#until they pass by a light source. only to be awake and alone until they are forced to sleep again. but they don't really sleep

[maudiemoods]

Redesigning the ship again and probably not for the last time aaaaa I read some of the feedback and I really took it into consideration!! A bigger ship does seem a lot more necessary, especially with a ton of kids living full time on board! I adjusted the living area so it expands past the original shape of the ship, plus two towers because the one just looked kinda weird and off proportions! I'm also thinking about adding wings or fins to the ship because it seems like it's missing something like that? Idk

Also, little helper guys!! They're extremely easy to assemble and sun and moon or kids can build one for extra/personal help! They work like a hive mind so they're basically sun and moon just small! They can be disconnected from sun and moon and can become their own ai by experiencing their own things! A lot of kinds have personal sun and moons! Even when they are their own ai, sun and moon can still see and hear through them! So I guess they're not as disconnected as I said fjekjdjs also! They can be shut down immediately, no matter how connected to sun and moon they are! But they only do that if they step wayyy out of line, which doesn't happen often!

It takes a lot of energy to keep the little guys around! So when they're knocked out of orbit, they eventually all have to be shut down. Sun and moon will be completely alone for a long time before y/n find them

[ivorydragoness44]

Darth Maul x Reader: Rescue

Word Count: 1,621

Warnings: Mentions of abduction, canon violence, injuries/wounds, angst, Reader tied up (bound at the wrists), and fluff.

Notes: I feel like I don’t write hurt/comfort enough. Hah, and I may have enjoyed writing Maul going from absolutely feral to a softie too much.

~~~~  ~~~~  ~~~~  ~~~~

  Abduction was not a part of your plans when you had arrived at the docks in Mandalore that morning. All you wanted to do was oversee the new shipments as they were unloaded from the ships. It had been proceeding well at the time. There even came a moment when you knew you would unleash compliments about the operations to Maul. However, you never got the chance to return to the palace. The group appeared to form out of thin air. Those on the docks did their best to fend them off, but they were out-numbered and caught off-guard.    Hours had passed since then. There was no telling where you were aside from the small room you were being held in. The room smelled of a stale light scent. You much rather not figure out the source of it, whether it was still in the room or elsewhere. It was particularly unpleasant. For this, despite your hesitance, you did not breath deeply.    This group, your captors, did not skimp out on details. A scratchy fabric bound your wrists together, rather than a cuff or chain of some sort. Likewise, you never caught a glimpse of their faces. Each one wore a helmet for one reason or another. That was the only similarity they had in common. All of their styles of clothing varied, creating no sense of uniformity. From is, you could only assume they were bounty hunters. Bounty hunters held no allegiance. Or so you were told by Maul once.    Your body had ceased aching long ago. However, you knew that you would develop bruises eventually, if not already, from knocking around their ship and being tossed to the hard ground. Oddly enough, you would find yourself left alone with only yourself and your thoughts. They knew you were not going anywhere. Wondering about your capture definitely became one of your first questions. Were you a part of a random and spontaneous napping, or was this all well-thought out? You did not recall doing anything wrong or harming someone in any way. If it had been planned, they likely knew that you held a significant importance because you lived in the palace. Beyond that, they held no detail further than that. And for that reason, they would not see their fate until it was too late.

  Your eyes became heavy again, exhausted and in dire need of sleep. It would have to wait though. You dared not to let your guard down, whether someone was in the room with you or not.   The door opened, and your head snapped back up, wide awake. A group of them ushered in, but just as quickly turned away from you. Weapons drawn, they faced the now shut door in defensive stances. There they stared, waiting in the dense silence.   You swallowed dryly in your confusion and fear. What could they be preparing for?    In the distance, beyond the outside of the room, came a mixture of muffled yelling.    Now it had occurred to you. It could mean only one thing—    Another more chilling scream cut off mid-breath.    —or someone.    Such a sound should not give anyone a sense of hope and impending relief as much as you felt it. But it did.    While they were distracted, you huffed quietly, wiggling your body against the wall in an attempt to sit up straighter.    The yelling and pistol fire neared. The ones in the room shifted on their feet.    In an uncomfortable effort, you pulled and twisted at your bindings. Surely the fabric should give to some extent. As much as it scratched and irritated your skin, you persisted. Your breathing hastened with each second. Glancing between them nearly made you dizzy at the speed of your paranoia. You could not be caught freeing yourself. Not now. Timing was on your side. You hoped. Their priorities had changed. It all appeared to be in your favor.    The door only just slid open, its sound breaking the room of its tension. One of their own flew through the small opening, crashing into another. As they clamored on to the floor, a growl coursed to your ears, and your heart leapt. Maul.   For the tiniest fraction of a second, your eyes met. The usually clear orbs were clouded with a fiery haze, but sharp enough to pierce through any armor.   Launching himself at his closest opponent, it was hardly a challenge. They were in the midst of falling from their wound when he slashed his blade at the next one.    All you could do was gawk as he hunted and slaughtered each individual down in his unhinged rage.    Maul blocked and deflected what bolts shot toward him with unmatched precision. The light and dark sabers in his grasp painted the space around him. His deadly accuracy created a singed scent permeating through the room.

   When the last one fell, you slumped in relief against the wall.    Maul surveyed the room with critical eyes. Deactivating his sabers, he clipped them to his belt and rushed over to you.    The echo of his cybernetics hitting the floor rang in your ears even as he knelt in front of you.    Reaching for your bindings, he ripped it apart effortlessly as if the fabric was entirely fragile and could turn to dust by simply breathing on it. It was discarded away from you in a haphazard pile on the floor.    Delicately, Maul took ahold of your hands. As they lied in his palms, he inspected your wrists wordlessly. The skin was more scratched up from your attempted escape endeavors. The determination was definitely there. Visible and clearly irritated. He looked to you then, his eyes impossibly soft. A stark contrast to his earlier menace.   He placed a gloved hand to your cheek. “You’re safe now,” he said, voice low and strangely calm for your current surroundings.    Everything happened so fast. After hours of waiting, for anything, it all ended within moments. A whimper caught in your throat. Barely audible, but enough to be noticeable by the zabrak in front of you. Mixed with the tears welling around your eyes, your braced state broke.   With heavy arms, you reached up tiredly to him.    Leaning into you closely, Maul gently nuzzled his face to yours as your arms hung over his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I have failed you,” he said, hand cradling yours to his chest.    You shook your head slowly, his nose poking into your cheek. “You didn’t. You’re here,” you whispered, tears now burning your eyes.    “And I shall take you out of here and back to Mandalore.”  

 Scooping you up into his arms, Maul straightened to his full height. As he turned with you toward the door, you could see the aftermath of his rage more closely. A light steam still lifted from the durasteel and other armor of your captors’ fatal injuries. It was ghastly. Thankfully, he walked you out of the room and into a long hall. The ease for your eyes, however, was short lived. No matter where you looked, you glimpsed a wreckage of unmoving bodies littering the floors.    Resting your head on his shoulder, you wanted to focus less on the carnage, and more on your rescuer. With a single hand, you placed your palm on his exposed chest. Feeling his warmth and hearts beat was a familiarity you needed after all of the previous events. Your senses became enveloped by him and only him. The fabric of his tunic brushing your cheek, the singular sound of his cybernetic feet making contact with the floor. Simply being with him again gave you comfort. You were safe. You were loved.    “Rest now,” Maul spoke soothingly. “We’ll be home soon.”    Your eyes grew heavy again.    When the sounds of the outside struck your ears, your interest peaked, if only a little.    “Lord Maul—” A mauldalorian.    “Prepare the ship. We go back to Mandalore immediately.”    And with his words, your eyes drifted closed.

   Eyes opening with a slow flutter of eyelashes, initial confusion swept over you. There was no clue visible to you as to how much time had passed since you were carried over to the ship. As long as you were safe, you did not really care.    Letting out a wide yawn, you felt your body’s arrangement. Your entire form was curled up snugly into Maul’s embrace. Resting between his arms and legs, it was no wonder you had not moved.    Peeking up at him, you gave a soft smile. “You’re still here?”    Maul’s head was surrounded by pillows. It made the intricate headboard of the bed non-existent to your eye-line. You could only imagine how many were supporting his back.    “Of course. And I don’t plan on leaving you any time soon.” His tone was calm but direct. And after what you had been through, you were certain neither of you were going to leave the other’s side for the next few days. Or longer.    One of his hands began caressing up and down your arm fondly. A simple comfort that even he needed deeply. You were with him. Alive and safe under his protection.    “I was scared,” you muttered into his chest. A chest that stilled in his breathing, becoming solid in his momentarily tense state.    “They can’t harm you. Never again. I’ve guaranteed it. For now,” Maul’s voice grew unbelievably silky, “you can continue to rest. I will remain here for as long as you need me.”    You hummed contently, your fingers curling around a fold in his tunic. “Then, I guess you’re not going anywhere.”    He chuckled. A pleasant sound to finally hear. “As you wish,” he smiled, kissing your forehead with the utmost tender touch.

~~~~  ~~~~  ~~~~  ~~~~

Thank you for reading! I hoped you enjoyed.

Also, a huge thank you for this commission. I really did enjoy putting this concept all together.

For those of you who may be interested, yes I do take writing commissions. You can check it out here if you’d like.

[fullmoans]

Home is a Fire | TW fix-it | P. 1

They left Stiles out because they knew the nogitsune would tear him apart, but now the nogitsune is gone and Stiles can feel the nemeton telling him it isn’t over — not for him. And maybe not for Derek either.

There was fire, so much fire. It was hot and blinding, blurring everything else from his view. Suddenly, out of the dark he saw glowing red eyes. He felt pain. Then everything went dark. Gradually, a faint blue light spread from the waning moon above until he could see his surroundings. He was in the forest and he was alone. He turned around once, twice, looking for the source of the fire but he only found himself standing in the one place he never thought he would again. In front of him was the nemeton.

xx

With a start, Stiles Stilinski jolted awake in his small twin bed, almost falling out of it. He reached for his phone for a few moments until he remembered how he had broken it. While on shift they’d gotten a call about a fire, which turned out to be a small kitchen fire with little harm done, and in the haste to load up the truck he’d left his phone on the ground where he had been sitting – only a few feet in front of one of the truck’s wheels. It wasn’t until they got back that he realized what happened to his phone and he planned to fix it but days just kept passing.

He couldn’t sleep, his mind was racing. He got up and left his bedroom. His small apartment was an open room with a kitchen and a balcony and only two doors for his bedroom and his bathroom. The oven clock read 6:05. He went back into the room to change into a pair of jeans and a ratty, too big T-shirt – probably one of Scott’s he’d been accidentally carrying with him for the past 15 years. Once dressed, he could run down to a corner store just a few miles away, one he knew had a pay phone.

xx

It was still dark when Stiles reached the pay phone and fumbled around his center console for enough quarters to make a call. Sheriff Noah Stilinski picked up on the second ring. “Stiles?”

Stiles paused for a moment. The area code. Of course his dad would know it had to be him.

“What happened in Beacon Hills?” Stiles asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I had a dream. All I could see were red eyes. I think something happened to Scott and I think it happened there.”

“Oh, Stiles. Scott’s fine. It was Derek. There was a fire.”

Stiles hung up the phone. He couldn’t breathe. He’d seen a fire. He’d seen the eyes of a wolf, of an alpha. Not Scott’s eyes, but Derek’s. Stiles had been running from what happened to him in Beacon Hills, from what happened to him after, from the heartbreak of Lydia leaving him without a word.

He’d tried to find her for weeks. Whenever he wasn’t working or sleeping, he was searching their favorite cafes, diners, shops, even the park they’d gone to when they first moved to Portland. Instead, he found Jackson. At the diner he’d told Lydia that he would spend the rest of his life with her, Jackson was sitting in the front booth looking directly at him. “Stop looking for her, Stiles. She’s not coming back,” Jackson had said. There wasn’t a drop of sympathy in his voice.

“Why?” Stiles had asked. He was too out of it to play the game with Jackson. He didn’t want to trade insults over a cup of burnt coffee. He just wanted to know why she’d left.

“She had a premonition. Being with you wasn’t what she was supposed to be doing. She knew for weeks but she knew you wouldn’t accept that. She needs you to let her go.”

And he had. It had been 6 years since Lydia had left. It had been longer since he’d been back to Beacon Hills. 5 years still since he’d even seen Scott. He’d seen his dad a few times, when Noah came to visit him in Portland. His therapist said he had PTSD, though she couldn’t say from what – because Stiles didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell her about the friends he had seen die, the people whose deaths he’d been responsible for. He didn’t tell her about what happened in Beacon Hills. Still, he was doing better. He’d learned how to deal with his panic attacks, how to sleep without seeing faces of the people they’d lost, and he’d cut off as much contact with that life as possible after Lydia had left. Occasionally he’d get a text from Malia, an update from his dad on Derek’s son stealing his Jeep again, or a picture of a dog at Scott’s shelter usually accompanied by a message about how Stiles needed a companion and this dog would be the perfect choice.

xx

The sun was finally coming up when Stiles left his apartment again, this time with a duffle bag. He had to stop by the station first, let the chief know he needed a few days off for a family emergency. He said it was his dad, something was wrong with his dad. If his chief didn’t believe him, he didn’t say. He nodded, turned to make it down on the calendar, and gave Stiles 12 days to come back.

The drive ahead of him was going to take hours and his thoughts were still racing. What had happened to Derek? Had Kate come back for him? Had another Argent? Why had his eyes been red? What did the nemeton have to do with any of this?

xx

Outside of Noah Stilinski’s house, there were so many cars. More than he had seen in a long time. The sun was starting to fall from the later afternoon sky. The usually comforting smell of damp woods was missing. A faint smell of smoke remained. He left his duffle bag in the car, a black compact car that got him around well enough, and headed inside.

The house immediately went quiet when Stiles opened the door. He saw his dad talking to a kid – Derek’s son. He saw Scott’s Mom and Allison’s Dad and even Deacon, who he hadn’t seen in at least a decade. Peter was there, in a corner, and Malia glared at him from a few feet away. Liam, Mason, Parrish, and a girl he didn’t know were scattered around the room, too. Lydia and Jackson stood together and Stiles fought the urge to turn and walk straight back to his car. “Stiles?” He turned his attention to Scott. Scott who was standing with someone he didn’t recognize. Did he? She looked so much like someone they’d lost.

“Allison?” He whispered.

“Hey Stiles. It’s me.” Stiles let out a sob. “It’s really me,” she said, taking a step towards him. Scott moved with her and he let out another noise. Suddenly Allison was in his arms. Allison who had been dead. Allison whose death he had been responsible for. Who he had let die.

“How?” He could feel Scott’s arms go around them both. He felt Malia’s next and then Lydia’s hand on his shoulder. This was real. Allison had come back from the dead and in return, they’d lost someone else. It wasn’t fair.

“Derek,” he whispered. He could feel them tense as they let him go, retreating to where they’d been before.

The boy, Eli, he'd remembered his Dad calling him, made eye contact with him then. “My Dad held him back. He saved us. He sent that monster straight to Hell.”

“Parrish sent him to Hell, Derek held him in place,” Malia whispered.

“You were at the nemeton,” Stiles said, trying to put together how his dream had played into this. “No one called. No one came to get me. Derek is gone and I didn’t even know something was happening.”

“I tried to call you but it didn’t go through,” Lydia whispered. Shit, his phone had been broken for 5 days. Had it really all happened so suddenly?

“You couldn’t have been here, kid,” his Dad said, firmly. “That thing, I’m not sure we could’ve stopped it if it had gotten to you this time. He wasn’t playing by the rules anymore. He would never have let you go.”

“Who?” Stiles asked but he did so quietly. In his mind, the nemeton flashed again, this time it was bright – white. There was a chess board on top. “The nogitsune.”

“Yes.” Stiles couldn’t tell whether it was his dad, Scott, or Chris Argent who had responded. Maybe it had been all of them. Maybe none. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t get air. He was going to die and it was going to be because of the nogitsune, again. “He’s dead, Stiles. Gone. Burned by a hellhound. He can’t hurt you or any of us again.” That was Scott’s voice, it was definitely Scott’s.

“But he got Derek,” Stiles said, looking at Scott.

“Derek held him in place on the nemeton while Parrish lit him up. Someone had to hold him there. No one could’ve survived that kind of fire. He made a sacrifice to save all of us.” Stiles couldn’t listen to Scott anymore. He still couldn’t breath but he didn’t feel so much like he was dying. Somewhere, deep inside of him, he felt a pull. He needed to follow it. Out the door, into the woods, and he was running.

xx

Stiles ran until his legs wouldn’t cooperate any more. He collapsed in a clearing of trees. When he looked up, he knew what had been pulling him. It was right in front of him. The nemeton. And it was glowing. Silvery blue strands of light flowed out from the center. He blinked. In that second, the light was gone, and he was just a man on his knees in front of a tree stump with the sun setting and the air turning cold.

But he’d seen it – that light. The nemeton wasn’t done with him yet, and maybe, just maybe, that meant it wasn’t done with Derek either.

[unexpectedstormy]

Stew Pot Plot pt 3

Alternate Prompt #9 Drugging -- Time, Everyone

TW -- nonconsensual drugging, unconsciousness

1009 words

******

Time gently lowered Warriors until he was sitting slouched in the ground and hurried to Epona.

“Up on your feet girl,” he urged. Epona grumbled and got up. Time threw the saddle blanket over her and picked up the saddle, surprised by its weight. When had it gotten so heavy? He heaved it onto her back and went to work on the buckles.

Time heard his name whispered and he turned around, blinking to try and force his eyes to focus and find the source of the call.

“Time…” Warriors said again, he lay down, his eyes barely open. Time knelt next to him, fighting the overwhelming urge to continue the motion and lay down.

“Warriors?” Time shook his shoulder, but Warriors eyes closed and he didn’t respond.

Time was alone.

He returned to Epona’s side. She watched him, dark eyes wide open and knowing something was awry. He put one foot in the stirrup and clutching the saddle horn, tried to haul himself up, but the world spun and he found himself laying on the ground with his ankle caught in the stirrup. He untangled his foot and his leg flopped to the ground as the drugs in his system stole the last of his strength. He tried desperately to force himself up again but he only succeeded in raising his head and shoulders off the ground by a few inches. He tried again, but he could barely move. Epona whinnied in alarm and nuzzled his hair with her lips.

“Old girl,” he raised his hand to pet her nose. “I need you to run. Run for help. I can’t make it… I need you to… run to the stable.” Epona whinnied again and shook her mane.

“Go!” Time said as loudly as he could manage. He slapped her leg and she grunted and jumped back a step in surprise.

“GO!” Time called and slapped her leg again. Epona neighed in distress and turned away. She cantered off saddled, unbridled, and riderless. Once she was out of sight, Time sighed and let his eyes close. He started to drift off, but the sound of footsteps pulled him out of oblivion.

“Are they all out?” A hushed and unfamiliar voice asked. Time cracked one of his eyes open just enough to see through his eyelashes. A pair of red-clad Yiga tiptoed between the sleeping heroes and the mess of their camp.

One of them kicked Sky’s leg but Sky didn’t flinch.

“Out cold,” the Yiga confirmed. “I told ya it would work. You owe me money.”

“Shut up. Let’s just grab the hero and get out of here before anyone sees.”

“Which one is it? They’re all blond.”

“That one’s not blond. His hair’s brown.” One of the Yiga pointed to Hyrule.

“Nah, it’s blond too. Trick of the light.”

“It is too brown! Light brown. Like the color of your underwear, hahaha!”

“You shut your mouth. My underwear is pristine. Unlike yours!”

“Hey!”

“Back to business. One o’ these unlucky bastards is the hero, we just gotta figure out which—ooh! Nice pocketbook! I’ll just take that off you, hehehe.” The Yiga bent down, collected Warriors’ wallet and pocketed it.

“How’re we supposed to do that? They all look like the hero!”

“What do you mean? Surely one of them is the hero! Do you not know what the hero looks like?”

“Why would I know? I’ve never seen him! Haven’t you seen him?”

“How could I have seen him? I’ve been on storeroom duty since I joined! This is my first mission!”

Time was incredulous. These two inept fools were the assassins after Wild and Flora? Sure they’d managed to drug all the heroes to sleep, but they seemed ill-prepared to carry out the rest of their task.

Strangely though, Time suddenly realized, he hadn’t passed out yet. Sure he was exhausted, weak, and groggy but he was awake and aware. Perhaps he hadn’t had enough of a dose…? Whatever the reason, he had to take advantage of it to stop the Yiga… but how? He knew he couldn’t take the Yiga in a fight in his current condition, but maybe one of his magical items or masks…? Time struggled to remember what equipment he had on his person and formulate a plan.

“Do you think Master Khoga would be mad if we brought all of them back?” One of the Yiga asked.

“Of course he would! We don’t have enough bananas to be feeding… 1, 2, 3… 8 more mouths!”

“Can’t you count? There’s nine of them here.”

“Yes I know, but once we figure out which one is the hero, he won’t be around long enough to eat any bananas.”

“You got a point. But what about the extras?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. They’ll probably push them down the bottomless pit.”

A spike of worry lanced through Time’s gut. Epona hadn’t returned with help yet—how long had it been since he sent her off? It was up to him to stop the capture and murder of the youth he held dear. He didn’t have his bag of items on him nor his armor or weapons and he didn’t think he could retrieve any of them from his pile of possessions without being stopped by the Yiga. So what could he do??

“I like the way you think sometimes. Alright then, we’ll take all of them, teleporting them out two by twos.”

“There’s an odd number of them… one of us is goin’ to have to make an extra trip and it ain’t gonna be me.”

Time surreptitiously moved his hand to his belt and felt around for—yes! His ocarina! But what to play? He could summon a storm or… no! He knew exactly which song to play.

“What if the extra is the hero? Wouldn’t you want to be the one to bring him in?”

“… you got me. I think… that one’s the hero. The shrimp in blue with the scruffy hair. Save him for last.” The Yiga pointed at Wind.

“Fine. Now let’s get cracking.”

(To be continued tomorrow...)

[icyowl]

Nyctophilia

Pairing: Shota Aizawa x reader (A/B/O / omegaverse)

Request: none

Synopsis: a cute little drabble about your nightly routine with alpha Aizawa. 2k words.

A/N/: please enjoy

Nyctophilia (n.) Love of darkness or night. Finding comfort or relaxation in the darkness.

--- --- ---

11:53 stared dimly back at you from the clock. That’s it – your overweight eyelids couldn’t stand exposing your aching eyes to the waking world any longer. The battle had been lost, as it would be every night, but the war for a good night's rest would be won.

As long as a certain someone would also find it in himself to concede the fight.

You tossed the blanket off your body, shivering as the cool winter air permeated your clothes. Cold urged you to hurry and turn off the last of the lights around the house. Your irrevocable, incessant instincts yearned to tunnel into those blissful sheets with your alpha. It had become commonplace that he would succumb to his most basic instincts to simply be with you – like he did nearly every night when evil hearts and twisted souls didn’t keep him at bay. He’d tried to convince you for years to stop staying awake for his return (he could always feel your discomfort through the bond the next day when you inevitably passed out on the couch with terrible posture on the nights he couldn’t get home until the sun had risen). When the yearning was at its highest – usually leading up to a heat or rut – he’d take the shortcut through the bedroom window, rather than the front door, in a desperate bid to acquaint himself with you just a moment or two quicker. The extra half minute it took for him to leave his stuff at the front door and make his way back to you was sometimes far too much time.

You delved through the increasing darkness by memory alone. Nightstand here, change in flooring there, hallway down over there. One place you didn’t need memory for though was the office. Like a moth to the flame, your eyes drew themselves to the light source emanating from the lamp perched at the desk corner, dutifully providing a snapshot of light for the weary soul at the helm.

“Shota.” You couldn’t help the words slipping into the chilly air where they froze and faded away. Semi-stacked and half-organized papers covered the entirety of the desk, some hanging off and a few even escaping to the floor. Hunched over the controlled mess was your alpha, one arm holding a thin, stark red pen and the other supporting his lax head. His hair covered most of his face, and the lighting wasn’t great (no doubt straining his poor eyes), but you could still see how the one eye peeking out front under his mane was shut, relaxing after a long day of peering through bright classroom lights. His commitment was admirable. Thinking on your feet, you gently padded over to him. He had a tendency to be a light sleeper; years of training ingrained in him a sense of otherworldly awareness. Somehow, though, his instincts couldn’t help but invite you in. Even from early in the relationship he noticed your ability to bypass his built-in warning system.

He always preferred you to drag him up from sleep with a gentle massage over his scent glands; well, he didn’t admit it verbally, but you knew. You leaned over the chair, embracing Shota from the back and reaching over his shoulders to softly smooth out the muscles of his chest. Right… there. Your fingers found the desired spot, right over top of the collarbone just before it meets the shoulder, and repeatedly applied pressure in a rhythmic way only an omega could master.

“Shota, honey.” You hummed into the crown of his head, feeling his corded muscles come to life under your hands. He exhaled in a way that almost became a groan, sitting up just enough to lean back into your heat. Though it was cold, the solace found in one another’s touches was enough to warm the top of the head to the tips of the fingers. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

It took him a minute to reply, what with your hands so diligently kneading his scent glands. The pressure was the best massage, releasing an onslaught of blissful hormones into his system. Add to that the fact that it was you, his omega, emitting such a maddening scent from every cell of your body including those in your hands. It was like embedding some sort of heaven-touch right into the fibers of his body. If he had a hard time staying awake before, it was easy now. 

“I’ll finish these soon.”

“No, you’re going to finish these later. I know they’ll understand if their essays aren’t returned to them the very next day.” Your head instinctively dropped to set itself into the shelf of his shoulder. Another scent gland. “You only just got out of those bandages.” You spoke into his skin. “I worry about you.”

Shota sighed, leaning back even further to make way for that sinful face of yours to nuzzle its way to his throat. “You should worry about yourself. I can feel the way you lean on me. You’re tired.” He didn’t just have fighting powers, oh no, he had powers of observation that bordered on omniscience. This man could tell someone had cut you in line at the grocery store three days ago just by looking at you. Feeling you though? You were sure he could even tell how your cells were feeling.

“Maybe I wouldn’t be so tired if you didn’t give me so many reasons to worry.”

He all but willed his exhaustion to leave him with his next breath. It wasn’t you that caused any of this tiredness from him. If anything, you were the only thing keeping him awake, with those unbearable hands of yours still working at his muscles like some devils trap–

“Come on. I’m going to bed and you’re coming with me. Please?”

He didn’t recoil when you took his sleeve in your grasp and shut off the final light, pulling him both back towards the bedroom.

“I just want you to be okay, whatever that is to you.” You said, face turned away from him. He looked at you, or at least what he could see in the dark, and his soul smiled. Who would have thought a stoic, brash, introverted, attention-hating man would have managed to snag you of all things from the endless grasps of alphas just waiting to devour you. Yes his eyes were tired, yes they were sore, but what made up for all of it was being blessed with those withered eyes to see you. From the very first to the very last time, he’d get to see you in all that you were, which extended far beyond that which could be visualized. He inhaled to reply, only for his windpipe to cut itself off in a moment of constriction when you yipped in pain and crumpled in a single motion to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Shota knelt to your level, hands skimming you in an effort to find injuries. You pulled your leg into yourself, rocking to and fro like a small child.

“Stubbed my toe.” You breathed in a vague laugh. His worry poured across most of the house like a rapid tsunami. It was strong enough to send you into a fit of anxiety, your emotions traveling through and reverberating off one another. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Shota carefully dropped his forehead on top of your own, inhaling and exhaling deeply. You worried him senseless sometimes, but with that smell of yours drowning his brain he couldn’t really think well enough to form any type of anger. “I think it best if I lead us the rest of the way.” He snagged your arms and supported the majority of your weight without much effort. You knew he liked being able to support you completely, physically as well as otherwise. The rest of the way back to the room was uneventful thanks to Shota’s adept skills in the night.

A blast of frigid air at the entrance to your bedroom made you shiver. You’d left the window open and now you were sure icicles would form on the ceiling. It was much too cold even for people who liked to sleep at low temperatures, such as the man beside you (he claimed it allowed a person to sleep better at night). You tried to enter the room and shut the offending household opening before an iron-strong arm shot out and prevented you from going any further.

“Wait.”

“Honey no one’s in here. Look, the window screen is still intact. No one could have gotten in.”

“I don’t care.” Shota advanced into the room, nose carding through all the scents and eyes the shade of ruby pinpricks. Instantly he envisioned all possible scenarios, including the ones where the villain had gotten farther in the house and was now going to drag you away from him, perhaps for forever if he wasn’t careful. Whoever they were, at the very least they wouldn’t be using any blasted quirks, not to mention he’d obliterate them even without his capture weapon. In these quarters, his rage would be more than enough. The way he went to such extremes to ensure you remained unharmed at all times made the muscles in your chest and stomach ache at the gesture. You buried yourself into the crook of his back, hands fisting into the fabric of his clothes.

“That U.S.J. incident’s really got you on edge.”

“When have you ever known me not to inspect an open window?”

“Okay, true.”

“Come on, coast is clear.” His hair returned to its normal crestfallen appearance, which you smoothed out even further. Using his quirk always left his hair in such a mess. He looked back at you with a deep, unfathomable gaze. The last thing those eyes needed was to use their quirk again, but he’d do it for eternity if it meant you’d be safe, that much you couldn’t deny. To thank him for putting that disheveled gaze to use for your safety, you tiptoed upwards and lovingly kissed the scar on his cheek for a long moment.

“Thank you.” You said, going off to undress. He did nothing for a few seconds, simply taking in his life and every single thing he loved about it. Huh, how funny, most of that had to do with you. He followed after you and undressed himself to a level that was comfortable, watching in amusement as you smacked down onto the bed face first, groaning from your place smashed into the covers. It took you but a brief moment to burrow underneath them all, the plush rolls coming up to encircle you. You turned your back to him, and he nearly had to take a seat at the overwhelming beauty that stared back. Here you were, sleepy, content, and trusting enough to turn your back to him without thought. It wasn’t new for you to do this, but it still was something special to him.

Slipping in beside you, he snagged your body from its place too far away from him and pulled you over top, his own personal blanket. You further delved your nose into a scent gland on his skin, forcing him to push out a sigh. His fingers worked their way deep into your hair, acquainting themselves with your scalp in a way that bordered on heavenly. Your bodies stayed like that for some time, too tired to fall asleep.

“Do you tire of me?”

I worry about you. Your words from earlier were making him feel guilty. He had always believed he wasn’t the easiest to love. “Shota, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“I can cut the lessons, give the kids more homework. You and I can–”

“That’ll just give you even more stuff to grade. Babe, please don’t read into it too much. I worry because that’s what I’m supposed to do. How about I phrase it like this? I worry because you do such a good job taking care of me that I want to make sure you’re good to go too.”

Hearing you say that did more than a little to ruffle his proverbial feathers. “When you put it like that, I guess I’ll have to keep up the good work.” He snickered to himself.

“That’s also not what I meant.” You groaned. “You’re impossible.”

All the while you were smiling against him.

“And you’re mine.” Shota wasn’t the greatest at spinning his words, but deep within the ocean of darkness, where he excelled so beautifully at apprehending his foes, he gained a level of confidence that most others didn’t get to witness too often. But here you were, cradled and sung to sleep by it nearly every night. You nosed a scent gland on his chest, getting him to relax further.

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“Careful. That nose of yours is gonna get you in trouble if you don't stop.”

--- --- ---

Don't be afraid to tell me what you think!

[ro-is-struggling]

Incomplete || Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: When your relationship started to have problems you and Bucky agreed that the best thing to do would be to break up. At the time it had sounded like the only option you had left. But now, several months later, Bucky was beginning to wonder if he had done the right thing because the pain in his heart and the emptiness in his chest only seemed to grow with each passing day.

Based on prompt 28 from this prompt list:  “I tried to go on like I never knew you // I'm awake but my world is half asleep // I pray for this heart to be unbroken // But without you all I'm going to be is incomplete” (Incomplete by Backstreet Boys)

Warnings: angst (with happy ending), one kinda intense kiss scene, english is not my first language! I think that’s all but if I missed anything let me know!

Word count: 2600+ 

Notes: This story was requested by @tapedeck-hearts​​ Thank you very much for stopping by my blog! This was going to be just pure angst with no happy ending but I guess I was in a fluffy mood so this is the result. I hope you like it anyway💖

Bucky didn't remember breakups being so devastating. He had had his fair share of love affairs in his time and there was a period of time when he thought he was an expert on the subject. He had been through every state and embodied every stereotype of a man in love that existed. He had been the one ending the relationship and he had also been dumped. He remembered most of those instances in great detail and could say with certainty that he had never felt as empty as he did when he woke up in the morning without your body lying next to his. 

Things between you were somewhat complicated, not by your choice but rather by the whim of fate. You loved each other, but you soon discovered that that was not the only important thing in a relationship. Sharing quality time together was a very important aspect, one that you were never able to make work. Bucky had a very demanding job. As an Avenger he was constantly traveling on dangerous missions that forced him to spend most of his time away from home and away from you. And when he finally returned it was your work demands that kept you two apart. 

You both loved your jobs almost as much as you loved each other. Bucky's job in the Avengers helped him alleviate the guilt he still felt about his past as the Winter Soldier. And you had worked too hard to get where you were, finding a great source of happiness and pride in your daily work to abandon it. Neither of you wanted to give up your jobs and neither of you wanted to be the reason the other gave up their dreams and projects. But you didn't know how to build a future together when your goals were so incompatible. Your relationship seemed to be more trouble than it was worth, so you decided by mutual agreement that the best thing to do was to break up. 

It had not been a decision you took lightly, nor did you do it without feeling a great pain in your chest as you said your final goodbye to each other. It was a sad ending to what could have been a beautiful story, and perhaps that was why it hurt so much, but at the time you both genuinely thought it was the only option you had left. 

Or so Bucky thought until he began to feel the weight of sadness and loneliness on his shoulders. His days seemed to be grayer without the ray of light that was your presence in his life. His nights were colder without the warmth of your body enveloping him as he slept and he lacked the motivation to get up in the mornings. He felt empty, incomplete, because a part of his heart had stayed with you. 

He had done everything to try to forget you. He had given his heart time to heal, he had cried in the shower and at night before going to sleep, he had covered his pain with work. He had even tried to meet new people, to go out with strangers to remind himself that the world hadn't ended and that he wouldn't be alone forever. But nothing seemed to work. Nothing was able to fill the void that your absence had left in his heart. 

 "What is wrong with me?" Bucky snorted in frustration, taking a long sip of the beer he held in his hands.

"Nothing, pal," Steve said, patting him on the back. "You are in love, that's all."

Sam let out a chuckle at Bucky's absolute ignorance, hiding his grimace of amusement behind the bottle of beer he conveniently lifted to his lips. The super soldier gave him a menacing look, but said nothing. In fact, he remained silent for quite a while, Steve's words echoing in his head.

He was in love. 

Suddenly the intensity of his feelings made sense. He knew he deeply cared for you, but your relationship hadn't lasted long enough for him to put words to how he felt about you. He hadn't come to question whether he really loved you even though deep in his heart he had known that he did for a long time. And now he felt even more stupid for letting you go. 

"Look, if it's bothering you this much you should talk to her" Sam said as he noticed the gears in Bucky's head moving quickly behind his scowl as he analyzed the situation.

"I can't talk to her! We agreed to break up, she doesn't care about me anymore."

"You don't know that. Maybe she's feeling as miserable as you are right now."

"There is no point. Our relationship didn't work before, why would it work now? I just have to try harder to forget her.”

"Well, maybe this time can be different considering now you know you love her" Steve interjected, speaking as if it were obvious. "Maybe now you can make some changes to make sure it works out."

"Maybe..." Bucky muttered, lost in thought.

His friends' words stayed in his mind for the rest of the week as he considered what he was going to do. Bucky didn't know if you felt the same way he did, if you missed sleeping in his arms and waking up next to him the way he did. And honestly he was afraid to know the answer. He was afraid to find out that you were over him and that your relationship was nothing more than a memory of the worst mistake of his life. For a while that fear had been enough to paralyze him. He would rather miss you than find out that you didn't have feelings for him anymore. 

Lately, however, the emptiness in his chest was getting bigger and bigger. Bucky missed you in every way it was possible to miss someone. He missed the electricity that coursed through his body when your fingers gently caressed his skin and the warmth that flooded his core when you whispered sweet nothings in his ear. He missed the sound of your voice and the incoherent gibberish he sometimes heard you whisper in your sleep. He needed you. You were the only person who could make him feel whole again because you had the other half of his heart.

All of a sudden Bucky stopped caring that you didn't feel the same way he did. He stopped worrying about the pain your indifference might cause him because he was convinced that nothing could be worse than the emptiness he was feeling right now. He had to try to fix things, he owed it to his heart. So he headed to your apartment without even bothering to call you first to let you know or find out if you would be there to greet him.

"Bucky?"you asked in confusion as you opened the door to find your ex-boyfriend on the other side. "What are you doing here?"

"You're going out" he mumbled, ignoring your question. His eyes traveled down your body, admiring you from head to toe. The blood from all over your body gathered in your cheeks, feeling embarrassed. Although you didn't know if it was due to the revealing outfit you were wearing or the fact that your ex-boyfriend, who you were still not over, had caught you at that moment.

"Yeah, we broke up, remembrer?" you said defensively to silence the guilt that was beginning to cloud your mind as you saw the sadness in Bucky's eyes. You hadn't even wanted to go out in the first place. Your friends, tired of watching you suffer for your ex, decided it was time for you to try to put your life back together. You didn't feel ready yet, your heart was still beating for Bucky, but your friends had insisted and you couldn't refuse."What are you doing here?" you repeated your question, your voice pulling Bucky out of the trance his own thoughts had put him in. 

"Did we do the right thing? When we broke up, I mean. Was it the right thing to do?" he asked with eyes full of doubt. 

"Bucky..." you trailed off. It was not the right time to have that conversation. You were in the hallway of your apartment and your friends could show up at any moment. But you couldn't say no to him when you had asked yourself that same question a thousand times.

"Just... Please, tell me that you never thought about it, that you never wondered if we did the right thing. Tell me you are completely over me and I'll walk away and you'll never see me again."

"Bucky, I..." It was the only thing you managed to say. You couldn't answer him. You knew you weren't over him, but you weren't sure if telling him was a good idea. As much as it hurt, you had broken up for a reason and nothing assured you that things would be any different now. You couldn't give in to your heart's desires knowing that it would bring you more pain in the future. But at the same time the thought of never seeing Bucky again made your heart clench with sadness. 

He seemed to read the conflict in your expression. He saw the hesitation in your eyes. And hidden behind the clouds of doubt he noticed a familiar sparkle that made his heart race. It was the sparkle of love, the one he noticed in your eyes when your gaze connected after sharing a kiss or when he complimented you. The tension in his shoulders disappeared completely, relieved to discover that you were just as screwed as he was. 

He took a step toward you and you didn't pull away. You bit your lip hesitantly causing Bucky's eyes to travel to your mouth. He admired your lips for a moment before returning his attention to your eyes. Then you noticed that his pupils had grown. The air caught in your throat, recognizing what the expression on Bucky's face meant. You knew full well what was about to happen and yet you did nothing to prevent it. Bucky gave you time to protest or say something to stop him before he acted on his desires. But you did nothing. You longed for what was about to happen as much as he did, so when Bucky leaned closer to you you just closed your eyes, letting him bring your lips together in a desperate kiss. 

You lost yourself in the softness of his lips, reveling in the electricity that coursed through your body at the mere touch of his hands on your face. You clung to his body, letting him guide you into your apartment while you focused all your attention on memorizing the taste of his mouth. Bucky pushed you against the door after closing it, taking the opportunity to press his body against yours. He bent his head to deepen the kiss and you let out an involuntary moan, enjoying his closeness. His scent assaulted your nostrils as his fingers caressed every inch of skin at his disposal. Your brain short-circuited, completely overwhelmed by the sensations Bucky aroused in your body. You could only respond to his demanding lips that moved desperately against yours. 

You had missed Bucky so much, dreamed so many times of feeling his kisses on your skin again, that the experience didn't feel real. You were afraid to open your eyes and discover that it was all a figment of your imagination. But the intensity with which your heart was beating told you that you were not in a dream. Bucky really was there, kissing you as if his life depended on it. 

You groaned when his lips parted from yours, though you took the opportunity to catch your breath. Luckily you didn't have to complain much as Bucky's lips made contact with yours again. It was a simple, quick brush of lips before moving down your jaw all the way to your neck, leaving a trail of wet kisses. Your fingers lost themselves in his hair, tugging at the brown locks as he sucked a mark just below your ear. Bucky grunted in response and you felt your legs go limp. You'd forgotten how much you loved hearing him make those sounds.

"God, I missed you" he murmured against your skin in a hoarse voice and your heart skipped a beat. The sound of his voice was intoxicating, but his lips had more power over you. And when he parted them from your skin to speak, the spell he cast over you was broken. Slowly your brain regained its cognitive abilities, remembering the reasons that had led you to that situation in the first place.

"Wait, stop. We can't do this" you suddenly exclaimed, acting against every fiber of your being. At your words Bucky immediately pulled away from you, though he kept his hands resting on your hips. "We broke up for a reason, Bucky. It didn't work before so why would it work out now?"

"Because I'm gonna make it work. I don't care what I have to do, I would do anything to get another chance. These last few months without you have been hell and I would do anything to never feel that way again" he replied with such conviction that he almost managed to convince you. Almost.

"I don't want you to sacrifice your life for me, Buck. We talked about this already. Your work as an Avenger is important for so many reasons..." you murmured sadly, remembering the many talks you' d had in the past about it.

"None of that matters if I don't have you by my side," he interrupted you."I love you, Y/N, and I'm sorry we had to break up for me to realize it.. But now that I know I'm willing to do anything to make us work. I need you with me, Y/N. You complete me."

Bucky's words brought tears to your eyes. He sounded so sincere, so desperate, and you felt it deep in your soul. You knew very well what he meant when he said that you completed him because you felt exactly the same way about him. You complemented each other in a special way, it was as if you had finally found the missing piece of the puzzle that was your life. But you hadn't realized it until you lost it again. Nothing had felt right since you and Bucky broke up. For a long time you had thought that emptiness was part of the grieving process, but now that you heard Bucky put the same feeling into words you understood what it really was: love. You felt strange and empty inside because you had lost the other half of your heart. 

"I love you too, Buck" you said softly before you joined your lips in a kiss again. It was a much slower kiss than the previous ones. Your lips moved gently, allowing yourself to enjoy the moment. You cupped his face with your hands as he pulled you closer to him by the waist. You melted into the warmth of his arms, savoring the moment. When you separated you kept your eyes closed for a moment, resting your forehead on his. As you opened them you found his deep blue eyes studying your expression and you were unable to contain the smile that formed on your face. You really had missed this kind of intimacy with him. 

"Okay, let's try this one more time."

[millerflintstone]

The worst of the storm on our property is this little tree that snapped and fell into other trees.

We got electricity back at around 4 this morning. I was so sleep deprived and groggy. The previous day I maybe had an hour's sleep total. Last night Gig had a litter box balance issue and had mushy poop smashed into the underside of the base of her tail. In general that cleanup is not fun. At 1 am with only a battery powered lantern and my phone light as a light source, it was a struggle. I eventually found some old wipes and got her clean.

So, when I woke up to Unfriendly closing the windows in our bedroom, I was confused because the breeze was nice. Instead of just telling me what was going on, he told me to look around and pay attention 🙄🙄. I swear, I was in the middle of some deep sleep stage but attempting to be awake and it took me a good minute to register light and the AC being on.

I took the temperature of the fridge and the mini fridge. Nothing outside of mustard type condiments, lemons, and some hard cheeses were salvageable. I know Unfriendly was talking to me during but I had to keep asking him to repeat himself because the words did not make sense. At all.

The freezers held up better because they were full. Everything was still frozen. Then I passed out again, got woken up at 6:30 by Gigabyte wanting breakfast and I passed out until 10 am ish.

I was originally going to do a bunch of errands on Friday morning, but Gigabyte scared me. She had a bad bout of vomiting to where she jerked her little body so hard that she 1) threw her front paws into it 2) was disoriented after to where she couldn't stand 3) was very disoriented and wobbly 4) sprained something on her right back side so bad she kept collapsing when she walked.

I cleaned her up, carried her to her heating pad, applied her rice compress after I warmed it up and then massaged and tried to stretch out that side over the rest of the day. I didn't feel comfortable leaving her alone because walking was such a struggle. She finally started moving better close to 5 pm and then the storm hit.

We've both noticed she has a harder time moving before storms. I wonder if the pressure made her sick. Apparently the vomiting could have affected her Vagus nerve which can cause blood pressure fluctuations.

She's better today. The humans are tired and cranky though. Unfriendly cleaned out the big fridge earlier. We survived Kroger and Costco. I'll be cleaning out the mini fridge tonight.

I'm glad we didn't have a fridge full of fresh groceries.

[rosemaidenvixen]

The Pinned Moth

Chapter 6: Belly of the Beast

Content warning: non graphic torture, dehumanization

Ao3

The mimicry of human-like attributes by higher level specimens is one of the many factors that makes them so dangerous. There have been multiple cases of naive civilians being deceived by the mimicry of wild specimens and suffering injury, or even loss of life, as a result. Even in contained specimens, misguided employees engaging with these behaviors is the number one cause of containment breaches. Fortunately experience has shown that after a period of time without any response to their mimicking behaviors, these behaviors will eventually cease. This period of time varies for each specimen and cannot be predicted by any means yet devised. But in the history of the Avalon Corporation, every acquired specimen has eventually stopped displaying these mimicking behaviors towards staff after extended captivity.

It was dark now, the room still and quiet, no one here but the Collector, all alone in their bubble. They had lost count of the number of dark times and light times that had passed. The only thing they knew for sure was that they’d spent a shorter amount of time here than in the disk, there was no way that much time had passed. 

For most of the time in the disk he’d slept, for hundreds of thousands of years he’d slept, until Philip found him and woke him up. Even when he’d been awake the disk hadn’t been bad, it hadn't been good either, just a numb nothingness floating in a void.

But here in the bubble everything constantly shifted between dark, light, and pain. 

The Collector had woken up a little while ago, but hadn’t bothered moving, laying on his side curled into a loose ball.

He wasn’t tired, all the magic that had been drained away was back, the same as it always was when he woke up. But despite being at full power he still couldn’t find it in him to move from where he was sprawled out on the floor.

Both the dark and light times were awful in their own ways. The light times had the humans and the drainings and more pain than he ever imagined, but the dark times weren’t nice either. There wasn’t any pain during the dark times and the humans left them alone, but from the moment the dark times started he was waiting for them to end and the light times to start.

From the instant he woke up all he could do was lie there, terrified of what he knew was coming. 

Sooner or later. Whether it took hours or minutes or seconds, the humans would come in and the drainings would start.

And now matter what time it was, whether he was by himself or the room was full of people, he was always always alone.

From behind him a faint click echoed through the room. The noise was soft but the Collector still flinched. He couldn’t see the source of the sound, but he knew exactly what it was.

The door unlocking.

A low creak followed immediately after the click.

The door opening. 

Voices poured into the room, bright lights blazing to life and banishing every trace of the darkness. The voices now accompanied by the dull patter of feet on the floor, both steadily getting louder as they approached.

The Collector still didn’t move from where he was on the floor, but he could feel himself start to shake.

The humans. 

 He didn’t try to listen to them any more, he didn’t want to know how much and how long they were going to drain him for. But despite his best efforts to block out the sounds their words still crawled their way in.

“--ank you again for taking the time to come down here,” Ma’am spoke “I’m grateful for the opportunity to show you the utterly remarkable results we’ve been producing,”

“I must say I had my doubts,” a new voice, not one the Collector had ever heard before “But your team has exceeded expectations. If you continue at this rate we should be able to move our schedule ahead six months,”

“Thank you doctor, your confidence in us means a lot,”

“Is this the specimen right here?”

The new voice was close now, Ma’am and the new person must be standing right outside the bubble. The Collector, still trembling, curled in on themselves further, but otherwise didn’t move.

Screaming and shouting, bargaining and begging; none of it ever did any good, none of the humans ever listened, nothing ever changed. No point in even trying.

“Yes it is, and over here you can see the read out of its current levels,”

A rustling of paper.

“These levels are impressive but the specimen itself seems unresponsive,” the new voice spoke up “Do we need to start accommodating a depleted supply?”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Ma’am said cooly “The baseline has never once dropped during the entire course of testing,”

“Still, if we’re forced to seek out a new power source at this stage–”

“That’s just the conditioned response from being in captivity,” Sir’s voice this time “All specimens eventually reach this stage, it’s nothing to be concerned about. Didn’t you pay attention during orientation?”

“I don’t appreciate your tone.” the new voice abruptly turned cold and hard, making the Collector shiver.

“Frankly I don’t appreciate–”

“Let’s go ahead and do a few runs,” Ma’am cut in “One look at the levels we’re churning out should ease any doubts you have,”

The voices dropped to murmurs and moved away, seconds later the machine hummed to life, the Collector jerking sharply at the sound.

Their breath hitched, coming in short, sharp pants, as the hum slowly grew louder, drowning out the voices from outside the bubble. Heartbeat ratcheting up as the machine’s hum turned into a rumble. Squeezing their eyes shut and tensing for the pain that they knew was coming.

He wanted out of this bubble. He wanted the humans to stop. He wanted to be back in the demon realm. He wanted the Owl Lady. He wanted King.

Quivering, the Collector curled up even further, burying their face into their knees,

He wasn’t going to get any of those things. He was stuck, trapped in this bubble for however long the humans wanted to keep draining him, which could be forever and ever.

He was never going to see the demon realm or King ever again.

The beginnings of tears burned in his eyes, the rumble thundering all around them now, it wouldn’t be long before it became a roar.

No matter how he screamed and cried and begged it still happened, nothing he did ever stopped it from happening.

The fabric pressed against their face turned cool and damp as the tears started to leak out, their entire body shaking with silent sobs.

Couldn’t fight it, couldn't stop it, couldn't change it. 

The only thing to do was lay there and wait for it to be over.

The rumble peaked into a roar, the bubble filled with searing light, burning in through the corners of their eyelids, and thousands of needle sharp teeth ripped into them, a scream tearing out of their throat as the horrible light shredded them to pieces over and over and over again.

[bloombird]

3 AM Conversations

Tags: Insomnia, Comfort, 3 am conversations, Fluff, Implied Abuse

At the devil's hour, two small bots trudge on looking for a place of rest. They walk on the road in silence. They haven't said a word to each other yet they know what the other is feeling. Their feet drags on for what it seems like hours.

One of them, a mangy stuffed toy, stops his tracks and nudges his companion. He points. His companion glances to where he was pointing, a near-crumbling structure. The companion looks back at him and nods. They walk closer.

The abandoned two-story building looms over them. Mold and cracks litters the establishment. Despite its shattered windows and gloomy aura, they step inside.

Trash, glass pieces, and nails are strewn across the floor of the building. If they could squint, they can see the vandalism walls camouflaging from the shadows.

As they enter, the stuff toy reaches out for his slingshot and sniffs the air for any potential bots or threat living there. His companion stares at him. The stuff toy shakes his helm and puts back his slingshot. The other bot sighs. Is it out of relief or disappointment? The stuff toy doesn't know. Well, it's just only them again. Alone.

The two bots carefully tread along, avoiding the obstacles, using the dim moonlight as their only light source.

Without looking at each other, they press forward to reach the stairs. The stuff toy- Raif Twinwood comes up first. He turns around to help Azure Gig up. 'Be careful,' he barely whispers but Azure Gig hears him loud and clear. He holds Raif's hand firmly and jumps up.

They finally reach the second floor. The second floor is less dingy than the previous floor. Less trash and sharp objects scattered around the room. No one's there. They both let out a weary sigh as they sit down in the corner of the room. Raif lays down his slingshot next to him while Azure finds a dirty rag next to them. Azure dusts out any debris from the rag and shows it to Raif.

Raif tiredly nods and Azure wraps the rag around them as a blanket for the night and the morning.

They mutter each other good night and Raif shuts his optics.

It's been hours. The silence is soothing, save for the occasional breeze that passes through the building. It lulls Raif to sleep to the point of turning into his alt mode until- His ear twitches. He hears Azure shuffling.

Raif slowly opens his optics and notices Azure's back is in front of him. He hears his breathing being awkward and nearly silent. "Bullets?" he whispers groggily.

Azure stiffens and slowly turns around to look at Raif. "Yeah?" he fakes a yawn and rubs his optic.

Raif, being done with his act, asks. "Were you awake this whole time?"

Azure is silent. Which is enough for Raif to know everything.

"Bullets.. Go back to sleep."

"What? I was-"

"No, you're not, you idiot. You didn't turn into your alt mode for what? Weeks? Months?"

Speaking of that, he has never seen Azure's alt mode despite them traveling around together for months. Usually, botbots turn into their alt mode once they have achieve a deeper sleep in order to save up more energy for the night.

But.. he hasn't seen Azure turn at all. Azure always wakes up early before. Is he pretending to sleep this whole time? Always relying on food to gain energy? Is that why he was easily tired before? Raif ponders the thought more before-

"I just.. I can't.. I don't want to-" Azure stammers and lets out a breathy chuckle. "I don't want to turn into.."

Raif puts his hand at Azure's shoulder. "No one else's here. It's just me-"

"I don't want to, okay?!"

Raif is taken aback by his loud voice and so does Azure. "I'm sorry.." Azure fumbles his hands. "I don't want to talk about it.. Not right now. Please?"

No matter how close they are, Azure couldn't share his dark thoughts and memories lingering at the back of his mind. If he does, his emotions and baggage will burst out like a tidal wave. It agonizes Raif to see Azure bottling up all his trauma and letting himself hurt with a smile as if it's his only purpose.

"Okay.." Raif sighs and painfully he lets it slide.

Azure looks guilty. "Sorry.." He tries to get himself to sleep.

"Hey, how about this?" Raif ponders to find a good topic. A conversation is enough to make Azure calm down and maybe- hopefully sleep. "Tell me your dreams."

Azure blinks at the question before thinking. "Well, I.."

Raif listens intently as Azure continues. "I always wanted to sing.. Singing songs about my own feelings and my message of love and peace. Being an inspiration to everyone and have a good time. Y'know, instead of being a gunslinger, I'd rather be a gun singer," he grins at his own joke.

The stuff toy blinks back at him. Azure nervously laughs. "What am I saying? It's kinda stupid-"

Raif holds his hand and squeezes it. "It's not. Your dream isn't stupid." He says earnestly. "Don't think of it that way. I think it's nice."

Azure is taken aback by his sudden fondness. If Raif could see clearly in the dark, Azure's face turns red. "Y-You don't think it's stupid?"

"Yeah. But your pun's the only one that's stupid."

Azure made a mock gasp. He pouts and stuck his tongue at him, "Meanie."

Raif almost smiles. Good, he's okay now.

"Here, I remember this lullaby that I used to sing to Ferezkó since they're such a scaredy crybaby." Raif hums under his breath. He couldn't fully sing it anymore. His voice is all gravelly due to his past experiences punishments that were so severe that it always left him screaming at the top of his voice-box until he couldn't anymore.

It's an old lullaby that tells a story about angels and little people. Azure listens to him singing in wonder. Raif finishes the lullaby and Azure perks up. "That's amazing. You should sing more."

Raif scoffs. "I wish. I can't do it anymore because of-" He bites his tongue. Azure's expression turned to concern. "Because of my voice.. it's all gravelly." Raif lies through his teeth.

Azure knows he's hiding something but thankfully decides not to press it. "Okay.. I'll try singing it along."

Azure quietly sings. It's beautiful and sweet like honey. Raif stares at him in awe as he sings in melody and melancholy. The stuff toy doesn't know he's entrapped by his voice until Azure finishes the lullaby in a quiet note.

"Not bad. Not bad, bullets.." Raif grins.

Azure giggles softly. "Really?"

"You really can reach your dreams."

Azure yawns. "Mhm.. It's fun.. Thanks, Raif.." He smiles as his optics slowly close. "It really means a lot to me.."

Raif pulls him closer, settling for a hug. He looks at him and notices the way Azure relaxes along with his scars across his face. He looks peaceful and happy.

"Good night.. Azure," Raif murmurs under his breath before he transforms to his alt mode, making sure Azure had something to hold on to for his life.

[bakedbakermom]

Stained

Chapter 3: Smolder // start at the beginning

tagging @today-in-fic @ao3feed-msr

Honestly I am so pleased with this chapter. The dialogue, the characterization, the Vibes. If you read only one chapter of this fic, let it be this one.

smolder verb 1. to burn with little smoke and no flame 2. to exist in a suppressed state --- Conversations with dead people.

Four hours later, the coffee was long gone, and the heavy bags of snacks were reduced to nothing but wrappers and a scattering of crumbs. Xander, predictably, was snoring in the corner, Anya's head in his lap; she kept muttering in her sleep, and each time he would soothe her with a pat on the head, without either waking up. Tara and Willow had moved to the store’s loft, reading aloud to each other in shifts to keep awake.

Buffy had left for patrol shortly after midnight—“Not every vamp is as charming as you, Mulder,” she quipped as she loaded a crossbow into her bag—and Giles had gone home to comb through his library and check in with a few contacts on the other side of the world who would just be waking up. Spike at one point simply stood up and left, his leather jacket flapping behind him like the wings of a giant bat—a move Scully was sure he had practiced—and vanished into the night.

Even Mulder was slumped in his chair, dozing. She had rummaged up a blanket from the training room at the back of the shop, hoping it wasn’t somehow cursed, and tucked it in around him. He barely managed to mumble a “Thank you,” before drifting back to sleep.

Scully had spent so long staring at a scroll in a language she couldn’t even pronounce, let alone read, that the boxy little symbols were starting to make a worrying kind of sense; like a Magic Eye painting, if she let her eyes relax and her focus drift, they almost looked like tiny monsters.

She leaned back, her head swimming with a sudden exhaustion that bordered on delirium. She hadn’t slept more than three consecutive hours since they had landed in this sun-baked hellmouth, spending her days falsifying reports and medical records for Skinner to explain her and Mulder’s continued absence—given their track record, him being grievously injured on the job was a decent cover story—and her nights up to her neck in legends she still could only half-believe. All the coffee and junk food in the world couldn’t save her from the consequences. Her eyes felt gummy in her skull, her nose was clogged with the grime of thousand year-old books, and the room itself seemed to contract and swelter around her. She lurched to her feet, fighting back nausea, and rushed toward the back door.

The night air hit her like a wave and she gulped down its soothing chill again and again until the urge to hyperventilate or vomit had passed. Slowly the darkness receded from the edges of her vision and the bile eased back down her throat. She pressed her fists into the small of her back and arched her spine, releasing several satisfying pops.

“Tasty thing like you shouldn’t be out here alone in the dark.”

Scully whirled around to face the darkness at the mouth of the alley, her gun drawn and aimed toward the source of the voice before she was even conscious of moving. A lean figure hunched against the wall.

“Might get snapped up by something dangerous.”

The figure inched forward into the light from the street lamp. Pale skin, white-blond hair, absurd leather jacket. She sagged with relief, hands shaking as she holstered her weapon. “Spike. You scared the hell out of me. Have you been lurking there all night?”

“Oh no, I’ve been lurking lots of places. A regular lurk-about, that’s me.” He swaggered down the alley and dropped dramatically onto the step in front of her. “Pull up some concrete, pet. I’ve got a few hours before I risk a serious sunburn, and I’ve got a fresh pack of coffin nails.”

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his long, black coat and used an unnecessary amount of flourish to light one with a silver Zippo. When he saw her look of vague disgust, he only shrugged. “What? It’s not like they’re gonna kill me.”

She huffed out an exhausted laugh, shaking her head at the sheer absurdity of her life as she sat down beside him. “Are you going to share that or what?”

“Pretty sure you’re not immortal, love.”

“There’s some debate about that, actually, but at this point I’m too exhausted to care.” She held out her hand and he passed her the cigarette, the ember of its tip glowing in the gloom.

“Possible immortality, is it? Funny, your man never mentioned that.”

“You guys talk about me a lot? In between shots of plasma, I mean.”

“Actually, Mulder talked about you pretty much all night. Scully this. Scully that. Scully, Scully, Scully. Do you even have a first name?

She took a deep drag from the cigarette, the smoke curling from her parted lips in delicate spirals. “Dana.”

“Lovely name for a lovely lady,” he said, taking it back.

“And what about you? I can’t imagine your mother looking down at her beautiful, bouncing, peroxide-blond baby boy, and proclaiming you Spike .”

He paused for a beat, considering her, then smiled a charmingly crooked smile and held out one pale hand. “William.”

They shook. The cold, dry flesh of Spike’s hand was almost beginning to feel normal.

“So, William, what exactly did Mulder say about me?”

“Sorry, pet. There’s a code. Like a bro code, but for fangy folk. ‘Dead men tell no tales’ or what have you.”

The dead were walking. A thousand-year-old ex-demon was napping on her boyfriend’s lap in the next room. She had fed her partner from her own veins. And an actual vampire was sitting next to her, quoting Treasure Island . Or possibly the Disneyland ride. Scratch normal , her life was a damned B-movie. An hysterical giggle bubbled up in her throat, and she covered it with a cough as she blew out another puff of smoke.

Spike either didn’t notice her small existential crisis, or else chose to politely ignore it. “I will tell you he feels bloody awful about what he did before he got all resoulified. Man’s only got a handful of bad deeds under his belt, but he’s got guilt for centuries.”

Scully’s memories of that night rattled loudly in the locked box of her mind she had crammed them into. She did not, would not, let them out. “I imagine you understand a little bit about that.”

“Not exactly. Don’t get me wrong, I was evil with a capital E, cutting a bloody swath across the continents for nearly two hundred years. And I enjoyed the hell out of it. Honestly not sure I ever would have stopped on my own, but I didn’t exactly get a choice. I don’t really spend a lot of time beating myself up about it, though.”

Scully arched a brow in curious surprise. “Your soul doesn’t torment you with grief during your every waking moment and drive you to desperate acts of penance?”

He laughed. “Been talking to Giles, have you? Sorry love, I’m not one to wax poetic about souls. Mostly because I haven’t got one.”

Mulder had told her Spike was reformed; the soul part she had just assumed. If he couldn’t feel guilt or remorse, what kept him from ripping out her throat? She froze, cigarette halfway to her lips, wondering if she should scoot away or reach for her gun again.

“Relax, Red. I’m not gonna hurt you. Actually, I can’t. See, a little while back, bunch of your government boys got the brilliant idea to do a little science project involving those of us who go bump in the night. Some got all Frankensteined up into proper bloody monsters; other lucky buggers like yours truly got our eggs cracked open and fancied up with some shiny new hardware.” Despite his clever delivery, his tone was bitter. “I can still rough up anything decently scaly or slimy, but all you soft, tasty humans are a one-way ticket to screaming bloody agony.”

She took a long moment to process that, the cigarette passing back and forth between their hands; when the filter began to burn, he lit another.

“I might know something about what it’s like to be subject to behavior modification via implanted technology at the hands of covert government agencies abducting non-consenting, vulnerable populations for the purpose of experiments involving nonhuman biological materials.”

Spike took a long moment to process that .

“All right,” he said finally, “I’ve decided I like you, so I’ll tell you the truth: souls seem like a whole lot of pain for not a whole lot of gain. I don’t even know that they do all that much; God knows there’s plenty of humans running around out there, souls intact, doing dirty deeds that make my skin crawl, and I know plenty of soulless fiends who are actually pretty decent people. All I know is I don’t need a soul to see how much Mulder is hurting, or how much he cares about you. If the Scoobies fail at this whole ‘cure the vampire’ quest—and I’m sorry if I’m the first one to tell you this, but they probably will, because it’s impossible, and personally I think he’d be an idiot to give up the night life anyway—but when they fail and he realizes he’s got a big lonely eternity without you staring him in the face, I’m a little bit worried he’s gonna go and get himself one hell of a tan.”

“I’m not giving up, and I’m not going to leave him.”

“Yeah, you will. If not on a plane in a few weeks, then in a pine box in a few decades.”

“So what am I supposed to do, just… not die?”

“Yeah! Exactly!”

“I don’t see how I can—”

“It’s easy. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Scully paled, her throat bobbing as she fought down the revulsion suddenly brewing in her stomach. “You can’t mean—”

“Bitey bitey, sucky sucky, souly souly—though I think that last bit should be optional —and then you and our boy ride off into the sunset together. Well moonlight, I suppose, but you get my drift.”

Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, but no words came out.

“Just think it over, Dana,” he said softly, not meeting her eyes. For the first time, something like real vulnerability passed over his face. “Forever is a long time to be lonely.”

He rose, his swaggering mask sliding back into place so quickly she almost doubted it had ever slipped to begin with. He offered his hand to her with an exaggerated bow and pulled her to her feet. “Now come on; I don’t fancy going up in flames today, and I bet Spooky doesn’t either.”

—

Dawn’s rosy fingers were just brushing the horizon when Mulder and Scully arrived back at the motel. She felt the light running over her skin like a living thing, gentle as a lover; he shrank from it as if it would strike him.

“Wanna come in for a night cap?” he asked, smirking, as they reached his door. Scully’s hand flinched involuntarily toward her neck and his eyes grew wide, then sheepish. “Sorry. That’s not what I meant. Um. Good night, Scully.”

The door was halfway closed behind him when her hand shot out to stop it. “I can come in for a minute.”

He moved to the bathroom, and she went to the kitchenette to put away the containers of cows’ and pigs’ blood they had stopped to pick up at the butcher—which, for reasons no one in town would discuss, stayed open all night. Mulder would have enough for a few days, at least, now that he was learning how to make it palatable. She left the little jar of cinnamon on top of the microwave.

Feeling oddly anxious, she began to straighten the bed just to have something to do. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay in Spike’s crypt today?” she called to him. “He has cable; you can watch ‘Passions’ together.”

He poked his head out, toothbrush wedged into the foamy corner of his mouth. “That show has gone entirely downhill since Sheridan got amnesia.”

He vanished again, and Scully heard the sounds of spitting and running water. When he emerged a minute later, bare-chested and in sweatpants, he found her standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, hands at her sides. He slipped past her without touching her and sat on the bed. “Besides, I’d rather sleep in a bed.”

Instead of a coffin . Scully suppressed a shudder.

“Yeah,” she said, forcing a smile as she sat beside him and squeezed his hand. “I get the feeling his place is even less luxurious than this one. Besides: mini fridge, microwave, magic fingers. What more could a guy want?”

She tried to keep her voice light, but Spike’s words were still ringing in her head. Mulder was staring down the barrel of a miserable eternity—drinking slaughterhouse runoff, hiding his days away in the dark, watching cheesy soap operas with only the other dead for company. What if there was no cure? What if, this time, she couldn’t save him? How many times had they sacrificed everything to save each other, thrown themselves in front of bullets and monsters and the unstoppable machine of bureaucracy just to buy enough time to stagger their way to safety?

Maybe their luck had finally run out.

She stood to leave, desperate to find something else to occupy her mind, but his hand closed tenderly around her wrist, carefully avoiding the bruises he—or his monster —had made before. “Stay?”

“Mulder, I’m tired.”

“I know. Just for a little while? It’s… it’s worse when I’m alone.”

She finally looked at him, staring up at her with one of his more pathetic puppy-dog expressions, and something inside her broke. “Yeah. Okay. Just for a little while, until you fall asleep.”

He crawled beneath the covers, leaving room for her to slip in beside him. She curled up with her back facing him, hoping he would drift off quickly. That hope evaporated when she felt him shifting closer to her; his arm slipped around her waist, brushing the bare sliver of skin between the top of her pants and the hem of her shirt, and a current passed through her. She went very still, allowing him to pull her closer until they were spooned together on the little motel bed.

“You’re so warm,” he murmured close to her ear.

She tried to ignore the way her body tingled every place they touched, the way his breath skimmed over her skin, cool and wet like the promise of a storm. She hoped he couldn’t hear the way her heart began to pound beneath her ribs. “So you’ve said.”

“It’s true. I’ve always hated the cold, Scully. When I was a kid, I would turn my whole room into a blanket fort every winter. It drove my mom nuts. I’d swipe every blanket in the house and then refuse to come out for anything but pee breaks.”

Scully could just picture him, eight or ten years old, pillaging the linen closet for quilts and constructing his own personal Alamo filled with comic books and sunflower seeds. Keeping out the cold with all the power of fleece and a child’s unflagging will.

That the same cold now lived inside him, where no blanket or touch could thaw it, was another cruel twist of the knife.

“I’m not giving up, Mulder. Not when we’ve barely gotten started.”

“I won’t let you throw your life away trying to save me, Scully. How much longer are you going to stay here, up to your neck in demonology and monster manuals? How much longer can we convince Skinner I’m sick? He’s going to come looking for me eventually, even if it’s just to see if I’m fit enough for him to kick my ass back to the basement.”

She chuckled, and he smiled briefly into her hair. A moment later, his sigh sent a few red strands fluttering against her face. “I just don’t want you to follow me so far into the dark that you can’t find your way back.”

“It hasn’t even been a week yet. I’ve chased you further into the dark than this and come out just fine. And I intend to drag you out with me, into full, bright sunlight, without you crumbling to dust.”

“And if there is no cure? If I’m stuck like this forever? You still have a chance to have a life, Scully. I won’t let you waste it on me.”

She turned to face him, sadness and anger warring over her features. “Since when do you ‘let’ me do anything? It’s my life, Mulder, and I don’t consider any of this a waste.”

She didn’t want to bring it up, didn’t want to give credence to Spike’s insane idea by voicing it out loud to her partner, but she owed it to him to say something. Though her stomach clenched and she tasted acid in her mouth, she took a breath and said, “Spike thinks—”

His voice was bitter as he cut her off. “I know exactly what Spike thinks. And the answer is no. I wouldn’t do this to you. Not when you still have a choice. Not when you could go back to DC tomorrow, find some hot doctor who doesn’t question every little thing you say, and grow fat and old and happy on a sunny porch somewhere.”

She reached out and cupped his cheek, forcing him to meet her eyes. She had to step carefully here; they had developed a delicate dance together through the years, an unspoken rule to tiptoe around their equally unspoken connection, that thing between them neither could quite acknowledge let alone act upon, but had lately found increasingly hard to ignore. Especially when his face was inches from hers, and his arm still lay heavy across her waist, on that nebulous border where it could so easily slide into risky territory. “And if I decide I don’t want that?”

“There are some… conditions on this soul of mine, Scully. It’s not a done deal. I could lose it.”

“What? How?” And why haven’t you told me before now?

“If there ever comes a moment where I am completely happy, where I don’t feel guilt and torment about who and what I am, it goes away.”

“Don’t be vague, Mulder. Not about this.”

“The last time it happened… was right after the guy slept with the woman he loved.”

A lump welled up in her throat. “Oh.”

“Yeah. We’re not idiots, Scully.” She raised her eyebrow at him and one side of his mouth tugged up in a small smile. “Okay, you’re not an idiot, and I am sometimes only idiot-adjacent. We know what we mean to each other. If you stayed with me…” He flopped onto his back, staring up at the water-stained ceiling; he couldn’t get through this if he was looking into her eyes, but he did reach between them and take her hand. “If you stayed human, and we… then I lose my soul, and there’s a good chance that the last thing you’d ever see is me killing you. And then Buffy puts a stake through my heart. And not that I am in favor of this idea, but if we turned you and we… then we both lose our souls, we’d probably wind up killing a bunch of people, and then Buffy puts a stake through both our hearts.”

He paused for a long moment, breath shaking. “I don’t know if there is a way out of this together. And I want you to know, I’d rather you leave me than stay behind and pay for what I’ve become.”

She grabbed his face again, this time more forcefully, and turned him back toward her. Her voice and her eyes were filled with tears, but also a steely resolve. “There is a way, Mulder. There has to be. We’re going to find it. When have we ever given up on each other?”

His fingers twined around hers where they rested against his cheek. Slowly he pulled them to his mouth, brushing a gentle kiss across her knuckles. Neither spoke—what words could he say to the unstoppable force of her hope, or she to the immovable object of his self-sacrifice? They simply held each other, wishing they could keep out the cold.

A/N: It's incredibly rare for me that something I make turns out as well as I'd hoped, but this chapter is one of those things, and I'm rather proud of it. I so enjoyed writing it, particularly Scully and Spike's conversation. It was one of those unexpected surprises that pops up when characters grab the steering wheel, like I was just along for the ride. I hope they're BFFs now. Believe me there is absolutely a part of me that wants to see Vamp!Mulder and Vamp!Scully as some sort of undead Bonnie and Clyde, leaving a trail of bloody and beautiful devastation in their wake. But that's not this fic lol. Comments laminated etc etc

[puggemon]

* How you met

Billy Loomis *

{ TW: Cursing, mentions of gore, blood, killing, etc. }

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

It hadn't been too long prior to laying down for rest that you were fully indulged in The Exorcist, all attention aimed towards the boxed television that sat in the corner of the room, it being the only light illuminating your bedroom. You'd flicked off your lights to keep the atmosphere dark and ominous, so you could fully experience the 1973 classic in the only way it was supposed to be enjoyed. Every now and again you'd find yourself jolting at the unexpected jump scares flashing across the screen, or making fun of how cheesy they've come to look beyond the years. But you were never one to reject a classic horror movie, seeing as it was one of your favorite genres/your favorite genre.

A few hours had passed, and you'd finally finished the one movie marathon. Which led up to the moment where you were now cozied up underneath the duvet spread out along your bed. Your [E/C] eyes fluttered back and forth in between consciousness and unconsciousness. You were on the edge of falling sleep, until your ears picked up the sound of small objects being thrown at the glass of your window. It was quite subtle, but still noticeable nonetheless..

Tink tink tink.

You groaned out of frustration, wriggling out from underneath the covers that once greeted you with comfort. Getting out of bed, you slipped on your house shoes, to avoid walking across the cold floor barefoot. Trudging the way towards the window, you let out a loud yawn. Getting closer, you realized that the source of the sound was something you would have least expected. You figured it was a branch tapping the glass.. For who would even be kneeled over by your window at midnight? You had a few friends, but none of them would go out of their way to choose such a dramatic entrance into your household. They'd just stampede through the door, and make themselves comfortable on your couch, or immediately make a beeline towards the refrigerator. Come to think of it, perhaps an extravagant window entering moment would be preferred.

Once you lifted the window, having turned on the lamp sat along your bedside table, you looked straight at the one guilty of awaking you. And it didn't take you long to realize that it was not one of your friends. Let alone someone you even knew by name. Of course you'd seen the slick haired boy wandering through the hallways of your high school, normally surrounded by other people, but you'd never once figured that you'd find him climbing the roof for you. You hadn't even associated with him, prior to this moment.

His eyes widened, as if realizing the mistake he'd just made. But you couldn't blame him. It was late at night, the darkness clouded the sky, and with lack of vision came Billy choosing the wrong house to try to sneak into. He was looking for Sidney, but instead was greeted with someone he'd seen at school. Someone he'd never formally introduced himself to.

"Can I help you?" You asked, quite annoyed at the situation, but holding your tongue from saying something too harsh. Waking someone up by throwing pebbles at their window, especially someone you don't even know, is quite disrespectful. At least you thought.

"...Aren't you the one from English class who always forgets their pencils?" The nameless, yet charming boy made light of his fuck up, a smile spreading across his quite attractive features. Now, Billy may have ended up at the wrong house, but he still happened to make it somewhere there was a beautiful person in front of him. And he was going to seize that moment, no matter what.

Of course he'd always seen you, in fact, you were someone he looked for quite often. He'd never talked to you, but that was because he was in shackles with Sidney. And if someone, anyone, had found out that Billy Loomis had conversed with a female that wasn't in Sidney's friend group, he'd never hear the end of it. Unless, he caused the end of his suffering with her, which he was tempted to do day-by-day. But him and Stu were patiently waiting for the right moment. And they hadn't reached that, yet.

Maybe just maybe, if their mass murder plan went smoothly as they calculated it to, this little house mixup could become an upgrade to his relationship status.

Suddenly it hit you, not realization, but the window. Without having it locked open, it slammed shut, right atop your fingers. You cursed up a storm, feeling the burning throb in your fingertips. Billy immediately went to open the window from crushing your hands any longer, concern etched in his features, as his eyebrows furrowed together. "Are you okay? That looked pretty nasty," He took it upon himself to climb in through the window, leaping down onto your bedroom floor, and your eyes widened at the sight of a boy besides Randy stepping inside your domain.

His hands enveloped yours, examining them, as they tinted bright red. It was all happening so fast, but you could still feel the effects of another person holding your hands. It was a thump in your chest and a skip in your pulse.

Billy walked you backwards to the chair that was sat beside your desk, helping you sit down in it, trying to act upon being a gentleman as much as possible. In attempts to give the best first impression to you. More than he did with Sidney.

You'd never spent so much time around him, so you didn't seem to know why he was showing such manners with you when most high school boys wouldn't even dare.

You pulled your hands away from him, not allowing him to touch you anymore, seeing as each moment that passed with your hands in his, you were growing more embarrassed. "I'm fine.."

Once he accepted the fact that you had your guard up against him, he figured it would be better to play it coy, rather than immediately try to charm you how he usually did towards other females that he wanted to woo in bed. And even though in the eyes of another it would be wrong, considering the fact that he was in a relationship with his girlfriend, but he genuinely didn't care, which he knew made him a bad person.

His eyes darted around your [F/C] room, noticing the empty Exorcist case set down in front of the movie player. "You enjoy scary movies?" His pulse started elevating at the flashing images of horror playing in his head. Blood, guts, gore. All the things he came to adore.

Instinctively, your lip went between your teeth, nervous at the whole situation that was happening in front of you, right now. Of course you'd had a boy inside your bedroom, under supervision, but he was merely just a friendly figure in your life. "Only 99% of the time, the other one I like to watch [insert something here]."

He laughed, and it was music to your ears. Enough to cause a butterfly hoard in your lower intestines. "What's your favorite scary movie?"

You had a hard time picking through the variety of blockbusters that there was, because in all honestly, considering how many you watched and even enjoyed afterwards, was a lot. But it all boiled down to one in particular, "[ Favorite scary movie ],"

He hummed, and said nothing more. For a few moments it was dead silent, something obviously going through the mind that was hid behind slicked back hair. Billy was normally pent up rage, blood-thirsty, ready to slice through the flesh of anyone who walked in front of him, but in this room, your room, he felt at ease. It was quite nice for him to meet a moment, where he didn't have the same thoughts that constantly pecked at his brain.

"How did you end up here? At midnight of all times.." You were the one to break the quiet streak, asking him a question that had roamed in your thoughts since the beginning of the unexpected visit.

He looked at you, eyes gazing across your whole face, thinking of what to say or even how to say it. Your stomach shifted at the prolonged eye contact, having never looked this deep into anyone's eyes before. Never having been able to see anyone up this close. Billy was also at a loss of words. Which was abnormal, for him since he'd been in this situation many times before with Sidney or other flings, and felt nothing..

Snapping out of his trance, he let out an awkward laugh, before turning and looking away, trying to remain from distracting himself at the conversation the two of you were having. "I had mistaken your house for someone else's. But it's a good thing I did, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to talk about horror movies," Or he wouldn't have been able to see you this up close. To finally learn how you act, after having seen you around campus. Or to be able to deeply take in your features.

And obviously, for good reason he didn't want to say whose house he was trying to find, because he didn't want you to know he was heading to his partner’s house. But he wanted this moment to be about the two of you, finally meeting, even though it wasn't planned. That, to him, just meant it was fate.

"I didn't ask before, what's your name?"

He wasn't surprised that you didn't know his name, for you had never even given him a second glance in the hallways. "Billy, Loomis."

"I'm -"

"[Y/N]. I know-" You raised an eyebrow at him, unsure of how he already knew your name, slightly uncomfortable with the fact that he did. And as he registered what he said, his eyes slightly widened as he realized that he'd just given himself away for stalking you, but he was quick to make it up with an excuse, "You're friends with Randy. He's talked about you before."

"Ran the Man? Yeah," You smile, slightly shaking your head at the idea that he was stalking you that had implanted in your brain. But also a little at the stupid nickname you'd dubbed him. Randy was a good friend of yours, of several years. You two had been friends since Kindergarten, growing up together through thick and thin.

Billy internally rolled his eyes at the nickname, annoyed that Randy had such a place in your life, but he had yet to fill the position he wanted.

"W-"

Billy was abruptly cut off by the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. The stairs that led to your door. You immediately get up out of your desk chair and usher him towards the window, trying to hide the fact that you have someone in your bedroom this late at night. "I'm so sorry, someone's awake" you whisper yell towards him, afraid of what might happen if you got caught, but he just smirks as he steps back out onto your rooftop.

"Best not get caught," He murmurs to you, your eyes locking with his one last time before the night is over. "It was nice mistaking you for someone else." He jokes, making you smile beyond the sleepiness. Because in all honestly, you enjoyed the small encounter just as much as the boy did.

"Until next time, Loomis." You close the window in front of him, before clicking off the light and rushing back towards the consolation of your mattress. Ready to pretend being asleep, by the time your guardian opens the door.

"And there will definitely be a next time," Billy says to himself, a feeling of adrenaline pumping through his veins at the moment he’d just spent with you.  He had never felt this way about something other than the bloodshed of others, and it was quite unusual. Quickly, to avoid any confrontation with someone of your household, he jumped down towards the dewey grass, running on combat boots to make his way towards the house he was originally meant to enter. Mentally prepared to withstand Sidney, having you on his mind.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

[hoodiehydra]

Chapter 1

First official chapter of the “Haunting High” series

--------

Jolting awake, I scanned the room. It was my bedroom, still dark. Groaning, I reached for my phone, the only light source I had then. My sister was asleep, like usual, and I had no intention of waking her so soon. 

The sudden light from the phone had me shield my eyes for a moment. 3:47 A.M., it read. Ah shit, still too early then. I knew I would never be able to sleep after that disgusting nightmare, the lady’s face still plastered in my mind. I would never get rid of that, that was traumatic. Heh, your brain, traumatising itself, how ironic. Shuddering at the image, I huddled back into the cold blankets, but I quickly pinched, no, SLAPPED, myself to ensure I was awake. Yep, that was definitely reality. Ouch.

I knew it. I would never sleep like this, not after whatever I experienced. I needed another hour of sleep, but my body was riddled with anxiety to even calm down. For once, I didn’t hate myself for that. The next few hours rolled by slowly, each painful minute passing by awfully slower. I was in a dark room, with nothing but my phone. My phone, stupidly, was locked. No access to any app or entertainment, until 6 in the morning. Which was already my wake-up time. 

I waited for my alarm to blare into my ear, as patiently as I could. 

But, how patient could you be when you have to wait for something dreaded? That was going to happen in an hour, or two?

I guess I must have fallen asleep for a little while then, but what difference did it make? When my alarm had finally shrieked into my ear, I was still as groggy as I was earlier. Climbing down the ladder of my bunk bed, I switched on the lights, uncaring if my sister woke up. Yeah, I know I said I didn’t want to wake her, but that was 3 in the morning. It’s 6. 

The lights had immediately flickered on, brightening the room by a lot. It hurt my eyes, but I wasn’t scared anymore, at least, not as much as I was before. 

Everything seemed normal, thankfully. But it was the train part of my plan that had me worried. It was a dream, right? Yeah, a very real dream. You know how it feels when something feels so real you can’t tell if it’s fake? Scratch that. I KNOW it’s fake. And I know it’s not real. 

But my mind is stuck around it, scared as hell.

To be completely honest, I myself can’t tell what is real and what is fictional any more. How do I even say it? It’s not real. At all. But my mind is bugging me, what if it’s a warning?

Fuck you, brain. This is your fault.

Shivering from the cold air around me, I changed from my damp, hot pyjamas, feeling incredibly sweaty from the fear, and got into a tight, stiff set of uniform. It wasn’t much better than the pyjamas, but at least I was in a fresh change of clothes. 

Even with a fresh set of clothes, I didn’t feel fresh at all. If there was an eraser to erase my memory, god damn it, what I wouldn’t do to get that.

A ball of nerves, I finally reached… the train. I had begged mum to fetch me to school herself, but I was definitely of age to go there myself. So she refused, and there was no persuasion or pleading that could convince her.

Ah. The train. 

The cold, shivery feeling was back as I hesitantly stepped on the train. Well, there were no abnormalities, just people stuck on their phones. Less chilling than my dreams. And damn was I glad about that.

I shifted my weight under my feet uncomfortably, where I was at a corner of the train cabin.

Everyone looked alive and well, at least. That’s a relief. The train was quiet, but not deathly silent. Maybe there truly wasn’t anything to worry about, then. 

After a few stops, I finally alighted. It was a relief to see that I had been worried for nothing, the pit in my stomach finally closed. Still though, I was still rather shaken from the nightmare. It’s always the first day that hits the worst. Huh. First day of school and I’m already having a bad day. I have not even passed the school gates yet, let alone see the large building itself. 

Briskly marching over towards the school, I walked in as briefly and as professionally as I could, with a bounce in my step and a fake eager smile stuck onto my face. But no one would really notice I was smiling. There was no glimmer in my eye. Not a wrinkle or crinkle from smiling. And no excitement radiating off me. I was all plastic like. I felt like a Barbie doll, and it was disgusting. I was just a plain canvas with neon paint splattered all over it, then called “art”. Yeah. 

I hated everything about that. I was walking past some students, some were horribly energetic, definitely wasn’t fake, some were exhausted, and some were like me. Faking to fit in, so no one would suspect a thing. I know I sound really depressing, but this was it as a student for me.

Well, the only thing now is to find my class. 

Staring at the 5-storey building, I groaned. My classroom was… on the 5th floor. Typical unfair school system. 

Was I really to be stuck there for a year? Yes. I was, unfortunately. Curse it, I had better hurry up or I would run late, on the first day of school. Not a good first impression, may I say. I was really upset from everything that happened this morning, and I think you would be too. 

This was a new school.

With a new environment.

With new teachers.

With new friends.

None that I knew from my previous schools. I shouldn’t have judged the school so quickly, to be fair, but I wasn’t very impressed with the campus.

Or was it that I just found it annoying to climb four flights of stairs?

No, no it wasn’t that.

Or at least, I don’t think it was. My gut was telling me that there was something wrong, something horribly wrong with the school. 

It made me uneasy to look at the yellowed walls, clearly lacking a renovation. Paint was peeling off the walls, and the concrete was chipped and cracked. 

This was supposed to be the best school in my country, at least. All the best and successful people had come from here, but now, I’m thinking those that survived became successful.

This school seemed like something straight from a horror video game, but I seemed to be the only one to notice how old the school looked. It was either the rest were blatantly ignoring it, or I was the only one that could see how fucked up the school looked.

Either way, I was not at ease. I had every fibre of my being wanting to quit this school and go to the next best one, but I am pretty sure it was too late by now. Transferring of schools only started next year,so it would be 365 complete days before I could finally get rid of this school.

What would my parents think, though? I wanted this school so badly, and now I wanted to quit? And besides, if I was the only one who could see the horrid interior of the school, I would definitely seem like a fool to them. 

Absolutely not, I couldn’t stand this school. It was disgusting to look at. The pristine exterior felt like a lie then.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone looking rather uncomfortable. Everyone looked so happy, was she also having the same worries as me?

I approached the girl, also seemingly anxious like me.

“Hey there, is there something wrong?” I gingerly asked. 

Didn’t want to frighten the poor girl on the first day of school, now did we?

“Oh god, no! Have you seen this place? This is disgusting! This school isn’t that old, it’s only been 23 years, and yet it looks ancient as hell, damn it, I can’t leave for another year.” She replied.

She could see it too? Maybe I wasn’t as alone as I thought. I nodded in response to her words.

“I know what you mean. I see it too. So I wasn’t as crazy as I thought. But then, why does everyone seem so okay with this place? Can they not see it?” I asked.

She shrugged. Okay then, I got to find out for myself. “I’m Rosa,” I quickly introduced myself. “I’m Luna,” she replied. 

“Which class are you in?” I asked. “Uh… the one furthest from the school gate. What was it? 1E4?” She muttered.

“Ah, you’re with me then. Good to know, Luna,” I nodded towards her.

Maybe she could be my new friend in this hellish school, hm?

---------

whehehehe okay

taglist: @lightgriffinsect

[junipercreeps]

🔖Day 12 - On Our Own.

In my room, it was slowly getting dark. The displays of my phone and laptop were the only sources of light.

"It's difficult to talk openly. Can you accept that for now?" my father said as I typed the word Samhain into my browser's search bar on my laptop.

"What your father is trying to say, June... we didn't keep things from you out of malice. There are good reasons for everything. What's important right now is that you find your place. Make choices freely. Learn. We'll see you no later than Samhain, and then we can talk."

I looked at the image search results. Among Halloween pumpkins, monster costumes, and sexy witch outfits, there were stone circles. Campfires. The traditional side of the Celtic festival.

Tears slowly dried on my cheeks. Silent tears shed because the disappointment of my parents not telling me anything for the past nineteen years hurt me deeply. And now, they expected me to understand. To understand that Oxford was now a place where I was meant to learn not just for my studies but for my heritage.

"You didn't mention anything in your letter. Why didn't you warn me? I knew nothing, Mum." I said, looking down at my hands. "You weren't here. None of you were here! They just took us and tied us up. They knew intimate things."

My father sighed and mumbled something I couldn't understand. Of course, my vulnerability bothered him. He had always been rational; emotions unsettled and annoyed him.

"I know, June. I know. Silly dramatic underpinnings. Sometimes it's necessary. Don't let it unsettle you."

"Unsettle?" I asked in disbelief. It was all so frustrating. Didn't they understand how I felt?

"How did your parents tell you back then?" I wanted to know. To have a comparison. Alaric and the others seemed to have grown up with their magic. They had many years to adapt to one another. Many of them had known each other since their childhood through the Kin circle.

And me? I was excluded. Kept secret. I could have had friends. I wouldn't have been so alone in the past few years.

"I always knew. Your father, however, was just like you."

"Really?" I asked and almost wanted to ask if it had overwhelmed him too.

"Yes, June. And as you can see, it didn't harm me. Quite the opposite."

A brief murmur that I didn't understand. Then my father said, "We have to go. You can do this. You're our daughter; you can do anything."

I remembered the day I learned to swim. When my father just let go of me, and I flailed wildly with my arms, submerged in panic. I screamed for him, for the firm grip that had always given me security. But he let me struggle in the water, encouraged me, until his hands finally had to grab me.

I had never entered a pool where I couldn't touch the bottom again. I had never swum again.

"I'm not like you. You should have made more effort and been there for me." I said.

"June, we-"

But I hung up.

It was the first time I had talked back. That had never happened before. I was tired of the secrets. We were a family, and my understanding of it wasn't to walk into an open knife.

I closed my laptop and looked at my phone. Hoping my mother would call, but minutes passed with no contact.

So, I made a decision and messaged Alaric.

Are you awake?

He replied within seconds: It's not even 8 PM. Of course, I'm awake.

Can I come over?

I'm not at Sinister House yet. Shall we meet at Linacre College? I'm nearby.

Okay, I'll head there right away.

The campus felt alive. Music, laughter, and conversations emanated from open windows. My parents' answers still occupied my thoughts. I had planned to tell them about my visions, about Nolan. I wanted to know what awaited me. What did it mean to have magic in my blood?

My thoughts accompanied me to the entrance of Linacre College. As lively as the campus centre was, it felt lonely up here near the Cherwell River. I saw a few joggers from time to time, but otherwise, I waited alone on the stone steps for the remaining minutes before I heard Alaric's footsteps.

"Sorry, have you been waiting long?" he asked as he approached.

I shook my head.

"Is everything okay?" Alaric asked and came closer. Instead of touching me without permission, I reached for his hand.

"Thank you for giving me answers. For not excluding me," I said.

He was silent but lightly squeezed my hand, and then Alaric hugged me.

Being hugged was an indescribable feeling. The warmth and resistance of the body. I closed my eyes and rested my face on his shoulder.

"Did you talk to your parents?" he asked after a while, and I mumbled, "Yes, but they only had excuses."

I briefly recounted how the phone call went, and as we broke the hug and slowly walked toward Sinister House, I also told him about my encounter with Nolan.

"Interesting," Alaric said thoughtfully. I glanced at him from the side.

"Have you experienced something like this before?" I asked, and he nodded. "Occasionally. But my visions often show the future. It must be different for you. Why would Nolan be in danger?"

I didn't know.

But I seemed to know nothing at all.

Arriving at Sinister House, we were luckily not met by Corbin or Ophelia. Instead, we went up to Alaric's apartment and sat on his unmade bed.

Our conversation went on for a long time. So long that I eventually realized I needed to get back to my dorm.

"Thank you for talking with me," I said and stood up. "Thank you for trusting me. It means a lot to me."

He hesitated.

"You mean a lot to me, even though we've just met."

I opened my mouth. His two bedside lamps were on, casting their warm light on him and me.

There was tension in the air. A tension I hadn't known before, but one where you knew what it meant.

"I..." I began my sentence but didn't know how to phrase it. "You?" Alaric whispered. He had come closer. We looked at each other for a while. Our hands touched.

"I don't know much about these things either, Alaric," I finally said. We intertwined our fingers. His ring lightly pressed against my knuckles. "About what things, June?" he asked and kissed the back of my hand. My hairline, and then he lightly lifted my chin.

"These things." was my response.

And then I kissed him.

What I didn't see was that on his bedside table, where his phone lay, the screen lit up. A message was waiting to be read by Alaric until the early hours:

Nolan is out. We're on our own.

[teethingpains]

When Sephiroth had awoken and found his mind his own again. He'd been alone.

The world was still there. But it didn't resemble the world he'd known. He'd just watched it for a wile. It's people going about living their lives. Friendships, jobs, lovers, families. He watched them until he could force himself to move.

Sephiroth changed his appearance to fit in with the people around him. Silver hair became black, cats eyes became round.

They had rockets that went into space now, star charts of their galaxy and thebones next to it. He buried himself in research. The learning comforted the emptiness inside of him. Filling his mind with facts about the stars helped him ignore the things that were missing everywhere else.

Within a few years he'd learned everything he could from books, their computers and digital libraries. He attended conferences and learned their new theories in person. Eventually he joined them in their exploration.

This new world was strange. Different races from different planets all working together. He looked at the other creatures around him, in all their diversity, none of them looked like him. He wondered if they knew of Jenova. The calamity of worlds. He doubted it would do him any good if they did. They accepted the form he presented to them, praised him for his intelligence and successes, unknowing of his origins, of what he already knew.

Some tried to get closer to him but he held them at arms length. They wouldn't accept him, not the real him. They had only lived a fraction of his life. They didn't know him. Couldn't know him. You don't know all the things I've done.

Sephiroth preferred the logical beings. They didn't ask personal questions, their questions had logical answers, and in turn their answers were strait forward. Others joked he was secretly one of them, or perhaps a child of both worlds. He didn't tell them how close they were to the truth. It would have been nice if he had been one of them.

He awoke one night with a sense if urgency. It had no obvious source. He checked all he obligations, nothing he'd forgotten, nothing he needed to do. Sephiroth sat on his bed in the dark. He let his hair become silver strands in the moonlight. He didn't need the light to see.

He allowed himself to just be. The urgency felt familiar, almost like it wasn't his, like it belonged to someone else. But there was no one else.

At work he took on extra jobs. A bad habit. A friend had said that once. All he had left were bad habits and memories he wanted to forget. He just had to wait for this to pass.

The night feelings didn't pass. Instead they became more regular. Like a radio signal repeating until someone intercepted it. Good thing he had practice hiding bad sleep. No one noticed. They would have noticed. Don't think about them. Don't think. Don't think.

It was 3am and he was lying awake again. The urgency was a pounding headache. Desperate, pleading, help me.

Help me?

Help me. 

"How?" 

Sephiroth spoke into the darkness.

Help me

I'm burning

He sat up clutching his head. He tried to phocus on the voice. It came to him distorted. As if they were either side of a raging inferno.

At work someone made a joke about him getting a gray hair. It wasn't gray. It was silver. He could see it in the bathroom mirror. His concentration must be slipping. Sephiroth couldn't afford that. They all thought he was human. 

He called in sick the next day. Hoping he could catch up on some sleep. 

He managed to keep up appearances for the most part. That was until an exploration crew returned. They were talking about a strange star. Something seemed to be alive at its core. A new entity of some kind?

Help me…I'm burning.

Sephiroth recalled the distorted words. Was there Something, someone, in that star? Was it better to just walk away?

Please.

His head snapped up from the monitor. Everyone around him seemed undisturbed. The word had come from inside his head, but this time it had been clear, he'd recognised that voice. 

Sephiroth repressed the sting in his eyes. Instead he used the feeling to drive him to his feet. He found the captain leading the exploration crew.

"Will you be going back to that star?"

"Yes, I expect so. We need to learn more about it." 

"I want to accompany the next mission." 

The captain seemed surprised. They didn't really need anyone else, why did he want to come? Stars were his speciality. 'Seth's' credentials backed this up. He could be of use. 

To his surprise the science officer also backed him up, saying they could use the extra knowledge. The captain looked between them, sighed, then agreed. He could come.

The star was smaller than Gaia's, or Earth's as they now called it, Sephiroth wasn't sure it was even a real star. But he'd have to get closer to prove or disprove that. Which would be the hard part. He doubted they'd just let him suit up and go out there.

Old habits, old patterns, the ability to make a 6 foot 3 body walk with no sound. The difference was that this time, this time, he would save him.

"One of the air locks has been opened Captain." 

"Who? That damned rookie! He's going to get himself killed!" 

"Should we try and retrieve him Captain?" 

Sephiroth switched off the built-in radio. 

Are you there?

The roar of the star filled his ears. The suit wouldn't hold up against this heat for long. He knew he could, but then they'd know, did it even matter now? His mind reached out to the center of the supernova. The the one thing that did matter right now.

Genesis? 

Can you hear me? 

He could feel the stunned silence. 

Seph?

He sounded exhausted.

Yes. I'm here. 

The flares around him seemed to pull back. The great receding slightly. He was aware of the ship behind him. The captain wouldn't want to get too close. Good. Sephiroth pushed forwards, dropping the mask, redirecting the energy to sustaining the suit. 

Can you control this? 

I don't know…where are you? 

A flare kicked off to his left.

I'm right here. I'm trying to get closer.

The heat and flames withdrew again. He was certain this wasn't any star now, but a ball of magma and flames that surrounded Genesis. If he could get him to reign it in…

When he reached out the others mind was full of fear, panic, guilt and pain.

Focus.

The star pulsed but remained. Sephiroth could smell burnt plastics. The suit wouldn't hold up much longer. Was he being a fool? Was Genesis too far gone? What is he reached the center of the star and all he found was more fire? 

No. He had to try. He owed him that. 

Sephiroth teached within his own mind. Bones and muscle that hadn't been used in decades shifted underneath his skin. It ripped through the suits fabric as if it were paper. This body was meant for the vaccine of space. He leaned into it. 

A silhouette was appearing the further in he got. A bright glowing form curled in on itself. 

From the outside they could now see that the 'star' wasn't a star at all. Seth seemed to have disappeared, replaced with a being with one huge black wing. 

Sephiroth reached for Genesis. His eyes were closed, streaks of magma tears cooled into black at the edges. Red glowing cracks ran over his skin as if it barely contained the being within it. A halo of fiery red hair billows around his naked body. He pulled him towards himself, wrapping strong arms around his slim frame.

I've got you.

Genesis reached for him. For a moment their bodies blended together as the ball of flames receded. They looked like one glowing creature with a pair of mismatched black wings. 

"We're going home" 

The captain met them at the air lock. He looked livid, but whatever words he was going to say died in his throat. The being called Seth didn't look like Seth anymore. His face was the same, but he seemed taller, his long hair wasn't black, it was silver, and his green eyes stared down at him with slotted pupils. 

"I'm taking him to the medical bay."

"..Now just wait here a minute!" 

He did not wait.

All his focus was on the red haired being in his arms.

The star. 

[cocklessboy]

Insomnia & Chronic Pain

Following is a description of a typical night for me. I’ve been sleeping less and less lately and it’s getting to a point where I feel like I can hardly go on. My psychiatrist is trying to help by prescribing me various sleep aids, but so far none have worked. Last night I tried Circadin (slow-release melatonin) for the first time. Spoilers, but it did not help.

I’ve been feeling like I’m not communicating well to the psychiatrist just how dire the situation is. I don’t express myself well verbally and he doesn’t really respond to emails (often he simply doesn’t read them and I have to tell him what they said at my next appointment) but I know I can describe it in writing in a way that will get through to him, so I’ve written up this long narrative which I will send to him along with a brief explanation that I know it’s long, but I need him to read it, even if he only does so in short bursts and it takes him a while to get through it, because I cannot express how I’m feeling in a face to face conversation.

I know my experiences are far from unique and probably there are other people out there who will relate. So here you go. I hope this text can give someone else the words to describe something, or make them feel less alone. The following contains mentions of chronic pain, surgery complications, insomnia, depression, parental neglect, loneliness, frustrations with doctors, death, and sensory overload. For context, I’m 37, am autistic with ADHD, transmasculine and gay, I have chronic pain from various sources which will be described in the text, I had top surgery 9 months ago which resulted in complications including chronic nerve pain (I still don’t regret the surgery but trying to get help for these complications has been a nightmare), and I’ve had severe insomnia since I was 5 years old. I’ll put most of it behind a cut because this is gonna be a long one:

It's midnight. It's time for bed. Last night I slept for maybe four hours total, and not all at once. I'm so tired I feel like I can't possibly stay awake for another second. Surely I will fall asleep right at my desk if I don't go lie down right now. I take the Circadin (2 mg), which I'm trying for the first time. The packaging says to take it 1-2 hours before sleep. I shut everything down, turn off all the lights except the dim one by the bed, brush my teeth, grab my book, sit in bed to read until I'm ready to sleep.

It doesn't take long. Less than an hour and I can't focus on the words anymore. Put away the book. Turn off the light. Lie down on my right side (the left side hurts too much). The extra bit of skin from my top surgery which is under my arm is uncomfortable. I can feel the way it's pressing into the mattress. There's no position where this doesn't happen.

My stomach. Nothing can touch my stomach. For maybe two years now, I have a constant chronic feeling of bloating in my stomach. It doesn't matter what I eat or drink, it's always there. I always have gas. I've grown sensitive to more and more foods over time and now it doesn't matter what I eat. I belch and fart every few minutes but it doesn't bring relief. I used to be embarrassed by this but I'm too far gone to care anymore. I can't hug a stuffed animal to sleep anymore because it presses on my stomach. I can't rest my arms in a comfortable position because they touch my stomach. It's not pain, just strong discomfort, that feeling of bloating and pressure when I touch it. When I move away, relief. But no matter where I put my arms, the pressure is still there, especially if I'm lying on my right side. I have to lie on my right side now. Even just the feeling of my t-shirt on the skin causes discomfort. I keep trying to pull my shirt away so it doesn't touch. It keeps falling back.

Trams are passing by outside. Brakes squeaking as they stop, then start moving again. All night long.

My jaw. There's no comfortable position for my jaw. It didn't grow properly on one side when I was a child and it doesn't fit into the joint correctly now. I've had constant pain and inflammation in the joint since I was a teenager and it gets worse the older I get. A dentist said I should get surgery for it - they break your jaw, insert an extender to make it the right size, wire your jaw shut, you eat through a straw for months. Fuck no. After what happened in my last surgery, all the complications I got, I am absolutely not risking that. It hurts now, but it could be worse, I know it could. I keep moving my jaw around trying to find a comfortable position. Right here it pulls on the left side, there it pulls on the right. If I put it just there it doesn't really hurt but as soon as I relax it falls in such a way that it cuts off my breathing and I wake up gasping for air. I try propping it up with part of the pillow. There's some relief, but after a few minutes, my neck starts to feel sore. I move the pillow back. It hurts. It never stops hurting.

My stomach is upset. My chest hurts. My eyes, my head, they burn. They burn and throb from never sleeping.

I roll over onto my left side. Instant stabbing pain in my chest. Like a knife. Like my chest is covered in tiny papercuts that won't heal. The doctor says the surgeon must have hit a nerve during the surgery. She says I need to find a plastic surgeon to try to fix it but I haven’t been able to find a trustworthy trans-friendly plastic surgeon yet. I roll onto my back.

Some relief. The jaw doesn't hurt so much in this position. The chest doesn't hurt too badly. But it's hard to breathe. It takes effort to keep my throat open when I'm lying on my back even when I'm wide awake and as soon as I start to doze off, I wake back up choking and gasping for air again. I roll back onto my right side. It hurts.

Trams are going by outside.

I check the phone. It's 2:00. I shout in frustration. I immediately feel guilty. I can hear the neighbors fighting and shouting at each other all day, they can surely hear me crying out in pain in the middle of the night. I cry for a while. How can I possibly still be awake? I feel like I can't possibly remain conscious for another second. But it's impossible to sleep through this pain.

My skin itches. Head to toe, my whole body. Itches and burns. I feel like someone has rubbed me down with stinging nettles. I scratch at my skin. I shout in frustration again. If I scratch at the skin enough, it starts to hurt instead of itching. I can deal with pain easier than itching. I keep scratching.

My jaw hurts. My stomach is upset. My chest hurts. My neck hurts. Trams are going by outside. It's 3:00.

I start to taste stomach acid. It's been too long since I last ate. When my stomach is empty, I get acid reflux. I can't sleep on an empty stomach. I can’t lie here any longer anyway. I get up. I open a bag of chips in the dark kitchen and eat a handful. I have some water, go to the bathroom. The cat is following me around, confused, concerned. Are we getting up? Is it time to play? I return to my bed but I don't lie down. I stand next to it. I stare at it. The cat rubs on my leg. I'm so tired. I'm so tired I can't possibly still be awake. I sway back and forth. My eyes are swimming, vision blurry. The Circadin will be wearing off soon, if it hasn't already. I'm plenty sleepy, but the pain. The itching. The bloating in my stomach.

I sit on the mattress but I don't lie down yet. Lying down will hurt. I wonder if I can fall asleep just sitting up, leaning forward over my legs. My stomach feels the pressure.

I prop up some pillows so I can lie on my back while still partially sitting up. There is some relief. The pain is less in this position. I still can't breathe very well. After several minutes like this, my knees start to scream in agony. My knees always hurt if I have my legs out straight for too long. It puts just enough pressure on the knees to make them sore. I still don't know what's wrong with my knees. They’ve hurt like this for 8 years. The orthopedist said it’s probably the extensor muscles and I should just keep doing exercises and stretches until it gets better. It’s been weeks since he said that. It’s not getting better. The pain is unbearable.

I roll onto my right side, still sitting up. I know this is bad for my back and neck but I'm far past caring. Just some sleep. Just let me sleep. I'll deal with the fucked up neck and back tomorrow. Just. Just let me sleep.

My chest hurts. My stomach. My knees. My jaw. My neck. My skin is still on fire. I cry for a while. Trams are going by outside.

I hear myself speaking. I don't mean to but I'm delirious with exhaustion. I'm saying Please, and Help, and Please, and Make It Stop, and I'll Do Anything. Please. I'm still crying. I feel like a whiny little baby.

I'm getting dehydrated. I sit up and drink some water. I check the time. It's 4:00. I cry even harder. I start sobbing like a small child. I feel like I instinctively want to call out for my mother, but my mother is a monster incapable of love. I try to remember a time when she hugged me, but I don't think she ever did. I reflect for a moment over my life. No one has ever held me and told me it was going to be okay. There is no one for me to call out for. No really close friends. No partner. No family. I don't even have anyone to fantasize about being there for me, let alone anyone to ask for help. No one to talk to. No one who cares. I think, maybe I'm dying. Maybe this is what dying feels like. You fight and you struggle and you hold on as long as you can, but your body and mind gradually break down. It's like doing push-ups. Every day is like another push-up. Each one is more difficult than the last. And no matter how hard you fight, eventually you will lower yourself down for the next push-up and your arms will simply refuse to lift you back up. You can try and try and try but there is no strength left and eventually you will collapse and smack your face on the mat. Willpower can only take you so far. How many days do I have left before my entire mind and body collapse and refuse to let me get up again?

I have so much work to do tomorrow. So many deadlines. I am a freelancer. There is no sick time. No days off. No holidays. No weekends. If I don't do all my work I won't be able to afford the newly-increased rent, the recently-tripled gas prices, the nearly-doubled cost of food. I have to work or I'll die. I have no one to help me if I can't work anymore.

I decide in my sleep-deprived state to simply invent someone who loves me. 37 is a perfectly good age to be inventing new imaginary friends, right? There, I have a boyfriend now. He's very sweet and kind and he thinks I'm amazing and he loves my cooking and he reassures me that I'm not weak, I'm not pathetic, I'm not broken, I'm just struggling against something most people could never imagine, devoting half my energy to surviving it, the other half to hiding it so that I don't become so miserable that no one wants to be around me. I'm not a burden, I'm a god damned superhero, actually. Thank you, imaginary boyfriend. I needed to hear that.

I'm not going insane, I'm ill. And if I really can't work, they have social security for that, right? How does the disability system work here? I know in the US I wouldn't be able to get any help but maybe it's different here. Maybe I can get a little help.

Maybe I'm already dead. Maybe the christians were right and this is hell. Eternally exhausted, eternally in pain, never able to sleep, never given the slightest relief. Sounds like the literal definition of hell.

I'm lying in bed again, tossing turning, desperate for a position where I can fall unconscious. It's getting worse instead of better. The stress and the exhaustion are making my hypersensitivity even worse. Every sensation is amplified. My tinnitus is getting louder and louder. High-pitched ringing in my ears. It's been ten years since I experienced silence. It hurts. Add it to the list. Everything hurts. Pain relief. What can I take for pain relief? Ibuprofen and paracetamol do nothing. I have all those other NSAIDs doctors have given me which do nothing. I still have some tramadol from after the surgery but it's too much. Slow-release tablets that keep the drug in your system all day. That shit interacts with everything as well. Not safe to take without careful planning. Anyway I have to save that for genuine emergencies. I can't get any more of it. I made the mistake of asking once. Asking my doctor, can I please just get some low-dose tramadol to have on hand for emergencies? I won't take it too often, I'm very careful about addictive drugs, but if I don't have some way to occasionally get some relief from the pain I feel like I'm going to die. She laughed at me, scoffed at the very idea of using painkillers for severe chronic pain. We don't do that, she said. We don't prescribe those except for surgery. They have side effects, you see. They can be dangerous.

Thanks, doc. Sure, much better to protect me from the very dangerous medication specifically designed to give people like me relief from the extreme hell I'm living through right now. Much better to just leave me like this. Definitely letting me be in constant pain and stress and never sleeping is far better for my health than letting me have a low dose of tramadol once every week or two. Thanks for making a note on my file that I asked for opiates as a warning to any other doctors that I might be drug-seeking (unlike all your other patients, who come to you hoping for a pat on the head and a few words of encouragement, not medicine). Thanks so much. Now I can die of a stroke when I'm 40 like god intended. No risk of opiate addiction that way.

Maybe I'm already dead. Do I want to be dead? I hear myself say, I Don't Want To Be Alive Anymore. But I don't want to die, either. I'm terrified of death. Life is so short, so finite, and I have so much left to do. I just want to be allowed to really be alive.

It's 5:00.

Fuck it. I get up. I have another handful of chips to quiet my grumbling stomach, and a big swig of rum. Two swigs, right from the bottle. It will irritate my acid reflux but alcohol is the only thing I have that will actually dull the pain enough that I might be able to sleep. I'm furious. I stand in the kitchen waiting to digest it before I try lying back down to minimize the reflux. I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of alcohol being my only option. For a moment, my thoughts hazy and my vision swirling, I wonder how difficult it would be to find heroin in Prague. I remember, vaguely, a former addict I used to know telling me he moved here from London specifically because heroin is hard to find here, so he couldn't relapse. He wound up addicted to benzodiazepines instead.

Thanks for keeping me away from that terrifying, dangerous tramadol, doc. Now I get to explore all my other options, like trying to find illegal drugs to kill the pain, or pickling my liver with alcohol.

I have loads of benzodiazepines. Plenty of clonazepam. Those are incredibly easy to get. Any doctor will give you those. One doctor told me to take five of them a day for anxiety and insomnia. Thank god they protect me from the very dangerous opiates. Nothing dangerous about telling someone to take benzos five times a day, no sir. Nothing addictive about that. No side effects there. Nope.

Fortunately I know very well how dangerous they actually are. I ignored the doctor’s instructions, consulted a pharmacist friend, and determined that it’s fine to take them as needed on occasion, but I should avoid taking them often enough that I build up a tolerance. When was the last time I took those? Has it been long enough that I can safely take one again?

The last time was a little over a week ago. I took one to calm myself down enough to do my testosterone injection. I'm not afraid of the pain but something in my brain, some primitive self-defense mechanism, freaks out and stops me every time I'm about to insert the needle into my leg. I usually waste 2 hours sitting here trying and failing to do it, but with the pill it only took half an hour and I was done.

So it's been over a week. Not as long as I like to wait, I'd prefer to wait 2 weeks at least, but long enough that it shouldn't be a problem. But not tonight. This morning, really. It's too late now. If I take it, by the time it kicks in the sun will be coming up. I've already missed my chance for sleep tonight. Tomorrow. I'll take it tomorrow instead of the Circadin. I know that the clonazepam works. Why can't they make something like that which isn't addictive? Why can't there be something like that, which always works, which I can just take every day?

Well there isn't, apparently. That's just the way it is. I'm not allowed comfort or rest. Those things are not for me. The cat is pawing at my leg, asking me to play.

The alcohol has kicked in now. My skin feels less itchy. The pain is still there but it's not as sharp. It's nearly 6:00. I lie in bed, on my right side. I hear someone's alarm clock going off elsewhere in the building. I hear people getting up and moving around. Trams going by outside. Somehow, eventually, I fall asleep. I dream about a hospital where the walls are crumbling all around me, and video games, and the one real friend I ever had who sent me a message half a year ago informing me that his girlfriend was making him choose between their relationship and our friendship, and he was choosing his relationship, and I was to respect his decision and never try to contact him again.

When the cat wakes me up at 9:00 demanding breakfast (by clawing at everything around me until the sound is too unbearable to ignore) I cry some more as I get up to feed him. The neighbors are fighting on the other side of the wall. The floor is vibrating from their footsteps. Everything hurts. Trams are going by outside. The cat, finished with his breakfast, crawls into bed with me and curls up, purring, warm, soft. I manage to drift back into my dreams for one more hour before the alarm goes off.

What’s the opposite of suicide? I Don’t Want To Be Dead Anymore.

[vixtionary]

💙 he had a bad dream....

/ @notoriousness

THE ROOM WAS deathly silent save for the rhythmic heave of frames burrowed under satin covers. Spring was treacherous; the capital boiled under burning sun throughout the day yet a persistent humidity froze granite over when night would fall. In the dreary bedchamber, however, thick curtains & carpets sheltered one from the frost outside. It could be a comforting nest of sorts, secluded and barricaded from within.

Or it could be a cage.

Lashes fluttered over dilating pupils that breathed life into Jericho's idle gaze. His eyes, previously fixed somewhere in the distance, snapped to the covered window, then the ceiling as he gradually regained conscience. A noise settled in the back of his mind; persistent, yet subtle. Roused from proper slumber, it took him a while to move over, only shortly after an expression of worry had settled in sluggish features.

Eyes narrowed. He had grown so used to his self-imposed isolation that the mere thought of sharing his bed had felt as a pointless reminiscence of the past. Still, his old friend's presence had been surprisingly easy to accomodate. Now he felt restless in the absence of Marcus' rhythmic snoring ( a sound akin to a cat's purr, in Jericho's opinion ) He sat up a bit, trying to make out the presence of light through the blinds; the night seemed to be young, still. Curious as to the reason his companion was so silent, the elder warlord rolled on his weaker, left side. A stolen glimpse sufficed to cue him in.

Hovering over his beloved's form was a sight that had rightfully been concealed from humanity as a whole; its gnashing maw dripped with bloodlust, canine-like teeth sharp and glossy with its cursed spit. A voracious presence that made its ominous appearance brief; within the blink of an eye it had dissipated. Jericho felt his stomach churn at the realization of what he had just witnessed. A hum escaped him as fluency evaded him still.

With its dissipation, the bed chamber was returned to its previous tranquility; lest for a bird that had awoken from its perch in some shady corner. Its beady eyes reflected the curiosity in Jericho's gaze. He reached out reluctantly; though the trepidation could not be blamed solely on the malicious haunt that had visited them. In his life, he had known many soldiers to be tortured in their sleep; war, alone, tends to leave certain lasting images in the mind. Scars unseen. But it was not so simple in that case, and the warlock found himself wondering whether the beast living in his walls had anything to do with the incident.

He would have to make time for those worries later. For now his eyes traversed over the sobbing frame curled beside his own. Marcus seemed to have coiled up even more now, possibly after he realized he was not alone in his grief. Jericho's mind travelled back to the endless nights he had been the one withdrawing in his personal spiral; if the hours Marcus had spent by his bedside back then could be measured, he was certain they would add up to entire years. Yet, when time came to have the favor repayed, his beloved had proven a bit trickier to handle. And so his approach was gentle, placing a cold hand on his shoulder with the care one would take not to spook a frightened wildling.

"Marcus..." His voice, drowsy still, was but a whisper. He dragged his body closer until he could properly loop his arm around a slender waist. Nose buried in messy locks, splayed over the ruffled pillows like a gashing wound. Had he been properly awake, he would have probably been more articulate; but for now, raw sentiment poured from him in a way it had not for some time now; naturally, in their mother tongue. |"It has passed, my blood. It was just a dream."|

But... what if it had not been?

SOURCE