#turns out the misery is just having diseases

[laikahh]

hey good news the Mental Anguish ive been going thru is just me being a bit sick. oopsie

[starshipsofstarlord]

Prisoner

Summary-> (Early season 3 based) Winter had been a long journey for all of your group, especially you and Daryl given that there was always a lack of privacy. You find it difficult to feel at home in the prison, but Daryl is always there for you when you need him, and you have the chance to relish in a night alone - or as lonesome as a cell can be (2.9k)

Warnings-> 18+ mdni, smut, unprotected sex, fingering, established relationship, mentions of arrest and imprisonment, swearing

daryl dixon // norman reedus works masterlist

It was an adjustment, that much was clear. After having been locked up in a prison for a few years, the last place you had wanted to be was in one, but here you and your group were, in a cell block after having cleared it out.

Your knee bounced as you sat upon the steps, gnawing upon lip, staring at the familiar grey walls that brought bad memories back into your mind. It wasn’t something you wanted to voice as a problem, you’d spent all winter out on the road, enduring the cold nights, you should have been grateful like everyone else was.

“Y’ okay?” Daryl asked as he took a seat beside you, brushing his shoulders with your own with a comforting manner, reading with no doubt that something was bothering you. Most of the day you preferred to be outside, killing the walkers that clawed at the fences, and you jumped at the chance to go out on a run for supplies just to get out of this pit of misery.

“I’m fine. Just need a distraction from all of this.” You gestured around you, sending him a small smile, feeling far too conscious to even think about falling asleep. “I know it should be good that we’ve found somewhere, and it is, don’t get me wrong, but-“

“I know.” He told you, nodding in understanding, before he put his large hand over your smaller one, clasping it in his grip and bringing it up to his lips. “Don’t have to like it, none of us do, but we woulda died if we hadn’t found this place. And that’s the last thing that I wan’ to happen to ya. I’m grateful for everything you did, ya know.”

“I know Dare.” You decided to look at him rather than the tin you were sat in, meeting his softened blue eyes. “Think if I saw Merle again I’d kick his ass for abandoning me on that night which cost me months in the normal world with you.” He grunted in agreement, smiling when remembering that you had found their camp, and you’d done just that to his older brother.

“Ya got out, that’s all that matters. Especially before all this and the world goin to shit.” The thought of you trapped in somewhere like this and most likely being turned into walker chow or one of them had his heart bursting at the seams. It was a vulgar thought, and the last thing that he ever wanted to happen to you. He wanted to protect you, and he should have done that before, but he was petrified, and you were too stubborn and claimed that you had to pay for your mistakes.

He’d come to see you a few times when you were locked away, he hated that a panel of glass separated the both of you, all he had wanted to do was run his fingers through your hair and tell you everything was going to be okay. But he couldn’t, so instead he counted the days and hours until your release, he had this whole idea of collecting you from that place and driving you far away.

But your release day had been the same day that the entire planet was engulfed with the spreading news of a disease that turned people into monsters, and Merle wouldn’t let him go to see if you had made your sanctioned escape. He had no idea whether you were still alive until he saw Shane carrying you into the camp, exhausted from the lack of both food and fluids and running god knows how many miles just to survive.

“Guess you’re right.” He always was, even if he was too selfless to admit it. “Do you maybe want to try sleeping in a cell? I know we’ve got this whole thing of liking the floor, but I guess it’s worth a try.” Daryl surprising agreed, pulling you to your feet after he had stood, the two of you walking to an empty cell, passing by the other members of your group that were either asleep or lying down in isolation.

It was a big step for you to enter a cell after the months you had been holed up in one by the law, but Daryl kept his hand on your elbow, reminding you that he was there. And always would be. And so unsurely, despite it being your idea, you stepped within the cell, it was devoid of any personality, just a bunk and the normal silver basin and toilet, which all reminded you that this wasn’t home. You hoped that one day you’d find somewhere that felt less suffocating, there had to be a place out there, beyond the chain fence, where it was safe to breathe without the risk of walkers eating you in your sleep.

As you entered the room, you were strangely comforted by the sound of Glenn’s snoring from the cell over, he was no doubt laying beside Maggie, then both lulling in the chance to rest. “It’s not so bad.” You muttered, kicking off your mud accented boots, as Daryl remained close to the door, blocking the view from anyone that could pass as you shrugged out of your jeans, and lifted your shirt over your head, leaving you in just your underwear. It was something that you hadn’t been able to do in prison without the harassment of officers or other people fulfilling their sentences.

Daryl said nothing as you stood still for a moment, closing your eyes, before you reached back, unclipping your bra, his eyes danced over the expanse of your back, every scar traced by his pupils and every mole a target that he planned to pelt with gentle kisses. You turned around to face him, like a vixen testing his limits, tilting your head as you padded along the floor towards him, your fingers brushing against his sleeve butchered flannel. “I want your shirt.”

There was no resistance on his part as he helped you unbutton each button on it, shrugging it off of his broad shoulders as he handed it to you, watching you slip it on. You inhaled his scent as you did only a couple of the buttons on it, before testing the mattress with your hand on the bottom bunk, before sliding upon it and closing your eyes. “Aren’t you going to join me?” He said nothing as he silently kicked off his own boots, tossing the knives he carried out from his pockets onto the floor, them deliciously clattering upon the cement, as he readied himself to lay beside you.

“It’s been a long time since we had a bed.” Daryl spoke in hushed volume, not counting the time on Herschel’s farm after he had been scathed by a bullet in the left side of his head, no thanks to Andrea. He shuffled as he tried to get comfortable, deciding on laying on his side and facing you, trapping you in his arms as his nose brushed against your own. “At least it’s better than that one you had in your shitty old trailer.” He smirked, watching as you tapped his shoulder with your screwed up fist, rolling your eyes when you remembered why it hadn’t been so comfortable.

“It was perfect, we broke it in. Not my fault that the springs couldn’t hold up.” He shook his head at your words, clearly that sale you had got it from had been a scam, but you had insisted that it was better than sleeping on the floor. Truth be told, Daryl didn’t care where he slept, as long as he had you securely beside him, he never wanted you to be taken away from him again, and he was insistent that he wouldn’t allow that to happen.

“I think you’re the one tha’ couldn’t hold up. Or be quiet.” He remarked, causing a scoff to pass from your lips, as you attempted to turn away from him but he wouldn’t allow you. Instead his grip on you got tighter, as he raised a brow at your actions. “But if yar blamin’ it on the damn mattress, we migh’ as well see if this one is any better.” It wasn’t very often that Daryl would smirk, but when he did, you practically melted in a puddle in front of him and forgot where you were, which in this instance, was a blessing. His hand trailed down your sternum that was exposed by your lousy buttoning of his shirt that you wore, descending dangerously lower, so that his fingertip hit the top band of your panties.

Your breath hitched, as your body became almost immobile, frozen from his more that welcomed touch. He teased you, running his hand hand back to your stomach only to trail it back down to where his destination had been. “Damn it Daryl, do something.” You hissed, careful to keep your voice down. “I swear to- oh.” His hand had slipped into your underwear, rubbing against the outside of your cunt, causing your hips to jut up into his touch. He always knew how to make you sufficiently aggravated, you’d have cursed out from the bubbling annoyance in your chest if you had no worries that anybody could hear the two of you.

With that he slipped a finger into your walls, it felt like it had been a long time since the two of you had an opportunity to be physical. All through winter, after losing the farm to the mass of endless walkers, you’d had sex once out in the woods, when you were supposed to be hunting, and because of your lack of action you felt touch starved. Even despite Daryl proceeding to hold your hand when the pair of you rarely walked at the back of the group, and sleeping side by side with him. It just hadn’t been enough, but for now these taunting walls allowed you some release, ironically enough.

“Yer so fuckin’ tight.” Daryl muttered, kissing up your stomach all the way up to your lips, ushering and drinking your whimpers that threatened to escape. “Woulda fucked ya more if I’d had the chance baby, now I’m really gonna have to stretch ya out before I can put my cock in ya.” You could only moan into his mouth, hands clasping around his wrist as you ground yourself down on his hand, you let out a squeal as he unexpectedly entered another finger, alarmed by the welcomed intrusion, however Daryl stopped all movements. He spoke quietly to himself, eyes dancing around with a scheming glimmer in his eyes, as an idea revelled in his mind.

He yanked a pillow out from beneath your head, causing you to pant as you clenched desperately around his fingers, trying to allure him into continuing. Daryl raised your hips, fingers still in you, as he placed the pillow beneath them, your mouth making an O shape as he hit a new angle inside of you. If you hadn’t been in a prison, knowing that it was your worst nightmare, he would have calmed your sounds by placing the pillow over your head, but he knew where the line was drawn and he was never one to cross it if he was aware of your discomfort. “Good girl.” He drawled out, deciding to fasten the pace of his fingers as a wet spot began to leak onto your panties, he swiped his tongue across his bottom lip as he watched you. You were close, and it had come faster than expected, given how many months it had been.

“More.” You pleaded, wanting his cock, no matter how much it hurt when he stretched you out, but instead you were given another finger, and Daryl grunted as he rutted into the bed. “Dare, need you.” You huffed, feeling empty when he removed his fingers. The time dragged as he unbuckled his belt and pulled off his jeans, and finally he clambered on top of you, his naked form teasing every nerve in your entire body. “If you need me so bad, why don’ ya ride me?” He whispered, rolling the both of you over so that you were atop of him. You leant down, your hair falling in a cascade around both of your faces as you pressed your lips against his, sliding your cunt over his cock.

He was frighteningly hard, it had been months since the both of you had gotten this far, and there were no interceptions that could stop you this time, or so you hoped. Your slick coated his length as you ground yourself on him to fulfil your own insatiable drive of hunger, his hands bruising your hips as he attempted to keep you still so he could slip inside of you from beneath your trembling form. His tip grazed your clit, sending you into a frenzy, you couldn’t wait a second longer you mindlessly decided, grasping his erect cock in your hand to hold it still, as you slid him inside of you. It was an ethereal feeling, the two of you relished in the sensation of being so close, and not just emotionally.

Daryl’s head reached up, pulling you down flush on top of him, as he spread an array of butterfly kisses over your collarbones and the middle of your throat. “I love ya girl, you drive me absolutely crazy, but yar my kinda crazy.” He stroked your hair lovingly out of your face, distracting you from how he raised both of the weights of the lower halves of your bodies up, and before you could respond with your own spoken words of love to him, he began to thrust up into you, making the world around you drown into nothing more than a distant memory. Your breathing was messy as it mixed with your partner’s, you sturdied one hand on the pillow beneath his head, the other long discarded to the floor, as your opposite braced itself on the wall, clawing at the impenetrable surface.

“Fuck Dare.” Tears were glazing your eyes as you felt each vein of his cock within your cunt, and you began to move with his own thrusts, finding a rhythm that suited the position that you were in. You were careful not to raise your head too high so that you didn’t hit it on the bottom of the bunk above you, Daryl’s right hand left your hip and rested forcefully on your ass, squeezing the flesh as he tried and failed to hold in his grunts. Surely by morning, there was no doubt that someone would make a commotion about hearing you through the screen-less doors, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care, not after how long it had been since you had evoked such passion with the man below you.

Sweat began to bead upon his forehead, slicking the growing locks onto his face, as you brushed them away. A heavy creak rattled from the bed as Daryl once again turned you over, and pounded in you from above, without allowing his cock to slip out from your sweet and wet pussy. From the red tint that had appeared on his face, and how he frowned as though he was on a mission, it was clear that he was getting close, which wasn’t a surprise considering the amount of time that had passed since your bodies had moulded together in such a way. You grasped him by the back of the neck, pulling him down to entrap him in a fiery kiss, your legs wrapping tightly around his waist as you approached your own high.

And there it was, the destination that you had been caving for, your own release. After all of those months that you had served as a resident in a prison, you’d missed his touch, and as soon as the two of you had reunited in Atlanta, you’d made the most of the time you could get together. Daryl’s thrusts began to get sloppy as he struggled to keep up his pace after feeling you clench around his cock and cum all over it, sending him into a delirium to chase his own high. He could feel his balls straining to be emptied, and when he was almost there, he pulled out, not wanting to further the risk anymore of getting you pregnant given the state of the world, and began thrusting himself in the apex of your thighs, until finally he allowed his seed to spill over your flesh.

He exhaled a deep sigh, leaning down to press a kiss against your sweaty hairline, before reaching down and grabbing your discarded shirt, wiping your upper legs clean. He wasted no more time to curl up next to you and bring you into his large arms, staring at your face, letting you know without words that you were the most important thing to him. He’d do anything for you and to keep you safe, nobody was going to separate the two of you again, he was stern on that. “Maybe this place isn’t so bad.” You muttered lovingly into his chest, brushing your nose against where his heart lay, and Daryl releases a small but real smile as he tugged the blanket out from tour forms, awkward as his manner was, and wrapped it around the two of you, so that you could drift off to sleep in his arms and pretend for a moment in your dreams that the world wasn’t as it was.

[phoward89]

Based on this ask for my moot @swiftieblyth

“Darling, are you feeling unwell again?” Your husband, President Coriolanus Snow of Panem, asked you as he entered the residential wing of the Presidential Palace only to see you sprawled out on the sofa with a cold compress on your head in an attempt to ease your migraine. A migraine that's so bad that your body's shaking in pain and all of the drapes are drawn, leaving you in the dark to wallow in your misery.

“No.” You moan out in pain. “I’ve been suffering with a terrible migraine all day, Coryo.”

“My darling rose, perhaps we should call the doctor?” Coriolanus suggested while making his way over to your side.

“I don't need a doctor, Coryo. It's just a migraine.” You waved off your husband's concern as he kneels next to you. Truthfully, you hurt so bad that you just want to cry. But it's just a headache, all a doctor's going to do is prescribe headache and migraine medications and you've already got those in the medicine cabinet. Too bad you're too nauseous to take them tho.

“This isn't just a migraine. You've been getting frequent headaches too often lately. Not to mention your lack of appetite and nausea.”

“I'm fine, Coryo.” You stubbornly told your husband.

“You're not fine, my love. Don't even lie to me and say you are.”

“I know, Coryo.” You sigh defeatedly. Your husband always knows when you're lying. What is he, a human lie detector?

“This is concerning me. Really it is and you know I don't frighten that easily.” The President told you, gently stroking your arm up and down in a soothing manner.

“I know, it concerns me too," You honestly admit to the platinum blonde who's your other half in life. "but I already have migraine and headache medications; they don't work.”

“You have to take them for them to work, darling.” Scolded your husband.

“Okay, when I'm not too nauseous from the headaches and take them they don't really help.”

“That's why we need to get you to a doctor.”

“I know, but I don't want to see the doctor only for him to tell me what I already know- that I have migraines.”

Coriolanus loves you, he truly does, but sometimes you can be so stubborn. He'd feel better if you'd just agree to see the doctor, but you won't.

Your claim that it's just migraines is bullshit; both you and your husband know it too. You're been experiencing chronic fatigue, a tiny bit of brain fog, and tingling in your hands that makes you shake them out to get feeling back sometimes.

Those symptoms on top of the frequent headaches, nausea, and loss of appetite has Coriolanus worried. Of course you're concerned too, but your husband's downright scared to death. But maybe that's because he's been looking up things and playing Dr. Panoogle when it comes to your symptoms.

But President Snow’s read so many scary things while playing Dr. Panoogle that he's desperate to get you to a doctor. He can't have you dying on him from some disease or illness.

Coriolanus let out an exasperated sigh. “If your symptoms consist or worsen, I'm taking you to the doctor. Understood?”

“Understood.” You reply, causing your husband to gently kiss your temple before scooping you up and bringing you to your large bedroom for some proper rest in your king sized bed.

A few days later your health took a turn for the worse. Your headache was gone, but you were feeling fatigued. More than usual. Also you were having some problems with your motor skills. You're, for a lack of a better word, clumsy and stumbling over your own feet.

You're scared, but you don't want to bother your husband. Coryo's the President and he's been busier than usual lately since the games are a month and a half away. You know if you call him or send a maid to get him then he'll scrap all of his duties to tend to you. As much as you want your doting husband by your side, he's the President of Panem and has a duty to the country. Plus, he's the youngest president that's ever been elected, so if he puts off his duties it'll make him look like a slacker and your husband's anything but that.

So, you decide to deal with feeling poorly yourself. But then you suddenly feel dizzy when you rise from the sofa in order to go to the bathroom. You feel as if the room's spinning, as if you can see the air dancing around the floor.

And suddenly you faint; hitting the floor with a loud thud. A loud thud that, unfortunately, none of the staff heard.

Coryo's exhausted when he makes his way down the hall, towards the residential wing of the Presidential Palace. He can't wait to get home to you, his darling wife. You've been by his side since college, always supporting his dreams and goals. You always manage to bring a smile to his face when he's had a bad day. You also calm the rage coursing through him whenever he's pissed off about something work related.

Just being around you's enough to calm him, bring fresh air to his dark soul. The nation of Panem should be glad that you're the First Lady. If Coriolanus was married to anyone else, well…there would be a ton more executions and poisonings then what have occured.

That's for sure.

Coriolanus can't wait to see you, to have you in his arms or to be held in yours (either works for him), but when he enters the living room of your living quarters his blood freezes in his veins.

The sight of you passed on the floor is like a vice around his heart. You're motionless and he's terrified that he's going to lose you. Quickly, he rushed over to you and pulled you into his arms. “Please, baby, wake up. Open your eyes for me, darling.” Coriolanus begs, gently patting your cheek in an attempt to rouse you, as his icy eyes shine with fear.

Your eyelashes flutter as you begin to weakly open your eyes. “Coryo?” You ask, trying to make the shape of your husband out since your vision’s a bit spotty.

“I'm here, darling.” Coryo assured you. Pressing a kiss to your forehead, he tells you, “I'm taking you to the doctor, Y/N. You've been passed out for only gods know how long; you're getting checked out.’

“Okay.” You relent, knowing that you won't win against your husband on this. He told you before that if your health declines he's making you see the doctor.

The doctor examined you, listened to your list of symptoms, and ran some tests on you. Once the results were in, the doctor walked into your examination room with a few papers in hand.

Coming to a stop in front of the table you're sitting on, the doctor looks between you and President Snow before revealing, “First Lady Snow, I've come to the conclusion that you have both high cholesterol and an iron deficiency.”

“Isn't she a bit young for that?” Coriolanus asked in disbelief. How could you have those medical issues? Didn't people Grandma'am’s age have those kinds of issues?

“Yes, President Snow, the First Lady is young, but it seems that her medical issues with high cholesterol and iron deficiency is a genetic one.” The doctor told your husband before looking over at you. “Do your parents or siblings have any of these issues?”

“No.” You shake your head. “My mother and older brother don't have any problems.”

“Her father died in the war, during the Dark Days alongside mine.” Your husband told the doctor before the middle-aged man could even ask about your dad.

The doctor nodded, only to hand you a script and say, “That's a prescription for a statin. It's a medication to control your cholesterol.” He gave you another piece of paper that had some supplements written on it. “Those are over the counters you can buy for your iron deficiency. They're easily found in the vitamin aisle of the pharmacy.”

Looking between you and your husband, the doctor sighed. “Now, this next part might be a bit difficult since it concerns diet. I understand that you're the First Family of Panem, the equivalent of royalty in the eyes of the old world, but there's quite a few diet restrictions the First Lady has now because of her condition.” Handing some papers about foods you could eat, couldn't eat, and diet plans to your husband l, the doctor concluded his thoughts on the matter with, “I understand that you hold a lot of galas and dinner parties and I won't tell you what to serve, just that the First Lady doesn't eat anything she's not supposed to unless you want her having another episode due to out of order levels of cholesterol.”

“Don't worry, Dr. Murphy, she'll strictly adhere to whatever's in this diet plan.” Coriolanus assured your doctor, holding the papers in his hand up slightly. “Nothing she's not allowed to have will enter the Presidential Palace.”

Well, it's rare, but your medication gave you an allergic reaction. Yea…it gave you a bad cause of hives, which you had to get some antihistamines for. So, you couldn't take the cholesterol medication.

Your husband was livid that the statin gave you hives. He even threatened to have the doctor's head on a silver platter for malpractice, but you managed to calm him down enough not to kill poor Dr. Murphy. That doctor should be thanking his lucky stars that you have such a strong hold on your deranged husband, President Coriolanus Snow, otherwise he'd be pushing up daisies right now.

Since the cholesterol medication is off the table, you have to manage it all on your own with a strict diet. A diet that Coryo's also eating, despite the fact that he's as healthy as a horse.

It means a lot to you that your husband's supporting your journey to get healthier. That he eats the same foods as you and won't let anything you can't have come into your home. Not many husbands are so devoted, but yours is.

But, that also means that dinner parties have a strict menu now to. Because President Snow's making everyone-

EVERY-FUCKING-ONE

that enters the Presidential Palace for a gala or dinner party eat your family's special diet.

Mhm…

He's not having you get sick on his watch by accidentally eating one of your ‘bad’ foods that can make your cholesterol skyrocket.

Coriolanus needs you to get healthy so that you can start thinking about having a baby. Well, you've been together for so many years now, it's the only logical step. But before that can happen he wants to make sure that your cholesterol and iron levels are at a good reading.

He's so supportive and you're so grateful for him.

“Thank you, Coryo, for doing this diet with me and for just being such a good husband while I've been dealing with my health issues.” You tell your husband one night during dinner.

Your husband always returns to the residential wing of the Presidential Palace for mealtimes now. He feels it's his duty to make sure you're eating healthy and the only way to do that is to share meals with you all the time.

Coryo pauses in stabbing his vegetables with a fork, only to tell you, “My darling rose, you don't have to thank me for wanting you well. For wanting nothing but the best for my love.”

“I know, but not all husbands are like you and I just wanted you to know that I'm grateful for everything.”

Reaching across the table to grab your hand, the president smiles that special smile he only reserves for you. “You're everything to me. Made me love again when I never thought I'd be able to.” Coryo's icy blue eyes were twinkling as he admitted, “I'm completely lost without you, my love. I'll always be by your side to support you because I need you to be healthy and at your best.”

Your husband's words really touched your heart. To the public your husband's a cold, stoic, firm leader. But to you he lets down his guard, shows you a tender side. He's also a very devoted man to have as a life partner.

Coryo's been by your side during all of your hard times. Like during the times I'm University that you had some very bad spats and falling outs with some of your friends via social media. He's your biggest supporter, but hearing that he needs you by his side because you make him a better man just makes you swoon.

So, it seems that you both need each other. Perhaps that's why your love works so well. You make his heart beat and prevent it from rotting while he makes sure that you're healthy, both mentally and physically.

And right now you might be a little unwell, but you'll get better. With Coryo's love and support you'll be better in no time.

Tags: @kuroosbby001 @purriteen @poppyflower-22 @meetmeatyourworst @whipwhoops @bxtchopolis @readingthingsonhere @savagenctzen @ryswritingrecord @erikasurfer @tulips2715 @universal-s1ut @thesmutconnoisseur @squidscottjeans @sudek4l @wearemadeofstardust0 @mashiromochi @gracieroxzy @belcalis9503 @shari-berri @aoi-targaryen @whiteoakoak @spear-bearing-bi-witch @gisellesprettylies @loverandqueenofdragons @qoopeeya @mfnqueen1 @permanentlyexhaustedpigeon88 @v-love @swiftieblyth @joyfulyouthlover @harvey-malfoy @chxrrybomb22 @marvel-hiddles-stark @xjinnix @devils-blackrose @zombicupcake3 @jacesvelaryons @tempt-ress

[seulszn]

WHAT’S GOING ON IN HAITI 🇭🇹

Haiti is a country in the Caribbean and Latin America that has been exploited and oppressed by colonial powers and imperialist forces for centuries. Its people have suffered unimaginable horrors and atrocities. Haiti was the first Black republic in the world, and the second independent nation in the Americas and the first Latin American country It achieved its independence in 1804, after a successful slave revolt against France. Haiti's independence was a threat to the racist and capitalist system that dominated the world. It inspired other enslaved and oppressed people to fight for their freedom and dignity. Haiti was also punished for its independence by the colonial powers. It was forced to pay a huge indemnity to France, and faced trade embargoes, diplomatic isolation, and military interventions.

Haiti was also exploited by multinational corporations and NGOs, who profited from its cheap labor, natural resources, and humanitarian aid. They also imposed their agendas and policies on the Haitian people, undermining their sovereignty and democracy. Haiti was also devastated by natural disasters, such as earthquakes ( a earthquake they are still recovering from that happened in 2010 and then a earthquake that happened in 2021 that killed 1,419 people) hurricanes, and floods, which worsened its already dire situation. Haiti was also victimized by diseases, such as cholera, malaria, and COVID-19, which ravaged its population and health system. The diseases were often introduced or exacerbated by foreign actors, such as the UN peacekeepers who brought cholera to Haiti in 2010. Haiti was also marginalized and silenced by the mainstream media, which portrayed it as a hopeless and helpless case, ignoring its history, culture, and achievements. The media also spread misinformation and stereotypes, fueling racism and stigma.

Haiti was also betrayed and abandoned by its allies and neighbors, who turned a blind eye to its plight, or worse, contributed to its misery. The United States of America, in particular, has a long history of meddling and undermining Haiti's sovereignty and stability. Taking 500,000 dollars from Haitian banks and still collecting money. The United States of America has invaded, occupied, and intervened in Haiti numerous times, imposing its political and economic interests. It has also exploited Haiti's labor and resources, and blocked its development and trade. sugar refining, flour milling, and cement and textile manufacturing, clothing, scrap metal, vegetable oils, dates and cocoa are all things given to other countries by Haiti. The United States of America has also supported and funded the Core Group, a coalition of foreign powers that has interfered in Haiti's internal affairs, manipulating its elections, constitution, and government. The United States of America has also failed to protect the human rights and dignity of the Haitian people, both in Haiti and in the US. It has deported and detained thousands of Haitian refugees and asylum seekers, and discriminated and criminalized them.

Here are a list of countries who agreed to help the United States and Canada evade Haiti:

Germany

France (the same country that we had to pay just to be free)

Benin

Jamaica

Kenya

Yes I am Haitian my dad side is from Haiti. My fathers family moved up here to Seattle because Haitian was going through a small silent genocide and have been since they have been free from France in 1804, France took my countries money and told them that they have to pay reparations just for existing and they had to pay France just to be free from the French. And then America jumps onto the bandwagon and decides to take billions of dollars from Haiti. Haiti was once the richest country but became the most poorest because of ignorance.

My people are being killed everyday just for speaking out against their government, my people are being killed because nobody was their for them when the 2010 and the 2021 earthquake happened because “Haiti is a bad country and helping them won’t do anything” and they are still recovering from that to this very day. Families are being displaced, the violence is getting worse, innocent people are dying and are fighting trying to stay alive, women and children are being r$ped and kidnapped. I have family that live in Haiti that I lost all contact with because they are fighting everyday, and who knows if they are even alive.

Here are some important links to help you get a better understanding on what’s going on in Haiti and stuff to donate to

Donations:

Haitian Health foundation

Partner in Health: Haiti

Hope For Haiti

Haiti Aid

Haiti Children

Haiti Twitter Link for More Donations. P2 P3

Videos

FYI a lot of these videos are from last year but a lot of them speak really well on what is always going on and why they are going through it

Haiti Debt

What is Happening in Haiti

Haiti and the Rice

Listen Part 2

Free These countries as well

What we want to free in Haiti

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TAKE THE TIME OUT OF YOUR DAY TO AT LEAST LOOK AT THESE LINKS. For the sake of My dad and the sake of my family I want to see them happy they wanna go home but won’t be able to until Haiti is free I will update this if I need to and please Like, comment, reblog anything is appreciated

[deathbyathousandspiders]

HELL–BOUND.

— chapter one.

mcu!peter parker | zombie–apocalypse au.

IN WHICH you’re the last hope to saving the world from HYDRA’s destructive zombie outbreak.

✨masterlist.✨

1.9k.

“You were born for this.” The words were tattooed on your existence, handwritten on your destiny. “We made you for this.” And your fate was embroidered with such words, such purpose, even as your footsteps echoed on the ashes of humanity. The last remaining remnants that society existed were crushed beneath your leather boots, and broken along the cracking pavement. 

It had been four weeks since the outbreak. Four weeks since you’d been kidnapped by HYDRA; since you’d been separated from the avengers, since the death of Steve Rogers and since the downfall of America. The rest of the world was slowly catching flame with the fire that HYDRA started, withering away at the mercy of people who were stupid enough to try and fly out to salvation. 

But this virus wasn’t a disease, it was a creation. These infected people weren’t able to be cured, they needed to be stopped. And the only person who could stop it kept trekking on the pavement, white knuckles on a gun and a backpack. 

The fate of the world rested in that backpack, in your brain, in your blood. And you didn’t even give yourself time to process. You'd been running for days.

Natasha’s words still rang through your head like some kind of broken record, a senseless beacon of hope you tried to make some sense of. She’d come to free you, to inform you of the state world currently laid in. “If we get separated, I’ll find you.” She’d used the gravest tone you’d ever heard her muster. “And if you get lost, meet me in Massachusetts.”

You never would’ve thought that she’d be the one to get lost. To sacrifice herself just to get you out, and you knew why. You also knew you’d find her. You had to, needed to, or she’d find you. You’d find each other. Somehow, someway, soon, you'd be reunited. It was only a matter of time. 

But that was a week ago. 

Thank God you made it out, yet you were anything but hopeful. You could tell this was only the beginning. The start of something gut—wrenchingly inhumane. You were nearly out of New York, trekking on foot to Massachusetts like she’d told you to. Driving would put you at too much risk right now, especially when trying to journey alone. This helped you to better navigate your surroundings. 

Hearing the low glottaled groan of an infected, you craned your head in the direction. They were stuck beside a tree, webs restraining them to the trunk and their body deteriorating as the hours passed. The stench of their corpsing complexion alone was lethal. Still, you knew what you had to do. 

Aiming your gun, you kept your distance. Loading, squinting an eye, and firing like HYDRA was right all along: you were born for this. You made a clean shot, putting the victim out of their misery and continuing to trek along the ruins of a road. 

Until you heard a twig snap behind you. 

Your instincts were too fast as you loaded and aimed your gun once again, turning on your heel behind you to find yourself staring at a familiar face. Your eyes widened, lowering your gun only a little. 

“Peter Parker?” It was the first time you’d spoken in days. The words felt wrong on your tongue, and seeing him was something you weren’t sure what to make of. 

He looked older, matured, aged. Aged by the things he had to endure when the world ended; matured by the things he had to do to protect people, to witness the losses he did. He was older, in experience, in life, and in the days he knew were numbered. 

His hands were raised, but his eyes told you that he knew you wouldn’t shoot him. You were classmates, after all. Teammates, Avengers. Something more. You should’ve felt relief to have seen him, and part of you did. But the other part of you drove the actions that led you to put your gun in its holster at your hip and pace towards him. Peter stayed where he was as you slapped him across the face. Your blood boiled with rage. 

And he just let it. 

“This is your fault!” You spat at him, fighting the urges to punch him, to hug him, but even you knew that anger would get you nowhere; even you knew a huge part of you was undeniably grateful to see him alive. Unharmed. 

His jaw clenched and he’d finally averted his eye contact. Peter knew you were right, even as outlandish as the accusation was. “Y/N, please..” His voice was softer than you remembered it being, perhaps because of how apologetic his tone was. It almost thawed your anger. It almost reminded you that perhaps things weren’t as grim as you’d begun to believe. You couldn’t let it, though. 

Your fist raised to throw a punch. A roar far off in the distance ceased your actions. Your whole body froze, and Peter’s did, too. Cold blood and a trembling fist to your side, and you looked to Peter for a directive out of this. 

He grabbed your hand without hesitation, leading you into the forest beside you. Not a word was said. You were silent, invisible to your surroundings. Cutting through overgrown greenery, and stepping over fallen branches and knee–high grass. Peter led you past trees and bushes, over rotting bodies and patches of dry dirt, until you got to a twenty foot gate randomly placed in the middle of it. 

Like procedure, he placed his thumb on a touch screen and the gate opened, programmed to only open up a crack so he could squeeze through, and thus you behind him. The gate closed less than a second after you were through it, and just beyond it was a bolted door. 

Peter dropped your hand, unlocking the door and helping you inside. This must have been where he’d been resigning since the last time you saw him. He, too, had been taken by HYDRA when you were. He, too, had been worked and experimented on, just the same as you. And he, too, wasn’t a stranger to the way the two of you led the world to its demise. 

Did he know the part he played in all of this, though? Truly?

Silence reigned over the two of you as you calmed down, and Peter led you through the bunker he had been living in. There were walls of canned food, loads of weapons, working technology, and piles of papers. He’d been writing, documenting. 

Perhaps, he’d been alone. 

Peter was the first to break the silence. “Are you hungry?” He’d noticed you staring. “Cold? Want a change of clothes?” Even when the world had gone to shit, he still knew how to be a good host. Even when he knew you were upset with him, he knew how to make you feel comfortable. Seen. 

It took you back to moments before everything happened. Before everything changed. It brought back memories of a world you now only knew in slumber, things almost too painful to think about in waking moments. 

Taking a breath, you turned to face him. “Are you living here alone?” You ignored his questions. Typical. The query ached in your throat, you had to ask it. “Are there– umm.. Are there any of us left besides–”

“This is Natasha’s place.” He knew who you were trying to ask about. You watched the way he turned on a heater in the middle of the room. How his shoulders hung lower the deeper in thought he got, how many seconds were in between his answer and the realization that it might just be the three of you left. “I don’t know who’s left. Besides you and me, and Nat.”

And that’s when you realized the part she was playing in this; she had been protecting Peter, the same way that she’d been protecting you. The two of you were merely kids, after all. Clinging to the hope of getting back to a world where you could get college degrees, and they would mean something. 

You walked further into the room, following the warmth as it poured into the space. “When was the last time you saw her?” The rage you’d felt towards Peter just moments prior had already begun to thaw, already losing sight on where the anger came from. You were more focused, more worried, about Nat right now.

He sat down on a chair in the space, tapping his finger on the arm of it and bouncing his leg as he pondered. “The last I saw her, she was on her way to get you.”

That realization made your heart stop. Your feet glued to the floor, and your whole body froze. It seemed like Peter’s body caught whatever sensation of panic flooded yours. He froze, too. 

“Peter.. That was a week ago.” The words fell heavy from your lips, like the fate of the world was tied to them. And it was. 

He stared back at you, not daring to break the eye contact. Whether it was to provide comfort, or to better read your expression. “I know.” Even he understood the weight of this. The weight of whether Natasha was still alive, safe. Or worse. 

You looked at him, taking a breath. Realizing you were quick to your anger earlier, and realizing that maybe Peter didn’t know what role he played in this. Regret put you in a chokehold, the bitterness of death taking reign on the tension in the room. It stole any kind of wishful thinking you’d had, and made its dire presence known by sounding off in the ticking of a clock—hand. 

Grabbing your backpack, you went for the folder you’d kept inside. You fumbled to grab the papers, handing them over to Peter. “We need to find her.” 

A puzzled look danced across his face in the light. He wasn’t entirely sure what you were getting at, or what you handed him, which meant you were right. He had no idea what part he played in this. “We need to find her, and we need to get the fuck out of this continent.”

He looked through the papers, eyebrows pressing together as he processed the writings. “Y/N, what the fuck is this?”

“Did she tell you what our plan was?” You asked him, trying not to let your anxiety boil over. You needed to keep your composure. “Did she ever tell you what we need to do?”

“What the fuck.. What the fuck am I looking at?” He ignored your question. 

You looked at Peter and took a deep breath. Now wasn’t the time to panic, you knew it wasn’t. “Peter, I know how to stop this outbreak.”

Instantly, he met your eyes from where he sat, his entire expression changing the tone it directed at you. Misunderstanding morphed to confusion, curiosity. Hope. “How?” He forced the words out, needing to know the answer. 

“We need to find Natasha, and get to Wakanda.” You told him, hugging your knees closer to your chest. “When we get to Wakanda, they’ll know what to do.”

Peter wasn’t satisfied with that. “And then what? How does the world just go back to normal?” His questions were urgent, but not judgmental. He didn’t ask with a tone to attack you. In fact, the weight they gained told you he might’ve caught on to what you were about to say. “How do we cure these people?”

Anxiety ran a course through your system, gnawing at your insides and sending a chill down the length of your body. You stilled, minus the fidgeting of your fingers. Your breaths became trembled, and you procrastinated your answer. “We have to get me to Wakanda.. so that they can kill me.”

And the whole world went quiet. 

[radiance1]

New idea.

The entire world has been turned into animal like creatures. They still walk on two legs (most of them) and they're still human in form really. Some have only ears, some have only a tail, some have fur, some has the eyes.

Some even have all three.

There was a lot of outrage about this, mostly from shock, fear of the unknown and sudden change. Unfortunately, the government couldn't do anything about it, nor could the Justice League.

It was just... natural as it was unnatural.

In fact, it even seemed to be beneficial to everyone. Some adapted better to certain climates, some developed remarkable better immune systems than they did before and it seemed certain types of parasites and diseases just stopped affecting them entirely.

All in it, it was a beneficial change, one that the government saw no need to interfere with or ask the Justice League to find a way to revert this change.

Even if everyone needed to adjust to the sudden... shift.

Somehow, by no grace of will of his own, Vlad found himself with basically everything. He has the ears, the tail, the chest fur and fur along his arms and legs and he even has the eyes.

Red. Eyes at that.

Now you see, this wouldn't be that much of a problem actually.

If this mysterious shift in his biology didn't deem him a bunny. A prey animal and, nothing against bunnies, personally, he just wished he was given something more...

Intimitading.

Like Lex Luthor-as much as he loathed to admit it-, who became a fox of all things. Honestly, a perfect example of his character if Vlad had to say anything, his cunning and deceitfulness.

Let alone the man's intellect...

Although, it did look a tad odd to see furred appendages on that man's rather... shiny head.

Such things aside, Vlad has not attended a gala in a mighty long while after the change and he already knew it would look like he was too off put by his change, or embarrassed by what animal he was given and yes, he was a tad bit embarrassed about it but unlike them he was working on a cure.

Something that provided, perhaps unsurprisingly, zero results.

Vlad did not take the government's choice lying down, he believed himself smarter, superior to whatever they have working away for them in their labs, and proved that he could create something that would give him back his human status.

Well, half-human, but that was besides the point.

He failed. So what did he do? Figure out how exactly it affected his biology, special case that he was only 3 in the world and, contrary to his expectations... it went very well? While his animal traits did indeed follow him into his ghost form, he could shift until he appeared exactly how he was before.

Small mercies. His identity wouldn't be any harder to realize than it was before, thanks to this.

He was so caught up in this, in fact, that he was surprised when Lex Luthor came out of hiding a month ago. Honestly, he would've thought he wouldn't have seen the light of day for at least a few years. So obviously, Vlad had to come out of hiding as well, and even if Vlad disliked his bunniness, it was an infinitely smaller feeling than the urge to cause Lex Luthor pain and misery.

It wasn't exactly a surprise to see the little badger being, well, a badger. A bit to see that he basically shared every trait Vlad had, if only in badger form.

But that isn't the point. The event he needed to attend-to spit (metaphorically) in Lex's stupid face- needed him to have a plus one or multiple, so what better person to go with him than his godson?

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 407: Wait Why Are You Running Away

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan figured out how to control his quirk upgrade and was totally chill and normal about it. Definitely not terrifying at all. He actually spent the entire chapter smiling and laughing like the wholesome little boy he is. I don’t know why Kid For One is so freaked out about it. He even politely introduced himself using his childhood nickname. Clearly he just wants to be friends with you, KFO!

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “sorry to keep you waiting, here’s the AFO and Yoichi flashback you ordered at long last” and proceeds to serve a nightmarish stew of HUMAN MISERY and RATS and STABBING and CARNAGE and SO MUCH MURDER and THE SINGLE MOST FUCKED-UP CASE OF CODEPENDENCY ANYONE HAS EVER WRITTEN. I was not even remotely prepared for any of this, and if anyone else claims that they were, I will call you a liar to your face. If this chapter had a mouth it would scream. Or just sob, ceaselessly and uncontrollably. I’m really glad Horikoshi is on break next week because that man needs to take a fucking nap. My god.

okay WOW

anyone else read the first two words and just immediately say to themselves, “oh okay, so it’s gonna be one of those chapters”? I mean, I guess we were due for a darker chapter after last week’s Kacchan Comedy Tour. but idk, I just wasn’t expecting “homeless sick prostitute with a drinking problem” levels of dark

AND SHE’S PREGNANT?!

what exactly is this manga rated again? doesn’t this backstory seem just a little bit raw for the impressionable kiddos??

has anyone actually checked in on Horikoshi recently? you know, just to make sure he is okay??

what a fun and wholesome manga this is

the lil baby arm covered in blood with the AFO hole on the palm. lying next to the dead mom hand. what an image to sear into our minds. I guess it’s been a while since he killed any dogs. gotta keep us on our toes somehow

also wasn’t expecting AFO and Yoichi to be twins! that puts an interesting spin on their relationship, because it’s usually a closer bond than even regular siblings. especially with all of that delightful shared trauma from a young age!!

yes, exactly

ohhhh this chapter is gonna hurt me, isn’t it. okay. ooooooookay. let’s do this

OH I’M SORRY, THERE’S MORE?!

Horikoshi my dude. you do realize that their mom dying in childbirth and the two of them just barely surviving and growing up as street orphans would have already been MORE than tragic enough, backstory-wise. you did not have to turn this into a freaking horror show with RATS TRYING TO EAT THEIR NEWBORN SELVES jesus christ

and THAT’S where you chose to put a one year timeskip?!

what the fuck am I reading here, you guys. no please tell me, I am actually desperate to understand

so the narrator is saying that some of the quirks manifested later in life, in “pubescent and pre-pubescent stages”, which is interesting because it’s the first time I can recall hearing about someone actually manifesting a quirk that late. maybe Deku’s old OFA cover story was more plausible than I realized

anyway so eventually it occurred to everyone that they should maybe freaking study this shit, idk. and eventually the researchers concluded that the superpowers came from a new gene that apparently isn’t human. and upon hearing that, society apparently lost its freaking mind. which is fascinating to me because it implies that the turning point wasn’t actually the superpowers themselves, but the realization of what it meant

like, so they were apparently fine with it when they thought it was a “mysterious disease”, but somehow it hit different when they learned it wasn’t actually a sickness at all, but instead the Next Step in Evolution. and it became an “us vs them” thing, as opposed to a “we have to cure these poor people” thing. damn

anyway so now Japan is a dystopia and we’re cutting to a big crowd of merc-looking dudes who are getting ready to attack some “meta freaks”, how lovely

but who is this figure in the shadows

I ask politely, as if it wasn’t already beyond obvious that this is AFO about to wreck some people’s shit

ohhhhh my god lmao

hopefully Katsuki and Deku can take the present day AFO out before he winds up looking like this. because this little fella is clearly demonic and idk if anyone can stop him

you all don’t understand. you need to run the fuck away right now

oh shit it’s already too late for them

it’s too late for any of us. it’s over. it’s all fucking over

((((；゜Д゜)))

AFO I am putting the manga down. I am backing away slowly with my hands in the air. I mean you no harm. please for the love of god have mercy

holy

“you see, we told you he wasn’t human” okay Scientific Research Group, you know what?? you win this round I guess

“HE WAS LITERALLY EVIL FROM BIRTH” HORIKOSHI SERIOUSLY ARE YOU OKAY??

HE WAS BORN AN ARROGANT BABY is literally the most terrifying sentence I have ever read

what the entire fuck

it’s a gorgeous sunny mid-November afternoon outside my window. but no matter how hard it tries, the light cannot reach this place

what kind of moron would throw a can of soda at him. officially the stupidest person we have ever seen in this manga

OH MY GOD OF COURSE IT’S HIM LMAO

(ETA: how come baby Yoichi has clothes that fit him perfectly but baby AFO is just stomping around wearing a tablecloth.)

BABY YOICHI. OH MY GOD. HOW THE HELL DID YOU GROW UP TO BE SANE AND KIND AND GOOD. THAT’S MY QUESTION THAT I NEED ANSWERED RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE LITERALLY A MIRACLE. YOU ARE AN IMPOSSIBILITY, DO YOU KNOW THAT

small and weak, but also so, so cute. all of the cuteness genes went straight to him. no wonder AFO was jealous

(ETA: just want to press pause for a second to speculate about what type of twins AFO and Yoichi are, since it has some relevance to the story, and especially to the OFA/AFO quirk lore. so! at first glance the two of them would appear to be fraternal twins, just based on the fact that they have very different appearances, and also the fact that Yoichi doesn’t have the AFO quirk – no holes in his hands, etc. identical twins are born from the same fertilized egg, so in theory they would both have the same sequence of DNA, which means Yoichi would have had the same quirk as AFO. but that doesn’t appear to be the case. so all of that points to them being fraternal, not identical.

on the other hand, there is one piece of evidence in this chapter that does support them being identical twins, and that’s the fact that per the narration, AFO absorbed most of the nutrients from their mother. a few minutes of google fu informed me that this condition is relatively rare, and only happens in cases where two twins share a placenta, which typically is only the case for identical twins. HOWEVER, for what it’s worth, there have also been rare instances where two fraternal twin placentas fuse together and become a single placenta. AND this apparently also increases the chances of one of the twins gaining more of the nutrients and causing the other twin to have a lower birth weight.

so based on the evidence here, my conclusion is that the two of them are most likely fraternal twins with a case of placental fusion. besides, you can’t tell me that stealing his baby brother’s placenta while the two of them are literally still in the womb doesn’t sound like exactly the type of BS that fetus!AFO would pull, lol.)

HEY!?!

okay?!?!?! well to be fair he did throw that soda at him

oh my god this is so fucked up. in like the best and worst way possible

I genuinely couldn’t ask for a better AFO backstory. it’s so incredibly twisted, and you actually do feel sorry for him. or at least I do. but it’s also beyond clear that this kid was FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL REASON right from the get go. zero goodness in him. literally doesn’t see other people as people. sees them as possessions only. things to rule over. not other thinking, feeling human beings. and that includes his own little brother

but. even if it’s not actually what I would call love, there’s still... attachment, there. it’s the closest he can get to actually caring about someone. guh. just, somehow they have both managed to humanize him, and at the same time made him less human than ever. this manga, man. this fucking manga, though

lmao and here we go. Captain Hero

you know, all those times that I made fun of AFO for not knowing how to read, I never suspected that the twist in his backstory would be that he LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO READ dfksjdlfkjslkdf

but seriously though. because Yoichi appears to be self-taught, and I can’t see AFO having the patience for that, and CLEARLY no one else was around to teach him, sooooo...

oh my goodness it’s actually getting wholesome up in here

what a good fucking boy. poor AFO. fuck me, I can’t help it. it’s not your fault you’re the world’s greatest monster you poor bastard

now we’re cutting to THREE YEARS LATER. okay

is he going to declare war on the glowing baby

typical teenager concerned about nothing but likes and view counts. AFO you would be so much happier if you stopped worrying about all of that and just focused on your own growth

oh, lol. well that was quick

(ETA: r.i.p. Damien.)

“this guy had more instagram followers than me. so I killed him” honey. sweetie pie. you need therapy

omfg

all this time I was wondering who AFO’s middle school lit teacher was who had failed so spectacularly at teaching him reading comprehension. and it was YOICHI ALL ALONG. omg

“and, presumably, that’s how it always was and always will be.” dude. can you imagine listening to AFO’s oral book report on A Tale of Two Cities. “ahem. it was the Best of Times. the end” buddy noooooooo

it was at that moment when Yoichi knew, etc. etc.

oh my GOD I scrolled down to the next panel right after this one and I just IMMEDIATELY DIED LAUGHING

“WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID” ffffffffffffffff I fucking can’t omfg

NOW THIS HUSSY IS STEALING HIS BROTHER AWAY FROM HIM NOOOOOOO

HE’S HIS!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!!!

oh my god the hands. so wait, is this just the standard symbolic BnHA handholding, or are there More Levels To This. when exactly did Yoichi pass OFA on to Kudou. like is that why the sudden close-up and all that? omg

WHAT!!!!

OH THAT’S THE END, HUH? THAT’S THE END RIGHT THERE, AND THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS. I SEE. OKAY THEN. EXCUSE ME WHILE I PUT MY LAPTOP DOWN AND GO INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND SCREAM INTO A PILLOW

oh my god. and break next week too. this is what you guys have been dealing with this entire time huh. I understand your feelings now. godfuckingdammit lmao

[dovithedarklord]

Stucked - Part 7

You're trapped in a game and a new threat is lurking.

..............................................

Pairing: John "Soap" MacTavish x reader, Simon "Ghost" Riley x reader, König x reader

Tags: Mentions of death, Mentions of blood and gore, Blood and Violence, Sexual Scenes, Alternate Universe, No use of Y/N, Not Beta Read, AFAB Reader

Trigger Warning: Contains blood and gore, violence, injury, some body horror, and drugging. Please, keep that in mind!

⚠️MDNI⚠️

......................................................

Author's Note

The climax of the story is getting closer and closer, and now you meet someone who knows what kind of place you're stuck in.

Hello!

Sorry for the long delay, but I was finally able to get back to writing! The story is slowly coming to an end and the last important character enters.

Have fun! :D

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

.................................

The eerie silence of the forest penetrates every unprotected pore of your cold body like a latent sickness, as if the ominous uneventfulness would be a precursor to a deadly disease that can push you into a sick bed festering with ulcers at any moment. And you know that this calmness is only a fleeting mirage, because in every dark corner, in every hidden hole, something terrible can be lurking, which can ruin the unsettling ease with which you fled from your pursuers. Even though you're surrounded by the soft breeze of the night, the sighs of the branches dancing in the wind passing through the trees, the frightened shuffling noises of the feet of animals coming to life under the dead leaves, and even though the owls try to lull your suspicions with their melancholic songs, you already know this horrible prison all too well. And thanks to the last few hours, you won't make the mistake of trusting in its mercy again. Because in this fever dream, there is no benevolence, no compassion, only survival. And you do everything to win, because there is no other way out.

The time you spent wandering in the woods in the pitch-black night seems endless, and even though you know you're far away from the lake and the deformed creatures that turned the water into a putrid graveyard, the dull stabbing pain in your lungs reminds you of with what hurry you managed to disappear from the watchful eyes. You were just a hair's breadth away from being caught in the violent embrace of a beast, and if you hadn't found the pearls, you wouldn't have had a chance to make that daring escape with which you threw yourself into the thick of the forest before. 

If you had any hopeful foolishness left in you, you'd think the game had given up on its cruel pursuit of fun and finally presented you with a generous gift. But you know that this goddamn purgatory feeds on the sweet nectar of suffering and will do everything to squeeze every last drop of luscious misery out of your flesh and bones. And as it flashes before your mind's eye, how the red and purple stains of the damaged blood vessels drawn into the tissues disappeared from your leg following the cool caress of the beads, you become more and more certain that it was all just a morbid coincidence. Maybe even this nightmare-like torture chamber can make a mistake, because you doubt that it offered you this miracle voluntarily. Like when a bug appears in a video game, causing the world embedded in pixels to slip for a moment, and through the distorted chaos, the system reveals secrets that you should have never seen. And maybe it did. Maybe this diabolical place is finally starting to crumble under the weight of its own evil. 

But you know that now is not the time to ponder how the well-known hell will turn into a completely new kind of horror, because you only need to take a look at the map resting in your hand to know what your task is. On the yellowed page, the unknown gray building stands out with such definite outlines, as if someone had painted it there with liquid metal, and for a minute the sharp lines of the rough sketch seem to dance in front of your tired eyes. While trekking through the wild vegetation, you had time to decide where your path should lead you next, and although the knife-like anxiety in the depths of your stomach relentlessly pumps the warning acid of uneasiness into your limbs, you're aware that this new location didn’t appear without purpose. There's something there that makes this place important enough to have a prominent spot on the map, and that's enough reason for you to risk another disastrous adventure. After all, you have nothing to lose, right? A new killer, a new death, another damn mark on your skin, but a chance to find an exit. And at this point, you're ready to seize anything to get out of here.

It's almost cartoonishly comical, the way a small blood-red line on the stained page traces your journey so far, like a path sketched up with a crayon in the middle of the splotch-like woods, and this small detail only makes you even more certain that you're stuck in a grotesque game. The system keeps track of your progress, and although the knowledge that you cannot hide from the invisible gaze only increases the uncomfortable tightness in your chest, for once this atrocity has at least some benefits. For the dull edge of the gray building emerges with an uncanny glow from behind the dense curtain of foliage and branches, like a glimmering fragment of the imagination that may fade away at any moment. Even though the game follows your every move, it helped you to reach this point, and you're terribly grateful for it.

You keep your eyes fixed on the slowly approaching house with an unbroken focus as you carefully thread through the thicket of dry bushes, and it’s only due to random luck that you catch on your periphery those tiny, uncertain little blobs that rest serenely on one of the nearby trees. And when your brain finally registers the stimuli, you suddenly halt in your march, as if an unknown force had severed the nerve fibers wiring your muscles. There is something sickeningly familiar in the way the small human-like figures sway between the withered branchlets, and it dawns on you a few seconds later why your mind thought it was important to stop here. Because you saw the same dolls made of sticks at the shrine, where the map was waiting for you, and no matter how much this is a sure sign that you're moving in the right direction, you're unable to banish the instinctive sinister feeling stirring in your brain cells. At first, you thought that maybe they had erected that hideous monument in honor of the tentacled creature that lived in the lake, but now you know that they wanted to pay homage to something completely different. And whatever that unknown entity is, it doesn't bode well for you if teeth pulled from jaws, brown with blood, and clumps of hair lead to its grace.

But a completely new kind of confusion comes over you when you shift your attention from the sprawling tangle of dead twigs and finally spot the boot lying on the ground, almost hidden under the dry crown of curled leaves surrounding it. Perhaps you could chalk it up to a morbid coincidence, a background element without meaning, which fades into oblivion eventually, but the game has engraved in your mind with blood and pain that nothing here is just an insignificant detail. And as you step closer and examine the forgotten footwear, you discover those tiny, white shards on the faded leather covered in muddy dirt, which shine under the filtering moonlight like glitter. However, there is something quite unsettlingly velvety in the way the crushed pieces stand out from the grimy material, and as your vision finally sharpens enough to recognize the tiny red specks between the zig-zagged edges, you know what sits so innocently on the surface of the boot. Small pieces of grounded bones, which cover the abandoned object as if someone sprinkled it with granulated sugar. And this makes your stomach turn with such an elemental force that you stagger back from the horrible surprise, as if the very sight of it could breathe death into your cells. Because however that bone dust ended up on that unfortunate shoe, you don't want to suffer the same fate as its owner.

However, you’re jolted out of your stupor by an unexpected crack, which deafeningly pierces into the motionless quite between the tree trunks, and you crumple the map deep into your pocket with reflexive panic and turn in the direction of the noise, as if someone was pulling you on a string. And a completely impossible relief ripples through you, loosening the tennis ball size knot your stomach has shrunk into, as you find yourself face to face with an old woman, who freezes with her wicker basket full of chopped-up wood clutched to her chest, her face pale with a look of horrified shock like yours. You see the fright reflected in her eyes, as she looks you over slowly, and the thought arises in you that maybe you yourself might not present a more inviting sight than the boots. Because although the mementos of your wounds, colored with bruises, have disappeared, your dirty, wet clothes clung to your battered, paralyzed body, and at this moment you're quite sure that with your eyes widened with fear, you must remind her of a trapped wild animal.

A torturous, tense moment of stillness passes, and when you see the frail, worn-out old figure relax, anxiety releases its grip on your insides as well, and you let out the breath that has been trapped in the supple prison of your lungs with painful tension until now.

"Oh my… are you all right, sweetheart?" Comes the sincere question in a strangely accented voice, and the tenderness in her words hits you completely unprepared. And although an intimate, motherly concern moves between her features, as her thinning eyebrows meet under her gray hair with worry, you still can't suppress the flicker of doubt that whispers from the back of your skull to be careful. You don't dare to trust anything anymore, and a stranger rarely means good in this damn world. Yet, your tortured soul yearns for the tiniest spark of humanity with such pitiful force, that you involuntary let your spine loosen the painful stiffness that resides in it.

"I'm lost." You answer, carefully rolling the syllables on your tongue, savoring the caution that instinctively settles in your mouth and restrains your sociability. Although the woman seems defenseless, you already know how unnoticed a beast can hide behind the mask of sweet kindness. At best, she’s an insignificant NPC, an additional character who merely fills the void, who, like Pam and Rebecca, is condemned to eternal death, and waits unsuspectingly for the killer to appear to strip her of her aged flesh. And you want to hope that she's just a helpless puppet of the storyline and not another threat, because you want more than anything to have someone else suffer instead of you finally. Because you lost the compassion that would be appalled at this thought long ago.

"How about you come to my house?" She makes the timid offer, and as her gaze catches the thick layer of mud embedded in your T-shirt, you can see how her mouth curls into a line full of doubts. As if she would understand without asking any questions, that you've been through an endless hell that has soaked itself into your pores through the soft cotton, and can't be expressed with words. "I'll find you something warm to put on." She adds, and you feel the awareness with which she tries to dispel the restless rigidity radiating from her to not frighten you. As if she were talking to a trapped fawn, which would be able to take flight at the slightest thoughtless move, even if its shackles would flay its legs, trapped between the razor-sharp metal, alive in the process. And it makes you realize how pitiful it is, that the events of the never-ending night transformed you into a raw, pulsating nerve so easily. But you suspect that this is what has kept you alive until now.

Although the suspicion of the stranger has already settled into the depths of your consciousness, you still make yourself nod, because even if you don't know the woman and have no idea what might be hiding behind the defenseless exterior, you're aware that you're serving yourself as easy prey for the monsters in the forest.  And you know it's only a matter of time before they catch a scent and appear breathing down on your neck.

"Alright... Come on, I don't live far from here!" She motions towards the building resting in the distance with her head, and you immediately know where her home could be. And if you had doubts, now you're quite sure, you've become involved in a new storyline, no matter how accidental this unexpected meeting seems. The game can always surprise you with new horrors, but as merciless as this world is, it's also as predictable. Because it's addicted to its habits, and you have learned to interpret its hidden signs. There are no coincidences, only tools that lead to your doom. And if you were already on your way to another trouble, then you let yourself be lead into its open mouth.

She hesitates for a few seconds, waiting to see if you change your mind and retreat into the desolate depths of the forest, but when you continue to stare at her like statue frozen in place, she turns around with the ghost of a small smile on her face, and beckoning you with her knobby fingers, she aks you to follow her. And you join her a moment later, keeping that respectful distance that speaks more to the mistrust swirling in your belly than to the thoughtfulness you feel for her. Perhaps an onlooker would think that you're just a scared little girl tagging along with her in the maze of tree trunks, but you feel the energy slithering through your legs, ready to run off at the very first odd move. You may be a slow learner, but you could repeat this lesson even after waking up from a dream. Don't let yourself be fooled. Because you've outlined the ideal possibility, but even the whirlwind of your imagination cannot authentically paint the worst-case scenario for you.

After a few meters spent in wordless peace, as the last remnants of the wild vegetation, frozen from the autumn cold, disappears, the concrete building, for which you decided to drag yourself through the goddamn forest, emerges almost abnormally in the small clearing. It stands out from the dark foliage as strikingly as an old silver ring forgotten in a black velvet box, and there is something quite unsettling about the way the tiny windows stare down at you from the monotonous walls. Like hungry mouths, waiting for a victim that they can grind up with their glimmering glass teeth. And you notice, what grotesque similes your brain is making, but you're unable to suppress the voice in your head that tells you, that there is no one in this artificial world who would call this their home with peace of mind. Because the structure looks more like a slaughterhouse with its inhospitable, barren frame, on which the holes from the crumbling plaster and the dry carpet of faded lichens bordering them gape like scars left behind by smallpox. The building may have been standing here since the game's universe was created, and in light of this, it’s even more baffling to you why it appeared only now.

But you can't ponder on that now, because you reach the house, and the old woman hurries to the shabby entrance with an agility that belies her age, pushing in the thick wooden panel covered with flaking red paint with a light movement, and opens the door of her home to you with the same helpfulness with which she led you here until now. Even though she doesn't say a word, you still understand the gentle plea with which she invites you in, because you see the worried light dancing in her eyes, with which she examines the uncertainty glued onto your features. And you want to believe in this softness more than anything, but what helps your leaden legs move the most is the knowledge that you know you can't turn back. Because Johnny and Simon are out there looking for you, and even if you were to avoid them, you'd already delved into a new thread of events. And you fear how the game would punish you if you were to deny its generous gift. Therefore, gathering all your remaining composure, you force the faint curve of a weak smile into the corner of your mouth and head towards the interior of the house, fighting the instinctive feeling that makes it seem like you're walking straight through the entrance to the scene of your execution.

As you cross the threshold made of rickety boards, the characteristic smell of old houses snakes into your nose, the fusty stench of moisture that has soaked into the walls over the decades and the stale essence of powdery, old perfumes, which awakens nostalgia in you with an almost visceral force. And there is something extremely homely about the old chest of drawers, forgotten in the small hall, and about the lace tablecloth spread on the top of it, chewed by time, on which a bouquet of worn plastic flowers sits in a glass vase, like the last witnesses of a couple of long gone, sentimental memories. The old nick-nacks accumulated over the years rests in neat order, and even on the walls, the frames, covered with pale gold, hang with measured precision, with black and white photos of unknown people in them, testifying that perhaps, according to the story, the woman might not have lived here alone once. They looking into the camera with blank expressions on their grim faces, and you swear that they're staring into your soul with their dull, dot-like eyes.

And when the woman rushes past you towards the inside of the house, disrupts the thin layer of dust that settles on the worn surface of the furniture, and as the musty smell traveling with the tiny particles settles into your nose, it occurs to you that, despite the homely atmosphere, it's as if no more than a few stray ghosts would actually live here. And your subconscious warns you about this small intuition, which makes you sneak after your host with careful cat-like steps, like a curious child who knows she's straying into an area that adults have told her a thousand times not to venture near to.

The lamp hanging from the ceiling is the only source of light as you enter the kitchen after the the old woman, and the light bulb casts filmy, yellow rays from under the milk-like porcelain onto the battered furnishings of the little room. She’s already busying herself, and shoves chopped pieces of wood into the dilapidated stove, scaly with peeling white paint, glancing over her shoulder as she hears the shuffling of your shoes on the worn linoleum.

"Sit down, I'll make you some tea to warm you up!" She speaks up, and by now all uncertainty has disappeared from her voice, giving the impression that it was not a torn stranger, but an old friend who appeared in front of her humble abode in the middle of the night. And, as she digs out an ancient teapot from one of the cupboards, and the faucet turns on with a loud creak, as she steps to the sink and fills it with water, you wonder what will come next. Now you can't rely on your routine, with which you were able to tell exactly which breath followed the other in the cabin, and this creates an uncomfortable, gaping hole in your insides. And that sends a robotic rigidity into your limbs as you walk over to the table in the middle of the kitchen and settle down in one of the thick oak armchairs, because fear begins to twist in the bottomless pit that anxiety has opened in you, as your eyes scan the room for danger. You should feel bad that you're so persistently looking for a trap in the woman's hospitality, but you have experienced firsthand how big a mistake it is when you let yourself to be overconfident.

"A few minutes and it's done." She comments on her haste, and turning towards you, she leans against the shabby kitchen counter, finding you with her searching gaze again. Now that you have entered the scene of another dangerous mission, your consciousness automatically accepts the stimuli that your brain may have tried to push away until now. And you see the sparks of interest swimming through the pools of her eyes, but despite the soft expression still sitting on the worn face, the stress is too strong for you to let your guard down. You'd like to think that only your paranoia brings out this visceral suspicion, but you're smarter than that. "How did you get lost?" She formulates the completely legitimate question, and your ear once again discovers the accent that, despite the light tone, gives her words harshness. As if tiny little pebbles would be gurgling in her mouth, making every consonant flow out a little harder from her paper-thin lips. Maybe Russian?

"We just went for a walk with my friends. I lost them." You finally break your silence with a half-truth, which is just honest enough so that your tone is not colored by the sound of lies. You have no reason to tell her what happened during the endless torture of the past hours, and you have a gut feeling that it wouldn't help you if you mentioned to her what kind of monsters this demonic place has entwined your fate with.

And when the telltale shadows of doubt creep across the old face, you become quite sure that you have made the right decision. You can tell from the little quiver that makes the corner of her mouth twitch that she doesn't believe you, but there's just enough goodwill in her not to try to inquire further. You see how suddenly her throat jumps as she swallows the demanding questions, and you're quite sure that she knows exactly what happened to you. She must have resided in the middle of the forest long enough to know its every evil nook and cranny, and you doubt that her innocent facade is what has kept her alive. Whatever the purpose of this storyline, it is not a coincidence that she lives here in the middle of nowhere, and there is even less chance that it was thanks to some harmless tricks that helped her home to stay so undisturbed. This also raises a series of dangerous assumptions in you, and you can almost feel how the buzzing of suspicion in your head sharpens as a result.

A sudden whistle interrupts the thread of your thoughts sinking into ever darker pits, and the woman, breaking your silent examination, settles back into her caring role, turning to the teapot angrily steaming on the stove amid soft curses. And you take advantage of this to explore the hidden corners of the room, searching for small signs that can reveal what you're dealing with. It’s quite obvious that another important clue will be hidden here, and you have to do everything you can to find it, because you don't know how much time you have until the two men or another killer find you, one who has been lying dormant waiting for the opportunity to play with you until now.

And now that you take a closer look at the room, you discover more and more little details you missed when you wandered in here. You can see the touch of old hands in the order that resides in the small hole of the kitchen, but you can spot the silky blanket of spider webs that weave the plates decorated with flowers on the shelves, as if no one has used them for decades. There are rich bouquets of dried plants hung on nails on the wall, but below them, you can clearly make out the yellowed newspaper articles written in a language unknown to you, on which the same black and white people you saw in the hall look back at you. And when you squint and try to observe the figure emerging from under the withered flowers of one of the herbs, you see how a little boy, dressed in old-fashioned clothes, is cut through by the unknown mark, which almost decapitates him with the edges engraved with graphite. At first, the drawing may seem like a simple scribble, but you recognize the needle-sharp points of a star in it, as if someone had carved a grotesque crosshair there…

The knocking of the mug's porcelain jolts you out of your investigation, and you wince with the surprise of a small child caught in mischief, turning your gaze back to the woman, who takes her seat across from you with a much tighter smile than before. And the tenderness on her face turns into something completely cold, as if only habit would keep the friendly curl in the corners of her mouth in place, and the softness that used to be able to inspire sympathy in your soul has disappeared from them. Now her expression transforms into sharp lines, which are deepened into gloomy furrows by the yellow light filtering down from the lamp, as if would the woman transform into someone completely different in an instant. Someone you shouldn't be around.

"Drink up. It will help." She pushes the cup towards you, and you know it's not just your ears when you feel the impatient tone in her voice, from which the offer sounds more like an instruction than a well-meaning nagging. And you don't react for a tense moment, and despite the anxiety churning in your stomach, you try to keep your cool, because now you recognize the fleeting shadow that hides under the gentle warmth. Like a hawk waiting to strike, she follows your movements as you wrap your fingers around the handle of the mug, but she can no longer deceive you, because you've seen the same expression before. Although it's not Johnny's handsome face and the sparks of his sky-blue eyes that want to divert the suspicion that is scratching your insides, the disguise of an old woman feigning cordial concern would just as effectively put anyone's doubts to sleep. But she can put on any mask, you're already able to distinguish the vileness under the sickly sweet surface. And this woman wants to hurt you, you're sure of that.

Still, you pull the steaming beverage in front of you with almost automatic movements, trying with every cell not to let her figure out that you suspect something. You need her to reveal herself, because that's how you can get her to lead you to the clues that can get you out of here. There is something hidden in this damned house, and you feel it in your bones that it’s important to find out what it is. All your fake innocence seeps into the way you touch your mouth to the porcelain, and the luscious scent of herbs and fruits snakes into your nose. And although you don't feel the sting of poison in the steamy clouds rising from the tea, it fills you with a bad foreboding when the woman leans forward with artificial benevolence frozen on her face, watching with almost intrusive interest how you start sipping the hot liquid. And you feel more and more tense with each passing second, like an ant stuck under a magnifying glass, which has just begun to feel how the rays of the sun breaking through the lens burn its legs into charcoal stubs. And you see the dissatisfaction when you hesitantly lower the cup.

"Drink it all. You need it." She encourages you, almost cooing, and her accent is more reminiscent of an impatient mother who tries to dictate medicine to her protesting child with a barely controlled temper. Gentle, but just as much as boiling water forgotten under the lid. And you feel how the little hairs rise on the nape of your neck, as her glassy eyes fixate on you with unblinking persistence.

Uncertain silence settles in the tiny kitchen, which makes the saliva in your mouth thicken into molasses as you return the woman's stare. Under the flickering light of the old bulb, everything seems to change, and out of the corner of your eye, it looks as if the flowers painted on the wall would turn into wax, dripping off the plaster dirty from grease. But you’re unable to turn your gaze away from her, as she studies you with the immobility of a predator, and you have to forcefully suppress the trembling that awakes in your hands as you raise the mug to your lips and take another small sip. And the excited light that passes over her features does’t escape your attention for a minute, as she follows the almost painfully sweet liquid traveling down your throat. And now you're sure that no matter how harmless this elderly woman seems, evil is hidden under her frail frame. Because the pearls hidden in your pockets come to life with an almost warning glow, as the strange, bitter aftertaste sits on your taste buds, which the sugar has been able to suppress until now.

Under the pulsation of the little red spheres, the light buzz, that the brew wants to envelop your brain in, has no chance of spreading, but you know you have to pretend that she was successful, whatever she smuggled into your drink. Because there's a reason why she's trying to knock you out, and maybe if you make her believe that you let her trick you like an unsuspecting fool, then she'll reveal what she's up to. That's why you let the fatigue throbbing in your limbs creep onto the fibers of your muscles, numb with lactic acid, and you let the exhausted yawn loose that, now that you're finally resting, falls through your mouth sincerely. And you hear that satisfied little hum with which the woman finally leans back, when she assesses the unexpected force of the sleepiness washing over you.

"Perhaps it would be best if you stayed here for the night." She offers, and there is nothing to unsure about the way she presents her proposal to you. A selflessly offered opportunity, behind which lies a statement to which no opposition is expected. And it’s exactly this determination that dispels the previous softness, and fills her old joints with an almost youthful energy, when she springs up and starts towards the kitchen door, giving you one last, almost painfully fond look. "You just stay here and rest." She adds, and you feel nauseous from the kindness under which the poison of cruelty ripples, and which creeps into your ear canals with snide unsolicitedness.

When, after an uncertain nod, you lay your head down on the table with languid weakness, she hurries away towards the maze of the corridor giggling, with such immense glee, as if an unexpected present had fallen into her lap. And you, closing your eyes, order every part of your body to remain motionless in anticipation, slowing your breathing to a trembling evenness, listening through your own shivering for the woman's footsteps. You have to remain unnoticed because you're sure that if she realizes that her tea has failed to relax you enough, she'll come up with something much more painful to get the desired effect. You're not sure what her goal is, but you don't have time to create unnecessary excitement for yourself.

For minutes, only the soft puffs of the air flowing through your nose fill the room shrouded in an almost disturbing quietness, but despite your pulse pounding in your ears with an almost deafening noise, you wait until all the sounds die down between the old walls. And when you decide that you have wasted enough time, you carefully push yourself away from the worn furniture and stand up with your eyes fixed on the shadows beyond the door, watching for an unexpected visitor with every move you make. But, when nothing happens, and only the low buzzing of the light bulb and the hooting of the owls filtering in from outside travel through the empty house, then you sneak towards the hallway.

As you step out onto the corridor, it takes a few uncertain seconds for your eyes to get used to the dense darkness, and when you're finally able to make out the pitch-black outlines of the furniture, you set off into the unknown. The age-old parquet floor creaks under your shoes, reminiscent of the soft squealing of a mouse, and with each step you take, the presentiment tightens its grip on your insides. Because you have no idea where the old woman could have gone, and the fact that she can appear from behind any of the doors lined up next to each other is just enough to awaken the needle-like prickling of stress in your muscles. As if a thousand tiny ants would be crawling under your skin, and clenching your teeth, you fight the tempting compulsion to escape. You know you're wading into the swampy abyss of certain danger, but you also know you have no other choice. And not finding a clue is not an option. You have to move on or you'll be stuck here forever.

You wouldn't be able to tell how deep you ventured into the uninhabited house, but everything turns into an unsettling uniformity as a dull entrance follows another insignificant door, and the pictures hanging on the walls serve as your only companions in your wanderings.The lifeless eyes following you send shivers down your spine involuntarily, because although they're nothing more than the imprints of strangers lingering in the past, yet there is something bleak in the faces of the people on them. But when you discover something familiar, you stop dead in your tracks to take a closer look at the many of photos hidden in the frames, and you don't have to think long to recognize the boy from the kitchen. Although he may be much older here, and the childish roundness of his face has already been banished by the hormones of adolescence, but the light eyes stare at you with the same stern expressionlessness as they did from the shadows of the herbs. There is something hard in them, something angry, lurking beneath the frozen stillness, waiting to strike. And the longer you stare, the more the unpleasant feeling intensifies in you, which plants the impossible idea in your mind that the next moment he will come to life and, reaching through the scratched glass, wraps his pale, thin fingers around your neck.

A thunder-like bang tears into the empty quiet of the building, and you, shaking in terror, break out of your paranoia-woven imagination to spin around and start searching for the noise with the alarm of a frightened animal. And when the sounds don't die down, but are enriched by the clanking of a chain and the murmur of a muffled conversation, then you come upon the worn door, ajar, on the tattered surface of which a star-like scribble greets you, roughly sketched up with blood-red paint, the same that someone drew on the boy in the newspaper article. And you become aware with an uncomfortable certainty that the game has finally revealed your next destination to you, no matter how much every cell of yours protests against venturing towards the source of the increasingly loud clamor.

Every single nerve of yours tenses as one, as you move closer, keeping your eyes fixed on the cracked varnish clinging to the wooden surface, considering each step before the next, and the closer you stray, the sharper the violently snapping words become, and even though you don't understand them, you can feel the simmering ire in them. You open the door with your trembling fingers wrapped around the doorknob, and the saliva crawls down your dry throat almost like shards of glass, when you try to dispel the lump that has grown there. But nothing welcomes you, only a set of stairs covered in faint light, which leads you down into the uncertain darkness, and you feel the force of fear twisting your guts, as you muster up your courage and set off to the rickety steps.

The lower you go, the wider the hidden world of the basement opens up in front of you, and the more painful the horrible smell, mixture of the sweet stench of rot and the sting of sweat, pierces your nose. With each breath, the stagnant, moldy air penetrates deeper into your lungs, and if your brain weren't occupied by terror, you would wonder what kind of disease you're filling your chest with so voluntarily. Although to your own ears, every noise your shoes mak on the old stairs is ear-splitting, you know, even through the uncontrollably roaring fear inside you, that the sounds of your arrival will be drowned out by the wild discussion unfolding on the other side of the wall bordering the stairs. You recognize the woman's voice in the furious foreign expressions, but that's not what makes you halt hesitantly on the last step. It's that unexpected, raspy male baritone that stops the momentum of your curiosity from taking you any further, because even though you can't see the face associated with it, you feel the deadly threat traveling in the growl-like rumble.

"ублюдок!" The woman erupts, and even you cringe instinctively from the caustic rage that sits in her tone. "You ungrateful wretch!" She spits in a way that you finally can understand, and you hear the crunch of the dirt and dust sliding under her shoes as she take a step forward, as if she were moving closer to someone, but further away from your impromptu hiding place. "I should have let them take you!" The end of the heated cursing snaps, and with this the stormy exchange of words turns into painful silence, as if the shadows hiding on the dirty floor had absorbed not only the rays of the faintly flickering light, but also the sounds. And from this, even you know that something came out of the woman's mouth that shouldn't have.

The basement falls into an icy stillness, and the tiny hairs on your skin rise as you lean against the wall and listen, wondering if you made a mistake by coming down here. However, as your frightened eyes wander around the dimly lit room, you discover something in one corner that catches your eye with its golden glow. And you lean forward like someone who has been mesmerized, trying to decipher through the dying light of the old bulb hanging on the ceiling, what might be hiding in one of the shelves under the piled-up, dusty mountain of junk. And the relieved joy that washes over you when you notice the lost key that leads to Johnny's attic, is almost ridiculous, and for a fleeting moment, you're sure that it's just your eyes playing games with you. But the tiny little object winks back at you with an unmoving serenity a few long seconds later, and you already know what your task is.

"Oh, my little boy... don't be angry! Mommy loves you, you know that, right?" You hear the apologetic shush, and you're filled with an ominous feeling as you lean forward from behind the wall, clinging to the crumbling bricks, to see how safe it is to get the key. And your eyebrows knot together in confusion when you're greeted by nothing more than the old woman, who, stepping towards one of the dark corners, spreads her arms as if waiting for someone to fall into her arms. Although at first, you're sure that age and loneliness have warped her mind so much that she imagines one of her loved ones in the shadows, but as your gaze falls on the mattress, brown with dirt, lying by the wall, and the plates soiled from the rotting leftover food, you dismiss your naive assumption. Someone is here, and based on the dried, yellowish stains on the torn bedsheet, they weren't forced to retreat here now. But you don't care about that. Whoever is imprisoned here, you're not here to help them.

"I found a new friend for you... She is much prettier than the previous ones! You want to see her, don't you? If you're a good boy, I'll bring her down for you... You do as mommy says, yes?" The woman continues, mumbling the kind words with an almost atoning tenderness, and it becomes painfully clear that whatever lives down here, this old bitch tried to drug you because of it. And when you remember the boot sprinkled with bone dust found in the forest, you banish the idea of thinking about what could have happened to those who were dragged down here before you. You have more important things to do than brood over the deaths of imaginary strangers… as cruel as that may sound.

But just as you finally take the first brave step and leave your hideout with careful stealth, the chain rattle comes to life again, and you freeze, forgetting about the key, when a dull crack silences the old hag. Like when a ripe, juicy melon cracks and splits into two when a knife sinks into it, but deep down you know that it's not fruit juice you hear splashing on the floor in fat drops. And you're unable to resist the pull of fear, which draws you in the direction of the noise against your will, but as soon as you see the woman slowly staggering back from the dark corner, you immediately regret giving in to the impulse. Because when your eyes find the handle of the large knife protruding from her head, you clamp your hands to your mouth, trying to force back the horrified scream that rises in your throat. 

The woman clumsily stumbles backward, and you see the uncertain surprise in the trembling hands with which she reaches for her hair, slowly covered into a crimson veil from the blood, touching the wooden handle almost in disbelief. And there is something quite pitiful in the way she turns around in confusion, amidst frightened whimpers, brushing away the strands stuck to her eyes by the red streams running down her forehead. And you, swallowing the bitter taste on your tongue, take a terrified step back, as you suddenly see how impossibly tight the skin clings to the edges of the bones emerging from the sunken face, as if a parasite were about to break through a thin membrane. The pale tissues look unsettlingly papery, and you have a lingering fear that the dull, matte white of her jaw might penetrate them at any moment, as the woman's mouth opens in a silent scream. Unfocused eyes find you, and you're horrified to realize that maybe she wants to ask for help when she wobbles towards you with shaky legs, but you're frozen in terror, as you stare at her motionless, like a deer stuck in the headlights of a car. And you watch in shock, when after what seems like eternity, she, with a gurgling rattle, finally sprawls out on the dusty ground, like a sack full of rotten potatoes.

"You're finally here." You hear the hoarse voice from before, and as you look for its owner in terror, you see how a strong figure emerges from the darkness of the shadows, dragging the heavy shackle of the chain hanging from his thick neck behind him with a metallic clang. But what worries you even more than the muscles hidden under the torn clothes, is the pair of impossibly blue eyes that emerge from under the mask covering the unknown man's face, which look at you with cheerful interest, as if he had found a small bird with a broken wing. And from the cruelty glimmering in them, it immediately becomes painfully clear that he is the kind of person who would rip your wings out by the stem to free you from suffering. "I was waiting for you, Bunny."

(ублюдок (ublyudok) - bastard).

[hogwartslegacyreactions2]

hey!

I love your blog, you are so talented at making the reactions realistic to each character! great job!

can I ask a reaction were they (students and professors) see the MC be bitten by a werewolf?

or they discovered that they are one?

the choice is yours!

A/N: thankies! I try my best! ❤️

HLC REACT TO MC BEING BITTEN BY A WEREWOLF

WARNING: some angst

Wrong place. Wrong time. That's how it happened. What was just thought to be an ordinary mongrel turned out to be a werewolf. MC laid on the ground in a pool of their own blood, grasping their wand arm. MC managed to kill the beast, but not before it got a nasty bite on them.

Even as new to the magical world as they were, they knew this was bad news. There was no cure to the werewolf disease and as soon as the light of the first full moon hit them, they would become a mindless feral beast. This would be their fate for every month for the rest of their life.

They can't tell anyone. They would never be trusted again. Everyone would abandon them. They would be expelled from school. They would never have a normal life.

They try to claim ill when the full moon would come around and disappear into the forest until the moon would wane again. Unfortunately, this pattern doesn't go unnoticed.

~~~

SEBASTIAN SALLOW: Werewolf is the last word he expected to come out of their mouth. That's why they've been avoiding him? They thought that something like them being a werewolf would make him not want to be their friend? Please, that's the most incredible thing anyone has ever told him!

OMINIS GAUNT: What He really cares about is if they're managing themselves responsibly. They could seriously hurt or kill people, they are not themselves when they're forced to transform. He'll take it upon himself to keep track of the moon cycle and constantly remind MC when the next full moon is.

ANNE SALLOW: Now they're both cursed forever. Misery loves company. At least the company is nice.

IMELDA REYES: She doesn't believe MC at first. That's got to be one of the most wild stories she's ever been told. But the monthly disappearances keep happening. She follows them one night on her broom and sees them transform. They never see her in the canopy of the trees. There's a twinge of fear in her eyes the next time they interact.

NATSAI ONAI: She's curious about the form of lycanthropy. Do they turn into a werewolf specifically or is that just a blanket term for lycanthropic creatures in this area of the world? Because where she's from, lycanthropy takes many shapes. She shows genuine interest in learning about MC's condition and helping them manage it. She'll stupefy them if they don't keep up with their moon chart.

GARRETH WEASLEY: That's a pretty heavy thing to admit to, but he can see the silver lining in this. MC is now a source of pretty rare potion ingredients. Don't look at him like that, of course it's the first thing he thinks of. Werewolf teeth and claws are hard to come by without...well, without a lot of unpleasantness.

LEANDER PREWETT: He reflexively jerks away when they admit it. He's heard horror stories of what werewolves do to people, if they bother to leave you alive. MC couldn't possibly be.... He needs time to process. He won't tell other people, but it's hard for him to look at them the same way.

AMIT THAKKAR: Please, he knows the moon cycle for the next 10 years by heart. While he may stand an extra foot or two away from them, he will still gladly be their friend. They're not dangerous as long as they're being smart. Everything will be all right.

EVERETT CLOPTON: He's uncharacteristically quiet for a long time after MC confesses. It's a lot to take in that someone you know is now considerably more dangerous and unpredictable during certain times of the month. He'll need some time to decide if he's willing to stick around.

POPPY SWEETING: Who's a good dog? Kidding. MC has nothing to worry about with her. She's fully accepting of them in their condition, it's not their fault. And for what it's worth, beasts don't really care either. Stick with them and MC won't have to explain wolf tracks constantly in their vicinity.

~~~

ELEAZAR FIG: Because of the amount of time he has spent with MC, he's the first Professor to notice the change in their behavior. It didn't take long for him to realize they would mysteriously disappear during the full moon. Oh, MC, he's so sorry. This wasn't the end of the world, but this was going to make their life difficult. He'll do what he can for them, they still have him after Hogwarts. He won't let them leave school without a plan.

He informs the other professors individually. He wanted them to be in the know so they can continue to manage MC's education without letting the headmaster catch wind of MC's condition.

MATILDA WEASLEY: This news weighs heavy on her. If any parent caught wind of MC's condition, this would be a nightmare for staff to deal with. They were allowing a werewolf within the walls of a school. But this was MC. They were managing it, everyone else that was important knew about it. They were managing it too. They were doing everything in their power to keep accidents from happening. But what if something does happen?

CHIYO KOGAWA: She and Hecat keep close tabs on MC when the full moon draws near. The new transformations wouldn't happen until the moon was at its peak, but they weren't taking any chances.

AESOP SHARP: He met werewolves during his time as an auror. MC is in for a hard life. The vast majority of wizards do not look upon werewolves kindly. In his spare time, what little he had, he researched treatments for lycanthropy. There had been no successful cures or treatments yet invented, but he could take it crack at it.

ABRAHAM RONEN: Next to Professor Fig, he's the professor MC goes to when they need to talk. This condition that they will have to deal with for the rest of their lives has to be weighing heavily on their mind. Mc can tell him how they're feeling. They will get no judgment from him, only comfort.

MIRABEL GARLICK: She's up for MC experimenting with some new plants she has. One in particular called Wolfsbane. There's a superstition that it repels werewolves. Is it true?

MUDIWA ONAI: She does a palm reading for MC and explains in great detail that their condition does not define them as a person. They are MC. They are a person with feelings and emotions and desires and dreams. Not a monster.

BAI HOWIN: She knows someone. She'll give MC a name and tell them to write to that person. They are the liaison to a small werewolf community, perhaps being in touch with others who have dealt with this will help MC cope. Don't worry, no one else needs to know about this.

DINAH HECAT: She's on watch with Kogawa. She knows MC isn't dangerous until the moon is actually out and at its peak, but it's Professor weasley's orders that they keep visual on MC until they are in the safe zone the nights of the full moon.

CUTHBERT BINNS: As long as MC is well behaved in class and keeps up with their studies, he could not care less what is in their blood.

SATYAVATI SHAH: It crosses her mind to inform the headmaster. Even if they're not intentionally dangerous, they are still potentially dangerous. The safety of her students comes first. A direct order from Professor Weasley keeps her from saying anything and she helps MC keep track of the moon cycle.

PHINEAS NIGELLUS BLACK: He never notices what individual students are up to. It's a good thing too, because MC would be immediately expelled if he did. He won't have a dangerous half-breed in his school.

[summerdiphylleia]

The next right thing

Prologue: The eve of the reaping.

Summary: During those sleepless nights, Felicia often finds herself thinking about killing her husband.

pairing: coriolanus snow x wife!oc

Prologue / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2

****************

Felicia shifted in her bed once again, restless. She forced her eyes shut, though it would serve no purpose. Hard as she might try, sleep would not find her that night. It never did on the eve of the reaping. 

She could numb the Games out, for the most of it at least, but she was compelled to watch the reapings. Her husband enjoyed making a festivity out of it. He invites members of his cabinet to the mansion, they make bets, and they drink and eat and celebrate the beginning of Panem’s most anticipated show. Felicia always falls inexplicably ill the day afterwards.  

She turned towards her husband, and quietly placed a hand on his chest. Coriolanus Snow isn’t hunted by the brutality of the Games, he relishes it. He doesn’t escape perversion, he courts it. He comes up with the most savage ways of stripping people out of their humanity, and makes sure to get a spectacle out of it. Panem et circenses. Her husband is best at giving the Capitol both. 

Felicia reached towards his face, and gently stroked his chin, earning a soft hum in response. She smiled. 

It was on nights like that one, when rest would not find its way to her, that she often had one same recurring thought. She lowered her fingers towards his neck, seeking for his pulse, calm and warm. 

“What if you killed him?” 

She pictured herself, delicately throwing herself on top of him. He wouldn’t have time to even realize what was happening before her hands were already wrapped tight around his throat. Not a sound would escape his lips, which by that moment would already be turning blue. 

“Would you be able to do it?” 

It’s no easy task, suffocating someone to death, there’s a plethora of problems that might come up during the act. Fundamentally, he’s much stronger than her. But she has a medical background. And a very impressive one indeed. It’s all very methodical, really. Complete constriction of the carotid arteries can cause unconsciousness in mere seconds and brain death in minutes, if one just knew where to press one’s fingers. And she knew. She knew how to end someone’s life. She could do it. She could kill him, quickly, and efficiently, barely causing him any pain. 

“Would that save anyone?”

President Snow would die, yes. And then someone would kill her, after being declared a rebel. Her three children would have the same fate, most probably. The Capitol citizens would never know the truth of what happened of course, let alone the districts’. The cabinet would claim it had been some sort of disease —something viral, perhaps— that took the President and First Lady’s lives. It was plausible. After all, they already were in their seventies and sixties respectively; the citizens had been witnessing the two of them growing old and sickly, now that they really thought about it. They would throw a week’s funeral; beautiful and lavish. Something to remind everyone of the opulence, greatness of the Capitol. Something to entertain people away from all the acrobats and performers racing behind the curtains. And then, much too ravenously, a different ringmaster much too alike the monster that preceded him would rule over the country. And the Games would still keep on haunting one too many. That was the order of things. She had no way of changing that. 

She withdrew her hand for a moment, and then placed it over his chest again. She nestled against his frame, and closed her eyes, wishing such thoughts didn’t find their way to her over and over again. Thinking was dangerous in the Capitol.

Felicia didn’t hate her husband, not really. There was no point in doing so, it would only ensure her misery. Just like there was no point in him disliking her. If she was asked to pick one word to describe her husband, she would pick austere. Austerity in every fraction of his life, psyche included. He indulged in no emotion if it secured him nothing in return.

He didn't gain anything by being cruel to her, on the contrary. He risked ending up with a resentful wife in a position of false power, but power nonetheless, much too eager to make him suffer, for a change. No, it was in his best interest that she was happy. And so he kept her happy. 

He understood her aversion to the Games, and so he never forced her to watch them, unless it was expected to be a public affair, of course. She didn’t want their children watching them, and he had allowed it, begrudgingly, sure, but allowed it nonetheless. She loathed most of the women within the Capitol’s high society, and so he gave her permission to miss as many meetings with them as she pleased. She wished to keep correspondence with the people of the districts, so they could ask and demand of the First Lady, and he had permitted it. 

But she was always ordained to attend the inducting of the Victors, and place a crown on their heads, while commending them for their bravery. And in every celebration or dinner the mansion threw, she was required to sit beside the people she thought the poorest of; afterwards, when the party was over, she always went to bed feeling the corners of her mouth too impossibly tight. And she noticed that all of her letters replying to the districts’ residents, written with such thoughtfulness, would always end up gathering dust in a room somewhere in the mansion. 

And everytime she felt like she couldn’t bear all of that anymore and started behaving particularly narky about such issues, a little orange pill would appear on her nightstand, next to a glass of water. There was no note on the side, never has been, but she always knew what she was expected to do. She even found herself looking forward to taking it, more frequently than not. She didn’t know exactly what drug the pill contained, but she could judge by its effects. She always felt droopy for as long as a week after taking it. 

“You know I do this because I care for you, dearest?” Her husband would lovingly say, sitting beside her while offering the glass of water. “You don’t like feeling this way, do you?” 

She really didn’t. And her husband would watch her swallow it, with as sweet an expression on his face as he could muster, and then he would smile, and kiss her goodnight. That was the order of things. 

“What if someone else killed him?”

****************

idk if this will become a series or not, but I read a prompt about Snow's wife/family eventually becoming his downfall and I loved it! I hope you enjoy it.

[the-hopeless-haze]

When Will the Clouds All Disappear? (ch1)

Gregory House x Reader - part of Series If You Want It, You Can Bleed on Me

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: heavy suicidal ideation

“Kind of rude to make a cripple head to the roof of a building to look for you.” You hear his voice, loud and clear behind you, gravelly and distinctly masculine. You’d know it was him anywhere.

“What do you want, Greg?” You ask, sniffling. You're sitting on the ground, your back against the ledge, having made yourself sick staring off it for a good ten minutes before he arrived. Your head is in your hands, blocking him out, blocking everything out. You can’t open your eyes. You can’t bring yourself to look at him.

“You know,” he says firmly. You wish you had four hands so you could block your ears, too. You wish you were senseless. It would be so much easier. So much more peaceful.

“You wouldn’t have to worry anymore. I would just be gone,” you say, and you hate this, you hate everything, you wish he didn’t come up here so you could jump. Guilt-free. You know you look fucking ridiculous, with your hospital gown riding up to your thighs and those stupid non-slip socks damn near falling off your feet. Your hair is blowing wildly in the bitter January wind, and you feel lightheaded and woozy as it is, having pulled out your IV that hooked you up to fluids a half hour ago now.

“That isn’t what I want. I want you to come back downstairs with me.”

“How did you even know I was up here?” you question.

“You’re the one thing I can and can’t predict. Knew you’d come up here when they said you left the bed… still don’t know if anything I can say can get through to you. If you jump I jump?”

You shake your head. “No. You deserve to live.”

“And you don’t think you do?”

“No. And I don’t want to either.”

“Why not? I thought we had fun together.”“But you don’t care—“

“Why am I up here with you freezing my ass off if I don’t care?”

“Just go.”

“Not without you, sweetheart.”

You grimace at the pet name, it sounds so fake coming from his lips. “You didn’t even come to see me,” you whisper.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know what to say.”“Anything would’ve been better than nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. You’ll say anything so I don’t jump,” you say, tasting bitterness acrid on your tongue. You wish you could turn off your brain, but you’ve been here before, seconds to an attempt and still gone through with it with no one to stop you except for your diseased brain. And it was diseased, every impulse usually hardwired to keep your body alive at all costs screaming to be let out of its misery and to just let you die, please. It’s almost like an addiction, instead of one more hit, it’s just like, one more thing to let go of. One more thing to convince yourself doesn’t matter, one more person to convince yourself wants you to die or doesn’t care if you go, one more event you’ll never get to live through that you convince yourself you didn’t want to attend anyway.

“I mean it,” he says urgently. “I’m sorry. Okay? I’ve been a shitty boyfriend, lover, friend with benefits, or whatever you want to call me. I know I’m not the reason you’re contemplating this right now. You’ve struggled with this all your life. I’m not going to fix it. But Jesus Christ. You and I both know this isn’t the goddamn answer. You spent your whole life going to school and working to prevent people from offing themselves.”

“Fuck you,” you mutter. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you,” he says. “I came for the surgery—“

“You had plenty of time to see me. You weren’t there when I needed you to be! I’m just another patient, is that it? Don’t come visit them unless you think you’ll learn something? What was it, you never got to see a D&C before? I called you, Greg. You never answered. I had to call Wilson to make sure you weren’t dead but of course, you weren’t, you were just avoiding me and why should I expect anything more from you? Of course you run when things get hard; when the woman you’ve been fucking might need a little more than after-sex cuddles.” You stand up as you say this, turning your back to him, looking over the ledge. Fuck.

“I’m sorry. Just please don’t jump,” he says and if you were in your right mind you’d notice that he was getting increasingly desperate, but you aren’t noticing much of anything right now. Except that your plans were thwarted. You see firefighters and they’ve already set up a trampoline on the side of the building. You don’t say anything, nothing at all, and you start to walk away from that ledge and then sprint toward the other one, hoping that you can get over there, run faster than he can, but he’s on you, and he moves fast for someone with an injured leg when the adrenaline kicks in, and you feel yourself knocked to the ground, his warm breath fanning your face.

“Got you. You’re not getting away from me that easy,” he says, and you finally look at him for the first time since you’ve been up here. You wish he would crush you to death but he’s barely putting his weight on you, just enough that you can’t move.

“I can’t go through this again,” you mutter, squeezing your eyes shut, and you expect the hysterical tears but they never come. You feel numb. Empty.

“You can. You can and you will.”

“You’re going to put me on a hold?”

“I have to,” he says, and you could trick yourself into thinking there’s guilt in his blue eyes when you open yours again. “I’ll make sure they give you the good stuff. Say you need to be chemically restrained. Order you Haldol, Ativan, or whatever you want. But I need… I need to know you’re safe.”

“So you’ll sedate me?”

“It’s the only way I’ll be able to sleep.”

“Just like you to make it about yourself, huh?”

“Shut up,” he says sternly, tacking your name on the end of the command like a warning. “This isn’t about me. None of this is about me. I know that.”

“Then you should have let me go.”

“One day you’ll thank me,” he says, digging his phone out of his jacket pocket. “Hey. Yeah. I need help bringing her downstairs. She’s not going to go willingly.”

You hate how he’s talking about you the way you would talk about patients to your coworkers, and you hate him for calling Wilson to help him walk you down the stairs. Wilson’s a certified sap, and the look on his face, his brown eyes sympathetic and his brows furrowed… makes you want to hit him, and maybe you’d try if you had the energy to. You don’t want pity. You want to be left to your own devices. You want nothing, hatred, you could stand, but Wilson looking at you like you were a kicked puppy is more than you can handle right now.

“I wasn’t going to jump,” you say, and it’s unconvincing even to your own ears. “I wasn’t even on the ledge when you came up here.”

“Yeah. Well. It’s enough that I don’t believe you,” Greg says. “Your track record sucks. Every attempt has been after a traumatic event. Forgive me for being a little worried.”

You’re about to protest, say he doesn’t know anything, but you know he went through your medical files before the first time your lips touched his. Fair enough. Two could play at that game, certainly, and you took what you felt you could without him getting suspicious out of your file. You looked through his, too, because what’s good for him is by all means fucking good for you too, and if you can’t have normal conversations like a normal couple, at least you could learn about each other unconventionally. Isn’t that love, at least kind of love, searching high and low for information, trying to memorize somebody else like you know yourself?

Never mind that it’s illegal.

You feel his mouth on yours, his scruff scratching pleasantly at your skin, and… yeah. That’s when the fucking tears come.

You wish neither of these men saw you like this. You were meant to be firm, cold but compassionate, distant but likable, albeit only from that distance. You didn’t get close to people, not since you were younger, because you knew how you’d get and you knew it was a horrific sight. Wilson, you love like a brother, but Gregory… you love irrevocably, irreverently, irreversibly. Intense is an understatement, and you wish it wasn’t the case, you wish so badly you could turn it off and become the woman you were before that man and his cane hobbled into your life. You wish more than anything you were alone right now.

But then again. You might not be alive.

“Shh. It’s okay,” he says, and you don’t believe him. He doesn’t believe it himself. It’s just something to say. And he hates those clichés. He hates talking just to talk. Yet … he says that to you. He lies to you, just for your benefit. Everybody lies.. but it's usually for their own gain. “I don’t want to make this worse than it has to be,” he says slowly. “Make this easy for us.”

“You have drugs on you, Greg,” you say, rolling your eyes through your tears. You hate that you know him this well. “You’re prepared to sedate me regardless.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t want to have to get to that point. Would you rather be sedated? Because I can arrange that.”

“Get off me.”

“Are you going to walk with us?”

“Yeah,” you huff.

“Good girl,” he says, and in a different context that would lead to something very different than this. But no. He lifts himself off you instead of dicking you down, wincing when he puts his weight back on his leg, and he and Wilson both help you off the concrete roof. It’s now you realize your back is scraped from when Greg pushed you down, and you grimace as you stand up. Everything hurts.

You have four strong hands on your body now, Wilson’s thin graceful fingers wrapping around your left arm, the other hand on the small of your back to steady you. Greg, you’re more fine with seeing you this way, he’s a train wreck himself and you’ve gotten him out of his shell before. But Wilson? He’s got everything together, well, except for his marriages. House’s larger hands grip you too, one hand firm on your right shoulder and the other around your side.

It’s a slow walk down the stairs, back into the building and you feel a rush of relief at the feeling of heat on your body, but then it becomes too much and you don’t know what you’re fighting for because you know there’s no way you could run, you may be faster than Greg but there’s no way you’d get by Wilson in your current state, and then you’re pushed against the wall in the staircase, Wilson’s calling for security on a radio and a gurney on the radio, and they’re both holding you there and you’re struggling against them, arms you try to push out of the way and legs you try to kick but it’s to no avail, you feel the slight pinch of a needle in your arm and … that’s it. Maybe this is what you were asking for but you were too ashamed to say, too ashamed to acquiesce verbally to the sedation, too embarrassed to say “no, I need to be unconscious for this, thank you.” But you weren’t too embarrassed to pull a fucking nutty in the staircase of the hospital you work at.

“I would’ve just given it to you,” you hear Greg say. “You don’t have to do everything the hard way.”

And then, thankfully, mercifully, pleasantly, you fade out and away.

[making-monsters-happy]

New Years Vampire Romance

Good evening! I have a new romance I wrote for New Year's. Hopefully, you guys like it. Let me know if you'd like to see more from them or another couple...yeah. I love reading yall's messages, and if you liked it. It's pretty hot, but I'm biased. It's a little under 2k words.

18+ only.

Nsfw..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You leaned back in your seat slightly, trying to get a better glimpse of the creature standing before your oven. He looked human enough; a brown mess of loose curls sat on his head, pushed back from him, continually running his hands through it to push it out of the way of his face. He was at least 6’5; you remember how he leaned down to get in the door once he was invited in, almost like how he was hunched now over the stove. He turned it on and paused, facing you. His skin had no pores and was sun-kissed, and you found yourself compelled to reach out and touch his face. His warm red eyes caught yours, and you looked away without meaning to you. No matter how used to seeing them you thought you were, it was always jarring when he looked at you with such intensity. You couldn’t help but wonder what he saw in you. A meal? Something weak? Something titillating? There was some attraction; he hadn’t killed you, even when you’d done what no one in their right mind in your village would: you’d invited a vampire into your home. Maybe the attraction was just on your end; they could do that to humans, right?

            While you were insane for offering him refuge, it wasn’t his sharp features that caused you to invite him in. If you lived to tell the tale and someone asked you, you’d say you’d been tricked into letting him in. When you first saw him, he was in the form of a small brown bat. Bats carried all sorts of diseases, but when you saw the tiny creature on your doorstep, you felt compelled to help it or put it out of its misery. All you said to the beast as you returned with a towel to pick it up was, “Let’s get you inside and fixed up.” The next thing you knew, you felt a puff of air hit you so hard you shut your eyes and took a few steps back. When you opened them, he walked inside your home, thanking you for your hospitality and introducing himself as Alessandro.

            “You’re staring at me.” His voice is deep; it makes him seem louder than he is. You, on the other hand, find yourself almost whispering.

            “Should I not?”

            “Most say it’s wise not to; they believe it’s easier for us to corrupt your mind if you do.”

            “Is that true?”

            Alessandro doesn’t answer your question; he smiles, flashing his sharp fangs, and sits up, looking down at you. You can feel a longing starting to ache from in between your legs. You straighten yourself in your seat, your nipples protruding from the thin silk night robe you wear during the winter to help keep you warm during the night. You wonder if he notices.

            “Why are you here?”

            “Because you invited me in, did you not?”

            “On false pretenses.”

            He walks past you and goes towards your curtains, looking out of them. You take a deep breath as he walks by; the husky scent of the outdoors and an unfamiliar cologne leaves you wanting to smell more.

            “I’ve been watching you. Your curtains are very thin; it’s not hard to look in, even for human eyesight. The men leaving the brothel may, at best, be able to see a silhouette when you’re changing into your nightgown, but you must remember my eyes are far better than that. I see everything.”

            You readjust in your seat; the silk of your nightgown is pressed up against your cunt, and you feel the fabric getting wet. The kettle starts to scream, and you cringe, jumping up and running over to take it from the heat. Alessandro steps behind you, his large hand engulfing yours, and leads it over a cup, helping you pour.

            “I can only watch someone I want sit alone in bed, touching themselves, moaning out to no one for so long, imagining it to be my name before I want to hear the real thing. Does that make sense?”

            You nod, your face starting to feel as warm as between your legs as he steps closer to you from behind. You can feel pressure against your lower back from the front of his pants as he drops petals from a flower you don’t recognize into the hot water. Without a second thought, you find yourself grinding back into whatever is nearest your ass to get some friction. It helps, but it is not enough, and you let out a noise of disappointment as he steps to the side and grabs the cup, blowing on it and taking a few sips.

            “I didn’t know vampires could…drink teas. Or wanted to frankly.”

            “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

            He holds the cup and tips it towards you, shaking it some. The green petals float around, and you look up at him.

            “What is it?”

            He doesn’t move, his hands still extended towards you. You blow at the steam and drink what’s left in the cup. You cough and frown at him, looking at the leftover greenery in the cup. It’s bitter, and as much as you want to gag, you keep it down. It tastes like something you’ve had, but you can’t put your finger on it.

            “I wouldn’t say we drink tea much, but we do like to dabble in recreational drug use.”

            “So, you drugged me?”

            Alessandro laughs and walks over towards your room with that knowing grin still on his face.

            “I wouldn’t say it like that, no. It’s just a plant we like to use to increase blood flow. I get a little nippy in the bedroom at times.”

            You walk behind him and put a hand to your cheeks. They are already starting to feel warmer than they had in the kitchen.

            “Well, that makes sense for your victim, but what does it do for you…”

            You trail off and feel your eyes start to shut. The graze of your silk robe touching any part of your body set off alarms; your nipples feel so sensitive that you reach up, pressing your palm to one and then the other. Whimpers kept escaping your lips without meaning to. When you open your eyes, Alessandro lay in the bed in his boxers, nuzzling into sheets, his fangs hanging over his bottom lip. You can’t help but follow the trail of hair from his chest down to his boxers with your eyes.

            Now, you could put your finger on it. Everyone you knew in your community had at least talked about this. Maybe couples needed the herbs to spice up their sex lives or to have more stamina for one another. That explains why any stimulation right now sends you over the edge and into flames.

            “It’s a very fast-acting aphrodisiac. Come here; I want to feel you.”

            Alessandro took your hand and led you to the bed, kissing up your shoulders and to your neck, starting to lick over your vein. You leaned your head to the side, moaning, your hand reaching into the front of his boxers. This time, he’s the one who jolts from your touch.

            Your hand grasps his member, and you rub your thumb over the cum that was already leaking from his tip. With every swipe of your thumb, he whines in your ear and starts to grip your breasts, kneading them roughly before leaning into one and suckling in, looking up at you with his warm eyes.

            You arch your back and started to pump his thick cock before his hand goes over yours again and gently grips you, making you stop.

            “If you keep going, I’m going to cum.”

            “So?”

            Alessandro’s grip loosens, but he continues to help you, watching as the two of you stroked his cock. Although it looked like it was hot to the touch, he was still a dead man walking and maintained a cool temperature even with the assisted stimulation.

            You lean down and lick the base, shaking your hips in the air to show off your body; before you can get it in your mouth, there is cum squirting over your closed eyes and down your nose. You laugh a bit but don’t feel him soften in your hand. He takes your robe off haphazardly and wipes your face with it, leaning down over you while you lay on your back.

            “I’m bewitched. You bewitch me.”

            Alessandro pushes your legs apart and starts to rub at your clit; you reach down and move his hand.

            “I need to feel you, all of you. I want you to drink from me.”

            Before you can say anything else, he’s sliding into you, his hands at your shoulders, holding you still as he plunges deep into you. He wasn’t the biggest you’d ever had, but he knew how to work with what he’d been given. It could’ve been a combination of his experience and the herbs, but you’d never had someone fill you up the way he was now.

            Alessandro holds up your hips for you, pulling you close so you meet his every thrust. All you have to do is sit there and take it; you grip at his hair, then stop self-consciously, your hands going to the sheets. You’d been told in the past that you pulled hair too hard, or when you gripped at your partner’s back, it would hurt them. Since then, you have always made sure to grasp the sheets instead.

            Alessandro lets your hips go and hoists one of your legs up, letting his weight rest on top of you, chest to chest, while his hips work. He takes your hands from the sheets and moves them back to his hair, looking back at you panting.

            “Pull it.”

            “Yeah? Is that okay?”

            You tangle your fingers into his curls and pull his hair, making his head snap back. He nods, moaning loudly in your ear and exposing his fangs before biting your neck. Your back arches and you begin to grind into him, your clit rubbing against his hairy pubic bone. You can’t quiet yourself if you want to. You grip his hair harder, and with a scream, you feel an orgasm come over you so hard your vision goes black.

            You wake up and roll over finding Alessandro on his back, his cock soft resting on his thigh, and eyes closed. You were in one of your nightshirts, both of your dirty clothes piled in the corner.

            “You’re finally awake. I cleaned you up while you were sleeping.” He opens one eye and turns toward you before rolling on his side to see you better.

            “I expected you to leave. Not that I wanted you to, I guess I just thought…”

            Alessandro smiles and you noticed his fangs stained red with blood, your blood. He licks his lips and presses a kiss to the top of your forehead.

            “I told you; you’ve bewitched me. Now you really can’t get rid of me.”

            “Well, as long as we can drink that tea every now and then…I think that’s okay with me.”

            You smile and bury your face in his chest.

[carrionhearted]

Im gonna infodump about my ocs because I can’t stop thinking about them. This will be a book… One day. Read on with caution, this is a horror book with very dark subject matter and mild body horror.

There are two mcs, a closeted gay trans man (Eden), and a severely repressed cis gay man (Harlow). Both raised in a hyper-conservative hyper-religious Deep South town IN THE 80S.

Their story is about the deadly consequences of repression, the cycle of abuse, learned hatred and destructive coping mechanisms. Harlow grew up with an INCREDIBLY toxic father who drilled toxic masculinity into him (having feelings is shameful) as well as homophobia. He only ever demonstrated "solving" problems with violence. Harlow was never given the tools or space to unpack any of his feelings ever. So he grew up to become this repressed, horribly frustrated and confused adult who could not understand his attraction towards other men.

Being gay wasn't even a thought in his mind, it wasn't a possibility to him. His father constructed this impenetrable wall of “us” vs “them” in Harlow’s mind- and like a plant deprived of sunlight, he never grew tall enough to see over it.

All he knew was this gut-wrenching hunger, this insatiable craving for other men’s bodies which he couldn't place- something about the flesh, the warmth, he hungered for it in a way which became unbearable. This did not register to him as sexual, again, that wasn't even an option… but he didn’t know what it was. And when you don’t know how to process your own emotions, it all eventually turns into frustration/ rage. So he solved this problem in the only way he was ever taught how- with violence! He killed men, initially choosing those he deemed deserving of death, and he ate them. An attempt to satiate the hunger. This became a habitual thing and he just… kept doing it. Not because it brought him any real satisfaction, it just snowballed into an addiction and he needed his fix. His town caught on to the string of murders, but he was flying completely under everyone’s radar. We’re talking about a 6’ mullet-having yeehaw dude who’s generally reserved and works for his family’s farm, nobody was really looking at him here.

Important backstory tidbit: Harlow was taught how to hunt as a kid. His father took him on outings, which were maybe the only positive memories he had of that man- and they would hunt deer together. He was taught to always use the whole animal, never let anything go to waste- because everything is valuable.

Everything is a gift. “It’s only murder if you waste the animal” (this heavily influenced his later cannibal ways).

One day as a young teen, he found himself alone for a trip. That's when he was approached by this deer- it looked sickly, almost like it was rotting while alive (it had Chronic Wasting Disease). It was clearly suffering, made clear by its complete lack of survival instincts. It walked right up to his gun. It was in pain. He shot it to put it out of its misery, but he did not take the meat. What was he supposed to do? It was useless to him,, he couldn't eat the rotting meat, and despite that he still felt an immense guilt for leaving it behind. Killing, and just abandoning the body. It registered to him as murder. He carried that feeling of guilt with him for the rest of his life. He vowed to never discard a body again.

Eden is a trans man who knows he's trans, but is out to practically nobody during the story. He’s the youngest in his family, with four older brothers. His parents were NOT suited to be parents- they were self centred people who treated their children like accessories. The parents obsessively kept up this “picturesque good Christian family” facade to the world, but that became harder to maintain as they had more kids. They started having to cut corners financially, to the detriment of those kids. That said, every one of their children was planned. The reason they kept having kids despite their situation was because the mother wanted a daughter. Then, Eden was born, assigned female at birth. Since his birth Eden had been treated like a precious doll more so than a child- he was sheltered and only received direct attention from his parents when they needed to dress him up all pretty for Sunday service. There was an incredible amount of pressure on him to be what everyone wanted. He was also raised VERY religiously, all of which MAJORLY contributed to his inner-turmoil abt being trans. He didn’t even have a word for it, to be “trans”. Only this unmistakable discomfort, guilt and shame, feeling like something is wrong with him, feeling like god made a mistake with him. Again, conservative religious south, he has no space to explore these feelings safely. He's pushed it all down and let it fester inside until it started gnawing away at his very being.

A few years prior to the story, this began to manifest physically as a literal rot. This spot of decay on his chest that's been growing and sinking deeper into his body for years. Sloooowly eating away at him, on track to continue until there is nothing left to devour. By the start of the book it’s claimed most of the flesh on his chest- his ribcage is sparsely covered with any skin at all- and the organs beneath are made vulnerable by it. However, he is horrified to seek medical attention. He sees the rot as a marking of his sin, god has stamped his body with this ugly decay to let everyone else know he's defective.

He hides it beneath layers of clothing. Being on his chest, it’s in a place that only an intimate partner would ever see- considering he's perceived by the world as a "woman".

In a… complicated series of events involving ✨societal pressure and coercion✨, an "intimate partner" does end up seeing his chest (Eden is not clear minded when these events are taking place).

This partner reacts with repulsion and violence, to the extreme that Eden fears for his life. He kills the other man in self Defense. (This sequence alludes to the “trans panic” legal defense which is still permitted by many US courts. If you pursue someone intimately, don’t like what you see beneath their clothes, and you KILL THEM- you can claim “I panicked because I didn’t know they were trans” and get a lesser sentence. It’s bullshit and I’m gonna attempt to very delicately write this scene to highlight how bizarre and unwarranted the male partner’s violent response is. The rot in this instance is symbolic of the perceived defect).

In disposing of the body, he runs into Harlow. They find eachother in a (undecided) remote, secretive location.

You’ll never guess what Harlow is doing! Also disposing of remains (bones n guts), at the same place, face hidden while he does so. They have a mutual deer-in-headlights standoff. There IS an open case of serial murders in their small town… Harlow is responsible. Eden realizes this after a short exchange of stunned words, and totally breaks down. Heavy dialogue exchange, Eden feels completely defeated and destroyed by guilt, he just begs Harlow to kill him. Harlow responds by saying he only kills men (Eden is closeted and passes as a woman). This pushes Eden over the edge and he snaps, he shouts that he is a man, this is the first time he’s ever said it out loud. Harlow is… confused, but intrigued. He doesn’t want to kill Eden, but he’s not sure what he does want to do. He decides to knock Eden out… which he does very easily.

Eden wakes up in a different location. Some not so great smelling farmhouse of sorts. Harlow enters the room eventually and explains… “I disposed of that body for you, don’t worry about that right now. I bruised your head pretty bad when I knocked you out, sorry about that, I didn’t mean to use that much force. I made you some soup! It’ll help. The meat is pork. Don’t worry about it. Let’s talk. :3” They’re still both very unsure of each other but neither have much to lose (they also have mutual blackmail) so they start talking. AND BOOM

COMPLICATED SERIES OF EVENTS

ENSUES AND THEY BOND OVER SHARED EXPERIENCES, TEACH EACH OTHER TO UNLEARN THEIR TOXIC AND DESTRUCTIVE WAYS, HAVE A ROMANCE WHICH SERVES AS A VALIDATION ARC FOR EDEN AND A SELF-ACCEPTANCE ARC FOR HARLOW AND YADA YADA. They are both profoundly disturbed individuals who have done terrible things but the whole point is to hold a magnifying glass to their actions and point out HOW and WHY they fucked up. To condemn that path, the mindset behind it, and the people who carried on those abusive cycles before them. I want to thoroughly examine and chip away at the layers of external influence that lead these characters to their lowest life points- and reveal the truth beneath them. These were once children, full of love and openness as we all once were- the problem is larger than the individual, it’s a societal issue of passed down bigotry and stubborn refusal to progress. It’s a toxic cycle of violence with very real, very deadly consequences for all involved. The characters both do BAD things, that’s the POINT.

Important backstory tidbit: In Eden’s childhood, he found a baby bird fallen a long ways from its nest. It was hurt, and he brought it inside to a small cage. He figured the cage would serve as protection for the bird as it grew- it was so delicate, it needed the shelter. But that cage was tiny. He fed the bird, tried to take care of it and gave it all its base survival needs. The bird was offered food, water and a cage. But that is all. That’s all Eden was given in his home, he thought that meant it was enough. He watched it grow into a young dove, but as it aged it only got sicker. This bird was deteriorating before his eyes and he couldn't understand why- he feared it would die in that cage. As soon as it became old enough to fly, Eden made the decision to release the bird. It was sicker than ever, Eden knew it didn't have long. He knew releasing it would practically be a death sentence, but it was going to die soon either way. He did not want the bird to die in the cage.

When released, the dove didn't even know how to flap its wings properly. The cage was too small to stretch them out, it had never even had the chance to learn how to fly. It didn't know how to find food. It didn’t know how to identify danger. And on the next morning, Eden found that bird on the ground outside of his house, dead. It was being picked away at by a vulture.

Eden felt relief.

The bird had died. It didn't make it. But it brought him peace to know it didn't die in that cage. That bird had never known the love of its mother, or siblings, it had never known what it was like to be wanted and cherished. That role was left to the vulture, who had never turned away from the unsightly or damaged. It had swooped in with the unconditional love of an angel, and carried the dove off into the sky above- its stomach, a chariot to heaven. It was gruesome watching the vulture feast- but it had such a tender appreciation in its eyes. It kept the circle of life in motion. In a way, Eden found this ending happy.

Eden’s symbolic bird is a dove, Harlow’s symbolic bird is a vulture.

They both die at the end of the story.

They'd become very close over the span of it though- they resolved their issues together, but in doing that they found themselves further ostracized from the world around them. They backed themselves further and further away from the world, until they finally hit a corner. Their past destructive actions were also catching up to them- the murders that is, they ended up on the run from police. It all came back to bite them.

The rot on Eden’s chest had spread throughout his entire body, and it was past the point of no return. No medical intervention would help at this point. One night, after a close encounter with police left them both wounded- Eden and Harlow both realized that these were Eden’s last few hours.

His body was decayed and rotted, he was sick, he was injured, he was visibly suffering. He would die soon, it was inevitable. Harlow decides to put him out of his misery. But he couldn’t stand the thought of discarding the body. He didn’t want him to die unloved.

Reaching into Eden's exposed ribcage, Harlow removed his heart from his chest. He knew this would be a death sentence, but he was going to die either way. He didn't want him to die in the cage.

He ate the heart, rotting and tainted as it was, he saw every part of his lover as a gift. Nothing goes to waste, for every rotting animal there is a grateful vulture. One which will see your defect and cherish you all the same.

Is now a good time to address the name Eden? I feel like most people are familiar with the gay love = forbidden fruit and/or cannibalism = forbidden fruit metaphor… yk, the embrace of supposed sin, being arbitrarily kept from the sweet, nutritious fruit of the garden. Passing through the gates of Eden (ribcage again) and eating the apple (his heart).

:3 anyways

Harlowstayed with the body until he also died (unrelated wounds from the chase). Decades later they would be found as skeletons in an unmistakable embrace, none of the flesh which made people scorn them during their lives. They were seen as lovers then, and were finally understood.

ALSO ALSO SO SYMBOLISM RIGHT. RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM??? REMEMBER HOW EDEN WAS RAISED AS HYPER-RELIGIOUS???

So cannibalism as a metaphor for QUEERNESS now. A craving for the forbidden flesh. To partake in another's body in the most intimate and fulfilling way. But living in a world that sees it as repulsive…

Right? You with me?

Ok and then the inherent divinity of transness. To partake in the act of creation alongside God, to resculpt yourself in divine image. Jesus was not simply born of genetic material (yk how transphobes love to say “blah blah blah you can’t change your chromosomes!!” Like… if we use that logic, Jesus is trans. He’d have XX chromosomes because... miraculous conception.

No sperm, which provides the Y chromosome, which creates a male body. BUT OBVIOUSLY THAT DOESNT FUCKING MATTER BECAUSE HES A MAN REGARDLESS!!!! JESUS WAS A DUDE!!!). He was created by WILL.

The will of god, a version of himself, to BE!!! Fully human, fully god, flesh and blood in an image he himself designed. Holy trinity being the same entity and all, Jesus’s body was his own design in a way.

YOU WITH ME???

OK

OKAY AND SO.

GAY CANNIBALISM… TRANS LOVER.

TO

TO PARTAKE IN THE BLOOD AND BODY OF CHRIST. THEOPHAGY.

THE ULTIMATE HOLY COMMUNION.

TO CONSUME YOUR LOVER AS AN ACT OF WORSHIP, CONVEYING YOUR LOVE FOR EVERY PART OF THE BODY THEY'VE GROWN TO DISPISE. TAKING A PHYSICAL PIECE OF THEIR LIFE INTO YOURS AND UNITING YOUR VERY BEINGS. UNCONDITIONAL AND ETERNAL LOVE, DESPITE ONE’S FLAWS.

TO THINK OF YOURSELF AS CARRION AND BE FOUND BY THE MOST GRATEFUL VULTURE.

A DEAD AND ROTTING GOD STILL BRINGS LIFE TO THE MAGGOTS WHICH FEED ON ITS CORPSE!!!

RAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m unwell I’m unwell I’m unwell I need to actually get to writing this NOW

[slexenskee]

Nest (Oneshot)

Someone, at some point, somewhere in one of my inboxes, asked me something about Hawks's more bird-like traits. I wish I could remember... literally anything else about it so I could track it down and answer it properly, but I can't so here's Gojo being sick and Hawks building a nest about it

[link] (or read below)

Getting sick is a normal and uncommon fact of life— unless your name is Gojo Satoru.

This is his reasoning for how he idiotically misses the signs of his own incoming misery until it’s too late to avoid it. He’d had a sickly early childhood, mainly due to a premature birth and a finicky eating schedule, but by the time his Six Eyes and his memories had awakened he’d gotten through the worst of it. There was still the usual gamut of runny noses pervasive in the public school system, but eventually he’d learned to filter out the worst of the pathogens. Some common viruses, like the cold or the flu, changed too quickly each year for him to do it reliably, but as he got older he just learned to keep a healthy(ish) diet and a decent(ish) sleep schedule and avoid them. 

In hindsight, that it took him this long into his parenting adventures to finally catch something from Eri was actually rather impressive. Kids were the penultimate vector of diseases; sticky hands, constantly touching everything and everyone, and spending notable amounts of time around other small human-shaped vectors of diseases made catching an illness an inevitable outcome for any parent. As it turns out, Gojo Satoru and his invincible barrier was no exception.

Anyway, so finally getting sick wasn’t that surprising, even if he wasn’t thrilled with the experience. 

But Hawks’s reaction to it… well… okay maybe that shouldn’t have been surprising either, but it sure was a bewildering thing to wake up to.

He wakes from a groggy, disorienting sleep with a head that feels stuffed full of cotton (or maybe just congestion) and only a vague recollection of how he ended up back in his bed. He thinks he actually fell asleep on the couch with Eri on his chest, but at some point he remembers being carried off somewhere. 

Eri had gotten some kind of bad head cold from her daycare. Nothing life threatening, or even warranting a trip to the pediatrician, but painful to deal with nonetheless. He hates to see her so obviously unwell and unhappy, and especially hates how little he can do for her when she’s like this. He’d stayed up with her through her miserable coughing fits, gave her steam baths when he could, and made sure to keep her on a steady clip of simple foods and fluids. In the process, he’d slept poorly himself, and spent most of his time stressing out about her and forgetting to eat or drink fluids himself. 

At first, he just assumed his poor constitution could be blamed on a criminal lack of sleep. Then he tries to take a breath through his nose and ends up in a coughing fit instead, and realizes not only is he still sleep deprived, but now also sick. 

Gojo collapses back onto the bed, sighing as he resigns himself to a pretty unfortunate next few days. 

He rolls over onto his side, hoping to clear out his lungs that way, and ends up with a nose full of Eri’s hair and a cat yowling in protest. 

This isn’t particularly unusual. Eri still sleeps with him on occasion, and when she does she sometimes forgets to close the door behind her and the cat prowls in at some point and makes a nuisance of himself by curling up right where Gojo wants to put his legs. 

But when Gojo opens his eyes to swat the cat off the bed, he’s met with a peculiar sight. 

He blinks bleary eyes out at the scene, a bit bewildered, and wondering if his head cold is making him hallucinate. 

The bed is… full of junk. 

Well, not junk exactly, but a strange and random collection of various household items that, at first, make no sense to Gojo. Every throw pillow in the house seems to have made its way into a vague circle around the perimeter of the bed, and draped across them are all the spare sheets, random pillowcases, a few sweaters, a pair of fuzzy socks he thinks might belong to Yui, the throw blanket that lives on the couch downstairs, and even a few throw blankets he doesn’t even recognize. 

He reaches for the nearest one, a plaid thing he’s very certain he’s never seen before in his life. It’s silky soft, and also still has a tag on it. He rubs his fingers across the smooth fabric, then moves to the sweater that’s bunched up next to it. It’s also quite soft. Everything on the bed is soft, he realizes. It’s not just an arbitrary assortment of all the fabric items in the house— it’s an assortment of all the softest fabrics in the house, laid out in a conspicuously circular arrangement around him. 

Gojo’s not entirely certain, but he thinks this is supposed to be some kind of nest. And he appears to be in the center of it. 

For a long moment, head still fuzzy with sleep, he just stares out into it incredulously. Then he shrugs and grabs one of the random blankets and throws it over him and Eri, snuggles back up to her, and falls back asleep. 

//

Hawks returns to the room when the light is low, so quiet Gojo almost doesn’t stir even as the other man moves about the bed. He reaches out blindly in the direction of the noise, catching the Hawks’s sleeve. 

“Oh,” Hawks says softly. “You’re awake? How are you feeling?”

Gojo gives an unintelligible grunt in response. Hawks just chuckles, moving closer to push the hair off Gojo’s forehead. “Yeah, I figured as much. I’ve got water and medicine, if you’re up for it.”

Gojo eventually summons up the energy to open his eyes. At some point, Eri and Meow have disappeared, leaving him rather lonely in this crowded bed. 

He blinks up at Hawks. “... You made me a nest.”

He made a nest, and then put Eri, all the softest things in the house, and even the cat in it with him. If he wasn’t so out of it right now, he’d be dying from the adorableness of it all. 

Hawks looks a bit abashed as he looks down at his arms. Gojo realizes he’s got a collection of sheets and pillowcases in his arms that had formerly been strewn around the edges of his the bed. “Ah… yeah. Sorry about that— I kind of made a mess! I’ll clean it up and put these in the wash.” 

Gojo frowns up at him, blaming his wretched sinuses for the way it takes him so long to realize Hawks doesn’t just look bashful, but perhaps even a bit self-conscious. He tugs a little harder on the man’s sleeve, wishing he felt a little more coherent so he could properly explain himself. 

“Don’t clean it up,” he says, voice rough with sleep. “I like it.”

“Oh,” Hawks looks surprised, and a little pleased. “... You don’t mind?”

Gojo shakes his head, which from the way his head starts swimming in dizziness after, was probably not the best idea. He has to close his eyes to stave off the nausea, and Hawks immediately starts fussing over him and urging him to sit up and take his medicine. As he does that the hero walks over to the blinds and slides them shut, dousing the room in blissful darkness. He gives a sigh of relief; he’d forgotten how sensitive he gets to light when he’s sick. 

“Better?” Hawks asks. 

Gojo makes a noise of acknowledgement, setting down the empty glass as he smiles up at him. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Of course,” Hawks replies easily, returning to his side. He settles at the edge of the bed, careful not to dislodge all his hard work, gaze worried. “Do you need anything else?”

He’s about to say no, before he thinks better of it. He makes a show of looking around the bed. “You know, it’s a pretty nice nest,” he starts, slowly. “But I think it’s missing something.”

It’s cute how Hawks sits up at attention, suddenly very alert, looking both eager to please but also a bit offended. “Missing what?” 

Gojo grins at him. “You.”

Hawks rolls his eyes. “That was embarrassing for both of us,” he mutters, but nonetheless slides in next to him without protest. 

Yeah, his game’s usually better than that, but whatever, he’s sick and he still got what he wanted. 

Back to Masterposts

[jacksprostate]

Can you talk about how fight club is the story of a deeply closedeted gay man the wake of the aids crisis? How do his anxieties about hiv manifest?

yeah sure! i feel like i've talked about it in bits and pieces in a few different posts which I'll link here but I'll also type up a little summary. Not operating on 100% so forgive me if it's a bit all over the place.

On the narrator and Marla wrt sexuality

On the Lou scene of the movie

The central obvious joke yet not really comparison

Anyway so. I'm going to focus on the book as always but lots still generally applies to the movie and in the above links you can see a bit about the Lou scene from the movie if that's your interest.

So first I think it's important to acknowledge the narrator meets Tyler on an empty nude beach. This has a lot of connotations for a lot of reasons. Nude beaches/beaches in general have long been a gay male hookup spot. The beach is empty — it's the 90s. Many, many people have died. The narrator chose to go there — an interesting one. Stepping out of bounds a little only to be reminded of the constant threat, by how no one is there. He just watches Tyler do his thing, doesn't engage. He keeps his foot, with the AIDS-like rash on it, buried in the sand so he doesn't start dying in people's eyes (and presumably so if he ever got the gumption, he could tap it). Even if you assume the nude beach isn't specifically gay, all these things still apply, and it's still his idealized man he hallucinated all sweaty and tan.

Kind of discussed in the Marla related link above but he's like, horrifically repressed, even if he WAS straight. He can't imagine himself having sex. But when he has Tyler have straight sex (see above link for detailed thoughts on that), it's Marla he's jealous of. It is literally written that way. He is jealous of Marla stealing Tyler's attention and ruining the vibe they had with just the two of them.

Something, something, elaborate rituals for the touch of another man. Getting a big rubbery one in response to Bob. Arguably it's about him getting off on misery but it's not like it was written with regard to Chloe. And Chloe— amyl nitrite/poppers are commonly used in gay bathhouses and stuff. Used in straight sex too but yeah pretty common... Back to Bob though, this mimicry of closeness with another human being  another man in particular, staring down the gun at a man who can't functional have sex like society expects him to anymore. 

He invents a club that word for word could be swapped with gay sex for a large portion of its introduction. He is desperate for the touch of another man even if violence is the only way he can get it. Sex would be violence, in an age of being terrified of AIDS. 

The constant underlying sharing of blood and spit and contaminating food etc. All these other ways HIV is spread. But at least it wouldn't be That way. If that's his destined way to die then at least it wouldn't be like that. Dark, but.

The fucking scene about his birthmark holy shit man. Essentially, the doctors thought his birthmark was a sign of, pretty much, Kaposi's sarcoma. The cancer overwhelmingly associated with AIDS, and he's a medical marvel. Because he'd be dying from an unknown horrific disease. Now he hides the birthmark, because that unknown disease is everywhere now. <-bastardization of a line from the book. And when people see that birthmark, he starts dying in their eyes. If he was openly gay in any fashion, he'd start dying in their eyes too. The same way.

There is, distinctly, a sense of a complete lack of actual functional future. There is a sense of complete lack of role models from the past. 

The environmentalist turn even in this sense. The burden of history. He was not the one who spread the virus. There's a lot of deep, deep self hate and internalized homophobia in that. In the single time the narrator mentions gay men, too — as gay men wanting children being the cause for why all the single mothers in the clinic Marla goes to  are dying of AIDS. But that's not true. Gay men, overwhelmingly, are not the reason it went from gay men to eventually reaching women. But what he repeats is part of the societal curse upon them, and what he repeats is a chastisement, look what happens when you dare desire anything. If you actually want to act on those perversions. You curse everything and everyone. Stay repressed, or you'll die and kill everyone.

He invents Tyler. "Perfectly handsome and an angel in his everything-blond way." He invents the perfect man, who also can never infect him. Who also pisses and spits in soups, god what a conundrum — society assumes you're evil, sick, and damned, but you're still their responsibility. How do they like it. I am not glamorizing the willful spread of disease lol I don't think it's ever a sane response but in fiction it hits that like... vindictive anguish. 

Honestly, even the section I just mentioned. Where Tyler rants to the union boss. You don't actually give a single shit about me and better yet you probably hate the living shit out of me. But I am still your responsibility. You have sucked me dry til I have nothing to love, and you have everything. And the narrator says he says the same thing Tyler said, but about contaminated food. The parallels, with how that would apply to people with HIV, especially gay men. There is so, so much emphasis on the narrator's blood and how it gets all over the Pressman hotel's manager.

Fight Club, Project Mayhem — they're the designs of someone who doesn't expect to live long. The home of people who don't expect to live long. Whether that's because medical care is too expensive or because you catch a blood infection or because the cops shoot you. 

And at the end, after everything has happened, after his manic pixie dream boy helped him martyr himself, what does he really get? Idk man. Drugs that will kill his sex drive. A deep fear of himself that now has evidence for how far he can fall. A deep disillusionment. No hate, but no love either. Still just empty, now knowing he has opened pandora's box, whether he intended to or not. He can't put it back. He tried. 

Idk. something to be said about all that. Probably a lot more as well but that's just off the top of my head.

[roseapprentice]

Look At It, It's Got Depression

Content Warnings: depression, ed, suicidal reasoning, ideas that could prod you toward fascism or the murder-y kind of socialism if you aren't thinking critically

I feel steadily more sure that depression evolved as a strategy to cope with times of famine & plague.

Source: I have depression and I've thought about this too much

Hear me out: What caused most premature deaths for most of history? Infectious disease. When did infections kill the most people? While we were starvation-weak.

We think of evolution as a process that refines survival skills, and that's mostly right. But the drive of natural selection is more precisely, "Make sure something with similar genes exists in the future." And our standard for similarity can get wonky.

Humans' top priority is usually offspring, and next up is a messy mashup of ourselves and whichever other humans we know and like best.

So imagine we're a group of early humans, trying to keep our loved ones alive in hungry plague times. What strategies will help? Eat rarely to keep food available. Scarf down calorie-dense food before it spoils, especially if there's a lot or there's no one around to share with. Be lethargic & pessimistic about adventures to conserve calories.

If we feel extra bad, shun the people we love for their protection. Distrust the outgroup because they're here to either spread disease or take our food. Reconcile ourselves to thoughts of death in case wandering off to die with our contagion/empty stomach becomes the best shot at survival for our friends.

What cues could our bodies rely on to trigger this response? Lack of plant life in our surroundings. Worrying mainly about how to manage limited resources. Lack of exercise because there's no food to hunt & gather. Shortage of contact with other humans because the ones that rely on us most are already dead or deathly ill.

If you're a human living in the 21st century, these cues are probably sounding awfully familiar.

Of course the strategies are useless now. Advances like motor equipment & modern fertilizer turned starvation into a purely political phenomenon; quietly fading away doesn't help your people survive politicial oppression. Cross-cultural cooperation gets more feasible and necessary with just about every new technology. Physical isolation can still block disease sometimes, but a lack of social support does the opposite. It's now possible to isolate with tools & careful timing instead of instinctive exile; and anyway medicine & sanitation have made that need a lot rarer.

If I'm right about the cause, modern human life contains a wild excess of depression triggers and a stark lack of uses for depression. It's an outmoded strategy with a stuck "on" button.

I've never seen scientific literature bring up this hypothesis (though it has to be out there somewhere). But here's why I want to tell people about my weird pet theory despite my having no research behind it:

In the worst part of my depression, I came across a post that helped me hugely. It said, "Depression is when your body wants to die but your heart wants to live."

I didn't feel at all like my heart wanted to live, but the words hit so hard that I started to wonder if it was true somewhere deep down under all the numb misery.

Any moments when I did want to live just fed directly into my desire to die; the wanting hurt so much that making it stop felt like the ultimate priority. The force of my survival instinct was twisting back on itself as if my brain was caught in some weird paper finger trap of death.

This illness was vast and insidious and frustrating and pointless.

But if depression is an adaptive trait, then my experience makes sense. My body is intermittently trying to incapacitate, starve, or kill me in order to protect the people I love. (In some cases that includes incapacitating/starving me short-term to provide for my long-term survival.)

That's a depression I can accept and outmaneuver.

I can say, "Yes, I want to protect us/them too! These people are my heart, and I want my heart to live. Thank you for also wanting that. But your methods stink."

Then I can use all possible cunning to remind my body that my presence is a blessing to my loved ones, that adventures can yeild satisfying rewards, and that there is more than enough food around for all of us to thrive if only some jerks weren't holding it hostage.

When I've laid out this idea in the past to other people with depression, they tend to eventually find it intuitive and empowering in a similar way. (Or else they start humoring me 😛)

So here's me offering it up to the internet in general to see what y'all make of it.

Final note: for the gazillionth time I'm linking to the interactive self-care website, You Feel Like Shit. I find it's an effective tool for precisely resisting this intricate self-sabatage contingency that's been stupidly built into my stupidly overcomplicated brain by stupid evolution.

(At least I think that's what happened)