#this was painful to make i rly miss her

[startrippings]

for my best friend, my first love, someone i don't know anymore

crush, richard siken / history of my brief body, billy-ray belcourt / the old aquarium, holly warburton / manta rays, chloe moriondo / baggage, trista mateer / my own private idaho (1991) / for m, mikko harvey / war of the foxes, richard siken

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

Today was the last DND session for a three-year campaign and I am big sad :(

One of the players brought whiskey for a last toast, which was very kind of them. I had never had whiskey before. Turns out I do not like whiskey. Unsurprising.

It tastes like slightly nicer hand sanitizer.

[toestalucia]

u ever think about the wizard and his dear friend the frog

[pepprs]

ok um. literally fucking pain and suffering. mutuals i need ur advice vote now on your phones 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt the random card au again. Why must it go so crazy hard I miss it sm

[sassy-stupid]

Pairing: Halsin x f!reader

Angsty fluff

Word count: 1,3k

Content warnings: none as far as I'm aware, but feel free to correct me if I missed anything.

Summary: Halsin is going through it, and you're worried about him.

Okay, so seeing the vid of all the companions as barbarians changed me. Not only do I now think Halsin would be perfect as barbarian in the 'nature's wrath' typa way, I also decided to make Gale a barbarian in my next playthrough. My boy had the most pathetic little shout, and i happen to think that's great.

Anyway, here's reader getting worried about sweet druid Halsin turning into raging barbarian Halsin. There will be a part two eventually. It will be smut. Sorry guys, but i can't keep the horny in check.

Also, this is rly more of a drabble than a fic, so I'm not naming it :)

Ever since you'd been unable to save the grove, Halsin had been unable to change into an animal. This change hit the archdruid hard. Not only did this mean that Silvanus saw no chance of redemption in him, it meant the rest of his connection with nature was gone.

At least that's what he had convinced himself of. You were not so sure. You still saw the way nature seemed to respond to his presence, a spark of natural magic still present in the large elf. And yet, you also saw the rage, the new way of fighting he'd adapted to at least try to end the shadow curse alongside you.

The first time he fought by your side since the loss shook you to your core. It seemed for a second that the gentle giant had disappeared. The deep war cry that left him would have stunned you had you not also been fighting the claws of a shadow monster off.

It left an impression on you. You didn't necessarily dislike his new demeanor, but it did worry you. It simply didn't seem like him.

"Halsin!" You call out to the man as he stands next to lae'zel's tent, sharpening his newly acquired battle axe. "Come look!" You'd spotted the ducklings near the ruin in your camp before, but you'd never pointed them out to anyone before. Something about seeing Halsin with the axe made you want to take his attention off the blasted thing as soon as possible, though.

Your plan was working. He put down the axe, jogging to your side in a way that made your heart flutter. What can you say, the man was big in a way that was very attractive to you, and his normally gentle ways only endeared him to you more.

"And what is it I'm here to look at?" He asks, looking straight at you instead of looking around. The lack of his usual perception skills bothered you a bit, but at the same time, you didn't mind his attention being on you either.

"Look over there," you speak more quietly now that you're closer to the animals, not wanting to scare them off. You softly guide him closer to them when you notice he still hasn't spotted the ducklings. "Thought I saw them in the grass yesterday, but the mother finally had the courage to come out!"

The heat of his skin against yours is nice but you chastise yourself for focusing on that when your mission is distracting him, not yourself.

"Oh, younglings this late in the season? The mother has her work cut out for her if she is to keep all of them safe until adulthood." Halsin's voice seems to soften and you can almost physically feel the connection between him and nature. "Though maybe she should give up while she's ahead, protecting what is dear to you is sometimes...simply impossible."

The pain in his voice is clear to you, his eyes steeling. "There will always be new dangers to threaten it after all," Halsin speaks, a new edge entering his voice. "Always new ways to fail," anger. "Always injustice." Rage.

The increasing volume scares of the mother duck, sending the ducklings scattering across the lake. The seething man next to you seems to be too caught up in his anger to even realize. But you do, you realize maybe more than you should have.

A moments hesitation, maybe you shouldn't be getting this involved in Halsin's feelings and inner turmoil. After all you were part of the cause of it all, you'd failed to protect the Grove just as much as he had. What would you do if he turned this newfound rage to you?

You shake your head to clear your thoughts. This was no time to fear consequences to yourself. Halsin could use your help, so you have to try, even if that possibly leads to your favourite man in camp hating you.

"Halsin," you speak softly, almost like you're attempting to soothe him. "Look." The same words from before, spoken differently but accompanied with the same gentle guiding gesture.

It snaps him out of his inner spiral but the anger is clearly still there, barely even hidden beneath the surface. "I know nature has been rejecting you lately, that Silvanus has all but abandoned you." You subconsciously start stroking the man's back in an attempt to further soothe him as you try to make your point. "But this right now? It's you. You're scaring them off. I'm not sure if there's space in you for all this rage and the power of nature."

His eyes linger on your face for another while after the last words leave your lips before he diverts them back to the ducks. He doesn't speak, and for all your nerves, you're not as scared anymore. His posture became less tense and as he crouched down by the edge of the water, you see the old him again.

His hand reaches the water without disturbing it, and as the ducklings regroup near their mother, she swims up to him. You see the change in him the second she touches his hand. Like a world of weight fell off his shoulders, his burden still heavy, but bearable now.

A soft golden glow emanates from the water now, and before you can question anything, Halsin begins chuckling.

"By Silvanus, you were right! Nature never severed my ties, I was burning them with my own fury." he turns to you, still crouched by the ducks who've started nuzzling in his palm now. "You've returned an important piece of myself to me."

"I only pointed out some ducklings, Halsin. You did the rest." You send a wink his way before turning back to the rest of camp. "Oh! Does this mean I can give that sharpened axe to Karlach? She's been eyeing it," you ask, turning back to Halsin, barely noticing the blush creeping over his face. He merely nods in return, feeling his heart stir at the grin you give him.

You'd been right about the axe, Karlach's face when you handed it over to her could only be described with the same words one would use for an overjoyed child. She'd even vowed to you to keep the ribbon you'd put on the handle clean of blood so she could keep it on there.

Unbeknownst to you, as you were accepting the barbarian's expressions of gratitude, the druid that was admiring you form afar got cornered by the two other elves in camp.

"Say Halsin, if I didn't know any better, I'd almost say you're fawning over our dear little (y/n)." It was Astarion who spoke up first, but by her proximity, Halsin could tell Shadowheart had some words for him as well, most likely less sugar coated than Astarion's.

"She's not just our leader, Halsin," Shadowheart begins, "if you hurt her, we'll be forced to hurt you." The clear threat from the cleric was endearing to him. He liked knowing how much the others cared about you.

"Actually," Astarion continued. "I'm fairly certain if we really needed a druid on our travels, we wouldn't be too hard pressed to find one. Jaheira seems entertaining if nothing else." Astarion's thinly veiled threat was less endearing but the same thought process kept the smile on Halsin's face.

"Thank you both for stepping up like this. Though I assure you, I do not give my heart lightly, and I'm ready to offer her all of it." His eyes returned to you as he spoke, watching you fondly as Karlach lifted you into the air and swung you around.

"There is nothing in this world that could make me hurt her."

[queenie-avenue]

What about period comfort with Isabella bc her darling gets rly bad cramps where she can’t get out of bed which is a perfect excuse for Isabella to take full autonomy with feeding, choosing clothes ect

Basically taking care of her

The pains of being a woman.

💌 ⤻ THE MAFIA BOSS, VITTORIA CONSTANZO

—> headcanons of how Vittoria will take care of you during your period.

⤻ reader is a female, period pains, obsessive behaviour, possessive behaviour, typical yandere behaviour tbh, medical procedures done without consent, mutilation of female genitalia, mentions of stockholm syndrome at the end

note: i changed isabella's name to vittoria, that's why the name is different. also, sorry for taking so long for this! i hope you enjoy!

💌 ⤻ archives.

— Vittoria won't even let you lift a finger when you have your period! She's a woman too, so she understands how painful it can be to experience cramps and all the other side-effects of simply being a woman!

“Oh darling,” She cooed as she leaned in to press a kiss to your lips. “I know, I know it's painful.” She peppered your face with kisses as she placed a hot towel over your abdomen. “It's just for a week, okay? And then we can go back to all the activities we're missing out on.” She whispered into your ears seductively as she massaged you.

— Honestly, Vittoria is a sadist. She doesn't hide it much from her peers and comrades in the mafia, but she doesn't normally show it to you. But you do notice at times when she tries to hide that smile on her face whenever you tear up because of your cramps. Can you blame her? She loves kissing those tears away.

— Will loosen up the ribbons on your arms to reduce the hassle, but she doesn't underestimate you, so you're always locked up whether you like it or not.

— Despite being so busy as a fashion designer and mafia boss, Vittoria still takes time be with you. Especially when you’re suffering like this, she makes extra time to take care of you while Valerio attends her meetings.

“Who cares about that meeting, my Belleza?” She whispered into your ear as she loosened up your ribbons, turning you around like a puppet to give you yet another massage.

— Althought Vittoria wants you to have a healthy diet — considering the fact you can't afford to gouge on fat-filled foods thanks to you not being able to exercise at all — she has hired a strict dietitian. But during those few days to a week you're suffering, she'll allow you to have anything your heart desires.

— Loves feeding you food. She normally does it already but during your period, she just loves how more submissive you're being towards her.

— Like yourself, it seems like she will also get emotional whenever you are, seemingly growing more jealous and eager to be with you. After all, you can barely move with your cramps, what if someone else helps you and you fall in love with them instead of her?

— During her periods, she also expects you to care for her, like how she cares for you. At least, how much you can care for her when you are stuck in a room.

— If your periods hurt that badly though… she may force you to get a hysterectomy. Vittoria's a sadist, but she loves you too much to see you hurt that badly every month.

You fought against the chains she had placed on you — replacing the soft ribbons she had given you the privilege of having — as you stared into her blue eyes, yours tearing up as the anesthesia slowly began to kick in, knocking you out and allowing Vittoria to mutilate and rip out your poor womb.

“I couldn't bear to see you in such pain, my love.” She whispered as she soothed your back after the procedure. “It's not like you need a womb anyway.” She said. “If we want children, we will adopt.” She announced, like it was set in stone.

But you would never want to have a child with a monster like her.

Yet, you were resigned to forever be her love; her darling Belleza.

[dellalyra]

ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ ɪ ʟᴏᴠᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ - nanami kento x reader, suguru geto x reader.

pixie says: mdni rly this is nsfw (not like explicitly just mentions of sexy times) hurt/comfort, angst but happy ending and i wrote this in a moment of sheer inspiration that consumed my body.

You loved him, truly. You really did love him. You can imagine yourself growing old by his side, hairs going grey and kids growing tall - you wanted that, and you wanted it with him.

But that didn’t mean that you didn’t miss it.

Didn’t miss him.

Your very first official date he picked you up in his car, coming around to open your door and press a chaste kiss to you cheek whispering how beautiful you looked.

He’s never made you cry, he’s never made you hurt, never made you scream or throw photo frames at the wall.

If you’re upset, he’s beside you with a comforting word. If you’re angry, he’s coming up with solutions to the problem. If you’re stressed, he asks how he can help and then fucks away the tension in your shared room.

He’s perfect.

The perfect man, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect husband. He was ready built for a long term relationship and you fell for him quite easily.

You love him, you desire him, you can’t wait to marry him.

But he’s not him.

And a part of you is infinitely grateful for that.

Because he made you cry, he made you hurt, he made you scream and throw photo frames at the wall.

But sometimes, when he’s asleep beside you, the lights are switched off and you’re staring at the ceiling you miss the way those lips would curve into that devilish trademark languid smirk and the mirth you could see in those dark, dark eyes.

You miss the rain - the screaming and crying that was always fueled by emotions so large they felt uncontrollable and burst out of both of your bodies in anger and fear and sadness and love and lust and joy. The highs were higher with him, it felt like winning - that you two did something special.

The adrenaline is something untidy, unhealthy too but oh so worth it when your hands tangled in his long dark hair and he cradled your cheek in his large palms and kissed away every worry and every tear that he had caused. It felt so good when the sight of someone from the Kyoto school flirting with you had set him off so badly he had punched the poor kid and after you shouted at him to let you live he slammed you up against the dorm room wall and filled you time and time again, growling a hymn of ‘mine, mine, mine.’ into the crook of your neck where dark purple bites would linger for days to match the lines your nails had sliced down his back as you tried to get him closer, closer, closer.

You realise you’re glad he’s not him one day, a crisp fall day. Your mother sat, hands curled around a coffee he had made her as she laughs at something he says and then your father asks him about his week - was he busy? how is the return treating him? is his daughter’s tall, white haired best friend a nightmare to work with?

He makes a joke about loving you enough that even Satoru is manageable, you mother coos and your father claps him on the back. He asks how the archiving of cursed tools is going for your father, asking how the workload is, whether he’s had any interesting finds?

The conversation continues. Your mother squeezes your shoulder with a kiss on your head. She knows. She was there for it all.

She knows you love him. Knows you adore the very ground he walks on. But she’s human too, she saw the passionate calamity of overwhelming young love that used to be, she knew that the pain would never go away - but she knew you were in love again. Even if it’s different this time.

She was happy it was different.

You’re happy it’s different.

Your heart wouldn’t have taken another crack.

He stays. He loves selflessly. He cherishes.

He adored. He loved completely.

He left.

He died.

You remember the day he left. Falling into your best friend who tried to do what was asked of him (the impossible) - but couldn’t. Screaming at him for doing this - for leaving you. For not trusting you to help. For doing what he did that day.

For the 112.

For his parents.

For Shoko.

For Satoru.

For you.

For him.

You remember healing.

Then falling apart when the school courtyard once again became a stage and the spotlight of your brain was occupied again by him. 7 years older, different.

Different but, the same.

Another man - but still him.

Still the man you loved first, still the man you would have given it all for, still the man who held your heart and crushed it, still the man you knew never did it from cruelty.

Still the man who loved you with every fibre of his very being.

Still Suguru.

He held you that night - and he held you the night he died. The night your best friend, his best friend has to end him. Had to finish the job asked of him all those years ago.

That night the best friend was curled up beside you, holding onto each other in the apartment you shared with him. The grief would never leave. The love would never leave. But you had each other. He had his students. You had him.

He who knew everything.

He who gave, and gave, and gave. Gave with hands, with tongue, with love and with sincerity, he who gave who himself every night leaving a delicious ache the next day.

He who held you tight every night.

He who wiped the tears when things were too much.

He who kissed you like a worshipper at a shrine.

He who helped you heal and he who showed you what healthy, loving, caring, compassionate love truly was.

Nanami Kento who eased your aching soul and taught you how to love again.

It would always be different. It would always feel different. But that’s the truth, one love is never the same as another. That love had lasted two years, had felt like an earthquake shook your soul and you felt that you would never love as strongly as you loved him.

But you did. You loved just as strongly, as purely, but this love - this was built to last.

You’d tell this tale to your daughter years later. Her fathers girl, all his blonde hair and his eyes. The throes of first heartbreak would scar forever.

But you can heal.

You did.

[dwaekkilinos]

wind and water (pt. 2) | lee felix

summary: People always had a way of looking at you as if your skin were composed of paper mâché and your heart was made of glass. They just assumed you were kind of like a weak bird . . . but Felix Lee looked at you like you still had some flight left.

pairing: lee felix x fem!reader rating/genre: 18+ Minors DNI | surfing au, childhood friends to lovers, slice of life, angst, fluff, eventual smut word count: 11.7K chapter summary: you think you're kind of like a weak bird; felix lee believes you still have some flight left. warnings/notes: explicit language, typos probably, more talks of death and not too good coping mechanisms, hurt and comfort, felix rly is a sunshine and i love him, reader is all over the place, it's very obvious they have crushes on each other but duh they can't get together, fleabag references, bird metaphors, a painful mother-daughter relationship, bridgerton easter egg, my mad fat diary easter egg, sexual tension, unresolved sexual tension, dry humping, making out, they're young and dumb and both extremely traumatized, bat metaphors aka felix is afraid of bats, and i think that's it for this part but if i missed anything let me know, ok ok hope you enjoy <3

chapter two: can you see right through me? ( ← previous | next → )

Here was the deal: you did not like to think of yourself as a little bird. Not anymore. It felt too fragile, too innocent, too beautiful, and you now felt like you were anything but.

You’d always been a wimpy-looking kid. You’d been told you had these off-putting eyes, not the kind that’s intimidating or anything like that, but the kind that's a little too hard to look at without getting a chill up your spine or something. Your lips were always chapped too, so you supposed you weren’t winning any beauty pageants any time soon.

And god, did you hate your nose. You had always considered yourself one of the unlucky ones, inheriting your father's nose which, not to mention had its own small legacy within your family. It was a nose that was only found on your father's maternal side of the family tree. And of course, your (fucking perfect) sister got lucky and ended up with your mother's nose (like of course!).

So there you had it—you had always considered yourself unlucky in the looks department. It was something that you’d come to terms with anyway; something that you had to after being picked on throughout elementary, junior high, oh, and then high school, because, well . . . yeah . . .

That was the thing though—you had always viewed yourself as less. You never really felt like your mother's little bird, you always just felt like yourself: unnerving and . . . odd. You never felt pretty enough. You always felt like you were just . . . there. Erin was the one everyone was always looking at.

You supposed that was why you fell for every guy that gave you a sliver of attention, especially your ex-boyfriend. He had been the first to call you pretty—something you never thought you were. You supposed that was why you got so attached to him. He was the first person to make you feel pretty enough . . . until he ruined that too, and left you feeling like some kind of ugly, unfortunate little soul.

That winter after he cheated on you and the relationship fizzled into nothing, you spent alone. You didn’t even tell anyone. It was too bothersome; too personal; it was like if you told someone, then it’d lose all its meaning (not that it meant much to him anyway . . . ).

But it meant everything to you.

Everything meant something to you.

And when that winter turned into spring, then summer, autumn, winter, and spring again, you finally did get over it, silently and alone as you had always done. You told people then. You told your mother then.

You remembered it even now.

You’d told her and it was as if she had lost her little bird. You watched it all happen, too. You watched as she realized.

People looked at you as if your skin was composed of paper mâché and your heart was made of glass. You were always breakable, ever so fragile. When you were young, your mother used to call you her Little Bird. Delicate. That was what you had always been. Never harsh or rough, just delicate, soft. You were your mother's little bird, in desperate need of protection.

And when she had found out her little girl had kept this relationship from her; had kept the fact that she had given herself to him body mind and soul . . . well . . . she was no longer her little bird.

You were no longer her little bird.

I can’t believe you would do this to yourself, your mother had whispered, voice full of shock and . . . and an ugly hint of betrayal.

That was the last time you cried before you found out the news of her illness. That was the last time you let yourself resent her. That was the last time you could without a guilty conscience.

But it never left your mind.

You hadn’t known what she meant then, and you still didn’t. However, you did know that you wished you had never told her, because maybe then she wouldn’t have died disappointed in you.

And now all you had left of her were memories you wished you could erase.

Your mother’s little bird . . .

What a fucking joke.

You were no little bird. You weren’t delicate or gentle. Your mother had made sure you knew that. Your mother had made sure you knew that Little Bird had finally flown too soon from the coop, with broken wings, crashing toward the ground, unable to take flight. And on her way down, she met a boy who made her feel soft, and graceful, beautiful . . . until he didn't anymore. She met another boy soon after, and another, and another who made her feel like the delicate bird her mother always told her she was. But they never lasted. They all eventually poisoned her softness, morphing it into weakness.

Still, she . . . you . . . you never stopped chasing that soft, warm feeling they gave you in the beginning. You looked for it in every boy, hoping you'd meet one and the feeling would stay. And just as you were about to collide with the ground, broken wings and all, you met one who made you feel exactly like that.

But this time, the feeling stayed longer than a few weeks. So, you thought that was it. You thought you had found the one everyone was always going on about, until he, too, used your softness against you and poisoned it, turning it into weakness.

And it broke you quietly, harshly like a hiss, not a whisper, until you were able to glue back the feathers he had ripped from your back when he left.

You supposed that made you foolish. It was silly of you to think someone would stay.

Your mother made sure to tell you that. She made sure you knew giving your heart or . . . giving yourself . . . your body to a man, no, a boy was, indeed, foolish. It was stupid, and you were the idiot for believing otherwise.

I’m just trying to protect you, she’d whispered as she came to tuck you in for the night, stroking your hair like she used to when you were a kid.

But her words still stung, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth for months to come.

And a few months later, she got the news. Stage four. Practically untreatable.

A year later she was gone.

But her words remained, and your anger grew.

It was something you couldn’t admit; something that was almost cruel, but you couldn’t help it. But you were angry. Angry at her. Angry at her for what she’d said. Angry at how she’d favored your sister more. Angry at how you grew up. Angry at her for dying. Just so . . . so angry.

And how could you even admit that?

Your mother was dead and you were alive, haunted by the fact that you were so angry at her and she never knew. What kind of sick person did that?

Maybe she did know. Maybe she’d told you to look for her in the wind, knowing it’d haunt you forevermore. Maybe she wanted you to know what a horrible daughter you were. Maybe she knew . . .

But then . . . why didn’t she haunt you?

You’d seen glimpses. You could’ve sworn she was there, somewhere in the shadows lurking. Sure, could it have been the hallucinations? Yeah, you supposed . . . but you could just feel her.

She was still ever-present, and yet . . . she wouldn’t visit you. Had you displeased her that much?

It didn’t make any sense.

When your mother was just a girl, she’d lost her father. She’d lost him and she’d born it well; she’d told you stories about him when you were growing up; she had old pictures and still celebrated his birthday every year. She knew what loss was. She knew how this felt.

And she also knew she, too, would’ve given anything just to see him one last time.

Yet . . . for you . . . she remained silent.

It didn’t make any fucking sense.

Losing someone felt a lot like losing yourself. Your mother knew this. You’d seen it happen to her. You’d felt it happen to yourself.

At first, it feels like nothing . . . like this perpetual numbness is all you will ever feel because it's all you can fathom. But that's because it hasn't hit yet. You're still holding out for a sliver of hope, convincing yourself that you still have time, that she could be brought back and the treatments would finally work. It's a human thing . . . a sad, utterly human thing everyone made of flesh and bone falls victim to. It's a weakness—a devastating one at that.

Hope is what makes us human. So when you lose all your hope . . . what then? What do you have left?

Nothing.

That's when it hits—when you realize you have nothing left. You realize this isn't some obscure bad dream that you can't wake up from. You realize that this person that you held so close to your heart is really just . . . gone.

They're gone, and you're not.

That's when it happens: your entire being fails on you. Everything stops working, and you lose yourself. You stop working because you realize that this person you depended on so heavily throughout your entire life is no longer there. They no longer exist. They're just gone, but somehow for some reason, you're still here. And all you can think is—what makes me so special? Why her and not me?

Grief had a funny way of feeling a lot like guilt.

And your guilt always manifested as ghosts—the ghosts you'd lost throughout your life.

No one ever truly felt gone to you. It'd always felt like they'd gone away on a trip and you were just patiently waiting for them to return. Sometimes you could hear them. Sometimes even feel them, their essence, the person they used to be.

It'd been that way ever since you were a kid. Oftentimes, out of the corner of your eye, you swore you could see figures pass your vision, figures that had passed on. Hell, even the kids in your grade would joke how you could see dead people, but you never really paid them any mind.

You couldn't see dead people. You didn't have some sixth sense or anything like that. You had guilt and grief and ghosts.

Because really . . . if what people said about you had been true, if you really could see the dead, then why wouldn't your mother haunt you?

Haunt me, you would sob for weeks after her death under your breath in the dead of night. Haunt me, please. I need you. Please, haunt me. Fucking haunt me.

But no ghost ever came, only the perpetual darkness galloped in, consuming you whole.

Your mother was gone, and all your memories of her came with anger and resentment and pain. . . . Guilt was your ghost, not her.

Because the truth was: you knew why she wouldn’t haunt you.

You’d failed her. She died with disappointment in her veins; she’d died in vain.

And then you fucked up your life.

She’d wait for Hell to turn over before she even thought of seeing your face again. That much was clear.

Yet . . .

Haunt me, you carved into a wooden panel of the bed slat you were currently (and begrudgingly) glaring at. Your hand shook as you marked a line under the words with the beer bottle cap you were using to carve. And when that was done, your hand fell to the floorboards, just near your head, and you stared at the two, daunting words.

Now . . . let’s back up. Where are we? How did we get here? What’s going on?

Well, dead mother aside and it’s just another boring, hot day in Southhaven, duh. Day is normal. Grace. A glimpse of Felix. A look from Chris. Blah, blah, blah.

Then, Chris comes barging into the kitchen just when it’s getting dark. He needs the minivan. Why? Well, apparently he and his old friends from high school are getting together for their annual bonfire or . . . whatever. Felix is trailing in behind him, apple in hand as he watches Chris beg like he’s a preteen once again.

And you, well, you’re caught in the crossfire, accidentally stumbling upon the situation just as you’re going into the kitchen to grab popcorn for you and Grace. One thing leads to another and . . . Chris is allowed supervision of the minivan for one night if he drags you along with him (you know why; you know the Bahngs are worried about you; you know they want you to hang out with people your own age, but still).

So you’re forced to tag along. But . . . Felix is there, too, sitting in the front with Chris. And then you’re there. The place reeks of smoke, and you immediately wonder if throwing yourself into the bonfire is too dramatic for a Wednesday night.

Chris is gone in ten seconds, being whisked away by one of their friends. Minho, you think you catch his name, but your mind is elsewhere. Felix leaves next, not by choice, however. He’s quite literally picked up by two other guys and taken . . . somewhere. And then you’re alone again. Of course.

Whatever, anyway, you couldn’t remember how it happened now, but one minute you were outside, then the next you were in their kitchen, taking a shot of whatever. Tequila or vodka, you don’t know. All alcohol just tastes like rubbing alcohol and hot coal sliding down your throat.

And the next thing you know, you suddenly can’t stand to be in your own skin anymore, and you’re wandering up the stairs with a beer bottle in hand and a need to be alone, alone, alone.

You supposed you freaked out again. Just a little, right? You couldn’t remember how or why but somehow, you ended up in a random bedroom, tucked under a bed, staring at the words Haunt me for the past five minutes while you calmed your shaky hands and beating heart.

“Fuck,” you hissed under your breath as you ran your fingers across the horribly carved words.

What were you doing?

Why couldn’t you just drag yourself downstairs and be fucking normal?

You used to be so good at it. You used to be so . . so different. You used to be able to let Hyunjin and Jisung drag you to bars where the three of you would just walk around shitfaced, trying to find the bathroom in each and every bar. It used to be fun. Now . . . now you didn’t even feel like drinking the rest of the beer that sat just on the outside from under the bed.

Dropping your other hand to cover your face, you loudly groaned. Why couldn’t you just be normal?

With a sigh, you dragged your hand down your face. Your eyes were on the carved words once again. Swallowing hard, you allowed yourself to trace the carvings with your fingertip.

Haunt me.

And you were back in that house; back in your house, eyes always on that damned dining table. You didn’t know how long you’d waited for your mother to take her seat every single night. You just remembered watching, waiting, wishing . . . only for nothing to happen.

Haunt me.

Would the next person to knock at your door be her or . . . death? Would she see you then?

Almost as if like clockwork, a knock at the bedroom door came. You whipped your head in that direction, eyes on the sliver of light peeking out from the gap in the door. A shadow of two feet stared back at you, making your heart hammer in your chest.

Waiting in silence, you didn’t dare speak a word, wondering if the person or . . . ghost would be the first to talk. And slowly, they opened the door, stepping inside while your heart climbed to your throat.

But then:

“Can I join you?” the person asked, their voice deep and smooth, and you instantly knew who it was.

Your heart dropped.

It wasn’t her.

You watched, oddly heartbroken, as he awkwardly shifted his weight from foot to foot, but you didn’t dare say a word. “I’m not, like, stalking you or anything if you were wondering . . . um—” a clearing of his throat— “I just . . . I didn’t know where you went. Someone mentioned seeing a girl go upstairs and then, well, I heard you in here. So . . . totally not stalking.”

A beat of heavy silence.

Then:

“There’s room, Felix,” you mumbled out, letting him know in the littlest of words that he could, in fact, join you.

Within seconds, there he was, his face peeking under the bed, eyes finding yours and immediately smiling. You felt yourself trying to fight off a small smile of your own as he crawled under the bed until he was laying comfortably next to you, arm brushing arm.

The funny thing was: you oddly felt more comfortable than you had a second ago. But then again, you quite liked being around him. It seemed everyone did anyway. He was just that type of person.

And yet he kept following after you. (You hated how it made you feel warm, almost . . . special.)

“So . . . “ he chuckled under his breath, eyes on your profile, “what are you doing under here?”

You didn’t turn to meet his gaze. Feeling it on you was one thing but having to make eye contact felt like a whole other path you did not want to cross just yet. So instead, your eyes remained on the bed slat as you whispered, “Dunno . . .”

“Right,” he breathed out, and you could smell the alcohol on his breath. Oddly, it only made you want to scoot closer. “Well . . . hiding from the world doesn’t seem like too shabby of an idea actually.”

“Mmm . . . why?” you forced yourself to ask.

“I mean it sucks, doesn’t it?” he elaborated with a small shrug. “Why not hide under a bed? Makes me feel like a kid again . . . small . . . almost untouchable. No one can tell you what to do; what to feel; who to be.”

Then, you did turn. Your eyes on his, searching. “Hmm, I never thought of it like that,” you whispered. “I mean . . . . well I guess I’d do anything to be little again, too.”

“So you can speak more than two words at a time,” he whispered back, his eyes trailing across your features almost as if he were trying to memorize them. And then . . . then he smiled that warm, kind smile he always sent your way, and it was like you were eight years old again watching the sunset with a hand in yours.

You smiled back.

Felix breathed in sharply, his smile flattening as he tongued his inner cheek. “You know . . . we haven’t talked much,” he murmured as his gaze faltered, landing on your shoulder instead of your eyes.

Feeling anxious under his gaze, you toyed with the end of your old tee. “I know.”

“Well . . . you don’t say much either,” he muttered again, chuckling under his breath.

Something tugged at the corner of your lips—a small, ghost of a smile. “I know.”

“I’d like to change that,” Felix whispered back, not missing a beat. Then, when he’d realized what he said, he cleared his throat and turned his attention to the bed slat. “Not the not talking bit, well, I mean not the you not talking part. I’d like to change the not talking at all thing.” He was waving his hands around now.

You raised your brows.

He dropped his hands.

An incredibly awful awkward beat of silence.

Then: “Yeah . . . “ he went on, puffing up his cheeks and blowing out air. “I guess what I’m trying to say is . . . I’d like to talk to you more . . . if that’s alright with you.”

He turned his head then, his eyes searching for yours, but this time, you were already staring at him. His brows were pinched up, almost as if his whole body were asking you this one question.

And you began to wonder . . . did you make him nervous, too?

The thought almost made you laugh. There was nothing intimidating about you. How could you ever make someone like him nervous?

Before you could stop yourself, another smile lifted onto your face, except this time, it morphed into a grin. “I think . . . I think I’d like that, too,” you found yourself mumbling, the grin never leaving your face, because really, you just couldn’t help yourself.

Relief instantly flooded his face. “Good. Good,” he murmured to himself, shaking his head with a small, dopey grin on his face. Then, he nodded once and turned back to face the bed slat. “Great.”

However, your eyes stayed on him a little longer. To be honest, you couldn’t tear yourself away. There was something in you that just wanted to memorize this moment. You weren’t sure why and you weren’t sure what it meant, but you did know you had taken extra care to focus on the freckles adorning his cheeks, especially the one that oddly resembled a small heart. That one you were sure would be ingrained into your brain for weeks to come. That one you were sure you’d draw over and over again in your sketchbook, unable to completely replicate it.

You began to wonder if he had these freckles when you were kids, too. You wondered if you had been so enraptured by them back then, too. And then you began to wonder why you couldn’t remember.

Felix Lee seemed like a hard person to forget.

. . . Why had you?

“You know—” Felix abruptly pulled you from your own mind, making you blink a few times before you tore your attention from him— “when we were kids, I used to think your house was haunted.”

Quickly, you snuck a glance at him through the corner of your eye. His eyes were trained on the bed slat. Well . . . they were trained on where you had carved your thoughts. He’d seen it.

Haunt me, he’d seen and he’d begun to tell you his own ghost stories. You, of course, stayed silent, swallowing hard as you waited for him to continue, because truly . . . you couldn’t remember any of it.

You couldn’t remember your old house or him or anyone from your life here. You just remembered fights and crying yourself to sleep. You remembered hurt, and yet . . . sunsets and Cherry Cherry saltwater taffy.

But everything was bleak, almost blurry, almost like they weren’t your own memories. Or maybe you hadn’t wanted them to be your own. Maybe you’d wanted them to belong to someone else.

Maybe that was why you stayed silent, and let Felix tell you his memories.

And, so, he did, and you listened.

“This was when I had trouble sleeping yeah? So when Chris and I would stay the night . . . I’d always be the last one awake and I swear I could hear people, like, talking in the middle of the night. But, like, it was crazy. They were always angry, always kind of, like, yelling but in a whisper, you know?” he went on, trying to paint the picture with his hand motions, but your eyes were locked on his face, watching each and every expression he made. “I was convinced your house itself was possessed and angry that me and Chris were there.”

It was unusual, because he’d said these things and you instantly had this dumb grin on your face that you were desperately trying to bite back. You just couldn’t imagine the man beside you cowering in a sleeping bag as he convinced himself ghosts were haunting him.

Then . . . it slowly began to dawn on you.

His ghosts . . . they were fighting, he’d said.

And it hit you.

His ghosts weren’t ghosts. They weren’t even just a child’s mind playing tricks. Because they were real, yes, but . . . Felix’s ghosts had been your parents.

Your smile slowly fell, your heart sinking as the corners of your lips crumbled into a thin line. And you began to wish your house had been haunted.

Felix, of course, caught onto your expression, but he hadn’t known. No, instead, he went on, “It’s stupid, I know, but back then I would always go home and beg my mom never to let me go back, but then . . . you’d ask and I’d end up back there, absolutely shaking in my sleeping bag. I swear I nearly pissed my pants every time.”

“I don’t remember that,” you muttered back, but you did know.

“The sleepovers or the ghosts? Because the ghosts were one hundred percent my imagination,” Felix said, laughing under his breath.

But you couldn’t bring yourself to offer even a smile back, because although you didn’t remember, you did know. You knew how it felt to be twelve, hiding in the bathroom with your older sister while your parents fought in the kitchen. You knew how it felt for her to tell you that your parents wouldn’t be together much longer and you should just accept it. You knew how it felt to be a hopeless romantic, watching Disney princess movie after movie, dreaming of your true love’s kiss, and then have it all crushed the moment your eyes set on your parents. You knew how it felt to ask your father if he still loved your mother, only to be met with an I don’t know anymore.

You knew how it felt to be a child and have your heart broken again and again, even if you couldn’t remember . . . this.

“All of it,” you ended up hoarsely whispering out. And then you felt it: a tear spilled down your cheek. Embarrassment flooded in quickly, and you harshly wiped it away. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I do this. I don’t mean to be such a fucking downer. It’s just . . . I think your ghosts were just my stupid parents.”

His eyes were on you again or maybe they had never left, but now . . . now you felt him staring. He didn’t speak, although, that told you what you needed to know.

He wanted to know . . .

He was waiting for you to continue on your own time, and you . . . you just couldn’t help but indulge yourself.

“My dad’s not the best guy,” you all but hissed out a second later, rage piling up inside you as years and years of anger and hurt spilled down your cheeks in the form of tears. “After my grandma died . . . he went away. Business trip. When he came back, I found out that he had been cheating on my mom the whole time. Apparently, he’d been cheating on her with multiple different women throughout the entire relationship, and the only reason why we moved was because he was fucking one of his goddamn students.”

You didn’t know why you were telling him this, you just . . .

You just . . .

“I wish I could tell you the house was haunted. I wish it had been one of your ghosts, but . . . “ you muttered, bitterness on your tongue as the words tumbled from your lips, unable to stop it.

A deafening beat of silence.

And then you realized what you had done.

Felix had never asked you what happened. He had never given any indication that he wanted to hear anything about your bullshit. No one ever really did, so why did you ever expect him to?

Quickly covering your face with your hands, you wished the ground would swallow you whole. “God, I’m sorry. You can leave. I’m fine, just tired, really,” you huffed out, your words muffled by your hands. “Go, it’s OK.”

But Felix just . . . laughed under his breath once again and simply hummed, “No.”

That was when you peeked at him through your hands, finally meeting his gaze. “No?” you questioned, searching his eyes for the punchline of the joke.

Felix only shrugged. “You’re a person of few words. Why can’t I be one, too?”

But you couldn’t take him seriously. “I’m serious. Don’t be dumb, you don’t have to listen to me whine about my dead mom and deadbeat dad,” you went on, watching him carefully. “Seriously, go, have fun.”

Nodding once, you thought Felix understood. You thought he was going to finally crawl out from underneath the bed, and leave you be. You thought he was going to finally leave your side like all those before him. But instead . . . he just pointed to the bottle cap resting beside you and asked, “Can I see that?”

And you were left shocked again. “I guess,” you tried to whisper out as you picked up the cap and hesitantly handed it to him, wondering what he was up to.

Felix muttered a quiet thank you before he took the cap from you and began to carve something into the bed slat. Only when he pulled his hand away did you realize he’d carved out the word ‘No’.

Your brows lifted.

“Sorry, I thought maybe you needed a visual,” he mused, finally turning back to you with a small grin playing on his lips.

Scrunching your brows, you glanced between him and the carving. Until: “Dick,” you scoffed out, but . . . but you were laughing. It was quiet laughter, sure, but laughter nonetheless as you shook your head at him.

His grin only grew.

Beat.

Beat.

He still wasn’t leaving.

One more beat, and you breathed a hesitant sigh of relief. Maybe you could do this. Maybe you could let yourself trust him little by little.

You turned to meet his gaze, maintaining eye contact. His brown eyes were warm . . . welcoming . . . trusting. (It was no wonder he was such a brilliant muse.)

Maybe you really could trust him . . .

Beat.

Beat.

B—

“Fine . . . “ you heard yourself choke out before you knew you were speaking, “where do I begin?”

His grin had begun to morph into a warm smile that matched his eyes. “Wherever you want,” he whispered, his voice deep, yet . . . gentle. “No one can tell you what to do under here, remember?”

Beat.

He smiled wider, his eyes crinkling now.

You finally smiled back, weakly.

And then . . . you started from the beginning.

You told him about how you realized everything when you turned seventeen. You told him about the fights during your childhood and how you always thought that was what love was like. You told him about when your grandmother died and your mother cried every day. You told him about when your father finally came back and the cups and plates that were broken in the following days. You told him about how your sister moved away shortly after that, and how you were stuck.

You told him about senior year of high school. The fights every night until four in the morning as you laid in bed, listening. You told him about having to clean up the broken plates after your father would leave in the middle of the night to get away from your mother, and how one time a shard of glass managed to embed itself into your skin. You told him how much it hurt feeling the glass press deeper and deeper into your skin day by day. And how it took two weeks for your body to finally push it out.

And when the floodgates had finally opened, your cheeks quickly staining with tears, you finally mentioned the night you begged your father to stay only for him to give you a look with pain that matched your own. You told him how your father heard you cry for him, and how he simply told you he never wanted to see you or your mother again.

You told him how your father returned home the very next day, and the cycle restarted. (It would continue, end, then restart for the following four years, as well, but that was a horror for another time.)

The days you would leave class early to cry in the bathroom because you just couldn’t take it, weren’t forgotten either. And how even the simplest of comments would set you off.

You told him how you went from this A student, never missing a day of school since the start of junior high, to someone who would ask her mother to pick her up early or beg to stay home from school just this one day. You told him how suddenly it went from being December to July in the blink of an eye so fast that you couldn’t even properly remember your graduation.

And just when you were about to tell him how in those years, this sadness had turned into rage toward both of them, you stopped. Nearly holding your tongue, you glanced at him in shock. You couldn’t say that, could you? What if he judged you? What if he called you ungrateful? What if he told you you were sick, just like you had hypothesized? What if—

But then you did look at him. You really looked at him, your eyes meeting his, searching on a deeper level than before, and you knew the answer.

Felix’s eyes were warm and gentle and kind. They were unlike anything you had ever seen; unlike anyone you had ever known. And under that bed, you swore they had whispered to you, assured you that there was no judgment there.

And you believed them. You believed him.

“I’ve been too scared to tell people this but . . . “ you slowly mumbled out, continuing to search his eyes. (Any sign of disgust and you’d shut everything down.) “I don’t know how much my mother loved me. God, that sounds stupid, but I know she loved my sister more.” Wetting your lips, you nearly laughed. “You know . . . parents always say they don’t pick favorites but, like, Erin . . . Erin is perfect, and I couldn’t even keep my GPA above a 3.4. I had nothing else. It was just school and sleep and nothing for me, but Erin was out there doing . . . doing everything.”

Felix nodded, listening, eyes attentive. And you felt this weight lift from your shoulders, breathing a sigh of relief as you continued, “And, you know, Erin doesn’t actually know shit about anything. She wasn’t there when it happened. I had to hold mom down every fucking night. I had to cling onto her fucking leg so she wouldn’t go after him. While Erin . . . Erin was building her new life, and yeah, I’m happy for her or whatever, but she has no idea how hard that was, and mom always acted as if she was this—this saint that drove her to the hospital one time, but I was there. I was fucking there.”

The rage had set in. It trickled through your veins, poisoning your heart.

“I brought mom breakfast every morning when she couldn’t get out of bed. I stayed with her every time she cried. In—In college, I came home on the weekends instead of being with my friends because I didn’t want to leave her alone with him. I was fucking there and I got nothing for it,” you all but sobbed as you shook your head. “She never even asked if I was OK, and I was begging for her to see that I wasn’t. I wanted her to hold me. I wanted her to apologize for taking my innocence away for—for stealing my fucking childhood. I wanted her to be my mom.”

I wanted her to be my mom, your words rang throughout your ears.

That was perhaps what hurt the most—the fact that she was supposed to be your mother, and the fact that you couldn’t say she hadn’t been. Because she had. She’d cared every day; she’d loved you every day, but some days you wondered how deep that love ran. Some days you wondered if she would’ve rather not been your mother. Some days you wondered if she resented you because you also came from your father and wore his face, practically taunting her.

I wanted her to be my mom. But perhaps she had wanted you to be her daughter, too. Only, maybe she had wanted you to just be her daughter and not his.

I wanted her to be my mom. But she never asked to have a daughter who resembled the man who’d torn their family apart.

Clutching the locket around your neck, you breathed in a shaky breath, your bottom lip trembling. “And then she got sick,” you barely managed to croak out. “It was like my world ended, because as much as I hated what she did to me . . . I think . . . I think she was the one person I loved the most in this world, and the thought of someday being without her . . . “

Your words trailed off but you knew you were nowhere near done. The floodgates were open now, and you’d be a fool to think you could stop them.

“I know she loved me,” you went on, trying to ignore the trembling in your voice. “I know that. I know. She would tuck me into bed every night even when I’d come home from college. She would give me forehead kisses and hug me and tell me she wouldn’t know what to do without me, but . . . she also used to call me her little shadow, like I was just her daughter and not a person.”

Beat. Beat. Beat.

Your heart or his? Or . . . hers?

“And I knew what that meant. I knew she saw me as an extension of herself, and so . . . we would fight. We fought all the time, and every time we did, she’d bring up the fact that I was just like my father,” you bit out. “She’d say I knew how to make people feel horrible. I knew how to ruin everything, like I couldn’t possibly be her child, I had to be just his and only his solely because I wasn’t complying to her every fucking whim. And, you know . . . every time I’d wonder if she truly did love me as much as she said . . . or if she loved me the same way she loved my father: in moderation with grudges and resentment. I wondered if she hated me as much as she loved me.”

There it was. I wondered if she hated me as much as she loved me. Would you be condemned now?

But for once, you didn’t care. You just . . . you wanted these words, these feelings out. And so, you went on . . .

“Then . . . she fucking died and when she did, she told me to look for her in the wind as if that makes any fucking sense at all,” you nearly scoffed, shaking your head as your tears continued to fall. “But . . . she missed home. I knew that. Dad had taken her away and she’d blindly followed him and I knew she regretted it every day. She always wanted to go back home; back here. I mean she always wanted me to come back with her, too . . . so I guess I knew what she meant. If I ever found myself back here, she’d want me to see her in everything. In the long roads, in the sand between my toes, in the trees . . . in the ocean, but now that I’m here; now that I hear her voice everywhere . . . I can’t help but wonder if she meant for it to be this cruel.”

As those words left your lips, you could have sworn you could feel her ghost. And maybe she was there, listening as her resentment for you grew. You’d understand if it did, too. You were angry and hurt and Erin was grieving.

There was no competition to determine who the better daughter was. The answer was clear. It was in the wind, the ocean, the sand between your toes, the sunburn on your back . . . hidden in the lines on your face.

Dropping your hand to the floorboards, you choked out a gruesome sob, nearly coughing all over the man beside you. “Like . . . did she mean she’d always be with me? Or did she want me to know that I’d never forget her dying; that I should be haunted by her death throughout my life?”

Felix didn’t reply, and you didn’t expect him to. This was no question for him. It was for her, and she was no longer there to answer. You’d forever be wondering . . .

And when the silence had gone on for too long, you angrily wiped your cheeks and nose, before you sighed out a shaky breath. “I haven’t had much time to think about what I want in life or what I want here,” you began, your voice quieter now. “All that I’ve done is for my mother; for her to be proud of me. That is my life. But . . . I think . . . what I want is to be loved as much as I am hated. I think my mother’s love would have been much easier to swallow then. Maybe then I’d get it down without choking. Or . . . maybe it’d kill me.”

Fuck.

“Fuck,” you spoke aloud. “And you wanna know the worst part? . . . I still . . . I don’t get it . . . because now I just . . . now I have all this love and . . . and hatred for her and I have nowhere to put it. I don’t have a mother. She’s gone and I’m here, and I’m stuck with everything she left behind. I just—How . . . how do you love someone who’s gone? Who do you give it to?”

Your words rang throughout your ears. If you knew the truth, would it kill you? If she was still alive, would it have been you instead of her?

You couldn’t help but think that that was how it should have been. It should’ve been you instead of her. It should’ve—

The warmth of a hand sliding into your own caught you off guard, pulling you from your mind. Slowly, you glanced down at your hand, finding Felix’s intertwined.

Had you spoken too much? Was he telling you to shut up? Did he—

“Sorry,” you immediately blurted out, trying to pull your hand from his, “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

But Felix gently secured his grip around your hand. Hesitantly and cautiously, as if asking for your permission, he laced your fingers together, holding your hand firmly in his.

And it was as if you finally understood what he had been saying the other day.

“Felix?” you questioned, unsure.

He only squeezed your hand as if telling you it was OK. “She’s always going to be your mom, you know?” he began a second later, his words quiet, cautious. “Death doesn’t take that away from you. I don’t think it has to take your love for her, either. That you should keep, and don’t . . . don’t let it go.”

Slowly, you turned your head to look at him once again, only now . . . now he was staring at the bed slat and not at you. And you watched as the thoughts raged on inside his head.

His brows scrunched in thought. “I didn’t know her well. I mean I can remember bits and pieces, but it’s not her I remember from back then. I didn’t know her. I know that, but . . . “ he trailed off, wetting his lips. “I remember you guys being here, and I know what my mom told me in the years after you left. Your mother loved you, too, and that kind of love . . . it’s not cruel. Know that.”

“But . . . “ you swallowed hard, “what if as I grew up . . . her love for me outgrew, too? What if she only loved me because I was a kid? Because I was small and needed her?”

“I’d like to think once you love something . . . someone, that feeling . . . stays, and if it doesn’t then . . . “ he turned to you, his eyes glassy now, too, but he wouldn’t let the tears fall, “then it was never love in the first place.”

You offered a weak smile. “Well, I don’t think there was much love in my family to begin with. I don’t even know if I know how to . . . how to do it.”

He offered you a weak smile back. “I’ve found that it’s those people who know how to love better than anyone,” he nearly whispered as he squeezed your hand once again, now rubbing your skin with his thumb.

And for once . . . for once, you squeezed his hand back. It was comforting. It was innocent. It felt . . . safe. He . . . he felt safe.

“Grief feels a lot like guilt and . . . fear,” Felix went on, searching your eyes now. “And when you lose someone, it’s like learning how to be a person again. You question everything. You wonder if you have actually lived at all. You begin to ask yourself if you could have done more when they were alive. You blame yourself. Hate yourself.” He took a deep breath, and in that time, he reached out to curl your hair behind your ear in a comforting manner. “It takes a long time to forgive yourself for just . . . being a person and . . . being . . . alive, but it starts with knowing that your mother would not want you to live the rest of your life thinking about how hers ended.”

Beat.

You swallowed hard.

Beat.

He stroked your hair.

Beat.

“Love doesn’t work like that,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “It’s forgiving.”

Your brows twitched. “And if I can’t?”

The corners of his lips tugged into a small smile. “That’s the thing, sad eyes . . . you will,” he mumbled before his thumb was touching your cheek, wiping the tears that had fallen.

Beat.

Your heart or his?

Yours.

Definitely yours.

Once again, you swallowed hard.

His hand remained.

“How about we go . . . “

But his words muted in your ears as you zoned out, getting trapped inside your mind again. You felt the urge to do something to thank him. No one had ever listened to you like that and told you that everything wasn’t ruined and you weren’t this horrible, no-good person. No one had ever let you know you weren’t alone like that, and if there was one thing your mother had told you growing up, it was to thank those who helped you.

But you never knew how to do things right. You always did them just a bit wrong. So when he’d told you everything would be OK, when he’d brushed your hair back, when he’d wiped your tears, when he’d cared for you like no one else had proudly done, you felt the urge to tell him that you liked him . . . that you had been drawing him and he’d become something of a muse to you.

Now, you were your mother’s little bird who’d flown from the nest too soon and met boy after boy. You were an adult whose younger self had dreamt of finding her prince charming. You were someone who found love in many things and longed for that love back. You had always loved people with a hug or laughter or a kiss. You’d loved every boy who’d made you feel special, and you’d always shown them through your body.

So, yes, you had a tiny crush on this someone you knew from the past, and now he was so close and you just wanted to let him know that you were grateful. So why couldn’t you just tell him that?

You tried, but you couldn't get the words to tumble from your tongue. You were thinking too much again. So you just stared at him, with your mind spinning and your heart pounding in your chest. Beat. Beat. Beat. For a split second, you thought you might tell him that because he cared for you, you just had to care for him (because that was just how you were raised, right?).

But you didn't.

Those words never left your lips. Instead, you did something that shouldn’t have come as a surprise to you. You glanced at his lips, then crashed into him, slamming your lips onto his and nearly knocking out all the air in your lungs.

The warmth of his lips obliterated every thought in your head, melting your mind as you melded into him. Felix, however, remained stunned, his hand frozen still on your face while you pressed your chapped lips against his soft, plush ones.

But when your fingers gently grazed his cheek, traveling up to curl his hair behind his ear, he gave in. He reacted quickly after that, and gripped onto your hips, locking your leg over his hip the best he could under the bed to shift closer to you. And then he was wrapping an arm around your waist, pulling you even closer to him until there was no space left between. His other hand found its way to the back of your neck and he deepened the kiss. It was sloppy and needy . . . like the two of you were trying to drink each other up; like you were thanking him and he was thanking you right back.

And his touch. His touch lit a fire inside you as he sucked your bottom lip into his mouth, asking you for permission first. And you willingly gave it to him, parting your lips just enough to allow him access, and relishing in the way he nearly groaned at your neediness.

Every squeeze of your hips, every hurried touch he left along your sides, your legs, your arms, face, lips . . . you felt yourself sinking further and further into him. You just wanted more and more and more. No one had ever felt this good. No one had ever tasted this sweet. No one had ever made you want to kiss them until the sun rose, but him . . . He was nearly otherworldly.

“You’re so pretty,” you heard yourself say against his lips before you began to kiss his cheek, then his jaw, until you reached his neck.

Felix chuckled under his breath, tilting his head to the side to allow you more access and you eagerly took it. “I’m pretty?” he questioned, his voice deeper now as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat when your tongue lazily licked the lobe of his ear.

“So pretty,” you mused, continuing to kiss his beautiful, beautiful neck as you drew yourself closer to him, your core now directly resting on top of his lower half.

That was when you felt it—his hardness poking you where you needed it most. You couldn't tell if he was fully hard due to the material of his jeans, but you didn't care. The feeling alone was enough to set you off—your skin grew hot and your breath hitched in your throat as your core ached for even the simplest of touches.

“You’re—” he began, but his words quickly died on his tongue as you worked your way back up to his lips. Slotting your tongue against his, you swallowed every thought he could’ve spun.

Grinning against his lips, you mumbled, taunting him, “I’m?”

(See . . . the thing was, being intimate with someone . . . it gave you confidence, so being intimate with him . . . well . . . you felt . . . otherworldly, too.)

But he only groaned, his deep voice doing unspeakable things to you as his grip on you tightened. His touch only spurred you on further. “You’re—” he cut himself off as dived back in, his mouth skillfully working against yours— “everything.” His words shocked you to the core, but not for long as one of his hands tightened around the hair at the back of your head, pulling you into him while his other hand tugged your body against his, the movements simultaneously brushing your clit ever so slightly against the tent in his jeans.

If he knew how he was affecting you, he didn’t show it. It just seemed he wanted more and more of you, and that was it. Yet, still, his simple touches were making your underwear stick to your core, and you were becoming more and more lost in him as the seconds passed.

When your core began to ache all too much, you listened to your body, subconsciously grinding against his hardness. And instantly, he curled into you, a deep moan sounding from the back of his throat as he buried his head into the crook of your neck.

But he didn’t dare touch you like . . . that . . . back. No . . . instead . . . his hands stilled, his touch light against you as he halted you from grinding against him again.

And you were left out of breath, dazed, and confused, with an odd ache in your chest.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He kissed your neck once, but it was gentle, almost innocent, and then he was pulling away.

And you realized what had happened.

He hadn’t wanted this. Holy shit, you’d just. You’d kissed him and he didn’t want you. Fuck, fuck, you’d fucked everything up again. Fuck.

Shaking your head, that sudden realization was the only thing you needed to know before you practically jumped away from him. “No, I’m sorry, I—fuck—” you stammered out as you detached your body from his and leaned back, facing the bed slat in utter shock. “I should’ve asked you. That’s so creepy. Oh, my God.”

“Shit, no! I didn’t—” Felix quickly ushered out as he reached for you, his hand caressing your cheek in an instant. “I just . . . “ His eyes met yours, searching and you searched right back, practically begging him to tell you the truth. You knew you’d never been someone people . . . liked. You could take this. He just . . . he just had to tell you. But instead: “I just . . . I can’t be . . . intimate with you.”

Your brows furrowed, your face hot. “Um . . . OK . . . I’m sorry. I’m just confused . . . why’d you kiss me back?” you questioned. Your eyes widened once you realized what you’d said. “I mean, not that you like have to. You don’t have to want to kiss me. I just, I guess what I mean is, well—”

“Because I wanted to,” Felix quickly cut you off, his deep voice like silk. “I want to kiss you. Fuck, I want that so fucking bad.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “A lot . . . but I can’t want that . . . not right now.”

You blinked once. Then twice. Then once more as you stared at him while confusion and something else twisted through your brain. He wanted to kiss you. He had, and yet . . .

Why was he holding himself back?

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

And then:

Felix sighed, his hand dropping from your cheek. “Can I walk you . . . us home?” he asked.

You nodded in response, but your mind was elsewhere.

He’d wanted to kiss you, but he couldn’t. Somehow . . . you understood. And oddly enough, it made relief revisit you once again that night.

As you walked through the empty streets of Southhaven, you couldn't help but wonder how you ended up here. Because the thing was: you had just spent a few hours with a boy you had known when you were small but couldn’t place his face to your memories, and now . . . now you were . . . kind of friends.

Not only that, but you had never felt more seen, more understood in those few hours than you ever had in your entire life. No one your age had ever actually cared enough to try and get to know you. The only ones who had were Hyunjin and Jisung, but they weren’t here, and you’d been missing them for some time now. You thought maybe you’d missed them before you even left. You thought maybe you’d missed them once your mother was gone.

(Perhaps you’d missed the person you had been with them when your mother was alive.)

But the others . . . Those who you’d grown up with all just labeled you as one thing and steered clear of you their entire lives.

But it wasn't like that with Felix.

Now . . . before you admitted this, you would just like to defend yourself by saying that yes, you knew it was a problem, and yes, it was probably a character flaw or whatever. But . . . ever since you were a kid and the boys in your grade would stick notes in your locker, asking you out as a joke, you’d had this innate urge to prove yourself to men . . . or rather . . . to be liked by them.

It was sick, and you knew it, too, but it was something that’d haunted you for years. It was something you desperately clung onto throughout your life.

It was something you’d hoped no one else saw in you. It was also something you knew men or at least the men you’d known liked to take advantage of. Because you were you—a weak bird hoping someone would take her wings and help her fly.

And when you’d kissed Felix, you’d kissed him because you wanted that approval from him. You knew that. You knew it was wrong, but he’d looked at you, listened, told you everything would be alright, and you just wanted to show him you were grateful in the only way you’d known how.

So when he’d stopped you, it’d stung as it always did, but that was better than the disgust you felt with yourself after. So, did it feel like shit? Yes, but there was relief there, too. Because, now, now you hadn’t ruined this. You hadn’t ruined the comfort you’d found in him.

For once, nothing was ruined. It just was.

And the best part—he was still walking right beside you. He hadn’t left (and oddly, you wanted to fight against the urge that told you to push him away), and it seemed he didn’t plan on doing so for a long while.

That, to you, was the hardest part of that night for you to wrap your head around. Everyone left sooner or later, but when he’d told you he wasn’t going anywhere . . . a part of you believed him.

And you . . . you had never felt this way with anyone. Everything and everyone had always felt like an expiration date. The girls in school would talk to you there, sure, but never outside of those walls. They had never asked you anything about yourself. It had always been about them, so much so that you forgot you actually had a personality of your own.

You weren’t exactly sure how you ended up in that position, but you were you and had a small bit of an inkling.

Because here was the thing: when you're sixteen, you'll do anything to fit in. You yearn to be prettier, to be girlier, to be more, but not more in the too much sense, rather more in a just right kind of way. So you befriend people who aren't considered weird by the masses, and it works for a while, because you are able to mask your true self for a while. But sometimes she slips out. Sometimes you say something a little too . . . odd . . . and they look at each other, laugh, and call you weird, trying to pass it off as if they're not ridiculing you.

Then after a while, you realize, they're not just laughing as a joke . . . they're making fun of you.

And you come to the conclusion that you have to accept the fact that some birds are high-flying birds. Those birds, like your perfect sister, fly with their heads held high. They fly with elegance and beauty and class. They fly like they own the world. And you . . . you're a part of the other birds—the birds who don't fly high; the ones who can't no matter how hard they try. You're constantly trying to fly with these high-flying birds, only to be met with failure. Your wings aren't strong enough. You're not strong enough.

So you accept that some birds are high-flying birds, and others are not, but you still hope that you can fly together. You hope for this every time, and every time you're met with that same old familiar feeling of failure.

Some birds are high-flying birds, and others are not. They were never meant to fly together.

It was one of the reasons why you wondered Hyunjin and Jisung were still your friends after all these years. They flew high. They knew who they were. They were something to be admired, and you were just . . . there.

Come to think of it, you’d never met another low-flying bird before. And then . . . as you kicked a stone in your path, your head hanging low, you snuck a glance at Felix out of the corner of your eye.

You began to wonder what type of bird Felix Lee was . . .

“Vulnerability is a tricky thing,” Felix sighed out a second later, almost as if he had felt your eyes on him. “I’ve struggled with it a lot this past year, and I know what it makes you want to do. I know how easy it is to mistake it for something else, and I know how crushing it feels when . . . when reality comes crashing back in.”

Swallowing hard, you took in his words. You knew what he meant. You knew he was talking about what had happened between the two of you back at the bonfire. And you knew what he was saying.

It wouldn’t happen again.

His lips on yours couldn’t be, and that . . . that you were beginning to think was OK. Did you find yourself staring at him a little too long sometimes? Yes. Did you maybe think you felt something for him? Yes, but . . . you’d always had a hard time distinguishing your emotions.

Everything would be ruined if you did find yourself drawing his lips one too many times. So you’d stick to walking side by side, knowing nothing would ever happen between the two of you. You’d stick to being his friend, because that . . . that oddly felt right.

And for some reason that was what you wanted . . . and you hadn’t wanted something in a long time.

So, your heart didn’t sink when he said, “I know you think you know what you want from me, but . . . it won’t help. It won’t help and then . . . then you’ll hate me.”

And with a small smile playing on your lips, you understood. “I don’t know if it’s possible to hate someone like you,” you hummed back, unable to wipe that smile from your face for once in the past several months.

Felix stiffened ever so slightly beside you, but he didn’t cease walking. He didn’t think you were hitting on him, did he? (You nearly laughed. As if you could ever do that.)

But nevertheless, you stopped in your tracks and tugged on the edge of his shirt, pulling him toward you. Where this sudden confidence came from, you had no idea, but for some reason, the anxiousness you’d once felt around him had lifted.

Felix, too, seemed shocked by your display, but you ignored this, keeping your hand clutched around the fabric of his shirt. “Listen, I won’t try to kiss you again if that’s what you’re worried about,” you sighed, lowering your eyes to your feet. “I told you sometimes I say things I don’t mean . . . but sometimes . . . sometimes I do things that I don’t mean to do and then . . . “

“Yeah, me too,” Felix hummed back after a second. “However—” his words paused, causing you to meet his gaze— “I was hoping we could be friends.”

And whatever was left of your anxiety toward him was gone, relief replacing. “I’d like that,” you found yourself breathing out with a small grin on your face.

I was hoping we could be friends.

When you were a kid, you had a hard time making any friends. You were awkward and kept your mouth shut at all times. The messages in your yearbooks would always be directed toward how nice you were, but they didn’t know you. You didn’t have a kind soul. It took a while to realize that. It took even longer to accept it—that you were a miserable child who grew into an even more miserable adult.

And yet . . . I was hoping we could be friends.

When you were a kid, you had a hard time making any friends, except . . . it seemed . . . for him. And although you couldn’t remember him, you remembered how he’d made you feel.

Sunsets. Laughter. A hand in yours.

The two of you had been friends long ago, and now . . . I was hoping we could be friends.

Had it always been that easy? Had—

“Where’d you go?” Felix whispered in that deep voice of his, dragging you from your mind.

“Hmm?” you hummed, looking up at him in a daze. Only then did you realize you’d zoned out, a smile on your face as your mind raced. This happened a lot, yes, but no one had ever noticed before. (It seemed Felix had a funny way of shocking you again and again.) “Nowhere, just . . . just here.”

Felix nodded once. “OK . . . ” his words trailed off, and then he was leaning toward you, his face so close you could feel his breath on your cheek. Tilting his head to the side, his eyes flicked across your features before a small, half-grin touched his lips. “Maybe one day you’ll take me with you, yeah?”

Your brows twitched, eyes searching.

“I—” he began again, but he was quickly cut off by the sound of distant clicking. His face fell instantly. “Shit.”

Thinking nothing of it, you cluelessly looked around. “What?”

Felix grabbed your shoulders, his eyes searching the trees. “I hear them.”

“Hear . . . who?”

“The bats.”

“The bats?” you deadpanned, nearly laughing. “Really?”

Felix clicked his tongue in fake annoyance. “Yes, the bats,” he scoffed as he dropped his hands, pouting slightly (you found this . . . endearing to say the least).

But you only shook your head in response, not knowing what to say. And then . . . the two of you began to walk again. Felix walked a little faster. . . . You found this also amusing.

“God, you know I fucking hate those little fuckers,” Felix huffed after a minute (still going on about his . . . bat problem). “I swear it’s like they haunt me.”

You snorted, “You’re crazy.”

“No, no, I’m telling the truth,” he quickly defended, now walking backward so that he could face you without stopping. “There was this one time Chris and I went camping, right? I wake up in the middle of the night, have to piss, so I go outside, I’m wringing it out and then I hear this clicking noise.”

And for now, you humored him similar to how you always humored Jisung and his outlandish stories. “No way,” you hummed, only half-listening as you watched his face light up in excitement while he spoke.

“Yes! Yes!” Felix clapped, practically jumping in front of you as he went on. “I’m standing with my fucking dick out, looking over my shoulder like the fucking sky is falling and then I step on a branch and this fucking thing comes flying at me, almost took my head off, I swear.”

A loud clap of laughter that you couldn’t stop escaped you, causing you to slap a hand over your mouth. “Oh, I’m sure!” you couldn’t help but say, words muffled by your hand.

He vigorously nodded his head. “Swear on my life!” he exclaimed, slapping his chest to embellish his point. “I’m so serious, the little asshole chased me all the way back to the tent.”

You laughed again. Louder this time. “No, you’re kidding,” you nearly giggled out, finding it hard to see his excited face as you laughed so hard, your eyes just about squeezed shut.

“I’m so fucking serious,” Felix continued, laughing along with you now. “Ever since then, it’s like they’re out to get me. Like, like that goddamn pervert told all his friends I was an easy target, and now! Now, every time I’m alone, they come out of the fuckin’ shadows.”

And then you were laughing so hard, your sides had begun to hurt. You just couldn’t help it. You just kept imagine this actually happening to him, and that was it.

It was odd, too, yes, because you’d yet to realize this was the first time you’d laughed like this since your mother died. Hell, you weren’t even thinking of it or her or the wind or heartbreak or anything. You were just there . . . and he was there too and that was . . . it.

(And true to word, you wouldn’t think of these such things until morning came. The rest of the night would be filled with laughter . . . just like a childhood you barely remembered.)

“Shut up!” you exclaimed as you caught up with him, slapping him on the arm like you would normally do to Hyunjin. “You’re ridiculous.”

Felix began to slow down, still walking backward but not as fast as his eyes stayed trained on you, watching as you continued laughing at him. “Oh, yeah?” he hummed as you shook your head, covering your mouth with your hand while you continued laughing under your breath.

“Yes, Lixie,” you mused, teasing a stupid nickname and dropping your hand as your laughter fizzled out into just a smile on your face.

He smiled back, warmer this time as his eyes flicked to your eyes. “I like that,” he nearly whispered, now walking in sync with you.

“What?” you questioned, tilting your had to the side in thought (but your smile remained).

His lips parted. “Y—”

A loud clicking sound echoed throughout the streets. And that time, you did hear it.

“Fuck!” Felix exclaimed, immediately jogging two paces in front of you. “See! See! That cunt’s calling my name, I’m telling you.”

But all you could do was laugh (because maybe he had a point, and that was so fucking funny to you).

“Quick. We have to run,” he went on, clearly having a little more fun with this than he’d expected. “Run or they’ll catch you and suck your blood! Quick! Quick!” And then he was moving, quickly jogging down the street/

“Felix!” you called out to him, groaning in annoyance as he grew further and further away from you.

His eyes, however, had never left you. “Oi! Quick, I say! Quick!” he yelled into the night.

Then you saw it:

He was holding out his hand . . . toward you.

And you couldn’t help yourself.

With a wide grin on your face, you broke out into a jog, reaching him in no time, seconds before you clasped his hand in yours. And as the two of you ran, your laughter filtering throughout the night, you began to wonder if you had been here before.

You could remember a boy around the age of eight, and he was laughing. A soft giggle with eyes that smiled too. Then . . . colors. Sunsets. The feeling of floating. The taste of Cherry Cherry saltwater taffy. And . . . (you remembered) . . . the warmth of a hand in yours . . .

The warmth of his hand in yours.

[danothan]

lemme know if this is supported/debunked anywhere, but i always thought it interesting how significant it was meant to be that jim got hal a framed photo of him and their dad. yes ofc martin’s death makes it significant, but did hal not have any other photos of him? the line “something i wish i could’ve given you a long time ago” gives a weight to the gift like i’m missing smth, like smth could’ve changed if he had. and the fact that jim was so excited to give it to hal all those years ago that he stayed up until midnight makes it feel even more significant, secretive even

what i’m saying is that i headcanon their mom took down all the photos of their dad bc she hated having the reminder. that’s why it’s especially painful for her seeing hal follows in martin’s footsteps, he’s the spitting image of his father. without him there, even in spirit thru framed photos, it puts a lot of pressure onto hal. i can see this being a part of her coddling and overprotectiveness, how she wants to hold onto what she has left. and i can also see how her later disowning him can reflect putting the photos away, how it seems almost contradictory that she wants to protect him so she tells him to never come back. it’s that duality of grief; she loves him so much that she can’t bear to look

god hal rly grew up in a fucked up household didn’t he, no wonder he ran away

[akucat]

[ port mafia characters looking after their sick s/o ]

❥ request: HIIIII i absolutely love your work! this is my first ever request and i was hoping for a sick (like having a cold or something) reader x bsd port mafia. im not sure if someone has already requested this but if you do accept this thank you so so so muuch 🖤

❥ note: HI ANON ty for requesting and tysm rly happy u like my writing !! included all the pm characters who i write for so ! enoy :] also this isn’t proof read... i’ll do that tmr arvo 

❥ pairings: chuuya akutagawa tachihara gin x reader (seperately)

chuuya

he’s kind of in the middle ground of all these characters

he knows how to take care of someone when theyre sick and he knows not to get to close to you

which means he should be perfect at this right...?

wrong! 

he constantly wants to be around you when youre feeling ill, what if you need his help and he’s not there??

like he will refuse to let you out of his proximity for even a minute, so he’ll do one of two things

1. move you into his office at the port mafia base (this includes all your belongings as well. all of them.) 

he literally bought a pull out couch that turns into a bed just so you have somewhere comfy to sleep 

cue akutagawa walking in to talk business with chuuya and youre just passed out on the bed 

“... what is all this”

“she’s sick, obviously”

“...’

and then he continues to dump all his missions on his subordinates because obviously he needs to be around you!!!! what if u need water!! or food!! or anything!!

or 2. he will move his office into your apartment you kind of prefer option 1...

this once resulted in MORI coming to the apartment because he needed chuuya and chuuya was too busy helping you to pick up any of his calls.. 😭 having mori in your apartment while you were a snotty red faced mess was not exactly how you wanted your afternoon to go

despite him being a pain in the ass you always appreciate his efforts and at the end of the day, even if youre still feeling unwell, you find being around chuuya always makes your sick days a little better

akutagawa

he takes sicknesses so seriously !!! he knows it isn’t something to take lightly at all and he really tries to help you when you are sick 

will try finish all his jobs as soon as possible even if it means killing literally everyone in his way just so he can get home and tend to you

if he’s rly worried over you he’ll ask mori for a day off... and mori gives it to him i mean when has akutagawa ever been this desperate before

i headcanon that gin does all the cooking so he will call her and ask if she can make soups or whatever food you want and she always delivers (i mean youre her brothers partner!! she loves u sm !!!)

he’ll take your fever and will literally hand feed you if your bodys too sore to do it yourself

u only let him stay so close to you because he wears a mask for his own safety when he’s around you

when ur asleep sometimes he’ll sneak you a little forehead kiss but ONLY when your asleep he has an image to uphold here!!

he’ll run you warm baths and will pour in whatever scent and salts are your favourite

and if you’re really sore he’ll even help you wash your body 

and these r your FAVOURITE moments with him ever there is nothing better than akutagawa pressing circles into your back with your favourite soap 

he’ll end it with a kiss to the top of your head, letting you know he’ll be just outside the door if you need any help HES SO CUTE 

he rly just tries anything to make you feel better, he know’s how horrible sickness is, even if all you have is a small cold

when you mention how much he mustve missed you when you’re cuddling in bed once youre feeling better he’ll mumble a small “you wish” but you can feel him smiling into your back

tachihara

hes a bit hopeless... 😭

but will he try his hardest? yes!

he’ll mainly just do whatever you ask him

want water? done! want more blankets? done!!!!

just be careful cuz he will try to cuddle u... you have to push him off of you because

“you look so comfortable :((”

“tachi i have a fever of 38 degrees.”

he will usually just prompt to getting take away another boy who cant cook and will order your favourite food to keep you eating

or if he thinks you need something a little healthier he will also call gin this poor girl 😭😭 and beg her to make u something

usually she would say no there is no way she is going out of her way to help him... but since its you she’ll give in (everyone at the pm is obsessed with you, in gin’s words “i’ll never understand how he managed to pull you”)

if your body feels really sore he’ll give u massages

sometimes you lie about feeling sore because nothing is better than sitting between his legs while he works on your back 

and if he catches on to your lie he doesnt even care! nothing is better to him than making you feel comfortable 

usually the day will end with him putting a movie on (only if you want to watch something) and he’ll wrap you up in a mountain of blankets and make you some tea 

you usually fall asleep during the movie so he’ll give you a chaste forehead kiss and snuggle up next to you cue you getting angry when you wake up to him clinging onto you

gin

just like her brother she takes them seriously

she’ll spend all her free time at your side (despite your protests) and since you refuse to let her indulge in cuddles she’ll prompt to sitting next to you and holding your hand.. and plz just let her do this she misses u sm

since she can’t kiss you she’ll randomly bend down at times and kiss each of your knuckles 😭😭💔💔💔 and if you try to protest she doesn’t care she needs to kiss you one way or another

one time you gave in and let her cuddle you because she was practically begging and it ended up with the two of you sick in bed the next day... you don’t let her do that anymore!

and it’s finally time to use her cooking skills for her own priorities those scabby boys

she’ll cook you soup after soup because she knows even if you do want something that’s not a liquid you’re not gonna be able to eat it anyways, so she spends her time making meals she knows you’ll actually be able to eat

if you’re struggling to eat she’ll sit with you and take her time eating her own meal just so you don’t feel any pressure to rush yourself

and if you can’t eat that’s okay too!! she’ll make you some tea or just water if that’s all you want and will leave you to drink it as you please

she’ll also massage you if you’re feeling sore, she loves doing it too the tenderness of it makes her heart melt

she’ll rub small circles into your forearms, knead the skin on your back and legs, whatever you want!

when you’re tired and want to sleep she’ll layer as many blankets on top of you as you want 

she prompts to sleeping on the couch and you usually try to protest because after all she’s done for you she deserves a good nights rest but she refuses your pleads

you usually wake up to her sleeping with you, but you can tell she’s tried to distance herself from you by the gap between your bodies and when she wakes up she’ll greet you with a quick kiss to your crown, you decide she deserves it

[niehaused]

So about that scene in WN where Beatrice is reading that journal entry to Ava...

I’ve only watched Warrior nun once this weekend, but I went back to rewatch this scene in particular and, there is just SO SO much to unpack from the suitcase this scene dropped on my lap 

1. Ava being like daamn she's translating straight from french that's hot (ava is someone who has effectively so far, missed on her entire life, missed on the most basic stuff walking, sensory tactile daily input, socialization outside of abuse. So she's truly getting to know and see and experience everything for the first time, she is hungry for living and knowing and finding out. So in this sense ofc it makes absolute sense that she'd be attracted to Beatrice who is pretty much a walking library, she's attracted to her on an instinctual level from moment one, she's just not rationalized yet that she is, but the magnetism is there) 

2. Ava repeating the word lesbich, because ofc her golden retriever brain would be like hey I know a whole new word and in a foreign language how cool is that?!! While also being painfully unaware that that word carries so much weight and pain for Beatrice and must be likely cringing internally to have the object of her affection just throwing the word around like it's nothing 

3. Ava's 'yeah she did!'. Once again reaching only an initial level of analysis and being excited because the nun in the story is a bada$s who just won't put up with abuse, cause in her eyes that must be literally so cool therefore violence and retribution is righteous. 

4. And then being crestfallen when she's notices Beatrice strong reaction to the whole story, then she's capable of grasping a deeper level of understanding of everything that's behind. It's not just retribution, it's hatred and fear and abject pain. She gets a glimpse of the other side of the coin, what the nun in the story/Beatrice deals with. A blinding rage, and overwhelming pain. It's not justice driving the sword, it's trauma. Her facial expression switched in seconds as does her approach to the rest of the story. 

5. Now she's able to see a connection between the warrior nun in this journal and Bea, she knows it is something primal but still can't put her finger exactly on what, yet she can feel that an immense pain is the thread that weaves both the story and Bea's visceral response to it.

6. Bea's realization that she's isn't the only one, she's not the only gay warrior sister. Up to this point I'm sure she must have felt isolated even inside her religious community, which became her family. They know who she is, but they don't know her completely. But there was someone just like her, through time, even at the distance she's not alone,  and she can also reach that feeling of being fully herself and at peace (I’ll forever wonder how Bea related to Shanon and Mary about this specific point). 

7. Bea being pissed at Ava's obliviousness. Ava being so close to the central theme of the story but still failing to connect they last final dots, which would save Bea an enormous amount of time working to an admission or confession of her love (which we actually didn't get, only after Ava was gone. Not even when Ava kissed her, not even when Ava took the leap and actually said I love you. Bea just wasn't going to be able to take those steps on time), if Ava could just realize by herself what Bea is feeling for her... But she doesn't and then Bea snaps because rly ava?! C'mon work with us here. 

8. Bea's gut wrenching admission that she became an academic overachiever to compensate for being gay. Now this is actually personal to me and I'm sure to most of the queer community, we've been there. Bea at some point literally felt she had no value as a person, only through discipline and excellence in everything she does :’(  she probably still feels that way, up until meeting Ava.

9. Bea dead a$s saying: 'What (who) you love, what (who) should make you happy only brings you pain'... while looking directly at ava.... Ava, sweaty, darling, honey baby, adoptive child of literal divine light, god’s chosen champion... my sister in Christ. Bea is pouring out her bleeding heart, looking straight into your eyes, admitting that even tho she loves you and you make her happy, you bring her pain. And in so many ways, as a christian believer/nun who's been told her whole life that being gay means your are doomed and automatically going to super hell, as a young queer woman who has gone to the almost ultimate stage of self denial of herself and her sexuality by becoming a nun, as a sister warrior entrusted with the safety of the halo bearer, as Ava’s very first and actual close friend, as a gay mess who’s trying so hard to keep her feelings on check because her relationship to Ava involves literally the world’s salvation and she has no idea if Ava is exclusively straight/or remotely queer. I cannot even with this specific exchange pls. This pained me on a molecular level because I was transported to my crush on a girl I met at bible camp when I was a prepubescent. (Yes I was at one point and against my will, an uncool christian nerd I’m no stranger to christianity and its multicomplex traumatic interseccion with queerness). And I still to this day wonder what became of Irene my Bible camp crush

10. Ava (despite not reaching the full understanding of the situation that Bea would like her to have) is emotionally smart, so whatever it is that's bothering Bea so much, she'll offer to listen to her, and if she isn't ready to do so, she can wait; but in the meantime she'll make damn sure to let Bea know that Beatrice isn't just 'barely acceptable', nor 'simply enough'. She is seen, she is full, whole and beautiful.

I did NOT need to have Beatrice thrusted upon me, introduced only to be taken away like this. I was living just fine without this knowledge, but yet here we are 

[aquato-family-circus]

I think an additionally understated element in the tragedy of the Psychonauts' degradation is how much it had to have affected Lili and Truman. The latter has to bear the responsibility of needing to keep the organization that his Uncle and the other founders started, despite unfortunately also not really having the means to truly "fix" the heart and soul of the organization due to the founders' various mental issues. The kind of burden he must be under, that feeling of never being quite good enough to hold the mantle but still trying his damdest to keep things together with what skills and tools he has...

I think that's probably another factor of why he would bring on agents like Hollis, Sasha, and Milla; because even if none of them can truly begin to fix the problem, they end up sharing a lot of the qualities needed that represent what his family tried to do. The drive to help others fight their inner demons, the drive to explore the human mind, and the love to try to aid those who need it is there (albeit not perfect, given their mixed record with the Campers of Whispering Rock), even if only to find and mentor those who came later on in hopes of prolonging things.

And Lili, even if she can't entirely pin the specifics, had to grow up with that burden as well. Daughter of a man stuck with that kind of burden, the distance mixed with love for her father, but still perceptive enough to recognize that something is clearly missing and gone from the Psychonauts, the broken family dynamic with her Uncle whom she's never met and her missing mother...

Truman's entire baggage where he became the leader and had to literally fire his uncle AND see most of the others become reclusive and unwell because of all their shared gried is so sad... like that was his uncle helmut who died, that was the lucy he got to know as a young adult as a sweet, passionate woman who was basically like an aunt to him

truman almost certainly volunteered to hep build the PN organization after maligular was defeated in hopes that he could help lighten the load (and maybe work to cope with his losses)...

from the very little we know about the real truman, he doesnt seem like the guy who likes or wants to be in charge, since he's apparently been trying to put hollis in charge for years

but he's also ultimately the best person for the job bc of how his reaching out to hollis parallels how ford was reaching out to people like compton

they both knew these people struggling and making awful mistakes just needed a chance to develop their skills and flourish in the right conditions

from a very easy to miss conversation we know lili says (paraphrasing) that uncle bob would never hurt her dad. and truman sends pictures of lili to bob despite the pain and distance between them... im sure truman really wishes his daughter could know these people the way he grew to know them... and it messes lili up bc she really probably only has gotten to speak to compton and otto, a nervous wreck and a reclusive weirdo respectively. her perception of the rest of them is through stories told to her & through comic books, thats so wack

the fact shes rly only gonna get to know her uncles after all this tragedy is, well... tragic!!

[a-boca-do-inferno]

trust, habits & displays of affection (david 8 x reader)

summary: David and (y/n) stray from the group while in LV-223.

warnings: slight swearing, fluff

words: 1.0k

notes: rly rly random thing idk. enjoy!

“Miss, are you sure this is the right path?” 

“Uh, yeah?”, (y/n) scoffed, stepping over a branch. “I remember this tree when we came, at least”, she then shrugged and patted the trunk on her right, the sound of the android’s very low chuckle making her smile to herself. 

Getting lost anywhere was already scary enough, but in another planet, it seemed like death was waiting in every turn they took. (y/n) tried to keep it cool, leading the way as if she knew exactly where they were going, but deep down she realized they could be in very serious danger if the night fell and they were still wandering through the forest. David’s even and rhythmic steps followed her around without a doubt, regardless, as if he trusted her to eventually find the rendezvous point where their crew had agreed to meet. He always found her to be extremely smart and competent, anyway, even though he never voiced these thoughts; finding the way back surely would be no difficult task for her. 

(y/n) abruptly stopped in her tracks when a sound came from the woods right to their side, making an oblivious David instantly accompany her movement, furrowing his pale brows. “Miss?”, he inquires, stepping forward to be on her side.  

“Shh”, she whispered, placing a finger on his lips while still looking at the direction of the noise. “Listen.” 

It was a deep, otherworldly growl, seemingly coming from very far away judging by the echo it made, and she felt a shiver go up her spine. Finally turning to face the android, (y/n) pulled him by the hand to the opposite way they were making up until that point, without another word. That was clearly a large animal and she wasn’t about to take her chances in facing it, no matter how advanced their weapons were. The creature also would probably not be alone and although David was quite strong, she wasn’t sure if he’d be able to fight them off basically by his own, seeing as her combat skills wouldn’t really be that useful. 

David accompanied her hurried steps with no resistance, still, however quietly confused by what went on in her mind at all, since the girl didn’t say anything. As they walked towards some sort of cave right next to a waterfall, he let himself continue to be dragged by her soft hand. He could easily break the contact and follow the flustered girl on his own, but something in him made sure he held on tight to her palm. It somehow soothed his own anxiety of what could happen in such an unpredictable situation, he reckoned, and so he’d grip her knuckles until she let go. 

“I think we better stay here for a while”, her voice pulls David out of his thoughts again. (y/n) stared at him with some strands of hair stuck to her face, and he held back from putting them in place. “I’m not sure how time works here, but maybe we should stay the night. It’s no use to keep walking in the dark, anyway, I don’t know”, she let out a deep, miserable sigh, running her fingers through her messy locks.  

“I agree”, David simply states, going inside the cave and sitting on the ground, keeping his posture upright as ever. The look on the girl’s face was almost comical as she mimicked his movements, making him suppress a smile. When she walked towards him to sit by his side, however, he noticed her limping. “Miss, are you alright?”, he sounded concerned, perhaps more concerned than he should be for a simple member of the crew. “Are you hurt?” 

“Maybe?”, she offered, thanking him under her breath when he stood up to help her sit down. “I didn’t feel anything until now, so I don’t know”, (y/n) then made a face when trying to move her foot, her ankle aching like nothing she ever felt before. “Fuck”, she leaned against the cave wall, closing her eyes for a second as the stinging pain lingered. 

David watched it all with a frown, promptly taking the med kit out of his backpack. He carefully lifted her cargo pants, exposing her wounded foot. It was all shades of purple and red, telling of her unawareness of it while they strolled to the cave. The girl’s agitated eyes observed his long fingers applying some sort of ointment around the sore area, caressing her skin with a cooling sensation. His movements were swift, majestic almost, and they caused her no adding pain at all as he finished his work.  

“Try not to move around and let the medicine take effect, it should be completely healed in a week”, his usual collected, technical tone is somewhat warm now and it makes her smile. David notices this, arching his expressive brows, “what?” 

“You would make a good doctor, you know?”, (y/n) gives him an amused look and he can’t help but grin a little. “Thank you”, she then touches his upper arm, giving it a squeeze while holding his gaze.  

David nods briefly, ever blunt. “It’s my job to keep you safe, miss.” 

She rolls her eyes, shaking her head slightly. “Stop with the ‘miss’ already, David, we’re friends.” 

“Old habits die hard”, he simply answers, and they exchange another long look. His bright orbs pay attention to every inch of her face, and the way her cheeks redden as he comes closer only urges him to keep staring at her expecting eyes. Their breath meets eventually, turning into one, and there is pause before their lips clash. The loud sound of the waterfall just outside seemed to be tuned out while her tongue made its way inside his mouth, dancing through every corner almost, painting his own with her saliva. His lengthy arms held her torso tightly, mindful of her injured foot, pulling her even closer to him. Air was needed, at last, and their lips still brushed against one another as David spoke softly, “(y/n)?” 

“Mm?”, she mumbles, eyes closed in sweet inebriation of the moment. 

“Now, are you going to stop with the ‘we’re friends’ already?” 

(y/n) could only laugh heartily, making a playful salute gesture before giving him a peck on the lips. “Yes, sir!” 

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

i resent very much that i am writing twd meta this late in the year of our lord two-thousand-twenty-two after my long journey to distance myself from it, but the words are rattling around in my mind grapes, and because i am incapable of keeping things to myself, how about one more go for old time’s sake?

i think the main thing that i want to say to y’all is that we didn’t imagine it

obviously caryl has had chemistry from the very first scene they had together, but even these past few years, where we’ve dissected and meta’d every second of their screentime together under kang’s watch to death, and been like “here’s how bernie can still win!” we weren’t being delusional. the romantic beats were all there. the narrative was set up that way. she was wearing a ring in that dream sequence. he brought her a cherokee rose on a tray. they longed for each other, and planned to run away together, and it was never once foolish of us to believe otherwise, bc the only reason it didn’t happen is bc the narrative got eaten by amc’s desire to beat the shit out of twd for every drop of money it could possibly give them, and in the process they contracted Chris Charter Syndrome, which is unfortunately fatal

for those unfamiliar (tho with this group there’s probably enough crossover that i don’t rly need to explain), chris carter, the creator of the x-files, is notoriously dense af about how much of his show’s popularity is driven by his ~amazing lore~ vs the audience’s desire to have mulder and scully fuck

every conversation with him, to this day, goes p much like this:

[chris carter: people love the x-files for the mystery and intrigue and they don’t want resolved sexual tension, they want to watch our mains constantly will-they/won’t-they while battling government conspiracies until the end of time

the audience: we would watch one hundred billion hours of mulder and scully searching for bigfoot but comically missing him every time bc they get distracted by fucking each other, we could not care less about your plot. your plot doesn’t even make sense

chris carter: they just can’t wait to see what twists happen next

the audience: we are tired of the twists, and we want them to bone. in fact, here are graphs and studies and stats that all say that we would be much happier if you would just give us mulder and scully fighting silly monsters and stop trying to be gritty and dark with your plots that even you admit you don’t understand

chris carter: i am very good at my job

the audience: you are not good at your job]

rinse and repeat

if this sounds like gimple, that’s bc he has the worst case of CCS i’ve seen in a long time, and it’s unfortunate bc it’s contagious, and those who are especially susceptible are misogynistic money-hungry dudebro companies who think that what people want are GRIT and BLOOD and MAN PAIN, even when their statistics consistently tell them that they are wrong. a key component of CCS is an undeserved inflation of one’s ego and the inability to recognize the fact that one is making an ass out of oneself, which is why the past 84 years have looked like this:

[gimple: man, people love my negan and rick man-pain arc

the audience: no we don’t

gimple: i know what the ladies want, they want jerk-off contests between mediocre men while i kill off all their faves

the audience: no we don’t

amc: hmmm, while i’m picking up what you’re laying down, gimple, let’s see what this other showrunner can do for a minute

kang: people want stories about people. they want to see the seeds of character development that were planted at the very beginning bloom. they want to see the characters with chemistry go down on one another

the audience: yes, this, this is what we want

amc: interesting concept

amc: however

amc: that sounds suspiciously like conflict/resolution, and if things are neatly resolved then we can’t make money out of it anymore. i know that all the statistics say that caryl is our top ship, and that we should get them together, and let them have a concluded, peaceful ending

amc: BUT

amc: let’s instead launch a spin-off with one (1) of the duo (the male, obviously), and then let’s leave their storyline ambiguous bc that way they’ll follow us to the shitty spin-off, but also anyone who just has the hots for daryl/norman reedus will also watch bc he’s still an Eligible Bachelor ;) 

amc: this is a good idea that will make us lots of money

the audience: no it will not

amc: gimple, we need your wisdom again, btw, the people miss you

the audience: no we do not

gimple: who’s ready for some GRIT AND BLOOD AND MORE MAN PAIN?!?!?!

the audience: for the love of god]

it’s stupid and exhausting, and i have Mad Respect for those of you who have been putting so much effort into making sure our voices have been heard. ( @my-mt-heart , @gunmetal-ring​ , @lighteneverything​ to name just a few) plz know that your voice WAS heard, and i fully believe that you DID make an impact. it’s just that, when push comes to shove (i.e. when you’re dealing with misogynistic rich white men), CCS is one helluva disease

and it’s sad! it’s very very sad! i’ve been spending my time away over in the “our flag means death” universe, and y’all, it has been WILD. all of the interactions with the show’s creator and the cast have been “oh you enjoyed that? we’ll be sure to keep that in mind so that we can cultivate a show that you will love, bc it makes more sense to listen to our viewers than to ourselves sometimes, bc they’re the ones who keep us from driving ourselves directly into a ditch! thank you for your feedback, we appreciate and love you!”

like??????

but see, that’s the difference between creators who are in it for the story vs. creators who are in it for the money. if you are solely money-driven you’re never going to be able to dedicate yourself to the narrative, bc narratives have concrete endings. they require you to not always be looking for that next spin-off, or to not sacrifice a character’s integrity to fit it inside of a bad plotline. they are shows like the good place, that had an ending in mind from the start. they are shows like ofmd or what we do in the shadows, where the audience’s opinion gets listened to. even supernatural (mother fucking supernatural, you guys!!!) catered to its biggest fanbase better than twd did. it might have been clown shoes, but destiel’s last-minute confession was at least explicitly romantic. amc was too cowardly to give us even that, bc it might “jeopardize” their spin-off 

what we can take solace in, tho, is the fact that they are in the end stages of CCS. they think they’ve given enough to string caryl fans along over to the spin-off era of twd, but they haven’t. they’re going to crash and burn, and go out the way of GoT, in that everyone is going to be like “wow that was... let’s just not talk about that one, huh?” and it will be satisfying to watch them fizzle out into nothing when they get hit with the grim reality that they should have gotten their heads out of their asses and listened to their fans who told them that, yes, your “hot male lead” needs that middle-age grey-haired woman you cast to the side so carelessly, and that fact doesn’t change just bc you can’t fathom people caring about a woman over the age of 25

whatever. it is what it is. what matters most here is what i said up top, which is that we didn’t imagine it. we did not waste our time. we were not stupid. we had these beautiful characters laid out before us, and a storyline that supported them, and we took it and ran with it in the right direction. it’s not our fault that the narrative didn’t follow

our retribution will be the fact that now it’s our turn not to follow. instead, we can finally rest, not having to worry about the future, bc who fucking gives a shit about their dumb taunts, trying to get us to watch the spin-off for the “possibility” of caryl way down the line? we’re over it. we’re not chasing anymore carrots. we’re happy here in our caryl sandbox, with our li’l aus and headcanons and fix-its, and we don’t have to fucking discourse at each other every week anymore. we can come and go with a lightness we haven’t felt maybe fucking ever, bc it’s over now. it’s not in their hands anymore, it’s in ours

it was real. the feelings we felt, the relationships that were made between us, they were real. and it will all continue to be real in whatever way we decide to keep it. we can and should grieve what could have/should have been, and we can and should be mad, because there’s no question, we were wronged, but let’s not stay in that negativity place forever. let’s not forget why we all were drawn here to begin with, and let’s not forget what we’ve gained from each other 

it wasn’t “just a tv show.” it was, and is, a community that has influenced lives to the point of changing their entire trajectory. i have written over one million (1,000,000+) words of caryl fic, and bc of that i have been able to self-publish my own book, and get into freelance writing. bc of caryl, i have been able to ghostwrite and collaborate with published authors, and am on my way to making my actual day job being writing, which is something i’ve wanted since i was itty bitty. bc of caryl, i have traveled the world. bc of caryl, i have made relationships and connections that have, quite literally, changed my entire life. amc can’t take any of that away from me. it can’t take any of that away from YOU

so yeah, shit sucks, but hey, i got something for you:

we are fine, fam, or we will be, once we’ve had a chance to lick our wounds, because we are the holders of the narrative now. caryl is OURS, finally

so, when you’re feeling up to it, come join me in the sandbox, and let’s have some fun

stay hype, stan each other, bc twd is in its grave, but caryl is forever,

-diz

p.s. felt weird not having a 30 rock reference in here anywhere so:

k bye 4 real

[warmcoals]

so. teppu. probably the best sports girl thing ever with the least polish ever, technically finished but certainly doesnt feel that way. the plot is so shockingly twisted and spiteful and selfish and traumatized and it works perfectly. the main character is a freak but the depths of her pain that make her this fucked up serious sadomasochist girl are all haunting: broken heart, loneliness, abuse, autism probably, it's all there in the flashbacks. and such short flashbacks, for her and all the characters; every last side character has a fascinating depth and backstory that is just barely revealed in a 5 panel glimpse while yr left to fill in the blanks of their psyche from their current actions and the fights.

AND THE FIGHTS!

i literally thought "this is the dark souls of sports manga" bc four out of five chapters are strictly combat mixed w insane inner monologue. the exact opposite problem of any sport or shonen youve ever read, we barely get two peeks at training before it's immediate time skip to Big Tourney Round 1. even the school scenes end in brawls, verbal or physical or both. the art is stunning, composition anatomy faces all of it, and the characterization thru the progression of the fight itself is so rich and juicy you arent left wanting for a different pace. even the side characters are fascinating and cool.

the characters! every different age and size and build of girl n woman possible in mma. super cool design super varied and unusual archetypes. theres a catgirl office lady named cameron diaz. amazing. plus the main character and her two primary rivals, basically her messy ex and her clueless crush, are all just so varied and multifaceted and cool. nobody is the weakest link.

rly the only problem is how sudden it ends. in the first third the mangaka sets up a whole Trigger-style power rank progression that u can see escalating over like 50-70 chapters: school rival, real rival, the adult plot, real rivals's rival, etc. it demands time for wins and losses and rematches and growth...that it doesnt get. suddenly the rivals have fought and it's Immediately over. so much left unexplored unexplained untouched. there are notes from the author throughout (even the shit scanlation doesnt miss em) that indicate a struggle to write n draw n complete this series, so im super glad it was Seen Thru, and even Great and Satisfying. it just coulda been so much more. and also as a downside, there's a shitawful older brother central to the plot. blegh. silver lining is the ending isnt a total bummer at least.

overall teppu is a sick story about being fueled by spite and hate and wanting one thing so bad you lose sight of everything else, and then regardless of the result, you wind up a better person in the end for all the effort. extremely recommend.