense of self for an established style that put cans in your cupboard and secondhand clothes on your back. 

Everything was covered in a wax sheen, the desensitization taking over your personage and casting a vignette across everything you saw. Not even sex was good anymore. It hadn’t been for a while. It had reduced itself to nothing more than another school of art— another subject of  heartbreak. Another thought process and another complication. Your entire sense of self came from academic validation. You were a bachelor of fine art, consistently praised by professors and featured in student exhibitions, graduated magna cum laude from your university. But now? You were lost in a vapid attempt to redefine yourself outside of the college community. This was the real world now, and sucked even worse than college had. 

Your studio apartment overlooked the heart of the historic downtown district of Hawkins, Indiana. It was gray this time of year, rain a near-constant promise over the thick smattering of clouds overhead. You paid entirely too much to live in eight-hundred square feet, but you could justify the cost with the stone hearth and floor-to-ceiling windows, even if that meant sleeping in a twin-sized mattress sprawled on the floor in the corner of the room. Your clothes hung messily on mismatched hangers over a laundry rack beside it. Your few enamel dishes cast drip-drying across the countertops in their own choreography. The rest of the place was barren, save for paint splatters over tarps, stacked canvases, and easels. Maybe it was too indulgent to live in-studio, but poverty would argue and win nearly every time. 

The tortured artist persona was trendy while you were in college, but you were just plain insufferable now. You didn’t even want to associate with yourself. You guessed that’s why you had Robin. She was just as insufferable as you were. 

She was the embodiment of everything you hated, a humbling experience in a flesh box wrapped with a short bob and a beret and adorned with a nose ring. You had met her in an Art: History of the French Renaissance class. She was a linguistics major with all of the subtlety of a clapped-out Honda Civic. She heavily romanticized the greater works of Van Gogh and made her brief year in a study-abroad program in Paris a personality trait. Though, you supposed, her redeemable feature was that she was loyal to a fault, albeit mean. Like a small, white dog that haunted your home instead of offering companionship and happiness. 

Though you, for the most part, kept it to yourself, you had made it known in the past that the Italian Renaissance was far superior to the French. You didn’t understand how she could so  heavily romanticize the ritzy portraits of those aristocratic jerk-offs when she had the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait directly in front of her. Maybe you just didn’t think Van Gogh was all that great. Maybe you hated him altogether. Maybe you hated yourself and you were just projecting– or you were jealous that he could be a tortured artist and people left and right seemed to romanticize his work but when you did it, you were just annoying. You knew, for a fact, that you hated yellow. And she sure liked to wear a lot of it.

The weathered oak was hard and uneven against the curvature of your spine, but you refused to move, the numbness in your fingers happening were the beginnings of the best high you had gotten in ages. There was a resonant patriarchal tenor shrill in your ears as you attempted to focus on the beams and exposed plumbing on the ceiling above you. She spoke it again, louder this time, 

“What are you gonna do with an art degree? Be a tortured artist forever?” You could hear her arm slap coldly against the ground next to yours and echo throughout the emptiness of your apartment. 

You groaned, though it was only proving her point, “I don't know, what are you gonna do with a linguistics degree? Be super fucking annoying?”

“At least I have a job.” 

And she did. She was a translator who rotated on call-circuit to Indianapolis for international business meetings, sometimes they even paid her fare to other countries, in essence getting to vacation on some company’s dime between meetings. The grandeur of it all was sickening. 

The ring from your land-line was shrill and echoing, shattering the silence of your own discontent like tempered glass, fragmenting and exploding into millions of little pieces. No one called here ever, and the suddenness of the tone made both Robin and yourself jump. You gave her a shove to the shoulder, a wordless gesture meaning, go get that. 

Her Hello was tepid, in the same meek demeanor she twirled the line around her finger. Her face registered from confusion to concern, a quick contortion that took place over the course of seconds, “Is he okay? What do you mean you can’t disclose that?” 

You sat up, propping your arms underneath you like the kickstands on a bike, brows knit together in question. She looks to you, holding the receiver out towards you, 

“For you.” She says, then silently and exaggeratingly mouths, About Steve.

What? You mouthed back.

Just– Pick. It. Up. She insisted in silent accuse, shaking the receiver towards you once again, 

You took the plastic receiver from her, fingers drawing the skin of your temples back and rubbing your eyes, “Hello?”

You don’t recognize the voice on the phone. A woman you know is older than yourself by the way she sounds, officiating and knowledgeable, but carrying a certain morosity with her. She held the kind of tone you know brought bad news. 

It feels like a fog, hearing his name again. Hearing that he is a person who is alive and living a life separate from you. It wasn’t right, and that unease turned itself in your stomach as you repeated back her medical jargon to yourself in layman’s terms. Steve fell off a ladder and hit his head. Again. He was unconscious but stable. The neighbor found him and brought him in and gave them your name and phone number 

“And why are you calling me?” You finally asked, followed by a long pause. You cursed yourself mentally, realizing the harshness of the statement after you had said it.  

The nurse sounded displeased, “You’re his wife, aren’t you? You were listed as the primary emergency contact.”

You hadn’t spoken to Steve in over a year, not since you broke it off with him. You trailed your thumb over the webbing between your middle and ring finger, still feeling the phantom sensation of the ring that sat there just a year prior. The dissidence churned in your stomach, and you couldn’t help the worry that filled you. 

Steve was the embodiment of everything you loved. He was smooth like linseed and fell into all of your texture. He didn’t understand it, but he agreed on the superiority of the Italian renaissance. If you hated the romanticization of Van Gogh, then so did he. Steve was agreeable. Steve was easy in all of the places you weren’t. 

Steve cared about people in the way that you didn’t. 

When you broke it off, your families, both found and biological, were shocked. Robin especially. You’d felt bad for her, caught in the crossfire between two of her best friends. You and Steve had both agreed not to make her choose. She was the sentient being of pure neutrality. It was as if she was a separate entity on two different timelines. If she was present in your reality, Steve did not exist. You assumed the same of her relationship with Steve. Though, a part of you still hoped he’d ask sometimes. 

Your brain is a flurry of Steve. His migraine medication, his medical history, his eyewear prescription, fuck his shoe size. You card through the rolodex of head traumas he had undergone through the years, recounting them between relationship markers. You don’t allow yourself the time to think, slamming the phone back down on the stand with a quick, I’ll be there. 

The drive to the hospital is sombering, though, you selfishly are less worried about him being okay than you are about what he would think of you showing up after they thought you were his wife. 

The smell of the hospital is pungent. Horrendously human and unnaturally sterile wrapped up into one fragrant demise. There are people buzzing, both physically and metaphorically, yet despite the controlled chaos the women at the front desk seem unnaturally calm. Uninterested, even. You tell them your name and who you are here to see, and yet, despite the fact that they had just reached out to you over the phone, they still attempt to validate your marriage. 

You knew it was nasty when, “If you don’t think I’m his wife, then why did you call asking if I was his wife?” rolled off your tongue, but you knew Robin would smooth the turmoil with an apology on your behalf. Frankly, you didn’t care. They buzzed you in without another word. 

There was an older man in a white coat standing in front of the room, flipping through a chart with Harrington across the top. The embroidery on it read neurology. You figured he would have to undergo a few whirring uncomfortable scans with any head trauma, but his face remained stoic. You couldn’t read him, and, personally, it was terrifying. 

“Mrs. Harrington?” He asked, holding a hand out. 

You took it as an appeasement, tried to let his old man charm seep into your bones and put you at ease. If he was old, that means he’s done this before. “Yes.” You knew it was a lie, but who else was going to claim him? Not his parents. There was no one else remaining in Hawkins but you and Robin, and she wasn’t family. Technically, you weren’t either, but you weren’t cruel.  

“I wanted to formally speak to you before you saw him. There’s a few things we need to discuss.” This sent a panicked chill through your bones. You expected to step into the room and they would ask you for permission to pull the plug or something. 

“Is he..?” Your face must have registered as panicked, because the neurologist quickly backpedaled with a grounding hand on your shoulder. 

“Oh, no. He’s fine ma’am, we weren’t seeing any bleeds or swelling that he can't recover from.”

That he can’t recover from. Meaning that there is, in fact, something wrong with his brain. You figured that much, with maybe six concussions within the last ten years, but you wouldn’t dwell on that fact too much for now, “But?”

“There is a small amount of swelling in the temporal lobe, which is responsible for short-term memory storage. Your husband is suffering from a form of fixation amnesia that is pretty uncommon…”

You zone out listening to him talk, trying to piece everything together. Steve is okay. He lost his short-term memory for a while. Words like retrograde and anterograde and Transient Global are thrown around and bouncing back with a resounding tenor in your phonetic loop. Steve has forgotten the last year, he cannot store new memories for the time being. He forgot your breakup. He still believes you are together. He needs around the clock care. 

Steve was awake when they opened the door and pulled back the curtain to the room he had already been admitted to. At least someone in this administration was competent enough to get him into a room instead of keeping him in the ER. 

“Baby.” A large, flat palm reaches itself towards you. You stood in the corner in silence, waiting for someone that wasn’t you to speak. But, it just so happened that you were the only person in the room. You don’t realize he’s talking to you, so he says it again, a little more firmly, and you walk up and sit at the chair next to his bed, avoiding the hand outstretched towards you. 

Though, in all of his firmness, where the weight of your elbow finds a dip in the bed, his hands finds your arm. It searches for your hands and finds them with a firm grip. They’re warm like you remember. Steve was always warm. 

“Hi, Steve.” You keep your voice quiet, remembering the days of migraine management. Barely-there decibels creating resounding, echoing pain around his skull. 

“What happened?” He asks you, “ –-head hurts.” He manages, burying his face into the polyfilament of the pillow below him. 

You tried to make your explanation concise, only giving him the cause and not the prognosis. You’d deal with that at a later time. “You fell off a ladder, hit your head pretty hard. Cullen brought you in.” You explained. 

“The dentist? With the labs?” He asked you, and it made you laugh. Steve always remembered people by their cars or their dogs. 

You agreed with him nodding your head despite his closed eyes, “Yes, the dentist with the labs.”

“He’s a really nice guy.”

“He sure is.” 

+

The discharge process was long and rigorous the next morning, swarms of insurance and neurologists and shrinks and case managers. All faces to a crowd that apparently had never communicated with the other department a day in their sad, corporate lives. 

Steve had no car, no means of getting home, and, quite frankly, no recollection of the year leading up to the accident. So, you loaded him into your car, pulling out as slowly as possible and driving at least ten under the speed limit the entire way. He seemed chipper as his hand found yours resting over the shifter, hands meeting your movements as your gears moved up and down with the rhythm of traffic– almost as if he was driving the car himself. You silently thanked him for the movement, already distracted by the constant fear of rattling his already tenderized brain any more than it had been. 

The street looked like it had frozen in time as you slipped past its residents unscathed. The dentist, surrounded by the flurry of yellow labs, waved as you drove by. The house sat in a caul de sac, the one you used to call yours, the third one in from the end between a vacation home and a stalled fixer-upper. It was a smaller Victorian built at the turn of the century. Your selling point was the turret at the front end of the house, sporting floor-to-ceiling windows and housed by oak buttresses. 

You pictured Steve carrying you through the threshold of your home the night of your wedding as you half-dragged him from the driveway to the bedroom. Some of your spring daylilies were coming out of dormancy, the pertinent blooms bulbous and waiting to open. You remembered picking the pink ones, to match the pink peonies and coneflowers that you had planted alongside it. 

This house was a dream. Actually, this house was his dream. Encased in dark oak and copper plumbing. You just wanted a place to paint – and, for this, he had spared no expense either. 

You remembered the day he’d surprised you with the keys:

You had felt soggy, the stale coffee and milk drying into the stomach of your apron and hardening into a sugary breast plate. You knew you’d never be able to get the smell out, instead understanding that was just a part of life when you were a barista. Along with the burns and odds-and-ends scrapes and bruises. 

Steve had been waiting for you on a barstool in front of the door, looking like he had something to say. You knew he had most likely been pacing back and forth from the couch to the barstool as he had waited for you to get home. You weren’t a stranger to his mannerisms. Living with him had been a front-row ticket to The Steve Harrington Show. Sometimes you joked that David Attenborough should join you for dinner, narrating Steve in his natural habitat. 

He had greeted you with a kiss, saccharine sweet like everyone before it, grip on your waist like a vice and a smile that he couldn’t help on his lips. 

“I picked something up today,” He mumbled against your lips, “for the house.” 

The incomplete set sat freshly unwrapped in its paper casings. The Blue Willow china was beautiful nonetheless. Steve had taken a liking to it almost more than you had. You didn’t mean to get annoyed, you had just had a long day. Though Steve knew it, your defensiveness caught him off-guard. 

He would never admit it, but he took after his mother in his eyes and in his shopping addiction. You knew you were moving, house-hunting on weekends and late evenings. You didn’t want to begin your life together in this apartment, which had been filling quickly with heirlooms and antique pieces collected from both shops and family members, “for the house” and, “as an engagement gift”. 

“Steve, what happened to saving money?” You had asked him, reaching behind you to untie your apron to throw into the basket that needed  to be dragged downstairs to the wash. “We’ll never get a house if you keep spending the money as soon as we get it.” 

“Actually,” He said to you, pretty lips turning into a smile as he dug around in his pockets, “We already have a house.” 

He watched the cogs turn in your head, your face exchanging confusion for shock as your eyes widened and you brought your hands up to cover your mouth. You couldn’t help the small years that spill from your eyes and you jump on Steve, laughing along with him as he spun you in a circle. 

You remembered buzzing the entire way there, only remembering to pull your apron off once you tried to buckle your seatbelt. It was dark out, and the streetlights in the historic neighborhood were sparse, if present at all. 

The house was a great cathedral in front of you, rickety and crumbling in nature. 

“The bones are good.” He reminded you, “We can take care of the rest.” 

“I love it!” You squealed to him, throwing your arms around his neck. It caught him off guard, your enthusiasm. 

That night, he refused to carry you through the threshold of the house. He said he wanted to save it for the wedding night. Only do it once so it stays special.  

You sat alone at the dining table, cigarette in hand. You rarely smoked anymore, but you figured this ordeal permissed one. He kept the binders of your wedding planning, all of the stuff you bought, the cause of your cold feet. They were tucked away next to the dining table in the built-in for easy access. They looked like they had been untouched save for a finger print along the spine of the binder that remained bare of any dust or particles– like he had gone to take them out, but hesitated. You looked up and around at the main living space. 

He was going to build you a new life and it didn’t look like he had touched it for a year. 

+

The first day is just playing the game. You were aware he would have temporary, moderate-to-severe memory loss. You attempted to recall the words that swirled around your phonetic loop. Words from neurologists and trauma doctors and nurses alike. 

Steve knows he was in the hospital and knows desperately how horrible this migraine was. He spent it in the dark, on his regular dose of sumatriptan, supplemented wonderfully in a vicodin-induced haze. You did not expect him to remember today, nor did you expect him to care. You know he is alive from barely-spoken words between exchanges of water and his prescription, which, thank God, hadn’t changed in the last year. 

You sleep on the couch. 

The second day, you are up before him, sifting through the pots and pans you’d let him keep to try and feed both him and yourself. You are surprised when he gets out of bed before 9:00, and even more surprised when he asks, 

“So, what are you going to paint today?” Through squinted eyes, lean arm braced against the counter to support the weight of his body. He sips idly from the orange juice glass he used to take the sumatriptan, but not the vicodin. 

It’s not like it was a question that strayed away from the mundane, however, it had been almost a year since you’d heard it last. You’d tried not to let the surprise register on your face as you’d continued to stir the eggs around in the pan. You let the corner of the wooden spoon scrape some of the dried remnants of soft egg from the sides of the pan where the butter hadn’t reached. You shrugged with a soft, I don’t know, unsure of how to answer. 

As Steve retreats back to the master bedroom, you hear the kick of the plumbing and the steady stream of water rattling through the house. You thanked him silently for buying an old place, the plumbing was loud enough to drown out your own thoughts. 

The knock on the window sends you reeling back like the crack of a gun. Your ménage-a-trois with a nose ring and encased the ugliest yellow beret like some gay French Alp paratrooper stood guard outside the bay seating of your kitchen window. You hated yellow, but, for today, you would keep it to yourself. She came bearing gifts. The only suitcase you owned was filled with the only clothes you owned, and as many art supplies as she could carry with the promise of more. Today, she bore her yellow beret as a barrel full of brandy around her neck– a drooly Saint Bernard to your avalanche. You propped the window open on its stakes, cinnamon color mixed with dirt crumbling from its unused hinges. 

She looked around in secrecy, “How is he?” 

“Better today. He just got in the shower.” You shrugged, looking back over your shoulder. 

“How’s the…” She circled her splayed hands over her head, signaling amnesia. You wish she would just say it instead of tiptoeing around the subject. 

You shrugged again, running a hand over your head, “I’m not sure yet. He knows who I am, but, ugh, I don’t know.” You sighed, sitting down at the bench and burying your face in your hands.

Robin leaned against the windowsill, reaching a hand through to push your hair back out of your face, “What’s wrong? Why is that bad?” 

“He still thinks we’re together. Like– doesn’t remember that we’re not together.” You said through your palms, knowing that her linguistics degree also covered your dramatics and mumbling. 

“Oh God,” She gasped to you, not quite able to contain herself, “What are you gonna do?” 

“I’m just gonna have to roll with it, I guess.” You slurred past your arms, willing back the onslaught of stress-tears beginning to pool against your tightline. You couldn't abandon him now, not when he was like this. 

Your former studio, nestled at the base of the turret within the house, surrounded by windows encased in stained-glass embellishments and flying buttresses, remained the only room in the house that was finished. You sat on your spinning stool, ignoring the creak from the way you pushed yourself back and forth on the balls of your feet. Your eyes fixated on the piece in front of you. It had been sitting on this easel for a year– the only one too heavy for you to move on your own, however, you were past asking for Steve’s help. So here it sat, holding your work once again, arms open in waiting. 

“Woah, you work fast.” Steve’s voice startled you, the stool squeaked again as you jumped. 

He walked up behind you, hands smoothing over your shoulders in apology– his skin still shower-warm and tacky from the water, “What are you talking about?” 

Your voice was much softer than you initially intended it to come out as. It resonated under the guise of a smile rather than the initial annoyance you turned to as a defense mechanism. 

“Didn’t you start that painting last week?” He asked, smoothing a broad hand down the exposed expanse of your upper arm, turning his face to look at the painting, “It’s done now.”

You tried not to let the confusion register on your face. You had finished the painting well over a year ago. The oil had long-since cured. You thanked the universe softly for Steve’s untrained eye. 

“I guess I just got really into it.” You shrugged, feigning your own insufferability for his well being– just this once. 

You had forgotten what it was like to be held by Steve. He lingered around your proximity in a near-shroud of constance. You had forgotten the soft feeling of nimble fingers as they grazed across any exposed skin you had. You had forgotten about warm hands cupping your cheek or twirling the ends of your hair. You had forgotten what the warmth of his felt like, in the same way that you moved away from the slow-creeping sun square that beamed from the windowsills. You didn’t realize how long you had been fighting any warmth after him. 

That night, his broad hands lured you to bed with the promise of warmth. You try to remember the way it felt a year ago, if it resounded in the same way. His hands were still a comfort as they encased you in a tight embrace. His breath still felt the same coming from his nose and traveling across your shoulder, dotted intermittently by haste staccato kisses. 

You tried to hold on to that feeling after he had long been asleep, and held on to it again as you peeled his hands from your waist. You let it slip from your fingers as you slid from the bed and let your feet pad across the hardwood flooring. You laid it to rest next to you on the couch, let it fold into itself and hibernate once more. 

By the next morning, Steve’s brain had pistoned back into his regular routine, which consisted of a god-awful early morning jog. It was almost obnoxious how perfect he was for this neighborhood, golden skin glowing against the rays of morning, efflorescence in nature and ugly, heinous perfection. By the time he gets back, it’s still ungodly early. The sun only casts a blue haze into the atmosphere in its feigning presence. 

You could guess by the way he tried to control his heavy breaths as he walked through the door that he was dewy, shirt tucked into his jogging shorts and hair raked back with sweaty fingers. You would not force your eyes open to look at him, leaving any feelings of adverse adoration back in the white quilt you had abandoned over a year ago. He walked up to you, feat unabashedly heavy against the hollowness of the floor despite the carpet muffling them. His hand was warm and heavy against the exposed expanse of your hip, riding your shirt up further.

“What are you doing out here? You know this couch kills your bac-” He started, pausing abruptly in surprise,  “Where did that come from?” 

“What?” You mumbled through closed eyes, still only barely awake. 

He traces the tattoo on your back, rough fingers tracing over the thickened lines of ink, “This.”

You didn’t bother to crack an eye open, instead folding your arms in further on yourself and readjusting against the couch cushions, “Gee, Steve, you must've hit your head really hard.”

“What?” 

“What?” You asked him, finally waking up enough. You pushed your arms underneath you, squinting at him as best you could through the haze of the morning light. 

“I hit my head?” He asked, confusion– then terror– registering on his face. 

You sat up fully, realizing then that, in your daze, you had effectively put your foot in your mouth. The look on your face, supplemented by the look on his face tells you that there is no way that you could backtrack now. 

“... Yeah-” 

“When?”

“Three days ago.” You started, and he let out a deep exhale, almost in relief that it hadn’t been longer. 

He turned to look at you, and you reached out to grab his hand. He took it, gripping yours like a vice, but never enough to hurt, “What did I do?”

“You were up on a ladder, doing something with the electrical. You fell and hit your head pretty good. Cullen brought you in.” You shrugged, trying to play it off. 

“Where were you?” He asked, it wasn’t accusing. He just tried to piece everything together. Still, you couldn’t help the pang of guilt that pooled in your chest after he said it. 

You weren’t going to break his heart, not now. Not while he was already fragile like this. You hated lying, but anything was better than a category five meltdown. He shook now, acting too tough to hide it. Steve was strong for everyone, too strong for too long. 

“Am I okay?” 

“Yeah, Steve. You’re okay.” You reassured him, no matter what. 

+

That night, you put a band-aid over your neck, despite the itching, burning sensation from the adhesive, it would live there for now. You said it was to save yourself the trouble. You didn’t know why you’d thought to care so much. You also don’t know why you felt so guilty. Maybe it’s because you weren’t there. Maybe it’s because you were here now and you shouldn’t have been. All you know is that you can’t break Steve’s fragile psyche now, not again. 

Steve’s routine was stone-set and rigorous, you’d remembered that much. He was the kind of person that thrived off of routine and egg-whites alone. You’d envied him for his discipline. 

He started out of bed every morning at the heinous, ungodly hour of five. Every morning, without fail, he rose silently, rubbed his hands over his face, fought the urge to disturb you and lost every time. He would smooth a tender hand over your hair and slip out the door with a soft, waking kiss, and proceed with a jog. Every morning, he would run his 3.1 miles, 5,000 kilometers, and every morning, he would slip back through the front door. 

Every morning, you woke to the smell of a better-than-cheap cup of coffee with a sweet kiss, and he would whisper to you that he achieved the run in thirty minutes– a personal best, and you wondered if one day it would slip below that number. Without missing a beat, he would place the coffee on a coaster placed there for that specific purpose on your antique bedside table, and your body would roll into the dip in the mattress where his body sat, his warm hand circling waking patterns across your bare back while you sifted through the prevalent swarm of too-little sleep. 

Because, every afternoon, Steve would take his Saturday (which was actually a Tuesday) and  paint that heinous yellow wall in the guest bedroom over with an earthy green tone– one that, without fail, would remind him of you enough to where he would seek you out to tell you. 

And every night, without fail, you would slip from the bed in silence, pull the heinous yellow paint bucket delivered thankfully by Robin out of the bushes from the window that was set just slightly too high to be comfortable reaching over, and paint that lovely green wall back to that awful, ugly yellow. 

There were no discrepancies to his routine. He was an unfortunate creature of habit, and it was so dreadfully painful that you indulged him in this routine. Because, every day, he would pull those old wedding binders out– no longer covered in dust and forgotten memories– and pick the same three options for wedding china that you never saw the point of anyways. Every day, he would try to cheekily pull you in for a shower, and you would make up the same excuse over the same dishes from the same meal that you had eaten to the point where you were just choking it down. 

And you would do it all over again. 

Because, if that same meal and awful yellow paint and ungodly six o’clock wake time would be enough to stop him from feeling like that again, you would keep doing it. 

Your nightly decompression was your saving grace. The only way you felt like a human again. Because every night, Steve would sit and read the same chapter out of the same book, and you would get in some still-life practice. 

Steve was pretty always, even in his blissful unawareness. Even in his ignorance. Even in the fact that he was no longer yours. Steve was pretty by fact. Pretty by nature. You had gotten good at drawing him, you knew where to block the square of his head and the triangle of his nose. You knew where his glasses rested against his face and exactly where to place every mole. You knew where the bone beneath would ebb and flow and where the warm light from that stained glass bowl-lamp would accentuate and valley against them like rivers. Steve was a topographical map and you had explored every inch in these moments of blissful dissonance. You did not need to waste your time getting the likeness correct by now, only getting in the fine details. 

Every night, your wonderful moment away from the catatonic nature of this ordeal would end when Steve would finish his chapter. You would act like you didn’t notice, like you weren’t staring at him. He would act like he didn’t know you were. He would press a tender kiss to your shoulder, smile at the work in your hands, tell you how talented you were, and finalize the ritual with a kiss to your cheek– an invite to bed. 

You know there will come a time when there will be a deviation from this routine, and you try to prepare yourself for this by running every possibility through your head. Calming tactics in the event that he has a category four meltdown, the words you would say and the explanations you would give him, but nothing prepared you for this deviation. Not in the slightest. 

You are unsuspecting as you wipe down the kitchen counters, melancholy with your towel in hand. Your hair is still wet and dripping uncomfortably down your back. You breathe deeply, enjoying the smell of kitchen lemon multi-surface cleaner. Steve approaches you. You feel his presence before you see him or feel his arms around your waist. You indulge in his warmth before he even touches you, before he reaches for your hand. You bask in his radiance before you feel the cold smoothness of gold scrape across your ring finger. 

“You forgot this after your shower.” He whispers through a kiss against the tender skin beneath your ear. He does not understand the devastation his words have caused you, not in his innocence. 

You reconstructed the scene in fragments of memories:

They were lawn seats, and you had no idea how he scored them. This concert had been sold out for weeks. The Tragic Kingdom tour was potentially the greatest album to ever grace this earth, and Steve agreed– potentially more than you did. 

When your eyes turned to get a good look at his face, it was hard to tell where that light sheen of sweat ended and the glitter that wafted in the air began. He was so fucking beautiful. You could look at him forever, put him in a jar on a shelf to admire for a lifetime. He was more blonde than brunette at this time of year, gold-skinned and eager. The July rays had set minutes ago, yet seemed to settle their clinging remnants in his eyes. 

His eyes that shone when they met yours, the eyes that gripped on to your hands, met your mouth, and settled within your gaze. 

You came in with the breeze, on Sunday morning…

You almost missed his words over the ambient concert sounds around you, louder now as Gwen started the beginnings of the song. Had you not been staring at him, you figured with your mouth open like a trout, you would have missed the two quiet words he mustered. 

“Marry me?”

You didn’t say anything back, you didn't need to. You remember the feeling of your knees sinking into the grass beneath you, wet against your skin. You remember how his body was too-warm in the staleness of the July air and the hardness of his body pressed tight against yours. Any qualms he had about saying more than those words disappeared in an instant, your hand willingly accepting the modest diamond encased in a gold band the only answer he ever needed. 

You thought back on that time, on the I love you’s and the please hold me’s. 

You remembered the I can’t do this anymore.

The problem was never committing to Steve. He had you. He had all of you. He could take you whole or in pieces in any slice or interval or fracture that he could have ever dreamed up. Though, that was the problem. You had committed yourself to him fully, never to the idea of committing yourself to anyone else, never thought of having to share him or change what you had. You lived in comfort, willful bliss. You’d never wanted anything more. 

But you saw that hopeful glimmer in his pretty eyes. The ones that looked like chunky baby legs and bubbly giggles. The distant memories that sounded like mimed laughs and raspberries against new skin. You were not maternal, not by nature nor by instinct. You felt broken, not wanting that. 

And knowing how well Steve was made for it. 

How he mapped rooms in the house with oak cribs and baby-pastel paint colors. How he pointed out names he liked and stared for just a little too long at happy families in passing. 

That night, long after Steve had fallen asleep, those dusty old wedding binders called out to you, screamed your name in birdsongs and infant wails. You clung to them, still covered in that awful yellow paint on the floor of that awful yellow room, and you cried awful tears that stained the pages of the awful thing that could have been. 

Except that could have started to feel less awful. It felt more like a should have now. 

You kept the wedding band on, convincing yourself it was more for him than yourself. 

+

“Hello?”

The shrillness of the landline still rings in your ears despite picking up the sound of a voice on the other end. Instinctively, you twirl your fingers into the cord. 

“Hey.” Her voice is scratchy on the other line. You know who it is, yet you still ask. 

“Who is this?” 

“Bill fucking Clinton.” You can hear the way her eyes roll in her voice. You almost find it endearing. 

You roll your eyes back, knowing that she can’t see it. You hope the sentiment is the same. “Hi, Robin.”

Silence on the line. You know what she will ask. She asks almost every other day or in the in-betweens where you can catch each other and she doesn’t have to fake a conversation on the phone with Steve. 

“How is he?” 

You feel like she knows the answer by now, she knows every part of his routine and exactly where you fit into it, “He’s fine. He just got into the shower.” 

There was a silence again, this time slightly more deafening. It felt like she was thinking, pondering the exact thing she was going to say and how exactly she planned on saying it. 

“How are you?” You hated it, despised it. It almost made your blood run cold. You didn’t do feelings, you were just a pawn in this big, fucked up game. It was your obligation to live in this lie. You had already hurt Steve once, the least you could do was keep him safe now. 

“Fine, Robin. I’m good.” You willed, regurgitated it like a curse. 

She sighed, hoping she wouldn’t have to pry but knowing she was going to, “Ha-ha. But really?”

“Really what?”

“How are you?”

You fell silent, the static basso of the line between you buzzing like a flatline as the tears welled up and over your lash line. The first sob you choke out is louder than you expect, and draw your knees up to your chest in the bay as you cry over the phone, unable to find words and unable to speak if you had then anyways. 

For once robin shuts the fuck up. For once she doesn’t have anything to say. Somehow you wish she would. Instead, she lets you cry for a few minutes in silence. She lets you let it out. 

“Do you need me to come over?” She asks, voice a welcome comfort not that you can breathe through the snot and tears running down your face. 

“No.” You sniffle, wiping the stream of facial fluids across your sleeve like you didn’t disgust yourself when you did it. 

“Do you need a professional?”

“No.”

There was a sigh, followed by another moment of silence. She didn’t know how to help you, though, she didn’t really think you needed help. 

“Hey, Robin?” You finally spoke up, eyes finally dry and your throat finally clear enough to be coherent. 

“Yeah?”

“Tell Monica Lewinsky I said hi.” 

+

You have a headache, simply put. That you could supplement. The ache and the pressure behind your eyes could be solved with acetaminophen and a glass of water and a bath. The ache in your chest was less tangible, and would have to wait until the ache in your head was fixed to even be evaluated. 

You’d managed to slip past Steve getting dressed in the convex opening of your walk-in closet, light spilling yellow against the dark floors in the dim lighting of the master bedroom. The one thing you’d greatly missed about this house that your apartment did not have the luxury of was the cast-iron tub, in its claw-footed, wing-backed glory. The water spilled steam from the mouth of the faucet as it spilled down the white porcelain glaze, hot enough to turn your skin red and draw the overage of blood from between your temples. You dimmed the lights, shoulders lax as you slumped your arms sideways over the edge of the tub, water tinged green from both the reflection of the seafoam walls and the capful of eucalyptus epsom salts dissolving in the water around you. 

You close your eyes, focusing more on the crisp smell of the water instead of the pounding of your head. You rest one arm beneath your head as a barrier between your temple and the porcelain, allowing the other to hang off the side. 

You don’t miss the way Steve slips in, nearly silently. The change of air pressure that came with his presence was what gave him away– that and the soft click of the chair legs against the hexagonal tile as he rotated it to face you. 

His touch is so gentle. His touch feels like the only inherent good in the world around you. His touch is soft enough to bring you to tears. And it does. 

You cannot help but let two roll down your face, not upset enough for it to scrunch up in the ugly sobs that you heaved on the kitchen floor to Robin. They splat quietly on the tile beneath you, and you sigh like an exasperated hound. One deep, shuddering breath beneath Steve’s hand. 

You cannot confide in him, even if he asks. You wonder if that fact hurts worse than understanding that he is going to wake up eventually. 

Steve does not pry. He’s really good at that. Instead, he rakes his fingers across the grain of your hair, thrown upwards with reckless abandon– fingers both a consolation and a devastation. He wishes desperately to know. Wishes desperately that he could fix it, but he knows this sadness. Knows the pain of forcing you to talk. The only thing that hurts worse than not knowing is the pain of seeing you cry. 

But he’s so tender, and he’s so endearing. You can’t help but want him. 

“Can I get you anything?” He says to you, just above a whisper. He even dips his head down closer to yours so you can hear, but you’re already clawing at the collar of his shirt. 

“Wanna be close.” You mutter, words muffled against your arm. He understands it anyway. 

His skin is hot. Hot enough to still be felt under your hands despite the temperature of the water. You missed the texture of it, smooth, interrupted by soft constellations of moles and bone. Quickly, and with grace, he stands– pulling your hands from his body for a mere few, painful seconds. He strips his clothes quickly, and you watch the muscles of his shoulders ripple as he maneuvers to pull his shirt over them. 

Silken skin glides across your back, the hot water squelching between your bodies as he slides into the tub behind you, arms encircling your waist in an iron-clad grip. Caring and grounding all at once. 

His lips are soft as they press a hot path against your neck and you sigh, tilting your head further away to allow him the affection you so desperately need. 

“That’s it, honey. Let me give you what you need.” It’s a low growl, not quite a whisper. His voice keeps that resonant patriarchal basso that vibrates against your neck and settles in your coccyx. His kisses turn to soft nips, as he takes the suppleness of your flesh between his teeth– never enough to hurt. 

His hands reach up to cup your breasts, squeezing tenderly as he runs a thumb over a pert nipple. He leaves one hand on your chest, gently pinching and rolling the flesh between his thumb and forefinger, another hand sliding over the hills and valleys of your body to find a home between your legs. 

Despite the water surrounding you, there is a much more distinct slickness that has gathered there in decadent anticipation of him. When his thick fingers finally breach the threshold of you, it is both a devastation and a need. Slowly, he finds the bud of your clit, circling it slowly. 

You suck in a breath, accompanied by a soft whine. When you arch your back, you feel him press against your back, hard and heavy against your flesh. 

“Come on, honey,” He urges, a heeding groan fans across your shoulder disguised as a breath, “I’m gonna get you there. Just gotta let me do it.” 

His middle and ring finger circle your core, easing their way in. You relinquish the new, subtle stretch. His other hand leaves its place on your breast, coming down to hold the soft flesh of your lower belly, creating a soft pressure that soothed the ache in your core as he held you there, relentlessly pumping in and out of you with his fingers. The other hand crept lower, the other two fingers continuing the rhythmic circling of your throbbing clit. 

You cried out, the coil in your core hitting that vapid crescendo and tumbling over the edge with shaky legs and breaths. Steve continued working his fingers within you, easing you through the climax of your orgasm and slowing when you whined. His arms remained around you like a vice, holding you in your place against him. 

He nibbled at your ear softly as you came down from that wonderful, floaty place, and whispered softly, “You did so good.” against your neck. His hands rubbed the insides of your thighs in slow, soothing circles. You felt the water from the tub rush over his arms and create whirlpools over the valleys of your skin. 

It was then that you turned, your arms locking around his neck and your lips crashing into his. Your body fell against his with enough force to push a wave across the edge of the tub, but the wet floor was an issue for another time. Your own carnal desire to have him seated within you was far worse than your desire to maintain the grout in the bathroom floors. This much you knew. 

The stretch was welcome and familiar, albeit foreign to you, now. You cried out, as you slid down to the hilt and seated yourself firmly atop his thighs, either one of your thighs bracketing around his. You felt the scrape of hair from his thighs scratch against your skin, broad hands planted firmly on the plush of your waist, and deep, guttural groan fan out across the crevice of your neck where he buried his head. 

Your hand clutched the nape of his neck for purchase, fingers burying themselves in the damp locks there and tugging softly. It draws a gasp from pretty pouted lips as his head tilts back in reverie. He looks at you through dreamy, half-closed lids, reminding himself to draw himself back and forth again, now that you have adjusted to the sensation of him filling you. 

“Oh, baby. Honey.” He cried, pistoning his hips upward, more rhythmically now. It was more of a cry now than it was a plea, and a rosy blush crept its way across the bridge of his nose, spread over his cheeks, and kissed the tips of his ears. He was ethereal as it spread across his chest and he heaved whines into your mouth like he needed to feel himself inside you to survive. You caught the way his dark lashes kissed the apples of his cheeks, and the way the space between his brows scrunched as he huffed breaths towards your face. 

There is a realization in the impending vapid crescendo where Steve attempts to push you over the edge a second time. Your body is on fire as he rubs fast, sloppy circles around your already sensitive clit. He falls from the edge first.

“O-oh, fuck.” He cried out in pleasure as a tear rolled from beautifully crinkled eyelids. Though, he desperately urges you to continue bouncing with fingers buried into the plush that accumulates where your hips fold. His thumb is still relentless over your sensitive bud until he pushes your already teetering form over the edge as well. 

He holds you close, strong arms around your shaking frame and wet hands smoothing back your flyaway hairs. He presses a kiss to your forehead, guiding your head between his palms and trailing them down your nose. He lands his final kiss, longer this time, against your lips and fans his palms across the expanse of your cheeks and neck. 

You whine when he pulls himself from you, suddenly empty. Steve soothes you with a, “Shh. It’s okay honey, ‘ve got you.” as he pushes water up from the tub and over your cold, drying shoulders. 

You cannot tell if you feel better or worse, having him in this way again. You think of the way he slid the ring back over your finger, and relived all of the gilded moments of your past. You’d always felt like a ghost in this house, haunting the remnants of what the life that should have been. But this did not feel like the life that you walked out on. This felt like the life that you chose. 

Steve felt like your husband when he kissed the skin of your shoulder in the early mornings after his runs. He felt like your husband when he sprinkled the feta into your spinach omelet in the morning, and when he sat behind you to watch you paint like you couldn’t sense him behind you, and when he gave you that goofy smile and wave when you caught you peering at him from the bay curtains while he tended to the lawn, 

And he certainly felt like your husband when he helped you from the tub on shaky legs, while he dried your legs with fresh towels and planted sweet kisses against your ankles and knees as he did so. He felt like your husband as he held your hand and guided you with soft hands to bed. He felt like your husband when he pulled your head to his chest beneath the sheets, sneaking a not-so-secret sniff to the crown of your head and smiling a not-entirely-concealed smile. 

Steve may not have been yours anymore, but he was yours for tonight. 

+

The morning light is dappled when you wake, and the way it sparkles hurts your eyes. You half expect to see Steve, feel his lips against your shoulder and relinquish the warmth that radiates from his skin like the sun as he invades your waking space. Instead, you find him sleeping, golden and beautiful under the dappled light, white linens draped over the oiled ellipses of his hips and legs tangled in the sheets. You bury your nose into the valley of his spine and he jolts awake. You can’t help but to giggle. 

“Jesus, what the fuck?” He starts, pushing himself up on his elbows, stomach pressed to the bed. 

“Oh, good morning, Steve.” His brow furrows as he looks at you. Steve does not look happy to see you. Steve looks confused. 

“What are you even doing here?” He asked, more towards the sheets than you. He buried his face in his hands, groan echoing in his palms before he asked, “Oh, God, how drunk did I get?”

Your heart sinks. He is awake. There is no retrograde and anterograde and Transient Global to worry about anymore. It is just you, and him, and your new sense of impending doom. Though, how impending could the doom really be if it was staring you in the face this very moment? Impending should have been reserved for when you decided to move back into the house you tried to build. Impending was reserved for the phone call from the hospital. No, this was doomed from the start, and now, it was blowing up in your face. 

You can tell he doesn’t know what happened, and that he has a throbbing headache. 

“Here– let me–” You start, turning over to grab his prescription from the drawer in your– Steve’s bedside table. He stood, suddenly. 

“No– ugh,” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to apply some pressure there, “I think you need to go.” 

“No, Steve, let me explain–”

“Just, go. Please.” He pleaded. 

You would not argue. You especially would not cry in front of him, not now. Instead, you scrambled the bathroom floor for your clothes that were shed before your bath, pulling them on, scrambling for your purse and car keys on the counter, and promptly leaving with those items to your name. It was foolish for you to build another home there, to leave remnants of yourself and reminders to him of just how fucked you were around his house. You don’t remember breathing on the drive back to your apartment. The air in this place is stale and, if you owned more things, you figured they’d be shrouded in a fine layer of dust from your negligence. 

When Robin answers the phone, you are incoherent. At first, she figures it is the shoddy signal from her company-issued brick phone, though she eventually realizes that it is not the faulty technology. You are in fact, choking on words and hot tears. Robin has a nagging feeling that she knows what happened, and your few words, “Steve” and, “fucked up” both confirm her suspicions and are reminiscent of a time where she was caught in the crossfire over a year ago. 

Robin’s car zig-zags in and out of the morning traffic, shaving both minutes off of her commute time to your apartment and her life. Her entrance to your apartment is dramatic, tired screeching and door hitting the wall so hard you can almost feel the security deposit solidifying in you landlord’s bank account. She greets you with a hug that you don’t ask for– you don’t need to. She doesn’t ask what’s wrong. 

Instead, she stands there, in the nearly empty room where your studio once stood, and she holds you. And you cry. And you want to scream and want to throw things and want to curse the universe and ask why me? But you know why you stand here. You know that you are shitty. So instead, you sit here, and feel sorry for yourself, and let Robin hold you. Because, no matter how shitty you are, she won’t say anything about it. 

This ugly nostalgia rears its even uglier head when the phone rings shrill, deafening against the brick walls that encase you in this place worse than they had when there were paintings occupying this space. She slides across the concrete on the floor just slightly so she can grab her phone.

“Hey– you busy?” Steve asks, and she can tell he’s been crying. 

You look at her, eyes red and confused. 

“No,” Robin lied to him, it was small and white, “What’s going on?” 

Who is it? You mouth. 

Robin is inherently a bad liar. She could say it was her boss, or her mom, or a telemarketer. Instead, she stares back, contemplating the lie and the inevitable conversation she would have to make up on the spot. She decides it is not worth the effort, and mouths back, 

Steve. 

You sit up, looking at her with wide eyes. You will not ask to eavesdrop, though, there’s a small, shitty part of you that wants to. 

“Something happened.” He started, and she knows exactly what happened, “but I don’t exactly know what.” 

What’s he saying? You mouth back at her, though, she holds a pointed finger up at you in waiting. 

“Are you in trouble?” She asks, “Do you need help?” 

“Look, I don’t know. Can you just come over? I’ll explain everything.” He asks, voice small. He sounds like he is on the precipice of a breakdown. She hangs up the phone, knowing you know what she is going to ask next. 

“Hey, are you gonna be okay? I’ve gotta–”

“Yeah, I’m fine. You can go.” You tell her, pointedly, though, she doesn’t fully believe it. However, your nosiness outweighs your ability to be this hurt for this long, “Look, can you just give this back to him? It doesn’t feel right.” and it's not right, it never was right. 

You slide the ring from your finger, closing Robin’s palm around it. She opens her palm once again, twirling the diamond between her fingers. She slides it over her middle finger, diamond side in to protect it. 

“Yeah, I can.”

“Thanks, Rob.” 

“Call me.” She says to you, and It is both a threat and a consolation. 

“Okay.” 

+

There is an aura that has overtaken the house since this morning. It was threatening. Robin had sensed the shift from her car, clear up the avenue. There was something frighteningly wrong here. 

Her knock on the door was poignant, scared almost, and she held her breath as Steve turned the knob. He looked tired. He looked spent. He looked like he wanted to cry, and yell, and throw things, and curse the universe, but was too morose to perform any action but stare blankly at Robin. 

“What happened?” She asked, taking the invited, but welcome, step through the threshold of the front door. She knew what had happened already, there were remnants of you strung about this place like shrapnel. Steve avoided them like landmines, even though the explosion had already happened. 

“She– she,” She meaning you, he started, but didn’t know where to begin. He sat on the couch, bouncing back with the weight and force of his body thrown against the cushions. 

“You don’t remember anything, do you?” Robin finally asked.

Steve looked up at her, red eyes slick with freshly fallen tears, “What?” 

“Steve, you hit your head. You fell off a ladder and knocked something loose.” Robin explained to him, voice soft as she said it, “You couldn’t remember anything that happened in the last year.” 

Robin wished you were here to help her explain. She wished she could remember the big words you remembered to describe what was wrong with him– maybe it would help him understand better. Maybe you should have come. She could have been able to act as a buffer between the anger– 

“You fucking knew about this?” Steve interrupted her thoughts, he had stared for a few seconds while he figured out his thoughts. 

Robin went quiet, more quiet than she already had been, “Yeah. I did.” It was a statement riddled with shame, though she didn’t quite know for what. 

“Steve, you were sick fo–”

He stood, rage apparent in his eyes as he poked his finger into Robin’s shoulder, “No, Rob, I wouldn’t put it past her to lie to me like that but you?” Robin didn’t say anything to him. Instead she just looked up at him, “Whose side are you even on?”

“Steve, you know goddamned well I’m not picking a side.” She was angry, standing now to match his posture, “You brooded for months fucking haunting this house like a ghost, Steve. You. Were. Miserable– and you were making me miserable too! All you did was talk about how you were gonna get her back, and now that you had her, you decide you don’t want her?” Robin started. It was Steve’s turn to stare, now.

“I get that you’re mad, and I get that you’re confused, and I’m sorry that this happened to you, but this isn’t my fault.” She continued. She was a republic of voices tonight, and unfortunately, that republic was Italy. 

“Oh, and here’s your stupid ring back. It’s ugly, anyways.” She finishes, shoving the ring back into his chest. He holds it in his hands, stunned. 

There is an immediate regret that fills him up and drowns him in it. Robin was right, it was not her fault. “Ugh, Robin. I’m–”

She turns at the beginning of his apology, scooping her back from the doorway, “Don’t. I’m not the one you should even be apologizing to.”

“Rob–”

“Bye, Steve.”

He is alone now. The house is quiet and stale, the walls sing in silence, speak their truths, tell him how awful he was. He was so quick to anger, wore his father’s anger like a hand-me-down coat. It hung loose in the wrong places, did not cling to him like his father and looked silly while he was wearing it. He twirls the ring in his hands, watching the light refract white off the brilliant-cut diamond. 

He should call Robin, should. He knows that, even after this, that she will forgive him. You, however, would not be so easy, though, he can’t exactly fathom how badly he wants your forgiveness when he has not quite forgiven you himself. 

He twirls it in his hands as he gets into his car, runs his thumb over the cluster of diamonds in his pocket as he drives down the road, in search of your apartment. It burns a hole in his pocket as he parks, burning hotter and hotter until he swears it scorches his skin the closer he gets to your door. 

When you answer, door swinging open in reprieve and eyes holding the morosity of several generations, he feels a pang of guilt begin to choke him, though it is not big enough to not be swallowed. Something else burns there, still hot and still angry and still confused. It takes over the forefront of his mind. He should not have come here. It was not right to come here. 

“Seriously? This? You still had it?” It is an ugly statement, it's the first thing that he can think of. The angry coat was still tied tight around his waist, the anger was still bubbling in the forefront of his temporal lobe. He holds the ring up in your face, the sparkle hurts your eyes. 

You furrowed your brows, confused by both the fact that we was standing at your apartment door and also that you opened your door to him yelling at you, “You gave it back to me Steve–”

“No, the version of me that forgot what you did gave it back to you. And you took advantage of that. You–”

“Steve, I couldn’t–”

“Couldn’t what?” He wouldn’t give you a chance to explain yourself, he took a step forward and crowded your space. It wasn’t entirely fair, but you hadn’t been entirely fair either. There was no winning this battle. 

You stared back at him in silence, willing fresh tears from breaking over the edges of your lash line. His eyes seethed with anger. You had never seen Steve this angry before. 

“Couldn’t what?” He asked again, taking another step closer. He stood over you now, towering and angry. 

You were shaking now, seeping with your own anger and frustration, “Anterograde Amnesia!”

“What?” He stops sudden;y, realizing his closeness to your figure, taking a step back. 

“That’s what you had. Every morning you woke up and it was the same day. Every morning you woke up and you– you–” You were crying now, hot tears running down your face at an embarrassing, unrelenting pace. You could not tell if they were of anger or sadness. Probably both, “You woke up and did the same thing, and then every night you went back to sleep and we started all over again.”

“Why didn’t you just walk away?” He asked, turning and bracing himself on your counter, hand on his hip as he stared you down. 

“I-I I just couldn’t, okay?”

“Why not?” He had a way of backing you into a corner, making you feel small in this confrontation. Steve was rarely angry with you, and never like this. 

“Because the one day you did find out, before all this shit,” Before he felt like yours again, “–you begged me to tell you that you were okay. You fucking begged me to.” Your arms were flailing now, it was your turn to back him into a corner. You hadn’t meant to be this defensive, hadn’t meant for this to end in a screaming match, but no one ever intended that, you supposed, “How the fuck was I supposed to leave after that, huh? Let them institutionalize you? Saddle Robin with you? How the fuck was that supposed to be the better option?” 

His hands were up now too, defenses in a war against yourselves, “Oh so you just did this so you could be a hero? So you could prove to yourself that you aren’t shitty? Prove to yourself that you weren’t gonna fucking leave again?” 

You found silence, suddenly, more hurt and more angry than before. You stare at each other. He knows he’s crossed a line. Several lines actually. You aren’t as forgiving as Robin. 

“Just go, Steve.”

“I–”

“Just fucking go.”

+

This felt like the remnants of a hurricane. You could hear the wind ringing heavy and violent in your ears like screams. You could feel the rain hot and heavy as it rolled across your cheeks still. Yet the air was still, entirely too still. The shrapnel of your reality built back up and torn back down again, and now you were here. Alone. In silence. 

Robin’s pointed knuckle is quiet against your door, yet it crashes and booms a resonant patriarchal tenor across the echoing walls of your solitude. You groan at her, something akin to its open. You hadn’t managed to lock it again after she left this morning. 

“Are you still being insufferable?” She asks you, as if it isn’t clear by the way you seem to enter a state of active decay, melting into the corner piece of your sectional. 

Though you are insufferable, you are not so insufferable that you cannot bite back, “Are you still being annoying?”

She does not answer, instead, the clinking of glass on glass and heavier glass against granite serves as an answer for her.

“Do you want a glass?”

The ruffling of a paper bag wills your head up, and she exhumes the bottle from it. You see that it is red, but don’t say anything about it. You recognize the bottle as Beaujolais Nouveau, from the same region in France in which it is aptly named– the same region in which Robin did her semester abroad. You could have said something about how it is not winter, or how there are better italian wines or better whites or literally anything else from Trader Joe’s, but alcohol seems nice, and you are never one to complain about free alcohol. 

“Yeah.” you say instead. 

“Okay.” 

She serves you a too-full glass on the couch. She had half a mind to bring some snacks over, but did not feel like putting forth the effort into making a snack board. Instead, she pulls a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a candy bar open with her teeth, pointing the mouth of the bag towards you in a peace offering. You oblige, stuffing a handful of them into your mouth as a chaser for this awful, dry red. 

“What a jerk.” She says, and you know who she is speaking about. 

“What an ass.” You say back to her, and she knows who you are speaking about, 

Your body rolls into the dip where hers sits on the couch, and you let the natural flow bring your head to her shoulder. You do not wrestle with the qualms of physical affection, and, if she is surprised by your sudden affectionate nature, she doesn’t say anything. 

“I spilled some wine on your counter.” She said to you, but you’ll clean it up later. 

You have half a mind to let it stain. 

+

You beg Robin to get your stuff from his house. Your heartbreak is scabbed over enough for you to pick at, and you have a desperate urge to smear some goo all over a canvas in an Oliver De Sagazan-esque pity party, but alas, your studio resides in the place of your demise– Steve’s house. 

Robin is more forgiving than you are, and also more willing to brave the walls of Fort Steve for your stuff. Robin is also a saint, and you have let her know ten times over. 

“She wants her shit back. Have it ready on the porch when I get there.” She says to him on the phone, the line aptly going dead seconds later. 

His hands on your things feel foreign when they touch them, like they might blow up. He had been avoiding them like landmines as he haunted the remnants of this home. Nothing had been touched since that morning. The house would not change. 

There is a fine layer of dust that has accumulated over the confines of your studio, and it makes his eyes water as he agitates it enough to send particles swirling through the air. He stacks your canvases in piles according to their sizes and fills your water cups with brushes. He takes extra care to separate the current painting you abandoned midway through, the one where the linseed-to-oil ratio wasn’t quite right and, in turn, the layers of paint would not cure properly. 

When he moves to the last stack, one of a modest collection of books and sketchpads, he loses his bearings, and the top sketchpad slides out with loose pages all over the floor. He sighs in exasperation, and bends down to scoop them into a pile. He recognizes the figure drawn on one page, and then another, and then another. A mirror image of himself, ruched hair at the end of the day, glasses perched on the end of his nose, elbow on the arm chair. In some he can see the tops of his folded knee. In some he is smiling and looking directly back at him. 

Every one of them is dated one a day for eighty-six days in chronological order, yet every paper he is holding has the same headline. 

The final page in the stack is a doodle page, he almost misses it. A series of boxes and riddles. Number two down, number three across. You were creating crossword puzzles, a new one every day, and yet none of the answers vaguely familiar to him. His blood runs cold. He was the ass. 

In a panic, he scoops the drawings up, sliding them as quickly as possible into the sleeve from which they fell and clutching them to his chest like previous gems. To him, this was a lifeline, and he did not have time to wait for Robin, though she is sitting outside waiting for him when he runs out the front door, leaving it open in a panic. 

She is colder when she greets him, colder than he’s ever seen. It's an odd juxtaposition, seeing her be so cold. She adorns black jeans with a black turtleneck. She does not look like herself, she looks like you. 

“And where are you going?” She asks him, watching hum fumble with his car keys and with the drawings in his hands. 

He puts his hands on her shoulders, wraps her in a hug, and gives her a kiss on the forehead. 

“Robin, I love you, and I know you came here for her stuff, but I’m going to talk to her.” 

She is stunned, staring at him with wide eyes at both the kiss and the sudden change in demeanor. She does not have time to ask him what drugs he possibly could have been on or make a back-handed remark about how hard he hit his head. Because, instead, she is standing in his driveway while his car takes off down the road. 

Your ground floor apartment has floor-to-ceiling windows. It was charming, really. It was one of the reasons you chose this place despite its ridiculous cost. Well, that, and the fact that it was the least suburban place you could think of. You are sitting on the kitchen island, scrubbing now at that wine stain on the counter with a rag and granite polish at the forefront of this battle when the first thud sounds off clear against your winder. You thought it had been an unsuspecting bird, but the shadow of a man behind your sheer white curtains startles you. You unfold yourself quickly, going over to pull them back and investigate. 

Steve stands with his feet in shrubs, hands with papers pressed flat against the glass. He pulls more from his chest, switching them out every so often, and then ends the spectacle with a crossword puzzle placed flat to the glass. He looks ridiculous like this, hands splayed across glass, hair disheveled and out of breath from running. He left his glasses on in the shuffle, and they slid down his nose in the commotion. Your confusion registers clear across your face, and he says something adjacent to, “Can I come in?” against the glass. 

You nod, and he shuffles the drawings back into a cohesive, carryable pile. You meet him at the front door, letting him run in and dump them on the counter you were currently cleaning. He spreads them out in front of you, breathless and disheveled. They are in order, chronologically. All of your drawings of him. You are both mortified and embarrassed. 

“That one.” He points to it, moving to stand next to you on the counter to look at it. 

“The first one.” You say, looking at the date. 

“Was that the first day?” He asked, “Of being home from the hospital?” he specified, staring down at you with intent eyes. 

You nod, looking back up to meet him, “Yes, that was the first day. I knew you had amnesia, I knew you thought we were still engaged. Though, I didn’t know the extent of your condition yet.” 

You go through all eighty-six drawings, the things he said to you, the things you did. A lot of them are repetitive, some of them caught you off guard and you are able to  laugh about it now. You talk about the day he gives you the ring back, and the day you realized he was in the same infinite time loop, you talk about the dastardly yellow paint and the vellum crossword puzzles so he wouldn’t get bored even though you knew he wouldn’t remember, and the binders. You talked a lot about Robin and her place in it all. You talked about the dentist up the street, and how Steve, even in his delirium, still knew him as the guy with the labs. 

There is one day where the drawing is missing. 

“Is this the day,” He asks, “The day that I–”

“Yeah, it is.” You answer. 

“What exactly happened then? On that day?” 

You struggle to recall every detail, so you start by giving him the gist, “Well… you saw the tattoo on my back,” You reach up to touch it, running your fingers over the raised lines of ink beneath your fingers. Steve tilts his head back to get a glimpse of it as well, his own fingers calloused as they chase yours across it. 

“Looks nice.” He says, without thinking. 

“Thank you.” You reply back, “And then you got really confused. I was still sleeping on the couch then. We were still figuring it out, and I was still clumsy. I asked you how hard you hit your head, and you didn’t even remember doing it. You panicked so quickly, I– I had a hard time calming you down.” 

The guilt still ate you alive, the guilt at your own clumsiness for letting it slip, and the guilt that you lived in the lie for that long. The guilt mostly for leaving in the first place. 

“You asked me where I was, and I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t there because I was trying so hard to live my life separately from you. We hadn’t been together in a year, but I couldn’t tell you that.” You said, words becoming frantic as you fought off tears. 

His hand is both a consolation as it is a devastation as it rests across your shoulder, broad and warm and grounding. 

“What did you say to me, then?” He asked. 

“You asked me if you were okay. You were so confused.” 

“And?”

“I told you that you were.” Hot tears broke the threshold of your lash line, and spilled in streams down your face. It cut through the dryness there, and you choked on a sob. “I didn’t even know if you were or how to take care of you or what I was doing and, and I’m sorry.” You cried ugly tears now, wet into your own hands. 

He grips your shoulders, pulling you into a familiar hug as your words grow frantic and your breaths become shallow and stuttered. He holds you close to his warm chest, encased in soft arms. He cradles the back of your head like you are encased in glass, and he plants a kiss to the top of your head. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers into your hair, now rocking your back and forth as you calm down. A wet drop falls on your shoulder, and you cannot tell if it belongs to yourself or him. You would forgive Steve in every life. 

He pulls back from you, hands still planted firmly on your shoulders as he stares at you, amber eyes both piercing and comforting. 

“Listen, you don’t have to take this, not yet. But it would make me so fucking happy if you would.” He pulls the ring, sparkling and brilliant from his pocket, and presents it to you. You oblige happily, sliding it back on to your hands before tackling him into an embrace. His kiss is as soft as it had always been. 

You would do this again, and again, and again if it meant you could have him, because the same day with Steve was better than any of the days you had ever spent without him. 

[vv-julian]

SOC HEADCANONS RAAHHHH

kaz brekker: -grinds his teeth nonstop day in and out -good at logistical math like statistics, inequalities, stuff like exponential expressions etc. so fucking bad at geometry. give him a triangle he is like kys. prove this is a triangle? you want proof? i have proof that your wife is cheating on you -inej makes him do puzzles a lot. sudoku type stuff -drinks black coffee for show but hes not a caffeine-keeps-me-awake guy. hes a sugar-keeps-me-awake guy. sometimes its candies but usually it is sugar cane that he chews (did not originally know you weren't supposed to eat the fibers and would just swallow all of it)

inej ghafa: -made herself a self care routine, then ignored it and still completes all the tasks but not the way she organized it -is not one to yell at the other crows but they have many behaviors that are her pet peeves -when practicing climbing trees she tried to climb a weeping willow and got stuck on some of the leaves. inej vs weeping willow and she lost. now willows are her least favorite type of tree. plant in general -thought counting sheep was literal. learned it wasnt but it still helps her sleep

jesper fahey: -has an infrequent tendency to accidentally buy doubles of something. when he does he goes 2 wylan and is like SUPRISE!! i got us matching (insert thing) here -can do the worm, cannot do the macarena -went through a phase where he tried to impress kaz with puns. ended with violence -tried ballet. Tried

wylan hendriks: -gets regular migranes -buys huge sticker packs and puts the stickers on random people he sees. sometimes the crows but mostly just random unsuspecting people on the street. -dry ass skin. hates lotion texture though so its permanent. -likes to wear bracelets underneath his shirts/jackets and wears a LOT of them on the daily but theyre all really tight so they dont make noise or anything. and nobody can see them

nina zenik: -owns a stuffed animal but its for beating the shit out of when she gets mad. big ass stuffie that she just goes cobra kai on. -prefers hard candies over soft ones. hard candies like rock candy or those grandma caramel things that hurt if you bite them -neutral on classical books and poetry but actually despises old philosophy things written by dead guys. -has some joints that she can bend further than normal. like a double jointed elbow or smth and likes to scare matthais and be like OH MY GOD I SNAPPED MY ARM BACKWARDS and then laugh at him (lovingly though)

matthais helvar: -isnt dead L+Ratio -went to a rave once on accident. has never forgotten the experience and regularly thinks about it when he spaces out. little disco lights behind his eyes when hes staring at a wall. (he also would not go back to one) -only wears low-cut socks. gets into arguments with people about his dislike of high-cut socks -has stupid rare non-lethal allergies. nina tries to get him to eat food that is foreign to him and sometimes he just like. starts hacking it up and gets hives or somethn

[thatscarletflycatcher]

can you tell me what your thesis is about if you're willing to share??

Hi!!! Yes, of course! I need to go over and over the description of this thing in order to turn in a precise and compelling project for the board (attempt #3 at finishing this cursed degree, here we go! *sobs*).

My area of interest has always been Medieval Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Virtue Ethics and Aristotelian Ethics-Politics. My very first attempt was writing something on Metaphysics (transcendentals) then Ethics Metaphysics (the role of intellectual intuition in moral reasoning in Aristotelian Ethics, Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics)... Neither worked mainly because a problem when talking metaphysics is... well, there's few words to use and little to say and I have always been a very succinct academic writer (yeah, I know, but it is true).

When I reached acceptance about that XD I moved on to trying something about Aristotelian Ethics-politics. Alasdair MacIntyre is a key author in that area, and he's a favorite of mine because in agreement or disagreement he's thought provoking, he has a sense of humor, and he's a hater of the fun kind. I know it isn't proper to call or pick academic authors because they are fun, but hey, he is. He is a curmudgeonly old man (present tense: he's 95), who kind of manages to disagree with everyone because he hates being put in boxes, but he's also always been very willing and open to listen to other voices and change his opinions on things.

For example, the refinement and reformulation of many ideas between his After Virtue (1981) and his Dependent Rational Animals (1999) came (declaredly) through a reading of certain feminist theory, which brought to the foreground to him how little academic Ethics had focused until that point on disability and caretaking.

He's also always been a versatile author in the sense of breaching the barriers between disciplines for the purposes of philosophical inquiry -After Virtue has a great deal to say about Sociology, and Dependent Rational Animals talks a lot about dolphins XD.

I decided I wanted to write something about this guy, but I got stuck because if you are writing on an author specifically, alone, how do you manage to write something that isn't like, textbook regurgitation? Theoretically I know it is possible, but it was very paralyzing to me all the same.

Enter Elizabeth Gaskell with a steel chair.

I love Gaskell dearly for many different reasons. I love the way in which she writes nuanced, believable, textured characters. I love the treatment of grief in her work, I love the compassion she has for her characters, I love how she makes interesting, central, and natural relationships between parents and children. I love that she's versatile too, and that she saw writing as a vocation, and how she manages to talk about so many different things in a novel without making it come across as didactic or preachy. But one very special thing that has called my attention is her specific interest in communities, and community building through friendship.

Very often her "proposals" of "solutions" to social problems, specifically in her industrial novels, have been dismissed as the utopian sugary pap of learning to share and be nice of someone completely out of touch with reality, but I think those readings are fundamentally missing the framework that makes her ideas make sense and be solid.

As an aside, I feel like that ungenerous reading is kinda rich when Hard Times and its "imagination to power!" concept or Shirley and its marriage solution keep getting praise to this day. You know. It comes across as a bit double standard-y, if you ask me.

But back to topic, guess who did consider friendship, understood as the ties that unite virtuous people in the pursuit of the good for themselves and their fellow men, the very foundation of society, and mankind as essentially social, and therefore for ethics and politics to be a continuum? That's right, my boy Aristotle!

And to that, between other things, when talking about the Aristotelian tradition of Ethics Politics, MacIntyre adds teleological narrative as the element that frames and anchors virtue ethics in this scheme. What is more, he dedicates A CHUNK of chapter 16 of After Virtue to Jane Austen, and why he thinks she's "the last key representative" of this tradition (which has sprung a non negligible amount of scholarship on Austen and virtue ethics).

And I'm persuaded that Gaskell is a significant successor to Austen in this way too, and that the certain sympathy people often perceive between them comes from this aspect (because, in all honestly, it's clearly not about tone or style).

So that's the aim/core of my thesis: to present/analyze/contextualize Gaskell's work within the framework of the Aristotelian Ethics-Politics tradition as understood by MacIntyre.

Of course because I am, in Nelly Dean's description of Edgar Linton, a venturesome fool, this is clearly very ambitious, and I am making it worse for myself by doing things like harvesting circa 350 titles for a thesis that won't require more than 50 and that cannot be more than 80 pages long. The clown shoes can be heard from the other side of the world no this has nothing to do with the fact that I don't think I'll ever get a masters or a PhD where I might be able to develop this concept beyond a very summary overview of N&S and maybe Cranford and My Lady Ludlow if I'm lucky.

And that's how I should have sent something to my advisor three weeks ago (I haven't yet) and how I'm half agony half hope about the whole thing, because I'm scared and anxious and full on rowing through Nutella executive function wise. Maybe I should get a rubber duck.